Cold Blood

by Jane Heafield

  ‘What have you found inside so far?’

  ‘Mound of tarpaulin he said was used to cover the motorhome. And there’s an area of churned soil we’re rooting through. That’s where the bodies lay. We’ve been finding all manner of items that had been in that motorhome.’

  Now Bennet looked at the superintendent. ‘I need to know as soon as you do. Please. It’s my son’s mother.’

  Sutton gave him a careful stare. ‘I know what’s concerning you, detective. But we don’t know anything for sure yet. We need to talk to all the others and we need to see what else we find at the crime scenes, and if anything changes once we can hammer away at Crabtree. At least that audio recording helps with the time frame. We know the film crew was at a local pub until just after 9pm on Sunday night, and the audio recording shows the bodies were found before 12.45 Monday morning. That gives us a time of death within just a few hours.’

  Sutton had indeed fathomed Bennet’s worry. With the arrests made and evidence found and questions answered, light had been shed where there had been darkness and it all felt like a great leap forward. The surface of the mystery had been laid bare and it was too easy to get hypnotised by it, and ignore the black abyss at the core.

  If the story they had was true, then a killer was still out there.

  60

  Since they couldn’t attend court on Friday because they’d been arrested late Thursday, Ronald Crabtree, Richard Turner and the rest of the Keys were due to appear at Southern Derbyshire Magistrates’ Court on Monday, charged with a number of Public Justice Offences, primarily perverting the course of justice and obstructing a coroner. Lucas Turner was still missing and, along with Crabtree, he would face additional charges relating to the physical act of disposing of dead bodies and destroying a crime scene.

  Until then, the seven charged got police bail. The still-unanswered question of who killed four film-makers and a little girl was a hot topic and opinion was split on whether or not the charged were also murderers. Upon their release, a gaggle of reporters, supporters and wannabe-vigilantes was waiting outside. Crabtree and all but one of the Keys had already made arrangements to stay with friends and family outside Lampton, but hopes of a quiet weekend were dashed as their vehicles were pursued away from the police station. The police did what they could to give the Keys a head start, but media folk had already obtained the addresses the Keys were headed to.

  And the single Key who didn’t choose to run and hide? Parish Councillor Richard Turner walked out of the police station like a man already acquitted, five steps ahead of his solicitor and a pair of bulky friends. If he expected thrown flowers and cheers, he got a shock. Within seconds, the heavies were forced to step closer and shepherd him to his car under a torrent of abuse. Someone launched an egg that splattered his suit.

  Despite what he’d done – or because of it, hiding the bodies had been to save his village – he still had a number of well-wishers. Three large acolytes sat in a van parked across his driveway gates and held back the reporters who’d followed him home. Like his own SS-like group. But Turner couldn’t ignore an audience. In the time it took to swap to a suit that didn’t have an egg stain, the councillor appeared at his first-floor bedroom balcony, like the Pope, and addressed their questions.

  ‘Are you a killer?’

  Perhaps this worked sometimes, but Turner gave the answer everyone expected: no. ‘I couldn’t hurt a fly. Look into my history and you will see this is so. This is my first ever arrest, and the same goes for my son and for Mr Crabtree and the rest of us. We’re model citizens. Our only fault was loving our home too much. That was why we did it. To avoid bringing the kind of attention it is now receiving.’

  Bennet watched the whole thing on the news. What a twat, he thought. He wished he was there, with a slingshot. If this bastard had had his way, Lorraine and the others would still be buried for all time in a forgotten, shallow grave. Dozens, perhaps even hundreds of families and friends would still be in the dark about what happened to their missing loved ones.

  ‘Do you understand how suspicious it was that you chose to hide the bodies in the very same place where a little girl’s body was dumped?’

  ‘Yes. I see your single-minded blindness, all of you. Take to the air, or load up Google Earth, and pick a better place. Yes, there are woods and rockeries and moors, but, as callous and hateful as it sounds, Lake Stanton is the perfect place to hide something out here. Whoever killed poor Sally Jenkins simply had the same idea as I did, that is all. I had nothing to do with killing little Sally, or the film-makers who came to document her story. Your focus should be on asking the police why they didn’t think about searching that lake all those years ago.’

  This was the crux of the matter. A simple case of probabilities. How likely was it that the murders of a young girl and of four people looking into that crime weren’t connected? What were the odds that someone could dump corpses where one already lay and be oblivious to it? And when did anyone ever hear about so-and-so hiding bodies left by whatshisname? To most, Turner and his cohorts were a little puppy standing next to a pile of dog poo on a carpet.

  But the Crown Prosecution Service seemed to think another dog might have sneaked into the house to dump a load and then fled. There were no plans as yet to charge Turner and his clan with murder, although Sutton’s murder squad was still analysing the various crime scenes.

  ‘Do you have any clue as to who killed five people?’

  ‘I don’t,’ Turner bellowed from his perch. ‘There’s no proof yet that all five are the work of the same perpetrator. If anything, the method suggests otherwise. Killers of little girls don’t then go on to murder four adults. And if it was so, there was no attempt to hide the bodies.’

  ‘The film crew was shooting a documentary about the murder in 2010 – did it occur to you that perhaps someone didn’t want secrets unearthed?’

  ‘That would suggest a local killer, scared of exposure. I implore you not to assume that these killers live in or around Lampton. Please. I know my people, and none of them would do such a thing. Whoever killed Sally was a transient. We are a tourist spot, after all. I would suggest the killers of the film crew are also visitors. There’s no proof they were targeted because of this documentary. They could have upset someone in some other town or city. They could have been fleeing a danger. One of the deceased, John Crickmer, had a drugs past and the answer might well be found amongst dodgy acquaintances of his.’

  That wouldn’t go down well with Crickmer’s people, Bennet knew.

  ‘The police haven’t officially ruled you and the others out of the killings. Do you expect additional charges for murder to be forthcoming?’

  ‘That’s all I have to say for the moment. Please remember that I am facing charges of perverting the course of justice. I didn’t kill anyone. Now, please, you should leave my village alone. There’s no need for you to be here, and no one will talk to you.’

  ‘Where is your son hiding? Are you protecting him? Did he run because he’s a killer? Why haven’t you pleaded with him to give himself up?’

  Turner had vanished into his bedroom, but this question prompted a return. Angry, he threw the curtains aside, stepped out, and slapped his hands on the railing.

  ‘I chose not to do a silly TV news appeal for him to return because he will come when he’s ready. He knows I want him back and saying it on TV will not help. He did not kill anyone, none of us did. I do not know where he is or how to contact him, and I told the police this. I love my son, and truth be told it would be better that he stayed away for a while. Because soon the police will have their proof that the killers they seek are still out there, and my son can return to avoid the kind of doubt and hatred I see on your faces. It’s ironic that I have lost my son, and stand here now, facing these ridiculous charges, because of an obnoxious man’s love of his own son. That is all. Now, you should leave my village because you won’t get what you want from my people. Again, if you want answers, ask the police
why they did such a weak job when Sally Jenkins went missing. Goodbye.’

  And that was it: show over. Clearly, Turner was still angry about Bennet’s interference. The bastard was too narcissistic to acknowledge that the ‘obnoxious man’ had helped grieving families find a little solace.

  The balcony interview had been a couple of hours ago. Since then, Turner would have watched the seed he’d sown take root and blossom: Derbyshire police were coming under fire for their efforts long ago when Sally Jenkins went missing. Bennet had to admit the councillor had a point. A body of water like Lake Stanton, just a few miles from Lampton, should have been searched. But hindsight was a powerful tool. And as a major obstacle to the investigation, Turner had no right to condemn the police. If he’d planned to get the focus off himself a little, it had worked.

  Turner had also probably learned how wrong he’d been about his people slamming doors in reporters’ faces.

  Plenty of Lampton locals had invited media people into their homes, and microphones had even been allowed into the shops and the Lion, where a mob had gathered to gossip. Again, opinion was split. Some respected Turner’s unwavering care for their village, others hated what he’d done but understood his actions.

  A handful refused to believe he was involved in any way but was willing to accept the blame to protect others, while some doubted someone of his power in the village could have no knowledge of the murders – either he was a killer or knew who was.

  And a few people, thinking his power was gone and glad of it, took the opportunity to moan about insignificant things he’d done to them, like banning dogs from barking after 11pm. But for each of the latter, there was one who considered him omnipotent and wide-eyed, refused to say a word to reporters.

  ‘Dad? Can I go again?’

  Bennet put his phone away. He and Joe were at Rother Valley Country Park, just to get away from everything. Joe was on the playpark, laughing with the other kids, and Bennet envied his son’s ability to compartmentalise his emotions. Here, by the lake, surrounded by green, Bennet had hoped to put the last few days out of his mind for a while. But it was no good.

  It had helped Joe that he’d had some bright news emerge from the gloom. Lorraine’s husband, Ian, had called that morning and suggested Bennet and Joe could attend her funeral. Joe liked the idea because he could meet his little half-sister, although he’d already said he didn’t want to see his mother’s body. For a child, he was quite adult in his diagnosis that seeing her dead, even touched up by the funeral home, would ruin the lively photos he had of her from her Facebook profile.

  Bennet didn’t like the idea of attending Lorraine’s funeral, but was unsure why. He would go though. For Joe.

  ‘Dad, can I go again?’

  ‘As much as you want.’

  While Joe ran off to play with the other kids, Bennet made another call.

  ‘No murder charges yet,’ Bennet said when Superintendent Sutton answered. ‘You’ve got nothing yet?’

  ‘We’re still on the hunt. As yet, no. We could be looking at an unknown entity, you know?’

  Bennet knew. He wasn’t sure Turner and his gang were killers, but he wanted them to be. He needed them to be. He didn’t want this whole thing unresolved for months. Or unsolved forever. ‘Turner’s on TV telling the world not to look in Lampton for the killer. He thinks anyone could have found that lake. And maybe that’s right. But most people expect lakebeds to gradually slope down. Anywhere else, you’d have to push that motorhome right out into the middle to fully submerge it. Lake Stanton is different because it has that sharp ledge and a deep drop. Only locals would know that.’

  ‘I know. We’re looking into it. Everyone in Lampton will be spoken to, I don’t care if they’re eighty years old. And we’ll trace everybody who lived in the area in 2010, even if they moved out of the country. But, bizarre as it sounds, the story we have could be the truth.’

  ‘And you looked at their alibis? Like you said, we’re looking at the murders of the film crew occurring between about ten fifteen and not long after midnight on Sunday.’

  ‘Working on it. At that time, Turner and his son were at the Porsche showroom that Lucas runs. That’s Turner’s story and it’s backed up by the employee in the petrol station across the road. He saw a workshop roller door open and heard work going on inside, and he saw movement.’

  ‘He saw the faces of Turner and his son, and he’s sure of the time? Turner’s got this belief his people wouldn’t ever lie to him, but what about for him?’

  ‘No direct identification, no. It’s not definitive and we’ll break that alibi apart if it can be. I imagine if the station attendant was going to lie to save his councillor, he would have blatantly said it was him. So I don’t think he lied and at face value the alibi looks good for the pair, at least until we find Lucas and hear what he has to say. The other Keys were at home and most have corroboration. Apart from Turner, these Keys are all pensioners or on the cusp, some infirm, and Turner’s hardly a spring chicken himself. If they had something to do with the killings, it was with younger help. We’re looking.

  ‘Crabtree is the one with no clear alibi. He reckons he was with a prostitute, and didn’t seem embarrassed at all to admit that. He gave us a phone number, which we traced to a pay-as-you-go device used predominantly in Derby centre. Nobody is answering it yet.’

  ‘What about the Sally Jenkins murder? Have you checked alibis for everyone for March 2010?’

  Sutton sighed. ‘Bennet, you know how this works.’ Bennet did: confirming alibis could take a long time. It didn’t stop him being annoyed at the lack of progress.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t know myself recently.’

  ‘Look, we do know a little. Crabtree and the others we’re working on, but Turner’s alibi is confirmed. On the night Sally Jenkins disappeared, he was in Baslow, at a restaurant function at Fischer’s, about four or five miles away. Two dozen guests. Some were spoken to and confirmed he was there from around five in the evening until just past seven thirty. He left because his babysitter called him because his son was throwing up. And he went straight home. And the babysitter didn’t leave until about half past eight. And since Sally Jenkins disappeared between about six pm and six forty-five, his alibi is good.’

  ‘Who might have had motive?’

  ‘What motive could someone have for killing a ten-year-old girl? If she wasn’t taken by a paedophile, we’re blank. Look, Liam, I know you want this solved. We all do. And your timing about motive leads me on to something I want to show you. A possible motive for the film crew’s murders. We suspected they might have been killed because they were investigating the Jenkins killing. Now I think we have proof. We found a video.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, I think you should see it. Lorraine is in it. It was shot on Sunday evening, before the crew went to the Red Lion. It could be the last pictures of her before her death. Do you want–’

  ‘Send it.’

  61

  Sutton’s team had found a memory stick at the burial site containing a number of video and audio files. Most of it pertained to the documentary, some of it just camera practice, and the audio files were narrative editing for voiceover. But one movie file had intrigued Sutton. The location was the kitchen of Crabtree’s ranch, the time code Sunday the 19th of January, 8.18pm.

  It began with an empty room, shot from one side with the kitchen door on the far left. The kitchen table, in the centre of the room, had a chair at each end and four or five sheets of overlapped A4 paper. The door opened to admit Francis Overeem, who passed the table and walked to the far wall, which was bare. He stood just inches from it, nose almost touching the plaster, like a punished child.

  Next, Lorraine entered. She looked worried. Behind her came Betty Crute. No sign of John Crickmer, but he was probably behind the camera. All four were dressed as they had been at the Lion, suggesting they were soon to head across there.

  Still facing the wall, Overeem sai
d, ‘Sit, please. Don’t touch the documents.’

  Documents? The fan of papers looked blank. Lorraine didn’t sit and the worry on her face deepened. She looked round at Betty Crute, who stood in the doorway with her arms folded, as if blocking an escape exit. Lorraine returned her attention to Overeem and voiced a question on Bennet’s mind: ‘What the hell is going on?’

  ‘You know what this is about. Am I wrong?’

  ‘Of course you’re wrong, you fool. How dare you accuse me of such a thing?’

  Here, Bennet felt his heart thumping. This made no sense. What had Lorraine been accused of?

  ‘I have proof,’ Overeem said. He turned from the blank wall. ‘Sit down and talk to me. I’ll be happy to Alt F4 this joint.’

  ‘No.’ Strangely, Lorraine made a move as if she was straightening a necktie, even though she didn’t wear one. ‘I’m leaving. Don’t contact me again.’

  Here, Crute interjected. ‘Hang fire. I don’t think he’d leave this early. Not if he came all this way.’

  Behind the camera, Crickmer said, ‘Fair point. He needs to know how we know.’

  Lorraine said, ‘I wasn’t going to leave. I was going to say I’m leaving unless you get right to the point. I reckon that’s what would happen.’

  Overeem waved for silence. ‘Look, let’s redo. Nobody interrupt. We’ll keep the about-to-leave bit, so we can cover all eventualities. I’ll follow the bastard out the door if he tries. Let’s go again, John.’

  Lorraine said, ‘We could skip the entry bit. Why don’t we pick up where we left off?’

  ‘No, we’ll redo the lot. Everyone out. You might as well just stay there, John.’

  Crute vanished out the doorway. Lorraine gave a thumbs up and a smile and followed. Overeem got halfway to the door, then paused, then started walking towards the camera. ‘Let me know how it looked from that angle.’

  And he grabbed the camera off Crickmer. The screen went black.