by LJ Ross
“That won’t be necessary. Doctor Taylor-Ryan is standing about thirty feet away and I’m reliably informed she can easily be bought with the promise of coffee and biscuits.”
“For the record, I can also be bought with biscuits,” Phillips chimed in from across the room.
“Tell us something we don’t know,” Ryan grinned. “Your relationship with the humble Jammy Dodger is going to bankrupt this department.”
* * *
Five minutes later, Anna was comfortably established at the conference table with a cup of coffee and a plate of baked sugar within easy reach.
“I’m formally enlisting your services as a consultant,” Ryan said, just in case Lucas had the room tapped.
“Oh yeah? What kind of fee are you offering?”
Anna took a sip of her coffee and her eyes danced over the rim.
“I’ll write you an IOU,” he replied. “You can redeem it later.”
Phillips let out a hoot of laughter.
“Good to see married life hasn’t dimmed your sense of humour,” he said, and thought of how Denise would be getting on back at the office.
“Yates has been trying to build up a picture of what the landscape looked like around here before the dam and the reservoir,” Ryan said.
“I’ve pinpointed the approximate location of where Duncan Gray’s body was discovered by Lisa Hope beneath the water,” Melanie said, pushing a map across the conference table to show Anna the spot marked with a bold red ‘X’. “Freddie Milburn, Lisa Hope and Oliver Tate agree that it was very close to the remains of an old farmhouse. Comparing the coordinates Freddie gave us and those provided by the Underwater Search and Marine Unit, I’m as sure as I can be that this is the location.”
Anna looked over the map and nodded.
“To make way for the reservoir, everything was cleared between the villages of Yarrow Moor to the east and Kielder to the west, so very little remains of what used to lie beneath the water. However, I think I can tell you exactly what this building used to be and probably even show you what it looked like,” she said. “There’s a standing exhibition in Bellingham of photographs taken by a man called WP Collier. He spent months living and working around Kielder, travelling around on a motorcycle in the 1930s capturing images of the area and writing a brief history of who lived there and so on. You can go down and see the exhibition, but I also have a copy of the photographs in a book back at the lodge—give me a minute and I’ll get them.”
While Anna dashed back to the lodge, Phillips updated them on his progress with Durham prison.
“I’ve spoken to the warden—that’s the new bloke they installed since the last fiasco,” he added. “He says we can go in this evening if we want, but the problem’s going to be getting it past Lucas.”
“Why’s that?”
“Well, ah, technically speaking, we’re both witnesses in the case against him.”
Ryan snorted.
“Almost everyone in the department is part of the case against Gregson…” He trailed off as his eye fell on Yates. “Except you, Mel. You weren’t a member of CID when Gregson was at the helm. You could question him, with supervision.”
Yates almost choked on her coffee.
“Me?” It came out as a squeak, so she tried again. “Me? Sir, I don’t have the experience to handle that kind of interview.”
“Why not? You’ve had the training, haven’t you?”
“Well, yes, but I haven’t had any experience.”
“How are you ever going to gain experience unless you practice? Here’s an opportunity to use your new-found skills.”
Yates looked to Phillips for divine intervention but he just took a loud slurp of his tea.
“Don’t look at me! I’m with the boss on this one. You’re a capable lass; you can handle an old duffer like Arthur Gregson.”
“I can’t go in alone,” she protested.
“No, you won’t be alone,” Ryan reassured her. “Phillips and I will still go in with you, but it needs to be you asking the questions and running the interview.”
Her shoulders relaxed a bit.
“Alright, I’ll try.”
“You’ll succeed,” Ryan corrected, and looked across as Anna re-entered the room. “Found what you were looking for?”
“Yes, here’s the book I was telling you about,” she said, taking a seat at the table. “Judging from the map, I think the stone ruins the divers described would have to be this one.”
She flipped the pages and tapped a finger on a black and white photograph of a large farmhouse, not dissimilar to the one that had been owned by the late Kate Robson.
“Reedmere Farm.” Ryan read out the name underneath the image.
“Who owned it back in 1975?” Phillips asked.
“I couldn’t say,” Anna replied. “But if you’re investigating a death that happened in 1981 or thereabouts, the family would have been long gone from the property by then. They started flattening these buildings and felling the trees from 1975 and the site was officially opened by the Queen in 1982. It took until 1984 for the water to fill the reservoir completely but there would have been a good quantity by the time Her Majesty paid a visit.”
“Were the demolition sites protected?” Yates asked.
Ryan pointed a finger to capture the thought.
“Good question. If the site was cordoned off, who was responsible for maintaining its security?”
“I can find that out,” she said.
Ryan steepled his fingers together.
“Look up something else, while you’re at it, Yates. When you find the name of the security company in charge of the site, let me know the name of its CEO back in 1981.”
“Do you think one of the security guards killed Duncan?” she asked, struggling to follow his train of thought.
“No,” Ryan said. “But I’ve got a wild hunch about why a young Detective Sergeant Gregson didn’t bother to investigate that part of the land too thoroughly.”
Yates nodded and went back to the other desk to begin searching for the information.
“It’s a huge land mass,” Phillips said. “Could be they didn’t have the manpower to cover all the ground back then.”
“Yeah,” Ryan said. “Or it could be Gregson put his own financial gain above the life of a young man who meant nothing to him. Something stinks in all of this and it’s coming from the general direction of HMP Frankland.”
CHAPTER 28
MacKenzie’s Cold Cases Team spent most of the day fielding press queries, managing the widespread forensic enquiry into Hunter’s death and speaking with the families of those victims who were suspected to have died at the hands of Craig Hunter, formerly known as Bobby Jepson. It had been an arduous series of phone calls which would be followed by home visits as soon as possible but, in the case of two of the victims, there had been no next of kin on record.
Although she was no stranger to the realities of life, MacKenzie was still saddened to think that two women had died at the hands of Hunter’s brutality and yet nobody had been there to mourn their passing or seek vengeance for their loss. It made her all the more grateful for the blessings she had in her own life. If she’d suffered setbacks, at least there were people surrounding her who cared enough to help her overcome them.
“Boss?”
MacKenzie looked up to find one of her constables waving at her from across the room.
“I’ve got the pathologist on Line 1.”
“Put him through to my new number, Andy.”
A moment later, Jeff Pinter’s nasal voice came down the line.
“Denise?”
“Hi Jeff, good to hear from you. How can I help?”
“Well, hopefully I can help you,” he said, with just a hint of the oily charm that MacKenzie had long since grown used to and forgave on the basis that he was socially inept. “One of my team has been working on the body you brought in early this morning—ah, Craig Hunter?”
“Yes, that’s right. Have you go
t some news already?”
“I don’t have a lot, but we’ve made some interesting preliminary findings. The most important is that there were no traces of human blood found on Hunter whatsoever, aside from his own. However, there were three types of animal blood on his hands and in his hair.”
MacKenzie shifted the headset to her other ear and frowned into the distance.
“No human blood whatsoever? That’s impossible.”
“I can only tell you what our tests show. Faulkner can confirm—one of his team came over today to cross-check our findings.”
She tapped a finger against the edge of the desk while she thought.
“What about Kate Robson’s body? Do you have any idea when you’ll be getting around to that?”
“I’m looking at it right now,” he said, and MacKenzie pulled a face at the image in her mind. “Faulkner’s team have swabbed the body and he says he’ll get through it as quickly as he can.”
“Alright, thanks Jeff. I appreciate you getting in touch. I’ll let Ryan and Phillips know.”
“Pleasure’s all mine, as always.”
MacKenzie rolled her eyes and replaced the receiver, before picking it up again to put a call through to Phillips.
* * *
Why were the police still there?
It would have been understandable for a small team of local police to remain at Kielder following the manhunt to take statements, liaise with other officials or whatever else they were supposed to do when they weren’t eating steak bakes or doughnuts, but there was no need for Ryan and his team of flat-foots to be skulking around the reservoir now that Hunter had been killed.
Surely they had been able to connect the dots by now?
Hunter killed Guy Sullivan and then he killed Roly while he was making his escape. The man even had the good sense to die at the end of it all, so he couldn’t defend himself. It was all tied up in a nice, pretty bow.
And yet, they lingered by the Waterside asking questions.
There was only one explanation.
Duncan.
The years had dimmed the memory of Duncan’s face to such a degree it had been easy to forget what he looked like—until they’d found his body, and suddenly images of Duncan were everywhere: in the papers, on the television and pinned up on noticeboards at the newsagents. People remembered the boy he had been and laid flowers at the end of the jetty or outside his mother’s door. They spoke of him and reminisced about the search, waxing lyrical about his immortal soul as if he’d been the patron saint of Kielder Forest.
Duncan Gray, who refused to be forgotten so long as his killer lived.
* * *
The original local police investigation into Duncan Gray’s disappearance focused on those most likely to have known his hangouts, or to have known if he was planning to run away. His parents were completely in the dark and, whilst there had been some arguments at home, there had been nothing out of the ordinary to prompt such drastic action. Ryan highlighted the statements taken from five people who still lived in the area and had been Duncan Gray’s friends at the time of his disappearance, in addition to a further eight people who no longer lived in the Kielder area but could be contacted if necessary.
Ryan walked to the end of the conference room and picked up a marker pen.
“Let’s look at the first five people on the list,” he said, and wrote their names in capital letters on the whiteboard. “According to reports at the time and corroborated by their own statements, these five people were Duncan’s main friends and they were in most classes together at school.”
Phillips and Yates studied the names on the list, Anna having returned to the lodge.
“In no particular order, we have Michaela or “Mikey” Collingwood, who was two years younger than Duncan when he died but was in some of the same classes at school.”
“The astronomer?” Yates queried.
“Yes. At the time, her family lived a couple of doors down from Duncan’s, on the same street. Michaela says she’d known Duncan her whole life and they’d grown up together. She didn’t have a bad word to say about him and her statement dated 22nd October 1981 says that she first knew of his disappearance when she called around to his house at around ten o’clock, which prompted his mother to go in search of him. That’s when they found him missing. She states that Duncan had spoken of running away once or twice before, but never seriously.”
“She has no alibi for the night Kate Robson died,” Phillips put in. “Michaela lives alone and her place is only a mile or so from Hot Trots Equestrian Centre. Easy enough to get to, on foot.”
Ryan considered the woman he had met at the observatory and decided that, no matter how nice, anybody was capable of murder given the right conditions.
“Next up is Freddie Milburn,” he continued, tapping the edge of his marker pen against the man’s name. “He was also in Duncan’s class and they were the same age. Freddie lived with his parents in Stonehaugh, which is at the other end of the reservoir but considering Duncan was found about halfway between the two sites, it’s possible for them to have met in the middle, especially since they both had mountain bikes.”
“What’s his story?”
“He states that he had spent most of the previous day—20th October—with Duncan, along with a crowd of local kids, including Mitch Fenwick. However, he knew nothing about Duncan’s disappearance until the word got out the following day and his mother raised the alarm. Freddie joined in the localised search with his parents, who are now deceased.”
“He’s another one who doesn’t have a decent alibi. He says he was with his sister while Kate Robson was being murdered, but his sister has advanced multiple sclerosis and can no longer speak.”
Ryan wished he could say that no criminal had ever used a disabled relative as cover for their own misdeeds, but unfortunately it wasn’t the case.
“Since you mention Mitch Fenwick, we’ll turn to him next. Mitch was a year older than Duncan and most accounts describe him as the leader of the pack. He lived down in Stonehaugh, same as Freddie, with his family including four siblings who no longer live in the area. Mitch was with Freddie and Duncan the day before his disappearance and went home to Stonehaugh with Freddie, who confirms the same. He also states he had no knowledge of Duncan’s disappearance but, like Michaela, agrees that he had sometimes threatened to run away, so he was not worried until the police search began.”
“Mitch’s wife claims he was with her all night last night, and before then he was doing his councillor gig on stage with us,” Phillips said.
“But we all know how reliable spousal evidence is,” Yates argued, and both men turned to her with pride.
“Frank, I think she’s becoming as cynical as you,” Ryan said reverently.
“And as sarcastic as you,” Phillips returned. “It’s enough to warm the cockles of my heart.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Yates muttered. “Who is Mitch’s wife, anyway?”
“A woman called Jacqueline,” Ryan said. “Goes by ‘Jackie’. You’ll notice that she’s also down on my list as ‘Jacqueline Dodds’, which was her maiden name when Duncan went missing. She was the same age as Michaela and the two women are still close. Jackie and Mitch were what you might call high school sweethearts—”
“Bless,” Phillips muttered.
“—and they married pretty much straight after leaving school and started on a brood of kids. In Jackie’s original statement to the police, she said she was with Mitch the previous evening, which is inconsistent with Freddie’s statement.”
“Maybe they were having a bit of nookie,” Phillips said, in his usual forthright manner. “Could be Mitch was too embarrassed to tell the police, so Freddie covered for him.”
“All the same, it’s inconsistent,” Yates said. “I presume Mitch says his wife was at home all night?”
“Yep,” Ryan said, leaning against the edge of the board. “Which leaves our final name on the list, Kate Robson. She might be dead, but
there’s no reason to scratch her off the list for Duncan’s murder, especially if we think about all those rattling skeletons in her closet.”
“What was her version of events, back in 1981?” Phillips asked.
“She changed her statement twice,” Ryan said, “which is interesting in itself. First, she said she hadn’t seen him at all the previous day, but when the police put it to her that other people had mentioned her being there as part of the group of kids, she changed her story to say she had in fact been there for most of the day. She said she went home at around seven, which was confirmed by her parents at the time, and they said she never left the house all evening. The next bit is interesting too, because in her original statement she says she first knew about Duncan being missing the following morning as soon as she awakened.”
“Which was when?” Phillips was a quick study.
“Around eight o’clock in the morning,” Ryan replied. “Which is mighty strange when you consider that Duncan’s own parents weren’t aware of his disappearance until ten o’clock.”
In the residual silence, Phillips’ mobile phone began to shrill.
After a brief conversation with MacKenzie, he ended the call and turned to his colleagues.
“Denise says Pinter’s been on the blower and there was no human blood found on Hunter’s person—only animal blood. Faulkner’s going over the samples from Kate Robson’s body now.”
“Tell him to put a rush on it,” Ryan said, and started to feel the indistinct sensation that light was becoming visible at the end of a long, dark tunnel. “Any word on Robson’s financial arrangements?”
“There was no sign of a will at the farmhouse, so I called around a few of the local solicitors firms until I hit lucky and found the right one. The partner is going over the warrant now and once he’s signed that off he’ll release the details of her will to us.”
“Tell him to do it before the end of the day,” Ryan snapped. “We haven’t got all the time in the world to faff about with box-ticking.”
On that note, he turned back to Yates.
“Mel? We’ve got three hours before you’ll be interviewing the scum of humanity. Let’s talk about how one should handle somebody of that calibre.”