While the purchase downloaded, Joe did his homework in his room and Bennet went downstairs to try to get the hang of Backup Buddy, a mental health support app for South Yorkshire Police. Hunter had certainly been busy, having already allocated Bennet a meeting tomorrow afternoon with a member of TriM – the Trauma Risk Management team. The lady had emailed him half an hour ago to say he should download the app. It had advice on coping strategies, stories from other officers who’d gotten through heartache, and numbers and emails of people who could help. He tried an audio segment on meditation, but it only increased his urgency to do… something else. He closed the app and called the number the TriM representative had put on the email. It went to voicemail.
What if I was right now about to jump off a bridge? he almost yelled at the phone, before he was urged to leave his message. ‘Joan? DCI Liam Bennet. I’m supposed to meet you tomorrow. I just wanted to know if I could pay you privately to talk to my son. He needs this more than I do. Call me back as soon as you get this.’
Next, he called DCS Hunter. Again he got voicemail and left a message: ‘Boss, I can’t sit around, I’ll just dwell on things. Take me off compassionate leave. Make it adjusted duty and I’ll work from home.’
His next call was to Liz Miller.
The detective was still in Spain, still hanging around waiting for her target to do something juicy so he could be arrested. Bennet didn’t even allow her to speak before he launched into a synopsis of his day and finished with his current setting: waiting for the optimum moment to deliver crushing news to his son.
‘Sooner the better,’ she said. ‘Before he hears it on Facebook.’
Bennet had worried his kid might come across a news banner ad embedded in a website. He hadn’t considered social media. ‘I’ll make an excuse to get his phone away from him.’
‘Good luck with it. I hope he’s okay.’
‘He will be,’ Bennet said, with no clue if he was going to be right.
‘And what about you? Is adjusted duty the right thing? Perhaps you should take the compassionate leave. Maybe go on holiday.’
Hunter had suggested the same thing, because Lorraine’s murder was going to be in the air for a while. ‘I’ll be okay. I mean I am okay. I don’t need leave. They don’t understand. I’m not traumatised. I’m not burned out.’
‘You might be and not know it. Take the advice and stay away. Don’t even take phone calls about your cases.’
It sounded like she was saying he was in denial. ‘It isn’t about me. Lorraine was long gone from my life.’
‘Are you sure?’
No, he wasn’t. ‘This is about Joe. He’s just lost his mum, and he can’t remember her because he was too young. And now he’ll never meet her. Hell, he doesn’t even know yet. He’s up there in his room, oblivious to the fact that his world has just been crushed. And I’m sitting here with that knowledge.’
‘You’re angry.’
‘The anger is because I caused this. I knew where Joe’s mother lived, and did nothing to reunite the two of them. If I’d gone after Lorraine earlier, years ago, when I should have, this would have been avoided. Or, if not, then at least Joe would have met her.’
‘You couldn’t know. It was the right thing to do at the time.’
‘And I’m pissed off that I held back. I know it wasn’t police business, but I could have pretended it was and got answers sooner, and this could have been avoided.’
‘But there was no investigation, she wasn’t reported missing, so the police couldn’t have done anything.’
‘Then that’s part of the problem too. Rules. I’m getting sick of having my hands tied. So sick that I… I did something bad.’
‘What?’
‘She was my son’s mother, and I couldn’t… waiting for people… forms to fill in… permission… I hate it all and I couldn’t…’
‘Liam, I don’t understand. Are you saying you broke a rule?’
‘I’ve changed. I was the straight-laced man, known for it. But that’s not me anymore. Maybe it never was. Remember Pond Street?’
‘Liam, this doesn’t make sense. “Never was?” Did you do something wrong? If you did something wrong, it’s understandable. You’d just found Joe’s mother dead and–’
‘No. No. Pond Street. I took a suspect to a crime scene, remember? No solicitor, no recorded interview. That was wrong. There was no dead mother of my son back then.’
‘Liam, stop. You’re doubting yourself and you shouldn’t. You’re a good man, a fine police officer. But with all this, I think you need help.’
He didn’t agree, but it would do no good to make Liz worry about him. ‘You’re right. I’m attending an appointment tomorrow, and hopefully that will… let’s say cheer me up. Get me straight. Look, I need to go see Joe. I’ll call you tomorrow maybe.’
He didn’t need help at all. And he wasn’t really concerned about getting in trouble for police misconduct. He was worried about the kind of man he’d become. Even now, knowing he had heartbreaking news to give Joe, he couldn’t shake the anger he felt towards himself. He had failed Lorraine and Joe, and he had failed the Turtons. Trying to be a good man had allowed two killers to remain free.
46
As Bennet and Joe were playing Xbox, a call came through from a lady who introduced herself as a detective constable and immediately launched into a volley of facts. She got two sentences out before Bennet, surprised, realised what was going on.
The last thing he’d asked of his boss, back on the veranda at the Arrow Hotel, was to be kept abreast of the quadruple murder investigation. DCS Hunter had said he’d see what he could do, and what he could do had been to sway DCS Sutton into allocating a woman to play envoy. Bennet had expected a call from Hunter, not someone attached to the murder investigation. He paused the Xbox game so he could slip out of the room to talk. Not that he got to talk: Envoy Lady gave a lecture, asked no questions of him, and hung up rather abruptly when her task was done.
Bennet had informed the police of Councillor Turner’s extensive CCTV coverage of Lampton and they’d visited his stables with watering mouths. There the good news ended. Turner’s many cameras covered most of the village, but they didn’t automatically save what they saw. A control box’s trigger had to be depressed to record. Turner’s reason for such a set-up: privacy. He would watch his people, but only record activity he found suspicious. So, nine tenths of the cameras in Lampton were useless and the police couldn’t track the CaraHome or the film crew. What few private CCTV cameras the residents operated was still being collected, but nobody was holding their breath. If Bennet thought Turner wouldn’t be able to piss him off any further…
The last known place of visit for the film crew, Crabtree’s ranch, had been searched, but nothing of worth had been unearthed. A more specialised team would be returning soon for a detailed sift through the building, especially the annex where items had been burned, for bloodstains, DNA and the like – the place had been scrubbed clean and dedicated mega tidying affairs always raised tec eyebrows. Another team was working its way along the supposed route the CaraHome took from the ranch to its final resting place at Lake Stanton.
An investigator’s first port of call and best chance of finding a killer: the victim’s background. So far, police had found nothing suspicious about any of the four dead except for John Crickmer, the cameraman. He had a four-year-old conviction for drugs, so that was something to explore. People got their drugs somewhere, and drug dealers could be or could know vicious bastards.
So, Bennet found himself wondering about Lorraine. He’d been asked by the Derby boys if he knew of anyone who would want to hurt her. He’d said no, which was the truth, but he didn’t know much about her life over the last decade. He’d learned his information from social media, and she was hardly going to post about her criminal activities or those of friends. He prayed that, if the killer was connected to one of his kills, it wasn’t on her side. Her murder would be easier to digest if she
was someone simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, like so many thousands of others. Better for Joe if she wasn’t blamed in the media.
The CaraHome had been retrieved from Lake Stanton, and a search of it had provided a possible motive: robbery. No mobile phones or expensive movie-making equipment had been found. Right now the CaraHome was in a vehicle lab for a more detailed examination.
And on to a new shocking twist. From the veranda at the Arrow Hotel, Bennet had witnessed people sneaking close to the crime scene for a nosey. There had been some more creative attempts since: folk had tried to get inside the cordon by moving through treetops like Tarzan, swimming across the lake, and even flying drones. Someone with a long lens had managed to capture video of the moment divers retrieved something from the water. It was a trunk that had been squashed into the lakebed, and thus hidden, by the nose of the CaraHome.
Inside, a human body. A small one. Word quickly spread: little Sally Jenkins, missing now a decade, had been found.
47
Following the discovery of Sally Jenkins’ body, things exploded. The crime scene virtually came under siege by reporters and extra police had to be pulled in to keep them at bay. Curiously, though, the locals had backed off, as if ashamed. They should be, Bennet figured. They had pulled the wool over their own eyes for ten years.
The story raced across the country far faster than that of four bodies found in a motorhome. Bennet was more interested in Lampton’s response to it. On YouTube, he found various short videos posted by users with untraceable names. He figured some of these people might be locals independent of Lampton’s hive-mind denial. Drone footage. Mobile phone footage. Even reaction videos, some whose creators’ voices and faces were obscured – could the latter be locals wary of Turner’s wrath for speaking out?
One video caught his eye because of the title: Moment Dead Girl’s Mother Hears The News.
It did what it said on the tin. A reporter was outside Anika Jenkins’ house on Grodes Place in Lampton. His cameraman stood back as the reporter banged the door. When Anika answered, it was with a pair of headphones in her hand. It seemed she must have been busy indoors and missed the furore. Shock as a microphone was thrust at her.
‘Have you heard about the body found in the lake? Did you know it was your daughter? Have you tried to get to the scene to view her body?’
What a moron. Anika reeled back, as if punched, and grabbed keys from the hallway wall, and fled out the door, knocking the reporter out of her way. As the cameraman turned to follow, the street was exposed. Many people, neighbours and friends, standing on the road or their doorsteps, and more reporters. Another turned up and his car almost hit Anika as she stumbled to hers; instantly he was out, microphone first, machine-gunning questions.
Anika ignored him, but not the growing crowd. To those living on the street, she yelled, ‘You all knew already, my God, and you stand there watching? You bastards.’
As she got in her car and it screamed away, and reporters turned their own vehicles to follow, Bennet shut down the website. He couldn’t watch any more. Not because of Anika’s distress, but due to the slimy reporters. He hoped the bastards rotted.
Other slimeballs had focused their attention elsewhere. After his daughter’s disappearance, Sally’s errant father had been unable to cope with the scrutiny and had fled to Stuttgart, Germany, where his brother owned three restaurants. Now, Alan managed one of the establishments and had remarried and done a fine job of forgetting the past, but it had reared its ugly head. In no time at all, the story had travelled overseas, been picked up by the media, and a journalist had tracked him down.
Bennet found an audio file of her attempt to engage Alan in interview. She had called his restaurant, claimed to have a complaint for the manager, and when he got on the line she said, ‘Have you seen the news from your home city? Your daughter’s body has been found.’
‘What? Who are you?’
‘You were investigated by the police about her disappearance, weren’t you?’
‘Are you talking about Sally? Sally’s been found? Look, who the hell are you?’
‘Why did you leave the country if you had nothing to do with it?’
Here Alan hung up, as might anyone who desperately needed to verify a piece of information. The reporter announced that she’d give him time to read the news and would call him back. She did that an hour later. She’d recorded their second conversation, again over the phone.
‘You again. Listen, I had nothing to do with my daughter’s disappearance. The police wouldn’t have let me leave the country if they suspected me. Your information is bullshit. I left the country to get away from soulless bastards like you, hassling me every day. Now, please, piss off.’
The reporter didn’t piss off. ‘Are you going to return to England to help the police? To go to the funeral? Will you meet the mother and–’
‘No, okay? No. If Sally was alive, sure I’d go back. But she’s not, and so what’s the point? Just to face idiots like you and go through all that again? If they catch the killer, I’ll go to his damn trial. Don’t call me again.’
Alan hung up. The same story reported that Alan had been living in Germany all these years and nobody knew about a daughter, never mind that she’d gone missing a decade ago. Shades of Lorraine there. There was more: the reporter had then visited his restaurant for another confrontation, and this time there was video. But Bennet had seen and heard enough already.
Lorraine’s husband knew of her death, and doubtless the family and friends of Francis Overeem, Betty Crute and John Crickmer had received a death knock. And now, all these years later, Sally Jenkins’ mother and father knew the truth. Joe was the only one still in the dark, still living in a painless dreamworld, and it was wholly down to his selfish, stupid dad. He punched his own thigh.
When Bennet went back into the bedroom, Joe immediately unpaused the fighting game and, laughing, started pummelling his dad’s character. Bennet turned the Xbox off at the plug.
‘Come on, Dad, it was just a joke.’
He sat by his son. ‘I have to talk to you, Joe.’
Joe looked a little shocked and scared, which gave Bennet the impression he’d done something bad at school and thought his dad had just learned of it.
He would have gladly swapped a telling off for what he was about to do.
48
The murk makes it hard to see even his outstretched hand in front of him, but he pushes onward through the cold water fast, against a clock that will kill him if it wins. His fingers catch something hard, protruding, and in the next moment he is close enough to see it is a shiny silver tap in a sink.
Onwards. Paper and various other buoyant debris waft past him, ahead of him, all around, into the beam of his torch and then gone as he moves past, downward. Three shapes loom ahead, framed neatly in the oblong of the windscreen, somewhat like rounded triangles in a line. His hands latch on to the back of a seat, and he pulls himself closer. He knows the shapes are the upper bodies of people sitting in the cabin seats, trapped by their seat belts. He sees the backs of their heads in his light, as if they’re staring at the lakebed just feet beyond the dark windscreen.
Three shapes, but not four.
The shockwave still pounding through his head now fights against the thump of his airless chest for dominance. But he pulls himself closer still, until his body floats between two heads, and then he sees it. The fourth body.
It is Lorraine. She shimmers before him, sideways, laying across the legs of the others. He sees her face: the obsidian canyon of the open mouth, the jet holes of the open eyes, the dance of her hair. Resting on her stomach is the rock he used to smash the back window and gain entry.
The clock immediately starts to tick down faster as his heart thumps and a portion of his breath detonates in myriad bubbles. But onward he moves, both hands outstretched, and one delves into the rippling cloud of her hair, and clutches, and pulls, and the rock tumbles off her stomach, and Lorraine
comes to him, weightless as a ghost.
49
The dream woke him in the early hours. He had expected it. He didn’t doubt it would be back for many nights to come. But he didn’t class it as a nightmare. He had experienced the events of the dream for real and survived, so how could images in his head hurt him?
He went into Joe’s room, happy to see his boy asleep. Joe had taken the news of his mother’s murder well, or well compared to how it could have gone. He hadn’t said much, so perhaps he’d been numb. But he’d performed as usual for the rest of the evening, although he’d put toothpaste on his brush, and that was a task he still always got his dad to do. Did that mean something?
He had also said ‘thankyou’, and it was this that still created turmoil in Bennet’s gut. He’d been unable to tell Liz, his closest friend, the truth about finding Lorraine’s body, and he’d lied to his boss, to the Derbyshire murder squad running the investigation. Joe was a kid, didn’t need to know, might even be better off with oblivion, yet Bennet had willingly told him.
‘It was a crime scene, Joe,’ he said. ‘I should have known better. I knew she was dead, but it didn’t matter. Down there, in the cold, in the dark… I couldn’t leave her there. I just couldn’t. I had to get her out. Out of that vehicle, out of that lake. And now I’m going to get in big trouble for it. But I don’t care.’
Cold Blood Page 16