A Silent Truth Read online

  ‘Anything on the phone?’ Kennedy said.

  ‘Digital forensics managed to access it earlier this morning but it’s hardly been used, guv. There weren’t any contacts saved to it.’

  ‘A burner phone then, perhaps. Was there anything else?’

  ‘There was a debit card. Not in her name, though.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘The name on it is Mr J S Humphries. The card’s been well used – the expiry date’s only two months away.’

  ‘J S Humphries?’ said Mark, frowning.

  ‘I tracked him down and spoke to him this morning,’ explained Caroline, twisting in her seat at the front to face him, then back to Kennedy. ‘He was shocked about the woman’s death, and said his card had been stolen during a burglary at his house near Stanford in the Vale last month.’

  Heart lurching, Mark leaned forward, ignoring the excited squeak from Alex.

  ‘What’s his address?’

  Caroline flicked through her notes, and then recited it.

  ‘Hang on.’ Mark sprang from his seat and jogged back to his desk, another set of footsteps in his wake.

  ‘Which one?’ said Alex breathlessly, resting his hand on top of the pile of manila folders next to his computer keyboard.

  ‘You’ve got the latest cases. Did you sort them into alphabetical order yet?’

  ‘No.’ The younger detective’s shoulders dropped. ‘I was going to make a start this morning.’

  ‘No problem. Split them between us.’ Mark launched himself at the pile, whipping away the top half. ‘He was one of ours, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Can’t be two blokes with the exact same name, Sarge. Not in the same area. Too much of a coincidence.’

  Ignoring the curious mumbles from the small group of officers at the far end of the room, and conscious of Kennedy’s eyes boring into the back of his head, Mark sifted through the files one at a time, the swish of documents being lifted and flicked through the only sound between him and his younger colleague.

  They’d been reviewing these cases – thirty-two in total – for four months now with no sign of a breakthrough.

  Conflicting witness statements, confused descriptions of potential suspects, vulnerable and frightened victims who’d had their homes broken into and precious mementoes stolen alongside laptops, jewellery…

  ‘Found him.’

  Mark’s head snapped up at Alex’s voice to see the man holding out a folder that had been near the bottom of the pile.

  ‘It wasn’t Mr Humphries who reported the burglary,’ he explained as Mark took it from him. ‘It was his sister, a Mrs Eleanor Rippon.’

  ‘I knew I’d seen it somewhere…’

  ‘Mark, did you have something to share?’ Kennedy asked.

  Alex led the way back to the whiteboard, leaning against a spare desk rather than taking his seat, and nibbled at a fingernail.

  ‘I think we can link that debit card to one of our burglaries,’ Mark said, handing over the file before hovering at Kennedy’s shoulder.

  The DI raised an eyebrow. ‘I know you’re keen to get back into the swing of things, Mark, but…’

  Laughter broke the tension, and Mark let it subside before continuing.

  ‘I think whoever our victim is, she could be involved somehow.’

  Kennedy tapped the photograph of the debit card. ‘Does this match the one that was reported as stolen?’

  ‘Yes.’ Mark reached out and turned to the next page in the file. ‘The burglary took place a week ago.’

  He heard Caroline whistle under her breath, and an excited murmur passed amongst the other officers.

  Eventually, a quirk formed at the side of the DI’s mouth.

  ‘Looks like I’d better have a word with Headquarters and get you reinstated as fast as possible,’ he said, handing back the case file. ‘I’d imagine your input is going to be required, don’t you?’

  Mark glanced over his shoulder at a polite cough behind him to see Alex staring at him, desperation in his eyes.

  ‘I’ll need help,’ he said, turning back to Kennedy. ‘There are over thirty cases to review to find out if we can spot a link between those and our victim.’

  ‘Consider it done.’ The DI swept his hand towards the whiteboard. ‘You’d better bring everyone else up to date with what you’ve been doing.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  Mark tugged his tie away from his collar, balled it up and shoved it into his trouser pocket while Alex and Tracy wheeled a second whiteboard in front of his colleagues.

  He took a pen from the younger detective with a nod of thanks.

  ‘You’ll be familiar with some of these cases, but bear with me,’ he began as officers turned to fresh pages in their notebooks. ‘I’ll start with the burglary a week ago at Jed Humphries’ house.’

  Drawing a rough approximation of the area where the woman’s body had been discovered, he labelled four small villages as well as Stanford in the Vale.

  ‘Jed is eighty-three years old, and lives in this hamlet two miles from Stanford in the Vale along a dead-end lane.’ He sketched a hotchpotch of square buildings. ‘His nearest neighbour lives four hundred metres away, and there are only three other properties along here. Jed lives at the far end. While his wife was still alive, he retired from a law practice in Oxford and bought a smallholding. That’s since fallen to wrack and ruin, with two overgrown paddocks shielding his house from the lane.’ He paused, waiting for his colleagues to catch up and saw that those nearest to him had replicated his crude map in their notebooks. ‘Alex, have you got the information about his neighbours to hand?’

  ‘Yes.’ Alex straightened his shoulders and crossed to the board. ‘His neighbours all work full-time – either from home, or commuting from about seven o’clock in the morning onwards. Jed told the officers who interviewed him that he doesn’t have much to do with any of them, apart from waving if he sees them out and about at weekends but given that his is the last house, he’s out of the way and forgotten about most of the time.’

  ‘That’s why the burglary wasn’t reported until six hours after he discovered it,’ he added. ‘Jed doesn’t have a landline, and the thieves took his mobile phone as well as his wallet, which he’d left on a table in his hallway. He had to wait until one of his neighbours came home from work so he could use their phone. Whoever did this left behind his keys, perhaps because he doesn’t own a car, and they’d got into the house anyway.’

  ‘How did they get in?’ said Caroline.

  ‘That’s where things get interesting,’ said Mark. ‘Jed says there was a knock on the door that morning, and a woman in a business suit presented herself as a representative from a pension company in Oxford who had taken over several smaller funds. She told him his name had come up along with a few hundred others who were entitled to repayments from a twenty-year-old expired fund. He was intrigued enough to let her in, because she showed him some sort of identification that looked legit. While they were talking in the kitchen, he thinks whoever she was working with came through the front door and made off with his wallet and everything else while he was distracted signing paperwork.’

  ‘So it’s a team of fraudsters, not just her?’ Kennedy said.

  ‘Probably two, maybe more. We don’t know yet, guv.’

  ‘Did Jed get a copy of the paperwork that he signed?’ said Jan.

  ‘She said she’d have her boss countersign the documentation and bring it back personally, given that he doesn’t have access to email.’

  A collective groan flittered among the gathered officers.

  ‘Hang on, you said he used to be a solicitor,’ said a voice from the back. ‘Didn’t he realise he was being conned?’

  Mark peered over the heads of his colleagues until he could see PC Alice Fields, her brow furrowed.

  ‘That much was alluded to – gently – when the patrol first turned up. It soon transpired that Jed’s health has deteriorated considerably since his wife died, which is why we’ve since been speaking to him with his sister in attendance. He’s easily confused, although he’s still able to look after himself with the basics. Which brings us to the other burglaries in the area,’ he said, gesturing to the other villages on the map. ‘In each of the cases we’ve reviewed so far, the victim has been on their own and vulnerable in some way. In some instances, the victim has been elderly, in others recently divorced and living alone – we even have a couple of cases involving single parents.’

  ‘Easily distractible in other words,’ Alex blurted, then reddened.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Mark, smiling despite the interruption. ‘It was Alex here who linked the other cases to the ones targeting older people. We were looking at a very narrow demographic before that, whereas now we can see that each has a similar pattern – a well-dressed man or woman turns up at the door offering information about something specific to that victim’s situation that might help them, and they’re too professional-looking for their victims to think it might be a scam. Which is why we have so many to review.’

  ‘Who are the local troublemakers?’ Jan said.

  ‘Arrests over the past year local to this particular area include two aggravated assault charges, attempted rape, sixteen domestic violence incidents and three thefts relating to farm equipment,’ said Alex. ‘We interviewed anyone who wasn’t still in prison, and all of their alibis check out, so we’re at the point where we’re looking for someone who’s new to the area, or…’

  ‘…travels to the area specifically to conduct these burglaries,’ Kennedy mused. ‘After all, it wouldn’t do to shit on one’s own doorstep, would it?’

  A murmur of agreement filtered through the group.

  ‘It’d certainly go some way to explain why we haven’t managed to get a breakthrough yet,’ said Mark. ‘If they’re fencing the stolen goods somewhere else, then no one’s going to recognise the items.’

  ‘What about interviewing pawnbrokers and second-hand dealers in the same area as the burglaries?’

  Mark caught Alex’s sideways glance, then looked at the DI. ‘There’s only two of us, guv. We haven’t had the time to get to that yet.’

  ‘All right,’ said Kennedy, waving them back to their seats. ‘Thanks, both of you. Given the potential link between last night’s victim and your investigation into those fraud cases, I’m inclined to run the two investigations side-by-side from now on. Mark – I’ll still need to clear your involvement with Professional Standards but given that DCI Melrose at Kidlington wants a fast result on finding out who’s responsible for the young woman’s death and the burglaries, I’ll suggest he adds his weight behind that.’

  The DI paused for a moment and contemplated the whiteboard. ‘Next actions. Mark, Jan – I want you to go and speak to Jed Humphries again. See if you can get a better description of the woman who conned him and let me know if it sounds like our murder victim. Make sure his sister’s in attendance, just in case. Alex, I’d like you to get Caroline up to speed on where you’ve got to with the other fraud cases and draw up a roster to help you with mapping out where every single one of those has taken place. I want to know if there are particular clusters in that area, and I want you both to start phoning around pawnbrokers within a ten mile radius of that area. Get in touch with Wiltshire if there’s an overlap with their patch.’

  Smiling at Alex as the young DC spoke with Caroline, some of the stress dropped from Mark’s shoulders and he felt a lightness in his chest.

  He watched as the group of officers disbanded, shoving their chairs back towards desks, the volume increasing while the DI’s instructions were disseminated and shared, and then looked up as Jan paused and looked over her shoulder, her eyebrow raised.

  ‘Come on then, Sarge,’ she said, and winked. ‘We haven’t got all day.’

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Jan rested her hand on the steering wheel, willing the traffic lights to turn green, then glanced over at an appreciative groan from the passenger seat.

  Turpin sank his teeth into a cheese and pickle sandwich, the thick granary bread crumbling into the creased aluminium foil in his lap.

  ‘I didn’t think you’d have brought lunch in with you today,’ she laughed. ‘Good job I made extra.’

  ‘Mmmph.’

  ‘What?’

  He swallowed, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and tried again. ‘I didn’t expect to be going with you. Doing this.’

  She watched while he raised his gaze to the windscreen, a wistful look in his eyes.

  ‘I’ve missed working with you too, Sarge.’

  He blinked, then smiled and held up the half-eaten sandwich. ‘What’s the pickle? I haven’t tried this brand.’

  ‘It’s homemade. A new recipe I’ve been experimenting with.’

  ‘Got any more?’

  ‘Two jars of the stuff on the top shelf of the refrigerator, tucked away at the back and safe from the rummaging hands of ten-year-old twin boys with hollow legs. And a starving DS.’

  The traffic lights progressed through their sequence of amber to green, and the traffic inched forward before gathering speed and passing under the A34, Jan shifting through the gears with a deft touch and an air of impatience.

  ‘So, going back to what you were saying about this woman – if it’s her – and the way they’re ripping off people, Sarge, how come her description didn’t flag up within the statements from the burglaries?’

  ‘You mean, how come me and Alex didn’t spot it was the same person?’

  Heat rose to her cheeks. ‘I didn’t mean it like that, I––’

  ‘It’s okay. It’s a fair point.’ He scrunched up the foil and opened the glove compartment. ‘Got any tissues in here?’

  ‘Spare napkins from the fast food place, just under the service book there.’

  ‘Ta.’ He wiped his fingers, then balled up the napkin in his fist and settled in his seat with a sigh. ‘The problem is, she changed her appearance on a regular basis.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘She had shoulder-length black hair when they found her last night, yes?’

  Jan nodded.

  ‘Okay, so in at least nine of the burglaries, she was blonde. In three others, a redhead. She had short hair in four of them…’

  ‘Wigs.’

  ‘And glasses, and theatrical cheek implants.’

  Jan slowed to negotiate the bends through Marcham, then floored the accelerator once more. ‘You were fighting a losing battle, Sarge.’

  ‘That we were.’ Turpin’s mobile phone rang, and he switched it to speakerphone. ‘Guv?’

  ‘Gillian just called me about another case but she wanted to pass on a message,’ said Kennedy. ‘The post mortem’s scheduled for nine-thirty tomorrow morning. I’d like you both to go so don’t make any other arrangements.’

  ‘Copy that.’ Turpin ended the call. ‘So… hit and run? Falling out with her burglary partner?’

  ‘Could be a random attack, Sarge. Might have just been a case of wrong place, wrong bloody time.’

  ‘True. What was your impression of the couple who found her? I mean, I heard what you said in the briefing, but what did you really think?’

  Jan braked at a junction, then aimed the car towards Stanford in the Vale. ‘They sell property in Spain.’

  ‘Blimey, that can’t be easy these days.’

  She chuckled. ‘Yeah, well they seem to be doing all right out of it. I took a look at their website when I got home last night. I don’t think the properties live up to the photos, put it that way.’

  ‘What were they arguing about?’

  ‘He was a bit cagey, but when I took her to one side while Caroline was finalising his statement, Julie Tillcott said they’d taken a recently retired couple out to dinner at that gastro pub outside Wantage with a view to signing them up for one of the properties. Julie was having a change of heart.’

  ‘She gained a conscience, you mean.’

  ‘Exactly. Walked out, apparently. Which of course scuppered the deal. Mr Tillcott – Simon – wasn’t impressed. Says it cost them over a hundred grand.’

  ‘Do you think they killed our victim?’

  Jan sighed as she took a left turn into a ridiculously narrow lane with grass growing through the cracked and split asphalt. ‘No. No I don’t.’

  ‘Me neither.’ He waited until they’d travelled another half mile then pointed to a broken five-bar gate on the right. ‘This is Jed’s place.’

  A seven-year-old estate car had been parked next to a privet hedge in need of a trim, one of the vehicle’s hub caps was missing and its off-white paintwork was scraped and scratched around the wheel arches.

  ‘That’s Eleanor’s car,’ Turpin said. ‘His sister.’

  When Jan climbed out she could smell the distinct stench of cow shit, the blue flash of a tractor passing in a nearby field confirming her suspicion as it dragged a dirt-smeared muck spreader behind it.

  She couldn’t hear the A420 from here.

  In fact, she couldn’t hear any road traffic.

  There were just birds, the tractor, and the sound of the car’s engine ticking as it cooled.

  ‘How did they know about him?’ she said to Turpin as they made their way to the gate.

  ‘I’m not sure yet.’ He opened it – carefully, so it didn’t fall off the hinges completely – and let her go ahead. ‘Like I said in the briefing, he hasn’t got a landline phone or email so we were wondering if they’d scoped the place out before knocking on his door. You can see for yourself, there’s nothing else much here. Either that or they might’ve overheard him and his sister talking somewhere. A pharmacy perhaps, arranging a prescription. Or the local supermarket – there’s a small one in the main village. They’re clever, these people, Jan. And devious. They didn’t get much off of Jed, but some of the burglary victims have lost thousands of pounds’ worth of belongings.’

  Jan turned her attention to the crumbling stonework covering the front of the double-storey house, taking in the dirt clinging to the windows and then wrinkling her nose at the stench from a drain set off to the right of the gravel path that lacked any stones.