Charley, elbows on the desk, put her head in her hands.
Annie knocked on the office door holding two cups of coffee and with a file tucked under her arm. ‘Can I come in?’ she asked. ‘You look all in.’
‘Wilkie’s in theatre.’
‘The phone call?’
Charley nodded her head.
‘Do you think he’s going to be OK?’
With a shrug of her shoulders, Charley reached out for the file. ‘Incomplete enquiries,’ she stated. ‘Best to keep busy. Spending time worrying is not going to help him, or us.’
Annie slumped down on a chair. ‘Yes, sure,’ was all she could muster.
Charley picked up a marker and a dry-wipe board from her desk. ‘We’ll go through this together, shall we?’
An hour later, papers, along with half-drunk mugs of coffee, had joined the dry-wipe board on the desk. The plan had been to distract themselves by trawling through enquiries for which they had no answers as yet and listing them in some sort of order. But it hadn’t worked, there were too many … it was messy.
Charley wiped the board clean and proceeded instead to write down the outstanding tasks that she considered to be a priority. Firstly, identify and interview the landlord of Solomon Myers’ flat. Update: Rental management on holiday. To do: Arrange to see and get relevant information. ‘It may tell us something or nothing, but it needs doing quickly,’ said Charley.
Next, she wrote: statement from Mr Gibson needs revisiting now Solomon Myers has been charged, either to see if he recalls anything else, or has anything he would like to share now Solomon is to remain in custody.
Then: ‘I want you to get me a pair of brown brogues identical to those shown on the CCTV footage and pictured on Solomon’s mobile phone images.’
Silently, Annie made notes.
‘Solomon Myers definitely didn’t have a pair in his flat?’
Annie shook her head. ‘The style to me suggests an older man, but I don’t want to make assumptions.’
Together they revisited questions they had asked themselves and others and reviewed the answers they’d received, clearing the ground beneath their feet. If someone was trying to wrongfoot them, it seemed sensible to constantly ensure that they were on firm ground.
Chapter 19
In the middle of the night, Charley woke suddenly, the covers above and below her soaked in sweat. She must have been dreaming. Throwing open the window, she leaned against the wooden frame, drawing in long, what she hoped were calming, breaths. They were certainly deep; so deep she soon felt light-headed, which didn’t help to stop her mind from racing. Torturous fears of failure had been chasing round in her head for hours. She dropped to her knees and hung out of the window, gripping the windowsill hard, her knuckles turning white as she stared down into the street below.
When she caught herself trying to calculate how many metres it was to the ground, and the possibility of a serious injury, if not sudden death, if she lunged forward, she reached up, pulled the window shut, locked it and threw the key down. She didn’t want to be in pain; she didn’t want to die. What the hell was she thinking? That was just it; she wasn’t thinking, not rationally anyway. Normally when she was anxious, she’d go out for a ride, but this was far beyond normal and the feeling of anxiety was starting to scare her. The intensity of emotion, the extremity of the agitation, the feeling that she could gladly walk out and never come back … that wasn’t her usual thinking – she was a fighter. Was she going insane? She whirled around and threw herself on her bed, punching the pillows until all the fight had drained from her body.
Over a breakfast of toast and coffee, she reflected on the previous night. The window key was lying in front of the bedroom door, which puzzled her; all she could recall was the night sweat and waking with the words of the detective’s mantra going round and round her head: ‘Clear the ground from beneath your feet,’ she whispered.
She frowned and bit into her cold toast, caked with butter and orange marmalade, relishing the bitter-sweet spread on her tongue. Brushing the crumbs from her fingers on her pyjama bottoms, she stood, opened the back door into the yard and picked the jug up from the step. She sniffed the contents. It hadn’t gone sour; it was a good sign. Hob was happy! She smiled at herself, ran crumb-covered fingers through her hair and headed up the stairs two at a time to take a shower.
Eight o’clock was not a good time to drive into town, Charley decided. The queues were long and her journey into work slow, but, on the positive side, it gave her plenty of quality time to think. Whose name was the most reccurring in the investigation? Whose name was niggling at the back of her mind, on the tip of her tongue? She had to smile. Usually when she asked herself the question it was a prolific criminal, but this time it was Danny Ray. Her smile turned to a sneer as she passed the Chronicle newspaper building. ‘The thorn in my side,’ she said.
Charley breathed in deeply through her nose. Feeling uneasy and slightly warm, she touched the electric button on the car door to lower the window several inches, and breathed out through her mouth. The unmistakable din and clamour of town life instantly filled the air. Immediately she closed the window and tried to relax, settling back again in the quiet interior of the car. The traffic in front crawled forward and as she drove through the town she absent-mindedly gazed at the passing waves of humanity as she slowly navigated the busy streets.
‘Danny bloody Ray.’ Then, as if a bolt of lightning had surged through her veins, a thought struck her. How would she deal with her nemesis if he was the perpetrator? If he was involved in the flying of the drone that had killed the horse for his own ends – for the information he might glean from the device for the newspaper? If he was the one being held in the cells for the murders? He was part of the ground beneath her feet: he was a man, he hadn’t been eliminated and she knew he was capable of committing a crime. It wasn’t considered a crime in Roper’s eyes though, was it? Not even when she had told her boss that the reason for the bruise on her face was that her boyfriend had assaulted her, wielding a knife. Instead, he’d questioned her actions, not his. Roper’s accusing tone was loud in her ears. ‘Are you certain it was a knife?’
She had been. She had recognised the penknife Danny’s grandfather had left to him. He had used the blade many times on their expeditions growing up to prepare fires and food he caught, cut bandages or rope, make tools and even as a signal mirror. They had used it as a hammer, screwdriver, even a spade, in the fields and the woods and on the moors…
‘Were you trying to make him jealous?’
Charley had strenuously denied Roper’s accusations.
‘If not, then why did you lie to him about where you were going?’ Roper said. ‘Any red-blooded male would be enraged if he caught his girlfriend lying to him – especially when she was at the pub with another man.’
‘Not just any other man, I was with Richard, my work partner, as you well know. We were at Bill’s retirement do.’
She wondered briefly what Roper would say, or do, if he knew that the person about whom she had confided was in fact the journalist he wanted to meet for tea and biscuits with her?
To Danny Ray, she had to admit, death was just another natural process, like eating, drinking, having a bowel movement. He’d grown up on a working farm, like her. Her mind continued to pursue her theory. He could be violent: she had been surprised – shocked – to see that characteristic in him even as a child, she recalled, when he’d held her down on the ground by both wrists. It was in play, but he’d had a certain look in his eyes … When they were teenagers, she’d thought it was cute that he was jealous of others with whom she spent time. ‘He just loves me!’ she would say to Kristine who voiced her concerns about his behaviour. ‘He’s trying to control you,’ Kristine would reply. He liked to be in control, but had he the ability to murder a human being?
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ she berated herself audibly. ‘Stop it! Get a grip!’ She dealt with facts – hard and fast evidence, not
hing else.
Reaching the station at last, she parked and got out of the car. With her hand gripping the metal of the car door, she felt her body tremble ever so slightly as she prevented any emotion from manifesting on her face. She made her way into the bowels of the police station and, as she did so, heard the words of her predecessors whisper in her ear: ‘Everyone is a suspect until proven otherwise.’
Her decision was made. She would put Danny under the microscope, and because of his sham likeability factor and, more importantly, his friendliness with several officers, including the Divisional Commander, she wouldn’t be sharing this line of enquiry with anyone else.
Charley went straight to her computer. She put the pile of papers pertaining to the murder investigation, together with the morning’s briefing notes, next to the monitor. After making only a few keystrokes she took her first sip of coffee. Already lukewarm, and bitter, she screwed up her nose. No one in the office actually made coffee like Wilkie Connor. Logging in, she scowled at the computer’s slow progress. So many passwords, so many screens to plough through. Her pulse raced and her palms went moist as she tapped in Danny Ray’s name. Her trawl of his social media sites was enlightening. He was a journalist of long standing at the Chronicle, that much she knew. He had recently undertaken a master’s degree in Criminology – she hadn’t known that. She made notes. Her search widened. A host of articles he had posted online were listed; one in particular caught her eye: ‘Serial Killers’ had been his chosen subject at university.
‘It’s about time you showed up,’ she said, as Ricky-Lee passed her a small white bag and rolled into the chair opposite her.
‘What d’you mean? I’ve done a day’s work already!’ he protested.
‘Where’ve you been?’ she asked, unwrapping the paper napkin surrounding the roll. ‘You missed the briefing.’ The smell of bacon wafting up her nostrils provoked memories of the farm, of home, of her dad. Digging her teeth into the soft white teacake, she relished the sweet, salty taste of the meat on her lips.
‘I’ve been to the Chronicle with Connie.’
Charley’s heart leapt and then did a series of cartwheels. ‘Why?’
‘Why what?’
‘Why’ve you been to the Chronicle?’
‘Danny Ray’s article…’
Charley sucked in a deep breath.
‘He’s actually quite an interesting chap – better for knowing, that’s for sure. It must be you that antagonises him.’
Her mouth full, Charley scowled.
‘He reckons he could pull off the perfect murder. And you know what? I think he may be right.’
A shiver rippled down her spine. ‘Does he now?’
Ricky-Lee nodded and his grin spread from ear to ear. ‘In theory, of course.’
‘Of course’.
Charley glanced longingly out of the door at her colleagues outside, but she knew that no matter what, she couldn’t share her thoughts and feelings – not again; not ever again. This was for her to deal with, and her alone. They’d think she was weak, insane even, just as Roper had. She’d seen enough psychos for one lifetime, and she had to get to the bottom of this one. Tears leaked reluctantly from her eyes. She had trusted Danny – and her Inspector, who she’d thought would advise her, not tell her to get a grip; what had she expected if she went about messing with her boyfriend’s head…? Now, it felt as if she was the only one who still recalled the days and nights after that night in the pub car park.
Those assembled were attentive to her every word. ‘I believe that our outstanding perpetrator will have made a mistake along the way,’ she said. ‘It’s our job to find that mistake. Bear with me … We know where our victims were murdered. We know how they were transported. What I have difficulty understanding is why our murderers didn’t bury them in the woods, or on the moorland near the nursery, where I believe they could have remained undiscovered for years. The only thing that I can think of is that someone has set out to confuse and mislead us, while at the same time setting up Solomon Myers for the fall.
‘We have pictures on Solomon Myers’ mobile phone, which we found at his home address. That mobile has not been used for anything else. This says to me that if they didn’t need a mobile phone for communication, then they were in touch by other means. In the second murder enquiry, the condom was left intentionally. Once again, this was a deliberate act to confuse and mislead, again setting up Solomon to connect him to the murder should the police be successful in the investigation. Two things the second person could not predict, or didn’t think of, was that the soil samples would connect the murders and that his shoe would be in the photograph. The hit-and-run of Wilkie was another distraction we could have done without. Was this a deliberate act to try and slow down the investigation, or derail it? It was another calculated risk to lure the officer to a quiet location. Solomon couldn’t be blamed for this one. So, what was he thinking? We’d arrested Solomon, which no doubt he would have expected at some stage, but did he expect it so soon, before he had done with Solomon as his stooge? Or was he going to see him off too?’
Charley’s telephone rang and it distracted her. She rolled her eyes, ‘I must take this call,’ she said, as she stepped to the side.
‘Inspector. Divisional Commander here,’ she heard from the other end, ‘Mr Ray’s visit has been delayed until two-thirty this afternoon. Is there any chance at all you could make an appearance for a short time after all? It would be greatly appreciated.’
‘Sorry! I don’t have the time.’ Her dismissal sounded final to her ears.
There was silence at the other end of the line for a moment or two. ‘Maybe I need to remind you…’ Roper said, in a hushed tone ‘… that it’s always good to keep the media focused and on side – especially with Mr Ray, our local reporter.’ He sighed. ‘And, isn’t it about time you put your feelings for your old flame to rest?’
Charley was shocked. He knew! He knew … How did he know about her and Danny Ray? He had never said, before now. How did he know? Did he realise what he had just done? Had he dropped this on her now, intentionally, because she was unwilling to conform, or was it a mistake on his part? There was only one person who could have told Roper about Danny’s history with Charley – and that was Danny Ray himself. She had to think quickly.
‘I understand perfectly well what you’re saying, sir. But even I can’t be in two places at once. Maybe, if you’re seeing him, you could have a word in his ear for me, though. Police Constable Susan Vine – you know Susan, one of your own officers – was approached by him the other day at the hospital and she tells me she felt threatened by his behaviour after she told him that he couldn’t see, talk to or take a picture of Wilkie Connor. And he blatantly lied to her and the hospital staff when he told them he had my permission to do all of the above.’
Roper’s voice was monotone. ‘And did he get in to see him?’
‘No, but that’s not the point.’
His scoff was gruff. ‘No harm done, then. I can’t see your problem. We’ve all tried to pull a fast one at one time or another have we not? Maybe if you pushed a little harder, we wouldn’t be having this conversation; the job would be sewn up.’
‘I’m sorry, sir. I don’t agree. I don’t know about you, but I need to be able to trust our local media to work with me, not against me.’
Roper sighed. ‘Well, if I get the opportunity, I’ll mention it,’ he said.
Just at that moment the phone on the desk next to her rang. She turned, searching for someone nearby who could answer it. Charley paid no attention to Mike’s conversation, but the raising of his finger caught her eye and instead she ended her phone call to the Chief Superintendent abruptly.
‘What is it?’ she said eagerly.
Mike’s eyes were unusually bright. ‘Guess who Gibson’s did a job for recently?’
Charley frowned. ‘Who?’
‘Danny Ray.’
‘And?’
‘And, therefore, he must surely k
now Solomon?’
Charley frowned. ‘And yet, to my knowledge, he’s never let on.’
‘In passing, Mr Gibson also told me that Danny Ray promised him free publicity for a knock-down quote, which he never honoured. But the positive for Solomon was that he got a flat rental out of it … and guess who his landlord is?’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘Danny Ray?’
‘The one and only. Confirmed just now by the estate agent who rents it out on his behalf.’
‘But that doesn’t make Danny a suspect, it just means he’s not being up-front, and I guess there’s nothing we can do about that?’
‘Why would he withhold information like that if he had nothing to hide?’ Mike said. ‘A well-educated journalist, with a degree in criminology. Could he be our puppeteer?’
Charley felt her heart leap – somebody else was making the connection which made Danny Ray fair game. ‘Let’s get Ricky-Lee and Annie in my office for a meeting. I don’t want Danny Ray to have the slightest inkling that we are looking at him. He’s in the station this afternoon meeting up with the Divisional Commander, talking about Wilkie’s hit-and-run and I’m invited. I declined, but maybe we could use his time here productively – I have an idea how we can move the investigation forward, but, for now, I want you to find out everything you can about Danny Ray, down to the last time he had a spot on his arse. Let’s get the team in and start digging. And keep it tight.’
Payback Page 24