by Conrad Jones
“That’s the one,” Stirling agreed cautiously. He sensed Annie’s discomfort too. “Did you know that he was an ex-copper?”
“No,” Alec frowned.
“DI Haig said that he was.” Stirling shrugged. “The case fell to bits at the appeal hearing and Peter Barton took a walk.”
Alec nodded thoughtfully. There had been so many cases over the years. Some took him longer to recall but he never forgot the details, especially when children were involved. “It was only a partial DNA sample, right?”
“Correct but that wasn’t the main issue,” Stirling held up a finger. “At the appeal hearing, the defence came up with an alibi.”
“As they do,” Annie said sarcastically. She seemed to have settled her nerves. “Where did they pull that from?”
“Barton claimed that he was at Sefton Park music festival and that he had had a conversation with one of the stallholders and a Special Constable at the time of the abduction.”
“How did they miss that the first time around?” Annie asked incredulously. “An alibi from a Special would be gold dust for the defence. Was it overlooked?”
“No, I don’t think so. I think it might have been buried.” Stirling lowered his voice, “And this is where it gets interesting,” he paused, “Jayne Windsor couldn’t confirm or deny his story. She couldn’t remember talking to him but she couldn’t definitively say that she hadn’t either. She was in uniform on the day and the crowds were drinking. Hundreds of people stopped to talk to our officers, taking pictures on their phones or just engaging in general drunken banter but the stallholder testified under oath that Jayne had been there when Barton was there.”
“Bloody hell,” Annie mumbled. “So she couldn’t deny seeing him and gave the judge a ‘reasonable doubt’ issue?”
“Exactly,” Stirling nodded. “Windsor bought some items from the stall with her debit card at the time the stallholder claimed that Barton was at the stall.”
“You can see why the judge threw it out,” Alec said. “I can see where the resentment towards her came from but it’s not enough for a motive unless one of the Barton family wanted revenge for Barton walking.”
“Not the way she was killed,” Annie shook her head, “our killer is not an angry relative, he’s a monster.”
“I was at the same point as you are until I was leaving the station,” Stirling grinned. “The desk sergeant was waiting for me outside.” Alec and Annie exchanged confused glances. “He asked me for a lift home and then started ranting about how crap the brass are. He has been following the case in the news because Jayne Winsor was a victim. When he got out of the car, he told me to take a look at who gave the alibi.”
“The stallholder?” Alec frowned.
“Who was it?” Annie asked.
“The stallholder was booked on to the festival selling ‘cruelty free’ makeup and ‘fair trade’ cosmetics, moisturisers and massage oils to promote her beautician business. Her name was Jackie Webb,” Stirling closed the file and put it onto Annie’s desk with a thump.
CHAPTER 20
“Who is working on the financials?” Alec asked.
“Becky,” Annie replied. She stood up and walked to the door, opened it and called across the office. “Becky, can you come in here for a moment please and bring whatever you have on the financials.” All eyes turned to her in anticipation. It was obvious that something was breaking. Becky Sebastian unplugged her laptop and grabbed a pile of papers. She was six months into her new position and still a little nervous in front of senior officers. She blushed as she rushed across the office. Some of the male detectives swapped appreciative glances as she passed them. Her long black hair almost reached the waistband of her faded jeans. “Come in and take a seat,” Annie said smiling.
Stirling stood up to make room at the desk and Alec nodded hello. “What have you found on our victims so far,” he asked smiling. The wrinkles around his eyes deepened. His smile had a disarming quality, which endeared his officers to him. “Anything interesting?”
Becky nodded enthusiastically and opened her laptop. She sifted through her papers and picked out the three sheets that she needed. “I was about to come and ask your opinion on something that I’ve found.”
“What is it?” Annie asked, taking her seat opposite.
“I went back two years and found nothing out of the ordinary. Both women have mortgages, and the usual direct debits for utility bills and the like going from their current accounts monthly, gas, electric, water, council tax and mobile phones. Everything is paid like clockwork.” She looked up and smiled nervously. “They both have a number of credit cards which are well within their limits.” She shrugged and picked up a sheet of paper. “That is where the similarities end. Jayne Windsor has her salary paid in monthly and everything that goes through her account is done electronically. However all Jackie Webb’s income is paid in by cash deposits with no pattern to it. There are sporadic amounts paid in randomly throughout the month.”
“We would expect to see that from a self employed ‘beautician’,” Stirling commented.
“Everything looks normal on the face of it,” Becky agreed.
“Except what?” Alec prompted.
“Well, they do okay financially and there’s no excessive spending but their mortgage payments looked too low to me.” She looked around at her superiors and smiled nervously. “I know how much I pay each month for my flat,” she shrugged and blushed again. “They both have relatively new properties but their mortgage payments are below five hundred pounds a month.”
Alec frowned and looked at Annie. “That would be unusual if it applied to one of them. The fact that both are in that fortunate position is not a coincidence.”
“If it is, I need to know who they bank with,” Annie agreed. “Can you see why their repayments are so low, Becky?”
Becky nodded and reached for another sheet of paper. “They purchased their properties eight months apart and both paid substantial deposits against the loans.”
“That could be a coincidence,” Stirling said. “They’re both from reasonably wealthy backgrounds.”
“Ah, but neither deposits were paid from their bank accounts.” Becky countered. “I can’t see where the money came from without getting a warrant for the mortgage providers’ records.”
“So, if the families financed them, it could be nothing?” Annie said deflated.
Becky bit her bottom lip and shrugged. “I thought about that,” she said sheepishly, “so I spoke to both of the mothers to clarify the situation.” Alec smiled at Annie impressed by the young detective’s initiative. “Neither of them contributed to their daughter’s mortgage down payments.”
“Excellent work, Becky. When did they purchase their properties?” Alec asked.
“Three years ago,” Becky said blushing. “That’s why I didn’t see it straight away. I should have gone further back initially.”
“You’ve done well,” Annie said. “Let’s get that warrant sorted.”
“Yes, Guv!” Becky said excitedly. She stood up and gathered her paperwork.
“While you’re on the telephone to the court,” Alec added, “get a warrant for the financials of Peter Barton too. I have a feeling they’ll be connected.”
“Peter Barton?” Becky looked confused.
“I’ll explain who he is and bring the team up to speed,” Stirling nodded to Alec.
“I want everything they have on the Barton case,” Alec added. “I want to know exactly what they had on him and I want to know where he was a copper and why they kept it under wraps.”
“Yes, Guv. Do you want me to bring him in?”
“Let’s not rush this. If he once served, he’ll be anticipating us making the connection.” Annie shook her head and looked at Alec. She pushed her hair behind her ear and frowned. “He could have escalated from killing Simon Barton and turned his attention to the women who gave him an alibi, I suppose?”
“Tying up loose ends?”
<
br /> “The man who took them from the nightclub is not Peter Barton,” Alec aired his thoughts, “but that doesn’t mean that he’s not involved.”
“There is the Eastern European connection to the script carved into Jackie Webb,” Stirling interrupted. “Google said that it’s where it was used the most.”
“I don’t remember any emphasis being put on him being an immigrant at the time,” Alec said. “If I remember rightly, his surname came from his real father and he was brought up by a stepfather.”
“Do we wait to see what the Crimewatch pitch gives us or do we bring him anyway?” Annie mused. She put her finger to the corner of her damaged eye. The scar tissue felt raised to the touch. “If he sees it, he might run.”
“If he hasn’t already,” Stirling added. He checked his watch and looked at Alec. “Haig said that he was always one step ahead of the investigation. How long till it goes out, Guv?”
Alec looked at his own watch instinctively. “Less than an hour. Do we know where he is?” The detectives looked at each other blankly.
“He wasn’t even on our radar until Jim uncovered this connection,” Annie shrugged.
“Okay,” Alec said running his fingers through his sandy hair. “It will be a stretch but let’s get everything we can on Barton first. If we can pinpoint his whereabouts, lift him. Let’s see if he has an alibi. In the meantime, Becky, get onto the courts and sort out the warrants that we need.”
“Yes, Guv.”
Stirling and Becky moved with purpose. Alec couldn’t help but notice the physical contrast between them, beauty and the beast. The door clicked closed. “How long on the forensic results?”
“Kathy has prioritised the secretions,” Annie said checking her emails just in case. “Nothing yet but she said we would have them later tonight or early tomorrow. The sooner the better,” she sighed. “We’ve got so many angles to come at this from that I’m not sure what direction to focus on.”
“Rationalise it,” Alec said. “From my perspective, we have two ritualistic murders. The killer took his time to swap the victims’ homes and identities, which tells me he had prior knowledge of who they were and what they did for a living. The women have a possible connection to a murder four years ago and they both had a mystery benefactor shortly after the main suspect walked.” He paused. “Unless the forensic evidence tells us differently, my money is on Peter Barton. Fumbling about in the dark is a waste of resources and energy and until we have concrete evidence from Kathy’s team, we focus on the links that we know exist.”
Annie stood up and stretched her back. She caught her reflection in the window. The darkness outside had turned the glass into a mirror. Scar, scar, scar, her mind shouted at her. She walked over and closed the blinds to block the image. “That makes sense,” she smiled thinly and didn’t finish her sentence.
“But?”
“But what about the other details that the killer left for us to fall over?” Alec had a confused expression on his face as she spoke. “The script on the body, the pentagram, the incendiary device, the words that he daubed on the mirrors and the money in Jayne Windsor’s mouth. I get the feeling that some, if not all of that, was for our benefit. I just can’t see where it all fits.”
Alec smiled and nodded his head. He walked over and squeezed her shoulder before heading for the door. “Did you ever make a model airplane when you were a kid?”
Annie frowned and shrugged, “I was more of a Barbie girl to be honest but my Dad made a few with my younger brother,” she looked sad for a moment, “they would spend hours painting them before they glued them together.”
“Exactly,” Alec grinned and the dimple on his chin deepened. “Your dad did things properly. I on the other hand, would always have a handful of pieces left when I had finished. I didn’t see the point in fiddling about with the bits that no one could see so I didn’t use them let alone paint them. I wanted my airplane to look like an airplane within ten minutes of me taking it out of the box.”
“Is there some deep and meaningful lesson to be learned from this?” Annie said with a puzzled expression.
“My point is that when they were finished, no one could tell that all the pieces weren’t put together perfectly. My airplane looked just like the picture on the box. No one could tell that not all the pieces were in place.” He opened the door. “I need to get to the press room.”
“Guv,” Annie called after him.
“What?” Alec poked his head around the doorframe.
“You had a set of instructions to follow didn’t you?”
“Yes,” he grinned. “Good point.”
Annie smiled as he closed the door and she thought about which pieces she could leave out. She decided very quickly that despite Alec’s reminiscence she didn’t want to have any bits left over. She wanted all the questions answered.
CHAPTER 21
The MIT office was unusually silent. Annie had never heard it so quiet. The calm before the storm, maybe. She was perched on the end of a desk staring at the bank of screens, waiting for Alec to appear. Every pair of eyes in the room were transfixed on the Crimewatch presenter, who was introducing him. Alec had wangled a thirty second slot into an already packed program. Detective teams from across the land were desperate to get their cases featured on the monthly broadcast and the waiting list was endless. Annie wasn’t sure how he had managed it and she didn’t care. The fact that their investigation involved the death of a serving police officer, a female, made it an extraordinary case. It was an especially brutal double murder, which had obviously persuaded the producers to find thirty seconds somewhere. The introduction was detailed and brief. Liverpool’s MIT were looking for ‘this’ man in connection with the brutal slaying of a serving police officer and her friend. Annie was pleased at how much detail Alec crammed into his half a minute and their suspect’s photograph was displayed through the entire piece. When the camera switched back to the presenter, the team applauded. Annie smiled and a knot of excited anticipation tightened in her guts. It was a feeling that only her work gave her. Nothing outside the world of tracking dangerous criminals came close to it.
“He looks even more like that pesky chef on the television than he does in real life, Guv!”
“Except he doesn’t say ‘fuck’ as much, Guv.”
“I’ll be sure to pass on your comments,” Annie laughed. She was about to comment on the piece when a phone began to ring. A detective picked up the handset with the speed of a gunfighter at the OK Corral. Then a second, third and fourth joined a cacophony of ring tones. It was like turning on a tap. Information from the public began pouring in. The floodgates had opened. Crimewatch had the morbid ability to fascinate the public and millions tuned in every month in the hope that a face that they knew would appear. It transformed the Union into a nation of wannabe informers. Within a minute of the appeal, the phone lines were jammed.
Annie walked around the desks listening to one way conversations. She looked at the notes that were being scribbled down onto notebooks and entered into computers. The majority of calls were coming from in and around the city. A small percentage were crackpots claiming to be the killer. One man was adamant that he hadn’t just killed their victims; he was also responsible for releasing the Ebola virus into Africa via a popular brand of energy drink. Such calls were cut short and the details kept to pass onto the uniformed division at a later stage. The callers would get a severe warning but not much more. Annie thought that it would be more productive to have hoax callers sectioned for a while. The experience might dissuade them from doing it again.
The office was filled with hushed chatter and the atmosphere was palpable. Annie saw several names being offered as their suspect. She noted a few in her mind but one name in particular was given more than a dozen times by different callers. Tod Harris.
“We need to look at this guy, Tod Harris,” Annie said to Stirling. “See what we have got on him. Let’s hope he’s in the system.”
Stirling
tapped the keys on his laptop and the screen began to scroll through the police database. A photo of Tod Harris in a custody suite popped up within seconds. Although years younger, the arrest photo was undoubtedly that of Tod Harris. Stirling looked over his shoulder at Annie and nodded. “Are you reading this?”
“Well well,” Annie smiled, “it looks like Tod has been working his way up from date rape to murder. He’s been at it for years. He has a sexual assault charge on a relative when he was thirteen. As an adult, assault, sexual assault and a rape conviction that didn’t stick.”
“All the victims claim that he drugged them,” Stirling growled. “We’ve got an address in Halewood. Coincidence?”
“I don’t like coincidences.”
“Me neither.”
“Becky!” Annie called across the office.
“Yes, Guv.”
“Have you got an address for Peter Barton yet?”
“Yes, Guv,” she lifted a pad. “He lives on the Oak Tree estate, Halewood.”
“That’s about four miles from where Harris lives. Another coincidence,” Stirling raised his eyebrows.
“We need a warrant for Tod Harris too, Becky,” Annie called. “Send the details to her computer.” Stirling tapped on the keys again.
“Sent.”
“Got it. I’m on it, Guv,” Becky nodded. “Judge Ryland is happy to sign off whatever we need.”
“Send his details over to the forensic lab,” Annie added, “Kathy can run his DNA against the samples. She’ll be pleased that he is in the system.”
“Hold on, Guv,” Google shouted from his desk. He was compiling the computerised data as it was being entered in by the detectives on the telephones. “We might have a problem.” He frowned and tapped at his keyboard. “We’ve got three recent sightings of Tod Harris. All of them this week.” He frowned again and kept typing. “You’re not going to like this.”
