The Wrecking Bar

by Meurig Jones

  ‘Harry,’ Marden began, ‘according to police in Carmarthen the murder sounds like a carbon copy of the one on the marina. I suggest you get over there right away – traffic’s really bad – and you’ll be met by Sergeant Mark Sweet. But before you dash off, give me a brief account of the marina homicide and the witness you brought in for questioning.’

  DC Jones interrupted and suggested she get details of Jarvis Thomas’s criminal record. Marden nodded his approval, and while she sat at one of the computers and logged on, Lambert told him about the Sun story, suggesting that someone could be targeting paedophiles, and gave him a quick rundown on the Mayfield interview.

  ‘And what’s your opinion of this Mayfield character?’

  ‘I don’t think he killed Titmus. OK, he lied to us, but I think that’s because of his sex offences – offences which he and the victim were in all likelihood still committing. He gives the impression he’s running scared, knowing he could be next in line.’

  Marden turned towards Ellis. ‘And is that your impression, Sergeant?’

  ‘Absolutely, sir. I think he fears for his life. With good reason.’

  Like a bird of prey seeking its quarry, Marden’s eyes settled on Lambert. ‘So now you’ve let him go back to his boat on the marina, knowing there’s a killer on the loose.’

  ‘I was going to suggest, sir,’ Lambert said after an awkward pause, ‘that a patrol car cruises the marina at intervals.’

  The door of the incident room burst open and DC Wallace marched in, breathless and looking slightly dishevelled from his afternoon of knocking on doors.

  ‘Where have you been?’ Lambert grumbled.

  Wallace gave him a self-satisfied smile. ‘I think I got a result. One of the women in the flats is a real nosy type, and she says she saw the victim spending a lot of time with another bloke. It sounds like it was the bloke who found the body. And these two men often spent time on each other’s boats.’

  Lambert was about to tell Wallace they already knew that, when Marden cut in. ‘Well done, Constable. Good work.’

  The chief superintendent started to leave, then turned at the doorway and addressed Lambert. ‘I’ll sort out the patrol car for you.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Lambert mumbled grudgingly, but felt like saying, ‘Big of you.’

  ‘This’ll hit the nationals tomorrow. It’s going to be a big story. I’m afraid your weekend’s up the spout – all of you. Hope none of you have any plans for tomorrow. If someone is targeting all the paedophiles listed in the Sun, we need to act fast on this. I know some of you might think of this as wild justice, and they might well deserve to die, but we can’t let anarchy and vigilantism take over. The law must be upheld.’

  He swept out, leaving Lambert wondering why the chief super could never make a clean exit, and always had to make a speech from the doorway, usually stating the obvious.

  ‘And there’s me thinking I could go after the sex offenders with a machete,’ he said.

  DS Hazel snorted and said, ‘Unusual weapon, that. Any machete murders and you’ll be first to come up on a profile, Harry.’

  Lambert smiled as he turned towards Hazel. ‘Good to have you running the office for us, Roger.’

  ‘Keeps me out of the rain.’

  Turning back towards Wallace, Lambert thought he detected a strong peppermint smell on his breath, and suspected the detective constable of having spent some of his foot-slogging inquiry time in the pub. But now that smoking was banned in public, it was more difficult to tell if someone had been for one or two drinks. So short of actually catching Wallace skiving off, Lambert couldn’t actually prove it. Instead, he thought he’d wipe that smug look off the young detective’s face.

  ‘Sorry, Kevin, but we already knew about the relationship between the two men from the marina. I hope you haven’t wasted the entire afternoon.’

  The sting showed in Wallace’s eyes briefly, and then he bounced back. ‘Oh, I think it’s been far from wasted, sir. Know what else this nosy neighbour told me? She’s got a balcony that looks out over the yacht basin, just about where the victim’s boat was moored. She’s an insomniac and she often sits out at night on the balcony. She wraps herself in a blanket when it’s chilly. On several occasions she saw the victim leaving his boat about one o’clock in the morning and return about an hour or so later.’

  ‘Was this on foot?’

  ‘When he returned, it was in a car. She thought, because of the restricted parking, he probably collected it from a car park nearby and drove to wherever he was going. And when he returned, he came back and left it on yellow lines because it was in the middle of the night, shifting it first thing in the morning. But here’s a peculiar thing she noticed: about three weeks ago he went out and came back around half two, and she could have sworn another car was following his.’

  Lambert was suddenly alert. ‘Did she tell you what gave her that impression?’

  ‘As he was parking his car near where his boat was moored, she saw the other car ease quietly to a stop the other side of the marina and switch off its lights. She felt someone was inside the darkness of the car watching him, seeing where he was going. Then, as soon as he’d disappeared below in his boat, the other car switched its lights and engine on, reversed, and went off the way it came.’

  ‘Did she manage to see what sort of car it was?’

  ‘It was too dark and too far away. She couldn’t even make out the colour.’

  ‘What about the type of car? Four-by-four, saloon, hatchback?’

  ‘She thinks it could have been a medium-size saloon car but can’t be certain.’

  Lambert tugged his lower lip thoughtfully with thumb and finger. ‘Hmm. Thank you, Kevin. Now that is interesting. So what about last night? Did she see anything from her balcony then?’

  Wallace shook his head. ‘Last night she was staying at her sister’s in Cardiff. Didn’t get back until just before the police arrived at the scene earlier today.’

  ‘That was a bit thoughtless of her. If she’d stayed at home we’d have our killer in the cells by now.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Wallace said.

  ‘I was being ironic, Kevin.’

  Kevin tugged at his moustache and stared at the floor. Feeling guilty, Lambert said, ‘But well done for the info about the car. Very useful.’ Then he told them about his meeting with McNeil outside the victim’s house.

  ‘You think he could have followed Titmus from his house, to find out where he was going?’ Ellis asked.

  ‘It’s distinctly possible. And McNeil struck me as an angry vigilante with too much time on his hands.’ Lambert checked his watch again. ‘Here’s what I’d like you and Kevin to do. Go and interview McNeil, see what you can find out about him. I didn’t tell him about the murder so you’ll be able to see if it comes as a genuine surprise.’

  ‘Unless he hears about it on the six o’clock news,’ Ellis said.

  Lambert frowned thoughtfully. ‘I almost wish I’d told him now. But at the moment, because of what we’ve recently learnt from both Mayfield and Kevin’s witness at the marina, McNeil would appear to be top suspect. Debbie and I will be on our way to the crime scene at Carmarthen. And, unless we have any other sensational incidents tonight, we meet here at eight o’clock sharp tomorrow. It’ll have to be a brief meeting because I have to be at Cardiff for the post mortem by ten.’

  ‘Both post mortems, probably,’ Ellis said.

  Lambert pulled a face. ‘Oh, I can’t wait!’

  As they were leaving, he told DC Jones to bring the criminal records on the three sex offenders with her, so that she could read to him while he drove them over to Carmarthen.

  ‘Every so often I like a nice horror story,’ he said.

  SIX

  AS SOON AS they reached the M4, Debbie Jones opened the folder and took out the first few pages on Lubin Titmus. She unscrewed a cap on a plastic bottle and took a long drink of water.

  ‘In your own time,’ Lambert said.
>
  She looked in his direction to see if he was joking, and the smile told her he was. She screwed the top back on the bottle, held the page steady in front of her and squinted.

  ‘I can’t see in this light.’

  Night was smothering the hills like a dark curtain, and the rear lights of the slow-moving cars gave the dusky gloom unnatural warmth as they coasted along in the rush-hour traffic. Lambert reached up and switched on the interior light.

  ‘Won’t make any difference at this speed,’ he said. ‘OK? Can you see to read?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s fine,’ she said. She cleared her throat gently and began reading.

  ‘Lubin Titmus was the only son of Gabriel and Merle Titmus, and he was brought up in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire. His father made his living as a psychic and faith healer. Lubin Titmus attended a village primary school, and in 1956 his father suffered a severe stroke and died soon afterwards. When he was sixteen years old, he was accused of raping a girl of thirteen, but her parents feared the shame attached to such a crime and the charges were dropped. He left home soon after and nothing more was known about him until he was fined for a consenting but indecent act in a cinema with another man.

  ‘His mother inherited her parents’ house in Port Talbot, and moved back to her home town. With the money from the sale of the Gloucester home, she was able to persuade her son to study, go to college and take a business management degree course.

  ‘Once he had his degree, he applied for a job as an administrative assistant at a youth custody centre north of Cardiff. He was employed there from 1975, became head of the institution in 1982, and he and another employee, Gordon Mayfield, were arrested and sacked for sexually abusing young boys in 2001. They were both sentenced to seven years but were paroled after five.

  ‘Two months prior to his release, his mother died and he inherited the house in Port Talbot, which is here on the records as his permanent home.’

  Lambert braked sharply as the brake lights on the car in front showed it had reached the back end of a traffic hold-up. They were now reduced to a slow crawl along the two lanes as they neared the Llanelli turn-off.

  ‘That was all very interesting,’ Lambert said, ‘but it doesn’t tell us much about his relationship with his parents.’

  DC Jones nodded thoughtfully. ‘D’you think he was sexually abused as a child – by the father, maybe?’

  ‘It’s not always the case that sex offenders commit acts of indecency because they themselves were abused as children. But, reading between the lines, and thinking about the way his father made his living, by lying and cheating—’

  ‘You mean because he was a psychic and a medium?’ Jones interrupted.

  ‘Absolutely. Those charlatans can commit fraud and not break any laws.’

  Amused by her boss’s scepticism, Jones shook her head and smiled. ‘He might have been genuine.’

  Lambert laughed. ‘Come on, Debbie, you don’t believe in that mumbo-jumbo, do you?’

  ‘Well, I know you’re going to find this hard to believe but I once attended a séance and the medium told me things he couldn’t possibly have known, about my father who died of cancer six years ago.’

  Lambert stared at the traffic ahead, concentrating and thinking. He liked DC Jones, liked her intelligence and found her attractive, but there was no way he was going to condone this nonsense.

  ‘I’m a policeman, Debbie. I deal in facts. Nothing more, nothing less. End of story.’ He thought that was a firm but gentle way of telling her he wouldn’t subscribe to any superstitious drivel.

  They were past the Llanelli junction now and the traffic was flowing quicker. DC Jones was silent for a moment while she thought about her boss’s attitude to psychic phenomena and decided it was always the same with sceptics. They hadn’t been there; they didn’t know; how could they possibly understand?

  She returned the details about Lubin Titmus to the folder and brought out the sheets concerning Gordon Mayfield.

  ‘You want to hear about Mayfield?’

  ‘Yes, I do. And then the second victim, Jarvis Thomas.’

  The traffic moved more rapidly now they were only a few miles from the end of the motorway and Lambert was able to put his foot down and keep a steady pace in the outside lane. By the time they neared the end of the M4, DC Jones had finished reading the criminal records of the two other sex offenders.

  Mayfield’s childhood, they discovered, had been different from the first victim, inasmuch as social services had removed him from his alcoholic parents and he was taken into care at the age of ten. Sexually abused by both his mother and father, they had also subjected him to paedophile orgies in the front room of their shabby council house in Tregaron. He spent the next eight years in a succession of foster homes across South Wales, leaving at the age of sixteen to work in a coal mine. He bought himself a small house in Merthyr Tydfil in 1980 for only £5,000, putting down a fifty per cent deposit he had managed to save. In 1984, during the miners’ strike, he joined the youth custody centre and in 2001 was arrested and charged for sexual abuse, along with his partner in crime, Lubin Titmus, and was released around the same time.

  Jarvis Thomas’s record was a real horror comic. He had a string of sex offences, starting in 1982 at the age of fourteen when he sexually assaulted a girl of ten, for which he received two years’ probation. The son of an itinerant salesman, Thomas was brought up in Llanelli by an alcoholic mother, and it was believed she may on occasion have sexually abused him. During his second year of probation, aged sixteen, he molested a nine-year-old girl in a park, was caught and sentenced to two years in borstal. After his release, he worked in a small toy factory, where he stole some of the merchandise with which to ensnare young children. He lured a child of nine to his home when her mother was out and sexually attacked her. But her screams were reported to the police by neighbours and he was apprehended, and this time he received a seven-year jail sentence. Following his release, he was prosecuted for claiming benefits while working as a minicab driver, for which he received a fine and a two-year suspended sentence. For the next five years he stayed out of trouble, indicating that he had changed his methods, because in 1997 he was convicted of having sex with a thirteen-year-old girl, having spent three months grooming her on an internet chatroom. Because of the seriousness of the previous convictions, the Crown Prosecution Service pushed for a maximum life sentence, but the defence discovered the girl had already had consensual sex with several adult men, and Thomas was given another seven-year sentence.

  On his release, Thomas didn’t return home to Llanelli and nothing had been heard of him for the last six years.

  ‘Up until today,’ Lambert commented at the end of the DC’s reading. ‘When the grim reaper came to call.’

  Her throat a little raw, Jones swallowed several times before speaking. ‘I can’t help thinking, what goes around.’

  ‘You mean he got what he deserved.’

  ‘They both did.’

  Lambert glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, seeing her expression grim and determined, staring at the road ahead. ‘Maybe we ought to let whoever it is get on with it, and clobber the remaining four,’ he said.

  ‘I suppose we can think that. We can even wish it. But we can’t let it happen.’

  ‘Not after the chief super’s little exit speech.’

  DC Jones threw her boss a sidelong glance. She had often noticed how much the two men disliked each other, the way they desperately tried to keep it in check, yet there was always a bitter resentment bubbling beneath a transparent layer of civilized behaviour.

  ‘Marden will want a speedy result on this case,’ Lambert said. ‘But I have doubts about this one.’

  ‘Because there are so many victims out there with a reason for revenge?’

  ‘Exactly. For a start, think how many abused youngsters there were at that youth custody centre.’

  Jones shifted uncomfortably as she saw a road sign indicating one mile to the
Pont Abraham Services. ‘Would you mind if I made a request, sir?’

  ‘Only if I can request that when we’re on our own you call me Harry.’

  ‘It’s a deal, Harry. Would you mind pulling in at the services? I won’t be long. I know I should have gone before I came out, but …’

  Lambert was already indicating and pulling into the inside lane. ‘I’m feeling a tad dehydrated,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you might like to get us a couple of takeaway coffees. I’ll give you the money.’

  He found a parking space near the services entrance. As Debbie was getting out of the car, he said, ‘Let me give you some money.’

  ‘It’s OK. I think I can afford two coffees.’

  ‘In a motorway services? I hope you’ve got a credit card.’

  She smiled and asked how he wanted his coffee. He hesitated, wanting it black, but knew it would take a while to cool down, so asked for cappuccino instead. She slammed the door shut and he watched as she walked towards the entrance, admiring the smooth roundness of her backside and the alluring sway of her hips, but telling himself she was strictly a work colleague and out of bounds. Life was complicated enough without trying to make advances to one of his officers.

  His thoughts drifted back to the job in hand. On the surface it seemed straightforward, a vigilante targeting paedophiles. There wouldn’t be much public sympathy for the victims, that was for sure. But the worst thing about this case was the mirror in his mind, reflecting back from some deep and sickening bed of shame, a disgusting thought he had long denied. Had his father been like those men? Last year, at his funeral, when he protested to Helen that his father would never have laid a hand on their daughter, he could clearly hear the echoes of Helen’s voice when she replied: ‘No, but there was something about the way he used to look at her.’