Never Forget (19 page)

S
aturday and Sunday were as relaxing for me as they were for Stan. I made sure the television was turned off so that he didn’t see the local news, telling him it was distracting. Although I made sure that he rested, Samantha had been so diligent in taking care of all our housekeeping needs that, apart from cooking and clearing up, I had little to do. I read a novel for the first time in months, even called my parents. It was a quick call. I didn’t have much to say.

Sunday afternoon came round soon enough. We ate a roast beef dinner, and I cleared away and then called Samantha as I’d promised. Packed and ready to leave, I prepared myself to part without a show of emotion. During the visit I’d felt useful, as if somehow I was making Stan better just by being there. Once I walked out of the door, I couldn’t help him, and I couldn’t wish the cancer to be gone with the same degree of success. I stood helplessly in the hallway, bag at my feet, thinking about placebos. They worked even when the patient knew they were placebos. Why couldn’t Stan just will the cancer away? My face was wet. I was crying again. ‘Please don’t leave me, Stan,’ I whispered.

The rustle of a magazine from the garden room warned me of movement. I ran upstairs, shouting, ‘Just remembered, left something in the bathroom.’

After ten minutes, I re-emerged from the bathroom, all indication of emotion and worry washed away.

As I came down the stairs, Stan was letting Samantha into the house. After a quick hello to me, she headed towards the kitchen. I stepped over my bags to hug Stan goodbye. ‘Thanks for letting me stay, Stan,’ I said into his chest as we embraced. ‘Exactly what I needed. I’ll call you when I get back from Birmingham.’

He held me at arm’s length, examined my face and said, ‘I’m worried about you. The photographs from Lloyd were upsetting. You and Laura take care in Birmingham. Do not take any risks. Serial killers don’t usually stop until they’re caught.’

We hugged. I left. I cried all the way home.

T
o begin with, I couldn’t get hold of Bill. When he answered, late in the day, he sounded tired.

‘How was work?’ I asked.

‘Another late one. Not been out of bed long.’ I heard him yawn. ‘We were kept on for a call to a rape. A fifteen-year-old girl was raped in her own bed, feet away from her parents in the next room. The offender had been released from prison three days ago.’

‘Was he inside for sexual offences?’ I asked.

‘Yeah. His rehabilitation is in doubt.’

As I listened to him, I padded my way over to the fridge and took out a chilled bottle of beer, phone tucked against my shoulder. I had a bottle opener fixed to the counter for just such an emergency situation. In one swift move, the top was off. ‘I have to go in to the nick first thing and then me and Laura are going to Birmingham for a couple of days.’ I took a swig of beer.

‘Sounds like you’re drinking,’ Bill said. ‘Fancy some company?’

‘That would be good,’ I said. I opened the fridge again. ‘I have some sort of pasta thing in the fridge. Fancy dinner?’

‘I’ll see you in half an hour,’ said Bill.

I slung the phone down on the side, putting the bottle down with a bit more care, before running upstairs for a shower. Not to mention some serious flossing and hair removal. I didn’t want to presume anything, but it was better to be prepared.

Thirty minutes later, I wandered back into the kitchen and busied myself with cutlery and glasses at the kitchen table. As I picked up my beer bottle, I saw that I had a text on my phone. I didn’t recognise the number. The message was one single word:
Spain
.

The knock at the front door focused me and I went to answer it. Bill stood at the doorstep, smiling. ‘What’s wrong?’ he said. ‘You look worried.’

‘Just had a text message,’ I said. ‘Come in, I’ll tell you all about it.’ And I did. The only part I left out was who had given me the information. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust Bill, but we were police officers, supposed to pass everything on. I had a loyalty to Annie and Richard; Bill did not.

The only question he raised in relation to the source was to ask me if I trusted the person. This was difficult to answer without giving too much away.

Sitting at the table with a bottle of beer each, a bowl of crisps between us, I said, ‘I have no reason not to trust them and it’s not as though they’ve given me a name. I do have a phone number of someone who knew Daphne Headingly. I’ve passed that on to Eric Nottingham. If I had a suspect’s name, address or anything more solid, I’d have gone to see him by now. Oh, by the way, the pasta thing I promised you has gone out of date.’

We both regarded the snack bowl on the table with equal indifference. ‘No matter how much I spend at the shops, I only ever seem to have wine and detergent. How about a takeaway?’ I suggested.

‘How about the pizza place in town? I did ask you out for a drink, and so far we’ve not made it within half a mile of a pub.’

‘I’d like that. I’ll get my bag.’ This cheered me up. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been out for a meal with anyone whose company I really enjoyed. I’d walked out on the loser Russian on our last dinner date. I couldn’t think of any reason why tonight wouldn’t be a total success.

We walked from my house to the restaurant, chatting amiably on the way. It wasn’t a bad area to live in. I’d chosen my home very carefully; it was important for a police officer. The choice was trust your neighbours or keep yourself to yourself. I managed to keep a low profile and had chosen to live far enough out of town to avoid the problems that towns sometimes brought, though I still lived close enough to a couple of decent local bars and restaurants. All in all, I enjoyed living in my leafy suburb with its 1930s-built semis, mobile library at the local community centre on Saturday mornings and lack of teenagers hanging around. When the mood took me, I even ventured for a stroll into the woods at the back of my house.

The walk to the restaurant took about twenty minutes, and the time passed very quickly. Bill had always seemed a bit of a shy bloke, but, apart from being easy to talk to, he seemed to be a gentleman. I hoped not too much of a gentleman.

From the street, I could see that the restaurant only had a few customers. As Bill held the door open for me, the smell from the pizza oven wafted my way. A waiter hurried over to us, menus in hand, and we chose a table in the window and sat down. Running an eye down the food choices, I ruled half of them out because of their garlic content. Well, never assume but remain optimistic.

Bill said, ‘Order a bottle of wine if you like. I’m driving and only having one glass.’

That sentence spoke volumes: either he had no intention of staying the night, or he wanted me to think he had no intention of staying the night; if he did stay, he intended to be sober; and, just as important as everything else, he was certain I could polish off the rest of the bottle and had no problem with it.

The wine and pizzas were perfect, as was the company. The evening had already been drawing in by the time we’d got to the restaurant, but the atmosphere inside was relaxed, lights bright enough to see the food but soft enough to make
us both very mellow. A double decker bus pulled up on the opposite side of the street, illuminating the pavement outside. Alf flitted through my mind. For a second I thought I had seen him again, walking past, but then I realised that it was someone else I knew. My mind had inexplicably linked them. It was Joe Bring.

He didn’t see me. I probably wouldn’t have seen him if the glare from the bus hadn’t lit up the street just at that moment. He was walking past, talking on a mobile phone. Actually, it was more like shouting. I could pick out the swearing without any difficulty, plus the words ‘not enough. It’s out of order’, then he was gone.

Bill’s attention was drawn in the same direction as mine and I just about heard him say, ‘Joe Bring. What a superstar.’ I looked back at Bill as he continued, ‘He was one of my first arrests. Sad story really. His dad used to inject him with heroin when he was a kid. Never stood a chance.’

Going out with police officers could kill any romantic moment.

‘How come you ended up in CID?’ he asked, reaching for his glass of water.

‘Wasn’t ever really cut out for uniform,’ I answered. ‘Got fed up with chasing loose horses down dual carriageways and back into fields at three in the morning, going to nightclub fights in the early hours, that kind of thing. All seemed like a lot of grief and it wasn’t really what I wanted.’

Bill topped up my wine glass.

‘Thanks,’ I said.

‘No problem. I can’t drink any more anyway.’

‘I didn’t mean for the wine. Well, I did. The wine, the meal, taking me out and not asking endless questions. I’ve had a great time.’ It was true. Until Joe had showed up, I’d forgotten all about Jake Lloyd and Scott Headingly and work in general.

‘My pleasure. I’ll get the bill and we’ll go back to yours. Oh, not like that! I mean I’ll walk you back to your house.’

His hand was resting on the table. I put my own over it and said, ‘I know what you meant.’

The bill settled, we walked back to my house. I put my arm through Bill’s, not quite believing my luck. This one was definitely a keeper.

At the front door, I got out my keys, hoping for a sign that he wanted to come in. When I didn’t get one, I asked, ‘You have time for a coffee?’

‘I really should be going. Any chance that when you get back from Birmingham we can go out again?’

‘Without a doubt,’ I said, not even attempting to play it cool and aloof. ‘I’ll be there for a night or two. I’ll give you a call when I get back?’

‘Sounds good to me. Goodnight.’ He moved towards me, caressing my face with his fingertips, his mouth meeting mine. We kissed. He lowered his hands to my waist and pulled me tight to him. I felt my knees begin to buckle.

Bill loosened his hold on me. ‘Take care in Birmingham,’ he said, before stepping back, and watching me go inside.

T
he next day, I met Laura in the back yard at the nick. On our way up the stairs, I asked her if she’d mind driving first so I could read up on the enquiry’s latest developments. Truth be told, I was tired. A couple of days of worrying about Stan, plus a night spent thinking about Bill after he’d left, not to mention working on three linked murders and having a stalker, and I was beginning to crack.

‘Sure, Nin,’ said Laura as we made our way to the detective sergeants’ office, ‘happy to.’

Ray was sitting in the office stapling papers together when we walked in. He glanced up, set the stapler down and said, ‘Fantastic: a blonde and a brunette. Always handy if you two want to make a porno. Lets the viewer know who’s who.’

‘What have you got for us?’ I asked. ‘And keep it clean.’

He chucked the paperwork across the desk. I picked it up. Laura was trying to read over my shoulder.

Ray said, ‘That’s a Missing Person report from West Midlands Police. It relates to Benjamin Makepeace. He went missing just under six weeks ago. No sign of him since. Initial enquiries were made, and then he swiftly became another of the two hundred thousand people who go missing every year.

‘As you can see, a bit like Amanda Bell, he was last seen on CCTV, believed to be heading home. No use of his mobile or bank accounts, car hasn’t moved, no word to family or
friends. All very odd, but if you flick to the final page of the report you’ll see that we have a DNA hit.’

I turned to the final page. The noise of Ray moving in his chair caused me to glance in his direction. ‘Catherine mentioned that. It’s to do with Gary Savage, isn’t it? Second bloke we nicked for murder?’

Ray nodded. ‘That’s right,’ he said, ‘The knife you found in his van had Makepeace’s blood on it. As a missing person, Makepeace’s DNA was taken from his toothbrush and loaded into the MisPer Database. As you probably know, the blood from the knife was checked against the National DNA Database then the Missing Persons Database. The bloodstain profile took a couple of days to come back. When it did, it matched Benjamin Makepeace’s profile. Get yourselves up there, speak to Robin Cox in Intel; his number’s on the first page. See what you can find out about Makepeace. They’re sending some officers down to us here at some point, probably once you’ve been up there, I’m not sure when, but this may now be the start of a countrywide investigation.’

As we went to leave his office, Ray said, ‘Oh, Nina. You may want to see this.’

He pushed further paperwork across the desk. It was the newspaper article about Lloyd stalking me, shouting the same heading I had read at Stan’s. Someone had cut it out of the local paper and stapled an ‘Other Document’ Incident Room sheet to the top. ‘Relates to Op Guard so it’s a part of the unused material,’ Ray told me. As if to pacify me that it was routine, he then added, ‘All items from the media get logged as ODs and reviewed by the disclosure officer for murder enquiries.’

I glanced at it, pushed it back across the desk and tried to banish it from my mind. I would never know who else had seen my name associated with Jake Lloyd.

Laura had the good grace to avoid talking about the newspaper article. For that I was grateful. We spent the next
couple of hours making calls, researching what we were embarking on, drinking tea and packing up the car. Satisfied that we had everything we needed, we shouted our goodbyes to the others still typing and reading in the Incident Room and set out.

Laura drove first. ‘Where are we staying?’ she asked.

‘Somewhere right in the middle of the bars. Got a recommendation for a fantastic curry house, too.’ I flicked through the paperwork supplied by Ray. ‘Laura, how do you think this guy’s blood turned up in Savage’s van?’

‘Dunno,’ she said. ‘We know that Savage’s van hasn’t been to Birmingham from the Automatic Number Plate Readers on the motorway. Could the van have been on false plates?’

‘Yeah, possibly, but it seems that the vehicle hasn’t even been out of county for weeks. Last time was that sighting near Gatwick two months ago. I remember that from the work around Savage when he got nicked. Makepeace has been missing for less than six weeks. Can’t be that. Gatwick, though?’ I mused. ‘Tony Birdsall said he flew in to Gatwick a few days before we saw him last week.’

Laura took her eyes off the road for a second to look at me.

‘Think they’re connected to Birdsall, Nin?’ she asked.

‘Too much of a coincidence not to be?’ I said. ‘Anyway, Lol, thanks for coming with me. I think I owe you an apology too?’

‘What for?’ she asked, frowning.

‘I do know that I’m being sent to Birmingham to keep me away from the Lloyds. Keep me away from the Lloyds, you keep me away from the heart of the enquiry. I appreciate not being kicked off it. If this was a single murder enquiry, I’d have been sent back to Beckensale by now. Boss is only tolerating my presence because he’s really short-staffed.’

‘Do you reckon?’ said Laura. ‘I think he genuinely likes you, and you’ve worked hard on this job, in spite of the personal stuff.’

‘Yeah, but he still doesn’t need the grief I bring. Anyway, let’s formulate some sort of a plan.’

I spent the rest of the journey making calls to the officers we were supposed to meet with. We made good time, only taking about four hours to get to our destination. The hotel was a pretty miserable affair. The taxpayer was once again footing the bill, so enjoying our stay was out of the question. My single room contained a tiny bed with a frayed tartan cover, badly hung tartan curtains that didn’t meet in the middle and a broken tartan lampshade. Could have been worse: at least I wasn’t Scottish; I’d have really been insulted. I did have a kettle and tea tray. Oh, and shortbread.

We drove to the nick. The security was very tight; it took ages to get parked and into the building. We had a quick meeting with an overworked DS. He was very pleasant and offered any help he could. He introduced us to the intelligence officer, Robin Cox, who couldn’t do enough for us, researching anything we requested. Armed with everything we needed, including contact mobile telephone numbers for his staff, we set off for the home address of Benjamin Makepeace.

His ageing mother was his only living relative. Fortunately for Laura and me, local officers had already told her that her son’s blood had turned up a week ago in a van hundreds of miles away. At least the poor woman had had some time to adjust to this latest news. Not knowing what had happened to your nearest and dearest must rip a soul apart. I knew only too well that grief played tricks: a face in the distance fleetingly morphing into the one whose company you craved, until disappointment and reality would break through. What must uncertainty do to the mind?

Mrs Makepeace opened the door. She was broken.

‘Mrs Makepeace,’ I said. ‘I’m Detective Nina Foster. This is Detective Laura Ward. Can we come in and speak to you?’

She nodded, moving back into the gloom. She probably would have agreed to anything.

The house smelt musty. Dust jumped in the sunlight bursting through the open door. We followed her into the dining room, where she sat down at the glass-topped table. Its entire surface was covered in Benjamin memorabilia: photographs, school certificates, swimming badges, a lock of hair in a frame. My eyes were drawn to a small plastic pot with a screw-on lid.

She caught me looking and palmed the pot, holding it to her chest. Closing her fists around it, she said, ‘Benjamin had his appendix out when he was eight. These were the stitches.’ Now I knew what this was doing to her mind. Making it crazier than it had already been. Grief magnifies the person you already are, I thought. We all revert to type.

Laura began. ‘Can we talk to you about Benjamin? We know that you’ve been told we’ve an indication he may have been in the south of the country. We haven’t found him, but anything you tell us may help.’ Laura continued speaking but to be truthful I wasn’t listening. I was staring at a photograph on the wall. A black and white photograph of a much younger Mrs Makepeace with her son. They were laughing, hair blowing in the breeze. They were standing in front of a two-storey Victorian building. Complete with turrets and a water tower.

‘Where is this place?’ I said, already knowing the answer.

The old lady turned her head to where I pointed.

‘Oh, that’s the children’s home at Leithgate. Used to be a mental asylum but they shut it down. Used it as a children’s home instead.’ She got up and staggered to the wall as if every step was agony. She stroked the boy’s hair in the photo, and a tear rolled from her eye. ‘We had a few problems with Benjamin, and he went there for a couple of weeks to give us a break.’

‘When was this photograph taken?’ I asked.

‘When Benjamin was seven years old – 1985,’ she said, running her finger along the outline of her son’s image. ‘Want to see his room?’

Without waiting for an answer, Mrs Makepeace moved around the table, leaning on the glass top for support on her way to the door. Laura and I exchanged looks. The progress along the corridor was slow: our guide paused every couple of steps, withered fingers grasping door handles, the banisters, anything for support. The mental torture she must have been going through was matched by physical pain, if her ascension of the stairs was anything to base a judgement on. Her son was missing and it was crushing her. From the notes we had, Mrs Makepeace was in her late sixties, but she moved like a woman much older.

We reached the top of the stairs and entered the bedroom of a child. The single bookshelf contained football annuals, an atlas, board games, puzzles; the bed was draped in a Birmingham City duvet cover. Whatever I’d been expecting, it wasn’t this. I searched for something to say that wasn’t too critical of why a man in his thirties would be living like this.

I began with a non-judgemental question, ‘Benjamin is a Birmingham City fan?’ Pretty obvious thing to ask, but I was pulling words out of a mental tombola.

Mrs Makepeace looked at the bed. Laura looked at the bed. I joined in. No one spoke. I thought for a moment I was the insane one. I stole a look at Mrs Makepeace, who was biting her lower lip.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He’s a Birmingham City fan. I’ll put the kettle on. Please have a few minutes in here. I haven’t moved anything since the last time he was here.’

Laura moved to one side to let our host out of the room. My friend raised her eyebrows at me once we were alone, listening to Mrs Makepeace hobbling down the stairs. I opened the wardrobe, largely because I just had to check there wasn’t a school uniform or a Boy Scout outfit. I was relieved to see that it contained normal men’s clothes. A cursory glance at the labels showed me that he took a sixteen-inch shirt collar, size Large for T-shirts and jumpers, inside leg was
thirty-two
, thirty-four-inch waist, and size nine shoes. He shopped
largely in M&S, had one good suit, and middle-of-the-road taste. I made a note of what I’d found out. It was probably not going to be relevant but you never knew.

Laura joined me in leafing through the garments. ‘This has all been logged with the initial local patrol who came out and took the Missing Person report,’ she said. Lowering her voice, she added, ‘This is a very strange set-up for a grown man. There’s nothing to suggest he had any kind of social life or hobbies outside of football.’

Other than the wardrobe, bed and bookshelf, the room contained an empty bedside cabinet. There were no magazines, newspapers, handwritten notes or sign of a mobile phone. That at least couldn’t be correct; we’d been told that his mobile phone records had been checked for recent contact. We made our way downstairs to speak to Benjamin’s mother. There were a few things we wanted answers to.

We found her in the kitchen filling up the salt cellar. ‘Mrs Makepeace,’ I began. She continued to pour salt into the bottom of the overflowing pot. She watched the white grains spill on to the table for three or four seconds before abandoning her chore. Her dull eyes focused on mine. ‘Are there any of Benjamin’s belongings anywhere else?’ I asked. ‘A mobile phone? Personal items?’

‘No,’ she said. ‘He didn’t have a mobile phone. We didn’t like them. All of his stuff is in his room, apart from his certificates and photographs. You’ve seen them in the dining room.’

‘Is there any other family?’ asked Laura.

The lifeless eyes roamed in search of the speaker. ‘My husband died,’ she said. Adding, ‘He was killed on his way home one night. Drunk driver.’

‘That’s terrible, Mrs Makepeace. Is there anyone else that visits you or pops in from time to time?’ asked Laura.

‘No,’ she said to the floor. ‘My sister died from cancer a couple of years ago. She was the only other relative I had. Just me and Benjamin. Now just me.’

‘What about friends?’ I asked.

This was met with a shake of her head encasing a brain riddled with sorrow. ‘Lost the few I had over the years; they either died or we drifted apart. Always knew I had Benjamin so I didn’t need them.’

‘Benjamin’s friends?’ I asked. ‘We have the details of the library where he worked, but the Missing Person report stated he didn’t have any friends or a girlfriend.’

Her head snapped up, eyes opened wide as she said, ‘He didn’t need a girlfriend. Women are trouble. He was clever enough to know that.’

I was getting a bit of a different picture of this whole scenario. The house was smothering me and I’d only been there for an hour. How Benjamin must have felt being brought up by a Brummie council house Miss Havisham was anyone’s guess. More than likely he’d killed himself, or my favourite theory was that he’d had enough and legged it. Didn’t explain the bloodied knife hundreds of miles away, however. We said our goodbyes, left our numbers and asked that she call us or West Midlands police if she heard anything.

‘Right, well, she was hard work,’ I said to Laura as we got into the car. ‘I’m gonna call the Intel bloke we spoke to at the nick, find out if he has any Social Services contacts we can meet with about the children’s home.’ I glanced at my watch. Time was getting on. If they agreed to see us, it would probably be in the morning.