A Cut for a Cut (Detective Kate Young)

by Carol Wyer

  ‘Exactly. Sometimes. I go there when I don’t want to be with loads of people I know. I go to several different pubs in the area. Break things up a bit.’ He waved his hands in front of his face, his voice faltering. ‘You can’t possibly think I’d hurt Laura.’

  ‘You need to help us out here, Kevin. Surely, you can remember who else was in the pub. Maybe you spoke to somebody, a greeting, a quick word in the gents—’

  ‘No. I only spoke to the barman when I ordered. I went to a spot in the corner out of the way and played a game on my phone, enjoyed a quiet drink, then went home.’

  ‘You drove home?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘After how many pints?’

  ‘A couple. Then I went on to soft drinks after that, on account of the fact I intended to drive home.’ He gave her a hard stare.

  ‘We shall have to confirm that.’

  He didn’t reply.

  ‘Okay, Kevin. We need to eliminate you from our enquiries and to do that we not only require a confirmation of your alibi, but a DNA sample.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘It’s standard procedure. DC Webster will administer that in a moment. It doesn’t take long.’

  ‘Maybe you should also do one on the two lads I saw hanging about near the green when I was outside smoking. They looked like troublemakers.’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘The way they were acting. They were sharing a bottle which I’m pretty certain contained alcohol and were shouting obscenities for no good reason. I stubbed out my fag and moved off before they clocked me.’

  ‘Can you describe them?’

  ‘About sixteen or so. One was tall with dark hair. To be honest, I kept my head down. I didn’t want to wind them up and give them a reason to come across and start on me.’

  ‘What time would this have been?’

  ‘About eight.’ His statement was followed by yet another blink. ‘I wasn’t into Laura. I liked her, that’s all. I wasn’t ready for another relationship. I’d had a serious one for a while and I still haven’t really got over it.’

  ‘Who with?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. She’s dead.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that. What happened?’

  ‘Leukaemia. Holly died earlier this year.’

  Kate felt this was an add-on, an unnecessary piece of information to try and steer them away from him. Emma obviously felt the same way.

  ‘You must have been very upset.’

  ‘Yes. I still have trouble talking about it.’

  ‘I can imagine. You must really miss Holly . . . What was her surname?’ she asked pleasantly.

  He hesitated for only a brief second. ‘Whitmore, but I don’t want to discuss it. I thought you should know that I only thought of Laura as a friend.’

  Emma gave him a sympathetic smile and went through the remainder of her questions, but they yielded nothing. Even after the interview ended, Kate continued to observe Kevin. There were grounds to doubt his honesty. Firstly, for a man who’d claimed to like Laura a lot, he’d shown little emotion at the news of her death. His reactions had seemed almost rehearsed. He’d also volunteered information about his whereabouts and about spotting two teenagers, before being asked for it, and come up with a story about a dead girlfriend at the eleventh hour, presumably to deflect interest from him. And he had practised a martial art to a decent level. She checked on her phone and discovered shodan, or first dan, as it was also called, was the lowest level of black belt rank in Japanese martial arts. With practice, Kevin would be able to pull off a vagus strike. Jamie swabbed him for DNA and, when he was finished, handed the man a business card. Kevin stood up and pocketed it and, as he did so, he deliberately looked up, staring directly into the camera lens, before giving one last blink and moving away.

  CHAPTER SIX

  He’s only been going out with her for two weeks and already he is head over heels in love. He has to pinch himself to make sure it’s true, that he is going out with the girl he’s fancied since he first set eyes on her. She is his first and only proper girlfriend: funny, pretty and very sexy. He pats his pocket and the concert tickets rustle. He’s spent all his savings on them and they’ll be worth every penny to see the look on her face when he hands them to her. She’s been dead keen to see the band.

  The school canteen is brimming with kids and he can’t see her at first. He clears a path through younger pupils carrying lunch trays, who block his view, and finally spots her at the far end of the canteen, sitting at a table with his best mate. His heart soars. She is so hot!

  He reaches them at last and drops down beside her and reaches for one of her hands. She pulls it away immediately.

  ‘What’s up?’ he asks.

  ‘Nothing. I thought we’d called it a day.’

  ‘What? When?’ He can hardly catch his breath.

  ‘When I told you I wanted some space. Yesterday in the library.’

  ‘I didn’t think you meant—’

  She gives him a pitying look which makes it worse.

  ‘Can we talk about this?’

  ‘We did. Yesterday.’

  ‘That wasn’t talking!’ Catching sight of the sly glances and grins, he stops himself. He’s making a total dick of himself in front of his mate. ‘Well, it’s your loss,’ he says, trying to save face.

  ‘Whatever,’ she replies and waves him away with a waft of her hand.

  He stands up, walks away humiliated, the tickets in his pocket rustling and mocking him as he pushes past the other kids and races outside.

  That anger still burns in him today. Because of her, he’s never been able to form any meaningful relationships with women, and has been forced to deal with the rejection and hurt in his own way, with others who remind him of his first love.

  He rests his head against the chairback, eyes unfocused, recalling the memory of his first love, the girl who’d started all of this. He wants to feel her silken hair against his face and touch her lily-white skin, and carve his message into her flesh with his blade – a message that will prove to her how passionate he feels about her. The thought of gripping her throat with his hands and squeezing excites him further still and he has to draw deep, shuddering breaths to calm down his racing heart. When he is finally in control, he logs onto Facebook. They’ve been messaging each other regularly and now he feels like upping the ante.

  It had been a long day and, gathered in the office, the team caught up on what they’d discovered so far. Morgan had been going through notes taken while interviewing all the members of Laura’s yoga class, his voice raised to drown out the angry wasp-like noise emanating from the strip light.

  Kate scowled. ‘Can somebody whack that sodding thing? It’s driving me mad.’

  Jamie yanked his chair into position, leapt onto it and gave the base of the light a quick thump with the edge of a balled fist. The noise ceased.

  ‘None of the women at the class saw anything unusual?’ Kate said.

  ‘Nope. Not a thing.’ Morgan’s notebook dropped onto the desk with a slap and he joined it, sitting with hands on wide thighs as he listened to Kate, who directed her next question at Jamie.

  ‘Where are we with CCTV?’

  ‘None in the village or surrounding areas, guv.’

  ‘Not even in the pubs?’

  ‘Only in the Goats Head, and the only surveillance camera there covers the till area.’

  Kate kept her eyes on Jamie. ‘What about the statements from diners at the restaurant? Anything useful?’

  ‘The curtains were closed so nobody saw anything unusual.’

  ‘And the guys working in the kitchen didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary at all, no one hanging about outside, no teenagers, not even the ladies leaving the yoga class?’ asked Kate.

  ‘Not a thing. There’s one small window facing the car park. Only somebody working at the bench under it could have spotted anything.’

  ‘But Variations wasn’t exactly brimming with
hungry diners! The staff must have taken some time off and popped outside, or even taken rubbish outside to the bins.’

  ‘Apparently, it was so quiet the manager took the decision to send three of them home at eight, leaving only himself, one chef and one waiter on duty. They didn’t have any breaks, finished their shift at ten and all left at the same time.’

  ‘Then I guess we’ll have to take their word for it, for now.’

  The restaurant staff, who’d already given voluntary DNA samples, had alibis for their whereabouts between eight and nine o’clock and, for the moment, weren’t under any suspicion.

  ‘This isn’t looking good. Come on, guys. It’s a small village. Surely someone caught sight of unusual activity? Where are we on those teenagers Kevin claimed to have spotted?’

  Emma looked up from her notes. ‘I haven’t got any leads or names, although another witness, who lives on the main street opposite the Goats Head pub, confirmed there were a couple of boys hanging about the village. Her description of them was as vague as Kevin’s.’

  ‘Did she spot Kevin smoking outside the pub?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. She only noticed the lads, loitering near the bus shelter. She spotted the bottle too. Thought it might have been vodka.’

  ‘Keep asking. How far are we with Kevin?’

  ‘Still gathering information, guv,’ said Jamie.

  Morgan cocked his head. ‘If Kevin was obsessed with Laura and she rejected him, once at school and again last year, it would help explain the word MINE cut into her.’

  ‘I agree, but facts lead us to the answers, not speculation, so stick at it, everyone.’

  Morgan gave a grunt and slid from the desk onto his seat and fired up his laptop.

  Kate dragged out a banana from her desk drawer, peeled back the pitted skin and took a bite, her attention drawn to the photo of Laura on the whiteboard.

  It was unlikely to have been a spur-of-the-moment attack. Abbots Bromley wasn’t heavily populated and, in comparison to a city centre, where there were constant movements of traffic and people, it was quiet. Several scenarios sprang to mind: Laura’s assailant knew she was instructing the class and had lain in wait for her; he was waiting for any lone female to leave the yoga class, and Laura happened to be the one he chanced on; or he had his sights on somebody else and, unable to isolate and attack her, he’d chosen Laura as a last-minute substitute. The possibilities swam about in her mind like overlarge fish in a bowl.

  She chewed and at the same time stared hard at the picture of the young woman as if it held the answer. In a small way, Laura reminded her of Tilly when she was younger. They were both doll-like, slender, almost fragile, and then there were the eyes. Both had dark brown eyes.

  A memory floated to the surface: Tilly crying into her shoulder and Kate stroking her thick dark hair. Even though she’d been able to help in some small way, she’d never been able to put an end to the nightmares or the guilt that had eaten into Tilly. No justice was ever served for Tilly. Now, Kate had a duty to help her come to terms, once and for all, with what had transpired, so she could return to Staffordshire, close to Kate, who would make sure she never experienced any such horror again.

  She dragged her gaze from Laura’s face and made a silent vow that they would find whoever had murdered her.

  ‘And me, Kate? Don’t forget about me.’

  Kate closed her eyes briefly. I won’t. She couldn’t forget him, yet in the last few hours, she’d barely given Chris a thought.

  Shit! Cooper. She checked the time. Six. There wasn’t time to arrange to see Cooper tonight. The visit would have to wait until tomorrow. She messaged Tilly, telling her she was still at the office and asking how her day had been. The reply came back immediately:

  No probs, sis.

  We’re fine.

  Had a fun day.

  Daniel’s got a new video game. We’re playing it now.

  Speak soon.

  XX

  She’d added three hearts.

  ‘Kate.’ Emma’s voice was loud in the small room. ‘I think we need to get hold of Kevin again. He made up that stuff about having a girlfriend who died.’

  ‘She doesn’t exist?’

  ‘Holly Whitmore did die of leukaemia.’ Emma craned her neck around to speak to Kate. ‘However, according to her social media account, which is still active and run by this bloke, she was dating somebody called Floyd Evanshaw, not Kevin Shire.’

  Morgan was on his feet in a flash, crashing past cabinets, knocking files onto the floor. ‘Let me see.’ Kate adjusted her screen so pictures of a pretty girl wearing dungarees came into view. A young man with a hipster beard had an arm draped over her bare olive-skinned shoulder.

  Morgan shook his head. ‘The lying shitweasel.’

  ‘Read it out, Emma,’ said Kate.

  ‘“It’s been a year since you left us but the light you left behind still shines in my heart. I miss you with every breath I make. Sending you love until we meet again, my angel.” It was written only a few days ago.’

  Kate’s heart thudded solidly. ‘Have you checked to see if Kevin was one of her friends?’

  ‘Not had a chance yet.’

  ‘Okay. Try now.’

  Emma typed his name into the relevant box and checked the results. ‘No Kevin here.’

  Morgan crouched beside her, the seams of his trousers straining. ‘Check out Floyd’s page.’

  Holly’s page was replaced by her boyfriend’s, and a header of the pair of them, together with a woolly dog on a sandy beach. ‘I’ll try Kevin’s name again.’

  There was no sound from anyone as Emma’s fingers caressed the keyboard. ‘And there he is! Kevin is one of Floyd’s friends. He knew all about Floyd and Holly.’

  Kate, who’d been holding on to the banana skin the entire time, placed it in the bin and rubbed her palms together. ‘Okay, check this out with their parents and see if Holly knew or even went out with Kevin, before you haul his arse here. That man has some explaining to do. Good job, Emma.’

  Morgan headed back to his desk, stopping to scoop up the files and replace them.

  ‘I’ve got another possible lead,’ said Jamie. ‘I’ve been following up on those people we couldn’t canvass this morning, and spoke to a bloke who lives three doors down from Variations restaurant. Last night, at about eight, he heard a commotion, opened his curtains to see what it was, and saw two lads running down the road on the opposite side of the street. He’s given me a description of one of them. I’ll head back to Abbots Bromley and bang on a few doors and see if anyone recognises the boy.’ He picked up his jacket. ‘Anyone want any grub? I’ll stop off at Benito’s on the way back and get a takeaway selection for us.’

  Even though Benito’s décor was stuck in the eighties, its tapas were the best in the area. The team had an open tab system running with the proprietor, which they settled at the end of each month.

  ‘Defo,’ Morgan replied. ‘Make sure you get plenty of those steak and chorizo meatballs and don’t scoff them all before I get back.’

  ‘Wouldn’t dare. Guv, anything you fancy?’

  ‘Happy with whatever you choose.’

  ‘Me too.’ Emma stuck her thumb up in thanks as Jamie pulled on his jacket then disappeared.

  Kate headed to the washroom. If they could prove Kevin was their perpetrator, it would be an excellent result. It would enable her to have a day or two off and take Tilly and Daniel out as anticipated. She lowered her head and washed her hands. It had become habit to envisage Chris by her side during such small routines and she spoke quietly.

  ‘It’s looking promising, Chris. Kevin has some serious explaining to do.’

  She looked up at the mirror to continue the conversation in his voice, only to discover he wasn’t there. She was overcome with a sudden emptiness. Where was he? She hadn’t seen him since . . .

  That’s when it hit her. She’d been so busy thinking about this case, and about Tilly, that Chris had faded away. If she ke
pt this up, she’d never be able to reconnect with him and she’d lose him completely. How could she rectify this? The answer was simple – contact the man who wanted to talk to her, Cooper.

  She was about to ring the prison to arrange to see him, when voices outside reminded her that somebody could come in and overhear her monologuing. At present, she was unsure who else, other than her team, she could trust. Walls had ears. If Dickson had been, as she suspected, involved in hiring the hitman to do away with Chris, he wouldn’t have any compunction in meting out the same punishment to Kate. She exited into the car park where only ten vehicles, including Dickson’s BMW, were parked, and sprinted lightly to her own car from which she rang HM Thamesbury Prison to arrange a visit for the following morning.

  Once she’d ended the call, she stared out towards the anonymous brick building, its windows in darkness, apart from two or three. Was it her imagination or did a sliver of light escape from the blinds in Dickson’s office? Was he watching her? She didn’t dare speak aloud to the man who lived only in her imagination. The light disappeared and Chris’s voice seemed loud in her ear.

  ‘I expect Cooper wants to discuss what happened at the Maddox Club. Something he’s withheld until this moment. He’s had plenty of time to think things over and wants to come clean. Maybe he hopes whatever he tells you will get him an early release.’

  Kate nodded. She was sure Cooper had withheld a vital piece of evidence regarding that case, one that would implicate Dickson. He’d known more about the murder that had taken place there than he’d let on, and she’d bet her life Dickson had also been involved in arranging Chris’s murder. ‘I’ll nail him, Chris. If it takes me the rest of my life, I’ll make Dickson pay.’

  She clambered back out of her car into the icy cold, and raced for the door, hoping she didn’t bump into him on the staircase. On the off-chance she did, she had a story prepared about talking to an informant. Dickson was not going to catch her out.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Heather Gault was one of several CIOs, or Civilian Investigation Officers, who worked in Trentham House. She wasn’t a police officer or a detective, but she assisted them and generally it was a job she enjoyed. In recent weeks, she’d discovered not every police officer was as dedicated as she imagined, some even crooked. She’d been hoping for a phone call that would give her the information she needed to point the finger at one of them. However, it appeared her source had not yet built up sufficient courage to come forward as requested. Heather would try contacting her again later. However, having come to the end of a long shift, she was now eager to clock off and head out for the evening.