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

by Steven Suttie

  “Oh, hiya.” Miller looked friendly, and genuinely pleased to see Mel. She looked like shit.

  “Hi. It’s not more questions is it? I’ve answered everything.” She looked absolutely awful, and Miller really felt for her.

  “Well, no, not as such. I want a word though, if you’ve got five minutes?”

  Mel pushed open the door and Miller stepped past her. “Cheers.” He noticed that she was pretty smelly as he stepped past. The stale aroma of stress sweat was pretty pungent. “Are you alone?” asked the DCI as he stepped into the living room. Mel followed him.

  “Yes, my sister took the kids out for a few hours. They’re really irritating me, every single noise they make is driving me crazy. I can’t handle them.”

  “Have you managed to grab any sleep?”

  “Nah. Not really. The odd hour, here and there. I can’t eat, can’t sleep, I don’t know what’s happening. My head’s in bits.” Mel began crying and Miller touched her hand tenderly.

  “It’ll pass. It will.” Miller’s voice was soft and sympathetic. “Can I sit down a minute?” He asked. Mel just nodded as she wiped the tears from her face with her bare hands. “Cheers.”

  Miller sat a minute, looking down at his hands which were clasped together between his knees. It was a nice house, clean and tidy enough if you overlooked the children’s items that were scattered around. After a minute, Mel followed Miller’s lead and sat down.

  “So, how can I help?” she asked with a sarcastic tone.

  “There’s a couple of things. Firstly, please can I have a look at your phone a minute? I just want to read the text messages that Pete sent you the other day.”

  Mel reached over and grabbed her phone off the sofa, giving Miller another whiff of her stressed-out body-odour. It was obvious that she was completely oblivious to the state of her personal hygiene. Miller wanted to tell her that she’d probably feel a lot better if she brushed her teeth and pulled a brush through her hair, but didn’t feel it was the right moment. Mel opened up the text message app and scrolled through to the messages to and from “The Hubster.”

  “Thanks,” said Miller, quietly. He began reading through the messages. He’d seen them already, but he wanted to read them all again, now that the dust had settled. Now that the benefit of hindsight was all around. The last message that Peter Meyer had sent to his wife was the photograph that he would later put on Twitter. That message had arrived in Mel’s phone at 17:18. There were no further texts from Peter, but Miller could see that Mel had sent plenty of messages to her husband.

  “Please, Pete, just phone me. I’m begging you.”

  “Pete, babes, it’s not what it looks like. I love you. I can explain everything.”

  “I want you to know the truth babe, please just phone me!!!!!!”

  There were thirty, forty, maybe fifty similar messages that had been sent over the past two days. Miller couldn’t count how many because of the way they scrolled off the screen. But it was a lot. Miller looked across at Mel, who just sat looking out of the window. She was totally broken.

  “Has he not replied to any of these messages?”

  Mel shook her head.

  “And you wouldn’t be covering up, if he had?”

  She shook her head again.

  “So, at this moment in time, Pete doesn’t know the truth does he? About you and Knight?”

  “No. Unless he’s seen what they’ve got on the news and figured it out.”

  “If he had done, do you think he’d have phoned by now?”

  “No. He’s not phoning because it’ll give him away won’t it? Where he is I mean.”

  Miller nodded and considered what Mel was saying. It was a valid point.

  “What I’m thinking, Melanie, is that we need to do a press conference. We need you to go on telly and tell Pete what really happened. Tell Pete, through the TV or the radio, that you were being abused by Knight. It wasn’t an affair, you weren’t cheating on him. You can tell him everything, about the threats. About him showing you the photograph of Peter’s van. This way, you can tell your husband what really happened, and everybody else too, and that’s what really matters, isn’t it?”

  Mel looked over at Miller. He could see that she was considering the idea, he could see that she felt the idea had merit. Something had lifted her spirits.

  “What’s in it for you, though? You just want to bang him up now, don’t you?” Mel’s chin began quivering violently as her emotions got the better of her.

  “No, not at all. I just want Peter to be safe.”

  “What… what’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Well, in these situations, most of the time, I’m sorry to say, the person we’re looking for ends their own life.”

  It had the desired effect. Miller’s words completely destroyed Melanie Meyer. If she’d already felt at her lowest ebb, Miller had just taken her to the next level down and showed her the view. Now, he would have to spend the next five minutes rebuilding her, piece by piece. He was now able to empower Melanie, and give her a sense of purpose. Make her feel part of the job. Help us, and your husband won’t kill himself. Do what we say and he’ll be fine. Everything will be okay, hopefully. Miller had done just enough to make her think that taking part in a press conference was going to stop Pete from jumping off the Trafford Centre roof, or step out in front of a Metrolink tram, or something equally as terrifying.

  Miller had a very big task on his hands here. He needed to calm her down, slowly, then win her absolute trust before finally, encouraging her to go and have a bath and sort her self out. It took him less than ten minutes to convince Peter Meyer’s wife that she had the power to change this situation. He taught her that the only person on this entire planet that had the power to get through to Peter, was her. Mel went off upstairs with a bit more of a spring in her step. Through a whirlwind of emotion and sadness, regret and anger, Miller had managed to give her the one thing that she’d lost. Hope.

  While Melanie was upstairs, getting herself into a presentable condition, Miller got down to a bit of working-from-home, despite it not being his home. The DCI had a long list of tasks that he could be getting on with while Melanie prepared herself for the press conference. Top of that list was to make sure that the Press Office made a massive noise about this. Miller wanted a thunder-clap, he wanted every camera, every microphone and every journalist in the region in attendance. He wanted Sky and BBC News to heighten the drama by broadcasting live. This was the biggest opportunity there was ever going to be to convince Peter Meyer to give himself up peacefully. Even in circumstances as messed up and emotionally charged as these, Miller still believed that blokes were inclined to do what the wife told them to. He hoped so anyway.

  “Listen, I want everyone there. Invite them all. Even Channel Five. I’m that serious.” He barked into the phone, as the noise of Melanie’s hair dryer came floating down the stairs. “We’ll be there in about half an hour so tell them to get their skates on.”

  Chapter Forty-Six

  The media companies had been desperate for this press conference. The only news from Manchester Police since the previous afternoon’s inevitable announcement about Sir William’s resignation, had been regarding the appointment of Marie Clydesdale in the Acting Chief role. Not very exciting stuff, bearing in mind how enormous this exhilarating news story had been earlier in the week. The Knight / Meyer story had been dwindling in the past twenty four hours, the sense of sensationalism had begun to lose traction, and the police’s lack of new information had knocked the story down to third in the headlines, behind a story about a new rail link, and the birth of a pop singer’s first child. The news was thin, and this press conference was all that the television, newspaper and radio journalists needed in order to get it straight back up to the top spot.

  The media centre at Manchester City Police HQ was filled to capacity, as had been hoped, and anticipated. The room was packed with familiar faces from the world of television and news. There was
a tension in the air, rumours had been flying around that Meyer had been caught, and was in custody, and that this was little more than a thanks for your help, we couldn’t have done it without you, high fives all around, PR event. But these kind of rumours were never to be trusted, based on the fact that they were usually wrong.

  It was confirmed that the rumours were indeed wrong, when Miller appeared, walking slowly and cautiously, linked by the arm to Melanie Meyer. That was a surprise. There was a quiet gasp in the packed-out hall. Melanie was instantly recognisable to all of the press, her photograph had been printed in all of the papers, and it had been shown many times on television. It had shown Mel and Pete sitting in a pub, enjoying a beer and a laugh, she was holding a cocktail umbrella above her head.

  She looked drastically different today though, there was absolutely no sign of that laughter and the high spirits on Melanie Meyer’s face today. She looked as though she had aged considerably. Her hair was scraped back against her scalp, and she wore no make-up at all on her pale, sad, embarrassed, ashamed looking face.

  The media people were remarkably quiet and respectful. They saw the pain that Melanie Meyer was in. The room quietened right down, and Miller nodded his appreciation as he walked slowly towards the small stage section that was surrounded by television cameras and radio microphones. Miller helped Melanie sit down, before taking a seat himself. He turned to her and tapped her gently on the arm, whispering “are you okay?” To which Mel nodded quickly and confidently. “Okay, it won’t take long.” He whispered again, before pouring some water into Mel’s glass, and then a splash into his own.

  “Hello everyone. Thanks a lot for coming down at short notice. We’re good to go if you all want to start recording and broadcasting. No questions today by the way, but you’ll all have plenty of new content so don’t go in a huff with me.” There was the hum of a half hearted laugh, enough to conceal the tuts and groans of collective disappointment. Journalists loved asking their questions at these press conferences, because most journalists prefer the sound of their own voices to anything else.

  Miller took a sip of his water, and started talking to the people at home, and hopefully, fingers crossed, directly to Peter Meyer. “Okay, ladies and gentlemen, my name is DCI Miller, I head up the Serious Crimes Investigation Unit for the Greater Manchester area. I have been given the task of trying to find Peter Meyer, and to bring him safely into police custody. Now, we all know what’s gone on, so let’s not go over it all again. To my right here, is Melanie Meyer. Melanie is the wife of Peter Meyer, the man that we are currently seeking. Melanie has come here today, to speak directly to her husband.” Miller turned to look at Mel, and he could see that she was tearful. She was trembling, it looked as though she was hypothermic. Her breathing was becoming a little laboured too. The constant snap-snap-snap sound of camera shutters disguised Miller’s quiet question to Mel. Whatever he’d said, she’d replied by nodding and thanking him quietly.

  “So, please, let’s all just take a minute to think about what a scary, and difficult situation this is for Melanie, and let’s just be nice and quiet while she makes her appeal. Thanks.” Miller put his arm around Mel’s back, and she looked as though she appreciated the support. She looked down at the table-top, where her appeal was written down on a piece of paper. She tried to remember the advice that she’d been given, about taking a deep breath, and have a quick read of the first part of the statement, before looking up, and choosing one particular camera to talk to.

  “Pete, I hope you are seeing this. First of all, I want you to know…” It was the first wobble. Mel stopped talking and tried to get her self together. “Sorry.” Her chin had creased and her eyes were filling up. She wiped her eyes with her hanky and dabbed her nose. She looked back at the camera and visibly took a huge breath, before trying again.

  “First of all, I want you to know that I love you. No matter what. You are my rock, my best friend, my soul-mate. Pete, you are my world.” The chin began wobbling again. Mel took a deep breath, and a sip of the water. She was doing remarkably well. Miller could be seen whispering to her.

  “Remember what we said Melanie, forget all these people are here. Choose your camera and pretend it’s your husband you’re talking to. Take your time, take all day if you need to, there’s no rush. You’re doing brill.”

  Mel smiled shyly, and another embarrassed, modest smile crossed her lips. Miller stopped whispering, as she dabbed again at her eyes. It was a few more seconds before her composure returned. The media staffers could be very proud of their dignified, respectful patience. All of a sudden, Melanie Meyer focused on the camera and went for it. There was a real conviction present in her voice, it almost sounded as though she was telling her husband off, as she launched back into her script. The injustice that Mel felt was unmistakable, you could hear the anger and sadness, the anguish, the panic and the hurt as the words came tumbling out of her.

  “Whatever you think has happened – it’s not like that. Right? It’s not what you think Pete. If you think I’ve been having an affair, that I’ve been running off with another

  man – it’s not true. It’s not true Pete, and you should know better! He was blackmailing me for… blackmailing me, for sex, Pete. He said he was going to arrest you, and that he would make you lose your driving license so you couldn’t work. He said he’d get you beaten up if I didn’t go along with everything.” It looked as though Melanie was going to crack again – but she fought through it. Spurred on by her anger, and the sound of her own passion, and the raw emotion in her voice. “I was going to tell you, right at the start. Before it… But it was when that guy ripped you off for that money. I was going to tell you, I plucked up the courage to tell you, and you came home with all that money. You were really happy, and I couldn’t…” Mel’s voice had faltered. Her face was puffing up and she looked as though she was about to stop, but her fury kept her going. “I couldn’t tell you. I want you to know, that I had no choice Pete. I need to tell you this in private love. But I just want you to know – he’s done it to loads of women. Loads of women are coming forward, he’s been doing it fifteen years the police reckon. I just want you to come and hand yourself in. We can get through it, we can. I’ll be there with you, every step of the way Pete. Please love. I love you, and the kids are…” Mel’s words became indecipherable as the emotion of the moment caught up with her. But she quickly pulled herself together. She could see the finishing line ahead, and she just wanted to cross it, and get out of this horrible, scary, swelteringly hot place.

  “They miss you, keep asking me where you are. You’re such a great dad Pete, and they send a big hug to you. We all love you so much. Please Pete, just hand yourself in. Trust me, everything’s going to be alright. We’ll sort it. For richer for poorer, for better for worse, remember? ‘Til death us do part. We can sort this out. I love you, and you know I do. I hope you’re seeing this, or hearing it. I hope you’re okay.” It was that last bit that finally threw Melanie Meyer. She burst into tears, as the thought of her husband not being okay flashed through her mind. As Mel sat crying, and her shoulders were heaving up and down, DCI Miller decided to speak. He figured that the news shows would have to show her crying if he was talking all over it.

  “Thanks Melanie. That message is for you, Peter Meyer. And it’s also for anybody who knows where Peter is, where he is staying. We need to talk to you Peter and we are one hundred per cent aware of the circumstances that have led you into this very dark place. But we are here to help, and you will get help. You can walk into any police station, anywhere in Britain, or you can phone the police on nine nine nine. We want to help you, and we’ll get this sorted out.”

  With that, Miller turned to Melanie, who was still crying and getting herself in a state. The DCI put his arm around her and began whispering into her ear. “You’re done. You did absolutely brilliant, better than I thought you would. Well done love.”

  *****

  “Oh, that poor girl. Oh, wel
l, that is the most upsetting thing I’ve ever watched.” Angela Lockwood, a school teacher from Leeds was sat watching the 6’0’clock news, and was genuinely moved by what she was witnessing. Her husband, Len, was equally as shocked and saddened. It was surprisingly emotional to see another person in so much pain, and going through such mental anguish. It made extremely uncomfortable viewing.

  “She’s lost everything. And now they’re making her go on the news and admit to what’s gone on, it’s not right!” said Len, his voice was raised, the anger was unmistakable.

  “It’s so awful. They must think that he’ll hand himself in now, but there’s no way.”

  “Don’t you think? I think he probably will,” said Len.

  Angela looked across at her husband of thirty-six years. “You would, if that was me.” Angela told Len, rather than asked him. “Wouldn’t you?”

  “Well, I don’t know, do I? I can’t imagine what’s going through that bloke’s head right now. He’s killed another man. There’s no excuse for that, Angela, never!” Len was quite firm. He was brought up to believe in right and wrong in black and white terms. As far as Peter Meyer was concerned, the man was in the wrong. He’d murdered another man in unspeakable circumstances, and there was absolutely no excuse for it.

  “Well, he’s had a lot of provocation! Sergeant Knight was a tyrant! What he’s done is unforgivable Len!”

  “No, I’m not saying that the policeman wasn’t a bad person, Angela, don’t be so silly. I am just saying that what the husband has done is not the right way to go about things!” Len was getting quite worked up, and it was all because of the state of that poor woman, Melanie Meyer.

  “Well, I don’t think that he will hand himself in. He’s probably killed himself.”

  “Yes, you’re probably right. He’s got nothing left to live for now, has he? He’ll be behind bars until his kids are grown up, at least. Yes, I think you’re probably right Angela. Do you want a cup of tea?”