by Ted Tayler
“We might have more questions later, Mrs Nicholls,” said Alex, “but we’ll let you get on. Many thanks for your help this morning.”
“I hope you find the devil that did it this time,” said Vanessa. “Stacey would have been a real beauty now.”
Alex and Lydia left Vanessa with the memories of her niece.
“That was informative,” said Lydia.
“The murder file didn’t suggest the tension that existed between the sisters. I wonder how Luke and Blessing got on with Vanessa’s mother?
Alex drove them back to the Old Station office. They would catch up with the others when they returned to base.
CHAPTER 7
Alex and Lydia searched Penhill for Vanessa Nicholl’s address, while Neil parked his car near the Redpost Drive junction. He’d driven to Swindon on the motorway, left the M4 at Junction 16, and completed the journey on the A3102 Wootton Basset Road.
Gus and Neil stood on the opposite side of the road from where the eyewitness saw Stacey Read arguing with a teenage lad. The volume of traffic at ten in the morning was high.
“The only way we’d get the same view as that dog walker, is if we came here in February at seven in the evening,” said Gus. “If you ignore the traffic, it’s unlikely she could swear in court who she saw. The street lights don’t give a great spread, do they?”
“We might need to check to see whether the council has replaced the lighting since 2015, guv,” said Neil. “I see what you mean, though. On an empty street at night, with a dim pool of light, the best you could do is say two kids stood over the road. Debbie Read was convinced though because the clothing matched what Stacey wore that night.”
“I wish we had the eyewitness’s name, Neil,” said Gus. “I’d like to know precisely how Debbie phrased that question.
“I’ve got the stopwatch on my phone ready, guv,” said Neil. “Let’s walk at a steady pace to the nature reserve entrance.”
“Is that the only entrance, Neil?” asked Gus.
“There are steps near a footbridge further up the canal, guv. The steps would be closer to where the ‘Dragonfly’ turns back to head for the landing stage on its pleasure trips.”
“We’re sticking to this route because it’s the nearest to Redpost Drive, is that it?”
“We don’t have any evidence that she went this way, guv,” said Neil.
“Nor does it suggest in the murder file that Gablecross found evidence Stacey entered from another direction,” said Gus.
“Well, we do know where they found Stacey’s clothing, guv.”
“Fair enough. If Stacey’s hoodie and top got discarded between the entrance ahead of us and where the body went into the water, then it was logical to assume she accessed the nature reserve from here.”
“Five minutes so far, guv,” said Neil, checking his phone. “It’s not a direct route from here. We turn left and double back on ourselves before turning right, and then we move into the reserve.”
The two detectives soon stood next to the Wilts & Berks canal.
“Eight minutes, guv. We can walk along this stretch now to the top of the reserve. I’ve got the locations of the clothing items on my phone. These apps are a bonus, aren’t they?”
“I’m sure you’re right, Neil,” said Gus.
They walked along the footpath for one hundred yards.
“Over there, guv. That was where officers found Stacey’s hooded jacket. It snagged on a bush after getting ripped from her body.”
“Wouldn’t that be difficult, Neil? If it was zipped up and Stacey wore a scarf and gloves.”
“The jacket was unzipped when found, guv,” said Neil, “look, here’s a photograph.”
“Why would Stacey unzip her jacket on such a cold night? Where did they find her gloves?”
“Stuffed in the jacket pockets, guv.”
“What about the scarf?”
“Recovered from the water close to the bush where she lost the jacket.”
“Remind me what Stacey wore underneath. We assume she’s running for her life now, yes?”
“Yes, guv. Debbie told the police Stacey wore a sweatshirt. They found that half in, half out of the water here. Just after that minor depression in the grass.”
“Stacey probably stumbled there, said Gus, “because of the uneven ground. It would be easy to turn an ankle in the dark or pitch forward onto her knees. Did they find bruises on her legs?”
“Nothing recorded, guv,” said Neil. “Her jeans could have got muddy, but after a week in the canal, there wouldn’t be much to analyse.”
“If she fell, it might explain how her attacker removed the sweatshirt,” said Gus. “No zip, or buttons, he just grabbed the bottom of the sweatshirt and dragged it over her head. Stacey got back on her feet, wrestled her way clear and carried on running in this direction. How much further?”
“Eighty-five metres, guv,” said Neil.
Gus and Neil stopped walking and stared into the stretch of the canal. On a warm summer’s day like today, an idyllic spot.
“What’s that over there near the water’s edge, Neil?” asked Gus.
“It looks to be an Easter cross, guv. I expect Debbie or her mother put it here on April the first, Easter Sunday this year. No doubt there will be flowers for her at other times.”
Gus sighed.
“I’ve seen the where for all the help it’s been. Now I need to find the why.”
“Let’s walk back to the car, guv. I’ll give Jake Latimer a call, and then I’ll drive us out to Gablecross.”
Forty minutes later, they headed for the detective squad room. Reception seemed to doubt that Jake Latimer was in the building. Gus said that Neil had just spoken to him.
“The desk sergeant still wasn’t convinced, was he,” said Gus.
Neil spotted his friend on the far side of the room by the window.
“You’ve hung onto the best seat in the room then, Jake,” he said.
“Neil, how are you doing? Gus Freeman too. Morning, guv. Good to see you again.”
“What can you tell us about the Stacey Read case?” asked Gus.
“The Colonel took charge,” said Jake. “DI Raj Sengupta was his second-in-command. Although I worked on most cases with Theo Hickerton, I got assigned to that murder for a while.”
“Come on, Jake, spill the beans,” said Gus. “We don’t have long.”
Jake leaned back in his chair.
“Look, it was a mess from the start. First, the mother got involved, investigating alone, stirring up the media, and complaining we didn’t take her daughter’s disappearance seriously. Jack Sanders was still smarting from the lack of progress on the Burnside shooting. They should have given him a golden handshake and wheeled him into retirement. His heart wasn’t in it.”
“What was this Sengupta bloke like?” asked Gus.
“Green as grass, a brain the size of a planet, but useless with the public,” said Jake.
“Where is he now?” asked Gus.
“With the Metropolitan Police, running a cybercrime team. Best place for him. In a dark room with a dozen screens.”
“Was there any reason Debbie Read believed you dragged your heels?” asked Neil.
“There were no flags against the family,” said Jake, “but when the desk sergeant took the details on Wednesday morning, Debbie kept stressing she hadn’t known Stacey was missing. The sergeant asked why nobody called on Sunday night when Stacey didn’t reach her aunt’s house. As soon as he heard the variety of places where the girl might have stayed, he decided she wasn’t in danger. The mother had mislaid her; like forgetting which level she parked her car in the multi-storey. He tried to get Debbie Read to calm down and provide more details. She rabbited on about her husband and brother-in-law having walked out, and that her Dad died last year. You know how it goes, Neil. Some days you ask yourself, why do the nutters always descend on the station when I’m working?”
“Surely, things improved once the body turned up
?” asked Gus.
“Sanders and Sengupta picked up the case with immediate effect. I got assigned to it after a week. By then, we learned of the sighting out at Redpost, but Debbie Read isn’t even a PCSO, and they can be next to useless at times. Mrs Read spoke to a lady walking her dog who said she saw Stacey arguing with another teenager. The timing was vague, and the description was vague, yet when we heard Debbie Read’s account on local radio, it had become solid gold. Stacey was there. We couldn’t verify that because Debbie didn’t record the woman’s name, address, or get a contact number. According to Debbie, if you’ve read the murder file, the woman had kids who attended the same school as Stacey. She recognised her. Debbie denies asking the woman if she wore a grey hoodie, blue jeans, and a pink scarf and gloves. Or whatever it was. Raj Sengupta believed that Debbie described everything her daughter was wearing when she left home and not surprisingly, her eye witness didn’t want to upset her by saying she had seen no one. Debbie was distraught on Wednesday night when she started that search for Stacey. She was on medication by the weekend. Jack thought her unreliable.”
“Did uniforms do a house-to-house near Redpost Drive, trying to find the witness?” asked Gus. “What about the teenage boy? Were there any sightings of him, with or without Stacey, anywhere in Gorse Hill, Penhill, or near Rushey Platt? If a young lad killed Stacey, he would have been running away from the scene. No way could he calmly walk away.”
“They tried to find the dog walker, but I don’t need to tell you how many there are in a place as big as Swindon. In the three weeks, I worked the case we tried a reconstruction, which resulted in several hundred calls. No surprise. Every night of the week, residents around Swindon see young lads running through the streets. It happens after a football match. It happens when lads with knives are chasing members of another gang. It could just be a kid trying to get home before ten o’clock to avoid getting grounded. We got nowhere.”
“Jack Sanders thought Stacey went to Rushey Platt willingly and things escalated,” said Neil.
“Jack had a bee in his bonnet about gangs,” said Jake. “There were gangs around, yes, but not on today’s scale. We found no one from our usual suspects who we could place in the nature reserve vicinity. One thing common in the responses we got was that gang members swore blind they hadn’t heard of Stacey Read. She didn’t hang around with gangs. Okay, she was an attractive girl. It wouldn’t be the first time three or four hooligans chased a girl and carried out a sexual assault. But nothing we learned placed anyone with the slightest potential for that type of assault in the nature reserve on the night in question.”
“Something doesn’t stack up,” said Gus. “The murder file said that Stacey was street-smart. The person you’re describing is an innocent, a Miss Goody Two Shoes. Once I read where and when the murder occurred, I wondered what possessed Stacey to go there - whether alone, with a boy, or a gang. A street-smart girl would understand the dangers and avoid situations where she could get into trouble.”
“Her reaction to the first attack was strange too, guv,” agreed Neil. “If she accessed the nature reserve where we did, then if someone tried to assault her, why keep going in the opposite direction? Her escape route was one hundred yards behind her, back out onto Redpost Drive, with the possibility of getting help.”
“Anything else you wanted to know?” asked Jake.
“You said we had no flags against the family, Jake,” said Gus. “Did that include Pat Read?”
“Pat Read has no criminal record,” said Jake. “Raj interviewed him as a matter of course. The father is always a potential suspect. Read decided marriage wasn’t for him seven years before the murder. He walked away and rented property near the Honda factory. Everything checked out. Pat Read’s never taken a day off work. His employers say his conduct is exemplary. Neighbours told us he keeps himself to himself. They’ve never seen him with another woman, or man if it comes to that. When asked whether he’d been in touch with his daughters during the time since he left the family home, Read looked at Raj as if he was stupid. Why would I, he asked?”
“I can’t wait to meet him,” said Gus, “he seems an odd character. They exist, I’m aware of that, but I wonder what the teenage Debbie Bennett saw in Pat Read when they met?”
“Have you spoken to Debbie yet?” Jake asked.
“Not yet,” said Gus, “we have people talking to Vanessa Nicholls and Mary Bennett this morning. When we get back to the office, we may need to reconsider the next names on our list. I planned to see Debbie and Lucy tomorrow, separately. Pat Read could move up the schedule for his curiosity value if nothing else.”
“I wish you luck, whichever way you choose, guv,” said Jake. “Those three women who so-called cared for Stacey were a slippery bunch. It was hard to know which one of them was telling the truth.”
“We have more to learn, Jake,” said Gus. “Thanks for your input. Is that young PCSO Travers around these days?”
“Gareth Francis thought you spotted potential in the lad, so Travers is at college three days a week now. He’s on a sandwich course or something. I don’t know the details, but they never offered me that support when I started.”
“Is that the same Gareth Francis you thought was a muppet, guv?” laughed Neil.
“The very same, Neil, but Gareth’s realised it pays to listen to the voice of experience. Does Travers have a first name, Jake? I’ve heard no one use it.”
“He hates it, guv,” said Jake. “So, he asked that we treat him like one of those pop stars that goes by a single name, like Prince. HR went along with it, and it’s his human right or something. The world’s changing, guv, isn’t it?”
“It left me behind a while back, Jake. Come on, Neil, let’s get back to the office.”
Mary Bennett watched the car pull up outside her door and manoeuvre into the one remaining parking space. He was good, whoever he was. The tall, handsome driver stood on the pavement as a solid-looking black woman emerged from the passenger side. The woman checked Mary’s door number against a folder she held, and the couple walked up the path.
These must be the coppers she was expecting. Mary levered herself from her chair and pushed her Zimmer frame into the hallway and to the front door.
Luke heard the chain slide back and the door unlocked.
“Are you the police?” asked Mary Bennett.
Luke and Blessing produced their warrant cards and showed them to Mary for inspection.
“You had better come in,” said Mary, reversing up her walking-frame and then turning back into the front room. Mary edged across the room and sat back down.
Luke moved a dining chair and sat beside Mary. He’d spotted her hearing aid. Blessing seated herself under the window and studied the room. Apart from the hallway, there were just two rooms on the ground floor: this room and the kitchen. There must be two bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs.
“I’m DS Luke Sherman,” said Luke, “my colleague is DC Blessing Umeh.”
“Blessing?” said Mary Bennett. “I don’t think I’ve heard that name.”
“I was the only girl in the playground at school with that name,” said Blessing.
“Do you know why we’ve come here today, Mary,” asked Luke.
“I haven’t lost my marbles, young man,” said Mary. “You want to ask about Stacey.”
“It must have been awful,” said Luke, “when Stacey went missing. Then to discover she was dead; it was a tragic loss. Only thirteen years old.”
“I didn’t know she was missing, did I? Not at first. Debbie didn’t let me know. Vanessa stood on my doorstep when I got home from bingo Tuesday night. That’s when I found out.”
“How did you feel, looking after Stacey and Lucy so often?” asked Luke.
“Debbie had a dreadful time with Stacey. The pregnancy wasn’t without its problems, and then Stacey was a breech delivery. It was one thing after another, and Pat was useless. I started going over to Gorse Hill to help when Pat was at work. When D
ebbie fell for Lucy, I offered to pop in to look after her and Stacey.”
“Wasn’t the second pregnancy any easier?” asked Blessing.
“It should have been, but Debbie kept moaning and groaning that it was too much. Harry warned me. He said I was letting myself in for hard work after Lucy arrived, but I couldn’t turn my back on my daughter, could I?”
“Harry, was your husband, wasn’t he?” asked Luke.
Mary pointed to a wedding photograph on the mantlepiece.
“Twelve years ago he died,” she said. “Lung cancer. He got diagnosed a week after Lucy’s second birthday.”
“Caring for Harry must have restricted the help you could offer Debbie,” said Luke.
“Don’t you believe it,” said Mary. “My daughter told me she had her own life to lead. I spent as much time in Gorse Hill as I did here and at the hospital.”
“At that stage, did the girls stay overnight with you?” asked Luke.
“Not until after Harry died,” said Mary. “Debbie thought it helped me to have them here. She said she didn’t want me to get lonely. I couldn’t say no. I loved both those girls. Vanessa won’t give me grandchildren, so now it’s only Lucy left. Debbie won’t let her stay here.”
“Debbie’s more protective of her only surviving child,” said Luke. “I suppose you can understand that.”
“It’s a pity she didn’t think that way from the start,” said Mary.
“What did you mean, Mary,” asked Blessing Umeh. “When you said that Debbie had her own life to lead?”
“Where do you think she was when those girls came here?” asked Mary.
“We haven’t spoken to anyone else but you, so far, Mary,” said Luke. “In the original investigation detectives learned that you and Vanessa let the girls stay over now and then. I don’t recall reading why Debbie couldn’t look after them on those occasions.”
“Debbie was out enjoying herself. She went to bingo in Greenbridge and met up with people from Dorcan where she worked. They spent the rest of the night in a club somewhere. What time she rolled home; I wouldn’t know. The girls weren’t allowed home until mid-afternoon on Sunday; I know that. My daughter needed to get over her hangover or get rid of any bloke she took home.”
