Deep Fear

  They had nothing further to pin on Timothy Cole, but he remained a POI. Person of Interest wasn’t a legal term, as such – not like suspect or material witness – it simply meant they would remain on the table, so to speak. Kelly had spent the rest of her weekend on the phone talking to old colleagues of the surgeon, trying to uncover the slightest a hint of arrogance or complacency associated with the so-called ‘God-complex’. So far she’d unearthed nothing of the sort. Surgeons, by the very nature of their field, had to be confident and sure and Timothy Cole had earned respect and admiration over his surprisingly illustrious career. No matter what new angle they tried, Timothy Cole didn’t fit their MO. He had a happy childhood, was a straight A student at school and college, had no previous, and didn’t even smoke.

  ‘Sorry about the mess. I’ve just got a new job, and I haven’t had much time at home. Can I get you a drink?’ Colin said. The guy was all control and charm, the antithesis to his mother.

  He looked like his mother but then Kelly had to check herself: Emily Tate wasn’t this man’s mother. She wondered that, if people spent enough time together, they began to take on the same characteristics. But Colin Tate didn’t exude pessimism, in fact quite the opposite. He was clearly down on his luck – a thirty-eight-year-old man with transient employment, a dubious past, and a one-bedroom flat; but she wanted to know more about him. He closed the door behind them.

  ‘I’d love anything cold, please,’ Kelly said.

  ‘I think I’ve got some lemon cordial?’ Colin offered.

  ‘That’ll be fine, thank you,’ she said. She watched as Colin went into the tiny kitchen that must have been a metre and a half squared, and looked around for clean cups.

  When he came back, he held two plastic cups of juice (no ice), and he held one out to her, which she took gratefully. There were few seating options, but Colin tidied away a few piles of clothes (by moving them onto a table), and they both managed to sit down.

  ‘Colin, I’m sure you know why I’m here. It’s been quite a task getting hold of you.’ Kelly was giving him a chance to explain. Colin bowed his head for a moment, and looked at her. ‘Yes, I do. Mum told me,’ he said. He offered no more than that, so Kelly carried on.

  ‘When was the last time you saw your stepmother, Moira?’

  Colin looked at the small window facing the street and sighed. ‘Erm…years ago. I mean, I never really had much to do with her, apart from visiting Dad, and I kind of stopped that.’

  ‘Why did you stop visiting your father?’

  ‘It’s personal,’ Colin said, with finality.

  ‘I’m sorry, could you elaborate? It’s important.’

  ‘Why is it important?’ Colin asked.

  ‘We’re trying to establish who was in Moira’s life, and who came and went, and why. A change in your relationship might indicate deterioration, or an escalation, if you see what I mean.’ She sipped her cool water and looked around. It was half habit, and half intention. She and Johnny used to do it in bars, trying to work out the personalities behind the veneers, before they split up. She missed him. In Colin, she saw a single man, untidy but functional, unharried by convention and nature. She wondered if Johnny would agree.

  ‘I didn’t like her. I thought she was after Dad’s money, and that was all. I told Dad what I thought and he said I was on my own. I said that was fine by me, and I never went back. I sent back the cheques he wrote, and I tried to move on.’

  ‘Can you tell us about the incident at the care home in Ulverston?’

  Colin was prepared. His mother had warned him.

  ‘It was an accident. I was being bullied, I snapped and pushed the guy off me, he banged his head and he haemorrhaged. He died,’ Colin stopped. He looked down at his hands. When he looked back up, his eyes were wet and bloodshot. ‘I didn’t mean it. It’s the worst thing that ever happened, and I’ve never been able to forget it – no-one has allowed me ever to forget it. I can’t keep jobs, I can’t keep friends – they always, always find out.’

  Kelly saw flashes of anger, which might be explained through frustration – or might not. Colin got to his feet, paced up and down the tiny room, and ran his hands through his hair. It was behaviour one might see in a care home. Institutionalisation.

  ‘Did Moira know about it, Colin?’

  ‘Yes!’ he shouted, and spittle flew out of his mouth. ‘She told Dad I was scum!’ He turned around and faced a wall and spread his hands across the wall. Kelly wished she’d brought someone with her. She took out her mobile phone and checked the signal, pretending she had an incoming call.

  ‘Sorry.’ She excused herself and spoke into the phone. In reality, she was logging on to the internet to record her location. She pretended to end the call and turned back to Colin.

  ‘Colin, do you know Brandy Carter?’

  ‘Who? No. Why are you asking me this? Who is she?’ Colin’s face softened slightly with surprise, and Kelly almost felt sorry for him. He was rash, confused and suffering, but in all probability not a threat to her at all.

  ‘Maybe this will help.’ Kelly passed him a photo of Brandy. It puzzled her as to why anyone – given the press coverage – might not have seen Brandy’s face or heard her name in the news.

  ‘Oh her! Christ, everyone knows her! She’s a…’ he faltered.

  ‘She’s a what?’

  ‘She’s a filthy cunt!’ Colin spurted out.

  Kelly waited calmly for the moment to pass, and for Colin Tate to compose himself.

  ‘Why is she a cunt, Colin?’ Kelly asked. She hated the word and it sat brutally on her tongue. Colin Tate had used it viciously.

  ‘She bullies kids for money. She knew if I ever caught her I’d punch her in her stupid face – that’s what she deserved – she ran away every time she saw me,’ Colin said.

  ‘She’s dead,’ Kelly said.

  ‘What?’ Colin was dismayed.

  ‘Don’t you watch the news, Colin? Her body was found on Saturday morning. She was murdered. In a similar way to Moira.’ Kelly took a risk. In lots of ways, Colin Tate reminded her of a child.

  ‘What do you want me to say? Maybe Moira was supplying her with smack? I have no idea if they knew each other. I’m not surprised, though. The girl knew some rough people. I never knew her name was Brandy.’

  Colin’s anger seemed to have dissipated, for now, and he sat down heavily on a dining chair.

  ‘What do I have to do with all of this?’ he said.

  ‘Oh, Colin. Do I have to spell it out? It looks bad. You disliked both women, for fairly profound reasons, and you live in the area in which they disappeared, and you know The Lakes well, don’t you?’

  Colin looked nonplussed.

  ‘You obviously love the outdoors.’ Kelly walked over to the table that was piled high with clothes, and retrieved a picture that had been stood up against a wall. She turned to face Colin and held it up. It was a stunning canvas of a photograph taken of a wooden jetty disappearing into a lake, with mountains framing the background. It was very artistic.

  ‘One of the most famous pictures taken of Derwent Water, ever. And over here,’ she said, as she put the picture down and walked across the room, pointing at another picture, this time on the wall.

  ‘A stunning painting of Hardknot Pass.’ She waited. ‘Gifts or knick-knacks?’ Kelly asked.

  ‘I climb,’ he said, finally.

  ‘I’d appreciate it should you volunteer a DNA sample, as well as a handwriting sample, Mr Tate,’ said Kelly.

  ‘Are you arresting me?’ Colin said quietly. He appeared meek once more, and Kelly was taken by how quickly he could switch between moods. She felt an overwhelming pity for him, as if he’d spent his whole life resigned to the fact that he was a good-for-nothing nobody who would never change.

  ‘No, I’m not,’ said Kelly. She pulled a pair of gloves out of her bag, pulled them on, found a swab, and went towards him. He pulled back.

  ‘I can take cells from inside your mouth, it tak
es a second and you won’t feel anything.’

  Slowly Colin opened his mouth. Kelly ran the swab around the inside of his cheek. Quickly, she sealed it, popped it into her bag, and got out a note pad and pen.

  ‘Please,’ she said to him.

  ‘What should I write?’ he asked, meekly again, like a child.

  ‘Your name and address will do, and put some words in speech marks for me.’

  They could be dealing with a schizophrenic: if he remembered penning the lines of verse, he didn’t show it. Colin did as he was asked, and as soon as he handed the piece of paper back to Kelly, she knew one of two things: either Colin Tate was a master of evasion, or he was not their killer.

  But that’s what her job was all about.

  Disappointment.

  Chapter 31

  Brian Wick walked along the road with his head hunched low into his neck, his hood was pulled tightly over his head – despite the warmth from the sun – and his hands were deep in his jeans pockets, which hung about his hips in a USA gang-style arrangement. His boots were dirty, and he sniffed every other step, fighting a cold, or irritated by too much coke. Monk followed, three or four steps behind.

  No-one was startled or moved by the sight. Young men in such garb, boasting the gait of men unfazed by social mores, were common in large towns across Britain. Underneath their clothes, and inside their chests, though, they were anything but ordinary. They’d spent three days deciding what to do next. Their photographs had been released by the local press, and had appeared in newspapers. They dare not go back to their flats, and their families had been warned by the police before they could get to them. Friends hid them and they slept on sofas, in bath tubs and on kitchen floors, but they couldn’t do it forever. Neither young man could have known that their details had been entered onto the PNC, and it was only a matter of time before they’d be brought in.

  Monk had suggested giving themselves up, but Bick had reminded him that the last time they saw Brandy Carter alive, they’d been facing one another, with her in between. Their DNA would be all over her. Monk had watched CSI, but he didn’t think the police were that clever in Britain. Bick’s plan was to hitchhike to Manchester, but they needed to grow some facial hair and change their appearance well enough to put distance between their photos and their reality. Bick’s beard was coming along nicely, but Monk’s was slow.

  They took a risk, being in public together, but they were buzzing from the long night of excellent coke and beer. Taken together, their two favourite drugs, when they could get hold of them, enabled them to drink all night and not lose their senses. However, it also meant that they’d forgotten that they were in hiding. They shuffled along towards Casey’s flat, but they’d got lost, and they’d walked along the same street four times. Now they were sobering up, and both boys experienced a rising panic as two old women gave them lengthy stares outside the post office.

  Bick needed a smoke but he was out so he popped into the off-licence, Monk following meekly. Bick went inside and asked for ten Benson and Hedges, as well as a lighter. He was barely outside when he lit up and passed one to Monk.

  There were no sirens.

  An unmarked car screeched to a halt outside the off-licence, and the two boys froze. Only then did the response team let their sirens blare and the blues flash. Bick felt his anal sphincter muscle twitch, and his heart began to beat faster than if he was running at full speed. He believed that, at any moment, the organ would jump through his skin onto the pavement below. Monk’s hands flew up in the air before his brain engaged, and later, he wouldn’t be able to remember the next twenty seconds of his life. Bick’s eyes darted about. There were two cars, one contained the uniformed pigs, and the other two plain clothes detectives - one male, one female. He glared at the female. He knew his time was up and he raised his hands. The uniforms approached with caution, instructing the two males to turn around and place their hands behind their backs, which they did. Once cuffed, they were led back to the response car. Kelly got out and walked towards them.

  Kelly looked at Brian Wick and knew he called the shots. The meek boy beside him, looking as though he’d pissed himself, was a follower. Kelly had considered the possibility of two killers working together, but it was a rare MO and Emma had seen three figures at the flat. They knew that Brandy had bought cigarettes from the corner shop around eleven p.m. but she could have easily gone back to the flat after that. Another doubt cast a shadow over Kelly’s theory: looking at the two boys before her, extraordinarily out of their depth, she doubted if either had even heard of the Lakeland poets. Or, if either, even inside a psychotic episode, could write a sentence. And where was the third man? That said, they could still give Kelly information about the second victim that could turn out to be crucial.

  ‘You’re entitled to a lawyer present, Brian,’ said Kelly.

  ‘I don’t need a fucking lawyer, I haven’t done anything,’ he replied. Kelly noticed that his eyes were red and he sniffed every ten seconds or so: drugs, she thought. He was probably Brandy’s supplier and Kelly had a good idea how she paid for them. She nodded and the young men were helped in to the car.

  They drove to Penrith police station where interview rooms had been set up. They could hold the men for twenty-four hours, more if they found reasonable evidence to put before DCI Cane and his superiors at Clifton Hall.

  Once they’d entered the station, Bick and Monk were relieved of their possessions, processed, and guided into separate rooms. Kelly watched as Brian Wick stared at the other man’s back as he was led in the opposite direction. She could tell by his face that they hadn’t got a story straight before they’d been caught. Brian Wick had already done two years inside, and Kelly doubted he’d want to go back. She might be able to use it as leverage. She decided to let the two of them stew for a bit while she briefed her team.

  She wanted to interview Wick herself. DS Will Phillips would take care of the other, as yet unidentified, man. It was established that he’d been the one who’d answered the door at Wick’s flat.

  Those who were present from Kelly’s team met in the incident room. Kelly spoke.

  ‘We know that Moira and Brandy were killed by the same person. We know that they have a calling card. But I’m sure you will all agree, that when we brought in these two clowns, they probably didn’t do it. However, we’ll lean on them and see why they ran. Will, I want you to take the dribbling wreck – find a name and run him through the system. I’ll take Brian Wick.’

  ‘Guv.’ Phillips nodded.

  ‘Kate, can you watch the feed and take notes?’

  Kelly walked with DC Phillips and they approached the interview rooms.

  Kelly walked into the room where Brian Wick was sweating and trying desperately to deal with the toxins in his body, and sat down. She offered him a drink. He took it gratefully and gulped the whole cup down.

  ‘Thirsty?’

  No answer.

  ‘You’ve been busy. Why the rush to get away, Brian?’

  She followed his eyes as he watched her and it made her feel queasy. The scrotum was flirting with her in a murder enquiry. He was a slime-ball, but was he a murderer?

  He agreed to have his mouth swabbed for DNA and, as she took it, his eyes watched her face. Close up, his skin was ravaged by toxins, his breath smelled of alcohol, and his body of sweat.

  ‘Where were you between the 12th and the 14th of July, Brian?’ she asked.

  ‘On the 12th, I was at my flat, hanging, playing GTA, and I went to bed early,’ he said. Kelly expected a long battle.

  ‘What’s GTA?’ Kelly feigned ignorance. She abhorred games like GTA, and those who played them.

  ‘Grand Theft Auto,’ Bick said, smugly.

  ‘Ah, yes, the game where thugs go round raping, beating and killing women, right?’ Kelly asked. Wick shifted uncomfortably.

  ‘And when was the last time you saw Brandy Carter alive?’ she asked.

  ‘That day. She left the flat when I was a
sleep and she never came back,’ he said.

  ‘And what fun and games did you get up to before she just walked out of your life?’ she asked.

  Kelly had interviewed scores of men like Brian Wick. They were cocky, too relaxed and always alpha. Brian sat back in his chair, seemingly enjoying himself and Kelly wondered how scum like this survived the womb. She could see his brain working out what he should say next. How much should he admit to, and when to tell her. She waited.

  ‘Me and Monk had sex with her,’ he said. Kelly knew the score: that little gem would explain any DNA found on Brandy.

  ‘There was another one too,’ he said. Kelly sat forward.

  ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

  ‘Another person. There were three of us who had sex with her. Don’t look at me like that, it wasn’t the first time, she was willing, but we didn’t kill her,’ he said. As he spoke, he looked at Kelly directly and she held his gaze. He was earnest and very convincing. Or an extremely good actor. ‘She got stuff in exchange, she wasn’t forced.’ Bick seemed to Kelly as though he was keen to emphasise this fact.

  ‘So, why did you run?’ she asked.

  ‘Because you fuckers never believe me,’ he retorted.

  ‘Is it any wonder, when you call us fuckers?’ she asked.

  He didn’t answer.

  ‘Do you know what time she left?’ she asked.

  ‘I woke up at about eleven for the toilet, and she wasn’t there. I thought she might be asleep on the couch, like she sometimes stayed there. But she wasn’t, so I went to the toilet and thought she might have gone out for fags, but it was too late by then. So I thought she was in the other room with Monk or Tinny,’ he paused.

  ‘Monk or Tinny?’ Kelly asked. It made her pity these young men who still called each other names that belonged in the school playground. Their lives were so empty and immature that all they had was X-box, porn and lots of time. She wondered at the lethargy, arrogance and desolation that led young men to shirk a meaningful life for one full of nothing, along with the girls who followed them round; girls like Brandy Carter who led equally depressing existences.