by Mari Hannah
‘Have you identified your victims?’ Emily asked.
‘Don’t ask me that. I can’t say any more.’
The line went dead.
65
THE PRISON GYMNASIUM was noisy with the clatter of equipment and multiple conversations taking place as officers used their break time to get some exercise. Senior Officer Ash Walker lay on his back on a bench lifting barbells, his jaw bunching as he extended his arms for the final time. He liked to stay in shape but his ability to haul heavy weights had diminished in recent years. He’d have to consider switching to something that put less strain on his body.
‘I’m done,’ he said.
Kent took the strain of the bar, placing it on its cradle, throwing his sweaty senior officer a towel. Walker sat up, his stomach muscles impressive for a man of his age. Draping the towel around his neck, he hauled himself off the bench and rubbed his hands together, sending a plume of chalk high into the air.
‘What time is it?’ he said.
Kent looked at his watch. ‘Time we weren’t here.’
They moved to the changing rooms, stripped off and took a quick shower.
Kent hardly said a word as he donned his uniform, though it was obvious he had something weighty on his mind. Assuming it was his daughter, Walker didn’t pry, hoping Kent would tell him of his own free will. When it didn’t come, Walker felt duty-bound to intervene.
‘How did it go with Emily?’ he asked.
‘A bit of a role reversal, if you want the truth.’ Kent buttoned up his shirt.
‘How d’you mean?’
‘She’s losing it, boss.’ Kent made a screwing motion with his index finger against his forehead. ‘And you think I need help? Jesus Christ, I couldn’t get a word in edgeways. She’s convinced Fearon is behind her daughter’s disappearance, did you know that? Totally barking, if you ask me.’
Walker didn’t comment.
‘What?’ Kent scoffed. ‘You think it’s possible?’
‘Did I say that?’
Kent stood for a moment, head on one side, as if Walker had defended the theory and he was weighing both sides of the argument. ‘You could have a point. Nonces stick together, don’t they? Maybe he has someone on the outside doing his bidding. Stranger things have happened.’ Pulling on his jacket, Kent gave the SO a wry smile. ‘If I had the hots for her, I’d tear the little shit apart ’til he squeals.’
‘EVERYONE, DROP WHAT you’re doing and gather round!’ Kate Daniels didn’t have to ask twice. The look on her face was enough to tell the Murder Investigation Team she had something important to say. ‘I’ve just received information that the father of a missing ten-year-old is working down the road at HMP Northumberland. His name is William Kent. The girl’s name is Sophie. So, why didn’t I know about it? It should’ve been flagged up.’
No one spoke.
‘Well?’ she pushed.
Robson’s face was flushed. ‘There’s no DNA match to any missing kid on the database.’
‘I still don’t like it . . .’ Kate’s unease was reflected in the rest of her team. If a mistake had been made with the DNA, this could be a vital lead. ‘Pull the file. Get me everything there is on the father and the names of anyone who was hauled in under suspicion.’
‘Did Kent come forward?’ Carmichael asked.
‘No, but you can’t read too much into that, Lisa. Neither did the O’Neils, remember? Innocent parents fear asking the question when they can’t face knowing the answer. Besides, he knew we had her DNA, so in the event of a match we’d contact him. No, this information came from Emily McCann. She’s in a bad place now and acting as mad as a box of frogs – but that doesn’t leave this room. Clear?’
There were nods and murmurs of: ‘Yes, boss . . . crystal . . . understood.’
‘Good. I gather Kent was interviewed at length, along with a number of others. I want to know who they are and whether any of them has form. If they so much as dropped litter, especially in the vicinity of Bamburgh, I want to know about it . . .’ Kate pointed at Carmichael’s computer screen. ‘Lisa – ten-year-old females, missing, presumed dead – get the list up now. Make sure Sophie’s on it. I don’t trust computers, even ours. If there’s a glitch, she might’ve been missed.’
Carmichael practically broke into a run. Tripping over a loose wire in her rush to get to her desk, she arrived a lot quicker and a little less elegantly than she’d anticipated, snagging her tights in the process and swearing loudly. Ignoring derisory comments from her colleagues that she was a hopeless Health & Safety rep, she logged on to her computer, pressed a few keys, then sat eyes glued to the monitor as the page loaded.
Text popped up on screen and she tapped a few more keys.
‘Fuck!’ Her face paled.
‘Don’t tell me she’s not on it,’ Kate said.
‘She is . . .’
‘But?’
‘She’s from East Yorkshire, boss. If I’m not mistaken, she was taken from a village not far from Beverley. Geography was never my strongest subject, but I know that area because my mum was brought up there. If I’m right, it’s a stone’s throw from where the O’Neils live.’
No one said a word.
Kate leapt from her seat, joining Carmichael at the computer as the others gathered round. It wasn’t a Eureka moment exactly but, in her considered opinion, it was unlikely to be a happy accident either. Sophie Kent was the same age as their un-ident and went missing from the same county as their second victim and her father just happened to be working in the wilds of Northumberland less than thirty clicks from the burial site.
The atmosphere in the room was suddenly charged with electricity.
Kate’s eyes found Maxwell’s. ‘Neil, get Hank on the phone.’
‘I just spoke to him, boss. He was heading out for dinner.’
‘I don’t give a shit if he’s being knighted – do it!’
Scooping up the nearest phone, he made the call, handing her the receiver as soon as Gormley picked up. Kate rapidly brought him up to date and said she’d email all the relevant information, asking him to stay on in Yorkshire for a few more days and make discreet enquiries at his end. ‘And don’t chew while I’m talking to you, Hank. It’s very rude!’
Detectives earwigging the conversation smiled at one another.
‘Have you got plenty cash?’ the DCI asked.
‘Yeah, no worries,’ he replied.
‘OK, I’ll cover your Xs and overtime as soon as you get back . . .’ She could almost hear him grinning as he thanked her. ‘Let me know if there’s anything else you need. And tell Ailsa I’ll clear it with her supervision. Her input is going to be more important than ever now. You think she’ll agree?’
‘Are you kidding? She’s my new best friend.’
Kate hung up.
IN THE DEAD of night with the prison locked down and only a skeleton night shift on duty, Walker instructed a security officer to join him in the wing office, requesting that he bring his sniffer dog along. Minutes later, the pair arrived.
The German Shepherd, Flash, was the pride of the dog section. While Walker briefed his handler on the search they would be conducting, Flash sat looking up at him, a long pink tongue lolling from his mouth, an elastic string of saliva dripping from the end of it on to the highly polished floor.
‘No names, no pack drill, capisce? I just want to drag the bastard out of his pit and turn his cell over.’ Although there was no one else in the room but the two men and a dog, Walker lowered his voice conspiratorially: ‘By the way, this operation never happened – until I say otherwise. Understood?’
‘What operation?’
‘Good man.’
‘What we looking for anyway?’
Walker glanced at the dog. ‘He’ll know when he finds it.’
Taking a green silk scarf from his pocket, Walker put it to the dog’s nose. Flash sniffed at it enthusiastically, his tail going back and forth at such a speed and with such force that it was drumming o
n the office wall. He was ready to go to work.
SO WALKER CHECKED the cell landing. The coast was clear. Stopping outside Fearon’s cell door, he lifted the flap and peered inside. The occupant was fast asleep – as still as a corpse. Walker unlocked the door, allowing his security colleague to step inside. The officer shone a torch around walls covered in bare flesh, then directed the beam into the inmate’s eyes and kept it there.
No sodding response whatsoever.
Seconds later, Fearon blinked and turned his head away without waking.
Giving him a dig with a size-ten boot, Walker commented on the stench of stale sweat in the room, pushing open the tiny cell window to let it escape. The temperature plummeted. Hearing voices, Fearon sat up, using his hand to shield his eyes from the harsh light, giving his jailers a load of abuse for disturbing his sleep, asking what the time was.
‘Shut it!’ Walker said.
The security officer loosened his grip on Flash.
More terrified of the dog than the screws, Fearon lifted his knees to his chest and scrambled to the corner of his bunk, pulling the covers around him for protection, his eyes showing real fear. Warning him to remain still and calm, the dog handler spoke a few words of encouragement, telling his canine partner that they were good to go. But Fearon wasn’t having any. He struggled as he was dragged off his bunk and dumped unceremoniously on the floor, leaving his gonads hanging loose from torn boxer shorts, a source of added curiosity for the dog that brought howls of laughter from both officers.
‘Get that fucking thing away from me!’ Fearon was yelling now. ‘And shut the bastard window. It’s fucking freezing in here.’
Yanking the prisoner out on to the landing, Walker held on to him with a vice-like grip, advising him to button his lip while the dog did what he was trained to do. Guided by his handler, Flash covered every inch of the floor, including under the bed and round the toilet bowl, two favourite hiding places for contraband items smuggled in by prison visitors.
Fearon fixed his gaze on the SO. ‘What you looking for, man? I’ve got nowt!’
Walker ignored him.
‘Oh, I get it. This is Kent’s idea, right? Told you the bastard’s got it in for me!’
One or two prisoners were banging on their doors now, yelling at them to keep the noise down. Walker urged the dog handler to step on it before the whole damn prison woke up.
Flash leapt on to the bunk, burying his nose in the rumpled grey blanket, grabbing the pillow between his teeth. Then he lifted his leg and peed on the bed – something the search dogs often did in cases where the personal hygiene of the inmate was dodgy. This led to more verbals from Fearon – but not for long. He ceased whining as the dog began barking and pawing frantically at the collection of porn by the head of the bed. It had picked up the scent of something.
66
A HAND TREMBLED. Emily was half-dressed, standing in her living room, holding a copy of a photograph Walker had just discovered in Fearon’s cell. The SO had come straight there on his way off duty to hand it over personally. ‘It was hidden behind a picture on his wall.’ He could hardly look at her. ‘I’m sorry, Emily. It looks like you were right about him all along.’
Staring at the photocopy in disbelief, Emily’s heart was banging in her chest, her worst fears realized. She and Rachel were the subjects in the photograph, the image taken in their cottage garden just weeks before Robert’s death. Looking up, her eyes met Walker’s, an unspoken plea for answers. He stared back at her, a mixture of embarrassment and sympathy. She wanted to slap him hard for not offering her the level of protection she deserved within the prison environment.
His wing. His responsibility.
She held on to her anger.
‘What drove you to search his cell?’ she asked.
‘Does it matter?’
Of course it mattered.
Emily wanted to thank whoever it was. It was nice to know that someone was looking out for her. Walker’s body language was revealing. He looked out of the window, an avoidance tactic if ever she saw one. If it wasn’t his own idea, then whose? Had Stamp intervened on her behalf, called in a favour from night-shift security? He was big mates with the principal officer in that department. Or was it Jo? Few officers at the prison would turn her down.
‘Well, was it Martin or Jo?’
‘Neither.’ Walker didn’t offer an alternative.
Emily’s stomach lurched as she realized there could only be one other name in the hat. Guilt washed over her. She owed Bill Kent a big apology. She’d fingered him to the police and, in so doing, had probably kick-started a catastrophic chain of events that might cause him a lot of unnecessary grief. She’d have to undo that immediately, apologize to Kate Daniels for wasting her precious time.
Fair enough.
At least everyone would now understand that her fears were legitimate. Perhaps they would start to take her allegations seriously, stop treating her like a deluded attention-seeker with a tendency toward paranoia.
‘Was it Kent?’ She knew the answer before Walker had a chance to nod. ‘But how, Ash?’ She tapped the photo. ‘The original of this was in my desk, out of sight. Please tell me Fearon hasn’t been in my office unsupervised.’
‘He’s a wing cleaner, Em.’
Emily held her tongue, ran a hand through tangled bed hair, her lips pressed tightly shut to stop herself from breaking down. She looked at him accusingly. ‘Have you been listening to me at all? I thought that you of all people . . . How could you? Knowing how that creep feels about me! How could you let him in there?’
Walker wouldn’t meet her eyes. He knew he’d let her down and had no answer. Emily asked him to leave. She wanted him out of her house so she could ring Kate and explain how wrong she’d been and what had happened during the night. Shutting the front door, she listened as Ash drove away, then sank to the hall floor and wept. There was a bomb in her head and Fearon had just lit the fuse.
67
IT WAS STILL early – 6.30 a.m. – Kate Daniels’ thinking time before the squad got in. She’d arrived half an hour ago and was so intent on studying the murder wall, concentration etched on her face as she took in key facts that set her pulse racing, she never heard the door to the incident room open or the sound of footsteps approaching.
‘Penny for them?’ said a familiar voice behind her.
Jo was standing in the doorway with her coat on, briefcase in hand. Ordinarily, a wonderful sight first thing in the morning – or at any other time – but for once the DCI didn’t want to see her. It wasn’t that she resented the intrusion into her working day. It was because of what she’d scribbled on the murder wall a few moments ago, an aide-memoire as she tried to make sense of what she knew and decide where to go next, jottings she didn’t want Jo to see.
Too late.
Jo was already taking them in, making judgements on the mini diagram facing her. Next to her unidentified victim, Kate had placed a big question mark and written Sophie Kent’s name and the date she went missing. A dotted horizontal line led across the murder wall to a second, even bigger question mark, another name. Clear evidence of the SIO’s thought processes, a fairly convincing demonstration that, in theory at least, she strongly suspected she’d found her second victim and may even have identified a third.
Jo couldn’t draw her eyes away from that third name: RACHEL MCCANN.
A phone rang on someone’s desk.
Ignoring it, Kate continued to stare at the murder wall. She’d set Munro’s 1999 case aside, unable to establish a link. There was dressing up, but no pearls, nothing to suggest they were the work of the same perpetrator. Not so for the three facing her. Assuming they were linked, she didn’t need crime-pattern analysis to determine the connections. The similarities screamed at her in thick red pen: Sophie Kent – aged ten – missing since 11 February 2001; Maxine O’Neil – aged fifteen – had suffered the same fate on 12 February 2006; Rachel McCann – aged twenty – missing since 14 February 201
1.
As she reviewed the information, she drew up a mental list:
Mid-February abductions.
Five years apart.
Five years difference in age.
An anniversary of some sort?
What the hell is going on?
Jo’s eyes were empty of emotion. Without saying a word or getting upset, she took off her coat, threw it over the nearest chair and placed her briefcase on the floor. Then she walked toward the murder wall, picked up a whiteboard marker, adding seven words of her own: Five years, victims’ ages, pearls, Bamburgh, Valentine?
‘You read my mind,’ Kate said. ‘I’m sorry you had to see that.’
‘Don’t worry. None of it will go any further. Not even to Emily . . .’ She hesitated, a tremor in her voice. ‘Especially not to Emily.’
‘Actually, it was Emily who tipped me off in the first place – without realizing the significance, obviously.’ Kate pointed at the murder wall. ‘I’ve been over and over this since I got in and I just can’t ignore the fact that these cases may be linked. I don’t know as yet where that leaves Rachel, but we’re definitely on to something.’
Jo’s voice was flat. ‘When will you tell her?’
‘Emily?’ Kate sighed. ‘When I have more than supposition to go on is the short answer. There were several suspects for Sophie Kent’s abduction. My priority now is to do a job on them, both here and in Yorkshire.’ She turned her head away, an attempt to avoid eye contact. She didn’t feel able to heap even more bad news on Jo by telling her that her longstanding friend and current colleague, Martin Stamp, was among them.
When she turned back, Jo was putting her coat on. ‘If you need a hand—’
‘I’ll call you. It might be a while though. There are crosschecks and countless searches to be done. I need to establish where the suspects are now. If anyone who was interviewed then has walked across the same county at the same time, I want to know about it. If they’re already in the system, I’ll know I’m on the right track.’
