A question that he had compartmentalised returned to haunt him once again. Was he really the only person that Maxim could call upon in a personal crisis? It would seem that the old adage was true and you never really knew people. Although, Caslin had never claimed otherwise. Putting all that aside he considered Harman’s rationale one more time. If he was so enthused why would he feel the need to die? An action fuelled by substance, perhaps? The lad had never struck him as an abuser of drink or drugs, and of all people, Caslin should be able to recognise one.
Michael Atwood appeared alongside and Caslin refocused his attention on the screen before him. Letting out a deep sigh, he glanced up.
“Struggling with something?” Atwood asked.
“Just going over the last email that Maxim sent me, you know, on the day…”
Atwood nodded, “Anything interesting?”
Caslin shrugged, “Get-rich-quick scams by the look of it, presumably a source of income. It’s this Tor thing that Harman was banging on about, that has me wondering.”
“Tor, what’s that about then?”
“Well, I’ve no idea what it is for a start. Harman seemed to think it was significant though. I suppose he had planned to elaborate but…”
“Other things got on top of him.”
“Something like that, yes. I’ll have to check it out myself. I wish he was…” Caslin left the thought unfinished.
Atwood patted him gently on the shoulder and moved off, “I know.”
Caslin put the thoughts to the back of his mind and brought up a search engine, typing “Tor” into the box. The enquiry returned thousands of hits and he navigated the list, ignoring the sponsored returns, until he found a Wikipedia entry. He double clicked the link, figuring their explanation would be comprehensible. The listing proved to be interesting. Tor was a software program that masked the identity of the user, thereby rendering them untraceable by anyone seeking their origin. Popular with political activists in oppressive states, the program was greatly utilised in places like China and Iran where internet content is strictly monitored. The IP address of the host computer would be replaced with a fake, providing genuine anonymity.
According to Harman, the number of such entries in McNeil’s server indicated widespread access by a network of people using the program. The possibility of such a network made Caslin shudder. He hoped that wasn’t the case, preferring a reality where McNeil’s fetishes were his alone, the far lesser of two evils.
The conversation with Harman’s father came back to mind and Caslin found himself considering who would stand up at his own funeral, when the time came? Probably his children. Logging out of the computer he shut it down, watching until the process completed and he was left staring at a black screen. Deciding that fresh air would be advantageous, he got up and headed for the exit. Perhaps this was a good time to follow up on Claire Skellon.
Traffic was sparse around the city centre, an experience to be enjoyed seeing as it was so infrequent. Leaving the car in a small car park just beyond the city walls, Caslin made his way to Claire Skellon’s place of work, a women’s refuge within sight of the perimeter. A Victorian house, three storeys in height, had been adapted to provide a home for the charity. Approaching the main door, he rang the bell, noting the combination lock to the exterior as well as several dead bolts. The ground floor windows also had added security that was visible from where he stood.
There was movement within and after a moment the door opened. A lady in her fifties with straw-like, greying hair and half glasses, stood before him. He offered up his warrant card and was bidden entry. The door was closed and locked behind them. A figure appeared from a doorway further down the narrow hallway, a young woman with shoulder-length brown hair. As swiftly as she appeared she was gone again. Her age was impossible to tell in the gloom of the interior space. Sixties floral patterns adorned the walls beneath the dado rail, clashing with yet another floral design on the carpet. Neither lent an air of light or space to the hallway.
“You will have to forgive the reaction,” the lady who’d identified herself as Ruby said, leading him further into the building, towards an office. It looked like the former sitting room to the house. “We don’t get, nor encourage, many male visitors. Our residents have trust issues.”
“Completely understandable.”
“Don’t take it personally, Inspector.”
Caslin shook his head, “I don’t wish to make anyone nervous. I’ll get out of your way as soon as possible.”
“No need, I am happy to help in any way I can.”
“How well did you know Claire?”
“Oh, for at least ten years. I joined the project soon after she set this place up.”
“Where did you meet her?”
“Initially in church.”
“And this,” Caslin indicated the refuge. “This was Claire’s idea?”
“Indeed, it was. There were several years of raising money before the doors opened. Since then we’ve been able to move to bigger premises and we were looking to open a second refuge. Still, I dare say I don’t know if that will happen now.”
“This may sound an odd question but have you come across anyone who may have had a grudge against Claire in particular, or the refuge itself?”
“You don’t think her death had anything to do with us? It is such a dreadful business, that poor family as well.”
“It’s just a line of inquiry we have to follow up, if only to rule it out.”
Ruby thought for a moment, a look of stern concentration on her face, “There are the occasional unwelcome visitors here.”
“Abusive partners?”
Ruby nodded, “We try to keep ourselves under the radar, so to speak. We aren’t secret, just low profile. It’s safer that way for the women.”
“But some do show up?”
“Occasionally but not often, and we can keep them out until the police arrive. No-one has ever got past the front door. We tend to relocate every once in a while, anyway, so that our whereabouts don’t become common knowledge. This building has been our home for a little over a year. No location is ever too permanent.”
“No specific threats directed towards Claire herself?” Caslin asked as he scanned the framed pictures on the wall. Claire Skellon was prominent in several. Hiking trips by the look of them and once again he felt that he knew her.
“None directly, no. She would be able to handle it anyway, were it to happen. She’s a strong… was… a strong woman. She didn’t tolerate any nonsense.”
“How well did you know her outside of this environment?”
“Not very well, really. Claire was so driven. She didn’t have time for much else, what with this place and her church work.”
“So, before she came to York, you don’t know what she did, where she lived?”
Ruby’s expression went vacant, “Come to think of it, no. I thought she was from York. Claire never talked about anywhere else.”
“What about family, friends?”
Again, Ruby shook her head, “I guess it’s true what they say, you never really know people, do you?”
Caslin had to agree, the déjà vu struck him as he said his farewells. The downstairs seemed deserted as he made his way out. No doubt his presence had impacted on the residents. The need for such a refuge was a damning indictment of society as far as he was concerned. Domestic violence had been an issue for as long as there had been relationships but women shouldn’t have to disappear to be safe, certainly not in the modern age.
On the face of it the trip had been unsuccessful and yet, Caslin still felt it was worthwhile as he drove back to Fulford Road. The rain began to fall and the temperature outside was already barely above freezing. Despite being just past midday, it had the feel of night time already. Ruby was as helpful as she could be and her distinct lack of knowledge about Claire spoke volumes.
Claire Skellon was very private. If a fellow congregational member and co-worker of ten years knew absolutely
nothing about your private life or personal history, then you were endeavouring to keep your past a secret. Perhaps there was just cause for her to do so, and in Caslin’s mind, it went beyond mere privacy. Claire was hiding, running, or both but most definitely starting afresh. Whichever was the truth, there would be a motivating factor that made her choose that path.
No relatives had been uncovered when he had first looked and she had failed to show up in any police background check, nor any other inquiry that he had subsequently made, either. With hindsight there may have been good reason for such a lack of detail. For the first time, Caslin felt that Colin Brotherton could well have been right. The nagging sense that he was missing something came back to him, a feeling that he was unable to shake off, no matter how much he tried. Whatever he was missing, he was certain the incident team were too.
His return to Fulford turned out to be little more than a brief visit. Having spent much of Tuesday attempting to surreptitiously gain access to the files held by the Ravenscar incident team, he had been forced to abandon the task. His attempts had not gone unnoticed however and upon returning from the refuge, he was summoned to the DCI’s office.
“You had your chance on Ravenscar but you couldn’t be arsed. So why are you sticking your nose in?” Frank Stephens said with thinly veiled aggression in his tone.
“Professional curiosity, Guv,” Caslin countered.
“Bollocks. Professional is not you at the moment, Nathaniel. I’ve briefed the team and you’ll get nothing out of them. So, in future, don’t bother asking. Get out!”
Banishment from CID hardly felt like a punishment to Caslin. Sitting at home, immersed in Brotherton’s files as well as his own notes, Caslin was forced to try and reconcile what he knew about Claire Skellon with the facts listed before him. Needless to say, he was none the wiser in the pursuit of the elusive woman. The snooping had been a response to the brick walls that he repeatedly came up against at every turn. Prior to ten years ago she barely registered in the United Kingdom with no tax record, either council-held or at the Inland Revenue. Medical history was also non-existent and no records of marriage or divorce could be found. More tellingly, there was a distinct lack of financial data. The only significant lead that came to light was another person of the same name who shared the same birthday. However, she had died in childhood, as a result of a car accident, alongside her parents in 1976. There were no other living relatives listed.
The more that Caslin thought about it, the more he had to consider that these were one and the same person, at least in terms of identity. It was an alarming reality that with only a birth certificate it was still possible to obtain documentation to become that person. Indeed, the police had been using exactly that method to safely place deep-cover officers for many years. Any cursory inspection would only return genuine information.
There was little need to disguise his happiness at being out of the station. Perhaps it was a case of paranoia but he felt some were looking at him differently in the past week, more so than usual. All he could put that down to was Maxim Harman. If anyone felt that he should have seen the signs or done more then they kept their counsel. In this scenario people always looked for someone to blame and, having worked so closely with Harman recently, he was an easy target. He didn’t doubt that the rumour mill was well underway. Ill will had followed him like a shadow for over a year, so a little more wouldn’t make much of a difference.
Turning his focus towards the archive box, he compared the files relating to Lucy Stafford with his own cursory check and, just like Brotherton had found decades previously, there were no hits against that name in births, marriages or deaths. Furthermore, there had been no criminal arrests or convictions. Lucy had vanished. This didn’t in itself link directly to Claire Skellon, who appeared over a decade later, but Caslin couldn’t help drawing a parallel between the two women. After all, their age range matched, they shared a skill in living below the radar and in Claire Skellon’s case at least, helping others to do likewise.
This was the coincidence that he now pondered. The documents received from the retired detective were meticulously documented in handwritten, as well as typed, formats. The team had been thorough. There would certainly have been no accusation of lax practice in a cold case review. What that meant now, though, was that it took an age to get through. The cross-referencing system was all done by hand and linking documents was excruciatingly slow. How complex crimes were solved prior to computerisation, Caslin could only wonder.
Progressing through the witness statements was particularly depressing. Over two hundred people had been interviewed by the team although Caslin had access to barely two dozen transcripts. Of these, many had been interviewed on at least two occasions. Often the statements contradicted each other, even when given by the same person within a month of each other. Many who occupied Maxine and Lucy’s circle were drug users and this posed inherent problems for the investigators. People moving in the drug world lived outside of mainstream society and largely mixed with each other. This often led to passages of time with no recognisable markers. People honestly didn’t know where they were at given moments. Statements would become vague and it became nigh on impossible to form an accurate picture.
Another unfortunate reality that detectives would encounter in this scenario was that substance abuse fuelled fall outs over money, drugs, debt and more often than not, people wouldn’t even remember the cause. Put all that together, along with a healthy distrust of the police, and it was clear why the leads dried up. No wonder they struggled he thought as, not finding anything of note, he tossed the last of the files back into the box.
The vociferous nature of Lucy Stafford’s statements had been evident, despite recording methods toning it down but Brotherton was right, she gave few details that generated leads. Almost in despair, Caslin picked up the inventory and scanned the list of witnesses, his index finger almost reaching the end before something caught his attention. Holding the list to one side, he thumbed through the folders looking for one in particular but to no avail, that statement was missing. Letting out a frustrated sigh, he sank back into his chair. He didn’t believe in coincidences and never had. Replacing the list in the archive box, Caslin picked up his phone and dialled DC Underwood’s number.
“Hello.”
“Hayley, how are things? Any movement?”
“No, Sir. It’s quiet but I’m pretty certain that we won’t turn anything up here.”
“Why not?”
“We stick out like a sore thumb. Everyone knows everyone around here and they will have scoped us out days ago.”
“No doubt. Alright, let me know if anything interesting happens.”
“Will do, Sir.”
Caslin hung up. Why he thought that Chloe McNeil would do anything that would help their investigation momentarily escaped him. No, that wasn’t true, criminals did the most stupid of things which led police to evidence all the time, even when knowingly under surveillance. If Chloe had something to hide, then a presence around her might just push her into taking a risk. She had already demonstrated an inability to cope with pressure if her interview was anything to go by. Maybe he was barking up the wrong tree and she was another victim in Garry McNeil’s twisted existence, but there was more to her than they had seen, of that he was sure.
The intercom snapped him from his reverie, a shrill sound that cut through almost all other noise. The bustling sounds from Stonegate, beneath his apartment, were in the background as he rose and went to the door. Lifting the receiver, a familiar and not welcome voice, came to his ear.
“Good afternoon Inspector, could I have a word?”
The voice was distorted through the system but clear enough for Caslin to recognise Jimmy Sullivan’s tone.
“To what do I owe this honour?”
“I would rather discuss it inside, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“That could lead me to another letter of complaint. At least out there we have the benefit of
two hardwood doors separating us.”
Sullivan laughed, “Oh come now, Mr Caslin. We are grown men. What’s a bit of ink between… I hesitate to say friends. How about colleagues… with a degree of separation obviously?”
Caslin buzzed him in, hearing the lock click on the outside door and the journalist passing through before he replaced the receiver. The man was odious but Caslin was intrigued as to what would bring him to his door. For some reason he felt sure it would be unpleasant. He opened the door to the apartment and waited patiently as Sullivan made his way up the stairwell.
“Lovely place you have here,” the journalist said as he crossed the threshold, wiping his shoes as he passed.
“Keeps the rain off,” Caslin replied, leading them into the living room before asking the inevitable question. “What can I do for you?”
“Well for once, Inspector. Perhaps it is what I can do for you.”
“Go on.”
“Your little gremlin that has caused you so much trouble, I may be able to cast a little light on his shadow for you.”
“You’ve lost me.”
“Garry McNeil.”
“What about him?”
“His past is even more interesting than I expect you realise. What would you say if I told you that his military service was not quite what we’ve been led to believe? Unless you are already up to speed?”
Caslin was interested but he maintained his composure, appearing to be quite the opposite.
“What do you have for me Jimmy?”
“Officially McNeil was invalided out of the army on a medical discharge, full honours.”
Divided House (Dark Yorkshire Book 1) Page 21