“So, how is it?”
“What, in here? It’s not a holiday camp like they say in the papers. But it’s not a hell-hole either. People are alright if you’re alright with them.”
“Are you making friends and that?”
“Yes, a few. There’s a few other mums in here, so we have a bit in common like. It’s not bad.” Rachel was trying her best to sound optimistic and enthusiastic, but there was a deep sadness present in her voice.
“Well, we’ll soon have you out.”
Rachel’s eyes flicked up at Dan. She looked back down at the table, slowly. Her expression said a million words to Dan, and it took him by surprise.
“Your mum wants to get you out of here. We both do, Rachel.” Dan tapped Rachel’s hand, to try and get her to look up at him again. He just wanted her to shift her eyes away from the table-top.
“I know she does. But she’s stubborn. I’ve told her that she’s wasting her time. I did it, I’ve been found guilty. I’m on CCTV buying the flipping tape we used to wrap the carpet up, at the shop across the road from where we dumped the body. She has this weird habit of forgetting that rather incriminating detail, Dan. There’s nothing more to say on the matter.”
“You don’t mean that Rachel. You shouldn’t be in here. It’s a miscarriage of justice.” Dan’s words lacked passion, there was a real lack of belief in what he was saying, and he heard the insincerity himself. What was wrong with him? Nerves? Was he over-awed, being sat here in front of Rachel for the first time since she’d been arrested?
Shit, he was brilliant at this, whipping up support, forcing people to see what a massive cock-up the Neighbours From Hell trial had been. Dan coughed. He put his lack of confidence down to this weird reception from Rachel. He hadn’t expected hugs and kisses and a fly past by the Red Arrows. But he hadn’t anticipated such a luke-warm, nonchalant response either. Rachel was still looking down at the table top.
“Dan, listen. It’s really lovely of you, what you’re trying to do. But it’s not going to change a thing. Right? I keep trying to get through to my mum about it. No matter how hard you are trying, and I know you are – please don’t think I’m being ungrateful. I’m really not. But you’re pushing against a door that isn’t going to open.”
Now it was Dan who was looking down at the table-top. Rachel had lifted her head, and was looking directly at him. He looked a bit sad, or was he annoyed? She couldn’t be sure. She wasn’t really that bothered either way. She just wanted people to get the message.
“Rachel, it’s not fair that you’re in here…”
“I know its not. Dan, I know it’s not fair, it’s a nightmare. And it’s not fair that some kids are born without legs, and that half of the world’s population is starving and dying while the other half is fat and diabetic. It’s not fair that some people are good looking and others are absolutely gopping.” Rachel smiled, and Dan saw a little glimpse of the old, happy-go-lucky young woman, just for a split second.
Dan looked a bit confused. He didn’t understand where all this was going, and it all sounded so rehearsed and lyrical, as though Rachel had said this ten thousand times before, to ten thousand other people. Rachel could see that Dan hadn’t really got the point that she was trying to make.
“Look, it’s not fair. I agree with you. But it’s happened, and it’s my own stupid fault. If I’d just rung an ambulance, and told the police when it happened, then I’d have been fine. Manslaughter, suspended sentence, a move to a different town and start again. But I didn’t do that did I? I panicked, lost the plot! I was scared we’d lose the house. I don’t know… I’m a fucking idiot! And now I’m in here, paying for my mistake. Now if I can accept it, and get on with it, why can’t mum? And why can’t you?”
“I’ve left my job with the council, you know.”
“I know. Mum said. Like I say Dan, you’re an absolute legend. You’re a brilliant man, and I really appreciate your support and all of your hard work. I thought the world of you anyway, before all this.”
“But…” Dan had a snappy tone. Rachel ignored it and went back to doodling with her finger. “Do you know that Tania has bought a pad in Portugal?”
“What? Seriously” Rachel glanced up at Dan. She didn’t look as though she knew that the silent partner in all of this, Tania Thompson, had jetted off to a place in the sun, in a cash-for-silence deal. “Fucking hell.”
“Suzanne has given her enough money to start again. She’s fired Kev off – he’s living in a flat on Salford Precinct. Talk about a stitch up! Suzanne and Tania must be laughing their heads off, while you’re in here.”
Rachel turned her head towards the bars on the windows and huffed loudly. Dan couldn’t work out if it was anger or frustration. Rachel went back to drawing an invisible shape on the tabletop while other prisoners laughed and joked and talked loudly and excitedly with their visitors all around.
“I can’t see how that’s going to change anything.”
“You’re not annoyed? You’re not angry? Fuc… for God’s sake Rachel! Can’t you see…?”
“See what Dan? See that I’m a fucking knob head? See that I’ve completely wrecked my whole life? Fucked my kid’s lives up? I’ve ruined everything. Jesus, get with it Dan! I don’t need a lecture! What is your game, mate? Come in here and remind me of how much I fucked up? Remind me of the misery I’ve caused my kids, and my mum, and Mick? Seriously mate – have a fucking word with yourself!”
“I have had a word with myself. That’s why I’m here. I know how we can sort this. I know how we can get justice.”
Rachel just stared down at her finger, looking more like a stroppy teenager than a grown woman.
“You need to tell the truth about what happened. The whole truth. That Suzanne killed Graham, and you foolishly got involved, by accident. And it all got carried away.”
Rachel looked up again, and met Dan’s eyes for the first time in the visit. The two locked stares. “But that isn’t the truth.”
“Neither is what the jury thought happened?”
“Well, making up a total blag isn’t going to change anything Dan.”
“It could get you out. It could get Suzanne in here, where she belongs.”
“It’s not that bad. I’ll only be here a year then they’ll move me to an open prison. I’m learning to be a hair-dresser. I’m pretty good actually – the tutor reckons I’m a natural. I’ll be out in less than three years they reckon, and when I do, I’ll have a shit load of qualifications that I couldn’t have afforded on the outside. I’ll be able to set up as a mobile hair-dresser at first, thirty quid a night, cash-in-hand, and then, I’ll get a job in a salon somewhere. So, without trying to sound ungrateful, I just want you to leave me in peace. I just want to keep my head down, get through this, and then start again. I’ll be alright.”
“What about Suzanne?”
“What about her?”
“It’s not fair.”
“Dan, I couldn’t give a fuck. Suzanne didn’t kill Graham. I did. Just because she’s been a total bastard about it…”
“God, that’s an understatement Rachel! Lying to the court, claiming that she had the perfect marriage, that Graham never laid a finger on her. Saying that you lied about him beating her up, saying you drugged her! Fucking hell, I’d say that she was a bit more than a bastard!”
“Either way, it is what it is. I’m in here, she’s out there.”
“But we can get you out, Rachel! Can’t you see?”
“You can’t Dan! They’ve got all the evidence. Seriously now, I’m telling you, just leave it. I need to start fixing my head, I need to start coming to terms with everything – and this kind of… well meaning, it’s not helping, its making me ill. So please, no more. And tell my mum that I’ll not be sending her a visit until she accepts what I’ve said.”
Dan just stared across the room, over Rachel’s shoulder. He felt as though he was being fired. It was absurd, being fired from a campaign that he was running vol
untarily, and was costing him money, to try to get this woman out of jail. Dan looked stunned.
“Like I say, I really appreciate what you’ve done, what you’ve been trying to do for us. But it’s over Dan. And when I get out of here, I’ll come and find you, and I’ll thank you properly. But for now, for my own mental health, I just need to get on with my life inside here. I need to take my punishment, and then I’ll be ready to start again.” With that, Rachel stood. She reached across the table and stroked her hand on Dan’s shoulder. “Seeya. And thanks Dan.”
Rachel turned, and walked slowly across to the door that led back into the prison wing. Dan was completely
winded. He sat there, looking down at the floor, trying to muster the strength to stand. This was not how it was supposed to have gone. Dan thought that Rachel would be delighted to see him, that she would love his ideas and absolutely adore his passion and fizz for the “Free the Neighbours From Hell” campaign. He thought that Rachel would especially relish the idea of blaming it all on Suzanne. What he hadn’t anticipated at all, was Rachel telling him to fuck right off.
Dan stood, slowly and turned towards the visitor centre exit, looking like he’d lost a hundred pounds, and found a dead puppy.
Chapter Forty-Three
Regardless of all of the side-show drama that was taking place in the media, the police were still running a murder enquiry and Peter Meyer was the only person they wished to detain in relation to it. Like many of his police colleagues across the city, DCI Andrew Miller felt extremely unhappy. He genuinely didn’t want any further part in this unbelievable fiasco, and more to the point, he just wanted to be at home, in bed, trying to ward off this ever-darkening cloud of depression that was threatening to burst.
However, regardless of his demons and his personal thoughts on the matter, he had learnt in the past hour that Divisional CID departments had been suspended from co-ordinating their own searches for Meyer. Miller’s SCIU department had been assigned the job of bringing Peter Meyer in.
It was all down to a perfect storm of bad luck on Miller’s part.
With all of the public and the press attention being on Sergeant “Nightmare” and his disgraceful, disturbing, and ever expanding catalogue of sensational crimes, plus the fact that the Manchester Police no longer had a Chief Constable, the stench of chaos was absolutely overwhelming. Most alarmingly, from a professional point-of-view, there had been no structure to the search for Meyer. Until now, anyway.
The Deputy Chief had stepped up to the plate for an interim period. Acting Chief Constable Marie Clydesdale’s first task had been to personally order Miller to take over the reigns from all of the divisional CID departments, and with a completely unheard of promise of “unlimited resources,” to lead the search for Meyer.
The new police boss was well known to be a big fan of Miller’s work, and she probably thought that he would be delighted at being handed the high-profile gig.
Before Miller knew anything of it, his boss DCS Dixon breezed into the SCIU office and delivered the news, showing him the press release that had already been sent out to the media. The statement said that the MCP’s number one priority was to get Meyer in a police cell, where he can no longer pose a threat to himself, his family or to the general public. It went on to state that it was an obvious decision to select Miller, based on his history of working on such man-hunts, and because he was already the public’s “face” in the Sergeant Knight enquiry. It left Miller with very little option but to accept the responsibility, and to start hoping that he could help to bring Meyer in sooner, rather than later and put this extremely unusual investigation behind him once and for all.
The SCIU team were all sitting in the incident room, squinting at the computer projection on the wall. The large Google street map was glowing vividly as Miller went through the facts that he had. Miller recapped the night of activity in Ashton, explaining what was known of Meyer’s movements since leaving the decrepit old mill where he had left Knight to die a slow, painful death. Mller showed the team where Meyer had last been sighted on the huge map, and then explained the general modus operandi across the MCP force, plus the strategy of the neighbouring forces that surrounded Greater Manchester. The boundary police forces were still on high alert, looking out for Meyer. At least that was the way it had been put in the press release anyway.
“Okay, well, that’s the latest. So from all of that, what do we know about Mr Meyer’s whereabouts?” asked Miller, throwing it out to the rest of the team as he often did, to try and see who’d been paying attention for the past five minutes, and to get one of them to repeat the whole thing all over again, so the detectives heard it all twice. It was a method that worked, and kept the team alert for briefings. Predictably, it was DI Saunders who raised his hand and began summing up the details that Miller had just given. Saunders looked very enthusiastic about this inquiry, as he got to his feet in front of his colleagues. He stood beside the huge street map of Ashton that filled up the wall.
“We haven’t had a confirmed sighting, or any witness statements that tell us where he went after he’d sent the infamous tweet from outside McDonalds. We do know that he set off on foot, heading westerly in the direction of Manchester city centre.” Saunders wiped his hand along the wall, showing the team the way that Meyer had headed. “We have a number of CCTV sources that show him walking quite casually, as though he didn’t have a care in the world, which is completely at odds with the reality of what was actually going on in his life at that moment in time. He wanders out of Ashton town centre, down Stamford Street, along to West End, past the flats where his dad lives, past at least three police patrol vehicles that were driving around the area.”
“The officers involved will be suspended for that if it gets in the press,” said Rudovsky, to a chorus of cutting remarks.
“Gormless fuckers!” muttered Chapman.
“They can’t be expected to eat a doughnut and notice the city’s number one fugitive walking past!” added Worthington, slapping his leg and looking around his colleagues with a massive grin on his face. It felt good to take the piss out of uniform from time to time. This one was a classic, and it was destined to be used again and again.
Saunders put his finger to his lip and stared at the unruly detectives until it all went quiet again. Once they’d eventually shut up, he continued. “From the CCTV footage, we can see that he looks perfectly relaxed, and in some shots – quite contented. So I think we can be pretty sure he is suffering with an acute mental health condition – which might explain why there seems to be so little evidence for any logical decisions.”
“What do we mean by that, Sir?” asked DC Bill Chapman, unclear of the illogical decisions that Saunders was referencing. “I’m not following.”
“Well, let’s start with the last time anyone heard from him. The last communication he made was about as public as you can get. Anybody with an internet connection could see it. The tweet he sent from outside McDonalds tells us that he doesn’t care if he’s caught. It tells us that he’s pretty pleased with himself. You don’t post that kind of photograph on Twitter if you’re feeling ashamed, or confused, or embarrassed, or frightened about what you’ve done. Agreed?” Saunders was looking Bill in the eye, and the older man nodded to confirm that he was now following.
“So, why didn’t he just stay put? That would be the logical thing to do. That is what a winner would do. He’s achieved his goal. He’s then published the grisly details of his crime to the entire world. Now, as far as I’m concerned, it’s game over time at the moment he sends that tweet out. He’s won. Mission accomplished. Meyer has the victory! So why does he not just stay there and wait for a police officer to come along and pick him up? He could punch the air as they walk over to him!” Saunders was looking at all of the faces in the incident room. Their expressions ranged from intrigue to uncertainty.
“Because he doesn’t want to go to jail?” Suggested DC Mike Worthington.
“That’s my g
uess as well. But he doesn’t leave the area with much urgency either, does he?”
“What’s your point, Sir?” asked DC Peter Kenyon, starting to tire of this rendition of what Miller had just been over. “I’d rather we were out looking for him than sitting here chatting about it.”
“My point, Peter, is that I don’t believe that we are going to stumble across Peter Meyer in life. I think we are looking for a dead person.”
“Whoah, hold on, slow down, sun beam,” said Miller with his hand raised in the air, as he walked back into view of the SCIU team.
“What?” Saunders looked confused.
“I only asked for a re-cap. I didn’t ask for you to suggest new lines of enquiry that have absolutely no foundation, Keith.” Miller looked slightly pissed off.
“But he’s not alive. He’s not been in touch with anybody. He’s not turned his phone on. He’s not tried to contact his wife, not tried to apologise to his parents. He’s not texted a mate to claim victory.”
“Doesn’t mean he’s dead, though,” said Rudovsky, trying to be helpful to Saunders, by revving him up.
“Yes, I think we need to park this up, and continue looking at facts, rather than throwing up wild, speculative opinions based on absolutely nothing of substance.” Miller
really wasn’t in the mood for this completely unfounded suggestion.
“There’s plenty of substance! Okay, guys, just hear me out. Right?” Saunders was pleading and nobody had the heart to shout him down. The team nodded, and Miller reluctantly opened his hands, gesturing Saunders to continue, but with little enthusiasm.
“Just hear me out. You’ll thank me if I’m right, and I’ve saved you all hours of chasing somebody that isn’t even alive! I’m telling you, we’re looking for a stationary corpse rather than a moving body.”
ROAD TO NOWHERE : DCI MILLER 3: Another Manchester Crime Thriller With A Killer Twist Page 28
