Saxon (3 page)

Melanie was particularly anti-Steve. It was because he never seemed to have enough room to pass her by. The gaps were always too tight – he always had to squeeze past, rubbing against her as he went. Sometimes he stood right up against her when making tea in the little kitchen. Of course, she moved away immediately. She verbalised her annoyance often, telling him to go fuck himself, but Steve, thinking that he was being witty and clever, merely grinned and suggested that she loved it, and waggled his tongue up and down suggestively.

Complaints were frequently made about his behaviour, but they were overlooked by the powers that be, since finding people prepared to do that kind of job was not an easy task, and the candidates weren’t exactly queuing up at the door. Therefore, Steve kept his job, although Melanie and the others knew he should have been sacked. They knew their rights. They knew what constituted gross misconduct, and he was a frequent offender.

‘Okay, okay,’ Jake nodded. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll have a word.’ The clouds and the sunshine were far away already.

Monday, May 6, Angel Cottage, Sewel Mill, 11.40AM

‘Thank you, Mr Killer, sir, for being so thorough. Fucking waste of time this is turning out to be,’ Saxon muttered under his breath. ‘But we’re going to keep looking anyway, you bastard, because maybe you weren’t as thorough as you thought you were.’ Saxon was prone to talking to himself when he was truly focused. Even when people could overhear what he was saying. ‘So you know what you’re doing, do you? You know how to cover your tracks, eh? You’re good, but how good? I wonder. How good are you?’

He was thinking about the two other murders that Marks had referred to. Both had taken place recently and within fifteen miles of Sewel Mill. The other two also involved single men, living on their own, who had been murdered in their homes.

David Crowley, a retired headmaster, had been found on March 12, when a neighbour raised the alarm. He was discovered sitting in his armchair, as if watching television. His neck had been broken.

Rupert Hall was a male nurse, who was reported missing on April 10 by his personnel manager at the Conquest Hospital. He had failed to turn up for work for three days in a row and nobody could reach him at home. He was found stretched out on his sofa, with headphones still on. His neck had also been
broken.

When news of Janson’s death came in earlier that morning to New Scotland Yard, with the preliminary report of a broken neck, Saxon decided to look at this one personally. Hence, the drive back down to Sussex. This was looking very much like a serial killer. There were other similarities too. All three bodies had been positioned to appear as natural deaths. The only difference was that Christopher Janson was in bed, Rupert Hall was on his sofa, and David Crowley was in his armchair. All were over fifty.

The other two were homosexuals. Hall was well and truly out of the closet and was something of a character around the hospital during shifts he worked. He was also a leading light in the social whirl of Brighton’s thriving gay nightlife.

Crowley, on the other hand, was still firmly tucked away in his closet. They found plenty of evidence at home of his sexual preferences. It was something they would have to look into as far as Janson was concerned. God forbid that they should have a killer of gay men on the loose. The tabloids would have a field day.

In both the other cases, there was no forensic evidence of the killer and little or no evidence even of the killer’s presence, apart from the body of the deceased, that is. As for motive, they were still looking for links between the two men, and now they would add Janson to the equation.

Monday, May 6, Anvil Wood House, Sewel Mill, 12.15PM

Babs Jenner was sitting down to an early lunch. She’d had a busy morning, but it had all been paperwork, which she didn’t mind at all. She enjoyed being organised.
One of us has to be!
She smiled as she tucked into home-made soup.

They had been almost fully booked over the weekend. No classes were scheduled until the late afternoon on Mondays though, thank goodness. She liked children well enough, but the noise they made was extraordinary. The horses were well used to
it though and patiently endured the endless circuits. Babs was thinking of getting one of the stable girls to do more of the lessons. Her various business ventures were doing well and she was sure they could afford it.

Monday, May 6, Angel Cottage, Sewel Mill, 12.15PM

‘Boss, you up there?’ Detective Sergeant Guy Parker called from the bottom of the stairs.

‘Yes, come up carefully, Parker, don’t touch anything or you’ll be checking parking tickets…forever…without overtime, and certainly with no chance of parole.’

Parker was also moved to talk to himself from time to time.

‘And that, my friends, was from chapter one of the Ladybird guide to “Instructions for Behaviour Appropriate to a Crime Scene” and we are very grateful indeed for the refresher course, aren’t we boys and girls?’ he muttered beneath his breath, as he started climbing the stairs.

As he did so, he glanced out of the window next to the front door and saw Dr Marks, and realised immediately that Saxon’s remark had been made as much for the education of Dr Marks, as much as for Parker himself. He smiled to himself. That doctor was a pain in the arse, far too precious for Parker’s liking.

Parker was a beanpole. He was fair-haired, twenty-eight years old and balding rapidly, with a big nose that pointed up and out at the same time. He resembled someone who was continually being led around with a meat hook up his nose. This didn’t go unnoticed among his colleagues, and canteen-ridicule culture in the police force is not only without mercy but relentless. Consequently, Parker was frequently referred to as “Nosy Parker”. No one would say this directly to his face though. He was known to have a temper, and a bit of rank, which he was more than happy to use when required.

Saxon handed him a plastic bag containing an address book. ‘When that has been checked for prints and DNA, I want you to
get it photocopied, then get the team to phone everyone in it.’

‘Little black book, eh? Full of girlfriends is it?’ Parker asked.

‘Well, that’s what I want you to check out for me, Sergeant, so maybe you’ll get lucky.’ Saxon pointed at the bag. ‘Just get on with it and have some respect for the recently deceased.’

‘Sorry, boss. Anything else?’

‘Yes, you can make a note of all the framed awards on the landing. I want to know where and when Mr Janson was employed for the last umpteen years. Not only that, I also want to know who he worked with and for – could be a jealousy thing, could be an old vendetta. Long shot though, I doubt it will lead us anywhere. And check out for a will. Some of those paintings are not bad at all. Perhaps he has other stuff to pass on to a relative or friend. Maybe someone couldn’t wait.

‘Also, get on to traffic and check if they were in the area taking random number plates.’ Saxon paused for breath.

‘I’ve already checked that out, boss, there was a squad car in the area, but they weren’t checking plates.’

‘Shit, you’re kidding – bring back the old days. What do they do all night – sit in side streets and stuff their faces with pizza? At least it might have given us something useful, rather than fuck all. And where is sodding SOCO?’

Monday, May 6, Conquest Hospital Bus Stop, Brighton
,
12.35PM

Tucker was livid as he approached the bus stop at some speed. Two people were waiting and they both looked up in surprise as he strode up, muttering to himself loudly. ‘Fuckin’ bastard! Who’s he think he is? Fuckin’ arsehole, that’s what.’ He glared at his prospective fellow passengers, an elderly man and a middle-aged woman. They both recoiled. His face was almost purple with rage.

‘What right does he ’ave to go on at me about me personal high jeans an’ stuff?’ He was still marching back and forth. The
elderly man looked at the middle-aged woman and they both backed away from Tucker and towards each other.

‘Go ’ome and fuckin’ wash ’e said!’ Tucker pointed his armpit indignantly at the couple. They withdrew further.

Monday, May 6, Angel Cottage, Sewel Mill, 12.45PM

Guy Parker was on his hands and knees on the top landing, painstakingly listing the details of each of the awards on display. He was fervently wishing that Janson hadn’t been quite as successful.

Saxon glanced at him as he went back to the bedroom. He considered Parker to be an excellent police officer and, when necessary, reliable and tough. He was streetwise in a way that Saxon knew he himself wasn’t, or not to the same extent. If a situation got a bit heavy, Parker was definitely one to have on your side. Not only did he have the height, he was also fit and wiry. Not many people could’ve gotten close enough to Parker to land a punch, even if they’d had the bad sense to try in the first place. Saxon once pictured him as a gibbon on steroids, an image that had stuck in his mind subsequently. But he’d never mentioned this to him.

Parker wasn’t one to seek out trouble though. The vibes he gave off were sufficient. His appearance meant that he very rarely had to use the physical prowess people just assumed he had. He was married with two children, a fact that often played on his mind. When a police officer died in the line of duty, the newspapers always described the deceased as “married with two children”. Never three, or one, it always seemed to be two.

Parker smiled, as always, at the thought of his kids. This case would mean more time away from home, while he stayed at a police house in Brighton rather than commuting daily back to South London. He didn’t mind. Working sixteen-hour days meant that he would hardly have seen them anyway, so it made sense to be close by. He’d make a point of calling home in the
early evening, when they were home from school and just after they’d had their tea.

He and Lynne had a routine that worked well. He talked to both boys about their day, and had a few minutes with her on the phone afterwards. She accepted the lot of a detective’s wife without complaint. That was a rare thing, in Parker’s experience, and something for which he was eternally grateful. The call home, though brief, was the highlight of his day, followed closely by their exchange of emails.

He went back to a thorough inspection of the upstairs of Janson’s cottage, continuing with detailed notes of each of the framed awards. At this stage, he wasn’t trying to infer much from the contents, just to get the details down in his notebook. They would go over them together later and see what avenues needed further exploration. Right now, the important thing was to gather the information, accurately and completely. The challenge of putting it all together came later.

Monday, May 6, Conquest Hospital Mortuary, Brighton
,
12.50PM

Jake didn’t want to delay anyone for long but he wanted to say something about Steve Tucker. He had called a brief staff meeting.

He was well aware that Tucker was an unpleasant individual and probably always had been. Not attractive, even to his mother, would be Jake’s guess. Twenty-six years old but with a mental age of around thirteen, and that was on a good day. Five feet three inches of rampant body odour, he had the habit of fondling his genitals. In public, or private, it made no difference. Well, not to him, anyway.

His skin had the texture of someone who has dedicated their life to smoking as much as possible during their waking hours. It followed of course that with such dedication to nicotine came a certain amount of phlegm, so spitting was another facet of
Tucker’s charm. This was usually done with the same rules as the genital gymnastics…anywhere that took his fancy, and with little or no regard to the comfort or safety of anyone in the vicinity. Although if there was a handy wall within range, it was more entertaining to half of his brain cells to watch it dribble the way gravity dictates. The other brain cell was occupied with breathing, noisily through a permanently open mouth.

With his round face and pop eyes, heavy eyelids and bags to match, he looked like an overgrown bug with blackheads.

Jake could well understand why the women Tucker worked alongside were disgusted by him. But Jake was also touched by a feeling of “There but for the grace of God”.

‘You have to reinforce the message,’ he explained to Angie, Mel and Clare, hoping that if he could get them onside, the other women would at least give Tucker another chance.

‘What? Rewarding good behaviour? Is that what we’re talking about?’ Clare asked.

Jake nodded. ‘If he thinks there is a good reason for having a shower every day, then he might do it without me having to nag him about it, that’s all.’

‘So you want us to praise him for making an effort to clean himself up?’ asked Melanie. ‘Right?’

‘Bit like a puppy, when you’re trying to toilet train it?’ Clare was an expert in such matters.

Angie could be relied on to see the funny side of any situation.

‘So, can I smack him on the nose with a rolled-up newspaper whenever he gets out of line?’ she asked, innocently. ‘That’s okay with you?’ The other two girls were instantly convulsed with laughter.

Jake couldn’t help but laugh himself. ‘Well, if all else fails, maybe we’ll try that,’ he answered.

The meeting was over. Jake was pleased to have taken some action but not at all convinced that his words with Tucker would
have any lasting effect. Neither were the girls.

They all liked Jake very much but thought he was too nice about Tucker. They all wondered why.

‘Maybe misplaced guilt,’ said Angie, when they discussed it over sandwiches in their usual spot outside the hospital.

Melanie frowned.

Angie went on. ‘It’s obvious. If you’re tall, blond, gorgeous and very, very fit, not to mention…’

Clare interrupted. ‘Angie, you’re drooling again. Stop it!’

The three of them laughed. Jake was not bad-looking by anyone’s standards and he seemed to be a pretty decent bloke.

‘So you think he’s kind to Steve because Steve’s ugly and stupid and disgusting…’ Melanie began, clearly not convinced.