‘We have reason to believe Becky came here to interview you yesterday,’ Jane continued.
‘Your information is wrong,’ Durham said huffily. ‘I have never met or spoken to the woman . . . nor would I ever want to.’
His dismissive manner was getting to Boon. ‘A woman matching her description and driving the same make and colour of car was seen outside these premises . . .’ he began.
‘Then she must have come here to interview someone else!’ Durham interrupted. ‘This is bloody ridiculous. I’m phoning my solicitor.’
‘I can’t allow you to make any calls until we have finished our search,’ Jane told him.
Durham gave an exasperated sigh. ‘Then bloody well get on with it!’
Jane asked Boon and the two detectives to search the upstairs bedrooms, while she, Lloyd and the dog handler dealt with the downstairs and crypt.
‘Where’s Bella?’ Jane asked.
‘In her bed in the kitchen. The door is closed, so you don’t need to worry about her disturbing you,’ Durham replied indignantly.
The dog handler opened the bag containing Becky’s rag doll, removed it, and let his German Shepherd have a good sniff.
‘Track, Rumpole, track,’ the handler said, letting the dog off the lead.
‘Rumpole?’ Lloyd remarked.
‘You know, Rumpole of the Bailey,’ the handler said.
Durham snorted. ‘You’re wasting your time and mine.’
Rumpole scurried round the living room sniffing around the furniture with his tail wagging. He suddenly stopped and sniffed in one area, then with his head down and nose to the ground walked towards the entrance door.
‘He’s on to something. Good boy, Rumpole, good boy,’ the handler said.
Rumpole sniffed by the door, spun around, and moved his head from side to side as he padded towards the stairwell to the crypt.
The handler looked pleased. ‘He’s picked up her scent.’
‘How can you tell?’ Lloyd asked.
‘By the way he moves and keeps his nose to the ground.’
Rumpole stopped at the top of the stairwell, took a few sniffs, and started going down the stairs, sniffing each one as he went.
‘Be careful on your way down, the stonework is slippery,’ Jane told the dog handler. She turned to Lloyd. ‘Can you stay with Mr Durham, please?’
‘Don’t worry yourself, I assure you I won’t try and escape,’ Thomas said scornfully.
At the bottom of the stairs Rumpole stopped, had another good sniff, then started to sneeze and whine.
The handler pulled Rumpole away. ‘That’s how he reacts to cleaning agents like bleach.’
Jane took a few sniffs but couldn’t smell anything. The handler got down on his knees and sniffed the floor.
‘There’s a very faint smell of bleach if you get close enough,’ he said.
‘Could you please come downstairs, Mr Durham,’ Jane shouted up.
‘She was drinking my best ’61 Médoc a few days ago. Now look how she repays me,’ he muttered.
‘DS Tennison is just doing her job,’ Lloyd said.
‘She did a good job on my son, that’s for sure,’ Thomas retorted, starting down the stairs.
‘Rumpole’s not reacted anywhere else down here. The trail ends at the bottom of the stairs,’ the handler said, putting him on the lead.
‘How sure can you be it was Becky he was following?’ Jane asked.
‘Obviously I can’t say one hundred per cent it’s her. But I know my dog and he’s never let me down. Something happened down here that necessitated the use of bleach. I’m going to see how he tracks from the hallway to the outside. I’ll also check the bin areas.’
Boon followed Lloyd and Thomas down to the crypt.
‘Nothing upstairs so far, sarge,’ he said.
‘Well, there’s a surprise,’ Durham scoffed.
‘The dog has tracked Becky Rogers’ scent down into the crypt. It ends at the bottom of the stairs,’ Jane told Durham.
‘Did Rumpole tell you that?’ he mocked.
‘He also reacted in a manner that suggests a cleaning agent was used just there.’ Jane pointed to the spot.
‘This is bloody ridiculous. I have a cleaner who comes here twice a week. She uses bleach to clean the stone floors.’
‘What, even in the crypt?’ Boon asked.
‘She’s very fastidious. Speak to her if you don’t believe me,’ Durham replied.
While Lloyd examined the stairs and hand rope, Jane went to look in the wine cellar area. She immediately noticed the wall blocking the tunnel had been repaired with some new bricks in the middle. Jane recalled Nick telling his father the wall needed fixing.
‘I see you’ve had the wall repaired,’ Jane remarked.
Thomas laughed out loud. ‘Please don’t tell me you think a body might be behind the wall.’
‘Boony, nip out to the equipment van and see if they have any sledgehammers and pickaxes,’ Jane said.
Thomas’s eyes bulged and his face turned red with anger. ‘That’s it! I’ve had enough of this nonsense! I’m not having you destroying my house! I’m calling my solicitor now!’ He stomped off towards the stairs.
‘Come back here now, please, Mr Durham,’ Boon shouted.
He went after Durham and grabbed him by the shoulder. Durham spun round and punched Boon hard in the face, knocking him to the ground. Boon winced in pain as he landed hard on his coccyx.
Durham realised what he’d done. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that. I wasn’t thinking straight.’ He put his hand out to help Boon up.
‘You fuckin’ arsehole!’ Boon exclaimed, knocking Durham’s hand away.
Durham stood upright, his face turning blue as he struggled to breathe.
‘Oh God, please help me,’ he pleaded, clutching his chest as his face contorted with pain.
Boon was struggling to get up. He could only watch as Durham staggered backwards, fighting to breathe. As Thomas fell, Lloyd managed to catch him and lay him gently on the floor.
‘He’s having a heart attack. Keep an eye on him, Jane, and I’ll call an ambulance,’ Lloyd said.
She shook her head. ‘That’ll take too long. Get some of the uniformed officers to take him to the hospital in the police van.’
As Lloyd ran up the stairs, Durham’s breathing was getting shallower, and his eyes began to close.
Boon knelt beside him. ‘Where’s Becky?’
‘He’s unconscious. We need to try and resuscitate him,’ Jane said, pinching Durham’s nose and putting her mouth over his.
It wasn’t long before some uniformed officers arrived with a large riot shield which they used as a makeshift stretcher to take Durham to the hospital. Jane instructed one of them to remain at the hospital with Durham as he was a suspect for abduction and murder. She gave another officer Nick Durham’s home phone number and asked him to get the duty sergeant to tell him about his father’s heart attack.
Jane used Durham’s phone to call Stanley and told him what had happened.
‘Bloody hell. How bad is he?’ Stanley asked.
‘Not good. But Boon and I resuscitated him. And he was breathing with a slow pulse when the uniformed officers took him away. I’ve asked that the duty sergeant contact Nick Durham.’
‘So it looks like Becky was in Durham’s house, then,’ Stanley said.
‘It looks like he killed her in the crypt,’ Jane said. ‘Her body might be in the old tunnel, so I’m going to knock the wall down.’
‘Do it,’ Stanley said.
‘And if she isn’t, I’m going to keep searching,’ Jane replied.
‘Don’t exhaust yourself. Take a rest if you need one. Salmon wants a briefing with the team tomorrow morning at nine.’
‘Did you tell him about the search warrant?’ Jane asked.
‘Yes, he was pissed off that I didn’t ask him first. I reminded him that he buggered off to the Yard and left me in charge.’
�
�Are you going to update him?’
‘No. He’s spent most of his career behind a desk in planning and development. He scurries off when you confront him with a difficult situation because he doesn’t know what to do.’
‘Let’s hope he stays that way,’ Jane remarked.
‘I’d best let you get on. I’m not going anywhere, so keep me updated.’
As Jane put the phone down, Lloyd approached her.
‘I examined the stairwell rope. There are traces of blood going up it on the underside. Someone with a bloody hand used it to support themselves as they climbed the stairs. It’s possible Durham carried Becky’s body upstairs and put it in a car to bury her elsewhere.’
‘I’m still going to knock that wall down. You any good with a sledgehammer?’
‘I always hit the high striker bell at the funfair,’ Lloyd grinned.
It didn’t take long to knock a hole in the wall and search the tunnel, but there was no sign of Becky.
‘DS Tennison . . . I’ve found something of interest in one of the wheelie bins,’ the dog handler shouted from the top of the stairs.
Jane and Lloyd followed him to a dimly lit wooden hut at the far end of the parking area. Inside were four large metal wheelie bins, one of which was on its side with the contents strewn across the floor. To one side, placed neatly on police exhibits bags was a bleach bottle.
‘I found that bleach bottle in the bin. It looks like it might have a blood smear on it. One of the residents told me the bins are emptied every Tuesday morning at around ten.’
‘Which means the bottle could only have been put in the bin on Tuesday after ten or today,’ Lloyd remarked as he put on protective gloves and placed the bottle in an exhibits bag.
‘The uniformed lads helped me search the other bins. There were no blood-stained items in them,’ the dog handler said.
‘He probably burned any towels or cloths he used to clean up . . . or dumped them with Becky’s body,’ Lloyd said.
‘How quickly can you test that bleach bottle for fingerprints?’ Jane asked Lloyd.
‘Is there any rush with Durham being in hospital?’ Lloyd asked.
‘If a doctor says he’s fit to be interviewed, I’ll do it by his bedside. I want as much evidence against him as possible.’
‘I’ll take the bottle back to the lab and get to work on it first thing in the morning. Has Thomas Durham ever been arrested?’
‘Not as far as I know – unfortunately,’ Jane replied.
‘No problem. I can use the coffee mug he drank out of earlier for comparison to any marks on the bleach bottle. I’ll also take lifts off other items likely to have his prints on them.’
‘If Becky was murdered here, Durham must have disposed of her car as well. It’s possible he put her body in the boot and used the car to transport it. If that was the case, he’d need to hide the car, which isn’t easy,’ Jane said.
‘He could have set light to it with her body inside,’ Lloyd suggested.
‘Possibly, but I’d have thought someone would have seen the fire or found it burnt out by now. It’s also a big risk to drive a car a long distance with a body in the boot. Do you know if the underwater search unit work at night?’ she asked.
‘They come out at any time if it’s an emergency. Why do you ask?’
‘There is a small lake down by the woods. He might have weighted Becky down and dumped her body in it, then hidden the car elsewhere,’ Jane said.
Jane rang Stanley while Lloyd took some fingerprint lifts from the coffee cup and other items in Thomas Durham’s house. Jane asked Stanley for permission to call out the underwater search unit. He said he would call them and come down to the scene.
As they waited for the underwater search unit, Jane and other officers went down to the lake with seek-and-search torches. One of the officers found some narrow tyre marks leading from the building-site track to the edge of the lake and down into the water. Jane was certain the marks were from Becky’s car and her body would be in it.
When the underwater search unit arrived they set up four big arc lamps powered by a petrol generator, which lit up the surrounding area, creating an eerie glow on the surface of the still water. Two divers went into the lake with submersible torches. A few minutes later, one of them surfaced and did a thumbs-up. The underwater unit had a cable winch attached to their large truck, which one of the divers attached to the submerged vehicle.
Everyone watched in silence as the red Citroën 2CV was slowly pulled out of the lake and water cascaded out of the vehicle. As Jane moved forward, an officer turned one of the arc lamps towards the boot, casting an ominous shadow of Jane’s body over the car. Jane’s hand trembled as she placed it on the boot lever. She knew she was about to find Becky’s body but dreaded the moment. As Jane lifted the boot lid, she saw a black canvas suitcase wedged inside. She asked the search officers to remove it. It took two of them to lift it out, then place it on the ground. Jane unzipped it. Becky’s body was curled up in a foetal position with a blood-stained towel tucked into one corner of the case. Fighting back the tears, Jane stepped to one side to allow Lloyd to take some photographs. She walked over to Stanley and Boon.
‘Durham must have put her body in the suitcase to get her out to the car,’ Jane said.
‘DS Johnson can bag the body and arrange for it to be taken to the mortuary,’ Stanley said. ‘We’ll do the post-mortem first thing tomorrow morning. You two go home and get some rest. I’ll go and tell PC Rogers and his wife we found Becky,’ he added in a sombre tone.
Walking to the car, Jane could see Boon was struggling to hold himself together. She had dealt with grieving parents, friends, and relatives too many times to remember, but at this moment she couldn’t think what to say to him.
CHAPTER THIRTY
As Jane drove back to Orpington Boon sat quietly staring out of the passenger window. She parked the car in the station yard and switched the engine off.
‘I know how you’re feeling, Simon . . .’
‘I don’t think you do, sarge,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘In fact, I’m beginning to wonder if I’m cut out to be a police officer anymore.’
‘I lost two colleagues during a bank robbery explosion when I was a probationer at Hackney,’ Jane said. There was a catch in her voice.
Boon turned and looked at her with an expression of surprise.
‘WPC Kath Morgan was my best friend. I was in a relationship with the other officer at the time. His name was Len Bradfield.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Boon said. ‘It must have been a terrible time for you.’
‘It was. And I still miss them both. But I came to realise you can’t change what’s happened and have to move on.’
‘But how did you do that?’ Boon asked.
‘Through my work, and helping to bring those who caused their death to justice. You’re a good detective, Simon, and have the potential to go a long way in the CID. I think Becky would have wanted you to carry on.’
He let out a deep breath. ‘Thanks for the advice, sarge, I appreciate it.’
‘If you want to take a few days leave, I’m sure Stanley won’t mind,’ Jane said.
He shook his head. ‘I’d rather carry on working the investigation for now.’
‘OK, but don’t bottle things up. If you’re feeling down or want someone to talk to, I’m always here for you.’
‘OK,’ he said, smiling. ‘I appreciate it.’
*
Inside the station, Jane spoke with the duty sergeant and asked what hospital Thomas Durham had been taken to.
‘Queen Mary’s in Sidcup,’ the sergeant replied.
‘Has Nick Durham been informed about his father’s heart attack?’ she asked.
‘I’ve just spoken with the officer who’s guarding Thomas Durham. He’s in the intensive care ward and his son is with him.’
‘Is he expected to live?’ she asked.
‘The doctors don’t know at present. He’s in a
coma.’
‘A coma?’ Jane gasped.
‘He took a turn for the worse on the way to the hospital. The doctor said the coma was due to a lack of oxygen to his brain after the heart attack.’
‘Does Nick Durham know it happened during our search?’
‘Yes, but I didn’t give him details of who you were looking for or why. The PC at the hospital said he’s very distressed and has been asking a lot of questions.’
‘What did the PC tell him?’
‘Nothing, other than what I told him to say.’
‘Which was?’ Jane asked.
‘That he didn’t know anything about the search as it was a CID matter, and DI Stanley was in charge. I hope that didn’t give away too much for you,’ the sergeant replied brusquely.
Jane could see her questions were irritating him. ‘I only ask because I may have to interview Nick Durham.’
‘I’d leave that for a while as you suits ain’t his favourite people at the moment,’ the sergeant said, before walking off.
Jane wanted to go to the hospital and speak with Nick but knew a heated confrontation with him wouldn’t do anybody any good.
It was nearly two in the morning by the time an exhausted Jane got home. After a large glass of wine and a sandwich, she went to bed and fell into a deep sleep.
*
Jane woke to the sound of her bedside phone ringing. Worried it might be an angry Nick, she was relieved to hear Lloyd’s voice.
‘Morning, Jane. Sorry to bother you so early.’
‘It’s six o’clock, Lloyd. What do you want?’ she yawned.
‘You should moan. I’ve been up all night working on the bleach bottle. Thomas Durham’s prints weren’t on it.’
‘He must have wiped them off, then,’ she said. ‘Anyway, it doesn’t matter. Durham’s in a coma so I can’t question him. I’ll call you back when I get to work.’
‘God, you are crabby in the morning. Hear me out, will you?’
‘All right, I’m listening,’ she yawned.
‘I found two prints on the bottle, which didn’t match any of the ones I took from Durham’s house.’
‘They’re probably the cleaner’s then.’
‘For Christ’s sake, let me finish! I asked the fingerprint bureau to check them against criminal records. They just rang me with a result.’
Unholy Murder Page 35
