No Smoke Without Fire (A DCI Warren Jones Novel - Book 2) (38 page)

Fearing the worst, the team had carefully dug up the area, taking care not to disturb any evidence or damage whatever was buried. Eventually they had revealed a shallow pit, containing the partially decomposed corpses of half a dozen wild rabbits. A quick and dirty autopsy in a tent at the scene was unable to identify the cause of death for the small creatures, but did reveal the telltale marks of a snare on their front legs.

As Warren stared at the mound of grey fur he felt a chill run-down his spine. He had no idea why the rabbits were significant. But he was convinced that they were.

* * *

The most useful thing retrieved from the farmhouse was the computer. An off-the-shelf PC, it turned out to be a treasure trove of useful information. Pete Robertson, a computer expert from Welwyn, took Warren and Tony Sutton through what he had found.

Most people meeting Pete Robertson for the first time couldn’t help a double take. The man looked as if a person of normal proportions had been stretched vertically. Everything from his legs, to his arms and even his head seemed to be about twenty-five per cent longer than it should be. At the moment, Robertson was folded under a regular-sized desk. Despite the remarkable length of his digits, he typed with the grace of somebody who had spent eight hours or more every day of his adult life in front of a computer keyboard.

“The computer is a pretty simple set-up. Bog-standard, PC World, a few years old, with a Windows operating system. It’s been configured so that two people can use it independently. A standard log-in screen with a username and password to access each person’s private files. It’s the basic home edition, so that caused no problem.

“Each person has a private user area to save files, plus separate settings for their desktop environment. As you would probably expect, Michael Stockley, who has worked with computers most of his life, has heavily personalised his environment, with a custom colour scheme and his own choice of background wallpaper. His father uses the Windows defaults.

“Most interesting, though, is the Internet history. Michael Stockley watches quite a bit of TV on the BBC iPlayer, is a big
Star Trek
fan and does a lot of online shopping through Amazon.”

“OK.” Warren bit his lip; Pete Robertson liked to milk the moment a bit and he fought the urge to hurry him along.

“Richard Cameron deletes his Internet browsing history each time he logs off…” the look on Robertson’s face suggested that it hadn’t posed much of an obstacle “…and his favourite webpages include extremely hard-core bondage sites, Google Earth images of the places he dumped his victims’ bodies and, rather alarmingly, a number of websites giving instructions on how to make cyanide from fruits such as apricots.”

Tony Sutton swallowed, his face pale. “Well, I think we can guess how those poor rabbits died.”

Chapter 47

“So why does he kill these women with their scarves, rather than cyanide?”

Warren and the team were having the day’s latest briefing.

“Maybe the cyanide wasn’t ready for use?” suggested Karen Hardwick. Tony Sutton shook his head. “They reckon those rabbits have been dead for weeks. He clearly had a working batch a while ago.”

“Maybe he’s run out? I imagine it would take significantly more poison to kill a grown human being than a small animal like a rabbit. Perhaps by the time he’d made his batch, he used the whole lot on those rabbits,” Gary Hastings proposed.

Warren nodded. “You’re right that it does take a lot more poison to kill a human being. However, assuming he followed the instructions properly and he used all of the stones from the ten kilogrammes of apricots he bought online, then he will have made many times that needed to kill a healthy adult.”

A collective shudder ran around the table; somebody like Richard Cameron in possession of that amount of deadly poison was a chilling thought.

“Maybe the cyanide is a back-up? Judging by the nature of some of those bondage and porn sites, it looks like the sick pervert gets off on women being strangled. Maybe throttling her is part of the way he gets his rocks off. The cyanide is there just in case he gets disturbed and can’t finish her off,” Tony Sutton suggested.

Warren shrugged. “It’s as good a reason as any, Tony.”

He picked up another report. “We have some more news from the house. The muddy footprints in the garage, which Michael Stockley has confirmed probably come from the missing work boots his father normally kept in that spot, are a positive match for the partial impressions pieced together from the different crime scenes. They are also doing an analysis of some of the mud and looking to see if they can match it to the crime scenes. It looks as though we have at least some evidence connecting Cameron with the other murders.”

“It’s a start, but it feels a bit flimsy,” stated Sutton. “We need something a bit more substantial if we want to charge him with all three murders.”

“Forensics are working on that. Andy Harrison reckons that the strange cardboard powder probably came from the vehicle that the victims were transported in. If we can find Cameron’s Land Rover, we may find traces of the powder. It’s pretty unusual and he’s unsure where it originally came from, but that will make it a more significant clue. We’re also trawling through CCTV footage to see if the vehicle turns up where it shouldn’t. Nothing so far, but we’ve got them pretty busy at the moment.”

“Speaking of the Land Rover, where is it? It can’t just have disappeared. And how is he transporting the victims otherwise?”

“A good question. We’ve got some tyre tracks from the driveway and we’re comparing to partials found near the murder scenes, but the weather we’ve had lately hasn’t helped preserve them; ideally we need the Land Rover to compare to directly. However, it seems to have completely vanished. Nothing on the ANPR system or from patrols. He’s either hidden it or switched plates with a legitimate vehicle.”

“Wouldn’t the owners report the plates missing on their vehicle?”

“Possibly, but it might be that he has sourced new plates from somewhere and just swapped his own. As long as he doesn’t get caught on speed cameras or stopped by the police and sent a court summons, then the registered owners would never be any the wiser.”

“I thought the sale of licence plates was restricted to stop just this sort of thing happening?” asked Gary Hastings.

Warren gave an open-handed gesture of uncertainty. “You can get pretty much whatever you want these days on the Internet and with twenty-three thousand in cash he can pay for it.”

“Sounds pretty sophisticated for a man just out of prison with no computer skills to speak of. Nevertheless, we should mention it to IT, get them to look at the PC again and see if Cameron communicated with anyone we already know about or visited sites that could put him in contact with such people,” Tony Sutton suggested. “On a related note, have IT found any pointers towards his next attacks?”

“Nothing useful. The Google Earth images all relate to past dumping spots and were accessed days in advance. We have no new surveillance images that can’t be accounted for. Either he’s given up,” Warren said, “or he’s found another way to choose his spots and victims. Maybe just a good old map book.”

“What about the rubber traces under Gemma Allen’s fingernails? Does it tell us anything useful?” asked Karen Hardwick.

Warren shook his head. “It’s a cheap latex mix found in millions of different products made in China. Halloween masks mainly but some celebrity and other novelties. Unfortunately they are sold everywhere from the Poundshop to Sainsbury’s so we aren’t going to get lucky the way they did back in the nineties.”

The morale in the group was dipping again, Warren could feel. Three days before Christmas and again the direction of the investigation seemed to be dictated by what others, mainly Richard Cameron, did or didn’t do. They needed to take charge of the investigation again. But how?

Christmas

He awoke sweating and out of breath. Lying still, he reached out with his mind, grasping the slowly evaporating memories of the dream, piecing them together, trying to resurrect the intense eroticism of the subconscious fantasy.

The lingering physical effects of the dream were slowly fading and so he reached down, trying to conjure up those feelings again. Finally he lay there, panting, tingling, looking forward to the day ahead. A contented smile spread across his face as a thrill of anticipation ran through his body.

Today was the day, another conquest, perhaps the best so far. He’d been planning this one for weeks, ever since he’d first seen her. He’d learned lessons from every attack so far; none of them had been perfect. The last one had been fraught with problems, but he’d overcome them. This time he’d thought of everything. This time there would be no mistakes.

That thought brought renewed energy. No rush, he decided, no need to get up just yet. He reached down again.

Chapter 48

Warren and Susan pulled into the wide gravelled drive of her family home in Stratford-upon-Avon. The guilt that Warren felt over taking holiday during such an intense investigation had gradually lifted as Middlesbury receded behind them, like the slow emptying of a heavy rucksack. Earlier that week, Warren had reluctantly cancelled his Christmas vacation. Susan had been upset, but understanding, and Warren had felt awful. If anyone needed a break, it was her and she had been looking forward to a few days’ celebration for weeks.

With all the pressures of his job, Warren often forgot the strain that Susan was also under. Since Easter, when confirmation of Warren’s promotion had come through and she had been forced to hand in her own resignation, Susan had worked flat out. Her old school had squeezed as much out of her as possible during that last term, setting her the task of completely rewriting the Biology GCSE schemes of work in preparation for the new syllabus being introduced from September.

Come the summer, whilst Warren had prepared for his new posting in Middlesbury, Susan had taken the lead in organising the couple’s move south whilst at the same time preparing for her own new position as Head of Biology and lead teacher in charge of improving the school’s poor science GCSE grades. As if this weren’t enough, no mention had been made at interview that the school was expecting an OFSTED inspection some time in the next year and was likely to be placed in ‘special measures’ — the category reserved for schools considered to be ‘failing’. It further transpired that Susan’s predecessor had left behind a legacy of badly written schemes of work and limited procedures for increasing pupil achievement whilst the head of science was taking early retirement. Susan would effectively be the acting head of science, with an expectation that she would become the new head at the end of the year.

Then the murder at the university had occurred; Warren’s first big case as a DCI and lead investigator. Suddenly Warren had been working around the clock solving the crime, then dealing with the bureaucratic aftermath, and Susan had been left in charge of the house as well as her new responsibilities. It had all been too much to bear and in the end it was only her parents staying and helping her decorate the house that had kept her together, emotionally.

The couple had finally arranged a long weekend at half term, spending a few days in Paris sightseeing and simply relaxing, but Susan had still spent the remainder of the holiday working, updating teaching schemes, devising methods to monitor and raise pupil achievement and catching up on her marking.

Finally, the end of the longest term in the school calendar was here. Susan knew she would spend the few days before Christmas marking and planning for the upcoming term, but now she felt she was getting a handle on her new job. She had a clear plan of action for the department and at last felt she was getting to properly know her new colleagues and, most importantly, the one hundred and eighty new pupils that she had gained this year.

It had been intervention from two unexpected sources that had finally convinced Warren to at least take a couple of days off over Christmas and join his wife in the Midlands. The first had been from Dennis, Susan’s ordinarily mute father. He’d phoned Warren at his desk during Friday lunchtime. Susan had broken the news the night before that they would be unlikely to make it back for the festive period. It was the longest conversation that Warren had ever had with the man. He’d been quietly persuasive, describing how not only Susan needed a break, so did Warren.

“You’ve been through the wringer, both at work and at home these past few months. When I was your age I missed Christmas twice because of work. You and Susan don’t have kids yet, so you probably think it doesn’t matter. And I know your job means that some years you won’t have any choice — but if you can, you should make the effort. It’s Jack’s first Christmas without Betty — he really needs you.”

There had been a heavy, smothering silence, before Dennis started again, his voice even quieter. “The second of those Christmases that I missed was my mother’s last. She died in the February. I still wish I’d been home that year and celebrated one last time with her. Jack isn’t well — he’s taken Betty’s loss really hard. Don’t miss these special moments. You don’t want to end up regretting not being there.”

The line had gone quiet again. “I can’t pretend to know how busy you are and whether it is possible for you to come home, but it’s the twenty-first century. You have a mobile phone. I’m sure you can check your email on it and you can be back in Middlesbury in less than two hours if they need you. Please think about it.”

Warren had hung up, feeling the guilt tearing at him from both sides. He was the DCI in a major multiple murder investigation; he needed to be in charge. Policing didn’t stop for the festive period and since joining the service he’d worked his fair share of Christmas Day shifts and expected to work plenty more. Plus, it wasn’t exactly a dilemma unique to the police. Thousands of miles away hundreds of soldiers would be out on foot patrol in Afghanistan under constant threat of death or life-changing injury from an enemy that not only didn’t celebrate Christmas, but would probably revel in the symbolism of a major offensive during such an important Western festival. Back at home, the ambulance and fire services would be looking after a celebrating public, nurses and doctors would be caring for their patients. Even farmers would be out in the cold, tending their livestock.