by Alan Fisher
“Erm, well, I don’t know for sure. But sometimes Andrew would get a text message during the evening and he would suddenly finish and say he was off for the night. I’m not sure he always went straight home, but other than that I can’t say”.
“What makes you think he didn’t always go straight home?”
“Because on occasion I would be parked next to him and follow him out of the car park. Sometimes he took a different route to that which would have taken him home. And on a couple of occasions his wife would complain to me about him coming home very late sometimes. I said nothing of course, but I did begin to wonder”.
“Was he a bit of a ladies man?”
“Not obviously, but, well, sometimes you just don’t know these things. I didn’t use to think so, but now……”.
“Did he have any other issues, problems, vices perhaps, like gambling for instance?”
“No, none that I was aware of. Certainly not gambling, he was dead set against it and was looking forward to becoming an MP so he could contribute to the regulations governing gambling, he thought they were too lax. No, definitely not that. He didn’t really drink much either, or do any drugs. No, I’d say he was pretty straight was Andrew”.
“Apart from the ladies”.
“Well that’s just a theory, I might be totally wrong on that one. There might be a perfectly reasonable explanation”.
“Right then, one final question. We haven’t managed to locate his mobile phone. Could he have left it here?”
“As a matter of fact, Andrew had two mobile phones. One for business and one for personal use. And he did leave his personal phone here that night, it’s in the drawer”.
Tim reached down into the bottom drawer, pulled the phone out, and handed it across to Jack. He took hold of it without feeling to need to put on gloves. He knew that any fingerprint evidence would be long since lost.
“Don’t suppose you know the password do you?” asked Jack, switching on the phone.
“You could try his birthday, 30 07 66, he’s used that for other things”.
Jack typed in the numbers and the screen unlocked.
“You’re right, why do I know that date”, he said aloud, although he hadn’t meant to.
“World Cup Final, Geoff Hurst, Bobby Moore and all that, 30th July 1966. He was born that day and quite proud of it” smiled Tim.
“Right then, I think that’ll do for now. We may well need to talk again as the investigation progresses, thank you for your time and your frankness”.
“My pleasure, I’m happy to help in any way I can to find out who did this”.
“Of course”.
Jack stepped out of the office and found Jason waiting for him in the corridor. A few seconds later they were out in the street and Jack stopped to look at the last text message received on McMillan’s phone.
It had arrived just after 7pm on the evening of his death and Jack realised that he was going to need more than Jason to help him to understand the message which read;
RBH1538
Chapter 16
Oliver awoke early on Wednesday morning, fully intent on getting into work as quickly as possible. There was much to do following the visits he and Debbie had made to Shields Road and to a local carpet warehouse, and Oliver knew that he had hours and hours of tedious viewing of CCTV footage ahead of him.
He also knew that the possibility of identifying the vehicle that had been used to dump McMillan’s body in the industrial bin at Shields Road was remote at best. But that didn’t mean that he should make any assumptions, he had to troll through all of the CCTV footage to confirm his worst fears.
The information that they had been given from the manager of the carpet warehouse had at least been a little more encouraging. It transpired that the letters, numbers, and bar code on the label on the back of the rug could be interpreted. But contact would have to be made with Customs and Excise to ascertain who imported the rug. They hoped that, having gained that information, they would then be able to follow the trail to the outlet from where the rug had been purchased.
The whole exercise had seemed like pulling at a thread and hoping to find something important attached at the other end. But both he and Debbie knew that if the rug had ended up in a large retail outlet, it might be impossible to find the end of the thread.
Oliver switched on his TV whilst waiting for the kettle to boil and sat down with his toast to see if there was anything new about the case from the media. The announcement that greeted him took him by surprise as the studio handed over to a live broadcast outside the gates to Police Headquarters at Ponteland.
“It’s a chilly Wednesday morning and I’m standing here outside Police Headquarters in Ponteland in Northumberland where police are still investigating the murder of Andrew McMillan, the local Conservative candidate for the constituency of Tynemouth on the Northumberland coast. Our unconfirmed sources have revealed that the body of Mr McMillan was found in an industrial waste bin on Monday morning but that he was murdered on Sunday night at a place as yet unknown and his body dumped in the bin sometime later. Our sources have also advised us that the body was left in a rolled up rug and that a playing card, the Jack of Diamonds, was left in his mouth. So far the Police have not confirmed the rumours about the finding of the body or commented on the bizarre circumstances of his death. Indeed, the Police have made no comment on the case at all other than that enquiries are ongoing, but it seems there is no likelihood of an early arrest.
This is Jonathon Souter reporting from Tyneside, back to the studio.”
Oliver sat back in his chair. He’d seen this sort of thing before, where information somehow found its way into the hands of the media. He knew there would be cries of leaks and the like back at headquarters, but there was something else here, detailed accurate information had been obtained and that was significantly different from previous cases.
He put the thoughts aside for the time being, it really wasn’t any of his concern and he needed to finish his breakfast and get into work. Everything else would take care of itself and he would finish the task he’d been given.
Less than an hour later Oliver was in one of the many interview rooms at headquarters, setting up the TV equipment so that he could begin the process of scanning through the CCTV footage. He’d agreed with Debbie that he would begin the task and call her in should he find anything of significance and that she would focus on speaking with Customs and Excise to try to follow the trail of the imported rug.
He’d only managed to get through an hour of footage when Debbie appeared in the open doorway.
“Morning Oliver” she smiled from the doorway.
“Morning Debbie, found nothing so far I’m afraid but I’ve only managed to watch about an hour or so of footage” he said, without taking his eyes off the screen.
“I’d have been surprised if you had. I just popped in to let you know I was here, and I’ll be straight on the phone when the offices are open. Did you see the news this morning?”
Oliver knew she would be referring to the media reports from outside the gates.
“Yeah I saw it. Leak enquiry started yet?”
“You think it was leaked from someone in here?”
“Actually no, I don’t. but I’m not sure what the DCI or DS Glover will think. I can’t imagine they’ll be very happy about it”.
“No doubt we’ll find out shortly. Anyway, briefing in half an hour I understand, best make sure you’re back in the office for it. Glover will want an update”.
“Ok no problem. Would you mind giving the update when we’re asked? It’ll come better from you” said Oliver.
“Ok” said Debbie as she left the doorway, heading back to the office.
Half an hour later Oliver was in place at his desk when Jason Glover emerged from Jack’s office and made his way across the office to the incident board. He spent a few minutes pinning some new information sheets on the board before turning to face the team.
“Ok,
listen up everyone. Updates first please. Moore?”
“Phone records confirm that a call was made from a phone registered with Andrew McMillan to the landline at his home just after 6pm on the evening McMillan was murdered, the call lasted four minutes and twenty seven seconds” said Paul Moore looking at his notepad. “Several other calls were made that day including calls to local business leaders, Ramside Hall Hotel in Durham, and to his PA Tim Southern. I’m looking back over previous days to see if anything unusual comes out sir”.
“Ok, good work, I’ll pick up on a couple of those points in a minute or two. Wainwright?”
“Personal financial records are clean sir. No unusual activity on the accounts that I’ve looked at. I also checked with local casinos to see if he was a member of any. No records of any membership, at least not in his own name anyway”.
“Ok, excellent” said Jason as a noise behind them indicated that Jack had come out of his office and was standing in the doorway watching the briefing. “Swan and Cole, any luck with finding the original crime scene yet?”
Debbie looked at Oliver who was sitting back in his chair.
“Not yet sir” she said. “We’ve looked at this from what we believe are the only two pieces of information that might help, the vehicle used to transport the body, and the rug it was wrapped in. We visited Shields Road and we’ve obtained copies of the only CCTV footage available in the area. Unfortunately, this is from the local bank and only shows part of the road and from a side-on angle. Although we aren’t overly optimistic, DS Cole has already started looking through the footage. The label on the back of the rug showed that it had been imported from India and the numbers, letters and bar code may show us who imported it. I will be talking with Customs and Excise later to try and follow the trail through. If we get lucky we may be able to find out where the rug ended up”.
“Great work. Keep me updated and if you get any indication of where the rug ended up, I want to know straight away. Now, we’ve some further information on the board here following our discussions yesterday in Durham. The main points are that McMillan didn’t have sole access to any party bank accounts so, given Wainwrights information, I guess that might rule out any connections to casinos or gambling. Also we managed to retrieve a mobile phone from his office. However, we don’t think it’s his usual mobile because it only contains a number of obscure texts. At this moment we don’t understand these texts because they’re a series of numbers and letters, possibly some sort of code which in itself is suspicious. I’ve pinned a list of the last 3 texts on the board here, the one we are really interested in is the last one which was sent to him on the day he died, but the others may help to get a handle on what it all means. I want you all to have a look at these and if you’ve any ideas on what they might mean, give me a shout. But because there is nothing else on that phone, it means his usual mobile phone is still missing, perhaps still at the original crime scene. Assignments; Cole and Swan will continue their enquiries today as will Moore. Now, Wainwright, I have a list of names of people who were out canvassing with Tim Southern on the day McMillan was murdered. I want you to track them all down and confirm their movements during that day. Also see if you can pick up any gossip that might have been doing the rounds. DCI Collier and I are going to talk to McMillan’s political opponents”.
He looked across at Jack who was giving him a look that Jason couldn’t interpret.
“Anything to add sir?” asked Jason, looking at Jack.
“Yes Jason. Slight change to the assignments due to moving events. I’m afraid we’ve another body. Found wrapped in a plastic sheet and rug and dumped in an industrial bin on Benton Trading Estate. You all know what that might mean. Dr Crosby and his team are on their way out there and DS Glover and I will join them asap. As we can’t be in two places at the same time, someone will have to take over our plans for this morning and pay a visit to the local Labour party headquarters and have a chat with Tom Campbell, McMillan’s main political rival. Cole and Swan can do that when they’ve finished going through the CCTV footage. Ok, everyone knows what they have to do, let’s get on. Jason, my car in five minutes” said Jack and he turned and went back into his office.
Chapter 17
By the time Jack left his office barely a few minutes later, Oliver was already back in the interview room watching the CCTV footage. He’d narrowed the timeframes down to six hours and put the replay on a slightly faster speed, but he knew he would need at least a couple of hours to get through it all. Much as he disliked the task ahead, he knew it had to be done and the sooner he got it out of the way the better he would feel.
An hour later Debbie came into the room with a coffee for him and pulled up a chair beside him.
“Cheers, I didn’t want to leave this even though it’s about as interesting as watching paint dry” said Oliver.
“I can imagine, and you’re welcome. You weren’t surprised at the briefing when the DCI said another body had been dumped, were you?”
“No, I feared as much?” he said in a matter of fact way.
“How? How do you know these things?” she asked quietly.
“I don’t know, at least not for sure. I was going through all the evidence the other night and I just got a feeling that McMillan wouldn’t be an isolated case”
“I understand. Well no I don’t really” she said exasperated. “But another body and dumped in a similar fashion. And you were expecting it, so you must think it’s the same killer“.
“It would seem so, I guess we’ll know later when we find out if a playing card was left in his or her mouth”.
“You think that’s the key don’t you, the playing card thing”.
It was a statement rather than a question and Oliver recognised it as an expression of confidence in his instincts.
“I think so. If this 2nd body has the same or similar playing card present, I think we can at least be pretty certain it’s the same killer”.
“Any idea what it all means then?”
“Not yet, no”.
“What about the text messages on the board, know what they mean?”
“I’ve no idea, I haven’t looked at them yet. Maybe later, after I’ve finished here”.
Debbie looked at him with a mixture of astonishment and concern.
“What?” said Oliver, noticing the look from the corner of his eye.
“Are you ok?”
“I’m fine”.
”You sure? It’s not like you to avoid a puzzle Oliver. I think everyone just expects you to look at it and tell us all what it means”.
“No pressure then” he smiled. “I’ll have a look later and see if anything comes to mind but I wanted to get this out of the way so we can get on with seeing Campbell. It’ll be better than what I’m doing here. Any joy with the rug label?”
“Some. The rug was imported by a distributer based in Sussex. Unfortunately, it was one of a batch of a thousand. I’m waiting for a phone call back to see if they can narrow it down to where it might have been shipped on to, they hope to get back to me this afternoon. Look, whilst I’m waiting for that call why don’t I take over here and you go and have a look at those text messages. I’m sure you could do with a break and get your mind working on something a bit more interesting”.
“You don’t mind?” said Oliver, feeling relieved.
“Course not. Go on, show them what they’re missing by having you watch boring CCTV footage instead of solving puzzles” she smiled.
Oliver was almost out of the door before she had finished the sentence and headed straight for the incident board. Quickly he read through the notes put down by Jason Glover and finally arrived at the three text messages at the bottom of the page.
RBH1538
DMH1727
LCH1198
“I’d put money on just about everyone’s first thought being something to do with car number plates” he thought to himself.
Instinctively he took out his notebook and wrote down th
e three text messages. Then he scanned through the rest of the information looking for what he thought would be key components or things that needed questioning. It was an exercise he’d become accustomed to because it helped to focus his mind on what was important rather than what was irrelevant.
Half an hour later the exercise was complete, and Oliver went to his desk so he could start to think about the text messages.
The first thing he realised was that he couldn’t look at them as a singular issue. Obviously he knew who the texts were sent to, but the key to the meaning may well be who they were sent from.
And although he knew that there was no way to determine that from the information available, he could hazard a guess from the type of character McMillan would associate with and from the character of the man himself.
He wrote the three text messages down on a separate sheet of paper and the list of his key points and concerns on another, placing the two on the desk in front of him;
RBH1538
DMH1727
LCH1198
Andrew McMillan
Tory Candidate
2 mobile phones, 1 for exclusive use of coded texts, the other missing
Jack of Diamonds in mouth of dead body
Moved from original place of stabbing
Wrapped in plastic AND rug
Dumped IN a bin
No financial issues
Ring on finger
Late clandestine meetings not unusual
Within twenty minutes, he knew most of it. he suspected that anyone else looking at it would either fall into the obvious trap of researching car registrations, or alternatively, look for something way more complex than what it actually was. He picked up his papers and went to find Debbie.
She was just switching off the TV screen when Oliver entered the room.
