‘Why not? Your current wife is in care, and now you’re in my care. Unfortunately for you, I don’t think I can offer you the same comfort in the room you’re going to spend the next few nights in as that of your current wife’s room at the care home.’
He turned back to face Bennett, and all but snarled the words at him.
‘I don’t like people like you, Mr Bennett.’
He walked to the door while Sergeant Singh read Bennett his rights, and had one of the uniformed officers take him to the car and off to the Yard.
‘You haven’t got enough to keep him inside, guv, you know you haven’t,’ Gheeta said. She knew Palmer would have a reason for taking Bennett into custody on a charge that wouldn’t stick; and indeed he had.
‘I know that, Sergeant; but he doesn’t…well, not until the duty solicitor arrives and goes for bail. And that will take at least a few hours, so Mr Bennett will hopefully get a taste of what being locked up is like, and hopefully the thought of spending the rest of his days like that will loosen his tongue. He knows where Robins is; probably talks to her every day. He knows her plan, and he’s right on her side. But we can’t prove it, so we can’t hold him on aiding and abetting.’
Having placed a 24-hour uniformed guard on the house, Palmer and Singh took another car back to the Yard and the office. Claire knocked and entered his office as soon as she saw them arrive.
‘I ran a check on Bennett’s phone, sir. He’s only got a landline, no mobile registered to him or to that address. Anyway, the interesting thing is that when I ran the murder dates alongside his call archive dat,a it showed that he had a call from the same number on each of the evenings of the murders. A very short call, too.’
Gheeta stopped what she was doing.
‘What number did the trace come up with?’
‘Zilch. It’s a pre-pay and unregistered. I rang the number, but it’s been turned off for the last four hours.’
Palmer sat and pushed his chair onto its back legs against the wall, as he put his feet up on his desk.
‘She’s out there somewhere, and now her work is done she can bury herself. False name, move about, leave the country. Christ! I forgot that. Sergeant put a ‘stop and detain’ on her at all UK exit points.’
‘Yes, guv.’
Gheeta set about downloading Dorothy Robins’s passport details from the Border Security internal data website; in five minutes she’d got the details and flagged up a red alert on Dorothy Robins to all the UK exit points. Palmer didn’t question Gheeta’s methods and knew full well that her computer knowledge and expertise had often bypassed the regulatory procedures in a not-totally-legal way; but he turned a blind eye, and didn’t ask questions. Even if she’d explained to him how all her ‘unauthorised’ information from hacked passwords came into them via several proxy servers in East European countries and couldn’t be traced back to them, he wouldn’t have understood.
‘She’s not used that passport for twenty years, sir.’
‘Probably not; she would have had to change it when the divorce came through, wouldn’t she?’
‘She should have, but no amendment or change has been registered.’
Claire had some knowledge on this.
‘My mother-in-law remarried and just applied for a new one in her new married name, and it came through no problem. Robins might have done that if she’d remarried like Bennett did? Trouble is, we don’t know her new name if she did.’
Palmer’s chair banged back to the floor as he slid his legs off the desk, his sciatica giving him a sharp reminder of its presence
‘Ouch! Good point, Claire.’
He stood and stretched his leg.
'She may well have remarried and got a totally new name and life. She could have done the killings without her new husband knowing, or even being aware that she’d had a daughter, and of the way she died.’
Gheeta’s internal phone rang. She answered it and listened for a short while.
‘Thank you, Reg; send them through now, and I’ll let the Chief know.’
She put down the receiver and double clenched her fists in the air with joy.
‘That was Reg Frome from Forensics.’
‘They’ve got a match on some finger prints?’
Palmer was racing ahead.
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘No, but they have got a video match. They’ve put all the hotel CCTV recordings from the murder day at each hotel through a comparison system, and in three of them the same lady is seen entering or leaving the hotel.’
‘On the day of each murder?’
‘Yes’.
‘Really?’
Palmer could scarcely believe it.
‘But when our lads showed the videos to the hotel managers they identified everybody as staff or guests, and we checked and cleared all the guests.’
‘So she must be staff then, sir.’
‘Can’t be; how could she be a member of staff at three different hotels? They’re not even in the same hotel group, are they?’
‘Reg is emailing a copy of the three videos down now. Let’s have a look.’
Claire and Palmer stood behind Gheeta as she opened the file sent from Forensics and ran the video. The three short clips did indeed show the same lady, smartly dressed and carrying a shoulder bag; with her hair neatly tied into a tight bun, she looked every inch the executive type.
‘She’s the right age, sir,’ Gheeta observed.
‘She is, isn’t she – but who is she? Right, come on; let’s get down to the Carlton Tower and get this person identified.’
Chapter 31
‘Who?’
Palmer and Sergeant Singh were in the manager’s office at the Carlton Tower Hotel and had just shown him the video on Sergeant Singh’s laptop. He identified the lady immediately.
‘Evelyn Dolland.’
‘And who is Evelyn Dolland? Is she here now, a staff member?’
‘No. She’s –’
Gheeta remembered and butted in.
‘She’s the wife of that security chap Dolland, at the murdered ballerina’s hotel, sir. They run the agency with the illegal immigrants that Claire dug up. Remember?’
‘Central Recruitment,’ the manager said. ‘That’s her company’s name. She provides us with catering and housekeeping staff. What’s this about illegal immigrants?’
Palmer waved his question aside.
‘Nothing, not important. Do you have an address for Central Recruitment?’
The manager took an address book from his desk drawer and thumbed through to the C page.
‘Yes, here we are: Curzon street, 23 Curzon Street.’
Chapter 32
23 Curzon Street was an Edwardian house converted into offices; Palmer, Singh and two plainclothes officers sat in an unmarked squad car fifty metres down the road from the entrance. The radio crackled.
‘Foxtrot Two in position, sir. We are in the blue Transit ten metres from the target property.’
Foxtrot Two was West End Central’s Tactical Firearms Unit, or part of it; four plain-clothed armed officers with body armour beneath their jackets. Palmer responded.
‘Foxtrot Two, this is Blue Leader. You’ve got the picture of the woman we are after. Her name is Evelyn Dolland. She looks like anybody’s mum, but be very careful; she’s a history of violence, but not armed violence except with knives. Use tasers if threatened, as she’s nothing to lose if we corner her, and I’d like her alive. Over.’
‘Foxtrot Two, understood sir. Over’
‘Okay, in you go in your own time. The office is on the first floor, and the name on the door is Central Recruitment. We will follow you in.’
They watched as four burly officers casually stepped from the rear of the Transit and meandered along the road and into number 23; to all intents and purposes, just four chaps returning to their office after lunch.
‘Right,’ Palmer said, wincing as his sciatica caught him unawares when he opened the c
ar door and stood up. ‘Show time. Come on.’
They made their way through the throng of shoppers along the pavement and into number 23. All was quiet. The hallway was very plush, with deep pile carpet and wide stairs leading to the upper floors. On the first floor landing an officer stood at the top of the stairs in full view from the hall, and another stood outside the Central Recruitment office door; what there was left of it. The officer beckoned Palmer up. On the landing, the first thing he saw was the splintered edge of the door and the broken lock littering the floor. Palmer stepped over it and into a large open space modern office. The Chief Firearms Officer came out of the small kitchen alcove to the rear of the office.
‘All clear, sir; nobody in the place.’
Palmer pointed to the broken door.
‘Hope you rang the bell first. That repair will come out of my budget.’
He smiled knowingly at the officer.
‘Sorry sir, but we don’t like to let our targets know we are coming. Never know what kind of reception they might give us.’
‘Quite right too; a shame she wasn’t here. Bit of a damp squib, really. Would have been nice to catch her quickly.’
He turned to Gheeta.
‘Sergeant, we’d better get Forensics down here and see what they can dig up. Can’t see they’ll get much, but we had better go through the motions.’
He turned back to the Chief Firearms Officer.
‘I want this place sealed off. I’ll leave a uniformed chap, but I think I’d feel a lot better if you could spare one of your chaps to keep him company until Forensics arrive; just in case she comes back.’
‘No problem, sir.’
‘Right then, one down and one to go. Off to the Dollands’ house, and see if we have better luck there. Come on.’
Chapter 33
The Dollands’ house was a very nice 1940s semi in Harrow Hill. Palmer took the same procedure as at Curzon Street: two Firearms Officers went with him and Sergeant Singh to the front door, while a third circled round the side entrance to cover the back in the event of somebody deciding to make a hurried exit that way. They didn’t.
Mr Dolland was home, and took them into the back lounge; it was a bit pokey by today’s standards, but quite adequate for a couple. Palmer left a plainclothes man inside the front door; he hadn’t asked for uniformed officers on this one, as should Mrs Dolland arrive home and see one positioned outside the house, she would be off like a bat out of hell.
Having previously only had just run of the mill dealings with the police in his job as Security Manager at The Majestic, Mr Dolland quickly grasped that this was a more serious visit.
‘Well, Chief Superintendent, you don’t come visiting with firearms officers for an overdue parking ticket. What have we done? I’m assuming it’s to do with the Recruitment Office. Have we unknowingly placed a terrorist cell into the hotels? We do our best to check references with the Home Office databases, but you never know these days!’
Palmer took off his trilby and sat down on an upright table chair. Armchairs were available but with his sciatica having a field day he felt more comfortable on a firm base. He smiled reassuringly at Mr Dolland, who remained standing.
‘Terrorists? No sir, nothing like that. You’d have a much heavier squad in your house if that were the case ,and I don’t think I would have rung the bell. Is Mrs Dolland due home soon?’
‘I really don’t know, she keeps irregular hours just like I do. The hotel business is a twenty-four hour merry go round; if a staff member doesn’t turn up she has to find an immediate replacement, day or night. I can ring her mobile.’
He made to reach a phone on a side table, but Palmer stopped him.
‘I’d rather you didn’t worry her. Do you know her plans for today? Where she is likely to be?’
Dolland was becoming very aware that this police visit was centring around his wife, and was, judging by the questions being asked, pretty serious.
‘I really have no idea, Chief Superintendent. Would you like to tell me what all this is about, and then perhaps I can help you further?’
Palmer thought for a moment. This was no time to be worried about hurting Dolland’s feelings or skirting round the problem, so he took the bull by the horns.
‘What was your wife’s maiden name before you got married, sir?’
‘Robins.’
‘Dorothy Robins?’
‘Yes.’
‘So where does the Evelyn name come from?’
‘She hated the name Dorothy; people called her Dolly, Dotty or Dot, so she used her middle name of Evelyn instead.’
‘So Dorothy Robins became Evelyn Dolland.’
‘Yes, I suppose that’s right.’
Palmer turned to Sergeant Singh.
‘No wonder we couldn’t find her, eh?’
He returned to Dolland.
‘Do you know much about your wife’s life before you met her, sir ? I’m sorry to be so blunt, but we are investigating a very serious case in which we suspect, indeed we know, your wife is heavily involved.’
Dolland was visibly shaken. Slowly, he sat in an armchair.
‘Before I met her?’
‘Yes, sir. Did you know she had a child from a previous marriage?’
He pitched straight in; no time to beat about the bush and worry about being diplomatic.
‘A daughter named Angela?’
‘Yes, yes I did. It was an awful time for her. The child took her own life after being bullied at College. Awful, I don’t think Evelyn ever got over it.’
‘You are probably right, sir.’
Gheeta sensed relief in Palmer’s voice that Angela was in the public domain.
‘Let me bring you up to date…’
Palmer relayed to Dolland the reason they were there: the murders and their relationship to the Child Poem, and to Milner College. Dolland sat silent in disbelief, trying to take in what he had just been told about his wife and make some sense out of it. Palmer broke the silence, speaking softly.
‘We need to find your wife, sir. She may think she’s untouchable and not on our radar as she’s been able to get away with the killings so far. Do you have any idea as to where she might be? It would be very helpful; even the slightest inclination.’
‘She’ll be at that College.’
It was a firm, immediate response.
‘At Milner College?’
‘Yes.’
‘What makes you think that, sir?’
‘She never spoke about the girls involved in the bullying, never. I had no idea she even knew who they were. But when other so called ‘celebrities’ came on the telly that she knew had been to that College, she would always say: I’ll burn that place to the ground one day.’ She must have said that so many times.’
Palmer and Singh were already up and halfway out of the room, Palmer donning his trilby on the way.
‘Thank you, Mr Dolland. I’ll leave a uniformed officer with you, and my Sergeant will put victim’s support in touch with you. I think you might benefit from their counselling.’
He felt genuinely sorry for Dolland; it wasn’t every day you learned your wife was a serial killer. Sergeant Singh got on her mobile and organised backup, as they sped, sirens screaming, towards Red Post Hill and the College.
Chapter 34
‘It’s empty, sir. Nobody here.’
Sergeant Singh looked around the empty forecourt of the College as they got out of the squad car.
'Must be holiday time.’
They had positioned the two local backup officers at the College entrance when they arrived at the gate, and gone in with the Firearms Officers.
‘Looks like it, Sergeant.’
Palmer scanned the buildings.
‘I think you must be right; but there should still be a caretaker here. A place this size can’t be without somebody here all the time, surely.’
‘That principal we met, Timms-Beddis; he has a flat here somewhere, sir.’
She
mounted the steps to the front door and looked at the bells.
‘His name’s on a bell, guv.’
She pushed it and they waited. Nothing.
‘Try again.’
Palmer shielded his eyes from the sun as he stood back and looked up at the front windows on the upper floors. There was still no answer to the bell. He turned to the two Firearms Officers standing beside the transit.
‘You two hang on here while we take a look around the back.’
He motioned Singh to follow him and set off round the corner of the building.
‘Have you got that Accounts lady’s number on your mobile?’
‘Yes guv, shall I give her a call and get her down here?’
‘I think so. We need to get inside, and Timms ‘whatshisname’ might be away on holiday himself. Tell her to bring the keys; if we break in, the alarms will go off.’
Gheeta gave Miss Jacobs a call. She was in; she lived locally and would come straight away. Gheeta used her radio to let the Firearms Officers know to expect her and let her through.
The main building was a large one, as you would expect for a College housing a theatre and rehearsal rooms. The side path was a good sixty yards long, and when they reached the next corner they turned it and found themselves at the rear of the main block, in an open gravelled square with two warehouse style tall buildings at its sides, their ground floor windows bricked up, and the one remaining side of the square opening onto a playing field.
All was quiet. But their attention was drawn to the tallest of the two buildings, a six-storey warehouse where the ground floor door was wide open outwards to the square. From their position forty yards away, they could see the open door was steel-reinforced on the inside.
‘Strange that, isn’t it?’ Palmer said, nodding towards the door.
‘Doesn’t look like it’s been forced, guv. Timms-Beddis or somebody might be inside working?’
‘He didn’t strike me as the type of bloke to be doing a bit of maintenance.’
They made their way across the quadrangle, their steps crunching on the gravel. As they got to about twenty yards from the door, a distraught Timms-Beddis staggered and stumbled through it, sprawling head first onto the gravel where he lay shaking and moaning. Behind him, Evelyn Dolland , knife in hand, stood for a moment in the doorway she had pushed him out of, before leaning forward and pulling it closed with a loud steel bang, followed by the grating of steel bolts being slid into position.
POETIC JUSTICE & A KILLER IS CALLING: The DCS Palmer and the Serial Murder Squad series, cases 3 & 4. Page 9
