I wanted to get this sorted and quickly, but as Aaron said, we needed to get to the bottom of this case first, especially if one of our own was at risk again.
It was 5.30 a.m. when I walked into my office. It was the latest I could leave it. I had tried to stay at home until a reasonable hour and knew I would pay for this later when the adrenalin left my body, but for now, it ran full pelt around me as the eagerness to figure who was behind all this pumped the hormone out.
I had an hour and a half before the rest of the team arrived.
With a drink made I grabbed a couple of the boxes of the Blake paperwork from where they were now stored in the incident room and took them into my office. I opened the first box, opened my notepad and got to work. I would read every single word and get to the bottom of this. Yes, I had read through some of it. Got myself a rough idea, but this time I would read it with care and think it through. I was missing a piece.
There were statements from every single cop who had attended the scene after the call for assistance from the car who had turned up to back Lee and Ken up. That was a lot of statements. Not one of them mentioned seeing anyone in the address. Most statements didn’t add much as the scene had been closed off, access only granted for essential personnel once Lee had been recovered alive and Ken had been declared dead.
The CSI reports talked blood spatter, fingerprints – of which there were many in the house, Talbot’s was a popular house and a lot of work had gone into identifying, tracing and alibiing, or not, those found – shell casings and bullets. Even though the gun had never been found, Talbot’s fingerprint had been found on one of the bullets pulled from Blake. Talbot had argued that it may have been his gun that shot Blake but it wasn’t him that pulled the trigger. As we didn’t have the weapon it had been the statements provided by Miller and Davis that had helped the CPS decide on a charge.
The post-mortem report was long and detailed. The bullets had done a lot of damage to Ken Blake. He’d been shot at close range.
The exhibit list and witness list were lengthy. As to be expected.
‘Get you a drink, boss?’ Pasha was at the door. I looked at my watch, 6.45 a.m.
‘A tea would be great. Thanks, Pasha. And morning. Did you get enough sleep?’
She rubbed her eyes. ‘I’ll catch up on my sleep when this case is over I’m sure.’
I smiled at her. ‘I know how you feel.’ Finding that little boy alive yesterday, but knowing he was going to grow up without a mother had given everyone an extra push. Not that they needed it.
‘What time did you get in?’
‘Five-thirty.’ I told her.
‘Do you want coffee instead?’
I laughed. ‘Actually, that might not be a bad idea. I will, thanks.’
Pasha disappeared and I realised she’d made me laugh, that no matter how much I fought against her presence, her natural kind personality shone through. I needed to try to relax around her and stop seeing her as a replacement. A replacement Sally. She was not a replacement, she was her own person.
Back to the work. There was still a lot to read through, all the unused material, pocket notebooks, major incident workbooks, incident logs, policy logs, as well as all the other material created in the process of a murder investigation. I’d do the briefing and then get back to this.
With freshly made (instant) coffee in hand I addressed the now large investigation team.
Aaron was at his desk. You would not guess by looking at him that there was a problem. His professionalism shone through. Which went to prove how wrong Baxter was to have made the decision he made. I caught his eye and he gave me a quick shake of his head. He didn’t understand this. He didn’t want people to know.
I needed to get it sorted. As soon as I could.
‘I know you’re all tired.’ Eyes were tired but faces were set with determination. ‘I hope you got some rest. I want one hundred per cent out of you today. You can rest when this case is closed.’ They groaned at me but it was good natured.
I looked at Lee. ‘We have a problem.’ Silence dropped like heavy snow that falls and insulates the world around you. ‘We have reason to believe that Lee, our Lee, Cave, here, is at risk. His life is at risk. We have a threats to life assessment running against him.’ The chatter was back again. The blanket lifted. Instantaneously. A rapid thaw.
‘What’s the information, Boss?’ Martin, a sensible voice amongst the noise.
I told them everything I had told Lee the previous night. All while he was sitting there, rigid, arms folded around himself. Face peering at the floor, searching for answers to questions I’d probably created for him the night previous. He wouldn’t find the answers there. He had to face this head on. But he’d have us by his side. We wouldn’t allow anyone to hurt him or his family.
‘That’s unbelievable,’ said Ross as he looked across at Lee. ‘Mate, you okay?’
Lee looked up. ‘Bit shocked, you know? But, yeah. Not a lot I can do about it. Weird that I said I felt guilty walking out of the house alive.’ He paused a beat. His voice dropped. ‘Now this.’
‘Try not to worry, Lee. You’re not on your own.’
He rubbed at the back of his neck. ‘It’s my nan I worry about.’
‘You’ve shown her carer how to use the panic button this morning?’
‘Yeah. Scared her half to death I did. But she’s good. She’s a good woman. She’ll do right by my nan she will. She won’t leave her.’
With Lee and the rest of the team reassured about his safety I moved on to my thoughts, the information, about the possibility of someone else in the house that day. Again, the room erupted.
‘Will you lot calm it down this morning.’ I was obviously tired.
They stopped and waited for me.
‘It’s now a serious line of inquiry we have to progress.’ I looked to Lee for the second time that morning. ‘Lee didn’t see who was in the room and never saw who hit him. He didn’t come around until he was in the hospital. No one else mentioned there was anyone else in there. It appears that it was taken that one of the witnesses was the assailant for Lee but let off for his testimony. But I’m reviewing the file myself, to find out if that was the assumption or if it was said, or if the original team missed a key piece of evidence.’ I could see they wanted to speak again but they looked at each other and kept their mouths shut this time. ‘It’s hard to believe that is the case, but this job doesn’t add up. The whole job from the start, hasn’t added up.’
Lee looked nervous.
‘Don’t worry, Lee. We’ll sort it. Are you okay? Do you need to be at home?’
‘I want to be here. Like I said at the start, I want to know what’s happening, what happened, and it looks as though you, this team, might get those answers, Ma’am.’
I nodded.
‘We have a hell of a lot to do with four dead and inquiries running on all of them. Keep at the actions you are tasked with. Pay attention. Do a detailed job. Record every step you take. Make sure it’s logged on HOLMES. I’ll complete my review of this file. Whoever was already going through it, don’t let me stop you. We’re probably looking for different things. Or rather, I’m looking for something specific. You’re doing a general review and picking up anything that has been missed or any discrepancies you find.’
With that, I walked back to my office. We needed to know how it was possible another individual was in Talbot’s house that day and he not be recorded anywhere.
Hannah
It was tedious work but it needed to be done. Ross brought me another drink. I looked at the clock on my wall. 10.30 a.m. I looked out the window. The darkness I had come in to had long since fled. The rain from the previous day had dried up and left behind a weak greyness to the morning but with a warmth filtered through. There wasn’t much left for me to read. Copies of the attending officers pocket notebooks and Summers’ actual work book because he’d retired on this case and didn’t need it any more.
The information w
as grim, as you’d expect, because these were friends of Ken’s, and what they saw and felt was raw. There was more information, detail and emotion than in a usual pocket book entry. You could feel the pain they were going through. It seeped off the pages in waves.
Then I came to PC 739 Rice’s book. In it he had logged the vehicles parked outside of Talbot’s address. There were three vehicles. He had completed PNC checks on the vehicles. Two had been registered to Miller and Davis and the other one… I stared at the name. The other person in the address.
Nathan Talbot.
Why hadn’t it come up? Why was there no statement from Nathan? Or an arrest for the assault on Lee? If the assault hadn’t been Miller or Davis, then why hadn’t Nathan been charged?
Rice stated he had informed Summers of these vehicles.
This didn’t make sense.
I read the notes again. It was still the same.
I put them down separate from the rest of the Blake paperwork, and then picked up Summers’ work book. This was where he recorded everything. The answers should be in here.
There was a lot of notes. He was meticulous in his record keeping. Every decision he made was logged in here. Every discussion he had was listed and recorded with date and time. I read through it all. Word for word. Then I found it, the vehicle registration. And at the side of it, a note that read; Nathan Talbot stated the vehicle was parked at his brother’s house the previous evening and he’d left it there because he’d had a drink. No further inquiries necessary.
What the hell?
There was no official statement from Nathan. No entry on the HOLMES system for him or the vehicle. Summers had kept it off the record and kept him out of it and I wanted to know why. After the case with the drugs in Vanilla Jazz and his reported determination to get the brothers, and now he let one slip through the system. It didn’t feel right.
‘Okay, everyone listen in.’ I didn’t have the energy to be polite about this now. This case was all over the place and I wanted to get a grip on it.
‘We’re going out to make an arrest.’
Ross looked puzzled. ‘We are?’
‘Ex-DCI Robert Summers, Misconduct in a Public Office.’
Martin gave a low whistle.
I told them what I’d found. That he had information, evidence, that there had been another person present at Talbot’s address the day he was murdered, and the day Lee was assaulted, but that Summers had not acted on it, but he had also actively hidden the information so that no one else could act on it. And he knew who that other person was.
That information we would deal with after we arrested and interviewed Summers. ‘We need to know why he did this,’ I told the team. ‘Before we go in and make a further arrest, I want to know what we are getting into. And Robert Summers can tell us that.
There was a lot of head shaking. ‘Seriously? You think he’s bent?’ asked Ross.
‘I think he has a lot of questions to answer. You and Martin are coming with me so we can do a search of the premises after arrest.’
Pasha half lifted herself out of her chair. ‘And me, Boss?’
Lee stood. ‘Sorry, excuse me, Ma’am, I need to phone Sheila, check on her and my nan…’ he paused, looked at me. ‘If that’s okay.
‘Of course. Go ahead. I want you to stay in the station for the time being anyway, until we resolve this.’ I was now two cops down.
He walked out of the incident room with his phone in his hand.
I turned back to Pasha. She had worked hard during this case. But, this was a big arrest and that niggle in my stomach didn’t want her there. ‘I want you to stay here and continue with that task I gave you. It’s high priority now. I need you on it, Pasha. It’s a task that needs to be bottomed.’
Her face tightened and she sank back into her chair.
‘What about the sarge?’ asked Ross.
‘There’s something I need to get on with here,’ Aaron answered him before I could get a word out.
Ross and Martin grabbed their jackets, pulled them on and picked up a couple of pairs of car keys. We had an arrest to make.
Hannah
It wasn’t that long ago that we had been here last, to talk to Robert Summers about the case and had asked for his help. Now we were here to arrest him.
Ross pulled up behind a Range Rover that was parked outside Summers’ home. I looked at it. The vehicle felt familiar.
‘Do you recognise that car?’ I asked him.
He looked. Thought about it. ‘Isn’t it Nathan Talbot’s?’
He had the same taste as his brother.
Martin pulled up behind us.
We gathered on the pavement and I told Martin that we expected to find Nathan Talbot inside the address.
‘What’s he doing here?’ asked Ross.
‘I think we’re about to find out. If you go around to the back of the property, Martin and I will knock on the front.’
I knocked on the door and it shifted under my fist slightly. It wasn’t closed. This didn’t look good. Not considering who we thought was inside with him. I held the handle so I could knock again and rattled hard on the door. There was no answer. I looked at Martin, worry showing on my face.
I pushed open the door and shouted for Summers, let him know we were here. I could hear muffled sounds from inside the house, but couldn’t make out what it was. No one came to the door. Martin walked to the front window.
‘Curtains are closed.’
‘That’s it, we’re going in.’ I radioed to Ross to keep an eye on the rear door as we were entering via the front.
‘Robert, it’s DI Hannah Robbins and DC Martin Thacker, we’re coming in,’ I shouted as we moved into the house wondering what it was we were going to find inside.
I heard a grunt, some shuffling to the right where the living room was. This wasn’t a good sign. I’d expected a similar scenario to when we’d attended last time, but this felt off. An unknown energy in the air.
I pushed open the door and there was Robert Summers, a belt around his throat, tied to a light fitting, standing on a chair. His face ghost white. Nathan Talbot on a chair at the side of him as he finished tying the belt to the fitting, with a knife to Summers’ throat. The light came through the window and glinted on the blade as it moved in his hand. This wasn’t a kitchen knife, Nathan Talbot had come prepared.
It looked as though Summers was out of choices, that he could have his throat cut or do as he was told and see if the light fixture held, by the looks of it.
‘Nathan, step away from him right now.’ Martin and I separated so we pincered around Talbot.
Summers was rigid. His chin lifted high, his hands grasping hold of the belt that now held him in place.
Talbot held his hands up, one with a knife in it and slowly stepped down from the chair he had been standing on.
Then without warning his leg swung out and kicked the chair from under Summers. His whole body jerked with the shock of the platform shifting from beneath him. A low guttural sound escaped and his legs started to flail. His hands pawed at his neck.
‘Martin!’ I screamed out. He was already there, his arms around Summers’ legs as he pushed him up. Both men turning red in the face.
I pushed the button on my radio. ‘Assistance!’ I had no time for any other words. They’d be able to track where we were from the GPS on the radio. I heard Ross thunder into the house. He would help Martin, I needed to stop Talbot. He had left the living room and from what I could gather by the heavy footfall, had run upstairs. This was a bit unusual to say the least. I’d have expected him to head straight out of the front door.
But, damn, I would now have to face down another offender with a knife. My arm throbbed as I thought about it. I heard the men grunting behind me as they attempted to get Summers down from the light. Commands thrown about. Grab that chair. Hold tighter. Push upwards. Hold on. Stay still!
‘Nathan?’ I shouted up the stairs. ‘Come down, let’s sort this out. Summers is
safe, it hasn’t gone too far.’
There was the sound of items being slung onto the floor above me. Footfalls heavy as they moved about.
‘Nathan?’ I called again as I moved up the stairs towards him. I needed to get him detained safely. As I got to the top of the stairs Nathan appeared in front of me, a stack of papers in his hands. The knife no longer in his possession. That was something at least. I kept my eyes on him and exhaled.
‘Nathan, I need you to come with me.’
He laughed. ‘You’ve got to be kidding. You’ve got nothing on me. That guy tried to hang himself, I wanted to get him down when you walked in. You scared me and I tripped as I climbed down. I knew what you’d try to do, try to pin some weird shit on me so I ran. And look.’ He snarled. ‘Here we are. You filth. You’re all bent.’
It was a stand-off on the stairs. Of all the places to attempt to detain someone, the stairs was one of the worst. It was so unstable. ‘Let’s go to the station to sort it out then.’ I needed for him to come of his own volition.
‘Get fucked. I’m not going anywhere with you. You’ll fit me up. You’ve done fuck all for my brother and you’ll fit me up to make your own life easier.’ He wasn’t coming with me then. Not by his own making.
I took another step forward. ‘I’m sorry, Nathan. You have to come in.’ His face told a different story. Where the hell were the others, they must have Summers down by now. What if Nathan still had the knife but it was concealed.
He took a step towards me.
I was still on the stairs and he towered over me. He was in the better position. I had blocked his way out but he was in a position of strength. I had to stand my ground.
The DI Hannah Robbins Series: Books 1 - 3 (Boxset) (Detective Hannah Robbins Crime Series) Page 66