Witchmoor Edge

by Mike Crowson

The next morning Millicent arrived at her desk in the incident suite in good time, but already Tommy Hammond was reading the report from forensic about the jack handle. Another report from forensic about the syringe lay on her desk.

  "Both Knowles's prints and Hunter's were on the jack handle," Tommy read, "and there were traces of skin and blood. They're trying to match the DNA."

  Millicent nodded. "And what do you conclude from that?" she asked.

  "Maybe no more than that Hunter left it behind and Knowles moved it," he said. "But ..." He shrugged.

  "But it could be that Hunter attacked Knowles with it and Knowles grabbed it from him," said Millicent. "You're absolutely right. Without knowing where the blood came from we can't even guess. However," she added, "We could have another go at Knowles and see if he sticks to the same story."

  "And," Tommy said, grinning, "We could try a bit of bluff."

  "Such as?"

  "We could let him think we know whose skin and blood."

  "We would have to be careful not to say anything we have to unsay later," Millicent pointed out. "On the other hand, if we go round now he probably hasn't gone out anywhere yet. I think we'll go now and you can drive."

  Tommy handed the forensic report to Millicent. She took it, but was skimming through other folder.

  "I'd forgotten we hadn't had a written report on the syringe yet," she remarked. "It's a good job Gary Goss brought us the detail."

  She read through the brief report on the syringe, put down the folder and led the way out, saying, "Remind me to ask Shirley Hunter whether Simon was left handed!"

  Shipley wasn't busy yet, and the main road up to Guisley still had little traffic either. The sky was a cloudless blue and Millicent pressed the electric window button and breathed in warm August morning, the scent of cut grass and garden flowers from the houses they were passing, the petrol fumes of a major road and the slight background smell of the heather moors as they slipped out of the town. The day was doubtless going to be hot. Up on the moors there might be a slight breeze, but here in the valley only the draught of the car's travel disturbed the still air.

  Bernard Knowles was washing his car on the drive when they pulled up outside his house. Millicent noted as they walked up the drive that it was largely invisible from the road. Knowles was watching them arrive and emerged from behind the car with a fairly neutral expression, turning off the hosepipe as they approached.

  "Another week without rain and there'll be a ban on hosepipes and washing cars," he remarked.

  "You don't seem surprised to see us," Millicent observed in passing.

  "My wife told me of your visit yesterday, and that you left with a jack handle. I imagine you've come in connection with that."

  "Yes," Millicent agreed. "Forensic told us that there were your prints on it, which is not surprising since it was in your garage. They also told us that Simon's prints were on it too. That also is not so surprising, since the initials SK would seem to imply that it was his wife's - your sister's - before they married. There are, however, three odd things about it, and an interesting coincidence."

  Millicent counted off on her fingers.

  "First, it is odd that the jack handle was on the bench in your garage. Second, many possible explanations for that oddity require the rest of the jack to be in your garage, and it wasn't. Three, there are traces of skin and blood on the jack handle. I have asked forensic to check whether they are those of Simon Hunter. I did that because there is the coincidence. Shall we call it a fourth oddity?"

  Knowles said nothing and his face betrayed nothing. He was a pleasant man, looking pleasantly interested.

  "The fourth oddity is that Simon Hunter received a blow to the head while alive. The doctor at the autopsy is quite certain it did not kill him, but it may have knocked him out. I think, Mr. Knowles you know how Simon Hunter received that blow to the head between twelve thirty and one last Saturday, and it would save us a lot of time and trouble if you would tell us what happened."

  Knowles looked down, face still impassive and breathed a deep sigh.

  "Very well," he said. "You'd better come inside and sit down."

  Bernard Knowles took Tommy and Millicent into his study. It was a spacious room, with desk and easy chairs, a computer and shelves of books. He looked older and wearier than he had been when they had interviewed him at his office, less than a week before.

  "It was something of a surprise and a relief when the autopsy showed he died of a morphine overdose," Knowles began. "I thought I'd killed him."

  "Tell me what happened," Millicent said.

  "I told you that Hunter was a vicious crook and quite unscrupulous. He lied and cheated at every turn and he was wantonly violent towards my sister. He was a brute. Last Saturday, about 1.45 - I've no idea of the exact time so don't ask me - Shirley drove into the driveway in great agitation. She said Simon had been more than usually violent. He had threatened her with a jack handle. In fact, he threw it at her but missed. She jumped in her car and when he tried to break in the car she knocked him out of the way and drove here.

  We were wondering whether we ought to drive back to her house and see whether he was seriously injured, when he arrived here in the Porsche. He drove right into the driveway; half staggered, half leapt out of the car and attacked us with the jack handle. I wrenched it from him and hit him with it. He went down unconscious. Shirley felt for a pulse and said he was dead. We looked around carefully. The house is hidden from the road and there was nobody about, so we put him in the luggage compartment of the Porsche and took the body up to the picnic spot by the reservoir. Shirley said there were a few picnic items in her car and we could make it look like a picnic."

  "Let's go back a bit," Millicent said. "You said 'half staggered, half leapt'. What did you mean?"

  "I suppose," Knowles said, "that he had been injured when Shirley's car hit him. He was limping a bit, but he was staggering as if he was drunk."

  "He was a younger man than you. Were you surprised you wrenched the jack handle from him?"

  The question seemed to surprise Knowles and he hesitated before answering. "I was too busy panicking at the time," he said. "I supposed that desperation lent me strength. Now you ask me and I think about it, I think I am surprised." Knowles paused, and then added, "I'm convinced he meant to kill us though, he was in such a rage."

  "Why didn't you just plead self defence?"

  "Of course that's what I should have done, but I only saw that afterwards."

  "Okay," Millicent said. "Now tell me what happened at the picnic spot."

  "I drove the Porsche," Knowles explained. "Shirley drove her car up and parked it on the grass verge, while I drove Simon's car right in, where we would not be seen from the road. We opened the bonnet but we heard another vehicle approaching. Shirley said to take her car and she'd get some friend to pick her up. I ran out through the bushes and climbed over a dry stone wall to Shirley's car."

  "What did she do?"

  "I didn't see."

  Millicent drummed her fingers absently on the chair arm and considered the story for a moment.

  "Concealing a body is a criminal offence," she said, "because the body is the property of the coroner until he has discharged it for burial. It's much the same offence as teenage girls commit when they hide the body of a still born child they don't want their parents to know about."

  She continued drumming her fingers. "I don't think a court or the CPS would consider the affray as anything but self defence, but we still haven't ascertained how Mr. Hunter got the overdose."

  "I'm afraid I can't help you there," Knowles said with a gesture of helplessness.

  "No. Your story doesn't throw any light on that," Millicent agreed. "Well, you'll have to come into the station and make a new and detailed statement. I'll arrange for Sergeant Gibbs to do that this morning, while we go and talk to your sister."

  Millicent stood up and took her mobile phone from her belt.

  Shirley Hunter
was not at home, so Millicent and Tommy drove to Bradford Royal Infirmary and tracked her down to the neurological ward, where she was just about to take a break. The two detectives and the nurse went into an empty day room.

  "We're sorry to disturb you at work," Millicent said. "We've just come from talking to your brother. He told us what happened last Saturday, in particular why he thought he'd killed your husband. Now I'd like to hear the details which he couldn't give us."

  "You mean, what happened before I drove round to his house and after he left?"

  "Among other things, yes."

  "Simon said he wanted a picnic, like I told you. I went out to get some bits and pieces around eleven. When I got back he was already in foul mood about something. I said something - I don’t know what - to make matters worse and he threw the jack handle at me. It missed me and I threw a tub of yoghurt at him. That missed too, but he flew into an awful rage. I got back into the car and turned it around. He came at me with the jack handle so I drove the car away, hitting him as I left, but I don't think it was very hard."

  "Anyway, I drove round to Bernard's and I was just telling him about it when Simon drove up in the Porsche. He got out of the car ..."

  "How did he get out?" Millicent interrupted. "Did he jump out?"

  Shirley looked as surprised as Knowles had. "N-o-o," she said slowly. "He was acting sort of drunk, I suppose. Staggering around. Perhaps he got more hurt than I thought when I knocked him down."

  "Was he drunk or could he perhaps have taken a morphine overdose?"

  Shirley Hunter looked puzzled rather than relieved. "He looked all right when I left him," she said.

  "But it could have been an overdose?"

  "Obviously."

  "Were you aware that your husband had been diagnosed as having a terminal cancer?"

  Shirley Hunter looked so surprised that Tommy thought she couldn't be faking.

  "I knew he'd had hospital tests about something," she said. "But I didn't know about that."

  "Didn't you ask him what the tests were about?" Millicent asked, a little sceptically.

  "If Simon didn't want to tell me something there was no use in me asking."

  "Was your husband a drug addict?"

  "My husband was a great many unpleasant things," Shirley Hunter said. "I'm not aware that he used any drugs beyond cannabis. It wouldn't surprise me that much, but there was no sign."

  "Was his rage last Saturday out of the ordinary?" Millicent asked.

  "He was often violent and bad tempered, always in a rage about something. Saturday he excelled himself. I've never seen him quite so bad, but often nearly as bad."

  "Okay," Millicent said. "Let's turn to the other important area you can throw more light on. What happened after your brother left the picnic spot?"

  "Not much," Shirley said. "When Bernard had gone, I climbed over a wall and walked through some trees and hid well out of sight. I saw my car go that would be Bernard. I heard the other vehicle start up and drive off. I went back to the Porsche. Or to where it should have been, but it was gone."

  "Gone?"

  "Gone!"

  "Did you hear it start?"

  "No. But it was quiet when it was just ticking over, so I possibly wouldn't have heard it."

  "Did you hear or see anybody?"

  "No."

  "So you phoned Ellen Barnes?"

  "The rest is as I told you right at the beginning."

  Tommy Hammond had been listening in silence. "Where was the mobile phone?" he asked now.

  "In my hand. When I ran off, I took my handbag and mobile phone with me."

  "And what about the yoghurts and things Inspector Hampshire found at the site?" he asked.

  "I thought Bernard had told you," Shirley said. "Bernard wiped them free of fingerprints with a cloth from the car and I held them against Simons hands and threw them into the bushes. I was going to put out the things for the picnic when I heard this other car."

  Tommy turned to Millicent. "Won't be a minute," he said. "I'm just going to the toilet. Is all right to use the one just by the day room entrance?" he asked Shirley.

  Shirley nodded.

  Millicent waited until the door had closed behind him and then asked Shirley, "Was Simon left handed."

  "No," she answered, evidently surprised by the question.

  "Then why did Simon use his left hand to inject himself with morphine?"

  Shirley did not answer.

  "I'll tell you what happened," Millicent said, "and you can confirm the story while there are no witnesses."

  Shirley still did not answer.

  "After you knocked him down Simon gave himself a dose of heroin and then came after you at your brother's house. The syringe was still in the car and so was the heroin or, more probably some morphine, and I think I know where that came from. The brawl between Simon and your brother took place more or less as he told it, except that your husband wasn't dead. Up at the picnic site he started to come round. You mixed the heroin with water from the car radiator and gave him the overdose. You probably used disposable gloves or just wiped the syringe clean and put Simons prints on it. You know well enough how to use one."

  "You were interrupted by Shields and Leverett arriving. What you intended to do was make it look like a picnic, but you hadn't time."

  "The picnic things were still in the Porsche," Shirley said. "But I didn't inject him. The bit about him coming round is wrong. He was dead?"

  "Are you quite certain of that?"

  "I know death when I see it - it's my job."

  Millicent remained sceptical. "I still think it happened the way I described it but I can't prove it - unless you want to make a formal confession in front of a witness."

  At that moment Tommy Hammond came back into the room and Shirley shook her head dumbly.

  "All right," Millicent told her. "You can finish your shift, but you'll have to call in to the station and make a revised statement. You realise that concealing a body is a criminal offence and the CPS may consider that you've obstructed the police?"

  Shirley nodded. "I must get back onto the ward," she said. "We're short staffed this weekend. I'll call in about the statement. I come off shift at two."

  As they went back down in the lift Tommy noticed Millicent shuddering.

  "What's the matter," he asked.

  "Memories," Millicent said shortly, and then added. "Hospitals always smell the same, whether you're in Bradford or Seville."

  Tommy didn't say anything, but he was shrewd. He knew that Millicent had lived in Spain and that she was a widow. He didn't know the details, but he could guess a lot.

  As the lift reached the ground floor and the doors opened, Millicent remarked, "I think we'd better check with Doctor Leverett whether she actually prescribed morphine to Hunter and how much."

  "Doctor Leverett?"

  "Hunter saw her last Thursday. She told me he had a terminal prostate cancer. I was so taken aback that, like a fool or a complete rookie, I forgot to ask whether she prescribed Hunter any morphine."

  "It could be where he got it, I suppose," Tommy agreed as they walked out to the car park. "But it's potentially suspicious that Shields and Leverett were the last ones to see him."

  "The probability seems to be that Hunter got the overdose about twelve twenty, between Shirley leaving their house and him leaving."

  As they got into the car Millicent was silent and far away. When Tommy asked he where next she didn't answer.

  "Where next?" Tommy repeated.

  "What?" Millicent demanded startled, then smiling added, "I'm sorry. I was miles away. It’s thirteen years ago, almost to the day, since Carlos was blown up in a car bomb incident. I was with him when he died in hospital and they always seem to get me that way. Drive us back to Witchmoor Edge Headquarters. I'll see if I can get the information over the phone from Doctor Leverett."

  "We could stop off there you know," Tommy said. "I remember Leverett saying his wife had a Saturday morning
surgery and the Bradford Road Health Centre isn't out of the way."

  "Okay," Millicent agreed, just a shade reluctantly. "Let's try the lady herself, though the receptionist is a bit of a dragon."

  "Leave her to me," said Tommy.

  Millicent smiled to herself, but said nothing.

  "I'm really sorry to bother you when you're obviously so busy," Tommy said, giving the severe looking receptionist one of his most charming smiles. "We need to get one more tiny piece of information from Doctor Leverett. We won't keep her or you from your real work for more than a moment."

  "I'll see if the doctor can fit you in," said the woman, defrosting slightly for Tommy but giving Millicent a glare.

  "Thank you so much," Tommy said sweetly.

  The receptionist behind her glass screen picked up the phone and rang through, presumably to the doctor. After a moment she said to Tommy, "Doctor Leverett is just finishing with a patient right now. You can go through as long as you don't keep her long."

  "We won't, Tommy promised and gave her another knee-weakening smile.

  Doctor Leverett looked busy and slightly harassed. She was keying some information into the computer and pushed a strand of hair out of her face as she looked up.

  "Sorry to barge in on you again," Millicent said. "This will really only take a few seconds."

  "Go on then," Gwen Leverett said.

  "When we talked last I was so surprised by what I learned that I forgot something so obvious a beginner should have thought of it."

  "What's that?"

  "Mr. Hunter was seriously ill. Did you prescribe any drugs?"

  "Yes. He was in quite severe pain at times and should have been hospitalised."

  "Which drugs?"

  The doctor turned to her computer and made several mouse clicks, saying as she did so, "I rather think it was a propriety brand containing methylmorphine as the active ingredient ... Let's see ... No. I prescribed the codeine before, but the last one was straight morphine in tablet form. I advised him not to drive after taking them."

  "Was there enough to kill him?"

  "It's certainly possible if he took the lot straight off. Two thirds would have been enough to make him seriously ill within an hour or less, but a shot of Naloxone would have cured him. Cured him of the effects of the drug, that is. It wouldn't have had any effect on the cancer."

  "How imminent was his death from the cancer?" Millicent asked.

  "A month or two at the most," the doctor replied.

  "Thank you Doctor Leverett. Once again you've been helpful. Thank you for seeing us at such short notice."

  They got up. Tommy gave Gwen Leverett the kind of smile he had given the receptionist and they turned to go.

  "Your colleague has a very good bedside manner," Doctor Leverett remarked. "Good morning to you both."

  Outside Millicent said, "Doctor Millard said the morphine had been injected and we found the syringe with Hunters fingerprints. You can't inject tablets unless you dissolve them."

  "Like Heroin?"

  "Suppose he started feeling some pain as a result of throwing that metal thing at Shirley and being knocked down."

  "Sounds likely," Tommy agreed.

  "Then he gave himself a shot of morphine before chasing after her. He would have been on his last legs when he got to Knowless and died there."

  "Could be, I suppose."

  They arrived at the car and Tommy let his boss in.

  "Back to Witchmoor Edge Headquarters," she said.

  Back at the station, Chief Inspector Cooke was hovering on his day off and several of the team were around. Millicent bustled about.

  "I think we have this more or less wrapped up," She said to Cooke. "But it's not going to be nice and neat, I'm afraid. Tony, I want you to go out, pick up Knowles and charge him with concealing a body. Take a full statement and do the paperwork. Lucy. You're on tomorrow, so what you can do is pick up Rosie O'Connor this afternoon and charge her with either possession of, or procuring heroin. There's no evidence against her except her own word, so take a full statement. Take Matthew Bright with you, but once you've dealt with it, you can leave Matthew to take her back and leave yourself. You can type up the statement and do the paperwork tomorrow."

  Millicent picked up a new folder from her desk.

  "DC Goss. Gary," she said. "There are new cases coming in and this one is over except for the tidying up. Here's a new one. I want you to zip over to Saint Luke's Hospital in Bradford and get a statement from a hit and run victim. She handed DC Goss the file. I've no idea why they took her there from Witchmoor town centre, but seemingly they did. Her name is Sandia Begum and she apparently has a broken leg and pelvis. Get a statement from her and have a snoop round for witnesses. Lucy can take over tomorrow, so make sure your notes are legible. This looks like a time consuming job on Monday."

  She began to shoo her team out. "Go on," she said. "Grab a quick bite if you haven't had one, then let's get this enquiry finished and out of the way."

  When the others had gone either to the canteen or the car park, Millicent turned to Chief Inspector Cooke.

  "I'll wait around for Shirley Hunter to come in. We have evidence and her confession to concealing a body, so I'll charge her with that. However, that's all we can charge her with."

  "You sound as if you think there's more," Cooke commented.

  "I'd say she knows who took the Porsche and the body to Cartwright's Wharf and I'm pretty sure she knows who started the fire, but we're not going to prove it."

  "Hmm."

  "Look, the real crook is dead, a young thug is drowned, a drug pusher killed in a fall and we're going to do another thug for car theft."

  "Oh yes," Cooke said, "Tony Walker called from Bradford. They have some evidence that Koswinski dealt with Danny Stone over a couple of years, so he may well go down. They're pretty pleased all round."

  "It's time I followed the troops and grabbed myself some lunch," said Millicent. "I was thinking of a pub lunch at the George and Dragon down in the Market Square. Have you eaten or do you feel like joining me?"

  "Sounds like a good idea," Cooke said and they left together, going down the stairs and out into the August sunshine.

  Chapter 15: Saturday 18th August (pm)