Up Close and Personal

by Alan Fisher

“I’m getting too old for all this” he said out loud.

  Chapter 63

  Oliver spent nearly two hours in Accident and Emergency at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Newcastle, Jack having already arranged for the ambulance on stand-by to be from Northumbria rather than Durham. Debbie waited patiently with him whilst he was examined, x-rayed, stitched, and bandaged up before being released under the strictest of instructions to take it easy and to have his dressings changed every 24 hours for the first few days unless told otherwise.

  By the time Debbie saw him into his apartment, it was almost midnight and he tried to apologise profusely for having kept her away from home for so long. Debbie would have none of it of course, insisting that he would have done the same for her and making sure that he promised to contact her in he needed anything, anything at all.

  He’d eventually agreed, and she left him to get to bed and rest.

  Despite the throbbing pain in his arm, which had ignored the painkillers prescribed by the hospital, he did sleep that night. He awoke the next morning with his arm stiff and painful, and showing signs of some blood seepage, a matter he would have to address later that evening when he was due to attend Rake Lane Hospital to have his wound looked at and the dressing changed.

  He was grateful that his new apartment in Monkseaton was within walking distance from the hospital and he wouldn’t need to try to drive; not that he could anyway he knew, because his car was still at headquarters where he’d left it the previous day.

  Despite protests from Paul, Robbie, and Debbie, all of whom had spoken with him over the week-end, Oliver still intended to turn in for work on Monday morning. So when he awoke early in the darkness of the morning, his first thought was to arrange a taxi to get him to Ponteland.

  The morning news on TV whilst he nibbled at some toast, had little information concerning the activities of Friday night; other than a report saying that someone had been arrested in connection with the murders and was assisting police with their enquiries.

  By the time he arrived at work, he was the last to make it in. Even Colin and his crutches had managed to make it before he did. He didn’t want to make any grand entrance or even be singled out for any of his actions, but he accepted the congratulations and the pats on his good arm when he arrived. He asked Colin if there was any news from the interviews with the two suspects and was advised that Jack was on his way in and would see him as soon as he arrived.

  “In the meantime, there’s a letter come for you from Hendon College, it’s on your desk” said Colin.

  Oliver knew what it meant; the results of his Sergeants exams were obviously out. He hadn’t really thought about them much in the last week or two, so focused was he on the case in hand. But he walked across to his desk knowing that there was a possibility that everything was about to change, and that perhaps this was going to be his last case with the team, it was not a prospect he welcomed.

  As he moved to his desk he became aware that everyone in the room was looking at him, expectant, hopeful. He picked up the envelope as if it was a delicate flower and looked at it, the bold type of HENDON POLICE COLLEGE emblazoned across the top.

  “Can someone give me a hand with this, I can’t open it with one arm” said Oliver.

  Robbie almost tripped over Colin’s crutches to get to Oliver first, but it was Debbie who moved quickest.

  She took the envelope out of Oliver’s hand and with a paper knife in her other hand, carefully slit open the envelope, pulled out the sheets of paper, and handed them to him.

  Oliver read down the note and after a few moments, dropped them onto his desk.

  “Passed” he said, almost disappointedly.

  Debbie planted a kiss on his cheek and Robbie, who had regained his composure and was stood close by, shook his good hand.

  “Congratulations” said Debbie.

  “Nice one mate” shouted Paul from across the room.

  “Awesome, but we all knew it was a cert” said Robbie.

  “I didn’t” said Oliver, “but thanks guys, it means a lot”.

  “So it should” said Jack, who had just entered the office unnoticed. “And now we have confirmation of what we all expected, we should chat. My office when you’re ready”.

  Oliver followed Jack into his office and closed the door behind him, and pulled up his usual chair without being asked.

  Outside, Debbie had picked up the sheet Oliver had dropped on his desk.

  “Passed he says, passed; just the 94% it says here”.

  Robbie looked over her shoulder;

  “Knowing Oliver, he’ll want to know where the other 6% went missing and he won’t take no for an answer until he finds out”.

  They all laughed, and Debbie put the sheet back down on Oliver’s desk and returned to her own.

  “How’s the arm? Nips a bit I should imagine” said Jack as he leaned back in his chair.

  “Just a bit” said Oliver, grimacing. “And I can’t drive yet, which is a bit of a pain. But the hospital says it was a clean cut; the arm looks good and should be healed in a couple of weeks, hopefully with no scar”.

  “Good news then. And more good news with your results as well, but we’ll come to that in a minute. First, I expect you need answers from the case, things you’re not clear about yet; and I know you like to be clear. So fire away”.

  “I expect you’ve got names for the suspects?”

  “Katelyn Reid and Terry Miller, and there’s more to that than even I knew before Saturday. Katelyn Reid was one of the girls identified by Mrs Bell when I interviewed her earlier, but she didn’t give us the whole story. Katelyn was only 13 when she was first taken along to the Lamplight club, and 15 when she was moved away from the Children’s homer in Durham, to one in Norfolk. When she eventually left the home at 18, well you can imagine what state she must have been in. She went off the rails and was eventually sectioned for knifing a man in the neck when he tried to put his hands on her. And there she remained, angry, revengeful, and determined that she would seek retribution with the members of the Lamplight club when she was eventually freed”.

  “And when was she freed sir?”

  “Well technically, she hasn’t been”.

  “You mean, she escaped?”

  “I suppose you could look at it like that. Apparently, Katelyn showed huge signs of recovery a couple of years ago and was allowed out of the facility occasionally, under supervision of course. Her accomplice, Terry Miller, was working at the facility at the time and was one of those charged with her supervision. One day they went out to visit Norwich for the day and just never came back”.

  “So she managed to persuade this Terry Miller to help her escape and help her with the murders. She must have some pull over him”.

  “You could say that”.

  “They were lovers sir?”

  “Oh no. Terry Miller is not Katelyn’s lover; he is her son” said Jack.

  “What? How?” said a surprised Oliver.

  “It’s why Katelyn was moved from Durham to Norfolk when she was 15. When she was 14, one of those bastards at the Lamplight Club got her pregnant. It was all hushed up of course, and the baby was put up for adoption. Then Katelyn was quietly moved out to another home down in Norfolk. Her son was, of course, adopted, and grew up with his adopted parents blissfully ignorant of his conception. It was only when he turned 21 that his parents told him about being adopted. I can’t imagine receiving such news is ever a good thing, but he decided he needed to know about his birth mother and, God knows how, he found her. Terry Miller had already qualified as a mental nurse when he discovered where she was living. And, talk about fate working for you, because of that he was able to get a job working in her institution. Who led who on, I don’t know but looking at the kid, I think it was probably Katelyn. Terry doesn’t have much of his father in him, which according to blood type looks like it might have been Andrew McMillan”.

  “Bloody hell. No wonder McMillan was first on the list, just i
n case anything went wrong with the rest. Speaking of which, have they been arrested yet?”

  “Not yet, I’ve had a chat with Superintendent Fox, and we’ve agreed to hand over that part of the investigation to another team, one better qualified to deal with the sensitivities of the case. Plus, I think my team deserved a break and let someone else pick up the rest of it”.

  “Why did Mrs Bell go to work for McMillan after the home closed? There was no need surely, she could have started over”.

  “That I can’t tell you. She’s not saying much more now. Perhaps she needed the job, perhaps she and McMillan were so interlocked with the information they had about each other, they were safer keeping a close eye on each other. Perhaps she fell under his spell as so many did, perhaps that was the real reason she supplied the girls in the first place. I’m not sure we’ll ever get the truth on that”.

  “And the killings themselves?”

  “Were pretty much as you suggested. Katelyn is not holding anything back. The pair have been in the North East for over 3 months watching and planning their schedule. She decided that the knife was to be used, she said she wanted to make sure they understood exactly what was going to happen and why. Then she wanted them to have time to know that death was coming and suffer the fear that she felt all those years ago. And finally she wanted to look them right in the eye as the blade went in. She is seriously disturbed, perhaps understandably so. The cards were a promise she made with the other girls. These men were given nicknames as you suggested, and whichever girl took revenge would make sure that every other girl got to know about it by making sure the deaths got into the media. Anything else?”

  “Did she have a gun in the hotel room?”

  “She did, in the bottom of her backpack. We were perhaps fortunate that she only had the knife to hand when we burst into the room”.

  Oliver’s bandaged arm throbbed at the notion that it should consider itself fortunate that only a knife was in play.

  “Will she go to trial, what with the mental thing and all that?”

  “Hard to say. The evidence is there for sure. But with her history; I wouldn’t like to call it. It’s out of my hands now anyway. The prosecution service and the medical people have the brief, and will make those decisions”.

  “DS Glover seemed to leave rather abruptly sir, am I entitled to know what happened?”

  “You caught on to most of that from the start is my guess; I’m not blind, or stupid. Jason was sent here primarily so I could do an assessment on him for a possible promotion down in Yorkshire. He, however, saw it as an opportunity to get his feet under the table here in preparation for the impending retirement of Colin. He hasn’t exactly made a secret of the fact he intends to retire sooner rather than later. Needless to say Jason read all of the personnel files here and identified what he saw as any threats, making sure that any threat was kept as far away as possible from anything that would draw credit. He thought that it would make his personal standing grow in my eyes. He must have thought I was dafter than I looked. Anyway, he left my office with more than a flea in his ear and the report I sent off to Yorkshire was, shall we say, less than complimentary”.

  “I see” smiled Oliver.

  “Right then, on to the results of the Sergeants exams, any thoughts on what you might do next?”

  “Hardly sir, I only found out a few minutes ago that I’d passed. I’ll take some time to try and secure the right post, if anyone will have me. I’m in no hurry”.

  Jack reached behind him and pulled a large cardboard box across the table and lifted it onto the desk in front of Oliver,

  “Confession time. I haven’t been completely honest with you Oliver over the last week or two. I thought you’d prefer to concentrate on the case rather than be distracted. Sorry if I was wrong but in this box are the letters I’ve been receiving from just about every station in the country over the last couple of weeks asking if you’d like to take up a Sergeants post with them”.

  “Really? But how? The results only came out over the week-end”.

  “Because you were about the only person in the country who had any doubts that you would pass. They were all just trying to get in first. And there will probably be some good offers in there as well. But before you go through the box, I want to put a proposition to you as well”.

  “Yes sir, I’m listening”.

  “We don’t have a vacancy here until Colin retires and although that won’t be too much longer, I cannot ask you to wait. Nor, to be honest do I want to lose you and I don’t think you want to go either. So I’ve worked out a solution with the Super, and he’s ok with it. I want to offer you the post of DS working alongside Colin until he chucks his badge in. He’ll look after the office and the team management side; you’ll do what you do best, work alongside me and solve the puzzle. I think we can do some great work here, we make a good team, along with Paul, Robbie and Debbie. Of course we may need to get an extra pair of hands in if you move up. You don’t have to give me an answer now, just say you’ll give it some thought”.

  “I will sir, thank you”.

  “You’re welcome. Now, if we’re done, best get some work done eh?”.

  Oliver stood up and pushed his chair back to the corner before opening the door to leave.

  Jack watched as he opened the door with his good hand, keeping his bandaged arm bent across his waist.

  “Aren’t you forgetting something Oliver?” he said holding up the box.

  “No sir, I don’t think I am” said Oliver and he closed the door behind him.

  …………………………………………