Greed: A DI Scott Baker Novel (19 page)

“In ten minutes he could be over the wall at the back and gone,” Scott shouted over his shoulder, ignoring the warning. In reality he knew he’d face a disciplinary whether it went well or not. But he needed a peaceful resolution right now, not in a few hours after police mediators had created a tense standoff, or worse, he’s shot by armed officers.

In truth, Scott needed this resolved his way. The case had played on his mind since day one. He was damned if it was going to be taken out of his hands and resolved with a bullet, or worse still, the suspect taking his own life, leaving Scott still needing answers.

He walked slowly, the air around him silent. No matter how busy the city streets were around the cemetery, it always had an atmosphere of its own. Peace and tranquility transcended the lives of the living, offering those who had left the world a deserved level of respect.

Over to his right, he could hear the faint sob of what he thought was a child. As Scott peered around the corner of the fence, he was surprised to see the figure of man huddled on the ground, his arms protectively wrapped around his bent legs, his head buried in his knees.

The suspect on hearing the slow footsteps approaching him stiffened and thrust out his knife is defence without saying a word, his teeth snarling, his breath laboured.

Scott could hear more sirens congregating close by which only alarmed the suspect even more. To reassure him, Scott held his hands out in front of him. “I’m not here to hurt you; I just want to make sure you’re alright.”

The suspect’s eyes were wide, consumed with fear, his hair matted wet from grease and sweat, his black clothes crumpled and dirty.

Finally he spoke in a soft broken voice, “He’s gone…he’s gone,” tears escaping from the corners of his eyes.

“It’s Nathan isn’t it?” Scott asked gently, “Nathan Taylor.”

The man looked up abruptly, but still remained silent.

“I know…I know what’s happened Nathan, I know about Stephen and your mum, I’m sorry, but they wouldn’t have wanted this for you.”

“How the fucking hell would you know what they wanted?” Nathan screamed. “He was my brother, he was my only family” His voice incoherent at times as spittle erupted from his mouth, mixing with the salty tears that rolled off his chin.

All the time he was talking, Scott was flicking between maintaining eye contact and evaluating how tight a grip Nathan had of the large survival knife that was being waved around nonchalantly. Even though the knife had been talked about many times during the last two weeks, Scott was taken aback by its size;
It’s fucking huge,
he thought
, almost the length of my forearm
. He was in no doubt now as to why it had been chosen to kill the three men.

“Why did you do this, Nathan? Why put yourself through this?”

“They killed him, they all did, they didn’t care about him, they were greedy for money…his money…” his voice trailed off. “They poisoned him and hurt him,” he spewed as he cradled his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking as great sobs racked his body.

Scott crouched down to appear less confrontational. What struck Scott was how this man’s persona could switch in milliseconds from that of a grown man, to that of a young child consumed with grief as they would be if they’d lost their favourite toy. His whole body pulled in tight, his arms wrapped around protectively. An empty expression on his face, which no amount of consolation would make better unless a new replacement toy was found immediately.

Silence prevailed for a few moments, before Nathan sobbed, “It wasn’t meant to be like this, I thought getting rid of those nasty men would bring Stephen back,” his eyes rising to meet with Scott’s. “I was getting them back for Stephen.”

Scott could see the emptiness and desolation in the man’s face, and yet there was nothing he could say that could make Nathan feel better. He’d lost a brother, a loved one, just in the way that he as a father had lost a child so young and precious. Nothing could replace the darkness that accompanied grief. For a brief moment he felt empathy for the killer, but there was no denying that he was a killer and as an officer, he had to uphold the law irrespective of the story, and bring the perpetrator to justice.

“Nathan, why don’t you come with me, you need some help and that’s available to you if you just put down your knife and come with me.”

Nathan was shaking his head by now, “What’s the point, you’ll only tell me off like all the other men have done. Wherever I went, they told me off and hurt me,” his voice a fraction louder than a whisper, his eyes darting around looking for those men to come and get him again.

Even though Scott would be lying, he needed Nathan to come quietly now or risk far worse if the armed officers stepped in. “Nathan, no one’s going to tell you off, we just want you to be safe.”

“I’m going to prison for a long time, aren’t I?” his voice steely and focused as he looked at Scott.

Again, Scott saw the adult side of Nathan surface momentarily as the magnitude of his actions hit home.

“Nathan, that’s a discussion for another day, we can’t sit here all day, the ground’s cold, I’m hungry and I’m sure you must be too, come with me now before it gets out of hand and someone else gets hurt…. What do you say, mate?”

Nathan held Scott’s attention for what seemed minutes.

By now the sound of rotor blades were whipping the air overhead, but didn’t seem to capture Nathan’s attention. He was so deep in thought, that it took Scott interrupting his chain of thought, to bring him back to the present.

“What do you say; don’t let Stephen’s death have been in vain.” Scott could sense the fight draining from Nathan’s eyes, the look of surrender washing over him, as his shoulders dropped, his chest heaved and his grip on the knife loosened. The knife fell to the concrete with a metallic clang.

He stood up slowly, his whole body offering no resistance. Scott reached for the back of his trousers and pulled out his rigid handcuffs. He was still fully expecting some resistance, but none was offered. Stepping behind Nathan, he pulled one hand after another behind and secured the cuffs.

“Nathan Taylor, you’re under arrest on suspicion of the murders of Edward Stone, Dave Fraser and Peter Tomlins.
You do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence."

Nathan held his head bowed, lost in his own sadness as he was led away to the awaiting swell of officers.

Chapter 27

“You did well getting a result in the end,” Cara commented, as she slowly stirred in the decorative pattern in her latte. Coffee@33 was her favourite place to grab a latte and chill for a bit; as far as she was concerned they made the best ones in Brighton.

Scott sighed, “I got there in the end, but shit, the DCI tore a strip off me. She could have thrown the book at me and I’d be doing what they are,” he nodded his head in the direction of the waitressing staff behind the counter. “Mind you, as she said, ’The end justifies the means,’ so I took a bit of rap on the knuckles, and she took the glory.”

Cara sighed and shrugged her shoulders a little, engrossed in what Scott was saying.

“To be honest, I felt a bit sorry for him, actually.”

“How comes?” she replied.

“I examined Stephen’s death in more detail, so I looked up births and deaths to start with, and focused on his mum. From social services reports, it was evident that she ran away from the boy’s dad because she was pregnant with twins. She never told him about it, so as far as he knew, she was expecting just one child.”

He paused whilst he took a sip of his now cold cappuccino.

“She went back to her parents in Reading for a while before returning to Brighton, but couldn’t cope with the prospect of raising two children, so one was taken into care, that was Nathan, and Stephen was given up for adoption when she couldn’t cope.”

“Ah ok, so how did Nathan find out about Stephen?”

“Well, Nathan, the poor lad went from care home to care home, suffered traumatic and sustained abuse, and when he was old enough, went in search of his family.”

Cara grimaced at the thought of what Nathan had gone through.

“He found out from social services that his mother had passed away through an OD. He was informed that he was a twin, and so he went looking for his brother. He snooped around, asked in the pubs and clubs, but didn’t get anywhere. Stephen had been adopted, had a good upbringing but had a different surname through his adoptive parents, so Nathan never found out much about him.”

Cara was silent as she listened to this story being played out.

“Anyway, word got back to Stubbins that Nathan had been sniffing around the clubs looking for his brother. This gave Stubbins the ideal opportunity to get Nathan to do his dirty work for him, and get rid of the competition. He instructed his brother Luke to track down Nathan and tell him that it was Stone, Fraser and Tomlins who were responsible for his death, with Tomlins delivering the final blow. That was enough the send Nathan over the edge, he was already unbalanced, and they exploited that weakness in him.

As far as he was concerned he’d lost the last chance of having any family.”

“And that explains the hair fibre analysis results… twins, they’d have the same DNA profile,” she said.

“Yes and no. I know what you’re thinking, but this case is slightly different. They were fraternal twins, not identical, so didn’t share the same DNA. Luke was on the door the night Stephen was hit, Stephen’s black hoodie was left behind and Luke hung onto it. Rather fortunate to be honest. He gave it back to Nathan with a whole sob story about the only memory of his brother, yada yada…and Nathan wore that, as he put it, ’to be close to his brother.’ They effectively manipulated him.”

“Poor bloke, I know he’s committed multiple murders, but I kinda feel sorry for him a bit,” Cara offered.

“If I’m honest, I do too. His upbringing was completely different than Stephen’s. He was damaged goods by the time he left the care system, and this was the final nail in the coffin. Any chance of normality gone, I’m not condoning his actions by any means, but life dealt him a shit hand,” Scott said shaking his head.

Scott reflected on the case for a minute. ”Sadly Nathan and to an extent Stephen were nothing more than pawns in a dirty battle for supremacy of the drugs scene and nothing more…that’s the callous extent of this case. The only winner in all of it is Stubbins.”

“So what happens next, Scott?”

“Well we’ve only interviewed him with an appropriate adult from social services. The next thing is to get a mental health assessment organised for him. Social believe he only has a mental age of between fourteen to sixteen, and I have to agree to some extent. When I was talking to him, it was like he had a dissociative identity disorder, one minute he was thinking and talking like a kid, the next he showed signs of being a mature adult.”

“What, like a split personality?” the morbid curiosity ignited in her as she perversely smiled.

“I would think so, yes….we may never get a conviction in the end, he might not be deemed fit enough to stand trial, I could see the defense team putting that one forward.”

“So what would happen?”

“Secure mental unit or hospital possibly.” He paused as he stared at his cup. “Another institution.”

“Shit…after all that effort on your part.”

“Don’t forget the rest of the team…oh and of course you.”

Cara smiled. “Just doing my job; give me a corpse, and I’m a happy bunny.”

“You bloody weirdo,” Scott jested as he shook his head in disbelief. “Well anyway, I couldn’t have done it without you, so thank you on behalf of Sussex Police.”

She laughed and tossed her hair back, “That sounded like some Oscar acceptance speech.”

Scott smiled as he gazed out of the widow and watched pedestrians navigate around each other on the narrow pavement. In all the darkness of the past few weeks and the stories of human tragedy that had stretched his abilities as an officer, there had been one ray of light, and that was he’d found how to laugh again. It was all due to the person sitting opposite him.

I owe you one, Cara,
he thought as he smiled.

Next in the Series

“Their Innocence comes at a price…How far would you go to protect it?"

A girl’s body washes up on the beach. She needed to be silenced. But what secrets did she take with her to a watery grave? Secrets so dark she had to be eliminated.

Detective Inspector Scott Baker and his team are thrown head first into their most challenging case to date. What did the girl know that led to her violent, slow and painful death. As they dig deeper, evidence emerges of an organised trafficking and teen prostitution ring, where girls are commodities, their childhoods erased, and their futures uncertain.

The sudden death of a loving mother and devoted wife complicates the case. Is there a connection or is it a tragic random murder?

The investigation rocks the team to the core. Emotions run high as they uncover a dark, sick, twisted web of human depravity that causes Scott to question the notion of justice.