A Price to Pay

by Paul Gitsham

  As Annie was booked in, the two officers reported to Warren, who was fighting sleep after spending the night awake. Susan had still been in her pyjamas when he’d arrived home the previous evening; something that she only ever did when feeling really ill. The deep shadows under her eyes that morning as he’d got ready for work testified to her own lack of rest.

  He forced his attention back to Grimshaw and Martinez, ignoring the acid burn in his gut from too much coffee.

  ‘I had hoped that the drive home would loosen her tongue a bit,’ said Grimshaw, ‘but nothing’s doing. She’s really tearful, but we can’t get anything out of her. She’s clearly terrified. Hell, she even seemed nervous of Jorge – must be the aftershave.’

  Martinez ignored his friend. Unlike Grimshaw, who seemed to have enjoyed a taxpayer-subsidized road trip back to the North West, Martinez was frustrated to have been away from the action.

  ‘Have the two girls said anything, now that they know we’ve arrested Annie?’ he asked.

  Warren shook his head.

  ‘I haven’t told them yet. I figured I’d wait to see what Annie said first. Now that they’ve been charged, they’ve been moved to remand at the Mount Prison.’

  ‘We should try and play them off against each other. I reckon the younger one is most likely to crack first,’ said Grimshaw.

  ‘Let’s not forget the aunt,’ said Hutchinson. ‘She’s been changing her story left, right and centre, every time we pick a new hole in it. I’d say that Annie is a pretty big hole.’

  Warren pinched his bottom lip thoughtfully. The three young women were being held separately, to minimize contact between them. Nevertheless, there was a limit to how long that could last in the overcrowded prison system. So far, Wilson had kept her head down, and had wisely decided not to phone her cousin.

  ‘Right, we’ll speak to Biljana and Malina first, see what they have to say for themselves. If Silvija Wilson is correct, her nieces are protecting this Annie, for whatever reason. Now that we have her in custody, we might be able to persuade them that there’s no point doing so. If they are guilty and Annie was a witness, we may be able to persuade them to cooperate. We can imply that Annie is singing like the proverbial bird, and that they don’t want to be caught in a lie.’

  ‘What about Silvija Wilson?’ asked Richardson.

  ‘We’ll bring her in and speak to her afterwards. As Hutch has said, she’s been changing her story repeatedly. It’s clear that her loyalties lie first and foremost with her nieces. I don’t know who this Annie is, but I suspect that if push comes to shove, Wilson will throw her under the bus to protect her family.’

  The woman known only as Annie looked small and frightened, as she sat opposite Mags Richardson in interview suite two. Warren watched the interview on the live feed.

  According to Martinez and Grimshaw, she’d been scared and unwilling to talk on her journey back from Manchester. Warren wondered if a sympathetic female officer might have more luck. Beside her, an older woman acted as translator. Warren hoped that she too, alongside the female duty solicitor, might have a calming influence.

  It wasn’t to be.

  The woman answered ‘No comment’ to every question put to her, including her name. The custody sergeant had been forced in the end to list her as ‘Annie’, with no other biographical details.

  Warren had faced more than his fair share of obstinate, uncooperative suspects, but this was different. The woman was clearly petrified.

  And whatever she was frightened of, it was clearly worse than the prospect of life in prison for murder.

  They would have to hope that their other interviewees were more fruitful.

  ‘Well that was a waste of bloody time,’ opined Moray Ruskin, as he and Warren drove away from the Mount Prison.

  The two men had just spent a fruitless two hours trying to persuade Silvija Wilson’s two nieces to open up and admit to what had really happened the day of Stevie Cullen’s murder. So far Friday the 13th had brought nothing but bad luck.

  Warren had been hopeful at first. Both women had looked shocked, and then resigned when he told them that they had Annie in custody. Unfortunately, both of them requested the opportunity to speak to their solicitor, and both had returned and made no further comment.

  ‘Bloody lawyers,’ said Ruskin. ‘I’ll bet they were told to keep their gobs shut until they knew for certain that Annie or their aunt had spilled the beans.’

  ‘What the hell happened in that room? And why are they keeping quiet? They must realize how much trouble they are in,’ hissed Warren. The question was rhetorical, but Ruskin tried to answer it, regardless.

  ‘As far as we can tell, there were five people present at the time of the murder, aside from Cullen. I reckon we can rule out the two nail technicians; I can’t see Wilson or the sisters protecting them to the point that they could go to prison.’

  Warren agreed; it seemed unlikely.

  ‘Which leaves the two sisters and Annie,’ said Ruskin. ‘From what we can tell from the security footage, Malina was responding to a disturbance happening in the back room. Does that mean that Cullen was being killed by Biljana or Annie and she went in after the fact, or was she involved in the killing herself? Is she covering for the other two girls, or did she take part?’

  ‘Maybe we need to be asking who would protect whom? And why did they send Annie away?’ said Warren.

  ‘The way I see it, there are two reasons to send Annie away,’ said Ruskin. ‘Either she was a witness, and they wanted her gone before she could be interviewed, or she was responsible and they were helping her to escape.’

  ‘So, who is she then?’ asked Warren again. ‘If their plan worked, she would have got away scot free, leaving the sisters to carry the can. Why would they – and their aunt for that matter – do that?’

  ‘If their plan worked, we’d still be looking for some mysterious man in a hoodie,’ said Ruskin.

  ‘That’s true,’ admitted Warren, ‘but as soon as we started picking that story apart, you’d expect them to ditch it and either come up with a new one or tell us what really happened.’

  ‘Unless, one or both of the sisters were involved in the killing. Then their best bet would be to say nothing, for fear of implicating themselves or their sister. I’ll bet they made a pact to keep their mouth shut.’

  ‘Unfortunately for them, they didn’t plan what to do if we found Annie,’ said Warren. ‘That’s thrown a real spanner in the works.’

  ‘They also didn’t count on their aunt blinking first and starting to change her story,’ said Ruskin.

  ‘I think the weak link is Wilson,’ said Warren. He hoped that she would break today’s run of bad luck.

  Silvija Wilson looked exhausted. Warren doubted that she’d slept very much over the past few days. He hoped that the stress of the situation would be enough to make her talk.

  ‘We have arrested Annie. She’s in our custody. We’ve also recovered a black bag containing a bloodstained uniform. We’ll be performing forensic tests to see who was wearing that uniform.’

  Wilson deflated. She clearly hadn’t wanted to risk calling her cousin now that she knew that her calls were being monitored. The news was obviously an unwelcome surprise.

  ‘It’s time to tell us what really happened, Silvija,’ said Warren, his tone gentle. ‘You aren’t helping your nieces now. And they aren’t helping themselves.’

  Wilson’s eyes were filled with tears.

  ‘At the moment, all we know is that at some point, Stevie Cullen was murdered in the back room of your massage parlour. You claim that this Annie was responsible for his death, but you won’t tell us who she is or what she means to you. If you and your nieces are lying to protect her, you need to tell us why.’

  The tears were now trickling down Wilson’s cheeks.

  ‘Your two nieces won’t tell us what really happened. Either they still think they can hide what happened that day, or they are hiding their own involvement. Regardless,
as it stands, they have both been charged with murder. If they really had nothing to do with it, then you need to tell us everything you know. If I can go in there and tell them what I think really happened, then they can start cooperating and dig themselves out of the mess they’ve got themselves into.’

  Wilson closed her eyes. The tissue that she had been using to dab away her tears was screwed up into a tight ball.

  Warren said nothing; it was up to Wilson now.

  Moments passed before finally, Wilson let out a shuddering breath.

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘We’ve got it!’ David Hutchinson sounded elated. ‘A six-inch hunting knife, wrapped in a black bag, with flecks of what appears to be blood on the blade. It wasn’t even in the water. There’s a stone wall between the end of the footpath and the river. She must have completely duffed throwing it into the river and either not realized, or not been able to climb over the wall and have another go. Even better, the area is covered in footprints, including ones that look suspiciously like they might match the shoes that Silvija Wilson was wearing that day.’

  ‘Brilliant news,’ said Warren. Modern forensic techniques were sensitive enough to retrieve trace evidence from even the most compromised crime scenes or suspect objects, but days immersed in water would test even the most skilled technicians. Warren looked forward to reading the report from the lab. Could this be the breakthrough they needed to finally determine what had happened that day? Perhaps Friday the 13th hadn’t been a complete disaster after all.

  Saturday 14 November

  Chapter 42

  ‘We think we’ve found the white van that dropped off the two nail technicians at the massage parlour,’ said Mags Richardson. The former traffic officer had been pushing the video analysis unit in Welwyn hard for days, and it was a relief to finally have something to show for it. Warren and Grayson had been fielding an increasing number of requests to justify the amount of resources they were expending, and a positive finding vindicated them to some extent.

  She called up a still image from a video on her tablet’s screen.

  ‘This was taken on a traffic camera a little over a mile from the massage parlour. There isn’t a lot of detail, but we have the licence plate number.’

  ‘Are we sure that it’s definitely the van?’ asked Martinez. ‘You said yourself that the camera coverage in that area is patchy and covers a large area. A mile is a long distance.’

  ‘Reasonably confident,’ hedged Richardson. ‘It’s true that there is a lot of traffic in that area, but when we narrowed it down to white vans that appeared regularly each day at about the time that the parlour opens for business, and returned at the close of business, the number was surprisingly few. Joey McGhee said that it was a van, not a minibus, so we were able to discount a fair number of hits – besides, it seems unlikely that our nail technicians were hitching a lift with the Middlesbury Over-Fifties Ring and Ride service.’

  ‘Who is the vehicle registered to?’ asked Warren.

  ‘That’s where it gets tricky,’ admitted Richardson. ‘The registered keeper has been dead for years. It looks as though the van was sold on privately after his death, and the details never updated on the DVLA database. The new owners are still using the original owner’s details for insurance and tax purposes and using dodgy backstreet garages for its MOT. DVLA process so many registrations every day, as long as the paperwork looks about right, they just rubber-stamp it. If the van doesn’t get pulled over or done for speeding, or unpaid parking, nobody will ever realize it’s dodgy.’

  ‘There’s a builders’ merchants near there,’ pointed out Martinez. ‘I’ll bet there are plenty of dodgy vans driving around the area.’

  ‘You’re probably right, Jorge, but it’s a hell of a coincidence,’ said Warren. ‘Good work, Mags. Any idea how you can track down the new owner?’

  ‘I’ve got some ideas,’ said Richardson. ‘Now we know the van’s plate number, we’re working backwards to see if we can figure out the van’s regular route. If it stops at the same places each day, we might be able to get a team down there asking questions. If we’re really lucky, we might even be able to intercept the van as it does its rounds.’

  ‘That’s a good idea,’ said Warren, ‘although we don’t want to spook them.’

  ‘I’ll speak directly to Ian Bergen in SOC,’ offered Martinez. ‘I’m sure he’ll help us out. The van might already be on their system. For operational reasons, they don’t always make intelligence on ongoing operations freely available on the PNC or HOLMES.’

  ‘That should speed things up.’

  ‘Unfortunately, there is no useful pattern yet in the location data for the phone that Silvija Wilson called that day, and which we believe belongs to Northern Man,’ said Pymm.

  The room groaned.

  ‘The phone is typically turned off more than it is turned on and is only active during the daytime. When it is turned on, it is moving around constantly. At no point is the phone ever stationary for more than an hour or two in the same location.’

  ‘Sounds as though they know exactly what they’re doing,’ said Hutchinson.

  The man was right. Tracking where a phone spent lengthy periods of time could be used to identify a suspect’s regular haunts, such as their place of work. Long periods overnight in the same place might indicate where the suspect lived.

  That the suspect apparently knew this suggested a worrying degree of sophistication.

  ‘We’re sharing what we have with Organized Crime, to see if any of the locations that the phone lingered in flags anything, but as you know, that channel of communication isn’t always two-way.’ A ripple of frustrated agreement went around the room.

  As the team trudged out of the room to start their day, Warren overheard Grimshaw muttering to Martinez. ‘Better hope that down-and-out that the boss has been chatting up comes through, or this one’s dead in the water.’

  Warren suspected that he might be right.

  The report back from the forensics lab on the knife found discarded by the river Herrot came in early evening.

  ‘The knife was definitely the murder weapon,’ said Harrison. The CSI had already emailed his report to Warren, along with photographs, but he always liked to speak in person, and had called immediately after sending the report.

  ‘The blade had been cleaned, but there were enough traces of blood at the join where the blade meets the handle for us to do a fast-track DNA match to Stevie Cullen. The dimensions of the blade are also consistent with the wounds inflicted on the victim, including the nick to his rib.’

  Warren could hear a ‘but’ hanging in the air. He could guess what the man was going to say next.

  ‘However, the handle had also been cleaned. There were no prints or other trace evidence that could tell us who used the knife.’

  Warren sighed. ‘I suppose that would have been too easy.’

  ‘However, we lifted some prints from the black bag it was wrapped in, and they match Silvija Wilson.’

  Along with the footprints found near the dumping site, it confirmed that Silvija Wilson had been the person to dispose of the weapon, but it still didn’t tell them who had wielded it and killed Cullen.

  ‘Is there anything useful you can tell us about the knife itself?’

  ‘Yes and no. It has a six-inch, non-serrated blade with a distinctive, olive wood handle, about two inches shorter than the blade. It’s a high-quality product and well used. Olive wood is very durable, but there are some old scratches. The blade is sharp and well cared for; it’s been sharpened regularly. I’d say the owner was proud of it. The bad news is that it’s mass-produced and sold throughout continental Europe, but not in the UK.’

  Warren pondered what Harrison had told him. If the knife was unavailable in the UK, that might indicate that it had belonged to one of the two sisters or to Annie, but it was hardly conclusive.

  After thanking Harrison, he hung up.

  If the murder weapon had been brough
t to the scene, rather than simply being the nearest weapon to hand, that raised all sorts of questions surrounding motive or premeditation. They really needed to find out who the knife belonged to, and some independent witnesses to corroborate the series of events that day.

  Sunday 15 November

  Chapter 43

  Sunday mornings in the middle of a murder investigation are like any other morning of the week. Nevertheless, Warren had decided that he could afford to head to the office a bit later. Susan had taken the rest of the week off work, but he knew that she hadn’t slept any better than him, tossing and turning until well-past midnight. She was now slumbering quietly beside him.

  He looked at his phone. No voicemails or emails had come in overnight. The display showed half-past seven. Despite Susan’s lack of rest, he knew she would be awake soon.

  Moving quietly, he slipped on his slippers and dressing gown and padded softly downstairs.

  A look in the fridge revealed eggs that needed using and some fresh apple juice. There was some nice sourdough bread in the bread bin.

  The smell of scrambled eggs on toast and the aroma of fresh coffee was enough to bring Susan downstairs. As she slipped her arms around his waist and kissed the back of his neck, it was almost as if the past few weeks hadn’t happened, and Warren allowed himself to relax.

  ‘I assume you are going to ruin those lovely eggs with Worcestershire sauce?’ she teased.

  ‘Of course. Would you like some on yours?’