by L M Krier
‘The priority today is to find Simon Ashton and to trace whoever is behind renting the church,’ Ted told the team once they were all in. ‘Plus looking further into this group Redemption Song.
‘Steve, the young woman you spoke to at the agents. Is it worth you getting back to her, to see if she knows, or can find out, anything for you? If necessary go and see her. Explain that it’s urgent, without giving her too much detail.’
‘Yeah, Steve, go and use your charm on her,’ Jezza teased him.
‘Focus on the case, please,’ Ted said automatically. ‘There’s just a possibility that it will be a quicker way to find something out than either Sal unpicking the thread, or me talking to the lawyers, which is what I’m going to do as soon as their office opens.
‘We need to get inside that church and soon. But first we need something a bit more which will help us get a warrant to do so.
‘Maurice, can you speak to the Ashton parents, see if they might possibly have any idea where their son could be? Him being the brother of the latest suspected victim’s boyfriend is a bit too close to home. Unless anything else comes our way in the meantime, I want everyone on this. Jo, I’ll leave it to you to allocate roles.
‘So far, Central Park haven’t been able to come up with any trace of Peter Spencer via his mobile phone. There may be a perfectly innocent explanation for that, of course. While Rob’s out, let’s have a few more goes at getting hold of Spencer. We need to know about him one way or the other.’
It was nearly ten o’clock before Ted managed to get hold of one of the senior partners in the law firm. If they were uncooperative he’d need court orders to find out who their mysterious client was, unless Sal uncovered the information first. He was hoping that a call from a Senior Investigating Officer might just loosen tongues, although he knew it was unlikely. Solicitors could be tighter than clams when it came to protecting their clients.
‘I can put you through to Mr Carter now, Inspector,’ a helpful voice at the end of the phone told him, as if she was doing him a huge favour.
‘Mr Carter?’
‘I’m Jon Carter, yes.’
‘Detective Chief Inspector Darling, Greater Manchester Police. I understand your firm acts on behalf of a client who has rented a redundant church near to Rochdale. We need to get in touch with your client as a matter of some urgency, in connection with an ongoing enquiry.’
‘I’m sure you can appreciate, Inspector, that client confidentiality is an important part of the work we do. I’m afraid I can’t pass on any contact details directly. However if you would like to submit your request in writing, perhaps by email if it’s urgent, I can then pass it on to our client and take their instruction.’
‘Mr Carter, I need to get a look inside that church, as soon as possible. I have reason to believe that a crime or crimes have been committed on the premises, and that one may be ongoing. I am applying for search warrants. It would be much better and certainly quicker if your client would simply allow us to take a look inside.’
‘As you don’t seem to know who our clients are, I’m struggling to see how you would have such suspicions relating to them, Inspector.’
‘Are you refusing to give me any information, Mr Carter?’
‘In the absence of a better reason to do so, I am indeed, at this stage. And I think we both know that I am within my rights. Please put your request in writing and I will forward it to our client as soon as possible.’
‘Can you at least tell me if your client is in this country or abroad at the moment? It’s important to our enquiry to know that.’
‘Good day, Inspector. Please put your request in writing.’
Ted slammed his desk phone back down, hard. Trev was right. He needed an outlet for his pent-up frustration, and soon. In the absence of a better solution, he kicked his waste-paper basket round his office until it too, like many predecessors, was mangled beyond recognition. He knew he was in for a telling off by the woman who had cleaned his office for years and did the same on every such occasion. It was almost worth it, though.
‘I have advised my client that he is under no obligation to reply to your questioning, Sergeant, without at least being told more about your reasons for asking. However, Mr Harrison is keen to cooperate with the police in the hopes that he will then be left alone. He has therefore prepared a detailed list of his movements on all of the dates you asked about, which he hopes will help you.’
Stanley Harrison’s solicitor was a dry sort, with a clipped accent, wearing an old-fashioned three-piece suit with a bow tie. He was somehow exactly the sort of legal advisor Rob had expected Harrison to engage. He pushed a typed piece of paper across the desk towards Rob, who picked it up and scanned it. He’d need to check them in detail but at first glance, it looked as if Harrison was in the clear. On some of the dates he claimed to have been delivering lectures on his specialist subject, on one occasion on a cruise round the islands of Britain, so they would be easy to check.
‘Thank you, Mr Harrison, you’ve been very helpful.’
Rob was trying to stay polite, despite the waste of time. Harrison could easily have agreed to supply him with the information directly instead of insisting on the trip up to talk to him in the presence of his lawyer. One way or another, Rob was not having much luck with this case. He desperately needed to win himself some Brownie points.
He went back to his car and got his phone out. He tried both of Peter Spencer’s numbers again, getting an answering message on both.
‘Peter, it’s DS Rob O’Connell, again. I’m sorry to be interrupting your holiday like this, but I really do need to talk to you as soon as possible. Would you mind giving me a ring as soon as you get this message, please?’
Next he checked in with the team. He decided not to talk to the boss as once again he had nothing much of any use to report. Instead he phoned Jo.
‘Good, you’re not far from Blackpool, so you can get round to this Simon Ashton’s former regiment and see what you can find out about him. Maurice got the details from his parents. We need to trace him so we need to find anyone who might still have contact with him. If he was kicked out, he might not have any type of welfare or support. But someone, somewhere, might have an idea of how we might find him. Where do homeless ex-squaddies hang out? His parents have no idea, so anything you can find could help us with The Preacher. Not to mention helping to reunite Simon with his family and get him some help, if it’s not him.
‘Check back in with me before you set off back here. I might need you to go and talk to the family face to face if we don’t get any further than we are now.’
Steve had phoned ahead to arrange to talk to Hazel, from the estate agency. He’d asked if she had a break and if they could meet for coffee somewhere close by. He hoped it didn’t sound as if he was trying to ask her out. He remembered she’d had problems with her boyfriend so he suspected she may be vulnerable.
He’d asked her over the phone if she would be able to find out anything from the office files about the company, or the person behind it, who had rented the church. He didn’t want to get her into trouble, but they did need the information.
So far, they weren’t having much luck making contact with the band, Redemption Song. No one had replied yet to Steve’s email and they were still trying to find them through other means. Jezza was checking if the band had played at any of the schools or the residential centres the victims had been at, but it was a slow process.
Steve found the café easily enough, not far from the agency’s address. He didn’t know what Hazel looked like but he couldn’t see any lone females who seemed to be waiting for someone. He ordered himself a coffee and sat down to wait.
After about ten minutes, a young woman came in, looking round expectantly. Steve stood up, smiling, so she approached him.
‘Are you DC Ellis? I’m Hazel.’
‘Thank you for coming. What can I get you to drink?’
‘A tea would be nice, thank you.’
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He hoped he wasn’t doing his usual trick of blushing. Steve was a bit shy, rather awkward when meeting anyone for the first time. He went to the counter for the tea and managed to carry it back without spilling any.
‘I really appreciate you helping me like this. I hope it won’t get you into any trouble at work?’
‘I don’t think so. I sneaked a look at the files while my boss was out. There wasn’t an awful lot. The church is being rented by a company called Revelations Recordings. It’s some music production company or something like that. They rented it just over three years ago. I wonder if they might have chosen it because the acoustics would be good in a church, perhaps, although I don’t really know anything about it. Anyway the only other thing of interest on the file says that they did ask if they could construct some sort of soundproof room or chamber or something within the building. Perhaps that was to avoid any complaints from neighbours about noise. That seems to have been allowed under the terms of the lease.’
‘That’s fantastically helpful, thank you.’
Now he had the information he needed, Steve wanted to get his phone out to let the boss know straight away. But he saw from Hazel’s face that she wanted to chat for a bit and he felt he owed her that much.
Luckily for him, she didn’t have long for her break. She insisted on giving him her mobile phone number, looking hopeful. Once she’d left to return to work, Steve was finally able to go back to his car and phone the office. He got through to Mike Hallam.
‘Sarge, the church is rented by Revelations Recordings and, get this – they asked for permission to construct some sort of soundproof booth within the building. Do you think that might be where The Preacher has been keeping the lads? And do you think that means that Gary Heath is in there?’
‘So another biblical theme. Revelations. Good work, Steve, well done. Sal, we need everything you can find on Revelations Recordings. Who’s behind it? Are they connected to this group, Redemption Song? Do they record for them? At least now we should have enough for the search warrant for the premises. I’ll get that in motion.
‘Rob, what news of our suspects?’
‘Harrison’s alibis check out for most of the dates I’ve looked at so far, boss. Apart from being a bit strange and having a criminally bad haircut, I think he’s in the clear. I still can’t get hold of Peter Spencer, he’s not returning my calls.
‘I spoke to the adjutant of Simon Ashton’s former regiment near Blackpool. He remembered him. He’d been a good soldier, been promoted a couple of times. Then after the incident on active duty he changed completely. He’d become prone to violent outbursts, moody, withdrawn, always getting into trouble. It was put down to PTSD and he was medically discharged. So far, no one knows where he might be but they did promise to put the word out and let me know if they find anything.’
‘What about photos of Ashton and Spencer? Could either of them be this Simon Saviour from Redemption Song?’
‘Impossible to say with any certainty,’ Jo told him. ‘The pictures are just mugshots; they could be anyone. And as for comparing them with the band photo from the website, the keyboard player on there could be anyone, too. Both Ashton and Spencer are in their mid-thirties and they’re not all that dissimilar. Basically, it could be either of them or neither of them.’
Ted looked at the time.
‘Right, I’ll get us that search warrant and let’s go and have a look inside that church, find out what’s been going on there. We may not get it tonight, we may be looking at tomorrow morning now. I don’t really want to wait another night but we may have to.
‘We need to take some local Uniforms with us so Jo, can you arrange that. I’m definitely coming on this one. I want to be there if there’s even an outside chance of coming face to face with The Preacher. Mike, you’re with me. Maurice, you too. If there’s any chance at all of us finding Gary in there, I want you there to be the one to talk to him first. He’s going to need someone who’s good at handling anyone who’s been through what he has these last few days.’
Chapter Twenty-six
‘Tut tut, Chief Inspector. Another waste-paper basket? Temper, temper! Mrs Skinner.’
Despite the seriousness of the day ahead, Ted couldn’t help smiling at the reproachful note from the cleaning lady, neatly handwritten and lying in the centre of his tidied and polished desk. He could almost hear her voice saying it to him, as she had done several times before when she’d come in to clean and found him working late. She’d removed the latest casualty and replaced it with a brand new one. Ted would have to pay, as he usually did. He couldn’t justify even to himself replacing them out of his stationery budget.
He’d called the team in early. He wanted to be ready to move as soon as they got the search warrant through for the church. Whilst that search was going ahead, he wanted all other available bodies trying to find Peter Spencer and Simon Ashton, as well as tracing anything which might link the four kidnap victims to the group Redemption Song.
Steve had explained that it was unusual for a group not to have a social media presence, especially on Facebook or Instagram. Both were a valuable source of free advertising for groups promoting themselves for hire. So far he’d found nothing but their website and had not yet had any response to his enquiry through it.
Until Ted had the search warrant in his hand, there was nothing he and his team could usefully be doing. He took a moment to talk to Bill, promising again to be back in time for his leaving drinks if he possibly could. Bill was looking more glum with every day as the date for his enforced break crept up on him. A three-month holiday might be some people’s idea of bliss. It certainly wasn’t Bill’s.
Ted had already told both the Super and Jim Baker that he fully intended to go in person to the church to oversee the search. It was not standard procedure for a DCI, who would normally be desk-bound driving the operation, or simply doing the paperwork and leaving it to a DS or possibly a DI, if they had one. They both knew him well enough to know it was pointless arguing the toss with him. Ted was not by nature a maverick or a rule-breaker. He ran his enquiries scrupulously by the book and still got results despite that. But this case was getting to them all. If he felt the need to be there up to the end, they weren’t going to try to stop him.
As soon as Ted got word they had the warrant, he and the team went into action. He got Jo to phone ahead to the local station with whom he’d arranged a Uniform presence. He wanted to make sure no one entered or left the building before he and the others got there. But he was anxious not to have to force the door of a church building if there was any way round it.
As Maurice drove Ted’s official car, with the blues on to give them clear passage, Ted sat in the passenger seat, with Mike Hallam in the back. He first called the law firm handling the church rental and after having to insist, he was once more put through to Jon Carter.
‘DCI Darling here, Mr Carter. This is just a courtesy call to tell you that officers are on the way to gain entry to and search the church building for which your firm handles the lease from the Church Commissioners for your client, Revelations Recordings.’
He was anxious to let the man know how much information they had to date, to leave him in no doubt that the net was closing.
‘Now I don’t want to have to break into a church if it can be avoided. Perhaps your client, or someone from your firm, could go there to meet us and allow us entry with a key? We’ll be there in less than half an hour, but I’m perfectly prepared to wait a few moments before making a forced entry, if I know someone is on the way.’
He could hear the annoyance in the man’s voice as he replied.
‘This firm doesn’t hold a key to the church. We would have no occasion to do so. And our client is currently out of the country and will be for some weeks. Whatever you might think has been going on there, it almost certainly has nothing to do with our client.’
Ted noticed the care he took not to reveal so much as the gender of his client. He ha
dn’t expected to get anywhere with the lawyer, but at least his conscience was clear. He tried the estate agency next. When he asked to speak to the person in charge of rentals he was put through to someone who gave her name as Yvonne Dixon.
Again, he explained briefly what was happening and asked if the agency had a key, to avoid the police having to break open the door.
‘I can’t allow you access to the property without the permission of the leaseholder or his lawyers. We’ve never dealt with him direct.’
At least Ted now knew the client was a man. Clearly the agent was not as careful with such information as the lawyer had been.
‘Ms Dixon,’ Ted began, keeping it neutral.
‘It’s Mrs,’ she corrected him sharply. ‘I detest Ms.’
‘Excuse me. Mrs Dixon. I’m not actually asking you for permission. I have that already in the shape of a search warrant, lawfully granted. It’s just a courtesy call. I would prefer not to have to break down a church door if there was a way to avoid it. But I need to get access to that building, and soon. I have reasonable grounds to believe a crime is taking place there. Now, I’m less than twenty minutes away. I see from your address that if you were to leave now, with the keys, we could meet up there at about the same time. Would you be able to do that, please?’
From her response, she was clearly not happy but said she would see him there.
There were two local area cars and four PCs on site when Maurice pulled the black Ford up as close as he could get. Already one or two people were starting to gather to see what was going on. Ted showed his ID and asked one of the PCs to make sure the watchers stayed well out of the way.
‘There’s hopefully a key-holder on her way. Is there any sign of anyone on the premises?’
