Hunter was silent for a few seconds, watching Alice’s face. With a look of sympathy, he said, ‘Sorry to hear that, Alice. I can’t imagine what it’s like for you not knowing what’s happened to them.’ Hunter paused, letting his sentiments rest in her thoughts, then he said, ‘Just going back to Denise Harris, you wouldn’t know if she still has the B&B, would you?’
‘I don’t. I kept in touch with her for a few years after our visit, sent her a couple of Christmas cards, but things just fizzled out. I haven’t been in contact with her for probably eight years now.’
‘You haven’t got the address, have you?’
‘I have it somewhere, but I don’t know if I can put my hand on it right now. I’ll have to search for it.’
‘That’s all right. It’s not urgent. You have a search when we’ve gone, and when you find it just give me a call.’ Pausing, he continued, ‘I know I’ve side-tracked somewhat, Alice, but I assure you it has helped my enquiries. Can I now take you back to the day when you discovered David and the family missing and called the police?’
For the next twenty minutes Alice reiterated what she had put in her original statement. There were no deviations and no further revelations. After thanking her, Hunter handed over his contact details and told her he would be back in touch. As he made his way back up the driveway with Maddie, he was planning his next steps.
CHAPTER FIVE
Back at the office, Hunter was writing up his notes from the interview with Alice Bannister; it had thrown up some interesting possibilities and given him fresh lines of enquiry. If, as Alice was suggesting, her son hadn’t killed his wife and daughter and committed suicide, his knowledge and experience told him that no one can just disappear these days. Everyone leaves their footprint, be it on technology, through phone or computer, or through financial dealings at banks, post offices or other financial institutions, and even if they had changed their names there were methods to trace them if they were alive.
Primarily, Hunter wanted to know for certain if since July 1991 any of them had accessed any means of funding, and if that wasn’t the case, he would know that they were definitely dead and they could change their game plan. Maybe ask for additional helping hands. Though when he gave that another thought, realising it was St. John-Stevens he had to approach, he wasn’t very confident, especially when he had to tell him it was to follow up one of his cases. Knowing the person his new boss was, Hunter knew he would see that as criticism of the investigation he had undertaken and instantly throw up barriers. So, for now, he decided he was going to keep things under wraps.
List completed, he handed it over to Maddie, who had been itching to get started since they had got back, and while she made a start, he did a voters list check for Denise Harris. Within five minutes, he struck lucky. According to the recent list Denise was still living at The Seahorse B&B in Bridlington. He googled the name, found their website within thirty seconds and dialled the telephone number. After five rings his call switched across to voicemail and he left a message, briefly explaining he was carrying out a review of the disappearance of the Bannister family and wanted to go back over the statement she’d given to police in 1991, and after leaving his contact number, he hung up. For a moment, his eyes rested on his computer screen. There was nothing else he could do until she got back to him. He checked his watch. It was just after 1 p.m. Lunchtime, and his stomach was telling him he needed more than a sandwich.
Stepping into the canteen, he spotted Grace at a table with Mike Sampson. She instantly acknowledged him with a wave and big smile, and Mike pulled out the chair next to him and indicated for Hunter to join them. Suddenly he felt guilty for not having made any attempt to contact his team since his quick exit from MIT. He made his way across to them, checking that St. John-Stevens wasn’t around. Seeing he wasn’t, Hunter laid down his mobile on their table, told them he was going to get some food and went over to the serving area. He opted for steak pie, chips and mushy peas and made his way back to them.
‘I’ve been meaning to text you, Hunter,’ Grace opened, ‘but we’ve been so busy on this job. We’re all pretty gutted with what St. John-Stevens has done to you.’
‘Me too. I still feel like decking the twat,’ Hunter said, setting down his plate of food.
Grace and Mike both let out a laugh.
‘How’s it going? You’re working with Maddie Scott, aren’t you?’ said Grace.
‘You know her?’
‘Not that well. I’ve chatted with her on a couple of courses I’ve been on. And I worked with her once on a rape when I was in CID. I know she’s very bright, got a degree in sociology or something, but also can be a bit scatty at times. Didn’t her daughter get thrown from her horse and get badly hurt?’
Hunter smiled. ‘To say you don’t know her that well, you don’t miss much, do you, Grace?’
‘That’s because we don’t talk all that shite that you men talk about. We learn stuff,’ she replied with a smug grin.
‘I think it’s called gossip, Grace,’ Hunter scoffed, breaking into his pie and forking some into his mouth. Chewing quickly and swallowing most of his mouthful, he continued, ‘How’s your case going? Still no sign of Rasa, whatever her name is? I saw the TV appeal.’
‘Katiliene. Rasa Katiliene,’ Grace responded. ‘Still not found her. We now believe she’s dead. We traced her to The Comfort Inn on the day she went missing, and that’s the last place we can trace her to. She went there to meet a punter, the man on the TV appeal, and we’re now trying to trace him.’
‘Do you know who he is?’
‘You’ve seen the quality of the footage. It’s not that good, though we believe it’s someone called Luke Riley. He’s from Wakefield originally. He’s a registered sex offender. Done time for raping a sex worker in Leeds.’
‘And what’s also interesting,’ interjected Mike, ‘is that he was found not guilty eighteen months ago of the attempted murder and attempted rape of a street worker in Huddersfield after he picked her up in his car and took her to some waste ground, where he tried strangling her after she refused unprotected sex.’
‘Cut and dried, then?’ Hunter asked.
‘Well, he’s our main suspect at the moment,’ Grace answered. ‘But we’ve other lines of enquiry. We’re still trying to trace her pimp, a guy called Matis Varnas, who’s from Lithuania. We believe he and his partner Ugne brought Rasa here from Lithuania. We’ve been told they’re renting a place in Rotherham and we’re making enquiries there.’
‘What about The Comfort Inn, where she was last seen? Doesn’t it have CCTV?’ asked Hunter.
‘Funny you should say that,’ answered Mike. ‘The camera on the floor covering the room she rented and a camera covering the back of the motel were interfered with. Somebody stuck duct tape over the lenses. We think whoever took Rasa took her through the cleaner’s entrance at the back.’
‘Wow! Organised, eh? Fair bit of work to do, then?’ said Hunter.
Both Grace and Mike nodded.
‘How are you doing in your new job? Got anything exciting?’ asked Grace.
Hunter swallowed his food. ‘Got one interesting job. Don’t know if it’s going to go anywhere, though. A missing family back in nineteen-ninety-one.’ He sought out Grace’s eyes. ‘The Bannister family? Remember the case?’
Grace momentarily lifted her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Hmm, vaguely. I was at training school with you when that happened, and I can remember it being talked about on shift when I got posted to Barnwell. Dad, mum and daughter if I remember, wasn’t it?’
Hunter nodded, setting down his knife and fork. ‘That’s them.’
‘But wasn’t the talk that the dad killed them both and then drove off somewhere with their bodies and committed suicide?’
‘Supposedly, Grace, but they’re still officially listed as missing because they haven’t found the bodies. I’ve just picked up the case and started doing a review of it. All I’ve done at the moment is spoken with David’s mum,
and she’s strongly of the opinion that David wouldn’t have harmed them. Especially his daughter. She’s very critical of the investigating officer. And you’ll never guess who was the detective who investigated it?’
‘Go on,’ Grace responded.
‘None other than St. John-Stevens.’
Grace’s mouth dropped open.
‘Does he know you’re reviewing it?’ Mike asked.
Hunter shook his head. ‘Not yet he doesn’t. I’m going to do all my enquiries before I tell him.’
‘He’s going to love you if you find anything wrong with his investigation.’
‘I’m trusting you to keep schtum ’til I’ve finished. My career’s taken a bad enough nose-dive as it is.’
Grace mimicked zipping her mouth. ‘My lips are sealed.’ With a grin, she added, ‘Keep me posted, won’t you?’
‘You two will be first to know,’ Hunter answered, returning to the remains of his pie, chips and mushy peas.
‘By the way, talking about St. John-Stevens, have you heard?’ said Grace.
‘Heard what?’
‘Someone’s scraped his car in the car park. He’s on the warpath. He’s been checking cars for the last hour.’
Hunter swallowed hard. ‘Has he found who’s responsible?’
‘Not as far as I’m aware. He came back to the office in a foul mood. It’s a brand new Merc, apparently. He’s only just bought it. Threatened if he found out who’d done it, they would be moved back into uniform.’
Hunter lowered his head to suppress a grin. There was no way now that he was going to confess. This had just made his day.
Wearing a grin that only an atom bomb would remove, Hunter stepped back into the office in a very buoyant mood.
Maddie greeted him with, ‘Denise Harris rang whilst you were having lunch. She quizzed me about the case and asked why we wanted to talk to her after all this time. I’ve not said too much, only that we’re reviewing the original investigation and speaking with the witnesses who gave statements. I’ve said you’ll call her back.’
‘Thanks, Maddie,’ Hunter replied, making his way across the room to the kettle. ‘Fancy a cuppa?’ he asked. He shot a quick glance at Maddie and instantly decided that he was not going to mention who owned the Merc she’d scraped. If she asked any questions, he’d simply tell her that he’d sorted it and leave it at that.
‘Love one. Just finished my sandwich.’
‘How have you got on with those tasks?’ he asked, switching on the kettle and dropping teabags into two mugs.
‘Sent off requests for the financial checks and emailed the liaison officer at Work and Pensions. I’ve also emailed NHS England to see if any of them received any medical care or have visited a GP since nineteen-ninety-one.’
‘Nice one, Maddie. I never thought about the NHS. Good work.’ Hunter finished making the tea and handed over one of the mugs. ‘Fancy a trip to Brid tomorrow? How does that fit in with your daughter? We might not be back on time.’
‘I can make arrangements with my mum. She’ll pick Libbie up from school and give her her tea. It’d be good to get out of this place, and it’s years since I’ve been to Bridlington.’
‘Good, Brid it is, then,’ Hunter said, putting down his mug and picking up the phone. He dialled Denise Harris’s number and she picked up after only two rings.
Denise Harris asked lots of questions, a couple similar to what Alice had asked, enquiring if they had found the family, and whether they had information as to what had happened to them. Hunter repeated what Maddie had already told her, that he merely wanted to go back through her statement and ask further questions, and bringing the conversation to an end he arranged for him and Maddie to be there just before lunchtime the following day.
After that he returned to the lists of actions he had drawn up. One of them was chasing up forensics. He had bullet-pointed the samples Scenes of Crime had collected from the Bannister home and wanted to check if they still had the blood samples. He was especially interested to see if any swabs had been retained of the stains on the vinyl floor covering the kitchen. He recalled extensive cleaning with bleach had been carried out, corrupting the blood grouping, but he knew that advanced techniques to recover DNA would overcome that issue. As he dialled the number of the forensics evidence manager at Wetherby, he had his fingers crossed that they were still in storage. His call went to voicemail, and softly sighing he gave relevant details of the case to enable a check and left his contact details.
For the last hour he re-read Denise Harris’s statement, fixing the main points in his head in preparation for their visit tomorrow, had another look through the case file to see if there were any letters from Alice Bannister — there weren’t — and finished by studying the crime scene photographs of the Bannister home. As he stared at the photos taken of the kitchen floor where forensic lighting highlighted the significant blood staining that bleach had failed to remove, it brought to the fore what Alice had said about her son — that David wouldn’t do anything like that — and wondered what forces were behind the family’s disappearance. There was also another driving force encouraging him to investigate the mystery — St. John-Stevens — and although he knew it was wrong to place his focus on the DCI, it would be good to embarrass the man in return for what he’d done to him.
Hunter and Maddie left the office just before ten, heading out to Bridlington. Traffic wasn’t bad, and they covered the seventy-seven miles in under two hours. They found The Seahorse, a large Georgian house among a row of similar terracing, but double-yellow lines at the front and residence-only parking in the surrounding streets forced them to double back into town and park up in a long-stay car park a good quarter of a mile from the B&B.
It had been a few years since Hunter had been here, and he was saddened to see how run-down the resort had become. As they skirted the town centre, he noted the number of pound shops and charity shops there now were in comparison to a decade ago and couldn’t help but think of how differently he had seen this seaside town as a young boy. Back then it had seemed thriving and bustling, the ancient town centre full of character.
Coming out of his reverie, he found himself approaching The Seahorse. The house was built over three storeys, in a desirable position facing the promenade, and Hunter recalled from the website that it had ten rooms that started from £75 per night up to £100. It was an imposing building painted cream and white, and as he neared the front door he saw it had a coveted AA award for best B&B. He was already impressed as he pushed open the door. He entered a wide hallway with switchback staircase and original black and white tiled flooring, and yet with white and light grey painted walls and matching décor it had a more contemporary look than traditional flair.
From a doorway to the right, a medium built, auburn-haired woman, dressed in a white blouse and dark blue slacks appeared. She greeted them with a welcoming smile.
‘Denise Harris?’ Hunter enquired, holding up his ID. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Maddie doing the same.
‘Detective Sergeant Kerr?’ she returned and shook his and Maddie’s hands. ‘We’ll go through to the dining room. We don’t do lunches, so it’s empty.’ Denise took them into the room to the left of the hall that looked out over a rectangle of community lawn to the promenade. It had a large double bow window that gave a very good view of the sea. The room was light and airy, and tables were set for two with white linen tablecloths. Looking around the well decorated room that followed the grey and white theme from the hallway, Hunter wasn’t surprised it had won an award.
Denise showed them to a table and pulled up a chair from another table. ‘Can I get you a drink? Tea, coffee, juice?’ she asked.
‘Tea would be lovely,’ Maddie replied.
‘Same for me, thank you,’ Hunter responded.
Denise left the room, reappearing five minutes later carrying a laden tea tray. She set down the teapot, milk jug and three cups and stirred the tea in the pot. ‘You set me thinking after y
our phone call yesterday. It’s been such a long time since David and Tina and little Amy disappeared. I used to think about it a lot, but I haven’t given it a thought for years. Your phone call brought it all back again last night.’ Denise put a little milk in the cups and poured three teas.
‘It’s nineteen years since it happened,’ Hunter responded, taking one of the cups and adding a spoon of sugar.
‘Nineteen years. My, how time’s flown. We left the street two years after that happened. My Alex got his redundancy from the pit and we bought this place. Been here seventeen years now.’
‘You’ve got a nice place,’ Maddie responded, slowly roaming her eyes around the room so that Denise could see.
Hunter guessed that Maddie’s gentle introductory chat was to put Denise at ease. A relaxed witness was far better than a stressed one. They could focus and remember more.
‘I know I asked you yesterday on the phone, but what’s made you look at it again after all this time?’ Denise enquired.
‘Since the success of the Rotherham Shoe Rapist case — you might have seen it all over the news — we’ve started reviewing all the key undetected cases to see if there are any new leads worth following up. This is one of them. We just want to make sure we haven’t missed anything from the original investigation, and the reason we’ve come to see you is that you were a main witness and we’re here to go back through your statement. We’re especially interested in the man you saw at the Bannisters’ front door the day before they were reported missing. Can you remember that?’
She picked up her cup two-handed, nursing it. Tight-lipped, nodding slowly, she said, ‘That detective who was dealing with it came to see me several times about that man. He kept asking me if I could have made a mistake about the day I’d seen him, and checking I was sure that I couldn’t recognise him. To be honest, in the end, I got a bit confused with all the questioning. I don’t know if I was any use to him or not.’
Unsolved Page 7
