A Very Private Murder

by Stuart Pawson

  I’m a trained hostage negotiator. There’s a note in my HR file that says so. I remember doing the course but don’t think I’ve ever been formally notified that I’d passed. Once in a blue moon I’m on standby, and I’ve been called upon just once, otherwise it’s one of those skills that we take for granted in all police officers, like traffic point duty or delivering a baby, neither of which had I ever been asked to perform. I couldn’t do any negotiating from Heckley nick so I threw the stab-proof over my shoulder and drove to where I hoped the action was.

  As I rolled to a standstill behind the firearms unit’s Transit, two streets away from the address, somebody broke radio silence with: ‘Charlie’s here, look busy,’ in a stage whisper.

  The sergeant in the Transit was more respectful. Firearms officers usually are. I explained about the humane killer and emphasised that I wanted young Sidebottom in custody, alive and kicking. He gave me the spiel about shooting to kill, but only if an innocent life was at risk. In that case, I told him, I wanted to talk to Sidebottom before any of his men had him in their sights.

  It was about then that it started to go pearshaped. The mill had been converted into what is known as a ‘gated community’, designed to insulate the inhabitants from the grubby realities that surrounded them. There were two gates: a wide one for vehicle access, controlled by a keypad on a post but overridden by a built-in vehicle recognition system; and a small, unlocked gate for pedestrians.

  Oscar’s car was tracked by mobile units, the helicopter and CCTV all the way from the motorway to Heckley town centre. Right on cue, Hotel Yankee 2 reported that headlights were approaching, then turning into the little precinct where his mother lived. Straps were tightened, breathing regulated, the desire for banter suppressed.

  ‘False alarm, false alarm,’ they reported. ‘It’s the woman in the Toyota.’ They informed us that the gate was trundling open automatically, and the RAV4 was moving slowly forward, anticipating the widening gap.

  We all relaxed, resumed breathing, then came: ‘As you were. Second set of headlights approaching. Coming fast. Recommend moving in.’

  ‘Can you make a positive ID?’ I shouted into the microphone.

  ‘Sorry, boss. It’s a new-style Mini, that’s all. When he turns in will get a visual of his reg mark. Wait for it … Wait for it … Yes, it’s him. Move in, move in.’

  But fate was on the side of youth, for the moment. Or perhaps his spatial timing and judgement were more finely tuned than that of the ageing policemen who were pursuing him. Either way, tyres squealing, he made it through the gap with millimetres to spare, Hotel Yankee 2 didn’t. The Rover 25 panda tore the gate off its wheels and demolished the post holding the keypad, which jammed under the car, and came to rest behind the pedestrian gate, rendering it permanently closed. Fourteen highly trained cops, bristling with weapons, jogged on the spot in a disorderly queue as they tried to pursue their quarry.

  Earlier, two firearms officers had concealed themselves in the shrubbery inside the precinct, and now they jumped out, shouting the warning about being armed, but to no avail. The woman thought they were car thieves, after her top-of-the-range Toyota, and fled as fast as her fake Jimmy Choos would allow, towards the door of the apartment block, closely followed by young Sidebottom, who caught her as she held her electronic key against the sensor. Once again, his timing was faultless. The door slammed shut behind them and quarry and pursuers exchanged brief glances through reinforced glass until Sidebottom roughly grabbed the woman by the arm and pulled her towards the stairway and out of sight.

  She’d been for a takeaway and had left a trail of prawn crackers, bean sprouts and fried rice from her car to the security doors of the apartment block. She lost her appetite when the door shut behind her and she realised she’d backed the wrong side. Sidebottom unwrapped the humane killer and ordered her into the lift.

  *

  I was out of my depth so I sent for help and a superintendent from Leeds was called in. Before he arrived I’d evacuated all the residents, who promptly notified the media and organised a street party. The locals heard about it and came to enjoy the fun, so I cordoned off the whole area before a balloon artist and a stilt-walking juggler could make their contribution to the carnival atmosphere. The superintendent, who’d arrived in full evening regalia right up to cummerbund and dicky bow, organised listening posts on either side of Miss McArdle’s apartment and the woman herself was found in her office at the Curzon Centre. At fifteen minutes past ten, after full coverage on local TV, Sidebottom could contain himself no longer. The news item told him that ‘the police hunting the killer of a local businessman have arrested a forty-eight-year-old woman, believed to reside at the same address.’ He appeared in the Juliet balcony that graced the window of the master bedroom, fifty feet up, and ordered us to leave the building. I’d always wondered what they were for, and now I knew: hostage negotiation.

  As I’d met him before, I was appointed chief spokesman for law and order and given the megaphone. In our initial conversation I suggested we talk on his mother’s telephone, and he agreed. Two minutes later I was thanking him for his cooperation and reminding him who I was, without the rest of Heckley listening. I didn’t tell him that every word was being recorded and would be pored over by students and academics, criminologists and psychologists for as long as mankind existed.

  ‘First of all, how’s the young lady you kidnapped?’ I asked, reminding him how serious the offence was.

  ‘She’s fine.’

  ‘How are you holding her?’

  ‘She’s tied to a chair.’

  ‘That’s not good,’ I told him. ‘It would be in your favour if you let her go.’

  ‘Then you’d shoot me.’

  I explained the law and how we applied it; told him about when we would shoot to kill; suggested he come to the front door and put the gun down.‘What are you hoping to achieve by all this?’ I asked.

  ‘I want to see her.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You know who.’

  ‘Remind me.’

  ‘Janet. Mrs Threadneedle.’

  I turned to the super who gave an almost imperceptible shake of the head. We were in the Transit, hastily set up as a communications centre and now parked just outside the damaged gates.

  ‘You can’t,’ I told him. ‘She’s applied for bail, which she will be given, but under condition that she does not attempt to contact, or communicate in any way with, possible witnesses to the case. If you spoke to her she’d have to stay inside, and you wouldn’t want that, would you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So are you coming out?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You’ll have to, sometime.’

  ‘I have to see Janet.’

  ‘Janet’s OK. She’s telling us her side of the story, and if it stands up in court, and she gets an all-female jury, she could walk free on a manslaughter charge.’

  He didn’t come back to me after that. I’d tried to sow some doubt in his mind; made him think that perhaps Janet was selling her young lover down the river. She’d pulled the trigger but he’d supplied the weapon and been the chief motivator.

  I said: ‘Are you still there, Oscar?’

  ‘I … I’m thinking.’

  ‘What’s the young woman called?’

  He asked her; came back with: ‘Maxine.’ That fitted in with the car registration.

  ‘I think you should let Maxine go. She’s nothing to do with all this. It wouldn’t change the situation at all.’ He didn’t reply, so I went on: ‘We’ve notified your mother and she’s on her way home. She was working late.’

  I heard his snort come down the line. ‘Working late with one of her boyfriends,’ he said. ‘She started all this. It’s her fault. If she comes in here I’ll kill her. That’s a promise.’ The line went dead and he wouldn’t pick it up when we dialled.

  ‘Give him half an hour to rethink his strategy,’ our resident expert told us, ‘then try again. He might
be more compliant when reality grabs hold of him. Can we get a cuppa round here?’

  We had another session of pointless talk, during which his demands switched from seeing Mrs Threadneedle to being given a Subaru Impreza with a full tank, then escalated to having the helicopter put at his disposal. We compromised by filling his Mini with petrol and fitting it with a couple of tracking transmitters. Only the Home Secretary had the power to release Janet, we told him, and she was in Iraq, and he wasn’t insured for the Subaru or the chopper, but we couldn’t stop him from using his own car. The more outlandish the deceit, the more likely you are to be believed by someone as deranged as he was. I had to keep reminding myself that he was armed and capable of murder.

  The damaged gates were hauled out of the way and Oscar’s Mini, complete with racing stripes, moved to a position in front of the complex’s door. The driver abandoned it as ordered in the middle of the driveway and hotfooted it to safety. I strolled across the weed-free block paving until I was in a triangle with the doorway and the car. Our plan was that he’d release Maxine and be allowed to drive away. Somewhere outside he’d be boxed in by traffic cars and brought to a standstill. As plans go, it wasn’t much. ‘Will this do?’ I asked into my mobile, glancing up at his figure in the Juliet window.

  ‘Yeah, stay there. We’re coming out. Don’t try anything or I’ll shoot her.’

  A minute later he appeared inside the door, holding a bewildered and terrified Maxine by the collar of her coat. I took off the flak jacket, as agreed, and tossed it a few feet away. I was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and jeans and had nowhere to conceal a gun. I turned slowly on the spot, like a dog settling into its basket, to show I was unarmed. He came out through the sliding door, dragging Maxine by the collar, and I had my first sight of the gun that probably killed Arthur George Threadneedle. All around me, fingers caressed triggers and tongues sought out moisture in the recesses of mouths.

  He was supposed to let her go and I would become the hostage. That was the concession he’d had to agree to for a tank of petrol, which made me worth about thirty pounds. I’d convinced the expert super that I had a rapport with Oscar, which wasn’t quite true, but I wanted him alive, and he’d given me my way. It was the president’s ball at his rotary club that evening, which helped him come round to my way of thinking. Long, drawn-out sieges are good news for journalists on expenses, but the short, sharp result plays less havoc with one’s social life.

  ‘OK, Charlie,’ he’d said, ‘but it’s on your head.’

  It usually is, I thought. It usually is.

  Unfortunately the plucky Maxine hadn’t been a party to our plans, so when she took a swing at Oscar, knocking his gun hand upwards and giving him a modest split lip, they went clean out of the window.

  She ran, straight at me, as if I were some sort of demilitarised zone where she would be given sanctuary. I caught her and spun round so my back was to Sidebottom. A gun went off and I tensed myself, but it wasn’t meant for me – this time.

  Officers were running and shouting, but it was all over. Sidebottom was on the ground, writhing in convulsions that ran up his body from his feet to the top of his head. I told Maxine she was safe, used her name, and handed her over to a policewoman who wore a suitably sympathetic expression.

  Sidebottom was still now, with two officers kneeling alongside him, checking his vital signs. Then I saw the wires and a flood of relief swept through me. He hadn’t been shot; he’d been Tasered.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Ten o’clock next morning I had him to myself. He’d been fed and watered, had eight hours rest and was wearing a pale-blue disposable oversuit and a totally confused expression. He looked like someone who’d been hit by a thunderbolt, which he had. The Taser gun shoots out two fine wires tipped off with supersharp barbed points. After they strike home fifty thousand volts are blatted between the wires and the unfortunate target has all his Christmases, birthdays and orgasms in one mighty kick in the head. His nervous system blows a fuse and he loses all interest in whatever illegal activity he’d been involved with. One day we’ll lose someone – the electric chair only uses three thousand volts – but at the moment the Taser is the preferred alternative to the Heckler & Koch.

  At first Oscar had adamantly refused a solicitor but I persuaded the duty man to have a word with him and eventually Oscar relented. I was concerned about his mental state and didn’t want any repercussions. Maggie was assisting me in place of big Dave, to create a less threatening atmosphere, and we were being videoed. The doctor assessed him as being fit for questioning, gave him some aspirin for his headache and we were off:

  ‘When did you last see Mrs Threadneedle?’ was my first real question, after the niceties had been performed. He said he couldn’t put a date on it.

  ‘Was it before or after the murder of her husband?’

  ‘Before. I think it was the day before. I had a music lesson with her.’

  I resisted the temptation to ask if the lesson involved any actual piano playing. That would come later, after we’d demolished his resistance.

  ‘What was being Tasered like?’ I asked.

  ‘It was terrible. I thought I’d been killed.’

  ‘One of our assistant chief constables volunteered to be shot by one, before we went over to them. He said much the same thing.’

  ‘He must be mad.’

  ‘That’s what we thought. I wouldn’t dare. How well did you know Arthur George Threadneedle?’

  ‘Not at all; I’d seen him a few times, at the Centre.’

  ‘That’s the Curzon Centre.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You worked there, I believe.’

  ‘Not full-time. I had part-time release from my college course, and I worked there in the vacations.’

  I kept it informal and chatty, slipping the occasional leading question into the conversation. The duty solicitor, who’d been on duty all night, looked bored and his notepad remained unsullied. When I decided the time was right to step up a gear I produced the gun from my briefcase and laid it on the table, saying: ‘DI Priest produces gun and offers it as evidence. It is an Entwistle humane killer fitted with a silencer, as used to despatch horses in accordance with BHB recommendations.’ It looked evil, lying there on the Formica, and the tension in the room ratcheted up several notches.

  ‘Tell me, Oscar,’ I said, ‘when was the last time you saw this gun, or one like it?’

  The solicitor was more awake than I’d given him credit for. He said: ‘Come off it, Inspector; you can do better than that.’

  I dipped my head in acknowledgement and tried again. ‘Have you seen this gun before?’ I asked.

  ‘No, never,’ Oscar replied, his eyes fixed to the weapon. I’d been thinking that fifty thousand volts had made him a more compliant interviewee, but now I could see his old belligerence returning.

  ‘Were you at a party in the grounds of Curzon House on the evening of Wednesday, May thirtieth?’

  ‘I don’t remember.’

  ‘Do you deny being there? It was to celebrate your twentieth birthday.’

  ‘I neither deny or admit being there.’

  ‘Or that you were playing Russian roulette with a similar gun?’

  ‘Same answer.’

  ‘There are witnesses willing to say that you were.’

  ‘Name them.’

  ‘All in good time. What was your relationship with Mrs Janet Threadneedle?’

  ‘She was my music teacher.’

  ‘Were you in a sexual relationship with her?’

  ‘That’s one way of putting it.’

  ‘How would you put it?’

  He had to think about that, but the opportunity to boast about his prowess was too much to resist. He said: ‘She was a sex-starved old biddy who couldn’t get enough of me, so I gave her one whenever it was mutually convenient.’

  ‘And how often was that?’ I asked. It wasn’t relevant but I’m as interested as the next Daily Mirror reader. Out
of the corner of my eye I caught Maggie giving me a quick glance.

  ‘About three times a week,’ he told us, the memory causing him to grin.

  ‘And this was in lieu of a piano lesson,’ I suggested.

  He liked that, and laughed out loud. ‘Yeah, in lieu of a piano lesson. That’s good, that is.’

  I wanted to ask him if he liked her, but it wouldn’t propel the enquiry forward whatever the answer. I wanted to know if there was the slightest spark of affection in him for a sad but talented lady. I wanted to put my hands round his throat and finish the Taser’s job, but instead I said: ‘When did you last see your father?’

  That stunned him slightly, but he quickly recovered. ‘Years ago,’ he said.

  ‘Your parents split up, I believe.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Why did you think that was?’

  ‘At the time? I didn’t know.’

  He didn’t want to talk about it but he was going to have to. ‘Did you love your parents?’ I asked. He nodded and I said: ‘Tell me about your dad. Did he take you places?’

  ‘Yeah, all over.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘All over. Silverstone, Oulton Park, Cadwell. Everywhere.’

  ‘Car racing?’

  ‘No, bikes.’

  ‘Motorbikes.’

  ‘Yeah, except that he said if you had one it was a bike, if you didn’t, they were motorcycles, not motorbikes. He was always telling that to people. He liked being awkward. He was great fun.’

  ‘At the time, why did you think he left?’

  ‘At the time? Mum said he’d gone to Portugal, to work for Uncle Dennis. He has a bar there. She said Dad had got himself a new girlfriend.’

  ‘And you believed her?’

  ‘To start with, yeah.’

  ‘So what changed?’

  ‘Mum and Threadneedle, that’s what.’

  ‘Go on, please. You’re doing well.’

  ‘I thought it was all Dad’s fault; that Mum was, you know, the injured party. But after the divorce came through she’d found herself a boyfriend before the ink was dry. That made me a bit suspicious but I thought she was, you know, making the best of a bad job; or maybe she was making Dad pay for what he’d done to us. She started buying expensive clothes and wearing lots of makeup; and going out a lot more, dressed to the nines. And underclothes. Sexy stuff you don’t expect your mother to wear. She’d leave it strewn about her bedroom, as if … as if … as if they couldn’t wait.’