by David Evans
“But burglary and failure to report are hardly grounds to keep him in custody now, is it? How long before he’ll be fit to leave?”
“At least a week, sir,” Ormerod stated.
Cunningham paced slowly across the room, head down, hands deep in his trouser pockets. Finally he stopped and faced Strong. “Okay, let’s take this mysterious … ‘trophy case’, for want of a better expression, you and Kelly seem to think warrants such scrutiny. Have we any idea if it actually belonged to Kenny Stocks? Was that why he broke in? Possibly got disturbed by Williams, and all this bollocks about actually breaking in a week later is just to cover the fact he made mistakes and left his dabs all over the place.”
Strong considered his response. “Well, there are a number of things there. First of all, Stocks’ prints were only on the handles of the sitting room and bedroom doors and the inside surface of the front door as if he’d pulled it to behind him when he left. Most of the other surfaces were clean and the flat itself was very tidy. Now that’s unusual in itself, because most people who knew Fred Williams wouldn’t describe him as the tidiest bloke in the world. Secondly, Stocks was inside when Irene Nicholson was assaulted, doing eighteen months for burglary.”
He saw the sour expression pass over Cunningham’s face. The expected tirade was not instantly forthcoming, so he pressed on. “Thirdly, I haven’t brought the subject up with Stocks yet because I wanted to be in a position to see his reactions. At the moment, his face is so swollen, it’s difficult to know if he’s awake, let alone be able to read any changes of expression. And one other thing, Stocks – and Hinchcliffe for that matter – don’t look anything like the e-fit.”
“But what if,” Ormerod joined in, “Kenny Stocks was commissioned by someone else, the case’s real owner, to break in and get it back? I mean, after all, as he said himself, breaking and entering, that’s his real forte.”
“Yes, the thought had crossed my mind too, Luke,” Strong replied. “And the little ‘seeing to’ that Stocks had was a gentle reminder to keep his trap shut. But then, we’re still left with Fred Williams.”
“Look, this is all ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ at the moment,” Cunningham interjected. “As I see it, we’ve got a week to get something more substantial. Let’s start with Frank Carr.” He turned to each of the officers in turn. “Kelly, I want you to delve into his business dealings and have another word with him. John, can you liaise with North Yorkshire on the body in the caravan. Luke, you and Trevor monitor Stocks’ recovery and chase forensics for anything linking him with Williams flat, apart from the prints on the door handles. Be prepared to re-interview him. Sam and Malcolm, I’d like you to revisit Williams’ friends, haunts etcetera for anything relevant. The way I see it, the key to this case lies in knowing the victim inside out. We must have missed something. Okay, that’s it. Let’s go to it.” With that he departed the room leaving the detectives to consider their respective lists of actions.
As they dispersed, Ormerod approached Strong. “Guv, can I have a word?”
Strong led the way back to his office. Closing the door acted as a signal for Ormerod’s frustrations to break through. “He’s sidelined you, guv. How can you just stand there and accept it?”
“Listen, Luke, nobody’s more pissed off than me. But don’t you worry, I’ll still be involved whether Cunningham likes it or not. For one thing, you and I’ll still talk.”
“But that’s not the same as leading the investigation, though.” Ormerod paced around the desk.
“Sit down and take five. A DI doesn’t usually lead a murder enquiry does he?”
“I suppose not. But it’s how he’s done it that really gets on my tits. Everybody knows the trophy case is key to this.” Ormerod took a deep breath then sat down. “It’s just like Kelly says, he’s worried about the Summers’ conviction.”
“Now just watch out, Luke. You’ll do yourself no favours voicing that one. The thing to do is, you and Kelly keep pursuing that line, clandestinely if needs be, and see where it leads.”
Ormerod nodded resignedly then looked at Strong as if a penny had dropped somewhere. “Something just occurred to you in that meeting, didn’t it, guv? That’s why you drifted off for a minute when The Enforcer was asking about Kenny Stocks, right?”
“Tell you what, Luke, I knew you’d make a good detective one day.” Strong sat down in his chair at the other side of the desk to Ormerod. Opening a drawer, he removed a cassette machine, placed it on the desk and inserted a tape. “Now, remember when we interviewed Hinchcliffe the other week,” he said, “I knew there was something, but … anyway, listen to this.” He alternated between play and fast forward before arriving at the section of tape he wanted. He played the end of the interview. “Well? What did you notice?”
Ormerod looked puzzled. “Don’t know, guv. Was it something he said that we missed?”
“It wasn’t what he said, it was how he said it. Listen again.” He rewound the relevant section of the tape and played it again. “Here,” he said. Strong’s voice was heard to repeat the last of the burglary dates. Hinchcliffe gave the same stock answer – that he was at home with his mother watching television.
Strong: Okay, Jake, you can go
Hinchcliffe: Is that it?
Strong: For now. But before you leave, we’ll want the name and address of your brother-in-law’s shop. Detective Constable Ormerod will see you to the front desk.”
Ormerod was thoughtful. “You’re thinking he was surprised, not at the fact the interview was ended but that he was expecting another question?”
“Exactly. But not just any question. I think he was expecting me to ask about another date. I think they robbed another property after the last one we know of on the 28th of November.”
“I think you might have something there.”
“It was when the DCI went on about that case probably coming from another robbery that it came back to me. But I didn’t think it was a burglary long before this latest spate as he’d suggested. No, I think there was one subsequent break-in. And if I’m right and the trophy case came from there, then whoever had it nicked wouldn’t be too keen on reporting it, now would they?”
After Ormerod left, the thought crossed Strong’s mind that this was the second occasion in as many weeks that he had found great significance in how something had been said rather than what was actually said.
43
“You must have really pissed Cunningham off big time,” DCI Matheson said. “I was expecting a DC or possibly a DS but not a DI.”
“He obviously thought I was the right man for the job,” Strong replied, drawing a loud chuckle from the detective in charge of the drugs enquiry.
Strong was in Matheson’s office on the third floor of Millgarth police station, home of Leeds Central Division and a comparatively new building near the bus station. The man himself was in his early forties, casually dressed in slacks, open necked shirt and collar length hair.
“Well, just to give you a quick overview, Colin, we’ve been tracking heroin from Manchester to Leeds for the past six months. The Manchester lot have their end of the chain under close surveillance and we’ve got a strong grip on the major players here.”
As a figure walked past the glazed partition of the office, Matheson jumped up and opened the door. “Dave,” he called, “Give us a minute, would you.”
A tall man, mid thirties, dressed as casually as the DCI entered.
“Dave, this is DI Colin Strong from Wakefield. Colin will be liaising with you on the raid tomorrow. Colin, this is DS Dave Jenkinson.”
Strong stood up and the two shook hands.
”I’m giving Colin a heads up on tomorrow,” Matheson continued. “As I was saying, major players here in West Yorkshire. Two of them, as you might expect are in the Harehills area, one in Beeston, one in Otley and, this is where you come in, one in Hemsworth.”
Strong was familiar with Hemsworth, the ex-mining village lying
equidistant from Wakefield, Barnsley and Doncaster.
“The stuff is distributed through a number of networks at lower levels and one of those is through three of the main nightclubs here in Leeds. It’s one of the owners of those clubs who lives just outside Hemsworth.”
Strong’s mouth went dry and he could feel the adrenaline suddenly surge into his bloodstream. “Who’s your suspect?”
“An up and coming entrepreneur by the name of Frank Carr.”
“Shit!” he exclaimed.
“You know him then?” Jenkinson asked.
“We’ve just had him in last week. We thought he could shed some light on an ongoing murder case. DS Stainmore has been asked to do a bit more digging on him. He was into money lending, I didn’t think drugs were his scene.”
“Sounds like Cunningham sent us the right man after all. Wouldn’t want to pitch up outside his place and find Wakefield already on the scene dragging him off for questioning on something else. Best get back to Stainmore and tell him to leave well alone for now,” Matheson said.
“Her, sir.”
“What?”
“DS Stainmore is female. Kelly Stainmore.”
“Right.” Matheson smiled. “Listen, Colin, call me Jim, will you. We don’t go much for that ‘sir’ or ‘guv’ crap here, do we Dave?”
Jenkinson nodded.
“So, back to Carr, we think his son, Barry, might be involved as well. In fact he may be the lead player but we can’t see him being allowed to distribute in the clubs without Pater’s say so.”
“I didn’t know he had a son. How old is he?”
“Twenty-two.”
“And form?”
“A couple of minor things as a juvenile, shoplifting, that sort of thing, but nothing to bring him to our attention before now.” Matheson stood up. “Okay Colin, Dave will fill you in on when and where you’ll meet up tomorrow but we’re planning coordinated raids at 05:00 hours. Suspects will be brought back here for questioning.”
After a brief discussion with Jenkinson, Strong got the feeling that he was surplus to requirements until the morning and, in fact, his presence was more to do with politics than practical policing. However, it gave him time to mull things over. First thing, though, would be to rein Stainmore in over Frank Carr. He rang her.
“Kelly.”
“Guv. You know, for what it’s worth, we’re all hacked off you’ve been pulled off the case,” she said without prompting.
“Thanks. But listen, this is important. Have you done anything more on Frank Carr since this morning?”
“I’ve instigated a full financial check and depending on that Luke and I were going to pull him in again. Hopefully tomorrow, as a dicky bird tells me that his smarmy bastard solicitor, Atherton, is in court all day.”
“Just put a hold on that for now. I can’t tell you why at the moment but just leave that one alone. How’s everything else?”
“Well, the Enforcer’s just put a stop on any further enquiries into the assaults because, guess what? It turns out that Summers was sent to Nottingham two weeks before Williams was last released from there. He thinks that’s the link between the two.”
“Are you sure? Why didn’t we pick that up?”
“Don’t know, guv. We must have missed it.”
“Okay, Kelly. Thanks.”
After a few seconds thought, he walked back in to the Drugs Operation Incident room and asked Jenkinson if he could access a computer.
Twenty minutes later, he had the information he was after. He made a call.
“Luke?” he said. “Kelly told me about Cunningham’s findings regarding Williams and Summers in Nottingham at the same time.”
“I know, guv. He reckons that’s the connection between the two and that Summers at the very least told him where to find the trophy case and Williams was storing it for him.”
“That’s a load of old bollocks.”
“Maybe so but it’s given him the excuse to close down the line of enquiry on the assaults. Reckons it was probably Summers responsible for those too.”
“Well, I thought I’d just check that out for myself, if for no other reason than I don’t trust the bastard on this.”
“That makes two of us, three if you count Kelly.”
“Not that it’s going to make a lot of difference now but he was right up to a point. Williams did have two weeks to serve when Summers was first sent to Nottingham but that was when Summers was on remand. There’s no way he had any contact with Williams. I’ve checked with the Governor. Remand is a totally separate wing.”
“So does Kelly ignore Cunningham and keep going with checking the victims?”
“No. No point in aggravating the situation. We need to establish who owned the case. That’s who killed Williams and carried out the assaults, I’m positive about that. Anyway, stay in touch.”
After ending the call, Strong made one more. It went straight to answer machine. Souter was still avoiding him. He left a message anyway, chasing what progress had been made regarding the murder in Carlisle.
44
At exactly five am the order ‘Go! Go! Go!’ burst through the police radios. Strong didn’t move. He’d let the uniforms have their fun first. A transit van full of them had travelled down from Leeds following the briefing. A burly sergeant seemed to relish the prospect of using a battering ram on the front door. DCI Matheson was leading one of the raids in Harehills while DS Jenkinson shared a car with two other DC’s for the trip to Hemsworth. Strong didn’t fancy sitting with any of the Drugs Squad so he opted to drive himself. He was parked in a field entrance some fifty yards away from Frank Carr’s large detached bungalow which was set behind a brick wall with open gates. With the car window down, he could hear the shouting, amplified through the clear night air as the sergeant satisfied his pent up emotions on the door.
After a few minutes, the protesting figure of Frank Carr, with a coat thrown over his pyjamas was led to one of the marked cars and funnelled into the back seat before being driven off. A woman’s voice was shouting abuse at the officers. The house was lit up like a Christmas tree and he could see activity in virtually every room. He decided it was time to join in. As he walked through the gates he pulled a pair of regulation latex gloves from his pocket and put them on. The front door showed clear signs of the sergeant’s exuberance and a short woman of around fifty pulling her dressing gown tight to her neck was demanding to know who was going to pay for the damage. Jenkinson was trying to calm her down.
“Look, this will be a lot easier if you’d just cooperate, Mrs Carr,” he said. “I do have a warrant to search these premises, but I also need to speak to your son. Now where is he?”
“He’s out, probably with some girl having a life which is what you bastards should get,” she spat.
In the hallway, a plain clothes detective was coming down the stairs carrying a personal computer, closely followed by a colleague with a plastic box full of papers and floppy discs.
“In Barry’s room,” he said, by way of explanation to his sergeant.
Strong drifted past Jenkinson, leaving him instructing a uniformed constable to stay with Mrs Carr while the search was executed. He made his way to the kitchen. He was impressed. The room was bigger than his lounge at home. Two more officers were sifting through the contents of the drawers and cupboards that lined the walls. A central island with an extract hood above housed an extensive hob and oven. Laura would have died for a kitchen like this.
Unnoticed, he went out through a door on the opposite side of the kitchen and into a utility room. A glazed rear door was off to his left whilst a plain door led off to the right. He opened it, expecting to enter the rear of the garage. Instead, he discovered a small office. He fumbled for the light switch and turned it on. A comfortable looking leather chair sat in front of a classical inlaid writing desk. A few papers were neatly stacked on the corner along with a desk tidy containing assorted pens and pencils
, paperclips, treasury tags and a rubber. Surprisingly, there was no computer, printer or any other associated paraphernalia. A three drawer filing cabinet was by the side of the desk and against a wall a large bookcase stood almost filled with paperbacks.
Strong tried one of the cabinet’s drawers. Locked. The desk had a central drawer which was also locked. He thought for a moment, looking round the small room. Checking behind the curtains of the window to the side of the desk, he found nothing. Then he picked up the desk tidy, removed the pens and pencils and tipped the rest of the contents out. A set of keys tumbled onto the paperclips. Selecting the smallest key, he tried it in the desk drawer. It unlocked. A leather bound book, the size of an A4 desk diary lay in an otherwise empty drawer. Flicking through the pages, he quickly realised this was Frank Carr’s ledger of all money-lending transactions dating back to his first loan in 1984. He turned towards the back and began taking notes. Working his way through, he noted several surprising entries before placing the book in a large plastic evidence bag.
A noise from the utility room disturbed him and he sealed the bag.
Dave Jenkinson appeared. “Anything interesting?”
“Seems to have kept a ledger listing all his money lending operations. There are some records relevant to my enquiries so, if you don’t mind, I’ll take this with me and clear it with Jim Matheson when I get back.”
“As long as you list it with my DC, sure.” Jenkinson shrugged. “What about this?” He indicated the filing cabinet.
“I was just about to check it out.”
“Let’s have a look, then.”
Strong handed him the bunch of keys. “Be my guest.”
Jenkinson unlocked the filing cabinet and pulled open the top drawer. It was stuffed with brown hanging files each tagged with a label in alphabetical order. The contents appeared to be invoices from suppliers in connection with Carr’s nightclub in Leeds. The second drawer was similar, while in the bottom drawer some loose papers and a petty cash box completed the inventory.
