by Iain Cameron
Her uphill vantage point offered a good view over a long section of road to the right and left, but in all the time she stood there, no other car came by. About five hundred yards up ahead, she spotted a gate. She couldn’t be sure as it was indistinct, but she could just make out the shape of a car or a van parked beside it. Her spirits rose. She didn’t know what country folk got up to at night, but if someone had parked there to walk the dog or if a couple of kids were having a snog, it would be easier reaching it than the farm.
She stepped out of the shadow of the trees and peered harder, aided by the moon when it appeared through a gap in clouds and could see the car clearer now. Her spirits sagged; it was a Land Rover.
A wave of panic coursed through her, leaving her faint with trembling hands and her heart racing. She tried to channel the nervous energy into movement and seconds later, forced her tired legs to run again. She took a deep breath and started to jog across the open field. Realising her silhouette might be visible against the skyline even in the dark, she edged downhill and ran as fast as the surface would allow. The lights of the farmhouse looked closer now; one last heave would do it.
In the silence, only punctuated by her footsteps on the grass, her heavy breathing, and the pounding of her heart, she heard a sharp crack and without warning, her legs gave way and she fell to the ground. An excruciating pain shot up her leg and immediately she thought she had caught her foot in a divot and the noise was the sound of a bone breaking. She tentatively moved her hand to the area of pain and touched a sticky substance that felt like animal poo or thick dew. It was warm but with no smell and the way it coated her hands, she knew it was blood, her blood.
She felt around the area, trying to locate a protruding bone but instead found a hole. It was small on one side, but twice the size on the other with blood pumping out like an opened tap. She almost fainted when she realised she had been shot. It was him, had to be, but how the hell could he see her in the dark?
She needed to make a decision: stay and try and stop the bleeding, or run. Fear seized her in a vice-like grip and it made the decision for her, she needed to get away. She forced herself into a kneeling position and tried to stand when a boot hit her in the chest and sent her sprawling on her back in the grass.
‘You thought you could get away from me you fucking bitch,’ he sneered, ‘but you can’t. You can’t run, ’cause you know I’ll catch you.’
He stood there, towering above her. She could only see his shadow, but she knew it was him. The shape of the body and the cold, evil, malevolent voice.
‘Let me go you bastard. I’ve got money, I can–’
‘Shut up, you fucking slut. I don’t want your money. You’re no use to me now. We had a good thing going, but you’ve screwed it up, like every woman I’ve ever known.’
There was a metallic squeak and an intense flash of light.
THIRTY-THREE
He thumped a fist on the desk. ‘What the hell is this? My wife said I work all bloody hours and I’m never at home, did she? Yeah, but did she also tell you, I do it so she can enjoy her spa and bloody pampering sessions and to keep her three kids at their friggin’ private school?’
‘She never said anything of the kind sir,’ DI Henderson said, ‘you weren’t at home when we called and we needed to talk to both of you.’
Henderson sipped at the lukewarm brown liquid in the plastic cup. For an upmarket car dealership with gleaming posh cars and luxuriant sofas, the coffee tasted like something that came from the drip tray. For customers about to sign up for a brand new 4x4 or a big saloon, they would be served from the complicated coffee machine over in the corner, because if they ever received this crap, they would buy their new car elsewhere.
His small team of investigators had completed the first round of interviews last night and they were now dealing with the ‘no-shows,’ but without doubt, he and Walters had picked the short straw. Garage-owner Darren Kingston had been in a bad mood ever since they met him at nine this morning and nothing they said pleased him.
‘So what’s all this about? I don’t have much time to give you as I’ve got lots to do today. I’m one salesman down and my secretary’s on bloody maternity leave. She would go and have her bloody sprog just when we’ve hit a rich seam of sales, wouldn’t she?’
‘We won’t keep you long sir,’ Henderson said, sounding a bit more patient than he felt. Does this guy think he is the only one with a busy schedule? He might have sales targets to meet and grumpy mechanics to deal with, but he didn’t have the top brass of Sussex Police and half of the nation’s press breathing down his neck, waiting for him to slip up or fall on his face. ‘We understand from your wife you regularly take your children to school at Williamson College.’
‘Yeah, I do. I may as well spend some time at the place, as I’m paying so much for the bloody privilege. It’s more or less on the way here which helps.’
He was about mid-fifties, with a round, tanned face and slicked-back hair, making him look like an archetypal East-End car spiv, willing do a good deal on any motor as long it was settled with used readies. However, in the gleaming showroom, they didn’t sell anything costing less than thirty grand and would be suspicious of accepting something so grubby as cash. If Henderson could ignore the sneer and snippy attitude, Kingston wore a tailored shirt, silk tie, expensive suit and Rolex watch, all the trappings of a successful businessman who owned one of the most profitable car dealerships in the country, if he believed all the guff on their web site.
‘How well do you know Kelly Langton, Mr Kingston?’
‘Kelly Langton? The lovely girl who buggered off into the wild blue yonder? I know her quite well, I would say. I always spoke to her when I saw her, which was about a couple of times a week. Damned attractive woman she is. Still got a model’s looks, if you ask me.’
‘What do you think happened to her, sir?’ Walters asked.
‘It’s obvious init? She scooted off to get away from her big brute of a husband. I didn’t know him well, but I don’t think he did her in. Sure, he didn’t treat her right, messing about with other women and never at home, but why kill her? Get divorced, I say, and he can afford it. Divorce isn’t about kids or houses or love, is it? It’s about money. I should know, I’ve been married three times.’
‘When your children attended Leapark,’ Henderson said, ‘did you also know Amy Sandford?’
‘Amy Sandford? Of course I did. She bought her car from here. Nice woman she is too. Our kids only moved to Williamson College last year, after being at Leapark for six years, same as Amy’s. She’s one of the organisers of the summer ball and sports day and I always make a point of donating a prize for the raffle. Nothing cheap of course, maybe a weekend with one of these babies,’ he said, jerking his thumb to the glittering line-up out in the showroom, ‘or a weekend in a health spa. She’d phone me up and switch on the charm and twist my arm, trying to make the prize even better than the year before.’
‘What do you think happened to her?’
‘Now you mention it,’ he said, curiosity writ large on his smug, tanned face, ‘she’s another one who buggered off into the sunset. Was it something I said? Ha, ha.’ He leaned over the desk. ‘You guys think there’s a connection, don’t you? Tell me, I can keep a secret.’
Henderson almost burst out laughing. Who was he kidding? Car dealers were worse than journalists and couldn’t keep their mouths shut if they fell off a boat into the sea. ‘There’s no connection, sir. We are simply investigating the disappearance of two women.’
‘Yeah, with kids at the same schools my lot attended,’ he said.
‘Can I ask for your whereabouts on a couple of dates?’
‘Fire away.’
Henderson gave him the dates both women disappeared and questioned him on his movements. Kingston was confident members of his staff would confirm his alibi and Walters left the room to talk to them.
‘I’d like to take a look around the garage if I may,’ Henderson
said.
‘Yeah, be my guest,’ Kingston said. ‘Fancy a new car do you? I could do you a good deal. We already supply cars to the Hampshire force.’
‘I’m thinking more about the servicing bays and workshops, the stuff out back.’
‘What?’ His face rapidly transformed from the calm, controlled salesman to an aggressive animal spotting an intruder muscling in on his territory. ‘You think I’m a fucking suspect don’t you? No, you can’t go there. Why the fuck should I let you poke around in my business?’
Henderson was taken aback by the outburst but decided enough was enough. He walked around to Kingston’s side of the desk and stood in front of him, face close to his.
‘Listen mate, if you don’t let me take a look, I’ll get a search warrant and in an hour this business will come to a halt, as thirty heavy-handed coppers come down here and take this place apart, brick by brick. Now, if one of them accidentally scratches the bodywork of one of your nice, new cars in the process,’ he said with a shrug, ‘I’ll tell them not to worry, your insurance will cover it.’
‘You’re bluffing Henderson. I’ve seen the movie too. You’ve got nothing on me.’
Maintaining his stance, Henderson pulled out his phone, pressed speed dial and called the office, asking for Sally Graham. ‘DC Graham, it’s DI Henderson. Can you prepare a search warrant for Kingston Motors in Shoreham, K-i-n-g...’
Kingston’s hand pulled Henderson’s phone away from his ear. ‘That won’t be necessary Detective Inspector, my mistake. Go right ahead.’
Twenty minutes later, Henderson edged the grubby Mondeo pool car out of the car park, its pale red paintwork dull and dirty beside a line of large and gleaming saloon cars and 4x4’s.
‘What a first-class prick,’ Walters said. ‘He’s so used to getting his own way with all the young salesmen and mechanics, he doesn’t know how to talk to the rest of us.’
‘Where do you think he belongs on our suspects list?’
‘At the top, no question, green.’
‘I think so too. He knew both women, which is a first in all the interviews we’ve done, and he thought they were both attractive. Mind you, if he did kidnap them, why did he tell us he knew them so well?’
‘We would find that out anyway from talking to other people, so perhaps he thought it better not to lie.’
‘What? A car dealer?’ Henderson said. ‘They’re born liars, it’s in their DNA.’
‘I suppose.’
‘He owns his own business and maybe property we don’t know about. He seems to work his own hours with nobody checking when he comes in and out. He’s an aggressive bastard to boot. One to be watched and investigated further, I would say.’ Henderson took out a green highlighter and marked the top of the page.
‘If he did kidnap them,’ Henderson continued, ‘he wouldn’t be holding them out the back as I didn’t see any cubby holes or out-buildings and in any case, too many people work there.’
‘But as you say, he might own other properties.’
‘I’ve been thinking about that. If Kingston or one of the other suspects we add to our list owns another house, a storage unit, or a holiday cottage out in the sticks, and Amy and Kelly are being held there, how in the hell are we ever going to find it?’
THIRTY-FOUR
‘So remind me,’ Henderson said, as he accelerated away from yet another roundabout. ‘Who are we seeing next?’
They were heading towards Billingshurst, away from the up-market garage owned by the downmarket Darren Kingston. Henderson felt perkier as there was now one entry on the suspects list, but he wanted more because as much as he didn’t like Kingston, he wasn’t yet convinced of his guilt.
Walters picked up the folder. ‘On Monday, if you remember, we saw Lidia Archer. She was the well dressed lady we met as she was cooking in the kitchen at her house in Compton’s Lane.’
‘I remember.’
‘She told us her husband, sorry her ex-husband, owns a furniture making business and took their boys to school now and again.’
‘She set him up after the divorce when she sold her PR business. A bloody good deal if you ask me.’
‘She’s a shrewd lady and no mistake.’ She looked down at her papers. ‘There was nothing suspicious about her house or the garden but her husband’s workshops are out in the sticks and you said you were keen to see them. Put your foot down boss, we’ve got another two to do after this.’
They found the lane leading to Archer’s workshop at the second attempt, despite Henderson driving slowly down Adversane Lane for this very purpose. It consisted of two barns facing one another with a paved courtyard between. Sound was coming from the one on the right as the door lay open and the buzz of something like a sander leaked from its interior. They walked over and introduced themselves to James Archer.
Henderson liked the place almost as soon as he walked in, as he loved the smell, the look, and feel of real wood and even though he didn’t own much furniture, the bits he did have were made from solid wood with no chipboard, MDF, or plywood in sight.
His father had worked as a carpenter before retirement two years ago, and when he wasn’t installing kitchens in houses around Fort William, working away in Inverness or Glasgow, or building stands for exhibitions and conferences, he made alterations to their house. He built bookcases, put up shelves, extended the patio, installed fitted wardrobes in all bedrooms, and converted the attic as a bedroom for seven-year-old Angus when the arrival of Archie left them short of space.
Archer spoke eloquently and looked relaxed in their presence, answering questions without drama or becoming flustered. He was of average height but solidly-built with collar-length straggly brown hair and a couple of days growth on his chin, suggesting he didn’t take much pride in his appearance. They’d obviously interrupted him at work, as he wore dusty overalls with a multiplicity of pockets for tools and screws, and what at first looked like dandruff or a new style of hair colouring to mimic the George Clooney look, turned out to be sawdust.
After explaining the purpose of their visit and sounding like an old, scratched recording, as this was probably the tenth or eleventh time he’d said it, they took seats beside the workbench.
‘Your wife told us you took your boys out of Leapark,’ Henderson said, ‘to follow a maths teacher who transferred to Williamson College.’
‘That’s only half-true,’ Archer replied, ‘some bullying went on.’
‘It must have been serious to move your kids.’
He smiled. ‘No, it was my kids doing the bullying. You see, they’re both a bit big for their age and you know what kids are like. It didn’t amount to anything bad, but I needed to do something to teach them a lesson. If she wants to gloss it by saying they were following a maths teacher, I don’t care.’
‘Can you tell us your movements on a couple of dates?’ Walters said.
‘Sure, when?’
Walters reeled them off and Archer walked to the bench at the back of the workshop, where numerous notes were stuck to a board on the wall and box files marked ‘Invoices’ and ‘Statements’ lined up on a shelf. He picked up a large desk diary. Pinned up on the wall Henderson could see pictures of Archer skydiving, at the controls of a helicopter, and coming out of a plane to do a solo parachute jump. He found it hard to square the sedate, easy going job he did now with the thrill seeker on the wall but Henderson had been doing the job long enough to understand not to pigeon-hole people.
By analysing CCTV pictures in and around Richmond Road in Horsham, the place Amy Sandford went before she disappeared, they spotted her car heading into Horsham with someone, presumably Mr Swift, sitting beside her in the passenger seat. The pictures were taken from a camera some distance away and all they could tell about the passenger was he had blond hair and he was tall and stocky.
In every visit, the two-man teams were instructed to compare the man they met with the artist’s impression of the man captured by CCTV cameras and Henderson looked at it no
w. Archer was well-built with untidy, long hair, but it was brown not blond. The rest of the picture was too vague for the artist to get a real likeness and the teams were told to treat it with caution.
With most of the sawdust now shaken from his hair, he could see it was brown, but even in colour and a shade or two lighter than his eyebrows, suggesting the use of a hair colourant. It was possible for him to have been blond at Amy Sandford’s abduction and to have dyed it back to its natural colour to throw everyone off the scent. He didn’t think so, as his hair looked the same as the pictures on the wall and for many men in their early forties like him, the first signs of grey would have them reaching for the succour of Just for Men.
‘I worked here both days,’ Archer said, turning to face them, ‘and as I said earlier, I work alone. On your first date, I made a delivery late afternoon to a customer in East Grinstead. I spent most of the morning finishing the piece off before preparing it for transport. On the other date, I worked here in the morning and went to see a wood supplier in Worthing in the afternoon. I can give you names and address of both sets of people if you like.’
‘If you could sir,’ Henderson said.
He wrote them down and handed a piece of paper to Walters.
‘How do you find customers?’ Henderson said. ‘Is there a showroom or do you have a tie-in with a furniture shop?’
‘No, it’s all word of mouth. I started out doing some work for a few of my neighbours around here and they told other people and it’s gone from there. Nowadays, I don’t need to look for customers, they come to me.’
After fifteen minutes, both officers had exhausted all their questions, more or less the same ones asked of all the previous interviewees and he was tired of hearing the same answers, and glad when they reached the ‘can we look around’ stage. Far from objecting, as Darren Kingston did, he invited them to do so on their own, as he said he wanted to carry on working and handed them the keys to the barn opposite.