One Man Crusade : DCI Miller 1: The Serial Killer Nobody Wants Caught

by Steven Suttie

  “Is there somewhere private we can talk?” she asked, as polite as can be.

  Ellis looked at her watch, not out of any interest for the time, but more of a boundary setting exercise. Ellis learnt long ago, from Miller, who had in turn learnt from Dixon, that if somebody asks for anything, a lingering glance at the watch immediately compounds any feeling of inferiority in the person asking.

  “Okay. I’ve got a couple of minutes. Follow me.” Ellis led her through to the interview room adjacent to the reception area, and closed the door behind Melanie.

  “Right. What can I do for you?” Ellis looked squarely at the inadequate mother as she sat herself down at the table. Melanie followed the lead and sat opposite. She took a moment revising the words she had already worked out to say.

  “It’s the kids. They’ve took ‘em off us,” she announced, a poorly rehearsed tone of emotion had been played into the line, with feeble delivery. Ellis kept her gaze locked on this disgusting human being that sat before her. Her most vivid memory of the woman was neither that ghastly entrance down the stairs, nor the sight and sound of the baby wailing as it lay in is own shit and piss, but her defiant flick of the V’s when she stood at that broken upstairs window, as Saunders drove the car away from Mr Greaves house.

  Now she was here looking for sympathy and favours. Ellis could still taste that repugnant house that this woman lived in. She could still smell the urine and faeces-soaked baby that she had comforted.

  “They? I assume you are referring to the Social Services Department?” she asked, pretending to be interested.

  “Yeah, the fucking arseholes. Nowt better to do than pick on us, instead of trying to get the real fucking arseholes.” Ellis decided that she couldn’t be bothered trying to work out what Melanie was referring to. She looked on, awaiting the reason as to why Melanie had come all the way over here to speak to her.

  “So, what it is yeah, I thought that in return for some information, what you come round for last week, you’d be able to get the kids back at home with me.” Ellis gazed at her hands, which were clasped together on the table. She loved the way the interview room lighting hit the diamond in her wedding ring. She stared at her ring a moment and upheld a silence for the purpose of further dominating the situation.

  Eventually she spoke. “Melanie, I really cannot help you. Social Services must believe that they have good reason to just turn up at your house and take your children away. I can’t just telephone them and tell them to return your kids…”

  “You could if I gave you a name for this murderer. This “Pop” who you wanted to know about.” Melanie had a look on her face that Ellis wanted to slap away. A cocky, smarmy, “I’m holding the cards now” expression. It filled the detective with pure contempt.

  Ellis wasn’t even remotely interested in Melanie’s information. After all, she’d encountered many of her kind who promised the world in return for what they wanted. More often than not, the “information” resulted in nothing more than slanderous bullshit. Ellis looked at her watch again, prompting Melanie to continue, seeing no harm in humouring the woman for a minute longer.

  “You know how you said you wanted to know if I knew where this bloke lived, the one that’s got shot?” Ellis nodded as Melanie continued, displaying a set of extremely bad teeth that she hadn’t noticed before. A few of the bottom front teeth were missing, the black chasm tragically highlighting and framing the yellowing green of her intact teeth.

  “Well, it’s true that I didn’t know where he lived, but there was this stick insect come round looking for him about a month ago.” Ellis’ attention was suddenly aroused. She assumed that this “stick insect” was the girl that had visited Mr Greaves.

  “She come round looking for him, said it was her uncle or something. Anyway, I told her to fuck off like, told her I didn’t know fuck all about it…”

  “What did she look like, this stick “insect”?” Ellis was definitely intrigued by what Melanie was getting at. Melanie’s face twisted suddenly and a cautious, sly smirk appeared. It had dawned on her that the information she had brought to the table was of interest. For the first time, she imagined herself having a little control of the situation.

  “Well, just a minute. I’ll tell you everything if I can just get the kids back.” She ended the sentence with a smug little grin. It caused Ellis to feel a wave of sudden anger.

  “Sorry. I’m not in a position to involve myself. Is that all?” Ellis stood, causing a blur of sheer panic to form on Melanie’s face.

  “No, no. Wait. I’ve not told you the best bit yet. I’ve got some real news that you’ll wanna hear, but I need you to help me with the kids. I’ll lose that house if the council find out the kids are gone, an’ Mick’ll fuckin’ twat me if we get booted out again.”

  Ellis felt the wave wash over her once again, this swell was stronger though. And this one wasn’t anger nor contempt. It was pure revulsion. It was disgust mixed with total incomprehension, as to how a woman can possibly feel so empty about the fact that her children have been taken away from her, and that her only concern is that the house she was given by the council will be taken away. Her kids are in care, and she feels nothing more than victimised.

  “Look, it’s not my problem. Now if you have some information that will help me with this enquiry that you are unwilling to divulge, I can arrest you for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, and also for assisting an offender. Maximum sentence is about six years.” She locked stares with Melanie, who suddenly began to look very vulnerable. Ellis continued, determined to find out what, if any information Melanie may have.

  “Of course, by helping the police with their enquiries, you would be in a position to claim your expenses, which was a taxi here, a taxi home, dinner…”

  “No, I got the bus,” said Melanie.

  “Well, I thought that you had got a taxi, and if you tell me what it is that you know, then I will go and get you the return fare to Bury, plus your dinner money. That’s about fifty quid isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know. Yeah, I think so.”

  Ellis hated being nice to her, but there was a purpose. She sat back down and waited for Melanie to take the bait. She had not imagined that there would be any delay, after all fifty pounds would keep her in the pub for a good few hours tonight.

  Eventually Melanie began to explain what she knew, the prospect of Ellis’ expenses money had proved far too tempting.

  “Well, that girl what came round, the one that I was telling you about. She asked if I knew how to get hold of that bloke what used to live there. I said go and ask that old bloke over the road…”

  “What did she look like?”

  “She were one of them that thought she were fuckin’ gorgeous, two hours worth of make up on, expensive clothes like what they wear on telly. She said it were her uncle.”

  “So you sent her across to Mr Greaves’ house?”

  “Yeah, but what I wanted to tell you about was the guy in the car.”

  Ellis found herself caught by the detail. Her stomach flipped. “Go on.”

  “Well she came in a car with a bloke drivin’. It was a black car, smart like.”

  “Do you know what kind it was?” Ellis felt enthusiastic about this conversation for the first time since it had begun.

  “I don’t know much about cars. It were one of them what the kids used to nick the badges off.”

  “A Volkswagon?” asked Ellis.

  “If that’s what it was, probably. Anyhow, the bloke was sat in the car when she come to mine, then he stayed in it when she went over to that old bloke’s house. He was looking about all the time, proper paranoid. I said to Mick that he was a dodgy bastard, he said he would go and kick fuck out of him like.”

  “Can you describe the man in the black car?” She gave her watch another lingering glance as she asked.

  “Yeah, ‘cos I know him. He’s called George Dawson.” Ellis felt the insides of her stomach flip over again as the informa
tion rushed around her brain. She was momentarily stunned. If this was reliable, if this was true, this was very possibly the case cracked. In fact, in her mind, this was the case cracked.

  “Who is he? How do you know him?” She asked, suddenly an urgent energy had entered her voice, it was obvious to Melanie that this information was being received with burning interest.

  “He used to be at our school. He were a teacher, I never had him, but everyone knew him ‘cos he were proper nice like, he was always walking around with a right cheesy smile on his face, saying hello to everyone. He was definitely the man what I saw in that car.”

  “Where is he from?”

  “Bolton, I think. Somewhere round Bolton.”

  “What school did you attend?”

  “Bury Comp.”

  “Right, thanks a lot Melanie. Stay here, I’ll be back in five minutes.”

  With that Ellis darted out of the interview room, back through the reception doors and flew upstairs. She headed into the SCIU office and shouted at Saunders who was looking out of the window to come and join her in Miller’s office. Her office. He headed in with almost as much urgency as Ellis.

  “Close the door Keith,” she ordered as she sat at the desk. Saunders did as he was told and then sat opposite his superior.

  “Right. This is top secret, discussable with nobody else on planet earth other than me. Understood?”

  Saunders nodded, wondering what was so important.

  “Melanie Turner was visited by the girl who called at Mr Greaves’ house. She went there first, same story she gave to Mr Greaves, that she was trying to find her uncle.” Saunders listened intently.

  “Melanie told her to go to Mr Greaves, but she noticed that the caller was with somebody. There was a bloke sat in a back car, possibly a Volkswagon…”

  “Fuckin’ hell!” Saunders was flipped by the news. “Has she given a description?” he asked, the excitement was written across his face.

  “Better than that. She knows him. George Dawson. He was a teacher at Melanie’s school.” Ellis grinned as Saunders calculated the information. He too could see the case being solved.

  “I need you to run a full background check on him, start with Bury Comprehensive, that’s where he works. Get me his address, registration plate, national insurance number, everything you can get on him, and like I said, tell nobody about this.”

  Saunders seemed concerned about the secrecy. “What about them two?” he asked, pointing out of the office window at Worthington and Chapman, both of whom were staring through the glass at them.

  “Nobody. I’ve been in with Dixon. He’s made it quite obvious that he has no desire to tie this investigation up just yet.”

  “You what?”

  “He said that he is under no pressure to find a swift end to this case.” Saunders’ face showed the surprise that this detail deserved.

  “Eh?”

  “Well, I shouldn’t say it, but I trust you not to repeat it. He won’t tell me what exactly is going on, but reading between the lines, I’d say that MCP have been warned off catching this guy. Political interference seems the most likely explanation to me.”

  Ellis observed Saunders’ face as the information sank in. He looked stunned.

  “This is strictly between us. Okay?”

  “Guv.”

  “Right, go and get me everything you can on this George Dawson. I even want to know where his oldest relative lives. Family trees, employment history, criminal history, everything, alright? I want a list of irrefutable links to the murders and I want them as soon as.”

  “What, are we going to lift him?”

  “Not straight away. Let’s just make eyeball and then take it from there.” Saunders left, with an urgency in his stride. The other two detectives asked him what was going on.

  “Nothing for noses.” he said.

  Ellis followed him and retreated back into the corridor and down the stairs. She took the expenses money down with her, and re-entered the small interview room where Melanie sat, staring into space.

  “Listen, Melanie. We will possibly want to talk to you again. Will it be alright to call on you if we need to?”

  “Yeah, can’t see why not.”

  “And you cannot speak to anybody about this. It is in strictest confidence.”

  “As if I’m gonna tell anyone I’m a fuckin’ grass!” she snapped back.

  Ellis nodded her appreciation as she held out three twenty pound notes that she had taken from her purse upstairs.

  “There’s your money. Now I’ll offer you some advice Melanie, you can take it or leave it, but if you really do want to get your children back you should start by giving the house a little clean up. What you do with this money is your business, but I’ve put an extra tenner in there for you to buy some cleaning products. If you give the house a good, thorough clean and get rid of all that junk in the garden then that’s going to give Social Services the impression that you are willing to work to get the kids back. It’s a start isn’t it? Just give it a go, eh?” Melanie looked at the floor as she clutched the notes, making Ellis realise just how vulnerable the woman was.

  “Thanks” she said before she left, “I will.”

  Ellis went back to her office feeling a lot more focused. Her gut feeling told her that the information that had been volunteered from the most unlikely of sources was class 1, grade A, top of the league dynamite. Her gut told her that this case was solved. Ellis had always trusted her gut feeling, because she didn’t remember a single occasion when it had let her down.

  Chapter Twenty

  Tuesday 23rd May

  80 Moss Bank Drive, Heald Green

  The information that Ellis had been gifted the previous day seemed to be checking out nicely. Saunders was already out doing a surveillance job on the man that Melanie Turner had spoken about.

  It all had to remain a secret. Only Ellis and Saunders had any idea about this possible premature conclusion, and it had to stay that way, otherwise there could be serious problems if her superiors heard about it. It was exciting, Ellis truly felt that this was the man.

  She spent a lot longer getting dressed this morning, finally settling on the third outfit that she tried on - the snug fitting Karen Millen trouser suit, with a nude colour lace blouse. Bob had been used involuntarily as her fashion adviser, though she’d disagreed with everything that she’d made him say.

  This morning, she had woken up with an adrenalin rush - thoughts of this morning’s press conference had kept her tossing and turning through most of the night, her mind consumed with such trivial thoughts that it became more and more frustrating, as she tried to drift off to sleep. She had daft thoughts swimming around, silly things, like wondering if her mind would go blank, or would she trip up on the stage. What if she had a bogey?

  Eventually, she did get to sleep, but then James began asking in his seven-week-old voice for a bottle.

  Just after Bob had given his wife a kiss and wished her good luck with the press conference, before departing for work, the doorbell rang. Ellis could not disguise the cheesey look of glee on her face as she saw an Inter-Flora van parked outside, and a huge spray of flowers in the caller’s arms.

  “Oh my God! Thank you!” she said to the young lady who handed them over, feeling slightly awkward and embarrassed about how visibly happy the surprise had made her feel, completely out of the blue.

  Ellis stood at the doorstep and read the card out loud to herself as the van drove away.

  “My darling Karen, you will never know how proud I am of you. I could never put it into words. I will be watching you on telly, and I will be crying with tears of joy and pride. Well done on the well earned promotion. I love you from the very bottom of my heart. (And you know your Dad would be over the moon as well.) Love you forever. Mum (and Dad.) xxx

  Ellis had to go and start doing her make up all over again.

  *****

  Once at work, and with her mind firmly on the upcoming press eng
agement, Ellis sat and listened as Dixon droned on and on about procedure, and other legalities that had to be respected during the press conference, when it suddenly dawned on her that she hadn’t felt this calm since the day before she heard about this case, when she was thoroughly enjoying the luxury of not working. Dixon continued to drone on.

  As she sat going over the details of what was being disclosed with Dixon in his office, the gentle wind of calmness continued to breeze over her. It suddenly dawned on her that this conference was just a façade, not only for Dixon, but for her as well. She had the gunman - and was totally confident that it was just a matter of bringing him in. She liked the sudden feeling of calm, it made her feel that everything was working out nicely.

  Ellis glanced at her watch, it read 9.26. A mild shudder threatened the calmness as she reminded herself that the press conference would be getting under way in one hour and twenty three minutes.

  *****

  Acting Detective Chief Inspector Karen Ellis strode into the conference room as though she owned the place. Despite her insecurities, she looked like a woman who was bursting with confidence. In truth, she was as nervous as an MP during an expenses inquiry. The room was full to capacity, every conceivable media organisation had sent somebody to capture the very latest developments from the police investigation.

  Ellis’s appearance was an interesting development for the waiting hacks. They had anticipated that Miller was off the case, and now it seemed to have been confirmed. The gentlemen of the media were obviously impressed with Ellis’s power suit and recently styled shoulder length hairstyle. They’d all known that she was a good looking woman, but in this powerful role, a new sexiness was being discovered. Despite the obvious sexism, it was good for the media, an explosive news story with a gorgeous copper leading the case.

  It was obvious by the jubilant mood that the TV, radio and press people were in, that sympathy and the possibility of offering some help were not on the collective agenda. As she sat at her seat beside Dixon and looked ahead at the laughing and chattering group, she wondered whether they would be kind to her, whether they would treat her with some respect or whether she would be stitched up like a beanbag.