‘Here’s the van now,’ said Diane Fry, as a police Transit pulled into the end of the street and officers in bulletproof vests deployed from the rear doors.
In a few more minutes, the scene would be contained, and ready for the execution of a safe and uneventful arrest. With Ian Todd removed from the scene, they could bring in the SOCOs and search teams. But would Sandra Birley still be alive somewhere?
It was more than sixty hours since Sandra had been taken
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from the multistorey car park. Two days and three nights more than enough for her abductor to carry out whatever he had in mind. Although his supervisor at Peak Mutual confirmed that Todd had been working as normal during those two days, his job involved spending several hours on the road each day, visiting clients across North Derbyshire.
In any case, the nights had been entirely free for him to pursue his activities. He was unmarried and lived alone, so there was no one at home demanding an account of his whereabouts, or to question the condition of his car or his clothing. He could have taken his victim anywhere during that first night, before she was even reported missing. She could be at the other end of the country.
But Fry didn’t think that was the case. She thought Sandra Birley would be found within a few miles of Edendale, in a six-mile radius of Wardlow. Ian Todd had been ideally placed to make the phone calls. He had been on the road in his light green Vauxhall Vectra when both those calls had been made.
That Vectra stood on the drive of number 28 now. Shortly, it would become a crime scene and Forensics could give it a going-over.
Then the radio crackled back into life.
‘He’s out of the house, sir, going for the car. He must have seen us.’
‘Who the hell blew it?’ shouted Hitchens. ‘Never mind get moving. Block him in and we’ll take him now, before he gets his vehicle on to the street.’
The unmarked car started up and pulled away from the kerb with a squeal of tyres. The surveillance team were only yards from the driveway of number 28 and within seconds they had blocked Ian Todd’s exit. He looked up and saw them coming just as he reached his Vectra and thumbed the remote on his keyfob.
Fry was out of her door and standing in the road. She had a good view of Todd as he momentarily froze in his garden.
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He was tall, about six feet two, she guessed, and strongly built. But right now he looked scared.
‘He’s going to leg it,’ she said.
‘Diane, don’t go near him,’ said Hitchens. ‘You’re not wearing a vest.’
But in the end, she didn’t have to go near Ian Todd at all. He glanced from one end of the street to the other, taking in Fry and the police vehicles. And then he ran towards the marked van, where four officers in uniforms and bulletproof vests were advancing towards him. He met them a few yards down the road, and two of them took hold of his arms, turned him round and handcuffed him. Fry saw his face then. He looked more surprised than frightened.
‘Well, he must have thought you looked really scary,’ said Gavin Murfin, arriving at Fry’s shoulder. ‘He took one look at you and ran the other way.’
‘You shouldn’t be here, Gavin,’ she said. ‘You’re not wearing a vest.’
‘He’s handcuffed. What’s he going to do, kill me with his evil stare?’
Fry scrutinized Ian Todd’s house. It looked ordinary enough, but what killer’s home didn’t?
As Fry walked up the drive to the house, the front door opened. She stopped, suddenly conscious that Todd might have had an accomplice. If there was a second person involved and they were armed, she was completely exposed. She was appalled at herself for making such an elementary error.
Then, from the shadows of the hallway, a woman emerged and stood on the step. She was dark-haired and attractive, with a startled look in her eyes. They stood frozen, staring at each other, until Fry felt the initial surge of shock give way to anger. She stepped forward and held out her warrant card.
‘Detective Sergeant Fry, Edendale Police,’ she said. ‘And you, I believe, are Mrs Sandra Birley.’
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‘Excuse me. Detective Constable Cooper?’
Cooper turned to find a man in a dark suit standing behind him. Another funeral director’s assistant? But no ….
‘I’m Christopher Lloyd, the crematorium manager.’
‘Oh, Mr Lloyd. Thank you for taking the time to talk to me.’
Lloyd looked at Vernon Slack. ‘Come inside. It’ll be a little less public’
Another funeral party was gathering, even while the previous one was less than halfway through its service. Because they couldn’t go into the chapel, the mourners were milling about outside near the portecochere. They’d be in the way when the hearse arrived, but no doubt there would be someone whose job it was to herd them in the right direction.
The cremation suite itself stood at right angles to the chapel, with frosted windows under its square chimney stack. Inside, it had an inevitable industrial feel. The main room was dominated by two giant stainless-steel ovens with sliding doors just wide enough to take a coffin.
Cooper had only ever seen one cremator before, and that had been in Germany - a huge thing, fed by a machine built into the floor with an overhead crane to lift coffins into place, while others waited in line, as if on a conveyor belt. But the one he was looking at now was smaller. The only way of loading the coffins was by hand from a hydraulic bier.
To one side, he saw a computer control desk and a cremator operator wearing heat-resistant gloves and an aluminium apron. There was very little smell, except for the aroma of hot brick and metal from the ovens and the heat exchanger behind them.
‘Now, what would you like to know?’ said Lloyd. ‘Would it help if I began with a brief description of the way we
