by Iain Cameron
They started by looking around the barn they were in, but being a workshop and filled with woodworking equipment they completed the job in a few minutes and stepped outside and walked towards the other barn.
‘Don’t you love the smell of wood, Carol? It’s a better aroma than many expensive wines and aftershaves in my opinion.’
‘I’m just glad to get out into the fresh air for a few minutes, I couldn’t breathe in there.’
‘I agree it was a bit dusty, but there’s no mistaking the smell, boy does it take me back.’
‘A little less of the nostalgia, if you please sir and open the door. We’ve got a few more enquiries to make today.’
‘Philistine.’
He put the key in the lock, turned it, and nosily rattled the bolt and padlock together as if experiencing a problem and when Walters made to walk in, he put a hand out to stop her and placed an upright finger to his lips. The only noises they could hear were blackbirds twittering in a nearby tree and the intermittent buzz of an electric sander, Archer once again working on the new wardrobe he was making for a customer.
He dropped his hand and walked inside. It didn’t surprise him to find the barn full of wood, as Archer told them he used it for storage, and it took Henderson a few minutes to work out how it was organised and when he did, he felt confident Archer could find any piece he wanted in a few seconds. Attached to the wall at the back he could see a comprehensive racking system with hinges, bolts, screws, Rawlplugs, and all manner of fittings and accessories used in making bespoke furniture.
He edged past the wood piles taking care to avoid snagging his trousers or whacking his shins and made his way there. Standing in front of the racking system, he pulled out several coloured bins containing brass hinges and door handles.
‘Look at these,’ he said, weighing a pair of hinges in his hand. ‘Solid brass, none of your brass plated steel for our Mr Archer.’
‘Really?’
‘My father would call it an extravagance.’
‘Yeah but I bet he didn’t own two barns in the country and a flat in Horsham.’
Henderson picked out a few more items before putting them all back and walking towards the door where Walters now stood.
‘You’re in the wrong job, Angus. You should be sawing planks and making dovetails.’
‘There’s no way I could do this. There’s no money in it unless you’re good,’ he said, as he shut the door and locked it. ‘In any case, I’m useless at most of the practical stuff. Anything I’ve ever tried to make is usually dotted with bloodstains where I cut myself.’
‘I can see it now, in the John Lewis furniture catalogue, now in, the new Bloodspot Range.’
They returned to the workshop and found Archer sanding down a small filing cabinet. ‘Is everything ok?’ he asked after he switched off the machine and removed safety goggles and mask.
‘Yes, no problem,’ Henderson said.
‘Can I have a drink of water, please? This dust is catching the back of my throat,’ Walters asked.
‘Sure.’ She followed Archer into the small kitchen at the back.
With his back turned, Henderson searched around for something marked with his DNA or fingerprints. Near the end of their meeting with Kingston earlier, he’d left a folder behind in his office on purpose and when Kingston started talking to a customer, he went back to retrieve it. He’d picked up the folder and Kingston’s plastic coffee cup from the bin, the only one left uncrushed.
There were many small pieces of wood lying around which Archer had probably touched, but Henderson thought it unlikely they would yield traces of DNA or fingerprints. He gave up looking, but wasn’t too disappointed as anyone making it onto the suspect shortlist would be invited to Sussex House for further questioning, and DNA samples and fingerprints would be taken then.
He couldn’t make up his mind about James Archer, whether to classify him as ‘red,’ needing no additional investigation, or orange as a ‘possible.’ He claimed not to know any of the missing women and his name didn’t crop up in the lists of the women’s friends and acquaintances, not surprising as he only went to the school three or four times a month, but still there was this nagging doubt.
Yes, Archer gave them free rein to look in the barns and while both were full with not enough space to hide a cat, he couldn’t get away from the notion that it was a fine place to hide a kidnap victim.
THIRTY-FIVE
Henderson stared out of the window. The sky looked dark and oppressive, mirroring his mood. The drizzly weather and the exasperated expressions of the harassed people queuing in their cars to get into the nearby retail park only added to the feeling of despair. He turned from the window and faced the four officers spaced out around the long table in Meeting Room 2.
‘So what you’re telling me is nobody did it?’
DC Sally Graham started to say something but a sharp look from Henderson stopped her.
‘We’ve been here,’ he said, looking at his watch, ‘for over two hours and not one of these so-called suspects has the slightest bit of form, no possible motive we can think of, and only four have access to facilities where we think they could hide a kidnap victim.’
He paused.
‘C’mon fellas, I need more or this investigation is about to come to a grinding halt.’
If the pressures on the team weren’t enough, CI Edwards had instructed him to bring her concrete information about a serial abductor or the operation would close, put up or shut up she said, as new revelations about Brian Langton had surfaced the day before.
His name had popped up in a bribery trail at the Old Bailey where three senior television executives were on trial, accused of making underhand payments to US producers in a bid to have their programmes aired on American television networks, and of procuring young women for their pleasure. Langton was alleged to have participated in many of the activities and several loud voices were calling for him to be charged with these new offences.
Many of the top brass at Sussex Police were congratulating themselves for having the foresight to keep such a dangerous criminal in custody, and were more confident than ever of gaining a conviction when he appeared at trial for Kelly’s murder, sometime in the new year. Edwards in particular, came in for much praise and if Henderson had needed to climb a hill earlier to persuade her to investigate the kidnappings, he now had a mountain to climb if he wanted them to continue.
Lying in bed, wide awake at three in morning, he’d seen that their weakness and the killer’s strength both stemmed from the police approach to missing persons. In perhaps an indictment of modern life, no one seemed to question why a grown woman would abandon her home and her children if the pressures became too great, and it took time before anyone realised something else might be wrong. During this time, the car, the house, the office, and everything else that might offer vital clues as to the woman’s whereabouts, were likely to be cleaned, altered or destroyed.
If, as he now believed, the same man had abducted both Kelly Langton and Amy Sandford, he was confident at least one name would drop out of their analysis and interviews of friends, business contacts, relatives, acquaintances and people from each of the schools; but other than Darren Kingston and James Archer, neither of whom were entirely convincing, there was no one else.
Now, instead of Brian Langton walking free from jail and the investigation being scaled up to the level he believed it needed to be, Langton would stay in jail and his investigation would be wrapped up in the next few days. If this happened, Henderson was not sure he could continue banging his head against a brick wall every time the press or budget considerations raised their ugly heads. Perhaps it was time for him to do something else.
‘We need more, we need more,’ he said, to the deflated group. ‘We seem to be at a dead end and out of ideas of where to go next.’
Silence greeted his comment. He was about to call a halt to the meeting and suggest they regroup later when everybody might have clearer head
s, when Sally Graham said, ‘I’ve just had an idea.’
‘Let’s hear it.’
‘It might be a bit of a long shot sir, but why don’t we do a search for any incident taking place close to the houses and premises where we know each of our suspects live and work and the four properties where we think a kidnap victim could be held.’
‘Go on.’
‘What I’m thinking is this. Let’s say, the kidnapper is holding them for some time and not killing them right away, but keeping them hidden for some sadistic or sexual purpose. He would need to feed them and look after them. What if, someone reported a woman screaming or a scuffle in the back garden or glass breaking? It would be filed as a domestic disturbance, but if it happened near any of these properties, it could indicate something else was going on inside the house, such as the woman trying to escape or him beating her up.’
‘I like the sound of this,’ Walters said. ‘If he’s been keeping Amy captive for any length of time, somebody might have reported hearing a shouting match or some unusual banging as she tried to attract somebody’s attention.’
This went on a few more minutes, survivors of a sinking ship clutching at the remains of a broken lifeboat, before Henderson called a halt.
‘We’ll take a break from this for a few hours. Sally, there seems to be some consensus about your theory, and although I’m a bit sceptical, I’m going to let you run with it. Find yourself three or four officers and try to get it done before close of play today.’
‘Right sir.’
At twelve-thirty, he walked out of the building and over to the Asda superstore nearby for lunch. He returned straight away, despite the empty fridge at home which needed to be topped up with a bigger shop than this, and ate the egg and bacon sandwich at his desk, no one daring to enter and risk the wrath of his grouchy mood. For the next two hours, he attended two meetings back to back. Both were unrelated to the kidnapping investigation and although each dealt with important administrative and procedural issues, neither received his undivided attention.
He arrived back at his office at five and was about to call Walters, Wallop and Graham back for another tedious update, when Sally Graham walked in. She was a pretty girl with blond hair tied back in a ponytail and big brown eyes, making some of the younger lads swoon, but several fell into the trap of assuming she was all style and no substance, fur coat and nae knickers, as an old desk sergeant in Glasgow used to say, and they got short shift if they cracked ‘blonde’ or ‘Essex girl’ jokes, as she was smart with her heart set on progressing through the ranks.
‘Sorry to interrupt sir, but I think I found something you should see.’
The paper she put in front of him was an Incident Report, written by a police constable at Billingshurst police station. It concerned two lampers who reported the discharge of a gun in a field near the place where they were hunting.
‘A lamper?’ Henderson said looking up. ‘Aren’t they those wannabe army types who gear up with night-sights and bright lights and go out shooting deer and badgers in the middle of the night?’
‘I think so. Why are they called ‘lampers’ and not shooters or hunters?’
‘They carry these extremely bright lights and once they find their prey, they shine the light into its eyes. For a few vital seconds, the animal is mesmerised, giving them enough them time to raise their weapons and take the shot.’
‘Ah, the poor deer.’
‘Latest reports say there are over a million deer in Britain and to many farmers they’re nothing but a damn nuisance as they eat saplings and break fences. Maybe we should praise the lampers for providing a valuable public service and in time, it might reduce the price of venison.’
‘I don’t eat meat so it wouldn’t affect me.’
He read the report. The lamper concerned was a gun enthusiast and claimed the discharge he heard came from an AK 47, the weapon of choice for insurgents and freedom fighters all over the world.
‘Come on,’ he said looking up, ‘how could he possibly know this?’
‘Know what, sir?’
‘The shot he heard came from an AK 47. Why not a shotgun or an L85, or whatever assault rifle is being used by the British Army nowadays?’
‘I was a bit sceptical myself, so I spoke to PC Wallace at Billingshurst, the officer who wrote the report. This lamper convinced him he can tell the difference between many guns from the noise they make as he’s been lamping for years, and a member of a gun club.’
‘Mmm. Now I think about it, I imagine with a bit of knowledge, it might not be a difficult thing to do.’
‘How?’
‘Well, if you think these guys are out in the middle of the night and so they’re not bothered by the sounds you might hear during the day such as cars, scarecrow bangs, a farmer shooting rabbits, or someone banging in a fence post with a sledgehammer. Also, I would imagine the lampers themselves use different weapons and after a time the noises they make are probably discernible to their mates.’
‘Makes sense.’
‘Although I don’t know how he knows it came from a particular rifle unless he used to be in the army. It’s not the sort of weapon you would find in the average gun club. Did Billingshurst investigate the incident?’
‘They took it seriously, from what I understand. They conducted door-to-door inquiries in the area but they couldn’t find anyone to corroborate it, so they didn’t take it any further. I suppose most people were asleep when it happened.’
He put the report down on the table and looked at Graham. ‘What does this tell us? A former soldier likes shooting at night?’
‘A bit more than that, I think. Look at the place where they said they heard it,’ she said, pointing at the map attached to the report. ‘In a field near Adversane Lane.’
The name rang a bell. ‘Isn’t that the name of the road where James Archer’s got his furniture business?’
‘Yes.’
He leapt up and pulled an Ordinance Survey map of Sussex from the unstable bookcase and opened it out across the table. The cop who wrote the Incident Report did a good job as Henderson easily pinpointed the place where the lamper heard the shot. He traced the distance he and Walters travelled down Adversane Lane to meet James Archer, and could see three properties within a half-mile radius of where the shot was fired and smack in the centre, James Archer’s furniture business.
‘Wait a minute though,’ he said, ‘could there be a more, let’s not say innocent, but reasonable explanation for owning and discharging an assault rifle in the middle of the night?’
‘You mean rather than shooting innocent women?’
‘I mean, say some guy sets up a couple of targets in his back garden and does some shooting practice when it’s dark so no one can see what he’s doing.’
‘Wouldn’t he be better shooting during the day when the noise he makes might be confused with all the other daytime noises you mentioned before?’
‘Could be.’
‘What if the shot was by the kidnapper executing his victim or shooting her when she tried to escape. Maybe, he plays a game with them and lets them run away before hunting them down like rabbits. I saw it in a movie once.’
He stared at her. She looked so sweet and innocent, no way would he take her for a fan of horror or slasher movies. ‘Wouldn’t it be a bit risky though, with all those twitchers walking around with their night vision goggles and bright lights?’
‘Lampers.’
‘Eh?’
‘They’re lampers not twitchers. Twitching is what we bird fanciers do.’
‘My apologies for slighting your hobby but take my point. If Rambo and his mates are out there and they can tell the difference between an AK47 and an SA80 simply by hearing it fired, wouldn’t it be a bit risky to be out there executing women? They probably carry light-enhancing video cameras to record their every kill.’
‘I agree, but maybe something out of the ordinary happened. Maybe someone came too close to discovering what was goin
g on, or she escaped.’
‘An interesting theory and one we might be able to verify when we catch him. This might sound like a stupid question, but do we know if lampers are regular users of illegal weapons like the AK47?’
She shook her head. ‘No. PC Wallace at Billingshurst said they carry shotguns, .22 rifles and airguns. These guys are legal by all accounts and the animals they’re after don’t require anything more powerful.’
‘I suppose so. Using an assault rifle would run the risk of the bullet going through the head of a deer, then someone’s bedroom window or killing one of their buddies when it ricochets off a rock.’
‘So we’re back to an unknown discharge.’
‘When did it happen?’ Henderson asked.
‘Monday 17th October. Just over a week ago.’
He picked up his Operation Condor file and leafed through the papers until he found the document he wanted. ‘Roughly eleven days after Amy Sandford went missing. Now isn’t that interesting?’
THIRTY-SIX
‘Coincidences, coincidences,’ Henderson said, as he paced up and down in the lounge of his flat in Vernon Terrace. In one hand he held a large glass of whisky and in the other, a copy of the AK47 gunshot Incident Report.
He accepted the word of the lamper, but why wouldn’t he? In the silence of the night he reckoned he would be able to tell the report of an assault rifle from a shotgun, air gun, or .22 rifle, and even if it was not an AK47, it was still an illegal and dangerous weapon fired by someone close by James Archer’s furniture workshop. The question remained, why?
For hundreds of years, soldiers returning from conflicts overseas had brought back souvenirs; for some it meant beads, clothes, or sexually transmitted diseases, and for others, captured knives, handguns, grenades, and rifles. Even without the recent conflicts in Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan, millions of assault rifles were available for sale in Africa, Asia, and parts of the former Soviet Union, especially after their failed invasion of Afghanistan when many thousands of disillusioned and unpaid soldiers sold their weapons to the highest bidder in order to raise enough money to buy food and the train fare home.