by Paul Gitsham
‘You need to listen more carefully,’ snapped Beechey. ‘I told you, I don’t recognise that number and I only ever met Anish once; that’s why I never contacted him again.’
‘Strange. Because it seems that wherever this phone goes, your phone also goes. Except when it goes to the Easy Break Hotel. When your phone stays in your flat. With you, apparently,’ said Warren.
‘Well, I can’t help you there,’ said Beechey.
Warren opened his folder again, removing another picture, this time of a black Motorola handset.
‘Do you recognise this phone?’
Beechey swallowed again.
‘It was in the glovebox of your car. We found it when we impounded it, after today’s … incident.’
‘Not mine. Somebody must have left it in there.’
Warren pulled out a picture of a white Samsung. ‘What about this phone?’
‘No.’
‘We recovered this one from somebody who claims that you sold it to them.’
‘She’s lying, I’ve never seen it before.’
‘How do you know it was a she?’ asked Sutton. ‘DCI Jones made no mention of the person’s gender.’
‘I dunno.’
‘Jake, let’s cut the crap,’ said Warren. ‘Your fingerprints are on the back of this phone that you sold for fifty pounds down the Rising Sun pub. There’s a nice clear thumbprint from when you removed the SIM card, and the buyer recognised your picture.’
Warren could almost see Beechey’s mental pivot.
‘OK, I admit. I found it.’
‘Where?’
‘In some bushes.’
‘Where?’
‘I can’t remember.’
‘When?’
‘A week or so ago.’
‘And why did you try and sell it?’
‘Why do you think? It’s a nice phone. I figured that whoever lost it had probably already claimed on his insurance, so no harm done. Finders keepers, right?’
‘No, not right,’ said Sutton. ‘But again, why do you say “he”? We haven’t said anything about who owned the phone.’
‘Just assumed,’ said Beechey.
‘Who does own the phone?’ asked Warren.
‘Like I said, I don’t know.’
‘Well you texted it,’ said Warren. ‘In fact, you texted it several times – as you set up your date with Anish.’
‘Wait? You mean that’s Anish’s phone?’ said Beechey. He covered his mouth with his hands, his voice muffled. ‘Fuck …’ Suddenly he leaned back in his chair, shaking his head violently. ‘No, this is bollocks; you’re trying to set me up.’
Warren ignored him. ‘This phone also received a single text from the black Motorola that you claim you don’t own, that somebody apparently left in your glovebox. Now what are the odds of that?’
‘No, this is bullshit.’ He turned to his solicitor. ‘Tell them; they can’t do this. I know my rights; they can’t just lie to me.’
Warren continued to press, holding up the photograph of the Motorola found in the glovebox. ‘The only other number this phone contacts regularly belongs to your mate Nicholas Kimpton, a phone with a distinctive ringtone, that he initially claimed to know nothing about either – I tell you Jake, with all these phones that people claim to know nothing about, my head’s beginning to spin.’
‘I think it’s about time you came clean and told us what happened the night of November 24th,’ said Sutton. ‘The night that Anish Patel was killed at the Easy Break Hotel, before being hidden in a ditch and mutilated to conceal his identity.’
‘I don’t know nothing about that,’ said Beechey. ‘You can’t prove nothing. I wasn’t anywhere near that hotel.’ He slumped back in his chair, arms folded and glared at both men.
Warren glanced at Sutton. ‘I think that now would be a good time for us to tell you that we have Mr Kimpton next door. And he’s been telling us a very interesting tale.’
‘He’s a liar, he’s full of bullshit,’ snapped Beechey.
‘Really? Then perhaps you’d like to tell us what took place that night. Let us know your side of the story.’
Beechey started to ‘no comment’, before changing his mind. ‘Nothing to tell,’ he said eventually. ‘Whatever he’s said is bollocks. He’s trying to frame me.’
‘How is he trying to frame you? What do you think he’s told us?’ asked Warren.
‘Don’t answer that,’ Beechey’s solicitor instructed him firmly, before turning to Warren. ‘DCI Jones, you cannot expect my client to answer questions about a conversation that he has not personally witnessed.’
‘Of course, that would be unreasonable. Let’s go back a bit then. Tell me about your relationship with Anish,’ said Warren.
‘No comment.’
‘You said that you hadn’t had any contact with Anish since your first date?’
‘No comment,’ mumbled Beechey.
‘Well, let’s just assume that you have had recent contact, shall we,’ continued Warren, ‘given that a phone that we found in your car, and which location data shows can normally be found within a few metres of your own iPhone, was also located to the Easy Break Hotel on the same nights that Mr Patel checked in. I assume it was your idea to meet up with Anish there?’
‘No comment.’
‘Well, Mr Kimpton claims that you contacted him last year and asked him to do you a favour. To let you in through the fire exit whenever you texted him. Why did you want him to do that?’
‘No comment.’
‘Is it because you didn’t want anyone to know about your meetings with Anish?’ Sutton pressed.
‘No comment.’
‘It all seems a bit strange to me,’ said Warren, his tone thoughtful. ‘I get that Anish was in a delicate personal situation, which was why he checked in under the name of Mr Smith and paid cash, but he still came in through the main reception where the CCTV cameras could see him. Yet you made sure that there was no video evidence of you coming and going. Why is that? We know that you aren’t ashamed of being gay, you’re quite open about it down at the Rising Sun, and your friends and family all know.’
Beechey gave a slight smile. ‘Like you said, there’s no CCTV footage of me entering the hotel. Nick’s full of shit. In fact, I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if that phone in the glovebox of my car belongs to him. I give him a lift occasionally.’
‘I thought you hadn’t seen him since you left prison?’ said Sutton.
Beechey shrugged. ‘OK, so I lied about that. I figured if I said that I spoke to him recently, you’d keep me here even longer, and I couldn’t be done with the hassle.’
‘So, you’re saying that Nick is blaming you for the murder of Anish and trying to frame you by leaving that phone in your car?’ said Warren.
Beechey frowned; it was clear that the constant switching between Warren and Sutton was having the desired effect. ‘I ain’t saying anything, figure it out yourself, you’re the detectives.’
‘OK, Jake. Yes or no: have you been meeting Anish Patel at the Easy Break Hotel?’ asked Warren.
Beechey paused for a long moment, before glancing at his solicitor.
‘I want to speak to my lawyer.’
‘They’re going to throw each other under the bus,’ opined Hutchinson.
‘I suspect that you’re right,’ said Warren. ‘Do we have anything back from the search teams or forensics?’
‘They’re doing a rush job on everything that they find,’ said Pymm. ‘No idea when they’ll have news.’
‘What’s the plan, Chief?’ asked Sutton, biting into an apple. ‘Do we plough on tonight or pick up again tomorrow when we have more evidence from forensics?’
‘We have Beechey on the back foot. I reckon he’s going to hit back with a new story to explain any forensics that he thinks we’re going to find. What I don’t want is for him to spend all night polishing his story and plugging any holes in it. Let’s continue, hear what he has to say and then pick it apar
t. Kimpton isn’t going anywhere; he won’t have any idea what Beechey is claiming, so we’ll let him sweat overnight.’
There were general nods of agreement around the table.
‘I want to know anything that comes in from forensics or the search teams immediately,’ ordered Warren as he and Sutton headed back down to the interview room.
He looked at his watch; they had a long night ahead of them.
‘I didn’t kill Anish Patel,’ Jake Beechey was white under the harsh, fluorescent lighting. ‘Nick Kimpton did. I just helped introduce them.’
‘Go on,’ said Warren.
‘I met Anish on Rainbow Hookups. We got on OK, he was a nice enough bloke, but we didn’t really gel. But I thought that he might get on all right with Nick Kimpton.’
Warren and Sutton were careful to keep their expressions neutral; neither man had foreseen this turn of events.
‘What do you mean by “get on all right”,’ asked Warren.
Beechey spread his hands. ‘You’re right, me and Nick spent some time together in prison. We got to know each other pretty well. Actually, very well, if you know what I mean.’
‘Go on,’ said Warren.
‘Well, you know how it is. Nick just said it was a prison thing, and when he got out, he kind of denied it ever happened, which is cool. Plenty more fish in the sea and all that. And then he met Jasmine and had his little girl, Kayla,’ Beechey snorted. ‘But I knew. That wasn’t really him, not deep down – why do you think they broke up?’
‘Jasmine found out he was gay?’ asked Sutton.
Beechey shrugged. ‘Dunno if she ever figured it out, but he finally did. Anyway, he messaged me the back-end of last year and we hooked up again.’
‘So, the two of you are in a relationship?’ asked Warren.
Beechey shook his head. ‘No, nothing like that, he’s just a mate. But he’s lonely, you know? And I was worried about him. He was too shy to go to gay bars and didn’t want to join a dating site. But after I met Anish, I figured he might like him.’
‘And so they started a relationship?’ asked Warren.
‘Yeah, I guess you could call it that. Anish’s family were right bastards from what he told me and they wouldn’t speak to him because he was gay, so he was lonely as well. He used to keep his sexuality private because he couldn’t be done with the grief. Nick was still finding his feet, and didn’t want everyone knowing, so they were a good fit. I guess that’s why he used a new phone; to keep it discreet, like.’
‘What else can you tell us about their relationship?’ asked Sutton.
‘Well, I can only tell you what Nick told me,’ Beechey warned. ‘But basically, Anish was into spy movies and all that shit, and he wanted to keep things quiet because of the problems with his family. Nick also wanted to keep things private, so every few weeks, Anish would book into the hotel under a false name and pay cash.
‘Nick would finish his shift, wave goodbye to everyone, and then sneak back into the hotel through a dodgy fire exit to spend the night with Anish.’
Warren looked over at Sutton. Beechey’s account certainly fit many of the facts that they had so far, even if it was unexpected.
‘So, what happened the night he died?’ asked Warren, deciding they’d circle back and pick apart the rest of Beechey’s story later.
‘I don’t know. I just got a call from Nick, in the early hours of Friday morning. He said he was in the middle of some sodding field, and he needed me to come and pick him up.’
‘So, you just dropped everything, jumped in the car and drove to a field in the middle of nowhere?’ said Sutton.
Beechey looked down at the tabletop. ‘Yeah. I wish I’d never answered that fucking phone.’
‘So then what happened?’ asked Warren.
‘I picked Nick up. He was carrying a grey backpack and wearing gloves. I asked him what had happened and what the hell he was doing in a field in the middle of the night, but he didn’t want to talk about it. I was like, cool, OK, whatever. I just wanted to get back to bed, and really didn’t want to know what shit he was involved in. I dropped him back at the Easy Break Hotel and forgot about it.’
‘Really? You completely forgot about it?’ asked Sutton.
‘Yeah, until I saw the news. I recognised Anish obviously, and I started to wonder what the fuck Nick’d got himself into. So, I rang him and demanded he tell me what happened.’
Given the probable date, that matched a call between the two men’s personal phones.
‘He claimed that they had had their usual meet-up,’ continued Beechey, ‘but Anish was acting really weird and collapsed, hitting his head on the desk. He wasn’t breathing, and Nick shit himself. He knew that if he called the police, they would want to know what he was doing in the room. With his record, he reckoned they’d assume that he killed Anish, so he panicked. He waited until it was late at night, then he put Anish’s clothes on, moved his car around to the fire exit, wrapped his body in a bed sheet and then drove him out to some ditch. He dumped the body under a bridge and said that he tried to make him as hard to identify as possible.’
‘How?’ asked Warren.
‘I dunno. I think he cut his fingertips off and smashed his jaw in with a hammer. Real gangster movie shit.’
‘Then what happened?’
‘He dumped the car and called me. After I dropped him back at the hotel, he went back into the room to try and clean it up. The next morning, he walked back into work, just like normal, to avoid suspicion. Then he dressed like Anish and checked out through reception, circled back and went back in the fire exit, got changed again and went back to the kitchen and finished his shift, cool as you fucking like.’
‘What happened to Anish’s car?’ asked Sutton.
Beechey shrugged. ‘Dunno, he just said he dumped it.’
‘Did you know he was due to meet Anish that evening?’ asked Sutton.
‘No, he didn’t mention it the last time we spoke.’
‘When was that?’ asked Warren.
Beechey shrugged. ‘A couple of days before? I didn’t know anything about it until he called me to come and pick him up.’
‘And what did he say when he called for you to pick him up?’ asked Warren.
‘Just that he was stuck in the middle of a field and really needed a lift. He gave me the directions and I drove out there.’
‘And you expect us to believe that you got out of bed, without any explanation, and just drove out there?’ Sutton didn’t even bother to try and hide his disbelief.
‘Well, he’s a mate, ain’t he? I figured I’d ask him about what happened when I saw him. Besides, his teeth were already chattering, I reckoned he’d freeze to death if I didn’t go out there and fetch him quick.’
‘And what did he say happened, once you’d rescued him?’
‘Nothing, he was stressing loads and wouldn’t speak to me, so I stopped at a garage to get him some fags to calm him down. I reckon that must have been when he put that bloody mobile phone in the glovebox of my car.’
This time it was Warren who asked for a break, deciding to call it a night, and resume the interview the following morning. As Beechey was led to his cell for his legally mandated rest, Warren almost envied him. He knew that eight hours’ shut-eye was not in his immediate future.
‘They’re both full of it,’ said Hutchinson.
‘Makes it easier for us,’ said Warren. ‘We’ll let them go to bed thinking they’ve got one over on us, rather than lying awake all night making up better lies.’
‘In the meantime, we need to work out who did what,’ said Grayson.
‘Forensics may be able to help us there,’ said Sutton, reading a printout that had been left on his desk. He handed it over.
Warren smiled. ‘That’ll do nicely.’
Monday 12th December
Chapter 49
Warren’s eyes felt as though they were full of grit. He’d made it home sometime after 2 a.m. and collapsed on the bed in the
spare room to avoid disturbing Susan. He must have slept, but the 6 a.m. alarm on his phone seemed to go off only moments after his head hit the pillow.
Tony Sutton didn’t look much better, but Warren knew there was no point trying to persuade him to take it easier. Warren slurped at his coffee; Sutton claimed that going cold-turkey from caffeine after his stroke meant that he now no longer needed a morning boost to get going first thing. Warren wasn’t sure if he envied or pitied him.
The briefing room was filled to capacity, with incoming and outgoing shifts jostling for space. By now, Warren could name most of the seconded detectives and support workers from Welwyn. He made a note to thank each of them over the next couple of days for their hard work.
‘Right people, today is crunch day,’ said Warren, his voice slightly hoarse. ‘In custody, we have Nicholas Kimpton, chef at the Easy Break Hotel. We also have his old friend, Jake Beechey – known to us before yesterday as “Blondie92”. They are currently blaming each other for the death of Anish Patel, with the other merely helping to cover things up. Still in the mix is Leon Grime, the Easy Break Hotel’s handyman, who Nicholas Kimpton is also pointing a finger towards. He has already been charged, but denies everything. A team will be heading to the Mount Prison to confront him with everything we were told yesterday, to see if he changes his mind about cooperating.’
Warren took another sip of coffee, hoping it would lubricate his throat.
‘So far, we have two competing narratives, both of which largely fit the evidence that we have to date. I’ll run through them both before we start picking holes.
‘Nicholas Kimpton’s story is that he was sucked into this whole thing unwittingly when Jake Beechey called him, saying that Anish Patel had died unexpectedly in room 201. Up to this point, Kimpton believed he had simply been helping an old buddy meet up for illicit sex sessions by letting him in through a fire exit that Leon Grime had conveniently allowed to remain non-functional, we believe to facilitate drug dealing.