Lethal Dose; Lethal Justice; Lethal Mind

by Robert McCracken

  ‘He doesn’t know, Tara. He looks every bit as confused as we do.’

  ‘He may not know where Lynsey is, but he is aware that something is going on beyond the pair of them having murdered two people. I intend to drag it out of him.’

  ‘Then why don’t we charge him? Maybe he’ll crack after that.’

  ‘We can’t, Alan. What do we really have on him besides a possible connection from a photograph to Doreen Leitch? We have no hard evidence: no prints; no DNA; weapons; nothing. It’s all my supposition. Tweedy will not be impressed if we try to charge Ross.’

  ‘Then let him go for now. He might lead us to Yeats.’

  Tara was already strolling away from the interview room, her mind on other things.

  ‘Mam?’

  ‘Yes, let him go. When you’ve finished with him we’re going after that Leitch woman.’

  Chapter 55

  Tara

  She told herself that if this didn’t work not only would she have failed in tracking down a killer but Councillor Leitch would probably go straight to the Chief Constable to complain about one of his DIs. Murray drove the car. She was glad for his help, for his company even. They’d never been close, both harbouring a slight chip against the other, but she felt that he was loyal to her. He’d try his best to help her.

  They pulled up outside the electric gates of the Leitch house in Birkdale. A man answered the intercom and told them that Doreen, his wife, was not at home. She had council business in the city. Tara decided not to bother the husband any further, thanked him and told Murray to drive back.

  ‘I suppose that means she could be anywhere,’ said Tara.

  ‘Maybe we should have forced the issue, demanded to check around the house, see if Doreen had suddenly come over all shy.’

  ‘I’m thinking that she’s off seeing her lover Councillor Sullivan.’

  ‘You want to drive to Sullivan’s house, catch them in flagrante delicto?’

  She couldn’t help smiling at his rather formal turn of phrase.

  ‘A nice thought, Alan but no, we should check out the town hall first. She could be anywhere for all that her husband knows.’

  ‘Which is why I’m suggesting she’s enjoying a little afternoon delight with Sullivan.’

  ‘Okay, we’ll try Sullivan’s house after we’ve done the town hall and council offices.’

  On the drive back to the city, Tara phoned Wilson and asked him to check with the town hall to see if anyone there knew of the whereabouts of Doreen Leitch and Matt Sullivan. Wilson drew a blank and reported back to Tara.

  ‘You win,’ she said to Murray. ‘Let’s call at Sullivan’s house.’

  Sullivan’s home was a modern double-fronted, red-brick with bay windows, close to the race course at Aintree. There were two cars in the drive when Murray pulled in.

  ‘Looks like he has company,’ said Murray with a smirk. Tara sighed at the quip, but felt a strange relief in hoping that they had tracked down Doreen Leitch. Immediately she opened the car door, the screams of a terrified female filled the air.

  Murray bolted to the front door of the house, Tara close behind. The wooden door was locked. He raised his foot aiming it at the lock. Three kicks and eventually the door flew back against the inside wall. Upstairs a female voice battled against the rampant screams from another.

  ‘You said you’d help me!’

  Murray and Tara charged up the staircase. Reaching the open door of the master bedroom, they halted at the sight of a naked Doreen Leitch, drenched in blood. Her screams were uncontrollable, fuelled by fear and panic, driving her into a fit. She cowered against the wall in the far corner of the room. There was blood on her hands, her face and smeared across her bare flesh. Tara couldn’t process the vision. Lynsey Yeats stood over Leitch, brandishing two knives. One dripped with blood.

  ‘Shut up you fucking bitch,’ she cried. ‘I didn’t want to do this.’

  For a second Yeats was oblivious to the presence of two police officers. Her business, her attention, was sharply focused upon the hysterical Leitch. Tara and Murray were separated from Yeats by the width of a king-size bed, the bloodied and unconscious body of Matt Sullivan sprawled across it.

  ‘Lynsey!’ Tara called out above the screaming. ‘Put the knives down. There’s no need for this. We can talk quietly. Just drop the knives.’

  Yeats rotated her stance to cover both Leitch and now the two police officers. Tears streaked mascara down her face, her bare arms splashed in blood. She pointed the knives, one in each hand, toward Murray.

  ‘Stay back or I’ll fucking cut you up. Bizzies don’t scare me.’ Doreen Leitch slid down the wall to the floor. Tara could tell advanced shock was taking hold of the councillor. No time for coaxing Yeats. She couldn’t see how badly wounded Leitch was, but she realised the woman would die if they didn’t get her out soon. Sullivan may already be dead. Tara stepped toward the bed, intending to check him for a pulse. It panicked Yeats who lunged with the knife in her right hand. Tara drew back; the knife skimmed her shoulder, ripping through her jacket. Murray seized his chance, rounding the bed and moving behind Yeats as she attempted to lunge again. He clasped both his arms around her and pulled tight in a bear hug. She was trapped.

  ‘Get off me. I’ll fucking kill you. All of you.’

  She could do nothing. Her hands were now useless with the weapons. Tara, stepping toward her from the side, gripped Lynsey’s right wrist and twisted hard. The knife dropped to the floor. She did the same with the left hand and the second knife fell on the carpet. Murray bundled Lynsey to the floor, face down and, with Tara’s help, they soon had the girl secured with handcuffs. She resorted to angry screams and foul threats against Tara, then Murray.

  Doreen Leitch, bleeding profusely from a slash wound that ran from her left shoulder to her right breast, was delirious, her lips trembled and rapid sobs expelled bubbles of saliva from her mouth. Tara placed her hand at Sullivan’s neck and found a pulse. He was bleeding heavily from a stab wound just below his right shoulder. His eyes opened when Tara removed her hand.

  ‘It hurts like hell,’ he said in a laboured whisper.

  Murray pulled a pillowcase free from a pillow and pressed it against the wound. Tara made the call for help.

  ‘You’re going to be fine, ambulance is on its way,’ she said.

  She pulled a sheet from the bed and wrapped it around Doreen Leitch. The woman’s skin was cool to the touch as she continued to shake. She stared aimlessly at the floor, showing no signs of being aware of Tara and Murray’s intervention. Lynsey, the side of her face pressed to the floor, had ceased her rant and spoke quietly.

  ‘I was only trying to help you, Doreen. Why wouldn’t you listen to me?’

  Doreen seemed incapable of listening now; she’d withdrawn to a place within herself.

  Thirty minutes later, Doreen Leitch and Matt Sullivan were on their way to hospital, and Lynsey Yeats was seated in the back of a patrol car. Tara and Murray waited for back-up to arrive in the form of scene-of-crime officers to gather evidence on what had taken place. Fresh questions were running through her mind, like the reason why Yeats had been attacking Leitch and Sullivan. Did that mean they had their killer?

  It would be a while, she imagined, before Leitch would be available to interview, Sullivan much sooner, she hoped. Once forensics turned up she could be on her way back to the station.

  They called a doctor to St Anne Street to examine Lynsey before any interviewing could take place. The girl’s agitation had waned, replaced by tears. She’d asked to speak with Danny Ross but was refused. When the doctor had finished he declared that Yeats was fit enough to be questioned.

  Tara and Murray sat opposite Lynsey and a duty solicitor named Michelle Roberts, a 40-year-old woman with shoulder length dark brown hair, deep-set brown eyes and too much scarlet lipstick. Dressed and bulging slightly in a dark trouser suit, she sat impassively, pen and paper at the ready. Yeats sat with her head bowed, rubbing her feet toge
ther, caressing her hands between her knees. The preliminaries to the interview had been explained by Murray who started the recording and then waited for Tara to ask her first question. It was going to be a long night.

  ‘Tell my why you were at the home of Matt Sullivan?’

  Without lifting her head, Lynsey shrugged a ‘don’t know’.

  ‘Did you go there to see Doreen Leitch?’

  Another shrug.

  ‘It would be better if you tried to answer the question, Lynsey. We just want to get the truth. Two people have been injured; it would help your situation if you told us what happened.’ Tara glanced at the solicitor but she didn’t seem inclined to intervene. She decided then on a different approach.

  ‘Tell me about you and Danny.’

  Another shrug, but at least she did look up for the first time.

  ‘Are you close?’

  ‘Not like we used to be.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘We were living together for a bit before …’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Before Terry came to Treadwater. They didn’t like each other much.’

  ‘And you liked Terry? You lived together for a while?’

  ‘Terry wanted to get a story about drugs and crackheads on the estate. I thought he was dead cute. He bought me stuff; he took me out; gave me money.’

  ‘What did Danny think about that?’

  ‘He took off. Said he didn’t want no part in stories about drugs.’

  ‘Was that because he was involved in supplying?’

  ‘Yeah, said he’d come back when Terry had gone.’

  ‘And he did, isn’t that right? He was with you when we came to speak to you about Terry’s death.’ Lynsey didn’t reply and once again took to contemplating her shoes. ‘Was Danny jealous? Was he responsible for killing Terry?’

  Lynsey shook her head and began to cry. She wiped her eye with the back of her hand. Murray reached her a tissue.

  ‘Did you kill Terry, Lynsey?’ The girl placed the heel of each hand on her temples and squeezed, raising her eyes to the ceiling. Beyond her dramatic pose there was no response. Tara paused for a moment until Lynsey dropped her arms. ‘Did you get Danny to help you?’

  Her eyes widened suddenly. A switch flicked, a light coming on. She glanced from Tara to Murray.

  ‘Was Doreen Leitch involved? Did she ask you to kill Terry?’ Neither officer could have predicted what happened next.

  Both hands gripped the edge of the table. Lynsey thrust upwards as she jumped to her feet. Her scream bounced around the bare walls. The table landed on Tara and Murray. Plastic cups of water and Tara’s files dropped to the floor. Michelle Roberts attempted to push herself backwards on her chair, but Lynsey, flailing her arms, caught the solicitor across the face with the back of her hand. Blood spurted from the woman’s nose and her scream joined with Lynsey’s. Strong hands suddenly gripped Tara’s throat. Lynsey’s momentum sent the pair of them tumbling backwards to the floor. But Murray, having righted the table, hurled himself at Yeats. He grabbed her by the waist and tried to pull her off Tara. Eventually, her hands slipped from Tara’s neck but caught hold of her blouse. It ripped open in her hands. The screams brought two uniformed officers to the door. They and Murray wrestled Yeats to the floor and held her down until another uniform appeared with cuffs. Tara felt powerless. She looked on with her blouse ripped open, her throat burning as Lynsey writhed and moaned on the floor.

  ‘Leave her alone. Do you hear me?’ Yeats shouted. ‘Leave her. She didn’t do anything. She helped me.’ One of the uniforms had Lynsey’s face pressed to the floor.

  ‘Get that doctor back in here,’ Murray called. Tara looked despairingly at her Sergeant.

  ‘What do we do now?’ he said.

  ‘Get her back to a cell.’

  It was well after 10pm by the time Tara felt sufficiently calm to make the journey home. Too much excitement, too much heartache for one day. The doctor had attended to Michelle Roberts’ bloodied nose and Yeats was under observation in a cell. Tara and Murray had tried to talk through the day’s events over strong coffee from the vending machine in the corridor, but they were too shaken by the latest incident, called it a day and made for home. In the back of her mind, though, she had the feeling that she’d forgotten something.

  She clicked the key to lock her car as she strolled to the lift to her apartment. Exhaustion and hunger were uppermost in her mind until she glimpsed a car driving off. It hadn’t been in the car park for she would have passed it on her way in. It had been on the pavement to the side of the building. Not the first time she’d been aware of someone waiting there. Once inside her flat she dumped her bag and jacket on the sofa and made straight for the fridge. The notion for scrambled egg on toast occurred to her at the same time she realised what she had forgotten. This was the evening she was supposed to meet up with James. She’d stood him up.

  Chapter 56

  Guy

  Bitch. Stood me up. Can you believe it? But I’m the stupid bastard allowing myself to think that she would show. That she wanted to see me. That we would become a couple, a proper couple, Sunday walks in the park, coffee shops and reading the papers, cuddling by a warm fire and watching an Arnie DVD. What a dipstick.

  I got to the bar nice and early, found a seat facing the door. I’d even bought a new shirt, pale blue with a thin purple stripe. The whole evening panned out before me: a couple of drinks then round to that Italian in Castle Street. A nice meal there and back to her place. I tried my best not to think of us laying together. Didn’t want a lovely picture of her spoiled by visions of needles, holdalls and her body sinking beneath the waves. I was going to make gentle love to her and she was going to love me back.

  After half an hour of waiting, I told myself not to worry, it was only just past our arranged meeting time; she wasn’t yet late. Fifteen minutes later I was wringing my hands, praying that she was going to show, that she was just delayed getting away from work. I ordered a second pint and waited. The bar was filling up. By 8.30pm I was fuming. No call from her to say she was running late. I tried calling her, but I only had a number for St Anne Street Station and some asshole answered so I hung up.

  I left the bar at 9pm and drove to her apartment block, parking up on the pavement opposite the electric barrier. I walked into the parking area, looking around for a blue Focus. No sign. I considered waiting for her. But what the hell for?

  I knew what would happen next. If I didn’t get my way with Tara then some other wee skirt was going to pay for it. But I realised that nothing else was going to satisfy me. I’d got myself in a state over this sexy cop and I was scared of what I might do next. I sat and fumed in the car, well down in the seat. It was nearly 11pm when the blue Focus drove through the barrier. Obviously, I was not of sufficient importance for her to have even called to tell me the date was off. The thought of me probably hadn’t entered her head. Soon, very soon she would be thinking of nothing else but me.

  Chapter 57

  Tara

  They sat in a corridor waiting for the doctor and nursing sister to finish their morning round in a general ward at the Royal. Tara looked on as her colleague played a fantasy war game on his mobile. She couldn’t even settle to read The Express that Murray had offered her and now was tucked into his jacket pocket.

  ‘I wonder how much Sullivan knows about the whole thing,’ she said, her eyes now fixed upon a wall poster spelling out the list of ailments one can acquire from an idle lifestyle. ‘Would he have even known Lynsey Yeats when she turned up on his doorstep wielding a couple of knives from her kitchen?’ Murray remained entranced by his game. ‘My preferred conversation this morning would have been with Doreen Leitch.’

  ‘That’s not going to happen for a while,’ he said at last, his eyes still fixed on his mobile. ‘Be surprised if she can remember her name after yesterday.’

  ‘Doctor said her wound wasn’t too serious. Not deep anyway, although she’ll have one hell
of a scar.’

  ‘Her husband’s been on the phone to Tweedy this morning, demanding to know the exact circumstances of the attack on his wife.’

  ‘He’s going to regret asking that question whenever he finds out that she’s been unfaithful.’

  The ward sister, a slight woman in her 40s with brown hair in a ponytail, emerged from a private room and told them they could now see the patient. She pushed open the door to reveal Councilor Matt Sullivan sitting propped up on the bed, a padded dressing covering the area below his right shoulder where he’d suffered two stab wounds from the attack by Lynsey Yeats. Tara had some sympathy for the young, attractive man who’d just had a narrow escape, but she was in no mood for skirting around the reason why she was there to speak with him. She and Murray stood on opposite sides of the bed.

  ‘Can you tell us what happened?’

  ‘I got stabbed by a nutter, that’s what happened, Inspector.’

  ‘From the beginning, mate,’ said Murray, he too in no mood for messing around. Despite his injury and discomfort, Sullivan, true to form, had his eyes lingering upon Tara’s chest. His trauma hadn’t affected his eyesight. Tara was now pleased to have worn a plain black jumper this morning. It didn’t exactly advertise what lay beneath and, besides, she’d had little choice with two blouses in the wash and another ripped by Yeats the day before.

  ‘She broke in. Doreen and I were, you know, in bed. I heard a window smash downstairs at the back of the house. She was in my bedroom in a flash. I’d hardly made it out of bed and she comes in waving those bloody knives.’

  ‘Did she say anything?’

  ‘Told me to get out. She’d come to speak with Doreen. I told her to give us a minute but she wasn’t for waiting. I was naked, for God’s sake, and so was Doreen. Then she just lost it. She went for me with both knives and got me in the shoulder. Would have been a lot worse if I hadn’t swung around.’ He paused, looking up at Tara. ‘That’s about all I can remember. I must have passed out.’