Above Suspicion (39 page)

‘Yeah.’

‘Have you recently, or in the past few years, been to the United States?’

‘Never been.’

Langton put the photograph of Melissa Stephens in front of McDowell but he claimed not to know her. Desperate for a result, Langton then displayed the pillowslip full of women’s underwear taken from McDowell’s room. It was only then that the big man cracked. He sobbed that the underwear belonged to Beryl Villiers. He had kept it because he loved her.

McDowell’s solicitor requested they break for lunch.

While the interview progressed, a forensic team was stripping down McDowell’s squalid basement flat. By eleven o’clock they had not discovered any other handbags or female belongings.

Langton met up with the head of the Manchester forensic team. They turned their attention to his Mercedes. The engine was a wreck and there was so much rust under the bonnet that the car was a hazard. It had no MOT, no insurance, no tax. Two rugs were being tested. In the boot, they found some of McDowell’s clothes; these were also being examined.

The tests to determine how long the handbags might have been there had not been completed. They were so mouldy that they could have been hidden away for years. Or had they been brought in from some other place? Langton sighed; could someone have planted the evidence? It was a possibility. The handbags had been found outside McDowell’s own padlocked room. Vagrants and junkies had easy access to the common areas of the basement.

McDowell was charged with drug-dealing, possession of narcotics and, at half past four, with the murders of three of their victims. Langton decided to remove McDowell from custody of the Manchester Police and have him transported to Wandsworth Prison in London for further questioning.

Tired out, Langton and Lewis caught the six o’clock train back to the capital. In the dining car they ate dried-out hamburgers and had a couple of been. Their result had come with so many loopholes it didn’t bear thinking about. However, it did show they had made some progress. For a while at least, it would take the heat off them.

A press release was issued to confirm that they were holding a man for questioning.

The incident room had significant new information for Langton on his return. The local Brighton press release had brought a result: Yvonne Barber, their ‘deep throat’ witness, had been seen drinking in various bars within the Brighton Lanes, then outside a disco, close to the sea front. A woman recalled seeing their witness walk past her with a youngish man. She had been shouting and laughing drunkenly.

A description of a man in his early twenties with crew-cut hair, wearing jeans and a leather bomber jacket, was circulated. Since this fitted neither Alan Daniels’s nor McDowell’s description, it was surmised that the murder of Yvonne was not connected to the ongoing case; it was just a sad coincidence.

Anna did not sign in until midday. When Barolli had a go at her, saying that the gov’s absence was no reason to take liberties, she replied, uptight, that she was actually working. However, she had lost his attention by then, since he was on the phone to Manchester. Anna typed up her report of the morning at the breakers’ yard. She put in two calls to Croydon; there was a fault on their line.

In the meantime Barolli was on the phone to Langton about whether to pull off the night-time watchdog on Travis. To his surprise, Langton said it should stay on her until he returned. Likewise, the phone tap should remain in place.

‘We’re not home and dry with this one yet.’

‘So Daniels is still in the frame?’ Barolli asked.

‘Maybe. Anything come in from the prints?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Talk later.’

Langton hung up.

‘Travis—’ When Barolli turned to speak to Anna, he found himself addressing an empty desk. ‘Where’s Travis?’

‘She just left,’ Moira said.

Barolli spread his arms. ‘What the hell does she think she’s doing?’ He crossed to Anna’s desk and picked up the folder that lay there. ‘Where’s she gone?’

‘She didn’t say.’ Moira returned to her work. Barolli grunted and perused Anna’s half-completed report. Then, irritated, he checked the filing cabinet and dug out the officers’ report on the breakers’ yard.

Hudson’s Motors was behind a warehouse, in a small mews made up of garages. Cars were lined up everywhere; a few mechanics were working on various sports cars. Anna approached a boy in a stained overall. ‘Is there an office for Hudson’s Motors?’

‘Last one along, right at the end.’ His head disappeared back under the bonnet of a Bentley Continental.

The only occupant of the office was a man dressed in a blazer, grey slacks and a striped shirt, sitting at his computer. When Anna tapped on the open glass door, he turned around.

‘Mr Hudson?’

He smiled. ‘He died ten years ago. I’m Martin Fuller. How can I help you?’

When she showed her ID, he reacted with surprise.

‘Do you know you have a fault on your phone?’ she asked, as he quickly gestured for her to sit down.

‘Tell me about it. My computer cut out this morning as well.’

She opened her briefcase. ‘You bought some items from Wreckers Limited in Watford.’ She took out her notebook.

He blinked and leaned back.

‘I have a copy of the receipt, Mr Fuller.’

He flushed. ‘We do buy a few things; we deal in vintage cars mostly.’

‘This was a Mercedes-Benz.’

Fuller reached for the receipt, but didn’t really look at it. He explained that he never bought anything illegal. None of his vehicles had come from there.

‘I know, just spare parts,’ she smiled.

‘Right. Now, what is this receipt for?’

‘A pair of seats, the front ones.’

‘Oh yes, I remember.’

‘You do?’ Her heart started pounding.

‘Yes, for a Mercedes 280SL. We bought them a “while back; I sent my truck over to collect them.’

‘Do you still have them?’

He nodded.

‘You do?’ She could hardly believe it.

‘To be honest, if I’d have known they were a custom-made colour, I wouldn’t have paid what I paid for them. They’re sort of mid-grey-blue and I can’t put them in another SL if the interior doesn’t match. Basically, I’ve been waiting for one to come in that has the right interior colour and needs replacements.’

‘So you still have them?’ she repeated anxiously.

‘Yes, they’re in storage.’

‘Here?’

‘Yes.’

She swallowed. ‘Have they been cleaned or altered in any way?’

‘No. We wrapped them in bubble wrap when we removed them, brought them straight here.’

‘Could I see them?’

‘We use the first garage for storing spare parts.’ He took out a set of keys from a drawer.

Anna followed him back down the mews. He unlocked the door of the garage and slid it back. It was pitch black inside. He switched on the lights: the interior was stacked, floor to ceiling, with seats, bumpers, hubcabs, steering wheels and so on.

‘It’ll be at the back. They’ve been here for quite a while.’

Jean, phone to her ear, yelled across to Barolli. ‘It’s Travis, line two.’

Barolli snatched up his phone. ‘Where the hell are you, Travis? No, no, you listen to me. You don’t just take off. We’re already bursting our budget to get someone looking out for you at your place at night and you - no, just hear me out - what?’

Barolli sat back, discomfited. ‘Look, I can’t just organize a truck to pick them up and take them to the lab. It’s six o’clock. It’ll have to be first thing in the morning …’ He listened. ‘Because I am telling you, that’s the best I can do. If they’ve been there for this long, they’re not likely to walk out now!’

It was eight o’clock and Langton was just opening a beer when his mobile phone rang. He listened wordlessly, which in itself gained Lewis’s attention. Then, after a few moments more: ‘They haven’t been touched? This is fucking mind-blowing. For Chrissakes, yes! Get them there as soon as you can.’ He shut off his phone and stared into space.

‘Well, what?’ Lewis asked. ‘Jimmy, who was it?’ ‘Barolli. They have, believe it or not, got hold of the two front seats from Alan Daniels’s Mercedes.’

‘What?’

‘The crusher yard sold them to a garage. They’ve been wrapped in bubble wrap, undisturbed from the day they were removed.’ He chuckled. ‘Travis had this blazing row with Barolli. He wasn’t going to get them shifted to the lab until tomorrow morning. So she only bloody hired a removal van and shipped them out herself.’

‘Bloody hell.’

‘Christ, she’s like her father! Jack Travis would have carried them to the lab, if he’d had to.’

Lewis opened his own can of beer and said thoughtfully, ‘You still got Alan Daniels in the frame?’

Langton nodded. ‘He was never out of it, Mike.’

Lewis sipped his beer. ‘Well, you could have bloody fooled me. Christ, what’s the point of this guy McDowell being driven down to Wandsworth nick?’

‘If someone else stashed those handbags - and they could have — wouldn’t it be because they were trying to implicate McDowell?’

‘I suppose … but forensic reckoned they’d been there a good few months, way before we started the surveillance of Daniels.’

‘But who gave us his name?’

‘Daniels.’

‘Right, so you tell me why he suddenly recalls someone he has supposedly not seen for twenty years! I would say it’s down to how his sick devious mind works.’

Langton leaned back, smiling. ‘So, if Daniels is our man, what do you think he’s going to feel like when it hits the press that we’ve got a suspect in custody?’ It was the first time Langton had felt good in two days.

Lewis was pissed off. ‘Shit, you keep stuff close to your chest.’

‘Here’s something I won’t be keeping close. Which stupid bastard checked out the bloody crusher?’

‘You don’t have to look far,’ Lewis said quietly.

Langton shook his head in disbelief. ‘It was you?’

‘Yeah, it was me. The documents were all legit and according to them, the Merc went through the crusher.’

‘Not all of it. You cocked up.’

Lewis felt like shit. ‘Travis, eh! The little red demon.’

Langton was staring out of the window, then he looked back. ‘More news. The prints came back in. We have confirmation that Alan Daniels’s prints match the ones lifted from Travis’s photo frame.’

They remained silent for a moment, aware of the sound of the train on the tracks. Then Langton started to laugh softly.

‘Getting closer, Mike. We’re getting closer.’

Chapter Eighteen

The next morning, John George McDowell was taken to court and charged, not only with various drug offences and the possession of narcotics but, more seriously, with the murder of the three victims. These latter charges he denied. Bail was withheld.

The press were out in force. When he was taken from the court, McDowell withdrew the blanket from over his head and yelled that he was innocent. There was a flashing of camera bulbs. Langton refused to give any statement, except the usual platitudes.

The two leather seats, shrouded in bubble wrap, underside rails intact, were placed on a raised platform table. High-powered arc lamps focused on each seat. Two forensic scientists in protective suits were using tweezers to inch away the gaffer tape securing the bubble wrap. This was a slow process since it was stuck firmly to the plastic, overlapping it like a protective bandage. They eased the tape away fragment by fragment, looking for any evidence of minuscule fibres, hair or blood spots stuck beneath it.

Meanwhile, in the briefing room, Langton led the team in congratulating Travis on her tenacity in pursuing the evidence and her diligent police work. He updated them on the evidence from McDowell’s basement flat. Using a thick black felt-tip pen, Langton drew a line from the mug shot of McDowell to each of the victims, except Melissa. He began listing their connections to McDowell on the board behind him.

‘McDowell: Beryl Villiers worked for him at the health club. She left home to live with him. His nightclub takes a downward turn; so does our victim. She works part-time as a prostitute for McDowell and, according to him, becomes addicted to drugs. When he gets arrested for living off immoral earnings and buying stolen booze, the club is closed and McDowell goes to prison. Beryl meets up with Lilian Duffy and that mob through the house in Shallcotte Street. McDowell has confirmed that all our victims stayed there at some point or other.’

Now Langton used a red marker pen to link all their victims to Shallcotte Street, excluding Melissa Stephens.

‘McDowell admits he was the man beating Lilian Duffy when her son, Anthony, broke up the fight. She accused her son of rape though, as we know, she withdrew the charge later. This accusation first brought Duffy to the attention of the police. You see how our prime suspect, Anthony Duffy, aka Alan Daniels, is also linked to McDowell.

‘This connects us to Barry Southwood, who was on the Manchester Vice Squad when Duffy was brought in for questioning.

‘McDowell informed us that both Kathleen Keegan and Lilian Duffy abused our suspect as a child, actually selling the boy to customers. Both women used to sell any children living in the house for money. This ups the ante again on Daniels, but we have to remember that McDowell can’t really be trusted. For someone who maintains he was very rarely at Shallcotte Street, he seems to have a lot of information. He is also still in the frame for the three murders.’

Langton went on to discuss the possibility that McDowell had been set up. ‘The three victims’ handbags could have been planted to incriminate him, although McDowell makes rather a good job of doing that himself’ Everyone laughed. Langton looked around the room.

‘OK - that’s it. The press knows we have a suspect in custody and we’ll be bringing in McDowell from Wandsworth later today to continue interrogations. So let’s keep at it. You all have a lot to wade through, thankfully. At long last.’

Langton asked Anna to join him in his office.

‘You’ve seen the results from the fingerprints on the frame?’ he asked.

She nodded. ‘Yes. Alan Daniels was inside my flat.’

‘I’m keeping up the surveillance on your place. We’re round the clock on Daniels, as well.’