Dave opened his diary and let Lizzie book herself in. ‘I hope they’re useful,’ he said. ‘I can give you some more ledgers if they’re the wrong dates, but the flower was done some time then, so they’re as close as I can get ‘em.’ He scratched at his beard again. ‘I remember having to go to the Library to get a picture to copy…’ He shook his head, ‘Bloody memory’s not what it was,’ he sighed. ‘It’s a good living, this, but it’s not the same since Maureen went. I’ll retire in a couple of years, shouldn’t wonder.’
Lizzie passed Adam three evidence bags and let him seal the ledgers inside. ‘Thanks, you’ve been great. These will be a real help.’ Then she gave Dave a kiss on the cheek anyway and led a jubilant Adam out onto the High Street. ‘Hold tight to those, Adam. We’ve got a day of careful searching ahead. But with a bit of luck we could have a name, or at least a shortlist, by the end of the day.’ She ignored Adam’s victorious fist pump and set off for the car.
33
Sally Ellis squashed into the tiny university security office next to an overweight, smelly security guard who introduced himself as George Blakely. They were watching video footage of Nathan Solomon entering the chemistry department with an empty bag and coming out with a heavy one. ‘Great, good find,’ she said.
‘Oh, there’ll be more where that came from. You mark my words, my lovely,’ he said. ‘Just you leave it with me.’
Sally backed out of the small space and breathed in the cleaner air of the corridor. ‘I’m sure there will be.’ She passed him her card. ‘Could you give me that tape, and send me anymore, please?’
‘Of course! I’ll do anything I can to help the police. I almost became a copper, you know,’ he said, swivelling on his chair so he could look Sally in the eye. He stroked her hand as he passed her the tape.
Sally retreated and managed to turn around before he saw her roll her eyes. In your dreams, mate, she thought, and went in search of Neil Pargeter and Laura Denning in Neil’s office. On her way she messaged Dan; video footage of Solomon could be good.
She could hear laughter coming from the Archaeology department, and someone was singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to Neil Pargeter. Sally hung back. She didn’t want Solomon to know that she was there. She slipped into the faculty secretary’s office and waited until the singing had stopped and the chatting staff had gone back to their jobs. She watched through the glass panel in the door as Nathan Solomon followed the crowd and disappeared into a teaching room. His timetable suggested that he was assisting in a bone analysis session with undergraduates and would be busy until lunch.
She was out on the corridor before the secretary returned and in Pargeter’s office a few seconds after that. ‘Right,’ she said, before they could sit down, ‘let’s have look in Solomon’s locker while he’s busy.’
Neil and Laura accompanied her to the staff lockers. Waiting there was a tall security guard whose black eyebrows knitted together in the middle of his forehead. He held onto several bunches of keys in a wooden box, and brandished one as they arrived. ‘Found it. Took me half an hour, but here it is.’ To demonstrate, he opened the locker and stood back.
‘Thank you,’ said Sally. ‘Just hang on there a minute, please.’ She put on latex gloves and pulled the door back to reveal the jars of chemicals that had gone missing the week before.
Neil whistled low. ‘They were here all along.’
‘I can’t believe he would do something so stupid, and expect to get away with it,’ said Laura Denning. ‘I mean, he’s always been a bit weird, I suppose, but so are most people in this place.’
‘Speak for yourself, Doctor D,’ Neil muttered.
‘We’ll lock up and leave them here,’ said Sally, taking several photographs of the jars in situ. ‘We might be able to catch him in the act, later.’ She checked out the other contents of the locker but found only the usual detritus that builds up in lockers; his coat, old trainers, a towel, squashed cereal bars, and a plastic container with two slices of chocolate cheesecake in that looked remarkably fresh. Solomon clearly kept his personal stuff on him, or at home. Still, thought Sally, getting the security guard to lock the door again, we have our evidence.
She walked with them back to the office. ‘Can you put surveillance on that locker for the rest of the day, please?’ She smiled up at the guard as he loomed over her. ‘I wouldn’t want him taking those jars without us being able to follow him.’
The guard nodded. ‘No problem.’ He passed Sally a radio. ‘Use this to contact us. Turn the top button to “four” to talk, and to receive, press the button on the side.’ He left the room.
‘He seems with it,’ she said.
‘Unlike old George, you mean,’ said Neil. ‘Most of them are ex-servicemen or police. I think they’re just enjoying having something to do.’
‘Are you sure Nat is the manufacturer?’ Laura asked, a frown creasing her forehead.
‘What d’you mean?’ Sally asked.
‘I think it’s pretty obvious that he’s the chemist, Laura,’ said Neil. ‘Why?’
‘It’s just so unlike him. He’s passionately against drugs. Reckons he’s never even smoked a joint. I think his mum’s quite religious, and that’s why he’s so buttoned up. I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong.’
‘Sometimes the ones who protest too much are the ones you have to watch,’ said Sally. ‘But I guess we’ll know more when we caution him.’
She felt her phone vibrate. Dan sent: Our Mr Willetts at the gym is co-operating fully, no more steroids or chemicals going down that route for now.
She rang him back and agreed that she would stay until the end of the day to give Solomon time to empty his locker. Dan would join her as soon as he could.
‘Okay, folks,’ she said, ‘you can go back to doing whatever you would normally do. I shall stick close to the security team and see if we can copy all the relevant ledger pages and add them to our evidence pile. You do understand that we will need the originals when this comes to trial?’ she asked.
‘That won’t be a problem,’ said Neil. ‘We’ll introduce new ones as soon as this is over.’ He looked at the clock. ‘It’s gone eleven, I should be in a tutorial with one of my grad students,’ he said, and scrabbled around on his desk for the appropriate assignment.
Laura left with a smile. ‘Me too, I can see him staring out at me through the window. He’ll be tapping his watch next.’ She hurried through the door.
‘Right, I’ll make myself scarce,’ said Sally. ‘Happy Birthday, by the way,’ she said.
‘Oh, ta,’ said Neil. ‘Thirty-six. It’s not one I’m planning on celebrating much,’ he said.
‘Listen, love,’ said Sally patting him on the arm, ‘they’re all worth celebrating, because every one of them is better than the alternative, isn’t it?’ She grinned and set off downstairs to the security office and another hour in the company of the unwashed George.
34
At five pm, Nathan Solomon waited until there was nobody in the staff locker room, put on his coat and transferred the jars of chemicals into his backpack. He used the old towel to pad them, and balanced the cheesecake packet on the top. With extreme care, he slipped each arm into the straps, settled the pack on his back, and set off to walk home.
Sally nodded at the two men squashed into the office with her. ‘We’re on, gentlemen,’ she said. ‘Thanks for all your efforts today.’
Dan had arrived and was waiting at the gate to follow her in his car, just in case Solomon didn’t go home. He flashed his car lights at Sally as she tracked Solomon off campus and arranged for an area patrol car to be at the Solomon house to meet them and take him into custody, in case he and Sally needed to stay longer.
Sally was dressed for walking in trainers and jeans, and she had a jacket with her. The afternoon had been warm and sunny but was cooling into a clear evening. She pulled a hat over her blonde curls in case Solomon turned and recognised her from the dig on Dartmoor. It had been several years since she’d followe
d anyone, and she was glad that there were enough students walking towards Pennsylvania Road and their lodgings to disguise her progress.
Solomon picked up his pace and strode across the road. Waiting for a safe moment to cross, she almost missed him turning left into Mayfield Crescent. She peeped around the corner, signalled to Dan to pull in to the kerb, and watched Solomon from behind a yew tree. He opened the gate, shut it behind him, and went around the back of number twelve.
Sally ran down the road, opened the gate and crept around the side of the house. Solomon had entered a small shed at the bottom of a long, narrow, unkempt garden. She didn’t dare get any closer. Behind her she was aware of Dan creeping down the path. He came to stand next to her and she breathed into his ear; ‘I think he’s secreting the jars in the shed. I hope the warrant covers outbuildings…’
‘Don’t much care,’ he whispered back. ‘We’ll talk to him inside the house. You go to the front door, and I’ll catch him if he makes a run for it out the back. Just don’t forget to let me in.’
Solomon came out of the shed and locked the door behind him. His earlier furtiveness was gone. He was home, and looked relaxed. Sally had a sudden panic that he would come back round to get to the front door, but he shuffled through his keyring and opened the kitchen door. She could hear him shouting a greeting to his mother.
‘Right,’ said Sally. ‘Give me the warrant and I’ll get round the front. You’d better hang on ’til I distract him,’ she said.
Dan passed her the search warrant. They stiffened at the sound of a car engine on the cul-de-sac, but a ping on his phone told him it was just the area car getting into position. ‘Okay, let’s go,’ he said.
Sally walked round to the front of the house and nodded at the PCs waiting in the car. She waited until they flanked her and rang the doorbell.
The person who answered the door wasn’t Nathan Solomon; it was a woman Sally judged to be in her late fifties, beautifully made-up, dressed for summer in a jade green Chinese silk dress and perched on a wheelchair.
‘Yes?’ she said, face narrowed in suspicion. It was hard to place her accent. Mid-European, Sally guessed.
‘Mrs Solomon?’ asked Sally pleasantly. ‘Devon and Cornwall police.’ She showed her warrant card. ‘I would like to speak to your son Nathan, please. Would it be alright if we come inside?’
The elegantly dressed Mrs Solomon spat at Sally’s feet, and screeched, ‘Bastard police fascists. I will tell you nothing. Nothing!’ She backed the wheelchair away from the door and attempted to slam it shut.
Sally shrugged her shoulders. ‘I tried to be nice, love,’ she said, and shoved the wheelchair hard enough to send it rolling back down the hallway and allow the three of them inside. She got out the search warrant and held it up in front of the woman’s face. ‘This piece of paper says that these “fascist” police officers are allowed to search these premises. Please tell me where your son is.’
Her head shot up as Solomon appeared from behind a curtain that separated the kitchen from the hallway. He bolted towards the back door. Sally motioned the PCs to follow, but it was Dan who tripped Solomon up on the garden path and brought him struggling back into the kitchen.
‘Resisting arrest is a bit silly, Mr Solomon,’ Dan said, wrangling the flailing arms together at Solomon’s back so he could be cautioned and cuffed.
Sally had her hands full. Mrs Solomon was screaming abuse at her as Sally held fast to the wheelchair and pushed her into the kitchen. She moved quickly to stand behind the chair to avoid being spat at again.
The young woman PC closed the front door behind her. ‘Blimey,’ she said.
‘I think we may need social services,’ said Sally. ‘Unless you can calm your mother down, Mr Solomon?’
Nathan Solomon glared at her, then turned to his distraught mother. ‘Mama!’ he shouted, ‘Mama!’
The woman stopped yelling at the sound of his voice. ‘Nathan,’ she cried, tears rolling over her face and onto her dress. ‘Have they come for me?’
Sally glanced at Dan. They’d had no idea that his mother was mentally ill. She was listed as disabled. This woman was psychotic.
‘How dare you? How dare you upset her like this.’ Solomon glared at the police officers, sank onto his knees and looked her in the eyes. ‘Mama, it’s alright. They want to talk to me, not you. You are safe, you are safe.’ He climbed to his feet.
‘Push her into the sitting room and put the TV on, she’ll settle. I need to give her some medication,’ he said, glancing toward a drawer in a pine dresser.
Dan nodded to the PC. ‘Uncuff him so he can look after his mother,’ he said, ‘but don’t attempt anything stupid, Mr Solomon. I’ll need your keys,’ he said, pointing at Solomon’s pocket.
‘Why? What are you looking for?’ asked Solomon, voice pitched high. Dan could see his heart wasn’t in it. His shoulders had dropped; he was all but defeated. He handed over the keys and wheeled his mother into the sitting room.
Dan took one PC out to search the shed. He switched on the light, which caused more shadows than anything else in the early evening sun, then slipped on latex gloves and looked around. The jars were there, as were two others, all full, on the workbench. There was nothing else that looked even remotely like a workshop, or a chemist’s lab. Nothing. He stared, confused. Where the hell did Solomon make it, if it wasn’t in the shed? Surely not in the house with that unstable woman in there? This stuff was dangerous. ‘Take the jars and pack them carefully in the area car. Use your tarpaulin or something. Don’t let them touch each other. Okay?’
The young PC nodded, balanced her own light on the workbench and got to work.
Dan went back into the house and did a quick search of the rooms. It was a traditional nineteen-thirties built detached house, with two large bedrooms, a box room and a bathroom on the top floor. Solomon’s bedroom was covered in Star Trek posters and boasted a large-screen top-of-the-range computer. The other bedrooms appeared to be for storage. A dining room, which had been converted into a bedroom for Mrs Solomon, a sitting room, a downstairs toilet with shower and a kitchen comprised the ground floor. Again, there was nothing that could be taken for a chemist’s lab anywhere.
He got the PCs to continue looking, but he could see this was not where the MCat was made. ‘See if you can find any notebooks, phones, anything. And pack up that computer. That’ll tell us a bit more about Solomon’s interests, at least.’
He took Sally aside. ‘There’s nothing here, Sal. Bloody nothing. All we’ve got on him is stealing the jars. Unless he confesses. But, to be honest, if he just keeps his mouth shut, it’s a fine and a reprimand and he might lose his job. He could be home again in a couple of hours.’ He stuck both hands in his trouser pockets and leant against the hall wall. ‘Damn, damn, damn.’
‘But,’ said Sally, ‘what we can keep him in overnight for is intent to supply, attempted murder and manslaughter – unless he tells us any different.’
‘Yeah, sure. Sorry, just disappointed, that’s all.’ He slapped at his forehead. ‘Focus, Hellier, focus.’
‘You’re onto something, though,’ she said. ‘Solomon isn’t what we expected, is he?’
35
By six thirty Dan had dropped Nathan Solomon at the front desk to be charged and put into a cell. He’d left the PCs to wait for the emergency intervention team to look after Mrs Solomon.
Dan took the stairs to his office two at a time. He was angry, and frustrated. So much so that he almost missed the row of excited faces sitting around the big table in the Incident room. Bill, Ben, Lizzie, Adam and Paula Tippett smiled at him. Only Sam Knowles was missing. ‘Well?’ he said. ‘Why are you lot here growing the overtime bill and looking smug? It had better be good after the crap day I’ve just had.’ He glared at the coffee machine, empty and silent, and slumped down opposite Lizzie.
Lizzie held up an old-fashioned accounts ledger, wider than it was high, and of a red that had faded to pale pink in some areas. ‘This
,’ said Lizzie, ‘is the 2005 ledger from Dave’s Tattorium. In it,’ she opened a page marked with a yellow Post-it note, ‘is name of one Ailish Stewart, who had a pohutukawa flower, the national flower of New Zealand, don’t you know, tattooed on her ankle in June 2005.’ She grinned at Dan. ‘We have a name, boss.’
Clapping and cheering broke out, Lizzie and Adam laughed and high-fived each other.
Dan, bad temper forgotten, leapt to his feet. He shot around the table and leaned over her shoulder. There it was, written in neat black ink. ‘Bloody good work, you two,’ he said. ‘We might actually be getting somewhere. He clapped them both on the shoulder. ‘Fantastic work. Woohoo!’
‘That’s not all, boss,’ Bill Larcombe said.
‘It’s not? What else?’
‘Paula here, beavering away as she has been all week, took the name of Ailish Stewart, and linked it to her husband, Brian Stewart. So we’ve got them both.’
Paula blushed. ‘It’s what I like doing, searching.’
Dan whooped again.
‘They do seem to fit our profile,’ said Paula, in her diffident way, ‘but we’ve only had an hour to look since we connected the names. Neither have been seen or heard of in this area since 2006. They’re not on any misper list–’
‘So, I reckon they must be our Bog Bodies!’ yelled Bill, punching the air.
More cheering erupted round the table.
Sally came up from the cells and stood at the door, hands on hips. ‘What’s going on?’ she demanded, sparking further uproar as they all spoke at once.
Dan stood, took a pen, and wrote the two names on the white board. Bloody hell, they’d had a breakthrough. He scratched his ear. Tempting though it was to crack on, the Bog Bodies weren’t going anywhere overnight, and they would make better progress in the morning when they were fresh.
Death on Dartmoor Page 18
