Secret of the Dead (19 page)

Picking up speed, he’d only travelled half a mile, when he spotted a dark coloured saloon car tucked next to the stone wall of the small village brewery on his right-hand side. He was sure there was someone in the driver’s seat, and although he had seen cars parked there frequently during the day, at night, when the brewery was closed, the place was usually deserted. He eased off the accelerator and looked in the driver’s side mirror.

Less than a hundred yards on, in his mirror, he saw the car’s headlights suddenly blaze. Then he watched it pull onto the road and follow.

Suspicions aroused, Hunter hit the accelerator. The Audi’s diesel turbo injection system kicked in, and within seconds he had reached sixty mph, the car’s low profile tyres hugging the wet tarmac as it thundered along the stretch of unlit road in the direction of home. The winding roads ahead were in total darkness, but he knew this area of the countryside like the back of his hand and although he could still make out the headlights of the car behind in his rear-view mirror, he saw that they were slowly diminishing as he left it behind. Taking a sharp left, without indicating, he tore up a switch-back climb of road and then, two hundred yards along, he hit the brakes, wrenched the steering hard left and skidded into a side lane. As his car rocked to a halt, he turned off its lights.

Fifteen seconds later, the saloon flew past. He had enough time to get a fleeting look at the driver. He was sure it was the reporter, Guy Armstrong alone.

Hunter banged into first gear and booted the accelerator. The wheels spun, churning up the track below and fish-tailing momentarily as he whipped the Audi back onto the glistening road. Snapping through the gears, he could hear the engine roar, but in less than thirty seconds he was only twenty yards from the back of Guy Armstrong’s car. He turned on his headlights and hit high beam. The rear of the reporter’s car was hit by a blaze of white light. Hunter saw the saloon’s brake lights flash on and the rear end of the car wobbled. Then it began to angle sideways and slide. He hit his brakes as Armstrong’s car scythed sideways for several seconds before bouncing against the grassed verge and coming to a stop.

Hunter flung open his door, whipped off his seat belt and dashed towards the driver’s side of the still-rocking saloon. He yanked open the door and was met by a pale-faced and shocked looking Guy Armstrong.

Hunter composed himself. “Mr Armstrong, if I’m not mistaken. And I thought I was the one with the certificate in surveillance.”

“You bloody idiot,” he spluttered. “You could have got me killed.”

“That’ll teach you for trying to sneak up on me. Now why are you following me?” Hunter wanted to swear. In fact he really wanted to drag him out of the car by the scruff of his neck, but he didn’t know if Armstrong had his tape recorder switched on.

The reporter took a deep breath and sank back in his seat. He exhaled loudly. “I wasn’t sneaking up on you. I just wanted a quick word with you about Peter Blake-Hall.”

“Well I don’t want to have a word with you. Especially to do with Peter Blake-Hall. This is a murder investigation and you know that.”

“This is off the record. Hence the reason why I followed you.”

“Off the record. How many times have I heard a journalist say that?”

“But this is. Believe me. I think I can help you. I have a source who ”

Hunter held up his hand. He choked back the words he wanted to use and forced a tolerant smile. “Thank you very much Mr Armstrong for your kind offer, but I don’t need your help.”

“No, I really can help you.”

He could feel a rage building up. “Mr Armstrong. This conversation is over. Good night.”

With a mighty fling, he slammed the door shut. The car rocked.

As he made his way back to the Audi, Hunter realised how wet his face and hair had become. And his ears were stinging with the cold. He shook off some of the wetness.

As he slid into the driver’s seat he felt a dampness creeping into his trousers and realised the seat was soaking. He cussed loudly and slammed the palm of his hand on the steering wheel. The car horn blared.

In a fit of temper he snapped the gear stick into first and stamped on the accelerator, flinging up a blanket of spray as he sped away from the scene.

- ooOoo –

DAY EIGHT: 1
st
December.

At morning briefing, Hunter gave details of his encounter with Guy Armstrong, warning the team to be on their guard.

Barry Newstead followed up by relaying his success at tracking down Lucy’s best friend Amanda Smith. He had spoken with her briefly over the phone. Amanda had indeed changed her surname. “She got married in nineteen-eighty-five, the year following Lucy’s murder trial. Her husband, back then, was a serving soldier, a member of the Military Police and they moved to his base in Germany. They came back to this country in nineteen-eighty-eight when he left the army and the pair are now living in Cumbria. In fact, both she and her husband have joined the police up there. She’s now called Rawlinson - Amanda Rawlinson and she’s a uniform sergeant stationed at Kendal,” he said. “I spent ten minutes chatting with her on the phone late yesterday afternoon and told her about our re-opening of Lucy’s case. She didn’t sound too surprised. I’ve told her someone will be going up to interview her within the next few days.” Barry added that had also found contact numbers for Lucy’s parents and her daughter Jessica. He had spoken to them on the phone and warned them to expect a visit later in the week.

SIO Michael Robshaw finalised briefing by telling everyone there was a press conference that afternoon and that they should expect a lot of interest in the days ahead. He told them that he was already fending off calls regarding Friday’s High Court Appeal following the request for his immediate release from Daniel Weaver’s barrister. “We’re up against the clock now on this,” he concluded.

* * * * *

Following morning briefing Hunter made toast, poured himself a fresh drink of tea and made Grace a coffee. Then, while she chronicled the previous day’s meeting with Peter Blake-Hall, he put in a phone call to the local Probation Service. He caught up with Jodie Marie Jenkinson’s Probation Officer, a man called Ray Austin, as he was about to leave the office for his first court appearance of the day. He could tell from the man’s reaction that the news of her death had come as a surprise. He told Hunter he would be back in the office for eleven o’clock and they arranged to meet then.

Hunter settled down to catch up with his own paperwork, and at 10.40am he picked up the folder containing Jodie Marie Jenkinson’s sudden death report and headed off out for his meeting.

Barnwell Probation Service was housed in a large double-fronted Victorian building in a cul-de-sac of similar style dwellings. It had once been an area where the well-to-do business people of the locale lived, but over the years, as people’s lifestyles and status had changed, the place had altered. Some of the houses had been sold on to developers, who had divided them into flats, and the two buildings either side of the Probation Service housed a firm of accountants and a private dental practice.

Hunter entered the reception area, gave the woman behind the reinforced glass screen his name, and told her he had an appointment.

There were a couple of young men in the reception area taking up seats flanking one side of the wall. Hunter immediately clocked one of them. He’d had dealings with him before over drug offences. They stared at each other for several seconds before the young man looked away sheepishly.

Hunter had only been waiting for a couple of minutes when a door next to the reception counter opened. The man framed in the doorway threw Hunter for a second, because he bore a striking resemblance to the torn photograph recovered from Jodie Marie Jenkinson’s jeans pocket. Hunter realised he had seen this man in and around the magistrate’s courts building. He quickly recovered his composure, hoping the man hadn’t spotted the startled look. When the probation officer gave him a faint smile, Hunter realised his reaction hadn’t drawn attention.

The man said, “DS Kerr?”

Hunter nodded.

“We spoke earlier. I’m Ray Austin. Would you like to come through?” He opened the door fully and stepped to one side.

As Hunter brushed past, out of the corner of one eye he glanced at Ray Austin again. This revelation meant that he had to change his approach and the line of questioning he had originally planned, until he got to the bottom of why Jodie had a photograph of her Probation Officer.

He led Hunter up a switch-back staircase to the first floor landing. There, a security door prevented them going any further. Ray Austin punched a four digit code into a key-pad and the door clicked open. He directed Hunter down a dimly lit corridor and then showed him into an office, the heavy four-panelled door of which bore a plate with his name. Hunter saw that Ray Austin’s title was Senior Probation Officer.

Austin slipped past Hunter and dropped down into a high-back chair behind a cluttered desk. He offered Hunter a seat, then parted some of the paperwork and rested his forearms.

“Can I get you a drink?”

Hunter shook his head. “No thanks. To be honest I’m in the middle of a murder enquiry at the moment and I’ve a tight schedule today. I’m fitting in this in between my other enquiries.

“You’ve confused me Sergeant Kerr. You said on the phone you were investigating Jodie’s death and now you’ve just said you’re involved in a murder enquiry. Are the two not the same thing?”

“Sorry. My apologies. I explained myself badly there. Yes I am investigating Jodie’s death and I am also involved in a murder enquiry, but the two are not related.”

“So how can I help?”

“Well I’m led to believe you’re her Probation Officer.”

“Yes, for my sins. Jodie came to me after her last court appearance six months ago.” He leaned further forward. “When I say for my sins, I don’t mean that in a derogative way. Jodie had her faults, but like a lot of our clients, once you got past the veneer there was a different person under the surface. You might find that difficult to believe, I guess, from your dealings. But they come to us having received their punishment and the majority just get their heads down. Jodie wasn’t like that though. I realised long ago that her probation sentence actually put some structure and purpose into her life, and it was a pleasure to work with her. She always did everything we asked and was always on time for her appointments, unlike many of our other clients. Hearing of her death this morning has come as a real shock, I can tell you.” He paused and licked his lips. “To be honest I was about to write her up for breaching her sentence. She missed her last two appointments. That was unusual and I did cut her a bit of slack because of how good she had been in the past and so rang her mobile on several occasions. When she didn’t return my calls and didn’t turn up for the second appointment, I thought she’d done a runner.” He shook his head. “I know why now. When did Jodie die?”

The comment about him trying to contact Jodie on her mobile jolted Hunter’s brain. Where was her mobile? It hadn’t been in her possession or at the scene where she had been found. He stored that thought away and then asked, “Can I ask when those appointments were?”

Ray Austin grabbed hold of the computer mouse for his desktop system and tapped it. Switching his eyes to the computer monitor, he made a series of swipes and clicks with the mouse and then returned his gaze to Hunter.

“The first one she missed was on Tuesday eighteenth November. She was booked in for three-thirty. The second one was last Tuesday, the twenty-fifth at two o’clock. We had another scheduled for tomorrow afternoon. I had just reduced them to weekly appointments because she was doing so well.”

“Jodie’s body was found on the twenty-first, but we believe she had been dead for the best part of a week.”

“That’s terrible.”

“So if her appointments with you were weekly, the last time you saw her then was the Tuesday before, the eighteenth?”

The Senior Probation Officer gazed back to his monitor.

“Yes, the eleventh. Three o’clock. For the past couple of months they were always mid-afternoon because it fitted in with her job.”

“She was working, then?”

“Yes, she’d got herself some work in a bar, though I don’t know where that was.”

“Do you know where she was living?”

“Yeah. I actually fixed  her up with a place before she went for sentence. I did her pre-sentence report, and when she told me who she was dossing around with I told her if she wanted any chance of keeping out of prison then she needed to dump them soon as. She said she had nowhere else to go and as we have a list of landlords who are prepared to take our clients, I made a few phone calls and got her a place. I thought that if I could get her a more permanent residence then there was a fair chance of her getting probation, and so I fixed her up with a flat in one of the houses at the top of this road. I also sorted out her benefits, so she had enough money and didn’t need to go out shoplifting again. You might find this strange but I had a bit of a soft spot for Jodie.”

“When you say a bit of a soft spot?”

“In the strictest professional sense, of course. I’ve known Jodie a long time, in fact almost nine years. She did her first probation sentence when she was sixteen. Don’t get me wrong, Jodie could be a pain in the backside at times, but she also had a heart of gold once you got to know her.”

“And how well did you know her?”

“Probably better than any of others in the office. In fact, she could cause some of the girls here a bit of grief at times. Jodie had a bit of a temper on her, you see. Especially when she’d had a drink. And so I used to get her every time you lot had charged her. Everyone else wanted to avoid her, but I got on well with her.”

“Why was that?”

“I don’t know, to be honest. I suppose I didn’t give up on her like others had done. She had a pretty shitty life you know.”