Merciless: a gripping detective thriller (DI Kate Fletcher Book 2)

by Heleyne Hammersley

  They continued eating, Caroline pondering what Maddie had just said. She was right to be confused. Caroline was confused. This was supposed to have been so simple. When she had heard that Dennis was dying, she swooped back into his life, intent on making the process as painful as possible. But she’d blackmailed a nurse and tortured her father for weeks only to discover that the end had given her no satisfaction and now she couldn’t go back to her old life.

  If Dennis were dead when she got home then she’d phone an ambulance and hand herself into the police. She’d done her research, courts were usually lenient in ‘mercy killing’ cases, as long as nobody could prove definitively that her account was a lie, that she’d actively murdered her father rather than just giving him the means. She might even get away with a suspended sentence.

  Maddie could be an obstacle, though. If she insisted that they go to the police then questions would be asked about the amount of drugs Caroline had acquired and what she’d been using them for since Dennis had been released from hospital.

  ‘I suppose they’re both real,’ Caroline said, responding to Maddie’s question. ‘I’ve done my duty in caring for my father but I’ve not been very ethical in the way I’ve gone about it.’ She wiped her lips with a napkin. ‘And I’m not going to go to the police. Not yet. I have to bury him first, then I can face the consequences.’

  Maddie’s expression tightened as she took in the enormity of Caroline’s statement. ‘Bury him? He’s dead, then? I thought you said…’

  ‘I’m not sure. His breathing was getting slower and shallower when I left.’

  ‘You should have rung me, cancelled. I’d have understood.’

  Would you? Caroline thought. Would anybody really have understood?

  ‘Look,’ Maddie said, wiping her mouth and standing up. ‘I want to be angry but I know that now’s not the time. We’ll go to the police when this is over. I can accept whatever’s coming to me if you can.’

  Caroline nodded, trying to think her way out of the situation. If she went to the police and confessed to blackmail to save Maddie she’d almost definitely be jailed. Acquiring the drugs by coercion would indicate premeditation. Murder carried a much longer sentence than assisted suicide. Why should she confess? The nurse was nothing to her. She hadn’t been part of the plan at first; she was just collateral damage.

  ‘Let me give you a lift home,’ she offered, trying to buy herself more time. ‘We can talk about it in the car.’

  Maddie tried to protest but Caroline had already left fifty pounds on the table and was shrugging on her coat.

  ‘Come on. Five minutes. I think I’ve got a better plan which will keep both of us out of trouble.’

  Maddie had still been reluctant to get in the car despite the wind that was knifing through the streets. The pavements were already glazing with frost and the sky was blue-black and clear. Caroline managed to get Maddie to agree to a lift home after she’d slid twice on the icy cobbles of the marketplace. She gave Caroline her address and got into the passenger seat of the BMW, sitting as far away from Caroline as possible.

  They’d just set off to the west of the town when Maddie asked, ‘So what’s this great plan?’

  ‘Just wait,’ Caroline said, negotiating a tricky junction and turning onto the narrow lane that ran beside the canal. She checked her mirrors and then pulled into a parking place that allowed access to the bank side.

  ‘What’re we doing here?’ Maddie asked. Caroline wasn’t sure. She’d been driving on instinct; trying to make some sense of the situation but she couldn’t see a way out for herself that didn’t involve getting arrested and jailed.

  ‘Get out!’ Caroline spat. ‘Get out of my car! You can walk home. Go to the police if you want but it won’t do you any good. I’ll just deny everything.’

  ‘It’s pitch black,’ Maddie said. ‘You were going to take me home. I can’t walk from here, it’s not safe.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ Caroline said. ‘I just want you out of my car and out of my life.’

  Barely thinking, Caroline released her own seatbelt, grabbed Maddie’s bag and leapt out of the door, slamming it behind her.

  ‘Hey!’ Maddie yelled. ‘What the hell, Caroline? What’re you doing?’ There was a satisfying tremble in her voice.

  ‘Come and get it, then,’ Caroline taunted, pushing through a gap in the hedges and setting off at a jog along the towpath. The moon was three quarters full and the path was almost floodlit by its brightness. She took a few more steps and then slowed as she saw the lights around the lock up ahead. She had no idea what she was doing. Somewhere in her mind she thought that if she could really frighten Maddie, threaten her, whatever, she might be able to convince her not to go to the police. Luring her to somewhere dark and remote would be a good start but she wasn’t sure what she could do to ensure Maddie’s silence. A crunch of gravel behind her. The other woman was following.

  Caroline stooped and rummaged around in the hedges searching for a weapon. Anything would do, a rock, a broken bottle. A house brick! She couldn’t believe her luck as she clasped her hand round the sweaty-smooth surface.

  Maddie was catching up.

  Caroline sprinted off towards the lock, hoping that her memory of the area was accurate. She’d been there a few times as a kid, with her parents and Jeanette because her mum liked to watch the boats; she liked the colours and the buckets of flowers on the roofs.

  As soon as Caroline reached the first black and white gate, she stopped. She could just make out Maddie’s dark shape lumbering towards her, her breath rasping in the frigid air. Caroline knew what she needed to do. No time to think about it. No time to change her mind. This was the only way. If she got rid of the nurse then there was nobody to question her treatment of Dennis. The extra prescriptions would probably never be spotted. Why would anybody look once Dennis was dead? She stuffed Maddie’s bag under her jacket assuming that it contained the nurse’s phone and keys and she hoped that all her ID was inside. If Maddie fell in the canal and drowned it might take days for the police to identify her, weeks even. It might even be written off as an accident. And, by then, they wouldn’t be interested in her connection with Caroline’s case – if they even made one. She had no choice.

  ‘Caroline. Give me my bag back. This is stupid.’

  Caroline laughed. ‘I’ve thrown it in the lock. You can fish it out if you want.’

  She walked away, further down the towpath so that Maddie wouldn’t feel threatened as she peered into the water.

  ‘What the fuck did you do that for? My whole life’s in that bag!’

  She edged towards the lock, stopping a foot away so that she could peer down. Caroline slowly walked towards her; quietly, rocking on her feet heel to toe, heel to toe, until she was practically next to her.

  Maddie looked round, her eyes widening in shock.

  Caroline raised her hand and swung the brick but Maddie had taken a step to the side and she simply staggered backwards, maintaining her balance.

  ‘What the hell?’

  Caroline lunged again but Maddie was prepared and grabbed her, twisting her round and pushing her away.

  ‘Caroline. Stop!’

  Infuriated, Caroline paused, bent over, as she tried to suck the icy air into her lungs. This wasn’t going to work. Maddie could see what she was trying to do.

  Caroline raised her head, her breathing much calmer. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. I’m so tired and stressed.’ She lowered her voice and tried to make it tremble as if she was trying to hold back tears. ‘I can’t cope anymore. I don’t know what to do for my dad and I don’t know how to keep us both out of trouble.’

  Maddie glared at her sceptically. ‘So you thought you’d attack me? What the hell is wrong with you, Caroline? Put the brick down and take me home. I don’t think you know what you’re doing.’

  It was working. Caroline detected a tiny hint of sympathy in Maddie’s curt tone. ‘Let’s get your bag back,’ Caroli
ne said pretending to look over the side of the canal.

  ‘You look. I’m not coming anywhere near you.’

  ‘I think it’s under there,’ Caroline said, pointing into the dark water near Maddie’s feet. Maddie leaned forward for a clearer view and Caroline seized her chance. She raised her hand and smashed the brick into the back of Maddie’s head as hard as she could, pushing her towards the edge of the lock with the other hand. A satisfying splash and then silence. She peered down into the gloom watching as the ripples from Maddie’s body swelled out towards the lock’s concrete sides where they broke and died.

  Caroline smiled to herself as she walked slowly back to her car.

  Another loose end tied up.

  25

  ‘Nice place,’ Kate said as they pulled up outside Caroline Lambert’s Sheffield home and climbed out of the car. It was set back slightly from the narrow lane which linked two busier roads through Dore and it looked like it was probably quite old. The surrounding houses looked like more recent additions to the land but this house had authority; it looked like it belonged there. A large, detached house, it nestled among a swathe of laurels and beech hedges, partly hidden from the lane. The double front looked like a disapproving face as the windows of the upper storeys glared down at them, and the mouth of the door was a vertical slash of disapproval.

  ‘Not bad,’ Hollis agreed. ‘More than either of us could afford.’

  ‘Better keep playing the lottery, then,’ Kate said. ‘Or apply for a Chief Super’s job.’

  Hollis laughed. ‘Can’t decide which is the most likely to happen. The lottery probably. Can’t really see myself as a pen pusher and media whore.’

  ‘I dunno,’ Kate said, looking up at him. ‘Pretty boy like you. The cameras would love you.’

  She was tense. Forcing entry into a house was always fraught with difficulties, and she’d never enjoyed the feeling of being an intruder. Bantering with Hollis was helping with some of the strain but she knew that they were only putting off the inevitable.

  It felt like it had taken an age to convince Raymond that they needed access and then another century or so before he could persuade a friendly magistrate to issue a warrant but, checking her watch, she was surprised to see that it was only early afternoon. Cooper was back at base trawling the CCTV from the area, hoping to work out where Caroline had gone. She’d handed in her passport to the local police station so, unless she’d bought a fake, she was still in the country. Barratt was on his way from Thorpe after checking Dennis Lambert’s house – no sign of Caroline there, but the DC had been accosted by Brenda Powley and forced to drink tea and eat biscuits.

  Kate was beginning to feel like her team were coming together as a unit. Each had their strengths: Hollis was shaping up to be a sensitive interviewer, Sam was great with data, and Barratt was methodical and thorough. She was still stuck with O’Connor though, who was a law unto himself. At least she’d tasked him with something that he was good at, dealing with low-level criminals and unscrupulous loan sharks. She hadn’t had anything back from him yet but, if there was information to be had about Maddie Cox’s gambling debts, O’Connor would find it.

  ‘Come on, let’s get this done,’ she said to Hollis, striding up the path to the front door. She knocked sharply three times and waited, not expecting there to be any answer but following protocol and allowing any residents time to respond. When there was no reply, she knocked again, waited for a count of thirty seconds then raised a hand to the uniformed officers waiting in a van across the street and gestured to the back of the house.

  She led Hollis round the side of the building into the back garden, studying possible entrance and exit points. Although she was convinced that Caroline Lambert had fled, Kate needed to be sure that she didn’t come bursting out of a back door as the uniforms forced entry into the front. There was only one back door which looked as tightly locked as the front but, just to be sure, she donned nitrile gloves and tried the handle.

  ‘Locked,’ she said to Hollis who raised his eyebrows in mock surprise.

  ‘There’s a shocker.’

  Kate smiled and stepped closer to the nearest window to peer inside. Beyond the glass the kitchen was empty and immaculate suggesting that Caroline Lambert hadn’t left in a hurry – she’d had time to leave the place clean and tidy. A shout from the front of the house indicated that the front door had been opened with the ‘big key’, and she and Hollis rushed back round to start their search.

  The hallway was packed with what estate agents loved to call ‘period features’; a dark wood parquet floor, flanked by deep skirting boards and, about three-quarters of the way up the pale green walls, a disused but carefully painted picture rail. Stairs ran up to the left, turning on a half landing lit by a stained glass window in shades of cool blues and greys. The light filtered through the balustrades and carved the hall wall into segments of light and shade.

  ‘Okay. Drugs, computers anything connected to Maddie Cox,’ she reminded Hollis of the parameters of the warrant. ‘And anything that will give us a clue as to her whereabouts.’

  ‘Like an open atlas with a big arrow on one page?’

  Kate scowled at Hollis. Usually she appreciated his humour but she needed him to focus on getting the search done properly. He saw her frown and looked sheepish.

  ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled.

  The kitchen was spotless. The stainless steel sink gleamed in the weak sunlight and the dark marble work surfaces were free of clutter. Kate reached up and opened one of the cupboards. Tins of soup and tomatoes, an unopened packet of pasta, and another of basmati rice. Other cupboards contained crockery and jars of tea bags and coffee. Behind her she heard Hollis pull out the drawers, stir the contents and then slid them shut again. There was nothing here, but she hadn’t really expected to find much in the kitchen – especially one that looked as little used as this one.

  She left Hollis inspecting the fridge and washing machine and walked along the hall to the living room where, again, there was nothing out of place. The grey chenille sofa looked like it had just been delivered, there were no tell-tale dips or dents in the cushions and the nap was smooth and undisturbed. A large television dominated one corner and a compact stereo sat on a shelf above it, both dust-free. Kate stood on the deep blue hearth rug and turned full circle trying to read what the room was telling her about the owner of the house. Compulsive? Possibly. What was missing? Why did it feel like a show house?

  Kate tilted her head to one side, realisation dawning. There were no pictures on the walls, no photographs, no cheap copies of well-known watercolours, nothing to add a personal touch. If it hadn’t been for the confirmation from the neighbours, Kate would have doubted whether anybody had actually been living in the house. It was obvious, from the condition of her home, that Caroline Lambert wasn’t likely to be careless enough to leave anything incriminating lying around and she clearly hadn’t left in a hurry; the house was spotless and that would have taken time and work.

  Kate trudged upstairs.

  Four doors led off the main landing, all closed. Kate pushed open the one at the top of the stairs, expecting it to be the bathroom. She was surprised to see a small room furnished as a study. The walls were lined with bookshelves and the desk had been positioned so that it looked out over the garden. Kate almost yelled in frustration when she saw that the desk was empty. No sign of a PC or a laptop even though there was a router on the shelf next to the window. Wherever Caroline had gone she’d made sure that she covered her tracks thoroughly.

  Kate studied the bookshelves, hoping for some sort of inspiration to strike but none of the titles jumped out at her. There was a shelf of romance novels, two or three of crime fiction and a lot of travel and reference books. Among them, Kate spotted a familiar spine; a book that sat on her own bookshelf in her flat in Doncaster. A History of Thorpe nestled between a book about castles of the north of England and a guide to the churches of South Yorkshire. Kneeling down, Kate pulled out the
book and flicked through the pages. There was a chapter about the quarry and the brickworks, several on the pit, and one about the church. Towards the back there was a chapter which covered the building of the Crosslands Estate in the 1950s, complete with the original plans, divided into the familiar streets. Kate scanned across, looking for the house where she’d grown up, when her eye was drawn to Dennis Lambert’s street. A cross had been placed in the back garden of what would become the Lamberts’ home, obviously marking where Caroline had lived for the first eighteen years of her life. Using her phone, Kate took a quick photograph of the page and then slid the book back into place on the shelf before heading across the landing to the next room.

  Caroline’s bedroom was as neat and orderly as the rest of the house. A huge sleigh bed dominated the space which was decorated in shades of green. The duvet on the bed was neatly folded down and the pillows looked like somebody had recently fluffed them up. A large dark-wood wardrobe dominated the wall opposite the window and Kate pulled it open, expecting to see clothes organised by colour and type. Instead, she was shocked to find that the rail held only a few items, long dresses and expensive-looking woollen trousers; a dozen or so pairs of shoes were lined up in the bottom, each neatly next to its mate like sets of chromosomes, all formal and mostly high-heeled. There were no casual shoes or trainers.

  Kate peered up at the top of the wardrobe. In her own bedroom it was where she stored her two suitcases, waiting for a time when she might actually get round to having a holiday. The top of Caroline Lambert’s wardrobe was empty. Intrigued, Kate slipped off her shoes and stood on the bed, allowing herself a clear view.

  ‘Not so clean and tidy up here, are you?’ she mused as she saw a thin layer of dust coating two-thirds of the wood. The final third was clean. Something had been removed from the top of the wardrobe recently.