by Iain Cameron
He heard a car draw up outside and after shouting a loud ‘goodbye’ to his wife walked out into a frost-tinted night. He lived in a smart part of Hove, his neighbours’ driveways cluttered with up-market German marques: Audis, Mercedes and BMWs. One of the rewards for being one of Brighton’s biggest drug dealers. McKinney’s own set of wheels, a black Chevrolet Camaro with a red lightning stripe, stuck out like a monk at an atheist convention.
‘Evening Charlie,’ McKinney said smiling, the result of an earlier snort of coke and not the natural bonhomie of an easy-going character.
‘You still driving this heap? The neighbours will stop talking to me.’
‘It’s a collector’s piece, and anyway, you said yourself, you don’t like your neighbours.’
‘I didn’t say that, ya prick. I said, some of them get up my nose. There’s a difference.’
McQueen still spoke with a Scottish accent that became more pronounced when it suited him or whenever he got drunk. It was useful when buying dope from Russians and Bulgarians as it made him sound hard and similar to them. No matter where his suppliers came from, they could all relate to a minority being oppressed by a larger neighbour. In their case, the oppression was real as several came from poor areas of the Ukraine, Iraq and Afghanistan, but he was faking it. He’d left Glasgow at the age of eight and had lived in Sussex many more years than Scotland, but the accent had been useful at boarding school and it was useful now.
Charlie McQueen owned a number of buildings dotted around Sussex. Some were labs making crack-cocaine, spice, and growing cannabis, while others were simply warehouses where he stored drugs which had been bought in bulk. No one in his organisation knew all his suppliers: McKinney knew a couple, Rick knew a few, but only McQueen knew the lot. If one of his crew wanted to take over and tried to kill him, or ratted on him to the law, they wouldn’t even have half of the business that he had now.
This was another reason he didn’t want McKinney driving him tonight, it could add another location to the Irishman’s repertoire. McQueen didn’t programme the car’s satnav and so avoided leaving an accessible record, plus he took him on a circuitous route. The sap’s head was so coked, he probably wouldn’t remember where he’d been.
Outside a hamlet called Brook Street, they turned up a farm track. In the daylight, visitors could see a rusty sign beside the gate indicating Ratner’s Farm, but at night, no chance. He was renting a barn from Gabriel Ratner, a cereal farmer whose family had owned the land since the 1820s. This wasn’t a case, popularised in newspapers, of a poor farmer having to dream up new ways of making a shilling due to falling prices, or the vagaries of the British summer.
Ratner made his fortune by anticipating cereal market changes with a high degree of accuracy. He did this by keeping a close eye on dieting, fitness and celebrity magazines and making extensive use of social media. He then grew crops demanded by the changing tastes of a fickle public. Nor did he mind renting his barn to a well-known drug dealer, as Ratner had been a customer of McQueen’s for many years.
The barn lay some distance from the cluster of farm buildings making up Ratner’s Farm. This suited McQueen fine as even though he didn’t fear interference from the farmer, it stopped nosey visitors from taking too close an interest. It wasn’t a working lab so people didn’t come and go every day.
Instead, when a consignment arrived, like the one Rick was checking on tonight, they delivered it here and, now and again, one of his guys would show up and remove some bags. They would be taken to one of his labs in Brighton where heroin and coke would be doctored with a similar looking powder to reduce its potency. It wasn’t good for business to kill his customers.
He got out of the car and without another word to McKinney, walked over to the barn and opened up. Switching on the lights was squeaky-bum time, the fear of finding the shelves stripped clean by rivals or, as happened to another storage facility, an infestation of vermin. A colony of rats had got in and ripped open bags of cocaine, scattering the contents over the floor before dropping dead from ingesting huge quantities of the product.
The barn hadn’t changed from his last visit. The floor area had been fitted with several lines of heavy-duty metal racking. The first sets of racks, the ones to catch the eye of an intruder or a farming inspector, contained bags of nitrate fertiliser. They effectively screened the bags behind it, sealed inside plastic storage bins.
McQueen walked inside, casting an expert eye along the shelves, looking for the slightest anomaly. Finding none, he called McKinney over.
‘Shift these boxes up there,’ he said pointing, ‘and I’ll do the same on the other side. The consignment Rick is bringing in tonight needs a lot of space.’
He would shut up now, he’d told McKinney enough, but by the faraway look on the daft bastard’s fizzer, he could have told him they were in Homebase and he would believe it.
It took no more than five minutes to tidy things up and he was sure they’d made enough room for Rick. He took a final look round and walked to the door. McKinney was already outside, drawing on a fag as if it was his last. McQueen wouldn’t let anyone smoke in the same room as the product. He killed the light and locked the door.
It was a fine, clear night and if not so bitterly cold, he might have stopped for a moment to look at the stars. Few subjects at school grabbed his interest but astronomy did, and the school he attended not only had a dedicated club but a decent telescope too. Initially, he did it to get away from the Hooray Henrys in the dorm, talking about their rugby prowess and the number of runs they scored in cricket, but in time, he fell in love with the subject.
At home in Shirley Drive, he had installed a telescope in the attic and frequently went up there to stare at the tails of comets and gaze at the International Space Station. The calm of the night was interrupted when McKinney started the Camaro, a rough animal noise akin to a belch from a hippopotamus. He’d never been a flashy driver, preferring an anonymous 4x4 when he could legally drive. He equated his position to that of a lottery winner, it was fine that his fortuitous circumstances were known to those he worked with, but make it public and every Tom would start sending him begging letters.
He got in the car and closed the door. They’d only been in the barn for less than ten minutes so the car was still warm inside, good job as he’d only worn a light jacket this evening and the short walk from the storage facility to the car left him shivering.
They drove back through the untidy array of farm buildings, out to the road and headed back to Brighton. He didn’t know what made him look back, a noise maybe, a premonition, but he did, and saw two black 4x4s turning into the farm. They turned fast and something told him they weren’t being driven by a team of silage experts from the Ministry of Agriculture.
‘Stop the car!’
‘What?’
‘Pull in up there and turn around. We’re going back to the farm.’
McKinney did as he asked. ‘Why, have you left your phone behind or something?’
‘Didn’t you see?’ He knew as soon as he’d said it he was wasting his breath. McKinney could only see enough to drive him here and back to Brighton. He didn’t look in his rear-view mirror and his peripheral vision was non-existent.
‘No, what?’
‘Two cars, big 4x4s, just turned into the farm. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.’
They headed back to the farm. McKinney hadn’t said a word since being told, clearly the words didn’t make sense or he was taking his time processing such a large amount of information. In five minutes’ time the penny might drop.
‘Don’t drive to the barn, park your car up there. Keep it out of sight.’
‘It’s bloody miles to the barn from here.’
‘Don’t talk crap. It’s no more than three hundred metres. In fact, it would be better if you stay here and watch the car.’
‘What? I wanna come, see what’s going on.’
‘No, you don’t. If this is what I think it is, you’ll onl
y be a fucking liability. Stay here.’
McQueen strode off along the rough road leading to the barn. He pulled out the gun from his waistband and made sure it was ready to fire.
When he caught sight of the barn he moved off the track and did a wide semicircle towards it. On reaching the far side, away from the 4x4s parked outside, he couldn’t see what was going on. Whoever was in the barn hadn’t switched on the lights. He could hear activity going on. Bang-bang-bang. They were in there with hammers or baseball bats, smashing the place up. The bastards.
He approached the intruder’s cars. He couldn’t take on six or eight heavies with only one gun, but he could make it difficult for them to get home. He lay on the grass and fired a succession of shots at the large tyres on the nearest Mercedes. He hit a couple, but just then, someone he didn’t notice standing close to the cars, opened up with what sounded like a Mac or Uzi sub-machine pistol. Fucking hell! He looked around but there wasn’t a whole lot of cover to hide behind. Luckily the shooter mistook the location of his shots and was firing at an area over to his right.
He needed to get out of there fast before the wreckers came out of the barn and came looking for him. He got up and ran, increasing the distance between him and the track. He heard another burst of fire, but the shooter was firing blind. In any case, he believed he would be out of range of the short-barrelled weapon, but no way did he want to test his hypothesis.
He heard voices behind him, Russian, but didn’t yet hear the sound of their undamaged vehicle’s engine starting up. He ran and ran and when nearly at the farm buildings, ventured a look back. Not content with smashing up the inside of his storage facility, the barn that contained some three or four million pounds’ worth of product was now engulfed in flames. Now he heard one of the Mercedes cars start up.
He reached the Camaro and hauled the door open, startling McKinney who looked to have been snoozing.
‘Drive!’ he shouted.
‘What?’
‘Drive the fucking car.’
‘Are we in a hurry or something?’
‘McKinney, if you don’t drive this fucking car right now, so help me, I’ll stick this gun right up your arse and pull the trigger.’
TWELVE
‘You’re a difficult man to track down, Mr Harrison,’ DS Walters said.
‘Am I?’
‘It took several calls before you answered your phone and you don’t reply to messages. How do you run a business if you don’t answer your phone? I might have been a new customer with a big job for you.’
He shrugged. ‘It’s hard for me to take on any more business at the moment. I’m almost full time with one client.’
Sitting across from DS Walters and DC Seb Young in an interview room at Malling House was Mike Harrison. A building handyman, he was a former boyfriend of Cindy Longhurst and, according to Annie Heath, one she couldn’t shake off.
‘We’re members of the team investigating the murder of Cindy Longhurst.’
He nodded but didn’t show any emotion. Walters imagined any boyfriend of Cindy’s to be youthful, handsome with sensual eyes and a cheeky smile, but Harrison looked age-ravaged, with thinning hair, a wrinkled face and a pallor not far from sickly. She knew he was forty-four but he looked several years older.
‘How did you two meet?’
‘Let me think. I was doing some work for this big client I was telling you about when she turned up at the house. He’d spent a lot of money re-modelling the house and wanted professional pictures done.’
‘Who’s the client?’
‘Constantin Petrescu at Hillcrest House.’
‘Why was Cindy there?’ Young asked.
‘I don’t know, to take pictures of the house and family. The usual stuff.’
‘What happened between you and Cindy?’
‘We got talking and I asked her out.’ He paused a moment or two for effect, but he was a crap actor. ‘No, I should have said, I didn’t ask her out, she asked me.’
Curious, Walters thought. Harrison didn’t look a catch in her eyes, but friends and colleagues often accused her of being too fussy.
‘How long did the two of you go out together?’
‘About three months, I think.’
‘How would you describe your relationship?’
He looked thoughtful, perhaps wondering how to position this to stop the detectives asking the obvious. ‘Good I would say. I was sorry when we split up.’
‘You were more cut-up than you’re suggesting, Mr Harrison. According to reports, you wouldn’t leave her alone. You turned up at her studio unannounced and bombarded her with texts.’
‘Hold on a minute. Don’t bloody accuse me of bombarding her with anything. We broke up and I wasn’t happy about it. So what? I wanted her back, there you go, I admit it.’
‘No need to raise your voice, sir. Annie Heath told us–’
‘Annie Heath? She’s an interfering busybody. She tried to put the boot into our relationship right from the start, telling Cindy I was no good and all that crap.’
‘Why would she say that?’
‘Because she doesn’t fucking like me. Does she need another excuse?’
At this point, Walters would often step in and tell the witness or suspect to calm down. It appeared as though he’d moved beyond the point of thinking straight, but Harrison seemed like one of those people who were born angry.
‘I assume Cindy finished with you and not the other way round?’ Young asked.
‘I can see why they made you a detective, son. Why would I hassle her if it was me who told her to bugger off?’
‘Maybe you’d made an error of judgement and you regretted it later.’
‘There was no error of judgement, mate. When she decided to finish with me, bang,’ he said, thumping the edge of his hand on the table, ‘decision made. I got the proverbial boot in the arse.’
‘Where were you on the night Cindy was kidnapped?’ Walters asked.
‘Which night are we talking about?’
‘Friday, twenty-sixth of January.’
‘On Friday, any Friday I stop work at five and drive to my local boozer for a few jars until seven. I then buy a Chinese or tandoori on the way back to my house and watch telly until eleven.’
‘Which pub is your local?’
‘The County Oak in Patcham.’
‘Can anyone vouch for your presence there?’
‘Sure. I meet my mates, Trevor Stevens and Billy Sinclair on Friday nights and we play a bit of pool, but why would you think I kidnapped Cindy and killed her? I loved her for christsakes. We had a good thing going.’
‘It could be your revenge for her dumping you,’ Young said.
‘You’re pulling my chain, pal. Why would I? And where would somebody like me get a gun? I wouldn’t know how to use one. I’d probably blow my foot off trying to figure it out.’
‘You must come into contact with a lot of people in your business. One of them could find you a gun, I’m sure.’
‘You guys don’t have a clue who killed her, if you did, you wouldn’t be talking to me. Did Annie Heath see me anywhere near the studio? No. Did Cindy call out my name when she was being dragged out to the kidnapper’s car? No. And let me tell you, the essential word there is ‘drag.’ Cindy wouldn’t go down without a fight, not Cindy. The answer to all those questions is no because I wasn’t there.’
‘Where do you live, Mr Harrison?’
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘Just answer the question.’
‘Up the road from the County Oak pub in Patcham.’
‘In a house or a flat?’
‘A semi-detached house.’ He smiled but without humour. ‘I know where you’re going with this, but let me tell you, if I brought a screaming and kicking Cindy Longhurst back to my house, even in the middle of the night, my fucking nosy next-door neighbour would recognise her and call you lot. Her picture’s been in all the papers, even in the rag that old bitch re
ads.’
‘Where do you keep all the materials for your work?’
‘I’ve got a shed out back and, before you ask, it’s filled with plasterboard, wood, paint and bags of cement. You couldn’t swing a cat in there never mind hide a grown woman.’
**
‘What you’re saying is it doesn’t sound like Harrison is someone we need to put under surveillance,’ Henderson said, looking at DS Walters and DC Young across the meeting room table.
‘Nope, he’s loud and full of bluster,’ Walters said, ‘but underneath it all, I think he was hurt when she gave him the old heave-ho.’
‘Nevertheless, follow up his alibi and talk to his two mates in the pub. I don’t often like to rely on pub alibis, but as this one is early evening there’s a chance their memories will be a bit more intact.’
‘Will do.’
‘The thing I don’t see, based on your and Seb’s description of the man, is what she saw in him in the first place. He’s a tradesman, not very bright by the sound of it and not committed to any of her causes. Added to the mix, it appears he’s also got some anger management issues.’
‘Maybe she likes a challenge. Greg her ex, didn’t strike me as her type either.’
‘Greg’s different. They got together when they were both young and he kept up with her at the time. When he got older, he wanted a quieter life but she didn’t. Harrison, by way of contrast, looks, maybe not a loser, but a poor bet right from the off.’
‘You’re right,’ Seb Young said, ‘they do appear mismatched, down to their standards of dress. Cindy, in pictures, always looks smart, her hair regularly cut and styled and make-up deftly applied. He, on the other hand, still looks like a tradesman despite not wearing his work clothes.’
‘Could it be,’ Henderson said, ‘Cindy teamed up with him for a specific purpose and when she’d achieved it, let him go? Don’t forget her high moral compass and support for the underdog. Maybe he had something she wanted and perhaps when she got it, the sudden termination of the relationship caught him off guard and part-way explains his subsequent reaction.’