Beyond the Point

by Damien Boyd

  ‘What sort of corners?’

  ‘Nothing drastic. It was mainly cash in hand in the early days, and he was a bit more relaxed than I’d have liked towards training and manual handling.’ Jackman leaned over and picked up his dog, sitting him on his lap. ‘He had climbers on and off the payroll, using their own equipment, that sort of stuff.’

  ‘What about on the bridge?’

  ‘That was later and he’d had to sharpen his act up by then. It’d gone from swinging about on the end of ropes cleaning windows to industrial platforms. He got the ISO 9002 accreditation and used a Health and Safety consultant for his risk assessments. He was doing things properly by then. He had to for the bidding process. There was a Scottish bloke working for him who was quite sharp too, I remember.’

  ‘What went wrong?’

  ‘Nothing as such.’ Jackman slid his glasses down on to the end of his nose and peered at Dixon over them. ‘The platform was sabotaged.’

  ‘You believed that?’

  ‘He was my client and that was his case. Of course I believed him.’

  Dixon hesitated. ‘I’m a solicitor, too, Sir,’ he said. ‘And of course we always believe our clients. It’s our job.’ He took a deep breath. ‘But what did you really think? Off the record, if needs be.’

  Jackman smiled. ‘I see what you’re getting at,’ he said, nodding. ‘Four bolts failed and they produced one nut with a rusted thread they said they’d found in the mud underneath the bridge. They tried to say it had sheared off but it was impossible to tell either way, if you ask me. Look, the platform was less than a year old. I know because I advised him on the bank guarantee he signed when he borrowed the money to buy them. So, yes, I believed him. And I thought there was a reasonable prospect of an acquittal at trial.’

  ‘Did you tell him that?’

  ‘Time and again. He rang me the day he died – the day he killed himself – and we had the same conversation. Again. The risk assessments had been done, the staff had been trained. Yes, some of them were cash in hand, but that was hardly relevant. There was no negligence. It was sabotage.’

  ‘Did you have an expert’s report?’

  ‘We did. He said the bolts must have failed, all of them, at the same time, for the platform to have collapsed in the way it did. I even got a metallurgist to look at the nut the prosecution found and he estimated it had been in water for longer than a year. Odd when you think that the platform was less than a year old. The case should never have been brought, but they needed a scapegoat.’

  ‘But the company was convicted?’

  ‘Without Liam there to give evidence, it was inevitable, really.’ Jackman leaned back in his chair with his hands behind his head. ‘Stella appealed, but that was thrown out and the company wound up when it couldn’t pay the fine. Then she tried a judicial review of the decision to prosecute him, claiming it drove him to commit suicide.’

  Jackman spotted Louise’s frown. ‘When a public body, such as the Health and Safety Executive, take a decision you don’t agree with, you can challenge it through the courts and it’s called a “judicial review”. They’re expensive and rarely succeed, at least back then anyway.’

  ‘When did you last see Stella?’ asked Dixon.

  ‘Three years ago, perhaps. It was when I was still working as a consultant. I drafted some Freedom of Information requests for her.’ He let out a long sigh. ‘She was still after that file.’

  ‘What might have been on it that would’ve helped her?’

  ‘Did she get access to it?’ asked Jackman, his brow furrowed.

  ‘She did,’ replied Dixon, nodding. ‘I can’t say how, but she did get to see it, or parts of it anyway. And a few weeks later she’s disappeared and her daughter is dead.’

  ‘Everything the Crown disclosed was on my file and she saw it and had copies of it. She was the executor of Liam’s estate so she was entitled to it.’ Jackman was watching his dog licking the remaining crumbs off the kitchen table. ‘The only thing it can be is witness statements and reports not disclosed by the Crown. That was what she was after with all the FOI requests. Have you seen the prosecution file?’

  ‘Not yet, Sir,’ replied Dixon.

  ‘Nowadays, the CPS are supposed to disclose everything, whether it’s helpful to the defence or not. Back then they buried it if it was helpful to the defence.’

  ‘What about your own files?’ asked Dixon.

  ‘There’ll be one for the FOI requests. That was only a few years ago. The rest will have been destroyed by now, once any original documents had been returned to the client.’

  ‘Stella’s place had been cleared out.’

  ‘You need to get hold of that prosecution file then,’ said Jackman. ‘And the Health and Safety Executive file, if you can.’

  ‘Did Liam ever say who he thought was behind it, Sir?’ asked Dixon. ‘If he was alleging the platform had been sabotaged, who did he think had done it?’

  Jackman was breathing deeply through his nose, his eyes fixed on an empty salt cellar, a few grains of rice sitting in the bottom. ‘Let’s just say he always thought it odd that Centrix were able to take on the contract at such short notice.’ He clenched his fist. ‘You can’t slander the dead, so I’ll just say it. Centrix bloody well knew and were prepared for it. Does the name Ray Harper mean anything to you, Inspector?’

  ‘I spoke to his widow earlier today.’

  ‘Look, we had no evidence,’ mumbled Jackman. Backpedalling, thought Dixon. ‘But there were ex-Centrix staff up there that day, working cash in hand for Liam, so you work it out.’

  ‘I intend to, Sir.’

  Jackman was closing the front door behind them when he hesitated, stepping out into the porch and taking hold of Dixon’s elbow. ‘You asked me if I really believed the platform had been sabotaged.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Yes, Sir, I do.’

  ‘Perhaps they’ll get justice after all then. It’s just a shame they didn’t live to see it.’

  ‘I don’t think he likes fish and vegetables,’ said Dixon, peering through the kitchen window.

  Lucy chuckled. ‘Most of it’s in Jane’s hair.’

  Lucy was turning out to be a handful, not that Jane would admit it. She was just grateful that Dixon had spotted her sitting at the back of their mother’s funeral with her foster parents. Not that he could have missed her, with her hair dyed jet black, nose studs and earrings.

  He had picked her up from Highbridge railway station, as instructed, although a bit late, hooting the horn on his Land Rover several times to no avail. Lucy had been sitting on a bench outside the station, eyes closed, head nodding to loud music pumping through her earphones.

  The nose studs had gone, and most of the earrings too; testament to her new ambition to become a police officer, he assumed.

  Jane had been adopted not long after she had been born and certainly got the better deal, Lucy having painted a grim picture of life with their drug addict mother, Sonia: in and out of foster homes; some good, some bad. No, Jane had landed on her feet with Rod and Sue. She knew that. What she didn’t know was that they could have had children of their own, but chose her. They had confided in him when he went to see them about marrying her. Or rather Sue had blurted it out, through the tears.

  ‘Jane needs to know that,’ he had said.

  ‘In our own time, Nick,’ Rod had replied.

  Fair enough. It was not his place to tell her. But he would, one day, if Rod and Sue left it too late.

  Lucy was going to be Jane’s bridesmaid too. Dixon smiled. She was a good kid, even hitch-hiking down from Manchester during the hunt for the two girls. She’d used the money they gave her for food to pay for a taxi over to Catcott, so she could join in the search.

  Jane was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of Monty, the dog’s head bowed, a liquidised green mulch dripping from his jowls. She inserted the end of the syringe in the corner of his mouth and pushed the p
lunger with the base of her thumb; Monty swallowed some of it, the rest dripping on to the soggy kitchen roll on the floor. Then he shook his head, sending a spray of green sludge across the units.

  It makes a change from blood spatter, I suppose, thought Dixon, watching Jane picking lumps of it out of her hair.

  Monty wagged his tail when Dixon opened the back door. Not much, just the tip, but that was enough to bring a smile to his face.

  Jane stood up. ‘He’s had some of it. Here, you try,’ she said, handing Dixon the syringe.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Cod and mixed veg, just like Tabi said.’ She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I can’t get his tablets into him either. He won’t touch the turkey.’

  ‘The old fashioned way it is then,’ said Dixon. ‘Where are they?’

  ‘Here.’

  Two: one white, one pink. ‘Now?’

  ‘With food,’ replied Jane.

  Dixon stood over Monty and raised his index finger. ‘Sit.’

  Nothing.

  ‘Trained him yourself, did you?’ asked Lucy. She was leaning on the door frame, the black and white film behind her on the TV paused.

  ‘Thanks for coming,’ said Jane, Lucy backing away when she tried to give her a hug.

  ‘You’re covered in food!’

  ‘Look, old son, it’s for your own good.’ Dixon took hold of Monty by the muzzle and pushed the fingers of his left hand in between his teeth, opening his mouth. Then he rammed the tablets down his throat with his right hand, before clamping the dog’s mouth shut and rubbing his throat. ‘Swallow, you little dev— That’s it, they’ve gone.’

  Jane raised her eyebrows. ‘I dread to think what would’ve happened if he’d bitten you.’

  ‘Not a chance.’

  He sat down on a clean bit of floor and filled the syringe from the Pyrex jug. ‘C’mon then,’ he said, patting the floor in front of him.

  ‘Just a bit at a time,’ said Jane. ‘You need to be careful it doesn’t go into his lungs.’

  Dixon pushed the tip of the syringe into the corner of Monty’s mouth. Then he pressed the plunger. Half an inch would do, all of it swallowed in one go.

  ‘He’s doing it for you,’ muttered Jane, wiping the kitchen units with a cloth.

  The catheter was still on Monty’s front leg, wrapped in a bright pink bandage.

  ‘We’re due back at eleven tomorrow, after morning surgery. Tabi’s going to run the blood tests again.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘It’s still too early to tell.’

  ‘More?’ asked Dixon, holding up the empty syringe.

  ‘That makes four, which’ll do for now.’ Jane looked at her watch. ‘We’ve got to do it again at ten o’clock.’

  ‘I’ve got to go back to Express Park, but I can come back if you’re—’

  ‘I’ll let you know.’

  ‘What about the pills?’

  ‘That’s it till the morning.’

  ‘Have you eaten?’

  Jane dropped the cloth in the sink. ‘I went in Tesco’s and came out without anything for us. Lots of fish and veg, but—’

  ‘The pub does takeaway.’ Dixon picked up Monty in both arms and carried him into the living room, placing him gently on his blanket on the sofa.

  ‘I’ll go,’ said Lucy.

  ‘Just ring me if he—’

  ‘Of course we will.’

  The canteen was closed when Dixon arrived back at Express Park just after 8 p.m. Not that he was after food; it was more about spreading the files out across the empty tables.

  It took him twenty minutes to flick through those parts of Chard’s file that he hadn’t already seen; no mention anywhere of the most likely motive for Stella’s disappearance, although the reason for that was now, mercifully, common knowledge.

  Chard had at least made extensive proof of life enquiries and found none; her phone hadn’t been used, nor had her bank account been touched. There were no social media or email logins and her car hadn’t moved, or if it had, it hadn’t been caught on any traffic cameras, which was unlikely. No, Stella was dead. Dixon knew that. But where was her body?

  The inquest files had arrived: four of them. One each for the three men killed when the platform collapsed underneath the Second Severn Crossing, the verdicts accidental death; and one for Liam Crook, much thinner, the verdict suicide.

  Still no prosecution file though, so he would have to make do with the witness statements given at the inquests. And Liam’s suicide note – the nearest Dixon was going to get to his witness statement.

  Dave and Mark had been busy interviewing Amy’s work colleagues too, and there was a pile of statements from each, laid out on separate tables.

  ‘You swiped in,’ said Lewis, peering around the door.

  Dixon ignored the jibe.

  ‘Potter’s coming down in the morning to interview Chard with a superintendent from Professional Standards,’ continued Lewis. ‘We can watch it on a monitor.’

  ‘We?’

  ‘She thought I ought to be there.’

  ‘Fine with me,’ replied Dixon. ‘What time?’

  ‘Nine.’ Lewis smiled. ‘How’s your dog?’

  ‘Still alive. What about the prosecution file?’

  ‘You’ll get it tomorrow.’ Lewis waved his hand. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’ Then he was gone.

  Dixon shook his head, then turned to the inquest statements, such as they were. An inquiry into the facts of who they were and how they died – it was all well and good, but he was more concerned with whose fault it was, and he wouldn’t know that until he saw the prosecution file.

  Seven surviving employees had given statements. They had been moving the platforms, one either side of the monorail, ready for employees of another company to fix the next section of track, when one of the platforms collapsed. Three witnesses on the platform opposite remembered a distinct ‘ping’, which they thought was a bolt shearing off, and then they saw it go, watching their three colleagues fall to their deaths.

  Dixon frowned. He wasn’t learning much that was new; and certainly nothing that might be relevant to the who and why Stella and Amy had been murdered.

  Stella had been to the inquests and seen all of these witness statements and it had not got her killed. But seeing the prosecution file had. Yes, that was where the answer would be. If it was anywhere.

  Got three syringes into him. He’s fine. Jx

  Was it ten o’clock already? He had learned only one thing of any use from Amy’s work colleagues: she always ate lunch in the canteen in Welfare Block East, no matter where she was on site. Interesting. Perhaps the focus of her attention worked in Welfare Block East? It was where the beat team office was too. And from tomorrow, was where Dixon and his team would be.

  Liam’s suicide note made grim reading, a copy on the file, the original having been returned to Stella after his inquest. Apologies, denials, pleas for forgiveness, professions of undying love. Dixon winced. ‘Undying’ was the wrong word. Then came the last line, which hit him in the pit of the stomach when he read it out loud.

  ‘“Tell our daughter I loved her with all my heart, even though we never got to meet. I will be her guardian angel, watching over her every step of the way. I know she hasn’t got a name yet, but I like Amy, if you don’t mind.”’

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  He parked at the end of Allandale Road, the streetlights already off to save electricity. After midnight then, but the moon made up for it, lighting up the beach.

  Dixon opened the back door of the Land Rover and waited for Monty to jump out.

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ he snarled, slamming the door. Then he set off down the steps to the beach.

  The channels in between the sandbanks shimmered in the moonlight, the water draining out of them, catching up with the tide on its way out; the wet sand dotted with worm casts.

  A good night for star gazing too, the only light pollution coming from Hinkley Point, acros
s the estuary, and Wales in the far distance.

  Not that he was in the mood.

  He could pick out the tower cranes and wondered whether the cleaner had a head for heights. Not a job for the unwary; he didn’t envy them that one. The welfare blocks were lit up too, the accommodation block hidden by the turbine halls of Hinkley Point A – somebody somewhere wondering how close he was getting. The answer was ‘not close enough’.

  Yet.

  A ship was leaving the jetty on the outgoing tide; it would be back again in a few days, with another load of aggregate, or blast furnace slag from Port Talbot, probably.

  It was a perfect night for a walk on the beach. Dixon stopped, picked up a stone and sent it skimming across the muddy water of a shallow channel.

  A walk, without his dog?

  What the bloody hell was the point of that? he thought, turning back towards the steps.

  The cottage was dark, so he parked out in the street and peered through the front window. Jane was asleep on the sofa, with Monty curled up next to her, his bandaged leg hanging over the edge.

  It would be a challenge getting in without waking them both up.

  ‘How is he today, Sir?’ asked Louise, when Dixon appeared in the CID Area just before 9 a.m. the following morning.

  ‘He’s back to the vet at eleven. So, we’ll know more after that.’

  ‘Chard’s here. Surrendered about an hour ago.’

  ‘He’s got a solicitor with him,’ said Pearce.

  ‘Lewis was looking for you too.’ Louise pointed to meeting room 2 on the other side of the atrium. ‘He was in there. I told him you were on your way.’

  ‘Let’s see if we can get a transcript of the 1995 trial, Lou,’ said Dixon. ‘When Crook Engineering was prosecuted for corporate manslaughter.’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘And chase up a list of the employees on the Severn Crossing so we can cross-reference it with everyone inside Hinkley. Let’s have another go at getting hold of the son too. He’s in the Far East, not on the bloody moon.’ Dixon turned to Harding. ‘Dave, can you go over the proof of life stuff done by Chard’s lot? See if they’ve missed anything.’