Written in Blood

by Stephen Puleston

  The room had a busy, bustling feel. A glazed extension provided for a generous kitchen with granite worktops and a dining table large enough to seat a dozen people. Behind it, bifold doors led onto a patio where Drake noticed an enormous gas barbecue. A door led to what Drake assumed was the garage.

  At one end of the table a woman, drawn and pale, her auburn hair lifeless and unbrushed, sat nursing an oversized goblet of white wine.

  Drake stepped over. ‘My name is Detective Inspector Ian Drake of the Wales Police Service. I am most sorry for your loss. This is Detective Sergeant Morgan.’

  Levine took a substantial mouthful of wine. Uninvited, Drake and Sara sat down. The family liaison officer stood in the kitchen area.

  ‘I told him to be careful.’ Levine struggled not to slur. ‘I never liked the business Tom was doing. He could be really stupid. And he had some nasty friends. All those bastards in the sailing club.’

  She emptied more of the wineglass.

  ‘Do you know where your husband was last night?’ Drake asked, allowing the woman to talk.

  She looked up at Drake. ‘He was at the sailing club. We all were – some fancy do for the start of the season. I couldn’t abide the place.’

  ‘When did your husband leave? Were you expecting him home last night?’

  ‘Not particularly. He often stays on Terra Firma if he’s had a skinful.’

  ‘Do you do a lot of sailing, Mrs Levine?’ Sara said.

  She guffawed. ‘I hate it. I can’t even swim. I was only here because Tom wanted to keep up with his mates. He thought it would be handy for business.’ Dot Levine looked over at Sara. ‘I hate this fucking place.’ Then she reached for the wine bottle and emptied its contents into her glass.

  Chapter 18

  Easter Saturday 30th March

  3.19 pm

  Taking time for a hurried lunch invigorated Sara, even if it was the middle of the afternoon. She finished her coffee as Drake pushed the remains of his uneaten sandwich to the corner of his plate. He beckoned over a waitress, mimicking the writing of a bill. A couple of Sara’s friends had texted yesterday telling her how much they were missing her on their Guinness-fuelled trip around the pubs of Dublin. She hadn’t replied, but that morning she had responded only to find her message box filled with more pithy remarks and photographs of smiling faces raising glasses at the camera.

  ‘Anything interesting?’ Drake joined Sara outside the café after paying.

  ‘Nothing, just friends’ stuff.’ It might sound like sour grapes to complain that she had missed her holiday when all the team were working that weekend.

  A short drive took them back to the marina where more uniformed officers guarded the entrance ramp to the pontoons. A crime scene perimeter tape flickered across the pontoon leading to Terra Firma.

  Sara followed Drake into the marina building. The sound of a crackling radio drifted down the stairs and voices filtered out of various rooms. On the first floor they entered a room with ‘Control Centre’ embossed on a brass plate underneath a glass section.

  The room provided a perfect view over the harbour entrance and marina.

  Tides, wind speeds and expected arrivals were marked up on a whiteboard. Two men sat by tables browsing images from CCTV footage.

  ‘Which one of you is the harbour master?’ Drake said.

  The older man, his bald head glistening in the artificial light, stood up and reached out a hand. ‘Mervyn Phillips.’

  Phillips glanced briefly at Drake’s warrant card before they shook hands. ‘I’m Detective Inspector Drake and this is Detective Sergeant Sara Morgan.’

  Phillips turned to his companion. ‘This is Joe; he was on duty this morning.’

  Drake tipped his head towards the equipment. ‘Do you have CCTV footage of visitors to the marina?’

  ‘Everybody who needs access to the pontoons has to go through the security gate. There’s always somebody here and the footage is kept for a month before it’s erased automatically.’

  ‘Is there a record of Tom Levine arriving?’

  ‘It was last night,’ Joe said. ‘He looked to be pissed up to the eyeballs. He couldn’t walk straight, and he had trouble punching in the code.’

  ‘Show us,’ Drake said.

  Joe fiddled with the controls on the desk before the screen filled with the grainy images of the night before. They watched in silence as Tom Levine staggered to the entrance gate. After negotiating the security code, he wandered down the ramp, banging into the sides occasionally. Somebody had visited Tom Levine and he had been killed as he slept, Sara guessed.

  ‘Can we see the footage from this morning?’ Drake said.

  ‘I can send you it all,’ Phillips said.

  Joe fussed over the computer again and leaned back once the screen came to life. At seven o’clock a group of three men with tools and equipment, who arrived at the security gate, took Sara’s attention. She squinted at the images on the monitor. One of them looked familiar. Where had she seen his face before? She moved nearer the desk and studied the footage. ‘Can you stop it there?’

  Joe did as he was told. He froze the image as one of the men turned his face towards the camera.

  ‘That’s Jamie Eaton,’ Sara announced.

  Drake joined Sara. ‘We’ve been looking for this guy.’

  ‘You won’t have to look far,’ Joe said.

  Drake and Sara turned towards him.

  ‘He was in the bar at Plas Heli next door an hour ago.’

  Drake scribbled an email address on a card and thrust it at Phillips before rushing for the door. They took the stairs down to the ground floor two at a time. They jogged over towards Plas Heli, the sailing centre built several years previously, and threaded their way through the car park.

  Dozens of youngsters with small dinghies and adults fussing over them filled the main hall. Sara searched the faces; Drake did likewise.

  ‘The bar must be upstairs, boss.’

  They turned on their heels and hurried to the staircase.

  At the top Drake pushed open a door. The bar area heaved with customers standing at the bar, others sitting at tables finishing their meals. The smell of chip fat hung in the air. Outside on a balcony more of the sailing fraternity mingled in the spring sunshine. Eaton could have left of course, Sara thought as she searched the faces of the diners.

  Drake made his way through the drinkers mingling at the bar, checking every man who appeared to be the right age. Sara followed him, wanting to make certain he didn’t miss anyone. He showed the photograph of Eaton to one of the staff, who nodded towards the glass doors from the restaurant area to the terrace they’d seen earlier. Muscling their way back through the crowd proved heavy going. The occasional profanity assaulted her ears as she and Drake caused beer to be spilled onto clothes and shoes.

  The spring air was cool on Sara’s cheeks as they left the warmth of the bar.

  On the open terrace she was almost tempted to interrupt couples where she couldn’t get a proper look at a husband or boyfriend. As they neared a larger group of younger men, Sara noticed one of the waitresses surreptitiously glancing over at her. And then a moment later a figure rushed away from the group. Sara dragged at Drake’s coat. ‘He’s done a runner, boss.’

  They set off in pursuit, reaching a staircase that Sara almost fell down in her haste. She made for the car park while Drake sprinted round to the front of the building. Where the hell had he gone? She peered into cars and SUVs but they were all high-end models and she decided it was unlikely that Eaton drove anything that expensive, so she sprinted out into the road. Drake joined her and had to stop, his breathing heavy and laboured.

  ‘Have you seen him?’ Drake gasped.

  The sound of a car engine failing to start took her attention, and she noticed a blue Volkswagen Golf, its paint faded, the number plate hanging off.

  ‘There he is, boss.’

  They started running but Eaton set off in a cloud of dust and gravel as he
shot out of the car park.

  Drake stopped. ‘Let’s get back to the car.’

  By the time Sara reached Drake’s Mondeo she was sticky and breathless, and her pulse pounded in her head.

  ‘Did you get the registration number?’ Drake sounded hoarse.

  ‘Yes.’ Sara was already calling operational support on her mobile.

  Sara switched on the satnav as Drake accelerated towards the junction Eaton had taken. She finished her call, knowing that every police officer, community support officer and even the road traffic officers would be looking for a blue Golf. Drake flashed his lights and blasted the horn at two vehicles in his way, who veered to one side. Sara fiddled with the satnav screen until the map of the surrounding area appeared.

  ‘There are a number of junctions off this main road he could have taken,’ Sara said, noticing the minor roads that led back into the countryside and the lanes to the right that led towards the coast.

  After a roundabout near Afon Wen, Sara spotted the Golf stuck behind an enormous tractor pulling a trailer piled high with topsoil. Eaton was dodging in and out of the opposite lane trying to get a clear passage to overtake but there was a regular stream of oncoming traffic.

  ‘There he is,’ Sara called out.

  Drake pressed on and when the tractor slowed into a layby he floored the accelerator. Ahead, a puff of smoke left the Volkswagen’s exhaust as it hurtled towards the village of Llanystymdwy. Sara could see from the satnav that at this speed they would be in Criccieth shortly. Surely he would slow down as he travelled through the town, where there’d be pedestrians, children and lots of traffic. But he barely slowed. The main street was straight and Sara could hear Eaton blasting his horn as he charged on. Sara glanced over, reading the worry on Drake’s face.

  Her mobile rang, and she yanked the handset from her jacket, realising it was area control. ‘One of the traffic cars from western area division will be in Porthmadog within three minutes. And there are two vehicles from Caernarfon travelling south that will be with you in fifteen minutes.’

  Eaton had disappeared from view as the road meandered inland around Moel y Gest, its twists and turns following the contours of the land. They passed under a bridge that carried the Cambrian Coast railway line and in the distance they saw Eaton overtaking three vehicles, an oncoming bus flashing him furiously. He cut back in with inches to spare. The traffic slowed towards a junction, but Drake couldn’t overtake, and he slammed his hand against the steering wheel. There was no sign of Eaton when they reached the outskirts of Porthmadog.

  ‘See if you can find the patrol car,’ Drake said, negotiating the main roundabout in the middle of the town before sedately travelling past shops and cafés. Sara’s mobile rang again.

  ‘We have a positive identification on your Volkswagen.’ She didn’t recognise the voice of the road traffic officer. ‘It’s down by the port area.’

  Sara gave Drake the details.

  Drake nodded as he drove down to the bottom of the main street and indicated right where they joined the patrol car with its lights flashing, two officers wearing high-visibility jackets standing next to a discarded blue Volkswagen.

  ‘Any sign of him?’ Drake said once they joined the officers.

  Both shook their heads.

  ‘Why the hell did he come here?’

  * * *

  Northern Division headquarters was eerily quiet when Drake and Sara returned that evening.

  Winder and Luned sat at their usual desks and Drake joined them in the Incident Room. Sara returned from the kitchen with a coffee for them both. He tried and failed to remember when he had last eaten anything.

  ‘Are we going to organise house-to-house enquiries in Porthmadog?’ Winder said.

  Underlining the question was the clear hope that the rest of the young officer’s weekend wasn’t going to be ruined by the inquiry.

  Drake nodded. ‘We’ve also organised for the sailing club to request as many of their members who were present on Friday evening when Levine was at the sailing club to gather tomorrow morning before they start their Sunday morning regatta. We’ll get names, addresses and as much detail as we can.’

  ‘Anything yet from the forensics?’ Luned said.

  ‘The MO looks exactly the same as the Nicholas Wixley murder scene. Even down to the Rotherham United football club socks,’ Sara said.

  Drake looked over at Winder. ‘We need to contact the Rotherham United football club shop. They might have a record of people who have bought socks in the last few months.’

  Winder scribbled a reminder to himself.

  ‘Any luck in tracking down the journalists?’ Drake asked Luned.

  ‘I’m still waiting to hear about Hector Murren but I’ve spoken to all the rest. And I’ve narrowed the likely source of the pink gilet to half dozen shops. I called one today and I’ll contact the rest at the beginning of the week.’

  There was a tired, despairing edge to Winder’s voice. ‘There’s hours of CCTV footage, boss, from garage forecourts along the coast. And I haven’t started tracking down possible footage from any other route she might have taken through Porthmadog or Blaenau Ffestiniog or Bala so it could be days before we have anything helpful.’

  Drake took a mouthful of the coffee. It was hot and wet and at that moment in time he didn’t care that it tasted awful. ‘There’s nothing more we can do tonight. Go home. We’ve got the house-to-house in Porthmadog tomorrow morning.’

  Drake could see the despondency on their faces at the prospect of working the entire weekend.

  Luned’s number rang as they finished up for the evening. Drake saw the serious look on her face crease to a troubled frown. She finished the call and turned to face him. ‘That was Hector Murren’s partner. He was expected home this afternoon and he hasn’t arrived.’

  Chapter 19

  Easter Sunday 31st March

  9.09 am

  Porthmadog had a sombre, Sunday morning Welsh Puritan feel. None of the shops were open yet. Not Bible black but stillness Drake welcomed.

  Winder and Luned had travelled separately to join Drake and Sara at the quayside in the centre of the town. Winder’s journey from Colwyn Bay had been significantly longer than Luned’s, who lived in a village on the north coast of the Llŷn Peninsula. Drake struggled to unfurl a large-scale plan of the town over the bonnet of his car. Terraces fanned out from the middle – getting the house-to-house inquiries completed was a priority. He could see the buds of resentment on the faces around him, so making certain they could all have Bank Holiday Monday away from the inquiry was a priority too.

  That morning they had to find Jamie Eaton.

  ‘Do we have any idea if he has a connection to Porthmadog?’ Winder said.

  ‘None that we know of,’ Drake said.

  A main road divided Porthmadog neatly into two halves, and Drake allocated a team of uniformed officers to Winder and Luned.

  Drake and Sara left and retraced their steps from the night before back to Pwllheli. The car park at Plas Heli bustled with activity as sailors arrived for the morning’s race. On the first floor Drake recognised Wixley’s sailing friends, Marcus Abbott and Colin Horton. A woman of the same age accompanied both men, and Drake guessed they must have been their respective spouses. Michael Kennedy sat with a group of three other people.

  A tall man with a brusque manner and a loud voice walked over to Drake, announcing he was the club secretary. ‘Do you want to make an announcement or something? There’s a lot of racing today and everyone is keen to get out onto the water.’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  He turned and proceeded to call for everyone’s attention, and conversations muted to a silence. ‘Detective Inspector Ian Drake wants to say a few words.’

  Drake cleared his throat and then raised his voice a couple of decibels. ‘We need details of who was present on Friday evening at the party Tom Levine attended. Detective Sergeant Morgan and myself will take full details from everybody.’
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  Drake and Sara found a table each and jotted down the basic details of every party-goer’s name, date of birth, home address and mobile telephone details. That morning only confirmation of whether Tom Levine had been seen leaving the sailing club in his drunken state was needed. Any eyewitness would be interviewed in more detail later.

  An hour passed before Marcus Abbott and his wife Jessica sat in front of Drake. ‘This is dreadful,’ Abbott announced. ‘I feel sick.’ His thin, waxy complexion left Drake in no doubt that the brutal killing of two of his friends had affected him.

  ‘Is there any danger? I mean, there must be a serial killer out there.’ Jessica Abbott cast a glance over her shoulder but her whispered comments couldn’t have been heard by anyone.

  ‘Did either of you see Tom Levine on Friday evening?’ Drake managed a kindly tone.

  Abbott nodded although his wife looked frightened. Drake scribbled down as much as Abbott could recall while confessing to have drunk far too much himself. Neither of them had seen Levine leaving the party and he hadn’t been missed.

  ‘How is Dot?’ Jessica leaned over the table, an earnest look on her face. ‘I haven’t been able to… work up the courage to visit her yet.’ She bowed her head in embarrassment.

  ‘Mrs Levine is obviously very distressed. If we need to contact you again, officers from my team will be in touch.’

  Selston arrived mid-morning and bustled his way to Drake’s table. ‘I was at the party briefly and I had nothing to do with Tom Levine. A cousin of mine is a keen sailor and he and his family were here. I felt a duty to attend.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t sail,’ Drake replied.

  Selston ignored him, got to his feet, and glared at Drake and Sara. Then he left.

  Another half a dozen guests gave similar accounts to Drake before Michael and Pamela Kennedy sat down.