Merciless: a gripping detective thriller (DI Kate Fletcher Book 2)

by Heleyne Hammersley

  Julie Wilkinson lived in a red-brick semi on a street of red-brick semis opposite Rotherham’s largest hospital. They looked similar to the one where Kate grew up in Thorpe except that the street wasn’t as wide and the houses were a little closer together. Kate assumed that they were built in the sixties or seventies when land around towns had been at a premium and the councils had been under pressure to make the most of all the available space. The road was shielded from a dual carriageway by a large beech hedge that ran the length of the street but, as Kate got out of the car, she could hear that it did little to dull the constant drone of vehicles and the wail of an ambulance approaching A&E at the hospital.

  A flat-roofed garage was attached to the house and, in front of the chipped white metal door, a light blue Vauxhall Golf sat on the drive.

  ‘We might be in luck,’ she said to Hollis, pointing at the car. She stepped back and allowed him to approach the door of the house first. If Julie was home, this was going to be an interview which required a delicate touch and Kate trusted Hollis to get the most out of this situation.

  Through the frosted glass in the top half of the door, Kate saw a figure approaching seconds after Hollis rattled the letterbox flap. Somebody was home. The door opened and Hollis introduced them both while Kate assessed the woman on the doorstep. She knew that Julie Wilkinson must be in her late forties but, if she’d met her in a pub, she’d have assumed that she was much younger. Her dark hair was carefully styled and her make-up was understated and certainly not used to hide bags and wrinkles. Her forehead creased with confusion as Hollis explained who they were, leaving Kate slightly disappointed that there was no sign of recent Botox to explain the woman’s youthful appearance.

  ‘Is it Rob?’ she asked, her voice rising as panic gripped her. ‘Has something happened to him?’

  Hollis shook his head reassuringly.

  ‘We’re here about Jeanette Lambert,’ he said, and the lines across Julie’s forehead deepened.

  ‘Jeanette? Why? You’ve not found her after all this time?’

  ‘No. That’s not why we’re here. We want to ask you some questions about her.’

  Julie smiled, the relief obvious. Kate wasn’t sure who Rob might be but she guessed a husband or a boyfriend. She was used to this reaction whenever she turned up unannounced at somebody’s door. People always assumed the worst, and at least half the time, they were right.

  ‘Can we come in?’ Kate asked.

  Julie nodded and led the way down a bright, cream-coloured hallway to the living room. As they followed her, Kate noticed that it wasn’t just Julie Wilkinson’s face that appeared to be defying time. She wore tight skinny jeans and a hoodie that was probably a size too small, both of which showed off gravity-defying hips and boobs. Whatever her secret was, Kate thought, she’d like to buy a couple of bottles.

  The living room was also decorated in shades of cool cream and off-white. The sofa and chairs were beige and the laminate flooring imitated pale wood. A glass coffee table stood proudly in the middle of the room, its surface free from dust and finger marks – obviously not a house with children, or grandchildren. Kate wondered if that was Julie’s secret. Kate knew from experience how ageing having kids could be. Not that she resented Ben, but she could count the wrinkles and scars he’d left on her body and face as though he’d written his name across her skin with a knife.

  Julie offered drinks but Kate refused and Hollis followed her lead. She didn’t want to give the impression that this was a cosy chat about her old friend, she wanted Julie to believe that any information she could provide would be crucial to an ongoing investigation. She wanted honesty.

  ‘So, what did you want to ask me?’ Julie settled herself in the armchair next to the window where Kate and Hollis could get a good view of her face. ‘You can’t have found another lead?’ Her face suddenly froze as she thought of another possible reason for the visit. ‘Oh. You’ve not found…’

  ‘We’ve nothing new,’ Hollis reassured her, obviously understanding that she might think that they’d found a body. ‘We just want some background. Certain recent events have rekindled our interest in Jeanette’s disappearance and we’d like the perspective of somebody who knew her well.’

  Julie leaned forward in her chair, forearms on her knees, her expression intent. ‘What recent events?’

  ‘Her sister has disappeared,’ Kate interjected before Hollis could mention Dennis Lambert’s death.

  ‘Caroline? You mean she’s been abducted or something?’

  Hollis picked up Kate’s thread. ‘We’re not really sure. Her car was found in a spot well known for suicides and there’s no sign of her. We don’t know if she’s harmed herself, been abducted or simply disappeared but we think this is somehow connected with what happened to her sister.’

  Julie smiled as if she understood, even though nothing about Caroline Lambert’s disappearance made any sense to Kate or her colleagues.

  ‘What was Jeanette like?’ Hollis asked, trying to steer the interview away from Caroline.

  ‘She was great,’ Julie said with a huge grin. She sat back in her chair, relaxing into her memories. ‘She was my best friend from our first day at Thorpe Comp. Got me into all sorts of trouble but I didn’t mind. She thought she was a rebel but there wasn’t really that much for us to rebel against. She was into music, clothes, make-up. She was one of those people who made you feel special if they paid any attention to you, like a light shining on you. Everything was better when Jeanette was around.’

  ‘Better in what way?’ Hollis prompted.

  Julie thought for a few seconds. ‘She always had the best ideas about what to do, where to go. We used to go to Donny on Saturdays and hang about in the Arndale Centre. Most of the lasses would be in and out of the shops but Jeanette liked to go up on the balcony and watch people. She said they were like ants, busy living their pointless little lives. After school, we used to go and sit in the middle of the playing field and smoke and talk about what our lives would be like in the future. I always said that I wanted to marry a rich bloke and have a dozen kids but not Jeanette. She wanted to leave Thorpe and go to London or Manchester. She wanted to sing in a band or be discovered by a casting agency and get on the telly. Kids’ stuff really, but she believed that she could do it.’

  Kate could see that the woman was lost in the past, her eyes unfocussed as she remembered her friend. Nothing Julie said helped the enquiry but it was interesting to find out what sort of person Jeanette had been. Could she have been lured away by somebody promising her bright lights and fame? She asked the question and Julie laughed.

  ‘No chance. Jeanette was really savvy. She knew that talent scouts didn’t hang about in Thorpe or the Arndale Centre in Doncaster. She knew she’d have to move away at some point. She wanted to do her A Levels first, though. She was going to go to college in Donny and study for a couple of years. She could probably have gone to university, she was bright enough. All our teachers said so.’

  ‘So you don’t think she ran away?’ Hollis asked.

  Julie shook her head firmly. ‘Not a chance. She’d have told me if she was planning anything like that. She told me everything.’

  ‘Did she talk about her family?’

  Julie tilted her head to one side and regarded Hollis quizzically. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘As I said. Just trying to get an impression. We’ve looked at your original statement and there’s nothing there to indicate that there were family issues but, with Caroline disappearing, we wondered if there might be a link.’

  ‘What? You think Caroline was involved? She was only nine when Jeanette went missing.’

  ‘What about her parents?’ Kate prompted. ‘Did Jeannette ever talk about how well she got on with her mum and dad?’

  ‘I’ve thought about that a lot over the years,’ Julie said, nodding slowly. ‘She always talked like she could wrap her mum round her little finger and she said her dad would do anything to please her mum.’
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  ‘But you’re not convinced?’ Hollis asked.

  ‘At the time, I just took everything she said at face value but there were a few little things that have made me wonder ever since. She sometimes had odd bruises, mostly on her legs. I saw them in PE a few times. She always said that she’d had a fall or she’d been fighting with Caroline and I believed her. She was off school for a week as well with a broken arm. Said she’d tripped up the steps and fallen on it. Nowadays her mum and dad would probably have social services breathing down their necks but she might have been telling the truth. Apart from one thing.’

  She paused and Kate could see that she was working out how to phrase whatever it was that she had to say.

  Julie leaned forward again as though sharing a secret or some especially juicy gossip. ‘She was at my house one night; I think it was in the Easter holidays. We’d been sitting out the back listening to the Top 40 and hadn’t really been paying attention to the time. My mum came out and said that Jeanette’s dad was at the door asking for her. When Jeanette got up to go and see him she was really pale and I noticed that her hand was shaking as she turned the doorknob. I didn’t hear what her dad said to her but she didn’t come back to say goodbye, she just left with him. I didn’t see her for a while after that and when I did she said the family had been away for a couple of days to stay with her auntie in York. Thing is, I could have sworn I saw their Caroline in the Co-op two days before the day that she said they came back. I forgot all about it at the time. Just put it down to a misunderstanding but, with hindsight, I wonder if her dad had given her a good hiding for not getting home on time.’

  ‘You didn’t mention this to the police? It sounds a lot like the night she went missing. Out with friends. Home late.’ Kate tried to keep the accusation out of her voice. If a friend of Jeanette’s had spoken against Lambert then the investigation might have taken a different, more productive line.

  ‘I was just a kid,’ Julie explained. ‘I was terrified of the police. And, like I said, a lot of this didn’t really occur to me until much later.’

  ‘You could have come forward at any time,’ Kate told her. ‘We get new information about old cases on a fairly regular basis.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ Julie sighed. ‘But it was supposition. What if it was all in my head and I’d made things even worse for the family?’

  ‘Did you meet Dennis Lambert?’ Hollis tried to change the subject. Julie was getting defensive and that wasn’t going to help them get any more information. Kate leaned back in her seat, giving him a chance to correct her mistake.

  Julie shook her head. ‘Not properly. He was always at work on the rare occasions when we went to her house. If he was due back we went out. There was that time he came looking for her but I only saw him briefly at the door.’

  ‘You were friends for four years and you never met her dad?’ Hollis was clearly surprised. ‘Did you get the impression that she didn’t want you to meet him?’

  ‘To be honest, I never thought about it. I’m not sure she would have seen much of my dad. It was a different time. Both our mums stayed at home and our dads worked. When my dad came home everything changed. There was tea to get ready while he got a wash and then he’d eat and watch telly. We weren’t supposed to bother him, and having friends over was bother, I suppose. If I did have anybody round we always sat in my bedroom, or the garden if it was summer.’

  It made sense based on Kate’s own experience. Her mum didn’t like her having her friends round if her dad was at home because he worked hard and she didn’t want him to be pestered. After her mum died Kate and Karen tried to look after him, but they were too young to run the house so he’d ended up doing a lot of the housework and cooking. She knew that he wouldn’t want other kids getting under his feet; his own two were enough.

  They were interrupted by a thud from upstairs.

  ‘Somebody else here?’ Kate asked.

  Julie smiled and shook her head. ‘Cat. Sounds like he’s got in the front bedroom and he’s not allowed up there. Hang on a sec.’

  She disappeared for a minute, closing the living room door behind her, and came back holding a large black cat who looked anything but contrite.

  ‘This is Marlon,’ she said. ‘I’ll just chuck him up the garden. If I don’t watch him he leaves mice under my bed.’

  She disappeared again and Kate felt a cold draught as the back door opened and closed. She raised her eyebrows at Hollis who was shaking his head in amusement. He knew that Kate didn’t like cats. The sound of a tap running came from the kitchen and then Julie Wilkinson reappeared, drying her hands on a tea towel.

  ‘Sorry about that. Where were we?’ She dropped the tea towel on the table and sat back down.

  ‘Did you ever hear of Dennis Lambert having a temper or being violent?’ Hollis asked. ‘Thorpe’s a small place, people talk. Did he get into fights? Have a drink problem? Anything like that?’

  Julie shrugged. ‘Not that I remember. It wasn’t the sort of thing that my parents would have talked about though – not in front of me. If you reopen the case, are you going to interview him again?’

  ‘We can’t,’ Kate said. ‘He’s dead.’

  Julie’s eyes widened with shock. ‘Wasn’t expecting that. What happened?’

  ‘He had cancer,’ Hollis said. ‘Caroline had come home to look after him.’

  ‘Really?’ Julie’s tone was sceptical. ‘I thought she’d moved away after her mum killed herself. She always said that she was going to move as far away as possible when she was old enough.’

  Kate leaned forward again. ‘You knew Caroline?’

  ‘A bit. She was younger than me and Jeanette but I kept in touch with her after their Jeanette went missing. I bought Caroline her first legal drink when she was eighteen. I’m really surprised that she came back to look after her dad.’

  ‘Why?’ Kate asked.

  ‘Because she hated him. Loathed him with a passion. I bumped into her in the Cross Keys one night, I think she was celebrating her A Level results. She was pretty pi – drunk. Kept going on about how she was going to finally get away from that bastard and how he could rot in hell for all she cared. She said that she was never coming back and I really believed her.’

  ‘She hated her dad?’ Kate said. ‘So why would she come back and look after him? It doesn’t make much sense to me.’

  Julie sighed and shook her head. ‘I really have no idea. From what she said about him I’d’ve thought that she’d have stayed away. I don’t know why she felt like that but she was pretty wound up about him.’

  ‘Do you think he was violent towards her after her sister went missing? Might that have been why she hated him?’ Kate was thinking about the different reasons that Cooper had suggested for murder and she kept coming back to one in particular. Revenge.

  ‘I honestly have no idea,’ Julie said. ‘I suppose it would make sense but I’m not a hundred per cent sure that he knocked their Jeanette about, either.’

  Kate’s phone rang just as they were concluding the interview. She looked at the screen. Barratt. She let it ring while they thanked Julie Wilkinson for her time, headed back to the car and then rang him back.

  ‘Got anything?’ Kate asked as soon as Barratt answered his phone.

  ‘Maybe,’ Barratt said. ‘I’ve been talking to one of the neighbours opposite Lambert. A Peter Moody. He went to school with Dennis, had known him pretty much all his life.’

  ‘And?’ Kate prompted, trying not to be too irritated by Barratt’s need to give as much background detail as possible.

  ‘He says, when they were kids, that Dennis was cock of the school. Everybody was scared of him. He’d fight any lad who so much as looked at him wrong and he’d carry on fighting until his opponent was a bloody mess. Apparently he had a right reputation up until his marriage to Irene.’

  Kate thanked him and hung up. It tied in with Jeanette’s bruises and her fear of her father. What if his violent streak had been contained wi
thin the home after he married? It was possible that he’d lost his temper with Jeanette and gone too far. Is that what Caroline meant when she left the note? Was Jeanette somewhere where she could be found? Or her remains at least? She thought about the cross that had been marked in the book that she’d found on the shelf in Caroline’s study. What if it marked more than just the house where she’d spent her childhood? What if it marked a grave?

  ‘What now?’ Hollis asked.

  Kate sighed heavily, dreading what she had to do next. ‘I’m going back to base to ask Raymond for the time and resources to dig up Dennis Lambert’s back garden. If I were you I’d stay well away because you know how he gets about spending money. It won’t be pretty.’

  30

  The next morning’s briefing was untypically subdued. Kate had spent half an hour in Raymond’s office trying to persuade him to commit time and resources to searching Dennis Lambert’s house and garden but he had been granite-hard in his opposition. He was unhappy that Caroline’s disappearance had left so many loose ends and had implied that Kate was to blame. She was frustrated and disheartened when she met with her team at 8.30am but she didn’t want to pass on this deflated feeling to them. She needn’t have worried; it was their own lack of progress that seemed to have brought each of them down and made them tense and uncommunicative.

  Kate called on O’Connor first. He gave her a rueful half-smile, clearly not wanting to admit defeat.

  ‘I tried everybody I could find,’ he began. ‘There’s only a handful of guys out there dealing in fake IDs. I did the rounds but nobody remembered a woman fitting Caroline Lambert’s description. Only one of them remembered a woman at all. Most of their business is regulars wanting fake IDs to pass on to illegal immigrants and people who need to hide from us.’

  Kate was uncomfortable with O’Connor’s methods but she knew that he was exceptionally good at gaining the trust of some of the most useful small-time crooks and criminals in the area. She didn’t want to know what he offered in return because his information often led to some high-profile arrests.