A Normal November: The Freeman Files Series: Book 15

by Ted Tayler

  “It could be something of nothing,” said Geoff Mercer. “Richard Chaloner forgot the episode quickly and got on with his busy workload. It doesn’t strike me as being the catalyst for what occurred later that day.”

  “I’d still want to find out who drove that van,” said Gus. “Who else did they put in the frame?”

  “The second person was a twenty to twenty-five-year-old white man,” said Kenneth. “He was a short, stocky individual with short blonde hair, wearing a navy bomber jacket. This man stood on the opposite side of the road from one o’clock to a few minutes before two.”

  “Was it Merchant or Simpkins who saw him?” asked Gus.

  “It was neither,” said Kenneth. “A Mrs Catherine Fryer returned home from her morning shift at a care home in Dean Park and had to step off the pavement to get past him. When she came out again at ten to two to post a letter, the man in the bomber jacket was still standing in the same spot. Mrs Fryer returned ten minutes later, and the man had gone.”

  “Was he another one that got away with no one identifying hum?” asked Gus.

  “I’m afraid so,” said the Chief Constable. “The description was more specific than for the white van man, but Swindon has its fair share of twenty-something white men. The uniformed officers who did the house-to-house were certain he didn’t live on the same street as Mrs Fryer, but that was about as much as they could say. Now we come to person of interest number three. He was Afro-Caribbean, twenty-five to thirty, muscular, and wearing dark clothing. Mrs Fryer’s neighbour, Stan Jones, seventy-one, saw someone standing on tiptoe to peer through the window on the front door of the garage at four o’clock in the afternoon. Mr Jones was pulling his curtains as the light was fading fast.”

  “Hang on,” said Gus. “I got the impression when white van man arrived at eleven, he parked and walked off the street straight into the garage to speak to Richard Chaloner. How come the doors were closed?”

  “Because of the rain,” said Kenneth. “Simpkins and Merchant both said that by half-past two, the strength of the wind had increased, and what started as a light shower soon became a downpour. However, the side door was still open if a customer wanted to check work-in-progress or book in a vehicle.”

  “How long was this chap peering through the window?” asked Gus.

  “Only a minute or two,” said Kenneth. “Stan Jones said that a car pulled up outside his house, and the man ran across the road and jumped into the passenger seat. Because of the heavy rain, he pulled his jacket over his head, meaning Stan Jones couldn’t get a good look at his face. The driver was a young woman with long, dark hair, but Mr Jones could only guess her age as being between eighteen and thirty.”

  “I don’t suppose he got a registration?” asked Gus.

  Kenneth Truelove shook his head. Gus Freeman sighed.

  “Nobody said it was going to be easy,” said Geoff Mercer.

  “What about the marriage?” asked Gus.

  “They had only been married for six months, Gus,” said Geoff. “They had hardly had time to recover from the honeymoon.”

  “I didn’t mean Richard and Eve Chaloner,” said Gus. “I meant her first marriage.”

  “Eve was married to John Allsopp for fourteen years,” said Kenneth. “The couple lived in Westbury after they married in 2000 and moved to Warminster in 2008. John Allsopp began an affair with a younger woman from work after a Christmas party at the end of 2013. Eve wasn’t the forgiving type, and the marriage ended. She moved to Swindon, bumped into Richard Chaloner in a bar in the town centre, and married within a year. As Geoff suggested, they were as happy as pigs in the proverbial. John Allsopp and the young woman had split up even before the decree absolute. He still lives and works in Warminster, and his alibi was solid for the time of the murder. Allsopp was aware Eve had moved to Swindon, but there was no evidence to suggest he knew Eve had remarried. Unless he fooled DS Spencer when he interviewed him, John Allsopp didn’t have means, motive, or opportunity to murder Richard Chaloner.”

  “Let’s try another angle then,” said Gus. “I’m fed up with dead-ends. Was there any reason Chaloner hadn’t married until he reached the age of fifty? Did he have any other serious relationships? Was he hiding a secret from his new wife, perhaps? Had Richard Chaloner ever been in trouble with the law? If he’d been in prison for ten to fifteen years, that would have reduced his chances of wedded bliss.”

  “Chaloner didn’t have a record, Gus,” said Geoff.

  “According to the case file, Richard Chaloner had never been in a serious relationship,” said Kenneth. “He wasn’t a keen sportsperson, but he’d joined various clubs and societies over the years. His friends and family described him as gregarious. It certainly wasn’t the case that Chaloner was a loner, far from it. From everything I can see in this file, he spent his twenties and thirties working hard and enjoying his leisure time with a wide circle of friends.”

  “He was someone who wasn’t happy to settle for second-best,” said Geoff Mercer. “I think the reputation his business had earned was evidence of that.”

  “Chaloner acted quickly enough when the right woman came into his life,” said Kenneth. “The couple had much to look forward to, but someone stole that dream.”

  “Another dead end,” said Gus. “I can see why Sengupta and Spencer initially thought they were dealing with a straightforward robbery. It would be easy to imagine an attack coming from a junkie hoping to score enough money to satisfy his craving. A quick in-and-out to collect cash and a bank card by waving a knife or machete at a frightened business owner. A robbery that offered the opportunity for a few hundred pounds would be common enough in a large town like Swindon, but this smells different. Guns are more available these days, but the mere threat of violence is often enough to get a shop owner to open the till. In this instance, the intruder didn’t panic after he’d shot Richard Chaloner.”

  “What are you saying, Freeman?” asked the Chief Constable.

  “He’d done his homework; that was obvious,” said Gus. “He knew Harry Simpkins always left at five-thirty. Matt Merchant’s car was outside until ten to six. If he’d studied the men’s routine over weeks, he knew Merchant needed it to drive somewhere other than his house on Elmina Road on Monday evenings.”

  “Surely the killer must have panicked when Merchant spotted the puncture, Gus,” said Geoff. “What if Matt Merchant had persuaded Chaloner to accept a lift? The opportunity to rob Chaloner would have gone.”

  “If I’m right, and the killer made meticulous preparations, he knew how insistent Chaloner would be on cycling to and from work. He’d cycled every day from Pinehurst before he married, and nothing changed afterwards. Chaloner needed to repair the tyre somewhen, and the killer played the odds. He gambled Chaloner would politely decline the offer of a lift, stay behind to finish the paperwork, make the repair, and then cycle home to Shrivenham Road. His wife was on holiday, so nobody was waiting for him to get home. The weather was another factor to play into the hands of the killer. If Chaloner took the opportunity to hang around indoors for another thirty minutes, the downpour could have eased.”

  “If we accept that’s what happened before the attack, talk us through events inside the garage, Freeman,” said Kenneth.

  “Where was Chaloner when Merchant left?” asked Gus.

  “Merchant fetched him from the office after he’d spotted the damage to the bicycle,” said Geoff.

  “The autopsy report states the body hadn’t been moved,” said Gus. “Chaloner was shot at close range in the middle of the workshop floor. Simpkins and Merchant found him the following morning lying between two cars. There were no signs of any struggle anywhere on the premises.”

  “The intruder persuaded Chaloner to leave the office,” said Geoff.

  “The cash was said to be in his wallet,” said Gus. “Where was the wallet found?”

  Kenneth Truelove scanned the report.

  “On the floor, just outside the office door. It got kick
ed under a workbench.”

  “Merchant said it was common for the bank card to be lying on the desk,” said Gus. “Chaloner might have kept his wallet in the back pocket of his trousers, but when you spend your working life under the bonnet of a car, it’s usual to protect your clothing. The photographs of the murder scene confirm Chaloner was indeed wearing a blue boilersuit with zipped pockets at the front and his day-to-day clothing underneath. In addition, photographs of the office show a pair of shoes he would change into when cycling home, a jacket, and wet-weather gear. Once he’d repaired the bike, Chaloner would have changed out of his boiler suit and work boots and cycled home.”

  “You think the wallet was in the inside pocket of the jacket in the office?” asked Geoff.

  “That’s why you believe the killer kept his cool and didn’t panic,” said Kenneth.

  “I think he waited for Matt Merchant to drive away, walked through the side door, switched off the lights, and made for the centre of the garage. Richard Chaloner went to investigate. He probably thought it was kids, messing around, or an opportunist thief hoping to grab a valuable piece of kit and escape before Chaloner caught him. He had no idea the intruder aimed to murder him in cold blood.”

  “So, the killer waited in the dark until Chaloner got close and then shot him,” said Geoff.

  “Do you not think there was an argument, Freeman?” asked Kenneth.

  “There were no signs of a struggle. The killer coolly removed the gold chain, stepped over the body, strolled to the office, and helped himself to the cash. If Chaloner had the wallet on his person, the CSI personnel would have noted any disturbance to his clothing. The killer removed Chaloner’s gold chain without leaving evidence, which supports the view they wore gloves. The bank card was a bonus, but they had ample time.to look around the office, find the PIN, and add the four hundred pounds to whatever was in the wallet to cement the idea it was a robbery.”

  “How do you explain the thefts of the catalytic converters?” asked Geoff Mercer.

  “At some point, Sengupta and Spencer linked the killing to the CCTV caper you made me sit through,” said Gus. “Am I right?”

  “That didn’t happen until they had exhausted the other lines of enquiry,” said Kenneth.

  “My initial thoughts are that the two events were unconnected,” said Gus.

  “The team spent a long time trying to find the men responsible,” said the Chief Constable. “They hunted for evidence linking Chaloner with the criminal fraternity.”

  “Without luck, I imagine?” asked Gus.

  “I wouldn’t be asking you to take a fresh look at the case if they had, Freeman.”

  “We’ll check everything, Sir, as we always do,” said Gus, “but my guess is the killer was local. We’re looking for someone who could keep watch on the garage without attracting attention. Mrs Fryer and Mr Jones would have spotted a stranger spending long periods on the street outside their window. The killer was someone they knew. He may well have been someone Richard Chaloner knew.”

  “You haven’t had the file in your hand for thirty minutes, and you believe you’re on the verge of solving it,” said Geoff Mercer. “Have you got a bus to catch?”

  “I thought you would be on the same page as me by now, Geoff,” said Gus. “This wasn’t a robbery gone wrong, nor does it feel like an argument over money for stolen goods. As for solving it, we’re a long way from doing that. It is, however, imperative we catch this killer. The way he behaved after the shooting suggests to me that Richard Chaloner wasn’t his first victim.”

  CHAPTER 3

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions, Freeman,” said the Chief Constable. “Raj Sengupta might not be the brightest star in the heavens, but surely someone on his team imagined the same sequence of events you’ve hypothesised. Moreover, as the team switched focus to the catalytic converter thefts, it suggests they found a good reason to discount your theory.”

  “You need to read this murder file in more detail, Gus,” agreed Geoff Mercer. “If you were right, then the killer has struck again in the past two years. However, the streets near Swindon railway station have shown no sign of being home to a serial killer.”

  “You might be right,” said Gus. “We’ll follow the evidence Raj and Tom uncovered. They never found the link to organised crime, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t there. Similarly, they never identified the three men seen in the garage's vicinity on the day of the murder. Whether that was unlucky or sloppy police work, we’ll only discover by going over everything with a fine-tooth comb.”

  “An open mind, Freeman,” said Kenneth. “That’s all I can ask.”

  While Gus flicked through the appendices at the back of the file, Kenneth Truelove called Vera Butler and asked her to serve lunch.

  Geoff Mercer leaned forward to speak to Gus.

  “Has Suzie told you I’d asked her to run a campaign encouraging car owners to be more careful in protecting their valuables?”

  “Yes, Geoff,” said Gus. “Only a few weeks ago, you added hate crimes and victim support to her list of the latest hot potatoes. Can’t someone have a quiet word with the Police and Crime Commissioner? Too many carbohydrates aren’t good for you, as you well know.”

  “The PCC aims to deliver an effective and efficient service, Gus. When he says jump, we jump. It stops him from looking in our direction when he’s looking for further reductions in personnel. I’m only following orders from Kenneth. Has Suzie complained?”

  “Not yet,” said Gus, thinking ahead to next Tuesday’s visit to the doctor.

  There was a knock at the door. Vera and Kassie each wheeled in a trolley laden with today’s goodies. Enough to feed a small army, let alone three people.

  “I see you ordered the usual, Geoff,” said Gus. “No signs of any reduction there.”

  “Don’t worry, Mr Freeman,” said Kassie as she paused by his chair. “I added your favourite to the order we submitted to the suppliers.”

  Gus accepted the proffered bacon roll and kept watch on a healthy-looking wrap. It was unlikely Geoff Mercer would grab it, but stranger things had happened.

  He glanced again at the Richard Chaloner murder file lying on Kenneth’s desk. Had he jumped too soon? Where would they need to look for the missing link between the garage owner and the people behind the car thieves from that CCTV footage?

  “I’ll see you when you’ve finished your lunch, Mr Freeman,” whispered Kassie as she wheeled her trolley towards the door.

  “Have you had any further fanciful thoughts now you’ve demolished that bacon roll, Freeman?” asked Kenneth.

  “Did the Gablecross detectives explore every avenue, Sir? I’ve only skimmed the contents of the file, but I couldn’t see any reference to enemies Richard Chaloner made during his twenty-odd years in the garage trade. On the contrary, his two employees painted a picture of a splendid chap who went the extra mile for each one of his clients. It was a pleasure to go to work every day. Yet Chaloner gave short shrift to the unscheduled visitor they had that morning. Why didn’t Chaloner take fifteen minutes out of his busy day to check the intermittent electrical fault? It could have been an easy fix, and he would have gained another potential repeat customer.”

  “DI Sengupta didn’t find anyone who had a bad word to say about Chaloner,” said Kenneth.

  “Each of us has collared dozens of rogues whose friends and family swore were as pure as the driven snow,” said Gus, “and several of them have worked in this very business.”

  “I admit rogues exist in the motor trade, Gus,” said Geoff Mercer. “Dodgy workshops in the back streets where they issue MOTs for vehicles that should never be on the road. The owner dressed in oily overalls, manually rewinding the mileage with a screwdriver. Many think that practice died with the demise of analogue. The reality is, instead of being a modern, secure solution, the digital versions have made it easier than ever for a vehicle’s apparent mileage to get altered.”

  Gus wondered whether his old Ford
Focus had ever suffered the fate of getting clocked. It didn’t seem likely. Every mile his Focus had travelled was etched into its daily performance.

  “Although the practice hasn’t disappeared, surely it’s rarer than in the old days?”

  “Clocking is on the increase,” said Kenneth. He searched through the pile of reports on his desk.

  “Have you read every one of those reports, Sir?” asked Gus.

  “I’m obliged to pay attention to trends, Freeman,” said Kenneth. The seventh file down was the one he sought. “Two years ago, one in twenty cars in the UK showed a discrepancy between the actual and apparent mileage displayed. That has increased to one in sixteen. As a result, the potential cost to motorists has risen to around eight hundred million pounds every year.”

  “A not inconsiderable sum,” said Geoff.

  “A sum caused by the impact on second-hand values,” said Gus. “Yes, I understand the maths. My Ford Focus has done over one hundred thousand miles. If I took it to one of these dodgy operators and they knocked forty thousand miles off the milometer, I might get an extra two thousand pounds if I was to sell it.”

  “Chaloner wasn’t a second-hand car dealer,” said Kenneth. “He only carried out repairs and MOTs. There’s no suggestion he ever had a car for sale on the forecourt outside his garage.”

  “True,” said Geoff, “but he must have had customers bringing cars to him for their first MOT after three years on the road. So I think Gus is right to pursue another line of enquiry.”

  “Ah,” said the Chief Constable. “You’re pointing the finger at the car owners, not the garage owners. That’s because of PCP, the most popular method of purchasing cars in the UK in recent years.”

  “Exactly,” said Geoff. “Finance deals for personal contract purchase, or hire, often come with strict mileage limits, where each additional mile can prove costly. If you say you’re only going to do five thousand miles per year on a three-year deal and cover double the distance, it could end up costing you fifteen hundred quid.”