Reunion: a gripping crime thriller (DI Kate Fletcher Book Book 4)

by Heleyne Hammersley

  ‘MS + DW 12/4/76. Write it down, Dan, before I lose it.’

  She checked the front of the locket again in case she’d missed something, but the light only added more detail to the rose design.

  ‘It’s really beautiful,’ she said, passing the phone back to Hollis. ‘Must’ve been expensive.’ She watched as he knelt and placed it carefully with the other evidence bags.

  ‘So, we’ve got a date and some initials,’ he said, straightening up and bending backwards slightly as though his back was stiff. In the close confines of the storage room, Kate was struck by Hollis’s height and his slim frame. They’d been working together for a couple of years now, but she was still sometimes shocked by the size of him.

  ‘I’ll get Sam onto it,’ Kate said, digging in her jacket pocket for her phone. Sam Cooper was another DC on her team and her data mining abilities were fast becoming the stuff of legend. ‘If she can have a look through the register of births, deaths and marriages she might be able to put names to the initials, especially with a specific date.’

  ‘Get her onto Martin Short as well,’ Hollis suggested.

  ‘Already done. I’m going to head back to base to see what she’s dug up so far. You stay here and see if anything else turns up. Have a chat with Matt as well. He might decide that we need to bring Calvin in for formal questioning.’

  Hollis gave her a grin and a mock salute as she left.

  Cooper was staring at her monitor when Kate arrived in the team office. The woman seemed frustrated as her fingers pecked frantically at her keyboard, looking more like a sixth-former trying to complete an overdue assignment than a police detective doing research.

  ‘Found anything?’ Kate asked, placing a latte carefully next to Cooper’s mouse hand. She knew that the DC wouldn’t have taken a break since Kate and Barratt had texted her the information, so the coffee was more a necessity than generosity.

  Cooper looked at the cup and then up at her boss, blue eyes not quite focused on Kate’s face as if she was still lost in whatever section of cyberspace she’d last inhabited.

  ‘Not a thing,’ Cooper said, running a hand through her short blonde hair and adding to the spikes and angles that suggested that she’d done this a few times already. ‘I’ve got a list of Martin Shorts as long as the Doncaster phone book – it’s not exactly an unusual name. He might as well be called John Smith. I’m working outwards using the storage place as a locus, but even that’s given me twelve within a ten-mile radius. And none of them live at the address that the suspect gave. In fact, none of them live in Thorpe.’

  Kate thought about the implications of Cooper’s comment about John Smith. ‘Alias?’

  ‘I’d put money on it. You don’t go to the trouble of paying cash in advance for something like this and then give your real name.’

  Sam took a big drink of her latte and glared at her monitor as though she held it responsible for her lack of progress.

  ‘Why choose that name?’ Kate asked, thinking aloud. ‘It must mean something to him. He’ll have known that the body would be discovered sooner or later and that we’d search the records.’

  Cooper shrugged and took another gulp of her drink. ‘Could be anything. His favourite uncle, a teacher, somebody he doesn’t like and wants to implicate.’

  ‘Or somebody that he admires? Somebody well known?’

  ‘There’s an actor called Martin Short. I think he might be a bit obscure though.’

  Kate didn’t recognise the name. ‘What’s he been in?’

  Cooper clicked on the toolbar at the bottom of her screen and a window popped up displaying a vaguely familiar face. ‘He’s Canadian. Comedy actor. Father of the Bride, The Santa Clause 3, The Three Amigos, Three Fugitives…’ Kate tuned as Cooper continued to read the ‘filmography’. If the name had been chosen for a reason, it was obscure and perhaps only apparent to their suspect. Perhaps he was a comedy fan, or he liked Canada. If they couldn’t identify the man who’d rented the storage unit, they might have more luck with the locket.

  ‘What about the initials that I sent you?’ Kate asked. Cooper opened another window to reveal columns of names on what looked like photocopied pages that had been badly scanned. She pointed to a name on one line.

  ‘Here. There’s a Dennis Wilson, married a Moira Shackleton. But the date’s wrong. It’s November 1976 not April. I looked through April and there’s nothing close. I’m only looking in the local area though. Checking BDM across the country will take a while as the records are scanned in versus being inputted on a keyboard. A few local authorities might be more up to date, but I doubt it. Who’s going to pay somebody to type in lists of people who got married years ago?’

  ‘So, I need to get a team together to read through the records and to check out every Martin Short in the area. Great. The DCI will love that.’

  Cooper tried and failed to disguise a smile as she stared at her screen.

  ‘Don’t you dare,’ Kate said, delivering a gentle backhanded slap to Cooper’s shoulder.

  She knew what was amusing the DC. Two months ago, Kate’s old boss, DCI Raymond, had retired. Kate had locked horns with Raymond on a few occasions, but their relationship had been reasonably amicable and she’d been sorry to see him go. His replacement was very different in many ways. DCI Priya Das was a tiny woman in her early forties and was a whirlwind of energy. Fast-tracked through CID, she’d already made a name for herself as a DI in Nottinghamshire through her involvement in several high-profile cases. In her new role, she’d implemented a new regime of daily meetings with the DIs at Doncaster Central, regardless of caseload, and she insisted on each team of detectives holding a briefing every morning with minutes being forwarded to her before 10am.

  There had been some grumbling among various ranks, but Kate hadn’t joined in. She was already holding daily meetings with her team and Sam was happy to type up the main points as they were discussed and send them to the DCI. Her own meetings with Das tended to be supportive and productive – certainly nothing to complain about. Kate’s compliance had gained her a whispered reputation as Das’s favourite and it was this that was causing Sam to smirk.

  ‘We’ll need at least half a dozen people,’ Kate said. ‘I’ll see if DCI Das will provide a few civilian investigating officers so that we don’t need to get uniformed staff tangled up in this. We can use the uniforms to check out the Martin Shorts in the area before I contact other forces to check nationally.’

  Sam nodded. ‘What’s my next job?’

  ‘This woman’s come from somewhere. I want you to check mispers for the past six months. I’ll text you age and identifying features – not that we’ve got much. It looks like she might have been in her seventies or eighties and she’s wearing a nightgown, wedding ring and the locket.’

  ‘Nightgown might suggest hospital or some sort of residential care facility,’ Cooper mused. ‘I’ll check if any of the local ones have had anybody go wandering off.’

  ‘Nice one,’ Kate said. ‘I’m going to Thorpe to check out this address. There has to be a reason why “Martin Short” chose it. Somebody methodical enough to cut an old woman up into bits and put each one in a box won’t be the sort of person to do things on a whim.’

  6

  The street lights came on just as Kate pulled into Crosslands Avenue – the wide street that ran the full length of the Crosslands Estate – bathing the damp pavements in orange light. She slowed down as parked cars narrowed the road and she was forced to pull in to let the single-decker bus that served the estate pass her on its way to the row of shops further along the street. It hadn’t been like this when Kate was growing up. In the seventies and early eighties few people had owned cars and the houses had still been surrounded by privet hedges. Now, many of the hedges had been pulled up to make way for brick paving to accommodate some of the vehicles but, clearly, most families owned more than one car.

  Kimberley Avenue was only two streets away from where Kate’s father had lived until
he’d moved her and her sister south at the height of the miners’ strike. The houses were all red brick – only a handful of owners had covered the original façade with stone cladding or pebbledash – and their uniformity was somehow reassuring to Kate as she pulled in opposite the address that she’d been given.

  She sat in the car for a few minutes, studying the house. A largish semi – like most houses on the estate – it sat behind a well-cared for front garden which was mainly lawn with a small round flower bed in the middle. Kate could see where last year’s roses had been cut down – the dark brown stems pushing up from the soil like the claws of a subterranean beast. Three steps led up to a uPVC front door and a concrete path led up to the side of the house to where the back door would be, inset into a small porch area. The house was exactly like the one that Kate had lived in, except for the addition of double glazing and a steaming vent which suggested central heating.

  Kate’s Mini gave a muted chirp as she locked it. She crossed the road to number 62. The pathway was starting to glaze with ice – a thickening strip of white perfectly mirroring the shape of the hedge that ran next to it – so she had to tread carefully as she negotiated the smooth concrete. She stopped at the steps, suddenly indecisive. When she’d lived on Crosslands Estate, hardly anybody had used their front door. In her dad’s house it was locked and bolted and anybody knocking was told to come round the side. What was the correct approach now? She was torn between her feelings of being a local, somebody who belonged, and being a police officer, a formal caller.

  Decision made, she stomped up the steps and, in the absence of a doorbell, tapped sharply on the front door.

  The net curtain in the living room window was pushed back and a face appeared. Kate couldn’t make out much detail, but it was joined by a hand pointing to her left.

  ‘Go round to the back door,’ the occupant said, over-enunciating every word as though speaking to somebody who might not be able to hear or understand.

  Smiling to herself Kate followed the instruction.

  The back door opened before she had a chance to knock and a short, elderly man frowned at her from a narrow gap between the door and the jamb.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  Kate showed him her ID and explained who she was before asking if she could talk to him inside. At first, the man looked like he might refuse. His frown deepened as he considered her request but, eventually, he pushed the door further open and invited her inside, leading the way into the kitchen at the back of the house. ‘I suppose you want a cup of tea?’

  ‘I’m fine, thanks,’ Kate responded.

  ‘Well, have a sit down then and tell me what this is about.’ He sat down at the table and pointed to the chair opposite which was occupied by a large white cat. ‘Just shift her off,’ the man instructed.

  Kate bent down and gave the cat a gentle shove. Its amber eyes opened and it blinked at her resentfully before pouring itself to the floor at what seemed like a deliberately leisurely pace.

  ‘So, what’s this all about?’ the man asked. His manner wasn’t quite belligerent, but he didn’t seem overly inclined to co-operate. Kate put him in his late sixties or early seventies. His bald head was covered in freckles and his eyes, behind thick-framed glasses, were light grey and suspicious.

  ‘Can I ask your name?’ Kate said.

  ‘Jim. Jim Taylor.’

  ‘Does the name Martin Short mean anything to you?’

  His eyes flicked off to the darkening window as he gave the question serious consideration. ‘Wasn’t he an actor? He was in one of those police series on telly. And before that he was in The Professionals.’

  ‘That was Martin Shaw.’

  The man shrugged as if to indicate that he really couldn’t tell the difference.

  ‘Your address and the name Martin Short were given by somebody who rented out a storage unit near Doncaster. The storage unit is now the focus of an investigation into a serious crime.’

  ‘What sort of crime?’

  ‘I can’t discuss the details.’

  The man smacked his thick lips together as he considered what he’d just been told. ‘Murder then, I expect. Sorry I can’t help.’

  ‘Who else lives here, Mr Taylor?’

  ‘Just me.’ Taylor’s expression darkened. ‘It used to be me and my wife, but she divorced me fifteen years ago. Took up with a hairdresser from Bawtry.’

  ‘Children?’

  ‘Nope. It was just the two of us.’

  ‘And how long have you lived here?’

  Another glance at the window. ‘Must be getting on for twenty-five years. I was made redundant from Mason’s and I used most of the money to pay for the house. Bought it outright from a fella who’d bought it off the council. I reckon he must’ve made a fair profit even though I didn’t pay that much compared to what it’s worth nowadays.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you remember his name?’ Kate asked.

  ‘I never met him,’ Taylor said. ‘Did it all through solicitors. I think one of the neighbours said he was a teacher at one of the local schools and he’d moved to somewhere the other side of Donny. It’ll be on the Land Registry documents though, I’d have thought. I’ll have seen it written down, but it didn’t stick.’ He sat back in his chair and smiled at her; Kate could see that he was pleased to have come up with something that she might not have considered.

  ‘Obviously we’ll check the Land Registry,’ Kate said. ‘It would have been useful if you’d actually known him. But his name definitely wasn’t Martin Short?’

  ‘I’d have remembered,’ Taylor said. ‘Because of the actor.’

  Back in her Mini, Kate texted Cooper with the results of her visit and an instruction to check the Land Registry. She thought about what Taylor had said about the previous owner of the house being a teacher – something had ignited a tiny spark of memory. Her sister, Karen, had been taught by somebody who lived on the estate. Kate had a vague recollection of bumping into him at the shops during the holidays and Karen being scarlet with embarrassment. She checked her watch. Half past four. Most of the time she would have had to do a quick calculation according to which time zone her sister was living in, but Karen had been back in the UK for the last two months, teaching refugees in Manchester. It was worth a try.

  Karen answered the phone on the fourth ring. ‘Hi, sis!’

  Kate hated being called ‘sis’ and was convinced that was why Karen insisted on using the epithet.

  ‘Hi, Karen. How’s things?’

  ‘Fine. But it’s the middle of a work day so I doubt that you’re ringing to see how I am. What’s up?’

  Kate smiled to herself. Karen had always been astute. She should have known that her sister would realise that she was ringing for a work-related reason.

  ‘Got me,’ Kate admitted. ‘I’m in Thorpe and I’m trying to find out about a teacher who might have lived on our estate. Probably Kimberley Avenue.’

  ‘Oh, God! Mr Whitaker! We bumped into him in the holidays once. I was mortified. I hadn’t really thought about teachers having lives outside of school.’

  ‘You remember him?’

  ‘He was my teacher when I was in fourth year at Sheffield Road Juniors. I thought the sun shone out of his bum. He was hunky too.’

  ‘Hunky?’ Kate was surprised to hear that her sister had thought of a teacher in this way.

  ‘Well, that’s in retrospect. I suppose I had a crush on him. He played the guitar in lessons and sang Beatles songs. Funny, I haven’t thought about him in years.’

  ‘How old would he have been?’ Kate started doing maths in her head. Karen would have been in fourth year around 1981 – Kate would have already started at Thorpe Comp.

  ‘No idea. Everybody over twenty seems ancient when you’re that age. I suppose he might have been in his thirties. I probably saw him around after I left but my fickle heart had moved on to the wonders of manhood on offer at the comp.’

  Kate laughed, remembering those ‘wonders’ – l
anky, spotty teenage boys who were obsessed with twanging the bra of any girl who came within range. ‘I don’t suppose you remember Mr Whitaker’s first name?’

  Silence at the other end of the line while Karen thought about the question. ‘Not a clue, sorry. You know what it’s like when you’re at school. Teachers’ first names are a big secret. The staff at Sheffield Road used to call each other Mr and Mrs So-and-so in front of the kids. I might never have known his name.’

  ‘Might it have begun with a D?’ Kate prompted, thinking about the locket found on the dismembered body.

  More silence.

  ‘No, sorry. If I ever knew it, it’s been completely wiped from my memory. You could always ask at the school.’

  ‘Okay. Does the name Martin Short mean anything to you? From school, or the estate?’

  ‘Doesn’t ring a bell. There’s an actor called Martin Short. He was in something I watched on Netflix recently – a film with Steve Martin. Can’t remember much about it though. There were a lot of sombreros.’

  ‘Three Amigos?’

  ‘That was it! Don’t bother – it was a bit tedious. Look, I’m sorry but I need to get back to work. I’ve got a class in ten minutes.’

  Kate thanked her sister and hung up. Martin Short was still a mystery but at least she had a possible identity for DW.

  7

  ‘David Whitaker,’ Kate said, tapping on her laptop until a copy of a Land Registry document was displayed on the whiteboard at the front of the incident room. ‘Previous owner of 62 Kimberley Avenue.’

  The four members of Kate’s team stared at the document as though memorising every word. It had taken Cooper only a few minutes to find the details of the house’s previous owner and his identity corresponded with Karen’s memory of her teacher.

  ‘So, he’s the DW on the locket?’ Barratt asked.