Snow Kills

by RC Bridgestock

  ‘I’m sure you did the best you could with the technology you had back then, Barry. Don’t be too hard on yourself. And Tina’s disappearance might not even be connected to Kayleigh, so I don’t want you getting your hopes up, but we will revisit the investigation to see if there is any similarities and if they are connected or not.’

  Barry’s eyes lit up. ‘But you suspect the worst don’t you? Just like I did, don’t you?’ he said.

  ‘The facts speak for themselves, unfortunately. She’s a young girl, pretty, supposedly street wise, but she suddenly goes missing in atrocious weather, body not found. You of all people know the types of predators out there, somebody will highly likely have taken advantage of her situation – and unfortunately, if they have, she’s become their victim. I just hope we get some leads, otherwise some detective might be coming to see me in a few years time to see what I know, as I have with you.’

  ‘I hope you solve it Dylan, not just for her family but, selfishly, for me too... If we get a result then I’ll go back into my garden in peace this year,’ he said, pointing towards his sanctuary.

  ‘Like I said, Kayleigh’s disappearance may have nothing to do with Tina Walker’s but if it has we’ll do our damnedest to find the connection. You obviously have green fingers. It’s like a park out there,’ Dylan said looking out to the garden.

  ‘Ah, not at this time of year but it’s good exercise, so the wife tells me,’ he said with a nod of his head in her direction. ‘You can see the results almost instantly when you do a bit of work out there – and that’s what I like these days.’

  ‘I don’t get much time for gardening,’ said Dylan, thoughtfully. ‘It’s like everything else, left to Jen, especially when a job’s running.’

  ‘Neither did I back then, but God willing you will. The years fly past. Before you know it your thirty years will have gone too and you can pick up the threads of your home life, if you’ve still got one that is. There were many officers I worked with who didn’t see their retirement or hang onto their marriages or children. I was lucky,’ he said, smiling in Trish’s direction. ‘So it’s zero tolerance for the weeds now, but just like criminals they keep on coming back generation after generation,’ he laughed.

  As Dylan drove back to the station with Barry Sharpe’s files safely locked in the boot of his car, he thought how nice it was to see one of his forerunners enjoying their well-earned retirement. He had known a hell of a lot of colleagues who had never made it there too, for one reason or another. His phone rang and he pulled into a lay-by to answer it.

  ‘Avril Summerfield-Preston,’ Beaky said in a cool, curt voice. ‘Divisional Administrator, Harrowfield.’

  Dylan smiled. ‘l know who you are Avril. You don’t have to tell me every time you ring me.’

  ‘I like to keep it professional, Detective Inspector Dylan. I’m ringing to tell you that from tomorrow you’ll be sharing the CID office with a DI Turner and his officers from Hampshire Constabulary who are coming up to do some investigations on a cold case enquiry.’

  ‘And where may I ask are they going to sit, on our bloody knees?’ Dylan snapped. His brows furrowed.

  ‘There is no margin for discussion. Chief Superintendent Hugo-Watkins says... Well, let’s just say the decision has been made.’

  ‘I might have known. Does that pompous, supercilious git actually know how many people work out our office already? Oh no, silly me, how could he, he doesn’t honour the likes of us mere mortals with his bloody presence.’ Dylan cut the call without saying goodbye, threw his head back on the headrest, closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. He texted Jen, ‘I need some fresh air – how about a bit of pram pushing? Ten minutes suit you?’

  ‘We’ll be ready and waiting,’ she texted back immediately. Dylan taking time out, there must be something wrong, she thought as she dressed Maisy to go out in the cold afternoon sun. ‘One thing for sure my lovely girl, we are about to find out what’s up,’ she said to Maisy as she sat the baby in the pram. Maisy had become unusually calm over the past few days, instead of needing Jen’s attention for most of every waking hour, she was now beginning to amuse herself for short periods.

  Jen watched Dylan as he got out of the car in the driveway from the living room window, his face was like thunder.

  Maisy squealed with delight as her daddy walked in the door and Jen saw his face instantly soften. He crept across the room grinning and bent down, waving his fingers in front of her. She threw her teddy out of the pram and Dylan picked it up. Handing it back to her, he kissed the top of her head and stood up. Instantly she threw the teddy out again and Dylan bent down to pick it up once more.

  ‘I’ll have that, young lady,’ Jen said, seizing the toy. ‘Otherwise we’ll be here all day playing that little game.’ Maisy howled. Dylan put his finger in the palm of her hand and she grasped it tightly, still whimpering miserably. He took hold of the pram and negotiated it expertly out of the door. Maisy’s face was solemn for a minute or two, but as soon as they stepped outside Dylan was rewarded with a smile. Max stood beside the pram, panting with excitement. In silence they strolled towards Sibden Park. Jen hooked up to Dylan’s arm, reaching down intermittently to stop and throw a stick for Max to fetch. Dylan took a few deep breaths and turned to look at his wife. ‘I’ve been to see a retired SIO this morning about another girl who went missing in the same area twenty years ago.’

  ‘You think it may be linked?’

  ‘Well, Tina Walker did disappear a long time ago...,’ he said. ‘Albeit it was in the same weather conditions... but my gut instinct is saying where the hell has the perpetrator been, if it is the same person or persons, since? Surely whoever abducted Tina Walker, if that is what happened to her, hasn’t waited twenty years to do it again?’

  ‘You’d better get it sorted mister. I don’t want any detectives coming around pestering us when you’ve retired. I want us to leave all this well and truly behind us.’

  ‘Me too Jen, me too,’ he nodded.

  ‘Something he said made you cross?’

  Dylan smiled. ‘You know me too well my girl,’ he said. ‘Hell no! It’s Hugo...’

  ‘Watkins,’ she smiled knowingly.

  ‘The hierarchy as usual,’ Dylan said with a sigh. ‘He’s only told a group of officers from Hampshire that they can use our office while they’re up here on a cold case enquiry.’

  ‘Oh,’ she grimaced. ‘Linked?’

  ‘Don’t know anything else yet. I put the phone down on Beaky.’

  ‘Ouch. You didn’t! Don’t go upsetting her. I need her to agree to my back to work terms or my career-break...’ she smiled apprehensively.

  ‘Well... She rubs me up the wrong way. What you thinking about returning?’

  ‘Arh, I’m just thinking about it...’ she said thoughtfully. ‘You’re not going to get into trouble for walking out with us are you?’ Jen said reaching forward to pull Maisy’s knitted bonnet away from her eyes.

  ‘Well let’s see, I have my mobile with me. If anyone wants me, they can get hold of me. I’m the boss. So, if I don’t tell myself off, then I guess I’m okay,’ he said, forcing a smile. ‘But there again, if it had been someone else’s wife I was with, pushing a pram, then I guess I’d be in trouble, right?’

  ‘No, you’d be in hospital and I’d be at the police station admitting the assault.’

  ‘That’s one thing you’ll never have to worry about with me, Jen. There is only room for two girls in my life and I’m with them,’ he said, smiling lovingly down at Maisy, who was fast asleep, her pretty little head tilted with her chin upon her chest.

  ‘She’s her father’s daughter,’ Jen said, surveying Maisy closely.

  ‘Because she’s cute with kissable lips?’ he gave an almost noiseless laugh.

  ‘No because she snores and can fall asleep on a washing line, as my mum used to say.’ Jen smiled up into his eyes and kissed him on the lips.

  Dylan felt much better as he strolled back into the CID office
an hour later. Looking around, he could see that Avril had already had desks moved and placed in a square, to accommodate their visitors. Trust her to do it while he was out.

  ‘Who was about on the evening of White Wednesday, DC Granger? Have all the nearby houses been checked, DC Wormald?’ he said with renewed vigour. The officers didn’t look up from their work. ‘Ned, Andy, you listening to me?’ Dylan shouted. ‘Well?’

  ‘A lady phoned the office this morning in response to the appeal saying that her and her husband had abandoned their vehicle in the same area that night. The only people they saw were two young lads who were drinking and being quite loud and boisterous. Oh, and a person was seen carrying hot drinks to stranded drivers. The aforementioned lady has been given priority to be seen and the person seen carrying the hot drinks has yet to be found,’ said Vicky.

  ‘Make sure it’s recorded on the HOLMES computer system. The amount of information coming in is becoming too much for paper records and we need it on the system for quick cross-referencing. Arrange for the file of Tina Walker to be typed on as a linked category to show the extent of background research at this time, but also so it is immediately retrievable. It’s in my office and I’ve picked up retired Detective Superintendent Barry Sharpe’s paperwork this morning that I want going through. It’s only a matter of time before Kayleigh’s body turns up,’ said Dylan.

  ‘That’s what it is...’ said Vicky looking over Dylan’s shoulder into his office that was stacked high with boxes. ‘Shall I get it removed now?’

  ‘Bloody hell! They’ve found more?’

  ‘Yes, Trevor put the last of the boxes on your desk and chair this morning, there was nowhere else to put them.’

  ‘Barry Sharpe mentioned another misper from just over the border too, about the same time as Tina Walker went missing, but it was thought she might have moved on, part of the travelling fraternity, he said. Maybe worth getting hold of that information from GMP?’

  ‘There’s still a remote chance she’ll turn up alive, isn’t there sir?’ said Jackie.

  ‘As much as Ned or Andy over there going out today and finding rocking horse shit, there is,’ said Vicky.

  ‘Vicky...’ scolded Dylan.

  Chapter 12

  Dylan appealed on the radio and in all the local newspapers, asking anyone who had been good Samaritans on the evening of White Wednesday and particularly those who took hot drinks to stranded drivers in the Manchester Road area, to contact Harrowfield Police Station. He also called for the two young men who were seen on that same evening, on Manchester Road in the vicinity of the nearest houses to where Kayleigh’s car was found, who he believed were drinking, to come forward. He stressed it was to eliminate people seen in the area, so that the team working on the case could piece together the last sighting of Kayleigh Harwood. He also requested that anyone who had not come forward before, for whatever reason, to do so now as their information might just be the piece missing in the jigsaw.

  He kept returning to the surrounding area and the houses nearest to where her car had been parked and his old motto of ‘clear the ground beneath your feet’, kept going round and round in his head.

  ‘Our initial focus must be on the nearby houses, their occupants and outbuildings,’ Dylan told the assembled group at the later pre-arranged briefing, ‘to see if anyone saw Kayleigh on that night, or indeed anything untoward. The person who was out offering drinks to the stranded can’t live far away. Now we’ve found a boot and a coat identical to those worn by her nearby, I want local premises thoroughly searched, including attics, garages, sheds, in fact anywhere that a body could be hidden. A body can be located in the smallest of spaces. Bodies, and living people, have been discovered inside hollowed out settees, under beds, in cupboards, suitcases, even animal cages. Nothing must be overlooked on this search.’

  ‘The nearest house to where Kayleigh parked her car – who lives there, do we know?’

  PC Alan Hughes raised his hand, ‘I made initial enquiries there. The house is called Ivy Cottage. The owner is an old lady who lives there alone. You’ve gotta feel sorry for them, haven’t you, stuck up there in the middle of nowhere in that weather? I didn’t look around the property, I wasn’t told to check it out at that point. My instruction at the time was to seek information.’

  ‘That’s fine. Tomorrow it’s a priority – it’s the nearest house, so we search it.’

  The team was all ears.

  ‘I want her checking out, her home and any garage or outbuildings she may have. I want us to be absolutely sure Kayleigh wasn’t or isn’t there. I’ll arrange a search team as well as an interview team and then we move to the next house and the next until we get more information.’

  ‘I’m sure she’ll be glad of the company, boss,’ PC Alan Hughes said, with a curl of his lip and a shrug of his shoulders.

  ‘In the meantime...’ Dylan said irritably. ‘Vicky, can you do some in-depth research on her and the address and when we move to the next property I want the same doing again.’

  There was no good news for PC Jackie May. She had to return to uniform. Dylan tried to keep her but he lost the argument with her uniform Inspector as they were short staffed on the night shift.

  ‘Even if you had a body and it was a murder investigation, I couldn’t release her to you, Dylan. You know what it’s like for Christ’s sake, I’m below our minimum number of personnel for patrol with courses, PSU commitments, holidays and sickness as it is,’ Inspector Mark Baggs said, genuinely upset. ‘You can have her back as soon as I can manage without her, I promise.’

  Dylan didn’t push the matter with him.

  ‘It would have been good experience working with CID throughout the enquiry, Jackie,’ Dylan said. ‘But Mark has promised me you can come back as soon as he can release you,’ he told the very disappointed officer at the debrief. ‘Moving on, the team from CID will consist of DC Vicky Hardacre, DC Andy Wormald and DC Duncan Granger for now. Ned, are you bloody listening, that’s you!’ he yelled. Ned jumped.

  ‘Yes sir,’ he said yawning, as he raised his head from where it had been laid on his folded arms upon his desk.

  ‘Keeping you up, are we?’ Dylan snapped. ‘The rolling house search programme, as I said, will take you from the abandoned car outwards. I’ll meet you at any property where you have any problems or concerns and we will be supported by a dedicated search team from OSU.’

  PS Clegg nodded, ‘Affirmative.’

  ‘I can’t stress enough the importance of this stage of the enquiry. Any house searched could be a potential murder scene and the body or evidence could still be there. Be aware that the perpetrator may have kept something of relevance as a trophy. If any of the properties have gardens or outbuildings, I repeat these MUST be searched thoroughly.’

  ‘I’ve already checked the Electoral Roll for Ivy Cottage, boss, and it shows an N Regan – and that’s confirmed with Council Tax and Benefits Office,’ Vicky said.

  Dylan acknowledged her comment. ‘I want recent prison releases and sex offenders registered in the area to become priority enquiries. What about the emergency service vehicles that were about that night and the council workers?’

  ‘Waiting for a definitive list from the council of ad-hoc workers that night, because basically anyone with a wagon, tractor etcetera in the area that can spread grit or move snow apparently was called upon,’ said Andy.

  ‘If they got cash in hand they aren’t gonna ’fess up are they?’ said Ned.

  ‘I’m not bothered about the back-handers. We just need details of who was out there on that night, especially in the vicinity of Manchester Road.’

  ‘I’ll tell them, sir,’ said Andy.

  Dylan arrived home on time and looked forward to savouring a quite night in. He opened the door to pandemonium.

  ‘She won’t stop crying,’ said a tearful Jen as she paced the floor, babe in arms. Dylan looked down at the screaming, red faced, drooling child who was gnawing ravenously at her chubby fis
t.

  Chapter 13

  It was 9 am and Vicky, Andy and Ned stood at the door of the first cottage, supported by a team of six operational support officers.

  ‘Not much of a gardener is she?’ Ned remarked, surveying the jungle surrounding the house. The path and flowerbeds were weedy and the lawn uncut, which could be seen even though the snow was still present. The gate needed a lick of paint, as did the lattice near the porch. As he touched it, a piece snapped off in his hand. He grimaced at Vicky and stood upright with hands behind his back, whistling quietly.

  A dog was making a persistent woof, woof, woof sound from inside but no one answered.

  Andy held the door knocker high and rapped loudly, and only then did the inner door slowly begin to open. The old lady hesitated, as if frightened of what might be there. She was dressed in baggy clothes and her thick head of hair was ruffled, resembling a mop.

  ‘It’s open.’ she yelled. ‘What do you want?’

  Vicky stepped forward, showed her warrant card and introduced herself and her companions.

  ‘Can we come in?’ she asked politely. ‘We are looking to speak to the householder.’

  ‘That’s me,’ she said, looking slightly confused.

  All three officers noticed the leg irons she wore. She walked a short distance ahead of them down the corridor with a limp and jerk of the opposite shoulder.

  ‘Mrs?’

  The old lady stopped and turned to face them.

  ‘Regan,’ she muttered, pulling her right sleeve up above her elbow.

  ‘Mrs Regan, we need to have a look around your property, inside and out I’m afraid,’ Vicky said, with a furrowed brow as she stared inquisitively at the old lady’s hairy arm.

  She turned to her companions and frowned. The three followed the woman into the lounge where a large open fire blazed. She picked up the poker and stabbed at the coals vigorously. The search team were outside waiting patiently for the instruction from the officers inside that they could begin.