Chloe- Lost Girl

by Dan Laughey

‘Not quite. He was immediately handcuffed and escorted to Stockton-on-Tees police station. He was described by officers as “walking wounded”, not in a life-threatening condition. Their judgement was way off the mark – the man died in custody shortly afterwards, the self-inflicted gunshot wound causing massive internal bleeding.’

  Sant grimaced, rubbed the hair on his neck. ‘He might’ve survived if they’d taken him to casualty rather than the nick.’

  ‘Not according to the pathologist’s report. A Dr Machell recorded how the bleeding caused by the wound was too severe – he had half an hour max. Even if admitted to hospital immediately, Machell reckoned the man would’ve died of his injuries.’

  ‘Tell that to his relatives,’ Sant smirked, his toothpick mangled to shreds. ‘What was his name?’

  ‘Martin Humphreys; nicknamed the mechanic because of the cars and vans he stole for getaway vehicles.’

  ‘Is there any explanation as to why Humphreys wasn’t given immediate medical aid after shooting himself?’

  Capstick consulted the relevant appendix in the ring-binder. ‘A Chief Inspector Richard Padgett reported that the wound – just below the man’s heart – was very small and emitted little external blood flow, which explains why officers didn’t even discover it until they removed his jumper at the police station. He was also wearing a red t-shirt underneath that camouflaged the wound.’

  ‘Reads like a tall story to me. This Humphreys would’ve been in severe pain, short of breath, physically weak. Surely someone noticed.’

  ‘There’s no record of his physical state. Chief Inspector Padgett believed the bullet from the shotgun had discharged very close to his body, with a contact wound not ruled out. ’

  ‘Foul play?’

  ‘None I’ve found, sir.’

  ‘So how did they prove Humphreys killed Sergeant Gray?’

  ‘According to the report, the murder weapon used on Gray was found on Humphreys, though no description or photograph of the weapon is included in this file – unless I’ve missed something.’

  Sant stroked the kink in his nose. ‘It’s a good job the man was scum enough not to have others looking out for him. Anyone remotely decent would’ve had backers queuing up to cry police brutality and file law suits any which way.’

  ‘Maybe he’d run out of mates,’ said Capstick.

  ‘He could’ve had friends in the criminal underworld, but it wasn’t in their interests to come out of hiding just to administer a small dose of justice.’

  ‘Once a criminal, always a criminal.’

  ‘Is that what your textbooks say?’

  Capstick shrugged. ‘It’s the nature versus nuture debate.’

  ‘A debate we don’t have time for now, partner, but I look forward to it.’

  Capstick looked meaningfully at his boss. ‘Is this 1984 case connected to Dryden’s murder?’

  ‘Possibly. Chloe’s disappearance too, though we’ve no evidence other than Dryden’s half-finished numbers. But fresh juice might seep from old fruit.’

  ‘Meaning more archive work.’

  Sant nodded. ‘Dig out more on the Gray murder: the major enquiries and leads, dealings with other forces, prison officers, lawyers, border officials, the press...’

  Capstick started jotting, gave up and returned to his dusty enclave.

  11

  Waking. Sleeping. Waking. Waking.

  Good cop, bad cop.

  Cannon and Ball.

  Baseball Cap and Ray-Bans were back, the former carrying a tray containing a steaming cafetiere and a plateful of assorted biscuits which he placed on the half moon table by the chairs. Ray-Bans, meantime, had placed two unsavoury objects on the coffee table by the rear wall. Even from her chained predicament at the centre of the room, there was no mistaking what they were: a Taser and a horse whip.

  Baseball Cap poured the coffee into three cups. He added two sugars to one cup before passing it to Ray-Bans. The second was his own; the last intended for her.

  ‘Sugar? I’m afraid we’re out of cream and sweetener.’

  She shook her head.

  Ray-Bans drained his cup in one go before flinging it aimlessly at the wall, shards of porcelain scattering everywhere.

  ‘Tie her ankles, man!’

  Hit-man Jim obliged, though the mumbling sound coming from deep in his throat hinted at a reluctance to obey. Perhaps the man had a heart after all, or perhaps his patience was wearing thin at being spoken to like a slave. Either way, she soon found her ankles bound to the front legs of her chair with a flex of cord. The knots left no play for movement in her lower legs – she was now literally attached to wood. These four men were not taking any chances, nor prisoners lightly. The legs of the chair were too wide apart to allow her to rock back and forth, not that rocking would do any good.

  Ray-Bans signalled to the two hit-men and they left the room. Now it was two against one. Her chances of escape had just doubled, but when you start off with no chance, a doubling of the odds makes nil difference. Ray-Bans poured a second coffee, took a biscuit and carefully sat down in the lean-to chair like a king testing his throne. Baseball Cap lifted a panel of the Venetian blind to check the coast was clear before refilling his cup and joining his crony.

  ‘Let’s get down to business, shall we?’ Ray-Bans began. ‘We’ll skip the introductions. We know who you are, and we reckon you know who we are. The only difficulty has been finding you, but now you’re with us, so let’s get this over and done with.’

  Baseball Cap picked up her untouched coffee. ‘Sure you won’t have a drink?’

  She looked at him in disdain. ‘Kind of difficult, wouldn’t you say?’

  He smiled apologetically. An empty apology. ‘Please, let me assist.’

  He held out the cup to her lips. She drank deep, filling her mouth with as much of the lukewarm liquid as she could physically manage, before craning her neck muscles and gobbing the lot over her server.

  Ray-Bans found the scene mildly amusing. ‘You look like you’ve wet yourself.’

  Baseball Cap, busy drying the wet patch on the crouch of his chinos with a handkerchief, didn’t see the funny side at all.

  ‘You’re lucky my associate has a steady temperament, Sheila Morrison.’ Then he stared at his prey. ‘My dear woman, for more years than I care to recall we’ve been searching for you. There have been dossiers, reported sightings, surveillance operations – all designed to smoke you out.’ He swallowed a biscuit whole and picked up another. ‘Which makes this a momentous day; very momentous.’ Baseball Cap started whooping to mark the occasion. ‘But what you must understand, Sheila, is we have no interest whatsoever in you personally. All that we want is something you’ve got.’

  The woman eyed Ray-Bans, her expression unflinching.

  ‘The film, Sheila.’

  Still no reaction.

  ‘We know you’ve got it and if you don’t tell us where it is, you will be sorry.’

  The silence hung over the room.

  Ray-Bans swallowed another biscuit and drowned it in the rest of his coffee. Then he turned to her, the muscles in his face stiffening as he clenched his teeth. ‘I’m waiting for an answer, Sheila, and I won’t wait much longer. Where is the video?’

  ‘Fuck… you!’

  Baseball Cap took a packet of Cuban cigars from his pocket, drew one out for his companion and offered him a light. Ray-Bans took a small puff, mildly irritated by the freshness of the tobacco, before striding across the room and pocketing his whip. He carried it back to his throne, rested the slender weapon on the arm of his chair, and took another puff from the cigar. The smoke seeped out of his hairy nostrils.

  He returned his gaze, weighing her up soothingly, almost caressingly, before grasping the whip and striking it true and hard.

  The outcome was bewildering.

  Her body bent double as she let out a silent scream, her tormented face fixed vaguely at a vanishing point in the encroaching distance. She craved for distance but couldn
’t find it. The world was closing in on her, episodes from her past, people she’d known, places she’d seen, all tangling in her consciousness, forming blurry nothing.

  The whip struck again, this time a little higher.

  Her neck felt like it was ripping itself from her torso as strings and knots of muscle and vein tightened instantly, blood slowing in a mock show of self-defence. Then her body wilted and sweat poured from her head and shoulders. She tried to utter something, but her voice-box was drained with the effort of trying. Numbness overcame her as her vision drowned in redness and blackness.

  Strike three, across both hips.

  Now the sweat dripped off her naked chest and splashed on the bleeding scars below. She couldn’t cry because the agony was too unfathomable for the tear glands to make sense of it. She thought she was choking, but no sound came from her throat, or if it did, she couldn’t hear it.

  Two minutes – or perhaps two hours – later she felt a tickling sensation and her eyes half-opened to the hazy sight of someone brushing the end of a whip over her ankles. Her toes, as far as she could tell, were still attached to her feet, protected as they were by her shoes, but twitching them was proving impossible.

  Ray-Bans arched his considerable frame over her. ‘Let’s try again, Sheila. Four little words from me and one answer required of you. Where – is – the – video?’

  Perspiration still falling from her forehead and chin, she managed a barely audible cough, but hearing herself make any sound at all only confirmed the bad news… she was not yet dead.

  Ray-Bans took a long puff on his cigar and smacked the whip across the table a couple of times as if it were a wand that needed warming up. Some sick man’s idea of a wand, she thought.

  She could think? Worse luck.

  ‘You have no intention of talking, it would seem. A word of warning, my dear. We’re not here to play silly buggers. This is no game to us and don’t think we’re punishing you for the thrill of it.’ He refilled his coffee and sucked on his cigar. ‘No, my dear. We mean business and will do whatever it takes to transact that business. So what’s it to be, Sheila? More torture, violence, blood? Or will you behave sensibly and tell us what we need to know?’

  The silence, if nothing else, had given her vocal chords a chance to recover, though it felt like a kidney was stuck in her larynx. Inhaling what she could of the air around her, she blurted out what she longed to be her last words.

  ‘I will tell you nothing, you fucking scumbag, and I will tell your whipping boy here even less.’

  More silence. Her eyes were so blood-shot by now that she couldn’t see in front of her, nor could she see the sudden flick of a wrist as the whip struck again, this time still higher than before.

  Silent scream after silent scream ensued, the force of sheer abhorrence thundering into her chest, back, calves. This time she was sure the call of death had chimed, some Authority’s open arms bidding her to depart this dreadful void and enter another realm; a glorious realm where the sun shines bright and the birds always sing.

  But the sad truth dawned on her, hours afterwards as she stirred from delirium.

  No open arms. No sunshine. No birdsong.

  She was still breathing.

  The early-afternoon call from Dr Wisdom came as a welcome break from dense reading matter. Fascinating though the Sergeant Gray murder report was, Sant could only read non-stop for an hour before his head started spinning and his eye muscles packed in. Then he’d feel like dosing, though by no means could he afford a siesta in his line of work.

  He met Wisdom and Hardaker at the Kirkstall Abbey gates before the three men followed a forensic technician across the park and through woods to a small clearing of fallen branches littered with crimson leaves. Something had been found; something or nothing.

  A couple of orange crime-scene cones numbered 1 and 2 marked the spot. Wisdom requested a plastic evidence bag from the techician and showed it to the detectives stood either side of him. Inside the bag was a thin scrap of pink paper, probably torn from a Post-It, smudged with ink.

  ‘An address,’ Wisdom explained. ‘Found right by the trunk of this tree.’

  The warm air seeping out of Hardaker’s mouth made steam as it mixed with the outdoor chill. ‘An interesting find, Grant. Is it discernible?’

  Wisdom put on his pince-nez specs. ‘Partly, but the rain has taken its toll. One of my men had a go at deciphering the writing, but we’ll need specialist expertise before making an appraisal.’

  ‘What’s your reading?’ asked Hardaker, stroking his beard impatiently. ‘And why call me and DI Sant here?’

  Wisdom ignored Hardaker’s edginess. ‘To be frank, it was Carl’s estimation of the probable stops where DS Dryden boarded the bus that led us to search this area of ground, so my professional judgement tended towards him.’ Sant looked as pleased as punch. ‘Anyway, we can’t make out all the details. I’ll read out what we’ve got. There’s a number followed by the word Dotton or Dutton. The next word is indecipherable. Then there’s a word below Dotton or Dutton which we think is Seacroft. Below that – ’

  ’11 Dufton Approach, Seacroft,’ interrupted Sant.

  Wisdom stared again at the scrap of paper in the evidence bag. ‘I believe you’ve hit the bullseye, my boy.’

  The Chiefman gawked at Sant with a mixture of astonishment and irritation. ‘Is the address connected to your missing-person case?’

  ‘It’s the address of Chloe Lee’s former neighbour.’

  ‘I understand this neighbour of hers was a close friend of the family,’ said the Chiefman, keying the address into his phone.

  Sant inspected the evidence bag as he spoke. ‘A close friend of Chloe’s, that’s for sure. We’ve traced her through council-housing records and the name Susan Smith matches the relevant dates of tenancy, though that name may prove to be a blind alley.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Hardaker enquired with puzzlement.

  ‘Well, if we assume the woman was Dryden’s informant who he arranged to meet – at this concealed spot – on the night he was killed, then the name she’s using now is unlikely to be the same one she used as a council tenant all those years ago. Most people with something to hide, or reveal, use false names to cover their backs. Besides, Susan Smith’s as common as muck. There must be hundreds of Susan Smiths in Leeds.’

  ‘What makes you think this Susan Smith was an informant?’

  ‘Your guess is as good as mine.’

  Hardaker still looked confused. ‘But assuming Susan Smith – or whatever her name is now – wrote out this scrap of paper and intended it for Dryden, why give him her former address?’

  ‘She must’ve been storing something there for Dryden to retrieve,’ and then he described his recent visit to 11 Dufton Approach and the bare patch of flooring Capstick had discovered in the loft.

  ‘I don’t recall you informing me or Gilligan of this.’

  ‘Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t. It was only yesterday.’

  Hardaker tugged at his beard and raised his voice a couple of decibels. ‘You’re neglecting my instructions, Carl. I require regular updates on any development to do with this incident, no matter how loosely connected it may appear. Do I make myself clear?’

  ‘Yes Sergeant Major,’ whispered Sant under his breath – a whisper just loud enough to be heard. Wisdom, standing directly behind the superintendent, performed a playful slitting of the throat.

  Hardaker reached for his phone and requested an immediate search warrant be issued for the Dufton Approach residence. Then he made another call to request deployment of an additional team of scenes-of-crime officers to the same address. After that, he stared coldly at Sant before marching off with renewed purpose.

  The cross-examination over, Sant trampled over dead leaves on the way back to his car, calling out greetings to the search party and quickening his steps as the adrenalin pulsed through his veins. The Chloe-Dryden link was no longer a probability in his mind; it was a growing
certainty.

  Capstick had done a good job on the archives. Though by no means ancient history, 1984 felt a world away from the information superhighway evolving a decade later.

  Sant read through the procedures and strategies used by Millgarth CID during the crucial first forty-eight hours after the fatal shooting of Gray and attempted murder of PC Tanner. He noted how HOLMES (the Home Office Large Major Enquiry System) was being rolled out for the first time by West Yorkshire Police. If only the database had been up-and-running a few years earlier, the hunt for Peter Sutcliffe – the infamous Yorkshire Ripper – would surely have come to a swifter end. As it was, Sutcliffe managed to elude detectives for too many years at the expense of too many victims.

  The wonders of graphic design were being rolled out, too, back in 1984. A computer-based picture generated by the BBC’s £80,000 Computer Video Fit technology was used to transpose CCTV images of gunmen involved in local crimes onto eyewitness accounts of the Gray/Tanner shootings.

  It wasn’t through lack of trying that the gunman and his accomplice hadn’t been found. About two hundred officers were taken off picket-line duty at Allerton Bywater Colliery to join the search, so even striking miners took second place to the pursuit of a police killer. Much energy had been spent combing through the waste-ground close to the crime scene, opposite Leeds Parish Church, in search of the murder weapon or anything else that might identify the two men, but nothing of note was discovered.

  The yellow Ford Cortina had also been thoroughly searched, but there was no evidence that the men had broken into the vehicle – or even touched it. The likelihood was both men had worn gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints, though eyewitness-to-the-incident PC Patel couldn’t be certain of this detail.

  Supported by a team of eighty detectives, the man charged with heading up the investigation, Detective Chief Inspector Keith Lotherton, was a highly competent murder-squad detective who’d overseen more than fifty murder enquiries. The man at the top, Chief Constable Alec Waterford, declined to take charge of the case, declaring complete confidence in DCI Lotherton. Sant was reminded of yesterday’s article on the bus murders in his morning paper. Hadn’t CC Lister passed the buck onto Hardarker with practically the same public show of confidence in his coordinating officer? In which case, history was repeating itself, unless – and this was more likely – chief constables possessed a bible of stock phrases passed on by predecessors, thus compelling them to recycle rather than reinvent their esteemed occupational wheels.