One Last Lesson (2 page)

‘
Morning boss. Did Doctor Death tell you anything useful?’ Detective Sergeant Gerry Hobbs looked at him intently while absent-mindedly scratching three-days growth on his chin. Once, he was a well attired and a smartly groomed individual but marriage to a hot-blooded Columbian woman and the quick delivery of two young kids, neither of whom slept well, put paid to all that.

Henderson relayed the scant details of their conversation and added a few of his own while Hobbs nodded with interest. He was sure he
added nothing new as he was one of the first on the scene and relied as much on instinct as he did on science.

‘Who discovered the body?’

‘Mike Ferris,’ Hobbs said. ‘That’s the big bloke with the tattoos and the dog you probably saw on the way in. He’s still hanging around but not to help us, he’s waiting for a reporter from one of the tabloids to show up and cross his big fat mitt with a big bundle of tenners for giving them first dibs on the whole story.’

‘I’ll talk to him in a minute but if he tries to spin some of the sensationalist crap he’s saved up for the papers, he’ll
be spending the rest of the day in the detention suite.’

‘I
bet you would too.’

‘
Gerry, see if you can round up a few uniforms and start house-to-house on all the properties that surround the golf course. Doctor Singh thinks the body has been here for three or four days max, so ask if anybody saw or heard a strange car late at night or spotted anyone acting suspiciously anywhere near the golf course on Wednesday or Thursday night. I imagine it’s safe to assume the killer came here at night as he wouldn’t want to be dumping a body on a busy golf course in broad daylight, would he?’

‘I asked at the clubhouse,’ Hobbs said
‘and when the players aren’t on, there’s usually a maintenance team or ground staff milling about.’

‘I don’t think it’ll take long,’ Henderson said, ‘I didn’t see many houses on my way over; we seem to be out in the sticks here.’

He turned to Seb Young, a thin, six-footer with a pale complexion and acne-marked skin, looking as though he could use a good meal but with the appetite of a horse. ‘I know it’s a long shot Seb, but find out where the nearest CCTV cameras are and take a look at the pictures for Wednesday and Thursday night.’

Young nodded. ‘If
I can’t find one on the roads around here, and I didn’t spot any when I came here, I’ll try petrol stations and car parks.’

‘Good man.’ He looked at his watch. ‘After we talk to Ferris, Sergeant Walters
and me will head back to Brighton and I’ll set up the first meeting of the murder investigation team for six, that should give you guys enough time to make some inroads.’

‘I wouldn’t hold my breath boss,’ Hobbs said. ‘This place is in the middle of nowhere and if
I know anything about country folk, they’ll have seen nowt.’

*

Henderson walked back down the track towards Mike Ferris. He was big man in many ways; tall, only a couple of inches below the DI and he was six-two, well built and with a bit of a beer belly. His hair was short, revealing a boyish, handsome face, tanned and lightly lined but marred with numerous scratches and small scars.

In contrast to the self-possessed and taciturn pathologist,
Mike Ferris could talk for England. While he was prattling on, Henderson was watching him closely and assessing his suitability as a witness or a suspect. He was a keen student of criminal psychology and knew most of the theories, including one often billed as the ‘Morse Theory’ after the TV detective, Inspector Endeavour Morse, which suggested that the person reporting the crime was most likely the perpetrator. While not subscribing to this theory wholeheartedly, he recognised there were situations when it might apply, especially if the criminal was caught red-handed or was still hanging around afterwards, admiring all the fuss they had created.

Ferris was an excellent witness
as he could recall each stage of the discovery of the body in meticulous detail and poor Walters was having a hard job scribbling it all down in her notebook; but he also made a good suspect. He was big and powerful with large hands that looked as though they could easily wield a baseball bat or a hammer or whatever was used to batter that girl to death, and he was loud and aggressive, evident from the way he leaned forward to make a point or waved his big arms in the air to indicate the direction he had come. In addition to the fresh scratches on his face and hands, there were scratches, bruises and scabs on both hands and when he finally paused for breath, Henderson asked about them.

‘I’m a builder;
see. The older bruises happened when we were smashing up old sinks in council houses in Crawley. See, the outfit I work for have a contract with Crawley Council to take out all the old fittings before the houses are renovated. The fucking brambles in the woods caused these new ones when I went in looking for the dog. Like I told you, I never knew there was no path, so I headed straight in about there,’ he said pointing at the bushes to their right, ‘and got bloody well scratched to bits for me trouble.’

He leaned over and tapped Walters on the shoulder. ‘You coppers know all about first-aid
, don’t you? Perhaps you could come around to my cottage later on and attend to my wounds. I promise I won’t scream.’

Walters
screwed her face up as she recoiled from his touch, eliciting a throaty laugh from the big man. It was a dirty laugh, more suited to a Saturday night in a busy pub than talking to two detectives about a young girl’s murder. Those nearby didn’t like it much either as it drew disapproving glances from the SOCO’s, coppers and ambulance crews and it took a considerable amount of self-restraint on Henderson’s part to desist from landing a fist into the big man’s ugly mug.

‘What are you thinking?’ Walters said after she finished the last of several phone calls and texts to re-schedule her busy social life.

Henderson said nothing as he guided the car onto the southbound carriageway of the M23, a dangerous prospect at the best of times
. Drivers, frustrated by long delays on the M25, six or seven miles further north, put their foot down here as they still had a long way to go before they reached the coast.

‘I’m thinking that’s such a crap record they’re playing on the radio; why does every new artist think they need the services of a street-wise LA rapper to sex-up their song? In case you think me too frivolous, I’m also thinking there is one aspect of this case
, which is different from the last two we’ve worked on.’

‘Why, because this one involves a young girl?’

‘That’s part of it certainly, but take into consideration the place where her body was found.’

‘What, a golf course? I suppose closing it down will piss off a lot of high-profile people. Maybe the Chief Constable plays there.’

‘That’s an interesting thought but I’m sure they’ll soon be back whacking their little white balls just as soon as we give them the all clear tomorrow or the day after.’

‘I’ve never fancied playing myself. Too expensive for starters.’

‘What I mean is, the scene back there has all the hallmarks of a cold-blooded killer. The last two cases we worked on, involved friends and the husband, people that knew the victim well. Someone has battered to death and sexually assaulted a beautiful young woman and dumped her naked body in the woods when he was finished with her. To me, that has all the markings of a cold, calculating murderer and doesn’t much sound like a random or opportunistic crime or a domestic dispute that’s suddenly gone wrong.’

‘I see what you mean.’

‘What did you think of our witness?’

‘He’s just the so
rt of person I’d cross the road to avoid. Did you see the way he leered at me?’

‘Yeah, the fool
, doesn’t he realise you know bugger-all about first aid? You’d probably kill him just by taking his blood pressure.’

‘Cheeky beggar.’

‘Do you think he did it?’

‘He’s big and ugly enough.’
She paused for a few moments. ‘The thing is, if it was him, why would he tell us where he dumped her body? In fact, why go to the bother of digging a big hole and covering her up? I mean, it just doesn’t make sense.’

‘I
t wouldn’t be the first time, so we need to check him out. Why don’t you take that job on as you seem to have built up such a good rapport with the man?’

‘You are joking, aren’t you?’

He shook his head. ‘No, but take somebody with you, somebody big like Harry or Seb otherwise he might get the wrong idea. Don’t bring him down to the station though, go to his place and see how he lives. Find out if his work or social life brings him into contact with young women like our victim.’

‘I doubt it
, as he says he’s a builder and his company are renovating old flats. There’s not many women in that game; period.’

‘We also need to
trace his wife, the one he said cleared off to Scarborough, which is probably true as I’m sure that wasn’t her back there in the bushes. We need to know why she left; was he violent or was she running away from something he was involved with? Now, if it was him, it would be the easiest case I’ve ever dealt with since moving down south, but somehow I doubt it.’

*

Sussex House, the home of Sussex Police - Serious Crimes Unit, was a bland concrete block, adjacent to a small industrial estate and a large Asda supermarket in the east end of Brighton. The small-time cons of the town were more familiar with the city centre police station in John Street where they were taken when first apprehended, and next day, across the road for an appearance in the Magistrates’ Court. They only came to Sussex House if their thieving became violent, the flasher in the park decided to have a more personal relationship with his victim or an assailant graduated up the scale to GBH and murder.

For the next few hours, Henderson worked non-stop. A Murder Enquiry Book was opened, a Holmes operator
appointed, who was already banging data into the computer, senior officers were briefed about what was now known as Operation Jaguar, and several lines of enquiry were being mapped out by the skeleton team of officers already assembled, ready to hand over to the rest of the team when they joined the squad, early the following morning.

The press briefing at five-thirty was exactly that, brief.
Neither he nor his boss, Chief Inspector Steve Harris said much, other than the basic facts of the case - the body of a young woman was found on Mannings Heath golf course by a man walking his dog and enquiries were continuing. A few hacks had already interviewed Mike Ferris and were keen to ask questions about him, several referring to his large size, robust manner and the bruises on his hands and face. He tried to be as conciliatory as possible, despite his own misgivings, and made a point of thanking him for finding the body as he didn’t want them hounding him out of town or making him wary and driving him underground.

In
the three years he had been with Sussex Police, he had been trying hard to improve his relationship with journalists. His epiphany came when he was involved in a fatal shooting in Glasgow. He was an officer with Strathclyde Police at the time and working for an undercover unit with responsibility for keeping various drug gangs under surveillance and infiltrating the most active. In one raid, Sean Fagin, a Glasgow-born dealer in heroin and cocaine, pointed a gun at him and he had no option but to fire back. Fagin’s bullet grazed his shoulder giving him a flesh wound; Henderson’s bullet hit him between the eyes, killing him.

The resultant hysterical publicity cost him his marriage and almost wrecked his job and health, as he hit the booze with an enthusiasm once only reserved for police work. Despite being exonerated by an internal enquiry, there was nothing left for him in Glasgow and so he transferred to Sussex Police. Now, his attitude was not, ‘what can they do for me,’ but ‘how can we work together to solve this’ and as a result, tried to be as open and candid as possible without compromising the investigation.

It was a dangerous path to tread
, but as time went on, it was gradually paying dividends with less speculative stories and fewer personal attacks on him, particularly about the Glasgow shooting or the time it was taking to solve a particular case. He was being coached by his girlfriend, Rachel Jones, a journalist with Brighton’s main local newspaper, The Argus on what he realised now was a subtle, black art. Although crime was not her area of expertise, she encouraged him to see the press as an ally, not as an adversary and gave him ideas on how to present his story better.

The
first meeting of the murder enquiry team included little more than he and CI Harris presented at the press conference. It was disappointing to learn, but not entirely unexpected, that the work of Hobbs and Young on house-to-house enquiries and CCTV cameras yielded nothing. The residents of the nearest village to the golf course, Mannings Heath went to bed early and slept like logs, as no one saw or heard the late arrival of a car or van near the golf course on Wednesday or Thursday night.

The forlorn hope that a lone camera at the bottom of the road would reveal the make
, colour and possibly the registration number of the killer’s vehicle was exposed as the mere flight of fancy it was, since the nearest one was located several miles away in Horsham town centre.