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

by Steven Suttie

  “This is Command, I can confirm that Lancashire Air Support Unit Oscar November Twenty One is airborne - and close to your location in the Bowland area, Sir. Over.”

  The helicopter, affectionately known as LASU was the Lancashire force’s chopper. Miller was pleased that air support was available, after the many hours of flying time that had elapsed already.

  “Thank you. I need direct comms with LASU please. Over.”

  “Go ahead, direct comms from DCI Miller, Whitewell command post to LASU. Go ahead Sir. Over. ” The radio fizzed and crackled with static before going silent.

  “This is DCI Miller, can you hear me, over?”

  “Yes Sir, this is PC Deryl Easton on board Lancashire Air Support, at your service Sir. Over” There was a loud vibrating sound coming through with the woman’s voice. She sounded very posh, and certainly didn’t possess the Lancashire accent that Miller had been trying his best to understand all day.

  “Okay, that’s great Deryl, thanks. I am en-route to a site of significant interest. I need you there, filming all activity as we arrive, over.”

  Miller gave the helicopter crew the grid reference, and was slightly concerned as John punched the numbers into his sat-nav, whilst driving at considerable speed. Talbot was visibly shaken by this unexpected wake-up. Within seconds Miller was encouraged, to see the black and yellow chopper come flying into view as the police car emerged from the wooded area. John pressed his foot down even further on the accelerator as the road straightened out. Talbot, still in a compromise between being half awake and half asleep glanced across at the speedo and saw that the car was moving at 70 mph.

  “This is LASU to ground control. We are hovering right above that grid reference now Sir, over.” Said PC Deryl Easton from the helicopter.

  “On our way, we’re just behind you. Thank you.”

  The car’s sat-nav screen read that the location was less than a kilometre away when Miller asked John to slow right down. With the helicopter above, marking the precise spot that Sergeant Knight’s signal to Strava was lost, Miller began to explain what he knew to DS Talbot.

  John had brought the car to a complete stop. The road ahead looked just like any other quiet country road. But this one had a secret, and Miller knew that he had to find out what that secret was as soon as he possibly could.

  “Something happened here, on this section of road, yesterday.” Miller looked at the notes that he’d taken down while on his call to Saunders. “At thirteen-fifty-three. Seven minutes to two. Sergeant Knight was being tracked by his cycling app. It had tracked him all the way from his home address, to here. Then, it suddenly went off. He just disappeared off the app.”

  “Dead battery?” asked John, forgetting his role. Miller didn’t mind the traffic officer making a contribution.

  “Could be. But he usually has enough charge in his phone to make the full journey and save his results. I don’t know why he’d bother turning the app on in the first place if he didn’t have enough battery to map his route.”

  “Maybe the signal was lost?” said Talbot, silently relieved that the car was now stationary. She never did like being a passenger in a car, but with a traffic cop driving, it was a worse case scenario. Every single traffic officer believes that they are the best driver in the world, thought the DS and whether they were right or wrong, all that Lisa Talbot really understood about traffic cops was that every single one of them terrified the living daylights out of her.

  “Okay. We need to take a very cautious walk along this road, DS Talbot. We are going to tippy-toe along for the next kilometre, looking for anything that might explain why Sergeant Jason Knight’s journey stopped along here. We need a reason for this man disappearing, and the reason is on that road.” Miller pointed at the meandering, peaceful lane that stretched out ahead. “John – I need you to radio to control. Tell them I want this road closing to any police traffic behind us, and up ahead. Let’s say one kilometre in both directions of the central point, police tape, crime scene drill, all closed down neatly and properly. I also want all SOCO officers who are in and around the area to make their way to their nearest road closure cordon and await further instruction.”

  “Yes Sir, right away. I’m on it.” John lifted his radio and started repeating the instructions to the control room as Miller and Talbot got out of the vehicle and began a slow, cautious, investigative walk along the road.

  The helicopter’s thunderous noise was echoing all around the valley, and the energy from the propellers was making the hedgerows shake.

  “The answer is here. I can feel it.” Said Miller to Talbot, as he scanned the tarmac before him, looking across at the grass verges, and the bushes at each side of him. “I can feel it.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The police helicopter had been flying overhead for around fifteen minutes when DCI Miller received the radio message that LASU needed to head back to its base at Warton for fuel and a day-service.

  “Thank God for that!” said Miller to Talbot. “It’s bloody deafening me, that thing.”

  “I couldn’t agree with you more,” said Talbot, with a smile, as she pulled back a branch from a hedgerow.

  “Thanks for your help LASU, much appreciated.” said Miller into his radio as the helicopter began thrusting away from the location that it had been marking.

  Miller and Talbot had been making very slow, very measured progress along the land, towards the location that had been marked so effectively, albeit loudly, and extremely expensively, by LASU. Neither detective had found anything of interest, although both were extremely confident that they had done a good, thorough search so far. They’d left no blade of grass unturned, and it felt like it was going to be an endless task. It wasn’t long until the two were to strike gold, however.

  As the booming bocker-bocker sound of the rotor blades had finally faded to a distant hum, both of the detectives saw jet-black skid marks on the road up ahead, they were fifteen, maybe twenty yards up ahead, but there was no mistaking them. They were fresh, they were violent, they were involved in Sergeant Knight’s disappearance, both Talbot and Miller felt it straight away.

  “Right. Okay, slow down. There’s no rush,” said Miller, keen to continue making progress at the speed they were working at. “Let’s just carry on as we were.”

  “He’s been knocked off his bike, right there. It’s as clear as day.” Talbot just wanted to jog over to the edge of the skid markings and continue the search there, the place that was very clearly the crime scene.

  “Just keep your composure Detective Sergeant. We’ll get to there eventually,” said Miller, adopting a harsh edge to his voice, in a bid to remind Talbot who was in charge.

  “At midnight…” muttered the DS, only just loud enough to be heard. Miller let it go, but it jangled him slightly, and he was annoyed that his mind was being distracted from the job at such a critical moment by pointless tittle-tattle. Miller put it down to tiredness on Talbot’s part. He knew only too well that tired detectives could become irritable to the point of irrational. This was no time for a confrontation. Miller decided to let it slide, but told himself that it was only going to be just this once. If DS Talbot had any more smart-arse remarks, Miller resolved that he would give her a distinctly memorable piece of his mind.

  “We’ll be gutted if we missed a broken off foot in this bush…” said Miller, trying to inject a tiny amount of sarcasm into the remark. Talbot ignored him, and carried on along her side of the hedgerow, checking for anything that looked out of place, damaged or suspicious. Like the two unmistakable black skid marks that were practically twinkling at the two police officers a little further up the country road.

  But just as Talbot reached five or six yards before the start of the skid marks, she was to learn that Miller had been right to take the cautious approach. All of a sudden, both sides of the lane were littered with small fragments of plastic. Shattered shards of hard, white plastic. Then there were smashed up pieces of red plastic. A l
ittle further along, more plastic, this time black and clear pieces. And an AA size Duracell battery lay on the grass, looking as out-of-place as a football shirt at a funeral.

  “Fuck in hell.” Said Talbot as Miller pulled his radio out of his jacket pocket.

  “This is DCI Miller to all units on this channel. We’ve got something. Stand by for further updates. Command – please allow the SOCO teams to proceed with extreme caution to site. Over.”

  *****

  Miller’s radio message was vague enough to encourage Chinese-whispers to begin travelling throughout the Trough of Bowland, as police officers and police staff began to discuss, and second-guess what “we’ve got something” was supposed to mean.

  Manchester used to be in Lancashire, that was how close the two places were. But the Manchester police were very different from the Lancashire force. Lancashire was ten times bigger, for starters – but within all that greater space, Lancashire had only a third of Manchester’s population. It was weird for the Lancashire police staff having this Manc DCI up here, calling the shots, while not knowing his way around, or knowing what yackum was. The “we’ve got something” comment on the air was a red rag to a bull for the police officers that were all anxious to hear if the missing police sergeant was safe and well, or whether “we’ve got something” meant that Sergeant Knight’s body was lay in a pit.

  DCI Broughton, the senior detective that Miller had spoken with by phone whilst at McDonalds earlier in the day, and who would normally be the officer running an investigation of this scale, was monitoring activities from Lancashire Police’s HQ in Preston. Miller’s message had been far too vague, and Broughton’s familiar voice in Lancashire crackled across the radios.

  “DCI Miller, this is DCI Broughton, at HQ. Can you please clarify what you have found? By telephone if needs be, but please can you provide more details, urgently. Over.” The Lancashire DCI sounded cross, or it could have been anxiety, Miller couldn’t be too sure. He decided to be completely candid, as he held his radio up to his mouth. He looked down at the shattered pieces of plastic that were littered along both sides of the road, as though they’d been kicked aside hastily, brushed into the grass verge by clumsy feet as a matter of urgency.

  “Well, I can’t be one hundred per cent sure, but I think there’s a very good chance that we have found evidence of a collision between a vehicle and a bicycle. Judging by the width of the tyre marks, it looks like a van, which has been travelling at speed, and from broken pieces of plastic that look new to the ground, a couple of broken bicycle lamps and a reflector, over.”

  The announcement, delivered in a cold monotone over the fizzing radio shocked all of the officers who were there in the Trough of Bowland, all of whom had been hoping to make a contribution to the proceedings, a contribution that would ultimately result in the missing Sergeant being found alive and well. The news that Miller had just announced, quite matter-of-factly over the radio channel, pretty much put a sudden and unforgiving end to these romantic notions of a happy ending.

  “It might have been better if he’d kept that quiet,” said one motorcycle officer to his colleague. DCI Broughton, back at the HQ felt the colour drain from his face as the words hit home, creating the picture of a horrible, serious accident in his minds eye. A serious accident, but with no casualty. This was about as serious as it could get. An RTA, hit and run, pushbike versus van, and no sign of a casualty, or the bike.

  “Understood. Standing by for updates. Over.” Said Broughton. It was clear to every single one of the two hundred and fifty officers in attendance, that DCI Broughton was just as gutted as they were. The victorious happy ending had been cancelled, or at least that’s how it seemed.

  *****

  As grisly, and as horrible as it all was, Manchester Police had a duty to report back to Rebecca Knight about any progress that was, or wasn’t made. As vague, and as questionable as the investigation’s “new line of enquiry” was, both PCs Gary Robson and Leanne Walker wanted to share it as soon as they possibly could. It was only fair, no matter how distressing or frustrating it would inevitably be.

  Leanne went up the stairs, silently. She tap-tapped on Rebecca and Jason’s bedroom door, and opened it very quietly. Rebecca was lay on the bed, her eyes wide-open, tears stinging her face. She was clutching her husband’s sweatshirt close to her face.

  “Hi,” said Leanne, softly. “You didn’t manage a sleep, then?”

  Rebecca shook her head gently. “I can smell him you know, on this. It just smells of him, as though he’s here now, with me.”

  Leanne sat down at the edge of the bed.

  “Rebecca, there’s been…”

  The missing man’s wife scrambled up, and got herself into a seated position on the bed.

  “What?” Rebecca practically hissed as she said it, with an unmistakably frantic, terrified desperation to hear of what ‘there had been.’ The look in Rebecca Knight’s eyes was feral, untamed. This was basic human nature at its most unguarded, a most intimate glimpse into a strangers eyes. A scared woman who feared that she was about to hear the worst possible, most devastating news. “You have to tell me…” she pleaded, although a wobble in her voice suggested that she didn’t actually, really, truthfully, want to hear it.

  Leanne knew this look, she’d seen it many times before. She knew the smell in the room too, it was the smell of a scared person.

  “We think we’ve found evidence of a collision.”

  “Oh, God, no…” Rebecca’s hands were in front of her mouth, trembling.

  “Now, we are trying to get the full details about this, as you can imagine.” Leanne put her hand on Rebecca’s leg. The trembling transferred into Leanne’s hand, and the raw power of Rebecca’s nerves began to wobble the PC’s bicep. “But the fact that nobody has been admitted into hospital, that no accidents have been reported - it makes us think that Jason has been involved in a hit and run.”

  “No, God! No! He’s dead. I just know it. He’s dead!”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Andy, its Detective Chief Superintendent Dixon, you’re on loudspeaker.”

  “Hiya boss. Why loudspeaker?”

  “I’m on a conference call. I’m with the Chief Constable.”

  “Oh.” Miller cleared his throat and decided to start the call a little more professionally. “Hello Sir, good afternoon Sir William.” Miller sounded as though he was full of energy, but slightly put-out by the phone call from his superiors. Dixon knew that tone in the DCI’s voice. It was the sound of “not now for fuck’s sake, Sir.”

  “Hi Andy,” said the Chief Constable, but he didn’t sound like his usually cheerful self. And he’d not asked how Clare was. Miller always marvelled at how Sir William could possibly remember the names of officer’s wives. Miller struggled to remember the name of his own officers some days.

  Dixon started talking. “Now, just to alert you to the fact that much of what is going on where you are has been reported on the internet. Our press blackout only extends to traditional media, we can ask TV, radio and newspapers to respect our wishes – but nobody has any control over Twitter and Facebook and all of these bloggers.”

  “What has got out?” asked Miller, slightly confused as to why such a trivial conversation was taking place.

  “Just reports of heavy police activity in the area, and a few half-baked theories about what is going on.”

  “Okay, Sir – what are you phoning me about?”

  “Yes, precisely. We are taking the decision to inform the media. We are lifting the press black-out, we’re feeling quite confident that we are not dealing with a hostage situation, or terrorism. Based on the evidence that we have so far, it looks to us like a hit-and-run, with a difference.”

  “The difference being that the driver has thrown his victim in the back of the van, chucked his bike on top of him… and raced off into the sunset.”

  “We have no evidence to suggest that that’s what has happened, may I remind you Andy?”r />
  “We have no evidence to suggest that this isn’t a terrorist that was driving the van, either though, do we not?”

  “Andy, do you have any objections to the media-ban being lifted?”

  “No, none. I had no wish for it in the first place. I’m not a massive fan of experiments when a man’s life could be on the line.” Miller was tetchy, he was in the middle of something and this phone call was just a load of bollocks.

  “I assume that comment was for my benefit, was it Andy?” The Chief Constable’s voice gave Miller a judder. He was about to try and scuff a reply, try and do a bit of damage limitation – when Dixon’s voice interrupted the awkwardness.

  “Okay, well, as you are heading the enquiry – we will want you to be the media face.”

  “Press conference?”

  “Yes. It will also help us to tidy up this mess regarding your suspension.”

  “Jesus Christ Sir, it’s not really the right time to talk about sticking our tongues out at the press!”

  “Okay, my mistake. I thought that you would be keen to…”

  “Sir, all I care about right now is finding Sergeant Knight, alive, and getting him back home. From what I can make out, this was a hell of a collision. SOCO guys are pulling up some amazing results, and as far as I can see, we’re close to identifying the make and model of the van. So, call a press conference if you want but later rather than sooner – we’re going to have a lot more to say about this in the next few hours. Now then, get the press office to publish the McDonalds footage, tell them to show a map of the route. He’s gone into Clitheroe, into Waddington, up that big massive hill with the transmitter on top, then down the other side and followed the road through the southern half of the Trough, around to Chipping. It’s at Chaigley, on the Clitheroe side that we’ve found evidence of this collision.”

  “Yes, got that. We want to put this out in the next half an hour. What exactly are we appealing for at this minute in time Andy?”