Cold Winter's Morning Read online

  COLD WINTER’S MORNING

  A gripping British crime Novel

  ALAN BEXLEY

  Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  About the author

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  If you live in the UK . . .

  Chapter 1

  Westchapel, Sussex

  Wednesday, 10th January 2018

  A cold drizzly morning in January. The killer scans the dark street from above a turned-up collar that hides the face as well as keeping out the chill. Few people are about on the dark street and none are watching. It’s time.

  Hurrying now to unlock the car, get in and pull the door shut with a soft click. A final moment of preparation before firing the engine and chasing after her until the target’s twenty yards in front. Pausing to look around and check mirrors. No one is close.

  Onwards. Flicking the windscreen wipers to clear specks of rain then slamming down on the accelerator, mounting the pavement and hitting her. Watching, satisfied, as she’s scooped up onto the bonnet before smashing into the windscreen, cracking it. Hearing the dull thud as she skims over the roof and onto the ground behind. Hitting the brakes now. Reversing, the engine whines. Feeling the car lurch as it bumps over her body.

  A screeching, sliding stop. Pausing to inspect the crumpled, bloodied shape. Best to make sure. Forward again, aiming for the head. Another lurch.

  Stopping for a second look in the rear-view mirror. Spotlighted in the gutter by a street lamp, the head is a crushed, dark mess with a sharp corner of skull sticking out. Job done.

  Looking up and seeing figures running up the street. Hitting the accelerator again. Roaring away.

  Detective Sergeant Frank Grey stood in the Crime Scene Investigators’ tent, shivering in the white paper suit that was too small to allow a coat underneath. He stuffed his hands into his armpits to keep them warm and watched as the CSIs examined and photographed the well-lit corpse. She looked like roadkill, her blood painting the road surface a bright red. A movement caught his attention, and he turned and was irritated to see Inspector Altman pushing his way through the flap.

  ‘Morning, Frank,’ his voice, muffled by the protective mask, said. ‘They told me hit and run.’ His eyes tracked over the body.

  ‘Not exactly,’ Frank said. ‘She was run over, reversed over and driven over again. The bastard wanted to make sure he killed her.’

  ‘He succeeded,’ Altman said, wincing.

  Frank examined the evidence bags on a folding table, choosing one containing a driving licence, which he lifted. ‘Her name’s Victoria Anne Crosby and the address is just here.’ He nodded in the direction of the block of flats outside. ‘Goldsmith Court. I knew her slightly. She was an occasional informant.’ He looked at the bloody bundle that had once been Vicky. ‘Not that I’d recognise her now.’

  ‘Nothing we can do here, Frank.’

  Frank and Altman stepped out onto Goldsmith Road. The multiple jarring red and blue lights had turned the street into a nightmare scene. Fifty yards in each direction the road was closed off by flapping blue and white tape, with blue and yellow chequered patrol cars slewed across the street just beyond it. The white-painted Goldsmith Court block stood at the end of a Victorian three-storey terrace.

  They made their way to the CSI van. Frank watched as Altman stripped off his paper hooded overall to reveal an immaculate suit and silk tie. Frank was two years off retirement but his superior was still in his thirties. Frank didn’t expect him to stick around in Westchapel for long. Promotion would take him away from this backwater.

  ‘We have witnesses,’ Frank said, and nodded towards uniformed officers taking statements. ‘The car was a hatchback and one witness got a good look at the driver but he was wearing a full-head mask. Like a bloody superhero. Like Deadpool. There’s no CCTV and we don’t have a registration number. I’ll go and speak to Simon Hayward, the boyfriend.’

  ‘Right, I’ll see you in the office,’ Altman said and strode away to his Saab.

  Frank watched him go. Sorry a young woman’s death will interfere with your schedule. He sniffed as the cold stung his nose.

  He thought back to the vivacious person Vicky had been in life and tears started to form in his eyes. He heard a vehicle approaching and quickly rubbed the back of his hand across each eye.

  A taxi stopped outside the cordon. DC Helen Walker climbed out and paid the driver. She was wearing a padded parka with the hood down, black trousers and zipped boots. Frank met her as she stepped under the tape held for her by a uniformed officer with a clipboard. She had pale blue eyes that missed nothing, set in a forty-something face that was starting to show lines. She looked towards the tent. A sudden blast of cold wind blew her natural blonde hair across her face. She swept it back over her shoulder.

  ‘You’ve been told what’s happened?’ he asked.

  She nodded. ‘Do you think it was because she was an informant?’

  ‘Christ, I hope not. Our arrangement was only ever informal; she was never registered. Come on, let’s talk to Simon.’

  They rode the lift to the fourth floor of the block of flats that, in Westchapel’s terms, was luxurious. Frank was remembering Vicky. She had been full of life and in her mid-twenties. The same as his married daughter, Jane.

  Frank followed Vicky’s boyfriend Simon Hayward to his kitchen while Helen waited in the lounge. The uniformed male Family Liaison Officer was sitting at the kitchen table cradling a cup of coffee. Frank and Simon stared out the window which faced east and the town centre.

  ‘I’m sorry to do this now. I realise you don’t want to talk but I need to move quickly to get justice for Vicky.’ Frank held up his notebook. ‘I’ll take notes and we’ll get a formal statement sorted later. My colleague will look through Vicky’s things in the bedroom if that’s OK with you? It’ll help our investigation.’

  ‘Of course,’ Simon said.

  Frank studied him. He was a young man in his mid-twenties with light brown swept back hair wearing jeans and a woollen sweater over a formal shirt. His voice was strained and hoarse. His eyes were red from crying.

  Helen took her cue and Frank heard her make for the bedroom.

  Simon’s hands were shaking. He used them to grip the countertop and leaned forward. ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Just tell me about Vicky.’

  Simon sniffed and exhaled. ‘She liked her job. We were happy together. We’d set up home and planned for a family. In time. There’s rather a large mortgage you see? Everyone liked Vicky. If you’d met her, you’d have liked her.’

  ‘Can you tell me about your morning?’

  Simon’s head snapped up. ‘You can’t think I did that to her? I love her. Loved her.’

  ‘I have to ask these questions,’ Frank said.

  Simon wiped his eyelids. ‘It was a normal morning. We had breakfast together and she left first. She always did. She walked to work. It wasn’t far.’

  He stopped speaking and struggled to breath.
<
br />   ‘Anything out of the ordinary happen in the last few days?’

  ‘No.’ After a pause, he managed a forced laugh. ‘She was the same old Vicky.’

  Simon looked down but then his gaze returned to Frank’s face.

  ‘Could it have been an accident?’

  Frank looked Simon in the eyes. ‘This will be hard to hear, but Vicky was murdered. There’s no doubt about it.’

  Simon stared. ‘That makes no sense. Who’d want to kill her?’ He pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘I want you to find whoever did this.’ He closed his eyes and clenched his jaw.

  Frank nodded. ‘Just a few more questions. Did she have enemies? Anyone who’d want to hurt her?’

  ‘You’re not listening, No. She disagreed with people. But nothing serious enough for someone to want to kill her.’

  ‘Your neighbours said they heard you arguing.’

  ‘No more than any other couple. Nothing serious.’

  Frank nodded. ‘Could you let me have her latest mobile phone bill and the account for the landline?’

  Simon didn’t respond. His eyes had lost their focus.

  ‘Your phone bills?’ Frank repeated.

  ‘Sorry.’ He opened a laptop sitting on the kitchen table and tapped keys. ‘Our mobiles and the landline are on one account with the broadband. We saw one another’s call records. There was nothing to hide. I’ll give you everything.’

  A wireless printer in the lounge came to life and printed sheets fell into a tray. They walked through and he picked them up and handed them to Frank. Frank looked at the phone records and passed them to Helen as she had returned to the lounge. He looked back at Simon. ‘One last thing. Did she have a best friend? Someone she confided in?’

  ‘Besides me, you mean?’

  Frank didn’t answer.

  ‘Yes, Bryony Thorpe. I’ll give you her address and number.’ He returned to the kitchen, and they heard him tapping more keys then tearing something. A page out of a notepad? He was holding a sheet of paper when he returned and he passed it to Frank. ‘Vicky and Bryony were as thick as thieves. They met when they were training as hairdressers, years ago.’

  ‘Thank you. We’ll be going now. The station will arrange for a written statement. We have everything we need for the moment.’

  Frank nodded to the FLO who was standing in the kitchen doorway.

  Frank unlocked his blue, unmarked, police-issue Ford Focus, and they climbed in.

  ‘Anything of interest in Vicky’s personal things?’

  ‘Not especially. Not a lot of clothes though,’ she said.

  Frank’s phone bleeped. ‘I’ve had a text,’ he said. ‘There’s a car alight on the rough ground behind the industrial estate off Victoria Avenue. Could be the one that hit Vicky. Let’s check it out on the way to the station.’

  Chapter 2

  The industrial estate, or business park as the town planners preferred to call it, was a cluster of rented units including workshops, car repairers, and wholesale merchants. Frank was familiar with it as being rife with small scale crime. He drove through the open chain link gates and along one of the cracked concrete service roads. The rough ground was off one of the spurs. He turned the corner and saw, in the twilight, a fire tender parked up a track, a short distance from the road. It was beside a blackened car, minus its glass, illuminated by a battery of lights on a stand.

  He parked his car a safe distance away, and they walked along the patchy gravel path which cut through frosted, scrubby grassland. When he got close, he could see black smoke curling up from the ruined car while firemen sprayed foam. Helen circled around the vehicle with a handkerchief pressed to her nose and mouth.

  ‘Good morning, Frank. Parky, innit?’ the senior fireman said, looking at the burning car. ‘It’s still going. The plastic parts, you see? They bubble and burn for hours.’

  Frank nodded. ‘I think this car ran someone down, but keep that to yourself. A Golf, isn’t it?’

  ‘I think so. A drunken accident, do you think?’

  ‘It was no accident.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘You’ll read all about it soon enough.’

  Helen took photographs with her phone and emailed them to the office.

  The burning plastic gave off a choking odour and Frank wrinkled his nose.

  Hearing the gravel crunch behind him, he turned to see a marked patrol car and a CSI van arriving. Fire would destroy any forensic evidence, as intended, and the killer had removed the licence plates. Even so, maybe the Vehicle Identification Number would allow the registered owner to be traced.

  Frank drove through the narrow alley beside Arundel Road police station, passing the ‘In’ sign. The Victorians built it from red brick back in 1898 according to the date engraved above the large, antique, blue light. It stood between Barclays Bank and a dry cleaners, part of a shopping street. He entered the car park behind the building and pulled into his space beside Altman’s car.

  At the top of the steps, he used his access card and held the door open for Helen. They entered a short corridor and approached another door. Helen pressed her card on the pad beside the access door and then they were at the foot of a flight of bare wooden stairs. There were rumours that the station would close in a cost-cutting exercise with staff being allocated to other sites around the county. The stair carpet had been a casualty of the cuts. They hurried up to the CID offices on the second floor.

  The warm, open plan CID office contained four desks and smelt of coffee. Filing cabinets filled the gaps between the desks, and large windows in one wall overlooked the street. A large table piled up with files stood dead centre and a long whiteboard occupied the wall beside the door to the inspector’s office. Inspector Altman was out of his office, standing behind Detective Constable Jade Wheatley who was sitting at her desk. She was first in. Jade was of Caribbean heritage and, after Frank, the most mature member of the CID crew. She was wearing a lace-collared white blouse with her favourite charcoal jacket.

  Altman looked at Frank as he joined them. Helen made for her desk.

  ‘Our victim was no angel,’ Altman said. ‘Besides two convictions for drugs possession, she had three speeding convictions. What’s more interesting is she was convicted only a few days ago for drink-driving. She got fined £850 with a 24-month ban plus 150 hours community service. It says she crashed into another car but no one was injured. Thanks for running the check, Jade.’

  ‘Come through to my office. Griffin’s turned up, he’s leading this investigation,’ he said to Frank.

  Dan Altman led Frank into his office which still had the original fireplace. This gave him a mantlepiece for his sport trophies. Griffin had helped himself to the enormous black leather chair behind Altman’s desk in a demonstration of seniority. Altman took one of the visitor’s chairs and unbuttoned his jacket. Frank settled into the other and paid attention to Griffin.

  Detective Superintendent George Griffin, was a balding man with a ragged moustache he was in the habit of stroking with a finger while thinking. His suit jacket strained to contain his great girth. ‘This is a nasty one,’ he said. ‘The result of cold-blooded planning. I want us to concentrate on the circle of people close to the victim and look for criminal connections. I’m setting up the Major Incident Room at Hastings nick where there will be two teams of DCs reporting to sergeants. You will form the third investigating team and I intend to make good use of your local knowledge. Dan, I’ll leave you to organise your team. What have you got so far?’

  Dan Altman gave Frank a glance that said I’m expecting your support. ‘Our victim is Victoria Crosby who had drug convictions. We think she was killed by a Volkswagen Golf which we have seized but it’s been torched. I’ve got the registered keeper details as a Golf has the VIN in four places and the killer stripped out three but missed one in the engine bay. We’ll need forensic confirmation but, once we’ve finished here, DS Grey will check those as a priority. She lived with boyfriend Simon Hayward and we’ve
had a Family Liaison Officer with him from the time of the incident. The FLO broke the news to Hayward and described him as ‘distraught’. Hayward says he was still at home when the killing happened. Nothing unusual about that, so he says, because Crosby always left home before him. She worked at the local building society and there’s no obvious motive for her killing. The door-to- door in Goldsmith Road is almost finished with one callback needed. Frank knew Crosby slightly.’

  ‘She provided information on the Morgan family,’ Frank explained.

  ‘Those bastards,’ Griffin sneered.

  ‘Indeed. Vicky’s info was small-scale stuff about cocaine dealing.’

  ‘Do we fancy Hayward as a suspect?’ Griffin asked.

  Altman looked at Frank.

  ‘Not unless he had help,’ Frank said. ‘He wouldn’t have had time to dump the car and get back before we started ringing his doorbell.’

  ‘It sounds like you’ve made a good start. I’ll be holding a press conference at lunchtime so I need us to make good progress before then and I need to be kept fully informed. Right, I’ll have a quick word with the rest of the team and then beat a path to Hastings.’

  Griffin raised himself up with a snort, rounded the desk, shook their hands and left. Altman stood up and closed the solid wooden door. ‘I reckon that’s the last we’ll see of him here. You didn’t say much.’

  Frank shrugged, as Altman reclaimed his seat behind the desk. ‘If you have the DVLC details, I’ll get on.’

  ‘The Golf belongs to a Mr Ingermann. Here are the details.’ He handed over a sheet of paper to Frank. ‘I’m guessing the car was stolen but see what he has to say for himself.’

  ‘I know how to run an investigation, sir.’

  ‘I know that, Frank.’ Altman glared at him. ‘Who are you taking with you?’

  ‘Helen.’

  ‘You often team up with her.’

  ‘I think our skills are complementary.’

  Altman’s eyebrows rose. An odd smile formed, and he nodded.