Dark Order : A Harrison Lane Mystery (The Dr Harrison Lane Mysteries Book 3)

by Gwyn GB

  ‘I’ll get onto the tactical unit straight away, boss,’ David said.

  ‘I’ll alert forensics,’ Emily added.

  Harrison could see the adrenaline pumping through every one of them. This was the moment they’d all be working towards.

  It took DI Steadman four nerve-wracking hours to persuade his boss, and then the courts, that a search warrant was justified and speed was essential. Their evidence was tentative, and he knew they’d only just got it past the court process. It wouldn’t take much to overturn it and change the Judge’s mind. Joseph Goode had been arrested and sat stewing in the cells while the rest of his gang were released pending further enquiries. John used the four hours wisely, making sure they were prepped, so they had the best team for the job ready to go in the second they had the warrant. Harrison briefed everyone on what to look for and who their main suspect was.

  ‘Forensics should focus on the main living room area. There may be blood traces from Christopher Downey there. We need to see if we can find the sticks they used to beat initiates, although they may not have been stupid enough to keep them at the house. The monk cloaks too, but again, if they have any sense, they’ll have moved these already. The primary suspect is Joseph Goode. I believe he has trophies from his victims stored somewhere, probably in his room. These are tiny pieces of human skin.’ Harrison watched the lips of his audience curl up in disgust. ‘They will obviously be dried out, but were triangular shaped. That is our key piece of evidence because in amongst those pieces of skin, I believe we will find one from both Christopher and George. We have to find those trophies.’

  ‘We’ve got officers watching the house already so if the lads who have been sent home decide to clear any evidence, we will be on to them.’ DI Steadman said to the team.

  ‘You need to go in too, Harrison.’ John said, ‘This is your specialism and if I’m right, we are going to have a maximum of half an hour to forty-five minutes before the court suspends the warrant. There will be the full firing power of five crack law teams on this. The families are going to do everything in their power to cry harassment. If we don’t find anything to give us enough evidence to bring charges, then we are going to be up shit creek without a boat, let alone a paddle. This is a gamble that has to pay out.’

  Harrison travelled with the tactical unit deployed to gain access to the property. DI Steadman stayed behind monitoring the operation and in full communication with Sergeant Bob Wilson, who was leading the operation on the ground. John was also ready and waiting for the inevitable phone call from the court that would rescind the warrant and call a halt to the operation. He was ready to block it with everything in his power.

  Gaining entry was easy. They knocked. Oscar Whittington and his lopsided fringe answered the door. Harrison thought how John, watching back at the station via the video feed from Bob Wilson’s body cam, would have enjoyed the look of utter surprise on his face. He opened the door to around a dozen white suited ghosts. The entire team was dressed from head to toe in the white polyethylene Tyvek hooded suits, plus face masks and blue nitrile gloves. There was going to be no opportunity for any argument that evidence was contaminated. Bob, who was in front, was also a bodybuilder, and with Harrison book-ending the team at the rear, they completely filled the narrow Moatside lane outside the flat. The open-mouthed Oscar was served with the warrant, and they were inside within sixty seconds.

  The flat was a large one in student terms, and furnishings were several grades above that he’d seen in the former miner’s cottage with the rugby lads. A dining table dominated one side of the living room. It was also extendable for even larger gatherings, and Harrison thought back to what Annabelle had said about the selection dinner.

  ‘Might be worth dusting under that table for fingerprints,’ he said to one of the forensic team. They needed to be quick and specific about what they spent time gathering, as time was so short.

  There were three leather sofas in the middle of the room, positioned around an empty space in front of the TV. It was obvious that something had been removed from that space, some kind of coffee table, perhaps the coffin-like box that Annabelle had talked about?

  The flat was also impeccably clean. Quite apart from the fact they had a cleaner who came in, there had also been a definite attempt to ensure that no evidence remained. Harrison feared they would find nothing to incriminate the students. Their legal team would have advised them to remove anything that could be ‘misconstrued’, and that almost certainly was going to cover the sticks they used to beat initiates, their monks’ cloaks and any other ceremonial items.

  The rest of the team swarmed around him, pulling drawers open and searching under cushions and in cupboards. Some of the forensics team were setting up their lights to search for bloodstains, and Oscar, James, Mark and David were on their mobile phones talking to their lawyers in a shocked huddle in the corner of the room.

  Harrison stopped and stood still. There was so much activity and noise, it was almost impossible to concentrate. He closed his eyes and summoned every mental effort he could to block all the environmental stimuli out and focus his mind. He had to find proof of the Moatside Monks’s existence and Joseph’s guilt.

  When his eyes snapped open, he was ready to look. Like a scanner, he took in the whole room inch by inch. The dining table, candlesticks. Book case, pictures on the wall. The sofas, the missing coffee table. The room looked decluttered, spotless. They had removed all of their secret society paraphernalia long before today.

  Harrison needed to find Joseph’s room. There was one thing he would not want to part with, and he would want it in his inner sanctum.

  The bedrooms were split over two levels. Every room had two officers in it. The team were being thorough and knew they were up against the clock. As he walked past each door, he could see white suited officers sorting through wardrobes and drawers.

  Finding Joseph’s room was easy. On the door was a triangle with J in the middle.

  Two male officers were in Joseph’s room already, searching through his things. They had taken books off the shelves, opened tins and boxes, searched under the bed and mattress. Harrison started his own systematic search, just as a message came over the police radios.

  ‘The boys’ lawyers are petitioning the court for harassment. They claim they should be treated as potential victims, not suspects. We have ten to fifteen minutes max.’

  They searched everywhere. Every book and ornament came off the shelves, every piece of floorboard was checked. The curtains. His clothes in the wardrobe, pockets, linings, shoes, even the heels of his shoes. The two officers finally stood up and looked at Harrison, beaten.

  ‘It has to be here somewhere,’ he said. ‘They’re tiny, easy to conceal.’

  ‘We’ll start again,’ one officer replied, and the two of them set about re-checking everything they’d looked at.

  ‘The judge is about to rule on his decision. We could have literally two minutes left,’ DI Steadman’s voice came across the radios.

  Harrison’s heart was racing. They had to find the pieces of skin. They were the only evidence that could tie Joseph to both murders and to his sadistic attacks on women, including Annabelle. He had to be stopped. He could feel himself scatter-gunning the problem. If he was going to find it, he needed to think like Joseph, focus on how his mind worked. What was important to him? He stopped a moment and mentally went through the list of personality traits, his childhood history, what motivated him. Joseph’s steely gaze as he’d interviewed him at the police station, came into his mind. The look he’d given him when he asked how he’d got to be included in a group of the privileged classes with the others. The words of the American reporter, ‘he was obsessed with feelings of inferiority because of where his dad had come from and where their money was made.’

  Then it clicked. It was staring right at him.

  He’d glanced at it on the bookshelf when he’d entered the room. Seen it discarded on the bed. It had already been checke
d, but the image of pressed flowers between a book’s pages came into Harrison’s mind. It was a big, thick hardback. If you’d pressed something between its pages, you wouldn’t necessarily see that as you flicked through to check it had nothing hidden inside.

  ‘The court warrant has been recalled. We have to pull out.’ DI Steadman’s voice barely made it into Harrison’s mind. He was walking towards Joseph’s bed, where the books were piled after being pulled off the shelves. He could just see it, the red and gold of Debrett’s Peerage & Baronetage, showing underneath a pile of textbooks. He grabbed it.

  ‘Dr Lane, we need to leave now,’ one of the officers in the room said to him.

  He didn’t so much ignore him as simply not hear. He was so focused on his task. Harrison opened the cover of Debrett’s and flicked through the book. Nothing. There were no obvious places where pages fell open, no unnatural lumps or bumps. No gaps.

  ‘Dr Lane? I’m sorry, but we have to leave.’

  Harrison wasn’t about to give up. He lay the book flat on the bed and opened the pages. Then he had a thought. George Marshwood, Baron Marshwood. He frantically searched through the book to find the Marshwoods.

  Page after page. Baroness Ludford, Lord Mackay, Lord Mair, Lord Mackenzie, Lord Marland…

  ‘Dr Lane. We must leave.’

  Finally, he found them, Baron Marshwood, and there it was. Secreted right into the tight spine side of the book, a tiny triangle of dried skin.

  Behind him, he heard the officer exclaim.

  ‘Holy shit, is that it?’

  Harrison knew there had to be more. He could hear shouting and arguing in the hallway behind him, between officers and the lawyers who had arrived to ensure they were out of the building. Now he knew where to look, he quickly searched through the pages of the book for other pieces. The Downeys, there was another piece. Then another. They had him. This was the evidence they needed.

  ‘Dr Lane, I’m sorry, we have been ordered by the court to vacate these premises.’ DS Bob Wilson walked into the room, followed by two of the suited lawyers.

  Harrison turned round and held out the book, opened at the page where George Marshwood’s skin sat, dried and pressed. ‘We’ve found what we came for. We now have the evidence that Joseph Goode murdered George Marshwood and, along with Oscar, James, Mark and David, caused injuries which resulted in the death of Christopher Downey. I believe that all five then concealed his death and disposed of his body.’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ One of the lawyers lurched forward to look at what Harrison was holding up, but was blocked instantly by Bob.

  ‘Trophies. Joseph cut triangular pieces of skin from those whose lives he destroyed.’

  Harrison placed the book back on the bed.

  ‘I’ll leave that there for forensics to bag up.’ When he turned around, despite the face mask, he could see Bob had a big smile on his face from the creases around his eyes. The two lawyers had visibly paled.

  ‘Excuse me, gentlemen, I need to arrest your clients. Can I ask you please to leave these premises immediately as they are now officially a crime scene,’ DS Wilson said and began shoo-ing the two lawyers out of the room and down the hall.

  Harrison breathed a huge sigh of relief as he heard the rights being read to the four students down the hallway. Joseph’s obsession with ritual and his insecurities about his upbringing had been his downfall. He would love to be there when DI Steadman officially told him the ‘good’ news.

  On his way out, Harrison briefed the forensics team about the book. He also told them that there was a camera or mobile phone somewhere that had incriminating images on it. He knew that Joseph wouldn’t have used his usual phone. They needed to find the images, otherwise Annabelle would never feel free of his threat. The evidence on it would also ensure that - even without the skin - they’d have enough to put Joseph away for a long time.

  As he left and stepped back into Moatside Lane, he breathed a sigh of relief. Annabelle could soon get the counselling she needed to get over her ordeal. Joseph Goode wasn’t going to wriggle out of this one.

  23

  When Harrison returned to the incident room, he expected to find everyone in a state of euphoria, and John smiling from ear to ear. Instead, he found it in a frenzy.

  Something was wrong. With the arrests of the students, they should now be collating evidence, interviewing, and preparing for charges. Across the other side of the room, he saw DI Steadman on the phone. He was standing up, gesticulating, angry. This did not look good.

  ‘Harrison,’ John said as he slammed down his phone, ‘Joseph is gone. His lawyer got him out just before the court rescinded the search warrant, and you found the evidence. Now we can’t find him.’

  Harrison’s stomach fell.

  ‘He’ll know the game’s up, that we’ve found the skin because his lawyer will have told him.’

  John nodded.

  ‘We’ve got an all ports alert out. He won’t be able to leave easily. I don’t suppose you have any thoughts on where he might go. His mobile is turned off so we can’t track him. With his father’s money they might be able to smuggle him out somewhere off grid. We’ve got to stop him.’

  Harrison didn’t answer. His mind was working through all the possibilities. What would someone like Joseph do? He’d be desperate. Everything he had ever wanted would now be gone, and it would be impossible to achieve ever again. For him, his life was ruined. Over. He would be angry. Angry at the police, obviously. He’d want to know how they knew it was him. How they knew about the skin trophies. He might suspect the others, but he wouldn’t risk going back to the flat.

  ‘Annabelle.’

  Harrison called her mobile. It went straight to voicemail.

  A Detective Constable walked up to DI Steadman.

  ‘Boss, we’ve had a report that Joseph was seen in the Castle grounds. Someone saw him taking something out of a locker and then leaving across Palace Green, but he didn’t go back to Moatside. We have officers searching.’

  ‘Annabelle Keyes. She lives in Owen Gate and could identify him in relation to Christopher’s death. He’s threatened her before.’

  ‘He has?’ John gave Harrison a, that’s news to me, look.

  ‘Yes. I’ll explain.’

  ‘Get officers to her address now,’ John said to the DC. ‘Dr Lane, is there something you need to tell me?’

  Harrison recounted his conversation with Annabelle. ‘She wouldn’t go on record, she was too scared. If we can get Joseph back in custody and find those images and videos, then I’m sure she will. But my fear is that if Joseph killed George because he thought he was betraying him, then he won’t hesitate with Annabelle.’

  ‘Agreed. We need to find her right away.’

  Harrison felt a sense of dread, pacing the incident room while they waited to hear news. Every time John’s mobile rang, he pricked his ears up in anticipation. He listened in to the police radios as search teams hunted for Joseph around Palace Green, and he stood over the shoulder of the CCTV teams as they looked for him on screen.

  Fifteen minutes later, something changed in John’s demeanour and he rushed across the incident room to talk to some of the team.

  ‘OK, listen up everyone. We have reason to believe Joseph Goode is with Annabelle Keyes. Her neighbour saw her leave with a young man matching his description. She didn’t look happy. We have also had a report that a young couple have hijacked a car. The elderly owner stopped to post a letter, and the pair jumped into the car. Maggie is pulling up the CCTV now. Harrison do you want to take a look? You know them both. We have the registration and it’s being fed into ANPR as we speak.’

  Harrison rushed over to the desk at the back of the room, where he knew Maggie sat.

  ‘Almost there,’ Maggie said as he came up. She was scrolling through some footage. ‘There, that’s the woman pulling up to the post box now.’

  They watched the jerky images as the elderly lady got out of her car, leaving
the driver’s door wide open, and walked a few steps to the post box. From the right-hand side of the screen, two figures appeared. It was obvious that Joseph had seen the opportunity. He was pushing Annabelle along, hurrying her. When they got to the car, he shoved her into the driver’s side and then got in straight after. It was difficult to see, but there appeared to be a bit of a struggle going on inside the car. Annabelle must have been fighting back.

  Having realised what was happening, the elderly woman rushed back to her car, but Joseph managed to pull the door shut just as she got to them. She banged on the window, but he’d locked the doors. Joseph pulled away quickly, and Harrison could just make out a slumped figure in the seat next to him as they sped down the road, out of view.

  ‘It’s definitely them. It’s Joseph and Annabelle,’ he shouted across the incident room to John.

  DI Steadman was standing over a screen where the Automatic Number Plate Recognition software was tracking the car.

  ‘He’s heading out of Durham on the A690. Get all the available cars there now. David, you take Emily, I’ll keep you informed from here on their progress.’

  ‘I’d like to go too,’ Harrison said.

  ‘You’re not an operational officer, Dr Lane.’

  ‘No, but I’m a psychologist who understands how Joseph is thinking right now. You might need me on the ground.’

  There was a moment’s hesitation.

  ‘OK, but you follow David’s orders,’ and DI Steadman returned to the screen and running the operation.

  The three of them ran down to the car park and jumped into David’s car, with Harrison sitting in the back. Emily turned on the lights and turned up the radio, and they sped back towards the city, and then out the other side, on blue lights. Weaving their way through the traffic. None of them said a word in the car. David was concentrating on driving, and they were all listening to the police radio for any updates.