The Body in the Boot: The first 'Mac' Maguire mystery

by Patrick C Walsh

  ‘We’ve got his name as John Ferguson. From what you’ve said I take it that’s correct?’ Dan asked.

  ‘Yes, he works at the university too, in Journalism and Communications. I know Fiona thought about changing her name after the divorce but with all the papers she’d published it would have been confusing so she just kept it as it was.’

  ‘We’d also like information on all her former students and colleagues. How could we access that?’

  ‘I can show you some of it from here if you like, apart from emails and of course her private area, I don’t have access to those or to information on colleagues for whom I’m not a line manager.’

  ‘Who do we need to speak to in order to get full access?’

  ‘I’ll check now,’ the professor said.

  He went over to his laptop which was on a large dining table the rest of which was covered by stacks of folders and documents. It only took him a few minutes to find what he needed before he picked up the phone.

  ‘Hello, is that the IT Help Desk? My name is Professor MacFarlane, Head of Life Sciences. I urgently need to let the police remotely access a colleague’s work area on the system including all her emails and her private area.’

  He listened for a while.

  ‘No she won’t be able to give permission as she’s been murdered, that’s why the police need access. They may also need to access the records of people who worked with her.’

  He listened for a while longer then turned to Dan.

  ‘They’ll need a formal Data Request Form and they also want to ring the Police Station direct for security’s sake, who should they ask for?’

  ‘Tell them to ask for Martin Selby, he’s my computer expert. He can supply them with any formal requests they need,’ Dan replied.

  Once the professor had finished on the phone Dan asked, ‘Is there anything else you can tell me that might help?’

  The professor slowly shook his head.

  ‘I’m sorry nothing comes to mind but, if I’m honest, I’m not thinking very straight at the moment. Strange to think that, after seeing all those anonymous dead bodies, that someone you know well will end up on the same slab.’

  Dan gave him his card.

  ‘If you do think of anything else, please call me.’

  ‘I will,’ the professor promised. ‘Are you going to see John now?’

  ‘Yes, he’s next on the list.’

  ‘Poor man, he just lost his mother a few months ago. Fiona was at the funeral of course, she got on really well with her mother-in-law. I’m glad he’s got Gerry, he’s going to need someone when he hears the news.’

  ‘Who’s Gerry?’ Dan asked.

  ‘John’s partner Geraldine, she works in the university too, a student councillor or something along those lines. Do you need his address?’

  ‘No thanks we’ve already got it,’ Dan replied.

  ‘Okay but break it to him gently if you can. Even thought they were divorced I think he still had a lot of regard for Fiona.’

  Dan promised he would. Dan and Mac made their way outside.

  ‘Right we’re off to Barton-Le-Clay, which isn’t too far away,’ Dan said as they got into the car. ‘Another nice little village. They must pay these university people a bloody lot more than they pay us, that’s for certain.’

  Dan glanced over at Mac and he could that he was deep in thought. He left him for five or six minutes but eventually he had to say something.

  ‘Mac, what are you thinking about?’

  Mac’s head snapped around as though he was surprised.

  ‘Sorry I was miles away.’

  He rubbed his face with his hands.

  ‘Bit tired too I should think,’ Dan said. ‘Sorry for dragging you out tonight, perhaps I should have left you in the pub.’

  ‘Oh no, don’t think that I wouldn’t have missed a minute of this investigation for anything. Anyway you asked me what I was thinking about? I was trying to figure out why our man might have delayed his revenge on the professor for so long.’

  ‘That’s a good question. Did you come up with any answers?’

  ‘Possibly, when Dimitrios knew him, he hadn’t yet killed. He seemingly had the hatred but it’s a hard line to cross, taking another human being’s life. Did something happen to him when he went back home? Did he carry out any murders there? His MO was pretty slick so I’m wondering if he’d had practice. Once you cross that line and carry out your first murder, the second is usually easier. We think he may have killed at least five times and would have made it six except for chance. So, now he’s a fully-fledged serial killer, why wait until now to kill the professor? He’s got to have been in the country at least six months or more, so why now?’

  ‘Any ideas?’ Dan asked, totally absorbed in Mac’s suppositions.

  ‘I think it’s because he’s going home or at least leaving the country. He’s left her until last because he knew it would cause a big investigation. I’ll bet he’s got his way out of here planned and, as he’s had at least a couple of hours start by now, he might have already left.’

  ‘I’ll get Martin to send another alert out to all airports and ports.’

  Dan pulled over. He got out of the car and made his call as he walked up and down in front of the car. Mac wondered why people had to walk as they talked. Dan got back in and they got on their way.

  ‘The university people have already contacted Martin, he seemed really happy to be getting ‘more data’ as he puts it. Any other thoughts?’

  ‘Just thinking how much of what we ‘know’ is just assumptions. Do we know that this Matyas/Sandor character even killed the girls? We have an idea he might have abducted them but no direct evidence for him killing them. Is there someone else involved, something bigger going on than just a one man string of serial killings?’

  ‘What makes you think it isn’t just him? Most serial killers work by themselves after all.’

  ‘True but here’s two things that bother me and one just occurred to me while you were phoning Martin.’

  Dan turned in his seat and looked at Mac intently.

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘The first is the hibernation drug. The experts I’ve spoken to haven’t heard of anything like it and the doctor at Luton Hospital said that it wasn’t something you could cook up in your kitchen.’

  ‘Doesn’t our man have a degree in biomedicine though?’

  ‘Yes, and he worked in a biomed lab for a year but my feeling is that something like this drug is way beyond him. It’s got some really top medical people scratching their heads.’

  ‘Okay I’ll buy that. And the second?’

  ‘The time the girls went missing for.’

  ‘Well, three or four weeks is a long time but it has been known for women to be kept that long and then murdered.’

  ‘Yes but unusual. Anyway it’s not that, did you notice that three of the girls were missing for around four weeks while for the other two it was only three weeks?’

  ‘Yes I saw that but…’

  ‘It’s just occurred to me that the two girls who were missing for only three weeks weren’t drug users.’

  Dan gave thought about this for a few seconds.

  ‘Yes, I’m wondering why I didn’t see that too now you’ve pointed it out. Do you think he kept the other girls longer to get the drugs out of their systems?’

  ‘It’s a good hypothesis. Now if our man was only keeping the girls for his own gratification it wouldn’t matter if they had drugs in their systems. If Professor MacFarlane is right though, and someone is using them as human guinea pigs, it might make a big difference.’

  ‘Christ, you might be right, bloody chilling thought though. Anyway our best lead, our only lead is this Hungarian, we can only hope that if we follow him he’ll lead to anyone else who’s involved,’ Dan said as he started up the car.

  ‘If he isn’t halfway across Europe by now,’ Mac muttered.

  Dan had to stop a couple of hundred yards down the
road as his phone went off.

  All Mac heard of the conversation was, ‘Yes….. yes…. bloody hell! Where are you? Okay we’ll be there as soon as we can.’

  Dan turned and with a shocked expression said, ‘That was Tommy. There’s been another murder.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  Dan drove back to Luton sirens howling and blue lights flashing.

  ‘Who?’ Mac asked.

  ‘Stelios Andreou, the taxi driver. He was run down just a few minutes ago.’

  ‘No chance of it being an accident?’

  ‘Not according to Tommy but we’ll know more in a few minutes.’

  A short while later they were back in the built up suburbs of Luton. Dan made for the ring road and soon pulled off down a side road that seemed to be mostly small industrial units. Mac knew they’d arrived when he saw Tommy on the side of the road waving them down.

  A small crowd of people had assembled outside of the building behind Tommy. Mac had witnessed scenes like this many times before, friends and bystanders, milling aimlessly around because they didn’t know what else to do. On the other side of the road an ambulance was parked and its back door was open. A body lay covered by a red blanket, the paramedics weren’t attempting resuscitation.

  As Mac got out of the car a lightning bolt of pain went down his left leg. Not now, he said to himself, not now. Luckily, once the sudden pain had dissipated, he found he could still walk but only just.

  ‘What happened?’ Dan asked Tommy as he led him away from the crowd.

  Mac was pleased that neither seemed to have noticed anything untoward.

  ‘It’s bloody unbelievable,’ a shocked Tommy said. ‘I was just talking to him outside the taxi office here and one of the operators shouted that he’d got a job. His car’s parked over the other side, the black one there but he never made it. A silver coloured BMW came out of nowhere, no lights and went straight into him.’

  ‘No chance of it being an accident?’ Dan asked.

  ‘The BWM stopped, backed up and ran over him again and once again as he went forward. No, I don’t think it was an accident.’

  ‘Me neither,’ Dan conceded. ‘Did you get the plate?’

  ‘Sorry, I couldn’t. The light isn’t that great around here but even so I should have gotten something. It was like the plates were covered with mud or something.’

  ‘But you managed to have a word with this Stelios before…’

  Dan was interrupted by a car screeching to a halt behind the ambulance. The driver left his door open, lights on and the engine running and made straight for the ambulance. Mac recognised Spiros, he still had his white apron on. Mac figured he must have come straight from the kebab shop. He was having an argument with the paramedics, so Mac crossed the street.

  He flashed his warrant card at the paramedic who was stopping Spiros from getting in the ambulance.

  ‘He’s the father,’ Mac said. ‘Let him see his son.’

  Spiros followed the paramedic inside and he pulled the edge of the blanket down so that he could see the face. Spiros looked and motioned for the paramedic to put the blanket back. He turned and gave Mac a look so bleak that it chilled his bones. He suddenly wanted to ring Bridget to make sure she was safe and sound.

  ‘We’re going now,’ the paramedic said to Spiros. ‘Do you want to stay?’

  ‘He’s my son,’ was all Spiros said.

  The paramedic folded up the step and closed the back doors and they drove off. They drove slowly, no lights flashing. Mac turned Spiros’ car engine and the lights off and locked it up. Then he re-joined Dan and Tommy.

  ‘Was that his father?’ Dan asked.

  Mac nodded slowly. He handed the car keys over to Dan.

  ‘Can you get one of the uniforms to drop them back to the family?’

  Dan nodded solemnly and pocketed the keys.

  ‘I still can’t quite believe it,’ Tommy said, still looking quite shaken. ‘It just happened so quickly. Should I have done something? I thought about trying to follow the car but I had to see if Stelios was all right first and…’

  Dan interrupted, ‘Tommy, I know we’re trained to always act, to respond in lots of different ways, but sometimes there’s just absolutely nothing you can do.’

  Tommy was thoughtful for a few moments.

  ‘I pretty sure it’s our man who did this.’

  ‘Tell me,’ Dan ordered.

  ‘Stelios told me what happened while Matyas was working here. I think it would be fair to say he didn’t leave on good terms. He said that when he first took Matyas on he seemed really grateful for the work, he was always on time and never missed a shift. Then, about six months after he’d started, Stelios asked Matyas to help him out with some ‘special’ jobs, in other words ferrying around prostitutes for a local pimp. The driver who normally did this was in hospital and Stelios thought that Matyas, being so polite, might be okay with the girls. Everything seemed fine for a few weeks but then he started getting complaints from the girls. They were saying that he was rude to them and one said he tried to touch her up. Finally one of the girls told him that she wouldn’t get in a car with Matyas again, she said he’d tried to rape her. She told Stelios that if he didn’t get rid of Matyas she’d tell her pimp. Stelios knew that, if she did tell, there was a good chance that both he and Matyas would be joining the other driver in hospital, and so he had no choice but to sack Matyas.’

  ‘How did he take it?’ Mac asked.

  ‘Stelios saw a different side of Matyas that night. He totally lost it, used just about every swear word in the book and a few he hadn’t heard before. He said that Stelios wasn’t a real man if he took the word of a whore over his and he swore he’d get even.’

  ‘Did Stelios ever tell his father?’ Mac asked.

  Tommy shook his head.

  ‘He knew his father liked Matyas and, as he was also living over the shop, he decided to let sleeping dogs lie. Then he got the job at the university and, from time to time, he’d ask his father about Matyas but everything seemed okay. He said that he thought Matyas was probably all mouth but he wasn’t sorry to see the back of him when he heard he was going back to Hungary.’

  ‘Dimitrios!’ Mac said.

  ‘What about Dimitrios?’ Dan asked.

  ‘He was the one who warned the professor about Matyas. Can you get a car around and see if he’s okay? Probably best if they could give him a ride to his father’s house, he should be safe enough there.’

  Dan rang and arranged for a car to pick him up.

  ‘Good thinking,’ Dan said. ‘He’s got two tonight, perhaps he’s going for a hat trick.’

  He turned back to Tommy.

  ‘Anything else you can tell us?’

  ‘Yes, apparently our man had some unusual skills. Not long after Matyas had started one of the drivers had left his keys in his car and somehow managed to lock the doors. He didn’t have a spare and, as the car was a few years old, he thought he’d have trouble getting another key from the dealers. He and Stelios thought the best thing might be to smash the glass on the passenger side and then claim it on the insurance. Of course the driver wouldn’t be able to work until he got the glass replaced. Matyas asked them to wait and a few minutes later he returned with a piece of stiff wire. Stelios said he couldn’t see exactly what he did with it but it took him less than ten seconds to get the door open.’

  ‘It all fits, doesn’t it? I’d better check in with Adil,’ Dan said as he took out his phone and walked a little distance away.

  ‘Are you okay Tommy?’ Mac asked.

  ‘Not really. It’s not exactly something you see every day is it, someone dying right in front of your eyes? He seemed such a nice man too, I felt so bloody helpless, Mac.’

  ‘I know the feeling well. The only way we can help Stelios now is to catch Matyas and anyone else who’s involved with him. It might help his father a little too.’

  Dan returned. ‘I’ve asked Adil to handle everything at the professor’s.
He’s sending the team home now and he’s going to debrief us tomorrow morning at nine thirty, we’ll all need our beauty sleep tonight. Unfortunately before we can get to bed we’ll need to interview that lot over there,’ he said gesturing towards the small crowd still waiting in front of the taxi office. ‘There’ll be a couple of uniforms coming to help us but it will have to be all hands to the pumps. Will you be okay to help us for a couple of hours Mac?’

  ‘Of course,’ Mac lied.

  His back was getting more painful by the minute but he couldn’t refuse.

  ‘Are you looking for anything special?’ Mac asked.

  ‘I don’t expect they’ll be able to add any more about what’s happened tonight but they may know something about this Matyas and a few more clues definitely wouldn’t hurt.’

  A police car pulled up and two uniformed officers stepped out. Dan used them to make sure no-one left until they’d been questioned and to get their names, addresses and contact details. Altogether there were twenty two people so Dan took eight and Mac and Tommy seven each.

  In between the second and third interviews Mac went into a little kitchen area to get a glass of water as he needed to take a pill. Through the window he could see the Road Traffic Accident team in their fluorescent jackets, flashes flickering as they measured and photographed the tyre marks. Like a photograph he once again saw the anguish in Spiros’ face in his mind and he made himself a promise.

  It took over two hours to finish the interviews and towards the end Mac was flagging, only just about managing to keep the pain at bay.

  As they drove back to the station Dan said, ‘Did you ask anyone to come in and make a statement?’

  Tommy answered first.

  ‘No, three of the drivers only started recently and didn’t know Matyas and the other four couldn’t add anything new. None of them actually witnessed the murder.’

  ‘Just asked the one,’ Mac replied. ‘He was having a smoke outside and saw the BMW run Stelios over. He couldn’t add anything about Matyas and neither could the others. Looks like he didn’t make any friends, ‘He kept himself to himself’ one of them said. Did you find anything?’