‘What about Deirdre’s stepson?’ asked Mark.
‘Lou and I spoke to him last night,’ replied Dixon. ‘We’re checking his finances, but my feeling is we can rule him out. On the face of it, he’s got an alibi and no connection whatsoever with Michael Allam.’
‘How does Thomas Fowler fit in?’ asked Wevill. ‘Assuming it’s confirmed he’s a victim.’
‘He doesn’t. He’s a lift engineer from Dorset and neither school had a lift. If he is a victim then we’re likely to find ourselves back to square one. We’ve got the press conference at ten, so we’ll see if anything comes of that.’
‘What if there’s no connection between any of them?’ Wevill again.
‘Then we’re dealing with something entirely different. A killer picking his or her elderly victims at random, and it doesn’t bear thinking about.’
‘Just to be clear,’ said Charlesworth, turning to Dixon in the corridor behind the media suite, ‘there’s to be no mention of the third victim – the third possible victim. Three makes it a serial killer and we really don’t want those words being bandied about.’
‘I haven’t spoken to the son yet, anyway, Sir,’ said Dixon.
Vicky Thomas was hovering behind Charlesworth. ‘I thought a family member had agreed to appear at the press conference?’ she asked.
‘Michael Allam’s daughter did offer, but I decided against it,’ replied Dixon.
‘Why, may I ask?’
‘It took a week for Devon and Cornwall to spot her father had been murdered, and she’s pretty hot under the collar about it. I didn’t want to risk the press conference becoming about police incompetence. After all, as far as the general public are concerned, the police are the police, they don’t care about county boundaries and chains of command.’
‘Bravo, Nick,’ said Charlesworth.
‘The press are expecting a family member, though, so I’ll need to let them know before you go in.’ Vicky disappeared through the door behind Charlesworth.
The visitors’ car park had been empty when Dixon arrived at Express Park, but a glance out of the floor to ceiling windows upstairs had told him the media suite would be full. The BBC and Sky, satellite dishes on top of the vans, not that there was much he could tell them at this stage. Less than forty-eight hours ago he’d been walking his dog on the beach and looking forward to going wassailing, blissfully unaware there was a serial killer on his patch.
And there was. He was in no doubt about that.
‘I’ve got a prepared statement to read, then we’ll take questions,’ said Charlesworth. ‘You still haven’t done your media training, have you?’
‘No, Sir.’
‘We must sort that out, then you won’t need me to hold your hand at these things.’
And there was me thinking you did it just to get on the telly.
Television cameras guaranteed a slot on the evening news, half-hourly on the rolling news channels if it went national, and it probably would. Someone killing old people in their own homes was suitably grim. It might even make Netflix one day, not that Dixon would appear in the documentary.
Charlesworth’s prepared statement laid out the bare facts – those that could be made public anyway. It was short, even allowing for the request for members of the public to keep an eye on elderly neighbours and the appeal for information at the end, two doorbell camera images from Deirdre Baxter’s neighbour projected on to a screen behind him.
‘We are anxious to eliminate this person from our enquiries . . .’
Dixon let his mind wander. There was a connection between Deirdre Baxter and Michael Allam, he felt sure of it; finding it was another matter. Sometimes it was just a question of realising the significance of something he’d already seen. But what? Nothing had really struck him as odd, or out of place. Except perhaps a baby’s dummy in the glovebox of Deirdre’s car. There wasn’t one in his glovebox; not yet, anyway.
‘We’ll now take questions.’ Charlesworth’s words dragged Dixon back to the press conference.
Reluctantly.
‘I have a question for the acting detective superintendent.’
The voice came from the local hack, a mischief-maker from the Bridgwater Mercury who’d got Dixon into trouble before with his blunt questions.
‘Is there a serial killer on the loose?’
And there it was again. Dixon could feel Charlesworth’s eyes burning into the side of his head.
‘We are aware of two victims at the present time, so the answer to that question would be no, a serial killer is not on the loose.’ It was a lie, and Dixon knew it in his gut.
‘Is there any connection between the two victims, other than the manner in which they were killed?’ A woman down at the front, a handheld recorder at full stretch.
‘We’re exploring a number of lines of enquiry. Both victims were retired teachers at schools in Burnham-on-Sea, so we’re asking any pupils and colleagues who may remember them to get in touch. Deirdre Baxter taught at St Christopher’s and Michael Allam at St Joseph’s. Any memories you may have of them, however trivial they seem, might just hold the key.’
‘Is there any suggestion of abuse at either or both schools? They were boarding schools, weren’t they?’
‘None whatsoever, and that sort of speculation is unhelpful.’ Dixon was bridling now; he shifted in his seat, trying to hide his unease. ‘Both victims were long-serving and dedicated members of the teaching staff, but if evidence of abuse comes to light then it will be taken seriously and dealt with accordingly.’
Charlesworth wound up the press conference, much to Dixon’s relief.
‘They’re going to do exactly what we’ve done,’ Charlesworth said, once in the sanctuary of the corridor behind the media suite. ‘They’ll trawl through the records of the coroner’s court looking for elderly people dying alone in their own homes. And there’s nothing we can do to stop them.’
‘They won’t check Dorset,’ replied Dixon. ‘So I’d be surprised if there was a welcoming committee waiting for us when we pitch up at the graveyard to exhume Thomas Fowler.’
‘When is that likely to be?’
