Dave Slater Mystery Novels Box Set One

by Ford, P. F.

  ‘So what was on the CD?’ asked Norman, as he poured two cups of tea from the urn.

  ‘There are four files,’ Slater told him. ‘The first one is like a report about what went on at the orphanage. You’ll need to read it yourself, but basically what it says is that new kids arriving at Hatton House went through a sort of selection process. The cute looking ones went into a group called the Special Ones. Florence was a Special One.

  ‘They were kept apart from the other kids and got treated much better, but in return they were subjected to regular sexual abuse at the hands of a group of men which included the man who ran the place and assorted dignitaries from Tinton and the surrounding area. Mr Winter is pretty sure these kids never appeared on any register at Hatton House, so officially they didn’t exist. ‘

  ‘Jesus,’ said Norman, in disgust. ‘So that would explain why he lost track of his sister. But surely there must have been some record of those kids being sent there.’

  ‘Mr Winter reckons the people responsible for those registers were also the abusers, so they were able to cover their tracks quite easily. It makes grim reading, and of course he’s had to speculate about some of it. He also claims they were disposed of once they reached their sell-by date.’

  ‘What, you mean murdered?’ asked a horrified Norman.

  ‘Well, I guess that would be one way,’ said Slater. ‘Or they could just have been sold on, I suppose.’

  ‘So how come Florence was still around?’ asked Norman.

  ‘He didn’t know the answer to that one, but that’s why Florence would have been a great witness. She could have told us what really happened and filled in some of the gaps for us.’

  ‘I’m not sure we would have got much out of her, to be honest,’ said Norman, sadly. ‘She wasn’t exactly living in the real world. But it’s irrelevant anyway. She can’t tell us anything now.’

  They sipped their tea in silence for a minute or two.

  ‘Did he name any names in this report?’ asked Norman.

  ‘There are two or three names who were supposedly involved in the abuse. None of the names jump off the page at me, but then it’s all before my time. A bit of research should help though.’

  ‘So what else is there?’

  ‘There’s a list of names, supposedly staff who worked there, but we’ll have to check. If it is, maybe we can find someone who can corroborate this story.’

  ‘It’s definitely worth a try,’ said Norman.

  ‘Then there’s a copy of a letter,’ added Slater.

  ‘From way back then?’ asked Norman.

  ‘Oh, no. This is much more recent. It’s dated just a couple of months ago. It’s addressed to the man Mr Winter thinks was the ringleader way back then, so it gives us a suspect for these two murders.’

  ‘Fantastic!’ said Norman. ‘Who is it?’

  ‘Sir Robert Maunder,’ said Slater.

  ‘You’re kidding me.’ Norman’s mouth was hanging open. ‘I met him just a few days ago when his house got broken into. The guy’s a total arsehole, that’s for sure, but I’m not sure he’s fit enough to murder anyone. He’s over eighty years old.’

  ‘It’s amazing what people can do when they feel threatened,’ said Slater.

  ‘Well I’ll certainly look forward to questioning him. I owe him a hard time.’

  ‘I also spoke to the people who sent us the CD,’ said Slater.

  ‘Learn anything?’

  ‘Quite a bit, actually.’ Slater grinned, feeling pleased with himself. ‘It turns out Mr Winter only opened his account a few weeks ago. He paid for a year upfront, and apparently he was very concerned about security and anonymity. He wanted to make sure there was no way anyone else could find out what he was doing.’

  ‘Just a few weeks ago,’ said Norman. ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking?’

  ‘Maybe Sir Robert didn’t like the letter he was sent,’ said Slater.

  ‘And he threatened Winter,’ finished Norman.

  ‘He must have felt he was in a lot of danger,’ continued Slater, nodding his agreement. ‘So he set up the back-up system to make sure his information stayed safe, even if he didn’t.’

  ‘And now we can see why he invited the big story journalist to tell his story,’ said Norman. ‘No wonder the guy’s still sniffing around.’

  ‘He’s not off the hook yet. We know he was making phone calls to Mr Winter at the time. We’ve only got his word for it that he wasn’t threatening the old guy.’

  ‘Yeah,’ agreed Norman. ‘But we haven’t found anything to contradict what he told us. I don’t fancy him for it, and I don’t think you do deep down inside. Don’t forget what he said about killing the golden goose. It wouldn’t make sense for the scandal-mongering journalist to kill the guy with the juicy story to tell, would it?’

  ‘Yeah, it makes much more sense for the subject of that scandal to kill him, doesn’t it?’ agreed Slater.

  ‘We’ll need to tread carefully if we’re gonna catch the old guy,’ warned Norman. ‘He seems to have a direct line to the chief constable, and I’m sure he’s got lots more friends in various high places. He’ll run squealing to them as soon as he gets a sniff we’re on to him, then they’ll all close ranks, and we’ll be left, high and dry, right in the middle of a shit storm.’

  ‘We’d better make sure we’ve got it right before we show our hand then, Norm,’ said Slater.

  Chapter 23

  It was a tired, sad, and depressed team that gathered next morning. Slater and Norman had been up at Hatton House until way past midnight, and had each managed about four hours sleep. Jolly had been administered a rather heavy duty sedative to make sure she slept, and it was obvious to everyone she encountered that she was still half asleep when she arrived at the station that morning.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ asked Slater, when she walked in. ‘We weren’t expecting you to come in today.’

  ‘Like I can sit at home knowing Florence would still be alive if it wasn’t for me,’ she said glumly. ‘I’m here because I feel I have to help you two solve this case.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ he asked. ‘We understand if-’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure,’ she interrupted. ‘And I do appreciate your concern, but I really can’t sit back and do nothing.’

  ‘Okay, I can understand that. But the deal is you let us know if you’re finding it difficult, alright?’

  ‘I’ll be fine. Honestly. Where’s Norm?’

  ‘He’s gone downstairs to see what forensics have got for us. He’ll be back in a minute.’

  When Norman came back, he was even more concerned for Jolly’s welfare. Slater felt he should indulge him for a couple of minutes, but it was Jolly who was quick to point out that she was still alive and that it was Florence they should be focusing upon.

  ‘Right, then,’ said Slater, finally. ‘Let’s see what we’ve got to work with and where we go from here. If we assume the information on the CD is correct, we now have a prime suspect in the form of Sir Robert Maunder. However, because of who he is, we can more or less guarantee barriers will be erected all around him as soon as his name comes out. So we need to build a much stronger case than we have right now.

  ‘We need to find anything we can that links him to the orphanage. We have a list of names that appears to be staff members. Maybe we can locate someone who can back up Mr Winter’s story.’

  ‘What if we find someone who says it’s all crap?’ asked Jolly. ‘I don’t want to find these two people have died for nothing.’

  ‘That’s a risk we have to take,’ said Norman. ‘I can assure you Maunder is a complete arse, but at the moment he’s an innocent arse unless we can prove otherwise. And anyway, we can’t ignore the possibility that Winter just had it in for him and this is all fiction.’

  Jolly didn’t look at all happy at Norman’s suggestion that Mr Winter was making the whole thing up.

  ‘I can’t believe that!’ she snapped.

  ‘I don’t think a
ny of us believe it, Jane,’ said Slater. ‘But we can’t ignore the possibility. That’s why we need to find the evidence to prove it. There must have been records of all the kids who were put into the care of that orphanage. It’s got to be worth trying to find them. Can you get onto that, Jane? Start with the local council, county council. You know what to do.’

  ‘Why don’t I combine that with the search for information about Hatton House?’ suggested Jolly. ‘It seems they’re almost one and the same thing.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Slater.

  ‘Are we ruling Rippon out as a suspect now?’ asked Norman.

  ‘I think we can push him back down the queue, but he’s still a suspect. What if he’s the one with the hard disk? Maybe he was hoping Florence would know the password.’

  Slater saw the look on Norman’s face.

  ‘If he had a copy,’ argued Norman, ‘he wouldn’t need Florence to help him. The guy’s a professional. He must know someone who could access that information.’

  ‘Look. I agree it’s probably as unlikely as Winter telling lies, Norm, but he still has a motive. We can’t ignore him yet. Anyway, what did forensics come up with?’

  ‘Well,’ said Norman with a smile, ‘it seems our exchange of words might not have done too much harm. They’ve pulled out all the stops on this one. It looks like something was dragged from the log cabin to the canal. Their theory is she was killed outside the cabin and then dragged up to the canal and thrown in. It was dragging her body that created the trail.

  ‘They also found a footprint along this trail. It matches the one found at Mr Winter’s house, same shoe, same size. So we need to find out where Rippon was yesterday afternoon and evening. I think we also need to ask Danny Trent where he was. We didn’t prove he’s ever had a pair of those shoes, but after he admitted he was at Mr Winter’s house we have to assume he could have been at Florence’s too.’

  ‘This is a good start,’ said Slater. ‘Was there anything else?’

  ‘Oh, there’s more,’ said Norman. ‘In the cabin they found a back door key that they think will fit Mr Winter’s back door.’

  ‘If that’s the key we saw, I’m sure it’s his,’ said Jolly.

  ‘They also found a creased sheet of paper that had been roughly smoothed out,’ continued Norman. ‘Remember the torn piece of paper found in Mr Winter’s hand? When they put them together, they found they were a match, and now they can see what the numbers are. It’s a phone number.’

  He held up a sheet of paper with a mobile phone number printed on it.

  ‘I’m sure I’ve seen that number before.’ Slater scrabbled through the papers on his desk. ‘Wait a minute. Yeah. Here it is. It’s Rippon’s number.’

  ‘There’s another question for him to answer, then,’ said Norman.

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘That’s it for this case,’ said Norman. ‘But while I was down there, Becksy gave me something else that I think you might find interesting. Remember I had to go to Maunder’s house when he had this break-in? He assured everyone it was the Night Caller. He even called up the CC to tell him I was an idiot for not immediately agreeing with him.

  ‘Well, Becksy finally got some feedback from Winchester. It’s definitely not the real Night Caller who broke in there. Apparently it’s not the same calling card, but it’s not the usual copycat either. The fakers use the sort of card you can buy anywhere and print from a PC. The real guy uses expensive, fancy card and a very expensive printer you can’t buy just anywhere. Whoever broke in at Maunder’s used the right card, but then made the mistake of using the wrong ink, wrong font, and wrong size. They also used a PC to do the printing. They might have known about the fancy card but they didn’t know the other details.’

  ‘Is it common knowledge about the card?’ asked Slater.

  ‘It’s been reported in press releases that he leaves a card,’ said Norman, with a wicked grin. ‘But it’s never been revealed that he uses fancy card.’

  ‘So what do you think?’ asked Slater.

  ‘Well, I have to say I thought it was all a bit iffy from the start. I mean, they conveniently forgot to set the alarm. The jewellery box was left out in the open, and I’m supposed to believe they both slept while someone came into their bedroom and cleaned the thing out. In my humble opinion it stinks to high heaven, but because he is who he is I was told to back off and leave it.’

  ‘Did he fake it?’ asked Slater. ‘Insurance fraud?’

  ‘Having seen how they all closed ranks, I think it would be fair to say they think he’s squeaky clean. I’m sure he probably knows someone who knows the facts about the Night Caller, and I’m sure if he asked they’d tell him. And, no doubt, once I suggest I need to investigate a bit more thoroughly we’ll see them all close ranks again. Isn’t that going to be fun?’

  ‘So don’t tell anyone,’ said Slater.

  ‘But I was ordered to tell the old man if I want to speak to the guy again.’

  ‘But no-one’s ordered me to stay away,’ said Slater. ‘We now have a reason for going up there and talking to him. We can use the break-in as an excuse for poking around into his background.’

  ‘And starting a shit storm heading our way.’

  ‘Is that a problem?’

  ‘It’s never worried me before,’ said Norman, grinning. ‘And I’m getting a bit long in the tooth for changing my ways now.’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’ Slater smiled back. ‘But we need to do our research thoroughly before we go up there.’

  He leaned back in his chair and fished a coin from his pocket.

  ‘Heads or tails?’

  ‘What am I gonna win if I call it right?’

  ‘If you call it right, you get to stay here and start searching through this list of employees. If you call it wrong, you get to attend the PM.’

  ‘Wow, what a choice. You’re just too kind. Okay, I’ll go heads.’

  Slater spun the coin in the air and slapped his hand over it as it landed on his desk. He tilted his hand just enough to see the coin for himself, but kept it hidden from Norman. His face broke into a broad grin.

  ‘I’m not buying that,’ said Norman, suspiciously. ‘Lemme see.’

  Slater took his hand away to reveal the winning tails.

  ‘Crap,’ said Norman. ‘I hate watching a PM right on lunchtime. There must be somewhere else we should be. Are you sure you don’t want to come?’

  ‘I’d love to accompany you,’ said Slater, grinning, ‘but we need to get cracking on. Jane can’t handle all this research on her own. If you leave now you can have an early lunch before it starts.’

  ‘Watch it on a full stomach? You have to be kidding,’ said Norman, looking aghast. ‘But I will take you up on the “leave now” bit.’

  Slater and Jolly were both engrossed in their computers, the room filled with a deafening silence apart from the clicking of keyboards. Norman had been gone a couple of hours when Slater suddenly cursed loudly.

  ‘Bugger!’ he said. ‘Norman was right when he said there was somewhere else we should be. One of us was supposed to be at John Hunter’s this morning to see the fake sister. I got so involved in Florence’s murder I forgot all about it.’

  He looked at his watch, then snatched up the phone and dialled Hunter’s number.

  ‘Hi, Mr Hunter. It’s DS Slater. I’m afraid we’ve got so involved in another case I forgot I was supposed to be coming in this morning. Has she turned up yet?’

  ‘She’s not coming now,’ said Hunter.

  ‘But I thought she was rushing down to hear you read the will today. I thought she was insisting,’ said Slater, irritated and confused.

  ‘Yes, she was. But now it seems she’s decided against coming down.’

  ‘Did she say why? When is she intending to come down?’ asked Slater, transitioning from irritation to disbelief.

  ‘It seems she no longer wishes to hear the will and no longer claims to be Mr Winter’s long-lost sister.’
<
br />   ‘What? Just like that?’

  ‘Perhaps she knew we were onto her,’ said Hunter

  ‘So she was a fake, just as we suspected,’ said Slater. ‘I’d like to know how she came to get involved in this in the first place.’

  ‘Sergeant, there are people out there who do nothing but look for ads just like the one I placed in a large number of newspapers. I suppose you only need to manage to fake it once and you get your hands on a sizable inheritance.’

  ‘If I wasn’t so busy right now, I’d be after her,’ said Slate, angrily.

  ‘I fear you’d probably be wasting your time,’ said Hunter, mildly. ‘The chances are she’ll have vanished into thin air already.’

  Slater sighed heavily. He knew Hunter was probably right. It was so frustrating though.

  ‘Are you any nearer to finding the real sister?’ asked Hunter.

  ‘Err, yes,’ admitted Slater. ‘We think we have found her. We’ll know for sure when we get the DNA test results back. The problem is she’s dead.’

  ‘Oh my goodness,’ said Hunter. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you that,’ said Slater, grimly.

  He was finding it difficult to hide his irritation, and so he made his excuses and ended the call, finally throwing the phone back into its cradle in disgust.

  ‘What’s happened?’ asked Jolly.

  ‘Apparently this missing sister who was so insistent on coming down has decided to drop out of the whole scene. Suddenly she’s not his sister,’ said Slater bitterly. ‘I was hoping we could find out who she was working for.’

  ‘Maybe she was just working on her own. Perhaps she spends all her time on fishing trips like this one.’

  ‘No,’ said Slater. ‘I’m sure there’s more to it than that. There’s something not right about this whole thing. I just can’t see what it is yet.’

  The door burst open and Norman backed in, carefully balancing three mugs of tea on a small tray.