ROAD TO NOWHERE : DCI MILLER 3: Another Manchester Crime Thriller With A Killer Twist

by Steven Suttie

  “And it’s in the Trough of Bowland you say?”

  “Yes, I work at the Inn at Whitewell, all the police are having meetings here. There’s thousands of them here, all over the place, loads of helicopters circling above. There’s probably about fifty motorbike police all driving around. It’s

  mad. A policeman has been murdered or something.”

  “You… what did you say?”

  “No, don’t try all that, we need to talk money first.”

  The BBC journalist hung up the phone. Her heart was beating quicker, and she realised that she felt quite giddy. She Googled the famous hotel, and within seconds she had the telephone number. Just a few seconds after that, the line from the BBC Salford studios was connected to the Inn at Whitewell.

  “Hello, my name is Kelly Carbon, from North West Tonight. Can you put me on to the most senior police officer that is there please?”

  The receptionist sounded completely lost. She didn’t know what to do, or what to say. It was obvious by the stuttering, clumsy way that she had replied. “I, er… well, I’m not. Can you just…” A hand covered the receiver, and a few seconds later the voice came back, sounding completely overwhelmed and without an ounce of confidence. “There isn’t any police here.” She managed to say, shakily.

  “What the hell is going on?” mumbled Kelly Carbon, as she placed the phone down and turned to walk over to the News Editor’s desk.

  “Winnie, sorry, I know you’re busy. I just had a really weird call. Some kid, he said he wanted to sell us a story.”

  Winnie Ayers, the head of regional news for the North West area was typing into her keyboard and didn’t look up as she replied to her reporter. “I hope you told him to phone Granada! All our news is free.” Winnie had a vague smile on her lips. She still thought it was cute that people believed that the BBC would give them a chest full of gold if they rang up and said that a sheep was loose on the M60.

  “It was a bit of a scoop by the sounds of it though, up in the Ribble Valley. He said there were thousands of police, hundreds of police motorcyclists all combing the Trough of Bowland. The police have taken over the Inn at Whitewell apparently. I phoned there and asked to speak to a senior policeman and the receptionist became very jittery. It sounds like a major story is unfolding.”

  Winnie looked up from her screen, and across at Kelly who was standing by the desk. “Well what did he say was going on?” she asked.

  “He said that a policeman has been murdered.”

  Winnie Ayers was visibly shocked, but kept a cool head. News reporting was a skilled profession, and a “murdered” person story was most often nothing more serious than a missing person.

  “Phone Lancashire police’ press office. I’ve not seen anything about any police operation in Lancashire. If there was a major scale investigation taking place, we’d have heard of it by now. A police murder would be impossible to dumb down.”

  “He said that it was a secret.”

  Winnie stood up and walked across to the office window, gazing off towards the Pennines, in the direction of Lancashire, the view of which was being blocked out by dozens of gigantic white wind turbines, which were spinning slowly. “Unless this is a press black-out situation.”

  “Was, you mean?” said Kelly, wearing a mischievous grin on her face as she looked up BBC Radio Lancashire’s newsroom number.

  “Yes. Quite.”

  “Hi, Radio Lancashire, it’s Kelly Carbon from NWT. I need to pick your brains… we’ve received news of a major police presence in the Trough of Bowland today. Do you guys know anything about it?”

  Chapter Eight

  The specially trained family liaison officers that had been assigned the sensitive job of supporting Rebecca Knight were working in a cycle of one-hour shifts to sit with the distraught wife, and help her. Their itinerary included to make her cups of tea, provide a shoulder to cry-on and to generally try to reassure Rebecca that the police were doing everything within their power, to find Jason Knight and to bring him home as soon as possible.

  In most cases, it was a fib, a white lie that liaison officers had to say, that the police were doing everything that they possibly could. But this time, it was one hundred per-cent true, and it wasn’t just one police force, it was both Manchester’s and Lancashire’s, with neighbouring forces taking a very keen interest in the disappearance too. But this news didn’t make a blind bit of difference to Rebecca Knight.

  PC Gary Robson was sitting in the living room with Rebecca. She was talking on the phone to her mum, who was looking after the couple’s two children at her own home in Farnworth, about three miles away from the Knight’s family home in Bolton. In the kitchen, PC Leanne Walker was liaising directly and silently with the incident rooms at Lancashire HQ and the mobile unit at the Trough of Bowland. As questions popped into the investigating officer’s heads, PC’s Robson and Walker were supposed to gently ask the frantic wife, and then subtlety feedback the responses. PC Walker had a list of thirteen questions so far, that she would have to gently coax into light, supportive conversation when her hour with Rebecca started in ten minutes time.

  A text vibrated in the officer’s pocket. She read the message discreetly, then slipped the phone back into her pocket and started writing question number fourteen into her open notepad. She shuddered as she realised how difficult it was going to be to shoe-horn some of these questions into gentle, non-invasive conversation. “Does she know if Jason ever visits prostitutes” was the only one that she had declined to write down so far. Some of these detectives had shit for brains, she thought.

  PC Gary Robson stood and took away Rebecca’s untouched cup of cold tea, along with his own, empty cup, and he walked slowly, silently out of the lounge and into the kitchen. As his eyes met with his colleagues, he knew instinctively from the neutral expression on her face that no news had been received.

  “I’m going to make another brew,” said PC Robson with a strong hint of optimism in his voice. “Want one?” he asked.

  “No, I’ll be weeing all night if I drink anymore. I think I’ll go and sit with Rebecca for a bit. You have a bit of a tidy up in here.” PC Walker grabbed her notebook and went through to the living room, sitting down in the armchair that her colleague had vacated. Rebecca wasn’t aware that the one hour hand-over had just been done between the two liaison officers. She was staring blankly at the wall, talking on the phone.

  “I can’t eat anything mum, I can’t.” Rebecca was talking slowly, quietly. Her eyes were vacant, as though she was day-dreaming. It was as though she was drunk, staring into space, but she wasn’t slurring her words. “I’ve tried mum. I’ve got nothing left inside me. If I try to take a drink, I’m sick. If I try to eat, I can’t swallow it and I feel like I need to go to the loo.” Rebecca was shaking, her jaw was trembling. “Listen, mum, I’m going to try and have a lie-down. Just for a bit. I’ll speak to you in a bit, okay?” Rebecca looked across at PC Leanne Walker who was perched on the edge of the seat with her notepad on her lap. “No mum, I’ll be alright. They’re doing everything they can. Look after the kids for me, tell them I love them. See you later, thanks mum.”

  PC Walker handed a couple of tissues across to Rebecca, her eyes were quite teary.

  “Nothing new?” asked Rebecca as she dabbed at her red, swollen eyes and blew her nose.

  PC Walker shook her head from side to side. “I’m afraid not.” She said, gently.

  “Am I alright to go upstairs, just to… I want to try and get comfy, I just feel like I need to lie down.”

  “Of course, that’s absolutely fine.”

  “I doubt I’ll sleep…”

  “Well, we’re here, so if you do fall asleep, you’ll be perfectly safe.”

  “I’m just going to try his mobile… you never know.” Rebecca unlocked her phone and pressed the call icon on Jason’s photo. It read “187 calls since yesterday.”

  *****

  DCI Miller was struggling to find anybody who had a ba
d word for the missing man. Right across the spectrum of rank among his colleagues, from the Sergeant’s superiors, to his probationary constables, he couldn’t find an aspect of negativity. It was disappointing, if Miller was honest. It would give the investigation some traction if he was hearing that the missing man was abusive, that he was a bully and a nasty piece of work. That he’d slammed some junior colleague into a locker, or punched an officer in the mouth. But it just wasn’t the case, and Miller felt that the clock was beginning to tick faster and faster. It didn’t take a genius to understand that the faster the clock was ticking, the greater the pressure became on all of the police officers that were trying to locate the sergeant.

  “If we knew who that other person was on the phone…” said Miller, for the umpteenth time. The small crew of CID and divisional Inspectors that were on board the incident room vehicle were all working on various aspects of the investigation.

  The divisional chief for the Ribble Valley, Inspector LeGrove was very efficiently mapping the areas that had been searched and were officially being given the all clear. The locations that were marked clear came from co-ordinates given from the air, cross referenced with the ground patrols on foot and by motorcycle. It was a very efficient and well-oiled exercise – the type of which is trained for and rehearsed at least once per year. But despite the slick operation, and the excellent response from the two police forces involved, progress was still painfully slow. Inspector LeGrove’s map

  was showing less than ten per cent of a two hundred square mile area had been searched and signed off.

  Almost all of the farms, barns and outhouses, fishing huts, utility buildings and sheds within the Trough of Bowland had been searched and given the all-clear. Miller was not surprised, the notion that somebody might have abducted Sergeant Knight, and then locked him away nearby were as close to zero as he could imagine. But, rightly or wrongly, it had to be checked and Miller was pleased to learn from DS Lisa Talbot that the task was now complete and that this particular aspect of the investigation could be folded down.

  “Sir, there was not a single sighting of any peculiar vehicles in the area. All farms and staff have been asked if they’ve seen anything untoward. Nothing at all has been mentioned, which is unheard of.”

  “I agree. We normally expect to see at least one or two red-herrings with door-to-doors.” Said Miller as he checked his wrist-watch. It was 11.40am.

  “Also Sir, I’ve just been informed. A journalist from Northwest Tonight has phoned reception at The Inn, asking for the most senior police officer apparently.” DS Talbot was staring at the DCI, trying her best to read his reaction. Miller didn’t bat an eyelid.

  “It wasn’t going to stay a secret for long,” he said. “How many farms have we checked? How many people have we stopped and questioned? We’ve closed the roads, we’ve got helicopters up and motorbikes zooming all around. This is one of the most peaceful parts of the Great Britain they say, so it’s no surprise that the press have heard about it really. I’d better get on to Manchester and ask them if we are announcing a press black-out, or not.”

  “And what if we are?” asked DS Talbot, she was intrigued by what could be achieved by a press black-out. She’d never previously been involved in an investigation that had required one.

  “Well, if we are – we simply release a statement to all media, saying that they are forbidden to report on this on-going investigation. It just disappears off the radar and they get on with something else.”

  “Do they respect that, I mean do they do as they’re told?” DS Talbot’s impression of the press was that they could do whatever they wanted.

  “Yes, well, they do because otherwise they’d end up in court. But it is getting more complicated these days and the social media aspect is hard to police – a lot of stuff comes out on there and goes viral anyway.”

  “But, forgive me Sir if I’m acting a bit dumb, but I don’t get it. What is the point of a press black out? Surely it would make more sense to release a picture of Jason Knight – show the McDonalds footage of him, and ask the public if anybody knows where he is?” DS Talbot was genuinely perplexed by the secretive way that the case was being handled.

  Miller shifted in the hard, uncomfortable seat, and nodded in DS Talbot’s direction. “I agree. But traditionally, if we don’t know what we are dealing with, we have to take a very cautious approach from the start. It could be a blackmail situation or a kidnap, if it was, there could be a ransom fee involved and if that was the case, Great Britain has a public policy to never pay out a ransom fee for a hostage. But only in public. For all we know, the perpetrators of this crime might be in touch with Government, who are putting funds into an account right now. If it’s a secret, it gives people in authority more leverage you see. If it’s public, if it’s on the record, we have to say that we don’t care what happens to Sergeant Knight, we have to basically say ‘do what you want with him’ – otherwise criminal gangs would kidnap officers everyday if we were seen to pay out a ransom fee. So, we’re screwed in that sort of situation, we just can’t win. If we go public and say we know where somebody is but we don’t pay ransom fees so we don’t care what happens, then the public lose all confidence in us. So it’s just better to keep things tight-lipped until we understand exactly what it is that we are dealing with.”

  “Ah, okay. That makes a bit more sense now I guess. Do you think that’s what has happened then?”

  “No. We’d have had the ransom call by now. I’m still hoping that he’s lay in a ditch.”

  Miller began writing an e-mail to DCS Dixon, his superior at Divisional HQ in Manchester.

  “Sir, Press, NWT, have contacted the Inn at Whitewell, sniffing about. Can we inform the media yet or are we going to release a black-out notice?

  Miller.”

  “Sir,” said DS Talbot, after waiting patiently for him to finish typing on the laptop.

  “Yes?” he asked.

  “What if Sergeant Knight took a different route home? We’re working on the theory that he went home the same way he came…”

  There were two other police officers waiting to talk to Miller by the entrance to the incident room. He glanced at them, acknowledging their presence with a nod, and then looked back at DS Talbot.

  “That’s his usual route,” said Miller, not meaning to sound huffy, but aware that the way he’d replied had been a bit unpleasant.

  “Sure, from what his wife has told us, but I think that if there is any weight in your theory that this might be an innocent accident, and that Sergeant Knight is lay injured at some isolated spot, then I believe that we’d have found him by now.”

  “Okay…” said Miller, sitting back on the stool and giving the DS his full attention.

  “Look,” DS Talbot showed Miller a map of the Trough of Bowland. “Our activities have been exclusively focused on this area.” The female detective drew the route from Clitheroe with her finger, and then circled around the route that went through the villages of Waddington, Newton In Bowland, Dunsop Bridge, Chipping and finally Mitton and Whalley. Her final demonstration showed the route coming back into contact with the main road that would take Sergeant Knight back onto the busy A road route back home to Bolton.

  “Now, if he is training for the Land’s End to John O' Groats cycle route, then I think that there is a perfectly reasonable possibility that he may have thought of trying a

  different route home, which would vary his scenery and also add some extra miles on.” DS Talbot showed Miller the map again. “Let’s just assume that he wanted to stick an extra twenty miles onto his route, that’d be about an extra hour of cycling – he could have gone home this way.” This time, the Detective Sergeant traced her finger from Clitheroe, straight through the Trough and up to Lancaster at the very north of the estate. “From here, he’s got a perfectly straight route home along the A6, and he’s managed to fit a few more steep hills in along the way.”

  “That is a bloody good suggestion. It’s p
retty remote up on that route as well isn’t it?”

  “Well, it’s not that remote. I’ll bet a car goes through there once every five minutes during the day. At least.”

  “Really?” Miller looked surprised. He imagined that the area was completely cut off.

  “Yes, it’s the fastest route from Clitheroe to Lancaster. It’s a pretty busy road really, particularly for light traffic, cars, motorbikes, vans...trying to leapfrog the traffic jams on the motorway.”

  This suggestion made sense, but it presented Miller with a head-ache. It suddenly opened up the potential site of Sergeant Knight’s apparent disappearance by another hundred square miles.

  “Okay. I’d have thought that the helicopter would have found him by now. They’ve got zoom lens video links to HQ, thermal imaging software, and the officers on board are specially trained for this kind of operation. I’m going to see if we can get them to fly up the route that you’re interested in, until it meets the A6. Is that okay?”

  “That’s great Sir, I just hope I’m right!” A gentle smile cracked on the DS’ lips but she was quick to retract it and return to her normal, somewhat dour expression.

  Miller phoned the Command Post at Lancashire police HQ and asked DCI Broughton to arrange for one of the participating helicopters to revise its route, and head due - north through the Trough, up to Lancaster.

  “It’s your DS who suggested it, and I think she’s made a very good call.” Said Miller, to a visibly neutral

  response from DS Talbot, but an audibly positive one from her DCI.

  “Ah good. She is an excellent DS. And she was due to go off duty at six o’clock this morning,” added DCI Broughton.

  “Noted. Okay, I’ll leave that in your hands.”

  “That’s fine. Oh, something that’s just come up…”

  “Yes?”

  “Press. We’ve had a few calls, BBC locals wanting to know what’s going on. Are we aware of the long term media strategy?”