Separated at Death (The Lakeland Murders) (3 page)

He really couldn’t have grassed up Adam, even if he’d wanted to, because what he’d told Sergeant Mann was almost true. He’d never actually met him at all, but he didn’t want to bring Wayne’s name in to it. In fact, he’d only had instructions by text, email or via Wayne. He didn’t even know if his real name was Adam. But what he did know was that the money was decent, and until last night the risks had been low.

So he’d just have to wait and see what happened. Let the dust settle for a few days, and then talk to Adam about what to do next. And especially to ask him the question that had been running round Ryan’s head on a loop since the moment he saw those blue lights behind him on the motorway. Had it been a random pull, a couple of cops bored witless at the end of a long shift, or had he been grassed up?

Ryan knew Police procedure better than most, so he thought back over the chain of events. He didn’t think he’d been followed, but he never used the rear view mirror much after he passed his driving test when he was seventeen, so he couldn’t be sure.

He hadn’t recognised the two cops, but they were Cumbrian all right. Probably just traffic boys from Penrith, because he’d been pulled over just before Shap Summit. They hadn’t said that they thought the car was defective, nor had they breathalysed him. He hadn’t even been speeding.

Then Ryan thought about the way the cops had looked the car over. Boot first, then a look inside. It was cold and windy up there on the tops, and they didn’t take long. They’d sat him in their Volvo, the driver stayed with him in the car, while the other one looked the old Mondeo over. Ryan had seen the back seat squab go up, then back down, then the torch flicking around the inside of the car. Then the cop had called his mate on the radio, and Ryan found himself cuffed, walking down the hard shoulder, and looking at the bags of gear jammed inside the front door panels.

So could the cop really have been a proper little Sherlock and found the gear by chance? Based on past experience Ryan doubted that very much.

Ryan’s mum shouted his name from the top of the stairs, and he called back.

‘Where you been at?’ she called out, louder than she needed to be with the TV off.

‘Police. I got bailed 'til next week.’

‘You all right?’

‘I’m fine mum.’

‘All right. I’m going back to bed for a bit.’

Ryan sipped his coffee, ate a couple of spoonfuls of the dry cereal, and flicked the TV back on. He turned over to one of the new channels, and recognised Kendal - the town hall, a bit of the one-way system, Gooseholme, and the factory shop complex on the old K Shoes factory site. There were daffodils and sun, so the footage must be months old. And they were talking about a murder.

‘Mum’ Ryan shouted, without getting up. ‘Mum.’ He hadn’t really expected an answer, but he knew his mum would have been interested. It wasn’t everyday that Kendal made the news, and though his mum probably wasn’t proud of much, she was always proud to be Kendalian.

The footpath into the woods wound up from the road, between overhanging evergreen bushes that just seemed to multiply the rain. Water was running down the path now. Two of the SOCO team carried up a scene of crimes tent, and the pathologist complained loudly about the weather as he plodded back up the hill. At the top of the path the woods proper started, with tall beeches and oaks interspersed with smaller hazel and the odd conifer, and Mann gestured towards the widest path through the trees.

Hall knew it well, because his house was only a ten minute walk away, and he often walked through the woods, across the golf course, then out onto Cunswick Scar. Sometimes the children had come too, especially when they were younger. In spring the wild garlic up here was almost overpowering, but now the ground was covered in soaking, decomposing leaf litter. No wonder Tonto hadn’t needed long.

The woods would be sealed off for the next two days, because Hall ordered a fingertip search covering 10 metres around the scene, and a metre on each side of all of the paths in and out of the woods. And it was 2pm before Amy’s body was finally moved.

The rain had stopped by then, and Hall and Mann stood on the path, looking at the patch of earth where Amy had been found.

‘Tonto doesn’t think she was moved her
e
post morte
m
’ said Mann. ‘No deep footprints below the leaf litter, and no drag marks. The Doc agrees, though he’ll confirm after the PM. So there’s a decent chance that she came here voluntarily, which also suggest that she knew the killer.’

‘Yes, so let’s concentrate on a known assailant. Killer wore gloves, but very likely to be male apparently, or at least that’s what the doc reckons. But what about sexual assault? Her jeans and underwear were pulled down, but I’m not convinced at all. Just doesn’t look right, does it?’

‘Someone trying to suggest a sexual assault by a stranger?’

‘It wouldn’t be the first time. But we’ll know more after the PM. So I think we’re clear about the strategy here: full background on Amy, family and friends, plus house to house obviously. And let’s work up a timeline for last night from the time she left her dad’s house. Has the car been found?’

‘Yes, outside her friend’s house, locked, keys were in Amy’s handbag. We’re having it uplifted anyway: assume that’s what you want?’

Hall nodded.

‘But is it worth pulling in our friendly neighborhood sex offenders as well?’ he suggested. ‘I’m just concerned that we don’t have the resources to get it all going at once.’

‘We could just check out the ones with any history of violence’ suggested Mann.

‘But that’s all of them, isn’t it? OK, let’s do the lot. But Kendal addresses only for now.’

‘Is it all right if I get uniform to do it? It’s not like they’re worth any discretion.’

Hall thought for a moment. ‘No Ian, let’s do it the decent way. I don’t mind if it’s a uniform, but get them to do it in civvies.’

Mann glanced at Hall. There were some things about policing that they’d just never agree on.

Chief Superintendent Eric Robinson didn’t sit in on the team meeting, but within a minute of Hall completing the briefing at 4.30pm his Blackberry buzzed. It was as if the Super had the place bugged.

Hall walked to Robinson’s office, which looked the way he always imagined a mayor’s office to look, all polished oak and a portrait of the Queen, and brought him up to date. The initial PM results would be available that evening, with DNA and blood tests over the following 48 hours.

‘So you’re looking at the family first?’

Hall didn’t need reminding of the stats. He said they were.

‘I know them you know, or at least the girl’s dad and his father. We’ve bought their furniture for many years. My grandfather bought a couple of pieces by Simpsons of Kendal, we’ve still got it at home. Lovely stuff, and quite valuable now I’ve been told.’ Robinson paused, as if anticipating congratulation on his grandfather’s taste.  ‘They’re a proper old Kendal family, the Hamiltons.’

Hall waited for Robinson to tell him what was on his mind.

‘Andy, as you know I try to keep my operational officers away from the financial pressures as much as I can, but this really couldn’t come at a worse time for us a force. The cuts are so deep that we really will have to look again at a merger with Northumbria if it looks like we don’t have the specialists to deal with the more complex cases, and you know as well as I do what that would mean.’

Fewer jobs for senior officers thought Hall. But since we had never been much of a careerist that didn’t matter to him. He just couldn’t see the attraction in being a policeman who went to meetings and read spreadsheets all day. So he’d resisted Robinson’s suggestions that he might consider taking a uniformed job at HQ, maybe working directly to the Chief.

‘What I’m hearing’ said Hall cautiously, ‘is that a quick resolution to this case would have wider implications for this force, and that we should all try to manage down our resource utilisation.’

Robinson smiled. He liked Hall, a man who knew how to speak the language of modern policing. ‘Exactly Andy, exactly. This is an absolute top priority case, so you have my total support. Absolutely. But we must also take cognisance of the bigger picture too, but I see that you’re already well aware of the context. That’s excellent then. So could I just ask you for a brief email summary every shift summarising where we’ve got to, and the resources allocated?’

‘Might it be possible to do it verbally sir? Might be more efficient and expeditious that way.’

Hall hoped he’d hit on a likely buzz-word, and although Robinson looked a little surprised, as if Hall had suggested using carrier pigeons and code, he nodded agreement.

‘So where to now?’

‘I’m going to speak to Amy’s father, then catch up with Ian back here. He’s been co-ordinating the house-to-house.’

‘Good. And you will remember the golden rule, won’t you Ian?’

Hall wondered if it might be something to do with spreadsheets.

‘What’s that sir?’

‘Make sure that you get some sleep tonight. Too many investigations are undermined by senior officers who keep going too long, especially in the first days of an investigation. That’s how things get missed, and bad decisions get made.’

Hall nodded. He knew Robinson was right, especially because he’d been waking at four every day for months anyway. So he was going into the case tired. He also knew that having a really good reason to stay away from home was the last thing that he and his family really needed. His working life revolved around getting people to acknowledge what they’d done, and their personal responsibility for it, but he knew that he’d been avoiding facing up to the unmistakeable when it came to his own family. And, one way or another, that situation would have to change, and soon.

Ryan couldn’t believe that his day could actually get any worse, but it had. The TV news report had said that the body of a teenage girl had been found in Serpentine Woods, but she hadn’t been identified.

Ryan booted up his mum’s laptop, and in five minutes he knew for sure that it was Amy Hamilton who’d been found dead in the woods. It was all over the social networking sites. He was sorry for Amy, too shocked and surprised to feel grief, but frightened for himself too. So Ryan did what he usually did in these situations, and went up to his room, locked the door, and rolled himself a joint.

He needed to contact Adam as soon as he could, but that might be difficult. The cops had his laptop and his phone, and even they would soon find the messages that they’d exchanged. So that meant that Ryan couldn’t use that method in future.

And then Ryan cheered up, and not just because of the dope. Because when they looked at emails they’d also see that what he’d said about collecting the car had been true, and he reckoned that might just be enough to put the cops off. They just didn’t follow up on anything difficult, which is why he never admitted to anything, even when they had loads of evidence. It was surprising what you could get away with if you stuck to that policy. And since he was in the unusual position of having mostly told the truth, then surely he was safer than usual?

Ryan turned off the bedside lamp, got off the bed and looked out of the window. Normally he wouldn’t have worried at all, but that looked like a shed-load of drugs in the car, so maybe the drugs squad would be keeping an eye on him, at least for a day or two. He couldn’t see any sign that they had the house under observation though.

Ryan was sure that if they were watching the house they’d be in a car, so he went downstairs, opened the back door and found his younger brother’s rusty old BMX bike. If it ever had lights they’d been nicked long since, but that wouldn’t matter.

He pushed the bike down along the side of the house, and out on to the street. He rode quickly, past the parked cars, then turned up a narrow ginnel that led up to the main road. No car could follow him along there, and every cop he knew - except possibly that tough looking Sergeant who’d interviewed him today - was much too old, fat and unfit to ever get near him on foot when Ryan was on the bike.

Ryan had already decided that there was no chance that they’d staked out his mates, especially with a murder investigation on, but he still cycled past Wayne’s house a couple of times before he knocked. The lights were all on, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything, they always were. But Wayne would certainly know how to contact Adam, and get this all sorted out.