A Deadly Thaw (25 page)

While Palmer was driving, Connie took the opportunity to call the station and retrieve the details of Andrew Fisher’s first wife. Throughout this investigation they’d treated Lena’s dead husband as a victim – in 2004 and more recently. Now he was shaping up to be a sexual predator in the Philip Staley mould, and they needed to go back into the past.

Gail Fisher lived in a terraced house to the west of Bampton. They had been workers’ cottages built for the employees of the cotton mill that still stood on the bank of the river. The mill had been turned into apartments, similar to Connie’s, but the cottages hadn’t yet been gentrified.

There was a haphazard air to the terrace. The window frames of each house were painted a different colour, and the front doors heralded the change in fashion over the past hundred years. Connie banged on the door, and, after a moment, a woman answered. ‘Mrs Fisher?’

Both she and Palmer showed their ID, and, with a resigned raise of her eyebrows, Gail Fisher let them into her house and took them into the front room. She didn’t offer them coffee.

Connie had been expecting someone similar in appearance to Lena, but this woman was short, barely over five feet tall, and heavily made-up. Her cheeks were rouged with pink, a colour that clashed with the peach of her lipstick. Underneath the gunk she was probably attractive.

‘I wondered if you’d be coming to see me. Again.’

‘I don’t suppose this is easy for you,’ Connie told her.

‘That’s putting it mildly, but then it hasn’t been easy from the day I first met Andrew Fisher.’

‘You were married to him for three years?’

‘Two. Oh, I suppose it was three if you include all the stuff around getting divorced.’

‘It wasn’t amicable?’ Palmer had settled back into the sofa and was taking notes, content to let Connie ask the questions.

‘No, it wasn’t.’

‘You petitioned him for adultery, I believe.’

‘Yes, he was sleeping with that slut, Lena Gray.’

Palmer’s pen stopped briefly mid-sentence, then he carried on writing.

‘Who he eventually married.’

‘Eventually? About three months after the Decree Absolute came through.’

‘Were you aware that he was having an affair?’

Gail Fisher stared at her hands. ‘I suspected there was someone.’

‘He came home late at nights?’

Gail’s face was dour. ‘He’d come home early enough and then he was off out again. He never said where he was going.’

‘What did you think when you heard that Lena had killed him in 2004?’

A slow smile spread across Gail’s face. ‘I thought he’d got his just deserts.’

‘Because he’d left you for her?’

‘Because he was a pig.’

Palmer had stopped writing again.

‘A pig?’

‘Andrew Fisher was a pig. I should never have married him. And I never liked his mother either. The pair of them had this I’m-better-than-you attitude. Have you seen where she lives? It’s only around five minutes from where I grew up, but you’d never have thought it, the way they both looked down on me.’

We really should have interviewed this woman earlier
, thought Connie. ‘How did you meet?’

‘I was working in the dentist’s as a receptionist. Both Andrew and his mother were patients. He used to chat me up when he came in. Which wasn’t often. Anyway. One time he had some work done on his teeth. Cosmetic, to straighten them. So over the space of a month or so he was in the surgery quite a lot. Then he asked me out.’

‘Did you meet any of his friends?’

‘I suppose so. They were a rugby crowd. Not my sort.’

Connie bit on the top of her pen. Gail Fisher was, in her own way, as much of a snob as her husband. ‘What about a man called Philip Staley?’

Gail coloured. ‘There was someone called Philip at our wedding.’

‘Do you have a photograph?’ asked Palmer.

‘They’re up in the attic. I keep meaning to throw them out but there are some pictures of my mum who’s not alive any more, so I can’t bring myself to get rid of them.’

Connie looked at Palmer, who rolled his eyes.

Five minutes later, he emerged from the attic with a pale-pink photograph album covered in rosebuds. Gail took it from him and flicked through the pages until she found the photo she was looking for. She pulled it out of its holdings and handed it over to him. ‘You can keep that one.’ She bustled out of the room, photo album in hand.

Connie looked at the image. It was a picture of Andrew Fisher and Philip Staley arm in arm, laughing into the camera. They were both good-looking men. Their hairstyles and suits dated the photo. Andrew Fisher was slightly taller but broader than his friend. He looked confident, trustworthy. Philip Staley, despite the smiles, carried with him an air of anxiety. He looked to one side of the camera. The hand that clutched his friend looked proprietorial.

Palmer looked at the photo. ‘Victims or perpetrators?’

She put the picture in her handbag. ‘Both.’

‘What do you mean, what happens next?’

Her sister’s voice was muffled. ‘Someone worked out that Andrew was alive all this time. They must also have known that I had a part in hiding him. Whoever it was has got their revenge. They might want to extend it to me.’

Kat thought back to her patients over the years. Plenty were victims of trauma, people who had been preyed upon, abused and neglected. She couldn’t think of a single one who had forged forward with revenge. That wasn’t the way things worked. Victims usually blamed themselves. It took anger and a certain amount of self-belief to embark on a path of revenge.

‘What about Steph?’ She tensed for her sister’s withdrawal.

‘Steph?’ Lena lifted her head. ‘The whole time I was inside, in prison, I never even thought about Steph. She was part of that time. From before.’

‘But you got back in touch afterwards?’

Lena exhaled a long deep breath. ‘You remember how it was when I first came out. I hardly left the house but I did bump into Steph one day. In the park opposite the house. She was walking with her daughter Mary. She looked like him.’

‘Like who?’

‘Like Philip.’

‘Steph had a child with Philip Staley?’

‘Yes and she looked just like him.’ Lena’s face was a vision of misery. ‘Not in build. She’s thin like her mother. But her face. It was like looking at the man responsible for everything.’

‘So you started to see Steph again?’

‘She asked if I was still living in the house and, afterwards, we’d meet occasionally. Maybe once every couple of months.’

‘Why did she kill herself? Why now?’

‘You’re asking if it was anything to do with me? In a way, it was. When I left Providence Villa, I went to stay with Mary. She’s got a flat not far from here. I know. Don’t look at me like that. I had nowhere else to go. Steph knew, of course.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘When it came out in the press that it was Andrew who’d been found dead, she came round to find out who I’d killed before.’

‘She guessed it was Philip?’

‘Yes. It was a shot in the dark. She thought he’d moved to Australia in 2004 and that was the end of that.’

‘But was she one of his victims? I thought he was her boyfriend.’

‘Not boyfriend. Not casual pick-up. Something in between. She was treated badly. Perhaps not the same as the other women. But still.’

‘And when she heard of Andrew’s body being found, she wondered if it was Philip you’d killed.’

Lena picked at the duvet cover. ‘Not a bad guess, was it? In fact, spot on.’

‘But why kill herself now?’

‘She killed herself, Kat, because sometimes you just reach the end.’

The woman was thin, dressed in grey straight-legged trousers and a black jacket. Her cropped hair was immaculately styled, but she’d made no attempt to hide the passage of time. In a few years it would be completely white. She was wearing make-up. Pale mauve eyeliner and pink lipstick. It softened her masculine hairstyle and clothes.

‘This is Superintendent Sioned Rhys. From West Glamorgan Police.’

She held out her hand to Sadler. ‘Good to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you from the Superintendent here.’ She had a soft Welsh accent. Barely noticeable but present under the clipped professional tones. Sadler said nothing because he already had a fair idea what was going on and the thought made him so mad he didn’t trust himself to speak.

Llewellyn was looking at him through narrowed eyes. Warning him. Rhys picked up on the tension in the room. ‘I don’t often play the female card, Sadler. I’ve got where I am, in my considerable opinion of myself, through hard work and talent. I can cop it against the most able of men, and I’ve got to Superintendent by rolling my sleeves up and mucking in.’

Llewellyn leant back in his chair with a faint smile on his face.

‘However, I am going to say this, and if I’m ever asked about it outside this room, I’ll deny I ever said it. But if you think you’re pissed off about what we’ve discovered happened to the reporting of rapes throughout the late eighties and nineties, then, believe me, it’s nothing to how I feel. I’ve read those files. All of them and in depth. There are even some taped interviews. I actually threw up after one of them. Would you like me to go into details?’

Sadler shook his head.

‘Okay. So we start from the base line that I’m as pissed off as you are. No, in fact I’m more pissed off than you because, one day, over a drink, I’m going to tell you about some things that have been said to me over the years by policemen like those in the files. But that doesn’t help you and your case and that’s what you want right at this moment, isn’t it?’

Sadler nodded. ‘I have two police detectives out there who also deserve some answers. They’ve been scrabbling around in the dark when actually you have some information that might have helped.’

Rhys shook her head. ‘I take the criticism head-on but I had to do my job too. It’s only recently that it’s come to light that my investigation and yours are connected. I admire your loyalty to your team.’ She looked to Llewellyn. ‘They might as well hear this too.’

Llewellyn shrugged. ‘I have no objection. Bring them in.’

Sadler prayed that they were somewhere in the station. Because, if what he suspected was coming, then he’d rather they heard it from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. Especially Connie. It would be unpalatable. And he didn’t much fancy defending the indefensible.

A quick call to the incident room revealed they weren’t there, and Sadler was just about to call Palmer’s mobile when Margaret rang to say they were on their way in to the station. They arrived at Llewellyn’s office a few minutes later, Connie looking flushed, Palmer curious.

The first thing Connie did was give the policewoman the once-over.

Rhys ignored the scrutiny, and, once they’d sat down, plunged straight in. ‘Have you heard of the Sapphire Unit?’

Connie looked across to Sadler. ‘Of course. It’s the sex-crimes unit in London. Reported cases of rape in the Greater London area are referred to that department rather than to CID.’

‘Well then, I’m sure you’re also aware that there have been complaints made against this unit in relation to the way accusations have been handled.’

Palmer and Connie both nodded. Rhys continued. ‘I was one of the senior investigating officers looking at the handling of a number of cases in 2012 by a serving DC who was subsequently dismissed. I’m telling you this because I want you to know my background. I know a lot about these issues, and I’m aware of the sensitivities.’

‘I was involved, about five years ago, in the sex-crimes unit in Derbyshire. It was pretty exemplary.’ Connie’s voice was subdued.

‘It still is. I visited the team last week. I have no quibbles with the current set-up.’ A short silence. ‘This is about policing over two decades,’ said Rhys. A faint flush appeared on her cheeks. ‘What I’m here to talk to you about is what happened in Derbyshire between the years 1985 and 2004.’

‘Any reason those dates have been chosen?’ asked Sadler.

She turned to him. ‘There was a policy review in 2004 that led to the setting up of a number of dedicated units to deal with reports of rape and sexual assault. It was later than some forces, and it was in response to the Home Office circular designed to ensure that those reporting rapes would be treated with tact and sympathy. Although it was not perfect, in my opinion women were served much better after the creation of those units.’

‘But before then?’ Connie asked her.

‘I’m here as part of the Independent Police Complaints Commission team looking into practices at that time. It’s historic, as I just explained, but I can safely say that Derbyshire Constabulary was significantly behind the times in terms of how it handled these cases.’

‘And here in Bampton?’

Rhys looked to Llewellyn. ‘There was a complete failure to act in a number of instances. Cases of rape and sexual assault were, for a variety of reasons, classified as “no crimes”.’

Connie exhaled rapidly.

No crimes
, thought Sadler. The phrase used to fob off Anna. Before the creation of the Crown Prosecution Service in 1986, it had been the police who had taken the decision as to whether there was enough evidence to prosecute. A big mistake that had left vulnerable people at the whim of incompetent and lazy police officers.

‘I’m going to open some of those files to you. It’s clear that your ongoing investigation into the deaths of Andrew Fisher and Philip Staley is related to that time. However, what we can and can’t use in a resulting prosecution is up for debate.’

‘Debate?’ asked Sadler.

Rhys smoothed down an invisible crease in her trousers. ‘You want to find out what happened in 2004. Well, my concern is what went on between 1985 and that time. You read the files first, but I’m telling you, some of the police officers serving at that time are still on the payroll of Her Majesty’s constabulary. Even if it’s via their pensions.’ She smiled at them. ‘And I’m going to have their balls for breakfast.’

Lena had gone. She’d spilt out her secrets and then left. A confession of sorts, but Kat wasn’t the person she should be asking for forgiveness. Kat sat shell-shocked on the bed with a hollow pit in her stomach. Finally, she rang the only person who she really wanted to speak to, the man she’d been avoiding for the past few days.

Mark answered on the first ring. ‘Who’s Daniel?’ His voice was cool.

‘A friend of Lena’s. He turned up a couple of nights ago. Have you been to the house?’

‘This Daniel was leaving when I arrived. He didn’t seem to want to talk to me. He said he’d seen you and that you’d let him sleep on the sofa. And that he was looking for Lena. Aren’t we all?’

Kat struggled to form a sentence. He picked up on her mood immediately. ‘What is it?’

‘She’s been here. Lena.’

‘Lena? When?’

‘She got in touch through that boy again.’

‘Where are you? Don’t move. Are you in danger?’

Even down the phone she could sense his tension. Tears welled up in her eyes. ‘Not me. Lena. It’s Lena who’s in danger.’

It took him twenty minutes to arrive. Kat stood outside Patricia’s house waiting on the pavement. There was a north wind blowing, chilly and relentless. She couldn’t wait inside the house because she couldn’t risk introductions. Patricia was a diligent therapist, and she would be putting her in an impossible position if she introduced her to a former client. She could see that her career was in jeopardy, but Mark was the solid presence that she needed now.

She felt relief wash over her when he came around the corner in the car and drew up beside her. He looked over to the house. ‘It belongs to my supervisor. I stayed here last night, but we should go elsewhere.’

She didn’t need to explain any further. He put his hand over hers and squeezed it. ‘Where to?’ He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. Dark shadows ringed his eyes, and stubble covered his jaw.

‘I have no idea.’

‘Right. I do. Hop in.’ He drove her onto the moor. She’d once told him it was her favourite place, and he hadn’t forgotten. The sand-coloured grassland rippled in a single direction in the soft breeze. Despite everything, Kat felt her spirits lift.

He parked in one of the small gravelled areas used by walkers to leave their vehicles. One couple, returning from a hike, gave a condescending look towards Kat’s trainer-clad feet. She felt like shouting that she was a local and could wear what the hell she wanted, but what was the point of adding to the prickle of tension she already felt.

They followed a path, of sorts, for about ten minutes, leaving the traffic behind them. Reaching a hollow, they could have been the last people left on earth. The silence was eerie. Mark sat down and hugged his knees. Kat stood over him but, feeling the balance of power tilt in her favour, sat down next to him. She felt him reach for her, and she leant back into him.
When will I ever be able to forget he was my client?
she wondered and then shook the thought from her mind. Instead, she told him Lena’s story. He listened without interrupting. When she had finished he was silent for a moment, processing what she had told him.

‘So Lena killed Philip Staley but says she didn’t shoot Andrew Fisher. Who did then? The boy?’

Kat shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. He seems completely under Lena’s control.’

‘But he waved a knife at you.’

‘Yes, but when I shouted at him, he ran away. It was like I frightened the life out of him. The sense of menace is still there, but it’s not coming from him.’

‘You sure?’

Kat nodded. ‘Pretty sure.’

Mark looked unconvinced. ‘Who is he anyway?’

‘Someone Lena seems to have picked up along the way. Got him to do her dirty work. Including dropping me all those clues. To try to make me link why she had disappeared to those teenage days. She was trying to explain. She’s used him, but . . .’

‘He was asking for a gun. Andrew was shot, remember?’

Kat shook her head. ‘I don’t know. The boy is a bag of nerves. His hand was shaking when he was holding the knife. The policewoman said that whoever shot Andrew had a pretty good aim. It was straight into his chest.’

‘That’s the easiest part of the body to hit, Kat.’

‘Is it?’

‘Think about it. In the movies you see someone’s head getting blown off, or someone shot in the legs when they’re trying to run away. That’s actually pretty hard to pull off. Especially when the target is moving. The easiest way to kill someone is to keep them still and aim for the chest. Take it from me.’

Silence.

‘Don’t ask the question, Kat. I served in Iraq. Of course the answer is yes.’

‘Then if it’s not the boy who killed Andrew, who?’

‘Andrew Fisher was a rapist, and so was Philip Staley. Serial attackers. That gives us a wide pool of suspects if one of his victims saw him in Bampton again after all these years. Or perhaps someone enticed him back from Whitby, where he was hiding out, in order to kill him.’

‘But I don’t know who the victims are,’ wailed Kat. ‘I need to see the police and tell them what happened. There will be lots of traumatised women because, let’s face it, a leopard never changes its spots.’

Kat felt him tense next to her. ‘What? What did you say? Of course. You’re right. A leopard never changes its spots. Someone like Andrew Fisher isn’t going to change just because he isn’t in his home town.’

‘You mean when he was in London?’

‘Don’t be dim, Kat. I mean much more recently than that. Where’s Andrew Fisher been the past twelve years?’

‘Whitby? He wouldn’t be so stupid. Lena said that it was Philip Staley who was the instigator of those attacks.’

‘Wake up. You’re talking about a serial rapist. You think he stops doing it just because he’s been found out? He does what most people would do in that situation. He blames his actions on a person who is no longer in a position to answer back.’

Kat’s head was spinning. ‘Oh my God.’

‘The trouble is that we haven’t got any credible leads when it comes to Whitby. We don’t know anyone there, do we?’