Beyond the Point

by Damien Boyd

  ‘Blood on the washing machine, I gather,’ said Donald Watson, leaning in the passenger window of Dixon’s Land Rover.

  ‘And the laundry basket,’ said Louise.

  ‘Not as clever as he thinks then.’ Watson grinned. ‘He’s replaced the carpet in his boot too. Missed a bit though.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Give me ten minutes to get it unloaded. There’s a coffee machine in the office.’

  Dixon and Louise were stirring their coffees with Bic biros when Watson tapped on the window, the empty lorry reversing out of the workshop behind him.

  ‘There’s nothing in the passenger compartment,’ he said, popping the boot open with the remote control. ‘See this carpet.’ Watson pointed into the bottom of the boot. ‘It’s brand new.’

  ‘How can you tell?’ asked Louise.

  ‘They checked with the Maserati garage, Lou.’ Dixon had fallen for that one before. Never again.

  ‘This bit too,’ continued Watson, stifling a grin. He was stroking a piece of carpet on the underside of the boot lid with his latex gloved hand. ‘Brand spanking new.’

  ‘Have you looked under it?’ asked Dixon.

  ‘Not yet, but what’s that you can smell?’

  Dixon leaned over and sniffed inside the boot. ‘Bleach.’

  ‘It’s the bit of carpet under here,’ said Watson, reaching into the boot and pointing up under the chassis just behind the hinges. ‘Just let me give it a spray of luminol.’ Then he placed a UV light in the back of the boot pointing upwards. ‘You’ll need to lean in and look up under here. He probably couldn’t see it against the dark carpet.’

  ‘It looks like a handprint,’ said Dixon, leaning over.

  ‘There are a couple,’ replied Watson.

  Dixon sighed. ‘Which means she was still alive when she was in here.’

  ‘I’ll map them out on a plan for you,’ continued Watson, picking up the UV light. ‘This should be enough to convict without the body, shouldn’t it?’

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  ‘Where is he?’ asked Lewis, sitting down opposite Dixon in the canteen at Express Park.

  ‘Downstairs,’ replied Dixon, ripping open a packet of sandwiches. ‘We’re waiting for a DNA test before we interview him. His fingerprints match those found at the scene. We just want her blood in his car now, then we’ve got him.’

  ‘Charlesworth wants to know if that’s it. You’ve got enough to charge him, even if he goes no comment to everything. Harper is dead, which closes off the Centrix line of enquiry, and now you’ve got Scanlon.’

  ‘I’m sure this is going somewhere,’ said Dixon. ‘D’you want to skip the flannel and get straight to the bad news?’

  Lewis smiled. ‘EDF have been on again. They’re getting nervous about the publicity. There’s some big visit next week, apparently. Chinese investors.’

  ‘Who have they been on to?’

  ‘The Energy Minister, who’s been on to the Home Sec—’

  ‘How long have I got?’

  ‘Forty-eight hours,’ replied Lewis. ‘He’s told them we’ll pull the Incident Room off site the day after tomorrow.’

  Louise poked her head around the door of the canteen. ‘It’s Stella’s DNA in the boot, Sir,’ she said, smiling.

  ‘Right, well, let’s see what he’s got to say for himself then.’

  Dixon’s preferred room – the one with the table – was occupied, so he had been forced to use one of the new ones, designed by an idiot who had never conducted a police interview. A table between the interviewing officer and the suspect makes it too adversarial, or so he’d been told.

  He glanced down at the monitor. Scanlon was sitting opposite the tape machine, his solicitor to his right, two vacant chairs to his left.

  The suspect is more likely to engage with you, to trust you, if there’s no barrier between you, or so they said.

  Bollocks.

  Dixon opened the interview room door and sat down next to Scanlon, who was cleaning his glasses on his shirt. Louise sat down on the vacant chair to Dixon’s left. Then he switched on the tape.

  ‘My name is Detective Inspector Nick Dixon; to my left is Detective Constable Louise Willmott. It is 4.42 p.m. on Tuesday 25th May. Interview with . . . State your full name for the tape, please.’

  ‘Philip Robin Scanlon.’

  ‘And to his right is his solicitor.’

  ‘Madeleine Cooper – Miss – from Clarkes.’

  ‘You have been arrested on suspicion of the murders of Stella Hayward and Amy Crook, Philip, and you are still under caution. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I want to begin by taking you back to 1975.’

  Scanlon frowned. ‘Why?’

  ‘You were studying at the North Staffordshire Polytechnic.’

  ‘I prefer to call it Staffordshire University.’

  ‘Why is that?’

  ‘It sounds better.’

  ‘Does that really matter now, after all this time?’

  ‘To me it does.’

  ‘What were you studying?’

  ‘Business studies.’

  ‘And how did you meet Raymond Harper?’

  Scanlon tipped his head back, looking up at the ceiling. ‘We . . .’ He puffed out his cheeks, then began breathing heavily through his nose. ‘The Real Ale Society. We both joined. It was just an excuse for a pub crawl, really.’

  ‘Did you keep in touch?’

  Scanlon nodded, still staring at the ceiling.

  ‘For the tape, please.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So, whose idea was it to sabotage the platform under the Severn Crossing?’

  ‘My client has not been charged with any offence relating to that.’

  ‘That’s right, Miss Cooper.’ Dixon smiled. ‘At this stage we are looking at it purely as a motive for Mrs Hayward’s murder.’

  ‘I haven’t seen any evidence that she has been murdered,’ snapped Cooper. ‘Have you found a body?’

  ‘I’m hoping your client will be able to help us with that.’

  She leaned over and whispered something in Scanlon’s ear.

  ‘Continue,’ she said.

  ‘We were both members of the local Rotary Club,’ said Scanlon. ‘He said his business was in trouble. He’d taken on staff in anticipation of getting the SSC contract, but then had been undercut. He’d even turned away work, he was that sure he’d get it.’

  ‘I bet he was, with you on the procurement team.’

  ‘I made sure he knew the bids that had come in, but then Crook got their bid in after his and it was lower. There was nothing I could do. It was the last phase and I was on my own after that, just managing the contracts. So I said to him, give me a reason to take the contract away from Crook and make it worth the risk. And he did.’

  ‘How much?’

  Scanlon closed his eyes. ‘Two hundred and fifty thousand pounds.’

  ‘That’s a lot of money.’

  ‘It was a multi-million pound contract.’

  ‘Where’s the money now?’

  ‘Look, I’ll tell you what I know, even admit my part in it, but don’t ask me to tell you where my money is. I know you people, you’ll confiscate the bloody lot.’

  ‘Your house in Cleve—’

  ‘It’s not mine. It belongs to a trust. And it’s offshore, so you can’t touch it.’

  Scanlon was an accountant, after all. ‘Who sabotaged the platform?’ asked Dixon, spelling it out.

  ‘I don’t know and I didn’t ask. Before or after what happened. Ray arranged it. I just know that it wasn’t supposed to go down like that. No one was supposed to die. He was devastated. We both were.’

  ‘Didn’t stop him taking the contract though, did it?’

  Scanlon was staring at his shoes now, the laces missing. ‘No.’

  ‘And he let another man take the blame. So did you for that matter.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘How did you feel
when Liam Crook gassed himself in his car?’

  ‘I—’

  ‘Leaving a pregnant wife.’

  ‘What could I do about it? I was in it up to my neck. Nobody was supposed to die.’ He shook his head. ‘The platform was supposed to have been empty.’

  ‘Tell me about your relationship with Stella Crook, as she then was.’

  Scanlon grimaced. ‘She never gave up; became a thorn in my side. She appealed everything, wanted fresh inquests, a public inquiry, even sued the Health and Safety Executive. She could never let it rest. Living with it was bad enough, but with her pick, pick, picking, never knowing whether she’d find something, it was torture.’

  ‘Would you have let it rest, in her position?’ asked Dixon.

  ‘I suppose not.’ Scanlon folded his arms. ‘You have to admire her, really.’

  ‘Was that before or after you killed her?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The admiration.’

  Scanlon closed his eyes. ‘Both.’

  Cooper leaned across and whispered in Scanlon’s ear. ‘You don’t have to—’

  He waved her away. ‘Yes, I killed her. She told me she’d got hold of the original prosecution file. God knows how, but she did, and there were photographs on it that had never been disclosed to the defence.’

  ‘What photographs, Philip?’

  He hesitated. ‘No comment.’

  ‘Did she show them to you?’

  ‘No. Look, she said she could finally prove it was sabotage. So, I . . . You have to understand she’d been making my life a misery for over twenty years.’

  ‘Your life? What about her life, Philip? And her children?’

  ‘I know, I know.’

  Dixon waited.

  ‘I went to her house in Yatton. Tried to reason with her, but it was like trying to reason with a rabid dog. Then she came at me with a kitchen knife . . .’ Scanlon’s voice tailed off. Tears began to trickle down his cheeks. ‘No, she didn’t.’ He sighed. ‘She went into the kitchen and I followed her. She had a glass of wine on the side. She kept saying she knew and I was going to pay. So, I picked up a knife and . . .’ He hesitated.

  ‘And what, Philip?’

  ‘Stabbed her.’

  ‘How many times?’

  ‘Three or four. She fell on the coffee table and the legs snapped off. I . . . I picked one up and hit her with it. Then I rolled her up in the rug. It was dark outside. I got her in the boot of my car, cleaned up her living room and buried her in the woods.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Up behind Cleeve.’

  ‘And you can take us there, can you?’

  ‘I’m not sure I . . . I don’t know . . .’ Scanlon was rubbing his chin. ‘I don’t think I could find it again. It was dark, there’s no way I . . .’

  ‘How tall was Stella?’

  ‘Five-nine, maybe, I don’t know.’

  ‘And how much did she weigh?’

  ‘I don’t know, do I?’

  ‘Fourteen stone, Philip. And you, you’re what? Five-eleven and twelve stone?’

  ‘Twelve and a half.’

  ‘And you’re seriously telling me that you carried her limp body – I won’t say dead body because she was still alive at this point – wrapped in a rug out to your car and then—’

  ‘Still alive?’

  Dixon opened a folder on his knee and handed Scanlon a photograph. ‘This is a photograph of a bloodied handprint left in the boot of your car. DNA testing confirms the blood is Stella’s, but then we know that, don’t we? Dead bodies don’t leave handprints, Philip.’

  ‘Oh, God. I thought she was dead. I thought I’d . . .’

  ‘Were you on your own?’

  Scanlon blinked, then swallowed hard. Too long, surely?

  ‘Yes, of course I was.’

  ‘And you’re seriously telling me you can’t remember where you buried her?’

  ‘Please tell me she wasn’t buried alive.’

  ‘We can’t, Philip, unless you tell me where she is.’

  ‘I don’t . . . I can’t . . .’

  ‘You washed your clothes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Forgot to clean the laundry basket though. This is a photograph of a smear of Stella’s blood.’ He handed another picture to Scanlon. ‘Can you identify that item for me?’

  ‘That looks like my laundry basket.’

  ‘We’ve got your mobile phones and computer. Are you content to give me the login details, Philip?’

  ‘No comment.’

  Clearly, there was a limit to Scanlon’s cooperation.

  ‘We found three hard drives too.’

  ‘Three?’

  Dixon waited, watching Scanlon squirm. ‘The two in the drawer of your desk, and another in an old briefcase in the loft,’ he said, eventually.

  Scanlon gritted his teeth.

  Dixon opened the folder on his knee and shuffled the papers in it, not for any particular reason other than to make Scanlon wait for the next question, watching him out of the corner of his eye.

  ‘How much did you pay Steiner to kill Amy?’

  Scanlon shifted in his seat. He glanced at Cooper. ‘One bitcoin. That’s about five thousand pounds to you. That and passage on a boat was the price to . . .’ He took a deep breath.

  ‘Sabotage the tarmac?’

  ‘How could you possibly know that?’

  ‘He told me,’ replied Dixon, spelling it out.

  ‘That’s right. Then once he was in there I told him to kill Amy. It was either that or I’d turn him in.’

  ‘Dangerous business, double-crossing a man like Steiner,’ said Dixon, shuffling the papers on his knee.

  ‘I know that now.’

  ‘Which boat was it?’ he asked, fixing Scanlon with a cold stare.

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘He went to the jetty and the crew said they’d never heard of him.’

  Scanlon smirked. ‘Why would I let him get away after her body was found? He could take the fall for it and I’d be off the hook. I mean, who on earth would believe him?’

  ‘I did, Philip.’ Matter of fact. ‘I looked him in the eyes and I believed him.’

  ‘More fool you.’

  Cooper looked up, expecting him to take the bait, but Dixon stifled the wry smile, keeping it to himself.

  ‘And you made yourself scarce while all this was going on?’ he asked.

  ‘I was in head office for two days and at home that night.’

  ‘Why kill her?’

  ‘She was working with her mother. Always had been. I couldn’t take the risk. Then I saw her in The Point. A big feature about the female dumper truck driver. Stella said they were keeping an eye on me.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘She was at Hinkley, for God’s sake! What else could I do?’

  Dixon reached down to the floor, picked up an evidence bag and handed it to Scanlon. ‘Do you recognise this photograph?’

  Crumpled and covered in blood.

  ‘I took it from Stella’s bedside table thinking we’d need it for . . .’ His voice tailed off. ‘I gave it to Steiner so he knew what Amy looked like.’

  ‘And the shotgun?’

  Arms folded tightly across his chest now. ‘I threw it over the perimeter fence, into the bushes behind the bat house.’

  ‘Where did you get it?’

  ‘No comment.’

  ‘How did you meet Steiner then?’

  ‘He was in the Great Plantation. I went there to try to find someone to do the tarmac and . . .’

  ‘One of the protestors?’ Dixon looked up.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Not Steiner in particular?’

  Another blink. ‘No.’

  ‘How did you know they’d be there?’

  A frown this time. ‘Everybody knew they were living in the woods.’ Scanlon sneered. ‘In a commune.’

  ‘And did you recognise Steiner when you saw him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How did you get him in
to Hinkley?’

  ‘As an employee of Agard. It was easy.’

  Dixon raised his eyebrows. ‘I thought there was an induction programme and security checks?’

  ‘I faked his attendance at the induction programme and there are ways round the security checks.’ Scanlon smirked. ‘It’s the same with all these places where the security is tight on the way in. Once you’re in, no one will challenge you. ’Specially if you look the part – all it takes is a hi-vis jacket and a hard hat.’

  ‘It’s not what you know, it’s who you know, eh, Philip?’

  Silence.

  ‘We may wish to interview your client again, Miss Cooper,’ said Dixon, once Scanlon had been led back to the cells.

  ‘You’ll be charging him?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Releasing him on bail then?’

  Dixon raised his eyebrows. ‘A double murderer with known connections offshore—’

  ‘I shall have to make a formal bail application.’

  ‘You do that. It’ll ramp up the chargeable hours, won’t it?’

  Dixon waited for the door to slam behind Cooper.

  ‘We’ll interview him again when we’ve cracked his phone and computer.’ Dixon smiled. ‘Did you see the look on his face when I mentioned the third hard drive?’

  ‘Where’s his money, d’you reckon?’

  ‘The Cayman Islands, somewhere like that. Either that or he’s got it all in bitcoin.’

  ‘And you think he had an accomplice?’ asked Louise.

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she replied, nodding.

  ‘My guess is he killed her, then called for help to clear up the mess. He’d never have lifted her on his own.’ Dixon was watching Louise sealing the interview tapes. ‘Check his alibi for when Amy was killed, will you. Let’s see if he really was at head office. If he was, then someone else searched her room in the accommodation block.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Found what they were looking for too.’

  ‘The blue bag Amy took from Stella’s house?’

  ‘My guess is it was the photographs that Stella said proved everything.’ Dixon stood up. ‘Two of the ceiling tiles had been lifted and glued back down with the pattern the wrong way round. I got Martha to go back and break them but there was nothing up there. And he’s confessed to her murder, which means there can be only one reason why he says he can’t remember where Stella is buried.’