Mercy Killing

by Lisa Cutts

  ‘Nice one,’ said Harry, as he pitched forward on his chair. ‘Don’t stop there.’

  ‘OK,’ she said, as she unfolded a map of East Rise with the CCTV cameras marked on it. ‘I picked this up today when I got the footage downloads. Wasn’t sure if we already had one, but thought I’d get one to be on the safe side.’

  As she smoothed down the edges of the paper, Gabrielle cast an eye in Harry’s direction. He gave her a nod of approval.

  ‘What I’ve been thinking about,’ she said, ‘is who’s come into this enquiry so far whose movements we haven’t accounted for on Monday morning. Toby and Leon were on their window-cleaning round, which started early, and we’re bottoming that out. There are the two men in the café with Woodville, seen by Leon on a previous occasion, and then there are Jude Watson and Jonathan Tey. Watson’s not a particularly big bloke, but Jonathan Tey is. And he lives here.’ Gabrielle pointed to his street with the tip of her pen. ‘He’s already told us that he works from home some days, and Monday’s one of them.’

  ‘Fucking hell,’ said Tom across the table top to Sophia. ‘When me and Soph got to his house on Monday morning, he wasn’t in. His wife said how strange it was that he’d gone out without his phone.’

  ‘Bastard was trying to outsmart us,’ said Sophia, cheeks tinged with pink. ‘Hindsight’s a wonderful thing, but when I think back on it now, he did seem to be acting a little defensively. I put it down to nerves at being spoken to by the police for a murder. I won’t make that mistake again.’

  ‘Listen, you two,’ said Barbara, ‘this is new information. We didn’t know about a man lobbing stuff into the sea until Joyce Slattery called in last night. Don’t fret over it, but I have to say, good work, Gabrielle.’

  ‘Gabs,’ said Harry as he put his hands behind his head and eased himself back in the chair, ‘you’ve just made my day. All we need to do is get Jonathan Tey and Jude Watson arrested, find some sort of evidence and we’re laughing.’

  What Harry wasn’t about to share with his team was that Martha Lipton had flagged the name Jonathan Tey up to him over twenty-four hours ago.

  He trusted them not to leak the information but he wasn’t about to risk anything going wrong. He knew how much rested on him getting this right, so what did it matter if he kept his team temporarily in the dark? A successful outcome was far more important than the danger of offending the ones who thought they had the right to know everything that was going on, whether it directly affected them or not.

  The wheels were in motion: first thing in the morning, before the sun came up, two very experienced, no-nonsense teams of rapid-entry uniform officers would descend on the home addresses of Jude Watson and Jonathan Tey.

  Harry couldn’t help it. He indulged himself with a self-satisfied smirk.

  Chapter 67

  Wednesday 10 November

  Harry’s office overlooked the rear yard of the police station and he had a good view of the vans arriving as they brought the prisoners in to custody. Partly because Tey was of larger build than Watson, and partly because of the way he swaggered out of the back of the van, Harry could easily make out which of the two of them he was looking at. It was no mean feat for a man in handcuffs whose head was almost level with the roof of the transit once he was standing beside it. Harry saw him try to shrug off the hands of the uniform officer who led him to the custody security door. He couldn’t help a smile to himself when he saw that the PC escorting him was Karl Roundtree, six foot seven and a very good match for Tey’s size.

  There was a conversation, short on Tey’s part, and Harry saw the prisoner toss his head back and refuse to answer. He thought he heard Karl say something along the lines of, ‘Get that looked at by the nurse.’

  That was all it needed to get Harry’s interest. He took his jacket from the back of his chair and left his office, heading in the direction of custody.

  He knew that he had no actual reason for being in the cell block: he wasn’t interviewing, he wasn’t needed for any custody matters as they were being dealt with by Sandra Beckinsale, but he was nosy.

  He let himself in with his security pass, stood in the time lock and waited for the external solid metal door to slam shut behind him before he attempted to release the inner cage door. All the while he was listening out for sounds of the prisoners being brought in from the holding area.

  ‘Harry,’ said a voice from behind the raised custody counter, ‘what are you doing down here? You do know that you’re a detective inspector? Are you lost?’

  ‘Colin,’ said Harry as he held out his hand for the custody sergeant to shake. ‘Still keeping you in the dungeons, I see?’

  ‘These two yours?’ said Colin as he jerked his head in the direction of the holding cell.

  ‘Yeah. They’re not both in there together, are they? Don’t want them talking.’

  ‘No, Karl’s keeping one in there but the other’s been booked in already. You were too slow, old man.’

  ‘You’ve put on a bit of weight,’ said Harry. ‘That gut of yours is probably spreading so fast because it thinks you’re in perpetual hibernation.’

  ‘I’m trying not to swear at you,’ said Colin with a laugh, ‘only because of the cameras. We can go out the back and I’ll tell you what a tosser I think you are.’

  Harry held up his hand as he heard the sound of an officer’s rubber soles squeaking on the polished floor, in step with the inflexible tread of his prisoner’s shoes.

  The two approached the custody bench, arrogance running amok over Tey’s face. Nevertheless, he stood awkwardly in front of the high counter, designed to stop prisoners, and no doubt police officers, from leaning on the ledge. The counter reached Tey’s chest level, so he stood with his arms at his sides, glancing around from time to time. His gaze met Harry’s.

  Something about him wasn’t giving Harry the impression he was Albie Woodville’s murderer. Thug and half-wit, yes, but not paedophile murderer.

  Harry moved behind the counter and stood beside the custody sergeant where he had no choice but to look down on the prisoner because of the raised platform. He took full advantage. Karl Roundtree caught his eye as he stood just out of Tey’s line of vision. He glanced across at the officer who was tapping the back of his right hand with his left index finger.

  Harry picked up on the cue immediately and took a step forward to glance down at Tey’s right hand. He saw a large welt, not completely healed, on the back of it. In reply to the discreet signal, Harry gave a small nod to the officer and then stood back and watched the remainder of the booking-in procedure.

  ‘Yes, I want a solicitor,’ Tey said when asked, but said little else.

  When Harry had seen enough, he made his way back to the incident room and did his best to muster his tired team.

  He stood in the centre of the room, rubbed his hands together and said, ‘As you know, both Jonathan Tey and Jude Watson are in custody. I watched Tey being booked in and he’s got what looks like a cut to his hand. It doesn’t appear to be that recent but it looks like a very deep and nasty wound, so you never know if it’s going to be relevant.’

  ‘Er, sorry, sir,’ said Gabrielle, going her standard shade of pink when all eyes, especially the DI’s, were on her. ‘I took the statement from Eric Samuels, the chairman of the East Rise Players. He told me about a row that Jude and Jonathan had when they were cutting something out for the scenery and Jonathan cut his hand. He ended up blaming Jude for moving the piece of cardboard. His hand bled quite a lot at the time.’

  The DI stared at her.

  ‘It’s all in the statement I submitted,’ she said.

  ‘All is not lost,’ said Harry, determined to bolster the morale of his troops if it was the last thing he did. ‘If he had that nasty cut and went round to Woodville’s flat and murdered him, his blood may turn up there somewhere.’

  ‘I don’t want to piss on your parade, boss,’ said Hazel from her desk in the corner, ‘but if we don’t find his blood, and the cu
t was bleeding badly, that points away from his involvement. Anyway, you said the cut doesn’t look recent and Woodville’s murder was only five days ago.’

  He mulled this over for a second or two and said, ‘We can ask the man. He may confess yet.’

  This was met with snorts of derision from most of the office and he definitely heard one of them mutter ‘Dream on’.

  He wandered back to his office wondering where all the respect and optimism had gone from the police service. He made a note to ask Tom and Sophia why they hadn’t picked up on a large injury to Tey’s hand when they visited him at home.

  ‘Is this a good time?’ he heard someone say as he got to his desk.

  ‘Joanna Styles, come on in,’ he said to the senior CSI. ‘Tell me that you’ve brought me some good news about the forensics on this job.’

  ‘We’ve got three pounds ninety left in the budget,’ she said.

  He sighed. ‘I’ll ask for more money. Where has forty grand gone?’

  ‘Forty? I thought it was fifty.’

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake. I look forward to seeing the chief with a telephone directory down my pants.’

  ‘Is he a Mason too?’

  ‘Very funny. What have you got for me to brighten my day, Jo?’

  She settled herself in her seat and said, ‘I’ve compared the boot marks we have from Albert Woodville’s flat, particularly from the front door. As you already know, they didn’t match Toby Carvell’s or Leon Edwards’s shoes.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Harry. ‘We’ve bailed them both out. The searches of their homes showed nothing new, Carvell told us where and when he parked his Ford Focus on Friday night and that checked out, even Edwards ended up with an alibi who came into the nick and vouched for him. All we’ve got on those two is a funny feeling that they know more than they’re letting on.’

  ‘I took their photographs in custody,’ said Jo, scratching the end of her nose with her pen. ‘Edwards didn’t strike me as particularly bright.’

  ‘That’s another thing,’ said Harry as he rubbed a hand over his stubble. ‘Edwards couldn’t live with the guilt of sending death threats in the post. That’s why he came in here. It could be a double bluff, but I’m with you. I don’t think he’s got either the intelligence to plan a murder or the mental capacity to cope with the aftermath.’

  ‘So,’ said Jo, ‘that leaves the two in the bin downstairs.’

  ‘And so far—’

  ‘I’ll have to take a look at their shoes and stuff but if Jonathan Tey did throw the shoes in the sea, there’s not much I can do about that. However, first look, I think that he’s the wrong shoe size.’

  Harry sat back and stared at her.

  ‘So why throw your clothes in the Channel?’

  ‘Well,’ she said. ‘We don’t know that it was his clothes.’

  ‘I don’t know what else, other than a weapon, he would try to dispose of. The beauty of plastic cable-ties is that no one’s going to call the police if they see some in a bin somewhere. A gun or a knife attracts attention. I can’t rule anything out, but my money’s on clothing.’

  ‘But why?’ said Jo. ‘If he didn’t murder Woodville, what reason could he possibly have for disposing of his clothes?’

  ‘Let’s hope the interviews shed some light,’ said Harry.

  Chapter 68

  Toby Carvell pulled up in his Ford Focus on the opposite side of the road from Leon who sat in their company van, waiting for his friend.

  Leon saw him give a small nod of his head, face in a grim expression, and get out of the car.

  Things had not gone particularly well for either of them but at least they were out of the police station.

  ‘All right?’ said Leon as his friend opened the passenger door and climbed in.

  ‘Been better, Dilly. How about you?’

  In answer, he switched off the engine so that he could talk without raising his voice and turned his head towards Toby, still visible in the early evening’s gloom. ‘I can’t believe they gave us bail conditions not to speak to each other.’

  ‘I know. We run a business together. How can we avoid one another?’

  Leon slowly blew the air out of his cheeks and said, ‘Just as well we ignored them then.’ He shifted his weight onto his left side and leaned against the steering wheel. ‘I didn’t tell them that you were there on the night Woodville died. I kept my word. I want you to know that.’

  ‘I knew that you’d keep your word. I told them that you sent the death threats but neither of us was actually involved in killing the dirty bastard. If one of us had told them anything different, either we’d still be stuck in those bloody cells, or we’d have been charged with murder by now. We stuck to the plan, and it’s working. It’s why we had one.’

  There was a pause as Leon thought how to phrase what he wanted to say next. After a couple of minutes of companionable silence, he said, ‘Do you think about him dying much?’

  ‘All the time, all the time.’

  Toby left a short pause and then said, ‘Daft question, but how about you?’

  A short dry laugh followed by, ‘You could say that. I don’t feel bad that he’s dead, just glad I don’t have to worry about how I’d kill him, if that makes sense.’

  ‘It makes perfect sense, mate,’ said Toby, averting his gaze from his friend to watch the cars driving past. ‘I thought for years about what I’d do if I came face to face with him. And then I did.

  ‘It wasn’t long before I started fantasizing over beautiful ways to end his life. You and me discussed it for weeks, planned it for months and waited outside his flat on all those Friday nights to watch what he did.’

  Beside him, Leon nodded along, his mind in a happier place than it should have been as he allowed himself the luxury of reminiscing about all the hours he’d spent doing what he loved the most: being with his best friend. They had always been close, but no more so than when discussing how they were going to end Albert Woodville’s days. Toby had been intent on doing away with him because of the pain, misery and abuse he had suffered at his hands. Leon had wanted to go through with it, partly because of his own physical abuse and mental anguish, but largely because of what he had seen Toby endure. He had wanted to help, to make things better for his friend, even if that meant plotting a murder.

  ‘Do you reckon though,’ Toby said to Leon, ‘that we really could have?’

  A heavy shrug from Leon. ‘Don’t know. How did you feel when we drove away on Friday night, knowing that the two men following him were likely to do to him what we’d been preparing for?’

  ‘I don’t know, Dilly. Part of me felt glad that we didn’t have to do it ourselves, and part of me wanted to stop the car, follow them into his flat and help them kick the absolute crap out of him.’

  Once again, Leon leaned against the steering wheel. He rubbed his eyes.

  ‘But do you think,’ he said, ‘we would have helped them to kill him if we’d have known what they were going to do, or do you think that at the last minute we’d have stopped them and saved his life?’

  The one thing that had been keeping Leon going was the belief that when push came to shove, at the final hour, he would have done the decent thing and saved a life, even if it was one as worthless as Albert Woodville’s, recidivist sex offender. And because this belief had seemed like his salvation he wanted Toby to feel the same way.

  ‘Can I ask you one thing before I answer that?’ said Toby. He saw Leon nod, so carried on. ‘Why did you send Mr Woodville death threats?’

  This was an answer Leon struggled to formulate. He knew the reason but as so often he couldn’t find the right words to express his feelings.

  At last he said, ‘To make him feel bad. To make him worry and wonder what was going to happen to him, like he did to us in the home. I wasn’t ever going to hurt him, not with my fists.’

  He cast his eyes down to his hands, massive against the steering wheel, chapped from his job and filthy from his time in the cel
ls.

  ‘That was always my point, Dill,’ said Toby. ‘I really, really wanted to kill the bloke. I was never sure that you were up to it, not in your head. You don’t know how relieved I was when I saw those two fellas get out of their car and run in the direction of Woodville’s flat. They’d been watching him, following him and running around in the dark dressed like that, well it was too good to be true.’

  ‘But they killed him and we didn’t tell the police what we’d seen.’

  Toby reached out and put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘They would never have believed us if we’d told them that we saw them following him to the flat. They would have wanted to know what you and me were doing there together. We were the closest they had until you dropped them a line about seeing a car. You see? Then they went looking, like good detectives, and found the car themselves. They feel better as they think they got a prisoner to talk, did some Scooby Do work and it led them further towards the actual murderers. All the while, we’re off the hook.’

  ‘We’re still on bail.’

  Toby let out a sigh and said, ‘You’re right, we are. And we’re not supposed to be talking, so I’d better go. Do you feel any better now?’

  Leon gave an unconvincing nod and said, ‘Much. I’ll do the window-cleaning round tomorrow and get you the van back for the next day.’

  He watched as Toby climbed out of the van, crossed back over the road, got in his car, waved and drove off in the direction of his house.

  He knew that he should feel relieved for getting it off his chest to the police, but once again, he had lied. For good reason, but nevertheless he had lied again.

  When he’d told Toby the truth about Woodville’s real treatment of him, he had felt purged. That was sullied again now. He couldn’t afford to feel like this repeatedly, as if the troubles of the world were upon him. The one thing he knew he could never do was to confess to anyone the amount of time Toby and he had spent plotting and planning a murder. He knew that would get them into another fix with the law, and so, as agreed, he hadn’t gone off script, just stuck to the plan.