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

by Conrad Jones

  “He plays for?” Annie had heard the name before.

  “Arsenal.”

  “Now you mention it, he does look like him.”

  “Do you mind?” Jeremy Cuthbert complained. His pink scalp reflected the light. A few ghostly white strands of hair clung desperately to his head, refusing to give up. “That is most uncouth.”

  “What’s the problem?” Alec smiled.

  “You’re talking about my client as if he isn’t here.” Cuthbert removed his wire framed glasses and cleaned the round lenses on his handkerchief.

  “I said the he looks like an Arsenal midfielder, Mesut Ozil,” Alec explained aloofly. “Do you know who I mean?”

  “Yes, I know who you mean.” Cuthbert rolled his eyes skyward. “That’s not the point. Talking about my client as if he isn’t in the room is offensive.”

  “I think that the point is that before we sit down and begin recording the interview, you are trying to establish your legal prowess by pointing out my bad manners.” Alec shrugged.

  “Nonsense.”

  “I can understand why you would want to do that, however, what you need to understand is that I couldn’t give a toss if your client feels offended by the fact that I think he looks like an Arsenal player.” Cuthbert’s mouth opened to speak but he couldn’t think of a reply.

  “I’m not offended. I’ve heard a lot worse.” The suspect grinned. Alec made a quick assessment of his demeanour. He looked nervous but not overly so. He was almost savouring the prospect of locking horns with him. “The name Ozil is from Kurdish decent, as am I. Genetically we are prone to astigmatism, hence my eyes are unusual here, but not so much at home. At home I am a sex god, lady.” He grinned at Annie. Annie frowned and resisted the urge to spit in his face.

  “Whatever,” Alec said as he sat down. He switched on a digital recorder. “Interview with Dazik Kraznic, arrested as Mark Weston on the twenty-fifth of November, twenty-fourteen. DS Alec Ramsay and DI Annie Jones, also present Jeremy Cuthbert. Can you confirm you name and date of birth for the tape please.”

  Kraznic sat back in his chair and folded his arms. His face looked impassive, “I’m Dazik Kraznic, born third of January, seventy-three in Gumbet, Turkey.”

  “Kraznic?” Alec asked.

  “Your question is?” Cuthbert sighed, knowing full well that Alec would have researched it already.

  “It isn’t a Turkish name.”

  “My parents are Russian so I have dual citizenship.”

  “Great mix.” Annie rolled her eyes.

  “Do you mind, Inspector?” Cuthbert gasped.

  “No.” Annie smiled.

  “Let’s cut to the chase. My client is an illegal immigrant,” Cuthbert added.

  “Yet he can afford to retain your services?” Annie asked. “Are you being paid by him directly?”

  “My payment is none of your concern, Inspector.”

  “If we find anything amiss with his finances, it will be our concern.”

  “Touché, Inspector,” Cuthbert smiled. “I’m sure you’ll find everything is in order. Shall we proceed?”

  “Can you tell me if you were driving a van registered to Mark Weston of 163 Breck Road?” Alec began.

  “I have never driven a van in this country,” Dazik replied. He sat back and folded his arms. Annie noticed tattoos on both wrists. “I don’t have a license to drive here. I haven’t passed my tests.” He smiled and shrugged his shoulders.

  “Look, we’re not interested in whether or not you’re legal to drive,” Annie said frustrated. She pushed a photograph of the van across the table. “We need to know about this van.”

  “I don’t have a van.” He didn’t look at the photograph. He looked straight ahead and kept smiling. “I don’t have that van or any other.”

  “You picked up Tasha Jenkins in this van.”

  “Who?” he grinned.

  “Tasha Jenkins,” Alec repeated. He pushed another photo towards him. This time Tasha’s pretty black face was on it. “This woman here.”

  “I’ve never seen this woman.”

  “You picked her up on Sheil Road.”

  “No.”

  “We have two witnesses who will put you in that van.”

  “Prostitutes?” Cuthbert scoffed. “Unreliable at best.”

  “Their statements are independent and concur.”

  “They’re mistaken.” Dazik said impassively.

  “We don’t think so.”

  “One of your witnesses, Janice Nixon?” Cuthbert frowned. “She said that the man Tasha Jenkins got into the van with had a hat and sunglasses on and that he only removed the glasses briefly.”

  “She’s happy that she could identify him again.”

  “Really?” Cuthbert sneered. “It was dark. It was raining heavily. The man had a hat on and sunglasses and your witness has a drug habit.”

  “She’ll pick him out of a line-up.”

  “She may do and I’ll tear her to pieces in court.” He ridiculed their evidence. “Do you have any forensic evidence to put my client in the vehicle?”

  “Not yet,” Annie snapped. “But we will.”

  “I’ll ask you again. Have you ever seen this woman,” Alec asked angrily. He placed another photograph of Tasha Jenkins onto the desk.

  “No.”

  “She’s identified you,” Annie said quickly.

  “Has there been a formal identification?” Cuthbert asked. He removed his glasses again and cleaned them unnecessarily.

  “Not yet, she’s under sedation at the moment,” Alec said. “As soon as she’s well enough, we’ll have a line-up. Her description of you is very detailed.”

  “You mean she described a footballer?” Cuthbert sighed. “You said yourself that my client looks like somebody else.”

  “She’ll identify him.” Annie said trying to stay calm. Lawyers like Cuthbert made her blood pressure rise.

  “So you deny picking up Miss Jenkins and assaulting her with a Taser gun?”

  “Yes.”

  “You never drove this van?”

  “No.”

  “How long have you lived at Breck Road?” Annie changed tack.

  “I don’t live there.”

  Alec rolled his eyes towards the ceiling and exhaled. “You don’t live there?”

  “No.”

  “Have you ever used the name, Mark Weston?”

  “No.”

  “Do you know Mark Weston.”

  “No.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “I share a flat with my friends,” Dazik nodded. “It’s in Sheil Road.”

  “The number?”

  “Seven.”

  “Get your detectives and uniform over there,” Alec said to Annie. Annie wrote the number down and walked to the door. She opened it and summoned the constable who was outside the interview room.

  “Get two detectives to search this address,” she whispered. “If they have any issues getting the warrant, I need to know. Okay?”

  “Guv.” She closed the door and smoothed her trousers before sitting down. Annie felt the suspect’s eyes taking in her shape. He studied every curve from head to toe and he didn’t do it discreetly. The scrutiny made her skin crawl.

  “What were you doing at the address in Breck Road?” Alec asked as she sat down.

  “I was looking for sex,” Dazik grinned. “My friends told me that you can buy sex there.”

  Annie and Alec exchanged glances. “How did you get in?” Annie asked.

  “The back door was open. They told me to walk in and that someone would meet me, like a receptionist,” he smiled again.

  “You did find a set of keys on my client?” Cuthbert asked a rhetorical question.

  “Yes,” Annie blushed. She could sense her case slipping with every question.

  “Am I right in saying that none of them matched any of the locks on the building?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then we should move on, Detective.”

>   “Why did you assault Francis Grant with a Taser?”

  “The man who was tied up?”

  “Yes.”

  “He was sitting in the chair when I arrived.”

  “Tied up?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you didn’t assault him?”

  “No,” Dazik shook his head emphatically as he answered.

  “Did you hear a woman screaming in the cellar?”

  “I didn’t notice at first until I walked into the room.”

  “So you just stumbled into the situation?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh for God’s sake!” Alec breathed deeply. “Is this the best that you can do?”

  “This is my client’s version of events,” Cuthbert said. “His testimony is independent and will give any jury reasonable doubt.”

  “It’s a load of bollocks is what it is!” Annie scoffed.

  “It’s the truth, honestly,” Dazik said. “I walked into the house and one man was in the hallway. I asked him if I could get sex there,” he shrugged. “He was a crazy man and he laughed and walked out of the hallway through to the back of the house. I don’t know where he went. When I walked into the room, the electric thing was on the floor and everyone was screaming very loudly. I picked it up and then the army burst in and here I am.”

  “Am I sat in an alternative universe?” Alec slapped the desk.

  “It is the truth.”

  “You don’t have any evidence to connect my client to any assaults apart from the word of two prostitutes and a drug addict,” Cuthbert rubbed his hands together. “I think that you should charge my client or release him.”

  “Wait a minute. What drug addict?” Annie asked. Her top lip retreated again.

  “Francis Grant.”

  “What about him?”

  “He has three priors for possession of class A drugs, Inspector, and he spent six weeks in a rehab last year.” Cuthbert looked over his glasses patronisingly. “Surely you’ve checked out his previous?”

  Alec looked at Annie and he could tell from her expression that she hadn’t checked him out. She looked as if she had been slapped by an invisible hand. “He was stunned by a Taser, hogtied and traumatised. He was a victim here. We wouldn’t check his record unless we thought that he’d committed a crime.”

  “Oh, I think the CPS will see it very differently,” Cuthbert said. “Do you think that they would proceed to trial on the strength of your witnesses?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good luck with that.”

  “The forensic evidence will back up the charges.”

  “Like I said, good luck.” Cuthbert took off his glasses and stood up. He looked at his file and then looked at Alec. “I think that this has gone as far as it is going to go. Let’s cut to the chase shall we?”

  “Yes, let’s do that.”

  “I didn’t want to bring it up until I saw what evidence you have and you have nothing. You’re desperate to find the ‘Butcher of Crosby Beach’ as the press has dubbed him, and you have my client in your sights,” he said pointing the arm of his spectacles at Dazik. “You have an abducted prostitute locked in a cellar and my client was arrested at the scene. I’d think the same under the circumstances but you haven’t a clue who my client is yet.”

  Annie made to speak but Alec touched her hand under the table. They were on the back foot and he didn’t want any more punishment. “Well enlighten us.”

  “Dazik is an illegal immigrant so his records here are scant, however, he has only been in this country for nine months.”

  “Nine months?” Annie repeated quietly. She felt any hope of a conviction escaping from her body. “You can back that up?”

  “My client was arrested three times in Calais last year for trying to stowaway on lorries. The paperwork states that in February, March and May, he was detained. He spent a month in a refugee camp prior to coming across the Channel. Before that, he can verify living and working in Turkey. We will produce mobile phone records, bank accounts and asylum application paperwork to establish that my client wasn’t in the country when some of your victims were murdered.”

  Alec stood up and nodded. He indicated that Annie should too. “We’ll need to see those documents and we’ll be charging your client with abduction and assault. Interview terminated.”

  He opened the door with more force than was needed and stormed out. Annie followed him with a sickly feeling in her guts. What had seemed like a breakthrough had turned into a banana skin of monumental proportions.

  Chapter 25

  163 Breck Road was a three storey property under intense scrutiny. As dusk approached, every light in the house was burning and extra illumination was provided by spotlights. A coach-sized trailer was parked on the street; the interior was a laboratory designed to be used for major forensic investigations where multiple deaths were involved. A flatbed truck was next to it, loaded with ground excavation equipment. A mini-digger was being prepped by two mechanics in anticipation of searching the garden in the days to come. A gaggle of reporters stood chatting behind yellow crime scene tape and a television van was parked up on the kerb. Further down the close, the residents were safely locked in their houses, ignoring the relentless intrusive knocking at the door. There was only so many times they could answer the same questions, no matter who was asking them, or which channel they represented.

  White-clad figures ambled from the house to the trailer and back again, delivering sealed bags of evidence and then returning to retrieve more. They too ignored the barrage of questions which were shouted from behind the tape. Four uniformed officers maintained the cordon and swapped serial killer jokes with the gathering as long as no one important was in earshot. Behind the close was a tree lined access road, which serviced the residents’ bin sheds and garages. It had been closed off, much to the annoyance of the homeowners and was being used as a parking area. Four unmarked CSI vehicles and two marked police interceptors blocked the road. Behind number 163, the hawthorn hedges separated the close from an acre of Kensington, where the houses were waiting patiently to be demolished.

  A lone-white clad figure moved furtively from the hedgerows towards the back of the house. The row of garages hid him from sight. The rear windows of the house looked over the overgrown lawn and if he had been seen, it would look like a CSI was checking the outhouses and bin sheds. He knew that and it had always been part of his contingency plan. In the case of an emergency, the plan was straightforward. Sliding between the bins and the garage, he dropped to his knees and crawled to the back of the house. Three steps led up to the kitchen door and a coal bunker offered more shelter for anyone who wanted to approach the building unseen. To the left of the bunker was a skylight which opened into the rear cellar. There was nothing but darkness behind the glass. The police hadn’t worked out that the cellar where they had found the girl had been adapted to purpose. He had built it as a cell. Beyond its walls, the cellar ran beneath the rear of the house and could only be accessed from the skylight. Had they studied the original plans, they might have spotted that the cellar on the drawings was much bigger than the one which they had found.

  He slid down into the darkness and lowered himself onto the floor. His movement was silent and swift. On the far wall, the gas main entered the building, before climbing upwards through the kitchen floor to where the meter cupboard was fitted. A section of the lead pipe had been replaced with a reinforced rubber hose. It was an adaptation which he’d made when he reconstructed the cellar. He sat for a moment and studied the paving stones. Karla was beneath his feet, her friend Suzanne a few yards to the left. Diana was next to the wall on the right. The others didn’t have names, or at least he didn’t know what they were.

  He could hear them sobbing in his mind, feel their tears on his cheek as he kissed them, taste their blood as he sliced them. It was always shallow and gentle at first but then as the excitement intensified, the cuts became deeper. Those precious moments as their sobbing became more fr
antic, as the realisation that they were going to die hit them, as their eyes sparkled with tears and fear and despair; those deliciously sticky moments were what had driven him in the beginning, but their death was so final, so premature. He had tried to prolong their agony, his ecstasy, but they always went too soon. When he saw the iron men he knew. It was the perfect way to prolong that moment, that transition from unbearable suffering to peace. He closed his eyes and savoured their pain.

  Footsteps above snapped him back to reality. He stood up and took a blade from his pocket. The rubber hose was sliced with a single movement. Gas hissed noisily into the cellar. He moved quickly to the far wall and switched on the single electric socket. A tiny green light indicated that the timer was on and in forty minutes it would switch on the electric hot plate which was plugged into it.

  He took one last deep breath, savouring the decay which tinged the air. He could distinguish each woman in his mind, smell their rotting corpses and taste their unique odours. Then he slipped through the skylight and scurried back past the bunker, the bins and the garage, before crawling through the hedges into the sprawling desolation of the decaying streets beyond.

  Chapter 26

  “Major Bradshaw will see you now, Sir.” A young officer stood from behind his desk and gestured to his senior officer’s door. His uniform was crisp and immaculate; his cropped hair just a dark shadow on his skull. The brass name plaque with the Major’s name engraved on it looked fitting against the stained dark wood. The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst was everything Alec had imagined and more. Every inch was polished, pristine and organised. It reeked of beeswax and bleach. Two units of officer cadets were being drilled outside, their boots making a rhythmical sound, which mingled with the urgent instructions shouted from their Drill Sergeants. It sounded like a foreign language to Alec. “Sorry for the delay,” the soldier added chirpily. “These things take time I’m afraid.”

  Alec smiled and allowed him to open the door. He wasn’t sure what ‘these things’ were but he was sure that he was about to find out. The brass-handle gleamed, worn smooth by years of polishing. “Thank you,” Alec said.