by Ted Tayler
“Two kids wrapped up in hoodies, jeans, gloves, scarf and trainers,” said Gus. “From the other side of the road, I’d be hard-pressed to tell if it was two lads or two girls. Could the dog-walker hear the argument? Could she tell Debbie what it was about?”
“Traffic was light on the road and the pavements. The cold weather kept most people indoors. Although she couldn’t tell Debbie what was said, she was adamant the girl was Stacey, and it was a boy she was arguing with.”
“Did Stacey have a mobile phone?” asked Gus.
“Debbie Read told detectives that Stacey got a pay-as-you-go mobile for her thirteenth birthday. She had it with her when she left home. There was no reason to check her whereabouts on Sunday evening. Debbie left for work at seven in the morning. Lucy took the cash from the kitchen table for the bus fares and sweets. When Debbie got home in the early evening, and there was no sign of her eldest daughter, she asked Lucy if she’d seen her. Lucy told her mother it wasn’t unusual to miss one another at a school with sixteen hundred pupils. Debbie couldn’t contact Stacey on her phone. She assumed Stacey switched it off or had forgotten to take a charger with her to Vanessa’s house.”
“Did Debbie call her sister?” asked Gus.
“Not on Monday night. She kept ringing Stacey’s phone. On Tuesday evening, when Lucy was alone at home again, Debbie called Vanessa. That was the first time that Debbie learned Stacey hadn’t spent the night in Penhill with her sister.”
“Why didn’t they call the police straight away?” asked Gus.
“Remember where Stacey and Lucy had spent most of Sunday,” said the ACC. “They visited Mary Bennett, their grandmother. Vanessa suggested that Stacey had changed her mind and stayed with her Gran instead. Mrs Bennett didn’t own a mobile, so Debbie called her landline but got no reply. Vanessa agreed to walk across the estate to their mother’s house to check she was alright and see whether Stacey was there. At around ten in the evening, Vanessa called Debbie to say that Mary had just got home from playing bingo in Greenbridge. Mary hadn’t seen Stacey since she left with Lucy on Sunday afternoon. Debbie called into the police station first thing on Wednesday morning on her way to work.”
“Was Stacey’s mobile recovered at the scene?” asked Gus.
“Divers explored the canal and officers carried out a fingertip search of the undergrowth in the area without luck.”
“The killer may have taken it with them and disposed of it,” said Gus. “That could prove significant. The phone must have contained incriminating information. Otherwise, why bother?”
“You think the absence of the phone suggests the killer wasn’t a stranger,” said the ACC. “What if Stacey lost it in a struggle? We’ve not ruled out the possibility that Stacey arrived in Rushey Platt by car, or that there was an older man responsible for her not reaching her aunt’s house. Someone could have seen Stacey at Gorse Hill South, waiting at the bus stop, offered her a lift, and driven out to Rushey Platt.”
“Someone drove her to a secluded spot to carry out a sexual assault,” said Gus. “He tries it on in the car first, and that’s where Stacey and the mobile part company. Matters turn ugly, and when they’re in the nature reserve, he stabs Stacey and dumps her body in the canal. That doesn’t sound far-fetched, but the eye witness was adamant Stacey was under that street lamp, half a mile away, arguing with a young lad thirty minutes after leaving home. She could have accepted a lift from someone she knew. We could ask the family if Stacey would have gone with a friend of the family or neighbour, willingly. No doubt, Debbie warned both girls of the dangers of accepting lifts from strangers.”
“If the witness statement is unshakeable,” said the ACC, “then the killer was that young lad or someone who arrived on the scene after the witness walked off with her dog.”
“At this stage, we can’t even rule out there being more than one attacker,” said Gus. “This case has a strange feel to it. We have a family that doesn’t appear to have an adult male presence. Debbie’s children spent long periods away from home, either with their aunt or their grandmother. Their mother left for work at seven o’clock every day. Where did she work?”
“Debbie worked for Royal Mail out at the Dorcan Mail Centre,” said the ACC. “She cycled to work, just under thirty minutes each way. Her shift was from seven-thirty to three-thirty. The girls’ father, Pat, worked at the Honda factory. He left Debbie in 2007 when Stacey was six years old. Pat Read did not try to get custody, or have the girls at weekends or holidays.”
“He just abandoned his family and didn’t look back,” said Gus. “What a charmer. Were his maintenance payments up to date?”
“They were never an issue, according to the report in the file. Honda deducted the money from Read’s salary and paid it to Debbie. The financial transaction was the only link between them.”
“So, Stacey hadn’t been in contact with her father behind her mother’s back?” asked Gus, “It wasn’t Pat Read that stopped to pick her up from the bus stop? Where does he live?”
“Moredon Road,” said the ACC. “Pat Read has a fifteen-minute drive in his Honda to work every day.”
“What about the grandmother?”
“Widowed in 2006,” said the ACC, “Harry died of lung cancer, aged sixty-nine. Before you ask, Vanessa’s husband, Barry, was a long-distance lorry driver who spent so much time on the continent he moved to Germany a decade ago to live with a barmaid called Helga. They live in Dusseldorf with one child and three Alsatians. Barry and Vanessa didn’t have any children before the split.”
“For once, we can’t fault the detail that the detectives at Gablecross went into on their first run at this case. We’ve got plenty of names to pursue to arrange interviews. I don’t envisage Barry Nicholls offering much help, though. Is there anything else you think warrants a highlight before I drive back to brief the team, sir?”
“I don’t know whether it helps or hinders, Freeman,” said the ACC. “Jack Sanders was SIO on this case. No big surprise with it being the murder of a child. Jack gave an interview to the media where he stated he believed Stacey went to the nature reserve with a group of people she knew and to use his actual phrase–things progressed far more than they expected. It was Jack who thought there was a sexual motive. Police found items of Stacey’s clothing in two separate areas of the canal bank nearby. There was no post mortem evidence of a sexual assault. At the inquest, in June 2015, the coroner said Stacey might have drowned trying to escape her attacker or attackers. It appeared they had undressed her under threat. Although there was no evidence of sexual assault, the killer may well have intended to molest or rape her. Stacey got shoved into the canal after the stabbing or went into the water to escape, and the stabbing took place there. It was February, and the water was freezing, the cause of death was drowning. The coroner returned a verdict of unlawful killing.”
“Police found clothing in two distinct areas,” said Gus, “that ties in with the theory that her attacker wanted to rape her, but Stacey got away during his first attempt. The notion that there were several males in the nature reserve that night terrorising a thirteen-year-old girl is abhorrent. Stacey could easily have slipped into the water as she ran, partially clothed along the canal bank, trying to escape in the dark. What conclusions did the detectives draw regarding the stab wounds?”
“A five-inch blade made both wounds,” said the ACC. “It was impossible to tell whether the same weapon made them. Stacey’s body had been in the water for over a week and, well, Rushey Platt is a nature reserve.”
“There was plenty of vermin present apart from the two-legged variety there on Sunday, the eighth of February,” said Gus.
“Quite,” said Kenneth Truelove.
CHAPTER 4
Gus gathered the contents of the Stacey Read murder file and slipped them back into the folder. Time to head for the Old Police Station office and start work.
He left the ACC gazing out of his window and braved the walk to the top of the stairs.
“Good morning, Kassie. No, it’s past twelve o’clock. Good afternoon.”
“I’d already showed Mr Mercer and the ACC my muffins before you arrived today.”
“The team had work to complete for Mr Truelove, Kassie,” said Gus. “He kindly delayed our meeting until eleven. Although, I managed to arrive late for that, as I expect you noticed.”
“I was still wheeling my trolley around, Mr Freeman, but Vera mentioned the mini-wave and the watch.”
“How is Ms Butler?” asked Gus.
“Hark at you, Ms Butler, indeed. Vera is at lunch. I have to take my break when she returns from today. Mr Mercer delegated tasks to DI Packenham. She’s new, and upsetting Status Quo, or at least that’s what your Suzie said. I call it changing for change’s sake. If it isn’t broke, why mess with it?”
“My thoughts exactly. Kassie,” said Gus. “Where did this latest DI spring from?”
“Geraldine,” said Kassie making the name last far more than a heartbeat, “came from Portishead.”
“I’ll get the details from Suzie tonight,” said Gus.
“You’ll interrogate her, I suppose,” said Kassie with a grin. “Is it still roses around the door in Urchfont?”
“Early days,” said Gus, “and early nights too. There are no storm clouds on the horizon, Kassie. You can stop trying to turn back the clock.”
“Alright for some,” groaned the loveless Kassie Trotter. Gus thought he saw the opportunity to escape. He took one step towards the ground floor.
“Don’t you dare,” said Kassie. “I’ve got something I want you to sample. I have given no one else a slice of this yet.”
“Another busy weekend baking then,” said Gus.
“I’ve been practising for next month,” said Kassie.
Gus returned to the mezzanine and waited while Kassie retrieved an item wrapped in tinfoil from one of her Tupperware boxes.
“Try this with your afternoon coffee,” she said, “and let me know what you think.”
“Can I ask what it is?” asked Gus.
“A Welsh tea bread,” said Kassie, “they call it bara brith, or speckled bread. It should have butter spread on it like a malt loaf, but I don’t suppose you stock that in the office.”
“I’m sure I’ll get the idea, Kassie,” said Gus. “This package feels as if you’ve given me a sizeable portion.”
“I never let my gentleman friends go short,” she said as she shuffled back to her desk.
Gus headed to the car park wondering whether Rhys Evans, the new Police Surgeon, had any idea what lay in wait for him.
When Gus exited the lift and entered the CRT office, he found five eager team members poised to hear their next case.
“I hope you found something useful to occupy the two hours I’ve been away?”
“I did,” said Blessing Umeh. The others looked at her.
“Good,” said Gus. “The ACC has handed us an unsolved case from 2015. Someone stabbed a teenage girl from Swindon and dumped her body in the canal.”
“Stacey,” said DS Neil Davis.
“You remember the case, Neil?”
“Yes, guv. Colonel Sanders took charge of that one. He oversaw the Burnside case from May until around the end of the year. Jack was coming up to retirement age and thought that was his swansong. Then Stacey…”
“Read,” said Gus.
“That was it, Stacey Read. Her death got ruled an unlawful killing, didn’t it? Jake Latimer told me the Colonel couldn’t find a suspect, no matter how hard he tried. Jack Sanders always found it tough dealing with cases involving children.”
“Who doesn’t, Neil,” said DS Luke Sherman.
Gus knew what both Neil and Luke meant.
It was impossible not to get affected by the unlawful death of a child. Jack Sanders also found it difficult dealing with the girls that survived the grooming scandal. Gus wondered whether something in Jack’s past lay behind that exaggerated concern.
“I’ll let you have access to the murder file in a few minutes,” said Gus. “I want to tell you what I’ll be doing over the next couple of days. I won’t be in tomorrow morning. The ACC will call me later this afternoon to let me know where I can meet an investigative reporter who is working undercover on the dogfighting circuit.”
“Is that this side of the Severn Bridge, or in South Wales, guv?” asked Luke.
“In the West Country, Luke, I’m afraid. I’ll be back before lunch, and then either in the afternoon or the following morning, I’m returning to Cardiff Central.”
“Armed with knowledge about dogs similar to the ones that Lexie Kendall exercised,” said Neil. “Are you going to interview the Corbett brothers, guv?”
“I can’t, Neil,” said Gus. “The ACC has agreed that I can brief Dai Williams and sit in on his interview. Dai Williams will get as many answers as he can. I’ll decide what to do next after I have a conversation with Dai.”
“Is that within our remit, guv?” asked DS Alex Hardy.
“No, Alex,” said Gus. “Neil and Luke thought persuading Lexie to get reacquainted with her mother was the right thing to do. I feel we need to go the extra mile in this area of the case too.”
“Anything else, guv?” asked Lydia Logan Barre.
“While I’m away, Alex will be in charge. I know it might mean the CRT office is without a chief for only eight to ten hours, but the ACC wants us to operate at maximum efficiency at all times.”
“Fair enough, guv,” said Neil. “Luke and I can sub for you whenever the occasion arises in the future.”
Gus caught Lydia’s sidelong look at DC Blessing Umeh. He had three Detective Sergeants on the team. Gus hadn’t considered which of them was the senior officer. Alex was the eldest, Neil had a good deal of experience. Luke was the only team member with proven firearm skills. Of course, Blessing was the junior member as a mere Detective Constable.
Where did that leave Lydia? She was the ACC’s graduate intake, slipped into the Crime Review Team within months of leaving university. Although a civilian, Gus had unconsciously set Lydia on a par with the guys. He would need to share the captain’s armband around the first four team members in the room. Gus shook his head. Why did he listen to that Geoff Mercer and agree to come out of retirement? He made a mental note to give Geoff a ring. Maybe they should meet for a pint after he’d paid his visit to Cardiff.
“Right, let’s get this murder file split up,” said Gus. “We need maps of Swindon, and crime scene photos on the wallboards, please. Luke, you can prepare a list of potential interviewees. Neil, can you hunt down maps and the history of the Wilts & Berks and Kennet & Avon Canals?”
“That’s easy, guv,” said Neil, “I studied canals at school. That fifty-two-mile canal opened in 1810 was abandoned by the start of WWI–a fate hastened by the collapse of the Stanley aqueduct at the turn of the century. Much of the canal subsequently became unnavigable. Army demolition exercises in WWII damaged many of the structures, and since then parts of the route got filled in, or housing estates covered the ground they occupied. Around forty years ago, local people set up a group who aimed to restore the canal in full. The group has restored several locks and bridges, and re-watered over eight miles of the canal.”
“You must dig out the maps, Neil,” said Gus. “I remember the Queen opening something near Devizes thirty years ago, but I can’t see how that connects yet with the stretch of canal at Rushey Platt.”
“Is it relevant, guv?” asked Blessing Umeh. “I’ve skipped through the initial summary of the case, and Stacey Read’s body was in a secluded part of an old canal. Her killer had to be local, surely?”
“I’ve lived around here longer than you, Blessing,” said Gus. “Canoeists have competed in an annual race from Devizes to Westminster for years, and long stretches of the canal network sees cyclists tearing along the towpath. Dotted, here and there, are navigable stretches as Neil pointed out. U
ntil I can rule out the possibility someone other than a local was near that stretch of water on the night of the attack, I’ll keep every option open.”
“Fair enough, guv,” said Blessing.
Neil Davis walked past Blessing’s desk fifteen minutes later with items to pin on a wallboard beside her.
“Anyone would be mad to canoe or cycle at eight or nine o’clock at night in February, Blessing,” he said. “But if the canal was navigable enough to allow a barge to reach that spot and it moored there overnight, there is a chance Stacey bumped into a stranger. It doesn’t gel with the idea that she went there with a gang of people that the coroner’s report suggested though.”
“Oh, I haven’t got to that bit yet, Neil. What were your first impressions?”
“I don’t think it was the young lad. He might carry a knife like many others of his age, but an eyewitness saw him and Stacey arguing. Why would Stacey walk half a mile in the dark to that nature reserve with someone she’d just argued with?”
“Perhaps he chased Stacey, and where the attack took place was random. Did Stacey even know the nature reserve? Did she realise she was running into danger?”
Neil shook his head.
“Let’s assume he chased Stacey, caught her and stabbed her as he tried to rip off her top. In the struggle, Stacey ended in the water. What would a boy of fourteen or fifteen do in that situation?”
“Panic,” said Blessing.
“Despite an exhaustive search, the police never found Stacey’s phone,” said Neil. “Yet her key ring, loose change, and handkerchief were in a purse in her jacket pocket. The phone would incriminate her killer, so they took it with them. That’s cold. Not something I associate with a young lad’s reactions to such an awful incident.”
“You said that the verdict was death by drowning,” said Blessing. “Would the poor girl have died from the stab wounds?”
