Vanishing Point

by J G Alva

  “Several things,” Sutton said, leaning the bat up against the wall. “The money, for one. Apparently, Mr Mackenzie has been busy buying all manner of clothes and toys for himself. It doesn’t bode well for a man who’s supposedly given it away to a good cause.”

  “It’s hardly enough to convict him though,” Vicky protested.

  “True. Not alone…but then I did say several things, didn’t I. His enthusiasm to continue with The Rumbler scheme is another one. My bet is he spoke to Chris alone and tried to convince him to continue, despite what you’d all agreed. Imagine that conversation. It’ll be our secret, Chris. Imagine, for a moment, that Bill Mackenzie is not the hero of the people – as he makes himself out to be – but rather he is just a man. An average man. Who has devoted himself to a noble cause and has not been rewarded for it. Single, alone, with a mediocre job. As a younger man, he wrote some rousing articles, but they didn’t amount to much. Neither did he. And along comes this boy with the keys to the kingdom. So to speak. He has this gift, and he does nothing with it…how that must have galled Mackenzie. And after all that effort to get him involved, now he wants to stop. How dare he. How that must have frustrated Mackenzie. Sure, he could reconcile himself with the knowledge that he had two million quid tucked away for his retirement, but you told me that Chris was already suspicious. Maybe during that conversation Chris hinted at something along those lines: I know you took some money for yourself. Bill knew what Chris could do, how he could hack into a computer system…any computer system. And he knew Chris was a good man. Maybe he was afraid Chris would take his nest egg off him. Maybe he was afraid Chris would go to the police and confess. Maybe he couldn’t rest – couldn’t get a good night’s sleep – until Chris was silenced forever.”

  Their horrified faces stared at him.

  Vicky stuttered, “but Bill…he’s not like that. He’s not a…he’s not a murderer.”

  She must see the fallacy of that statement, he thought, but he reminded her anyway.

  “He asked you to kill me, Vicky,” he said, not without sympathy. “Remember?”

  “I’m sorry,” Steve said. “I agree with Vic. I don’t think he’s a murderer. He just doesn’t have it in him. Yes, he could ask someone to murder someone for him…but that’s a lot different from doing it yourself.”

  “Which brings me to the last – and best – point: the method of murder. All along, I’ve thought it very unusual. As if the man responsible didn’t want to do the murder at all. There were so many ways it could go wrong…so much so, that maybe he wanted it to go wrong. He wasn’t a murderer, there was no way he could murder someone…but maybe he felt he had to. So he let the car do it for him.” Sutton shrugged. “Did he really murder someone? Or was it just that person got in the way?”

  “That’s semantics,” Steve pointed out.

  “And Bill is a Social Sciences lecturer,” Sutton retaliated. “Semantics is his bread and butter.”

  He let them think about that for a moment, before continuing.

  “And why would Adrian Dunbar need to use a car when he was so good at setting up accidental deaths? Ones that remove all suspicion that foul play was involved.”

  He let them think about that too.

  Steve licked his lips and said, “what are you going to do to him? If I give you his address.”

  Sutton tried to smile benignly.

  He wasn’t sure he made it.

  “Just talk to him,” he said. “That’s all. Just talk. Just…have a good old chat.”

  ◆◆◆

  CHAPTER 20

  Monday, 6th June

  The address that Steve gave him was a corner terraced house in Cotham.

  Sutton parked in the neighbouring road and casually strolled past it once, glancing over his shoulder to look at it; the property was dark. He went around the block of houses and came back up on it from the other direction, walking on the opposite side of the road so he could spend more time looking at it without appearing too interested. There was a streetlight directly outside of the house, but beyond that its three windows – one for each floor, all in a vertical line – were black squares. There was a high wall encircling the property, with tall iron gates; they were open. A white cemented gravel drive glowed orange in the reflected light from the streetlamp. There was no car on it. It ran beside a small strip of garden. Both marched up to the house, and then stopped at a low stone wall around the base of the building. Steps led down behind the wall. There was a large Oak tree in the garden, with some kind of tree house decking attached to the trunk halfway up. In the relative darkness, it seemed eerie and foreboding, like something out of a fairy tale.

  Sutton didn’t want to walk around the estate again, so he turned and marched through the open gates as if he owned the place. Nobody looks out of place if they act like they belong; its furtiveness that arouses suspicion. His feet made muted crunching sounds on the gravel. The house was silent. He trotted quickly down the steps and circled the building. There was another small garden here, another strip of grass – neatly tended – with a table, umbrella and deck chairs parked on it. A high stone wall bracketed it on all sides.

  The back door was locked.

  Sutton peered through the glass but couldn’t see much of anything: dim shapes that might have been furniture, made visible by light coming in through the front windows.

  The door had a half a dozen frosted glass panels. Sutton delicately pushed on one of the panes until it came out of the putty…but not all the way. Just enough to get his hand in.

  There was a Yale lock, and he turned it. The door swung open noiselessly.

  He was in.

  Sutton didn’t know if good old Bill had told his neighbours he was going out, but nothing was more likely to bring the police than someone flashing a torch around inside a dark house. So he turned on the main lights as he explored.

  The house was narrow, but pleasant. What it lacked in width, it made up for in height: there were three very tall floors. Sutton quickly scoped out the ground floor, but there was nothing of any note there. Some family photos on the mantelpiece over the fireplace caught his eye. He stepped closer and saw a young Bill at play with other children, possibly cousins. There were a couple of magazines on the low coffee table: Sociology Magazine, The Sociological Review and The Economist. He kept the place reasonably tidy, for a bachelor. Everything had a place, and was stored neatly in it.

  In the hall, beside the front door, a space was missing for a pair of shoes.

  The bedroom was more telling: wardrobes had been flung open, and emptied of their contents. Now they looked insubstantial; abandoned and unloved. The clothes hangers looked bereft. Nothing in the drawers underneath either.

  The shower was still wet. So he’d been here until relatively recently.

  A first floor office was as neat and as impersonal as his one at work. He had shredded a lot of paperwork recently, Sutton noticed. Shredding was bursting out of the container beneath the feed hole.

  Covering his tracks.

  Sutton debated on saving it, but quickly discarded the idea. Anything of value would be on his person, he thought…and trying to stick these finger thin strips back together would be almost impossible.

  On the last and uppermost floor there was only a spare bedroom, a small en suite bathroom, and a room that Bill had used for storage. He hadn’t been up here in a while: a lot of surfaces were covered in a thin layer of dust.

  It seemed as if he had packed for a long absence.

  Guilty conscience?

  Fleeing the consequences of his actions?

  Or afraid someone might get hold of his money and take it away from him.

  Only Bill knew which one of these reasons was the correct one.

  As Sutton left, he turned off the lights behind him, making sure to smear any prints on any objects he might have touched. The place might turn into evidence…

  And you can never be too careful.

  ◆◆◆

  �
�Miss Eaves.”

  “Mr Mills. It’s ten to eleven. I was starting to get worried. Is everything alright?”

  “Just fine, Miss Eaves. Just fine.”

  “And what news do you have for us?”

  “The trail of breadcrumbs I followed actually turned into something. I believe I have located Mr Masters’ partner in crime.”

  “There was only one additional man involved in The Rumbler scheme?”

  “It would seem so. At least as far as I can tell.”

  “Can you give me the details please?”

  Sutton did, reciting all he could remember to her down the phone, including the address.

  He wasn’t about to tell her of Steve and Vicky though. As far as he was concerned, they were young, and by association naïve and foolish. Hardly a crime in itself, and certainly not one that indicated germinating seeds of genuine malevolence. He had been young and foolish once, and someone had given him a second chance, and he had turned out alright; why should these two deserve any less?

  He felt like a benevolent uncle, wishing the young lovers well.

  “Miss Steadman will be very pleased, Mr Mills.”

  “I’m glad.”

  “And if she’s pleased, so should you be.”

  “I’m ecstatic.”

  A low chuckle. Provocative.

  “We’ll send someone over to Mr Mackenzie’s house to talk to him right away,” Julia said happily.

  “Uh…I wouldn’t bother,” Sutton said. “That’s where I’m calling from now.”

  “He’s not there?”

  “I checked the house. He’s gone.”

  “Gone gone? Or just out?”

  “Gone gone. At least according to his wardrobes. If I were you, I’d check the airport. You might have more luck there. Or he might already be in the air.”

  “I’ll pass that message right along. Is that all?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good job, Mr Mills. I’m sure I’ll be talking to you again soon. Take care.”

  She hung up before he had chance to reply.

  She was disappointingly professional.

  ◆◆◆

  Julia was right, as it turned out.

  The phone rang again, an hour later. Sutton had only just arrived home.

  “Miss Eaves.”

  “Mrs Steadman and Mr Dunbar request your presence at the Elemental Distribution warehouse,” she said, so formally he thought the aforementioned duo must be in the room with her.

  “Why?”

  A slight pause.

  “Verification.”

  Sutton was about to refuse, when Julia said, “your completion bonus will be ready by the time you arrive. Mrs Steadman would like to thank you in person for your help.”

  “Alright. When?”

  “No time like the present.”

  “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  ◆◆◆

  There was no one at the side entrance, but the bulging hulk in the suit appeared around the corner of the building as Sutton got out of his car, and with a nod of his head indicated that he should follow.

  Sutton went after him.

  The large empty car park was eerie. There were exterior lights mounted on the side of the building, but the pool of illumination they cast wasn’t much larger than a medium sized pond, and the rest of the car park lay in darkness. And silence. Lights twinkled beyond the distant fence, and there was a thin sound of traffic in the air. But Elemental Distribution stood alone, in its own world, isolated and cut off.

  Hulk was holding a side door open for him; not the same one he had used before, but a wooden door beside a larger roller door for vehicle access. Sutton could see six roller doors in total, all shut for the night. In a line passed the far edge of the building, a fleet of transit vans stood sentinel. Sutton could just about make out the logo on the side: Elemental Distribution, with a series of lines of decreasing width beneath.

  Sutton paused before entering.

  “Not going to search me?”

  The gorilla in the suit just nodded his head toward the interior. No change of expression.

  Sutton stepped inside the warehouse.

  A group of eight powerful fluorescents directly over the loading bay were the only lights that were on, and they isolated the tableau before him in exquisite detail. Dunbar, Mrs Steadman and Julia stood in a loose knot just right of centre; their postures were tight with anxiety. The man known as Robert – the quick young man with the shaven head, who might or might not be a soldier – had been speaking to his employers; but now he broke off to greet Sutton. He walked lightly on his feet, as if pushing off from his toes. He wasn’t very tall: five eight, five nine perhaps. To the untrained eye he would not appear intimidating…and that, in fact, might be his greatest weapon. Sutton’s eye was a little keener than most, and he was intimidated. He would be quick, like a cocker spaniel. Should it come to that.

  On a chair in the centre of the lit area was Mackenzie. He was restrained with tightly bound, criss-crossing lines of rope. He was crying, and with good reason: he had taken a beating. His face was battered and bloody, and his top was stained with older blood. They’d been on him for a while.

  Robert stopped in front of Sutton and held out his hand.

  “Mobile phone, please,” he said. His voice had a slightly higher pitch than Sutton had expected. Almost effeminate.

  He reached in his pocket and handed it over.

  “I want that back,” he informed Robert.

  Robert smiled, but there was no warmth or civility in it. In fact, Sutton detected the exact opposite.

  “Of course. Follow me.”

  He turned swiftly and began walking back to the loosely collected members of the Dunbar Group, and Sutton followed.

  He took stock of his surroundings…an ironic turn of phrase, since most of his surroundings were taken up with stock. The impossibly tall racking seemed even more impressive from the ground looking up…and infinitely more precarious. One push, and it must surely topple. There were two rows that ran the width of the warehouse. More rows sat behind the loading bay. On Sutton’s left, vans had been parked along an interior wall. Halfway down the wall, Sutton observed a door. He wondered what was behind it. The Store Manager’s Office? If it was, then it was large, taking up half of that side of the warehouse. But beyond that, more rows of the precariously high racking continued, all running in parallel lines to the end of the warehouse. Most of it was hidden in darkness. The floor was concrete, and his footsteps echoed. There was no one else around; no workers; they had all been sent home for the night.

  It was a vast and intimidating space.

  Sutton stopped a good ten feet from Dunbar, Steadman and Julia. Julia wouldn’t meet his eye; the first clue that something was wrong. Robert went and stood behind and to the left of Mackenzie, clasping his hands behind his back: a soldier at ease. Mackenzie shied away from him. No prizes for guessing who was in charge of the beating.

  “Welcome, Mr Mills,” Mrs Steadman said. “Firstly, my congratulations. You seem to have done in two days what our own team could not do in two years. I wholeheartedly approve.”

  A disappointed eye was sent in Robert’s direction.

  He gave no sign that he was affected.

  “Good job,” Dunbar barked. “Well done. You’re an impressive man. I had my doubts.” He smiled grimly. “I don’t generally trust men with long hair. But you’re capable. You’re certainly a capable young man.”

  “I was lucky,” Sutton said depreciatively.

  Dunbar chuckled, and he and Steadman shared the joke.

  “And modest,” Steadman pointed out. “How delightful.”

  Sutton said, “at the risk of sounding obtuse, can I ask why I’m here?”

  Steadman said, “why, to collect your reward of course. Julia. If you’d be so kind.”

  Julia rifled through a folder and presented him with a cheque.

  Sutton looked at it.

  £50,000.


  Julia had been right, Steadman was generous…but in the end it felt like a Hobson’s Choice. It was nothing compared to what they had lost, and probably not very much compared to the group’s combined war chest. He doubted very much if he had been paid even half of what Tennis-ball-head Robert was getting.

  Still, with the money he could have a good year, instead of a mediocre one.

  He put the cheque in his pocket.

  “You could have sent the cheque to me. You didn’t have to deliver it to me yourself.”

  “Quite so,” Steadman said. “But I wanted to thank you in person. You don’t know what this means to me. How it…eases me. So thank you.”

  Sutton nodded, accepting the thanks.

  Still…something wasn’t right.

  “That’s nice…but completely unnecessary. So I’ll ask again: why am I here?”

  Steadman and Dunbar exchanged another look.

  The older woman smiled blandly.

  “Your intuition does you credit,” she said, walking around to stand behind Mackenzie. “But I suppose it would have to be well defined, to make you so adept. And you’re right. We didn’t bring you here just for that.”

  Sutton waited. These people had paid him £50,000, and now they were going to make sure they fucking got their pound of flesh. He had expected as much.

  Steadman continued, “it seems we have run in to a bit of a wall.” Her hands clasped the back of Mackenzie’s chair. It was as if she owned him…which, in a way, she did. “Mr Mackenzie here claims to have no knowledge of the crime of which he has been accused.”

  “He would say that.”

  “Yes. Of course he would. But as you can see” – she indicated his face, as if showing off a pretty necklace – “we’ve been particularly persuasive, and he still denies all knowledge. So you can understand the dilemma we are in.”

  “You must have other methods at your disposal.”

  “Indeed we do, Mr Mills. But a thorough search of his financials has not yielded any evidence or corroborated his crimes, and we have yet to find any ill-gotten gains…if you’ll excuse the old fashioned term. So we’re at something of a stand-off.”