by Mari Hannah
‘We’ve got to have it, Em. It’s not massive but it’s big enough. It’s well built. It has land. It’s in a fabulous location. And . . .’ He looked at her, really looked, like he wanted to get her into the sack. In that moment, time stood still. They were the only customers in the bar – the only couple on the planet – two people madly in love, eyes for each other and no one else. Robert lifted his glass and said the magic words: ‘The Stint is a great place to raise a family.’
She loved the name: The Stint.
He was right too, except the big family never materialized. For reasons that baffled them both, more so their GP, Emily conceived only the once. It wasn’t for lack of trying either. They didn’t need a baby-making excuse to rip each other’s clothes off. But neither did it matter all that much. If fate chose not to grant them a second child, then that was OK by them. They’d been blessed with a precious daughter.
‘She’s enough,’ Robert always said.
And she was.
44
KATE DANIELS WAS EXHAUSTED. It had been a bummer of a day so far. Hours and hours of purgatory: a suspect found, then lost; an argument with Jo; a bust up with Hank after he’d made his mouth go; an idiot lighting candles near her crime scene who turned out to be nothing more than a voyeur. Consequently, she had no enthusiasm for the briefing.
The squad looked jaded too, but as the meeting progressed it soon became apparent that things were about to get a whole lot worse. For starters: the pearls. During the day, Robson had discovered that Kate’s set, and those found on the first victim, were manufactured prior to the Coronation by a company that had ceased trading in the mid-seventies. That was bad news because the line of enquiry could go no further. Worrying too because whoever put them on the child had gone out of his way to recreate the exact same scenario with his second victim.
‘OK, it’s not the end of the world,’ Kate said. ‘But if we can’t find the supplier, then the house-to-house team needed to get a wriggle on with that list of recipients I asked for. Anyone know how they’re doing?’
No one spoke.
A phone bleeped. Hank went for his pocket. ‘I’ll have a word with Yates first thing in the morning,’ he said, before accessing the message that had just come in.
‘Where are we with the other set of pearls?’ asked the DCI.
Brown had an apology written all over his face as he raised a hand at the back. A serial note-taker, he flipped a few pages before answering her question. ‘They’re bog standard, boss. Cheap, mass-produced rubbish manufactured in the States. They’re sold in several chain stores and in vending machines too. Y’know, where you put money in and get a toy inside a plastic ball? They’re still current and available over the Internet. I talked to one of the main suppliers. They’re shipped to Europe and right across the USA, distributed to craft shops and toyshops all over the knot end. Chances are we’ll never trace them.’
Another dead end.
‘Well, well!’ Hank raised his eyes from his phone, specifically from his inbox. An email marked urgent had come in from the forensic science lab. ‘It seems the pearls aren’t the only thing our victims had in common.’
Everyone looked at him.
He held the phone up. ‘Report from Matt West. The shoes have now been forensically examined. They’re also old and bore the same manufacturing label.’ He caught Kate’s eye. ‘But don’t get too excited. You ever heard of Philby & Son on Prudhoe Street?’
‘Where the hell’s Prudhoe Street?’ Carmichael asked.
‘Before your time, Lisa,’ an old detective at the back said. ‘It was pulled down years ago. Philby & Sons was a cheap shop, bit like Farnon’s, another establishment you young ’uns won’t have heard of. It was in a grid of streets near the Haymarket bus station. The arse end of Eldon Square Shopping Centre.’
‘So where does that take us?’ Kate was looking at Hank now. ‘Can we get a familial DNA match from shed skin in the shoes?’
He shook his head. ‘Apparently not.’
Kate’s shoulders dropped. Matt West was an expert in his field. If it had been remotely possible to extract a sample of DNA she knew he would have. ‘So how does it help us?’ she asked.
‘The shoes were well worn. And here’s the thing . . .’ Hank glanced at his email. ‘The wear pattern was almost identical. The scientists are sticking their necks out here, but they say, quote: they belonged to the same person in all probability. Both were worn down on the left inner heel.’
‘Mother of the offender?’ Kate suggested.
‘That would be my guess.’
‘Sounds like Jo’s theory was right,’ DS Robson said.
‘Looks that way. What else we got?’
Kate had just come from a meeting with Abbey Hunt. The anthropologist had completed her tests and was now certain that the years she’d given them to work with – 2001 and 2006 – were spot on in both cases, but she couldn’t be any more specific than that. Her best guess was a winter burial. As for dental records, she’d lucked out there too. Nominal 1 had perfect teeth. Nominal 2 had all her permanent molars and some decay but no restorative treatment that might assist with identification.
‘Not everyone has a dentist,’ Brown said. ‘NHS or otherwise.’
Carmichael stuck her hand in the air. ‘What about broken bones?’
‘A well-healed fracture of the right tibia on the fifteen-year-old,’ Kate said.
Gormley was about to say something when a phone rang on the desk nearest to him. Picking it up, he listened for a moment and then interrupted Kate, holding up the phone. ‘Gerry Offord, front desk, for you – and before you ask, I did remind him to hold all calls. You want it on speaker?’
Kate nodded. Offord was big mates with Brown, a man who wouldn’t dream of disturbing a Murder Investigation Team in full flow unless it was important.
‘This had better be good, Gerry. You know I’m busy.’
‘Apologies, ma’am. I’m holding an urgent call from North Yorks Major Incident Team. I’m assured you’ll want to take it.’
‘Says who?’
‘The SIO, I assume—’
‘You assume? Did you verify the ident?’
‘He sounded genuine enough—’
Kate rolled her eyes. ‘If I said I was the tooth fairy, would you believe me too?’
Offord went quiet at the other end.
Detectives in the room were grinning. It might not be written down in the Front Desk for Dummies Manual but it was standard procedure in their department to verify a caller’s identity before entering into any detailed conversation. Many a detective had been caught out by unscrupulous arseholes claiming to be someone they were not in order to feed the twenty-four-hour news.
It pained Kate to think that people would go to such lengths to obtain information on murder cases never intended for release to the press or wider public. Even more worrying, the thought that an offender might get the upper hand just so some tosser could make a name for him or herself with a front-page scoop in a newspaper.
Sloppy gits like Offord made for a very leaky sieve.
‘Did they ask for me by name?’ she asked.
Offord sidestepped the question, telling her the DCI’s name was Munro.
‘Male or female?’
‘Male.’
‘OK, put him on.’
A voice came on the line. ‘Apologies for the interruption to your briefing, but I have an unsolved level 1 case from ’99. Similar MO to yours. Young girl, disposed of in a woodland grave, dressed in adult clothes.’
‘Where are you?’
‘My office.’ He began to reel off a number.
Kate cut in before he could finish: ‘Call you back.’
She hung up, pointing at Carmichael’s computer monitor. ‘Lisa, police almanac. Look him up: MIT, North Yorks, DCI Munro. Fast as you can. The rest of you, take a break. Quick one, mind – I want you all here by the time I’ve finished this call.’
As Carmichael began typing, the t
eam made their escape. Some headed for the loo, others out on to the fire escape for a quick fag break. As Kate waited for confirmation of Munro’s ID, his voice replayed in her head. It was measured, calm, the accent more Cheshire than Yorkshire, she would’ve said. She thought he was on the level. For a start, he hadn’t called his murder incident a ‘cold case’, a media term she hated. And he hadn’t made out he was some kind of hero on a quest. He sounded a lot like Bright.
He sounded the real deal.
Carmichael picked up her phone and started dialling. The phone was answered straight away. She asked for Munro, first name Gordon. The man she was speaking to said that was him. Asking him to hold for her SIO, Lisa glanced at her own tired DCI. ‘This is him, boss. Line two.’
Picking up the handset, Kate said: ‘I have one question.’
‘Which is?’
‘Was she wearing any jewellery?’
‘What kind of jewellery?’
‘Pearls, Gordon. Was she wearing any pearls?’
45
EMILY GLANCED AT Rachel as they walked. She hadn’t said a word since they’d left the house. Probably wanted to be alone with her own thoughts on what would have been her father’s forty-eighth birthday. Or was she mulling over how spooked she must’ve appeared earlier? Maybe she was waiting for an explanation, a chance to bring the subject up.
Emily would lie rather than burden her with that.
In single file, they negotiated a difficult section of riverbank that had fallen away in places, eroded by heavy rain. Once past the obstacle, Rachel paused, her eyes drawn to a tall figure casting his line from the centre of the river beyond their boundary fence.
The landowner lifted his head, tipped his cap and carried on feeding his rod.
Although filthy rich with an estate covering hundreds of acres, he was so like Robert in many ways, a thoughtful neighbour they had known for years. And, like Robert, he was completely at one with his surroundings. The two of them had liked nothing better than to while away their days hunting or fishing together. Often out until dusk, they would come up to the house, crack open a beer and share their stories until the early hours.
Good times.
‘I’M GOING BACK to college tomorrow,’ Rachel said. Emily’s heart leapt. It was the news she’d been hoping for but never imagined would arrive, especially not today. ‘And I want to learn to ride too – a motorcycle, I mean.’
‘I don’t know about that, love.’ Emily felt instantly sick.
Rachel’s wish to ride was hardly unexpected. She’d grown up on bikes, in a sidecar as a kid, on the pillion when she was old enough. She’d also seen many accidents over the years, some fatal, one a very close friend of the family. She knew the risks. But the idea scared her mother, even though she rode herself. It was on the tip of her tongue to say no when common sense prevailed. She couldn’t allow her anxiety to colour every decision she made about her daughter.
‘It isn’t as easy as it looks, y’know, darling.’
‘You managed.’
‘I had a good teacher.’
Emily wished she hadn’t said that. But Rachel was too engrossed with their neighbour to react. As he cast his line again, Emily experienced a sudden flashback. In exactly the same spot on the riverbank, Robert had hooked a fish. Looking over his shoulder, he’d called out, ‘Rachel! Come and see!’
A four-year-old raced towards her father, her chubby little legs obscured by long grass, her ponytail bobbing up and down as she ran. Watching her father land the fish, Rachel started to cry, gently at first, then in huge sobs. Big blobs of water fell from her dark lashes, soaking her T-shirt. Seeing her unhappy face, Robert lifted the fish from his net, put it back in the water, hugging her close as it swam away.
‘No more tears.’ He pointed at the disappearing fish. ‘He’s starting a new life, see?’
‘NO MORE TEARS, MUM.’
No more tears . . .
Rachel’s adult voice pulled Emily from her daydream.
‘C’mon here . . .’ Rachel tucked her hand inside the sleeve of her fleece jacket, took out a tissue and wiped the side of Emily’s face. ‘Tell me, Mum. What’s wrong?’
Emily could find no words.
‘Is it because it’s Dad’s birthday?’
Emily shook her head.
‘It’s me, isn’t it?’ Rachel said.
‘No!’
‘What then? Look, I know it’s hard for you too. You don’t have to hide it from me all the time, or tiptoe around me. I’m a big girl now. I’m getting there all by myself.’
Emily put her arm around Rachel. ‘Darling, learning to ride won’t bring him back.’
‘I know that! I do . . . I’d just feel closer to him, that’s all.’
At that very moment, so did Emily. It was as if Robert was standing there with them creating that all important watershed when they could finally turn the corner. The fighting would stop now. Things would return to normal. Emily could feel it. She smiled at her daughter. Maybe learning to ride was exactly what she needed.
46
KATE’S EMOTIONS WERE in turmoil as she put down the phone. Her team were back from their mini-break, bringing with them not only the whiff of cigarettes but coffee, crisps and chocolate bars from the vending machine recently installed in the bait room. It made her realize how bloody hungry she was.
No one had eaten since lunchtime and it was too late to catch a restaurant in the market town of Alnwick. That was the way it was in the country. Different if you worked in the Met. Still, nobody minded. They would most probably make up for it at breakfast.
All heads turned in her direction, keen to get the lowdown on a call that was so important it had stalled the evening briefing.
‘And the upshot is . . . ?’ Gormley put down his coffee.
Kate shook her head. ‘No pearls, but get this – according to Munro, our friend Thompson was interviewed at length in connection with his enquiry.’
Maxwell nearly choked on a Cadbury’s Twirl.
‘Bingo!’ Robson said.
Kate didn’t respond, at least not in such enthusiastic terms. On the face of it, this new information had raised the stakes on an enquiry that could turn out to be the most difficult of her career to date. Her victims were, not to put too fine a point on it, a little less fresh than was normally the case. It was far too soon to jump to conclusions about Thompson. But she had to admit the link intrigued and excited her.
Picking up a glass of icy water Carmichael had thoughtfully placed on the desk beside her, Kate sat for a moment dwelling on the conversation with the Yorkshire SIO. Specifically on how his information impacted on her planned operation to detain and question her only suspect. Often it was good to tell an offender they were being arrested on suspicion of a major crime – whether or not it was murder – particularly if the evidence against them was circumstantial, as it still was in Thompson’s case.
The question she was asking herself was: how would it benefit her? Would she gain by putting the suspect under pressure from the outset? Or should she arrest him on suspicion of some minor offence and see where that took her before wading in with the more serious matter? She was sure she could come up with something if she tried real hard. Breathing, for example.
In the end, she decided to play it by ear and make that call when the time came. She ordered everyone back to the B & B, intending to grab a few hours’ sleep herself and then accompany a squad of uniforms to the address supplied by the uniformed inspector who’d given chase that morning. He seemed to have his finger on the pulse of all wrongdoing in the area in and around Morpeth. She wanted to be there during Thompson’s arrest and detention for further questioning, but sharing her intention with the squad turned out to be a mistake.
Brown, whose speciality was covert observations, immediately jumped up. Volunteering his services, he offered to take a pool car and head straight over there. While the town slept, he would lay in wait for the offender to appear. The job was right up his stre
et, he told her. He was practically begging.
How could she possibly refuse?
His suggestion galvanized the squad.
Feeling left out, Gormley and Carmichael said they would get up too, negating the need for uniforms altogether. Reluctantly, Kate agreed. After a long shift, the Murder Investigation Team were weary, yes. But they wanted to get stuck in and move the investigation forward a notch. Doing something practical to make that happen was a good place to start.
47
ARRESTING SOMEONE IN the middle of the night isn’t hard. Operationally, the most effective time for kicking doors down had always been four a.m., the theory being that the prigs inside would either be stoned or pissed on the cocktail of their choosing, therefore in a deep sleep, oblivious to the world around them.
When her alarm rang out, Kate dressed quickly in a pair of jeans, knee-high boots and a North Face fleece jacket to keep out the cold. Though she’d had less than four hours’ sleep, she felt alert and ready for action, buoyed by the adrenalin coursing through her veins. The others were waiting in the foyer as she crept downstairs trying not to wake their host.
They all piled into her car and drove off into the night.
A few moments later, Kate rang Brown. ‘Any sign of Thompson?’
‘No, boss. But he’s in there, I can smell it.’
There was a collective chuckle in the car. The Q5 turned on to the A1 heading south and picked up speed. Brown was right. You could sense if a house was occupied or not. If their intelligence was as good as they hoped it was, this particular address housed John Edward Thompson and his mate, Terence Watts.
The DCI gave an ETA and rang off.
