Desolate Sands Crime Book 5 (Detective Alec Ramsay Crime Mystery Suspense Series)

by Conrad Jones

“Step in, Sergeant,” Alec waved his hand. Stirling filled the doorway as he passed through it and closed the door behind him. “We’re just catching up anyway so we need your update too.”

  “How did it go with Ryder?” Annie smiled. “Was he pleased to see you?”

  “No, Guv.”

  “Did he confess to killing Charlie Keegan and divulge where Lacey Taylor’s body is?” Annie raised her eyebrows.

  “No, Guv.”

  “Call yourself a detective?” Alec frowned.

  “Shall I throw myself under a bus, Guv?”

  “No,” Alec smiled. “I’m already over budget and replacing the front end of a number ten bus won’t be cheap.”

  “The number ten doesn’t go past here, Guv.”

  “I’ll bet the Ryders would gladly give you a shove.”

  “They had a hand in it, Guv,” Stirling said frowning. “They were rattled enough when I turned up but as soon as I mentioned the incident with Tibbs, they closed shop. Have you spoken to Tibbs yet?”

  “No,” Annie gasped. “Shit, I forgot all about him!”

  “No problem.” Stirling shook his head and sat down. “They released him from the hospital and uniform brought him here for safe keeping. He saw me coming through booking and asked to speak to me. I wanted a word with him anyway, just to clarify what happened with Ryder’s goons.”

  “He left a message with uniform saying that he would only speak to me.” Annie rubbed her forehead and closed her eyes. The stress and strain were taking their toll and the lack of sleep added to the cotton wool feeling in her brain. “I totally forgot about him. What happened?”

  “He thought that he was being followed,” Stirling began. “He gave me the old soldier spiel about Iraq and how he used to teach counter-surveillance. He noticed a Cherokee following him and he clocked that the occupants were well-built males wearing shades. It was raining, so it raised his hackles and because he'd fingered Ryder, he surmised that they were affiliates.”

  “He was worried about them finding out from the moment he walked in, Guv,” Annie explained to Alec. “It looks like his concerns were well founded.”

  “It does,” Alec agreed. “Then what happened?”

  “The wily old git did a u-turn on the dual carriageway, pulled into a McDonald’s, made sure that they were following him and then rammed his Volvo into the front of their Jeep. Obviously he put them out of action and bystanders called the police. Then he declared that he was in witness protection and requested to speak to you.”

  “Clever guy,” Alec said impressed.

  “Bloody hell!” Annie muttered. “Do we know if he was right about it?”

  “The Jeep is registered to a company linked to John Ryder.”

  “No way,” Annie said aghast.

  “Yes way,” Stirling smiled. “Ryder is a director and so is Boris Kolorov.”

  “There we have the Russian link,” Alec said. “What does the company do?”

  “Demolition.”

  “So they’re buying up properties and then bidding on the demolition contracts via their own company.”

  “Sounds like it.”

  “Probably a money laundering operation.”

  “Or a tax dodge.”

  “Or all of the above!”

  “You think that they found out that Tibbs had identified Ryder?” Annie asked.

  “No doubt in my mind, Guv,” Stirling grimaced. “I went fishing and they took the bait. Their reaction was almost funny. I think they’ve been tipped off that we had a witness and then they’ve asked around and put two and two together and come up with Tibbs as the answer. If they silence him, we’ve got nothing to pin them to Keegan, or Lacey Taylor if we find her.”

  “It’s a bit of a stretch coming up with Tibbs’s name though, isn’t it?” Alec was dubious.

  “Not really, Guv.” Annie stood up and walked to the window. “There were dozens of uniform at the scene when we took Tibbs there. He’s on the register and a familiar face to a lot of them.” Annie frowned. “Every one of them would like to see him swinging from a tree, because they don’t know the real story.”

  “It would only take one careless conversation at the burger van and his name could have been picked up,” Stirling offered another alternative. “The press have been drinking tea by the gallon there and mixing with CSI and uniform trying to pick up snippets of information. One wrong whisper over a burger and Tibbs’s anonymity was dust. As soon as we took him to the scene his identity was vulnerable.”

  “Well it sounds like our Mr Tibbs can handle himself,” Alec smiled. “I would have liked to have seen their faces when he rammed their Jeep.”

  “Priceless,” Annie agreed. “Is he still here?”

  “No,” Stirling shook his head. “He said that he would go and stay with his sister for a while. He wrote her address down for me in case we need him for anything. I had a uniform take him there.”

  “Okay,” Annie shrugged an involuntary shiver off. Something still didn’t sit right about Tibbs. “We can’t bring Ryder in on the strength of Tibbs’s sighting anyway. He can’t testify in court, so unless we find Lacey and some evidence to link them to her, we have nothing.”

  “Did you speak to his handler?” Alec asked.

  “Who?” Annie asked confused.

  “I know you checked out his change of identity and that checked out, but did you follow up by speaking to his handler at the MOD?”

  “No, Guv,” Annie bit her bottom lip. “We got what we could, but if we wanted any more then we needed a court order. Things just snowballed and I didn’t think it was relevant. Do you?”

  “It might be,” Alec shrugged. “You’ve got enough to think about for now. I’ll make a few calls and get a warrant. We’ll see if we can’t find out exactly what his story is. At some stage, we’re going to be asked about it. If we find out now, it might save us some considerable embarrassment later.”

  “I should have done it. Thanks, Guv.”

  “Where does that leave you with the Keegan investigation?” Alec asked Stirling.

  “He was a crooked property developer backed by dirty money,” Stirling shrugged. “We can assume his murder is connected to the acquisition of land in the city, which Lacey Taylor was protesting about. There’s no doubt in my mind that they were both bumped off by the same outfit but until we connect names to bank accounts, we’re stuffed. Ryder is in bed with the Russians and we know they’re involved in everything from extortion to people trafficking.”

  “It doesn’t strike me that it’s John Ryder’s style,” Annie shook her head. Her top lip retreated to expose her teeth when she was thinking. “We know he’s no angel but beheading the opposition and kidnapping community workers seems extreme for him; the Russian mob maybe, but Ryder?”

  “I agree with you to a point,” Stirling tilted his head, “but the stepson, Brendon makes me nervous. There’s something about him that unnerves me.”

  “How so?” Alec asked. Stirling obviously had a hunch that he was more than willing to explore. “It’s not like you to be unnerved by anyone.”

  “John Ryder and his cousin Geoff are career criminals, right?”

  “Right.”

  “They were cool enough not to shoot me even though I tried my best to provoke a reaction, but the stepson just wasn’t rattled by anything that I said. He made jokes, he was sarcastic but there wasn’t even a glint of concern in his eyes. He was ice.”

  “Just another cocky young gangster working his way up the tree?”

  “No,” Stirling shook his head. “It was as if he really didn’t care. He wasn’t faking it, he wasn’t worried.”

  “Maybe he hasn’t done anything to be worried about,” Alec offered. “Perhaps he isn’t privy to the workings of the family yet.”

  “I’m not buying that.” Stirling disagreed. “Geoff and John were concerned and they were shielding him. I think Brendon Ryder has gone outside of his remit and now they’re closing ranks to cover up his mes
s. They will be more concerned about pissing off their Russian partners than us.”

  “Let’s get everything we can on Brendon,” Alec said. “If he’s the weak link, then the family might just let him take the fall to protect the business. Good work, Jim.”

  “We need to get this briefing underway,” Annie said anxiously. “I want the team brought up to speed on the forensics.”

  “Get yourselves organised and I’ll be with you in five,” Alec picked up the telephone. “I want to start the ball rolling with the Ministry of Defence. They won’t do anything quickly.”

  Chapter 23

  The atmosphere in the room was electric; rumours that identifications had finally been made passed from desk to desk. The detectives restocked their coffee cups and mineral water and waited for the DI to brief the team. Tension charged the atmosphere as Annie switched on the screens. She cleared her throat and looked at the faces before her. Her team was hungry for news, desperate for a breakthrough to work on. As the images appeared, a tense silence fell over the room.

  “Our first victim is Mary Jackson, twenty-two years old and from the Huyton area of the city.” Annie pointed to the bank of screens behind her. The faces of four young women were partnered with images of the abominations that they had become at the hands of the Butcher. The main screen showed an attractive woman with shoulder length brown hair. Her features were hardened by a sallow complexion and dark circles beneath her eyes. “We know that she was an addict and that she had form; shoplifting, possession and soliciting. She had no next of kin listed on her arrest jacket and the last known address we have is two years old, hence nobody noticed her missing. We need to know where she spent the last year of her life if we’re going to work out where she was taken from.”

  “She was extracted from the dunes here,” Kathy Brooks said pointing to another screen. It showed an aerial image of the beach and the surrounding nature reserves. “We’re estimating that she was buried six to nine months ago. Her cause of death was suffocation. The breathing tube was blocked with seagull droppings.”

  “Poor woman, it’s supposed to be lucky if a seagull craps on you,” Stirling said sourly. No one laughed but then no one was supposed to. “If he went back to feed them, then surely he checked that the tubes were clear. Maybe she was lucky after all.”

  “If it quickened her death and ended her nightmare, then you could say she was lucky,” Kathy agreed looking at the grim facial expressions around the room.

  “We know from vice that she worked the Jamaica Street area for a few months but we don’t know where she was taken from. Let’s get her photograph out there and pin down where she was abducted.” Annie looked around for DC Mason and spotted her at the back of the room. “We’ll need Matrix to help us pinpoint where all these girls worked at the time of their disappearance.”

  “I’ve already passed the photographs onto Vice Squad,” Alec added. “Between them and the Matrix Unit, we should be able to get a fix on them.”

  “Is Weston the killer?”

  “We think so but we have to prove it.”

  “If we’ve got Weston in custody, why aren’t we drilling him for information?” Amanda asked the question which every detective in the room wanted to ask. “Is he talking?”

  “He’s procedurally savvy,” Annie answered.

  Alec walked to the front of the room and stood next to Annie. “Here are the simple facts. We have a suspect who was arrested in a compromising position. He was in a house with a female locked in the cellar and a male bound in the living room. If you look at the evidence, all that we can prove is kidnap and assault. We can’t connect him to the beach,” Alec explained. “What we have is circumstantial evidence and nothing more. We can nail Weston for kidnapping Tasha Jenkins and for an assault on Grant, but if we want to nail him as the Butcher, we need to go at this as if we have no one in custody. I want this done with belt and braces, by the book, so that when we go to the Crown Prosecution Service it’s an airtight prosecution. Forget Weston for now. Okay? We must find more evidence.”

  “All we have is kidnapping and assault,” Annie agreed. “But we can hold him in custody while we find the evidence that we need.”

  “Guv.” The gathering nodded and silence fell as they waited for the next batch of details. The image on the main screen changed. A rough-looking blonde with a piercing through her right eyebrow stared from the screen.

  “Kerris Owens, thirty-three from Swansea,” Annie moved on. “She arrived in the city two years ago. She was signing on from a bedsit in Kensington, but failed to show up for a benefits hearing eight months ago. We don’t know where she’s was between then and when she was murdered.”

  “Which ties in with her time of death,” Kathy agreed. “She has been in the sand for at least six months. We found her in the dunes here.” She pointed to the aerial image of the sand dunes beyond the beach. They seemed to stretch for miles.

  “What are all the black spots on the map of the beach, Kathy?” a detective asked.

  “Here are where the victims were extracted,” she pointed. “Here are where the statues are positioned. I wanted to see if there was any correlation between the burial sites and the iron men.”

  “Is there?”

  “Not that I can see, but I’m not finished analysing yet. Because of the way the victims are poised and their proximity to the Iron Men, we need to check every eventuality. I’m crosschecking high tides, low tides and phases of the moon, with the approximate time of burial. We may find a correlation and we may not.”

  There were some raised eyebrows amongst the detectives. “Kathy is right,” Alec backed her up. “There is a weight of evidence that serial killers are triggered by high tides and the cycle of the moon. Bundy, the Zodiac Killer and Berkowitz were all more active during full moon phases.”

  “It doesn’t help the women in my lab, but it may help you to figure out when your killer will strike again.”

  “Thanks, Kathy. This is Jackie Goodall, forty-two from Bootle.” The image changed as Annie spoke. “Her last known address is a hostel in Sefton Park. She was on probation after a six month stint for distributing class A’s. She went missing six weeks ago, which makes her our freshest victim. It should be easier to trace her whereabouts, so I want Amanda’s team to take this one.” Amanda Mason nodded her acknowledgement and her team swapped excited whispers. One of them began an internet search immediately. “Thanks, Kathy. Carry on.”

  “Jackie was pulled out of the sand here,” Kathy pointed to the map. “It doesn’t take a genius to work out that the killer was moving further away and deeper inland with each victim. At least, that’s the pattern so far.” The screen changed again and a pretty blonde smiled at the room. It wasn’t a custody suite photograph and she had a different look to the others. Her eyes sparkled with life. Her teeth were pearly white and her skin was unblemished and healthy. Alive, she was a potential beauty queen. Dead, she was a mummified horror.

  “The fourth victim is Tina Peters, nineteen,” Annie grimaced. The tender age of the victim stung. “She is the only victim reported missing but she was a student studying in Brighton, so she wasn’t on our radar. Her parents didn’t hear from her for a few weeks but Tina had been erratic at keeping in touch, so they didn’t panic at first. She had been talking about travelling and was a spontaneous kid, so they waited for her to contact them. That was in twenty-ten. She was never on our lists and we have no idea what she was doing in Liverpool, but using the timeline, we think she must have come here directly from Brighton.”

  “Tina was found here,” Kathy said. “She’s been buried for at least three years. The state of the victim is very different to the others. Her teeth were intact and her lips and eyes were not sewn shut. The killer broke her nose and her jaw before he strangled and buried her. Our killer could have been rushed into killing her, or he could have been nervous.”

  “This was an early kill. Possibly his first murder and he was still learning and still making mistake
s,” Alec interrupted. “If he has made any mistakes at all, then it was there with Tina Peters. All the other victims so far are anonymous working girls who won’t be missed. If you can find out what she was doing here and who she was with, you’ll find the link to our killer. Tina Peters is the key to catching the Butcher.” Nodding heads agreed with Alec’s summary of the victim. “Get out there and find out where these women were and we’ll have a chance of linking Weston to the murders. I want two detectives in Brighton tomorrow to track down who Tina Peters studied with, lived with, drank with and went to bed with. I want to know everything about her from the day she was delivered.”

  “If she went missing in twenty-ten, Guv, most of her year students will be long gone from Brighton by now.” DC Lewis raised his hand. His suit was dishevelled and his shirt was open at the collar. Alec liked him.

  “I disagree,” Alec said. “Brighton is a buzzing town with a thriving social scene and job market. There will be lots of students who don’t want to go back to wherever they came from when they finish university there. Many get jobs in London and commute. Some of her classmates are still there. I’m positive that they are.”

  “Fair enough, Guv,” Lewis agreed. “I’ll go with Peters first thing.”

  “Good, thanks.” Alec nodded. “Okay, everyone, let’s find where these girls were taken from.”

  “One other thing,” Stirling said. “We don’t need to see any links to the Keegan murder or the disappearance of Lacey Taylor in the press. Be careful what you say or put in your emails. At the moment, they are completely unrelated.”

  “Good point,” Alec said. “I don’t want to see any mention of ‘prawns’ either. The press is running with the tag, Butcher of Crosby Beach, let’s leave them with that. We need to concentrate on Mark Weston, the van and 163 Breck Road. Somebody out there knows something. Find them.”

  Chapter 24

  Alec opened the door into the interview room and was taken aback by the suspect’s eyes. He’d been told that they were distinctive, but that hadn’t prepared him for how prominent they were when face to face. “He looks like Mesut Ozil,” Alec pointed out loudly. “It’s the eyes.”