by Iain Cameron
‘Mr Radcliffe, I don’t want to alarm you, but as a high-profile former industrialist, you might have made some enemies.’
‘I can’t deny it.’
‘Therefore, this killing may not have been aimed at the Beeches.’
‘You don’t think so?’
‘I can’t say for sure, and would not like to hear this speculation repeated in local pubs, or in newspapers, but what if the Beeches weren’t the target? What if they were after you, and the killers weren’t aware you don’t live in the house?’
‘Don’t worry about me saying anything, Inspector, I’m used to keeping industrial secrets. You’ve come up with an interesting premise, and one I admit I hadn’t entertained. The business I ran,’ he said, thinking aloud, ‘operated in the field of large electrical systems: power stations, electricity power lines, substations, that sort of thing.’ He paused. ‘I suppose we undertook some practices in trying to win a couple of big contracts that some people might regard as being underhand. Enough for them to come here and try to kill me? I’m not so sure.’
‘All I’m asking, sir, is you give it some thought. Consider some of the relationships you’ve had in business, and also the people you might have, I don’t know, put out of business or made redundant because you didn’t win one of those big contracts.’
‘I will, I assure you. Is there anything else I can help you with?’
‘Yes, I’d like a list of every employee working at the farm.’
He’d been expecting this. He got up from his seat around the kitchen table and picked up some papers lying on a worktop. He handed them to the Inspector. ‘This was prepared yesterday by the Farm Manager, Brian Faulkner. I see he’s also noted down beside the name a description of what they do here at the farm. I think you’ll find it helpful, as we’ve got a mix of people, some working full-time, others part-time, and one or two coming in now and again to do a couple of hours.’
‘This is exactly what we need. Thank you.’
The detectives left five minutes later. He’d asked them when they expected the police activity to cease. He wanted the place to resume normal operations as soon as possible, not because he was keen to restart the letting programme. In fact, he wasn’t sure he would offer the house for rent ever again. Certainly, some macabre people would want to come and sleep in a bed where two people were murdered, while others would be appalled at the thought. He needed to give it some consideration.
What he needed to think about was what he suspected was the Detective Inspector’s main reason for coming to talk to him. Did he have any enemies who wanted to kill him? He could think of at least three chief executives who had lost their jobs as a result of his company beating them to a major contract. Added to this, the villagers from two communities evacuated after their valley was flooded on the opening of a large hydroelectric dam in Indonesia. He could also include the families of three men killed when an oxyacetylene tank exploded at a power station being refurbished in Germany.
Christ! What a list. It was a wonder they hadn’t come after him before. No, then he was a high profile executive, and the company had a security chief who dealt with more threats than he knew, or wanted to know about. Now, he was unprotected, and his movements not monitored by anyone. For once in his life, he felt scared.
SIX
Henderson returned to his office and slumped in his chair. He’d just attended a morning briefing of the Black Quarry Farm murder team and it didn’t feel much like progress to him. So far, they’d talked to Kayleigh Beech, neighbours close to the family house in Crawley, his and her colleagues at work, and a number of people at the vineyard. Still they didn’t have a motive, but more importantly, they also didn’t know the names of the shooters.
For all his frustration, he didn’t despair as he knew many cases started off like this. A domestic murder, for example, followed much the same process. Who would have reason to kill the man of the house: the angry ex-wife, the current wife he abused, or the children he played cruel tricks on? Take your pick; it’s bound to be one of them. In many cases, the point of a murder investigation was to try to identify an individual who had been so wronged, or was so twisted, killing was the only course of action open to them. The trouble with this case was that John and Lara Beach seemed to have been incapable of offending anyone, even if they’d both stood naked outside Victoria Station.
The Beeches were, if such a designation existed, model citizens. They hadn’t run up appreciable debt, they hadn’t accumulated any criminal convictions, they had a loving daughter, and were both well regarded at each of their places of work. Henderson’s team couldn’t even find a parking fine or speeding ticket to blot the copy book. He could go on and name the clubs they attended, the charities they contributed money towards, and the good deeds they’d done for their neighbours, but far from providing a motive, it only succeeded in adding another tick in the ‘Model Citizen’ box.
Simon Radcliffe looked a better bet. He was as charming and affable as his on-screen persona. Had he been ignoring any threats made against him or was he just a bloody good actor? Henderson had tasked two members of the team with researching his background. While he couldn’t think of many former businessmen or television personalities who had been murdered, he didn’t feel this should rule him out.
Another man sparking his interest was Brian Faulkner, the manager of Black Quarry Farm. A muscled and tanned former soldier, looking more suited, according to Sally Graham who had interviewed him, to sticking his head beneath the bonnet of a Chieftain tank than calming the nerves of Jane Hegarty, the shop manager.
He’d served with distinction in the 12 years he’d been in the army, but it didn’t take long after his release to go off the rails. He spent two years inside for stealing cars. This wasn’t the reason Henderson wanted to see him again: Faulkner’s alibi didn’t match the facts.
Before doing anything, he needed to eat. Despite moving house within the same part of Brighton and knowing the location of many of the shops, he hadn’t got around to buying much to eat. He’d unpacked many of the boxes, but wasn’t quite sure where he’d put everything. When trying to get off to work this morning, it had taken some time to remember where he’d put the plates, cups and cutlery.
He walked out of the building and over to the staff restaurant where he picked up a coffee, some toast, and a sandwich for lunch. He turned to walk back and spotted CI Lisa Edwards in conversation with the Assistant Chief Constable, Andy Youngman. They didn’t look over. Good. He didn’t fancy receiving a grilling from those two, as he had nothing much to tell them.
He often met DI Gerry Hobbs on his way to or from the staff restaurant as their hunger pangs and coffee needs seemed to coincide. There was no chance of seeing him this morning, as Hobbs was in hospital. Henderson didn’t have all the details, but he knew his former colleague, who recently moved from Major Crimes to the Drugs Unit, was out of surgery and recovering well.
As he walked towards his office, Vicky Neal and Sally Graham came towards him. They were carrying handbags, a sure sign they were on their way somewhere else.
‘Hello guv,’ Neal said. ‘A late breakfast, or an early lunch?’
‘A bit of both, I think.’
‘If you’re pushed for time in the morning, those little pots of porridge they sell in the Co-op are so good, I love them. I’ve left the pathologist’s report on your desk.’
‘Any surprises?’
She shook her head. ‘Alcohol in their systems, and food consistent with what the pub in Nutley told us.’
‘Anything else?’
‘John had a congenital heart defect, but although it might have stopped him running marathons, Grafton didn’t think it would give him much bother on a day-to-day basis.’
‘Okay. Where are you guys off to?’
‘Back to the farm. With a bit of luck, we’ll finish off all the interviews today.’
‘Forensics said they’ll also be done today. I’ll call Simon Radcliffe and tell him t
he good news. It will also give me a chance to see if he’s given any more thought to this being a case of mistaken identity. See you later.’
‘Bye guv.’
Henderson walked into his office and took a seat behind the desk, trying to ignore the pathologist’s report for the moment. He began eating his toast. If there was one thing guaranteed to put almost anyone off their food, it was opening one of those reports and finding inside a full set of colour pictures detailing the victim’s injuries.
He ate slowly, making sure each piece was digested. It hadn’t happened to him, but he knew several officers who had eaten before picking up one of those, only for them to rush to the loo a few minutes later and to meet their lunch all over again.
He brushed away the crumbs, opened the report and began to read. The Beeches hadn’t stood a chance. Two gunmen appeared in their bedroom at around two-thirty in the morning, a time when most people would be in a deep slumber. After the first bullets hit, they wouldn’t have seen or heard anything. If one of them did wake up, it would have been for a millisecond before more bullets whacked into them. It would have been a quick death, a small mercy for the victims, but scant consolation for those left behind.
Ten minutes later, he pushed the report to one side and noticed someone had also put the forensic report on his desk. It was a two-page summary, a draft outlining the main points, as they hadn’t finished their investigation just yet. Their final report wouldn’t appear until some time next week.
He pulled it towards him and, in contrast to the pathologist report where he’d read some passages and skimmed through others, he approached the forensic report with a pen in hand, noting follow-up issues and items of interest in the margin.
The house at Black Quarry Farm received a thorough clean at the end of each letting, and a deep clean at the end of the season. The windows were washed once a week, and the grass in the garden cut on a similar schedule. This was good news as it meant any mess or fingerprints found would belong to the gunmen.
Using a glass cutter, the intruders had made a hole in the back door window, reached inside, and unlocked it with the attached key. They seemed to know which room the victims would be occupying, as none of the other upstairs doors had been opened. It didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to realise this information was readily accessible on the web. The house was listed on a variety of holiday websites and, on some, they displayed a schematic of the house’s layout.
The motive of the gunmen wasn’t robbery, or the retrieval of important documents. They went in there to kill and silence the victims, pure and simple. The forensic team hadn’t yet found any hair or skin samples from which to extract DNA, and in the time remaining, they didn’t expect to, suggesting the perpetrators wore gloves and hats, touched little, and took nothing. If they didn’t snag their clothes or skin on a piece of furniture, or remove their hats and drop some follicle samples, they would find nothing.
He focused now on the search outside the house. The place where the killers stood to cut the glass on the back door was paved, and nothing much was found there. The men had parked their car on the road running past the farm, as the driveway leading into the farm was pebbled and noisy under car tyres. To get to the house, the killers had to walk across the garden and climb a fence about fifty metres from the house. The weather the week before the murders had been dry, so they didn’t leave any muddy footprints, and no fragments of clothing or skin could be found in the trees shielding the farm from the road.
Henderson threw the report on the desk in frustration, but he should have expected it. Not every killer was a bungling fool who would cut their hand on a broken window, or leave one of their gloves or their phone at the crime scene. If the killers were professional, and all indications suggested as much, they would have been in and out of the house in less time than it took him to read the summary forensics report.
He picked up the phone and called Simon Radcliffe.
‘Good morning Mr Radcliffe, how are you?’
‘Fine, thanks for asking. In fact, I sleep better here than I do in Spain. It’s the peace I like around here, the only disturbance the birds in the morning. The area where we live isn’t noisy, but we often have friends round, or we’re down in the town eating in a restaurant.’
‘The reason I called is to tell you the vehicles outside the house and the police officers will be gone by the end of today.’
‘I’m pleased to hear it, Inspector, although I’m not sure what I’m going to do with the house.’
‘I can’t help you there, but once the place has been cleaned and all the fingerprint dust removed, it will look more or less as it did.’
Henderson meant it. Other than the back door window, the gunmen hadn’t damaged anything. In the main bedroom, no bullets had peppered the walls or the bed frame. Every one had hit the sleeping bodies. Once the sheets, duvet, and mattress had been changed, physical evidence of the brutal murder which had taken place there would no longer exist. The details, however, would remain etched in the minds of the workers, the local villagers, and of course, the family and friends of the victims.
‘Thank you for letting me know.’
‘Did you give any more thought to what I asked you when we met on Monday? Could you think of anyone in your past corporate life who may be out to seek retribution?’
‘I did, Inspector, but while winning a large contract might be regarded as a big event at the time, at the end of the day, it’s only business. There’s always winners and losers. I’d tell my staff we can’t all be winners, but any time when we did lose, they’d better be prepared to go through it all again if another opportunity presented itself.’
‘So, you don’t think the killing of the Beeches has anything to do with you?’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘What about in the wine business? I know murder sounds like an extreme course of action, but I imagine this level of adverse publicity doesn’t do Black Quarry Farm any favours. If someone had it in for you, perhaps they decided to start there.’
Radcliffe sighed. ‘You’re right when you say it won’t be good for business. So far, two of my people have resigned and another three are off with nerves. I’ve ridden out greater storms than this in my career; don’t you worry, Inspector, I’m convinced the killers won’t be coming back to finish the job.’
SEVEN
Robert Saunders made a cup of instant coffee, took it over to the breakfast bar, and sat down. The house was equipped with a decent coffee machine, but he hadn’t yet worked out how to use it. No matter, it wasn’t as if he had the right coffee to put into it. The house also boasted a fine view over the rear garden, but that wasn’t why he liked it here. The big fences and trees on three sides, shielding him from the neighbours, was the final clincher.
He felt crap. He’d not been sleeping well for weeks, his dreams full of evil men, dark deeds, and horrible situations he couldn’t escape from. In the middle of the night he was tempted to call his ex-wife, Irene, just to hear the sound of her voice and know that she and the boys were all right. He didn’t. She was a heavy sleeper, and he light, and when they were married he’d been the one to move into the spare room at two in the morning to play games on his iPad.
Five years back, he didn’t have a care in the world. He was well-off, important, and going places. Now the only place he was going was down the toilet. His life didn’t go downhill the moment he divorced Irene and took up with Jasmine, a woman twenty years her junior. It was a drip-drip effect, but not water disappearing down the drain, money vanishing out of his bank account. Jasmine told him she was a qualified financial advisor, and it started by her asking him for money to buy jewellery, to loan money to her friend, and to buy a house they didn’t need. She proceeded to furnish the place with all the verve and style of a Premiership football WAG: all bling and no zing.
Then came her investment advice. If he put two hundred grand into this fund, it would double in three years’ time. If he put four hundred thousand into th
is fund, he could go to the movies and watch a film he’d helped finance. It was only when the bitch fled the coop one sultry night in July that he realised the funds weren’t being managed by a seemingly bona fide company as he was led to believe, but were in fact being handled by her equally crooked brother. He disappeared the same night. All in all, he’d lost over a million pounds, but couldn’t tell the police if he didn’t want to end up in jail.
He was feeling sorry for himself, an emotion his previous, confident self would not have believed possible, but one that rose now and again to mess with his days and terrorise his nights. He lifted his empty cup, walked to the sink, washed it and left it on the draining board. To a visitor, the house looked ready to be viewed by a prospective purchaser, or a rental, washed and vacuumed on a regular basis by a contract cleaning company.
He stood for a moment and gazed at the tiles on the back of the sink, his mind blank. The doorbell rang. He turned, his heart rate rocketing, leaving him breathless, his mouth dry. Making no sound, Saunders headed into the lounge. He stared hard at each of the windows, looking for clues, but the closed blinds revealed little. He walked to the window at the side of the house overlooking the front door. He lifted the curtain with a minimum of movement and could see, standing at the door, the back of a tall heavyset man. He was wearing a jacket, part of a uniform, topped with a hi-vis vest.
This did nothing to calm him. He crept towards the front window, the one facing the garden. Easing the blind open only a sliver, he could see a Tesco van parked out in the road, Saunders’ hire car in the drive preventing him coming any closer. He slapped his head with the flat of his hand, trying to knock some sense into his paranoid brain. Frightened to appear in public, no way could he walk around a supermarket full of people and CCTV cameras; two days ago he had placed an online order with Tesco.
