Dead at First Sight, page 24
‘That is a leading question,’ Watts interrupted, sharply.
Branson acceded. ‘OK, let’s just say that two people arrived in England on May 17th. And two people, with those same biometrics, but under different names, arrived in England on September 26th. Any light you can shed on such an amazing coincidence, Mr Ogwang?’
‘No comment.’
‘Are you quite sure?’
‘No comment.’
‘OK,’ Glenn Branson said, and produced his trump card, one that Roy Grace had fed him from intelligence received late in the night, from the police in Munich. ‘I’d just like to make you aware that there is an international arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court in The Hague for a gentleman by the name of Dunstan Ogwang, believed also to use the name Kofi Okonjo, relating to a massacre in a village in Sierra Leone in 2002. As a matter of possible interest to you, there is also an arrest warrant, for the same offence, issued for a Tunde Oganjimi, believed to use the name Jules de Copeland. Are you aware of this?’
Ogwang stared ahead, looking, as Branson had hoped, totally blind-sided.
‘Tell you what,’ Glenn Branson said. ‘We’ll give you a little time to think about everything. Have a chat to your solicitor. We’ll take a comfort break.’
He gave Potting a nod, and looked back up at the camera. ‘Interview suspended at 09.28 a.m.’
The two detectives went out into the corridor, shutting the door behind them, and were joined, moments later, by Roy Grace.
71
Wednesday 10 October
‘Interesting, don’t you think, boss, that “biometrics” and “bang to rights” have the same first and last letter?’ Branson said.
Grace frowned at him. ‘“Biometrics” is one word, Glenn. “Bang to rights” is three.’
‘Three words, long sentence,’ he replied.
Grace smiled.
‘What do you think, chief?’ Norman Potting said. ‘Give Quack-Quack a little time to reflect after talking to his brief? Let him dwell on his potential sentence?’
Mindful of Cassian Pewe being on his back like an aggressive limpet, Grace said, ‘What a little scumbag. He’s clearly guilty, but I want to belt-and-braces this. And we need his accomplice.’
He checked his watch, calculating. A suspect could be held for thirty-six hours without being charged. Beyond that, an extension needed to be granted by a magistrate. Ogwang had been arrested at 7.30 p.m. last night, which meant their charging deadline was 7.30 a.m. tomorrow. ‘We need to play him to reel the other in. We may need to go for a magistrate’s extension to give us time to confirm his victim’s blood on the machete, but with luck we’ll get the DNA report from the lab before then. In the meantime we can undertake further interviews and carry out the ID procedures.’
Branson agreed.
‘And while that’s happening,’ Grace said, ‘I’ll talk to the Crown Prosecution Service about charging him. We’ll let him stew for a while. Give him time to preen. Think about his life as a millionaire internet scammer, compared to twenty years in a British slammer. Then we’ll talk to him again later in the day, see if we can get him to squeal on his colleague. We’re lucky with that Legal Aid brief – she doesn’t seem particularly engaged.’
‘I hope she never gets to defend me!’ Potting said. ‘Ugly cow.’
‘I doubt she’d even want to represent you – ever!’ Grace retorted.
Potting gave him a sideways look. ‘I was talking about her attitude. But I’ll tell you this, Roy. The day I can’t say a woman – or a man – is plug ugly, that’s the day I want to be taken out and shot.’
‘That day’s been here a while, Norman.’
‘Just use a dumdum bullet, so it takes my brain clean out and doesn’t leave me a vegetable. Promise me that one thing, chief.’
Grace put his arm on his shoulder. ‘Norman, my dad always told me a person could choose to be offended – or not. It seems to me the world is in a strange place where everyone chooses to be offended all the time. First it was too far the other way. In my dad’s time the police were institutionally racist, homophobic, sexist, you name it. That’s all changed and for the better. Yes, I agree with you the pendulum’s swung too far the other way, but that’s the world we currently inhabit. It is what it is.’
Potting blinked and sighed. ‘Sometimes I’m glad I’m not a young man today, Roy, with all this crap in front of me – and probably going to get worse. At least we had fun in my day, right?’
Grace looked at him. Four failed marriages, each of the women fleecing him, his Thai bride the worst of all. Potting’s idea of fun?
72
Wednesday 10 October
Just as he was about to enter the observation room again, Grace saw the tall figure of Jack Alexander hurrying towards him. ‘Sir, one of my team has come up with CCTV footage from Withdean Road, from last night – outside the house next door to Withdean Place. The timing fits with the car that was spotted parked there.’
Grace hovered in the door, anxious not to miss the interview that was about to restart, but his interest piqued.
‘Tell me?’
‘It’s very dark and blurry, sir, but distinct enough to make out a figure walking along past it. I thought it worth sending to Haydn Kelly. He came back very quickly – and very definitively – with a match from the person’s gait.’
‘OK? Someone known to us?’
‘I’m not sure whether you are going to like this or not, sir.’
‘Stop playing games, Jack. A match with who?’
‘Your old pal, Mr Tooth.’
Grace’s mind flashed back to the description from the woman at Budget. His wild thought then that it fitted the elusive Tooth, who had made a mockery of everyone in Sussex Police but, fortunately, most of all of Cassian Pewe, after escaping from hospital.
But still he could barely believe it. ‘Tooth?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Haydn’s sure?’
‘He says he’s as certain as if he had a one hundred per cent DNA match.’
Grace’s brain was spinning. Tooth had first appeared on his radar after two murders in Sussex that followed the death of a cyclist in a road traffic collision. The unfortunate victim had turned out to be the son of a New York Mafia capo, and the murders of two of the parties involved were the result of a vendetta by the dead boy’s parents. Tooth was the suspected hitman, who was later presumed drowned after disappearing in Shoreham Harbour. But he had then turned up months later on another killing spree. He’d been less lucky that time. He had been hospitalized, under arrest, after being bitten by a deadly snake as well as several other venomous creatures. But then, Houdini-like, he had once more escaped. He was like one of those bugs that wouldn’t die, no matter what you sprayed at it, Grace thought.
He remembered intel from the FBI on Tooth’s first appearance in Brighton. The man was a former US military sniper and commanded a fee of one million dollars, all paid upfront. He was, in the hitman world, a class act. Apparently considered the first choice for all the New York crime families. A man who delivered. Always.
And from his own experience when Tooth had been his prisoner, subsequently escaping, thanks to Cassian Pewe refusing to sanction a 24/7 guard on him, a very wily creature.
Could he really be back again?
One million dollars was big money in anyone’s language. You would only pay that if much more was at stake.
Thirty million pounds had been scammed out of Sussex residents by internet-based romance frauds last year. There were forty-eight counties in England alone.
Multiply that thirty million by forty-eight and Tooth was looking cheap. Very cheap. The Macy’s bargain basement of hitmen. And in his experience of the man, Haydn Kelly was never wrong.
‘Jack,’ he said. ‘Get someone to contact Budget and see if they have CCTV inside or outside – and if so to get the footage around the time of Mr “Jones” renting the Polo – let’s see if we can confirm a positive ident on him.’
Although he was already pretty certain. Tooth was a master of disguise, but you couldn’t disguise your height too much. The manager at the rental company had said Mr Jones was short and had an American accent. Tooth was short and American. He had been seen in Withdean Road last night around the same time the Polo was seen parked. Almost certainly it was Tooth’s car.
If so, why was he here? What was he doing prowling around outside the house linked to the suspect who was being interviewed? Had Tooth been sent to kill him? Or the man who had made the phone call – or both?
73
Wednesday 10 October
‘Interview with Dunstan Ogwang recommenced at 10.22 a.m., Wednesday 10 October, in the presence of his solicitor, Alison Watts, Detective Sergeant Potting and Detective Inspector Branson,’ Glenn Branson announced to the camera. He turned to the suspect.
‘Mr Ogwang, we are entitled to hold you in police custody for thirty-six hours without charging you,’ Branson informed him. ‘I don’t know how much you know about the British custody system, so I suggest you have a chat with your brief here. What we’re going to do now is give you some time to reflect on everything, then we’ll have another chat a bit later on.’ He gave him a big, humourless stare. ‘OK?’
There was no response.
‘The evidence against you so far relates to the identity and description of the two men at the shop, coupled together with the information from the victim, Toby Seward. In addition, we have your arrest and the recovery of the machete. We are also waiting for the DNA results and the identification procedures. All of this evidence is stacked against you and I would suggest that you need to think very carefully about your position.’
Branson then set out in detail the evidence against Ogwang, warning him again that inferences could be drawn from his “no comment” responses.
Again there was no reply.
‘After you’ve had a chat and you’re back in your cell, have a good think about everything. If there’s anything you’d like to tell us about your buddy, Jules de Copeland or Tunde Oganjimi or whatever other name you might know him under, I’m sure it would be helpful to you. That is of course if you do know him and we are not just dealing with a very big coincidence. Which of course is always possible. Yes?’
There was still no reaction from the suspect.
Branson leaned forward and laid a hand on the control panel, whilst looking up at the CCTV camera. ‘Second interview with Dunstan Ogwang and his solicitor, Alison Watts, terminated at 10.45 a.m.’
74
Wednesday 10 October
Jules de Copeland stood by the south-facing window of his fifth-floor apartment, with its fine view over the road directly below and across to Brighton Marina and the English Channel beyond. It also gave him a commanding view along Marine Parade for a good mile, towards the Palace Pier to the west. What, he wondered, would Ogwang be telling the police? Would he squeal? Would the little fool attempt to do a deal by ratting him up?
He thanked the Good Lord for giving him the foresight to have rented this place without telling Ogwang. Because for sure he could not risk going back to Withdean Road. Too bad for everyone there if they got busted. No one knew where he was. So long as he kept cool he’d be fine. His current mark, Lynda Merrill, was gagging for him. He couldn’t let that go before splitting. And he was pretty sure he could get more out of her before doing that. Then he’d get back to Bavaria, scoop up his beloved wife and their baby son, and hightail out and back to Ghana, where they would be safe.
God, he missed them so much. He’d never in his life before known what love really was. The love he felt for Ama and his son. He closed his eyes.
Please, God, bring us back together quickly.
There was just one small fly in the ointment. And at this moment that fly was behaving very strangely. Down in the street below he could see the little Volkswagen Polo that he’d seen parked shortly after he’d arrived here last night. The car had driven off some while later, then had returned. A man had sat in it all night long. Now that man was out of the car, walking around unsteadily as if he was drunk. He leaned against the front of the car and lit a cigarette.
Copeland picked up his binoculars and, discreetly, through a crack in the blinds, studied the man. A shortarse, with brown hair and glasses. He was dressed in a jacket, slacks and an open-neck shirt.
Cop?
Possibly. But there was something about his demeanour that made him doubt that.
If not a cop, who was he?
A private dick? Could just be coincidence and he was watching someone else altogether in this block. Someone suspicious of their partner?
Perhaps.
But perhaps not. Was he here to watch him? Who and why?
And looking like he was drunk?
There was only one person he could think of who would have put a tail on him.
His former business partner, Steve Barrey.
And if that was the case, he needed to be very wary.
Watch on, baby, you ain’t gonna see nothing!
He went over to his desk, sat in front of his laptop, logged on and read again the email that Lynda Merrill had sent back to him at 11.15 p.m. last night, which he had still not replied to. Keeping her on tenterhooks.
My beautiful Richie, you asked if I could get one hundred thou of the four hundred and fifty thou in cash. I’ll have that together in a couple of days. Now, my naughty big boy, I have a real treat in store for you – and of course me! A very dear friend has gone away for a few days and she’s asked me to keep an eye on her beautiful little cottage in a forest about twenty miles from here. I think it would be a very special place for us to spend a whole, uninterrupted weekend together. We could meet there in our own, very private love nest where we wouldn’t be disturbed. And I could give you the cash! I desire you crazily! XXXXXXXX
He composed a reply.
My darling, It makes me so hard just reading this! Would have replied sooner but I’ve had some real heavy shit from the ex to deal with – will tell you all when we meet. This weekend? Am I able to really believe we will finally be together this weekend? Friday evening? I will bring the biggest bottle of champagne you’ve ever seen. Although I’ll be packing something even bigger than that :-) Look, I know I asked you for that loan of £100k, but the ex – the bitch – has been playing games with me. I don’t know whether to believe her or not but she says she knows someone who’s prepared to put down a deposit of £200k on the house. Somehow I have to trump that. I know that if I walk in with £250k in cash they won’t have anywhere to go. Or maybe even £300k to be safe. I hate to ask you, but any possibility you could go that distance? You’ll have it back, plus a minimum of 30% profit, within months, just as soon as the house is sold, and this area of Munich, Schwabing, is the place everyone wants to be. No problem if you can’t, I have a wealthy friend who is desperate to give me the loan. But, my gorgeous, because I love you and know we are going to spend the rest of our lives together, I really want to ask you first.
I love you.
XX
Less than five minutes later, a reply came in.
This Friday evening? Just two days away from my prince’s arms. I would hate you to lose the opportunity of your house. Bank interest rates are terrible, 30% is very very attractive. I’ll find the money. Does it need to be in cash? I love you too! Can’t wait to be with you. I’m starting a countdown of the hours, minutes, seconds. XXXXXXX
He replied right away.
55 hours, maybe less!!! Yes, my sexy angel, my ex has poisoned the lawyers against me. She’s made up a pack of lies that I have no money to buy the house, and she is ready to close Monday. I’ve spoken to the lawyer myself and I asked him if he saw the colour of my money would that change his mind? He’s given me till midday Monday, otherwise he’s closing the deal with my ex’s buyer. So if we are to secure the property I need to walk in there with cash. That way the lawyers will know the money is real. I’m going to Munich Sunday evening, by when I know I’m going to be all loved-up, my baby, and I’ll be on his doorstep 9 am Monday morning. Ready to ram the cash where the sun don’t shine!
Love you.
XXXXXXXXXXXXX
Lynda Merrill replied.
How will you get the cash to Germany? Isn’t £10,000 the maximum anyone can take out in cash? At least, without declaring it? Love you so much XXXXXXXXXX
He typed back.
I have it all worked out. Trust me. XXXXXXXX
Moments later he added:
PS what is the address? XXXXXXXX
75
Wednesday 10 October
‘Operation Lisbon has now been extended from the enquiry into the death of Susan Adele Driver to include the enquiry into the serious assault last night on Toby Antoine Seward,’ Roy Grace informed his team. ‘At the moment I’m treating this offence as GBH with Intent and we have strong evidence linking the offenders to both crimes.’
He went on to recap the events of the past twenty-four hours, the CCTV and the witness statement from Toby Seward. He also informed his team that surgeons were confident the operation to reattach Seward’s hand would be successful, but it would be some time before they would know for sure if so and whether he’d ever have full use of it again. ‘I’m also satisfied we have sufficient evidence to link the murders of Lena Welch in Munich with that of her sister, Suzy Driver, here in our city. CCTV footage, analysed by Haydn Kelly, gives us the positive identity of one man spotted at the scene of both crimes, whom we believe goes under the names of both Tunde Oganjimi and Jules de Copeland.’ He pointed at photographs printed from the videotapes that were on one of the whiteboards behind him, alongside the passport photograph pages with the two different names.
