Monument to Murder (18 page)

E
MILY 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?’

‘N
O MORE TEARS
, M
UM
.’

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.

K
ATE’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 street, 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.

A
RRESTING 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.

Gormley and Carmichael had little to say during the twenty-minute journey. Kate assumed they were playing the forthcoming operation in their heads – as she was. They weren’t expecting violence. Neither Thompson nor the offender he was dossing with had any assault convictions. Thompson’s own brand of aggression was only ever directed at defenceless young girls.

Was he capable of murder?

Parking a street away, she radioed Brown asking him to meet DC Lisa Carmichael at the rear of the target property in case the offender made a break for the back door. Herself and Gormley would cover the front. They didn’t want any bother. The quicker they got in, the quicker they got a result. The element of surprise was a copper’s best friend. And that was exactly how it went down.

Using a battering ram he’d borrowed from the station, Gormley smashed his way into the house, hitting the front door so hard it flew off its hinges and landed at an angle on the deck beyond. Trampling it flush to the hallway floor, he rushed forward into the house shouting: ‘POLICE!’

Following close behind, Kate shone her torch to find the light switch.

Bleary-eyed, shocked and obviously intoxicated, Thompson and his mate didn’t know what had hit them. They looked ridiculous, standing in the bedroom of the ground-floor flat in underpants, their milky-white bodies shivering in the cold night air that was blowing like a hurricane through the missing front door.

‘Who’s gonna pay for me door?’ the tenant complained.

‘What door?’ Gormley checked behind him. ‘You haven’t got one.’

‘You fucking bastard! I’m getting on to me MP!’

‘Calm down, Mr Watts,’ Kate said. ‘You should’ve opened up.’

‘Eh? I was fucking asleep!’

‘Sorry, mate. We did knock . . .’ Tongue in cheek, Gormley glanced over his shoulder as Carmichael and Brown joined them in the room. ‘Anyone knock on this lad’s door?’

‘I did,’ they said in unison.

‘Aye, with a feather, mebbies!’ Watts bit back.

‘John Edward Thompson, I’m arresting you on suspicion of murder . . .’

‘Eh? You’re kidding, aren’t ya?’

‘Does my boss look like she’s laughing?’ Gormley said.

Ignoring them both, Daniels rattled off the rest of the police caution. Then she sent Brown to fetch the pool car he’d parked around the corner out of sight. She was keen to get Thompson out of there and back to the station. There was no way the little scrote was parking
his skinny arse on the seat of her new Q5. He was shitting himself, panicking now he’d realized what he was being arrested for.

Pointing at some strides dumped on the floor beside the rumpled bed, Kate told him to get dressed. Then she turned her attention to Watts, who was already climbing into his own jeans.

‘Not you,’ she said. ‘Just him.’

Watts gave her a load of lip.

‘Oh, you want to come too?’ she said. ‘That can be arranged.’

He decided to leave it.

Good choice.

Now they could all go back to bed.

T
HERE WAS HARDLY
another car on the road. Carmichael drove, with Thompson in the rear, flanked on either side by Brown and Gormley, all the while complaining that they had got the wrong man.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Gormley said. ‘We’ve heard it all before.’

‘It’s true! Dunno who got croaked but it wasn’t me, I swear!’

‘You ever clean your teeth, mate? Get a wash?’ Gormley held his nose and opened the rear side window. ‘You reek of stale sweat and cheap booze.’

‘He’s right, you do,’ Brown said. ‘You’ll never get a lass if you don’t smarten yourself up.’

‘You just pulled me from my pit, man. What d’you fuckers expect?’

‘Must’ve been all that running you’ve been doing,’ Brown said, his tone serious now. ‘Hope you know that’s an offence.’

‘Eh?’ Thompson looked at DS Gormley. ‘What’s this divvi on about?’

‘Yeah,’ Brown said. ‘Like you don’t know.’

‘Know what?’

Gormley played along. ‘You should listen to the officer. It’s now an arrestable offence to run from the police, contrary to the Morpeth Town Police Clauses Act. It’s a new piece of legislation. Rubber-stamped by the Tories only last week. Surprised you and yours haven’t heard of it. Maximum three years if found guilty. Looks like you’re going back to the pokey pal.’

Thompson had no idea they were talking rubbish. For someone who’d been in and out of jail all his life, he wasn’t very savvy where police humour was concerned. He really ought to have known he was being had.

Carmichael turned on to the A1 heading for the nick. Flooring the accelerator, she pushed the car to the limit on empty roads. As Thompson realized they were travelling north he began to whinge. ‘Piss! Where you taking us, man? I’ve got no cash on us, have I? How the fucking hell am I going to get home?’

‘Who says you’re going home?’ Brown said.

Thompson wound his neck in.

Fifteen minutes passed and then he started again as they neared the outskirts of Alnwick, panic setting in. He kept repeating over and over that he was an innocent man. ‘Whatever you think I done, I never!’ he said.

Carmichael reversed the pool car up close to the cell-block wall. Daniels was already there waiting. She overheard the prisoner protest his innocence as she opened the car door. Hank got out first. Holding on to Thompson’s arm, he heaved him out too, at the same time giving the SIO a little shake of his head, letting her know the
suspect had said nothing in the car to implicate himself in any offence.

‘So why run?’ Daniels asked.

‘You’ve got a warrant out for us.’

‘No shit!’ Gormley laughed as they frogmarched Thompson towards the back door of the station. ‘He’s lying, I checked. You’re locked up, matey. Time for a nice warm cell. Don’t worry, you’ll feel right at home.’

‘No! Listen will ya!’

They stopped walking.

‘You have one chance,’ the DCI said.

Thompson hesitated. ‘I thought there might be a warrant. I lost count—’

‘OK, you blew it!’ Daniels yanked him nearer to the door.

‘OK, OK! There’s no warrant. I lied about that, but I’m not lying now. I lifted the fucking coat I had on. That’s why I ran. When I walked out the shop I saw Arsehole of the Empire, the uniform gadgie, standing right by the front door, so I legged it. I swear to you, I’m telling the truth!’

‘Where’d you ditch the coat?’

‘In the woods, where d’you think? So when I came out I didn’t have the same description as when I went in. I’m not entirely stupid, am I?’

Kate didn’t want to admit it – even to herself – but his explanation made sense. She marched him into the nick, handed him over to the custody sergeant for processing, telling the officer to bang him in a cell to await his fate. Too drunk to interview was the official excuse for leaving the sod to sweat.