The Reckless Engineer (20 page)

He nodded. ‘This is the HR form we need you to sign, giving us permission to talk to your parents. Alan and I will make all the arrangements necessary to get Pippa her visa and to fly her out here as soon as possible. I have a little notepad here. Could you write down everything you want me to get from your house, particularly the reading material and the clothes?’

Sally signed the form and thought out loud as she jotted down the list. ‘Well, I have a running magazine that comes out every Monday, the equestrian magazine comes out every Tuesday, the
Rock Climber’s Journal
comes out Wednesday, the windsurfing magazine comes out Thursday, the sailing magazine comes out Friday, and the off-road cycling magazine comes out every Saturday; and then there are the Sunday papers. My sports lift my spirits and keep me going and I hate that I am trapped in here and cannot do anything. Having the magazines, at least, will help. Bring only the unread ones, please, Jeremy. They should be the ones on the carpet by the door posted in through the letterbox, still in their cellophane covers.’

‘See you later, Sally, and get well soon.’ He pocketed the keys as he got up to leave. He would bring as much of her favourite things as possible so that she could fill her cupboard with things familiar to her. Hopefully this will help alleviate the so called “obsessive compulsive” traits.

She got up and gave him a hug.

‘Thank you for coming here to save my life.’

Jeremy called Alan to update him on the visit as he walked through the car park.

‘Hi, Jeremy. How is she?’

‘She’s looking good, Alan, and her doctor says she has been getting better since we started visiting her.’

‘Listen,’ he interrupted. ‘Soon after you left I had technical support take Sally and Michelle’s PCs and laptops into the lab and search through the content. I found the letters, Jeremy. I found the anonymous letters to Jack’s family on Michelle’s laptop along with the digital photos taken from a mobile phone that looked like the ones included with the letter to Jack’s wife. I’ve just called the police in because this is material evidence in a murder case. They are on their way to pick up the machines. Michelle sent those letters Jeremy. That witch sent them to break up Jack’s family, then blamed poor Sally and had her fired. I should have fired Michelle at the early stages of these troubles.’

‘You cannot blame yourself for all this’ Jeremy tried to comfort him.

Once inside the car, Jeremy briefed Alan on the important points of his visit to St. James’ ward.

The administrative nurse who greeted Jeremy informed him that Alan was with Sally when he returned to the hospital. As part of the hospital procedures she took him to her office and proceeded to make an inventory of the belongings brought in for the patient.

‘I’ve got five pairs of jeans and trousers, nine tops, two sweaters, six pairs of socks, six pairs of underwear, three brassieres, a pair of high-heeled boots, a pair of trainers, her laptop with the charger, and her phone charger. I picked up some extra stuff from her bedroom, miss. A framed photograph of her family, an album filled with travel and sports photographs, two rock-climbing trophies, two John Grisham novels (these I bought for her), and grapes.’

The nurse filled out a white form, inspecting and putting away each item.

‘I’ve got her post here. Eleven letters and ten magazines that were in the post. Two windsurfing magazines, two sailing magazines, two off-road cycling magazines, two running magazines, one equestrian magazine, and one rock climbing magazine. I have two Sunday newspapers with the post as well. She likes doing the Sudoku and the crossword puzzles. I have also got her hot water bottle. She says she cannot sleep without it. I’ve got four bottles of shampoo, conditioner, moisturizer, and cologne and her makeup bag. Do you need me to itemize what’s in the makeup case?’

Déjà vu! This was triggering a long forgotten memory in him somewhere. The police station that night he nearly got killed! They had put his car in the compound and him in a cell until Jack had turned up to take him home. The officer at the counter had made an inventory of everything he had with the same meticulous detail, just like this. They probably did the same thing in prison. Locked doors, 24-hour male guards, security alarms . . . This bloody place felt like a sanitised version of prison.

The nurse looked through the case and approved its content, then itemizing them individually except for the nail clippers and scissors which she kept back. She then had Jeremy sign the list and gave him the yellow carbon copy, which he folded and slipped inside the inner pocket of his jacket.

‘No sharp objects are allowed with the patients. You may inform the patient that she may use these while being supervised by a nurse. She can ask a nurse when she wants to use them.’

Upstairs, Sally was seated on the sofa next to Alan dressed in the same corduroy jeans, fitted sweater and socks—no shirt, no bra. She looked pale and alluring and greeted Jeremy and her belongings with cries of joy.

Sally asked for some work she could do on her laptop so that she could keep her mind occupied, but Alan declined. She must rest in here, he urged, and she could read the three novels he had bought for her from her favourite writer to keep her mind occupied.

‘It was on the 8
th
of October that you were admitted, right? You have been sectioned for 28 days until the 4
th
of November and they are likely to extend this to Section 5 detention then. Jeremy and I have brought in a mental health lawyer who will file an appeal for a review tomorrow and get myself assigned as your guardian until your family gets here. Then they can release you to me. Rest for a little while longer and we will have you out of here in great shape, Sally. It is murder out there, with Michelle killed on the 14
th
and Jack charged for it. I wish I had locked myself in here, too, blissfully unaware of the chaos out there all this time.’

They kept Sally company for another half an hour. At 5:00 p.m. Jeremy bid them good-bye and set out on his drive back to London with the rush hour traffic out of Portsmouth.

CHAPTER 27

Tuesday, October 26 — Eleven Days Later

‘So we now have several sets of suspects who could have easily killed Michelle and the baby, right? What do you think?’

Jeremy leaned forward, looking expectantly at Harry from his seat across his desk in Harry’s office. It had taken a good hour and a half for him to relay to Harry every detail of what his investigations over the past few days had uncovered. Harry had listened intently, taken notes, and cross-questioned him to capture any further details he might have subconsciously registered.

‘Yes, we have several groups of suspects engaging in very suspicious activities.’ Harry nodded. ‘We have Douglas McAllen and Skull; Caitlin with Kevin Cossack and Cyrus Levent; Gavin Hunter for the love of Caitlin with or without her collaboration; and Peter and Marianne Connor, either independently or in collaboration with each other. They all have strong motives, the means, and good opportunity to have committed the crime.’

‘How about Ronnie, Sally, and Alan for the love of Sally?’ Jeremy suggested.

‘Sure. We have Alan Walters with a weak motive but no opportunity since he was away in San Francisco at the AirWater Imaging headquarters. He could have simply sacked Michelle and Jack, you see if protecting Sally was the motive. Sally has a strong motive but limited opportunity unless the chocolates were introduced to Michelle’s premises early on and consumed by Michelle after a delay of almost a week, which is only remotely likely given the note and the fact that every piece of chocolate in the top tier of the two-tier box had poison in its centre. Anyone would try one of the chocolates right away. If only one or two of the chocolates were poisoned it was possible to have killed Michelle with a delay. Actually that would have been the smart thing to do since it puts a time gap between the killer’s presence at the scene of the crime and the death.’

Harry paused thoughtfully.

‘The killer would have then run the risk of Michelle’s sharing the chocolates with someone else and not being killed herself. No, I think, the killer meant to kill with the first chocolate. The box had to be introduced to the premises after Jack left on Wednesday night or else Jack would have had a couple of chocolates himself,’ Jeremy pointed out.

‘We also need to find out more about Ronnie,’ Harry continued. ‘He could have acted out to protect his unhealthy interest in BlackGold, Jack’s part of the business. If Jack had got divorced he would have tried to take most of BlackGold and part of the McAllen estate in Guildford with him. The McAllens knew this, as we know from Douglas McAllen’s testimony to Edwards. Framing Jack works out nicely for Ronnie, though it would have been an undesirable necessity for Douglas McAllen purely to save his family from being the prime suspects; he wants Jack at the helm of BlackGold. We also need to locate Skull. I shall send one of my investigators up to Aberdeen right away.’

‘Jack has emailed me a list of pubs Caitlin used to frequent with Gavin where Skull might hang out and one of which he might own. He’s bringing the list with him to his meeting this morning. He should be here any minute now.’

Jeremy looked at his watch. It was 10:30 a.m. on Tuesday morning. The skies were overcast and it was a somewhat cold but dry day outside.

‘I’m likely to spend the rest of this morning and possibly a little into this afternoon with Jack, and I don’t want you in this meeting, Jeremy. For one thing attorney client confidentiality does not extend to you and the courts could make you testify. Secondly, Jack might not want to disappoint his friend and he might hold something back. I need to do this alone. We can break for lunch together.’

‘Okay, I shall make lunch reservations for 1 p.m.’

Jeremy got up from his seat as Amanda buzzed in to announce Jack’s arrival at the entrance to the building. He watched Harry press the button and answer her.

‘I have to take my two new engineers, Ani and Neil, through some training this morning. Jack is staying at my place tonight. We shall be talking engineering stuff and business, and we might go out and have a good time. God knows Jack needs it. I shall bring him up to you now. I expect we are off to Blackmoon Investigations about 3:00 p.m.?’

‘Yes. Oh, and Jeremy,’ Harry called after him. ‘Don’t forget we also have Jack Connor as a suspect, with strong motive
and
strong opportunity. His involvement could be the simplest explanation how the chocolates got there and why Jack did not have one of the chocolates himself, which is why Jack is the one charged with the murder. They could convict him with a majority decision of ten out of twelve jurors. My job here, Jeremy, is to raise a reasonable doubt in the minds of three members of the jury with what we have got on the others.’

‘Occam’s razor,’ Jeremy murmured to himself as he headed out to the elevators. He so desperately wanted Jack to be innocent. He wanted his old work-mate and buddy back.

CHAPTER 28

Tuesday, October 26 — Eleven Days Later

The entrance to Blackmoon Investigations was marked by a cheesy sign hung above the front entrance featuring a figure of a crouched man on tiptoe in silhouette against a large waxing moon reminiscent of a Pink Panther introduction sequence. It was apparent that private investigators liked to convey discretion, stealth, and concealment in their services by not having their offices in prominent display, for once again the door to the entrance opened to a discreet stairwell that led up to the Blackmoon offices contained within the upper floors above a dry cleaning outfit. This time, however, the door did not give into Jeremy’s push. He had to ring the bell to hear the receptionist’s voice welcoming them over a squeaky entry-phone. The electric buzz of the disengaging door lock eventually directed Jack, Harry, and Jeremy up the stairs to the firm’s reception.

Inside, the décor was unremarkable and not very different from that of a solicitors’ firm struggling through the still tough London economy. The office tried very hard to portray an air of confident affluence and failed miserably, the truth leaking through and staining patches on the ceiling, sticking to the cobwebs where the walls met the ceiling, and seeping up to form islands of dirt and oil on the heavily worn carpets.

They were greeted eagerly at the reception by Mr. John Smith himself, a hearty short Welshman about 5’ 5” tall, with a muscular upper body and dark hair prematurely thinning at about thirty-nine or forty.

‘It’s a great pleasure to meet you, gentlemen. I am John Smith.’

Harry stepped forward with the introductions. “Harry Stavers. We spoke on the phone, Mr. Smith. This is Jack Connor, our client, and my associate Jeremy Stone.”

‘Ah yes, we spoke on the phone a couple of days ago, Mr. Stavers. Mr. Connor, you are of course no stranger to me and my team since we were tailing you for months. This way, gentlemen. I have a room booked where we can chat and I have about two hours to spare. If you have any more questions after that I have to leave you with my right-hand man, David Brown.’

David, a young black lad only a little taller than Smith and sporting a closely cropped Afro, gave a slight nod of acknowledgement from his place behind his boss.

The room Smith led them to was, like the rest of the office rooms, partitioned out using waist high plywood and, from there, ceiling high glass panels. Jeremy took the seat at the head of the table with Harry and Jack on his left and the investigators on his right.

‘We are of course paying you and your associate for your time, Mr. Smith, along the lines of the rates that you outlined to me on the phone,’ Harry reminded Smith as everybody settled into his seat around the rectangular glass table.

‘Good, good, and thank you. Why don’t I let you get started with your questions, Mr. Stavers? David and I shall use them as guidance to outline the events of interest to you.’

‘I’d like to start with when and how you first came to hear about our client, Jack Connor, Mr. Smith.’ Harry opened his notebook to a fresh page and got down to business.

‘I answered your father-in-law’s, Mr. Douglas McAllen’s, initial enquiries via his solicitors McKinley Laird on . . . let me see . . .’

Smith picked out a notebook from the stack his assistant had put down next to him and flipped through it.

‘Well, on the 7
th
of July. It was Mr. Magnus Laird who called me and who outlined the work that his client Mr. Douglas McAllen needed done. David and I took the train up to Birmingham to meet them on the 8
th
of July. Ronnie McAllen, Mr. Douglas McAllen’s son, was also present at the meeting.’

Smith paused to pull out a ring binder about three inches thick marked “McAllen Operations I” in which part of the documentation on Jack was methodically filed.

‘It was the week after Caitlin and Douglas McAllen had received the anonymous letters about Mr. Connor’s, er, alleged affair with Michelle Williams. We were given copies of the letters and the photographs of Mr. Connor and Miss Williams included with them. The instructions to us were to track Michelle Williams and report any further personal contact she has with Jack Connor.’

Smith removed the letters and photographs he had from a plastic sleeve in the file and passed them to Harry.

‘David has made copies of all these for you.’ Smith waved his right hand over the paperwork with the fingers of spread out. ‘Mr. McAllen has waived client confidentiality and has given us permission to provide you with all the information the police would have found here using their search warrant.’

Which clearly excluded anything that the police had not found, Jeremy made a mental note.

Harry flipped through the letters and photos. Jeremy could see Jack shifting uncomfortably in his seat, trying to sink deeper and deeper into the plush leather cushion and growing red with frustration that the glass table offered no place he could hide under.

‘Our strategy was to put a tail on Michelle Williams from dawn to whenever she went to bed at night. We were on your tail, Mr. Connor, from the 10
th
of July to the 14
th
of October, the day of Michelle Williams’ death. I rotated David and two other investigators along with myself for this job. Our daily logs of your movements of interest are in these log books. The photographs that we took and other documentation that we collected—credit card payment slips, restaurant bills, letters etc.—are filed here.’

Smith pushed the thick stack of notebooks and the ring binder towards them. Jack emerged from under the table to take a look at the photographs after Harry shot him a question.

‘So, you were watching Michelle Williams and Jack Connor the Wednesday and Thursday the 13
th
and 14
th
of October, the duration of primary interest in this murder?’ Harry turned back to the investigators.

‘Yes. I was personally tailing Mr. Connor most of the time. David took on the tail from me from time to time.’

Jack pulled out a few of the photographs he was shuffling through.

‘Some of these are the photographs with which Caitlin and my father-in-law first confronted me, though they told me that these had also been sent to them anonymously in the post. I was unaware of your presence, Mr. Smith. I knew my in-laws were getting on-going reports of some sort, but I thought it was Sally, a co-worker and an ex-girlfriend, who was sending them anonymously. I had a few raging fights at work about them and I ended up firing the co-worker. I might have spotted a white van possibly following us parked outside Michelle’s house, but I was never sure.’

Jeremy shook his head at his friend’s irresponsibility. He took these troubles he brought on himself out on poor bewildered Sally, he thought. No wonder that poor girl had had a breakdown.

‘We have a fleet of cars that we rotate and we hire others from a rent-a-car firm. I was, in fact, aware of the white van tailing you also, Mr. Connor, but that wasn’t us. It was a big, bald guy, heavily tattooed, a skull on his left hand, a scorpion wound around the back of his neck.’

‘Skull!’ Jeremy wrote on the writing pad he had before him and pushed to towards Harry, at which Harry glanced and nodded.

‘Did Douglas McAllen inform you about this other guy he says he put on their tail?’

‘Not directly. In fact I have a couple of photographs of him from our watch right here. When I put these before Mr. McAllen he made it clear this man’s appearance and movements were to be ignored. Thereafter we figured he might have others complementing us on the job and purely focused on the task we were paid to do. I pulled out the photographs featuring this guy into a different folder, which I had in a boot of one of our fleet of cars. So the police haven’t seen these.’

Smith passed an envelope from a folder marked “Background & Residual”. Jeremy slipped the pictures out of the envelope. This was the man that both Gavin and McAllen had described, Skull. He remembered Gavin’s tale, the trouble this guy had put Gavin and his mother through all those years ago. This was a thug whose appearances seemed to forebode terrifying experiences for his targets. Gavin had escaped him by acquiescing to McAllen’s demands, and before him even Gavin’s loan sharks had been scared enough to back off. If Michelle had tried to resist acquiescing to his demands . . .

‘This guy first made an appearance about a week after we started. He was in direct contact with Michelle. We have seen him on her tail and seen him going into her house. She let him into the property. We never made any direct contact with anybody. We were a passive “ghost” tail and we took great care that neither you nor anybody else spotted us. In fact we rented the second floor maisonette opposite Michelle Williams’ house as our base of operations. We are trained to track people who suspect themselves to be watched, Mr. Connor. Such a ghost tail costs more, but Mr. McAllen was unconcerned about the costs. By the way, we suspect that the girl who lives in the ground floor maisonette was the one who took the original photos sent to Caitlin McAllen Connor. She was the friend who found Michelle’s body and called the emergency services. We had to be very careful because she knew Michelle Williams.’

‘Strange.’ Jack was puzzling over the photos of Michelle clearly letting Skull into the house. ‘Michelle never mentioned having ever met a man like this.’

Seems like Michelle was up to a lot of things Jack never suspected.

‘You are clearly a man of interest and intrigue, Mr. Connor, for this guy was not the only one following you. You had another private eye on you, clearly a professional. If Skull seemed like a somewhat clumsy hired gun, an amateur, this guy was the opposite. It was impossible for even us to remain hidden from him, let alone follow him. The main man spotted us immediately after he arrived on the scene about a few days after we did. We kind of acknowledged each other as fellow professionals and went about our own work.’

Harry perked up with interest.

‘What did he look like? When did he make an appearance on the scene?’

‘An average-looking guy, he was always in a white shirt and grey trousers, occasionally in a grey jacket. Kept watch from his cars mostly, which he changed every few hours like any professional would. He had a couple of guys of his own to pick up the tail whenever he went off his watch. Smoked like a chimney. Cigars, not cigarettes. I have a single shot of him here.’

Smith pulled out a photo from the “Background & Residual” folder featuring a guy in an old Toyota, giving the photographer the middle finger.

‘The police haven’t seen this one either, though we have given them a verbal description.’

Cossack and GrayHounds spying for Caitlin!

‘I tried my best to tail this guy to satisfy my own curiosity, but they were too good for us. Always shook us off,’ David added.

‘Yeah, well, that wasn’t all,’ Smith cut in quickly, not liking their clients’ pondering on their failures for long. ‘Then there was this tall guy. Looked like a model or a basketball player. He first appeared about a month after we first got there, following you, Mr. Connor, in a grey Honda. I’m not sure if Michelle knew him. He got very close to you at times, following you two into supermarkets and shops and lining up directly behind you at checkouts. Michelle smiled at him behind your back a few times. He wasn’t there very often, about once a week. We figured he was a jealous ex-boyfriend or something.’

Smith paused. Jeremy exchanged a surprised glance with Harry at finding Gavin Hunter at the scene of the crime. He had to laugh at this. Jack imagined he was the love of Michelle’s life and there she was trying it on with Gavin Hunter, who she would not have been able to resist, as well as Alan Walters behind his back.

‘Did he ever make any face-to-face contact with Williams, like go into her house?’

‘Well he was very bold if he were a stranger to Michelle. He helped her to take her shopping to her car when he managed to catch her alone in the supermarket one Saturday. He followed her home, helped her carry her bags in, and managed to get himself invited to stay for tea or coffee. He disappeared for a while after that and did not reappear until the day before the murder, that time in a light disguise-in dark sunglasses and a hooded top. He was staying out of sight and we’ve seen him snapping pictures of you two on his phone.’

Smith paused and searched his visitors’ faces.

Jeremy kept on a stony face with great effort.

‘It must be some old boyfriend or a stalker hitting on Michelle. Guys were always hitting on Michelle, in shops, supermarkets . . . everywhere. I had to keep fighting them off with a stick. He could not have been important. Michelle never mentioned him to me,’ Jack said, laughing nervously.

She was a player, a better player than any man I’ve known,
Jeremy reckoned. She was playing Jack and trying to play Alan and Gavin behind his back. Somebody killed her because of it.

‘Well, you are a popular guy, too, Mr. Connor, because the next people to appear on the scene were your son and ex-wife, Peter and Marianne Connor.’

‘Peter and Marianne were following us? Oh God! When?’

Jack sat up in the seat that he had been sinking deeper and deeper into.

‘It was about 5 p.m. on Wednesday the 13
th
of October, the day before Michelle’s death . . .’

Smith picked out a logbook from the pile and flipped through the pages over his notes.

Harry turned to a fresh page on his notebook himself.

‘I’d like to take you through the timeline from that point on Mr. Smith. This is the time frame of prime interest in this murder, and I need to know every possible detail.’

‘Of course, Mr. Stavers, we are both on the same page about this,’ Smith agreed. ‘Well, we were on your tail that day, Mr. Connor—David here on Michelle and myself on you—outside the Marine Electronics offices about noon that day. You came out for lunch and drove to Marianne Connor’s house. You were there only briefly, but it was clear that you were having a big argument with Marianne Connor while inside. Your youngest son, Marc, was still at school, but Peter tried to intervene, or he joined in with some input, whereupon you stormed out of the house and drove back to your office.’

‘We were fighting about Michelle, the finances, and about Marianne dragging the children into it.’