The Frame - from the author of the Sanford Third Age Club (STAC) series (A Feyer and Drake Mystery Book 2)

by David W Robinson

  “I am familiar with the procedures, Mrs Mullins. Can we just get on with this farce?”

  There was a delay while they identified themselves for the benefit of the recorder, and Sam outlined the overall position.

  “You left the station and went first to Dominic Larne’s address, where you shot him to death. From there, you made your way to the Bellevue Hotel, where you had just shot Leonard Pearson, when my officers broke in. From there you drove to Hayley Killeen’s address on Mount Street, and you were about to kill Rachel Jenner and Mrs Killeen when we arrived.”

  “No comment.”

  “Your weapon, the police service pistol last registered to Detective Sergeant Rachel Jenner, and your clothing are currently being analysed by forensic officers, and it doesn’t matter how well you think you’ve cleaned up, we will find traces of all three attacks made this afternoon, and, I believe, traces of Marc Shawforth and Alex Walston on the weapon. You murdered them all.”

  “No comment.”

  “I suspect that your activities were in response to the release of Rachel Jenner, because you were active in ensuring her conviction four years ago, and when she was released, you were concerned about the re-opening of the investigation into Barbara Shawforth’s death. On that basis, I also believe you were responsible for her murder.”

  “No comment.”

  Iris Mullins sighed. “Constantly repeating, ‘no comment’, won’t get you anywhere, Neville. You were caught red-handed this afternoon. Had Chief Inspector Feyer and Wesley Drake not intervened, you would have murdered Rachel Jenner, and I’ve no doubt, Hayley Killeen.”

  Trentham checked with his solicitor who nodded.

  “Drake, not for the first time this week, has managed to misinterpret the situation. I called to Hayley Killeen’s address to ensure her safety after hearing of the deaths of Dominic Larne and Leonard Pearson. Rachel Jenner turned the pistol on me, and I had just wrested it from her grip when Drake intervened. Yes, I struck her with it, yes I probably broke her arm, but that was simply a means of disabling her so I could put her under arrest.”

  “You had the pistol raised, ready to shoot Hayley Killeen,” Sam protested.

  “A snap reaction, that’s all,” Trentham insisted. “I was simply ensuring that she stayed where she was… for her own safety, naturally.”

  Sam pressed home her attack. “Early indications are that the only trace of Rachel on that pistol was when she picked it up. There’s nothing on the clip or the bullets.”

  “She was wearing gloves.”

  “Not when I entered, she wasn't. Or are we supposed to believe that she took them off after you broke her arm? Cut out the nonsense, Trentham. You’re cornered. Caught in the act. Now why don’t you stop wasting our time and tell it like it is.”

  If anything Trentham relaxed even further. “You’re a daydreamer, Feyer. Twisted tales. Probably something to do with the way your crooked ex-husband made a fool of you. Everyone knows about it, and you’ve probably spent the last two years reliving it, desperately trying to find a way of excusing yourself, and to do so, you dream up fantasies like this.”

  Over the years, Sam had been goaded many times, but not so directly. She half rose, ready to reach across the table. Iris Mullins grabbed her arm and made her sit.

  “Calm down, Samantha. That is an order.” She glared across at Trentham. “You do yourself no favours, Neville, insulting the senior investigating officer on this case. At the moment, you are arrested under suspicion, but it will only be a matter of time before we charge you.”

  And Trentham smiled thinly. “No comment.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Sam and Iris left the interview room to learn that it was gone five o’clock and night would be closing in within the next ninety minutes.

  The afternoon had been largely wasted. The argument had gone round in circles: Iris and Sam pressing, Trentham denying everything, Vivienne Maskin arguing in favour of her client and demanding they either charge or release him.

  On emerging from the interview, Trentham was locked into a cell for the night, Maskin went on her way, and Iris, after dressing Sam down for the number of times she had almost lost her temper, declared her intention to go home.

  “My phone will be on all night, Samantha. If anything comes in, call me. If I don’t hear from you, I’ll be back at ten tomorrow morning to pick up the interview.”

  And from there, Sam returned to her office to join Drake and Czarniak waiting for news.

  Blue-black isometric smudges under her eyes announced her fatigue. She flopped into her chair, and Drake placed a cup of sweet tea before her.

  “Any joy?” he asked.

  She shook her head, and drank from the cup, letting the sugar invigorate her. “He’s holding out. He claims Rachel attacked him with the gun. Hayley tells a different story, and I’m sure that when the hospital discharge her, Rachel’s tale will agree with Hayley’s, but Trentham is accusing them of colluding.”

  “What about the two uniforms outside the Killeens’ place, ma’am?” Czarniak asked.

  “According to Trentham, he found them like that, and it must have been Rachel. They’re both hospitalised, and we don’t yet know if either of them will survive, and even if they do, they may not remember anything. Pearson died on his way to hospital.” She played with her mobile as she carried on speaking. “We need something concrete on him. So far, forensic have found nothing on his uniform, and it could be days before they find any trace of him at the Bellevue, Walston’s place, or Larne’s.” Her frustration began to show through again, and she took another gulp of tea. “We need something. Anything. If I go into court with what we’ve got, there’s an outside chance that he could get bail – especially given his position amongst the Landshaven elite – and if that happens, he’ll disappear. I guarantee it. I have to have something I can pin on him without argument. Something to substantiate a charge, and that way, he can’t get bail.” She concentrated her attention on Czarniak. “When you found him, did Pearson say or do anything that might help us?”

  “He was completely out of it, ma’am… He was almost dead. He was trying to grab a bunch of keys just beyond his reach, and when I spoke to him he held up three fingers. I didn’t understand it, I asked if he meant three attackers, and when you arrested Trentham, I automatically thought the chief super, Larne, and… I dunno. Someone else.”

  Sam concurred with the sergeant’s assessment. “Makes sense, I suppose. What was he going to do with the keys?”

  “Random gesture, I reckon. Something familiar, something which would give him comfort, any—”

  Drake cut Czarniak off. “Hang on. There weren’t three attackers. There can’t have been. Trentham had to be alone.”

  Czarniak, still feeling a little out of his depth in the company of his immediate superior and Drake, gawped. “How do you reckon that, sir?”

  “Think about it. Why was Pearson still alive? A bad shot, probably. One that would kill, but only slowly. Trentham never made a mistake anywhere else, and if he’d had time, he would have made sure Pearson was dead. But he didn’t have that time thanks to you.”

  “We disturbed him,” Czarniak replied. “He was there when we buzzed, and he scarpered before he could finish the job.”

  “Correct,” Drake agreed. “And that means he didn’t have time to get from the Bellevue to Larne’s and then to the Killeens’ before Sam put the warning out and she and I made for Mount Street. Given the time constraints, he must have killed Larne before making for the Bellevue. He had to be alone when he attacked Pearson, and as you say, you disturbed him.”

  Czarniak shrugged and addressed his chief. “In that case, boss, I don’t know what Pearson was trying to tell us… if he was actually trying to say anything at all.” His brow creased. “But he must have been. He did it twice. Counted one, two, three with his fingers. Unless he meant the third floor of his hotel?”

  The suggestion from Czarniak took the other pair by surprise,
and Sam demanded, “Why would he?”

  The sergeant licked his lips, preparing to go into an explanation. “He never uses the third floor, ma’am. The hotel hasn’t done well for years. Not since his parents died. There’s an access door on the second floor, and Leonard keeps it permanently locked. He doesn’t get enough paying guests to put them in those rooms.”

  Drake recalled how on his solitary visit to the Bellevue, he had suspected Pearson of filming the prostitutes at work with their clients, and yet, the sergeant had said he could not recall seeing any sign of a computer where the videos might be downloaded. He also remembered his quick visit to the second floor and the solid, locked, wooden door where the next flight of stairs would be.

  Sam vented her irritation on Czarniak. “Why haven’t you mentioned this before?”

  “It never occurred to me, ma’am. Just one of those things. I never gave a thought until Mr Drake asked about him reaching for his keys and signalling the number three.”

  Sam surrendered. “Okay. I suppose it’s worth looking into. Are CSI still in the hotel?”

  Czarniak checked his watch, and that prompted Drake to do the same. The time was coming up to six o’clock.

  “Unlikely, ma’am. Not at this time of night.”

  Sam took control again. “In that case, give them a bell, Paul, organise a team, and let’s get down there.”

  ***

  The key to the third floor was on the bunch Pearson had been reaching for when Czarniak found him. It had already been bagged up by the CSI team.

  The first thing that struck Drake when they climbed the final flight of stairs to the third floor, was the length of the landing. It was considerably shorter than the lower storeys. There were the familiar doors on either side, but fewer of them, and at the far end, was a bulkhead wall, fronted by a white bookcase, which stood from the floor to within six inches of the ceiling, and which was filled with volumes. When Drake examined the books, most of which were hardbound, he found a range of novels and biographies, with one or two text books, but to look at the covering of dust (with a few exceptions, and those mostly to the left hand side) they had not been moved in a long time.

  Sam ordered the three-man, one-woman CSI team, “Move that bookcase, and see what’s behind it.”

  It was a job which should have taken just a few seconds, but struggle as they might, the piece of furniture would not move. Eventually, they turned and shrugged at her, indicating that it was fixed to the wall behind, and she ordered them to remove the books, see if that would help.

  “I want to know if there’s anything beyond that wall.”

  It was while they were removing them on the third shelf, situated at chest height, that they called her closer, and indicated a release mechanism in the left corner of the shelf, where the less dusty volumes had been positioned. It was a simple ring pull, attached to a length of steel cord. Sam nodded, and the lead CSI officer pulled it.

  There was a click, and the bookshelf swung outwards. The forensic officers opened it fully, and it moved aside easily, its hinges well-oiled and frequently used. Sam examined the rear, where the actual door was attached to the back of the bookcase, the catch released via the ring pull.

  The open aperture led to a vast room, fully the width of the landing. It also extended for many metres beyond the false wall.

  Sam invited the CSI team to go in while she, her subordinate, and Drake waited on the landing.

  At the flick of a switch, the room was flooded with light. Two of the forensic officers drifted off to the left, a third (female) went straight ahead, and took photographs of a large chest before lifting the lid. The final man stood to the right, examining a broad, tall display unit, the contents of which remained invisible to Drake and his partners.

  “You’d better see this, ma’am,” the woman said.

  “I’m not suited up,” Sam protested.

  The CSI leader reassured her. “There’s nothing on the floor we need to worry about, ma’am. But there’s a lot in here that you need to see in situ.”

  Taking them at their word, Sam stepped in, followed by Drake and Czarniak. She strode across the room to join the solitary woman. She gestured down at the chest, now revealed to be full of female underwear.

  “Pearson’s obviously been busy. You know what Barbara Shawforth’s underwear looked like?” the CSI operative nodded in reply to the question and Sam ordered, “Search through everything, and bag it up, but if you find Barbara Shawforth’s pants, parcel them separately.”

  She left her to it, and joined Drake with the team leader at the display cabinet, which was now fully open.

  On the centre shelf was a TFT monitor, and below it, a tower hard drive. A small, freestanding, electronic unit, similar to a wi-fi router, was connected to the drive via a USB cable. Drake raised his eyebrows at the team leader.

  “It’s a receiver, sir, usually for downloading from a remote camera. He has it hooked into the hard drive, and ten to one he was downloading direct to the tower.”

  Sam gave the order. “Boot the machine up. Let’s see what he’s got on there.”

  With Drake alongside her, the other two CSI team members approached, carrying what looked like the front panel of the dressers so familiar in Pearson’s rooms. They turned it around for Drake to look at the rear, where a mini camera was attached, its digital eye looking through a hole drilled into the front of the panel. Drake reminded Sam of his comment in room sixteen on the twist screws on the dresser which would allow the front to be changed quickly and efficiently, and with the camera in place, it would give a view along the length of the mattress from the bottom of the bed.

  Sam grunted. “Dust it, bag it.”

  “Look at this, ma’am.”

  She turned her attention back to the team leader, who now had the computer booted up, and a file list filling the TFT display.

  “Video files,” the officer reported. “Hundreds of them. And there are also some documents. Word-processed and spreadsheets. This’ll take weeks to sort through.”

  “We don’t have weeks. We have less than twenty-four hours.” Sam chewed her lip and dredged her memory of Microsoft Windows’ display possibilities. “Rearrange the files in date order, then check if there’s anything filmed on the day Barbara Shawforth was murdered. September ninth, four years ago.”

  The CSI leader drew up a chair, sat at the machine, and spent a few moments moving the mouse around, until he had the necessary settings. Scrolling through them, he found what he was looking for.

  “Two videos, ma’am.”

  Sam nodded. “Run the first.”

  It took a moment or two for the video software to kick in, but when it did, it was a split view of the bed in room sixteen. The left half of the screen showed the view from above (the wardrobe was Sam’s guess). Barbara Shawforth lay on her back, her face clearly recognisable, and she was having sex with a dark haired man. Even from behind, he was easily identifiable as Alex Walston. The right half of the screen consisted of the view from inside the dresser at the foot of the bed, and showed his member buried deep in her.

  Drake had never been particularly fond of pornography, and his anger rose at the thought of how Pearson would have enjoyed masturbating to the view.

  “Run the second video,” he ordered.

  Like Sam, he expected more of the same, but it was a surprise when the view this time was a full-screen image, once again taken from the wardrobe top, showing Barbara, dozing on the bed. As they watched, a man entered. Tall, slender, wearing thin-framed glasses, he was fully clothed in forensic coveralls and mask, and he carried a baseball bat. He circled the bed until he was to Barbara’s left, and then reached down, and removed her underwear from her leg.

  She stirred, and with a speed and savagery which shocked the viewers, he punched her not once but twice, and then brought the baseball bat down upon her head. The video continued to run while he hammered remorselessly and violently at her unconscious body, until the pillow and the sheet b
eneath and around her was awash with blood. He threw down the bat, took a small container from inside his coveralls, and poured its near-invisible contents to a part of the clean linen at the foot of the bed. He then used the container to scoop up some of the fresh blood, replaced the cap and dropped it in his pocket.

  Only then did he leave the room.

  Drake turned away, shaking with the horror of the scenes he had just witnessed, his head filled with images of Becky’s mutilated corpse.

  Sam was made of sterner stuff. “Download that video and the one before it onto a memory stick.”

  “With respect, ma’am, it should be processed.”

  “You can process the original. I want a copy so I can confront Trentham with it.”

  “Boss,” Czarniak said as the team leader inserted a memory stick into a vacant USB slot, “you can’t see his face. It’s hidden.”

  While the videos continued to download, Sam ordered the CSI leader to run the murder scene again, and pause it when the killer was alongside the dresser. Speaking to her sergeant, she pointed out, “The height of the dresser can be measured precisely. Our people can use that as a benchmark, from which they can calculate the killer’s height, and his personnel file will tell us how tall he is. For Christ’s sake, Paul, it’s Trentham. We know it is.”

  “As long as he’s behind that mask, chief, he’ll deny it.”

  “Ma’am.” It was a call from across the room. The female officer was still bagging up underwear, but the other two men had dug out a set of forensic coveralls, including overshoes, which were smeared in blood.

  Sam smiled broadly. “He won’t be able to deny that.” Shifting her attention to the CSI team, she ordered, “I want that processed ASAP. I expect blood comparisons and preliminary DNA analyses by tomorrow morning. Got that?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  The team leader drew his attention back to the computer. “Something else for you, boss. Look. From the day before the murder.”