Animal Instinct (23 page)

“Handwritten?”

“Oh, yes, but its authenticity will have to be verified by an expert in that particular field. It could have been planted, he could have been forced to write it or it could be genuine.”

“What was written on the note?”

Nuttall reached into the box and withdrew a sealed plastic bag. The suicide note was inside. It read, ‘I can't live with myself now. I'm sorry.’ The detective leaned back in his chair, deep in thought. Suddenly, he rose up and beckoned Nuttall towards him.

“Follow me down to the cellar. I think that we have solved your enigma.”

*****

Fluorescent strip lights illuminated the cellar. A starter motor on one light fitting must have been faulty; the tube was flickering, creating an eerie effect to the damp surroundings. Massey crossed towards the drop below the heavy wooden flaps where the beer deliveries entered from street level. Nuttall sat on an empty kilderkin of Carlsberg lager, facing the inspector.

“On my way back here, I stopped off at the George and Dragon to have a word with Charlie Meadows,” said Massey. “He confirmed what I had already assumed…that most licensees tend to carry out regular routines. Thursday morning at the Barleycorn, for example, is beer line cleaning day and an opportunity to clear out the empty barrels ready for the next dray delivery, which is normally first thing Friday morning.

Let's go back to the Thursday of Easter week. Sean would have been down here performing his usual cellar duties. According to Charlie, it's also standard practice to use the opportunity to aerate the cellar. Consequently, he opens these flaps. Down here in the cellar, he has probably already flushed the waste beer from the pipes and added his cleaning solution. Charlie said that any leftover solution would normally be emptied onto the concrete floor, which would be swept and hosed down, thereby removing any beer spillages.”

Massey walked towards the sump, a drain set in the centre of the cellar. “Returning to that fateful Thursday, a beautiful April morning, let's imagine that an attractive young woman alights from the Moulton bus just before the crossroads. She is en route to Northwich and has to change buses. She has two options to make her connection. She can either walk down the High Street to the shopping centre or turn towards the bus stop before the by-pass. Charlie spots her before she makes that choice…it was in his statement. It's a lovely day. Why go into town when she can stroll by the river and walk across the bridge?”

“You're doing a reconstruction,” commented Nuttall.

“The D.C.I. was due to organise one, but our assumptions led us towards Howard at the mill, so it was left on the back-burner.” Massey continued his analysis. “To reach the bridge she must pass the Barleycorn. The cellar flaps are open, curiosity takes hold of her and she peers down where she finds Sean going about his business. He invites the pretty young woman to take a look around.”

“You have no proof of this.”

“Pure conjecture. What happens next, we shall never know, as both participants in this scenario are now dead. We can only assume that he raped her by pushing her down onto the wet floor or she slipped, fell and then he raped her. Either, or…it doesn't matter. In falling, she bruises her head on one of the beer kegs…you have evidence of that…metallic traces. Her arms, legs and parts of her dress soak up vestiges of cleaning fluid from the floor…you have evidence of that. The chemical analysis showed a mix of some caustic solution and yeast. If you stand here, you can still smell the remains of this week's cleaning schedule. It's that same smell, which puzzled us throughout the investigation. It must have been in other pubs where I had encountered it previously.”

Massey hesitated and smiled. “The Beacon…that's what bugged me there. How on earth did I miss that?”

Nuttall walked towards him, leaned over the sump and inhaled. “That's the smell alright. Far more feasible than a home brew kit in a garden shed!”

Massey walked across to the far wall, where several gas cylinders were strapped together. “Charlie also explained that these bottles contain carbon dioxide, a gas which is odourless, yet heavier than air. If there were a leak, the gas would naturally settle on the cellar floor. In such a situation, apparently it can be dispersed by hosing down the area as it would be absorbed by the water and would disappear down the drain.”

Nuttall smiled. “I can see where this is leading. You've been doing your homework. If she falls to the floor and there is sufficient CO
₂
gas floating about, she would suffocate through a lack of oxygen. But why would he leave her on the floor?”

“Ah,” said Massey. “You need to consider what was different about that particular Thursday. It was Easter week; the delivery schedule was changed. The following day was Good Friday, a public holiday, so the dray wagon from the brewery arrived a day earlier…that very morning. I learned about that from Charlie. Sean panics. He has a semi-conscious young girl in his cellar, whom he has just raped. The deliverymen are about to invade his cellar; the cleaner is still present upstairs. What can he do?”

Massey crossed towards the stone steps. There were two dark recesses on each side. “There's a defunct central heating unit in one of these; the other is a storage area, not used for anything in particular. It's an ideal place to conceal a body out of sight from the cellar and upstairs.”

He walked back towards the gas cylinders. “Before I left the George and Dragon, I contacted the brewery to follow up my chat with Charlie. Returns, that is empty kegs, bottles and gas cylinders from previous deliveries are recorded on the delivery notes at the time of the delivery. The licensee receives a copy and two other copies are sent to the accounts department at the brewery. Last week's copies, the week after Easter, confirm that a damaged empty gas cylinder was uplifted from the Barleycorn along with the usual collection of empties. Probably that was the bottle that killed Lara Crawford. She must have suffocated in that recess, whilst O’Malley was waiting for the ‘coast to be clear’. By that time, she was already dead.”

“You have been busy. Your assumptions certainly fit the forensic evidence. However, it still begs the question of how she ended up on the landfill site.”

Massey had analysed every grey area until there was a ‘black and white’ answer in each case. “Another Easter anomaly.” He returned to the recess. “The draymen have gone, the cleaner has finished her shift and there is maybe an hour before opening time. You cannot leave her here. Staff could come down at any time to change a barrel or whatever.” Massey looked up the stairs. “Up there, you have access to the bars, a corridor with more stairs leading to the manager's flat or a doorway into the yard. Which is the most likely choice for somewhere to hide the body?”

“Obviously the yard.”

“Waste collection is normally scheduled for Friday. Again, it was a day early. We have that information from the records that we originally checked. He must have bagged up and hidden the body in one of the bins, perhaps with the intention of dumping it later that night. Unfortunately, he must have forgotten that the bins would be emptied a day earlier, maybe that afternoon. We talked earlier about that same strategy with Mary Cole's body. I realised later that it could have been a re-run of his plan for Lara Crawford. He must have learned from his failure.”

“Are you saying that O’Malley committed suicide through remorse? I find that difficult to swallow.”

Massey grinned. “Partly because of that. Let's go upstairs…it's bloody cold down here and that light is beginning to annoy me.”

D.C.I. Wainwright joined them in the lounge bar. He had returned to check on progress at the crime scene.

“My, God, Massey. You look like shit. Have you not been home yet?”

Nuttall smiled. “After two weeks of intensive investigation, the inspector has solved two murders and a suicide within a couple of hours.”

“Tell me more,” said Wainwright.

Massey related the main points that he had covered with Nuttall in the cellar. When he had finished, the D.C.I. was lost for words.

Nuttall broke the silence. He addressed Massey. “You still haven't explained why O’Malley committed suicide. It was partly remorse, you said. What else prompted him to take his own life?”

Massey's expression took on a more serious air. Despite being extremely animated during his exposé, his next revelation was to be the saddest and most macabre.

“After the funeral, O’Malley spoke with Suzanne Ridley, Lara's natural mother, before she left the cemetery. This morning, I made enquiries to discover the content of that conversation because of the immediate effect it had on O’Malley. A short while ago, I managed to contact Suzanne to ascertain what was said. Apparently, they had known each other during their younger days, quite intimately, it seems. When Sean asked her why she was attending the funeral, she replied that she was there to see her daughter laid to rest. At that point, she dropped her ‘bombshell’ on him. She assumed that he was there for the same reason.”

“Oh, my God,” exclaimed Wainwright.

“Imagine that,” said Massey, “…discovering that you had raped and murdered your own daughter!”

Nuttall smiled and walked away, shaking his head. He turned towards the detectives. “I don't believe it! Who would have imagined that! It certainly answers all those D.N.A. discrepancies. Unwitting incest…incredible!”

*****

D.C.I. Wainwright had barely stepped into his office when the telephone rang. He had left the Barleycorn to discuss with senior officers what approach should be taken with regard to Charles Howard, if they were to pursue Massey's findings. He picked up the handset.

“Desk sergeant here. There's someone here from the brewery to see you.”

“Thanks,” said the D.C.I. “I'll be straight down.”

Contact with the brewery, which owned the Barleycorn had eventually been made earlier that morning. A message had been left for a senior representative to attend police headquarters with regard to an incident at their public house. Several minutes later, Wainwright reached the front desk.

“Over there,” said the sergeant.

The D.C.I. turned to find an attractive young woman standing by the doorway. She wore a mint green V-neck sweater with a bottle green knee-length skirt, matching dark green stilettos and a three quarter length beige jacket. Very smart, very chic, very young, thought the inspector. That's a senior representative? She was engrossed in reading a poster about security pinned to a notice board.

“Good afternoon, I'm Detective Chief Inspector Wainwright.” He held out his hand.

“Cristina Martin, Area Manager. I'm here in response to a message that I received.” She looked contemptuously at her surroundings. “Is there somewhere we can discuss this matter in private?”

“Certainly,” replied Wainwright. “I had every intention of using my office.”

Cristina Martin, like a growing number of middle management personnel in large corporations, had joined the brewery company through their graduate recruitment scheme, where they had options to join either the managed or the leased estate. After two years undergoing intensive training covering most aspects of the business, they would be fast-tracked into a specific role in finance, security, marketing, human resources or retail departments. Despite having little or no knowledge of the industry itself (they would have graduated with completely unrelated degrees), they would be ‘earmarked’ for a future senior position, depending on their drive, ambition and individual aptitude.

It was no surprise, therefore, to find a young person, such as Cristina Martin, controlling a managed estate of between twelve to twenty public houses where they would be dealing with experienced ‘battle-weary’ licensees in an increasingly competitive market. Return on investment was crucial to the brewery companies and under-performance was no longer tolerated. Ms. Martin was one such ‘bright young prospect’. She had already built a reputation for refusing to accept mediocre results; throughout the company, she was referred to as the ‘smiling assassin’.

She sat in a chair opposite Wainwright's desk and immediately tried to control the conversation. “I received a message that you have closed down my public house without first consulting me. May I ask on whose authority?”

“The Barleycorn is a crime scene, Ms. Martin. We had no other option.”

“Why was I not informed immediately?”

“You were notified as soon as it was possible to contact your company. In the early hours of the morning, we were unable to get any response. You will need to take that up with your own security department.”

“The licensee has my mobile number. Surely you could have asked him to contact me.”

“The licensee, Mr. O’Malley is dead.”

Cristina was visibly shaken; she struggled slightly to regain her composure.

“Would you like some water or a hot drink, Ms. Martin?” asked Wainwright, believing that he had gained the upper hand. Her concern for the business as opposed to any sympathy for the licensee soon became apparent.

“Is that the only reason why the premises remains closed? Surely, the staff at the pub are experienced and sufficiently professional to carry on without him. Anyway, how did he die? He was in good shape when I visited before Easter.”

“We believe that he committed suicide. Our forensic team is still investigating. He was discovered hanging by a rope in the cellar.”

“Well, it could not have been on account of the business. The figures were good…it was performing well. Did he have personal problems?”

“As I explained, we are investigating.”

“So you said. Surely, the business can continue without closing it down completely. The cellar can hardly be considered a public area.”

Wainwright was beginning to detest his visitor's attitude. She needed to be put in her place. How better than to depict ‘her public house’ as a hotbed of terrorist activity. He was suddenly warming to this particular confrontation.

“I'm afraid that the whole premises, including the car park and the frontage are a crime scene. That is why the total area is cordoned off from the public.”

“You cannot do that,” she ranted. “There must be a law against that. Do you not need some statutory authority for such an action? And, if as you say, he ‘topped’ himself in the cellar, why are the other areas considered as a crime scene?”