by Jane Isaac
Beth turned over the engine and pulled off down the street. The incident played on her mind, long after she’d dropped her sister home. Their late mother’s pleading words before she died rang out in her ears – Promise me you’ll look after Eden and Lily, won’t you? They need you more than you realise. Many a time she’d considered relinquishing that promise, unburdening herself of all it entailed. But abandoning Eden meant forsaking Lily and that was something she could never do.
Beth cursed the promise, and then cursed her sister’s errant ways. She’d thought they’d put an end to her sister’s association with a known criminal over a month ago when Eden’s ex-husband agreed to drop his fight for custody if she finished the relationship. Less than a day after PSD closed their investigation on her conduct, an investigation sparked by her family’s association with Kyle, she’d witnessed a disturbance with him in the street in her own village. A disturbance she wasn’t able to report because it would be logged onto the police system and Chris, Eden’s ex-husband, might notice it and reignite his fight for their daughter’s custody. Apart from this lapse, Eden was a good mother; losing her daughter would crush her. No, Beth’s hands were tied but the exchange wedged itself uncomfortably at the back of her mind, leaving her with a grave sense of disquiet.
32
Beth swallowed a mouthful of coffee and waited for her computer to boot up. Just when her sister seemed to be settling, Kyle Thompson was back, muscling his way into her life, upsetting the balance. After a night of restless sleep, she’d come to the office early to focus on the investigation and take her mind off things.
She sifted through the papers on her desk. Colleagues had made little progress and there was still a wealth of contacts to trace from the social services list. A grainy black and white newsprint photo of Jess Adams stared at her as she opened her emails.
In her inbox was an email from Annie Hudson; the social worker covering Jess’s case had replied. It was brief:
I am moving on today, but if you email me the details of what you wish to discuss, and any questions, I’ll respond to you at our next stop.
The message had arrived only a minute earlier. Beth emailed back, more in hope than expectation, and waited.
Are you free to chat now?
Within seconds, a reply came through.
You can call me at the hostel. I’m leaving in an hour.
The telephone number was listed at the bottom.
Beth punched the numbers into her phone. It was answered on the fourth ring. ‘It’s Annie Hudson.’ The voice was warm and melodious and Beth could imagine her talking to people in her old job, putting them at ease.
‘Good morning, Mrs Hudson. It’s DC Beth Chamberlain here. Are you free to talk?’
The line crackled. ‘Yes. What did you want to discuss?’
Beth started to explain the reason for the call, but the line faltered several times. Beth checked her watch. If they only had an hour, she needed to get the details down quick.
‘Do you have access to Skype?’ she asked. ‘It might be easier.’ She didn’t want to go down the road of Spanish police stations and interpreters if they didn’t need to, and the force budget certainly wouldn’t stretch to flying anyone out there, unless it was absolutely crucial. At this stage, they didn’t know how much the social worker could help, but the lines appeared to lead back to Whitefield and Jess. Somehow, Jess held the key, Beth was positive of it, and she felt a need to delve into the teenager’s life before she died.
‘I’ll ask the hostel owner and come back to you.’ The call cut.
Less than ten minutes later, an image of Annie Hudson’s head and shoulders appeared on Beth’s laptop. Her face was angular, mouse-like. Short grey hair was parted at the side. Fine lines gathered around her kind blue eyes as Beth introduced herself again.
Beth closed the door of the small meeting room she’d purloined to cut out background noise from officers nearby. ‘Are you okay for me to record this?’
‘Of course.’
‘Thank you.’ Beth switched on the recorder and introduced them both for the record. ‘I’m sorry to interrupt your holiday,’ she said.
‘No problem. What case are you referring to?’
‘Jess Adams. She was at Whitefield Children’s Home in the 1990s and listed under your care. Do you remember her at all?’
‘As a matter of fact, I do,’ Annie said. ‘We don’t get many suicides and those that we do, stay with us. But I can’t see why you’d be interested now. It happened over twenty years ago.’
‘I’m working on a multiple murder investigation,’ Beth said. ‘Two of the victims were linked to Whitefield when Jess was there.’ She mentioned Stuart Ingram and Richard Moss. ‘Are either of those names familiar to you?’
‘Goodness.’ The word was smothered, as if she’d pressed a hand to her mouth. There was a pause before she continued, ‘I hadn’t heard. I can’t say I recall Stuart, but I vaguely remember Richard. He worked at the home. Why would his murder be connected to Jess?’
‘We’re not sure exactly, it’s a line of inquiry we’re following. Anything you can tell me about Jess’s case would help.’
‘Jess was a very sad case. Her mother was neglecting her, selling her for sexual favours in return for drugs money when she was young. The school alerted social services that something was wrong when she was seven. Poor child was going to school in dirty clothes with no provision for lunch. Goodness knows how long she’d been abused before it was picked up.’ She took a breath. ‘If I remember rightly, she was placed with a foster family in Northampton. She took a while to settle, and needed lots of support, but as the years passed she thrived. Things were fine until the foster couple separated. The father went to live abroad and the mother couldn’t afford to keep the house on her own and was forced to move back in with her own parents. She wanted to keep Jess but there wasn’t room. Jess was heartbroken. She was eleven then and that’s when she came to Whitefield and I became her caseworker.
‘We tried to place her with other foster homes, we always prefer to put the children with families if we can, but none seemed to suit Jess. I think she always thought they’d let her down eventually. By the time she was twelve she was suffering from depression and self-harming and the constant change in environment and schools weren’t helping. Poor kid was insular, struggled to bond, preferred her own company. A decision was eventually made to keep her at Whitefield as a permanent resident. She was more comfortable there, although she spent most of her time alone in her own room. The incident, when it happened on the eve of her sixteenth birthday, was such a shock. She’d stopped her counselling sessions but was still taking her medication and appeared relatively stable – there were no obvious warning signs at the time.’
‘What about friends at Whitefield, or staff? Did she get close to anyone?’
‘Jess was very much a loner. She found it difficult to form deep friendships, especially with children of her own age. There was one lad… I’m trying to remember his name, Dale… Yates. That’s it, Dale Yates. He was brought into the emergency bed in Whitefield after a fight at his foster home. He only stayed a week or so.’
‘What happened?’
‘Dale Yates wasn’t under my care, but I was aware of his file because he was one of the most troubled kids we dealt with. His mother died of a crack overdose when he was four years old. He was placed in a foster home, but was very disruptive. I recall him being moved several times. He disapproved of social services, was anti-establishment and struggled to trust anyone in authority. There were endless complaints of violence against staff, foster parents, teachers in schools: kicking out, punching. During his teens he appeared to be responding to anger management treatment and a decision was made to try another foster home. But the placement ended abruptly when he threatened the family’s eldest son with a knife. He was fifteen at the time and that’s when he was taken to Whitefield as an emergency case.
‘I don’t know what it was between him and J
ess, but they formed an extraordinary bond, right from the first night he arrived. He was calmer in her presence; she enjoyed his company. But there wasn’t a permanent room available for him at Whitefield. He was placed in a unit in Northampton.’
‘Did they meet up after he was moved?’
‘That’s the thing. Jess had always been fairly well-behaved, no trouble really. We get a lot of runaways in children’s homes, especially among the teenagers. The staff often contact the police to help them find the kids and bring them back. But, once settled back at Whitefield, Jess had always been a good girl, done as she was told. After Dale left, we had a spate of her running away, two or three times. I remember I had to go and see her about it. It took a lot of coaxing, but eventually she told me she was meeting Dale. I managed to calm her down and she agreed to correspond with him by letter and the home would organise specific meetings so that the staff could arrange transport. They didn’t have mobile phones in those days. But the staff said she was getting angry and becoming aggressive after she’d seen him. His presence was deemed a negative influence, the meetings discouraged and his letters intercepted. As far I was concerned, their liaison ended a couple of months before she committed suicide.’
‘How did Jess cope with the decision?’
‘She was sad for a few days, then accepted it.’
‘When did you last see Jess?’
‘A few days before she died. I can still see her now, curled up in an armchair. She wasn’t particularly talkative, but that was quite normal. There was no reason to think she was at risk.’
‘What happened on the night she died?’
‘Well, I wasn’t there, so I can only tell you what I learned afterwards. Apparently, she retreated to her room after dinner, which was routine. She slipped out after everyone had gone to bed and walked up to the railway bridge. It was so sad.’
‘What happened after she died?’
‘Dale Yates went crazy when he heard. Made up all sorts of allegations against staff at Whitefield, claiming Jess had been abused and driven to suicide. The post-mortem indicated she was sexually active, but there was no bruising, nothing to suggest she’d been forced. Whitefield was fully investigated and no improprieties were found. Dale robbed one of the care workers at his home and disappeared the next day. The police eventually picked him up after a fight in a bus queue. There’d been an argument, he stabbed a man. It wasn’t surprising, he’d always been a violent one. The man nearly died and Dale was convicted of attempted murder – from what I understand they argued, Dale beat him up and then stabbed him repeatedly. It was pretty awful. Last I heard he was still in prison.’
*
Beth thanked Annie Hudson, asked the social worker to check her emails regularly for the next few days, in case they needed to probe her further, and passed on the routine safety warning they’d given to all the Whitefield’s contacts they’d reached. The killer’s motive was still unclear and if they were targeting people who’d worked with or were known to Jess, it was marginally possible Annie was at risk.
Beth scampered down the corridor, itching to get a trace on Dale Yates. Familiar voices rang out as she neared the canteen. It sounded like Nick and Andrea. They were speaking in low tones, almost whispers. She paused, craned her neck, listened intently, but couldn’t make out the conversation. The door was ajar. She was about to walk in and share her news of a potential suspect, when she held back.
They were alone. Nick sat at a table, swathes of papers laid out in front of him. Andrea was beside him, leaning over slightly. They were examining a sheet of A4, their heads so close that strands of their hair touched. Andrea smiled and nudged him with her elbow. They both laughed.
Beth pressed her face to the crack. She was toying with whether or not to interrupt them when Andrea grabbed her phone and made to go. Nick reached across and placed a reassuring hand on her forearm. The gesture seemed out of place, intimate and tender. He looked at her. A soft expression, his dark eyes warm and gentle. Beth had seen that look before.
She retreated quickly, down the corridor, and slipped into the toilet, locking herself in a cubicle. Nick had said very little about Andrea’s return to the team. Unlike others, he hadn’t passed judgement when she’d been offered a temporary promotion over him, even though he was the more experienced officer. They’d worked together for a couple of years before Andrea’s recent secondment to region. Were they close before? He’d never mentioned it. Andrea wasn’t the sort of woman Beth imagined he would be attracted to, but then… perhaps she didn’t know him as well as she thought.
Several minutes later, she emerged, splashed cold water on her cheeks and stared at her reflection in the mirror. Nick had been against their breaking up just over a month earlier. He hadn’t seen the need for breathing space from their secret liaisons, even with her being the subject of a PSD investigation. With the internal investigation over, she’d harboured the vague hope that they might regain their former closeness. But every time she’d tried to speak with him personally about the closure of the PSD file, something cropped up to distract him. And now it appeared she was too late. He’d already moved on.
33
‘Hey, what happened to you?’ Pete asked when Beth arrived back in the incident room.
She reined in her emotions, hoping her flushed cheeks weren’t too obvious, and pushed all thoughts of Nick and Andrea aside. ‘I’ve been interviewing Jess Adams’s social worker on Skype.’ She crossed to his desk and passed on the social worker’s account.
‘Well, the timings seem to fit,’ Pete said. He flicked through some papers on his desk and pulled out a list. ‘Dale Yates is on the social services list of residents. We marked him low priority as he was only there for a few nights in May 1996 and we’ve been focusing on the long-term residents.’ He turned to his computer, clicked a few buttons. ‘She’s right,’ he said. ‘Dale Yates was charged with attempted murder in August 1996 and was later convicted and imprisoned. He’s out now though.’
‘What?’
‘He was released from Bedford Prison last September to an address in Northampton town centre.’ He clicked another button. An image of Dale Yates sat in the corner of the computer screen. Beth leaned over his shoulder and clicked to enlarge it. He was stocky with cropped dark hair, heavy eyebrows and sable eyes. ‘His original sentence was extended due to a conviction for actual bodily harm. Looks like he was involved in an incident while inside. He served his full term for both crimes.’
‘Check the CCTV image of the man driving Ingram’s car on the night of his murder.’
Pete clicked several keys. Beth waited while he arranged the images on the screen, side by side.
‘There’s certainly a resemblance,’ Pete said, pointing out the close-cropped hair and the earring. ‘Our guy has a beard, but he could easily have grown that later.’
‘I thought we ran a search on recent prison releases?’
‘Only recent releases in the last six months. This goes beyond that. There’s a release address here though.’
‘Great! What about a probation officer?’
‘Can’t see a mention of one. I’ll do a bit more digging, see what I can find out.’
*
Beth felt a frisson of excitement as she hurried down to Freeman’s office. She’d reached her own desk to find the social services file had arrived, confirming Annie Hudson’s story. A friend of Jess’s, a Dale Yates, had been distraught and hurled allegations of abuse at Whitefield, abuse he claimed drove Jess to take her own life. Beth flicked through the social services investigation that followed. Jess was a troubled child, one of the home’s longest standing residents, and was being treated for depression. They’d interviewed staff and other residents but found nothing to substantiate the allegations. And there was no police investigation… As Annie had said, although a history of self-harming was recorded, Jess appeared to be responding to the treatment when she died and showed no immediate signs of risk.
It gave Yates a mot
ive for murder: to take revenge on those he believed drove Jess to her death. Two of the victims were linked to Whitefield around the time Jess died. Beth had checked the old addresses of Underwood and Moss and they lived only a few streets away from each other during the 1990s, barely a five-minute walk. Could Underwood be an acquaintance of Moss? While she hadn’t found a direct link between Jess and Underwood yet, she was convinced it was only a matter of time before something came to light. She turned the corner as Freeman’s door opened and Mike Carter stepped out. Freeman was on his tail, Andrea Leary behind him. The conversation cut as she approached.
‘Ah, Beth,’ Freeman said. ‘I’d like a word.’
‘Of course.’
She felt Mike Carter’s eyes on her as she slipped past him into Freeman’s office.
‘Thanks for bringing this to our attention,’ Andrea said to the news editor. ‘I can assure you it will be dealt with.’ She shook his hand. ‘I look forward to our meeting later. I’m positive the closer working initiative will benefit all of us.’
Suspicion pecked at Beth as Andrea closed the door. Why did she get the feeling she was about to be shredded?
‘How are you doing, Beth?’ Freeman asked. He was back behind his desk now. He sat and laced his fingers together.
‘I’m good, thank you,’ she said warily. Another glance at the door. Andrea’s presence behind her was disconcerting. ‘What was all that about?’
Andrea skirted around Beth and stood beside Freeman’s desk, facing her. ‘Beth, can you tell us how many times you’ve been out to visit Jason Carter and his wife, Phoebe, since the murder last week?’
‘One. Well, two.’
‘Which is it?’ Andrea’s voice was tight.
Beth faced Freeman. ‘I was about to come and see you, sir, only—’
‘Answer the question,’ Andrea said. ‘This is important.’
‘Twice.’
‘Right. Can I ask why?’
‘The first time was to deliver the news about her late father’s death.’ She stared at Freeman, imploring an ounce of his grounded reasoning.