by Mari Hannah
He nodded.
‘May I see it please?’
Prentice pushed it towards her. He looked on as she opened it up and turned to the relevant page. The writing was neat but so small she was forced to use her reading specs. Scanning the entries, she noted that he’d made a tour of the perimeter fence every hour throughout the night until four a.m. The five o’clock patrol remained blank.
Picking up on her concern, Prentice was at pains to point out that he hadn’t completed that circuit because he was too busy investigating the mystery van.
‘That’s when you called us?’
Sweating profusely, he nodded.
Kate shifted her attention from the man to a desk littered with paraphernalia: a half-completed crossword, an Open University pamphlet, a framed photograph of four grinning schoolboys she assumed were his grandchildren, a few jottings on a notepad and some literature on photography.
Oh God!
Along with a feeling of déjà vu, a young woman appeared in Kate’s head: an amateur photographer she’d come across in a previous case who’d tried to cash in by selling images of a dead man to the press. That was the way things were these days; everyone carried a camera in their pocket, the means with which to capture a moment in time, no matter how miserable. People saw it as fair game. Images that sold newspapers were highly prized. Sadly, that particular photographer had paid the ultimate price, silenced for good by someone who didn’t want their face made public.
‘Keen photographer, are you sir?’ Kate took in an enthusiastic nod. ‘Take any snaps while you were outside? Because, if you did, I’d like the film and the camera.’
‘I don’t have one with me.’
‘Mobile phone?’
‘I didn’t take any pictures.’
‘That’s fine.’ Kate sent a warning shot across the desk. ‘I just need to be sure. The incident I’m investigating is not one that should end up in the public domain. If that were to happen, you should understand that there would be consequences.’
‘Check it if you don’t believe me.’ He pushed his mobile across the desk. ‘There’s nothing on it, I swear.’
‘I’ll take your word for it.’
Thanking her, Prentice shuddered as if something with more than two legs had walked across his skin. ‘To be honest, I was so spooked when I realized what I’d found that I bolted back here. I dialled 999 in case he was, y’know, still alive. It never occurred to me to get my camera out. I’m no ghoul, Inspector.’ He paused for thought. ‘Not that I thought he could be – alive, I mean. But I’m no doctor, am I? You hear about people surviving terrible accidents.’
He hadn’t been told.
Kate tried to find the right words with which to convey the unpalatable truth. ‘Mr Prentice, I’m not here about a terrible accident. This is a clear-cut case of murder. As despicable as it sounds, what you witnessed tonight was a deliberate act.’
‘What?’ He looked horrified.
‘I’m afraid so. I’m sure you’ll appreciate how serious that is and why I need your full cooperation.’ Unfortunately, Kate was destined not to get it.
Prentice immediately clammed up, floored by the realization that whoever she was after knew where he worked and when they could find him alone on the premises. Having seen what they were capable of, he had no doubt they would silence a witness without a second thought.
6
No amount of gentle persuasion made a difference. The witness was frightened. He had a right to be. Kate drove slowly through the traffic on the way back to the city centre. She was tired and under pressure but, if she were being perfectly honest, enjoying the adrenalin rush of a new enquiry, even though this one was more difficult to stomach than most. She could tell Hank felt it too. He was as high as a kite, on the phone to their guv’nor, Detective Superintendent Ron Naylor.
‘The news isn’t all grim,’ he was saying. ‘We already have a victim ID.’
Tuning him out, Kate turned her attention to the case generally. Identifying the victim was something she hadn’t thought possible a couple of hours ago. But thanks to the timely intervention of crime-scene investigators, she was in possession of the most vital piece of evidence an SIO needs in the first few hours of a new case. Prints lifted at the scene matched some already on the database. That was good. The name of the person to whom they belonged was not. In fact, it was quite the opposite: enough to strike fear into the heart of most detectives, whether or not they knew the man personally. His reputation was legendary in the Northumbria force area.
Repercussions would surely follow.
Kate drove on, hoping she didn’t have a turf war on her hands.
Having finished his call, Hank had gone quiet. A worrying development, unheard of almost. Not only was he not talking, he wasn’t catching up on lost sleep either, something he did at every opportunity. Normally, he’d be hanging like a bat from his seat belt by now. The horrific nature of this case had got to him.
‘Do yourself a favour,’ she said. ‘Don’t think about it.’
‘Since when did you take up mind-reading?’ he asked.
She glanced sideways, a wry smile on her face. ‘Try zoning out the images. It’ll allow you to concentrate on the case rather than the pain of it, if that makes sense.’
‘You do that?’
‘Every time.’
‘Does it help?’
‘We’re humans too, Hank.’
‘Nice sidestep. I notice you didn’t answer the question.’
‘Complete detachment would mean we were robots.’ Kate kept her eyes on the road. ‘It may surprise you to learn that we are allowed to feel. In fact, it’s obligatory. Number one on my list of coping strategies. It makes me try all the harder to catch the bad guys.’
There was another way she handled the nasty stuff and she’d already made up her mind to make the call as soon as the briefing was over, the murder enquiry underway. She’d talk it through with her friend and confidante, criminal profiler Jo Soulsby. Their discussion would take the form of a professional debrief almost. It wouldn’t change a thing, but afterwards she’d feel a little less like she was dying inside.
Hank was still in a bad place. ‘It’s beyond me how Stanton manages. At least we don’t have to look at it twenty-four seven.’
‘Did I ever tell you Jo believes in meditation?’ Kate said. ‘You should try it sometime.’
‘No offence, but that’s bollocks.’ It wasn’t like him to be so dismissive. He liked Jo a lot, respected what she did for a living, valued the contribution she’d made since her secondment to the Murder Investigation Team.
‘I was a sceptic too once,’ Kate said.
Another wave of sorrow washed over her.
Who was she trying to kid?
By the time they reached the station, Naylor had set the wheels in motion. The incident suite was full of detectives and civilian personnel awaiting instructions from the DCI, all leave over the coming bank holiday weekend cancelled at short notice. No one minded. That was just the way it was. In fact, some welcomed the opportunity for overtime, an occurrence far less frequent than it used to be.
Taking her own advice, Kate forced herself to concentrate on procedure rather than dwelling on images she wished she’d never seen. Sharing the name of the deceased with DC Lisa Carmichael, advising her that crime-scene photographs were available for upload, she set her to work immediately, excusing her from the briefing, before turning to face the squad.
‘Right, ladies and gents, can we have some quiet please?’ She waited for the hum of voices to die down. ‘We’ve got a distressing torture case on our hands. Nominal One is John Allen. That is the John Allen, for those of you in the know.’
There were a few raised eyebrows in the room.
Kate moved on. ‘For the benefit of those new to the squad, he’s a villain from a criminal family going back generations. He’s also well known to the Serious Organized Crime Agency. Along with his brother and equally obnoxious mates, John Alle
n has dabbled in anything and everything, specializing in stealing high-end cars to order, selling them on, shipping them abroad. A very lucrative line of business it was too. Enough to buy them a pretty fancy lifestyle—’
‘Not any more,’ Hank said drily.
Kate glanced at the murder wall. On one side of a state-of-the-art digital screen, John Allen’s name had appeared in large capital letters, alongside his age (twenty-nine), date of birth, address when last arrested, significant others and known associates. Underneath was a police mugshot Carmichael had lifted from the PNC. On the other side of the screen, horrific images were uploading; a macabre illustration of what Kate had seen at dawn on a deserted street a few miles east of the station.
The state of the body was such that several officers dropped their heads on one side, trying to work out which way was up: DS Paul Robson, DCs Neil Maxwell and Andy Brown among them. Andy, the quiet one of the three, grimaced as if he’d eaten a lemon whole. Silence spread throughout the room, except for the tap-tapping of Carmichael’s fingers as they flew over her computer keys. The young DC had her head down as usual, so deep in concentration she was oblivious to the reaction her efforts were having on the rest of a team coming to terms with what was being shown.
‘Let me be clear here,’ the DCI said. ‘No matter what criminal activities Allen instigated in his lifetime, he didn’t deserve to end his days the way he did. My immediate concern is that his associates may take the law into their own hands, exact some form of retribution on those responsible for his death. Our first priority therefore is to find his brother Terry before all hell breaks loose.’
‘We just did,’ a voice behind her said.
All eyes were on the door.
Two uniformed police officers were standing on the threshold, the older a male sergeant most of them had known for years. ‘Excuse the interruption, ma’am.’ He held up an incident report. ‘But this concerns you.’
‘Did you bring Terry in?’ Kate asked.
She had good reason to jump to this conclusion. As soon as victim ID was confirmed, she’d turned her attention to his relatives, in particular the delivery of a death message, a job easier said than done for two reasons: the Allens were antagonistic towards the police and their criminal lifestyle meant they moved around a lot. When they couldn’t be found, she’d issued an action to trace next of kin.
‘No,’ the sergeant said. ‘Terry Allen is also in the morgue.’
‘What? Are you serious?’
‘Deadly, no pun intended.’
For a moment, no one spoke. Then the silence was broken by rumblings of Jesus Christ, good riddance and other harsh words directed at the younger Allen brother. Kate asked for attention, giving the officer the opportunity to explain his attendance at the RVI, the fact that he’d personally identified Terry, an offender he’d arrested on several occasions, as the deceased patient who’d been found in a hospital corridor.
‘You’re absolutely sure it was him?’ Kate asked.
The sergeant was nodding. ‘His wallet and driving licence were in his pocket. We made some tentative enquiries, called out the duty pathologist. Apart from injuries we could see for ourselves – all bar one of his fingers were missing – the doc confirmed he’d been stabbed several times in the back. It’s definitely a murder case, linked to the one you’re already dealing with, unless you believe in coincidence. I suspect you don’t.’
Two brothers . . .
Tortured to death on the same night . . .
Not for a moment did Kate believe this was a coincidence. Whoever killed the Allen brothers was switched wrong – a malicious sadist. She dreaded what would happen when word got out to family and associates. Like it or not, as SIO she had no right to withhold cause of death even in cases like this one, where the family had a history of dispensing their own brand of justice. She felt sure they would close ranks, put the shutters up and use any means at their disposal to track down those responsible. It wasn’t hard to imagine what would happen next. She knew it wouldn’t be pretty.
7
A number of competing actions scrolled through Kate’s head. At least two people were involved in John Allen’s death: the drivers of the Mercedes van and the Range Rover. She needed to catch them both before his family did. Appointing DS Robson as statement reader, she asked DC Maxwell to take care of the CCTV they had appropriated from JMR Refrigeration. As usual, he had his head up his arse; he was so busy eyeing up MIT’s newest female recruit, Kate suspected he hadn’t heard a word she’d said.
‘Neil, did you get that? Or do I have to repeat myself?’
Maxwell apologized, his face flushing.
‘I said there’s a DVD on my desk, footage from the main gate. Get it to Technical Support right away. Tell them I’m specifically interested in the section between four fifty-five and five past five. See what they can do with it and report back to me as soon as you can. I’m hoping they’ll give us something we can work with, a vague idea of who we’re looking for.’ Having already seen the footage, she was doubtful.
Delegating other tasks, she turned lastly to DS Brown. ‘Andy, see if you can pinpoint where the Range Rover went after it left Silverlink. Raise an action for any joyriders in the area: they may be potential witnesses or suspects. As soon as we get confirmation of the vehicle licence plates, I want you to hunt down the registered keepers. Hank, Lisa, come with me. I need you at the hospital.’
They reached the Royal Victoria Infirmary a few minutes before ten and set about questioning staff. Kate concentrated on the SHO who’d found the body and consultants who’d been on duty at the relevant time. Hank took the receptionist, porters and ancillary staff, while Carmichael tackled the triage team. Two hours later, they met up in the relatives’ room the hospital’s medical director had set aside for them to use.
They had each drawn a blank.
Kate nodded as Lisa pointed to a Thermos flask that had been left on the coffee table, a handwritten note beside it: Help yourselves. Nothing, it seemed, was too much trouble for the staff of A & E.
Pity they hadn’t paid the same level of attention to their patients.
The room was soulless, far too warm to be comfortable, and staged – an administrator’s idea of showing respect to those in distress. Neutral walls vibrated with a million sobs, much like the waiting room at the city’s crematorium where Kate had supported more families of homicide victims than she cared to remember in the years she’d been a murder detective.
Slumping down on the tan sofa, she dreaded the hours ahead. Delivering multiple death messages on the same day wasn’t unusual. Conveying two separate non-accidental deaths to the same family was unprecedented. The words ‘shoot the messenger’ loomed large in her head.
Accepting a drink from Lisa, she waited for her to sit back down before speaking. ‘So,’ she said. ‘Shall I go first?’
Lisa and Hank were nodding.
‘OK, the SHO, Valerie Armstrong, pronounced Terry Allen dead at five thirty-five, half an hour before his brother suffered a similar fate at Silverlink. According to the attending pathologist, Terry had been dead approximately two hours.’ Taking a gulp of coffee, Kate set the cup down on the floor beside her feet. ‘The doctor claims she had no idea who the patient was until the police were called. I gather he wasn’t seen on arrival by the triage team?’
‘That’s correct,’ Lisa said.
‘Hank? Is that your understanding?’
‘Yup. He wasn’t booked in at reception either.’
‘How come he was missed?’ Kate asked. ‘He was in no condition to walk in unaided, lie down on a trolley and cover himself up. So how did he get here? More importantly, who brought him in?’
‘Only one nurse admitted to seeing him lying on the trolley,’ Carmichael said. ‘Poor girl thought he was asleep. She’s blaming herself. Thinks she may lose her job over it. She assumed he’d been assessed and was awaiting transfer to a ward. Apparently there was pandemonium last night, including a fatal RTA
involving a bus with a number of elderly passengers on board. They were working flat out, boss.’
‘That’s also backed up by the receptionist’s log,’ Hank said. ‘There were multiple casualties. Can’t have been much fun.’
‘Did any uniforms view the CCTV?’ Kate asked.
Hank was shaking his head.
‘Then we need to do that.’ Picking up the internal phone, Kate dialled zero and asked for the security office. A few seconds later, a man answered, identifying himself with his first name only: Frank. Switching to speakerphone, Kate identified herself by name and rank and, to add weight to the call, as a member of the Murder Investigation Team. ‘I’m in the building. I need to take a look at your CCTV right away.’
‘I was expecting that,’ the man said.
‘Really?’ Kate rolled her eyes at the others. ‘You psychic or something?’
‘Word spreads like wildfire in a hospital, Inspector. Much as it does in a police station, I imagine.’ The guy had a deep gravelly voice, a pronounced Irish accent. ‘Perhaps I should explain.’
‘If you would please, Mr . . . ?’
‘McGowan.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘Just a moment . . .’ McGowan wasn’t alone. Someone was talking in the background. He responded, asking a colleague to take over. Then Kate heard heavy boots on a solid floor, a squeaky door open and close, then the background noise disappeared and he returned to the phone. ‘At around three this morning, the camera covering the front door of A & E flipped up suddenly and was pointing at the stars. It had never happened before so I called maintenance to check it out. The guy who examined it says that it had been deliberately angled away from the entrance. It couldn’t have done that all by itself. There wasn’t much wind and the camera had to be prised back in place, so it did. Then later, I heard about your man. I mean the poor guy who passed away without receiving treatment. When they mentioned that he wasn’t booked in at reception, I put two and two together.’
‘That’s quite a deduction,’ Kate said.
