Dark Order : A Harrison Lane Mystery (The Dr Harrison Lane Mysteries Book 3)

by Gwyn GB

  ‘I want to pull them all in,’ DI Steadman said. He had a pen in his hand and as he talked, he spun it around his fingers, the adrenaline coursing through his body as he finally began to smell blood in their hunt. ‘We need to start rattling their cages and seeing what we can shake out. Their lawyers are going to keep them tight-lipped. I’m expecting no comments all the way, so any suggestions Harrison as to how we break through?’

  ‘I want to see them together, just the lads on their own. Look at the group dynamics. That should tell us who are the weaker players and who is calling the shots. Then we can target them more effectively and dig deeper.’

  ‘Yes, good idea. There has to be a ringleader and it makes sense to separate them so we can pick off the weaker ones. That won’t be easy. They each come with a lawyer, but I’m sure we can call them all in together and then come up with an excuse to give the lawyers a briefing so we can view the boys alone. Leave that to me. We won’t obviously be able to question them without their briefs. Any ideas as to how to stir up the happy family?’

  ‘We need a catalyst, something that is going to get them scared. Think about turning on each other. An image of the tattoo might do it. If they’ve all got them, then it’s evidence they’re linked and that might panic them. You could perhaps accidentally drop the papers or just allow them to see it. Wouldn’t you be disclosing that to the lawyers, anyway? Tell them you want their clients to voluntarily disclose if they have one or not.’

  ‘I think that can all be arranged.’ John smiled and rubbed his hands together. He was clearly relishing the upcoming battle. ‘Harrison, we can watch. David and Emily, you run the interviews as before.’

  John and his team succeeded in arranging for all five of the Moatside students to come in and ‘help with enquiries’ later that afternoon. They were reluctant, but the lawyers all agreed, probably because they wanted to know what the police had and how to proceed with defending their clients.

  The five students were shown into a large interview suite, where they all sat with their own briefs, waiting to be called in. Harrison and John were watching them next door.

  All of the lads carried the air of money about them, a confidence and grooming that said they could always have the best. They were dressed, as only rich people could, to look casual but dripping with top-notch brand named clothes that would have cost a fortune. Their attire was a long way from the majority of Primark and ASOS clad students who walked the streets of Durham and other University corridors.

  ‘They don’t look too worried, do they?’ John commented. The lads were lounging on the chairs, looking as if they were waiting for a train, not to be interviewed as part of a murder enquiry. ‘Let’s hope David can wipe the smirks off their faces.’

  Right on cue, David walked into the room and proceeded to ask the lawyers if they could come with him to another room for a quick briefing. As he talked, he placed his folder of notes down on the table in the middle of the room. An image of the tattoo was clear for everyone to see. All the lads’ eyes were drawn to it, and the atmosphere in the room noticeably changed. Those with suits on followed David out of the room, and he picked up his folder on the way, holding the picture outermost to ensure everyone had seen it.

  As soon as the door was shut, two of the lads turned to the others.

  ‘Did you see the tattoo?’ One of them whispered.

  ‘That’s James Althrop,’ John said to Harrison.

  He was a good-looking young man with black hair and a healthy suntan. Dressed in a Berluti branded hoody with black chinos, his whole outfit would have probably set his parents back by at least £1,000. Harrison wrote a note next to his name.

  ‘They don’t know what it means, we can just say it’s a friendship thing.’

  ‘David Alexander,’ John identified him to Harrison.

  Being good looking appeared to be a prerequisite for this group. Harrison wouldn’t call any of them, plain, apart from the one who sat slightly apart from the others in the corner.

  ‘David’s father is a retail billionaire, minor member of the nobility, but invested well and obviously has a good business head. He married a super model. He’s their only child so set to inherit a fortune.’ John added.

  Harrison mused that money attracted good looks and even if one parent hadn’t fared so well in those stakes, the other would be more likely to be stunning. David was the best looking of them all. He gave the impression he’d just dropped by from a film set. Blonde hair and bright blue eyes and a fit body. All of these lads had a lot to lose if they were found guilty of murder. No wonder the parents had brought in the big gun lawyers.

  ‘Shut it. It is a friendship mark.’ The brown-haired lad in the corner hissed to them all. His accent was American, and he was the least good looking out of all of them. He glared at each one, raising his eyebrows and making it obvious that walls might have ears.

  ‘And that is Joseph Goode. The dad’s some kind of porn film mogul. Made his fortune making trashy videos in the days when videos were a thing and streaming was when you had a runny nose as a kid!’

  ‘Should we come up with something so we can say what it stands for if they ask?’ James asked Joseph, tentatively.

  ‘No just say no comment like we’ve been told,’ he whispered back, barely audible.

  They all went quiet.

  Harrison watched their faces closely. There were a few glances towards Joseph, with just the occasional furtive look at each other. He stayed in the same relaxed pose, almost ignoring them while they waited for their lawyers to return.

  ‘Well, that wasn’t too exciting, but it seemed to confirm what we suspected. What do you think Harrison?’

  ‘Joseph Goode is obviously the ringleader and we should concentrate on James Althrop as the weakest link. I’d definitely like to know a lot more about Mr Goode and his background.’

  ‘Let’s see how the interviews go. I’d like to try to hold them here as long as possible, see if we can rattle them some more.’

  The first interview was with Oscar Whittington, who sat next to his suited lawyer in the interview room with the air of someone who was going to be untouchable. His hair was dead straight, and he had a sort of lopsided fringe which kept falling over his left eye, causing him to make a very irritating flick of his head.

  The interview started in an unremarkable way, as they are apt to. Oscar gave his name no problem and confirmed that he was a housemate of the recently deceased George. At the mention of George’s name, emotion momentarily overtook Oscar’s selfish survival instincts. The emotion for his friend seemed genuine, but Harrison also detected a slight undercurrent of something else. An element of fear.

  When Emily asked him to tell her what happened on the day of the murder, Oscar launched into his well-rehearsed story. Harrison could tell it was rehearsed for several reasons. Firstly, there were too many times where he paused as his mind clearly tried to remember what it was he should say, choosing his words carefully rather than simply recounting a memory. He also watched the faces of Emily and David very closely, searching for signs that they were believing him, or that he hadn’t said something which contradicted with his previous statement or that by one of the others. His story was also completely in sequence. There was no jumping around, it was one time point after another. When he’d recounted the entire day, ending with George saying he was going out for a walk to meet a friend, it was with relief, as though he’d managed to recite a memorised poem at a gala.

  Then the questions began, and his body language shifted. Now he was going to have to think on his feet, and he became defensive. His arms moved to lock across his chest, and he started to swallow harder. It was also at this point that he started to throw glances at his lawyer, which seemed to be for support, and to double check that the latest lie had passed the test.

  When the interviewer asked Oscar if he knew who George had met, there was no doubt in Harrison’s mind that he was lying.

  ‘No, no I don’t. Absolutely not
,’ Oscar had replied. There was over negation in his answer, and his voice dropped in volume. Shortly after, Harrison saw him rub his nose. His blood pressure had risen, causing the capillaries in his nostrils to swell and itch. Oscar was lying. There was no doubt about that. Question was why and who was he protecting? Himself or someone else?

  The next three interviews went pretty much along the same lines. James Althrop, Mark Lloyd-Jones and David Alexander, all repeated the same story, pretty much word for word. They’d got up. Everyone had been fine. Most of them went out to various different departments and lecture halls, and then they all came home for dinner. They ate together and afterwards, George said he was going out for a walk and had arranged to meet a friend. When it came to the questioning, they too showed subtle signs of stress. They had to all be in on the lie. That meant the five might not only have colluded in hiding Christopher’s death, but now they were colluding in murder.

  DS Urquhart asked Mark and David about Christopher. When he showed David the two photographs of them talking, there had been a visible shiver run across his face. He clearly hadn’t been expecting that. He regained his composure quickly however, told him that they were at school together so had occasionally bumped into each other and any other questions after that he just shrugged and said he didn’t know.

  It was the final interview that Harrison found the most interesting. Joseph Goode, the American student. There was an extra air of confidence about him. He leaned back in the chair and put his arms behind his head. It was a relaxed pose, opening up his body and showing that he wasn’t scared of anything. He repeated the same story as the others, but there were a couple of subtle differences.

  At the first mention of George, Harrison watched his face closely. Where the others had showed signs of grief, Joseph’s reaction was fake. Instead of his eyebrows being raised and the corners of his mouth going down, Joseph’s eyebrows also went down and his mouth went in to some kind of a pout. It was like a child who had done something wrong and was now trying to look contrite in front of their parents, without feeling any real remorse.

  The other sign for Harrison, was the fact Joseph never once mentioned George by name. It was always ‘he’ or ‘him’. He had distanced himself from George psychologically.

  When David questioned him about the tattoo, he stuck to the script.

  ‘Would you mind if I went in and asked some questions?’ Harrison turned to John.

  ‘No, be my guest. Make him squirm, won’t you!’

  Harrison walked next door. He saw the suspicion on Joseph’s face when he entered and knew he had a few moments of the upper hand while he worked him out.

  ‘Dr Lane is a psychologist working with us,’ said DS Urquhart, ‘He has a few additional questions.’

  Harrison sat down and put his elbows onto the table so that he could draw his upper body up straight. He wanted to be physically dominating to see what effect that had on Joseph.

  ‘So Joseph, you have a little secret association going on. Tell me how that came about?’

  Joseph glared back at him, pausing before speaking.

  ‘It’s just a friendship group, that’s all.’

  ‘But two of your friendship group are dead.’

  ‘Two?’

  ‘Yes, we know there are links between the group and Christopher Downey who went missing a year ago. I’m sure you’re aware that we have recently recovered his remains.’

  He didn’t bat an eyelid.

  ‘What kind of links, Dr Lane?’

  He hadn’t taken long to regain his composure and wasn’t intimidated. He clearly thought he could bat back to Harrison.

  ‘We have photographs of Christopher socialising with Mark and David.’

  ‘He was in our college and I believe he went to school with Mark. They were bound to hook up now and then. What are you implying, Dr Lane?’

  Harrison went down another route, unfazed.

  ‘You dropped out of college in the US, didn’t you?’

  Joseph shrugged.

  ‘You obviously know I did. Didn’t like the course.’

  ‘Did you want to start your own Skull and Bones society? Couldn’t get into the real thing at Yale so thought you’d start your own here?’ Harrison asked Joseph.

  ‘Be real, Dr Lane, the Skull and Bones society is not far off two hundred years old and has its own properties. Do you really think our little dinner parties are on the same scale?’

  ‘I think you wanted the same effect. The brotherhood, the secrecy, the opportunity to get away with anti-social behaviour all in the name of your little group.’ Harrison emphasised the word little.

  ‘That’s a lot of,’ he turned to his lawyer, ‘what do you call it? Ah yes, conjecture, or should I say, guesswork.’

  He turned back to Harrison and glared at him defiantly.

  Harrison did the same into Joseph Goode’s eyes. He could see the anger smouldering in them because he’d challenged him. Yet they still said that he thought he was untouchable. He went for the topic he suspected might be Joseph’s Achilles heel.

  ‘You know, what I don’t get is that all the rest of the lads in the house are all linked to British nobility, they’re from the privileged class, old money. Then there’s you. The odd one out. How did you get invited into that group?’

  Harrison watched the twitch on Joseph Goode’s smug face. He’d hit a bullseye. That clearly struck home.

  ‘I’m not going to even bother answering that question.’

  Harrison smiled.

  ‘Thank you, I got my answer.’

  Joseph’s face tightened, and he pulled his lips tight to keep his control. Then he leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms defiantly as he watched Harrison leave the room.

  ‘Smug bastard, isn’t he, but I think you rang his bell towards the end,’ DI Steadman smirked at Harrison as he returned to the viewing room. ‘I think from what we’ve seen, they’re definitely hiding something. Now we have to find out if they’re all involved in both deaths. I’m not going to let them get off scot free. What’s the Skull and Bones Society?’

  ‘It’s the oldest secret society at Yale University. Said to count some of the most powerful people in America amongst its members. Been going since the 1800s and has its own property, called the Tomb, and its own Island retreat. Former presidents have been members, and other very senior politicians and powerful businessmen. Lots of conspiracy theories around its membership and what goes on at ceremonies.’

  ‘There is a whole other world out there I never even knew existed.’

  ‘Indeed, but you can be sure that Joseph Goode would not have been invited to join it.’

  Harrison’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He’d been expecting a text from Ryan.

  ‘I think we might have something. My colleague has just told me that six months after Joseph Goode left the American college he’d been studying at before Durham, they received a very large donation. Ralph Goode, Joseph’s father was the donor.’ Harrison looked up from his phone. ‘Why give a very large donation to somewhere that your son didn’t enjoy and didn’t even finish his degree at?’

  ‘We spoke to them. They said he left because the course wasn’t the right fit for him. There was no evidence of a scandal.’

  ‘Then I find that very peculiar. Why would his father pay a very large donation to the University after Joseph left? If you give donations it’s to say thank you for something, surely?’

  ‘You’re right, it sounds like a pay-off. I’ll get on to it straight away. Someone must know what was behind it. In the meantime we’ll think of something to keep them here to stew a bit. I’m sure the lawyers will be quite happy racking up their hourly fees while they hang around.’

  Harrison put Joseph Goode at the top of his suspect list and told Ryan to keep digging. He decided to go through the CCTV again from the night that George was killed, just in case he spotted Joseph sneaking down to the riverside. Everyone on the team was feverishly working to find that one extra
clue which could give them the upper hand in the investigation. All eyes kept looking at the clock. It was just a matter of time before the Moatside mob and their lawyers walked out.

  Harrison was getting nowhere with the CCTV, which didn’t surprise him. Joseph wasn’t a fool. He’d have covered his tracks if it was him who killed George.

  ‘We’ve just heard back from Dr Sharma,’ John announced to the team, ‘George had some evidence of trauma to his thigh and buttocks area. Nothing as severe as he found on Christopher, but he would be able to confidently say that George had at some point in the last couple of years, been hit several times, or beaten.’

  That news spurred everyone on. The evidence was mounting.

  John paced up and down the incident room. They were close to making a breakthrough, and he had the paperwork all ready to submit for a search warrant. He just needed something else to give them enough grounds to search Moatside and to use as leverage with the weaker members of the group. They’d already heard from all the lawyers that their clients declined the invitation to show if they had a tattoo on their hips. That hadn’t been a surprise.

  Suddenly, DS Urquhart slammed down the phone and jumped up triumphantly. ‘Yes!’ He said punching the air. ‘We’ve got him. The president of Joseph Goode’s college wouldn’t say a word, said the matter was all sorted, but I spoke to a local news journalist who was delighted to talk to me. She’d been disgusted at what had gone on. Joseph was accused of hazing and bullying in the sorority house he belonged to. The college kept it out of police hands and his father paid off the lad he beat severely, and made the donation to the college. She described him as a sadistic bully who was obsessed with feelings of inferiority because of where his dad had come from and where their money was made. Cost the dad a fortune to keep it out the papers and pay everyone off. Her paper wouldn’t run with the story because his lawyers were all over them and would have tied them up in court for years. If they hadn’t bankrupted them first. She’s emailing me over some information.’ David positively beamed with the news and it instantly lifted the mood of the entire incident room.