Mercy Killing

by Lisa Cutts

  Why then did he have the urge to return to the police station and tell them that it had all been a terrible mistake and he had more to tell them?

  There was another thing he would never tell a soul. Toby’s confession that he would have taken part in killing Woodville had sickened him to the bottom of his stomach. It was one thing to talk about taking a life, it was quite another to actually do it.

  He had given Toby a chance to redeem himself, say it was no more than a big game like the games they had played in the children’s home when it all became too much. But instead Toby thought he had the right to take away someone’s life.

  Their relationship had crossed a line and things would never be the same again.

  Chapter 69

  He sat alone in the dark, only his thoughts of retribution keeping him together. His mind had the ability to swing between denial and justification. If he didn’t think about what he had done, he could cope. But if he allowed his mind to wander, it started to eat him up all over again. He wasn’t sure if he had managed to hone that particular skill, making his mind go blank when he felt himself crumbling, falling apart.

  Confusion often followed. He’d blotted out a bad memory but couldn’t help trying to recall it. It was like he had seen something out of the corner of his eye, and no matter how fast he moved to focus on what was there only a moment ago, it eluded him.

  He found it hard to breathe on these occasions and the only way to cope was to sit still and concentrate on nothing. A black empty space.

  Gradually, it would come back to him. That was the worst part.

  If he didn’t think about what he had done, it was bearable. Blocking it out was more and more difficult with each day. Once he let it in, he had to deal with what it was doing to his mind.

  Ian knew he couldn’t block it out indefinitely. If he did, they had won after all.

  Chapter 70

  ‘Why is it,’ said Harry, arms full of Chinese takeaway, ‘that I’m the DI, and I had to go out and get the grub for everyone else?’

  ‘Because you’ve got the job credit card,’ said Sandra as she took the order from him and scanned it for her dishes.

  He stood back and watched her with incredulity as she surveyed the order of twenty or so boxes, packets and bags, most of which weren’t labelled, and went straight for her choice.

  The incident-room door opened and Hazel, Pierre, Tom and Sophia walked in, all sniffing the air, and headed straight for the table where Harry had plonked their meal.

  ‘There’s a lot of food here for six of us,’ said Pierre.

  ‘Stop complaining,’ said Sophia, ‘and pass me some of that chow mein.’

  ‘Come on then,’ said Harry as he took a seat, ‘what have Tey and Watson had to say for themselves?’

  ‘Well,’ said Pierre as he sat down beside his DI, ‘me and Haze interviewed Jonathan Tey. He’s a total stroppy twat and made no comment.’

  ‘And me and Tom interviewed Jude Watson,’ said Sophia as she poured sweet-and-sour sauce all over her plate and some down her trousers. ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake. Like I want to iron another pair of strides when I get home at one in the morning.’

  Tom laughed and passed her a serviette.

  ‘He spoke to us,’ said Tom as he filled his own plate. ‘He answered all our questions, from how he and Jonathan know each other—’

  ‘According to Watson, their wives know one another from their children’s schools,’ said Sophia.

  ‘We asked about Woodville and Watson told us what he knew about him,’ said Tom as he chased a pork ball across the table, caught it with the edge of his fork before it rolled off and landed underneath the fire extinguisher.

  When Sophia stopped laughing at his misfortune, she said, ‘Doesn’t make me feel so bad about dropping food down myself now … He elaborated a lot in the interview about the day Eric Samuels called the meeting and how he and Jonathan stormed out. According to Jude, it was him who lost it and Jonathan who calmed things down.’

  Harry listened and watched his detectives. They currently resembled a chimps’ tea party, although instead of tea, they were dropping crispy duck and egg fried rice everywhere. What he did know, was that despite their terrible table manners, he trusted their judgement.

  ‘Do you think that we’ve got the right two people in custody for the murder of Woodville?’ Harry asked.

  ‘No,’ said Pierre. ‘May not be what you want to hear, boss, but not as far as Tey’s concerned. I know he’s not replying to the questions but when we asked him about Dean Stillbrook and being in Sussex, he shook his head and gave a look of surprise. All we’d told his solicitor up to that point was that he was going to be further arrested for the murder of a man called Stillbrook on the eighth of May.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Hazel as she paused in attacking the food in front of her. ‘Like you told us, we didn’t give him a cause of death or location. I got the impression that Tey wanted to say that he’d never been to that part of Sussex, or certainly not in May at least.’

  ‘So,’ said Sandra, ‘if it’s not these two and it wasn’t Toby Carvell and Leon Edwards with their alibi, let’s hope it’s third time lucky.’

  That they still didn’t have the right people in custody was something that Harry wasn’t looking forward to explaining to DCI Barbara Venice. Even though she wasn’t the sort of chief inspector to criticize the team for failing to perform, she was feeling lower than anyone else at the continued failure to charge anyone with murder.

  He knew that she felt responsible and he had seen the dark circles under her eyes, noticed that her movements were that little bit slower and that she hesitated to answer the most simple question in case she said the wrong thing or went off at the deep end.

  Harry himself worried about the investigation. What DI wouldn’t? He didn’t want an unsolved murder, and one that was connected to another in Sussex. Their situation was even worse than his own. At least his victim was a paedophile. Their victim was a man with learning disabilities who had been swept up in a young girl’s panic. At the back of his mind was that at any second he might get that call to tell him there had been another murder, and sex offender or not, it was something he knew they had to prevent at all costs.

  ‘Sir,’ he heard Sophia say. ‘I don’t think he’s listening to me. Boss, do you want some food before us greedy sods eat it all?’

  He shook his head. ‘Not hungry, Soph. If it’s not these two in custody, Tey and Watson, the only other enquiries we’ve got at the moment that are taking us towards the actual suspects are the two from the café who are probably connected with the Clio. How far have we got with that, Sandra?’

  Even though she was negotiating food into her mouth with one hand, Sandra still managed to push a piece of paper across to him, plucked with her other hand from the pile crammed into the box file in front of her. She found it without any effort as if she knew exactly what each of the hundreds of pieces of paper spilling out related to.

  ‘As you know,’ she said, ‘the stills from outside the Co-op and from the town centre outside the café are likely to be the same two men. They’re grainy but no one’s completely convinced that they’re Tey and Watson. We can’t see the woman’s face outside the café, but the chances are it’s Millie Hanson. She’ll be worth another visit.

  ‘Anyway, the car – they’ve narrowed it down to twenty-six and I’ve highlighted the most likely five, although you may choose to disagree.’

  ‘This is great. Thank you, Sandy.’

  ‘It’s Sandra, not Sandy,’ she said as she pushed the papers back into the box, stacked her plate on top of it and made to leave. ‘Don’t mind me. I’ve got work to do so I’ll be in my office if you need me.’

  There were times when Harry thought that he might have upset someone and perhaps should be a little more sensitive to people’s needs. He didn’t think this was the case at all with Sandra Beckinsale. She preferred to be on her own, and others preferred her to be on her own. Ever
yone was happy. He couldn’t fault her work though, however frosty she could be. Most detective sergeants would have gone home some time ago.

  ‘What’s the plan then?’ said Harry. ‘Any more interviews tonight?’

  Pierre shook his head as he swallowed the last bite of his meal. ‘No. Their solicitors were making noises about having a consultation with them and then heading home, ready to start in the morning.’

  ‘OK then,’ said Harry. ‘I’m going to call it a night too in that case. See if the missus is still talking to me after another late finish. Call me if there are any problems, or I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  He left them finishing their food, certain that none of them would clear it away properly and the stale smell of Chinese takeaway would assault everyone’s nostrils when they came back into the office in eight hours’ time.

  He made a quick stop via his own office to turn off the computer and pick up his jacket and keys, and then made his way out of the building.

  The chill of the night hit him as he got to the rear yard, wrapped up in the thought of that day’s work. He cursed himself for not bringing a coat on a November day when his finish time could be anything from four in the afternoon to midnight. He ran the last few feet to his car, took the note off the windscreen that told him he had parked in the wrong bay and if he continued to park outside Major Crime’s allocated spaces he would be banned from the car park, threw it on the passenger seat and turned the heating up full blast.

  For a minute, he sat waiting for his Lexus to warm up, unsure whether to call Barbara or not. She would want to know what was happening but Harry hadn’t wanted to call her from the incident room where he’d be overheard.

  He hesitated and then texted her.

  Jonathan T and Jude W are still in the bin. Want an update or in the morning?

  By the time Harry had pulled out of his space and was driving towards the security barrier, his phone was ringing. He turned the heater down to reduce the phone’s volume. The last thing he wanted was to be driving through the streets of East Rise with half the town able to hear what his DCI was talking about. On many occasions he had overheard amusing parts of other people’s conversations, but allowing snatches from a murder enquiry to be blurted out at red traffic lights and give-way signs was a sure-fire way to get into trouble.

  ‘Can the people of East Rise sleep safely in their beds tonight, Harry?’ said Barbara.

  ‘They can unless they’re a convicted sex offender, or anyone suspects them of being a sex offender.’

  ‘I take that to mean no one thinks that the two in custody actually killed him.’

  He heard the start of a sigh and then it was cut short, as if she either stopped herself, or realized what she was doing and put her hand over the mouthpiece.

  ‘Please don’t tell me that you’re still taking this personally, Barb. You have nothing to feel bad about. At the moment, my money’s on the two Leon Edwards saw in the café being the same two who were following Woodville on the night of his murder. At the moment, we’ve ruled out all of the former victims from the original Woodville investigation, including Andrea Wellington who was in a mental health unit at the time of the murder. Anyone else who might have had a reason, or thought they had a reason to kill him, is probably not directly connected with him in the first place.’

  He allowed that thought to sit there so they could both enjoy it: Barbara so she could stop beating herself up for something that she couldn’t have known would have implications over twenty years later, and which probably had no bearing on the jury’s verdict anyway, and Harry because so far they had failed to make the connection between someone in Woodville’s background and his death.

  ‘What are we missing, Harry?’

  ‘So far, a lot of sleep. Listen, there’s nothing more we can do tonight. We’ve got more checks and door-knocks tomorrow to find out about the Clio and hopefully, we can take that a bit further.’

  ‘Night then,’ she said, stifling a yawn.

  ‘Get some sleep,’ he said before ending the call and wondering all the way home exactly who it was who had so far escaped the incident room’s radar.

  He knew the answer was there somewhere, he just couldn’t grasp it.

  Before he knew it, Harry was pulling up on his driveway, eyes straight to the gap in the bedroom curtains. Tonight, there was no glow from the bedside light to greet him. A feeling of relief washed over him as he realized that his wife was either asleep or pretending to be. Either way, he wouldn’t have to waste energy dodging the inquisition.

  He put his key in the door and pushed it open, dismay hitting him as he heard the murmur of the television from the front room. No sooner had he shut the front door, standing with his back to it, holding his breath, than the sound stopped.

  He braced himself and cursed his luck for not having a few more seconds in which to gather his thoughts and be left in peace. Now the questions would start.

  ‘Is that you?’ she called.

  ‘Yes, sweetheart. Forgot to check I’ve locked the car.’

  He pushed himself away from the front door and went into the living room.

  Harry bent to kiss her on the lips and made a point of sitting next to her. Remembering that he was still wearing his suit jacket, he emptied the pockets and stood up to take it off.

  ‘I’ll just hang this up,’ he said, hoisting the jacket up by its loop, hooked over his little finger. ‘Want a drink?’

  ‘I’ll have whatever you’re having,’ she replied.

  On his way out of the room, with his back safely to her, Harry rolled his eyes. He recognized the signs of her trying to make an effort to learn about his job and delve into the day’s nastiness. The problem was, he didn’t want to share.

  He had made a decision years ago not to talk about work to anyone who wasn’t a colleague. He knew that the two worlds he lived in didn’t mix at all well, and he had tried during his police service to keep details of his job strictly within professional circles.

  Harry considered himself a buffer between the normal people in their ordinary lives and the deluge of death and violence that came his way in every part of his working life. He spent his career normalizing the abnormal, and he wasn’t about to bring his family into any part of that torment.

  It wasn’t how it was supposed to be. The two should never merge.

  The sad part of it was that he had never voiced this to his wife. They had been married for over twenty years and he had never told her why he refused to discuss his job.

  Harry thought he was keeping her safe. Now he recognized that he was keeping her out but he didn’t know how to put it right.

  He came back from the kitchen with two glasses of tap water. He handed her one and said, ‘Well, goodnight. I’m going to have a quick shower and I’ll see you in bed.’

  Once again, he bent down to kiss her and then turned away from her.

  The look she gave him didn’t escape his notice; he simply didn’t know how to deal with it.

  So he chose to walk away.

  Chapter 71

  Thursday 11 November

  Jonathan Tey had experienced the worst night’s sleep of his life. In his teens and early twenties, he’d been very used to kipping on friends’ floors, in the back of cars, in the street on a couple of occasions, but nothing had come close to the banging and shouting he had heard throughout the night. The stale smell didn’t help much either and, if he wasn’t mistaken, there was a stench of urine coming from the metal toilet in the corner. He didn’t think that it could be coming from anywhere else, unless it was leaking out of the walls.

  He had tried to sleep on the ledge protruding from the wall with the thinnest mattress ever manufactured. He had been camping and slept on better, and that had been of a design that he could roll up and carry on his back all day. He had, however, known that no one with HIV or hepatitis had lain down on his bedding and presumably the stiff plastic coating of the cell mattress was all that was keeping him from a lif
e-changing disease.

  He let out a sigh and tried for the umpteenth time to stretch the scratchy blanket over his feet. They were cold. They had taken his shoes from him and his socks were not doing an adequate enough job of keeping his toes warm.

  Given his size and demeanour, the last thing he wanted to do was admit that he was suffering. That would show they were getting to him. In spite of his failure to cooperate with their questions and his unwillingness to assist in any way, he felt an urge to tell them what he and Jude had done.

  He stretched out on his uncomfortable mattress and closed his eyes. He remembered how carefully he and Jude had plotted what they would do to Woodville. He felt the rage build in him all over again, as it had when they’d first left the Cressy Arms and discussed what a dirty bastard Woodville was.

  Jonathan felt every part of him tense as anger surged at the thought of people like Woodville being allowed out of prison to walk amongst the proper people, those without a propensity to sexually abuse and rape children. It wasn’t normal and he didn’t for one minute hold with the belief that they couldn’t help it.

  Of course they could.

  How could an adult ever consider for one moment that that sort of behaviour was acceptable?

  He had no regret over what he and Jude had done. They had talked very carefully about what they wanted to achieve and how they were going to go about it. Jude, the dozy bugger, wanted to write it down and make notes, even told him that he should be making a spreadsheet as he was an accountant and that was what they were good at.

  Jonathan shook his head at the memory of something so ridiculous.

  He kept still now as he remembered how good it had felt to go to Woodville’s flat, wait in the dark until he came home and then, just out of view of the video entryphone camera, grab him and take him to the area behind the communal bins.