“Time of death?”
“Good question. The body will have cooled at an accelerated rate due to the cold water. I’d hazard a guess that he’s been dead for at least twelve hours, but no more than twenty-four.”
“And do you think that it is Curtis Kennedy?”
“It looks highly likely. There is a rather amateur tattoo on his neck, looks like an attempt at some kind of a cannabis leaf.”
“Yes, that’s Kennedy,” said Saunders. He’d seen the crude tattoo on the side-mugshot from Kennedy’s last arrest.
Miller was confused. He started thinking fast. After a moment, he spoke, it sounded like he was thinking out loud.
“Right, so whatever he was up to in Glossop last night, he’s been with two accomplices. They’ve driven him up here, then somehow tricked him into getting into the suitcase, chucked him in here. Then what? There were road-blocks all over this area last night.”
“Two people in a car, they must have gone through the Sheffield side of the road-block.”
“Yes,” said the Sheffield DCI, traffic are just compiling a database of all the vehicles we stopped and searched. “If they came through, we’ll have their vehicle details, along with the names and addresses of all occupants.”
“Brilliant. That’s brilliant.” Miller felt that this was a very positive development.
“Unless they’ve stayed put. They could have parked up for the night, and headed back towards Manchester after the dust had settled.” Suggested Saunders.
“Nah, doesn’t make sense. They wouldn’t have had a clue that we had road-blocks up. They couldn’t have had any idea. What’s he done wrong this lad, been spotted down some back alley and been chased off? No police force is going to chuck a road-block up for that, are they?”
“No, no. You’re right, yeah. Fair point. So, there’s a good chance they’ve been caught in one of the road-blocks, either here, or back in Glossop. That’s very positive.”
“Right. Can we have a look at the body?”
Miller and Saunders were led down to the stream. The sight which greeted them was extremely depressing. The dead body was still inside the bright orange suitcase, but the lid was completely open. The corpse had no skin left on its finger-tips, and most of its finger-nails were missing.
“These injuries were sustained trying to rip his way out of the suitcase. You can see the blood and tear marks here. See?” The DCI pointed at the distressing detail within the case, but looked remarkably unaffected by the disturbing scene which lay before him. Maybe he had got used to it, now, assumed Miller. The suitcase was a large, plastic one. It had a handle and a set of wheels on the bottom. It had been locked shut using two snap-shut combination locks, which had been ripped off by the hikers when they made the grisly discovery at this quiet beauty-spot.
“Why would they have an old, retro plastic suitcase with them? It’s not the kind of item that you carry around in your car, is it? This murder must have been planned.” Miller couldn’t make head-nor-tail of this sinister answer to the question of Curtis Kennedy’s whereabouts.
“My bet is that he knew too much about something. So that puts his connection to the DWP attacks back on the table.” Saunders looked away from the upsetting sight before him.
“Go on,” said Miller, intrigued to hear his DI’s assessment.
“We had him down as a coincidental by-stander. But maybe his presence in that ginnel was connected to the DWP worker’s house after all. Whoever is responsible for this has taken the suitcase with them. There’s absolutely no way they’ve nipped home for it, then driven through road-blocks, then convinced this poor bastard to get inside it. This had been planned, I’ll bet you a fiver.”
“God, you’re such a tight-wad Keith. A bloody fiver!”
Miller’s radio beeped. “Air Support to DCI Miller over.”
“Miller receiving, over.”
“We’re due to return to Manchester, we’re covering the Man City Arsenal fixture. Are you joining us, or making your own way back, over?”
Miller looked at Saunders, then across to his opposite number from the Sheffield force.
“Could do with getting back, to be honest…”
“You may as well. We’ll send you all the updates, once all the forensic examinations are completed here.”
“Where is the body going?”
“County morgue. The pathologist will need to do a thorough examination.” The DCI talked in a matter-of-fact way which sounded as though he was talking about something much less serious, like having his loft converted.
Miller pressed his radio. “This is Miller. We’re on our way, over.” He turned to the DCI. “Thanks very much for your cooperation. We need to get back and put Kennedy’s mum and sister in the picture before any of this hits the news.”
“No worries. I’ll send all of the necessary over in due course.”
“Cheers. As a matter of absolute urgency, can you find out if two black men were caught in the road-block last night? Double points if it was a black BMW.”
“I’ll get on to that right away.”
“Excellent. Alright, speak later.”
Miller and Saunders started jogging back towards India 99, but were visibly struggling to make progress the closer they got to the aircraft, as the force of the blades was pushing them back. Once they’d stiffened their legs and fought the giant fan which was trying to blow them back towards the crime scene, they jumped in the aircraft, fastened their safety belts, and India 99 began to take off.
“Right, I’d better do a list.” Said Miller, beginning to feel overwhelmed with the amount of tasks which would need completing now.
As the chopper began to elevate away from the site, Miller and Saunders literally got a bird’s eye view of how far the killers had pulled the suitcase.
“Jesus,” said Saunders. “It’s a hell of a distance they’ve pulled that suitcase.”
“Yeah, it must have been a drag.” Said Miller, completely without humour.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Miller and Saunders arrived back to the SCIU shortly after 3pm, and called an urgent team briefing for all of the officers working on the case. It took ten minutes to relay the facts that were known, starting with the doubts about Kennedy’s involvement, to the discovery of his body inside the locked suitcase, and all of the information that they had gathered about the dead person in between.
There was shock and disbelief at how cruelly and sadistically Kennedy’s life had been ended. There was disappointment that Miller and Saunders hadn’t shared their knowledge about Kennedy, particularly amongst the permanent SCIU officers, Rudovsky, Grant, Chapman, Kenyon and Worthington.
But most of all, there was a feeling of utter confusion in the incident room. This did not make any sense, and almost every aspect of the recent developments generated dozens upon dozens of unanswered questions.
“Now, I want you all to stop what you are doing, and I want this department to focus on gathering every detail we can about every car that was stopped last night, on both sides of the Pennines. DI Saunders and I are going to go up to Hattersley, to break the news to Mrs Kennedy, and we also need to arrange specially trained officers, along with transport for her to go and identify her lad’s remains. By the time we get back in this office, I need a map of the area on that wall, and I want visual details of all of the road-blocks, and with each of those road-block patrols, I want the details of every single vehicle and all of the occupants that were stopped and searched last night. Do we understand?”
“Yes, Sir.” There was plenty of gusto and enthusiasm in the voices of the officers.
“DC Rudovsky, I’m putting you in over-all command of this task. I will alert South Yorkshire police that you are the main contact, and I will apply as much pressure as I can to make sure those road-block details are sent over as a matter of the utmost urgency. In the meantime, you have the Manchester side to look at, and I’ll inform DCS Dixon to personally ensure that all of the information i
s supplied as soon as is physically possible. Okay, thanks guys. Oh, and just remember… I can pretty much guarantee that those car details will include the information that will lead us to the killers of Curtis Kennedy. Once we have that information, we will have a major piece of this puzzle, and the rest of the bits will come soon after.”
*****
The drive back up to Hattersley was quiet. Both Miller and Saunders were locked into their own thoughts. Both were dreading this visit, and not because of the piss stain on the settee. It was never a pleasant task to deliver the news that a loved-one was dead, but it was all the more unpleasant when the death was down to murder. But she didn’t need to know all of the grisly facts at this early stage. At least there was that.
Once they arrived at Sandybank Avenue, for their second visit within just a few hours, they both felt extremely tense and were eager to get this difficult task over with. They both got out of the car in silence, closed their car doors quietly, and walked respectfully up the steps towards Mrs Kennedy’s front door.
The CID knock was quieter this time. After a short delay, Mrs Kennedy appeared at the door. She looked surprised to find the two officers stood there again.
“Oh… for f…”
It seemed like she was about to start ranting at them, but it was clear that she quickly read the sombre looks on their faces.
“No… aw, no…”
“Mrs Kennedy, can we come inside please.”
Aw God, it’s not… you’re…”
“Can we come in?” Miller was using his nicest, most sympathetic voice.
“Is that the fucking dibble again?” shouted Madison, from upstairs. Her appalling manner really wasn’t appropriate, and Miller began to feel sorry for Mrs Kennedy, who was standing there, looking as though her shitty little world was falling apart.
“Come in.” She said, she swung the door open, and the DCI and DI were reintroduced to the odour of the Kennedy family’s squalid home.
“Please, Mrs Kennedy, take a seat.” Said Saunders, eager to assist his boss with this horrible job.
“Oh no, no, no no…” she said as she walked, dazed, to her seat in the living room.
“Madison, can you come down here a minute please?” Shouted Miller up the stairs, in as gentle a tone as he could muster.
It seemed that Madison had sensed the gravity of the situation too, as she appeared at the top of the stairs with a look of terror etched on her pallid, acne infected face. She began descending the stairs slowly, silently.
Once Curtis Kennedy’s nearest and dearest were sat down, Saunders took the lead.
“I’m afraid we have some very bad news about Curtis. We believe that he is dead.”
Those words were like bombs, and the explosive power of them ripped through the room.
Mrs Kennedy was weeping silently, her trembling had got a lot worse and she looked as though she was about ready to collapse with nervous exhaustion. Madison just stared directly ahead, and it was clear to the detectives that she didn’t quite have the emotional capacity to deal with this information.
“Police in Sheffield discovered a body this morning. We’ve been over, and had a look. I’m afraid it does look like it is Curtis.” Miller spoke softly and considerately.
“How?” asked Mrs Kennedy, staring down at the filthy carpet which had once been pink.
“We don’t know… it’s too early to…”
“But I mean, was it drugs, or booze or summat?”
“We aren’t exactly sure of all of the details, but the suspicion is that he was murdered.”
This detail opened the floodgates of emotion for the two Kennedy women. They both started crying and sobbing, Madison fell to her knees and shuffled across to her mother and they gripped one another tightly.
Saunders slipped through to the kitchen, to make them both a hot drink. He put the kettle on, but couldn’t find any brewing tackle. The tea-bag caddy had nothing in it and there was an empty sugar bag lay on its side on the kitchen work-top. Saunders looked in the cupboards, but they were bare. He walked back through to the living room, and shrugged at Miller as the two women continued to sob together.
They stayed silent for a while. The only sound in that sad place was the sobbing, and the kettle boiling.
Miller left it a little longer before he spoke.
“I’ve arranged for specially trained officers to support you. They’ll also drive you over to Sheffield, so that you can formally identify Curtis, when you feel up to it. They’ll be here in about ten minutes.”
This announcement caused a fresh wave of crying, wailing, sobbing and rocking.
“But one thing that I want you to know, is that I will catch the person who did this. You have my word on that.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
“Fucking hell. They don’t get any easier, do they?” asked Miller as Saunders reversed the car from its parking space, and pulled out of Sandybank Avenue.
“No. That was horrible. Couldn’t even make them a brew. They’ve got no stuff.”
“Shit. Is that what you were shrugging at?”
“Yes. It’s tragic.”
“Well find a shop, we’ll have to get them a box of tea-bags.”
Saunders and Miller returned to the address with a bag of tea-bags, coffee, milk and sugar, and a couple of packets of biscuits. Fortunately, the door was answered by one of the police officers who were now in charge of the Kennedy’s welfare.
“Oh, right, cheers,” she whispered to Saunders as he handed the carrier-bag over.
Saunders returned to the car and started the engine. Miller was on the phone. Within a few minutes, they were on the motorway, and headed back towards Manchester at 100mph.
*****
“Okay everybody, what have we got?” shouted Miller as he and Saunders entered the SCIU offices.
The team gathered around the incident room. The map that Miller had requested was on the wall, along with post-it notes situated at each of the road-block signs. Rudovsky stepped forward to present the team’s findings.
Miller was impressed with how much had been achieved in the two hours that he and Saunders had been away.
“Sir, starting on the Manchester side of the Pass, we have identified that all roads in or out were locked down within eight minutes of the road-block instruction, which was issued at nine-forty pm. No traffic was allowed to enter the exclusion zone, the traffic lights just south of Mottram on the A57.”
Rudovsky pointed to the map. “This action restricted all vehicular access to Glossop, and all vehicles coming out of Glossop were checked. The same action was taken here, here, and here.” Rudovsky was pointing at other points on the map around Glossop, where other roads had been closed. “This was a very successful operation, and it resulted in a total of one hundred and fifty-nine vehicles being stopped, searched, and occupants details recorded.”
“Is that all?” Miller seemed surprised that this operation, which had been in place until dawn, had such a relatively small number of vehicles on such a busy route.
“Yes, Sir. I have queried the numbers. The reason I am told, is that the word had quickly got around Glossop, via Facebook etc, that the town was in lock down. As a result, people just cancelled their plans. Most of the vehicles were recorded in the first two hours. After that, there was practically no movement.”
“Just vital journeys?” asked Miller.
“That’s right, Sir. People going to work on night-shifts, etc. Traffic from Manchester to Sheffield was re-directed through Tintwistle, and over the Woodhead Pass to Barnsley.”
“Okay, that’s good.”
“South Yorkshire’s operation took a little longer to set up, as their geographical logistics were a lot more challenging. But they are confident that from the time of Kennedy’s discovery in that back ginnel at nine-thirty, and the time that they had closed the A57 at their end at ten pm, it would have been impossible for any road-vehicle to make the journey and get through.”
“
So, we got a total lock-down?”
“Affirmative, Sir. However, there is a small window of opportunity that they could have escaped the Mottram road-block if they’d headed for Manchester.”
“But we know that they didn’t, because we have Kennedy’s body in a suitcase, here.” Miller tapped the map at Hollow Meadows.”
“That’s correct, Sir. So, we might well have the vehicle’s details in the two databases. We’re working through them now, eliminating the obvious choices.”
“And what is your elimination method?”
“We are concentrating on suspect vehicles only, Sir, for example families with kids present are being struck off, as are all of the pensioners and professional workers, such as teachers, nurses, police officers, etc.”
“Good. Good. Keep going. Excellent work DC Rudovsky. Well done everybody.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Miller didn’t know how to handle the press aspect regarding the brutal murder of Curtis Kennedy. He had half a mind to phone Detective Chief Superintendent Dixon, and pass the responsibility onto his boss. But something made him put it off. He wanted to chew this over for a few minutes, and make a decision after a bit of thinking time. He retreated to the relative peace and quiet of his office.
The SCIU floor was a hive of activity, as the detectives and support officers continued cross-referencing vehicles, names, addresses and PNC records for each of the vehicles which had slipped through Rudovsky’s first short-list. The short-list totalled 55 suspect vehicles from the Manchester side road-blocks, and 31 from the east, around Sheffield.
Saunders was sitting at his desk, and he looked as though the tiredness was catching up with him, having only managed to grab three and a half hours sleep.
“Hey!” said DC Helen Grant.
“Oh, hi, you okay?”
“Yes, it’s all getting a bit frantic now, isn’t it?”
The Final Cut Page 28
