The Twisted Web (Detective Hannah Robbins Crime Series book 4)

by Rebecca Bradley

  Obviously.

  What else was management about? But the buck would stop with me. I wouldn’t roll it any further down. I wouldn’t lay blame for this error at anyone else’s door or start shouting unanswerable questions at anyone below me.

  ‘Has he removed his original tweet?’ I asked.

  Evie picked up her glass again and took a deep slug. She nearly emptied the glass.

  ‘He has, but from what I understand, it doesn’t make any difference. The image is out there. People have saved the image and it’s being tweeted from other accounts as an original image.’

  ‘And Twitter?’

  ‘I have someone dealing with that now. Hopefully they will act swiftly to get it off their site, but the damage is done. It’s out that she’s been killed. People know how she was left. In what state.’ There was an air of resignation about him now. The deflation was complete.

  ‘Do you need me to come back in? I’ve had a glass of wine, but I can get a taxi if you need me.’ I hated to admit it, but there were no options.

  ‘No, it’s fine. Don’t have too much, DI Robbins.’ The use of my rank was to remind me of work. ‘I want you here early in the morning. We have a lot to be getting on with.’

  ‘What about Lacey’s parents?’ I asked. They had more than enough to be dealing with, without this on top of it all.

  ‘I’m going to contact the FLO next and ask them to make contact and appraise them of events. We don’t want them hearing about this by logging online. Hopefully they’re too grief-stricken to be browsing the internet.’ He stopped, as he realised what he had said. ‘I mean–’

  ‘I know.’

  Evie pursed her lips.

  ‘I’ll see you early in the morning, DI Robbins.’

  ‘Yes, Sir.’

  With that he was gone.

  ‘Wow,’ said Evie. ‘One of the kids went back and took a photo? He was braver than I would have been in those circumstances at that age.’

  I picked up my wine glass and downed the rest of the wine. ‘I’m not sure brave is a word I’d use for him right now.’ The stupidity of the boy had caused untold damage.

  ‘I’m sure he hasn’t thought about what it means to have uploaded it,’ she tried.

  ‘That’s the whole goddamn problem with the internet. And with teenagers loose on the internet. They don’t think about what they’re doing or the repercussions of their actions on there. He hasn’t even considered that this girl has a family and now he’s shared her death image all over the world and no matter how hard we try, it’s very likely that at some point in the future, even if it’s not tonight, or not this week, but at some point, they’ll be online looking for their daughter’s memories, and they’ll see her death in full technicolour.’ I was furious. I sounded like Baxter when he had phoned.

  I looked at my empty glass. ‘Do you want a top-up?’ I asked Evie.

  She stood. ‘I better not. I’m going to make sure I’m in early with you tomorrow. See what I can do to help. Get yourself to bed, yeah?’

  I stared at her. Sometimes she tried to parent me.

  ‘I saw you messing about with your arm before Baxter called,’ she said. ‘You could do with some rest. I know it plays you up when you’re tired or stressed. Get some sleep and we’ll start back on this with fresh eyes in the morning.’

  I hated being handled. Especially by Evie because she was usually right. I collected both glasses from the table and held them by the stems in one hand.

  Evie stepped closer, leaned in, wrapped her arms around my shoulders and hugged me. Her perfume had a slightly floral undertone and was warm and gentle and tickled my nose. ‘Get some rest, Hannah.’ She kissed my cheek and left. The door closing firmly behind her.

  I walked to the kitchen and shoved Evie’s glass into the dishwasher. Then I topped my glass up with what was left in the bottle, palmed painkillers into my mouth then walked towards my bedroom. She was right, I did need to rest and another glass of red wine would help me relax before we wound ourselves up again tomorrow.

  44.

  Drew woke up late. His housemate had already left for the day. The house was quiet. It was not like him to sleep in but he felt lighter than he had in a long time. It must be the relief that his plan had worked. It turned out that something terrible could happen and the internet could keep its opinions to itself and not ruin someone else’s life.

  That, and a beer with his housemate, made for a really peaceful and relaxing night.

  He shoved his feet into his slippers, pushed his arms into his dressing gown and made his way downstairs. His first coffee of the day was needed.

  The house was tidy, as it always was. His housemate was immaculate, if somewhat slightly obsessive about keeping everything in its place. This had had a knock-on effect on Drew. He had become afraid of upsetting the status-quo and put everything back in its place the minute he had finished using it.

  He had been a bit of a slob at home because Melissa had run around after him as much as she ran around after the children and he had accepted it. Like he accepted the way things were here.

  He was a people-pleaser.

  That’s what he was.

  He poured his coffee and brought it up to his nose, smelled the start of the day in the deep warm scent, and smiled.

  Today was so much better. All the previous days just melted away like a bad dream. If he could keep his days like this then it wouldn’t be long before the kids would be enjoying his company again. He could show them that the world was not such a bad place. The internet was not the dog fight it often appeared to be.

  Drew walked into the living room, coffee mug in hand, the cold frosty day blinking in through the window. He switched on the television and found one of the news channels. He hated the morning television shows. Full of rubbish. Full of people airing their dirty laundry in public and full of people discussing personal topics that should be kept at home and talked through with loved ones. You wouldn’t find him taking his woes with Melissa to a sofa on a TV screen.

  They’d offered it as well. A couple of the big daytime shows had been in touch after he had been shamed and lost his job. They wanted his side of it, they said. They wanted to show the world what had happened to him.

  He didn’t trust them. Plus, it was his business. The whole problem had been other people looking at him, so why would he draw more attention to himself?

  They must have thought he was stupid if they thought he would consider dragging it all through the minds of the public again.

  As he found out yesterday, his children still hadn’t recovered. They would never forgive him.

  How did people move on with their lives if they shared every moment of it with TV cameras and strangers?

  He found the channel he usually watched. The weather was on. A bleak grey day, starting off frosty then warming a couple of degrees but staying overcast.

  He sipped on his coffee. Leaned back in his chair.

  The world was starting to feel right. Better.

  The female newsreader came onto the screen. Some small talk between the weather guy and the reader before she turned to the screen to go over the morning’s headlines again.

  An image flashed onto the screen of Syrian refugees, worn and broken from the terrors that ravaged their country. Children wide-eyed but resigned at their way of life.

  Drew tuned out. Sipped his coffee and thought about his day ahead.

  Should he contact Melissa and Libbie again? Maybe it was too soon. He couldn’t expect Libbie to have calmed down this soon. He would have to be patient and give her time. He’d seen that he could change public opinion, so he could certainly sway his own daughter’s mind.

  The next shot on the screen froze Drew to the chair, his mug halfway to his mouth. The newsreader was saying something about not being able to show the viewers the image that had been online last night, but this was the scene of the crime. The wide-angled shot was of the garage where he had left the girl.

  This
wasn’t what had frozen him. He expected her to be found, of course, and for it to be reported. Though maybe only on the local news, not the national station, but it was that comment about an image online last night.

  He hadn’t seen anything.

  What image?

  What had he missed?

  Shaking he threw his mug in the sink and fired up his laptop on the kitchen worktop.

  She had to be wrong. There had been no chatter online last night. He had checked.

  He waited while the laptop woke up. It felt like an eternity as it dragged itself to life.

  He opened the browser and went straight to Twitter. Facebook might be where the majority of people spent their time but Twitter was where the news and the gossip and all the harm happened.

  There it was, in the trending list again. #LaceyLane – and images. He hadn’t expected images this time. Yes, he’d considered it, which is why he had left her in such a posed position, to test the public. It was no good doing what he was doing if he wasn’t testing them, but she was also more out of the way so photographs were less likely. Not like last time.

  But there were. Just two of them. Both very similar and with a nasty glare as the flash lit up her deathly white skin. Whoever had taken them had done a rushed job. The angle was off. You could only see one of the photographs of her on the mirror and only if you looked closely.

  If you knew what you were looking for.

  This was Twitter. This was a world filled with people who had nothing better to do than to examine the gory details and also with technically knowledgeable people. People who had blown the image up and had found the photograph of her pinned the mirror. Found the mirror.

  It was being called hideous and macabre.

  They were calling him hideous and macabre.

  He slammed the laptop screen down, felt it shudder beneath his fingers. His own shaking worse, he stumbled backwards to the other counter and fell into it, hitting his back. He leaned onto it. Pushed his elbows on to keep himself upright.

  They were calling him hideous.

  They were calling him macabre.

  They were calling him.

  All over again they were targeting him. Calling him. Regardless of whether they knew who they were saying these things about, he knew, he knew these names were aimed at him and his legs could barely hold him up.

  Was it shock or fear or anger that made him shake this way?

  He had no way to know what the feeling was that was creating the reaction in his body. He just knew he needed to try to pull himself together. He could feel his heart as it raced against his breast bone. His legs weakened and he sank to the floor. Coldness filled his entire core and spread out.

  This wasn’t supposed to happen.

  They were supposed to reflect. See that she had died the way she lived, via social media, that how they lived and behaved online should be considered and not be thrown away like a careless remark that can’t be taken back. Here they were, en masse, circling for blood, for his blood.

  Again.

  What was he going to do now?

  45.

  I could really have done with Aaron this morning but it was not to be. He was on one of his days off and would be back tomorrow. I had managed without him for the past six weeks so I was sure I could get through a day.

  Probably.

  Baxter was pacing up and down the corridor in front of my office when I walked in. This was definitely serious if he was not waiting for me to come to him.

  ‘There you are. I thought I said you needed to be here early this morning.’ He was exasperated. It wasn’t a good start.

  I looked at my watch. It was six-thirty. I raised my eyebrows at him. He took my point.

  ‘We’ll go in your office, now you’re here, shall we?’ Still that tone persisted that said he was displeased with my time of arrival.

  I pushed the door open and let him walk in ahead of me. The automatic eco-lighting came on as soon as he entered, bathing the office in a dim glow. I stalked around my desk and flicked my laptop on as Baxter paced around the room. Today there was no distasteful look at my desk; he was too wound up about the state of the investigation to worry about how I managed my workload.

  ‘Did we manage to remove the images last night?’ I asked as I watched my screen silently load.

  ‘We’ll never get them all, but we do have Twitter onside now. They don’t want a murder victim on their site, especially a second one, a trend of them, so they’re working with us.’

  ‘Good to hear.’ I slid my coat off, moved around to the coat stand and threw it over a hook. ‘And Lacey’s parents? How are they doing?’

  Baxter nearly growled at me. ‘As you’d expect after their daughter has been killed and then some imbecile decides it’s a good idea to splash the image all over the internet for everyone to look at.’

  ‘They didn’t go and view it, did they?’ I asked, horrified at the thought.

  ‘Amelia Riley, the FLO we’re using, drummed it into them what a bad idea it would be. Who knows what goes on once we leave the house. Are they too scared or too sensible to look? Or is the need to see your daughter’s last minutes on this earth too much of a pull to withstand?’

  He had a point. Those poor parents. No one deserves to see their child like that.

  ‘We need to double down on this, Hannah. It’s getting far more attention than I would like. The Chief is watching because of the national press and social media angle. He wants it wrapping up as soon as possible.’

  ‘Well, I’ll get right on that then.’ I couldn’t help myself.

  ‘Look,’ he sank heavily into the chair opposite me, ‘I know it’s not that easy on a large and complex investigation such as this. The Chief is aware of the complexities, but…’ he tapped his fingers on my desk. ‘From what I’ve gleaned, he’s getting pressure from the PCC.’

  Great. Police and Crime Commissioners were publicly elected officials who were in charge of not only the policing budget, but also in how the area is policed, its priorities and targets. Which, in my view was utterly ridiculous considering they knew nothing about policing, or what it took to combat crime. If the PCC wanted something sorting, then we sorted it. If he was looking at this case, because it reflected badly on him, then we were most definitely under pressure. He would want to be re-elected. And the Chief would want to be kept in role too. A decision that was in the hands of the PCC.

  It really was a farce. A long way away from how things were when I joined the job. It was true that there were areas of the police that needed to be improved. To put a civilian in charge, well, that was simply going too far the other way.

  ‘And Tierney is not happy with such public scrutiny on his force, I imagine?’ I said.

  ‘He is not indeed. Far from happy. So far from happy he’s threatening to come and visit the incident room, Hannah.’

  I stared at Baxter. ‘You’re kidding me?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘We’re only a matter of days into this. He can’t expect it to be wrapped up with a bow in that timeframe.’

  ‘He can and he does. And if it isn’t,’ he let out a sigh, ‘then he will come down and see what we’re doing.’ He gave me a forced smile. ‘For moral support, you understand.’

  Damn.

  ‘So, we need to throw everything we can at this. You’ll have all the resources we can manage–’

  ‘Is that all the resources I need,’ I interrupted, ‘or all the resources we can stretch to but with a bow on because it’s this job?’

  ‘Hannah, I’m getting a bit fed up of sighing over this case, can we please try and play nice on this? We’re both on the same side.’

  I relented. Inclined my head.

  ‘Of course we don’t have an unlimited budget,’ he said in response. ‘That’s not to say we have to scrimp.’

  ‘Good to know.’

  ‘And now we have that sorted.’ He leaned back in the chair. ‘How was Aaron’s first day back in t
he job?’

  The hairs on the back of my neck rose and I did my best not to stretch my face into a grimace at him.

  ‘I was sorry not to catch up with him yesterday,’ he said. ‘I wanted to speak to him. Welcome him back properly.’

  I could only imagine. He barely paused for breath, so caught up in the spiel he seemed to have rehearsed just for me.

  ‘I wanted to see how he felt about coming back after such an ordeal.’

  Now he looked me in the eye. What exactly did he expect from me? Did he think I would be on the same page as him in wanting to replace Aaron? To get another DS on the team? Did he not see how the team worked? I know he had only been here a few months, but come on. He had to see how closely we worked. How loyal we were to each other. And more importantly, how badly everyone had taken it when Aaron had his heart attack.

  ‘He did a great job,’ I replied. It wasn’t a lie. Aaron had in fact done a brilliant job. As he always did. I had been so grateful to have him back on the team. He put his all into every task he was assigned. You would never worry about a job you gave him. You were safe in the knowledge it would be completed and not left because he was too busy or stressed, as was sometimes the case in the force, in various departments. What with the government cuts many cops just couldn’t cope. Aaron though, he was so methodical; he kept his head until he worked his way through any task.

  ‘He didn’t have any problems at all?’ Baxter probed, with a little too much, what? What was that in his voice? Excitement? At the prospect that Aaron may have struggled.

  I had been honest when I said Aaron had done a great job. I had answered that question correctly, but this question, about how he had coped. That was a different question altogether. I flicked my hand through my hair. Looked up at the strip lights in the ceiling. At the one bulb in the corner that needed replacing. Luckily it was over the door and not over my desk. Which was why I hadn’t done anything about it yet.

  I was not in the habit of outright lying to my supervisors. ‘You’ll have to ask him how he felt,’ was how I chose to go with it. ‘All I can do is vouch for his ability to do the job.’ I stared him down. ‘Which, I might say, was no different to before he was forced off sick.’