Snow Kills

by Bridgestock, RC

  ‘The bell?’ said Vicky. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it’s a simple request that might be all that is needed for him to agree to let us have it at this stage.’

  ‘But, there were no identifying marks on it as far as I could see,’ said Ned. ‘It is just an old bike bell.’

  ‘Just do it. Yes, I agree, we need to talk to him more. Will they finish the search today, do you think?’

  ‘You’re joking. They still have a jungle of a garden to search. I’d think it’d take them at least a couple of days to do it justice,’ said Vicky.

  ‘He’s consenting to the search then?’ said Dylan.

  ‘Yeah, he seems quite happy to have the search team there. Doesn’t seem bothered about them at all. But let’s face it, he’s had plenty of chance to get rid of ought if he wanted to, hasn’t he?’ Vicky said.

  ‘Right, so for now we continue to do everything with his consent. If that changes, we’ll need to get a warrant. I want more research done on him to try put him in or out of the frame once and for all. After all, his property is the nearest dwelling to where Kayleigh’s car was parked. We also need to identify the two drinkers who were seen banging on that car. If they exist, that is. I’ll give the press office a push to put a fresh appeal for witnesses out and in the meantime keep Andy up to speed with our decision regarding the search. Anything else?’

  ‘Nope, Ned wanted to hoist him, but like you say on what grounds? I guess there is always theft of his mother’s leg irons? Let’s face it, we’ve not got anything else on him.’

  ‘A spell in a cell might get some straight talking out of him. I have a feeling about the weird bastard. He’s been hiding behind the charade of being his own mother, so what else is he capable of lying about or covering up besides his weird fetish?’

  ‘Hey Ned, dial it back,’ said Vicky. Ned glared at her.

  ‘She’s right mate, patience. Find some evidence, or at least show me something that proves his story isn’t true. Then you might get your wish. Remember the old bull young bull...’ Dylan smiled.

  Vicky and Ned looked at each other. ‘You’ve lost us,’ Vicky said.

  ‘Have you never heard that saying before about the old bull and the young bull looking at a field full of cows? The young bull says, ‘let’s run down there and shag one of those cows.’ The wise old bull winked at the young bull. ‘Let’s walk down and shag ’em all’’,’ Dylan heartily laughed at his own joke. Ned’s face softened and he smiled.

  ‘You’re so funny,’ Vicky said sliding off her chair. Ned stood a broad grin on his face. ‘I like that.’ He walked out of the office mumbling the words of the joke and laughing to himself.

  ‘If you didn’t laugh you’d cry Vicky, you should have learnt that by now,’ Dylan said. She sauntered back into the CID office. Dylan picked up the phone still chuckling and rang Jen to tell her he was on his way home. Just when he thought nothing could surprise him any more, he was proved wrong. ‘Never assume,’ he said quietly. Wasn’t this what he loved about his job, the unexpected, the unforeseen and the unknown? Jen would be amazed at this latest revelation, she’d had her eyes opened since she had met Dylan and he hoped she learned a thing or two and was a lot less trusting of people these days.

  Norris Regan was certainly of interest to the enquiry, and to Dylan.

  Chapter 19

  Dylan was in the station early next morning. DI Turner and his team were already busy working away. He raised his hand in acknowledgement, ‘Morning lads,’ he called. ‘Alright?’

  ‘Moving forward somewhen,’ said Shaun Turner. ‘Once we’ve got the swabbing done, we should be wrapped up.’

  ‘Somewhen?’ said Dylan. Somewhen? An Isle of Wight-ism if ever he heard one, a word Jen still used often. He turned into his office and switched on the fluorescent light to be faced again by the mountain of boxes he’d asked Trevor to fetch. He chortled to himself. What was he thinking when he had asked him to bring ALL the files and exhibits appertaining to the missing Tina Walker? Trevor stood behind him. ‘Ah, Just the man,’ he said.

  ‘Been told they want moving back.’ Trevor huffed and puffed.

  ‘Yes well, the files need to go to the HOLMES indexers,’ Dylan said sheepishly, taking off his jacket and putting it on the back of his chair. He helped Trevor to lift the boxes from his desk onto the trolley. Once clear, he unpacked his briefcase and set his fruit in his drawer before turning on his computer. He raised his head suddenly as Trevor banged his trolley blindly into the door frame. Dylan looked through the window to see if he could catch Lisa’s attention to guide him out but caught Shaun Turner, not for the first time, staring in at him very oddly. It gave him a prickling at the base of his neck. Shaun picked up the phone and swivelled his chair round, deliberately it seemed, so that his back was to Dylan.

  Nonplussed, Dylan scanned the detailed information on the incidents that had occurred within the Force in the past twenty four hours, before starting on his in box.

  Vicky breezed into his office with a brew in her hand, ‘Morning boss, little Maisy waking you up these days or are you just an early riser?’ she said with one of her cheeky grins.

  ‘Good job you brought me a drink lady, otherwise I’d have bollocked you for suggestive remarks,’ he said, not taking his eyes from the computer screen. He raised an eyebrow but showed no other sign of emotion.

  ‘Now you tell me. A severe reprimand from you sounds like a good start to the day to me,’ she purred at the menacing look being thrown her way. Vicky winked at Dylan and turned on her heels. Dylan couldn’t help but smile in her wake. ‘Tell whoever asked Trevor to remove the boxes back to store thanks, will you?’

  ‘It was me.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said flatly. ‘Vicky?’ he called.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What do you think about Regan?’ he said.

  She stopped and walked back to stand in the doorway. ‘I wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him.’

  ‘In your opinion, is he our man?’

  She pondered.

  ‘Don’t sit on the fence. Has he seen Kayleigh off, do you think?’

  Dylan knew the likelihood of finding the young hairdresser alive had diminished.

  ‘Honestly?’ she said. ‘I’ve no idea.’

  ‘Stop behaving like a bloody politician. It’s me you’re talking to. Answer the question, is he, or could he be, in your opinion, a murderer?’

  ‘He lives in his own little world.’ Vicky bit her lip. ‘Let’s just say years ago they’d have hung, drawn and quartered him on his appearance alone.’ She stopped, brought her hand to her chin and rubbed it thoughtfully. ‘I think he’s capable of something, but what I don’t know...’

  ‘So is that a Yes?’

  ‘A definite maybe.’

  ‘All we need now is a motive and evidence.’ Dylan groaned loudly, put his head in his hands and scratched his scalp with his fingertips.

  ‘What do you always tell us? If the evidence is there then we’ll find it. I’m going over to his house later. Andy is over there now with the search team and Ned’s on his way.’

  Dylan turned to face her. ‘Good, let’s put him in or out of the frame once and for all today if we can. Do we know what happened to his mother? If they’ve lived there for a long time they’d have been about when Tina Walker went missing, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘And that bike bell? I’ve known people have all sorts of stuff on their bedposts, but, that’s a strange one.’

  ‘I think so too,’ Dylan said.

  ‘You’ll be telling me you wear cycle clips over your P J bottoms next.’

  ‘Pyjamas?’ he said with a cock of his head. ‘What’s them then?’

  ‘Way too much information,’ she said as she left his office.

  Dylan looked at the carpet. From the door to his desk was a trail of mud. He looked down at his shoes, no doubt from taking Max out for his morning walk. He’d made an extra effort to get up earlier and take the dog out since the arr
ival of Maisy. Poor Max hadn’t been getting as many walks as he used to, but it seemed that he and Jen were now getting slowly but surely back into a routine and the dog wasn’t getting any younger so he didn’t need as much exercise as he used to. Dylan was wiping dirt from his shoes with a tissue when Vicky stuck her head around the door, she looked at him oddly.

  ‘I know we deal with some shit boss, but it hasn’t got that deep has it?’ she grimaced.

  ‘Just letting you know uniform have locked up Donny Longbottom this morning for an indecent assault on a sixteen year old girl, so I’m just going to find out what the score is.’

  ‘The would be Teddy boy who has the hots for Kayleigh?’ said Dylan.

  ‘That’s one and the same.’

  ‘Another that we need to put in or out of the frame. So what’re you waiting for?’ Dylan growled.

  ‘I’m gone,’ Vicky called, as she vanished into the bowels of the CID office.

  There was no time to spare, this needed to go onto HOLMES immediately. The computerised major crime system would help him, as the SIO, direct and control the course of the enquiry. The information that was coming in needed cross-referencing and the last thing he wanted to do was miss or overlook anything of importance. The success of any major investigation requires an organised and methodical approach and the Major Incident Room (MIR) is central to any enquiry. It is where all the information is gathered from members of the public, enquiry officers and any other available source. This information is documented and managed, using a set of proven administrative procedures. Was it only twenty years since UK Police Forces starting using it? ‘How on earth did Razor Sharpe and the likes manage without it?’ he thought as he picked up his phone.

  ‘Custody Officer, please,’ he said, with authority.

  ‘Speaking.’

  ‘Jack Dylan. Can you ask the officers dealing with Longbottom to liaise with me about the circumstances of his arrest please?’

  ‘Of course, sir,’ said the Sergeant.

  Dylan picked up his mobile and distractedly turned it around in his hand. He texted Jen.

  ‘What’re my two lovely girls up to?’

  ‘Your daughter’s creating and I’ve just dealt with the most disgusting nappy. I feel like death warmed up this morning.’

  ‘Normal day then?’

  ‘Ha ha! You’re not the only one that deals with crap. Did you just phone?’

  ‘No why?’ Dylan scowled.

  ‘I missed a withheld number and it’s one of a few in the last couple of days, that’s all. Maisy’s screaming the place down and Max is hiding under the table – poor fella,’ she wrote.

  ‘Sounds like fun. Speak later,’ Dylan texted before tossing the phone down onto his blotter.

  The office phone rang and he grabbed it. ‘Dylan,’ he said.

  ‘Detective Inspector Jack Dylan, Harrowfield CID?’ said a female voice.

  ‘That’s right, to whom am I speaking?’

  ‘Maggie Jones at the forensic lab. You’ve sent us some skulls to examine?’

  ‘Yeah that’s right Maggie, they’re a bit like buses and policemen, you don’t see any for ages and then they all come along at once,’ Dylan said.

  ‘I wish I could say that,’ she said. ‘I’ll send you the detail in hard copy, but for now each of the three skulls have been given separate identification numbers, and what I can tell you from my visual examination is the one found on the moorland is around a hundred years old, quite well preserved, nothing sinister like fractures or holes to suggest foul play. However, the other two are more recent. I’d say as an educated guess no older than twenty-five to thirty-years, at the very most. One of them is damaged quite badly, but that’s been caused recently looking at the clean edges, again nothing to suggest anything sinister at the moment. There is a little bit of scar tissue on the other but nothing that suggests a major head injury.

  ‘I’m really grateful for the quick response. In respect of the latter two skulls, perhaps we need to do some further investigations?’ Dylan said, rubbing his chin. ‘Do you think they may be from a grave disturbance, which was my initial thought?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that, but the good news is that we can do further work to age them more accurately. There is sand wedged deep in the eye sockets of one, so we’ll analyse samples taken from that. The bonus is that they still have teeth intact. I will contact a forensic ondontologist who will examine and evaluate them for you and hopefully you will be able to corroborate the dental evidence. Should you require it, he will be able to present his evidence in court for you at a later stage. We should get DNA that will be preserved in the teeth and if need be we can do craniofacial reconstructions so we should be able to give you a biological profile.’

  ‘That’s excellent,’ Dylan said, brightly.

  ‘Bad news is that everything takes time and costs money.’

  ‘How much?’

  Maggie Jones whistled through her teeth. ‘How big’s your budget? I can guess from experience it’s not enough.’

  ‘It’s not gonna happen is it? Not with the funds we’re allocated. I was hoping they were all going to be a hundred years old. Trouble is, now I may have no choice but to look at them more closely, no matter what the cost. The reconstruction can wait, but it’d be helpful if you can get on with the other examinations – and hopefully we’ll solve the mystery before cost becomes an issue. Obviously if we find that official graves have been disturbed, or any other information comes to light in the meantime, we’ll let you know.’

  ‘That’s my job. It’s fascinating for me to unravel mysteries in this way, I’ll be in touch in due course.’

  Forensics might be excited about the find, but Dylan would have to get a team together to start tracing any further remains and the origin of the skulls already found. He knew the media would love the story. It was the stuff that sold papers for them. However it wasn’t thrilling to him, it was more work on the already stretched manpower, but his inquisitive nature that made him want to be an investigator in the first place would drive him on to get a result.

  He turned to his computer, selected a pro forma for an internal blank Minute Sheet and typed a note to Chief Superintendent Walter Hugo-Watkins, updating him and informing him that he would start an investigation into the younger two skulls.

  The response was immediate. ‘Thank you for the update. I would like to be in the loop and I’m sure HQ will watch the story with interest. Leave it with you,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll obviously require more staff, which will need to come from Division in these early days,’ Dylan responded.

  ‘Speak to the Chief Inspector Operations. I will message him. Thank you. Walter.’

  See, big buddies Jen? Dylan thought, and smiled to himself.

  Someone coughed behind him and he turned to look over his shoulder. There were two uniformed officers at his door.

  ‘Come in,’ said Dylan.

  ‘You wanted to see us sir, regarding Donny Longbottom?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Please take a seat.’

  Chapter 20

  Five foot eight, blond and muscle bound, PS Hornby didn’t need any introduction to DI Dylan, he knew of him previously from working as a DC in his office. During his time in CID he had continually parked his black Peugeot in Dylan’s private parking space. If he concentrated on his work as much as he did on his sports, Dylan had once told him, he would make a bloody good police officer. It seemed Hornby might have taken that advice on board as he sat before him with stripes on his uniform and a desire to move back into CID when the selection boards for the Criminal Investigation Department came around.

  Hornby was the taller and younger of the two men. ‘We’ve had a complaint from a sixteen year old girl sir,’ he said. ‘She’s alleging that she was on her way to work this morning, at the Piece Hall, when a lad indecently assaulted her. He told her to be quiet as he tried to drag her back into the bushes but she screamed and kicked out at him, which to be honest probab
ly saved her from actually being raped. Lucky for her, some people were walking towards Harrowfield on the main road nearby and heard her cries for help.’

  ‘What time did the incident happen?’

  ‘About half-seven. She had walked through People’s Park from the north-west direction, across the terrace, past the statues and round by the side of the lake, nearest to Harrowfield Road. She was just nearing the entrance by Park Road swimming baths when the attack took place.’

  ‘Where is she now?’ said Dylan.

  ‘She’s with the specialist unit who are looking after her and I’ve contacted her mum who is en route. Acting Inspector Dawn Farren is dealing.’

  ‘What’s the girl’s name?’

  ‘Sharon Manning, boss,’ said PC Charlie Brook, with a scowl on his fat, round face. ‘She said she caught a glimpse of him as he turned on her before running away and was sure she’d seen him hanging around the Piece Hall.’

  ‘So how did we latch onto Longbottom?’ said Dylan.

  ‘A passerby who’d gone to help her called 999 and as luck would have it we were just around the corner. We calmed her down, got the description and circulated it. Then, in the car as were on our way to the unit, she screamed so loud it almost burst our eardrums, pointing to Longbottom who was peering into the window of a shop on the roundabout in town. I pulled around the corner of Lord Street, Sergeant Hornby got out and lifted him and we called for a unit to come and transport him to the station.’

  ‘Did he say anything?’

  ‘His exact words were...’ he stopped briefly, flicking to the appropriate page in his pocket book. ‘Were... Leave me alone. I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m off to get a tattoo,’ he said, looking back at Dylan.

  ‘We’ve locked him up for indecent assault, clothing bagged etcetera. He looks like he hasn’t a care in the world, sitting, swinging his legs from the bed in his cell,’ said PS Hornby.