by Damien Boyd
Three missed calls and two text messages, the first of which came from Roger Poland.
Definitely Steiner’s handiwork between 8 and 10 last night. Report to follow
The second came from Dave Harding, who had also been responsible for two of the missed calls.
Nothing exciting in her belongings. Car found and on way to Scientific. No sign of Steiner yet
The other missed call had come from Deborah Potter, no doubt having her ear bent by Chard. She hadn’t left a message and her car was in the car park, which was ominous.
‘Find Stella’s ex-husband, will you, Lou?’ asked Dixon, when the lift doors closed behind them.
‘Isn’t that Chard’s case?’
‘He’s Amy’s stepfather, isn’t he? Or was anyway. And you may find there’s a first husband too, given that Amy has a different surname.’
‘Hayward could be her maiden name.’
‘Just check.’
‘Won’t we be treading on Chard’s toes?’
‘Stamping on them,’ replied Dixon, stepping out of the lift.
Potter’s team had started with the Agard employees, Amy’s work colleagues, and Dixon spent the next half an hour scrolling through their handwritten witness statements which had already been scanned on to the system.
No one had seen or heard anything, nor had Amy mentioned anything unusual.
Brilliant.
Swabs were being taken for the DNA screening, looking for a match with the many samples of Steiner’s DNA that were available, but that was now expected to take ninety-six hours, no doubt triggering more reminders from EDF that the shutdown was costing them millions. Still, that was Potter’s problem.
An email from Scientific Services attached a selection of photographs of Amy’s room in the accommodation block. It looked much like her room at home; a little more sparse, perhaps, and Blu-Tack was allowed: more snorkelling pictures and a couple of her brother on a beach somewhere, a surfboard tucked under his arm.
No pictures of her mother anywhere; or her father for that matter.
‘There’s nothing in her car, Sir,’ said Pearce, his head popping up from behind the computer screen opposite. ‘That’s just a preliminary search, mind you.’
‘What about her phone?’
‘She’s got a contract with EE but it’s dead. No trace.’
‘Anything on social media?’
‘Not really. She posted the odd photo on Instagram, but that was work related stuff. Nothing on Facebook.’
‘She was spotted leaving her mother’s a couple of weeks ago with a blue carrier bag.’ Dixon raised his eyebrows. ‘The witness thinks it was blue anyway.’
‘No sign of it, Sir.’
‘What about the bitcoin?’
‘Brick wall. There’s a unique twelve word passphrase just to get to the pin number screen, then it’s got two factor authentication, so they text you another code to enter. We’d need Steiner’s mobile phone.’
The Incident Room upstairs was empty, the whiteboard still on the wall. It would make a poor substitute for a walk on the beach with Monty. That was usually when he did his best thinking, but it would have to do.
Dixon stuck a photofit of Steiner in the middle, the one with the beard and hair. Underneath it he wrote the word ‘bitcoin’ with a big red circle around it, and drew a line connecting the two, a large question mark either side of the line. Then a picture of Amy Crook, connected to Steiner with another red line. The word ‘WHY?’ next to it.
Finally, a photograph of her mother, Stella, connected to Amy with a solid red line, and then to Steiner with a dotted line.
‘What are you doing?’ asked Jane, appearing behind him.
‘Trying to focus on what I do know, rather than what I don’t.’
‘Bugger all, by the looks of things.’ She sat down on the edge of the table.
‘Steiner’s got bitcoin in that online wallet.’ Dixon tapped the whiteboard with his marker pen. ‘So, either he’s been paid it, possibly for killing Amy, or he’s using it to try to bribe his way out.’
‘Or both.’
‘Quite.’
‘D’you think he killed Stella?’
‘He was accessing the internet at Groom’s Cottage the night she disappeared, so it’s unlikely. What it does tell us is that Amy was targeted by Steiner. We can safely rule out anything random about her killing. That really would be too much of a coincidence. Mother and daughter within weeks of each other?’
‘Where does that leave you with Chard?’
‘Trying to fill in the gaps in his investigation.’
‘I’m surprised you didn’t swing for him.’
‘You’d have been proud of me,’ said Dixon, smiling. ‘I spent most of the time counting to ten.’
Chapter Fourteen
Potter had finally caught up with Dixon in the canteen, the encounter going surprisingly well. First and foremost, she had agreed that there could be nothing random about the killing of Amy and the probable killing of her mother.
‘Work around him,’ she had said of Chard. ‘He means well, he’s just a bit . . .’ Her voice had tailed off, leaving Dixon resisting the temptation to finish her sentence for her.
HPC was still off limits to him, and would remain so until Steiner was in custody. Movement on the roads was being monitored using HPC’s delivery management system and the perimeter covered by CCTV twenty-four hours a day. All shipping had been stopped. It was just a matter of time; expensive time – Pickles rang again while Potter had been talking to Dixon.
There were even dog patrols on the beach. ‘You could have been a dog handler,’ Potter had said, spotting the look on Dixon’s face.
‘I don’t think Monty’s quite cut out for that,’ had been his reply.
Resources were tight, the DNA screening accounting for a substantial portion of Charlesworth’s budget. At best it would identify Steiner; at worst it would flush him out as the net closed around him. And doing so would lead them to whoever had been helping him.
In the meantime, surveillance on Steiner’s sister would continue.
The meeting had only been interrupted by a call from the custody suite. Louise had come running in. A protestor had assaulted a police officer with his placard at the gates of HPC. He was down in the cells, asking to see Dixon.
All he would say was that his name was Ed.
‘What did you want to talk to me about?’ asked Dixon, pulling a chair out from under the table in the one interview room still sticking to the old layout. The rest left the interviewing officer sitting next to the interviewee, both of them opposite the tape machine; nice and cosy and all that, but a fat lot of good. Dixon avoided them like the plague.
‘I got myself arrested deliberately,’ replied Ed. ‘I had to speak to you.’
‘You called my colleague a fascist pig.’
‘The group are watching me like a hawk and I’d never have got away otherwise. I had to make it look real, didn’t I? Is he all right?’
‘He’ll live.’
‘I need to stay overnight and then be let go in the morning, but I want the charges dropped.’
‘What is it you want to tell me?’
‘Oh no.’ Ed folded his arms. ‘Charges first.’
‘Assaulting a police officer is a serious offence.’ Dixon frowned. ‘If your information is useful, I may be able to get that taken into account and a caution might be offered. Possibly. I’d need to speak to the arresting officer.’ Dixon managed a pained expression, if only to stifle a smile. He’d already cleared it with the officer Ed had assaulted and the custody sergeant.
‘That would do. A caution is fine.’
‘Well?’
‘Have you got the photofit?’
Dixon slid it out of his pocket and flattened it out on the table in front of Ed.
‘The beard’s shorter. He’s shaving it under here,’ said Ed, rubbing the underside of his chin with the backs of his fingers. ‘There’s more grey in it too.�
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‘You’ve seen him?’
‘He walked into camp a couple of weeks ago and asked to join us. People had been drifting away since the build really got going, so Magnus said yes. We had no idea who he was then and they’re shitting themselves now.’
‘Who’s Magnus?’
‘The leader of the group, although I’m not sure how many are left now. It’s been a real bad vibe since we found out about Steiner.’
‘What’s Magnus’s surname?’
‘No idea. I’ve only been there a few months, myself.’ Ed was picking the dirt from under his fingernails and flicking it on the floor. ‘I’d been over at the Arundel bypass on the A27, trying to save the trees. There’s an ancient woodland there, but they announced the route and it’s going north of it. Battle won, so I had to find something else to do. Hinkley seemed like a good cause. Free food too.’
‘What name did he give?’
‘Maggot.’
Gallows humour. Dixon had always hated it. ‘That’s it?’
Ed nodded. ‘Nicknames only.’
‘How long did he stay?’
‘A few days, then he was gone.’
‘Did he ever go protesting at the gates?’
‘No. He kept saying he wasn’t feeling well and stayed in the camp. He said he would, but never did. And then he was gone.’
‘D’you know where?’
‘You’d need to speak to Fly, but there’s no way she’ll talk to you. She saw him.’
Dixon waited.
‘A man in a suit came across the cornfield. He spoke to Maggot. Ten minutes, maybe. Then a few days later he was gone.’
‘What did this man look like?’
‘A suit, that’s what Fly said.’
‘And that’s all she said?’
‘Suits all look the same.’
‘Did he leave the camp at any time before he went for good?’
‘A couple of hours the following evening, but he came back. Maybe the next day too, then he was gone the next.’
‘All right, Ed,’ said Dixon, standing up. ‘I’m going to arrange for a colleague of mine to take a detailed statement from you. Then we’ll see about that caution.’
Dixon had left Dave Harding trawling through the traffic cameras looking for the suit’s car. He would almost certainly have avoided the delivery management route, so camera coverage would be limited to the outskirts of Bridgwater and Watchet; dashcam footage from patrol cars in the area at the relevant time too. If all else failed, then it would mean checking the delivery management system number plate records too, just in case.
‘What do we know about Amy then?’ asked Dixon, sitting down on the office chair next to Louise.
‘She was born in 1995. Amy Louise Crook. Her mother we know about and her father killed himself a few weeks before she was born. I’m having trouble finding the inquest file, but the death certificate gives the cause of death as carbon monoxide poisoning.’
‘And it records suicide, does it?’
‘1(a) carbon monoxide poisoning; 1(b) suicide.’
‘Have you googled him?’
‘There’s nothing going back that far. Mark found nothing on Amy’s social media profiles either.’
‘Keep digging,’ said Dixon, standing up. ‘I’d like to see that inquest file.’
‘Yes, Sir.’
Peace and quiet in the corner of the canteen, a low murmur from those sitting on the other side, and the rattle of spoons in coffee cups. Dixon closed his eyes, forcing them open again when he felt himself drifting off to sleep. It wouldn’t have taken much longer.
He looked down at Amy’s personnel files and the bundle of documents from Chard’s investigation into her mother’s death on the table in front of him. Hardly light reading.
He drained his coffee, fumbling in his pocket for the money to buy another, the coins scattering across the floor, when he was distracted by his phone buzzing on the table in front of him.
He curled his lip, hating it when he didn’t recognise the number.
‘Nick Dixon.’
‘Mr Dixon, my name’s Danielle and I’m phoning from the diabetic unit at Musgrove Park. I’m ringing about your recent retinal screening appointment.’
‘Er, yes.’
‘The surgeon has looked at the results and there are some changes to the blood vessels at the back of your eye. I need to make an appointment for you to come in next week.’
‘I’m right in the middle of something at the moment,’ he said, grimacing.
‘It is urgent. The ophthalmologist has said she could see you next Thursday afternoon.’
‘Can I ring you back on Monday?’ he asked, closing his eyes.
‘I’ll ring you then, if that’s all right.’
If you must.
‘Yes, that’s fine, thank you.’
‘Who was that?’ asked Jane, peering around the door.
‘Nobody,’ he replied, forcing a smile. ‘Just somebody trying to sell me something.’
‘How much longer are you going to be?’
He shrugged his shoulders.
‘I’ll see you at Worle later then,’ said Jane, turning on her heels.
Changes to the blood vessels at the back of your eye . . .
Dixon folded his arms tightly across his stomach, waiting for the cold sweat to pass. At least Jane hadn’t hung around long enough to watch the blood drain from his face.
She didn’t say which eye.
He looked up at the menu on the wall behind the counter and tried reading it with his hand over his left eye, then his right.
Get a grip! ‘Some changes’ could mean anything, and they can fix it with a laser anyway. It’s just part and parcel of being diabetic.
He slid his phone into his pocket, resisting the temptation to open the web browser.
Whatever you do, don’t google it.
The cleaners had finally booted him out of the canteen at 9 p.m. and he was now sitting at a workstation in the CID Area, the only light on the whole of the first floor coming from his desk lamp and the glow of his computer screen.
His emails didn’t take long, the statements from Amy’s work colleagues all expressing surprise that anyone would want to do her any harm at all. It had been a relief to have it confirmed that the injuries to her ears had been inflicted after death, but otherwise Davidson’s post mortem report was not particularly enlightening either.
Her clothes had gone for forensic examination, more in hope than expectation of identifying where she might have been killed on the site before her body had been dumped in the silo.
Still no sign of Steiner, although day two of the DNA screening was due to start at 8 a.m. EDF were also coming to terms with a stoppage that might go into a fourth day. Potter had agreed that tunnelling operations could continue, which had sweetened the pill; all of those workers were on site and couldn’t very well go anywhere.
According to her Policy Log, she was working on the assumption that Steiner knew the silo was to be filled with slag that morning, the search and DNA screening beginning with workers having any connection to the concrete batching plant. It seemed like a reasonable place to start.
Dixon leaned back against a printer on the side while he waited for the kettle to boil. He tried closing his eyes, but soon started to sway from side to side, a sure sign he was nodding off. An extra half spoonful of coffee and a few grains of sugar should fix that.
Then he sat down to update the Policy Log: Amy’s mother was dead and her death was connected to Amy’s own murder. Hardly rocket science, that one. And to assume otherwise meant entertaining the mother of all coincidences. Then he logged into Chard’s Policy Log for the murder of Amy’s mother, Stella. It hadn’t been updated at all since the discovery of Amy’s body. Having said that, she’d only been found that morning so maybe he’d give Chard the benefit of the doubt.
He curled his lip. Maybe not.
He opened the filing cabinet and took out the bundle of documents copi
ed from Chard’s investigation file, dropping the six inch thick wedge of paper on the workstation with a thud.
Another swig of coffee. Then he started with the witness statements.
Amy’s was a page and a half long, reciting when she last saw her mother, her usual daily routine and giving a brief family history. Apparently, her mother hadn’t seen her second husband for a couple of years. The divorce settlement had been amicable, though, neither having much to fight over anyway. Stella had no real friends either, her one close friend having died a couple of years before in a car accident.
And that was it.
Full of typing mistakes too.
The statements from Stella’s work colleagues in the Human Resources team at Portishead were equally short, giving a brief account of what little they knew about her; not surprising, perhaps, when she’d only been there a year. There was no statement from the officer who first attended the scene in Yatton, which was odd, but then it was unlikely to be terribly enlightening either.
Missing appendices from the forensic report. He wondered who had done the photocopying.
The photograph album was more interesting – a darkened room, ultraviolet light illuminating the blood stains. Dixon counted three distinct spatter patterns on the walls: one starting at head height indicating that Stella had been standing up, then two lower down, presumably when further blows rained down on her after she had slumped on to the sofa, the final blows – a spatter pattern on the floor and another on the skirting board – then delivered when she had collapsed on the missing rug.
The blood spatter analysis confirmed it: five distinct blows. Cause of death would need to wait for the post mortem though, assuming Chard ever found her body.
Genial ineptitude. It was a phrase Dixon had heard used many times.
Chard was definitely not genial.
Dixon crawled into bed just before midnight. Monty grumbled at him when he pushed him on to the floor, but managed to jump back on the end of the single bed before Dixon got in.
Jane rolled over. ‘What time is it?’ she asked, rubbing her eyes.
‘You don’t want to know.’