by Paul Gitsham
Warren and Tony Sutton arranged a briefing with Superintendent John Grayson to discuss their progress and their next steps.
“It’s a damn shame that Robbie Cartwright couldn’t identify who slipped him that tenner. Maybe he can do it in a line-up. Those photos were pretty old and Alex Chalmers has a completely different haircut now,” said Warren.
“Nevertheless there’s been some good work here. Now you just need to work out how this damned Richard Cameron fits into all of this. What’s your next step?”
“We’re drafting a search warrant for those Royal Mail vans as we speak; we’ll get Forensics to give them a good going-over. Hopefully Robbie wasn’t quite as thorough with the hosepipe as he could have been. We don’t have a registration number for the vans seen near Gemma Allen or Saskia Walker, so we’re going to have to impound the whole fleet.”
Grayson winced. The Royal Mail were not going to be happy about having their entire fleet of delivery vans impounded and no doubt he’d get pressure from above to resolve it quickly. Thank God it wasn’t the week before Christmas…
“We’re also about to bring in Darren Blackheath and Alex Chalmers for questioning. We may even be able to arrest and charge them. The main thing is to try and get them to give up Richard Cameron to us.”
Grayson frowned slightly. “I agree that Alex Chalmers is a definite; it’s too much of a coincidence that these Royal Mail vans have been seen in the area of both attacks. However, this Darren Blackheath is a bit more of a stretch. He seems to be part of this largely through circumstance.” He raised one hand, marking off each point with a finger. “He happens to know Alex Chalmers and presumably Carolyn Patterson; we can’t prove his alibi at the time of the attack; he has a dropped charge of rape and he is the boyfriend of the first murder victim. The CPS will never let us charge him on that basis.”
“I see what you are saying, but I still think it’s enough to bring him in for questioning and to hold him for a period of time if necessary. It’s vital that we do so if we are bringing in Alex Chalmers, because if we leave Darren Blackheath free he may well contact Richard Cameron and tip him off. We can’t risk that.”
After a few moments’ consideration, Grayson nodded his agreement. “OK, we’ll do it your way. Bring them in and as soon as the warrants are prepared I’ll arrange for them to be signed and then somebody can go and give the Royal Mail the good news.”
Leaving Grayson’s office, Sutton muttered to Warren, “I notice we’re doing it ‘your way’ again. I wonder who will carry the can for this if we’re wrong and who will take the credit if we’re right?”
“Yeah, well, such is life, Tony. Look on the bright side though. That little weasel Angus Carroway is going to have some explaining to do when his bosses at the Royal Mail want to know why all of their delivery vans are impounded in Welwyn.”
* * *
Arresting the two suspects was a simple and smooth affair. Alex Chalmers finished his shift at exactly one p.m., heading out of the sorting office into the biting wind. Pausing only to light a cigarette, he slipped his headphones in, hunched his shoulders against the snowflakes and started walking, seemingly oblivious to the world around him. He almost jumped out of his skin when Warren tapped him on the shoulder; flanked either side by two burly detective constables on loan from Welwyn. His only protest as he clambered into the back of the unmarked Audi was that he had missed his morning smoke break and they wouldn’t let him finish his cigarette in the car.
Darren Blackheath was manhandling a new tyre onto an old Ford when Tony Sutton appeared at his side. He placed the tyre down, making no move towards any of the dangerous-looking tools within arm’s reach, and followed the three officers to their car. The young man looked tired and worn-down. Sutton couldn’t tell if he was a guilty man resigned to his fate or an innocent man still too grief-stricken to care.
Both men were taken to Middlesbury CID, but processed separately and installed in interview suites at opposite ends of the building. Warren was confident that neither man knew that the other was present.
As soon as Alex Chalmers was safely tucked away, Warren contacted Karen Hardwick. Wishing her luck, he told her to proceed with the next stage.
Four miles away, Karen Hardwick rang the bell of the shabby house, an officer from the domestic violence unit by her side. After a few moments the door opened. Katie Oliver was even bigger than before; it couldn’t be long before she gave birth. Today, no amount of make-up could conceal the split lip.
“Hello, Katie, do you mind if we come in? It’s important.” The young woman nodded silently.
Less than thirty minutes later, Karen Hardwick was on the street again, mobile phone pressed to her ear. Inside, her colleague from the domestic violence unit was helping Katie Oliver pack a suitcase.
“Good news, guv. Katie Oliver confirms it. Alex Chalmers has no alibi for the dates in question — apparently he’s out who knows where several nights a week and she can’t account for his whereabouts. And if you need another reason to hold him, you can finally charge the bastard with assault and ABH.”
Chapter 65
Alex Chalmers was in a combative mood by the time Warren and Tony Sutton joined him in the interview room.
“What’s this crap all about? I’ve done nothing wrong. You’ve got nothing on me.”
Tony Sutton ignored his bluster.
“Where were you nine-thirty p.m. on Thursday eighth December when Carolyn Patterson went missing on her way home from the Middlesbury Sports and Leisure Centre?”
“I already told you before. I was having a night in with my missus. Ask her.” He folded his arms triumphantly; however there was a slight tightening of his eyes.
Sutton ignored him. “What about six p.m. or thereabouts on Friday second December?”
“Again, I told you. I was with the missus. In case you ain’t noticed, she’s more than eight months pregnant. Fit to burst any minute. In fact, the sooner you hurry this along, the better. I’d hate to miss the birth.” He smirked, but his cockiness was forced. The man was clearly worried about something.
“How about Saturday seventeenth December? Or a week later, Friday the twenty-third?”
“I don’t know. I’ll have to check my social calendar.”
Warren leaned forward. “We know that you weren’t with your girlfriend, Mr Chalmers. I suggest you have another think.”
Chalmers stood up abruptly. “This is bullshit. You haven’t got anything on me. You said yourself, I’m not under arrest, I’m just ‘helping you with enquiries’ — well, I’ve decided to stop helping.” He addressed this last statement directly to the PACE recorder sitting on the table, then raised his middle finger to the ceiling, presumably towards whatever non-existent video-camera he thought was recording the session for posterity.
“I’m off home to look after my pregnant girlfriend.”
“Sit down, Chalmers. We’re not done yet.”
Warren’s voice was low, barely raised, but it had the desired effect. Chalmers paused on the way to the door.
“She won’t be there.” He pointed silently at his lip.
Chalmers got the reference immediately. He paused. Warren could almost see the thoughts whirling around the man’s mind. With no other way out, he resorted to his favourite strategy. A sneer appeared on his lips.
“Oh, that’s what this is all about? A little revenge from Katie.” The man was clearly fabricating on the fly. Warren almost wished there were a camera in the room; Chalmers clearly had no idea how much his innermost thoughts were reflected in his face.
“Well, that’s no good, it’s my word against hers. And this—” he pointed towards his lip “—was self-defence.” His voice turned whiny. “You know what pregnant women are like. They’re all full of hormones and shit. They fly off the handle at the smallest thing. She was threatening me with a knife, one of the big ones from the kitchen. I didn’t want to hurt her, but we wrestled and she caught her face on the cupboard door.” He smiled b
roadly, trying to look magnanimous. “Anyway I didn’t want any fuss and I forgive her, so I decided not to call the police. She doesn’t need the stress, what with the baby and all that.
“She’s clearly still upset. She’s trying to cause trouble. I’m a good father. I’m in every night looking after her, so she’s my alibi and she knows that. Like I said, it’s her word against mine and no jury in the land will convict me on that. I had nothing to do with those girls’ deaths. You’re just fishing cause of some bullshit allegations from years ago. You ain’t got nothing else, or you’d have arrested me and charged me.”
He sat back, his face smug.
Warren looked at Sutton, who sighed theatrically, his expression clearly saying, “Where do we begin?”
Warren started. “You don’t know much about juries. Let me paint you a picture. This is what they will see. Photographs of a heavily pregnant young woman with bruises on her arms, and her chin and a split lip. They will then see her boyfriend, a big tattooed thug. The neighbours have already called the police once, claiming that you were beating her. We’ll apply to the court to have permission to submit the previous allegations as evidence of bad character and, of course, we’ll get Carolyn Patterson’s mum on the stand to give evidence regarding the bruises that she saw.
“They won’t see a young woman trying to get revenge by causing trouble for her boyfriend. Oh, no. What they’ll see is a brave young woman who was terrorised by her violent boyfriend into giving him a false alibi, who finally plucked up the courage to do the right thing and admit she was lying.”
Warren leant back in his chair. “Tell us what you were doing on those nights or we’ll charge you and you can take your chances with a jury.”
Chalmers stared at them, trying to maintain a poker face, but his darting eyes and the beads of sweat gave him away. Finally, he came to a decision.
“It’s bullshit. If that’s all you’ve got, then screw you. I wasn’t doing anything on those nights and you can’t prove anything. If you have nothing except me not having an alibi, then charge me and we’ll see what the court says.”
He leant back, arms folded. It was his last desperate ploy and on the face of it a good one. A lack of alibi was circumstantial at best and, even with his past history as an abuser, the principle of ‘no smoke without fire’ wasn’t yet enough to convict a man in an English court of law.
Tony Sutton glanced over at Warren, who nodded slightly.
“You have a good job at the post office, yes?”
The change in direction threw Chalmers off balance. “Yeah, it’s OK, I suppose. A bit crap in weather like this,” he tried to joke.
Sutton smiled, but he didn’t look amused.
“Well, I suppose that when the weather gets really bad and you have loads of parcels, they let you put away the bicycles.”
“Yeah, of course.”
“What would you say if I told you that every time one of those young women disappeared, a Royal Mail postal delivery van was spotted in the area at the same time?”
Chalmers shrugged, the confusion written clearly across his face.
Warren took over. “Tell me about your little agreement with Angus Carroway and the keys to the delivery vans. He tells us you’ve borrowed a van quite a few times.”
Chalmers squirmed in his seat. Warren could see the man trying to work out the implications of what Warren had just accused him of. Not wanting to give him any time to fabricate an answer, he pressed on.
“Tell me, how did you and Darren Blackheath hook up with Richard Cameron?”
It was like a slap across Chalmers’ face. His eyes widened in horror as he clearly recognised the name of the man the papers had dubbed the ‘Middlesbury Monster’.
“Oh, no. No way.”
Warren and Tony Sutton watched in fascination as the man in front of them crumbled. All of his cockiness disappeared and he seemed to shrink in on himself.
“OK,” he croaked, “I admit, the alibis aren’t real. I’ll tell you where I was on those nights, but it isn’t what you think.”
* * *
Thirty minutes later, Tony Sutton and Warren Jones emerged from the interview room. The two men had a lot of information to process. Warren’s head was spinning and he couldn’t decide what to believe and what it meant. A few moments later a beaten and defeated Alex Chalmers emerged, held firmly by the station’s custody sergeant.
“You remember that bit at the beginning where I said that he had the right to a lawyer and that he didn’t have to answer anything?” Warren asked. Sutton nodded. “Silly bastard should have listened.”
Chapter 66
It was time for another brainstorming session as Warren shared the day’s developments so far.
“So basically, Alex Chalmers has been out dealing in stolen goods and using the postal delivery vans to move large items around.” Karen Hardwick sounded incredulous.
“That’s what he claims. He admitted it when he thought we were going to charge him with the murders. However, there’s a fly in the ointment. He swears blind that whilst he was not in the house on the nights of the murders, he hadn’t borrowed a van. In fact, he made the exact same point that we did — why would a postal delivery van be out and about at half-nine at night? He reckons he only borrowed them in the afternoon after he finished his shift.” Warren raised his palms in surrender; he knew it was a big coincidence.
“So, assuming that we believe him, the van was being driven by somebody else those nights?” asked Gary Hastings. “And what about Darren Blackheath?”
“We haven’t questioned him yet — he’s still cooling his heels downstairs. Chalmers admits that they are friends but swears that Blackheath has nothing to do with his fencing operation.”
“Could Blackheath have got access to a delivery van through him?”
“Anything’s possible, but Chalmers claims not. He also claims not to have any knowledge of Richard Cameron.”
“Although I don’t think that’s much of a surprise,” Sutton grumbled.
“Right, we need to check out both men’s stories. Let’s see if we can find somebody willing to vouch for Chalmers on the nights in question. I’ll leave it to you, Tony, to figure out how to get hardened thieves to incriminate themselves by admitting they were fencing stolen goods with Alex Chalmers on the nights in question.”
“Thanks, guv,” grumbled Tony Sutton.
“We should also take a look at the rest of the names in Carroway’s motor pool and see if any more of them have form or any links to Richard Cameron. And check the CCTV at the depot — maybe there’s footage of whoever borrowed the van.
“In the meantime, let’s look at this from another angle. I can’t believe it’s a coincidence that a post van was seen at every scene. What does that mean? How can that be linked to Richard Cameron? Take a few minutes, have a coffee and get your imaginations going, everybody.”
As everybody filed out of the room, Warren closed his eyes briefly, half listening to the babble of conversations. He tuned them out, trusting his team to thrash their way through any suggestions, testing them for plausibility before bringing them to him.
“I’ll say one thing, Chief, this is definitely a birthday you’ll remember.” Tony Sutton patted his boss’ back in sympathy.
Warren chuckled, despite himself. “Yeah, when people ask me how I spent my thirty-fifth birthday, I’ll be able to tell them I spent it hunting a serial killer in an office full of Christmas decorations as the snow came down outside.”
Sutton snorted. “Thirty-five my arse. We’re detectives, no point trying to lie about your age.” He looked out of the window at the blustery blizzard. “Looks as if it’s going to settle. It’s a good job you’ve got that nice new coat.”
“Yeah, Susan’s sister sent it to me from the Alps, would you believe?”
“Bloody hell. Got a few bob, have they? What was the postage like?”
“Too much, you don’t want to know…” Warren’s voice trailed off. Sutt
on opened his mouth, but closed it again immediately as Warren raised his hand.
Sometimes it just struck you. Like a puzzle with all the pieces when the final pattern suddenly started to become clear. Warren was reminded of the dream he’d had the night that Melanie Clearwater was attacked. A half-dozen pieces seemed ready to click into place and for a moment Warren was paralysed with indecision. What to do first? Leaping to his feet, he pulled out his mobile, hurrying into the main office and at the same time calling over his shoulder to Tony Sutton.
“We’ve been barking up the wrong tree. Completely. We’ve been so obsessed with finding a link between Blackheath, Chalmers and Cameron and tying them to their victims that we’ve completely missed what’s under our nose.”
* * *
Warren startled Gary Hastings, who was deep in conversation with DS Kent.
“Gary, do you have any enhanced images of the team tops that the football team were wearing?”
“Nothing enhanced, but some of them are clearer than others.” Opening a folder on his PC revealed a series of thumbnail images from the leisure centre’s CCTV footage.
“See if you can work out what the logo is on their left chest. Bring up the best image you have on the screen.”
As Gary Hastings complied Warren dialled Susan on her mobile phone. Just as he’d hoped, his wife was at home. Unfortunately, she was busy preparing Warren his favourite meal — a meal that he had forgotten all about. Her voice was decidedly chilly by the time Warren admitted that he couldn’t promise to be home at a decent hour. ‘Channelling the spirit of Bernice’ was how Warren privately thought of it. Nevertheless, she agreed to his request.
Turning to DS Kent, Warren asked him to look through the interview files. He needed full confirmation of something that he half remembered, before he could put all of the pieces together.
“Got it — it’s their team sponsor,” said Gary Hastings, pointing out the logo. “But if you want a better image than that, it’s splashed all over their website and Facebook page.”
