by Iain Cameron
He was confident going into the interview with Samuels on Tuesday morning that it would be a shoo-in and even he, with his arm in a sling and unable to bend from the waist to pick up a pen, would at least manage to elicit his confession. To his utter amazement, Samuels was not reading from the same script. He was silent for most of the time and refusing to answer any questions and when he did say something, it was to deny doing anything wrong.
Henderson knew they could convict him without his assistance, as he could hardly claim to have bought Sarah’s and Louisa’s clothes on Ebay or at a car-boot sale and aside from going through a process he was obliged to undertake because the law demanded it, he was doing it for the families of the victims who wanted to know why their children were dead.
‘I have to say,’ Samuels’s brief said, ‘I object to your line of questioning, Inspector.’
‘Sorry, Mister Campbell, let me rephrase. Mister Samuels, I said that I thought your alibis for both nights were a little vague when we first spoke, but now you’re telling me you have witnesses that can corroborate your presence up to at least one in the morning on both occasions? Where did you conjure that up from?’
‘Fuck off, Henderson.’
He whispered something to Gerry Hobbs.
‘DS Hobbs has now left the room.’ Henderson said, hoping the calls he was going to make to Samuels’s recently remembered witnesses would drive a hole through his alibi as they needed the man to open up, otherwise this interview was as useful as watching paint dry and the longer it went on, the more the effect of the antibiotics and painkillers were wearing off.
Hobbs returned a few minutes later and with a satisfactory nod indicated that his alibi was being dissected right now. Good. If the interview continued to move along its dreary path, he would call a halt and wait for results, at least it would give him something to do.
Samuels’s brief, top Brighton criminal lawyer, Jeffrey Campbell did not come cheap but then Samuels was the classic rich kid gone bad. His father owned a gin distilling business in the east end of London which had been started by his grandfather at the end of the First World War, and in the early 1990s it was sold to drinks giant Diageo for fifteen million pounds.
When his abusive, bully of a father died ten years ago, the fifteen million had grown to twenty but Samuels received only three as his legal and business-savvy brothers pocketed the rest plus the large family house in Notting Hill. If that wasn’t enough to rile the youngest sibling, he and Dominic Green were involved in a shopping development in Worthing in which he lost half a million pounds.
‘Mr Samuels, I will ask again, how do you account for the clothing found in your house in Southview Road, of which there can no doubt, belonged to Sarah Robson and Louisa Gordon, two murdered women?’
‘No comment,’ he said sullenly.
‘I put it to you, that you put them there. That little room with the newspaper clippings and photographs, all neatly tacked up on the wall, the clothes and jewellery folded tidily inside the chest of drawers. This was your shrine to those girls, to your skills and expertise as a serial murderer.’
‘Fuck off Henderson. I said no comment and I mean no comment.’
‘Mr Samuels your obstinacy in not replying to my questions is not doing you any good.’
‘You mean it's not doing you any good,’ he replied.
‘You will be convicted of the brutal murders of two girls no matter what you say or don’t say, but I would like the families of the victims to know just what happened to their children.’
Samuels leaned across the table, prompting the constable standing at the door to edge closer. ‘For the last time Inspector Henderson, I didn’t do it. Get your arse out of this poxy room and find out who did.’
Henderson dropped his notes on the table. ‘This is getting us nowhere. Interview terminated at three-fifteen pm. We’ll resume again in the morning.’
They moved upstairs and while Hobbs walked to the coffee machine at the end of the corridor, Henderson leaned against the wall to support his sagging legs. Hobbs came back with a coffee and a cup of water and after digging out two bottles of pills from his pocket and swallowing a couple of pain killers and three antibiotics, he washed it down with cold, metallic-tasting water.
‘He’s a smug bastard,’ Henderson said, ‘he knows it all but he’s not telling us a dickey bird.’
‘Yeah, but that won’t stop us putting the said smug bastard in a cell for ever.’
‘Yeah but it would be scant consolation for the families to see him in Parkhurst but not to know how or why those women were murdered.’
‘Its obvious he doesn’t give a stuff about them.’
‘Not only that, but we still don’t know how the murders are connected to Dominic Green and his web site and where, if anywhere, Mike Ferris fits in and if there are any other victims we don’t know about. In fact, all the bloody the things we’ve debated endlessly in our team meetings.’
‘And here was me thinking this would be the easy bit. I was looking forward to another booze-up with Harris on the tab.’
‘Twice in one decade, you must be joking. So,’ he said shifting his position on the wall, trying to get comfortable, ‘how do we give this interview the kick-start it needs?’
‘If we suspend belief for a second and ignore the fact that we think he’s as guilty as Fred West or the Moors Murderers, maybe his reluctance to cough is because it wasn’t him. The stuff’s all lying in his house for sure, but maybe he’s looking after it for someone else.’
‘We’re back to that tandem killer theory again and I still don’t like it.’
‘Yeah, me neither but maybe there’s not two of them working in tandem but one and he’s covering for someone, for argument’s sake, a mate.’
‘I see what you mean,’ Henderson said, ‘not quite in tandem and not quite a master and servant but just someone looking the other way.’
‘Yeah. Something like that.’
‘So this person could be a neighbour, a relative or even a lodger.’
‘Well, we can check out the lodger theory because if he lived there, he would have some of his stuff at Southview Road, would he not?’
‘He would. Let’s ask.’ He fished out his phone and called Pat Davidson.
‘Hi Pat, it’s Angus, how’s it going? Found anything interesting?’
‘It’s going fine, boss. We should be out of here tomorrow midday at the latest. There’s loads of stuff as you can imagine. One of the boys looked at his pc and this’ll spook you, he’s been looking at dozens of web sites about you and the girls and he downloaded articles and pictures and saved them to the hard drive.’
‘He’s a creepy bastard that man. Anything else?’
‘Surprise, surprise, he’s a regular viewer of porn. Nothing off the main highway, if you see what I mean but still hard core all the same and no surprise, but he’s a regular on the academic-babes web site.’
‘That figures.’
‘Under the sink we found a kidnappers’ kit bag, small rope, knife, little bottles of liquids which we think are sedatives and by the smell, the date-rape kind.’
‘Hang on and I’ll tell Gerry.’
‘Why don’t we literally drop that in his lap,’ he said after he’d heard, ‘and see how he responds?’
‘Sure. Send it up, Pat. Now this might sound a daft question, but is there anything that doesn’t seem to fit or looks unusual?’
‘Nothing unusual for a murderer’s house, you mean,’ he said laughing. ‘What sort of thing are you thinking of?’
‘Samuels is stonewalling and with the weight of evidence against him, I don’t understand why he’s bothering. The only thing I can think is that he’s hiding something or someone. It makes me think he’s trying to cover up for other crimes he’s committed or he’s shielding somebody else, maybe a friend or a lodger.’
‘I see what you mean. If he’s got a lodger, you would expect his things to be here, although I haven’t noticed any but the
n I haven’t been looking.’
‘Well let’s take a look now.’
‘Where do you want me to start?’
‘The kitchen or the bathroom.’
‘It might be more obvious in the bedroom as it will be easier to spot differences in clothes than who uses which after-shave.’
‘Fine. Open the wardrobe in the room where the girls’ clothes are and see what’s inside.’
‘Give me a sec.’ A few moments later he said, ‘Ok Angus I’m there.’
‘What do you see?’
‘Shirts, trousers, jumpers...’
‘What size are the shirts?’
‘Let me see…seventeen.’
‘The jumpers?’
‘Chest size… forty-four inch.’
‘That can’t be for Samuels, can it? He’s average height and build.’ His heart was racing but not sure if it was due to what he was hearing or the effects of the antibiotics.
‘Maybe he likes his clothes roomy or maybe he lost weight.’
‘Could be but take a look in the wardrobe in the other bedroom anyway and see what’s in there.’
‘I’m on my way. Hey this is like, ‘Location, Location, Location.’ What am I saying? I hate that programme.’
A few seconds later, Pat said, ‘right, I’m here. Ok, here we go. Ah, now the shirts are size fifteen and the jumpers are size…thirty-eight inch. This sounds more like bloke of average height and average build. The other lot must be for someone else. You’re right Angus, he has got a lodger.’
‘Thanks Pat, that’s just what I needed. Talk to you later. Well done mate.’ He looked at Hobbs. ‘Did you hear that Gerry? Samuels has a lodger.’
A big grin was spreading over his face. ‘For once, this bloody case is starting to make sense.’
THIRTY-THREE
‘Detective Sergeant Hobbs and Detective Inspector Henderson have entered the interview room,’ Hobbs said into the microphone as they both sat down. ‘Interview timed at eleven am.’
‘Good morning Mister Campbell, Mister Samuels,’ Henderson said, ‘I trust the accommodation was to your liking.’
‘I’ve seen a better pigsty,’ Samuels said grumpily.
‘We try our best,’ he replied.
Without much sorting of papers or further attempts at pleasantries, Henderson began. ‘Mr Samuels the forensics experts that have been examining your house in Southview Road have supplied us with some new information that I think may be of interest to you.’
‘What’s this Inspector, a final desperate attempt to ensnare my client? He has repeatedly told you that he is innocent.’
‘The only reason your client is so bloody smug, Mr Campbell is that he knows he did not murder those two girls,’ he let the words hang in the air like the heady scent from a rose garden in summer, and watched as a world-weary smile creased across Samuels’s face but it froze in a grimace when he added, ‘because we now know he shares a house with the person who did.’
‘As you well know Mr Campbell, this means your client is at least an accessory to murder, but I won’t stop there. Oh no, I will charge him with joint-enterprise to murder, to ensure he gets the same sentence as the killer as in my opinion, he is equally culpable.’
Lawyer and client went into a frantic huddle and it was the turn of the two detectives to smile at their discomfort. If, as Samuels maintained, he didn’t participate in the murders, he assumed he was in the clear but by not reporting his companion’s illegal activities, which he must have known about or even instigated, made him party to the same crime under the doctrine of Joint Enterprise.
Samuels was hissing invectives at his brief while Campbell was trying desperately to calm his client and ensure the situation did not spiral out of control. He was working for his fat fee this morning that was for sure. With his client red in the face and on the verge of exploding and doing something more violent, Campbell called for a break.
They resumed ten minutes later but Samuels’s demeanour had changed completely. Gone was the confident, contented man that reminded Henderson of a bank manager, holding back his decision on your loan application, to be replaced with the look of a cornered animal with no chance of escape. Campbell was impassive, with heavyset eyes that revealed little, but his chubby jowls, the result of too many fine lunches and too much top-notch claret, shuddered as he sat down.
Henderson waited. It was up to them to respond.
‘My client has not been entirely frank with you or with me Detective Inspector and for that I apologise.’ A less cynical soul would have basked in the warmth of a rare apology from a celebrity criminal lawyer but he knew Campbell was a wily old fox and he couldn’t let such niceties distract him.
‘There is indeed someone else living with Mr Samuels. He tells me this other person was responsible for the murders, not him and he took no part in his evil activities and will not take responsibility for something he hasn’t done.’
‘What would you like me to say now? Thanks very much for your assistance, Mr Samuels? Because you came and told me it was the big boy from the school around the corner that broke the window and not you, you can go home now? No way, Jose.’ He pointed at Samuels. ‘You’re going back to jail my friend, but believe me, you’re never getting out.’
‘Your antipathy for my client is noted, but what I was going on to say was my client will give you the name of his lodger, who stays with him on a purely financial basis and not for any other purpose, if you drop your threat to charge him with Joint Enterprise to murder.’
‘What do you take me for? An idiot? No way. I’m not agreeing to that.’
‘Detective Inspector Henderson, if Mister Samuels will not tell you this person’s name, I cannot compel him to do so.’
‘If you carry on like that, Mr Campbell I will charge you and your client with obstructing a murder enquiry and withholding vital evidence and I’ll lock you both up until you tell me.’
‘You’re bluffing Henderson and I...’
‘You never know, I might even let it slip to that gaggle of reporters waiting outside, particularly Rob Tremain who’s got a wicked way with words when the mood takes him, that the great Jeffrey Campbell, arch defender of the criminal classes and patron of some of Brighton’s finest eating establishments, is doing porridge in jail rather than eating it at the Grand Hotel.’
Campbell’s face was as dark as thunder as he leaned across the table and pointed a fat index finger in Henderson’s face. ‘You do that and I will make sure you spend the rest of your days issuing parking tickets in Hurstpierpoint. I know a great many people in this town, Detective Inspector Henderson and I can make life very uncomfortable for you.’
They faced each other across the table, and it wasn’t until he felt Hobbs’s arm on his shoulder that he realised he had called for a lunch recess and the recording equipment was no longer operating.
He returned to his office and sat quietly for a few moments, going over in his mind the last ten minutes of that interview. It was not his intention to rile Jeffrey Campbell as he did indeed have a great many friends in high places in Brighton including the Mayor, Chief Constable and the leader of East Sussex County Council, but his view of Samuels was hardening the more he saw of him.
He was clever, cunning and manipulative and there was no way he could be living with a murderer and have no idea what was going on in his bedroom, or when he went out in the car at night, coming back at an ungodly hour with his clothes splattered with blood. After all, the room door was unlocked and Walters only discovered it after taking the wrong turn on her way to the bathroom.
They had reached an impasse and he was not going to back down and seemingly, neither was Campbell or Samuels. He picked up the phone and called Pat Davidson.
‘Hello Pat, I’m in the middle of interviewing David Samuels and even though he admits having a lodger, he won’t give me his name. Can you help?’
‘Just when I thought we’d got the right guy. This case has more bloody twists and turns tha
n Brands Hatch.’
‘I know. Root around in the drawers and cupboards and see if there is anything that can identify him, maybe a letter, court summons, a gym ID card or something like that.’
‘I’m on it Angus. The lads have just brought in some sandwiches but I’ve no stomach for eating. I’ll call you back as soon as I find anything.’
He headed into the Murder Suite, ostensibly to find out how the tasks set at this morning’s lacklustre briefing meeting were progressing, but in reality to give him something to do as he was feeling at a loose end, like hanging around a theatre foyer waiting for the show to restart. For many, this was the boring part of the job after the excitement of the chase, when notes and reports were being typed up or at least tidied, and files examined to ensure they were correct and complete as soon they would be turned over to the CPS legal team to prepare the case for prosecution.
He called the stragglers together and told them about the interview with Samuels and how it was going and there was a collective groan, tinged with excitement, when they realised the case was not yet closed. He thanked them for their efforts so far, but told them one more push was needed to finish the job. Many of them looked tired, partly from a weekend of boozing but over the last six weeks the work had been relentless, with regular late nights and constant weekend working.
He walked back into his office just as the phone rang.
‘Hello Angus, its Pat.’
‘That was quick. I spoke to you, oh only half an hour ago.’
‘Don’t get your hopes up, I’m calling about something else.’
‘Shit.’