‘Shouldn’t we pull him in now?’ Logan asked.
‘No, best wait until the morning. Once we arrest him and take him into custody the clock will start ticking. We’ll only have twenty-four hours to either charge him or let him go. I don’t want his smart-arse solicitor wasting time claiming it’s too late for him to be interviewed tonight.’
‘Good shout, boss.’
Logan took a last sip of his coffee, crushed the plastic cup and threw it in the waste bin by his desk. ‘You were going to tell me about your trip to London,’ he said tentatively.
‘Oh, yes. I had a hunch I knew who might be behind the allegations about bent cops. I went to see the reporter who phoned Temple. My hunch was right. It’s Potts. He doesn’t really have anything. No evidence, no names. The reporter’s just engaged in a bit of malicious mischief making.’
‘So how come Potts made the allegation?’
‘He reckons Nielson had told him he had bent cops in his pocket, and that’s it. He also thinks we’re trying to stitch him up over Nielson’s murder–’
Logan held up a hand to cut Fleming off when his phone rang shrilly. He picked it up and looked at his watch. ‘Half an hour,’ he said and put the phone down. ‘Missus wanting to know when I’m going home.’
Fleming smiled. ‘I’d best let you get off then.’
Logan shifted uncomfortably in his seat. ‘There’s one other thing, boss.’
‘Yes?’
Logan cleared his throat. ‘Tell me to mind my own business if you want, but can I say something personal?’
Fleming frowned, wondering what was coming. ‘Of course, Harry. Spit it out.’
‘Bill Watson came to see me this morning…’
‘And?’
‘He said you weren’t telling me everything.’
‘Oh, how’s that then?’
‘He knew why you went to Edinburgh. He told me what happened to you when you were a child, how you saw your mother being killed.’
Fleming froze. ‘How does he know that, and what the fuck’s it got to do with him?’
Logan looked distinctly uncomfortable. ‘The thing is, boss, he says he had a call from Police Scotland. They told him that the guy you went to Edinburgh to find has disappeared and that he could be heading for Reading. I thought you ought to know that Watson knows. That’s all.’
‘Sure?’
Logan shifted awkwardly in his seat. ‘When you rang to say there was a change in plan and that you were going to London to see someone, I thought maybe you’d found out where this Jimmy Calder was. Thought maybe you were going after him…’
‘And thought I might do something stupid?’
‘Boss, I know this has nothing to do with me but I was worried about you. It’s personal, I know, but I felt obliged to let you know what Watson told me. Not sure why, but it seemed the right thing to do. Wanted to clear the air, so to speak.’ Logan lifted his hands as though in submission.
Fleming smiled. Logan was a good cop, and he was loyal. Fleming appreciated that. ‘No problem, Harry. I’m glad you told me. But you can relax. You now know I did go to London–’
‘Ah,’ Logan broke in, ‘that reminds me, I was going to say before my phone rang, Potts has disappeared.’
46
A violent thunderstorm had blown in suddenly from the west. The sky was dark and forked lightning flashed over Maidenhead. Thunder rumbled loudly and pedestrians sheltered as best as they could from the torrential rain. Two police cars sped through the wet streets, blue lights flashing and sirens blaring to warn the morning rush-hour traffic to clear the road. Four uniformed police were in the squad car in front. Fleming and Logan followed with two more uniforms in the second car.
The cars headed west, then south towards the station. They took a sharp turn to the right before reaching the station and weaved through a maze of streets heading for Eric Rainer’s terraced house. Tyres screamed as they swerved into the street that ran adjacent to the railway line.
Rainer was about to climb into his car when he heard the wail of sirens. He looked up the street and saw the police cars careering round the corner, throwing up sprays of rainwater. Without thinking, he turned and ran across the road towards a warehouse on the other side. There was a gap in a corrugated iron fence. He squeezed through into a car park stacked with wooden pallets and heard the squeal of tyres as the two police cars screeched to a halt.
Doors were flung open and the uniformed police sped across the road after Rainer. Fleming and Logan followed.
Rainer dashed to the far side of the yard and was climbing a low fence that separated the yard from the railway line. A goods train was approaching slowly. Rainer ran across the lines in front of it and leapt over another small fence into a small copse.
One of the uniforms had seen what he was doing and was on the radio to get squad cars to block the roads on the other side of the railway line. The other uniforms with Fleming and Logan cursed as they waited for the goods train to pass. After what seemed an eternity, the last carriage went by. They raced across the railway line, their clothes wet through. There was no sign of Rainer.
Rainer emerged from the copse and sprinted across a footpath into a housing estate. If he was lucky he would find someone about to get into their car, grab it and make his escape. But as he made his way through the estate, he could hear the sound of sirens nearby. He turned a corner and saw a squad car crawl past the junction at the end of the road. Had they seen him? His answer came as the car screeched into reverse past the junction then swerved into his street with tyres screaming. He turned to run but another squad car came from the other direction. The game was up. There was nowhere to go.
Five minutes later, Fleming and Logan stood in front of the handcuffed Rainer. Fleming fished out his warrant card and held it in front of Rainer’s sweating face. ‘Mr Rainer, I’m DCI Fleming and this is Sergeant Lo–’
‘I know who the fuck you are,’ Rainer hissed.
Fleming continued. ‘I’m arresting you for the murder of Ronnie Nielson. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand the caution, Mr Rainer?’
Rainer nodded.
Fleming spoke to the uniforms who had caught Rainer. ‘Take him to the station. I’ll catch up shortly.’
Rainer and his solicitor, Christopher Grimes, sat behind the table in one of the interview rooms at Maidenhead Police Station. The duty sergeant had kitted Rainer out with a white boiler suit while his clothes dried. They’d taken his fingerprints and DNA samples. Fleming and Logan had changed out of their wet clothes into black police overalls.
Fleming pressed the record button on the tape recorder and went through the usual formalities stating who was being interviewed and identifying those present. He reminded Rainer that he was still under caution and read out his rights once more.
Rainer sat impassively with his arms folded across his chest, eyes fixed on Fleming’s.
Fleming met his stare. ‘Mr Rainer, you previously maintained you were at home on the night Ronnie Nielson was murdered. You lied about that. When confronted with the fact a neighbour saw you leaving the house, you chose to make no comment. Would you now like to tell us where you were going?’
‘I went to see a female friend.’
‘Why didn’t you tell us that before?’
‘She’s married. I didn’t want to bring her into it.’
‘Where did you go to meet her?’
‘Slough.’
Fleming lifted a laptop onto the table and switched it on. He swivelled it round so that Rainer and Grimes could see the screen. Fleming spoke into the recorder. ‘For the purposes of the tape, I’m showing Mr Rainer an extract from CCTV footage taken on the night Ronnie Nielson was murdered.’
After a few seconds, footage copied from the CCTV camera opened on the screen. ‘Recognise this car?’ Fleming asked.
/>
Rainer stared ahead. ‘No comment.’
Grimes looked anxiously at his client.
‘Recognise who this is?’ Fleming continued as Rainer emerged from the car. Fleming froze the frame and zoomed in on Rainer’s face looking furtively over his shoulder.
‘It’s me,’ Rainer whispered.
‘Can you explain why you appear in Bourne End at half past eight on the night of the murder when you say you were visiting a female friend in Slough?’ Fleming pressed.
‘No comment.’
‘And,’ Fleming continued, ‘can you tell us why you rang Mrs Dobbs that night to enquire if she knew if Ronnie Nielson was at home or on his boat?’
‘No comment.’
‘Why did you try to escape?’
Rainer was sweating.
‘Know what I think,’ Fleming went on relentlessly. ‘I think things had come to a head, for some reason. You were consumed with your hatred for Nielson. You checked to see where he was that night. You drove to Bourne End and parked your car. You went to confront Nielson on his boat. You had to have something out with him. You didn’t intend to kill him, did you. He got angry. A fight broke out. It all happened so fast. You didn’t plan to kill him. You stabbed him with a knife from the galley. You panicked and ran. That’s what happened, isn’t it, Mr Rainer.’
Grimes spoke before Rainer could say anything. ‘I would like to have a private consultation with my client before he answers any more questions or responds to what you have just said.’
Fleming nodded. ‘Interview terminated at eleven twenty-two.’
Fleming and Logan left the interview room and stood outside. ‘What do you think, Harry?’ Fleming asked.
‘Even more sure than I was before. The man’s guilty as hell.’
‘Hmm. We’ll take him to court and apply to keep him in custody for three days so we can carry on interviewing him while we’re waiting for fingerprints and forensics to get back to us. The evidence against him is compelling, but we need to get his prints and DNA checked. At the moment all we have is that he hated Nielson, has scratch marks on his face, lied over his alibi, and we can put him in Bourne End, but crucially, not at the scene of the crime. I don’t think we have enough to charge him just yet.’
‘Bloody hell, boss, how much do you want?’
‘Enough to get a conviction, Harry.’ Fleming frowned. ‘I don’t know why, but something tells me this is not as clear-cut as it seems to be.’
47
The previous day’s thunderstorm had passed. A few white clouds drifted across the clear blue sky as Fleming drove south towards Lymington on his way to see Giles Bonner. He wondered if Logan was right. He’d said it was a waste of time following up on a lead on Nielson’s army days. Logan was convinced they didn’t have to look any further than Eric Rainer. But something was still nagging away at the back of Fleming’s mind.
He’d rather enjoyed the drive down. It had given him time to reflect. He had to admit that things hadn’t gone exactly smoothly on his first case in the MCU. The chief constable and Temple were not happy that he was treating a retired officer as a suspect, and they were nervous about him going to see Charles Trenchard. Then Temple had warned him that he could be suspended if the Calder affair turned nasty. And now he knew that Calder might have gone to Reading. He’d told Freya he would try to find him, but she wasn’t convinced that it was a good idea. Would he still look though? Then there was the obvious tension between himself and Bill Watson because of his promotion over Frank Jardine. Fleming was beginning to wonder if there wasn’t more to it than that.
He put his thoughts behind him as he turned into the car park on the quayside at Lymington. Parking the car, Fleming made his way up the street to Giles Bonner’s whitewashed terraced house. Bonner was a tall thin man, tanned and fit looking. He still carried a military aura about him. His handshake was firm as he greeted Fleming.
‘I live here on my own now,’ Bonner said, showing Fleming up some open wooden stairs that led to the first floor. He showed the way through from the landing to a small balcony that had views out over the harbour. ‘Thought you might like to sit out here since it’s a lovely day. Now, can I get you a drink? Tea, coffee, something a little stronger perhaps?’
‘A glass of water would be fine,’ Fleming replied. He looked out over the harbour and took in the array of boats at their moorings while Bonner went to fetch his water.
Bonner returned a few minutes later with a glass of iced water in one hand and a beer in the other. ‘Decided to have something a bit stronger myself,’ he said with a smile. ‘Now, Chief Inspector, how may I be of help to you? You said on the phone you wanted to check on some old army colleagues.’
‘Yes, it’s actually to do with a murder investigation–’
‘How awful. May I ask who?’
Fleming pulled Nielson’s photograph out of his pocket and pointed at Ronnie Nielson. ‘Remember him?’
‘Yes, I do. Much younger then, but I still recognise him. It’s Ronnie Nielson.’ Bonner paused for a second before it dawned on him. ‘Of course, I read about him in the papers. Dreadful business.’
Fleming tapped the photograph. ‘I found this in Nielson’s house. I’m following up on anyone who knew him, to see if something in his past might throw up any new leads.’
‘Oh, I see.’
‘You’re on the photo with him here. I wondered if you knew him well.’
‘Actually, no, I didn’t. He was in a different platoon.’
‘You recognise the other men in the photograph?’
‘Yes, yes I do. We all served with C Company.’ He pointed to the other men one by one. ‘That’s Eddie Slater, Tim Banks, Martin Cook, Charles Trenchard, and, of course, me.’
‘How well did you know the others?’
‘We weren’t best mates, if that’s what you mean. We had three platoons in C Company, you see. Eddie Slater, Tim Banks and Ronnie Nielson were sergeants in different platoons. Martin Cook, Charles Trenchard and I were the three platoon commanders.’
‘Who was the commander of Nielson’s platoon?’
‘That would be Charles Trenchard. Eddie Slater was in mine. Tim Banks was in Martin Cook’s outfit.’
‘So you probably knew Eddie Slater more so than any of the others?’
‘Yes, decent chap. I knew he was best friends with Nielson. He was one of the few who were.’
‘Oh?’
‘Nielson was a bit of a fiery character, by all accounts. Bit of conflict between him and his platoon commander apparently. They didn’t get on at all.’
‘Trenchard?’
‘Yes. But then I gather Ronnie Nielson didn’t see eye to eye with any officers.’
‘But you never had any trouble with him?’
‘Certainly not…’ Bonner paused as though deep in thought.
‘But?’
‘I can understand why he didn’t get on well with Charles. Trenchard was a man who had a reputation for having a short fuse. I shouldn’t really say this, but he had a ruthless streak, an obvious disregard for other people. I’m not surprised he’s being tipped as a potential successor to the prime minister.’
‘Trenchard was not everyone’s favourite officer?’
‘I suppose you could say that. He was driven by ambition and no man was going to get in his way.’ Bonner downed the rest of his beer and looked at his empty glass. ‘Another?’
‘No, I’m fine. What about Martin Cook? Know much about him?’
‘Not much. I heard he went to Australia to live soon after he left the army. A year after we returned from Afghanistan I believe.’ Bonner shook his head sadly. ‘And poor old Slater and Banks were killed in action. Soon after that photograph was taken. Tragic.’
Fleming put the photograph back in his pocket and rose to leave. ‘Mr Bonner, thank you so much for your time. You’ve been most helpful. Thank you.’
‘No problem. I’m pleased to have been of some assistance, though I fear I haven’t been t
hat much help.’
Fleming passed him a card. ‘If you do think of anything else, give me a call.’
Bonner hesitated and scratched his head. ‘It may be nothing…’
‘Yes?’
‘I don’t want to speak out of turn, but…’
‘Go on,’ Fleming prompted.
‘I’m not sure if something happened in Afghanistan. Trenchard and a few of the men went out drinking one night and, well, after that Trenchard seemed to be different somehow.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He was… more subdued. Almost as though he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. But I shouldn’t read too much into that. We all changed after a tour in Afghanistan.’
Fleming nodded. ‘I think I can understand that.’ He shook Bonner’s hand and left, thanking him again.
On the drive back to Oxford, Fleming was not certain his visit had been wasted after all. Something may have happened in Afghanistan… Trenchard had seemed anxious to avoid talking about why he left the army. Very interesting. And Trenchard had said he didn’t know Nielson at all, but he was Nielson’s platoon commander. Why had he lied?
48
Fleming was in the office first thing. Logan and Anderson hadn’t arrived yet. Liz Temple stuck her head round his office door. ‘Got a minute, Alex?’ She didn’t wait for an answer, but turned and strode off back to her office.
Fleming knew from the serious look on Temple’s face that something was wrong. He rose from his desk to follow her.
Temple’s door was open but Fleming knocked anyway before entering. ‘Yes, ma’am?’
The Fifth Suspect Page 17
