Jerry’s mouth was open slightly, as Detective Chief Inspector Miller read out the information. He felt a nervous giddiness wave through him, as the magnitude of what was being announced was realised. He stared up at the monitor that was showing a zoomed-in head and shoulder shot of Miller. He looked good, as usual, a little stressed, sure - but cool, controlled and as handsome as ever.
The director of this particular “news shift” was one of the channel’s hottest young production staff, Lisa Warrington. Lisa flicked her vivid red hair over her shoulder and looked across at Jerry, who seemed completely awestruck.
“Hey, it was only this morning that you said we’ve not had a juicy bone to chew on this month,” she said, unable to control the excited tone in her voice. Jerry was nodding and smiling, but unable to avert his gaze from the wall of small TV’s. He knew exactly what Lisa meant.
That morning, they’d had the weekly production meeting with all of the usual discussions of diary stories, budgets, expenses, production deadlines, potential stories and other TV what-nots, when Jerry had complained to his team that there had been a distinct lack of news over the last couple of weeks.
Sure, there had been the footballer who walked out on his team at half time in the last game of the season; that one had run for three or four days. There was the pop star who had been knocked over as he tried to make his way home from a heavy night out in the capital. There was the usual amount of human interest, particularly the fourteen year old who’d sailed single handed across the Atlantic Ocean to raise money for Cancer Research after losing his dad to the ghastly illness. A few stories about politicians had come and gone. But in the main, things had been quiet in the world of news reporting.
There had been consistent coverage of West Yorkshire Police’s ongoing search for the person responsible for the murder of young Tim MacDonald, but that story had begun to wane with the lack of new information being reported.
There hadn’t been a fresh, juicy story to enthral Sky News’ million plus regular viewers and keep them watching for the latest developments. Jerry hated that. He could go a week, maybe two, but he thrived off the energy that a breaking news story created. Suddenly, this one had fired him up.
Jerry was an accomplished news man, almost twenty five years of journalism has made him instinctively astute as to whether a story was likely to be a hit or a miss with viewers. The very fact that this press conference was being broadcast live, was because there really wasn’t anything of major interest going on in the UK at the moment. Until now, anyway.
Lisa had applied the “BREAKING NEWS” scrolling banner to the screen, with the headline “Serial Killer Preying on Paedophiles.”
“That’s your area isn’t it Lisa?” asked Jerry, his glasses had ridden to the bottom of his nose, so he lifted his head up high in order to see her clearly.
“Well, I’m from Chester originally, but I went to Manchester Uni.”
“You know the area though, I mean you can find your way around?”
“Yeah, no problem. You want to O.B. the story?” She looked pleased, Lisa had not had extensive outside broadcast work yet.
“Would you like to? I mean it may be for a while, and I’d want blood. I’d want your van and reporter on the scene as soon as word of another one is out. Body bags, splat and shock. Okay?” His mind for broadcast could disturb people who didn’t share his passion for live news television, but Lisa did and thoroughly understood Jerry’s rather macabre sounding proposition.
“Get yourself up to Manchester with an O.B. van, hook up with Paul and all those northern wankers he knocks about with, and prepare yourself to be ready to be on your way to an incident at the drop of a hat. I’ll give you editor, director and producer role, so remember what images I want to see in any reports. Bodies, blood splats, crime scenes, public reaction, and very important, eye witness accounts. Clear any police fees over five hundred with me. You alright with that?” Jerry had his head cocked for the whole time that he was talking, rather than just push his glasses up.
“Am I alright with that? God, thanks Jerry, this is my big chance.”
“And hey, don’t take the piss with expenses, you’re not an MP. It’s not you who has to listen to Barney Shaw bitching and moaning when one of you lot decides the Holiday Inn is beneath you!” Lisa laughed but her attention was caught by the press conference. Miller had stood up and left the stand amid a barrage of questions from the press. That was unexpected. Lisa threw her headphones on.
“Shit, okay, let’s go back over the points and cue a replay on VT. Is Paul ready to do an ad-lib?” She said into the microphone to the presenters and producers who had also been caught napping by this abrupt ending. One of the producers spoke back into her headphones.
“Paul’s standing by, Ready for ad-lib, cheers Paul. Lisa.”
“Okay, cut straight to Paul at the conference.”
The monitor bank flashed from the speechless presenters, who were about to “cuff” a link to the image of an equally stunned Paul Mitchell, who began to cover the developments of the press conference while the production team organised themselves. The afternoon presenter Sue Bentley introduced him.
“Well, Sky’s Paul Mitchell is at that extraordinary conference in Manchester. Paul, is that the strangest news briefing that you’ve ever seen?”
“Well Sue, you might say that. We’re all rather taken aback by that whole meeting. I can’t remember in all my years of reporting, ever hearing a police statement so rich in detail, or shall we say, so revealing in terms of an actual motive.” He waited for another question.
“Can you go over the details of what the conference was about?”
“Sure, basically Detective Chief Inspector Andrew Miller called the…”
Jerry turned down the volume of the live studio feed in the studio so he could listen to what the competing stations were making of the situation. He was amazed to discover that none of the competitors had anybody at the conference, and at this moment were not reporting on it. He knew that the BBC would have footage, but that would take a little time to get back and filter through the various management layers before it could reach broadcast.
“Lisa, this is exclusively ours. Let’s have an exclusive…” Lisa was fast and had the SKY NEWS EXCLUSIVE banner flashed onto the screen before Jerry could finish his sentence.
“Great. Listen, I’ll take over here, you go and pack your bag and get yourself up there. This bugger’s going to be killing again, and I want that banner up on that screen every time he does.” Lisa looked ecstatic. She’d proved herself in the studio as an excellent director but she had been craving the opportunity for some outside-broadcast work. Jerry was very pleased with the look of enthusiasm on her face; he knew that she’d worked hard for this chance. She handed her headphones over to him as he got into her seat.
“Lisa, remember what I’ve said. If this guy is courting publicity, he’s got it now. He’ll probably be playing just for us. If he is, we’ll be doing the morning show with Des live from the scene in Manchester. Do well with this and you could be finding yourself nominated for a major NTVA award. How does News Director of the Year sound?”
Her excitement was unmistakable. Before she left she gave Jerry a kiss and a hug.
“Thank you Jerry.” The boss couldn’t hide his displeasure.
“Give over you silly cow!” He could hear Lisa laughing as she left the gallery. He sat listening to Paul’s explanation of the conference, describing DCI Miller’s abrupt departure as “boorish,” his opinion was that the leading investigator was not about to win any support by ignoring questions put to him by people that he had asked to help him. Although it was obvious to Paul why this had happened, he had to report the facts, and the fact was that Miller had let down the press, by not giving them every tiny detail.
Jerry could feel that his news adrenalin had kicked in proper, ten questions a minute were popping into his head, and he wanted all of them answered. He was typing questions into his
autocue screen for Sue to relay to Paul, when his personal assistant walked in.
“Jerry. Urgent call on your mobile.” She held the phone out for him.
“Sorry, I can’t take any calls at the moment. I’m directing.” He didn’t look up; otherwise he would have seen from her face that this was a call that he wanted to take.
“Jerry, it’s urgent. You have to take this one.” He stopped typing and looked up in the peculiar way that he had with Lisa. Jerry had employed his PA long enough to know that she knew when to bother him with bullshit and when not to. If she thought that this was important enough, then it was.
She was right. It was. The hairs on Jerry’s arms stood on end and an ice cold tingle washed through him as he listened to the voice on the other end of the line. He pushed his glasses up.
“What do you mean?” he asked the caller.
Chapter Six
4.10pm
SCIU Incident Room
As he walked up the stairs to the incident room, Miller had hoped that the place would be deserted, so he could make a bit of progress on the mountain of paperwork that was looking frightfully close to spilling off his desk and onto the floor. The place wasn’t deserted.
“I thought I told you to get home, get a rest?” He was talking to the back of Saunders’ head. Saunders spun round, as if alarmed. The abruptness of Miller’s voice had surprised him.
“Oh, alright Sir? I went home, saw the press conference. What the fuck happened?” He looked confused.
“Legal shit. Out of our hands. It’s a disaster isn’t it?” Miller sat at Chapman’s desk, opposite Saunders. His strong, handsome features were looking faded, his skin - which was usually full of colour, looked drained. The flecks of grey hair that blended with the dark hair around his sideburns looked more prominent. Miller looked shattered. Aged.
“Well, it’s definitely an unusual disclosure. I had no idea that you were going to release the motive.”
Saunders looked stunned as Miller snapped back at him. “Neither did I, until two minutes before the press conference!” He grabbed a paperclip off the desk and started fiddling with it. Saunders could see that Miller’s hands were shaking violently. He decided to let the silence hang, knowing that his boss would speak when he wanted to. He returned his attention to the pile of paper he was sifting through.
Miller stood and walked over to the white board that had all the main case points pinned onto it. He studied the information carefully for a few minutes before looking around at Saunders.
“There’s nothing on here that we can use in the investigation. Do you realise that?” Miller was as low as Saunders could ever remember.
“Sir, I’ve been looking through each incident’s forensic report. We have no clues as to what our hit man is driving; we have nothing of material support like a hair, a fingerprint or a piece of snot. We don’t even have a conclusive shoe size. The Porta Delco site has given us three foot prints; all are size ten. Stalybridge gave us seven footprints, size eight. I’ve been trying to cross reference all this forensic evidence from each site. Sir, they’re taking the piss. There’s nothing, not a single piece of information here that’s of any use to us, nothing is consistent - except the make and model of the weapon.”
Miller considered what Saunders had said.
“It’s not them. It’s our killer, he’s very good. Listen, Keith, get yourself to bed. I need you alert tomorrow.”
“What’s planned?” Saunders was like a dog with a bone, which pleased his superior. Miller knew that at least one other person within a hundred miles also wanted to make an arrest.
“I’ll tell you in the morning.” Miller sounded assured. Only he knew that he didn’t have a clue what was happening tomorrow. Saunders grabbed his jacket and smiled at Miller.
“I’m alright to stay you know.” He was practically begging to stay.
“You won’t be saying this in a few hours when this loon has shot someone else and you’ve been working for almost twenty four hours. Go on, get off home.” Saunders went, he knew that his boss had a point.
Miller stared at the information wall a while longer before heading sullenly through to his office, which dominated the back of the huge, airy open plan CID floor. The first thing he did on entering his office was shut the roller blinds over the windows, which made up the entire corner of the room. The sun shone through with a vengeance at this time of day, baking everything in the room and forcing him to squint to see anything. Miller seriously disapproved of the design of his office. In the morning, the panoramic views across Manchester were quite breathtaking, the magnificent town hall clock tower dominated the view as it mingled amongst the tall office blocks and old Victorian mill-come-million pound apartment blocks. You really could lose yourself in the view - but by dinner time, he often felt as though he was melting in the relentless, magnified sun and that somebody was shining a six hundred watt torch in his eyes.
Miller took off his plain red tie, loosened the collar of his bright, white shirt and kicked off his shoes. He switched the PC on and sat down ready for a solid block of overtime authorising, expenses endorsing and statement checking. He shuddered when he saw the pile of paperwork that required his attention. Almost all of it was in one way or another related to this case.
He’d just opened the first file when his phone rang. He glanced over at it and tutted as he saw that the answer machine had taken fourteen messages. He waited for the tape to record this one and listened on the loudspeaker as the caller left a message.
“Er, hello. I’m hoping that this is the voicemail of DCI Andrew Miller. My name is Jerry Phillips - I’m the managing editor of Sky News. Don’t worry, I’m not calling for an exclusive, it’s just that I’ve had a call from somebody who claims that he’s responsible for the shootings.”
Miller grabbed the handset, and switched the answering machine function off.
“Hello, this is Miller.” His voice had lifted dramatically.
“Oh, er Hi. Did you hear what I said? Jerry sounded nervous.
“Yeah, yeah. What exactly was said?”
“Well, it was about forty five minutes ago, just after the news conference. I’ve been trying to get hold of you since. The call came on my mobile…”
“Was there a number?”
“No, nothing at all. It didn’t even say “private number calling” the screen was just normal, with the Vodafone logo. It was really weird, as though there was no call connected.” Jerry had no idea of the significance of those few words.
“What was said?” asked Miller who had suddenly woken up; this was the most important piece of information he’d heard yet. That mobile phone detail immediately stipulated that this was probably genuine.
“Well, basically, the caller made no actual reference to any of the crimes. He just said “Hello Mr Phillips, thank you for taking the time to cover my campaign. I am called Pop, and if it’s alright with you…”
“Pop?” interrupted Miller “Did he explain the name?” The sudden energetic lift in his voice was exceptional.
“No, no mention, he said “I would like to communicate with DCI Miller and the entire team of detectives who wish to speak to me through your programmes, if that would be alright?” I asked him what he meant and he expanded “Well, I would appreciate a platform to use to discuss my campaign. If you would allow me that air - time, I would really appreciate it.” I explained to him that what he was asking of us was illegal, that we would be taken off the air, but he replied by saying “I realise your legal obligations, but if you clear it with DCI Miller, I’m sure he’ll understand. If you have his permission, then legally you are not doing anything wrong - I’ve checked Ofcom’s guidelines, you would be able to go with it under the official line of “helping police with their enquiries during an ongoing investigation.” He said, “give him a ring and ask him what he thinks. Just explain to him that I am only offering this one opportunity to discuss my campaign. I won’t be approaching anybody else, nor will I be offe
ring this prospect again.” He said he’d call me back.”
Miller hadn’t realised that he was grinning from ear to ear.
“How did he sound? Deranged?” Jerry was a little taken aback by the question - he took a second to respond.
“On the contrary, he was polite, patient, articulate and very calm, a lot calmer than I was anyway, let’s just say that.”
“What about his accent? Did he seem to be talking with a false accent?” Miller was thinking of the call made to the factory.
“I wouldn’t like to say. He sounded just like you, Mancunian I suppose. There were times his accent seemed a little peculiar, on certain words.”
“What sort of age would you put on him, from the voice?”
“Well, it’s hard to say. My age I guess.”
“What is your age, if you don’t mind me asking?” Miller was ten minutes ahead of the conversation.
“Of course, sorry. I’m forty-seven. From his voice I guess he’s roughly my age.”
“Why do you think he’s contacted you? I mean, of all the media?” Miller hoped that his question didn’t sound too rude, he hadn’t meant it to.
“Well, I’ve been considering that same question myself while I’ve been trying to get you on the line. Initially, I thought that it would have been simply because we were the only channel taking the conference live…”
“Were you?” Miller sounded surprised.
“Yes, but I’ve since realised that he was planning the call, I mean, my mobile number is ex-directory, and it is only given out to specific people like my close staff, my wife, etc. It’s my business phone, so friends don’t have that number.” Jerry was leading somewhere but Miller cut him short.
One Man Crusade : DCI Miller 1: The Serial Killer Nobody Wants Caught Page 6
