Death in the Woods: A DCI Jude Satterthwaite novel (The DCI Satterthwaite Mysteries)

by Jo Allen

  And that, Jude realised, meant that whether Faye thought the deaths were crime or not, she’d identified them as a serious problem.

  Nine

  ‘Dr Wood? I’m DCI Jude Satterthwaite. Thanks for making the time to see me.’

  Vanessa Wood had seen Jude Satterthwaite’s name in the newspapers from time to time and, she vaguely remembered, seen the man himself giving the occasional press conference on the television. A chief inspector, no less. Faye Scanlon had sent a senior detective down to see her. So much the better. It meant they were taking her seriously.

  She prided herself on being an instant judge of character. Her first assessment of him was that he was young for the post, which immediately indicated he must be highly thought of. As she shook his hand, she met his thoughtful grey eyes. In front of the cameras he came across as stiff and awkward; in the flesh he was much more at ease, more obviously in control. ‘It’s no trouble. I have some very severe concerns about these recent incidents, and as I told Superintendent Scanlon, it’s important we get to grips with it before we lose any more young people.’

  He nodded, and as he did so his eyes flicked around the room as if he was judging her. Perhaps he resented, or suspected, her intervention.

  She pulled herself up. She was overthinking it. Just because she liked to make instant judgements and test out their accuracy didn’t mean it was necessary; she was aware of her own weakness, knew how easily pride and vanity could lead her to overstretch herself. In her job she had to be very careful how she handled people, and in most cases she was. It was all the more important when the issue at hand was neither her actions nor her motives, but the deaths that were beginning to cut a swathe through the youth in the local community.

  And would continue to do so. Bearing that in mind, it would be unwise to indulge an irrational, instant dislike of a senior police officer. She forced a smile. ‘Sit down. I’ll get coffee.’

  Jude Satterthwaite made himself comfortable while Vanessa flicked buttons on the coffee machine. Her consulting room, wedged into an attic in one of the taller buildings in Penrith’s Market Square, was large and bright, like an artist’s studio. The sash windows looked down on the bustling town centre and, if you stood on your tiptoes (she was tall, five feet ten) you could just about catch a glimpse of the fells beyond.

  To make it as welcoming as possible for her clients she’d possibly gone a little overboard, with a squashy sofa and a couple of armchairs, with regular fresh flowers and the Nespresso coffee machine. The effect on the detective appeared to be gratifyingly confusing; he sank into the low sofa as though he’d never get up.

  ‘I try not to make the place too intimidating,’ she explained, handing him a coffee while the machine hissed and whistled happily away with a second for herself. ‘It may not feel terribly professional to you, but I’d struggle to squeeze us into my office, which is the alternative.’ And anyway the office was barely more than a cupboard and couldn’t fit more than her desk and a single chair. That, along with the reception area where her part-time secretary camped out for the three days a week when she saw clients, and a bathroom, constituted her workplace.

  The second coffee cup filled, she passed a plate of foil-wrapped teacakes to the chief inspector, which he declined. The formalities dispensed with, she sat down in her own chair and crossed her ankles. ‘I don’t know how much Superintendent Scanlon told you about our conversation.’

  ‘Not a lot,’ said Satterthwaite, curling his hand around the coffee mug and looking at her. Again she stared back. She knew such a direct gaze was nothing more than a tool of his trade but she couldn’t help taking it as a challenge. This was her territory and he had to know she was in charge.

  It was an extraordinary lapse in her professionalism. With an effort, she forced her gaze away. You got nothing out of people if you antagonised them and her purpose was to help the police. She swung into her practised smile. ‘I’ll summarise. You probably know that copycat suicides are widely documented.’

  He nodded, but he listened.

  ‘The Werther Syndrome, as it’s known, is named for the first recorded instance, following the publication of a novel by Goethe in the eighteenth century. At the end of the novel, the protagonist commits suicide. The book stimulated a flurry of copycat suicides. Since then there have been multiple cases where a notable suicide has been copied by others. In recent times suicides by celebrities are particular triggers. Social media has been a considerable new player in this.’

  ‘And in plenty of other areas, too,’ he agreed. ‘It’s a shame we can’t police it a bit more than we do. Budgets don’t allow it.’

  ‘Indeed. You may not know that I work a lot with younger people, in particular those who have issues of depression and suicidal impulses. One of them was Connor Turnbull. He had multiple problems, including the loss of his mother when he was a child. It caused him deep-rooted mental health issues which, in the end, we couldn’t address. I won’t go into them with you, because although it’s case closed, for me confidentiality continues after his death. We still have his father to consider.’ She paused to think of Connor, a lost soul who could too easily be led along the wrong route and persuaded there was a simple solution to his many problems. And she noticed that the detective flinched slightly at the mention of a lost parent, as if he had issues of his own. ‘I had no real concerns after the first of the deaths, other than that one always considers such a thing as a professional failure. The second one, did, however, trigger an alarm with me though I knew nothing about the case.’

  ‘Any reason?’

  ‘None. Call it instinct, if you will, or just something learned from experience. But then we had the third.’

  He nodded again, as if she’d affirmed his own thinking, and again Vanessa had to fight her irritation ‘Copycat suicides, by definition, are generally the same method, no?’ he asked. He tried to sit forward but the softness of the sofa defeated him and he sank back again.

  ‘In most cases. It may be that the young woman who jumped from the bridge struggled to hang herself for whatever reason. Perhaps she couldn’t get hold of a rope.’

  ‘We’re looking into that.’

  ‘Of course, it may that’s a complete outlier.’

  ‘Yes. I’m interested that you suspect something so early. Statistically, would you say the numbers constitute an epidemic?’

  ‘That’s open for debate. If I had to answer I’d say no, but I’m afraid the signs are there. I was sufficiently concerned to raise the issue with the social services department with the local council and, at their suggestion, take it up with your superintendent.’

  ‘She says you’ve offered to help. Is that right?’

  ‘It is. I’m semi-retired and work out of these premises three days a week. I’ve committed myself to being available for the whole of the two days I don’t work, and at any other time I might be required, to help out for as long as this crisis lasts. Free of charge, of course. I’ve already spent several days making myself available to any student who wants to speak to me. The schools are just back, of course, which makes it easier to access that age group. I stay late in the evenings here in case anyone else wants to come in and talk to me. That’s had a reasonable response. Mostly it’s people seeking reassurance, but with that and the school, there’s the occasional character who does need help. I do my best to intervene or refer them on.’

  ‘Okay. And do you feel you can contribute to our…investigation?’

  ‘There’s no need to downplay it,’ said Vanessa, amused. ‘I’m aware of how potentially serious this is. The reason I wanted to see you is because something about the case particularly bothers me and Superintendent Scanlon thought I should raise it with you directly. It’s about the reporting guidelines.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Satterthwaite said, a smile lurking on his lips. ‘Nobody’s more tightlipped than we are when it comes to telling the public as little a possible. Has there been something in the press? If there has, I’ve mi
ssed it. The papers are always sniffing out a story but they’re usually pretty good about reporting with care when we ask them to. Otherwise they won’t get any information from us at all.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re far too busy to spend much of your leisure time on the internet, but I make a point of keeping up with social media.’

  ‘Knowing your enemy, eh?’

  He was right about that. ‘I think it’s useful to know the kind of things that are influencing young minds.’ Young minds. She almost laughed at herself.

  ‘Facebook?’ DCI Satterthwaite asked, setting his coffee cup down on the floor. ‘Twitter? Instagram? I don’t go to those places, I’m afraid. Except in the line of duty, and even then I mostly leave it to others.’

  ‘Two of the young people who died were members of a local Facebook group. A couple of other youngsters also mentioned it. There’s been what I consider some inappropriate comment in there — unnecessary detail about the deaths and some associated gossip, as well.’

  He got out a notebook and jotted something down. ‘Interesting. I’ll follow up.’

  ‘I’m a member of that group, though I only keep a watching brief. I contacted the group admins and asked for the relevant posts to be removed, which they were.’

  ‘What sort of inappropriate detail?’

  ‘There were some comments on how quickly the person would have died. Not that they needed information on that from the coroner’s report or anything like that. It came straight from Wikipedia, as a far as I could tell, but I was concerned to see the more difficult details were left out. The deaths were presented as being painless and almost desirable. We should never encourage anyone to believe suicide is the easy way to escape our problems, even though there may sometimes be an element of truth in it.’

  Jude Satterthwaite tapped a finger on his knee. ‘There’s nothing illegal in that, I’m afraid.’

  ‘No. Not at all.’ As if she didn’t know that. ‘But it did indicate to me that there’s someone locally who enjoys stirring up trouble and that kind of thing — the glorification of suicide, presenting it as a simple solution — is a classic stimulus in suicide epidemics.’

  ‘Did you note who it was?’

  ‘I took a note of the name — someone called Four Hats Jose, so I would imagine that’s a fake identity, given the profile picture was a generic view of the Langdales and the account was recently created. It concerns me there’s someone with potential personality issues, possibly a personality disorder, who’s taking pleasure from this, and this sense of power might have fatal consequences.’

  ‘All right,’ Jude said, after a moment of thought. ‘I see the difficulty. But—’

  ‘There’s more.’ She took pleasure in cutting across him. ‘I follow a number of local blogs. After the posts were deleted a new blog appeared. I found it through a link to the same FB group. It’s called Eden Whispers, which I think has a deliberately sinister sound to it, and it’s locally based, very chatty. The first article was on running routes around Penrith. the second covered local music events. The third was about history. Nothing new, nothing that hadn’t been culled from the local paper or a book or elsewhere on the internet. But the fourth post was different.’

  She had her iPad on the arm of the chair in which she was sitting and flicked it on, touched the screen a few times with rapid fingers and turned it round towards him. He leaned forward and read it from across the room. The blog was entitled: The Eden Valley Suicides and was accompanied by a series of photographs — the wood at Stainton, a bunch of fresh flowers on the track at Lazonby.

  ‘The language of the blog mimics that of the deleted comments in the FB page, some of it word for word. It invites comments from readers and actively responds to them. Again, the blog is anonymous. I emailed the blogger, via the contact link on the website, and asked that they be more careful in how they expressed themselves. I sent them a link to the Samaritans’ guidelines on the media representation of suicide. When I had no reply after twenty four hours I emailed again. After a second day I posted a comment on the blog. It was deleted and when I tried to comment again I found I’d been blocked.’

  ‘You’re suggesting it’s deliberate?’

  ‘I wouldn’t go so far as that. It may be a twisted idea of fun, and I may come across as a bit of a killjoy. But it’s irresponsible and if it goes on it could cost lives. I hope the work I’ve been doing in the schools and in the community generally will go some way towards countering the damage that’s unquestionably being done.’

  ‘That’s really interesting,’ he said, stroking his chin and sounding as if he meant it.

  ‘Will you be able to identify the blogger?’

  ‘Theoretically, yes. But I’m afraid there there are plenty of obstacles.’

  Money, mainly. Vanessa had thought it through, at length. It was hardly surprising to find him getting his excuses in early. These days, so everyone said, it wasn’t about what you could do but what you could afford to do and the look on the detective’s face bore witness to just that. ‘There is one other thing.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You’re obviously looking at recent events. But I think perhaps you should look further back.’

  His attention sharpened at that. She’d thought he was listening to her before, but there was a perceptible change. ‘Okay. Anything specific?’

  ‘At the beginning of last year I lost another patient. Another young woman. Her name was Clara Beaton and she took an overdose. That’s all. It may be nothing. I can’t recall the details, but you might want to look at it.’

  ‘I’ll do that. Thank you.’

  ‘I can assure you,’ she said, as though there was some doubt, ‘I’m fully committed to helping our young people. No parent should have to mourn a child.’

  She took a look at her watch just overtly enough to telegraph her message and Jude Satterthwaite, taking the hint, got to his feet and took his leave.

  When he’d gone she watched him disappear round the corner of the Market Square she stood there for a moment, watching the pigeons clattering about on the rooftops, and thinking about Nick.

  Ten

  ‘I’m sorry about this evening,’ Jude said as he and Ashleigh trooped round the M&S food hall together. Their meeting was prearranged, even though they were filling separate baskets. They’d planned on spending the evening together but a text from Mikey had popped up in Jude’s messages just as he was leaving Vanessa Wood’s office, suggesting they meet for a drink. Even without such unexpected enthusiasm, this kind of opportunity came too rarely to be ignored; with some reluctance from both, their date had been pushed back to another day, or another.

  Understanding, or so Jude hoped, that Mikey had to be his priority, Ashleigh appeared sanguine about the cancellation. ‘Can’t be helped.’ She hauled down a bag of stir-fry mix and tossed it on top of the fruit and veg in the bottom of her basket. ‘It’ll make a nice change to cancel something else to meet him, rather than cancelling meeting him because of work.’

  Evenings with Mikey were rare enough, and Jude did cancel them too often. He’d still have preferred to spend the time with Ashleigh. ‘You know I wouldn’t cancel—’

  ‘— if you didn’t think it as important. I know. But it’s not like you to be so worried about him.’

  ‘I worry about him all the time.’

  ‘Yes, but for other reasons. He’s not the type to harm himself.’

  Jude considered, briefly. Ashleigh had met Mikey only a couple of times but she was rarely wrong about people and that gave him some encouragement. Mikey’s issues were his casual attitude to life in general, his broken-down relationship with his father, and his inability to find anything more remunerative than bar work to keep him going. That offered a degree of reassurance. On the other hand, there had been nothing to suggest that two of the three suicides had any intention of taking their own lives. And now Vanessa had thrown another spanner in the works, another suicide, potentially linked. ‘I don’t talk to hi
m often enough to know what he thinks about a whole shedload of stuff.’ All the important things. When in the mood Mikey would chatter on about football and music and the local gossip, in which he professed no interest yet had the knack of acquiring and remembering with ease, but he never talked about anything that mattered. When pressed, he became as surly and reluctant as a teenager.

  Ashleigh stopped in the middle of the veg aisle and looked at him. ‘Okay. I don’t have kids or a kid brother, but I think I understand. This has really got to you—’

  ‘No more than anyone else.’ Often Ashleigh’s intuitive reading of his mind amused him, but at that moment she’d fingered his weak spot. He tossed a packet of tenderstem broccoli into his basket and moved on.

  ‘That’s rather my point. It’s getting to everyone. We need to keep it in proportion, because that’s how hysteria works. If it’s bugging you, the calmest person I know, it’s a measure of how much others are affected. We need to keep cool heads.’

  She had a point. There had been a couple — in their late forties, he guessed, the age group to have teenage children — sitting in the cafe and as he and Ashleigh had passed they’d overheard them talking about the latest goings on in Cave Wood. If those in charge couldn’t pretend to keep calm, how could anyone else? Nevertheless, something inside him tightened like a violin string slowly winding to a higher pitch. It was about risk. It was about chances you didn’t dare take and people you couldn’t afford to lose. ‘I’m perfectly cool.’

  ‘You think I believe that? Of course it’s worrying. Of course it’s stressful.’ She looked around and even though there was no-one within ten yards, she lowered her voice. ‘I know you think there may be something sinister about it, Jude, but even if that’s the case, it’s hardly likely to be targeted at Mikey.’

  Was that right? He thought for a moment of the enemies he’d acquired along the road to his present position. A lot of clever people were in prison and some of them had influential friends. Others had served their time but would never forgive. Inevitably his mind flipped to his former best friend, Adam Fleetwood — but surely Adam wouldn’t stoop so low as to draw so many people to their deaths for the sake of vengeance?