by Mark Roberts
Fast forwarded from 7.35 pm to 7.40 pm.
Edgar McKee seemed to step out of the wall on to the corridor.
‘He’s actually used the stairs rather than the lift,’ said Tommy. ‘That’s a lot of flights of stairs to climb.’
In slow motion, Edgar McKee walked towards the camera. He stopped at the door of a room.
‘Can you pause it for me, Tommy?’
‘No problem.’
‘And can you print that image off for me, please.’
Tommy sent the frozen on-screen image to a printer in the corner of the room which instantly came to life and spat out the picture of Edgar McKee.
‘This is going to go down so badly at Trinity Road. We really thought we had our man. OK, can we roll, please?’
As Winters watched Edgar McKee disappear into the hotel room, he noticed that he was carrying a bag and remembered the leg of lamb he’d brought along to keep sweet the woman he knew as Marlene Black.
‘We’ll fast forward again,’ said Tommy.
At 7.55 pm, a woman stepped out of the lift where the first man had previously emerged. Tommy paused it on a clear frontal shot of the woman walking directly to the room where Edgar McKee was waiting. It was Susan Hurst.
She was dressed in a smart black winter coat with boots that came up to the hemline below the knee and her hair hung down from a black hat. On her shoulder there was an expensive handbag and her hands were encased in black leather gloves.
‘You’ve got to hand it to her,’ said Tommy.
‘She doesn’t look like a sex worker. I see how difficult it must be for you, Tommy.’
‘I guess we’re not going to be that interested in anything until quarter to ten.’
‘For now. I’d like to see what happens from a quarter to ten, but if you could send us the whole footage from beginning to end, we can check if they stayed in the room the whole time.’
At 9.45 pm, the corridor was full of a group of people that didn’t include either Edgar McKee or Susan Hurst.
Ten minutes later, the door of Room 1002 opened and Susan Hurst emerged, carrying the bag that Edgar McKee had taken into the room. She swung her handbag squarely on to her shoulder and spoke into the room.
Edgar McKee came out of the room.
‘He’s not our guy,’ said Winters, thinking aloud.
Edgar McKee walked side by side with Susan Hurst and Winters noticed how relaxed their body language was around each other; they could have been a regular happy couple.
As they made their way towards the lift, Winters saw that Edgar McKee appeared to be struggling, his confident swagger from hours earlier completely gone.
Why are you limping, Edgar? Winters asked silently.
‘He looks like he’s worn himself out,’ said Tommy. ‘I mean, half an hour to an hour’s pretty standard, but two hours?’
‘From what we’ve found so far, he’s a sex addict. Can you do me a favour, Tommy? Can you pull together the footage of the two of them arriving at the room and the two of them leaving and put it on a pen drive for me so I can show my colleagues.’
‘No problem.’
When the lift arrived at 10.03 pm, there was a discussion between Edgar McKee and Susan Hurst. With a hand gesture, he indicated for Susan to get into the lift first. She shook her head and mirrored his action.
With some reluctance, Edgar McKee got into the lift and Susan Hurst stayed where she was and he was gone.
‘It’s quite usual. They’re being discreet. They weren’t seen arriving together, they won’t be seen leaving together.’
Susan Hurst stepped back from the lift and placed the bag Edgar McKee had given her on the floor. She swung her bag round and, opening it, took out her purse. Pressing for the lift to return to the top floor, she opened her purse and took out a wad of banknotes.
With a quick and careful glance both ways, she flicked through the money before putting it back in her purse.
‘She had a good few hundred there. Does he have some super high-paid job?’ asked Tommy.
‘No, he doesn’t. Maybe he spends all his money on paying for sex and lives on thin air.’
Edgar McKee? wondered Winters. The more we learn about you, the less you add up.
100
0.39 am
Clay watched Wren as he walked into Interview Suite 1, flanked by his father and the duty solicitor, Mr Robson. He made a moment’s eye contact with Clay and looked as scared as he was confused.
‘Where’s Mr Cole?’ he asked, frozen on the spot when he looked at Hendricks.
‘He has other things to do, Wren. My name’s DCI Clay. I’m going to ask you some questions. Would you please sit down and listen very carefully to the things I’m going to say to you.’
‘Then, who’s that?’ asked Wren, sitting down and pointing across the table.
‘My name’s Detective Sergeant Hendricks and I’ll also be asking you questions.’
Clay stared across the table at Wren as Hendricks formally opened the interview and she felt a collision of emotions as she glanced down at the frozen image of Edgar McKee on her laptop in front of her.
‘Wren,’ said Clay, burying any empathy she felt for him in those moments by recalling the condition of Amanda Winton’s body in a flooded pothole on the bleak footpath between a park and a golf course.
‘I’m tired, I want to go to bed,’ said Wren.
‘You stay up until all hours most nights,’ said his father sharply. ‘That’s why you’re such a nightmare to get out of bed most mornings. You’re getting this sorted here and now.’
‘I don’t think you were telling the truth to DC Cole when he interviewed you. You denied knowledge of anything happening when you were on the footpath with Edgar McKee on Wednesday. You kept saying, I don’t know, I don’t know to most questions. Did Edgar tell you to say, I don’t know?’
‘No. I told myself.’
Clay leaned back and said, ‘Look at me, Wren. I think you’re building up a wall around yourself so that you don’t have to tell the truth. I think you’re doing that because you want to be a good mate to Edgar McKee. Is he your mate?’
‘He’s my mate, I’m his mate. He told me you’d try to twist things.’
‘I’m not trying to twist anything. I’m trying to work out what really happened and weed out what hasn’t happened.’
Clay turned the laptop around in front of Wren.
‘So, Edgar’s your mate?’ asked Hendricks. Wren stared at the screen and said nothing. ‘Because he’s your mate you’re not telling us what happened when he parked up on the footpath.’
Clay watched Wren closely.
‘I’m going to tell you what I think happened when you were on the footpath,’ said Hendricks. ‘I think Edgar got out of the van.’
Clay watched Wren look away and his hand rise to his face briefly.
‘I think he told you to stay in the van and went away for some time. I think he told you to keep looking ahead, to guard the van and not to get out.’
Wren’s eyes dithered and Clay watched the mounting discomfort in the young man’s face.
‘I think when Edgar got back to the van, he was out of breath and sweating even though it was a particularly cold afternoon.’
‘What do you say, Wren? Is DS Hendricks coming close to the truth?’ asked Clay.
‘I don’t know.’
‘At some point, Wren, you’re going to have to tell the truth,’ said his father. ‘Do it now, rather than later.’
Wren looked at Mr Robson. ‘Your father’s right. Listen to him.’
‘As a matter of interest, would he ever say bad things about you, your mate, Edgar McKee?’ asked Clay.
‘Of course he wouldn’t say anything bad about me. He came here to rescue me. That’s why he’s in the cells. It’s my fault he’s in this pickle.’
‘It’s not your fault, Wren. You’re quite certain he wouldn’t say anything bad about you?’ Clay held his gaze.
‘I’m certain he
wouldn’t.’
‘I’d like you to watch and listen carefully to a short sequence of film. It’s Edgar McKee being interviewed in the same room you’re sitting in now.’ She pointed out the CCTV camera aimed at him. ‘Do you want to see and hear? Then look at the screen of my laptop.’
Clay leaned over and pressed play.
‘How are you feeling, Mr McKee?’ Her own voice sounded ghostly as it drifted from the laptop.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Coming back to more recent times. As in yesterday. Wren asked you how you were?’
‘He’s autistic. He’s random.’
‘Turn it off,’ said Wren.
His father grabbed his hand and said, ‘Watch and listen!’
On the laptop, Clay challenged Edgar McKee about his absence from work and the improbability of him engaging in a two-hour sexual marathon while suffering from gastroenteritis.
‘Listen to what he said about you, Wren.’
‘I phoned in sick,’ said Edgar McKee, ‘because I wanted a breather from Wren. How would you feel if he was on your neck every minute of your working day?
‘The lad was driving me nuts, and I’d only been with him for a couple of days. When I woke up on Friday, I just couldn’t face seeing him, spending time with him.’
As she listened to herself explaining to Edgar McKee that his current situation could be the lever that could cut him loose from Wren, she looked at the young man and saw he was on a fast-mounting arc of rage.
‘Try to help someone,’ said Edgar McKee, his bitterness growing with each word. ‘End up in a cell. Wren? That’s a fucking joke name. He’s more of a fucking albatross…’
Clay paused the footage.
‘Do you know what an albatross is, Wren?’ asked Hendricks.
‘No.’
‘It’s a large sea bird. A sailor in an old poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, killed an albatross and had to wear the dead bird around his neck. An albatross is a curse. In referring to you as an albatross, Edgar McKee is basically saying he sees you as a curse, and he wants rid of that curse. He’s not your mate. He’s lying. He’s using you. He’s using you to make his story sound plausible. I’m sorry. You need to know the truth. Ignorance isn’t bliss, it’s just ignorance. Ugly deceitful ignorance.’
‘Here’s the plan, Wren,’ said Clay. ‘We’re going to close the interview now. There’s a lot for you to process here. I suggest you have a heart to heart with your dad and Mr Robson. After that, Sergeant Harris will take you back to your cell where you can think things through. I’d like you to stick this at the centre of your thoughts. Ask yourself, am I prepared to lie and get into a heap of trouble for a man who thinks of me, in his own words, as a fucking albatross, a curse?’
‘I want to go home.’
‘As soon as you tell us the truth, you’ll be free to go home.’
Clay looked at the clock on the wall. The time had come to execute the next piece of her strategy. She formally closed the interview and said, ‘Let’s go, Wren.’
Clay opened the door and Edgar McKee stood against the wall facing it, in between Sergeant Harris and PC Tom Morgan, two men whose combined weight in muscle and bone was over thirty-five stone.
Wren stepped out of the interview suite and became very still. He stared at Edgar McKee.
‘What’s up, mate?’ asked Edgar McKee.
Wren made a noise in his throat like a wild dog on the verge of frenzy. He lurched at Edgar McKee but was held back by Harris and Morgan.
‘You little bastard, McKee!’ Wren spat in Edgar McKee’s face.
‘What have you said to him, Clay?’ demanded Edgar McKee. ‘What have you said to turn him against me?’
‘I didn’t say a word to turn him against you. You said all the words that were needed to turn him against you.’
‘Start walking back to your cell, McKee,’ said Sergeant Harris, restraining Wren on the floor.
Clay held up the key to his cell door. ‘You heard Sergeant Harris. I’ll make sure you get locked up.’
‘You’re the fucking albatross, McKee!’ screamed Wren at Edgar McKee’s departing back. ‘Not me. You. You’re a fucking enemy agent.’
101
1.15 am
Clay hung on to the sides of a mug of coffee as if it was a life raft as she watched the unfolding edited highlights of Edgar McKee’s visit to the Travelodge for his sexual encounter with Susan Hurst. At the point when he followed her out of the hotel room, she asked Winters, ‘Have you watched the unedited CCTV footage? From the time he first arrived until they both left?’
‘I rolled it forward at double speed,’ said Winters. ‘He wasn’t physically capable of snatching Francesca Christie. He was getting his nasties off on Susan Hurst behind the door of Room 1002. That door didn’t open during the time they were both behind it. No one went into the room. No one came out.’
She considered the news Gina Riley had given her half an hour earlier, when she’d shown her the supporting evidence from easyJet, confirming Edgar McKee’s story that he’d flown out to Amsterdam in late July and had returned to England after the middle of August. Sandra O’Day had gone missing on August 1st and her body was discovered on August 11th.
Clay walked to the window and stared out through the rain-streaked glass at the lights on the Mersey Estuary.
Turning to Winters, she said, ‘I don’t care what information comes in to corroborate his alibis, I’m holding Edgar McKee in custody until the very last second of the twenty-four hours we can keep him. He might have been in the wrong place at the wrong time when he was with Wren on the footpath, but where’s his van now? That’s enough for me. He’s part of a tag team and he’s up to his neck in it.’
The landline phone on her desk rang out. Despite the fact that good news never came over the phone at that small hour of the night, she wished for it as she picked up the receiver and said, ‘DCI Clay.’
‘Eve, it’s me.’ Detective Sergeant Terry Mason sounded down. The good news she’d hoped for just wasn’t going to happen.
‘Hit me with it, Terry.’
‘We’ve been through every stitch of Edgar McKee’s clothing. We’ve been through the drum of his washing machine and the dust filter from his tumble drier and there’s isn’t a single stray blonde hair that could match Annie Boyd. There’s nothing for us to test.’
‘What about the U-bend from his sink and the out pipe from his washing machine?’
‘We’ve been through everything. His armchair, his furniture, his bed, his bedding, his carpets, his laminate flooring. I’m sorry. There’s nothing doing. We just didn’t find anything.’
‘Anything from the garage on Francesca Christie’s car?’
‘Nothing yet. Sorry.’
Clay’s mind went into top gear as the bad news had the reverse effect of what it should have done: it galvanised her.
‘Have you been to the abattoir where he works, Terry?’
‘No.’
‘Leave it with me. When I’ve alerted the abattoir’s twenty-four-seven security team that they’re going to have to open up, that’s going to be your next port of call. Given the nature of the work he does, there’s going to have to be some changing facility. He’s probably got an individual locker with his personal belongings and spare clothes. I’ll ring you when I’ve sorted it out. Stay on stand-by and thank you for trying so hard. If anyone’s going to find the forensic evidence that’s going to nail the bastard, it’s you and Pricey.’
As soon as she put the receiver down, her phone rang out again and, within half a second, she raised it to her ear.
‘Eve?’
‘Sergeant Harris? What’s up?’ She dismissed the pale hope of a turnaround confession from the holding cells.
‘I’ve got two women in reception. They’re demanding to see you immediately.’
‘About?’
‘They wouldn’t say. But they’re insistent on speaking to you personally. It’s a matter of life and death. Ne
ither of them are pissed or high. My gut believes them.’
‘Did they give you their names?’
‘Lydia Ball and Janine Ball.’
Ball? thought Clay, processing dozens of names that had cropped up in the space of the past three days.
‘I’ll come down straight away. Ask one of them what her husband’s name is?’
Harris asked the question and a fractured voice came through the receiver.
‘Daniel Ball.’
‘I got that, Sarge,’ said Clay, seeing a speck of light on the dark horizon.
As she headed for the door, Winters asked, ‘Want me to square things with the abattoir people for Mason and Pricey?’
‘You’re a star, Clive. ASAP please.’
102
1.21 am
‘Are you OK if I record our conversation?’ asked Clay.
‘I have no problem with that, DCI Clay,’ replied Lydia Ball.
Lydia looked at Janine who said, ‘That’s fine.’
Clay pressed record.
‘So, Lydia, Daniel Ball is your husband and, Janine, you’re his sister.’
The women nodded.
‘I’ll start with you, Lydia. Tell me what’s been going on with your husband Daniel. Take your time. Don’t be afraid of silence if you need time to think.’
‘Daniel left for work as usual yesterday morning. He seemed perfectly all right, up-beat even, talking about what we were going to have from the Chinese takeaway because it was Friday night and he had the Saturday off. The last thing he said to me was I’ll see you at six. Have a great day.
‘Six o’clock came and went and he didn’t arrive home. If he’s running late he always calls and tells me.’
Lydia Ball took a tissue from the box on the table and dabbed the corners of her eyes. Her first minutes in Interview Suite 1 had been spent sobbing and, although she felt very sorry for the woman opposite her, Clay’s impatient streak had been tweaked.
‘I called him on his mobile but it was turned off. I got in touch with Janine because I thought maybe, maybe he might have gone round to his big sister’s.’
‘He wasn’t with me,’ said Janine. ‘I called him on his mobile but it was turned off. It just wasn’t like him. He never turns his phone off.’