Deadlock

by Graham Ison

  ‘What’s happened? Have we been burgled?’

  I left it to Kate to explain while I answered the front door and admitted DS Tom Challis and DC Ray Furness.

  ‘I reckon you were the guys who drew the short straws,’ I said.

  ‘If you mean we were the ones daft enough to answer our mobiles, guv’nor, yes,’ said Challis with a smile.

  I explained what had happened to Heather Douglas and then added, ‘There are three attractive girls living here, so I don’t want any bloody nonsense, Tom. If this guy escapes there’ll be hell to pay. Is that understood?’

  ‘Stand on me, guv’nor,’ said Challis, a hurt expression on his face.

  But I knew coppers, and I didn’t want to learn that one of the officers guarding Heather Douglas was in bed with one of her housemates just when the action began.

  ‘Good. This guy could well be our murderer. So everything’s got to be bang to rights, Tom. Got it?’

  ‘Yes, guv, we’ve got it.’ Challis looked slightly offended at the implication.

  FIFTEEN

  It was almost two o’clock in the morning by the time I’d briefed Heather Douglas and her two housemates about what I proposed to do in respect of their safety. It did cross my mind to tell them that we suspected Heather’s attacker of being the man who had murdered four women in this area during the course of the last nine days or so, but eventually I decided against it. If Heather or one of her housemates blabbed it to the media it could well prejudice a trial, assuming that we ever got the murderer in the dock. But I wasn’t prepared to take that chance. After all, it would not serve any useful purpose. But that prompted another thought. I advised the women not to talk to any journalist or TV interviewer, because I didn’t want Heather’s attacker to know that we were planning to catch him.

  Finally, I satisfied myself that Challis and Furness knew what to do in the event that Heather’s attacker turned up at the house. I didn’t want to see the man acquitted because of some legal technicality.

  But now I was faced with a problem. Jason Skinner had moved rapidly to the top of my suspect list, mainly because of his membership of the same health club to which Heather belonged, and that the description she had given of the man she had met there was similar. But I was also conscious of the fact that the description would have fitted a lot of other men.

  Consequently I didn’t think I was justified in paying Skinner a visit at this time of the morning, simply on that flimsy evidence. I determined, therefore, that I would interview him first thing tomorrow morning and hope that, if he was the man I wanted, he would not have found that vital piece of evidence that Heather had pushed down the back of the front passenger seat of his car.

  However, just to be on the safe side, I arranged for a discreet observation to be put in place on his house until then. Heaven forfend that he got wind of our interest and did a runner, particularly if it was to a place abroad that created difficulties about extradition. Which gave me another thought: I got Gavin Creasey in the incident room to send a message to all ports and airports. I’d rather briefly detain an innocent man than allow a guilty one to flee.

  As Kate Ebdon had done enough for one day, I sent her home, and arranged for Dave Poole to meet me at Skinner’s address at eight o’clock, later that morning. But I stayed on until then. One of the privileges of being a detective chief inspector and lead investigator is that you work through the night when duty demands it. And in my welfare role I tried to ensure that no one else did more hours than absolutely necessary. Not always easy in the middle of a murder inquiry.

  ‘How are we going to play this, guv?’ Dave yawned and put his hands in his pockets.

  ‘By ear, Dave.’ I rang Skinner’s doorbell.

  The man who opened the door was probably about forty, and he had a moustache. If this was the man who had attempted to abduct Heather Douglas, the description could have fitted. She reckoned he was between thirty and forty and her doubts about a moustache could’ve been explained by the fact that this man’s was almost invisible.

  ‘Jason Skinner?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’re police officers, Mr Skinner,’ I said, and introduced myself and Dave.

  ‘Got a lock problem, have you? Your people often come to me when they’ve got something they want opening.’

  ‘Why should they do that?’ Dave asked, playing the innocent. We’d both read Kate Ebdon’s statement about her interview with Skinner at the Talavera wine bar last Thursday. I had also spoken to her before she went off-duty earlier this morning just to check whether she had anything to add. We hadn’t forgotten, either, that the girl who was with Skinner last Thursday had taken advantage of Kate’s questioning to leave the bar hurriedly. I now wondered if some sixth sense had warned her that Skinner was a man to be avoided.

  ‘Well, I’m a locksmith.’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ I said. ‘No, it’s nothing like that. It might be as well if we came in.’

  Skinner seemed a little reluctant to admit us, but at the same time it appeared he could find no immediate reason for refusing. We followed him into a sitting room at the front of the house. It was an unremarkable room with just the usual sort of furniture and the obligatory wide-screen television set.

  ‘What do you want, if it’s not a lock you want opening?’

  ‘Were you at your health club last evening?’ I asked.

  Skinner immediately began to look shifty. ‘I might’ve been. Why d’you want to know?’

  ‘A young woman has made a report to police that a man fitting your description attempted to abduct her after promising to take her to the Talavera wine bar in Richmond. We know that’s an establishment you frequent.’

  ‘It wasn’t me. I wasn’t at the health club yesterday.’ Skinner actually appeared to be relieved.

  ‘Where were you, then?’ asked Dave. ‘Yesterday evening in particular.’

  ‘No comment,’ said Skinner.

  That stupid statement decided it. Suspects don’t realize that to say ‘No comment’ like that immediately makes the police suspicious. Dave glanced at me and I nodded.

  ‘Jason Skinner, I’m arresting you on suspicion of attempting to abduct Heather Douglas, and the theft of a sports bag and the contents thereof,’ said Dave, and rattled off the caution.

  ‘It is my intention to search these premises,’ I began.

  ‘Oh, you suddenly got a warrant, then?’ asked Skinner aggressively.

  ‘You’ve just been nicked, so we don’t need one,’ said Dave, ‘and I can recite the relevant section of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act for you, if you’re interested.’

  ‘I never had anything to do with any girl getting abducted,’ protested Skinner. ‘So I don’t know what you’re looking for.’

  ‘Where’s your car kept?’ I asked.

  ‘In the street.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Dave. ‘You’ve got a garage.’

  ‘Er, yeah, well, I keep my van in there. It’s got all my equipment in it, and it’d cost an arm and a leg to replace it if it ever got nicked.’

  ‘We’ll just have a look, though,’ I said. Skinner might’ve been lying, and the garage might contain a car. On the other hand, Heather Douglas might have been conveyed in a van, some of which are quite modern and comfortable.

  Dave led the way and opened the communicating door from the house into the garage. It was then that we discovered a stash of valuables that would have rivalled the stock of even an upmarket pawnbroker.

  There was certainly a van in the centre of the garage, but all around the walls were shelves stacked with silverware, antique clocks – one of which was a rather fine gilt brass carriage clock – Royal Worcester vases and candlesticks in abundance. In a large wooden box Dave discovered a quantity of jewellery; in another he found a number of credit cards.

  ‘What’s in that?’ asked Dave, pointing to a locked steel cabinet on the back wall of the garage.

  ‘No comment,’ said Skinner.

  �
�Look, sport, you can either open it for me or I’ll have it taken apart with a thermal lance.’

  ‘No comment,’ said Skinner again.

  ‘On second thoughts,’ said Dave, as he spotted a crowbar on the bench, ‘I think we can manage without a thermal lance.’ Finding an appropriate gap where the door met the cabinet, Dave inserted the crowbar and forced it open. ‘Well, well, well!’ he said, gazing at row upon row of keys, each of which was labelled. Some bore details of private addresses, while others clearly related to doors at the health club of which Skinner was a member.

  ‘I’ll get on to the local nick, Dave,’ I said. ‘They can deal with all this stolen property. Should keep them occupied for a few months.’

  We didn’t have long to wait. Twenty minutes later a couple of CID officers arrived from Twickenham police station.

  ‘Thanks very much, guv’nor,’ said a detective sergeant once I’d explained the situation. ‘It’s not every day we get a percher as good as this guy’s looking. Mind you,’ he added gloomily, ‘half the losers of this property won’t want to know. They’ll have had the pay-out from the insurance company and they’ve probably spent it already.’ He looked around at some of the stolen property. ‘Personally, I wouldn’t want any of it back.’

  ‘Don’t bail him, skip,’ I said, once the sergeant had finished his little whinge about the fickleness of losers. ‘I may want to put him up for an ID parade. Apart from being a professional thief, right now he’s a suspect in an abduction case. Possibly even murder. Which reminds me: if you come across a collection of bras, let me know straight away.’

  The local DS gave me a strange look, but then said, ‘Don’t worry, guv, we’ll hang on to him.’

  ‘Put him back in the house, but don’t take him to the nick just yet, skip,’ I said. ‘Just in case we find what we’re looking for.’

  The DS told his DC to remove Skinner to the sitting room, but he stayed here.

  ‘What’s the story behind that, then, Dave?’ I asked, pointing at the rows of keys. I turned to the Twickenham DS. ‘You’d better listen to this theory of Dave’s, skip.’

  ‘I’ll put money on them being duplicate keys for all the houses where he’s replaced locks,’ said Dave, ‘and it looks as though he fitted the locks at the health club as well.’

  ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Dave?’

  ‘I reckon so, guv,’ said Dave thoughtfully. ‘He’s been nicking gear from the health club. He could let himself out to the car park by a back door and put anything he’d nicked in his car. Those credit cards were probably knocked off from the changing rooms. Secondly, as the computer at the club will have shown him to be there all the time, he could have left and returned without anyone knowing, and come up with the perfect alibi. And the same would apply when it came to a burglary. Once again, he could slip out of the health club, do the job and return.’

  ‘But why is he hanging on to all that stolen gear, Dave? It’s asking for trouble.’

  ‘Two possible reasons. Firstly, he’s an overconfident bastard who thinks he can outwit the Old Bill, or secondly, he can’t find a fence who’s willing to take that sort of gear off him. I only had a quick glance, but I’d think that a lot of it would be easily traceable, despite what our friend from Twickenham here just said, and a fence’s not going to touch anything that hot.’

  ‘My view as well, Dave,’ I said, ‘but d’you still fancy him for these toppings?’

  ‘They could be down to him,’ replied Dave. ‘I think what we’ve found here confirms that he wasn’t at the health club. If he had been, he’d have wanted to let himself out the back way instead of leaving through the front with Heather. Then he could have returned after he topped her – because I think that was the abductor’s intention – and the computer would have shown that he was there all the time. There again, the attempted abduction might not have anything to do with him, but that doesn’t rule him out of the murders.’

  ‘But why did the abductor ask Heather whether she was wearing a bra? That wasn’t coincidence, surely.’

  ‘A lecherous male’s curiosity, perhaps. Anyway, we’ll have a look at his van.’ Dave turned his attention to Skinner’s van which, despite what he’d said about not wanting the contents stolen, was unlocked. Donning a protective glove, he ran his hand down the back of the front passenger seat. He glanced at me and shook his head. If Skinner was the abductor, he had removed Heather Douglas’s hair. Disappointing though it was, I had to admit that Skinner might not be the man we wanted.

  We returned to the sitting room, where a handcuffed Skinner was being guarded by the other CID officer from Twickenham.

  ‘You said you kept your car in the street, Skinner,’ said Dave. ‘Where is it, and what’s the index number?’ And when Skinner appeared hesitant Dave added, ‘We can break into it if you’d prefer, and the cost of repairs would be down to you.’

  I never knew whether Dave was right when he came up with statements like that, but he sounded so convincing that Skinner believed him. And I very nearly did too, but Dave’s not had as many dealings with the Directorate of Professional Standards as I have.

  Skinner handed his car keys to Dave and gave him the number of a green Subaru.

  Minutes later, Dave returned and again shook his head.

  For the next two days, round the clock, a pair of police officers remained in the Victorian house occupied by the three women. The officers guarding them enjoyed the variation from the usual run-of-the-mill police duty, as did the officer who drove Heather Douglas to work each day. However, for the three women the initial feeling of security, and the novelty, wore off very quickly.

  On the Saturday morning, Detective Sergeant Challis phoned me from Richmond.

  ‘Everything all right, Tom?’ I asked.

  ‘Not to put too fine a point on it, guv’nor, and in the nicest possible way, Heather and the other two girls want us out of the house. They reckon that us being there is ruining their social life.’

  ‘I can understand that,’ I said, ‘and perhaps as the kidnapper hasn’t turned up already, he won’t come at all. Have you explained the risks involved if they choose not to have you there, Tom?’

  ‘Yes, guv, and I explained to Heather that she’d be obliged to sign a form of indemnity.’

  ‘I don’t think we need a form of indemnity this time, Tom. Withdraw the protection detail.’ I was not happy about Heather Douglas’s decision, but we couldn’t force her to have our people in her house against her will. Having visited the street where she and her fellow residents lived, I knew that any attempt at an observation would stick out like a sore thumb, and our wanted man would disappear like a rat up a drainpipe. ‘One other thing, Tom …’

  ‘Yes, guv?’

  ‘Tell her that she can call the incident room at any time of the day or night if she has any fears. Or if this guy does turn up, tell her or one of her housemates to dial nine-nine-nine.’ It was not an outcome that I would have wanted, having the Uniform Branch arresting someone who might turn out to be the murderer of four women, but there was no alternative.

  It seemed to me, as I sat considering the matter on that Saturday morning, that we had reached deadlock again. But deadlocks are meant to be broken, and it’s not always the police who do the breaking.

  However, we still had to search Danique Vandenberg’s flat. I shouted for Dave, and decided to take Nicola Chance with us once again.

  ‘This flat is far too expensive for a nurse,’ I said, gazing around the plush Richmond apartment that Danique Vandenberg had lived in, albeit for only four weeks. Although not in the same block as the one occupied by Rachel Steele at the time of her murder it was similar in appointment, and probably incurred a maintenance tariff that would certainly be beyond my income.

  ‘Perhaps her father was paying the rent, guv’nor,’ volunteered Nicola. ‘Nurses are grossly underpaid and they’d never be able to rent a place like this,’ she said, agreeing with what I’d said when we arrived.
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  ‘Give Liz Carpenter a call, Dave,’ I said, ‘and ask her if she found out what Lars Vandenberg did for a living. I think she had quite a long chat with him on the way back from the airport.’

  Dave had trouble getting a signal and had to go outside the building to make his call. Some minutes later he returned. ‘According to Liz, Lars Vandenberg was a bit ambivalent about what he did, and didn’t actually say much beyond the single word “business”.’

  ‘I wonder why. Dave, get on to Colin Wilberforce and ask him to have a word with the police in Apeldoorn to see if they can shed any light on this guy.’

  I let Nicola start by having a look around the bedroom and the en suite bathroom. ‘It looks similar to before, guv,’ she said when she returned to the sitting room.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Very expensive perfume in the bathroom. High-end cosmetics on the dressing table and a wardrobe full of pricey clothes. I had a look at some of the labels and they don’t come cheap.’ Nicola paused. ‘In another section of the wardrobe there is a load of fancy gear: thongs, peekaboo bras, suspender belts and black nylons. And some very sexy dresses, what there is of them. They’re so skimpy it’d be hardly worth putting them on at all. There’s the usual couple of canes, too.’

  ‘So she’s on the game. Not a nurse at all.’

  ‘Looks like it,’ said Nicola.

  ‘Thongs, suspender belts and the rest of it,’ I said.

  ‘It’s all that men ever want, guv,’ said Nicola. ‘They’ve got one-track minds and no imagination,’ she added crushingly.

  ‘Yes, you’re probably right.’ I should have kept my mouth shut, having remembered too late that Nicola had a tendency to speak her mind. ‘However, that makes three, to our knowledge,’ I said. ‘Rachel Steele was a prostitute, and so was Lisa Hastings. I think we’ll need to look deeper into Denise Barton’s background. Thinking about her, she was almost too good to be true. Tennis club, lover of Gilbert and Sullivan operettas and working with a respectable online business in Richmond.’ As it turned out, events overtook this necessity and we didn’t have to bother.