Finding Lucy

by Ernesto Lee

  If the photograph of Paul’s charred skeleton was shocking, this new pair are stomach churning. The first is a close-up of the back of Father Beale’s shattered skull and the second is a picture of Ben’s shredded shoulder. Any remnants of color drain completely from Eddie’s face and without warning he lurches to the side and vomits onto the floor. As he drops to the floor retching, Morris stands up and demands that we end the interview immediately.

  “In all my years as a lawyer and a QC, I have never witnessed such disgraceful behavior from police officers during an interview. I have no idea what you were leading to by showing those photographs, but whatever the reason, my client is clearly unfit to carry on with this interview. As far as I am concerned, you have failed up to this point to provide adequate reason to hold my client any longer. We will be leaving now, and I will be suggesting to Sir David that he asks for the personal intervention of the Home Secretary to have this investigation terminated.”

  Without waiting for my approval, Catherine ends the interview and turns off the tape, before helping Eddie to stand up. She hands him a box of tissues and escorts him out, leaving DI Miller and me to speak with Jeffrey Morris.

  “Your client is free to leave for now, Mr. Morris, but we are far from finished yet,” I tell him.

  “Based on the way you have just bullied my client, Detective Sergeant, you should be more concerned about whether your career is finished and less concerned about harassing an old man. You might think you are a bit of a superstar because of your last case, but detectives like you are ten a penny. I’ll show myself out, gentlemen.”

  Morris leaves us alone and Miller is the first to speak.

  “Not the result you were expecting, Sean?”

  “No, it wasn’t,” I reply. “We were on a roll, though, and the slip up by Eddie put them both on the backfoot. Morris must have thought all his Christmases had come at once when Eddie puked. QC or not, he nearly shit himself when Eddie said ‘she’. With that and with the discovery of Paul’s body on Eddie’s land he knew we had the advantage. I can’t believe I screwed it up. We could have got Eddie to roll over today, I’m sure of it”

  Cath has come back into the interview room and has caught the tail end of my comments.

  “It’s not your fault, boss. Your bull-in-a-china-shop tactics usually pay off. The day hasn’t been a total disaster, though.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask. “One of our main suspects has just walked out with one of the top QCs in the country and they now have a key piece of information that they didn’t have yesterday. Not to mention the fact that he will be working on the Home Secretary to have us closed-down. If that’s not a disaster, I don’t know what is, Cath.”

  “You’ve heard the analogy about a broken clock, boss?” Cath asks me

  “What? What are you talking about?” I reply.

  “A broken clock, boss. They say that even a broken clock is right at least twice a day. Well, consider yourself a broken clock, Sean. You were right about the first body being Paul Oliver and now you are also right about there being a second body in that hole.”

  She hands me her phone and shows me the message from Dr. Mason.

  “This just came in two minutes ago.”

  ‘DS McMillan was right. The search team have located a 2nd skeleton. It was around four feet below the first one and it also shows signs of exposure to fire. We are still excavating, but with what I can see already, this one is a young adult female.’

  “Fucking yes!” I exclaim. “Those evil bastards are going down, Cath.”

  “You think it’s your missing girl, Sean?” Miller asks.

  “It is her,” I almost shout. “I mean it has to be,” I correct myself. “For the body to be buried below Paul Oliver, it must have been put in the ground before he died. Eddie is the link to both Joanna and Lucy, who were both close friends of Paul Oliver’s. The discovery of Paul’s body and now a female body below his on Eddie’s land is just too much of a coincidence for it not to be her.”

  “Shall we get going then, boss?” Cath asks me.

  “Of course, it would be good to know if it’s her before we drag Eddie back in again.”

  “What about calling Morgan to update him, boss?”

  “No, not yet, Cath,” I reply. “He will want to know how the interview went and I’m not ready for that yet. He will probably hear soon enough anyway if Jeffrey Morris follows through with his threat to reach out to the Home Secretary. I would rather have some more good news to offset the bollocking that I am likely to be in line for.”

  We leave Miller in the room to secure the interview tapes and Cath puts on the blue light to clear our path for the trip back to Meadow Farm.

  At just after 3:40 pm, Cath pulls up outside the guest house and a few minutes later, DI Miller arrives in a squad car accompanied by a uniformed Inspector. Miller makes the introductions.

  “Sean, Catherine, this is Inspector Mark Bradley from Spalding Traffic Division. I bumped into him on my way out of the station. He has something you might want to see.”

  Bradley places a laptop computer on the bonnet of his car and plugs in a memory stick.

  “As you both know, the original search of the traffic cameras drew a blank regarding your mystery dirt bike. So, at your request we widened the search. Unfortunately, this also came up empty, but then one of my officers spotted this.”

  Inspector Bradley clicks on a video file and we all lean in for a better look. The video is dark, but the image is of a Range Rover parked in front of the vicarage. An elderly woman gets out and the Range Rover drives away.

  “This was taken yesterday morning at 3.08 am,” Bradley tells us. “We can’t make out the registration, but if you look closely, you can see the woman goes through the gate. The vehicle drives to the rear of the vicarage and we lose coverage from the traffic cameras at that time.”

  “That has to be Joanna,” Catherine says.

  My mind jumps back to yesterday morning when we had arrived at the vicarage and I had seen an elderly woman getting onto a bus at the end of the street.

  “Shit, we were right, the whole thing was a setup. Nobody ever rode that bike. They bloody brought the bike here in the Range Rover. They killed the priest and then Eddie must have come to Tyevale and followed us from the hotel to Meadow Farm, leaving Joanna here with the bike engine running until just before we arrived. I bet if we search Colevale we will find that Range Rover and the quad bike that Eddie made his escape on.

  “What about the mud on the dirt-bike tires, Sean?” Cath asks me.

  “Eddie probably took it for a burn up on one of the estate fields before they got here,” I reply. “Have you got any footage of her leaving, Inspector?”

  Bradley nods and opens another video file. The time stamp is 9.32 am yesterday and the image is of the same elderly woman walking along the road and getting onto a bus.

  “Unfortunately, as you can see, she has pulled her headscarf down low and is deliberately hiding her face.”

  “Sneaky bitch,” Catherine exclaims.

  “Not that sneaky,” Bradley interjects. “It’s clear that she hasn’t used public transport for a while. She wasn’t reckoning on there being a camera on the bus. Look at this.”

  He opens a third file. The footage is taken from a camera located above the bus driver’s head and the image of Joanna-Partington Brown’s face is crystal clear.

  “Is that your suspect?” Bradley asks us.

  “Yes, it is,” both Cath and I reply in unison.

  “I think we have just found our just cause for bringing Joanna in, Cath,” I add. “Thank you, Inspector. This is extremely helpful to us.”

  Bradley hands me the memory stick and I thank him again as he packs up his laptop and gets back into the squad car. As he leaves, Cath asks me again if we should call DCI Morgan.

  “This is a major development, boss. We really need to let him know. He won’t be pleased if he finds out from someone else.”

  Sensing
my hesitation, Miller also urges me to call him.

  “Look, this is your investigation, Sean, but Catherine is right. The interview was a setback today, but you’ve made significant progress in other areas. I don’t personally know DCI Morgan, but I would be majorly pissed off if one of my team was holding out on me.”

  Under pressure from both directions, I agree, but only after we have spoken to the pathologist.

  “Okay, you’re both right. I want to speak to Dr. Mason first, though. I’ll call him straight afterwards.

  None of us had noticed before, but as we turn towards the forest, we are all thinking the same thing. It is Cath that expresses our thoughts.

  “I think you might want to give Morgan a call now boss. How the hell did the press get wind of this?”

  The cordon at the entrance to the forest is still in place, but it is now manned by half a dozen uniformed officers who are struggling to hold back a growing crowd of reporters and camera crews.

  As we get closer, the answer to Catherine’s question is answered when we see Peter Jackson, the owner of the guest house, being interviewed by a young woman with long blonde hair. As we approach, Jackson looks in my direction and points to me. This causes a flurry of activity and soon we are surrounded by reporters pushing digital recorders and cameras in our faces. All are desperate for quotes and the questions come thick and fast.

  “DS McMillan, is it true that a second body has been found?”

  “Is it true that this is the work of a serial killer?”

  “Sean, is this connected in any way to the Network?”

  “DC Swain, is there a connection here to Sir David Partington-Brown? Didn’t he used to be the MP for Spalding? Is he a suspect in these killings?”

  Ignoring the questions and with the help of two uniformed constables, we clear a path through the throng of journalists and push our way through the gap in the fence.

  “Boss, you need to call DCI Morgan now,” Cath tells me again. “If by some chance it doesn’t make the evening papers and news, you can bet your life it will be headline news tomorrow morning.”

  “Yep, got that, Cath,” I reply sarcastically. “DI Miller, would you mind going with DC Swain to the search site? I’ll call Morgan now and join you in a few minutes.”

  Miller leads Catherine away and I take a deep breath before dialing Morgan’s number.

  Part of me is hoping that he is busy and won’t answer, but as always he picks up within a couple of rings.

  “Detective Sergeant McMillan. Tell me – what’s going on?”

  Addressing me so formally puts me on the defensive immediately and I suspect that he probably already knows what is going on.

  “Some good progress on the one hand, sir, and a slight setback on the other.”

  “I assume by setback you’re talking about the interview of Edward Wells today?” Morgan asks. Clearly, he has already been called by the Home Secretary or by Jeffrey Morris himself.

  “Yes, sir. It didn’t quite go to plan, but ...”

  “That’s a slight understatement,” Morgan interrupts. “You shoved some horrific images under the nose of an elderly man without any lead in or adequate warning. I understand that your tactics are less than orthodox, Sean, but there is only so much that even I can do to protect you.”

  “I’m sorry, sir. Wells had just slipped up when we were questioning him about the death of Paul Oliver, and it seemed important to strike while he was still rattled. I do appreciate your support, sir.”

  “That’s my job, Sean. Anyway, leave the Home Secretary and Jeffrey Morris to me. You just said that you were questioning him about the death of Paul Oliver. So, you got a positive result on the ID?”

  “We did, sir. It’s Paul Oliver without a doubt and that’s not all. The search team have located a second body. A young adult female.”

  “Lucy Partington-Brown?” Morgan asks.

  “We don’t have a formal identification yet, but it must be. Our colleagues from Spalding have requested her dental records and then we can get working on it. There is also something else.”

  “Go on, Sean. What is it?”

  “We have camera footage placing Joanna at the scene of the murder of Father Beale.

  Irrespective of whether we get a positive ID on Lucy tonight, I need your permission to pull them both in for questioning tonight. With what we have now, we are way beyond just cause or reasonable doubt. Can I go ahea ...”

  “Sean, hold your horses,” Morgan interrupts me. “Under normal circumstances, you are right, but these are not normal circumstances. The Partington-Browns and Jeffrey Morris have an extensive network of extremely powerful and influential friends. In order to pacify Morris and the Home Secretary, I had to agree to giving at least twenty-four-hours’ notice before any further interviews. You also need to provide Morris with all the evidence that you are intending to present during the interviews.”

  “Christ, sir! We are near to breaking this case. Any delay in bringing them in swings the advantage back in their favor.”

  “Sean, I understand. But if you issue the notice now, you can get Wells back in by 5 pm tomorrow. From what I understand, he seems to be the weak link. Get him to spill his guts and he will take Joanna down with him.”

  It’s frustrating, but as always, Morgan is right. I thank him again for his support and we end the call. I rejoin Catherine and DI Miller and share the advice from Morgan.

  “It’s not ideal, Cath, but we are where we are. Head back to the hotel and make a copy of the memory stick – or better still, mail the files to Jeffrey Morris along with a summary of what we are accusing his clients of. I want Eddie Wells back in for interview by 5 pm tomorrow.”

  “What about Joanna?” she asks.

  “You heard Morgan’s advice, Cath. We stand down on her, until we get Eddie to rollover.”

  Catherine looks as pissed off and disappointed as I feel, but she doesn’t say anything else. We agree to meet later at the hotel, and she leaves with two uniformed officers to assist with navigating a path through the waiting press.

  Dr. Mason has been waiting patiently to the side of us and now leads me to the excavation site. To the untrained eye, the skeleton looks no different from the first one, but Mason points to the pelvic bone.

  “This one is most definitely a female, DS McMillan. There is absolutely no doubt.”

  “And what else can you tell us, doctor?” I ask.

  “Not a lot at this stage, I’m afraid. The condition of the bones is consistent again with a burial between forty and fifty years ago and as you can see the bones have been exposed to fire. We haven’t turned up any clothing fragments, but if you look closely at the right wrist there does appear to be the remains of molten steel and glass.”

  “A wristwatch?” I ask.

  “Yes, I believe so. Sean.”

  I turn to DI Miller and ask him about the dental records.

  “The request is in, Sean. But it’s the weekend. My boys are working on getting hold of them, but it may take some time to track down someone who can release them. I doubt very much if we will get them today and tomorrow is Sunday.”

  This is another unwanted blow, but it makes no difference. We already have more than enough to bring Eddie in. We also have enough to bring Joanna in, but I will play the game and remain patient.

  “Do you still have your medical examiners on site, Dr. Mason?”

  “Yes, they are both waiting at the guest house.”

  “Good,” I reply. “Keep them here. Once those dental records arrive, I don’t want any delays in the identification.”

  Technically, Dr. Mason and his team work for Lincolnshire Constabulary and therefore don’t take instruction from me. He turns to Miller for advice and Miller confirms my instruction.

  “Sorry, doctor. DS McMillan is right. If you could speak to your team and ask them to remain on site a while longer, I will follow up with my own guys to get a hustle on with those records. Just another twenty-four hours h
opefully.”

  I thank the doctor and then walk back towards the entrance to the forest. The crowd of reporters has grown even bigger and Miller asks me if I am ready.

  I smile and tell him that I was born ready.

  “You lead the way, though, and I will tuck in behind you.”

  “Agreed,” Miller says. “There is a car waiting to take you back to your hotel”

  One of the constables on duty pulls back the barrier and Miller leads the way through the crowd. As before, we are immediately surrounded and are hit with a new barrage of questions from all sides.

  “DS McMillan, have the bodies been identified?”

  “Who owns this land? Do you have any suspects? Is Sir David a suspect?”

  “DS McMillan, can you give us a statement?”

  “Are you expecting to find more bodies? Is the search continuing?”

  “Sean, you need to call Clive Douglas. He needs to speak to you.”

  I stop in my tracks and scan the crowd for who made that last statement.

  “Who said that? Who mentioned Clive Douglas?” I shout.

  Nobody responds and all I can see are reporters eager for me to speak and the flash of cameras blinding me. Realizing I am not with him, Miller turns back and pulls me forward. We break through the throng and two more constables stop the reporters from following us.

  We get to the waiting squad car and Miller asks me why I stopped.

  “The first rule of dodging press packs is that you keep on moving, Sean. What happened back there?”

  I explain the comment I had heard, and Miller promises to check the credentials of everyone on site.

  “If there is anyone there without proper press accreditation, I will let you know. Now, go on. It’s been another full-on day and tomorrow is going to be the same. I’m going to stay around here tonight and will let you know if anything else happens. My officer will take you back to Tyevale and unless there is anything else urgent, I will meet you back at Spalding Central tomorrow afternoon.”

  On the way to Tyevale, I message Maria to check on the condition of Ben. Five minutes later my phone vibrates, and I am pleased to see Maria’s response.