The Kate Fletcher Series

by Heleyne Hammersley

  It had been the start of the summer holidays and Kathy and her father had been with a group of other families new to the area. The parents all seemed eager to please but the students had seemed like a surly bunch and Kathy had been the only one impressed with the library and the sports centre, complete with a full-size swimming pool. The tour also took in the shiny science labs and the fully carpeted classrooms in the sixth-form wing. It was nothing at all like her old school.

  So, now, here she was, first day and she felt like she was a first year again. She shrugged her bag higher up her shoulder and marched down the flagstone path to the door. Most students seemed to have already dispersed to their various form rooms and the corridor was deserted apart from a group of three stragglers gathered around an open locker. Kathy approached, heart hammering in her chest, to ask her way to G14, her form room for the year.

  The three girls gave her the once over, eyes assessing her from top to toe before the one in the middle of the group answered.

  ‘It’s just down there, second left.’ She turned and pointed. ‘I’m Diane. Are you in Miss Gilchrist’s form?’

  Kathy nodded, trying to weigh up the girls. Diane seemed to be the leader of the group. She was wearing turned-up jeans and a baggy T-shirt with the name of a band that Kathy didn’t recognise emblazoned across the front. Her friends were dressed in a similar manner but one had a bright red T-shirt with black numbers randomly scattered across the front and the other wore a plain white shirt tied at her midriff. All three sported shaggy haircuts, two blonde and one darker. Kathy thought they might pass for Bananarama’s younger sisters.

  ‘I’ll walk with you if you like,’ said one of the blonde girls. ‘I’m Faye. I’m in Miss Gilchrist’s form as well. She’s okay really. She seems a bit strict at first, I had her for English last year, but she sometimes lets it slip a bit and talks to us like we’re adults.’

  She grabbed Kathy’s arm, before she could introduce herself, and began to steer her down the corridor chatting about teachers and subjects and university options without pausing for breath.

  Miss Gilchrist was already at the teacher’s desk when Kathy and Faye entered the room. She scowled at the two girls from beneath a severe fringe of greying hair.

  ‘Good afternoon, can I help you?’

  ‘Sorry we’re late, Miss. I was helping a new girl. She was lost.’

  Miss Gilchrist stared at them both for a few seconds as though considering whether beheading might be too severe a punishment and then her face cracked into a smile which, despite the deep wrinkles it produced, seemed to shave a decade from her.

  ‘Okay, find a seat. I’ll get your timetables in a second. You I know, Faye Whitton. Who’s your friend?’

  Kathy looked at Faye and then at the teacher. Here was her chance to reinvent herself; to cut the ties to her former life and to start to forge a new life, a new identity. She took a deep breath and said the line that she’d been practising in front of the mirror for the last few days.

  ‘I’m Kate,’ she said. ‘Kate Siddons.’

  2015

  The autopsy report on Callum Goodwin was sitting in her inbox when Kate arrived at her desk the next morning. It made grim reading. Callum had similar neck injuries to Aleah Reese, indicating that he’d also been strangled and Kailisa put the time of death as soon after his abduction. Kate hoped it was the latter. He must have been kept somewhere for a night and then his body dumped over the bridge like a bag of rubbish. Kate couldn’t imagine how somebody could just dispose of a child like that – it was as though their killer had no respect for the child or his family and Callum was just pawn in his game. The area around the outdoor centre had been searched extensively but there was no sign of the boy’s scooter. Whoever had taken him must have either dumped it elsewhere or kept it as a trophy. There was no unexpected DNA but Callum’s body held much more trace evidence than Aleah’s had, possibly due to the locations of the two bodies. The pond that Aleah had been found in would have helped to eradicate anything left behind by the killer but Callum’s body had obviously been in two different locations. Kate had a quick scan through the findings and the photographs and prepared to brief her team.

  She was interrupted from her reading by a loud ‘Yes!’ from O’Connor’s desk. He’d arrived early and had been poring through what looked like a list of phone numbers for the last half hour.

  ‘Something good, O’Connor?’

  He grinned and made his way over to her desk.

  ‘Something very good. I’ve been looking through Craig Reese’s phone records and I’ve found a number that Reese has been ringing almost daily – including on the evening of the day Aleah went missing, and the day after. I’ve just cross-referenced the unknown number with the murder investigation and I’ve got a match.’

  ‘Good work,’ Kate said. ‘Anybody we know?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Craig Reese was ringing your mate Ken Fowler. Barratt had Fowler’s contact details in his notes. It’s the same number. We had to let Reese go yesterday but I’m having him now. And Fowler.’

  ‘You’re sure it’s the same number?’ Kate’s mind was spinning as she tried to make sense of the connection. ‘Why would Reese ring Fowler the day after Aleah went missing?’

  O’Connor shrugged. ‘If it was me and I had our lot sniffing round I’d be keen to get rid of thousands of quids’ worth of fags that were sitting under my shed. Maybe give them back where they came from?’

  It made sense. If Fowler was Reese’s supplier then Reese would go to him for help. So much for them just bumping into each other that night.

  ‘Bring Fowler in,’ she said. ‘I’ll see Raymond about a warrant to search his house and any other properties that he owns. I knew that smug bastard was holding something back.’

  By eight o’clock Kate’s team were assembled and eager to hear the latest. Barratt had arrived first, quickly followed by Cooper and Hollis. O’Connor had rolled up a few minutes later, still looking pleased with himself. They all looked much fresher than when Kate had last seen them but she knew that this was going to be another tough day.

  ‘Before we go back to Callum Goodwin,’ Kate said. ‘O’Connor has an update on his illegal cigarettes and booze gang. And, Barratt, you’ll love this.’

  O’Connor quickly gave them the broad strokes of his findings and ended with Kate’s suggestion that Fowler be brought in for questioning and his house searched. Barratt looked like a kid that had been promised ice cream and then given sprouts. Kate knew that he’d been sure that Fowler was hiding something and he was probably gutted that he’d not been the one to find out his secret. She decided to make sure that he was involved in the arrest and questioning in some way. It wasn’t much in the way of compensation but it would be some reward for the hard work he’d put in with the suspect.

  ‘Right,’ she said, using the remote to turn on the projector. ‘There’s nothing concrete to link Fowler to the two abductions and murders but, I’m sure, once we’ve got him here O’Connor will pursue this angle.’ She glanced at the DS who nodded vigorously.

  ‘Okay. We’ve got Callum Goodwin’s PM results this morning and there’s quite a bit to think about. First, he was killed in the same manner as Aleah Reese.’

  ‘Same killer?’ Cooper asked.

  ‘Too early to be sure but my gut says it’s the same man. And I’m convinced that it is a man. Secondly, we have a large amount of trace on the body. Carpet fibres.’

  She tapped her keyboard and a magnified image slid on to the whiteboard.

  ‘Kailisa thinks commercial vehicle rather than domestic but they’ve been sent away for further analysis. And then there’s this.’

  Another tap and she revealed the image that had both confused and energised her when she’d seen it on the email. It showed an area of Callum’s back with a lividity mark clearly imprinted in the skin. A ruler next to it showed it to be approximately twenty-five centimetres in length and the ridged pattern was very different from the marks on Aleah
Reese’s body.

  ‘What’s that?’ Barratt wanted to know, squinting at the image.

  ‘I can’t say for sure but it looks like the spiral binding of some kind of notebook.’

  Cooper nodded in agreement.

  ‘It does,’ she said. ‘But it’s too big to be a notepad. The wire binding in those is only about half that length.’

  ‘So what else could it be?’

  ‘Artist’s pad?’ Hollis suggested. ‘One of those A4-size ones.’

  Kate made a note of his suggestion.

  ‘The lines are quite widely spaced,’ Barratt said. ‘It looks like quite a thick spiral. Could it be a road atlas?’

  Kate made another note.

  ‘That would fit with the carpet fibres,’ Cooper said, her face alight with enthusiasm. ‘Callum could have been placed in the back of a car and he ended up lying on a road map on the back seat.’

  It was a good suggestion and it made sense apart from one thing.

  ‘So how did he snatch Callum, subdue him and manage to get him somewhere he could kill the boy without being seen?’ Kate asked. ‘The estate was crawling with police cars. It’s a hell of a risky snatch at the best of times but at the minute it’s crazy.’

  ‘Maybe he didn’t have the car with him. He parked it somewhere quiet, got Callum to go with him and then killed him when they got to the car.’ Cooper wasn’t letting her idea go easily.

  ‘But nobody saw him walking along the street with the kid. It doesn’t make sense,’ Hollis interjected.

  ‘We know that people see what they want to see,’ Kate said. ‘Is it possible that he just carried Callum off in plain sight but he did so in such a way as to make his presence seem normal? As though what he was doing wasn’t out of the ordinary.

  ‘How could he do that?’ O’Connor asked. ‘Somebody would have seen him.’

  ‘Yes, but what if, whoever he is had a valid reason for being there? Somebody who lives nearby? A family friend? The bloody ice cream man?’

  ‘But none of the statements we’ve got so far mention anybody like that.’

  ‘So, we get more statements. Get the uniforms out there and expand the door-to-door. Somebody must have seen something,’ Kate said and it sounded almost convincing to her own ears.

  ‘What about Ian Hirst?’ Cooper asked. ‘He doesn’t live locally or he’d have been on the electoral register. Could it have been him?’

  Kate sighed. ‘I just don’t know. We’re missing something. Raymond doesn’t think there’s a link between the two families. His feeling is that these killings are either random and opportunistic or they’re linked with the illegal cigarettes and booze.’

  ‘What about Craig Reese? Could Aleah have found his stash so he had to keep her quiet? Then he took Callum to make it seem like it was part of a pattern and nothing to do with him?’

  Kate turned to Barratt and he shrugged apologetically. He knew that she wasn’t convinced that Reese had anything to do with either murder but he wouldn’t let it go and Kate had to admire his tenacity.

  ‘Reese is alibied for the whole day apart from a few very small gaps. I just can’t see him having had the opportunity. And where would he get a car from?’

  Dead ends. Lots of them.

  ‘Right, actions folks. What do we need to do?’

  ‘Go back through the statements collected during the initial door-to-door the day before yesterday,’ Barratt suggested. ‘And we need to keep on with the yellow van.’

  ‘Right,’ Kate said. ‘That’s you and Cooper for the day. And Cooper?’

  The DC tilted her head, anticipating the next instruction.

  ‘Find Ian bloody Hirst.’

  She nodded and turned back to her computer.

  ‘Barratt, Hollis, I need you to organise a fresh door-to-door. Do some knocking yourselves if you need to. And go back a bit. Start from the weekend before Aleah went missing. I’m not convinced that these killings are opportunistic. I think he’s got a plan and he would have needed to recce the area. Somebody must’ve seen something. Let me know the minute you find anything that might be useful.’

  Kate spent the morning reviewing the Callum Goodwin case notes and trying to find any connection with Aleah Reese. Cooper had produced pages of background on Craig Reese and Trevor Goodwin and then gone back a generation. The only link that Kate could see was that the murdered children both had grandfathers who had worked at Thorpe Main. But most of the kids on the estate could probably claim that. Kate’s father’s father had worked at the pit and his father had moved from Staffordshire to Mexborough to work at Denaby Main. It was in the blood of everybody in the area.

  She grabbed a sheet of paper from the printer and began to sketch out a timeline, going back beyond the one on the incident room white board. It was more like a family tree for both families based on Cooper’s notes. Nothing jumped out at her so she went back to her notes on Ian Hirst. This time the timeline had been deliberately organised like a family tree to show Tracy’s parents, Ian’s mother and Ian.

  ‘What the hell happened?’ she said to herself, circling Tracy’s name. She needed more information about the sister’s death. Somebody must remember it. She thought about the Loaches or Jud Reese. They would have been in Thorpe at the time but she couldn’t imagine them being interested in her casual enquiries. There would be people in the village who remembered the incident well, if only she could find them.

  There was somebody who might be willing to help, somebody who didn’t live on the Crosslands Estate but would be keen to find whoever had killed the two children. Kate checked the relevant statement for a number and picked up the phone.

  It was early afternoon when Kate pulled her Mini up outside Aileen Porter’s house on Jubilee Terrace. The houses still seemed to watch as she rapped the door knocker and waited for Mrs Porter to answer.

  ‘Hello again,’ Mrs Porter said as she opened the door with a smile that made Kate feel like a long-lost friend. ‘Come in, the kettle’s on.’

  She led the way into the kitchen which smelled faintly of smoked fish.

  ‘Sorry about the smell,’ the older woman said. ‘I’ve had a bit of Finnan haddock for my dinner. I’ve opened all the windows but it takes ages to clear. Cup of tea?’

  Kate accepted and took a seat at the kitchen table watching as Mrs Porter bustled around the small kitchen preparing the teapot and finding mugs and spoons.

  ‘Here we go,’ she said, putting the pot and mugs on the table. ‘Just let it mash for a minute. So, what did you want to ask me about?’

  ‘How’s Dave?’

  The older woman’s face turned grim, her mouth settling into a straight line as she was reminded of the recent tragedy.

  ‘He’s all right, I suppose. He was in Sheffield you know, not on the rig. Got himself a fancy woman and didn’t want me to know.’

  Kate nodded.

  ‘He’ll be over for the funeral.’ She glanced at Kate, suddenly hopeful. ‘Is that why you’re here. Have they got a date?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Kate admitted. ‘It’s still too early. There might be other tests to be done on the… on Aleah. I’m sure that somebody will be in touch with your son when there’s a date.’

  Mrs Porter poured two mugs of tea as she nodded her understanding.

  ‘So, why are you here? I don’t believe it’s just to ask about our Dave.’

  Kate found herself warming to the woman’s directness – it was somehow refreshing after ploughing through newspaper reports and labyrinthine witness statements. She knew that she’d made the right call. If Mrs Porter remembered anything about the death of Tracy Moore she wouldn’t dramatise it or exaggerate the facts.

  ‘I want to ask you about something that happened forty years ago. A young girl was found dead in the quarry. I’ve read all the newspaper reports but I thought you might remember what happened and what people were saying about it.’

  The woman took a slurp of her tea and studied Kate over the rim of the mug.
/>   ‘Why ask me?’

  Kate sighed. ‘To be honest, a lot of the people that I’ve been in contact with on this case would be reluctant to give me the time of day let alone talk about a long-dead child. The police aren’t very popular round here.’

  ‘And what makes you think I’ll tell you owt?’

  ‘Because I think you want to know what happened to your grand-daughter and that’s your priority. I think you’ll help me in any way that you can if I promise you that it might help me find out who killed Aleah.’

  They both sipped their tea, Kate hoping that she’d said the right thing.

  ‘Her name was Tracy Moore. I was at school with her mother. They lived up Crosslands.’

  Kate nodded.

  ‘They found her in them tunnels, air shafts I think they were. The kids used to play over there all the time before it was filled in. Surprised there weren’t more accidents to be honest.’ She pursed her lips and shook her head in disapproval at the thought that any parent who would have let their child play in such a dangerous environment.

  ‘I’ve read the reports,’ Kate said. ‘But what I can’t seem to find out is what she was doing over there on her own. Why would she just wander off and decide to crawl through a tunnel?’

  ‘Well, there was a lot of talk about her being bullied by a couple of other girls. She wanted to hang around with them but they didn’t really want her. I heard that they tormented her quite badly, hit her and pushed her around to toughen her up so that she could be in their gang. A woman I know on the estate told me that Tracy was over there with some other kiddies and they made her go down the tunnel, then they ran off and left her. Another tale is that she was hiding from the same gang. I don’t know what the truth is behind it all but there were other kids involved and I don’t think it was as accidental as the newspapers made out.’

  Kate took out her notebook and jotted down the important details. She scribbled bullying? and circled it twice with her pencil.