Nothing.
His eyes watered, but he was becoming accustomed to the reeking air. Then he heard the flies. It always amazed him how quickly the little buggers sought out a juicy dead body on which to feed. It was as if they were the sharks of the air, sensing lifeless flesh from miles around. Even in a closed vehicle such as this, they always found a way in. He hadn’t seen a fly for months, but they always appeared when there was a meal to be had. He approached the bedroom, the buzzing getting louder, and braced himself. As he pushed the door open, flies flew past him and he Craig batted them away from his face.
Squinting, he made out a figure lying face up on the bed. At first glance it just looked like someone sleeping. He flicked on his torch. He knew it was Bobby.
The flies were in disarray, having been rudely interrupted; they flew off every time Craig moved, before landing on the body again. He went closer and shone the light all over the corpse. Bobby’s face was unmarked. He looked larger than Craig remembered, but that would be the bloat of gas as his insides disintegrated. His clothes moved slightly around his abdominal area, which Craig put down to the hatching and feeding of insect larvae. But it was the chest area that focused his attention.
There was a clear cut in Bobby’s shirt, around the heart, and Craig shone the torch into the gash. The flesh had been slashed cleanly and deeply, and after a look over the rest of the body, Craig reckoned this was the only wound.
It was a professional hit.
He went outside and made the call to medics and forensics. He would need uniforms here to begin interviewing. He wouldn’t be popular interrupting the dinners of those on call, and he felt a bastard, If only he’d left Bobby for another day, his colleagues could have enjoyed their Christmas. But then evidence might have slipped away, or worse: someone else could have found him.
Maria wandered over when the sirens created a fuss ten minutes later and the place lit up. A crowd gathered close to Bobby’s trailer, unwilling to be moved on by the police, who taped a barrier around the area.
‘What happened?’ Maria asked.
‘Looks like a hit to me, and judging by the body, it was a couple of days ago. See anything?’
Maria looked down at her shoes. ‘No. But I’ll ask around.’
‘You do that. If he was dealing, then maybe you could find out where his supply came from. It looks like a clean hit to me, and in my experience, people only get whacked like that for sex or money. My guess is that Bobby wasn’t part of any complicated love triangles.’
He went back inside the trailer.
‘Cursory search?’ he asked a forensic officer.
‘Pills, powder, some skunk.’
Craig nodded. It was a treasure trove of illegal chemicals, and had they apprehended Bobby Bailey alive, he could have answered many questions. Maybe he’d died because he was sloppy, though this didn’t fit the execution-style homicide. Whoever did this was in and out within minutes, and there was no sign of forced entry. The officers were brushing for prints on everything, and it would take hours, the place was such a den of filthy living.
‘Sir, what do you make of this?’ an officer asked.
Craig whistled. It was an unopened bag of hypodermic needles, clearly labelled as the property of a doctor’s surgery in Moss Side, Manchester.
Chapter 49
In his bedroom in his parents’ house outside Keswick, Luke Miles heard sirens. Downstairs, his mother was basting the turkey and probably cursing the local thugs who were disturbing her Christmas carols.
Luke wasn’t so sanguine. From the moment they’d taken his car, he hadn’t slept, hadn’t eaten, hadn’t even had a wank. The thing he was most terrified of wasn’t the coppers, or his teachers, or his clients, or even serving time. The thing he was petrified of was his father.
He was confident that the snow chains were bombproof, but the police could have used dogs. He still held on to the hope that they’d found nothing. The policewoman hadn’t said they were searching for anything in particular; they were probably just doing one of those forensic sweeps you saw on TV, where a man in overalls gathered dust and shit on Sellotape. He’d be fine. So why then had he not slept?
He’d taken too many Addies and he needed to get a grip. It was frying his brain and left him jittery and whacked, but at least it kept him awake, with the odd joint in between to even things out. He looked in his bathroom mirror, pulling the skin under his eyes and examining his teeth. His mother thought him tired and stressed due to revision. He splashed water on his face and paused to listen as the sirens grew louder.
They lived in a detached five-bedroom house at the end of a long drive, surrounded by trees and bushes tended to by a gardener. His dad had worked in London at some point – Luke took little notice of where the money came from – and still dabbled in shares and investments. He wore expensive suits and spent more on a watch than the value of Luke’s brand-new car. Life was easy. Luke’s mum took care of his comfort and his dad took care of his future; meantime, Luke played the joker. Literally. Though it was the spiced joker that had led to things unravelling slightly. A little too much here, a bit extra there, and a dead girl in a pear tree … though it wasn’t pears, it was pine. He shook his head to rid himself of the image. He couldn’t possibly have known that she would do something so stupid. Not his problem.
He looked out of his window from behind the curtains, and sure enough, the cop cars were driving up to the house. His brain wouldn’t work properly and he didn’t know what to do first: flush the shit down the pan, or clean himself up. Panic set in and he realised for the first time in his short life that he was in real danger: a danger that his dad could not save him from. These were uniformed police officers with radios, stab vests and cuffs. There were two cars and they looked as though they were kitted out with tons of extra technology: all to catch him. They kept their lights on but turned the sirens off, and he heard his mother open the front door.
Words were exchanged, and his mother shouted for his father. Her voice was high-pitched, and he heard the tension constrict her throat: her baby was about to be dragged away by the law. Fuck. He needed to get his story straight. Scratch that: stories, plural. He had a decision to make, and that was which name to give them to save his skin. He had several options and he cared little for any of them, but he had to choose the one that would take the most heat away from him. He also had to get his story in first, but he was saying nothing without his dad’s lawyer there. A narrative began to form in his head: one for the cops and one for his dad. They both had to be convincing. To be fair, his dad would believe anything he said; the coppers would be harder.
Downstairs, his father was trying to calm his mother and demanding an explanation at the same time.
‘Luke!’ he shouted.
Luke looked in the mirror for the last time. Shit, he’d almost forgotten to get rid of the gear. He scrabbled around the room trying to remember where he’d stashed it all. The problem was, he had so many hiding places that he’d forgotten some of them. There was no way he had time to get rid of everything. The place was like a fucking geriatric ward with all the tranquillisers and shit he had stowed away. He managed to throw a load down the toilet and began flushing, but that was when he heard footsteps on the stairs.
His door was barged open and he came face to face with six foot of solid law.
‘You got the shits, son?’ The copper nodded to the bathroom, where the toilet was still whirring away trying to fill the cistern back up.
Luke shook his head but said nothing.
His father appeared breathlessly behind the uniform. ‘Luke, don’t say anything. I’ll have a lawyer there as quickly as I can.’
‘Dad?’
‘They’re arresting you, Luke. They found drugs in your car.’
‘With respect, sir, I think we might find a few substances in here too.’
‘You can’t search without my permission.’
‘I have a warrant, sir.’
His dad fell s
ilent. He knew that Luke was in serious trouble.
‘There’s some other explanation for all of this. Luke, don’t panic. Go with the police and do as they say. Don’t speak. Are you clear about that?’
Luke nodded.
‘That’s quite enough, sir,’ the copper said.
Luke looked at his father and reality hit him between the eyes. His heart began to thump so fast that it was visible under his T-shirt. Sweat covered his forehead and ran down his back. He thought he might cry. His father put both hands on his shoulders but said nothing more.
* * *
Luke was cuffed and led downstairs. Mr Miles was asked to leave the room while a search was conducted; meanwhile, Luke was put in a patrol car, read his rights, and made to sweat it out until they were done.
Luke’s mother stared at her son from the landing window that overlooked the driveway. Her husband marched up and down in the hallway, barking into his phone. Two police officers left Luke’s room with boxes and bags of items, and his mother could only move aside as they filed downstairs.
They’d worn plastic shoe covers and gloves inside her son’s room, and she knew that whatever they’d found was seriously damning. She couldn’t speak. When her husband finished on the phone, he went out, slamming the door. She heard him telling the officers that he was accompanying his son to the station. That was his right, and they acknowledged the fact.
In the kitchen, the bread sauce caught on the bottom of the pan as the moisture dried up and the starch in the bread began to caramelise. A smoke alarm went off and shocked Mrs Miles out of her stupor. She rushed to the kitchen to find dark grey smoke filling the room. She pushed the pan off the hob and it clattered to the floor, skimming her leg and searing into her skin. She screamed, but no one heard her.
Chapter 50
The day had gone as well as Kelly could have expected. The Garmin watch that she’d helped Josie choose for her dad had been well received, and Johnny was in danger of appearing pretty smart for a local mountain rescue guy. She’d chosen a present last minute for Ted: a vintage brandy. For her mother, she’d bought Estée Lauder make-up and a gift voucher for a spa day at a local hotel.
Everybody commented on her ruby ring, and she almost got away with enjoying a whole day without thinking about work. Until she received a call from Craig telling her about Bobby Bailey, followed by one from the magistrate in Penrith informing her that Luke’s arrest was going ahead today. She sighed and informed her guests that she’d have to go in to work after all. They were all welcome to stay, and she wanted them to. Her house had accommodated them comfortably, and even her mother praised her cooking. Johnny had done most of it, in his new flip-flops.
She looked around and was satisfied that everyone was happy.
Having Ted there had led to a mixture of emotions. On one hand it had been easy because they were old pals, but now the parameters had changed. She thought back to how she’d behaved with her dad – well, John. They’d been tactile. They’d lain on the sofa together, they’d held hands hiking up a hill to see the sun set, and they’d hugged when she graduated. Then she’d gone away. Now she looked at her biological father and couldn’t imagine doing any of those things. He’d kissed her on both cheeks when he’d entered her house. He’d complimented her taste in furnishings and said that her home was just like her: it felt good to be around. She’d thanked him and meant it. Her mother had seemed tired all day, but despite that, she looked happy.
There were no phone calls from Nikki bemoaning the hardships of life, and even Josie seemed contented. She sat in the round easy chair that spun, glued to her phone and smiling to herself. Kelly reckoned that her job was done and she’d earned herself a massive tick in several boxes; she could slip away quite easily and return to them all later. The TV was on, and Wendy and Ted chose something made fifty years ago. Kelly went out to the terrace as Wendy explained to Josie just how much could be learned from watching old movies.
Johnny sat on a lounger and looked up to the sky. ‘It’s definitely thawing,’ he said.
She sat beside him. ‘I shouldn’t be too long,’ she said.
‘I’m sure you will be, but it really doesn’t matter. I’ll tidy up.’
‘Thank God I didn’t have any champagne. I need a clear head for this.’
‘How old is he?’
‘Seventeen. Eighteen next month.’
‘You don’t build the contacts needed for those drugs overnight.’
‘I know. You need cash flow too, which he has in spades, I reckon.’
‘Good luck. I feel as though I might have a kip,’ he added.
‘I’m jealous, enjoy. I’ll see you later. Thank you for my present, I love it.’ She looked at her ring and moved it on her finger. It sparkled in the light. They kissed and she forced herself to pull away and stood up. She threw him a blanket and he pulled it over himself.
The drive to Penrith was quiet as expected, and she mulled over in her head how to approach Luke Miles. He had swagger, and the last time they’d spoken under similar circumstances, his arrogance had astounded her, but underneath, she’d also seen innocence. Her instinct was telling her that there was more to all this. The drug squad would be involved as soon as Boxing Day was out of the way, but for now, they only had twenty-four hours to keep Luke until they had to charge him or let him go, and Mr Miles’ solicitor was on his way. That would do one of two things: make her life easier because he could instruct Luke to come clean; or backfire and go the other way because he could recommend minimum cooperation.
They certainly had him on possession, but they had to prove intent to supply, and that was always the kicker. Possession and supply of Class A drugs carried a maximum of life, and Luke was soon to turn eighteen. His age was surprising, given the apparent sophistication of what he was involved with; something she’d learned from her recent conversation with Emma, who’d been beavering away all day. If they could get him to deliver information on who he knew and how, they might be talking big sentences worth the CPS’s time and money.
Over the last few weeks, Luke Miles had either texted or spoken to two people Kelly was very much interested in. One of them was Jenna Fraser, and the other was Faith Shaw. If he’d been dealing regularly for a long time, she wanted to know where he got the gear from.
Chapter 51
Emma was waiting at Eden House for her boss. She didn’t know where to start, and babbled about facts and figures, texts and timings before Kelly had barely taken a breath.
‘Emma, slow down. Tell me slowly. Start with Jenna. Why were you working anyway? I thought you were with Andy.’
‘He’s with his kids.’
Kelly nodded and they walked towards the offices. She felt adrenalin in her veins. She knew it. She’d known that Jenna had been pushed: pushed over the edge by an invisible hand. But she had to prove whose hand, and whether it amounted to homicide. Being tormented by phone calls, social media or even a drug dealer wouldn’t get the case reopened.
‘He threatened to tell her parents.’
‘And we have that in black and white?’
‘Yes, she kept everything. It’s in an encrypted email that was hidden behind popular movie icons on her phone; that’s how he supplied her. He wanted her to meet him.’
‘What was he going to tell her parents?’
‘He said he had a video of her injecting. As well as some sexual photos.’
‘And we’ve got all these messages?’
Emma nodded. Kelly stopped short. ‘My God. Do we know how they met?’
‘Online. He followed her Instagram page dedicated to her races, then I found some digital messages asking her to meet him, and she said yes.’
‘When was this?’
‘Last year, around December. But that’s not all, guv.’
‘What?’ Kelly stopped walking again. They were at the lifts and there was no one else around. Of course there wasn’t; it was Christmas Day.
‘Danny Stanton followed her too, and
I found a photo of them together.’
Kelly put her arm on Emma’s shoulder and smiled. For the first time, she thought they might have a hope of getting some justice for the broken body of Jenna Fraser.
‘Both Luke and Danny closed their Instagram pages after Jenna was found dead.’
‘What about the one we found liking Faith’s stuff?’
‘It was created later. Anyone can do it: you can create pages and make them look as though they go back years. It’s easy to keep closing pages and recreating them. It’s common, apparently, as kids grow bored of old photos and images.’
‘Why don’t they just delete them?’
‘Because that’s traceable.’
‘This is too.’
‘Only by someone scouring their search history for hours. It’s pretty cutting-edge stuff. You really need to know what you’re looking for.’
‘Who did it for you?’
‘I’ve got my own mole.’
‘Same office?’
Emma nodded.
‘God, it’s scary. I’m so glad I don’t have kids.’
‘I agree, guv.’
‘I take it the lawyer is here?’
Emma nodded. They took the stairs to the corridor where the interview rooms were located.
‘Merry Christmas, ma’am,’ the uniform on the door said cheerily.
They went inside and Luke glanced up. He looked unkempt and scared. The lawyer stood and introduced himself. He wore an expensive suit and Kelly wondered how much Mr Miles paid him. Money was always the biggest hurdle to justice. Almost any crime could be negated, argued away, diluted and whittled down to very little if huge sums of money were thrown about. Experts, lawyers, scientists, orators, chemists and doctors could all be bought.
Bitter Edge Page 21