Scared to Death (A Detective Kay Hunter novel)

by Rachel Amphlett

  Half past four. It’d be sunrise soon.

  His eyes found the post in the distance that marked the entrance to the park.

  No one moved in the shadows.

  He gritted his teeth, and marched on, determined.

  He wouldn’t go to prison. Couldn’t go to prison.

  Because that’s what would happen. Even if he told them about Eli, he would still be charged as an accomplice.

  Better to do it this way, and give Eli the chance to start his life over again and put this mistake behind him.

  He had his elderly mother to care for, after all. That’s why Eli said he needed the money.

  She shouldn’t have to suffer for her son’s mistake.

  He reached the lake at the far edge of the park, the water lapping at reeds on the shallow banks.

  A memory resurfaced, of him and his younger brother using cheap fishing nets – bright coloured plastic nets on bamboo sticks – to catch water boatmen and small fish every summer, before returning the creatures to the water and watching them dart away.

  The oak tree was still there, a majestic, towering canopy that dwarfed the nearby willows.

  He paused, his neck craning, but he couldn’t see the topmost branches from where he stood.

  No matter. The branch he sought was still there, thick and gnarly with age.

  Strong.

  He removed his hands from his pockets, unzipped his jacket, and began to unwind the rope he’d coiled around his waist.

  He hadn’t wanted any of his neighbours to wonder where he was going in the middle of the night with a length of rope. He didn’t know what he would say to them if asked. Simpler to tuck it away from sight, until it was needed.

  It took three attempts to throw it high enough so it arced over the branch and fell to the other side, the end snaking down towards him as he clenched the other end. He flapped the rope in his hand until the higher end began to drop towards him, then looped the ends together, and tied a knot to form an efficient loop.

  He left it lying on the ground while he fetched the wooden crate, positioned it under the branch, and then checked the knot once more.

  The crate wobbled as he stepped onto it, his shaking legs almost giving way under the added momentum of trying to keep his balance.

  He looped the noose over his head, and adjusted the length of rope.

  He exhaled, and felt some of the tension from the past week leave his body, at the same time experiencing an urgent need to take a piss.

  ‘Too late for that,’ he murmured, and stepped off the wooden platform.

  TWENTY

  Kay stamped her feet, and shoved her hands into her pockets in an attempt to seek some warmth from the thin jacket she’d thrown over her shoulders when heading out the front door of her house at six that morning.

  Beyond where she stood, a fine mist lifted off the lake as the sun began to ease heat into the day, and the fresh breeze that had sent chills down her neck when she’d first arrived now started to drop. She took a deep breath of the fresh air, and tried to suppress a yawn.

  Adam had arrived back late, nearly three o’clock, and despite his best efforts to sneak into bed without disturbing her, she’d turned and snuggled up against his back before drifting off to sleep.

  Until her phone rang, and she’d stumbled out of bed, making her way to the park while it was still dark outside.

  Now, she turned at the sound of Barnes’s voice.

  ‘There’s a suicide note.’

  He’d left the crime scene investigators to their work beyond the cordoned-off area below the tree, and was heading towards her, the hemlines of his suit trouser legs damp from the morning dew that clung to the long grass.

  ‘A note?’

  He held up his notebook. ‘It says, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for her to die”.’

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘Yup.’ Barnes snapped his notebook shut, shoved it into his pocket, and turned to face the tree. ‘Bastard.’

  Kay said nothing. She knew what he meant. By killing himself, the man had escaped justice. She chewed her lip. ‘Anything to suggest it wasn’t suicide?’

  ‘Sarge?’

  ‘Well, it’s a bit convenient, isn’t it?’

  He shrugged. ‘Saves the taxpayers some money.’ His head turned at movement to their right. ‘Lurch is here.’

  She glanced over her shoulder. ‘There’s a surprise,’ she said, not rising to the humour in Barnes’s nickname for the detective chief inspector.

  ‘I’ll go rustle up some hot drinks for us,’ said Barnes. ‘Good luck.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Barnes nodded at DCI Larch as the two men passed, and Kay watched his retreating figure, wondering how much her team knew about the Professional Standards investigation, and which of them still held an allegiance to her. She sensed Barnes would be loyal, but she’d have to have a quiet word with him – by making his allegiances too public, he might be in danger of ruining his own career chances if Larch took umbrage to it.

  She forced her thoughts back to the task at hand as Larch approached.

  ‘You’re rather reticent,’ he said. ‘Had coffee yet?’

  She managed a small smile. ‘I’m not that bad. And, no, I haven’t.’

  ‘So, what’s on your mind?’

  He led the way over to the cordon, and they watched as the forensic team worked.

  One of the crime scene investigators had hold of the man’s legs, and was steering the body into position onto a stretcher as the rope grew slack.

  A ladder stood propped against the trunk where one of the investigators had clambered up to cut the rope from the branch, leaving the noose around the dead man’s neck, ready for the post mortem examination that would take place.

  ‘It’s too simple,’ she said. ‘Too neat.’

  ‘I wouldn’t call that neat,’ said Larch, inclining his head towards the body.

  The blue-purple hue of the man’s face did little to disguise the glass-eyed look of horror etched into his features. Lucas had already told her that the man hadn’t tied the noose properly, so rather than a quick death caused by a broken neck, he’d have choked slowly, and would have been unable to lift his own weight to prevent it.

  The hanged man’s trousers stank of piss and shit, and Kay didn’t envy the person who was assigned to clean him up prior to the post mortem.

  Larch moved until he was standing next to her, their elbows almost touching as they took in the scene before them.

  ‘Remorse, guilt – it’s a strong motivation for suicide,’ he said. ‘The problem with you, Detective, is that you have a habit of jumping to the wrong conclusions.’

  She swallowed, refusing to look at him.

  She knew he’d try to bait her at some point, try to make it look as if she was incompetent, or unable to be trusted, but she’d be damned if she’d let him see how much it angered her. One of them had to remain professional, after all.

  ‘Sir,’ said Kay, ‘with all due respect, that first scene at the biosciences building – that was nasty.’ She shivered. ‘Melanie was made to suffer. This—,’ she flapped her hand towards the tree, ‘I can’t see someone with that much evil in them hanging themselves out of remorse.’

  Larch frowned. ‘There’s nothing to suggest he was murdered. Driver’s licence in his wallet. Suicide note in his pocket. No signs of foul play.’

  Kay exhaled. ‘I just think someone capable of doing what he did to Melanie wouldn’t choose to end his life like this.’

  Larch snorted, and began to walk away as Barnes approached. ‘Well, you might just have to change your thinking on that one, DS Hunter,’ he said, over his shoulder. ‘I’ll see you back at the station.’

  ‘Sir.’

  ‘What did he want?’ said Barnes.

  ‘To share his opinion about motive,’ said Kay. She took the other coffee he held out to her. ‘Cheers.’

  Barnes sipped at his hot drink, and then used the takeout cup to point at the
DCI’s back as he stalked across the park towards the path that led to the road and his waiting car.

  ‘What does he think?’

  ‘Suicide.’

  ‘Well, it is – isn’t it?’

  Kay sighed. ‘Maybe. Looks that way.’

  The coroner’s vehicle started to bump its way across the grass away from the tree and past two uniformed officers, leaving the crime scene investigation team to glean what they could from the area before they too moved on.

  ‘Come on,’ said Kay. ‘Let’s get back to the station. There’s nothing else left for us to do here.’

  TWENTY-ONE

  Kay glanced up from her computer as Sharp walked through the door to the incident room.

  She frowned at his wet hair, and then craned her neck to see out the window.

  Dark clouds gathered on the horizon, but the promised storm hadn’t reached them yet.

  Sharp shrugged his jacket off, slung it over the corner of a chair, and noticed her staring at his wet hair.

  ‘Shower – and a change of clothes,’ he said. ‘I had to, after the post mortem.’

  She nodded her understanding. The stench of the pathologist’s rooms clung to clothing – and a person’s mouth and nostrils. A hot shower was often the only way to eradicate it.

  ‘That was fast.’

  ‘I know,’ said Sharp. He shrugged. ‘High profile case, though. It helps. Anything to report here?’

  ‘You haven’t missed anything.’ Kay sighed, and pushed her chair back. ‘We’ve been going through the call logs from Crimestoppers.’

  ‘Anything of interest?’

  ‘Not yet, but we’ve only just started.’

  ‘Are you and DC Barnes still convinced there was an accomplice? Someone else involved?’

  ‘Involved, or masterminding it? Yes.’

  ‘Motive?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m not sure. Yet.’

  Sharp used his coffee cup to point at the photograph of Guy Nelson on the whiteboard. ‘So, what happened there?’

  Kay pursed her lips. ‘Maybe Nelson found out that Melanie died, and he wasn’t expecting that. What if he believed it was just meant to be a kidnapping, and once Yvonne and Tony dropped off the money, Melanie would be returned to them?’

  ‘And his accomplice had other ideas, you mean? That Melanie was never going to leave that building alive?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Sharp scratched his chin, and then looked over his shoulder. ‘Let’s get everyone together. I’ll give you all a debrief on the post mortem findings.’

  He waited until Kay signalled to the rest of the team and they’d all pushed chairs closer to the whiteboard, and then turned to Barnes.

  ‘Why don’t you kick things off by giving us a run-down on the search at Nelson’s flat?’

  ‘Boss.’ Barnes cleared his throat. ‘Crime scene investigators were there for four hours in total. They report finding a mobile phone, some payslips – from a garage up near the Tonbridge Road – and a bag of cash.’

  ‘The ransom?’

  ‘Yeah. All twenty thousand pounds of it.’ He jerked his chin at Kay. ‘You’re right. I saw them logging it for evidence. It doesn’t look like much.’

  ‘Maybe he only asked for that much because anything bigger wouldn’t have fitted in the padded envelope to fit in the post box,’ said Gavin.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Sharp. ‘Go on. What about the phone?’

  ‘Call logs were clean,’ said Barnes. ‘The only message found on there was the one Nelson set up for his voicemail greeting.’

  ‘Plan, or pay-as-you-go?’ asked Kay.

  ‘Pay-as-you-go,’ said Barnes. ‘Found a receipt for the last top-up card he bought at the local supermarket three days ago. We’ve passed it onto the digital forensics team.’

  ‘I’ll go and speak to the owner of the garage in the morning,’ said Kay. She checked her watch. ‘There’ll be no one there now.’

  Sharp nodded. ‘What about the camera in the drain?’

  ‘I’m not sure about that,’ said Barnes. ‘He didn’t have a computer at home, which is weird in this day and age, and CSI found no apps linking to that remote camera on his phone.’

  ‘Did he live alone?’

  ‘Yes. Only one set of clothing found – all his size. Not much food in the refrigerator. Looks as if he lived on microwave ready meals.’

  ‘Okay, well if CSI report back with anything else, let me know,’ said Sharp.

  ‘There’s one more thing, boss,’ said Kay, and jerked her chin towards Barnes. ‘Ian says they found no other documents at the flat that are written in capital letters. Guy Nelson used a loopy sort of handwriting.’

  ‘Makes me wonder about the suicide note, that’s all, guv,’ said Barnes, and shrugged.

  ‘It’s a good point,’ said Sharp. ‘Okay, keep following that line of enquiry unless and until we can disregard it.’

  He turned his attention to Carys. ‘How did you get on interviewing the other residents?’

  ‘There are two other tenants in the house,’ she said. ‘The ground floor flat has been empty for three months. The landlord says there’s a new tenant moving in next week, but whether they will now, he doesn’t know. Nelson’s lease wasn’t due for renewal until August, and the landlord said he’d had no problems with him in the two years he’s lived there. Gets behind on paying the rent on time occasionally, but that’s it.’

  She checked her notes. ‘The woman who lives on the top floor uses separate side access stairs to get to her flat, and rarely saw Nelson. Couldn’t even give an accurate description of him, so I don’t think we’ll get much more from her. The man who has the flat opposite Nelson’s on the middle floor works shifts – he’d just got in from work early this morning, he says about half past two, and was about to get his head down when he heard the door to Nelson’s flat shut, and then footsteps on the stairs. He said he thought it was unusual, as he didn’t usually hear him leave for work at that time. He didn’t think anything of it until we knocked on his door.’

  ‘All right. Good work,’ said Sharp. He took a step back, and leaned against one of the desks, folding his arms across his chest. ‘While you were working on those tasks, I went over to attend the post mortem of Melanie Richards.’

  The room fell silent.

  No one liked to be the one to have to attend a post mortem, let alone that of a teenage girl, and Kay was grateful Sharp had chosen that task for himself. It said a lot about the way he ran his investigations, often taking on the worst tasks for himself.

  He reached across the desk he sat on and picked up the autopsy report, then took the reading glasses he kept in his shirt pocket, flicked them open, and began to read.

  ‘First up, no signs of sexual intercourse, nor any traces of illegal drugs, although that comes with the caveat that if our suspect used a date-rape drug, it wouldn’t show up in her system by now.’

  He sighed, and flipped the page. ‘Based on Lucas’s findings though, I doubt very much Melanie was drugged to keep her quiet, especially given the location where she’d been kept. It would seem that our suspect was determined to ensure that Melanie remained conscious and fully aware how dire her situation was.’

  The team remained silent, hanging onto his words.

  Kay bit her bottom lip, aware she was holding her breath.

  ‘Lucas says Melanie didn’t die by strangulation,’ said Sharp, and waited while the news sank in.

  ‘Then, how—,’ began Barnes.

  ‘Heart attack.’

  Kay frowned. ‘Any medical history of a weak heart?’

  ‘No,’ said Sharp. ‘But, what is interesting is the presence of a large amount of insulin in Melanie’s body. The family GP has been contacted, and he confirms that Melanie wasn’t a diabetic.’

  ‘It would’ve raised her heart rate,’ said Kay.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Sharp, and threw his copy of the report onto the desk. ‘So, it is suggested that the terror from her predicament,
and trying to keep her balance on that ladder knowing if she slipped she would hang – would have sent Melanie’s heart rate through the roof. Aided most effectively by the insulin.’

  ‘Jesus,’ said Kay. ‘He scared her to death.’

  TWENTY-TWO

  The scent of oil, grease, and sweat hit Kay the moment she approached the large double doors of the garage.

  A radio played in the background, the pounding beat of that summer’s hit song belting out, only to be drowned out by the punch of an air line being used to rhythmically ratchet wheel nuts into place.

  Three vehicles stood on hydraulic jacks, raised several feet above the ground while men worked underneath them.

  Kay shaded her eyes and squinted through the gloom, and tried to figure out which one of them was the owner.

  Each and every man was wearing blue overalls, smudges of oil and grease on their faces.

  She wrinkled her nose. She glanced down, noticed a hubcap turned upside down, full of cigarette butts, and stepped away to fresher air.

  A sign nailed to the wall demanded visitors wait before entering the space, warning of dangers and legal waivers should anyone dare to ignore it.

  Kay read through the faded lettering twice before she heard footsteps approach.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  The man who spoke wiped his hands on a dirty rag, his face quizzical.

  He loomed out of the shadows, and she had to raise her chin to look him in the eye.

  ‘I hope so,’ she said, and held up her warrant card. ‘I’m looking for the owner of this place.’

  He smiled. ‘That would be me.’ He held out his hand. ‘I’m Darren Phillips.’

  Her eyes must have shown her surprise, as his face turned rueful. ‘Yeah, I know – everyone says it – I look too young to run this place.’ He shrugged. ‘It was my dad’s business. Until he got dementia.’

  ‘I see,’ said Kay. ‘Is there somewhere we can talk in private?’

  ‘And away from this noise, you mean?’ He grinned. ‘Sure – come on through to the office.’

  He led the way into the garage, and Kay followed him across a dusty and oil-stained concrete floor to a small room that had been created at the back of the space by placing partition boarding in a square and adding a door.