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

by Heleyne Hammersley

  ‘That’s great, thanks,’ she said, noticing that her own image was smiling. Kate hated this kind of communication. She could never remember to look at the webcam when she spoke, and neither could most people she spoke to. They usually seemed to be staring at each other’s chins or looking off to one side as though disinterested.

  ‘So, what can I help you with? I understand that you’ve spoken to Neil and Lee.’

  She had been in touch with the other two. Hardly surprising but a little bit annoying that Kate wouldn’t have the element of surprise.

  ‘Before we carry on, would you mind if we record this call?’

  Vicky frowned. ‘For what purpose?’

  ‘I’d like to be able to share it with the rest of my team at a later date.’

  The other woman shook her head. ‘I don’t think I can agree to that. As far as I’m concerned, my speaking to you is a courtesy. If our conversation were to be recorded, then it would put the whole interview on a more formal footing, and I’d be entitled to have legal representation present. Which I don’t. I suggest you make notes.’

  The smile was still there but there was something steely around Vicky Rhodes’s eyes. This might have been couched as a ‘chat’, but her legal training was ensuring that she wasn’t going to be tricked or caught unawares.

  ‘I completely understand,’ Kate said, reaching for her notebook and a pen. ‘Let’s start with a few basics. Can you confirm your name and current address?’

  Rhodes did, giving her middle name as Elizabeth and her address as a flat in Santa Cruz, Tenerife’s principal city. She’d lived there for the past seven years and worked for a law firm that helped expats to buy property across the Canary Islands.

  ‘I’d have thought, with your contacts, you’d be able to get a good deal on a nice little villa somewhere,’ Kate said.

  ‘I like the city,’ Vicky responded. ‘There’s a good selection of bars and restaurants close by and it’s a two-minute walk to my office. And it’s not very touristy.’

  ‘Sounds ideal,’ Kate said, aware that she was making small talk. ‘And is that where you are now?’

  The image on the screen swayed and Vicky Rhodes disappeared completely. After a dizzying half second Kate’s computer display was filled with a view from high up looking across a busy port to a sea that was turning deep blue in the evening light.

  ‘Santa Cruz de Tenerife,’ Vicky’s voice informed her. ‘The view from my balcony. If you look closely enough, I’m sure you can make out that some of the signage around the port is in Spanish.’ There was a hint of sarcasm in her tone that made Kate uncomfortable. Was this staged, prepared?

  She scribbled a note and passed it across to Cooper asking her to check flights in and out of Tenerife from all airports in the north of England. Could Vicky have been in Thorpe in the early hours of Saturday morning and managed to get back to her home in time for work on Monday?

  The scene shifted again and Vicky Rhodes was back in shot.

  ‘Thanks for the tour,’ Kate said. ‘Just what I need to see at the back end of November while I’m stuck in Doncaster.’

  Vicky smiled. ‘I know somebody who can help you buy a nice apartment out here. If you get in soon, before Brexit that is.’

  ‘I’ll keep it in mind. You said you’d talked to Mr Bradley and Mr Grieveson? What was that about?’

  If Kate had managed to wrong-foot her, Rhodes certainly didn’t show it.

  ‘I spoke to Lee. He said that the police wanted to know about his involvement with David Whitaker. Neil had been in touch and had been less than tight-lipped.’

  ‘You knew about the entrapment?’

  ‘I’ve heard two versions of events from two different people. If you want to give me yours I’m willing to listen, but none of this has anything to do with me.’

  ‘So, you don’t know David Whitaker, or David Wallace as he now calls himself?’

  ‘I knew him. When I was eleven years old. He was my teacher. I don’t know him now and I don’t want to.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  For a second, Kate thought the screen had frozen. Vicky Rhodes’s expressionless face gazed out at her, eyes fixed firmly on her own. And then she smiled faintly. ‘DI Fletcher, I know what Neil Grieveson told you. And I know what effect it’s had on his life. We hadn’t spoken for thirty years so when we met up in January I was expecting him to have changed, everybody does, but I was shocked. He was a happy kid with a wicked sense of humour. He was witty, clever and had a real talent for art. Now he sells crap that nobody really wants on the internet and rarely goes out of his flat. That’s what Whitaker did to him.’

  ‘And what did Whitaker do to you?’

  The screen went black.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Cooper asked as Kate tapped randomly on her keyboard.

  ‘Lost the connection. Shit.’

  Cooper got up and leaned over Kate’s shoulder, peering at the blank screen.

  ‘You’ve not lost the connection. She’s muted the conversation from her end. But she’s not disconnected. Maybe give her a few minutes.’

  Cooper slid a piece of paper onto Kate’s desk, obviously unwilling to discuss the contents in case Vicky Rhodes could still hear them.

  Sunday 12.05 from Newcastle. Arrived Tenerife South 16.25.

  Kate scanned it and nodded. Rhodes could have easily been in South Yorkshire on Saturday night and Sunday morning and managed to get back.

  Kate scribbled a note instructing Sam to contact Border Force to see if Rhodes’s passport had been used. Even if it hadn’t it was entirely possible that she had a fake. She was just about to pass the note over the desk when the screen flickered back into life.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ Rhodes was smiling but she looked shaken. ‘I just needed one of these if I’m going to tell that story.’ She raised a glass of clear liquid, ice cubes rattling metallically as she shook it gently. ‘Gin and tonic. I considered a beer, but the stronger stuff is best for this kind of conversation. Shame you can’t join me.’

  Kate silently agreed. A stiff drink would go down well after the day she’d had.

  ‘So, what do you want to know?’ Rhodes took a big gulp of her drink.

  ‘July 1988. You went on a school trip to Derbyshire with your classmates and, specifically, your two friends. You called yourselves The Three Amigos after the film of the same name. At some point during the trip at least one of your friends was sexually abused by Whitaker. I think you were too.’

  Rhodes nodded.

  ‘You were?’

  Another nod.

  Kate lowered her voice. ‘What happened to you, Vicky?’

  ‘I’m not going to give you the details. You must have an idea of what grown men do to children to satisfy their perversions.’ She spat the last word and took another sip of her gin and tonic.

  ‘Okay. What happened afterwards? Did you tell anybody?’

  ‘Of course not. Who was I going to tell? I was eleven. And, besides, they threatened us. Told us that they knew where we lived and that they’d come and get us if we told anybody. We were kids. We believed it.’

  ‘They? Who was with Whitaker?’

  Another large gulp of G and T.

  ‘There were three of them. One we called the sergeant major because he was huge and strict. The other one worked for the outdoor centre. I don’t remember his name. I’m not even sure if I knew it at the time.’

  It tied in with what Neil Grieveson had told Kate and Hollis. He’d said that Whitaker had assaulted him in his tent under the pretext of helping him to change out of his wet clothes. Grieveson explained that his two friends had gone out for a night walk, but he hadn’t wanted to after his encounter with his teacher. He’d known something was wrong when Lee got back but they didn’t speak about it, instead falling out with each other over something trivial. They hadn’t spoken about it until the reunion.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Kate said. Even if Vicky Rhodes was connected to the murders, she’d obviously
suffered horribly at the hands of somebody she was supposed to be able to trust and Kate felt uncomfortable asking her to relive the trauma. ‘Can you tell me what happened at the reunion? Why did you decide it was time to talk about what had happened?’

  Vicky stared down for a few seconds. ‘It was when I saw Neil. Me and Lee, we’re doing all right for ourselves. Lee’s married and I’m happily single but Neil… Neil’s really fucked up. I thought opening up about what had happened to us might help but all he could talk about was revenge. He wanted to get back at Whitaker and it sounds like he did.’

  ‘He says it was your idea.’

  ‘It was. Kind of. At least, I mentioned the group that Neil and Lee copied.’

  ‘But you were safely out here. Beyond suspicion.’

  Vicky smiled. ‘You must have done a background check on me. You know I’m a lawyer. It would be professional suicide to be involved in something like that.’

  Kate’s sympathy dissipated. The woman from a minute ago had turned into a self-absorbed, self-serving coward. She was the puppet mistress, pulling the strings of her friends while she sat in the sun out of harm’s way. It was uncharitable, Kate knew, to think of Vicky Rhodes like that but Kate had met Neil Grieveson and seen how easy he’d be to manipulate. He had barely any personality and no self-esteem.

  ‘I need to ask you where you were on Saturday. And on a number of other dates this year.’

  Rhodes took another swig of her drink. ‘I was here on Saturday. At my flat. I’d had a busy week so I caught up on some Netflix.’

  ‘What about Sunday morning?’

  ‘I went for a swim. Then I had an early lunch in one of the local cafés.’

  ‘Alone?’

  Vicky nodded.

  No alibi then. Kate gave the date of Margaret Whitaker’s removal from the nursing home and the probable weekend of Chris Gilruth’s murder, but Rhodes had no specific memory of either date.

  ‘What about Angela Fox? Do you remember her?’

  ‘Of course I remember her.’

  ‘Was she another of Whitaker’s victims?’

  ‘Not that I’m aware of. Even if she was, I doubt she’d talk to me about it.’

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘We weren’t friends. Not at school and not afterwards.’

  There was something strained and unnatural about Vicky’s voice. She sounded like she was telling a story that she knew well to an unfamiliar audience.

  ‘I heard that you threatened to kill her.’

  Vicky smiled slowly. ‘When was this?’

  She knew that Kate had nothing to back up her accusation.

  ‘When you were eleven,’ Kate admitted. ‘At the end of the camping trip. You said that if you ever got your hands on her you’d kill her.’

  The smile got wider. ‘And you never threatened anybody when you were a child? Somebody pinched your usual seat on the school bus? Somebody stole a boyfriend? It was what we said. How many times did you tell your friends that your mum or dad would kill you if you were home late?’

  She was right. Kate could list at least three different occasions when she’d threatened to kill her sister and meant every word. Once for eating Kate’s half of a KitKat.

  ‘When did you last see Angela? Was she at the reunion?’

  Vicky answered without hesitation. ‘Not that I recall. If she was, I didn’t see her or speak to her. Have you asked her?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Kate said. She didn’t want Vicky to know that they couldn’t find Angela or that there was some concern for her well-being. If Angela was in danger for her role in what had happened to Vicky and her friends, then Kate certainly didn’t want to alert one of their main suspects.

  After asking Vicky to check her diary for the dates she’d given, Kate ended the call.

  ‘What did you make of her?’ Kate asked Cooper, who’d been listening to the conversation.

  Cooper thought for a few seconds. ‘I don’t doubt that she went through something horrendous when she was a child, but I certainly didn’t warm to the adult. The way she planted a seed in the minds of her friends and then stood back to see what would happen… that’s cold. And her lack of alibi. If she’d wanted to prove her innocence she’d have been falling over herself to suggest people who might have seen her but she didn’t care. Either she’s confident that we can’t find out where she was on Saturday or she was watching Netflix at home and has absolutely nothing to hide.’

  ‘Great,’ Kate said. ‘Now what?’

  Cooper grimaced and turned a shade paler. ‘Now, I’m going to go through Simon Charlton’s digital record and I think you should go home. Can you pass me a bucket on your way out? I think I might need it.’

  28

  The gap in the fence around the old quarry site didn’t look recent. Kate didn’t believe that it had been caused by whoever had driven the car that was now a burnt-out wreck onto the muddy grassland. It was a place she knew well. When she’d been growing up in Thorpe, Kate and her friends had played in the quarry, dodging the lorries that brought their loads of waste from the steelworks of Sheffield to dump there. In its heyday it had been one of the largest clay quarries in Europe but as the material ran out, the brickworks closed down and the buildings were demolished, along with the huge chimney that must have dominated the Thorpe skyline for decades before Kate was born. Then the rush had begun to fill in the site, made all the more urgent when a girl had died, drowned during a summer downpour, in one of the air shafts that had served the main furnace.

  The car was sitting on an island of scorched grass, its front wheels lodged in a muddy furrow. It was easy to imagine the scene – exuberant joy riders spotting the gap in the fence, racing through and then becoming stuck in a deep rut. Abandoning the car would have been second nature – torching it may have been a bonus.

  ‘Who found it?’ Kate asked Hollis who’d been on the scene since first light.

  The DC pointed to a young woman standing next to the fence drinking something from a paper cup. She had a blanket draped around her shoulders and, even from this distance, Kate could see that her face was unnaturally pale. It seemed a bit of an overreaction to finding a burnt-out car.

  ‘What’s up with her?’ Kate asked. ‘It’s just a car.’

  ‘It’s not the car, it’s what’s inside it,’ Hollis said cryptically. ‘Come and have a look.’

  They both donned paper protective suits and bootees before approaching the car via the step plates that had been set in place by the scene of crime officers who were now bustling around the burnt-out wreck.

  ‘In there,’ Hollis said, pointing to one of the rear windows.

  Kate bent and peered through the gap left when the glass had exploded due to the heat of the fire and took in a sharp breath. She’d seen the CCTV footage of the woman who’d bundled Simon Charlton into the car but, even knowing that what she could see wasn’t real, she felt a jolt of disbelief. A child seat was still in place and a shapeless form slumped forwards as though trying to break free from the restraining straps. Even though it was blackened and partially melted, Kate could see how easily the doll might have been mistaken for a dead infant.

  ‘Christ, that’d give anybody a shock,’ she said. ‘SOCOs found anything yet?’

  ‘Not a thing. Index plate matches the one bought from JB Motors by Stephanie Martin. It’s the right make and model. Keys were still in, but the fire will have destroyed all the trace evidence.’

  ‘She knew exactly what she was doing,’ Kate said. ‘She’ll have left it somewhere obvious to tempt teenage joyriders and they’ve done her cleaning up. Now we’ve got a location for the car, see if we can get CCTV or ANPR camera footage from the area. I doubt she dumped the car at the school, but we might be able to trace it from here backwards. Although most of the usual joy riders probably know where the cameras are these days and won’t have risked being spotted.’

  Hollis made a note in his daybook and took out his phone.

  ‘I’ll get Sam onto
it straight away.’

  ‘No,’ Kate put up a hand to stop him from dialling. ‘Ask Barratt. Sam might be feeling a bit rough this morning. She started looking at the contents of Charlton’s laptop last night – leave her alone for a bit.’

  Hollis grimaced and scrolled though his contacts. ‘Can’t say I envy her that,’ he said as he turned his back and spoke quietly to Barratt.

  Cooper was much more up-beat than Kate had expected. She’d already finished looking through Charlton’s hard drive and obviously had something that she wanted to share as she beckoned for Kate to pull up a seat next to her.

  ‘You okay?’ Kate asked, a little puzzled by her exuberant mood.

  ‘Fine. I’ve been through most of Charlton’s dodgy stuff. It’s not nice but I’ve seen worse. Apparently, there’s more on a flash drive that the SOCOs found under one of the stair risers. Can’t believe anybody would use that as a hiding place – I’ve seen it on at least three cop shows this year. I don’t think I’ll be able to get hold of it, but I can’t say I’m bothered.’

  ‘What else have you got? You wouldn’t be this hyper if you’d spent the morning looking at kiddie porn – I know you, Sam, you’d be ready for a large drink.’

  ‘I’m always ready for a large drink these days,’ Cooper joked. ‘But, to answer your question, my contact managed to get me access to Charlton’s e-mails. Have a look at this.’

  She tapped a few keys and an e-mail inbox appeared on her screen. ‘Look at the second one down.’

  Kate followed Sam’s instruction and saw an e-mail from Amigos31988. There were two more further down the list.

  ‘I take it you’ve had a look at these?’

  ‘Better. I’ve printed them out. They’re in the order that Charlton received them.’

  She handed Kate three sheets of paper and sat back in her chair, waiting expectantly as Kate scanned through the information.