Another Good Killing

by Stephen Puleston

  ‘Cleaver.’ I spat out his name. Lydia had been outside his home last night. I stood up and shouted at Jane.

  *

  A line of traffic slowed our progress and increased my anger tenfold as we drove towards the Corporation Street Working Men’s Club. I swore at various cars and vans and one driver earned a vigorous gesticulation of my right hand. Jane drove but said nothing. She parked next to an old blue Land Rover, its wheel arches rusted with age.

  ‘There was nothing you could have done, sir.’ Jane switched off the ignition and leant forward against the steering wheel. It didn’t feel that way but I appreciated what she was trying to do.

  ‘Let’s go and talk to Henson.’

  ‘Is that his Land Rover?’

  ‘We’ll soon find out.’ I sat for a moment, pondering, before turning to Jane. ‘You wait here. I won’t be long.’ She protested but I was out of the car before she could say anything. I was breaking protocols of course. There should have been two of us going into the premises that morning. But I had Lydia to find and protocols could go and fuck themselves. I tensed as the front door appeared locked but it gave way after a heavy jolt and a gentle tap with my shoulder. Someone was whistling in the rear of the building and then I heard the sound of a vacuum. I reached the hallway and stopped, looking up the stairs. I took small deep breaths and kept my footsteps soft on the risers although my heartbeat raced. At the top, I paused and listened for any sound. It was ridiculous to think that Lydia might have been kept here but desperation can play terrible tricks on the mind.

  I heard the sound of fingers racing across a keyboard and then the clicking of a mouse. My heart moved sideways in my chest. I pushed open the door and saw Henson and Cleaver sitting at their desks, eyes staring intently at their computer screens. Henson jolted backwards in his chair when he saw me.

  ‘How the fuck did you get in?’

  ‘The cleaner opened up.’

  The printer purred into life and a few sheets popped out. At least the printer hadn’t changed. I walked over to the desks and stood over Henson. ‘We’ve got some catching up to do.’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  ‘Where is she, Jamie?’

  Henson sniggered. ‘I don’t know who you mean, policeman.’

  ‘Let’s make this easy for you. Detective Sergeant Flint is missing. You and your friend here are the number one suspects.’

  ‘Was she the one outside my place last night?’ Cleaver managed a thin-lipped grin.

  Mistake. Big mistake.

  ‘Did you know that the sentence for kidnap is at least eight years in prison?’

  Henson sneered at me. His best sneer yet and it made my blood simmer.

  ‘And cons don’t like people like you in prison.’

  ‘What they hell do you mean?’

  ‘Word will get around about your background with young kids.’

  Henson stood up and kicked the chair behind him and it flew back, crashing against a filing cabinet. I stepped closer to Henson. I could see a brown mole on his cheek. His sweater was thin with age, the collar of his shirt frayed.

  Cleaver was on his feet now. ‘He’s winding you up Jamie. Don’t let him get to you.’

  Henson stepped back.

  ‘Cons don’t like paedos,’ I said. ‘How old were they Jamie? Ten, wasn’t it? A young girl and boy. News travels fast inside prison. And even on remand, awaiting trial, you’re not safe.’

  Jamie stiffened as I stepped closer to him. I could smell the cider on his breath. ‘And then there’s the cons who don’t like wife beaters.’

  I had to hope that would have been enough. Time stood still for a moment before he launched himself into me with his shoulder. We crashed backwards. Somehow, I pulled a pile of papers off the desk and they covered the floor by my side. I could sense Henson struggling to overpower me. I fisted my right hand and smacked him hard on the side of the face. He grunted in pain and loosened his grip, obviously weaker than I’d expected, flabby from planning the revolution.

  ‘You fucking knobhead,’ Cleaver shouted.

  He was right but Henson was beyond caring. He thrashed around, kicking my shins and then I turned him over and pushed his face into the floor. I yanked his arms behind his back and snapped on a pair of handcuffs. There was a trickle of blood on my hands and I touched my nose and realised I was bleeding. Between breaths, I recited the standard warning and then I found my mobile and called Jane.

  Moments later, I heard her footfall on the stairs.

  Jane looked at my face. ‘Are you all right, boss?’

  I stood and dabbed the back of my hand to my face. Then I dragged a handkerchief from my pocket and thrust it against my nose. ‘Get some uniformed lads here. I’ve just arrested Jamie Henson for assaulting a police officer. Once we’ve taken him to the station we’ll search the premises.’

  Henson squirmed on the floor. ‘You can’t be serious.’

  Cleaver frantically gathered all his papers together. ‘You’ve got no lawful reason to search our place.’

  I showed him my blood-soaked handkerchief. ‘Your friend has just been arrested. That makes any search lawful. And you’re under arrest for obstruction.’

  He gaped over at me, hesitated, and then threw the papers on the table.

  *

  Alvine gave my nose a suspicious glare. Then she looked past me at Jane who had said very little on the way back to Queen Street. ‘So this printer needs to be checked to establish whether the messages found on Dolman and Turner were printed on it?’

  I glanced over at Jane. She opened her eyes wide but decided against saying anything.

  ‘It was very lucky that Detective Constable Thorne was with me. Henson just launched himself at me. Totally unprovoked attack. He must have been hiding something,’ I said.

  ‘So you searched the premises,’ Alvine said.

  ‘Failing in my public duty if I didn’t.’

  Alvine narrowed her eyes and gave me a troubled look. I trooped back to the Incident Room with Jane. My nose was aching and it felt three times its normal size. Wyn was poring over his computer. We needed to know who had been in Harper’s offices that morning. I stood with my back to the board and caught Wyn looking in my direction. I nodded over at him. ‘Any progress?’

  ‘There was a total of one hundred and fifty-seven demonstrators in the building this morning, including Henson , Cleaver and Youlden.’

  I raised my eyebrows as I calculated how long it would take to interview that number of people.

  ‘And over two hundred members of staff.’

  This could take days.

  Fear gripped me that we’d find Lydia floating in Cardiff Bay, her face swollen and disfigured, her hair a sodden mess. The update from Wyn was interrupted by my mobile ringing on the desk in my office. I had already left Terry a message as, if any of my regular informers might know where Lydia was being held, it would be Terry.

  ‘Meet me in Frank’s in half an hour.’

  Chapter 39

  Terry had a propensity for melodrama but he hadn’t suggested meeting at Frank’s for, well, it must have been two years. I should have been back in Queen Street preparing for an interview with Henson but something in Terry’s tone had made me decide I should see him.

  I parked the car and headed towards the gate into the cemetery. I saw a man in the distance being dragged by a Labrador and then a jogger raced past me. After a couple of minutes on the narrow tarmacked road I took a left along a narrow footpath, its surface rutted with age. Shrubbery had grown wild on one side, choking the gravestones. I reached another path and knew that I was near the obelisk for Frank Baselow. And I knew that Terry wasn’t far away. I slowed my pace and stopped by the memorial. A sign told me it was number twenty-nine on the Cathays Cemetery heritage trail. But there weren’t any cemetery-tourists that evening and I looked up at the image of the woman and child knowing that Terry was probably looking at me. He had checked that I was on my own by now. I turned and looked around but
saw no one.

  I heard a sound in the trees to my left and turned sharply. A cat, thin and ragged with age scurried past me. I glanced at my watch.

  ‘In a hurry?’ Terry’s voice said, emerging from a nearby path. He must have been crouching behind one of the memorial stones nearby.

  ‘Isn’t this a bit cloak and dagger?’

  ‘Sorry to hear about your sergeant.’ He glanced along the path in both directions and then jerked his head for me to follow him.

  ‘Have you heard anything about her?’

  ‘Someone you need to see.’

  ‘I hope this is going to be important.’

  Terry stopped and turned to look at me sharply. ‘All I wanted was your help with Doreen’s case. Make it go away. Disappear.’

  ‘You know—’

  ‘You can fucking fix it if you really want. And now I’ve got something that’ll make your head spin. I’ve been asking all about your friend Jamie Henson and all them fucking kids that want to change the world.’

  He turned and paced away.

  I caught up with him as we reached a small well-cultivated area where a man sat on a wooden bench. He stood up as soon as he saw us approaching.

  ‘This is Bert Goodway.’ Terry sounded matter-of-fact.

  Bert darted a glance up and down the footpath. Terry tried a reassuring tone. ‘There’s no one else here. You need to tell Marco what you know.’

  ‘You’re after them terrorists?’

  I stepped towards him, wanting to look him in the eye, get the measure of the man. He had long greasy hair and an old navy T-shirt under a half-zip sweater.

  ‘Are you involved with them?’

  He shook his head. ‘But I met Neil a while back.’

  ‘Cleaver?’ I said.

  He nodded.

  ‘And?’ I thought that I should be back in Queen Street and that this man and Terry were wasting my time.

  ‘Tell him what you fucking saw.’ Terry raised his voice.

  ‘I used to hang out with one of his mates. And he got me to go with him to some of his meetings with that bloke Henson.’

  ‘Jamie Henson?’

  ‘Yeah. I pushed leaflets through doors and stuck them onto car windscreens. And then there was a demonstration through Pontypridd one Saturday. Waste of fucking time.’

  Terry again. ‘For Christ’s sake tell him.’ He turned to me. ‘And remember Doreen.’

  ‘I was in one of them pubs in Womanby Street by the clock tower. It was last week and the place was dead quiet but I saw Neil walking up the street so I left the pub. He was with Henson and I spotted them going into one of them old properties at the end of the street.’

  I stared at Bert, wanting to believe him and wondering if he had just told me where Lydia might be kept. Terry had always been reliable with information in the past but now the impending case against Doreen was giving him an ulterior motive. There was only one way to find out.

  I reached for my mobile and called the Incident Room.

  Wyn answered.

  ‘Get an armed response unit and a full team down to the entrance of Womanby Street.’

  ‘What—’

  ‘Now.’

  I turned to Bert. ‘You’re coming with me.’

  *

  We raced down towards the middle of town. Cars pulled to one side as I flashed the car headlights. Bert had adopted a running commentary on why he wasn’t getting out of the car and that I couldn’t make him and that if anyone realised he was a ‘grass’ he’d end up as fish bait in the Bay.

  ‘Shut up,’ I shouted. ‘You’ve got more to worry about from me if your information is no fucking good.’

  That did the trick and he kept quiet until I braked hard near the entrance to Womanby Street. Then I had to wait. The streets were choked with people enjoying their evening. I answered my mobile in monosyllabic tones. The ARU would be another five minutes and just as I finished the call I saw Wyn and Jane running up behind my car. Both jumped in and gave Bert a suspicious glare.

  ‘What’s the score?’ Jane asked, breathless from jogging over from Queen Street.

  ‘Bert has intelligence on Henson and Cleaver. They may have been using a property at the bottom of the street.’

  Wyn’s breathing was returning to normal. ‘When was that?’

  ‘I can’t remember dates. I don’t even have a fucking watch.’

  Then I noticed the flashing lights of the approaching police cars that drew to a halt in front of me. Now passers-by stopped and gawped as officers with semi-automatic carbines emerged onto the street. I dragged Bert behind me as we followed the team. He pointed to a dilapidated door and then I nodded to the ARU sergeant who gave the order for it to be broken down. Seconds later we streamed into the building. Bert disappeared up Womanby Street away into the night.

  Four officers went up to the first and second floor of the building as Jane and Wyn accompanied me through the ground floor. At least the absence of clouds of dust suggested recent use. Swiftly we went from one room to another hoping that we’d find Lydia.

  Then there was a shout and I raced up the stairs.

  On the second floor, one of the uniformed officers waved me towards a room at the rear. I stepped inside, heart pounding.

  Inside a large blank cloth had been pinned against one wall. A rigid plastic seat placed before it. And a few metres in front of me was an empty tripod.

  I stood for a moment gathering my breath. Lydia might have been here and I cursed silently at the possibility that we had missed her. I surveyed the room knowing we would need the place examined, taken apart. I turned to Wyn and Jane. ‘We’ll need a full search team.’

  Chapter 40

  I woke the following morning convinced that I had not moved a muscle all night. Immediately I thought of Lydia and then checked my mobile before swinging my legs off the bed. I was out of the flat having showered and dressed quicker than normal. I pushed the handset into the cradle on the dashboard, switched on the hands-free connection and made some calls. Search teams had been working all night on Henson’s house, another in Womanby Street and a third at Cleaver’s place. It was still early and the streets were quiet. I reached the motorway soon enough and powered my way towards Henson’s property.

  I stopped at a small café and bought a bacon sandwich in a soft floury roll and a black watery coffee. I had finished eating by the time I parked near the various police vehicles in the street outside Henson’s house. I grabbed the plastic mug and walked over to the front door. The sound of a car engine drew my attention and I noticed Wyn and Jane emerge from one of the pool cars.

  It should have been Lydia meeting me that morning. Where was she? I wondered whether her captors had given her anything to eat or drink.

  ‘Good morning, boss,’ Wyn said.

  Jane mumbled a greeting. I nodded. They both looked tired but they’d probably be looking a lot worse by tonight.

  A sergeant emerged from the house. He yawned energetically before putting his hands to the small of his back and stretching his body backwards. Then he gave my coffee a long stare.

  ‘There’s a café round the corner,’ I said.

  ‘The place is all yours. There’s a dozen T-shirts with Che Guevara’s face on them and countless hippy beanie caps and more cider than you could drink in a month. I’m off to see how the other team are getting on. Must be a hard life being a revolutionary.’

  ‘We’ll be over there shortly.’

  The sergeant shouted for the team to leave and then dropped a set of keys in my opened palm.

  A poster with the impassive face of Chairman Mao greeted us in the hallway. Over the fireplace in the sitting room was the image of Lenin reaching out his hand against a background of industrial buildings and troops in armoured vehicles.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Wyn said, looking at Lenin. ‘Henson must be a real nutter. Has he got no idea about the millions who died under these two? People like him would have been the first for the gulags.’ Wyn sounded ira
te.

  An old sofa had been pushed against the wall and a large television had pride of place on a small table – connected to it was a games console. In the room at the back an ancient computer and a laptop sat on an office table, a filing cabinet in the far corner. The kitchen had crockery and cutlery piled into boxes and the place smelt of decaying food. It clung to my clothes and tickled my nostrils so I headed back to the hallway and then upstairs. The toilet had a brown stain smearing the edge of the basin and the grouting of the tiles surrounding the shower in the bath had turned a uniform black.

  I retraced my steps back downstairs, none the wiser having tramped around Henson’s home. It struck me then that he was an unlikely killer. He may have been a devoted convert to the anti-capitalist cause who wanted to change the world. But would he kill someone? The evidence from the printer he owned was convenient but now we had a link to the video on Youlden’s laptop. But I knew that none of it would prove murder. So I had to hope that the search team in Womanby Street would turn something up.

  The sat-nav directed me to Cleaver’s address where I walked around the house with Wyn and Jane. Again it had an old hippy stripped-down feel. Even the fridge looked lonely and for some reason I looked in at packets of cheap ham and eggs and margarine. Cans of lager crammed the door – at least we could tell what his priorities were. Cleaver’s house left me with the same frustrating impression that we were looking in the wrong place. I glanced at my watch. I knew that by mid-morning, the computers and exhibits would be in Queen Street and we could get to work.

  Before returning to Queen Street I called the sergeant leading the search in Womanby Street. ‘There’s a shed load of stuff that’ll need forensics to go through. But otherwise there’s no link to anyone.’

  ‘Are CSIs there?’

  ‘Been here since early morning.’

  I walked back to my car and returned to Queen Street wondering how my interview with Jamie Henson would pan out.