by Kate Medina
‘Sit down please, Mr Lewin.’
Lewin remained standing, legs jittering, his complexion raspberry. ‘I want to see my son.’
Marilyn slammed both hands flat on the table top, the sound like a shotgun report in the silence. ‘Sit down now, Mr Lewin. Right now. I will not ask you again. I will just charge you with obstructing justice.’
‘Jesus Christ, no wonder the crime rate’s through the fucking roof in this shitty country with people like you in the driving seat,’ Lewin shouted back, but he righted his chair and lowered himself into it. Crossing his arms and legs, he eyeballed Marilyn, unblinking.
Jessie had seen, studied, many people under stress, had read about countless more. Some people remained calm, in control, others folded, collapsed like a house of cards. Still others became angry. Simon Lewin was of the latter breed. She didn’t doubt that he would be perfectly charming when everything was going his way, but as soon as he felt under stress, he’d become aggressive, nasty.
There was static for a few moments after Marilyn pressed play on the digital recording device, white noise between radio stations, then the voice of the 999 operator sounding bored, as if she was answering a call to report a broken boiler or a complaint about an electricity bill.
‘Hello, emergency service operator, which service do you require? Fire, police or ambulance?’
Silence, a burst of noise, a panicked male voice – Lewin’s, must be – fading in and out, the words unintelligible.
‘Please repeat. Which service do you require? Fire, police or ambulance?’
‘Pol—’ Static – fade. ‘Police.’
More static, and background noise, a car driving past? ‘I need the police.’
A click, then another woman’s voice, this one clipped, businesslike.
‘Police emergency. Hello caller, what’s the emergency?’
‘Police.’
Another crackle of white noise, the sound Jessie heard when Callan was out running in the hills and had stopped to call her – no phone masts up there to spoil the beauty. The downside, terrible mobile reception.
‘I need the police.’
‘This is the police, sir. How can I help you?’
The same man’s garbled voice, interspersed with more crackle.
‘Please slow down, sir.’
‘You’re not listening to me. Just send the police.’ Clearer now, and unequivocally Lewin’s voice.
‘Slow down, sir. Your mobile reception is poor and I can’t understand what you’re saying.’
‘—In the countryside … I’m in the countryside. I’m not at home.’ Shouting now, down a line that was clearer, each word enunciated, as if speaking to an intellectually challenged toddler. ‘You need to send the police around to my house. My wife and son are in danger.’
‘Why do you believe that your wife and son might be in danger, sir?’
‘Are in. Are in danger. Not might be.’
‘Why do you believe that your wife and son are in danger, sir?’
‘We’ve, uh, uh, we’ve been receiving death threats. From, uh, from an ex-boyfriend of my wife’s. He has a history of violence.’
‘What makes you think that he is a risk to your wife now?’
‘He used to beat her up when they were together.’ His tone rising, voice breaking with tension. ‘And I’ve just told you that we’ve been receiving death threats.’ Lewin’s personality creeping into the call. ‘Can you send a marked car around to my address? Now. It’s urgent.’
‘I’m sorry, sir, but unless we have—’
‘Please—’
‘Sir—’
‘For Christ’s sake, listen to me. I’ve called Denise twice and she’s not answering. She’s definitely at home and she always answers.’
‘I’m sorry, sir, but—’
‘For Christ’s sake.’ Verging on hysterical now. ‘It’s connected to the murders of the Fullers and the Whiteheads. My wife and son are at risk from the same killer. They might already be dead. You need to send the police to my house now.’
‘What is your address, sir?’
Marilyn cut off the recording and looked up.
‘I was desperate,’ Lewin snapped. ‘The operator wouldn’t believe me and she was doing nothing.’
‘Mr Lewin, I am arresting you for perverting the course of justice—’
‘What the fuck?’
‘Anything you say, may be used—’
‘What the fuck are you doing? You can’t fucking arrest me.’
Marilyn continued in a dry unemotional monotone that would have made Jessie want to punch him in the face had she been on the receiving end.
‘In evidence—’
‘I’m the victim here,’ Lewin yelled. ‘We’re the fucking victims here.’
‘—against you. You have the right to remain—’
‘OK, OK, stop.’ Lewin held up his hands, visibly deflating in his seat. ‘Just fucking stop.’
‘These murders were personal, weren’t they, Mr Lewin?’ Marilyn said. ‘The Fullers’, the Whiteheads’, your wife’s. Can you tell me why?’
Lewin shook his head. ‘I don’t know anything about the Fullers’ and the Whiteheads’ murders.’
‘You said something entirely different to the police emergency operator.’
His eyes slid from Marilyn’s, alighted briefly on Jessie’s, before flitting away again.
‘Mr Lewin.’
‘That’s because she wouldn’t listen to me.’
‘The police emergency operator?’ Marilyn clarified.
‘Yes. She wouldn’t listen to me. I told her the truth, about Denise’s ex-boyfriend, and it wasn’t enough. I’d just refuelled at a petrol station and I’d seen the newspaper headlines, pictures of the Fullers and the Whiteheads on the front pages. It suddenly occurred to me that the way to get the emergency operator to take me seriously was to tell her that my wife and son were in danger from the same man.’
‘It sounded a lot more than that to me, Mr Lewin,’ Marilyn said. ‘It sounded like genuine fear.’
Lewin shook his head. ‘No, it wasn’t.’ He paused. ‘Well, yes, it was, but not from that killer, from Denise’s ex-boyfriend.’
Lewin’s hands were in his lap, so Jessie couldn’t see them, but from the stiffness in his arms, the contraction of his muscles, she suspected that they were knotted tightly. Knocking her pen off the table with a flick of her finger, she rolled her eyes at her own ineptitude, then tilted sideways to pick it up, glancing under the table as she did so. Lewin’s hands were balled into fists, his fingers white with the pressure of his grip, but churning nonetheless.
‘I think you’re telling us a pack of lies, Mr Lewin,’ she heard Marilyn say as she righted herself.
Lewin swallowed again, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat as if it was a constriction that wouldn’t go up or down.
‘Did you murder your wife, Mr Lewin?’ Marilyn said, in a low voice.
‘What? How dare you,’ Lewin snapped, leaping up. ‘I’ve had enough of this fucking bullshit. I want to see my son.’
‘We can’t help you if you lie to us, Mr Lewin.’
‘I’m not lying. I want to see my son, now. I want to see him now.’
Marilyn planted his hands on the table and stood. ‘Fine, Mr Lewin,’ he said with a weary sigh. ‘You can see your son, but first, I have two more very simple questions.’
Lewin gave a mulish half-nod.
‘What is your shoe size?’
‘Ten.’
‘And do you like dogs, Mr Lewin?’
‘What?’ Lewin looked incredulous. ‘Are you seriously asking me about dogs when my wife has been murdered and my son kidnapped?’
‘Answer the question.’
‘No, I don’t particularly like dogs,’ he muttered. ‘I didn’t grow up with pets. Leo loves dogs, but don’t most kids? We had no intention of getting him one.’
‘Do you know of a charity called Paws for Thought?’ Jessie asked.
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Lewin’s incredulous gaze moved to meet hers and he gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘No, I—’ He broke off. ‘Actually yes, I do know Paws for Thought, now that I think about it. We took Leo there once, earlier this year. They had an open day, and we popped in so that Leo could pat some dogs. It was Denise’s idea and she ended up chatting to that mad woman who runs it for an age. The whole thing bored me rigid, to be quite frank.’ His gaze snapped back to Marilyn. ‘Is that all now?’
‘Thank you, Mr Lewin, that is indeed all.’ Marilyn paused. ‘For the moment, at least.’
61
Once Marilyn had deposited Simon Lewin into DC Cara’s hands with strict instructions to obtain a full list of Lewin’s Wiltshire tourism clients before dropping him off at St Richard’s Hospital to see his son, he and Jessie headed straight to Paws for Thought. Jessie drove while Marilyn fired poor Cara a list, via text, detailing other jobs that needed to be completed quicker than immediately. It included impounding Lewin’s Audi A3 so that the CSIs could crawl all over it; asking the members of Burrows’ team still at Lewin’s house whether any of Lewin’s shoes matched the prints found at the three crime scenes; identifying the location of the mobile telephone mast that had picked up Lewin’s 999 call; finding the garage where he had claimed to have filled up his car and interviewing the person who had been on duty that night; telephone interviewing all those Wiltshire clients, starting with the one Lewin claimed to have been with until seven p.m. last night; mapping roadworks and identifying traffic congestion on the M4 and A34 last night. And pronto, Marilyn had added, again. Delegate. If iPhone texts allowed bold and underlining, he doubtless would have made full use of those too.
‘Shit, sorry – I didn’t expect it to be quite so sharp,’ Jessie said, as she navigated a right turn too fast, sending Marilyn snatching for the door handle.
‘Where the hell is this place?’ he snapped.
‘Forestside.’
‘Jesus, doesn’t anyone around here appreciate being able to get their hands on a bottle of milk without having to drive five miles?’
‘It’s a converted pigsty. The land and buildings were cheap.’
Marilyn raised a cynical eyebrow. ‘Really? In the middle of bloody nowhere. You surprise me.’
She raised a matching eyebrow. ‘Paws for Thought doesn’t have quite the celebrity backing or access to fat wallets that Battersea Dogs Home has. It’s spit and sawdust.’
‘If you’d have told me that we were going to a pigsty, I wouldn’t have worn my best suit.’
When Jessie had first met Marilyn, he had dressed in black drainpipe jeans and a battered black leather biker jacket. Since then, DCI Janet Backastowe had pressured him into wearing clothes more befitting a senior officer in Surrey and Sussex Major Crimes, and he had ditched the biker jacket for a black suit, though the trousers were still drainpipes. It was a standing joke that with the number of identical black suits he must have hanging in his wardrobe, Marilyn could kit out an undertaker’s workforce and still have spare.
‘What do you think?’ Marilyn asked.
‘About your best suit or Lewin?’
‘I won’t dignify that facetious question with an answer.’
‘Lewin pretty much lied his way through our whole interview,’ Jessie said.
‘He was definitely lying about the abusive boyfriend.’
‘I think he was also lying about his Wiltshire tourism clients. He was far too keen that you didn’t contact them.’
‘Perhaps he’s worried for his job. Tourism is a tricky industry, very subject to downturns in the economy.’
‘Perhaps,’ Jessie said, unconvinced, unconvincingly. ‘But he was also gripping onto his hands for all he was worth, I think to stop them from being overactive. Animation in someone who is not normally so suggests lying—’ Her Mini bounced over a pothole, catching air and landing with a groan. ‘Bloody hell, my poor suspension. This road is shite.’
Marilyn snatched for the ceiling grab handle. ‘The joys of the countryside,’ he muttered. ‘At a minimum, Lewin knows something about the murders, is hiding something. He said that his trip to Wiltshire was last minute, that he was standing in for a colleague who had to cancel, so perhaps our perp thought Lewin was at home and found out, too late, that he wasn’t.’
‘But that doesn’t concur with a murderer who watches his victims carefully, because he would have known that Denise Lewin was alone with Leo, that Simon Lewin was away. He would have waited until he was home. And there was the anomaly of Denise Lewin’s eye.’
Marilyn nodded. ‘The driving across country was fishy. Conveniently, there are no APNR cameras on the route he claimed to have taken back from Wiltshire.’
‘Depending on where he made the 999 call, he could have murdered his wife, dropped his son off at Paws for Thought knowing that he’d be safe for one night, locked on his own in a cage, and then driven back out in the direction of Wiltshire. If he was telling the truth about calling from East Meon, it isn’t far. Twenty minutes from Forestside, if that, driving fast.’
‘On country roads, on a weeknight, no traffic, no witnesses.’
‘And he has a small dark hatchback like Charles.’
‘Which I hope is being impounded as we speak. His shoe size, ten, is the same as that of our perp, but that also applies to a large chunk of the male population.’ Marilyn looked across. ‘He knew of Paws for Thought.’
‘Yes, he did.’
‘It makes sense to assume that whoever dropped Leo Lewin off at Paws for Thought is also your friend Cherry Goodwin’s night visitor. And if Captain Callan is half the military policeman I believe him to be, we should have that man on CCTV.’ He rubbed his hands across his face. ‘Jesus Christ, I thought I’d seen it all in my twenty-five years, but the knockout blows just keep on coming.’
They had reached the village of Forestside, such as it was. Paws for Thought was on the left, set in a clump of trees and surrounded by fields, the only dwelling visible, a clay-tiled roof three or four hundred metres away, around a bend in the road. The entrance to the car park was barred with yellow ‘Police! Do Not Cross!’ crime-scene tape. Burrows’ forensics van was parked beyond, jammed against the hedge that bordered the narrow lane, barely room for a car to squeeze past if, by some remote chance, one wanted to. Two marked cars were top-and-tailing it, also bumped up onto the grassy kerb, and DS Workman’s navy-blue Ford Fiesta was tucked in beyond the far one. Jessie tagged her Mini onto the end of the line.
‘I didn’t like him,’ Jessie said, cutting the engine.
‘What?’
‘Lewin. I didn’t like him.’ Jessie glanced over with a brief smile. ‘Though obviously my personal opinions are entirely irrelevant. Most of the people I don’t like haven’t butchered five people.’
‘Do you not like many people?’
‘I suppose my job encourages me to look for the negative, seek out the dysfunction.’
Marilyn nodded thoughtfully. ‘Your opinion is duly noted, Baba Vanga. I didn’t like him either, for what it’s worth.’ Theatrically pinching his nose between pincer fingers, he swung the passenger door open. ‘Now are you ready to face the pigsty?’
Cherry Goodwin’s battered white Corsa, fenced in by the tape, was the only car in the tiny, potholed car park. Four numbered yellow cones were dotted in an approximate line from the car park entrance to the front doorway. One of Burrows’ team met them by the roadside and handed them forensic overalls, overshoes, hairnets and latex gloves. As he pulled the forensic suit over his crumpled black one, Marilyn quizzed her.
‘What have you found?’
‘A cigarette butt, gum, chewed and spat out, a two-pence piece and one silver stud earring in the car park.’
‘Anything else of note?’
The woman nodded. ‘The toughened glass in the top half of the door was smashed.’
‘The door lock wasn’t picked?’ Jessie cut in.
‘No. As I said, the door glass was smashed. The perp then unlo
cked the door from the inside, by reaching through the broken pane.’
Jessie and Marilyn exchanged glances.
‘That’s not how he usually gets in,’ Jessie said. ‘He has a key or picks the lock.’
‘Perhaps he forgot the key this time,’ the CSI said. ‘If he was in a rush.’
Jessie lifted her shoulders. ‘Perhaps.’
The CSI’s gaze moved back to Marilyn. ‘Tony Burrows asked me to send you through to the kennel compound at the back of the facility.’
Marilyn nodded. ‘What about CCTV?’
‘We’ve viewed it.’
‘What does it show?’
‘You’d better see it yourself, sir. I think it would lose something in the translation, if I described it to you.’
‘Why is that?’
‘Just, uh, just watch it, sir.’
Marilyn pulled a face. ‘That weird, eh?’
‘Weirder, I’d say. Weirder than weirdy weird.’ The woman arched a plucked eyebrow. ‘I can quite safely say that I’ve never seen anything like it.’
62
Inside the reception area at Paws for Thought, Marilyn and Jessie found Cherry Goodwin sitting with DS Workman, both clutching chipped mugs of steaming tea, the tremor in Cherry’s hands rippling the surface of hers. Jessie laid a hand on her shoulder, felt her muscles snap to stressed attention underneath her touch.
‘Are you OK, Cherry?’
Looking up, she nodded. ‘Thank God for your boyfriend. He wasn’t only ridiculously hot, he was also useful. Hang onto him. Men like that are rare as hen’s teeth.’ She clamped a hand over her mouth. ‘Sorry, that was totally inappropriate. The man – the forensics man. I can’t remember his name.’ Dropping her hand, she mimed a rounded stomach.
‘Tony Burrows,’ Workman said.
‘Yes, Tony Burrows. Sorry, that … that miming thing was totally inappropriate too.
‘I don’t know what the hell has got into me. I just feel as if I’ve lost my mind, like that thing, whoever or whatever it is, has burrowed right in here.’ She pressed an index finger to her temple.
‘I’m sure Burrows won’t mind,’ Workman said, with a placating smile. ‘He’s used to being insulted on a daily basis by his colleagues about his resemblance to certain Teletubbies.’
