Ten Guilty Men (A DCI Morton Crime Novel Book 3)
Read Ten Guilty Men (A DCI Morton Crime Novel Book 3) Online
Authors: Sean Campbell,Daniel Campbell
Tags: #Murder Mystery, #british detective, #suspense, #thriller, #police procedural, #crime
Ten Guilty Men
Daniel Campbell
Sean Campbell
Ten Guilty Men
First published in Great Britain by De Minimis, September 2015
© Sean Campbell 2015
The moral rights of Sean Campbell & Daniel Campbell to be identified as the authors of this work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Cover Art designed by Nadica Boskovska, © Sean Campbell 2015
All characters are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
First Edition
Table of Contents
Chapter 2: The Old Coach House
Chapter 3: Too Much Information
Chapter 9: The Culloden Estate
Chapter 11: Walworth Veterinary Clinic and Pet Hospital
Chapter 18: Late To Bed, Early to Rise
Chapter 22: Money, Money, Money
Chapter 26: Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way
Chapter 32: The Findy-Windy Thing
Chapter 34: The President of the United States of America
Chapter 35: Thicker Than Water
Chapter 44: Three Down, Two to Go?
Chapter 56: Means, Motive and Opportunity
Chapter 58: Beyond Reasonable Doubt
Chapter 59: Richmond Magistrates’ Court
Prologue
Five Years Ago
Reporters, photographers and a television crew camped out opposite the home of Ellis DeLange. Rafe Soros had been outside since daybreak, his camera remaining focused on the DeLange residence for nearly six straight hours. It was fast approaching midday and Ellis DeLange had yet to show her face.
Rafe didn’t blame her. In her place, he’d be hiding behind an eight-foot wall too. If he had one anyway. Such things were the preserve of the successful. While Rafe rarely grumbled about his lot in life, he had managed to sleepwalk into his forties with sod all to show for it. Twenty-five-year-old Ellis however had never had to struggle. She was the daughter of steel magnate Gregory DeLange and had been born with platinum spoon planted firmly where it still remained.
A bout of schadenfreude had struck Rafe when he got the call that morning. His wife didn’t understand why he was grinning as he leapt out of bed at four a.m. Little Miss Perfect, the darling of the fashion world, had been caught smuggling coke into the country hidden inside Daddy’s private jet.
Ever since, she had holed herself up in her Richmond home. The only sign of life was the occasional curtain twitch, but Ellis was too smart to give the mob a chance to catch her looking out.
It was at precisely half past twelve, after half of the reporters had adjourned to a nearby pub for a working lunch, that the front door swung open with a creak. A young man stepped out and strutted towards the gate. The front gate slid open as he approached it, as if by magic, and then closed the second he was beyond the boundaries of the DeLange residence.
A dozen cameras leapt into action, though quite what his colleagues thought they were photographing, Rafe had no idea. Likewise, microphones were thrust towards the man and questions shouted at him.
The man waved an arm for silence as if to make a statement.
‘She’s not here,’ he announced flatly.
‘Hokum!’ one journalist, a noxious old scab by the name of Gifford Byrnes, spat. ‘We’ve been camped out all morning. We know she hasn’t had a chance to leave.’
‘Look, she’s not here. Why don’t you lot clear off?’
‘And who might you be?’
‘Never you mind. I’m only here to tell you to clear off. This is harassment.’
‘Can’t be harassment if she isn’t here to be harassed,’ Gifford said with a look of smug satisfaction. ‘And hang on, I know who you are! You’re Kallum Fielder, the Fulham striker!’ The same dozen cameras immediately began snapping away in his direction. Rafe reluctantly joined in and snapped a quick shot of the young footballer. He glanced down at his camera screen and smiled. The picture was perfect. Kallum stood shoulders back with his arms folded tightly across his chest. At six-foot-six, Kallum stood nearly as tall as the gate but the house loomed larger still, three storeys of stonework which framed the photograph. It would be an easy sale to one of the weekly gossip magazines.
‘So I am.’
‘Are you dating Ellis?’
‘None of your business.’
‘If you’re not, why were you in her house?’
‘That’s totally irrelevant. I told you she isn’t home. Now you can either believe me, which will save you from blocking up the pavement all day, or you can sit here and waste your time.’
‘And why would we believe you?’
‘Because in the’ – Kal glanced at his watch – ‘four and a half minutes we’ve been chatting, she’s gone out the back door and down the private alleyway at the back of the property. Thanks for the chit-chat.’
With that, Kal strode back towards the security gate, which opened again just for a moment, and then he was gone. The press would still get a story, but it wouldn’t make the front page. Job done.
Chapter 1: Edgecombe Lodge
Sunday April 6th – 06:59
The call came in at precisely six fifty-nine in the morning, right at the very end of the graveyard shift.
‘Dead body. Edgecombe Lodge. Richmond. Door’s open.’
The caller’s voice was male, but it sounded distorted, almost robotic.
In the seven seconds that the call lasted, Detective Sergeant Roger Mayberry went from dozing gently in his chair to wired with adrenaline. Before he could reply, the line went dead.
‘Damn!’ Mayberry cursed. Things like this weren’t supposed to happen. Not on a Sunday morning before breakfast, and certainly not on his watch. He’d only agreed to take the shift to keep the Superintendent happy.
Now he had to go all the way out to Richmond to prove the caller was a troublemaker.
But it was no hoax.
***
Edgecombe Lodge appeared to be just like its neighbours: a detached family home in the leafy London Borough of Richmond. The house was double fronted, with windows guarded by heavy drape curtains which were drawn tightly shut, and the small garden out front had been immaculately tended in an identical manner to the rest of the street.
But Edgecombe Lodge’s apparent respectability was only a facade. On closer inspection, the wrought-iron security gates that separated it from the road were entwined with blue-and-white police tape, and the pearly-white paint on the window frames had begun to crack.
Detective Chief Inspector David Morton leant casually against the gate as he waited to be let inside. Morton had left Richmond Station only five minutes ago, but the moment he had turned onto Gallow Crescent the flurry of rush hour gave way to a serene quiet. Out of the corner of his eye, Morton watched the house opposite Edgecombe Lodge as an elderly lady pulled back the living room curtains only to slam them shut again the moment Morton waved at her.
Edgecombe Lodge itself was eerily still. Morton’s team were already on-site but from Morton’s vantage point on the pavement, there were no signs of the activity within. Edgecombe Lodge was a solid thirty feet away from its nearest neighbours and had an ugly electrified security fence running around the perimeter. Bloody eyesore but a great place to commit murder, Morton thought.
Morton glanced impatiently at his watch: oh-nine-hundred hours.
A few minutes later, a familiar figure emerged from the house and walked briskly towards him. The gate unlocked with a click, pulling crime scene tape taut across the gap between the gate and the wall. Morton ducked under the tape and extended a weathered hand in greeting.
‘It’s about bloody time, Ayala,’ Morton said as the pair shook hands. As usual, Bertram Ayala was impeccably dressed. He had on a slim-fit suit, with the jacket slung over one shoulder. A smattering of designer stubble made him look more like a model than a detective.
‘How the other half live, eh, boss?’
When Morton didn’t reply, Ayala prompted him again, ‘It’s mighty impressive, isn’t it? It’s got to be worth a few million. Ten minutes from Richmond Station, but quiet enough to hear a pin drop. That’s luxury for you.’
Morton cocked his head to one side. ‘I wonder how our victim managed to afford it. She’s in her early thirties, I believe?’
Ayala scrunched his nose up in disbelief. ‘You can’t be serious, boss? Ellis DeLange is... was,’ he corrected himself, ‘loaded.’
‘You knew her?’ Morton walked slowly towards the door, and Ayala trailed in his wake.
‘She’s like the most famous fashion photographer of the noughties... or she was. The press are going to be all over this.’
Morton shrugged indifferently, pulled a pair of slip-on evidence booties from his pocket and then leant against the wall so that he could pull them over his shoes.
‘Who called it in?’
‘An anonymous tip called it in this morning. DS Mayberry has gone to try and chase down who the caller is,’ Ayala said.
Morton sighed. ‘That berk? He couldn’t find a virgin in a nunnery. But you get to stick around when you’re engaged to the Superintendent’s daughter.’
Mayberry had long become a running joke in the office. He was regularly sent to find tartan paint, left-handed screwdrivers and long weights. Every time someone sent him down to procurement, he came back with a puppy dog expression. ‘They h-haven’t got it,’ he’d say apologetically. It didn’t help that he had a mild speech impediment and regularly mixed up his words.
But just like a puppy seeking approval, he kept coming back for more. He’d never make it beyond Detective Sergeant, so Morton couldn’t even promote him out of the unit.
‘He’s the one that took the call. You know how short staffed we are right now.’
The pair exchanged glances. Few officers seemed to last too long under Morton’s command.
‘Can’t we get the Irishman back?’ Ayala said.
‘No chance. No officer of mine will ever beat a suspect, no matter how much they might deserve it. Anyhow, I heard he’s off running some private eye outfit out of Balham. I’ll be looking for another DI soon. But until then, I expect you to help make up the shortfall. Speaking of which, you get to do all the paperwork for the crime scene. Oh, and you get to double-check everything Mayberry does, just to be on the safe side.’
‘No way! I’m not taking responsibility for him.’
‘Oh yes, you are. At least he’s finally learnt how to answer a telephone and write down the right information.’
Ayala grimaced. ‘He didn’t. Mayberry didn’t even manage to write down the whole address. I had to check the recording to get that. Our caller didn’t say much and Mayberry didn’t prompt him for any details... Not even a name. The man just said there was a body at this address, and that the front door was unlocked. Then he rang off. Sure enough, when we got here the gate was ajar, and the door was unlocked.’