Chapter Eighteen
VIPER, the Video Identification Parades Electronic Reporting procedure had been in use on the force for several years. It was fast, because the Identification Officer — in this instance a police inspector stationed at Edge Hill — didn’t have to scrounge around for volunteers off the street. The system had a database of seven thousand faces, video recorded in front, left and right view, so an approximate match wasn’t difficult; the computer software did all the hard work of sorting and sifting according to race and physical appearance.
Bentley was a man of his word — he stuck to his agreement and submitted to the procedure before leaving the station. DC Hart contacted their witness, Mrs Langley, to arrange a day for her to come in and do the identification.
‘I can send someone to pick you up, if you like,’ Hart said.
‘Can’t you come?’ Mrs Langley sounded older, frailer than when Hart had spoken to her earlier in the day. The woman Hart had interviewed was robust, tall and athletic looking, her grey hair cut short and brushed straight. Then, she had seemed gossipy and interested, the type who liked to know her neighbours and their business but whose interest was not malicious; now she sounded like an elderly lady in shock: vulnerable and fragile, as though something had broken inside her.
‘I’d feel happier if you were to come,’ she said.
‘I’m afraid I’m not allowed to do that, Mrs Langley,’ Hart said. ‘It has to be an officer with no involvement in the enquiry. But I can send a female officer. She’ll take good care of you.’
There was a pause, and when Mrs Langley spoke, there was a tremor in her voice. ‘What if I see him, though? He might recognise me.’
‘He won’t be there,’ Hart assured her. ‘We do it all with video recordings, these days. You’ll look at a recording of eight different men and the officer in charge will ask if you recognise the man you saw the night Miss Geddes was attacked.’
‘And he definitely won’t be there . . .’
‘Only on the recording.’
Mrs Langley agreed, but it took five more minutes of reassurance. Hart gave her the Identification Officer’s name and told her to expect a call in the next twenty-four hours: DCI Rickman wanted this actioned as a priority.
* * *
The buzz of conversation dimmed to a hum as soon as Rickman entered the Incident Room for the seven-thirty debrief. At six-foot four, he was hard to miss, and by the time he reached the whiteboard, the room was silent. A photograph of Sara Geddes had been blu-tacked next to Sara’s pencil drawing of Megan Ward. Her name, age, occupation and time of death had been written below with a dry-wipe marker. They had precious little on Megan: approximate age, a bogus occupation, approximate time of disappearance — even her picture was an approximation, an interpretation sketched from memory, and Rickman knew just how faulty that could be.
He started with the post-mortem results. ‘Post-mortem confirms the head injury as cause of death,’ he said. ‘Sara’s mother has formally identified the body and her name has been released to the press. Jake Bentley’s out of custody, but we’ve got a witness coming in who we hope can place him at the scene.’
He located DC Garvey, sitting next to the water cooler. ‘Anything from his place of work?’ he asked.
Garvey was in his early forties. He had worked with Rickman before and had proved solid and reliable. ‘He turns up on time, stays after to use the facilities himself. Nothing of interest in his locker, or at his home address.’ They still had the confiscated photographs as evidence.
‘Okay.’ Rickman glanced around the room; the team looked tired and a little rumpled, but not desperate. It was important to keep morale up at this stage. ‘Who’s on house-to-house?’ he asked.
Garvey raised his hand, along with two others whose names Rickman hadn’t yet memorised.
‘We did most of them yesterday,’ Garvey said. ‘Shouldn’t take too long.’
‘What’s the sequence of events so far?’
‘Shouts and screaming.’ Garvey referred this time to his notebook. ‘Sara on the ground, bleeding from a head wound. Two men standing over her — possibility three. They got into a car — Merc or BMW. Car sped off towards Lark Lane. A minute later a second car — possibly an old Nova — drove off towards Ullet Road at speed.’
‘Bentley?’
Garvey shrugged. ‘He owns a Nova.’
Rickman related Bentley’s confession and his denial that he had been involved in the attack. There was an exchange of disbelieving glances between members of the team. ‘Anything from the murder scene or the house?’ he asked Tony Mayle.
As crime scene coordinator, he had an overview of any and all crime scenes relating to the case. ‘Witness statements indicate they wore hoods,’ he said. Mayle was known by most of the officers present: as an ex-cop, he had experience which drew respect that was sometimes withheld from non-police CSIs. He was quietly spoken, but his voice carried well in the overcrowded room, and although his hair had begun to grey, he looked fit and active for a man in his mid-forties. ‘I’d lay bets they wore gloves as well,’ he went on. ‘The only prints we found were Sara Geddes’s. We got a couple of shoeprints from the carpet—’
‘Woah!’ Rickman exclaimed. ‘Wait a second — no other prints except for Sara’s?’
‘None.’ Mayle saw where he was going with this and sat up straighter. ‘Nothing that might belong to Megan.’
‘Well isn’t she the clean little house-elf?’ Foster said.
Rickman was ahead of him. ‘You searched her rooms, didn’t you?’
‘Me and Naomi, yeah.’
‘Did you find a hairbrush, toothbrush—’
‘A used lipstick would do just as well,’ Mayle said. ‘Even a stray hair on a sweater, if it has a root bulb attached. I’ll send somebody to check.’
‘If she’s tried to eradicate her fingerprints, she might just be on the DNA database,’ Rickman said. The team caught the mood of excitement and perked up. ‘Who’s doing the DVLA check?’ A young DC with ruffled brown hair and smooth skin raised his hand. ‘Andy Reid, isn’t it?’
‘Sir.’ Reid seemed pleased that Rickman had remembered him from the previous autumn. ‘I put in the request yesterday. But nothing so far.’ His accent was almost impenetrable, most of the sounds formed — or half-formed — at the back of his throat.
‘Give them a dig,’ Rickman said. ‘I want her driving licence photo circulated to foot-patrols, traffic, community officers — anyone who might spot her in the street. She drives an Audi TT 150 Roadster sports car — silver. DC Hart will give you the ID number. The car is going to be more noticeable than Megan — but send the two out together, so they link them.’
Tunstall began putting his hand up, then changed his mind and coughed instead. ‘Could we not send the photo to other forces as well?’ he asked. ‘I mean, didn’t Sara say she was from outside the area?’
‘Good point,’ Rickman said, and Tunstall flushed with pleasure.
They ran through the rest of the day’s tasks quickly and efficiently: logs of Bentley’s mobile phone and landline confirmed that he had used neither to get in touch with Sara, so the mystery caller was still just that — a mystery.
‘Bentley has appointed Kieran Jago as his brief,’ Rickman said. One or two people actually gasped.
‘I’n’t he a bit out of Bentley’s league?’ Tunstall asked.
Rickman was impressed: Jago was part of the folklore of Liverpool, but Tunstall was a Widnesian, and hadn’t been steeped in the same traditions as the majority of the team.
‘He’s doing the work for gratis,’ Rickman said.
Foster snorted. ‘He says . . .’
‘I think we’d all echo that sentiment,’ Rickman said. ‘So either Bentley’s pulling more legal aid than he earns in a year, or he has a sponsor.’
‘Worth having a word with Jago’s office staff?’ Hart asked.
‘I might be able to help with that,’ Foster avoided her eye as he said it.
The men on the team who knew him chuckled: Foster’s ‘help’ would no doubt involve dinner and a bottle of wine with a female member of staff.
Rickman nodded, noting Hart’s careful impassivity. She was seated to Foster’s right, her long legs crossed and her blonde hair carelessly twisted into a knot at the nape of her neck. She looked fabulous.
* * *
They moved on to the enquiries into Megan’s past. The search of oil rig deaths had come up with a list that needed further investigation.
‘Trouble is, they don’t usually keep records of family details,’ the reporting officer said. ‘Just next of kin. I’ve discounted some of them, but there’s four already I haven’t been able to trace.’
‘Keep trying. Tunstall — what did you get from ELVIS?’
Tunstall flushed and Foster hummed a few bars of ‘All Shook Up’. Hart stepped in before he could begin apologising.
‘He was busy shifting boxes to get the Exhibits Room up and running. I told him I’d do it.’ It wasn’t a lie. ‘Sorry, Boss — when Bentley showed up, I lost track of time. I’ll get onto it first thing.’
Rickman’s gaze flicked from Hart to Tunstall; the big Widnesian’s colour deepened under his scrutiny. ‘Be sure you do,’ he said, then took in the rest of the room, making brief eye contact with each member of the team. ‘I know it’s been frustrating. You’ve worked hard and have little to show for it — but stick with it, we’ll turn up something. Sooner or later, we’ll get the break we need.’
Chapter Nineteen
The silence in Lee Foster’s flat was uncomfortable. He flicked on the radio and tuned it to Rock FM. He knew he had lost points with Naomi at the briefing, even if he had gained a few with the lads. Why the hell should he care? It wasn’t like him and Naomi were ever going to hook up — not in this lifetime, anyway. He shrugged out of his jacket and hung it on the back of one of the kitchen chairs, then reached for the cheap whisky he kept in the cupboard and poured himself a third of a tumbler. He took a swallow. He had noticed Jeff Rickman’s quick appraisal of Naomi. Her studied indifference was almost worse than if she had voiced her disapproval.
The cupboard door stood open. As he debated whether to replace the bottle or pour himself another, something caught his eye. A biscuit tin, circa 1970s. He freshened his drink, then took the tin down.
It was silver, with a Victorian winter scene painted on the lid: a coach and horses on a snowy rutted road. He smoothed a hand over the surface before lifting the lid. It was pitted and scratched here and there, the colour faded.
He was seven years old when his mother was taken into hospital for the first time. He had found her asleep on the floor of the bathroom. That’s what he told the emergency operator: ‘Mummy’s asleep and she can’t wake up.’
They didn’t give him time to pack. They had taken him, still in his pyjamas, to the foster home where he had stayed for six weeks.
The next time, he was prepared. When the ambulance arrived, he was already dressed and hugged his box of treasures tightly to his chest. Short-term placements became harder to find as he got bigger and, he had to admit, troublesome. More and more, he waited out his mother’s depressions in council homes — although there was nothing particularly homely about them. Except for Black Wood. Mr and Mrs Shepherd ran Black Wood like a big chaotic family home. High on Woolton Hill, they were surrounded by woods and fields. Until then, he hadn’t known there was so much green in the world.
Lifting the lid of the tin, he got a whiff of old paper and bubble gum. This was where he had kept his secret stash; the faint odour of tobacco that lingered was from his roll-ups, a later addition to his secret treasures.
He stirred the contents idly with his fingertips, finding the penknife, the Plasticine and lengths of string he had stored so carefully. He found his old peashooter, the plastic mouthpiece perished and cracked, the red faded to pink; panto tickets, photographs — of him and Mum on one of her better days, smiling into a camera lens. Who had taken the picture?
He tilted the tin and something rolled. His cat’s-eye marble. He smiled, remembering himself as the boy who had puzzled over the mystery of how they got the colour inside the glass. A few birthday cards — not many — and a couple of letters. One envelope was in his mother’s handwriting. He turned it over in his hands, the smile fading from his face. Then he pushed the envelope back into the tin and closed the lid, shoving the container back into the cupboard and closing the door.
He took a couple more swallows of whisky, then slammed a microwave dinner in the oven and set the time. While the microwave hummed, he dipped in his pocket for his mobile and keyed through his contacts list. Hayley Usher. Hayley with the long brown hair and infectious laugh. He checked his watch: nine-thirty — too late for dinner. Just a drink tonight, then. She wasn’t soft — she’d smell a rat if he asked her out for a drink at this hour and bombarded her with questions. So, leave the questions till dinner, tomorrow. He could meet her straight after the evening debrief, maybe go on to a club — he might even get lucky. Foster was feeling better already.
* * *
Jeff junior was arguing with his mother when Rickman got home. They were all in the front sitting-room, Simon seated in one of the armchairs, puzzling over his turn at Scrabble, Fergus sitting on the floor near the fire reading a book in comic-strip format. Tanya and Jeff junior stopped when he opened the door and Tanya smiled, though it looked like an effort.
‘I’ve saved you some dinner,’ she said. ‘I can reheat it in the microwave.’
‘Great,’ Rickman said, then, with the slightest hint of irony, ‘Good evening, everyone.’
Simon noticed him for the first time and beamed a smile at him. ‘’Lo, little bro,’ he said. Though it was a relief that Simon had got past the stage of the tearful reunion every time they met, this new craze of calling him ‘little bro’ was rapidly beginning to pall.
In Simon’s mind, he was still a seventeen-year-old and Rickman had discovered that he generally responded like one, so ignoring irritating behaviour was the quickest way to extinguish it.
‘Good comic?’ he asked, nudging Fergus’s foot with the tip of his own.
Fergus grimaced. ‘We call them graphic novels in the twenty-first century, Uncle Jeff.’
Rickman laughed. It still gave him a buzz, being called Uncle Jeff. Nobody else seemed to find it funny, however, and Rickman realised that whatever he had interrupted, it was more serious than he had first thought.
‘Is everything okay?’ he asked loosening his tie and taking off his suit jacket; the room was hot and humid — Tanya said she could never get warm in England.
‘Jeff is—’
‘Everything is fine,’ his nephew said, with a sharp glance at his mother. Jeff junior was very like her — the same oval face and dark brown hair, but in the months since Rickman had known him, he had begun to fill out and had the broad shoulders and flat pectoral muscles of a swimmer. Rickman knew that this was a constant source of friction between Jeff and his mother — his frequent trips to the beach when they were home in Italy, weekends away with his friends, surfing and partying.
‘Jeff is spending too much time on the internet, emailing his friends back in Milan, and not enough time revising,’ she said, firmly, holding her son’s gaze.
‘Oh.’ This was an argument Rickman thought it best to stay out of.
‘See,’ Jeff junior said with a little smile of triumph.
‘Now he wants to go out to a club.’
‘Tonight?’ Rickman said. ‘Not a good idea tonight, Jeff — there’s a big match on. Liverpool against Man U. Bound to be trouble in the city centre.’ He had seen too many mindless acts of violence after football matches to sit on the fence on this one.
‘That settles it,’ Tanya said. ‘You’re staying home.’
‘This isn’t my home, Ma.’
‘Jeff—’
‘It’s okay,’ Rickman said. ‘He’s right.’
His nephew lift
ed his chin in defiance, then seemed to decide the fight wasn’t worth it. ‘I’m going to bed,’ he said.
Rickman followed him out of the room. ‘Sorry, Jeff,’ he said. ‘But it really can be dangerous out there, nights like this.’
‘Whatever.’ He was already on the staircase and took a couple more steps.
‘Jeff?’
His nephew stopped and looked down at him.
Rickman hesitated, closing the sitting-room door before he spoke. ‘Your mum is having a hard time of it,’ he said, quietly. ‘I know it’s tough for you, too, but she could use your support right now.’
‘Don’t do that.’ A flush of anger rose to the boy’s face and his brown eyes sparked with anger. ‘Don’t try to be the father figure, okay?’
Bad timing, Rickman thought. ‘Okay,’ he said, already backing off.
‘Don’t patronise me,’ the boy continued, unwilling to let it go. ‘You’re not my dad. You can’t advise me — I hardly even know you.’
‘Your dad isn’t able to advise you just now,’ Rickman said, quietly.
‘No, you’re right,’ Jeff’s hand was clamped tight around the stair rail. ‘Pathetic as it seems, my dad can’t advise me because he’s sitting in there oblivious to everything, playing Scrabble, getting the spellings wrong like some spaz—’
‘Jeff!’
The shocked look on his nephew’s face was as much a response to the boy’s own horror at what he had just said as to the tone of Rickman’s voice. Tears stood in his eyes, and the knuckles of his hand were white as he gripped the rail. ‘I’m going to bed,’ he repeated.
* * *
Rickman knew immediately he stepped into the room that they had heard. Tanya stood at the window, looking out into the dark of the front garden, the tension showing in her shoulders.
Simon tipped the letter tiles back into the Scrabble box, the frown on his face telling Rickman that his brother was close to tears. Fergus alone looked up at him, wanting him to make things right. But if Jeff junior hardly knew him, the converse was true — he barely knew his sister-in-law or his nephews. God help him, he barely knew his own brother — how could he expect to help them? He tried anyway, sitting in the chair next to the fire to be close to Fergus, to show him that, though he didn’t have the words, he did want to help.
SEE HER DIE a totally gripping mystery thriller (Detective Jeff Rickman Book 2) Page 11