A few hours had passed in desultory reading and comparing statements when Geraldine’s phone shrilled, startling her from a miserable reverie.
‘Hello? Hello? Who is this?’
‘He’s here, he’s here!’ an unfamiliar voice hissed.
‘I’m sorry. Who is this?’
‘It’s me. I’m calling from the café. You asked me to call you –’
The voice was abruptly cut off mid-sentence, but Geraldine had heard enough. She called Ian and together they raced to the car. They drove all the way in silence, reaching the café ahead of the patrol car that was following them. Geraldine looked at Ian from time to time as they drove, but he sat staring fixedly at the road ahead and did not once glance at her. If he shared her sense of strangeness at working as partners again, after their break-up, he gave no sign of it. She was relieved, yet slightly piqued, to see that he had his feelings for her so tightly under control. No one observing them would have the slightest suspicion that they had recently been romantically involved.
They drew up outside the café and she hurried inside after him. The manager was hovering anxiously near the counter while a waitress Geraldine hadn’t seen before came towards them. Ignoring her, Geraldine went straight over to the manager who nodded towards a table in the corner.
‘Is there another exit?’
‘What?’
‘Is there another way out?’ she asked urgently.
‘Yes, round the back. That’s him.’
She turned and saw a stout man in his forties. His balding head was sprinkled with tufts of fluffy ginger hair, and from across the room she could see that his pale face was dotted with freckles. Geraldine and Ian walked over to his table and sat down, boxing the man in. Small blue eyes glared at them in surprise.
‘Here, what’s the meaning of this?’ he asked. ‘I don’t remember saying you could join me. In fact, I don’t recall you having the manners to ask if you could sit at my table.’
Geraldine held up her identity card. ‘We’re police officers.’
‘I don’t care who you are. There are other tables free. Go and sit somewhere else.’
‘And we’d like to ask you a few questions,’ Geraldine went on quietly, ignoring the man’s protest.
‘Of all the impertinence –’
‘We’re investigating a murder,’ Ian said.
‘And we’d like to ask you a few questions,’ Geraldine repeated doggedly.
‘I have nothing to say to you.’
‘We have a few questions we’d like you to answer,’ Ian repeated. ‘Let’s start with your name.’
Sullenly the man told them his name was Jeremy Flannery, and he lived in York. Geraldine made a note of his address.
‘Can I go now?’ he asked. ‘I haven’t got anything to tell you.’
‘We’d like you to accompany us to the police station, sir,’ Ian said, in a tone of command that made it clear this was not a request that could be declined.
Nevertheless, the man did his best to refuse, although there was not much he could do but bluster and grumble, since he couldn’t get past them.
‘Oh, very well,’ he conceded. ‘What is it you want to know? Make it quick, will you? I haven’t got all day.’
Ian politely explained that they could not say how long the questioning would take.
‘We believe you may be able to give us some information that could assist us in a murder enquiry,’ he explained. ‘So you understand this is important. Now, if you’d like to come with us, please.’
The man opened his mouth to protest and half stood up.
‘You’re not going anywhere,’ Ian said.
‘There are two uniformed constables waiting just outside, and two more at the back door,’ Geraldine said. ‘Even if you push past us, you won’t get out of here.’
The man sat down again.
‘Come on then,’ Ian said, standing up. ‘Let’s go.’
As they walked out to the street, the man looked around.
‘Let’s not take any chances, shall we?’ Ian replied, pulling the man’s hands swiftly behind his back and whipping handcuffs on.
‘What’s this? What’s going on?’ Jeremy demanded.
‘We just want to ask you a few questions,’ Ian repeated stolidly.
Once they were at the police station, they set to work but Jeremy’s face told them more than his words. He flatly denied having known anything about a waitress working at the café.
‘I went there for the all-day breakfast,’ he said. ‘It’s cheap, and bloody good. There’s no other place can beat it.’
A few beads of sweat appeared on his pale forehead and he wiped them away impatiently with the back of his sleeve.
‘Is it too hot for you in here?’ Geraldine asked.
The room was not even warm.
‘Not at all.’ He scowled. ‘I’m just nervous. Who wouldn’t be, hauled off the street and dragged here in handcuffs, like a common criminal?’ He rubbed his wrists and grimaced, as though the handcuffs had injured him. ‘And now this, being questioned like you think I’m guilty of some crime. A man would have to be made of stone not to feel nervous. What is it I’m supposed to have done?’
Geraldine gave an encouraging smile. ‘You’re not being accused of anything, Mr Flannery.’
‘Not yet,’ she thought.
‘So what am I doing here, and why did you bring me here in handcuffs?’ He was beginning to sound irate. ‘I’m not going to take this, you know. This harassment is just not on. I’m going to lodge a complaint. You had no right to drag me here against my will.’
‘When we first spoke to you in the café, you were unwilling to co-operate, and we do need to talk to you,’ Geraldine said. ‘We’re investigating a very serious crime.’
‘We could charge you with obstruction,’ Ian said impatiently. ‘So let’s stop hedging and get some answers.’
Jeremy insisted he had never met anyone called Angie. ‘I just went there for breakfast. They do a really great breakfast. Since when was enjoying your breakfast a crime?’ He rolled his eyes.
50
While they were talking, there was a tap at the door and Naomi came in. Tasked with looking into Jeremy Flannery’s history, she had been busy researching his records while Geraldine and Ian were questioning him. She indicated that she had found some interesting information, and they stepped out of the room to hear what she had to tell them.
‘I’ve got something on him,’ she said.
Although her face remained impassive, her voice betrayed her excitement.
‘What? What have you found?’ Geraldine asked, catching her colleague’s enthusiasm.
For answer, Naomi handed Ian a report. He scanned through it, frowning, before passing it to Geraldine.
‘It’s just a summary,’ Naomi said.
‘It’s very interesting,’ Ian muttered, and waited for Geraldine to read it.
Two women had independently reported Jeremy Flannery to the police, citing harassment. Seven years ago, a young woman called Jane Stanhope had complained about him to the police, after he made a series of unwanted phone calls. Jane lived alone, and claimed that Jeremy had repeatedly followed her home. Having seen him loitering outside her apartment over a period of several weeks, she had been afraid to go out on her own, especially after dark. After speaking to her family, who did not live locally, Jane had changed her mobile number. Somehow Jeremy had discovered her new number and resumed calling her. After that, she had become seriously frightened, and reported him to the police, who asked her to make a note of dates and times whenever she saw him following her home from work, or hanging about in the street outside her apartment. Although Jeremy had denied the charge, insisting he had never verbally threatened or physically assaulted her, nevertheless she had been seriously frightened by his unwelcome attention.
Before she had applied for an injunction against him, the matter was resolved between the two parties, and the charge dropped. After that he stopped bothering her. Five years later another woman lodged a complaint against him: Angie Robinson.
Ian and Geraldine took this new information straight to Eileen who listened carefully, smiling grimly all the while.
‘Good work,’ she said, when Ian had finished telling her what Naomi had found. ‘It looks as though we’ve got our man. He’s been stalking her. Take a DNA sample, and let’s see if we can place him at the murder scenes. I’ll sort out a search warrant for his home, and in the meantime find out as much about him as you can. If you can get him to confess straight away, so much the better. Push him as hard as you can and I dare say he’ll cave in and it’ll be all over bar the shouting.’
Her smile softened the customarily stern features of her square face, making her look quite kindly.
‘Do you think he killed them both?’ Geraldine asked.
Eileen grunted. ‘Impossible to say,’ she answered after a pause. ‘Leslie could have attracted his attention. We know he has a history of stalking women. What do you think?’
Geraldine frowned. ‘It all seems a bit off. Surely if he was intending to kill her he wouldn’t have been so blatant about his stalking?’
‘True, but we don’t know he intended to kill her, do we? It might have been a moment of frustration,’ Eileen said.
‘Two moments,’ Geraldine replied thoughtfully.
Geraldine suggested they leave Jeremy to sweat in a cell for the rest of the afternoon, while they went to question Robert and Greg about Jeremy.
‘We should have a closer look at Naomi’s findings before we speak to Jeremy again. And let’s see if we can find out any connection between Jeremy and Leslie, or between Angie and Leslie.’
‘We need to gather everything we can against him or he might slip through our fingers,’ Eileen agreed.
‘Assuming he’s guilty,’ Geraldine said.
‘His DNA is going to link him to both victims,’ Ian said. ‘He could easily have encountered both of them while they were working as waitresses. It all adds up. Everything points to Jeremy.’
‘We don’t know it’s his DNA at the scenes, and we don’t yet know whether he met Leslie,’ Geraldine pointed out.
She was reluctant to challenge Ian, especially in front of the detective chief inspector, but she was concerned that Eileen might be encouraged to leap to conclusions in her eagerness to tie the case up. Geraldine had noticed that impatience in Eileen before. It was a weakness in a detective.
‘Let’s not waste time casting about blindly,’ Ian said. ‘We’ve got him here, let’s force a confession from him.’
‘We can’t force him to confess if he’s innocent,’ Geraldine protested.
‘No, but we can do our best. A man who stalks a woman until she’s terrified of him has to be a likely suspect.’
‘Maybe, but what if he didn’t kill either of the two victims? You seem to have already made up your mind he’s guilty.’
‘And you seem set on believing he’s innocent, before we’ve even had a chance to look for a link between him and the two victims.’
Geraldine glared at Ian, no longer caring that she and Ian were engaged in a spat in Eileen’s office.
‘He’s a nasty little man,’ Eileen interrupted their exchange, ‘but we can’t seek a conviction for a double murder on the grounds that he stalked one of the victims. We’ll have to wait for the result of the DNA tests. In the meantime, speak to the widowers of the victims and gather whatever else you can from them. And send a team of constables to question Jeremy’s neighbours and work colleagues. Within twenty-four hours we need to have more witness statements confirming that he was potentially violent, and DNA evidence that places him at both scenes. We won’t leave him any wriggle room. We want a cut and dried case to present to the CPS.’
Leslie’s husband listened carefully to Geraldine’s question before shaking his head.
‘Jeremy?’ he repeated, with an anxious frown. ‘Jeremy, you say?’
Geraldine nodded but refrained from passing on any more information about their suspect.
‘So did you ever hear Leslie talking about someone called Jeremy?’ Ian asked.
Robert shook his head. ‘No, never. I’m sorry.’
Greg took a while to open the door. He looked sleepy, and had clearly been drinking.
He glared belligerently at Geraldine. ‘Well?’ he asked. ‘Have you got him yet? Listen,’ he leaned forward and Geraldine took a step back, afraid he was going to fall on her. ‘Have you got him? You have to let me know the minute you’ve got him so I can smash his fucking face in. I’ll pulverise the sick bastard. Listen, you have to let me at him.’
‘We haven’t made an arrest yet,’ Geraldine replied, ‘but we’re following several leads and we do have someone helping us with our enquiries.’
‘Let me at him,’ Greg repeated, his words slurring into one another. ‘Jusht let me at him.’
‘As I said, we don’t yet know who was responsible for this terrible tragedy, but we are looking into it and hope to make an arrest soon. I want to ask you for your help.’
‘Yesh, yesh, anything,’ he replied, his eyes growing glazed and his voice increasingly slurred. ‘Jusht let me at him when you get him. Jusht a few moments, that’sh all I want. Jusht a few moments alone with him and then he’ll be all yoursh. What’sh left of him.’
It would have been an easier conversation if he had been sober. Geraldine was wondering whether to return at another time when Ian took over.
‘Did your wife ever say anything to you about being followed?’
‘Followed? What do you mean?’
‘I mean,’ Ian tried again, ‘we have reason to believe it’s possible your wife’s killer was not a random stranger, but someone who had been stalking her.’
Greg’s green eyes widened in surprise, and he seemed to sober up a little. ‘Stalking her? He was stalking her? Why the hell didn’t she tell me? I would have sorted him out.’
‘Did you ever hear your wife mention the name Jeremy?’ Ian persisted.
‘Jeremy? Is that his name? Where is he?’ He raised a clenched fist. ‘I’ll show him what happens to scum like him.’
Geraldine glanced at Ian. She could tell that, like her, he was wondering whether Greg had ‘sorted out’ his wife. He had just shown a potentially violent side of his character they had not previously known about. From having no suspects, they now seemed to have three: Jeremy, Greg, and possibly Harry.
51
It was strange that Angie had gone to the police about her stalker without even mentioning him to her husband. Her discretion said little about her dealings with Jeremy, but quite a lot about her relationship with Greg. Geraldine would have liked to discuss this slightly surprising aspect of the case with Ian, but he merely grunted when she asked him what he thought about it.
‘It says something about their marriage, don’t you think?’
She tried to explain her impression of the dead woman’s relationship with her husband.
‘You can have no inkling of what goes on in a marriage,’ Ian replied brusquely.
He did not add that she was not even capable of sustaining a relationship for longer than a few months, but she was sure that was what he was thinking. After that, they drove back to the police station in uncomfortable silence. Once they arrived back at the office, Ian was keen to try and persuade Jeremy to confess. It would certainly be a shortcut. By now the duty solicitor had arrived, a twitchy mousy-haired girl who looked too young to have qualified. Geraldine remembered her from a previous case where she had been very quiet, but on this occasion she was more forthcoming, even slightly flirtatious in the way she glanced at her client. It was unpleasant to think that sweaty Jeremy had probably worked hard to char
m her with compliments. The solicitor looked as though she was unused to receiving much attention from men.
Geraldine began by reeling off a list of dates. Jeremy listened in apparent perplexity.
‘Do those dates mean anything to you?’
‘No. Why? Should they?’
Jeremy glanced enquiringly at the solicitor who merely raised her eyebrows.
‘My client has no recollection of these dates, and no idea why you are bringing them to his attention,’ she stated.
‘These are the dates on which you contacted or followed Jane Stanhope.’
‘Who’s she when she’s at home?’ Jeremy asked, giving a credible impression of baffled innocence.
‘Jane Stanhope,’ Ian repeated roughly. ‘The woman you’re pretending not to remember. But then, why would you remember her? You only stalked her for three years.’
Jeremy shook his head and stared at Ian. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ He turned to the lawyer. ‘They’re making this up to scare me. I never stalked anyone.’
‘Do you deny having pursued a woman named Jane Stanhope?’ Ian asked. ‘You might want to think carefully before you answer.’
There were records of his phone calls and emails, and Jane had handed in signed cards he had sent her, on her birthday and on Valentine’s Day, and at Christmas. Jeremy hesitated before claiming that Jane was his former girlfriend.
‘Not according to her,’ Ian retorted. ‘You only left her alone when you were faced with the threat of an injunction against you for stalking her.’
‘That’s a lie,’ Jeremy muttered, flushing with anger. ‘I’m telling you, that woman couldn’t get enough of me.’
He glanced at the lawyer who blushed, giving Geraldine a horrible suspicion that he might have been busy lining up the object of his next infatuation.
Evil Impulse Page 21
