Destruction of Evidence (2 page)

‘Work?’ The watcher’s voice was robotic.

‘The bodies have to be wrapped and burned to destroy all traces of your DNA. Everything you’ve touched will have to be burned.’

‘The forensic teams will know we destroyed the evidence.’

‘They will know the murderer destroyed the evidence. But if you do exactly as I say they won’t discover the identity of the murderer.’

‘There are magazines and newspapers…’

‘No. We need something thick, slow burning, not news or magazine print that will flare up and die down quickly. Traces of DNA can survive a flash fire. Strip naked, both of you, put your clothes in a pile with all of Lee’s clothes except what you’ll wear after you’ve showered. Search the house for bleach, cooking oil, alcohol, pressurized canisters, perfumes… anything flammable. Heap everything flammable in one spot in every room. Furniture, linens, paintings… Wash every inch of the fire escape. There’s a hose at the side of the house. Don’t forget the gloves. ’

‘Lee used them when he handled precious metals…’

‘No talk. Put them on. Shower, then work.’

‘And you?’

‘Give me your keys. I’ll fetch clothes you can walk away in. We’ll burn Lee’s when you finish.’

The watcher couldn’t stop looking at the three bodies on the floor. ‘Do we have to burn them?’

‘Broadmoor is not a holiday camp,’ the cleaner reminded them.

The warning brought silence.

‘When you’ve finished piling everything flammable and soaking it in anything that will burn – shower again then wait for me here.’

‘You can’t leave us…’

‘Dawn will break in three hours. By then we’ll have to be long gone. Move!’

The watcher and the lover went into the shower.

The cleaner heard snoring emanating from the archway of the Angel. The drunk had vomited and soiled himself. There was a glint of metal at his neck.

The cleaner stooped down and tore off the chain that hung outside the T-shirt. Larry Jones was even better than suicide and murder. No one would believe a Garth Estate Jones innocent of a crime. The more heinous the better.

If they succeeded in destroying all the evidence this could be the last piece of an open and shut case.

Larry Jones deserved to rot in gaol. Everyone knew that he hadn’t been nailed for everything he’d done. Would it matter if he served time for something he hadn’t?

CHAPTER TWO

12.00 Midnight

The July night was warm, the sky bright, with a full moon surrounded by a bevy of stars – and Ken Lloyd was plotting an escape to enjoy it.

Some men complained because their wives left them. He wished his would. His absence from her, for more than a few minutes, led to a full-blown tantrum that could last for days. She resented every second he spent away from her, whether it was a half-hour visit to his barber, a stroll with his beloved dog, Mars, a swift half in the pub, a solitary fishing expedition or – what she considered his ultimate abandonment – the odd day’s work he put in at his friend Alan Pitcher’s auction house.

It was worse when she insisted on accompanying him. She talked nonsense to everyone they met, stranger or friend and, if they met no one, she nagged him. Her life was boring because he was boring. He had no conversation worth listening to; the weather was too wet – too warm – too cold; the river bank too muddy; the walks where he exercised Mars were damp.

Ken had hoped for a quiet life in retirement. Happy in his own company or chatting to his friends and neighbours down the pub, he had chosen his hobbies to suit himself. When his attempts to interest Phyllis in some activity – any activity – that would give him a couple of hours peace came to nothing, he resorted to creeping out of the house when she was asleep.

After the first nail-biting occasion it had proved surprisingly easy. Since retirement he’d taken to opening a bottle of wine with their evening meal. By topping up his glass with water and allowing Phyllis to drink the lion’s share, it wasn’t difficult to persuade her to go to bed before him while he cleared their supper dishes. That left him free to sneak out with Mars and his fishing gear.

As usual, he waited half an hour before tip-toeing up to check Phyllis was asleep. He closed the bedroom door, ran lightly down the stairs and admired the night sky through the kitchen window while waiting for the kettle to boil.

He made four rounds of cheese and tomato sandwiches, filled his flask with coffee and stole into the utility room. A single thump of the tail was all the greeting he received from Mars. He commanded the dog to silence. He didn’t have to whisper twice. The dog was more frightened of Phyllis than he was.

Mars waited patiently while he went down the cellar to fetch his rod and equipment. Phyllis’s terror of spiders, damp and dirt kept her away from what he had made his domain. It was his “space” where he stored everything she complained about. The fishing tackle she insisted “stank”. The car parts he scrounged as “spares” to keep his aged Astra on the road, because she wouldn’t allow Mars to ride in their new Volvo. The waste paper and magazines he brought home from the auction house to turn into “bricks” in a machine he’d bought from a catalogue. She was happy enough to burn them in the drawing room but resented the time he spent making them.

Phyllis was right about one thing. The cellar did need tidying. Stacks of old papers towered waist high, blocking the walkway from front to back, making it difficult for him to get at his rods. Unwittingly, he’d brought home enough to keep the fire going for the next two winters.

When he’d gathered everything he needed, he returned upstairs, clipped on the dog’s lead, walked down the passage, closed the front door softly behind him and stepped outside. He had lived in the centre of town all his life and loved the place with a passion that transcended anything he felt for a living being. For him, walking along the streets bordered by classical Georgian houses was akin to a religious experience.

He checked his watch in the light of a street lamp. Midnight. Tim Pryce, the landlord of the Angel Inn across the road, was ejecting a drunk who was refusing to go quietly.

‘Go back to whoever served you enough to get into that state. You’ll get nothing from me,’ Tim declared in a strong Scottish accent.

‘I knowsh my rightsh…’

‘Bugger off home.’

‘I hashn’t got a home. No onesh lovesh mesh…’ The drunk swayed and squinted at Tim. ‘Yoush tooksh my money, you bastarshd…’

‘Not me. I haven’t taken a penny piece from you. Now go home before I call the coppers.’

‘Thatsh righsh, call the bloddysh coppersh, yoush…’ the drunk’s slurring protests came to an abrupt end. He slumped to the pavement.

Ken called out, ‘Need a hand, Tim?’

Tim crouched down and examined the troublemaker. ‘No thanks, Ken. The idiot hasn’t hurt himself, worse luck. It’s a fine night. I’ll prop him up in the yard so he doesn’t throw up and choke to death.’

Built a century before the Georgian planners had moved into the fine old county town, the Angel had started life as a coaching inn. It still possessed a yard accessed by an arch alongside the main building, although the stables that had walled in two sides had long been converted into accommodation.

Ken crossed the road and looked down on at the figure lying in the gutter. ‘I might have known. One of the Garth estate Joneses.’

‘Larry, the oldest of Annie’s boys and the worst of the lot. Only released from prison this morning, according to Pam and Alice.’

‘Then we can take it as gospel,’ Ken commented. Pamela George and Alice James were Tim’s barmaids. Nothing happened in the town they didn’t know about, and always before anyone else.

Tim hooked his hands beneath Larry’s armpits and heaved. ‘He’s a dead weight.’

‘Drunks are. Let me help.’ Ken commanded Mars to “stay”, and set down his kit and rod. He picked up Larry’s feet. On the count of three, he and Tim hauled the unconscious figure into the shelter of the archway. They dropped Larry none too gently on the cobbles but Tim was careful to prop him upright, leaning him against a downpipe.

‘What was Larry in for?’ Before retirement Ken had been a meter reader. There wasn’t a house in the town he hadn’t been into, or a man, woman or child he didn’t recognise on sight, or a family he didn’t know by reputation.

‘Does it matter?’ Tim rose to his feet and stretched his back. ‘Stealing cars, breaking and entering, assault, GBH, drug dealing, possession, take your pick, he’s done the lot but Llewellyn and the other magistrates never send him down for long. Not that it would do much good if they did. From what I’ve heard gaols are like bloody holiday camps these days. TVs, DVD players, game machines in the cells, hot meals delivered three times a day by warders and nicely decorated common rooms for socialising. I’d give the scumbags bloody socialising if I had my way. Lawbreakers should be sent down to hard labour and solitary confinement on bread and water. To hell with “socialising” with old lags who can’t wait to teach young cons old tricks.’

‘From the look of this particular Jones he’s not up to causing any more trouble tonight.’ Ken picked up Mars’s lead.

‘Out to catch trout?’ The whole town knew about Ken’s problems with his wife. The nights he struck lucky were difficult to explain to Phyllis. If his catch was large, she refused to believe his cover story that he’d left the house only an hour or two before dawn.

‘If they’re biting,’ Ken qualified.

‘You know which way to throw the spare ones.’

‘Join the queue.’

‘Behind Alun Pitcher?’

Alun’s house was next door but one to the Angel. Tim knew Ken worked the odd day for Alun in his auction rooms, he also knew Alun paid Ken handsomely for his time “cash in hand”. Ken returned the favour by giving Alun the pick of his catch. But as the fishing rights Ken used were in the joint possession of the Angel and Alun’s house, Tim felt he was due more of Ken’s catch than Ken sent his way.

Ken refused to rise to Tim’s bait. ‘Alun does like his trout and sewin.’

The Pitcher’s front door slammed shut. Alun’s youngest son, Michael and his girlfriend, Alison Griffiths, were climbing into the sports car he’d parked in front of his father’s house. A sash window opened on the floor above them. Alun leaned out.

‘You’ve forgotten the keys to the warehouse, Mike. You promised to open up tomorrow, remember?’

‘I remember. The van’s due in at eight to pick up the Welsh dressers for London.’ Michael left his car and caught the keys his father threw down to him.

‘Eight, sharp,’ Alun emphasised. ‘The driver has other pick-ups.’

‘I’ll be there.’

‘Make sure you are. Night Alison, Ken, Tim.’ Alun waved then closed the window.

Michael returned to his car and drove off slowly. He drew to a halt outside the pub. ‘Don’t forget dad if you catch more than you can eat, Ken. He won’t forgive you if you do,’ Michael joked.

‘You two are off out late,’ Tim observed.

‘We promised Alison’s mam and dad we’d sleep at the lodge until they get back,’ Michael explained.

‘Someone said there’d been a spate of burglaries out that way in the isolated houses.’ Tim heard a noise in the yard behind him. He turned to see his staff leaving by the pub’s kitchen door.

‘The lodge won’t be isolated when they finish converting Bryn Manor into flats. Problem is Evans the builder is employing all sorts. Cash in hand always attracts troublemakers.’ Michael repeated one of his father’s favourite maxims without considering that it was exactly what his father did whenever he needed help with his business.

‘Your mam and dad rented George Williams’s flat in Rome again?’ Ken asked Alison.

‘George knew what he was doing when he offered it to them for Easter week two years ago. Now you can’t keep Mam away from the eternal city,’ Alison replied. ‘She says she’s attracted by the art and the sights but she always takes an empty suitcase “in case” she sees something worth buying. Last time they went, it cost Dad a fortune in excess baggage.’

‘Darts night tomorrow, Ken. The team needs you,’ Michael reminded him.

‘I’ll try to be there.’

‘Don’t try. Be there. Must go or the burglars will get to the lodge before we have a chance to put the lights on and scare them away. Night, Tim, Ken.’ Michael hit the accelerator and drove off.

‘Nice couple. Heard they’ve put in an offer for the old Rectory.’ Tim was fishing for information and Ken knew it.

‘You know this town for rumours,’ he replied.

‘I do, but everyone’s waiting for Michael and Alison to name the day.’

‘The boy’s only twenty-one.’

‘Old enough to have spent the last six years chasing after Alison.’

‘Looks like he’s caught her to me.’ Ken moved back as Pam edged her car out of the pub yard, past Larry’s unconscious figure under the archway and across the dip in the pavement. She wound down the window.

‘We’ve cleared and cleaned everything except the “Women in Business” dinner table. You’re going to need a crowbar to remove them from the premises, Tim.’

‘I’ll set my daughter on them.’

‘Judy’s the worst of the lot, Tim,’ Pam declared. ‘We gave them four fresh bottles of wine before we totalled their bill. It’s paid. The bar’s locked, the takings bagged and in the safe but not counted.’