by Damien Boyd
It was an uncomfortable feeling all the same.
‘This is about justice for Stella and Amy. All right?’
Louise, Dave and Mark frowned at him in unison, their ‘who are you trying to convince?’ unspoken.
They hadn’t been there. In the crane. Had they?
‘And Liam, Sir,’ said Louise, filling in the gaps.
‘Are you all right, Sir?’ Dave asked, looking puzzled. He turned to Mark and raised his eyebrows.
Dixon wiped his forehead with the palm of his hand and looked at the clear fluid, glinting in the strip light directly above his workstation.
See, it’s just sweat. What did you think it was?
He took a deep breath.
Shit happens. Get over it.
‘The Home Secretary doesn’t want us upsetting EDF for any longer than we have to, so she’s given us seventy-two hours. After that we have to clear out.’
‘What are they trying to hide?’ asked Mark.
‘It’s the adverse publicity. Making investors nervous, I expect.’ Dixon shrugged his shoulders. ‘Politics.’
‘Gits.’
‘We do, at least, have a focus now.’
‘Even if it’s the wrong one,’ muttered Dave.
‘That’s my decision, Dave. All right?’
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘And if you’ve got any other lines of enquiry, please tell us.’
He shook his head. ‘No, Sir.’
‘Philip Scanlon it is then,’ said Dixon. ‘Dave, I want you to see if you can place his car in and around Yatton at the time we think Stella disappeared. Check his mobile phone positioning too. Mark, I want to know everything about him. Usual stuff.’
‘Yes, Sir.’
‘Lou, see if you can find anything to connect Scanlon with Centrix or Raymond Harper.’
‘What about the other enquiries?’ she asked.
‘The floundering about in the dark?’
‘Er, yes.’
‘Drop it.’
‘You wanted to see me, Inspector?’ Pickles was standing in the doorway of the beat team office on the first floor of Welfare Block East. No tweed jacket over the Rupert Bear waistcoat this time.
‘I was told you were in a meeting, Sir,’ replied Dixon.
Pickles was shifting from one foot to another. ‘Look, we’re anxious to get this sorted out as quickly as we can, as you might imagine.’
‘Thank you.’ Dixon gestured to a vacant chair. ‘I wanted to understand the contract bidding process.’
‘Oh, good God, don’t tell me that’s what this is all about.’
Dixon raised his eyebrows.
‘Of course you can’t, sorry.’ Pickles sighed. ‘We have a contracts team based at our head office in Bristol,’ he said, sitting down on a swivel chair opposite Dixon and turning to face him. ‘They award and manage the Tier 1 contracts. They’ve all been awarded now, as you might imagine. Each Tier 1 company is then responsible for awarding the Tier 2 contracts in their particular sector.’
‘And do they choose who to award the Tier 2 contracts to?’
‘Yes, within some constraints. The bidding process is restricted to companies that have pre-qualified. They have to demonstrate—’
‘Who to?’
‘Us. They have to demonstrate that they have the necessary resources in place to deliver. And a robust and resilient business plan. They’ll then be issued with an invitation to tender for the relevant contracts.’
‘And the tender process?’
‘It’s quite laborious – this is a multi-billion pound project, after all.’ Pickles was looking out of the corners of his eyes at the whiteboard on the wall behind Dixon. ‘There’s a professional services group, which consists of advisors we’ve approved to assist companies with their bids. Accountants, lawyers, project managers, people like that.’
‘But once a company has been pre-approved and issued with an invitation to tender, is it up to the Tier 1 contractor who wins the bid?’
‘Subject to our approval, yes.’
‘Have you withheld it?’
‘Once.’ Pickles folded his arms. ‘It was for the canteen and the bid was so low as to be unsustainable. They could never have done it at that price, not with a sensible number of staff.’
‘Any others?’
‘Not that I’m aware of, no.’
‘Has any contract been taken away from a Tier 1 or 2 company after it’s been awarded?’
‘Not a Tier 1, no. And only one Tier 2. That was for the materials testing.’
‘And what’s that when it’s at home?’
‘Road surface testing. We don’t want them subsiding and they have to be able to take the weight of the lorries. There’s some testing gauge they use. It wasn’t a huge contract. No big deal, mercifully.’
‘When was this?’
‘Early on. It covers the roads across the site; it’ll be miles by the time we’ve finished.’
‘Who lost the contract?’
‘I really can’t remember.’
‘Can you find out, please?’
Pickles nodded.
‘Who got the contract in their place?’ continued Dixon.
‘Tyrer Materials Testing. You may see the van around the site, I’m not sure if he’s here at the moment.’ Pickles glanced out of the window. ‘It really was one of the smaller contracts.’
‘Part of the associated developments sector?’
‘Yes. Myles are the Tier 1.’
‘Can you let me have a list of the companies pre-approved to apply for the Tier 2 tarmac contract?’
‘Myles should be able to let you have that,’ replied Pickles.
‘I don’t want to ask them, Sir, if you don’t mind.’
‘Er . . .’ Pickles shook his head. ‘Yes, I can organise that. I’ll get someone from our contracts team to drop it over.’
‘Thank you.’
Louise waited until Dixon closed the door behind Pickles.
‘One of the companies unsuccessful first time must have paid Scanlon to set this up, so they can have the tarmac contract when it’s taken away from Hardman,’ she said.
‘It would be interesting to talk to someone at the firm that lost the original materials testing contract too.’
‘Wouldn’t it.’
Monkton Heathfield on the northern outskirts of Taunton was only half an hour away; thousands of new houses and more in the planning. New roads too, and pavements; more than enough to keep a materials tester busy.
It had been easy to find the grey van, South West Density Testing written on both sides in bright blue. A man in equally bright blue overalls was setting up what looked like a steel tripod on the road surface.
‘Mr McConachie?’ asked Dixon, winding down the window of his Land Rover.
‘Aye.’
‘Detective Inspector Dixon. We spoke on the phone.’
‘Aye.’
‘What’s this?’
‘This is a dynamic cone penetrometer. The weight slides down this pole and drives a cone into the ground; how far gives you a measurement of the density of the subsoil. It needs to be even along the whole road, else it collapses.’
‘And if it’s not?’
‘They shore it up with aggregate and we test it again. Then they lay the road surface when we give them the green light.’
‘This is what you were going to be doing at Hinkley?’
‘Started doing it, aye. I was using the plate bearing test over there though, and taking core samples to test at the lab. Measuring the bearing capacity where they wanted to put the roads.’
‘And you lost the contract.’
‘Nope. It was taken away from me. Not that I’m that bothered, to be honest. There aren’t enough hours in the day to do the work I’ve got.’
‘Why did you bid for it then?’
‘It seemed like a good idea at the time. I was looking to expand, so I put in a bid and got it. Then that bastard Scanlon . . .’ His voice tailed
off. ‘Like I say, I’m not that bothered.’
‘What happened?’
‘Someone was playing silly buggers with my core samples. The measurements were all over the place. Then the next thing I know Scanlon pulls the plug on me.’
‘He gave the contract to—’
‘Tyrer.’
‘Do you know Tyrer?’ asked Dixon.
‘Know him? I trained the little shit, didn’t I? Then he gets his own machine and sets up in competition with me.’ McConachie was clenching his fists. ‘I should’ve known, but like I say, I’m not that bothered and I sure as hell can’t prove anything.’
‘How do you know they’d been tampering with your samples?’
‘They took them and sent them to me.’
‘Who did?’
‘The operations manager at Myles. I reckon they came from somewhere else on the site, so it gave the wrong readings. You can imagine what happened when the first lorry went along the road. The surface was all over the place.’ McConachie lobbed a spanner into the back of his van. ‘Easy enough when you think about it.’
‘So, you think the operations manager was behind it?’
‘Either that or someone was tampering with my reports. I emailed them in. What happened to them after that is anyone’s guess.’ McConachie sneered. ‘Scanlon giveth and Scanlon taketh away.’
A thin wisp of smoke was rising from the middle of the Great Plantation when Dixon parked across the gate behind Kilverton House.
‘Someone’s still at home,’ he said, opening the driver’s door into the hedge and squeezing down the side of Land Rover.
Wading through the long grass had soaked their trousers up to their knees by the time they reached the gate into the wood.
‘Not nearly so glamorous when it’s pissing down with rain, is it, Sir,’ said Louise.
One of the tents had gone, but otherwise the camp was unchanged, although it was saturated, rain dripping off the trees long after it had stopped raining.
‘Ed’s gone.’ A woman’s voice, shrill, and coming from the partially completed roundhouse in the middle of the camp, the smoke rising from a hole in the middle of the roof.
‘I’m looking for Fly,’ said Dixon, more in hope than expectation.
‘She’s done nothing wrong,’ came the reply.
‘I need her help.’
Silence.
‘Bollocks to this,’ muttered Dixon. He stepped forward and held back the tarpaulin, peering into the darkness. A familiar waft of sweet smelling tobacco hit him.
‘Shit!’
The man burned his fingers snatching open the door of the wood burning stove, before throwing a hand rolled cigarette into the flames.
‘Two people are dead,’ said Dixon, sighing loudly. ‘I’m really not interested in a bit of bloody cannabis. Now will you get out here so we can talk.’
Dreadlocks, sleeveless T-shirts; and bare feet – Dixon shuddered.
‘You’re Fly?’ he asked, turning to the woman.
She nodded, her beads jangling.
‘And you’ll be Magnus?’
The grunt sounded positive, rather than negative.
‘This is a photo of Amy. She was twenty-four years old.’ Dixon handed Fly a picture of Amy, in a bar somewhere, smiling at the camera. ‘She had her neck snapped at C3, right about here,’ he said, pointing to the back of his own neck. ‘I’m trying to catch the man who did it.’
‘We thought that was Steiner,’ said Magnus.
‘Someone paid him. Someone you saw, Fly.’
‘The suit?’
A LinkedIn profile picture, printed off in colour, a few years old, perhaps. It would have to do for the time being, until the identity parade, at least. ‘Is this him?’ he asked, the photograph in his outstretched hand.
Fly hesitated.
‘This is a photograph of Amy’s mother,’ said Dixon. He had come prepared. ‘She’s missing. There was blood all over her house.’ Matter of fact. ‘Amy’s brother still doesn’t know.’
‘It was getting dimpsy,’ said Fly. ‘And he had his hood up. I really don’t . . .’
‘What about his car?’
‘It was parked over where your Land Rover is.’
‘Was it like this?’ asked Dixon, handing her another photograph.
‘No, it was blue, I think. Like I said, the light was going.’
‘Like this?’ A photograph of the same type of car, in blue.
‘Yes, that’s it. What is it?’
‘A Maserati.’
‘Let me see his photograph again.’ Fly shuffled the photographs, bringing Scanlon’s picture to the top. ‘It could be him. The glasses were the same, and he had a moustache.’
‘I’m going to need your real name, Fly. And an address. Mobile phone number too, if you’ve got one.’ Dixon tried his best disarming smile. ‘Would you be willing to attend an ID parade too?’
‘Must I?’
He handed the picture of Amy back to her.
Fly stared at the picture, watching the raindrops smudging Amy’s smile. ‘All right,’ she said.
‘Back again, Inspector,’ said Manners, striding across the field. ‘I was cutting the leylandii and saw you going into the plantation.’
‘Yes, Sir,’ replied Dixon.
‘There’s only a couple of them left now. Magnus, Fly and one other, I think. The rest’ve done a bunk.’
‘Do you know where they’ve gone?’
‘Sizewell C, I think. Hinkley’s a done deal, but there’s still a chance to stop that one. It’s at the planning stage now.’
‘Where’s Sizewell C?’ asked Louise.
‘Suffolk,’ replied Manners. ‘There’s a much bigger camp and I reckon you’ll find them there.’
‘Thank you, Sir.’
‘You got him then?’ asked Manners.
‘Steiner, yes, Sir. Not before he—’
‘I know.’ Manners cleared his throat. ‘I’m sorry, I had no idea he’d been staying in the plantation. I would’ve said if I’d—’
‘Of course you would, Sir.’
‘It was a transient population, people coming and going all the time, nicknames only, and I tended to leave them to it.’
‘It’s fine, Sir,’ said Dixon, turning towards the gate. ‘You couldn’t have known.’
And at least Manners wouldn’t have to explain it to Amy’s mother.
Chapter Twenty-Five
What time you home? Monty needs his tablets. Jx
The text had arrived just as Dixon was dropping Louise back to her car at Hinkley Point. There was a missed call too – an 01823 number – the diabetic centre again.
‘What time in the morning?’
Louise waited, but not for long.
‘What time d’you want me in the morning, Sir?’
Dixon took a sharp intake of breath as he turned to Louise. ‘Seven, in the beat team office,’ he replied.
‘I’ll let Dave and Mark know.’
‘They’re still here, by the looks of things,’ he said, gesturing to their cars parked on the other side of the car park.
‘Shall I go in?’
‘Send them a text.’
Louise smiled. ‘Yes, Sir.’
Three hundred and seventy-five lorries a day through Bridgwater, but the road was quiet on Dixon’s drive home, the only sound the clunk of the windscreen wipers and the rumble of his diesel engine.
Walking his dog was out – for the time being, God willing – so he’d have to do his thinking behind the wheel of his Land Rover. Hardly peace and quiet, but it was the next best thing.
A Tier 1 finance director on the fiddle. That would go down well with EDF. And killing to cover his tracks. If Stella had found something to connect him with Centrix, then it was certainly motive enough. More than enough.
He could prove Scanlon’s presence at the SSC, but nothing more. Stella had spent years trying to clear her husband’s name, to prove the platform had been sabotaged, so had her solicitor, but t
hey’d never got close. Best not to try. Instead, focus on Scanlon’s involvement in Stella’s murder on the basis that SSC was the motive.
After all, if Stella was right and Scanlon had been instrumental in the sabotaging of the platform, then he was responsible for the deaths of three men. Four, if you include Liam.
Dixon was biting at the dry skin on his lips.
But you’ve got no evidence of that either.
He could just imagine the look on Charlesworth’s face.
It was true though. The best Dixon could say was that Scanlon was a ‘person of interest’, and that wasn’t going to get him far. There was fraud, possibly, if he could prove McConachie’s allegations about the materials testing contract. Obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception. It was like nicking Al Capone for tax evasion. Now there was an American film worth watching; not in black and white either, although quite why they picked a Scottish actor to play an Irishman was beyond him.
Hypertension. It was a serious condition. He wondered whether Pickles had ever been formally diagnosed – all that fidgeting and hopping about from one foot to another. Maybe he was just ‘highly-strung’? Strung out, more like. Director of Communications; he’s going to have some serious communicating to do when all this comes out, thought Dixon.
Random thoughts popping into his head, gone again with the flash of another set of headlights coming towards him. He wondered whether he would see flashing lights when the laser zapped whatever was going on at the back of his eye. And whether it would hurt. He flinched. Maybe he would google it, after all?
Chard was out of his hair at last, but at what price? It wasn’t often Dixon took an instant dislike to someone, but he had to Chard. And he’d been proven right time and time again. Chard would get three years for perverting the course of justice – more, possibly, given that he was a police officer – and a couple of months for the criminal damage, the Animals Act offence dropped if he pleaded guilty to the other charges. That was the way these things usually went. No doubt the sentences would run concurrently too, so he wouldn’t actually serve any time for Monty’s poisoning.
Sentencing was a joke sometimes. But then, in the eyes of the law, Monty was just an item of personal property that Chard had damaged.
Damage. Dixon sneered. Chard would learn about that if Monty died.