Out of Sight

by Paul Gitsham

  ‘What was he spending his money on?’ asked Warren.

  ‘It looks like he’s a sharp dresser, I recognise the names of some of these boutique clothing stores. They aren’t the sort of place you’d even walk into if you were on his salary. He pays almost as much each month to Mercedes as he does to his landlord, although it looks as though he was going to lose his car if he didn’t pay the last two months’ instalments. He also likes to eat out, and I’m not talking chicken and chips at Nando’s. The food and drink bills are regularly over a hundred pounds, sometimes a lot more.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Sutton, leaning over her shoulder and pointing at the statement. ‘I took Marie there for our wedding anniversary. The starters alone cost more than we normally pay for a main course. He went twice last month.’

  ‘That ties in with what I’ve seen on social media,’ said Hardwick. ‘His Instagram and Facebook are full of pictures of him dressed in sharp suits in luxury restaurants, although never with anyone else tagged. I’ve counted at least four different watches, which unless he’s wearing counterfeits, have got to have set him back hundreds or even more. You said he appeared to be a fan of spy thrillers.’ She looked down at her notepad. ‘Lots of profile pictures of him posing like James Bond, and he’s “liked” and followed lots of related pages.’

  She curled her nose up. ‘He was also one of those annoying people that tell the world exactly where they are and where they are going every time they leave the bloody house. I’m amazed he wasn’t burgled.’

  ‘Could that be a motive?’ asked Ruskin. ‘He’s telling the world that he’s wealthy. Maybe he attracted the wrong sort of attention?’

  ‘Robbery gone wrong?’ asked Hardwick.

  ‘It’s got to be worth considering,’ said Warren. ‘When was the last activity on his account?’

  Pymm flicked through the sheets in front of her. ‘That’s another weird thing; aside from his direct debits and standing orders, the last time he used his cash card was over a month ago. He hardly ever draws money out.’

  ‘That’s not that weird,’ said Ruskin. ‘I hardly ever use cash these days. It’s much easier to use contactless in pubs or for small purchases.’

  ‘Yes, but he hardly ever uses it for that either. In fact, he hasn’t even used his cards in the supermarket for months.’

  ‘Which means he must be using cash for most of his day-to-day outgoings,’ said Warren. ‘But if he isn’t using cashpoints, then where is he getting it?’

  ‘Could he have another bank account, or card that we aren’t aware of?’ asked Ruskin.

  Pymm shook her head. ‘I doubt it. You need all sorts of ID to open a bank account or take out a credit card because of the anti-money-laundering regulations. That would have shown up when I requested his financial records.’

  ‘So where was he getting cash from, then?’ repeated Warren.

  ‘Drugs?’ said Ruskin. ‘A bit of dealing on the side to make ends meet?’

  ‘Which would have brought him into contact with some pretty undesirable individuals,’ said Hutchinson.

  ‘Well, it’s another angle to investigate,’ said Warren. ‘I’ll see if the drugs division have any intelligence. Maybe he’s on their radar.’

  ‘I found some useful information,’ said Pymm. ‘Even though he’s not been using cash machines, there has been activity on his account.’

  ‘Don’t tell me somebody’s used his cards this week?’ said Warren.

  ‘Nothing so obvious. But he uses an online banking app. According to Santander, he usually accesses it via his tablet. Probably not as much as he should, given the state of his finances, but the last time he logged in was just after 8 p.m. on Thursday the 24th of November, via his mobile phone. All he did was look at his balance. No transactions were made. He must have been using Wi-Fi; his phone was still disconnected from the mobile network at that time.’

  ‘So he was still alive Thursday,’ said Warren. ‘That narrows it down slightly. See what more the bank can give us.’ He turned to Sutton. ‘Tony, speak to Clancy’s as a priority; ask when he last turned up for work. His sister says that he texted her Saturday after he didn’t return her call Friday night.’

  ‘He also sent texts to a number Friday morning at 7.18 a.m., and at the same time Saturday morning,’ said Pymm. ‘Both times, he received a reply. I’ve identified the recipient as a Mrs Maureen Bentley; I’ve no idea who she is.’

  ‘OK, see what you can find out about this Mrs Bentley before we pull her in for questioning.’

  Warren looked at his watch. ‘Right everyone, it’s 7 p.m. There’s nothing that can’t be picked up by the evening shift or started in the morning. Take the opportunity to get yourselves home at a decent hour, I suspect there’ll be plenty of opportunities to earn some pre-Christmas overtime in the next few weeks. Besides, it’s the last day of November, and if I don’t get the Christmas tree out of the loft tonight, Susan will have me out of bed early tomorrow to fetch it.’

  Thursday 1st December

  Chapter 11

  Almost five days had passed since Anish Patel’s body had been found, naked and wrapped in a sheet, and it was time to ask the public for help. Anish’s sister, Reva Vasava, had supplied a recent photograph, but otherwise the family had declined to take part in the press conference.

  The press office had released a statement earlier that week, confirming the discovery of the body and asking for information, but now they needed more assistance. The team still hadn’t determined when or where he had been killed, and so the appeal focused on requests for information about his movements between the last confirmed sighting of him by his neighbour on the Wednesday, and the discovery of the body Sunday morning.

  They had also released images of his vehicle. The dark-blue Mercedes sports car was nowhere to be found and as yet had not been captured on ANPR systems. Violent car-jackings were rare in the UK, but at this stage Warren and the team were in no position to rule anything out.

  As usual, Warren had appeared beside a smartly coiffured DSI Grayson at the force’s headquarters in Welwyn Garden City but said little; his boss enjoyed the limelight far more than he did. After a few questions from the assembled reporters that they were largely unable or unwilling to answer yet, the two men had headed back up the A1 to Middlesbury. Warren had successfully contrived to drive himself to and from the press conference; bad for the environment, but good for his nerves – Grayson had a notoriously heavy right foot.

  His excuse was a planned meeting with Andy Harrison, who was lounging in Warren’s visitor’s chair when he returned, sipping from an insulated coffee mug with a picture of Darth Vader on the side. It matched his T-shirt.

  ‘The victim was wrapped in a cotton double bed sheet,’ said Harrison. ‘Since the victim was mutilated post-mortem, there isn’t a huge amount of his blood on the sheet. We’re still trying to isolate any other fluids on there, but it was sitting in a stream.’

  Harrison had yet to shave off his effort for Movember; he’d opted for a handle-bar moustache for this year’s charity fundraiser. Warren wondered if anyone would have the heart to tell him that with his ponytail and generous build, he looked like an ageing porn star.

  ‘Here’s hoping,’ said Warren.

  ‘The good news is that the sheet is almost certainly from a hotel, and probably a budget one. The cotton is thicker and more hard-wearing than the material used in typical domestic bedding, since it needs to be boil-washed after every guest – or at least it should be, I have my doubts sometimes …’

  ‘Well, that gives us something to go on,’ said Warren. He made a note on his pad to organise a team to contact all of the hotels in the area and seize their CCTV footage. He’d have to decide on what radius to cover, but regardless, it would be a big job. An hour’s drive would cover hundreds of hotels in the local vicinity.

  Harrison gave a small smile and pushed his tablet across the table. ‘I might be able to help you narrow it down. This is a picture of the botto
m corner of the sheet.’ He zoomed in. ‘You can see here a small, square piece of blue fabric has been glued on.’

  ‘I’ve seen those before. What is it?’

  ‘It’s a laundry tag. Most budget hotels send their laundry away to be washed. If they aren’t part of a chain, then they use a local company. Coloured tags help the launderette keep track of who the sheets belong to.’

  ‘Brilliant,’ said Warren, ‘You’ve just saved us hundreds of hours of work. DSI Grayson will be delighted.’

  ‘A pleasure to help,’ said Harrison. ‘Just keep it to yourself, Sir. Christmas is coming and I’ve just scuppered a load of overtime pay.’

  ‘I had an interesting chat with Anish’s workmates,’ said Sutton, addressing the team briefing. ‘He’s worked at Clancy’s for the past eight years and was promoted to department head a year or so ago. Which makes me wonder how his family didn’t know that, given he would have been working there whilst still living with his father and sister.’

  It was a good question; had his family really cared so little about him, or were they deliberately downplaying their relationship with him?

  ‘Anyway, his employment record is unblemished, and he was very popular with both colleagues and customers, nobody had a bad word to say about him. It’s a real family business in all senses and he fitted right in; regulars would ask for him by name and he would help some of their older customers load their shopping into their car etc. News of his death has absolutely rocked everyone I spoke to.

  ‘We’ve secured CCTV footage from the past few weeks to see if anyone of interest interacted with him in the store, or he had any customer altercations, but none of his colleagues are aware of anything untoward happening. It turns out that the Maureen Bentley he texted Friday and Saturday morning is the manager in charge of staff absence. He was due to work nine-to-five both days. Sunday was his day off.’

  ‘So does that mean he was still alive Saturday?’ asked Hutchinson.

  ‘Impossible to say,’ said Pymm, ‘His phone was powered off either side of those texts being sent, but if he really was ill with the flu, then he might just have been in bed.’

  ‘Where was the phone when the texts were sent?’ asked Sutton.

  ‘The phone connected to the cell tower closest to his flat, both for those texts and the ones he sent to his sister,’ said Pymm.

  ‘Did you find out much about his private life?’ asked Warren.

  ‘A few snippets. Apparently, it was well known that he was gay, but he never spoke about his love life. He certainly didn’t mention anything about his plans to marry. He was described as really kind and generous with his time, running the work social committee and he was organising the Secret Santa. He was obsessed with James Bond and spy thrillers; he even raised money for charity by dressing in a tuxedo at work for a week when the last Bond film came out.’

  ‘Anything about his relationship with his family?’ asked Hutchinson.

  ‘Nothing much. I spoke to the two women that he works most closely with, and they knew that he wasn’t on speaking terms with them. Outside of work they felt he was quite lonely; he never mentioned any friends other than work colleagues and aside from the cinema, didn’t seem to have any hobbies, which they thought was a shame as he was so nice. Sometimes he’d even pop into work on his days off and meet co-workers for lunch. I showed his list of Facebook friends to Maureen Bentley and she reckons almost all of them were either current or former Clancy’s employees.’

  ‘What about the lavish existence he portrayed on social media?’ asked Ruskin.

  ‘They always assumed that he had some sort of inheritance or trust fund. He dressed very well, drove an expensive car and enjoyed dining out. His salary was pretty good, but not enough for the lifestyle he seemed to live.’

  ‘Where are we with the interviews with the rest of the family and the siblings’ co-workers?’ asked Warren.

  Sutton looked at his notes. ‘DSI Grayson arranged for Welwyn to lend us a few warm bodies yesterday. Both Manoj and Jaidev Patel’s wives backed up their husbands’ version of events: no contact with Anish for months, both of them home playing dad each evening – except for Jaidev who had badminton on the Thursday night. He was back at his usual time. Both brothers manage corner shops, and their co-workers claim that they were present all day, Monday to Friday, with a couple of hours put in over the weekend.’

  ‘And do we believe them?’ asked Warren.

  ‘Impossible to decide,’ said Sutton. ‘I’ve run back through the interview tapes and the wives are pretty cagey, but then it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that their husbands are likely to be prime suspects, so you’d expect them to be on guard.’

  ‘I spoke to the man who runs the kids’ Saturday football club,’ Hardwick took over. ‘He remembers both men being there Saturday morning. He collected subs money off them both, so he’s confident they were present. Interestingly, he knew about Reva, but had no idea they had another brother.’

  ‘What about her?’ asked Warren.

  ‘Same story,’ said Sutton. ‘Her husband claims that aside from the grocery run, she was in each evening. He also says that Gotam Patel’s car was in the driveway all that time, although he admits that he spends most of the day working in the back office so Gotam could have slipped out or left on foot without him knowing.’

  ‘What about their relationship with Anish?’ asked Warren.

  ‘Pretty much what Reva told us,’ said Sutton. ‘He knew that his wife still spoke to Anish. In fact, he encouraged it. It doesn’t sound as though he cares much for his in-laws; he was quite scathing about their decision not to speak to Anish because he was gay.

  ‘He hadn’t seen Anish since he moved out, but he always liked him. He even suggested Anish come and stay with them, since they have a spare room, but Anish said that he didn’t want to cause any more trouble between Reva and their father. Besides which, they hope to make it a nursery someday.’

  Warren considered the feedback. On the surface, the testimonies backed up what Anish’s father and siblings had told them. But he was still aware that they had precious little truly independent verification. Given the potential financial benefits to the rest of the family from Anish’s death, they needed some outside perspective.

  ‘Hutch, anything back from his neighbours?’ asked Warren.

  ‘Well, it appears Gotam Patel doesn’t reserve his sunny disposition for the police,’ said Hutchinson. ‘A few of Cambridgeshire’s finest agreed to help us do some door-knocking around the cul-de-sac where the Patels’ home is situated.’

  He swapped a coffee – on it, a picture of a motorcycle helmet emblazoned, ‘loving my mid-life crisis’ – for his notepad. ‘I’ll warn you now, that some of their neighbours’ impressions might be coloured a little by how well they perceive the Patels fit into their little world.’

  ‘An Asian family with lots of money that they’ve earned through hard work, living in a corner of Little Britain normally occupied by good decent white folk who inherited their wealth by honest means?’ asked Sutton.

  ‘Pretty much,’ said Hutchinson. ‘Apparently more than one conversation started with “I’m not racist, but …”’

  ‘Well, let’s at least hear what they had to say,’ said Warren.

  ‘The Patels moved in about twenty-five years ago, which makes sense; the business started to make its money in the Nineties. The three boys would have been teenagers and Mrs Patel – Suniti – was still alive back then.

  ‘Several neighbours said that Gotam can be abrupt to the point of rudeness; a trait that he’s passed on to Manoj apparently. You’ll be lucky to get more than a grunt out of either of them if you see them in the local corner shop. Not that Gotam goes there unless he has to; the family have their own stores. Interestingly, when the owner of that shop retired, he approached Gotam about buying it. He thought it was a win-win proposition; somebody local takes over, giving them an incentive to keep it focused on the neighbourhood’s needs, whils
t the Patel family gains a profitable business. He said that Gotam practically sneered. He didn’t say as much, but implied that living essentially opposite his corner shop was only one step above living over it.’

  ‘Sounds like he was eager to distance himself from the stereotype of the Asian corner shop owner,’ mused Sutton. ‘Which fits in with what Jaidev Patel told us about his drive to do better than his parents.’

  ‘OK,’ said Warren, ‘so he isn’t a pleasant man. I think we already knew that.’

  ‘Well it goes deeper, if what his neighbours have to say is true,’ said Hutchinson. ‘Apparently he is rude and belittling to his kids also. The woman who lives next door says that she overhears them arguing a lot when she’s out in the garden. That’s got worse since the mother passed away.’

  ‘That’s not unusual after sudden deaths,’ pointed out Ruskin.

  ‘True,’ allowed Hutchinson, ‘but she reckons that he was extremely controlling. He rarely asks for anything, he demands it. She described him as “cruel”.’

  ‘Anything specific?’ asked Warren.

  ‘Reva lives in the converted barn on the property. The neighbour overheard him one morning, after his eldest son had just left with his boys, asking why she hadn’t given him any grandchildren yet. She said that Reva burst into tears and walked away. Apparently, his parting shot was “if you’re like that with your husband, it’s no wonder he hasn’t been able to get you pregnant”.’

  There were winces around the table.

  ‘What about his relationship with Anish?’ asked Warren. ‘If Patel Sr was that unkind to his daughter, how did he act towards his estranged youngest son?’

  ‘That’s where the neighbour is a bit more speculative. She says that the relationship was cold, and on summer days with the windows open, she heard the two arguing, but she couldn’t really understand what they were saying. Outside, where they could easily be overheard, the two rarely spoke. She got the impression that they were reluctant to “air their dirty laundry in public”.’