by C. S. Barnes
Melanie’s door opened from somewhere behind the pair of officers and the DI came storming out, quickly followed by the DCs with whom she’d been locked in conversation. Carter had never been so grateful for one of his boss’s sudden interruptions. Melanie crossed the office space toward the white evidence board at the back of the room and, sectioning off a new square in the centre of the board, she turned to address the room at large.
‘Can you shift yourselves over. We’ve got news worth sharing here.’ She held a stern gaze while her team rearranged themselves, shuffling one by one from their desks until they were positioned around the board. Melanie turned back to the white space and wrote Forensics at the top of the box before nodding to DC Fairer, who promptly joined her at the front of the space. ‘Fairer and Read have been dealing with forensics and at long last we have news, game-changing news, I’d say, so perk up your ears.’ She stepped to one side, allowing her junior to take the floor.
Fairer marked a bullet point on the board and next to it wrote Fibres. ‘Forensics found fibres on Jenni’s clothing, which they told us about from the off, but they’ve now been able to match some of those fibres in a little more detail. As suspected, there’s a partial match between some of them and the college hoodies that most of the students own. But there are also transferred fibres that don’t match anything that Jenni was wearing. There’s a chance these came from Eleanor or Patrick, as they were both with her on the evening of the attack. We’ll be arranging for their clothes from that night to be sent to forensics shortly. God willing they’ve still got them.’ Fairer swapped a grieved glance with Melanie, who nodded for him to continue. He listed a second bullet point and wrote DNA.
‘The real game changer is that they’ve managed to get a clear DNA sample from Jenni, or, more specifically, from the bag that was secured around Jenni’s neck.’ Fairer paused to let the details sink in, while his colleagues swapped looks that were somewhere between hopeful and inquisitive. ‘The shitter is that the DNA they’ve found isn’t listed in the system.’
‘So, we’re talking first-timer?’ DC Lucy Morris piped up from the back of the crowd.
‘Or first time caught,’ Melanie said, her tone deadpan.
Carter cleared his throat. ‘Do you think it’s likely, that it’s a first-timer, I mean?’
Melanie frowned before admitting, ‘We won’t know until we catch him.’ She turned back toward Fairer then, nodding for him to continue with his address.
‘Obviously, without the individual being listed in the system, we’re limited on what we know about them. So far, we’ve been able to determine that the DNA is male, and that’s about as detailed as it’s likely to get. There are more tests that they can run but, frankly, they’ve got better things to be doing with their time.’ Fairer shrugged.
Burton huffed out a derogatory snort. ‘Like what?’
‘Like trying to work out the details of the second DNA donor that left traces on Jenni’s body,’ Melanie announced from beside the board. Fairer shot her a pained look, clearly disappointed that he’d been robbed of his big reveal. ‘You were taking too long,’ she said, easing the board pen from his hand and resuming her position centre stage to address her team. There was a sheet of silence sitting over the room as each individual chewed over the information. Melanie allowed them a moment before continuing. ‘They’ve found traces of a second individual; these samples are much smaller, and it took a fair bit of hunting to find them at all. Subsequently, it’ll take some work to draw any conclusions from them.’
‘But they’re placing some significance on them all the same?’ Chris pushed.
‘The DNA was underneath Jenni’s fingernails, but it looks as though someone tried to remove it, which is what’s disturbed the sample so much. All they can say for certain at the moment is that it’s different to the DNA that was left on the bag.’
‘Male, female?’ Edd asked.
‘Anyone’s guess,’ Fairer answered before Melanie could.
‘So, we’ve got fibres, clothing to check, DNA to match. We have leads, right? Surely this is a good thing,’ Edd said, taking on a tone of optimism that didn’t suit his tired expression.
‘Exciting as all of that is, we’ve got another possibility to consider here,’ Melanie said, turning to write on the board behind her. When she stepped away, she revealed her latest addition to the evidence board, written in beneath DC Fairer’s earlier points.
Two killers?
21
Melanie couldn’t sleep. The reveal of a DNA breakthrough was brilliant, but it still didn’t give them much to go on. The fact that a second person was at least present, but also possibly involved, complicated matters in terms of not only who they were looking for, but how they’d track down two people when they’d been struggling to track down one. Despite it being nearly the weekend, and her team needing a rest, Melanie had ordered a first-thing meeting with her detectives to discuss the latest discoveries in more detail. There had been a groan around the room at the thought of arriving early on a Saturday, so the DI had promised breakfast to soften the blow. They were a good team, she thought, they would be there no matter what time she needed them.
With a fresh non-alcoholic beer in hand, she wandered back into her dining room where various case files were spread out across the table. There were pictures of victims – old and recent – transcripts of interviews, an overhaul of everything that they’d found on Jenni’s computer to date and, alarmingly, they were still finding things there too. Melanie glanced down the growing list of search terms and shook her head; freedom and trust were two valuable things, but it looked as though Jenni hadn’t been ready for either.
It had become a nightly practice for Melanie to walk into this room – to her home-from-work evidence board – and stare down everything that they had so far. For the last two nights, she had believed that something, at some point, would jump out at her, but so far there had been no obvious breakthroughs. With a heavy sigh, she grabbed her laptop from the far end of the table and took a seat. The machine was ancient, especially compared to the standard of computer that Melanie usually used at work. The laptop had hardly whirred into life when the sound of the DI’s phone cut through the silence of the house, calling her into the hallway. She pulled her phone from her coat pocket and glanced at the screen – DS Carter – ahead of hitting the answer button.
‘News?’ she said, cutting their formalities.
‘They’ve found him, the bloke from the camera footage,’ Edd announced, sounding out of breath. ‘Returned to the scene of the crime, of sorts, someone called the station to say that the bloke we were looking for was drinking at The Black Hound. Uniform took it upon themselves to check it out and he was sitting there boozing, brass bollocks and all.’
For the first time since this mess had started, Melanie felt a stab of luck.
‘Have they got him at the station?’ she asked, tugging on her coat.
‘He’s in the drunk tank for the night by the looks of him.’
‘I’m coming down anyway. I want to see this one for myself.’
Within five minutes, Melanie was out the door and powering through the quiet streets to get to the station. She arrived in half the time it would have normally taken her, but Edd said nothing about the speed of her arrival when he watched her stroll through the station doors just fifteen minutes after them having finished their call. On spotting her junior, Melanie thought that he looked about as tired as she felt, but it didn’t seem right to comment on it.
‘Were you busy?’ Edd said in greeting.
‘With what?’ She laughed. ‘Were you?’
Edd had walked out on another difficult conversation with Trish; the ‘Can I come home?’ conversation that had been somewhat inevitable since she’d arrived back in the city. The couple had been in the depths of making a decision that would be best for their whole family – a phrase that Trish had used without any embarrassment or irony – when the station’s private number had flashed
across Edd’s phone, alerting him to one new emergency or another. The DS had wasted no time. Not only had he excused himself from the house, but he’d seen Trish out too, and he’d raced to work with an urgency that matched Melanie’s.
‘Friday night, boss, I’m never busy,’ Edd said, gesturing towards a hidden corridor as he spoke. Melanie stepped before him and treaded the path down to the drunk cell at the bottom of the walkway. The so-called drunk tank – or, more accurately, drunk tanks – were also the cells furthest away from the sergeant’s desk; a strategic decision that Melanie thought the uniforms were wise for having made.
‘What sort of state is he in?’ she asked Edd, who was a mere three steps behind her.
‘Not disorderly, but nowhere near sober enough for us to question him.’ Both officers drew to a halt outside the bolted cell door. ‘Apparently the landlord recognised him from the news report days ago but didn’t want to say anything until he’d got the man in hands.’
Melanie flashed a smile. ‘Citizen’s glory?’
‘Something like that, I should think.’
Edd pulled down the observation shield and stepped to the side to allow his superior access.
Melanie came level with the open space and saw their man, flat on his back on the hardened bench, his mouth wide open and his eyes firmly shut with sleep. For someone who’d been collared in relation to a murder investigation, the man certainly wasn’t worried enough to kick up a fuss over the situation – that, or he was more drunk than anyone had realised. Even from this angle, Melanie could recognise him from the pixelated image on the security feed. She’d spent so much time studying that shot, she thought she would recognise the man anywhere. But seeing him so close gave her a stirring of something in her gut; she had to believe that this was a strong step forward for the case.
She closed the metal grid back up and turned to Edd. ‘Sight for sore eyes, isn’t he.’
Edd laughed. ‘He was when they brought him in, to be fair.’ Both officers turned to tread their way back up the corridor. ‘So, questioning him first thing?’
Melanie considered this. ‘Lunchtime, I think.’
‘You want him to get over his hangover first?’
‘No, I want him to start worrying.’
The officers held a comfortable silence while they backstepped their way to the front desk. For a Friday night, everywhere seemed suspiciously quiet; although Melanie suspected that would change in the next hour or two. She glanced at her watch – 11:30pm – and realised it was a bit too early in the evening for the real trouble anyway.
‘Are you okay to be here first thing?’ she asked, coming to a stop in front of the main exit. ‘I don’t know how childcare is at the moment.’ She spotted a twinge of something in Edd’s expression that made her wish she hadn’t asked. ‘I don’t mean to speak out of turn. Something is obviously going on, Carter, but you’re under no obligation to tell me what. I just need to know whether you’re okay for the field tomorrow.’ She softened the comment with a smile but tried to keep her tone all business.
‘I’ll be here, bright and early, but I’m still expecting a buttie,’ he replied.
‘Deal. Are you heading out?’
‘Soon, there’s something I need to grab from upstairs.’
‘I can wait?’
‘No, no, you’re good, boss.’
Melanie felt as though she’d missed something, but after her earlier comment she thought it would be too much to push again. She turned to go but one last query pulled her back. ‘I should have asked earlier but it’ll niggle if I don’t ask now. Why did they call you, not me?’
Edd’s mouth cracked into a smile followed by a barely contained laugh. ‘It turns out it was our honourable PC Shields who dragged his partner down to the pub to check out the report tonight.’
Melanie thought hard to tie the name to something. ‘The kid with the evidence boxes?’
‘Yep, the kid with the evidence boxes.’ Edd paused to swallow another bubble of laughter. ‘Turns out he’s a…’ he hesitated, as though choosing his words carefully, but he admitted a quick defeat: ‘Ah, fuck it, he’s scared of you. That’s why he called me, not you, because he was too nervous to speak to you.’
‘Hm.’ Melanie considered this for a minute before matching her partner’s apparent amusement. ‘Good,’ she said, and followed it with a wink before she stepped out of the open doors and into the frosted evening.
22
DI Melanie Watton hit the snooze button on her alarm clock and stared at the ceiling. She hadn’t fallen asleep until two in the morning, and even though the request for an early start was one she’d made, she was dreading another fruitless day on the case. She pushed her fingers through her hair, brushing it back from her face, and shifted her gaze to the empty side of the bed. Her arm flung out to her bedside table and she felt for her phone, typing and sending the same message to each member of her team – How do you like your eggs on a sandwich? – before she shifted herself upright, and swung her legs round until she was sitting on the edge of her bed. DC Chris Burton was the first to reply – I like them to run away from me when I start eating – and Melanie made a note of the request.
She went for a shower and found another response waiting for her by the time she returned, this one from DS Edd Carter: Eggs? Ew. Bacon. All the bacon. She added this request to a fresh note on her phone before she grabbed the rest of her gear for the day and left the house.
It was thirty minutes later when Melanie walked into the shared office space of her team, holding a carrier bag that looked full to bursting with sandwiches. DC Lucy Morris was already at her computer screen, frowning over its display, meanwhile Carter was shrugging off his coat. Chris trailed in behind the DI, already mid-conversation with DC Brian Fairer.
‘All the bacon?’ Melanie said, handing over a small package to Carter. ‘Double egg?’ she said as she dropped another package onto Chris’s desk. The DI walked around the room distributing sandwiches to all the desks until only her own was left in the bag.
‘You’re like Santa for grown-ups,’ Fairer joked, poised to take a bite.
‘If she were Santa,’ Edd spoke through a mouthful of bread, ‘this would be whiskey.’
‘She keeps the whiskey in her desk drawer,’ Chris said, throwing a wink at her boss who smiled, offering no confirmation or denial – which she knew the team would take note of.
‘Right.’ Melanie headed to the front of the room. As she turned to a flipchart, positioned alongside the evidence board, DC David Read fell through the office door, audibly panting as though he had run the entire way there.
‘Did I miss sandwiches?’ he asked the room, and Fairer threw a small wrapped package at his partner by way of providing a response. ‘Cracking.’ Read took the sandwich over to his desk and took a seat.
‘Brilliant,’ Melanie said, her voice flat. She turned again to write on the fresh sheet of paper that was pinned in front of her. ‘This is what we know,’ she said, writing as she spoke. ‘The man we currently have in custody is called Steven Knight, thirty-eight, local to the area, although he sometimes works out of the area as a contractor. Early this morning he told one of our PCs that he’d been out of the area for a few days, which is why he hadn’t come forward himself.’ She faced the team. ‘That doesn’t quite explain why he went straight to the pub and not to the station, but we’ll get to the bottom of that when we question him, which is the plan for this morning. Carter and myself will conduct the preliminary interview to see how the ground lies, meanwhile, Burton,’ she said, addressing Chris directly, ‘I need you to courier a DNA swab over to the forensics lab as soon as we’ve taken it from Knight, and they’ll push that through as fast as they can.’ Melanie paused for confirmation from Chris, who nodded. ‘Morris, any more news on that computer?’
‘Some,’ Lucy said with notable hesitation. ‘But there’s still stuff coming through.’
Melanie nodded. ‘We’ve got enough for now. Everyone know what
they’re doing?’
A wave of nods moved around the room before Melanie retreated into her office, taking her untouched sandwich with her.
She had barely finished her breakfast when her desk phone rang. On answering, she found it was the front desk sergeant calling to announce the arrival of Steven Knight’s solicitor – earlier than planned, Melanie thought, but she wouldn’t make a roadblock of it. She thanked the caller before leaving the office to head down to the interview rooms, grabbing a tired Carter on the way.
‘You’re sure you’re good for this?’ Melanie asked.
Edd sighed. ‘Jesus, Mel, it’s about the only thing I am good for.’
The pair shared a smile before Melanie pushed open the door and both officers stepped inside to find Steven Knight and his solicitor mid-conversation at the interview table. They ceased talking as both officers entered the room and took their seats; Melanie opposite Knight, Edd opposite the man representing him. Melanie set paperwork and a padded envelope on the table between her and the suspect before officially opening the interview. In her experience, people often talked more when they thought you already had evidence against them…
‘Mr Knight, I’m DI Watton and this is my colleague DS Carter. You understand that you’re here for questioning in relation to the murder of Jenni Grantham?’ Melanie asked.
Steven Knight gave a defeated nod before his solicitor stepped in. ‘I’d like the record to show that my client is willing to comply with all and any needs that the police might have on this matter.’
‘Good to know,’ Melanie said, parting the lips of the brown padded envelope that sat on top of her pile. ‘We’d like a DNA sample, Mr Knight, if you don’t mind. If you do mind–’
‘He doesn’t mind,’ the solicitor cut her off.
Melanie leaned forward and inserted the cotton swab into the open mouth of her suspect. She moved the item along the inside of his cheeks, as instructed, before returning it to the plastic shield that housed it and slipping it back into the envelope.