Head in the Sand

by Damien Boyd

  ‘No. I’m Detective Inspector Dixon and this is Detective Constable Jane Winter. We’re hoping you might be able to answer some questions for us?’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘I’d rather not talk in the street, Martin.’

  ‘Do you want to come in?’

  ‘I think it would be better if you came with us to the station, if that’s ok?’

  ‘Can we do this tomorrow? I’m tired.’

  ‘I’m afraid not. If you’d just like to go with these two officers, they will take you to Bridgwater Police Station.’ The two uniformed officers stepped forward and stood either side of Dixon.

  ‘Bridgwater?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And what if I say no?’

  ‘Then I’d be forced to arrest you but I’d really rather not.’

  ‘Alright. Let’s go.’

  The two uniformed officers escorted Martin Cromwell over to the patrol car, sat him in the back seat and then drove off.

  ‘What do you make of him?’ asked Jane.

  ‘I don’t know,’ replied Dixon, ‘but we’ll get the police surgeon to check him over before we interview him, I think.’

  They got into Dixon’s Land Rover and followed the patrol car.

  Dixon had taken the precaution of ringing ahead to have the surgeon called out and he arrived at Bridgwater Police Station to find her waiting for him. Doctor Angela Townsend was in her late fifties with short white hair. Crumpled black trousers and a red sweater told Dixon she had dressed in a hurry.

  ‘What have you got for me?’

  ‘That’s a long story,’ replied Dixon.

  ‘Give me the short version, please.’

  ‘Martin Cromwell. He’s the suspect in a multiple murder investigation. We just picked him up and I’d like you to check him over before we interview him.’

  ‘Drugs?’

  ‘I’m not sure. More of a capacity issue, I think. Could be alcohol, could be drugs, could be something else altogether.’

  ‘Ok, leave it with me.’

  Martin Cromwell had been arrested on arrival at Bridgwater Police Station on suspicion of the murders of Valerie Manning and John Hawkins. He had been checked in and was waiting in an interview room. Dixon left Dr Townsend to it and went in search of the coffee machine. Jane Winter had beaten him to it and was on her second cup when he got there.

  ‘What happens now?’ asked Jane.

  ‘We wait for the surgeon.’

  Dixon took his coffee from the machine and sat at his desk. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. The next thing he was aware of was a knock at his door. It was Jane Winter.

  ‘Surgeon’s ready for us.’

  Dixon picked up his coffee. It was stone cold.

  ‘Have I been asleep?’

  ‘Half an hour or so.’

  They went downstairs to the Custody Suite where Dr Townsend was waiting for them.

  ‘He’s fine, Inspector. He has a very mild intellectual disability perhaps. And he’s hard of hearing. But otherwise he’s fine and fit to be interviewed. No drugs or alcohol in his blood at all.’

  ‘I didn’t see any hearing aids?’

  ‘He prefers to lip read. And he has some hearing as well so he gets by.’

  The interview with Martin Cromwell began just before 1.00am. Dixon made the introductions for the tape and then reminded Cromwell that he was under caution. To be on the safe side, Dixon also gave him the simplified caution.

  ‘I am going to ask you some questions, Martin. You do not have to answer any of them unless you want to. But if you go to court and say something there that you have not told me about, and they think you could have told me, it may harm your case. Anything you do say may be repeated in court. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You have declined legal representation?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Ok, let’s make a start. Where were you last Saturday night?’

  ‘That’s easy. I was at work.’

  Dixon looked at Jane Winter then back to Cromwell.

  ‘All night?’

  ‘Yes. I was on nights. Eight till eight.’

  Dixon took a deep breath. He drew a large exclamation mark on the note pad in front of him and slid it sideways to Jane Winter with his left hand. He looked back to Cromwell. A change of direction was required.

  ‘Why do you work at Allandale Lodge, Martin?’

  Cromwell stared at his hands. He was picking at the skin at the base of his thumbnail on his left hand with the middle finger of his right. He looked at Dixon and then back to his fingers.

  ‘C’mon, Martin. Why the Allandale Lodge?’

  He spoke without looking up.

  ‘To be near my father.’

  ‘David Selby?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘When did you start working there?’

  ‘Three months ago.’

  ‘When did you find him?’

  ‘Just before.’

  ‘How did you find him?’

  ‘The Adoption Agency helped me.’

  ‘What happened to your mother?’

  ‘She had a new hip.’

  ‘Your birth mother?’

  ‘She died when I was five.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘She killed herself.’

  ‘Why now, Martin?’

  ‘He’s all I’ve got left, apart from my mum. And he doesn’t know who I am. I left it too late.’

  ‘What about your sister?’

  ‘Rosie died before my mother. She was ill.’

  ‘Do you know what your father did after that?’

  ‘He was ill too.’

  Dixon took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. He felt nothing but pity for Martin Cromwell.

  ‘Ok, Martin. That’s all for now. We’re going to keep you here overnight and then perhaps we’ll speak again in the morning. We’ll also need to check your work rota for last weekend.’

  Cromwell said nothing. Dixon terminated the interview at 1.20am and Cromwell was taken to the cells for the night.

  ‘What happens now?’ asked Jane.

  ‘We go home and get some sleep,’ said Dixon. ‘Then we get up in the morning, check his alibi and go back to the drawing board.’

  Dixon and Jane arrived back at his cottage in Brent Knoll just before 2.00am. Jane had asked the obvious question and Dixon had spent the rest of the journey brooding in silence.

  ‘If it isn’t Martin Cromwell, who the fuck is it?’

  It was a simple enough question and it was going round and round in Dixon’s head.

  Despite the lateness of the hour, he was unlikely to sleep so he fed Monty and then took him for a walk. It was a cold and crisp night and Dixon could feel a frost forming in the air. He walked in the middle of the road with Monty on an extending lead. He followed Station Road out of the village and into the countryside towards Berrow. He could not recall ever having seen so many stars in the sky. It was one advantage of a late night walk in the countryside, well away from light pollution.

  He worked through the cast of characters one by one. Martin Cromwell was still the obvious suspect. He had motive, some might say justification, and was certainly big enough and strong enough. He winced when he remembered the elderly couple at the reconstruction. Nobody in their right mind would describe Martin Cromwell as ‘smaller than PC Cole’. Dixon thought about the dark figure wielding the knife when Valerie Manning was taken. It was not Martin Cromwell.

  Then he thought about David Selby himself. Vascular dementia would give him the perfect alibi. Dixon did not doubt the diagnosis but was it possible that Selby was not as bad as he made out? Selby was due to be examined by two psychiatrists on Monday. He remembered the flash of recognition on Selby’s face and in his eyes when Dixon had found the old black and white photograph.

  Dixon stopped in the middle of the road and looked skyward. What if father and son were working together? Martin could have let his father out of Allandale Lodge on
the Saturday night and then back in again in the early hours of Sunday morning.

  But was Selby physically capable of it? It might explain the electric carving knife that Roger Poland had been banging on about perhaps.

  Dixon knew that, apart from checking Martin Cromwell’s alibi, very little progress could be made until the psychiatrists examined Selby on Monday. He would need to brief them on his suspicions but, in the meantime, he needed some sleep.

  Eleven

  Dixon woke early to find Jane standing next to him with a mug of coffee in each hand. She was naked. He sat up and she passed him the mug from her left hand. Then she sat astride him on the sofa.

  ‘So, what happens now?’ she asked.

  ‘We check his alibi and search his flat.’

  ‘No, I meant...never mind.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Jane. ‘What are you doing on the sofa?’

  ‘It was late and I didn’t want to wake you.’

  ‘You should have,’ she said, smiling.

  ‘Oh, I see. Sorry!’ replied Dixon.

  ‘You go steady. A penny dropping from that height could cause you serious injury.’

  She leaned forward and kissed him. He reached across and put his mug of coffee on the arm of the sofa. Then he placed his hands on Jane’s shoulders and pushed her gently away from him. He allowed the kiss to linger for a moment as he did so.

  ‘Would you mind if we continued this later?’

  ‘I’ll hold you to that.’

  Jane stood up and then went upstairs to get dressed. Dixon checked his watch. It was 7.20am. He knew that Mark Pearce would be at Burnham Police Station for 8.00am so he sent text messages to Dave Harding and Louise Willmott asking them to be there too. Then he fed Monty.

  Dixon was standing at his kitchen window looking out across the fields behind his cottage when Jane appeared next to him. He put his arm around her waist, pulled her towards him and kissed her. Then he whispered in her ear.

  ‘Later.’

  Dixon arrived at Burnham Police Station just before 8.00am. Jane arrived in her own car a few minutes later. The rest of the team were waiting for them in the CID room.

  ‘Right. Sorry to drag you in on a Sunday but we have a lot to get done. We’ve got Selby’s son by his first wife in custody. Martin Cromwell was adopted in the seventies and only found his father three months ago. He is working at the Allandale Lodge as a carer so he can be near him.’

  ‘A likely story,’ said Dave Harding.

  ‘Oddly enough, I believe him, Dave. That’s not to say he’s not involved though. He seems to have the perfect alibi for Valerie Manning’s murder but Jane and I will be following that up this morning.’

  ‘Where was he?’ asked Pearce.

  ‘At work, apparently, Mark. On the night shift.’

  ‘He could have left and gone back.’

  ‘He could. He could also have let his father out and then back in again.’

  ‘Selby has vascular dementia though, Sir,’ said Louise Willmott.

  ‘He does, but do you or I really know how bad it is? He could be putting it on.’

  ‘That would be quite an act,’ replied Louise.

  ‘Well, he’s going to have to get past two psychiatrists tomorrow so we’ll see,’ replied Dixon. ‘Now, the son lives at Flat 5 Cavendish House, The Esplanade, which is a bedsit. We need a full search of it. Can you organise that Mark? Louise, perhaps you would help him?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘Get SOCO there and give it the full works,’ said Dixon. He turned to Dave Harding. ‘How did you get on with Spalding?’

  ‘I knocked on his door, as you suggested, Guv. You were right. Tenants are in there. They pay the rent to a firm of solicitors in Wells but obviously I can’t speak to them until Monday.’

  ‘What’s the name of the firm?’

  ‘Ambrose and Tucker.’

  ‘Check their website and find out who the partners are. If that doesn’t work, try the Law Society website. Then go and see them at home. We must find Spalding today, Dave.’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘What did we get from the reconstruction?’

  ‘Very little so far but it will be on the evening news today and tomorrow.’

  ‘And DNA from the wine glasses in Hawkins’ flat?’

  ‘None, Sir,’ replied Pearce, ‘they’d been wiped.’

  ‘How about a date of death for John Hawkins?’

  ‘Roger Poland is coming back to us with that on Monday,’ replied Harding, ‘but it won’t be with any real accuracy, for obvious reasons.’

  ‘Makes it difficult to check Cromwell’s alibi doesn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘I’ll speak to Poland tomorrow,’ said Dixon.

  ‘What about Mrs Selby?’ asked Jane.

  ‘Let her go. Bail. The usual drill.’

  ‘I’ll lay on a car to take her home.’

  ‘No, you won’t. She can bloody well make her own way home. She knew full well what her beloved husband had done and kept it secret for over thirty years.’

  ‘Yes, but...’

  ‘It’s the least she can do. And she’ll be doing time for perverting the course of justice if I’ve got anything to do with it.’

  ‘Yes, Sir,’ said Jane.

  ‘Right then everyone, you know what you’ve got to do, so let’s get on with it.’

  Dixon sat at a computer, powered it up and logged in. He checked his email and spent the next five minutes deleting messages that were of no interest to him. That left three. The first came from Dave Harding and attached a short wmv file. It was the footage of Valerie Manning’s abduction. Dixon clicked on the attachment and watched the film several times. He felt no emotion now; his pity for Valerie Manning tempered by the deaths of Rosie and Frances Southall. They were the real victims. He froze the film with the hooded figure in full view, albeit in profile, enlarged the shot and stared intently at the screen. It was not Martin Cromwell.

  ‘Jane, come and have a look at this.’

  Jane got up from her desk and walked over. She looked at the screen.

  ‘Martin Cromwell?’ asked Dixon.

  ‘Definitely not.’

  ‘It could be his father though, couldn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose it could.’

  Dixon closed the email. Something was niggling him but he was not sure what it was. He stared at a blank screen for several minutes before opening the next email. It attached a witness statement that came from the elderly gentleman who had come forward at the reconstruction, Ronald Drayton. He gave a short description of a person wearing dark clothes with a hooded top. He had seen him loitering around the bus stop when he left Morrisons, although, when pressed, he was unsure whether it was male or female. He described the build as slight and certainly smaller than the officer reconstructing the scene.

  ‘You seen that statement from Drayton, Jane?’

  ‘Yes. Confirms it, doesn’t it?’

  Dixon went back to the first email and watched the film again. He called Jane over to watch it with him.

  ‘What do you notice about it?’

  Jane shook her head. ‘What?’

  ‘Watch it again.’ Dixon scrolled back to the start of the clip. The figure appeared from behind the bus stop.

  ‘Watch the movement. It’s not an old man, is it?’

  Jane watched. ‘No, it isn’t. The movement is too...dynamic.’ Dixon left the film running to the end.

  ‘Let’s have a look at the statements from Selby’s other two sons, Richard and...?’

  ‘Marcus,’ replied Jane.

  ‘Who checked their alibis?’

  ‘I’ll have a look.’

  Dixon turned to the last email. It came from Roger Poland and suggested meeting for a beer. Dixon added Poland’s mobile number to the list of contacts on his iPhone and then deleted the email. He looked at his watch. It was 8.45am. Mark Pearce and Louise Willmott had left to begin
the search of Martin Cromwell’s flat. Dave Harding was on his way to Wells.

  Jane handed Dixon a copy of Richard Selby’s witness statement.

  ‘Dave interviewed him. Simple alibi. He was at home with his wife.’

  ‘Anyone check it?’ asked Dixon.

  ‘No. Not yet,’ replied Jane. ‘It’s likely to hold up though, isn’t it? Even if it’s bollocks.’

  ‘What about Marcus?’

  ‘He lives in Richmond and was picked up by the Met. He was at a friend’s for dinner and it checks out. There are two statements here from a Mr and Mrs Pollard. He was with them all night at their home in...’ Jane looked at the statement, ‘...Teddington and left at gone midnight.’

  ‘What does Richard Selby look like then, I wonder,’ said Dixon.

  ‘I’ve not met him.’

  ‘Me neither. I suggest we put that right sooner rather than later.’

  ‘Good idea. Shall I ring him?’

  ‘No, we’ll call unannounced, I think. First things first, though. We need to check Cromwell’s alibi.’

  Dixon picked up his phone and rang Susan Procter. She was cooking Sunday lunch but could spare him half an hour at 10.30am. They agreed to meet at Allandale Lodge.

  ‘I’ll drive,’ said Dixon.

  Jane threw Dixon’s car keys over the bonnet of the Land Rover. He caught them and climbed into the driver’s seat. Monty woke up and tried to jump over into the front but Dixon pushed him back.

  ‘We’ll go and see how Mark and Louise are getting on at Cromwell’s flat on the way.’

  They arrived at Cavendish House just after 10.00am. A Scientific Services van and two patrol cars were parked outside. The front door was standing open and Dixon could see uniformed police officers and Scenes of Crime officers in the entrance lobby. Mark Pearce was talking to a man in his late fifties. He had long grey hair tied back in a ponytail and wore jeans and a blue shirt.

  ‘This is the landlord, Sir. Colin Evans. He let us in,’ said Pearce.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Evans. That’s most helpful of you. I’m Detective Inspector Dixon.’

  ‘You’ve arrested Martin?’

  ‘We have him in custody at the moment, yes, but I must make it clear that he is not charged with any offence at the present time.’