Kill Call (25 page)

If he’d been in any doubt about the seriousness of the charges he might face, he had been enlightened by his brief, who looked almost as anxious as Crabbe.

‘It wasn’t me who killed him,’ was the young man’s first sentence when Fry sat down opposite him and started the tapes.

‘Killed who, Sean?’ asked Fry, hoping this was going to be an easy one.

‘The man in the hut. The dead man.’

Fry reminded herself that the 999 call had reported a dead body in the abandoned hut. That was despite the fact that Patrick Rawson had clearly not been dead at the time, since he’d recovered sufficiently to run a few hundred yards across the adjoining fields. Of course, that didn’t preclude Sean Crabbe from being responsible for his death.

‘You’d better tell us about it, Sean. From the start.’

He glanced at his solicitor, and Fry could sense that they’d agreed what Sean would say – and perhaps what he wouldn’t. But she’d encountered this brief before, he was pretty straight. Besides, Sean Crabbe seemed more than ready to tell his story.

‘It was the sight of the phone, just lying there. That was what did it. I couldn’t resist picking it up. It was really smart, you see – a Sony Ericsson.’ He leaned forward and stared at Fry to see if she understood. ‘It happens all the time, people nicking phones. I’ve had two nicked in the last year. All my mates have, too. I thought it would be all right, just to – you know, take one back.’

‘Sean, I don’t think you’ve started from the beginning, like I asked you,’ said Fry.

‘What?’

‘Let’s begin with why you went up to the old agricultural research centre on Longstone Moor on Tuesday morning. I need to know what you were doing there in the first place.’

Sean hesitated. ‘The old huts are just somewhere I go, to be on my own. There was no other reason.’

‘Were you going there to meet someone?’

‘No. It was like I just said.’

‘But someone else was there,’ insisted Fry.

‘Just … well, just the dead man.’

‘His name is Patrick Rawson. And he was alive when you first saw him, Sean.’

‘He was dying, though. He was practically dead. And I wasn’t responsible for that.’

‘Oh, come on.’

‘I’m telling you the truth.’

Fry sat back in surprise. He almost looked as though he was going to cry. Twenty years old, and he was upset by somebody speaking to him a bit sharply. What was it the DI had said? He didn’t look the type. Sean Crabbe was the kind of boy who ought to be writing poetry somewhere. The kind who wanted to be on his own, and wouldn’t like an intrusion into his little hideaway. She decided to try a different tack.

‘You said the old huts are just somewhere you go, Sean. So you go up there often, do you?’

He ran a hand across his face, though there weren’t actually any tears that Fry could see.

‘Quite often. Whenever I get the chance.’

‘Because it’s somewhere you can be on your own?’

‘Yes.’

‘Don’t you ever meet anyone up there?’

‘No, never. No one goes there, except me.’

Fry nodded. ‘So you must have been annoyed when you saw Mr Rawson arrive.’

Sean looked confused. ‘I told you.’

‘No, you didn’t, Sean.’

‘I told you, I didn’t see him arrive. He was already nearly dead when I saw him.’

The duty solicitor was starting to get restless. The same question asked in a different way could often get a result. But not with Sean Crabbe.

‘Sean, you were in possession of Mr Rawson’s wallet. So we know you robbed him. Didn’t you also hit him over the head?’

Now he was really anxious.

‘No. I would never do that. He was just lying there in the hut. I never even heard anything. I didn’t know anyone else was around until I smelled something. And it was his aftershave. He was wearing a really strong aftershave. He was lying near the back door of the big hut, and he had blood coming from his head.’

‘And what did you do, Sean?’

‘I took his phone. It was on the floor, as if he’d been trying to use it.’ He glanced at the solicitor, who nodded. ‘And then I took his wallet.’

Sean looked so ashamed when he got out the last part of his admission that Fry didn’t know what to say for a moment.

‘Go on. What next?’

‘I got out of there, scarpered. I was scared of getting caught.’

‘Oh, were you? What did you do with the phone?’

His shoulders slumped with embarrassment. ‘I realized after a minute or two that it was stupid to have taken it. They can trace you by a phone, can’t they?’

‘Right. But you made a call on it, didn’t you. Sean?’

‘I dialled 999 and told them there was a body.’

‘Why did you do that?’ asked Fry. Despite the conclusion she was gradually arriving at, this was a question she really wanted to know the answer to.

Sean sighed. ‘I had this horrible thought. Like I said, no one else ever goes up there. Not ever. And I had this awful idea that the next time I went up to the huts, that man would still be there, lying dead on the floor. Rotting. Because no one had found him.’

‘And that would ruin your little sanctuary,’ said Fry.

He hung his head again. ‘And then I got rid of the phone.’

‘By throwing it into Watersaw Rake.’

‘Yes. It made it all seem so pointless, but I knew I had to do it, or I’d get caught.’

‘But you got caught anyway,’ said Fry, ‘thanks to your mother.’

‘Yeah.’

‘She seems to know everything you’ve been up to, Sean.’

‘It really pisses me off. Not having any privacy, no life of my own.’

Fry looked at him for a moment, considering the irony of what he’d just said. It was an irony that was lost on Sean Crabbe.

‘Sean,’ she said, ‘what made you think Mr Rawson was dead when you first found him?’

‘What made –? Oh, I get it. Well, I’ve seen a dead man before. There was an old homeless bloke who died there months ago, some down and out. I thought … well, I thought it would be the same this time. Except I got a new phone.’

23

DI Hitchens was waiting for Fry expectantly when she came out of the interview room. She felt faintly grubby, and depressed by what Sean Crabbe had done with his life.

‘So, Diane. Can I tell the Super we’ve got a result?’ said Hitchens with a grin.

Fry wished for all the world that she could say ‘yes’. She very much wanted Superintendent Branagh to hear that DS Fry had brought the Rawson case to a successful conclusion. And she knew that her DI wanted to give her that opportunity.

‘No, I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘But we’ve finally got a suspect in custody,’ protested Hitchens.

‘Yes, sir. The trouble is, I believe he’s telling the truth.’

A file would have to be prepared on Sean Crabbe for the Crown Prosecution Service before a decision was made on any charges he’d face. Fry supposed that theft would be on the list, given the confession. And perhaps perverting the course of justice, which was a CPS favourite.

Meanwhile, Becky Hurst and Luke Irvine had been doing their research, and the extent of the picture they were building up was alarming. Listening to them give their reports, DI Hitchens looked as though he might be starting to feel out of his depth.

‘It’s back to square one, then,’ he said. ‘If Sean Crabbe is telling the truth, the answer must lie in Patrick Rawson’s business activities. Someone he got the wrong side of.’

‘And there must be plenty of those.’

The DI listened carefully to the results of the visits to Hawley’s abattoir and the meat distributors.

‘So we could be talking seriously big money here,’ he said.

‘The value of the horse industry has been estimated at three and a half billion pounds,’ said DC Hurst, reading eagerly from her notebook. ‘Bookmakers alone generate an annual profit of more than a billion from horse racing. Owners of leading stallions can charge hundreds of thousands for a single mating, and a stallion can cover two hundred mares in a season. Big money, all right.’

‘Given all those vested interests, who’s going to be bothered in the least about what happens to the failures?’ said Hitchens. ‘Let the French and Belgians eat them, if they want to. Why not?’

‘It’s not just the French and Belgians any more,’ said Fry, remembering all too clearly the packing line at R & G Enterprises.

‘Did you know horses have the intelligence and sensitivity of a seven-year-old child?’ asked Hurst.

But Fry wasn’t impressed by that. Seven-year-old children could be obnoxious, certainly – but they didn’t usually shit on your shoes for no good reason.

‘We were told at the abattoir that they pay as much as eight hundred pounds for a large thoroughbred,’ added Cooper. ‘That’s an attractive proposition for an owner faced with the expense of disposal by some other means. It can cost anything from a hundred and fifty pounds for collection and processing by a renderer, to seven hundred and fifty or more for euthanasia by a vet. And there aren’t many animal sanctuaries for racehorses. It’s way beyond the pockets of most animal charities.’

‘And, much though they claim to love horses, the British public are far more concerned about the welfare of stray cats and dogs.’

‘Oh, yes. Try slaughtering those for meat, and see what sort of outcry you’d get.’

‘Live export of horses for slaughter isn’t actually illegal,’ said Hurst. ‘But there haven’t been any exports for several years. The government put a mandatory minimum value on any horse exported abroad. It’s intended to be an amount more than any horse slaughterer would be willing to pay. In effect, it allows the export of racehorses, but blocks the live trade in food animals.’

‘But horses of higher value must be exported for competitions and breeding.’

‘Yes. And no doubt some of them end up joining the slaughter trail somewhere else in Europe.’

‘What about horse passports?’ asked Hitchens.

‘Just a minute, I asked that,’ said Hurst. ‘Since March 2006, any horses sent to abattoirs in England must have a passport before they can be slaughtered. They contain details of any medications given to the animal, to ensure certain drugs don’t enter the human food chain. There’s a section in the passport where the owner can declare whether a horse is intended for human consumption or not.’

‘So if you don’t want your dobbin turned into horse steaks or salami, you can say so.’

‘In Section Nine of your horse passport, yes. The rules are pretty strict on identification and so on. The valuation certificate has to be issued by someone on the DEFRA list, and is only valid for a month.’

‘Are these rules working?’

‘Yes. Apparently, European Union legislation could overturn the regulations at any time. If the restriction were removed, the main market would be the horse abattoirs in southern Italy. Live animals would be on the road for days before slaughter.’

‘When you think of that, Hawleys and those UK horsemeat distributors start to look like a godsend,’ said Cooper.

‘So,’ said Hitchens. ‘What’s the outcome of all this? Are horses being stolen to be sold for meat? What do we think?’

‘We don’t actually have any evidence of that.’

‘But it must be a suspicion, given all the links in the chain.’

‘You know, Horse Watch have an entire list of stolen equines that have never turned up anywhere,’ said Cooper.

‘Yes, I do know that.’

‘Well, chances are, those animals have gone through someone like Rawson. The dealer will either sell them on to a new owner, or he’ll make a few hundred pounds on the carcass at the horse slaughterer’s. Patrick Rawson is at the centre of this somehow. He has connections with the abattoir, he’s a partner in R & G Enterprises. We know he has a history as a dodgy horse dealer. The number of people who might have wanted to kill him is beginning to look endless.’

‘Yes, just about every horse owner or animal lover in the country,’ said Fry. ‘But if Trading Standards couldn’t get enough solid evidence against him to put him in court after a five-year investigation, how would some animal rights group find out enough to target him?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Have we traced the source of the video footage you were sent, Ben?’ asked Hitchens. ‘That would give us a line on the animal rights people.’

‘Becky has been helping me on that,’ said Cooper. ‘But at the moment, it looks as though it could have been almost anyone. The video is available on the internet, for members of the public to download and distribute.’

Hitchens shook his head. ‘The internet makes things so damn difficult. Well, we must at least have identified all the calls on Rawson’s mobile phone?’

‘Yes,’ said Fry. ‘Apart from Hawleys, and Mr Gains at R & G Enterprises, there were three calls to the number of Michael Clay, one to Senior Brothers at Lowbridge. And two calls each way to an unregistered pay-as-you-go mobile.’

‘This was on Monday evening?’

‘Right. There were no calls logged on Tuesday morning.’

‘Do you think there could have been a woman involved?’

‘It might have been anyone – a customer, a seller… who knows?’

Hitchens looked thoughtful. ‘I’m still not clear how the operation works. How do horses end up as meat when they’re not supposed to?’

‘It’s not clear to me, either. I suppose we could mount an undercover operation.’

‘How?’

‘We send someone in as a horse owner with an animal to sell.’

‘Who could we use for that?’

‘I’d be willing to give it a go, sir,’ said Fry.

But Hitchens shook his head. ‘We have specially trained officers for undercover work, Diane. Operational Support will provide someone, if necessary.’

‘I hope they’ve got someone who can pass as an expert on livestock.’

‘I doubt it.’

They looked at each other for a moment, then they both looked at Cooper. Oh, yes. The officer everyone thought of when there was an expert needed. Fry could have kicked herself for the reaction.

But Cooper didn’t respond. And it wasn’t like him to be reluctant to jump forward and volunteer.

‘We’ll think about it,’ said Hitchens after a moment. ‘There’s no rush. Let’s check out the horse market first. See if we can pick up any useful leads.’

‘By the way,’ said Cooper, ‘this restaurant …’