by Helen Phifer
‘Yes you would and it’s okay that you do, but Dad and Rosie know them really well.’
‘I’ll speak to your dad tomorrow. If he says its okay then its okay with me.’
‘Really? You don’t want to have an argument about it?’
She stared at her daughter, who was turning into quite the beautiful young woman.
‘No, I don’t want an argument about it. I want you to be happy.’
Ellie squealed and ran to Lucy, wrapping her arms around her mother as she planted a huge kiss on her cheek. ‘I promise I’ll be good. I won’t fall overboard and drown.’
‘Well, I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t.’
‘Can I go and phone Fern and tell her it’s a ninety-nine point five per cent chance of me going?’
Lucy nodded and Ellie screeched once more and skipped off to find her phone. She carried on eating her food – she needed something inside her and then she was going to bed. Lucy’s phone vibrated on the kitchen counter next to her and she glanced down at it. She read Stephen’s new message and sighed, wondering if she’d been too hasty in calling it a day. Or whether she should send Browning round to his house to warn him off. The only problem with that particular solution was the fact that the whole station would find out because he wasn’t very good at being discreet. The last thing she wanted was to become the object of gossip, she’d given them plenty to talk about the last couple of years without adding to it.
Yes, she wanted a life outside work, but not if it meant turning it into a full-time job just to make it worthwhile. At least she could concentrate on Stacey Green and Melanie Benson’s murders without feeling guilty about the time she wasn’t spending with Stephen.
Chapter Twenty
Lucy was first into the station again – it was a habit that was hard to break. She was standing with her arms crossed staring at the two whiteboards; one had a photograph of Melanie Benson the other Stacey Green. If this were a television show they would have worked out the killers’ motives, found matching DNA and have whoever it was behind bars. That was if there were two killers.
A thorough search of the backstreet and all the refuse bins and skips had failed to produce Stacey Green’s shoes, which really bothered Lucy. Task force had done a Section 18 search of Lewis Waite’s last known address, which belonged to one of his fellow drug users, but nothing remotely resembling a bloodstained hammer – which was the weapon that had killed Melanie, according to Catherine – or any size seven female shoes had been found. Coincidentally, both victims had this shoe size. When questioned, Mattie had told her he’d believed Waite when he’d vehemently denied knowing anyone called Melanie Benson. He’d been shown her picture and his body language hadn’t betrayed him as he’d shaken his head.
So that left her with a very big problem. The bosses wanted Waite charged before the time they were allowed to hold him in custody ran out, which was making this difficult for her. Lucy knew from experience that motive could be very hard to determine. There could be several reasons behind the murders, and it wasn’t unheard of for a killer to evolve with each kill. There was no point even trying to second-guess what it could be. What they needed to focus on was the killer or killers’ behaviour at the scene. What linked the two scenes? To Lucy it was blatantly obvious; the killer might have used different modus operandi to murder his victims – and what was the placement of the sanitary towel about? – but he’d taken both women’s shoes, either on a whim or for a premeditated purpose. Lucy had to question Waite herself; she needed to get a handle on him. Her gut instinct was that this killer was far cleverer – way above his level of intelligence.
Tom ran into the incident room and slammed the door behind him. His cheeks were burning and he looked as if he were about to commit murder himself.
‘Have you got your radio on?’
‘Yes, but it’s on low. Why?’
‘They’ve lost Lewis Waite.’
‘Oh my God, he’s dead?’
‘If only. No, he’s done a runner from the hospital; the stupid idiots left him unattended because there was a big kick-off in the A&E waiting room. He just slipped out of there like a fucking ghost – probably walked straight past the bloody muppets, who were fighting with a load of pissed-up Geordies on a stag do.’
Lucy grabbed her radio and turned it up to full volume. She could hear the breathless panic in the officers’ voices. They were now doing area searches to try to locate Lewis Waite. It was early morning; the night shift had stayed on to help with the search. Lucy ran towards the stairs and down to the duty sergeant’s office. Smithy, who should have been going home, was pulling on his body armour and shouting orders into his radio.
‘Is there a dog on?’
‘No, I’ve told control to call one in ASAP. I’m so sorry, Lucy.’
It wasn’t his fault, but he would ultimately end up getting reprimanded for it as the officer in charge.
Lucy caught sight of Mattie strolling along the corridor where the radios, keys and most of the other equipment was stored. He held open the double doors for a flurry of officers, who were all running in the direction of the rear yard and their vehicles. Smithy ran through after them, with Lucy following him.
‘Come on, we have to go!’
‘What’s going on? Are they evacuating the building?’
‘No – whoever was babysitting Lewis Waite let him escape.’
‘You’re having me on?’
‘I wish that I was.’
Lucy passed through the exit, grabbing the last set of car keys off the whiteboard, and Mattie followed her. They rushed out into the yard and she began to press the key fob to see which car’s hazard lights flashed.
Mattie groaned. ‘There – it’s for the minibus. It’s a nightmare to drive and twice as slow as your car.’
Lucy shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter, we can’t exactly travel immediate response to the hospital anyway, can we?’
Mattie ran back inside to the community office and came out with a set of keys for the small marked van that the PCSOs used.
‘It’s not much better, but it has flashing lights and sirens.’
Lucy wondered how much she was going to regret this – it had been a while since she’d been on an IR run at high speeds. She climbed inside and pulled her seat belt across her chest; she hated Mattie’s driving, even on a good day. He turned on the blues and twos, then put his foot down, just making it through the automatic gates before they closed. He began to drive as fast as the van would let him and Lucy felt the porridge she’d eaten for her breakfast lurch inside her stomach. She began talking into the radio.
‘I want every entrance and exit to the hospital locked down – he may still be inside. Then I want two cars doing an area search.’
A voice came back immediately: ‘Already done, Inspector.’
She looked at Mattie. ‘He could be anywhere. With all the bloody fields and houses it’s going to be a nightmare trying to find him, and he knows we’ll be looking. He’s not daft; he’ll be hiding somewhere.’
‘Yeah, he will, so let’s just hope there’s a dog on that can pick up his trail and track him down. Otherwise there’s a good chance he’ll get away.’
‘What a crap start to the day.’
Mattie couldn’t agree more.
They reached the hospital in record time. Mattie parked behind another van outside the A&E department. Smithy was already inside viewing the department’s CCTV footage. He glanced up at Lucy.
‘There’s the sneaky little fucker – he took off his paper suit and nicked a pair of trousers and a coat from the cubicle next door.’
Lucy watched the screen in horror as Lewis Waite came out of the cubicle next to his wearing someone else’s clothes, which were too big for him. His head down, he walked straight past the scuffle going on in the waiting room and no one even gave him a second glance. He marched straight out of the doors and into the car park.
‘Tell me there’s CCTV in the car park?’
Lucy groaned. Mattie, sensing she was about to go into a major meltdown, took hold of her elbow and guided her towards the car park. He whispered into her ear, ‘None of it is his fault.’
‘I know that, but I’m going to explode. How can we have lost the number-one suspect for a murder case?’
‘I guess Lewis Waite got lucky and realised that. Come on, he’s a smack rat with an addiction; he won’t be that hard to find. He’s going to have to come out of hiding to get a fix at some point – we’ll get him.’
Lucy looked at Mattie, who didn’t appear to be in the least bit flustered; he seemed like he always did. Impeccable, never frazzled, his big blue eyes had no dark circles under them, unlike hers. He smiled at her and she nodded. He was right; Lewis would have to come out of hiding at some point. He put an arm around her shoulders, pulling her towards him. She got a whiff of his aftershave, the one she’d bought him for Christmas because George wore it and she loved it so much. Her body relaxed into him and he smiled at her again.
‘See, you should listen to me more often. Feel better?’
‘Slightly.’
‘Come on, let’s have a slow drive back to the station. We might spot him on the way and if we don’t we’ll go get a couple of vanilla lattes. At least none of this is anything to do with us.’
She laughed. ‘For a change, you’re right. Thanks.’
They got back into the van, this time Mattie driving slowly as they both scoured the streets for Lewis Waite on the journey back. Someone would grass him up, especially if they knew that he was wanted on suspicion of murder. All they had to do was offer a small reward for his whereabouts and he’d be back in custody by tonight. Mattie turned into the retail park with the café where Ellie worked. The car park was empty. So was the coffee shop. He jumped out before she could, so she let him go. His dark grey suit was nice; he must have bought a new one. The staff in the coffee shop were staring out of the window at her and she wondered what the hell was wrong with them. Mattie soon emerged carrying two paper cups in a cardboard carrier. He opened the door and passed them to her.
‘What are they all staring at?’
‘Well, they thought that we’d stolen a police van.’
‘What?’
He started laughing. ‘We don’t exactly look like coppers, do we?’ Lucy realised that neither of them was in uniform and blushed.
‘Oh God, I forgot.’
‘Yes, well I had to show them my ID to stop them phoning the police and reporting us. Guess what, though? If you show your warrant card you get ten per cent off everything in there, so it was just as well. I bet you didn’t know that, did you?’
She began to giggle. ‘Only you could do that.’
‘I know, I keep telling you. Always make the best out of a bad situation.’
She looked at her watch. ‘It’s not even eight o’clock and I feel as if I’ve worked a full shift. We’ve got the post-mortem this morning.’
‘Better enjoy your coffee, then. Come on, let’s take this junkmobile back and hide somewhere in the station before it goes completely mental – because someone is going to be after blood.’
Lucy held the coffee carrier in one hand and was nibbling at the nails on the other. Even though she wasn’t one hundred per cent positive that Waite was the killer, it was her job to prove it one way or the other. He was all they had and now he could be anywhere.
Chapter Twenty-One
Patrick arrived at the woods and hoped to God this wasn’t going to take all day. He’d had to stop off at a chemist to buy some insect repellent. There was no way he was going to stand there and get eaten to death by midges. He nodded at the PCSOs who were on scene guard and carried on walking to where they’d found the body. This was a first for him – he’d never seen a full set of skeletal remains, so at least it should be interesting. It made a change from the blood and gore that he usually had to deal with. He wondered if Lucy realised that she had done him a favour by giving him this case to run; breaking him in gently was very kind of her. There were two CSIs here already: a man slightly older than him and two much younger men. They were all hovering around in white suits. If he had to guess he’d say this was the anthropology team. He’d never worked with anthropologists, either. It was usually a pathologist on the scene, but the removal of the skeleton from its burial site and dealing with old human remains didn’t fall under the pathologists’ remit. The older man walked over to him and held out his hand.
‘Dr Chris Corkill. Is Lucy coming?’
He shook his head. ‘No, I’m afraid she’s tied up. There have been a couple of serious incidents. I’m Patrick Baker and I’ll be the DI for this job. How are you getting on?’
‘Surprisingly well; the body isn’t in too deep. A couple of hours and we should be good to go.’
Patrick walked towards the tent.
‘There’re spare suits in my case, if you’ve forgotten yours.’
He paused. Damn. He bloody hated those white paper-sauna suits. He was hoping to take a quick peek, then pass the anthropologist his contact card before disappearing back to the station until there was something tangible he could work with.
‘Thanks, that’s great. I’ve left mine in the car.’
He looked for an extra-large size and ripped the bag open, then stepped into the suit, zipped it up and grabbed a couple of pairs of gloves from the box. He didn’t have the proper shoe protectors so he slipped on a pair of shoe covers and headed towards the tent. All three of the team were kneeling on the floor working over the body. Patrick felt his heart skip a beat; he didn’t know how he’d feel about seeing a corpse that had been buried for so long. Chris looked up at him.
‘It’s okay, you can come closer. I don’t think she’ll mind – in fact, I’m pretty sure she’s relieved that she’s been found.’
‘How do you know it’s a she?’
‘By the pelvic area – females have a larger subpubic angle than us males. It’s indicative of the female body’s child-bearing requirements, which males obviously don’t share. There’s also an area around the middle of the pelvic bone that’s larger in females. We can tell that our victim hasn’t given birth because there are no scars of parturition on the pelvis.’
Patrick nodded, trying to look as if he’d understood everything that he’d just been told. ‘What about her age?’
‘I can give you a rough estimate. Judging by the size of the bones I’d say this was a young woman between the ages of twelve and twenty. I can’t give you any better than that at the moment. But a forensic odontologist can provide a more accurate estimate of the age of persons under fourteen years, as well as confirming ID, as long as there are dental records. After the age of fourteen they rely on the wear patterns on the teeth. The older a person is, the more wear they show, especially if they have fillings or receding gums. They can narrow down an adult’s age to a five-year window with x-rays.’
‘Wow – pretty clever stuff, this forensics.’
‘It’s just a science, but one that is going to help whoever she is finally get reunited with her family. She hasn’t seen them for a very long time and it’s nice that we can help to rectify that.’
Patrick stared down at the skeleton, wondering how on earth he was going to find the woman’s killer. He’d never admit to Lucy that he didn’t have a clue what to do. For a start, he didn’t have one ounce of the tenacity that she did. She’d love it if he said he couldn’t manage, but he’d never dealt with a cold case of this nature. He’d rather be handling the cases of the two dead bodies that were up in the mortuary. Dealing with the here and now was more his area of expertise. He would pass the enquiries on to Browning, whom Lucy had said would help him – hopefully he would solve the case, whilst Patrick sat back and did as little as possible.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Catherine Maxwell was dressed in her pink scrubs, awaiting Lucy’s arriva
l. She’d found a couple of unidentified fibres on Melanie Benson that had been sent off for examination, and was wondering if she’d find any on Stacey Green. Lucy and Mattie were shown into Catherine’s office, where she ushered them into the chairs.
‘What have you got so far on the Benson case?’
Lucy leant forwards. ‘Not an awful lot. We have no murder weapon, no suspect. Well, we did have one in custody from yesterday’s killing, but he’s escaped.’
‘What?’
‘The man arrested at the scene managed to walk out of the hospital this morning.’
Catherine shook her head. ‘So that’s what all the fuss was when I arrived?’
‘Unfortunately.’
‘And do you think he’s a viable suspect for both victims?’
Lucy shook her head. She wouldn’t normally speak so openly, but she trusted Catherine a hundred per cent. ‘I’m not convinced. There’s the problem of the missing shoes. I think that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time yesterday morning. He’s a drug addict and a petty thief; I don’t think that he’s a cold-blooded killer. There’s something about both these murders that strikes me as too organised. If Lewis Waite had killed Stacey Green, who also happened to be his ex-girlfriend, I’m sure it would have been in a fit of rage. An angry, violent attack. I don’t think he would have stopped to pull her trousers down, fan her hair out and tuck a sanitary towel under her arm. What would be the point? He’d have got away from there as fast as possible and gone to ground.’
Mattie was nodding; it did make sense.
‘What do you think, Catherine?’
‘You know that’s not for me to say, Lucy. My findings are completely scientific and based on fact alone.’
‘I know they are, and I wouldn’t dispute that, but seriously – what does your gut say?’
‘Well, if I had to come up with a hypothetical answer I would say that my gut is leaning in the same direction as yours. Come on, then. Let’s get started and see if we can find anything to prove or disprove your theory.’