[Kitt Hartley 04] - Death Awaits in Durham

by Helen Cox

  ‘Bit of a strange combo,’ said Grace.

  ‘Maybe in summer but it was autumn and it started out as one of those bright chilly days, so I didn’t think much of it at the time.’

  ‘Can you remember anything else about him?’ Kitt pushed.

  ‘He had short brown hair, and quite a bulky build.’

  ‘And you told the police about this mystery man? Did they come up with any leads?’

  ‘I did tell them, but I don’t think they really believed me. At the time, I was at the top of their suspect list with no alibi. I had voicemails on my phone from Jodie asking to meet. They were convinced I either met up with her or followed Jodie down to the river after she left my house and . . . did something terrible to her. Even though they never had any forensic evidence against me, I think they thought I’d just made this guy up to put them off the trail.’

  ‘I see,’ Kitt said with a nod. From her tone Grace suspected Kitt was also wondering if Patrick had invented the man in black. She had to admit it sounded flimsy but then, why would Patrick make that up? He just said there was no forensic evidence, no witnesses had stepped forward, and given the fact the body was never found, the police didn’t have a case against him. He had no reason to just invent some imaginary, would-be attacker. At least, not one that Grace could think of.

  ‘And you have no idea who this man could have been?’ Kitt said. ‘Jodie didn’t give any signs that she recognized him?’

  ‘There . . . was something vaguely familiar about him but with the sunglasses I couldn’t see his full face. I didn’t even point him out to Jodie because at the time I was focused on other things – largely trying to convince her to let me in on what was going on. I thought maybe I’d just seen the guy around at some point on campus, and that’s why he seemed familiar.’

  ‘Maybe you had,’ said Grace. ‘There are thousands of students here, not to mention the number of part-time employees.’

  ‘That’s what I told myself but in retrospect, I don’t think so,’ said Patrick. ‘I’ve never seen him since. Just on that day. Just at that moment. His movements didn’t mean much to me at the time but after Jodie went missing, I realized she left and, less than a minute later, so did he. The last I saw of him, he was headed off in the same direction as Jodie.’

  Four

  Grace and Kitt walked single file down Moatside Lane, retracing the last steps of Jodie Perkins. The lane was a narrow, back-street cut between the high street and the cathedral area that reminded Grace of York’s many snickelways. Brick walls stood on either side of the path, overgrown in places with shrubbery showing early signs of bending to autumn’s will.

  ‘Why on earth would Jodie come down here so early in the morning?’ said Kitt. ‘It’s creepy enough during the day.’

  ‘I think you were right about Jodie running,’ said Grace. ‘It sounded like she was running on the clip and she was out of breath like she’d been running for a little while. If she was trying to get away from someone in particular she might have run down here to try and lose them, and failed.’

  The pair emerged on Silver Street which, for a Monday afternoon, was surprisingly buzzing. Shoppers and couples meandered by, chatting and laughing their way along the cobbled streets as they went.

  ‘At three thirty on a Wednesday morning this place would have been desolate,’ said Grace, as she turned towards the river and took the cut down to the water just before Framwellgate Bridge. The same cut through that Jodie had taken before that fateful call to Castle Rock FM.

  ‘It doesn’t seem to me like she took the shortest route back to the campus,’ said Kitt.

  ‘Which adds weight to the theory that she was trying to lose someone who was following her,’ said Grace. ‘Assuming she was heading back to the campus after visiting Patrick’s house.’

  The pair set off against the flow of the River Wear, retracing Jodie’s steps. They had been walking for a few minutes when Grace’s phone rang. Her breath caught in her throat as she looked at the caller ID. It was her mother. She went to touch the accept call button but something held her back. The last words her mother had said before she left to get settled into her dorm room still echoed in her ears. Having deliberately thrown herself into a possible murder investigation to distract herself from the family situation, it seemed counterproductive to give her mother another opportunity to make her feel small and ungrateful. So, instead, she watched the call go to voicemail and then, lowering her head just a touch, shoved the phone back in her coat pocket.

  ‘That your mum, by any chance?’ Kitt said.

  ‘No, it was George Clooney. He called last week to say he couldn’t live without me and I’ve had to screen his calls ever since.’

  ‘Bit old for you, isn’t he?’ Kitt said, fighting a smile.

  ‘You tell me. There’s a few years between you and Halloran.’

  ‘Halloran’s not old enough to be my father, thank you very much. And don’t think I can’t see straight through you trying to change the subject.’

  Grace chuckled. Nothing got past Kitt. Ever. And there was something comforting about that. The other students on her library studies course were nice enough but she missed the wisdom of her friend, who so often displayed knowledge and insight far beyond her thirty-seven years. She’d never let on to Kitt how much she’d missed her because they weren’t in the habit of getting all mushy about the fact they were grateful for each other’s companionship. A continuous exchange of banter bordering on mild insult was closer to the Yorkshire brand of affection, but Kitt had the distinction of being the only person significantly older than her who hadn’t shouted her down or silenced her when she tried to express an opinion. Yes, there were times where Kitt had had cause to rein in some of Grace’s more mischievous behaviour, but it was always done in good humour.

  ‘Yes, all right, super-sleuth, it was Mum.’

  ‘Still not talking to her?’

  ‘I’m not talking to any of them. Mum. Dad. My brothers.’

  Kitt stared hard at Grace. ‘Look, I know you feel like they ganged up on you—’

  ‘All four of them against one, hardly a fair fight. Even if I am sharper than both my chump brothers put together. Them two only count for one between them.’

  Kitt laughed. ‘They just care about you, Grace. It’s difficult to see sometimes but often family do things we don’t like much out of love.’

  ‘I know. But it didn’t have to be like this; they’re the ones who gave me the ultimatum. If that’s love, I don’t need it right now. There are other ways to show you care about someone than railroading them into what you think their future should be.’

  Grace winced at the memories resurfacing. She had done all she could to block out her mother’s face when she had said she would give Grace the money to study at Venerable Bede’s but if she went, it was the last thing she’d get off them and the last they wanted to see of her.

  ‘I know, I know. And if you think library studies is where your heart lies . . .’

  ‘I’m not totally sure if it is yet,’ Grace admitted. ‘How can anyone really know at twenty-two what they want to do with the rest of their life? Don’t answer that, because I bet you did.’

  ‘I may have had an idea that my future lay in whatever direction had the biggest available bookshelves,’ Kitt said.

  ‘I can imagine,’ Grace said. ‘With this course, though, I just wanted to give something that was more “me” a try. Something that wasn’t law or business or a branch of medicine just because that’s what everyone had always told me I was going to do. I took that psychology degree at the Vale of York as a compromise but it didn’t turn out to be my passion. And don’t I have the right to decide my own life?’ Grace all of a sudden realized that her voice had become louder than she meant it to and took a deep breath. ‘I just, I need to find out who I really am without them. Up until now, they’ve done everything they could to prevent me from doing that. As though they’re worried what I’m going to get up to, left to
my own devices.’

  ‘That’s a thought that keeps me awake at night, too.’

  Despite herself Grace laughed at this and, true to form, Kitt kindly changed the subject.

  ‘We’re not far now. Once I get a look at the spot where Jodie disappeared I should be able to put together some theories about what might have happened to her between the phone call to the radio station and the hour or so it took for the police to arrive on the scene.’

  The pair had parted ways with Patrick about ninety minutes ago. After booking an appointment with Dean Regina Berkeley later that afternoon, Kitt had insisted they revisit the stretch of river where the police had tracked Jodie’s phone to. A little way in the distance, the blocky outline of Durham Cathedral loomed from above. The eleventh century building was part-obscured by autumn trees and the sun struck the golden bell towers in such a way that Grace couldn’t help but smile at the view – even in spite of her family situation and the macabre purpose of their early afternoon ramble.

  ‘Is there really a chance of us finding something down here that the police didn’t? Especially given how much time has passed since Jodie disappeared,’ Grace asked, noticing that her shoes were already clarted up with mud. She’d largely facilitated Kitt’s previous investigations through rigorous online research. Now she was out in the field she realized she’d much rather be hunting down local drug rings at the academy library than muddying the new pair of salmon-pink Moschinos she’d bought for the start of term.

  ‘No, I shouldn’t think we’ll find any physical evidence after all this time but I need to get a look at the place if I’m to get inside the head of whoever presumably assaulted and abducted her that night, and while we’re there it can’t hurt to look around. I suppose you never know.’

  ‘I suppose . . . but Patrick said there was heavy rain the night Jodie disappeared.’

  ‘Yes, although I’ve got no reason to take Patrick Howard’s word for anything just yet.’

  ‘I thought you gave him a couple of suspicious looks. But he’s the client. And he was giving you lots of help.’

  ‘Oldest trick in the book,’ Kitt sniffed. ‘If you’re the one helping the investigation, you can help steer it. I’ve learnt that one the hard way. More than once. Personal experience aside, just look at The ABC Murders.’

  Grace resisted the urge to roll her eyes. She thought it had been too long since Kitt had referenced a mystery book. ‘One of Agatha Christie’s?’

  ‘A very good one. But even if you haven’t read that you must have seen an episode of Columbo in your time. It doesn’t matter how old you are, the sheer number of repeats makes that show inescapable. The person most eager to help the investigator is always the killer. Granted, we don’t know if Jodie is dead or alive yet. But from the sound of that recording something happened to her down here and I’d bet my first editions that the person behind it was someone close to her, like Patrick. Trust me, the truth behind all this will be no more surprising than the end of a Point Horror mystery.’

  ‘But this is real life,’ Grace tried, already knowing that Kitt wasn’t going to appreciate her next comment. ‘You can’t investigate a real-life case based on fictional cases.’

  ‘Hasn’t hurt so far, no matter what Halloran might have to say about it,’ Kitt said with a small smile. ‘Sometimes the best way to solve a mystery is to work out the story behind it. That’s all motive is, really. The story of why the culprit did what they did.’

  ‘All right, so what do you think Patrick’s story is?’ said Grace. ‘What’s his motive for allegedly getting rid of Jodie?’

  ‘Could be anything, from a well-hidden abusive streak to an argument that went too far – he did admit, after all, that they had a disagreement the day she disappeared. But the most obvious explanation, given that radio show recording, is that the big secret she was about to expose affected him, as well as the high profile person at the academy. Or that, for some reason, he wanted to protect that person more than he wanted to protect Jodie.’

  ‘I can’t really match that theory to the man we’ve just been talking to,’ Grace said, shaking her head.

  ‘Well, think about it. Jodie wasn’t willing to let Patrick help her with this for some reason. She went to him in the early hours but only after she’d done a day of digging for herself. For some reason, she didn’t want to tell him about her suspicions that morning. Maybe because it was something that involved him. Perhaps she wasn’t going to Patrick’s house that evening for help. Perhaps she was going there to confront him with what she knew.’

  Grace paused for a moment. She couldn’t deny it was strange that Jodie hadn’t been willing to let Patrick help her with whatever she was grappling with the last day she’d been seen alive. It’s not like they’d only just started dating. They’d been together nearly five years and were due to be married so that didn’t add up. Especially since he had seemed so gentle during their meeting and, consequently, she couldn’t imagine there being anything that Jodie couldn’t tell him. ‘That bit is strange. But she did tell him about the drugs and that she was going to look into it. If she was concerned that whatever she uncovered had something to do with him then why would she even tell him that much? That’s more than enough information for him to know the jig is up if she gets incriminating evidence against him – or someone he’s trying to protect.’

  ‘Making a person disappear, especially one that you claim to love, is an extreme measure. At that juncture she had only suspicions, no proof. He may have hoped that she wouldn’t find anything concrete and that he would find a way of defusing the situation some other way. I’m not suggesting Patrick is evil, not yet. I’m just suggesting that making Jodie disappear somehow might have been a last resort to resolve some difficult situation we’re yet to understand.’

  ‘So you think the same as the police did: that Patrick followed Jodie down to the river after her visit to his place and . . . did something to her?’

  ‘We don’t know for sure that Jodie didn’t talk to Patrick that night. He says he was asleep but maybe he wasn’t and she confronted him with whatever evidence she had. She may have threatened to phone into the radio station and that’s why he followed her. Or, maybe he didn’t talk to her. Maybe he just followed her down there.’

  ‘But the timing of the assault, it was just as Jodie was about to reveal this big secret. If Patrick was the one to assault her, he would have to have had a way of knowing that she was going to phone into the radio station. Otherwise he wouldn’t have had to take such drastic action at that exact moment.’

  ‘He may just have seen her on the phone to someone and panicked that she was reporting him – and whoever else is involved. But he seems to know Ran— er, Bertrand Hobbs off the air. Or is at least acquainted with him – he made that crack about his name. Maybe he got a tip-off. Bertrand Hobbs is near the top of my list of people to interview. I’ll be very interested to hear what he’s got to say for himself.’

  ‘I agree interviewing Randy is a priority given he was the last one to talk to Jodie, but the way Patrick was talking about her, I just find it hard to believe he’d do something like this.’

  ‘He might not have done it himself,’ said Kitt. ‘He might have known that if he had to look her in the eye he couldn’t hurt her, or worse. Maybe that elusive man in black does exist but Patrick hired him.’

  ‘You really think he’d go to those lengths and then set up a fake appeal for information about her? If I’d done something like that I’d keep my head down.’

  ‘Yes, but if he’s managed to get away with offing Jodie somehow, it might have made him feel as though he’s cleverer than everyone else. The appeal website could be just another layer of deceit. He hired us quick enough on his mother’s money. If he’s got money enough to be hiring a PI they’re not a poor family, that’s for sure. Maybe he paid someone cash to follow Jodie and alert him if there was anything he needed to worry about?’

  ‘Why not just invite Jodie back to his place
and threaten her, or whatever, there?’

  ‘Maybe he didn’t want anyone seeing her going into his property before she disappeared? You saw how the police responded to the fact that Jodie’s phone was tracked to his house that night. Probably the only thing that saved him from arrest was the fact that, thanks to the radio show, there’s confirmation that she left his house alive. The river banks, on the other hand, are a pretty anonymous place for a person to disappear.’

  ‘It just seems like a lot of effort, if you ask me.’

  ‘I know,’ said Kitt. ‘But if that secret Jodie uncovered was big enough to destroy someone’s career or reputation then it’s less surprising that people would go to great lengths to keep it quiet.’

  ‘Hopefully Randy will let something slip that lays the matter to rest,’ Grace said, wondering what – if anything – the DJ really knew about Jodie’s disappearance.

  ‘He’s on the list, but first we need to know more about these drugs that were reportedly found in Jodie’s locker. If we sound like we know more than we really do about the whole situation then we might be able to trick Randy into revealing something he’d rather not. He knew Jodie was going to reveal something on the radio when seemingly nobody else did, which means he was in a unique position to alert someone to what Jodie was about to do or set something up with an accomplice.’

  ‘That’s true. There was about twenty minutes of music played between Jodie’s original call to the station and him calling her back for the big reveal. As for Berkeley, do you really think she’s going to tell you anything about the drugs?’

  ‘We’ll find out at four o’clock.’

  Grace nodded. She had watched Kitt place a call to the dean’s office almost the second that the pair had left the library. Kitt had made out her meeting with the dean was about some grand collaboration between the academy and the Vale of York University. Exactly how she was going to segue from there to drugs uncovered in a missing student’s locker, Grace couldn’t say. But knowing Kitt she would find a way.