Doing the Best I Can_A Manchester Crime Story featuring DSI Jeff Barton

by David Menon

  ‘She’s not been hitting Josh too, has she?’

  ‘No’ said Ben. ‘But there’s always that risk. But look, can we just relax and enjoy the stillness? That’s what I really need tonight’.

  ‘Alright’ said Abigail. ‘And you’ll be able to see Harvey in the morning’.

  ‘I can stay then?’

  ‘I’d have insisted upon it if you hadn’t asked’.

  THIRTEEN

  ‘Well don’t stop now. I like to hear the sound of someone pleading for their life when I’m in control of it’.

  It had been two days since Suzanne Hermitage had made the biggest mistake of her life and gone with the man she’d got talking to whilst smoking a cigarette outside Costello’s. He said he had something a bit stronger than cigarettes to smoke but it was in his car if she wanted to join him. Suzanne had always been partial to the odd joint or two. It had certainly helped her get through some of the darker stuff in her life, more effectively than alcohol or plain old tobacco. Both of those had helped too of course but neither of them had delivered to her the kind of numbness from the pain that a joint did. So with a glance up at the bar on top of the skyscraper where her two friends still were, she took one last drag of her cigarette before stubbing it out under her very expensive shoes and following her new partner in crime.

  She hadn’t bargained on the car being parked down some alley where nobody saw what might be going on. She hadn’t bargained on leaning into the back of the car as instructed where the joint would be found. She hadn’t bargained on being struck on the back of the head and waking up in the state she was in now.

  She’d lost track of time since she’d been incarcerated here. There were no windows to the outside and therefore any light was electric. That meant she had no idea how long she’d been here but it must be a couple of days. Both Lance and her mother must be going out of their minds with worry.

  Why was this happening now? Now that life was starting to fall into place at last after meeting Lance? Why was the universe being so fucking perverse?

  ‘Aw let’s get this fucking well over with’ he snapped.

  She bristled with fear. She felt her whole body tighten as if it was going to collapse into itself. He really was going to kill her. She watched him go purposefully about his business like she imagined any executioner would. He plugged various leads into what were various metal boxes. She was absolutely terrified. She could smell her own fear. Would her grandma and grandad be waiting for her on the other side? That was the only comfort she took from accepting the inevitable of what was clearly about to happen.

  ‘I’ve never been happier than I am now’ she sobbed. ‘Why are you doing this to me now? Look, I’ve had a bloody hard time of it. I’m a victim just as much as you probably think you are’.

  ‘You don’t know the fucking half of it, lady’ he snarled. ‘Ask your father when he passes over to the other side to join you’.

  ‘What’s my Dad got to do with any of this? I haven’t had anything to do with him for years!’

  ‘Shut up!’

  Suzanne was hysterical as she struggled against the restraints that were holding her firmly to the cold metal chair. ‘But whatever he might have done isn’t anything to do with me’ she pleaded. ‘It isn’t my fault’.

  ‘I said shut up!’

  ‘But this isn’t fair! Whatever it is it’s not my fault!’

  ‘it may not be your fault, princess’ he said. ‘But I’m afraid you’ve got to pay’.

  ‘But why?’ she whimpered.

  ‘Because on this occasion the sins of the fathers are falling on the daughters’.

  FOURTEEN

  Barton got the call in the early hours and immediately made his way to the crime scene where DCI Ollie Wright was waiting for him. It was in the back garden of the home of Ronald Hermitage’s first wife Maureen.

  ‘So it is Suzanne Hermitage?’ asked Barton.

  ‘Her mother had just enough time to make the ID and call us, sir’ Wright replied. ‘Then she collapsed with shock. The paramedics have just taken her to hospital. Apparently she was on medication for depression anyway’.

  ‘And it would be an understatement to say this wouldn’t have helped’ said Barton. ‘The poor woman. I can’t imagine what she must be going through’.

  ‘Same MO as the other two, Jeff’ said the pathologist, Dr. Rashid Ahmed after he’d walked up to them.

  ‘Ah, Rashid’ said Barton. ‘You’ve not been returning my calls? I thought you’d dumped me’

  Rashid put on a nervous smile. He hated lying to his friend. ‘I’ve just been busy. You know how it is, Jeff’.

  ‘Right’ said Barton, unconvinced. ‘So it was the same MO with Suzanne Hermitage here?’

  ‘Yes’ Rashid confirmed. ‘Death by electrocution and in the same manner’.

  ‘Okay’ said Barton. ‘Ollie, let’s get house to house underway in the surrounding area to see if somebody saw anything. And give me a minute. There’s something I need to do’.

  Barton asked Rashid Ahmed where his car was.

  ‘Just down the street’ Ahmed replied. ‘Why?’

  ‘Lead me to it. You and me need to have a little talk’.

  Ahmed led Barton down to his car and the two of them got in.

  ‘I know what you’re going to ask me’ said Rashid.

  ‘Then tell me in your own words’.

  Rashid told Barton that he had that he had found evidence that Scott Delaney had been ‘helped’ to commit suicide because of the bruising on his wrists and arms. When Barton asked why he hadn’t put that in the autopsy report he told him that it was because he’d been leaned on by Ronald Hermitage who’d hinted that something might happen to Rashid’s brother who was at that time due to fly home from Pakistan after a family visit. His brother was now safely back in his Gatley house and tending to his patients as the local GP. He was none the wiser that if Rashid hadn’t done as he’d been told by Hermitage then he would probably now be in some God forsaken hole controlled by the CIA and being tortured into falsely confessing that he was involved in terrorism. Barton was disgusted at the way Rashid had been treated and the potential consequences for his brother, and it would certainly be one of the things he’d tackle Hermitage about, despite Rashid’s reservations. Barton assured him that Hermitage was no longer in any position to threaten either him or any other member of his family.

  ‘I’m sorry, Jeff’ said Rashid.

  ‘Don’t be’ Barton assured. ‘I’d have done the same in your position’.

  ‘So we’re good?’

  ‘Of course we are’.

  When Barton got back to the office Louisa Pilkington, the team’s civilian support worker, had more news for him about the family of the now former Chief Constable Ronald Hermitage which she thought he’ find rather interesting.

  ‘Sir, did you know that Vanessa Hermitage, daughter of Ronald and sister of Suzanne, and her friend Imelda Stratton both went missing twenty years ago in Knutsford twenty years ago whilst they were walking home from school?’

  ‘No, I didn’t know. Go on?’

  ‘Their bodies were found a couple of days later not far from both their homes. Nobody came forward then and all the evidence we have so far are prints left on a scarf, Vanessa’s scarf, that is believed to have been used by the killer to strangle her. It’s been run though for traces of DNA by the cold case unit recently and they’ve come up with no match except for that which belonged to the little girl herself. They’ve interviewed people living in houses along the route Vanessa and her friend Imelda would’ve taken home and none of them who were living there twenty years ago remember anything untoward happening’.

  ‘It is a long time, Louisa’ said Barton who wasn’t quite sure where this was leading. ‘I can’t always remember what I did yesterday’.

  ‘True, sir’ said Louisa. ‘But this is about the abduction and murder of two young girls. And it happened at the time that we now know that Mark Donaldson and Alastair Fran
klin were running parties for perverts who were into young girls of that age. DNA wasn’t used so much back then but doesn’t it strike you as odd that in the official reports into the murders no mention is made of any DNA found on either of the two girls bodies?’

  ‘None at all?’

  ‘Absolutely nothing, sir’ Louisa confirmed.

  ‘Well then it must’ve either not been recorded or wiped from the records’ said Barton. ‘You’re starting to intrigue me, Louisa’.

  ‘Well sir we know that the parents of both girls were involved with the circuit so it’s not a great leap to assert that they were covering up for someone’ said Louisa. ‘Maybe even Donaldson or Franklin themselves?’’

  ‘Get the bodies exhumed’ said Barton.

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Get the bodies exhumed and have the remains tested for DNA’ said Barton. ‘And as always, Louisa, good work’.

  Barton called the local police in Lytham with regard to the missing Donaldson daughter and as always he didn’t get much joy. He didn’t know if that meant they had nothing to tell him or they were still unsure of loosening their tongues but either way he decided that he and DCI Wright would drive up there and check it out for themselves. All the Lytham police had been able to tell him was that a Jennifer Donaldson had been living at a sheltered housing project in the town for the last twenty years but that nothing had been seen or heard of her recently. Barton told them he wanted a warrant to search her property and to expect him and DCI Wright first thing in the morning. He said he expected them to be given every courtesy of fellow police officers involved in a complex murder investigation, and didn’t they think it was strange that she was able to somehow disappear from a sheltered housing project? Wasn’t their reason for being so that vulnerable people could be looked after and kept an eye on?

  He then went into the now daily team briefing.

  ‘Okay, everyone, let’s try and move things along here’ Barton began as he pointed at the various pictures and notes that were pinned to the white board which now also included mugshots of Scott Delaney and Suzanne Hermitage. ‘Where’s the link, people?’

  ‘Well it’s Scott Delaney in the first two, sir’ said DS Adrian Bradshaw. ‘Although we’ve eliminated him as a suspect’.

  Barton shook his head. ‘Scott Delaney may not have been a faithful lover to either his fiancé Stacey Donaldson or to his new girlfriend, Gina Lombardi, who he was planning to run off to Germany with and start a new life. But that doesn’t make him a murderer. Now all three women were killed by what we think was from being placed in some sort of electric chair. The pathologist Dr. Rashid Ahmed believes that the burn marks on each of their bodies indicate where electrodes were placed before the electric current was passed through their body’.

  ‘Someone knew what they were doing’ said DC Emily Ng. ‘And I don’t mean simply from watching The Green Mile over and over again’.

  ‘I do believe we’re looking for someone who’s in the trade’ agreed Barton. ‘There were also signs of restraints having been used around their ankles, wrists, and neck. Now it would take specialist knowledge to create an electric chair that was powerful enough to kill someone. Scott Delaney showed no aptitude for such things even if Ronald Hermitage thought he did. Now I want every electrician running his own business, and let’s start with the one man bands because I do think this maniac is operating alone, contacted and investigated. It’s a big job I know but we need to get to it. We’ve also had the hand writing on Scott Delaney’s apparent confession note analysed and compared with his hand writing on other documents and notes. Our expert says there’s no match and that the writing on the suicide note looks like a rather crude attempt at copying Scott’s hand writing. Which all leads me to conclude that he was helped into doing away with himself. He had no reason to commit suicide’.

  ‘Except for the shame of being falsely accused of murder, sir’ said Bradshaw.

  ‘Scott Delaney did not commit suicide, my friends’ said Barton. ‘He was murdered and it was made to look like suicide. That’s why his death is part of this investigation’.

  ‘The real killer could’ve done it to take our attention away from himself?’ DC Ng suggested.

  ‘He could’ve’ said Barton. ‘But then what would be the point if he was planning to kill again anyway?’

  ‘Do you think Hermitage was responsible for the murder of Delaney, sir?’ asked DS Ben Masters.

  ‘It would surprise me, Stuart’ Barton answered. ‘But I also want to stick to the facts as we know them and not go down that same deluded road he did’.

  ‘The circuit doesn’t take any prisoners, sir’ said Masters. ‘Meaning that if they’d wanted Delaney out of the picture then they would’ve stopped at nothing’.

  ‘I agree’ said Barton. ‘But anyway let’s get back to our immediate priorities. I want the other residents of the apartment block where Delaney lived interviewed. One of them may have seen or heard something. Also, I want to know who were the officers in charge in the investigation into the murders of Imelda Stratton and Vanessa Hermitage. I want to know if they are still in the force or are they living off their pensions and spending their winters on the beach in Tenerife’.

  They all smiled knowingly at Barton’s snipe at some of the already retired members of the profession. The way the pension funds were going for people like Barton and his team there’d barely be enough spare cash for a trip to the footy.

  ‘And Louisa, tell me what else the cold case unit have told you about Jennifer Donaldson, because you said that she came up during their investigation into the murders of Imelda Stratton and Vanessa Hermitage? How come the two things impacted on each other?’

  ‘Well sir, Jennifer was known to both of the young girls and it was just after they were found murdered that Jennifer’s parents sent her into an asylum. She’d made allegations against her father in the course of being questioned about the murders and they wanted to silence her’.

  ‘Really?’ said Barton ‘So it was hinted at that she might have been responsible for the murders?’

  ‘Oh yes, sir’ Louisa confirmed. ‘The documents show that she was questioned by Manchester police at the time but she was let go and then committed under mental health laws’.

  ‘On what grounds did they drop her as a suspect for the murders?’

  ‘No evidence, sir’.

  ‘That hadn’t stopped them before’.

  ‘No but it did this time’ said Louisa. ‘And there really is no evidence to suggest she committed the murders that I could see when I was looking at the file. What is written down is that they did commit her and she was incarcerated in the asylum at a time when she was screaming out to anybody who’d listen that it should be her father in the asylum and not her. She had accused him of raping her during being questioned for the murders and that’s when they seemed to want to prove she was mad’.

  ‘Her parents wanted to somehow prove she was mad and that’s why she was making these allegations against her father?’

  ‘Yes, sir. But strangely enough, Mark Donaldson was never questioned about the allegations made by his daughter Jennifer’

  ‘What kind of father rapes his own daughter and tries to prove she’s mad when she breaks her silence over it?’

  ‘One that has friends who can let him get away with it, sir’ said Masters.

  ‘I think it’s also worth noting, sir’ Louisa went on. ‘That we have reports from some of the nursing staff in the asylum that Jennifer Donaldson virtually had her brains burned out by all the electric shock treatment she received. By the time they’d finished she could barely dress herself. But that’s also when she had her baby’.

  ‘Her baby?’

  ‘Yes sir, a little boy. He was privately adopted but nobody knows by who. He’d be in his mid-twenties by now’.

  Callum drove out to the place near Carnforth that Nick Eades had given him the address for and immediately wondered how a lowly electrician could afford such a homestea
d out in the country. But then he checked himself because Nick had told him that he’d been gifted it by his childless Aunt. As Callum was soon to find out, one of the rooms was now full of his supply of discounted goods for his tradesmen clients, most of whom probably didn’t ask too many questions about where he got them from. They’d just be glad to be able to pay the mortgage that month and put food on the table for the kids to eat. Callum was pleased he didn’t have such considerations. He couldn’t imagine what it must feel like to be responsible for a wife and children and all that went with that.

  He was glad of his car’s satellite navigation system or else he’d probably have struggled to find this place. It was tucked away down a lane that was off another lane that was off the main road. He could see other houses nearby but they were at such a distance that you could probably make as much noise as you like without anyone noticing. Callum pulled up behind what he took to be Nick’s car in the drive and wondered why anyone who was decades away from the kind of wrinkles that made it look like there was a train line going down their neck, would want to live out here. It wasn’t even in the town of Carnforth! It was outside in the country. He hated it when people weren’t precise about locations. It wasn’t so bad if he was in his car but when he walking he really did hate it because he tried not to do walking as much as he could. It was boring. The passing scenery didn’t change fast enough for Callum when he was walking. Unless he was in a big renowned city like London or Paris. He’d been to both of them with his beloved Angus and in both they’d done heaps of walking just taking in the sights.

  He got out of his car and looked around. He’d find the prospect of living out here to be utterly depressing. He was so glad that Angus didn’t have any ideas of being the country squire, despite how rich and successful he became. They were both very definitely city boys and Angus’s apartment in the Northern quarter of the city centre with its floor to ceiling windows suited Callum very well. Angus had all the essentials of wine, champagne, vodka, gin, and scotch delivered and tended to stick to the food hall at M and S for other supplies. He knew what he wanted and he liked to live well. Callum had no complaints about that. He’d never call himself a gold digger but it was perhaps a good thing that he’d met someone as financially solvent as Angus because Callum’s champagne tastes whilst earning beer money would’ve got him into serious financial strife somewhere down the line.