No Middle Ground

by Jack Slater

  ‘Yeah, but… Really?’

  ‘Really. This lot could have come off the Internet until we prove different.’

  Ben reached for the last of the crates. Hefting it up into the car, he shut the boot. ‘Best get to it then, eh?’

  *

  ‘Mark Bridgman’s taking over the Southam case,’ Jane announced as Pete and Ben walked into the squad room with a crate of evidence each. ‘And we got a call from Northamptonshire a few minutes ago. Blimey, what’s that lot?’

  ‘A portion of what we’ve got in the back of my car.’ Relief swept through Pete at the news that Simon Phillips wasn’t going to handle his son’s case again, after the balls-up he’d made of it before and the tension that had caused between them. ‘You’ve handed over, have you?’ he asked as they put the crates down at the end of their workstation.

  ‘Yes.’

  Mark was quiet, a plodder, but he got the job done. Give him a bone and he’d gnaw at it until he’d got through to the marrow and he made sure his team were the same. What he might not be as good at was dealing with the volatility of someone like Steven Southam, but time would tell on that. Pete was… Not happy, but willing to give him a chance.

  ‘What did Northants say?’

  ‘He’s left their jurisdiction. Gone into Warwickshire. Maybe West Midlands by now. They all come together round there.’

  ‘Sounds like he’s aware of what he’s doing,’ Ben observed. ‘Hopping between forces to stay off the radar. Prevent us picking him up if does get spotted.’

  ‘Have they told Warwickshire and West Mids?’ Pete asked.

  ‘Yes, but you know what it’s like, boss. Resources are limited. There’s only so many cars on the roads so, if he’s got a way of avoiding the cameras, he could get anywhere in a short time.’

  ‘Depending on where he’s headed,’ Dick added.

  ‘Which we’ve got no way of knowing,’ Pete cautioned. ‘We know he’s travelled the country in the past. He could be going anywhere or nowhere.’

  ‘So we’ve just got to wait and see if they pick him up?’ Jane didn’t sound impressed.

  ‘No, we’ve got to go through everything we’ve already got. One, to prove whether he’s a multiple rapist and murderer. And two, to see if he’s left any clues to where he might be heading. Dick, come and give us a hand fetching this lot in, will you? The quicker we get started, the sooner we can do either or both of those things.’

  It took three more trips up and down the stairs and out to the car park to bring in all the crates of evidence that Pete and Ben had collected.

  Finally, the three men all slumped into their chairs.

  ‘Is that it now?’ Jane asked.

  ‘No,’ Pete gasped. ‘That’s just the start. We’ve got to sort through it now. Correlate one set of evidence against the other, check against the missing persons database, see what matches and what doesn’t and if we can develop a timeline that matches up. But first, I need a drink. Fetch us a coffee, somebody.’

  Jane sighed heavily. ‘I’m not a bloody tea-girl, you know,’ she said but got up anyway.

  ‘No, but you love us and we’re in need,’ Ben replied, sagging in his chair as much as the two older men.

  ‘Dream on, Spike,’ she said as she headed for the squad room door.

  ‘Miss you already,’ he called after her and she stopped, turning to face him with her hands on her hips.

  ‘You could always fetch your own.’

  Pete turned on him. ‘Shut it, Ben. And learn to know when you’re onto a good thing.’ He looked back at Jane. ‘Ignore him. He’s dehydrated.’

  ‘And exhausted,’ Dick added.

  ‘That’s just your age, Feeney,’ Jane told him. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were looking grey after all that exercise.’ She reached for the door handle and stepped through to the corridor beyond.

  ‘She’s right,’ Pete said. ‘You do look grey.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ Dick retorted. ‘Tell us a new one.’

  His nickname throughout the station was Grey Man for the combination of his hair and the colour of the suits he wore along with his smoker’s complexion.

  ‘I think she’s wrong,’ Ben put in. ‘I was sure I saw some colour in your cheeks, coming up the stairs that last time.’

  ‘You want tipping out of that chair, young-un?’

  Ben started upright in his seat. ‘Don’t you start on that.’

  Dick chuckled. ‘Got you moving, didn’t it?’

  *

  A shot of caffeine and a few minutes’ rest and recovery saw them starting work on the mountain of evidence they’d accumulated. They hadn’t got far into it when Pete’s phone rang. He checked the screen and picked up the call.

  ‘Jill?’

  ‘Annie’s just left school, boss. She’s gone with a friend in the mum’s car. Should I stand down?’

  ‘No. Follow them and keep an eye out for suspicious vehicles. Southam may have been in a dark red Ford earlier but that doesn’t mean he is now. You know what they’re like for nicking cars.’

  ‘Are you sure this is still OK with the chief?’

  ‘You let me worry about him, Jill. Not your problem.’

  ‘OK.’ She sounded unsure, but she wouldn’t question him further.

  ‘Boss.’ Jane had looked up from what she was doing, her expression hard to read.

  ‘Talk later, Jill,’ he said and ended the call. ‘Jane?’

  ‘I think I’ve got a match.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  ‘Tell me.’

  Pete was all attention, fully focussed on Jane.

  ‘This set of photos.’ She held up a bunch of pictures, the white backs towards him. ‘Against a misper from 2010. In Norwich.’

  Pete was out of his chair and heading around the desks in an instant. ‘Let me see.’

  Jane turned her screen slightly as he stopped at her shoulder. ‘Her. Against her.’ She held up one of the pictures. It showed the girl – in her mid-twenties, Pete guessed – at night, walking towards the photographer, who was at a low angle as if seated. In a car, perhaps, he thought, shooting through the windscreen as she approached.

  ‘Looks like her,’ he agreed. ‘Have you got anything closer on the victim’s face?’

  ‘Yes, but it’s not pleasant viewing.’

  ‘We’re not here to look at holiday snaps.’

  ‘OK.’ She flipped through the set of prints until she came to one and plucked it out. ‘Don’t say you didn’t ask for it.’

  Pete took the print with some trepidation and looked down at it. The young woman – clearly the same one as in the earlier photo – was now laid out, almost as if in repose except for the wound in her neck. The blood had flowed freely. It was matted in her hair at one side and smeared on her neck and shoulder. She was nude, hands bound in front of her and raised as if in prayer. And between her forearms, tip towards her chin, was what looked like an eight- or nine-inch bone-handled Bowie-style knife with blood smearing the highly polished blade.

  Her eyes were open but staring blankly in death.

  Pete flicked his gaze back to Jane’s screen. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘It looks like her to me, too.’

  ‘Shall I phone missing persons?’

  ‘No, leave it a while. There might be more yet.’

  She grimaced. ‘Aren’t you the cheerful one?’

  ‘There’s a whole lot of girls recorded in these crates, Jane. If most of them aren’t on the misper database I’d be surprised, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Well, I’d hope so, I suppose.’

  ‘It’d be a sad old story if they weren’t,’ Dick agreed.

  ‘Boss.’ Ben looked up, looking excited. ‘Look here.’

  ‘What have you got?’

  He was going through the receipts and invoices rather than the pictures. He held up a small bunch of papers. ‘A definite match.’

  ‘Between?’ Pete asked as he went back around the closely packed desks.

&nb
sp; ‘Joe Hanson’s paperwork and the disappearance of a young woman in Lincolnshire.’

  ‘Show me.’

  ‘Here.’ Ben pointed to his screen, which showed a report of the disappearance of a young woman from Grimsby. Then he waved the little bunch of papers again. ‘The day after these put him in Louth, which is only just down the road.’

  ‘When you say, “just down the road”…’

  Ben tapped his keyboard and the image on his computer screen changed to a map. ‘There,’ he pointed ‘And there.’

  Pete leaned in closer, saw the scale of the river running past the old fishing port, compared to the distance between the two towns and nodded. ‘Pretty close,’ he agreed. ‘Save her details. When was this?’

  Ben held up the receipts again. ‘June 2009.’

  ‘Jesus, how long’s this been going on?’ Dick demanded. ‘And nobody’s picked it up until now?’

  ‘I didn’t know you were a Phil Collins fan,’ Jane said.

  ‘Van Morrison,’ Dick retorted.

  ‘We’ll find an answer if we shut up and keep working,’ Pete glanced at both of them as he said it and was surprised that he got no response, especially from Jane, who he had partnered on the beat for some time before they joined CID.

  *

  Pete put down the latest batch of photographs that he’d matched with a misper from Greater Manchester in the summer of 2012 and looked up at the others. After two more hours on it, they’d come up with another three definite matches but there was still something missing.

  ‘We keep getting two sides of the triangle here,’ he said. ‘Either the photos or his receipts match the misper files, but we’ve got nothing yet that joins all three dots. Nothing that definitively links him to these girls. It’s compelling, but it’s all circumstantial at the end of the day. We need more, and we need it before he gets pulled in. You guys keep checking, I’ll make some calls to the forces involved in the cases we’ve got links on.’

  He cleared his desk and spread the five cases across it. Starting left to right in whatever order they came, he picked up the phone and dialled.

  ‘Police. How can I help?’

  ‘Can you put me through to your CID, please?’

  ‘Who’s speaking?’

  ‘DS Gayle, Devon and Cornwall police.’

  ‘One moment.’

  The line went dead then was picked up again after a few seconds. ‘CID, DC Harper.’

  ‘This is DS Gayle from Exeter. I believe we may have a cross-over with one of your cases.’

  ‘Oh yes? Which one?’ Pete listened to the man’s accent. It was almost like one from the West-country, but flatter. Must be a local lad, he guessed.

  ‘A misper from Norwich in 2010. Claire Mulligan.’

  ‘2010? Blimey, that’s going back a bit. And you’ve just found a link to her?’

  ‘That’s right. I need to speak to the SIO, see if there might be some corroborative evidence.’

  ‘Right. Let me call it up and find out who that was. Hold on a sec.’ His phone clattered onto his desk and Pete heard the tap of computer keys. Then a pause. The scrape of the phone being picked up again. ‘Right, I’m back. It’s DI Travis you want. He’s gone off home, I’m afraid, but I can get him to call you in the morning. I don’t suppose she’ll be going anywhere after all this time, will she?’

  Pete felt a flash of anger at his attitude. ‘She won’t. But the bloke who killed her might. We’ve got a lead on him. We don’t want him arrested until we’ve got some firm evidence against him, but we don’t want him getting away either.’

  ‘Oh, right. No, I can see that.’

  ‘So maybe you can have a look at the case file. See it there was any physical evidence. If it’s not too much trouble.’

  ‘Hey, there’s no need for that. I was just saying… After ten years, she’s unlikely to be alive, right?’

  ‘It’s been known,’ Pete said. ‘In this case you’re right, though. She is dead. Along with a whole lot of others.’

  ‘Uh… Right, here we go. I’m in. Now… Hold on. Just scanning through the file.’

  ‘Better yet, how about you send it over to us? It’ll complete our picture of her if nothing else.’

  ‘Yes, I can do that.’ He sounded relieved. Time for him to scoot off home, Pete guessed. It was after half-past five, after all.

  ‘Good.’ He didn’t want the lad rushing the job and missing something.

  ‘I’ll do it now. What’s your email?’

  Pete gave it to him and signed off. Next was the Manchester case. He looked up the number and dialled. A few minutes later he had five case files in his in-box, three of which he’d been told would be dead-ends. No forensic evidence had been found. While he’d been on the phone, he was aware that Jane and Dick had each come up with another matching case. He was about to dig into the first file when Jane interrupted him.

  ‘Boss?’

  He looked up.

  ‘Hadn’t you better clear off? Lou and Annie will need talking to and Dave will need relieving.’

  Pete sighed. ‘I suppose you’re right.’ It wasn’t a conversation he was looking forward to. Especially after last year, when Tommy had been missing for several months and Louise had spiralled into a deep, corrosive depression. But Jane was right – it had to be done. He was only surprised that one of them hadn’t called him already to ask how the day had gone in the courthouse. Unless they already knew, in which case he’d be in the dog-house for not calling them. He grimaced. That wasn’t a conversation to be looked forward to either.

  ‘I’ll just forward these files to all of you.’

  *

  He made the call as he passed the Co-op a couple of streets from his house.

  ‘Boss?’

  ‘I’m thirty seconds out.’

  ‘Right. I’ll see you into the drive and stand down, then.’

  ‘Perfect. Thanks, Dave.’

  ‘Of course. What’s Fast-track have to say about all this?’

  ‘That Exeter CID isn’t my private army.’

  ‘And here I thought they called us the Gayle Force for a reason.’

  Pete laughed. ‘How long have you been saving that one up?’

  ‘Oh, ages now. Sounds like it worked though.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Ah. I see you turning into the road.’

  ‘That’s me.’

  ‘And this is me. Night.’

  ‘Cheers, Dave.’ He reached for the comms screen and ended the call as he slowed towards his driveway. He was about to turn in when he saw Dave’s pool car pull out from the roadside twenty yards ahead and start towards him, passing as he stopped his silver Ford and switched off the engine. He stepped out and was half way to the front door when it opened and a small figure came flying out, leaping towards him and clinging with narrow arms and legs like a limpet to his hips and neck as he staggered back under the impact.

  ‘Daddy!’ She stopped abruptly, a look of horror sweeping over her face. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I got damaged making an arrest. I’m OK now. Might have a scar to add to the collection, though.’

  She seemed to accept that. ‘So, have you testified? Has Tommy? Is he coming home tonight? Are we going to be a family again?’

  ‘We are a family, Button. Always have been,’ he said as he tried to recover and step forward again towards the front door. ‘I love you enough to burst like an exploding tomato.’

  ‘Ew! That’s messy. Have you testified?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘And has Tommy?’

  ‘He started to, but we ran out of time.’ Strictly speaking, it was true. And at the same time, it spared her the details. He was going to have to tell her, but it could wait for a few minutes until he could tell her and Louise together.

  ‘So, he’s not coming home?’ She hopped down as they reached the hallway.

  ‘Not yet, love.’ He kicked the door shut behind him. ‘Louise,’ he called.

  ‘In here.’ Her
voice came from the sitting room to his right.

  ‘Oi,’ he said to Annie, reaching for her. ‘Come here, you. I haven’t finished with you yet.’ He grabbed her hand and dragged her back. She turned back instead of heading for the kitchen and, no doubt, her homework on the little table in there. He scooped her up again, a forearm under her backside as she wrapped herself around him again.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re under arrest,’ he said playfully, pushing into the sitting room where he found Louise in her usual place on the sofa. He swung Annie crosswise and sat down next to her. ‘How’s it going, love?’

  Louise’s eyes snapped wide as she saw him. ‘Christ, what happened to you? You look like you’ve come off second best against Mike Tyson. I heard what you said to Annie. Why did Tommy run out of time? A bit of poor organisation, wasn’t it?’

  ‘They sometimes start testimony like that late on,’ he said. ‘Lets the jury sleep on it, knowing there’ll be more in the morning. But in this case, it wasn’t that.’ He drew a breath. He knew it would be on the news either tonight or tomorrow, so there was no keeping it from her, but he still felt awkward and reluctant – almost fearful - to continue.

  ‘So, what was it?’ Louise pushed.

  ‘That bloke who visited Tommy in Archways the other day. Frightened the living daylights out of him. He’s got a brother who we suspect was responsible for that girl’s death in Bath a few years ago that Becky Sanderson’s dad was involved with. They should both be in jail but neither of them is. Anyway, they raided the court house this afternoon. It’ll be in the press later, I expect. On the telly, even. Tommy was testifying at the time. Everything was put on hold while we tried to deal with it all, but they got away from us. We got one of them in the end but, in the process, they killed the judge.’

  ‘Sh… So, it’ll all have to start again with a new judge?’

  ‘Yeah. But that’s not the only problem.’ He sucked air through his teeth, hating the need to tell them both this next part of the story, knowing their reactions, though wildly different, would be equally as distressing – for them and for him. ‘The one that got away,’ he continued. ‘Well… He took Tommy with him.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘No! Daddy…’

  Pete reached out to take her in his arms. ‘They had a car tucked away in an empty garage behind the court house. He took Tommy with him, made it out somehow and… We tried to track him down. The whole station got involved, one way and another. Until Silverstone got wind of it. Then…’