The Body in the Boot: The first 'Mac' Maguire mystery (23 page)

‘Come on,’ Mac said to Tommy, ‘I’ve just realised we haven’t eaten since the hospital. Might be a long night, sausage and egg sandwiches are definitely in order.’

As they quickly ate their sandwiches Tommy looked excitedly at Mac and said, ‘I can’t believe it! I can’t believe we might be close to solving the case.’

‘Well we can’t count our chickens yet but I agree we could be close.’

Inside Mac felt as excited as Tommy looked. He really felt that this might be finally it.

It took them just over half an hour to make it to the science park. Half of the ‘park’ was filled with gleaming new high tech buildings while the other half consisted of neglected nineteen sixties industrial units. Some were still in use but many had windows broken and weeds growing in the brickwork where wind-blown dirt had gathered.

HDE Pharma had one of the glitziest buildings on the site, all glass and steel, angles and curves. Mac looked at the site next door, an old steel fabrication firm from what he could see of the fading name painted on the wall. It clearly hadn’t been used in years. A large ‘For Sale’ sign lay flat on the ground.

The two police cars and the van containing the Support Unit parked up. They only had to wait for a couple of minutes for another police car to pull up. Three policemen and a very tall, loose limbed man with blond hair got out. The man approached the waiting group with a broad smile as though they were old friends he hadn’t seen for quite a while. He held his hand out.

Dan stepped forward and shook his hand.

‘Mr. Hart-Tolliver?’ he asked.

‘For my sins yes,’ the tall man replied. ‘How can I help the police?’

Dan introduced himself and flashed his warrant card.

‘We’d like to search your premises if that’s alright.’

Mac noticed that Jonty hesitated for a split second and the smile dropped ever so slightly. Then normal service was resumed.

‘Of course, anything I can do to help. Let me open up for you.’

He produced a set of keys and opened the main door then he walked quickly into the lobby and disarmed the burglar alarm. Dan gestured for Adil to follow him in.

As he did this Dan turned to Mac and asked, ‘What do you think?’

‘He’s our man alright notice he didn’t even ask what it was all about? I must admit I’m a bit worried though. He’s letting us look around too easily, makes me feel like he’s fairly sure we won’t find anything.’

A van pulled up in the car park and three men in white suits got out.

‘Good, forensics are here. Now we can start,’ Dan said.

Mac turned to look and he felt something click in his lower back.

‘Bugger it!’ he exclaimed as a spasm of pain gripped his back.

‘Are you alright Mac?’ Dan asked with some concern.

The colour had drained out of Mac’s face and it had suddenly become contorted.

‘Unfortunately no,’ Mac replied, angry at his body. ‘Of all the bloody times!’

Dan called Tommy over.

‘Take Mac back home, he’s in a lot of pain.’

‘No, no,’ Mac protested. ‘It might only be temporary. All I’ll need is a few minutes in the car, lying down with the seat flat. Please.’

Dan nodded at Tommy and he helped Mac stumble to the car. He adjusted the back of the seat so it was as flat as possible and Mac gratefully lay down.

‘Let me know if anything happens,’ Mac asked.

‘Of course, just rest now,’ Tommy said.

Mac lay back and was grateful when, after five or six minutes, the pain backed off a bit. He looked at his watch, it was a quarter past eight. He closed his eyes and suddenly felt very tired. He drifted off into a light sleep punctuated by bizarre dreams.

When he opened his eyes he checked his watch again. It was nearly nine. They’d obviously not found anything straight away. Water droplets covered the windscreen, it had been raining while he’d been asleep. Mac gazed idly out of the window and found his eyes had focussed on something. The car was at the edge of the car park and, from where he sat, he gazed over a strip of unkempt grass that lay between the gleaming glass building and the disused factory next door. He suddenly sat up and looked again.

Ignoring the pain he got out of the car and looked intently at the patch of grass. He was still looking when Dan arrived.

‘You were right, bloody nothing so far,’ Dan said grumpily. ‘Are you alright Mac?’

‘Can you see what I’m seeing?’ Mac asked.

‘No, what are you looking at?’

‘See just there,’ Mac pointed with his finger.

The angle of the light from the pharmaceutical building illuminated the raindrops on the blades of grass. A clear straight line could be seen cutting through the grass, a path.

‘Someone’s been going into the disused factory next door,’ Mac said.

Dan instantly lost his grumpiness and got his phone out.

‘Martin I’m looking at a disused factory to the right of HDE Pharma, looks like it was old steel fabrication factory. Can you find out who owns it? Quickly as possible please.’

Dan turned to Mac, ‘Come on let’s go and have a look.’

They strode through the wet grass getting the bottom of their trousers wet but neither of them even noticed. The angle of the path pointed towards a little annex built on the side of the factory, possibly for offices Mac thought. As they got closer Mac’s blood started racing. For a disused site the annex had a pretty sturdy door and a massive padlock holding it shut tight.

Dan’s phone rang.

‘Yes Martin.’

‘That site, it was bought eight months ago by HDE Holdings Limited, sole director Emilia Hart-Tolliver.  She’s Jonty’s wife.’

‘Thanks Martin and bloody well done.’

Dan rang off and turned to Mac.

‘It’s him alright, the site’s owned by his wife. Wait here, looks like the Support Unit will have something to do after all.’

He returned a couple of minutes later with two uniformed officers one of who was carrying what looked like a massive pair of cutters. As big as the lock was it was lying on the floor two minutes later. Dan opened the door and tried a light switch. A hall with several doors leading off it was instantly illuminated. He ran ahead opening each of the doors. Mac glanced inside as he passed them. Old desks, broken chairs and files littered the rooms.

Dan opened the last door, the door facing them at the end of the hallway, and he stopped dead.

‘We’ve found her Mac, we’ve found her,’ he said.

Dan turned away from the door and leant against the wall. He looked mournfully at Mac and shook his head slowly.

‘Too late Mac,’ he said sadly. 

Mac looked into the room. It was warm, Mac could see a heater in the corner but it was the bed in the centre of the room that drew his eyes. The bed was an old steel model, possibly ex-Army Mac thought, and it had been bolted to the floor. On it lay Chanelle Burdon. She had chains on her arms and legs and she was naked. Her back was arched as though is some spasm and the expression on her face, frozen by death, was etched with pain. Mac checked her pulse just in case but there was nothing.

‘Come on Mac, let’s leave it to forensics,’ Dan said in a low voice.

As they walked out Dan angrily exclaimed, ‘Christ, I’ve seen some things but the look on that poor girl’s face!’

Mac could only agree. He followed Dan into the clean modernity of the HDE building.

‘Where is he?’ Dan asked Adil.

Mac could sense that Dan’s shock had quickly turned to an ice-cold anger.

‘Mr. Hart-Tolliver? He’s in his office. It’s that one there,’ Adil said pointing with his finger. ‘You’ve found something, haven’t you?’

‘Follow us,’ Dan ordered tersely.

Dan flung open the door and found Jonty behind his desk tapping away at his laptop.

‘Ah, DI Carter. As you haven’t found anything can I go home now? We’ve got friends for dinner and I’m already late.’

The smile widened.

‘Mr. Hart-Tolliver, you might just have to miss that dinner. We’ve just had a look in the disused factory next door and guess what we found?’

Jonty’s smile disappeared. Without the smile his face looked quite mean.

‘Take him to the station,’ Dan said to Adil. ‘And get Mary and Buddy to pick up his wife. Let’s see what she knows.’

Jonty stood up and Mac wondered if he might give them some problems but he meekly allowed the handcuffs to go on and followed Adil out of the room.

‘I wanted to catch the bastard but I’d hoped…’ Dan left the sentence hanging.

‘You’d hoped to find her alive. I know, me too.’

Mac tried to picture her pretty face but her contorted death mask was all he could see.

Just over an hour later Mac was once again seated in the interview room with Dan. On the other side of the table sat Jonty and his solicitor. Jonty wasn’t smiling.

Dan stated the time and date and then said, ‘Interview regarding the death of Chanelle Burdon. Attending DI Dan Carter, consultant ex-DCS Mac Maguire, Mr. Jonty Hart-Tolliver and Mr. Marcus Powell, solicitor for Mr. Hart-Tolliver.’

‘You can call me Jonty,’ Jonty said, the smile returning.

Dan read him his rights and then, ignoring Jonty’s request, said, ‘Mr. Hart-Tolliver what can you tell us about the death of Miss Chanelle Burdon whose body was found…’

Jonty interrupted. ‘Listen, can we do a deal?’

‘A deal? What kind of deal?’ Dan said as he looked suspiciously at Jonty.

‘You’ve got my wife here, she’s nothing to do with…all this. Let her go and I’ll tell you everything.’

‘Everything?’

Jonty nodded.

Dan gave it some thought.

‘She’s not been questioned yet, so I can’t let her go, but I promise if you tell us what we need to know I’ll keep the questions to a minimum and send her home in a police car.’

‘Okay, that’s near enough. Old Marcus here doesn’t want me to tell you anything but I honestly can’t see the point. Your forensics people aren’t idiots, they’ll know soon enough that it was me in that room with the girl. My prints are all over the place and they’ll probably find some semen too.’

‘Semen?’ Dan asked, looking even more appalled.

Jonty nodded again and the smile widened, ‘Well she was a pretty little thing and I’m only human after all.’

Mac somehow doubted that last part of the statement.

‘So what do I say now? You’ve got me bang to rights guv’nor or something along those lines?’

Dan stared at him like he just landed from another planet. His solicitor buried his head in his hands.

‘Carry on. No start from when you were in Budapest,’ Dan ordered.

‘Nice city, very cheap too. I had an idea about a revolutionary new drug but not as much money as I would have liked so Hungary seemed like a good option. I was so happy when we discovered HDE 1078, I thought that I’d found a wonder drug, which of course is what it was, but we just couldn’t get rid of the side effects. Then we found HDE 1134 and, while it wasn’t anywhere near as potent as 1078 it did lower blood pressure very effectively and it didn’t seem to have any serious side effects. However animals could only tell us so much, the effects in humans might be more subtle but still severe enough to make the drug unusable. I mean no-one wants Alzheimer’s as a side effect do they?’

He smiled as though they were all having a friendly cup of tea together.

‘Anyway I knew we only had one shot with the drug as I was running out of money so I decided we needed some guinea pigs. I persuaded Sandor to get me some girls and he wasn’t too keen at first but he soon got into it, especially as he got some perks out of it, lots of free sex. We kept them in a cellar under the lab, very convenient too. At first Sandor wasn’t too keen on being involved with disposing of them afterwards. I had to bully him a bit to get him to inject the first one with heroin but he seemed to get the hang of it afterwards. The trials went very well and I was sure when it came to the real tests that the drug would go through with flying colours.’

‘How many?’ Dan asked tersely.

‘How many what?’

‘Girls.’

‘Oh them, seven in all. I’d worked it out. We needed six to test the side effects at various doses.’

‘And the seventh?’

Jonty’s smile never left his face as he said, ‘Oh! that was to test for the lethal dose. It only provided a ballpark figure of course but still bloody useful information.’

Mac felt his blood run cold as he said those words.

‘Anyway the drug was a big hit, high blood pressure is an epidemic at the moment, over sixty million in America alone. It saved thousands of lives,’ Jonty said trying to look sincere. He just looked grotesque.

Mac also guessed it had made him a lot of money.

‘So I moved back to the UK and started a new company, new premises. I was really going somewhere but we needed another hit drug to be sure of keeping it all afloat. And we did, HDE 1265. In animal tests it slowed heart rate dramatically, not hibernation but part of the way there, and with apparently no side effects. Again, as the side effects might be subtle, I decided we needed to run more trials.’

He made it sound so matter of fact, Mac thought, when he was really talking about kidnapping and murdering human beings.

‘Sandor helped me out again. He got the girls from Luton, as he knew the town well, and all was fine until he had that stupid collision, the prat!’

‘The collision wasn’t his fault,’ Dan said flatly. ‘Someone ran into him.’

Jonty shrugged his shoulders.

‘Whatever. I knew I had to get rid of him and so I told him once we got rid of the last girl that I was going to get him out of the country, get him somewhere safe and he believed it. However I didn’t plan on him settling some old scores before he left. When he told me about killing that professor and the taxi driver I knew I had to get rid of him immediately and so I shot him full of 1078 and staged his suicide. Quite good I thought it was too. Did you like the touch about the biomed conference? Lots of suspects there for you to get on with.’

His grin widened and Mac was rapidly reaching the conclusion that Mr. Hart-Tolliver was barking mad.

‘So that was that, except I needed a girl for the lethal dose test. I suppose I could have left that one out, I was fairly certain I knew anyway, but it bugged me so much that I thought why not? Getting a girl was far easier than I thought, made me wonder what I was paying Sandor all that money for. The only problem was that she didn’t die when I thought she would, it took two days longer at the end of which you, unfortunately, turned up. If you’d left it until tomorrow I’d have been fine.’

Jonty smiled a rueful smile.

‘What do you mean?’ Dan asked.

‘I was going to torch the place tonight. I’d bought the factory so we could expand, we’d need the extra space for the new drug. So torching it would not only get rid of the evidence but also clear the site for the new buildings and I’d get a bit of a pay out from the insurance to boot.’

‘How come?’

‘Well I was going to stage it so it looked like squatters were using the place, junkie squatters. I’d already mentioned to some people at the company that I thought someone was squatting there, just to set the scene. I’d carefully place some drug paraphernalia around the place and there’s lot of cardboard still in the building so it would burn very nicely.’

‘Is that how you originally planned to dispose of Sandor?’ Mac asked.

Jonty laughed.

‘You’re very perceptive, yes that was the plan. Sandor would go in with the last girl and they’d both burn nicely together, poor little junkie lovers. Unfortunately he jumped the gun.’

‘Okay that’s enough for now,’ Dan stood up. ‘Jonty Hart-Tolliver I’m charging you with the murder of Chanelle Burdon, you will be questioned further and other charges will follow in due course. You’ll be kept in custody until any court hearing takes place.’

Dan turned off the recorder and then ordered a uniform to take Jonty to the cells. He picked up the phone to tell the DCS the news.

Mac went into the corridor and saw the back of Jonty Hart-Tolliver as he walked towards a lifetime behind bars. Dan came out of the interview room, he  jumped up and punched the air. The look on Dan’s face told Mac that it wasn’t done in celebration but out of absolute frustration.

‘I so wanted to smash that bastard’s smile right down his throat!’ Dan exploded.

Mac knew exactly what he meant.

‘You know I used to see all those programmes on the TV about the Nazi death camps in the Second World War, about how they experimented on people and all the terrible things they did. I often used to wonder what type of human being could do such a thing. I think we’ve met one of them tonight.’

Dan nodded grimly.

Mac laid his hand on Dan’s shoulder and said, ‘It’s a win Dan, a real result. You’ve caught a serial killer, one of the most cold-blooded ones I’ve ever come across, and you’ve taken him off the streets. If it hadn’t been for your decision to go tonight we’d have lost him but you chose right Dan, it’s a win, a bloody massive gold-plated win.’

A wide smile slowly broke over Dan’s face.

‘Yes, it is a win, isn’t it? Come on, let’s go tell the team.’

Dan told the assembled team that Jonty had confessed everything. They all stood up and applauded loudly.

‘Now all of you get down the pub and start getting drunk,’ Dan ordered. ‘I’ll be along later.’

He turned to Mac.

‘Off to see the boss now. He’ll want to hold a press conference as soon as possible, tell everyone how he cracked the case. Oh well, I’ll see you down the pub.’

Mac shook his head.

‘Sorry Dan but I won’t be going. I have to drive home plus, if I’m honest, I’m deathly tired and I need my bed. However I would like to meet your boss.’

Dan looked puzzled at Mac’s request.

‘Sure, follow me.’

The DCS was straightening his tie and looking himself over in the mirror when they walked in.

‘Bloody good work, well done Dan. The conference is arranged for an hour from now, nice timing for the evening news. This will really show us in our best light. Who’s this?’

‘Boss let me introduce you to Mac Maguire, who used to be DCS Maguire from the London Murder Squad. We wouldn’t have cracked the case without him.’

The DCS shook Mac’s hand limply.

‘Nice to meet you at last and thanks for all your help. I’ll bet you’ve done hundreds of these press conferences, we don’t get the chance so much out here.’

‘Yes I must have done hundreds I suppose but I never liked doing them that much. However I must admit I think you’re being very brave.’

The DCS stopped fiddling with his tie and turned around.

‘Brave, how?’ he asked with a concerned look.

‘Well you gave another conference not that long ago more or less saying you’d got the man who’d carried out the murders. Now you’re going to have to say that there was someone else involved. If I know the press, they’ll pounce on that and all of the questions will be about how come you told us one thing then and another now. I know we’ve all had to do it in our time but it’s really not nice is it? The press, they’re like a pack of wolves when they get going. As I said it takes a brave man to turn up and take a savaging like that and on prime time news too. You have my admiration.’

The DCS gave this some serious thought.

‘Er Dan, I think perhaps on balance you should take the conference, I mean after all it was you who caught the perpetrator so perhaps you should get the credit.’