The Devil's Cliff Killings

by Simon McCleave

  ‘You think she threatened to report her own mother and brother to the police?’ French said.

  ‘I don’t know, Dan. We do know this could explain the altercation between Gareth and Rosie outside the college on Monday afternoon. Fearing that Rosie would go to the police, Kathy and Gareth Wright went to Haddon Farm on Monday night. Something went wrong and Rosie was injured. She was placed in the boot of Gareth’s car and driven out to Gogarth where Rosie’s body was tipped into the sea. That does mean that we are now treating this as a murder enquiry rather than abduction. Okay, what have we got?’

  Dan shifted in his seat and looked up. ‘Boss, I spoke to the coastguard at Conwy. Given the time and tides, he thinks that a body going into the sea would have been taken away from the mainland and out into the Irish Sea. He didn’t hold out much hope of it ever being washed ashore anywhere.’

  The idea that they might never find Rosie’s body was upsetting news for everyone. Being able to bury your loved one, whatever the tragic circumstances, allowed a family some kind of closure and a chance to move on.

  Nick looked over. ‘Nothing from our surveillance team at HMP Rhoswen, boss. Blake has gone very quiet, which makes me think he’s been tipped off. If he’s making any phone calls, it’s not from his cell or from the mobile phone we found.’

  Ruth shook her head. How was Blake allowed to operate with such complete freedom?

  ‘Right, first things first. I want Kathy and Gareth Wright arrested and brought here this morning. I need to speak to the CPS to see at what point we meet the threshold for charging them with Rosie’s murder. We’ll get a better picture when we get the DNA matches back from Forensics. Dan, I need you to liaise with Traffic. I want to see if any other vehicles were in the vicinity of Gogarth cliffs at that time. If we can get a witness to ID Gareth and Kathy in that area, that would be great.’

  ‘Boss,’ Dan nodded as he finished scribbling in his notebook. ‘I’ll look for anything that puts the two of them in the car together that evening.’

  ‘Great.’ Ruth walked over to the scene boards. For a moment, Rosie’s pretty, innocent face looked back at her and she had a horrible flash of the girl’s body falling from the cliffs into the sea. Shaking the image from her head, Ruth pointed to the photos of Jason Wright, Steven Haddon and Martin Hancock that were grouped together. ‘I’m not sure what these three’s stories are, but they’re hiding something. Sian, go and have a chat with Jason Wright. We need to inform him that there have been significant developments in the case, but given that his wife and son are implicated, we clearly can’t tell him very much. See if you can dig around and find out why they’re lying to us. I want to eliminate them from the enquiry if I can.’

  Sian nodded and looked up at her. Her face didn’t give away any of the upheaval or upset that was between them.

  ‘There’s seems to be some kind of bond between Jason Wright and Martin Hancock, but I don’t know what it is. I’ll see what he has to say,’ Sian said as she gathered her files together.

  ‘I’ve spoken to the FLO. Nick, if you meet me at Capelulo and we can bring Kathy and Gareth Wright back separately. I don’t want them to communicate with each other from now on.’

  At that moment, Drake headed for the front where Ruth was standing. It was hot and his shirt sleeves were rolled up.

  ‘Good morning, everyone. I’ve just chased the DNA results that we got from the blood found in Gareth Wright’s car and from the observation point at the Gogarth cliffs.’ He paused just for a moment to signify the importance of what had been found. ‘The DNA from both samples matches Rosie Wright.’

  CHAPTER 27

  Six days, eighteen hours

  It was two o’clock when Sian watched the cars leave the Wrights’ home to take Kathy and Gareth Wright back to Llancastell for questioning. She had remained there to talk to Jason Wright, who was devastated by what he had learned in the last hour while Ruth and Nick escorted the mother and son back separately. Ruth had told them that they were under arrest for Rosie’s abduction and murder. Jason wanted clarification. Did they know that Rosie was dead? Ruth still couldn’t confirm it one hundred per cent, but they did think there was a strong possibility that, given the growing evidence and the long timeline, it was unlikely she was still alive.

  Sian finished making two mugs of tea and went out to the garden patio where Jason Wright sat staring into space.

  ‘Thank you,’ he mumbled as she put the tea down in front of him.

  They sat quietly for a moment. There was a gentle breeze and the sound of bees buzzing around the colourful flowers nearby.

  ‘They didn’t do it,’ Jason said as he sat forward at the table.

  ‘Why do you say that?’ Sian asked. The thought that your wife and son were responsible for your daughter’s murder must be overwhelming.

  ‘How could they?’

  ‘I can’t go into details, Jason. But we’ll keep you informed of what’s going on as much as we can. The FLO is here to help you.’

  ‘I don’t understand what’s going on. What have you found that makes you think that Kathy and Gareth are involved?’ Jason asked, shaking his head. He looked on the verge of tears as he massaged the bridge of his nose.

  ‘I really can’t talk about that with you. I’m sorry. I know it must be difficult for you to deal with,’ Sian explained. How could he possibly get his head around what he had just been told?

  Jason sipped at his tea as the wind rustled through the leaves of a nearby tree.

  ‘We were a really happy family once. You know that? Really happy. When the kids were younger. We did stuff together. I can’t remember when it all started to change,’ Jason said as he squinted his eyes for a moment. He looked like he was going to cry. He was broken and exhausted by it all.

  ‘Jason, I need to ask you a couple of questions,’ Sian said. ‘If that’s all right?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘We need to know what your relationship is with Martin Hancock?’

  ‘Why? Why does it matter?’ Jason said witheringly. It was curious that he wasn’t now sticking to the line that Hancock was just a bloke down the pub, Sian thought.

  ‘We found a photo of Rosie at Martin Hancock’s home.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘Why does a man like Martin Hancock have a framed photo of Rosie by his bedside?’ Sian asked gently.

  ‘It’s not what you think,’ Jason sighed.

  ‘Martin said that he took photos of Rosie. Is that right?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s not weird that he has a photo of Rosie beside his bed,’ Jason said.

  ‘If Martin Hancock is just a man you know from the pub, it is strange and suspicious that he has a photo of her.’

  ‘It isn’t because ...’ Jason stopped for a second.

  ‘Because of what, Jason?’

  ‘Because Martin’s her uncle,’ Jason said. ‘Martin Hancock is my brother.’

  Sian took a few moments to take the information in. How is that possible?

  ‘Really? We’ve checked our records, Jason—’ Sian said, wondering what Jason was talking about.

  ‘Our parents were killed in a car crash when we were younger. I was seventeen, but Martin was only twelve. He was fostered and then adopted,’ Jason explained.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us this when we questioned you?’ Sian asked.

  ‘When Martin got out of prison, he wanted a new start. We were back in touch. I suggested he move to Capelulo, but I didn’t tell Kathy or the kids. It’s not easy to tell them they have a paedophile for an uncle and he lives around the corner.’

  ‘Yes, I can see that,’ Sian said. Martin Hancock being Jason’s brother did explain a lot about the clandestine way they had been behaving.

  ‘None of this has anything to do with Martin,’ Jason said as he put his mug back down on the table.

  WHEN NICK SAT DOWN opposite him, Gareth Wright was nervously jigging his leg. He was dressed in police-issue grey tracksuit bottoms and top because his c
lothes had been taken for forensic analysis. His solicitor, a slightly sweaty middle-aged balding man, shuffled papers and took out a pen.

  ‘This is fucking stupid! How can you think that I murdered my own sister? That’s mental!’ Gareth yelled.

  Nick watched the duty solicitor touch his client’s arm and whisper in his ear. Basically, it was advice to calm down and shut up.

  Putting down the folder and papers on the wooden table, Nick moved his chair to get comfortable. All this was carefully engineered to build the tension and anxiety. The more tense and anxious the suspect, the more likely they were to make mistakes or even start to confess.

  ‘Gareth,’ Nick said to get his attention. He reached over and clicked the tape machine. ‘For the purposes of the tape, I’m Detective Sergeant Evans. Present are Gareth Wright and Duty Solicitor John Needham. I need to read you your rights. You have been arrested under the suspicion of the abduction and murder of your sister, Rosie Wright. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

  Gareth just stared at the floor and shook his head in disbelief.

  ‘Did you understand what I just said to you, Gareth?’ Nick asked.

  ‘Yes. This is a fucking joke, you know that?’ Gareth said as he looked at his solicitor.

  It’s not a fucking joke, mate, thought Nick angrily. What is a joke is that you murdered your innocent sister and chucked her off a cliff because you and your scumbag mother were dealing drugs inside a prison.

  ‘For the purposes of the tape, I’m going to show you item reference four-five-Y-H-two-one,’ Nick said as he took out a photo of the boot of Gareth Wright’s car. ‘Gareth, you own a black VW Golf, registration sierra-delta-one-five, Yankee-alpha-tango. That’s S-D-one-five, Y-A-T?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Gareth mumbled.

  ‘This photograph is from the boot of that car. And here you can see a small speck of blood. Can you see that?’ Nick asked.

  ‘Yeah, I suppose.’ Gareth shrugged as if to say, ‘So what?’

  ‘We’ve done a DNA match and that blood belongs to your sister, Rosie. Could you tell us how Rosie’s blood got into the boot of your car, Gareth?’

  ‘No idea. She had a nosebleed or somethin’, I dunno.’

  ‘Rosie had a nosebleed in the boot of your car?’ Nick asked in a withering tone. It wasn’t even a decent attempt to explain the blood away.

  ‘I don’t know, do I?’ Gareth growled.

  ‘So, you don’t know how Rosie’s blood got there, is that right?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘For the purposes of the tape, I am going to show you item reference G-F-four-nine-J-K. This is the GPS readout from a black box supplied to you by your car insurance company to give you a lower premium. Is that right?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Last Monday evening, you claimed that you were in The Ship pub with friends and driving around.’

  ‘Yeah, I was.’

  Flicking over a computer readout, Nick took a breath. That’s what still amazed him. Gareth was still lying, even when he knew he was about to be proved wrong. Like a cornered rat, he was struggling to survive.

  ‘According to the GPS tracker on the black box, you drove out to the Gogarth cliffs at around eight o’clock. Is that right?’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘Why did you drive out to Gogarth, Gareth?’ Nick asked.

  ‘It’s a nice view, isn’t it?’

  Dickhead. Nick wondered how clever Gareth was going to be when he was sentenced to thirty years for his sister’s murder.

  ‘Okay, but that’s not what you told us when you were interviewed, was it?’

  ‘Must have slipped my memory. I dunno.’

  ‘For the purposes of the tape, I’m showing you item reference two-one-C-V-eight-three. This is a photograph of the car park wall where you stopped at the cliffs. Can you see the small mark that is circled there, Gareth?’ Nick asked, showing him the photograph.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘That’s blood, which, guess what, is also Rosie’s. Do you know how it got there?’ Nick asked.

  ‘No. How would I?’

  ‘Was there anyone with you when you drove out to the Gogarth cliffs that evening?’

  ‘No, it was just me.’

  Taking a sip of water from his bottle, Nick looked over at Gareth and waited for the tension to mount again.

  ‘Right, Gareth. You need to stop messing me around here. There are footprints in the earth by the cliff edge. One is a size ten, and one is a size five. We have your shoes and we have your mother’s shoes. And these days, forensics can match a footprint to a particular shoe. And they’re going to match those shoes to you and your mother, aren’t they?’ Nick growled. He needed to increase the pressure on Gareth and get him to make a mistake.

  ‘No,’ Gareth mumbled.

  ‘Stop lying to me, Gareth!’ Nick thundered. ‘This is your sister we’re talking about here. Don’t you have a decent bone in your body?’

  ‘I ... I don’t understand. We didn’t go to the cliff edge,’ Gareth stammered.

  ‘We? You and your mum, Kathy Wright?’ Nick asked.

  Got him!

  ‘Yeah. We were there.’

  ‘Why?’ Nick asked.

  ‘Because ...’ Gareth’s voice trailed off.

  ‘Come on, Gareth. What is it?’

  ‘We had a text message. We were meant to be meeting someone there.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘We didn’t know. That’s how it works. We sometimes get a message to meet someone to talk about the drugs. Quantities, types of drugs, special orders.’

  ‘Someone connected to Blake?’ Nick asked.

  ‘No. That’s how we communicated with Frank Cole. We assumed that he still wanted us to smuggle in the drugs for him. If he wanted to take on Blake, we didn’t care. As long as we were making money, that was for them to work out.’

  ‘And you had done this before?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s always somewhere remote. When they didn’t show, we assumed they’d decided to call it off, so I drove Mum home,’ Gareth explained.

  ‘Who messaged you?’ Nick asked.

  ‘There’s no number. It’s always done from a burner.’

  ‘So why was Rosie in the car with you?’ Nick asked.

  ‘She wasn’t. I swear to you,’ Gareth said.

  ‘Her blood’s in your car boot and at the car park at the cliffs. Your shoe prints are on the cliff tops. For God’s sake, Gareth, just tell me exactly what happened up there,’ Nick said.

  ‘I can’t ...’ Gareth mumbled as he put his head in his hands.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I don’t know. The last time I saw Rosie was when we had a row outside college that afternoon. I wish I had seen her after that. I wish we were all sitting at home now and she was safe. But she’s not. And I had nothing to do with it, which means that she’s still out there, and you’re doing nothing about it because you think it’s me,’ Gareth said as he shook his head and closed his eyes.

  IT WAS THREE THIRTY and Ruth was heading down to Interview Room Two, where Kathy Wright was waiting. Sian had relayed the information about Martin Hancock being Jason Wright’s brother, but it needed to be verified through the relevant local authority and that could take days. However, Ruth’s hunch was that it was true. Jason would know it was something that could be checked. It also explained why Jason and Hancock spent so much time together at the pub and why Hancock had a photo of Rosie in his bedroom.

  A female uniformed officer came in and was clearly looking for Ruth.

  ‘Ma’am?’

  ‘How can I help?’ Ruth asked, thinking that the young blonde officer was very attractive. You’ve got enough crap going on in your personal life, she said to herself.

  ‘Something came to us this morning from one of the switchboard operators,’ the officer explained, handing her a
piece of paper.

  ‘What is it?’ Ruth asked.

  ‘A young woman or a girl rang the switchboard last Thursday. She wanted to speak to an officer. The operator asked her what her name was and first of all she said it was Rosie and then she said it was Rose.’

  ‘Did she say what she wanted?’ Ruth asked.

  ‘No. She wanted to talk to someone about reporting a crime,’ the officer explained.

  ‘Did she elaborate on that?’

  ‘Not really. As soon as the operator started to ask for more details and her number, she hung up.’

  ‘And the operator thought that she sounded young?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. Could have been a teenager.’

  ‘Someone sounding like a teenager, called Rosie, calls in to say that she wants to report a crime the day before Rosie Wright is abducted and no one puts two and two together? How has this not been flagged up before?’ Ruth asked, annoyed. If the caller had been Rosie Wright, then the fact that she was calling to report a crime was significant.

  ‘I don’t know, ma’am. You know what it’s like down there. Too busy worrying about what’s going on in Love Island,’ the officer said.

  ‘Thank you anyway, Constable.’

  The officer nodded and left.

  As Ruth took this new information in, she passed the computers to one side of the incident room. French spun his chair around and looked at her.

  ‘Boss, we’ve got a hit on a car leaving the Gogarth cliffs just after eight last Monday evening. Traffic-light cameras on the B-four-seven-three picked it up,’ French explained.

  ‘Is it clear enough to get a plate?’ Ruth asked.

  ‘Yes, boss. I’ve run it through the PNC and I’ve got an address in Llangollen.’