by Paul Gitsham
Across town, Warren was glad to be in the office, where he didn’t feel quite so useless. He’d got up early and made both his and Susan’s breakfasts and packed lunches for the day, loaded the dishwasher and the washing machine, and tidied the dining room. But he still couldn’t do anything to help his poor wife, whose retching in the downstairs toilet could clearly be heard over the sound of the kitchen radio. He didn’t envy Susan her morning sickness, but like expectant fathers everywhere he felt guilty that it was a burden borne solely by her.
‘The good news is that we received authorization for a real-time interception of what we assume is the unknown northern man’s mobile, along with the past twelve months’ worth of call logs,’ he started the briefing. ‘Cell-tower location data is being processed as we speak. The bad news is that the phone has been turned off since shortly after it received a call from Silvija Wilson’s business phone on the day of the murder, so we can’t use it to track the phone in real-time.’
Although disappointing, few in the room had expected locating Northern Man to be that easy.
‘In better news, the phone called Wilson’s business phone every couple of weeks, which would fit with the pattern of visits that Joey McGhee claims to have observed. She rarely called him. Furthermore, the phone also called Stevie Cullen’s phone.’
The mood in the room shifted immediately.
‘This now links Wilson, Cullen and Northern Man together. We will need to figure out just what that relationship is. And in even better news, we know where Annie was going on the train.’
‘She, or rather Silvija Wilson, bought a one-way ticket to Manchester Piccadilly,’ said Rachel Pymm.
‘Do you know what route she took?’ asked Martinez.
‘There are two choices from there. Down to London Kings Cross, take the underground to London Euston, then direct to Manchester Piccadilly.’
‘That’s assuming that she even went all the way,’ said Martinez. ‘She could have got cold feet and disappeared into London and ditched her connection.’
‘Don’t forget all the other stops on the way,’ said Grimshaw. ‘She could have jumped the barriers at any of those stations and done a runner.’
Pymm clicked her mouse, shifting the display on the main screen. ‘That’s eleven stations on the way to Kings Cross, and five more from Euston to Manchester Piccadilly.’
‘What about the other route?’ asked Warren.
‘That one’s not much better,’ said Pymm. ‘Five stops to Stevenage, another stop between there and Doncaster, then three more stops to Manchester Piccadilly.’
‘Well until we know what route she took, we’ll hold off informing British Transport Police. They’re not going to be impressed if we ask them to trawl the CCTV footage of all the stations and it turns out she didn’t even go through them. Anything back from Mags’ team on the CCTV at Middlesbury station?’ asked Warren.
‘I just sent them the departure times for those trains; that should narrow down the possibilities.’
‘Keep us posted.’
Back to waiting.
Chapter 36
News that search teams had made a discovery came at lunchtime and was enough to make Warren drop everything and head out to the scene.
Sergeant Hallam Pierson greeted Warren as he pulled up at the side of the road, in a lay-by already crammed with Scenes of Crime vehicles and two vans used to transport the search teams. ‘According to cell-tower data from Silvija Wilson’s phone, she went for a bit of a drive in the time between dropping off this mysterious Annie character at the train station, and her niece Malina calling her on her personal mobile phone to officially tell her about what had happened at the massage parlour.’
Warren nodded to show he was listening, as he struggled into a protective paper suit.
‘The data shows that she stopped moving for about ten minutes at a spot within 200 metres of where we are standing now. Given that she was in a car, and this is a fast road, it was likely that she used this lay-by.’
‘Makes sense,’ agreed Warren. The road was long and straight. On one side there was farmland, separated from the road by hedgerows. On the other side of the road, the land was undeveloped, natural woodland. The lay-by was the only safe place to pull off the road.
‘Ten minutes isn’t really long enough for her to dig a hole and bury something, so we’ve been searching the verges and the wooded area. We found it about a hundred metres from the road.’ He looked down at Warren’s feet. ‘You might want to swap those shoes for some boots, Sir; it’s a bit of a mess down there.’
That explained the mud in the footwell of Wilson’s Mini, and the filthy pair of shoes they’d found in her house. A comparison with the mud in the woods might be enough to place her at the scene forensically, if needed.
After borrowing a pair of boots, Warren followed Pierson into the trees.
‘Ten minutes allows for a maximum travel time of five minutes each way, assuming that she didn’t dick about in the lay-by before she set off. If she is at all familiar with the area, and wearing decent shoes, that could be a fair bit of ground to search.’
Warren grunted in acknowledgement, as he pushed away a low-hanging tree branch that was threatening to poke him in the eye.
‘Fortunately, she didn’t go too far back; she just found a bit of a depression and a bush and hid them here.’
Ahead of them, an area had been demarcated with blue and white police tape. Two white-suited CSIs were squatting down, examining a black bin bag.
‘She had the presence of mind to shove some heavy stones inside to stop it being blown around, but it was never going to stay hidden forever. I guess she just hoped that nobody would stumble across it anytime soon. If she’d had any sense, she’d have dumped the bag in with the massive pile of waste some bugger’s fly-tipped a quarter of a mile up the road; the chances are it would have been off to the council landfill within a couple of days of it being reported, and nobody would have ever found it.’
Which, given what they knew about Stevie Cullen’s illegal business dealings, would have been ironic in the extreme.
‘What have you found?’ Warren asked one of the technicians.
‘We’ll have to look at it properly when we get back to the station, but it looks like a black coverall covered in blood and some women’s shoes.’
Had they found Annie’s work uniform? Presumably the blood would match that of Stevie Cullen, although Warren wasn’t going to take that for granted until the tests were done. Hopefully there would also be some trace evidence that could conclusively link it back to either Annie, or perhaps even one of the two sisters. Warren still hadn’t ruled out the murder being committed by Biljana, or even Malina, with the mysterious ‘Annie’ set up to take the fall.
‘Is there anything else in the bag?’ asked Warren.
‘Not as far as I can tell,’ responded the technician.
If that was the case, then where had she dumped the murder weapon?
‘We know that our mysterious young woman from the massage parlour, Annie, made it all the way to Manchester Piccadilly,’ said Warren. He’d just finished relaying the search team’s findings to the rest of the group. ‘Mags Richardson’s team down in the video processing unit in Welwyn, working with Rachel Pymm, determined that she took the 16.48 train, via Stevenage and Doncaster, arriving fifteen minutes late at five to nine. CCTV from Middlesbury, Stevenage, Doncaster and Manchester stations showed that she was wearing the same clothes and carrying the same bag throughout her journey and didn’t dump anything in any of the bins at the station. She remained in her seat throughout, only making a single toilet stop on the Stevenage to Doncaster leg of her journey.’
Warren wrinkled his nose. ‘You’d never know it from the state of them and the smell, but the train company assures me that the toilets are inspected regularly and there is nowhere she could have ditched the knife. CCTV in the vestibule shows that she didn’t throw the knife out of the window.’
‘
What happened when she got to Manchester?’ asked Grimshaw. ‘Piccadilly train station is covered in CCTV.’
‘That we don’t know. We have footage of her walking from the main concourse, past the shops, and down to the taxi rank. Then she keeps on walking left, out onto Fairfield Street, where we eventually lose her.’
‘Picked up?’ asked Hutchinson.
‘Our colleagues in the Greater Manchester Police are kindly processing the ANPR data from the area, to see who was driving around there.’
‘What about the bus?’
‘The GMP are checking that for us too.’
‘What about a cab?’ asked Grimshaw. ‘She had a wad of cash in her pocket from Silvija Wilson.’
‘Possibly, although she walked past the main taxi rank,’ said Warren.
‘That doesn’t mean anything,’ opined Martinez. ‘There’s no shortage of dodgy cab companies around there.’
‘I know, my uncle used to run one.’ Grimshaw chuckled.
‘Why doesn’t that surprise me?’ said Hutchinson.
Grimshaw stretched his back and gave a big yawn. ‘Well if you need someone to pop up there and take a look around, you know who to ask. No rush though, City aren’t playing at home again for another week.’
Chapter 37
‘I think we can make an educated guess who picked up Annie from Manchester Piccadilly train station,’ said Pymm.
She pointed at the list of Silvija Wilson’s mobile phone calls.
‘She did a lot of phoning around in the hour or so before she took Annie to the train station. This number here is the final one she called. She phoned it at 14.50 for four and a half minutes. She then called it again, ten minutes later. That number then called her back, twelve minutes after Annie arrived in Manchester.’
‘So, she was ringing around trying to find someone that Annie could go and stay with,’ said Warren. ‘This person agreed – probably after some persuasion – to collect her. Silvija then calls again, presumably after checking the time of the next train to Manchester, and then this person calls her back to confirm that Annie has arrived.’
‘That’s how I would interpret it, Sir.’
‘Excellent work, Rachel. Now who does the phone belong to? Please don’t tell me it’s another unregistered pay-as-you-go.’
‘Sorry, Sir. Shall I request the call logs and cell-tower data? Maybe we can work out who it belongs to and where they are staying,’ said Pymm.
‘Do it,’ ordered Warren. ‘You could also forward the number to the GMP and see if they have any ideas. The owner of the phone might already be on their radar.’
‘What are we going to do with Wilson?’ asked Pymm. ‘We’re approaching her custody limit again. Do we have enough to charge her, or should we release her?’
Warren had spoken to Wilson earlier. She’d refused to say anything else.
‘Let’s keep her in, until we’ve found who she called. I’ll ask DSI Grayson to arrange for another extension. We’ve got enough to charge her with perverting the course of justice, but I want to see if we can get more.’
Picking up his notepad, he headed for his office.
‘DCI Jones, there you are.’ Janice was uncharacteristically flustered as she scurried towards him. ‘I have your wife’s school on the phone. They say it’s urgent.’
Warren made his way to the hospital in record time. On the way, he tried calling Susan’s mobile phone repeatedly, but it kept on ringing out and diverting to voicemail.
Snatching a ticket from the machine, Warren risked scraping the roof of his car on the still-rising barrier, as he drove into the multi-storey car park. Knowing from experience that he could waste ages hunting for a space on the lower levels, he headed straight for the nearly empty roof. Eschewing the elevator, he then took the concrete stairs two at a time, shoulder-barging his way through the heavy wooden fire door on the ground floor. A light drizzle had started, but Warren barely noticed it as he raced across the hospital campus.
Following the signs, he headed towards the nurses’ station. He must have introduced himself, as the nurse on duty used his name several times as she explained to him what had happened, but he could no longer process the information that she was imparting.
Despite his lack of comprehension, he continued to nod, knowing that the sooner she was satisfied, the sooner she’d let him see Susan. Finally, she relented and led him to a small, private room off the main ward.
It didn’t matter how little he’d understood of what the nurse had told him, the tears coursing down Susan’s face told him everything he needed to know.
Wednesday 11 November
Chapter 38
The hospital had allowed Warren to sleep in a chair beside Susan’s bed, although he’d spent most of the night holding her hand whilst staring at the wall.
The extremely patient nurse who’d greeted him when he’d entered the ward repeated everything that she’d told him when he’d first arrived. With what he’d got from the school, and Susan’s testimony, Warren eventually pieced together what had happened.
Apparently, Susan had been feeling a little off-colour all day, with a slight temperature and stomach cramps. Nevertheless she’d taught a full day’s worth of lessons, and attended a meeting of department heads after school; all of the school’s cover supervisors were deployed teaching lessons for colleagues already absent and she didn’t want to pull anyone off a free period at such short notice to take her lessons.
It was shortly after that meeting that she’d suddenly been violently sick. After cleaning herself up in the staff bathroom, she’d used the toilet. It was then that she’d noted several spots of blood.
Trying not to panic, she’d gone to the reception desk to ask if somebody could call her a taxi; she still felt sick and didn’t trust herself to drive the several miles to the hospital. Despite Susan’s protestations, the school receptionist insisted on alerting the school nurse, who was listening to Susan still downplaying the event even as she fainted. Given Susan’s condition, the nurse decided to call for an ambulance and phone Warren.
By the time somebody tracked down Warren and he arrived at the hospital, the consultant had confirmed their worst fears. They were unable to detect a pulse for either baby. This early in the pregnancy, an emergency delivery was out of the question, and so with the aid of drugs, nature was helped on its way.
By late morning, Warren and Susan were no longer expectant parents.
Despite the traumatic events of the previous twelve hours and the slight bump on the head she’d received when she’d fainted, Susan was pronounced fit to go home by midday. The loss of a pregnancy this early on was sadly not an unusual event, the consultant had gently explained to them. Given the couple’s years of IVF attempts, they would run tests to see if a cause for the unexpected termination could be found, but as far as she could tell, Susan was fit and healthy. She recommended a few days’ rest to get over the shock and handed over some leaflets for charities that helped bereaved parents deal with their loss.
The journey home was tense. Warren knew his wife well enough to know that against all logic and medical opinion, she would be blaming herself. She’d done exactly the same when their early attempts at IVF had failed. He knew that they would need to discuss it, to bring their emotions to the fore, but he didn’t know how to start the conversation.
After pulling up outside their house, Warren walked around the car to open the passenger door, but Susan was already out. He knew precisely how things would unfold over the next few days: Susan would act as though nothing major had happened. She’d quote statistics about how common early miscarriages are and would point out that the shock to her body was not nearly as devastating as it seemed. A couple of days off to get over the turmoil, and then it was time to go back to work. In short, she was fine, and she would rather everyone stopped making a fuss.
Nevertheless, she allowed herself to be led into the living room. Warren knew that she wouldn’t contemplate going to bed at such an
early hour. She turned on the TV, whilst Warren headed into the kitchen. There was nothing else he could do but boil the kettle and wait for Susan to come to him when she was ready.
Out of habit, he opened his email on his phone, but closed it again almost immediately. He couldn’t face the case with everything going through his head at the moment. He’d spoken to John Grayson late the previous night, telling him that Susan was unwell, and the DSI had stepped in to keep things running smoothly for the next few days. The man had many faults, but he would drop everything to support one of his officers having personal problems.
The rattle of the letter box and the flat thwack of letters on the doormat signalled the arrival of the post.
Warren padded to the door and picked up the pile of papers, leafing through them as he returned to the kitchen. A letter from Lloyds Bank exhorting him to apply for a loan he didn’t need, an envelope addressed ‘to the occupier’ inviting him to sign up to a new broadband provider, and the offer of a free evaluation from an estate agent made their way straight into the recycle bin.
The final envelope was pale blue, its size and shape suggesting a greeting card. Too early for Christmas or either of their birthdays – he turned it over. Addressed to both of them, the familiar spidery handwriting made his heart clench.
How were they going to tell Granddad Jack what had happened?
Thursday 12 November
Chapter 39
Warren couldn’t remember a day when he had less wanted to go to work. All he desired was to curl up in bed beside his wife and tell her everything was going to be all right. And one day it would be, of that he was certain. But it certainly didn’t feel like it today.
In the end it was Susan who had insisted that he go to work. She was taking the rest of the week off, but physically, she was mostly OK. Today she just wanted some time to herself. Warren resolved to keep his mobile handy; he would leave at a moment’s notice if she called. He hoped he was doing the right thing.