Another Good Killing

by Stephen Puleston

  ‘They showed little emotion.’ I replied as I booted up my computer.

  Lydia nodded in agreement.

  ‘Maybe all the family are like that. All upper-class detachment and too repressed to show their real emotions.’ I glanced at the clock on the monitor. ‘I’ll need to speak to Dave Hobbs. He’ll have finished that seminar by now.’

  ‘I’ll dig around into Matthew Dolman and the National Bank of Wales.’ She turned and left.

  The next few hours were spent in a blur of activity. I briefed a team of uniformed officers to get the preliminary work undertaken near the Royal Bell car park. They had to interview anybody who might have seen anything, suspicious or otherwise, that morning. There were offices to visit and staff names to collect. And Lydia built a database of all the CCTV cameras in the middle of Cardiff.

  The office manager got exasperated when I told her we needed a board in the Incident Room within an hour but she was as good as her word when two civilians hauled one in, sweating and cursing as they manhandled it through the doors.

  The first few hours after a murder are always crucial to any inquiry. But Alvine Dix in forensics seemed oblivious to the demands of modern policing priorities. I had taken Lydia with me to witness for herself Alvine’s cantankerousness. She had glared at me and even grimaced at Lydia but in truth, my demand for results this quickly was unfair. Alvine had made it quite clear that I would have to wait.

  My email inbox was choked with circulars and reminders but I left most of them unread and at the end of the afternoon I headed out to see Superintendent Cornock.

  He had one of the better offices, spacious and airy and he had been a fixture at Queen Street for years. I knocked on his office door. There was a muffled shout, which I took as an invitation to enter. In one corner, Cornock drizzled dried food over the surface of an aquarium. It let out a faint humming sound and a trickle of bubbles broke the surface. Every time I visited his office I was convinced he had added a new miniature structure for the amusement of his tropical fish.

  ‘Sit down.’ Cornock nodded towards one of the visitor chairs.

  Cornock’s skin looked ashen, as though his diet was seriously deficient of some important vitamin. He had an old-fashioned short back-and-sides and recently he had substituted his usual white shirt for a discreet powder-blue version. He settled back into his chair and gave me one of his probing looks. ‘I’ve already had ACC James on the telephone warning me in advance that his wife pays for an annual parking permit at the Royal Bell. She works as an accountant in one of the big firms in the city. What can you tell me?’

  ‘Matthew Dolman was killed this morning. I had to leave the seminar run by Dave Hobbs. Shame really, I was looking forward to hearing the latest about the gangs associated with Cardiff City football club.’

  Cornock gave me a quizzical look as though he wasn’t certain if I was joking.

  ‘Dolman was the managing director of the National Bank of Wales,’ I continued.

  Cornock nodded. ‘Dolman was a very important individual. An establishment figure in ‘post devolution’ Wales, so just keep that in mind.’

  I wanted to say something smart about Dolman’s life being no less valuable than a steel worker from Port Talbot or a worker from one of the call centres that had opened in Cardiff. I could see that there would be interference in the investigation and that if I was really unlucky there would be politicians poking their noses into the case too.

  ‘And we broke the news to both his sons – Troy and Rex.’

  ‘How did they react?’

  ‘They were shocked, but also cool. Lydia Flint thinks there’s something odd going on.’

  ‘Woman’s intuition?’

  ‘She’s right, sir. It was all very business-like somehow.’

  ‘What do you expect? They’re bankers.’

  ‘Apparently he’d been receiving death threats. Three letters in the past few months, telling him that the recession was all the fault of the bankers, that they were all greedy bastards and that poverty could be eradicated if their bonuses were taxed heavily.’

  ‘And presumably they ignored them.’

  I shook my head slowly. ‘Far from it. They made a complaint. Apparently Detective Inspector Dave Hobbs went to see them.’

  Cornock sat back in his chair and tapped his fingers on a pile of papers on his desk. ‘Can you imagine the fallout if we have done nothing about this. You had better send me the details and copies of all the letters. I’ll talk to Dave Hobbs.’

  ‘There’s more, sir.’

  Cornock raised his head and peered over at me.

  ‘There was note clipped to a lanyard left around Dolman’s neck. It had “Greedy Bastards” written on it.’

  Cornock started turning an expensive silver ballpoint through his fingers. ‘Can you imagine the telephone calls I will get tomorrow? There will be politicians and press screaming for information. Tell the family not to talk to anybody until we’ve worked out a strategy. And I want an embargo on any details about these notes being released.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Have you seen his widow?’

  ‘Were going there now.’

  ‘Bring me up to date first thing in the morning.’

  I stood up and turned to leave.

  ‘And how are things, John?’

  I knew what he meant to ask. He wanted to know if I was still on the wagon. He wanted to know if I could be trusted. ‘Only after that incident with your cousin you’ll appreciate that I need you to be in control.’

  Jeremy Marco was a first cousin who had challenged me about some family business in the middle of my last investigation when things hadn’t been going well. It had ended up in an unseemly brawl that Cornock had smoothed over. He had wanted reassurance then that I wasn’t back on the booze. And he was after the same reassurance now.

  ‘I haven’t touched a drop for years.’

  Cornock nodded. ‘And how is the family?’

  ‘Fine, thank you, sir.’

  I hesitated; we looked each other in the eye. He was my superior officer and one day I would ask about his family. About his daughter that had become a drug addict and a wife who was a recluse. Perhaps Cornock was waiting for me to ask. But I thought the better of it and I gave him a brief nod and left.

  *

  Back in the Incident Room Lydia was staring at her monitor.

  ‘The CCTV from the car park has come through, sir. It will take hours. We’ll need extra resources.’

  I nodded my agreement and then looked at a picture of Matthew Dolman pinned to the middle of the board. ‘Where did you get this photograph?’

  ‘A Google search. He’s got a really high profile.’

  Now I understood Cornock’s comments.

  ‘Let’s see Mrs Dolman,’ I said.

  I found the sat-nav in the glove compartment and punched in the postcode for Dolman’s home. The screen flickered into life with the quickest route to Penarth, a town that was one of the wealthier suburbs of the city. Twenty minutes later we were driving up Windsor Street, passing the railway station towards the centre of town and then left towards the expensive, detached houses with fantastic views over Cardiff Bay. The Dolman residence had heavy electronic gates. There was an intercom system so Lydia jumped out, spoke briefly into the microphone and we waited until the gates swung open. The wheels of my car made a soft crunching sound as we crossed the fine gravel and parked behind a Range Rover Sport. Next to it was a Range Rover Evoque with a personalised registration plate – 752 BD. In fact, all the cars parked in the enormous driveway had personalised number plates and they all ended in the letter D.

  Standing by the back door was Rex Dolman. A family liaison officer I recognised stood alongside him. ‘Good evening, sir.’

  I nodded. Rex gave me a brief, bony handshake. ‘My mother is in the sitting room.’

  He led us through the kitchen; it was spotless, no extraneous equipment cluttering the work surfaces. The hallway was long enou
gh to house a tenpin bowling alley and at the end, I heard muffled conversations.

  Heavy floor-to-ceiling curtains hung either side of enormous bay windows. From the open fireplace the sweet smell of burning wood filled the room. The barest remnants of a sunset still gave the room a magnificent view over Cardiff Bay. Brenda Dolman didn’t get up when her son introduced me. Her face was heavily lined and I could still see the faint streaks of mascara under her eyelids. She clutched a cut-glass tumbler that had a thick piece of sliced lemon floating on top of a clear liquid. I guessed it wasn’t lemonade from the faraway look in her eyes. She reached over and found a cigarette in the pack of Camel Blue sitting on the coffee table alongside a heavy glass ashtray.

  ‘This is Charlotte,’ Rex Dolman said, turning a hand towards the woman sitting on the sofa opposite his mother. Charlotte had a long sculpted face of perfect proportions, with lips an immaculate glossy red. She had thin well-kept blonde hair drawn back into a ponytail and the most flawless make-up I had ever seen. She uncrossed her legs and stepped over towards me with the grace of a racehorse captured in slow motion.

  ‘Charlotte Parkinson,’ she said, giving me a brief smile before returning to the sofa.

  At the other end sat Troy Dolman who gave me a curt nod. Rex pointed to the empty sofas. It came as a surprise when he sat down next to Charlotte and she placed a reassuring hand on his knee. I had seen some oddly matched couples in the past and I thought to myself that it takes all kinds.

  ‘Please accept my condolences, Mrs Dolman,’ I started.

  She looked at me blankly before sipping her drink.

  ‘What time did your husband leave home this morning?’

  ‘The usual time.’ Her voice had been sandpapered by too many cigarettes.

  ‘And what time was that?’

  ‘About eight-thirty.’

  ‘Did he tell you where he was going?’

  She frowned. ‘He was going into work. Like he does every morning.’

  I calculated how long the journey to the Royal Bell car park might take: twenty-five minutes, maybe more depending on the traffic.

  ‘The attendant of the car park says he arrived about nine-thirty. Did he go somewhere after leaving home and before arriving at work?’

  Brenda Dolman gave a disinterested shrug. ‘We live independent lives, Inspector,’ she drawled.

  I stared over at her. Her husband had been killed that morning and apart from the tell-tale signs of some tears earlier that day she appeared unaffected by his death. Everything about her and her sons made me wary and I could hear Cornock’s advice telling me to be careful. ‘Did he say whether he was meeting anyone?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Was he going to the Vale of Glamorgan Racquets Club?’

  She let out an impatient sigh. ‘Not that I know.’

  I glanced over at Rex and Charlotte, sitting, hands threaded together, and then over at Troy, wondering if he had a trophy girlfriend or wife. The whole family felt distant, dysfunctional and I knew that it would be hard work getting anything that might help the inquiry.

  Lydia cleared her throat and made her first contribution. ‘Do you know of anyone who might want to kill your husband?’

  It was a standard question. The sort of thing we always have to ask, never expecting an answer that would identify the killer.

  ‘It must have been something to do with that fucking bank.’

  I stared at Mrs Dolman expecting neither the outburst nor the strong language. I sensed Lydia equally taken aback. And I noticed Rex moving uncomfortably and then Troy cleared his throat but before he could say anything I turned to her. ‘Where were you this morning?’

  ‘Here of course. All morning.’ She leant forward and stubbed out her cigarette.

  I hesitated, allowing the silence to fill the enormous gap between their lives and ours. And the fact that everything about them, their lack of eye contact and disinterested body language made me feel they had no interest in finding the killer. Eventually I said, ‘I’ll need to go through all his personal effects.’

  She got up and led us into the hallway and then through to another large room almost as big as my apartment where one wall was lined with books. She was shorter than she appeared and older somehow. A computer with two monitors stood on top of a large glass-topped desk. It had a sterile professional feel. I pondered whether either of Dolman’s sons had been sorting through his papers before we arrived. Lydia flicked through the contents of a filing cabinet.

  ‘Everything is in alphabetical order,’ she said. ‘All neat and tidy.’

  The computer sprang into life in seconds. I scanned the contents of Dolman’s desktop. It didn’t take me long to realise that the important parts of Matthew Dolman’s life were in the National Bank of Wales.

  ‘A forensic team will have to look at this computer,’ I said.

  ‘And these,’ Lydia said, holding up various data sticks.

  I switched off the computer and went back to the sitting room where Brenda Dolman was pulling deeply on another cigarette. Smoke tickled my nostrils and awakened all the usual desires, but I knew that I’d already had my five for the day. Smoking any more would break the promise I had made to my mother that I was doing my best to stop.

  ‘I’ll need to see his bedroom,’ I said.

  Brenda Dolman rolled her eyes. ‘Follow me.’

  At the top of the staircase we turned left down the landing; discreet downlighters and table lamps bathed the light cream carpet, the woodwork looked recently painted and fresh flowers stood in a glass vase on an oak sideboard.

  She stopped by a door. ‘This is Matthew’s bedroom. We’ve slept apart for some time.’ She avoided eye contact and turned her head, reaching a hand to her cheek, brushing away a tear that never came.

  Half an hour later Lydia and I returned to the sitting room, no wiser for having sifted through expensive shirts, designer suits and highly polished brogues.

  ‘A forensic team will call to remove the computer,’ I said. ‘And we may need to interview you again Mrs Dolman. And if you’re contacted by the press you should say nothing.’

  She gave me another tired look and sat back in her chair. Rex showed us to the back door again and we left through the electronic gates.

  ‘She was a cold-hearted bitch,’ Lydia said without a trace of emotion. ‘When my boyfriend’s father died his mother just cried all the time.’

  ‘Bankers. What do you expect?’

  ‘Some emotion would have been normal.’

  ‘I’ve never seen so little reaction from a woman who’s just lost her husband.’

  I started the engine and we left Penarth but the image of Mrs Dolman drawing on her cigarette stayed in my mind. I headed back for the centre of Cardiff. Streetlights shrouded the road a dirty white colour and soon I drew up outside the Queen Street car park. I watched Lydia as she unlocked her Fiesta and then I turned back and headed towards the Bay. Most of the parking spots had been taken which meant a long walk to the entrance of my apartment building. Inside, I threw my keys onto the kitchen worktop, poured a glass of water and then slumped onto the sofa before flicking through the channels. Within five minutes I was fast asleep.

  Chapter 4

  A thunderstorm woke me with a start, rain hammering against my bedroom window. I stared at the clock; there was another twenty minutes until the alarm would go off. I threw back the duvet and sat on the edge of the bed. A light flickering on the bedside telephone warned me there was a message. I pressed play. My mother’s accent sounded more Italian when it played over the loudspeaker. More than half a lifetime living in the valleys of South Wales had not completely eradicated the soft rhythms of her Tuscan accent.

  She wanted to meet for lunch today. She made her trip into Cardiff sound a coincidence but an invitation to meet her usually meant she wanted something. I made a mental note to call her back after breakfast. I trundled through into the kitchen, flicking on the Gaggia coffee machine before walking through into the ba
throom. My apartment felt small after the Dolman house. The bathroom was tiny, the bedrooms cramped and not even one of their sofas would have fitted inside my sitting room.

  After a shower, I got dressed. I gave the dark brown moleskin trousers hanging in the wardrobe a cursory glance before deciding that a visit to the National Bank of Wales justified a suit. Not my best, but the sombre navy one that had recently been dry-cleaned. I found a clean white shirt and a dark tie with discreet blue stripes.

  After a hurried breakfast, I stood by the mirror in the hallway and adjusted my tie. I looked like an estate agent or maybe a lawyer, definitely not a banker judging by the expensive clothes I had seen the day before.

  As I drove past the old tinplate works along Central Link, passing the Bute East Dock on my left, I kept thinking about the Dolman family. What did they think about ordinary people, those who could not afford to live behind electronic gates or buy new cars that cost three times the average salary? Now they would have the Wales Police Service crawling over their lives, shining an inquisitive light into every hidden corner.

  I parked next to Lydia’s Ford Fiesta and strode towards the rear entrance of Queen Street before punching in the security code. An antiseptic smell drifted through the stairwell and after I pushed open the door on the second floor the odour of furniture polish hung in the air. Lydia looked over at me.

  ‘Good morning,’ I said. ‘You’re in early.’

  ‘I wanted to make progress with the CCTV footage.’

  After booting up my computer I read the post mortem report. There were comments referring to a long thin blade piercing the aorta, making it clear that death would have been instantaneous. The killer struck twice, as though he were making certain. I picked up the telephone handset and dialled the pathologist’s number.

  ‘Thanks for the report, Paddy,’ I said.

  ‘Interesting case,’ he replied. ‘The killer stabbed twice. It would have taken a lot of precision to pierce the aorta and the left ventricle cleanly. It suggests that the killer either knew exactly where to strike or he got lucky.’