Deep Fear

‘What have the police told you so far, Mrs Carter?’ It was the same journo, but she wore a tight royal blue dress and her hair was expertly curled around her heavily made up face. The VT was pre-recorded.

  ‘Nothing. They’ve been here once. I even had to ring up to see her…’ said Sharon.

  ‘To see your own daughter?’ the journo asked, affronted. Sharon Carter nodded and sniffed. The journo offered her a tissue and it was taken graciously. A footer ran along the bottom of the screen reading:

  Sharon Carter – mother of murdered student Brandy Carter. Frustration mounts as families demand answers and killer evades police.

  Sharon nodded. Kelly had been informed that Sharon Carter had indeed visited her daughter at the morgue but, despite leaving messages and sending officers to her address, no-one had seen the mother of Brandy Carter since Emma Hide had seen her lying comatose on her stinking sofa.

  ‘What do you want to say to the police, Sharon?’ the journo pressed on, occasionally batting her eyelids to the camera, as if interviewing Miss World.

  ‘I just want to know who killed my Brands,’ Carter replied, before her face crumpled into a bereaved mess. Her shoulders heaved and the camera panned back to Miss Royal Blue looking pained, as if she was about to volunteer to become the next UN envoy for refugee kids. Even Dave Kent had red eyes.

  The piece went back to Miss Royal Blue – now in red again – in the rain, on the council estate. The rain matched everyone’s mood.

  ‘The three women, Moira Tate, Brandy Carter, and Aileen Bickerstaff, were all left in the open, to the cruelty of the elements, at various beauty spots around the Lake District, and one thing is for sure, the police are no nearer to catching this callous killer who discards his victims like trash.’

  ‘Trash? When did we go all US of Fucking A?’ Kelly said.

  ‘But one thing the police actually do agree on, is that they were all killed by the same person, and they were tortured before they were killed, leading some elements of the press to name the man The Teacher. The Cumbria Constabulary released a statement yesterday about the first two victims, but when we went to their headquarters this morning, no-one would see us. It seems they are a constabulary in crisis. The relatives of these women want answers, but they don’t seem to be getting any. Unconfirmed reports from a source close to the enquiry have told us that the killer left poems on the bodies as warnings. The information has not been confirmed or denied by the constabulary, but it gives another sinister twist to the whole saga. The last time we saw anything of this magnitude in such a short space of time was the Suffolk Strangler back in 2006. Police then were just as puzzled, and it took five brutal and shocking deaths to get to the bottom of the case. Will it take five this time? Back to you in the studio.’

  The journo stood for a moment, frozen in the rain, beaming into the camera. She was dwarfed by the scenery behind her, and Kelly guessed that was the point. They wanted to make the problem insurmountable so they could keep coming back to it, for more sensational journalism.

  Kelly flicked off the TV.

  ‘So, Derrent has been talking to the journos. What has surveillance given us?’ she asked. John Derrent had been under police surveillance since the walking tour, joined by a police plant by Kelly.

  ‘He’s in a sexual relationship with a Doctor Sally Bradley, Guv. She’s Director of Medical Studies at Lancaster University’s Faculty of Medicine. It turns out she went to school with Tracy Watkins, who now works as an assistant pathologist in the Carlisle office,’ said the quiet officer who’d endured a day with Professor Derrent.

  ‘Ted Wallis’s office?’ Kelly asked.

  ‘Yes, Guv.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Kelly. Her desk phone rang. She left the room. ‘Take five,’ she said.

  It was DCI Cane. She held the receiver away from her ear, as he shouted into it. The incident room was across the corridor, and Kelly figured that they could probably hear too, from where they were.

  ‘Yes, Guv,’ she said. She walked gloomily back to the incident room, where her team waited.

  ‘Well, if The Teacher wanted national coverage, he’s now got it, and he’s probably loving it. I suppose we should be grateful that none of our faces appeared on the news,’ she said.

  It was only a matter of time before someone got wind of who was leading the investigation. Then, as had happened before, Kelly would be intimately linked to their killer, whether she liked it or not. From that moment on, it would be easy to find out her address, her family members, and her routines. She could be taken off the case.

  She needed to up her game.

  Kelly addressed the room. She stood in front of the white board and nodded to Rob. He pushed a button on his laptop and a photo came up on the white board. The colours flowed over Kelly’s face as she became one with the image behind her: the body of fourteen-year-old Aileen Bickerstaff.

  ‘What do we know, people?’ Kelly asked. Hands flew up.

  Kelly prompted them, one at a time.

  ‘She’s been in and out of the Penrith and Lakes Hospital since she was seven years old with various ailments. Ailing Aileen, they called her in the admin office, Guv. Her last operation was to straighten a scoliotic spine,’ said one. ‘Her mother said she never went anywhere without her cane. It was multi-legged NHS standard issue for her kind of category.’

  ‘Do we think that it was the latest trophy?’

  ‘Yes, Guv.’

  ‘So, the surgery didn’t work? How come she was alone when she disappeared? What was the last sighting?’

  ‘The surgery worked initially, Guv. But the worst type of scoliosis never goes away entirely. It was hoped that the surgery would correct the spine for good, but it didn’t. She was due more surgery when she matured into adulthood. The last sighting was being dropped off the public library in town. She was very independent, according to her mother; there’s no record of her in the library, it seems she never made it inside.’

  ‘Sightings outside and around the library?’

  ‘None yet, Guv.’

  ‘You’d think a young girl with a walking stick would attract attention.’

  ‘Problem is distinguishing between sticks for mountain walking, and sticks for injuries: they’re a common enough sight.’

  ‘But, did she walk with an awkward gait?’

  ‘The mother said she hid it well.’

  Kelly nodded. It appeared that Aileen Bickerstaff’s ability to stare bad luck in the face and tell it to jog on, aiding her assimilation into the able-bodied general public, could well be part of what made her unmemorable. It was a cruel twist.

  ‘Who performed the operation?’ she asked, already guessing the answer.

  ‘Timothy Cole. It says here that no-one else could have done it. She needed thirteen metal plates attached to her vertebrae.’

  ‘We need to get Cole in again. So far, no forensics match him at all. So that leaves us with the possibility that someone wants to frame his backside. Why? I want lists of everybody he’s ever worked with. Carry on,’ Kelly said.

  ‘Yes, Guv. Her mother and father reported Aileen missing five days ago. The coroner put her time of death at twenty-four hours before the dump, just like the others, so it indicates that she was kept alive somewhere for three days,’ said another.

  ‘Why didn’t we know about a missing persons?’ Kelly asked.

  ‘It was reported in Ambleside, Guv. A uniform on the night shift who’d been on scheduled leave, so he hadn’t seen your circular,’ an officer said, apologising on the constable’s behalf.

  ‘And he didn’t think to link the fucking Teacher, who everyone from here to China knows about, might have something to do with a missing female in the Lakes?’ Kelly spat.

  ‘No, Guv.’

  ‘Please tell me we found something – anything – on the body, apart from what the coroner already noted,’ Kelly said. She hadn’t had the stomach to attend another autopsy.

  ‘A grey fibre, Guv, and it’s a match to the one found
on Moira Tate’s foot, and under Brandy Carter’s nail.’

  ‘That was quick, who put a firework up the lab’s arse?’ Kelly asked.

  ‘Super Ormond, Guv.’

  ‘You are kidding me?’ Kelly said, brightening. Superintendent Neil Ormond only came out of his ivory tower at Clifton Hall for high-profile press releases or golf. DCI Cane must be feeling the heat.

  ‘Who’s working the council addresses? I want a list of them now,’ she asked.

  ‘There are five hundred and fifty-two,’ DS Umshaw said.

  ‘I want them all. They need to be cross-referenced with employees at the hospital. And past employees. Have we looked into the poem?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, Guv. It’s Coleridge.’ DC Emma Hide walked towards Kelly and showed her the linked email. The image came up on the white board.

  ‘Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve,

  And Hope without an object cannot live.’

  ‘Emma?’ Kelly asked. The whole team had begun to look at DC Hide as their Lakes poetry go-to, and she was stepping up to the new limelight. Kelly watched her.

  ‘It’s all about effort, and how human beings just take life for granted, and don’t invest in their own wellbeing, but just expect the earth to care for them.’ It was a brave shout, espousing philosophy in the middle of a police investigation, but the room was absolutely silent when DC Hide spoke. ‘The theme of punishment is clear in all three murders now, and the poetry is telling us their sins, i.e. why they deserved their fates. Aileen Bickerstaff’s sin was that she was a burden on society, it smacks of Darwinism, Guv.’

  ‘So that was Ailing Aileen’s sin: she sucked the NHS dry,’ said Kelly. ‘How current. The Teacher is an apt epithet. Who came up with it?’

  ‘It was used once by the Evening Echo and then the Westmorland Gazette, but Professor Derrent has been increasing his Instagram followers using its hashtag, and now everyone’s using it.’

  ‘He’ll like it.’ Kelly thought aloud. ‘Thanks everybody. You’re all doing an amazing job. Keep your eyes peeled on the news: they can be great allies. Carry on with the fantastic work, and apologise on my behalf to your families, I know the long hours are taking their toll. DS Umshaw, it’s your turn to get home on time tonight. Spend some time with the girls and get some rest.’

  Kate Umshaw nodded. Kelly was rotating their hours so no-one burned out. Every member of her team was willing to go the extra mile, but she couldn’t have officers missing detail through fatigue. She left the room and called Ted Wallis.

  ‘No I’m not joking,’ she said to him. ‘Tracy Watkins, one of your assistants, is the leak.’

  Kelly thought back to the afternoon that she and Johnny had approached Aileen’s body, not knowing then that she was a mere fourteen years old. As they’d approached her, they’d noticed a nasty, raw scar on the girl’s hip, and it was only when Ted Wallis called her after the autopsy, that he’d told her what was inside. He’d found the poem sewn into her, after one of her old scars had been reopened.

  Chapter 40

  Kelly made her way to the ward where her mother had been for three days. She walked like an automaton to the allotted bed. This week’s bed.

  It was empty.

  Blind panic set in, and Kelly ran frantically from the room, shouting randomly, looking for a nurse or a doctor. A nurse stepped in her way and caught her by both arms, head on, and she stopped, breathless, and shocked.

  ‘My…’ Kelly said.

  ‘It’s alright, Kelly, erm, Miss Porter – she’s fine. We wanted to give her an ultrasound on her heart, before allowing her to go home. Relax. She’s ok,’ said the nurse. The nurse wasn’t tall, but she was solid, and Kelly was thankful for someone to, literally, run in to. Kelly managed a weak smile.

  ‘Come on,’ said the nurse. ‘I’ll make you a cup of tea, sit down here,’ she ordered, ushering her back to the room where her mother should have been. Kelly was unaccustomed to taking orders, but she did as she was told, and it felt good not to have to think. Her head hurt, as well as her body. She longed to lie down and close her eyes, drifting away, slowly, on a gentle breeze. She was thankful that Nikki wasn’t here. They’d stayed true to their word, and made an effort to visit their mother separately. When they found themselves in the same room, one of them left.

  The nurse left her sitting in a hard armchair, adjacent to her mother’s empty bed. Kelly appreciated that the NHS was short on cash, but she marvelled at the lack of comfort and taste when choosing ward furniture. She sat back, willing herself to breathe slower, in an attempt to calm her beating heart.

  She was losing it.

  She was terrified of failure. If she didn’t catch this sick bastard soon, her reputation would be in tatters and another woman would die. Despite her tan, she had dark circles under her eyes and her skirt felt looser than normal. She hated losing weight; it made her feel weak.

  The nurse came back to the room and handed her a proper mug of tea – rather than one from a machine – and she was grateful. The nurse must have a thousand and one things to do, but she’d recognised the need of someone else, and that compassion was the thing Kelly loved most about nurses, most of them.

  ‘I’m sure I’m holding you up. You must have other things to do. Don’t worry about me, I’m fine,’ Kelly said. She wondered if the ruse would work. When a woman uses the word fine, it usually meant WARNING: STORM AHEAD. Kelly joked that fine was actually an acronym for Fucked-up, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional. Woman to woman, it meant: please stay a while, I need you.

  The nurse put her hand on Kelly’s, and smiled.

  ‘I know you’re ok. You need to slow down, that’s all. You can’t save everyone,’ the nurse said, and left quietly. Kelly stared at the door for a long time and sipped her tea. It was warm and sweet, and Kelly felt the goodness spread through her body, and she relaxed a little.

  By the time her mother was brought back to the ward, Kelly was fast asleep in the uncomfortable chair.

  ‘Mum,’ Kelly said, dazed and disoriented, rubbing her eyes and stretching. ‘My god, what time is it?’ She looked at her watch and groaned inwardly. She’d been asleep for more than an hour. She needed to get going.

  ‘Kelly, love. You must have needed it,’ her mother said. ‘I watched the news with the nurses last night; they don’t know what they’re talking about. You just carry on doing what you’re doing. You’ll get him, Kelly, I know you will.’ Her mother’s voice was deliberately impassioned, and Kelly felt her insides stir with gratitude. But the feeling soon turned sour, as she took in the appearance of her mother. For the first time since diagnosis, Wendy Porter looked very slightly yellow. And they all knew what that meant. Her face was slightly sunken, and her eyes lacked vigour.

  ‘The new medicine worked, I can go home tomorrow,’ said Wendy brightly.

  Kelly smiled at her mother’s resolve. Whatever was thrown at her; she bounced back with determination; it was a lesson that most of us could learn from. She went to her mother and embraced her.

  Kelly knew she’d have to move into her new house at some point, but was waiting for the right time to announce it. Wendy showed no sign that Nikki might have told their mother about the move out of spite; that was at least positive. Furniture had begun to arrive at the property in Pooley Bridge, and Kelly had browsed new bathroom fittings. As always, this wasn’t a good time. Wendy put her arms around her daughter’s waist and closed her eyes.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me about your house?’ she said. Kelly’s heart sank. So she knew after all.

  ‘Oh Mum, I…Nikki shouldn’t have told you.’

  ‘Why not? I’m pleased for you, Kelly. It’s the right thing to do. At your age, I had two children and a husband to look after. You need to get a move on, you know, and you’re not going to meet anyone living with your mum,’ Wendy said. Kelly hadn’t really thought about it like that.

  ‘Now you can stop sneaking around.’ Kelly went to say something, but Wendy held her hand up and
shook her head.

  ‘Promise me you’ll catch this man, Kelly. He’s used his life for awful things, and he’s well and living, and taking and hurting and killing. And I’ve done everything right: been nice to people, respectful, worked hard, and been the best person I could be, and I’m the one who’s laying in hospital having needles stuck into me when I should be out in the sunshine, enjoying myself. It’s not fair.’

  ‘I will, Mum. I promise.’

  ‘Well then, off you go,’ Wendy said, and sat down on her bed. ‘I’m not going anywhere today.’

  Her mother was giving her a blessing. She was ordering her to go to work. She was saying: it’s ok to leave. Go and make it count.

  As she left the hospital, and climbed into her car, she received a message from DS Umshaw, and replayed it.

  Timothy Cole, along with his family, had gone missing.

  Chapter 41

  DC Phillips talked as Kelly drove. Her right foot pushed further down on the accelerator, and as she squeezed it lower, her aggravation faded. When she was focused on something – anything – she didn’t feel it, but in the confines of the car, and with traffic slowing them down, Kelly was tormented by things she couldn’t change in her personal life, as well as in the case.

  They were driving to Whitehaven and took the A66. Summer had returned to the fells after the blip of rain that had marred the dry run. Blencathra and then Skiddaw shone resplendent in the changing light. Kelly could have done with a hard hike up either right now, but there was no let-up in the case, and the need to show progress was no more pressing than now with a suspect AWOL and leads sending them in all directions. She was aware of Phillips’ slight discomfort and slowed a little.

  ‘Tell me about the care home, Will.’ He went through his notes.

  ‘1996 – The Whitehaven Home for Children and Adolescents burned down, killing two staff and three children. Tania Stewart was a day warden – a kind of house mistress – there. After the fire, she worked in a Workington home until 1999, moving to Yorkshire, where she worked until her death.’