Dead Level (The DI Nick Dixon Crime Series Book 5)

by Damien Boyd

  Jane nodded. ‘When’s the disciplinary hearing?’

  ‘In the New Year.’

  ‘Tell me about your cold case then.’

  ‘Shotgun blast to the face at point blank range. Both barrels . . .’

  Jane winced.

  ‘It was a four ten rather than a twelve bore so it’s not as bad as it could’ve been,’ continued Dixon, ‘but the photos are pretty grim.’

  ‘When was it?’

  ‘March ’94.’

  ‘That’s not before you were born . . .’

  ‘Sadly, not,’ said Dixon, smiling. ‘Anyway, she was found in the paddock behind her house with her two Shetland ponies.’

  ‘Who was she?’

  ‘Mrs Wendy Gibson. Lived alone. No family.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Muchelney. Out on the Levels, near Langport.’

  ‘I know it.’

  ‘I popped over there today for a look around and only just got through. Much more rain and I’ll have to get a snorkel for the old bus.’

  ‘That explains the wellies in the kitchen.’

  ‘It does.’

  ‘See anything interesting?’

  ‘Not really. There were flowers on her grave and no one knows who puts them there. Not even the vicar.’

  ‘What are you going to do?’

  ‘No idea,’ said Dixon. ‘What about you?’

  ‘Shoplifting,’ replied Jane.

  ‘You go steady.’

  ‘I’ve had enough excitement lately, thank you. And I’m looking forward to a quiet Christmas.’ Jane looked at the television. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘The Deer Hunter.’

  ‘How many times have you seen that before?’

  ‘Master and Commander has just started on Film 4.’

  ‘You could try switching it off,’ said Jane.

  ‘Nope, you’ve lost me there,’ replied Dixon, shaking his head.

  ‘What else have you been up to?’ asked Jane, through a mouthful of chicken curry.

  ‘Not a lot. Monty got a walk on the beach. Then no sooner had we got home than the Tory candidate was knocking on the door asking for my vote.’

  ‘What’d you tell him?’

  ‘That I’d only just moved in. Not on the electoral roll yet.’

  ‘Is that true?’

  ‘No,’ replied Dixon, smiling.

  ‘He’d know that was bollocks, though, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘If he bothers to check.’

  ‘What constituency are we here?’

  ‘Bridgwater and North Somerset.’

  ‘This by-election’s going to be a pain. When is it?’

  ‘End of January.’

  ‘Weeks of it,’ said Jane, shaking her head. ‘Well, he’s wasting his time with me. I’m still registered at my parents’ in Worle, so that’ll be Weston, won’t it?’

  ‘Good excuse. Shall we hire that van and move your furniture over this weekend?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘What are you up to next week?’ asked Dixon.

  ‘I’ve got Christmas off,’ replied Jane.

  ‘Me too. There’s no overtime on the Cold Case Unit. Shall we get a tree?’

  ‘A real one?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You got any decorations?’ asked Jane.

  Chapter Two

  Just before 10 a.m. the following morning Dixon parked in the visitors’ car park at Sandy Padgett House, the new Bridgwater Police Centre on Express Park. He had spent the previous week or so based there, until he had been shunted off to Portishead, and had a staff pass, but he still felt like a visitor. Even more so today, the day of his interview with Professional Standards.

  ‘What are you going to tell them?’ Jane had asked, over breakfast.

  ‘The truth.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘You’re confusing me with someone who gives a shit.’

  Dixon smiled. Jane had not been impressed with that line.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. D’you want to spend the rest of your life watching CCTV at Tesco?’

  And she was right, of course. He did care. The prospect of a career in supermarket security would no doubt keep him awake at night until the disciplinary hearing. That, and the only thing he feared more. Being returned to uniform.

  He was sitting in the reception area watching the strip lights suspended from the ceiling in the atrium. There were three of them and they were swinging from side to side on long cables like pendulums, the arc becoming longer each time the front doors opened.

  The designer needs his arse kicking.

  The lights reminded Dixon of a Newton’s cradle and he wondered how strong the wind would need to be before they crashed into each other. He hoped he was not sitting underneath them when they did.

  ‘They make quite a feature, don’t they?’

  ‘Yes, Sir,’ said Dixon, standing up to face Detective Chief Inspector Lewis.

  ‘Your big day, I gather?’

  Dixon nodded.

  ‘Don’t say anything stupid, and leave the rest to me. All right?’

  ‘Er, yes, Sir.’

  DCI Lewis winked at Dixon, turned and disappeared through a security door adjacent to the reception desk.

  Dixon smiled. Maybe he would live to fight another day, after all.

  Two hours later Dixon was sitting in the staff canteen on the first floor, staring into the bottom of an empty coffee cup, when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He stood up when he recognised Chief Inspector Bateman.

  ‘DCI Lewis tells me you’ve got a bit of time on your hands, Dixon?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘Good. Make yourself useful and show the Conservative candidate around the station, will you?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘He’s here for a guided tour and I bloody well forgot, didn’t I! He’s down in reception.’

  ‘But, I’ve only been here a week and hardly . . .’

  ‘Well, you’ll just have to wing it then, won’t you,’ said Bateman, turning to leave. ‘His name’s Perry.’

  I know that. I met him yesterday.

  Dixon shrugged his shoulders and trudged over to the stairs. Once on the ground floor he looked in the open plan offices on either side of the lobby and counted at least twenty officers sitting at workstations, all of whom could have been picked on by Bateman. Having said that, they all looked as though they had better things to do.

  Dixon opened the security door and peered into the reception area. He spotted Tom Perry sitting at the far end. He was wearing a jacket and tie and appeared to be mesmerised by the swinging strip lights above him. This was going to be embarrassing.

  ‘Mr Perry?’

  ‘That’s me,’ said Perry, jumping up and greeting Dixon with a smile and an outstretched hand. He was in his late thirties and well over six feet tall, with short blonde hair and rugby player’s ears.

  ‘Detective Inspector Nick Dixon.’ They shook hands.

  ‘We met yesterday,’ said Perry.

  ‘I was hoping you wouldn’t remember that.’

  ‘You were very polite.’

  ‘Thank you,’ replied Dixon.

  ‘I get a lot worse. You’d be surprised how many words the great British public can get to rhyme with Tory when they really put their backs into it.’

  Dixon laughed. Perhaps this wasn’t going to be too bad, after all.

  ‘You enjoy parachuting, I gather?’

  ‘That’s my opponents,’ replied Perry, smiling. ‘Their candidate is local, so they like to portray me as the London architect, parachuted into the constituency. But then you knew that?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘I am local. Well, localish. My family is from Taunton.’

  ‘That’s near enough,’ said Dixon.

  ‘You’d have thought so. We’ve rented a cottage in the constituency, over at Northmoor Green.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘My wife, Elizabeth, and me.’

  Moving from London, re
nting a cottage. It was all sounding familiar.

  ‘Splendid set of lights,’ said Perry, looking up. ‘I was waiting for the trapeze artist to appear.’

  ‘Follow me,’ said Dixon, gesturing towards the security door. ‘The less time we spend underneath them, the better.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  It took Dixon over an hour to show Tom Perry around the station, although he avoided the Professional Standards Department on the second floor. Perry was particularly impressed with the custody suite and the psychedelic lockers in the mixed changing rooms.

  ‘What’s with the bright colours?’

  ‘No idea,’ replied Dixon.

  ‘And mixed? I bet that took some getting used to?’

  ‘It’s one advantage of being a detective,’ Dixon replied. ‘No need to get changed.’ It was another reason Dixon was dreading being sent back to uniform, but Perry didn’t need to know that.

  The layout of the interview rooms, with the interviewing officer and suspect sitting side by side, also took Perry by surprise. Dixon was unable to explain that either, recalling many occasions when he had been grateful for the table between him and the suspect.

  ‘Designed by someone who has never conducted a police interview.’

  Perry had agreed.

  ‘How are you finding working here?’ was a question Dixon struggled with. He thought Perry deserved better than ‘I’ve only been here a week’, so he rambled on about the challenges of working in an open plan office and ‘hot desking’ at workstations. Dixon was used to his own office, with his own desk and a door that he could shut and a window he could open. Perry appeared to understand the point.

  The only difficult moment came when Perry asked how many officers were working at the station. Dixon’s reply, ‘not as many as there were’, appeared to hit home and Perry had quickly changed the subject. No doubt he would be trying to keep police budget cuts off the by-election agenda too.

  By 1.30 p.m. they were outside the front entrance for the obligatory photo opportunity when Dixon’s phone bleeped.

  ‘It’s just a text,’ said Dixon, smiling for the camera.

  He reached into his jacket pocket and took out his phone as he watched Perry driving out of Express Park, his car windows plastered with blue ‘Vote Conservative’ posters.

  Where are you? Got the afternoon off. Shall we get the Xmas tree? J x

  As weekends go, it didn’t get much better than this. Or at least, it hadn’t for a very long time. Dixon watched Jane sipping a gin and tonic. She had kicked off her shoes and her feet were resting on Monty, who was stretched out on the floor in front of the fire in the Red Cow.

  They had bought a Christmas tree on Friday afternoon and spent several hours decorating it on Saturday morning, all thoughts of furniture removals postponed until the New Year. That was followed by a walk on the beach and a curry in the Zalshah. Breakfast in bed, twice, had taken Jane by surprise and now, here they were, in the Red Cow, their Sunday afternoon walk on Brean Down having been abandoned due to the torrential rain. Monty had taken one look out of the back door of the cottage and gone back to bed.

  Dixon smiled. All he needed now was a pipe and slippers.

  ‘You still haven’t told me about your interview,’ said Jane, breaking the silence.

  ‘I did.’

  ‘You’re gonna have to do a bit better than “yeah, fine”, if you don’t . . .’

  ‘All right, all right,’ said Dixon, holding up his hands in mock surrender. ‘It was going OK until the last question, really.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘“Faced with the same set of circumstances, would you do the same again?”’

  ‘And you said yes, I suppose?’

  ‘I did.’

  Jane shook her head.

  ‘They’d have known I was lying if I’d said no.’

  ‘Did they ask about me?’

  ‘I said it was all your idea.’

  ‘Stop mucking about,’ said Jane, digging Dixon in the ribs.

  ‘No, I told them you knew nothing about it. That I’d kept you in the dark.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’ll be fine.’

  ‘Anything else?’ asked Jane.

  ‘I saw DCI Lewis on the way in. He winked at me.’

  ‘That’s a good sign, surely?’

  ‘I thought he had something in his eye.’

  They went their separate ways just before 8 a.m. the following morning. Jane left for Express Park and Dixon headed north on the M5 to Portishead. One day to get through and then it was Christmas Eve.

  He had felt very conspicuous on his last visit to HQ, particularly having been assigned to the Cold Case Unit. It was rather like driving around in a sign written courtesy car from an accident repair centre. Everybody knew he was in trouble, the only thing they didn’t know was just how deep.

  He spent the day sitting at a vacant workstation in the Criminal Investigation Department, going through the box of files on the murder of Wendy Gibson. He started with the post mortem report, which documented catastrophic injuries to her head and neck. She had been all but obliterated, but he had seen that for himself in the photographs.

  The weapon had been identified from the size and spread of the shot as a four ten with the barrels over and under rather than side by side, and the killer had been standing no more than six feet away when both barrels had been fired. It seemed an extravagant way to kill a sixty year old widow. Her estimated height was no more than five feet five inches and she weighed a shade under eight stone. Add to that her crippling arthritis and a burglar could have just pushed her over or hit her with the gun butt, perhaps. So, why blow her head off?

  Maybe the killer had panicked? That was possible. But why shoot her in the face? Dixon reached for his notepad and wrote down two words.

  Obliterated. Why?

  Next he turned to the witness statements. The police evidence confirmed that nothing whatsoever had been stolen and her house had not been broken into, which didn’t necessarily rule out a burglary gone wrong because the suspect would have no doubt fled the scene empty handed after the shooting. If theft had been the plan, of course.

  Two of her nearest neighbours reported hearing a shotgun blast at around 6.30 p.m. One said it was just before and one just after but there was unlikely to be anything sinister in that. Both said it was not unusual to hear gunfire at or around dusk, with people out ‘lamping’ for rabbits. Dixon checked the date. The murder took place on Friday 25 March 1994 and so it would have been just before the clocks went forward for British Summer Time. A quick search of the Internet confirmed that sunset would have been at 6.20 p.m. or so.

  Otherwise, Mrs Gibson kept herself to herself, had no living relatives, rarely had any visitors and spent most of her time looking after her two Shetland ponies. Dixon was pleased to note that they had been taken in by Horseworld, or the Friends of Bristol Horses as it then was.

  The two witnesses, Albert Higgins and Sonia Spencer, still lived in Muchelney and readily agreed to meet with Dixon after Christmas to go over their witness statements yet again. They had been expecting a call, they said, it being common knowledge that the case had been reopened. Dixon thought about his visit to Muchelney the previous Thursday. As well as a village rumour mill, there also appeared to be a very effective grapevine.

  Forensic evidence was non-existent and it was obvious that no suspect had ever been identified. The investigation had lacked any clear direction from the start.

  ‘And still does,’ muttered Dixon, dropping the file back into the box.

  He checked the time. It was almost 4 p.m., giving him just enough time to get home and take Monty for a walk before it got pitch dark.

  Dixon was lying in bed trying to work out what Wendy Gibson’s killer had been intending when he or she went to Stickland Barn on that rainy afternoon in March 1994. Had they been intending to commit a burglary or a murder? The original investigation had not arrived at a conclusion either way,
nor had any subsequent review, although the assumption had always been that it was a burglary gone wrong.

  He was also wondering whether Jane could cook anything else apart from spaghetti bolognese. It was lovely, as it had been last time and the time before that, but he hoped her repertoire extended to roast turkey, because his certainly didn’t. Still, there was always Google.

  He was listening to the sound of Monty snoring in his bed on the floor next to him when the mobile phone rang on Jane’s bedside table.

  ‘What time is it?’ asked Jane, from under the duvet.

  ‘Sevenish,’ replied Dixon.

  Jane sat up and picked up her phone.

  ‘Jane Winter . . . you are kidding me? It’s Christmas Eve . . . who is it? . . . yes, yes, I’m on my way.’

  She rang off and dropped the phone onto the bed.

  ‘Gotta go. Sorry.’

  ‘What is it?’ asked Dixon.

  ‘We’ve got a body,’ replied Jane, swinging her legs out of the bed and sitting up.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Northmoor Green. A cottage down by the river. Multiple stab wounds.’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Elizabeth Perry.’

  ‘Not Tom Perry’s wife?’

  Jane turned to look at Dixon and sighed.

  ‘Tom Perry’s pregnant wife.’

  Chapter Three

  It was still dark when Jane turned into the staff car park at Express Park in her brand new red VW Golf. The insurance company had been surprisingly generous with the settlement on her old one and a loan had topped it up. Still, she could afford it, or at least she would be able to now that she had found a tenant for her flat.

  She waved her pass in front of the sensor and looked up at the station while she waited for the huge steel gates to open. All concrete and glass, Nick had said, and he was right. Lights were on everywhere and most of the workstations on the first floor, visible through the vast windows, were occupied. She recognised Detective Constables Dave Harding and Mark Pearce sitting at computers. And the unmistakeable figure of Detective Sergeant Harry Unwin, standing with his back to the windows, a mug of coffee in his hand.

  She remembered Dixon pinning Harry by the throat to the vending machine in the CID Room at the old Bridgwater Police Station only a few short weeks ago. Harry was not to be trusted, if Dixon was right. And he usually was.