CXVI The Beginning of the End (Book 1): A Gripping Murder Mystery and Suspense Thriller (CXVI BOOK 1)

by Angie Smith

  Barnes introduced herself, showed her ID, and asked if it would be possible to speak with the manager. The receptionist made a quick call and two minutes later Dr Jake Hamel arrived in reception.

  Barnes smiled politely, and looked up at the portrait of Crean. “I understood Gerrard preferred not to publicise his charity donations.”

  “You’re right,” Hamel replied laughing. “He would never have approved of that; it was one of our Trustees who commissioned it after Gerrard died. She thought it would be a nice gesture to hang his portrait in the main entrance, as a reminder of all the good work he did here.”

  Barnes nodded in agreement, suppressing a response.

  “What can I do for you, Miss Barnes?” Hamel asked, guiding her through to his office.

  “I understand that Gerrard Crean was one of your major patrons, and I wondered if you would mind showing me around and explaining a little about the services you provide here.”

  Hamel said he would be delighted and reinforced how proud the Centre had been to have such a generous benefactor. “Gerrard set up a trust-fund and bequeathed several million pounds to us. What they are saying in the papers is utter rubbish; they should come here and take a look at all the good he did.” He put on his jacket and opened the door. “I’ll give you a flavour of what we do,” he said, heading down the corridor.

  Barnes was taken round the facilities and introduced to a number of the in-patients and their families. When they reached the Day Room she noticed how bright and welcoming the atmosphere appeared, and was overwhelmed with emotion at the realisation of how much positivity there was in all the staff, family members and, most noticeably, the individuals with brain injuries.

  “This is John,” Hamel said smiling.

  Barnes bent down and took hold of John’s hand. “Hello John,” she said.

  There was no response.

  “John has locked-in syndrome; he can only move certain facial and eye muscles. He’s one of our longest standing residents.”

  Barnes’ eyes moistened.

  “He was beaten and left for dead in the street one night. Someone got him to A&E just in time. He didn’t have any ID on him, and we’ve never been able to communicate with him or trace his family.”

  “How sad,” Barnes said, attempting to age him.

  “Come over here and let me introduce you to Sam,” Hamel said.

  Barnes went across and noticed staff coming into the room and going to certain residents. “Ah, it’s lunchtime,” Hamel said. “They’re taking patients into the dining hall. Would you care to stay for lunch?”

  She did not answer. She was concentrating on John who was being pushed through the outside door. “I thought the dining hall was that way,” she said, looking in the opposite direction.

  Hamel smiled. “It is, but John gets agitated if he’s taken through reception. We think he dislikes the décor in there, so to avoid upsetting him we take him round the outside of the building and bring him in via the side entrance.”

  Barnes’ radar went to high-alert. She sprinted out of the room and into reception. “I’m just borrowing this for a sec,” she said, removing Crean’s portrait from the wall; she ran into the dining hall with a very puzzled Dr Hamel following her. The two members of staff bringing John in through the side door stopped as she approached.

  “John, Rozpoznajesz tego mężczyznę?” She held up the portrait.

  John’s face became contorted and his eyes blinked wildly.

  “What exactly are you doing?” Hamel asked.

  “Be quiet,” Barnes snapped, and then, turning to John, said, “Jesteś Victor Zielinski!!!”

  His face became more contorted and, as he blinked, tears rolled down his face.

  She turned to Hamel. “This is Victor Zielinski. He’s a Polish national who was living and working in Hawes in 2001. We’ve been trying to locate his whereabouts.”

  “W… what did you say to him?” Hamel asked.

  “I asked if he recognised Crean and then after his reaction I confirmed who I thought he was. He hasn’t been getting upset because of the décor in reception; it’s this,” she said, looking at Crean’s portrait in her hand.

  “Why would that cause him distress?”

  She placed the portrait face down on the nearby table. “Crean orchestrated his brain injury. She turned back to Zielinski, bent down and spoke in Polish. “I’m a police officer.” She held out her ID. “I’m looking into the activities of Gerrard Crean. I understand you looked after his mother at Lakeside Residential Home.”

  Zielinski contorted his face several times.

  She rounded on Hamel. “I’ll need to make some phone calls and organise protection for him; can I use your office?”

  A rather befuddled looking Dr Hamel agreed and took her back into his room where she quickly telephoned Foster who said he would organise for the local police to come and relieve her.

  Twenty minutes later she headed away from Blueberry Woods towards Manchester and Albion Bedford’s office.

  Foster stepped out into the Incident Room, his demeanour depicting his annoyance. He walked straight over to Dudley who was sitting at his desk looking through some paperwork.

  “How’s the search for Zielinski going?” he asked.

  “I’m struggling.”

  “You’re struggling are you? Well, you’ll be pleased to know that Maria has just found him, alive and living in Barrow-in-Furness. Not only that, she’s now heading to Manchester chasing up a really good lead on Ramírez. I wouldn’t be surprised if by the end of the day she’s located both of them.” He turned to Jacobs. “How’s the search for Ramírez going?”

  “Does she need any help?” Jacobs offered.

  “What, from two detective inspectors? I shouldn’t think so. Greg was right, she’s bloody brilliant.” Foster walked back to his room, slamming the door shut behind him.

  Dudley snatched up his phone and tried calling Barnes. “Why isn’t she answering?” he shouted across to Jacobs.

  As Barnes was driving she noticed her mobile phone screen flashing with the word Dudley; she pressed the reject call button and switched the device off. I know what you want. Well you’ll have to wait. Neither you nor Faulkner-Brown will be able to trace where I’m going, she thought, adopting a pleasing smile. She glanced at the sat-nav; it was indicating the estimated time of arrival at Albion Bedford’s offices as 3.30 p.m. It would take her another hour, and, as she desperately needed to eat, she decided to call for a snack at the motorway services where she could gather her thoughts and prepare for the meeting.

  It was therefore nearly 4.30 p.m. when she knocked on the large oak-panelled door with the brass nameplate depicting Bedford Logistics Ltd. How sweet she thought, Logistics: the planning and implementation of complex tasks. The door opened and a large well-built man, in his late forties appeared. He was as broad as an ox, pock marked and broken toothed.

  Barnes held up her ID, introduced herself and said she wanted to speak with Albion Bedford.

  “That’s me,” the man said, holding out a gigantic hand.

  “Hello,” Barnes replied, as her petite hand was engulfed by Bedford’s paw. “You’re exactly how I imagined you to be,” she said as they went inside. “I bet you were a boxer, or a street fighter, or a rugby player.”

  “I was a wrestler, actually.”

  “WWE?”

  He laughed out loud. “No, I was based in the UK and it was a long, long time ago.”

  He beckoned for her to be seated while he settled into the large director’s style leather chair behind his impressive dark oak desk. “Now I’m sure you haven’t come all this way to discuss my former occupations, so what can I do for you?” he asked.

  “I’ve just been to Blueberry Woods to see Victor Zielinski.” She paused analysing his reaction. “I’d say he sends his regards, but of course you’ll know he can’t speak.”

  Bedford shuffled uncomfortably in his chair. “I… I don’t know what you’re talking abo
ut.”

  “Okay,” Barnes said, getting up. “Sorry to have troubled you.” She walked towards the door and then turned. “I’m sure you’ll be more cooperative with the Secret Service Agents who’ll be here within ten minutes of me switching on my phone.”

  “You’re bluffing.”

  “I don’t need to bluff, Mr Bedford. They know I’m heading to Manchester and I purposefully switched off my phone because I wanted to speak to you first. They’ll already be in the area searching for me. Now I’ve parked my car out of sight a mile or so away, but the second this phone is back on the network they’ll be heading here.”

  Bedford looked annoyed as Barnes held her phone up with her finger wavering over the on/off button. “Last chance, talk to me or Faulkner-Brown.”

  “Okay, okay, okay… I’ll talk to you, but I would like some assurance that if I do, I won’t be bothered by the SIS.”

  Barnes returned to her seat. “Provided you tell me everything you know about Victor Zielinski and Rebecca García Ramírez, then there won’t be any need for them to come here.”

  Bedford sighed long and hard. “How did you find him?”

  “I was looking into Gerrard Crean’s charity donations and noticed that if you compared the size of the charity against the money donated, Blueberry Woods received by far the biggest contributions; then I found out what they specialised in and alarm bells started ringing.”

  “I knew one day someone would finally work it all out. I suppose I’ve been preparing for that day for the past ten years.” He scratched the stubble on his chin. “Do you want me to start from the beginning when I first started working for Gerrard or jump to Zielinski?”

  “The beginning, please,” Barnes said, taking out her notebook and pen.

  Chapter 12

  Thursday 31st May.

  As he shuffled through the paperwork he’d removed from the locked filing cabinet, trying to find the appropriate documents, Barnes rocked back in the chair and slowly appraised Bedford. She was unsure whether or not to trust him; she needed to analyse him further before finalising that decision, and in the meantime, as always, she’d be cautious.

  “Here it is,” he said. “I started working with Gerrard on the 21st October 1989. He commissioned me as intermediary for a property deal in Dublin.”

  Barnes was unimpressed. “How did you two meet?”

  “I bumped into him at the Golf Club and we got chatting. I explained what I did. . .”

  “Persuade people to be more reasonable?” she interjected.

  Bedford frowned. “That’s a strange way of putting it.”

  “Those are Pauline Crean’s words; she said you’d have a friendly chat and resolve difficulties.”

  “I suppose in a nutshell that’s what I do.”

  “What kind of wrestling moves assist people to be more reasonable?”

  Bedford smirked. “Despite what you might think, Gerrard thought he could use my services; he was happy to employ me. In fact we were working for him up until he died in 2010.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Acting as mediators, checking people out and keeping tabs on them. Everything was legal and above board.”

  “Hmm… Tell me about Ramírez. Did you act as mediator there?”

  “I’ve nothing to hide, Miss Barnes, so you can stop looking at me like that. I suppose you know she was blackmailing him.”

  She nodded. “Something about telling him she would claim he’d slept with her unless he gave her £1m.”

  “Is that what Pauline told you?”

  She nodded again.

  “Pauline doesn’t know the truth. Gerrard had been having an affair with Ramírez for over six months. Don’t ask me why, it must have been a mid-life crisis thing, and when you look at Pauline and compare them. . .; well, I thought he was off his rocker. But he’d provided Ramírez with a house and that’s where they went for sex. Gerrard claimed she’d spiked his drinks one evening and suggested they tried some kinky stuff. Unbeknown to him she’d set a hidden camera in the bedroom and filmed the whole shenanigans. That’s what she was blackmailing him with and she wanted £10m.”

  “I see.” Barnes said ruefully, considering Pauline’s alternative scenario. “Now that does make more sense than what Pauline said. And. . .” She stopped and, rather than completing the sentence, thought, if Gerrard had an affair, why would he want to kill Pauline for being unfaithful?

  Bedford continued, “Gerrard wanted me to get hold of all the footage and then persuade her she’d be better off accepting the £1m he was prepared to pay her, returning to Spain and never setting foot in this country again.”

  “And that’s what you did?”

  This time Bedford nodded. “She didn’t take much persuading; she got the next flight home. Her parents used some of the money to buy the villa they now live in.”

  “They claim she never returned.”

  Bedford laughed. “I’ll get you the file. We kept tabs on her for a few years and, because we’d told her we’d do that, she adopted a new identity — that of a childhood friend who’d been killed in a car accident — and she tried to hide from us. We lost contact for a couple of months, but finally traced her through the parents who were still keeping in touch; she was living thirty miles down the coast and working at an elementary school. She then married a Frenchman, became a mother and moved to France, where, as far as I’m aware, she still lives today. It was around 2006 when Gerrard instructed me to stop checking up on her; he felt she was no longer a threat. All the names, addresses and details are in the file,” he said, getting up and going over to one of the cabinets. “Here, you can have this if it helps.”

  She took the file. “Thank you,” she said apologetically. “I misjudged you, I’m sorry.” She paused. “Now can you explain what went wrong when you tried to persuade Zielinski he’d be better off returning to Poland.”

  Bedford cleared his throat. “That was an unmitigated disaster. I assume you know about the abuse on Gerrard’s mother?”

  She nodded succinctly.

  “Gerrard came to me with the footage and explained he needed a couple of my guys to help him persuade Zielinski to get out of the country. It appeared straightforward, so I sent Tim Ogden, a new fellow who’d just started working for me, and Geoff Proctor, one of my best people who’d been with me for years. They went to Zielinski’s caravan, knowing he’d be in the pub with his mates, collected his belongings, and then bungled him into a car while he was making his way home. The plan was to meet up with Gerrard, show Zielinski the footage, point out what the consequences would be if he stayed in the UK, and then drive him to the airport and put him on the next flight to Poland. What could possibly go wrong?” Bedford leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. “You can’t trust the Poles can you? The stupid bastard pulled a knife and stabbed Proctor several times. Ogden immediately jumped on Zielinski and disarmed him, while Gerrard administered first aid and tried to stop Proctor bleeding to death. In the meantime Ogden went berserk, kicking the shit out of Zielinski, and Gerrard had to stop helping Proctor and drag Ogden off because he feared he was going to kill him. I got a call from Gerrard saying Zielinski was on the floor unconscious looking like he was dying, and if Proctor wasn’t rushed to hospital he’d be joining Zielinski in the mortuary.”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I tidied up the mess. I got a couple of my guys to take Zielinski to hospital saying they’d found him beat up in the street; they removed his wallet so it looked like a robbery. We honestly thought he was going to die. Another guy rushed Proctor to hospital miles away, so it didn’t appear the two incidents were related. Finally I sacked Ogden.”

  “But Zielinski didn’t die.”

  “No, thank God…, Gerrard was beside himself. When the full nature of his injuries were discovered, together with the kind of life he was going to have, that’s when Gerrard stepped in and supported Blueberry Woods. Even though Zielinski had abused his mother he felt he owed him
.”

  “What about Proctor?”

  “Punctured lung, damaged kidney and spleen, several stab wounds; he’s never worked since. Gerrard set him up with a pension and paid him compensation; he felt responsible.”

  “Tim Ogden?”

  “In Wakefield Prison, unlikely to be released. He worked as a bouncer for a while, then killed a young man outside a night club. He was sent down and a couple of months later he killed a prison officer. The man’s a psychopath and better off inside.”

  “Why didn’t Gerrard repatriate Zielinski?” Barnes asked, grasping for an explanation other than the obvious.

  Bedford took a deep breath and frowned. “Fear of identification,” he replied laconically.

  “You’re not exactly squeaky clean in all this, are you? For a start there’s perverting the course of justice, and kidnapping.”

  “Where’s the proof? Gerrard’s dead, Proctor won’t implicate anyone, Zielinski can’t communicate, and Ogden’s a psychopathic murderer serving life. If you’re expecting me to make a statement, dream on. I’m hoping my cooperation will suffice and you’ll keep me out of trouble.”

  “I’ll have a word with my Chief Inspector.”

  “How come you’re not asking me about any of the murders?”

  She ignored the question. She knew he wasn’t the killer; he didn’t fit the description of the person they were after. “I’ll need a list of people who’ve worked for you over the past twenty-five years.”

  “No problem, I can get that at the click of a button.”

  “What about Gerrard? Were there any staff who worked here that he was close to?”

  “I suppose me. He always insisted I worked with him.”

  “That didn’t happen in the Zielinski case.”

  “No, and look at the consequences; it was the first and last time.”