THE MURDERER'S SON a gripping crime thriller full of twists

by Joy Ellis

  Daniel Kinder had seemed subdued, almost depressed, and had meekly agreed to their suggestion of working with Dr Preston. His response was unenthusiastic, a sort of dreary acceptance of the way things would have to go.

  Jackman had stared at Kinder while the doctor had explained certain things to him. He had seen no sign of the fiery young journalist of the recent past, no spark of anger and not even any joy at being told he could see Skye.

  After an hour Jackman brought the interview to a halt, and asked Preston and Marie to join him in his office.

  ‘We simply don’t have enough solid evidence to hold him.’ He knew his voice betrayed his exasperation. He looked at Guy Preston. ‘What do you think about him, honestly?’

  The psychologist drew in a long breath, then let out a low whistle. ‘I think he has serious problems, but deep down, I don’t think he killed Alison Fleet.’

  ‘Or the other woman?’

  ‘I don’t think he killed anyone.’

  They had told Daniel about their mystery woman, their Jane Doe, and he had responded with a shrug. He had said, in a voice that sounded hopeless, ‘I can’t tell you that I didn’t kill her, because I don’t know. I’m afraid it’s down to you to prove it, one way or the other.’ He had then added, ‘It shouldn’t be too difficult, surely? I thought that with the advanced technology there is these days, you could tell where anyone was at any given time.’

  ‘We don’t live in a sodding episode of CSI,’ Marie had flung back. ‘Get real, Daniel, this is the fens, not Miami, and right now we have a police budget that wouldn’t oil a surfboard for a year.’

  Daniel Kinder had shrugged again.

  Jackman sighed. ‘Well, I have to decide what to do by ten o’clock. And I still don’t feel happy about letting him go.’

  ‘Me neither,’ said Marie. ‘Although I no longer believe that he’s here to try and find an exposé for one of his articles.’

  ‘If he is, he’s putting on a great show of being a sandwich short of a picnic.’ He gave the doctor an apologetic smile. ‘Sorry. Not exactly the most scientific way of putting it.’

  Preston smiled back. ‘Oh, I don’t think he’s shamming. Not for one moment. But I’d stake my reputation on the fact that he’s not a serial killer.’ He looked at Jackman, his face now serious. ‘If you suspect that you really do have a serial killer on your patch, it’s not Kinder. They don’t just emerge fully-formed. That kind of killer evolves over a long period of time. It takes years of gradual change until they reach what I call the initial killing stage. He doesn’t fit the pattern.’

  ‘But you’re not saying that Daniel Kinder couldn’t possibly kill, just that he’s not a serial killer.’

  ‘Exactly. Although I find it hard to believe that he has it in him to kill at all. Maybe if he’s sick, as we said before, or if he is driven by his belief that he has Françoise Thayer’s blood running through his veins, then perhaps he is . . .’ He shook his head. ‘But I’m not convinced.’

  A knock on the door interrupted them, and an excited Max appeared. ‘I think you’ll want to see this, sir.’ He smiled and handed Jackman a printout on photographic paper. ‘Jane has a face!’

  Jackman stared at the image, and a fair-haired, very attractive woman looked back at him. She had grey-blue eyes, straight shoulder-length hair, high cheek-bones, and a full, well-shaped mouth with straight white teeth. Somehow he felt that she looked very English — not blonde enough to be Scandinavian, not angular enough to be Germanic, she just seemed fair and soft, the typical “English rose” type. ‘Hello, Jane,’ he whispered, then offered the picture to the others.

  ‘Wow!’ said Marie.

  ‘Oh Lord! It’s hard to match this beauty to your forensic photo on the whiteboard in the murder room,’ said Preston.

  ‘And Orac actually produced that in just a few hours?’ Jackman asked Marie.

  ‘Less than that. I really do think thanks are in order.’

  ‘Mm, of course. Really wonderful work.’ He saw Marie’s narrowed eyes, and quickly looked away. ‘I think we should show this to Daniel, don’t you?’

  They all hurried back down to the interview room. Charlie and a uniformed officer were watching while Daniel and Skye Wynyard talked.

  ‘This woman,’ said Jackman bluntly, and laid the photo on the table where they both could see it. ‘Do you recognise her?’

  To his surprise, there were two sharp intakes of breath.

  ‘Jules! It’s Julia Hope,’ said Skye, clearly shocked.

  ‘And you, Daniel? Do you know her too?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not really . . . I mean I don’t actually know her, but I’m sure she was in a group of nurses that I interviewed for the newspaper article on the NHS.’ He gnawed on his bottom lip. ‘I don’t think I spoke to her personally, but I do recognise her. Is she . . . is she the woman . . . ?’

  ‘The woman who you may, or may not, have killed? The one whose death it is up to us to sort out? Yes, Daniel, that’s her.’ He turned to Skye. ‘But you do know her?’

  ‘Yes. She works on the orthopaedic ward, but she’s been off on holiday for a couple of weeks.’

  ‘Some holiday,’ growled Marie. ‘She’s been lying dead and unidentified for three weeks! Didn’t anyone think to check on why she didn’t go back to work?’

  ‘I . . . I don’t know,’ stammered Skye. ‘It’s not my department. She’s a nurse, not an occupational therapist.’ She stared wide-eyed at Marie. ‘You’re sure she is dead? The photo is slightly . . . well, not quite like her somehow.’

  ‘Because it’s a reconstruction, isn’t it?’ Daniel’s voice was flat. ‘From her dead body.’

  Skye pushed it gingerly away from her.

  ‘Precisely,’ said Jackman, seeing again the rotting corpse on the cellar room floor.

  ‘So what can you tell us about her, Skye? Is she married? Single? Does she have family?’ Marie asked.

  ‘She’s not married, I know that, but I don’t know much else, other than that she lives with her sister, Anna, somewhere in Saltern town.’

  ‘So why didn’t this sister report her missing?’

  ‘Anna’s an army medic. She could be away somewhere. Jules did mention her being in Afghanistan, although that was a while back.’ Skye looked askance at the picture. ‘She was really beautiful.’

  Not when I saw her last, thought Jackman. ‘And how about you, Daniel? Have you seen her since the hospital interview for which the entire hospital nursing staff loves you so much?’

  Daniel looked at him from under tired, drooping eyelids. ‘How the hell would I know? I’m the freak with the memory loss, remember?’

  ‘Are you? Are you really? I wonder.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ‘A vague connection between the two victims and Daniel Kinder isn’t enough to hold him, Jackman.’ Superintendent Ruth Crooke chewed on the end of her pen. ‘Frankly, in Alison Fleet’s case, you have closer links than he does. You’ll have to let him go.’

  Jackman knew it was useless to argue. She was right. There was no evidence, not one shred. The CPS wouldn’t even laugh them out of court, because it wouldn’t get that far. ‘Easier said than done, ma’am.’ Having a “first” was usually a nice thing, especially as you got older, but this was the first time that Jackman had had a murder suspect who actually wanted to stay in custody, and he knew Kinder would take the news of his imminent departure badly. It was all a matter of how badly.

  ‘And I want you to make sure that he receives psychiatric help, and he goes nowhere we don’t know about until we say so, right?’

  Jackman nodded. ‘I don’t think he’ll stray far. And Guy Preston is going to do a full evaluation on him. Meanwhile we are collating all we now know about Françoise Thayer. We need to put that side of the investigation to bed, and as speedily as possible. If there is another killer out there, we have to forget about Daniel and move on, fast.’

  ‘I’m glad you said that, Jackman, because we need to move at the
bloody speed of light on this. Now we have a name for Jane Doe — and by the way, the sister flies in later tonight to identify her formally — I have to make a televised statement to the press.’ She tightened her already tightest of lips, ‘You have until the morning to work out what the hell I am going to say to them.’

  Jackman stood up. He felt an enormous weight on his shoulders, and he was still unhappy about releasing Daniel. ‘Then I’d better get moving, ma’am. I have a reluctant free man to prise from his cell.’

  * * *

  It was not until after eleven o’clock that Daniel Kinder was finally ready to leave the station. Although perhaps “ready” was not a good description. Kicking and screaming was closer to the truth.

  Marie had been pretty certain that without Skye Wynyard’s endless patience and gentle cajoling, they would have had to use physical force to evict him. Even then, he had utterly refused to go home or, because of his fear of hurting her, stay with Skye. Finally they reached a compromise — well, Skye did. Daniel would stay at Skye’s flat, where his precious cat was already in residence, and Skye would crash out at a friend’s place for the night. They would reconvene the next morning and in the cold light of day, try to find their way to a satisfactory solution. And only then did Daniel finally acquiesce. No one could do anything further for him, and other than walk the streets, Skye had come up with the only sensible alternative.

  And now the murder room was quiet. Only Marie and Jackman remained.

  ‘Have we just let a killer loose?’ he asked softly.

  ‘Whatever, we had little choice, did we? And we’ll be watching him like a hawk. Wherever he goes and whatever he does, he’ll have company.’

  ‘Why don’t I feel consoled by that?’

  ‘Because we both know that even if he’s not a killer, he’s a loose cannon, and completely unstable.’ Marie sighed. ‘I’ve never seen anyone so volatile, so changeable in his moods. If I didn’t know otherwise, I’d think he was on drugs.’

  ‘But he’s as clean as you and I,’ murmured Jackman, ‘. . . which points directly to a psychological disorder. A fact that unsurprisingly does nothing to calm my jangling nerves.’

  Marie yawned. ‘Time to get some rest.’ She picked up the fat folder that Orac had provided. ‘Mind if I take this home for a little light bedtime reading?’

  ‘Be my guest. Only promise to leave the light on, and don’t ring me at two in the morning because you’ve scared yourself half to death. Bedtime reading and Françoise Thayer do not go together, believe me. I’ve been there. She was a cold-blooded, inhuman savage, and if Orac has discovered more about her than I gleaned from the Internet, then be warned.’

  Before she could answer him, the desk phone rang. Jackman groaned, made a face, and picked it up.

  ‘DI Jackman here.’

  Marie could faintly hear a woman’s voice speaking rapidly, then Jackman hit the loudspeaker button and a vaguely familiar voice filled the room.

  ‘I’m so very sorry, but I didn’t know who to turn to. It’s so unlike him. I’m sure he’s at home, but he’s just not answering my calls. Inspector, I’m scared something has happened to him. He’s been acting so strangely since Alison died.’

  On the crackly line, Marie couldn’t put a name to the voice. She shot Jackman an enquiring glance and he scribbled a name on a notepad: Lucy Richards, Bruce Fleet’s sister. Marie immediately recalled the worried face of the woman who had been with Fleet when they had broken the news of Alison’s murder.

  ‘Most likely he’s just gone out for the evening, or maybe he’s had a few drinks too many and passed out.’ Jackman’s voice was steady. ‘What makes you so sure he’s at home?’

  ‘For one thing, the police only allowed him back into Berrylands this afternoon. It’s his first night back there and he’s been dreading it. I wouldn’t worry so much, but his car is in the driveway and my brother never walks anywhere if he can help it.’

  ‘How do you know about his car?’

  ‘Because my husband drove out there. He knocked, but couldn’t get an answer.’ The woman’s voice became shaky. ‘He’s not too pleased at my ringing you, Inspector Jackman, but I have a very bad feeling about Bruce.’

  ‘Okay. I would normally send a crew out, but I’m just about to leave here, so if it helps to put your mind at rest, I’ll go myself.’ He raised a long-suffering eyebrow at Marie. ‘I’ll ring you when I have some news.’

  He replaced the receiver.

  ‘You didn’t have to do that, sir. A squad car could go just as easily.’

  Jackman shrugged. ‘Maybe her bad feeling has rubbed off on me. Anyway, we wanted a word with Bruce Fleet about all those missing details of his late wife’s life. It’s a valid excuse to bang on his door. And if I catch him half-drunk or just very tired, maybe he’ll speak a little more freely.’

  ‘I’ll come with you, as long as you drop me back here or home afterwards.’

  Jackman glanced up at the wall clock. ‘It’s almost midnight. You go get some sleep.’

  ‘Rubbish, sir. Dawn Haven Marsh is pretty remote. If something is wrong out there, you might need your trusty sidekick. And if Fleet is just pissed, then we can be home and tucked up in our beds in an hour or so.’

  Jackman pulled his car keys from his jacket pocket. ‘Why is it so difficult to argue with you, Marie?’

  She grinned smugly. ‘Because I’m always right, sir.’

  * * *

  Marie loved driving over the fens at night. There was a surreal quality to the lonely, often misty roads, and all sense of perspective disappeared. For a while the road would lead one way, then it would veer off in a completely different direction, and if you didn’t know the narrow, winding, reed-edged lanes, or have a damned good sense of direction, you could become hopelessly lost.

  It took twenty minutes to reach Berrylands but they felt as if they had been driving for hours.

  ‘Shame we don’t still have a uniform on watch.’

  ‘Little point once the place had been thoroughly gone over by forensics. It is the husband’s home, and the SOCO team wouldn’t have handed over the scene unless they were certain it was clean.’

  Berrylands was silent. An upstairs light glowed in the landing area, and another seemed to have been left on somewhere on the ground floor, but there was no sign of life.

  ‘She was right about the car.’ Jackman looked at the big Toyota Land Cruiser. ‘Still, let’s do this the sensible way.’ He pulled out his phone, scrolled down to the name Bruce Fleet and hit the green call button.

  Marie smiled to herself. One of Jackman’s little habits was to log everyone remotely connected to a current case into his phone contacts, deleting them only after the case was closed. As he waited for an answer, Marie walked up to the door, rang the bell and rapped her knuckles against the polished wood. Around her were all the signs of the recent police activity — trampled flower beds, muddy patches across the lawn and dried dirty footprints across the tiles in the open porch. She abruptly forgot about broken flower petals and stiffened when she heard a faint sound within. She moved closer to the door, pushed open the letter box and knelt down to listen.

  The tinny sound of a repeated track of music was coming from somewhere inside the house: Fleet’s mobile. ‘Sir, his phone is ringing. I can hear it.’

  Jackman hurried to her side. ‘Let’s check round the back, and if we have no luck, we’re going to have to force an entry.’

  ‘I’m with you on that, sir.’ Marie moved swiftly to the path that ran around the property. ‘That bad feeling Lucy Richards was talking about has just made its way into my veins too, and I don’t like it.’

  * * *

  Skye sat in her car and stared at the dark, blank windows of her friend’s flat. She had left a brief message on Isabel’s voice mail saying that she was on her way, but it hadn’t dawned on her until she had parked up, that Isabel was away visiting her mother in Cardiff. And to her dismay, her friend had not left the spare key in it
s usual hiding place. It was something that Isabel and Skye always did, certainly not a habit that her new friends in the police force would advise. Just in case, they always said, and now, the one time Skye had need of it, Isabel had forgotten to leave it out.

  Skye flopped back in the driver’s seat and felt sick and tired. Her time in the police station with Daniel had been harrowing, and seeing him in such a strange emotional state had wiped her out. And now, instead of creeping into a soft, warm bed, she had nowhere to go.

  She pulled out her phone and clicked on her contact names. It was midnight, and there were very few friends living locally that she felt she could ring at this hour. Penny had a new baby. Richard had a new girlfriend, and Paul and Andrea were going through a far from amicable split in their stormy relationship. Gina? Well, maybe. She was not exactly a close buddy, but she was a nice, genuine work colleague and she wouldn’t like the thought of Skye being homeless for the night. It was worth a try.

  After the phone had rung for a time, Skye cancelled the call before it went to answer-phone. There was no point in leaving a message.

  She let out an exasperated sigh. She did still have the keys to Daniel’s house, but she’d rather sleep in the car than go back there. Part of her said, just go home. Tell Daniel exactly what has happened and make him understand that he’s being ridiculous by thinking that he’s going to hurt you. And another part said that Daniel was too fragile to even try to reason with. Forget it. Either find another friend, or find somewhere to park and bed down on the back seat. Not that she was sure if she could fit into the back seat of the little Kia without getting cramp in the first ten minutes. She went back to the list of names on her phone, and finally saw a glimmer of hope. She tapped in the number and after only three rings, her call was answered.

  She blurted out what had happened, and relief coursed through her as the voice on the other end said, ‘Good Lord, girl! Get yourself around here right now. The guest room is all made up and you’re welcome. Very welcome.’

  Skye smiled to herself, the load lifting from her tired mind as she turned on the ignition. Why on earth hadn’t she thought of Lisa Hurley before? Her boss had been so kind in helping her clear up Daniel’s house. She should have been the first person to ask. With a little laugh, Skye accelerated away from Isabel’s darkened home and towards a safe haven for the night.