Closer To Home

by Heleyne Hammersley

  ‘You’re doing a good job,’ Kate said. ‘Keep them calm. Give them somebody to talk to, to yell at if necessary. And listen to them. Let me know if either one of them says anything that doesn’t tally with their story. Anything at all.’

  ‘Well, that was interesting,’ Hollis said as he slammed the car door closed and stuck the key in the ignition. He’d obviously decided that it would be safer if he drove after Kate’s performance earlier.

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘Craig Reese seemed very uncomfortable.’

  ‘A lot of people feel uncomfortable around us, and he’s just been told that his stepdaughter is dead.’ Kate said. ‘What were you getting from him?’

  Hollis frowned, thinking. ‘He’s not telling us the truth about something. I’m not suggesting that he did anything to the kid but his story of where he was, or when she went missing seems to make him a bit fidgety.’

  He jiggled the front seat, trying to get enough room for his long legs. Kate watched, trying not to smile. In the close confines of the car he was all elbows and knees, reminding her of a marsh-wiggle from one of the Narnia books she’d read as a child. The carefully styled blond hair and soft hazel eyes didn’t quite fit with the image though.

  ‘So, what do you propose?’

  ‘I think we need to check again with everybody that he said he rang; uniforms doing the door-to-door can check to see if anybody remembers him knocking at the other houses on the street. We need to check times and find out exactly what he said.’

  Kate grinned.

  ‘Couldn’t agree more. Let’s have a look at that list.’

  Hollis passed her the notebook, flipped open to the appropriate page. It was a short list. Two family members and two friends of the missing girl.

  ‘Shouldn’t take long,’ Kate said. ‘The two friends live up near the shops. Then we can head up the village to call in on Reese’s dad.’

  Hollis laughed and pulled away from the kerb. ‘You got a map in your head?’ he asked with a grin.

  ‘No,’ Kate said. ‘I know the area.’

  ‘Really?’ Hollis looked like she’d just told him that she had webbed feet. ‘I thought you were from Cumbria.’

  ‘I’ve been up there for twenty years. But I was born here. In fact, I was born over there.’ She pointed to a house on the corner of a cul-de-sac.

  ‘Never thought I’d come back though,’ she muttered to herself.

  3

  1984

  ‘Kathy! Kathryn! You’re going to be late. And give your sister a shout.’

  Kathy spat toothpaste into the sink and stuck her head under the tap to get a mouthful of water. She didn’t care if she was late. She didn’t care if she didn’t go at all. School was crap. It wasn’t the lessons, or even the teachers, they were okay. It was the other stuff. Ever since the strike, school had been more of an ordeal than an education. She couldn’t make anybody there understand. It wasn’t her dad’s fault; it wasn’t his decision.

  ‘Come on Kathy!’

  A quick swipe of a towel round her mouth and she left the bathroom.

  ‘Oy, Kaz, you lazy get!’ she yelled in the direction of her sister’s bedroom door. Karen poked her head round the jamb, hair still sleep-ruffled and mouthed fuck off at her older sister.

  ‘You coming to school?’ Kathy asked.

  Karen shook her head.

  ‘Got period pain.’

  ‘Again? You had period pain last week.’

  Karen shrugged and closed the bedroom door. Kathy grabbed her school bag from the foot of her bed and raced downstairs, narrowly missing crashing into her father who was standing in the sitting room doorway scowling.

  ‘Where’s your sister?’

  ‘Poorly.’

  ‘What now? Headache? Flu? Yellow fever?’

  ‘Period pain.’

  Kathy knew that ‘women’s troubles’ were the one thing guaranteed to ensure that her father asked no questions; she and her sister exploited his embarrassment whenever the opportunity arose. He had done his best with ‘the girl stuff’ after their mother had died but he had had to summon his sister to explain the facts of life and she was of the ‘curse’ generation. It had taken a few months for Kathy to fully understand what was really happening to her body – with a lot of input from her friends. She didn’t want Karen to have the same experience she’d had so she’d been thorough in the information that she’d given to her little sister.

  Her father grunted but she could see that he wasn’t convinced. This was the third time in two weeks that Karen had decided to skip school and Kathy was beginning to wonder if she was being bullied by some of her supposed ‘friends’. They were an unlikely bunch of thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds from different backgrounds – Karen was the only one whose father worked at the pit and Kathy knew how much trouble that could cause.

  Deciding not to get involved, for now, she slung her schoolbag over her shoulder and went to open the back door.

  ‘Breakfast, Kathy?’ her dad asked, pointing to the kitchen table where he’d laid out a mug of tea and a slice of toast with jam.

  ‘Not hungry. I’ll get something at school.’

  His expression softened.

  ‘You have to eat, love,’ he said, and she felt a tug of guilt. He was genuinely worried. ‘It’s a long time till your dinner break.’

  ‘Longer than you can imagine,’ Kathy mumbled, closing the door behind her.

  She knew that her dad was doing his best and she was old enough to realise that it wasn’t easy raising two girls on his own. His sister had offered to move in and help out after Mum had died but her dad wouldn’t accept her help. Sometimes Kathy wished that he had though. It would have been good to have another woman around, especially when Karen was growing up and asking questions. She’d only been six when their mother had died and hadn’t really understood what was happening, so nine-year-old Kathy had been the one to explain cancer and death even though she was struggling to come to terms with the unfairness of having her mother snatched from her at such a young age. And now she saw herself as a surrogate mother to her younger sister despite there being only three years between them.

  There was a bit of sniggering and muttering when she got on the school bus but not as much as usual. Kathy risked a glance towards the back seat and noticed that Sharon Carter was absent from her customary corner by the window. Her friends were doing the usual nudging and whispering but it was all a bit half-hearted without their glorious leader. Kathy ignored them and sat in the first vacant seat she could see, close to the front and near where the conductor normally stood. Being close to an adult usually stopped the other girls from bothering her in the morning and this bus ride promised to be a bit more tolerable due to Sharon’s absence.

  Kathy hopped off the bus as soon as it pulled up outside the school gates and ran inside to put her books in her locker. If she could get to her form room a few minutes before registration she might manage a peaceful morning; the other kids only tended to bother her in the fifteen minutes or so before school and then lessons gave her a reprieve until break. She saw that the corridors were fairly empty and there was nobody lurking in ambush in the fifth-year area; hardly anybody seemed to even look at her as she fumbled in the pocket of her blazer for the key.

  Bending slightly, she opened the door of her locker, intending to dump the books for her afternoon lessons inside but there was a piece of paper on top of the books that she’d left there the day before – a sheet of lined A4 folded in half so that it would still be thin enough to fit through the gap between the top of the door and the metal locker housing. It was common to pass notes in this way, Kathy had done it lots of times before but, recently, she hadn’t been the recipient of any invitations or bits of juicy gossip. All the notes she’d received were malicious, threatening or insulting. Sighing, she opened this latest one.

  It was even worse than she’d been expecting.

  4

  2015

  It was past 10
pm when Kate pushed open the door to her flat. She and Hollis hadn’t found out anything useful from the Reeses’ neighbours and they’d not been able to find George Reese either at his home or in any of the pubs and clubs in Thorpe. A quick call to Jackie Reese’s mum revealed that she was on her way to be with her daughter and had nothing to say to the ‘fucking useless’ police. They’d decided to call it a day after that.

  They’d dropped the pool car back at Doncaster Central and Kate had driven her Mini back to her ‘executive apartment’ just off Town Field. The flat was a bit more expensive than she’d intended when she’d moved back to the area but, as soon as she’d seen the views, she decided that it was worth it to have the sense of space and openness in the middle of a large town.

  It was totally different from the house that she’d shared with Garry in Kendal – a new build in a tiny cul-de-sac on the edge of the town with fantastic views across to the southern Lake District fells. It was much smaller and with no outside space, unless she counted the two-foot ledge surrounded by bowed, wrought-iron railings outside her bedroom window, but it was hers. She didn’t have to accommodate somebody else’s tastes, needs or mess.

  There was a pile of junk mail waiting in ambush on the hardwood floor which she quickly scooped up and threw onto the hall table where her answer phone was blinking a warning. She tapped ‘play’.

  ‘Hi, Kate, love…’ Garry’s voice sounded more whiney than usual, his nasal tones accentuated by the metallic digital reproduction. At least he’d followed her instruction to never call on her mobile unless it was an emergency – the last thing she needed at work was a call from her ex. Kate hit ‘delete’. She wasn’t interested in anything that he might have to say, especially if it was about his new baby daughter and his not-much-older girlfriend. She’d been stupid to offer to stay in touch with him. At the time, she had thought it was the mature thing to do. But it had just opened her up to more of his shortcomings. Now, a father again at nearly fifty and shacked up with a twenty-year-old hairdresser, he still found plenty to complain about; Kate really didn’t want to hear it.

  Slipping off her work shoes, she padded into the small kitchen in search of sustenance. She’d not managed to eat since grabbing a quick sandwich from a supermarket at lunchtime. Opening the fridge, she considered her options: two-day-old pizza, an out-of-date pasta meal and a packet of ham. She grabbed a two-pint milk carton from the fridge door and rummaged in one of the cupboards for the box of cornflakes that she remembered buying a few days ago. A quick sprinkle of demerara and she was heading to the sitting room like a teenager sneaking a midnight snack.

  She’d angled the sofa to face the largest window in the whole flat, the one that looked out over the field towards the town centre. At this time of night, if she turned the dimmer switch to its lowest setting, she could see the lights of the town across the inky expanse of Town Field like a giant UFO perched on the edge of a Mid-West cornfield. It wasn’t a busy view; there were no roads and the flight path from Robin Hood Airport passed to the back of the flat. It was almost like looking at a blurred photograph or an artist’s impression of a night-time cityscape.

  She’d just picked up the spoon when the first sob wracked her whole body. She’d known it was coming, and she’d been relieved that she had managed to get all the way home without breaking down in tears. It had been a truly shitty day. Seeing Aleah’s body had been the worst of it, then dealing with her parents, but another part was being back in Thorpe after so many years. Driving along familiar streets, noting the changes but being shocked by familiarity at every turn had been emotionally exhausting and she’d known for the last few hours that her feelings were waiting to ambush her. At least she’d held it together in front of Hollis. She’d rather he thought she was a hard-faced bitch than an emotional wreck.

  She’d never expected to come back – even after the divorce. Twenty years on the Cumbria force had convinced her that she would retire there, maybe buy a little house on the edge of the Lakes and spend her retirement walking the fells that had been the backdrop to many of her most interesting and challenging cases. Bloody austerity! She held George Osborne personally responsible for her transfer. She still felt like screaming when she remembered Colin Bland telling her that she was too young to retire but there was no room for any more detective inspectors on his patch. Her transfer to South Yorkshire was meant to be a promotion but, earlier that day, standing a few yards from the house where she’d been born, it felt like a backward step, not a demotion exactly but somehow retrograde.

  Wiping her eyes on her sleeve, Kate took a deep breath and dug into her ‘dinner’. She was halfway through the bowl of cereal and thinking that she ought to check her email when her phone pinged with a text. Hollis.

  George Reese ws in bookies when A went missing. With Craig!

  ‘What the fuck?’ she asked as soon as Hollis answered his mobile.

  ‘He’s just turned up at his house. PCSO took a quick statement. He’s paralytic. Reese that is, not the PCSO.’

  ‘Don’t tell me we can afford surveillance on subjects of minor interest these days? What was the PCSO doing outside Reese’s house?’

  ‘He wasn’t,’ Hollis said. ‘A concerned neighbour rang the police when Reese started trying to kick her door down. Looks like Reese had lost his key and needed somewhere to spend the night.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘Local nick, sleeping it off.’

  ‘Have you phoned it into Raymond?’ she asked.

  ‘Yep. He wants us to pick up Craig Reese first thing in the morning and find out why he’s been telling us porkies.’

  ‘Not tonight?’

  ‘No point, we won’t be allowed to question him overnight.’

  ‘Right. I’ll meet you back at base at seven. We’ll go and get him.’

  Hollis’s instincts had been right, Kate thought, Craig Reese did have something to hide.

  She stacked her bowl and spoon neatly in the dishwasher, had a quick shower and went to bed, running through the questions that she’d like to ask Reese in the morning.

  Kate hated interview rooms in the summer. They were bad in the winter when they were invariably cold due to countless attempts at cost-cutting – including only heating the interview rooms when they were being used with heaters that took an age to cut through the icy air. But in the summer they stank. It was mostly B.O. but, underlying that, was the smell of the rubber tiles on the floor as they heated and gave off a rancid, chemical smell. The air didn’t move – even when somebody came in or left – and there was always a lingering odour of stale cigarette smoke despite the ban that had been in force for years.

  She took a deep breath as she pushed open the door to the room where Craig Reese had spent the best part of an hour waiting for her to start the interview. An hour in which she and Hollis had compared notes and devised a strategy. Nothing as simple as ‘good cop/bad cop’, though – this needed a lot more finesse. They weren’t sure whether Reese knew that they’d noticed Jackie’s throwaway comment about him being out somewhere the night before they found Aleah’s body. He’d not mentioned it so far so it was going to be their trump card.

  He looked up as she followed Hollis into the room. His eyes were resigned, defeated, and Kate could see that giving him time to stew had made him submissive rather than inducing the aggression that some people needed to vent when they’d been left alone with no idea what the police were thinking. Reese wasn’t going to attack.

  ‘Do I need a solicitor?’ he asked, looking from Kate to Hollis. ‘Am I in trouble?’

  Kate sighed theatrically. ‘That depends. Are you ready to tell us the truth about what happened on Tuesday?’

  Reese nodded eagerly. ‘It’s all my fault. I can’t believe that I didn’t keep an eye on her. Fucking stupid. All for a quick bet.’

  His eyes were tearing up but all Kate felt was disgust. A girl was dead, probably murdered, and this piece of shit was sitting here feeling sorry for himself.
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br />   ‘Let’s start at the beginning,’ she said. ‘You’re not under arrest for anything and we won’t be recording this conversation. At the moment, you’re helping us with our enquiries and not under caution so you are free to leave at any time. Do you understand?’

  Reese hung his head, greasy hair falling across his eyes as he nodded once.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Right, Craig, where were you at around 11am on Tuesday when Aleah went missing?’

  ‘At the bookies,’ Reese mumbled.

  ‘That would be Allan’s bookmakers on Main Street?’

  Reese nodded.

  ‘You previously stated,’ Kate slid a piece of paper from the slim cardboard folder that Hollis had brought with him, ‘that you’d sent Aleah out to play because and I’m quoting ‘I couldn’t stand listening to any more of those bloody cartoons’. Is this correct.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But this statement wasn’t accurate?’

  Reese shook his head.

  ‘No.’

  ‘So why don’t you tell us what really happened yesterday?’

  Reese took a deep breath and fixed his eyes on a point on the wall behind Kate’s head, unable to meet her eyes.

  ‘I got a phone call from my dad at about half ten. He’d got a good tip from somebody who worked at Doncaster, at the racecourse. I’m a bit skint at the minute and a good win would have helped Jackie with the bills and that. So, I took Aleah with me up to the bookies.’

  ‘Which way did you go?’ Hollis interjected. ‘Did you go across the old quarry land?’

  Reese shook his head.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I walked down the hill to the main road and went up to the village that way.’

  ‘And Aleah walked with you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Kate pretended to consider this for a minute. She wanted Reese to think that she didn’t believe him, to get him to add more desperate detail to back up his story.