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

by Heleyne Hammersley

  I did the head first. Wouldn’t you? It dehumanised the body – she was just meat once the head was gone. After that I took off both arms – the shoulders were a bit of a bugger though because I couldn’t get them to dislocate so I ended up cutting through the top of each humerus and then cutting through the lower arms just below the elbows. The knives I’d bought were excellent – really sharp – and the meat saw was a godsend.

  The legs were a bit easier. I’d learnt my lesson with the shoulders, so I didn’t even try to dislocate the hips. Same with the lower legs; and then I was done. I wrapped the torso up in the nightdress – I’d left it on the bathroom chair so it didn’t get too bloody – and then put everything in boxes. A quick swill round with the showerhead and everything was back to normal. I know I should have scrubbed the bath with bleach but there didn’t seem much point. The police will work it out eventually.

  The daft lad at the storage place didn’t even blink when I asked to pay cash up front for six months. Everybody knows that Hibberts has run that place into the ground and it’s only his dodgy customers that are keeping him afloat. Poor kid probably thought I was one of Hibberts’s mates. He didn’t seem to notice anything unusual about my appearance when he took my money, but I kept my back to the camera and my head down just to be sure.

  And that was that. I stuck the boxes in the furthest corner of the space I’d been allocated, bunged some other random junk around them that I’d picked up from where somebody had done a bit of fly tipping near the old railway bridge, and went home. I know that the plastic bags and plastic boxes won’t conceal the smell forever, but they’ll probably give me a couple of months to get everything else sorted out.

  The sense of relief was incredible. To finally have started to lift the burden that I’ve been carrying around for so long. Any doubts that I might have had vanished as soon as I got home. I had a purpose and a plan.

  The son was much easier. How many times have you heard kids being told to be careful on social media? And why don’t adults think the advice applies to them? Well, male adults at least. Chris accepted my Facebook request almost instantly and had obviously been fooled by the photographs of mountains and walking gear that I’d uploaded. The photograph I’d chosen was of a hairy outdoorsy-looking man in his mid-twenties – easily copied from an advertising website – and Johnny Chase was born. It had been simple to find out Chris’s routine and what he enjoyed on his days off and he’d been keen to describe his planned route across the Langdales.

  I’m not much of a hill walker but we all have to make sacrifices sometimes, so I’d bought a pair of boots from one of the walking shops in Sheffield and spent a week or so breaking them in before I set up the fake profile. I also got myself a rucksack, a pair of walking poles and a map. The map was essential – not for navigation but because it was a key prop in my plan to get Chris close enough for me to ambush him. I’d thought long and hard about Christopher and it wasn’t fair that he got to live his happy life while others had suffered so much. And what about his children? Were they safe from a man who had Whitaker’s blood flowing through his veins? He was a policeman – the perfect cover, like being a teacher – God knows what sort of material he had access to, what sort of favours he called in. I thought, if I could talk to him, I’d know. I just needed to meet him. But I needed to be prepared to get rid of him if there was any doubt at all.

  I’d been to the Lakes a few times when I was younger and I’d pored over the route until I felt like I could walk it with my eyes closed; then it was just a matter of booking a B&B for the same weekend that Chris said he was ‘doing’ the Langdales. I knew it was risky. There were so many things that could have gone wrong. He might have changed his mind, he might have a friend with him, there might be too many other people around…

  All I could do was take the chance and hope for the best. If I failed, then I could set up another opportunity at a later date.

  I’m not a great believer in signs and auspicious omens but the morning I’d planned to ‘bump into’ Chris was cloudy with a high probability of rain. I’d checked in with him as Johnny the night before and he was still planning to attempt the route whatever the weather, claiming it would give him some much-needed ‘head space’. Hoping that the rain would put a lot of people off I set out from the car park near Sticklebarn about an hour earlier than Chris’s intended start time. It was a slog up to Stickle Tarn but, after a ten-minute rest I was ready for the next climb. I tried to picture Chris doing the route in the opposite direction, following the green diamonds of the Cumbria Way to Stake Pass before almost doubling back on himself to approach Pike of Stickle. I knew that he was planning a descent via Loft Crag and hoped to intercept him just before he started heading downhill where the crags fall steeply to the valley below.

  After the second steep climb of the day I settled down, huddled inside my waterproof jacket, with a flask of coffee and a slab of flapjack. All I could do was wait and hope.

  A few bedraggled walkers slogged past me with barely a glance, their eyes slitted against the drizzle. I pretended to be looking at my phone or my map as they passed, confident that all they’d see was an androgynous figure in wet waterproofs. After an hour and a half, I was about to give up. Two lone walkers had passed but neither of them bore any resemblance to Chris, and the weather was getting worse. I knew it would take me at least an hour to get back to my hire car and I didn’t want to risk being on the path down from the tarn as darkness fell.

  And then I saw him.

  He was strolling along as though it was a lovely summer’s day, clearly enjoying himself. I stood up and unfolded my map, fixing what I hoped was a puzzled frown on my face I turned towards him. As he got closer, I could see the resemblance to his father in the lines of his face and the cut of his jaw, but his colouring was all his mother. Could I really do this? Was it necessary?

  ‘You okay there?’ he asked. His face showed concern but his eyes… his eyes were those of a monster. I’d seen those eyes before, and I knew what I had to do.

  I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak in case he heard the tremble in my voice.

  ‘Lost?’

  I nodded and scanned the path behind him. Deserted.

  ‘Where are you heading?’ He took a few steps closer.

  ‘Back down to New Dungeon Ghyll.’

  ‘Okay.’ Another step closer. ‘If you head down here a bit and then swing left, you’ll see a pitched path that’ll take you all the way back down to the valley. It’s a bit loose in places but it’s not far.’

  I pointed to the map, hoping to lure him closer.

  ‘This one?’

  As he studied where I was indicating I had a last check around. Nobody in sight.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘You need…’

  His eyes widened as I slipped the knife up beneath his ribs and he looked puzzled as he slumped towards me. I used the momentum of his collapse to enable me to guide him towards the top of the crags and then I pulled out the knife and let him go. It took a few seconds for him to tumble and slide down to an outcrop of rock where his body seemed to lodge in the scree. His red jacket was visible from where I was standing – he would be easily found. I probed this piece of information, trying to work out whether or not it was to my advantage, but before I could decide, he slid further down and disappeared from my sight. Good enough.

  I wiped the blade of the knife on the wet grass and then slid it back into the inside pocket of my jacket. Shouldering my rucksack, I headed back down to the valley where I hoped a drink and a good meal were waiting for me in one of the pubs.

  14

  Kate was on her third coffee of the day and her second hour of BBC news when her phone rang. She picked it up and glanced at the screen expecting Cooper or Hollis.

  Priya Das.

  ‘M-ma’am?’ Kate spluttered in her hurry to answer the call.

  ‘Fletcher,’ Das began and Kate’s heart slowed down. She’d been hoping that Das had been calling to invite
her back to work, to pick up the reins of the case again, but the use of her surname was as chilling as a cold shower. ‘I’ve spoken to Chris Gilruth’s aunt in Cumbria. She’s the one who brought him up – not his biological mother. I had to tell her about her sister. Not the details of course – she’s got enough on her plate with the death of her son – but I told her that we think her sister’s body has been found. She didn’t seem overly upset but I think she might be able to help us make sense of this case and the one in the Lakes.’

  Kate kept quiet. She hadn’t worked with Das for long, but she’d learnt quickly that the woman didn’t like to be interrupted when she was explaining something.

  ‘So, I offered to send one of your team up there to speak to her. Problem is that she doesn’t want to speak to somebody on your team. She wants to speak to you, Fletcher. I told her that you were on leave, but she said she’d wait. And, as you know, we can’t wait.’

  A pause. Kate wondered if this was the time to speak but Das sighed and continued.

  ‘Look, Kate. I really don’t think that these cases have anything to do with you, but it looks odd and I have to cover my back. If the chief super heard that I’d not acted when two connected murders were linked to one of my DIs, I’d never hear the end of it. I’ve looked into both cases and I’m satisfied that you have nothing to do with Margaret Whitaker, but the Gilruth case concerns me. You knew him and you found the body. How do you explain that?’

  It seemed that a response was now required.

  ‘Coincidence, ma’am. A bloody awful coincidence. I hadn’t seen Chris Gilruth for over three years and I haven’t heard from him or any member of his family since I moved back to Doncaster. I was on holiday with my… partner.’ Kate struggled to find the correct word to describe her relationship with Nick. ‘Boyfriend’ seemed too casual, but ‘partner’ had a ring of permanence to it. And after last night, maybe ‘ex’ would be more appropriate. ‘An elderly couple had spotted the body and I took charge. My training kicked in, that’s all. I wasn’t even certain it was Chris until Cumbria Constabulary confirmed it.’

  ‘Okay,’ Das didn’t quite sound convinced but Maureen Gilruth’s reluctance to talk had obviously backed her into a corner. ‘I need to get the Gilruth woman to talk. If she’ll only talk to you then I have to make that happen. I’m going to send Hollis round to your flat with a car. He’ll text when he’s there. Half an hour?’

  ‘Of course, ma’am,’ Kate said, wondering how the hell she was going to make herself presentable by the time Hollis arrived.

  Two hours later Hollis turned off the A1 onto the A66. Kate had been going to suggest that they stop for coffee, but she didn’t want the DC to have to face Scotch Corner services. The last time they’d both been there Hollis had received some devastating news that had almost broken him and could have cost him his career. She noticed that he’d not said much as they got closer to the junction, probably having similar thoughts. Whatever was on his mind, Kate didn’t want to remind him of how he’d come close to a breakdown earlier in the year.

  ‘Fancy a drink?’ Hollis finally asked as the dual carriageway went down to a single winding lane. ‘We’ve made good time for a Saturday. There’s a café at a farm shop somewhere along here that’s supposed to be good.’

  Kate smiled to herself. She knew exactly what he’d been doing while he’d waited for her earlier. TripAdvisor.

  ‘Sounds good,’ she said. ‘I could do with a coffee.’

  ‘Thought you might be ready for more caffeine – and I wasn’t going to stop at Scotch Corner for obvious reasons.’

  Kate turned to look at him in surprise. He hadn’t talked much about the previous summer and she’d decided to let him sort through it all at his own pace, so the reference to what had happened with his mother was unexpected.

  ‘You doing okay with all that?’ she asked, deliberately vague.

  ‘Getting there,’ Hollis admitted. ‘Although, when Google Maps told me that this was the quickest route to Kendal I was tempted to ignore it and risk the M62.’ He smiled to let her know that he was joking, at least partly.

  ‘You know you can talk to me, if you need to,’ Kate said.

  Hollis nodded noncommittally.

  ‘And you’re welcome to buy me coffee any time,’ she added, gesturing towards a sign for the farm shop.

  The coffee was much better than Kate had expected and the millionaire’s shortbread that Hollis brought back from the counter was a welcome addition considering she’d not eaten breakfast. The café was more like a restaurant, with high ceilings and discreetly spaced tables while the ‘specials’ board offering wood-fired pizzas and a range of flatbreads added to the upmarket atmosphere.

  ‘Good find,’ Kate said and was about to comment on the usual quality of their coffee spots when a group of women appeared from nowhere laughing and shouting. She immediately tensed expecting trouble, but Hollis just grinned.

  ‘Hen party,’ he mumbled, obviously sensing her change of mood.

  He was right. Each of the women wore a pink T-shirt with a nickname on the back. ‘Jackie Jockstrap Juggler’ had a glass of rosé wine suspended from a cord around her neck suggesting that she might lose it if she put it down anywhere. ‘Cunnilingus Cath’ was wearing an enormous pair of fake breasts and ‘Gabby Gobbler’ was wearing antennae-like deely boppers with tiny pink penises on the end of each wire. She seemed the most drunk and the most embarrassed as she apologised to anybody who’d listen for having ‘cocks on me head’.

  Kate sipped her coffee and watched the other customers watching the women as they made their way to the toilets. Nobody seemed overly concerned or even particularly surprised that a group of drunk women had appeared out of nowhere high up in the middle of the Pennines.

  ‘Wonder where they’re off to?’ she mused.

  ‘Dunno. Blackpool maybe. They sound like Geordies so maybe they’re heading to the west coast somewhere for a change.’ Hollis didn’t sound particularly interested. ‘Can I ask you about this woman we’re going to see?’

  Kate had been expecting this. Her team knew that Dan could get away with more than any of the others when it came to asking Kate personal questions and she also knew that whatever she told him would be in confidence unless she said otherwise. ‘What do you want to know?’

  He stared into his coffee mug as though trying to work out how to ask a difficult question. ‘Rumour is that you knew her son in a “more than friends” way.’ He glanced up at her, something in his eyes suggesting that he thought he might have overstepped.

  Kate thought about pulling rank to avoid the details, but Dan was a friend and he deserved better.

  ‘I nearly had a relationship with him,’ she admitted. ‘But he was married and I was recently not married. Not the best basis for a lasting commitment. There’s really not much else to say about it – we were friends before and after.’

  ‘And that’s why this woman wants to speak to you? Because you knew him?’

  Kate didn’t know how to answer because she had no idea why Maureen wouldn’t speak to anybody else. The most likely explanation was that, having met Kate a few times, she wanted to tell her story to somebody who was familiar.

  ‘Honestly? I don’t know. It might be because I was there when his body was found. It might be because I knew Chris when he was alive. Maybe she thought it would be easier to speak to somebody that she’d had some previous contact with. I only met the woman a few times so it’s hard to imagine what she might be thinking.’

  Hollis nodded, clearly weighing up what Kate had told him.

  ‘Can’t be easy for her. Her son and her sister being killed within the space of a few weeks.’

  ‘No,’ Kate agreed. ‘And I don’t want to push her. She’s grieving and she deserves our respect. We have to treat her gently. Understood?’

  ‘Understood,’ Hollis said, draining his coffee and standing up.

  15

  Sam scrolled slowly down the page ‘Sheffield Road Ju
niors 1988 Reunion’. It had felt weird using Kate’s login details, faintly stalkerish, even though she had the boss’s permission. It was also strange using the identity ‘Cathy Siddons’ – a name which bore no resemblance to the one Kate used now. Sam had no idea what she was looking for, but she needed a break from looking at footage from traffic cameras around the nursing home from the date when Margaret had been signed out.

  Contributors to the group hadn’t just posted images from 1988. There were photographs of four-year-olds lined up in a school hall entitled ‘First Day at School’ and also ‘Then and Now’ shots showing how much – or little in some cases – a person had changed. The photographs from various school trips and sports days were mildly amusing – the strange fashions and odd haircuts seeming wildly outdated and poorly chosen. She scanned the class photographs, hovering the cursor over each face to see who had been tagged, making a note of anybody called Lee, Liam, Nick or Neil. No Liam or Nick had been tagged but in the comments beneath a 1985 class photo, Graham Atkinson had tried to name as many of the students as he could remember and there was a Lee in the first row and a Neil at the back – no surnames though. She continued her search and discovered that Lee and Neil appeared in three class photos together – her most likely candidates so far. She wished she had the name of the girl, it might have made her job easier if she could put three names together.

  A folder of uploaded pictures caught her attention. Another school trip – ‘Derbyshire Camping – July 1988’. Three images were displayed with ‘+15’ on the final one. Sam clicked on the first one – a shot of two dark-haired girls outside a vivid orange tent labelled ‘Angela and Vicky’. Both were wearing faded jeans and baggy T-shirts, one pale green, the other white. Neither girl looked especially happy to be having her photograph taken, and the two feet of space between them suggested that they weren’t friends. There were other shots of pairs of children next to tents, each one labelled. The sixth photograph made Sam catch her breath. ‘Lee and Neil’. Unlike Angela and Vicky, Lee and Neil had arms round each other’s shoulders and were grinning at the camera, obviously the best of friends. Both boys looked in need of a haircut, their almost-mullets – one mid-brown and one very blond – had obviously not been combed for the camera in contrast to the girls’ hair which looked recently groomed.