Suspect (The Mark Pemberton Cases Book 2) Read online

  Away from the scene, teams of detectives, with two officers to each team, went around asking their questions in the neighbourhood of the scene and further afield; they produced shoals of long handwritten statements which were typed, photocopied and read by the statement readers in the incident room. Their job was to identify references which would be of further use — names of people, descriptions of motor vehicles, noises heard, the timing of important occurrences and a whole host of other data would be noted, checked, compared and logged into HOLMES, the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System, which was specifically designed to cope with murder investigations, particularly those which spanned the boundaries of police forces.

  From a very slow but meticulous beginning, therefore, the Green Tent murder began to generate its own impetus and excitement, accompanied by a steady and encouraging accumulation of evidence.

  But while all this was happening, Mark Pemberton rang Barry Brennon in Langbarugh. He explained Lorraine’s theory and asked, ‘Was Pearle a sexual deviant, Barry? Interfering with kids, for example?’

  ‘No, he was normal in that sense. He loved fully-grown women — he never married but he got his oats without too much effort!’

  ‘Thanks, another link gone! Now, did you find a spent cartridge case at your scene?’

  ‘We did,’ said Brennon. ‘Burrard, red casing.’

  ‘Same here,’ countered Pemberton. ‘We need to liaise with the ballistics people at Nottingham. Has your sample gone down there?’

  ‘Yes, we sent it immediately.’

  ‘Right, I’ll have words and get ours despatched by courier right away, Barry. It looks to me as if we might have a serial killer in our midst.’

  ‘The Helmeted Avenger, eh?’ chuckled Brennon. ‘So if that’s the case, we need to establish contact, Mark. A liaison officer. Any ideas at your end?’

  ‘I’ve a bright young detective on my teams. She’s called Lorraine Cashmore,’ Mark suggested. ‘She’s proved herself in the past.’

  ‘If you’re happy with her, then I’ll not object. What will you do? Send her over to our incident room to examine our records?’

  ‘Yes, every day after our morning conference, then she’ll be as up to date as possible before she visits you. Thanks, Barry, I think we’re going to need this kind of co-operation.’

  And so the personal connection as well as the computer link was established, even though the press had not yet conjectured on links between the crimes. That would surely come later, and it would be welcomed by the investigating officers, especially when the initial impetus had lessened and when some angle for a rejuvenating news story was required. The detectives themselves would release news of their suspicions when they were ready.

  Throughout the remainder of that Sunday and the following days, the enquiries continued without any spectacular developments. Nonetheless, useful evidence was accumulating, thanks to careful ballistics examinations. It was confirmed that the two cartridge shells had come from the same shotgun, a twelve-bore. Thus the same gun had been used in both murders and that fact alone indicated, but did not prove, that the same person had pulled the trigger on both occasions. And so the two murders could now be officially linked.

  Further investigation into Scott’s life before coming to live at Cressford established that he had been involved in child pornography while running his plumbing business — there had been several complaints to the West Yorkshire police, none of which could be substantiated through lack of evidence. His name was in their older records, records which had escaped destruction due to an old superintendent who believed that crime records and intelligence notes should be kept for ever. Those old files had been sent along to the Rainesbury incident room. So far as Pearle was concerned, however, it was confirmed that there was no record of him being involved in pornography of any kind, certainly not with children. Although many of his alleged deals were illegal and dishonest, he had never touched pornography, masochism or even the so-called video nasties.

  Thus that link between the two killings could not be established. It seemed that the killer was not specifically against child molesters. It remained possible, however, that Lorraine was correct in believing that there was a further link in that both victims were alleged criminals, albeit unconvicted. It began to look as if the killer was violently antagonistic towards all unconvicted criminals.

  In addition to the positive evidence of the cartridge case, another development involved the motor cycle tyre marks. None had been left on the tarmac and concrete outside Harry Pearle’s premises, but from the casts of the very distinctive tracks made near the Kesterdale green tent, experts were able to say that the heavy-tread tyres were of Italian manufacture, made by Masseria for use in country areas rather than towns, but fitted as standard equipment to certain new machines. A list of the motor cycles which used these tyres included Yamaha, Kawasaki, BMW, Honda, Suzuki, Triumph and even Piaggio scooters and mopeds. They were not fitted to all models, however, and thus the gap could be narrowed by careful enquiries. Dealers in such machines, throughout the entire north-east of England, were being visited with a view to tracking down any machines recently sold which were bearing such tyres. Tyre outlets were also being checked for sales or fitting of such tyres in recent weeks. The detail on the tracks left at the Green Tent scene was of such good quality that the tyres were clearly in excellent and probably new condition. This made the work of the detectives that much easier.

  So far as the mode of travel for Scott was concerned, none of the local bus companies could recall him using their services on the Saturday before his death; two buses per day left Cressford in the direction of Kesterdale, and only two buses passed along Kesterdale on Saturdays, one at 9.15am and the other at 3.45pm. These were sometimes used by people shopping in the nearby market towns, but none of the drivers or conductors could recall picking up or dropping the old man with the back pack. Photographs of him, and of his clothing, failed to elicit any response. This lack of sightings along the road did suggest he might have obtained a lift, perhaps as a hitch-hiker, but no one had come forward to say so, although another possibility was that he had walked across country. There was a network of paths upon those moors, and it was quite feasible that he might have walked from Cressford to Kesterdale rarely touching a metalled road. Widespread publicity in the huge conurbations to the North, West and South of Kesterdale, such as Newcastle, Middlesbrough, Leeds, Hull and York, had failed to produce any motorist or lorry driver who had given him a lift, this dale being upon the tourist trail where drivers meandered, pottered and gawped their way along the valley. Similarly, no hikers or ramblers reported seeing him upon the cross-country routes.

  As the enquiry entered its fifth day on Thursday, the impetus began to falter because there had been no new leads in either the Langbarugh or the Green Tent enquiries. The respective incident rooms were busy, nonetheless, their work revolving around the never-ending chores of endless interviews, checking of facts, taking of statements and assessment of material.

  So much of the material entering the files was of a negative nature — statements from people saying they had seen nothing, heard nothing and knew nothing — but even this had value because it could eliminate a lot of unnecessary enquiries. One nagging gap was the failure to find the murder weapon. Witnesses to the Langbarugh killing had said it was a sawn-off shotgun, probably double-barrelled, but no one had seen the weapon which had been used in the green tent. The small spread of shot in Scott’s corpse, however, did suggest a sawn-off weapon had been used at fairly close range; such a gun could have been concealed either upon the motor cyclist in his leathers, or perhaps in the panniers of his machine.

  The fact that the weapon had not been found, and that the same gun had been used to commit two murders, did suggest the killer might be retaining it for further killings. That alone suggested a confidence in his ability to avoid detection and capture and it also indicated that a very dangerous, determined and clever criminal was at large.
/>   That theory was proved the following Monday.

  At eight o’clock in the evening, a young man was shot dead outside the King’s Head public house in Turnerville. The killer used a sawn-off shotgun and escaped on a black motor cycle.

  Chapter Nine

  If the investigations into the Green Tent murder and that of Harry Pearle had been out of the headline news due to a persistent lack of newsworthy excitement, the murder at Turnerville, and its possible links with the previous two, brought a swift response from the press. Officers in the control rooms in both forces were bombarded during the remainder of that late evening and throughout the night with questions from journalists, all of whom were asking, ‘Are the three murders connected?’ In the case of the first two, no journalist had considered a possible link, probably because not every detail of the killings had been released to the media. The use of the sawn-off shotgun and the departure of the killer by motor cycle at the Turnerville killing had changed all that — the coincidences were too strong to be ignored by the press.

  The problem was that confirmation of a link was something the Control Room staff could not provide — that answer could only come from detectives on each of the cases because the Control Rooms were not in possession of all the facts. The investigation of murder was not their duty.

  An added problem was that the Turnerville murder had occurred within the boundaries of Langbarugh, the second on their patch, but Pemberton’s own divisional boundaries came within a mile of that town — and criminals know no boundaries. These close links, plus the growing concern about the motor cycling killer, had resulted in a speedy decision for both forces to pool their resources.

  Lorraine Cashmore was their liaison officer, but the respective press officers would produce a joint statement for issue to the media at the main news conference the following morning. Meanwhile, a holding statement said that the possibility of the crimes being linked was being investigated and that the respective forces would co-operate. A representative selection of detectives from each force, led by Detective Superintendent Mark Pemberton of Rainesbury and Detective Superintendent Barry Brennon from Langbarugh, had been summoned to a conference at 9.00am, an hour before the joint news conference was due to be held. The conference was at Rainesbury police station because there was sufficient accommodation and car-parking for the visitors — and Rainesbury was less than one hour’s drive from Langbarugh. Brennon was first to speak.

  The packed room awaited him, as in his distinctive Irish accent, he began.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, it is apparent that we have a serial killer at large in the region.’ He went on to outline the similarities between Pearle’s murder and that of Frank Scott, before continuing:

  ‘Last night, at eight o’clock, Wayne William Hardisty, aged twenty-one, was shot dead outside the King’s Head Hotel in Railway Street, Turnerville. He was standing outside the main entrance of the inn, alone but within sight of other witnesses, when a motor cyclist approached. The motor cycle halted outside the main door, not mounting the footpath but remaining on the road, whereupon the rider pulled a sawn-off shotgun from his leathers, shot Hardisty once in the chest at close range and drove off. Hardisty died almost immediately. Witnesses took the number of the departing bike and it was the same as that which had been used in the Pearle killing — a false registration number. Preliminary examination of the cartridge shell recovered at the scene suggests it came from the same gun which killed both Harry Pearle and Frank Scott. Ballistic examination will be made jointly with the cartridge shells found at the scenes of the other murders.

  ‘Now, we know that Hardisty was a drugs dealer. He had several convictions but in spite of that, continued to sell drugs in Turnerville. A quantity of adulterated heroin was found upon the body, in small packs ready for sale. We believe he was awaiting a customer because he often waited outside the pub to complete his sales, this being his regular pitch and his way of not implicating the pub landlord. In fact, the landlord had, in no uncertain terms, told him not to sell drugs on the premises. You will have noticed a slight difference between this death and the earlier ones — the victims of the previous killings had no convictions even though their activities were known or suspected. Hardisty did have convictions. It is possible, ladies and gentlemen, that the killer is wiping out criminals who persist in following a life of crime — remember that Pearle was known to us as a confidence trickster and thief who had never been convicted and Scott was a known paedophile who had avoided conviction. Hardisty was a known drugs dealer who continued to ply his trade in spite of convictions and in spite of continuing surveillance by our drugs officers. There are those amongst us, and within the public sphere, who would rejoice at such killings, but we must not be seen to do so. We have a job to do. We must find that motor cycle and the killer and bring him to justice before he kills anyone else.

  ‘I fear we have a desperately urgent task ahead of us and I need, we all need, the co-operation of everyone, police, press and public alike, if we are to prevent further bloodshed. That motor cycle has to be found and the killings halted. A news conference will follow this meeting, with both forces represented, and we shall be seeking the co-operation of the media in tracing our suspect. Somebody somewhere must have seen that motor cycle, somebody somewhere must have made that false number plate or sold the machine or fitted it with tyres… Our job is to find those people.’

  He went on to describe to the detectives the result of the post mortem on Hardisty — death had been caused by gunshot wounds to the chest — and how Hardisty’s friends and contacts were now being interviewed, not the easiest of tasks due to their involvement with drugs. Few would willingly talk to the police.

  Had Hardisty’s death not been associated with the previous two killings, his murder would have been regarded as part of a drugs war or a narcotics-related dispute of some kind. That aspect had not been dismissed entirely, however, and it remained a consideration, but it was the opinion of those who had undertaken the investigations to date that the death had to be viewed within the context of the other murders.

  In his beautiful accent, Brennon delivered a professional address, following which he highlighted aspects of the Pearle murder with due emphasis upon the similarities with the present case. Detective Superintendent Pemberton then followed, and he outlined the known facts of the Green Tent murder, emulating his friend’s example of highlighting the similarities and known links between all the cases.

  In this way, the teams of investigating detectives, from both forces, were provided with as much background information and relevant detail as was possible. From this day forward, every statement, every fact and every suspicion from each incident room would be offered to the other for joint information and comparison.

  As the teams of detectives returned to their normal duties, all flushed with a new determination to find the killer, Pemberton and Brennon settled down with their respective press officers to discuss their presentation at the news conference, now only minutes away. They decided to concentrate on the hunt for the motor cycle and its rider, rather than the lifestyle of the three victims. They would refer to the bike’s false number plates without revealing precisely what number it carried — the killer might not be aware of their knowledge of this. The public would be asked to report all sightings of a dark-coloured modern motor cycle carrying a man in black leathers. Many would have to be eliminated — it was worth the effort if it found the murderer. The latest sighting, outside the King’s Head, suggested the machine was black with silver markings and that it was of modern design. The manufacturer was unknown. The description was very similar to the bike seen leaving the scene of the Green Tent murder.

  Witnesses outside both the King’s Head and Harry Pearle’s premises said the rider was a large man, about six feet tall, broad in build with a powerful appearance. Several said he did not look like a youthful man, there was an air of maturity about him and his conduct. He strode with confidence, he did not run, he was not particul
arly agile in his movements and he was not furtive in what he did.

  The only time he raised the visor of his helmet was when he lifted the gun to his shoulder to take aim. In those seconds, he flipped up the visor, aimed, fired and shook his head to drop the visor back into position. No one had seen his face, consequently no one could state whether or not he was clean-shaven or wore spectacles or had any other facial characteristics. Witnesses to the Pearle murder and to that at the King’s Head affirmed that the killer had never spoken a word. He had simply pointed his gun and fired; in both cases, the victims had pleaded for mercy, a brief but screamed request which had been callously ignored. Each had known that death was but seconds away — perhaps neither knew why.

  In all cases, the names of the victims could and would be publicised, albeit without any mention of their criminal activities. Pemberton and Brennon each agreed that if the criminal nature of the victims was made known, the public might not respond with such fervour. Some might relish the death of a child molester or a drugs dealer. To harness the sympathy of the public, therefore, the killings must seem to be the deaths of ordinary people going about their daily routine, deaths of innocent victims, deaths without a motive.

  The police knew, of course, that details of each man’s criminal activities, even without the supporting convictions, could be published after death: it is not possible to libel a dead person and so if necessary, those allegations could eventually be made public. It was decided that the most sympathetic response would come from Frank Scott’s lonely death in his little green tent and so details of that would precede the Langbarugh killings.