Deadly Dance

by Hilary Bonner

  Vogel could hardly believe how well everything Vera Court said fitted in to the shocking scenario now unfolding.

  According to Professor Heath, this was an almost classic background for someone suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder. John Willis’s colleagues had just accepted Willis as a socially awkward man, who didn’t like to be drawn on anything personal, but was a damned good copper. What a joke that assessment was proving to be.

  Vera Court began to speak again.

  ‘Mr Vogel, I’m right, aren’t I? You think John is this crazy killer, this Aeolus?’

  Vogel felt the time had come to be honest. He needed more help from Vera. Willis had Saslow. He didn’t suppose anyone could second-guess the man who thought he was Aeolus, but Vera had some insight that nobody else did. At that moment, she seemed the only hope he had.

  ‘Yes Mrs Court,’ he said. ‘I am afraid there is no longer any doubt.’

  ‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘I’ve thought for years he wasn’t right in the head. But this? Nothing like this.’

  The woman may have already guessed, but now that Vogel had confirmed her suspicions, she seemed totally in shock.

  ‘Mrs Court,’ continued Vogel gently. ‘There’s more. It appears that John is holding one of our officers hostage. We have grave fears for her safety. We need to find her, and John, as quickly as possible. Have you any idea where he might go, where he might take someone in a situation like this?’

  Vera Court shook her head.

  Vogel persisted.

  ‘He didn’t have another property. A lock-up anywhere?’

  ‘No, not that I know of, anyway.’

  ‘Was there any place, I don’t know, somewhere remote, where he might hide, or hide someone else?’

  Vera Willis shook her head again.

  ‘Mr Vogel, I lived with John for nearly seven years, and I realised long ago that I didn’t really know him at all. I have no idea where he might go, or where he might take someone, but I dread to think what he might do to that someone.’

  Right after Vera Court left, Vogel called forensics to see if there’d been any results yet, following his request for an urgent check on the DNA and fingerprints on record for Willis. He wasn’t surprised to learn that there were still no matches found for Willis’s DNA.

  ‘The fingerprint record on file has just been checked and found to be unidentifiable,’ the forensic technician told Vogel.

  ‘What does that mean?’ Vogel asked.

  ‘Well, it’s not a properly obtained record,’ came the reply. ‘The prints are distorted.’

  ‘Distorted?’ queried Vogel. ‘How?’

  ‘Simple really,’ said the forensics technician. ‘You only have to drag your finger a fraction of a centimetre and the prints are rendered useless. Of course, with members of the public, who are on suspicion of offences, the results would immediately be thoroughly scrutinised by the officer in charge. But with a copper? Well, you know …’

  Vogel did know. The taking of a new police officer’s fingerprints was just a matter of routine. Nobody was likely to check them very thoroughly. As for DNA, Vogel thought back to his own experience. Samples were usually taken during a recruit’s training. In Vogel’s day, the instructing officer was inclined to build the taking of such samples into training procedure. Vogel remembered being teamed up with another young copper. They took samples of each other’s saliva using a swab. That way, not only was their DNA put on record as required, but they learned the procedure of doing so.

  It seemed clear that Willis had falsified his own records one way or another. Unfortunately, Vogel could see only too clearly how it might have been done. Advanced technology and tighter regulations had combined to make it increasingly more difficult for anyone so inclined to do such a thing, but John Willis had joined the force thirteen years previously.

  One of the most frightening aspects of this was why had he falsified his records all that time ago, long before the recent spate of killings that he was almost certainly responsible for? The obvious answer was that Willis had already committed some kind of serious crime, most likely a murder or murders. At the very least, he was covering his tracks for the future.

  Vogel thought it was probably both.

  He clicked into Willis’s file again to see who his training officer had been, the man who would have overseen his DNA testing and finger printing. DI Phillip Marcus was long retired, but his contact details were all there. Marcus answered his phone straight away. He sounded surprised but not alarmed.

  No, he didn’t remember John Willis in particular. But yes, he always used to ask recruits to take each other’s DNA samples. Two training jobs got done at once that way. And yes, of course he’d always checked that recruits’ fingerprints were identifiable. Only when pressed by Vogel, did Marcus finally admit it.

  ‘Well, no, I was probably not as thorough as you would be with a suspect. I don’t think anyone was. Not in my day, anyway. I mean, you’re dealing with police officers and it’s a routine process.’

  Marcus told Vogel nothing he did not already suspect. Things were going from bad to worse. The DNA must have come from a real person and someone not on the PNC or the national data base. Various scenarios came to mind, all of them chilling. Vogel had read of a case in America where a suspect had paid a down-and-out to allow him to take a DNA sample, which he later substituted for his own. Vogel had no knowledge of any suspect having manipulated DNA that way in the UK, but it would clearly be much easier for a trainee police officer to do so.

  Which led Vogel’s train of thought onto the muddle over Melanie Cooke’s father’s DNA. They’d put it down to a rare forensics cock-up. Now it seemed likely that Willis had deliberately substituted his own, previously unrecorded, DNA and prints for Terry Cooke’s. He’d almost certainly done something very like it before.

  Willis, at Vogel’s own request, had gone to Patchway to babysit Cooke’s processing. More than likely he took over, thought Vogel. The custody boys wouldn’t have questioned an MCIT sergeant.

  Of course, Willis would have known that, sooner or later, it would be discovered that the samples he submitted were not Cooke’s. So why would he do it? Vogel remembered the absolute loathing Willis had expressed for Cooke, the alleged wifebeater. As the son of a mother who had been beaten, that alone could have been Willis’s motive for framing Terry Cooke. Or Willis may have been playing for time, trying to wrong-foot his own team, which he certainly succeeded in doing. Vogel wasn’t sure, but he reminded himself that Willis was mad. He might have switched the samples just because he could.

  Whilst he was still contemplating this latest piece of news, PC Polly Jenkins knocked on the open door to his office and entered.

  ‘Boss, traffic have spotted Willis heading out of the city and onto the M4 towards London. The boys want to know what to do. They are currently following but keeping their distance. They think Willis has spotted them, but he doesn’t appear to be reacting.’

  ‘Tell them to back off,’ said Vogel quickly. ‘The car’s on a motorway. We can track it without physically following it, make sure we do and make sure everyone knows that no approach must be made.’

  ‘Right boss.’

  ‘Most importantly of all, could the boys see if there was anyone else in the vehicle? If Willis still has Saslow with him?’

  ‘We asked that straight away, boss. They couldn’t say for certain but, if Dawn is in the car, they’re pretty sure she’s not sitting next to him in the passenger seat.’

  Vogel grunted. Jenkins looked as concerned as he felt. He knew what the young woman was thinking. Dawn could be lying on the back seat out of sight of the cameras. She could be locked in the boot. She could be unconscious, or already dead.

  Vogel shook himself out of it. She could be alive and secreted somewhere Willis/Aeolus was confident she would not be discovered, as the man himself had said on the phone. Aeolus wouldn’t lie, would he? He wouldn’t see the need to lie, Vogel told himself. They just had
to find her.

  But where was she?

  Thanks to the CCTV cameras along the B4057 and Hemmings’s local knowledge, it was strongly suspected that Willis had driven straight to his home, after being alerted by Vogel’s phone call to Saslow. It was reasonable to assume, from the timeline, that Saslow had still been with him and quite probably still with him when he arrived at his home.

  Vogel struggled to keep calm. Not for the first time he was glad that he wasn’t naturally an emotional man. Nonetheless, when the life of a fellow officer was at stake, it was difficult even for him to remain composed, and this wasn’t just any officer. This was Dawn Saslow. His Dawn.

  He had to remind himself that he didn’t even know for certain yet that Willis had gone to his home, let alone taken Dawn Saslow there. But every instinct, coupled with Hemmings’s irrefutable logic, told him that’s what had happened. If Saslow was no longer with Willis in his car, or heaven forbid, lying dead or injured on the floor or in the boot, then she could still be at the house.

  But Willis lived in an ordinary suburban semi. A cursory search had already been completed and the CSIs were now going through the place with a fine toothcomb. Vogel knew all about deficiencies in police searches. The Tia Sharp case came to mind; the twelve-year old’s body, concealed in the attic of her grandmother’s East London home, was missed twice by police searching the premises. Vogel had personal knowledge of CSIs failing to notice an obvious murder weapon, even a bloodied knife, at a crime scene. But this time they were looking for a fellow police officer. Everyone involved was on red alert and hopefully Dawn Saslow was alive. Surely her presence in a three-bedroomed semi couldn’t be overlooked.

  Vogel called Vera Court on her mobile. The woman had not quite reached home. She still sounded in shock. Her life was going to change, thought Vogel obliquely. She mightn’t still be married to this monster, who had fooled so many, but she had been once and their children still bore his name.

  ‘Look, this might seem crazy,’ Vogel began. ‘But is there anywhere at your old, marital home where a person could be hidden? A place that we wouldn’t find, unless we knew it was there?’

  ‘No,’ replied Vera at once. ‘It’s just an ordinary, small house. I mean, there’s an attic, not much space up there. Then there’s the garage. John was always very protective about the garage. I called it his man cave. Nobody else had a key to it and the kids weren’t allowed in. He kept stuff in it for tinkering with the car, for the garden, just ordinary things. I hardly ever went in there. He kept the car in the garage, but if we were going out together he’d fetch it and drive round the front to pick me up. But I’m sure your people have looked in the garage by now, haven’t they, Mr Vogel? And I expect it was as tidy as ever, too. Not much of a hiding place.’

  Willis muttered his agreement.

  ‘You really can’t think of anything else?’

  ‘No. Well … just something, but it’s probably nothing …’

  ‘Go on, Mrs Court.’

  ‘Well I remember one of the elderly neighbours there, old Willy Fox, who used to talk about playing in the air raid shelter, which was built in his garden just before the war. I suppose it would have been used when the docks were bombed in Bristol. Our house didn’t have one as far as I know. John never mentioned it certainly, nor anyone else, but it’s just a thought …’

  Vogel sat up straight in his chair.

  ‘John lived in the house before you were married, didn’t he? Might he have known things about the house that you didn’t?’

  ‘I suppose so, but he couldn’t hide an air raid shelter from me and the kids, surely?’ said Vera.

  ‘I don’t know, Mrs Court,’ responded Vogel. ‘I do know that he appears to have hidden multiple identities and multiple murders from all of us. You said you thought John was capable of anything. He thinks that too. He thinks he is super capable, super clever and that the rest of us pale into insignificance by comparison. That may be his only weakness.’

  As he ended the call, Hemmings walked in.

  ‘The CSIs have been on again to say that there’s nothing at all at Willis’s house,’ said the DCI. ‘A neighbour saw him pull out of the back alley leading from the garage about an hour ago, but couldn’t tell whether there was a passenger in the car. Indeed, they couldn’t actually see Willis, but just assumed it was him. Nobody, that we know of so far, saw the car arrive. There’s no sign of any hurried packing or anything like that and certainly no sign of DC Saslow. They found his passport, in the name of Willis, but we know he has at least one other in another name …’

  Vogel was barely listening. He interrupted Hemmings to repeat what Vera Court had just told him.

  ‘There could be an old air raid shelter at Willis’s place, and I’m banking on it being beneath the garage. Aeolus’ lair. He’s hidden Dawn at that house somewhere, I feel sure. He just wouldn’t have had time to do anything else. And the bastard believes she’s too well concealed for us to find her. I’d like to go round there myself. I know Willis.’

  ‘Umm,’ muttered Hemmings, ‘Not as well as you bloody well thought, it would seem.’

  Vogel couldn’t argue with that. He said nothing.

  ‘What makes you think you can find something the search team haven’t?’ Hemmings persisted.

  ‘I’m gonna dig, boss,’ Vogel said. ‘Aeolus think’s his lair is safe. Thing is, I don’t remember any mention of pneumatic drills in Greek Mythology.’ Vogel almost made himself laugh. It must be the onset of hysteria, he thought. ‘I want to get some hairy-arsed, construction workers out there, sir,’ he continued.

  ‘If you think you’re onto something, go for it.’

  ‘Yes, boss, if I’m right and he’s made some sort of a den out of an old air raid shelter, we don’t even know what ventilation system it has. We need to find Dawn fast, whilst she’s still alive. If she’s still alive.’

  THIRTY-TWO

  Vogel took Polly Jenkins with him to Willis’s home. He knew she and Dawn Saslow were friends. If they found the DC there, he had no idea what state she might be in, and he felt that Jenkins’ presence could only help.

  As soon as they arrived, they both suited up and joined the search team already at work in the detached, double garage at the top of the small back garden. It contained a mechanics inspection pit, which clearly demanded close attention. In spite of assurances from the CSI team that they had checked out that area thoroughly, Vogel clambered down, armed with a lump hammer which he smashed with all his strength against the walls and floor of the pit.

  ‘Careful, sir,’ admonished a young woman CSI.

  Vogel glowered her.

  ‘We have an officer missing,’ he growled. ‘Our first priority is to find her. We can worry about forensics after that.’

  ‘Yes sir, of course, sir,’ said the young woman. ‘But you should know we’ve done more or less exactly what you’re doing all over the garage. Everything is solid as a rock. There’s no false floor or anything like that. We’re sure of it.’

  ‘Some of these wartime shelters were five, or more, metres below ground level,’ muttered Vogel.

  ‘Yes sir, but they had to have an entrance. We’ve found no sign of anything.’

  Vogel started to climb out of the pit. As he did so, the workmen he’d asked for turned up; two of them, both carrying heavy-duty, pneumatic drills.

  Ignoring the obvious disapproval of the CSIs, Vogel ordered them down into the pit and told them to dig.

  The noise, in a confined space, was overwhelming.

  After a few minutes, the workmen paused.

  ‘We’re down three feet and it’s still solid concrete,’ reported one.

  ‘Three feet of concrete?’ queried Vogel. ‘Isn’t that odd?’

  ‘Well yes. Unless it’s the roof of an old shelter which no longer has an entrance at all.’

  ‘It must have an entrance.’

  Vogel was adamant.

  ‘Try drilling down the sides.’

  They
did so.

  ‘Anything?’ yelled Vogel after a few minutes.

  The men switched off their drills so that they could all hear themselves speak.

  ‘Well, there does seem to be the narrowest of gaps around three sides of the pit and down the centre,’ reported one of the workmen. ‘Hair’s breadth. But then, concrete is sometimes laid like that – well, it’s always laid a bit like that, in blocks, to stop it cracking as it sets. Do you want us to carry on digging, mate?’

  ‘Hold on a minute.’

  Vogel lowered himself into the pit and bent over to examine closely where the men had been drilling around the edges. He asked to borrow a screwdriver with which he prodded and probed.

  ‘This couldn’t be some kind of giant plug, could it?’

  ‘A plug, mate?’

  ‘Yes, exactly that. A plug made to fit precisely into a bloody great hole.’

  ‘Well if it is, then it looks to be permanent.’

  ‘It can’t be permanent. It has to move. The only question is how it moves.’

  Vogel hauled himself up and began to root around the garage.

  ‘What’s that,’ he asked, pointing at a large piece of machinery propped in a corner. ‘Isn’t that some sort of hydraulic pump?’

  ‘Well yes, but it’s just the sort of stuff that ends up in a garage, isn’t it?’ said the same young woman CSI.

  ‘Is it?’ queried Vogel. ‘Look, you can see it’s in decent working order. No dust. Could have been used recently. Hydraulics can be channelled to move large objects. Did nobody think of that?’ The CSIs exchanged uncertain glances. ‘If this is what I think it might be, that pump must connect to something,’ muttered Vogel.

  Jenkins spoke then, pointing to a cupboard over to Vogel’s left.

  ‘Look at that, boss,’ she said.

  The door to the cupboard was slightly ajar. Vogel could just see a wheel inside, fitted to the wall, and a complex of pipes emerging from the floor.

  ‘Have you checked that out?’ he asked the CSIs.

  ‘Probably some sort of old water supply,’ replied one of them. ‘We did look at it, yes …’