Cold Death (D.S.Hunter Kerr) (20 page)

DAY TWENTY FIVE: 17
th
September.

Barnwell:

Marcus Hill had been a police officer for fifteen years and he had developed ‘a nose’ for sniffing out when something wasn’t right. And as he watched the grey Ford Mondeo in the distance, circling, ever so slowly, around the recently cropped wheat field, he had that feeling that something was wrong.

Firstly, because the farmer who owned this field had a red Nissan Navarro, and besides he’d only ever seen the farmer’s tractor going around in that field. And secondly, there had been quite a few complaints over the years about fly-tipping in this locality. Thirdly, the lane just above the field was where a couple of burned out stolen cars had been found in recent months.

Marcus had spotted the Ford Mondeo two minutes earlier. He had been making his way back to the station for his meal, having spent the last twenty minutes driving around the countryside section of his beat - where the roads were less congested, and where the scenery was better. It had been an unusually quiet afternoon, and he was taking every opportunity to savour the tranquil moment - these instances were few and far between - especially on the afternoon shift.

The car had attracted his attention because it had emerged from a copse of trees, which he knew was the site of a ruined eighth century chapel. He had an interest in local history, and he knew it had protected status.

Marcus pulled his police car off the road and drifted up onto the grass verge, settling next to a gap in the hedge, where he hoped for a better view. He saw that the Mondeo had come to a stop, but such was the angle of its parking that he was unable to get a view of its number plate. He watched as the passenger door opened. A man dressed in a long dark coat disembarked.

Leaning across the passenger seat of the police car Marcus strained his eyes to get a clearer description but he was too far away. He watched on as the dark clothed man made his way to the rear of the Mondeo where he popped open the tailgate.

Marcus decided he had seen enough. His suspicions were aroused. He radioed in, using his personal airwaves set, informing the communications room operator what he could see, and asked for back up. Then he pulled back onto the road and set off towards the track, half a mile away, where he knew he would be able to get access to where the Mondeo was.

The public bridle-path he turned onto was rutted and undulated and lined by heavy hawthorn bushes, and it took him much longer than he had anticipated finding an opening into the field.

Marcus spotted the gap at the last moment, and pulling the steering hard left, bounced up and over a tufted incline, and dropped down hard onto the recently harvested field. The heavy landing knocked the wind out him and he slammed on the brakes. The police car skidded to a halt. As he grabbed his breath he scoured the fields to gather his bearings. He espied the Mondeo twenty yards away, though he realised, when he saw that both front doors were open, and the car devoid of passengers, that he had lost the element of surprise.

He flung open his driver’s door and sprinted towards the car, giving an update over his personal radio, whilst at the same time searching the field with his eyes to see if anyone was making a run for it.

There was no sign of life. He guessed they had dashed into the copse where the old chapel was. Once his colleagues arrived Marcus knew that there would be nowhere for them to hide. They’d surround them and soon flush them out.

He stopped at the Mondeo, craning his neck inside, through the open doors, just in case one of them was laying low in the seats. The car was empty. Then he made his way to the rear where the tailgate was still up.

Now let’s see what you were up to, shall we!

What he found in the boot momentarily startled him - curled up in the foetal position lay a man, and he’d seen enough corpses in his time to realise this man was dead.

The sudden rustle of leaves coming from the coppice behind made Marcus jerk up his head. Emerging through the bushes and into relief he saw a stocky built man. A black woollen ski mask covered his head. He reached for his baton and simultaneously depressed the emergency button of his radio – his Status-Zero alert – a signal which overrode all other communications on that channel and let colleagues know that he was in imminent danger.

Marcus never heard the footsteps behind him and never felt the blow to his head, though his ears registered the sharp crack as his skull fractured.

The very last thing he saw, before his vision pitched into darkness, was the galaxy of stars which exploded inside his head.

- ooOoo -

DAY TWENTY SIX: 18
th
September.

Barnwell:

It took Hunter ages to find a parking spot. He had never seen the police station car park so full. And inside the station was no different. The rear foyer and corridor was crammed with uniformed officers all milling around. He didn’t identify any as regular faces.

Pushing through the double doors into the first floor stairwell he recognised one of the duty group sergeants. He was carrying a clip-board and seemed deep in thought.

“What’s going on?”

The uniformed Sergeant looked up. “Oh, morning Hunter. You mean the Task Force officers?  Haven’t you heard?”

“Heard what?”

“Marcus Hill was attacked last night. He’s in a bad way.”

“Marcus!” Hunter knew Marcus Hill. A few years ago Marcus had joined Hunter’s team as a CID aide, but had then passed his sergeants exams and decided to go back into uniform where he would have the regularity of ‘acting-up.’  He had only spoken with him a couple of weeks ago, when he’d bumped into him in the canteen. He’d seen the smile on Marcus’s face as he’d told him that he’d just passed the last round of sergeant’s boards and was waiting for a suitable vacancy.

“What happened?”

The Sergeant outlined the circumstances. “Fractured skull. And he suffered a bleed to the brain. They operated on him late last night and he’s heavily sedated. We won’t know anything else about his condition until later this morning.”

“Have you got the person who did it?”

The Sergeant shook his head. “He called in a grey Mondeo, that he thought was acting suspiciously, in one of the fields opposite the Crown Inn at Barnburgh, and called for back-up. Then he went status-zero, but it took the first car a good ten minutes to get to him. By that time the Mondeo, and whoever had attacked him, had left. We’ve got everyone available out looking. Task Force are going out to do a thorough search of the area.”

Hunter laid a hand on the sergeant’s shoulder. “Okay let me know how you go on, and keep me updated about Marcus.” He turned and made his way up the stairwell to the MIT room, his thoughts drifting.

Shouldering his way through the doors Hunter immediately felt the atmosphere in this office at a complete contrast to the one he had been greeted with downstairs. This place was buzzing. It brought him back from his gloom.

He slipped off his jacket and wrapped it around the back of his chair. He caught his partners gaze. She was placing a mug of coffee down on her desk.

“Morning Grace. Have you heard about Marcus?”

“Yeah, terrible isn’t it.”

Hunter nodded. He pointed towards his murder squad colleagues who were at their desks, cradling their own hot drinks and chatting excitedly in small groups.

“Something going on that I should know about?”

“That’s appeared this morning.”

Grace thumbed a sign towards the white incident boards at the front of the room. Beside them, stacked on a trolley, was a large flat screen TV on ‘stand-by’ and a DVD player.

“I called in to speak to Isobel first thing and she told me we were in for a treat this morning. She said there’d been a breakthrough – but she wouldn’t tell me what.”

Before Hunter and Grace could discuss things further they were interrupted by Michael Robshaw and Barry Newstead making a noisy entrance. The team watched Barry swagger to the television, his face beaming as he switched on the monitor with a hand held remote, whilst the SIO took up centre stage in front of the boards.

“Okay everyone settle down.” I’m guessing you’ve all heard a whisper that progress has been made in this case, especially after the disappointment we had from the interview with the Hassans.” Michael Robshaw swung his eyes from Hunter to Grace. “And that’s no reflection on you two by the way. We had nothing to go on.” He paused and broke into a grin. “That was until yesterday afternoon.” He began rubbing his hands together. “When Barry discovered what you are about to all see. All yours Barry,” introduced the SIO.

Barry Newstead smoothed a hand down over his loosened tie. He took in a deep breath and made a vain attempt at pulling in his beer belly. “As you know, I was given the task of visiting the security team at Meadowhall to see what, if any, CCTV footage they had of Samia Hassan and see if there was anything of significance which could take the investigation further. Well thanks to the dates, times and precise location which refuge owner Nahida Perveen provided I was able to isolate the cameras which might have captured images of Samia. This is what I have found. The footage is disjointed because I have just taken clips from hours of original CCTV film and cobbled it together onto one disc.”

He took a step back away from the large TV screen and pressed the remote.
A section of the interior of the huge shopping mall flickered onto the forty-eight inch screen.

“Okay this is where we first pick up Samia.” He pointed to the television using the remote and homed in on a young, pretty, dark haired Asian woman strolling through the ground floor of Marks and Spencer’s store and out through the entranceway, which gives access to the mall. The murder squad detectives were quickly glued to the pictures playing out over the TV. They witnessed Samia weave her way through a throng of seated people centred round an open plan coffee lounge and then take up a place at an empty table. “You’ll see at the bottom right is the time and date of the footage; the fourteenth of March – a good six months ago. I’ll fast forward it a bit.” He flicked a button on the hand-held and then used the remote to point out another woman joining Samia at the table. “That’s Nahida Perveen. I’ll not go any further but I can tell you they have coffee and are obviously in conversation for about twenty five minutes and then Samia leaves and makes her way back into Marks and Sparks before heading off onto the train.” Barry clicked the remote again. “Okay this is the second piece of footage. We jump forward to the twenty-eighth of July.”

Again images played out of Samia walking through the ground floor of Marks and Spencer’s and out towards the coffee lounge by its entranceway. On this occasion Nahida was already at a table and Samia joined her. Barry speeded up the footage showing Samia handing over a red knapsack and then froze the picture. He turned to Hunter. “I think this is the same knapsack in which you found Samia’s clothing and passport, is it not?”

Hunter nodded.

“Okay there’s not much conversation on this occasion,” Barry increased the speed of the footage for a few seconds then hit the play button. “They’re only together for approximately ten minutes and as you can see they split up and leave.” Barry froze the DVD once again, pulled his eyes away from the screen and scanned the room. He had the attention of every detective. “Now this next bit is very interesting,” he continued, clicking the remote back into play mode.

All eyes in the room watched Samia travel the escalator to the first floor of Marks and Spencer’s, stride through the aisles and
leave through the exit doors. At one stage it looked as though she was heading for the ramp to the train station, but then changed direction towards the car park and she also appeared to be continuously glancing behind her.

“At this stage, like you, I was wondering why she was looking around as much as she was so I pulled up footage from other cameras and I found this.” He clicked the remote again, changing the image. The shots were back inside Marks and Spencer.

The picture zoomed in and a grainy image of an Asian male, mid to late twenties, dressed in white t-shirt and jeans, came into focus. He was dodging from one rack of clothing to another clearly acting suspiciously.

“As I pan the shot out you can now see that this guy is following Samia and I’m guessing because of her reaction she has sussed this. Okay I’ll play it out a bit more.”

The picture juddered for a split-second and then the drama was back on. Samia was picking up her pace slipping between parked cars. In the background, visible but out of focus, the Asian man took something out of his pocket and put it to his ear.

“He’s on his mobile.”

The team watched Samia taking a final look in the direction of the Asian man before dashing into one of the glass-encased stairwells, which gave access to the ground floor car park.

“And finally this,” exclaimed Barry. The image changed again to a low-lit underground car park. The view was wider and longer, taking in a considerable amount of the car park, but the action being played out was clearly unmistakeable. Samia sprinted out of the stairwell like a chased rabbit, looking back over her shoulder.
From out of nowhere, in fact a blur at first to the right of the screen, another Asian man, taller and much stockier than the first, steamed into her as if she was on a rugby field, bowling her over onto the concrete floor. He was on top of her in a split-second, straddling her prostrate body, one hand covering her mouth to prevent her crying out and the other in a clenched fist pummelling her upper torso. Seconds later the man who had been initially following her emerged from the stairwell  at considerable pace, slipped on a wet patch at the bottom of the stairs, caught himself, re-balanced, and joined in the attack. It was all over in thirty seconds. Samia’s body quickly slumped under the onslaught. The stocky man pushed himself off her and then sprinted away out of camera view, whilst the first Asian man stood over her looking around, but there was no one else in sight. Less than a minute later a white van entered the picture and pulled directly across Samia blocking the cameras view. Barry gazed over the room. He could see that all eyes were fixed; the detectives seemed unable to pull themselves away from the scenes unfolding before them. He turned back to the screen in time to see the two Asian men bundling Samia’s limp figure towards the rear of the van. As if she was a rag doll they slung her into the back. The doors were slammed shut, both men jumped into the front of the van and then it was tearing away.

“All that took less than three minutes,” Barry told them. “The last footage I have is this.” He ran the picture. It was a short snippet of the white van heading towards the exit of the ground floor car park, at the point before it entered the major road system around the Meadowhall Centre. Barry freeze-framed the close-up image, which was obviously below the security camera. Clearly visible were the faces of the two Asian men who had attacked and abducted Samia.

The eyes of the murder squad darted between the e-fit images on the incident board and the TV screen – there was no doubting that the facial features were an exact likeness. Just as important was the index number on the front number plate of the van – it was the same registration as that on the VR 12 vehicle document which had been recovered from the Hassans.

- ooOoo -