Coming, Ready or Not

by Michael Fowler

  ‘I wouldn’t mind having a read of that myself. See what you wrote about me all those years ago.’

  Barry gripped the top section of papers and made a motion to close it. ‘I can’t let you see this, Hunter. You were my number one suspect.’

  Hunter narrowed his eyes, ‘Yeah, as if.’

  With an earnest look he said, ‘No seriously, Hunter. I’ve spoken with the gaffer about it. She’s pulling you off the case.’

  Hunter pushed himself back in his chair. A vision flashed inside his head. He was back in September 1988. At his home. Barry and another detective were grilling him as if he had killed Polly. He was sitting on the sofa with his parents present. Following that ordeal they searched his room – rifled through all his personal things. He shook away the image.

  Back stiffened he said, ‘Straight up, Barry.’ Hunter checked Barry’s look then he caught the edges of his mouth curling up. ‘You’re winding me up, you shit-hole.’

  Barry broke into a laugh. ‘That’ll teach you, Detective Sergeant Kerr for taking the piss out of a seasoned pro.’ He slipped on his reading glasses and dipped his head back into the file. ‘Now go and get your Uncle Barry a brew, and no more of your lip, I’ve got to get up to speed before briefing in half an hour. And if you’re really good I’ll read it to you before bedtime.’

  Hunter slid back his chair.

  It would be good to be working alongside his old mentor again, he thought, as he got up to make them both a hot drink.

  Detectives began drifting back into the incident room from 6.30 p.m. Thereafter, Hunter checked his watch at almost five minute intervals hoping Grace and Tony would soon join him. He gave up checking at five minutes to seven when SIO Dawn Leggate made her entrance. Unusually she appeared to be ruffled. Her face was flushed and she was struggling with her top coat; tugging at the sleeves while clomping towards the front of the room. Finally dragging it off, she dropped it onto the nearest desk.

  Holding up her hands in exasperated fashion she said, ‘Sorry everyone, running a little late.’ She swung her eyes upon Hunter. ‘The Rotherham murder’s totally cocked things up. The incident room I’d earmarked for us has been given over for that enquiry and so I’ve been on the phone most of the afternoon trying to find us another room. You’ll be pleased to know I finally got one, and not too far away as well.’ Her mouth tightened. ‘I’ve used the word pleased, though I don’t think you’ll be too impressed when I tell you what I’ve got.’ She paused a good few seconds, as if letting her words sink in. Her eyes remained clamped on Hunter’s. ‘I’ve commandeered the Stolen Vehicle Squad office down the corridor.’

  Hunter’s mouth dropped open.

  The Detective Superintendent continued, ‘I expected that reaction. I know it’s a bit small, so I’ve also commandeered the rest room next door as well. The admin staff who use it for their breaks are not too impressed, but needs must. It’s the only room which has an adjoining door to link both rooms. Until I can find us somewhere else that’s going to have to do. Headquarters are sending us a couple of technicians tomorrow to link up the computers, and I’ve also got the use of the two detectives from the Stolen Vehicle Squad and a detective and a civilian from the Cold Case Unit.’ Raising her eyebrows she still held Hunter’s gaze. ‘I know I told you earlier that I had something of interest to tell you from Elisabeth Bertolutti’s PM, well I have, but, I want to hold that off for tonight. Grace and Tony are still interviewing our major witness, and I’ve been unable to check things back with them, so unless you have anything that’s pressing I’m going to suggest we hold off the briefing for the Street Lane job until tomorrow morning and then we’ll do a full catch up?’

  Keeping his feeling of frustration to himself, Hunter shook his head, ‘No, that’s fine. Nothing of importance has come up anyway. It’s too early for forensics and we haven’t got anything from the search of the garden or from house-to-house.’

  She acknowledged his response with a brief nod. ‘Okay, tomorrow morning it is then. Nine a.m.’ The SIO pulled her gaze back to the room and shuffled her eyes around the room. ‘Okay, Gemma Cooke.’ She levelled her look upon Detective Sergeant Mark Gamble, ‘What have we got?’

  The DS picked up some scribbled notes from his desk and offered, ‘Still no luck with the necklace. We’ve again spoken with the friends she was out with in Sheffield on the night before she was murdered and she certainly didn’t have it on then. In fact one of them showed me some photos, that they took with their mobiles, of their night out for her Facebook page and she certainly didn’t have it on then. They all say the same as her mum, that they’ve never noticed her wearing that necklace. Secondly, me and Mike visited Adam Fields, in Armley prison, this afternoon, and showed it him. He was adamant that he didn’t buy it her and he said he’d never seen it before.’ He broke off and sought out Mike Sampson’s face. ‘We believe him.’

  Mike supported his statement with a nod and chipped in, ‘He certainly seemed puzzled when we asked him about it. And it’s not something he’s any reason to lie about.’

  Picking the thread back up DS Gamble said, ‘We’ve also recovered the clothing that Adam Fields was wearing on the eighteenth. It was still at his mate’s flat where he was dossing. It’s not been washed or anything. We’ve checked the T-shirt and jeans against CCTV images from the last pub he was in and it certainly looks to be the same gear he had on. That’s been bagged up and will be going off to forensics tomorrow. We’ve also done a search of the flat where he was staying with SOCO help. They’ve taped a few items but they haven’t found any blood. The place looks clean.’

  The moment DS Gamble finished Dawn said, ‘Okay, thanks for that Mark,’ and looking around the room added, ‘What about the taxi she and Tom Hagan came home in?’

  From his desk, DC Andy France, at 26, the youngest member of MIT, raised a hand and piped up. ‘That’s me, boss, tracked the taxi driver down early this morning.’ He sprung open his notebook and fixed a page with his finger. Reading from it he said, ‘Mohammed Rauf, married, three kids, lives in Darnall. No form and no intel on him. It’s his own cab and it’s registered. He’s worked the city centre, especially around the front of the City Hall for the last five years.’ He looked up and continued, ‘He can remember Tom Hagan and Gemma, because it was the first time he’d dropped a fare off in Barnwell. He also said that he can remember Gemma being a bit upset when she first got into the taxi. Going on about someone hassling or following her. He only caught some of the conversation, but thought it was to do with an ex-boyfriend. He said that Tom was telling her that he’d sort it and was calming her down. Very much in line with what DC Hagan has said in his interview. I asked him if there was any argument or anything like that between them. He said no, they were just chatting. He couldn’t pick up on the gist of their conversation because they weren’t talking that loud. Neither of them appeared to be drunk and they weren’t doing anything in the cab to draw attention to themselves. He said it was Tom who asked him to drop them both off outside the pizza place in Barnwell. Tom paid the fare and he saw them both go into the pizza place. He roughly places the time as just after midnight, but can’t be exact. That’s it. It was a busy night for him so he shot back into Sheffield for more fares.’ He closed up his book. ‘I also visited the pizza place this after and spoke with the manager. He was working the night of the seventeenth and into the eighteenth but he doesn’t remember DC Hagan or Gemma coming in. As he pointed out, one customer is like any other, unless they cause him problems. However, he has got CCTV installed and he let me view the tape for that day. It’s not very good quality, but it’s good enough to pick out someone when you know who you’re looking for. Tom and Gemma did go in there. The video was timed and dated. They went into the pizza place at six minutes past midnight and left at twenty-one minutes past.’

  ‘Okay, Andy, thank you.’ Detective Superintendent Leggate bounced her gaze around the room. ‘Anything from Sheffield city centre CCTV?’

  Mike Sampson o
ffered up, ‘It’s still being looked through. We’ve managed to isolate the area she would have walked along to get to the City Hall from her last pub, and we’ve now got a rough time of when she got into the taxi, so I picked up those discs this morning and left them with two Viewers. I checked in just before I came into briefing and they’ve gone through the images from four of the cameras but they still have a couple more to go through. They’re hoping to have finished them all by lunchtime tomorrow.’

  SIO Dawn Leggate clasped a hand around the nearest edge of Gemma Cooke’s incident board. She scanned the room, ‘Anything else anyone?’

  There was no reaction.

  She brought the briefing to a close. ‘Okay, good work everyone. It certainly tightens up our time-frame. We’ve still got CCTV work to do and forensics is still with the lab, so if no one has anything else to offer we’ll wrap things up for the day and re-convene tomorrow morning at eight a.m.’

  Immediately after briefing, Dawn collared DI Scaife, checked with him that he would get the Elisabeth Bertolutti incident board updated, requested that a new one be started for the Polly Hayes cold-case murder, and then left him with the task of ensuring that everything for the two investigations be moved down to the new incident room ready for the following morning’s briefing. Then she looked in at her office and made sure there was nothing urgent waiting for her on her desk before heading down the back stairs to her car. She drove the twenty-five minute journey to Michael’s running through the day’s events inside her head. The radio was on but the music washed over her; she had two recent murders and a cold-case enquiry to grapple with and it wasn’t easy separating her thoughts. It was only as she pulled onto the drive did she realise that she hadn’t remembered any of her passage home.

  Letting herself in with the newly cut key Michael had given her she called out that she was home. Then leaning back against the front door, pushing it closed, she let out a deep sigh and dumped her bag next to the hall table. Kicking it against the skirting, she toe-heeled off her court shoes and made her way through to the kitchen from where the delicious smells of cooking drifted towards her.

  ‘Something smells good,’ she said, pulling off her coat and dressing it around the back of one of the high stools by the breakfast bar.

  Michael Robshaw glanced back over his shoulder. He was cooking at the range.

  ‘Fillet steak,’ he responded, ‘with jacket potato and salad,’ he added.

  ‘Sounds good I’m starving.’

  ‘There’s wine in the fridge, want to pour us some.’ He suggested and returned to cooking the steak.

  Pulling open the fridge door, Dawn removed a bottle of Chardonnay from the rack, picked out two glasses from a glass fronted dresser, arranged them side-by-side and poured out two generous helpings of chilled wine. ‘How’s your day been?’

  ‘Nothing like yours I bet. Sorry I couldn’t help out with the incident room, the Rotherham job looks as though it’s going to be a big one.’

  Dawn sidled next to him, handed him a two-thirds filled glass and leaned in and planted a kiss on his cheek. She sneaked a look at the contents of the pan. Michael had basted the fillet in olive oil. It looked and smelled good. She lifted her eyes and caught his look. Then, giving him a 100 watt smile, she responded with, ‘It’s not your fault.’ She stroked his arm, still holding his gaze. A warm glow enveloped her. She felt herself so fortunate. Dawn had met Michael six months earlier, during her pursuit of two sadistic killers, who had brutally murdered four people in her native Scotland and had then fled down to Barnwell in search of another victim. Here they had been finally cornered and captured with the help of Michael’s team.

  Then, she had been a Detective Chief Inspector, on a career fast-track, involved in high-profile work, with her own CID team, and most importantly no baggage. But then had come the shocking revelation, which had rocked her world. In the midst of the investigation she had learned that her husband Jack had been cheating on her with a girl from his work. When she had first received the news she hadn’t wanted to believe it. In fact, at first, she had tried to ignore – as if it would simply go away. But the only thing that went away was her marriage. The lousy, lanky shite had even blamed her for his indiscretions. Said it had happened because she was never there for him. ‘Always at your precious work,’ he had mocked down the phone, when she had finally tracked him down to ‘that bimbo’s whorehouse’ and demanded to know why. She had wanted to beat him to a pulp with the handset. Instead she had cut him off and slung the receiver across the room, smashing it to smithereens. She had been hurting so much during that investigation and Michael had been the one who had supported her when she had been at her lowest ebb. At the end of the investigation, he had taken her for a celebratory meal and over drinks he had planted the thought in her head about cutting all her ties and starting afresh. He had told her that he had been offered promotion to Detective Chief Superintendent – The Force Crime Manager. It would mean that the position of SIO with Barnwell Major Investigation Team would be becoming vacant and he suggested that she should consider applying for the job. ‘You’ve certainly got all the credentials and more than capable of achieving the post,’ he had said, holding her gaze across the dining table. Those sexy blue eyes, and comforting words had been the catalyst and she had applied for the position. Four months ago she had gained promotion to Detective Superintendent and had been elated. Unfortunately, that elation had been tinged with one of sadness as she had said goodbye to her team. In fact the celebrations in the pub had felt like a wake. She had carried herself through the ordeal wearing a mask of false happiness. On the day she had emptied her desk and driven away from the police station at Stirling she had repeatedly told herself ‘that it was for the best,’ despite the fact she hadn’t been truly convinced it was. And she had made the journey down into England with a heavy heart. Since then she had thrown herself into her new job, to ease the pain. In that time Dawn had used Michael as her crutch. Not only as a confidante with whom she could talk through the mess of her broken marriage – he had suffered the same fate years earlier – but also as a colleague to guide her through the different police procedures ‘in this neck of the woods.’ During those four months she had engaged in many evening chat sessions with him. Some had been on the phone but the majority had been at his place over a bottle of wine. It had amazed her how much they had in common and it hadn’t come as a surprise when Michael had asked her to move in. That had been six weeks ago.

  ‘There’s a letter come for you.’ Michael jerked his head sideways, aiming a look towards a low unit by the back door. ‘Personal,’ he added.

  ‘Personal?’ she repeated, diverting her gaze to where she spied a solitary white envelope propped against the fruit bowl.

  Michael nodded and with raised eyebrows said, ‘Looks official.’

  Dawn took a slug of her wine, set down her glass, and sidled across to the opposite side of the kitchen. Picking up the typed addressed envelope she turned it over, inspecting it, to see if it gave any clues as to where it had come from. There was none. She tore open the flap and lifted out the contents. It was a single sheet of typed paper on headed notepaper.

  ‘It’s from Jack’s solicitors,’ she announced without looking up, immersing herself in the print. Two weeks ago she had filed for a divorce, citing adultery as the reason. As her eyes danced across the words and she began to take in the thread of the letter she could feel herself getting anxious. As she finished reading the last paragraph that feeling of anxiousness had turned to one of anger. Her chest tightened and with a viperous cry she loudly spat out, ‘The bastard.’

  Michael met her hate-filled eyes. ‘What’s he done?’

  ‘What’s he done. What’s he fucking done!’ she took a deep breath. ‘He’s only cited me for unreasonable behaviour. Unreasonable fucking behaviour. And he wants half my fucking house. He didn’t even put a penny into it. My gran left me that house. That’s my house.’ Crushing the letter and envelope in a vice-like
grip she marched back to where she had set down her glass. She snatched it up and downed the remainder of her wine in one gulp.

  She heaved an exasperated sigh. ‘To be honest, I suppose I should have expected this.’

  ‘Oh why’s that.’

  ‘He tried to call me a couple of times but I’ve cut him off. And he text me last weekend. He’s been made redundant and he asked if he could move back into the house as I wasn’t using it.’

  Michael tilted his head. ‘And?’

  ‘I’m afraid I wasn’t very polite to him. I told him to go forth and multiply.’

  Michael smiled. ‘That’s my girl.’

  She snapped, ‘I could strangle the scrawny fucker!’ Setting down her glass, she pushed it forward, inviting Michael to pour another. ‘Well he’s going to get an almighty fucking shock coming.’

  Michael poured out another measure of wine. ‘I don’t want to add to your burden, but he just might be able to claim half of it. That happened with me when I divorced.’

  Dawn flashed a wicked smile. ‘Nae chance. I tied it up years ago in trust for my goddaughter. Better than any pre-nuptual.’

  Michael checked the food he had been stirring and turned down the gas. He returned his gaze. ‘If it’s any help, I know a good hit-man. Cheaper than a solicitor.’

  Taking in his words she examined his face over the rim of her once more empty glass. The look he displayed was earnest. But it was only momentarily. Within a few seconds his expression had cracked to be replaced by one displaying a wide grin.