by Damien Boyd
He parked out in the road and looked through the living room window. The lights were on and the curtains open, Lucy sitting on the kitchen floor, syringe in hand; Monty sitting in front of her.
Jane was asleep on the sofa, head back, mouth open. Every four hours throughout the night she’d been up feeding Monty.
The television was on. Dixon recognised the voices. Alec Guinness and Julie Christie.
Doctor Zhivago again.
Monty turned and spotted Dixon in the window, trotting over and standing with his paws up on the window seat, tail wagging. Lucy was not far behind him with a handful of kitchen roll to catch the fish and veg dripping from his jowls.
‘Nick’s here,’ she said, looking up.
Jane yawned her way to the front door, opening it as Dixon appeared around the corner.
‘How’s he doing?’ he asked.
‘He’s taking the mickey now, if you ask me. He ate a whole tin of tuna at lunchtime, from his bowl, and now he won’t touch food again unless it’s from the syringe.’
‘He’s got you two wrapped around his little finger, hasn’t he?’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘Has he been out?’
‘Not yet,’ replied Lucy.
Jane and Lucy watched from the open back door while Dixon followed his dog around the field behind the cottage, lighting the way with the torch on his phone, checking everything the dog looked at, let alone sniffed.
‘What time’s he due back at the vet?’ he asked.
‘After morning surgery again,’ replied Jane. ‘Eleven.’
‘These are his tablets,’ said Lucy, pointing to them on the worktop as Dixon closed the kitchen door behind them.
‘Brace yourself, old son.’ He clamped his fingers around Monty’s muzzle.
‘He wriggles like an eel when I try it.’ Jane sighed.
‘They’ve gone,’ said Dixon, standing up.
‘I’ll finish giving him this.’ Lucy sat down cross-legged on the kitchen floor, so Dixon and Jane left her to it, slumping down side by side on the sofa.
‘I really can’t begin to—’
‘Then don’t,’ interrupted Jane, taking his hand.
‘It was Chard.’
‘What was?’
‘Potter had the cottage under surveillance – they thought Steiner might turn up here – and caught our poisoner instead.’
Jane sat up sharply. ‘Chard poisoned Monty?’
‘There’s a photograph of him walking round the back with a bottle of antifreeze in his hand. And he’s admitted it.’
‘The utter fucking—’
‘We’ll be in court to watch him get sent down, don’t you worry. And if Monty dies—’
‘He won’t.’ Jane squeezed Dixon’s hand. ‘How’s the investigation?’ she asked, changing the subject before he could dwell on it.
‘We have a person of interest,’ he replied. ‘Dave and Mark are checking cars and phones to see if we can place him at the scene.’
‘Who is it?’
‘The finance director of one of the companies at Hinkley. He was at the Severn Bridge thing too.’
‘When will you know?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘I’ll text you when I know the blood results,’ said Jane.
‘I’ll feed him later, if you like.’
‘You get some sleep. I’m doing the midnight one and Lucy’s setting her alarm for four in the morning. We’ve got it covered.’
‘What would I do without you?’ Dixon leaned back and closed his eyes.
‘You’re not seriously planning to arrest the finance director of a public limited company at Hinkley Point, the largest construction site in Europe.’ Charlesworth folded his arms. ‘The press will have a field day. And we’ll have the bloody Home Secretary on the phone again before you can say nuclear meltdown.’
Dixon was sitting in meeting room 2 at Express Park, having been ambushed by Charlesworth before he had a chance to make the arrest. Potter was there, DCI Lewis and the press officer, Vicky Thomas.
He slid his phone out of his jacket pocket and looked at the screen, the buzz attracting Charlesworth’s attention.
‘Something more important to attend to, is it, Dixon?’
‘Yes, Sir. It is actually.’
Bloods normal. Taking him home :-) Jx
‘Share it with us, do.’
Dixon ignored him, instead tapping out a reply to Jane.
Thank you! Nx
‘Let’s hear it, Nick,’ said Lewis. ‘Why Scanlon?’
‘You’ll need more than the fact he worked at Danson SSC,’ said Potter.
‘I’ve got more than that,’ replied Dixon, sliding his phone back into this pocket. ‘You’ve read the statement from Hamish McConachie?’
‘We have,’ replied Potter.
‘It doesn’t prove he killed anyone, does it?’ snapped Charlesworth.
‘It does prove he’s fiddling the contracts. And if he was doing that at the Severn Bridge—’
‘Is there any connection to Centrix?’ asked Potter.
‘Scanlon’s LinkedIn profile says that he was educated at Staffordshire University, although it was called the North Staffordshire Polytechnic when he was there. 1975 to 1978. The same time as Raymond Harper.’
‘Did they know each other?’
‘We don’t know. Harper was studying civil engineering. I don’t know about Scanlon.’
‘Meaningless,’ muttered Charlesworth.
‘Is that it?’ asked Lewis, his eyes bulging.
‘Dave Harding and Mark Pearce have been on it all night, Sir,’ replied Dixon. ‘Stella was last seen leaving Portishead after her shift finished on the Friday and it wasn’t until the Monday morning that PC Bolt kicked the door in.’
‘And?’
‘Scanlon’s car is picked up on the traffic cameras at junction 21 on the M5 and then again on the A370 at Yatton. This is just after nine thirty. Then again just after midnight, going in the opposite direction.’
‘Where does he live?’ asked Charlesworth.
‘Clevedon, Sir.’
‘We need to get Scientific to check his car,’ said Potter.
‘Then there’s the statement from Miriam Hackeson, otherwise known as “Fly”,’ continued Dixon. ‘She thinks it might have been him she saw in the Great Plantation talking to Steiner. She identified his car, but that was across a field, at dusk, with no street lighting, so I’m not holding my breath. I’d like to try an ID parade though. Once I’ve arrested him, it’ll be over to Scientific – his car and his house.’
‘Once you’ve arrested him, the clock starts ticking, Dixon,’ said Charlesworth. ‘You’ve got ninety-six hours max.’
‘That’s an improvement then, Sir,’ replied Dixon, smiling. ‘It was only seventy-two hours yesterday.’
Chapter Twenty-Six
Dixon turned into the park and ride on his way back to Hinkley, spotting the Scientific Services van and the flatbed lorry waiting at the bus stop before he had passed the entrance.
It looked odd, stuck in the middle of rolling fields, a brand new car park, packed with cars and motorcycles. Temporary, EDF had said when they got planning permission; just to accommodate the workforce during construction, it would be returned to fields once the power station was complete. The tarmac ripped up, the area landscaped and grassed over. Still, it was too far from anywhere to be much use for anything else.
‘Have you got the keys?’ shouted Donald Watson, leaning on his car while he pulled a set of overalls over his shoes.
‘Not yet,’ replied Dixon. ‘Which one is it?’ he asked, leaving his engine running.
‘That powder blue Maserati over there.’ Watson was pointing towards the middle of the car park. ‘We’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way then,’ he said, rolling his eyes. ‘Just tip us the wink when you’ve nicked him.’
Dixon glanced at the crane on the back of the flatbed lorry, big enough to lift the Maserati clean out o
f its parking space, although it might scratch the shiny new Land Rover parked next to it.
‘Better wait until we’ve got the keys,’ he said.
‘We haven’t got all day.’
Martha Sparks and two other officers from the beat team were waiting for him when Dixon arrived at Hinkley Point. Straight through the turnstiles with his seven day pass, he managed to get in without being spotted by Jim Crew hovering in the reception area.
‘Where are Dave and Mark?’ he asked, as Martha shut the door of the beat team office behind him.
‘They went home,’ said Louise. ‘They’d been here all night. I’ve briefed Martha and her team.’
‘Anything else?’
‘The son’s on his way back. He was backpacking in Laos. The consulate have broken the news to him and he gets into Heathrow tomorrow.’
Another difficult conversation to look forward to.
‘Where’s Scanlon’s office then?’ asked Dixon, turning to Martha.
‘Upstairs,’ she replied. ‘At the far end of the building.’
‘D’you know him?’
‘No, Sir.’
Dixon hesitated. It was an uncomfortable feeling, making a speculative arrest. Still, Potter had approved it. Finding the evidence to charge Scanlon was stage two, with EDF, the Home Secretary and Charlesworth all breathing down his neck. Of the three, Charlesworth had the ability to cause him more immediate problems, perhaps.
The clock would start ticking the moment he nicked Scanlon too, as Charlesworth had been at pains to point out.
‘Have we checked where he is?’
‘Yes, Sir,’ replied Louise. ‘He’s at a meeting over at Welfare Block West.’
‘Do we wait until he gets back?’ asked Martha.
‘No. We get him now.’
The ride over to Welfare Block West took ten minutes, two officers following the minibus in the site patrol car, the red flag on the roof fluttering in the breeze. Dixon knew the way now: past the Viewing Gallery and the highways compound, then fork right before you get to the concrete batching plant.
‘They’re still excavating the second nuclear island,’ said Martha, leaning across Dixon and pointing out of the window of the minibus. ‘See that digger over there? Thirty tons of earth in one scoop. They arrived in bits and were assembled on site.’
Dixon frowned. What was it about Hinkley Point that turned everyone into a tour guide?
‘The sea wall’s nearly finished,’ continued Martha. ‘It’s built to withstand sea level rises or even a tsunami.’
‘What about sea level rises and a tsunami?’
The minibus stopped at a set of traffic lights before the bridge over the earthworks access, the construction site on their right, the bare earth towering over them on their left. Dixon looked down into the bottom of the chasm under the bridge at the huge dumper trucks following the dirt track up to the dump, their hoppers full to the brim with mud.
Everywhere mud.
It reminded him of old photographs of the Somme.
‘The meeting’s on the first floor,’ said Louise, as the minibus pulled up outside the welfare block. Prefabricated units piled on top of each other to produce a three-storey office block, EDF’s own office occupying the whole of the first and second floors. ‘It’s a monthly Tier 1 review with all the finance directors.’
Dixon was first through the double doors at the top of the flight of stairs.
‘We’re looking for Philip Scanlon,’ he said. ‘He’s finance director for Myles Construction.’
‘Shall I let him know you’re here?’ asked the receptionist.
‘No. Thank you.’
‘He’s in the boardroom.’ The receptionist pointed. ‘Along the corridor, first door on the left.’
Dixon stopped outside the boardroom and peered through the window in the door. A long table littered with paper and empty cups and saucers, he counted sixteen men and women sitting either side, with one vacant chair at the far end. Scanlon must be sitting with his back to the door.
‘There’s a door at the far end.’
‘I’ll get it,’ said Martha, tapping a uniformed colleague on the shoulder. They set off along the corridor, heads at the conference table turning to watch them through the glass partitioning.
Soundproofed in a temporary office block. Why couldn’t they have done that at Express Park? thought Dixon.
David Pickles spotted him looking through the window and jumped up from his seat, so Dixon opened the door and stepped forward into the boardroom before Pickles could come out, Louise and a uniformed officer right behind him.
‘Can I help you, Inspector?’ asked Pickles, raising his eyebrows.
‘I’m looking for Mr Scanlon, Sir,’ replied Dixon, glancing around the table; all of the heads now turned towards him, a moustache at the far end.
‘Philip?’ Pickles was looking to the far end of the conference table, his head tipped to one side.
Scanlon glanced at the door to his right just as it opened, revealing Martha Sparks and another beat team officer blocking his path to the back stairs. He sighed, then slumped back in his chair, arms folded.
‘Stand up, please, Sir,’ said Dixon, now waiting behind Scanlon’s chair.
No response.
‘We can do this the hard way, if you prefer.’
Scanlon stood up and turned to face him.
‘Cuff him,’ said Dixon, turning to Martha.
‘Is this really necessary?’ demanded Pickles from the far end of the table.
Dixon took a deep breath. ‘Philip Scanlon, I am arresting you on suspicion of the murders of Stella Hayward and Amy Crook.’ He paused, allowing the murmuring around the conference table to subside. Pickles sat down, his mouth gaping open. ‘You do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something that you later rely on in court.’ Another pause, this time for the snap of the handcuffs. ‘Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’
‘Can you see Hinkley from here?’ asked Louise, turning the telescope to look south along the coast.
‘You can’t see past Sand Point,’ replied Dixon.
They were standing in the window of Scanlon’s living room overlooking the Severn Estuary, with Cardiff in the distance, the sun streaming in through the huge windows. Even the balustrade on the balcony was glazed to preserve the view.
‘From seven hundred and fifty-five thousand, it says on their website. There are still a couple available if you fancy it, Sir.’
Marine Place, Clevedon, was a terrace of new townhouses built on the clifftop above the old Victorian pier. It was a grandstand view, with a price tag to match.
‘There’s no garden and the beach is shingle,’ muttered Dixon.
‘You’d have thought he could afford some curtains, wouldn’t you?’ continued Louise.
All of the furniture was white, even the leather sofa; the tables stainless steel with frosted glass tops; the only splash of colour in the room coming from Union Jack cushions and a red rug on the light oak floor.
‘I reckon he’s bought the show home.’
‘Find out when. And whether there’s a mortgage on it.’
‘Yes, Sir.’
Dixon turned round to watch a Scientific Services officer unplugging Scanlon’s computer at the back of the open plan living space. He was lying on the floor, underneath a white desk, disconnecting cables that had been neatly hidden using cable ties.
The living room was on the top floor; ‘reverse level’ the architect had no doubt called it; upside down was a better description. And four floors without a lift.
Twit.
‘It’s going off to High Tech now, Sir,’ said Louise. ‘They found a couple of external hard drives in a drawer too.’
‘What about his phones?’ asked Dixon.
‘The one in his pocket is personal and it’s on the way to High Tech. The one on his desk was his work one.’
‘And where are all his documents
: papers, bank statements, stuff like that?’
‘There’s a scanner and a shredder, Sir, so maybe he scans everything, then shreds it. It might explain the external hard drives?’
‘We’ll soon see.’
The master bedroom on the second floor resembled a cell, were it not for the en suite and the curtains. Scanlon would be used to it then.
‘They’ve got something in the utility room.’ Louise was shouting from the top of the stairs. ‘On the ground floor, Sir.’
‘You’d have thought they’d have put a bloody lift in.’
The utility room was bigger than Dixon’s kitchen, with a granite worktop and Belfast sink; washing machine and tumble dryer too, the doors of both open.
‘Well?’ asked Dixon.
‘Blood on the laundry basket,’ said the Scientific Services officer. ‘Looks like he washed his clothes, but forgot to clean the laundry basket. Switch the light off and I’ll show you.’
Louise flicked off the lights and they watched the officer wave an ultraviolet light over the washing machine. ‘There’s a smear here too, on the outside of the rubber seal, probably from when he was shoving the clothes in.’
It was a tiny smudge, appearing fluorescent violet in the UV light. But it was enough.
‘And on the basket, here,’ said the officer, illuminating more spots and a smear on the rim. ‘Everybody’s seen enough police dramas on the telly to wash their clothes, right? But how many forget to clean the laundry basket?’
‘Will you be able to tell whose it is?’
‘There’s more than enough for that.’
‘Looks like he’s our man,’ said Louise, as they walked across the car park behind Marine Place.
‘One of them,’ replied Dixon.
‘Eh?’ Louise frowned. ‘Who else is there? Harper is dead, so that’s Centrix accounted for. And we’ve got Scanlon, so that’s Danson SSC, which is both ends of the Severn Crossing deal, isn’t it?’
‘We might as well call in at Portishead, seeing as we’re up here,’ he said, leaving Louise’s question hanging. ‘We can see what they’ve found in his car.’
Dixon pulled up outside the Scientific Services lab on the Avon and Somerset Police Headquarters complex half an hour later, Scanlon’s powder blue Maserati sitting on the back of a flatbed lorry.