Shed No Tears

by Caz Frear

  “Morning, m’dears. So, dental records are back, ID confirmed, no surprises there.” She holds up a file. “Hell of a surprise from the postmortem, though.” I look at Parnell, who gives a small “told you so” nod. “Got the results late last night.”

  “Holly Kemp was shot in the head,” interrupts Blake, his flat, officious tone neutralizing the sudden lightning-bolt energy. “No bullet or casings were retrieved from the skull or the scene, so she was either shot elsewhere and dumped in the Caxton field, or over the course of six years, a wild animal, maybe a fox, a squirrel, a rat, made off with them.” I aim a childish grin at Parnell, amused by the image. “What we have is a close-range, small-caliber gunshot wound just above her left ear, about a quarter of an inch and—”

  “And what doesn’t need saying,” Steele breaks Blake’s stride, “is that this is obviously very different to Christopher Masters’ other victims. Her hyoid bone wasn’t fractured either, which doesn’t rule out strangulation, but it was present in the others.”

  “Why bother strangling when you’ve got a gun?” Flowers is sensitive to the last.

  “But a bullet to the head is clinical, impersonal,” I say, trying to get my head around the news.

  “Not Masters’ style at all,” adds Parnell.

  Blake ignores us, bringing things back on script. “So adding this to the markedly different burial site, we’re presented with something of a situation. A rather shit situation, if I’m frank.” Suppressed smiles all around. “And this is why I’ve formally asked Chief Inspector Steele to look into Holly Kemp’s case again. We need to be seen to be considering all options.”

  “To be seen” tells you everything you need to know about Blake. About his love of PR. His pathological obsession with the all-important “optics.”

  “Um, just to say, she wasn’t actually buried, sir.” Yes, I’m being facetious but I’m also being factual. “She was hidden. Well hidden.”

  “Which suggests her killer didn’t have the time or strength to dig a hole and bury her,” says Parnell.

  Her killer. Not Masters. With one piece of news, no longer a given.

  At least not for Parnell, anyway. Swaines lands a fist on Masters’ photo. “Well, there you go. This guy looks like he’d have trouble digging a sandcastle, never mind a grave.”

  DC Craig Cooke, a little defensive, probably on account of not exactly being Mr. Muscle himself, warns, “Don’t be fooled, mate. He was a tradesman, a grafter, he renovated houses. That means being on your feet all day, carting stuff in and out of the place. He might not have been Arnie, but I bet he was fit.”

  Renée Akwa agrees. “Fit enough to overpower three women and dump them in Dulwich Woods.”

  “Yeah, three naked women. Holly wasn’t naked.” I look over at Steele, reminding her that I said this yesterday.

  Blake presses on, not comfortable with the ad-libbing, the back-and-forth. “OK, so let me be clear about something. Very clear. We are not suggesting that Christopher Masters wasn’t responsible for Holly Kemp’s death. There was a solid witness ID, remember? Someone who put Holly with Masters immediately before she vanished. However, with the story due to break, we have to make sure we’re covering all bases.”

  “Covering our arses,” murmurs Flowers.

  Steele’s eyes flash, and if she heard it, Blake heard it. Not that Flowers will care particularly. Solid copper that he is, he doesn’t have much ambition beyond a pat on the head and a token annual pay raise.

  Blake’s reaching the crescendo of his speech. “Chief Inspector Steele will be making a statement to the media very shortly, simply stating that we’re reviewing all evidence in light of finding Holly’s remains. We’re holding off on releasing the cause of death for as long as we can, though, citing investigative purposes.” He shifts from foot to foot. “Now, I’m sure I don’t need to tell you all that with current staffing levels, we can do without chasing our tails on this one. We’re implementing a full review because we have to, but the best result all round will be to prove a link to Christopher Masters so that we can put this to bed for good. Get closure for Holly’s family.”

  “Foster families,” I correct.

  Blake obviously hasn’t read her Social Services file, but I have. Seven a.m. this morning, with my picnic plate on my lap, I’d buried myself in “The Ballad of Holly Kemp,” the story of a girl with no luck and no roots. Dad dead from a motorcycle accident before she turned ten. Mum dead twelve months later from an overdose/broken heart. A brief mention of an aunt who had neither the space nor the inclination to take her in.

  “Sir . . .” Steele looks anxious, nodding to the clock on the back wall. “Not that we’re trying to get rid of you, but didn’t you say you were due at the Yard at ten a.m.?”

  That clock has been fast since I joined MIT4. It does the trick, though. He leaves.

  Steele waits until she hears the lift closing, then, “Oh, shoot me. He’s been here for nearly two hours and he was getting on my tits after one. Anyway, it’ll give him extra time to sculpt his chest hair, or whatever it is that impresses them so much over there.”

  Flowers’ voice is peak gruff. “So now he’s gone, can we just say it?”

  Steele beams. “Say what, Pete, my little beacon of positivity?”

  “The ice queen, Dyer. Her lot did a shoddy job. Took this witness as gospel and lumped Holly in with the others.”

  I’m not quite sure what Dyer did to deserve the “ice queen” mantle, other than bleach her hair white-blond and be less peppy than Steele.

  “I don’t think that’s fair,” I say, calm and even—Flowers doesn’t need an excuse to accuse me of being whiny. “Six years later, she can still rattle off facts, dates, even bloody CCTV timings. That case meant a lot.”

  Parnell nods. “I’m with Cat. Maybe Holly got kicked into the long grass eventually, but it happens. Things slide when there’s no family pushing for answers, year in, year out. Doesn’t mean she ran a shoddy investigation.”

  I look to Steele, expecting agreement, but in its place there’s discomfort. Apprehension, even. She takes a seat at DC Emily Beck’s vacant desk, saying nothing at first. Picking up perfumes and spraying them, straightening papers, biding time. Putting off the inevitable, although I haven’t a clue what the inevitable is.

  “Look, there’s a few things you all need to be aware of. Things King of the Gloss Job, Blake, neglected to mention. And this goes no further than these four walls. I mean it.” A communal nod, every ear pricked. “OK, so the different dump site, the different method of killing, they’re both new anomalies. But there’s always been anomalies in Holly Kemp’s case. Her DNA was never found at 6 Valentine Street for a start.”

  I’d read this but hadn’t broken too much of a sweat. “Every contact leaves a trace” is great for putting the wind up suspects, but it’s not infallible. It’s much harder to leave DNA than the cop shows would have you believe.

  “Also, no pay-as-you-go number was found in Holly’s phone records.”

  “Didn’t Dyer say the boyfriend had a theory about that?” says Parnell.

  “Who, the convicted burglar who took three days to report his girlfriend missing?” Steele’s face could turn milk sour. “Can’t say I’m wildly interested in his theories, Lu. Although I am interested in speaking to him again. Spencer Shaw will be getting a visit very soon, that’s for sure.”

  “Already on it,” hollers Swaines from behind his row of PCs. “Haven’t found him yet.”

  “Did he give an alibi at the time?” I ask.

  “For all it was worth,” Steele fires back. “He was with another girl—‘a friend’—the day Holly vanished and the couple of days after. But like Dyer said, it didn’t really matter after Serena Bailey’s ID.”

  Nothing mattered after Serena Bailey’s ID.

  “Talking of Dyer, where is she?” I look around, as though she might be hiding somewhere. “Shouldn’t she be here?”

  After yesterday, I’m full of good f
eels for Tessa Dyer. She was so kind about Dad, driving me to the station, physically putting me on the train because she thought I looked woozy, filling my angst-ravaged head with all the minor things it could be: “My mum cut the tip of her finger off, chopping a parsnip on Christmas Day.”

  “No, she shouldn’t be here. Like Pete said—a bit bloody loud, I might add—Dyer’ll be covering her arse right now. I’m not saying she put a foot wrong, or that I’d have done anything different, but having one of your old cases looked into is a royal slap in the face, so it’s natural she’ll be in defensive mode, and we, m’dears, are very much on the offensive. We’ll keep her in the loop, of course. I’ve let her know these latest developments. But the point is, this is our case now.”

  She pauses, batting Emily’s stapler between her hands, mouth twisted as though she’s unsure of the wisdom of what she’s about to say.

  Steele is always sure. This feels big.

  “There’s something else too,” she says, finally. “And this isn’t fact, it’s opinion, just so that’s clear. But I think it needs saying, so . . .” I lean across my desk, intrigued. Parnell’s stroking his chin. Swaines is practically on Steele’s lap. “Tess Dyer is a first-class officer. She came up the ranks quickly but thoroughly, and she has the blessing of the best boss I ever worked for.” But? “But the Roommate case would have been stressful for any DCI, never mind a newly appointed one—it was only her second case as an SIO.” Senior Investigating Officer. Basically, the buck stops with you. The glory or the public flogging is all yours to own. “And it was a real ‘camp beds in the office’ case. Folk getting their heads down in half-hour snatches, caffeine and Red Bull on a drip. And then there was the other issue . . .” The real source of her discomfort, judging by her face. “Dyer’s husband was seriously ill at the time. I don’t know the details—some sort of heart issue.” Parnell’s nodding, he remembers. “And I hate even bringing it up, but what I’ve heard from a few people since is that she massively underplayed it. Only Olly Cairns knew the extent of what she was going through, but he backed her to get the job done anyway. That’s what he was like. He’d put his faith in you, and in return, you’d give him everything.”

  My respect for Dyer grows even bigger, a satellite orbiting the Earth. But I sense where Steele’s going with this.

  Parnell does too. “That’s a lot of pressure to be under. A lot of plates to be spinning. Mistakes could get made.”

  “They could, Lu.” Steele nods her agreement, her thanks to him for pointing out what it pained her to do. “A high-profile case, the stress of her husband, two young kids . . . it could have affected her performance. So now with the cause of death, the Caxton site, we have to at least consider the possibility she might have got Holly wrong, neglected other lines of inquiry.”

  We sit with this, briefly. A minute’s silence for the career of a bloody good officer.

  “But Serena Bailey, the witness?” I say, the first to break the quiet.

  Steele shuffles right back into Emily’s chair, her feet only just grazing the floor. “Look, we’re going to go through this methodically like we would any other case. First proposition—on the balance of probability, Christopher Masters killed Holly. Serena Bailey’s rock-solid ID makes it almost impossible to see how anyone else was responsible, and he admitted or implied it on several occasions. So we do exactly as Blake said—we link him to a gun, or to Cambridgeshire, or to both, preferably. Seth and Emily should be arriving in Newcastle any time now, so let’s see what the ex-wife says. What else?”

  “Masters’ bank records,” I say. “We need a petrol station, a pub, anything that puts him near Caxton around the time Holly disappeared.”

  “You OK to get that rushed through, Benny-boy?” Steele bats her lashes at Swaines, MIT4’s official blue-eyed dreamboat and unofficial data-whore. He also rarely leaves the office, which makes him an obvious teacher’s pet—Steele’s faithful little pup, lovely to look at and always by her side.

  “Rushed through?” I’m confused. “They’re not on file already?”

  “No.” Steele shrugs, more bemused than bothered. “I’d have probably requested them, but then it’s fine saying that with the benefit of hindsight. Like Lu said, they were spinning a lot of plates and Masters admitted being at the house that day, where an eyewitness placed him, so it wouldn’t have been high priority. I’d say the focus was on getting him charged for the other three—the bodies they did have—before he changed his mind about pleading guilty.”

  And somewhere along the way, Holly Kemp falls through the cracks.

  Swaines is back at his desk, hand on the phone. “Boss, just so you know, I’m running a bit low on ‘rushed through’ favors. HSBC, NatWest, Barclays, they’ve all got backlogs.”

  Not surprising. London murders have been off the charts this year and we’re only halfway through. Which means a six-year-old case, where the probable killer is already dead, really won’t get any hearts pumping.

  Steele points at me. “Kinsella, you try. See if you can sweet-talk them. God knows you need the practice.” To think, I was almost touched then. “So, anyway, moving on to evidence of gun use, or even just an interest in guns. Emily and Seth can check with the ex-wife, but who else was Masters close to? I know the media did the whole ‘loner’ thing, but it’s usually a cliché. He didn’t run a hardware store and pick up handyman work without some sort of social skills.”

  “Jacob Pope didn’t paint him as a loner,” I say. “Said he was always mouthing off, giving his opinion on things.”

  “There’s the lad he employed at his store,” says Cooke. “Poor bastard, eh? Fancy working alongside a monster like that and not realizing.”

  “What about his poor ex-wife?” I say. Because seriously, how do you reconcile the man who made you breakfast, made you laugh, who played “This Little Piggy” on your newborn baby’s toes, with the devil who tortured and murdered three women? Four women, if we’re sticking tight to Steele’s first proposition. “Dyer said it was her engagement that might have sparked him off. Imagine that on your conscience.”

  Steele shudders but doesn’t join in the pity party. “Craig, go back and check Masters didn’t have any gun licenses that got missed the first time around, although God help us—God help Dyer, anyway—if he did. For now, though, let’s assume he got the gun on the black market, which puts the chances of finding the seller somewhere around ‘don’t frigging bother.’”

  A thought occurs to Flowers: “Farmers have guns. We’ve got to consider Johnny Heath, surely? The old guy who owned the land where Holly was found.”

  “Or the son,” I add.

  Steele takes a slow, deep sigh, a preface to our second—dreaded—proposition. “OK then, since you’ve brought up the unthinkable, let’s get it out in the open. Who’s going to say it?”

  “The witness was mistaken and someone else killed Holly Kemp.” Renée’s straight in there.

  Flowers taps a piece of paper on his desk. “Well, it can’t have been the son. South Cambridgeshire sent over a copy of his passport. Until recently, he hadn’t been in the UK since early 2011.”

  Cooke chimes in. “And the old boy was eighty-two in 2012, virtually crippled, half-blind. I suppose he might have been capable of shooting her, but hiding her? No way.”

  “Why not?” says Renée. “We said hiding over burying could suggest a lack of strength.”

  It’s a stretch even for me. “Come on, Ren! A frail old man with bad eyesight—there’s no way he could deal with the body of a what, nine stone–something woman. He’d have had to lift her, carry her to the ditch . . .”

  “He had help?” suggests Flowers.

  “Well, they weren’t very helpful.” I’m still not convinced. “Surely anyone with two brain cells would suggest dumping her farther away from the old guy’s land.”

  “But it’s a line of inquiry, it needs looking into.” Steele looks wearied by her own instruction. “Get on it—friends, family, associates of
Johnny Heath.”

  It’s a wild-goose chase, that’s what it is. Trying to distance myself from the task, I remind Steele, “Dyer said she always felt there was something iffy about Spencer Shaw, but that she was told to drop it, concentrate on Masters. He’s got to be our main focus, surely?”

  “And he will be when we find him. Right now, though, Serena Bailey is more of a priority. Her statement is what holds everything together. We need to reinterview her ASAP, see if that ID stands up to the test of time. You never know, maybe she’s questioned herself over the years?” She sits forward, bringing a hand down on the desk. “But listen up, folks, we also need to do what we always do and what—I’m going to come right out and say it—probably wasn’t done enough at the time. We need to find out more about Holly. Her routines, her personality. Anyone who held a grudge who maybe wasn’t considered at the time because of the Masters link. Benny-boy, get the list of her friends—there were a handful who made statements—and get us up-to-date contact details for all of them. Foster parents too.”

  Steele’s right. Holly, the person, was inconsequential to Dyer’s team. Where she was last seen, who she was last seen talking to, was all that defined her. Being linked with Masters diminished her in every way.

  Steele glances over at Parnell. “You’re quiet, Lu. You’ve usually got more a bit more to say for yourself.”

  He smiles. “Just taking it all in, boss.”

  “Care to make any predictions?” Parnell and I are usually in tune, an ever-reliable two-part harmony.

  “I’m not sure. I think I’m still on the fence.”

  “Same here,” I say, pleased to see normal service is in operation.

  “Good.” Steele points to me and Parnell, a warning to the rest. “I suggest you hop on the fence with this pair. Best place to be at this stage.”

  “Although I will say one thing . . .” The gravity of Parnell’s tone draws all eyes to him. “I heard what Dyer said about killers not always following patterns, and yeah sure, the different dump site doesn’t stress me out too much. Even the fact Holly wasn’t naked doesn’t mean anything overly conclusive. I’d even roll with a different method of killing if he’d strangled the others and clubbed Holly over the head. But shooting? That’s not just a different method, that’s a different psychology. A different beast, entirely.”