‘Shouldn’t we put a formal request through to the Civil Aviation Authority for the records?’
‘We can do sir, yes.’
Gheeta had a smile at the corner of her mouth. Palmer always played the dead straight, by-the-book card when he knew damn well what the answer would be.
‘We can certainly do that, if you want to wait for about a fortnight for them to respond. Or you can go and have a coffee and we’ll have the information in ten minutes when you return, sir.’
She passed Claire a small notebook from her shoulder bag hanging on the chair.
‘Password for the CAA server is under A for Airlines.’
Palmer leant to look as Claire opened the book.
‘I hate to think what that little book would be worth on the black market.’
Gheeta smiled at him.
‘What little book, guv? Don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Quite. I think I’ll go and get a coffee. Anybody else like one?’
Chapter 31
Half an hour later, and all the information available had been downloaded.
‘It seems a reputable company, guv; not even a CCJ against them. Owner is a Dennis Parks, and all its licences and paperwork are up to date.’
Gheeta sounded a trifle disappointed, ‘So, why should our deceased pair be making calls to Dennis Parks on the day we paid them a visit?’ Palmer asked as he sipped his coffee. ‘Planning a flight somewhere?’
‘Maybe they were getting ready to disappear?’
‘So why didn’t they then?’
Claire sat back in her chair.
‘There’s no Harry Robson or Finlay Robson on South Western Air Taxi passenger lists – no Robsons at all. Mainly sub-contract work for various national parcel carriers, with internal UK flights to Manchester, Southampton and such, plus regular ones to Calais-Dunkerque airport in France. All parcel delivery work; that seems to be their bread and butter.’
Palmer was thoughtful. He walked over to the progress chart and stood there, turning things over in his mind.
Perhaps Mooney and Hilton were the real crooks, using City Concrete as a cover… No, no that didn’t add up; and anyway, Harry Robson wouldn’t play second fiddle to anyone. No, Robson and Finlay are the top dogs – or were the top dogs. So who would kill them, and why? It had to be somebody in the know about the gold. Mind you, if word had gotten around about ‘gold’, some well-placed people with the knowledge of Robson’s alleged past involvement with Brinks Mat would soon be on the scent. Maybe one such firm caught up with them and a deal wasn’t struck?
And then there’s Angela Rathbone, or ‘Cherry’ the receptionist. Why would she disappear? She turned up for work, gave a brief account of her movements the previous day, and then she was gone. But she definitely had somewhere to go, because she cleaned out her and her boyfriend Mooney’s wardrobe – so he must still be alive, and if he is then Hilton will be too. Maybe Mooney and Hilton killed Robson and Finlay, picked up Angela and fled? So many permutations. Perhaps the Leytons had come for their gold? Not very likely at all, although Mrs Leyton was a feisty one. I wonder if she’s a size six? And this air taxi service or whatever it is; certainly a quick way to put some miles between you and your pursuers. But who is pursuing who? Is there some third party involved that we haven’t come across yet?
He took a long breath and exhaled loudly.
‘Okay, let’s get an early night and go down and take a look at the Air Taxi place tomorrow. Better let Gloucestershire CID know we are on their turf, but I don’t want them doing anything; I don’t want them anywhere near that airfield. If there is something going on there we don’t want them frightened off. So plainclothes and softly softly is the order of the day tomorrow.’
‘Hang on sir,’ said Gheeta, pointing to her screen. ‘There’s a forensic report on Mooney’s flat coming through from Reg Frome’s department.’
‘Is there anything interesting in it?’
Palmer was fed up with asking that, because it showed they were scrabbling for clues. She read from the screen.
‘The trainers in the wardrobe were the ones that left prints in your front garden.’
‘Really? So it was Angela Rathbone playing Knock Down Ginger, eh? Why would she do that?’
‘Knock Down Ginger Sir? Sounds a bit violent.’
‘Never mind, Sergeant. Is there anything else?’
‘There are two sets of prints on the City Concrete safe handle – Robson’s and Rathbone’s.’
‘Well, that would appear to be okay. They would both have access to it, I would have thought.’
‘Yes, but the interesting thing is that the top print is Rathbone’s.’
‘Top print?’
‘Yes, her print is partly over the top of Robson’s; so she must have touched the handle after him.’
She pointed to an enlarged picture on the screen showing the safe handle and finger prints, accentuated by the graphite coating SOCO had applied. Print X was half over print Y. The text at the bottom read: Robson Y, Rathbone X. Reg Frome had written underneath ‘interesting?’
‘She couldn’t have her print over his, guv; he would have opened the safe and then he was killed. What’s her print doing on top of his? She didn’t go into the office the morning after when she arrived for work.’
‘No, so she must have been there when it all went off the night before – or even after it had all gone off.’
Gheeta looked at Palmer, knowing the implication of that statement.
‘Miss Rathbone seems to have a few questions to answer all of a sudden.’
‘If we can find her to ask them, guv.’
‘Oh, we’ll find her. She’ll be shacked up with Mooney somewhere.’
‘We’ve got ‘Stop and Holds’ on them at all UK exits.’
‘Good. Right then, let’s get that early night.’
Claire looked quizzically at Palmer.
‘Early night, sir? Something tells me there’s something going on at the Palmer residence.’
Palmer wasn’t one for early nights.
‘You should be a detective, Claire. You’re quite right, I have an ulterior motive. Mrs P.’s doing steak and kidney pie because the bloke next door’s coming out of hospital with his new hip, and he won’t have anything to eat at his house – and I’m blowed if he’s going to get it all. I’ll be waiting with my plate ready as it comes out of the oven.’
Gheeta was impressed.
‘How considerate of her to look after a neighbour like that, guv. Very kind of her, isn’t it?’
She also knew what Palmer thought of Benji and was winding him up. Palmer nodded.
‘Isn’t it just? But let me remind you, ladies, that the day I was brought home from hospital in an ambulance after that woman fell on me from six floors up in the Saturday’s Child case, all I got was the local take-away menu left on the table, with a note saying ‘gone to gardening club’. So, if I don’t get home early tonight there’ll be another note this time, saying ‘gone next door with the steak and kidney pie’! Come on, close those computers down and let’s go. Anyway, we need our sleep – off to Gloucester tomorrow.’
Chapter 32
‘I’m DS Williams, Gloucester CID, sir. Hope you had a pleasant journey.’
He was in his mid-thirties, tall with cropped hair, and shook Palmer’s hand as he and Sergeant Singh left the train at Gloucester station.
‘I have a car waiting in the car park.’
Palmer introduced Sergeant Singh, and they all three walked through the pedestrian tunnel to the waiting squad car. There was another person already in the front passenger seat as Palmer and Singh got in the back.
Once they were inside, Williams turned from the driver’s seat and explained.
‘This is Mr Charles from Border Control.’
They all exchanged nods of greeting.
‘We didn’t want to say anything on the phone, when Sergeant Singh rang to say you’d be along today to have a look
at Staverton Airfield and asked did we know anything about Dennis Parks and his operation. The answer is yes, we do know Mr Parks and we’ve been working on him for a few weeks; and like all these things the less people who know, the better chance we’ve got of getting a result. Walls have ears round here. Anyway, I’ll let Mr Charles explain.’
Mr Charles, a portly chap in his early fifties with glasses and a goatee beard, turned and took up the story as DS Williams started the car and they pulled out of the station car park onto the busy Gloucester City roads.
‘Six months ago, we got reports from various Border Control offices that some of the illegals that had been arrested and questioned had said that they were flown in on a small plane, landed in the country and then taken in large vans and dropped off in various UK cities; all those illegals came from the Calais migrant camp known as The Jungle, which is close to the French end of the Channel Tunnel.
‘So, we did a breakdown of all the air traffic coming into the UK from the Calais-Dunkerque airport, which is a small one; close to the camp, and with no border control. We whittled it down to three possible air freight companies that could be involved in this trafficking. We got four positive IDs of Dennis Parks from the illegals, so we’ve been monitoring him and his flights since then.’
‘Why not arrest him?’ said Gheeta. ‘You seem to have enough evidence.’
Charles nodded resignedly.
‘It’s a dual investigation with the French police. They asked us to hold back and let the scam go on until their undercover people inside the camp could pinpoint the traffickers at that end, and then we could roll up the whole lot in one swoop, here and over there.’
Palmer wasn’t one to let another investigation get in the way of his. He explained that he was investigating a quadruple murder case, and that currently all roads led to Dennis Parks being involved.
‘So, you can see at present it’s all a bit circumstantial,’ he concluded. ‘Which is why we need a positive ID of Mooney, Hilton or Angela Rathbone to tie it all up; and then, Mr Charles, I’m afraid we go in and arrest them on suspicion of murder, which I think trumps Mr Parks’s little trafficking of illegals caper?’
DS Williams was first to agree.
‘Bloody hell, four murders and a quantity of gold? Christ! Yes, I think it does override Parks’s scam.’
‘And you, Mr Charles?’
Palmer wanted everybody on board.
‘Well, yes – yes, I have to admit it’s a bit above my usual cases. I suppose really I ought to get out at the next bus stop, leave you to it and go back.’
No way was that going to happen. Palmer had no reason to not trust Mr Charles, but the urge to tell his Border Agency pals about what Parks might also be involved in as well as human trafficking would be a great temptation.
‘No, Mr Charles – you are onboard with us on this one. You said you’d got enough to pull Parks in and were just letting him run for the French side; so if we go in, you can take him too. You’re not losing anything, are you?’
‘No, no that’s right,’ Charles agreed. ‘We could take him down now and prosecute if it wasn’t for the French operation.’
‘Good. One way or another, it looks like Parks is on his way to prison.’
‘We are coming up to the airfield now, sir.’
DS Williams indicated an open stretch of land in front of them, a half mile down the road on the left. The Control Tower was visible standing tall on one side, with a main runway and several spurs off it with a few small aircraft parked up. Along the perimeter fence at the far end of the field, various hangars and buildings were spaced out. DS Williams pulled into a layby which gave a good view of the field.
‘Which is Parks’s bit, Mr Charles?’
Mr Charles pointed into the distance, where a single-storey office block stood with a medium sized hangar either side.
‘That’s his firm, South Western Air Taxis – right over in the back corner. Well-positioned for privacy.’
Williams turned to Palmer.
‘What do you want to do now, sir? I can get nearer by going on the back perimeter road if you want to. There’s an industrial estate with a car park right on the other side of the road behind Parks’s hangars – we’d be able to sit there and watch. It’s the nearest we can get without standing out like a sore thumb. There’s a pair of binoculars in the boot, so we should be able to see any comings and goings.’
‘Okay,’ Palmer agreed. ‘You know the layout of the land. Get us as close as possible.’
Chapter 33
The view from the industrial estate car park was a good one; they could clearly see the front of Parks’s hangars and offices. It was getting darker as the late afternoon light faded and the evening mist began to rise across the airfield. Far away in the distance, the headlights of cars on the M5 twinkled in double lines. Williams started the engine and ran the heater.
‘What’s the plan, sir?’
Palmer hadn’t really thought of one just yet.
‘Well, first off I want to know just who is in there. We’re banking on Mooney, Hilton, Rathbone and Parks. We need to make sure there isn’t anybody else.’
‘We’ll need a few more bodies if you’re thinking of a raid, sir.’
Gheeta was stating the obvious, but knowing how long it could take to supply extra uniformed officers she couldn’t see anything happening that night; more likely Palmer was thinking of a surprise entry in the early hours.
‘And arrest warrants,’ she added.
Palmer nodded and thought for a while.
‘Okay. Nothing going on at present is there, so it looks like they’ve finished for the day anyway. So I think…’
He was cut short as Mr Charles’s mobile hummed.
‘Excuse me.’
Charles took it from his pocket, answered the call and had a short conversation before putting it back.
‘That’s interesting. It seems Parks has filed a flight plan to Europe for tomorrow – he plans to leave at seven in the evening. The manifest says Freight Only, no passengers.’
‘To Calais?’ Palmer asked.
‘Yes, his usual three parcel pallets are coming off there. but then he’s going onto Spain – to Malaga Airport, which is the nearest airport to Alviria.’
‘What’s so special about Alviria? More parcels being delivered?’
Charles smiled.
‘No, it’s not a freight airport – mainly tourist package holidays. I don’t think it’s the sort of place on the Costa del Sol you and I would choose to holiday at, Chief Superintendent; full of ex-pat villains, and currently undergoing a turf war between the Brits, the Russian Mafia and Dutch drug cartels. Six murders in the last four months.’
‘How do you know all this? That sort of action seems a bit off beam for Border Control.’
‘Three of our ‘most wanted’ people traffickers fled there when we got close to them; sort of place a face can disappear into with no questions asked, as long as you’ve got the money to grease a few palms – human palms that is, not the plant type.’
He grinned broadly at his own joke.
‘Looks very nice, sir.’
Gheeta passed Palmer her laptop. She’d pulled up pictures of Alviria and its beaches.
‘I can just see you and Mrs P. in your deckchairs taking in the sun and sea air.’
‘I don’t think so, Sergeant – we are more Devon and Cornwall. Mind you, I must say it does look nice.’
He passed the laptop back.
‘Right then, if Parks is off to Spain tomorrow on a flight which isn’t his normal run, then we can surmise he’s taking our three suspects and their ill-gotten gains with him, and they intend to, as Mr Charles said, ‘grease a few palms and disappear’. They’ve certainly got the money to do that, and Parks probably has a contact or two out there to set things up for them. So, it looks like we’d better get a raid arranged for tomorrow afternoon.’
He looked at DS Williams with questioning eyes.
‘I can do that, sir,’ Williams said. ‘What about firearms?’
Palmer wasn’t keen on firearms, but then he didn’t know what Parks was like.
‘Okay, but the proper boys – Tactical Firearms Unit personnel only; nobody else to have weapons except the standard issue lasers and pepper spray. There are only four of them, not an army.’
Gheeta suddenly had a thought.
‘Doesn’t Parks have any staff? Seems strange if he hasn’t got engineers and the like, or even a receptionist.’
Williams shook his head.
‘No, the airfield has a number of qualified staff that do all the maintenance on any aircraft housed here, private or company. That way they can be sure all the safety work is done, and all the CAA certificates are up to date. If they didn’t, and say Parks or any of the other companies operating out of here had a prang and rammed into a party of visiting school kids, they could be done under the ‘Duty of Care’ legislation. Same with the fuel, it all comes from the field’s own tanks which are situated underground, away on their own in a far corner. They can’t have tanks of aviation fuel all over the place for obvious reasons. The Civil Aviation Authority runs a very tight ship on its airfields; accidents are scarce.’
‘Hello! We have some movement, sir.’
The office door had opened, and two people came out; one of them had very bright red hair. Palmer raised the binoculars to his eyes.
‘Well, hello Angela Rathbone – and that chap with you could be Mr Mooney.’
The couple stopped, hugged, and kissed.
‘Definitely Mr Mooney.’
Then they got into a Honda CRV and drove off along the perimeter road. Palmer lowered the binoculars.
‘I think that’s all we need, Sergeant.’
He turned and spoke to Williams.
‘If you could get a team sorted for tomorrow – half dozen plainclothes, three uniformed, and whatever the Tactical Firearms Commander thinks he needs. In the mean time we’d better find a hotel, Sergeant; no point in us travelling back to London and then back here again in the morning. You alright with that? No pressing engagement for tonight I hope?’
LOOT & I'M WITH THE BAND: The DCS Palmer and the Serial Murder Squad series by B.L.Faulkner. Cases 5 & 6 (DCS Palmer and the Serial Murder Squad cases Book 3) Page 11
