Vicious Cycle (A DCI Thatcher Yorkshire Crimes Book 9)

by Oliver Davies

  I stepped off the path and walked to the side, to the other edge of the little camp. I hoped it was him and that we weren’t about to terrorise a nature photographer or something, but that wasn’t the set-up of a professional. The tent was orange, not camouflaged, the lantern attracting moths and other insects, drawing attention to him.

  There was only one side now not covered, and I really hoped he wouldn’t run that way. I walked in a curving path that looped up and around towards the camp, coming down close enough that I could hear the tent fabric rustling in the wind. There was a small light coming from within, and a shadow inside paused. He’d heard us, or he’d heard something.

  I looked up over the camp to where I knew Mills was, him covering the other side, Fry back at the other end of the path in case he legged it back towards his car. I took a few slow steps forwards towards the tent, gripping my torch in my hand. I turned it on, letting the bright ray dance across the camp, surprising the shadow inside.

  “Police,” I said casually, as though we were just patrolling the area, called out by a concerned local. “Come on out and identify yourself, please.”

  There was a pause, then a cautious rustle as the shadow inside moved, the zip of the tent being pulled back. A man stepped out, medium height, medium build, his hands empty by his side.

  “Evening,” he said, easy-going. It was him. I recognised his face and saw the resemblance to his father.

  “Sorry to bother you, sir,” I said. “We’ve had a few concerned reports about teens hanging out in the woods. Leaving stuff behind, having campfires.” I strolled closer as I spoke, an easy smile on my face, my baton ducked beneath my coat.

  Keith rolled his eyes and tutted. “Teens. No respect for nature,” he said.

  “It’s a damned shame,” I agreed. “You out here long, sir? It’s not a public campsite.”

  “I work for the National Park Authority,” he said, “just doing a few checks for the team down here. Helping out, you know.”

  “I see. Mind if I take your name, sir? Just so we know you’re out here.”

  He hesitated but nodded. “Keith,” he said. “Haspel.”

  “Haspel?” I asked, stepping closer again. “Not Rosewall?”

  He blinked and cocked his head to the side, peering at me from where I was mostly hidden by the light shining in his face. He looked me over, clarification clicking into place, and turned on his heel, sprinting away.

  “He’s running!” I yelled, my voice echoing through the woods. He was running towards Mills, thankfully, and I chased after him as fast as I could, pain lancing up my sides, hot and white. Keith knew the land well, hopping over tree roots like a deer as he ran, faster than he looked.

  Mills appeared then, and Keith swerved, ducking under low-hanging branches. I winced, coming to a stop, and leaning against a tree, one arm clutched to my side. My mother’s voice ran through my head, chiding me. Something about biting off more than I could chew, and I looked up, gritted teeth and sweaty brow to where Keith slipped through the trees.

  A grunt escaped me, and I pushed myself back up, hurtling after him. He was on the path, Mills not far behind, making his way back towards the car park. I lumbered after him, more to just make sure he kept running really, herding him like a trusty sheepdog towards Fry.

  He made it to the car park, Mills and I behind him. Where was Fry? A car door opened and slammed, and I winced, pushing my legs on into the carpark.

  Keith was in his car, desperately turning the keys. The car wasn’t starting. He let out an angry cry, and Fry appeared by the car, tossing something in her hand. She tucked it into her pocket and grabbed her handcuffs from her belt as Mills and I slowed down, panting and doubled over.

  She reached in, hauling Keith from the car and deposited him by my feet, handing me the cuffs.

  “Keith Rosewall,” I panted. “I am arresting you for the murder of Julia Brook. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”

  I grabbed him by the collar and hauled him up, his body sagging miserably. Fry joined us.

  “I figured it would be hard to stop him if he was running,” she said. “Since he’s strong.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Removed the rotary piece from under the distributor cap,” she said. “My sister’s a mechanic.”

  “Handy,” Mills said, still panting.

  “Clever,” I said approvingly, dragging Keith towards Mills’s car. “Let's get him back to the station then and untangle this bloody case once and for all.”

  I got him in the car, slammed the door shut, and felt a little more of that weight lift from my shoulder. I still had questions, confusion about the what’s and why’s of all this, but at least we could get those answers, and twenty years of confusion could be cleared up. And all in one night.

  Twenty-Eight

  Thatcher

  The drive back to the station was awkward at best, with Keith Rosewall or Haspel, or whatever he chose to call himself, sitting stewing, staring daggers at the back of our heads. We left Fry at the car park, a few more officers on route to help wrap up the camping set up Keith had assembled and secure his car. Julia’s pin still sat safely in my pocket, and I wondered if we searched through the car and everything inside it, would we find her phone? The more evidence we could gather, the better, but so far, it was all starting to come together rather nicely. A few unanswered questions to go, but if I had my way, they wouldn’t be unanswered for long.

  Once we were back, Mills took Keith straight up and into an interrogation room, plonking him on the uncomfortable chair beneath the glaring light, hands cuffed to the table, as I headed to Sharp’s office, sticking my head through the door. She sat at her computer, frowning as she typed furiously at one of her strongly worded emails that were never all that nice to receive.

  I knocked on the door frame, and she looked up, forgetting her email as she looked at me.

  “Well?” she demanded.

  “We’ve got him, ma’am,” I told her with a faint smile. She was on her feet in a heartbeat, following me along the corridor like the wind was on her tail, into the adjoining room where Mills now hovered, our notes from the office with him on the desk. Sharp peered at him through the glass, raising her eyebrow as she studied him, her lips pursed.

  “That’s him?” She asked.

  “Keith Rosewall,” Mills said with a nod. “Constable’s just been in to take his prints and process him.”

  “Good,” Sharp said firmly, clapping a hand on each of our shoulders. “Well done, boys. I knew you’d get him.”

  “What faith you have in us,” I replied.

  She tutted. “I have to have faith in you two, or else I’d be really lost, wouldn’t I?”

  I smirked at that and picked up the thick folder from the desk in front of us. There were photos inside mostly, all hurriedly pulled from the whiteboards, the dead women, the photos from Keith’s flat. Small bits of proof that when we joined them together would build a case that no court would be able to throw out.

  I hefted the folder in my hands and turned to Mills. “Ready to pick a few of these threads loose and see what we have?”

  He turned to me, an eager look in his eyes, the shadowed room turning the blue black and nodded, a determined grin on his face. “Ready when you are, sir,” he replied, cracking his knuckles for good measure.

  I turned back to the window, having one last study of our man. He was ordinary looking, handsome but not too eye-catching. He looked a little like Eljas, in fact, skin tanned and rugged from spending so much time outdoors, hair on the unruly side. His nose wasn’t as long and thin, his eyes as narrow, but there was a resemblance. I wonder if Julia had been aware of it herself. I dropped my hand to my pocket, feeling the pin inside and nodded. I was ready; I was twenty years of doubt and regret and anger levels of ready.

  “Let’s finish
this,” I muttered, turning to the door. Sharp stayed put, leaning against the desk and watching through the glass as we walked from our room into the next one, the door shutting with a satisfying clunk. Keith looked up as we walked in and sat down opposite him. I ignored him, to begin with, turning on the recording device at the edge of the table, the red light blinking in the dull room.

  “This is Detective Chief Inspector Thatcher and Detective Sergeant Mills with Keith Rosewall on the 12th of February. Interviewing suspect for the murder of Julia Brook. Mr Rosewall,” I greeted him.

  He sat stock still, staring at me with a distasteful look on his face. Rude.

  I reached into my pocket and pulled out Julia’s pin, laying it on the table between us. His eyes dropped down to it, and he pulled his hands back towards himself, like the pin would stick him the way it had me.

  “You recognise this?” I asked. He stayed silent. “This pin belonged to Julia Brook,” I said. “She wore it almost every single day. So, you can understand that we were surprised not to have it in our possession or on her body. Instead, I find it in the glove compartment of your car. What was it doing there, Mr Rosewall?”

  “I’ve no idea,” he answered stoically.

  “I think,” I pushed on regardless. “You took it from her, after you killed her, put it in the glove compartment, possibly with her mobile phone, and then forgot it was there. A bit careless of you, really, but never mind. We have it now. We also have,” I said, opening the folder. “A map of the moors from your flat, marking the exact location Julia was murdered, photographs of the Medina’s, who I assume you were monitoring, and this,” I slid the photograph of him and his father onto the table.

  Finally, a reaction from him. He stiffened, his eyes glued to the photograph.

  “This is your father, isn’t it?” I asked, tapping the picture. “Dominic Haspel. He worked for the county lines gang, the same one that the Medina’s work for. He also,” I pulled out some more photographs. “Murdered four women. Olivia Barry, Minu Singh, Monika Borowiec and finally, Clare Manston.”

  I dropped a photo of every murdered girl on the table before him.

  “Clare Manston, who happened to be the daughter of Theresa Biel, murdered a long time after Monika Borowiec, very styled out, too. He killed her because the gang threatened to expose him to us. And then they killed him,” I said. “All according to our informant from the gang, who seemed very keen to be on our good side. Have I missed anything here?” I asked, folding my hands together on the table. Rosewall looked down at the photographs of the women, at the one of his father.

  “Your mother might not have known he was a killer, but she knew who he worked for, didn’t she?” Mills asked. “Or she suspected, enough to take you away, full custody. They were never married, so that was easy enough. But he was still your dad, and you still loved him, respected him, wanted to do right by him.”

  Keith still looked glumly down at the table, but he nodded. His eyes trailed over the photos, towards Julia’s pin, then his shoulders slumped. There was no way to wriggle out of this. We’d made sure of it.

  “I heard they were back,” he muttered. “Forming up again in the city.”

  “And you couldn’t have that,” I said. “Not after what they did to your father.”

  He shook his head. “I went to the restaurant, tried to see who was there, what I could do.”

  “And what did you see, Mr Rosewall?” I asked.

  “The girl, Julia. She got on with them, always talking and smiling, happy to help. I figured, since she served them so often, she must know something. Where the others would be when the bosses would start to show up.” He paused, and I gave him a nod.

  “Go on.”

  He shrugged. “Started talking to her. It was easy. I’d go in, act like I was there to see her, took her on a few dates.”

  “But you were careful,” I said. “Never let anyone see you with her. Always picked her up from the end of her road. Even booked your tables in your father’s name.”

  “They didn’t even notice,” he snorted. “They noticed her, though.”

  “And so, you suggested a walk in the moors?” Mills asked.

  Keith reclined in his chair, scratching his neck as best he could with his hands bound.

  “When he died,” he said. “He left me his stuff. All of it. Mum packed it into the garage, and I’d go in there, start sorting through everything, seeing what was what. He had this box, locked it was, took me two days to find the key.”

  “Inside the box?” I asked.

  His gaze fell to the four women. “Them. How he did it, why he did it.” There was no revulsion in his voice, no disdain, only curiosity. “You never caught him,” he said suddenly, looking me square in the eye.

  “No.”

  “You’ve gotten better,” he acknowledged.

  “Time and practice,” I answered dimly, “and a good team.”

  Keith hummed and nodded. “The girl’s clever. What she did to my car. Very clever. She’s only small. I could have gotten past her. Through her,” he added with a nasty smirk.

  “Your father left his things,” I prompted before Mills leapt over the table and wrang his neck like a damp flannel.

  Keith nodded. “Wasn’t hard to put two and two together. They’d killed him for what he did to Clare Manston, but they shouldn’t have threatened him. I kept my ear on them over the years, never hearing anything till a few months ago.”

  “What was your plan?” I asked, leaning forward, my arms braced on the table. “What were you hoping to achieve?”

  “Never set things in stone, inspector. It leaves no room for spontaneity,” Keith informed me, an odd glint in his eyes. “I wanted information, and if I couldn’t get that, I wanted them gone. Destroyed, locked up. Julia could help me get either one of those.” He almost sounded admiring of her.

  “You were inspired by your father, took her out to the moors,” I said.

  “She wouldn’t tell me anything,” he muttered darkly. “Said she didn’t know what I was talking about.” He sighed, fatigued. “But she still had a purpose.”

  “You killed her,” I stated. “Killed her in the exact same way your father killed the first four women, knowing that we’d be drawn out.”

  “Knowing that you’d find out where she worked and start looking into them,” he snarled, tapping his finger on the photo of the Medina’s. “That you could root them out. Julia was the key.”

  “Why the moors?” Mills asked. “Why kill her like that, copying your father’s style? You could have killed her closer to the restaurant itself.” It was a fair question, one that I was glad he asked. Copying his father’s style had just thrown more confusion at us, and if he wanted us to target the gang, it was a very roundabout way of going for it. But as I looked at him, the strange light in his eyes, the focus on his stare, I wondered if everything he did was a little unorthodox. A psychologist might be interested in him, that much I fully believed.

  Keith shrugged. “Homage, I suppose,” he said with a lazy grin. “Think of how it rattled them, sergeant, knowing that the man they killed was back to haunt ‘em, starting with their favourite little waitress.”

  He didn’t even use her name when he spoke about her. I wondered if he’d really bothered to learn it, if he had forgotten it the moment her blood was cold.

  “But they realised we were getting close,” I said. “So, they killed another girl, tried to make it look like you.”

  “Made a right pig’s ear of it as well, didn’t they?” he asked me. “I bet you didn’t buy it for a second. You know his style almost as well as I do.”

  “Regrettably so, but yes, we knew it wasn’t you.”

  “You got them, didn’t you?” he asked.

  “We did. We also got you, Mr Rosewall. I wonder if that was a part of your plan. Or are you just not as skilled as your father was when it came to hiding from the police.”

  A shadow flickered over his face, his mouth twisting into a sc
owl.

  “Not that it matters,” I said, pulling all the photographs back into the folder. “We have your father’s name for the families of those four girls, justice at long last, and we have you. Seems like things have worked out rather well, all told.”

  Keith continued to glare at me.

  “And those twenty years in between?” He asked. “All those years without his name, without an answer. Did they wear you down, Inspector? Chew at you night after night, the memory of your failure?”

  Mills sifted, looking fully right to throw a punch, and I tapped my foot against his under the table.

  “They did, Mr Rosewall. But I’ll sleep easy now, thanks to you. You delivered your father to me on a silver platter.” I rose from my chair, trying to groan with the pain. “The greatest unsolved case this station has ever seen, the ghost of a killer that shadowed us anywhere, gone. Solved. Debunked. Your father’s legend is dead, Mr Rosewall. You killed it, the second you killed Julia Brook.”

  His face fell with every word, skin going pale, and I couldn’t help but savour the sense of victory that gave me. I nodded to Mills, and he rose from his chair, following me from the room.

  Sharp was waiting outside, leaning against the wall, looking at me with her arms folded. She smiled. “You look like the weight of the world’s been lifted off your shoulders.”

  “The feeling is not unlike it, ma’am,” I said, returning her smile. “Not unlike it at all.”

  She chuckled. “Good work, Thatcher,” she said. “And good work, Mills, you’ve proved yourself more than capable.” With that, she turned and walked back to her office, no doubt to inform HQ of our success.

  “Hear that?” I asked, nudging him with my elbow. “She’ll be lining you up for a promotion soon.”

  He grimaced. “Not sure I’m ready for that,” he admitted, scratching the back of his head as we walked to our office.

  “Why not? You’re capable,” I told him.