Separated at Death (The Lakeland Murders) (10 page)

In the car Ryan tried to chat to Mann, but it was no good. They never said anything in the car when they had something serious on their minds, and Ryan was certain he knew exactly what that was. In a way he was surprised they hadn’t been round sooner but, he realised, the only possible reason for that was because Amy must have been ashamed of him, because otherwise her posh friends would have known who he was all the time they’d been going out together. And that thought pissed Ryan right off.

When they reached the station Ryan noticed that the booking in procedure was just a bit different. The smiles and jokes were absent, and he noticed a senior looking cop, who he’d never seen before, standing off to one side in the custody area, just watching him.

On the positive side he didn’t have to wait for hours in a holding cell. Ryan was pretty sure that he had been in all five over the years, and he was taken straight to the same interview room that he’d been in a couple of nights before.

Ryan had five minutes with the duty solicitor, an older man who he hadn’t seen before, and who told Ryan what he knew, that the questions would be about the suspicious death of Amy Hamilton. He also checked that Ryan knew how to deal with questioning, and the implications of a ‘no comment’ reply. Ryan said ‘no comment’ and laughed at his own joke. The duty solicitor just looked doubtful.

Ian Mann flicked on the tape recorder, and introduced Andy Hall, who Ryan thought he might have seen around the station before. But Ryan knew how this worked, and it was obvious that Mann was going to do the talking.

‘So Ryan, let’s start with a nice easy one. Did you know Amy Hamilton?’

‘Yeh, I knew Amy.’

‘How did you meet?’ 

Ryan knew how this would work, so he kept his answers short. They were all true too, which made it much easier than usual. But the way the cops worked was simple, and it never changed. All they were looking for were facts, things that could be checked, and things that could be compared with what other people said. It still took them fifteen minutes to get to the important questions.

‘So you and Amy had been having a sexual relationship for the last few weeks, maybe a couple of months?’

‘That’s right.’

‘And last Wednesday evening you met in the old wood store on the edge of Serpentine Woods?’

‘Yes. It was starting to get cold, and we’d talked about finding somewhere else soon. But we couldn’t use her place, or mine.’

‘And you met there on Wednesday night?’

‘Yes, at about 8 o’clock.’

‘And what then?’

“Do you want me to draw you a diagram?’

Mann let it go by.

‘So you had sex. What time did you leave?’

‘About half-past eight. I had to get to the train station in town to get my connection from Oxenholme to Carlisle.’

‘How did you get to the station?’

‘On my bike. I just just went down through the ginnels on Fellside, then past the birdcage and straight down to the station. I got a train to Oxenholme at about quarter to nine, maybe just after, and the train left Oxenholme for Carlisle at just after nine. There’ll be CCTV, you can check.’

‘We will check Ryan. So that’s the last you saw of Amy? And she was alive and well when you left her?’

‘I told you.’

‘And what was she going to do next? Did she say?’

‘Going to see her friend, I don’t remember her name. Some boring school work or something.’

‘And you knew that Amy was dead?’ Ryan nodded. ‘And you never thought to come forward with this information before?’

The solicitor spoke for the first time. ‘This is the first time that you’ve asked my client about this matter, and he is co-operating fully, I think you’ll agree. Have you finished now Sergeant Mann?’

‘Not quite. Inspector Hall, is there anything you’d like to ask?’

‘Yes, there is. Ryan, when you were with Amy, did she get any calls or texts?’

‘Her phone was always going off.’

‘Yes, but what about on Wednesday evening, how about then?’

‘I expect so. I can’t remember.’

‘I want you to think hard Ryan. Let’s try phone calls. Did anyone call Amy while you were together?’

‘No. Wait a minute though. As I was leaving her phone did ring, and I waved to her and left. I would have missed my train if I’d waited.’

‘Did you hear what she said to the other person? Can you remember?’

Ryan shook his head. The older copper looked disappointed.

‘You know what I think happened Ryan’ said Hall, after a while. ‘I think that Amy dumped you on Wednesday night, and you couldn’t take that. Maybe she said that you weren’t the type of lad that she could take home, something like that. That hurt you. But she was right, wasn’t she? Is that why you killed her Ryan?’

‘No. She was fine when I left her. I didn’t kill Amy. I’ve told you the God’s honest truth.’

Ryan knew the form from here. He knew that he hadn’t touched the girl, and that everything he’d said had been true. So surely they won’t going to charge him? But as he sat in the holding cell he became quite a bit less sure. After all, he’d not been charged with plenty of things that he had done, so maybe the coppers sometimes charged people with things they hadn’t done as well.

Hall and Mann had left the interview room, and had joined Robinson in his office. You could have eaten your dinner off his meeting table, but you’d have worried about scratching it.

‘What was all that about the phone calls, Andy?’ asked Robinson.

‘We know that Amy’s phone had an incoming call at the time that Ryan said, so we know it wasn’t him that made it. And another call was made back a few minutes later from Amy’s phone, although we’ve no way of knowing for certain that she did make it herself. But we do know she was alive when it was made, so it’s very likely that Amy made that call.’ Hall paused, then continued thinking aloud. ‘Her phone is still missing, so we have to assume that the killer took it, and as I say the likelihood was that she did make that last call, after Ryan had gone, probably to the killer. If that’s the case then Ryan didn’t kill her, so long as the rest of his story checks out.”

‘What do you think Ian?’ asked Robinson, ‘you know the lad.’

‘He’s a practised liar of course, and he’s not stupid, so although his story does hang together it is absolutely possible that he’s lying. But realistically the only way he can have done it is if the time of death is a long way out. He’s bright enough to know that he’s covered by CCTV from the time he showed up at Kendal station, probably well before, and he said as much just now.’

‘That doesn’t mean that he didn’t do it though, does it? The time of death doesn’t have to be far out, and we know he was very close to the locus. But have we got enough to charge him now?’

Hall tried not to look surprised. ‘No, I don’t think so. We can certainly hold him while we get SOCOs out to the wood shed, and start checking CCTV at the station and on the train. We’ll need to find his bike going down through town too. But what’s his motive? Not sexual surely, not robbery, and no signs on Amy’s body of a struggle. But of course the wood store might tell us a different story, and if it does then we’re back in business.’

Robinson nodded. But he didn’t look best pleased. A nice quick, clean result, the kind that could be summed up in an email to the Chief, now looked like nothing better than a distant possibility.

Hall called the team together and briefed them on the day’s events. ‘Let’s eliminate Ryan or get him charged as fast as we can, so top priority is to check out his story. But let’s not drop our other lines of enquiry completely. So can we be sure that we’ve properly eliminated the parents and close family?’

‘The mum, step-dad and the other daughter were at home, no visitors but the kid was online pretty much the whole time, and the mum was on Facebook at about nine pm’ said Jane Francis. ‘The techies have looked at the entries and her past usage and say it’s her all right. And the dad you know already: nothing solid there either way.’

‘Have we looked at his browsing history?’

‘He told us he wasn’t online that evening, so no, not so far.’ Jane made a note to do it.

‘OK. And what about other family members, the brother for instance?’

‘I took him boss’ said Dixon, flicking back in his notebook. ‘In Manchester on business all day, got back to Kendal around 8pm, and went straight home to Windermere. Says his wife can confirm.’

‘Have you asked her?’

‘Not yet boss. I was going to check it out after we’ve moved forward with Ryan. I was assuming that you were going to want us to door-to-door again tonight to see if his story stacks up.’

‘Are you volunteering, Ray?’

‘Is there overtime in it boss?’ he shot back. A few people laughed.

‘All right’ said Hall, smiling too. Dixon had joined when being a cop was a job, hardly ever a career. ‘Tasks for tonight then people. Me and Ian will meet SOCO, I assume they ar
e
en rout
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to the old woodyard?’ Mann nodded confirmation. ‘Good. Ray, you take door-to-door since you’re so keen, and I’ll see what I can do about a bit of overtime. Jane, can you co-ordinate the CCTV of Ryan’s route? At least you’ll be looking at a different screen for a few hours that way. But let’s do what we can to stand Ryan’s story up, or else break it down. And as quick as we can please.’

Hall went to his office to get his coat. It looked chilly outside, although at least it wasn’t raining. Mann followed him in and closed the door.

‘What do you think, boss?’

‘Well Robinson would like it to be him all right.’ Hall paused, and looked at Mann. ‘That would just fit perfectly with his view of the world. But you know Ryan as well as anyone here, what do you think?’

‘Honestly? Not a chance. I’d put my pension on it. Ryan’s an absolute little scumbag, and I’m sure he’s going to keep us all busy for the rest of his life, but I reckon he just didn’t care enough to kill Amy, whatever she said or did that night. Don’t get me wrong, I could absolutely see him giving one of his so-called mates a beating and it going too far, but that would be over status, drugs, money or possibly all three. But I just don’t believe that Ryan could make an emotional connection with anyone on this planet, so the chances of some kind of crime of passion are next to nil. I don’t want to come over all Jeremy Kyle, but that’s how I see it.’

Hall couldn’t remember the last time that Mann had said so much in one go, and he reckoned that it might be a good while before it happened again.

‘And he doesn’t care because no-one has ever cared about him?’ asked Hall.

‘Maybe. But I really wouldn’t know about that.’

‘OK, but what if he did do it, and the motive was something else? Maybe not robbery, because she still had a few quid in her purse, and even Ryan isn’t in that low a league just yet anyway. But, like you say, we do know that he’s completely amoral, and that’s putting it kindly. He had no intention of helping us, even though he knew that not coming forward would look bad for him later. Even Ryan must know how a DNA test works. He must know he’s on the register. So why did he keep quiet? And remember that this lad has no worries about pushing drugs to young kids on his own estate. So I’m not absolutely sure that there’s anything that he’s truly incapable of. Are you?’

Mann didn’t reply, but got up, stretched, and went to get his coat. Hall stayed where he was and smiled to himself when Mann had gone.

Ten minutes later the two men were standing outside the old woodyard. The remains of the old yard itself was overgrown, and some of the unkempt trees were fifteen feet tall. Nature was certainly well on the way to reclaiming the place from the circular saw. A ramshackle building, little more than a long lean-to with a partially collapsed roof, was barely visible in the fading light.

‘Young love, eh?’ said Hall, as they stood looking into the yard. A few small, granular snowflakes were being blown about on the breeze.

‘When I was a young kid this place was still working’ said Mann. ‘I can just remember it. The smell especially, and the noise from the saws.’

Tonto picked his way through the undergrowth to meet them. He looked happier than when Hall had last seen him.

‘Afternoon gents. I’ve had a good look round inside, and forensics are at it now. But I think I can tell you a couple of things right off. First, there’s absolutely no sign of any struggle, nor of anyone being removed from in there by force. It looks to me as if your two lovebirds were the only recent visitors, so I’m pretty confident. And there’s nothing out here to suggest otherwise either.’

‘So if Ryan killed Amy, you think we can be sure that it wasn’t here?’

‘Yes, pretty sure. If he’d killed her in there and then carried the body out we’d see signs of that, and there aren’t any. Plus, he’d have to have the strength to carry or drag a 55 kilo dead weight quite a way through the undergrowth.’