He pulled on track suit bottoms and a T-shirt and went to check that Tyler’s food machines were full, and he had enough water. As a treat, he opened a sachet of gourmet dog food and emptied it into his dish and left him guzzling while he investigated his kitchen for non-canine food. The damn dog ate better than he did. He found cheese, well past its best-before date, and a jar of stuffed olives. Sniffing the cheese, he decided it was still edible.
The freezer had bread, and probably more ice than a freezer should have considering it was supposed to be one of those frost-free ones, but it probably wasn’t supposed to be empty most of the time. Breaking off a couple of slices of bread, he stuck it under the grill to toast, while he grated the cheese and chopped the olives. When the bread was toasted on one side, he piled the olives and cheese on top and put it back under the grill for a few minutes. He sprinkled it with a pinch of salt, and ground black pepper on top. It would do.
Soon he was settled on the sofa, beer in hand and food on plate. Maybe not gourmet but it wasn’t bad at all. Guinness, cold from the fridge, definitely hit the spot; he took a long drink with pleasure and lay back against the cushions. Tyler, replete from dining on his very upmarket, and ridiculously expensive meal, jumped up beside him and nestled into his favourite spot between West and the side of the sofa. ‘You never consider I mightn’t want you there, do you?’ He tickled the little dog’s head, getting a dog-food-tainted lick in reply.
The last drop of beer drained, he got up without disturbing Tyler’s snooze, and headed back to the kitchen for another, opening and pouring in a mind-calming exercise, watching the black settle and the creamy head rise. He stood in the kitchen, drinking slowly this time, looking out across his garden to where trees were silhouetted against the moonlit sky and trying to steer his mind toward the case, the characters involved, strategies and ploys and likely outcomes. But even a nasty piece of work like Adam Fletcher couldn’t keep his mind occupied for long; it appeared tonight to have only one target, her. He wondered if she was sleeping, or lying awake worrying, and whether he should ring her. Just to update her on the case, nothing more. Wasn’t it his duty? Hadn’t he promised to keep her informed?
Beer in hand, he went back to the lounge where he sat and reached for the phone. He debated his reason for ringing for several moments, annoyed with himself for the hesitation, before quickly dialling the hotel’s number and asking for her room. Almost instantly, before he knew what to say, he was connected and heard her sleepy voice saying a tremulous, ‘Hello.’
He was immediately guilty. ‘I’ve woken you. I’m so sorry, I just-well-I…’ He found himself, to his embarrassment and annoyance, stammering, and stopped to draw a breath. ‘It’s Sergeant West, Ms Johnson,’ he said, thinking his rank lent a formality to the call. ‘I just wanted to give you an update on the situation.’ Okay, he decided with relief, he sounded official and formal.
‘Sergeant West?’ Edel’s voice was alert now. ‘I wasn’t asleep, not really. What’s happened?’
Hearing her voice, West was suddenly less sure about his reason for ringing and the wisdom of telling her about the day’s proceedings. He compromised and told her enough to have merited a phone call at what he realised, looking at his watch, was a very late hour.
‘We know who John is,’ he started, ‘and we hope to have enough proof to arrest him soon. For the moment we have him under surveillance, he won’t be going anywhere without one of our lads going with him.’
Silence answered him for such a length of time, he thought he had been disconnected. ‘Edel?’ he called worriedly.
‘Yes. Yes, I’m here. It’s such a relief… so it’s nearly over now, is it?’ Her voice was cautious.
‘Nearly. We’re waiting for forensic results. We haven’t enough proof as yet, but, trust me,’ he added with a resurgence of confidence, ‘we will get it.’
‘This is such good news,’ she said, her voice a touch stronger. ‘Thank you for ringing me and letting me know what’s happening.’
West, who prided himself on his honesty, refused to be honest with himself. ‘It’s my job, Ms Johnson,’ he said and hung up.
He sat there finishing his beer, criticising the stupidity of a police officer who falls for a suspect, never mind that he was sure she wasn’t involved. There was no excuse. He castigated his behaviour as he drained the last drop and contemplated a third beer and then contemplated a whiskey. Instead of either, he sat there thinking about the case and her, and her and the case, and her and her. He fell asleep where he sat, waking at four with a crick in his neck. Slowly lumbering up the stairs, he fell onto the bed, as he was, and slept without moving till the clock interrupted his slumber at seven.
29
It was the final hurdle, the last lap where great effort gives the greatest reward. The general office hummed with purpose. Officers went to and fro, answering calls, adding to the case board as information was received, making calls to tie down facts. The nitty gritty was important, they all knew that.
They were holding their breath for the forensic team to finish their work, hoping for enough to proceed. West had to pull his hand back several times throughout the morning to stop a phone call he knew they didn’t need; they’d get back to him when they had something and phoning them to make them tell him that just added to their work. The same reasoning didn’t stop his own superior from ringing him, and he’d had to field three calls already that morning from the inspector demanding updates.
Early afternoon brought good news from Bob Phelan and his team who had spent the morning in Bareton Industries going through their computers and doing an inventory of stock.
‘He is a clever man, our Adam Fletcher, Mike, it looks like he never took too much in any month, so they never ran short and, since they didn’t, nobody noticed.’ West listened as Bob enumerated what had been taken, some items familiar to him, some not. ‘Rather than making a straightforward illegal which would have required a larger amount of one particular component,’ Bob continued, ‘he used small amounts of more ingredients to make a new designer drug, an experiment that has proved very successful and very lucrative. You know about the problem we’ve been having with this drug, Nirvana? Well, we’re sure this is the source; luckily, the way the lab is set up, everyone uses separate equipment so we were able to take samples from equipment only Fletcher uses; we’re just waiting for some tests to be completed to be a hundred per cent sure. When the results come back, if it is Nirvana, he will be charged with five counts of manslaughter as well as the manufacturing and supplying of illegal drugs.’
‘How lucrative a deal was it?’ West asked.
Phelan sighed. ‘Best guess, and it’s only a guess so far, until we do all the figures. Best guess, based on the difference between what they ordered, what they officially used and what remains in the lab is, over the two years assuming–’
He interrupted impatiently. ‘Rough estimate then, what would he have made?’
‘Nirvana was a very upmarket drug. About four million. Roughly.’
‘Phew,’ West exhaled loudly. ‘Bloody hell!’
‘Shutting him down will be a big coup for us,’ Phelan admitted. ‘These new, so-called designer drugs attract the big money but the old reliables don’t go away. They just become cheaper so the dealers have to tap more markets to make up their income. They’ve been hitting clubs, cinemas, even schools, and targeting a younger and younger age group.’
‘And you are sure you can prove Fletcher was responsible?’ West asked again. ‘We need to have this tied down solid. I don’t want this bastard slipping away on a technicality.’
He could hear Bob’s weary sigh and quickly apologised. ‘I’m sorry. I’m playing devil’s advocate here, just thinking of all the arguments his legal team are going to pull out of the bag.’
‘I appreciate that, Mike. We want this bugger off the streets, believe me. We’ll have it tight, don’t worry. We’re running a background check on everyone who had access to the components. S
o far, they appear to come up clean. All have good incomes with concomitant lifestyles, cars, homes etc. Fletcher on the other hand is declaring an income of two hundred thousand but lives in a million-euro house he purchased… wait for it… four years ago. He has a fancy villa in France according to one of his former colleagues, who also envies him his series six BMW.’
‘Four years ago… you think he was doing this before, somewhere else?’ West inquired.
‘You can bet on it. We have a team asking questions of a former employer, as we speak. If we can find matching discrepancies there, we’ll be able to tie the two together. I don’t know where you are with your murder case but, I guarantee we’ll have enough to charge Fletcher with the manufacturing and dealing of illegal drugs before the day is out. Class A drugs, that’s twenty years. When he is convicted, they’ll levy the charges for manslaughter for the five victims of Nirvana… five that we know of, Mike.’
‘I think we’ll have our murder case in the bag before that, they’ll have to stand in line,’ West said with far more assurance than he felt as he rang off.
Moving into the general office, he stopped in front of the case board and read the new information posted there, going over it all again. Hearing his office phone ring he headed to answer, frowning in annoyance as it stopped when he reached it. Almost immediately, a phone rang in the general office and a nearby garda answered. He immediately looked around for the sergeant and, with almost reverent tones, said, ‘It’s forensics, Sarge.’
A hush fell over the room as everyone listened to the sergeant’s side of the call, trying to interpret whether it was good or bad news from the little he said.
‘We’ll be there in thirty minutes, Steve. Thanks.’ West finished the call, placed the receiver back on the stand and looked around the room. He caught Andrews’ eye and suddenly grinned, his eyes lighting in relief and excitement.
‘We’ve got the bastard,’ he said softly and then as a wave of yells crossed the room, he shouted in relief. ‘We’ve got him!’
West let cheers and back-slapping continue for a few minutes. They had worked bloody hard, they deserved it. ‘Okay,’ he said finally, waiting as they quietened. ‘We’re nearly there but not done yet. Forensics want to go over the results with us, in person, so Andrews and I are going over there now. Keep chipping away at the details. If things go to plan, we should be wrapping this case up soon.’
With a nod to Andrews, they left, stopping by the inspector’s office on the way to tell him their good news, knowing they could leave the details of arrest warrants in his capable, red-tape-loving hands.
West drove, and on the thirty-minute journey to the Phoenix Park where the forensic laboratory was situated, he filled Andrews in on the call from the Drug Squad.
‘Four million,’ Andrews exclaimed in tones of awe. ‘Bloody hell, no wonder he can afford that house.’
‘And the rest,’ West informed him. ‘A villa in France and a top-of-the-range BMW and lord knows what else. Nothing too conspicuous, I’d guess, but the watch he was wearing was a Patek. They can retail for about fifty k or more.’
Andrews’ eyes grew wide. ‘For a watch?’
‘Ah, but a Patek watch doesn’t belong to you, you’re looking after it for the next generation.’
‘What?’ He looked genuinely puzzled.
West laughed out loud. ‘It’s their marketing ploy. Very expensively set adverts, usually with an older man and younger boy and that’s their line. The father buys the watch and eventually the son will inherit it.’
There was silence as Andrews digested this, then, ‘What happens if he has two sons; does one get the watch and the other the strap?’
They considered this as the car wound its way through the Phoenix Park to the forensic laboratory.
They were expected so didn’t have to hang around in the lobby for too long, just long enough to exclaim at the artwork on display; photographs of tiny particles and hairs, magnified so they filled a canvas. West was fascinated, Andrews quickly bored.
A white-coated woman appeared at the reception desk and approached them, hand held out.
‘Hi, I’m Ashling.’ She smiled in greeting. ‘Dr Doyle asked me to come and get you. He’s just finishing off something.’
They followed her through reception where she took white coats from a peg and asked them to put them on. ‘Rules,’ she said with a shrug.
White-coat clad, they followed her down corridors and through double doors to a bright room full of mystifying equipment. Ashling, her job done, left them with a casual wave and they looked around with interest. There were several people in the room, all focused and engrossed in their work, eyes down, faces hidden. All wore the mandatory white coats and in addition they all wore paper mob-caps. With their faces buried in their work, it made it hard to distinguish one person from the other.
A hand rose and waved at them from the far side of the room and a face looked their way, bringing recognition to both men at the same time. Forensic scientist, Dr Stephen Doyle, waved again and indicated that they join him. It was like an obstacle race; they made their way carefully around equipment, and people bending over their work, and pieces of apparatus that extended unexpectedly into space, to where Doyle sat peering through the lens of a piece of equipment neither man could identify.
‘Hi,’ he said in his gravelly voice, without lifting his head. ‘Did I make your day, or what?’ He turned his head as he finished and looked at them.
Both men wore identical grins. ‘You’re like Cheshire cats, the pair of you.’ He scribbled a note on the pad in front of him and then, switching off the equipment, he indicated the room behind them with a wave of a half-removed disposable glove. ‘We’ll go in there, I have it all laid out for you.’
Tossing his gloves into a nearby bin, he led the way. ‘Sit,’ he said. ‘It’ll take a while to go through it.’
Three folders sat side by side on the table.
Doyle handed one to each of them. ‘These are copies of our findings. Everything we found, everything we tested, all the results we have obtained, so far. There are a number of results outstanding but, on the basis of what we have found, I decided to give you the report now rather than waiting.’ He shrugged. ‘The outstanding results aren’t going to change things.’ Both detectives opened their folders and followed as he explained their findings.
‘First, as you know, we tested the knife that was discarded nearby. A four inch long, common or garden kitchen knife, which matched the wound on Simon Johnson’s body and which was stained with his blood. Thus, without a doubt, it is the murder weapon. There were, however, no fingerprints on the knife.’
The door to the office opened quietly and a tall, willowy man stepped in, squinting myopically at the two detectives. ‘Sorry to intrude, Dr Doyle, I need your signature, please.’ The form he proffered was taken and, without a glance or hesitation, it was signed and handed back. The willowy man murmured, ‘Thank you’ and withdrew as quietly as he had entered.
Seeing West’s quizzical look Doyle explained. ‘Eric Kavanagh, he’s our supplies officer. He needs my signature to order certain controlled items.’
Doyle turned his attention back to the file in front of him, missing the look that passed between the two men. How many laboratories throughout the country had such lax controls? How many people were taking advantage, how much money was being made and how many lives ruined? With a quiet sigh, West hoped he would never have to investigate the willowy Eric. When this case was sorted, he promised himself he’d make sure that Doyle heard about the mess in the Bareton laboratory, and encourage him to tighten up controls; emphasise the need to read what he signed anyway.
He tuned back into what the scientist was saying. In their search of the graveyard, Dr Doyle was explaining, they had found a variety of body fluids: blood, mucous and both animal and human faeces. ‘Most of the secretions around the victim belonged to him, certainly all the blood, urine and faeces were. We collected saliva around some
of the wounds–’
‘Saliva?’ Andrews said, interrupting him.
Doyle checked his notes. ‘Yes, from a rat and a mouse. Possibly more than one mouse, we haven’t looked at that in detail.’ He looked at him with a raised eyebrow. ‘We can, if you feel it’s important.’
Andrews shook his head and muttered, ‘No, no that’s fine.’
‘Graveyards are the most troublesome crime scenes, gentlemen,’ Doyle complained. ‘We trawled through all the rubbish that has been dumped, tossed, blown or in some way discarded there and, boy, was there a lot of it. Most of it was just that, rubbish, but as we all know, even the smartest criminal will, now and then, overestimate his own cleverness and… ’ He grinned wickedly. ‘Underestimate the capabilities of the world’s best forensic team.’
West, knowing all the rubbish that the team had had to sift through, gave the man his moment to shine without begrudging. Andrews, too, smiled serenely and awaited the outcome.
‘Deeply buried among badly-tied bags of doggie doo,’ Doyle said, ‘we found a pair of latex gloves. As you can see,’ he added, indicating the next photo in the folder, ‘they were rolled up tightly and pushed down among the plastic bags and we almost missed them.’ He grinned again. ‘But we is good, and we got ‘em.’
‘They have Simon Johnson’s blood on them?’ West asked, eagerness overcoming his initial reluctance to hurry him.
‘Not just blood, Mike, that wouldn’t be of much use to you really, it would just tell you they had been used by the murderer. We got something much better. We got fingerprints.’
No Simple Death (2019 Edition) Page 25
