Settled Blood

by Mari Hannah

  ‘Take him back to his cell, Hank.’

  ‘No wait! Please, I’ll tell you anything you want to know.’

  Daniels took an A4 notepad from the table drawer. It landed in front of Freek with a solid thud. She gave him a pen. ‘You’ve got half an hour. I want times, dates, names, descriptions, everything you know about the people who approached you. After that, who knows? Just don’t figure on getting out of here anytime soon.’

  63

  They left Stephen Freek to sweat. A little worry time. Telling him they’d be back to see him at exactly eleven o’clock, they returned to the MIR and sat down with a depleted team. Nothing much had happened in their absence. Crime scene investigators were still processing Freek’s belongings and would hand them over as soon as they could. Whatever that meant.

  Daniels looked up as Maxwell entered looking dishevelled after his marathon shift in the car: his navy strides all creased at the crotch, shirt stained with the remnants of a makeshift dinner, eyes on stalks from watching the front door of an apartment not a million miles away. She was surprised to see a wide grin on his face.

  ‘Bryony Sharp’s downstairs. She just gave me chapter and verse on her dealings with Stevie boy. She needed no persuading either . . .’ Maxwell slumped down in a chair, handed over a statement form. ‘She’s prepared to follow that up in court if necessary. She’s a nice lass, actually. A quiet lass, pretty shaken up. She’s terrified he’ll do it again to some other poor sod.’

  ‘You didn’t raise her expectations of a conviction, I hope.’ Daniels looked up from the document. ‘The CPS will probably knock this on the head before it gets to first base. Any number of people could’ve spiked her drink, Lisa’s too, for that matter. We all know he’s guilty as sin, but so far the evidence is circumstantial, even if Bryony did wake up around the corner from his home.’ Daniels took in the clock on the wall: ten fifty-five. ‘Lisa, Andy, you may as well call it a day. Neil, thank Bryony Sharp on my behalf and make sure she gets home before you go off duty. And I don’t mean fob her off on someone else. Do it yourself, then you can knock off too.’

  Maxwell nodded. Hauling himself off the chair, he sloped off looking decidedly unhappy. Brown picked up his jacket and followed him out, looking back over his shoulder as he approached the door.

  ‘You coming, Lisa?’

  ‘No. I’m going to hang around, wait for the CSIs. I’ve been in bed most of the day and I’m wide awake. To be honest, I feel pretty wired.’

  They resumed the interview with Freek at exactly eleven o’clock as planned. He’d written down a long list, including detailed descriptions of two men he claimed had pressurized him, times, dates and locations where he’d met with them.

  ‘Aren’t you forgetting something?’ Daniels asked.

  ‘No names, no pack drill . . .’ Freek said. ‘We were hardly bosom buddies.’

  ‘Why didn’t you send the information electronically?’ Gormley asked. ‘I’d have thought it would’ve saved you a lot of grief.’

  ‘Why d’you think?’ Freek wasn’t laughing.

  ‘Humour me,’ Gormley pushed.

  ‘Because computer trails are irrefutable evidence, that’s why. Ironic, isn’t it . . . but now I am under arrest, the goalposts have shifted somewhat. I’m not going down alone, I can tell you that. I had nothing to do with that girl’s death. Nothing.’

  Daniels studied him for a moment. His information may well prove of interest to the Durham force but, as far as her own linked incident was concerned, it gave her very little. The connection between the man she was looking at and Amy Grainger was extremely thin. It was a difficult call, but she decided there and then to hand him over to others, freeing herself up to concentrate on the murder enquiry itself.

  ‘I’ll be keeping a close eye on you, Mr Freek. You’ll be given eight hours’ rest, then someone will come and interview you in the morning when we’ve had the chance to check this out. Until then, you stay put.’

  Daniels’ phone rang. Curiously, it was Carmichael. ‘Lisa? What’s up?’

  ‘You will not believe what I just found,’ she said.

  64

  The MIR always looked eerie at this time of night: the main lights switched off, work stations empty, computer screens dead – the smell of floor polish lingering, courtesy of the office cleaner. Carmichael was tense. She was standing directly in front of the murder wall in an area bathed in a pool of light from spots mounted on the ceiling. She’d cleared two desks and pushed them together to form a long counter. A shallow exhibits box sat on one end with Freek’s laptop still inside. A second, empty box lay discarded on the floor, its contents laid out methodically: magazines in one pile, photographs, posters, and so on.

  Picking up the photographs, Daniels sifted through them, studying each one carefully. They showed sportswomen in various stages of undress, athletes who seemed totally unaware that their activities were being captured on film – rowers, runners, hockey and rugby players, to name but a few. She was no expert, but the style and print quality led her to believe that they hadn’t all come from the same source, much less been printed in the same lab. Some looked professionally done, others were much more amateurish.

  Many of the images had holes or traces of dried-up Blu-Tack in the corners, evidence that they’d once been pinned to something else. Daniels picked up the posters. Same here. They were old copies of advertisements for events dating back several months – the type seen on any noticeboard.

  ‘Is this what got you all fired up?’ Daniels turned to Carmichael.

  Carmichael nodded.

  ‘We knew he was a voyeur,’ Daniels said.

  ‘She means perv,’ Gormley said. ‘That’s how she made DCI.’

  Carmichael grinned, handing Daniels an A4 sheet. ‘I found this with the other stuff.’

  It was an advertisement for a flying club based at a local aerodrome:

  Jump for your life!

  Parachuting and Skydiving

  Beginners Welcome

  Student Concessions with Union Card.

  Reference to an extreme sports organization Daniels had found in Jessica’s belongings – an unexplained payment of five hundred pounds – shot into her thoughts, awakening the detective in her. It was too soon to say whether the investigation was about to take yet another unexpected twist. It was all too easy to let your mind run away with itself when you were scratching around in the dark, which was all they’d been doing since the whole team – herself included – had Mark Harris fingered for an incident he had absolutely nothing to do with. And that was only a couple of days ago. Wanting the evidence to fit was very different from actually producing it.

  ‘I couldn’t wait to show you.’ Carmichael’s eyes shifted to Daniels. She certainly wasn’t jumping up and down. Yet. ‘It’s a link with flying, yes?’

  Daniels conceded that it was. ‘I don’t want to stifle your enthusiasm, Lisa. But it’s very late. I think we should all go home and sleep on it, discuss it with the rest of the team first thing in the morning.’

  But Carmichael was resolute.

  Still smiling.

  Triumphant even.

  She knew something more . . .

  ‘What?’ Daniels and Gormley said simultaneously.

  ‘What if I told you that flyer has been altered?’

  ‘In what way?’ Daniels’ heart was thumping now.

  ‘Look at the contact number,’ Carmichael said.

  They read the flyer again.

  Daniels looked up. ‘So?’

  ‘It’s a mobile number and it doesn’t correspond with the flying club’s current website – I checked.’ Carmichael pointed at the only live computer in the room. It was sitting on a nearby desk and had gone into hibernation, the screen saver showing a floating force logo. ‘Take a look for yourself.’

  They all moved towards it. Carmichael sat down and ran her finger over the touchpad. The screen saver disappeared and was replaced by the flying club’s Internet site, which
was open at the home page: MAC Flying School, Skydive and Parachute Centre. The club boasted a small fleet of fixed-wing aeroplanes, two helicopters and four qualified flight instructors – two of whom were CAA-appointed examiners. Various numbers were listed for the flying school and the sports activities, but – Carmichael was correct – none of them matched that on the A4 sheet in Daniels’ hand.

  Daniels looked at Gormley, then at Carmichael. ‘I’m assuming the number isn’t already on the system?’

  Carmichael shook her head. ‘The club itself is listed in relation to the general enquiry you instigated in the early stages – i.e. airports within a fifty-mile radius – but this number isn’t linked. It isn’t registered at all, according to the service provider, so it could belong to anyone, including the bastard that pushed Amy from that plane.’

  A ripple of excitement ran between Daniels’ shoulder blades. She looked at her watch. It was close to midnight. Too late to ring and ask the Graingers if their daughter had ever expressed an interest in extreme sports. But not too soon to congratulate her brilliant young DC. Carmichael was definitely on to something.

  65

  Daniels slept badly, haunted by girls falling through the air, girls trapped underground, girls coerced into the sex trade. Unable to get back to sleep, she hauled herself out of bed at five a.m., showered and got ready. Downstairs, she made toast and ate it in the kitchen, thinking about the skydiving flyer Carmichael had found among the items crime scene investigators had seized from Freek’s vehicle. Jessica Finch certainly had the means to pay for such a course, not so Amy Grainger. Or did she? According to her father, she shared an independent streak with the missing girl. Not content to live off her parents or get sucked into a loan, she’d worked hard in order to pay her way through university. But still . . . was it likely she’d saved enough spare cash to finance the adventure that had ultimately led to her death?

  Stranger things had happened.

  Deciding to keep her mind open to that possibility, Daniels couldn’t get to work fast enough. Dawn was her favourite time of day. She could get into the major incident room before it resembled a circus. Time to think, to mull over the previous day and plan for the day ahead, list what had to be done, by whom and in what order. From the start of this murder investigation there had been few scene issues going forward. No known forensics on the dead girl. Nothing meaningful thrown up in the house-to-house. No bloody witnesses. A recap on the sequence of events that led up to the disappearance of both girls was called for. That way Daniels could pin down the timeline before re-interviewing Freek, an event she suspected would result in God knows how many other follow-up enquiries.

  Trace.

  Implicate.

  Eliminate.

  She was still thinking about TIE actions as she let herself into the MIR. Pulling up sharply, she checked her watch, genuinely believing she’d misread the time. Core team members were already there: Gormley, Carmichael, Brown and – heaven forbid, even Maxwell – were huddled round a desk discussing the previous night’s covert op and Carmichael’s subsequent discovery of the flyer.

  Gormley began snoring loudly, insinuating that she was late. Daniels grinned, took off her coat and flung it on a chair, telling everyone how pleased she was to see them, adding that they had a shitload of work to do, explaining what she had in mind. Fetching herself a coffee, she invited everyone to get comfy and direct their attention to the murder wall.

  Jabbing a button on the remote control, she brought the digital screen to life and scrolled through a number of options before finding what she was after: a split screen containing detailed analysis of the last-known movements of Amy Grainger and Jessica Finch, together with a map plotting the geographical areas where they’d both gone missing.

  ‘I’d like to begin with Amy, who, as you all know, was seen by her parents at seven thirty on Wednesday the fifth of May, just as Coronation Street was coming on TV. She was heading to Durham City to meet friends . . .’ Daniels used a pointer on screen as she spoke. ‘. . . So she’d have used this bus stop, just round the corner from her home, less than five hundred metres away. Now,’ Daniels took a breath, ‘the 15A arrived at the bus stop on time at seven forty-two. CCTV on the bus confirms that only one elderly man got on. Paul Palmer was traced and spoken to during the house-to-house very shortly after the discovery of Amy’s body. He knew Amy well enough to speak to her, and claims she didn’t arrive at the bus stop that day. Furthermore, he didn’t see her while he was standing there, nor did he see anything untoward that he can remember. She could’ve phoned for a taxi, but local firms say not. At seven thirty-nine, Amy’s phone was switched off. In all probability, that’s when she was taken. My guess is she turned right, not left, when she left the house.’ The room fell silent. ‘What? You didn’t lie to your parents when you were her age? I bloody did, all the time.’

  Daniels used the pointer again. ‘There’s CCTV on both sides of the road here and here. She wasn’t picked up on either camera. But she wouldn’t be, would she? Because she was waiting for the bus here before the parade of shops—’

  ‘For a bus that could take her to Sunderland, twenty minutes away,’ Carmichael said. ‘It’s obvious she was taken off the street in a vehicle of some description within minutes of leaving her house.’

  ‘A fingertip search found no signs of disturbance or struggle,’ Maxwell reminded her.

  ‘So what?’ Carmichael bit back. ‘If she responded to the flying club’s advert, doesn’t mean she ever actually made it there. Or maybe she did and she’d got to know someone there well enough to accept a lift. Her killer, for example.’

  ‘At eight o’clock at night?’ Maxwell queried.

  Carmichael nearly spat out her tea. ‘You think they let you jump on the first lesson? They have to pass the theory first.’

  ‘Lisa’s right,’ Daniels said. ‘Amy accepted a lift from someone she knew. It’s the most plausible explanation. I want to move on to Jessica now. A day earlier, on Tuesday the fourth of May, Robert Lester took Jessica home at around eight p.m. CCTV at the entrance to her flat confirms that. They entered at eight-o-six, Lester left on his own at eight thirty-four. About half an hour later, captured on the same CCTV, Jessica leaves the flat at nine-o-seven. She turns right heading towards this Nat West cashpoint where she makes a withdrawal of twenty pounds at eleven minutes past nine. Unless she climbed up the fire escape – and there’s no earthly reason why she should – Jess never made it back to her flat. In my view, that’s a fair assumption to make, and is supported by the fact that her cashpoint receipt wasn’t found there. This is unusual in itself because she was meticulous about keeping her records straight. In fact, it’s the only missing receipt, according to the statement supplied by her bank. Jessica’s phone goes dead at nine thirteen and I’m certain that’s when she was taken. Now it gets interesting . . .’

  Switching her attention back to the murder wall, Daniels changed screens. Again, the screen was split: one side displaying a detailed map, a network of phone masts stretching the entire length of the country, on the other, a smaller version, spanning an area from Adam Finch’s Mansion House in the south to Housesteads in the north.

  ‘On sixth May, both girls’ phones were switched on again within seconds of one another directly above the centre of Newcastle at three-o-three in the morning. Together, they pass between several phone masts and from that we are able to calculate that they were travelling in excess of a hundred and forty knots.’

  ‘The journey to Housesteads?’ Carmichael was thinking aloud. ‘That’s grim.’

  Gormley shook his head, a look of pure loathing on his face.

  ‘Both Amy’s phone and Jess’s were switched off again directly over Housesteads presumably when he . . .’Daniels could hardly bring herself to say it out loud, ‘. . . when the killer threw Amy to her death. That is where her phone record terminates.’

  ‘It’s as if he’s pinpointing the spot for us,’ Carmichael added.

 
; ‘Sick bastard,’ Gormley mumbled.

  ‘And Jess’s phone?’ Brown asked.

  ‘Is switched back on at around quarter to eleven on Thursday the sixth of May just hours after Amy’s body was found. It makes a journey by road . . . we can tell that from the speed it was travelling . . .’ Daniels picked up a road map and superimposed it over the phone mast grid. ‘As you can see here, it travelled from a position very close to the Mansion House to Newcastle along the A1. It’s my opinion that whoever had it was following Adam Finch to the mortuary where he met myself and our former guv’nor to view and identify our body—’

  ‘Which we later discovered was Amy and not Jess,’ Carmichael said.

  ‘Exactly.’ Daniels scanned the faces of her team. They were utterly focused, no sign of their enthusiasm waning. She moved on. ‘Jess’s phone was next used at three thirty p.m. on Thursday the sixth of May when Adam Finch received a text from it.’ Daniels took a breath. ‘I was standing right next to him at the time, so I know he didn’t make that call. I remember thinking that it ruled him out altogether, unless he had an accomplice. He’s an objectionable prick, I know. But none of us believe he’s involved any more, do we?’

  Heads shook but nobody actually spoke.

  It was nice to know they were on the same page.

  ‘What we need now is to check the cameras on the A1 northbound to find out whether Freek’s BMW or any other car was following Finch during his journey to the mortuary and back. Neil, get on to traffic management. Have them pull the relevant tapes. I want them handed over asap. Andy, call Robert Lester and tell him I want to see him. Don’t be specific. Just say I want to ask him some more questions. When you’ve done that, give the Graingers a call. I need to know if Amy ever expressed an interest in skydiving. On second thoughts, go round and do it in person. You OK with that?’

  Brown nodded.

  ‘Good. Lisa, get me everything you can dig up on that flying club. As soon as Hank and I are finished with Stephen Freek we’ll be paying them a visit.’