Monument to Murder (27 page)

W
HAT A WASTE
of an SlO’s time.
Kate Daniels slammed down the phone. She’d spent the best part of an hour arguing the toss about cross-border money with her counterpart in the East Yorks force. One of her victims was abducted from there. Two, potentially. One or both may have been killed on their patch. And yet the divvi she’d been speaking to wasn’t bloody interested.

Well, she’d see about that.

Ordinarily, she’d rather die than let some officious prick get one over on her. But, on this occasion, she had more pressing matters to attend to. Like her job; her real job, not the horrendous pile of admin that came with it. Naylor would sort Yorkshire out and, if he couldn’t get through, her former guv’nor would. There would be hell to pay if Bright got involved.

That image made her feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

Taking a deep breath, she extracted her ID from her computer, slid it into its leather pouch and stood up, ready to meet her team. They had spent the morning reviewing the original investigation into Sophie Kent’s disappearance, trying to establish whether she was indeed their second victim. The most worrying fact was that, along with four prison officers, all adult males known to the girl, Martin Stamp had been questioned in connection with her disappearance.

With that thought lingering in her head, Kate left her desk and wandered into the incident room to find everyone waiting for the briefing to start, Jo Soulsby among them. Naylor had given permission for her to be there. She’d assisted them many times and had always been the first point of call if they needed the opinion of a criminal profiler. But her inclusion in a formal briefing at a critical stage of a double homicide made it official. She was back – if only in a part-time role.

That warm feeling again.

The DCI’s eyes were drawn to a second visitor present. Sergeant Jane Lowther was perched on the edge of Brown’s desk, the two of them deep in conversation. She’d promised to liaise with the Murder Investigation Team following her interview with Emily McCann.

She stood up as Kate approached.

‘Hello, Jane.’ The DCI gestured for Lowther to sit. ‘Thanks for joining us. How did Emily McCann take the news?’

‘She was pretty stoical, given the circumstances. She’s a lovely woman.’

‘Yes, she is . . . I understand Martin Stamp was present when you interviewed her.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’ A flicker of doubt crossed her face.

Kate pounced on it. ‘Problem?’

‘Not exactly. I’m fairly sure she wasn’t expecting him, that’s all.’

‘What? He turned up here unannounced?’

‘According to the desk sergeant.’ Lowther gave a little shrug. ‘Emily hadn’t mentioned he was on his way.’

‘Interesting. What did you make of him?’

‘Good-looking nowt.’

Kate grinned. Lowther was a woman after her own heart. No point in beating about the bush. ‘I take it you didn’t warm to him?’

‘Not a whole lot, no. Don’t ask me why. He was pleasant enough, but he got a bit arsy when I told them Fearon had blanked me out during questioning. Are they an item then?’

‘Just good friends.’

In her peripheral vision, Kate noticed Jo turn to face them, a mixture of annoyance and puzzlement on her face. Like Emily, she had no idea as yet that her friend and colleague, Martin Stamp, might be implicated in a serious offence. It was time to share the unpalatable truth.

‘Can you excuse me a second, Jane?’ Kate said. ‘I have some beans to spill.’

She moved towards Jo with the intention of having a private chat before the briefing began. But she hadn’t gone two paces when Carmichael walked in, a big smile on her face, and intercepted her.

‘Jane tell you about the photograph debacle? Sounds like a smokescreen to me, boss. They’re all in it together!’ She grinned and continued, loud enough for the whole room to join in the joke: ‘It’s like four weddings and a funeral. Only we have four prison officers and a psychiatrist in the frame!’

Jo’s face was a picture as she spun to face Kate. ‘Mind telling me what’s going on?’

T
HERE WAS LITTLE
air in Principal Officer Harrison’s office. Emily McCann was finding it hard to concentrate after her unproductive meeting with Sergeant Lowther. Of course Fearon denied taking the photograph. Did anyone expect him to admit it?

Pulling at her roll-neck sweater, she scanned the faces of the
department representatives crammed into the room: Harrison, the wing probation officer, the chaplain, Kent, Stamp. Their lips were moving but their conversation was drowned out by two words whizzing round in her head in perpetual motion, driving her insane.

Alive
. . . or
dead

Rachel must be alive.

Emily had to believe that. The alternative was too painful to accept, too awful to contemplate. She’d convinced herself that she’d have known if that were not the case. Now she was having doubts. Robert had been dead for two hours before she found out. There had been no special sign, no feeling of doom or dread the day she received the news.

The day her world collapsed.

Back then, had anyone asked whether things could get any worse, she’d have laughed in their face. But they had. And now she was drowning. Trapped between her professional conscience at work and her private hell at home. The world was crumbling around her and she felt powerless to do anything about it.

‘What preparations are in hand for Fearon’s release?’ Harrison asked.

His words cut through her.
He had to be joking.
He wasn’t seriously suggesting that Fearon was still getting out, not after all that had happened in the past twenty-four hours? Christ, only a matter of hours had passed since the police hauled him in to be interviewed on suspicion of collaborating in the serious offence of abduction.

Fuck’s sake!

Harrison was looking at the probation officer, asking if she had any further comments. When the woman shook her head, Emily rounded on her, urging her to speak up against the injustice of
Fearon being allowed out while he was under suspicion in an active investigation. The probation officer was a parent too. If anyone ought to understand the grim reality of the situation, surely it was her. Besides, she’d been friends with Emily for years, even before they came to work at the prison.

Her eyes said otherwise.

There was a mixture of concern and sympathy, but Emily could tell she didn’t have her full support.

‘Tell them!’ she exploded. ‘Please . . . what’s wrong with you?’

‘I’m sorry, Em. You were the one dead against parole. There’s nothing we can do now except trust hostel staff to do their jobs and guide him in the right direction when he returns to Sheffield. He’s done his time. Short of the Home Secretary’s intervention, he walks in three days whether you agree with it or not.’

‘And so he should.’ The chaplain shifted his gaze from the probation officer to Emily. ‘We all know how you feel. And we sympathize, truly we do. But I for one believe that Fearon has learned his lesson. He’s a changed young man since I first saw him on reception. He has become a regular member of the congregation and he’s promised to go straight when he gets out—’

‘Bollocks!’ Emily’s face was white with anger. ‘The despicable loser’s found religion and God has forgiven him, is that it? Well, that’s OK then. We’ll just pat him on the head and send the bastard home, shall we?’ Emily glared at him, hating everything he stood for, wanting to rip that white collar from his throat. ‘Don’t you understand? He’s a vile, dangerous lowlife. And one of his cronies has my daughter!’

‘You don’t know that, Emily.’ Harrison’s tone was sympathetic but his eyes also told a different story. ‘Where’s that professional integrity of yours? It wasn’t long ago you were lecturing the rest of
us on prison protocol, how all inmates deserve fair treatment. Isn’t that so?’

‘That was before—’

‘That’s enough!’ Harrison cut her off, demanding that she calm down or leave.

‘No, you calm down, Ted. I’m not having this—’

‘Emily, please!’ Stamp was staring at her lap. ‘You’ll make yourself ill.’

Emily looked down. Her knuckles were white, her fists clenched so hard that a drop of blood had trickled on to her skirt from the cut her fingernails had made in her palm. Hot, salty tears ran into her mouth. She wiped them away with the back of her hand.

This wasn’t happening.

‘Doesn’t my professional opinion count any more?’ She wanted to scream out loud but could hardly breathe. Fearon was involved in Rachel’s disappearance, she was sure of it. He was clever and manipulative and a lot of other things. Not like Emily, whose words were all jumbled up. Her argument sounded incoherent even in her own head. ‘Can’t you see . . . Fearon’s a risk . . . not just to my Rachel but to the public generally. We should be protecting them!’

‘Hallelujah!’ Harrison said. ‘We have ourselves a convert.’

‘With all due respect, sir. Emily has a point.’

The comment had come from Kent. It wasn’t like him to speak out, especially not in opposition to his principal officer. Harrison bristled. Stamp said nothing. Not a damned thing. Did he agree with them? Was he too gutless to press for something to be done? He’d had plenty to say to Lowther. For all the good it had done.

‘Please,’ Emily said. ‘Will none of you help me?’

‘I’ll take no further part in this fiasco.’ The chaplain picked up his belongings and got to his feet. ‘Walter Fearon deserves to be
treated like a human being, and I for one believe his remorse is genuine.’

‘No!’ Emily was begging now. ‘He doesn’t know the meaning of the word remorse. He’s a manipulative psychopath. Can’t you see?’

‘Which is why release on licence should’ve been considered when we had the chance,’ the probation officer repeated. ‘Parole was always the lesser of two evils, but I was shouted down. By you, Em, as I recall. So now he walks, with no external control over his behaviour whatsoever. There is nothing we can do at this point. Our hands are tied.’

The chaplain said, ‘You know where I am if you need me, Emily.’

She told him to shove it and he walked out.

J
O
S
OULSBY WAS
visibly shocked by what she’d learned in the briefing room. In all the years she’d known Martin Stamp he’d never mentioned being questioned by the police about Sophie Kent’s disappearance.

‘Doesn’t that strike you as odd?’ Kate asked. ‘Honestly?’

They had retired to her office at Jo’s suggestion, to take ‘a few moments alone for a quiet word’. Kate expected a row for not having warned her before Carmichael blurted out the news, an awkward situation for both of them with the entire squad looking on. With the benefit of hindsight, the DCI was forced to accept that she might have handled it better.

‘Let’s not condemn him just because he kept it to himself,’ Jo warned. ‘You’ve miscalculated before – well, Bright did – and I ended up inside. He was wrong then. You’re probably wrong now.’

The dig was entirely justified.

A couple of years ago, Jo had fallen under suspicion and spent time in custody, wrongly accused of her ex-husband’s murder, pilloried in the media, her name splashed across every newspaper and TV screen, her reputation in shreds. It took ages for the press to leave her be, even longer to put the experience behind her.

‘Don’t
do
that!’ she said.

‘What?’ Kate looked baffled.

‘That sulky thing you do when you’re in a mood.’

‘I’m not in a mood!’

‘Yes, you are. I’m not getting at you! I’m just making the point that I’ve been there too. It’s not a good place to be and I’ve not spoken about it since to anyone, except you. If Martin was pulled in for police questioning, especially for such a serious matter, it would hardly be his finest hour, would it? He’s a professional with a reputation to protect – same as us.’

‘I’m not accusing him of anything.’

‘Aren’t you?’

‘No!’ Kate said. ‘I’m not!’

‘Carmichael obviously thinks he’s involved.’

They both fell silent: a simmering, resentful silence that dragged on and on. It seemed inconceivable that just last week they had been jumping on each other’s bones. And now they were bitching again – a customary state of affairs in recent months – a complete head-batter as far as Kate was concerned. She’d rather be single-crewed facing an angry crowd on night shift than fight with the woman she loved this much.

Even if Stamp was an innocent caught in the crossfire, she was convinced that there was a rabbit off somewhere and the stench was
coming directly from HMP Northumberland. She had a job to do and she would damn well do it.

‘Does Martin know Kent well?’ she asked.

‘No, yes, I don’t know.’ Jo hesitated. ‘He may have mentioned something about them working together in the past. I can’t remember if he did or not.’

Bullshit!

Jo caught the look of a sceptic. ‘OK, so he mentioned it . . . but only in passing. Happy now? I just don’t believe he’s involved, if that’s what you’re suggesting.’

That much had been obvious from the moment Carmichael mentioned the psychiatrist. Kate cleared her throat. She hated putting Jo in such an awkward situation, the police on one side and her friend, Martin, on the other. But she was well placed to provide inside information on people who might be hiding something that could help the investigation.

‘I’m not one of your snouts, Kate.’ Jo crossed her arms, glaring at her from across the desk. ‘And I’d hate to think the reason you wanted me back on the team is to keep obs on Martin. If that is the case, then please say so. In fact, don’t bother. I’ll pass on this one, if it’s all the same to you.’

‘Quit, you mean? After what you walked in on this morning? Jo, you can’t! If Sophie Kent turns out to be my unidentified victim, then it stands to reason Rachel could well be the third. If she isn’t already dead, she’s in great danger. Emily’s your friend too. Doesn’t she count?’

Jo didn’t dignify that with an answer.

‘For God’s sake!’ Kate said. ‘I’m not trying to score points here, I’m asking for your help. The men pulled in after Sophie went missing all worked together at Coleby Prison in Yorkshire – only a few
clicks from Kent’s home, and not much further from the home of our other victim, Maxine O’Neil. There was a mass exodus when the prison closed down in 2002 and staff were dispersed around the country, but four of the men interviewed in connection with Sophie’s disappearance washed up at HMP Northumberland.’

‘I’m not saying Martin is directly involved in any wrongdoing. He was quickly ruled out of the Sophie Kent enquiry: as I understand it, he had an alibi, and the witnesses to back it up. Even so, he has knowledge of what happened ten years ago. I need to talk to him about Kent and two other prison officers.’

‘I thought Lisa said there were four.’

‘One has since died.’

‘Who are the others?’

‘Edward Harrison, an SO—’

‘He’s a PO now and public enemy number one. A nasty piece of work.’

‘In what way?’

‘In every way. Ask Emily, she hates him. The man’s a complete pig. Who was the one who died and what happened to him?’

Kate knew where Jo was heading. ‘Hung himself. His name was Ronald Cohen. He was a main grade officer. But you’re right: dead or alive, he needs ruling out. There was no suicide note.’ Kate glanced at the list she’d prepared for the briefing. ‘What’s Ashley Walker like? He’s last on my list.’

‘OK . . . but not very intuitive.’ Jo began to blush.

‘He tried it on with you?’

‘’Fraid so.’

Kate raised an eyebrow. ‘He has good taste then.’

‘Are you reviewing the original evidence?’ Jo asked. ‘In Sophie’s case, I mean.’

Nice sidestep.

‘After months of intense activity, the investigation went cold. Detectives were moved on to other cases and the enquiry wound down, although it was still very much alive. I’ve got Hank liaising with the receiver on that job, feeding information to my lot up here.’

‘Surely Kent, Harrison and Walker weren’t the only ex-Coleby officers transferred up here. There must be others at the prison.’

‘It should be easy to check.’

‘Why are you so certain it’s Sophie you found?’

‘She fits the profile: her age, the timing of the abduction, the fact that she had no broken bones, had never been treated by a dentist, according to her father. Neither had our victim. Of course that could all be coincidental, but I’m fairly certain it’s her. Don’t ask me where the pearls fit in. If Sophie is the first victim, Maxine O’Neil the second and Rachel the third, then Cohen can be ruled out. He’s been dead a while.’

‘Five-year gaps figure somewhere,’ Jo said. ‘It sounds like you’re on to something. Didn’t they take a DNA sample for Sophie?’

‘No match found.’

‘Maybe someone made a mistake?’

Daniels shrugged. ‘Human error is one possibility. The results could simply have been assigned to the wrong case file. Or it could have been deliberate: the evidence tampered with. My next step is to identify which it is.’