Saunders was racking his brains, desperately trying to come up with an idea of how to move things forward, but he was beaten to it by Grant.
* * *
“We haven’t been entirely honest with you, anyway.” Grant was watching Greenwood’s facial changes like a hawk. This statement suddenly made the muscles in his neck contract.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Well, we’re one step ahead of you in this inquiry.”
“Oh, so you are playing silly games now?”
“Mr Greenwood, I am not playing games. I’m trying to find your wife.”
“Well, locking me up in a police cell is not helping.”
“Have you got any theories about what might have happened to Kathy?”
“Who said anything has happened to her?”
Grant was starting to get really frustrated now. This man was just taking the piss, and it was really hard work. She took a deep breath. She had to remind herself that she was working on Britain’s most talked-about case, in her capacity as a probationary applicant to join the SCIU. There was a hell of a lot at stake as far as her professional obligations went. That short internal dialogue helped to put this peculiar man and his equally strange behaviour into perspective.
“At this moment in time, Kathy is the biggest celebrity in Britain, her disappearance is on every front page, it’s the main story on every channel. It’s the number one topic across the internet. Now if we let you go out of here, and release a statement that says that you are not co-operating with the police, I can assure you Mr Greenwood, you’ll be begging us to bring you back into the police station, so you can get away from the press! They will hound you from that moment until this case is resolved.”
“You can’t do that?”
“What, can’t do what?”
“Say that to the press.”
“Mr Greenwood, of course we can. We have a duty to report our ongoing investigations to the press, they help us to get our information out into the community. We can, and we will reveal important details, especially details as important as the fact that the missing person’s spouse isn’t helping with the enquiry.”
“So, it’s a threat?”
“What is a threat? That we’ll mention true facts in our press conference?”
“Look, for heaven’s sake alright, I don’t know where Kathy is. If I knew where she was, I would have told the officers who visited on Sunday. I’ve not spoken to her since Thursday night, as I’ve said. I’ve not communicated with her by any other method.” Greenwood suddenly went silent, when Grant thought that he was about to say something else.
“And at this precise moment in time, you have no idea if your wife is alive or dead?”
Greenwood just stared down at the tabletop and exhaled his breath loudly, as though he was a huffy teenager. After a few seconds he spoke. “No, I don’t.”
“And, forgive me for asking, but its extremely important. Do you want Kathy home?”
“I’m not bothered.”
“But you hope that she’s okay?”
“Well, yes, for God’s sake.” Greenwood slammed his hand down on the table. “Of course I hope she’s okay. But she is never happier than when she is pissing people off. It’s what makes her tick. So, there is a very good chance that she is not okay. Do you understand?”
Grant had returned to her kind, compassionate character role, and was nodding slowly.
“Now, if you told me that she’d had her head stamped on by a crazy, angry, overweight woman who had taken offence at Kathy’s endless jibes and insults for the past ten years, it wouldn’t come as a great shock.” Greenwood was tapping his foot. The pace was quickening and Grant felt that some progress was finally being made here.
“Well, if that’s the way you feel, why haven’t you mentioned any of this?”
“Would you? If you were married to one of the biggest circus freaks in the land?”
Grant let a silence hang. Suddenly, it seemed that Greenwood wanted to talk. He was considering his next sentence, that foot tapping was in full flow.
“Every day of my life I get abuse and insults because of her. I’ve been spat at, kicked, my car tyres have been slashed. I even had a young girl punch me in the face when I was coming out of a shop in Camden. All her friends were laughing, and I went off in tears. This girl, she shouted ‘pass that on to your fucking horrible cunt of a wife!’
Grant was listening intently, and nodding sympathetically. She seemed very genuine, and in many ways, despite Greenwood being a dickhead, she did feel for him. Grant could imagine how intimidating it must have been, and how embarrassing, being attacked like that. But despite the natural feelings of sympathy that Greenwood’s story had sparked within her, Grant still felt that the man sitting before her was in some way involved in Kathy’s disappearance.
“That sounds awful. Did you report it?”
“What, to the police? Are you joking me?”
“No.”
“They wouldn’t be interested in that. It’s just part of the job of being Kathy’s husband. I just have to try and keep out of the public eye as much as I can.”
“Do you love her?”
Greenwood looked up, and exchanged eye contact with Grant. That question had come from nowhere, and it appeared to have confused the interviewee.
“That’s a strange… I didn’t know that you asked things like that…”
“Well, from what you’ve said, you don’t really appear to be very concerned for her welfare. I just wondered if your marriage was…”
“Was what?”
“Valid.”
Greenwood fake laughed, throwing his head back as he did so. It was a lame, embarrassing, pantomime cackle, and Grant wondered if he was about to revert back
to the bizarre behaviour again. But no, he soon straightened up, and it looked as though he was really feeling sorry for himself. His eyes were becoming very moist.
“Valid! That’s such a peculiar word to choose, but my God, it’s very apt. No, Detective Grant, to be perfectly honest with you, my marriage is not valid. My marriage has not really been valid for the past ten years, maybe longer. Kathy has made me the last on her list! That’s how I feel, I feel as though I’m the last on the list!”
Grant was beginning to wonder if Greenwood was mistaking this interview for a visit to his therapist, but she kept her gentle, sympathetic nods going.
“Don’t get me wrong. It was great in the beginning, in the early days. She used to work at Radio One, she was the head of marketing and promotion. She was behind the scenes at some of the most famous events in the eighties and nineties. Live Aid, Comic Relief, The Brits. She was funny, happy, and she had thousands of friends. But then, one day out of the blue, Radio One decided to aim at a younger audience and Kathy lost her job. Suddenly, she went from being a really big part of the biggest radio station in Britain, to being flung out on her ear. They offered her a similar role at GLR, which she declined. It was like going from a starring role in a Hollywood blockbuster, to a walk-on part in Hollyoaks. That is how she describes it, anyway. That was in ninety-five. She’s been horrible ever since that day. We are married, but it’s only because neither of us can be bothered with moving out. I suppose it’s more a case of when we get divorced rather than if.”
“But surely, under those kind of circumstances, you must see that you need to help us as best you can. We need to eliminate you from our inquiry one hundred per cent, and you’re not making that possible for us at the moment. You avoid answering questions, and then when you do answer, you say things that could potentially implicate you. I mean seriously, think about it. Kathy is missing, and you say that you don’t like her and things like that. It isn’t helping at all, is it?”
“No, I suppose not. But I’m not sure how I can be implicated in this when I have a witness who can confirm that I was at home three-hundred miles away from where Kathy disappeared. I also have CCTV footage that co
nfirms this. How can I possibly be made to look guilty under those circumstances?”
“Nobody is saying that you are involved. But I’m trying to explain to you why it would make a lot more sense if you were trying your very hardest to help us.”
“Okay, point taken. But I’ve still got a shit-storm coming from the press after you kept me in all night. There was no need for all this.”
“To be fair Mr Greenwood, you could have talked like this yesterday, at the radio studio. We’d have been gone within half an hour.”
“Okay, okay, I don’t want to go over all that again now.”
“Fine. Well, I want to know about any theories you have about where Kathy is, what’s happened. Regardless of how irrelevant they might seem. We really need a leg-up right now, because looking for Kathy with absolutely no idea where she could be is an impossible task, and if she’s in danger, it’s absolutely crucial that you help us.”
“And who do you plan to interview next?”
“We have a few people we want to talk to, including Kathy’s manager, Sally King.”
“Well, she’s already been interviewed as well. You’re just wasting your time, just going over old ground.”
“Well, give me a few more names, a few people we’ve not interviewed yet.”
“And then I can go?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, well have you spoken to Greg Hughes? He was her toy boy. Works at Channel Five. She’s been making life difficult for him recently. Then there’s Phillip Young, the squeaky clean TV presenter. He’s been having a bit of trouble with Kathy, she says she has some compromising pictures of him from years ago with rent-boys and cocaine. She teases him about it all the time. There’s also a page three girl, God what’s she called she’s one of Kathy’s regular sparring partners, Jo Abbott, that’s it. She’s well connected with a few gangs in Essex, and it’s not beyond the realms of possibility that they could be involved.”
“How do you know all this?”
“I’m married to Kathy Hopkirk. It’s my life. Can I go now please?”
“Yes, come on.”
Chapter 24
“Morning Andy.” DCS Dixon had silently appeared in Miller’s office.
“Jesus! I wish you wouldn’t do that Sir!”
“Pardon?” His bizarrely good mood from the previous morning seemed to have dwindled, and the DCS looked more like his usually grumpy, stressed-out looking self.
“You, when you sneak up on me like that. It shits me up.”
“Oh, I can’t stop doing that Andy, that’s police training from the old school. Sneak about and you catch people at it!”
“Yes, well, it’s a fair cop, you’ve caught me at it! You’ve caught me wondering how the hell I can manage with Saunders and Grant down south. They’ve just had to let the husband go, ran out of time, nothing to charge him with, unless being a complete dick is something the CPS would rubber-stamp.”
“Ah, so Jack Greenwood isn’t our man?” Dixon raised his famous white eye-brows, and the gesture told Miller that in his bosses mind, Greenwood had already been sent down.
“Nah, nothing with any substance. He’s got an excellent, bomb-proof alibi. Got to admit, we’re struggling here Sir. It’s a real mystery.”
“Well, maybe I’m your saviour this morning then!” Dixon sat down, which suggested that the old boy was planning to stay for a while. Miller sat up in his chair and faced his DCS.
“Oh?” Miller tried to make it sound more enthusiastic than he actually felt. He seriously doubted that Dixon was likely to be his saviour any time soon. All Dixon ever did was create extra work. Never less work, it was always more.
“I’ve had the social media team scouring the Kathy Hopkirk profile pages. Her Twitter is the main platform she uses, she’s got more than four million followers on there, and over half a million Facebook fans. Well, anyway, the stats have just been put together with in-depth analysis. You’ll get a bigger, more in-depth report in due-course. But I wanted to give you the heads up that the social media team have identified over six thousand instances of death threats against Kathy Hopkirk, made over the past three years.”
“Fucking Norah! That’s a lot of death threats!”
“Yes, quite. So, that’s in the pipeline, its going to add a very dynamic and interesting angle to your enquiry, no doubt.”
Miller exhaled loudly, ending with a raspberry. “Well, that’s even more bullshit to empty on my carpet. Seriously Sir, who in their right mind would make a death-threat on Twitter, and then follow it through?”
“Well, a counter-argument would be who in their right mind goes around killing people?”
“Well, we don’t know that Kathy’s dead yet, do we?”
Dixon sensed that Miller was about to get moody, so he stood up and decided to get out of there before he was forced to become a sympathetic ear. “Well, just be on standby that a list of more than six thousand potential suspects will be with you in the next few hours!” Dixon smiled and mouthed “you’re welcome” as he turned to leave.
* * *
Miller was dismayed by the Social Media Team’s report into instances of hate and threats against Kathy over the previous thirty-six months. There was an endless list of Twitter account names, with the date and time of the offensive communication, followed by the message in full. Miller felt depressed as he read through a random page of the pointless, nonsensical messages. “@KathyHK I read what you said about people from Birmingham I think you crossed the line . Ur dead meat bitch.”
The messages on that first page were basically as idiotic and pointless as that. But Miller noticed an anomaly on one message. It was clear that the word “dead” was one of several which had been used to search out these messages. But in the north of England particularly, the word “dead” was often used instead of “really” to add emphasis. So, it was common for a northerner to say “God, I’m dead tired” or “You looked dead fit last night.”
Miller noticed that one of Kathy’s so called “death threats” was in fact just a bit of stupid banter.
“@KathyHK Your head has disappeared so far up your own arse that its going to be dead easy for you to roll down the stairs now.” That remark had been made by a user called @AndyRoss on 15th January 2015 at 2:17pm. There was no further information available. It didn’t say anything about who Andy Ross was, or where he lived. There was no IP address for where the tweet had originated. This was completely pointless, and Miller wondered why Social had passed it on.
Opening Twitter, Miller realised that he could use the search bar to place keywords from AndyRoss’s tweet, in order to locate the Tweet himself – despite it being several years old. “Bingo!” said the DCI as the exact same Tweet that Social had reported appeared on the screen. It had been re-tweeted more than six hundred times by other users who’d found it amusing or inspirational, or whatever. After a couple of minutes digging around, Miller had discovered that Andy Ross was a radio DJ on Sheffield’s Hallam FM. He was followed back by Kathy, and the two had several interactions over Twitter. Indeed, Kathy had replied to Andy’s Tweet on the same date. It read, “Wait until I get my hands on you AndyRoss – I’ll break that big ugly nose of yours!”
Andy Ross had retweeted the reply, and everybody lived happily ever after. Miller wrote on the list; Highly Unlikely Suspect. He blew out an exasperated breath when he thought of the prospect of going through six thousand of these inane, pointless interactions, in the unlikely hope of finding a person who genuinely did wish harm on Kathy.
Miller began to realise that this was no more than a banquet of bullshit, which had been placed on his desk. He stared at it, and tried to work out where he could send it to be refined. After a minute or two, he threw it in the bin.
* * *
Beryl Butterworth was dedicating her entire Radio Manchester show to Kathy’s disappearance for the second day. The previous day’s programme had concentrated on a rather leftfield topic,
people speaking nicely about the missing woman.
Today, Beryl was standing by her desire to promote a more positive message about Kathy Hopkirk, but her main focus centred around the fact that Jack Greenwood had spent the night in the police station, and furthermore, hadn’t been released. Mainstream media was going crazy with speculation of why Jack was still in police custody. The difficulty for them was to report the facts, and leave the wild speculation to the viewers, readers and listeners at home.
“So as we have been hearing all morning,” said Beryl Butterworth, “there is still no sighting of Kathy. And as things currently stand, Kathy’s husband is still, to quote the official statement ‘helping police with their enquiries’ at Shepherd’s Bush police station. It’s turning out to be one hell of a mystery, and if I’m being honest, I really did think that all of this would have been resolved by now. But what are your thoughts on Kathy’s disappearance? And what ideas have you got for how police could track her down. Get in touch with the studio, and if we think you don’t sound too crazy, we’ll talk to you on the air. Okay, here’s a song by one of the loveliest people I’ve ever been lucky enough to meet, a true legend, who I still can’t believe is sadly no longer with us. It’s George Michael.”
As soon as Beryl switched her microphone off, she turned the volume up on the studio TV, which was showing the BBC News channel. Something appeared to be happening, and the news reporter on screen was getting in a bit of a tizzy as the story suddenly began to have some fast moving developments.
Just after 10.30 am, Jack Greenwood was driven away at speed from Shepherd’s Bush police station in an unmarked police car. The silver Audi estate was moving quickly, but not too fast for several press photographers, who managed to take snaps through the rear windows. Inside, leant forward and trying to cover his face with his hands, sat Jack Greenwood. He was out of jail, and not wearing handcuffs.
Gone Too Far : DCI Miller 4: Britain's Most Hated Celebrity Has Disappeared Page 11
