‘Next left then second right,’ she said, as they approached the estate. She’d let the matter lie – for now.
Rachel Stead lived in a corner house two streets away from where Kate had grown up. Probably bought from the council in the 1980s, it was a sturdy brick-built semi with a long strip of garden down one side and a small paved driveway at the front, currently occupied by a silver Nissan Micra. Kate eased past the car and knocked on the door without waiting to see if Hollis was following her.
The woman who opened the door looked so much like Melissa Buckley that Kate hesitated for a second before introducing herself and Dan. There was no way that this woman was Melissa’s mother, she was barely into her twenties, and she confirmed this by introducing herself as Bridget, Melissa’s sister. She led them down a bright hallway to the kitchen at the back of the house where an older woman was sitting at the table, hands wrapped around a mug of tea. In her fifties, Rachel Stead bore little resemblance to her daughters. Her closely cropped cap of grey hair may have been dark at some point but it was impossible to tell and, as she raised her face to look at the two police officers, Kate noted that her eyes were blue rather than the deep brown of her daughters.
‘I’ll put the kettle on,’ Bridget announced, gesturing to the empty chairs at the table. ‘Have a seat.’
Kate watched as Hollis folded his long legs under the table then sat down next to him. Rachel had put down her mug and was rolling a tissue between her fingers, turning it into a sausage shape and then nipping off the narrow ends before spreading it out and starting again.
‘You understand why we’re here, Mrs Stead?’ Kate checked.
The woman nodded. ‘You want to ask about our Melissa.’ Her gaze remained fixed on her hands.
‘I know that this is really difficult.’
A mug slammed on the counter top behind Kate and she turned to see Bridget scowling at her, her unmade-up face pink with anger.
‘What’s bloody difficult is sitting here making endless cups of tea while whoever killed my sister is still out there,’ Bridget said. ‘And I doubt that there’s anything that my mam or me can tell you to help you find this fucking murderer!’
Rachel dropped the tissue that she’d been squeezing and glanced up at her daughter. Her face was narrow and pinched-looking with deep wrinkles carved down the sides of her mouth. Kate knew that she was roughly the same age as Melissa’s mother but the other woman looked at least a decade older as she admonished her younger daughter.
‘Bridget! I won’t have you using language like that in my house. The police are here to help.’
Bridget continued to glare at Kate and then she sneered, her pierced upper lip curling towards her nose in disgust. ‘Here to help,’ she muttered, turning back to the kettle and the mugs.
Kate noted her skinny black jeans, held up with a thick, black leather belt and the ripped dark T-shirt which exposed a sleeve of tattoos on her left arm. It looked like both girls had gone through a rebellious phase: Melissa with her multiple piercings and Bridget with her Goth clothes and tattoos. Bridget still needed time to grow out of hers, it seemed.
‘I saw her, you know,’ Rachel was saying. ‘I went to see our Melissa at the hospital yesterday evening. Ryan was already there. He said he’d been questioned again but you’d let him go. He’d not been in to see her when I got there so we went in together. I knew it was her as soon as I saw her. She didn’t take after me; neither of them did. Favoured their dad. He was dark-haired like them. Ryan was in bits when he saw her. He’s a waste of space in a lot of ways but he really loved our Melissa.’
Hollis took out his notebook and pencil as Bridget plonked mugs of tea in front of them. Kate realised that she hadn’t asked how they liked it and had obviously decided that weak and milky was a decent offering. Kate asked her to sit down.
‘Before we start,’ she said. ‘I’m really sorry about Melissa. I can’t even begin to understand how you’re both feeling but I want you to know that we’re doing everything we can to find out who did this to Melissa and to bring them to justice. We’re following a number of lines of enquiry including trying to trace her movements from Saturday. If you know anything about where she might have gone after she left home, it would be a good idea to tell us.’
The two women exchanged blank looks.
‘No idea,’ Bridget said, taking a sip of her tea. Kate noticed that her fingernails were well shaped and painted a glossy black. ‘We’ve talked about it but nothing comes to mind. If she wasn’t going to work or meeting one of her friends then we’re as clueless as you seem to be.’
The antagonism was back in her tone and a challenge flashed in her clear brown eyes.
‘We spoke to Ryan,’ Kate continued. ‘He said he thought that she’d gone to work, but we found out that she wasn’t rostered to work on Saturday.’
More blank looks. They had no idea where Melissa had been, that much was obvious. Time to try a different line of questioning.
‘Did you know that Melissa and Ryan were having IVF?’ Kate asked.
Rachel smiled enthusiastically. ‘They’d been trying for a baby for ages,’ she said, her face suddenly much more animated as she thought about the possibility of grandchildren. ‘They’d been through some treatment that hadn’t worked.’
‘AI,’ Bridget interjected.
‘Aye, that was it. Then they started trying this IVF. Spent ages at the hospital; appointment after appointment. Turned out that there was something not quite right with both of them. Funny, I’d have put money on it being Ryan. Thought Melissa would take after me. If we didn’t take precautions, Pete only had to look at me and I’d fall pregnant.’
‘Mum!’ Bridget protested.
Rachel coloured as she realised what had taken her off topic. ‘So, yes we knew all about it.’
‘And you knew that they’d gone as far as they could with the NHS?’
Rachel nodded unhappily. ‘They were going to have to pay if they wanted another try. I told them that I’d help if I could, but I’ve not got much. Most of what Pete left me went into this house because the girls were grown up by then.’ She looked round the kitchen possibly regretting spending money on home décor when it could have gone towards providing the next generation of her family. Next to her, Bridget rolled her eyes.
‘I think it just wasn’t meant to be,’ Rachel continued. ‘I talked to Melissa about her other options, adoption, fostering, even offered to be her surrogate but she was hell-bent on having her own child. It was all she ever talked about.’
‘And what about Ryan?’ Kate asked. ‘Was he as keen?’
The two women exchanged a glance that Kate couldn’t read.
‘He was keen,’ Rachel said. ‘But Melissa told me that he didn’t want to spend a fortune on a private clinic. They’d argued about it a few times. I can sort of see his point – it’s not like they had much money. That house cost them a fortune. Paid over the odds, I think, but Melissa had her heart set on it. Ended up with a fairly big mortgage.’
Interesting, Kate thought. Rachel was painting a picture of Melissa as being somebody who was single-minded and used to getting her own way. What had Ryan’s role been in all this? Did he just go along with her for a quiet life?
‘Did she arrange a private clinic? Or private counselling?’
Both women shook their heads.
‘They’d only just finished at the DRI,’ Bridget said. ‘They were still talking about it, trying to decide what to do next.’
Hollis looked up from his notebook. ‘But, is it possible that Melissa had gone behind her husband’s back and arranged something else? Even if she was just exploring her options?’
Kate could have kicked him. It was the wrong question at the wrong time and she could see by the way Rachel’s face suddenly closed down that he’d effectively ended the interview.
‘Are you asking if my sister was deceitful?’ Bridget asked, scowling at the DC. ‘Mel loved Ryan and wanted to have a baby with him. They
were in it together. Why would she go behind his back?’
Hollis smiled, seemingly oblivious to the sudden change in atmosphere. ‘I’m just asking whether she might have taken matters into her own hands and made an appointment that her husband wasn’t aware of.’
‘So you’re saying that she deserved this because she went behind Ryan’s back?’
Hollis held his hands up in front of him, palms out. ‘Of course not. But we need to know where she went on Saturday.’
‘And you think what… that she might have been seeing somebody else? Trying to get pregnant with another man and then pass the kid off as Ryan’s?’
It was a possibility that they had discussed but it had no place in this interview and Kate was horrified that Hollis had managed to plant the seeds of that idea in the minds of Melissa’s mother and sister.
‘Look, there’s nothing else that we can tell you,’ Rachel said, standing up. ‘We don’t know where she went on Saturday. She loved her husband and she was a good person. She’s the victim here, not the one to blame.’
‘We know that, Mrs Stead,’ Kate said, desperately trying to repair the damage. ‘What my colleague is suggesting is that, out of frustration, Melissa might have explored the private medicine option without consulting her husband. Just getting the facts. She might have wanted to know all the details before she presented them to Ryan.’
Rachel just stared at them; the damage was done. There was nothing to be gained from continuing the interview. Much better to leave the family to their grief.
‘What the fuck was that?’ she asked Hollis as soon as they were back in the car. He hunched over and put his head on the steering wheel.
‘I know,’ he mumbled. ‘I’m sorry. We didn’t seem to be getting very far so I wanted to move things along. It was the wrong call.’
‘It was fucking disastrous,’ Kate said. ‘What’s wrong with you? You’re one of the most sensitive interviewers I’ve seen and you go and do something as stupid as that. Do I need to take you off this case? Because I will. Your head’s not in this at the moment and, whatever’s going on, it’s not as important as finding out who killed Melissa Buckley.’
He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes.
‘It’s my mum,’ he said. ‘She’s back.’
Kate stared at him, baffled.
‘Where’s she been?’
‘Prison.’
‘I thought she was a librarian in Chesterfield? How did she end up in prison?’ Hollis didn’t talk much about his family but Kate was fairly sure that she’d remembered this detail correctly. She couldn’t imagine what a librarian could have done to warrant a custodial sentence.
He raised a hand and wiped it across his face, pinching his finger and thumb into his eyes as though he’d got a headache.
‘My biological mum. I’m adopted. My adoptive parents are the most decent people you could ever wish to meet but the woman who gave birth to me is a nightmare.’
‘In what way?’
‘She’s trying to blackmail me,’ Hollis said, his voice trembling. ‘She wants money for a flat. If I don’t get it for her she’s threatening to tell you and probably Raymond that she’s my mother. She thinks that I can’t stand the embarrassment.’
‘Well you obviously can,’ Kate said. ‘You just told me.’
Hollis sighed. ‘There’s more. This morning she told me that if I didn’t get her the money then she’d ask my father. My biological father. I don’t know who he is – she won’t say – but I think it might be somebody we work with.’
Kate checked her watch. They needed to get back to Doncaster Central and liaise with the rest of the team but she wanted to hear Dan’s story. Now he was finally talking to her, she could at least listen to what he had to say.
‘I’ll drive,’ she said, opening the door. ‘You need to tell me exactly what’s been going on.’
They swapped sides and Kate started the engine.
‘It gets worse,’ Hollis said.
‘Go on.’
‘I think my real father might be DCI Raymond.’
‘Shit,’ Kate said, pulling away from the curb. She was starting to understand why Dan had been looking such a mess lately.
Chapter 9
The grey sky hung over Doncaster like the threat of Armageddon as Kate steered the car back into Doncaster Central car park. The humidity had increased and the air felt alive with static electricity.
‘Looks like we’re in for a thunder storm,’ she said as she locked the car and followed Hollis to the back door of the police station. He mumbled something inaudible and Kate, behind him, sighed heavily. The drive back from Thorpe had given the DC just enough time to fill her in about the details of his birth mother and her recent involvement in his life.
Kate had no idea what to make of Suzanne’s story that Hollis’s father was a high-ranking police officer but she could see the effect it was having on her colleague as he yanked the door open and jogged up the stairs. He’d gone from despondently slouching in the passenger seat of the car to a tight ball of anger which seemed as likely to break as the coming storm.
In the team office, O’Connor was conspicuous by his absence, but Cooper was tapping on her keyboard and Barratt was swinging on his chair as he spoke to somebody on the phone. He glanced up as Kate approached and stuck a finger in the air indicating that he needed a minute before he could speak to her.
She sat at her own desk and logged on to her computer to check her email. Two from Raymond asking for progress updates. She glanced at his office door. He was at his desk, on the telephone, his free hand karate-chopping the air as he spoke. Kate studied the lines of his newly slim face and the shape of his head. Was there a hint of Dan Hollis about the jaw and the hairline? She wasn’t sure, and it certainly wouldn’t have crossed her mind if Dan hadn’t mentioned it. It seemed extremely unlikely but Kate knew how Dan could get once a thought had lodged in his brain. Normally she appreciated his terrier-like tenacity but this was going to eat him alive if he allowed it to dominate his thoughts.
There was an email from Sam Cooper about Melissa Buckley’s phone records which Kate opened and skimmed but she decided that she’d be better off having Sam explain her findings. The numbers and allocations didn’t mean much to her.
‘Sorry about that,’ Barratt said, spinning his chair 180 degrees so that he was facing her. ‘Preliminary forensics on Melissa’s car. There’s nothing odd so far, apart from the fact that we don’t know where the key is as her handbag’s missing.’
‘Thanks,’ Kate said, trying to hide her disappointment. She’d been anticipating fibres or maybe an unusual footprint on the mat in front of the passenger seat but life was never that straightforward. She could always hope though.
‘Sam, talk me through what you’ve got.’
Cooper grabbed a pile of papers from her cluttered desk top and handed them to Kate. ‘Bank statements corroborate Buckley’s account of their finances. They weren’t hard up but going private for IVF would have really stretched them, especially if it didn’t work first time. They have a joint account and both pay their wages in. She has an ISA with a few grand in it, he claims to have no savings and I’ve found no reason to doubt him.’ She paused, grabbed the bottle of water next to her keyboard and took a swig as the others waited patiently.
‘Phone records are mostly unsurprising. Calls to Ryan, her mum, her sister, work, her friends…’
She was building up to something – Kate could tell – the drink had been a nervous tic to try to draw attention from herself or to give her time to prepare for the reaction of the others when she did the big reveal. Never comfortable in the spotlight, Sam had a number of mechanisms for deflecting the focus but sometimes what she had to say was just too important.
‘There is one anomaly in her phone history,’ Sam continued. ‘There’s a number that I haven’t been able to trace.’
‘How come?’ Barratt asked. Sam’s forensic IT skills were legendary and it was rar
e to hear her admit defeat.
‘It’s an unregistered mobile.’
‘Have you tried ringing it?’ Hollis suggested. Cooper gave him a duh! look.
‘It’s switched off, goes to generic voicemail. I haven’t left a message, just in case.’
Cooper had done exactly the right thing. If this number was connected to Melissa’s killer it would be unwise to let him know that he was the focus of police attention.
‘Okay, we need to ask Ryan and Melissa’s friends and family if they recognise the number. What about CCTV from the hospital on the day Melissa went missing? Anything?’
Sam shook her head. ‘The DRI won’t release footage from inside the hospital, we might have to get a warrant. There’s a camera in the car park which shows part of the path to the main entrance and a traffic camera a bit further along Thorne Road that shows part of the pavement leading to the hospital. O’Connor looked at the first and I did the second. Nothing there. If she went to the hospital that morning then she dodged both of those but there are a couple of other ways she could have approached so this isn’t conclusive.’
‘Have you rung the IVF clinic to see whether she had an appointment that day? Are they even open on a Saturday?’
‘They are – ten till three. They won’t tell me, at least not over the phone. Patient confidentiality. Again, we might need a warrant to access her records.’
‘She’s dead,’ Kate said, stating the blatantly obvious. ‘They should co-operate. I think I’d better get over there. Face-to-face might yield better results.’
Bad Seed: a gripping serial killer thriller (DI Kate Fletcher Book 3) Page 7