The Murder Code (29 page)

‘Janine Miller?’ I held up my ID. ‘I’m Detective Andrew Hicks. This is Detective Laura Fellowes. Unlock the chain, please.’

Her gaze darted between us, nervous.

‘What—what’s this about?’

‘We have a warrant to search the premises. In connection with the arrest of your son, James. Here.’

I passed it through the gap in the door. She made no move to take it from me.

‘James? Where is he? What’s going on?’

‘He’s at the police station.’

He had yet to be formally interviewed. Since his arrest, he had stared blankly and without emotion—the anger and hate apparently gone from him now—and spoken only to confirm his name and place of residence, and to say he understood the charges against him.

In addition to the hammer, we’d found, in the holding compartment of the stolen scooter, a balaclava, screwdriver, hunting knife, several plastic bags, his video camera and a spray bottle of cleaning product. His torture kit.

‘Open the door for us, Mrs Miller.’

‘I don’t understand,’ she said.

And yet something told me she did. The nervousness, maybe—as though she’d been expecting a knock on the door like this for a long time. As though she knew something, but had been keeping her mind closed to it, refusing to look.

‘Open the door.’

She said, ‘But Charles isn’t here. My husband. I can’t—he should be here.’

‘He doesn’t need to be here. This isn’t about him. We have legal right of access. You need to open this door for us right now.’

I was seconds away from kicking the door off its fucking hinges. Even if she didn’t bear some responsibility for what her son had become, we couldn’t afford to wait any longer. For all we knew, her husband might be inside right now disposing of evidence.

I took a slight step back. Laura, sensing what I was about to do, moved forward quickly.

‘You can call him,’ she said. ‘And we’ll wait for him to arrive before we do anything. Okay? But let us in. We don’t want this to be difficult.’

Janine Miller hesitated for a moment longer, then nodded. The door closed, there was a click, and this time it opened wide.

‘Thank you,’ Laura said.

We stepped inside into a plush little hallway. The carpet was beige and clean; the walls were painted bright white. There was a small polished table by the base of the stairs with a vase of blue flowers on it. Up ahead, a gleaming state-of-the-art kitchen. It looked like a show home.

‘Mr Miller?’ I called out.

There was no answer from the house.

‘I already told you—’

‘Where is James’s room?’ I said. ‘Is it upstairs?’

It would be. I didn’t even bother waiting for an answer; I was already starting up them. Behind me, I heard Laura reassuring Janine Miller.

‘Come into the lounge. You can call your husband.’

‘But you said—’

‘Come through here and sit down.’

Upstairs, there was a landing with four doors leading off it. Three were open: a bathroom, a main bedroom, and a spare room that looked as though it was being used as a study. I glanced into each, made sure they were empty, then approached the final door, which must have been James’s bedroom, and turned the handle.

Locked.

It would be, of course.

I took a step back and kicked it hard on the centre bar of the frame, close to the handle. It jarred my bad leg, but the flaring pain felt good for some reason. The door splintered a little but didn’t give entirely, so I kicked it again, ignoring the shouts of protest coming from the lounge downstairs.

This time it banged open.

I stepped into Jimmy Miller’s bedroom.

The carpet in here was older and more threadbare than in the rest of the house. Sunlight leached through the closed red curtains, painting everything a dull crimson colour. The place stank: warm and meaty. The single bed in the centre was unmade, the covers left in a tangle that lay half on the floor. On the nearest side, there was a toilet roll and bunches of tissues, and a stained pint glass half full of misty water. Piles of clothes were strewn around. There was a rickety plywood bookcase filled with magazines, knick-knacks, a filthy ashtray, an empty brandy bottle …

I stepped over to the bed, looking around, and spotted the desk in the far corner, beyond the bookcase. On it, a closed laptop was humming gently. The laptop was key, obviously, but it was what I saw on the wall above that made me pause.

Holy shit.

Several A4 sheets had been tacked up. They appeared to be printouts from photographs or single frames from video footage. Most showed dead animals, similar to what Renton had shown me in the dark room. There was a dog hanging from a tree branch, tongue lolling, belly slit open and emptied. In another, he’d crucified a white cat and filled its mouth and eyes with what looked like glue.

But there were others. There was a photograph of Derek Evans’s grave and the excrement that had been left on it. A blurred image intruded from the side and it took a moment to work out what it was. As Miller had taken the photograph, he’d used his free hand to give the dead man’s grave the middle finger.

The people who have died mean nothing to me.

I looked down to the laptop, and then around at the mess of the room. The rest of the house was so pristine. I found it hard to imagine that Miller had been allowed to keep his room like this, lock or no lock.

I realised I was heading down the stairs, my feet thumping hard on the steps, and then into the living room.

Laura looked at me. ‘Andy?’

‘
Did you know?
’

I shouted it in his mother’s face. She was sitting on the settee, knees pressed tightly around her hands, not looking up. At the sound of my voice, she shrank down even further.

‘Did you? Did you fucking well know?’

‘Andy—’

I grabbed hold of Janine Miller’s shoulders and started shaking her.

‘Did you fucking
know
what a monster you raised?’

The woman began sobbing, and I felt Laura drag me away from her. I didn’t resist, but I kept staring down at her. She was shaking her head. I had no idea what she meant by it: I didn’t know; forgive me; I can’t take this any more.

‘Andy. Mr Miller is on his way. Let’s just keep this calm for now.’

‘You’ve not seen upstairs.’

‘Andy,’ Laura said, a little helplessly, but then I turned around and she saw the look on my face. She stared into my eyes for a moment, then sighed. ‘All right. All right.’

‘J
AMES CAN’T HAVE DONE
the things you’re accusing him of,’ Charles Miller said.

It was an hour later, and Laura and I were sitting across from him in the interview room. He was a short, wide man, dressed in beige chinos and a white shirt open enough to reveal whorls of grey hair at the top of his barrel chest. Almost bald—just patches of silver above his ears.

A former military man. We’d waited patiently for him to arrive home, and then brought him and his wife in under caution. Neither had been arrested, and Charles had blustered more than a little about accompanying us. I’d made it clear that if they didn’t, they’d both be arrested for obstruction of justice and I’d deal with the consequences of that later.

‘He can’t have done it.’

From Charles Miller’s tone of voice, the matter was already settled. He was hard-faced, and he kept my gaze the whole time, practically daring me to look away. Right now, I had no problem staring right back.

I said, ‘I can assure you that he did.’

‘But that’s not for you to decide. Is it,
Officer
? We both know that. Your job is to gather evidence.’ He leaned forward and tapped the desk. ‘It’s for the
courts
to establish guilt. Not people like you. Thank God.’

Laura, ever polite, said, ‘What’s that supposed to mean, Mr Miller?’

‘It doesn’t mean anything.’ He leaned back. ‘Forget I spoke.’

‘We’ll try,’ I said.

By now I’d learned enough about his record—the medals and decorations—to know he was a man used to getting his own way: to being listened to and respected. Society had granted him a position of authority on its behalf, and he’d bought the hype. He believed it was something about him that demanded respect, rather than the position he’d once occupied. Well,
I
wasn’t buying it.

‘What makes you so sure James couldn’t have done these things?’

‘Because he doesn’t have it in him,’ Miller said. ‘He’s
a pastry chef
, for God’s sake. Or he was. He couldn’t even do that right. The boy’s scared of his own shadow.’

A pastry chef
—he said it with derision, as though he could hardly imagine an occupation less befitting a grown man. And he couldn’t even do
that
right.

As the afternoon had worn on, the team had begun to assemble a history of James Miller. He’d done adequately at school, but was a withdrawn, apathetic student, and had left at the first opportunity. Few teachers recalled him; he had no real friends. Those that did remember him spoke of him being timid and invisible, a flinch of a child.

After leaving school, he’d spent a lot of time unemployed. Pastry chef, whatever his father thought of the job, was probably the highlight of his CV. For a brief time, two years ago, he’d worked as a taxi driver, but he’d been let go by the company for reasons as yet unknown. Since last year, he’d been unemployed.

I said, ‘I’m not at liberty to discuss the evidence we have against James, but I can assure you it’s substantial. And, with the greatest respect, James being a pastry chef is not going to balance it out.’

Miller stared at me. The contempt he felt for me and my fake authority was fairly clear.

Laura coughed, leaned forward.

‘We’re going to need your recollections of James’s movements over the past few weeks.’

‘I’ll do my best.’

I said, ‘Did you ever go in his room?’

‘No.’

‘You sure about that?’

‘Absolutely. Not in years.’

‘I wonder why you’re so adamant about that. It’s not like you know what we found in there or anything, is it?’ I didn’t give him a chance to respond. ‘You look like a man whose home is his castle, Mr Miller. Why didn’t you ever go in?’

‘Because he was old enough to keep his own counsel. Be responsible for himself. He’s a grown man, as much as he ever will be. I’d done all I could.’

‘So you’re not aware of what was taped on the wall above his desk?’

Miller shook his head, keeping my gaze. There was something in his eyes, and it made me think of his timid wife. It was hard to believe that, even without going into that room, neither of them had sensed something rotten under their roof.

But I changed tack.

‘So. What did you mean when you said that he was scared of his own shadow?’

‘I meant that he was a coward.’

‘In what way?’

‘He was always a weak child. Always scared.’

‘Strange that, with you as a father.’

Miller shook his head, misunderstanding me. ‘I did my best to help him.’

‘You did your best to “help” him?’

‘I wouldn’t expect you to understand.’

For a moment, looking at Charles Miller, it wasn’t him I saw, but another man. One who had taken me outside on to the lawn, in front of all the neighbours, and tried to teach me how to be a man by slapping me.

I leaned forward slowly.

‘Try me.’

‘He’s scared of heights.’

‘What the hell has that got to do with anything?’

‘Scared of blood, too. Can you imagine that? When he was growing up, we had a dog. He was scared to give it a bath in case he scalded it.’

‘And what did you do to teach him about that?’

Miller said nothing.

‘Did you ever go into his room?’

‘I already said. No.’

‘Did you ever go into his room?’

Miller looked at me.

‘Did. You. Ever. Go. Into. His. Room?’

‘I told you. No. And I want a lawyer.’

I stood up slowly, took a deep breath, and leaned forward on the desk. Moved my face as close to his as I could get. Once again, I wasn’t quite sure who I was looking at, but I recognised something in him and I wasn’t afraid. Laura said, ‘Andy.’

I ignored her.

‘Mr Miller,’ I said. ‘The whole time, you’ve been looking at me like you wish this desk wasn’t between us. That it wasn’t in the way.’

He kept my gaze, his jaw rolling slightly. He didn’t deny it, but he didn’t make a move either. I waited, giving him a chance, but he just stared.

‘Do you know what?’

I leaned away again, not breaking eye contact.

‘I wish that too.’

A
ND FINALLY, JAMES MILLER
himself.

At a little before five o’clock, Laura and I stepped into the interview suite. Two constables were waiting silently on either side of the room. We nodded to them and they left, then Laura shut the door as I took a seat across from Miller. She joined me a moment later, the metal chair scraping against the floor.

Miller didn’t look up at us. He was slumped in the chair, and seemed much smaller than I’d been anticipating. Over the past week, because of what he’d done, he’d assumed a monstrous stature in my head. The truth—as always—was far more prosaic. However inhuman the actions, they’re always perpetrated by human beings, and if you’re expecting some kind of demon, the reality inevitably disappoints.

Not evil,
I told myself.

In fact, sitting in the chair, cuffed, James Miller looked like nothing much at all. Not any more. He was dressed in a black T-shirt, sleeves cut high to reveal normal arms, not much hint of muscle to them. His hands were below the table, out of sight. He had an average build: mostly slim, but carrying slight weight around the chest and stomach. If you’d seen him slouching down the road towards you, with his carrier bag, you wouldn’t have worried about him at all.

Vicki Gibson, struck as she walked home and pushed through that hedge. She wouldn’t have looked twice at him.

And that was how he’d done it, wasn’t it? His sheer innocuousness was how he’d got away with so much.

I pressed the button on the recorder.

‘Detective Andrew Hicks. Conducting interview of James Miller, resident at 18 Tavistock Place. Also attending is Detective Laura Fellowes. Interview commencing at 16:56, twenty-third of May, in connection with charges relating to the murders of Vicki Gibson, Derek Evans, John Kramer …’