Another Good Killing

by Stephen Puleston

  ‘There’s one particular programme where he appears in a discussion about the banking sector. There was one of those anti-capitalist protesters taking part. Dolman treated him like a piece of dirt, demolished every argument that he had. Made the man look a complete idiot.’

  ‘Are you suggesting…?’

  Lydia shrugged.

  ‘Send me the links.’

  She left my room and moments later, I clicked onto the video showing Dolman in a studio defending the banking sector. Dolman was wearing a dark navy suit and a pale blue tie, the sort favoured by politicians. Jamie Henson was introduced as a spokesperson from the Wales Against Poverty action group. He looked uncomfortable in his ill-fitting sweater and unkempt beard. A sharp-suited financial journalist completed the line-up; he had a confident swagger, even sitting down. Dolman goaded Henson remorselessly as the discussion developed. The presenter tried to sound neutral but struggled to keep Henson from shouting and when he accused other members of the panel of being banking sympathisers because they didn’t agree with him there was an embarrassing silence and averted glances before the programme finished.

  I froze the screen and stared at Henson wondering what exactly he hoped to achieve. I turned my attention to Dolman’s diary and his papers, thinking vaguely that I had had enough of sitting behind my desk for one day. There were regular appointments at the Racquets Club but no details of who might be his playing partner. I rang Ann Roberts again and she gave me a list of names.

  ‘Alan Turner was one of his regular partners,’ she said.

  I fumbled through the papers and found the contact telephone number. A silky voice at the management consultancy he ran told me that Mr Turner was at the Racquets Club. It was time to see for myself what a ‘real tennis’ court looked like.

  ‘Lydia,’ I shouted before hearing her chair moving in the Incident Room. ‘Something we need to do.’

  Chapter 6

  A mile outside Cowbridge a small sign on the entrance of a lane announced the location of the Vale of Glamorgan Racquets Club. I slowed the car and indicated before turning left up the drive lined with silver birch and well-kept shrubbery. The tarmac in the car park looked newly laid and thick white lines marked the edge of each delineated parking space. Lydia was still reading the various sheets of Dolman’s diary as I finally parked my Ford Mondeo alongside a gleaming Series 6 BMW.

  The main building nearby had grand columns either side of the main entrance door and Georgian windows that looked recently painted. A brass plaque shone by the front door that opened effortlessly.

  My brogues clattered on the wooden flooring as I stepped towards a door, slightly ajar, with a sign saying ‘members only’. I peered into a large room filled with chesterfield sofas. Down the hallway, I heard voices and we walked down a corridor lined this time with old maps in heavy frames. Beyond a door, that had ‘secretary’ printed in black letters, a radio played some classical music so I pushed it open, Lydia following close behind me.

  A man sitting by a desk gazed at us over the top of reading glasses. ‘How can I help?’

  I held out my warrant card. ‘Detective Inspector Marco and Detective Sergeant Flint. I’m looking for Mr Alan Turner.’

  He stared at the card and then me before giving Lydia the same treatment. Then he switched off the radio.

  ‘I’m the club steward Philip Rees. I think Mr Turner is on court. Please come with me.’

  He led us through into a corridor lined with windows. It was cooler than the rest of the building and through the glass we could see two men in white shorts and matching tennis shirts: both ignored us.

  ‘This is the spectators’ gallery,’ Rees said. ‘The game is almost finished. I’ll leave a message for Mr Turner.’

  He left us and we stepped towards the glass. There was a clattering sound as the ball crashed against the roof.

  ‘I thought tennis was what they played at Wimbledon,’ Lydia said.

  ‘Apparently that is lawn tennis. Whereas this is the ‘game of Kings’. I did a Wikipedia search before leaving Queen Street.’

  Lydia nodded. ‘Looks a bit like squash.’

  ‘For posh people.’

  We watched them for another ten minutes until the players gathered their equipment and left through a doorway at the far end. Behind us there was a board explaining the basic rules of real tennis. I started to read but the complexities soon confused me. One of the men we had seen playing strolled into the gallery, still in his sports clothes, a bead of perspiration on his forehead.

  ‘Inspector Marco, good afternoon. Alan Turner.’ He held out a hand. He had a brisk forceful handshake. He had intense brown eyes that clear rimless glasses did nothing to hide. A small paunch strained at the waist of his shorts but otherwise he looked fit and young for a man who must have been in his sixties.

  ‘This is Detective Sergeant Lydia Flint,’ I said.

  He repeated his handshake and then said abruptly, ‘Follow me.’

  He led us into a small room lined with more ageing chesterfields. Moments later Rees entered with a jug of water and three glasses on a tray. Turner pointed towards the sofas.

  ‘I understand you knew Matthew Dolman,’ I said.

  Turner nodded, enthusiastically. ‘He was a good friend of mine. His murder is shocking. Awful.’

  Turner filled three glasses and took a long swig before sitting down.

  ‘Can you think of anyone who would want to kill him?’

  ‘I know he had received death threats in the past few months. But he had pretty much ignored them.’

  He finished half of his glass as Lydia reached for hers.

  ‘You played tennis with him every week,’ Lydia said, peering at the printed pages of Dolman’s diary.

  ‘We played every Tuesday after work.’

  ‘He’s got a diary entry here for Friday lunchtime. It says VRC. And it looks to be every Friday for the past few months.’

  Turner managed a brief conspiratorial smile. ‘That was Deborah.’

  ‘Is that one of the players?’ I said.

  Turner snorted. ‘You might say that. But it wasn’t on the tennis or squash courts here. She was his mistress.’

  ‘Mistress?’ Lydia said. ‘That’s a bit old-fashioned isn’t it?’

  Lydia was right and it made me realise that in the world of banking and serious money things were different.

  ‘Girlfriend then,’ Turner shrugged. ‘He saw her most Fridays.’

  ‘Why put down that he was playing tennis?’ I said.

  ‘I don’t know. Appearances I suppose.’

  ‘But he and his wife lived separate lives anyway.’ Lydia raised her voice.

  I reached over for the remaining glass of water. ‘I understand you worked with him on various transactions.’

  Turner managed a long slow drink of water. ‘We did a lot of work together. Are you thinking his death is linked to recent deals?’ His tone was slow, measured, quite different from the earlier exchanges.

  ‘What were the recent deals you were working on?’ I said.

  I could see Turner thinking, calculating what exactly I knew about Dolman’s business. Was he thinking he could lie?

  ‘There was a case involving Stanway Engineering that the bank had to put into receivership. But I can’t think that anybody involved would want to see Matthew dead.’

  ‘And what exactly do you do Mr Turner?’ Lydia asked.

  Turner sat back in his chair and crossed one foot over the opposite knee. He drew a finger over his forehead before tugging at his nose. ‘I help make things happen.’

  *

  ‘He helps make things happen,’ Lydia said, curling up her lip.

  Sitting in my office the radiator behind me imitated my stomach after a hot Indian curry. Rattling the thermostat made little difference and it kept on gurgling.

  ‘He was a dinosaur.’ Lydia continued as I sat back in my chair.

  ‘At least we know that Matthew Dolman played away from home.’r />
  ‘I hate footballing metaphors.’

  Perhaps it was not the best choice of words I decided. I ran my fingers over Turner’s business card on which he had written Deborah Bowen’s contact details. This time I recognised the name. She was a journalist with the Western Mail, the only newspaper that claimed to have an exclusively Welsh viewpoint.

  ‘And did you see the way Turner was calculating his answers?’

  Before I had time to reply, I saw Dave Hobbs standing by the door of my office. He was wearing one of his grey suits. I was convinced that he had several, each reflecting a subtle shade of his greyness. He had one of those light blue shirts that could look inexpensive but probably cost a fortune, and a dark navy tie.

  Lydia noticed him too. ‘Good evening, Inspector.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re in the middle of an important conversation,’ Hobbs said.

  ‘Come in, Dave,’ I said, trying the casual approach. ‘I’m sorry I missed the rest of your seminar. Perhaps you can send me an executive summary. I can work out the rest.’

  Hobbs twitched his lips. Then he looked down at Lydia. ‘Inspector Marco and I need to have a word.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said getting up.

  For a short man Dave Hobbs looked a lot taller sitting down. Perhaps he had short legs; I hadn’t really noticed. He stuck out his jaw and rolled his head around a couple of times.

  ‘I hear you’re investigating the Matthew Dolman murder.’

  ‘We’ll have it wrapped up pretty quickly. Did you meet him?’

  Hobbs narrowed his eyes and I saw him draw his tongue over his thin lips.

  ‘There was nothing to those death threats.’

  ‘Really?’ I tried to sound nonchalant.

  ‘I passed them through the usual channels of course. Forensics drew a blank. And Superintendent Pearson didn’t want me to follow it up. He told me that it wasn’t an adequate use of police resources.’

  Now I knew why Hobbs was sitting in the visitor’s chair in my room. Guessing that I would seize the opportunity to criticise him for some inactivity about the death threats, he had come to gloat. It looked like yet another day whereby Dave Hobbs could seem Teflon-coated and all the shit we faced as police officers would just glide off him.

  Behind him, I heard the telephone ring on Lydia’s desk.

  ‘Can you send me a full report?’ I said through gritted teeth, knowing it was the sort of bureaucratic reply Dave Hobbs would enjoy.

  A moment later, I heard Lydia’s raised voice. ‘Jesus Christ.’

  And then her shout. ‘You need to see this, sir.’

  I kicked back the chair and it banged against the radiator. Hobbs was in front of me as we strode out into the Incident Room and gathered over Lydia.

  ‘Operational support sent me this link to a video on the internet.’

  She double-clicked on the link and the words Bankers – Greedy Bastards filled the screen. I stared down as the title disappeared and the screen filled with two people who started a rant about the price the bankers had to pay for the pain that society had endured. The voices were disguised; it was even difficult to tell their gender.

  ‘When was this posted?’ I said.

  ‘Don’t know, boss.’

  ‘We need to find out. Now.’

  Hobbs said something quietly under his breath. I looked over at him – he was chewing his lip. ‘This changes everything,’ he said.

  ‘This is going to create so much crap…’ But before I could continue the mobile in my pocket rang. I recognised Superintendent Cornock’s number.

  ‘Have you seen the internet?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Get over here.’

  Chapter 7

  I tapped the door to Superintendent Cornock’s office and deliberately pushed it open without waiting for an invitation. Cornock was fiddling with the power cable of a laptop on the conference table.

  ‘Sit down, John.’ He waved a hand to one of the chairs.

  Then he clicked the laptop into life and the screen filled with the same image that I had seen moments earlier. We watched in silence the initial announcement that all bankers were greedy bastards and that the reluctance of politicians to put things right meant that something had to be done.

  The arguments sounded so plausible. They had all the statistics about the number of people who had lost their jobs because of the banking crisis, the number of people made homeless, the public services cut to meet the cost of the bank bailouts, and the impact the subsequent recession had had on the health service. And everything could be directly blamed on the greed of bankers. Some electronic device had been used to filter the voices of both narrators. I strained to identify whether they were male or female.

  ‘We need to find these people,’ Cornock said. ‘We have had the press on the telephone already.’

  Cornock switched off the laptop images.

  ‘I have made arrangements for you to be briefed by special branch.’ He drummed the fingers of his right hand on the table.

  ‘When?’

  The superintendent looked at his watch. ‘In half an hour.’

  The urgency in his voice meant the senior officers of Southern Division of the Wales Police Service were taking this seriously.

  ‘I’ll also need to see the full report about the previous death threats that Matthew Dolman received.’

  Cornock gave me a dull look. ‘There was a full forensics examination of those letters.’

  ‘Was there anything positive?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘How did Matthew Dolman react?’

  ‘At the time he wanted to ignore them. Didn’t believe they posed a threat.’ Cornock closed the cover of the laptop. ‘There will be a press conference sometime tomorrow. Keep me informed, John.’

  I pulled the door closed behind me and retraced my steps to my office. Lydia was still at her desk but she gave me a worried look and darted a glance towards my door. My mobile bleeped as a message arrived: a reminder from my mother to call Jackie and, irritated by her interference, I kicked open the door of my room.

  Both visitor chairs were occupied.

  ‘Good afternoon, John. Sergeant David Pack and Constable Jo Francis. You’re expecting us.’

  I out-ranked both of them and their informality rankled.

  ‘You’re going to share intelligence about these anti-capitalist groups?’

  ‘We’ve got a specialised team looking at the video at the moment.’ Pack did all the talking. The constable by his side just nodded occasionally.

  ‘I was told you might have some useful intelligence.’

  Pack rolled his eyes. ‘We know of two groups of agitators in South Wales. We wouldn’t have put any of them into the category of being capable of murder.’

  ‘Does one of them include Jamie Henson who appeared on the same television programme as Dolman?’

  Pack nodded slowly. ‘He is known to us.’

  Pack leant over my desk and pushed a folder towards me. ‘There are some contact names of known protesters. Others of interest and left-wing nutcases.’

  Pack and the constable stood up. ‘Thanks for your time, John. Please keep us informed of any developments.’

  ‘And I’m sure you’ll do likewise.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Pack at least managed a degree of sincerity in his handshake. I watched as they smiled at Lydia before marching out of the Incident Room. Moments later, she stood in the doorway. ‘I take it they were special branch.’

  I nodded and pushed up the sleeve of my shirt before reading the time – it was almost eight pm. The second full day of the murder inquiry had passed too quickly. ‘I didn’t think you’d still be here.’

  ‘They arrived just as I was preparing to leave. Did they have anything helpful?’

  I nodded towards the folder on my desk. ‘Some background on extremists.’

  ‘Do you want me to get started?’

  ‘Tomorrow.’

  Lydia
’s face brightened. We walked down to the car park together. When I was still drinking, an invitation for her to join me in the pub would have been second nature – relaxing after work. But all too soon I’d have drunk enough to blot out work completely. The smell of the spices from the takeaways and restaurants filtered through the air as I walked over to my car. There was cumin and coriander and if I was working a nightshift the noise from the open windows would fill the air with the smell of frying food, all typical of Cardiff city centre.

  I pressed the remote but nothing happened. I squeezed a second time, again no response. Cursing that the battery must have died I opened the car manually. It was a short journey to my apartment block and soon enough I was fiddling with the key for my front door. I thought about my mother’s message and realised that I really did not want her calling tomorrow. I had to scramble through a drawer for my address book before finding Jackie’s landline number. It rang out three times before I heard her voice.

  ‘Hello, John.’ She sounded tentative.

  ‘I was wondering…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘My parents have bought a caravan in Tenby. They’ve arranged to spend a week there at Easter. I was hoping that Dean might come with us.’

  I was expecting a liturgy of questions designed to maximise my guilt and her criticism of the frequency of my contact with Dean.

  ‘When is that?’ The simplicity of her reply surprised me.

  ‘In six weeks.’ I gave her the dates. There was silence at the end of the phone. ‘Are you and…’ Then a blank spot hit me when I realised I couldn’t remember the name of her husband. ‘As a family, I mean, are you going away?’

  ‘We don’t have any plans. What do you suggest?’

  It made a welcome change to have a telephone conversation that was constructive and helpful. ‘I can come and collect Dean and then bring him home after the bank holiday. The campsite has got a new swimming pool apparently,’ I added, hoping it would be persuasive enough for her to agree.

  ‘It should be all right. Let me think about it. I’ll talk to Dean tomorrow.’

  She rang off and I stood in the kitchen thinking that she didn’t sound like the competent no-nonsense Jackie that I was accustomed to. We had split up after one evening when I had arrived home in the early hours after visiting various bars in the city. Unable to stand straight I vomited all over the hallway and then over the bathroom. I didn’t believe her at first the following morning but then she showed me the photographs. I had crossed a red line, one that she had drawn in our relationship before and that I had ignored. Later that week she moved out with Dean.