Dead on Demand (A DCI Morton Crime Novel) (20 page)

***

'Something wrong with your food?' Sarah had spent hours preparing his roast dinner. It wasn't easy to find time to prepare something so arduous on a Friday.

'No, dear,' David said glumly.

Sarah looked at him suspiciously. He had spent nearly twenty minutes pushing it around his plate.

He had been listless for a few days, and Sarah suspected that being on desk duty was beginning to wear on him.

'How was work?'

'Good, good.' It was his standard non-response, a hint that he didn't want to talk about it. Sarah wasn't going to let him get away with it that easily.

'Any interesting casework today?' she tried again.

'Not really.'

'For God's sake, David, we've been married for twenty-five years. I know when something is bothering you!' Sarah rarely took the Lord's name in vain, but her patience was frayed.

'I'm not cut out for desk duty,' he said simply. He wasn't good with computers, and typing up incident reports offered no intellectual stimulation. He was being paid an inspector's wage and doing the job of a temp.

'So, take their offer.' It was the first time she had broached the subject of the letter since it had arrived.

'And do what? Sit around and watch the television? Garden?'

'Is that any worse than what you're doing now?' She knew how to manipulate her husband.

'Well, no.'

'Then take the deal.'

'I can't. I'm not ready to be old.' He was in barely into his fifties, but had already started to feel it.

'David, growing old is normal. You've got years ahead of you, but you simply can't be running after criminals all day much longer. Stay home, with me.'

David had begun thinking of a caustic reply as she started that lecture, ready to rant for hours, but his expression softened as he realised that retirement would mean more time for them to spend together. He could fish, cook, read and do all the other things he'd been meaning to do but never found the time for.

'I'll think about it.'

Sarah grinned inwardly. She knew she had him on the ropes, and he'd sign the acceptance note included in the letter in a few days. She could afford to wait a week or two; she'd been waiting for almost three decades of marriage.

CHAPTER 38: KEYS TO THE CASTLE

A subtle carved sign hung above the entrance to the Internal Investigations Unit:
'Quis custodiet ipsos custodes'
. The unit was the last line of defence in the Met, watching over the guardians that safeguard society to ensure that their work was carried out with due diligence. The Internal Investigations Unit never took chances, preferring caution at every turn. No single person held all the keys to the castle, and so no one could abuse their position within the unit for personal gain.

Every access request on their encrypted computer system was logged, tagged and assigned to an investigation. At one glance an investigator could see who was looking at a jacket, how often, and whether they were involved with the case in any discernible way. The unit had a rigidly enforced policy of Chinese walls. No investigator should ever look at an investigation he was not actively involved in. The system used a flag warning system. If a file was included in a list it shouldn't have been, a small flag was raised. A one-off glance at the index of a jacket would also raise a small flag. Looking at one repeatedly would drop so many flags that the system would raise an alert.

Those alerts then went to the Internal Investigations Unit security officer responsible for enforcing the Chinese wall. When John Friedrich accessed the jacket for Charles Rosenburg the system had flagged it in no time. He was a mere data-entry worker, and had no reason to access active files unless specifically instructed. He wasn't involved in the Rosenburg case, so it came to the attention of the security officer seconds after his first access.

Seeing that he took a break immediately after viewing the illicit data, the security officer had followed him outside, pretending to smoke a cigarette.

He heard the conversation on the phone, and surreptitiously swiped the phone from John's desk when he went back to work. He didn't know who was being called, but he would find out. The boss would threaten John with obstruction of justice, as well as being an accessory to the crimes. There was no way John wouldn't crumble. He was a simple bloke, and wouldn't survive in jail.

***

'No smoke inhalation,' the coroner announced as he walked in.

Charles Rosenburg had never investigated an arson homicide before, and must have looked quizzical because the coroner explained without his even needing to ask.

'It means they were dead before the fire started. The lungs are clean, so they weren't breathing when smoke was in the air.' He spoke slowly, as if explaining something to a child.

'So how did they die?' Rosenburg snapped. He was never patient when he was being patronised.

'Acute blood loss, though the man wasn't in great shape before that. He suffered a pretty thorough beating.' The doc's tone was more conciliatory.

'What happened?'

'Looks like he was whipped, beaten, hung, electrocuted and eventually his throat slit.'

'Fuck. Who'd he piss off?'

'That'd be your job to find out, Inspector.' The coroner grinned. He much preferred the simplicity of the morgue.

'Any hint as to ID?'

'DNA samples have been sent up, but you'll have to get the results yourself.'

'How did she die?'

'Again, blood loss. She took one blow, a knife shoved up through the lungs. It would have collapsed the lungs. A classic stealth takedown. It wasn't needed though; she was wearing a gag, so only the killer could have heard her anyway.'

'So he didn't want to hear her? What about the man?'

'No gag there. Seemed his squeamishness was limited only to the woman.'

'Maybe he knew her, or has woman issues. Time to talk to the head doctor upstairs.'

'My full autopsy report will be on your desk tomorrow morning.'

'Thanks, Doc.'

***

'Dr Jensen?' Rosenburg popped his head around the door to find the doctor dozing in a wing-backed leather chair, a pile of papers scattered across his desk. It looked like Rosenburg wasn't the only one with an excessive caseload.

'What? I was just resting my eyes.' He started to shuffle papers in attempt to feign being organised.

'Relax. Got time for a quick question?'

'Shoot.' Jensen chuckled at his own double entendre.

'Got a double homicide. Killer let the man scream, but prevented the woman from doing so. That strike you as normal?'

'Could be a number of things: difficulty dealing with women, the perception of women as property in need of protection, guilt, rage at the male victim and the need for him to suffer more.'

'What could cause it?'

'Old-fashioned upbringing, elevated hormone levels, post traumatic stress, childhood abuse... Your guess is probably as good as mine without a psych evaluation.'

'So there's a chance he wouldn't be fit to stand trial?' His eyebrows narrowed. The lawyers would jump on it.

'Maybe. Let me have a look at him when you bring him in.'

'Gotta catch the bastard first.'

'Good luck with that.'

***

The room was cold. John had been asked to join his supervisor in interview suite number one. It was used to conduct interviews for active investigations, and a number of efforts were made to make the subject uncomfortable. Keeping the thermostat down was one of them, and it was working on John. They hadn't told him what they wanted to talk to him about, and he was beginning to stress out.

Despite the frigidity of the room, beads of sweat were beginning to form at his temple. Outside, the security officer was running through what he had witnessed again.

'He dialled from a mobile, but it wasn't a work-issued phone so no tracking that way.'

'Don't worry, it was probably a disposable SIM. You reckon we've let him stew long enough?' The supervisor, Theresa West, jerked a thumb at the one-way mirror between them and John.

'Give him five more minutes. Then he's all yours. I'll be outside if you need me, boss.'

***

'Who'd you call, John?'

'Sorry, what are you talking about?' John feigned ignorance.

'We know you accessed the ARM Disposal jacket.'

'Did I? Must have clicked on the wrong link.' John gulped slightly, the movement of his Adam's apple betraying his nerves.

'Don't think so, John, you spent several minutes on that page. Then you called someone. Who?'

'I must have just left the window open.' This time, it was more of a plea than a defence. He knew they had him.

'John, you're not fooling anyone. Talk now, and all you'll lose is your job. Otherwise I'm arresting you for perverting the course of justice at the least.' The threat was obvious. The charge would be tried on indictment, so John would face anything up to life imprisonment with twelve strangers deciding his fate. The odds were stacked against him.

'I called Rosenburg.'

'Why?'

'His wife is my cousin. She runs the disposal company.'

'How many guns have they faked the destruction of?'

'Hundreds. Not all in one go, but a couple in each consignment. '

'What did they do with them?'

'No idea. Sold them, I assume. Don't know who to.'

'Wait here. I have an idea.' Theresa stood, leaving John where he was. He didn't have much choice but to wait for her to return.

CHAPTER 39: HONEY TRAP

The plan was fairly simple. Rosenburg was being watched closely, as was his wife. If he made an early move to the guns they'd simply catch him red-handed and arrest him.

If he didn't then Theresa's plan would come into play. They would use the cousin as a sting by having him offer to help ditch the guns, and then Rosenburg would be arrested in the process.

It didn't take long to set up. John readily agreed to go through with it. They had him bang to rights for perverting the course of justice, and would have added accessory charges to heap on the pressure if needed. It hadn't taken long for him to cave; he was a simple man and not clever enough to even ask for a lawyer. If he had, then the lawyer would almost certainly have put the kibosh on the sting.

He was to be at the ARM Disposal plant at ten that evening. Rosenburg wanted a sentry on the gate as a lookout while he brought the guns back on site from his illicit stash, and once he had he would work the immense shredder the company used to destroy guns. It took a while to fire up, so he would need a large period of time uninterrupted.

The Internal Investigations Unit wanted Rosenburg bang to rights. Anything less and it would probably be swept under the carpet. Rosenburg would simply be fired in light of his service record. Theresa wasn't going to settle for that.

She positioned cameras at the gate to the property. Recording him going in would prevent any argument that the guns were on site, and that the destruction had simply been delayed. Telescopic lenses would catch him as he unloaded them. They would then let him fire up the machine, and wait until he disposed of the first gun. At that point an armed response unit would take him in.

It was a simple plan, and hinged on the guns' not being stored on site already; but Theresa was confident that Rosenburg wouldn't simply leave the guns lying around the property to be found. It wasn't a large building, so it made sense that they would use an external site to hide them. If Theresa had known where it was she might have been tempted to simply stake out the site, but that information wasn't forthcoming.

***

'Surveillance team, in position,' a voice crackled over the radio.

It was ten minutes to ten, and John had been stood at the gates for around ten minutes. Surveillance were in a building a short distance away aiming their lenses through the window. As the lights behind them were out they would be hard to spot even if Rosenburg was looking.

The images they would capture wouldn't be perfect. The distance combined with the low light levels would make for a poor-resolution picture even with high-quality kit. Anything more would be intrusive and obvious though. For the same reason John wasn't wearing a wire, as handy as it would have been.

'Charlie!' John called out as his cousin's wife approached in a pickup. Tarpaulin was stretched taught over the back, secured with nylon cord. Surveillance wouldn't get an image of the guns specifically, but the team waiting to arrest Rosenburg would find the weapons in it later on.

Charles stepped out of the pickup, a bronze key in his left hand. The gates swung open with an almighty creak, and he gestured for John to wait inside while he moved the pickup inside the fence.

Once the pickup was inside, with the rear of the vehicle nearest the door, he stepped out again.

'John. Appreciate the call the other day. I need you to wait with the truck. I'll lock the gates, but if you see so much as a shadow move out there then shout for me.'

'OK. Mind if I wait inside the truck? It's cold out here.' John mock-shivered as he made the request.

Rosenburg shrugged, but tossed him the keys anyway.

He disappeared inside the building with the key to the fence. It didn't matter; the police already had a team inside. They were in the attic, monitoring the building with infrared guns that let them see an outline of a warm body below. Soon, another heat signature appeared as the shredder began to warm up, rows of diamond-tipped teeth whirring at dizzying speed.

It was almost time to make their move. A small camera was aimed at the feeding tube for the shredder, with the feed coming over Bluetooth to their smartphones. Once they saw the first gun go in the shredder there would be an exodus from the attic. It would almost certainly cause a ruckus, but another team would have moved into place outside the building by the time he could react and run.

Rosenburg went back out to the truck, pulled back the tarpaulin and started to unload. With a nod to his lookout, he went back inside with one box. The team watched his heat signature until he reappeared on the camera. When it became evident the box was full of weapons they began to creep towards the attic hatch. It was a pull-down ladder, and as soon as they moved it he would hear them.