by Iain Cameron
Instead, he suddenly became mellow and conciliatory.
‘I understand why you would suggest that Alan and I would support you all the way, if I believed it would do any good, but as I said before, this killer has already fleshed out his plans and doesn’t need the web site running to help him.’
Stark, his need for self-preservation greater than his need to make a point, might have gone on to say that he wasn’t asking him to close it down to thwart the killer, but as a mark of respect for the dead, but sensibly he kept his trap shut.
There was a time when he liked the university’s vice-chancellor, Robert Donahue but a private meeting two days ago put paid to all that. Donahue informed him that rumours were reaching his ears that he was part owner of a porn web site and most damning of all, in his estimation, girls from the university were appearing on it. He denied it but was told the university were launching an investigation to establish the facts and if substantiated, he said in that plummy, grating voice he used for carpeting drug-takers or anyone damaging university property, he would have no alternative but to dismiss him.
He was stunned by the news, especially as he was expecting the meeting to be about his long-awaited promotion, at least that was how he interpreted the phone call, billed as a review of ‘his current position at the university.’ He was also stunned because it wasn’t until that moment he realised how much the place meant to him. It wasn’t just a job or even a vocation; it was a way of life, his whole being. He ate there, worked there, wrote there, drank there, met women there and often slept there, and even before his wife threw him out, often preferred staying there to going home.
His wife threw him out after he arrived home late last Friday night, or technically Saturday morning, following a drunken binge. It started as usual in the bar, then into the main hall to watch a band called Strategic Air Cover before heading off to a party in one of the halls of residence, where he found himself in bed with a gorgeous girl who wasn’t even a student at the university. When he finally woke up, late on Saturday afternoon with a bad hangover, unbeknown to his befuddled brain, he was sporting something on his neck and on the inside of his left thigh, regions where last night Tania, Tamara or Teresa, he couldn’t remember her name, was doing utterly amazing things with her tongue, lips and teeth.
It was a love-bite for Christ sake! Two to be exact, something not suffered since high school. His wife saw it before he could dress and put on the polo neck he was holding, which he dropped after she went ballistic and punched him in the face. He heard little of the screaming attack but enough to understand his current behaviour was simply a microcosm of all the innuendo, gossip and advice of her well-meaning friends, who were continually warning her that her husband was a first-class philanderer and she would be better off without him.
That afternoon he left the house in a taxi, with two large suitcases and a briefcase full of unmarked scripts, which he took to the White Hart Hotel in Lewes High Street. After freshening up with a snooze, shower and a shave, he walked into the nearest letting agency and insisted on being shown three decent properties. On the proviso that they did not try to sell him a pup in the shape of a flat only suitable for male students with cooking, cleaning or bathing phobias, he promised he would select one of the three on the spot.
The opportunity to make an instant buck on a quiet Saturday afternoon in the middle of term, was too much of a temptation for a young agent who was slightly below his target for the month and true to his word, he was shown three attractive places and selected the second, a one-bedroom, furnished flat in Mountfield Road that was clean, modern and close to the railway station.
He called Alan Stark not long after and almost regretted the courtesy as his raucous laugher seemed to mock him, but he was right about one thing, his wife was really doing him a favour as he could now live the bohemian life he wanted to live and could be more open about all the money he was making. The money was indeed kept hidden from his wife and Stark did the same with his. Lecturers’ wives expected their husbands to be comfortably off but not rolling in the stuff like hedge fund managers or Crystal Meth dealers.
They agreed to meet for an hour on Sunday evening at a pub called the Pelham Arms, which was close to the hotel where he continued to stay until the letting agents had completed all the paperwork. He arrived an hour before and ordered a glass a wine and a steak pie. By the time he finished his evening meal and downed a second glass of wine, Stark walked in. Never one for small talk, he asked where he was living, what his plans were and if he needed any help: although the main sort of help he could offer, relationship, money, legal, he didn’t need.
With the housekeeping stuff out of the way, Stark finally moved onto the subject that was really troubling him. Although he didn’t express it as well as he would have liked at the meeting with Green, Stark was still vehemently opposed to keeping the web site live but the question that hung in air like stale beer and the reek from the toilets whenever that door was pushed open, was how to persuade Green.
As the senior man, Lehman naturally assumed Stark would take responsibility but the more he spoke about the need for him to develop a cash model to demonstrate how much they would lose when the site was off-air, an estimate of the subscribers demanding a refund and so on, the more he realised he was pushing him to the fore. The image of Stark’s drained and ashen face, two-seconds after he first spoke about closing the web site in Green’s sitting room at Langley Manor, still made him shudder.
Lehman drained the last of the vodka from the cup before reaching for the bottle and refilling it. If last weekend could be classed as ‘shitty,’ the start of a new week was a cesspit. Yesterday morning he was leafing through the latest edition of Accounting Management and was surprised to find an article entitled, ‘Accountancy Textbooks – A Good Read or Dumbing Down for Today’s Students?’
It was written by a professor at York University called Tom Halverson and Lehman was appalled to read that he not only alluded to Lehman’s practice of ‘plagiarising good ideas from dry and forgotten textbooks,’ but he mentioned him by name. He was then singled out as pace setter, pack leader and de facto driver of this nefarious trend, describing him as ‘an author that has built a solid and profitable franchise on foundations made of sand.’
The magazine was still lying on the desk and he placed another over it as he reached into the drawer and removed a rope. He got it in a ships chandler at Brighton Marina the day before and it was already equipped with a loop at one end, which he assumed was for throwing over capstans and all he needed to do was fashion a noose at the other, which did using skills learned in the Scouts.
He downed the last of the vodka and stood on the desk. He reached up and removed four ceiling tiles, exposing an intricate lattice of aluminium struts supporting the ceiling and a thick reinforced steel joist supporting the floor above.
After three attempts he managed to throw the rope over the joist and secure it tightly by threading the noose through the pre-tied loop. He pulled the rope hard and gratifyingly, the RSJ refused to budge. He dragged over a chair and climbed up. He grabbed the dangling rope and slipped the noose around his neck. He tightened it as he would do with a tie before an important engagement and without a moment’s hesitation, kicked away the chair and launched himself into oblivion.
TWENTY-EIGHT
He stared at the two detectives intently. Hobbs was speaking, relaying word-for-word all he could remember about his conversation with Jon Lehman the day before. Seb Young beside him was under orders to interrupt if he heard anything that hadn’t been said or if he could put a different slant on events, but he needn’t have worried as he was nodding in agreement. It was not a disciplinary interview as he trusted and respected Hobbs but he needed to be sure they could robustly defend any accusations thrown at them by the Argus or civil liberties groups that as a result of actions taken by the police, Jon Lehman took his own life.
Two constables from Lewes were first on the scene and quickly conclud
ed it was suicide, only to be confirmed by the pathologist a few hours later. It didn’t take them long to discover a university investigation into his connection with the academic-babes website had begun, his writing career was recently pilloried in an influential accountancy journal and he was recently chucked out of the marital home by his wife.
In his job, he frequently passed judgment on the motivations and actions of suspects and witnesses but before doing so, he would always try to get into their heads and imagine what he would do in a similar situation. He wasn’t trying to give credibility to their actions, as many suspects were intent on criminality but making an attempt to understand their motivation.
From his knowledge of Jon Lehman, he would imagine he was doing what he wanted to do and living a life many people would envy, but for some reason, it didn’t seem to make him happy and the intolerable pressure that was suddenly heaped upon him in the last few days would tip many people over the edge, but surely it didn’t have to end in suicide?
His calls were being held while he was speaking to Hobbs and Young and now with the meeting over, he switched it back on. A few minutes later Chief Inspector Steve Harris called. Armed now with information about a second student murder, the Argus and every other newspaper in East and West Sussex were going ballistic with a daily diet of hysterical headlines which screamed: ‘Students In Death Risk’ and ‘Serial Killer Stalks Campus’. They tried to placate them at the previous day’s press conference but like little boys with their fingers in the dyke as a high spring tide from the North Sea loomed, the nationals were now all over the story like a bad rash.
‘So, no flak will fall on us?’ the CI asked.
‘No, as far as I’m concerned, they’re both in the clear. There was nothing said at that meeting which could be construed as tipping the man over the edge and we’ve heard nothing from the university to contradict that.’
‘Have we just lost our murder suspect then?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Henderson said. ‘We never really suspected Jon Lehman was guilty of anything but naivety, and even though he appeared to be at the heart of the investigation, in reality it was happening all around him. Stark and Green are the real movers in that web-business.’
‘Start putting some pressure on them now and find out what they know. They must be feeling a little more vulnerable today but be careful with Green, he’s not only a canny operator and a dangerous criminal, he’ll cry ‘foul’ at the earliest opportunity and run to his pals in the press. Talk to you later.’
Henderson wearily moved his chair towards the computer and shook the mouse to wake it up, but it only depressed him further when he saw how many emails were now in his inbox. He clicked on the first as DS Carol Walters stuck her head around the door. ‘Great news, sir,’ she said breathlessly.
‘Don’t tell me, you’ve won the Euro lottery and you’re giving your boss a million quid for all the grief you’ve caused him over the years.’
She looked at him with mock-astonishment. ‘Don’t be daft, if I won the lottery, you wouldn’t see me here, I’d be phoning my resignation in from the airport.’
‘So, what is it then, this great news?’
‘They found a cigarette butt at West Hove.’
‘Where, on the road?’
‘No, near the dump site.’
‘Excellent.’ He put his hands behind his head and pushed the chair away from the table and leaned back. He was staring at the ceiling, at the little brown stains on the tiles and wondering idly where they had come from, water leaks from the myriad of pipes that snaked around the building or the angry actions of the previous incumbent of this office and an errant cup of coffee. ‘From memory, the place where the body was found looked to be too far off the beaten track and too overgrown to be frequented by dog walkers or golfers.’
‘Yep.’
He sat forward. ‘Wait a minute. What if it was a post-coital smoke by Peter Franks after a another coupling session with Jenny Holmes?’
‘No, I checked. Neither of them smokes and no, they haven’t used that place before. Plus we can easily get a DNA sample to eliminate him.’
‘Where was it, exactly?’
‘It was in the bushes, about six feet away from the body. This guy has been so careful so far but the SOCO’s think he might have been struggling with the body because the gorse is quite thick around there and while he was trying to create a gap, might have thrown it away without thinking.’
He smiled. ‘This is more like it. At Mannings Heath, we didn’t have the foggiest where the perp even stopped his car, never mind finding a fag end or a beer can that he might have left behind. Who told you?’
‘Pat Davidson.’
The Crime Scene Manager was a cautious sort, who could be an infuriating sod at times, and to some it came across as arrogance or obstinacy, but if he believed it was part of the crime scene and belonged to the killer, that was good enough for him.
‘Fast track it. I want a DNA sample as soon as you can.’
‘I was hoping you would say that.’ With a flourish, she produced the required additional expenditure authorisation form and placed it in front of him.
When the DS left, he called Rachel and was glad to hear she was settling in well and easily making her way around the flat on crutches and on that cheery note, he walked over to Asda to buy some lunch. Twenty minutes later and after demolishing two tasteless tuna sandwiches, all that remained on the shelves at that late hour of the afternoon, he took a seat in the observation room and settled down to watch the Walters and Bentley show.
In spite of the belief by many in the team that Mike Ferris was their man, his connection with the case would start to unravel if he could produce receipts to prove he was in Scarborough on the night Louisa Gordon was murdered, as by a process of logic that was accepted by all, whoever murdered Louisa also murdered Sarah.
Guilty or not, he wasn’t doing himself any favours by withholding critical evidence when he denied knowing Sarah Robson. Walters was instructed to explore the reasons why he did that as there were some on the team who believed the killer could be working with an accomplice and perhaps the trip to Scarborough was simply a diversion to give him a sound alibi.
The notion of serial killers hunting in tandem was almost too implausible for him to contemplate. It required the meeting and teaming up of two people that were both obsessed by the same bent perversion and in complete agreement about the methods of abduction, how they would commit the murder and how to dispose of the body. Also, this entirely methodical and detailed process was expected to originate from the minds of two twisted, evil and malformed individuals who operated outside the normal checks and balances that applied to all other people in society.
The movie image of the clever killer and his idiot savant was exactly that, a movie image designed to scare and entertain in equal measure but with little basis in reality. That said, he was aware of one case in America where two lorry drivers were separately involved in raping and murdering a number of drifters and hitchhikers and shared their ‘experiences’ by email. He needed to keep an open mind when it came to assessing the evidence but he was also wary of being led down dead-end tracks by convenient theories, more suited to the inner pages of a tabloid newspaper than inside the head of a murder detective.
TWENTY-NINE
With his arms crossed and sporting a fresh buzz-cut, Mike Ferris was an intimidating figure, but looking relaxed with a lightly tanned face and probably a few inches on the girth from drinking too much Yorkshire bitter as clearly the weather in Scarborough was better than ‘sunny’ Sussex, as the only place to get a tan around here these last few weeks, was on a sun-bed.
Sitting beside Ferris was the duty solicitor, a slightly flustered and badly dressed young man by the name of Ashley Conner. Like many of his ilk, he would spend a couple of years cutting his teeth in custody suites and interview rooms like this and when his conscience ceased repeating the ‘justice for all’ mantra, gained as an impression
able student at college, he would move up-market to a smart law practice and start defending richer clients that could afford to pay for the expensive lifestyle he now craved.
After preliminaries and a gripe from Ferris about being kept in custody, as he was an innocent man, Walters began to question him about Sarah Robson.
‘Earlier this month, Detective Sergeant Wallop and myself visited your cottage in Mannings Heath and we asked you whether you knew Sarah Robson. Do you remember what you said?’
‘Remind me, love, I’ve got a bad memory.’
‘You said, and I quote from my notebook: ‘Never heard of her.’
‘There you go then.’
She reached into a folder. ‘Let me show you this.’ One by one she laid out a series photographs. ‘For the tape, I am now showing Mr Ferris pictures taken by CCTV cameras outside the Havana Bay nightclub in Brighton.’
He leaned over nonchalantly but gripped the side of the table in anger when he saw what was on them. ‘Fucking hell, that’s me!’ he shouted. ‘Where the hell did you get these?’
She pointed at one of the pictures. ‘Do you agree that these pictures are of you?’
‘Of course it’s fucking me, who else would it be, David Beckham?’
‘The person you are talking to in that picture is Sarah Robson.’
A light went on in his head as suddenly he realised the shit he was in if this went against him.
‘I see what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to fit me up. I talk to loads of birds in the queue at the club but it don’t mean I know them.’