Mercy Killing (30 page)

At the moment, all he had was two men in custody, one admitting to sending death threats to a man who was now dead, and the other claiming some of the responsibility for it, possibly through
misguided loyalty.

He made himself a cup of coffee and took the steaming drink to his office, glad of the chance to close the door and shut out the incident room. Only minutes before, he had heard that there was
something else going on in East Rise and Harry knew that he wouldn’t be able to hold on to his staff for very much longer. It was one of the curses of dealing with major incidents –
they all demanded immediate attention.

The last thing he needed was to find Sandra Beckinsale waiting for him at his desk.

‘Sandra,’ he said. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘You can get me more staff.’

‘No, I can’t. Anything else?’

She handed him a printed piece of paper. ‘Not sure if this is relevant to us or not. A woman living near the seafront was on her way to the shops on Monday morning when she saw a man throw
what looked like a black holdall or rucksack into the water.’

She placed the sheet on the desk and they both stared at it.

‘Want me to get someone to go and see her?’ she asked.

‘Yeah,’ sighed Harry. ‘I’m sure we’ve got another box of coppers somewhere. Haven’t we got anyone?’

‘Gabrielle’s back.’

For a moment, Harry wondered if he should speak to Gabrielle himself before sending her out on enquiries but then reasoned that she wouldn’t have come back to work after only taking a
couple of hours off if she wasn’t fully up to being there.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘Send Gabrielle but brief her fully. I don’t want her only knowing half the details.’

Having been brought up to speed by DS Beckinsale, DC Gabrielle Royston sat in Joyce Slattery’s kitchen. Gabrielle hadn’t really wanted to come in to work this
afternoon but her mood was lifted by the view across the harbour from the woman’s breakfast bar. She was aware that the witness was still talking to her, although she had to admit she
hadn’t been paying her all that much attention.

She wanted to get this right and put to one side her personal life and at the same time her outburst to Harry. Sex offenders would not be her downfall: she was going to do all she could to work
as hard as possible to find the murderers, even if she really wanted to shake them by the hand. Gabrielle pushed the thought from her mind and smiled.

‘Beautiful view to start your day, Mrs Slattery,’ she said.

‘It is, dear. I couldn’t believe my luck when this flat became available. Hilda downstairs waited twelve years to get one of these at the top but then she had to get her hip done,
and missed out. Anyway, that’s not why you’ve come here. Biscuit to go with that tea?’

Gabrielle turned down the biscuit and concentrated on the task in hand.

‘Where was I?’ said the seventy-five-year-old widow. ‘Oh, that’s right. Most mornings, I’m up early at about 6.30. It doesn’t get light until later now, so I
put the light on, but I always turn it off when the sun comes up, to save a bit, you see.

‘Anyway, I’ve got my set routine and I don’t go to the shops until just after nine. I wait until the schoolchildren are out of the way and those going to work are wherever
they’re supposed to be, and then I leave. If I time it right, I’m out of the flat and on my way to the shops by five past. From habit, I lock the balcony doors when I go out. Daft, I
know.’

She pointed her index finger at the glass balcony doors, five floors from the ground.

‘Not daft,’ said Gabrielle. ‘It’s sensible.’

‘Anyhow, I locked the balcony doors as normal and, as I did so, I glanced down and saw a man throw a bag into the sea. He was the other side of that bus stop down there so I didn’t
get a good look at his face, and he was dressed in dark clothing. I could see, even from this distanceand with the rain coming down, he was quite a well-built man and if I had to say, I’d
guess that he was a youngish fella. When I say young, I mean in his thirties or forties. That is young to me.’

She laughed and Gabrielle smiled.

‘I don’t know if it’s of any help to you, but as they’ve sent someone out, and a detective too, I suppose it must be. Did you say you were from Major Crime? Is it
important? Sorry, I shouldn’t ask, should I?’

Gabrielle thought through her answer to the kind lady in front of her and stalled by taking a sip of tea.

‘You never know,’ she said in a non-committal fashion. ‘I’m very grateful that you called. It’s a good starting point – I can look into it further.’

Gabrielle left the flat with mixed emotions: she was making inroads into an enquiry that she felt more passionate about not investigating than investigating. She understood that she had a job to
do though, despite her doubts about the career choice she had made. She seemed to be fighting a losing battle when it came to separating her personal feelings from any ethics the police had tried
to teach her.

At least it made her human. At least it meant she cared.

The rest of the afternoon she easily filled by making calls, attending locations and gathering exactly what she needed until she was ready to return to the incident room. She recognized it for
what it was: she was keeping busy enough to stop her own grief from taking hold.

It was early evening when Gabrielle made her entrance at the incident room, and was at least cheered to see the DI and DCI Barbara Venice talking to the interview teams who
were on a break.

‘Gabs,’ said Harry. ‘How was the witness?’

She took a seat and smiled. She waved her paperwork at him. ‘She was lovely, made me tea, has a great view of the harbour and so had a great view of a man chucking a bag into the water.
I’ve got the CCTV, tracked most of the route he took to the seafront and back, and I’m pretty sure that I know who he is. The only thing I don’t know is what he was throwing in
the drink and why, although I could have a good guess at that one.’

The young detective surveyed the stunned faces of her colleagues. She couldn’t help but feel a little superior and extremely glad that she had been sent out to work by herself that
afternoon. This glory was all hers.

‘Nice one,’ said Harry, as he pitched forward on his chair. ‘Don’t stop there.’

‘OK,’ she said, as she unfolded a map of East Rise with the CCTV cameras marked on it. ‘I picked this up today when I got the footage downloads. Wasn’t sure if we already
had one, but thought I’d get one to be on the safe side.’

As she smoothed down the edges of the paper, Gabrielle cast an eye in Harry’s direction. He gave her a nod of approval.

‘What I’ve been thinking about,’ she said, ‘is who’s come into this enquiry so far whose movements we haven’t accounted for on Monday morning. Toby and Leon
were on their window-cleaning round, which started early, and we’re bottoming that out. There are the two men in the café with Woodville, seen by Leon on a previous occasion, and then
there are Jude Watson and Jonathan Tey. Watson’s not a particularly big bloke, but Jonathan Tey is. And he lives here.’ Gabrielle pointed to his street with the tip of her pen.
‘He’s already told us that he works from home some days, and Monday’s one of them.’

‘Fucking hell,’ said Tom across the table top to Sophia. ‘When me and Soph got to his house on Monday morning, he wasn’t in. His wife said how strange it was that
he’d gone out without his phone.’

‘Bastard was trying to outsmart us,’ said Sophia, cheeks tinged with pink. ‘Hindsight’s a wonderful thing, but when I think back on it now, he did seem to be acting a
little defensively. I put it down to nerves at being spoken to by the police for a murder. I won’t make that mistake again.’

‘Listen, you two,’ said Barbara, ‘this is new information. We didn’t know about a man lobbing stuff into the sea until Joyce Slattery called in last night. Don’t
fret over it, but I have to say, good work, Gabrielle.’

‘Gabs,’ said Harry as he put his hands behind his head and eased himself back in the chair, ‘you’ve just made my day. All we need to do is get Jonathan Tey and Jude
Watson arrested, find some sort of evidence and we’re laughing.’

What Harry wasn’t about to share with his team was that Martha Lipton had flagged the name Jonathan Tey up to him over twenty-four hours ago.

He trusted them not to leak the information but he wasn’t about to risk anything going wrong. He knew how much rested on him getting this right, so what did it matter if he kept his team
temporarily in the dark? A successful outcome was far more important than the danger of offending the ones who thought they had the right to know everything that was going on, whether it directly
affected them or not.

The wheels were in motion: first thing in the morning, before the sun came up, two very experienced, no-nonsense teams of rapid-entry uniform officers would descend on the home addresses of Jude
Watson and Jonathan Tey.

Harry couldn’t help it. He indulged himself with a self-satisfied smirk.

Wednesday 10 November

Harry’s office overlooked the rear yard of the police station and he had a good view of the vans arriving as they brought the prisoners in to custody. Partly because Tey
was of larger build than Watson, and partly because of the way he swaggered out of the back of the van, Harry could easily make out which of the two of them he was looking at. It was no mean feat
for a man in handcuffs whose head was almost level with the roof of the transit once he was standing beside it. Harry saw him try to shrug off the hands of the uniform officer who led him to the
custody security door. He couldn’t help a smile to himself when he saw that the PC escorting him was Karl Roundtree, six foot seven and a very good match for Tey’s size.

There was a conversation, short on Tey’s part, and Harry saw the prisoner toss his head back and refuse to answer. He thought he heard Karl say something along the lines of, ‘Get
that looked at by the nurse.’

That was all it needed to get Harry’s interest. He took his jacket from the back of his chair and left his office, heading in the direction of custody.

He knew that he had no actual reason for being in the cell block: he wasn’t interviewing, he wasn’t needed for any custody matters as they were being dealt with by Sandra Beckinsale,
but he was nosy.

He let himself in with his security pass, stood in the time lock and waited for the external solid metal door to slam shut behind him before he attempted to release the inner cage door. All the
while he was listening out for sounds of the prisoners being brought in from the holding area.

‘Harry,’ said a voice from behind the raised custody counter, ‘what are you doing down here? You do know that you’re a detective inspector? Are you lost?’

‘Colin,’ said Harry as he held out his hand for the custody sergeant to shake. ‘Still keeping you in the dungeons, I see?’

‘These two yours?’ said Colin as he jerked his head in the direction of the holding cell.

‘Yeah. They’re not both in there together, are they? Don’t want them talking.’

‘No, Karl’s keeping one in there but the other’s been booked in already. You were too slow, old man.’

‘You’ve put on a bit of weight,’ said Harry. ‘That gut of yours is probably spreading so fast because it thinks you’re in perpetual hibernation.’

‘I’m trying not to swear at you,’ said Colin with a laugh, ‘only because of the cameras. We can go out the back and I’ll tell you what a tosser I think you
are.’

Harry held up his hand as he heard the sound of an officer’s rubber soles squeaking on the polished floor, in step with the inflexible tread of his prisoner’s shoes.

The two approached the custody bench, arrogance running amok over Tey’s face. Nevertheless, he stood awkwardly in front of the high counter, designed to stop prisoners, and no doubt police
officers, from leaning on the ledge. The counter reached Tey’s chest level, so he stood with his arms at his sides, glancing around from time to time. His gaze met Harry’s.

Something about him wasn’t giving Harry the impression he was Albie Woodville’s murderer. Thug and half-wit, yes, but not paedophile murderer.

Harry moved behind the counter and stood beside the custody sergeant where he had no choice but to look down on the prisoner because of the raised platform. He took full advantage. Karl
Roundtree caught his eye as he stood just out of Tey’s line of vision. He glanced across at the officer who was tapping the back of his right hand with his left index finger.

Harry picked up on the cue immediately and took a step forward to glance down at Tey’s right hand. He saw a large welt, not completely healed, on the back of it. In reply to the discreet
signal, Harry gave a small nod to the officer and then stood back and watched the remainder of the booking-in procedure.

‘Yes, I want a solicitor,’ Tey said when asked, but said little else.

When Harry had seen enough, he made his way back to the incident room and did his best to muster his tired team.

He stood in the centre of the room, rubbed his hands together and said, ‘As you know, both Jonathan Tey and Jude Watson are in custody. I watched Tey being booked in and he’s got
what looks like a cut to his hand. It doesn’t appear to be that recent but it looks like a very deep and nasty wound, so you never know if it’s going to be relevant.’

‘Er, sorry, sir,’ said Gabrielle, going her standard shade of pink when all eyes, especially the DI’s, were on her. ‘I took the statement from Eric Samuels, the chairman
of the East Rise Players. He told me about a row that Jude and Jonathan had when they were cutting something out for the scenery and Jonathan cut his hand. He ended up blaming Jude for moving the
piece of cardboard. His hand bled quite a lot at the time.’

The DI stared at her.

‘It’s all in the statement I submitted,’ she said.

‘All is not lost,’ said Harry, determined to bolster the morale of his troops if it was the last thing he did. ‘If he had that nasty cut and went round to Woodville’s
flat and murdered him, his blood may turn up there somewhere.’

‘I don’t want to piss on your parade, boss,’ said Hazel from her desk in the corner, ‘but if we don’t find his blood, and the cut was bleeding badly, that points
away from his involvement. Anyway, you said the cut doesn’t look recent and Woodville’s murder was only five days ago.’