Burning Ambition (DCS Palmer and the Serial Murder Squad Book 7) Read online

  ‘Christ!’

  Palmer was taken aback by the sight. DS Singh fought back the nausea and turned away, gulping in air.

  ‘I did warn you – not very nice, eh? But not as bad as it looks – well, not for those three anyway.’

  ‘How come?’ Palmer asked.

  ‘Pathologist had a quick examination and said they’d each been shot in the head before being incinerated. Single shot from the back, execution style; .22 bullets so enough power to penetrate the brain and kill them, but not enough velocity to exit the skull. The bullets will be removed at the post-mortems so with a bit of luck we can match them to the gun if it’s a ‘rental’ and see if it’s on our database.’

  ‘A rental?’ asked Gheeta,

  Frome nodded.

  ‘Yes, it’s five years for owning a pistol so most of the gun crime in the UK involves a ‘rental’ firearm, one that’s owned by a gang or individual who rents it out to others for use at a crime, such as armed robbery; then they return it and the cycle repeats. The same gun is often identified as being used in different crimes in different parts of the country; we can identify it by the marks left along the bullets by the hard steel of the barrel against the soft lead of a bullet when fired. If the marks tally, then the gun does too.’

  Palmer nodded.

  ‘I’ll bet this is a rental. This is a professional execution if ever I saw one, and those boys don’t use the same tool twice.’

  He walked towards the front of the van.

  ‘Am I going to find the burnt remains of the driver and guard in the cab?’

  Frome shook his head.

  ‘The cab’s empty, no sign of them.’

  ‘Really? Where are they then?’

  ‘Not in there, that’s for sure. No trace of them. Rayson’s men did a search round the premises and the neighbourhood, but still no sign of them. You’re not going to get much from me on this one, Justin. The fire was obviously set and whoever did it probably used an accelerant to get it going, as there’s not much combustible stuff in the back of an all-steel prison van. If they used paraffin or petrol the heat would clean off any prints, which leaves a pretty blank canvas with very little residue for my people to work on. The saving grace is that the fire brigade used CO2 extinguishers to put it out so we might find something, but I’m not hopeful. I’ve got a sample of the embers so I’ll get a gas chromatograph test done in the morning which will tell us the accelerant used.’

  ‘A gas what?’ asked Gheeta.

  Palmer laughed.

  ‘Are you trying to get a transfer to Forensics, Sergeant?’

  ‘I wish she was,’ said Frome. ‘I’ve got officers who use it all the time and have no idea how it works. I’ll explain: the gas chromatograph is a simple test to find which chemical has been used to aid combustion in a fire. A sample of the fire debris is taken and put into a container and heated; the gas given off is then passed through the chromatograph and a printout taken in the shape of a graph. The graph shows a series of peaks, with the largest being the culprit accelerant, and the size of that peak determining the actual chemical, usually petrol or paraffin. It’s invaluable if arson is suspected; arsonists use accelerants.’

  Palmer looked around him at the concrete floor.

  ‘Footprints?’

  Frome laughed.

  ‘Loads, but mainly great big size eleven fireman boot prints I’m afraid. We have taken photos, but I don’t hold out much hope there either. But you never know. We will run them through SICAR.’

  He looked at Gheeta expectantly as he said this. Gheeta laughed.

  ‘I know that one. Shoeprint Image Capture and Retrieval, a database of three hundred brands of shoes, trainers and other commonly worn footwear, and over two thousand different sole patterns.’

  Frome was impressed.

  ‘When would you like to be transferred to my department?’ he joked.

  Palmer ignored him, opened the cab door and looked inside.

  ‘They torched the cab as well. Very professional job, very professional.’

  He walked back to the rear doors.

  ‘Whoever those poor three chaps were, they must have really, really upset somebody in a big way to end up like that.’

  ‘Or perhaps they knew something they shouldn’t know, guv?’ Gheeta added. ‘Something that could hurt somebody badly if it got out.’

  ‘That’s a possibility. But why knock ‘em off like this? Doesn’t make sense. They could have been killed in prison, much easier to have it done in there. If they were killed because they knew something that they shouldn’t have known, it would seem that knowing it inside the prison was okay, but no way was it okay to get to the outside world with that information. I think this is going to be an intriguing case, Sergeant. Right, nothing we can do here so I think we will call it a night and see what the reports tell us in the morning. There’s a take-away down the road, fancy some barbecued ribs?’

  Gheeta’s look of disdain said it all.

  CHAPTER 3

  Earlier on that afternoon, Harry Shore’s mobile phone rang as he was studying the odds on a slip in a betting shop off Praed Street, Paddington.

  ‘Shit!’

  Quickly he filled in the slip and passed it with a twenty-pound note under the counter grille to the assistant behind.

  ‘Twenty on the return favourite, Cheryl. Gotta take this,’ he said, waving the phone at her. ‘Expecting news from Peter’s court case. If I win, I’ll take you for a beer.’

  Cheryl smiled benignly.

  ‘That’s a big if the way your luck’s been running lately, Harry.’

  She stamped the slip in her machine and passed him back the code number it issued.

  ‘And it’ll take more than a beer to get my knickers off.’

  ‘That’s not what I heard.’

  They both laughed and Harry Shore hurried out of the betting shop to take the call on his mobile. He moved to the kerb out of the way of the shoppers wandering along the busy high street and took the call.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Harry?’

  ‘Yeah, who’s this?’

  ‘Harry Shore?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  The line went dead.

  A motorbike pulled up to the kerb beside him. The pillion rider pulled a Glock 26 pistol from inside his leather jacket and shot Harry Shore in the heart. Harry Shore was dead before he hit the ground, but another shot was sent into his head to make sure before the bike and passenger sped away, weaving through the traffic.

  That evening, Frank Alexander stood looking out of his floor-to-ceiling office window on the 16th floor of the Shard on London’s South Bank. He looked down on London Bridge and the commuters and tourists going about their business.

  Fifty-six year-old Frank was ‘numero uno’ in the Alexander crime family, ‘numero uno’ because he was the last of the family; his father and uncles were all deceased, and his only brother had been killed in a hit-and-run ten years previously. A South London crime family, the Alexanders had built their empire up over four generations, starting with contraband and forged ration books after the Second World War, then into cheap stolen petrol during the rationing years, and then armed robbery of all types in the pre-CCTV days. Frank and his wife Gail used their heads to turn things into a legitimate business over the last ten years, as he could see the future of ‘big reward’ crime was in drugs and he wanted no part of that, unlike his brother who had tried to muscle in and had paid the price. The old-style East End and South Bank gangs had long been eclipsed by powerful, rich and violent Russian and Romanian gangsters, to whom killing an adversary was common place in their own countries and they had imported that criteria with them to the UK. Now Frank owned petrol stations and posh pawn shops, and only moved into criminal circles when the payout was so high as to justify the risk. Of course the business all looked straight and above board, with the correct accounting and auditing trails for any nosy HMRC inspector who took a look, but all was still supported to a large ext
ent by illegal methods.

  The petrol for the twenty petrol stations was forty percent stolen; honest tanker drivers working for the main suppliers and supermarket companies didn’t put up much resistance when masked men with guns appeared beside them after a meal break at a motorway service station. Later, the tanker – now empty – would be found with the blindfolded and trussed-up driver safe in the cab a hundred miles from where it was stolen, the petrol already transferred to a blank tanker in the middle of nowhere and on its way to be pumped into the tanks at one of Frank Alexander’s outlets.

  The posh pawn shops were situated in the affluent parts of the main UK cities. It was easy money: those people who could afford the designer handbags and works of art were so afraid that their circle of elite friends would drop them like hot coals when things went financially wrong that they would accept almost anything for their expensive goods in order to keep up appearances. Alexander’s high interest rates on the loan provided to them made it difficult for the client to redeem the goods, and so they often passed the redemption date and then off they went to a high-class auction. A Gucci bag worth five thousand pounds retail would be pawned for five hundred on a three-month redemption ticket, with interest taking it up to two thousand pounds, and if the client paid it, then all well and good, a nice profit. If they didn’t, then off it went to auction with a three thousand-pound reserve.

  But the top end of Frank Alexander’s empire was still the big money heist. Old habits die hard, and Frank wanted to go down in criminal history as the man who pulled off the big one – the real big one; bigger than Brinks Mat, bigger than Hatton Garden or the Irish Bank. And now, at last, he had his big one in his sites.

  His thoughts were interrupted as the door opened and his right-hand man George East entered. East was younger, in his forties, and had been with the Alexanders all his criminal life. He limped quite noticeably which was a result of a kneecapping given to him by irate IRA hierarchy when he and Frank’s father mistakenly thought they could set up a cross-border petrol smuggling business between the Republic and Northern Ireland without asking permission or paying a percentage. East leant over and whispered something to Frank.

  He nodded to East.

  ‘Bring him in, George.’

  East left and soon returned with a rather scared looking Robert Kershaw in tow. He pushed him down into one of the chairs and stood menacingly behind him, as Alexander walked round and sat on the side of the table alongside him.

  ‘There’s four people dead today because of you, Robert. Four people. Feel good about that, do you?’

  Kershaw squirmed.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re on about, Mr Alexander.’

  ‘I’m on about your big mouth Robert, and the loose tongue inside it. Your little tête-a-têtes with your cell mates inside the Scrubs Remand Block, telling them that you were up for a big job, a Frank Alexander job – my job, Robert; the job I put together, Robert; my big finale. All ready to go, and then you decide to have a poke at a Post Office for pin money with your stupid mate Shore and get caught. What a fucking twat you are.’

  Frank Alexander wasn’t given to using such language, but the job he had planned was going to be the highlight of his career. The one that others would talk about for years to come; his personal Brinks Mat, his own Great Train Robbery. His anger got the better of him and he slapped Kershaw hard.

  ‘I told you to keep your fucking head down and stay quiet, and out of the Met’s radar, didn’t I? I even gave you five grand upfront. So what do you do? You blow a fucking Post Office, get caught, and then broadcast to all and sundry in the remand cells that Frank Alexander is planning a big one.’

  Kershaw was getting a bit worried about his own good health.

  ‘I never said much. I don’t know much, do I? I don’t know what the job is, do I? You never told nobody what it is.’

  ‘No I didn’t, did I? And just as well I didn’t, with big mouths like you on the team.’

  ‘And what do you mean that there’s four people dead because of me? How come?’

  ‘Peter Shore, your cell mate for one.’

  ‘Dead? Peter’s dead?’

  ‘Yes. I had a visit from his brothers George and Harry; they came here a fortnight ago and told me they knew I was planning a big job and they wanted in. Now, how would a couple of petty car thieves like them know about the job, Robert? I’ll tell you how; they knew about it because brother Peter, your cell mate, had heard all about it from your big mouth and told them.’

  ‘How come he’s dead? George sprung him and Alli from the prison van with me.’

  ‘No I didn’t, Robert,’ said George. ‘Oh no I did not. If you remember you had a sack put over your head as you were hauled off that van. You didn’t see the other two get off, did you?’

  The light was beginning to shine in Robert Kershaw’s brain.

  ‘They’re dead, aren’t they.’

  ‘Yes’

  ‘Fuck’s sake, Mr Alexander. Alli didn’t know anything about the job.’

  ‘Of course he did, he was in the same remand cell. He would have heard you and Shore talking.’

  ‘Kept himself to himself. I liked Alli,’

  ‘Well now you’ve got his death on your conscience, haven’t you?’

  ‘Who’s the others then? That’s only two.’

  ‘I told you, Peter Shore’s brothers Harry and George came to see me.’

  ‘Jesus!’

  Alexander walked over to the large window and stood with his hands in his pockets, gazing down over London Bridge as he spoke.

  ‘George Shore thought it was just another day when he went to his lock-up this morning. He didn’t know it was to be his last one, and all because of your big mouth.’

  George East leant in close to Kershaw’s face.

  ‘If it was up to me, I’d have whacked you and your big mouth as well.’

  Frank Alexander turned and smiled at Kershaw.

  ‘Fortunately for you Robert, we need you because your brother-in-law Fred is in my plans for the job, and you are my only way of getting to him. Otherwise, George here would have had his wish.’

  ‘Fred? What do you need him for? He’s straight, never done nothing wrong in his life?’

  ‘He’s a security guard at the Royal Mint in Wales.’

  Kershaw fell silent for a few moments.

  ‘Fuck me, we’re going to rob the fucking Mint.’

  ‘Not quite Robert, but near.’

  CHAPTER 4

  By mid-morning the next day, the Metropolitan Police Serial Murder Squad’s team room was busy; very busy.

  Claire, the civilian assistant to the team, was handing out mug shots of the deceased, together with their potted criminal histories and known associates to the team of twelve detectives that Palmer had called in for the case. DS Singh was sorting out a number of iPads and their chargers for the team to take and use; they were programmed to use an encrypted intranet mail app that came directly into the servers in the Team Room, bypassing the Met’s Communication Room to save time and maintain security.

  Other cases the team were dealing with had been put on hold or downgraded as ‘non-urgent’ when the facts of this triple murder had become known to the ‘suits’ on the fifth floor at New Scotland Yard. The ‘suits’ had made it known to Palmer’s immediate boss, Assistant Commissioner Bateman, that this case must be solved, no ‘ifs’, no ‘buts’; Her Majesty’s Government could not have prisoners murdered while in its care, and certainly not by a hitman or hitmen.

  Bateman had passed on the instruction to Palmer by internal phone. Palmer had pointed out to AC Bateman that several prisoners inside H. M. Prisons were killed each year by other prisoners while in the care of her Majesty’s Government, but Bateman had ignored that.

  ‘Just get this one sorted Palmer, that’s all.’

  Palmer knew the real reason the fifth floor was getting twitchy on this one was that there was an election coming up, and the current Home Secretary and
his Party were always assumed to be ‘tough on crime’; a blatant unsolved serial murder would give the opposition a great deal of ammunition to question that assumption.

  Palmer walked across the corridor from his office into the Team Room and looked around; it gave him a great deal of confidence as he recognised the faces of tried and trusted officers he had used before. On big cases like this one, he was able to pull in officers from other CID departments that were on leave or on days off to augment his team, which was basically himself, Singh and Claire. They all had the choice of not coming in, but it was usual to get a hundred percent turn-out; they liked Palmer.

  He stood behind the main desk and clapped his hands for silence.

  ‘Gentlemen, welcome. Nice to see familiar faces, I hope you are all well and had plenty of sleep, because as usual when working with me you’re not going to get much down time until we solve this case. Those above are very concerned that when three people in custody are killed so easily it may give the public the wrong impression; it might, for instance, remind them that the force has had a twenty-seven per cent cut in manpower in the last three years.’

  Palmer was not averse to getting a point across when he could. The murmuring in the room showed many were in agreement.

  ‘Anyway, we are still here, and we have a job to do. You have in front of you printouts of the victims’ files, and I’m sure some of you will have had dealings with them in the past.’

  A murmur in the room confirmed that many of the Team had.

  ‘Right, pair up. First off, I want you to get your ear to the ground on our patch. I want to know what this lot were up to in the last year or so and who with; also I want to know about any rumours about any of them falling out with anybody else. I want to know what is so important that those particular three chaps were killed, what ties them together. We need to find that link. As usual, DS Singh will issue you with iPads to upload any information straight to the computers for our systems to analyse and collate.’