The Kate Fletcher Series

by Heleyne Hammersley

  ‘Brought you something,’ Kate said. She held out the slim package that Nick had helped her to select. She knew that Cooper wasn’t much of a reader but she did like comedy shows. Kate had bought a tablet computer and downloaded episodes of most of her favourites. She’d included some stand-up shows and a couple of series of dramas that she thought Sam might like. It was a small gesture and did nothing to assuage Kate’s deep sense of guilt. First Dan and now Cooper. She wasn’t being much of a leader to her team. She needed to be stronger; to do better.

  ‘There’s headphones in there so you don’t inflict your appalling taste on anybody else. And the pin is your birthday – you might want to change that.’

  Sam’s smile widened into a full grin.

  ‘This is amazing thanks. You really didn’t—’ Something over Kate’s shoulder caught Sam’s attention and she stopped midsentence, smile fading.

  ‘I was wondering when you’d show up.’

  Kate turned to see Abbie leaning against the door jamb, arms folded across her chest, face furious. She was dressed in a jeans and a baggy jumper, despite the promise of heat in the air outside and, as she spoke, she tucked her hands into the opposite sleeves, wrapping her arms around herself as though for protection. Her face, however, wasn’t fearful, she was furious.

  ‘You had a plan you said. She’d be safe, you said. What a pile of shit.’

  ‘Abbie…’ Sam started to say something but her partner shook her head sending her dark red curls into a tsunami of disapproval.

  ‘Don’t you bloody defend her. Don’t you dare.’

  ‘Abbie. It wasn’t Kate’s fault. The plan was solid. I’ve told you I’ve only got myself to blame.’

  Even though that was true Kate couldn’t help but feel responsible and she knew that Raymond held her accountable. He’d asked for a debrief but, until she’d spoken to Cooper, she didn’t have any answers.

  ‘We need to talk about what happened,’ Kate said, pulling up a battered plastic chair and perching next to the bed. I need to know what you were thinking, provoking him like that.’

  Abbie entered the room properly and took the chair next to the head of the bed watching the interaction between the other two women.

  Sam shook her head and Kate could see that she was close to tears. ‘Did you get him?’ she asked. ‘Please tell me you got him.’

  ‘He’s in custody,’ Kate said. ‘He’ll be charged with the assault on you and we’re going to question him about Melissa and Chloe. Steve and Matt are leading the search on his house. They’re over there at the moment.’

  Abbie’s scowl softened.

  ‘What about the fact that Sam was wearing a wire? Isn’t that entrapment?’ she asked.

  ‘What wire?’ Kate asked. ‘The paramedics didn’t mention anything and they’d have seen it when they brought her in.’

  ‘You mean you…?’

  ‘I found out about Sam’s plan to try to get Matthias to confess so we followed her to his house. Somebody heard yelling so we broke the door down. That sound about right, Sam?’

  Cooper blushed and nodded. She wouldn’t like the deception but if Matthias suspected that he was being monitored he was bound to try to use it in his favour.

  ‘So, come on. Why did you provoke him after being told explicitly not to?’

  Sam ran a hand over her head, reaching round to scratch the back of her neck.

  ‘The plan wouldn’t have worked. I couldn’t ask to use his bathroom because there was a downstairs loo just off the hallway. I had no reason to prowl around upstairs and he’d have seen me pass the living room door anyway.’

  ‘You couldn’t get rid of him?’

  Sam shook her head. ‘It was like he’d thought of everything. He’d even left a jug of water and a glass next to the chair that he told me to use. There was nowhere for me to go so I did the only other thing I could think of and wound him up. I didn’t think he’d gone for it, though. I remember him walking me into the hallway and then he just turned and grabbed my neck. Everything’s a blank after that.’

  Kate wasn’t surprised. Cooper had been deeply unconscious when the door had been broken down so she hadn’t been aware of the yelling and the scuffle in the alleyway behind Matthias’s house as Barratt and Irving had arrested him. He’d run out of his back door and through neighbouring gardens but Barratt had realised that he could possibly escape that way and he’d left Kate to go in the front, taking Irving round to the rear of the houses.

  ‘So now what?’ Cooper asked.

  ‘Now we see what Matthias has to say. Kailisa’s put a rush on the hair from Chloe’s body and we should have DNA in the next twenty-four hours. We’ve got decent prints from the umbrella from Madrigal’s. Three sets. We’re trying to match them against Matthias’s.’

  Kate’s phone beeped. A text from Barratt. They’d found something in Matthias’s house. She showed the screen to Sam and Abbie.

  ‘We’ll get him,’ she promised as she stood up to leave.

  Chapter 44

  Kate stared at the man sitting across the table from her feeling nothing but utter loathing. It had taken Tim Matthias six hours to crack. She’d seen teenage shoplifters hold out longer. The evidence that Barratt and O’Connor had found in his house was damning. A scalpel set from his parents wishing him luck in his future career, two unregistered mobile phones one of which corresponded to the number on Melissa’s account and, most conclusively, Chloe’s handbag.

  Kate had taunted Matthias about not being good enough to be a proper doctor and he’d completely lost it. He’d launched himself across the table, calling her names and screaming that she knew nothing about him. After his solicitor had coaxed him back to his seat the tirade had begun – his disgust with women, all women and their pathetic biological needs. He’d confessed to murdering Melissa and Chloe stating that they’d both ‘deserved it’ and that he had every right to save other men from their entrapment. Kate had expected a challenge, a battle of wits but the pathetic figure in front of her wasn’t worth wasting any more of her time. She instructed Barratt to charge him and left the interview room. O’Connor was waiting outside leaning against a wall looking pleased with himself.

  ‘I’ve got a present for you in interview three,’ he said with a sardonic grin.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘More like who is it?’

  Kate sighed. ‘I’m really not in the mood, Steve. Just tell me.’

  ‘Come and have a look.’ He led her to the observation room where a screen showed a frightened-looking teenager huddled in a chair in an interview room. The boy was jiggling one of his legs up and down and biting the nails of one hand. He looked sweaty and greasy, his dark hair plastered to an acne-spotted forehead.

  ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘His name’s Carlton Towers. He works for Jakey Green.’

  Kate looked at him blankly. The names meant nothing to her, but she wasn’t surprised. O’Connor loved to show off his knowledge of Doncaster’s gangsters and pimps even if nobody was ever really impressed.

  ‘And? The lad’s name sounds like a block of flats.’

  O’Connor shook his head as if he couldn’t quite believe he was having to explain this to her.

  ‘Green runs a lot of the girls around Town Fields. You remember me telling you that there was some unrest? Somebody new muscling in?’

  Kate nodded, not quite sure where this was going.

  ‘Towers works for Green. We picked him up yesterday afternoon when he tried to steal a car. Routine stuff really except that he had an envelope in his pocket with nearly two grand in twenties stashed inside and something that looked suspiciously like a bloody fingerprint on the front. There was blood on his trainers as well.’

  Kate waited. There was obviously more to come but O’Connor seemed determined to tell her in his own way.

  ‘We took samples of the blood and it matches Suzanne Doherty’s blood group – she’s B negative, which is unusual apparently. Too soon for DNA but S
crote Face in there doesn’t need to know that. Raymond got Kailisa to fast-track it while you were interviewing Matthias.’

  ‘So he killed her?’

  ‘Tried to deny it at first. Said he’d stumbled across the body and just took the money. When I told him that the blood spatter pattern didn’t match his story he started backtracking.’

  ‘You got blood spatter profiling as well?’

  ‘Course not. But he didn’t know that.’

  Kate couldn’t help but smile.

  ‘Turns out Jakey’s had him keeping an eye out for whoever’s been trying to poach his girls. He’d seen Suzanne Doherty talking to a few of them over the last couple of weeks so Towers has been following her.’

  Kate had seen the CCTV footage of Hollis’s father in the car park.

  ‘And he saw Hollis’s dad give her the cash?’

  ‘Bingo. Decided that he’d like a cut of it so he grabs her when she’s heading across Town Fields. There’s a struggle, he strangles her, stabs her, then panics. He remembered the girls talking about a murder where the woman’s abdomen was cut open so he tries to do the same to make it look like it’s the same killer. Stupid little shit makes a balls up of it and runs away with the two grand.’

  ‘And he’s confessed to this?’

  ‘Oh, yes. He’s scared that he’ll get blamed for the other two murders.’

  ‘Why would he think that?’ Kate asked with a laugh.

  ‘Not a clue,’ O’Connor said grinning back at her.

  As soon as O’Connor left the observation room Kate took out her phone. She had two calls to make. The first was to Hollis with the news about Carlton Towers. It went straight to voicemail so she left a message for him to call her back as soon as possible. She outlined what O’Connor had found out and told him to tell his father. The second was to Nick who answered on the first ring.

  ‘Hey you,’ he said, his deep voice as soothing as a warm bath.

  ‘Hey yourself,’ Kate responded. ‘You’d better pick up a decent bottle of wine after work. You’ve got a date at my place. And I’m cooking.’

  THE END

  Acknowledgments

  Thanks to all the Bloodhound team for their continued faith in my writing. Thanks once again to Clare for the edit. As always, I’m tremendously grateful to the other Bloodhound authors for their encouragement and – sometimes – downright oddness.

  A massive thank you to everybody who bought and read the first two books in the series – your support is greatly appreciated.

  I’d also like to acknowledge all the online bloggers who do an incredible job in helping to promote authors.

  Finally, thanks to Viv – the coffee’s always fantastic!