Dead Level (The DI Nick Dixon Crime Series Book 5) (21 page)

He was unlikely to get another chance for the foreseeable future, so Dixon could justify it. Almost. Just an hour, then he would catch up with Louise at Express Park. At least, that was what he told himself as he parked in the car park at Berrow Church. It was overcast, with a cold north wind blowing and the beach would be deserted. Perfect.

He opened the back of the Land Rover and watched Monty jump out and disappear up through the churchyard towards the beach. He followed him, pausing on the edge of the thirteenth fairway to allow two golfers to tee off, despite never having seen one reach the path. Then he stopped at the edge of the reeds to put Monty’s lead on. Ahead lay a narrow sandy track that twisted and turned through the reed bed and out onto the dunes, and you never knew who or what might be coming in the opposite direction. The prospect of Monty terrifying an elderly lady with a chihuahua was not worth the risk, not that he would have done anything, except perhaps lick it to death.

Once out onto the beach, Dixon zipped up his coat, turned up the collar and then thrust his hands deep into his pockets. Monty would have to make do with his ball kicked along the beach today. The tide was out and dry sand nearer the dunes was being blown along at ankle height in small but fierce sandstorms, so Dixon walked further out on the wet sand to keep it out of Monty’s eyes. They turned north towards Brean Down. Not a single car was parked on Berrow Beach; it was one advantage of a walk on the beach on a weekday in foul weather. And it would give him a chance to think.

He thought about an episode of
Long Lost Family
ending with the adopted child finding his or her birth mother and then blowing her head off with a .410 shotgun. It would not make good TV, but at least Wendy Gibson’s cold case had some sense of direction now, for the first time in over twenty years, even if it turned out to be the wrong direction.

Would Jane react in the same way when she found her birth mother? Dixon hoped not. And it would be his job to see to it that she didn’t.

Liam Dobbs. Harmless prat was the conclusion Dixon had arrived at. Although there was clearly more to Brophy’s apparent enthusiasm to get selected, and then elected, than pure ambition and greed, to use Dave Harding’s phrase. He expected to find a
connection
between Brophy and Westricity but was still no nearer finding a motive for the murder of Elizabeth Perry. Why kill
Elizabeth
if you wanted rid of Tom? The best he had come up with so far was that to murder Tom might be too obvious in that situation.

Laughable.

He was sitting on one of the old wooden posts that stopped cars parking too near the dunes, watching Monty digging, when he heard a large engine behind him, on the beach road. It was accelerating hard and getting closer. A large automatic, possibly a V12. Dixon stood up and turned to see a black Range Rover with tinted windows roar onto the beach, almost taking off as it came over the ramp. Once out onto the beach it turned towards him, sending sand spraying from wheels that were spinning on the soft ground. Dixon stepped back behind the line of wooden posts.

‘Monty, here, boy.’

Monty ran over and Dixon put his lead on. Then he watched the Range Rover slide to a halt in front of him. He was about to find out whether he really did have an understanding with the Albanians.

Dixon waited, listening to the Range Rover’s engine revving.

A small man got out of the front passenger seat and opened the rear passenger door. He was wearing black, exactly as he had been when they last met; when he had pressed a gun barrel into the small of Dixon’s back.

‘Get in.’

Dixon stepped forward.

‘Leave the dog.’

‘No.’

Dixon watched the man reach inside his jacket and pull out a gun, which he pointed at Monty’s head.

‘I really wouldn’t do that,’ said Dixon. ‘If I were you.’

A shout came from inside the Range Rover. Dixon recognised Zavan’s voice but didn’t understand the language, although he could guess what order had been given. The small man put his gun away, shut the rear door and climbed back into the front passenger seat. Then the Range Rover reversed and turned so that the offside rear passenger window was facing Dixon. He watched the tinted
window
go down, to reveal Zavan sitting in the rear passenger seat, also dressed in black, as he had been last time.

‘I have never understood the English love of dogs,’ he said, in a strong eastern European accent.

‘Get yourself one,’ said Dixon.

‘I intend to. When I retire,’ said Zavan, smiling. ‘I understand you wanted to see me.’

‘I did.’

‘You want to know who killed the politician’s wife?’

‘I do.’

‘But they are already dead, are they not?’

‘The foot soldiers are. I want to know who paid the money and who gave the order.’

‘No one gave the order. So our interests again do not conflict.’

‘If you say so.’

‘I will emigrate straight away, if you ever join Zephyr,
Mr Dixon
,’ said Zavan. He grinned, revealing a line of yellow teeth.

‘Maybe I’ll consider it then.’

‘It would be good sport, would it not, Nick? May I call you Nick?’

‘Football, cricket, rugby. They’re good sports.’ Dixon ignored his last question.

‘Now, football I understand.’

‘Who paid the money?’ asked Dixon.

‘Do you believe in insurance, Nick?’

‘I do.’

‘You house was repaired?’

‘It was.’

‘Good,’ said Zavan. ‘You must always have insurance.’

‘What sort?’

‘In this great country you can insure against anything and everything, can you not?’

‘You can.’

‘I always have insurance.’

‘I bet you do,’ said Dixon.

Zavan barked an order in Albanian, then he turned back
to Dixon
.

‘I doubt we will meet again, Nick. Ustau çatinë e vet e le të pikojë,’ said Zavan, waving his index finger at him.

Dixon watched the Range Rover accelerate away and turn back onto the beach road. Then it disappeared behind the sand dunes.

‘Now we’ve both had a gun pointed at us, old son,’ he said, squatting down next to Monty and scratching him behind the ears. ‘C’mon, let’s get back.’

They walked back along the beach to the path through the dunes and across the golf course, Dixon deep in thought.

Insurance. What was that all about? And he needed to get to a computer before he forgot the Albanian that Zavan had spoken to him. That must have been significant. Either that or Zavan had been telling him to take a long walk off a short pier.

Dixon ran along the landing and sat down at the first vacant workstation he came to. Then he switched on the computer and waited.

‘Everything all right, Sir?’ asked Louise.

Dixon nodded. He saw Jane’s head pop up from behind a partition.

‘Is he back?’

‘Yes,’ replied Louise.

Jane got up and walked over. She stood behind Dixon, watching his computer screen as he opened Google and typed in ‘ustau catine meaning’.

‘What’s that?’

‘Albanian,’ replied Dixon.

‘Have you seen them?’

‘They saw me.’

‘Are you all right?’

‘Fine. Monty’s a bit traumatised though. It’s not every day you have a gun pointed at your head.’

‘Is he . . . ?’

‘He’s fine. I don’t think he noticed, to be honest.’

‘Where were you?’

‘Berrow Beach,’ replied Dixon. ‘What the hell’s all this about?’

They were looking at the search results, which offered definitions
of ‘canteen’ from freedictionary.com and lots of websites about wine.

‘That can’t be it,’ said Dixon.

‘It’s including other results, look. Try that.’ Jane was pointing at the top of the screen to a link ‘Search only for ustau catine meaning’.

Dixon clicked on it and waited.

‘What’d they say?’ asked Jane.

‘I’m not sure, really. He said something about insurance, this phrase in Albanian and then buggered off.’

‘That’s not it either, is it?’ asked Jane.

‘Can’t be.’

This time it gave a definition of ‘utsav’; a small cafeteria, as on a military installation. Dixon sighed. Then he typed the word ‘Albanian’ on the end of the search string and hit the ‘Enter’ button.

‘That’s more like it.’

The first result came from Wikiquote. Dixon clicked on it and was soon looking at an alphabetical list of Albanian proverbs. He scrolled down.

‘The shoemaker goes barefoot.’

‘What does that mean?’ asked Jane.

By now Louise and Mark Pearce were standing either side
of her
.

‘What’s going on?’ asked Louise.

‘He’s had another visit from the Albanians,’ replied Jane.

‘The English translation is “working hard for others one may neglect one’s own needs or the needs of those closest to him”,’ said Dixon, sitting back in his chair.

‘Who may?’ asked Jane.

‘Tom Perry.’

‘And the needs of those closest to him will be Elizabeth?’

‘It will.’

‘What about the insurance thing?’

Dixon was still staring at the computer screen.

‘Means we can go home, though, doesn’t it?’ continued Jane. ‘If they’d wanted you dead they’d have done it there and then, wouldn’t they?’

Dixon smiled. For a moment there, he had thought they were going to.

Chapter Nineteen

T
hey had dropped their bags and Jane’s car back at the cottage in Brent Knoll and driven to East Huntspill in Dixon’s Land Rover and, while Jane had been impressed by the three air fresheners dangling from the rear view mirror, she had still grumbled about the smell.

The wind farm meeting got under way at the East Huntspill Village Hall at 7 p.m. sharp. Dixon and Jane were standing at the back watching the stragglers taking their seats in front of them. It had been a boring afternoon, reading through the documents that Jane and Mark had produced on Welmore Holdings; boring,
that is
, until he had come across the shareholders register. It would be an interesting interview with Mr Brophy the following morning.

‘Right then, let’s make a start, shall we?’ said the meeting chairman, standing up behind a trestle table on the stage at the far end of the hall. ‘As you know, Sedgemoor District Council have refused planning permission but Westricity have appealed. This will be going before the planning inspector shortly and we’ll come on to what we do about that in a minute. First though, given that we are in the middle of a by-election, I have invited all of the candidates here tonight to tell us what they intend to do about it.’

He waited for the murmuring to subside.

‘First, Mr Tom Perry, Conservative.’

Perry had been sitting at the front of the hall with the other candidates. He stood up and turned to face the audience, wearing a bright blue rosette. He reminded them that he had been instrumental in the campaign against the wind farm thus far and that he would continue to be so, if elected their member of parliament. Then he added that Conservative Party policy was to end the government subsidy for onshore wind farms, an announcement that was greeted with a round of applause.

‘There has to be a balance between sustainable, green energy supplies and the impact on the environment. I would only ever support wind farms offshore.’

Another round of applause.

‘Now Liberal Democrat candidate, Vanessa Hunt,’ said the chairman, although that was obvious from the yellow rosette.

Dixon leaned over and whispered in Jane’s ear. ‘Janice looked at the other election candidates, didn’t she?’

Jane nodded.

Mrs Hunt was a supporter of onshore wind farms, and solar power, but in the right place, and this was not the right place, due to the visual impact on the flat landscape and the risk to the unique biodiversity of the Levels. Her statement was greeted with more applause, as was the Labour candidate’s, who said much the same thing. The largest round of applause went to the UKIP candidate, who was less than complimentary about wind farms.

‘Hideous monstrosities that kill birds and generate enough electricity for fifty people to make a cup of tea in the advert break on
Coronation Street
. A complete waste of time and money.’

‘He doesn’t pull any punches, does he?’ whispered Jane.

‘He doesn’t have to,’ replied Dixon, smiling.

Jane frowned.

‘He’s not going to win,’ continued Dixon. ‘You can say what you like if you’re not going to win. People can’t hold you to it later.’

‘How d’you know that?’

‘There was an opinion poll in the
Bridgwater Mercury
.’

‘Who’s going to win then?’

‘It’s between blue and yellow.’

‘Right then,’ said the chairman. ‘Let’s . . .’

‘Where’s the Green candidate?’ The shout came from the floor.

‘She declined my invitation to attend. She didn’t think that attending a wind farm protest meeting was appropriate during an election campaign.’

‘Thought she’d get lynched, more like.’ From the floor again and greeted with more murmuring.

‘There’s no Monster Raving Looney,’ said Jane.

‘Are you sure?’ replied Dixon, grinning.

‘Settle down, settle down,’ continued the chairman. ‘We need to get letter writing again. This time to the planning inspector. I’ve looked at the guidance, which says that original objections will be taken into account, but there’s no harm in writing again. All right? There was a leaflet on every chair giving the address and reference number.’

‘What do we say?’

‘Make the same objections as last time. Visual impact, noise and shadow flicker. Remember these are large and close to dwellings. And the environmental damage, don’t forget. One letter each. One signed by two people counts as one objection so everyone in the household must write separate letters. Got that?’

‘What’s the point if they take into account the letters we wrote before?

‘The alternative is to do nothing and hope for the best,’ replied the chairman.

‘We can’t take that chance.’

‘No, we can’t.’

More voices from the floor.

‘Will the inspector do a site visit?’

‘He will,’ replied the chairman. ‘So, it’s important we have a huge poster campaign for him to see when he comes. I want a “No Wind Farm” poster in every window.’

‘What about arranging a demo when he comes? Show him the strength of feeling?’

‘I’ve taken advice on that and the general feeling is that would be counterproductive. We will be represented at his site visit. And have the opportunity to tell him what we think and why. But a mob following him around, shouting at him, is likely to have the opposite effect.’

‘Who will be there then?’

‘I will. And our newly elected MP, whoever that is. Maybe two others, but the committee will decide on that.’

‘What about Westricity?’

‘They will be there, of course, they will. It’s their appeal.’

‘Wankers.’

‘Whatever we think of them, this is a planning process and if the appeal is to be thrown out, it will be on planning grounds. It’s emotive, of course it is, but we must keep emotion out of it. Planning objections. Visual impact, that sort of thing. All right?’

‘Did you see that piece in the papers, calling us NIMBYs?’

‘May I?’ asked Tom Perry, catching the chairman’s eye.

‘By all means.’

Perry stood up and turned to face the audience.

‘“Not in my back yard” is a shabby accusation. Ignore it. I’m sure I speak for all of the candidates here tonight when I say that it is my back yard, and I’m proud of my back yard. I love it. And, no, I don’t want a wind farm in my back yard.’ Perry waited for the applause to subside. ‘And what’s more, anyone who says they do want a wind farm in their back yard is a liar.’

‘Let ’em have it in their back yard, then.’

Perry smiled and sat down.

‘What about Rod Brophy? You were at the planning meeting. What do we do about Brophy?’

‘Nothing,’ replied the chairman. ‘He sits on the committee and is entitled to his opinion. But the committee made the right decision anyway so what does it matter what he thinks?’

Dixon leaned over and whispered in Jane’s ear.

‘I’ve seen enough.’

‘What did you make of that then?’ asked Jane, as she drove back towards Brent Knoll.

‘I’m not sure I’ve learned anything new,’ replied Dixon. ‘Although Brophy’s enthusiasm for the wind farm seems to be common knowledge.’

‘Do they know why?’

‘I doubt it.’

‘And the relevance to Elizabeth’s murder?’

‘None. It sheds more light on Brophy’s enthusiasm to get selected, perhaps, and the concerted effort to get Tom’s selection
overturned, but that’s about it. And I’m not sure even that is relevant
to Elizabeth’s murder.’

‘Why not?’

‘If you wanted rid of Tom, you’d kill Tom, not his wife, surely?’ asked Dixon.

‘So, what happens now?’

‘We speak to Brophy tomorrow, as planned. We have to follow that through, but I’m not sure we’re any nearer finding the motive for Elizabeth’s murder. Not that I’d tell anyone that.’

Jane sighed.

‘Put your foot down and we can get to the Red Cow before they stop serving food.’

Jane tiptoed down the stairs to find Dixon fast asleep on the sofa, with Monty curled up beside him on a pile of papers. Dixon’s
laptop
had shut down and the only light came from the credits on an old black and white film that was just finishing.

She tapped him on the knee.

‘What time is it?’ he asked, yawning and stretching his arms.

‘Fourish,’ replied Jane. ‘What have you been doing?’

‘Research,’ replied Dixon. He closed his laptop and put it on the arm of the sofa, then he began pulling various documents out from underneath Monty.

‘What’s the film?’ asked Jane, switching the light on.

‘
The Train
. Burt Lancaster. Haven’t you . . . ?’

‘No, I haven’t,’ replied Jane. ‘Are you coming to bed?’

‘Too late now. I’ll take Monty for a walk, I think.’

‘It’s pissing down out there.’

‘I’ve got a brolly and he’s got a coat.’

‘Suit yourself.’

Jane was right, it was raining hard. Cold too. But it was a chance to think. He was missing something. Where the killer has done
the killing
, more often than not you could place them at the scene, have some physical evidence, but here there was none. The true killer, the money, was removed, one or perhaps even two steps removed, from the killing itself. The physical evidence had led them to the foot soldiers and the only thing he was going to get from the go-between was some ramblings about insurance and ‘the shoemaker goes barefoot’.

Perry probably had neglected Elizabeth’s needs, if his statement was anything to go by. But he had been focussed on the election campaign and could, perhaps, be forgiven for that. It was the nature of a political marriage, although Elizabeth hadn’t known she was getting into one until it was too late. It was a long and detailed statement and Perry’s guilt shone through. Guilt that he had been dedicated to his political career, which had gathered a momentum of its own at the expense of his marriage, and guilt that Elizabeth might have died because of it.

Dixon had spent hours trawling through all of Perry’s political activity since he had been selected to stand for parliament. Much of the legwork had been done by Jane, Mark and Dave, and it made for a thick file on each of the major campaigns. He had been through the wind farm file three times and yet nothing leapt out at him. Yes, Elizabeth had been there throughout, supporting her husband, but she had played no active part in any of the campaigning.

The cold case had more sense of direction. Or at least, it felt like it. It may turn out to be the wrong direction but he felt as if he was making progress, although that could probably be explained by self-delusion. As for Elizabeth Perry, what direction the investigation had was gone, despite Zavan’s riddle. Dixon hated riddles as much as he hated cryptic crosswords.

He watched the rain bouncing off the parked cars, as he walked along Brent Street towards open countryside. He turned left at the end of the road, heading towards Berrow, folded up his umbrella and tucked it under his arm. Maybe the rain would wake him up.

‘Shouldn’t you be going with Louise?’ asked Jane.

‘I’m not driving all the way to Bridgwater and back again just to collect Louise,’ replied Dixon.

He was driving along Rectory Road, looking up at the house numbers. They were large houses, set back from the road down private drives, but most had the name or number on the gatepost. He slowed down outside a large house with a huge tree in the front garden. Jane leaned across him and looked up.