Closer To Home

by Heleyne Hammersley

  ‘And?’ Kate prompted.

  ‘I just think I need to tread carefully. There are one or two who trust me and if I start digging around in the past they might clam up about everything. They don’t talk about the strike.’

  Kate sighed.

  ‘O’Connor, I think a murdered girl is slightly more important than the sensibilities of your would-be informants, don’t you?’

  ‘I know that. I also know that Raymond assigned me to this team because of those contacts. I just want you to know that I need to tread carefully. I can’t go asking people what side they were on in 1985. It’ll just put people’s backs up.’

  He stuck his hands in his pockets and leaned back against the wall as though he’d decided to stay where he was and he seemed to be expecting Kate to support him. She didn’t know him very well, he’d been around for a few days when she’d first joined the team but barely been in the office since then. She’d gathered that Raymond thought highly of him and she couldn’t help but wonder if he’d been expecting promotion to DI before she’d arrived. If that was the case then going against Raymond’s orders wasn’t the best way to secure his advancement.

  ‘Look,’ she said. ‘Find out what you can. Ask people that you think might trust you. If you need to, mention that it’s to do with the murder: that might get people to cooperate.’

  He nodded gratefully but his expression was still cynical as he pushed himself off the wall and pulled the door open.

  ‘And O’Connor?’

  He stuck his head back round the door jamb.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Please don’t ask whose side anybody was on during the strike. There was only one side if you lived in Thorpe.’

  8

  2015

  The Reeses’ house was unchanged since their previous visit but Kate felt the weight of grief on the whole estate. The streets and shops would be buzzing like a hive with the news; gossip passing from one cell to the next and no doubt getting distorted with each re-telling. She wanted this to be a straightforward search, no resistance from the family and, hopefully, no evidence to link either of Aleah’s parents to her murder. But the reality was rarely that simple.

  Craig Reese scowled at them as he opened the door.

  ‘What do you want? Can’t you just leave us alone to get on with it now?’ he grumbled. ‘Our Jackie’s asleep and I don’t want her bothered.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Kate said. ‘And I’m so sorry about Aleah. The thing is we have some new evidence and we need to follow it up. Would you mind if we had a look around the house and garden? It’d be a big help.’

  Behind her she felt Hollis tense. This was the key moment. If Reese refused then they would need a warrant and any delay could be crucial. If he complied, did it mean that he had nothing to hide or that he believed that he’d covered his tracks? There was no way to be sure other than searching.

  Reese held on to the door handle and looked them both up and down. The apologetic, frightened man of this morning’s interview had been replaced by a person who clearly had cast himself in the role of protector of his family. He shook his head.

  ‘You’ve already had a look round. What’s this new evidence anyway?’

  ‘I’m afraid we can’t say at the moment. I think it would be in your interest to cooperate with us. If we have to get a warrant it might look like you’ve got something to hide, Craig.’ Kate stood her ground and met his stare.

  ‘Look. I’ve told you everything. You kept me at that bloody police station for most of the morning while I should have been here with my wife. The doctor’s given her something to calm her down and I don’t want her disturbed.’

  ‘How about we start outside?’ Hollis offered. ‘We can have a look in the garden and the shed and, if we’re satisfied, we won’t have to come in.’

  ‘Fine,’ Reese said, making a move to close the door. ‘Knock yourself out, just leave us alone.’

  He slammed the door.

  ‘Well, that went well,’ Hollis said with a grin.

  ‘He’s a mess. Probably doesn’t know how he feels or what to do. Good thinking though, offering him a compromise. Let’s have a look in the shed first.’ Kate led the way into the back garden. A gravel path led across a newly mown lawn to the shed and, off to one side, a pair of raised beds had been constructed and both were overflowing with greenery. It wasn’t quite the vegetable patch that had occupied the back half of Kate’s dad’s garden but it looked like they’d have a good crop of carrots and beetroot late in the summer.

  The shed was positioned on a slope, the front propped up on what looked like railway sleepers to provide a level floor inside. The door was fastened with a bolt and a hasp but no padlock. Instead a six-inch nail had been bent at the top and threaded through the loop that was screwed to the shed door to provide a rudimentary fastening. Either the Reeses’ trusted their neighbours or they didn’t think there was anything worth stealing in the shed. Hollis drew back the bolt, removed the nail and pulled open the shed door, stepping back to allow Kate to enter. She took a pair of nitrile gloves from her jacket pocket and Hollis followed her lead.

  It was gloomy inside, the windows clouded with cobwebs and a layer of grime, so Kate stood on the threshold and allowed her eyes to adjust. There was nothing unexpected at first sight, the usual garden tools; hedge cutters, an electric mower and a pair of shears in one corner and a spade, fork and rake in another. The far end of the shed had obviously been used as a retreat or a hiding place. An ancient looking bedside cabinet and garden chair were huddled together as testament to somebody’s need for privacy, or peace. Kate wiped a gloved finger across the top of the table. No dust. The ashtray was quite full but not overflowing and the seat of the chair looked sunken and well used.

  ‘Looks like Jackie doesn’t like Craig smoking in the house,’ Kate commented, remembering the woman sucking on an e-cigarette when they’d visited earlier.

  Hollis just nodded, his attention distracted by the metal cabinet in the far corner. It looked like it had come from a 1950s office, solid and sturdy with a T-shaped handle on the door. He gave the handle a twist and pulled the door open.

  ‘Bingo,’ he whispered. ‘Looks like somebody likes camping.’

  On the top shelf of the cabinet was a tent which had been roughly stuffed in its bag, some of the fabric and guy lines oozing out of the top like a slow-motion explosion.

  Kate watched as Hollis lifted it down and pulled gently on one of the yellow cords.

  ‘Could be a match,’ she said. ‘We need to bag it.’

  A quick trip to the car and they approached the shed again, armed with an assortment of evidence bags. Kate took out her phone and snapped pictures of the cupboard and the tent in situ before labelling the largest of the overalls bags and instructing Hollis to drop the tent into it. She sealed it and signed the seal with her initials and the date.

  She scanned the shelves lining the wall opposite the window but all she could see was an assortment of used paint tins and plant pots, no suggestion that anything had been moved for months.

  Hollis bent and pulled open the door on the bedside cabinet. There were two shelves inside. One held a couple of jars of screws and nails – nothing incriminating or even slightly suspicious. And nothing to suggest that Aleah had been in the shed.

  ‘If this matches we’ll need to get forensics round here,’ Kate said. ‘I suggest we leave it for now and see what they find out about the tent. We can’t take Reese back in on this but we need to let him know that he’s not off the hook yet.’

  Craig Reese glanced at Hollis’s gloved hands then back up at Kate.

  ‘What have you been looking for?’

  ‘As I said, we’ve been looking for evidence and we need to send what we’ve found for analysis.’

  Reese’s face visibly paled.

  ‘So, you’ve found something? In my shed?’

  Kate noted the use of ‘my’ but remained silent, hoping that Hollis would have the common sense t
o follow her example.

  ‘Is it something to do with Aleah?’

  Silence. Kate wanted him to squirm; silence could be hard to take and most people’s instinct was to fill it. It was tougher than she’d expected, though. Reese stared stonily at her; no chance of a quick confession.

  ‘We need to come inside and have another look at Aleah’s bedroom.’

  Reese shook his head violently.

  ‘No! Jackie needs to be left alone.’

  ‘I understand that,’ Kate said. ‘But this new evidence has raised some issues. We need to have a more thorough look round.’

  Reese crossed his arms and raised his eyebrows in challenge.

  ‘Or what?’

  Kate sighed. She hadn’t expected him to be this difficult. He’d been over-eager in their previous interview – apparently keen to tell the truth.

  ‘Or I get a warrant – and I will be granted one – and we come in here and tear your house apart.’

  ‘Wha… you can’t,’ he spluttered, all trace of his bluster evaporating. ‘We’re not hiding anything. We just want to be left alone.’

  ‘That’s what we need to establish,’ Hollis said. ‘If you refuse to cooperate with us it’ll go against you. We might think you’ve got something to hide.’

  ‘Besides,’ Kate added. ‘What will folk think if we come back with a warrant and a forensics van? People in white overalls traipsing in and out. There’s bound to be talk.

  ‘But I…’

  Kate sensed that he’d taken her seriously and that he was genuinely conflicted about his duty to his wife and the opportunity to save himself humiliation. The houses might have been bought up and the occupants proudly sitting on their mortgages rather than paying rent, but the community still felt the same – close-knit and closed minded. Nobody wanted to be the subject of gossip.

  ‘Craig,’ Hollis said, his tone measured. ‘Let us come in and have another look at Aleah’s bedroom. It won’t take us long and, if we don’t find anything we’ll be out of your hair.’

  Reese sighed and frowned as though he was considering his options. Kate didn’t want to go through the process of getting a warrant and making this difficult, she just wanted to check that there was nothing she’d missed in Aleah’s room, no lavish gifts or a stash of money that couldn’t be explained. She hated the term ‘grooming’ but it was a possibility that she had to consider. Reese had lied before; why should they believe him now?

  ‘Come on then,’ Reese said. ‘Our Jackie’s having a lie down upstairs so be quiet. Just Aleah’s room?’

  Kate nodded, thinking for now.

  The girl’s bedroom was exactly as she’d left it yesterday. The bed was neatly made and the desk was still scattered with drawings on the backs of betting slips. Kate gathered them together and put them in an evidence bag. They’d get a psychologist to give them a look over and see if there was any indication in the drawings that something in Aleah’s life wasn’t right.

  She pointed to the bed and Hollis knelt down, running his hand along the frame to see if anything was taped underneath. He lifted the mattress to check for anything that had been concealed. Nothing. Kate pulled out each drawer from the chest of drawers, ran her hand through the contents and then lifted each one so that she could check the bottom. Clean. She picked up the first paperback book from the pile on the bedside table and flicked through, looking for any papers that might have been hidden there. The first one was empty so she picked up the others, checking each one in turn. The only thing that fell out was a bookmark with a rainbow pattern.

  ‘There’s nothing here,’ Hollis said, standing up and brushing carpet fibres from his trousers. ‘If somebody was grooming her he wasn’t giving her anything that she kept and hid.’

  Kate sat on the bed, frustrated. The tent might be helpful but the shed wasn’t kept locked so anybody could have got in. She’d been hoping that a more thorough search of Aleah’s room might yield more clues but there was nothing to suggest that she was anything other than a normal seven-year-old girl. She glanced at the bag of betting slips that she’d left on the desk and suddenly remembered the text she’d received earlier. Rigby was the one who’d conducted the initial search. Had he noticed anything that she hadn’t? Unlikely. He hadn’t been aware of the ropes binding Aleah’s wrists so he couldn’t have been expected to understand the significance of the tent and the betting slips looked like a pile of kids’ drawings.

  She took out her phone and texted him, asking him to meet her at Doncaster Central when she got back.

  The bedroom door opened as she slid the phone back into her pocket and she glanced up to see a woman in her sixties bearing down on her, her face murderous. Startled Kate stood up and took a step sideways in case the older woman lunged at her.

  ‘I know you,’ the woman said. ‘I remembered as soon as you’d come upstairs. You’re that bitch that got our Rob excluded from school. The one that accused him of all sorts. It’s Kathy, isn’t it?’

  She stood in the doorway, arms crossed as though she was trying to prevent herself from lashing out, daring Kate to disagree.

  Kate smiled as she recognised the woman facing her.

  ‘I’ve not been Kathy for a long time, Mrs Loach. But, yes, Rob did get himself excluded from school for writing me a threatening note.’

  Mrs Loach snorted. ‘Get himself excluded. Everybody knows that you went to your scab of a dad, telling tales and that’s what got him chucked out. We had to send him to Mexborough and he never really settled. He failed his O-levels because of you.’

  ‘He had nobody but himself to blame,’ Kate said. ‘Actions have consequences.’

  ‘Ooh, Miss Lah-de-dah. You always were a stuck-up bunch, you lot. Thought you were better than everybody else because your dad was a deputy.’

  Kate had had enough. She took a step towards Mrs Loach.

  ‘With respect, Mrs Loach,’ she said, her tone making her words a lie. ‘Your Rob would have failed his O-levels if he’d gone to Eton. He never was the sharpest knife in the drawer. He was in the same classes as my sister and she told me exactly what he was like. A bully and a coward. He never did own up to what he’d done. Tried to blame somebody else as I recall.’

  The other woman took half a step back but the self-righteous expression on her mean face didn’t flicker. ‘That’s because it wasn’t him.’

  Kate smiled. ‘Much as I’d love to continue this conversation, Mrs Loach, my colleague and I need to get back to the police station and continue our investigation into Aleah’s abduction and murder. I have no interest in raking up the past.’

  Mrs Loach sneered. ‘I bet you don’t. Your family had a lot to hide if I remember. Your dad worked all through the strike while the likes of us were starving. Be careful, Kathy Siddons, people round here have long memories.’

  She used Kate’s name like a swear word, almost spitting it as she backed through the door and allowed Kate and Hollis to pass her.

  9

  1984

  Kathy wasn’t used to wagging school. A lot of her friends had done it once or twice but she’d always worried too much about getting caught and the effect it would have on her dad. He was always telling her and Karen that they should get a good education. O-levels and A-levels were better than money because they’d always have them to fall back on. He’d been thrilled when Kathy had mentioned university a few months ago and had been helping her to find out about courses at the grammar school sixth form. If she could get in there, he’d said, she could do really well.

  But none of that mattered today. Kathy had managed to ignore the stares and sniggers on the bus but the note had tipped her over the edge and she had to get away. She only had four more weeks anyway and then she’d leave for good. The only reason she had to come back was for her exams and most of the whisperers wouldn’t be there – they were doing CSE courses, the boys were destined for the pit and the girls would mostly end up in the clothing factories in Rotherham. Not that Kathy would ever give voi
ce to her snobbery. She just knew that she was different from most of the girls in her year – she had ambition. The careers teacher had said so.

  The teachers probably wouldn’t notice if she wagged it. She’d briefly considered showing the note to her form teacher but he’d probably have said that it was a joke and not to be so sensitive. So, she’d stuffed it into her jeans pocket and stormed out of the main school entrance, not caring who saw her or who they told.

  She wasn’t sure where to go. School gave structure and order to her day and without it she was at a loss, so she decided to wander down into the village and wait in the park near the bus stop until she was sure her dad would have gone to work. Then she could go home to watch telly or read something for school. Hardly a serious effort at truancy, but anything was better than being there.

  The village was starting to change in an indefinable way. It looked the same as it always did, but it felt quieter as though the buildings and the concrete beneath her feet were brooding, waiting; something felt coiled and dark like a sea serpent about to surge up from black water, smashing everything to kindling. The view from the higher part of the village, where most of the shops were located, was familiar in its topography of slag heaps and railway line but something felt different. The winding gear at the pit head was still and silent – which wasn’t unusual: it wasn’t used between shifts except in an emergency – but there was a finality in the stillness as though, when all this was over, the mine and the village would never be quite the same.

  The people she saw seemed exaggeratedly huddled down in their coats and jackets like spies, unwilling to be confronted, reluctant to exchange pleasantries. The strike was beginning to bite and its steel jaws had the village firmly in their grip. In the flats and rows of terraced houses she passed on her way to the park, Kathy sensed the edge of a precipice – families would soon start to slide slowly over into poverty and hunger as the great beast padded slowly on through their lives.