There was a look of genuine disbelief in her eyes.
‘What on earth are you talking about?’
‘The flat that your husband owned in Nice.’
‘Complete nonsense. He didn’t own any such property.’
‘You knew that he was having a relationship with Miss Deborah Bowen?’
She stood up. ‘Now if we’re finished. I have a lot to do.’
She led us to the front door. We returned to the car and we drove back to Cardiff.
‘She knows all about the shares owned by the trust,’ Lydia said. ‘She got all evasive when I asked her.’
I nodded. ‘We haven’t had the truth from her. Yet.’
*
I spent the rest of the afternoon in Queen Street making various calls. Deborah Bowen was top of the list. She rang back within an hour with the address of the property in France and another hour passed until I found the right street view. Another search of estate agents selling property in the Riviera killed more time before I realised it was time for me to leave. I headed back to my apartment and found my jacket and a Cardiff City supporter’s scarf. I had already texted my friend Robbie, another Cardiff City supporter, and we had agreed a time to meet before the game. Playing Fulham did not have the same excitement as the local derby game had against Swansea. And with Fulham at the bottom of the table Cardiff should win easily enough.
After a change of clothes, I left the flat, walked down to the car park, and then off towards the ground. I passed families walking down to the Bay for a Sunday afternoon outing. I crossed the Taff and walked on through Grangetown realising that the Dolmans lived in a world removed from the mundane trials of everyday life like paying the mortgage or walking the dog. Supporters arriving for the game-choked Ninian Park railway station so I had to slow my pace and I joined the mass heading for the ground. I peeled off before the entrance and waited for Robbie who joined me after a couple of minutes. He worked for an IT consultancy and the office politics he recounted sounded just like the atmosphere in Queen Street. We reached the inside of the stadium and headed for the bar. Robbie returned with a pint of lager and an orange juice. He told me about his recent appraisal where his boss had suggested that he needed to develop his ‘managerial ambitions’.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I said.
‘Fucked if I know.’
Robbie leant on the window overlooking the car park and supped heavily on his pint. Fathers with boys grasping their hands jostled with groups of teenagers and older men. It made me think about the time Dean and I had watched Queens Park Rangers. The only time. An event I hadn’t repeated although Trish, my girlfriend at the time, had made it clear that she thought I was a useless parent for not trying any harder. I listened and contributed occasionally to the conversation with Robbie. He finished his drink and we trooped into the stadium. A scrappy first half was made worse by Cardiff failing to work the channels effectively and finding themselves at the wrong end of two free kicks, one of which Fulham managed to convert into a goal. It did not improve Robbie’s mood who went in search of another drink as I munched on a chocolate bar. After ten minutes of the second half, it was clear that the team talk at half-time had been effective. The Cardiff City players were in full attacking mode with three players driving at the Fulham goalkeeper in quick succession. The visitors looked shell-shocked after conceding two quick goals and the smiles on the Cardiff players had the effect of energising the crowd.
A light drizzle fell as we left the stadium. Pale yellow lights shrouded the contented crowd snaking its way home from the game. It was a short walk round to the bar. I had walked no more than a few steps when my mobile rang.
‘DI Marco.’
‘This is Troy Dolman.’ He was almost shouting. ‘How dare you harass my mother!’
I slowed and Robbie turned towards me.
‘I’m not certain I understand—’
‘She’s been telling me all about your insinuations about my father and Deborah Bowen. It really must stop.’
‘This is a police inquiry—’
‘And another thing. My father doesn’t own any property in Nice. I haven’t spoken to Rex as he’s away on business until Wednesday but when he gets back he’ll be furious.’
I gave Robbie a vague sort of grin that he had probably seen a dozen times.
‘Work?’ he said.
No sooner I had I put the mobile in my pocket than it rang again. I snatched at the handset and it almost fell onto the pavement.
‘DI Marco. Area Control. You’re needed at a murder scene.’
Chapter 15
Alan Turner wore a Gant shirt; I could just about make out the logo and I guessed that the denims were the same expensive American brand. The brogues looked pristine, as though he had bought them that afternoon. He sat crumpled on the floor of the lift at the exclusive development where he had a penthouse apartment.
Around Turner’s neck was a lanyard, similar to the one I’d found on Matthew Dolman. The typed message on the paper in the plastic pouch attached to it had ‘ANOTHER GREEDY BASTARD’ printed in large font. I snapped on a pair of latex gloves, leant down and moved the pouch to one side. A large red stain covered most of the expensive shirt.
Lydia stood to one side. ‘This looks exactly the same MO as Matthew Dolman.’
I turned towards her. ‘Once the CSI team have arrived we’ll visit his apartment.’
Lydia yawned. I could feel the tiredness in the small of my back. I should have been eating a curry with Robbie, dissecting the game, recharging my mind for the following morning. Instead, we had hours more work. A crowd had gathered outside the main entrance, faces peering in, hands raised, fingers pointing. Moments later, I saw Alvine barging her away through the crowd. I looked for Tracy but she wasn’t there; two of Alvine’s regular investigators followed her, carrying bags of equipment.
‘There’s another message attached to the lanyard around his neck,’ I said, looking down at Turner. ‘I’ll need a forensic examination as soon as possible.’
‘Do you realise the time?’ Alvine said.
‘There’s nothing I can do about that,’ I replied. ‘I’ve got two deaths in less than a week and all I’m asking is that you get on with things.’
‘All right, all right.’
Alvine turned to look at the two CSIs with her. ‘Let’s get a perimeter set up.’ She nodded to the front door. ‘And let’s cover the glass before we get any press interest.’
I turned to the uniformed officer by my side. ‘Who found the body?’
‘One of the residents.’ He fumbled with his notebook. ‘Mrs Carrington from the second floor. She was returning from walking the dog. She’s very upset.’
I left Alvine and her team and walked up to the penthouse apartment clutching a set of keys while Lydia took the door to the second floor.
There was a light on in the penthouse, and classical music played quietly. It sounded orchestral, definitely not operatic. The hallway was a grand affair with several impressive-looking prints hanging on the wall. I found the kitchen through a door on the left-hand side of the hallway. Subdued under-the-counter lighting accentuated the high-end equipment, including a pistachio-coloured coffee machine placed next to a toaster of the same colour. An opened bottle of Chianti stood on the worktop but there were no glasses and no sign that Alan Turner was expecting company.
Back in the hallway, I pushed open one of the two oak doors and found myself in a large comfortable sitting room. An elevated section of the floor had an oak dining table with six matching chairs. I walked around the room; there were large cream leather sofas and pottery and glass strategically placed on shelving and sideboards. I reached large full-height windows, cupped my hands to the glass and squinted out. None of the keys on Turner’s key fob opened the doors to the balcony so I had to imagine the view from the penthouse decking over the city. I heard a tapping on the door behind me and I strode over to allow Lydia inside.
‘Mrs Carring
ton was pretty upset. She didn’t see anything. Once she saw Turner’s body she screamed, then the dog barked. It was a miracle she could call 999.’
‘We’ll get a proper statement from her in the morning.’
She scanned the room before wandering over to a door leading into another landing. I followed her through to the bedrooms. Each was sumptuously decorated, not a piece of furniture out of place and no dust within a mile.
‘It’s very sterile,’ Lydia said.
‘I wonder if he has a family.’
We pulled each door closed behind us and made our way back to the hallway. In the study a bank of three computer screens hummed on a large desk. One displayed the latest stock market information, another Turner’s email inbox and a third was open to a news page. I picked my way through the pockets of the jacket draped over the back of an office chair. I found Turner’s smartphone and worked my way through his contacts.
‘We’ll need to go through his personal papers. There must be something that will tell us if he had wife or children or…’
There were frequent calls to various mobile telephones, all with Christian names but no other details. Lydia rummaged through various drawers assembling a small pile of folders on a table.
‘Any luck?’ I said.
She shook her head. ‘I can’t find any reference to family so far.’
‘He must have had staff. I remember calling his office.’
In an old-fashioned telephone index book we found the contact details for Hannah Peters at an address in Roath. Before we left Lydia checked all the windows and we switched off the radio and the lights. Alvine was standing by the lift door staring down at Turner, a stern look on her face. The pathologist looked up as he knelt by Turner’s body.
‘Hello, John.’
‘Hi, Paddy.’
He got up. ‘No reason why you can’t move him.’ He fastened the zip of his Barbour. Then he looked over at me. ‘Another good killing I’d say.’
‘I beg your pardon?’ The realisation of what Paddy meant becoming clear.
‘It looks like the same weapon. A small stiletto-like blade. The post mortem will confirm.’
‘Could it be the same—?’
‘Impossible to be certain. But how many killers are there in Cardiff using a stiletto?’
He turned to leave and I walked to the door with him. Outside the temperature had fallen by two degrees. He raised the zip of his jacket to his chin. I buttoned my coat and Lydia shivered.
‘When are you going to do the post mortem?’
He glanced at his watch. ‘First thing in the morning.’
Paddy marched off and I spoke briefly to the uniformed officer who looked tired. The other residents had been complaining about getting access to their flats. Some had even threatened making a complaint. ‘Tell them to contact Superintendent Cornock,’ I said.
The officer nodded nervously.
I manoeuvred the car away from the Scientific Support Vehicles and the patrol car and then headed north before passing the prison and skirting around Adam Street and then up Fitzalan Place before taking a right onto Newport Road and then up towards Roath. The sat-nav gave us directions although I had a fair idea where Hannah Peters lived. I pulled the car onto a pavement in a nearby side street and we headed towards the address.
At the top of a short flight of stairs were two doors. One had the name Appleby written under the doorbell and the second Peters. I heard a sleepy, worried voice through the intercom. ‘Who is it?’
‘I’m sorry to disturb you at this time of night. My name is Detective Inspector John Marco. Are you the Hannah Peters that works with Alan Turner?’
‘Yes.’
‘I need to speak to you on a private matter.’
There was a dour electronic buzzing as the front door opened. Hannah Peters was waiting for us at the top of stairs. ‘Do you have some form of identification?’
I pulled out my warrant card and Lydia did the same. ‘This is Detective Sergeant Flint.’
‘What do you want?’
I looked over her shoulder. ‘Is there somewhere we can sit down?’
She led us into a small kitchen and we sat by a table. ‘I’m afraid I have bad news. Alan Turner was murdered tonight.’
Her eyes opened wide, and then she pulled her right hand over her mouth as her eyes filled with tears. ‘When did this happen? This is terrible.’ Hannah sobbed; Lydia tore a few squares from the kitchen towel on the worktop and passed them over.
‘Could you tell us about his next of kin?’
Hannah blew her nose noisily. ‘He had a son. His wife died in a car accident a few years ago. He doesn’t see his son very often. He lives in London. And he had a brother who lives somewhere in Australia but they were never in contact.’
‘Do you have the contact details for his son?’
‘They’re probably in the office somewhere.’ She sounded exasperated.
Lydia stood up and fetched Hannah a glass of water. She drank half without stopping and then wiped away some of her tears. ‘Has this got anything to do with what happened to Matthew Dolman?’ Her eyes opened wide and her speech slowed.
‘It’s far too early to tell.’
We left Hannah clutching a handkerchief. Outside, a police siren sounded in the distance, quickly followed by an ambulance. A light drizzle fell as we made our way back to the car. It was after midnight when I got back to my apartment in the Bay.
I discarded my clothes on the bed and then stood in a hot shower. Trying to keep hunger at bay I trimmed spots of mould from some cheese in the fridge and made a sandwich. I sat down and flicked through the channels hoping to find some old Top Gear but it was a Liam Neeson film that caught my attention – I had seen it before, having lost count of the people he killed. I realised after a while that sleep would elude me. I tried reading a Harlan Coben novel, one of those that Trish had encouraged me to read. I even played an Elvis CD but my thoughts kept flicking back to Matthew Dolman and Alan Turner. There had to be something connecting both men. And if Paddy was right about the murder weapon somebody had a very specific motive.
Chapter 16
Hannah’s swollen eyes and the smell of stale alcohol on her breath suggested she had slept little after we left her the night before. At the discreet third-floor offices near the centre of town, she led us through a corridor past a small conference suite to Turner’s room. It was large and comfortable with a smart black leather sofa in one corner.
‘What was he like to work with?’ I said.
Her lip quivered. ‘He was a great boss.’
‘What was he working on?’
Lydia had opened the doors of a cupboard and pulled out box files and folders.
‘He was working on the sale of Silverwood Engineering.’
The name sounded familiar. ‘Was that the business that bought out Stanway Engineering?’
She nodded.
‘Did he ever receive any hate mail or abusive letters?’
‘Not that I knew.’
Lydia turned her head towards me. ‘These boxes are full of papers relating to some contract for the electrification of the railways in the Valleys.’
Hannah nodded again. ‘He worked on that for a long time. I don’t know why really. He got a fee but it was nothing like what he normally charged. And he spent an enormous amount of time on it.’
‘Was the bank involved in that too?’
‘Yes. They were involved in nearly everything he did.’
‘We’ll need all the papers on the Silverwood deal and everything on the electrification contract.’ I turned my attention back to the desk drawers. ‘Where will I find details of his family?’
‘Try his computer. He kept everything on that.’ Then she left me booting up Turner’s computer.
‘What do you make of that Silverwood business, boss?’ Lydia said.
I was scanning Turner’s Outlook contacts page. ‘There’s a connection between Dolman and Turner. Something that got th
em killed.’ I found the contact details for David Turner in London. ‘We’ll need to talk to the Dolman family again.’ I picked up the telephone. ‘First I need to call Turner’s son.’
*
I walked back to the Incident Room from another meeting with Cornock, pleased that he had allocated additional resources for the double murder, but every time he used the word budget he grimaced as though he were sitting on something very sharp.
Two large stacks of plastic boxes stood in one corner. Lydia was already busy on some papers laid out on her desk. I found the file relating to the electrification contract for the Valleys railway line. There were dozens of formal documents in ring binders and lever arch files all with indexed sections and colour-coded dividers. I spent an hour trawling through the papers, not really knowing what I was looking for but hoping there’d be a thread to connect both murders. I scanned the environmental reports and then in a separate file there was a document summarising the long-term economic benefits for the Valleys.
It had been an enormous contract worth several million pounds and a local company, Frost Enterprises, advised by Matthew Dolman and the National Bank of Wales, had been very high profile in its press releases about their plans to deliver the contract on time and on budget. After arguments between the politicians in Cardiff and Westminster about who would pay, a compromise had been reached. I struggled to work out how saving a few minutes on the journey from Cardiff to London would generate thousands of jobs. An article headed ‘local jobs hope’ suggested that local companies would share in the £350 million project. Matthew Dolman’s clients must have hoped for a serious slice of that money.
Frost Enterprises had been one of the preferred bidders for the project. Malcolm Frost appeared shaking hands with various subcontractors, local union bosses and the directors of the company responsible for managing the railway tracks. The Western Mail carried a flattering portrayal of Frost as a local man made good. I absently bookmarked several websites. Two other companies were mentioned and there was controversy when the decision was made to award the contract to a business based in London. I tried another Google search for comments about the company that won the tender and found a blog suggesting links to various offshore companies and comments about the English fascist state and the conspiracy to denude Welsh people of jobs and wealth. I continued reading about Malcolm Frost. It was the entry about his suicide that drew my attention and reminded me that Stanway had named Frost when I first spoke to him. After Frost Enterprises had lost the tender, it had been three months before financial difficulties had caused the company to go into receivership.
Another Good Killing: An exciting, fast-paced crime thriller (Detective John Marco crime thriller Book 2) (Detective Inspector Marco) Page 9