Stop Them Dead, page 37
‘Have you just come to gloat?’ Grace asked.
Branson shook his head. ‘No, I wanted to see how my commanding officer was after his early morning dip.’
‘We’ve had the swimming jokes, Glenn, and the ones about telling the pigs from the police, so unless you’ve any other business, Norman and I will try to get on with the business of not dying from all the stuff we’ve breathed in and ingested.’
Branson walked over, stood between their chairs and punched the air with a clenched fist. ‘Seriously, guys, well done. Respect for what you did, and’ – he had to stifle another grin – ‘sorry if it was a bit shit for you.’
Grace raised his right hand and pointed a warning finger at him. ‘One more joke and I’m putting you up for a transfer.’
Looking serious now, the DI peered more closely at Grace. At the large bandage on his right cheek; at the blood oxygen meter clipped to his left index finger and pads taped to his chest with monitoring apparatus behind him. All of it, except the bandage, was mirrored with Norman Potting.
‘How’s the girl, Rosalind Esche?’ Grace asked.
‘She’s in Intensive Care, but she’ll be fine. You guys saved her life, for sure. I spoke to the A&E consultant. She’d apparently been standing in that slurry for several hours and was literally at the point of collapse when you guys arrived. She was so exhausted and sick from all the fumes she knew she couldn’t stand any longer – she would have just drowned in that stuff.’
Potting shook his head. ‘I can think of better ways to go.’
‘And no doubt her body would have been fed to the pigs afterwards,’ Grace said.
‘While I was waiting for you guys to be fumigated, I had an interesting chat with the hospital’s resident toxicologist. I’d no idea pig slurry was so poisonous – methane, ammonia and hydrogen sulphide – that’s the stuff you make stink bombs with.’
‘Thanks for the chemistry lesson, pal,’ Grace said.
‘Not to mention the bugs,’ Potting added. ‘They’re pumping us full of antibiotics and all kinds of other stuff – but no beer.’
‘I can go and get you a couple of six-packs,’ Branson volunteered.
‘Not actually feeling up to it but thanks all the same,’ Potting said. ‘Anything I drink squirts straight out my arse without touching the sides.’
Branson frowned. ‘A bit too much information, Norman.’
‘Just thought you’d like to know.’
Branson nodded. ‘You know, you guys could have been killed by that stuff. The doc said you might get ringworm – that gives you an itchy rash, diarrhoea, nausea, weight loss and cough – or some other infection called Campy something, which gives you the shits for a week.’
‘Mate,’ Grace said. ‘Have you just come here as a harbinger of doom, or do you actually have any news for us about how both the raids have gone?’
Branson smiled again. ‘I was just coming to that, boss!’ He made a circle with his forefinger and thumb. ‘Total A, boss, total A! We nailed it, both Appletree and Long Acre farms. Nine in custody.’
‘Nine!’ Grace exclaimed.
Branson raised his hands in the air. ‘They’ve been taken to different centres around the county, for processing. Relax, I’m dealing with it all. Everything’s under control.’
‘Really? Under whose control?’
‘Mine, boss.’
‘Knowing that is going to make me relax?’ Grace retorted. ‘Have you arranged a Tier 5 Interview Coordinator? Alec Butler’s your man.’
‘Yeah, Alec Butler. Yeah – I was – I was going to bring him in.’
‘Of course you were.’
Branson looked at him. ‘I was.’
Grace nodded. ‘Set up a debrief with the team for midday tomorrow. I’ll meet you at 11 a.m.’
‘You’ll be out of here?’
‘They’re only keeping us in for a few hours, to give us antibiotics and make sure we poor delicate creatures don’t need trauma counselling.’ He waved a hand at him. ‘Go sort it. I’ll see you in the morning.’
‘You sure I can’t get you guys anything?’
‘A bacon sarnie and a butt plug?’ Potting said. ‘I’d murder one of those if I could keep it down.’
‘Maybe tomorrow,’ Branson said.
Potting winked at him. ‘Good plan.’
After the DI left, Grace said to Potting, ‘You grew up on a farm, didn’t you, Norman?’
‘I did. My old man kept pigs. Love them, but you’ve got to be careful. It’s no myth that mobsters keep them to eat their murder victims. They gobble up the lot, hair and all. The old man gave me a piece of advice when I was a young lad – his version of “health and safety”. He said when you go into the pigsty one of the pigs will come up and give you a nudge on the leg, and you need to give it a tap back. If you don’t, it’ll give you another nudge, and if you still do nothing, next time it’ll take a bite out of you. Nothing personal, it just sees you as lunch.’
‘I’ll remember that next time I’m in a pigsty, Norman, thanks.’
‘He gave me another piece of advice also, chief. I should have listened to him – well we both should have, really. He said, Never wrestle with a pig. You’ll both end up covered in shit, and the pig likes it.’
111
Saturday 3 April
At midday the following morning, as Roy Grace, followed by Glenn Branson, walked into the conference room of the Major Crime Suite, he was greeted by the sight of his entire team seated around the oval table, holding their noses.
‘Very funny!’ he said, his voice still a long way from being back to normal. He still had a large dressing on his face. His right cheekbone had been badly bruised and two of his teeth had been cracked by Terry Jim’s punch and would need extensive dentistry. It angered him, but not as much as what he had learned, since the raid, about the squalor in which Terry and Dallas Jim kept their dogs, and their complete disregard for the rabies regulations that had kept the UK safe from the menace of that disease for almost a century.
It made him all the more determined to charge the Jims with everything they could throw at them. And they had a lot. Enough to see Terry Jim behind bars until well into his old age.
‘A bit crap was it, boss?’ Nick Nicholl asked.
‘Anyone else makes a joke about pigs and shit and they’ll spend the next six months in hazmat suits inspecting Sussex pigsties for human remains,’ Grace retorted. As he took his seat, he looked around his team, and from his expression they could tell he was not in a joking mood today.
‘OK,’ he said and turned to the Interview Coordinator, DS Butler. ‘Alec, how have the interviews been going?’
‘So far, quite well, boss. Terry, Rula and Dallas Jim have gone no comment – as I’d expect. But the others are all singing like canaries. Our best result has been with a character – who has plenty of past form with Sussex Police – name of Geoff Taylor. He’s the one with the limp – Haydn Kelly has confirmed the match. Taylor was part of the four who raided the Old Homestead Farm and was in the car – the Range Rover – that rammed and killed Timothy Ruddle. He said it was Dallas Jim who was driving. Forensics are on that now. We’re waiting for word from Eastbourne Hospital that we can talk to the young woman you rescued, Rosalind Esche. It looks like she could be a very significant witness.’
‘Indeed,’ Grace said.
Butler continued. ‘Another very significant witness is Terry Jim’s stepdaughter, Darcy. She’s been a little guarded in what she’s said so far, but she has made it clear she very much does not support her stepfather’s activities of trading in dogs.’
‘But, as Emily said previously, she was happy enough for the proceeds to finance her horsey hobbies, right?’ Potting said.
‘She’s genuinely angry at her stepfather, she hates him. He told her that he had sacked the two girls, but she didn’t believe him,’ Butler said. ‘I think she’s going to talk to us and expand on the information she gave us in the phone call. Apparently, the family have been trying to keep her quiet with threats so she’s obviously nervous, but I believe her loyalty is now out of the window. In any event, she will be a significant witness. From what she’s told us so far, it doesn’t seem she had any involvement in the puppy business other than peripheral. She wants her stepdad to get done for this. She’s even in the process of changing her surname so she has nothing to do with him.’
‘OK,’ Grace said. ‘See how she plays out.’ He turned to the DI. ‘Glenn, when your team went into Long Acre Farm, the first thing Dallas did was to try to torch the barn where both the Range Rover and the Ford Ranger involved in the killing of Mr Ruddle were stored. Presumably to get rid of evidence. Good work with the taser, stopping him.’
‘Thanks, boss – it was Quick-Draw McGraw here who should get the credit.’ He nodded at Nick Nicholl.
Nick Nicholl shrugged and grinned. ‘I’d love to have tasered him myself – probably watched too many Westerns as a kid, sir,’ he retorted modestly. ‘But it was my uniformed colleague who did the business.’
Addressing Grace, the Crime Scene Manager, Chris Gee, said, ‘Sir, my team has seized all of Dallas Jim’s clothing as well as Geoff Taylor’s and the other two suspects. We’ll be working with the Collision Investigation Unit’s forensic team and the scientists to match clothing fibres to any on the driver’s seat of the Range Rover, to see if they can put one of them behind the wheel. There’s also something of significance from the CIU regarding the young woman, Lyndsey Cheetham, who was killed last week when her Nissan Leaf ran off the road a few miles from Appletree Farm.’
Chris Gee continued. ‘The Collision team found particles of red paint embedded in the rear of the Leaf. It’s taken them a while to identify the vehicle type, but they’ve established it as a Dodge RAM 1500 with huge wheels. We’ve seized a 4 x 4 vehicle of this make and colour at Appletree Farm – curiously in a barn, concealed behind hay bales. The CIU are examining it now.’
‘Good work, Chris,’ Grace said. ‘How are your team getting on with the general search of the properties?’
‘We’ve so far recovered a number of fake identities.’ Gee glanced at his pad. ‘One in the name of John Peat, one in the name of Tom Hartley, one in the name of Jonathan Jones and another in the name of Michael Kendrick. Driving licences, passports, national insurance numbers. We have an intel report that a person named John Peat flew, unaccompanied, on a BA flight to Malaga on Friday afternoon – a few hours after the raid. Interestingly, Spanish immigration have no record of him having arrived in Malaga, but do have details of one Jonathan Jones. We’ve now given all four aliases to the Spanish police. Additionally, we seized a number of suspected fake Kennel Club registration forms and vaccination certificates, including, very worryingly, ones for rabies vaccinations for dogs imported from Poland, Romania and Spain.’
Grace frowned. ‘You know about the little girl, Bluebell Fairfax, who was bitten by a puppy in this John Peat’s van and has become very ill with rabies?’
‘Do we know how she’s doing, boss?’ Jack Alexander asked.
‘The last update I have is that she is stable,’ he replied.
‘Sir,’ Gee continued. ‘DEFRA are extremely concerned about a carcass of a young dog found in the incinerator chamber at Appletree Farm. The incinerator hadn’t been lit, but it looks like the Jims were intending to destroy it. They’re carrying out a postmortem on it – and testing for rabies.’
‘Could it be the same dog that bit this little girl, Chris?’ Polly Sweeney asked.
‘I don’t have that information, Polly. But we think it’s possible. The RSPCA, DEFRA and Public Health England are all involved. Both Appletree and Long Acre farms are in lockdown on DEFRA’s orders, with all animals on both premises going to be quarantined and monitored. They are also looking to track down the other puppy in the van with Moose, the dachshund. All these poor creatures have the Jim family to thank.’ Grace shook his head.
‘Couldn’t we put the whole Jim family in a cage with a rabid dog?’ DC Nicholl suggested.
‘Why, Nick?’ Potting asked. ‘What have you got against the dog?’
Several of the team smiled.
‘Because of our strict quarantine laws, England has been rabies-free for one hundred years,’ Grace said. ‘Thanks to bastards like the Jims we now have one case. We just have to hope it is only one, and that this dog that’s sadly been found dead is the infected one that bit Bluebell Fairfax. And we have to hope that if it is, they destroyed it straight away before it passed the disease on to any wildlife. If an outbreak is confirmed, then in lining their pockets with their illegal activities, the Jims will have left a legacy of putting every man, woman, child and animal in the nation at risk of one of the worst diseases and worst deaths it is possible to have.’
Everyone around the table was silent and solemn, absorbing this. Grace gave a thin smile. ‘OK, that’s the grim reality. Let’s take some positives from this whole sorry saga. We have recovered all the Ruddles’ dogs, and they look OK. Thanks to all your brilliant work, we’ve successfully raided two farms in East Sussex where we believe criminal activity was taking place. Nine suspects are in custody, and we’ve recovered a misper whose life was in immediate danger. We’ve cracked an international dog smuggling and illegal breeding gang, and we have significant evidence that at least some of the people we have arrested are linked to the murder of Timothy Ruddle. As well as the attempted murder of Rosalind Esche. And perhaps, from the new evidence from Chris Gee, we may have a second murder charge with Lyndsey Cheetham. At present, many of the people arrested at both farms will be charged with murder, robbery and conspiracy to traffic dogs, in consultation with the CPS. That’s not such a shit result, is it?’
‘Not when you come up smelling like roses, chief,’ Norman Potting said – and ducked.
112
Sunday 4 April
Cafe Marmalade, with its wooden floorboards, shabby chic furniture and the day’s newspapers neatly laid out, had the comfortable atmosphere of a country house drawing room. Just a few minutes’ walk from the hospital, it had a more welcoming feel than both the garish claustrophobia of the Relatives Room and the grim starkness of the hospital canteen. It had been a kind of sanctuary for Chris and Katy for much of the longest few days of their lives.
Permanently exhausted from worry and lack of sleep, fuelled by endless coffees and a diet of mostly microwaved paninis, they had managed at least to deal with any urgent matters regarding their clients. They had also tried to get permission to visit Moose in her quarantine at the kennels at Heathrow, but had decided to wait and go with Bluebell when she was stronger.
Now, at 9 a.m. on this Sunday morning, they were back in the cafe again, after a few hours’ sleep at home, followed by a quick visit to the ward – where there was still no change in Bluebell.
Chris, perched on a battered leather sofa and sipping a double espresso, stared at the front page of the Sunday Times, unable to concentrate on any of the stories. He flicked urgently through a few pages then stopped, as he found the headline he had been expecting on the fifth page. Now it really sank in.
RABIES CONFIRMED IN SMUGGLED DOG
He read the article. It was about a police raid on a farm in East Sussex, suspected of illegal puppy importing and farming. The carcass of a Staffordshire bull terrier found on the premises had been biopsied, and tested positive for rabies. The dog was believed to have been kept caged since its importation, but DEFRA officials had requested all farms to be vigilant, as a precaution. They had also put out a request for anyone who had bought a dog in the past two months from breeders under the names Tom Hartley, Jonathan Jones, Michael Kendrick or John Peat to call the RSPCA national hotline number. Then he saw a name he recognized, the detective to whom he had spoken last night, who had provided him with an update of the investigation and the raid on the farms and told him to expect it to hit the news today.
The Senior Investigating Officer of Operation Brush, Detective Superintendent Roy Grace said, ‘A young girl confirmed to be suffering from rabies – the first to contract this hideous disease in England since 1922 – is currently fighting for her life. Evil criminals profiteering for the demand in lockdown dogs have been flouting our puppy importation laws, and this is a tragic example of the consequences. I urge anyone who has recently bought a dog from any breeder they are concerned about to contact the RSPCA urgently.’
He was about to show the piece to Katy, when his phone rang. It was Dr Shah, his voice as guarded as ever, but, Chris wondered, was he imagining it or was the doctor sounding just a little brighter?
‘Your daughter is awake,’ Shah said. ‘We’ve removed the endotracheal intubation and she’s breathing on her own.’
They dropped everything, telling the proprietor – with whom they’d long been on first name terms – they’d be back, and hurried to the hospital. Less than ten minutes after the call, they were standing at Bluebell’s bedside, alongside Dr Shah.
Bluebell, eyes open, was looking hazily up at them, through the mass of monitoring wires and tubes, blinking slowly.
‘Darling!’ Katy said, tears rolling down her cheeks. ‘Bluebell, darling.’ She kneeled and kissed her daughter’s forehead. ‘How are you? How are you feeling?’
Chris, through blurry eyes, blinked away his tears but more came. He saw the left side of his daughter’s mouth open and her lips move, but no sound came out.
Katy held her right hand. ‘My darling, you are back with us!’
‘Moose. Where Moose?’
Her speech was slurred, coming just from the left side of her mouth. But at least she was speaking, Chris thought. He exchanged a glance with Katy, then looked at Shah, who was studying their daughter intently.
‘Moose is fine, darling,’ Katy said.
‘Moose.’
Katy smiled at her. ‘You’ll be able to see her really soon!’
Bluebell’s eyes closed, as if the effort of speaking had exhausted her. ‘OK.’ It came out as a faint whisper.
