Mercy Killing

by Lisa Cutts

  Chapter 77

  Afternoon of Wednesday 24 November

  Days had gone by without Millie having to worry about her brother. He had spent a lot of time with her and the children, helped them pick out a tree and, despite her insistence that it was far too early, joined in decorating it. He even promised to come to her house early on Christmas morning and forgo his trip to the pub.

  She glanced across at him as he sat on the floor with Max, helping him put some Meccano together. He caught her looking his way and smiled at her.

  ‘Ian,’ she said, ‘you know that I don’t want to nag you but have you taken today off? You haven’t called in sick?’

  ‘I realize it’s because you worry about me,’ he said, trying to find the piece he was after as his fingers sought through the array of nuts and bolts strewn over the carpet. ‘I hate working at that bloody—’

  ‘Uncle Ian,’ warned Max.

  He grinned at his nephew and said, ‘That stupid recycling centre but until I get something else sorted in the new year, it’s what’s keeping a roof over my head. I haven’t given up hope of that job in Sussex. I spent enough time travelling backwards and forwards down there so hopefully something’ll come of it.

  ‘Today, I booked time off to spend with you and see the kids after they got home from school. Once they break up—’

  He stopped again, this time because of loud knocking at the door.

  ‘I’ll go,’ said Sian from her seat on the floor. She’d been learning her spellings, her legs resting on the coffee table in front of her.

  ‘No you won’t,’ said her mum. ‘It could be anyone. I’ll go.’

  Millie got up and went to the lounge door. She stopped as she put her hand on the handle and looked back to take in the scene behind her: Sian doing her homework without a fight, Max interested in something other than kicking a ball, and her brother the happiest she had seen him in a long while.

  She put one foot in front of the other on her way to the front door, her head filled with happier thoughts than she had allowed herself in a while.

  There was too much noise outside her house, there were too many people and shapes blurry through the glass. This wasn’t right. Panic gripped her. She knew what this was and felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.

  Millie froze in the hallway. She started to turn, thought of hurrying back to the lounge, telling Ian to run. At the same moment that the letterbox snapped open and someone shouted through it, ‘Millie, it’s the police. Open the door,’ she heard Sian say, ‘Why is there a policeman in our garden?’ Now she recognized what she was feeling perfectly: the familiar sensation of being absolutely petrified. Once again, she felt that she was about to lose everything.

  Unable to resist the urge to open the front door, she felt herself pulled towards it. She saw the back of her own hand as she lifted the catch, powerless to stop the events that were in motion. There was always something about ignoring a ringing phone or someone at the front door that inevitably made her respond. She had been conditioned to behave a certain way all her life, and she wasn’t about to break away from it now.

  This was her fault. It if hadn’t been for her and the children, the police wouldn’t be here now. All the bad things that happened were her fault alone.

  ‘Mum,’ said Max from behind her in the hallway. ‘What’s happening?’

  She turned. Her son stood a few feet from her, and directly behind him was her brother. Millie had no doubt that she had never looked at someone so in the grip of despair. Her fear for so long had been that she would lose everything. Ian’s ashen face and hollow eyes told her that it had only just occurred to him, with half of East Rise police station at her front door, that he was about to have all that he held dear ripped away.

  ‘You must have known this would happen,’ she said, barely audible above the rapping on the front door.

  ‘Millie,’ shouted the same voice through the letterbox. ‘You’ll force us to break the door down if you don’t let us in.’

  ‘I have to, Ian,’ she said. ‘I don’t want the children to see you dragged away, kicking and screaming. Please.’

  She cast an eye towards Max and said to him, ‘The police want to speak to Uncle Ian. Go back in the living room with your sister.’

  She was at least grateful that Ian stepped out of Max’s way and slowly walked towards her.

  ‘Do it, he said with a nod towards the front door.

  The result was instant. A flood of police officers, uniform and plain-clothes, filled the downstairs of her house.

  There was little to be thankful for, but Millie was hit with a surge of relief that Ian stood passively in the middle of her hallway, next to Clive’s grandmother’s wall clock, waiting to be handcuffed.

  She heard a ripping of Velcro as the officer pulled the cuffs from a harness somewhere, listened to the ratchet of the mechanism as they were snapped on to his wrists and stood there as the tall officer, no more than twenty years old, said, ‘I’m arresting you on suspicion of the murders of Albert Woodville and Dean Stillbrook. You do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

  She tried to take in the name Dean Stillbrook. She failed. Her mind could not contain the information. It was full to capacity with horrors that she couldn’t even have begun to imagine.

  Chapter 78

  Harry sat at the wooden picnic table on the edge of the car park overlooking the sea. It was grey and angry. A little like his own mood. The sound of the seagulls screeching was getting on the few nerves he had left.

  He checked his watch and pulled the collar of his coat up to his ears.

  The noise of the waves and the gulls covered the sound of Martha’s footsteps as she walked across the shingle towards him. He turned as she reached his table.

  ‘Take a seat,’ he said as he looked back at the Channel.

  ‘We must stop meeting like this, Harry,’ she said. ‘Not only will people talk about us, but you’re a detective inspector and this is the third time you’ve left the confines of the police station to talk to me. Usually it’s only the lower ranks that have to speak to the likes of me.’

  He looked sharply across at her.

  ‘I’d never ask any of my team to do anything I wouldn’t do myself, and that includes talking to you, as much as it pains me.’

  She gave a chuckle. ‘If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re flirting with me.’

  ‘Martha.’ His movement as he twisted in his seat made the seat judder and brought a look of concern to her face. ‘I find you despicable. You are the worst type of human being imaginable. Even so, I promised that, when this was finished, we’d talk about you and the bunch of idiots who call themselves the Volunteer Army.’

  She broke eye contact with him and folded her arms, possibly against the cold, but more likely it was hostility communicated through body language.

  ‘And don’t pout,’ he said. ‘It’ll give you lines and age you.’

  ‘If this is all such a joke to you,’ she said, ‘why are you even bothering to talk to me?’

  ‘Well, apart from the promise I made you, I want to know what’s going to happen to your organization.’

  ‘Keeping an eye on us?’

  He nodded.

  ‘We’ll go from strength to strength,’ she said. ‘Just watch us. We’re recruiting all the time. We’re doing nothing illegal so you can’t stop us.’

  ‘What makes you think I want to stop you?’ Harry asked. ‘The one thing we share is our loathing of paedophiles, and the irony of that isn’t lost on me.’

  She stood up and took a step towards the car park. ‘I think that we’ve both said all we need to say for now, except I’m sorry about the innocent ones who get swept up in all this.’

  Harry knew that his face was sporting a look of incredulity at her choice of words.

  ‘The innocents?’ he a
sked, voice raised above the crashing of the waves.

  ‘The man in Sussex,’ she answered with a frown on her own face. ‘Dean something? I understand he was an innocent victim of vigilantes.’

  Harry shot up from the bench and lurched towards her, towering over her.

  He spat his words at her.

  ‘For one moment, you fucking hideous bitch, when you said “innocent”, I actually credited you with giving some thought to the children of sexual abuse.’

  ‘I—’

  ‘Fucking shut up. You don’t get to interrupt me. Let me remind you of what you did. You held your own twelve-year-old daughter down, tied her to the bed and then watched and took part whilst your boyfriend raped her. Get out of my fucking sight.’

  She trembled as she took another step backwards.

  ‘It’s why I formed the VA,’ she said in a cracked voice. ‘To stop it happening to other women like me. So we could spot them, a support group for parents.’

  Harry found himself staring down at her face once more, inches away.

  ‘I shouldn’t have met you on a cliff edge. The urge to throw you over the side is far too strong. Get in your car and fuck off before I do something we’ll both regret.’

  Chapter 79

  Gabrielle left the crowded incident room with her empty mug in her hand on the pretence of making a drink before the briefing where everyone would congratulate one another. In truth, she wanted to get away from the noise and hum of overexcited detectives. She knew that she was supposed to feel some sort of thrill at catching a killer but it was wasted on her.

  Everything in life was tinged with disappointment. She couldn’t explain it to herself so she certainly wasn’t going to try to spell it out for others. She accepted that she was odd, emotionless at times. Her only worry over the way she felt was that she failed to hide it. And why did police officers think everyone should be friends and know all about each other’s lives? She enjoyed solitude and her own company.

  She walked to the kitchen, glanced at her watch to work out how many hours it would be until she could go home and be alone, and opened the door to find Hazel already at the wall-mounted hot water tap.

  ‘Hi,’ said Hazel over her shoulder. ‘Are you coming to the briefing?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Gabrielle as she rinsed her cup in the sink.

  ‘This will be the first I’ve been to with the right person in custody. I expect there’ll be a lot of back-slapping and good humour.’

  This was the point that Gabrielle knew she was supposed to make small talk. Up until now she had had little to do with Hazel but thought that she seemed a pleasant enough person.

  Gabrielle forced a smile at her as she dried her mug on the damp, stained tea-towel.

  ‘I have to admit,’ said Hazel as she reached for the milk, ‘I was a bit worried about coming back to Major Crime. Things change and people move on but right now, I’m not sure why I was so worried.’

  ‘I like Harry,’ said Gabrielle, feeling her face redden.

  From the corner of her eye she saw Hazel jerk and spill the milk over the side of her cup. Automatically, Gabrielle passed her the dishcloth.

  ‘Thanks,’ said Hazel. ‘Yeah, he seems like an OK boss. And he’s led us to the murderer. It’s not been an easy few weeks but I feel as though I’ve settled back in.’

  She paused and added, ‘How about you? Do you enjoy working here?’

  ‘There’s nowhere else I’d rather be,’ said Gabrielle with as much enthusiasm as she could muster, which she knew was none at all.

  ‘Feels like a hollow victory,’ said Harry to Barbara as they sat in his office, about to go into the briefing.

  ‘I know what you mean,’ she said. ‘I’ve got DC Ward to interview Sian Hanson. She’s a very distressed little girl and I thought that Laura would do a really good job with her.’

  ‘In my mind,’ said Harry, head in his hands, ‘I pictured some sort of riled-up vigilantes, all brawn and no brains, not Ian Hocking and his old schoolfriend, Dave Lyle. No one should take the law into their own hands but …’

  DCI Barbara Venice raised an eyebrow at him. ‘But what?’

  ‘Could you, hand on heart, say that you’d do any different?’

  ‘I couldn’t take another’s life for something I felt aggrieved about.’

  ‘He wasn’t just a bit pissed off, Barbara. He’d been abused as a child and then saw the same thing happening to his niece. I’d do it for my children. You won’t convince me that you wouldn’t do the same.’

  ‘We have to be better than that,’ she said with a look on her face that told Harry she was trying hard to convince herself as much as him.

  ‘The thing is,’ he said, ‘we’re convinced that Hocking was in Sussex at the time that Dean Stillbrook’s body was found, but we still have the decomposing body of Keely Kershaw that we haven’t even officially linked to these two. She’d been found guilty of abusing children in a nursery under her care. My money’s on that someone did her in too – it’s just going to be difficult to prove.’

  ‘And Ian Hocking’s part in it?’

  ‘Definitely not,’ said Harry with a shake of his head. ‘He was out of the country before she was last seen alive and returned long after the body was discovered.’

  ‘Are you telling me that there are more people out there doing this?’

  ‘I am, Barbara. Besides, Hocking didn’t do all this alone. When we find Dave Lyle, we may have the two who murdered Woodville, but we don’t stop looking there.’

  He looked her straight in the eye and said, ‘I’ve pushed my team to find whoever did this. Now I want to shake his hand and let him go.’

  ‘That’s not what we do. We gather the evidence and put it before the court. It’s not our decision. This has been a very difficult investigation for all of us. I can see a little clearer now and it’s definitely not the murder I want to be my lasting memory of my police career. Now I’ve had a chance to put things into perspective, take a breath, I’m not looking to retire just yet.’

  She paused and said in softer tones, ‘I know that my earlier crisis didn’t go any further, and I thank you for that.’

  The response was a very slight nod of the head and the words, ‘Bloody glad to hear it, Babs.’

  ‘And there’s one very important thing you’re forgetting about all this, Harry,’ she said.

  Harry sat for a second or two, chewed his bottom lip and said, ‘I think the point you’re going to make is that Dean Stillbrook was a completely innocent man and died because someone took the law into their own hands.’

  He rubbed a hand across the stubble on his chin and said, ‘OK, my views make me an arsehole but at least I’m human with it.’

  He stared at her for a few seconds, leapt from his seat and said, ‘You’re right, as always, Babs. Come to the briefing.’

  They walked into a packed conference room. Most of the incident room were there; detective constables, detective sergeants, civilian investigators, HOLMES staff, even DI Milton Bowman who hadn’t worked on the job. Harry recognized the scene before him for what it was: those who had played a tiny part in the investigation wanted to be enshrouded in its glory, plus a few hangers-on. He would have preferred to take his core staff off to the pub, but there wasn’t time for that. There were other murders waiting in the wings, ready to chip away at what was left of his sanity.

  It went quiet as Harry and Barbara walked in.

  ‘Hello, everyone,’ said Harry to the hushed crowd. ‘On behalf of myself and Barbara, I would like to thank you all for your tireless work and dedication to finding Albert Woodville’s murderer. Another arrest team are out trying to find David Lyle, Hocking’s friend, and likely offender from the CCTV stills of the Clio. In the meantime, you should all be very proud of yourselves. I certainly am proud of you. Congratulations.’

  Never had towing the party line for the sake of the organization stuck in Harry’s throat as much as it did at that moment.

  The murder
of Albert Woodville would always be the lowest point in his career.

  Acknowledgements

  This was at times an uncomfortable book to write. Sexual abuse, especially of children, is never an easy topic.

  That this novel exists at all is down to so many people for so many reasons. A fair number of them will always remain nameless but thank you so much to my wonderful agent, Cathryn Summerhayes of WME, for your enthusiasm and encouragement. Thank you to Jo Dickinson, extraordinary editor, for your insightful suggestions and help whenever I needed it. Many thanks to everyone at Simon and Schuster who has made me feel so welcome and made the entire publication process such a pleasure.

  Thank you to DC Kerry Verhiest for your invaluable knowledge regarding ViSOR and the policing of sex offenders. A lengthy conversation with you made me realise your in-depth understanding of a part of policing I had only a scant idea of.

  My thanks to DC Alex Hayter for making three years of my police career much easier than it would otherwise have been. There were many low points, as you’ll recall, but worth every stressful moment in the end.

  About a third of the novel was written in Tintagel, far too beautiful for something so grim. Nevertheless, many thanks to Tara Melton and Andrea Richards for the use of Gilbert Lodge. Cornish air, cider and clotted cream definitely brought on the inspiration.

  Last, but by no means least, my husband Graham. For just about everything else.

  About the author

  Lisa Cutts is the author of three police procedural novels, based on her twenty years of policing experience. She works as a detective constable for Kent Police and has spent ten years in the Serious Crime Directorate dealing mostly with murders and other serious investigations. She has been on BBC Radio 4’s Open Book with Mariella Frostrup; part of First Fictions festival at West Dean College, Chichester; on the inaugural panel at Brighton’s Dark and Stormy festival, and took part in the Chiswick Book Festival 2015. Her debut novel, Never Forget, won the 2014 Killer Nashville Silver Falchion Award for best thriller.