[Kitt Hartley 04] - Death Awaits in Durham

by Helen Cox

  As it quickly became apparent that Kitt wasn’t going to rise to her digs, Lowenthal didn’t bother trying to continue the conversation any further. Instead she simply grimaced and walked in the direction of the faculty car park. In a matter of minutes she approached a silver Audi and slipped into the driver’s seat. She sat there for a moment before the engine revved up. Kitt and Grace stared after her as she drove off.

  ‘Do you believe her? That she doesn’t know anything about Jodie’s disappearance?’ Grace asked, now that she could be one hundred per cent certain her lecturer was out of earshot and couldn’t kick her off the course for doubting her.

  ‘Yes, I think so. Though it grieves me to say it, she didn’t give any of the physical cues that might suggest she was lying. From past experience I know she’s well practised at lying but even so, there really were no signs. That said, I was right on one point. She may not be directly involved but she did know something about it.’

  ‘So, are you going to tell me what happened between you two now?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Oh come on. Don’t I need to know for my own protection? I mean, if she’s my lecturer and I’m going into my relationship with her unprepared, who knows what could happen?’

  ‘Nice try. Ask me another time, when I haven’t just had to face her for the first time in a decade, will you?’

  ‘Oh all right. But I’m holding you to that. I suppose we’d better start looking into Selina Grant and find out if there’s any suggestion the police should have taken things further with her.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose we had,’ said Kitt. ‘We’ll need some other avenues to pursue while waiting to get hold of Bertrand Hobbs. When I checked his Facebook page there was an update saying he was on a class visit to various London media centres this week. He’s not back until late on Friday.’

  ‘No hope of an interview until the weekend then,’ said Grace. ‘Anything on his page that suggested trouble?’

  ‘Other than his insistence on spelling media “meeja” seemingly without any irony, no.’

  ‘Ugh,’ Grace said, scrunching her nose up. ‘That’s bad enough, isn’t it?’

  ‘You’re not wrong. We can’t risk interviewing him over the phone in case he really is party to Jodie’s disappearance and we tip him off. Best to talk to him face to face when he gets back.’

  ‘And in the meantime we’ll look into Selina?’

  ‘Yes, it’s a job for tomorrow though. I need to visit the shops and residences along the road near the river, see if anyone saw anything strange the night, or rather early morning, Jodie disappeared.’

  ‘I would come with you, but I’ve got quite a few assignments due tomorrow,’ said Grace.

  ‘No bother, I’ve already left a few voicemails about the outhouse; hopefully someone will come back to me about the owner, and Mal is coming over tonight so he can come with me to question any potential witnesses.’

  ‘How romantic for him after a day of . . . questioning potential witnesses,’ Grace teased.

  ‘He won’t mind so much if he’s with me,’ Kitt said.

  Grace thought about passing a comment on the unmissable smile on Kitt’s face at the mention of her inspector boyfriend but thought better of it. Kitt’s best friend Evie could get away with that kind of banter because they’d known each other for a lot longer, but she would without doubt get a scolding and a hard stare if she tried the same thing.

  ‘I wonder how a millionaire’s daughter is connected to Jodie?’ Grace said in lieu of the many other jibes she would have liked to dish out.

  ‘I’ve got a better question for you,’ said Kitt. ‘I asked Patrick directly if there was anyone Jodie wasn’t on good terms with before the worst happened. If Selina was close to Jodie and had some falling-out with her just before she disappeared and was never heard from again, why didn’t Patrick mention her?’

  Ten

  The next morning, just after nine o’clock, Grace, Patrick, Kitt and DI Halloran stood by the old outhouse near the River Wear. They were joined by the man who owned the property, local builder Kenneth Sweeney, and Patrick’s mother Cynthia who, given she was paying for the investigation, had travelled down from Chester-le-Street to meet Kitt and check everything was above board. Cynthia was a lot more glamorous than Grace had expected. Her bobbed blonde hair was cut perfectly in line with her chin and she wore a full-length leopard-print winter coat made of faux fur that looked more like the kind of garment someone would wear to turn heads at a red carpet event than to a small meeting on the banks of the Wear one idle Tuesday morning.

  They all looked on solemnly as Kenneth unlocked the outhouse door. It swung open with a creak and one by one they approached the building.

  ‘Stay by the entrance, if you don’t mind,’ Kitt said to Grace, Cynthia, Patrick and Kenneth. ‘We don’t want to accidentally damage or contaminate any evidence.’

  Grace sighed. Even when she brought Kitt in on the investigation she was forced to stand on the sidelines. Since finding Jodie was the most important thing, Grace, for once, did as instructed. As a trained professional, it seemed Halloran was getting a free pass to go deeper into the building with Kitt to see what they could unearth.

  ‘Well, like I told you,’ Kenneth said in his broad Geordie accent, ‘I’ve bin in this building a couple of times since last October, like, and I’ve not noticed anything untoward.’

  ‘Except that when you visited in November last year the lock was broken,’ said Kitt, and silently Grace agreed with her that this would definitely be categorized as ‘untoward’.

  Kenneth scratched his head. His fingernails were yellowed by either age or nicotine – maybe both. ‘Aye, but I don’t know how long it’d been broken for. Autumn was reet rainy last year. I remember because I couldn’t get many outdoor painting jobs done. Odds are a rough sleeper broke the lock and was using the place as a shelter. Wouldn’t be the first time, like.’

  ‘Even so,’ said Kitt. ‘I might not have troubled you if the property had remained locked and secure. It was just a hunch, after all. But I can’t think it’s a coincidence that you found the lock broken so close to Jodie’s disappearance.’

  Kenneth shrugged. ‘It didn’t seem like owt to worry about at the time. If I thought there was a link I’d have phoned the police about it. I saw her picture in the paper, she was a canny lass. But I’d be surprised if this place had owt to do with her disappearance.’

  ‘Well, we’ll know soon enough,’ said Kitt, taking a few steps further inside. She was closely followed by Halloran.

  Grace looked around at the boxes of tools and various lengths of wood stored near the walls. She then glanced over at Patrick and Cynthia to see they, too, were examining the place as best they could from their remote vantage point. Kitt and Halloran continued to scour the room, their expressions equally intense.

  ‘I’m no detective but, at a glance, it doesn’t look like there’s anything here,’ said Cynthia, disappointment in her tone. She glanced at Patrick out of the corner of her eye, probably wondering how her son would handle another dead end on a case he was so desperate to solve. Grace stared at Patrick’s face in profile for herself. Even from this angle she could see that wounded look had returned to his eyes. What torture for him to live all these months and be left to wonder.

  ‘It’s too soon to say, we don’t know that yet,’ Kitt said, putting on a pair of plastic gloves she’d pulled from her pocket before walking towards the back of the room and moving some boxes of nails aside. ‘I interviewed every shop owner and resident from Pimlico to North Road who’d open their door to us last night and—’

  DI Halloran cleared his throat.

  ‘Sorry, we. We interviewed everyone along the main drag nearest the river. But for the most part we were just rehashing work the police did a year ago. They remembered hearing about Jodie’s disappearance on the news the day after but they didn’t remember anything strange from the early hours. Most of them were in bed but the few that weren’
t didn’t see or hear anything. Which makes it more likely that if Jodie was attacked that night they didn’t make it up to the road.’

  ‘Or maybe they did take that road but nobody saw them,’ said Patrick. ‘It was very early in the morning.’

  ‘It’s possible,’ said Halloran. ‘But often someone sees something on a main road, even at that early time of day. It would have been about four a.m. Some people are getting up for shift work at that time. Some people are coming back from last night’s party. Either way, Kitt won’t leave any stone unturned, and that’s ultimately the way a lot of these kinds of investigations are resolved. By entertaining every possibility.’

  Grace thought she saw a certain look in Halloran’s eyes that she had noticed once or twice before. He was evaluating Patrick as he spoke to him. Did Kitt only bring him along to get his professional opinion on whether he thought Patrick was in on it? Something tightened in her chest at the thought.

  Kitt and Halloran started systematically moving the many boxes and trays around, checking in and under each one before setting it aside. No luck. Next, the pair started on a pile of paint-splashed linens resting on the window sill. Each one was unfolded and inspected and then refolded.

  ‘Those are just some sheets we use for interior decorating jobs,’ said Kenneth, ‘nothing suspect about them.’

  ‘What about these?’ Kitt said, pointing to a pile of rags on the floor. ‘Are these yours?’

  ‘Er, whey aye, suppose they must be. We do use rags from time to time.’

  ‘But you don’t immediately recognize them.’

  ‘Well no, but it’s hard to tell one rag from another, like, you know? I do a lot of jobs and if they’re sitting in the back there it could be a couple of years since I last put my hands on them.’

  One by one, Kitt picked up the rags, inspecting them first with her eyes and then sniffing them. She paused on the fifth rag, and narrowed her eyes.

  ‘What is it?’ said Halloran.

  ‘I’m not one hundred per cent . . . What do you think this is?’ she said, handing it to Halloran.

  Halloran held the rag near his nose and inhaled. ‘Smells like some kind of ether to me. Sweet-smelling enough to be chloroform.’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’

  ‘Chloroform? You mean like the anaesthetic?’ said Cynthia, before biting her bottom lip and looking over at Patrick. Every muscle in his face seemed to be clenched tight.

  ‘I use some strong substances,’ said Kenneth, ‘but nothing like that, and at any rate, all my liquids are kept in a different storage space.’

  Kitt studied Kenneth’s face with a little more keenness than she had before but then returned her attention to the rags again. ‘There’s just this one that seems to have the smell about it.’

  Halloran produced an evidence bag from the pocket of his dark grey coat and started placing the rags inside.

  ‘Hang about,’ Kitt said. She pulled a small box from her satchel and opened it. Inside, as far as Grace could see, there were various small tools including a pair of tweezers. Leaning forward, she picked something off the rag with the tweezers; something that Grace had no hope of seeing without getting a bit closer.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Patrick, a note of urgency in his voice.

  ‘Fibres,’ Halloran said.

  Kitt placed it in another bag Halloran held out for her and then took the bag over to where Grace, Patrick, Cynthia and Kenneth were standing. They all leaned in to get a better look at the bright red fibres that looked to be mohair.

  ‘Oh God,’ Patrick said. Grace looked back at him to see all the colour had drained from his face. ‘Jodie had a cardigan that was that colour.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right. I remember it,’ said Cynthia. ‘There’s no doubt it’s the same colour. I always admired it whenever she wore it. Most of the times I saw her she was in jeans and an oil-stained T-shirt so I remember thinking it was nice she had something a bit more feminine in her wardrobe.’

  ‘There’s not much point getting dressed up when you’re spending most of your days under a car, is there, Mum?’ said Patrick with a snap to his voice Grace wouldn’t have expected from him.

  ‘No, I know, love. I just wished she’d got the chance to dress up a bit more, that’s all. Before all this happened.’ Cynthia put an arm around Patrick.

  He offered her a weak smile. ‘I know. She never even got to pick out a wedding dress for our big day.’

  ‘Oh, don’t, pet,’ Cynthia said, pulling a tissue out of her pocket and dabbing her eyes. ‘You’ll set me off.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Patrick said, before returning his attention to the bag Halloran was holding. ‘She was wearing that cardigan the day she disappeared, or at least, the last time I saw her that morning.’

  ‘So Jodie was here,’ said Grace. ‘Before she disappeared, wherever she went, she was here first.’

  Halloran turned on Kenneth. ‘I’m going to need to report this finding to the local nick and submit it as evidence. They’ll probably have some questions for you when I do.’

  ‘A few fibres don’t prove anything,’ said Kenneth. ‘She could’ve broke in here of her own accord, for all we know.’

  ‘True,’ said Kitt. ‘But unlikely given her disappearance and the fact that the last time we heard from her she was screaming on local radio.’

  ‘Well, I’ve got nothing to hide,’ said Kenneth. ‘The police can ask owt they want.’

  Halloran nodded and then began to usher everyone, Kitt included, out of the doorway. He proceeded to search the area for any further clues. After ten minutes, he was satisfied they had found all they could without the use of more specialized equipment.

  ‘We’ll need to cordon this building off,’ said Halloran. ‘If Jodie was . . .’ He paused and looked at Patrick before correcting himself. ‘If anything happened to her, this is likely where it happened.’

  ‘Oh, this is horrible, just horrible. I can’t stand to think about her in here, trapped and scared,’ said Cynthia, looking back into the outhouse. Grace looked again at the building and tried, without success, to stop a shudder in its tracks. Nobody wants to die before their time but the outhouse was cold and dank and very much the last place you’d want to take your final breath.

  ‘Well, we don’t know anything for sure yet,’ Halloran said. ‘But even if Jodie did leave here alive, this place is a new lead in her case. We need to protect it.’

  ‘How long for, like?’ Kenneth said.

  ‘I don’t know yet,’ Halloran replied, with an edge to his voice that made Kenneth visibly shrink. ‘You said you don’t use this building very often anyway, so it shouldn’t be any trouble, should it?’

  ‘I don’t, but you never know when you’re going to need access to your stuff, do you?’

  ‘I’ve had a quick look round but I don’t want to step on any toes at the local nick and besides which they’ll need specialized equipment to be sure they’ve caught everything. I’m sure they will do all necessary work as swiftly as they can. In the meantime, nobody is to go in or out until they get here to conduct a thorough search.’ And with that, Halloran pulled some yellow tape out of his pocket and began securing it on a nearby tree.

  ‘Does he, er, always carry crime scene tape around with him?’ Grace asked.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Kitt said with a hint of pride in her voice. ‘Mal’s always prepared for anything.’

  Grace would have smiled at Kitt’s strange admiration for her boyfriend’s access to crime scene essentials if it wasn’t for the look on Patrick’s face. Those brown sorrowful eyes looked even sadder now than they had done in the photograph on the appeal website.

  ‘She isn’t alive, is she?’ Patrick said quietly.

  ‘Look,’ Grace said in a gentle voice. ‘I’ll be the first to admit this doesn’t look good, but like Halloran says, we don’t know anything for sure yet. In fact, there are other leads we can explore while the police are working on this bit.’

  ‘You’ve found other
leads already?’ said Cynthia, her tone admiring. ‘That is quick work. I wish we’d had you around when all this first happened. If we had, we might have been able to draw a line under it all much sooner.’

  ‘Yes, we . . . try,’ Grace said, unsure if conducting less than discreet surveillance on a faculty member Kitt had a long-running vendetta against really counted as work. ‘I looked into the man who found the drugs in Jodie’s locker, Elvis McCabe. Does his name sound familiar?’

  Cynthia and Patrick both shook their heads.

  ‘He resigned shortly after Jodie’s disappearance. Berkeley said he felt guilty but we wanted to be sure it wasn’t because he’d taken a bribe and was fleeing the scene.’

  ‘And did you find anything suspicious?’ Patrick asked.

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ said Grace. ‘If Elvis McCabe took some big bribe off anyone he hasn’t spent it. He still lives in the same housing estate on the edge of Durham he lived in when he worked at the academy. His Facebook profile shows him in a photo with four kids. I called the company that manages that estate this morning, pretending to be a potential tenant, and they said that the biggest flats they had were three bedroomed, so their living quarters aren’t exactly spacious, given the size of their family.’

  ‘What about a car?’ said Cynthia. ‘Or gadgets, things like that?’