CHAPTER THIRTY THREE

 

Gary left the Clarkson’s house with a tense smile on his lips. Toni had taken one look at the photo ID sheet, and with no prompting, had picked out Cade from the ten mug shots. They’d chatted for a few minutes, then he had left, but as walked back towards his old Suzuki, he saw another car drawing up.

‘Ethan Barley. What brings you to this young lady’s door?’

Ethan threw open the car door and climbed out grinning broadly. ‘Got it back together with Toni.’

‘Yuk!’

Gary looked across to the passenger seat and saw Nic Barley pulling a face at his brother. ‘And don’t you approve?’ he asked affably.

‘Ah, its okay I suppose. Maybe it’ll keep him off my back.’

Ethan told his brother to stay put, he’d only be a few minutes, then he loped up the path towards the house. Gary took a long look at the younger brother, and decided to take a gamble. ‘Do me a favour, son?’

Nic looked suspicious.

‘It’s okay, honestly. I just wondered if you recognised anyone on this.’ Gary pulled out the sheet of mug shots, and gave it to the boy

He had been very careful. He had produced a close-up picture of James Cade taken from a police magazine. He had then copied it and cropped out all trace of a uniform. It made him look just like any civilian. Then he had take nine photos of uninvolved individuals from old cases, added them to the Rogue’s Gallery and hey-presto, a bone fide ID sheet.

‘Anyone you know?’

Nic looked closely. ‘Just one. That git there. But he never looked that tidy.’

Gary’s heart jumped. The boy had fingered Cade!

Nic Barley handed the paper back. ‘He was often hanging around with the bloke who got me to copy the keys, and he was at the party in the crypt.’

‘So how does he dress?’

‘Always the same. Greased back hair, glasses, scruffy black chinos, a dark polo shirt and a black nylon sports jacket.’

Gary felt sick. That was the description that Rosie had given of the man she recognised, but couldn’t place. The young detective had actually seen Cade! Please God, that just as she couldn’t put a name to him, if Cade had noticed the exotic young ‘Petra’, he wouldn’t have known her either.

‘Dirty bastard,’ grumbled Nic. ‘Is he the one that spiked Ethan’s bird’s drink?’

‘Could be, Nicholas. And maybe he’s done far worse than that.’ Gary paused for a moment, then added, ‘Would you testify?’

‘What? Go to court? Fucking hell!’ The boy’s eyes widened.

‘It could do you a lot of good, son. Our boss would be extremely pleased with you, and she’s got a lot of influence. And if she’s pleased, I would suggest that she could make things considerably easier with your father.’

The boy sniffed. Then he shrugged. ‘I dunno. I suppose, well, I could, but...’

Gary smiled at him. ‘Good lad! I knew you had it in you.’

As he stood up and made to go to his car, Nic called him back. ‘There was another girl wasn’t there? Emily?’

‘I’d rather we kept this to ourselves, Nic. I don’t want Toni hearing about it yet.’ Gary’s face hardened. ‘Emily’s dead.’

Nicholas’s pasty face turned even whiter. ‘Dead? What murdered?’

‘Abducted from one of those parties, Nicholas. Drugged, imprisoned, probably raped, made to suffer terribly, and left to die. I’d say that’s murder, wouldn’t you?’

Gary thought the boy was going to be sick, then he looked up at Gary, breathed deeply for a minute, then quietly but firmly said. ‘I’ll testify.’

 

Jon Summerhill impatiently paced up and down in the foyer. It was after six and the University had rung half an hour ago to say they were couriering Ted Watchman’s requested information to him. Then to his relief, he saw a slim-hipped, leather-clad motorcyclist peeling off his helmet and ringing the bell. Jon met him at the door, signed for the packet and gave him a fiver. He pulled open the large manila envelope and stared inside. He didn’t dare remove them, but he could see the series of face recognition photo printouts. He quickly withdrew the short explanatory note, scanned it, and let out a soft whoop of delight. He’d been pretty certain, but as the hours had passed he had begun to doubt his convictions. Now he held a positive match in his hand.

A picture swam lazily into his mind. It was Valerie; her chestnut hair sweeping her shoulders, and her hazel eyes laughing at him. Valerie; sitting on a low wall over a stream at the back of his Aunt Hilda’s cottage. It was peaceful and about as pretty as the fenlands could be, with a garden full of flowers and mature old trees, a meandering stream and a plum orchard. They often went there in the early days, in the days before Cade.

The thought of that name instantly tainted the memory, and it faded. Jon’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the photographs. ‘Your time is up, come in number fifteen,’ he whispered to himself, then gathered the documents together and hurried from the foyer.

He almost fell into Kate’s office, and placed the envelope on the desk in front of her.

‘From that look on your face, I don’t need to ask, do I?’ said Kate slowly.

‘No, ma-am. It’s the result we hoped for.’

Kate slid the report and the photos half-way out, glanced at them, then returned them to the envelope and locked it in her desk drawer. ‘This stays here until we need it.’ She attached the small key onto the fob with her car keys, and pushed them deep into her pocket. ‘Surety. We are going to need every bit of evidence we can get if we want to stick Cade firmly in the doo-doo, where he belongs.’

Jon nodded, and gave a yawn. ‘It’s half six. But I guess that we’re not finished yet. Shall I send out for some food?’

Kate nodded. ‘In a while. There are a few things I need to catch up on first. Could you ask Clive if he’s heard from the lab regarding those handwriting comparisons?’

Jon caught Clive tidying up his desk and shutting down his computer.

‘I’m off home, Sarge.’ He handed Jon a sheaf of papers. ‘All these are for the DCI. The phone has been red hot in the last half hour. They are mainly non-urgent, with the exception of the path report on the top.’ Clive switched off his printer and locked his desk drawer. ‘See you in the morning, Sarge.’

Jon murmured good night, checked that the report was the one that Kate wanted, then went back to her office.

‘The handwriting on those cards over the beds is an exact match with the samples taken from Elizabeth Sewell’s annexe, ma’am.’

Kate opened the report and groaned loudly. ‘This is lunacy! It doesn’t make sense. How can a weak and sensitive woman, someone known to be both physically and mentally delicate, possibly be involved in murder on this scale?’

‘She wrote them for her beloved employer, Benedict Broome. What else could it mean?’ Jon frowned. ‘But whatever it means, we now we have a direct link between her and the scene of the crime, so we are going to have to get her moved to a secure unit, aren’t we?’

Kate picked up the phone. ‘Damned right we are. I’ll get an order to have her moved from the general hospital to Saltern Hall Psychiatric Hospital pending evaluation. And we need to speak to Benedict Broome again.’

While Kate arranged for Elizabeth Sewell’s transfer, Jon went out into the main office to fetch them some strong black coffees.

‘Sarge, have you got a moment?’ Scotty was lifting a pile of printer paper from his desk. ‘The other teams have been hard at it with these IDs. We have a girl called Hebe Brock, a Scottish traveller who went missing five years ago. Date of birth tallies and she was reported as having the top of one finger amputated in an accident. Our victim had an identical bony injury. Plus there is a fifteen year old serial runaway from Calne in Wiltshire. Her name is Sophie Berry, and she’s been missing for seven years. The date of birth, Christian name and a charm bracelet all match. Another girl is named Tessa Avery. It was assumed that she had run off with her boyfriend to Spain, but her parents never heard from her again. She’s been missing for three years and came from Surrey.’

‘Interesting that so far, none of them are high profile cases, or local mispers.’

‘Emily was local.’ said Scott. ‘So obviously the killer was getting more confident.’

‘Then thank God we found his lair when we did. Good work, Scott.’ Jon gave the young man a friendly slap on the shoulder.  ‘Anything more in the pipeline?’

‘Everything we have is on the Police National Computer, so they could get some more hits soon.’

‘Then maybe you should take the opportunity to get home?’

‘I’m working to ID Fleur, Sarge, and I’m not having as much luck as the others, so I’ll hang on for a while longer.’ Scott swiftly typed in another search. ‘Plus I’d quite like to see if the PNC coughs up anything interesting over the next hour or so. We’ve sent out some pretty motivating enquiries.’

‘Okay, but don’t stay all night.’ Jon moved away to the coffee machine and wondered just how much of a private life young Scotty actually had. He may be strikingly good looking, but Jon got the impression that Scott’s ideal night in would not involve anything other than a takeaway, a pot of coffee, 8 GBs of RAM and second generation Intel Core i7 processor.

Carefully balancing three hot polystyrene beakers, Jon placed one next to Scotty, then took the other two back to Kate’s office.

She was just replacing the phone as he went in, and he thought she seemed edgier than when he left. ‘Something wrong?’

‘Everything.’ Kate’s face was a mask of both anger and mystification. ‘Elizabeth Sewell is being transferred, but I’ve just been speaking to the FMO out at Harlan Marsh, and told him it’s imperative that we interview Micah Lee. He says the man’s mind is in a state of flux. One minute he’s lucid and reasonable, the next he’s climbing the walls.’ She glowered at the phone. ‘And I don’t have the time go there and sodding well sit around waiting for one of his ‘reasonable moments.’

‘Couldn’t an officer from Harlan Marsh do it for you? Someone who is on hand to monitor Lee’s moods.’

‘And you’d actually trust someone from Cade’s manor, would you?’ she spat out.

‘I trust Gary.’ he said quietly. ‘So I’d trust any one Gary vouched for. They can’t all be bent, ma’am. One rotten apple won’t have corrupted the whole barrel.’

Kate leant forward, elbows on the desk and her head in her hands. ‘You’re right. Sorry, Jon. Ask Gary to come in, would you?’ She sat up straight. ‘In fact, get the team together in the CID room. We need to talk.’

 

Kate perched on the edge of a desk in front of one of the big white boards. Down one side of the board was a list of the victims. They had begun as just bed numbers, first names and dates of birth, if known. But now full names, photographs and locations of disappearance were appearing. Already they had bright smiling photos of Tessa Avery, Sophie Berry, Hebe Brock and just a few seconds ago, Annie Crane and Lucy O’Connell had been added.

At the top of the board was the name Windrush, and below that; the names, Benedict Broome, Elizabeth Sewell and Micah Lee.

Kate stood up and pointed to Elizabeth. ‘This woman is a direct link to the Children’s Ward, but we already know from Prickles that some of the dead girls had been seriously assaulted with a great deal of force, and possibly raped, so that means that either she had an accomplice, or her involvement is in some way.., ‘she shrugged, ‘…accidental.’

‘But she is connected to Broome, and to Lee, by way of his being employed by Broome.’ Jon pursed his lips. ‘So what if her employer asked her to print out some labels? She’d do it, wouldn’t she? And not necessarily be aware of what they were?’

‘That,’ said Kate, ‘is what I mean by accidental. And maybe she’d do it for a friend too. We need to talk to her as soon as she’s been assessed at Saltern Hall. Meanwhile, Gary, I need a trustworthy senior detective at Harlan Marsh, someone who would interview Lee for us, and preferably without Chief Superintendent Cade knowing. Is there such an officer?’

‘Only one that I know of, ma’am. DI Jim Salmon.’

‘Jim Salmon? The same guy who used to be our dog handler years back? He’s a detective?’ Kate’s eyes widened. ‘Perfect, I’ll ring him as soon as we’ve finished.’ She turned back to the board. ‘So who else have we spoken to?’

‘Broome’s gardener, Guv. Bloke named Len Curtis.’ Scott looked at his notebook. ‘Funny sort; it was hard to get him to string two words together. But he has been out to Windrush a few times, with messages or deliveries for Micah Lee, and he only lives about two miles from Roman Creek.’

Kate wrote the name on the board. ‘Who else?’

‘Philip Graves, the vet who lives on the edge of the marsh, just a short way from Windrush. And two other neighbours, a bird-watcher called Ralph Jenkins, and a couple called Ernie and Betty Coulter.’

‘And Gary and I spoke to Bill Hickey, the farm manager where Micah Lee lodges.’ She paused. ‘But the farmer was away. What was his name, Gary?’

‘Toby Tanner. Expected back from Germany tomorrow, according to Hickey.’

‘Is that it?’

‘No, ma’am. There were several other people living in the Roman Creek area that uniform saw, but most were elderly women, apart from a couple who have a holiday let a bit further up the coast road.’ Rosie shook her head. ‘No-one they’d pay a second visit to, and all the so-called ‘neighbours’ are well scattered over a very large area. Windrush is quite remote.’

Jon raised his hand. ‘And maybe we should include Asher Leyton on the list of people we’ve spoken to. It’s a very vague connection, but he did know of Shauna Kelly, and she has definitely been placed at one of those parties’.

Kate added the man’s name to the board. ‘Okay, so in summary, we go back to talking to Benedict Broome, to Elizabeth Sewell and Micah Lee. And on a different tack, we hit the drinking club again.’ As there were other officers in the room, she kept strictly to the connection to the abducted girls, Toni and Emily, and the victims of the Children’s Ward. ‘The organisers may have nothing directly to do with girls being abducted, but we need them brought in, questioned, and those damned parties brought to an end.’ She looked around at the tired faces staring back at her. ‘Now, all of you who can, get yourselves home and get some rest. We start again tomorrow.’

 

‘That guy is one serious fruit-cake, my friend.’ The Harlan Marsh custody officer closed the door of the interview room. ‘Now he’s all yours, and the best of British in trying to get any sense out of him.’

DI Jim Salmon raised his eye-brows and wondered if he had been a little too quick in agreeing to help out DCI Kate Reynard. He’d already heard that Chief Superintendent Cade had tried to interview Mad Micah, and had had to abort it almost immediately. He just prayed that Cade wouldn’t get to hear about this particular unplanned attempt too soon. At least the Chief was off duty until the morning.

Along with his sergeant, DS Terry Langer, and a hastily acquired social worker from the duty rota to safeguard the prisoner’s interests, Jim reluctantly entered the small room.

Micah Lee sat bolt upright, his eyes wide and staring, and his nostrils already flaring with anger.

Jim Salmon looked at him and decided that when Kate had said she owed him one, she had meant it, and he would definitely make her pay, big time. With a deep sigh, he switched on the tape and made the introductions. ‘Mr Lee, we need to talk to you about an underground room beneath the property called Windrush at Roman Creek. That is the property belonging to Mr Benedict Broome, and where you have been working for some time.’ Jim kept his voice even and quiet. Luckily he was a softly spoken man and he hoped that that may help with this particular interviewee. He had known the moment he saw the man, that any form of forcefulness would be construed as aggression, and he had no wish to inflame the mercurial Micah any further. ‘We are specifically asking you because of your knowledge of the lay-out of Windrush, Mr Lee. Having worked on it for so long, we feel that you may be able to help.’

‘What room? I don’t know about any underground room!’ boomed Micah.

Jim noticed a vein pulsing in the side of the man’s head, and made even more of an effort to speak calmly.

‘Surely you know that there is a tunnel leading from the back of the main house out towards the old barn and the storeroom, and that there is an underground room beneath them?’

The big man threw Jim a wild look. The kind of look the detective could have imagined on the face of an animal finding itself caged and threatened.

Micah chewed furiously on his bottom lip, and drummed his fingers frantically on the table top. ‘I don’t know any tunnel. No, no tunnel.’

Jim attempted a smile. ‘Okay, but do you know…?’

The keening howl that suddenly erupted from Micah’s lips made them all leap up in fright as it echoed around the tiny room. Jim’s chair fell backwards, and the social worker uttered a little scream, one that she stifled very quickly when she saw Micah staring straight at her, his teeth bared in a snarl.

But Micah hadn’t actually been seeing the woman at all, because before anyone could move, his breathing became a series of ragged, gasping breaths, and he pitched forward onto the floor.

Jim slammed his hand into the rubber strip that surrounded the room, and the panic button activated the emergency alarm throughout the station. ‘Get help!’ he yelled, as he threw himself down beside the now unconscious Micah. ‘We need an ambulance.’

‘The duty doctor is in the building.’ called back Langer. ‘He was dealing with a junkie as we came in.’ He ran for the door. ‘I’ll get him.’

In a matter of moments the doctor was by Jim’s side.

‘It’s probably some kind of panic attack. He’s sweaty and tachy-cardic. He may well have hyperventilated and that caused the faint, but…’ The doctor checked the man’s pulse again. ‘We need to get him to the Pilgrim Hospital to be checked out properly. I’m not just covering our backs, Detective Inspector Salmon. I’m not at all happy with his condition.’ He looked worried. ‘There may be a neurological reason for this and we can’t risk leaving it.’

‘Believe me, doctor, I was good with the ‘covering our backs’ scenario. The faster we can get him out of here the better.’

‘Ambulance is on its way, Guv.’ The sergeant leant around the door. ‘And uniform are organising an escort.’ He stared down at Micah. ‘I can’t say I’ll be sad to see that one go, either. That’s one scary guy!’

As the stretcher was placed in the back of the ambulance, Jim stretched, went back inside and wondered how he was going to tell the Fox that he’d inadvertently hospitalised her prisoner. And worse than that, how would Chief Cade react when he found out?

 

It was very late by the time Kate and Jon concluded Benedict Broome’s second interview. He had been polite, but vehemently denied any knowledge of work ever being carried out from an underground tunnel. In fact he denied knowledge of any such tunnel. He also looked totally nonplussed regarding the name cards that they believed were written by his house-keeper.

In the end, they called it a day, and Kate decided to keep schtum about their killer singing as he roamed his subterranean necropolis. She and Jon thought perhaps they would keep that little piece of information to themselves until they could use it more effectively.

‘I wonder if he was a choir boy,’ mused Jon, as they left the interview room. ‘But he didn’t grow up around here, so that could be tough nut to crack.’

‘Worth a try though.’ Kate punched in the security number on the door, and flung it open. ‘But right now, we need sleep. Go check the team, Jon. Whoever is left, pack them off to their homes and their beds.’

Jon nodded, but before he could say anything, Kate’s mobile shrieked out.

‘Ah, Jim Salmon, yes, what have you got for me?’

Jon watched as Kate’s mouth dropped fractionally.

‘Shit! How the hell…? Oh well, not your fault, Jim, I’m just sorry to have put you through that. The Pilgrim Hospital in Boston? Yeah, but make sure he’s watched 24/7. Two officers at all times. Have you got the manpower for that, or shall I get you some back-up? Right, well, thanks for trying. Night, Jim. Oh, and any agro from your Chief, refer him to me, okay?’ She closed the phone and stared grimly at Jon. ‘Micah Lee denied knowing about any tunnels or underground rooms, then he collapsed. He’s been taken to the Pilgrim for neurological evaluation.’ She made a low growling noise. ‘That puts two of our three suspects out of our direct supervision, and I don’t like that one bit.’

Jon agreed, but that kind of thing was out of their hands. And right now, he could barely think straight. He was exhausted, and the rest of the team probably felt exactly the same. ‘See you in the morning, Guv. Let’s see what tomorrow brings, shall we?’

‘And speaking of the morning, Benedict Broome should either be released or charged at 8 am, so I’d better get someone around to the magistrate for an extension. And considering what lies beneath that man’s property, I’ll go on getting bloody extensions until we have the truth.’ Kate gently rubbed her eyes with her thumb and forefinger. ‘And regarding what tomorrow brings? I dread to guess, Jon. I really dread to guess.’