Saxon (22 page)

Saxon left Palmer’s office and found Parker chatting to Ian Dowling, the desk sergeant. He told Dowling to send a car with two PCs and a SOCO unit to the marina and wait for him around the corner from Jake Dalton’s apartment block. Under no circumstances were they to approach him or even be seen by him.

As Saxon left, he shouted back to Dowling, ‘And no radios, Just mobiles…understand? The press will probably be scanning our frequency; we don’t want any vultures circling.’

The traffic through Brighton had almost reached gridlock. Thousands of tourists were out on the town, but Saxon didn’t want to use sirens. Didn’t want anyone spooked. The heat became even more intense with the car hardly moving, combined with the fact that there was no wind. Thirty minutes later, they arrived at their destination, driving down through the concrete-lined approach road on to the reclaimed land of Brighton Marina.

The two PCs covered the fire escape while Saxon and Parker pressed the button on Jake’s front door. There was a pause and then a mechanical voice said, ‘Hello, who’s that?’

‘Jake, it’s Paul Saxon, can I come in and have a chat with you?’

‘Sure.’ The electronic lock on the door clicked open, and Saxon and Parker climbed the stairs to Jake’s apartment. He was waiting for them by his door looking slightly shocked.

‘Oh, I didn’t realise there was going to be two of you. This can’t be about the burglary, surely a commander wouldn’t concern himself with a mere burglary for heaven’s sake.’

Saxon didn’t hesitate. He didn’t relish the task at hand, because he was having big trouble believing the facts that had been presented to him.

‘Jake Dalton, I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Mr Justice Bernard Mancini.’

Before Jake could speak, he cautioned him and told him to hold out his right hand so that he could be handcuffed to Parker.

‘This is a joke, isn’t it? You have to be kidding.’ Jake started to shake. ‘I don’t understand. Paul, what’s going on? I haven’t murdered anybody. For goodness sake, the handcuffs aren’t necessary, I’m not going to make a dash for it am I?’

‘I hope not, Jake, because you wouldn’t get far, we are not alone,’ said Saxon, feeling quite strong doubts about the situation, and hoping that there was a good explanation for the evidence. He had arrested many criminals during his career, and Jake was not giving of the vibes of a guilty man.

‘Can I get a few things to take with me, at least a change of clothes and underwear? And wait – what about my cats. Can you get my neighbour to look after them for me?’

‘No, you can’t have a change of clothes, I’m afraid you have to come as you are – we will need your clothes when we get to the police station. You will be given something to wear, and you can make all the relevant phone calls when we get there. Don’t worry about the cats, they’ll be well looked after.’

Saxon decided to leave the cuffs on, Jake was a fit and strong man and if he decided to bolt, he could probably outrun all of them. Parker called the two PCs on his mobile and they were waiting by the front door. Parker remained chained to Jake in the rear of the squad car with Saxon following in his Land Rover.

Jake was strip-searched, given paper overalls and slip-on shoes, and went through the usual process of fingerprints and photographs. He phoned his parents followed by his solicitor, Miss Sarah Wright, who arrived promptly and demanded to see Jake the minute she arrived. The duty officer took her to see Jake
in his cell before Saxon and Parker started their interview. She wanted to know when the interview was scheduled to start and was told that she would be contacted in due course. For the time being, she could speak to Jake for as long as she wanted. The police were still busy gathering evidence.

Saxon and Parker returned to Jake’s apartment to assist with the search. The press had arrived, and were so keen for any information that they jostled Saxon as he made his way from his car to the apartment block. He stopped at the door and held up his hands in surrender.

‘I’ll make a brief statement, then I want you all to go away. I will give you all further press releases as and when I have something for you. For now all that I can say is that, we have arrested a man in connection with the recent spate of murders in and around Sewel Mill. I am not naming the individual at this time as he has not yet been charged.’

A voice from the press pack shouted Jake’s name, but Saxon chose not to be drawn. He disappeared through the door and two constables barred anyone from following. Once inside the hallway, he and Parker kitted themselves out in the usual crime scene garb and began searching the place slowly and methodically.

All of Jake’s clothes were individually bagged; samples of hair were taken from brushes and even the dust bag was taken from his vacuum cleaner. Telephone bills showing itemised call records were collected – in fact every scrap of paper in the apartment was put into bags for analysis; even the top blank sheet of paper from a notepad was carefully removed so that tests could be carried out on it to show what had been written on the sheet that had preceded it.

Parker called from the kitchen. ‘Sir, I think you should take a look at this.’

Saxon looked up to see Parker standing in the doorway holding a plastic evidence bag containing a single surgical glove.

‘Found it stuffed inside a roll of paper kitchen towel. Correct me if I’m wrong but they usually come in pairs, I believe.’

‘You’re right, but why hide it there – if I were him I’d have thrown it away,’ said Saxon, looking surprised.

Parker thought for a moment. ‘He may have overlooked it at the time, and thought we would find it in his rubbish bags and decided to dump it later, in a public trash bin somewhere.’

‘Could be,’ said Saxon, looking at a long and well-stocked bookcase. ‘Have a look through that lot when you get through with the kitchen – see if there’s any homophobic stuff – you know, right-wing Nazi crap, that sort of thing.’

‘Yes, sir…I think we have a visitor,’ Parker said, looking out of the window. ‘Dr Clarke on the starboard bow.’

Saxon sighed. ‘Shit, I don’t really want to see anyone at this moment in time.’ But he was left with no choice.

Clarke appeared at the door. His voice boomed. ‘Paul, I won’t come in, I see you’re busy. What’s all this I hear about you arresting my assistant? Can’t be true, good solid bloke, what evidence have you got?’ Clarke trampled over anyone’s chances of speaking in his usual manner until he decided that he had finished.

Saxon didn’t need this. ‘Hold up there, Richard, I wouldn’t have arrested him unless I had good reason, and believe me, I think we have him dead in the water. Good forensics and not too much circumstantial. I will need to talk to you in the next few days, Richard, I trust you aren’t thinking of going off anywhere for a while.’

‘Oh good heavens, am I a suspect as well, is it open season on pathologists?’

‘No, of course not, don’t worry, Richard. I’ll just need to talk to you about Jake, that’s all. His behaviour lately – anything you may have noticed. But right now I have to get on with my job here, so if you will excuse me.’

‘No problem, Paul, I’m at your disposal any time you want.’

Clarke left as abruptly as he appeared, and Saxon turned to Parker. ‘Please go and tell the two constables who are supposedly guarding the door, that when I say keep people out I mean it. And spit venom as you say it.’

Parker went downstairs and Saxon heard his voice clearly telling them that, ‘There isn’t a body so we don’t need a pathologist,’ followed by some remarks about demotion and traffic wardens. Parker did have a way with words when required.

Wednesday, June12, 8.30AM

Jake sat in the interview room, looking totally bewildered. A fixed expression of disbelief deeply etched on his face. His solicitor, Sarah Wright, looked cool and composed, apart from her hands clasped tightly on the desk. Saxon and Parker walked in and sat down in front of them. As he flicked the switch to start the tape recorder, his mobile phone started to ring. He stopped the tape and apologised, although Ms Wright was not pleased – showing her displeasure with an icy glare. Saxon chose to ignore her; she was young and inexperienced at glaring. He answered his phone.

He looked at Parker, who had sensed the seriousness of the call by the look on Saxon’s face. He sat listening for some moments, taking notes. He thanked the caller and hung up.

“Sorry, I’m going to suspend this very short meeting for a while. Seems we have another body – in London again. I’m going to have to keep you on remand, while I take a look at the evidence…Have you been to London lately, Jake?’

Ms Wright put her hand on Jake’s arm and said with a frown on her face. ‘You don’t have to answer any questions, bearing in mind the tape is not running and this is no longer a formal interview.’

Jake leant forward towards Saxon. ‘You know I didn’t do it, you know I’m not a killer, don’t you?’ He looked Saxon in the eye as he spoke.

‘Jake, I’ve known you some time now, and I have to say you always struck me as being a completely sane sort of person. But a shrink told me recently that when I catch whoever it is committing these crimes he will appear completely normal. You fit that part of the profile. We have good strong evidence against you – the fact that you have no alibis for any of the killings, is in itself, very damning for you. If you are innocent, then it’s downright incredible, I would say unheard of in criminal history.’

Saxon stood up and walked to the door, he turned back and looked towards Jake and his solicitor.

‘I have to go and look at a body now. We’ll continue this interview on Friday.’

Saxon and Parker drove to London and parked outside the house in Bottle Walk, where Mrs Lyons had discovered the body of Fabio Gerard. As usual, there were people in white overalls, taking photographs, and others lifting fingerprints and taking samples of almost everything. Saxon spoke to sergeants Brian Anderson and Jim Groves. They told him that Mrs Lyons, the cleaner, had returned after a few days off to find Monsieur Fabio Gerard lying there with an acute case of shortness of breath. A joke that Saxon didn’t find at all funny at the time…later, maybe.

Saxon wandered around the room and muttered, ‘Dog walkers and cleaning ladies, maybe they’re the ones we should be after,’ but no one heard him.

He stood in the middle of the room and addressed the team who were working the scene. ‘Right, listen up, you lot. I don’t want any mistakes; I know you are the best in the country. Probably in the known universe, come to think of it. But I have to tell you that we have a man in custody.’

A subdued cheer went up, mingled with a few shouts of ‘Yes!’

‘Okay, settle down, and remember, if we are to make the evidence stick, it has to be solid. I want no room for doubt. Understand? Good…get on with it, and find me something, if
you can’t find anything then for Christ’s sake don’t let anyone see you planting it.’ There was a general grunt of approval from the team before they continued with their work.

Parker had located Mrs Lyons; she had fled next door to call the police, and drink tea to calm her nerves. Saxon found her in a state of near collapse, trembling and about to start demolishing a large glass of whisky. He stopped her – saying that he needed her to have a clear head while she answered his questions. She reluctantly agreed.

The neighbours, Mr and Mrs McCormack, a young married couple, sat in the corner on a sofa overawed by what was unfolding before them.

Saxon sat down beside Mrs Lyons and gently put his hand on hers. He spoke softly, hoping this would calm her down.

‘Mrs Lyons, I know that this has been a terrible shock for you, but as usual in situations like this, questions have to be asked. Please tell me, in your own time, exactly how you left things next door. By that I mean, how was Fabio when you last saw him – did he seem edgy or different in any way?’

‘I left here last Wednesday, just for a few days off. He seemed to be okay. Quite capable of looking after himself, he was. And, no, he didn’t seem at all edgy; not at all, he was his normal self. He was such a lovely man, queer as hell but that didn’t matter to me, I don’t care what people get up to – nothing to do with me anyway.’ She paused and gazed at the large whisky waiting to be of medicinal use to someone.

She added. ‘Poor Chris, that’s Chris with a “K”, they are hairdressers you see – apparently you can do that with your name if you’re a hairdresser. He’s out of the country at the moment, on business in America; he’s going to be so upset. Do you think I should phone him? He said I should call him if there were any problems.’ She started to cry so Saxon handed her some tissues.

‘Don’t you worry about that, Mrs Lyons, we’ll take care of it
for you. Now, have you noticed anyone hanging around lately, or have you had callers saying that they are looking for someone who you have never heard of, for instance?’

She controlled her tears and offered Saxon the tissue she had used. He let her keep it.

‘I wouldn’t notice if there was someone watching from the street because of the bushes. You can’t see through them during the summer because the leaves are too thick, and no one has called that I know of.’

‘Okay, you are doing very well, Mrs Lyons. When you found Fabio, did you enter the house?’

‘You must be kidding; I nearly wet myself when I saw him lying there. I opened the door and reached in to put the light on – I always do that in case there’s someone behind the door. I’ve always done it, call me silly if you want, it’s just a habit of mine.’

Saxon smiled at her. He was relieved that she hadn’t entered the house. If only other people were more cautious, less chance of the crime scene being spoiled.

‘I don’t think you are silly, Mrs Lyons – I’m just glad that you stayed away from any evidence that may have been lying around.’

Jim Groves appeared in the doorway holding a sample bag containing a tape cassette. ‘Found this wedged behind the door, Commander, it may be just a music tape but you never know.’

Mrs Lyons looked up with a puzzled frown on her face. ‘I can assure you that if there isn’t a label on it, then it doesn’t belong to Kris. He’s very methodical about things like that, and I wouldn’t have left it on the floor. I’m a professional cleaner; I don’t leave things lying around. I’m very particular about things like that, I’ll have you know.’