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

by Heleyne Hammersley

  Kate watched as the unknown woman lifted the child free of the straps and turned to put it in the car. Its head lolled at an unnatural angle as she leaned down to place it on the back seat.

  ‘It’s a doll. Window dressing to make her act more credible.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Kate whispered. ‘She’s bloody good.’

  Kate watched again as the figure turned to Charlton as he approached, thinking he was doing the decent thing, trying to help – he obviously didn’t perceive any threat from this woman.

  ‘He was expecting a man,’ Kate said. ‘Otherwise he wouldn’t have got out of the car to help. He’d have been much more suspicious. She played him.’

  ‘What about the Taser?’ Hollis asked. ‘We could try to trace it, or them. If she bought it here, O’Connor might have a contact who might be able to help.’

  ‘That’s a big if,’ Kate said. Most Tasers that were recovered from crime scenes had been purchased abroad – directed through a PO box or some other anonymised address in case customs picked them up. If this woman had bought hers online, she could have got it from Germany or the US as easily as ordering a book or a CD. It wasn’t in the exporter’s interests to be worried about the laws in the country that they were posting the item to. Let the buyer worry about that. The only risk was that it would be picked up and confiscated by UK customs as it entered the country and, Kate knew, a lot still got through.

  ‘It’s probably a dead end,’ she said. ‘But I’ll get Steve to ask around. If she did buy it locally, he might be able to jog somebody’s memory. My hunch is that she’s much too clever for that, though. Sam, did you have any luck with either of the names I gave you?’

  Cooper shook her head. ‘I’ve got Vicky at York University in 1996, she studied law, and then again at a firm of solicitors in Manchester until 2005. Nothing after that so far. She’s not on the current electoral role under that name and I can’t find any record of a marriage. Nothing for Angela Fox but, you only texted me forty-five minutes ago.’ She gave Kate a cheeky grin which made her look like a naughty school kid. ‘I think I’ve done pretty well considering.’

  Kate gave her shoulder a light slap. Cooper had taken a long time to come round to the fact that it was okay to joke with the others, including Kate, and it was still refreshing to see her in a light-hearted mood. When Kate had first joined the team, Cooper had tried calling her ma’am which had lasted all of ten minutes. After that she’d spent a few months avoiding calling her boss anything at all until she finally managed to adapt to the use of her first name. Kate interchanged surnames and first names for all the others but, after O’Connor’s first tentative Fletch, she’d been Kate. It wasn’t out of some high-blown notion of egalitarianism or an attempt to convey herself as ‘one of the boys’, she just preferred using her first name to her former husband’s surname, and she had no desire to go back to being Cathy Siddons.

  ‘Okay, smartarse,’ she said. ‘Keep looking. Dan’ll help out.’

  Hollis sighed. He hated being stuck behind a desk but he was good at digging around in the virtual world. Not as good as Cooper but not bad.

  ‘If we can’t get an address for Vicky Rhodes today, I think we need to talk to the other two, one of them might be able to tell us where she is. Das is right, we can’t wait until Whitaker’s released.’ Her phone vibrated in her pocket. An e-mail from Barratt headed PM.

  Opening it, Kate scanned through. There wasn’t much more than Kailisa had said at the scene. Time of death was still estimated to have been between 11pm and 2am, cause of death was exsanguination. The marks that the pathologist had spotted were consistent with a Taser, as was the fact that Charlton had voided his bladder sometime before he was mutilated. Crucially there was no physical evidence linking this murder with that of Margaret Whitaker. The blades used were different and there was no DNA. Kailisa had obviously spent some time explaining the type of blade used and Barratt, in his sponge-like way, had absorbed all the details and passed them on to Kate. The blade was consistent with a large kitchen knife, sharpened along one edge and blunt on the other and it was 3.4 centimetres wide at its widest point.

  There might not be a physical link to Margaret’s murder, but the knife could link to Chris’s. Kate stepped away from her colleagues, switched her phone to the keypad and dialled a number. Time to call in a favour.

  Don’t you just hate waiting around? I’ve always been the sort of person that likes to get things done so, once I start something, I like to get it finished. I’ve been watching the local news in the hope that they’ll start speculating about the two murders in South Yorkshire, but nobody seems to be joining the dots. Can people really not see the link? I didn’t think the police were that dim, but you just never know. I hope he’s heard though. Tucked away in his little cell playing with himself. I hope he’s terrified of what’s going to happen when he gets out.

  He should be. What I did to Charlton is nothing compared to what I’ve got planned for him. He’s got to suffer for what he did and for what I’ve been through for the last thirty years. He’ll pay for the life I could have had and for the other lives he’s ruined.

  I know when he’s due to be released and I’ve got his downstairs neighbour primed to let me know the minute he sets foot in his flat. I’ve known since he was sent down that I’d be waiting for him and I’ve planned everything to lead up to the big event. It’s like the others were the supporting acts and he’s the massive finale. The one everybody’s been waiting for. I hope I hear the crowd cheering in my head when I finally do it – chanting my name, crying out for more.

  But I’m getting ahead of myself, aren’t I? Everything I’ve done so far has taken so much planning and I can’t let that go to waste. If I’m going to finish this then I need to be careful, thoughtful and thorough. It’s got me this far.

  I just wish I didn’t have to wait.

  24

  Kate’s meeting with Das had gone as well as she could have expected. The DCI wasn’t keen to link the two murders because the implications were uncomfortable, especially with the Cumbria case thrown in, but she had been convinced that David Whitaker might be in danger. Despite her scepticism about The Three Amigos theory she’d given the go-ahead for Bradley and Grieveson to be interviewed and Kate had co-ordinated her team so that the interviews were to be conducted simultaneously. Barratt and O’Connor, white-faced from the PM, had been dispatched to Lee Bradley’s workplace in Doncaster, while she and Hollis were en route to Neil Grieveson’s home in Sheffield.

  Kate’s phone rang just as they turned off the Parkway and she recognised the number immediately. Her former boss in Penrith. ‘DCI Bland, thanks for ringing me back.’

  ‘Fletcher, you always were the unorthodox one. To be honest, I wasn’t surprised when I got your message.’

  His strong Cumbrian accent, with its associations of mountains and open spaces, made Kate smile as she asked, ‘And you checked for me?’

  It hadn’t been an easy decision, but Kate felt like she was working without a key part of the puzzle and she knew somebody who could provide her with the piece that she needed. She’d left a message for her former DCI, Colin Bland, and asked if he could confirm that the murder weapon in the Gilruth case was consistent with what they knew about the knife used to emasculate and murder Simon Charlton.

  A sigh at the other end of the phone. ‘I checked.’

  Kate had known he would. Bland was an old-fashioned policeman with a strong sense of loyalty. She knew that he felt partly responsible for her moving away from Cumbria to seek promotion and she’d bargained on that sense of guilt working in her favour.

  ‘Without a direct comparison it’s impossible to tell if the knives used were the same. But, there’s nothing to suggest that they weren’t. Your description of your knife matches with the one from Chris’s PM report. Same width of blade. They might not be the same but there’s nothing conclusive to suggest that they aren’t.’

  It wasn’t much but at least Kate knew that C
hris wasn’t murdered with a completely different sort of knife. It could have been the same killer with the same weapon.

  She exchanged a few pleasantries with Bland about the differences in weather between the west and east of the country, before thanking him and hanging up.

  ‘Potential link between Chris Gilruth’s and Simon Charlton’s murders.’ She explained the details to Hollis who looked less than impressed.

  ‘So, they weren’t necessarily killed with the same weapon, but they also weren’t killed with completely different weapons? It’s a bit thin.’

  ‘Better hold on to it,’ Kate said with a tight grin. ‘Because it might be all we’ve got to link these murders.’

  Hollis pulled the car into a bus stop in front of a row of shops in Crookes and turned off the engine.

  ‘This it?’ Kate asked, scanning the buildings. There was a betting shop, a pizza takeaway, a chemist which looked like it might have been recently renovated and an old-fashioned hardware shop. None of the windows were boarded up and most of the paintwork on display was clean, if a little dated in places.

  ‘According to our records Grieveson lives over the bookies.’

  ‘No job?’

  ‘He works from home. As far as Sam could find out it looks like he has some sort of internet business buying and selling collectibles.’

  ‘What sort of collectibles?’

  Hollis shrugged. ‘No idea. Probably something geeky. Sci-fi or Game of Thrones memorabilia I expect.’

  Kate led the way down an alley between two rows of shops and round into a small yard. The back door of the betting shop was open despite the cold and she could hear the droning commentary of a race coming from a radio or television. There was another door, set back in an alcove, with 4B stencilled onto the flaking green paint. Kate pressed the bell next to the door and heard it ringing inside the flat. A few seconds later there were footsteps on the stairs inside and the door was opened by a tall, skinny man in a dark grey T-shirt and torn jeans. His eyes were bloodshot as they looked at Kate and then Hollis, and the hand on the door jamb was unsteady.

  ‘Neil Grieveson?’ Kate asked before the man could ask who they were. He nodded in confirmation, his eyes unable to settle anywhere.

  Kate introduced herself and Hollis and asked if they could come up to the flat.

  ‘What’s this about?’ Grieveson asked, his voice low pitched and with the slight hoarseness of a habitual smoker.

  ‘I’d rather we talked inside,’ Kate said.

  Grieveson nodded and opened the door to allow them to pass.

  ‘After you,’ Hollis said with a grin. Kate knew that he wasn’t being polite – he didn’t want to give Grieveson the opportunity to abscond while they were on the stairs. Grieveson grinned back as though reading Hollis’s mind and understanding that he’d been outsmarted before turning and heading up the stairs.

  The flat looked like something out of a Channel 5 documentary about hoarders. There were cardboard boxes on the stairs, boxes in the narrow hallway and even more boxes in the small living room that Grieveson led them into. A dining table nestled beneath the only window in the room and was the only piece of furniture not strewn with cardboard and assorted packaging material. It housed a laptop, an array of mugs and glasses and a half-empty vodka bottle.

  ‘Business good?’ Hollis asked, looking round.

  ‘Not bad,’ Grieveson said, clearing a space on the dingy sofa and indicating that they could sit down. Kate studied his face, looking for the boy that she’d seen in the photographs that Sam had found. If she didn’t know how old Neil Grieveson was, she’d have had difficulty ageing him. His lean figure and the way he was dressed suggested twenties to early thirties but the bald scalp and dark lines around his eyes made him seem much older. She sat down and waited for Hollis to decide where to position himself. She knew that he wouldn’t sit – too difficult to respond if Grieveson made an unexpected move – she predicted either standing by the door or perched on the edge of the table.

  ‘What’s this about?’ Grieveson asked again, turning to Hollis who was leaning in the doorway.

  ‘We think you might be able to help us with an investigation,’ Kate said, deliberately vague.

  ‘What sort of investigation?’

  ‘It involves somebody that we think you might know.’

  Grieveson pulled out a dining chair, sat down and reached a shaky hand out to a packet of cigarettes. He pulled one out and inserted it between his chapped lips. ‘Who?’ The cigarette jittered in his mouth as he spoke.

  ‘Does “The Three Amigos” mean anything to you?’

  ‘The what?’ Grieveson had managed to light his cigarette. He took a drag and puffed out smoke towards the off-white ceiling.

  ‘You and two of your friends called yourselves The Three Amigos when you were at junior school. Correct?’

  ‘Christ, that was thirty years ago. How am I supposed to remember?’

  ‘Let me help. Lee Bradley and Vicky Rhodes. They were the other two.’ Kate watched him closely as he looked out of the window and then down at the screen of his laptop. He couldn’t look at her or Hollis.

  ‘What about another name? David Whitaker. Mr Whitaker was a teacher at Sheffield Road Juniors when you were there.’

  ‘Doesn’t ring any bells,’ Grieveson said, shaking his head.

  ‘Neil,’ Hollis said from the doorway. ‘We know that you were friends with Lee and Vicky. We’ve got photographs showing the three of you on a camping trip to Derbyshire. A trip led by David Whitaker.’

  Grieveson visibly paled. ‘Like I said, that was years ago. We all went to different secondary schools and that was the end of our friendship.’

  ‘Until January this year,’ Hollis continued. ‘When you met up in Thorpe at a school reunion. And the three of you came up with a plan to get revenge on Whitaker.’

  Grieveson shook his head. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  Kate sighed heavily, more for effect than out of any real sense of frustration. ‘Okay, then let me spell it out for you. David Whitaker is a convicted paedophile currently serving a six-month sentence for grooming a minor. We know that Whitaker taught at Sheffield Road Junior School when you and your friends were there. We also know that he was on a camping trip in 1988 which the three of you also attended. We believe that, since the reunion in January, the three of you have conspired against David Whitaker in an act of revenge. As we speak two other members of my team are interviewing Lee Bradley. And we’re close to tracking down Vicky Rhodes as well.’

  Grieveson gave a sound between a snort and a laugh. ‘Tracking down Vicky? Why would you need to track her down? She lives in the Canaries – it’s not like she’s hiding or on the run or something. I’ll give you her phone number if you want. She’s not been back to South Yorkshire since January. She had nothing to do with this.’

  ‘Nothing to do with what?’ Hollis jumped in.

  Grieveson stubbed out his cigarette and reached for the bottle of vodka. ‘I suppose I always knew somebody would work it out,’ he said, pouring a large measure of the spirit into one of the mugs on the table. ‘It was only a matter of time. But, before I say anything else, you need to know that it was me and Lee. Vicky wasn’t involved even though it was her idea in the first place. She couldn’t risk her job but me and Lee, well,’ he gestured to the piles of boxes around the room, ‘it’s not like I had a lot to lose and Lee’s in a poxy office job that he hates. We both knew it would be worth doing time if we got to see that bastard suffer.’

  Hollis pulled out the other dining chair and sat opposite Grieveson at the table, notebook in one hand, pencil in the other.

  ‘Okay, Neil,’ he said, gently. ‘Start from the beginning.’

  25

  ‘Do you believe him?’ Kate asked as soon as they were back in the car.

  ‘I think there’s too much detail not to,’ Hollis responded. ‘We can easily check the case in the files and see if it matches what he told
us.’

  Kate wanted to punch the dashboard in frustration. Grieveson had admitted his part in David Whitaker’s suffering, but it had nothing to do with the murders. He’d confessed to entrapment and, given the circumstances, Kate doubted that there would be much appetite from the CPS for pursuing prosecution. Apparently, Grieveson and Bradley had read online about a group of men in the north east who were actively engaged in vigilante activity against known and suspected paedophiles. They used social media to trap them and then turned the evidence over to their local police. Lee and Neil had done the same with Whitaker, but they’d submitted everything anonymously, gambling on there being enough evidence in a search of Whitaker’s house to get a conviction. And it had worked.

  A tearful Grieveson had explained the abuse he’d suffered on the camping trip and how he, Lee and Vicky had finally been able to talk about it to each other at the reunion. Their meeting had been the catalyst for the plot against Whitaker – the catharsis of finally being able to be open about what had happened had turned to thoughts of revenge and the three of them had formulated a plan. Bradley and Grieveson had set up a fake Facebook profile and posed as a minor online. They’d trapped Whitaker into meeting ‘Jamie’ and then sent the evidence to the police anonymously.

  Grieveson had been keen to point out that, although it had been Vicky’s idea, the woman had nothing to do with the details. She worked as a lawyer in Tenerife and it would have been career suicide for her to have taken an active part in the plan. She’d been keeping tabs on Whitaker and knew about his change of name, taking it as further evidence that he was still an active paedophile and needed to hide his true identity. Grieveson also claimed that Vicky Rhodes had been out of the country since January – but he only had her word for it. Kate hoped that somebody at immigration might know otherwise.

  She took her phone out of her pocket and dialled the number that Grieveson had given her for Vicky in Tenerife. No answer. It was a mobile number but, if Vicky was with a client, she wouldn’t have answered anyway so Kate left a message asking Vicky to ring her back.