18
Kieran Wright watched as his sisters left the living room in obedience to their father’s command. He could hear them whispering, and knew they were wondering what was going on and what sort of trouble he was in, but he couldn’t make out exactly what they were saying.
He wanted to snap at them to stop their whispering, he hated the way girls huddled together and whispered, but knew better, doing so would only make his father angrier than he already was.
“Right, now the girls are out of the way,” Glen Wright said, leaning forwards. “D’you want to tell me what happened here this morning? What was Oliver Ryder doing here, and why was he hurting your sisters?” he asked angrily. “How could you let that idiot hurt your little sister?”
“I didn’t let him,” Kieran protested. “I didn’t let him do anything. I heard a crashing noise, I know it was Oliver smashing through the gate now, and went to find out what was going on. I was in the kitchen, and before I could get to the living room to look out, Oliver was through the front door. The moment he saw me, he came charging down the passage and attacked me. We ended up in the kitchen, wrestling on the floor; Tara got hurt when she tried to break it up.
“I didn’t even know what had happened to her until Sergeant Mitchell and Constable Turner arrived and pulled Oliver off me.”
“That’s worse, you didn’t even know what was happening with your sisters; Tara’s got a black eye and a bruised cheek – if she doesn’t have nightmares about what happened, I’ll be very surprised. As for Emily, she’s still in shock.” Glen scowled fiercely at his son. “You’re supposed to protect your sisters, how’re you supposed to do that if you don’t know what’s going on.”
“I was attacked,” Kieran said angrily, the volume of his voice rising sharply. “What the hell was I supposed to do, I had to defend myself or he’d have put me in hospital. It’s not like I had any idea he was going to come bursting in and attack me. How the hell am I supposed to protect Emily and Tara when something like that happens? Tara should’ve had enough sense not to get involved, then she wouldn’t have got hurt, and if Emily can’t handle seeing two guys fighting, she’s got bigger problems than being in shock.
“I’m fine by the way, dad, no major injuries or anything.”
“Don’t you get smart with me, boy.” Glen half rose, one hand coming off the arm of his chair to clench into a fist, which he waved threateningly at his son. “If you didn’t have this ridiculous feud with Oliver Ryder, none of this would have happened. Why did he attack you this time?”
Kieran shrugged. “I haven’t a bloody clue.” He fought to keep his anger under control in the face of his father’s. “Oliver had no sooner been told that Geor-Georgie…” He had to pause for a moment to collect himself. “Had been found than he was racing over here to smash my face in. It’s just like last weekend, when he came racing over here after he heard Georgie had gone missing. Except you weren’t here to scare him off with your shotgun this time, and I didn’t have a chance to get mine.”
“So he still thinks you’re responsible for her disappearance, and now her death. Why’s that? Did you have something to do with it?”
“Jesus, dad! How can you ask me that? Of course I didn’t have anything to do with it.”
“Are you sure? We both know what a temper you’ve got, and the kind of damage you can do when you’re angry; or have you forgotten what happened when you caught that fox in the chicken coop last year?”
Momentarily, an image flashed into Kieran’s mind of a carnage-filled chicken coop – there was blood and feathers everywhere, and, at his feet, the body of the fox he had kicked to death after cornering it, surrounded by the chickens the pest had killed before being dealt with. It pissed him off that his father still wouldn’t let what had happened drop, even after all this time.
“If I’ve got a temper, it’s only because I inherited it from you,” he snapped. “And there’s a big difference between killing a fox and killing a person.”
“If you had nothing to do with what I’ve heard happened to Georgina, who did kill her? And why does Oliver Ryder think you did?”
“I’ve no idea who killed her, how would I know, and as for why that prick thinks I killed her – he’s a prick, who knows why he thinks anything.” Kieran couldn’t believe his dad thought him capable of murder; he had always known that his father thought more of Emily and Tara than of him, but even so, to be thought capable of murder was a harsh blow. “Maybe he’s trying to pass the blame. Maybe he thinks if he accuses me and attacks me, the cops will think I killed her and not pay attention to him.
“Did whoever told you about Georgina also tell you that Lucy has gone missing? And before you start thinking I might have had something to do with that, I saw her going into the old Henshaw cottage yesterday afternoon, and I told the police as much earlier. If they haven’t already, they’ll be speaking to Mr Wild soon about what happened to her, and to Georgie.” Kieran got to his feet then and strode from the living room, he had had enough of dealing with his father just then.
19
Zack was surprised by the level of relief he felt when the door of the cell swung open; he would not have thought himself susceptible to the psychological impact of being in a cell, especially when he had been there for such a relatively short time.
“Realised you’ve made a mistake and letting me go, are you?” Zack asked from the uncomfortable bed, where he had been mentally writing the next few pages of his novel.
“No, Mr Wild, you’re not being released,” Mitchell said, pleased to be able to disappoint him. “Your solicitor is here. If you’ll follow me, I’ll take you to the interview room so you can talk to her.” It only took a few moments to get there. “Here you are, Mr Wild.” He ushered his suspect into the interview room. “I’ll be back in a quarter of an hour, so we can get this interview started.”
“The interview will start when I say it does, sergeant,” the woman seated at the small table said sharply. “Now, I’d like coffee for myself, and for my client, thank you.”
Mitchell stared at the solicitor, not quite able to believe that he had been dismissed with a drinks order. He was not used to being treated in such a way, nor was he used to being told when he could do his job – it was a few seconds before he recovered from the surprise he had been given. His jaw clenched angrily, he turned and left the room.
“Hello, Izzy,” Zack said the moment the door had been shut. “Thanks for coming.”
“Don’t Izzy me, Zack Wild,” Isobel Faulkner said in a voice that was as sharp as the one she had used on the sergeant. “I was out with Cathy when you called; I had to lie and tell her it was Sophie who needed me because her car had broken down. What have you gotten yourself into? You said on the phone you were being arrested for murder.”
“Sorry about that, I didn’t know you were with Cathy, but I needed a lawyer, and it was either call you or call her – I thought you were more likely to answer the phone,” Zack remarked. “I doubt Cathy would have agreed to help if she had answered the phone. Chances are, she’d have left me to rot.” There was no love lost between him and his ex-wife, and he was all too aware of how happy Cathy would be to leave him in the hands of the police. “Will Sophie back up your story if Cathy asks her?”
“Of course she will, she might be Cathy’s sister, but Sophie will do just about anything for you. I didn’t even have to tell her anything, she agreed to cover for you the moment she heard you need help; you do have to tell her what’s going on when you see her tomorrow, though,” Isobel said. “How about the story then? What’s going on, how have you gone from investigating murders, and writing about them, to being accused of one?”
“The short answer is, because the local sergeant, as you just saw, is an idiot.”
Melissa entered the interview room then. She set down the two mugs of coffee she had brought, along with the packets of sugar, and left again. It was only when she was back out in the passage, with the door closed, that
she allowed herself to smile. She could not have picked a better time to arrive with the drinks.
Isobel Faulkner grabbed the nearest of the mugs, took a sip, and then turned her attention back to her friend. “That’s the short version, what’s the long version?” she asked.
“The long version is that this morning, while I was out for a run, I found the body of a murdered girl. A second girl, reported missing this morning, was found this afternoon, also murdered. If the sergeant is to be believed, I’m the last person to see the second girl, Lucy Goulding; she paid me a visit yesterday afternoon.”
“She wasn’t seen after she visited you?”
Zack grimaced. “That’s where things get complicated; my neighbour saw Lucy leave my place after her visit, but she claims I followed Lucy down the road shortly afterwards. Because of that, Sergeant Mitchell believes I’m the last person to have seen Lucy, and therefore responsible for her murder.”
“I take it you didn’t follow the girl down the road.” Isobel was pretty sure she already knew the answer, but needed to hear it from her friend. When Zack shook his head she moved on to the next potential problem she could see. “If you didn’t follow the girl, why does your neighbour think you did?”
“At a guess, I’d say she’s made a mistake; she’s elderly, and doesn’t have perfect eyesight, she probably saw someone who looks like me and simply assumed.”
“Do they have anything else to connect you to the murder?”
“The scratches on my arm,” he said, showing them to her. “Sergeant Mitchell doesn’t believe I got them while working in my garden yesterday afternoon; he’s decided they were made by fingernails, Lucy Goulding’s fingernails.”
Isobel leaned over to look at the scratches. “Is that all they have against you?”
“As far as I know,” Zack said. “If they’ve got anything else, they haven’t told me about it, and I can’t imagine what it might be since I didn’t kill anyone.”
“In that case, I think we should get this interview started,” Isobel decided. “If they’ve got nothing more than what you’ve told me, I should be able to get you out of here in about half an hour, which means I’ll be able to get home by about eleven. A five hour round trip on a Saturday evening, you owe me big time, Zack.”
“I know, and I’ll make it up to you, I promise,” Zack said, though he was not sure how he was going to do that.
*****
Isobel’s prediction of a quick release for her client did not prove as accurate as she would have liked.
An hour and a half after the interview began, it still hadn’t finished, and she was far from happy with the way things were going; she had dealt with many difficult police officers over the years, but in her opinion, Sergeant Mitchell took the prize – he had no hard evidence, only three pieces of circumstantial evidence, yet he went over things again and again, worrying at his suspect like a dog with a bone.
Reaching the end of her patience, she slapped her hand down sharply on the table. “That’s it, I’m ending this interview right now; my client and I are leaving,” she said. Getting to her feet, she made to head around the table to the door, with Zack on her heels.
Mitchell was briefly struck dumb and immobile by the solicitor’s abrupt declaration. He recovered quickly, however, and rose so rapidly his chair was thrown backwards. “Your client is not going anywhere, Mrs Walker,” he said, moving to put himself between the door and his suspect. “He’s under arrest for murder, as I’ve already made clear, and will remain in custody until I decide otherwise.”
“No, sergeant, my client is here until one of three things happen,” Isobel responded, without bothering to correct him in the manner of how she should be addressed. She did not advance any further, but showed every indication of being willing to walk right through the sergeant to get out of the room, should it prove necessary. “Either you charge my client with the crimes you believe he has committed, you realise he has committed no crimes and release him, or his twenty-four hours come to an end and you have no choice but to release him. Do you know which one of those three things I think is most likely to happen?”
“I have no idea,” Mitchell said. He did not like the solicitor who was representing his suspect, she was too assured, and far too dismissive of both him and his investigation; she had done her best, at every step of the interview, to keep him from asking his questions, and to keep her client from answering him when he was able to ask a question.
“I think you are going to realise that my client is innocent - you have no evidence; your witness is, by all accounts, an old woman with suspect eyesight, and you cannot even prove that my client ever met the girl whose body he found, prior to her being murdered,” Isobel went on confidently. “If you don’t release Mr Wild immediately, I will have an order for his release, signed by the most senior officer I can lay my hands on, by morning. If you should be stupid enough to charge my client, I will be forced to lodge an official complaint against you over your inept handling of this situation – I would not call it an investigation – and petition the court for an immediate dismissal of any and all charges you file.
“Regardless of that, I will be writing to the chief superintendent for this region to insist that the investigation be placed in the hands of someone competent; you are unqualified and prejudiced, sergeant, and you seem intent on building a case out of coincidence and little else - you certainly don’t have any evidence - to close this investigation as quickly as possible. Now, are you going to get out of our way and release my client or not?” Isobel stared at Mitchell, daring him to do other than what she wanted; she was unsurprised to find that he lacked the courage.
20
“Dammit!” Mitchell swore and slammed his clenched fist down on the counter.
Melissa could see that he was furious at having been forced to release Zack Wild – she was not prepared to say so, but she could understand the position taken by Wild’s solicitor; there was no evidence, so he had to be released without charge – and wanted to get out of the way before that anger was turned on her. Unfortunately, a quick exit was not possible, there was still the end of day chores to be taken care of, and Oliver Ryder, who was still in his cell, to be dealt with.
She doubted that Mitchell was going to get around to sorting out Oliver’s situation before morning, which meant an officer was going to have to stay at the station overnight to watch him.
“Do you want me to stay and keep an eye on Ollie?” she asked. It was not a job she wanted, it would afford her little opportunity to sleep, but she felt it was better to volunteer than to have the job put on her.
Mitchell thought about that briefly before shaking his head. “No, you head on home, it’s been a long day, I’ll sort Oliver out.”
Melissa was relieved not to be getting the annoying, if easy, job of babysitting Oliver Ryder through the night, but could not help wondering what Mitchell meant by ‘sort Oliver out’. There was something vaguely ominous about the phrase, something that made her think he had a meaning other than that he would be the one to spend the night at the station.
She dawdled over her closing up chores, delaying so she could try and find out what the sergeant was going to do.
Mitchell headed down the passage to his office, where he fell into his chair before reaching for the phone on his desk. As angry as he was with how the situation had turned out, he disliked what he had to do next, tell his superior that he had been forced to release Zack Wild, even more.
Like him, Inspector Stevens had been hoping the arrest of the author meant a speedy resolution to the case, before Sir Virgil Foulds could hear that anything had happened to his beloved great-niece. They could not avoid Sir Virgil finding out that Lucy had been killed, but Mitchell, along with Stevens, had been hoping that by having her murderer in custody before he knew what was happening, they could show they had done everything possible in regard to the case.
He was about to pick up the phone when a thought occurred to him. He turn
ed the idea over in his mind a couple of times, while he looked for anything wrong with it; there wasn’t, as far as he could see, so he took his hand from the phone and got to his feet. The phone call to Stevens could wait.
Oliver Ryder paid no attention to the footsteps that approached his cell, he had been checked on several times since he was put in there, and was sure the steps merely preceded another check. His eyes flew open, however, when he heard the rattle of keys and the sound of the door being unlocked.
“What d’you want?” he asked sharply of Mitchell when he saw the sergeant in the doorway. “Isn’t it way past time an office monkey like you was home? You don’t normally work this late.”
“I’ll be on my way home soon,” Mitchell said. “I thought you’d want out of here first, though.”
Oliver looked at Mitchell in surprise, not sure he had heard him right. “What’re you talking about? You don’t normally release me ‘til you have to.”
“If you want to stay here, you can,” Mitchell told him. “I thought I’d save someone the job of keeping an eye on you, though. I can’t see the point in putting anyone out for the sake of a pain in the ass like you.” He made to shut the door and lock Oliver in again, but the young man was on his feet in an instant.
“If you think I’m staying here any longer than I have to, you’re a bigger idiot than I thought,” Oliver said, slipping quickly through the door before Mitchell could change his mind. The moment he was out of the cell, he stopped; he wanted to head straight for the nearest door, so he could find something to eat and drink, especially something to drink. He also wanted to find Kieran Wright and finish what he had started before being dragged away by. Before he could leave, however, he had to get the things that had been taken from him prior to him being put in the cell.
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