Cold Death (D.S.Hunter Kerr)

by Fowler, Michael

“When was the last time you saw Samia?”

  He bunched his shoulders. “Can’t remember.”

  “Rough guess. Couple of weeks, couple of months?”

  “Couple of months I guess.”

  “Where was that?”

  “At my uncle’s place.”

  “What address is that?” Hunter was hoping for a slip up. They still did not know the attack site.

  “His shop in Hoyland.”

  “You have already been told the reason for your arrest this morning haven’t you?”

  “Yes, but that’s shit. I haven’t murdered Samia. You’ve got the wrong man Mr smart detective.”

  Hunter rolled with the sarcastic retort – let it wash over him. “I’m guessing you’ve seen the TV news and the newspapers headlines about Samia’s murder?”

  “Yeah.”

  “When did you first become aware of her disappearance?”

  “Can’t remember.”

  “Who told you about it?”

  “My uncle – I think?”

  “Can you remember when that was?”

  “Nope.”

  Hunter knew he needed to move things forward. He replaced the photograph in his folder and took out another. It depicted the white Renault van, which had been recovered from the Rotherham car dismantlers. “Ari, slight change of questioning now. Do you recognise this van.”

  Hunter clocked a reaction in Ari’s face.

  He dropped his chair back on to its four legs but he did not respond.

  “I’ll ask the question again. Do you recognise this white Renault van?”

  Ari coughed. “I think so.”

  “You think so?”

  “My uncle owned a similar van.”

  “This is the van owned by your uncle – Mohammed Hassan – I can confirm that from its index number. Have you ever driven this van?” Hunter knew from Duncan Wroe’s SOCO report that Ari’s fingerprints and DNA were all over the van and that he had been seen in the Country Park by Doctor Christopher Woolfe.

  There were a couple of seconds silence then he replied softly, “Yeah I used to do deliveries for him.”

  “When was the last time you drove or were in this van?”

  There was a delayed response again. “Can’t remember,” he returned.

  “Let me help you remember. Have you ever been to Meadowhall in the van?”

  Now there was a clear reaction. Ari locked his arms tighter and his face hardened.

  Hunter waited for twenty seconds but there was no reply. “I’ll ask the question again. Have you ever driven or been in this vehicle to Meadowhall shopping centre?”

  Ari turned to his solicitor as if seeking to be helped out with an answer. His solicitor picked up on the look. “DS Kerr is this line of questioning going anywhere?”

  Hunter opened up a CD case and took out a DVD and slid it across to Grace. She rose from the table and slotted it into a small TV/DVD player set on a shelf in one corner of the room. The screen flashed immediately from dark grey to blue.

  Hunter turned to the solicitor. “There is some significance to this line of questioning which your client obviously finds uncomfortable answering. Could it be that he has something to hide?”

  “DS Kerr that is out of order.”

  Hunter diverted his gaze and fixed Ari with a determined stare. “Mr Arshad, my question relating to your use of your uncle’s white van at Meadowhall has in my view hit a raw nerve. I am therefore going to show you some CCTV footage which may help jog your memory.”

  He turned and nodded to Grace who hit the play button on the TV. Over the next five minutes the horrific sequence of events depicting the attack upon Samia by Ari and Pervez in the underground car park at the Meadowhall shopping complex played out across the screen. The entire time Hunter explored his prisoner’s face. He watched him attempt to put on a front as he surveyed the damming evidence but Hunter could see from the continued movement in the young man’s Adam’s apple that he had him rattled.

  He heard Grace pause the TV and knew it had finished. “Do you want me to play that again or are you happy for me to ask you questions in relation to what has just been played on the TV?”

  Complete silence.

  “You have just watched an attack upon Samia Hassan in the underground car park at Meadowhall shopping centre which was carried out by two men on the twenty-eighth of July this year. Do you recognise the two men you have seen carry out that attack?”

  Complete silence again. Ari’s eyes widened. He glared back in defiance.

  “Mr Arshad I would appreciate an answer. From what you have just been shown do you agree that the one of the people who beat Samia Hassan until she was unconscious was yourself?”

  Ari unlocked his arms and slammed them onto the table. “No comment. No fucking comment.”

  The solicitor reached across and nervously tapped Ari Arshad’s arm. “DS Kerr I would like ten minutes with my client,” he announced.

  The ten minutes went beyond twenty minutes. Hunter leaned against the wall of the interview corridor, his eyes fixed on the gap at the bottom of the door. He knew that inside the room there was some serious client solicitor storyline being hammered out. A smile played on his lips; they had Ari on the rack.

  Then just as he was checking his watch again the door opened and the solicitor stuck his head around it. “My client is ready to answer your questions.”

  Hunter and Grace started afresh. Grace switched on the tape recording machine and Hunter reminded Ari of his rights. “Okay before we had a break you were shown CCTV footage of an attack upon Samia Hassan by two men. Was one of those men you?”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t kill Samia?”

  “And who was the other person who carried out the attack with you?”

  “You know who it is. It’s Pervez, my brother.”

  “Why did you attack Samia.”

  “We were forced to do it.”

  “Forced?”

  “Yeah, you don’t know what my uncle Mohammed is like. He’s a violent man we’re scared of him. He told us to do it.”

  Hunter knew that this didn’t ring true, especially given the criminal records of the pair, but he encouraged him to continue.

  “Mohammed used to ring me lots, telling me that Samia was dishonouring the family. He told me she was sleeping with a man outside of marriage and wanted us to warn her off and get her to come home. Then a few months ago he came to see me and Pervez and said we had to do something about Samia. She was refusing to marry a cousin of ours after agreeing to the marriage and he wanted us to make her go to Pakistan. I told him we couldn’t do that but he threatened me and Pervez. He is a very violent man. That day at Meadowhall, me and Pervez were making deliveries for our uncle and he phoned me up shouting and swearing. He said Samia was at Meadowhall threatening to run away and he told us to go and get her and bring her back. I know on that footage it looks worse than it was.”

  “Looks worse than it was,” interrupted Hunter. “You beat her unconscious and threw her in the back of the van as if she was a rag doll.”

  Ari shrugged. “We didn’t mean to beat her like we did, we just got carried away.”

  “So what happened after you left the car park.”

  “Uncle Mohammed met us on an industrial site near Rotherham town centre and took her out of the van and drove her away. We didn’t kill her. The last time I saw her was when we helped put her in the back of Uncle Mohammed’s car.”

  Hunter hadn’t expected this response. He was glad he had damning evidence to refute what he had just said. His spirit lifted.

  “You say you took Samia out of the van and put her in her father’s car?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Was she conscious or unconscious?”

  “Conscious. She was struggling.”

  “Then why did you get need to get rid of the van. To dispose of it at the car dismantlers like you did.”

  Ari dropped his head for a few seconds before returning his gaze. “Beca
use Mohammed just told us to. If he tells you something you obey.”

  “Did you do this straightaway?”

  “No we hid the van in a garage for a few days then took it there.”

  “Did anyone else use it?”

  “No we hid it.”

  “Ari I’ve let you go on a bit but that’s because I wanted to give you enough rope to hang yourself. What you have just told us is complete bullshit. And how do I know that? Well firstly, how do you account for fibres being found in the rear of the van? The same fibres, which match those of the rug, in which Samia’s body was found, when it was dragged up from the lake. Before you try and dig your way out of that one I also want to introduce some other evidence as well. Do you remember a few years ago when Samia was at University and she had a relationship with a young man who was training to be a doctor?”

  Ari’s eyes rose up towards the ceiling.

  “A young man, who you, and your brother assaulted, because of their relationship?”

  His eyes lowered. “No complaint was ever made about that.”

  “No it wasn’t but we know that on a later occasion you and your brother paid him a visit when he was working at Barnwell Infirmary and warned him off, and also damaged his car. And the bad news for you is that he just happened to be driving his car at Barnwell lake on Friday the first of August, the night you and your brother dumped Samia’s body in the lake, and he recognised you driving your uncle’s white van away from the scene.”

  He saw from Ari’s changed expression that he had him. The man closed his eyes a few seconds then snapped them open. “I’ve told you what happened, now I’m saying fuck all else.”

  Hunter tried a few more probing questions which Ari batted off with ‘no comment’ and he realised he had lost the impetus of the interview. He made a decision to sum things up, draw it to a close, and return him to his cell.

  * * * * *

  Hunter and Grace waited in the custody suite. Tony Bullars and Mike Sampson had not fared any better with Pervez Arshad who had also made no comment to the majority of the questions, and once he had been shown the CCTV footage of the attack upon Samia had refused to talk to the detectives except to demand to be locked up back in his cell.

  They still had to interview Mohammed and his wife Jilani. At least Ari’s evidence had implicated Samia’s father and would provide a wedge, though Hunter doubted the truth of that, especially as they knew that Samia had been violently raped prior to being murdered. From his experience that just didn’t feel like something a father would do. He knew they had made in-roads that afternoon but they were still no nearer to getting a clear-cut confession to the murder of Samia.

  As they all made their way back to the incident room for de-briefing Hunter knew the priority was to find the attack site. That would provide them with so many answers and much needed evidence to swing the enquiry.

  - ooOoo -

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  DAY THIRTY FOUR: 26th September.

  Barnwell:

  Hunter pulled another bacon sandwich from the pile, which Angie the cleaner and his partner Grace had made. He’d heard the pair chatting and laughing, in the small kitchen next to the incident room, over the past twenty minutes.

  Most of the team were in, hugging mugs of warm tea or coffee, munching on the surprise breakfast and gossiping whilst waiting for the early morning briefing.

  Looking around the room and listening, Hunter knew that this enquiry had just turned the corner, despite lacking the confessions to Samia’s murder. The implication from Ari that his uncle Mohammed was also responsible for his daughter’s final days and hours was the starter for the day, and with a bit of luck might just be the lever for obtaining the proper story.

  Grace walked into the room with another plateful of sandwiches. “That’s it, all the bacon’s gone now,” she said plonking the plate down between hers and Hunter’s desk.

  “What muck have you two raked up on someone then? You were going at it hammer and tongs back there.” Hunter bit into the warm bread.

  Grace flopped into her seat and leaned across her desk. “You will never guess what I’ve just found out from Angie,” she responded in a hushed voice.

  “Go on enlighten me.”

  “The boss is only having a thing with that DCI from Scotland.”

  “You are joking?”

  “Nah, nah. One of her friends is waitressing at the Stables restaurant. The pair have been in there most evenings.”

  Hunter shook his head in amazement and grinned. “Well the crafty bugger. I’ll have to give him some rib over that.”

  Grace smiled herself and settled back in her chair.

  Hunter took another bite of his sandwich. The mention of DCI Dawn Leggate caused him to drift away for a few moments. His parents were still staying with them as Billy Wallace and Rab Geddes still had not been caught. He’d wanted so much to sit down and sort things out with his dad but since the revelation he had not had the opportunity because of the investigation. He had spoken to Beth about it when he had finally fallen into bed the last few nights and she had told him that what she had seen of his father had been a pitiful sight. She said he had been moping round the house like a caged animal and certainly wasn’t eating properly. Hunter’s mum had also taken Beth to one side and told her that his dad was desperate for some time with him to explain everything.

  The sooner we put this enquiry to bed, the better.

  “You lot owe me a gallon of beer,” announced Barry Newstead, pushing through the incident room doors.

  It broke Hunter’s daydream.

  “You are going to really thank me for this,” he continued, waving aloft a clear plastic wallet containing a CD disc. He strode towards the large TV, switched it on with a podgy index finger, inserted the disc into the DVD player and snatched up the remote. “I spent most of yesterday afternoon with the neighbourhood team for the Parkhill Flats. Did you know most of it is covered by CCTV?”

  The plasma screen fluttered into life.

  “There are twenty odd cameras fitted around the outside of the place plus they also have lift cameras at each floor inside the flats. I searched various time frames between the twenty-eighth of July when we know Samia was abducted from Meadowhall right through to the first of August when we believe her body was dumped in the lake and I found this little lot.”

  Hunter watched Barry’s face split with a wide grin. He knew from his time teamed up with the investigator over the years that he loved nothing more than to have centre-stage.

  Barry exaggerated the starting of the play mechanism by firing the remote at the DVD player as if he was shooting a gun. A grainy image fluttered onto the forty-eight inch screen.

  “This was captured at nine-thirty-six pm on the first of August. This camera is looking down on a grassed area in front of one of the buildings.”

  Suddenly in the right hand corner of the TV two men in dark hooded tops stumbled into view, struggling with a rolled-up bundle. Barry zoomed in on the hazy images.

  One of the men had his back to the camera and was bent over almost dragging along the ground what appeared to be a large rolled up rug.

  Although the hoods were up on both men, hiding their faces, Hunter could clearly make out the white lettering on the back of one of the designer hooded tops. The words SEMTEX was visible. He felt a surge of excitement run through him.

  The team watched in silence their eyes fixed to the set. The play continued until the two men disappeared off camera with their bundle.

  “I also found this footage,” continued Barry.

  Another image flashed onto the screen. The pan of the camera focus was a lot wider and covered a larger portion of the complex. Into view came a section of road below a grassy knoll. Along the bottom of the screen was a line of parked cars.

  “This is one of the slip roads just below the flats.”

  From the top of the screen the camera picked up two fuzzy images, silhouettes at first, but their movement was e
vident and no one could mistake it was the same two characters, from their attire. And they were struggling with the rolled up carpet. The one at the back slipped and his end of the carpet slumped to the ground.

  The team watched as the person humped it back up towards his midriff and then the pair continued waddling down the slope with their bundle until they reached the road.

  Barry zoomed the footage again. It was grainy but the images could be made out, though not satisfactorily enough for facial recognition.

  The pair pulled the rug towards a white van parked amongst the row of vehicles. The one wearing the SEMTEX designer top opened its rear doors and the pair loaded in the bundle. Both jumped into the front of the van and it pulled away and drove out of camera view.

  Barry freeze-framed the shot. In the top left hand corner was the time and date sequence - 9:52pm 01:08:08.

  Hunter knew this all fitted. The time to travel from Sheffield to Barnwell Lake was approximately forty minutes. That meant that their witness, the sex worker, Kerri Ann Bairstow had been spot-on with her timings of her sightings of the two men and the white van at the Country Park.

  “And for my encore,” he added with a flourish. He re-started the DVD player. “This was captured in the entranceway at one of the internal lifts.”

  The image, which flickered onto the screen, showed a floor area with a squashed up section of lift doors at the top quarter of the screen.

  There was little doubt in Hunter’s mind that from the angle of the shot this was captured by a camera at ceiling height.

  Suddenly into view came the person in the SEMTEX designer hoody. He was bent double dragging the rolled up carpet. Quickly following into the frame, also doubled up, lumping the other end of the rug came another hooded figure. The clarity of these images was excellent and Hunter could see that sections of pattern on the rolled up carpet were a perfect match to those of the rug Samia’s body had been found wrapped up in. He had no doubt in his mind that he was watching the first stages of her being taken away from the place where she had just been raped and butchered.

  They stopped by the lift doors, dropping both ends of the carpet and the character in the designer hoody straightened, easing out his back with his hands. As he pressed for the lift he flicked back his hood and stretched his neck. There was no mistaking that face – it was Ari Arshad.