Secret of the Dead (27 page)

A pang of guilt stung him. “Sorry I wasn’t there. It’s been one of those days, loads happening. Are they still awake?”

“No they were shattered. Went straight off. You can see them tomorrow morning.”

“Everyone’s just finishing off with a drink. Do you mind if I have a swift one before I come home?”

“No, you go. To be honest Hunter, I’m whacked myself. I’m going to make a warm drink and go up. See you later.”

Hunter ended the call with a smile. He was so blessed to have met Beth. She was one in a million, he thought to himself, as he engaged gear. She understood the pressures he was under when a job was running and was always there to offer support, even if that was letting him wind down with a beer and without complaint, despite the fact that he had hardly given her or the boys any attention for days.

* * * * *

Hunter got in a few minutes before eleven pm. The house was in darkness. He toe-heeled off his shoes, kicked them under the hallway radiator and tip-toed upstairs. He sneaked into the boys’ room. In the darkness he could just make out their forms, tucked up beneath their duvets in their single beds. He leant in and kissed each of their foreheads, mouthed silently, ‘good night, sleep tight,’ and crept back out onto the landing where he began to undress, lazily draping his clothing over the balcony rail. He felt drained.

He showered quickly, and, feeling cold as he stepped out of the shower, dried himself even quicker, before jumping into bed.

He pushed himself close to Beth. Instantly he felt the welcoming warmth of her body and he nestled closer, taking in the fragrance of her body lotion. “You smell good,” he said quietly.

Beth moaned. “Hunter, you’re freezing and I was asleep.” She reached back and started to push him away. “Turn over and I’ll cuddle you.”

“Spoilsport,” he chuckled before flipping himself over. She turned with him, and draped an arm and a leg across him.

“I was asleep,” she said, her words trailing away.

Within minutes, warmth had returned to his body. He closed his eyes and willed himself to sleep, and though he was tired, he knew it would be quite a while before he drifted off. His head was awash with thoughts about the case. In the darkness, he listened to the sounds of the house settling around him.

* * * * *

Someone was crying, or was it a moan? It was coming from one of the rooms below. She shuffled along the corridor, towards the light which drifted up the stairwell. It was a dull, warm glow that broke up the scary shadows and the coldness of the floor boards beneath her bare feet. Slowly, she moved nearer the brightness and the sound; a strange gutteral noise, like someone was in pain. Pushing open the door, she glanced down at her feet. Something squelched between her toes. She stared down at her bare feet. Small bunchy toes peeked beneath the hem of her nightdress. A red liquid seeped and bubbled between the cracks in the flagstones and enveloped her tiny feet. She wiggled her toes in the redness. Then everything changed. She was slipping in the red stuff, falling backwards, trying to pull herself away. Then she was running scared. Running into the abyss...

Jessica awoke with a start. Darkness engulfed her and she was drenched in sweat. For a second she wondered where she was, and then it came to her she was in her bed. More importantly she was safely in the sanctuary of her bedroom.

Sitting up quickly, she blinked, then closed her eyes, trying to recapture the visions. It was a long time since she’d had this dream. And she guessed she knew the cause. It had to be the phone call from her grandma Hall, earlier that day, telling her that the police were re-investigating her mum’s disappearance. There was no other explanation why, after all this time, she should have the dream again. If only she could make sense of it all.

Beside her, her husband stirred. He rolled over onto his back.

“Something up?” he said.

Jessica tried to reply, tell him everything was all right, now that she was awake, but a lump stuck in her throat.

“That dream again?”

She nodded, dislodging the lump and blurted out, “Nightmare.”

Her husband looped his arm across her, drew her close and comforted her.

- ooOoo -

DAY ELEVEN: 4
th
December.

Hunter got into the office shortly after 7am and was surprised to find the place bustling and teeming with officers. It had been a while since he’d seen it this full; generally he was first in, with a good quarter of an hour at least to himself.

He slipped off his jacket, slung it over the back of his chair and made for the kettle, ready for his first caffeine hit of the day. With the heavy workload ahead, this could be his last strong cup of tea for a while. As he waited for it to boil,  he scanned the room. Although he couldn’t pick up on any individual conversations, snippets he gleaned were about the status of the investigation. As he poured hot water over a tea bag in his mug, he told himself that today was going to be a good day.

Returning to his desk, he took a first sip of tea while booting up the computer. Settling back in his chair, he checked through his e-mails. Among them was an up-date regarding ‘Chicken’ George. There had been a sighting of him around Barnsley town centre and that a message had been left for the night shift team to get a fix on him. Hunter replied with a note of thanks. The next one was from Duncan Wroe. He checked the time it had been sent - 22.27 last night. Duncan had obviously had another long day, he thought. He scanned the few lines. It was simple and to the point and outlined that the samples from Jodie’s flat, together with the few he had processed from Guy Armstrong’s crash scene, had been sent by carrier to the Forensics lab, marked as priority, as had the fingerprints found at Jodie’s bed-sit. Those should be fed into the National Automated Fingerprint Identification System within the next couple of days. Finally, Duncan and his team were returning to The Barnwell Inn to re-examine the cellar. Things were beginning to come together, he thought excitedly, as he composed another thank you response. The rest of his on-screen list was in-force spam, which could be dealt with later. He closed down his computer.

As Hunter drained the last of his tea, he felt a tap on his shoulder. He looked up as Grace slid past him, dumped her handbag and coat onto her desk and slumped into her chair.

“Cutting it a bit fine,” Hunter said, looking at his watch. “Domestic issues?”

“Domestic issues!” she checked back. “Nightmare of a morning. I’d forgotten it was the school Christmas party and disco tomorrow. Both girls needed clothes ironing. I ended up losing my rag with them, telling them it was about time they learnt how to use an iron. And then to cap it all David wanted me to iron him a shirt for work. I tell you, I’m up to here this morning,” she tapped her forehead with the side of her hand. “The sooner this enquiry is put to bed, the better. If it goes on much longer, I can see me heading for the divorce courts.”

Hunter smiled and stood up from his desk. “Deep breaths Grace. Deep breaths. You get yourself sorted and I’ll get you a coffee.” As he made his way to the kettle again, he turned and said, “Tell you what, the only job we’ve got today is to finish off at Guy Armstrong’s house. We’ve lost Mike and Tony because they’ve got other jobs, but you and I should break the back of it by mid-afternoon and then you take a flyer. I’ll finish off here and do de-brief.”

“Are you sure about that? I would really appreciate it.”

Looking back over his shoulder he said, “Sure I’m sure. That’s what kind-hearted sergeants are here for.”

* * * * * *

Morning briefing was short. Detective Superintendent Michael Robshaw summarised the previous evening’s discussions and then the team received their designated chores. One of the main issues resolved was the supervisory roles both SIOs were taking to overseeing the investigations. It was determined that Detective Superintendent Robshaw took the Lucy Blake-Hall and Jeffery Howson murders, while Detective Superintendent Leggate focused on Jodie’s and Guy’s killings.

* * * * * *

By 10am Hunter and Grace had entered Guy Armstrong’s house, ready to finish off the search of the one remaining room the lounge.

Hunter had given the room a fleeting look over during their first visit, but as he pushed open the lounge door and got his second view, it became apparent that the task was bigger than he’d thought. Volumes of stacked papers filled every nook and cranny and there was barely an inch of floor space showing.

Hunter and Grace exchanged looks.

Hunter sighed. “This is going to take ages.”

Grace smiled. “It’s a good job then you’ve got someone as organised as me on your team.”

As Hunter began sorting and collating his pile of papers, he realised he was dealing with very different pieces of information in this room. The upstairs study, contained specific articles and notes relating to the Lucy Hall-Blake investigation, with possible links to the husband Peter Blake, whereas, this room, contained a mismatch of things. A lot of the newspapers featured articles that Guy Armstrong had written for the Barnwell Chronicle, when he had been their Crime Correspondent, or for The Daily Mail, when he had been one of their Northern reporters. There were also a few recent pieces he had written for The Star. Skip-reading his way through the opening paragraphs, none appeared relevant to their investigations and so he made a makeshift pile of them in the hall. The scribbled notes he picked through appeared to be the original jottings in a mix of both longhand and shorthand that Guy had put together prior to writing those articles. After an hour-and-a-half and getting bored, he spotted a pile of A4 colour photographs, and decided to check these out. It was an inspired decision. As he picked up and looked at the fifth photo, he called out.

“Bloody hell! Just look at this I’ve found Grace.” He held up the photograph at chest height. The next one in the pile caught his eye as well. He selected it. There was another of interest below that. The three photographs seemed to be a sequence of shots taken only seconds apart. They depicted three men standing close together on the top of some steps, at the front of what appeared to be a club entrance. The clarity was exceptional and there was no mistaking who two of the men were - Alan Darbyshire and Peter Blake-Hall. And the third man in the group especially caught his eye. Hunter couldn’t be certain, but he was a similar height and build to the fellow he’d chased at Jeffery Howson’s funeral and who had recently assaulted him. This was a golden nugget, he told himself, scooping up the remainder of the photographs.

* * * * *

It was another early de-briefing session. SIO Michael Robshaw bounced on the balls of his feet as he made his way to the front of the incident room.

He said in an elated voice, “Eyes and ears guys, important things to discuss.” Excitedly, he rubbed his hands together. “Not one, but two breakthroughs today. Firstly, Road Policing Unit took a call from a man who lives in Wentworth. He’s told them that about eleven o’clock on Monday night, he’d just let his dog out, and was standing on his doorstep, when a dark coloured four-by-four went speeding past on the High Street, travelling towards Harley. He describes the vehicle as going like the clappers, and said it was not displaying any lights. Although he wasn’t able to clock its number, he’s been able to identify the make and model of the vehicle because he’s got a similar one. It’s a Mitsubishi Shogun Sport and he says it’s got blacked out windows. That’s the second time a four-by-four has featured in this enquiry. If you’ll recall I mentioned the day before yesterday, that a couple had seen a dark coloured one parked near to the entranceway of a footpath, which leads up to the bottom of Jeffery Howson’s garden, on the evening of the night we believe he was murdered. Now, as I’ve said before, this may just be a coincidence, but I don’t like coincidences, especially where murder is involved, and so I’ve sent someone round to his house straight away to get a statement from him and see if he can tell us any more than what he’s already told Traffic. And for the second piece of good news, I’m going to hand over to Hunter.”

Hunter sprang from his seat, holding aloft two of the photographs he had found in Guy Armstrong’s house. “These were among a dozen-or-so similar shots we found in his lounge and I’ve picked out these two for a reason.” He separated the photos, placing one in each hand. Raising them before his audience, he continued, “I think you can all make out that it features our main suspect Alan Darbyshire, and the person who is poking him in the chest is Peter Blake-Hall. I recognise him from our interview the other day. And, although I can’t be one-hundred-per-cent sure, the third person, who has his back towards us, looks a lot like the man I disturbed at Jodie’s. These photographs are all timed and dated digital shots and were taken at eleven-oh-four on the morning of tenth November. Now to me, looking at the actions of Peter Blake-Hall, and by his facial expressions, this looks as if he and Alan Darbyshire are in a heated discussion. On the back of the photos, the names of Alan Darbyshire and Peter Blake-Hall have been penned, plus one other, Ronald Fisher.”

As he sat down, he could see, from the faces of the team, that the significance of all this was starting to sink in.

“I know what you’re all thinking,” said Detective Superintendent Robshaw, holding up his hand. “But there’s just one more person I want to bring in before I outline what the next lines of enquiry are.” He turned to Barry Newstead, “Barry, you’ve spoken with retired DCI Burrows today.”

Until the SIO’s invitation to speak, Barry had been hunched over his desk, listening intently. He now jerked back in his seat, tugged a finger at the collar of his shirt and cleared his throat.

He responded, “Yeah boss, I caught up with Ted Burrows earlier today, he’s living over in Ecclesfield. He’s seventy-four now, but his mind is still sharp as a knife and he can certainly remember the Pendlebury case.” He shuffled forward. “You’ve heard most of the story already, from what Hunter read out in the papers, and judging by what Mr Burrows told me, the headline of the first article we saw yesterday adequately sums up what was discovered that morning. Ted Burrows says it really was a vicious attack - blood everywhere. He described the place as like a slaughterhouse. The couple had over fifty stab wounds between them and in old man Pendlebury’s case his head had almost been severed.” Barry stretched his neck from his loose shirt collar and cleared his throat again. “The robbers had got away with quite a bit of gear. As well as some of the jewellery from the displays, the safe had been expertly blown and virtually emptied. The Pendleburys, however, had kept good records. The couple had written and described all their stock in a ledger upstairs, which meant that the investigation team were able to compile a list of what had been stolen and get it circulated quite quickly. Within a couple of days they were given a name of someone who was trying to sell on some of the stuff - Ronnie Fisher.” He paused and wiped his mouth. “Ronnie, back then, was known to Sheffield police, but only as a car thief. He’d been pulled a few times but led a bit of a charmed life. Even as a youngster he was known as a ‘no comment’ merchant. When he was first mentioned for the Pendlebury job, despite him being twenty years old he’d already had one spell in borstal. He’d got twelve months for nicking a couple of cars when he was fourteen. However, Ted says that once they started doing some digging about him, they learned that a few months before the Pendleburys’ job, there was a rumour circulating that he’d stabbed a man during a pub fight. The man he’d supposedly stabbed was himself a well-known villain, with a bit of a hard-man reputation. But there hadn’t been a complaint, so as part of the enquiry, they visited him. The villain’s name was Shaun Brown - he’s dead now - died of cancer a couple of years back. He was more than happy to grass on Ronnie Fisher, not only confirmed that Ronnie had stabbed him in the shoulder, and in the leg, after an argument over a girl, but he also told the team that it was common knowledge that Ronnie carried a knife and it was all round the grapevine that Ronnie had been involved in the Pendlebury robbery and was desperate to get rid of the gear. He not only dropped Ronnie’s name but also George Blake and his son Peter. In George’s case, everything fitted together. They had lots of intelligence about him. He’d done time in his early twenties for house and shop burglary and had apparently learned how to blow safes during his first prison spell. In the early seventies, there’d been a spate of safe jobs at working men’s clubs up and down the country and George’s name had been put forward on quite a few occasions. Unfortunately, despite him being pulled in, the evidence hadn’t been there to convict and so he’d got away Scot-free. There was also a rumour that he was doing jobs down in London for some of the gangs there, but again they couldn’t get enough evidence against him to convict. The Flying Squad had even given him a tug, but he was clean as a whistle and so never did any time. That was until the Pendlebury job.” He wiped his mouth again. “The team raided George’s house in High Green and Ronnie Fisher’s mum’s house at Ecclesfield. Peter Blake lived with his dad back then. He was an apprentice mechanic working for a local garage. Although they didn’t find any of the stolen jewellery at their homes, they also had info about a lock-up garage which Ronnie used and they searched that as well. It was there they found most of the gear from the Pendlebury job. All three were arrested and the upshot was that George confessed. To be fair, they did find a pair of boots belonging to George, which perfectly matched a shoe print they found in old man Pendlebury’s dried blood, so it was obvious he had been at the scene, but Ted Burrows tells me it took the team completely by surprise as to how quickly George had rolled over and admitted everything. There were a lot of inconsistencies about George’s story, but no matter how hard they pushed him, he stuck to his confession. Even when they charged him, they believed he was only admitting it to protect his son, Peter, and Ronnie. In fact the more digging around they did into Ronnie and Peter’s background, the more they realised that was the case. They pulled Peter and Ronnie in on several occasions throughout the enquiry, however, they couldn’t get a cough out of the pair - both alibied one another and George indicated he was happy to plead guilty to the Pendlebury murders. In nineteen-seventy-five he got life. Ted Burrows told me that the sad thing about the case was that he knew they had not got to the bottom of the job. They were convinced that Ronnie and Peter had been involved in it and that they believed it had been Ronnie who’d murdered the Pendleburys. They did a couple of prison visits to George, but he stuck to his story and that was it. Then, in September ninety-ninety-eight, he was found dead in his cell. Someone had cut his throat. It’s believed a razor was used on him. They never found who’d done it.” Once more he wiped his mouth this time with the cuff of his jacket sleeve. “That’s it regarding those murders, but I’ll tell you what else I’ve found, and I’ve been able to check some of it out with the Intelligence Unit.” Barry glanced down at his jotter. It was full of his scrawling handwriting. He put on his glasses, focused on a section of it for a few seconds, then looked up and removed his reading spectacles. “In nineteen-eighty-six there are several entries in the system linking Peter and Ronnie to drugs. It’s low-grade intelligence from a couple of users, and it’s not supported by hard information, but they all state the same thing, and that is that they were bringing in amphetamine from Holland and banging it out in Wigan and Leeds at soul night venues. Now  we’ve already been told that Peter was importing cars from Germany during the nineteen eighties. The suggestion was that he was bringing in the drugs hidden inside those cars. As I say, none of the intelligence is corroborated by any of the agencies and there’s nothing on the system indicating if it was acted upon or not. There was a marker on the intelligence though. It would appear that the pair had been flagged up by the Crime Squad, at that time, who operated out of the Wakefield office. As you’re aware, it no longer exists now, The Serious and Organised Crime Agency has been set up in the place of Crime Squads, so I’ve spoken to someone from the Intelligence Unit there and they’ve told me that, sadly, Ronnie and Peter are not on the new system. When the new organisation was formed there was a trawl through the old intelligence and if it wasn’t current and hadn’t been updated for three years then it was discarded. So I’m trying to track down those members who were part of number three crime squad back in the eighties, to see if I can get the full sp on Peter and Ronnie.”