In Too Deep (Knight & Culverhouse Book 5) (13 page)

W
endy
quite often got annoyed by Jack Culverhouse’s attitude, and today was no different.

She could put up with him being obnoxious and offensive — she’d learnt to just blank that out in her mind — but she couldn’t deal with him going AWOL for hours on end, effectively leaving her to lead the investigation in his place.

She wasn’t quite sure how she’d got to that point, either. He was the DCI, he was in charge. She wasn’t even the most experienced DS on the team — Steve Wing and Frank Vine had worked on the major crimes unit for years before she’d joined. Even Debbie Weston, although she was only a DC, had years of service on her. But at the same time she knew there was no way that Steve or Frank would ever step up to the mark. Even if the job was going, they wouldn’t go for it. They were perfectly happy being sergeants, waiting out their remaining years before they could retire. That left Wendy as the one who had to step up when Culverhouse couldn’t.

The last thing she knew, he’d got a phone call and had gone downstairs, but that was almost two hours ago, and he wasn’t answering his mobile. In the meantime, there were things that needed to be done. Decisions that needed to be made. Decisions that Culverhouse would no doubt disagree with, and even if he
did
agree with them, he’d disagree with her making them in his absence. She couldn’t win.

She decided that the best thing to do was some chasing up — that would give Culverhouse an extra half an hour to return. But after that, she’d have to start taking control.

Picking up her mobile, she scrolled through her contacts list to Xavier Moreno’s name and tapped
Dial
. She knew that even if Xav had no further information, he’d still be friendly about it.

‘Hi Wendy,’ he said, when he finally answered. ‘How are you?’

‘Yeah, I’m good. Listen, I was just wondering if you had any luck getting a closer look at Tanya Henderson’s machine. I spoke to Milton House yesterday morning and requested you personally. I don’t know if it did any good.’

‘My boss did mention something about an approach, but he didn’t seem to take it too seriously. I think he wants to keep me on the team here, to be honest. Thing is, with the budget cuts they tend not to replace civilian staff who leave unless they’re absolutely vital. And I’m probably not.’

‘Ah. Well maybe I’ll have another word with them then. Thing is, we’re pretty stuck at this end. Tanya Henderson was brought out of her coma yesterday, but she ended up getting really agitated and confused so they upped the dosage again. The doctors were worried she was going to cause herself harm, or that her brain would start to swell again.’

‘That doesn’t sound good,’ Xav said.

‘No, tell me about it. But we know there’s stuff on that machine. That’s where she kept all of her work documents and everything. If we can just get into that, we’d be home and dry. We’d be able to find her attacker within hours.’

From the other end of the phone, Wendy heard him sigh heavily.

‘It’s really not that easy, Wendy.’

‘I know it isn’t. But there’s the slightest possibility, right? You need to help me, Xav. I’m at my wits’ end.’

Xav was silent for a few moments. ‘Are you in tonight?’

Wendy looked at her watch. ‘Yeah, I’ll be home around half six. Why?’

‘I’ll pop over at eight,’ he said.

She beamed a big smile, somehow hoping he might be able to see it at the other end of the line. ‘Thanks, Xav. You’re a star.’

The sound of Wendy putting the phone down coincided with the clatter of the door to the incident room opening, followed by Jack Culverhouse marching through to get to his office. He didn’t say a word, but everyone could quite clearly see that it would be best not to try and speak to him.

Wendy looked down at her list of other people she needed to chase, wondering how much time that might take up.

I
t’s often said
that in times of stress and anxiety, man reverts to type, and that was certainly the case with Jack as he made his way back to the incident room. Without saying a word, he secreted himself in his office, locking the door behind him and lowering the blinds.

Although he had an office of his own (or, rather, a stud-wall partition with some windows in it) he rarely used it, except for times when he really did not want to be disturbed or had to speak to someone in private. The rest of the time he preferred to be out there on the floor, keeping up to speed with what was going on. To him, offices meant managers, paperwork and red tape; they didn’t mean policing.

Sitting down at his desk, he logged on to his computer, the bubble in the corner of the screen telling him he had twenty-three new emails. Thankfully, the bubble disappeared after a few seconds.

He opened up his web browser, went to Google and typed in
Pevensey Park
. The ancient internet connection took an age to load the results, but when it did he was met with a list of pages, most of which seemed to refer to Pevensey Bay, in East Sussex. He searched again, this time with the words in speech marks. That should give him a list of exact matches.

The results list showed him some pages regarding property prices in a couple of streets called Pevensey Park Road, and then a link to the website for a park in the state of Victoria, Australia. Although it advertised itself as ‘the perfect place for kids to play and enjoy activities’, it looked more like a graveyard than a play park. Besides which, it was situated on the other side of the world. What possible connection could Tanya Henderson have to it? The web page told Jack nothing else; it just simply linked to a list of other similarly depressing-looking parks in the area.

Going back to the Google results page, he kept scrolling down. It was all about property prices. The second page had nothing either, but he skipped on to the third page just to be sure. There, nestled at the bottom of the page, was a link to the Mildenheath History Society’s website.

Jack’s heart skipped a beat. This had to be the connection. He clicked the link.

The page seemed to take forever to load, but when it did he was met with a rather garish-looking black background laden with dense white text and some very 1990s-style animated GIFs. He mused to himself that the Mildenheath History Society must have used the same web designer as county CID did for their intranet.

In the centre of the screen was an old black and white photograph of a vast expanse of field, a couple of trees dotted about and some children sitting on a picnic blanket, enjoying the summer sun. The caption read
Local youths enjoying themselves, circa 1937
.

He skim-read the article, trying to pick up the salient points as quickly as possible before going back and reading the whole thing through again. There was one paragraph that caught his eye.

F
ollowing
the outbreak of the Second World War, the Mildenheath area was designated as a prime location for evacuees from London. With the increase in local population, the growing urbanisation of the town and the very real threat of bomb attacks or invasion, the district council sped through long-talked-about plans to build a hospital on the outskirts of Mildenheath. A number of locations were mooted, but the council quickly settled on Pevensey Park. New play areas were built nearby, on Rothesay Street and McKittrick Drive.

H
e sat back
in his chair. Pevensey Park used to be located on the site where Mildenheath General Hospital now stood. The hospital in which Tanya Henderson was currently lying in an induced coma. But, try as he might, he couldn’t quite see a connection. At least, the only one he
could
see was incredibly disappointing.

As a journalist living locally, it was entirely possible that Tanya Henderson could have been more than aware of the history of the town. After all, this seemed to be publicly-available knowledge. It would be there in the back of her mind while she was in the hospital, and in her anxious, delirious state she’d simply mumbled the thoughts of her subconscious mind, the same way sleepwalkers sometimes do. Jack was no medical expert, but it all seemed to make perfect sense.

He scrolled back up the top of the website and clicked on the
Contact
button. The page that loaded had a contact form on it, as well as a phone number for the Society’s secretary, Colin Walsh. He picked up his mobile and called the number on the page. It rang a few times before going through to voicemail, giving him the phone network’s standard anonymous greeting.

He paused for a couple of moments, then logged onto the Police National Computer system and loaded up the Drivers database. This particular database was kept up to date by the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency every morning, and it contained the names and details of everyone in the country who either held a driving licence or were banned from driving. He typed in Colin Walsh’s name and narrowed the search down to the local area. A few seconds later, he had an address.

Walking over to the door to the incident room, he unlocked it, pushing it open just enough to get his head through the gap.

‘McKenzie, in here.’

DC Ryan McKenzie did as she was told, quickly walking into Culverhouse’s office and closing the door behind her.

‘You’re young,’ Culverhouse said. ‘What’s that thing you can do where you find out who owns a website?’

Ryan cocked her head slightly. ‘What, you mean a WHOIS lookup?’

‘Yeah, one of them. Find out who owns this site, will you?’

Ryan stopped in her tracks. ‘I think that’s probably best done by the IT guys,’ she said. ‘I don’t really want to risk—’

‘Just do it, alright? I can’t be waiting four days for those fuckers to get back to me when you can do it in thirty seconds.’

Ryan could see by the look on Culverhouse’s face that she didn’t have much of a choice. ‘I’ll do it on my iPhone,’ she said eventually. ‘It’s not a work one, so it shouldn’t flag up on the network.’

Culverhouse watched as she navigated to the right website on her phone, pleased that he’d at least managed to put one chink in her goody-two-shoes armour.

‘Right. According to the registration details it’s in the name of Mildenheath History Society, number 20 Hennessy Street.’

Culverhouse looked down at his notepad, on which he’d written the address from the PNC.

‘Perfect.’

H
ennessy Street was probably only
a five or ten minute walk from the office, but he decided to drive anyway.

He parked up on the pavement outside number 20 and killed the engine. Like many of the houses at this end of Mildenheath, it was a tall Victorian terraced building, with a small courtyard front garden.

He opened the gate and walked up to the door, pressing his finger down on the doorbell for a good few seconds.

He could see a dark figure approaching the door, and he waited as the occupant undid all manor of chains and locks. When the door finally opened, he was met by a man he could only presume to be the secretary of the Mildenheath History Society.

‘Colin Walsh?’

‘Yeah,’ the man said, looking slightly confused.

Culverhouse flashed his warrant badge. ‘DCI Jack Culverhouse, Mildenheath CID. Alright if I pop in for a second?’ he said, having already barged his way past Colin Walsh.

‘Uh, yeah, okay. What’s it... Uh, do you want a cup of tea or something?’

‘No thanks,’ Culverhouse said, from the living room. ‘I won’t be staying long. I did try to call you, but your number went straight through to answerphone.’

‘Oh right. Yes. It’s upstairs charging,’ Colin replied, finally catching up with him in the living room. ‘Probably on silent. Battery doesn’t last five minutes on them these days.’

‘No problem. Thought I’d better pop over instead. Does the name Tanya Henderson ring any bells?’ he said, catching the homeowner off-guard, watching his face for any flicker of recognition.

‘No... I can’t say it does. Should it?’

‘That’s what I’m here to find out. Do you keep records of the members of your history society?’

Colin Walsh looked momentarily confused. ‘Well, yes. They’re all stored on the computer.’

‘Are they accessible now?’

‘Yes... Yes, they are. I’d have to take a look, though. We’ve recently moved over onto a new system, you see. It allows people to sign up using a web link, then it automatically puts them into the database and sends out a welcome email to them with all of the information. Means I don’t have to do anything at this end. So if she’s a member, I probably wouldn’t know about it without actually looking at the list.’

Culverhouse forced a fake smile. ‘So, can we look at it then?’

‘Yes, of course,’ Colin said, sitting down at the computer, which was situated just inside the dining room section of his open-plan lounge-diner. ‘Here we are. Members’ Database. You’ll have to give it a minute. It takes a little while to load.’

Culverhouse could feel his patience wearing thin. He gritted his teeth.

‘Ah yes. Right. What did you say her name was? Tracey what?’

‘Henderson,’ Culverhouse said. ‘Tanya Henderson.’

‘Righto,’ Colin replied, typing more slowly than Culverhouse had ever seen anyone type in his life. ‘Is that with an I or with a Y?’

‘With a Y,’ Culverhouse replied, desperate to lean over and type it in himself.

‘Righto. Hen...der...son. Got it. Ah yes. She is a member. Manor Way, does that sound about right?’

‘It sounds very right,’ Culverhouse said. ‘How long’s she been a member for?’

‘Hmmmm... Let me see... Ah. Yes. She joined three weeks ago, apparently. Why, has she done something wrong?’ Colin said, turning round in his chair to face Culverhouse.

Culverhouse sighed. ‘That’s exactly what I’m trying to find out.’

T
he incident room
seemed to be buzzing when Culverhouse got back. There was a frisson in the air, which was noticeable from the moment he walked in through the door.

‘Guv, you’re never going to guess what,’ Debbie Weston said, holding up a sheet of A4 paper. ‘We’ve been looking into Callum Woods a bit further. Phone records, property details, things like that. We went back a fair way, and we—’

‘Sorry, what?’ Culverhouse said, interrupting her, his face like thunder. ‘Where did you get clearance for that?’

‘From the Chief Constable,’ Debbie replied.

‘You went straight to him?’

‘Well, no, I didn’t,’ she replied, not saying any more.

‘So who did?’ Culverhouse’s voice was calm and quiet, which made it even more unnerving than if he’d been shouting at the top of his lungs.

Wendy took a deep breath. ‘I did.’

The DCI’s head snapped round in her direction. ‘And why didn’t you go through me?’

‘I tried, but I couldn’t find you. Time was of the essence, especially seeing as Woods knew we were looking at him after our visit. We couldn’t risk him trying to cover anything up or hide anything.’

‘You’re supposed to go through me,’ was all Culverhouse said.

‘And I would have done, but you weren’t here.’ Wendy’s tone was firm, insinuating that she wasn’t going to take any shit from him over this.

Fortunately, he backed down.

‘And what did you find?’ he asked Debbie.

‘Well, get this. His credit card statement showed a payment to a company called Dunlop, Briggs and Paver. They’re a firm of solicitors based just outside town. That got me thinking, why was he using a firm of solicitors from Mildenheath when he lives nowhere near here? They wouldn’t tell me anything on the phone without a specific warrant, but their website tells me they’re property planning and conveyancing specialists. A bit of digging showed that Callum Woods recently applied for an extension on his house, and logic says that Dunlop, Briggs and Paver were the solicitors he used for the application. The dates seem to match up. But there’s more. I pulled up the deeds on his property. The company he used to build the house in the first place was a company called Avalon Construction. They’re local, too, and work closely with Dunlop, Briggs and Paver, apparently — they recommend their legal services for new builds.’

‘Right, so he used a company based around here to have his house built and extended. So what?’

‘So you’re going to love the next bit. I looked up Avalon Construction’s details at Companies House. One of its directors is a Mr Gary McCann.’

Culverhouse was silent for a couple of seconds. ‘You’re having a fucking laugh,’ he said, eventually.

‘Nope. He owns seven percent of the shares, apparently.’

Culverhouse tried to get his head around what this meant. Callum Woods, a professional footballer who claimed to have no links with the Mildenheath area, and who said he’d never even heard of the place, used both a building company and a firm of solicitors from there, miles away from his home. Not only that, but one of the shareholders of the building company was one of the area’s biggest crooks — something Culverhouse had never been able to prove, though not for want of trying. There was now a link, not only between Callum Woods and Mildenheath — the town in which Tanya Henderson, the woman who’d nearly ruined his career, lived — but an admittedly more tenuous one between Callum Woods and Gary McCann too.

‘That’s nothing we can question him about, though, is it?’ Culverhouse said. ‘I mean, we’re not even out of the realms of coincidence yet. McCann has shares in hundreds of companies, and Avalon Construction are a big name. It’s hardly inconceivable that they’d build Callum Woods’s house. They do projects all over the country, from what I’ve heard.’

‘Yeah, but add that onto Callum Woods’s bad boy image and the fact that Gary McCann’s one of the dodgiest buggers in the country, and what are we looking at?’ Debbie said.

‘That’s the wording you’re going to give to the CPS, is it?’ Culverhouse replied. ‘Yeah, I can see them running with that. Listen, it’s good. It’s a great start. But we need to dig deeper. We need to find out more. But I think we’d be better off doing that tomorrow.’

‘It’s alright. I applied for overtime,’ Debbie said.

Culverhouse opened his mouth to ask her who’d authorised that, but thought better of it. Without a twenty-four hour CID operation at Mildenheath, the occasional granting of overtime during a busy case was all they could hope for.

The only alternative was to hand overnight duties to a team at Milton House, and that wasn’t a possibility he was willing to entertain.