Saxon (20 page)

‘I didn’t spot it myself; sorry to say, it was one of the SOCO girls, nice young thing too. Anyway, she noticed that dent in the back of his head. You will find that the corner of Pike’s Land Rover with a bit of his scalp hanging on it, is a perfect match for that dent. Dr Clarke agreed with me when I spoke to him earlier, that combined with the wire around his neck, that blow would most probably have killed him. There are also a few traces of him being dragged a short distance before being hoisted up onto the killer’s shoulders.’

‘And footprints, or are we looking for flipper marks?’ enquired Saxon.

Ercott smiled but otherwise ignored the joke. ‘Sorry, Paul, no footprints, ground’s too dry, and if there were any over there by the stream, he must have gone back and cleaned up afterwards. He’s thorough – I’ll say that for him.’ Ercott wandered off
cleaning his glasses.

Sergeant Green, a short fat policewoman, one of the SOCO team, approached with a dog handler.

‘Commander Saxon, could you come and take a look at something we’ve found at the top of the field?’ She led him back across the stream, past the Land Rover. By the time they reached the area where all the interest was emanating from, they were sweating and exhausted. The dog handler showed Saxon the remains of the turnip with the cat’s eyes, telling him that the dog had picked up a scent that started at Pike’s vehicle and it seemed strange that there should be a direct line of scent between the Land Rover and the turnip with eyes. Saxon could only agree and suggested that the hole through the middle of it could be from a bullet. It didn’t take them long to find a hole in the trunk of the tree that lined up perfectly where a bullet would have travelled from the Land Rover.

Saxon pondered. ‘So these cat’s eyes could have convinced Pike that someone was watching him from up here; the hovering eyes. He must have been seriously spooked to take a pot shot at them, and while he was doing that, the killer jumped on him and snared him, banged his head on the car to finish him off.’ Reasonably satisfied that they had interpreted the evidence correctly, they stripped off their overalls and walked slowly back to Saxon’s Discovery.

‘Next time we have a situation like this, Parker, please remind me that I have a four-wheel-drive sodding car and that we can drive to the crime scene.’

Parker was too hot and still feeling too sick to laugh or answer.

Thursday, May 30, 9.20PM

Jake Dalton parked his car, grabbed his takeaway curry from the passenger seat and made his way across the private car park to his apartment. He’d lived in Brighton Marina for three years; he
liked it and to his delight found it to have a friendly village atmosphere. The correct balance of white-haired weekend sailors, London yuppie executives, and local Brighton residents had been reached successfully. It was surrounded on three sides by the English Channel, which occasionally tried to crash over the fortress-like walls, and reclaim the land. And with a garage, some fishing tackle shops, fast food and supermarkets, and easy access to the pleasures of Brighton, he was content.

The light was starting to fade; gone 9PM but still oppressively hot. Even the seagulls were taking it easy, just the odd shriek in contrast to the screaming aerial display that usually greeted him. Jake punched in his security code and entered the communal hallway. Finding it unusual that the light didn’t work, he fumbled at his front door juggling curry, briefcase and keys. As he touched the lock with his key, the door moved slowly open.

Putting everything on the floor, he cautiously pushed the door inwards and reached inside for the light switch. His mind racing and his body ready to fight he burst into his apartment. ‘Shit, bloody little bastards!’ he shouted, not caring who heard. His next-door neighbour James did hear and appeared at Jake’s door.

‘You all right, Jake? What’s happened?’

‘Sodding kids that’s what. Look at the graffiti, got to be kids with all that shit on the walls.’ He reached in his pocket and took out his mobile and started to call the police.

‘Well, I’m amazed, sorry, mate, I’ve been working all day just the other side of that wall and I haven’t heard a sound. The state this place is in you’d think that there would have to have been some noise,’ James said almost apologetically, scratching his head.

Half an hour later a couple of local PCs arrived and told Jake that someone would call in the morning to take his fingerprints for elimination purposes, and then see if the “little bastards” had left any of their own behind. Meanwhile, they asked him to make a list of anything obvious that was missing. Jake decided that the
mess was so overpowering that he would make the list after the fingerprint person had finished. He spent the night on James’ sofa.

Jake awoke early next morning with a jolt, the realisation of the previous night’s dilemma hitting him squarely between the eyes. He dragged himself off the sofa, splashed water on his face and went to his apartment to survey the damage in the cold light of day.

Sergeant Tony Palmer, the SOCO man, arrived an hour later and started to lift prints from under the toilet seat. Jake had met him several times, as their paths had crossed frequently during the last few weeks.

‘It’s the place they tend to forget to wipe clean, if our burglar is a pro of course – kids just piss on the floor usually, but it looks like kids’ stuff to me.’ Palmer had a bored drone in his voice as if he’d said it all a thousand times.

Jake handed Palmer his list of missing items. ‘Strange, I don’t understand this at all.’ Jake stood hand on chin looking at the list.

‘From what I can make out, the only things missing are some shoes, a sweater and a hairbrush. Nearly everything else is just trashed – they didn’t even take the stereo or TV.’ Palmer eyed the list suspiciously. ‘Why would anyone want personal items like this then – say, Jake, you haven’t got a stalker have you? Someone who wants something personal of yours to snuggle up to maybe?’

‘Very amusing, but not that I know of, I’ve not noticed anyone following me if that’s what you mean?’

Palmer wandered off with his fingerprint brush dabbing here and there. ‘Well, could just be the beginning,’ he droned with a touch of “you mark my words, and watch your back”. ‘At least it can’t be one of your patients, they’re all bloody dead.’ Palmer laughed from the bedroom. Jake muttered something under his breath about it not being particularly funny and set about tidying up. Once this task was completed, Jake and Palmer sat
down to drink a cup of coffee and to take Jake’s fingerprints for elimination.

‘You do realise, don’t you, that chances are that we won’t find any prints other than yours?’ said Palmer. Adding, ‘It’s not like on the telly you know, never as clean cut – we have to find the prints first and then they have to be clear enough to identify. It used to be that we had to find at least twelve points of reference on the print before it was even admissible as evidence. Nowadays, it just takes the testimony of an expert to say that in his opinion, the prints match.’

Palmer explained that he had found a few good “dabs” as he called them, but they were more than likely Jake’s. He would wait until he got back to the forensic lab and call Jake later with the news either way.

Chapter 12

Wednesday, June 5, Bottle Walk, Hampstead, North London

Fabio Gerard was the sort of person who stood out in a crowd. Not because of his physical size or his good looks, both of which were impressive. But he had presence and charisma oozing from every pore. A Parisian – staying in London for a week with his friend Kris with a “K”, it was Chris with a “C” really but in the hairdressing business, Kris seemed to be more memorable to the clientele – Fabio was loud, camp and proud of it. But unfortunate on this day, that he was so noticeable.

His first couple of days had been idly spent lounging around in bed, occasionally getting up to eat; watching television and playing at “French Chef”, for Kris when he came home after a hard day in the salon.

Kris was no ordinary run-of-the mill hairdresser, owning a chain of salons around London with branches in Monaco, where he had an apartment, Milan and New York, all highly successful. His home was in Hampstead, North London and he drove a yellow Ferrari as a symbol of his business prowess. Fabio ran the Paris salons of which there were three. They met twenty years ago when they were both young apprentice hairdressers and had been together ever since. Fabio lived in Paris for most of his time but they both regularly travelled to the different establishments to check that standards were being adhered to, and to soak up as much of the glory of being the owners of their joint, highly successful venture as possible.

Fabio was recovering from a vicious bout of flu and pacing himself carefully. No way could he have ever have been accused of overexerting himself – the slightest illness, even a cold, was capable of almost confining him to a wheelchair. Years of pampering and self-indulgence had seen to that. He had decided that what he really needed more than anything was time off. He
had worked hard all his life, and he felt that he deserved it. He intended to spend the next few days sightseeing around London.

Kris’s house was not big, although if he had so desired, he could have purchased a small mansion – even at London prices. No, his house was modest and in a sought-after area of Hampstead down a small almost unnoticeable lane just a few yards down the hill from Hampstead Underground station. The row of semi-detached houses were set back from the road and raised up, so that anyone walking past would be unable to see in the ground-floor windows, and with about forty feet of garden in which to grow suitable cover, the houses seemed to disappear in the summer when the foliage was dense.

Fabio liked Hampstead. Back in the late 70s he’d lived in Highgate and frequently spent nights in the many gay pubs and bars that were there; illegal, but there just the same. Often, afternoons were idly spent trawling Hampstead Heath for the odd sexual encounter, undertaken with great care as “queer bashing” was occasionally practised by a few stragglers from the Stone Age. It had never happened to Fabio, so he only had his friends’ stories to go by, and he secretly thought that maybe they were exaggerating anyway. He was quite blasé and believed that no harm would ever come to him no matter what he got up to. Although he had been with Kris for a good few years, he still strayed, enjoying the thrill of cruising for sex with a stranger, combined with the chance of danger.

Kris knew Fabio well and although he’d have preferred the relationship to be more one to one, he too strayed from time to time. They were both of the opinion that if a relationship wasn’t too broken, and it still worked, then don’t try to mend it.

Fabio had started his day with a trip to the British Museum, followed by the National Gallery, mostly for Monet, but he thought a top-up of culture never hurt anyone. Soon, thoughts turned to shopping and Fabio caught the Tube to High Street Kensington, and Fabio shopped as if that was the last day of
shopping before the seven headless horsemen called a halt to everything. The temperature was high, making the trying on of clothing tedious and uncomfortable, so if he liked something, a guess was enough to decide yes or no. Money was of little or no importance – if it didn’t fit or look good later, then it was thrown away.

A few hours of high-octane shopping started to take its toll on Fabio’s fingers so he hired a taxi to take his mountain of goods home. The housekeeper, Mrs Lyons, was there all day and Fabio gave the driver a large tip for his trouble.

Unburdened and in a summer mood, Fabio was game for adventure. The taxi left him at High Street Kensington and Fabio was hungry. Always aware of his figure, he opted for a fruit squeeze, followed by a Starbucks. These purchased, he walked along Kensington Gore towards the Royal Albert Hall, crossing the road and strolling into Hyde Park. All of the benches were taken so Fabio found a spot in the shade near some bushes and arranged himself on the grass.

Apart from the distant rumble of London and the odd shrieking child or whining toddler, all was peaceful in Fabio’s world. But the heat was now becoming intense and oppressive. He carried a mid-sized shoulder bag, which made a passable pillow. A few hours’ sleep wouldn’t hurt. After all, he was on holiday and he hadn’t been well. It would probably do him a bit of good.

The snivelling children, buzzing flies and occasional laughter faded away as Fabio drifted into sleep.

His awakening was sudden. Just a cough, but a cough engineered for the purpose of alerting someone of another’s arrival. To Fabio though, it wasn’t just a cough, it was a man’s cough. The gender of the cough was all-important. Fabio prided himself on the fact that he could spot a gay man instantly. Not for nothing did the gay community adapt radar to gaydar. He could never understand his friends who made mistakes and hit on a
straight man from time to time. But when he looked around for the source of the cough, the man lying on the grass ten feet away didn’t give off the right signals.

The stranger looked up from his book and smiled pleasantly at Fabio, but not seductively. There was not the slightest element of flirtation in that smile. Just a hint of danger. The man’s eyes were cold.

Oh, this one likes to be on top
, Fabio thought to himself, with a shiver of anticipation. The very idea sent waves of excitement all through his body and his original impression that this man was not likely to be interested was washed away in the flood.

Fabio didn’t like the idea of cheating on Kris, but he was weak. He enjoyed the thrill of conquest, or rather of being conquered. Besides, he knew that Kris had the occasional fling. If they both took sensible precautions, then surely no harm was done. He knew that if he could keep thinking along those lines then everything would be okay.

Fabio had no rigid timetable, he didn’t have to be anywhere in particular, didn’t have to answer to anyone. Kris had gone to the States for a few days on business, so the house would be his playground. Mrs Lyons would be going off on holiday that night, cleaning her own house until Kris returned.

He rolled onto his front, head turned away from the man, and after a few minutes of courage building, he turned suddenly to start spewing out his much-used chat-up lines – but the man was gone. Fabio sat up looking around, not a sign of him. It was as though he was never there, not even a mark on the grass, he hadn’t even any litter. Feeling deflated, he picked up his bag and headed back towards Kensington High Street. The man was still there, but chose not to be seen.

Fabio took the Tube to Hampstead, he in one carriage, the man two carriages away standing by the sliding doors, checking each stop to see if Fabio was still on the train. As the doors opened at Hampstead, the man saw that Fabio had reached his destination
and rushed to the lift catching the one before Fabio. He slipped on a baseball cap and dark glasses and waited on the corner opposite the station entrance knowing that Fabio would appear in a couple of minutes. He stood with his back to the street, using the reflection in a shop window to keep track of Fabio’s movements.

Fabio appeared, stood for a brief moment, swept his hair back and turned left down Hampstead High Street, and turning left almost immediately, he walked down Bottle Walk. The man followed, keeping his head down, never looking up at the CCTV cameras for even an instant. The walk to Kris’s house took no more than two minutes. Fabio entered as Mrs Lyons was leaving. They exchanged pleasantries on the doorstep as the man walked by making a mental note of the house number as he gently fondled a plastic bag containing a large knife, some hair, fibres and a surgical glove in his jacket pocket.

The man spent the next four hours wandering around the Hampstead area carrying what appeared to be shopping bags. These bags contained old clothes with no labels. Ordinary, plain, with no distinguishing marks. Every hour the man changed his appearance by swapping his jacket, trousers, hat and glasses in the public toilets. He even changed the way he walked. If he were caught on camera, which one of his shadows would the police pursue?

When darkness came, he walked along Bottle Walk, stopping outside the house and looking up and down the road to check if he had been seen. The place was deserted. Strange, he thought, how quiet the side streets of London could be. He walked up to the front door and listened. The television was on and he peered in through a gap in the curtains. Sitting on a sofa with his back to the window, he could see Fabio, wine glass in hand watching a film.

From where he stood, the thick bushes surrounding the front door obscured the road. ‘Perfect,’ he said quietly, as he took an
eight-inch butchers knife from the inside pocket of his jacket. He rang the doorbell.

Fabio jumped to his feet and peered through the spy hole in the door. He thought that he recognised the distorted face, but wasn’t sure until he opened the door.

‘My God, you’re the guy from the park, how did you know where I lived?’ But as he said the words, the alarm bells in his head started to sound off. The speed that the man used as he lunged forward towards Fabio’s chest was anticipated well by Fabio. He deflected the blow to his left. The killer hadn’t intended to enter the house, but he was given no choice. Fabio was big and fit. He grabbed the man by the wrist and fell backwards pulling his assailant with him. As Fabio hit the floor still holding tightly to the man’s wrist, he put his foot in the man’s groin and launched him over his head.

The man crashed into the television, which fell in a shower of sparks against the far wall. Fabio was on him before he could recover, and punched him hard on the side of the head. Suddenly, Fabio saw the knife as the man brought it up slashing him across the chest. He felt no pain – his senses numbed by the adrenalin rush. He leant back in shock and that was all it took for the man to grab his chance. He pulled himself up onto his knees, and pushed his forearm into Fabio’s throat and pinned him to the wall. The pain started to come now and Fabio gritted his teeth. The man stared into his eyes as he quickly pushed the knife into Fabio’s heart. His surprised look only lasted a second before he slumped to the floor.

The killer found the bathroom, picked up a nailbrush and scrubbed Fabio’s fingernails. Then he ran a comb through his victim’s hair, in case any of his own had become detached from his head during the struggle. Next, he dabbed Fabio all over with strips of duct tape to remove any fibres. After removing his own clothes in the bath, he changed into one of the clean outfits from his bag, and then set about cleaning up the room. All of the
surfaces he had come into contact with during the fight were cleaned thoroughly. He took out the small plastic bag from his pocket and put a few hairs in the palm of Fabio’s hand, and a few fibres from his collection he put on Fabio’s lips.

In a cupboard under the stairs, he found a vacuum cleaner and vacuumed the entire carpet. He removed the dust bag and carefully put it in a plastic bag, which he took with him when he left. He closed the front door behind him, pausing to post a tape cassette through the letterbox. Carefully wiped clean of any fingerprints…of course.

The killer missed the last train from Victoria Station, so he opted for a minicab. It proved to be an expensive trip, but he thought it was well worth it to remove some more scum from the world. He told the driver that he was very tired and that he would go to sleep.

This gave him good reason to keep his head down and also to avoid too much conversation. When they drew near to the place where he had left his car, he made sure that the driver saw him walking up the path to a house that was not his.

When the minicab was out of sight, he backtracked along the lane to his car. He drove to a narrow lane where the normal traffic didn’t venture, particularly at that time of night. He knew the lane well, for in the woods he kept his wardrobe. A watertight container buried just under the surface. He took with him, a trowel and some surgical spirit, and dug a hole big enough to take the blood-spattered clothes. The spirit and a match destroyed that bit of evidence. When the fire died down he changed into his everyday clothes. His other “mission clothing”, as he called them were sealed in the underground container. He removed all signs that anyone had been there and walked back to his car.

The difficult part was how to explain the bruises on his face.

‘But there is always makeup,’ he said to himself.

Tuesday, June 11, 7.30AM

Saxon parked his car in Mitchell’s space at the back of the police station. Mitchell had willingly given it up for his superior officer, probably thinking that it would go on a report at some time mentioning how considerate he could be. As he walked through the reception area, the desk sergeant, Ian Dowling, stopped him.

‘Excuse me, Commander Saxon, CID have been trying to get you on your mobile – something about a possible crank call, but they said to tell you that it was very interesting. Apparently, it contains stuff that we haven’t given to the press. Detective Sergeant Parker has a tape of the call in your office.’

Saxon smiled at Dowling. ‘Thanks, Ian, just what I’ve been waiting for – anything.’ He ran up two flights of stairs as fast as the temperature allowed, to find Parker intently listening to the tape. Parker stopped it when Saxon entered.