Cut Dead (24 page)

‘You haven’t answered the question.’

‘Right.’ Glastone moved away from the cabinet and went over to the sofa. He sat down. Making time, Savage thought. Glastone was trying to compose himself, rid himself of the anger and calm down so he could prepare an alibi.

‘Well?’

‘I was here, enjoying the sun. Did a bit of work. Had dinner. Usual stuff.’

‘And was Carol here too?’

‘Yes. All the time.’

‘What did you have for dinner? Did you watch television? If so, what programmes? What time did you go to bed?’

‘Hey?’ Glastone shook his head, realising what Savage was up to. ‘Don’t mind if I get myself a drink, do you? Bit parched.’ Glastone got up from the sofa and sauntered across the room and through into the kitchen. Savage heard the suck of the fridge as the door came open, the fizz of a bottle being opened, the rustle of a newspaper.

‘Needed to remind yourself what was on TV?’ Savage said as Glastone returned holding a glass of cola. ‘Check the leftovers in the fridge perhaps?’

‘You are so wide of the mark. We didn’t watch television last night and we had pasta to eat. Read a bit down here. Then we went to bed and made love, OK?’

‘Really?’

‘Yes. Really. Sex. You should try it sometime. You might even enjoy it.’ Glastone held his gaze on Savage. Didn’t blink for ten seconds. Then he gulped some cola and went back to the sofa. ‘Anyway, don’t take my word for it, ask her.’

Glastone gestured to the doorway to the hall where Calter stood alongside Carol. A large plaster adorned the woman’s right hand and a red welt on one side of her face was beginning to darken.

‘Another accident, Carol?’ Savage said.

‘Something like that,’ Carol said. ‘I fell into the cabinet.’

‘Fell, or was pushed?’

‘Fucking hell!’ Glastone said, back on his feet. ‘You come in here expecting to fit me up for this bloody Candle Cake stuff and then because that doesn’t work you make me out to be a wife-beater. Well you can get out of my house now. Go on, out!’

‘Carol,’ Savage said, ignoring Glastone. ‘Can I ask what you ate for dinner last night? What you watched on television and what happened afterwards?’

‘Last night?’ Carol glanced across at Glastone. ‘Sure. We had a pasta salad for dinner, we read a little, didn’t watch television, but then we hardly ever do. Except if it’s sport. Phil likes sport. Football especially. He always wants to watch that, don’t you darling?’

‘Yes. I do.’

‘And your husband was here all the time? All afternoon and evening?’

‘Not all the time, no.’

‘Carol?’ Glastone said. ‘You know that’s wrong. I was outside enjoying the sun and doing some work, wasn’t I? Then we had dinner and then we went to bed and made love.’

‘Oh,’ Carol said, ‘is that what you call it? If I recall you were away all afternoon and evening and didn’t get back until the early hours.’

‘You bloody bitch!’ Glastone began to move across the room until Calter stepped in front of Carol. ‘She’s lying, Inspector. Making it up. I was here all the time. Check my laptop, you’ll see emails I sent in the evening.’

‘Emails can be faked, Mr Glastone,’ Savage said. ‘I’m much more interested in witness testimony. Carol, any idea of the time your husband returned?’

‘Two-ish, I think. I heard him come in and spend a long time in the shower. He put his clothes in the washing machine too. Then he came to bed and, in his words we “made love”. To be honest I didn’t think there was much love about it.’

‘What would you call it?’

‘He raped me, Inspector. I didn’t want sex but he forced me. He held me down and then had me anally.’

‘You cow!’ Glastone moved forwards but Calter intervened. Glastone raised a fist, but in a split second Calter pulled one of her Jujitsu moves and tripped and spun him to the floor, one arm pushed up in the small of his back.

‘Are you prepared to make a statement, Carol? Down the station?’ Savage said.

‘You bet I fucking am,’ Carol said. ‘He’s a bloody animal. From almost the day we married he’s been at me. Right now I’ve had enough.’

‘Phil Glastone,’ Savage said, walking over to where Calter knelt on Glastone. ‘I’m arresting you on suspicion of the rape and assault of your wife and on suspicion of the abduction of Paula Rowland. You don’t have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you don’t mention something which you later rely on in court. Anything you say may be given in evidence.’

Savage stood for a moment. Wondered whether she’d get away with kicking Glastone in the face. Decided she probably wouldn’t.

‘Well?’ she said.

‘Tell her to get off,’ Glastone said, his face squashed on the floor, Calter’s knee in his back. His eyes flicked up to plead at Savage. ‘She’s really hurting my arm. I think she might have broken something.’

‘Good,’ Savage said.

Mid-morning Sunday, and Riley headed for Derriford Hospital for Devlyn Corran’s post-mortem. There were still technical issues at the mortuary, bodies stacking up, some having to be taken elsewhere, but the gunshot wound meant Corran got bumped up the schedule.

‘Lucky guy,’ Davies said as he and Riley paced around outside the mortuary. ‘Bet he can’t wait to watch his entrails come out. I know I can’t.’

Riley ignored the DI and checked his watch again. He was about to suggest they went for a coffee when Nesbit’s assistant poked her head round the door.

‘We’re ready for you now,’ she said.

‘Great,’ Davies said. ‘Think I’d prefer to have my teeth filled.’

Inside, Nesbit had gowned up. He waited while the detectives did the same.

‘Not seen you in here for a while, Phil,’ he said to Davies. ‘Plymouth’s slimy underbelly taking a break from the mayhem?’

‘Wouldn’t know. Last few months I’ve been away chasing sheep.’

‘Really?’ Nesbit raised an eyebrow, but Davies didn’t elaborate.

‘Diesel fraud,’ Riley said, feeling he needed to explain on behalf of Davies. ‘We’ve been spending a lot of time stuck in ditches watching people filling up with red gold. It’s never going to be on primetime TV, but someone’s got to do it.’

‘Yeah,’ Davies said. ‘But why the hell does it have to be me?’

The answer to Davies’ question, Riley knew, lay back in events at the start of the year when Davies and DI Savage had almost stepped over the line which Hardin considered every copper should try to stay on one side of. Riley, quite unfairly he believed, had been implicated alongside them. Result was he’d had the joy of partnering Maynard and Davies on the three-month-long dodgy diesel investigation. Savage, until
Radial
, had been variously involved with minor cases, including one which led to the arrest of a gang of bicycle thieves responsible for the theft of over three hundred bikes. The oldest of the perpetrators was just fifteen.

‘Well,’ Nesbit said, ‘let’s see if we can pull you two out of your mundane lives shall we?’

Inside the post-mortem room Corran lay on the stainless steel table. His clothes had already been cut off and sat in a number of bags ready for the lab.

‘John Layton will be able to tell you more than I can,’ Nesbit said, indicating the bags, ‘but there’s scuffing on the right arm of the coat consistent with a friction slide on tarmac.’

‘So it was an RTC then?’ Riley said. ‘At least initially.’

‘Could be.’ Nesbit moved over to the body. ‘I’ve done a preliminary examination and there are numerous external injuries. They are certainly consistent with a severe collision with something.’

‘Car,’ Davies said. ‘Don’t need a university education to tell you that. Bike was mangled and we found parts of his lamp set.’

Nesbit nodded and pointed up to the head. He took a plastic spatula and prodded the nose.

‘Broken. His chin came into contact with the ground as well. Major abrasions across part of his cheek too.’

The face was a mass of black, blue and red and Riley flinched at the thought of the skin scraping over the rough road. Corran had gone over the handlebars. Faceplant.

‘He was wearing cycling gloves. When we took them off I noticed pieces of grit in both palms. However, falling off was the least of his worries.’ Nesbit moved from the head and moved down to the legs. The right leg was a mush of flesh and bone. He lifted the leg at the calf and the knee joint flexed the wrong way. ‘Smashed. I would imagine the vehicle ran over his leg.’

‘And if that wasn’t enough then they shot him.’

‘I was, of course, coming to the head wound.’ Nesbit looked up at Riley. ‘I’ll extract the bullet later, but there’s no doubt he was shot at point blank range.’

‘Silly question,’ Riley said, ‘but was he already dead?’

‘Not silly at all. We’ve no way of knowing, but from the way the leg looks and the relative lack of blood on his trousers, the gunshot wound came soon after the other injuries.’

‘He was on the ground,’ Davies said. ‘And they just performed the coup de grâce. What’s bugging me though, is why did they bother? They could have simply run him over a couple more times.’

‘Forensic,’ Riley said. ‘More mess on the ground and more chance of bits of Corran getting stuck to the car. Plus he could have been making one hell of a racket. The road isn’t the busiest but if they had the means then why risk someone coming as they were going back and forth over him?’

‘Indeed.’ Nesbit nodded and moved to Corran’s head where he poked at the hole with the spatula. ‘If I can find the bullet then your ballistics experts will be able to confirm my guess that it was fired from a small-calibre weapon, probably a pistol. Totally illegal.’

‘This was planned,’ Riley said. ‘Corran’s routine was pretty predictable. They got tooled up. Waited until Corran left the prison and then ran him down and shot him. One question though. After Corran had been knocked off his bike but before he was shot would he have been able to throw something a few metres?’

‘Like what?’ Nesbit said.

‘His bike pump. We found it ten metres from the road. I think he chucked it deliberately to try and mark the spot where he was hit and maybe to indicate he knew his attacker.’

‘Hard to say. There are battleground tales of soldiers doing the most incredible things with half their bodies blown away. Who knows what’s possible when you’re in that state?’

God knew maybe, Riley thought. If you believed in some higher being. If you didn’t, then you wouldn’t bother wasting your final breaths praying. You’d do everything you could to try and protect the people you were leaving behind. Despite having been mangled – like his bike – Corran had managed to think clearly. He’d thrown the pump into the heather and his attacker hadn’t wanted to waste time looking for it. Moments later Corran had been gone, but maybe in the last few seconds of his life he’d found a crumb of comfort.

But then again, maybe he hadn’t.

Savage discovered Hardin in the crime suite, weaving between desks and checking on the latest reports which had come in from members of the public. A hand raised to scratch his chin as she approached suggested he wasn’t altogether happy with developments regarding Phil Glastone.

‘Just the one question, Charlotte,’ he said. ‘Where the bloody hell is Paula Rowland?’

‘We’ll find out shortly, sir,’ Savage said. ‘DC Calter and DC Enders are about to interview Glastone. That’s top of their agenda.’

‘And what happens if he keeps his mouth shut?’

‘John Layton is round Glastone’s place now. His car’s being given a going over too. Carol Glastone’s at the Sexual Assault Referral Centre at the moment having a medical examination and talking to a specialist officer. I’m going to be speaking to her later to see if she has any idea where Glastone might have gone. Hopefully we’ll get some indication as to where Paula is.’

‘Do you think there’s a chance she’s alive?’

‘You want my honest opinion?’ Hardin nodded. ‘No, sir, I don’t.’

‘He couldn’t have taken them somewhere, kept them for a bit?’

‘We’ve got no idea what happened to the previous victims after they were abducted, but I wouldn’t hold your breath if you were hoping for good news.’

‘Bugger.’ Hardin looked around the room, as if searching for something. His eyes alighted on the whiteboard with the aerial picture of Tavy View Farm. ‘The killer’s got to have some connection with the farm.’

‘I’ve always thought so, but perhaps the place is just a body dump. No special reason except for its seclusion.’

‘You’ll need Dr Wilson to take a look at Glastone,’ Hardin said looking back at Savage. ‘Get his opinion on the man and see if anything matches the profile.’

‘I’ve already checked the profile. Glastone’s a database programmer. He’s a bit of a nerd and very bright, but high intelligence is about the only thing specific. Glastone’s got nothing to do with art though.’

‘Get Wilson down here anyway. He should be listening in on the interviews.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Savage said.

Sixty minutes later and she was all cosy with the psychologist in a windowless room at Charles Cross custody centre. Two monitors showed a video feed from the interview suite, Calter and Enders on one screen and Glastone and his solicitor on the other.

‘No,’ Wilson said as he pulled up a chair and sat in front of the monitors. ‘Not him.’

‘Hang on,’ Savage said. ‘You haven’t even heard him speak yet. How can you be so sure?’

‘I’ve seen Glastone before, remember? He was a suspect for the murders years ago but he didn’t fit the profile back then and he doesn’t now.’ Wilson sighed and tapped the monitor. ‘Look at his body language, the way he’s biting his lip, glancing around the room, constantly touching his face. This man is nervous. He may well have done something wrong, but he’s not the Candle Cake Killer.’

‘I don’t get it.’

‘The killer would be supremely confident in this situation. He’s eluded you lot for years, he wouldn’t see this as the end game at all.’

‘We’ve got him in custody. I don’t see how this
isn’t
the end game.’

‘Then you’ve got a lot to learn, Inspector. When I was at—’

‘Please. No more of your Quantico stories. Let’s just listen for a while.’

Savage concentrated on the screen where Enders was trying to elicit some sort of response from Glastone as to whether the man knew Paula Rowland. Glastone kept shaking his head and turning to his solicitor for support. Savage had to admit he did appear nervous. But then couldn’t it be part of the act?