“What’s he up to?”
“Some say murders: bit of everything if you ask me. He runs most of the prostitutes in Birmingham and probably the drugs trade.”
“Not good.”
You’re telling me. I work here.”
125
Saturday 18th June 2011
Simon promenaded the local streets, and soon noticed that the Police only kept to the main road and streets off to one side of it. They seemed to have a set pattern which they adhered to doggedly. The uniformed officers in the cars looked bored witless as they drove past him oblivious to his presence. Not one of them took any notice of him or considered stopping him, and he was often the only pedestrian walking in a suburban street full of detached houses. Most Police officers would have been all over him wanting to know the ins and outs of his business in the area. The other side of the main road was where Yusuf and RD lived and Police seemed to be proscribed from that side which would prove extremely useful to him.
He strolled past Yusuf’s house first. A tall undulating wall surrounded the property with two ornate iron gates protecting the short drive leading to the parking area and bank of three garages. There was a video system built into the offside pillar supporting one of the gates where visiting drivers could request entry. As he passed indifferently by, he observed a large well-kept two story Victorian styled mansion with out of place white plastic double glazed windows.
A CCTV security camera sat above, and pointing down towards the front doorstep of the house, and there was another over the middle of the three garages. Tucked up high under an arched gable was an alarm box and a couple of floodlights: one directed towards the parking area and the other to an area in front of the main door. It was obviously an expensive property due to its size, and Simon estimated at least five bedrooms. He soon spotted where the wall dipped low enough at one point where he could easily climb over to get into the garden later, unobserved by either camera.
Still walking on two streets further, he turned into a cul-de-sac where RD’s house was the last and largest in the street of five. The road seemed to terminate at the entrance to his property. Within the first ten yards and before the entrance to the first house there was a little green sentry type box on the pavement big enough for one person to sit in, and it was occupied. Simon walked slowly on towards it taking out his local map and studying it as though searching for an address. As he approached the box, the man exited out of the door at the rear of it unbuttoning his jacket in the process. He was a good six feet three inches, slightly overweight, ‘suited and booted’ and looked reasonably smart and was carrying a large black Maglite torch in the bright daylight of a late afternoon of a beautiful summer’s day. It was a blatant threat.
“You can’t come down here.”
“Why not? I’m looking for someone.”
“I’m telling you. Turn round and go back.”
“I didn’t know this was a private road.”
“You’re not expected. There is no one in this road who wants to see you.”
“Ok. Sorry.”
“No problem” and the man stood and watched Simon leave the road before returning to his seat in the box having done up his jacket.
Simon had seen that there had been an old fashioned bakelite corded telephone on a small triangular shelf in one of the corners of the sentry box. The cord was twisted from use over time and no one had seen fit to untwist it. It did not impede the movement of the occupant in any way. As he’d spoken to the ‘sentry’ he’d noticed that he had his suit jacket undone which would not normally be unusual on such a hot day, but he’d undone it as he exited the box. ‘Why would he have it done up while sitting down and undoing it when he got out? Only one obvious conclusion.’
Glancing past him as they’d spoken, he’d seen RD’s house: more a palace than a mansion at the end of the cul-de-sac with large wide open inviting gates. It made Yusuf’s place look like a cheap pile of bricks. In his snatched views, he’d not noticed any sign of a camera or alarm, but he could not rule out their absence. He had to assume that there was another ‘sentry’ of some type either stationed at the rear, or inside the house, or even maybe patrolling the grounds. So far, everything seemed as though it would be an easy couple of nights.
His mentor’s words drifted back into his mind, ‘Plan for the worst, hope for the best.’
He made his way back to the Audi, unlocked it and got in. Petrovski’s mobile phone was still on the seat and his old jacket still over the back of it. Not a sign of anyone having tampered with the car. This truly was without a doubt a crime free area. Leisurely, he drove back to the motorway, and on to a service station with a Premier Inn hotel. The barrier lifted as he pulled up to the entrance of the hotel’s car park, and he drove in and parked with the boot towards a hedge.
As he alighted from the car he wore a long peaked baseball cap pulled down low to obscure his face should there have been any CCTV cameras. He kept it on as he registered, aware that most hotel reception areas had a camera positioned to record a customer’s identity as well as covering any cash drawers. Booking in using the false name from the hire agreement, he paid cash for four nights. Then to plant an informal notion, Simon remarked to the surly clerk behind the desk that his work should take no more than that. Then he asked if he could confirm that his car with his tools would be secure overnight in the hotel’s car park.
Bordering on rudeness, the clerk verified that, “Of course it will be,” and jabbed a pointed finger at a small TV screen below the reception counter which was split into four different views.
Accepting the unexpected offer to examine the images, Simon saw one was of the reception desk, one on the car park entrance, and two were on corridors. He looked hard at the pictures before he endorsed satisfaction with the security. The only one he could see that he needed to avoid was the one on the reception desk which was deliberately aimed to catch a full facial aspect. He did not bother looking up to see where the camera actually was, but it plainly didn’t catch anyone entering or leaving via the main door. In reality, he noted it was a worthless system that had probably been installed as economically as possible.
Returning to the car, he fiddled about in the boot and confirmed that the only camera on the car park was at the entrance where it was positioned to record the index number plates of the arriving vehicles as they waited for the barrier to lift. Simon eyed the unobstructed exit which led no more than twenty yards straight towards a Shell garage with a forecourt littered with top of the range CCTV security cameras. The exit to the motorway itself if petrol was not sought, circuited via the nearside of the garage so avoiding its stringent detection system.
In order for him to avoid every camera on his return, Simon considered his options. He concluded that on leaving the motorway, he should drive towards the service station and then the wrong way along the twenty-yard short exit and back into the car park. No one should be any the wiser that the vehicle had moved.
Now already in the car park having passed the welcoming barrier camera, he manoeuvred the car to the end nearer the exit and backed up to a wall. People could see through the hedge as they passed by but they were unlikely to climb onto a wall to see what was happening on the other side. Taking his ‘glass cleaner’ from the glove box, he carefully sprayed both back and front number plates. Emitted was a very fine mist of a clear liquid that coated them with a thin film of plastic containing microscopic slivers of aluminium. Anyone looking at the plates would see nothing untoward, but no camera would be able to read them. An ANPR would still photograph the travelling Audi but it would display an illegible blurred image. Somehow the aluminium broke up radar beams and as a result the car was unidentifiable except to the human eye.
It was one of Ian’s new discoveries of which he was extremely proud. He was in protracted negotiations with a section of the military to allow them to utilise the patent. They could envisage its potential use in the dryer regions of the world that they operated in. The only fly
in the ointment was that water was what washed the substance off. Simon knew this and thought, ‘Summer in England. No chance of rain then!’ Taking his own bag from the boot, he stuffed Petrovski’s phone and his jacket into it, and withdrew to his room. He liked Premier Inn hotels because they always seemed to have big comfy beds. This one was no exception, and Simon had a long early evening nap.
126
Saturday 18th June 2011
Prodow said, “Spill the beans Doreen. What have you got?”
She closed her book and put it nonchalantly into her top drawer. Giving a forced single cough, she rubbed her throat.
“It’s such a long story. I think I’ll need at least one cup of tea and some nice biscuits because I’ve had no lunch today.”
Paul said, “On way” and pulled the kettle out of her large bottom drawer as she sat looking serenely into space.
She held her hands together and even imperturbably twiddled her thumbs. Jimmy being the fittest was dispatched to the canteen for packets of at least three different varieties of biscuits. Chairs were pulled to face her desk in a semi-circle as the door was slammed shut after Jimmy’s arrival with an armful of biscuits and fudges which he let drop on her desk. Disdainfully, she glanced at them.
Then seeing a small packet, “Oh, Rich Teas, my favourites.”
A couple of teams of detectives who had returned to the office to write their reports stopped and perched on desks waiting to see what was happening.
Within ten minutes, everyone had a drink in front of them and they were all assembled in front of Doreen’s desk like a group of naughty children in front of their teacher awaiting chastisement.
Between biscuits she said, “I haven’t total proof who did it or why, that’s down to you. I can say unequivocally that I can point you in the right direction.”
Prodow said, “Doreen. Stop talking in riddles.”
“Yesterday, John was doing his usual talking rhetorically and for my sins, I listened to him. Thanks to him, I was unable to sleep last night because I couldn’t stop thinking about what he had been saying. So, I got up and went downstairs to make myself a hot milk drink in the middle of the night. I had considered every possible person who may have had access to the house and the poison and the workshop and tapes. There was no one. Gary had said no one knew. But they did.”
She paused and sipped her tea.
“Ah. Nectar.”
Prodow said, “Doreen. Get on with it or by God I’ll sack you here and now!”
“While I was in the kitchen using the microwave to heat my milk, my Mother had heard me and had come downstairs as well and sat in the darkness of the lounge listening to me. I hadn’t heard her because of the noise the microwave made. That’s when I realised without a shadow of a doubt: at some point, they had to have been overheard.”
John said, “Who by Doreen?”
“Sally’s daughter Deborah: Gary’s step daughter.”
Groves butted in.
“What daughter? There’s no daughter shown anywhere on any of her antecedents.”
As if in a faraway thought “Yes. I did notice that. Strange really” and she picked up a wrapped slice of fudge and looked at it longingly for a good ten seconds.
“No. I mustn’t.”
Paul in his loudest voice cried exasperatingly, “Doreen!”
“Well, you can imagine my surprise when I realised that. I don’t think she has ever tried to hide the fact that she had a daughter, but I can’t be sure. I think I may even have seen her once when Sally brought her along to a book club meeting six or seven years ago. She told our group she was a relative, but not which one.”
She picked up the fudge.
“Why not” and started to unwrap it. Several detectives practically falling off desks shouted at her. Jimmy virtually screamed at her.
Prodow loudly above them all said, “Come on now everyone. Calm down. A little decorum please. Let her speak.”
“Thank you sir. I came to the conclusion that the officer taking the antecedents had probably used a wrong word when he was questioning her. He may have said, ‘Have you AND Gary got any children?’ and she could honestly answer, No. The question should have been, ‘Have either you OR Gary got any children’ and then the answer would have been yes.”
She took a bite of the fudge while everyone considered the hypothesis.
Prodow enquired, “Where’s the proof they were overheard?”
“I’m coming to that” and she took a custard cream from the packet. “I think these must be my favourite biscuits now.”
Prodow said, “So help me Doreen, I’ll kill you now myself.”
“Once I realised someone must have overheard them, I searched for a person who would be likely to stay at their house. It had to be someone at the house as Sally was unlikely ever to go to the workshop and the chance of someone being there to overhear was negligible. Also, the person would have to be acquainted with where the actual poison was in the unmarked bottle.”
She paused and sipped her tea.
“I have gone through everything that I thought would be helpful. An old Passport application that Sally made showed Deborah as her next of kin with her old full address.”
There was silence.
“Sally’s birth certificate showed her Mother as Jean. I have searched the phone records, and I have located their telephone numbers, and from them I’ve confirmed their addresses. It had to be either Sally’s Mother Jean, or her child by her previous marriage: Deborah. Jean is an older lady and would not have been as sprightly as the person on the video. The problem that arose was that neither owns a green Micra and that threw me for a while.
Gary has no relatives to speak of, a few cousins and that’s it. There was no one close enough there.”
She paused again.
“I do love custard creams. I think I’ve actually gone off Rich Teas today” and she took another from the packet.
Paul said, “Doreen. You are skating on very thin ice.”
“It appears from all my enquiries that Sally did not get on too well with her Mother. Jean had, how can I put it, found God having been adopted and brought up in a religious environment by a priest and his wife. Sally was more a rebellious non-believer, and moved on at the age of fourteen or fifteen years. She was married at seventeen and divorced by nineteen. Most of this was buried rather deeply in the files. The rest I got from different agencies.”
She slurped the remnants of her tea, and took a biscuit.
“Let’s see if they are nicer than custard creams” and she bit into it. “Any chance of another cuppa? I’m getting parched with all this chat,” and she forced a slight cough as if to embellish the fact.
Prodow, in his sternest voice said, “Doreen!”
“Well. Deborah was an unplanned and unwanted child and Jean being a devoutly nice sort of person kind of adopted her and has brought her up. As she has grown older, Sally has taken her back very occasionally. I really must have another drink.”
Prodow said to one of the Detectives, “For God’s sake make her a bloody cup of tea.”
Groves said, “Doreen. Stop toying with us. What’s the killer piece of information you have?”
“I pinned my hopes on Deborah having a Micra, and I nearly lost it then. When I got her Facebook information, she showed swapping dresses with her friends for nights out. Then it occurred to me she may have borrowed the car from one of them. None of them owned a green Micra, I checked all her friends thoroughly. I’d noticed on her Facebook page was a reference to a site called Flickr which is where some people post photographs. I was checking it and found an old photograph from a year ago where she was posing with a boyfriend. The photo was dated and timed and was titled with the location and her and his details.”
She handed Prodow a coloured printed photograph as if to confirm what she’d discovered.
Grasping the produced cup of tea in both hands, she sipped it.
“That’s really nice. Thank you.”
>
Prodow said in pronouncement as he glared at Doreen, “I can now quite understand why some murders occur.”
“It has taken me a while to locate him and get all his details. He has a green Micra that he bought from E-bay. He’s still got it and shows Deborah on his own Facebook page as his current girlfriend.”
She handed Prodow a PNC of the green Micra as nearly all those in the room crowded behind him to look over his shoulder as he viewed it.
“As you can see, he still owns it” and she took several gulps of her tea. Then as though an afterthought she added, “Oh, and by the way, do you notice some of the letters and numbers are identical and in the same position as the ones I spotted on the Micra in George’s drive?”
Prodow exclaimed, “Doreen, I love you.”
“You just threatened to kill me!”
“Never!”
127
Saturday 18th June 2011
It was very late in the evening when Simon left the hotel with his baseball cap pulled well down and headed for the car park. Another hour and total darkness was looming. The single camera that picked him up was in a corridor and then only for a couple of seconds. He hadn’t had any warnings from Ian or John, so was confident the car was still not shown as stolen. Being cautious, however, he still checked the Audi for any tampering. He’d used two of his own security measures. A small piece of paper under the driver’s door which would flutter unobtrusively to the ground when the door was opened and a sliver of wood by the hinge of the boot which would lodge in the rain channel should it have been disturbed. Both simple, and crude, but efficient indicators. Neither had been disturbed.
Joining the late night motorway traffic without passing through the garage or by any CCTV camera, he returned to the leafy suburb. Simon parked in a road where a few other vehicles were, and not far from Yusuf’s house on the side the Police were disinclined to visit. He had dressed in black trousers and dark shirt under his black leather jacket. In one pocket was a dark woollen balaclava and his trusty butterfly knife in another. His shoes were dark tan leather with rubber soles and had never once so much as dared to utter a squeak. Walking to where he had decided to climb over the wall, he checked the street, put on a pair of latex gloves and was in Yusuf’s garden with hardly any effort at all.
An Urgent Murder Page 40
