Lethal Dose; Lethal Justice; Lethal Mind

by Robert McCracken

  The youth rested his head on folded arms upon the table, trying to shut out the voices circling in the room. His once tough exterior, his foul tongue full of threats and bravado had deserted him. Murray’s impatience was mounting as Ross remained silent but Tara knew that soon she would squeeze the truth from the young monster. She needed only his confirmation; she’d already assembled the truth for herself. For the moment she allowed Murray to continue with his questions.

  ‘We know the car you used, Danny. We know who drove it. We know who owns it.’

  ‘So what?’ he said, lifting his head from the table.

  ‘Like I said, Danny, you’re not protecting Lynsey any longer. We know you care about her, mate, but why should she go down for murder and you as an accessory when someone else is behind it all? You aren’t gaining a thing by trying to protect them.’

  ‘It don’t help Lynsey by telling you lot anything.’

  ‘Lynsey is ill, Danny,’ said Tara. ‘She might never be well enough to stand trial. Any information you give us will help your case. Could be the court will look kindly on someone who was only trying to protect the girl he loves.’

  ‘What do you mean ill? Sick in the head, like?’

  ‘She’s suffered a breakdown. It’ll be a while before we know how well she might recover.’

  ‘But she will get better, won’t she?’

  ‘I can’t say for sure. But I think you owe it to her to speak the truth, Danny. Do you think it’s right that the person behind these killings stays free while you’re in prison and Lynsey is kept in a hospital?’

  ‘She was only trying to help Doreen, to pay her back. She was good to Lynsey, getting her off the shit, lending her money, trying to get her a job, a new start, like. And Lynsey said she could help me get out of the racket, stop selling an’ that.’

  ‘How did Lynsey first meet her?’

  ‘Lawler brought her to one of the drop-in centres to try and get her clean. He wrote all about it in the papers. Took pictures of us. Lynsey thought it was a laugh. That’s what she told me. She only went to please Lawler. Turned out, all he cared about was getting a story on us crackheads. Then the cold bastard broke up with her and she went straight back on the stuff, but she kept going to the centre. And that’s when she met Councillor Leitch. She helped her big time. Got her off heroin and onto some medicine that was really helping her. She gave her money, let her stay over at her house. Lynsey was really happy and she came looking for me and we got back together ’cause we used to be close an’ that, since school, like. She told me if I really wanted to have her for good then I had to give up the dealing and Doreen would help me get a proper job.’

  *

  They entered the private room on a ward at the Royal where Doreen Leitch lay awake staring into space. She had a dressing over her chest wound and a couple of stitches on her forehead. She did not acknowledge her visitors.

  ‘Councillor Leitch, I’m told you should be well enough to speak with us this morning?’

  ‘Go away.’

  Tara pulled a chair close to the bed and sat down, cutting off the woman’s view out of the window.

  ‘I’m afraid that’s not going to happen, Councillor. We already have sufficient evidence to charge you with the murders of Terry Lawler and Paul Macklin but we would like to hear your version of events.’

  ‘And neither is that going to happen, Inspector.’ Tara examined the woman’s face. She didn’t look quite so attractive without make-up and hair-do. Most women don’t, but it seemed like Doreen Leitch had lost so much more than mere looks. She was a woman stripped of all dignity, vacant of any feminine qualities, warmth, compassion or pride. She didn’t have much farther to fall. Tara decided to test her, to see if any grains of humanity were left within.

  ‘Danny Ross told us about Lynsey and how you had been helping her.’

  Leitch didn’t even blink.

  ‘But you used the young girl to get rid of a troublemaker, didn’t you, Councillor?’

  ‘You may as well stop calling me Councillor. Very unlikely that I will attend any council meetings in the future.’

  ‘I suppose the same can be said for Councillor Sullivan?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Surely his reputation has also been shattered by recent events, not to mention his future once he is convicted.’

  ‘Convicted of what, Inspector? Matt had nothing to do with any of this.’

  ‘But Lawler was blackmailing him, threatening to discredit him in the press. He had just as much motive for murder as you had, Doreen.’

  Leitch suddenly managed a smile which quickly became a grimace as she attempted to rise.

  ‘You don’t know much about what happened, do you? You have no evidence to prove anything.’

  ‘We have your husband’s car. Looks as though it’s teeming with evidence, things that can be traced to Lawler. Won’t be long before we have some results from the lab.’

  ‘My husband’s car was stolen a couple of weeks ago.’

  ‘Did you report it stolen?’

  ‘That Danny Ross took it. He brought it back a few days later.’

  ‘After it had been used to carry the body of Terry Lawler?’

  ‘I wouldn’t know, Inspector.’

  ‘Mr Sullivan told us that you had Lynsey staying with you?’

  ‘On occasions, yes. She needed help. She wanted to get off drugs. I thought it best to get her away from that awful estate.’

  ‘Why then did she attack you and Mr Sullivan?’

  ‘She was upset because she wanted to continue living at my home. I told her that was impossible. Obviously, she didn’t like being told ‘no’.’

  ‘Ross told us that Lynsey would have done anything for you.’

  ‘Including murder?’ Is that what you think – that I asked her to kill Lawler?’

  ‘You both had strong reasons to harm Terry Lawler.’

  ‘So did half of Liverpool. The other half, sadly, regarded him as a bloody hero. If you have nothing else, Inspector, please get out. I want to rest.’

  Murray treated her to a coffee from a vending machine in the hospital foyer. She didn’t really want it but appreciated his gesture. She sipped from her cup as Murray began to express his latest doubts over the case.

  ‘Could we be wrong about Leitch?’

  ‘It may come down to what evidence we get from the car.’

  ‘It might prove that Lawler was in the motor but we’ll have a hard job proving that Leitch sanctioned his murder. What if Yeats acted on her own? What if she thought she was doing Leitch a good turn?’

  Tara shook her head.

  ‘No, she had to have someone help her.’

  ‘Okay, she had Ross. He drove the car and helped to bury Lawler in the sand, but what I mean is she acted alone. Leitch wasn’t yanking her chain.’ Again Tara shook her head.

  She tipped the remainder of her coffee into a bin.

  ‘We need to lean hard on the others – Lynsey, Ross and Sullivan. Leitch is as guilty as sin and I’m damned if she is getting away with it.’

  *

  Back at St Anne Street, she read the lab report confirming that Terry Lawler had been in the boot of the BMW. What’s more, he was probably alive at the time because his prints were all over the interior, along with traces of his blood. Seemed likely that Lawler had been abducted and beaten before being placed in the boot of the car and driven to Crosby Beach where he was rendered unconscious, buried and castrated. Other prints taken from the car were a match for Danny Ross, Lynsey Yeats and Mr and Mrs Leitch. Tara realised that prints of the owners proved nothing.

  She sat forlornly at her desk, having finished the report, staring at a Merseyside Police screen-saver and wondering what else she’d missed that could bring about the arrest of Councillor Leitch. As far as Lynsey Yeats was concerned, her wheels had come off big time. She had inflicted terrible carnage on both of her victims. She killed Lawler, her ex-boyfriend, at a place they used to visit to
gether. She chose his place of execution, she performed the killing and she castrated him. But what of Paul Macklin? Her only motive for killing him, surely, was to oblige her friend Doreen Leitch. Lynsey and Ross wouldn’t have been aware of the significance of where they killed him. They didn’t know anything about Evan Blackley and his building sites, nor would they have known of his association with Matt Sullivan. It had to be Leitch or Sullivan who decided that Macklin should be found at one of Blackley’s building developments. Were Sullivan and Blackley not cohorts in the property business? Why then would Leitch or Sullivan wish to implicate Blackley in the murder of Paul Macklin?

  ‘Murray!’

  ‘Yes, mam,’ he said, while trying to stuff the remainder of his Subway roll into his mouth.

  ‘We’re off to see Evan Blackley, and you’re driving.’

  They managed to track down the property developer to his golf club in Lymm, where he was to be found in the members’ bar, having just finished his short round of nine holes. On the way to the golf club, Tara explained her thinking to Murray. He didn’t appear enthusiastic.

  ‘Bit of a long shot, don’t you think?’

  ‘You’re the football fan. Have you never seen a goal scored from a long shot?’

  They’d been told by his secretary that Blackley was off playing golf. Tara didn’t doubt that the secretary would have alerted her boss to the impending visit by Merseyside Police. He was alone by a table at the window overlooking the 18th green when Tara and Murray barged in.

  ‘Here we go again. What have I done now?’

  ‘Nothing to excite yourself about, Mr Blackley. Just a few questions, that’s all.’

  His bloated face seemed to relax slightly in reaction to Tara’s remarks. His apparent bemusement at the young girl before him playing detective hadn’t waned since they’d first met. She and Murray sat on a sofa directly opposite the former footballer.

  ‘So, ask away, Inspector,’ he said taking a healthy gulp of his vodka and tonic.

  ‘Your association with Matt Sullivan. I want the truth, Mr Blackley. I’m not here to deal with a matter of corruption. I’m trying to catch a murderer.’

  ‘What do you want to know?’ He finished his drink and signalled to the bar for another.

  ‘Was Matt Sullivan in your pocket?’

  ‘Is that what he told you?’

  ‘Just answer the question. Were you paying Councillor Sullivan for favours in relation to your planning applications?’

  ‘Do you mean was Lawler right in what he printed? No, he was off his friggin’ trolley.’

  ‘Was Councillor Leitch also in receipt of payments from you?’

  ‘What? Are you mad? She’s dead straight, building her political career. She can’t be seen to be mixed up in that sort of business.’

  ‘Was she aware that Sullivan was taking bungs?’

  ‘I have no idea. I know he was giving her the sausage, but I wasn’t privy to their pillow talk.’

  ‘Thanks, Mr Blackley, you’ve been very helpful.’ They left him to enjoy his next drink. Tara would make sure he got a call from her colleagues in Fraud when she’d finished with this murder case.

  ‘Right,’ she said with a buzz. ‘Another word with Matt Sullivan and my long shot may just score me a cracking goal.’

  Murray laughed as he swung the car out of the golf club and headed back to Liverpool.

  They didn’t spend long with Sullivan. One question from Tara and his reply was sufficient to send her scuttling down the hallway, across the hospital to the private room of Doreen Leitch.

  Her bed was empty.

  Chapter 61

  Tara

  Tara was drained. Another long day. Even Murray seemed to wilt as they sat in Tweedy’s office reporting the latest developments and how their suspected murderer had given them the slip. Tweedy’s understanding tone merged with deep concern over the disappearance of Doreen Leitch. It seemed that she had simply walked, un-noticed, out of the hospital wearing what little clothes she’d had in her locker.

  ‘Neither Ross or Yeats have implicated the councillor?’ said Tweedy.

  ‘No, sir,’ Tara replied. ‘We know that a car belonging to Mr Leitch was used to transport Terry Lawler to Crosby Beach, and he was probably still alive at that point.’

  ‘And who drove this car?’

  ‘Danny Ross,’ said Murray.

  ‘The point is, sir, Doreen Leitch and Lynsey Yeats had strong reason to kill Lawler, but if Yeats murdered Paul Macklin it had to be at the behest of Leitch. Yeats had no other motive to kill the solicitor.’

  ‘I agree, Tara, but I take it you have no proof that Leitch ordered Yeats to kill either man?’

  ‘No, sir, but Macklin’s body was found tied to a fence on a building site owned by Evan Blackley. Why would that be? Coincidence? Or was someone trying to implicate Blackley in the murders? Again, no reason for Yeats to do that. I believe she had no knowledge of Blackley’s activities. But Macklin had taken over where his mate Lawler had left off in trying to blackmail Sullivan and exposing his affair with Doreen Leitch. Despite their denials, I still believe that Sullivan received bribes from Blackley. I think that Doreen Leitch, in having Macklin killed, was attempting to rid herself and her lover of a blackmailer and at the same time trying to blame the killing on the man who was controlling Sullivan by his bribery.’

  Tweedy eased his glasses back up his nose. Although she hoped for his approval, Tara often thought that her boss looked to be carrying a burden much too great for a man of his years. He looked weary. She waited for his response.

  ‘I don’t disagree with your reasoning, Tara but we need evidence, or at least we need the Yeats girl to confirm that she acted under instruction from Doreen Leitch. Without it I’m afraid we can proceed only with the case against Yeats and Ross. Any news on the whereabouts of the councillor?’

  ‘No, sir,’ Murray replied.

  *

  ‘We’re never going to get Yeats to shop Leitch.’

  ‘I know,’ Tara replied with a deep sigh as she settled back at her desk. ‘The girl’s practically ga-ga and dangerous with it.’

  ‘Go home, mam. You can’t do much more tonight.’

  Her headed pounded, her shoulders felt locked tight around her neck.

  ‘I could do with a massage, I’m wound like a spring.’ Murray smiled, and she realised immediately what he was thinking. ‘No thanks, Alan. Just a figure of speech. I don’t need your help to unwind.’

  ‘The offer’s there, mam.’

  ‘Yes, thank you. Time you went home I think.’ She sat on at her desk after Murray left her. She wondered where Doreen Leitch had taken herself.

  *

  An injured woman who flees her hospital bed with what little clothes she had is never likely to get far. By midnight the call came into St Anne Street that Doreen Leitch was trying to gain access to her home. Her husband, however, had no intention of letting her inside. He’d made the call to the police, demanding that his estranged wife be removed from his property. A car with three officers was despatched to the house at Birkdale and the distraught woman was brought to St Anne Street station. Tara, by this time, was sound asleep in bed. When she arrived for work at 9am next morning, Murray was waiting for her in the foyer.

  ‘We have Doreen Leitch in custody, mam.’

  ‘Has she been charged with anything?’

  ‘Not yet. I thought you might like a word. Duty Sergeant has had her checked by the doctor. She’s a bit fragile but should be up to answering some questions.’

  ‘Good. Although why do I get the feeling we’ll be wasting our time?’

  While Tara went to collect some files from her desk, Murray prepared an interview room and requested that Leitch be brought up from her cell. Tara was taken aback by the woman’s appearance when she joined Murray and Leitch in the room. A grey baggy sweatshirt, black leggings and training shoes were all that was left of the once glamourous councillor. Her hair was dirty, unbrushed; her face was
smattered with red blotches; and she had a bruise forming below her left eye.

  ‘How did you get the injury to your eye, Doreen?’

  ‘Guess?’ She sat partially slumped over the table scarcely able to hold herself upright, wincing from the pain of her knife wound. Tara glanced at Murray for the answer. He merely shrugged.

  ‘Were you in a struggle with police officers?’

  ‘Yes I was. They were trying to take me away from my home, Inspector. But I got this from my darling husband.’ She touched her left cheek with her forefinger. ‘Thirty-four years married. Nice memento don’t you think?’ She looked at Tara with despairing eyes. ‘I know you think I deserve it, Inspector – me having an affair with a younger man, not much more than a boy is Matt. But my husband, in going about his business, has screwed his way around the world several times.’

  Tara was beginning to wonder if she and Murray were there to conduct an interview in relation only to the fracas that had taken place the night before. She wasn’t particularly interested in the marital infidelities of the Leitch family. She was there to get answers to why two men had been murdered. Strangely, though, Tara got the impression that Doreen Leitch was now up for some serious talking. She would indulge her, now that she was at least prepared to co-operate.

  ‘Tell me about your relationship with Matt Sullivan?’

  The woman smiled.

  ‘A real sweetie is Matt. You know, Inspector, you could do a lot worse than finding a man like my Matt.’ Tara cringed at the thought. The creep could hardly look her in the face, his eyes always ogling her chest.

  ‘What did he think about his lover arranging the murders of Terry Lawler and Paul Macklin?’

  The question was a deliberate sideswipe at Doreen Leitch, and for a moment the woman did seem shocked by Tara’s callousness. She fiddled with the sleeves of her sweatshirt, pulling them down over her hands. Then she sat back in her chair, raised her arms and drew her hands back through her hair. She groaned, however, from the pain of the knife wound across her chest.

  ‘I realise I have nothing left now, Inspector. I’ve lost my home, my family, my lover and my career. Did you know that I was set to be the next MP for Sefton Central? I could have done great things at Westminster. Perhaps even made a cabinet minister. And now look at me.’ She grimaced in pain, and her hands settled gently on her chest.