by E C Deacon
With only six hours remaining in which to either charge or release him, Helen finally bit the bullet and agreed to let Clarke sit in on her interview with Don Hart; reminding him that she was taking the lead.
“You gave us a false alibi for the night of Gina Lewis’ death.”
“I refute that.”
“My client has an independent witness that will confirm his alibi, Detective.”
“I’d hardly call his son independent, Mr. Shelby.”
“Not just his son, Kelly Holland, who was also a victim of the mugging.”
Helen, knowing that another witness, albeit an unreliable one, spelt trouble, altered her line of attack. “Not forgetting that Miss Holland has convictions for petty theft and aggravated robbery, let’s move on. Do you recognise this woman?”
She nodded to Clarke, who produced a photograph of Tessa Hayes from a manila folder and placed it on the table in front of Don.
“No.”
Helen nodded to Clarke again. He produced a second photograph from the folder and placed it alongside the first.
“No.”
Another photograph appeared and, with Don’s negative response, another. Don barely glanced at them but Helen could see from the tiny tell-tale movement of his Adam’s apple that he was nervous.
“Aren’t you interested in who they are?” she queried, leaning forward, her elbows on the table as she scrutinized Don’s implacable face.
“Not particularly. I’m sure you’re going to tell me eventually.”
Helen held up the photos one by one as she went methodically through the list. “This is Kate Holmes. She’s forty-four years old and was first reported missing on 6 September 2016; now presumed dead. This is Francis Cole, forty-six, reported missing 11 December 2017; now presumed dead. Barbara Crane, also forty-six, missing since 21 May 2018 and also now presumed dead. And this last lady, Tessa Hayes, is not missing but she was drugged, abducted, assaulted and dumped in a river, on 8 November. The night you have no alibi for.”
“I have no idea who these women are or what you’re talking about.”
“You’re going to have to do better than that, mate,” interjected Clarke.
“My client has provided you with an alibi, Sergeant. Badgering him will not alter the fact.”
Clarke ignored Shelby and leant in next to Helen, physically forming a united front to further pressurise Don, and said bluntly, “Do you use online dating sites?”
“No,” replied Don, unconsciously shifting back in his seat and away from the pressure.
“That’s odd. Because Laura Fell told my colleague that you met her on one. Are you saying she’s lying?”
Don swallowed the bile rising in his throat and said nothing.
“Playing dumb is not going to help you,” said Clarke. “Forensics have been going through your laptop.”
Shelby, keeping his head and mouth away from the prying eyes of the police, whispered to Don, “Do not say another word.”
Clarke waited patiently for the interplay to finish and said, “Well?”
“Sergeant,” interrupted Shelby. “Bearing in mind the seriousness of these new allegations, I’d like to request a short recess so that I can confer with my client in private?”
Clarke turned obediently toward Helen for her approval. She thought about it, cracked a crooked smile and said, “Confer away. But let me make myself clear, ‘no comment’ is not going to cut it. We’re looking for a serial killer and your client’s in the frame. He’s not going anywhere until I get some straight answers.”
Don was allowed out into the prisoner yard for a comfort break. Something of a misnomer, considering his mood as he paced the perimeter walls like a caged animal. Shelby watched him with growing disquiet. He was a man with no moral qualms about representing drug dealers, thieves or fraudsters. He wasn’t concerned with whether his clients were guilty or innocent. He wasn’t naive – he knew that the majority of them were compulsive liars who preyed on their victim’s weaknesses – but they were entitled to a defence in a court of law and, for a price, he provided it. The jury was the final arbiter of their guilt or innocence. Besides, since he privately reviled his clients, it didn’t much matter to him whether they won or lost. However, he drew a deep line in the legal sand when it came to attacks on women. His own daughter had been beaten senseless by her junkie husband and lost the child she was carrying. He walked away with a two-year suspended sentence on the proviso that he attended a residential addiction centre. Three weeks later he disappeared to Kerala in southern India. It had cost Shelby three grand for justice to be finally served by three men with bamboo canes who administered a dozen lashes to his genitals. It gave him some comfort to think that he would never abuse another woman, but it wouldn’t bring his grandson back or ease his daughter’s grief. So, listening to Don Hart vent about “DC cock-sucker Lake” filled him with grave misgivings.
“I need to know where you were when this Tessa Hayes got attacked, and it better be the truth or I’m walking out of here right now.”
“Fuck off. You can’t walk out on me. I’m your client.”
“I choose who I represent and I don’t choose to represent men who murder women. Now, I want the truth – and don’t give me that bullshit about being with your son either.”
“Okay. Look,” he said, lowering his voice and gesturing Shelby aside from the inquisitive eye of the CCTV camera. “It wasn’t me. I was with Harry Bellows, busting a bookie in Tottenham. One of the cashiers got hurt.”
“How badly?”
“Bad. Harry shot him with a taser. The guy went into convulsions and had a heart attack.”
“What the hell was he doing with a taser?”
“He thought it would be safer than a gun.”
“I do not believe this.”
“It gets worse. It was Harry’s own shop we were turning over.”
“It was an insurance scam and he shot his own cashier?”
“He wanted to make it look authentic. We’ve done three in the last six months, all owned by Harry. The idea was to make it look like a rival bookie was muscling in on his turf.”
“If that cashier dies, he’s going to be facing a murder charge and you’re an accessory.”
“I know.”
“So, you’re going to risk getting charged with multiple homicides, crimes you say you didn’t commit, to conceal a crime you did?”
“What else can I do? Anyway, they’re not going to be able to prove I touched any of those women, because I didn’t. I was nowhere near them.”
“Yeah, the only trouble is, you can’t prove that, can you?”
Later that day, DS Clarke received a breakdown from forensics on what they’d found on Hart’s laptop hard drive. Its history revealed hits on some desultory porn sites and a number on a dating site called PlentyMoreFish.com. Helen’s hopes were momentarily raised but a closer investigation of the user profile that Hart had uploaded revealed a photograph of himself and his real contact details. An hour later, she was forced to release him from custody.
The following day, Shelby received a DHS delivery from Don. It was a presentation box containing a twelve-year-old bottle of Scotch and a card saying that his services were no longer required. Shelby was relieved that at least they’d parted on good terms and later opened the bottle to toast a successful outcome.
It was not a twelve-year-old malt but urine.
Colin Gould had taken a few days off from St. Mary’s on compassionate leave and spent the time trawling through Facebook, hacking into the private messages of Iris Costa and Freida Cole about Megan’s sudden disappearance and the death of her dog. Theories had been offered and discounted, but ultimately only one person knew the real truth: Colin himself.
His strategy worked more perfectly than he could have imagined. He intended to hurt Megan, the way she’d done when she ridiculed him and banned him from the meetings. He wanted to make her experience the deep sense of loss that he had felt over Gina. But, coward t
hat she was, she’d packed her bags and run at the first sign of trouble. Well, good riddance. The group was now free of her domineering arrogance and would be the better for it.
He phoned Iris, the font of all gossip, and professed his shock when she told him the news. Colin was stunned to learn that the police had arrested Don Hart. Surely, they couldn’t believe there was any connection between the poisoning of Megan’s dog and him? That would be too fortuitous. God, he thought. I’d have loved to have seen the supercilious smile wiped off his smug face as they dragged him out still protesting his innocence.
He lowered himself into his captain’s chair, his forty-fifth birthday present to himself, and opened the iPad lying beside the diary on his mahogany desk. He powered it up, tapped the photo icon, typed in a password and opened a folder labelled “Friends”, then began flipping through the images: Gina and himself, Hart and Laura, Hart and Gina, Megan and her naked Brazilian girlfriend, and finally the body of Gabriel Oak. The dog he’d poisoned.
It reminded him of his “warm kills” at the tax office, but this time it had been for real, and it filled him with a warm and profound pleasure.
DC Jerry Coyle, being the newest recruit to the missing women case, was tasked with collecting the breakfast orders. He’d made the trek to the canteen on the third floor, struggled back with a precariously balanced tray of teas, coffees and rolls and was doling them out when DCI Teal strode out of his office.
“Give me one of them.”
Heads turned. Everyone on the unit knew that Teal’s heart condition prohibited him from eating anything fatty or fried.
“What about the diet, guv?” chided Clarke, wary of getting his head bitten off.
“It went AWOL with Don Hart.”
“Guv–”
“Alright! Bugger it. Take the bacon out and just give me the roll.”
Coyle removed the bacon from his roll and handed it over.
Teal held it to his nose, savouring the lard aroma like it was a fine wine, and bit into the bread. “Okay,” he said, through a mouthful of crust. “Who was tailing Hart?”
KR, a bearded copper who looked a bit like Kenny Rogers, hence the moniker, placed his pork sausage sandwich aside and held up his hand. “Me and Tony, guv. He got a cab back to his house on Seeley Road and never moved for the rest of the day.”
“You reckon he clocked you?”
“Could have. He’s pretty cute. I stayed on until 2am and Tony subbed me. He’s there now. There’s been no comings or goings apart from Hart’s son, Richie.”
“And there won’t be,” said Clarke. “If it’s him, he’s just going to go to ground and wait us out.”
“You got a better idea, Jack? Let’s hear it.”
“Helen reckons we should bring in a forensic profiler.”
“We’re coppers, not psychologists – and before you start, Helen, I know you’ve got some sort of degree in it or something.”
“Guv,” said Helen, dropped into the fray by Clarke and now forced to defend herself. “The attack on Tessa Hayes was peculiar. Not just the shaving of her body hair but because we still don’t know why or if he let her go. If we had some sort of offender profile it might be possible to compare it to Hart.”
“No way. We don’t need another Rachel Nickell. The press will crucify us and it’ll never stand up in court.”
“No, but it would stop us wasting valuable man hours on Hart if we don’t have to,” said Clarke.
“Well, well, what happened to Mr Sceptical?”
Clarke grinned ruefully and held up his hands in mock surrender.
Helen, sensing a weakening in Teal’s opposition, pressed home her advantage. “Jack’s right. We know nothing about the missing women apart from that they’re all of similar ages and that they were all using online dating sites. But Tessa Hayes we do know something about–”
“Except she can’t remember a bloody thing.”
“Yeah, but we know he drugged her and shaved her, guv. A profiler may be able to compare the MO to people who have committed similar crimes. Also, Tessa Hayes wasn’t raped, which is odd…”
“Okay. Okay. Do it. But I don’t want to read a word about this in the press. Understand? Moving on. Any other good news?”
“I’ve contacted all of Harts’ potential matches on the PlentyMoreFish website. He appears to have only met one woman so far and she reckons that she had a pleasant evening,” said a muscular-looking female PC standing at the rear, eating a fat-free yoghurt.
“That would seem to indicate that it’s not him,” moaned Teal.
“Why would he lie about his whereabouts on the night of Gina Lewis’ death?” countered Helen.
“Exactly,” agreed Clarke. “He’s got to be hiding something, guv.”
Helen pulled out a sheaf of printed papers and began handing them around as she explained, “We know he was playing the field. We also found a number of suggestive emails on the laptop. You’ll see that these are between Hart and Iris Costa, another member of the group.”
“You reckon he might have been sleeping with her too?”
“It would appear so.”
“Okay. Have a word with her.”
“Also, if you check sheets four and five you’ll see there’s a number of unflattering references to a Colin Gould. I’ve highlighted them.”
“Who the hell is Colin Gould?”
“He’s the only other regular male member of the group. And, interestingly, he was missing on the night in question too.”
“Did you run a PCR check on him?”
“Yeah, he’s clean,” replied Helen. “But Hart clearly has a problem with him. You can see he refers to him as ‘creepy’.”
Everton’s wife, Pauline, was waiting for him at the top of the stairs with the keys to his newly installed front door.
“Welcome home,” she said as she ceremoniously handed them over.
Everton was a bit thrown. He’d only been out of hospital for forty minutes and was still wearing a plastic nose guard, with two strips of micropore tape holding it in place, across his swollen face, which made the whole episode feel slightly surreal.
“Thank you,” he said, mumbling through a nose full of wadding. “It looks great… Sorry you had all the hassle.”
“I’ve left some groceries for you on the kitchen table.”
“Oh. Right… Money… Let me give you some money.”
“Do it later. The receipt’s in the bag.”
Everton opened the front door and Pauline followed him inside. The flat was pristine; she’d obviously cleaned up. He walked into the bedroom. The bed linen had been freshly laundered and the bed remade.
“Thanks for doing the laundry.”
“I didn’t. It was covered in blood and puke. I threw it out and bought you some new sheets. The invoice is in the grocery bag.”
Everton smiled ruefully and made his way back into the lounge, calling to Pauline, who was now busying herself and unpacking the groceries in the kitchen, “You don’t have to do that.”
“I know. I’m trying to be nice. Most people are if you give them a chance.”
There it was again, the thorn on the rose. She couldn’t help herself.
“I meant you’ve done enough already.”
“I know what you meant.”
Shit, he thought. Even after all these years she doesn’t miss a thing.
“I was merely pointing out that cops, unfortunately, don’t get to see the best in people.”
“And journalists do?”
“Occasionally, but they make less interesting stories. Speaking of which, the Lewis family…”
She walked back in, picked up her shoulder bag, opened it, took out sheaf of official-looking printed papers and said, “You may want to sit down.”
Everton made himself comfortable on the sofa. Pauline sat beside him and began laying out the documentary evidence one by one as she spoke. “Mrs Lewis evidently contracted an STD, chlamydia, and it affected her fertility. Gina w
as not their birth daughter. She was adopted as a baby–”
“Whoa. Wait a minute. How do you know that?”
“I bribed a guy to hack into the hospital records department. There was evidently a mix-up with some blood samples after a car accident involving Gina and her father. He was driving drunk. It looks like it got hushed up.”
“Gina found out after the crash that she was adopted?”
“Yes. Her real mother was a woman called Jennifer Allen. Gina was born 4 September 1980 in Southampton and almost immediately given up for adoption. The birth certificate doesn’t have the father’s name.”
“Interesting.”
“I know. Anyway, it looks like Gina was trying to find her birth mother.”
“And it really screwed up her relationship with her adoptive mother.”
“Yes. Celia was desperate to keep it quiet – and before you ask, I know because both of them were seeing psychiatrists and it’s in the hacked transcripts of their meetings.”
“Isn’t that unethical?”
“Totally. Do you want me to stop?”
Everton said nothing.
“They were both on medication. Gina was on lithium for the last sixteen years.”
“Why didn’t it show up in the post-mortem results?”
“Ask the pathologist, not me. She’d been weaning herself off, against her psychiatrist’s advice, for the last four months. My guess is that it tipped her over the edge – another reason for Celia Lewis to try and keep a lid on it. Plus, she’s on anti-depressant’s herself: Seroxat and Valium.”
“Jesus. The accident really fucked up their lives.”
“Yeah, and not just the two of them. Gordon Lewis now has an AA sponsor, not that he ever appears to attend meetings.”