by Adam Croft
One downside was that he was almost always listed as the on-call DCI. In his absence, his nemesis Malcolm Pope was usually listed as the on-call commander, and this was one of the reasons why Jack Culverhouse almost never took a day off. The possibility of accidentally handing over control of a major incident to Pope was enough to ensure he picked up all the hours he could and resisted all calls to take a step back.
It had, of course, had an impact both on his health and his personal relationships. It would be impossible for it not to have done. But, in a perverse way, throwing himself into his work had helped enormously and he was grateful to be able to do something truly rewarding.
In recent years, work had provided a welcome distraction from his personal life — ironic since it was his obsession with work which had caused most of his problems in the first place. Things were starting to look up, though. His daughter, Emily, was back living with him after her mother left the family home with her when she was only a few years old. Now when he looked at her, just a couple of months away from her sixteenth birthday, he was proud of the young woman Emily was becoming.
She’d proved to be a challenge, of course. No kid with her background and upbringing wouldn’t. Her mother had battled her own personal demons for years and hadn’t given two thoughts to burdening Emily with them at the same time.
Jack wondered how many of Helen’s traits and issues had passed on to Emily, having noticed cut marks — both old and fresh — on her arms. He’d tried to bring it up with her but had never quite known how. It was an awkward relationship at times. The years they’d had apart meant he found it difficult to raise these sorts of issues with her and often chose to keep the peace instead.
Each call provided him with a mixture of emotions, even after so many years in the job. There was anticipation, excitement and, of course, annoyance at the fact that the call would always come either in the middle of the night or the middle of the supermarket.
This time it wasn’t quite either, but he had been hoping to hit the sack and get some sleep before heading in the next morning for his normal shift.
Unfortunately for him, the ringing of his mobile phone put paid to that idea. Glancing at the screen, he could see it was work.
‘I hope it’s not bad timing,’ the caller said.
‘Not at all. I was sitting by my front door with my shoes on waiting for you to call.’
The caller ignored Culverhouse’s trademark sarcasm and continued. ‘We’ve got multiple armed robberies at petrol stations in and around Mildenheath. Three at present, all under the Gumbert’s brand name.’
‘Right. Any others?’
‘No. Not that we’ve had reports of.’
A few thoughts flashed through Culverhouse’s mind: a grudge, an insurance scam, just plain bad luck.
‘Put all independent petrol stations in the area on high alert, just in case they’re targeting the small guys. Warn all the major chains, too. Who owns the Gumbert’s chain?’
‘A bloke by the name of Ian Gumbert.’
‘Right. Get hold of him and arrange for someone to meet him for questioning. He’s either being targeted specifically or he’s responsible. Either way, we need to speak to him.’
4
Wendy Knight smiled as she watched Xav snoring open-mouthed beside her. Falling asleep in front of the TV was one of those quirks and foibles she loved about him, but which no-one in their right mind would list as facets of their ideal man. That certainly didn’t stop her finding them incredibly endearing, though.
Xav hadn’t officially moved in, but he was doing a pretty good impression of it. He’d recently decided to put his own house on the market and move in with Wendy, although he hadn’t yet managed to find a buyer. Wendy thought that was a bit odd, especially as she’d had to push him to list the house in the first place, but she didn’t see any point in questioning it just yet. At worst, he was just another commitment-phobic man.
She didn’t hold it against him, though. He’d been incredibly supportive towards her and had urged her to take her inspector’s exams — something she’d been considering but avoiding for some time. She’d given herself all the excuses under the sun, but when it came down to it she realised that deep down she felt uncomfortable at the prospect of matching – and potentially exceeding — the rank her own father had achieved before his untimely death.
She knew, too, that Xav had been hurt in the past and he’d need to take things at his own pace. Neither of them had come into this relationship without baggage, and as far as Wendy was concerned it was great just to have someone who she could connect with, without the worry that something was going to go horribly wrong. To many other women, Xavier Moreno might have come across as a bit of a wet blanket, but to Wendy he was safe. And safety was the most important thing in her life.
Balancing her private life and her career had proven difficult — as any police officer would easily attest — but Xav knew the score. He’d been part of civilian police staff for a few years, working in computer forensics, and had recently decided to take the next step on his own career ladder. He’d decided he wanted to become a police officer, specialising in the same field but giving him a direct police role with greater responsibility and the opportunity to get involved in spearheading the fight against cyber crime.
Wendy didn’t pretend to know anything about computers or cyber crime, which is precisely why she’d had to call on Xav so often and the two had eventually become close.
It was the first time in many years she’d let someone else into her life. The last time that had happened, she’d fallen hard and fast and it had ended in tragedy. That was the sort of heartbreak she just couldn’t go through again.
Before then, the only real man in her life had been her father, Detective Inspector Bill Knight. He’d been her hero when she was a child, and her family had been devastated by his early and untimely death.
Sometimes, she wondered whether her reticence in allowing Xav into her life had been because she somehow felt guilty at replacing her father as the man who always had her heart. With her last lover, Robert Ludford, she’d barely had time to sit back and think about such things, but since then she’d grown older and far more philosophical.
She looked again at Xav, his throat wobbling slightly as he snored. She knew if she woke him up now he’d claim he’d been watching TV all along and hadn’t fallen asleep — not even for a second. She didn’t know why he did it, but it made her laugh. It was just another harmless foible which amused her and endeared him to her.
Tomorrow was Saturday. Although she had to work, Xav was a little more fortunate in his working hours and tended to stick to a solid Monday to Friday, nine til five. There was overtime available, and he often took it if he knew Wendy would be working anyway, but tomorrow was a day off for him.
She leaned over, kissed him on the head and switched off the light. At some point, he’d wake up and make his way quietly upstairs, slipping into bed beside her. She wouldn’t notice. But in the morning she’d wake up and he’d be there, asleep again, allowing her to kiss him on the head once more before she left for work.
That suited her perfectly. That suited her very well indeed.
5
In many ways, Jack was pleased about Mildenheath Police’s staff shortages and swingeing budget cuts. For starters, it meant he was often able to get out of the office and speak to witnesses himself — something which would have been left to DCs or uniformed constables in most other situations.
Jack had read the notes written up by Theo Curwood, as well as Trinity Lloyd’s statement detailing Ian Gumbert’s relaxed attitude towards security. Jack wasn’t the sort of man to suffer fools gladly and had been sorely tempted to summon Gumbert to Mildenheath Police Station to speak to him, but there was something to be said for seeing a person in their native environment.
People tended to be a lot more relaxed in their own homes or on neutral ground — something which almost never happened when they were sitting i
n a police interview room. He was always keen to ‘type’ people, too — something which could easily be done by taking a good look at the person’s home.
It wasn’t necessarily true to say that people with nicer homes didn’t commit crimes, but there were certainly some telltale signs in the form of pride in one’s surroundings which could tell Jack a lot about a person.
Ian Gumbert’s house was a little less impressive than he’d imagined for a man who owned three petrol stations. It was situated in the nice-enough village of Peal End, on a road of twenty or so detached houses and bungalows. It looked to Jack as if it had been built somewhere around the seventies, and he immediately formed an impression of a local businessman who was perhaps a few years past retirement age and who’d bought this house as a new-build some forty or so years earlier. It had the look of a house which had been loved, played home to a growing family but had since begun to look a little tired.
That description could just as easily have applied to its owner, who opened the front door and welcomed Jack inside with a voice that exuded warmth and a face that had given up twenty years earlier.
‘You caught anyone yet?’ Gumbert asked, as he walked through to the kitchen and started to make Jack a cup of tea he hadn’t asked for.
‘Not yet, no. We’re working on it. We’re going to need as much information as we can get to improve our chances, which is where you come in.’
‘Well, I’ll do my best. But I’m not quite sure what I can do.’
‘You’d be surprised,’ Jack said, switching on his portable recorder. He wasn’t one for taking down notes, nor did he relish the thought of writing up a long-hand statement for Gumbert to sign. ‘First of all, can you run me through what you already know about what happened last night?’
Gumbert sighed and leant back against the kitchen counter, arms crossed over his chest. ‘Probably a lot less than you. All my petrol stations got robbed at gunpoint.’
‘And who called you to let you know?’
‘Black girl from Whitecliff Road.’
‘Would that be Trinity Lloyd?’ Jack asked, having already read the notes from the scene and finding himself uncharacteristically shocked at someone else’s casual references to race.
‘That’s the one. Although she’s a half-cast. Not a proper black.’
‘I think Afro-Carribean is the term,’ he replied, feeling the icy glare of Wendy Knight in her absence. ‘In her witness report it says the thieves stole buckets from under the counter. Staff members at the other two sites said the same thing. Can you tell me what those buckets were used for?’
Gumbert let out a small laugh which implied this was a rather silly and trivial matter that he’d explained satisfactorily on many occasions before. ‘They’re safety deposit boxes, not buckets. When the tills get too full, staff use them to deposit cash.’
‘And how are those boxes secured?’
‘They’re under the counter. No-one knows they’re there except for the staff.’
‘Somebody clearly did know they were there. They went straight for them.’
‘Thieving little shits.’
‘Is it not more normal to have a locked deposit box located somewhere else, out of the reach of anyone on the shop floor?’
Gumbert leaned forward slightly, in an almost patronising manner. ‘Listen here. I’ve been running petrol stations for over forty years. We’re the only independent brand left in the county which hasn’t been taken over by Shell, BP or one of the other big boys. I know what I’m doing.’
Jack resisted the temptation to suggest that there might be a reason why his petrol stations were the only ones Shell and BP didn’t want to buy. ‘Do you know how much money was in the buckets?’ he asked.
‘Safety deposit boxes. And no, I’d have to go back through the receipts and tally it up against what was left in the tills. But each site turns over just shy of fifteen thousand a week.’
‘And how much of that would you estimate might have been in each bucket?’
‘Safety deposit box.’
‘How much?’
‘All of it.’
Culverhouse looked at him for a moment. ‘All of it?’
‘It gets taken to the bank on a Saturday morning. That’s usually what I’d be doing right about now,’ he said, checking his watch. ‘Doesn’t seem much point this week.’
‘So let me get this straight. At the end of every night your staff cash up the tills, dump the money in a bucket — safety deposit box — and leave it there on the shop floor until Saturday morning?’
‘It’s not quite as ridiculous as you make out, but that’s the gist of it, yes.’
‘When presumably you come along, pop it in the back of your Renault Espace and queue up at Barclays with it?’
‘I’m afraid I don’t much like your tone, Detective Chief Inspector. Like I said, I’ve been running petrol stations for forty years and we’ve never had an incident like this in our history.’
‘And I’ve been investigating robberies for almost as long and I can completely agree with you. What about panic switches? CCTV?’
Gumbert sat down and sighed heavily. ‘I’m old school, you see. I grew up in Mildenheath. No-one ever used to lock their doors. Kids played freely in the streets. We didn’t have to worry about armed robbers.’
‘Of course you didn’t. You were a kid. You didn’t even know what an armed robber was.’
‘We didn’t need to. The world was a safer place. There was a sense of community spirit.’
Jack decided against trying to point out that crime had actually fallen heavily since Gumbert was a kid, but he thought it futile arguing against a man whose arsenal contained only doe-eyed childhood memories.
‘So no panic switches? No CCTV?’
‘I’ve got dummy cameras installed on all my forecourts and inside the shops,’ Gumbert replied.
‘Dummy cameras?’
Jack was starting to get a good measure of the type of person Ian Gumbert was. There was just no telling the man that he’d been foolish and naive. He did things his way and that was that. Any unfortunate consequences arising from that were not his fault.
‘I think you’ll find it’s been proven that CCTV is most valuable as a deterrent,’ Gumbert said.
‘That theory’s not holding much water right now, is it? An armed gang have just brazenly walked into every single branch of your business and cleared out the entire week’s earnings.’
Jack watched closely for Gumbert’s response. The man didn’t seem to show any signs of distress or remorse at what had happened. There was definite anger at the people who’d done this, but it was tempered by a huge amount of calm and sangfroid.
‘Oh, exactly,’ Gumbert said. ‘It was a brazen act. They’ll have left evidence all over the place, I’m sure of it. It won’t take you long to catch them.’
Jack had been half hoping he’d say something like that.
‘I’m afraid it’s not quite that straightforward. This sounds like an organised gang. They knew where they were targeting and why. We’ve not had any reports of any other robberies from any locations other than your three forecourts. That means you were most likely targeted specifically. These sorts of gangs know exactly what they’re doing. They’re very aware of forensics and only make a hit when they’re certain they’re going to get away with it. If there’d been some extra information to help us — CCTV evidence, say — then our chances would be better. But as things stand I’ve got to be realistic with you and tell you the chances of catching these people are extremely slim.’
Ian Gumbert looked as if he’d been shot in the head with a crossbow bolt. It was clear to Jack that he’d genuinely believed the police could just turn up, take a sole witness account from a young girl who’d just had a gun pointed in her face and solve the crime with a bit of detective’s intuition. The man was clearly deluded.
‘It’s clearly a targeted attack, Mr Gumbert. Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to do this to you
? Anyone at all?’
Gumbert sat for a moment, staring into space, then slowly shook his head.
‘No. No. No-one.’
‘Any business disagreements recently? Disgruntled ex-employees? Fallings out in your personal life?’
Jack knew where he had his money. Whoever had organised this not only knew that security at the three forecourts was lax, but also that the entire week’s takings were kept in an unsealed box below the counter. He didn’t suppose it was any coincidence, either, that the robberies took place just hours before the takings were to be banked — maximising their haul. This had clearly been a very cleverly planned job, designed for maximum impact.
Gumbert shook his head again. ‘No. No, I can’t think of anybody.’
‘Take some time over it. You don’t even need to tell us today. Keep my number close at hand and call if you think of anybody, okay? Personally, I’d be thinking along the lines of employees or ex-employees. Whoever did this had a huge amount of information on the way your businesses are run. The chances of them having guessed everything are slim to none. If you haven’t got an ex-employee with a grudge, you’ve got a mole.’
Gumbert slowly turned his head to make eye contact with Jack.
‘You mean someone working for me tipped them off?’
Jack shrugged. ‘Like I say. It’s entirely possible. We’ll need a full list of all your current employees and people who’ve worked for you in, say, the past two years. We’ll start there. Run a few background checks, see if there’s anyone that jumps out.’
Although Jack didn’t think Gumbert’s face could drop any more, he was wrong. The man turned white almost instantly.
‘What is it, Mr Gumbert?’
Gumbert swallowed hard. ‘There is somebody.’
6
DCI Jack Culverhouse’s briefings were legendary amongst those at Mildenheath CID. There was no predicting how they’d go or which format they’d take. It all depended on his mood.
