by Paul Gitsham
Warren looked at Sutton. Finally, they were nearly there.
‘Tell us what happened next and how Nick Kimpton and Leon Grime fit in.’
Beechey nodded. ‘I will, but I need a toilet break first.’
Warren repressed a sigh. ‘Fifteen minutes,’ he said firmly.
‘I can practically smell the bullshit wafting down the corridor,’ said Sutton. ‘He’ll be in there making up lies as quickly as he can.’
Warren and Sutton had taken the opportunity to return to the CID main office and review the next stage of their interview strategy. Mags Richardson and Moray Ruskin had returned from the Mount Prison and filled in more details of their visit with Leon Grime.
‘Well, it can’t be helped,’ said Warren. ‘He was entitled to a break. Besides, every time he’s tried to twist the truth so far, he’s just made things look worse when we’ve shown he’s lying. If he has any sense at all, he’ll finally shut his mouth and no comment.’
‘You reckon he’ll be able to do that?’ asked Ruskin.
Warren smiled. ‘Not a chance.’
Warren had been right; Beechey was unable to keep quiet. For the next half an hour, he described what had transpired in the hours and days after Anish Patel’s death. Eventually, he finished.
‘Thank you, Jake,’ said Warren. He leaned back and placed the cap back on his biro. He shook his head, sadly. ‘Any idea why Anish collapsed?’ he asked casually.
Beechey shrugged. ‘No idea. One minute he was standing up, the next he was down on the floor,’ he frowned. ‘Didn’t the autopsy say why he died?’
‘Cardiac arrest. Heart attack. Any idea what triggered it?’
Beechey shrugged again. ‘No idea.’
‘What were you in prison for, Jake?’ asked Sutton. ‘The last time,’ he clarified.
Beechey blinked. ‘Umm, robbery.’
Sutton started to read from one of the sheets piled on the desk in front of him. ‘You were convicted of robbery and theft. The victim met you on another dating app and after going for a few drinks invited you home. He claims that he fell asleep, and that when he came around you were having sex with him.’
‘That was never proven,’ interjected the solicitor.
‘That was bollocks,’ agreed Beechey. ‘We were both drunk. He made it up to try and stitch me up after I said I didn’t want to see him again.’
‘Fair enough, those charges were dropped through insufficient evidence,’ said Sutton. ‘However, you were convicted of stealing his bank card and then withdrawing money from his account.’
‘No comment,’ said Beechey.
‘This is old ground,’ said the solicitor. ‘Mr Beechey has served his time for that crime.’
Sutton ignored him. ‘To use someone’s bank card, you have to know their PIN code. You and your victim only met in person for the first time that evening. I don’t believe that he willingly gave you his PIN, and neither did the jury, which is why they convicted you of theft.’
‘What were the charges that the CPS eventually dropped against you, Jake?’ asked Warren.
‘No comment.’
Sutton handed over the sheet and Warren read aloud. ‘You were originally charged with robbery and theft, plus sexual assault and administering a substance with intent. What substance are they referring to?’
‘No comment.’
‘According to the original investigation,’ said Warren. ‘The victim reported symptoms prior to passing out consistent with ingestion of gamma hydroxybutyrate, better known as GHB, or GBH on the street. The tabloids call it a “date rape drug”.’
‘No comment.’
‘The drug produces euphoria and disinhibition, and after it’s been used, amnesia – in other words at lower doses, the victim will relax and let their guard down, perhaps do and say things that they wouldn’t normally, like give their PIN code to a virtual stranger.’
‘No comment,’ said Beechey again, despite no direct question being asked.
Warren ignored him and continued. ‘At higher doses, the victim becomes insensate and can easily be sexually assaulted. After the attack has been concluded and the drug wears off, the victim has little or no memory of the events that have just occurred. That’s why your previous victim didn’t remember you stealing his bank card or giving over the PIN, and which is why you managed two trips to the cashpoint – one just before and one just after midnight, each time drawing out his daily limit. He does have some memories of the sexual assault.’
‘Not proven,’ said Beechey, affecting a bored tone.
‘Mr Beechey is correct,’ agreed his solicitor. ‘Those charges were dropped due to a lack of evidence. I would ask you to remember that, DCI Jones.’
‘Why was there a lack of evidence?’ asked Sutton.
‘Probably because they did tests and didn’t find any GHB in his blood,’ sneered Beechey.
‘Even though they found a glass vial in your apartment with traces of the drug in it?’ said Warren.
‘Circumstantial,’ interjected the solicitor again. ‘There is no evidence that Mr Beechey used the drug on the complainant and therefore no inference should be made from Mr Beechey being in possession of it.’
‘GHB is known to break down in the body extremely quickly,’ said Warren. ‘Most studies agree that within eight hours, the amount of drug detectable in the blood even from somebody who took a very large dose, is indistinguishable from the levels found in the body naturally. Eight hours had easily passed before your victim was in a fit state to report what had happened to the police.’
Beechey shrugged.
‘Of course, you knew all this, because you’d researched it on the internet. How many victims did you successfully rob and assault before you were convicted, Jake?’ asked Warren.
‘No comment,’ said Beechey.
‘Well, there were six different complaints lodged against your profile on the dating app before you were blocked. All of them said they had been robbed of money and valuables, but few if any of them reported it to the police and there was not enough evidence to charge even when you were arrested.’
‘You got greedy, didn’t you Jake?’ said Sutton. ‘That last victim, the one that reported you: you never denied that you went back to his flat, so finding your fingerprints there wasn’t incriminating, but your mistake was stealing his bank card. The machine photographed you when you withdrew the cash.’
‘I still fail to see the relevance of this,’ interrupted the solicitor. ‘This is all supposition based on allegations that have never been proven.’
Warren turned back to Beechey. ‘We found two vials of GHB hidden under that loose floorboard in your kitchen. GHB is a class C substance, prohibited under the Misuse of Drugs Act.’
Beechey snorted. ‘Big fucking deal. I’m a gay man, everyone uses it. Ain’t no proof I gave it to Anish.’
‘Well, it’s interesting you should say that,’ said Warren. ‘You see I think that one of the reasons that you didn’t want Anish’s body to be found so soon was that you wanted time for the drug to be broken down in his system. We didn’t find his body for three days. Much longer than the eight hours or so that it takes for the drug to disappear from someone’s body.’
‘Well, there you are then,’ said Beechey, hints of the maddening smirk returning. ‘No evidence.’
‘Of course, that’s in living people,’ said Warren. ‘When you die, the heart stops pumping and the major organs such as the liver stop working.’ He felt a surge of satisfaction as the blood started to drain from Beechey’s face. ‘The levels of GHB in the body will rise slightly after death, and everyone has some in them because it’s a naturally occurring chemical in the nervous system. But there are well-established threshold concentrations for blood and urine, above which a forensic pathologist can confidently state that the victim was administered GHB before death. Anish’s levels were significantly above that threshold.’
Warren’s smile was humourless. ‘You screwed up, Jake. You got the
dose wrong. The last victim you tried this on had been out drinking and then the two of you stopped off at the chippy on the way home. Anish came straight from work. He was on a diet and sometimes skipped meals, so he had an empty stomach.’
Beechey said nothing. After a moment he reached for his glass of water. Warren and Sutton kept their faces immobile. Would he take the bait?
‘It was Anish’s idea,’ said Beechey.
‘What was?’ asked Warren, although he knew exactly what Beechey was going to claim.
‘The GHB. He’d read that it could enhance sexual pleasure and he wanted to try it.’
‘And the supply in your flat?’ prompted Sutton.
Beechey swallowed. ‘I said I’d get some.’
‘Here’s the problem with that scenario,’ said Warren. ‘Anish had a serious heart condition, for which he was receiving treatment. I spoke to his specialist and she said Anish had made significant lifestyle changes over the past eighteen months. It is very, very unlikely that he would have risked taking a drug such as GHB, which at high doses can have significant effects on the heart rate.’
Beechey said nothing.
‘Did you know that Anish had a pacemaker?’ asked Sutton. ‘Very sophisticated things these days, they can record hours of the heart’s electrical activity. We even know the exact moment he went into cardiac arrest, twenty-eight minutes past eight. But his heart rate had been gradually slowing down for twenty minutes beforehand. In fact he had almost certainly passed out some time before he suffered his heart attack. Was that when he fell and hit his head?’
‘No comment,’ whispered Beechey.
‘You know what’s even more interesting,’ said Warren. ‘In order to use his phone to send those misleading text messages, you needed to know his PIN code to unlock his phone. You drugged him and then asked for his PIN code, didn’t you?’
‘No comment,’ said Beechey, his voice even quieter.
‘Now why didn’t you ask him for the PIN to his bank card?’
‘No comment.’
‘It’s because the last time you did that you were photographed at the cashpoint,’ said Sutton.
Beechey said nothing.
‘You figured it’d be far better to transfer the cash directly from his account. If Anish threatened to call the bank, you had those nasty little videos to make him change his mind.
I’ll bet you couldn’t wait, could you? All that money. You must have been gutted when you saw his balance. All that effort, all those months grooming your rich sugar daddy and finally, when you decide you’ve had enough fun and it’s time for the payout, it turns out he had less than twenty-five quid left on his overdraft and his credit cards were maxed out. Appearances can be deceiving, can’t they? I’ll bet that’s why you decided to try and sell his phone, instead of destroying it. In fact, you actually lost money that night, after paying for new tyres on the hire car.’
Beechey placed his hand over his mouth, the ‘no comment’ barely audible.
‘But you know what the sickest thing is?’ said Warren. ‘The PIN code that unlocked his phone wasn’t the same as the one that unlocked his banking app. You needed his fingerprint for that. We have the exact time the app was accessed. Five past eight.’
Warren stabbed a finger at Beechey. ‘That’s why you didn’t call an ambulance as soon as he collapsed. Whilst Anish Patel was dying from an overdose of a drug that you administered to him, you were busy using his fingerprint to try and steal his money.’
Chapter 53
Warren and Sutton re-entered the main CID office to a round of applause. Supervising the charging of Jake Beechey with the murder of Anish Patel and a raft of other offences had been one of the most satisfying things Warren had ever done.
Beechey’s biggest mistake had been arrogance; he should have followed his solicitor’s advice and given a no comment interview. But he had been convinced that he had been clever enough to outsmart the detectives and that he could spin the events of that night to portray himself as nothing more than an unwitting dupe. Beechey had lied again and again throughout the interview, repeatedly changing his story as Warren and Sutton had countered his falsehoods. And that, Warren suspected, would be the most damning thing of all. No jury liked to see someone lying and taking them for fools. And judges liked it even less.
After a few more handshakes and backslaps, Warren made his way back over to Sutton.
‘I think it’s time to put Nick Kimpton out of his misery,’ he said. ‘Care to join me?’
‘Love to,’ said Sutton.
Nicholas Kimpton’s face was pinched with worry. He’d spent the hours since the morning’s interview back in his cell, but it didn’t look as though he’d used that time to catch up on his sleep.
‘Good news, Nick, we’ve charged Jake Beechey with the murder of Anish Patel,’ started Warren after introducing Sutton to him and his solicitor.
‘Thank God,’ whispered Kimpton.
‘You realise that there will be charges relating to your involvement in the disposal of Mr Patel’s body, don’t you?’ said Sutton.
‘Yeah.’
Given what he’d originally been arrested for, he probably felt grateful that he had got off so lightly.
‘Now we’re going to need your assistance tidying up a few details,’ said Warren.
Kimpton nodded, eager to help.
‘In your earlier interview, you said that you suspected that Jake Beechey had been stringing Anish Patel along for money, letting him pay for everything?’
‘Yeah, that’s right.’
‘Were you aware that Mr Beechey was intending to extort money from Anish by covertly filming their meetings and threatening to release the recordings?’
Kimpton’s eyes widened. ‘No, of course not. I had no idea the bastard was planning that. If I’d had any idea that was what he was doing, I’d never have let him into the hotel. Shit …’
‘Well the camera was well hidden,’ said Sutton. ‘Anish always insisted on the same room, 201. We thought that it was just because it was the closest room to the emergency stairs, which makes sense because it means Jake could come in and out of the fire exit without being seen. Now we realise that Jake encouraged him to book that room because there was a hole drilled in the wall where the camera was fitted.’
‘We still don’t know how Jake got into that room to fit the camera,’ said Warren.
‘Well it’s obvious, innit?’ said Kimpton. ‘Leon Grime. He had access to the room whenever he wanted, and the tools to fit it.’
‘That makes sense,’ said Warren. ‘By the way, thanks for telling us about Leon’s allotment, it was really helpful.’
Kimpton nodded in acknowledgement.
Sutton opened his notepad. ‘So now that we’ve charged Mr Beechey, we need your assistance to nail down the final details. The problem is that Mr Beechey destroyed the memory card from the camera and so we have no footage of what actually happened in the room that night. Can you check that I have everything correct here?’
Sutton read through a summary of the statement that Kimpton had given that morning.
‘This is what I’m still not clear on,’ said Warren. ‘We know that Jake was planning to use those recordings to extort money from Anish, and you reckon that Leon Grime helped by installing the camera in the room. But we also know that Leon was involved in selling drugs. You aren’t the only person who was suspicious about the late-night comings and goings through the fire exit, and thanks to your tip-off, the drug dogs indicated that his allotment shed was probably used to store his supply at some point in the past. I’m not quite joining the dots here. Any thoughts?’
Kimpton pinched his bottom lip in thought. ‘I wonder if Anish was getting cold feet about the drug deal? Maybe they were using the video recordings to keep him in line?’
‘Do you think they could have confronted Anish the night that he died?’ said Sutton. ‘And during that altercation he fell and hit his head?’
‘Yeah, that mak
es sense. Maybe that’s why Leon and Jake were both in there, they were putting the frighteners on him?’ Kimpton scowled. ‘I never really believed Jake when he said that Anish had just collapsed, it didn’t seem to make any sense.’
‘Well that’s certainly a good story,’ said Warren. ‘The problem is it doesn’t quite work.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Kimpton, a note of suspicion creeping into his voice. Beside him his solicitor looked up.
‘When was the last time you spoke to Leon Grime’s wife?’ asked Sutton.
‘Ages ago,’ said Kimpton confidently.
‘According to your phone logs, you last called her back in September.’
‘Yeah, that’s probably about right. Leon used my phone when he forgot to charge his.’
‘How would you describe your relationship with her?’ asked Warren.
Kimpton shrugged. ‘I knew her to speak to through Leon; she was my mate’s wife,’ he grimaced. ‘Not really my type, if that’s what you’re suggesting. Twenty years too old for a start.’
‘No, we’re not suggesting that at all,’ said Warren. ‘She’s just a friend’s wife. And you just knew her in passing …’ He paused. ‘But you knew her well enough that the first thing she did when Leon was arrested was knock on your door and ask you if you knew anything about it. Leon first met her after his own spell in prison and he hasn’t been in trouble since, so she didn’t really know what to do. She thought you might be able to help. Why did you lie about meeting her?’
‘I thought it would look bad,’ admitted Kimpton. ‘And I didn’t want to be linked to him.’
‘So you knew that Leon had been arrested on the 3rd of December?’