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

by Rebecca Bradley

‘What’s it about?’ The door was still almost closed. He was talking through a small opening.

  ‘I’m not sure you want us to discuss it out here?’

  He huffed out a lungful of air. ‘Wait there.’ The door was slammed shut in our faces.

  ‘Well he’s a charmer,’ said Martin.

  ‘If it went on personality alone I’d say we had our man.’

  ‘It would make our job so much easier,’ he agreed. ‘What do you think he’s doing in there?’

  ‘Whatever it is he’s hiding, or covering up, we can’t stop him. We don’t have a warrant. We’re just here to talk to him about the emails, which in themselves aren’t an offence. So, we’ll see what he says, assess it and go from there.’

  It wasn’t particularly warm stood on this doorstep. We had been made to wait when he’d refused to answer the door and now we were being made to wait while he did something inside the house. Which was obviously suspicious.

  I rapped my knuckles against the glass pane again, my temper fraying as the cold air tucked itself inside my coat.

  Again Cooper yanked the door open with the finesse of a walrus ballet dancing. He stood back and I took the invitation and stepped inside.

  ‘Well?’ he asked without moving further into the house. If we were just going to stand in the hallway why had he made us wait outside while he covered up or hidden whatever it was he had been hiding? It would have been nice to get a look around.

  ‘Shall we go and sit down to have this conversation?’ I asked.

  ‘How long is it going to take?’ He really wasn’t happy about us being here.

  ‘Not too long,’ Martin tried to placate him. ‘But neither is it a one-minute issue.

  Cooper looked around him, as though the answer to all this lay on the walls or up the stairs, then walked through the nearest door into the living room. We both followed him in. He’d obviously done a good job with his cover-up because I couldn’t spot anything that we should be concerned about.

  The room was fairly sparse. There was a three-piece suite and a television as well as a laptop on the arm of one of the chairs. Lid down. Now that was probably what we would be interested in.

  Cooper sat in the chair with the laptop. ‘Are you going to tell me what this is about now?’ His patience was wearing thin. Though I wasn’t sure if it was impatience or worry.

  ‘Did you hear about the death of Sebastian Wade the other day?’ I asked, getting straight to the point.

  His face gave nothing away. Whether he had killed Sebastian or not, he had still interacted with him, harassed him and yet here he was cool and calm.

  ‘I heard that someone had been killed. I couldn’t have told you the guy’s name. I don’t follow the news that much.’ He was perched on the edge of the chair. Not relaxed at all. He looked ready for flight. Not that he could go anywhere from here.

  ‘You don’t recognise the name now we bring it up?’ I tried again.

  ‘No, should I?’

  I felt Martin turn and look at me then back to Cooper. ‘The reason we’re here today is your contact with Sebastian.’

  There was a silence. Cooper stiffened. He paled and his fingers laced into one another in his lap turning white where they gripped too tightly.

  ‘Would you like to tell us about that?’ I asked him.

  ‘Am I…’ His throat caught, his mouth dry. He licked his lips and tried again. ‘Am I under…’ This time I could see his mouth sticking together as the saliva had drained away. ‘Arrest?’ There was a slapping sound as he forced the words through his now dusty unworkable mouth.

  ‘Should you be?’ I asked. Interested in this reaction. Wondering where this would go.

  Cooper gave a ferocious shake of his head. His tongue slid out again as it tried to add moisture to enable his power of speech.

  ‘Can I get you a glass of water?’ Martin stood. It wasn’t so much a question about the water, more a question about the direction of the kitchen.

  Cooper pointed the way, a grateful look on his face.

  Not a minute later Martin was back, a glass of water in hand. Cooper grabbed it greedily. Slurped at it, licked his lips. This time they glistened as his tongue moved around his mouth. The only sound in the room, that of huge gulps of water as he swallowed before he was ready to try to talk again.

  ‘Okay?’ I asked once he had drained half the glass of water.

  He nodded. Silent still.

  ‘Ready to talk?’

  ‘I’ll ask again,’ he said. ‘Am I under arrest?’ He was a different man to the one at the door who had been brash and confident. This man was afraid and quiet.

  ‘You’re not under arrest, Mr Cooper, what would make you think that you are?’ The minute that he said anything that indicated he was involved in a crime, we would have to stop the questions and make the arrest he was so very obviously afraid of. We could not continue to question him without him being cautioned and without the right to a solicitor, but at the moment, we had no idea if he had done anything. All he had done was speak to our victim. He was a… I could hardly call him a witness, this may be thin ground, but it was ground I was happy to stand on. For the moment.

  ‘You come here, the two of you, try to trick me with a question before telling me you already know the answer.’

  ‘Why would you lie about knowing Sebastian?’ I asked.

  ‘Why do you think?’ He took another deep mouthful of water and swallowed again.

  ‘I don’t know, that’s why we’ve come to talk to you. To find out about your relationship with him.’

  He snorted at this. Water flew out of his nose. His hand shot up to his nose and his cheeks bloomed. ‘I’m so sorry,’ he mumbled from behind his hand.

  ‘Don’t worry about it. Take your time and tell us, first of all, why you lied about knowing Sebastian and then about your relationship with him.’

  He wiped at his face with the back of his hand, playing for time. ‘Do I have to answer your questions?’

  ‘You don’t, no. As I said, you’re not under arrest, but, it would be really helpful if you could. This is, as you know, a murder investigation. We just want to follow all the lines of inquiry, follow up on all contact Sebastian had before his death and rule people out or find further lines of inquiry we can follow. You would make us more suspicious if you decided you didn’t want to help us. If you have nothing to hide, then I don’t see that there’s an issue.’

  The thin ground I was now on was starting to crack. Pressuring people this way was not supposed to be the way we did things. I had to back off now if I wasn’t going to go the route of arrest.

  Cooper thought some more. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t think I can talk to you,’ he said eventually.

  I paused a minute. Wondered if I had enough grounds for arrest. He had sent the victim some emails to his website, and the victim had ended up dead. The problem was, the emails hadn’t been particularly threatening. They could have been classed as harassment should Sebastian have wanted to pursue that if he’d have been alive, but they didn’t make any specific threats towards him. Not liking what he did didn’t give me enough grounds. I had to walk away.

  ‘You’re sure about that?’ I tried again.

  ‘I’m positive.’ He stood.

  Our cue to leave.

  Martin and I rose.

  I handed him my contact card. ‘We could really do with your help,’ I said. ‘If you change your mind, please do get in touch with me. Leave a message if I’m not available. My email is on there as well.’ The irony was not lost on me.

  He took the card from my hand and shoved it in his jeans pocket.

  ‘Thank you for your time.’

  He shut the door in my face. Yet again.

  ‘That wasn’t strange at all,’ said Martin as we walked back to the car.

  ‘I want to know what he’s hiding,’ I replied as I climbed into the car and clipped myself in. ‘He’s now made his way to the top of my suspect list.’

  50.


  Drew thought his housemate believed himself a young man because right now he was sitting downstairs watching some shit on the television. Some reality TV shit that the youths watch. When the reality was he was a similar age to him. They had never had the conversation about their ages. You just don’t, do you, as blokes. It’s more of a woman thing, to consider and compare ages. Blokes, they don’t really care about that kind of thing. If they’re adults and working together or living together or drinking together, then all was good.

  There was a line to be drawn at teenage television programmes when you are obviously not a teenager. Grow the hell up.

  Because of this crap on downstairs, Drew had taken himself to his room to watch the news. He wanted to bring himself up to date with what was going on with the police investigation. Social media and the news channels were the only places he could find his information and it was either a trickle or outrageous rumour. He knew what was rumour and what wasn’t as far as the offence was concerned, but he needed to know more about what the police were doing. He needed to be able to protect himself so he could protect his children in all of this. They were his priority after all. To finally show the craven keyboard warriors what they were and in doing that, show his children that these people were nothing, what they said and did was not worth dictating their lives over.

  The newsreader was talking about a new policy that the PM was attempting to push through but which was getting a lot of heat from the opposition. Drew was not interested in the slightest.

  He picked up his phone and opened the photo app. Scrolled back a couple of years. To when they were a family. Photos of the kids. Just snaps of them in the house doing mundane things, homework in the kitchen, Dylan tormenting Libbie, Melissa hugging Dylan when he was ill. Which he would hate if any of his friends got hold of that image, at his age.

  They were his whole life.

  The TV screen in front of him changed and Nottinghamshire police headquarters was in view with the banner Police run media appeal.

  Drew snatched up the remote control and pressed feverishly at the buttons to turn the sound up. He turned it up so loud the set vibrated and echoed. He pressed at the remote again, turning it back down a little.

  The picture changed to a panel inside the police station, a table of officers with serious expressions. He shuffled forward, compelled to be near the screen, near the officers and near the media appeal. Even after the fact.

  The main officer, a DCI Kevin Baxter according to the ticker tape running along the bottom of the screen, was calm and relaxed. This was the opposite of how Drew felt right at this moment. He was about to find out what the police knew and what they thought about what was happening. Straight from their mouths, not from the gossip and fake machine that was the social media sites.

  On the screen Baxter pulled himself up taller, dropped his shoulders and took a visible breath in. Then he read, in a steady and strong voice, from a prepared statement. He named the victims. Sebastian Wade and Lacey Nettleton, otherwise known as Lacey Lane.

  Drew nodded along with the speech, his own breathing short and shallow.

  DCI Baxter asked that the victims’ families be given peace at this time as they deal with their grief. Drew barked out a laugh. He had to be joking. Whether the press listened to him was one thing, but the public and their appetite for the emotional pain of others was insatiable. There would be no stopping them. What they did not know they would simply guess, conjecture and make up. They would not let the small issue of facts or loss or grief stop their blood sport. Their daily fix of someone else’s emotional pain.

  Baxter went on to ask that no more images be shared online.

  Drew stood from where he had been perched on the edge of the bed. He didn’t know what to do with himself. The irony of this man sitting here outright asking these people to do exactly what it was he had been attempting.

  They were deaf though.

  Baxter moved on to ask anyone with information on the murders to come forward and gave out a hotline number.

  Drew paced the room. He scratched at his arms.

  How could this DCI be so calm and ask such stupid things? Did he not realise what he was asking?

  The room was then opened for questions. Drew attempted to rein his emotions in so he could listen. Maybe he would learn more about the investigation now because nothing of note had been offered so far.

  The first question was about Wade being a true-crime blogger and did the police think it had any bearing on the offence, particularly as he’d been found the way he had, in a crime scene.

  Drew dropped back down to the bed and waited for the DCI’s response. His breath held in his chest. Baxter skirted the issue. Said it was a line of inquiry. That was it. Drew wanted to vomit.

  The next question was about him, about Drew. And about whether he wanted the victims to be found.

  Clever, clever journalist.

  Again the DCI skirted the question, failing to give a straight answer. They didn’t have a clue.

  Then another question and the DCI said this was the last one. Drew wondered if he would actually answer this one, if he would learn anything this time, or if this would have been a giant waste of his time.

  The question was again about him. It was strange to hear. To listen to the journalists asking questions about him, on national television. To be sitting here and to know that it was him they were talking about but that no one else knew it was him. It was his little secret. It gave him a warm glow.

  To be the centre of attention this way. To know it is you. For no one else to know this fact. He wanted to go and tell his housemate that they were talking about him. That this guy on the TV everyone was discussing was him. He clapped his hands together and held tightly. He couldn’t do that. He didn’t want to get caught and leave his family, be any further away from them than he was now.

  He missed the start of the next question. His mind had wandered, but as he caught up he realised it was to do with social media, something about whether it had any impact on the investigation and finally if the DCI thought public sentiment would impact him.

  It was a good question and he was eager to hear the answers.

  The DCI passed it over to the female officer, DI Hannah Robbins. Drew recognised her. She didn’t look comfortable to have the question foisted on her this way. After a bit of a pause she spoke. Drew leaned forward.

  The social media outcry would not and was not having an impact on the investigation and though she couldn’t speak for the killer’s state of mind, it was likely he knew what would happen when he left Sebastian Wade out on the council building steps that way.

  She was spot on.

  He did know.

  She was pretty intuitive. He liked her and would be interested in her thoughts on him if it didn’t mean his freedom was at risk.

  51.

  Aaron walked into the incident room. There was no one else in. The light was on in Hannah’s office but he didn’t bother to stick his head in. He was desperate to get back to work. The enforced days off created by the phased return grated on him because of his need to be back at work, but how it was all planned out and organised, he could work with that. It balanced him out. Allowed for him to follow the plan.

  Now it was his day to be back in the office, he was eager to show he was here and able and willing.

  That was not to say he hadn’t made the most of having yesterday off. The need to gather his energy had been strong. He had been overwhelmed by the level of fatigue. Shocked by how weak his body was. How much it had let him down recently and continued to do so by not allowing him to go back to the person he used to be.

  Sitting at his desk, he switched on his computer and waited for the screen to load. Yesterday had been a busy day for the incident room. He had watched the press conference on the news. He had followed the conversations about it afterwards. And Lisa had told him what social media was saying that evening as he did some more drawings at the kitchen table.

&nbs
p; With the screen loaded he checked into HOLMES and read through the entries.

  They had their hands full. They had no substantive evidence on either case as yet. No witnesses other than an elderly woman who couldn’t see very well and wouldn’t be able to do a sketch or ID the man she’d seen. And, they had no link between the cases. Other than the brief description from the old woman which could have been the male from the CCTV from the night Sebastian Wade was dumped.

  A suitcase? That hadn’t been mentioned in the press. Not surprising really. Very movie like, wasn’t it? It seemed a bit crass to Aaron, but then again, this guy, if they were one and the same, had wheeled a dead Sebastian Wade across Market Square and dumped him in front of viewing eyes. Brazen if ever the word were needed.

  ‘Hey, I thought I heard someone moving about,’ Hannah said from the doorway. ‘It’s great to have you back again.’ She smiled. ‘It feels like I only just said that to you.’

  He returned her smile. ‘It’s good to be back. It really is. I just want to do my job. Not sit at home all day.’

  She moved further into the room, a mug in her hand.

  ‘Want me to make you one?’ she asked, lifting her mug up.

  He shook his head. ‘I want to catch up on yesterday’s workload so I’m good to go when everyone is in.’

  ‘Is that a hint for me to leave you in peace?’

  ‘It wasn’t, but yes, I could do with the space.’

  She pulled a chair from the desk next to him and rolled it over, sitting down making sure not to spill the contents of her mug.

  ‘I need to work,’ he reiterated.

  ‘We need to talk,’ she countered, then looked around the room and towards the outer door.

  ‘Am I in trouble?’ He hadn’t been here to be able to be in any trouble, but he never understood conversations that started with the phrase we need to talk. They made him nervous. It never seemed like a good four words to him.

  She didn’t smile, but told him that he wasn’t.

  Aaron looked at HOLMES. He really needed to read this, he needed to know what was happening so he wasn’t lagging behind everyone else. ‘Will it take long, Hannah?’