Reunion: a gripping crime thriller (DI Kate Fletcher Book Book 4)

by Heleyne Hammersley

  I’d only been driving for ten minutes before I had to wind the window down. The stink of piss was awful. I couldn’t help but hope that the papers would include that little detail – just a bit more humiliation for him. Not that he’d know – being dead.

  I wasn’t sure how conscious he might be, so I kept driving for an hour before heading to Thorpe. I thought that might have given him enough time to come round a bit.

  A quick change, backpack retrieved from behind the passenger seat and I left him there.

  For twenty minutes.

  He was definitely conscious when I tiptoed back to the car after cutting the padlock on the playground gate and then standing a few yards away, waiting. He was thumping on the lid of the boot and I could hear muffled cries for help.

  He didn’t recognise me. I made sure by shining the light from my phone in his eyes, but I needn’t have bothered, he had no idea. His face was red and puffy – he’d obviously been crying – and the smell was awful.

  I sat him on the edge of the boot and listened to his story, telling him that I’d heard banging as I’d passed on my way home from a late shift in the pub kitchen. Where do I get this stuff from? I didn’t even know I was going to say it until the words were out, hanging between us, waiting to be tested. He believed it completely.

  I fished a bottle of water out of my bag and watched while he drank it, grateful for every mouthful, then we chatted for a while with me pretending to be concerned for his welfare and him trying to shrug it off.

  The Rohypnol took effect quite quickly – it might have been due to the stress I’d put him under, or he might not have eaten for a few hours. Either way fifteen minutes after drinking the water he was starting to slur his words slightly. I gave it another ten minutes then eased him to his feet. He’d muttered something unintelligible, but he was compliant and seemed convinced when I told him that I was taking him home.

  I dumped him in the darkest corner of the playground that I could find but there was still enough light from the street lights to allow me to do what I’d planned. He was almost completely unconscious when I’d pulled down his sodden jeans and pants. Almost but not quite. He watched with slitted eyes as I took the knife out and squatted down next to him. I thought he’d scream or yell, but his pain seemed to take him beyond vocalisation. Instead, his mouth opened wide, silently protesting before his eyes rolled back in his head.

  To finish the job, I dug into his thighs, hard, and twisted the knife. There wasn’t as much blood as I’d been expecting but then something in him seemed to spring to life and the black-red fluid came pumping out. I watched for a few seconds and then remembered what I was holding in my gloved left hand.

  What to do with his junk?

  I’d heard a dog earlier as I’d cut through the padlock and that gave me an idea. I wondered if Rover might enjoy a tasty breakfast when his owner let him out in the morning. As quietly as possible I crept over to the wall that separated the yard of the house from the playground, stood on tiptoe and dropped the bloody bundle over.

  I strolled back to Charlton and waited for him to die.

  Can you recover DNA from dog shit?

  20

  Kate slid a latte onto Sam Cooper’s desk and gave her a big grin. ‘You deserve that. Come on. Briefing in two minutes.’

  Cooper picked up the cup, took a huge swig and sighed. ‘Not sure about deserve but I certainly need it.’

  Kate knew that Sam had been working all weekend, desperately trying to find a link between David Whitaker and Simon Charlton. She’d also been looking for the identities of The Three Amigos after following a series of leads from Kate’s new Facebook account and it looked like they were close.

  ‘Can I skip the briefing?’ Cooper asked. ‘There’re still a couple of things I want to check.’

  ‘Not a chance,’ Kate said. ‘You’ve found a lot of important information and I want you there to take credit for it.’

  ‘But, I…’

  ‘No buts. Come on, Sam, let’s get it over with.’

  Kate felt a bit mean for pushing the DC, but she’d seen Cooper isolate herself before when she became immersed in her work and she knew it wasn’t healthy. The two of them had worked through Sunday, Kate in a bid to avoid having to talk to Nick, but Cooper had hardly spoken and she needed a prod to get her back into the land of the living.

  The other members of the team were all hunched over their own coffees when Kate and Sam entered the meeting room, and Kate was surprised to see Priya Das sitting next to O’Connor. This wasn’t part of the arrangement – she was supposed to see Das later.

  The DCI obviously saw Kate’s look of confusion and held up her hands as though in apology or submission. ‘Don’t mind me. I’m just eager to hear what progress you’ve all made, and I didn’t want to wait for our meeting, Kate. Hope that’s okay?’

  Kate nodded and logged on to the laptop that was connected to the projector at one end of the room, wondering what Das was really up to. It was out of character for her to interfere so either she was genuinely interested and couldn’t wait, or she was checking up on Kate after the revelation about Chris Gilruth.

  ‘Right,’ Kate began. ‘Simon Charlton.’ She displayed an image of the man’s body on the screen and saw O’Connor and Barratt flinch even though they’d seen it in situ.

  ‘Found in the playground of Thorpe Danum Academy on Saturday afternoon. Cause of death exsanguination from wounds to both femoral arteries. Mutilation to the genital area – penis and testicles recovered from a second site.’

  Das raised a finger to interrupt. ‘Is the ID confirmed?’

  ‘The body hasn’t been formally identified but the image on the driving licence is of the same man. His house was locked when uniformed officers visited and neighbours don’t know where he is. The house is under surveillance pending a warrant for us to search the premises – which I’m hoping will be granted today.’

  Das nodded and gestured for Kate to continue.

  ‘Charlton’s record shows two convictions. One for driving whilst under the influence of alcohol, fifteen years ago. He was fined and he lost his licence for eighteen months.’ Kate paused and scanned the attentive faces of her team. The next revelation was a biggie.

  ‘In 2013, he was arrested for exposure at a playground. He served three months and was placed on the sex offenders list. Needless to say, his victims were children, hence the custodial sentence.’

  Barratt and Hollis’s hands were both in the air, but Kate waved them down. ‘I know. The obvious conclusion is that Charlton is somehow connected to David Whitaker – another known sex offender. Given the location of the kill site it was impossible to ignore that possibility. So, Cooper’s been doing some digging.’

  Kate sat down, allowing Cooper to take the floor. She fumbled a USB drive into the laptop and tapped the trackpad until an image of a group of children appeared.

  ‘Okay,’ she began. ‘1988. This is an image of a school trip. The fourth years at Sheffield Road Junior School, Thorpe. The figure on the right-hand side, at the back, is David Whitaker, now David Wallace. He was a teacher at the school, and he was responsible for the end-of-year trip.’

  She tapped and another photograph appeared – it was obviously quite old, but the identity of the subject was obvious. A much younger Simon Charlton.

  ‘For three years, between 1986 and 1989, Simon Charlton worked as an outdoor instructor at Clough Farm Activity Centre in Derbyshire. The same activity centre that David Whitaker used for the school trip.’

  Kate noticed Das lean forward in her seat, her eyes scanning the photograph. ‘So, we’ve got a connection?’ she asked.

  ‘Probably, but not conclusively. There are a number of photographs from the ’88 trip but none show Charlton. Without staff logs for the time, it’s impossible to know whether Charlton was on duty when Whitaker took kids to the centre. Unless we can find somebody who was on one of the trips.’

  Sam quickly flicked through the images t
hat she’d downloaded from Facebook showing the children paired in front of tents.

  ‘These are all from 1988 which is the year that a group of kids calling themselves The Three Amigos went to the activity centre. Obviously – given the aliases that our killer has used – we want to find out who these three are. The head teacher of Thorpe Danum remembers two boys and a girl and I think I’ve worked out who the lads were based on his thoughts about their names.’

  Sam pointed at the image showing on the screen. ‘Lee Bradley and Neil Grieveson.’

  She went back to an image of two girls. ‘These two are Angela and Vicky. Looking at some of the photos of the activities, I think Vicky is the third amigo.’

  Silence as the rest of the team digested what Sam had found out.

  ‘So, your working hypothesis is that Whitaker and Charlton abused these kids and now one or all of them are exacting their revenge? It’s all a bit I Spit on Your Grave, isn’t it?’ Das said.

  Kate noted the baffled looks from three members of the group. ‘It’s a video nasty from the seventies or eighties. A woman is raped and then seeks revenge on her attackers. I haven’t seen it but there’s a famous scene where she chops off the genitals of one of her attackers,’ she explained.

  She smiled as O’Connor crossed his legs with theatrical precision.

  ‘So, we’re looking for a gang of vigilante film buffs?’ Hollis asked.

  ‘To be honest, I don’t know who we’re looking for,’ Kate admitted. ‘But there’s a clear connection between the three murders – David Whitaker. His wife and son both killed and then somebody who he may have known, mutilated and dumped at his former workplace. The only names we have are connected to a 1980s comedy, but we do know that a group of children called themselves The Three Amigos and those kids were on that trip with Whitaker and, potentially, Charlton. We need to find them. Sam?’

  Cooper tapped on the laptop and brought up images from a dingy-looking pub – obviously much more recent than the camping pictures.

  ‘These were taken at a school reunion earlier this year. This is Lee Bradley.’ She pointed to the middle figure in a group of three sitting at a table in the background of a group portrait. ‘This is Neil Grieveson.’ Another gesture with her fingers. ‘And this,’ she tapped the face of the woman sitting on the right, ‘this is probably Vicky. Calvin Russell said that he thought the person who rented the storage unit may have been transgender – it could easily have been a woman in disguise. The footprints at the school scene were quite small for a man and it was definitely a woman who collected Margaret from the care home. I’d think finding Vicky would be our priority.’

  ‘So, what?’ O’Connor said. ‘You think they got together at this reunion and decided to exact their revenge for abuse that happened thirty years ago? It’s a bit of a leap. Isn’t it possible that Whitaker abused or attacked somebody else during all this time and that person is out to get him? Maybe Charlton was involved as well. You know what that type are like – they hunt in packs.’

  ‘A perfectly reasonable theory,’ Sam said with a smile. ‘But what about the names? Martin Short? Stephanie Martin? Coincidence?’

  O’Connor shrugged.

  ‘Do we know it’s the same killer?’ Das interjected. ‘We’ve got three bodies and three potential suspects. Could they have done one each?’

  Kate thought about it. It would make some sense – a sort of poetic justice – that each victim of abuse was, in turn, responsible for an act of revenge. She didn’t have enough evidence for the theory, but she also couldn’t confirm a single killer. She’d asked Kailisa to contact the pathologist in Cumbria about the weapon used to kill Chris Gilruth, but she hadn’t heard from him – hardly surprising considering it was still 9am on a dreary Monday morning.

  ‘It’s possible,’ Kate conceded. ‘If we can place the three of them together at the reunion then it’s possible that they planned this together and possibly more than one of them is involved in the actual murders.’

  ‘Next steps?’

  Kate had thought hard about what to do next. They needed to confirm the identity of The Three Amigos and then ascertain their movements on the day of Charlton’s murder and that of Chris Gilruth. They had no conclusive time frame for the death of Margaret Whitaker so it would be impossible to either establish or disprove an alibi, but it might be possible to connect one of them to her removal from the nursing home.

  ‘I think Barratt and O’Connor should attend the PM on Charlton as they were first at the scene.’

  Neither man looked very impressed with her suggestion, but she pressed on.

  ‘Sam’s in contact with the woman who helped to organise the reunion – a June Tuffrey – she’s arranged an interview to try to get more information, especially about Vicky. Sam used my Facebook ID so I’m going to conduct the interview. I don’t think we can approach Bradley or Grieveson separately in case they alert the others. We need all three questioned simultaneously as soon as we can locate the third member of the group. If we can’t find her then we talk to Grieveson and Bradley.’

  ‘We don’t have a lot of time,’ Das said.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Look. The connection here is David Whitaker, yes?’

  Kate nodded.

  ‘So, he’s a potential victim if we don’t track down who’s responsible for these murders?’

  ‘Yes, but–’

  ‘Then we need to act quickly. David Whitaker is due for release next week.’

  21

  ‘God, I hate this time of year,’ Hollis complained as he and Kate stood shivering on June Tuffrey’s doorstep, jacket collars raised against a light but relentless drizzle.

  ‘I hate this bloody estate,’ Kate countered, folding her arms more tightly and easing her shoulders up towards her ears in a pointless attempt to keep warm. ‘Every case we work seems to end up here. It’s like something from the Twilight Zone. Every time I turn a corner, no matter which direction I’m going in, I end up back here.’

  Hollis looked like he was about to say something but the door in front of them opened and Kate’s attention was drawn to the woman who stood on the threshold. If she hadn’t known that she was in her early forties, Kate would have thought June Tuffrey was much older. Her shoulder-length hair was shot through with streaks of grey and her face was lined and pale. She was a few inches smaller than Kate and accentuated her diminutive size with a slight stoop. Only her clothes – a pink hoodie and dark leggings – suggested that she wasn’t approaching her sixties.

  ‘June Tuffrey?’ Kate asked, holding out her ID.

  The woman nodded. ‘Come in. It’s June Palmer now though. Tuffrey’s my maiden name. I used it on Facebook so people might remember me.’

  She showed them into a bright living room which seemed to contain a memory of summer in its pale-yellow walls and understated floral fabrics. Kate felt warmer than she had all morning and she didn’t think it was just the central heating.

  ‘Have a seat,’ June said, indicating the sofa. Hollis sat and immediately took out his notebook.

  ‘You’re going to write down what I say?’

  ‘Only if that’s okay with you,’ Kate said. ‘It’s important that we have a record for our enquiry.’ She plonked herself next to Hollis in the hope that she’d be less intimidating if she was sitting down and was relieved when June nodded and took a seat opposite them.

  ‘June, is it okay to call you June?’ The woman nodded so Kate continued. ‘We’re trying to gather some information about a group of people that you were at junior school with.’

  ‘Are you the one who used to live round here?’ June asked.

  Kate smiled. ‘I was brought up on the estate and then we moved away. I’ve been in Doncaster for the last couple of years now. I was just saying to my colleague that I always seem to end up on Crosslands.’

  ‘So, you went to Sheffield Road School?’

  Kate nodded and June continued. ‘It was a funny place. I suppose all schools
are though. Friendship groups forming and then splitting up. It was really strange to see everybody at the reunion, well, those that turned up.’ Kate thought that she detected an edge of bitterness in the woman’s tone. Had she expected more people? Did she not think her efforts were appreciated?

  ‘It looked like a good crowd, judging by the photographs.’

  ‘Aye. Well, I got a bit of stick as well as support. Some people thought it would have been better to have it in the summer, but the pub gets booked up for weddings and that. Besides, it was dirt cheap just after Christmas. Tony, the landlord, did me a good rate because it’s their quietest time. But it was a good night.’ Her sad smile contradicted her words.

  ‘June, I’m trying to track down three people in particular. They were friends at school and you might have known them. I think we’ve worked out who two of them might be, but we’d really like to find out the identity of the third.’

  June nodded; her eyes fixed on Kate’s.

  ‘They called themselves The Three Amigos.’

  ‘Oh, aye. I haven’t heard that in a while. The Three Amigos. They named themselves after a film, you know. Thought it was funny. Ned, Lucky and Dusty.’

  ‘You remember them?’

  ‘’Course I do. Lee, Neil and Vicky. They were at the reunion.’

  ‘This would be Lee Barlow and Neil Grieveson?’ Hollis interrupted. June nodded and he made a note.

  ‘They were really close friends, but they all went to separate schools when we left the juniors. Sad really. But they got together again at the reunion. Spent all night talking.’

  ‘Were there any former teachers there? At the reunion?’ Kate didn’t expect there to have been, but it was worth a try. Perhaps seeing Whitaker again after so long had been the catalyst for the murders.

  ‘Only one. Mrs Dalston. I thought she’d have died years ago but there she was. Still walked with a limp.’