BLIND SPOT - AND TWO OTHERS

DEATH IS FOR THE DYING - EPISODE FIVE

CHAPTER NINETEEN

I made a couple of quick calls before moving on.  The first was to Grahame Moore, an old friend of mine and someone who I used from time to time.  He was a forty-something hacker.  On certain cases, he’d been an incredible source of information.  He could get beyond any firewall without leaving a trace of himself, bagging names, numbers, and email addresses, even credit histories and contracts while he was there.

  “Chinese laundry.”

  I smiled.  “Grahame, its John Handful.”

  “John!”

  He had a slight Suffolk accent, which he only emphasized when he spoke to me.  It had been a long-standing joke that nobody understood except us.

  “How’s things at the house of pleasure?”

  Grahame laughed.  “Good, son.  It’s been a while.”

  “Yeah, it has.  Too long.  Did you miss me?”

  “I missed your money.  So, what can I do you for?”

  “I’m hoping it’s pretty simple.  I need a financial check done on someone.  Bank accounts, credit cards, mortgage, investments and pensions – basically anything you can lay your hands on.  I need the whole thing, A to Z.”

  “Who is the victim?”

  I gave him Pauline Russell’s name.

  “Is that it?”

  “Afraid so,” I admitted.

  “What dates are we looking at?”

  “The last few months.  I’ll be on my mobile, or I can pick up emails on the move.  Just let me know when you get something.”

  “You got it.  I’ll give you details of my bank too.”

  Grahame’s bank was a locker at the local Oxmarket golf club where we played each other a couple of times a year.  For obvious reasons, he was a cash-only man, and he used the locker as a drop-off, changing the combination every time someone deposited his fee there.

  Next, I dialled Kimberley, and immediately got her voicemail.  I left a message, telling her how I was getting on, what I was doing and to call me back when she could.

  Finally, I phoned ahead to the offices of the Oxmarket Mercury to check with the receptionist that the editor-in-chief was in.  I didn’t speak to him, or anyone else.  The more time you gave people to prepare, the easier it was for them to close ranks.

  The newspaper was based in the only modern building in the town.  A mass of steel and glass its windows blinking in the sun like hundreds of eyes. 

  We entered the building, crossed the foyer to a smart reception area with brushed glass panels running the length of the room on our left, a curved front desk in front of that, and black leather sofas in a line on the right.  Beyond the sofas were floor-to-ceiling windows with fantastic views towards the North Sea.

  “Can I help you?”

  The receptionist looked like she’d left school about five minutes ago:  she couldn’t have even been nineteen, her blonde hair scraped into a ponytail, her skin flawless.  She had the traces of a Suffolk accent, but was obviously trying to put the brakes on it now she was working out of the office of a newspaper.

  “We’re here to see Nick Turner.”

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “We don’t know.”

  She blinked.  “Uh, okay.”

  “My name is John Handful and this is Dr Kira Reed.  I’m sure he’ll be able to spare the time to see us.”  I gave her my best smile.  “I’ll wait over here.”

  We went and sat by the window and looked at the view.  The receptionist made a call, but we couldn’t hear exactly what was being said; her voice was lost behind the drone of a helicopter close by, dropping out of the sky towards the local RAF base.  After a couple of minutes, she came over and told us Turner wouldn’t be long and then offered us something to drink.  We thanked her and asked for two glasses of cold water.

  Nick Turner emerged a quarter of an hour later and was immediately on the defensive, a scowl on his face, suspicion in his eyes as they zeroed in on us.  He was a tall man in his thirties, with thick black hair – glistening slightly – swept back from his face, blue eyes and pocked-marked skin.  As we stood and waited for him to come over, I saw he was wearing a blue and white pinstripe shirt, a terrible maroon tie and thick black braces.

  “Mr Turner, my name is John Handful, I’m a consulting private detective for the Suffolk Constabulary and this is Dr Kira Reed, a Home Office pathologist.”

  He shook our hands gingerly.  “Nick Turner,” he said, eyes still narrowed.  “What is it I can do for you?”

  “We’re helping Oxmarket CID with their investigation into the death of Archie Andrews, a local businessman.”  I explained.  “If possible we would like to see some archive photographs of his first wedding.  It was held at the Oxmarket church.”

  His expression immediately softened.  “Oh.  Right.  What year?”

  I told him.

  “Month?”

  “September.”

  It looked like the wind had been taken out of his sails.  He’d puffed himself up thinking coming out to see us, readied himself for a fight.

  “Mr Turner?”

  He seemed to start, as if he’d drifted away.  “Well, that is a coincidence,” he said.

  “What is?”

  “We had somebody here only yesterday, enquiring to see the same thing.  Month, year, the same.”

  “Let me guess?”  I said, badly disguising my annoyance.  “It was a woman, who went named Pauline Russell.”

  “How did you know?”

  “Call it intuition.”

CHAPTER TWENTY

We passed the front desk, where he told his receptionist to bring us some coffee, and then moved through a door.  On the other side of some glass panels was a room about the same length as the reception area with sixteen desks in it, all of them filled.  Some employees were on the phone, some were staring into their monitors, looking for the next scoop.

 Turner veered left towards an L-shaped kink in the room.  Off to the right was his office.  It was entirely encased in glass, standing on its own like a transport mausoleum.  There were no windows in this part of the building, but any potential darkness was offset by a series of bright halogen lamps running across the ceiling.  Inside was his desk, a big leather chair, filing cabinets lined up behind him and a second table with six chairs around it, which I assumed he used for meetings.  His screensaver was an extreme close-up of the Ipswich Town football club badge, in all its glory.  We sat down at the second table, and he pushed the door shut.

  “This is all rather embarrassing, “Turner said as he shuffled in at the table.

  “Why is that?”  I asked.  I got out my notepad, laid it on the table, and then removed a business card and pushed it across the desk towards him.

  “I sent this Pauline Russell down to the archive room with Ian Allum, our archive co-ordinator.”  He picked up my card and glanced at it.  “He got called away.  When he returned, she had gone with the archive material that you have just asked for.”

  “These things happen,” I suggested kindly.

  “Not to me,” he snapped.  “I run a tight ship.  I like to keep an eye on what’s happening out there.  This is my baby. I’ve invested a great deal of time and money into this newspaper. My father nearly took it to the brink of bankruptcy and I saved it. They are most of my people out there, I hand-picked them.  They’re good, but they need a steady hand.  Someone to step in and tell them what to do, and to make sure they’re not making bad decisions.”

  I got this sense that, in a weird way, Turner was enjoying this: being the centre of attention, being some kind of go-to man in a murder enquiry.  In fact, as I studied him – his eyes scanning the office like it was a palace – I realized whatever was happening in the world outside this building it took a firm second place to status in Turner’s eyes.  His job, the money he made, wandering the office as the boss – that was what was important to him; not a murder, not the people out there working for him.

  “Have you reported the theft to the police?”

  His eyes narrowed.  “It’s only old newspapers.”

  “That could be important crucial important evidence in a murder enquiry,” I said firmly.

  His eyes flicked to the door behind us and the receptionist came in, carrying a tray with a carafe of coffee, three delicate looking china mugs and a small matching china mug.  She laid it down on the table and started to pour.  She asked Kira if she wanted milk, which she did, but I told her black was fine.  She knew how Turner took it without asking.  After she was done, his eyes lingered on her as she left before returning his attention back to me.

  “Consulting detective for the Suffolk Constabulary, you say?”

  “Yes,” I said glancing quickly at Kira.

  “Do you get much work?”

  “Well, I’m not on the breadline.”  But I could see in his face what he really wanted to ask: how much money did I make.  “Do you have CCTV here?”

  “Of course.”  He said before returning to his favourite topic of conversation: him as boss.  Either he was paranoid about his staff challenging his position of authority, or being in charge was a drug he couldn’t get enough of.  Either way, it was starting to f**k me off.

  “May I see the footage from yesterday?”

  “Why?”

  “It might show us who the woman is?”

  His phone started ringing.  He plucked the receiver from its cradle.  “Turner!” He listened for a couple of seconds.  “Glad you called, Ian.  I’m going to send a couple of people down to you who want to see the CCTV footage from yesterday.”  More silence.  “Okay.”  He listened for a few seconds more.  “Yeah, we’ll sort that out later.  I’ll send these people down to you right now.”  He put the phone down.  “Ian Allum, is waiting for you in the archive room.  You can take the lift.”

  He glanced at his watch and made no effort to suppress a sigh.  I didn’t care that he was annoyed.  Discovering this woman’s identity was crucial.

  “Don’t be put off by Ian’s demeanour,” he said as we stood up.  “He’s as sharp as a butcher’s knife, but he gets easily distracted.”

  “One more thing,” I said as we stopped at the door.  “Can you describe this woman?”

  He stood and though for a moment.  “Elegant.  Smartly dressed.  Nice figure.”

  “What about her face?”  I pressed impatiently.

  “Difficult to tell.  She wore a wide-brimmed hat and some sunglasses.”  He said, almost, apologetically.  “I caught a glimpse of some blonde hair.  Really blonde, in face it was almost white.  And, there was something unusual about her mouth.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It was very sensual,” he smiled, sinisterly.  “You know what I mean?”

  I didn’t respond.

  “Anything else?”

  “She was wearing an expensive looking watch.”

  “Thank you, Mr Turner.”  I said.  “You have been a great help.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Ian Allum was pale and fat, about forty, his brown hair disappearing fast.  He looked like he hadn’t seen daylight since he was a teenager.

  “Well, you certainly rattled Turner’s cage,” he said smiling, revealing a set of tobacco stained teeth.

  “Did I?”  I said innocently, noticing a smile appear on Kira’s face.

  “I should say,” he said gleefully.  “He’s spitting feathers.  It’s about time somebody upset that arrogant bastard.  He’s had that coming for a long time.”

  “We’re here to see the CCTV footage from yesterday,” Kira prompted, trying to get him back on track.

  “Of course,” he said and then held up his hand in apology.  “Sorry about the language.”

  “That’s okay,” Kira shrugged pleasantly.

  I saw a USB stick in the breast pocket of his white shirt.  He took it out and handed it to me.

  “That’s everything,” he said.  “I downloaded it last night as a precaution, just in case Turner changed his mind and notified the police.  What he doesn’t know is that the system wipes itself at twelve o’clock every night.”

  I smiled.  “He said that he ran a tight ship.”

  Allum laughed. 

  “He’d like to think so,” he told us.  “That man doesn’t know his arse from his elbow.”

  We followed him to a small enclosed office where there was a shelf of pornographic literature, a PC and printer and two chairs.  There was dust on the shelf and the floor was dirty.

  “It’s all yours,” he said.  “I’ll let you two get on with it.  I’ve got some work to do.”

  “They haven’t cleaned in here recently,” Kira said.

  I ignored her and sat down on one of the chairs, and she quickly joined me.  While the computer was firing up, I felt the familiar buzz that came when I felt close to a conclusion.

  I inserted the USB stick and ran the footage.  On screen, there was a clock in the bottom left, with the date adjacent to that.

No sound just pictures, cutting from the reception, to offices to toilet hallway, then the archive room, exterior front and the exterior back. The exterior back was the car park.  Various models of all shape and sizes but the one that stood out for me was a shiny black Mercedes with the personalized number plate NT1.

  “A bit of a duff recording isn’t it?”  Kira observed.

  “I’ve seen worse,” I told her truthfully.

  I leaned forward a little closer to the screen and waited.  Another cut: reception, a smartly dressed woman, wearing a hat that was tilted deliberately to hide the profile of her face. Why? My index finger hovered over the mouse and then tapped it once to freeze the picture.  It wasn’t so much black and white sepia but the colour of dead photographs.  I adjusted the scroll wheel and moved the action along one frame at a time.  I moved in on the screen, my finger touching the face that briefly had looked in the direction of the camera.

  Kira leaned forward.  The scent of her lovely perfume, distracting me a little.

  “Is that who I think it is?”  She said. 

  I slumped back on my chair.

  “I’m afraid so,” I responded with a horrible unsettling feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  I felt Kira squeezed my hand.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Run this forward at half-speed.”  I said composing myself.

  The camera stayed with the reception for another fifteen seconds, then switched to the offices and all points on the compass.  When it returned to the reception, the woman had gone.

  “Where is she?”  Kira said with urgency.  It was her turn to touch the screen with her finger.

  “She’s probably being escorted to the archive room.”  I said.

  Sure enough, she reappeared being introduced to Ian Allum by Nick Turner, just outside the lift.  Turner shook hands, holding on to her hand longer than necessary and then like a sulking teenager reluctantly turned round and started to walk back the way he had come.

  Frame by frame we watched as the woman was accompanied into the archive room and to the large box file we had wanted to see.  At this point left her on her own and disappeared.

  Kira got up and poured herself a cup of water from the water cooler just outside the office door.  I didn’t want one.

  There was a seconds lull, and then it cut to other parts of the building, before returning to the archive room.

  I pressed pause and edge it on manually, this time using the cursor keys.  The action was moving more slowly, so I could keep my attention firmly on the woman.  I watched as she removed the file from the box, checked the contents of the file and removed some newspaper cuttings from that file.

  She then proceeded to fold it neatly and discreetly put it in her clutch bag.

  I replayed the entire thing again, from the moment the woman arrived until the time she had left the building.

  I wanted to be one hundred per cent certain.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Three hours later we left the newspaper building.

  Grahame texted to tell me he’d emailed Pauline Russell’s financial history and phone records, so, we made our way back to my house.

  With the light breeze behind us, I enjoyed feeling the stiffness ease out of joints as we walked.  I had been sitting for too long.  I should go to the gym more often. Play a bit more sport than just the odd game of golf.  I always felt better when I walked and took a bit of exercise.

  Where the road split south near the school we chose the lower westerly path.  It seemed a little more sheltered there or maybe the wind was dropping slightly.  We were still holding hands, like seven-year-olds pretending to be grown up, exchanging a few words.  All about ourselves, how lucky we were to have found each other, plans for the future.  Sentimental stuff that had nothing to do with the investigation.

  The sea out from the harbour was still dramatic, huge rolling waves and white breakers against the grey rocks.  The sun reappeared from behind a cloud, lighting up a rainbow of spray, then everything was darker again.  We walked past the small graveyard of the church, which was so close to the sea, spray from cresting waves blew across it.

  “When you go back to work tomorrow,” I said suddenly, “would you be able to get this tested for me?  Get an analysis done on what components make up the scent.”

  I handed her the handkerchief with Archie’s new cologne on it.

  “I’ll go and do that now, if you like?” she said willingly.

  “It’s your day off,” I reminded her.

  “This is your work and I want to be involved in it,” she said.  “I never realized how much thinking you put into solving these cases and I might not get another chance.  I only ever seen a case from the victim’s point of view and never the detectives.”

  “As long as you don’t mind?”  I persisted.

  “Of course, I don’t,” she replied.  “I’ll see you back at your house.”

  “No later than eight,” I instructed.

  “Why?”

  “I’ll treat you to dinner,” I told her.

  “See you at eight,” she said and went off in the direction of the mortuary.

  I was back at my house in another twenty minutes and made a cup of tea and a sandwich before I sat down while I booted up the computer.  There were two PDFs waiting for me.

  The first one took in everything she’d ever paid into or set up:  bank accounts, credit cards, mortgages, ISAs, healthcare, insurance policies and pensions.  A woman’s life reduced to twenty-five pages.  There weren’t many surprises, but there was a more detailed breakdown of her life and health insurance, and a years’ worth of statements from her bank account.

  Until a year ago, she had never been in the red.  Then Archie’s divorce settlement payments started to dry up and suddenly, she was struggling to make ends meet every month.  The patterns of her life which had been marked out before the last twelve months – the restaurants she ate in, the cinemas she went to, the places she went to, the places she went on weekends – began to dry up, and soon the only constant was the lack of those things.  In the last twelve months, she had hardly gone out at all.

  In fact six months ago the account had not been used.  The mortgage and credit cards paid off, and all the savings and insurance’s cashed in.  But then in the last seven days £3000 had been paid in. At a branch in Oxmarket.  This confirmed that Mrs Harmer had not been mistaken.

  I moved onto her mobile phone records.  Grahame had secured names and addresses for every incoming and outgoing number.  During the week there was the odd text here and there to friends, a cousin in Grimsby, an aunt and uncle on the Isle of Wight, and quite a few to Archie Andrews after the money had dried up.

  The document was split into two six monthly sections; and until six months ago, there wasn’t single call from the phone by Pauline, but many people had tried to call her:  Archie, her bank, friends.

  Then I noticed something.

  Cross-checking the phone records for a second time, I realized I’d made a small oversight.  There were calls made to the same number for about two months before she ceased using the phone.

  In that period she’d had 97 telephone conversations with that number, and sent 186 texts.  The week before she stopped using the phone contact dropped off dramatically:  4 calls and 10 texts for the first few days.  Half that in the next couple of days and then nothing at all.

  I wrote down the number on a piece of paper and then dialled the number on my phone.

  “Patterson’s.”  A young female answered.

  I instantly hung up.  I immediately knew who they were.

  It was the estate agents in the high street of Oxmarket.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Fred Patterson was an amiable man, relaxed and flustered.  He’d been born in Birmingham and still had the Midlands accent.  He’d helped me find my new house after I’d split from Kimberley.

  “Hello, Mr Handful,” he said cheerfully.  “Everything okay with the new property?”

  “Yes, fine.”  I responded.  “I’m here about another property.”

  “Really, which one?”  He raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  “The one bought by this lady.”

  I showed him an enlarged A4 photograph of Pauline Russell that I had printed off at the ‘Oxmarket Mercury’.  It wasn’t obvious.

  “It’s poor quality, Mr Handful.”  He quickly told me.

  He turned to his assistant.  A pretty woman with sleek beautiful hair that went right down her back, a tanned face and long, tanned legs.

  “What do you think, Isobel?”  He showed her the photograph.

  She picked up her glasses, and put them on.  From where I was standing they enhanced her beautiful liquid indigo eyes even more.

  “She looks familiar,” she said.  “Have you a name?”

  I told her.

  “Yes, I remember her,” she said, brightly.  “But that’s not the name she gave.”

  “What name did she give you?”

  She told me.

  I smiled, not surprised at all.  “And what property did she buy?”

  After an approving nod from Patterson she told me that as well.

  “Thank you,” I said cheerfully.  “You have been a great help.”

  As soon as I stepped outside the estate agents I phoned Kira.  Radio 3 was playing in the background.  She had told me it helped her concentrate.

  “I’m so sorry, that I’ve asked you to work on your day off.”

  “Don’t be silly,” she said.  “I’m glad to help.  I’ve got my best lab technician analysing it right now.”

  “Excellent,” I said, pondering for a moment.  “Ring me as soon as you have anything.”

  “Of course,” I will, she said cheerfully.  “What are you going to do now?”

  “I’m going to call in at the office, then visit Angelo’s, the perfume shop and then pay the Detective Inspector a visit.”

  “Right,” she said. “Are we still on for dinner?”

  “Of course,” I replied.  “Where do you want to go?”

  “I don’t mind,” she said, “would you like me to pick you up?”

  “I know,” I said, suddenly.  “Why don’t I cook dinner?  If you pop in at the shop.  They have a good selection of wine in there.  If you get something like a six-year-old, Tarragona Gran Reserva. It has a well-balanced fruit and oak flavours and will get perfectly with Maccheroni alla Genovese.”

  “Sounds delicious,” she said.  “See you at eight.”

  The call ended, and I continued my walk into town.  However, before I had walked half a mile my mobile rang again.  It was Kimberley.

  “I need to speak you,” she said with urgency.

  “Do you want to meet me at the office?”  I suggested.  “I’ll be there in about fifteen minutes.”

  “Alright,” she agreed.  “I’ll see you there then.”

  The kettle was boiling, and I had two mugs ready when Kimberley finally arrived.  One had instant coffee granules in it, the other had a peppermint tea bag that I had borrowed from the employment agency in the office next to mine.

  “You remembered,” she smiled, as I handed her the mug of steaming green mint scented liquid.

  She followed me into the office, and she sat down in the chair opposite my own.  We were separated by the desk.  A desk we had once made love on, one passionate Wednesday afternoon.  Now she was no longer my fiancé.  She was someone in trouble, a victim of circumstances, like most of the other people who sat in that chair.

  “How can I help, Kimberley?”  I asked with genuine concern.

  “It’s the bank statement.”  She opened her handbag and placed a sheet of paper on the desk in front of me.  “Our joint account current account.  I don’t understand it.”

  “What don’t you understand?”

  “I always dealt with our personal account.”  She paused.  “On the day before he died he took £3000 in cash from our joint account.  Why would he want so much money?  Why would he have done that?”

  I knew the answer and I told her what I knew, and watched her break down in front of me as the words came out of my mouth.