Closer To Home

by Heleyne Hammersley

  Kate met the two detectives in the corridor as they were heading back to the observation room for a debrief.

  ‘No time for a break,’ she teased. ‘Hollis, chase up Reese’s alibi for yesterday – check every minute if you can. And then check out this statement – see if this old man can add anything. Barratt, with me. There’s a forensics team on their way to Thorpe and I want to see if they find anything down that back lane. Although given last night’s rain and the amount of foot traffic there might have been in the past few days we’ll be bloody lucky to find anything even remotely admissible.’

  Little had changed since Kate had used the back lane as a shortcut to school more than thirty years ago. In a bigger town, it would have been littered with broken spirit bottles, used needles and condoms, but the teenagers of Thorpe obviously had better places to get high or laid. It had been the original route from the main Doncaster to Rotherham road up to the village but had fallen out of use when a newer road was built with a huge sweeping bend which took some of the steepness out of the hill.

  Kate stood at the top of a short flight of steps which led down on to the lane. A later addition, obviously, they would have presented too much of an obstacle to horse-drawn carts and early motor cars. The top part of the lane ran in front of three terraced houses which seemed to guard the entrance. The other side was bounded by a stone wall, too high to peer over from the new route. It would be a perfect place for an ambush. Looking further down, Kate could see that dense undergrowth and brambles encroached on the gravel, forcing the lane to downsize to a narrow track. She couldn’t see very far – a bend and a group of white-suited crime scene techs blocked her view – but she knew that it eventually crossed a railed bridge before ending in a parking area known locally as the old square.

  A PCSO blocked her route down the steps, grinning as she approached.

  ‘We meet again!’

  Rigby. The bloody man was everywhere.

  ‘PCSO Rigby,’ Kate said, acknowledging their earlier meetings. ‘Any news?’

  Rigby shook his head.

  ‘Just getting started. I can let you down there but you’ll have to get booted and suited. God knows what they expect to find by now. Kids’ll have been up and down here every day on their way to school.’

  ‘It’s the holidays,’ Kate said.

  Rigby tilted his head. ‘Is it? Oh aye. Forgot.’

  Even though she knew that the man was only the same age as her sister there was something of the elderly about him as though he’d been raised by grandparents who were set in their language as well as their ways. He spoke like her dad.

  ‘Where can I get kitted out?’ she asked.

  Rigby pointed in the direction of a side street.

  ‘There’s a van down there.’

  ‘Who’s that?’ Barratt asked as they turned into the street that Rigby had indicated.

  ‘The PCSO who took the Reese’s initial statement. He was at the quarry the other day as well.’

  ‘He’s either dead keen or he’s pissed off somebody higher up. Crappy duty, guarding crime scenes.’

  Kate nodded, remembering her early days as a ‘W’PC when she was assigned jobs suited to her gender such as standing around and making tea when required. She knew that there were still a few dinosaurs on every force who would be more than happy to see her doing the same sort of duties even now.

  She struggled into a paper suit, shoe covers and gloves, cursing the heat as she zipped herself in and headed back to the steps. She could hear Barratt rustling and swearing behind her as she approached Rigby again.

  ‘Right. Let them know I’m coming.’

  Rigby tilted his head to speak into his radio.

  ‘I’ve got a Detective Inspector Si… Fletcher here and a DC…’

  He glanced at Barratt who snapped his name. The radio crackled and then they were cleared to head down the lane.

  ‘What did he think you were called?’ Barratt asked as they descended that steps.

  ‘He remembers my family. Fletcher’s my married name. It’s not important.’

  She could see from Barratt’s face that he was storing these small nuggets of personal information, reassessing what he thought he knew about her. Well let him, she thought. It wasn’t a secret that she was divorced or that she was from Thorpe.

  It was cooler between the houses and the wall and the greenery added to the sense of serenity despite the hundreds of discarded crisp wrappers and crumpled soft drinks cans. Kate led the way to the group of figures who were gathered about halfway down.

  ‘What have we got?’ she asked.

  ‘A woman squinted up at her from beneath an elasticated hood.’

  ‘Not much so far. We’ve just–’

  She was interrupted by a shout from further down the lane. Kate nodded to Barratt and they jogged towards the sound.

  It wasn’t much. Easily missed among the other litter. A small, sealed packet of Haribo Tangfastics. Kate took out her phone and texted Cooper.

  Shopkeeper’s statement. What did Aleah buy?

  Ten seconds later a beep.

  A couple of packets of Haribo.

  Tangfastics?

  Another agonising ten seconds.

  Yep. She remembers teasing her about them making her eyes water, like the advert.

  ‘They could be Aleah’s,’ Kate said to the technician who was photographing the packet from every possible angle. ‘She bought some at the shop.’

  Another shout took her further down the lane to an area of trampled grass and weeds. It could have been done by anyone, at any time, but amongst the burdock and brambles was a child’s hair clip with a ladybird design. Another suited figure picked it up carefully and eased it into an evidence bag as she watched.

  ‘Hang on,’ she told him. Kate got him to hold the item out on his palm while she took a picture with her phone. Much easier than waiting for images to come back from the labs. She could show it to Craig or Jackie Reese to see if they recognised it.

  The afternoon dragged into evening as she and Barratt alternated between observing the search and sitting in the van cooling off. Nothing else of significance had turned up but the plastic boxes in the van were bulging with evidence bags that would need examining, analysing and categorising. Kate knew from experience on similar scenes that it would be mostly crap but they might have already found a couple of needles in this particular haystack.

  Her phone rang just as she’d bundled Barratt back into the car and told him that he needed to go home for a long shower. It was Hollis.

  ‘What have you got?’

  ‘We got a warrant to search Reese’s house because of the tent guy line. Raymond pushed for it – just to be sure. Guess what turned up under the floor of his shed?’

  Kate felt her heart rate pick up. Had they been wrong after all? Was this where he’d kept Aleah’s body? And Callum Goodwin’s?

  ‘What?’ she asked, crossing her fingers that it wasn’t another corpse.

  ‘About a grand’s-worth of duty-free cigarettes and a half-dozen bottles of single malt.’

  ‘What? Where did that come from?’

  ‘Looks like Craig Reese is involved with the smuggling that’s been going on in Thorpe. O’Connor thinks he’s small-time and that he’s working for somebody else. He’s taken over the interview. Reese is alibied up to his neck for yesterday. There’s no way he could have had anything to do with Callum Goodwin’s disappearance unless his in-laws, our FLO and a GP are all lying, but at least we’ve got a reason to keep him. O’Connor’s looking forward to getting stuck in.’

  Kate sighed. She hadn’t expected this but she didn’t think Reese was a murderer. If anything, he’d probably got himself in too deep with whoever was running the smuggling operation and was terrified of the police sniffing round his shed. No wonder he’d been so nervous every time they’d spoken to him. He wasn’t even bright enough to fit a proper lock on the shed. He was either over-confident or really quite dim.

 
; ‘What about the statement from the man who saw Aleah? Does that get us anywhere?’

  ‘That’s where it gets interesting. I talked him back through his walk to the pub and he did remember one unusual detail.’

  Kate waited, tapping her fingers on the steering wheel as Hollis built up the suspense like a reality show host announcing the winner.

  ‘He remembers seeing a van in the square. He only noticed it because he thought it was an AA van and he wondered who’d broken down. It wasn’t the AA, though. It was a campervan. He said that it looked like somebody had bought an AA reject and was doing it up. It had a side window and a roof light.’

  ‘Please tell me that he looked inside and it had a bare metal floor.’

  Hollis laughed.

  ‘He didn’t bother giving it a closer look because it was nearly opening time. But he did notice part of the registration because it spelled his niece’s name, Ness, short for Vanessa. It must’ve been NE55.’

  It wasn’t much, but it was more than they’d had that morning. Tomorrow she’d send as many bodies as she could find over to the estate to see if anybody had seen a yellow camper. And she’d get Sam checking CCTV in the area to see if they could get a more complete index number for the van.

  18

  2015

  A heavy thunderstorm had kept Kate awake for much of the night, the loud crashes and blinding lights preventing her from falling asleep for more than a few minutes at a time until the early hours. At one point, she’d got up to make a mug of herbal tea and stood at the living room window watching as the weather changed her view from darkness to monochrome and back again. Her thoughts had drifted to Callum Goodwin. Was he out somewhere in this weather wondering where his parents were and why they weren’t coming to get him? Or was he tied up in the back of a van listening to the rain drumming on the roof? Or worse. There was no wonder she couldn’t sleep, she’d thought, sipping her tea and brooding.

  Her midnight questions were answered by a text just as she was slipping on her shoes, about to leave the house.

  Callum Goodwin found.

  It was from Raymond and she knew that he was being deliberately vague in case her phone records were ever to be used in a court case. The fewer communications written down the better – there was much less room for ambiguity and misinterpretation.

  She rang him to get the details.

  ‘He’s dead, Fletcher,’ Raymond announced without preamble. ‘Not much else I can tell you. Similar circumstances. The body’s been abandoned on waste ground. You’ll love who was there when the body was found though.’

  She waited for him to tell her knowing that to ask a question would probably waste more time.’

  ‘Our friend Ken Fowler. He’s not been far from this investigation this week, has he?’

  Barratt would be happy – this would add more credence to his theory about Fowler being involved. Kate made a mental note to get Sam to double check Fowler’s registered vehicles using a combination of is first and middle names and initials. Just because the Land Rover wasn’t viable didn’t mean that he didn’t have a bright yellow camper stashed away somewhere and Barratt’s PNC search might have been a bit cursory. It didn’t hurt to have another look. He was a bit obvious though, insinuating himself into the investigation. He’d struck Kate as much smarter than that.

  ‘Where was the body found?’

  ‘On a patch of land that belongs to that outdoor centre. Kids off on an early morning nature walk with Fowler made the discovery and he called it in. Probably be in therapy well into their twenties, poor sods.’

  ‘Shall I meet you there?’

  ‘No. I’m in bloody budget meetings all morning. You be my eyes and ears, Fletcher. Take Hollis to interview the kids that found the body. And get Cooper checking for any CCTV on site or nearby.’

  A quick text to Hollis and she was on her way, negotiating roads that she used to know so well but which now seemed unfamiliar and alien. She was reminded of a French term that she’d learned while studying for her A-levels – jamais vu – the opposite of déjà vu. This was what she’d been experiencing off and on since she’d returned to South Yorkshire and, more especially, since she’d been back in Thorpe. A feeling of unfamiliarity in familiar surroundings. Everything looked the same but different and she wasn’t sure how she felt about her return. She was glad of the promotion, the extra responsibility and the extra money that she could use to help her son, but she couldn’t help but resent the town that kept dragging her back and was threatening to drag her under.

  She pulled into the carpark for the outdoor centre, squeezing her Mini between a liveried police car and a forensics van. There were three other police cars and a minibus as well as various unmarked cars and a Land Rover that she recognised as Ken Fowler’s. The main buildings of the centre were across a concrete bridge that Kate remembered used to lead to the main road into the pit. It was called Samson Bridge and had been the main access point to the pit for anybody approaching on foot – as most of the miners had done when she’d lived in Thorpe. They were all local men and most would have lived within easy walking distance of their work. The road had turned right just after the bridge and went past the baths and the canteen up to the winding gear. Now the road ended in tufty grass and a cinder path led up to a reception building. She nodded to the PCSO who was standing next to the white and blue tape stretched across the track and showed him her identification. He lifted the tape allowing her just enough height to duck under.

  As she crossed the bridge, Kate glanced over the side where the railway used to run. There was a lot of activity beneath her. Uncomfortable-looking overall-clad police officers observed as the forensics team started their work. The sides of the bridge had also been taped off preventing anybody from actually looking directly over so it was impossible to see where the body had been found. Kate ducked into the reception building to see what she could find out. Inside, knots of people were clustered around low tables, each occupied by a uniformed officer furiously taking notes. She spotted Barratt huddled at a table on the corner talking to Ken Fowler. From Barratt’s body language, she could tell that he was questioning the older man aggressively but Fowler looked unruffled as he sat back from the table with his arms folded across his chest. He seemed to be answering thoughtfully and carefully.

  ‘What do we have?’ she demanded, marching up to Barratt who gave her an irritated frown before realising who had just spoken to him. Slightly flustered he stood up and walked over to an empty table, indicating that Kate should follow him. She looked back at Fowler who gave her a grin of recognition. Much too cool for her liking.

  ‘Right,’ Barratt began. ‘Fowler rang 999 at about half seven this morning. He was out with a small group of boys on an early morning nature walk. One of them had lost his mobile the night before and ducked down under the bridge to have a look for it. Apparently, they had a bonfire down there somewhere last night and told a few ghost stories.’

  Kate glanced around. Most of the people in the room were teenaged boys, probably around thirteen or fourteen. They nearly all looked pale and frightened. No doubt this would eventually morph into an urban legend in their re-telling when they got back to school; a horror story that ended with a real body. One boy, in particular, looked really out of it and Kate guessed that he’d had the dubious honour of being first on the scene. He was shivering despite the mild morning and his dark eyes looked deep set and smudged in his pale face. She held up a hand to stop Barratt’s account and strode over to the boy.

  ‘Hi,’ she gave him the best smile she could muster under the circumstances. I’m Detective Inspector Fletcher. Did you find Callum?’ She deliberately used the boy’s name instead of ‘the body’ unwilling to highlight again the awfulness of the situation.

  The boy nodded. His eyes flicked from her face to the police officer opposite him, to the window and back again.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘A...Aaron,’ he stammered.

  ‘Okay
, Aaron. I’m going to want to talk to you but not right now. Right now, I want you to sit on the sofa over there. This police officer will go back to your room and get you a sweatshirt – tell him what you need and where it is – and then he’ll get you a hot chocolate. Does that sound okay to you?’

  Aaron nodded, eyes wide at this sudden demonstration of compassion. He slid off the seat, followed by the police officer and headed to the sofa that Kate had indicated. She watched as the two of them had a hushed conversation, Aaron finally smiling as the policeman went to fetch him warmer clothes and a drink.

  She clapped her hands together to get the attention of the people in the room.

  ‘Right. Who’s in charge here?’

  A hand was raised by one of the few civilian adults in the room. The man was unshaven and dressed in a baggy grey tracksuit that might have passed for pyjamas and she suspected that he hadn’t had time to get properly dressed this morning. He looked to be in his mid-twenties and was obviously dazed by the events of the morning. He stood up and approached her looking like a scolded puppy, obviously expecting to be berated.

  ‘I’m the overnight supervisor,’ he said, extending a shaking hand. ‘Mark Thompson. I’ve rung the centre director and he’s on his way.’

  Kate nodded her approval, hoping to put him at ease.

  ‘Good. Look, I know you’re probably out of your depth here but you’ve got a group of traumatised young boys who need a bit of TLC. Can you take an officer to their rooms and get some warm clothing. We can’t let them get their own. And, please, organise some hot drinks. Get a kettle from the kitchens, some tea bags, hot chocolate, coffee and plenty of sugar. That young man’s in shock,’ she pointed at Aaron. ‘And he’s probably not the only one.’