Finding Lucy

by Ernesto Lee

  Cath’s theory mirrors my own exactly, but we still don’t have anywhere near enough to pull them in or hold them.

  “You might be right, Cath, but any half-decent brief would have them out within hours. Your point about the motorbike would apply equally to Joanna and Eddie. There has to be somebody else involved.”

  “So, what then? We just wait around until someone else gets killed? We have one person dead and one seriously injured and it’s still only ten in the morning, Sean. We have to do something.”

  Catherine is visibly upset, and I let her finish ranting before I speak.

  “We are going to do something, Cath. We are going to find out who did this, and we are going to put them away. That’s what we do, Cath. We put away the bad guys that think they have gotten away with their crimes. It’s been a bad day so far and it’s only going to get worse if we let it. Are you with me?”

  She wipes her eyes and composes herself.

  “Sorry, boss, seeing him like that was just a bit of a shock. What’s our next move?”

  “Don’t apologize, Cath. That’s not something that you can ever get used to seeing and I was hardly the model of composure myself when I saw Ben. The important thing is to focus now on the job at hand. Whether this is the PBs or someone else entirely, we have spooked them, and this is when they will be at their most dangerous. I’m going to call this in to Kevin Morgan. I need you to pull the footage from any traffic cameras in the area and find out who owns the bike. We need to know who was riding it.”

  Pleased to have something to focus on again, Cath regains her usual composure and leaves me to deliver the bad news to DCI Morgan.

  After two unsuccessful attempts to call him, I send a message asking him to call me back urgently. Two minutes later my phone rings and his number appears on the screen.

  “Sorry, Sean, I was on the other line to the Chief Constable of Lincolnshire. I was explaining to him why a young boy was shot in the back on his patch this morning. He’s calm enough for now, but please tell me you have the shooter in custody.”

  “Actually, sir, things just got a whole lot worse. The priest is dead.”

  There is a short but noticeable pause before Morgan replies.

  “Christ almighty, son! Please tell me it wasn’t our boys that killed him? What the hell is going on up there?”

  “He was already dead when we got here, sir,” I reply. “The armed response boys have assumed that it was a suicide after this morning’s attack. That’s rubbish, though.”

  Morgan listens as I explain about the dirt-bike, the assumed cross-country ride and the shotgun.

  “It just doesn’t stack up, sir. We were due to meet with Father Beale today, but other than DC Swain arranging the meeting, he had no other information on the case or our likely whereabouts today.”

  “You’re right, Sean, this completely stinks and your theory about Edward Wells and Joanna being the only ones that could possibly benefit from his death makes sense. Are they the only remaining original suspects?”

  “Just Eddie, Joanna and Sir David himself – but wasn’t it him that requested the case to be reopened?”

  “Yes, you’re right. What about the other boy, the one that went missing? Paul something. What was his name?”

  “You mean Paul Oliver, sir. There has been no trace of him for more than forty years. Unlikely that he would have reason to show up to cover his tracks after all this time.”

  I of course know already who killed Lucy and it wasn’t Paul Oliver. I still need to play the game, though, with Catherine and DCI Morgan. I need the body if I am to have any hope of turning Eddie.

  “I think Paul Oliver is a dead-end, sir. If we can find Lucy’s body or find out who killed the priest, we might have a fighting chance of closing this case. DC Swain is checking the traffic cams to see what they have picked up. Is there any update on the search team?”

  Morgan asks me to wait and I can hear him talking on his office phone. Less than thirty seconds later he confirms that the team has been approved.

  “They should be on location by 2 pm today. I hope to God that you are right about the body being there. The Home Secretary has been chasing me for some good news. After this morning, we need a major victory. Do you need any more bodies on the ground? I can spare DC Walker for a few days if you need him, just say the word.”

  The last thing I need is for another copper to babysit, so I politely decline and after promising to call him back as soon as there are any new developments, I hang up and make my way back to the car to meet Catherine.

  Her notebook is resting on the roof of the car and she is listening to her phone and making notes. The dirt-bike registration is written at the top of the open page and the word ‘stolen’ has been underlined. When Cath finishes her call I already know what is coming.

  “It’s a dead end on the bike, unfortunately. The owner reported it missing from an address in Spalding yesterday evening. Local PD have confirmed that the owner was at work when it was taken.”

  “What about the traffic cameras?” I ask her. “Did they pick up the bike leaving or coming back to the church?”

  “The server for Beckhampton is in Spalding, boss. I’ve already put in a call, but it might be worth us heading there to shake them up a bit.”

  I check my watch, which is showing just after ten-thirty and then I ask Catherine if she would mind driving again.

  “Spalding, boss?”

  “Yep, you can drop me off at Spalding General Hospital. I need to check on Ben and speak to Maria, if she is already there. While I’m there you can check out those traffic cameras.”

  As we drive, I update Cath on my last call to DCI Morgan.

  “You were right about the urgency of finding Lucy’s body, Cath. In addition to the Home Secretary, Morgan also now has the Chief Constable of Lincolnshire on his case. We need a result and fast.”

  Cath nods her agreement and then outlines her own theory to me.

  “While I was waiting for the information on the dirt-bike, I was giving some thought to everything that has happened today and your comment about Eddie and Joanna being the only ones with anything to gain from the death of the priest. We both know that he didn’t kill himself and it is unlikely that it was him that took a potshot at you in the forest.”

  “Okay, go on, Cath. Where are you going with this?” I ask her.

  “It has to be Eddie and Joanna. Despite her age, Joanna is as smart as they come and, apart from them, Father Beale was the only other living original suspect, if we exclude Paul Oliver that is. The first time we met Joanna, she made it very clear that she was unhappy with her father’s decision to re-open the case. They might both be pensioners, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they setup the whole scenario to make it look like Father Beale was trying to cover his own tracks. It was never going to work, and we were never going to believe it, but people do desperate things when they think that they are cornered.”

  “So, let’s call their bluff, Cath.”

  “What do you mean?” she asks me.

  “We were meant to be visiting them at two this afternoon. After you drop me off, give them a call. Tell them that there has been a significant development in the case and that we won’t be needing to speak to them after all. Let them relax a bit.”

  Cath smiles at my suggestion and for the rest of the journey we discuss the possibility of the search team locating Lucy’s body. I’m certain that they will find it in the clearing, but I dampen my enthusiasm to stop Cath getting too suspicious.

  “If Eddie and Joanna are involved, then it’s the logical place to search. We won’t know, though, until the team start the search.

  “Okay, Cath, it looks like the hospital entrance is just up here on the right. You can drop me here. I’ll walk the rest of the way. I need to get some fresh air before I face Maria.”

  Cath wishes me luck and as she drives away, I take a deep breath before walking the last fifty feet to the car-park entrance. Spalding Gene
ral Hospital is a grand-looking four-story granite building dating back to the late Victorian period. After another pause to gather my thoughts, I cross the car park and head into the main reception.

  A young nurse with a tattoo of a dolphin visible on her neck directs me towards the Intensive Care Unit located on the second floor. If Maria left home as soon as Cath spoke to her this morning, then it is feasible that she will be here already and, as I step out of the lift, I am more nervous of seeing Maria than I was about seeing the Anti-corruption boys.

  Like all hospitals, the smell of antiseptic is heavy in the air, but in the ICU corridor the smell is almost overpowering. Maria is at the end of the corridor with two uniformed police officers looking through a window into one of the isolation rooms.

  When she sees me approaching, she immediately bursts into tears and I instinctively pull her close and try to reassure her.

  “He’s going to be fine, Maria. The wound looked a lot worse than it was. He’s a tough young man.”

  At my mention of the wound, one of the police officers asks me to identify myself.

  “And who would you be, sir?”

  I show him my badge and then I ask him to give me some time alone with Maria.

  “We’ll just be at the end of the corridor,” he replies. “Let us know if you need anything, Sergeant.”

  They both move away, and I take Maria towards the window. Ben is sedated and there is a nurse monitoring a blood transfusion drip in his arm. I ask Maria if a doctor has spoken with her yet.

  “He just left, Sean. He spoke to me just before you got here. They managed to get most of the pellets out of his shoulder and back. He came out of surgery around an hour ago, but they want to keep him under for a while longer and get some more blood into him.”

  “But he is going to be okay?” I ask her.

  “Yes, the doctor is confident that he will make a full recovery.”

  As she says this, Maria breaks down again and then asks me what Ben was doing in Lincolnshire.

  “I don’t understand, Sean. What was he doing here and how did he know where you and Catherine were going to be?”

  I tell her exactly what I told Catherine, but she is not convinced and presses the issue.

  “He worships you, Sean. It’s all I can do to shut him up about you. Did you know that he is thinking about dropping out of university and joining the police?”

  I had no idea about that, and my look answers the question.

  “Well he is. He’s been talking about that since you helped us. Please tell me that you had nothing to do with him being here and that you haven’t been encouraging him to drop out of his journalism course?”

  Seeing my son in an intensive care bed and seeing his mother pleading for the truth sends my guilt levels racing towards maximum. I had tried to stop Ben following me, but I should have tried harder. The situation could have been a lot worse and we could be standing in a mortuary now instead of a hospital. But mortuary or not, it is my fault. I swear to her that I had nothing to do with Ben being here and I also promise to convince him to stick with journalism.

  “I have to go now, Maria. But please call if you need anything. I promise, as soon as this is over I will come and see you both.”

  “Okay, thank you, Sean. When Ben wakes up, I will let him know that you were here. It will mean a lot to him.”

  I can’t leave the hospital quickly enough and as soon as I am outside I take off my jacket and suck in the fresh air. My shirt is soaked in perspiration, and I feel a cold shudder run through my body when I picture my son lying on the ground bleeding.

  A few days ago, this case was purely professional, but now it is most definitely personal. Eddie Wells and Joanna Partington-Brown are firmly in my sights, but we need to find the body if we are going to have any hope of getting them to talk. I call Cath and ask her to pick me up as soon as she is done with the traffic cams.

  When she does finally arrive, and I join her in the car, her face is giving nothing away and quite rightly she asks me about Ben and Maria before telling me what she has found out.

  I quickly take her through my update and assure her that Ben will be fine and then I press her for her own news.

  “Do you want the good news or the bad news first, boss?”

  “Go on, start with the bad news,” I reply.

  “Okay, well there are eight traffic cameras that cover the roads around the church. The guys in the control center checked them all. They went back as far as five in the morning and right up to when we arrived on the scene. That motorbike never went in or out of the church during that time.”

  I had been banking on getting something from the cameras and with this disappointment I struggle to contain my frustration.

  “Shit! So, we have nothing. That bike didn’t just get in and out on a bloody magic carpet, Cath. Call the center and get them to check again. Tell them to widen the search if necessary. We need to know who was riding that bike.”

  Just like I did with her this morning, Cath wisely lets me finish my rant before speaking again.

  “I think we are going to be wasting our time, boss. I got a call from one of the forensics boys on my way back here. This was the good news I was referring to. Well, not so much good news, but news that backs up our own thoughts that it wasn’t a suicide.”

  “What are you talking about, Cath?”

  “I’m saying, we were right that he didn’t kill himself. It wasn’t the shotgun that killed him either. Forensics have a theory that he was already dead before the gun went in his mouth. As we know, most of the back of his head was taken off by the force of the blast, but they have identified an area of bruising at the base of his skull that is consistent with a blunt force trauma sufficient to kill. They think possibly that it could have come from a shovel or a steel pipe.”

  “So, someone bashed his head in and then staged the suicide. What about the bike, though? The engine was still warm. It had to have come from somewhere.”

  Cath refers to her notebook and then gives me another shocker.

  “Yep, that I haven’t figured out yet. It’s particularly puzzling when you consider that our priest had been dead for at least six hours by the time we got to him. The bike had to have been here all the time.”

  “What?” I exclaim. “That would put the time of death at around 3:30 am. We hadn’t even got to the forest at that stage. Christ, Cath, are you as confused as I am?”

  She nods her head and laughs.

  “Yes, the only thing I am sure of now is that the priest was murdered and that our posh friends were somehow involved. After that I have no idea. Where do we go from here, boss?”

  “Back to Tyevale,” I reply. “I need you to get back out to Meadow Farm and meet the search team.

  See if you can get a room in the guest house for the night so that you can freshen up and get something to eat. It might be a long search.”

  “And what about you, boss?”

  “Me, Cath? I’m going to have a bit of a poke around at Colevale to see what I can turn up. I want to see if I can find out anything more about the death of Joanna’s mother.”

  Cath looks concerned and asks me if it’s wise to go back to Colevale before we have some concrete evidence.

  “I called them to let them know that we wouldn’t need to see them today and Joanna seemed to be genuinely relieved. Why risk alerting her to the fact that we are on to them again?”

  She is right to be concerned, but I have no intention of going to Colevale 2018. I promise to be careful and because she has been doing all the driving so far, I offer to drive, and she gladly swaps seats with me.

  We separate in the hotel reception and while Cath heads to her room to pick up some fresh clothes for an overnight stay in the guest house, I head out to the high street to find an off-licence. Ten minutes later, I return to the hotel with a liter of Jameson Whisky and I’m pleased to see that Cath’s car has already gone.

  Back in my room, I pour myself a large whis
ky and then I search online for pictures of Colevale Manor in the 1970s. Travelling in the afternoon with Catherine less than fifteen minutes away is high risk, but after everything that has happened today, it is clear that Joanna and Eddie will do whatever it takes to keep us off their scent.

  I know with one hundred percent certainty that they were involved in the death of Lucy and that in all probability they killed Father Beale, but we still don’t have any evidence that would justify pulling them in for questioning.

  I’m confident that the search team will locate Lucy’s body on Eddie’s land. If so, this will give us enough grounds to bring Eddie in for questioning. But I am also determined to find out what happened to Beatrice Partington-Brown. Her unexplained illness just doesn’t fly with me and with Cath busy at the search site, this is the ideal opportunity for me to have a dig around.

  At just after four, I change into my seventies suit and shoes and with over a quarter of the whisky gone, I take a last look at the pictures of Colevale Manor on my phone and then lie down on my bed to chant my way back to January of 1974.

  The Past – Saturday, 12th January, 1974

  I’m surrounded by dense woodland and for a few moments I think that I may have made a mistake and taken myself back to Meadow Farm. As I turn, though, I am relieved to see the Manor House standing proud through a gap in the trees. The sun is shining, but the frost underfoot and my icy breath reminds me that this is the middle of winter. With hindsight, an overcoat would have been a good idea and as a gust of icy wind sends a shiver down my spine, I turn up the collar on my jacket to keep out the chill that is already creeping in around my neck.

  It’s just after eleven in the morning and from the edge of the woods, I patiently watch the comings and goings at the house and look for an opportunity to get inside. There is no sign of Joanna, Sir David, or Eddie, but over the course of twenty minutes, I do count at least seven others entering and leaving by the back door.