Above Suspicion (38 page)

Off the damp corridor, one room was empty, another boarded up. The last room was McDowell’s bedroom. They prised the padlocks away from the door. Inside, the room seemed more habitable than the rest of the flat. There was a TV set, a coffee maker and a wardrobe. One wall was lined with black and white curling photographs, mostly of women draped over those familiar sloping shoulders and minor celebrities at his nightclub. The younger McDowell had been quite a handsome ladies’ man. There were a few colour snapshots of him in a T-shirt, showing off his muscles. In a corner was a set of weights and barbells.

‘How the mighty have fallen,’ Langton murmured, softly.

They found more empty vodka bottles stashed in drawers and under the bed, as well as some full ones in the wardrobe. Their methodical search yielded old newspaper cuttings, books, a stack of pornographic videos and magazines, knuckledusters, a cosh, two flick knives and a pillowslip containing some women’s dirty underwear.

Langton lifted up the old frayed carpets, which revealed a hoard of cocaine, Ecstasy tabs and a bag of marijuana.

‘We can keep him for as long as we like,’ he said, feeling drained.

Lewis showed him a handful of US travel brochures.

‘You found a passport anywhere?’

Lewis and the two uniformed officers shook their heads. As the two uniforms moved out into the hall, Lewis asked his gov quietly, ‘What do you think? Is it him?’

‘Could be,’ Langton said uncertainly.

One of the officers appeared at the door. ‘Sir, you want to come and look at this.’

Near the front door beside the electricity meter was a cupboard which they had forced open. Hidden beneath a torn blanket were several women’s handbags, covered in what looked like brick dust.

Langton kneeled down. He looped his pen underneath a strap and drew it towards him. With a handkerchief in his hand, he opened the bag. Inside were a wallet, cheap perfume, a powder compact and a packet of condoms. He eased out the wallet and examined it.

‘Jesus.’ He turned to Lewis. ‘This belonged to Kathleen Keegan.’

Langton told the officers they had better not touch anything else. It was time to call in a forensic team.

By ten o’clock they were back at the police station. McDowell was shouting in the cells below that the walls were full of cockroaches. Though a doctor had administered a sedative, it had yet to kick in. They waited in the room allocated, as the evidence was brought in plastic zipped-up containers: three women’s handbags, contents listed and bagged. One they already knew belonged to Kathleen Keegan; the others were identified as those of Barbara Whittle and Sandra Donaldson.

In the station car park, arc lamps had been set up and the forensic team was making an inch-by-inch search of McDowell’s Mercedes. So far, all they had discovered were half bottles of vodka beneath the seats and two rocks of cocaine and a crack-pipe in the glove compartment.

Langton and Lewis adjourned to a nearby pub, where they nursed a double Scotch and a gin and tonic respectively. They touched glasses.

‘A good day’s work,’ Langton commented.

‘Does this mean Alan Daniels is off the hook?’ asked Lewis.

Langton stared into his Scotch for a moment, then drained it. ‘So it would seem, Mike. So it would seem.’

Chapter Seventeen

Anna stood by the corrugated-iron gates that led into Wreckers Limited just outside Watford. She was waiting for PC Gordon White.

The yard was at the end of a small, terraced row of houses. The wall was over eight feet high and big hoops of barbed wire were nailed to the top. She could peer into the breakers’ yard through a crack.

She spun around when she heard the car, a Corvette. White got out, nodding at it proudly. ‘A heap of rust before I got my hands on it.’

‘It’s amazing.’ When she rested her briefcase on its bonnet, he grimaced and she quickly lifted it off. She took out the photographs of the Mercedes 280SL.

‘How much do these cars cost?’

‘Depends on the condition. You could pick up one in need of a lot of renovation for five or six grand, maybe even less. It’s a 1970s model, so you’ve got to have a massive mileage.’

‘How about one in this condition?’

‘Well, if it was remodelled, hood in perfect condition, with no rust and the engine in good nick, you could pay anything up to fifty thousand.’

‘Fifty?’

‘They’re collectors’ items. The hubcaps alone are worth over a couple of hundred.’

She asked about the process of crushing vehicles.

‘If you’ve written your car off and the insurance company is in agreement, you can wheel it in here. The charge for crushing it isn’t that much.’

Anna chewed her lip. ‘So whoever owned this Mercedes, for example, if he wanted the insurance, would have had his insurance company look at it to say it wasn’t roadworthy.’

‘With a car this valuable, they’d want to look at it.’

‘If he described the damage as just a prang, would they pay for it to be crushed? Or would they pay for repairs?’

‘Depends on how bad the prang was. Though it wouldn’t really be logical to crush this. They’ve got beautiful steering wheels, nice big round ones, some made of wood, that would be worth salvaging; dashboard, even; ditto the hubcaps. It would make more sense to split it up, for resale of the spare parts.’

Anna nodded. ‘OK, let’s do it.’

‘Do what, exactly?’

‘Find out about the Mercedes that was brought here.’ She replaced the photograph in her briefcase. ‘It’s connected to a case I’m working on.’

‘Insurance fiddle, is it?’

‘More serious than that.’

White, intrigued, eased back the corrugated gate.

Wreckers Limited was far bigger inside than she had thought. The noise was deafening. A forklift truck was lifting a wreck from a pile of about fifty cars over to a massive dumper truck. It was released with a crash. Huge wheels gobbled up the rusted heap.

Rising twenty feet in the air on the other side came something that looked like a Big Dipper. Moving down the rods were cubes of metal: crushed cars.

‘You’d be amazed how many villains have departed this world inside those square remains,’ White said above the din.

Some distance from the pile of wrecks, a man wearing red braces over an open-necked shirt and a cloth cap stood on the steps of a caravan, shading his eyes to watch them. They headed towards him.

‘Good morning,’ Anna said loudly.

‘Morning.’

‘Is this your yard?’

‘What?’

‘I said, is this your yard?’

The man yelled to the driver of the forklift truck. ‘Turn it off, Jim. Turn it off!’

While they waited for the silence, Anna showed her ID. ‘Could I talk to you?’

He gestured for them to follow him into the caravan. Documents littered almost every available wall space, pinned up and clipped together. There were boxes spilling out more paper on to every surface: a moth-eaten sofa, two armchairs and a desk with one broken leg propped up with tatty old telephone directories.

‘This is Constable White. We’re here to discuss a Mercedes-Benz convertible.’ She gave the vehicle identification and registration numbers.

The man nodded. ‘You know, I had another copper enquiring about the same car two weeks ago.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘So how can I help you?’

‘Could you tell me who brought the car to you?’

When he removed his greasy cloth cap, there was a red sweat ring around his forehead. ‘Chap came. He wanted the car crushed. He paid his fifty quid and he left. That’s all there is to know.’

‘What was the name of the man who brought the car to you? Or was it towed in?’

‘No, he drove it in.’ He opened a drawer to remove a dog-eared wedge of a book, which he started thumbing through. He showed them the payment slip.

‘Mr Daniels. He signed for it.’ He passed over the receipt. ‘I faxed your lot a copy of it.’

‘So Mr Daniels was able to drive the car into your yard?’

‘Yes; then he paid his money and left.’

Anna hesitated. Gordon White leaned forward. ‘Hang on a second — what was the damage?’

‘Look, it’s not up to me to estimate what the bloody damage is. He wanted it crushed, so that is what I did.’

‘All of it?’

‘What?’

‘I am asking you if you put the whole of the car through the crusher,’ White said flatly.

The manager pursed his lips. Anna noticed that his name, Reg Hawthorn, was printed on a plaque on his scruffy desk.

White sighed and hitched up his trousers. ‘Reg, I have a hobby. I do up cars; I buy spare parts. Now, are you going to tell me this Merc, with its hubcaps, its steering wheel, the bumpers, the tail-lights, not to mention the dashboard — remember, I know what price these things go for - you just let it go?’

‘I did nothing that anyone else in my trade doesn’t do. It’s part of the perks, right?’ Hawthorn lit a cigarette. ‘To be honest, it did seem strange.’

‘What did?’ Anna interjected.

‘Well, it wasn’t that badly damaged. I’ve got to tell you, I run a legitimate business. I don’t do nothing without insurance and ownership documents left with the wreck. It’s more than my life’s worth. But he had all the papers. So who am I to turn down business, right?’

‘Before you put it in the crusher, did you strip it?’ she asked.

Hawthorn yanked open the drawer again. ‘Nobody asked me about this before. So there was no need for me to tell them, right?’

He brought out another dog-eared receipt book and with his gnarled thumb, flicked through the pages to his grubby lists of receipts.

‘I sold a number of items; stripped them out. Bought by Vintage Vehicles — VV — over in Elephant and Castle. The seats they didn’t buy, though, probably because they’re an unusual colour.’ He looked up helpfully - ‘They got a yard where they do up Mercs specifically’ - before flicking further on through his receipt book. ‘Seats were bought by Hudson’s Motors in Croydon. They’re real bastards to deal with, cheap buggers. Oh yeah, they also bought the hood.’

‘Thank you.’

Anna returned to her car. She refused Gordon White’s offer to take her to the VV company. ‘I really appreciate the time you’ve spent coming here.’ She asked if he knew the Croydon company. He trotted over to his gleaming Corvette and returned with a Greater London A to Z.

‘What’s the address again?’

‘I’ll find it, Gordon.’

‘I don’t mind coming with you.’

‘I may be on a wild-goose chase, anyway.’

‘Maybe you are. I doubt there’ll be anything left for you to see. It’s been a while.’ He leaned further in to speak to her through her window. ‘Mind me asking what it’s really about?’

She smiled. ‘I’m thinking of starting up a hobby.’

‘You’re kidding me!’

‘Yes, I am. Thanks again, Gordon.’

The interview room was stuffy but the noise of the traffic was too intrusive to open a window. Langton had loosened his tie. Beside him Mike Lewis, sweat plastering his hair to his scalp, had taken his jacket off. McDowell’s solicitor also looked very uncomfortable, but it was not the heat that was getting to her. The case was becoming a very serious one and she was woefully aware of her lack of experience. McDowell had been charged with possession of drugs, but it could get worse. She could find herself representing a serial killer.

The interview was being recorded on audio and videotape. Far from complaining of the heat in the room, McDowell kept repeating that he was cold. He was very subdued, lethargic. A doctor had given them clearance for the interview and given McDowell a vitamin shot. Although still suffering withdrawal symptoms, the prisoner was not shaking as much. He was wearing a police-issue tracksuit, his clothes having been taken to be checked for evidence. It was difficult to keep him on track. He chain-smoked and kept repeating the questions to himself before he answered. It was a very frustrating interview.

Langton’s patience was frayed. The mixture of cigarette smoke, the heat and McDowell’s body odour was suffocating and asking the same question three or four times was driving him to distraction.

McDowell admitted he was an acquaintance of the three victims whose handbags had been found in his basement flat, though he insisted he did not place them there. When he learned the women were dead, he shouted, ‘I haven’t seen none of them for fucking years and that’s the God’s honest truth. I dunno what you are trying to make me say, but I never killed any of these slags. But I would have done, if I’d got my hands on that bitch Kathleen Keegan. She should have been hung, drawn and quartered; she was a disgusting woman. Used her own kids. She used Duffy’s boy.’

‘Are you referring to Anthony Duffy?’

‘Yeah, she used him.’

‘Are you saying she was procuring children for someone?’

‘For herself; for anyone. She sold her kids, one only four years old. And she was forever making that boy do stuff.’

‘Anthony Duffy?’

McDowell sighed with impatience,

‘Yes, yes. I just said so, didn’t I?’

‘And you are sure that Lilian Duffy let her use her own son?”

‘Yes, YES, Lilian’s kid. Don’t you listen? Why don’t you check on the Social Service register and stop wasting my fucking time? They was always taking him away.’

As the evidence stacked up against McDowell, he became more and more angry. His solicitor had to tell him constantly to keep seated.

‘I’m being set up for something here. Now I admit to the drugs; I admit to having them, but not this fucking stuff— these handbags and gear. I never seen any of these women in ten years or more.’

‘Can you explain why they were in your flat?’ Langton asked, forcing himself to be controlled, his voice quieter.

‘No! I bloody can’t tell you anything about them. My place has been broken into Christ knows how many times.’

‘Did you report it?’

‘Fuck off, course I didn’t. I’m only crashing down there myself. I’m hardly ever there.’

‘Where do you go, if you’re not at home?’

‘I sleep in me car. But the fuckers towed it away.’

‘Do you go to London?’

‘Sometimes, yeah.’

‘So, having denied you ever went to London, now you admit that you did.’