by Iain Cameron
‘Do I detect another sailing story?’
‘No straight up, the body could be churned up in the propellers of a passing ship, get nibbled by fishes, get battered by waves and if left undisturbed, it would float close to the surface for a couple of weeks until all the internal gasses dissipate and then sink forever. Not to mention it’s a harsh environment and it would be more or less unrecognisable as a person in a few more weeks.’
‘So we’re looking for a couple of incompetent violent thugs with a good knowledge of the sea, who can sail a boat. In which case, the pubs around Shoreham Harbour would be a good starting point.’
‘No, my cynical sidekick, we’re looking for a couple of violent thugs who can’t tie a knot and if this doesn’t mark them out as non-sailing types, I don’t know what does.’
Henderson turned off Kingsway into Wharf Road, and Shoreham Harbour lay out in front of them. Henderson felt quite at home among the sights and smells of the dockside, although most dockers would feel they were at the other end of the spectrum from those who inhabited the marinas and quays along the south coast, from the amount of money they took home in their pay packet to the selection of their favourite tipple at the bar.
They found the offices and warehouses of the Landman Group and after parking the car, made their way inside. In common with many office buildings, there was the ubiquitous secretary sitting outside the manager’s office, an abundance of tall filing cabinets, photocopiers, coffee machines and people tapping at computer terminals, but it felt different from a knowledge business like Jack Monaghan’s software company.
This place was a little rough at the edges and lacked many finishing touches, with no art-deco pictures on the wall, thick-pile carpets, high-tech computers or flash suits, as Shoreham was a working dock. It would not be unusual for the manager to don his sou’wester and hard hat before making his way outside to solve another small problem, or for any of his people to walk in with muddy boots and wet jackets and bring another one for him to deal with.
Bill Hegarty had been site manager in Shoreham for twenty-seven years, he was married with one daughter studying History at Lancaster University, he was retiring in six months time and intended seeing out his final days in an apartment he owned in the Algarve. Henderson discovered this by not saying a word, the information volunteered by the garrulous site manager a few minutes after meeting him.
‘What can you tell us about Wayne Garrett?’ Henderson said, when he spotted a gap in another long story.
‘Wayne?’ He picked up a file from his desk and shouted, ‘Claire.’
The phone outside slammed down with a heavy thump and the pleasant eighteen-year-old who earlier, greeted them with a smile and offered them coffee, stomped in, her face bearing the scowl of an angry cat.
‘What?’
‘Can you make a copy of Wayne’s file for these two police officers here?’
She grabbed at the papers but he didn’t let go. ‘I don’t imagine it should take long, so don’t be all day about it.’
She snatched the file and strutted out of his office before slamming the door hard, shaking the thin walls and making Hegarty flinch.
‘Wayne, what can I tell you about Wayne? He started here about ten years ago as a general worker in the days when a lot of what we did involved manual labour, lifting planks of wood and bags of cement out of ships, hand to hand. Nowadays, there’s so much machinery we can lift cargoes straight off a ship without any manual intervention and the cargoes themselves are better packaged. About six or seven years ago, Wayne started driving a fork-lift around the warehouse before moving up to driving one of our delivery trucks, the job he did before he disappeared.’
‘What you must realise Inspector, is a lot of what we do involves aggregates, rubble and materials for the building trade and it can be a rough place to be, so it’s good if there are a few tough guys like Wayne around to keep things hunky dory. You see when you’re dealing with building firms...’
Henderson tuned out for a minute or two until interrupted by the return of Claire. She slapped a copy of the file on the desk and then the original before turning and leaving the room without saying a word.
‘She’s my niece,’ Hegarty said, after she slammed the door shut once again. ‘I promised my sister I’d give her a job but I’m starting to regret it now. She’s always been a difficult kid and it got worse when her father left home, but what can you do when it’s family?’ He handed the copy to Henderson and put the original into the out-tray. Best of luck getting Claire to file it.
‘I’m sorry Wayne’s gone, as he was a good worker and took no crap from anybody, but in some ways I’m not surprised.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Well, I’m told he mixed with some unsavoury characters. I mean many of them around here do, as they see themselves as Dirty Harry types, invulnerable to death and don’t care who they upset. Every now and then a couple of hoods turn up looking for some guy or another but we get rid of them without any bother as we’ve got more tough guys than them.’
They left Hegarty’s office ten minutes later and stepped outside, the early evening sunshine no longer in evidence and soon it would be dark.
‘Carol, I want you to put together a small team and take statements from the list of Wayne’s friends and associates that Hegarty gave us. It shouldn’t take long as it’s not a very long list.’
‘It’s not surprising as he didn’t sound like a nice person and I’m not looking forward to meeting some of the people he used to hang around with.’
‘Hey detectives.’
Henderson glanced to the left where a cigarette glowed in the shadow of a warehouse. He felt wary as Wayne Garrett could have been murdered by someone at Shoreham Harbour, perhaps a disgruntled colleague or the husband of one of the unfaithful wives Garrett was alleged to have bedded, and what better place to find a boat?
He walked towards the darkened doorway.
‘Yeah?
‘Are you cops here about Wayne Garrett’s disappearance?’
‘Who wants to know?’
‘I’m his best mate, Des Raynor.’
‘I’m sorry to tell you Des, but we’re now investigating his murder.’
‘He’s been murdered? Aw fuck.’
The man bent double as if suffering stomach cramps. Henderson explained what little he knew.
‘He’s a mate of yours?’ Henderson asked after a few minutes.
‘Yeah,’ he said, lighting another cigarette with shaking hands. ‘We worked together, drank together, went stock car racing together.’
‘He got involved in something illegal, didn’t he?’
Through deep drags of the cigarette lighting up his face, Henderson knew Raynor was wrestling with some serious issues.
‘He liked to think of himself as a gangster and hung around with some nasty types but they liked him and he did stuff for them, so why would they kill him?’
‘What sorts of things did he get involved in?’
‘He took money to let certain cargoes go, kinda under the radar.’
‘What cargoes, drugs, guns, illegal immigrants?’
‘Nah, never that. Drugs. Heroin and cocaine mainly.’
‘And you think they killed him for something he did or what he knew? Did he deal?’
‘Nah, nah he didn’t like drugs. Do you remember a big shipment of stuff coming in from Pakistan a few weeks back that the cops nabbed? You’re local cops, some of your people must have done it.’
‘It was me. I planned the raid and by rights, I should have been on it but something else got in the way.’
‘Wayne tipped the wink to one of your lot, that’s what got him killed, I’m sure.’
‘Tipped the wink to who?’
‘One of your lot, DI Henderson, I think is his name.’
‘You think he was killed for what? Telling Henderson about the shipment?’
‘Got it in one.’
‘Whoever missed out on their pack
ages must have been pretty upset to kill him.’
‘I’m thinking that too.’
‘You know the next question. Who are we talking about?’
‘I can’t tell you or it’ll be me you’ll next find floating in the drink.’
Henderson couldn’t argue with his logic although it was now looking like a toss between himself and Raynor as to who would be first.
‘C’mon mate. The guy who did this will be as cagey as hell now and watching your every movement like a hawk. Is this the way you want to live your life? If you don’t do it for yourself, do it for your friend.’
A long couple of minutes passed as he lit another fag and inhaled it deep into his lungs as if short of nicotine or he wanted to speed up the arrival of an early grave.
‘If I tell you, is it enough to put this guy away?’ he said.
‘I don’t think so, we can let the next shipment go through and nab them with their dirty mitts all over it. There’s no way anyone could wriggle out of that.’
He paused a few minutes more.
‘His name is Dominic Green,’ he said.
TWENTY-EIGHT
On Thursday morning at eight, Henderson met with DS Walters and DS Wallop in his office. His fourth coffee of the morning lay empty as did half of the bottle of water beside him. The hangover thumping inside his head had forced him to eat paracetamol instead of cereal for breakfast and left him with an unquenchable thirst.
Last night, he and several members of the Wayne Garrett murder team got together to plan the downfall of Dominic Green, armed with Henderson’s report on what Garrett’s friend, Des Raynor, agreed he would do. They’d arrested Green a couple of weeks ago on an assault charge and while he was subsequently freed on bail, awaiting a hearing that would leave him with a fine and another notch on his criminal record, what they were cooking up last night would give him some serious jail time.
Feeling buoyed at the prospect of locking Brighton’s top criminal away for a long stretch, he called Rachel. Their disagreement aboard ‘Mingary’ had happened two weeks ago and despite calling her twice and leaving a conciliatory message on both occasions, she hadn’t called back.
It was decision time, make or break. At forty-three with one divorce under his belt and too many years in the police, he was becoming too selfish and cynical to be bothered with fragile, pouting women and if she didn’t want to know, he was prepared to let her go and return to life on his own. To his surprise, she agreed they were both being silly and decided to get together for a drink and resolve their differences.
There came a point in the evening when he wanted to go home for a good night’s kip but she dragged him back to her place and insisted on making love until the wee small hours. It became a raucous and exhausting affair and he couldn’t be sure if his hoarse voice this morning was due to this, or trying to hold a conversation in Yates Bar earlier, as it was packed to the rafters and extremely noisy.
While downing a couple of pain relief tablets in the bathroom of her flat she said, from a provocative position on the bed, it was a shame it wasn’t Viagra as she could call in sick and make a day of it. The face in the mirror stared back mortified, as if it wasn’t haggard enough without adding any more lines and crevices and even now, it tired him out thinking about it.
Walters brought him back to reality as she kicked off the meeting by describing her visit to Eastbourne. Five months ago, Barbara Dean went for a walk along the seafront and had not been seen since, but unlike Langton and Sandford, her passport was never found. Walters placed a photograph of the woman in the middle of the table.
In a picture, obviously taken on holiday, she wore a light floral dress and was standing in front of a tree-fringed swimming pool, under an azure blue and cloudless sky. It couldn’t be Eastbourne, as even though it was occasionally blessed in the summer with blue skies, he had been there plenty of times and had never seen any palm trees or bougainvillea.
In spite of the tan, the simple but elegant clothes, and graceful stance, she looked different from both Langton and Sandford. She was a big lady, six or seven stone overweight with a plain face and uneven teeth. He stayed silent and let Walters continue.
‘There are many similarities with the Langton case such as no phone calls or emails and she recently joined a gym, but that’s where it stops. The Eastbourne detectives believe she did a runner because of her husband’s drinking, and with no close friends or relatives in the area, she could cut loose and start afresh without a problem, hence the missing passport. In any case,’ she said, pointing at the picture, ‘who would want to abduct someone like her?’
‘Oh I don’t know,’ Henderson said, sounding more playful than he felt. ‘I like a big woman. How about you Harry?’
‘Now you mention it, she reminds me of some of the girls we used to have working on my dad’s farm over at Fakenham in the summer. I liked a rumble in the hay, I did. The bigger the better, I always said.’
‘Come off it guys, quit mucking about,’ Walters said. ‘You know what I mean, even from a logistical point of view, it would be difficult to bundle a woman as large as her into a getaway car.’
‘I agree,’ Henderson said. ‘Taking her passport suggests to me she’s done a runner.’
‘There hasn’t been any activity on her credit cards or phone,’ Wallop said, ‘surely that’s significant?’
‘Perhaps not,’ Henderson said. ‘She could have bought a new Pay-As-You-Go phone and if the disappearance was planned a few months in advance, she probably signed up for a couple of new credit cards as well.’ He looked at Walters for confirmation and she nodded. ‘Ok we agree, take her out. Harry, let’s hear your report.’
‘I was in Crawley investigating the disappearance of a woman called Denise Quinn,’ Wallop said. ‘She was a swimming instructor and life guard from Haywards Heath, who worked at The Triangle sports centre in Burgess Hill and the K2 sports centre in Crawley.’
He handed out copies of her photograph. It showed an elegant, good-looking woman with shoulder-length blond hair, much in the style of Langton and Sandford.
‘In January this year, she finished work at K2 about two in the afternoon and hasn’t been seen since, despite numerous appeals in the media and an active campaign by her banker husband John.’
‘I remember hearing the story,’ Henderson said. ‘I assumed since I didn’t hear anything more, there must have been a happy ending.’
‘No, there wasn’t. In terms of our MO list, she ticks nearly every box as she left her passport, there’s been no activity on her phone or spending on her credit cards, and they found her car a week later.’
‘You’re right,’ Walters said, ‘so she does.’
‘Not only the MO,’ Henderson said, ‘look at her picture. You could take her for Kelly Langton’s sister.’
‘She and her husband got on well,’ Wallop continued, ‘and apart from one or two rumblings at the start of the investigation when they took him in for questioning, he’s never been a suspect.’
‘Excellent work Harry,’ Henderson said. He pushed his chair back and paced the room, to help him think and try and shake off the nauseous feeling in his stomach.
‘I don’t think it’s significant she and her husband seemed to get on well, while Kelly and Brian Langton argued and Amy had a minor disagreement with John…’
‘Chris,’ she said. ‘Amy’s husband is called Chris.’
‘Ah right, Chris. You see, I think our man got lucky as Kelly’s husband is such a bastard and Amy Sandford’s husband thinks more of his work than his wife and children, so perhaps they were distracted when he approached. I mean, how could he know such a thing?’
‘He could be a common friend,’ she said, ‘taking advantage of a time when the women felt undervalued or vulnerable.’
‘True, but he or she would show up in the witness interviews.’
‘You’re right and it didn’t.’
‘I think the key things in his selection criteria are how they loo
k, how he meets them and where he picks them up.’
‘So you’re convinced there is a serial abductor?’ Walters said.
‘Let me tell you about Amy Sandford first before we talk about serial abductors.’
Henderson outlined his visit to Haywards Heath and handed out a summary of his discussion with DS Hibbert. When he finished speaking, he picked up his coffee cup to relieve a parched throat but found it empty. He reached for the water bottle instead.
‘I’m now convinced,’ Henderson said, ‘we’ve got three similar disappearances or abductions, and there might be one or two more if we look further back in the records.’
‘Bloody hell,’ Wallop exploded, his face a mass of emotions. Never a man to keep his true feelings in check. ‘How could this be happening on our patch without us knowing?’
‘Yeah,’ Walters said, ‘and if we didn’t see it, how come none of the papers spotted it either? Too busy covering bloody football and country shows, I’ll bet.’
‘Hold up a second,’ Henderson said. ‘Before we all lock our thinking into place, I think we should take a minute and make certain our methodology is sound.’
‘Didn’t we prove it by finding three similar cases?’ Wallop asked.
‘Humour me, Harry. I just want to go over the methodology one more time to make sure it’s resting on secure foundations.’
‘Do you still have some reservations?’ she said.
‘I do, because if this is true, not only are we saying we might have three abductions, as if that isn’t bad enough, but we’ve arrested the wrong man. I don’t have to remind you two about the media frenzy when we arrested him. They’ll be calling for heads to roll if we turn around now and let him go.’
‘Fair point boss,’ Wallop said, ‘but we’re not going to shout this from the rooftops, are we? We can’t say too much to anybody until we have more concrete evidence.’
‘It starts with the methodology.’
‘What did you have in mind?’ Walters asked.
He paused a few moments to collect his thoughts. ‘I think the way this guy works is to target good looking women from well-off backgrounds, which means they dress well and can afford to go to the gym or in Denise’s case, are already fit because she works in one. He meets them down at the gym, on the way back from school or at the swimming pool and watches them until he sees an opportunity to snatch them or entice them into his car.’