by C. S. Barnes
‘What’s so bad about this one, George?’ Melanie knew how she sounded, but she didn’t have the patience to soften herself with a trying case already laid in front of her.
‘A couple of things, really.’ George crouched down to his open kit case. ‘Firstly, there’s this.’ He handed Melanie a clear evidence bag that contained a square of paper, no bigger than a few inches, on which was a handwritten message: Remember me?
‘When we rolled her over, looking for any other obvious injuries or obstructions before we moved her…’ George paused, removed his glasses to deliver a firm rub at each eye, and started again. ‘We found that tacked to her back. Like a playground bully, you know?’ He almost laughed. ‘Like a kick me sign.’
Melanie held the note up to the light outside the tent to continue her inspection. ‘Okay. Help me out here, George, you said there were a couple of things.’
He replaced his glasses. ‘That’s the thing, you see. The place,’ he gestured again somewhere beyond the tent, ‘the body, the method.’ He pointed to the woman on the ground and seemed to lose himself in thought for a second before he concluded, ‘I do remember all of this. I’ve seen this murder, in this place, before.’
DS Edd Carter pushed the door gently, hoping to slip into the office without drawing too much attention to himself. As the door clicked shut, just as quietly as it had opened, Carter shot a cautious look around the room. He was met with half-empty desks, and those that were occupied had distracted officers sitting at them, far too preoccupied with their work to notice a latecomer. When Carter glanced in the direction of his DI’s office, he let out a heavy sigh on seeing her door was shut and her view of the outside space obscured.
‘Don’t feel too relieved,’ a voice from behind him announced. ‘She already knows that you weren’t on time this morning, there’s no getting around it.’
DC Chris Burton had slipped through the door behind her colleague while he had assessed the room. She stepped around him, heading toward her own desk that was just outside of their senior’s own space. ‘Where were you, mate?’ Her tone had been accusatory to begin with, but the mate softened it.
Carter sighed. ‘Emily, she’s… time-consuming, especially first thing in a morning.’ He moved toward his desk as he spoke, pulled out his chair, and landed heavily on the seat of it. ‘It took forever to get her up, dressed, to find all the toast.’ Chris moved to interrupt him, but Carter undercut her. ‘It’s best you don’t ask.’
‘Trish not around this week?’ Edd’s face changed and Chris spotted it. ‘Sore point?’
‘It’s best you don’t ask.’ He repeated, swinging round to face his computer screen which was slowly spinning into life. ‘Want to fill me in on what I missed this morning?’
Chris turned to face her own computer. ‘Body, park, woman.’ A series of mouse clicks followed. ‘Plus, a slew of headlines.’ She angled her screen for Edd to see news article after news article announcing the death of a young woman in the local area. ‘She was found by a woman out with her dog and her daughter. She didn’t seem especially eager to talk to us, so I doubt she’ll talk to the press, but no doubt that’ll spur the fuckers on.’ Chris pulled her screen back around. ‘Anyway, there was no ID, so here we are.’ She gestured to the determined officers dotted around the room. ‘Playing “Guess Who” with our victim for the time being.’
The main door to their office banged open clumsily and in wobbled a young PC, fresh-faced and balancing a packed evidence box between both arms. No one moved to help him, but within seconds of his noisy entrance, Melanie yanked her office door open and scanned the room for the source of the noise. She nodded at the young officer.
‘Michael Richards?’ she asked.
‘No, ma’am. PC Shields. I was asked to–’
Melanie lifted the evidence box from the young man, making it look half the weight that his stagger had implied it was. Setting it down on the nearest desk, she twisted the box from one side to another until she found what she was looking for: Michael Richards written along one bottom edge of the box in black marker. The young PC laughed.
‘Oh, I thought–’
‘Thanks, chap, you’ve done a good job there.’ This time it was Chris’s turn to interrupt the young man; if for no other reason than to protect him from the embarrassment that Melanie would no doubt inflict, had he kept on with his rambling. It wasn’t anything personal; it was just the mood that murder tended to put the boss in. ‘Anything else for us?’
PC Shields faltered. ‘Ah, should there be?’
‘This is everything, thanks,’ Melanie said, already pacing back to her office.
Edd gave the youngster an apologetic smile before pushing himself away from his desk. Despite her wrath, Edd followed Melanie into her room where she was unpacking the contents of the box she’d just been given. Chris joined him in the doorway in time to hear Melanie’s response to whatever Edd’s query had been.
The DI eyed an old mugshot as she spoke. ‘Apparently, he’s the one who committed this murder the first time around.’
4
Backsides were on seats and eyes were glued to the whiteboard at the front of the room, decorated with the faces of five young women, tacked together in one corner of the large space. Alongside these five women there was a police mugshot of an older man. In block capitals, DI Melanie Watton wrote MICHAEL RICHARDS next to the man’s face before setting the board marker down and turning to address her team. DS Carter and DC Burton were at the front of the room, as usual, and behind them there sat an additional six officers, poised and ready for whatever their superior knew.
‘Is Michael Richards a familiar name to anyone in this room?’ Melanie asked, and with notable hesitation, DC Lucy Morris put her hand up. ‘Morris,’ Melanie called her out. ‘What do you know?’
‘He murdered five women, about twenty years ago, around these parts,’ she said, her voice fragmented and nervous. ‘Five women in five months, and after the fifth one, he turned himself in.’ She paused, hoping that this would be explanation enough, but Melanie urged her to continue. ‘He said five was enough to make him famous.’ A disgruntled moan travelled around the room with no specific source, and Melanie nodded her agreement.
‘It didn’t make local news all that much because frankly he’s someone we’d rather forget.’ Melanie took back the baton of addressing the room. ‘But six months ago, Richards was murdered in prison.’
‘Shame.’ DC David Read piped up from the back of the room and Melanie couldn’t help but smirk. She agreed, whole-heartedly, but knew it wouldn’t be proper to admit out loud in front of a room of colleagues, so instead she ignored the remark and continued.
‘Looks as though he ended up two cells down from a relative of victim number three, Penny Evans.’ Melanie pointed to the board as she spoke. ‘Penny’s older brother was in for drug use, stabbed Richards in the shower, and there ends that story.’ Another groan rumbled up from her audience. ‘The start of another story though, seems to be this,’ she said, turning to tack another picture to the board. Above the image she wrote, Donna Clements, 1998. The image itself showed a young woman lying on a patch of grass, her limbs kicked out at wild angles, a clear bag round her head and fixed down with blue tape at her neck. Alongside this image, Melanie pinned another: the young woman from the park, bag still around her head, lifeless limbs stretched out on the grass around her. Above this second image, she wrote Jane Doe, 2018.
‘Jesus,’ Read erupted again. ‘They could have been staged.’
‘Maybe they were,’ Carter added.
Melanie remained quiet while the team advanced their discussion and she tacked two more pieces of evidence to the board. One, she pinned alongside the image of Donna Clements, and this additional picture showed a handwritten note adorned with the message: Me again. When this was fixed in place, she added an image of the note that had been left beneath their new victim: Remember me?
‘Richards didn’t leave a note on his first victim,
but Donna, his second victim, was the start of this trend.’ Melanie read from an open folder to pass on these details of Richards’ original crimes. ‘After her, he left a note on all of them, including the final victim whose note read Catch me if you can.’
‘Tosser.’ It was Burton this time, and Melanie shot her a disapproving look. ‘I’m not taking it back,’ the DC added, and Melanie let the comment go. Again, it was hard to criticise something she agreed with.
Melanie threw the folder down on the desk closest to her. ‘He was caught, he was arrested, and he was convicted. His family moved out of the area, and that was the end of it.’
‘What about the families of the victims?’ Read piped up.
‘What about them? They’re unlikely to try to frame a dead man for a murder, Dave,’ Chris chimed in before her boss could.
‘Chris has got a point,’ Melanie added. ‘The victims’ families are a mixed bag anyway, some are still local, some moved away but still have ties to the area. Either way, depending on how far this goes, talking to those families might be a possibility in the near future.’
‘Great,’ Edd grumbled, his eyes upturned.
‘Nice lie-in this morning?’ Melanie asked pointedly but picked up her speech before he could defend himself. ‘The priority for now though is working out who this victim is.’ She paused to pin a final picture to the board behind her. It was the same woman from the earlier 2018 victim shot, but this photograph was taken at a slightly different angle; her face, still sheathed in muddy plastic, was more visible, more stricken, and younger than Melanie would have guessed from the girl’s clothing.
The team eyed the image quietly for a second and Melanie allowed a deliberate amount of time to pass, long enough for the image to stick with her team, long enough for it to drive them.
‘Where are we on an ID? I’ll ask the obvious question,’ DC Brian Fairer asked, breaking his silence on the incident so far. ‘Do we have missing persons to check through, recent reports, what?’
‘Morris?’ Melanie deferred the question to her startled DC.
Lucy straightened her back before answering; she was visibly tense. ‘I’ve been talking to some of the PCs, and I’ve had a look at the latest logs. The most recent report actually came in first thing this morning.’ She paused to adjust her glasses, reading details from the notebook in front of her. ‘Local couple, Robert and Evie Grantham.’ She intoned their names as though asking a question but when the young DC looked up from her notes, she found five sets of eyes staring back blankly. ‘Of course, they called first thing to say their daughter didn’t come home last night, but didn’t say she was staying at a friend’s either, and she hasn’t…’ Morris trailed off, fidgeted in her seat and adjusted her glasses again.
‘Go on,’ Melanie encouraged her. ‘There’s more.’
Morris swallowed hard. ‘Their daughter is called Jennifer, but known as Jenni, and she’s currently studying for her A Levels at Woodfield College.’
‘Fuck.’
Melanie heard the expletive but couldn’t isolate the source. ‘That makes her how old?’
Morris hesitated. ‘She’s turning seventeen next month.’
‘There’s no way that body is sixteen,’ Read called out but despite his forced confidence, even he didn’t sound convinced. ‘She’s dressed older, isn’t she? She could be into her thirties from those clothes, I’d guess.’ He looked around at his colleagues for support, but nothing came. From their own viewpoints, they all stared at the image tacked to the incident board. ‘Is anyone looking at that and seeing a sixteen-year-old?’
‘Jesus Christ, Read, if you can’t tell a sixteen-year-old from a grown woman that’s your bad shout,’ Carter finally cracked, craning around in his seat to stare down his opposing DC.
‘Lads,’ Melanie started. ‘Try to stay–’
The door swinging open at the back of the room cut through her intervention. The same yuppy PC as before – Melanie felt around for his name but couldn’t find it – stood holding what looked to be a photograph. His eyes skated over the superior officers seated before him but settled on the spread of bodies pinned to the imposing whiteboard.
‘I was asked to bring this,’ he said, to no one in particular, eyes firmly in place.
‘And what is this?’ Melanie said, closing the gap between them. She took the photograph from him and stared down at the image of a young girl, wearing a pale green T-shirt and a Woodfield College waterproof which she had draped over her legs. Denim jeans and brilliant white converse poked out from beneath the overall. She was smiling, and beautiful, and definitely no older than sixteen. Melanie let out a heavy sigh. ‘Where did you get this?’
‘A man came in and left it at reception, said something about his daughter being missing.’ PC Shields shook his head, as though physically pulling his attention away from the image display. He addressed Melanie directly. ‘Sorry, he said that his daughter was missing, and he’d spoken to someone earlier this morning who had asked for a picture.’ Melanie didn’t answer the question, merely nodded in encouragement. ‘He thought it would speed things up, he said, if he could bring it straight down and leave it with someone. Desk Sergeant said it might be of interest to you up here.’
‘Desk Sergeant was right.’ Melanie fixed her eyes on the shot of the girl again, but the young PC coughed, pulling back her attention. ‘If that’s all, PC, you’re free to head out. Thanks for bringing this up to us.’ She turned to walk back to her post at the front of the room.
‘Is it her?’ the young officer asked and when the DI turned to face him, he asked again, ‘Is it the girl from the park, do you think?’
‘Too soon to say,’ Melanie answered, holding eye contact with him. ‘Thanks again.’ This time when she turned to walk away, the young officer took his cue to leave.
‘Too soon to say?’ Burton pushed when Melanie resumed her standpoint.
The DI turned to pin the picture to the board. ‘We’re going to need a Family Liaison.’
5
DI Melanie Watton knew the local streets well enough to navigate her way to the Granthams’ house without needing any GPS guidance. She drove silently with DS Edd Carter in the passenger seat. In her peripheral vision, Melanie could see her junior throwing the occasional look her way. They were still five or so minutes away from the property when Carter said, ‘Penny for your thoughts?’ Melanie knew she’d been quiet with him all morning. It was part-frustration, she had to admit – the repeated late arrivals weren’t a good sign – but she also knew her DS likely had good reasons for them. But her silence also came from a second source of frustration.
Melanie sighed. ‘This is just the shit part, isn’t it,’ she said without breaking her gaze on the streets that flowed past them.
‘I can take lead?’ Carter offered.
‘I’m the SIO on this.’
‘I know, but–’
‘I’m the SIO,’ Watton said again, silencing her colleague.
Melanie wasn’t territorial, although she’d been accused of it once or twice. But she didn’t like implicit suggestions that the job was too much, too hard for her. It was too hard for everyone sometimes, and on her way to this post she’d seen more than one senior officer go to pieces over a case, but this wouldn’t be the one that broke her – she’d already decided. She was too young, too new to this, to be broken so early.
In the brown cardboard wallet that lay across her lap, there was a close-up image of the victim’s face, the steel of George Waller’s examination table visible behind her head. This would be difficult, Melanie knew, but she would be fine; she had to be.
They arrived outside of the house to find Robert Grantham standing on the doorstep already; they had called ahead to warn the couple of their arrival and Mr Grantham looked braced, ready for whatever might be coming. As the pair unclicked themselves from their safety belts and seats, another car pulled in behind them. Carter clocked the vehicle in the rear-view mirror and shot his boss a look.
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br /> ‘I asked DC Dixon to come along, just in case,’ Melanie explained without meeting her colleague’s face. DC Ian Dixon was one of the best Family Liaison Officers the team had worked with, and there was meaning to take away from Melanie having asked him to assist with this case. Melanie knew what was about to unfold, and both her and Carter were ready for it. ‘He’ll wait outside while we make early contact and we’ll go from there,’ she explained, stepping out of the car and closing the door before Edd could proffer a response. Carter followed her, locked the vehicle behind him, and caught up with his boss in three easy strides along the driveway to the house.
‘Mr Grantham, I’m DI Melanie Watton and this is my colleague DS Edd Carter.’ Edd nodded a subdued hello but Robert Grantham didn’t seem to notice. ‘Thank you for making time to see us today. We understand you’re very distressed and eager for some answers. Might we come in?’
The father looked momentarily confused; he shook his head lightly, as though shaking something away, and then he stepped to one side. ‘Of course, of course,’ he said, more to himself than the officers. ‘Come in, please. My wife, Evie, she’s in the living room.’ The officers lingered just inside the hallway. ‘Oh, the living room is down there on the left, the first door.’ The officers followed the instructions and seconds later the four individuals were united inside an exceptionally neat living area.
The walls were a neutral off-white, the floors were a dark wood, and the furniture looked as though it had been lifted from a Victorian catalogue – but something about the room seemed to suit the appearances of the Granthams entirely. Robert Grantham, an older man than Melanie had been expecting, was dressed in tailored trousers that were carefully creased down each seam and a pale green button-down shirt. Small bags were appearing beneath his eyes and his hair was dishevelled, as though fingers had been run through it recently.