by James Raven
‘I must stress that Danny Cain has not been convicted of any crime,’ Temple said. ‘We want to question him about a murder and because of the circumstances we feel it necessary to name him.’
In truth the team were now convinced of Cain’s guilt. In the past few hours they had received confirmation that Mayo’s blood type matched the stain found on Cain’s shoes and in his car. DNA tests were now being carried out. In addition they had found a carving knife in the kitchen sink at the cottage. It wasn’t the murder weapon, of course, but the prints on it matched those belonging to Cain. So perhaps he had threatened Mayo with it before beating him to death.
But the real clincher for Temple and Priest was something that had been discovered by the officers who examined Mayo’s mobile phone. There were a series of text messages that revealed what had presumably been a closely guarded secret.
If Cain had discovered that secret then he would have had a strong motive for killing his friend and partner.
‘It’s me, hon. Danny’s going to London on Monday to see the editor of the Mirror. But of course you know that. Can we get together early afternoon at your place? Call me.’
‘It’s me. I tried calling earlier but your phone was off. Let’s meet in the usual place at lunchtime. I’m in the mood for some car sex in the forest.’
Those were two out of five voice messages that Vince Mayo had for some reason saved on his phone. They had come from Maggie Cain’s mobile so it was reasonable for Temple to assume that it was her voice.
The service providers for both their mobile phones had also emailed a full list of text messages they had exchanged. Most were of an intimate nature. Lots of kisses. Talking about what they had done to each other and what they wanted to do the next time they met up.
It was clear that Mrs Cain had been conducting an illicit affair with her husband’s partner for at least five months. But the last exchange of text messages between the two suggested to Temple that Cain might have got wind of what was going on.
Mayo to Mrs Cain: ‘Are you sure that Danny doesn’t know about us?’
Mrs Cain to Mayo: ‘Positive. Why?’
Mayo to Mrs Cain: ‘I think I’m being stalked. Jennifer saw a guy in the woods behind the cottage yesterday afternoon. He was watching the house and had binos.’
Mrs Cain to Mayo: ‘Danny was with me.’
Mayo to Mrs Cain: ‘So maybe he’s hired a private detective.’
Mrs Cain to Mayo: ‘You’re getting paranoid, Vince. First the man with the camera and now this.’
Mayo to Mrs Cain: ‘I told you the guy took a pic of us in the car. I saw him with my own eyes. And, just like the man behind the cottage, he was wearing a sheepskin coat.’
Mrs Cain to Mayo: ‘We were parked in the forest, Vince. He was probably snapping the wildlife. I told you.’
Mayo to Mrs Cain: ‘I’m still worried. If it has nothing to do with Danny then what’s going on?’
Mrs Cain to Mayo: ‘Let’s meet tomorrow. Call me from the office when you get the chance.’
That final exchange had taken place a week ago. There were no text messages between the pair after that.
Temple was in Priest’s office discussing the messages and their significance. They had not been mentioned at the press conference, but in terms of the investigation they were an explosive development.
But on a personal level Priest was shocked that Mayo had been cheating on his daughter.
‘If the bastard wasn’t dead already I’d probably kill him myself,’ he fumed. ‘This is just what my daughter doesn’t need at the moment.’
‘You don’t think Jennifer suspected that Mayo was being unfaithful?’ Temple asked tentatively.
Priest shook his head. ‘No way. She would have told me. I’m sure of it. And even if she hadn’t I would have sensed in her mood and behaviour that something was wrong.’
‘We’ll have to tell her, sir. Do you want me to do it or do you want to?’
‘Of course I’ll tell her. She’s going to be inconsolable.’ Priest sat back in his chair and looked at the ceiling. His rugged features were taut and sallow. He seemed to have aged ten years in as many hours.
‘Well, at least we have our motive now,’ he said. ‘Cain found out about the affair and went to the cottage to confront Mayo. Something was probably said in that last phone call Mayo made to the Cain house.’
‘Maybe his wife confessed and he got straight on the blower to confront Mayo. Tell him he was coming over.’
‘I think it’s more likely that he found out,’ Priest said. ‘Maybe the mystery guy that both Jen and Maggie Cain mentioned was indeed a private detective.’
Temple nodded. ‘Let’s hope Jennifer can help us with a description.’
The latest developments energized the detectives. The briefing room was loud and lively, despite the fact that many of the officers had been up all night working on the case.
The display boards now contained pictures of Cain and his family. There was also a large map of Southampton and the New Forest. Coloured pins showed Mayo’s cottage, Cain’s house and the sites of the two attacks involving the youths. A sweep of all the CCTV cameras in the city was still in progress, but so far there were no other sightings of Cain.
Temple asked the teams to provide updates. He learned that Mayo had a bank overdraft of £7,000. He also had a string of credit-card debts, as well as his other outstanding loan. Cain’s finances were healthier but still in bad shape. The salary he was paying himself was barely covering his outgoings. The Southern News Agency was bringing in a small amount of income from some fixed contracts with newspapers, but it had almost used up its capital base. There was just a few thousand left in a business account with Santander.
Brayshaw had spoken to Maggie Cain’s mother. She had no idea where her daughter was, but said she’d taken Laura out for the day on Saturday. When she took her home about five in the evening she didn’t bother to stay because her daughter and Cain had been arguing.
‘The mother said she didn’t know that her daughter had been having an affair with Mayo,’ Brayshaw said. ‘She told me she found it hard to believe. And I must say she looked pretty upset.’
‘So Cain and his wife had an argument only hours before he drove over to Mayo’s cottage,’ Temple said.
Brayshaw nodded. ‘Her mother assumed it was over money. But of course she can’t be sure. She didn’t have a chance to talk to her daughter. But she did say that money has been an issue between the couple for sometime.’
More evidence had come to light confirming that Mrs Cain and her daughter had been at home on the previous evening. Apparently a neighbour – a Mrs Susan Troy – had dropped by to get a petition signed against a development of flats near by. The neighbour said Mrs Cain answered the door and let her in. Both Mrs Cain and her husband signed the petition and they seemed happy enough. Mrs Cain mentioned that they would soon be sitting down to watch the lottery draw on television.
‘Then what the bloody hell happened after that to set things off?’ Priest wanted to know.
‘It must have been the phone call,’ Temple said. ‘The one made by Mayo to Cain’s landline. That was at eight forty-five – around the time the Lotto programme ended. We know that Cain went to the cottage soon after.’
‘But what about the wife?’ Angel said. ‘Did she go with him to the cottage or did she wait at the house? And where was she when we arrived? The neighbour in the street behind saw a man who we think was Cain. But there’s no mention of a woman and child.’
Brayshaw had checked out Joe Dessler’s alibi. He’d managed to track down the owner of the Grand Casino, who was now in the process of obtaining all the security footage.
‘He confirmed that Dessler was there last night,’ Brayshaw said. ‘He saw him several times playing roulette and blackjack. And he reckons he lost a large sum of money.’
The level of interest in Dessler had diminished however since the focus of the investigation had shifted to Danny Ca
in. But Temple wanted the loan shark to remain in the frame because of his threats against Mayo. And because of the story that Mayo and Cain had been working on, the one that was supposed to expose Dessler as a criminal.
‘What about the computers we picked up?’ Temple asked. ‘Have we examined the drives yet?’
‘We’re expecting something through any minute,’ he was told. ‘They’re password protected so it’s taken a bit of time.’
In fact just an hour after the meeting in the briefing room ended a computer technician named Ben Crawley called Temple to say he had got into Mayo’s computer and had managed to download the Dessler story, which was in rough draft form.
‘You’re not going to like it, Inspector,’ Crawley said.
‘Oh?’
Crawley read out one of the paragraphs that Mayo had written. The words sent a fast ripple through Temple’s body and raised a whole new question about what the hell was going on.
23
Daylight filtered through the cracks along the eaves but the new day did not bring new hope for Maggie Cain. She was cold and terrified. Her soiled jeans had started to smell and the air in the loft had become thicker and more claustrophobic.
Danny and Laura were both sleeping, entwined in each other’s arms under the blankets. Maggie had been watching her husband for the past half-hour. His face was a mess, with bruises and cuts and dried blood across his cheeks and forehead.
He’d told her what had happened to him, what he had done to the two youths. She’d listened with a strong sense of pride and admiration. But his words and appearance had increased her own sense of self-loathing.
At least if they died here in the loft Danny would never have to know about her betrayal.
The affair with Vince had been an escape from what she had come to regard as a dull, monotonous life. The passion had gone out of her marriage over a period. The catalyst was the realization that family life was not all it was cracked up to be. She’d embraced it with enthusiasm at the start and made a firm decision not to go back to work until Laura was at secondary school. She wanted to devote all her time to her daughter. She wanted to be the perfect mother.
And at first that’s how it was. She enjoyed the whole baby thing, even the nappies and constant vomiting. But as Laura grew up so did the demands on Maggie’s time and patience. But that was all right because Danny was bringing in a terrific salary and they had an affluent lifestyle. When Laura was at school she could go shopping or visit the gym. They had lots of expensive holidays and weekends away.
But then everything changed when Danny lost his job. Only ten of the editorial staff were made redundant and her hapless husband had to be one of them. It was grossly unfair.
She began to see things then in a new light. The total, unhealthy dependence she had on her husband. The lack of her own identity. The fact that they were suddenly struggling to make ends meet. She would have to go back to work, but for the wrong reason. Not because she wanted to but because she had to. She became bored, resentful, frustrated.
Vince had always had a crush on her, since the day she went to work in the ad department at the Post. But it was Danny, the bright, dynamic reporter, who had asked her out first.
For years Vince remained on the scene, though. He was the office flirt, flitting from one relationship to another, and in a way Maggie had envied his free spirit and devil-may-care attitude to life.
After she left the Post to become a full-time housewife and mother she continued to see him through Danny. He came to the house and they would go out as a foursome when he had a girl in tow. Usually there was more than one girl on the scene, since Vince liked to play the field and had a voracious sexual appetite.
But they probably wouldn’t have got together if Danny had gone along to the staff reunion at the Post just over five months ago. He didn’t go because he was feeling poorly that day and stayed at home to look after Laura. He insisted that she should go and asked Vince to take care of her.
That was how trusting he was. It would never have occurred to him that two of the people he loved most in the world would betray him.
After checking with his current girlfriend, Jennifer Priest, that it was all right, Vince took her to the party. He was the perfect companion. He fetched her drinks and danced with her. He told her she looked beautiful and that if she hadn’t married Danny he would have snapped her up. It was the drink talking, of course, but nonetheless she was flattered.
The evening was drawing to a close when the banter and flirting turned into something far more dangerous. The last dance. A slow one. Vince held her close. She felt his erection against her stomach, his warm breath on her neck. And then he nibbled her earlobe. She closed her eyes and felt her pulse race. He ran his tongue over her cheek, whispered the words that changed her world.
‘For years I’ve yearned to get this close to you, Maggie. You turn me on more than any woman I have ever known. Danny is a lucky man.’
Vince didn’t take her straight home that night. Instead, the taxi dropped them at his cottage where they made love. It was intense and rushed, but it lit a fire inside her that she couldn’t put out.
From then on they got together whenever they had the chance. It was a purely physical thing. Passion with a capital P. They were able to keep their emotions in check because neither of them wanted it to go beyond that. What they had was lust and not love. For both of them the affair satisfied a need. Maggie suddenly felt alive again. The aspects of her life that had been bringing her down no longer seemed so important, although she was careful not to let Danny know how she felt.
Vince was a distraction. He made her feel good about herself in a way that her husband no longer did. She liked the excitement, the danger. She liked the uncomplicated, uninhibited sex.
Vince, God rest his soul, was selfish and shallow. Even though he professed to love Danny like a brother, he was prepared to risk their friendship by sleeping with his wife. His offer to share his lottery win with Danny was almost certainly to assuage his own guilt.
Maggie thought back to their last face to face conversation. She had met him in town and over coffee they talked about his belief that he – or possibly they – were being stalked. And it wasn’t without some justification. Two sightings of a mystery man in a sheepskin coat was perhaps more than a coincidence.
Maggie agreed that they shouldn’t see each other for a while, but she couldn’t help wondering whether Vince was using it as an excuse to extract himself from the affair. She had been expecting it, actually. Vince had become preoccupied with his personal problems. His debts were mounting and Jennifer was putting pressure on him because she wanted to move in to the cottage.
Now, of course, his problems were no more and Maggie was in no position even to grieve for him. As for her own perceived needs and wants prior to this nightmare, well they just seemed pathetic now. She longed instead to return to the life she’d had. The life she had put at risk.
‘What are you thinking?’
Danny’s voice startled her. Her eyes had drifted away from him and she didn’t realize that he was awake.
‘I’m thinking that I don’t want to die,’ she said.
Danny raised himself on one elbow, carefully so as not to wake Laura.
Maggie was desperate for him to reassure her, to tell her that they would survive this ordeal. But he just stared at her, his bloodshot eyes heavy with sadness.
For the briefest moment she thought that he was reading her mind and seeing what she had done. But then his chest heaved with emotion and he said, ‘We don’t know for certain that he’s going to kill us. He said he would let us go.’
‘We both know he’s lying,’ Maggie said. ‘He can’t let us go.’
Danny winced as he pushed himself to a sitting position. He looked down at Laura and stroked her hair. Then, turning back to Maggie, he said, ‘We can’t give up without a fight.’
Maggie held up her cuffed hand and rattled the chain it was attached to.
/> ‘But what can we do, Danny?’
She started to cry and Danny reached over and pulled her close to him.
‘We have to find a way out before he comes back,’ she said. ‘There must be something we can do.’
He squeezed her harder. She felt his blood and sweat and tears. She also felt his unconditional love for her. A love she didn’t deserve.
‘We’ll find a way,’ he said, his voice breaking. ‘We just have to keep thinking.’
24
Temple tapped his fist against the open door of the super’s office. Priest was sitting behind his desk speaking into the phone. He waved Temple in as he continued the conversation.
‘I agree this is a serious allegation against DS Jordan,’ Priest said into the mouthpiece. ‘At this stage we have no idea whether it has any bearing on the murder investigation. We’re having trouble contacting the officer.’
Temple sat down on one of the chairs facing Priest. He was tired and sweaty. He rubbed both his cheeks, fingers scraping over a thick layer of stubble.
Priest, he knew, was briefing his superiors at Hampshire police headquarters on the latest development which had taken them all by surprise.
Detective Sergeant Ian Jordan was with the vice squad, which occupied an office in another part of the building. Temple knew him, but not well. He had been transferred from Portsmouth a year ago and was regarded as an arrogant shit, with a loud mouth and a short temper. By all accounts the Pompey lot were glad to get shot of him. It was why Temple had never made an effort to get to know him.
But now he had a reason to because, according to Vince Mayo, Ian Jordan was a bent copper. The article Mayo had been writing about Joe Dessler contained the blistering allegation that Dessler was paying Jordan a monthly retainer. In return for the cash Jordan was steering the vice squad away from Dessler’s activities and tipping him off if trouble was brewing. There were other allegations – among them that Dessler was running at least two illegal brothels in Southampton and that he was also blackmailing a city counsellor who had been a regular client.
