Dead Level (The DI Nick Dixon Crime Series Book 5)

by Damien Boyd

  ‘How are we doing?’ asked Dixon, inhaling the steam off a mug of coffee that Jane had thrust into his hand.

  ‘Lewis was looking for you,’ said Jane.

  ‘And Mr Charlesworth and Vicky Thomas are here too, Sir,’ said Mark.

  ‘Anything else from Surrey?’

  ‘There’s some trace DNA at Tulkeley Cottage. We’ll know if there’s a database match later.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  Dave Harding shook his head.

  ‘And the cameras?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What about her computers, iPad, email? Nothing in there?’

  ‘Not that can’t be accounted for,’ said Jane.

  ‘No photos?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It comes down to that damned phone then, doesn’t it? I’ll speak to Lewis.’ Dixon took a swig of coffee. ‘Is that decaf?’

  ‘It’s all we’ve got left,’ said Jane.

  Dixon winced. ‘Pinch some proper stuff from Professional Standards or something. We’re gonna need plenty of caffeine.’

  ‘You got ten minutes?’ DCI Lewis was on the other side of the landing, shouting across the atrium.

  Dixon turned to Jane and raised his eyebrows. ‘Here we go.’

  ‘Well done, Dixon,’ said Charlesworth.

  ‘Thank you, Sir.’

  Lewis closed the door of meeting room two behind him.

  ‘That’s it then?’ asked Charlesworth.

  ‘No, Sir. There’s no doubt the money was Dr McConnell’s. She has the motive and she’s confessed. But all that stuff about a meeting in a lay-by on the A303 was rubbish. There’s someone else . . .’

  ‘Ah, the mysterious phone.’

  ‘Why incinerate it? Why lie?’ asked Dixon. ‘Unless she’s hiding someone.’

  ‘Look, we’ve got her, we’ve got the money and the motive. We’ve got the killers, the foot soldiers as you call them, and the Albanians have disappeared. I think that’s it as far as I’m concerned.’

  ‘Well, it’s not as far as I’m concerned,’ said Dixon.

  Charlesworth peered at Dixon over his glasses, which had slid down his nose.

  ‘What Dixon means, I think, Sir, is that he’d like more time to explore whether or not someone else was involved with Dr McConnell,’ said Lewis. ‘Whether it was a joint enterprise.’

  ‘Is that right, Dixon?’ asked Charlesworth.

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘And what about this afternoon’s press conference?’

  Vicky Thomas sat up.

  ‘That can go ahead, Sir,’ replied Dixon. ‘I’ve spoken to Tom Perry and he’s telling her family.’

  ‘But we can’t tell the press it’s case closed?’

  ‘I’d rather we did. Then, if there is someone else, he or she will think they can relax.’

  ‘What if McConnell tips them off?’

  ‘She wouldn’t dare, Sir,’ replied Lewis. ‘She’ll know we’ll be watching for that.’

  ‘Sounds good to me,’ said Charlesworth. ‘What about you, Vicky?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘What do we say about Betalin?’

  ‘Nothing. It’s just a straight statement of fact. Dr Ann McConnell has been charged et cetera, et cetera. We’ll leave the press to speculate about the motive,’ said Vicky.

  ‘I think Tom Perry will have something to say about it too,’ said Dixon.

  ‘He mustn’t prejudice her trial.’

  ‘He won’t, Sir. I’ll speak to him.’

  ‘What d’you need then, Dixon?’ asked Lewis.

  ‘We don’t have the number of the second phone but if she carried it with her then it should register on the same base stations as her other phone. So, we get mobile positioning records for, say, five base stations where we know she was at a given time and then cross reference them. If we get lucky there’ll be only two numbers that show up on all of the lists. Then we’ve got the number and the rest will fall into place.’

  ‘There’s a lot of speculation in that,’ said Charlesworth.

  ‘What if she didn’t carry the second phone with her?’ asked Lewis. ‘She may have kept it in her office.’

  ‘She may.’

  ‘And there’ll be thousands of numbers to sift through.’

  ‘I’m sure there’s a computer script than can do that for us.’

  ‘It sounds very expensive too,’ said Charlesworth. ‘Is there really nothing else?’

  ‘A trace DNA sample from her house. We don’t know yet if there’s a database match,’ replied Dixon.

  ‘Well, let’s hope that comes through. We certainly can’t sanction a mass trawl through mobile positioning records, and a speculative one at that. You’ll have to think of something else, Dixon,’ said Charlesworth.

  ‘What about personnel?’ asked Lewis.

  ‘We may need extra help but . . .’

  ‘You can keep Dave and Mark for a week to get this lot sorted. Then I’ll have to take them off you.’

  Dixon sighed.

  ‘Are you and Constable Winter still an item, Dixon?’ asked Charlesworth.

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘We need to do something about that too.’ Charlesworth turned to Lewis and raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Yes, Sir,’ said Lewis.

  False summits; he’d always hated them. It was the disappointment, his hopes dashed, and then the sickening realisation that he had to get up, dust himself down and keep going. It wasn’t the end, after all. The worst had been the Dôme du Goûter on the way up Mont Blanc, but this one was right up there with it, and at least he had known the Dôme du Goûter was coming. He’d been warned about it, was prepared for it even. He closed his eyes and remembered the line of head torches snaking their way up the summit ridge above him in the first light of dawn. Then he had reached for his camera and the photograph was still hanging on his bedroom wall. It had survived the cull of his old climbing photographs when Jane moved in.

  The soft ping of an email arriving brought him back to his computer screen. Yes, it was a false summit and yes, he would keep going. He had no choice.

  He opened the email and grimaced. The DNA sample found at Tulkeley Cottage came from a brown hair found in the bedroom. No other information was given except that it was from an unidentified male not on the national database. He closed his eyes, but the summit ridge was shrouded in darkness now, the lights gone.

  ‘What’s up?’ asked Jane. She was standing next to him with a mug of coffee in her hand.

  ‘No DNA match.’

  ‘Bugger.’

  ‘We’ve got Dave and Mark for a week. And the mobile positioning is a non-starter.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Too expensive and too speculative, apparently.’

  ‘So, what do we do now?’

  ‘Well, she won’t tell us who he is, so we’ve got to find him,’ said Dixon. ‘I think you and Louise need to have another word with Muriel Dummett. Where is she?’

  ‘She was released on police bail this morning. The CPS say there’s not enough to charge her.’

  ‘Yet,’ muttered Dixon. ‘Have another word with the neighbours too, while you’re up there.’

  Jane nodded.

  ‘We can go back through her bank statements. See if there are any payments to anyone interesting.’

  Jane was making notes.

  ‘And let’s get her divorce papers. You never know, they may name a co-respondent. We can speak to the ex-husband. And holidays.’

  ‘Holidays?’

  ‘See if she’s flown anywhere apart from Sweden recently. If so, who’d she go with? Check the seating plan on the plane.’

  Jane frowned.

  ‘I know. It’s called clutching at straws,’ said Dixon, shaking his head.

  ‘We’re still waiting for the full report on her computers,’ said Jane. ‘High Tech may still come up with something.’

  ‘Let’s hope so.’

  ‘And the calls to and from her landlines.’


  ‘Good.’

  ‘It could be that she’s lying because she doesn’t want to drop the Albanians in it,’ said Jane. ‘They’re dangerous people.’

  ‘If that was right, why did she keep the phone?’ asked Dixon. ‘She’d have got rid of it last October when the deal was done.’

  ‘Yeah, you’re right. It doesn’t add up.’

  ‘We’ll just keep digging until we find him, or until we’ve got enough to justify the mobile positioning.’

  ‘Here’s Louise,’ said Jane. ‘Nice lie in?’

  ‘You are kidding?’

  ‘Yes, I am. Coffee?’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘What about you?’ asked Jane, turning to Dixon. But he was miles away, on the beach at Berrow, listening to an Albanian gangster talking about insurance.

  What the hell was all that about?

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Thursday 23 January; Polling Day

  Dixon was parked in the loading bay outside Lester Hodson Solicitors in Bridgwater, watching the traffic warden in his wing mirror. She peeled the back off a parking ticket and stuck it in the middle of the windscreen of the car behind his Land Rover. Then she stepped forward, reaching for her ticket machine, her eyes fixed on Dixon’s number plate.

  He wound the window down, held out his warrant card and was relieved when it had the desired effect.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ said Dixon. Then he turned back to Wendy Gibson’s will file.

  The solicitor had been reluctant to release it without seeing a death certificate, until Dixon pointed out that they must have seen both a death certificate and a grant of probate before they had released the deeds to Dolley & Freer in 1995. It was testament to the inefficiency of their deeds clerk perhaps that the file hadn’t been marked for destruction at that time, but Dixon was not complaining.

  The initial attendance note was what he was looking for. The notes of the first meeting between the solicitor and Mrs Gibson that he hoped might hold the key to his cold case. Not that he had wasted much time on it in recent days, as the hunt for Dr McConnell’s accomplice dragged on, but he had found himself outside Lester Hodson’s office and it had only taken him ten minutes to persuade them to release the file.

  He slid the papers out of the faded brown envelope and unfolded them. They felt damp to the touch and he grimaced when a small cloud of either dust or mould spores exploded in front of him. He wound the window down again, despite the rain.

  The will was held together by a rusty staple that had left a brown stain in the top left corner of the page. At least it hadn’t been handwritten in quill pen. He glanced at the will, which was almost identical to her last one, except for the appointment of different executors. Then he turned to the correspondence pin; faded pieces of paper of all different sizes held together on a rotten treasury tag; the ink, once black, having faded to brown.

  The last piece of paper was the one he was looking for, although sadly it was a page of handwritten scribblings made by the solicitor during the meeting. There was no detailed attendance note, as was the requirement these days. The note was dated 12 May 1985 and Dixon counted sixteen words on the page, all of them legible, just. ‘Wendy May Gibson; executors Lester Hodson; residue to FoBH and RNLI; child (adopted 1954), leave nothing.’

  It was short and to the point, but it told him what he wanted to know, although now he had someone else to find.

  Jane was just leaving when Dixon turned into Express Park at midday. They each wound their windows down.

  ‘Where are you off to?’

  ‘She stayed at the Bishopstrow House Hotel last May, according to her credit card statements,’ replied Jane.

  ‘We looked at those, didn’t we?’

  ‘It’s an MBNA account we didn’t know about.’

  ‘Did she go alone?’

  ‘It was a double room.’

  ‘And she paid?’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘Near Warminster.’

  ‘What time will you be back?’

  ‘Fourish, I expect,’ replied Jane. ‘I’ll send you a text.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘And Louise has got her divorce papers.’

  Dixon parked under cover and took the lift up to the CID area.

  ‘Jane’s gone . . .’

  ‘I bumped into her on the way in, thanks, Louise,’ said Dixon. ‘Anything in the divorce papers?’

  ‘Adultery but the co-respondent is unnamed. Seems to have been only one though and there’s reference to dirty weekends in Blackpool, Bournemouth and at the Bishopstrow House.’

  ‘A regular haunt of hers then?’

  ‘Looks like it,’ replied Louise.

  ‘Ex-husband?’

  ‘Seeing him tomorrow.’

  ‘These them?’ asked Dixon, picking up a plastic document wallet.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do me a favour when you get a minute, will you?’

  ‘Yes, Sir?’

  ‘Wendy May Gibson. Here’s my file,’ said Dixon, dropping a folder onto the desk next to her. ‘She gave a child up for adoption in 1954. Get onto the adoption agency and find out what became of him or her. And don’t tell Jane either.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘It’s complicated.’

  ‘OK.’

  Dixon sat down in the corner of the staff canteen and peeled open an egg and cress sandwich. Then he began flicking through Dr McConnell’s divorce papers. Ten minutes later he had finished both, still felt hungry and had learned nothing that Louise hadn’t already told him. Another dead end, unless Jane came up with something at the Bishopstrow House.

  He trudged back to his desk, sat down and reached up for a green document wallet marked ‘insurance’. It contained copies of all of Dr McConnell’s insurance policies; office, public liability, house and contents, buildings, car and life insurance. There were also two life assurance policies, just in case Dixon had misheard the Albanian accent. He had been through it any number of times and had even searched for policies on the life of Elizabeth Perry. Nothing. But then Zavan had been referring to a different type of insurance. He must have been. The type of insurance that a criminal takes out when asked by another to commit a crime.

  Dixon would ask him if he could but even that door had been slammed in his face. Much longer and Lewis would be winding down the investigation still further. And he’d already got one cold case on the go.

  He was waiting for the kettle to boil when he noticed Louise waving at him.

  ‘PC Cole’s on the phone. Asking for you.’

  Dixon walked over and took the phone from Louise.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘PC Cole, Sir.’

  ‘What is it, Cole?’

  ‘I’m at the polling station in Brent Knoll. The parish hall. I think there’s something you ought to see.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A postal ballot paper’s been handed in. A motorcycle courier rode up about an hour ago. The staff here called the returning officer and he rang us. There’s something in the envelope.’

  ‘Has it been opened?’

  ‘No, Sir. It feels like a memory stick.’

  ‘Whose ballot paper is it?’

  ‘Harry Unwin’s, Sir.’

  ‘Harry’s?’

  ‘Yes, Sir. Not only that but it doesn’t match the name written on the postal voting statement.’

  ‘What’s the name on the statement?’

  ‘Nicholas John Dixon.’

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Ring Jane and let her know what’s going on, will you?’

  ‘OK,’ replied Louise.

  She was sitting in the passenger seat of his Land Rover, but Dixon could hardly make out what she was saying over the noise of the diesel engine, as they raced north on the M5.

  ‘She’s on her way back. I told her to wait for us at Express Park.’

  ‘Good.’

  Dixon parked
on the forecourt of the new Brent Knoll Parish Hall, right next to the ‘Loading and Unloading Only’ sign.

  ‘You won’t be able to leave that there.’

  Dixon looked over to where the shout had come from. Three people were sitting on a bench by the front door, sheltering under two large golf umbrellas. One wore a blue rosette, one yellow and the other red. He shook his head. Perhaps political parties can cooperate with each other after all, he thought, waving his warrant card at them as he ran in the front door.

  Two large tables had been set up in the foyer, with a black box on the end of the far table. Against the wall opposite were four timber polling booths.

  ‘D’you have your polling card?’

  ‘No,’ replied Dixon, showing the clerk his warrant card.

  ‘Through there,’ she said, pointing to a door at the back of the foyer.

  PC Cole was sitting on a stool in the kitchen, sipping a mug of tea, and jumped up when he saw Dixon.

  ‘Sir, this is Robert Sampson, the returning officer.’

  ‘You’ll be Detective Inspector Dixon?’ asked Sampson. He was short, with dark curly hair and was dressed casually in jeans and a blue pullover.

  ‘Nicholas John,’ said Dixon, shaking his hand. ‘Where is it?’

  ‘Here,’ replied Cole, handing Dixon a plastic evidence bag. ‘I bagged it up just in case.’

  Dixon looked at his watch. It was just before 4 p.m.

  ‘What time did it come in?’

  ‘Just after lunch. Say twoish,’ replied Sampson. ‘The staff here rang me and it took me an hour or so to get here.’

  ‘What made them ring you?’

  ‘You can hand deliver a postal vote to a polling station on election day, Inspector, but the ballot paper must match the postal voting statement. It’s in a sealed envelope, but the code on the front doesn’t match the statement. It’s not your ballot paper. You’re not even registered for a postal vote.’

  Dixon nodded.

  ‘Not to mention what’s in it,’ said Sampson.