by Rob Ashman
‘Fuck the procedures. You dropped us in the shit yesterday. Fucking short-handed all day, we were.’
‘I was with the police, I’ve told you.’
‘What, again! You need to be more careful. What is fucking wrong with you, Palmer?’
Yes, what indeed. What indeed.
38
The clock on the dashboard read nine-fifteen am. Kray was parked in the cul-de-sac, waiting for Sadie Raynor to return from the school run. She had called ahead and left a voicemail. Bagley sat beside her dressed in a suit and tie and smelling of Boss aftershave.
Kray had caught the scent as soon as she had got into the car. It was her husband’s favourite, mainly because it was her favourite. As she drove, she fought hard to stop her mind drifting back to happier times. It was one more reason to dislike Bagley and she didn’t need another.
The seven-thirty am briefing had been short and sweet. Kray had introduced Bagley and said that he had a different line of inquiry to share with the team. Then she had sat down and handed him the floor. ‘Over to you, Dan. It’s all yours.’
She had felt a warm buzz of sadistic satisfaction thinking she was throwing him under the bus in front of the others. To her frustration, he took it in his stride and delivered a polished performance, setting out a compelling argument for changing the course of the investigation. He was also very delicate when suggesting that they had been looking in the wrong place for all this time.
Once they had disbanded, Tavener made a beeline for Kray. ‘I don’t get this. I thought Palmer was our man?’
‘Yeah, well, Quade stopped the music, and now, we all have to find a different chair.’
Bagley had decided another chat with Raynor was in order and he wanted to be running point. He stared out of the side window of the car.
‘This is not a power grab, Roz. I’m not looking to step on your toes,’ he said.
‘Then, why do both my feet hurt?’
‘It was amazing what you did to bring down Strickland. You are a CID legend, did you know that?’
‘No, I didn’t know, but then I don’t get to Manchester much.’
‘Sometimes, we all need help.’
‘Yeah, and sometimes, we don’t.’ Kray was saved from any further polite conversation by the sight of the Volvo pulling into the road. ‘Here she is. Remind me again why we are not doing this down at the station?’
‘I thought it might be better if we went softly-softly at first.’
‘Yes, well, good luck with that, because there is nothing softly-softly about Sadie Raynor.’
They watched as Raynor stopped on her drive and flung open the driver’s door. A pair of shapely legs came into view, clothed in a short skirt, the sound of her high heels striking the driveway. Her Marilyn Monroe blonde bob caught in the breeze as she stepped out and her top clung to her chest.
‘Put your tongue back in and let’s go,’ Kray said not waiting for an answer.
‘Where has she been? I thought–’
‘That’s what passes for school-run gear these days.’
Bagley pursed his lips.
‘Ms Raynor, I wonder if we might be able to have a word?’ Kray called over.
‘I got your message but was too busy to call back. Look, if this is about Kevin again, I’m not interested. I have more important things to do than worry about that tosser.’ She pushed her key into the lock and bustled her way into the house, leaving the front door open for them to follow.
‘I see what you mean,’ said Bagley as they both trooped in behind her. Raynor plonked herself down on the sofa, wrestling with the hem of her skirt.
‘Okay, what is it this time?’ she said. It was more of a challenge than a question.
‘This is DI Dan Bagley,’ Kray said. ‘We want to ask you a few questions to eliminate you from our inquiries.’
‘Fire away.’ She continued to tug at her skirt.
‘Where were you between the hours of four pm and eight pm yesterday?’ Bagley wasted no time, jumping straight in.
‘Yesterday? What do you mean yesterday? I thought this was about poor old John and how I needed protecting from my loser ex-husband. Err, well, I got back from picking up the kids, that’s when I spoke to you, and then…’ It was painful to watch the cogs turn in her brain. ‘Oh, yeah, Henry came over and we went to his place.’
‘What time was that?’ asked Bagley.
‘I made the kids a quick tea, and then we shot off about five o’clock.’
‘You took the children with you?’ asked Kray.
‘No, they stayed here with the babysitter. Henry pays for all that child care stuff.’
‘Where did you go after that?’ said Bagley.
‘Nowhere. We got there around five-thirty and spent the evening at his place.’
‘What did you do?’ said Bagley.
‘Well, we didn’t play Scrabble, if you get my drift.’
‘Did you stop over?’ said Kray.
‘No, I got back around eleven o’clock.’
‘Was there anyone else there who could verify this?’
‘No, I’m not into threesomes.’
‘We will need Henry’s address and details from you,’ said Bagley.
Sadie nodded. ‘Okay.’
‘Where were you on Monday sixteenth of October at around eight pm?’ Bagley was keen to move on.
‘How the hell would I know?’
‘Do you keep a diary or write things on a calendar?’ Kray asked, knowing full well what the answer was going to be.
‘Do I look like a secretary to you?’
Bagley was unsure how to answer without giving away a personal preference, so he shut up.
‘How about the Monday before, that would be the ninth of October?’ Kray had another go.
‘You’re having a laugh,’ Sadie said. ‘Does this really work? I mean, when you ask people about random dates, and they tell you where they were and what they were doing?’
‘Yes, once they’ve had time to think.’
‘Well, I’m telling you now you’re wasting your time with me. I can’t remember what I did yesterday let alone bloody weeks ago. Oh, no, wait a minute, I can definitely tell you what I did yesterday.’ It was obvious to Kray and Bagley that whatever she and Henry had got up to after they had deserted the kids, it was worthy of a place in Raynor’s memory bank.
‘Sadie, it is important that we can eliminate you from our inquiries. For us to do that you need to tell us where you were.’ Kray was trying to keep the frustration out of her voice.
‘Well, I don’t see how I can, and anyway, I have things to do today.’ She got off the sofa, adjusting her skirt. ‘So, if you don’t mind, I have to get a move on.’
Bagley flashed a look at Kray, who cocked her head to one side and raised her eyebrows.
‘No, Ms Raynor, we can’t do that,’ he said. ‘We need to know where you were on those dates.’
‘And I told you I’m busy. Now, if you don’t mind, I will show you both out.’
‘Ms Raynor, you can either answer our questions here or down at the station. It’s up to you.’
‘Down at the station? Now you are having a laugh. I’m a busy woman – things to do, people to see. Now, if you don’t mind …’ She strutted across the lounge, into the hallway and opened the front door.
Bagley followed and stood in the hall. ‘This is serious, Ms Raynor. We need you to answer our questions.’
‘And I told you, I don’t know.’
‘You are leaving me no choice but to continue this discussion down the station with you under caution.’
‘You what? You’ve been watching too much television, Detective. There is no way I’m going down the cop-shop to help you lot any further. We’re done here.’
39
Sadie Raynor sat in the police interview room sporting a face like a smacked arse. She had shouted and bawled at Kray and Bagley when they had taken a firm line and insisted she join them at the station. The only thing tha
t calmed her down was the threat of being arrested, a threat that Kray had sincerely hoped they would be able to carry out. She eventually climbed into the back of Kray’s car and was quiet for the entire journey.
The interview, however, had not gone well. Sadie could not recall her whereabouts on the dates in question preferring instead to provide them with a list of possible options all of which needed to be checked out. She might have been at the club, or at Henry’s place, or having her nails done. There was a lot of times when she could have been at Henry’s place – spending time with Henry seemed to feature strongly in her daily routine.
She was not best pleased when Kray announced that they would need to corroborate her story, which would take some time due to the scattergun nature of her testimony.
‘How long is that going to take?’ she had asked, the prospect of an afternoon in the company of Henry evaporating before her eyes.
‘Don’t know. It’ll depend upon how quickly we can speak to people.’
‘But what do I do about my arrangements for the day?’
‘You need to make a call,’ was all Kray offered.
The day dragged on, filled with the arduous task of tracking down the people Raynor had mentioned in her interview. Kray got a phone call from forensics and seized the opportunity to head off to the lab. She also took the opportunity not to tell Bagley, a small piece of rebellion that made her smile.
Kray dressed herself in the long white coat, hairnet and overshoes that she picked up from the visitor’s locker. The protocol about cross contamination of evidence had to be rigorously applied.
She pushed open the door onto a brightly lit room filled with clinical benches and expensive looking apparatus. A young woman was stood looking through a microscope the size of a shopping trolley.
‘Oh, hi Roz.’ Her name tag read Charlie Fuller.
‘Hey, Charlie, thanks for the call.’
‘Yes, I thought you would want to see this.’ She pushed back her chair and wandered to the back of the room. There, laid out on a long work bench, were the contents of the brazier from the farm. ‘What we have here are the burned remains of four white paper boiler suits, pairs of over shoes and latex gloves.’
‘Christ, this must have taken you ages?’
‘Yeah, we’ve been working on it for hours, separating out the fragments and trying to piece them together. Some of the matching articles were completely destroyed in the fire. For instance, we have part of a left-hand glove here, but no corresponding right glove.’
‘Have you tested them?’
‘We have, but so far, we’ve come up with nothing.’
‘That makes one set for each murder. There must be some traces of DNA?’
‘So far, nothing.’ Fuller pointed to the second and third coverall in the line. ‘I’ve taken samples from these and sent them for analysis.’
‘Are you telling me that we have all this and nothing concrete to go on?’
‘Not exactly. We ran a tox screen on Vanessa Wilding’s blood and found a high concentration of Diazepam.’
‘So, she was drugged before she was killed.’
‘Yes, she was.’
‘That would tie in with holding her in the coal house. She must have been out cold.’
‘That would fit. But this is what I wanted you to see… We found these in the bin.’ Fuller held up a Petri dish.
‘What is it?’
‘Hair follicles. We found them in the brazier and on the floor surrounding it. We also found two strands of what looks like the same hair in the coal house.’
Kray’s heart rate spiked.
‘Have you matched them to Palmer?’
‘They didn’t come from him.’
‘What?’
‘Sorry, Roz, this is definitely not from Kevin Palmer. Take a look.’ She beckoned Roz over to the microscope and gestured for her to take a look. Kray peered into the lenses.
At first, she could not get into the right position. Then, her brain unscrambled the biopic image. There on the slide was a single strand of blond hair.
40
The forensics lab had become a crowded place all of a sudden. Charlie Fuller was getting edgy. Her fear of evidence contamination was growing by the second.
‘I don’t fucking believe this.’ Kray said under her breath.
Bagley was looking through the eyepiece of the microscope. He straightened up. On the outside he looked all serious and professional, when on the inside, he was grinning like a Cheshire Cat. An hour earlier, he had been pissed off that Kray had not told him about the call from forensics. But when he found out the reason for the call, he had struggled to keep the smug look off his face.
‘When can we expect to get the DNA results back?’ he asked.
‘If we push hard it, could be twenty-four hours,’ replied Fuller.
‘Can’t we get a faster turnaround than that?’ Kray said ‘This is urgent.’
‘So is every other sample waiting to be tested. A one-day turnaround is the fastest I’ve known.’ Fuller shrugged her shoulders.
While Bagley was trying hard to hide his euphoria down in the forensics lab, Sadie Raynor was sitting in the interview room, not a happy woman. She had been forced into providing a sample of her most treasured possession – her hair.
‘Why the hell do I need to do that?’ she had yelled at Kray. ‘Do you have any idea how much this cost?’ Kray had considered the question carefully, then thought it was obvious to everyone in the interview room that she didn’t.
‘Charlie, can you prepare us a slide with the hair found at the crime scene and one of the strands taken from Sadie Raynor?’ asked Kray.
‘You do know that’s an unscientific comparison, don’t you?’ Fuller responded. ‘It would never stand up as hard evidence.’
‘Yeah, but in the absence of being able to do anything else, it will have to do. And besides, I want to see for myself.’
‘Okay, give me a few minutes. I’ll need to select a sample with minimum damage.’ Fuller scurried off to the back of the lab.
‘I’m not gloating,’ Bagley said, obviously gloating.
‘I understand your logic, Dan, and if I were in your shoes I would be reaching the same conclusion, but this feels all wrong. Sadie Raynor might be a callous bitch, but she’s no killer. What does she gain from framing her ex-husband? Nothing, except another twist of the knife, and I think she’s twisted that enough already.’
‘I’m simply looking objectively at the evidence and there is nothing that puts him at the scene. Quite the opposite. He has corroborated alibis. We can’t ignore that.’
‘I know, I get the logic. But my intuition tells me this isn’t right.’
‘And my intuition tells me it makes no sense for Palmer to hang a sign around his neck with “I killed them” written on it.’
Fuller called them over. ‘This is what you wanted to see.’ She stepped away from the microscope. ‘The top one is taken from Raynor the bottom sample comes from the farm.’
Kray peered first. She backed away seconds later, sucking air through her teeth.
‘They look identical,’ she said.
It was Bagley’s turn. The samples were the same colour and thickness, they even had the same kink in them. They looked identical to him too.
‘What about the other crime scenes?’ he asked, pulling himself away.
‘We rechecked, and in the cases of John Graham and Nigel Chapman, there were similar hair follicles found at the scene. They have been sent off for DNA analysis as well.’
‘What about Teresa Franklin, the journalist?’ asked Kray.
‘We didn’t find any at the house, however, we have despatched a team over there now to take another sweep.’
This was getting worse by the minute for Kray. Tavener appeared in the doorway. ‘Well?’ he asked.
‘We’ll have to wait for the DNA results, but under the microscope, they look the same.’ Kray answered, walking over to him. The two of them huddled tog
ether in a corner.
‘Shit, the case is building against her,’ Tavener said in hushed tones.
‘It is, but I don’t like it.’
‘What does Bagley think?’
‘He’s like a dog with two dicks. This is substantiating his theory.’
‘It’s falling into place too easily.’
Bagley’s phone rang. ‘Hello,’ he said, answering the call. ‘Okay I’ll come and pick it up.’
‘What was that?’ Kray called over.
‘Well, in the spirit of making progress, I took the liberty of getting a warrant to search Raynor’s house.’
‘You didn’t say anything to me,’ Kray said.
‘No, I didn’t. You coming?’
Bagley strode out of the lab.
‘Shall I come too?’ asked Tavener.
‘No, I need you here babysitting Raynor.’
‘But you are going to need people–’
‘I need you here.’ It was Kray’s last word on the subject. She hurried off after Bagley, who had disappeared through a set of double doors.
Tavener watched her go, shaking his head.
Kray pushed open the front door and they walked inside. The house was much quieter without the constant chatter of Sadie Raynor to fill it.
She and Bagley were accompanied by two other officers, all of them wearing blue gloves. One of the officers looked like he was fresh out of school and the other had the appearance of somebody who should be well way past retirement.
‘What are we looking for?’ asked the young one.
‘Anything that might be connected with the murders,’ Bagley said, realising he’d stated the bloody obvious. ‘Roz, you and me take the upstairs, and you two can make a start down here.’
Kray and Bagley swept each of the three bedrooms, the bathroom and en-suite.
What the hell does one woman want with so much underwear? Kray opened yet another drawer full of lace. Bagley found a long pole with a hook on the end and opened up the loft hatch. He disappeared up the ladder into the roof space. Kray could hear him clomping around above her head.