And when he had been in the corridor waiting outside the courtroom, Roger had overheard a couple of the police officers talking about the O’Connor’s and how the police had been after him them for years but could never find enough evidence to convict them. So it seems they had always managed to stay one step ahead of them. His lawyer had confirmed that the O’Connor family were ‘people of interest’ to the police but they seemed to operate outside of the law.
And he remembered one or two of the remarks the two detectives had made during their recent visit.
They believed the witness had either been paid off or more likely, threatened, to change his story. The things they had told him about how they would like to do more but sadly lacked the resources.
The more Roger thought about everything that had happened the more determined he was to try to get some justice for his daughter.
He was confident he could change that. As a relatively wealthy man, he had all the resources it would take. He could discover what Kevin O’Connor’s illegal activities were, gather the evidence against him and present it to the police so they could convict him. It might not be for causing the death of his daughter and her best friend, but it would represent some sort of justice. And besides, with his daughter gone, what else did he have to occupy his mind?
Trentbridge Engineering could run without Roger at the helm. The four divisions each had strong leadership and his PA could handle all the day-to-day matters. Two years ago, when he had gone on a trip to the US and Australia the business had run without him for the two months he was away. In fact, he was proud that many of his team had introduced new systems into the business. So he was in no doubt they could cope while he was spending time looking into the affairs of the O’Connor family.
But he would have to be careful. He was about to go up against a family who would stop at nothing to get their own way. From things he had overheard the police officers in court discussing, he wondered how many more people the man had killed in the past. And how many more would suffer in the future at the hands of the unscrupulous family?
Roger had seen the police were virtually powerless to stop Kevin. If he was going to do better, then he needed to do things the police were unable or unwilling to do. But keep within the law.
He had spent a lot of time working on a plan, and now he was ready to carry it out. Whatever the risks.
The clock on the dashboard displayed 6.02 a.m. Roger pressed the remote and the garage door opened to allow his Range Rover to emerge. He set the satnav for Fen Road, an area of Trentbridge he knew mainly by reputation and had only visited on one occasion that he could recall. Twenty-four years earlier, when he was first starting his engineering business and was looking for cheap premises he had looked at a unit on a small industrial estate there, but it didn’t have the three-phase electricity supply he needed, and so he opted for a small start-up unit on the Milton Industrial Estate.
With virtually no traffic to contend with, it took just fifteen minutes before the satnav showed Roger was close to reaching his destination. The Range Rover turned onto Fen Road, and he drove along at fifteen miles an hour to take in the surroundings. He knew he would be able to review everything later thanks to the front and rear HD-quality dash cams attached to his vehicle. He could view everything using the BlackVue app on his phone, which he could then download and watch on his computer.
He drove to the end of the road, passing the various caravan parks and small commercial estates that were spread the length of the road. At various points, he could see the River Stern that sometimes ran close to the road and at other points disappeared behind the houses or structures that made up that side of the road.
Fen Road was a no through road that came to an end when it reached the blocked-off entrance to Manor Farm. As he turned around and drove slowly back the way he had come, he noticed across on the neighbouring Pickstone Council estate a handful of ‘To Let’ boards, with the names of various estate agents, one of which was on a board opposite the Two Oaks Caravan Park. He recalled in one of the newspaper stories reporting the trial it had mentioned that Kevin O’Connor lived in a large house next to the Two Oaks caravan site. The newspaper had even shown a photograph of the property, together with a photo of Kevin which had been taken as he entered the court.
Roger made a note of the estate agent’s details and then drove out of Fen Road and around to the council estate to view the property. After checking out the house from the front, he walked down the side alleyway and came to the back garden. From there he had a view of Kevin O’Connor’s house. It looked like the view from one of the upstairs rooms would be far better but he would need to check that when he came back with the estate agent and had a tour of the inside of the house. He would phone them later and make an appointment.
After pouring the milk onto his muesli, Roger sat down at the kitchen table, opened his laptop and typed in the estate agents website address. It didn’t take
