Dead Lock

by Damien Boyd

  ‘We won’t know until the morning.’

  ‘I’ll be in the canteen if Potter rings again.’

  Louise frowned. ‘It’s closed.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  Dixon winced. His phone had been buzzing on the table for several minutes before he finally succumbed to temptation.

  ‘Driving.’

  ‘I wanted you up here for a meeting with the Chief Constable. It’s going on now and he was expecting you.’ Potter sighed down the phone. ‘What do I tell him?’

  ‘Tell him we know who’s behind the kidnap of Hatty and why. You’ve seen the note?’

  ‘A copy of it.’

  ‘Ask him to speak personally to the directors of Svenskabanken and get them to agree the withdrawal of the winding up petition on Monday, if we don’t find her first.’

  ‘And will you?’

  ‘We’re going to have to. Word’s got out that we’ve found Alesha and if that gets back to whoever’s got Hatty, God knows what they’ll do.’

  ‘How the hell did that happen?’

  ‘I don’t know, but it’s only a matter of time before it’s all over the internet.’

  ‘He wants to know how long we keep up this level of surveillance. It’s the overtime bill, if nothing else.’

  Dixon had missed a few meetings in his time, usually when being there would have been far worse than the consequences of absenting himself. This was one of them.

  Git.

  ‘Tell him as long as it bloody well takes and if he pulls the plug, he can explain it to Roger.’

  ‘That’s what I was going to say, in a roundabout sort of way.’ Potter hesitated. ‘How close are we then? I mean really.’

  ‘We’re on the right track; that’s the best I can say for now. It’s not helping that it’s a weekend.’

  ‘Whatever you need . . .’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Dixon rang off and turned back to the documents in front of him. The canteen was deserted and he had pushed several tables together, the documents spread over them all in a multitude of different piles.

  Something in amongst them was significant. He knew that. But what it was and when he had seen it wouldn’t come, no matter how many times he shuffled them around. Nothing for it but to start at the beginning. Again.

  He was halfway through the Polgen documents when Louise appeared in the doorway holding up a plastic document wallet.

  ‘You were right,’ she said. ‘Three years ago, a rear end shunt in Somerton. Here’s the accident report. A guy named Anthony Steiner was driving a Markhams van. He hit the back of a . . .’ Louise was watching Dixon.

  He closed his eyes and took a deep breath through his nose, puffing out his cheeks when he exhaled. Then he stood up, walked around to the far corner of the tables and picked up a pile of documents.

  ‘Are Mark and Dave still here?’ he asked, flicking through the bundle.

  Louise nodded. ‘They wouldn’t go home.’

  ‘Better get them.’ Dixon slid a document out of the bundle and dropped the rest back on the table. ‘Anthony Kurt Steiner. An employee of Markhams, previously a shareholder in Polgen. What d’you make of that, Lou?’

  ‘I’ll go and get Dave and Mark.’

  Dixon looked up, his jaw clenched. ‘It’s going to be a long night.’

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Dixon switched off the engine and listened to the chime of the church bells: ten, eleven, twelve. He looked up at Old School House, lights still on, but then he had expected that.

  The front door opened as he walked across the road, the growl of his diesel engine and the slam of the Land Rover door alerting Poland, who was standing in the doorway, his large frame silhouetted in the shaft of light from the hall, the light glinting on the glass in his hand.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  ‘Where’s Adele?’

  ‘She took a sleeping pill and went to bed.’

  ‘Get her up.’

  ‘She’s not going to be in a fit state.’

  ‘She’ll have to be.’

  ‘What is it?’

  Dixon looked up at the sound of footsteps on the galleried landing above his head. Jeremy was leaning over the balustrade, naked apart from his underpants.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘I need to speak to Adele.’

  ‘She’s taken a—’

  ‘Get her up.’

  ‘I’ll put some coffee on,’ said Roger, disappearing into the kitchen.

  ‘Has he found Hatty?’ Adele’s voice was low and slurred.

  ‘I don’t know,’ replied Jeremy, their voices carrying down the stairs over the sound of the kettle. ‘Have you found Hatty?’ asked Jeremy, peering over the balustrade.

  Dixon shook his head.

  ‘No, he hasn’t, Adele.’ A bout of coughing. ‘Here, drink this.’ Then they appeared at the top of the stairs, Adele wearing a blue bathrobe that was far too big for her. Jeremy’s probably.

  She was holding the banister with both hands as she teetered down the stairs. ‘What is it?’

  Dixon waited until she slumped down on to the sofa.

  ‘Look, is this important?’ asked Jeremy, pulling a T-shirt over his head.

  ‘He’s hardly going to be turning up at this time of night if it isn’t, is he?’ snapped Poland, handing Adele a mug of black coffee.

  Dixon sat down on the arm of the sofa, watching Adele take a sip from the mug. Then she handed it to Jeremy.

  ‘Tell me about Anthony Steiner,’ said Dixon.

  Adele blinked and then turned her head slowly. ‘Tony?’ she asked.

  Dixon nodded.

  ‘I never met him. He was a friend of Simon’s. He had a text messaging system that we integrated into Anytimenow at the start. Simon gave him some shares in return. Five per cent, or something like that, but then we dropped it when the mobile phone companies started offering free texts anyway. After that he was just one of the minority shareholders. Why?’

  ‘Where did he live?’

  ‘Near Midford, I think.’

  ‘And how far’s that from Combe Hay?’

  ‘A couple of miles, I don’t know.’

  ‘What happened to his text messaging system?’

  ‘He had to shut it down.’ Adele shook her head. ‘Last I heard he had a gardening website. He was a techie, really, so it was one computer project after another, I suppose.’

  Dixon leaned forwards. ‘When did you find out they’d killed Sid Farooq?’

  ‘I didn’t!’ Adele sat bolt upright.

  Dixon stared at her, until she looked away and reached up for the mug of coffee with both hands.

  ‘Where did they bury the body?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘But you knew they killed him?’

  ‘No!’ She was shaking now, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  ‘That’s enough!’ shouted Poland.

  ‘When I left that meeting he was alive and sitting in Simon’s living room.’

  ‘And Simon never told you what happened?’

  Silence.

  ‘Never confided in you?’

  ‘No.’

  Dixon nodded. He got up and stood with his back to the wood burner. ‘When was the last time you saw Steiner?’

  ‘I told you, I never met him.’

  Adele leaned back and closed her eyes.

  ‘She’s telling the truth,’ muttered Dixon.

  ‘Of course she is,’ snapped Poland. ‘You’re supposed to be putting my family back together, not tearing it apart.’

  ‘I’m supposed to be finding Hatty, Roger.’

  Poland turned away.

  ‘Who is Steiner?’ asked Jeremy.

  ‘His business was shut down, Adele was right about that. Trading whilst insolvent. Then he finally went bankrupt when he went to prison for five years.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Fraud. Every type of online scam imaginable. He’s industrious, I’ll give him that.
Millions, he took, but it was all confiscated. He was banned from using the internet as a condition of his parole, so he pops up working as a driver for Markhams. Gregson gave him a job when he got out.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You tell me,’ said Dixon. ‘Maybe he owes him?’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Killing Farooq, or helping him dispose of the body perhaps. There’s a lot of guesswork in here, but if Farooq ever left Combe Hay I’d be very surprised. It’d take Steiner, what, twenty minutes to get there from Midford along the line of the old canal?’

  ‘But why would Steiner kill Farooq?’

  ‘His text message business is failing and Farooq is demanding he hand over some of his shares in Polgen. Five per cent of eleven million quid is a sod of a lot of money.’

  Poland nodded. ‘A powerful motive.’

  ‘So, you think Steiner’s got Hatty?’ asked Jeremy.

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘If Markhams goes bust he’ll lose his job and with his past he’s unlikely to get another. Gregson may have paid him too – but they’re partners in crime already, if I’m right about Farooq.’

  ‘Find him,’ said Poland.

  ‘We will, Roger. We will.’

  ‘He’s a named driver on the Markhams motor insurance policy, Sir,’ said Louise, when Dixon appeared at the top of the stairs in the Incident Room at Express Park, Monty running along in front of him. ‘It’s current so it means he must still be working there.’

  Dixon nodded. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘He’s got a Honda CRV, according to DVLA,’ said Harding. ‘You know, the small four wheel drive thing.’

  ‘Cameras?’

  ‘I’m checking that now.’

  ‘What about a mobile phone?’

  ‘Just waiting on that now, Sir,’ replied Pearce.

  ‘We’d better get his medical records too.’

  ‘It’s gone one on a Sunday morning, Sir,’ said Louise.

  ‘I know that.’ Dixon was pacing up and down in front of the whiteboard. ‘What about the banks?’

  ‘The requests have gone in but we won’t get anything until Monday now,’ said Pearce.

  ‘What did Adele have to say?’ asked Louise.

  ‘Not a lot,’ replied Dixon. ‘She never met him, but she was quite clear she never knew what became of Farooq.’

  ‘I reckon it’d take twenty minutes tops from Midford to Gregson’s place, that’s running along the line of the old canal,’ said Harding. ‘It can’t be more than two miles.’

  ‘What about the place in Midford?’

  ‘Changed hands several times since he lived there, according to the Land Registry website,’ replied Louise.

  ‘And now for the big question.’ Dixon took a deep breath. ‘Do we have a current address for him?’

  Louise smiled, held up a piece of paper and waved it. ‘Number twelve Paulton Terrace, Radstock. He’s on the electoral roll, would you believe it?’

  ‘That matches the address I got off DVLA,’ said Harding.

  ‘It’s registered for multiple occupation so he’s unlikely to have Hatty there, I’d have thought.’ Louise shrugged her shoulders.

  ‘Let’s go and kick the door in anyway,’ said Dixon. ‘Better rustle up some armed response for backup, just in case.’

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  The streetlights were off when they turned into Paulton Terrace just after 2 a.m., a flashing blue light at the far end and a set of headlights penetrating the darkness. The patrol car was parked on the nearside, the only light coming from a house opposite. Light sleepers, thought Dixon.

  ‘Talk about announcing your bloody arrival,’ said Harding, sitting in the back of Dixon’s Land Rover. ‘I suppose we should be grateful they haven’t got their siren on.’

  ‘They don’t look like Armed Response either,’ said Louise.

  Dixon pulled up alongside the patrol car and Louise wound down the window. ‘Where’s Armed Response?’ she asked.

  ‘I sent them home,’ said the officer sitting in the passenger seat of the patrol car.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  Dixon parked behind it, climbed out of his Land Rover and looked around. Then the smell hit him. The familiar smell.

  ‘That’s burning,’ said Pearce. ‘Can you smell it?’

  ‘Me too,’ said Louise.

  ‘Over here,’ said the uniformed officer, shining a lamp along the pavement. They followed him, Dixon glancing up at the houses on either side set back from the road behind iron railings, cars parked on both sides. Three or four storeys – he couldn’t see in the darkness – steps down to a basement and another set up to a front door.

  Then they arrived at a gap in the parked cars marked off by police cones and blue tape, the smell stronger now.

  ‘There’s number twelve,’ said the officer, shining his lamp up at the house. ‘We’ve had to evacuate the ones either side too. The engineers can’t get here until tomorrow – later today, I mean.’

  The glass in the bay windows had blown out and was strewn across the road, small shards glinting in the torch light.

  ‘We swept up, but there’s still a lot of glass around.’

  ‘Did everyone get out?’ asked Dixon, clenching his fists.

  ‘Are you all right, Sir?’ asked Louise, watching the beads of sweat on his forehead in the flickering torchlight.

  He nodded.

  ‘Thanks to the fire brigade. One’s in hospital with smoke inhalation,’ said the officer.

  ‘How many people lived here?’

  ‘Seven, but only three were in at the time. We’ve traced them all except one.’

  ‘Anthony Steiner?’

  ‘How could you know that?’

  ‘What about the cause?’ asked Harding.

  ‘There were traces of accelerant in the kitchen and a first floor back bedroom so the preliminary finding is arson; that’s to be confirmed when they can have a proper look. Engineers have to declare it safe first.’

  Dixon ducked under the blue tape across a gap in the railings.

  ‘You can’t go in there.’

  ‘You don’t have to, Sir,’ said Louise. ‘I’ll go, with Mark.’

  Dixon shook his head. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  ‘It’s a crime scene,’ said the uniformed officer.

  ‘It is,’ said Dixon, sliding his phone out of his pocket and switching on the light. ‘And I am a police officer investigating a crime.’

  Halfway up the steps to the front door he stopped and took a deep breath.

  ‘What’s the matter with him?’ asked the officer.

  ‘He was caught in a factory fire a month or so ago,’ whispered Louise. ‘Only just got out.’

  The officer nodded.

  ‘Go with him, Mark, for fuck’s sake,’ said Louise.

  ‘All right, all right.’

  ‘Which bedroom?’ asked Dixon, turning around on the steps.

  ‘Next floor up, the first door on the landing. They said it was number five, but I’m not sure if the door’s still on.’

  Dixon nodded and turned back to the house, listening to Pearce’s footsteps behind him.

  ‘Got any evidence bags, Mark?’

  ‘A couple.’

  ‘Better put on some gloves too.’

  The front door had been smashed off its hinges and was lying on its side up against the wall at the bottom of the stairs. Dixon glanced up at the front of the house, the sandstone bay windows stained black from the smoke, the curtains gone – torn down probably or burnt.

  ‘Pretty much gutted, by the looks of things.’

  ‘I don’t like the look of those stairs,’ said Pearce, peering over his shoulder.

  ‘Get that bloody lamp, will you?’

  Pearce ran down the steps and snatched the lamp from the uniformed officer’s hand.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Pearce, raising his eyebrows.

  The banister had been burn
t away, so Dixon checked the handrail on the wall to his left. It felt secure, so he tiptoed up the left side of the stairs, holding the handrail with both hands.

  ‘It’s fine, Mark,’ he said, when he reached the top. ‘Just keep left and hold the rail with both hands.’

  ‘Have you done a risk assessment?’ asked Pearce, his smile nervous.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Written?’

  ‘Just get on with it.’

  Dixon looked down at his hands, the blue latex gloves black from the wet smoke dust that had been coating the handrail, the stair carpet beneath his feet saturated. On the landing puddles were lying on the lino, which had melted in the doorway of room five. Several of the floorboards had collapsed, leaving only the joists. Dixon shone the lamp down into the kitchen below, watching the water dripping down electric cables that were hanging in the void.

  ‘D’you think the electrics are off?’ asked Pearce, grimacing.

  ‘Yes, of course they are. It’s the first thing they do.’ Dixon smiled. ‘After the gas.’

  ‘Where do we go now?’ asked Pearce.

  ‘Hold the door frame, walk along the joists,’ said Dixon, shining the torch at Pearce’s feet.

  ‘Oh, for—’

  ‘Either that or wait here.’

  ‘I’ll wait here.’

  Holding on to what was left of the door frame, Dixon took two steps along the joists to a fireplace on the side wall, where he stopped, holding on to the mantelpiece. He shone the lamp round the room. All that was left of the mattress was metal springs and melted foam lying on the floorboards. The bedside table was intact, saved by water from a fire hose in the back garden, probably. The curtains had been torn down and were lying in a sodden heap in the corner in front of the wardrobe.

  He sniffed the air. Petrol – just – over the reek of saturated curtains. It had been the smoke last time, but this was worse, if anything, the water adding a sickly chemical tinge to the burning. He closed his eyes and the vision of flames all around him snapped into his mind.

  ‘Are you all right, Sir?’ Pearce was leaning around the door frame.

  ‘Fine.’

  The floorboards were intact nearer the window, so Dixon stepped on to them and walked around what was left of the bed to the bedside table. On the other side was a sink with a mirror above it, and a small table, the remains of a Camping Gaz stove on it, the gas canister having exploded.