The Fifth Grave, page 23
part #1 of DCI Jacob Series
“Call me crazy for not taking your word for it,” Jacob said. “But you still haven’t said where you were between seven and eight?”
Cooper looked down at the ground. “I was round at Freeth’s place doing his missus.”
Jacob and Anna exchanged a glance. “Mrs Freeth, the farmer’s wife?”
“That’s the one, and she’ll back me up. She hates the old sod.”
Anna raised an eyebrow. “She’s nearly twice your age.”
“No law against that,” Abbott said. “Now my client has told you where he was when the murder took place, and he has also said very clearly that he can prove it. I would suggest you drop the murder charge before I start thinking about police misconduct and harassment.” She looked from Jacob to Anna and then back to Jacob again with goading eyes. “Well?”
Jacob gave a businesslike smile and kept his voice calm and level. “I’ll drop the murder charge when his alibi checks out.” He walked over to the door, stopped and turned, fixing eyes of steel onto Cooper. “But the other charges aren’t going anywhere, and neither are you.”
CHAPTER 31
Jacob scanned the faces of his team as they gathered in the MIU briefing room deep in the woods. Three days of searching through woodland, poring over witness statements and doing house to house interviews had taken their toll and they looked exhausted and frustrated with the lack of progress. Many had pinned their hopes on Cooper being responsible for the murder but when his alibi with the farmer’s wife checked out, it was as if Operation Grovely had been put back to the beginning.
“So, we’re back to where we started,” Holloway said.
“Not at all,” Jacob said. “We’ve had a result, just not the one we were hoping for. Dean Cooper is a nasty piece of work. He was involved with one of the biggest smuggling gangs in the south of England. Thanks to what we’ve pulled out of his flea pit near the woods, we know he was the main distributor of not only fentanyl for half the county but CSI also found spice and meth. Now he’s looking at a nice long stretch behind bars, and so is Rachel Ryall for supplying, so well done everyone.”
“He is a proper scumbag, all right,” Morgan said. “But not our killer.”
“No,” Jacob said. “But he was responsible for cracking a police officer’s skull during the raid on the warehouse in Swindon. With that kind of form and finding his quad tracks near Messenger’s body it wasn’t unreasonable to suggest he might have killed him. Unfortunately he had plenty of cast-iron alibies up his sleeve. He was in prison when Emma Russell was murdered, he was with us when Talbot was shot, he was in his cottage under surveillance at the time of Lucinda Beecham’s murder, and he was otherwise engaged with Mandy Freeth when someone was smashing in Kieran Messenger’s head.”
A titter of laughter rippled around the room.
“All right everyone, settle down.”
“Like the boss just said, we got the bastard on the drugs charges though,” Morgan said. “And that’s something.”
Anna waved her braced wrist in the air. “And the assault and dangerous driving charges, too.”
“Yes, it looks like we’ve got him nailed down on all of those. The evidence on the drugs production and distribution is watertight and it looks like we’re going to be able to put a very strong case to the Crown Prosecution Service. Well done everyone.”
A half-hearted cheer went up, but the mood quickly dampened again when Jacob brought them back to business.
“But that brings us back to the murders and the fact that with Cooper out of the frame we just lost our prime suspect.”
Anna flicked her pen onto the desk and lifted a foam coffee cup to her lips. “What are those lyrics – if it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have no luck at all…”
Morgan was impressed. “Albert King,” he said. “Born Under a Bad Sign. A very cool song, if I might say so.”
“I’m sure it is,” Jacob said, “but as my grandfather used to say, you make your own luck.”
“Maybe Mandy Freeth is lying to cover for him?” Holloway said. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“Plus he seems to spend a lot of time hanging around the woods,” said Innes.
“Possible, but it’s getting desperate,” Jacob said. “Anna, how did the shotgun licence search go?”
“As expected, too many to count but our friendly local farmer Mr Freeth is the closest to the murder scene.”
“The Freeths come up again,” Holloway said.
Jacob considered it. “And any number of people on his farm could have used the weapon, so collecting alibis is going to be a big job. I’ll get a warrant and I want you to go down and take his guns but make sure to get any cartridges on the property. Give it all to Mia and see if she can work her magic.”
“Okay guv.”
“All right, now we need to move our focus to others. Anna, what about the three men Emma did her Oxford uni ghost-hunting with?”
Anna shook her head. “All have solid alibies. Razey was in Paris, Mitchell was with his family in Belfast and Hendry and was with his wife who was giving birth in the John Radcliffe hospital.”
Morgan grinned. “Which as alibies go…”
“Another dead end,” Jacobh said. “So let’s go back to work again.”
With that, he turned to the whiteboard where beside Emma’s and Kieran’s faces, fresh photos of Neil Talbot and Lucinda Beecham were now staring back at him. “Neil Talbot,” he said. “The strong but silent type who worked as a ranger for the Forestry Commission. It was Mr Talbot who helped excavate the remains at the start of the enquiry, but now we know he’d reinvented himself.”
“The original poacher-turned-gamekeeper,” Morgan said.
“Mia already made that joke, sorry.”
Morgan gave a shrug. “You have to try though.”
“His real name was Jim Latimer, and before he retrained he was a bit of a vagrant drifting around the area, and yes, he was a poacher. He was interviewed under caution and arrested during the original investigation but always swore he was innocent. Yesterday, someone shot him at point blank range with a twelve bore double-barrelled shotgun and killed him on his doorstep out at his cottage in the coppice not far from where we’re sitting now.”
“Someone wanted to keep him quiet, sir,” Holloway said. “It’s obvious.”
“Maybe, but we have to keep an open mind. As you know, Innes and I were at the scene just minutes after the gunshot and I gave chase to a man in a Chesterfield coat but he evaded me. I’ve put his description out but it’s vague.”
“And nothing back yet, either guv,” Anna said. “I checked in this morning, but I did find out that Adam Dawes, the other forester, was at home with his family when the shot was fired.”
Jacob sighed. “There’s no doubt Talbot was murdered and at this point we have to presume his death is strongly linked to the others. Unfortunately he was a loner and kept himself to himself. No real friends and rarely spoke even to his foresters unless he had to. I don’t think we’re going to be able to dig up too much dirt in his direction.”
“Which is too bad,” Morgan said.
“Moving on…” He turned to Lucinda and keeping his personal sense of failure to save her life to himself, he wrote her name in capital letters beneath the picture.
“Lucinda Beecham, known as Indie to her friends and family,” he began. “forty-five years old and a former TV and film actress. By all accounts she was very highly respected both professionally in the entertainment world and for the work she did running the retreat.”
He felt another wave of failure rise in his stomach. “She died late yesterday afternoon at dusk in what at the moment looks like the most horrific of circumstances, burning to death in her car. Unfortunately the fire service was unable to stop the blaze before the body was very badly damaged. This greatly restricts what the pathology department is able to provide us in terms of evidence or leads but we do know that the doors were unlocked so I’m looking for some ideas.”
“Suicide?” Innes asked.
Jacob shook his head. “Mark Roland, the crew manager who attended the scene last night told me it’s practically unheard of for someone to kill themselves by sitting in a car and then setting the thing on fire. Much easier and less painful to run a tube around from the exhaust and do it that way.”
“That’s right,” Anna said. “Self-immolation usually represents around one percent of suicides. It’s not unheard of, but it’s very rare.”
Holloway frowned. “Maybe someone locked her in it and after she was dead they used a remote to unlock the doors to make it look like suicide though?”
“Good thinking but no,” Jacob said. “First it would be too risky to plan on the locks still working after the fire had got going and second the car was from 1959 and all the locks were manual so she couldn’t have been trapped inside it against her will.”
He threw the pen on the desk. “My thinking is that this was an attempt to frame Dean Cooper. We all know he did time for arson, specifically burning out a stolen car when he was younger. Whoever did this wanted us to think he killed her.”
“I agree,” Morgan said. “We should rule out suicide, and as she wasn’t locked in against her will by the killer, it must mean one of two things. One, she was unconscious at the time of the fire, or two, someone killed her in another location before dragging her out to the car and torching it.”
“But why bother doing that?” Jacob asked. “What was the point of going to all that effort?”
“Some sort of ritual?” Anna asked.
Jacob shook his head. “I’m no expert on ancient rituals but I’m sure they didn’t involve gullwing Mercedes Benzes.” He looked at the solemn faces of his team, struggling with images of Lucinda Beecham burning to death in the car. “But what if the car wasn’t important?” he asked. “What if the fire was the important thing?”
“Go on, guv,” Anna said.
“Say you want to kill someone but destroy some evidence relating to the crime. We all know fire is a reliable way to do that, but if you try and torch a house you can’t be certain the fire will take hold and do its job before the fire service turns up and puts it out.”
“I think I know what you’re getting at,” Morgan said.
“Right – torch a car and it’s going up in seconds. Everything you’re trying to hide or destroy, including the body is almost certainly going to be gone long before anyone can put it out. It’s a smaller object to burn and the petrol tank is full of the world’s best accelerant.”
“So the killer was trying to hide something?” Innes asked.
“I think so,” Jacob said. “He put her in that car and torched it because he wanted to hide something – something he couldn’t take with him. Whether or not she was dead at the time of the blaze might not be strictly relevant.”
“So what was he trying to hide?” asked Holloway.
“That’s what I want you all to think about while we’re getting on with the investigation,” Jacob said.
“Suspects?” Morgan asked.
“The only other people we know were on the site at the time the fire was started were the three guests in the luxury lodges – Bryony Moran, Simon Wickham and Richard Everett. The problem we have is that each one of them claims to have been in their own lodges at the time the fire was set.”
“All in it together?” Anna said.
Morgan shifted on his seat. “Yes, a conspiracy.”
Jacob didn’t like the word but had already considered it. “It’s possible, but that’s going to take us into a totally different place. What sort of motive would be required for three people to act in concert in this way and murder someone in such horrific circumstances?”
“It’s very rare for murders to be committed by more than one person in a conspiracy,” Morgan said.
Jacob nodded. “We’ll look into it, but my hunch is that as far as the murder of Neil Talbot is concerned we’re looking for Mr Chesterfield, and as far as Lucinda Beecham is concerned we’re looking for a single killer, acting alone, and right now the guests in those lodges are looking like the most likely.”
“You think one of the guests and Mr Chesterfield is one and the same, sir?” Innes asked.
“Only Richard Everett fits the man I saw running,” Jacob said. “He’s starting to look like a real problem, but I want all three of them re-interviewed on site. Any funny business, threaten to take them up to the station and grill them there. That usually does the trick.”
“Got it,” Morgan said.
“But we may have another direction to go in.”
“What’s that?” Innes asked.
Jacob now paused and took a breath. It was time to tell them about Sophie and what she had discovered when reviewing the police archives, but he was unsure how they would take it.
“Now, the reason I wanted to meet here in the MIU rather than in the station is a very sensitive one.”
The mood changed again.
“I’m sure you all remember Dr Sophie Anderson, the forensic psychologist and criminal profiler who approached me at the beginning of the case with an offer to help.”
Morgan and Anna exchanged a knowing glance.
“That’s the woman who used to work for the FBI, isn’t it?” Holloway asked.
“And the Met, although well after my time there,” Jacob said. “You will also know that Chief Superintendent Kent refused my request for her to help us on the case.”
“That doesn’t sound like him, sir,” Holloway said, raising a laugh in everyone except Innes who now gestured with her hand to get Jacob’s attention.
“What has this got to do with the enquiry, sir?” she asked.
“Against the Chief Super’s orders, I decided to bring Dr Anderson into the team after the murder of Kieran Messenger.” He let the news sink in. “I can see some of you are shocked, but due to the possible occult nature of the murders, not to mention the possibility of a serial killer at work, I thought a specialist in criminal profiling could only help us. I thought Chief Superintendent Kent’s decision was wrong and I take sole responsibility for Dr Anderson being involved in the investigation. None of you will take any responsibility for this.”
“Bloody hell, sir,” Holloway said. “He’ll go wild.”
“Nevertheless,” Jacob said. “I feel it was the right thing to do, especially after a meeting between Dr Anderson, myself and Inspector Morgan last night.”
Holloway turned in her chair. “You knew about this too, sir?”
The Welshman nodded once. “Guilty as charged.”
“And I did, too,” Anna said, turning from Holloway to Morgan. “On the upside, looks like I might get DI after all – when you get sacked, I mean.”
“Ouch,” Morgan said.
“No one’s getting sacked,” Jacob said. “As it turns out, Dr Anderson was able to provide some very useful leads in the investigation.”
“Which is very good timing considering we just lost Cooper,” Morgan said.
“Are these leads pointing to the guests in the lodges, sir?” Holloway asked.
Jacob sighed, aware of the gravity of what he was about to say. “No, they’re not. A few days ago Sophie Anderson requested to see the archived case files relating to the disappearance of Emma Russell back in 1992.”
“Please tell me you didn’t hand then over to her, guv,” Anna said.
“I handed them over to her.”
“Make that DCI,” she said, looking at Jacob. “When you get sacked, too, guv.”
Jacob rolled his eyes. “Thanks for your support, Sergeant Mazurek.”
“You’re welcome.”
“What did she find in the files, sir?” Holloway asked.
Jacob paused again. “What I’m about to tell you doesn’t leave this team, is that clear?”
A series of solemn nods in reply, but no one spoke.
“Good,” he said shortly. “After reviewing all the case files, including interviews and the TV appeal, Dr Anderson’s conclusion is that the SIO on the case at the time, DI Miranda Dunn was somehow involved with the murder.”
A shocked silence was finally broken by Anna. “Bloody hell.”
“I’m sure Sergeant Mazurek speaks for us all when she says that,” Jacob said, trying to break the tense atmosphere. “Now you all see why I wanted to meet here in the MIU and why it’s so important this stays in the team until we have figured out exactly what Dunn’s involvement was. If she was involved, it’s possible other officers were involved too. At the time, her line manager was Marcus Kent, who was a DCI at the time. He also left after the case but took a promotion and transfer to Cumbria Police.”
Innes had paled. “This is starting to make me nervous.”
“Don’t let it,” Jacob said. “We’re doing the right thing here. We follow the evidence no matter where it leads. If it turns out anyone at the station was involved in the Russell disappearance then they will be treated the same as any other suspect.”
Morgan played with an unlit cigar. “So what now?”
Jacob turned to face his old friend. “You worked with Miranda Dunn a long time ago, so I want you to get hold of anything you can find with her name on it, not just the Russell files. Be subtle and don’t let anyone know what you’re doing, especially Kent and Portman. When you have it, bring it to me. It’s looking increasingly obvious the original case wasn’t handled properly and I want to know why.”
“Righto – just leave it with me.”
“Anna, I want you to take Holloway and Innes and re-interview the guests in the lodges. Lean on them a bit and see if you can get anything out of them. It’s just instinct but something’s not right in that neck of the woods, if you’ll excuse the pun. One of them is involved in this somehow, I just know it.”
“Guv,” she said. “What about you?”
“I have a person appointment.”
CHAPTER 32
