Solid Proof: A dark, disturbing, detective mystery (Sgt Major Crane crime thrillers Book 8)

by Wendy Cartmell

  Crane wondered how a mother could be so lax as to not notice that her daughter was pregnant, but once more kept that opinion to himself.

  “So what happened then?” Anderson asked.

  Crane was glad Anderson was doing the talking as he couldn’t trust himself to be sympathetic.

  “Well, of course, her father went ballistic, shouted and screamed at her, he did. Why didn’t she tell us? Who was the father? That sort of thing. But Janey kept her mouth firmly closed. Anyway in the end we decided she should be kept home from school after that. We all thought it was for the best.”

  “For the best? For whom?” Anderson asked.

  “Well Janey for one and for us as well, I suppose. Her reputation couldn’t be tarnished with an unwanted baby. She was 15 at the time, for God’s sake. What do you think we should have done?” Mrs Carlton snapped at Anderson.

  “What happened to the baby?” Crane interjected to try and divert Mrs Carlton from her anger at Anderson.

  “She went into a Catholic home for young mothers. After she’d given birth, they put the baby up for adoption and she came home. She said she’d called him Zane. And then none of us spoke of it again.”

  “Did she ever say anything about her son tracking her down?”

  “Not to me, but then she was always so busy, we didn’t get a chance to talk very often.”

  “Mrs Carlton, can you give us details of the facility Janey went to?”

  “I think so, hang on,” and she stood and walked over to a set of drawers. She rummaged around for a while then found a large brown envelope, which she carried back to her chair. “I’m sure it’s in here,” she said. Several pieces of paper later, she held up a letter. “Here, this is their confirmation that they had a place for Janey.”

  “May we keep this, please?” Anderson asked.

  Mrs Carlton nodded. “But can I have it back?”

  “Of course,” Anderson soothed. “We’ll be very careful with it.”

  They had just climbed into Crane’s car when Anderson’s phone rang. Anderson held up his hand to stop Crane driving away and listened for a moment.

  “It’s Saunders from the Met,” he whispered to Crane who nodded and settled down in his seat to wait. Anderson’s end of the conversation didn’t give much away, so Crane had to wait with mounting impatience while Anderson made notes in his book. He rapidly puffed on the cigarette he had lit, blowing the smoke out of his window.

  At last Anderson ended the call and turned to Crane. “That was Saunders.”

  “And?” Crane’s impatience was boiling over and he took one last drag of his cigarette.

  “They’ve found the website Janey used for her escort services.”

  “And?” Crane threw the butt out of the window.

  “They hope that he contacted her, or made a booking, through that agency.”

  “And? For God’s sake, Derek!”

  Anderson laughed at Crane’s impatience, which made him even angrier.

  “Sorry,” Anderson apologised. “And they are going to follow up on that lead. They hope to be able to get a list of her clients from them and details of the credit cards that were used to make bookings with her.”

  “Can’t we do that?”

  “No. The Met are insisting that it falls within their remit and that they can get a search warrant quicker than we can if they need one. They reckon they’d be more intimidating to the owner of the website than us, or at least the local Aldershot police.”

  Crane blew out a sigh, “So what now?” Crane was deflating quicker than a pricked balloon.

  “We follow our own lead. We need to investigate this Catholic home and see what we can find out about the adoption process, who Zane’s adoptive parents were, etc.”

  “Right oh,” Crane sighed. He knew better than to challenge Britain’s largest and best equipped police force. “So where to now?”

  “Back to the police station. Let’s see what we can find out about this home.”

  36

  It was early the next morning that DC Saunders rang, requesting a conference call with Crane and Anderson. Once the three of them were able to hear each other, Saunders brought them up to date.

  “As you know,” he began, “all crimes are put into the national database and from there we can search for those with similar modus operandi. Well, overnight I ran a search for murdered women with Janey Cunningham’s description: blond hair, blue eyes, slim, long legged, murdered in and around the London area.” Saunders paused.

  “And you found one,” stated Crane, his heart sinking. Why else would Saunders have phoned?

  “Yes,” Saunders confirmed. “Her body was found last month in the River Thames, just down from Taggs Island.”

  “Just one?” asked Anderson.

  “Yes, but I’ve had a word with my boss and we’re going to arrange for a search in the river around the island. With men on the banks and boats on the river at first and divers later if there is sufficient evidence that there may be more women down there.”

  “Sufficient evidence?” asked Crane.

  “Normally we find shoes, or other items of clothing, stuck in reeds along the bank or under bridges that may be an indication of other victims.”

  The silence was heavy between the three men as they each thought about the possibility of finding more victims.

  Crane broke it. “So you think that maybe our Zane has done this before?”

  “It certainly fits the pathology of a psychopath. He could have started with women who looked like his mother.”

  “Practising,” said Anderson.

  “Precisely,” agreed Saunders.

  “Bloody hell,” said Crane.

  “And then once they failed to satisfy his need to kill his mother…”

  “He found the opportunity to kill the real thing,” said Crane.

  “That’s the working theory so far,” agreed Saunders. “Look, I’ll keep you up to date and I’m going to email to you the case notes and photographs. But I’ve got to ask you both to keep this under your hats for now.”

  “Of course,” said Anderson.

  “Absolutely,” agreed Crane. “You’ll let us know if you find any more bodies?”

  “You’ll be the first to know,” said Saunders and cut the connection.

  Crane slowly replaced the receiver and blew out a breath. Dear God, how much worse could this case get? If Saunders and his theories were correct, there could be several girls hidden in the Thames, lying in their silent, deep, watery graves, patiently waiting until they were found so that they could tell their secrets.

  His computer dinged with the alert of an incoming email. Saunders had been quick about sending through the information and Crane reluctantly opened the attachment. Filling the screen was the image of a young girl, mid to late 20’s, dead on the river bank. She was the spitting image of Janey Carlton at the same age. Only this girl had bits of leaves and plant lodged in her hair instead of artfully arranged blond locks. Her face was bloated, one eye nibbled out by some kind of fish or other. Her hands were placed by her side and Crane noticed there were only ribbons of flesh left on one or two of her fingers. Her legs looked bruised and putrefied. He closed his eyes against the photograph, wondering, not for the first time, why he did this job and went outside for a cigarette, before his morning briefing with Captain Draper.

  As Crane paced around the car park outside Provost Barracks, he felt sick to his stomach and when he closed his eyes, a picture of his wife sprang to mind. However, it wasn’t an image of Tina happy, healthy and smiling. But lying dead. A rotting corpse just like the picture he’d just looked at of the unknown victim, who might well have been killed by the elusive Zane. Opening his eyes again, he raised a shaking hand to his mouth to take a drag of his cigarette, but his fingers disobeyed his brain and the cigarette fell to the floor. Crushing it underfoot, he raised himself to his full height. He reminded himself that he was a soldier, who had a job to do and was under orders to do it to
the best of his ability. He squared his shoulders against the vile images and rotated his head to try and release the tension in his neck. Being emotionally involved wouldn’t do him, or the case, any good. Soldiers didn’t do emotion. Emotion got you killed. It wasn’t that he was a hard bastard; although that was the impression he gave. It was just that being a gibbering wreck, empathising with people’s pain, feeling guilty about not saving someone when it clearly wasn’t his fault, helped no one. He was a Sgt Major in the British Army. He had to show some backbone. Man up and help catch the bastard.

  37

  ...By now he had traced Janey and the Major to the Mayfair Club. It hadn’t taken much effort. Once he was inveigled in their social set, albeit the fringes, all it took was a quiet word in a few ears, before someone told him about the Mayfair Club. Money being no object, he was welcomed by Dante Skinner with open arms and quickly became an enthusiastic member. He always went with a different girl on his arm and he quite literally, entered into the swing of things.

  For a few golden weeks he and whoever was his latest piece of totty became the preferred partners of choice for his mother and her husband, the Major. The Janey look-alikes attracted the Major and his dark, smouldering good looks, his mother.

  He was in heaven. He relished her touch, revelled in it, and came alive in her arms. He worshiped her in the flesh whereas before he’d had to worship her from afar. He was careful to be the best sexual partner he could be. Putting her needs first, he teased, flirted and massaged her body and her ego. He told her how beautiful she was. How lucky the Major was to have her as his wife. Said he hoped her husband appreciated her as much as he did.

  Janey responded as any woman would. She became as intoxicated with him as he was with her, although she always tried to hide that attraction from her husband. She said she didn’t want him feeling jealous. But in the end he had been. Jealous, that was. He found ways to persuade his wife to find other partners. Janey told him the Major didn’t wanted their experiences at the club to go stale. The idea was to sample new partners, not keep going to the same ones.

  And so gradually Janey and the Major withdrew their favours from him. The army bastard took her away from him.

  But he couldn’t lose her. He had to find another way to get close to her again.

  38

  Crane was on the phone when Anderson arrived. They’d decided to meet at Provost Barracks, just for a change really and the policeman had arrived right on time.

  As Crane put down the phone he said, “Great timing, Derek, that was Captain Draper on the phone. He’ll be down shortly for an update.”

  Anderson nodded his assent and shrugged off his raincoat. Crane idly wondered whether he’d continue to wear it in the summer time. For some reason it was becoming a badge of honour for Anderson. Either that or he wore it because Crane himself wore a black raincoat, the dark colour making the army detective fade into the background and Anderson’s beige fabric stand out.

  Billy was just pouring coffee for them all, when Draper burst into the large room. He threaded his way through the desks and grabbed a coffee from the tray Billy was carrying. After blowing across the scalding liquid, he took a tentative sip and said, “Morning all, right where are we?”

  The men gathered by Crane’s whiteboards, which Billy was religiously keeping up to date as information filtered in from the Aldershot and the Metropolitan Police forces.

  “Let’s start with the escort agency,” said Anderson and rummaged in his briefcase. Pulling out several pages clipped together he said, “The Met have eventually got the information on the bookings for Janey Carlton.”

  “At last,” said Crane.

  Anderson ignored him. “They managed to trace the owner of the site she had a website hosted on.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Draper.

  “When you build a website, you either use a large commercial site owner such WordPress, or Webs; or someone designs one specifically for you. Janey chose a commercial site owner, one that specialised in her particular type of activities, where she built her site and it was hosted on their servers. They make it really easy to do by dragging and dropping text and picture boxes, contact forms and using their payment facilities.”

  “So,” said Draper. “If someone goes on Janey’s website and makes an appointment, they would use the payment facility on her website, which is controlled by the company that host it.”

  “That’s right. So the Met managed to persuade the company to give them the list of payments made through her site.”

  “I guess her being found dead helped with that one,” said Crane dryly.

  Anderson threw him a look and continued, “Payments were made by credit card, to the Mayfair Club.”

  Crane abruptly sat down. “The lying bastard,” he said.

  “Who?” asked Draper also sitting.

  “Dante bloody Skinner,” said Crane.

  “Exactly,” agreed Anderson.

  “He never said a word about running prostitutes on the side,” said Crane. “But then he wouldn’t do, would he?”

  “No.”

  “Who?” asked Draper, so Crane explained that Dante Skinner was the owner of the Mayfair, where the Cunninghams and the other swingers gathered. Crane and Anderson had interviewed him. Twice.

  “I don’t know about you, Derek, but I’m fed up of people hiding things, keeping secrets. Dante Skinner could be harbouring a killer. Janey’s mother didn’t tell us about the baby. The Major didn’t tell us about the drugs or sex. Jesus. What’s wrong with these people?” he asked no one in particular.

  “So despite the obstacles, which you’ve managed to hurdle, where do we go now?” Draper asked.

  Anderson said, “The Met have sent through the list of clients identified from their credit card transactions. They got the information, as they have more clout than us, but it’s down to us to help analyse it. I thought we could pull up a profile on each one of them and then it should be easy enough to find someone fitting our suspect criteria.”

  “Which is what?”

  “Oh, right, boss, that’s the other piece of news,” said Crane. “Late yesterday we interviewed Mrs Carlton again and she told us that Janey had had a child when she was fifteen. He was put up for adoption and she’d asked the adoption agency that he be called Zane.”

  “Ah, I see,” said Draper. “So we’re looking for a male, aged around 30, preferably going by the name of Zane.”

  “That’s about right, boss. We’ve got an artist’s impression of him from one of the couples who regularly attend the Mayfair.”

  “Get on with it then,” Draper said, pushing himself out of his chair. He nodded to Derek as he walked away and disappeared back upstairs.

  “That’s it?” said Anderson. “That was the briefing?”

  Crane nodded. “Why?” he asked.

  “There was no investigative insight from him,” said Anderson. “No try this, or try that, or what about this avenue of investigation. Just a ‘get on with it’.”

  Crane smiled. “That’s officers for you, Derek. Get used to it. I’ve had to.”

  39

  Nothing much could be heard from Derek, Crane and Billy, apart from mumbles.

  “How about him?” asked Anderson.

  “Too old,” commented Crane.

  “Oh, right.”

  “Boss, this one?” said Billy.

  Crane shook his head, “Wrong hair colour.”

  “Bugger.”

  Crane said, “Got a possible, here, Derek.”

  Anderson glanced over. “Too fat.”

  “Point taken,” said Crane, who scratched at the scar under his beard. “I’ve never known a prostitute to have so many clients.”

  “Know a lot of them do you?” asked Anderson.

  “You know what I mean, Derek, stop taking the piss.”

  “What I find surprising is how many of them use the wife’s credit card, or at least a card in her name,” said Anderson.

 
; “Bet half the time she doesn’t even know she has it!” said Crane.

  “Too true.” Anderson stood and stretched his spine. “I don’t know about you, but I need a sugar injection,” he said.

  “Wait a minute,” called Crane. “I think I may have something here. Can you pull up this name on your terminal, Derek? You’re remotely connected to the police databases aren’t you?”

  “Yup, pass it over. But only if Billy finds me something sugary to eat.”

  “Sorry?” said Billy who was also pouring over lists of credit card transactions, helping them out as he had a bit of free time and so had been pressganged into helping. “I never knew you could charge this much for sex,” he said as he stood.

  “Would you?” Crane asked him.

  “What?”

  “Pay for sex?”

  Billy smiled, his blue eyes crinkling and his blond hair flopping forward. “Really? Seriously?”

  “No, I don’t suppose you’d ever need to,” conceded Crane, whose dark features were the antipathy of Billy’s blond hair, fresh-faced visage and crinkly blue eyes. With an impressive body, all rippling muscles and flat stomach, Billy was most women’s dreamboat.

  “That’s about right, boss,” he grinned. “So, cake or biscuits?”

  “Both,” said Crane and Anderson simultaneously.

  “Well I’ll be buggered,” said Anderson as Billy walked away.

  Crane wasn’t sure how to take that comment; was it good news, or bad? So he asked.

  “I think its good news,” said Anderson. “Look at this, Crane.”

  Crane moved to view the terminal over Anderson’s shoulder. “Who’s that?” he asked as a picture of a DVLC driving licence appeared on the screen. “My God, that looks like the artists’ impression we have. Is it really Zane do you think?”

  “Could well be, we’ll have to check with them. Go and see them and show them a photograph.”

  “What’s his name?” asked Crane.

  “Tyler Wells, a resident in a trendy part of North London, employed as a Hedge Fund Manager in the City of London.