Little Doubt

  Tyrone told Jackson about the evening he’d spent with Keira. Things were getting serious, but for some reason, he couldn’t commit himself in the way she wanted.

  ‘She was always asking for more: more holding, more affection, more phone calls, more chat, more presents. Man, I couldn’t keep up. She was pissed at me. They came from nowhere, I swear.’

  ‘Jason and Adam?’

  ‘Yeah, and the others. They get Keira and start saying she has it coming to her, they know what she been doing.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘That’s what I said, man.’

  ‘And what did they say?’

  ‘They said she had to keep her mouth shut about something.’

  ‘Did you know what?’

  ‘Nah.’ Tyrone shook his head then dropped it low. Jackson knew he was suffering. The guy had been helpless to stop the butchering of his girl. And now Jason Cotton wanted to frame him. Jackson had no doubt that the coppers used Jason just like they used him. He would be surprised if Adam was in the loop, and now Jason had realised that to survive this particular little mess, he’d have to cut his brother loose. Jason had asked Jackson to make sure that Adam was with Tyrone at the other flat, when he planned to turn them both in. He had also asked Jackson to get rid of some incriminating gear that had been left in a bedroom there. At least one knife pulled from the pond would implicate Adam in the first murder, and no one would be able to prove that he didn’t carry out the second as well.

  It was quite similar to what the coppers had asked Jackson to do, except they’d prefer the Cotton brothers weren’t taken off the streets just yet. But that was information he planned on sharing with no one. Tyrone was his friend, but he wasn’t bright and couldn’t be trusted with details.

  ‘If I turn myself in, I’ll go down for something I didn’t do. If I stay here, Jason will get me. I don’t trust that bastard.’

  ‘And rightly so. Neither do I.’

  ‘So what do I do, Guns?’

  ‘Trust no one. Stay here instead of that dive. They want you there so they can use you when the time is right.’

  ‘But they’ll find out where I am.’

  ‘Not if I’m the only one who knows.’

  ‘It won’t take long to check.’

  ‘They could be going round in circles for weeks. You could be in a warehouse anywhere from Penrith to Workington. Sit tight. I’m gonna go and see Sharon.’

  ‘Sharon! She hates my guts.’

  ‘Maybe she won’t after I talk to her.’

  Jackson left the flat, making sure there was stuff in the fridge to keep Tyrone from venturing out; his stomach ruled his head. Satisfied, he headed to the barricade, where he thought he might find her. Sure enough, she was speaking to a group of people and she looked in her element: the centre of attention and in charge.

  ‘Guns?’

  ‘Shaz. I know you’re busy, but can I borrow you?’

  ‘What did those coppers want? I told the detective in charge.’

  ‘What? Who?’

  ‘The police detective in charge of Keira’s murder. She’s the only one who seems decent. Did you see the appeal on TV? Why the fuck wasn’t I invited to that? It should have been a joint effort. That jumped-up rich guy offering all that cash: he hasn’t even had the decency to call me. We should be doing stuff like that together.’

  ‘I don’t see any banners for Ella Watson, Shaz.’

  ‘And you won’t unless they lower themselves and get over here. Anyway, the policewoman called me to try and make up for that shambles last night. She said she had nothing to do with it, so I told her about those two coppers knocking on your door.’

  ‘So I should expect a visit from her then?’

  ‘You got nothing to hide, Guns. I’ll speak for you, you know that.’

  ‘Thanks, Shaz. I was going to ask for your help with something. What makes you trust this policewoman?’

  ‘Because, as far as I can tell, she’s putting as much into investigating Keira’s death as she is into the posh woman’s.’

  ‘How about if I told you I know where Tyrone is, and he didn’t do it. I swear on my life.’

  ‘Why doesn’t he turn himself in then and tell the policewoman that?’

  Jackson raised his eyebrows. ‘Come on, Shaz, you know the answer to that.’

  ‘The Cotton brothers? Why is he scared of those little shits? I’m not.’

  ‘He’s not you, Shaz. And by the way, you should be scared of them, you stupid cow.’ He punched her arm gently. ‘Thing is, he’s being set up.’

  ‘And you believe him?’

  ‘I know it because I’m the one who’s been asked to arrange it. The two sides are playing off against one another and I’m in the middle.’

  ‘Sounds like a proper set-up. Who the hell are you talking about?’

  ‘The police and the Cotton brothers. I haven’t worked it out yet, but they both want the same thing.’

  ‘You think they’re responsible for killing my Keira?’

  Jackson nodded.

  ‘The police?’

  ‘Bent coppers who want to cover up the real reason that posh woman was killed, working with Jason Cotton, who I’m sure is an informer.’

  ‘No way! You’re joking.’

  ‘Why, Shaz?’

  ‘Informers are stupid! All they’re interested in is selling fake information. The Cotton brothers wouldn’t talk to the police!’

  Jackson was about to tell her that he himself worked as a criminal informant, but he changed his mind.

  ‘I’m not talking about the regular police, I’m talking about a select few individuals who are on the take themselves. I think Keira got in the way. Tyrone said she had to keep her mouth shut about something.’

  ‘The solicitor.’

  ‘What?’ Jackson asked.

  ‘She was seeing a solicitor in Manchester.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘Well, let’s find out.’

  Chapter 31

  Kelly read the forensic report from Tyrone Fenton’s flat. The team had gone over the place on their hands and knees, swabbing, spraying, photographing and, finally, bagging and tagging.

  All seemed in order. There was a total of three hundred and seven items of interest and it would cost a small fortune to get them all checked out in a lab. It was a fact of life that sometimes one had to weigh up the importance of the inquiry against the vast chunks of budget required to investigate properly. In an ideal world, Kelly would have her own police lab, attached to Eden House, as more crimes were solved now through DNA than any other method. But it was a pipe dream.

  She noted that almost twenty of the exhibits were illegal substances, and a further ten contained drug-related paraphernalia, with the rest labelled as personal items possibly storing DNA: things like toothbrushes, hairbrushes, bed sheets, clothes and so on. Fenton’s photograph, from a social media platform, had been released to the press and Kelly reckoned they were close to smoking him out. They’d also released photos of the Cotton brothers from police files and informed the public that they’d like to speak to the men as a matter of urgency. It was standard language. She felt as though she was closing in on the key individuals. She had no idea how they fitted together yet, but she would.

  She studied Tyrone’s photograph and noted the colour of his hair. It was a shaggy mess of ginger and chestnut, similar to the hairs found under Keira’s nails, but she knew that he could easily argue in a court of law that they’d had rough sex as girlfriend and boyfriend. Any DNA evidence would lead to reasonable doubt. The same could be said if it turned out to be Fenton’s skin cells under her nails. She turned to the clothes, which had all been photographed. They’d found a black hoody dumped in a washing basket in the bathroom. It was similar to the one he was wearing when he was filmed on CCTV shortly after his girlfriend’s fatal stabbing, and it had been sent away to be tested. The only way they could win over a jury was if Keira’s blood w
as apparent in excessive amounts on the clothes he was wearing on the day. Of course, the biggest red flag was his disappearance, proving that he didn’t care what had happened to Keira, but that too was circumstantial only. She needed hard evidence.

  She’d seen it a thousand times before and figured that, when they finally apprehended him, Fenton could say that he and Keira were casual lovers and didn’t keep in touch every day. He could argue that he’d been visiting friends out of the area and hadn’t heard the news. It was possible. They had enough for an arrest, but charging would be a different story altogether if they failed to find any of Keira’s blood on that hoody. Unlike Ella’s stabbing, Ted was in no doubt that the person who’d killed Keira would have significant amounts of her blood on them, as well as possible hand injuries.

  The lab had called to say that the black fibres found on Ella Watson’s blue running vest were nylon, and commonly used to make rope that had a thousand and one uses. She had a list of manufacturers and the lab had managed to pinpoint a compound in the polymer that was only added to the final product to strengthen it after 2017. It narrowed down the list of suppliers. The biggest buyer was B&Q; the rope was sold in the general hardware department by length. She had DC Emma Hide working on contacting all the local hardware stores in the area to check when the product had been sold and where. It was a mammoth task, and dull, but only dogged determination, persistence and patience would root out such a crucial link. It was Emma’s forte. She had an eye for detail and she never gave up. She’d requested the CCTV from the stores in question to correlate the purchasers’ details. They were looking for any person of interest on their growing list.

  The office was quiet, with the odd interruption as something was brought to her attention. A casual observer might think that nothing much was being done about the slaughter of two women, but behind the scenes, in and around Penrith, Kelly had almost fifty officers gathering information, taking statements and otherwise digging for clues. The members at the golf club where Neil Ormond and Thomas Watson were members had been interviewed and had given their opinions of the Watson family and of the larger-than-life character that was the superintendent. It bugged Kelly that he was treated as something of a celebrity there.

  Kelly was sitting on a wheelie chair in front of a screen in the incident room. Sometimes she worked in her office, and sometimes with everyone else. Today she wanted to be with everyone else. She leant backwards and folded her arms over her stomach as she stared at her computer. She’d done a bit of digging on Will’s background – her bright star rising through the ranks – and found a few surprises.

  She’d discovered not only that he had gone to school with Liam Brook, but also that he was close to being convicted of a robbery-related offence when he was sixteen years old, but had cut a deal, accepting rehabilitation in a ground-breaking experiment in youth crime and reoffending stats. There was little public support for treating offenders with anything but contempt, but these experiments that popped up occasionally were powerful. She’d never heard of this one.

  It wasn’t on Will’s official record – and certainly not on his CV, which she’d checked alongside all the others on her team – but she’d found it when she’d searched Liam Brook’s record. Liam Brook had been recruited from the same rehabilitation programme as his buddy. The authorising officer accepting the two young street scrappers into the ranks of the constabulary was none other than the senior chief inspector Neil Ormond, fifteen years ago, just before he made superintendent. She wondered what to make of the massive conflict of interest that was emerging as a pattern.

  It made her dig deeper. Both junior officers had done time on the Cumbria drugs squad but moved in the same year: Will Phillips to detective and Liam Brook to squad policing.

  Kelly didn’t like coincidences.

  A creeping feeling settled under her ribcage. She’d asked around and she knew that Will had been paired with PC Brook on Op Eagle. Of course they had been: they were best muckers. She wondered who else it could have been that was so interested in Jackson Akers. Sharon had been sure that two officers had been to his flat. Why? She pondered all the operations she’d shared with Will, a young man with such a great future, and it pained her. She recalled him saving her skin a couple of years back, when she’d entered a property unassisted because she knew there was a first-class bastard inside, potentially about to murder a young girl for what she knew about his organised crime network. Will had had her back and she’d pulled it off. She could easily have been investigated for malpractice; she could even have been sued by the surviving casualty. She should never have gone in alone, but she was a rookie in the area, eager to prove herself. And Will had managed to make those details disappear. He’d turned up with Armed Response later, but the timeline had been overlooked.

  Now she questioned what was behind his ability to do that so smoothly. Had he had previous experience of smudging reports? They’d never discussed it. She knew he wasn’t being entirely honest with her.

  Rob leant back in his chair and it made Kelly look up.

  ‘Boss, it’s quite clear from several eyewitnesses to yesterday’s cock-up that two offices went into Jackson Akers’ flat yesterday to talk to him.’

  ‘ID?’ She knew what was coming. Will had left the office to buy his lunch.

  ‘One was well known on the estate for being a bit of a heavy bastard at times. His name is PC Brook.’

  ‘And DS Phillips was paired with Brook.’

  Rob didn’t say anything; he didn’t have to. Kelly could see in his eyes that any shred of trust he’d had for their colleague was evaporating.

  ‘Have you checked to see if it’s on HOLMES?’ she asked.

  ‘It’s not.’

  Emma interrupted them. ‘I see we’re famous, boss.’ She nodded to the seventy-two-inch flat-screen TV on the wall. Rob reached for the remote to turn up the volume. It was an interview on Sky with the Shadow Home Secretary, a character always on the lookout for ways to sully the government.

  ‘We’ve made our position clear time and time again: this government refuses to address the real issues facing the British public. People don’t want to hear bickering and ego-jostling over Brexit: they want to see knife crime reduced, they want to know that their NHS is safe, they want the politicians to do what they were elected to do!’

  The politician was animated and forceful and it was a powerful display. The ineffectiveness of current leaders had left vast swathes of vacuous opportunities in modern politics, and MPs like this one had stepped up to fill them. She was tipped to become leader within five years, and then prime minister soon after. A strapline scrolled along the bottom of the screen: Barricades in Cumbrian city against knife crime. In smaller letters, the two murders were described for those new to the crisis.

  Kelly was so engrossed in the news unfolding that she was unaware of the crowd gathering behind her. Admin staff, uniforms and security guards alike stood and watched the TV report.

  The screen divided in two and the Mayor of London took the right-hand side, giving her opinion on how best to tackle the growing spate of fatal stabbings now spilling out of London and into the provinces. It was like a sickness, infecting everything in its path. The office was transfixed. No one made a sound.

  When the interviews were finished: ‘We believe that the government continues to fail the people of this country by channelling unnecessary money into the pockets of their own, and neglecting the clear wishes of the voters: to tackle, head on, the desperate fight on our streets of kids knifing one another to death…’

  ‘London has led by example and knife crime is under control—’

  ‘That is erroneous, disingenuous and, frankly, dangerous…’ the shadow minister butted in.

  The spat turned into a full-on fight and the interviewer struggled to keep the two women calm.

  Kelly stretched. ‘Heat’s turning up. That’s for sure. I reckon we might get a bit more help than we need.’ She turned around and noticed the pe
ople gathered behind her. ‘If they really gave a crap, they’d be visiting the town to see the situation for themselves.’

  Her colleagues nodded and grumbled to one another and started to disperse. Kelly went to her office to call Ormond.

  ‘Kelly! News?’

  ‘We’re making progress, sir. My main concern is what’s being said in the national press. Have you seen the latest flag-waving from the opposition and the London mayor?’

  ‘I’m watching it now. And before you ask, yes, we’ve had directives issued from the Home Office. You do your job, DI Porter, and I’ll do mine. You’re the SIO on this case – for now – and that doesn’t involve policy direction from the Met or the Home Office, as far as I remember the limitations of your rank, that is.’

  Bastard.

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘I’ll keep you informed of anything you need to know, and I’d like a full report on the efforts in place to find this Fenton chap, by close of play today. He seems to be at the centre of everything. I’m also considering splitting the investigation, and handing the Potton Park murder to somebody else. It’s frankly too much for you. You can concentrate on the Beacon Estate woman.’

  ‘You mean Keira Bradley, sir?’

  ‘Whatever.’

  ‘Sir, I strongly advise against a split. It would affect the strength and fluency of our inquiries.’

  ‘Really, Porter? Well if that’s the case, prove it by five p.m.’ He hung up.

  Kelly stared at her phone. It all felt wrong. Her senior officers were supposed to trust her and support her. She’d proven herself on so many occasions since moving back from London. Her first case here had been huge: she’d taken down gangs from Ireland to Sarajevo, saving hundreds, possibly even thousands of young women from trafficking and prostitution. Her head spun. Why did she feel so powerless?

  She walked back to the incident room in a semi-daze, looking around at the faces of her team. They gave their all to the job, sacrificing time with their families and friends to chase leads and catch bastards. Now it seemed as though those bastards were infiltrating her sanctuary and she didn’t know who to trust. Rob and Emma looked at her with concern, and for a brief moment she questioned even their loyalty. She felt sick. Her world was crumbling.