The two detectives exchanged glances with one another and she continued, ‘I have an external hard drive that I put everything on after I’ve taken photos.’
‘So everything that you had on the phone will be on there?’ Fielding asked, and she nodded confirmation.
‘Would you like me to upload everything onto a flash drive?’
‘If you wouldn’t mind,’ Burton said, feeling extremely grateful that her orderly nature seemed to apply to everything.
‘You know,’ Fielding said to Burton when they were back at the station and seated in his office working their way through all of Monica Williams’s massive collection of photographs, ‘what’s to say Carruthers didn’t alter the records at his place of employment up in the north east?’
Burton took his eyes from his computer screen and considered the question. It was something that he had been rolling around in his mind for a couple of days now, but, there again, there was no proof whatsoever to back this theory up. How could there be with a tech wizard calling all the shots, if indeed he was calling them, as any footprint would be wiped into oblivion. And another thing that had crossed Burton’s mind was the fact that Carruthers could have easily intercepted their dispatch messages if he’d wanted to. Perhaps all this was sufficient grounds to bring a charge against him after all: bring him in, get a hold of his computer and get forensics to take it to pieces to get an in-depth look at it.
Hell, he could have even been the unknown John Doe at the care home if he’d changed his appearance to suit the situation. He remembered that he’d said in passing that the unknown man could have easily been mistaken for Carruthers as he looked so much like him. Maybe, in fact, it was him.
‘How far back should we go with all of these?’ Fielding had just passed the 500-photo mark and looked up from the laptop perched on her knees, eyes beginning to smart from focusing so hard on each of the images. The question brought Burton out of his thoughts with a start.
‘As far back as we need to, I guess,’ he offered, realising that his answer wouldn’t really help her in any way and wasn’t what she wanted to hear. ‘I’m just wondering about that friend of Carruthers’s, who Monica Williams said was camera-shy. Maybe he had a good reason to be.’
At that moment, Burton’s desk phone rang and he picked it up. He said a few monosyllabic words in response to questions he was being asked, then replaced the receiver.
‘The boss wants me to go upstairs and give her an update. Can you keep going through this lot?’ He indicated that Fielding should continue working her way through the photo file on her laptop. ‘If we look for anyone who looks like Carruthers,’ he suggested, seeing the look of frustration on her face, ‘I get the feeling that our John Doe might just know him.’
‘Do you think we have enough to charge him?’ DCI Ambleton asked after hearing Burton relate everything they had on the case so far.
He exhaled a long breath. ‘We have plenty against him, it’s just…’ his voice trailed off.
‘What’s bothering you, Joe?’ Ambleton sat back in her chair. She could see that despite all the incriminating evidence building up against Alex Carruthers, which she would be happy to book him on right now, Burton was still troubled by something.
‘It just doesn’t feel right somehow, boss.’
‘In what way?’ She waited for him to explain his reasoning behind the statement.
‘It just seems too obvious that it’s him. I spent Saturday night going through the files with Fielding, and…’
‘I thought I told you to take some time off, you and Fielding,’ the DCI said, showing annoyance at what he’d just told her. ‘I can’t have my detectives burnt out and running on half-empty now, can I?’
‘I know, I know,’ Burton insisted, holding both his hands up in surrender, ‘but this… there’s something not quite right about it. There’s something that we’re missing here.’
The DCI thought about that before answering. ‘Well, you know sometimes these people who commit crimes slip up, or even want to be caught.’
There was silence between them for a few moments before Ambleton responded to his doubts with an option.
‘Okay. Look, Joe, I think that we can bring the man in for questioning with what we have right now and hold him for thirty-six hours before charging him for the crime, and if you aren’t happy and have doubts, then I’m all right with you doing some more digging. But, officially, I’m going to go ahead and close it down after the thirty-six hours. At least that will keep the press off our backs if we say we have a suspect with an arrest pending while we look into it a bit more.’
22
After being questioned a few days earlier, Alex Carruthers had been told not to travel up to the north east to his work after the weekend, and when Burton and Fielding had pressed the buzzer for his apartment on the building’s intercom system, they were surprised yet delighted to find him at home. As per the DCI’s instructions, they had come to officially take him in for questioning, and they weren’t alone as two uniformed police officers stood behind them.
‘Is this really necessary?’ Carruthers said when told by Burton what was about to happen. ‘I said I wouldn’t go up north today and I haven’t.’
‘Yes, it is necessary,’ Fielding assured him. ‘And we are taking you in for questioning about the murder of your great-uncle.’
Amid a flurry of protestations, Carruthers was taken by each arm by the uniforms and marched unceremoniously out of his apartment, much to his embarrassment, especially as a few of his neighbours opened their doors to find out what all the raised voices and commotion was about.
‘Can I not even call my solicitor?’ he had demanded when seated in the back of the police car, wedged securely yet uncomfortably between the two uniformed officers.
‘You can do that when you get to the station… now shut up!’ Burton’s voice was as firm as his expression as he looked at him in the rear-view mirror. Then, turning around to face the road, Burton concentrated on driving him back there as soon as he could.
Basil Mowbray was one of those obnoxious little solicitors with clammy hands and slicked back greasy hair who was only in the legal profession for one thing – himself. For him it was all about what he could get out of it, whether that was money, fame, publicity, whatever, as long as the sole attention was on him and his success, and never on his client. Nasty little man and, as fate would have it, Alex Carruthers’s regular solicitor was unavailable and he was now stuck with this vile creature. Carruthers was up in arms, but there was nothing he could do.
Mowbray read through his client’s file as they sat in one of the interview rooms. His face was expressionless and he said nothing until he’d reached the last page and closed the manila folder. ‘Well,’ he said, looking to Carruthers on his right and the two detectives across the table from him, ‘I can’t see how you can hold my client on this.’ He spat the last word out with disdain and pushed the folder across the table to them. ‘Tell me, detectives, exactly where is your evidence that this man sitting here,’ indicating Carruthers with a sweep of his hand, ‘is anything other than innocent of the charges you’ve brought against him?’
Burton had dealt with the creep before and had expected exactly this from him.
Fielding, on the other hand, had not had the dubious pleasure of his company, but Burton had briefed her well on what he was like. She had to admit that his description of him was spot on. She had decided before even making his acquaintance that she didn’t like him; truth was, nobody but the man himself liked him, not even the partners in the company he worked for.
‘Well, like it or not, Mr Mowbray,’ Burton said, picking up the folder and rising from his seat, gesturing for his partner to do likewise, ‘we are holding your client for the next thirty-six hours and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.’
‘But I insist upon bail,’ he started to protest.
But Burton cut him off with, ‘Not a chance,’ as he and Fielding walked out of the
room and closed the door behind them.
‘Mowbray is spitting blood,’ DCI Ambleton said on the phone following the detectives’ return to the incident room. ‘I thought he was going to have a coronary. The man was almost purple by the time he came in to see me in my office.’
‘Well, let him,’ Burton retorted. ‘That man thinks far too highly of himself for his own good.’
‘Now, Joe, you know that, and I know that, but we don’t want to fall foul of the law now, do we?’
‘That’s a bit ironic, isn’t it?’
DCI Ambleton sighed and waited for a few moments. ‘All right then, we now have Carruthers in custody. You’ve got your thirty-six hours to do any extra research you need, Joe. Make sure you use that time wisely.’
‘Oh we will, don’t worry, boss.’ Burton put the phone back on the receiver and sat back in his chair. With Alex Carruthers tucked up nicely in the cells for the next day and a half, he, Fielding and the team would have time to go through the photographs and anything else they needed to before releasing him. But as far as the press knew, they’d already made an arrest and Carruthers would be standing trial. It would no doubt end up like that, unless they found anything to prove to the contrary.
Burton admitted he disliked Carruthers, but the last thing he wanted was to charge an innocent man with a crime he hadn’t committed, no matter how much he despised him. That wasn’t what he was about, and he would do what he had to to get to the truth of any matter. He was still deep in thought when Fielding rapped a couple of times on the door.
‘I think you should come and see this,’ she said, turning quickly to lead the way back to her computer monitor. She sat down and tapped her password into the system. A photograph sprung to life on the screen. ‘You see that person there?’ she said, pointing to someone standing at the back of the photograph. It was date stamped ‘August’ and showed a group of four people in Monica Williams’s apartment. It had been taken by somebody other than Monica herself as she was in the centre of the shot. Apart from her, there was another woman, another man and Carruthers. But what Fielding was pointing to was the man standing in the back beside the kitchen breakfast bar, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he was being captured on camera. She lifted up the sketch artist’s shot of their John Doe and held it up against the monitor.
‘I think,’ she said excitedly, ‘that if you were to add hair on that face, then it could quite easily be the man we’ve been looking for.’
Burton leaned in closer and looked from the face on the screen to the artist’s drawing and had to admit that the features were as close as you could get. ‘Can we get that blown up,’ he asked, ‘without losing any definition?’
‘I’ll certainly try,’ she told him. ‘And if I can’t, then I’m sure our tech team can do something about that.’
Seeing the activity around Fielding’s computer screen, DC Francis came across to see what they were looking at, closely followed by Wayman.
‘Have we struck lucky?’ Francis asked, looking at the screen.
‘Well I certainly hope so,’ Burton told her.
‘I thought Carruthers said that he didn’t recognise the person in the sketch?’ Wayman quite rightly observed.
‘That he did, Sam, that he did.’
Before going down to the cells to have a word with Carruthers, Burton first checked with the desk sergeant to make sure that Basil Mowbray had definitely left the building. He hadn’t wished to bump into him again today, or any other day come to that, and was delighted to hear that he had signed out and left the premises about half an hour ago. The desk sergeant added that he hadn’t left quietly, saying that he intended to lodge an official written complaint with the chief constable as soon as he got back to his practice and found some headed notepaper – something which Burton didn’t doubt for a second.
Carruthers looked at the photograph. ‘I met him on a computer course a few months back.’ Fielding had successfully enlarged it to give a clear image of the man’s face. ‘I tutor groups on government-sponsored courses, and that was where I met Jim.’
‘Jim?’ Burton asked, pen perched ready over his notebook.
‘Yes, Jim Martindale. He’d signed up for a four-week refresher course in programming. He was a good student, we got on well, had quite a few things in common, and we became friends. Just one of those things, I guess.’
‘There’d be an address for him on record, I imagine?’ Fielding asked, feeling that this information was proving to be a huge step forward in the case.
‘Oh yes, of course, the centre the course was held in will have all that.’
‘You didn’t visit his home address?’ Burton paused from his writing.
‘No, he said that he still lived with his parents and that there really wasn’t any room to entertain any friends.’
Burton and Fielding exchanged curious glances, but Fielding posed the question both on their minds. ‘Were you in a relationship with Mr Martindale?’
‘What?’ Carruthers appeared genuinely shocked by that comment.
Fielding remembered what she’d been told by the manager of ComputerLinks, that he was always a great hit with the female members of staff. But that could have all been a front for his real preferences of course.
However, Carruthers dispelled that thought in his next sentence. ‘No… of course not… I’m not gay, never have been, never will be. How can you possibly think that?’
‘Well, we’re just trying to cover all options,’ Burton tried to calm him down as he could see that this was going to go south fairly quickly if he didn’t say anything – and they were making very good progress so far.
‘I did invite him around to my apartment a couple of times – just as a friend, I’ll have you know.’ Carruthers stared at both of them with a look of disgust. ‘And on a couple of those occasions, we did go around to Monica’s flat as she was having one of her arty dos.’
‘One of her arty dos?’ Fielding asked him, unsure what he meant by that.
‘Well, she’s an artist and photographer, and mixes with a lot of the arty set, like other photographers and artists and such. Told me she even has a studio set-up in her second bedroom. She’s a very social person from what I can gather, and likes to entertain – not noisily you understand, as I’ve never had anything to complain about in that respect. I think that she invited me as I gave her some computer advice a while back. She knew that I lived on my own, and I suppose she was trying to introduce me to some of her friends.’
When Burton asked him what sort of computer advice he gave her, Carruthers explained that she needed more storage for her massive photograph collection and he’d suggested that she buy an external hard drive to store them on. Had even shown her how to transfer files and back them up.
23
Back in his office, Burton slumped down in his chair and Fielding sat on the seat across the desk from him.
‘That was unexpected,’ he said, trying to get to grips with what he’d just been told.
‘That would seem to put him in the clear, wouldn’t it?’
‘If we can believe what he said.’ Burton looked at her with doubting eyes. He both wanted to believe the man and also not believe him at the same time. But he knew that they needed to contact the training centre where Jim Martindale had studied under Alex Carruthers’s tutorage and find out where he lived. That task was given to DC Wayman.
While DC Wayman was busily at work on the telephone, Fielding could hear her phone ringing back on her desk. The caller display told her it was Claire Rawlins calling her. She hadn’t expected another call from her so soon.
‘Hi, Claire,’ she said. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘I was wondering,’ Rawlins began, ‘if you’d like to come over to my place this evening? I’ve been recalled back up to my work in the north east and I’m not sure when I’ll get the chance to meet up with you again, as I can’t see you heading back up there anytime soon.’ She laughed gently. ‘I heard that you’ve arrest
ed somebody in the murder cases, so I’m hoping that you’d be free. Please say yes!’
Claire didn’t seem to realise that working in the police force wasn’t a nine-to-five job. Maybe she could clock off work when the little hand on the clock struck the number five, but that wasn’t the case with everyone. However, Fielding took a moment to consider the situation. With Carruthers waiting in the cells pending an official arrest in thirty-six hours’ time, they had to move quickly to find the man they now knew as Jim Martindale, and bring him in for questioning. But maybe Burton would let her off on that one and take a detective constable with him when he went to get Martindale. ‘Give me a moment,’ Fielding said and cupped the phone while she went and asked Burton if that option was a possibility.
‘Why not… yes, go on, take the night off and I’ll see you bright and early in the morning.’ He seemed more upbeat than he’d been a short while ago, and a million miles away from the man who had taken care of the greasy solicitor with his harsh tongue and firm stance. Perhaps he could see the light at the end of the tunnel, and that was something they all definitely needed right now.
But, back to the phone call.
‘Yes, Claire, that’s fine,’ she told her when she’d had Burton’s go-ahead. ‘Just text me the address and time and I’ll see you then.’
‘That’s great, I’ll send you the information now… and I’m really looking forward to seeing you again.’ And true to her word, a few minutes later the text message containing her temporary address in the city was delivered with a ping to Fielding’s phone.
Fielding was packing up her desk for the night when DC Summers got up from his desk. He went sprinting across the room to Burton’s office and rapped urgently on the closed door. She saw Burton indicate for him to go in. Then both of them emerged within seconds and headed back towards Summers’s desk.
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