Night of Fire: (DI Angus Henderson Book 6)

by Iain Cameron

  TEN

  ‘It feels like I’ve done a deal with the devil,’ Henderson said.

  ‘It’s a difficult path to walk,’ DS Edwards replied. ‘Give Tremain too much and Professional Standards will be all over us like a bad smell, give him too little and he’ll get pissed off and mess us around big time.’

  Henderson was standing in the doorway of Edwards’s office, leaning against the frame, a quick trip to see the boss and give her an update on his meeting with Rob Tremain. He turned to go. ‘At least it should turn down the volume of criticism.’

  ‘I hope you’re right, but there’s still a couple of robbers to catch.’

  Henderson sighed. ‘Don’t remind me. See you later.’

  He headed downstairs, his movement unhurried and his mind buzzing. He opened the double doors and walked through, heading for the morning briefing when DS Gerry Hobbs and DC Lisa Newman, rushing the other way, nearly bowled him over.

  ‘Got a sighting boss,’ a breathless Hobbs said. ‘Two big guys matching the description of our robbers, sitting in a car in Woodingdean. Got to go.’

  ‘Go get them!’ Henderson called after them.

  They careered down the staircase two at a time, leaving an invigorated Henderson to enter the Detectives’ Room to rally the Lewes murder team already gathered around the whiteboards in the corner.

  ‘We’ll kick off with Quinlan Foods. Carol, what did they have to say?’

  ‘Seb and me talked to the Managing Director and owner, an Irish bloke called Francis Quinlan. If we didn’t know he was rich from the smart suit and big Rolex, he told us often enough.’

  ‘Is it a big place?’ Henderson asked.

  ‘It’s a huge place divided into various sections dealing with different food types. Quinlan says the company trades on quality not quantity. He’s got contracts with all the big supermarkets and only sells high end stuff. Seb liked the pork pie they gave him anyway.’

  ‘What did you find out about Marc?’

  ‘There’s a team of four in the sales office, two guys who go out on sales calls and two who stay in the office doing admin and research. Marc, according to the MD is the best salesman he’s ever had by a long chalk.’

  ‘Is this him speaking well of the dead?’

  ‘No, he showed us,’ Seb Young said. ‘We saw sales charts, profit figures, the bonuses paid to Marc compared to the other guy in the team, the whole nine yards. He really was head and shoulders above his colleague.’

  ‘Did you meet him, the other guy?’

  ‘No,’ Walters said. ‘He was out on a call.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘Josh Gardner.’

  ‘I can imagine if Quinlan is calling Marc the best salesman he’s ever had and giving him big bonuses, the other guy might get a miffed.’

  ‘It did put Gardner’s nose out of joint,’ Walters said, ‘but Quinlan believes the competition made him a better salesman.’

  ‘I don’t know about that, but jealously is a strong emotion,’ Henderson said, as he bent down to make a note on his pad. ‘We need to speak to Josh Gardner.’

  ‘We also spoke to Christine Sutherland,’ Walters said. ‘This is the woman Marc used to go out with. She works in the Accounts department as Finance Director.’

  ‘What’s she like?’

  ‘She’s very nice–’

  ‘Nice?’ Seb Young spluttered. ‘She’s a belter. Cracking figure, gorgeous face and she’s got whacking big… a big salary.’

  ‘As I said,’ Walters continued, ‘we talked to Ms Sutherland about her relationship with Marc and why they split. She said she felt really cut up at the time and only went round to the house to see if they could patch things up. She soon realised she was wasting her time and gave up.’

  ‘Sounds rational when you say it like that, but Mrs Pickering made it sound more like stalking.’

  ‘She did, but she’s a mother defending her son against predatory women.’

  ‘Maybe. How does Sutherland seem to you now?’

  ‘Aside from DC Young’s sexist comments, cool, logical and smart.’

  ‘No simmering resentment over Marc?’

  ‘None that I could detect.’

  ‘Did she sound much like our killer?’

  Walters shook her head. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Ok, Quinlan Foods seems to be a dead end, with the exception of one loose end, Josh Gardner. Harry, did you find out anything about the large deposits we saw in Marc’s bank statement?’

  ‘I’m still waiting for the bank to come back to me but I’m not hopeful. I think they’ll say I need a court order.’

  ‘If they do, I’ll authorise it. I want to know.’

  ‘Will do. The good news is we got to the bottom of Marc owning two phones. The one in his possession the night he died was his work phone, property of Quinlan Foods and destroyed in the fire. The one we found at his house is his personal phone, and as you would expect from a single man about town, full of texts from girlfriends, some of them explicit.’

  ‘Anything threatening?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘What about the laptop?’

  ‘Much the same.’

  ‘Get them both off to the high-tech unit. Have them look at deleted texts and emails.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘How did you get on with Marc’s mindfulness journal, DS Walters?’

  ‘It’s like looking through someone’s underwear drawer. I’m halfway through but I can tell you it’s a slog.’

  ‘Anything pertinent to the investigation?’

  ‘Nothing that will add to the knowledge we already have, but it reinforces his dislike of Jeff Pickering and how annoyed he was when Christine Sutherland wouldn’t let go.’

  ‘Interesting. Keep going with it.’ He looked down at his notes then back at the team. ‘Now, you’ve all heard Guy Barton’s accusation that Marc and Lily Barton were having an affair. What can you add to this, Harry?’

  ‘I took a look at the phone and laptop that I mentioned earlier were recovered from Marc’s house; on there are messages from someone signing themselves as ‘Tiger’ in an email or ‘T’ in a text. It sounds like a bedroom reference but having kids who are into Peter Pan, I think it might be short for Tiger Lily. The texts came from a Pay As You Go phone and using a contact I’ve got at a phone company, they traced its most used geographical location to Lily Barton’s house. The texts suggest Marc and Lily were having an affair right up until the day he died.’

  **

  Henderson returned to his office after the team briefing, his mind buzzing with the implications of what he’d just heard but still trying to get his hands on something more concrete than rumours and supposition. He began to write the names of the ‘persons of interest’ up on the whiteboard in his office, much like the three in the corner of the Detectives’ Room, but with his personal take on the matter.

  They were now at the frustrating stage of any enquiry, trying to make sense of a large number of disparate pieces of information. If and when it settled into some semblance of order, it could take them in one direction, only to be diverted by better evidence at some later date. So far, only Guy Barton and Jeff Pickering, based on the team’s investigations and his take on their personalities, looked worthy of further examination, although both men had reasonably sound alibis.

  He couldn’t rule out the involvement of Lily Barton, knowing she and Marc were having an affair right up until the end. A woman wronged at the termination of an affair was just as dangerous as the husband finding out. He would interview them both himself, but separately.

  He needed to get over Jeff Pickering being such an odious character, too full of his own importance and too ready to use his fists to settle a disagreement. His latest disfigurement unsettled Henderson. It wasn’t unusual in child abduction and child murder cases to find the step-father or uncle being attacked in the street by a neighbour or a stranger, but Marc Emerson didn’t fall into this category. It
could be something innocent like a football discussion gone wrong, but coincidences like this were hard to ignore.

  He was adding notes and reminders to the whiteboard when Gerry Hobbs walked in and flopped into a seat.

  ‘You look dead,’ Henderson said. ‘Did your suspects give you the run-around?’

  ‘Running and wrestling.’

  ‘Did you get them?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Was it the housewife robbers?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, forcing a smile.

  ‘Well done,’ Henderson said, walking around the desk to shake his hand. ‘What happened?’

  ‘When we got there, they were inside the house robbing it. There was four of us: Lisa, me and two uniforms. We decided to wait for them to come out.’

  ‘Wise move. If you’d gone into the house, you might have stopped the woman getting hurt, but in a confined space anything could happen. Every house has any number of weapons the robbers could have picked up and used against you.’

  ‘Or it could have developed into a hostage situation. Any road, we waited outside and as soon as they closed the door behind them, we grabbed them, but one guy lashed out like a cornered cat and scarpered. I’ve been running over the back gardens of Woodingdean like a fell runner but he looked as unfit as me so I didn’t lose sight of him.’

  ‘How did you catch him?’

  ‘Lisa followed in the car and when he came out of an alley to the road, she was out of the car in a flash and had him flat on the ground and cuffed before I got there.’

  ‘Her first big nabbing, she’ll be well chuffed.’

  ‘She is. I’m just knackered.’

  ‘You played your part too mate, don’t you worry. Where are they?’

  ‘Cooling off in the cells.’

  Chief Inspector Edwards appeared at the door. ‘I heard the great news,’ she said. She walked in and grabbed Hobbs by the hand. ‘Congratulations Gerry, at last we’ve nabbed that pair of bastards. The housewives of Brighton owe you big time.’

  She turned to Henderson. ‘Well done to you too, Angus.’

  ‘The Argus will have no more excuses for jumping down our throats with sensational headlines and pictures of bruised women.’

  ‘What about Tremain? You should back away from him now.’

  Henderson shook his head. ‘No, I can’t do that just yet. I’ll give him a call in a few minutes and tell him we’ve caught them, but I made a deal with him over the Lewes murder. If I don’t see it through I’m sure he’ll find something else to hang us with.’

  ELEVEN

  She looked around the room, lines of exasperation on her face. Lily Barton had worked with most of them for several years, and knew them to be a dedicated and focussed bunch, but for some reason, it wasn’t gelling today. A meeting she believed to be straightforward and uncomplicated had been redirected down blind alleys, people taking sides and their discussions peppered with bitchy bickering.

  The explanation for the acrimony quickly became apparent, and she chided herself for not spotting it earlier. Ashley, her genius graphic designer, had split up with Eve, one of her editors. Christ! The last time she inquired, they were still at the ‘getting to know you’ stage. With Marc’s death still raw, she realised she’d taken her eye off the ball more than she thought those last few weeks.

  ‘Hold it, hold it,’ she said. ‘We’re not here to pull apart Ash’s book designs, which I think look fantastic–’

  ‘Yes, but–’ Eve said.

  ‘Eve, be quiet, you’ve said enough. I now want this meeting back on track. All of you, listen up. We’re here to re-launch these terrific books by Marianne Lester. We’ve got a great new cover design which I’m sticking with, Sian has reworded the blurb and now all six books look fantastic. What I want from you guys is ideas on how we make the occasion of their launch, the book event of the year. So everyone, stop bitching about work already done and let’s focus on what we need to do. Ok?’

  Half an hour later Lily Barton returned to her office. She seldom looked at the view, rushing from one meeting to another, often clutching proofs or airline tickets in her hand. Since Marc’s death, she noticed it more. Merlin Romance and its parent company, Russell-Taylor Publishing, were located in a glass and steel edifice at the side of London Bridge railway station. From her office on the eighth floor, looking east, she could see all the way to Canary Wharf, north to the arch of Wembley Stadium and close by, the Tower of London, St Paul’s Cathedral and HMS Belfast.

  She did wonder why smart offices with such spectacular views were given to senior executives as they spent so little time sitting in them. When they did, the blinds were often closed to aid concentration and, in the case of her Marketing Director, permanently, as he suffered from vertigo.

  She supposed they did it so authors would be impressed when they came to discuss a new book, or in the case of her previous meeting, the re-vamp and re-launch of their back catalogue. Impress them it did, but at times it could backfire. Only last week she received a vitriolic email from one author, claiming the reason his royalties were so low had nothing to do with his poor sales record, but the ‘upkeep of palatial offices in the centre of rip-off London’.

  On her desk, the one photograph of Marc she could allow to be on display without inviting questions. It depicted happier days when she and Guy didn’t argue, and he and Marc were still friends. Marc’s then girlfriend took the picture of the three of them drinking Gluehwein in a mountain-top restaurant in Austria during a skiing holiday. Lily didn’t know at the time, but this marked the stage when her love for Guy began to decline and her love for Marc increased.

  Looking around at other parts of her office left a visitor in no doubt that she worked in the book business. The large bookcase facing her desk was crammed with books from some of Merlin’s most celebrated and valued authors. Books lay on the meeting table ready to be discussed and finalised, and books sat on her desk, waiting for her to give them a green or red light.

  In other divisions within the group, commissioning editors selected and prepared the books to be published, but in Merlin, the jewel in the Russell-Taylor crown, she did it. Merlin’s success had been built on a knack she possessed for spotting authors who would become stars, and ruthlessly cutting out those that would not.

  She picked up a manuscript from the pile, sent to her by a literary agent she respected and written by a mother of two from Newcastle. She slowly read the first chapter and speed-read the next two. The manuscript was placed on her green pile. She did the same with the next book but put it on the red pile. By six-thirty, two manuscripts lay in her green file and would be progressed while the six in her red file would not. She tidied her desk, located Karen King, her Senior Editor, and the two women left the building.

  They arrived at Somerset House as the speeches were in progress. If Lily chose to do so, she could attend book launches two or three times a week, but rationed her time to a few of her favourite authors. Today saw the publication of a new thriller novel by the celebrated Dan Harland, a Taylor-Russell author but not one of hers.

  After the speeches, she left Karen to socialise and indulge in her love of champagne, and located her friend, Donna Ester, a literary agent at the Grant-Dressler agency. They both recharged their glasses with fresh bubbly and took a seat on the balcony above the hubbub of clinking glass, loud laughter and hearty back-slaps.

  For twenty minutes, the two women discussed several of the new authors Donna was championing, the missed deadlines of another and a potential television series for one of Merlin’s most popular writers. The work completed and pushed to one side, Donna sat back cradling her glass.

  ‘They still haven’t identified Marc’s murderer,’ Lily said.

  Donna leaned forward and grasped her hand. ‘I feel for you, girl, I really do. I told you last time we met that I’d speak to a detective I know at the Met?’

  Lily nodded.

  ‘I did and he said much the same thing as has been in the papers. Case
s like this can take a long time to solve as most of the forensic evidence is lost in the fire and they have little to go on.’

  ‘I understand but I feel so vulnerable.’

  ‘Are you still worried the killer will come after you?’

  ‘No, it’s not that. The threatening texts stopped a month ago and I haven’t received one since.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it. I guess they must have come from an old girlfriend of his, like we thought.’

  ‘I think so. Now he’s dead, there wouldn’t be much point.’ Tears welled in her eyes but she wiped them away.

  ‘Your stalker seems to be over you pinching her man,’ Donna said, ‘but you’re not over him, are you?’

  ‘No, and I don’t think I ever will be. Do you think because the police don’t seem to have a definite lead, the spotlight might fall on me and my relationship with Marc?’

  ‘Yeah, it might, but so what? You didn’t do it, did you? You’ve got nothing to worry about, girl.’

  ‘I know, but you hear stories of people’s names being dragged through the mud and losing their job and having to move house, bricks thrown through their windows and people calling you names in the street.’

  ‘I think those things happen mainly in sex exploitation and child abduction cases.’

  ‘Maybe I am being too melodramatic, but you’ve been in this business as long as me. Taylor-Russell might publish books with sex, violence, murder and rape between the covers, but as soon as one of their employees is involved in any sort of scandal, they drop them like a hot potato.’

  ‘I must admit your lot are more conservative than most, but it’s double standards. I didn’t see anybody wringing their hands in angst when they published Siren, the diary of the New Jersey serial killer. A best-seller is a best-seller at the end of the day.’