Unsolved

by Michael Fowler

  ‘No time like the present. And the quicker I see him, the quicker I can sort the case-file.’ Hunter paused, holding Maddie’s gaze. ‘Unless you’re worried about St. John-Stevens finding out.’

  ‘I’ll just tell him you ordered me,’ she grinned, turning off her computer and grabbing her coat and bag. ‘I’ll just ask my mum to pick up Libbie, in case we don’t get back in time.’

  While Maddie called her mum, Hunter went into Dylan Wolfe’s intelligence file to see what photos they had of him; for his own clarification, he wanted to see if the stranger George had seen Tina talking with could have been Dylan, and if not, then at least he could rule him out of the investigation. There were only two photos of him, front and side view head-and-shoulders shots, which Hunter instantly recognised as the ones that had been taken the day after his arrest in 1991, after he had been brought back from the hospital.

  As Hunter studied Dylan’s sewn-up, bruised face, it triggered the event in his memory; he and Barry had found him in a borrowed car, hiding out in the grounds of the old coking plant at Manvers. He’d tried to escape but had lost control of the car, crashing it upside down in a ditch. His face had hit the windscreen, busting it up pretty badly. Hunter had been first to his aid, finding him hanging by his seatbelt, crying out, ‘I’m going to die.’ He wasn’t, but he had broken ribs and his face was badly smashed up, requiring a lot of sutures. He had been twenty-five back then, and Hunter wondered what he looked like now. Would he be badly scarred or would his injuries be hardly noticeable? Hunter printed off an A5 copy of the mugshot, clipped it onto the front of the Bannisters’ duplicate file and slid it into his briefcase.

  They reached Preston a good half hour before midday. George Evers’ terraced cottage was just a few streets from the army barracks, and they found a parking space close to his house.

  George answered the door within seconds. He was a stout man of average height with a thick head of iron-grey hair and a ruddy complexion. Hunter and Maddie showed him their IDs and he took them into his lounge, where he had a fire burning. Feeling its heat, Hunter realised why George’s face was so red.

  ‘The wife’s just nipped out to the shops. We’ve run out of milk, I’m afraid, so I can’t offer you a drink,’ George said, relaxing into an armchair and offering them the sofa.

  ‘That’s okay, Mr Evers; if I drink any more tea, I’ll need more than a few toilet breaks on the way back. Anyway, I don’t think this will take too long. We only want to ask you a few questions,’ Hunter replied, taking up his offer of the sofa. Maddie sat beside him.

  Going through the same preamble he did with Alice Bannister and Denise Harris, he explained the nature of their enquiries and the reason behind them and continued, ‘We have on record, George, that it was you who told David Bannister that you suspected Tina was involved in a liaison with one of your work colleagues. Is that right?’

  George was silent for a moment, then he said, ‘I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, Detectives, but everyone knew what Tina was like. I felt sorry for David, the way she used to muck around like she did, because he was a lovely fella. Worked so hard and doted on his daughter. Always talking about her, he was. When I heard the rumours that Terry was sniffing round Tina and then saw him going into the house that day while he was on his delivery round, I thought I should tell David about it. It just wasn’t right.’

  ‘Can I just stop you there, George?’ Hunter interjected, leaning forward. ‘You’ve just mentioned the name Terry there.’

  George nodded. ‘Yes. Terry Whitehead.’

  ‘That’s the name of the colleague from your work who was having an affair with Tina?’

  ‘Well, I wouldn’t describe it as an affair. My understanding is he was just calling in for sex. That’s what Tina was like. Or so I understood from the rumours I heard.’

  ‘Did you give the detective who spoke to you back in nineteen-ninety-one Terry’s name?’

  For a few seconds George returned a perplexed look. He answered, ‘Yes. I spoke to one of them on the phone when it was on the news that they’d disappeared. I told them what I’ve just told you, and someone came out and took a statement from me.’

  ‘I’m sorry about this, George, but your statement’s not in my file. It must have got mislaid. This is the first time I’ve heard Terry Whitehead’s name mentioned. I’ve spoken with David’s mother and she told me that she’d been told that someone from David’s work had been involved with Tina, but she hadn’t been told his name. All she was able to tell me was that she believed this man had been killed in an accident about five years ago.’

  George gave a quick nod. ‘Aye, that was Terry. Once it all came out about what had been going off between him and Tina, no one would have anything to do with him and he left. He went to work as a lorry driver for a firm in Rotherham, as far as I recall. And, like you’ve just said, I also heard he’d been killed in a motorway pile-up a few years ago now.’

  ‘I’m sorry to have to ask you all these questions, George, but as I say this is the first I’ve heard all this, so if you wouldn’t mind I’d like to go back over what you can remember and what you told the police when you made a statement.’

  George shrugged his shoulders. ‘Sure, if it’ll help. But there isn’t that much to say. As I say, it was just rumour I heard at first, and if I hadn’t had to make that emergency delivery that morning, I would never have seen Terry going into their house.’

  ‘So, you only saw this Terry Whitehead fellow going into Tina and David’s house on the one occasion?’

  George gave a sharp nod. ‘Yes. And I only saw him then because one of our regular customers needed some urgent supplies, and the gaffer asked me to take the delivery because our three delivery drivers had gone out. It was to a builder who had his yard a few streets away from David’s house. I saw our lorry first and wondered what it was doing there, and then when I saw Terry going into the house, I knew the rumours were true. I remember thinking that it was a good job the gaffer hadn’t asked David to make the emergency delivery because there’d have been hell to pay for Terry. I didn’t tell David straight away about what I’d seen. I had a word with the missus first about it, and she asked how I would feel if it were me, and so I told him a couple of days later. I know him and Terry had words, and I know he had words with Tina about it.’

  ‘Yes, we know about that. The police were called.’

  George screwed up his face. ‘That’s news to me. I know they were called when David and Tina had a row about the second man I saw her with.’

  ‘A second man?’ Hunter gave George a puzzled look.

  ‘Yes. A couple of months later I happened to call in at The Tavern at lunchtime, and she was in the snug with a young man. They didn’t see me, and after what had gone off with Terry I didn’t want to get into a scene with Tina, so I skedaddled straight out of there.’

  ‘And you told the detective investigating their disappearance that?’

  ‘Yes, when he came to take my statement.’

  ‘Did you know this man Tina was with, in the pub?’

  George shook his head. ‘Like I told the detective, I’d never seen him before. Looked to be a businessman of some sort.’

  ‘Why do you say that, George?’

  ‘The way he was dressed. He was in a shirt and tie and had this posh overcoat on. Like one of them Crombie’s.’

  ‘Did you get a good look at him?’

  ‘Not really. As I say, as soon as I saw them together, I left. He was sort of side-on. All I can remember is that he looked to be roughly mid-to-late twenties, clean-shaven, with short dark hair.’

  ‘And when you say together — I know it was only a matter of seconds you saw them, but could it have been a business meeting of some sort, or did you have the impression it was something more intimate?’

  ‘Well, she had this serious look on her face but she was leaning in to him, as if they were having this hushed conversation. And she had her hand on his leg, so I thought, “Aye, aye,
there’s something going on again here between him and Tina.” As I say, I didn’t want to get involved, so I left. I told David the next day I’d seen Tina with the bloke, but I didn’t say what I’d seen, you know, her hand on his leg. That was on the Friday when I told him, and on the Monday, when he’d come into work, he told me the police had come out because he and Tina had rowed over what I’d seen. She said I was telling lies. I told him I’d definitely seen her with him, and I know he believed me.’

  ‘And you say this was a few months after you’d seen Terry Whitehead going into her house?’

  George nodded. ‘Two months at least, from what I recall. It was just a couple of weeks before they all disappeared.’

  ‘I know it’s a long time ago, George, but if you saw a photo of this man, showing how he looked back in nineteen-ninety-one, do you think you would be able to recognise him?’

  George gave a quick shrug. ‘It was a long time ago, and as I say I only saw him for a few seconds, and his face was sort of side-on, but I can try.’

  Hunter took out the photographs of Dylan Wolfe from his briefcase and showed them to George. ‘Do you think he looked like this?’

  He gave a short laugh and responded with, ‘He looks like he’s been in the wars.’ Then, studying them for the best part of a minute, he handed them back to Hunter, commenting, ‘The age looks about right, but the hair’s not right. I think the guy I saw Tina with had darker hair. And the nose doesn’t look right either. I’m sorry.’

  Feeling disappointed there was no recognition of Dylan Wolfe, Hunter replied, ‘Don’t apologise, George. Now, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to take another statement from you about what you’ve told me.’

  For the next hour, Hunter wrote down George’s reflections on his sightings and circumstances surrounding his former work colleague, Terry Whitehead, and the stranger he had seen with Tina in the Tavern pub in the weeks prior to the family’s disappearances. When he had finished, Hunter couldn’t help but think that the description of the stranger in the pub, especially the mention of the dark hair and dark overcoat, had some similarity with the man Denise Harris had seen at the front door of the Bannister home on the day of their disappearance.

  Saying goodbye and thanking George, Hunter made his way back to the car, deep in thought. A shadow moved through his mind. Something was disturbing him. Something about this whole investigation didn’t feel right. Too many things that he felt were important had been missed out, or ignored. He needed to think carefully about his next steps.

  CHAPTER NINE

  The weather forecaster last night had said temperatures were going to plummet overnight and that there would be a sharp frost. She wasn’t wrong, Hunter thought to himself, seeing his car covered in a patina of white as he left the house, shivering as he popped the locks. Climbing in, the coldness of the leather seats forced another shiver through his body, and quickly firing up the engine, he cranked up the heater to max and switched on the front and rear demisters. Watching the windscreen slowly clear, he switched radio channels to take in the local seven a.m. news. It was just starting.

  ‘In the news this morning, police are hunting a man who attacked a thirty-eight-year-old woman the night before last. They say a man in dark clothing and wearing a werewolf mask tried to drag her into his car just before midnight but was scared off by two men who heard her screams and came to her aid. Police are warning women out on their own at night to be extremely vigilant and to report anything suspicious on 101… Other news this hour. Detectives are no nearer to discovering the whereabouts of missing Rasa Katiliene, who disappeared over two weeks ago…’

  And I’m trying to discover the whereabouts of a whole missing family who disappeared nineteen years ago, Hunter told himself, reversing off the drive.

  He drove into work steadily, his thoughts drifting from what he had learned yesterday to his next move. Visiting George Evers had raised new lines of enquiry that he simply couldn’t ignore, even though St. John-Stevens was telling him to drop the case. Is he for real? The man’s whole investigation had been shambolic. He knew St. John-Stevens would have had very little training as a detective when he took on this case, but any cop with an ounce of common sense could see that things he had been told warranted further investigation. Instead, it looked as though he had just swept them under the carpet. Had he just come up with a theory as to what had happened and run with it, or had it just been too complicated a job for him to deal with? Well, I’m not filing it until I’m happy with it, so you can put that in your pipe and smoke it, St. John Stevens.

  By the time Hunter got to work, he was resolute about his next steps. He was going to talk to his former colleague and uniform mentor Roger Mills, now a police pensioner, who had been first at the scene when Alice Bannister had reported her family missing. Roger would be able to guide him through the crime scene photos and recount what he had seen and found that day. He might even be able to give him answers to some of the questions he had about St. John-Stevens’ enquiry.

  As he drove into the office car park, Hunter saw that there were still lots of spaces, and having already decided he was going to be in and out as quickly as possible, he chose a space close to reception. Leaving his briefcase tucked out of sight and locking his car, he nipped up the stairs to the office, did a quick computer check to see if Roger was still living at the same address as the one he had retired to, and leaving Maddie a note saying that he should be in just after nine, he jogged back down the stairs to the car park and headed out. Slowing for the barrier, he spotted St. John-Stevens’ Mercedes coming towards him, and avoiding eye-contact, he increased his speed, checking his mirrors once he had passed to make sure that the DCI hadn’t turned to follow. He headed off to the Dearne Parkway, where he took the route to the village of Elsecar, where Roger had a bungalow.

  As Hunter pulled up outside, he saw the lounge light blazing and a car on the drive covered in frost. He’s up and in, he told himself, grabbing his briefcase and opening the door. He’d thought he would be. He knew from their past working together that Roger was an early riser — a habit from his previous career as a soldier. Hunter made his way down the drive and rapped on the side door. Roger appeared within a few seconds, throwing open the door.

  Looking surprised, he said, ‘Hunter! Long time, no see.’

  Hunter knew that Roger was in his late fifties now, but he could see he still hadn’t lost any of his military bearing. Ramrod straight in the doorway, Hunter could see he’d put on a few pounds around the waist, but his shoulders were still broad and he looked the picture of health with a tan.

  ‘To what do I owe this pleasure? You haven’t come to spoil my retirement and tell me that one of the scrotes I’ve had dealings with wants to make a complaint after all these years, have you?’ he added.

  Hunter smiled. ‘No, nothing like that, Roger. I’ve come to pick your brains.’

  Standing to one side and ushering him in, Roger replied, ‘Not as sharp as they used to be, I’m afraid, but come in. I’ll stick the kettle on.’

  The warmth of Roger’s kitchen was very welcoming. Hunter could smell cooking and saw a frying pan on the hob with bacon on the go.

  Roger caught his eye. ‘I’m just making myself a bacon butty. I’ll stick some more rashers on.’

  ‘That’s all right, Roger. I don’t want to keep you too long,’ Hunter replied, even though his stomach was telling him different.

  ‘Nonsense. I’ve got all the time in the world. The wife’s gone to work, and it’ll be nice to catch up. I hardly see anyone these days.’

  Hunter slipped off his coat. ‘Well, if it’s not too much trouble for you, that’ll be greatly appreciated. I only had time for a cuppa this morning.’

  ‘Go through to the lounge. I’ll make us a butty and a brew, and you can fill me in on what you want.’

  Hunter rested his coat over the back of the sofa and plonked himself down, opening his briefcase and taking out the duplicate Bannister file. And, while listen
ing to Roger shifting around in the kitchen, he picked out the crime scene photographs, separating them in preparation for their discussion.

  Within ten minutes Roger stepped into the lounge, handing Hunter a bacon sandwich on a plate and a mug of steaming tea, saying, ‘Get that down yer.’

  For the next fifteen minutes, in-between mouthfuls, Hunter and Roger caught up with what they had been both up to since Roger had retired. Hunter told him about his transfer from CID into the Major Investigation Team, some of the cases he had been involved in and what had happened most recently on Sark. In return, Roger filled Hunter in on what he had been up to since his retirement five years ago. Hunter learned that he had initially taken a part-time job as a driver for Tesco but quickly got fed up with the mundane work. After two years of working for a firm fitting electronic trackers on farm plant equipment, he’d decided to retire completely, using most of his lump sum from his pension to buy a one-bedroom apartment in Tenerife, where he and his wife intended on living over the winter period when she retired next summer. ‘That’s where we’ve just come back from. We’ve spent the last month decorating and refurbishing the place,’ Roger added. He confessed he hadn’t heard about the Sark incident, saying, ‘Well, it sounds as though Billy Wallace won’t be missed, and it’ll be one less for the tax-payer to have to fund.’

  ‘I wish it was as simple as that. Guernsey police are conducting an investigation.’

  ‘But it sounds to me as if you have nothing to worry about. He tried to kill you all and you acted in self-defence. Section three of the Criminal Law Act and all that, eh?’

  ‘There are other forces at play as well, though, Roger, that are making things difficult for me.’ Hunter told him about DCI St. John-Stevens and his enforced transfer to the Cold Case Unit.

  ‘The same St. John-Stevens who was in fast-track and did a short stint as a detective at Barnwell?’

  ‘One and the same,’ nodded Hunter. ‘That’s why I’ve come to see you. I’m reviewing one of his cases that appears to be a bit of a botched job as far as an investigation goes, so I want to pick your brains about it to see if I can clear up some of the things that are worrying me.’