by Bill Kitson
‘Let me guess: They were on his testicles?’
The paramedic stared at him. ‘How did you know that?’
‘Let’s just say it wasn’t a lucky guess.’
Harvey had been released and was being loaded into the ambulance as Clara pulled up. ‘To be honest, there’s not a lot we can do here,’ Nash told her. ‘You could ask those nice strong firemen to collect that chain and put it into evidence bags for you. Oh, and take charge of this, will you.’ He handed her the bag containing the card from the paramedic.
‘Where was that?’
‘Dangling round his genitals. He’d also been tortured, so the medics discovered.’
‘Right, I’ll see to the evidence. Where will you be?’
‘Over there talking to the gawping mob.’
None of the crowd would admit to seeing anything untoward, and once the area had been handed over to a CSI team, Nash and Mironova signed over the evidence they had collected and returned to the CID suite in Helmsdale. Nash stopped en route and they collected bacon sandwiches and coffee. ‘I can’t wait for our machine to produce some,’ he explained as he handed her the cups. ‘This will put us on.’
They had barely finished their sandwiches when Pearce arrived. Nash glanced at the clock. It was an hour before they were due to start work.
‘What’s up with you?’ Mironova asked, echoing Nash’s thoughts. ‘Have you wet the bed, or has Lianne seen sense and kicked you out?’
‘Neither,’ Pearce told them. ‘Ask me how I knew you’d be here.’
‘OK,’ Nash said, ‘I’ll buy it. How did you know we’d be here?’
‘Because I saw you on YouTube.’
‘What?’
‘I saw you on the internet. There was a link from Facebook.’ Pearce held up his mobile. ‘I saw the bloke chained up first, then there was another clip posted, with you on it. Who is the guy? Is he dead? He looked it, from what I could see.’
‘It’s Dale Harvey, and no, he isn’t dead, but he was tortured and heavily sedated. Let’s have a look at those clips.’
Pearce showed them the first one, from which they could clearly see the victim’s face, and the sign hanging from his midriff. As they watched, they noticed a pickup stop close to the cameraman. The driver got out and took a crate of milk from the back, before walking across the market place. He had set the crate down outside the cafe and was returning to his vehicle when they saw him stop and stare across towards the clock, his face registering disbelief. Then the clip ended. The second section showed Nash talking to the uniformed officer and the paramedic, while the fire officers worked in the background. ‘Is there a way of finding out if these were shot by the same person?’ Nash asked.
‘There is, and they were,’ Pearce replied. ‘Why do you ask, might it be important?’
‘Yes, we have to assume that the person who shot this is the one who put Harvey there.’
‘I get you. The problem is, if they’re cautious, they’ll probably have used a burn phone. They’ll ditch it when they’ve finished with it. One thing for sure, once the victim’s name becomes known, his reputation will be shot to pieces. People all over the world will know that Dale Harvey has been branded a rapist.’
‘Why do you say that?’
Pearce checked his phone. ‘That first clip has gone viral. Over a hundred thousand people have viewed it already. That’s nothing to what will happen when USA wakes up.’
‘What causes such a big hit rate?’ Nash asked.
‘A lot of people get alerts when new posts appear on a variety of topics. If they’re intrigued enough by them, they share the clip via social networking sites, and so it spreads. Having said that, the rate at which this one has been viewed is remarkable.’
‘I’m going to have to let the powers that be know about this. Won’t that be fun?’ Nash grimaced. ‘Time for more coffee, then I’ll tell you about my giant teddy bear.’
Clara and Viv looked at one another, clearly wondering if Nash was losing it. ‘Your what?’ Clara managed after a moment.
‘My giant teddy bear. I won him last night.’
‘You won a giant teddy bear? Don’t tell me, you’ve joined the grannies at the local bingo hall, that’s going a bit far, surely.’
‘No, nothing like that. I won him because of my skill and memory.’
‘That sounds unlikely, but go on, I’ll buy it. How exactly did you obtain the bear?’
* * *
Detective Superintendent Fleming was almost always first to arrive at Netherdale police headquarters in a morning, She was surprised when she pulled into her regular parking spot to see Nash’s Range Rover already in the car park. When she entered the building, the receptionist informed her that Nash was waiting to see her.
‘Good morning, Mike, this is a surprise.’
‘I wanted to catch you before everyone else arrives, because I have something very important to discuss with you.’
Fleming’s heart sank. Was Nash about to tender his resignation? If so, things must have affected him far more than either she, or the chief constable, suspected. ‘What exactly is it you want to say?’
He gestured towards her office. ‘I think it would be better if we were to talk in private.’
Five minutes later, Fleming sat back in her chair and stared at her subordinate, her relief evident. Now that the shock was over and her heart rhythm had returned to normal, she wondered if Nash had phrased his opening remarks just to punish her. If so, it had certainly worked. ‘I can see that it’s important, but did you need to come here specially to tell me?’
‘No, but as I’m en route to the hospital to check up on the victim, I thought it would be better to combine the two visits.’
‘So this video or whatever it is of Dale Harvey, why are you so interested in that?’
‘Because we think there is a strong possibility that the person who uploaded it might be the one who chained him to the clock. In which case, given the injuries, it is probably the killer. If their objective was to shame Harvey, or ruin his reputation, that will certainly have worked.’ Nash explained about the spread of the clips. ‘What we need to do is to try and identify the person who filmed and uploaded them, but even then we reckon it’s a long shot.’
After Nash left, Fleming walked through to the chief constable’s office.
‘I was expecting you,’ O’Donnell told her. ‘I saw Nash’s car outside and they told me he was closeted with you. What was it about? Is he still with us?’
‘Yes, but he didn’t half scare the . . . er . . . put the wind up me.’ Fleming explained the reason for Nash’s visit.
At the end, the chief asked, ‘And what was his attitude like?’
Fleming smiled. ‘That’s the good news, after he’d put the frighteners on me, he was a bit more like his old self. Still somewhat guarded, but at least he didn’t bite my head off.’
* * *
Nash spent a frustrating hour at the hospital, until the consultant in charge of Harvey explained that there would be little point in him remaining. ‘In addition to the torture and heavy sedation, the patient is malnourished and dehydrated. It will take forty-eight, maybe seventy-two hours before I’d be comfortable allowing him to be interviewed. Even then, you might not get much help from him. There’s a tendency for the brain to blot out the sort of trauma he must have endured.’
Nash returned to Helmsdale, passing the secondary school on his way to the office. Seeing the building gave him the germ of an idea. He shelved it; there were more important things on his mind. He was glad he’d seen the building, though. With everything that had happened, he’d all but forgotten it was his training night.
That evening, Nash turned into the leisure centre, where he found Toni pacing up and down waiting for him. ‘I decided against acrobatics as it seemed to scare you,’ she greeted him. ‘Get changed and we’ll make a start. If nothing else, it will relieve the stress you’re under.’
Nash was surprised. ‘What makes you t
hink I’m stressed?’
‘It shows in your face. Hurry up, there’s a lot to do.’
That might have been so, but Nash couldn’t help but notice that it was Toni, if either of them, who seemed the more stressed. She hurried through the various disciplines, leaving little pause between each of them, and when it was over, asked if he would mind skipping the shower as she needed to be away. Nash accepted, although hardly relishing the twenty-minute journey home before removing the sweat of the workout. He was conscious that Toni was doing him a favour by staying behind for these sessions, but it wasn’t until later that he realized her anxiety to be away from the leisure centre seemed to match her attitude to him, which had altered in some curious way.
On reaching home, he saw a car parked on his drive, where his would usually be. As he pulled in next to it, a familiar figure emerged from the shadow of the storm porch. Climbing out of the car he stood alongside it for a moment, waiting, unwilling to be the first to speak.
‘Mike, I came here to apologize in person. Not for the article, I was away on holiday when that was written, and I had no idea it had appeared in the Gazette until Aunt Gloria phoned me. I hope you know that had I been at work, I would never have sanctioned that hogwash.’
‘What did you come here for, if that article was nothing to do with you?’
‘It is, in the sense that as editor I am responsible for anything the paper publishes, even when I’m away, but mainly I came to say I’m sorry for that earlier phone call. I know it was totally unfair of me to put you on the spot like that. I placed you in a totally invidious position by trying to take advantage of our friendship. Will you forgive me?’
Nash looked at Becky for a moment before replying. They had been through a lot together over the years, both personally and with their respective jobs. ‘You’d better come inside so we can talk it over,’ he said, his tone non-committal. ‘This is too important to be gone over lightly.’
His manner was cold, his tone almost curt. It was if he was talking to a stranger. Had that one phone call made so much difference? When Becky had returned to Yorkshire, she had forsaken a glittering future in one of the national newspapers. Her family had insisted she gain more experience in London; taking over the running of the family business had been expected of her. When Mike hadn’t contacted her following her return she had been hurt, hurt enough to make that rash and stupid call.
It had been Clara who suggested she face Mike rather than phoning him. When she had gone to the Gazette to collect the note sent to the reporter, Clara had stressed the importance of contacting him directly. ‘Mike hasn’t been his old self for some time,’ she had told Becky. ‘Some of that might be due to him being tired of the job, and some might be down to his personal circumstances. Do you know what happened after you went to London?’
Becky nodded. ‘Yes, but I only have Daniel’s side of the story. I gather there was a young woman involved, but I assumed it was one of his usual conquests. There was obviously more to it than Daniel understood or was prepared to tell me, and I didn’t want to upset him by asking. It can’t have been an easy time for either of them.’
‘And it can’t be good for Mike living out there in the wilds, miles from anywhere and anyone, worrying all the time about Daniel, and if the boy is safe and well. After what happened when Daniel was kidnapped, Mike worries all the time about the boy. He almost lost him then, and I don’t think he could have recovered at all had that happened. Your spat with him was one thing, but when the chief constable and Superintendent Fleming accused him of leaking information it made matters ten times worse. I’ve known Mike a long time, and I’ve never seen him as livid as when he returned to Helmsdale that morning. You’ll have to get over the breach of trust, the feeling that everyone around him has betrayed him. It’s up to you.’
Clara’s words at the time seemed to indicate that there might be a truce, but Mike’s attitude didn’t offer much encouragement. As he opened the door he spoke about things she considered irrelevant, but the fact that he’d invited her inside was promising.
The sound of an alarm assailed their ears. ‘I had this system fitted a while back,’ he told her, ‘and it has already proved its worth, even if it is a little inconvenient when you’re in a rush. Wait there a second.’
He went into the house, leaving Becky on the doorstep. She had half a mind to make a run for it, but her car was blocked in by his. ‘Come in,’ he said, after the bleeping stopped. She stepped inside and glanced round, seeing the hallway and into his study.
He looked at Becky and for the first time she saw him smile, no more than the mischievous twitch of the lips that she liked so much.
‘Am I forgiven, then?’ she asked, with a feeling of trepidation.
‘Let’s talk about it in more comfort.’ He guided her towards the lounge. ‘I feel I owe it to you to explain something,’ he said once they were seated. ‘In fact, I should have mentioned it when I saw you last summer, but I was too preoccupied at the time.’ He gestured to the large painting on the wall above the ingle-nook fireplace. ‘It’s all to do with that,’ he began.
Chapter Twenty-two
Before Nash arrived at the station next morning, Clara and Lisa were gossiping about him again.
‘I guess Mike must be looking forward to the Christmas break so he can spend some time with Daniel,’ Lisa suggested.
‘Normally, you’d be right, but not this year. Daniel’s had an invitation to go skiing with a school friend and his family, and Mike hadn’t the heart to refuse him. He’ll only see Daniel for a couple of days after school breaks up and then it’ll be early in the new year before he returns.’
‘So Mike will be alone over the holiday. That’s awful. I’ve got leave over the holiday, so Alan and I are going to visit my parents. Have you made any plans for the break? Did you consider inviting Mike to spend Christmas Day with you and David, if David’s home?’
‘I went further and asked him, but he refused. He said he wouldn’t be very good company.’
When Nash entered the CID suite, he was wearing a slightly puzzled frown. Seeing his demeanour, Clara bit back a sarcastic comment she had lined up for him owing to his late arrival.
Viv followed him through the door. He was clutching a food bag and munching on a sausage roll. ‘I’ve got a message for you,’ he mumbled through a mouthful of pastry, sending flakes flying around.
‘Well, it’s obviously from Lee Giles, considering what you’re stuffing your face with,’ Clara observed. ‘And where’s ours?’
Viv shrugged. ‘Lee says there is a missing key. One of his lads has been away and Lee thought he must have taken it with him by mistake — it’s happened before. When he came back, it was forgotten about as it’s not used often. When the lad needed it, they realized it was gone.’
‘Well, that answers that,’ Nash replied. Unusually, he refused the offer of a mug of coffee, but called Clara through to his office.
When they were out of earshot of the other members of the team, Clara asked, ‘What’s on your mind this morning?’
‘That obvious, was it?’
‘You did look rather pensive when you walked in.’
‘I was trying to remember something I’d heard or seen that might be relevant to the murder cases, but I can’t recall it. The penalties of age perhaps; either that, or too many distractions.’
This gave Clara too good an opportunity to miss, but before she could exercise her talent for sarcasm, Pearce came in, bearing a piece of paper. ‘Sorry to barge in, but I’ve found something that might be important.’
‘What is it?’ Nash and Mironova asked in chorus.
‘I’m still going through all of Hoyland’s old files. By that, I mean every case he worked on during his time at Bishopton, rather than simply the ones where defendants were found guilty. I know this has nothing to do with a jury trial directly, but there is a connection, if you’ll bear with me, one that has only just come to light and adds weight to something I show
ed you earlier.’
Nash read the sheet of paper with Mironova alongside. It was the investigation into a young girl’s suicide, by all accounts a very messy one. The girl, Denise Potter, a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl, had thrown herself in front of a train.
‘What’s the connection?’ Nash asked.
‘If you remember, it was the possible link I found on the internet when I was trying to find the missing juror, Fiona Potter, when we first started searching. Mind you, this happened in 2006, but the circumstances suggest a possible motive for revenge.’
‘How so? It looks like a simple, straightforward suicide.’ Clara asked.
‘The point is, the girl was three months pregnant. That might give her relatives cause for anger and the desire for revenge against whoever fathered the child she was carrying, don’t you think?’
‘It certainly might be worth following up, although we still can’t link it to the murders. And how would the family know? See what relatives this poor girl had. Have a word with Tom Pratt and show him the file, see if he recalls anything about the case. It might seem like grasping at straws, but at the moment, we don’t have very much else, I’m afraid.’
That changed dramatically soon after Pearce left Nash’s office. Nash was explaining to Clara that he’d had a visitor the previous night. ‘Becky was waiting when I got home. She wanted to apologize for that phone call.’
‘Is that why you were late? Because you accepted her apology and—’
‘Nothing of the sort,’ Nash cut her short. ‘My reason for being late had nothing to do with Becky. Yes, I did accept her apology, and yes, we’re friends again.’
They were interrupted when Lisa Andrews burst in unannounced. They eyed her with surprise, seeing the cheerful smile on her face. ‘I think I have something for you.’
‘OK, tell us,’ he replied.