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The DCI Warren Jones Series Books 1–3. Paul Gitsham
Читать онлайн.Название The DCI Warren Jones Series Books 1–3
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9780008443252
Автор произведения Paul Gitsham
Жанр Ужасы и Мистика
Издательство HarperCollins
The time stamp at the bottom of the screen jumped forward to 22:10h. The mysterious form re-emerged from the bottom of the screen, coming through the door. This time he was clutching what appeared to be a bin bag in his left hand. Clearly in a rush, he half ran across the lobby and out of the front doors, heading right again towards where he had emerged thirty-five minutes earlier.
“That’s the only person entering or leaving the building after 21:00 hours that night.”
Jones turned to Raworth. “Can we follow him before or after he left the building?”
“I’m afraid not, Chief Inspector. He heads along the side of the building next to the car park. Unfortunately there’s a blind spot all along that wall a couple of metres wide. As long as he kept close to the wall, there’s no way we could spot him.” He shrugged apologetically. “Budget cuts, I’m afraid. We had a spate of vandalism a few months ago in the car park. We didn’t have the money for new cameras, so we repositioned the ones we already had to cover the car park rather than the side of the building.” He shrugged again. “Not my idea, I must say, but as the old saying goes, ‘who am I to question why…?’.”
“It doesn’t matter though, guv. We know who he is.” Sutton held up the sheets of paper triumphantly. “The building’s swipe-card log. And guess who swiped in at 21:35 and swiped back out again at 22:10?” He pointed to two highlighted entries on the list.
Dr Antonio Severino.
Sutton and Jones walked up the front path of the small suburban house, barely a fifteen-minute walk from the Biology building. After reviewing the video footage, it hadn’t taken long for them to find the address of Severino or to arrange an arrest warrant and a search warrant for his home. The house was a well-maintained two-up, two-down semi in a quiet cul-de-sac. Apparently, Severino had rented the house with his fiancée for the past two years. As Sutton and Jones approached the front of the house two more officers approached the rear, ready to stop any escape attempt via that route. Parked a discreet distance away, two police cars and a police van plus a half-dozen uniformed officers were waiting ready to assist. All of the officers wore stab vests — they’d seen what Severino was capable of and they had no desire to end up the same way as the late professor.
Jones paused at the door before pressing the doorbell. He heard its echoing ring in the hallway, muffled by the front door. Nothing. Not so much as a twitch from the drawn curtains. He paused a few more seconds, before ringing the bell again, this time holding it down for a couple of seconds. Still nothing. Jones contemplated shouting, “Police, open up!” through the letterbox, but he was reluctant to give up the advantage of surprise so soon. He decided to ring one last time, before radioing back to the forced-entry team on standby to bring over their solid-steel two-man battering ram, guaranteed to open pretty much any door.
Holding the bell push down for a full fifteen seconds, Jones was finally rewarded by sounds of movement behind the door and muttered cursing. The door opened and a wave of whiskey and stale cannabis fumes assaulted his nostrils. Standing in scruffy, striped boxer shorts and a stained grey T-shirt was a twenty-something man of average height. His skin had the slight olive cast to it common amongst those from Mediterranean countries, his unruly hair raven black. He blinked at Jones, clearly struggling to wake up fully.
“Dr Antonio Severino?”
The man nodded, puzzled. Jones held up his warrant card.
“You are under arrest for the…”
That was as far as Jones got. Severino’s face promptly lost all of its colour, turning in an instant to a pasty white. Without a word, he turned on his heel and bolted back into the house.
“Shit! Don’t let him get away!” yelled Sutton, somewhat unnecessarily since the two officers at the rear of the house were waiting by the back door with open arms. Much to Jones’ surprise, however, rather than heading through the kitchen and towards the back door, Severino dived up the stairs.
Jones took off after him, Sutton a pace behind. Thundering up the stairs, the two officers struggled to catch up with the fleet-footed Italian. Where the hell was he going? To destroy evidence? Was there somebody else in the house? Maybe he was going to kill himself, throwing himself out of the bedroom window. Christ, it would really screw things up if he topped himself, Warren thought fearfully.
Reaching the top of the stairs, the fugitive carried on running, crashing into what was clearly the bathroom. Barely a second behind, Jones followed, expecting to see the man rummaging through the medicine cabinet for a weapon or a means to kill himself. Instead, he saw the man on all fours leaning over the toilet bowl being violently sick. The sour stench of whiskey and bile filled the room.
Catching his breath and trying to ignore the smell, Jones tried again. “Antonio Severino, I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Professor Alan Tunbridge.”
Severino finished vomiting and turned around, opening his mouth as if to speak. He seemed to be having trouble focusing. After a pause of a few seconds, his eyes rolled back into his head and before Jones could catch him he fainted clean away, his head hitting the porcelain of the toilet bowl with a solid smack.
“Reckon you’ll probably have to read him his rights again, guv,” Sutton noted from the open doorway.
A cursory inspection by a paramedic pronounced Severino to be dead drunk but otherwise fit and so the semi-comatose Italian was loaded into the back of the waiting police van. Back at the station, he was roused enough to be read his rights before being stripped and put into a paper suit, his own clothes bagged and sent off to Forensics. Severino was clearly in no state to be interviewed and his lawyer would doubtless try and get anything he said declared inadmissible as evidence. Therefore, Jones decided to play it by the book. Dumping him in the drunk tank to sleep it off, he asked the desk sergeant to organise a solicitor and, as an afterthought, an Italian translator for when he awoke in a few hours. The last thing they wanted was any language problems slowing down the interview process.
In the meantime, Jones and the rest of his team finally had time to eat and an opportunity to compare notes. Unfortunately, the station’s small canteen was closed for hot meals at the weekend, so the team had to make do with the rather sorry-looking sandwiches left over in the self-service fridge from the previous day. As a result they decided not to linger over lunch. All of them were keen to get on with their work, but Jones insisted that they take a short break.
Despite the rapid early progress of the investigation, Jones knew from experience that a murder investigation was a marathon not a sprint and he wanted his team to remain fresh. Furthermore, Jones firmly believed that a few minutes’ break would allow each officer’s subconscious to process what they had learnt so far, supplying new insights and new questions. Besides, Severino wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while and Spencer wasn’t due to return for further questioning for some time.
Whilst the others tucked into the stale sandwiches, Jones snagged Sergeant Kent and asked him to collate the latest reports from his incident desk. Glancing at his watch, Jones then decided he had time to ring Susan and headed into the corridor for some privacy. The phone connected on the third ring. “Hi, sweetheart, it’s me.”
“It’s Bernice. Susan’s busy preparing a salad for the picnic. And of course it’s you — it says so on the screen.”
Jones stifled a groan. He had hoped to have a private chat with Susan, explaining what was going on. But that clearly wouldn’t be possible. Mustering all of his tact and injecting