One Last Lesson

by Iain Cameron

  The room was sparsely furnished with a cheap-looking settee, a dusty bookcase, one easy chair and the telly. A small table and four chairs at the back of the room was set up as a dining area cum writing area, but it looked untidy and little used. The air smelled of stale beer, old socks and last night’s takeaway and by the look of the tin trays lying on the kitchen counter, it was chicken Tikka Masala, which was about as Indian as fish and chips. Despite the pervading hum, the windows stayed closed. This conversation was private.

  ‘What do you lot want, barging into my house like this?’ Neville said.

  ‘Now, is that a nice way to greet an old friend,’ Green said before taking a seat on the settee. It felt thin and lumpy and about as comfortable as a park bench. Lester sat beside him and Neville took the chair opposite. Restless as a dog with fleas, Spike wandered the room poking his less than discerning fingers at Neville’s stuff.

  ‘You’re no friend of mine Dominic Green, you swindled me out of all my money.’

  ‘There are two sides to every story, Henry. I paid you a fair price for that place. It wasn’t my fault you squandered all your new-found wealth on a dodgy Spanish apartment block.’

  He uttered a fake laugh. ‘If my memory serves me right, it was you that was advising me. Invest in Spain, you said, everybody’s doing it, you said but the apartment block was never built, it was nothing but a stitch up. It was you that ran off with my money, not Jose Hernandez.’

  ‘These are scurrilous accusations, Henry. I wasn’t aware that he was a crook. He was my partner. ’

  ‘It was your fault that I invested in it.’

  ‘What can I say? You asked for my advice and I gave it. I lost money too.’

  ‘You can afford it better than I can.’

  ‘Well, I can assure you, losing money hurts me, just as much as it hurts you.’

  ‘Pah, I doubt that.’

  ‘As far as I’m concerned that’s all water under the bridge now...’

  ‘The hell it is and if you think you can come around here and intimidate me into dropping my claim for compensation, you’ve got another think coming.’

  Spike replaced the ornament he was looking at down on the table and looked at Green with a knowing smile. He liked a challenge did Spike.

  ‘That’s not why I’m here, although I have to admit I hadn’t forgotten about our forthcoming day in court and while I’m confident of winning, otherwise I wouldn’t have let it go this far, lets just say its come round at an inconvenient time.’

  ‘You won’t win,’ he growled, but Green could see his trademark arrogance and confidence was getting to the little man. Neville went on to list all the points of law that his brief must have drilled into his head and the more he spoke, the more Green could feel the hate and spite, and it was clear he held a serious grudge against him.

  In truth, his fall from grace was spectacular. Brighton is a brash, fun-filled holiday resort but if it dances, drinks and parties with its head, it embraces art, in all its forms with its heart. From art exhibitions to avant-garde dance troupes, from music concerts to art-graffiti on the sides of old buildings, Brighton has the lot and for some, its epicentre was the Victoria Cinema in the North Laines.

  The Old Vic as the locals called it, showcased cinema from around the world, often months before they hit the mainstream and in addition was home to theatre, comedy and poetry recitals. It was a central plank of the annual Brighton Festival, which ran for three weeks in early May and attracted the weird and wonderful from all over the arts world, and basking in its radiant glow was one Henry Neville.

  The Old Vic was all that was left of an entrepreneurial father’s eclectic business portfolio and any money the young Neville received from his inheritance was pumped into that fine Victoria fun palace. By the time Green was looking for a large property to redevelop in the centre of Brighton, it was leaking cash faster than the water that dripped from the ancient cisterns that still inhabited the gentlemen’s toilets.

  Neville couldn’t see it, but the source of his troubles was his profligacy. His friends were all invited to the shows for free and he frequently put on ‘arty’ exhibitions and madcap productions by painters, sculptors and actors, most of whom couldn’t attract more visitors than were found at a bus stop. They were bleeding him to death and it was only the intervention of Green that saved him from imminent bankruptcy and a very public humiliation.

  Green held a hand up, a sign for Neville to stop his barrage of invective as he was getting tired of the abuse and he had better things to do today than sit in this dump in Clapham or wherever the hell they were, breathing in the delights of the local Indian fakeaway.

  ‘I’ve heard enough now Henry, you’ve vented your spleen. So now, shut the fuck up. The reason I’m here today is not to talk about this case but to try and find out who killed one of my girls.’

  He went on to explain about the web site and the death of Sarah Robson, all the while scanning Neville’s face for some scrap of recognition, a twitch or a nudge of the eyebrows, but he was either a very good poker player or knew bugger-all about it as he didn’t respond at all.

  ‘So, what’s this? You think I did it or know the person that did? That’s laughable, ha bloody ha. Has it crossed your mind that you’d be the last person I’d tell, even if I did know something?’

  Spike was standing behind him now and slapped him hard on the side of the head. For a man of smaller than average height, his hands were like shovels.

  ‘What the... AHH! That was fucking sore.’

  ‘That was for insolence,’ Green said.

  ‘My bloody ear hurts!’

  ‘Your whole body will very shortly, if you don’t start answering my questions.’

  ‘I didn’t do it, I didn’t kill anybody.’

  ‘Why do I not believe you? Just think back to everything you said to me a few minutes ago, you’re a vindictive little turd, Henry Neville.’ He nodded to Spike.

  The ardent body-builder stepped around the chair to face Neville and punched him in the face, smashing his nose. His hands moved to cover the source of the pain and all they could hear was a muffled howl but unmoved by the suffering of others, Spike hauled him to his feet. Without waiting for a nod, he punched him in stomach, kneed him in the groin and punched him again on the side of the head, causing him to fall sideways onto the floor where he lay, curled up in a ball crying, whimpering and leaking body fluids over the crappy carpet.

  They gave him a few minutes before Spike grabbed him by the shirt and dumped him back in the seat while he wandered away to examine the contents of the bookcase but alas it was not to look at the books.

  ‘Tut, tut,’ Green said, ‘that nose looks bad, you should have it seen to.’

  Neville said nothing; the fight was gone.

  ‘Now I am going to ask you again and if I don’t get some straight answers, Spike here will have some fun smashing up your genitals with the little wooden club that he keeps in his pocket, capish?’

  He nodded slowly.

  ‘Did you attack this girl?’ he said holding up a picture of Sarah Robson, clipped from the Argus the day after she was identified.

  ‘No,’ he said in garbled voice that sounded as if he was underwater.

  ‘I can’t hear you.’

  ‘No, I did not.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’ He paused. ‘Spike.’

  As he came striding towards him, Neville’s face contorted in fear. ‘I didn’t do it Mr Green; I swear to God I didn’t do it. I never touched that girl. I swear. I’ve hardly been out the house for the last month on account of my bad knee. I can hardly walk since it was replaced three weeks ago. Look.’

  He rolled up one leg and they could see the scar. Not red and angry like it had been done last week, but pink and healing. It was a good job Spike didn’t know about it earlier as he could be a spiteful little sod when he put his mind to it. He stood up, he’d seen enough.

  ‘Let’s get the hell out of here.’

&n
bsp; TWENTY-THREE

  Henderson threw the post-mortem report down on the desk. It added only a few details to what he had amassed from his attendance at the mortuary on Monday, but what it did do so effectively was bring back the image of the saw and the scalpel, cutting through the dead flesh of what was once a vibrant and energetic young woman.

  His brother Archie was a soldier with the Rifles Regiment in Afghanistan and his letters often talked about the damage an AK47 round could do to a man’s leg or arm and how he hated it being called disparagingly, ‘small arms fire’ as if it didn’t hurt or kill. He had been involved in several engagements with enemy and a couple of times, stopped an injured comrade from bleeding to death. It gave Henderson some sort of comfort to know that the bodies he saw didn’t scream out in pain and their hearts didn’t continue to pump blood as soon as an insertion was made, but not much.

  After replying to several emails and dealing with various notes on his desk, put there by his Management Assistant when he wasn’t looking, he walked into the Murder Suite and was surprised to find it quiet and contemplative, which suited his mood. Lost in thought, he paced the floor, glancing occasionally up at the three whiteboards that were now full of pictures and annotations. With two murders committed by probably the same man, it was not the similarities he was concentrating on now but on the differences and trying to tease out if the perp had deviated from his initial MO and if so, did it offer up an opening?

  His agitation was partially the result of a heated discussion with Chief Inspector Harris twenty minutes earlier when his proposal to appoint Gerry Hobbs to head up the West Hove murder case was blocked by the CI on the grounds of his inexperience. He was astonished at the man’s intransigence, since Hobbs would be working under Henderson’s constant gaze as he was still responsible for the Sarah Robson case and would have overall responsibility for both investigations and it was a good chance for Hobbs, who they both agreed was future DI material, to test himself with some additional responsibility.

  He could understand Harris’s position if he had proposed DS Carol Walters as in his opinion, she wasn’t ready yet but Gerry Hobbs had proved that he was. He was about to lay it on the line and suggest he could find another stooge to play his parlour games, when Harris relented.

  He paced the floor, comparing the two locations the murderer used. It was possible he was a keen golfer, as he seemed familiar with the hidden areas of two very different courses that were many miles apart, although a green-keeper or dog walker would also qualify. His first reaction on hearing a body had been found on a second golf course was to interview all the members and find those who played on both, but DC Bentley persuaded him otherwise.

  A keen golfer, Bentley said it would gain them nothing but months of laborious work as each club would have many hundreds of members and they would find plenty that played regularly on other courses to give their game some variety or at the invitation of friends, and even if they did complete such an exercise, there was still no guarantee that the person they were looking for was still a current member.

  Hobbs walked over and took a seat close by. ‘You look agitated boss. Anything I can do?’

  ‘I’m trying to figure out why our man is so keen on using golf courses.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that too.’

  ‘If we take the obvious and assume he’s a golfer, former golfer, son of a golfer, it includes about thirty per cent of the population, but why use them at all? Sussex is awash with way better places to dispose of a body that doesn’t have a succession of people tramping through the undergrowth looking for their ball or staring idly into the bushes while they wait for their turn.’

  ‘Yeah or nipping into the long grass for a piss after too many tinctures in the clubhouse. Me, I’d take your boat and head out to some remote headland along the coast and dump it over the side. Once fish, tides and other sea life have enjoyed a peck or two, a body’s unrecognisable after only a few weeks. Without a boat, there are still loads of forests, woods and thickets dotted all over the place where a body could lie undisturbed for months.’

  ‘You can add to that list, chalk pits, gravel pits, building sites, swampy areas beside dozens of rivers and I’m sure there are other places we’ve probably forgotten about. So, back to my original question, why a golf course?’

  ‘I can think of two reasons. Either he’s one of these bloody golf obsessives that my wife’s forever inviting to dinner, the ones that talk about nothing else except the great courses they’ve played on in Spain or Portugal or the great shot they hit two weeks ago. I swear to God, when they’re not playing their stupid game they can’t stop thinking about it.’

  ‘What’s the other?’

  ‘He might be putting the body in a public place because he wants us to find it and doesn’t give a stuff if we do, because he knows he’s done such a good job.’

  ‘Yeah, or he might just be showing off because he’s a cocky sod. For all we know, it might have nothing to do with golf at all. Maybe he’s using it as a ruse to tie us up for months as we get bogged down interviewing hundreds and hundreds of golfers.’

  ‘It’s enough to make your bloody head spin.’

  Henderson’s mobile was ringing.

  ‘Hi Angus, its Carol.’

  ‘Hi Carol. What’s up?’

  ‘You were right sir,’ she said, her voice coming in short, fast bursts as if she was walking.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The body at West Hove was a student at Lewes Uni. Her name is Louisa Gordon and she’s a third year Sociology student.’

  He held the phone away from his ear as the same angry emotion he felt when he first saw her body coursed through his veins.

  ‘Angus, are you still there?’

  ‘Yes, sorry. Brilliant work Carol, absolutely brilliant. Was she easy to find?’

  ‘She was well known to the registrar, when we finally caught up with her that is, as she was rushing around, trying to complete all her work before everyone buggered off for the Easter break. She said Louisa was gregarious and the pushy sort, always volunteering for charity events and fundraisers and all that sort of stuff, so she knew her from that.’

  ‘Has anybody reported her missing?’

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t probe that far as I didn’t want to say she was missing.’

  ‘Good point. What did you tell her?’

  ‘I said she reported her stolen purse and we were investigating.’

  ‘Nice one. I take no one questioned why it took two detectives from Major Crimes to investigate a stolen purse?’

  ‘If you ask me, academics wouldn’t know a police officer from a traffic warden.’

  He ended the call and set off to find Hobbs and tell him the news. Hobbs immediately instructed one of the DC’s now under his command to research the background of the dead woman as he wanted her home address to break the news to her parents, her student address to speak to her flatmates and add some detail to her last movements, and any biographical information they could glean from other sources such as Facebook or Twitter or the university’s web site, without alerting anyone to what they were doing.

  Confident that everything was under control, Henderson rushed out, walked quickly along the corridor, out through the double doors and took the stairs two at a time. On the third floor, he headed into IT Services, a place he didn’t visit all that often and in fact, wondered if he had been there more than twice since starting work at Sussex House. His main communication with them was through regular reports he received about the internet sites his staff were accessing and the amount of time they were spending and on occasion, to approve a report if it included access to any usual web-sites or excessive use of gaming or social media sites, and so he knew the person he was looking for.

  Guy Quigley possessed a large mop of curly, black hair, which completely obscured the phone that he assumed was glued to his ear, either that or he was a complete nutter and liked talking to his hand. As usual, and despite
the grey, overcast day outside, he was wearing a garish Hawaiian shirt that required sunglasses to examine and Henderson didn’t dare look further just in case he was also wearing a pair of flip-flops and shorts.

  To his relief, a phone appeared which he put down on the desk and sent it skidding across the surface and into a pile of papers. He sat up and looked closely at his visitor. ‘Don’t tell me,’ he said clicking fingers together, ‘its Chief Inspector, no its Detective Inspector, Halliday no…Henderson.’

  ‘Very good Guy.’

  ‘Never forget a face, me. See it once, then it’s locked up in here,’ he said tapping the floor mop that passed for hair.

  ‘With a brain like that, who needs computers?’

  ‘Flattery will get you everywhere. So, what can I do for you Inspector?’

  ‘I need access to a porn site.’

  He coughed theatrically. ‘Don’t we all, but your particular predilections are no concern of mine. However I would suggest you use your home pc rather than one downstairs, that is, if you don’t want to be fired.’

  ‘I’m aware of that but I don’t have time.’ He quickly summarised the murder of the two girls, carefully omitting any details that would be of interest to the voracious media as these guys were adept at posting juicy tit-bits on the web, which would be all around the world before he made it back to his desk.

  ‘There are forms to fill in, senior people that need to authorise...’

  ‘Guy, listen to me. I don’t have time. All I want to do is access this web site for ten minutes or so and then you can delete the history from your records. I just need to make sure no report will be sent to my boss and no records will be kept anywhere on the system. It’s essential that this is done quickly as I think the guys that run the web site will take the pictures down as soon as they find out that another of their models has been murdered and I want to get there before they do.’