Dead Level (The DI Nick Dixon Crime Series Book 5) (3 page)

Otherwise, Mrs Gibson kept herself to herself, had no living relatives, rarely had any visitors and spent most of her time looking after her two Shetland ponies. Dixon was pleased to note that they had been taken in by Horseworld, or the Friends of Bristol Horses as it then was.

The two witnesses, Albert Higgins and Sonia Spencer, still lived in Muchelney and readily agreed to meet with Dixon after
Christmas
to go over their witness statements yet again. They had been expecting a call, they said, it being common knowledge that the case had been reopened. Dixon thought about his visit to Muchelney the previous Thursday. As well as a village rumour mill, there also appeared to be a very effective grapevine.

Forensic evidence was non-existent and it was obvious that no suspect had ever been identified. The investigation had lacked any clear direction from the start.

‘And still does,’ muttered Dixon, dropping the file back into the box.

He checked the time. It was almost 4 p.m., giving him just enough time to get home and take Monty for a walk before it got pitch dark.

Dixon was lying in bed trying to work out what Wendy Gibson’s killer had been intending when he or she went to Stickland Barn on that rainy afternoon in March 1994. Had they been intending to commit a burglary or a murder? The original investigation had not arrived at a conclusion either way, nor had any subsequent review, although the assumption had always been that it was a burglary gone wrong.

He was also wondering whether Jane could cook anything else apart from spaghetti bolognese. It was lovely, as it had been last time and the time before that, but he hoped her repertoire extended to roast turkey, because his certainly didn’t. Still, there was always Google.

He was listening to the sound of Monty snoring in his bed on the floor next to him when the mobile phone rang on Jane’s bedside table.

‘What time is it?’ asked Jane, from under the duvet.

‘Sevenish,’ replied Dixon.

Jane sat up and picked up her phone.

‘Jane Winter . . . you are kidding me? It’s Christmas Eve . . . who is it? . . . yes, yes, I’m on my way.’

She rang off and dropped the phone onto the bed.

‘Gotta go. Sorry.’

‘What is it?’ asked Dixon.

‘We’ve got a body,’ replied Jane, swinging her legs out of the bed and sitting up.

‘Where?’

‘Northmoor Green. A cottage down by the river. Multiple stab wounds.’

‘Who is it?’

‘Elizabeth Perry.’

‘Not Tom Perry’s wife?’

Jane turned to look at Dixon and sighed.

‘Tom Perry’s pregnant wife.’

Chapter Three

I
t was still dark when Jane turned into the staff car park at Express Park in her brand new red VW Golf. The insurance company had been surprisingly generous with the settlement on her old one and a loan had topped it up. Still, she could afford it, or at least she would be able to now that she had found a tenant for her flat.

She waved her pass in front of the sensor and looked up at the station while she waited for the huge steel gates to open.
All concrete
and glass, Nick had said, and he was right. Lights were on everywhere and most of the workstations on the first floor, visible through the vast windows, were occupied. She recognised Detective Constables Dave Harding and Mark Pearce sitting at computers. And the unmistakeable figure of Detective Sergeant Harry Unwin, standing with his back to the windows, a mug of coffee in
his hand
.

She remembered Dixon pinning Harry by the throat to the vending machine in the CID Room at the old Bridgwater Police Station only a few short weeks ago. Harry was not to be trusted, if Dixon was right. And he usually was.

Jane closed her eyes.

Please don’t let me be teamed up with Harry.

The open plan CID area was all but deserted by the time Jane arrived on the first floor. She spotted a bald head behind a computer screen on the far side of the workstations.

‘Where is everyone?’

‘Meeting room two.’

Jane sighed. Gone were the days of crowding around the whiteboard in the CID Room.

Nick will hate it
.

She opened the door, crept in and sat down on an empty chair between Dave Harding and newly appointed DI Janice Courtenay.

‘Glad you could make it, Jane,’ said DCI Lewis.

‘Thank you, Sir.’

Jane glanced across at Janice. They had worked together some years before when they had both been detective constables, Janice having been more aggressive in her pursuit of promotion
since then
. Their paths had crossed again more recently, when Janice had shared an office with Dixon at the old Bridgwater Police Station.

It would be her first murder as senior investigating officer and Janice looked nervous. Not a good start. Jane looked around the table and wondered whether anyone else had spotted it.

‘Elizabeth Perry. Multiple stab wounds. Found by the milkman just before six this morning. That’s about as far as we’d got. All right?’ said DCI Lewis.

‘Yes, Sir,’ replied Jane, trying to shrug off all thoughts of deep ends and sinking or swimming.

‘Scientific Services are on scene,’ continued Lewis. ‘Did someone get the pathologist out of bed?’

‘Roger Poland is on his way over there now, Sir,’ said Janice.

‘Good.’

‘What about the husband?’ asked Dave Harding.

‘Thomas Perry. He’s the parliamentary candidate for the Conservative Party and, as we know, we’re right in the middle of a
by-election
.’

‘Surely that’ll be called off now?’

‘I doubt it. Nominations haven’t closed yet. He may stand down, in which case the Tories will have to select another candidate, but the election will go ahead.’

‘Seems a bit harsh,’ said Pearce.

‘And having your wife murdered isn’t, I suppose,’ said Janice.

‘No, I meant . . .’

‘We know what you meant, Mark,’ said Lewis. ‘The fact is that’s incidental as far as we’re concerned.’

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘Unless it becomes relevant to the investigation, of course. And keep your politics to yourselves. A woman’s been murdered and no one’s interested in how you vote. All right?’

‘Where is he?’ asked Janice.

‘London. He was working yesterday and driving down this morning, apparently. I’ve been on to the Met and someone from family liaison is with him now. He’ll be brought straight here later today. As soon as he’s fit to travel, that is.’

‘Was he on his own last night?’ asked Harding.

‘To be confirmed,’ replied Lewis. ‘I know where you’re going with that though, Dave, and we’re gonna do this one by the book. OK?’

‘He could’ve . . .’

‘Of course he could. So we check.’

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘While I think about it,’ said Lewis, turning to Janice, ‘check his bank statements. If he did drive from London to Bridgwater and back in one night, chances are he’ll have stopped for petrol.’

Janice rolled her eyes.

‘Teaching you to suck eggs, I know. Sorry,’ said Lewis.

‘It’s fine, Sir,’ replied Janice.

‘Right, let’s talk about the press. There’s usually bugger all to report on at this time of year, except the Queen’s speech, and we’ve got the by-election angle so they’re going to be all over this story. The nationals too.’

‘It’s going to be a nightmare,’ said Janice.

‘It is,’ replied Lewis. ‘I suggest we meet with the press officer, Janice. I’ll set it up for this afternoon, when you’ve got more of a handle on what’s going on.’

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘In the meantime, no one says anything to anyone. Is that clear?’

‘Yes, Sir.’

The phone rang on the sideboard behind Dave Harding. He leaned back on his chair and answered it.

‘Chief constable’s here, Sir,’ he said, replacing the handset.

‘Well, I’ll leave you to it,’ said Lewis, standing up and walking towards the door. ‘Let me know when Perry gets here and ring me if you get anything in the meantime.’

‘Yes, Sir,’ replied Janice.

She waited for DCI Lewis to close the door behind him.

‘OK. Dave, I want a full background check on Mrs Perry. Mark, you take the husband. Business dealings, bank accounts, mobile phone records, everything. Friends, known associates.
I want
to know everything about them before I speak to the
husband
.’

Dave and Mark reminded Jane of nodding dogs on the parcel shelf of a car.

‘Harry, you liaise with the house to house team. I want a complete timeline of their movements for the last forty-eight hours to begin with. We may have to go back further but we’ll see.
All right?’

‘What time does it start?’

‘Nine, but there aren’t that many doors to knock on so it shouldn’t take too long.’

‘Good.’

‘I’m going over there now,’ said Janice. ‘Jane, you’re with me.’

Thank God for that.

‘How’s Nick?’

Jane was sitting in the passenger seat of Janice’s car as they drove over the M5 at Huntworth, over the canal and on towards
Moorland
. She was watching the windscreen wiper and thought it odd that Janice’s car only had one. It was working twice as hard to do the same job, much like being a police officer after the latest round of budget cuts, but she decided to keep that thought to herself.

‘He’s fine.’

‘How did his interview go?’

‘OK, I think,’ replied Jane. She looked at her watch. It was just before 8.30 a.m. and no doubt Dixon was still in bed.

‘We’d all have done the same thing in his shoes,’ said Janice. ‘And I preferred sharing an office with him to this open plan crap any day.’

They arrived in Moorland to find the left turn to Northmoor Green closed opposite the church. A patrol car was parked across the road, blocking the junction. Janice waved her warrant card
at the
uniformed officers sitting in the patrol car, but neither of them seemed keen to get wet. Next she tried improvised sign language and a yell of ‘Shift!’, which appeared to do the trick.

Jane used the opportunity to read the road signs: ‘Northmoor Green, No Through Road’; ‘Unsuitable for HGVs’; ‘No Turning Area’; and last but not least, a homemade ‘SAT NAV WRONG, DEAD END’. Then she noticed that all of the bungalows either side of the junction had ‘Dredge the Rivers!’ signs in their windows.

‘The cottage is down at the far end,’ said Janice, waiting for the patrol car to pull forward. ‘Waterside Cottage, so I imagine it’s by the river.’

‘That explains the signs,’ replied Jane.

They followed the lane, the red brick bungalows on either side giving way to traditional stone cottages, a line of new houses and then to open fields. Another patrol car was blocking the road
further
ahead, just beyond the entrance to a farmyard, which contained two more patrol cars, two Scientific Services vans and Roger Poland’s Volvo.

‘Looks like we go the rest of the way on foot,’ said Janice, turning into the yard.

They walked along the lane, sheltering under Janice’s umbrella, although it needed both of them to hold onto to it in the wind. Waterside Cottage was at the far end, just where the road finished at a steel barrier, forming a T junction with the gravel track that followed the River Parrett. The cottage was facing the lane on the left and sideways on to the river. It was painted white, with what looked like terracotta roof tiles, and a timber framed entrance porch, which was just visible behind the tent that Scientific Services had set up to cover the garden path. Another tent had been set up in the lane outside.

Jane peered into the tent covering the lane.

‘Wait there!’

Janice put her umbrella back up and stepped back into rain.

‘Best do as we’re told, I suppose.’

‘Right, you can come in now.’

Once inside the tent they were greeted by Donald Watson, the senior scientific services officer. He was holding two sets of white overalls and blue disposable overshoes.

‘Put these on,’ he said, handing one set of each to Jane and Janice. ‘You’ve got your own gloves?’

‘Yes.’

Janice finished first. ‘What’ve we got then?’ she asked.

‘Two cigarette butts over there,’ replied Watson, pointing to an area on the far side of the tent cordoned off with tape. Two small red flags had been stuck in the mud on the edge of the grass verge. ‘They look fresh so we’ll check them out.’

Janice nodded.

‘Follow me,’ continued Watson. ‘And stick to the approach path.’

They followed him along the line of metal plates that had been placed on the ground like stepping stones, through the garden gate and into the adjacent tent. The front door and porch of the cottage were glazed with stained glass windows and a wisteria was now visible growing along the front of the cottage. It was the sort of place that you might take a photograph of in different circumstances.

‘There was a small pile of vomit there,’ said Watson, gesturing to a small area on the lawn off to the right of the path. ‘We’ll see what we can get from it, but it’s been raining since threeish. The same applies to the fag butts in the road.’

The sickly sweet smell of congealed blood overpowered them as soon as they stepped into the porch. Janice turned away. Her hand was over her mouth, with her nose clamped between her index finger and thumb.

‘Are you . . . ?’

‘I’m all right, I’m all right.’

‘Do you want a mask?’ asked Watson.

‘No, really.’

Jane looked into the hallway. There was a large bloodstain on the carpet and a red line down the white painted wood panelling above it, where the blood had trickled down from the landing at the top of the stairs. She looked up and recognised Roger Poland kneeling next to the body. He was peering at Mrs Perry’s upper arms and mumbling into a Dictaphone.

‘Came in through the kitchen,’ said Watson, following the steel plates along the hall, ‘We’ve got a broken pane of glass but no fingerprints, sadly.’

‘Any footprints?’ asked Janice.

‘Two sets in the back garden but nothing after that.’

‘Tyre tracks?’

‘We’ve got some in a field gateway about seventy yards down the lane, but that’s it.’

Watson stopped just inside the kitchen door. Jane was standing in the doorway, peering over Janice’s shoulder. They watched a scientific services officer crouching down by the back door picking up bits of glass and placing them in evidence bags.

‘Seen enough?’

Janice nodded.

‘Up the stairs then,’ said Watson.

They retraced their steps back along the hall. It was an old cottage with low ceilings, which made for a short flight of stairs. Jane counted twelve. She hesitated at the bottom.

‘Can we go up?’

‘Yes, there’s nothing on the stairs,’ said Watson. ‘Keep to the plastic though.’

Jane was standing on the top step before Poland noticed her. He was still kneeling over the body, with his back to the stairs.

‘Hello, Jane,’ he said, looking over his shoulder.

‘Hi, Roger,’ replied Jane. She stepped over his legs and onto a steel plate on the landing. ‘D’you know DI Janice Courtenay?’

‘No,’ replied Roger, rocking back onto the balls of his feet and standing up.

Janice nodded without looking up. She was now standing on the top step, staring at the naked body of Elizabeth Perry lying face down on the landing. Her hands had been wrapped in plastic bags, sealed at the wrists, but it was the knife wounds that Janice was staring at. Two in the side of the neck and four in her back. A trail of congealed blood led across the wooden floor to the bannister and off the edge of the landing.