In Too Deep (Knight & Culverhouse Book 5)

by Adam Croft

  Wendy started the interview, getting Julian Mills to confirm his name and address. This was the first time he’d spoken since the moment of his arrest — he’d been completely silent otherwise.

  ‘Julian, can you tell me what your connection was to Tanya Henderson?’

  ‘You don’t need to say anything. You can say “no comment” if you like,’ his lawyer said.

  Julian Mills sighed. ‘More recently she was my patient, but before that she was the journalist investigating the Pevensey Park development plans.’

  ‘Julian, you don’t need to say any of this,’ the lawyer repeated, now looking even more concerned.

  ‘I want to. I need to,’ he replied. ‘She’d been sniffing around and asking questions, and when I looked into her history and the things she’d done before — the people she’d exposed, the lives she’d ruined — I knew something had to be done. I had too much to lose.’

  ‘And anything to gain?’ Wendy asked.

  ‘Yes. A lot. Enough to retire more than comfortably. And all I had to do was to try and put forward a positive case for merging the hospital services and closing Mildenheath. As simple as that.’

  ‘Who asked you to do it?’ Culverhouse asked.

  Julian Mills didn’t reply.

  ‘Was it Gary McCann?’

  Mills’s eyes narrowed. ‘Who?’

  Culverhouse could see instantly that he’d never heard of McCann. ‘He’s a shareholder in Avalon Construction. He lives locally.’

  ‘Oh. No, I don’t know him. I think there’s quite a few people involved with Avalon.’

  ‘Who was your contact? Who was paying you?’ Culverhouse tried asking again.

  Mills sighed, louder this time. ‘Can we talk about that side of things later?’

  ‘If you like,’ Culverhouse replied. ‘And what about Callum Woods?’ he asked, watching Mills’s eyes for a flicker of recognition. There was nothing.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Callum Woods. He’d been a previous and present customer of Avalon and had been a target of Tanya Henderson’s a year or so ago.’

  ‘Oh. Yes I know now. The footballer?’

  ‘That’s him,’ Culverhouse said. ‘What was his involvement?’

  Mills curled his bottom lip and shook his head. ‘Nothing as far as I know. But then I don’t know who was meant to be involved. They kind of kept me on the sidelines.’

  ‘So when Tanya Henderson ended up on your ward, was that by accident or design?’ Wendy asked.

  ‘Bit of both, I guess. She wasn’t meant to end up in hospital at all. She was meant to die. But when she didn’t, and with her brain injury, well... I stepped in. It’s my specialist area.’

  At the word ‘die’, Mills’s lawyer lowered his head. He didn’t look happy.

  ‘Handy,’ Wendy said, almost sarcastically.

  Julian Mills didn’t reply.

  ‘And what was the plan?’ she asked. ‘When she didn’t die but was lying in a hospital bed on your ward. What were your intentions?’

  Shaking his head, Mills looked at the floor. ‘I don’t know. I didn’t know what to think or what to do. But she was there, in my ward, effectively under my control. The induced coma meant that I could keep an eye on her. It gave me time to work out what I was going to do.’

  ‘And when you did bring her out of her coma, presumably so the eyes of suspicion didn’t fall on you for keeping her in it in the first place, she started talking about Pevensey Park.’

  Mills spoke quietly. ‘Yes. And that’s when I knew I only had one option.’

  Wendy could sense that Culverhouse’s patience was wearing thin as he asked him forcefully, ‘Why are you telling us this, Mills? It’s a pretty extraordinary confession.’

  ‘I’m not a career criminal, Inspector. I’m a medical professional. I did a very stupid thing. And now I need to make amends.’

  Wendy raised an eyebrow. She still wasn’t entirely sure Julian Mills realised the gravity of what he’d done, or the charges he was facing, but even if he didn’t, at least he was talking. That was the main thing.

  And Wendy was growing increasingly confident that he’d be brought to justice for the crimes he’d committed.

  52

  There was always a strange lull after a big case, almost as if handing it over to the Crown Prosecution Service left a vacuum. It was a vacuum that Wendy liked to fill with a bottle of wine.

  She still felt incredibly guilty for not letting Xav know she wouldn’t be able to make it to the meal. She felt even worse for not having texted or called him since.

  It had been a mad twenty-four hours. One moment she’d been about to leave and head home, ready to prepare herself for the meal with Xav, and before she knew it, everything had changed. They’d apprehended and arrested Mills, conducted the interviews overnight and through the next day and had compiled a case that even the CPS couldn’t deny. She’d just about managed to snatch a couple of hours’ sleep late morning, which had resulted in her feeling both absolutely knackered but also unable to get to sleep now that evening had come around again.

  She picked up her phone and called Xav, knowing that he’d definitely be home from work by now.

  The phone rang six or seven times, then went through to voicemail.

  She gave it a few minutes, then tried again. She got the same result.

  Xav never let his phone go through to voicemail. He always answered somehow.

  She opened up her Messages app and typed out a text to him, apologising and trying, poorly, to explain what had happened. As she sent the text message, the word Delivered appeared underneath it. A few seconds later, it changed to Read 19:49. She knew that as soon as he started typing a reply, three dancing dots would appear on the screen.

  There were none.

  Jack sat in his armchair, his eyes glazing over as he stared at the TV. He wasn’t even sure what was on — something about street markets in China from what he could make out, but he wasn’t really watching.

  A glass of whisky sat on the table in front of him, as yet untouched.

  There was far too much going on in his mind to be able to relax. The closure of the Tanya Henderson case had been one thing, but coming at the same time as he’d finally managed to track down Emily, just a few miles away, had really taken it out of him.

  He rubbed his hand across his stubbled chin, a couple of days’ growth now apparent, and sighed.

  Beside him on the armchair, his mobile phone vibrated. It was a text message, one from a number he didn’t recognise.

  He knew immediately who it was. He’d given her his number, asked her to contact him if she had even the slightest desire to get to know him, if there was even the smallest hint that she might be able to forgive him and try to work at rebuilding. She hadn’t seemed keen at the time — not at all — but now he was starting to think otherwise.

  Taking a deep breath, he unlocked his phone and read the message.

  Dad, it’s me. Can we talk?

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  Acknowledgments

  As with all of my books, I have a number of people to thank for getting it to this stage. Primarily, though, my thanks must go to you, the reader, for buying and reading this book.

  To Dr John Lloyd, for helping me find information on brain injuries and head trauma.

  To the forty-four people who rallied around and suggested kids’ TV programmes when I put out a request on Facebook. You should all have better things to do.

  To my editor, Jessica Coleman, for her sterling work once again.

  To Lucy Hayward, my Queen Beta Reader, who knows my books better than I do.

  To all of the members of my VIP Club, now tens of thousands strong, whom I value immeasurably.

  To everyone who’s got in touch over the past few months with lovely emails, tweets, Facebook messages and even comments in the street. It’s been a remarkable year.