Swansong (The DI Nick Dixon Crime Series Book 4) Page 9

  ‘Hello, Nick.’

  ‘Where are you, Roger?’

  ‘Still on site.’

  ‘What does it look like?’

  ‘No struggle. I’m guessing he knew his killer, perhaps followed him around the back of the sports hall and then wallop.’

  ‘I saw blood on the back of his head,’ said Dixon.

  ‘Yes, there’s plenty of it. At least three separate blows. Blunt object of some sort.’

  ‘Jane said he’d written the letters “K” and “F” in the mud next to him.’

  ‘Yes, they’re legible. Just. There’s mud on the end of his right index finger too.’

  ‘Is it just a “K” and an “F” or had he made any other mark?’

  ‘Not that I can see.’

  ‘A partially formed third letter?’

  ‘SOCO have taken plenty of photos so you’ll be able to see for yourself.’

  ‘What time . . . ?’

  ‘Early hours. Can’t say any more than that at this stage.’

  ‘OK, thanks.’

  ‘How’s teaching?’

  ‘Don’t ask.’

  Dixon rang off. He looked out of the small window and across the playing fields. A line of uniformed police officers was shuffling across the rugby pitch, all of them staring at the ground in front of them, and several police dogs were weaving in and out of the leylandii at the bottom of the playing fields. Dixon could not see the sports hall, which was off to the right, hidden behind the Underwood Building.

  He thought about the killer of Derek Phelps. Someone Phelps knew, according to Roger. But was it someone Phelps trusted? Keith Foster was the obvious suspect for no other reason than he had the right initials, but that assumed that Phelps had been trying to identify his killer. Surely then he would have written ‘K’ and ‘E’ or ‘F’ and ‘O’ before he died, his message incomplete? Dixon still liked his hunch that Phelps had been writing ‘KFC’. He needed to see the photographs of the scene. He also needed to see the CCTV footage from the restaurant. If they’d had it seventeen years ago, he’d have been on it most Saturday nights and he knew boys from Brunel went there too.

  Dixon’s phone rang.

  ‘Nick, it’s Jane. I’m with the headmaster. Can you come to his office?’

  ‘Come in, Nick,’ said Hatton, standing to one side to allow Dixon into his office. Jane was standing with her back to a gas fire and smiled at him. He got a frostier reception from DCI Chard and DI Baldwin, who were sitting on the leather sofa opposite Jane. Hatton walked around and sat behind his desk.

  ‘You know we’ve got Keith Foster in custody?’ asked Chard.

  ‘I do,’ replied Dixon.

  ‘And?’

  ‘It’s the obvious conclusion. Pick him up, interview him, tick the box, then let him go . . .’

  ‘He’s got nothing to do with it?’ asked Hatton.

  ‘No.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’ asked Chard.

  ‘I can’t be sure. So check. But look at it logically. Phelps is well over six feet tall and well built. Does manual work so is likely to be fit and strong too. Foster wouldn’t stand a chance . . .’

  ‘Unless he took him by surprise,’ said Baldwin.

  ‘And if Phelps was blackmailing Foster and they’d arranged to meet, they’d have done it miles away, surely? Not right in the middle of the bloody school.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said Chard. ‘It was late enough.’

  ‘Constable Winter tells us you have another theory about the writing in the mud,’ said Hatton.

  ‘We know that it was a Saturday night when Isobel was murdered. We think she was being carried to a car and that the killer was disturbed and took refuge down on the playing fields where he killed her and dumped her body in the stream. Then, three weeks later, we have another murder on a Saturday night at almost exactly the same time and very close to the scene of Isobel’s murder.’

  ‘So far you haven’t told us anything we don’t know,’ said Baldwin.

  ‘I haven’t, but it’s how you interpret what you do know that matters.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Chard.

  ‘The killer was disturbed when he was carrying Isobel to the car. Who by?’

  ‘We don’t know,’ replied Baldwin.

  ‘Then let’s find out,’ said Dixon. ‘It’s the early hours of Sunday morning in a boarding school in Taunton and my guess is one or more boys were coming back from town with a takeaway . . .’

  ‘Oh, come on. What restaurant is open at that time of night?’

  ‘The Kentucky Fried. It’s open till 2 a.m. on a Saturday night. Everyone knows that. Or anyone who’s been to a boarding school in Taunton.’

  ‘Are you saying that pupils from this school have been going to the Kentucky Fried Chicken in East Reach in the early hours of Sunday morning?’ asked Hatton.

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  ‘What the bloody hell’s Phillips playing at?’

  ‘It’s not his fault, Sir. They’ve been doing it for years. I used to meet some of them there . . .’

  ‘Go on, Dixon,’ said Chard.

  ‘I used to cycle down and come back with a rucksack full of the stuff so if they’d done the same, these boys, they’d have been carrying bags of it, possibly.’

  ‘And that’s what Phelps was writing in the mud?’

  ‘It’s worth a look at the CCTV, surely?’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ replied Chard.

  ‘If I’m right, we could have another problem,’ said Dixon.

  ‘What?’ asked Hatton.

  ‘It’s possible that the killer thinks these boys can identify him. Maybe that’s why he was after them last night . . .’

  ‘After them?’ exclaimed Hatton.

  ‘Possibly, and Phelps stepped in . . .’

  ‘You think Phelps intervened . . .’ Chard’s voice tailed off.

  ‘It’s one explanation of what we’ve got.’

  Chard turned to Jane. ‘Get onto the KFC and get the footage.’

  ‘The quickest way would be for you to go to the police station, if you’d be able to watch the film and identify anyone, Sir?’ asked Dixon.

  ‘Of course,’ replied Hatton.

  Jane left the room holding her phone to her ear.

  ‘I think you should know,’ continued Hatton, ‘there’s a meeting of the school governors on Tuesday afternoon. I’m proposing that we bring forward the end of term by one week. The carol service will take place this Thursday evening instead of next Thursday and then everyone goes home for Christmas on Friday morning. I don’t really see that we can do anything else.’

  ‘I understand, Sir,’ said Chard.

  ‘It may be that the governors will wish to postpone the start of next term too. Possibly until this whole sordid business is sorted out.’

  Chard nodded.

  ‘You’ve got four days, Nick,’ said Hatton.

  Dixon nodded.

  ‘Where will I find Rowena Weatherly?’

  Chapter Seven

  Jane had telephoned ahead but still faced a two hour wait for the manager to arrive before she was able to get hold of the CCTV footage from the Kentucky Fried Chicken takeaway in East Reach. He had checked with his head office but once that formality was out of the way he was keen to help. The manager confirmed that pupils from all three of the Taunton boarding schools were regular customers, particularly at weekends. It had always been the same and was part of the reason why it was worthwhile for them to remain open late on a Saturday. Their CCTV retention policy required the footage to be kept for thirty days and so Jane was able to leave with two DVDs, one from the night Isobel was murdered and the other from the previous night.

  A car had been sent to collect Mr Hatton from Brunel and Jane fast forwarded through the film while she waited for h
im in an interview room at Taunton Police Station. Dixon had been right. It showed a succession of teenage boys, most arriving on bicycles and some on foot. One was even in school uniform. Some bought a single meal while others filled rucksacks full of boxes and buckets.

  Jane thought about a young Dixon abseiling out of the window at St Dunstan’s. She smiled and shook her head.

  By the time Hatton arrived, Jane had been through most of the footage from the previous night and had identified fourteen boys she thought to be of interest, all but two arriving in pairs. She had made a note of the times that each appeared and began by fast forwarding to the relevant point in the film and showing Hatton a freeze frame shot of each possible pupil. Hatton identified three of them. One came as an unpleasant surprise: the head boy, Gabriel White. The other two were no surprise at all: Simon Gittens and Nigel Lloyd.

  Hatton was unable to identify any of the others boys either from those singled out by Jane or from a trawl through the rest of the film.

  ‘I suppose I should be grateful there’s only three of them,’ said Hatton.

  Jane then loaded the DVD from the night Isobel Swan had been murdered. This time there were four, including two girls, but only two of them had been in on both nights. Gittens and Lloyd.

  ‘It seems Inspector Dixon was right.’

  ‘It does,’ replied Jane.

  ‘I gather that you and he are a couple?’ asked Hatton.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I didn’t think that sort of thing was allowed in the police.’

  ‘It isn’t. We’re only working together now because of the unusual . . .’ Jane hesitated, ‘. . . situation.’

  ‘David Charlesworth told me he went to St Dunstan’s?’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘Was he there when the girl disappeared?’

  ‘You’d need to ask him that,’ replied Jane.

  ‘Come now, Constable Winter, we both know the answer to that question, don’t we?’

  Jane blushed. ‘Were you?’

  ‘I left the year before,’ said Hatton, smiling. ‘Been checking me out, I see.’

  ‘We check everyone out, Sir.’

  ‘Of course you do. I’m guessing now but I imagine that David Charlesworth doesn’t know about Nick’s personal connection to the case?’

  Jane stared at him.

  ‘I’ll take that as a “no”, then. Well, he won’t hear it from me. From where I’m sitting it makes him the ideal man for the job.’ Hatton stood up. ‘Is there a car available to take me back to the school?’

  ‘I’ll organise that now, Mr Hatton.’

  ‘And you’ll be sending a car for Gittens and Lloyd, I suppose?’

  ‘Yes. We’ll need to speak to the others too but we can do that at the school.’

  ‘I’d better let their parents know.’

  Jane waited until Hatton had left the station and then ran into the ladies toilet. She sat in a cubicle and took her phone out of her pocket. First she sent a text message to Dixon, then she switched to the pay as you go SIM card and sent another.

  ‘I think you and I need to have a chat, don’t you?’

  ‘We do,’ replied Rowena Weatherly. She looked at Dixon and smiled. ‘How’re you getting on these days?’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘You haven’t changed much.’

  ‘You certainly have,’ replied Dixon.

  ‘Well, I’m older and fatter, for a start. Married and divorced too.’

  ‘You’ve been busy. Children?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘How did you end up here?’

  ‘In the wrong place at the wrong time.’

  ‘I’m assuming you know why I’m here?’ asked Dixon.

  ‘I looked you up on the Internet. Hope you don’t mind.’

  ‘So, why didn’t you say anything?’

  ‘Figured I wasn’t supposed to let on. The hero of the hour at Taunton Racecourse. It’s on YouTube.’

  ‘Oh, no, is it?’

  ‘It was in the papers too. And if I’ve spotted it . . .’

  ‘That’s a chance I’ve got to take.’

  ‘What happened to you after you left St Dunstan’s?’ asked Rowena.

  ‘It’s a long story but I got there in the end.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Now, there’s a question. Not over it. I just came to terms with it, they said, which is bullshit for just getting on with it.’

  ‘Fran was a good friend.’

  Dixon smiled. She was more than that to me.

  ‘And you think the two cases are connected?’ asked Rowena.

  ‘I’m hoping they are. Because then I come face to face with whoever took Fran.’

  ‘You’ve spotted the others from St Dunstan’s?’

  ‘Derek Phelps?’

  ‘Yes. And the head. Griffiths too. He taught me ancient history.’

  ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘Haskill, but he’s in the Far East.’

  ‘Miss Weatherly.’ The shout came from inside Gardenhurst.

  ‘I’d better go. Good luck, Nick. We’ll speak again, I’m sure.’

  ‘We will. Thanks.’

  Dixon turned and walked down the steps. He had reached the corner of the Bishop Sutton Hall before his phone bleeped. It was a text message from Jane.

  Taking Monty for a walk later

  Dixon recognised the code and switched to his pay as you go SIM card. Seconds later his phone bleeped again to announce another text message.

  Hatton knows about you and Fran

  Dixon dialled the number and waited.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Where are you? It sounds echoey.’

  ‘In the loo.’

  ‘What’d he say?’

  ‘Just that he knew.’

  ‘And what’s he gonna do about it?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Odd. Still if he was up to no good he’d hardly let on he knows, would he?’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘Any luck with the CCTV from the KFC?’ asked Dixon.

  ‘Two were there on both nights. Boys . . . er . . .’

  Dixon could hear Jane turning pages in her notebook.

  ‘Gittens and Lloyd . . .’

  Dixon laughed.

  ‘D’you know ’em?’ asked Jane.

  ‘I do. Think Laurel and Hardy on drugs and you’ll not be far off the mark.’

  ‘We’re sending a car for them now.’

  ‘I’m on my way.’

  The interview with Simon Gittens was already under way by the time Dixon arrived at Taunton Police Station. Simon’s family lived locally and his father, Brian Gittens, had got there in a matter of minutes when he got the call from the headmaster. Nigel Lloyd was waiting patiently in an interview room. His parents lived in America and had asked that the chaplain sit in as an appropriate adult when he was interviewed. Father Anthony was on his way but it would be at least another hour before he was able to get there.

  Dixon watched the interview unfold on a small television screen in an adjacent room. DCI Chard and Jane were sitting on a table behind him. The interview was conducted by DI Baldwin, who had been at pains to point out that Simon was not under arrest and that he was simply helping with enquiries. Either way, his father did not seem impressed that his son was mixed up in the current enquiry in any shape or form.

  ‘Let’s start with the night Isobel Swan was murdered,’ said Baldwin. ‘What did you get up to that night, Simon?’

  ‘I was in the sixth form bar with Nigel.’

  Baldwin looked at him and raised her eyebrows. She did not reply.

  ‘For God’s sake, just tell her the bloody truth, Simon,’ said Brian Gittens. ‘It’s not as if you murdered the girl, is it?’

 
Silence.

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, spit it out, then.’

  ‘We’d gone into town. The Half Moon and the New Inn. We got back late and then someone suggested a takeaway so we borrowed a couple of bikes and went down the KFC.’

  ‘Who suggested it?’ asked Baldwin.

  ‘Adam.’

  ‘Adam who?’

  ‘Adam Edwards.’

  Brian Gittens shook his head.

  ‘Who went?’

  ‘Nigel and me.’

  ‘Not Adam?’

  ‘He paid for it in return for getting him some.’

  ‘Anyone else?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What time was this?’

  ‘Just gone midnight, I think.’

  ‘So, why didn’t you mention this before?’

  ‘I didn’t think it was relevant.’

  ‘Didn’t want to get in trouble, more like,’ said Brian. ‘Idiot.’

  ‘Which way did you go?’ asked Baldwin.

  ‘We used the path behind the housing estate opposite the school. It comes out down the side of Vivary Park. Then we cut down behind the car park to the top of East Reach. It’s off road most of the way.’

  ‘Where were the bikes?’

  ‘In the bike rack at the side of Gardenhurst.’

  ‘Not in the old cloisters?’

  ‘No, it’s locked at that time of night.’

  ‘And how did you get out of the school?’

  ‘We went along the front of Gardenhurst and then down the drive. It brings you out opposite Conway Road. The path’s down there off to the right.’

  ‘Why did you go that way?’

  ‘There were no lights on my bike.’

  ‘How long did it take you to get there?’

  ‘About fifteen minutes or so.’

  Baldwin took out a black and white photograph and placed it on the table in front of Simon.

  ‘This is a still from the CCTV in the KFC. Identify the boys in the photograph for me.’

  ‘That’s me and that’s Nigel,’ replied Simon, pointing to the figures in the photograph in turn.

  ‘And the timestamp?’ asked Baldwin.

  ‘It says 12.27 a.m.’

  ‘What time did you get back to the school?’