Never Forget (9 page)

T
he next morning’s briefing began with the usual banter, last-minute phone calls and general chatter of a room of very busy, focused investigators. The temperature was cooler so the room was a bit more pleasant than before. The DCI called everyone to order and an immediate hush fell.

‘OK, morning, everyone. It’s official today. We need this in the news for witnesses to come forward so we’re launching a media appeal in relation to the murders of Amanda Bell, Jason Holland and Daphne Headingly. All three were stabbed a number of times, possibly with the same weapon. The knife that was recovered from Savage’s van yesterday has been examined by the pathologist. He’s not ruling it out as the weapon used on the first two victims. It’s been sent off to the lab for prints and DNA.

‘The cuts have been made with a straight-edged blade. Measurements of the width of the cuts are two centimetres, or three-quarters of an inch for those of you still old enough to use imperial. The deepest cuts are thirteen centimetres or five inches, indicating where the knife was plunged in up to its hilt. Some of the slashes and insertions have been made with the offender behind the victim; we’re assuming this is where the offender was when he or she bit their shoulder. The odontologist will confirm this.’

This was clearly a man under pressure. He spoke firmly and calmly, but looked even worse than I did. I didn’t know
who was breathing down his neck but the deep lines across his forehead, bags under his bloodshot eyes and tie already loosened at 8am gave the impression of a worn-out man. The suit, shirt and hair were still immaculate, though – and there was not even a hint of stubble on his face. It wasn’t a problem to appear on national television and look as if you were working all the hours possible, but the public expected a certain standard of its officers, even when looking for a serial killer.

‘First off, the suspects so far,’ continued Nottingham, surveying the room. ‘Suspect One, David Connor. He’s been dealt with for football-related GBH, charged and remanded. Difficult for him to have murdered Daphne Headingly when he was at Her Majesty’s pleasure. Suspect Two, Gary Savage. He was being interviewed by two of our detectives at the time of Daphne Headingly’s murder. Never known such good alibis.’ He had the air of a very displeased DCI. ‘All the same, Savage can’t explain why he had a bloodstained knife in the back of his van, nor why his DNA was on a dead body. Savage is to remain on bail for the moment. Anyone got any good news for me?’

This was met with silence, so the briefing continued. By the time details of all three victims and any other information had been shared with all those working on the force’s biggest priority, three and a half hours had gone by. We had stopped twice for breaks, which had led to stampeding to the kitchen and toilet and missed calls being frantically returned. My head was full of facts and my notebook needed replacing.

The vital information had been pinned up on boards around the room, and at the end of the meeting I stopped to look at the photographs of Daphne Headingly more closely. My mind fought down the recent memory of my own life in pictures delivered by my postman. As I was making the effort to concentrate on Daphne’s problems, much more pressing than my own, Wingsy came up beside me.

‘Why would someone do that to an old lady?’ he said.

‘Dunno, mate, but there must be a reason. There’s always a reason, even if it’s ’cos the bloke is an utter nutcase.’

‘What makes you think it’s a bloke?’ he said. ‘You heard what the boss said about keeping an open mind. May even be more than one of them.’

‘I have my doubts about that,’ I replied. ‘If there’s more than one, that means they’re keeping each other’s secrets. You know what people are like. It’s difficult enough to trust anyone with harmless gossip, let alone a secret like this.’

‘Nina, I think you’re being naïve. Think about paedophile rings kidnapping and raping kids. Always more than one of them, by definition.’

Wanting to steer the conversation in another direction, I said, ‘Let’s go and find a couple of computers in the Incident Room so we can go through our work for the next few days.’

Wingsy and I had some information about Daphne, our latest victim, as some of her family had been found and spoken to, but it only scratched the surface. Each person’s life was made up of so many factors: family; financial; educational; social. Each of those was a minefield in its own right and each of them was important, but, with no obvious suspect, one part of Daphne’s life must hold the key to why she was murdered.

We found two adjacent terminals. Wingsy was checking his email while I waded through the paperwork, one hand gripping a Yorkie bar. I stopped mid-bite as he sat up in his chair and said, ‘Fuck me,’ a little too loud. A few people nearby tittered, while a couple tutted at his language. ‘Look at this. Got some financial checks back and Daphne had £750,000 paid into her account two months ago. They’ve done some digging and she won it on the lottery. Lucky cow – or not so lucky, since she’s dead.’

At that moment, Catherine Thomas came up and caught our attention. Well, Wingsy’s more than mine. I thought about kicking him under the desk to stop his tongue from
hitting the ‘enter’ key on his keyboard. ‘Alright, you two?’ she asked. She had a deep, husky voice which didn’t quite go with her petite build. ‘We haven’t met properly so I’ve come to introduce myself. I didn’t want to just hand you the work and send you off. Bloody hell, is that a Yorkie bar? Supposed to be on a diet but I could wrestle that right out of your hand. I’m Catherine, and I know that you’ve been here a while but come and let me know if you have any problems.’

‘Thanks, Catherine,’ I said, since Wingsy was finding it difficult to form words without closing his mouth. ‘We’ve got Daphne’s financial stuff through. I see that it was sent to you too. That’s got to be worth looking into. Were the others lottery winners?’

‘No, they weren’t. That would have been too easy. Holland never gambled. Like your thinking, though. I’ll be about if you need anything.’ She bounced off in the direction of the DCI, who had just appeared in the doorway looking for her.

‘She seems alright,’ said Wingsy at last.

‘“She seems alright”? Oh, please, mate,’ I said. ‘I was gonna offer you some chocolate but you’ve probably filled up on the flies you’ve been catching.’

‘You jealous, Nin? Lay off the chocolate and you might have a chance of looking like that.’

‘Really? So I can attract baldy wingnuts like you? I’m good, thanks.’

T
here was only so much you could glean from paper and computers. Nothing could come close to meeting people and talking to them. Wingsy and I put together a plan and went out to meet Daphne’s family. I braced myself for dealing with people in mourning again. It was inevitable in a murder enquiry. Talking to her family was going to be very draining, but that was police work.

As we drove out of the security gates, Alf, the caretaker, was leaving through the pedestrian gate. Wingsy pressed the window control, rolling the glass down. ‘Alf. Want a lift?’

Alf stopped and leaned in the window. ‘Nin, Wingsy. No, ta. I like the bus – good for listening to other people’s conversations. Thanks all the same.’ He straightened up and strode in the direction of the bus stop.

‘Makes sense,’ said Wingsy when Alf was out of earshot. ‘He’ll have another body part to get rid of on the number 27 by now.’

‘Don’t talk such rubbish. Concentrate on driving,’ I replied.

Wingsy and I had made arrangements to see Daphne’s sister, who lived only a couple of miles from her house, before visiting other members of the family. As he drove, I read out the family tree that had been put together so far. Daphne’s maiden name had been Lloyd. Her father had died during the war and her mother had died of cancer in 1988. Daphne had married George Headingly in 1956, and seven years later they’d had a son, Scott.

‘Where’s the son now?’ asked Wingsy. 

‘Died. Oh, sad. He hanged himself in 2004. Got to be pretty desperate to do that. It doesn’t say why and there’s no coroner’s report attached. It shouldn’t be too difficult to find out: he hanged himself at his mum’s house. I recognise a couple of the names here who went to the call.’

‘Is there much written about the sister?’ said Wingsy.

‘She’s Diane Lloyd, seventy-one years old. She married but got divorced and he remarried. Changed her name back to Lloyd from Green. No children. There’s a bit about Donald, the brother, but we’ll see what we can get from Diane first.’

‘What’s the door number again?’ he asked as he slowed the car.

‘It’s 52. Oh, here it is. Looks OK. Garden’s neat, no car in the driveway, looks well maintained. It would suggest to me that it’s not a lonely, childless seventy-one-year-old divorcee living here. Someone cares.’

‘Or she’s loaded.’ We pulled up and made our way along the neat and tidy pathway, not a weed in sight.

I rang the bell and waited for my first view of Diane Lloyd. A smiling, grey-haired woman opened the door and I wondered for a moment if we had the right house. She was dressed in a yellow blouse and cream trousers – hardly mourning colours. Her upright, almost rigid posture did not suggest she was gripped by fear at her sister’s murder, but that she was a woman who carried herself well. She glanced at our warrant cards and welcomed us in, repeating our names back to us as if she was learning them and didn’t want to forget them later on. She stared at me and held out her hand to shake mine. Her hands were cold, unlike her eyes. She unnerved me a little, as she kept hold of my hand for longer than really necessary and barely gave Wingsy a glance.

As I seemed to be more of a success with her than Wingsy, he allowed me to do the talking.

‘Ms Lloyd,’ I said. ‘Thanks – ’

‘Please, Nina, call me Diane. That’s if it’s OK to call you Nina – or Detective Foster if you’d prefer.’

‘No, Diane, Nina is fine. Thank you for seeing us at such a difficult time for you.’

She waved my condolences aside and led us into a compact but tastefully decorated kitchen. ‘I’ll put the kettle on and show you to the conservatory while it boils,’ Diane said. We glanced at one another and Wingsy gave a small shrug. I felt the same: she didn’t appear to be at all bothered. But grief was a very tricky thing, with its own agenda.

Seated a few minutes later in her conservatory, we looked out over a beautiful garden full of jasmine and roses, the scent wafting in through the open door. The chattering of birds pecking at seed on the feeder halfway down the garden completed the peaceful setting.

‘Diane, we explained on the phone why we wanted to see you. We’re very sorry about your sister. We – ’

‘Hated her. She deserved to die. I understand that it was brutal.’

I searched Diane’s face carefully. She looked me straight in the eye, and the previously warm gaze was now as cold as her hands.

‘M
y family ran into a few difficulties many years ago and I and my brother, Donald, had problems with Daphne. Donald stayed in contact, but I stopped speaking to her. Our main problem started with George. No one approved of their marriage, least of all my mother, but when Scott was born we thought that things would settle down. They didn’t. They were constantly rowing – even separated a couple of times. She always went back, though.’ She paused and took a sip of her tea and then, still looking solely at me, continued, ‘The day Scott hanged himself, he was doing the world a service. Best thing that bastard ever did.’

Reluctant as I was to utter a word and interrupt her, I crept a question in.

‘What did Scott do that was so bad?’

A loud ticking clock filled the silence. Wingsy and I kept as still as we could, willing her to go on.

‘He’ll be on the police records. He had a thing for children.’ Her lips were barely visible as she said the last sentence. ‘Disgusting creature. Suppose the bleeding hearts would say that it wasn’t really his fault at all; that he was ill and needed help. Me, I think hanging was too good.’ She paused and took another sip of her tea. ‘Oh, I am sorry, I forgot the biscuits. How rude of me.’ She was up and out of her seat. ‘I definitely have some chocolate ones somewhere. Won’t be a sec.’

‘Bloody hell,’ said Wingsy, keeping his voice down. ‘Someone might have mentioned this to us before we left.’

I didn’t get the chance to reply; Diane was back in the room. ‘They’re supermarket’s own, I’m afraid. My nephew has a tendency to eat all the good ones when he visits.’ She placed a flower-patterned plate down on the tablecloth. The plate held fifteen biscuits, neatly stacked one on top of the other in three piles. ‘Have one, Nina.’ It felt like an order. Hansel and Gretel came to mind. ‘My nephew, Jake, he’s been great to me. He’s round here once a week helping with various jobs. Upkeep on this house would be impossible for me if it weren’t for him.’

I knew my next question was likely to be entering dangerous territory. If she took offence at this, Wingsy would have to take over with the questions. I chanced it.

‘Had Jake and Scott been close friends?’

The ramrod spine stiffened. ‘No, Nina.’ She might as well have added
you stupid child
, the way she spoke to me, leaning forward, her voice full of practised patience. ‘Not when it all came to light. It took some time of course, and a lot of what he did was never proven.’

Wingsy and I leant forward in our chairs.

‘Jake and Scott were fairly close when Jake was very young, despite the age gap. I never liked them playing together but Jake wasn’t my son and Donald had always been the more trusting. Perhaps it’s something to do with him being the youngest with two older sisters, I don’t know. Anyway, he allowed Jake to associate with Scott, something he regretted in later life and no doubt still does. There was something about Scott’s behaviour as he got older that seemed to get to Jake. He has never told me about it because I refuse to talk about Scott or my sister to him. You’ll have to ask him yourself.’

‘What was proven against Scott?’ I asked. ‘You said that a lot of what he did wasn’t proven. Tell me what was.’

‘He kidnapped two young girls.’