A Price to Pay

‘And Anton figured out he mightn’t be the father Sunday night?’

She nodded.

‘Does he know that Stevie might be the father?’

She shrugged.

‘What happened after he hit you?’

‘He went out.’

‘Where?’

‘I don’t know. He isn’t answering his phone.’

‘Do you know where he is now?’

‘No. I haven’t seen him since Sunday.’

Vicki Barclay had already provided Warren with a potential motive, but he knew that she had more to share. Warren helped the FLO make them all a cup of coffee whilst Vicki composed herself.

‘When did you last see Stevie?’

She placed the mug down on a coaster that urged her to ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’, with a picture of Sid James’ face laughing. Warren’s matching coaster had Barbara Windsor in a scene from Carry on Camping.

‘Not since last week. Anton had the weekend off, so we went shopping for the baby.’ Her face crumpled, and Warren handed her another tissue.

‘Was that the last time you spoke to Stevie?’

‘No. I tried to speak to him on Sunday night, after … you know. To warn him that Anton might know about the baby.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He didn’t answer. He left me a voicemail Monday morning saying he had to go and see a few people, but he’d ring me later so we could meet up. But we never did …’

The tears were coming back, so Warren jumped in quickly. ‘Do you know who he was going to see?’

‘No. He never really spoke about business.’

After a few more minutes, it became clear that he wasn’t going to get much more out of her. He gave her his card, gaining an assurance that she would call him if she heard any more.

As she stood to let him out, she winced slightly, grabbing her ribs.

The tissue that she’d used to wipe away her tears had smudged her make-up slightly, revealing the bruised skin underneath.

‘Vicki, do you have anywhere you could perhaps stay for a few days? Just until things calm down a bit?’

Whether her fiancé was involved in Stevie Cullen’s death or not, Warren didn’t feel comfortable leaving her alone.

She bit her lip.

‘What about your parents? Perhaps you could go and stay with them?’

She shook her head violently.

‘What about a relative, or a friend?’

Her lip trembled, her eyes filling with tears again, and Warren’s heart went out to her. He had no idea what her circumstances were, but as he looked around the tiny one-bedroom flat, he could feel the loneliness. Young, pregnant and apparently cut off from her family, the probable father of her unborn baby was dead, the man she was due to marry already violent.

He motioned towards the FLO. ‘Constable Dennell and her colleagues are trained to help women in your circumstances,’ he said gently. ‘They can even help you find somewhere safe to stay.’

She continued chewing at her lip, before finally shaking her head. ‘I have a cousin in Cambridge. Maybe I could stay with her …’

‘Does Anton know where she lives?’ asked Dennell.

She shook her head again. ‘No, he’s never met her, and I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned her.’

‘Then why not give her a call? Do you have a car?’ asked Dennell.

‘No, I don’t drive.’

‘Then I’ll arrange for someone to take you there. Why don’t you put some things together in a bag?’

An officer trained in domestic abuse could meet the FLO and take Barclay where she needed to go, perhaps even convincing her to accept more help to extract herself from her situation. As she went into the bedroom to start packing, Warren made the necessary calls. Barclay was a potential witness; she needed to be kept safe. Warren couldn’t imagine raising his fist against Susan under any circumstances, especially when pregnant. But according to the statistics he’d seen from the Domestic Violence Unit, one of the most dangerous times for an abuse victim was when she was pregnant or when trying to leave her partner.

As he hung up, he knew that if he was honest, there was another reason he wanted to keep her on his radar. She could well have been more involved in the death of Stevie Cullen than she admitted.

Chapter 8

The air in the mortuary was chilled and filtered, the astringent smell of disinfectant a welcome alternative to the odours that would otherwise fill the space.

As a rule, Warren preferred to delegate witnessing the autopsy to somebody else, such as Tony Sutton. Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option and all of his sergeants were busy elsewhere. Moray Ruskin was always keen, but Warren didn’t feel the young DC was quite ready to undertake the task unsupervised yet.

At least there was a familiar face behind the mask.

‘Good to see you, Warren,’ Professor Ryan Jordan, the American-born pathologist greeted him. ‘How’s Susan?’

‘She’s doing well, thanks, Ryan. I hear you’ve become a granddad again?’

‘Yep. Number three was born three days ago. Still no name.’ He chuckled. ‘For the past nine months they’ve been convinced it would be a girl. It never even crossed their minds to have a boy’s name ready just in case! We’ll be flying over to Germany for kisses and cuddles in a few weeks.’

Warren followed him into the white-tiled room. He wore gloves and a red splash suit, although he had no intention of prodding anything too squidgy.

Stevie Cullen looked much as he had when Warren had last seen him at the massage parlour.

‘There’s no mystery about the cause of death,’ stated Jordan, pointing toward the gaping wound on the man’s chest. The Y incision had been angled to avoid disturbing the entry wound.

‘Massive blood loss caused by the penetration of the left ventricle by a bladed implement. It entered between the fourth and fifth ribs, before being twisted and removed. The blade nicked the fifth rib on the way out. He would have been dead within seconds.’

‘Pretty brutal. Does the fact that it entered so neatly indicate that the killer had a working knowledge of anatomy or some sort of training?’ asked Warren.

‘Not necessarily. I’d say that most reasonably educated people are aware that stabbing downwards on a person’s chest like they’re impaling a vampire would be difficult to accomplish because of the breastbone; a right-handed person standing above the victim would naturally come in from that side. The blade appears to have been very sharp, so it wouldn’t have required huge strength.’

‘What else can you tell me about the murder weapon?’

‘Unfortunately, the twisting of the knife makes it hard to be specific, but it was clearly very sharp and non-serrated. Judging by the depth of penetration, it has to be a minimum of fifteen centimetres. I’ve taken images of where it hit the rib, which should allow me to match any potential knives that you uncover. Beyond that, I’m guessing.’

‘What else have you found?’

‘Overall, the subject was in reasonable physical health, falling within normal height and weight for a white, Caucasian male. His musculature suggests a manual worker, and a full body X-ray reveals a healed fracture to his right collarbone, probably dating back to childhood. No signs of liver damage, although there was some scarring on the septum of his nose that suggests he may have been a cocaine user. I’ve sent off for drug and alcohol screening.

‘I’ve also observed what appear to be small, fresh bruises on his left arm. I can’t be any more precise on the timing, but they would be consistent with him heavily falling on the floor within a few minutes of his death.’

Warren pondered that for a moment. Had Cullen bumped himself before his massage? Or had he fallen during the attack? How did that sequence of events match what the two sisters had claimed had taken place that day?

Jordan’s findings had given him much to think about. The pathologist had used his experience, and the application of science, to persuade Stevie Cullen to tell at least some of his story from beyond the grave. In a way, Jordan had allowed the victim to help them find his own killer. Now it was up to Warren to finish the job.

Chapter 9

The ‘Golden twenty-four hours’, crucial to any investigation, elapsed Tuesday afternoon. From now on, as time ticked by and the scene grew colder, the likelihood of a quick resolution started to decrease rapidly.

Warren arrived back at CID early evening. In his absence, the wheeled whiteboards in the briefing rooms had started to be filled in. The first board was the suspect board. At the centre was a headshot of Stevie Cullen, with lines drawn in marker pen leading off it. The first photo that Warren had found was the one taken the last time he was arrested. He’d decided not to use that picture, because not only was it a couple of years out of date, but also because of the negative connotations of such a photo. Instead, he’d replaced it with one a few weeks old culled from Cullen’s Facebook page. This picture showed a smiling, carefree twenty-something. It was a reminder that no matter what crimes he had committed when alive, he was still a victim. Warren had seen the look of terror on the dead man’s face – nobody deserved to die like that, and no parent should have to bury their child.

To Cullen’s right were the two masseuses, Biljana and Malina Dragić, and their aunt and owner of the massage parlour, Silvija Wilson. All three women still had questions to answer in Warren’s mind and he was looking forward to checking their phone logs and social media usage. The latter would likely be complicated by the need to translate much of the material from Serbian, and DSI Grayson had grudgingly authorized the cost of fast-track translators.

On the left of the board were Vicki Barclay and her erstwhile fiancé Anton Rimington. The latter was still not answering his mobile phone and Grayson had authorized an alert to be issued for his whereabouts.

Barclay was now safely en route to her cousin’s house up in Cambridgeshire. The story that she had told Warren was certainly compelling and had given him a new direction to look in, but he was not going to take it at face value.

A second whiteboard had photographs of Cullen’s known associates, including his parents, siblings and extended family, and drinking buddies from the White Stag. A written column headed ‘Business interests’ had a growing list of names of local farmers that Stevie Cullen might have been working with. Many of the headshots were taken directly from the Police National Computer – those were the circles that he moved in. Any individuals who proved to be of more than passing interest would be moved to the suspect board.

‘Mags, how are Traffic doing?’ started Warren. Before her move into CID, Richardson had worked in the Roads Policing Unit. She had been there during the sudden explosion in the volume of evidence from Traffic cameras and video footage and had maintained an expertise in that area since. Richardson was now Middlesbury’s primary link with headquarters’ Video Analysis Unit down in Welwyn.

‘It’s early days. They’ve done a data dump of all the static number recognition cameras in the area, as well as mobile ANPR units, but coverage is pretty poor in that area,’ Richardson cautioned. ‘They’re still doing pattern analysis, working out what cars were in the area at the time and cross-referencing with usual patterns of movement, to see if anything stands out, but they were able to give me a preliminary report on Stevie Cullen’s movements on the day of his death.’

‘Well give us what you’ve got,’ said Warren.

‘First off, we’re assuming that Stevie Cullen was driving the clapped-out Ford Fiesta registered to his older brother, Paddy. It was parked down the street from the massage parlour, and he had a key to it in his pocket.’

‘That makes sense,’ said Pymm. ‘Stevie Cullen was banned from driving.’

‘In that case, could he have been a passenger?’ asked Ruskin. ‘The driver could have dropped him off.’

‘Then why abandon the car?’ asked Richardson. ‘The car was still there hours after the attack. And Cullen had the keys in his pocket.’

‘His most recent conviction was for driving without a licence and insurance six months ago,’ pointed out Pymm. ‘He clearly has no respect for the law in that regard.’

‘What if the driver killed him?’ asked Ruskin. ‘They drop him off, wait until they know he’s vulnerable, then go in, kill him and run away, leaving the car behind. Stevie uses the car sometimes, so he has a spare key on his key ring.’

The idea had enough merit for Warren not to dismiss it entirely. ‘Hutch, tell your door-knockers to ask if anyone saw the car, and if Stevie was alone,’ he ordered. ‘In the meantime, what else have we got from Traffic? Anything on Anton Rimington?’

‘Nothing,’ said Richardson. ‘We’ve run the licence plate from his car through the databases, but the last time his car was pinged was Sunday evening, driving away from Vicki Barclay’s place.’

‘I don’t suppose it gives us a clue as to where he’s holed up?’ asked Warren.

‘No, not really. He could be anywhere that side of town. They’ll trawl the data for any other cars that he may have access to, but as far as we can tell, he didn’t use his own car to cross town to the massage parlour the day of the murder.’

‘Thanks, Mags. Anything else on the video front?’ asked Warren.

‘IT are still examining the parlour’s digital video recorder, but they’ve sent me the footage from the hours before and during the attack.’ Mags Richardson started the video on the main screen.

‘You can see the two girls and their aunt arrive at the shop just after eight-thirty.’

The camera position was less than ideal. Placed up in the left-hand corner of the reception, its angle meant that much of the right side of its field of view showed nothing but wall; the remainder showed only the front of the reception area, going as far back as the desk. It didn’t record sound.

Richardson increased the speed of the footage to sixteen times.

Little happened for the next few minutes. The two masseuses flitted in and out of shot, still in their street clothes, straightening the customer waiting chairs and opening the window blinds. Biljana, easily identifiable by her dark brown hair, rearranged some bottles of massage oil on the cabinet in the front window, fixing what appeared to be a poster to the glass. Warren remembered seeing a printed sheet advertising buy one, get one free on selected oils.

During this time her aunt, Silvija Wilson, took up position at the computer on the front desk. Opening the customer ledger, she appeared to be transferring information from the A4 diary into the computer.

‘Do we have a copy of the spreadsheet, or whatever she was using on the computer?’

‘IT bagged the desktop computer as evidence, along with the video recorder,’ said Rachel Pymm. ‘I’ll ask them to scan the hard drive for anything of interest and send it over.’

At a quarter to nine, the two women disappeared, reappearing about ten minutes later wearing the black uniforms that were currently undergoing investigation in the central forensic unit down in Welwyn Garden City. Whilst they were getting changed, Wilson disappeared briefly, before reappearing with what appeared to be a wad of cash, which she slipped in an envelope. After writing on the envelope, she placed it in the zip-up compartment at the front of her bag.

‘Looks like she’s getting ready to do the bank run,’ observed Grimshaw. ‘We should check that she actually made it.’

‘I’ll do that,’ volunteered Martinez. ‘I’ll keep it discreet; we don’t want to spook her by asking her questions about her finances.’

‘Good thinking,’ said Warren.

At nine o’clock on the dot, Biljana turned the sign over on the front door.

A few seconds later, her dark head popped briefly back into view as she passed over a cup of coffee to her aunt. Just before nine twenty-five, Wilson picked up her bag, and called over her shoulder before leaving through the front door.

Moray Ruskin looked up from his notepad. ‘So far that sequence of events seems to match what the two girls told us.’

The video continued, Richardson increasing the speed to maximum.

‘Monday really is a quiet day,’ observed Martinez, as the counter on the clock raced ahead with nothing happening on the screen.

Shortly before eleven a.m., a middle-aged woman in jeans and a dark T-shirt arrived. Malina greeted her at the desk, before the customer walked past her. Richardson slowed the video to normal speed.

‘I really wish that camera was installed properly,’ muttered Richardson to no one in particular, as she sped the camera up again. Even at high speed, Malina sat stock still, staring at her phone, the only movement visible her blurred fingers across phone’s touchscreen.

At twenty-five past eleven, a second woman entered the shop and Richardson slowed the video again. Dressed in a flowery dress, she looked to be elderly, with a wooden walking stick. Sitting down on one of the reception chairs, she greeted Malina at the front desk. They spoke briefly, before Malina turned and called something over her shoulder. A minute or so later, a flash of brown hair signalled the arrival of her sister with a glass of clear liquid.

After finishing her drink the woman rose to her feet, and using the walking stick for support headed off screen. Malina followed her.

For the next few minutes, the picture remained unchanged, the reception desk empty. No customers entered the shop. At 11.40 the woman in the jeans and T-shirt reappeared, walking out of the front door without a second glance.

Again, the picture returned to a static image, and Richardson sped past the next fifty minutes, until Malina returned to the front desk. Two minutes later, the second, older woman joined her. Leaning her walking stick against the table, she rooted around in her bag before producing her purse. Malina entered something on the till, then handed over a credit card reader. After returning her purse to her bag, the woman waved goodbye before heading out of the door.

‘I want to know who those two women are,’ said Warren. ‘Rachel, check the customer records and see if we can identify them.’

The display now showed 12.32. Biljana joined her sister at the front desk, placing two white china mugs on the wooden surface, before pulling over one of the waiting chairs so that she sat opposite. Opening her bag, she handed her sister a foil-wrapped parcel, and a packet of crisps, which the older sibling opened and placed on the desk between them.

As the two women tucked into sandwiches and shared the crisps they chatted. Melina turned her phone around and showed something to Biljana, who laughed and passed her own phone over. Unfortunately, there was no way to see the phones’ screens.

The lunch break lasted until ten minutes to one, when the door opened. Both women quickly stood up. Stevie Cullen had just entered the shop. Dressed in a brown leather jacket, blue jeans and a dark T-shirt, he stood in front of the desk.

After speaking to him for a moment, Biljana headed off-camera in the direction of the back rooms. Cullen said something, and Malina followed her sister. She mustn’t have gone too far as Cullen kept on speaking.

Shortly before one, Cullen stopped speaking and headed off screen. Moments later, Malina resumed her place at the front desk.

‘Going back for his massage,’ said Ruskin.

‘And whatever else he’s paid for,’ said Grimshaw.

This time they kept the video footage running at no more than four times its normal speed. Again, Malina sat almost unmoving, staring at her phone screen. Warren wondered if she was watching a video; perhaps a favourite TV programme from back home?

At ten minutes past one she suddenly sat upright, half turning in her chair. She sat still for a few seconds, her head cocked, before quickly getting up and disappearing off-screen. Warren would have given anything for the camera angle to change, or for there to be sound.

An agonizing twenty-six minutes of nothing but an empty reception desk passed, before a visibly flustered Malina reappeared, leaning over the computer. She placed her phone on the desk in front of her.

Warren squinted at the screen. ‘Can we pause it and zoom in?’

‘It’s pretty low quality,’ warned Richardson as she complied with his instruction.

‘What the hell is she doing to that computer?’ asked Hutchinson as the video resumed. On screen the young masseuse was tapping away at the keyboard and manipulating the mouse.

After a minute or so, Malina stood up and headed back off screen.

Moments later, she reappeared, her arm around the shoulder of her sister. Even on the poor-quality video it was clear that Biljana was sobbing.

Still holding her distraught sibling, Malina manipulated her phone, placing it to her ear. Warren noted the time stamp: 13.40.

‘That’s the 999 call.’

Malina remained on the line, leaving her sister briefly to lock the front door, as instructed by the call handler, before resuming hugging her sister tightly. Four minutes passed until Malina returned to the door and opened it again. Two of the constables that Warren recognized from the crime scene entered, batons drawn.

Warren signalled for Richardson to pause the video; the specialist team at Welwyn would be reviewing the video in far greater detail than his team were capable of, but it had given them plenty to get started with.

‘The most important questions I have are, what the hell were the two girls doing in the almost thirty minutes between Malina disappearing off screen and the emergency call being made. And what was so damned important on that computer?’

Wednesday 04 November

Chapter 10

The morning briefing of the second day of the investigation still had that new investigation buzz about it, although for Warren, it was already partly fuelled by caffeine. He’d slept poorly, the stress of the case adding to the anxiety he was already feeling about tomorrow’s upcoming hospital appointment. Weeks of waiting would soon be over, and the timing of what he feared was going to be a long and arduous investigation couldn’t have been worse. At a time like this, he should be spending as much time as possible with his wife. Nevertheless, he had a job to do, and he forced his attention back to the matter in hand.

The seconded officers from Welwyn had been formed into small groups led by the experienced sergeants on Warren’s own core team, and so the first part of the briefing necessitated bringing everyone up to speed. Warren worked his way down the list of tasks from the previous day, starting with Rachel Pymm.

‘Through a combination of wit and charm, I persuaded IT to give me a raw dump of the massage parlour’s hard drive. They’re still going through it properly, but I have access to documents such as the appointment lists and the emails et cetera.’

‘Good. We seized the handwritten customer ledger from the reception desk as evidence. Cross-reference the appointments with her records. I want to know how often Stevie Cullen used to visit the massage parlour, and if there was a predictable pattern to his visits. I also want to know who those two other customers were – maybe they saw or heard something. Have you got the records back from the two sisters’ phones yet?’

Pymm made a face. ‘No. The phones are registered to some cheap overseas carrier based in Eastern Europe. We’ll get them, but it’ll take time.’

‘Bugger. Well keep at it; prioritize them when they arrive,’ Warren said. He turned to Hutchinson next.

‘The alibis from Stevie Cullen’s two sisters and their husbands check out,’ said the veteran sergeant. ‘Lavender’s phone records confirm that she was making and taking calls from her landline all day, and we found plenty of staff at the supermarket where her husband works to confirm that he was on shift when Stevie Cullen was killed.’

Hutchinson flipped over the next page in his notepad. ‘We’ve also got positive sightings of Saffron at the grocer’s that she visited that day to sell the farm produce. One of them was even obliging enough to show CCTV footage of her at about the time that the murder occurred. The GP surgery confirmed that her husband had an appointment that day with their youngest, and they were running behind. The surgery uses one of those electronic booking terminals, so we have corroboration that he booked in shortly before Stevie was murdered and confirmation from the GP, the receptionist and the practice nurse that he stayed in the waiting room during that time. There’s no way that any of those four could have been the killer, or even directly involved.’