Ten Guilty Men (A DCI Morton Crime Novel Book 3) (20 page)

‘Aleksander, I didn’t invite you up here just for breakfast,’ Lord Culloden began. He watched his son carefully, studying every wrinkle and crease in his face. The similarities between the men seemed to have grown starker in the day or so since Culloden had found out that he had a son.

‘I surmised as much. Why am I here?’ Aleksander asked.

‘There’s no easy way to say this, but I’m your father.’

‘I know,’ Aleksander said simply. He’d known for a long time.

‘You... you knew? How?’

‘Mother told me, before she passed. I’ve wanted to ask you for the longest time.’

‘I wish you’d said something sooner. I didn’t know. I suspected. But I only found out for sure this week. I asked the police to test my DNA. They called last night with the news. Is there anything you wanted to ask me?’

Aleksander stared straight at his father, unblinking. There was one question, the burning question, the question which had been on his mind for many years. ‘Did you love my mother?’ he asked.

Culloden nodded. ‘Yes, I did. And I’m sorry I let things end as I did. Can you ever forgive me?’

‘I don’t know. But I’d like to try.’

Chapter 39: If at First

Thursday 18
^th
– 13:00

Morton had a
Eureka
! moment during his lunch break. He had nipped out for a walk along the Thames, one of his favourite ways to think about the world. He found himself a bench in Victoria Tower Gardens with a view across the Thames, and watched as boats glided by on the water.

A few tourists, and more than a few office workers, meandered by. Many glanced up admiringly at the southern aspect of the Palace of Westminster.

Eventually, a woman approached and asked if she could sit on the other side of the bench. Morton obliged and went back to admiring the view. He closed his eyes and felt the sunshine, dappled by the trees hanging overhead, fall upon his brow.

When he opened his eyes, the woman was watching him. She had a notebook in hand, notes scribbled throughout it.

‘Can I help you?’ he asked.

‘You’re a cop, aren’t you?’ she said. ‘You’ve got the same expression my father had, as if the weight of the world is on your shoulders.’

‘Some days it feels like it is. But I’m sure Atlas had it much worse off. The biggest stress in my life is knowing something but not being able to prove it.’

‘Don’t you guys have DNA or fingerprints to do most of the work for you?’

‘I wish. Sometimes there aren’t any fingerprints–’ Morton paused. Sometimes there weren’t any fingerprints. He stood straight up, almost knocking the notebook from the woman’s hands.

‘I’m sorry. I’ve got to run.’

***

He found Purcell in the Incident Room. ‘Stuart!’

‘Yes, Chief?’

‘The autopen. You printed it when you searched the house.’

‘Yes, boss. Just the victim’s fingerprints.’

‘Do it again,’ Morton ordered.

Purcell held up his hands defensively. ‘Hey, I did it right the first time. There’s no need to do it all over again.’

‘I’m not accusing you of anything. Just do it again.’

Purcell didn’t look happy, but he fetched the autopen and his kit and began to dust.

‘Nothing.’ Purcell frowned. ‘How can there be no prints on it?’

‘He wiped it. We cleared the scene for him to go back – and Kal wiped it down after he used it. But we’d already printed it. He took the victim’s prints off as well as his own. It was clean when we picked it up earlier this week as evidence of fraud. Stuart, I could kiss you!’ Morton bounced on the spot like an excited schoolboy. There was nothing like the adrenaline high of a breakthrough.

‘Please don’t kiss me,’ Purcell whimpered.

‘We’ve got him. We’ve finally got him.’

***

‘So you’ve got an autopen machine which has no fingerprints on it. Is cleaning a crime now?’ Elliot Morgan-Bryant asked, as cocky as ever. His client sat next to him in silence, his gaze flicking between his lawyer and Morton as if he were watching a game of tennis.

‘It looks like obstruction of justice to me. It was the only thing wiped down. If I were cleaning up, I’d have probably dealt with the empty pizza boxes and beer bottles before dusting. It’s pretty suspicious, when combined with your client’s disposal of his old laptop,’ Morton said.

‘Is my client being charged?’

‘Yes. Two counts of obstruction, one of attempted fraud, and one of forgery,’ Morton said. He’d discussed the charge sheet with Kieran earlier in the day, and the tactic was simple: throw the book at him, and then offer to reduce the charges back down for a guilty plea.

‘He didn’t even probate the will.’

‘Come off it. He attempted to obtain a medical death certificate to begin the process.’

‘That is, as we lawyers like to say, not more than merely preparatory,’ Morgan-Bryant said.

Morton gave the lawyer a tight-lipped smile. The battle lines had been drawn.

‘The prosecutor disagrees. However, in the interests of expediency and seeing to it that the punishment fits the crime, he might see the light in dropping the inchoate offence in return for a guilty plea on the other charges.’

‘No chance. If that were to become a guilty plea on forgery only, then my client and I might have something to discuss.’

‘I’ll have to speak to the CPS about that. Perhaps you’d like the room to talk to your client while I give him a ring?’ Morton offered.

“No need,’ Kal said. He turned to his lawyer, cupped his hands like a funnel and whispered in the lawyer’s ear. They exchanged meaningful glances.

‘And you’ll drop any possible investigation into Messrs Barchester and Malone as they pertain to the will?’ the lawyer asked.

Morton considered the request. Malone was already in jail, and with his history of dealing he was already headed for a life comprised of brief periods of freedom interspersed with progressively longer periods in jail, and an extra charge with little evidence would serve little purpose. Culloden would soon be joining him inside once his indecent exposure charges progressed to a trial.

‘I’m not interested in them. They didn’t forge anything,’ Morton said.

‘I’ll take the deal,’ Kal said.

‘I’ll make the call now then. One more thing.’ Morton paused the tape recording. ‘You made a complaint against one of my officers. I want it dropped, immediately.’

Elliot Morgan-Bryant’s eyes sparkled. ‘I see we’re not so different after all, Mr Morton. You have yourself a deal.’

Chapter 40: Legal Extortion

Friday April 18th – 16:00

Kieran quickly rubber-stamped Morton’s informal deal with Morgan-Bryant, but he hadn’t told Morton that yet. It was another easy win to his credit, saved the taxpayer the cost of a prosecution which was still somewhat circumstantial, and it landed Morton in his debt. To make the most of that debt, he decided to let Morton think the decision was still up in the air. They met in Morton’s office where Kieran found Morton hunched over his laptop, with Mayberry perched at the end of the desk rifling through paperwork.

Morton looked up as Kieran entered. ‘Afternoon. Court finished already?’

‘Yep. No judge wants to finish too late on a Friday.’

‘Nor me. To what do I owe the pleasure?’

‘Do you still think Kallum Fielder is a viable suspect in the murder of Ellis DeLange?’ Kieran asked. Personally, Kieran felt that Morgan-Bryant was too smart to plead out on the lesser charge if there was still a serious case for murder on the table.

‘We don’t think so,’ Morton said.

‘He didn’t have t-time,’ Mayberry stuttered. He pointed to his neatly drawn timeline that spanned an entire whiteboard.

‘Mayberry is right. Once the clock change is accounted for, Kal got home after two o’clock in the morning. He appeared dishevelled and drunk on the CCTV footage we recovered of him walking home. He parked up in Portland Place at five past five, and was on-set ten minutes later.’

‘How far is that?’ Kieran asked.

‘Thirteen miles, about an hour in light traffic at that time of the morning,’ Morton said.

‘And had he changed by then?’

Morton shrugged. Kal’s attire was the least of his worries.

‘Y-yes,’ Mayberry said. ‘On the way b-back from the p-party, he had on a t-t-shirt. H-he was wearing a penguin.’ Mayberry furrowed his brow in consternation, and pulled out a moleskin notebook. He began writing and then corrected himself. ‘S-suit.’

‘Right. Then we’ve got a two-hour window for a clearly drunk guy to sober up, go back to Richmond from Twickenham, kill his girlfriend, return to Twickenham, put on a suit and get to work. How long did he take going from Richmond to Twickenham when he stumbled home?’

‘About three quarters of an hour,’ Morton said.

‘So if he walked at the same rate then we’ve got about half an hour maximum for him to have committed murder,’ Kieran said.

‘It’s less than that. We know that he got home at two or thereabouts. If he doubled back immediately, he’d have needed to take a longer route to avoid being on the CCTV on the way back, which means he’d have needed more than forty-five minutes.’

‘Fine. Let’s say he took an hour. Fifteen minutes is still enough to kill and run.’

‘The heating at Edgecombe Lodge went off at three. That meant the house was empty at that point – and the victim’s body had begun to cool enough not to register when the automatic thermostat checked for heat signatures. He’d have got back outside that window, unless he sobered up and ran, which it doesn’t look like he was in any condition to do.’

‘Then he’s got either a very slim window or he’s out. I don’t like this. It’s enough for any defence counsel to put doubt into the jury’s mind.’

‘Sorry, Kieran, but that’s not our problem. We can only present you the facts as we find them. Maintaining your conviction rate is your own concern.’

Kieran paused to fiddle with his blackberry, then sighed. ‘You just want me to approve your deal with Morgan-Bryant.’

‘Damn right I do,’ Morton said. ‘We’ve got him on the substantive charge which, to my mind, is much better than our gambling on throwing everything at him. We’ve talked about this.’

‘We did, but funnily enough you didn’t mention coercing defence counsel into dropping a complaint against your team.’ Kieran jabbed a finger at Mayberry.

‘Leave him out of his. Are you going to approve this or not?’ Morton demanded.

‘I want something in return. I hear you’ve got FA Cup tickets for this weekend.’

‘No! You git. You know how hard it is to get them.’

‘That would be why they’re worth something. Do we have a deal?’

‘Fine. You know you’re why I hate lawyers, don’t you? And this is totally unethical of you.’

‘Hah. It’s not a legally binding deal. This isn’t the USA. I’m simply choosing not to pursue a reckless criminal charge, which you’d know I already decided to do three minutes ago if you’d checked your email.’

Morton swore. ‘You sent me an email after this meeting started, but before you extorted me? That is evil.’

‘Yes, it is. Make sure they’re on my desk by the close of business, please.’

Chapter 41: Video

Saturday April 20
^th
– 10:00

Mayberry proved to be particularly adept at reviewing CCTV footage. After learning what Morton had done on his behalf, he had forgone Friday night drinks with the rest of the team and stayed late to review all of the footage the team had accumulated over the past week.

Morton found him the next morning, sleeping in the Incident Room. The diagram of the timeline had been finished with all the suspects and their movements plotted neatly.

Five suspects. Five timelines. Two had already been discounted. Kal and Culloden were gone at midnight or shortly thereafter, never to return.

That left the sister, the best friend and the drug dealer. The sister had the most obvious motive. Without a valid will, Ellis died intestate, which left Brianna with everything.

Ever since he had laid eyes upon Edgecombe Lodge, Morton’s gut had been telling him that money had to be involved somewhere. But Ellis’ murder felt personal too. The killer waited for her thirtieth birthday party, and killed her in her own home.

No murder weapon had been found. If it were from the house, there was no sign of something missing. If it were brought in from outside, then the kill was premeditated.

Then there was the timing. All the witnesses, and the victim, had been drinking and doing drugs. If ever there were a more lax set of witnesses to be found, Morton had yet to meet them. It didn’t help that the clock change threw off the timeline and confused the already-unreliable witnesses.

Morton scanned the timeline. Kal was gone by about midnight, passing CCTV at 00:42, and getting in at just gone two once the clock change had been accounted for. A great red X had been placed next to Kal’s mugshot.

Culloden was out too. He left within minutes of Kal, and didn’t return until morning, when he collected his clothes. Ayala’s nudity-as-reasonable doubt theory was pie in the sky. Morton snatched up the red pen from the table, being careful not to wake Mayberry as he did so, and placed an X next to Culloden. Morton smiled. Mayberry had placed a Post-it note over the CCTV printout of Culloden as a modesty guard.

Brianna was the obvious suspect. She had access to pentobarbital from her work as a veterinary assistant. She had money troubles. According to Kal, she hated Ellis too. Morton placed a question mark next to her. While she had the motive, she didn’t have the opportunity.

‘Morning, b-boss,’ Mayberry said, stirring from his slumber. ‘What time is it?’

‘Just gone nine. Were you here all night? Go home. It looks like you need to sleep.’

Mayberry shook himself like a dog, and waved off Morton’s concern. ‘I’m f-fine. Do you l-like my drawing?’

‘I do. It’s helpful having a visual aid. What do you think of Brianna as a suspect? I don’t think she doubled back. She’d have needed three buses to do so. Did you find any images of her on night buses?’