Dead Cold Mystery Box Set 3

by Blake Banner

  To Inspector John Newman

  Sir, I will be able to confirm later today that this blood and mucus was recovered from the man who raped, tortured and murdered my first wife. He is an American national, resident in Arizona. I want him extradited and tried there. They have jurisdiction.

  By the time you receive this I will have emailed you the results of the DNA comparison.

  John

  I sealed the envelope and addressed it as private and highly confidential. Then I went in and sent it to be delivered the next morning. I knew I was playing a high risk game, but in that moment I didn’t give a damn.

  I drove back to the hotel and was told by the concierge that Mrs. Stone was having breakfast in the dining room. I looked at my watch. It was a quarter to nine.

  She watched me cross the large, elegant dining room with narrowed eyes. As I sat, she raised an eyebrow at me. I was rescued by a waiter who asked if I would be having breakfast. I told him I’d have black coffee and a couple croissants.

  When he’d gone, Dehan said, “I can tolerate anything, put up with anything and will forgive anything, except infidelity, which carries the death penalty, and being cut out, which carries a penalty worse than death.” She paused and gave me a horrible smile. “Make me happy again while I am still joking.”

  I nodded a few times. “You’re right. I want you to understand that what I am going to tell you, I never told you. I have never done anything like this before, and I hope I will never do anything like it again. But I don’t regret it. The law is fine, Dehan, for generalities, but occasionally there is a particular, some unique situation, that the law cannot cover.” I shook my head. “I am not justifying anything, Carmen. I don’t care if the world approves or not. I did what I did and I would do it again, though I pray I never have to.”

  She waited a moment. “What did you do, Stone?”

  The waiter brought my coffee and a couple of hot croissants in a basket. I took one and broke it open.

  “Dehan, there is an important difference between the British legal system and our own. It’s one, I think most cops would agree, where the Brits got it right. Back home, illegally obtained evidence is ruled inadmissible…”

  She frowned at me and spoke through a mouthful of croissant. “Hereishnomph?”

  “Here it is not. Here it is assessed on its probative value. If the judge deems it probative of either the prosecution or the defense’s case, it is admitted.”

  She started to nod approval, then the meaning of my words dawned on her. She swallowed and said, “Oh my God, Stone, what have you done?”

  “I read in Hattie’s file that she fought her attacker. She clawed at him while he raped and tortured her. They recovered his DNA from under her fingernails and ran a profile, but there was no match in the system. So I went to his apartment this morning. His address is in the Katie Ellison file. I broke in, I beat him to a pulp and saturated several cotton buds with his blood. I sent half of them to the Inspector, back home. I want him to pull strings, do whatever he has to do. Johnson has to stand trial in Arizona.”

  She shook her head. “You’re crazy. Even if you pull it off, he won’t wait to be extradited. He’ll bolt. Anyway, Arizona hasn’t got jurisdiction over a murder committed in the U.K.”

  “Wrong on both counts. U.S. courts have jurisdiction over any American who commits a crime anywhere in the world. And as for him bolting…” I shook my head. “He’s going to be in hospital for at least a month.”

  Her expression was one of horror. “What the hell did you do to him, Stone?”

  “I broke his leg. He won’t be running anywhere.”

  “Stone! You could go to prison.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I got there, I wanted to ask him some questions about his non-alibi, and found the door open. I saw him lying in the kitchen doorway, bleeding badly. I immediately called Harry, cleaned him up a bit and left as soon as I heard the ambulance arriving. It had slipped my mind we had a meeting with Lord Chiddester, and I didn’t want to be late.”

  “You really think Harry is going to believe that?”

  “No, but he doesn’t need to believe it. He needs to prove it’s a lie, and he can’t. And he won’t want to.”

  She sighed.

  I said, “You said you could forgive anything except infidelity and cutting you out. Can you forgive this?”

  She sagged back in her chair and put something that was related to a smile on her face. She gestured at me with both hands. “What? What am I supposed to do? Or say? You know as well as I do that if I had found Mick Harragan alive, back when we first met, I would have blown his brains out without a second thought.” She stared at her cup. “And I could never have brought Maria in. It’s like you say, Stone. Sometimes the law doesn’t cover the details.[3]”

  I gave a small laugh and stuffed half a croissant in my mouth. “The crazy thing is, I don’t believe in that. It shouldn’t be that way.”

  “I know. But it is. Sometimes you have to believe something, even when you don’t believe in it. Because…” she wagged her finger at me across the table. “Morality, Stone, is a human construct. Let’s go.”

  I drained my coffee, stood, and we headed for the lobby.

  Outside, it was already getting warm. The U.K. was caught in a heat wave that the oil industry had given up pretending had nothing to do with climate change. If the planet wasn’t getting hotter, England sure was.

  We made it to New Scotland Yard through heavy, grinding traffic and got there by nine thirty. Harry was waiting for us on the sidewalk. He didn’t look happy. I pulled up beside him and lowered the window. He didn’t smile.

  “Get out. I’ll drive. Carmen, you get in the back. I need to talk to this character.”

  We played musical chairs for a bit. Dehan climbed in the back and I got in the passenger seat. He got behind the wheel and we took off slow down the Victoria Embankment, following the same route we had followed the day before.

  “I am not going to mince words with you, John. And believe me, if it weren’t for the years of friendship we have, and because of what happened to Hattie, you would be on the next flight out of here back to New York. But you are going to hear what I bloody well have to say to you and you are going take it, or you can fuck off back home.”

  He turned to look at me. I gave him the dead eye and he carried on.

  “We do not have gun law in this country. We do not allow coppers to go around beating up civilians. We like it that way and if we catch a copper trying to take the law into his own hands we come down on him, or her, like a ton of fucking bricks! Whether he is a friend or not. In this country the law is the law, for Brad Johnson, Hattie Stone, you, me and Lord Chiddester. No exceptions! Step over the line once more, John, and I will have you! Is that understood?”

  I nodded. “Perfectly, Harry, and I appreciate that you had to lay it on the line like that. And, believe it or not, in ninety percent of the U.S.A., it’s the same.” I spread my hands. “However, I want you to be able to look your bosses in the eye and tell them, with a clear conscience, that it went down the way I said. I had questions for him about his alibi. I felt if we spoke in his apartment rather than in the middle of an exhibition hall, he might be more willing to speak. The door was open, and he was lying on the floor, semi conscious. I called you, cleaned him up a bit, and left when I heard the sirens because I was aware my presence could be an embarrassment to your department.”

  He scowled at me a moment, then sighed. “Fair enough. Sorry about chewing you out. But, it can’t happen, you know?”

  “Hey, I would have done the same if you’d come over to the Bronx and started beating up some of my hard cases.” I reached in my pocket and pulled out the freezer bag with the cotton wool in it. I showed it to him and, without cracking a smile, I said, “I asked him if he would mind providing a sample and he said that was fine. I am willing to testify to that, if necessary.”

  He shook his head. “Yo
u son of a bitch,” he said, then burst out laughing. “You dirty son of a bitch!”

  Dehan spoke up from the back. “I’ve been checking on Google. You have a private clinic in South London that will do same day private DNA profiles. Then it’s just a matter of comparing the profile that was done fifteen years ago, from the skin under Hattie’s fingernails, and the profile we get from this clinic.”

  He was quiet for a good two or three minutes. Finally, he said, “This is damn close to vigilante behavior. I don’t like it. I don’t condone it. But I’ll have a bike come over and collect the stuff and deliver it to the clinic. And you promise me, you give me your word, that this is the end of it.”

  I nodded. “You have my word, Harry, but you need to know something. Johnson is not your man for Katie Ellison’s killing. You know that as well as I do. And he isn’t your man for the other four either.”

  “What’s your point?”

  He pulled in to Little College Street and parked opposite a tall, elegant, Georgian house. He killed the engine and turned to face me.

  “I have asked my Inspector to pull strings back home and have Johnson extradited. I want him tried in Arizona. U.S. law says it has jurisdiction over any U.S. citizen who commits a crime, anywhere in the world.”

  He was frowning and looked mad. “This isn’t some Third World banana republic, you know. Our legal system is second to none…”

  I sighed. “Come on, Harry! You know that’s not the reason. In fact, it’s almost the opposite of the reason…”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Dehan spoke up again. “He means your courts are too lenient. If he is tried in his home state of Arizona, the death penalty will be available. It has been applied thirty-seven times in the last sixty years. And even if he doesn’t get the injection, life, for a murder involving rape and torture, will mean life.”

  He looked embarrassed.

  I shrugged. “You know as well as I do, Harry, here he could be out in seven years. You were there. You know what he did to her. You saw the ME’s report. He has to pay for that. Then I… we… me and Dehan, can put this behind us and get on with our lives.”

  He was quiet for a while, then finally said, “I can understand that. It’s not up to me. It’s up to the Home Office and the courts. I just hope you’re right, and this does give you closure.” He managed half a smile. “Come on, let’s go and talk to this knob.”

  SEVEN

  We were shown into Lord Chiddester’s office by his secretary. The room was more like a Georgian drawing room than an office. There was a lot of oak, none of it less than three hundred years old, and a lot of well-preserved stucco of about the same age. It was wall to wall carpeted, which most British aristocrats frown upon, but it was Wilton and very dark blue with a touch of gold, so I guess that was OK. One wall was taken up by an imposing bookcase with leaded glass panes, and the other walls had prints of horses.

  For a moment, as we stepped into the room, I had the surreal sensation that Lord Chiddester was part of the furniture. He was seated behind a magnificent, dark oak desk in a magnificent dark burgundy leather chair, staring at us, immobile from under his brows. He didn’t say anything, he just watched us approach his desk and scowled.

  Harry cleared his throat. “My Lord, thank you for agreeing to see us. I wonder if you would be prepared to answer a few questions…”

  “Well, I didn’t invite you here to discuss the weather, Inspector. What do you want to know?”

  Harry loosened his collar. “I understand, sir, that your daughter was writing an article…”

  “Probably. What of it?”

  “I understand it may have been quite a controversial article and that she may have approached you for some, er…”

  “Some what, Inspector? Good lord, man! Spit it out! Is this the best Scotland Yard can come up with? No wonder the bloody country is overrun with damned Islamic terrorists!”

  I saw Harry flush and start speaking again. “I understand she may have approached you for some guidance and information, sir?”

  Chiddester frowned at him. “Where’d you get that idea? Who told you that?”

  “Um, Miss Ellison’s housemate, sir, Sarah.”

  “What else did she tell you?”

  Dehan turned and looked at me. She had that expression on her face, where she narrowed her eyes and you knew she was getting mad and wouldn’t be able to keep her mouth shut. She spoke in a loud voice as she tied her hair in a knot at the base of her neck.

  “You know what, Stone? My dad always brought me up to believe there was nothing so fine and elegant as an English gentleman. ‘They are never,’ he used to say to me, ‘boorish, ill mannered or crude. Especially the aristocracy.’ That’s what he used to say to me. ‘They would never, for example, stay sitting down while there was a woman standing.’ What do you think of that, Stone?”

  I pulled a face and shook my head. “I think he was living in the past, Dehan. Those were the good old days, when England was England, before the European Union, and all the Muslim immigrants. What do you say, Lord Chiddester? Is the English gentleman a dying breed?”

  He ignored me and kept his eyes on Dehan. Harry had closed his. Chiddester stood. “Madam, forgive me. That was unforgivable. Will you please sit?” He turned a baleful glare on Green and on me and gestured to two more chairs. Dehan sat and we followed suit. Chiddester scowled at Harry. “Are you going to introduce these people, Inspector?”

  “Detectives John Stone and…”

  Dehan cut in, “Detective Carmen Dehan, we are from the NYPD consulting on your daughter’s case.”

  He sat back. “Dehan?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You are of Jewish ancestry?”

  “Is that a problem?”

  He gave a small laugh. “You are obviously not familiar with U.K. politics at present, Detective Dehan. You will find plenty of anti-Semitism among the Marxists in the Labour Party, but none in my office. I sometimes wonder if those cretins realize that Marx was Jewish.” He turned back to Harry, who was looking very confused. “Why is the NYPD being consulted on my daughter’s murder, Inspector?”

  I sighed noisily while Harry hesitated. Then I got bored and spoke. “Katie’s murder, sir, fit the MO of four murders that were committed in Whitechapel fifteen years ago. I was involved in that investigation because I was on an exchange program between the NYPD and Scotland Yard. I think it’s fair to say, Lord Chiddester, that nobody knows more about those murders than I do.”

  “I see.”

  “And I can tell you that your daughter was not murdered by the same man who killed those four girls.”

  “You know this how?”

  “The man who killed those girls all those years ago was probably an American, and he was most certainly obsessed with Don McLean, a singer from the ’70s.”

  “I know who Don McLean is, Detective.”

  “The man who killed your daughter was English, and not familiar with Don McLean. It seems like a trivial detail, but put in context, it is irrefutable.”

  He stared at me for a long moment. Then Dehan spoke up again. “Sir, with the greatest respect in the world, we are not going to solve your daughter’s murder by answering your questions. We already know the answers to the questions you’re asking us. We are going to solve this murder by asking you questions, and by you getting on board and answering them.”

  I smiled and watched Harry turn white. Chiddester turned to face her and raised an eyebrow. “Quite so,” he said.

  “So, did Katie ask you for help relating to an article she was writing?”

  He sucked his teeth and drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair. “She called me about three weeks ago. I don’t remember exactly. She was very enthusiastic about a project she had. She was mad about the idea of becoming a journalist. She was staunchly right wing, and keen to do something about the sad state of affairs in this country. We talked, I can’t remember exactly what about, this and that, the Br
exit fiasco, the problem of Islam… the usual stuff.”

  “Did she ask you, can you remember, did she ask you for help or advice?”

  He kept his eyes on the desk. “Not that I can recall, no.”

  I said, “She had been dating a young man called Mark…”

  He sighed. “On and off, yes. Bit of a drip, long hair, always apologizing. Good family, but no guts. You know the sort.”

  I nodded like I knew the sort. “But recently she had stopped seeing him. Were you aware of any other romantic involvement in her life?”

  His cheeks colored and there was no mistaking the building rage in his eyes. “Yes!” he said. “And I suppose there is no way around this. She had got herself a Muslim boyfriend. I told her she was insane, for any number of reasons, but she told me she was certain he had ties to God knows what, and she was going to use him to get information for her project, as she called it. I told her again and again that she was playing with fire. And here we are.” He glanced at me. I realized I was making a face of skepticism. He said, “You disagree?”

  “I don’t know. It just seems odd that a Jihadist would go to the trouble of disguising the murder of a British Lord’s daughter to make it look like a fifteen year-old serial killing. It’s not only unlikely that he would know the details of those killings, but you’d think the propaganda value would have him and his associates falling over themselves to claim responsibility.” I gestured at him. “Especially as you are known in this country for your anti-Islamic stance.”

  He thought for a moment. “I take your point. It is a good point.”

  “What’s this guy’s name?”

  “Sadiq Hassan.” He flipped open a diary on his desk, scrawled something on a piece of paper and slid it across to me. It was an address. I handed it to Harry, who took it without speaking.

  Chiddester went on. “She assured me she wasn’t sleeping with the grubby little fellow, but just wanted to get information out of him. She had the idea he was some kind of terrorist. A refugee, not born here. She wanted me to have MI5 look into him. Perhaps I should have. She was still a child at heart. Poor Katie…”