Bloody Reckoning Page 6

I asked Siân about the shop while we ate, but she’d never heard of it. I assumed it was either one of Bell’s diverse business interests, or a front for his drug peddling. Lawson would be able to find out more, and I felt I had the moral high ground in our peculiar partnership now that Mac had unearthed Keogh. Doing a bit of surveillance for him seemed a small price to pay, even if it involved a dodgy sex club. Tomorrow, I’d take a walk to Micklegate, which was only around the corner, find Barker Lane, and reconnoitre the area.

  I wasn’t sure where Lawson was taking me, so I dressed as if I was going to work, in a dark grey suit and a blue shirt with one of my police ties. I hate ties, but all SIB Investigators are required to dress smartly, seeing as we hardly ever wear uniform. I thought it was probably a good idea to wait outside, so I said goodbye to Siân at five to ten, and left the flat. As I stepped out into Skeldergate, I heard screeching tyres and saw a big, grey Audi hurtling towards me from Bishopgate. The tyres took more punishment as it halted outside Emperor’s Wharf.

  Lawson, of course.

  “Get in.”

  I did. He slammed the car into reverse and pulled off before I could close the door. “Where are we going?”

  “The Incident Room.”

  “Forget it. I told you the score.”

  Lawson changed gears again, drove back into Skeldergate, and shot in front of an oncoming motorist on Bishopgate. The offended party hit his hooter and Lawson responded with the finger as we crossed the bridge. I put my seatbelt on, even though we were less than five minutes’ drive away. “Man up, Hutt.” I didn’t reply, because I wasn’t sure if he was referring to the seatbelt or the Incident Room. “Why do you think I’m picking you up so late? They’ve all clocked off for the day.”

  “That doesn’t mean someone won’t see me when –”

  “What’s in the envelope?”

  “Victim number three, Private Peter Keogh.” I turned to see his reaction. Lost for words, which made a pleasant change. “Killed last April in Germany. Same MO, same regiment as Bavister. I don’t know where Bavister was, but I think Vaughan was in York. You’ll have to check both.”

  After a stunned silence, he said: “Tell me you’re not having me on.”

  “I’m not having you on. I’ve only got the basics here, but Sergeant Battle will be able to give you the rest tomorrow. Also, there is a connection between Bavister and Haywood. Haywood was going to his sex parties. Anything new on your side?”

  “Not to match yours, but Vaughan and Haywood also knew each other, from the rugby club. Vaughan likes to letch at the boys from the sidelines and buy them drinks after. Haywood was last seen leaving the barracks at one on Sunday. He was picked up outside by a taxi. We found the driver, name of Nicholson. Dropped him off in Biggin twenty-five minutes later. Talked about rugby the whole time, nothing else. It’s about a mile walk from Biggin to where he was murdered. Vaughan and Bavister were interviewed today. Bavister tried to use the court martial as an excuse to get out of it, but he didn’t get far. What a fucking nonce!”

  Lawson continued as he turned into the old Cavalry Barracks. “Both of their alibis for Sunday rely on their wives. Nice to know our players are such loving husbands, when they aren’t trying to sling it up the nearest young squaddie. Right incestuous bunch your lot are. Does everyone swing both ways?”

  “So that’s no alibis for Haywood and Gordon, because the exact time and date of Gordon’s death was never established.”

  “Exactly. No other obvious players for Haywood, even though he was screwing half of York. There’s something about the Gordon inquiry I’m not happy with, but I want to show you the crime scene first.”

  Lawson parked, and I followed him into one of the buildings. I wondered why he was taking me to the Incident Room if he wanted to show me the crime scene. He signed me in as Mr J. T. Chance, made a comment I didn’t understand about Rio Bravo, and led me up to the first floor. We entered into a large, open-plan room full of desks, computers, filing cabinets, whiteboards, LCD screens, and just about everything else the twenty-first century detective could possibly need. The lights took a moment to flicker to full strength as he directed me to the desk with the biggest computer screen.

  “This is it, Operation Claymore.”

  “I thought the IR would be staffed twenty-four, seven,” I said.

  “It is, but the governors have the calls diverted for the graveyard shift. Take a seat and have a look at this.” He logged on to the computer and I sat next to him.

  “What are you going to show me, the HOLMES2 data?” I’d had some training on the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System, version two, on my Investigator’s course, but I’d not used it much since.

  “R2S Crime, not the latest technology, but not bad either.” His face became stern with concentration and he tapped doggedly away on the keyboard until a picture appeared on the screen: a human shape in a forest.

  “Haywood?”

  “Yes.” He moved the cursor across the screen and the naked body was revealed in disconcerting detail. “Watch this.” He double-clicked the mouse and all of a sudden the view was from the body outwards – in a complete circle.

  “How does it do that?” I asked, astonished.

  “The pictures are from this little piece of kit called a Spheron. It takes sets of exposures in a three hundred and sixty degree radius, and when photos are taken from different positions it basically gives us a 3D reconstruction of the crime scene.”

  “That’s incredible.”

  “It gets better.” He clicked onto the base of a tree trunk, which was almost completely in shadow. A second later the camera zoomed and enhanced the picture simultaneously. The shadow disappeared. I held my hand in front of my face; the patterns on the bark were clearer than the lines on my palm.

  “Can we see everything?” I asked.

  “Yes, and in much more detail than we could with our eyes at the scene. I can increase the resolution of every view to the same level as the tree. This is the route the player used to escape to Hammersike Road.” Lawson took us through the wood, past a superimposed red dot, and out onto a road, where there was another superimposed red dot.

  “Did Haywood use this route as well?”

  “No, he came in from the north, from Bishopdike Road. The same as where we found his uniform. Why?”

  “I’m just wondering how the two of them made sure of their RVP – rendezvous point.”

  “I know what a fucking RVP is, and maybe that was part of the game.”

  “What are those red dots?” I asked.

  “Hot-spots. That one is where the tyre imprint was found.” He clicked on the circle and the screen was filled by a faint tyre mark in the grass. He zoomed in to minute detail. “Hot-spots can be inserted to show the position of any forensic evidence. Means you can zoom straight in on the stuff that’s going to get the conviction. You’ll notice there aren’t many hot-spots. That’s because the killer left almost no trace of his presence.”

  “What about footprints? How many did the CSIs find in the end?”

  “Just the one – and even that’s only a partial.”

  “In a forest!”

  “I told you the scene was a shambles. Everybody trooped along the path made by the dog, and the dog followed the exact route of the player. There’s more. Something – we don’t know what yet – was dragged along the path the dog followed. It looks like a deliberate attempt to destroy evidence. The footprint we found is here.” Lawson went back into the wood, to the first red dot. “Assault boots, grade one, size seven – whatever they are.”

  “Standard issue.”

  “Location, eight metres to the road side of the body. It doesn’t match any of the other boots from Haywood, the coppers, the paramedics, and the rest of the circus. But we won’t be able to use it in court. First, the CSIs can’t be sure when it was made. Second, there isn’t enough left after the clowns all had a go stomping on it. Muppets, the lot of them.”

  “So our killer could
have a size seven boot and he could also have been wearing his uniform.”

  “He could be Lord Lucan’s lovechild, but the fucking footprints aren’t telling.”

  “Do you have boot sizes for Bavister and Vaughan?”

  “Not yet, they’ve only just unravelled the footprint fiasco.”

  “What about the tyre print? Didn’t you say it was from a Land Rover?”

  Lawson grunted. “The tyre print is even fainter than the footprint, so all the CSIs can tell us is a four-wheel drive, SUV, or Land Rover. Want to know why I’m not interested?”

  “Go on.”

  “Because Hammersike Road is out in the sticks, surrounded by farms –”

  “And every farmer has a four-wheel drive.”

  “The vehicle that left the print probably belongs to one of the locals.”

  “Show me the body.” Haywood was lying on his left-hand side. “Was he found like that, or did the paramedics move him?”

  “They moved him, but we put him back in position for the Spheron.”

  “Did you say he was on his knees when he was killed?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  Haywood’s position was consistent with having been shot in the right temple while kneeling on the ground. His head and shoulders were covered in blood and any dressings which had been applied had been removed for the benefit of the CSIs. I saw another hot-spot marker nearby. “What’s that?”

  “The cartridge. The player didn’t have time to retrieve it.” Lawson enlarged the brass cartridge to ridiculous proportions. “No fingerprints, of course. Probably wiped clean when it was loaded.”

  “And his uniform?”

  Lawson took a different route through the trees. Haywood’s Combat Uniform, Army issue Multi-Terrain Pattern camouflage shirt and trousers, were neatly folded up and stacked on top of his boots. “Those are assault boots, grade one,” I said.

  “They’re also size ten.”

  “Any other hot-spots?”

  “That’s it. Body, bullet casing, clothes, footprint, and tyre imprint. And the last two are inconclusive.”

  Lawson didn’t seem to value the prints at all. He was correct in the sense that none were likely to be admissible as evidence, but I thought they were at least indicative. We had a dead soldier in the woods, and it looked like he’d been killed by another soldier with a size seven boot, who may have arrived and departed in a Land Rover. Appearances can be deceptive, but at least we had somewhere to start. “Can you go back to the body and then zoom out.”

  “There? What you thinking?”

  “I’m wondering what it would take to get Haywood to wander about the woods naked. I’m assuming he went there for sex with the killer, who then offed him before the fun began.”

  “Yes, I think these are sex crimes, even though there was no sex. Psychos can’t fuck their victims before, during, or after the homicide any more because of DNA. If they aren’t going to dispose of the body completely, then it’s as good as leaving a signed confession.”

  “Yeah. I assume Haywood was in line for a shallow grave given how Keogh and Gordon were found.”

  “Fair enough. I want to go back to Gordon. There are two things I’m not happy about, both to do with his lady friends. First, Jackie Bates.”

  I recalled the name from the file. “His civvy associate, employed as a cleaner.”

  “Disappeared a week after he went missing and was never found.”

  “But she was living with some lowlife who beat her up, wasn’t she?”

  “That’s right, Shane Harper. He said she left him, and then he did a runner from his rented accommodation. We’re looking for both of them and can’t find either. Do you remember the other woman?” he asked.

  “Nicola Lynch, the medic?”

  “That’s the one. When she was questioned about their relationship, she said they were just friends, but had a mutual grope one night when they were both pissed. She said he couldn’t get it up and she called him queer. It might have been brewer’s droop, or maybe he was so bent that the sight of a naked woman repulsed him. I’m sure he and Vaughan were at it, but I don’t know if Gordon was gay or bisexual. That’s not my point, though. Do you remember what he said when she called him queer? Said he was screwing the best-looking woman in the Army.”

  “The ‘fittest woman in the Army’, yeah. Do you think it’s important?” I hadn’t set much store by drunken name-calling.

  “I don’t know. I thought he might be talking about some tart in particular.”

  I had no idea where Lawson was going with this. “Well, I assume he was talking about a specific woman – unless he made it up.”

  “No, he could’ve said he couldn’t get it up because he’d had too much to drink, or because she was too fucking ugly, or any number of other things. What I’m getting at is that it’s like it should have meant something to Lynch, like it referred to someone she’d know. You’re a squaddie. Any ideas?”

  There were plenty of female soldiers who modelled or entered beauty competitions with or without the Army’s consent, but no one especially famous. “No, there isn’t any recognised reigning beauty in the Forces at present. But I know a pretty hot RAF intelligence analyst in Lincoln if you’re interested.”

  “Take the piss, I’m still going to ask Lynch when we interview her.”

  “I didn’t think this was your style,” I indicated the R2S.

  “Catching criminals is my style – whatever it takes. You’ve got to get to grips with this IT bollocks, you know. It’s the future of detection. Don’t tell me you’re a technophobe?”

  “I told you, my last job was low-tech – low tech, high incident.”

  “Well, you should get with the program. Program, get it?”

  I ignored his smirk. “I still want to go to the crime scene. Is it safe?”

  “Yeah, the tape’s still up, but there won’t be anyone around to stop you. I’ve got another file for you with all the current info on Haywood, and it includes copies of some of the photographs and the OS map if you can’t remember the details from the R2S.”

  “Okay. Here, you better take this. There’s only a few pages, but Paul will be able to retrieve the rest for you from the CCRIO.” I handed him the envelope and rose.

  “Do you want me to make you a copy while we’re here?”

  “No, I jotted down all the essentials. I’ll wait for the Crime Bureau. But I do want your help tomorrow evening.”

  “Tomorrow’s not good, I –”

  “It’s important, Alex. I’m risking my career just by being here. I need your help, not negotiable.”

  “Listen, I said I’d help, but I can’t just take the fucking evening off on less than twenty-four hours’ notice when I’m assigned to the MIT.”

  “It’s tomorrow evening or my involvement with Claymore finishes now.”

  Lawson stood and waved Mac’s envelope in my face. “Who says I need any more of your help?”

  “Then you won’t mind me bowing out.”

  “I will. What do you want?”

  “I’ll tell you the details tomorrow. In brief, an old friend of mine has recently had a short spell as a gun moll and a cokehead. She decided she didn’t like either, disappeared for a week of cold turkey, and turned up at my flat. I persuaded one of the gangster’s lackeys to arrange a meeting, and I’m going to Leeds to tell him to leave her alone.”

  “Leeds? What’s his name?”

  “Bell, Mick Bell.”

  “Be a fucking pleasure.”

  “You know the gentleman in question?” I asked.

  “You could say that. Where are we meeting him?”

  “A shop called Leeds Army Surplus in Call Lane.”

  Lawson scribbled on a post-it note and pulled it off the pad. “I don’t want you hanging around here too long, so I’ll get that file and drop you off. I’m going to be back first thing tomorrow to tell the governor about Keogh in person, or put Battle on the job, whichever comes first. I’ll make su
re she frees me up from – will five be all right?”

  “I’m meeting him at six.”

  “I’ll try and make it earlier.” Lawson retrieved another document wallet from what I assumed was his desk and handed it to me. “Haywood.”

  He returned the Incident Room to the condition in which we’d found it, and we departed. He signed out Mr Chance and drove me back to the flat. We made our arrangements for Wednesday en route. Siân was still up when I arrived. I told her Lawson was coming with me to meet Bell and that she had nothing to worry about. She wasn’t convinced, but she thanked me for about the fiftieth time since Sunday.

  I removed the Haywood notes from the wallet and spread them out on the coffee table. There was one more thing I wanted to know before I went to bed. It didn’t take me long to find Bavister’s most recent service record and fill in the two blank years. He’d rejoined 1 YORKS in Hohne in December 2010, and remained there until his posting to Afghanistan in June last year. Chas had been in the wrong place at the wrong time in May 2013, April 2012, and August 2009.

  The odds were stacking up against coincidence.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I went for a run early on Wednesday morning, following the route Maikel and I had taken, albeit at a more sedate pace. After a shower, I sat and had breakfast with Siân, which felt strange, but pleasant. I don’t usually have breakfast before mid-morning, and I couldn’t remember when I’d last shared one with a woman. I drank fresh orange juice with my peanut butter and honey on toast; Siân added blueberry jam to her two slices, and washed them down with two cups of tea. Despite her improved appetite, she looked very nervous. I put it down to my impending meeting with Bell, but didn’t know what to say or do, other than act normal. She asked if she could clean the flat and I was happy to oblige. While she set to work, I read through the file on Haywood.

  As soon as I saw a photo of Haywood in life, as opposed to death, I was struck by his resemblance to Mac. He could have been his younger brother. Two naturally good-looking men who kept fit and took care with their appearance. Both a big hit with the ladies, and probably with gay men, though Mac would deny it. Haywood’s first annual Confidential Report had given him a glowing appraisal as talented and enthusiastic, as well as having leadership potential. He’d joined 242 Signal Squadron at Worsley Barracks as a lance corporal this March, and ran and played rugby for 2 Signals Regiment. Worsley and Imphal Barracks are next to each other on the Fulford Road.