One Last Lesson

by Iain Cameron

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I can’t hear you.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said louder and through tears; tears of pain, tears of misery.

  ‘Now I ask you again, did you or did you not, murder these little girls?’

  ‘No. I’ve told you already. No, no, no!’

  ‘Let’s try some dates. Louisa was murdered Monday 25th March. Where were you and what were you doing?’

  ‘On Monday, I go to The St George’s Inn, I always go there, anybody will tell you that.’

  ‘Why do you go there? Don’t you know Brighton has over three hundred and sixty pubs, one for nearly every day of the year and yet you always go to the same one? Why is that?’

  ‘I like it and I don’t have a car to go anywhere else.’

  ‘He doesn’t have a car John, can you believe it? Why not? Are you some two-bit cheapskate or one of these Green Party supporters that eats lentils for breakfast and wears vegetarian sandals, just like all those other tosser hippies in Kemptown?’

  They all laughed.

  ‘No, I can’t drive.’

  ‘What d’ya mean you can’t drive. Everybody can drive, even my daughter who can’t iron or sew a button on a shirt, can drive.’

  ‘I failed the eyesight test.’

  ‘What? Aw, for fucksake!’

  THIRTY-SIX

  Dominic Green arrived home at one-thirty in the morning and if everyone in the house wasn’t fast asleep, he would have slammed the front door, the fridge door and any other door that he was forced to close quietly as he was still livid. Anger management was never his strong suit and woe betide anyone unlucky enough to be standing close by when he felt like this. He poured a glass of milk, which seemed to help the ulcer that roared back to life when he was tense and took a seat at the kitchen table.

  He was so sure Rudd was his man, he would have staked his life on it, Rudd’s that is, not his. Rudd blamed him for the death of his brother and with some justification, but his brother was an old soak who spent more time in the pub than doing his job and he would have killed himself eventually, if his boys hadn’t knocked over the paraffin heater and got there first.

  In fact, his brother’s love of the drink would have worked in his favour if the case ever came to trial. That devious bastard Campbell would have sown the seeds of doubt in the jury’s mind by suggesting that it was his brother’s carelessness over alcohol that started the fire in the first place and the old boozer was too pissed to save himself.

  When they left the Shoreham warehouse tonight, they picked up the eastbound A27 and on the rural stretch just after the Southwick Hill Tunnel, Lester stopped the car and Rudd was thrown out. Lester was stoic about the whole episode but Spike was livid, as he wasn’t allowed to give the guy a severe beating, replete with broken bones and ruptured spleen before using his little stiletto to carve him up, the sadistic little bastard.

  He finished the milk and headed up to bed, leaving the glass on the table for Maria to deal with. She lived in a cottage in the grounds and came into the main house at six to tidy up, cook breakfast and make sure the kids were out of bed and getting ready to go to school.

  The house couldn’t function without her and that was a view he carried over to his business dealings. If he was thinking of buying a company, he would identify the one person that knew exactly what the hell was going on, invariably not the guy in charge but a lowly accountant or admin assistant and he would raise their pay to such a level, it made it impossible for them to leave.

  Wearily he brushed his teeth and climbed into bed but he wasn’t tired, his disappointment at their lack of success was churning around in his head like a fairground merry-go-round. Two people were still on his list but their grievances were older and he hadn’t heard from either of them these last few years and so they were lesser bets in his book than George Rudd. Was something overlooked, could there be another place he needed to look?

  He fell into a restless sleep, tossing this way and that for half an hour before finally he was engulfed by exhaustion. For the next two hours he slept but his peace was interrupted when yet again, he was visited by a recurring dream. It started on a battlefield, not one from the Second World War, the ones his drunken uncle tried to scare him with when he was a boy, but from the thirteenth or fourteenth century and reminded him of Agincourt or Crecy as all the men carried swords, bows and shields and they were fighting on what looked like foreign soil.

  Once again, he was trapped by a huge soldier and forced to stand his ground and have his resistance eroded with a steady succession of blows but occasionally, he would break free and run into the woods. This time, he ran further than ever before and took refuge in a woodcutter’s hut. In a matter of minutes, soldiers were banging on the door, the sound becoming louder and louder. Suddenly he felt a blow to the ribs. Was it a knife, a sword?

  ‘Dominic, bloody well wake up!’

  ‘What, what is it?’

  ‘The door.’

  ‘What are you talking about woman and why were you sticking your elbow into my ribs?’ He had crippled people for less.

  ‘There’s somebody at the front door,’ his wife said, ‘you must’ve left the gates open again. They’ve been banging on it for ages. I’m surprised it never woke you as well.’

  He slowly tumbled out of bed, his head woozy and thick. ‘Jesus Christ, it’s four-thirty! Who’s banging on the bloody door at this hour of the night?’

  ‘There’s only one way to find out but make sure you check the camera first.’

  He reached for his dressing gown. ‘Check the camera? I’ll check the bloody Purdey first and make sure both barrels are loaded.’

  ‘Don’t you dare, Dominic Green! It could be a stranded motorist looking for help. How do you think they’re going to feel if you stick that bloody thing into their face? You’d be in front of Lewes magistrates as soon as they open for business in the morning.’

  CCTV cameras were fitted to all corners of the house and after switching on the screen he panned the camera using the joystick and examined the row of garages where his beloved Roller was housed and then moved it across the driveway to the front door. Under the glare of a bank of movement-controlled lights which came on whenever a human, or God-forbid, a Bambi crossed in front of one of the detectors, were two uniformed cops.

  He uttered a string of curses as strode towards the front door and flung it open.

  ‘I hope you fucking guys are lost.’

  ‘Dominic Green?’ asked the sergeant, more bulked-up it seemed by a fondness for pork pies and chocolate than muscles.

  ‘Yes, it is, but what’s the meaning of this, coming to my house in the middle of the night and waking everyone up, couldn’t it wait?’

  ‘I apologise for the intrusion sir.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Dominic Green, I’m arresting you for the kidnap and assault of Mr George Rudd. You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something, which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. Do you understand?’

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Even without checking the serials, the computerised system that listed all crimes committed in the Sussex area the previous night, Henderson was aware of Green’s arrest from the morning news bulletin on Southern FM. To the media and the world at large, he was a successful businessman with a colourful past, but to the police he was at the centre of many of the major crimes committed in the area and Henderson knew his arrest would cause a buzz in every police station in the region.

  Rachel was becoming more mobile with each day that passed, despite a strong and inflexible cast that enveloped her lower arm and another engulfing her leg, which were both inhibiting movement in some way. She was burning loads of energy just doing simple things like moving around her flat or when making little forays to the outside world and as a consequence, was always as hungry as a football-mad teenager. He wasn’t heading into the office first-thing as he had a follow-up appointment with his GP
to check on the dog injuries and so he treated her to his very own culinary speciality, an old fashioned English breakfast of sausages, bacon, scrabbled egg and plenty of toast.

  Slim to a fault, a shape she achieved without dieting, it was the sort of food she would have run from in the past, claiming it would clog up her arteries and hasten the onset of early-stage dementia, but today she lapped it up like a puppy. It was well known to everyone who knew him that he was a lousy cook, despite several years living on his own but a cooked breakfast was one dish he could make, and even Rachel was forced to admit it tasted delicious.

  He stacked the dishwasher and made sure she was comfortable for at least the next few hours and headed off to the doctor’s surgery, which was within walking distance of her flat. The speed that he could walk was impeded only slightly by the wound in his leg, which was small beer in comparison to the series of ugly bites, ripped skin and extensive bruising between shoulder and elbow on his left arm, and the big ugly red blotch on his stomach.

  While waiting to be called, he was leafing through Sussex Life magazine, marvelling at the million-pound plus houses, farms and stables for sale. How he wished that Langley Manor was displayed majestically between these pages and its owner, Dominic Green shipped off to some far-off place, never to darken Sussex with his shadow ever again

  A pretty nurse with cold hands changed his dressings and gave him a new prescription for pills that he needed to take less and less. He left the surgery and walked to a chemist in New Church Road, feeling better than he had done for days, perhaps the placebo effect of receiving the attention of a medical professional. After collecting his tablets, he drove to the office.

  CI Steve Harris called to moan about something, overtime bill, telephone calls, his awful picture in the paper but he could tell his heart wasn’t in it as he couldn’t help but gloat over the arrest of Samuels and the identification of his mate Cope, and to add cream to his coffee, the arrest of Dominic Green. Henderson knew it wouldn’t last but he had enjoyed the man’s good humour while it lasted.

  Suspect Number One, Martin Cope flew out to Faro a week ago and was staying at the Alto Golf and Country Club Apartments, causing Gerry Hobbs to remark what sort of heartless bastard would go off on holiday knowing he was responsible for killing two young girls? The attempt by Samuels to muddy the waters was ultimately in vain as even if Pat Davidson hadn’t discovered the existence of Cope, his DNA was detected on the cigarette butt found at West Hove and proved conclusively that Cope was at the crime scene and his fingerprints were all over the bedroom at the house in Saltdean, and if that wasn’t a cast-iron case, he didn’t know what was.

  At first, Henderson was tempted to call the police in Faro or Portimão and have him arrested immediately but the more he considered it, the more he didn’t like it. The unsuspecting Portuguese police officers, more used to dealing with drunks, fights and lost passports would be put in danger by just approaching him, they could lose him somewhere on mainland Europe if he escaped from custody and a good lawyer, in all probability funded by Samuels, could mount a credible challenge to the European Arrest Warrant.

  The second option was to wait at the airport and arrest him as he stepped off the plane. The use of metal detectors and scanners at airports meant it was highly unlikely he would be carrying a weapon and he was confident that, with the assistance of airport security, it would be a successful operation. However, Cope’s return flight wasn’t due to arrive until Sunday, three days from now and in that time he would probably see a news bulletin, twig that Samuels was now in police custody and skip the flight.

  Option three was for some officers from the team to go to Portugal and shadow him home, ready to nab him if he decided to make a break for it. This was his preferred option, not just because he fancied a trip to Portugal, but it would give them a chance to see at first hand the kind of man they were dealing with. He knew without broaching the subject, that his boss Steve Harris wouldn’t wear it. He would tell him trips like that weren’t in the budget or they were spending too much on the investigation already, but he knew that was a lie, as money could always be found for another Equal Opportunities’ seminar or a ‘Community Policing’ initiative and criminals didn’t take a holiday just because police funds were low.

  In front of him now were Martin Cope’s police record, prison record, psychologists’ assessments, probation reports and a host of other documentation, all spat out by the mighty criminal justice system at great expense. As he began to read, he quickly realised that if Samuels was the intelligent, wily snake that could fool you into thinking he was a harmless cinema buff and dog lover, Martin Cope was the polar opposite. He was a man of low intelligence, a strong and violent thug with the morals and cunning of a feral cat. Cope was a blunderbuss to Samuels’s stiletto.

  According to prison records, Cope kept a clean sheet while on the inside but he was suspected of being an enforcer for Hector Malinas, the notorious part Mexican, part Liverpudlian, drug boss. Henderson didn’t know Malinas but a scouse accent from the mouth of an archetypal small and compact, swarthy Hispanic would be strange to hear and it was well known he was sensitive to any jibe that included any reference to it, or his dark skin and pencil-thin moustache and had cut out the tongues of at least three people whose mistake it was to do so.

  Cope’s climb up the ladder of crime started after release from a five-year stretch for violent assault when he moved to London and drove a minicab. By day, he plied for trade around the Earl’s Court and Edgware Road areas but by night, it wasn’t fares he was looking for but suitable women and became the Cabbie Rapist. His technique was to drive to a quiet street and pretend that something was wrong with the vehicle. He would stop and inspect the problem and then jump in the back and beat up his victim, often to the point of unconsciousness, before raping them.

  Seventeen stone of muscle, he was now a mini cab driver in Brighton and before that, a driver for the College Link Bus Company, when apparently he was known as Edward Ferguson. An alarm suddenly went off in his head, as here was another way they could have caught him. It mollified him slightly when he remembered tasking DC Phil Bentley with setting up interviews with cab drivers and bus drivers and for Carol Walters to do likewise with the Link Bus drivers but that same old nag, nag was there. If they had done this or that first, would they have got there any sooner?

  No, that sort of thinking led to indecision and a cautionary approach. The clothes found at the Saltean house and the DNA on the cigarette butt at Hove Golf course, short-circuited a large part of the investigation and probably saved them weeks of work. Perhaps the next time Harris moaned about the cost of overtime, he would raise that very point.

  He pulled out a couple of pictures of Cope and stared at them. He had a big head with small eyes and slightly uneven teeth, and a short crew cut couldn’t hide a scarlet birthmark below one eye and a scar on the other cheek. He was taller than Henderson by a couple of inches and at least four-stone heavier, but he was no fat slob, feasting on artery-bursting prison breakfasts and stodgy puddings, far from it as he was a formidable man and an ideal enforcer for the twilight world in which he operated.

  He pushed the chair back, clunked his size nines on the desk and stared at the ceiling tiles. Here was something that dogged police work time and again. Here was a violent man, graduating up the crime ladder from sexual assaults to rape and now up another rung to murder and he wondered how difficult it would be for that veritable army of psychologists, psychiatrists, behavioural scientists, sociologists, and the rest of the crew working with these people, to give folks like him the heads-up on which criminals they were releasing from prison, posed the greatest danger to the public.

  He was so deep in thought, he was unaware Chief Inspector Harris was now in his office and jumped when he suddenly said, ‘Good morning Angus.’

  He took his feet off the desk and looked at him with some astonishment which he hoped wasn’t noticeable as it was such a rare sight to see Harris anywhere
near his office if a phone call or email would do.

  ‘Good morning, sir. Sorry about that I was... cogitating.’

  ‘That’s laudable Angus. We all need to make time to think now and again.’

  He sat down on the visitor’s chair and dumped the papers he was carrying on the desk. His hair was, as usual neatly combed, perhaps to detract from a rugged, pockmarked face that had seen too much sun or the result of a teenage skin complaint. His salary wasn’t that much of a hike up from his, but Harris wore much nicer clothes than he did and today it was a crisply pressed, dark blue suit, white shirt and yellow striped tie, but then he was married to a highly paid accountant.

  ‘So, how are you, sir?’

  ‘I’m fine Angus, especially now that you seem to have this case well wrapped up. Capturing Samuels is what police work is all about, intuitive deductions followed by face-to-face interviews.’

  ‘Thank you sir, but there’s still the small matter of finding and arresting Martin Cope.’

  ‘I know, I know and that was what I wanted to talk to you about.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Yes. So, what arrangements have you made to bring him back safely?’

  ‘I’ll take three members of my team and four uniforms to Gatwick on Sunday. I will of course inform the airport authorities and request the help of airport security to get us as close to the aircraft as possible, if not inside. Naturally, I’ll inform our armed response team at the airport as to what’s going on but I don’t anticipate asking or needing their assistance.’