PART 2
“All units. All units. Shots fired at Lakeside Drive. A woman is trapped in the property and a gunman may still be in the area around her home. One man shot already. Ambulance en route. Use extreme caution.”
Palmer was taking his car to the garage for a service. He wasn’t far from Lakeside Drive but this was something for uniform.
The radio came to life again. “Dispatch to Detective Palmer, over.”
“Palmer, go ahead.”
“Detective, there is a shooting at Lakeside Drive. The woman calling it in is called Maeve Sparks. She’s the wife of Edward Sparks.”
Palmer gunned the engine. He was only a few minutes from the scene, he should get there before any of the other police officers. “I didn’t even know Sparks had a cabin out here,” he murmured.
He pulled up to the front door, the wheels skidding in the soft mud. He ran up the steps with his pistol in hand. They said the gunman could be nearby. Inside, he saw the smashed windows in the lounge and Edward Sparks in the middle of a pool of blood. Palmer knelt beside the body and looked him over. There were so many bullet holes he knew there was no chance he was alive.
Where was the shooter? And where was Maeve?
“Police! Is anyone here?” he shouted.
“I’m upstairs,” he heard Maeve call.
“Where’s the shooter?”
“He’s gone. He drove away.”
“I’m coming up.” he said and climbed the stairs. He could hear sobbing from the end room. As he tried the handle to get inside, he found there was something blocking the way. He shoved the door and it pushed over the wardrobe that was barricading it. Inside, Maeve was curled on the bed like a child, her shoulders jerking with tears. Her blonde hair was sticking up everywhere; black streaks of mascara ran down her face.
“Maeve,” he murmured. “What happened?”
She turned to him and her chin trembled. “Is Edward okay?”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “Can you tell me what you saw?”
“There was a man outside.” She started but her body was wracked with sobs at every word. “When Edward opened the curtains he began firing and I ran upstairs to call the police.” She got off the bed and moved to the window. “I looked out here and I could see a van outside. It had the Arenke logo on the back. Then a tall man with dark curly hair got in and drove away.” She wiped her eyes. “Edward didn’t think anything would happen. I told him it was Arenke but Edward wouldn’t listen.” Her shoulders drooped.
An Arenke vehicle. An eyewitness. He already had the motive but now he could be made an official suspect and questioned formally. Sirens began to fade in as police approached. “Maeve, I’m going to talk with the other police. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
He waved his arms at the approaching car and showed his credentials. “The shooter is gone,” he called. “He fled in an Arenke Industries vehicle.” Palmer walked over to where Maeve had pointed. There were clear tyre tracks in the soft mud. “Get forensics here. I want a cast of these tracks.”
Tyre tracks. An eye witness. If he could match the tracks to one of Arenke’s vehicles, then Jacques Arenke would have a case to answer.
----- X -----
Arenke stood at the window of his office looking down into the street. The city looked so small from up here, he thought to himself, like a toy village. But toys didn’t commit murder. He noticed a police car parked outside, another close behind. The men got out and spoke to one another before entering his building. On his desk was a newspaper, the headline screamed, ‘Businessman Edward Sparks Murdered’. The story hadn’t gone into much detail, but still managed to mention his name as ‘the suspicious rival with a motive’. He hoped the police would be smarter than to listen to gossip and tabloids.
He picked up the phone.
“Jacque, what is it?” Kane Armours asked.
“I think I’m about to be arrested over Sparks.”
“What? Are you under arrest now?”
“No, but the police have just arrived and I guess they’re on their way up.”
He heard Kane groan. “Right, don’t say anything and don’t resist it. Just be silent until I get there.” He paused and Arenke heard fingers drumming on wood as if in thought. “I’ll call Harriet and tell her what’s going on then I’ll meet you down at the station. Okay?”
“Alright.” He hung up the phone. He pushed the door open slightly and saw the elevator was moving towards his floor. “Don’t say anything. Don’t say anything. Don’t say anything.” Jacques chanted quietly under his breath as the lift ascended.
5th floor. 6th floor. 7th floor. Nearly here. The elevator pinged and the doors opened revealing Palmer and two police officers.
Palmer had a swagger to him, a sense of purpose. “Jacques Arenke, I am arresting you on suspicion of involvement with the murder of Edward Sparks. You do not have to say anything, but anything you do say may be given in evidence.” Arenke held his hands out and allowed one of the officers to put handcuffs on him. He was led down to the police cars. As he stepped out into the street a few people passing by noticed the cuffs and took pictures with their phones. “Great,” he mumbled. “There’s tomorrow’s front page.”
----- X -----
Kane Armours put his head in his hands. He reached for his phone again. He tapped his fingers on the desk impatiently as he waited for Smotes to pick up the phone.
“Kane? What is it?”
“Arenke has been arrested for the murder of Edward Sparks, he’s about to be interviewed as an official suspect.”
“Oh, no.”
“There is a silver lining. Now he’s officially a suspect we, as his legal team, have access to all police information. I’m about to go down and sit through the interview with him, but do you have anything that could help?”
“I haven’t got much but there is something odd about the restaurant shooting. There are no bullet holes. The gunman fired from close range and missed everything.”
“That’s interesting... Keep looking.” He hung up the phone and grabbed his coat.
----- X -----
Palmer was in the basement parking lot of Arenke’s building. There were thirty vans in two neat rows: some for his hotel linen collection service, some for refuse and some general purpose. A technician was on his hands and knees trying to match the tyre track photograph against the wheels of the vans. “That’s the last one, no match,” he said to Palmer. “Are you sure it’s a van with the logo on the back doors?”
Palmer was holding Maeve’s statement in his hands. He flipped through to the relevant section. “I saw the Arenke logo on the back of the van,” he read aloud. He looked along the two rows of vans. Some had logos on the back and some didn’t, but they all said Arenke on the side. “Maybe you’re right, maybe she wasn't perfectly accurate, she said it was on the back, but she may have just meant the van had a logo on it.”
“I’ve checked every one with a logo on the back. Shall I check the others? And are we sure these are all the vans?”
The head mechanic was watching the police. “Every van’s here and accounted for,” he said. “If one was missing then I would know.”
“Check every van then.” Palmer said.
The assistant got back to work. Palmer walked by as the technician methodically checked every wheel. It was slow as he had to shine his torch onto the rubber and follow each wheel round nice and slowly to make sure he didn’t miss anything.
“Palmer! I think I got something. Come and take a look.” Palmer got onto his knees. The technician pointed to a blemish on the tyre photograph. “See this? It’s a tell-tale scrape where the driver hit the kerb when parking.” Then he pointed to the wheel, “And I think that’s your same blemish.”
Palmer put the photo beside the blemish and nodded. “I think it could be. Let’s get a flatbed truck in here and take the van back to the lab; but that’s a good match. I’d bet half this month's wages this is the
van.”
----- X -----
Harriet pushed through the crowd of reporters outside the police station. One of them followed her. “Excuse me. Miss Smotes, I understand you’re working for Arenke. Do you think he will get bail today?”
“What makes you think I work for him?”
“You didn’t deny it… And I’m an investigative reporter, that’s how I know. Will he get bail or do the police have enough to charge him with murder?”
“I have no comment.” Harriet answered and entered the courthouse. How the heck had the press known she was working with Arenke already? Who was that guy? She moved back to the door and looked out but couldn’t place him amongst the other reporters.
In the reception, she spotted the newspaper headline. ‘Murderous Arenke ‘I want Sparks dead’ email.’ She was still holding the newspaper when she spotted Palmer. “Geoffrey,” she called. “What have you got on Jaques?”
“What have I got… The murder vehicle, the motive and an email saying he wanted Sparks dead.”
“An email, what email?”
Palmer grinned. “You’re an official investigator, you’re on the legal team, come and drop by later and take a look. It would be my pleasure to show it to you.” Palmer walked on leaving Harriet with the newspaper. He turned back and called over his shoulder, “He’s done this before remember. He got away with it last time. But this time, his luck has run out.”
----- X -----
Jacques Arenke looked around the dark