For all this, it was the damage to his reputation that really hurt. The cuts and bruises would fade, but his besting by Clarke would remain long in the memory. Sure, Clarke was a big guy, a man who had trained hard to keep himself in peak physical condition, but so was Hudson. Furthermore, he had had the element of surprise. He had had a hand on Clarke, had him by the collar … and yet it was he who had ended up on the floor, his own baton pressed to his neck, fighting for his life. There was a special kind of derision reserved for police officers who had their own weapons turned on them.
Of course, he might not be standing here at all, were it not for the timely intervention of his boss. On receiving his signal, Helen had headed to the back of the house to assist in Clarke’s apprehension, but instead had had to vault the wall and race across the turf to save his life. This had left him shaken, but severely embarrassed too.
Not because she was a woman – he wasn’t a dinosaur – but because he had wanted to impress her. He knew the team he’d joined was one of the best in the business, that Helen would be a demanding boss, and he had prepared accordingly, resolved to put his best foot forward. But on meeting her, on spending time with her, his determination to shine had only grown. She was impressive, no question, but there was a vulnerability too, which he found very appealing. They came from similar backgrounds, had clawed their way up to the senior ranks and both were currently on their own. He had allowed himself to believe she might be interested in him, but what chance of that was there now, when he had humiliated himself, allowing himself to be bested by a delusional fantasist, a nobody who dreamed of notoriety and bloodshed? Whatever Clarke had done in that forest, he’d been unarmed when Hudson tackled him and still he had won.
Which was why, as Hudson continued to stare at his battered face in the mirror, he saw not the bruises, nor the cuts, but his own shame staring back.
91
She chuckled to herself, revelling in her triumph. There were his details on the screen in front of her: Dean Clarke, thirty-eight years old, resident of Woolston.
Finally, she had a name.
News of an arrest had broken early this morning. Since then, Emilia had tried and failed to get any of her contacts within Hampshire Police to give her the inside track. How she needed an informer, a paid insider, at times like this. But recently she had failed to find anyone weak or desperate enough to take her money.
Which left her with a problem, one she was still pondering as she pulled into the car park of the Southampton Evening News. As she squeezed her Corsa into a tiny space, her attention was drawn to an RAC van dragging a vehicle away from the building and a thought suddenly occurred to her. If the police had a suspect, they would presumably be busy raiding his home, his place of work, searching for evidence of his guilt. And, given that both murder victims had been spirited from a campsite to a place of execution some distance away, they would no doubt be taking a look at any vehicles he might own too.
Hurrying into the building, Emilia dug out the number for Hampshire Police’s vehicle reclamation unit, an outfit that generally spent its day transporting stolen cars to the police pound. Emilia had a contact there, a driver called Jamie Mavers, who’d helped her out before, and she rang him now.
‘Yup.’
Mavers was not a man who bothered with pleasantries.
‘Jamie, it’s Emilia Garanita. How’s tricks?’
‘Good. You?’
‘Never better. Look I need a bit of information. Have you guys picked up anything interesting in the last twenty-four hours? Maybe a four by four? Some kind of off-road vehicle?’
‘Sure. What of it?’
‘Can you tell me anything about it? There’s fifty pounds in it for you.’
‘Well, we picked up a Land Rover from Linacre Road last night. It was sent straight to Meredith Walker for tests.’
‘Who did it belong to?’
‘Don’t know.’
‘Can you at least tell me the registration number?’
There was a pause on the other end.
‘I don’t know if I should …’
‘How about I double your money?’
‘Fair enough.’
Moments later, Emilia was deep in the DVLA database. Within minutes, she had found both the vehicle and the registered owner. Now all she had to do was a bit of digging on his background and she would have her scoop. Who needed informants, when a bit of ingenuity could get you everything you need? As she began to surf, Emilia broke into a broad smile.
Sometimes she surprised even herself.
92
‘This is your last chance, Dean. Tell me what happened.’
Clarke had said nothing for the past ten minutes, rubbing his face with his hands as he stared at the floor. He seemed almost catatonic. Helen feared he would either shut down completely or erupt in anger and frustration. She couldn’t tell which, but she had to try and prise him open, if they were going to make sense of these baffling crimes.
‘If you don’t talk to me, I’m going to have to assume you are guilty. Then I will have no choice but to charge you – here, now – with three counts of murder, one count of attempted murder, assaulting a police officer, resisting arrest, breaking and entering, theft …’
With each offence, Dean seemed to crumple a little, the reality of his situation finally coming home to roost.
‘Now we can get someone to sit in with you while we do this. A lawyer, a friend, your dad perhaps …’ Helen let this last suggestion linger. He and his father had a troubled relationship, but he was all Dean had left. ‘… but there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Once you’ve been charged, you’ll be offered a bail hearing, but for offences of this magnitude …’
She couldn’t threaten him directly with incarceration, but her meaning was clear. Clarke ran his fingers through his hair, staring at the ground and muttering to himself, as if caught on the horns of a terrible dilemma. Helen could see the individual beads of sweat on his forehead, watching now as one slid slowly down his right cheek.
‘If I talk to you, I want your help …’
‘Of course.’
‘I can’t go to jail, I can’t be locked up …’
It was amazing how all his swagger, all his bravado, had suddenly evaporated. He seemed diminished in stature, looking child-like as he cradled himself.
‘Well, I can’t promise that, Dean. But what I will say is that things will go much easier for you if you co-operate. A swift, honest admission of guilt will go a long way to –’
‘I didn’t do it, any of it.’
‘Come on, Dean,’ Helen said, exasperated. ‘You were doing so well –’
‘I mean, I’m not saying I’m blameless, I’ve done wrong, I know that …’
‘Then tell me about it. Help me understand.’
‘It is me in those pictures. On Madeley Road,’ he continued, nodding at the photos on the table. ‘But I wasn’t there for him. Campbell …’
‘So why were you there?’
‘I was casing a property.’
Helen looked at him intently, trying to read his tone.
‘I robbed a house in the next road. But from Madeley Road I could access the back garden, get to it without being seen.’
‘What was the address?’ Helen asked, her scepticism clear.
‘Fourteen, no, Sixteen Elm Road.’
‘When did you do this?’
‘On the day the second photo was taken. The eighteenth, I think.’
Helen looked to McAndrew, who clocked her meaning immediately, rising and hurrying from the room.
‘And Lauren Scott? Why target her? You hadn’t done any surveillance on her place.’
‘Because I saw it on the news.’
‘Sorry?’
‘They were going on about this girl having been killed and they showed pictures of her other half leaving the flat, being hounded out of it, to hole up in a hotel somewhere.’
Helen watched him, an awful possibility now formulating in
her mind.
‘I’d had some bother on previous jobs, been surprised a couple of times, and I figured this was an easy touch. Nobody in the flat, quick in and out …’
‘You really expect me to believe that you targeted a flat in Thornhill?’
‘It’s rough, for sure. But everyone has something of value, right? Except they didn’t. Just cheap fucking imitation jewellery.’
‘So you’re telling me you’ve carried out a wave of these raids, stolen loads of expensive gear … and yet you live in a run-down house, have a poorly paid job. What do you spend all your ill-gotten gains on, Dean?’
But even as she said it, Helen knew.
‘The weapons,’ Dean whispered. ‘Every penny I’ve made, I’ve spent on them.’
His body was shaking now, the relief of confession overwhelming him. But there was something else there too. Shame.
‘So, let me get this straight. You claim to be an SAS solider, someone who has fought to protect this country, laying low our enemies, liberating the oppressed. But in fact you prey on your own, robbing the unsuspecting and vulnerable, feeding off their distress to fill your pockets.’
Helen knew she had to control herself, but her blood was up. She was riven with frustration and anger, ready to eviscerate Clarke for his misdemeanours, but further attack was unnecessary. Dropping his head in his hands, he began to sob – huge, racking sobs.
Immediately, Helen’s anger dissipated, shock and resignation replacing them. A knock on the window made her look up and there was McAndrew, looking sombre and concerned, nodding meaningfully. Helen exhaled, long and loud, all her disappointment flooding from her.
Dean Clarke was guilty. But he was not their killer. He was the serial burglar who had been terrorizing Southampton’s homeowners for weeks.
93
‘Are we absolutely sure?’
DC Edwards’s question perfectly captured the desperation felt by the whole team. Charlie and Hudson had now joined them, playing their part in the fevered analysis, though Helen noted the latter’s reaction to this latest setback seemed curiously muted.
‘Clarke gave us a full list of the properties he claims to have targeted. It matches our records and, as only a couple of those addresses were in the public domain, it seems credible. Also, the descriptions given by some of the witnesses during the burglaries tally with Clarke’s height, build, accent. And the tools he had in his Land Rover are staple kit for these kinds of job.’
The team looked depressed, but Helen had no choice but to put the final nail in the coffin.
‘Plus, I’ve just heard from Meredith Walker. The tyres on Clarke’s Land Rover are old Avons, but the tread pattern doesn’t match those we pulled from the crime scene. They had a couple of patches on them, bodge jobs done some time ago, which doesn’t fit with the evidence we recovered from the campsite …’
‘So, we’re back to square one,’ Edwards concluded, disconsolately.
‘No,’ Helen countered quickly, keen to avoid deflation setting in. ‘We have a good body of evidence, relating to the perpetrator’s MO, the vehicle he uses. We also have an image of him that we can work with. But, yes, we have to look at other possible suspects, new angles. Until we’ve exhausted all of those, we haven’t done our jobs.’
There were a few determined nods from the team, which cheered Helen.
‘So, let’s review where we’re at. DC Osbourne, you were checking out a man who’d been kicked out of a local archery club.’
‘He’s in the Philippines with his sister. Flew out there ten days ago, so we can rule him out.’
Helen tried not to let her disappointment show.
‘And what about other weapons obsessives?’ she said, turning to DC Reid.
‘Still a couple of names to check out … but no one who majors on crossbows. It’s mostly firearms these days, everyone wants to be a gangster.’
‘How are we doing on the phone number then? The one that was on both Campbell’s and Scott’s call history?’
‘We tracked down the caller,’ DC Edwards replied promptly. ‘The phone number belongs to a Mrs Mavis Stemple, a retired teacher living in Freemantle. She’s got MS and a bulletproof alibi, so I think it’s safe to assume her SIM card has been cloned.’
Helen resisted the temptation to swear. Every which way they turned in this case they seemed to hit a brick wall.
‘It doesn’t get us any further forward,’ Edwards continued, ‘but the call pattern is interesting. There were several calls in quick succession a few weeks back, then they suddenly stopped, just before the murders.’
‘Ok, we need to put a trace on that number. I’ll get the relevant authority, you set the wheels in motion,’ Helen replied, before turning her attention to Charlie. ‘DS Brooks, how are we doing with Lauren Scott?’
‘Well, I’ve been trying to get to the bottom of a possible university connection between Scott and Campbell. Lauren was at Southampton University, for a year or so, before dropping out –’
‘How did we not know this?’ Helen interrupted, surprised.
‘She didn’t complete her degree, didn’t get the qualification, so it wouldn’t have shown up in our initial sweep. Anyhow, her two closest friends from that time were an Aaron Slater and a Julia Winter. The former is in the States – I’m still trying to trace him – but the latter is in South Hants hospital. She’s in a coma following a failed suicide attempt and won’t be any help, but I’ve just spoken to her dad, who has agreed to talk to us. It may be nothing, but I’d still like to get to the bottom of Scott’s breakdown. Her drug use really ramped up in her early twenties, so it seems worth investigating.’
‘Ok, I’ll accompany you,’ Helen answered, happy to grab on to any lead, however small. ‘In the meantime, get busy. DS Hudson will cover for me, but you know the drill. Review every bit of evidence, every statement from the campers and campsite owners, looking for anything we’ve missed. Also, let’s widen our search for the Land Rover. Ring round local body shops and garages, see if anyone has serviced one of these vehicles, noticed anything odd. Check out stolen vehicles too – if traffic cams have picked up any Land Rovers that have been reported missing, I want to know about it. That car remains our best bet of finding our man.’
Calling the meeting to a close, Helen gathered her things as she prepared to follow Charlie to the hospital. The rest of the team were at their desks, reviewing their files, hitting the phones, running down leads. Despite the major setback that they’d suffered, Helen was heartened by the sight. The team had never let her down before and she didn’t think they would now. For all that though, something troubled her, a nagging worry that wouldn’t go away.
Throughout the briefing, Joseph Hudson had not met her gaze once, keeping his eyes resolutely fixed on the floor.
94
Emilia marched towards Gardiner’s office, humming happily to herself. The desks were aligned in such a way as to form a natural corridor, leading directly to his door. In Emilia’s mind, this had always seemed like a triumphal avenue, a place to saunter down when the wind was at your back. She felt that this morning – the buzz of a job well done – and she held her head up as she hurried towards his office.
She was on fire. There was no other way of putting it. Having divined the suspect’s identity, she had researched hard and fast, before banging out 2,000 words on the unfortunate Clarke. He was clearly a guy who had nothing going for him – dreary upbringing, no prospects, a history of minor criminality and mental health problems, all of which seemed to have propelled him into some kind of weird fantasy world. Some might have found the images of him posing with crossbows and knives troubling, but she found them hilarious, laughing out loud at his military tattoos. As if this muppet would ever be accepted into the SAS.
Reaching Gardiner’s doorway, she stuck her head into the office. Gardiner was in urgent conference with his deputy editor, Sally Jones, but looked up as she entered.
‘I’ve sent you the piece on Dean Clar
ke. I don’t suppose you’ve had a chance to look at it?’
She knew he would have read it, but wanted to enjoy her triumph.
‘Yes, I’ve read it. And I’ve just pulled it.’
For a minute, Emilia wasn’t sure she’d heard him correctly.
‘I don’t follow. I can back everything up, I’ve checked every fact –’
‘Problem is, we’ve just heard that Clarke is no longer a suspect,’ Jones said, with no little satisfaction.
‘He’s been charged with six counts of burglary,’ Gardiner filled in. ‘He’s the guy who’s been putting the wind up local homeowners recently.’
‘But … I …’ Emilia stammered, shocked that her morning’s efforts had been wasted.
‘It’s not all bad though,’ Jones continued. ‘As you’ve done a lot of the leg work on the burglary story, it shouldn’t be hard for you to knock up a new front page. Shall we say forty-five minutes?’
Emilia stalked back to her desk, cursing every step of the way. She hated being behind the beat and she loathed Jones’s snide, victorious tone. Collapsing into her chair, she opened up her burglary notes and without thinking started hitting the keys. She was careless of the quality, there was no time to polish, and her mind was hardly on the task. She was still thinking of the New Forest Killer and how she could wrest back the initiative, how she could prove to everyone here that she really was the top dog. And now, as she typed, her eye fell on her mobile phone. Snatching it up, she scrolled through her contacts until she found Graham Ross’s number. A moment’s hesitation, then she typed:
‘Are you free now?’
95
‘I’m Detective Inspector Helen Grace. I believe you know my colleague, DS Brooks?’
‘We’ve spoken,’ Oliver Winter replied, nodding at Charlie as he shook Helen’s hand. ‘She said you wanted to speak to me?’
Down to the Woods: DI Helen Grace 8 (Detective Inspector Helen Grace) Page 22