Читать книгу For Evil to Flourish - Dubya Ph.D Lorimer - Страница 11

Jackie Kingsley picked up the mail from behind the door, and flicked through the letters as she walked to the kitchen.

'One here for you, Liz.' She held it out to her daughter who was eating her breakfast. The envelope only had Liz's name on it, no address or stamp. She had received a few like that since the drugs incident, get-well-soon and sympathy messages from friends and neighbours just pushed through the letterbox. Liz ignored the outstretched hand, and with a sigh, her mother placed the letter on the table.

'Do you feel up to going back to school today?'

Liz shook her head.

'You'll have to go back eventually, Liz. You can't hide in the house forever.'

Liz continued to stare at the table in front of her, chewing slowly, then suddenly stood up, and almost ran up the stairs to her room, leaving most of her breakfast uneaten.

'Liz!' her mother called after her, then gave up, and slumped down in the chair Liz had just vacated. She picked up the letter, turned it over in her hands a couple of times. The name was badly written, with Kingsley misspelt. She tore it open, then stared in horror at it's contents. There was just a single sheet of paper with a crudely drawn matchstick figure of a girl with long hair, like Liz. There was a knife across her throat, with drops of blood in red ink. Underneath were the words, “OPEN YOUR MOUTH THIS IS WOT YOU GET”. Jackie jumped up and dashed to the door, looked up and down the street, but whoever had posted the note was long gone.

Ann Morrison's team, as expected, were coming under pressure from higher up, with Superintendent Campbell emphasising the need to clear up the Linda Hope enquiry as soon as possible in order to limit the fallout from the Benny Patterson video, which was now widely circulating on the web.

She emerged from the interview with Darren Hill feeling angry and frustrated. She had developed an immediate dislike for the cocky twenty-three year old, who, despite his youth, clearly felt that being a member of the most feared crime family in the area gave him the right to treat everyone, including the police, with contempt.

Dark haired and stocky, hirsute with muscular arms adorned with tattoos, and a bull neck, he somehow had the knack of making the most expensive designer clothes and gold jewellery look cheap and trashy. He liked to play the tough guy, nonchalantly leaning his chair back on two legs, and blatantly ogling her breasts while ignoring every question.

Far from being impressed, his appearance made her think of a grinning ape, and she could feel her gorge rising as she struggled to breathe in the confined space of the interview room due to his nauseating aftershave, which didn't quite manage to disguise the whiff of body odour. She couldn't wait to end the interview, if only for the opportunity to breathe some fresh air.

Ian Hopkins emerged from the other interview room, and fell into step with her as they headed back to the CID room.

'Any luck with Hill?' he asked.

'To paraphrase, ”Better to keep quiet and have people think I'm a criminal low-life scum, than to open my mouth and confirm it” seems to be his chosen option. “No comment” being his mantra.' she added.

'Much the same story with Patterson. Anything he said on the video was to avoid being mutilated, he just told them what they wanted to hear, denies being in the flat that night, blah, blah, blah, “No comment” to any thing else. Their lawyers have them well coached.'

As they neared his desk, she asked,

'Anything helpful about the vigilantes?'

'Nothing of any use, a bunch of nutters targeting him because of gossip he reckons. Doesn't know where they took him, can't remember how he got home. Heap of bollocks!'

'Well, there's no point beating ourselves up about it, it's what we expected. At least the media will see that we're taking the video seriously, and we're not just ignoring this pair.'

'DI Morrison.'

She turned to see DC Catherine 'Kit' Kerr approach.

'Just had a call from Jackie Kingsley, Liz Kingsley's mother, apparently Liz received a threatening letter this morning, just pushed through the letterbox.'

'What did it say?'

'It was a drawing of someone getting their throat cut, and a warning to keep quiet written underneath it. She's really scared by the fact that someone was actually at the house to post it.'

Ann considered for a moment, then,

'Someone will need to go and collect the letter, see if we can learn anything from it. I'd like you to do that, Kit, and speak to the girl, she hasn't been very forthcoming about that night, probably due to the effects of GHB, the rape drug, which was in both her and Linda Hope's systems. Take Amrita with you, she knows them.'

'Okay boss.'

'Ian, you and I will review the interview recordings in case we missed anything, but I have a feeling we'll probably have to let them go for now. Have we discovered anything from the video that would tell us where it was filmed, since we can't depend on Mr Patterson's memory?'

'Nothing from the video, but there was an anonymous call received from a workman who turned up for work at a building site in Rose Street on Saturday morning. Apparently Patterson had been found in a nearly-finished block of flats. Brian is on his way there, to see if anything looks familiar.'

'Well, you never know, we might get lucky and find some forensics, or even a witness. The sooner we put a stop to this vigilante nonsense the better.'

PC Amrita Bachchan introduced DC Kerr to Jackie Kingsley, explaining that they would take the threatening letter away for forensic examination. Kit would also like to speak to Liz, if that was all right.

'I'm not sure if she's up to it, she's up in her room crying. She's really struggling to cope, I haven't been able to persuade her to go to school, she just mopes around the house all day.' It seemed to the officers as if Liz wasn't the only one struggling, Jackie looked drained, her face was drawn and her eyes were like black holes.

'Has Liz received any other threats?' asked Kit, 'Not necessarily a letter, but verbally or phone calls, or texts maybe?'

'She hasn't mentioned anything, but she has been really tense since this all happened.... oh god.... I'm sorry.'

The strain on Liz's mother became too much, and she broke down sobbing. Amrita put an arm round her to try and offer some comfort while Kit gave her a moment to recover.

'Look, maybe you and Amrita could make us all a cup of tea, and I'll go up and ask Liz if she would be willing to talk about it.'

Kit headed up the stair, noting the threadbare carpet. Amrita had told her that Arthur Kingsley had been in the habit of beating his wife when he had been drinking. When Liz had reached an age where she was aware of what was happening, Jackie finally managed to summon the strength to kick him out. She had told Amrita that she had no regrets but Kit suspected that she, like so many single parents, was struggling financially.

She tapped on the door,

'Can I come in?'

She waited for a moment, tapped the door again and then opened it just enough to get a look inside.

'Hi Liz, I'm Kit Kerr, I'm a policewoman. Do you mind if I have a word with you?'

Liz was lying curled up on the bed, facing the wall.

Kit stepped into the room, sat on the edge of the bed. She reached out and touched Liz on the shoulder,

'I'm here to try find out who these people are who threatened you, to make sure they can't ever do you any harm.'

Liz still hadn't acknowledged her presence.

'Have you been threatened in any other way, Liz? On your phone for instance?'

Kit could have sworn a small tremor went through Liz's body.

'Do you mind if I look at your phone,Liz?'

'No, you can't, it's private!' Liz mumbled.

'Liz, I know you probably have a lot of personal stuff in there, but this is really important, these people were responsible for Linda's death, surely you don't want to see them get away with that?'

Kit heard a low moan come from Liz.

'Liz, we all have things we wouldn't want anyone else to see. But there can't be anything more important than finding the people who did this to Linda. And to you.'

'The whole school would find out.'

'Find out what, Liz?'

No answer. Kit spoke as gently as she could,

'Look, Liz, my boss can demand you hand over your phone, and then every man and his dog could look at it and see what's there. Would you not rather it was just you and me, and I can just write down any details I think are relevant, ignore the rest?'

After a little more gentle negotiation, Liz finally agreed to let Kit examine her phone.

DC Brian Cameron called DI Morrison from the building site on Rose Street,

'Something a bit strange here, boss. When I arrived, nobody would admit to knowing anything about Patterson being found here, I had to lean on them a bit to even be allowed to look around the place. However, I've managed to find a room in one of the flats here that could very possibly be the one used in the video.'

'Anything left lying around that would give us a connection?' asked Ann.

'Not a thing. In fact there was a worker going around these flats with one of these big industrial vacuum cleaners. I managed to put a stop to that, but it had just been emptied and the contents sent to a tip along with a load of rubble. I doubt very much that we're likely to find anything. In fact, to be honest I don't think it would even be worthwhile going to the tip and asking to look through the rubbish that's been dumped. There's plenty of string and concrete blocks all over the place here so they wouldn't need to bring their own, and the overalls and gloves they wore are unlikely to leave any trace.'

'I agree, we can't justify wasting time and money on it. Any idea why the people on the site are being cagey? Do you think they could be involved?'

I'm kind of inclined to doubt it, because I notice the property developer here is one of the “respectable” parts of the Hill's empire. I suspect it's more a case of not wanting anything to do with the police.'

'Hmm. I wonder if our little gang of vigilantes were making a point, deliberately taking him to a place connected to the Hills, when they intended making accusations against them in the video. Interesting. Anyway, I think the most we can do for now is to ask around, see if anyone saw anything. I'll send Ian down to give you a hand.

'OK boss'

When Kit returned to the station, she immediately headed for DI Morrison's office, and knocked on the door,

'Come in Kit, what do you have for me?'

'Liz Kingsley has received threats on her phone, one of which included a picture. The picture shows her half naked, being fondled by a couple of guys. They had kept their heads out of the picture, I couldn't see anything obvious to identify them, but the text that came with the message told her if she said anything, it would be all over the school.'

'This picture was taken on the night Linda Hope died?'

'Liz says yes, it must have been, although she says she doesn't remember much about it, and to be honest, she does look totally out of it.'

'Was the picture taken on a phone, by somebody at the flat?'

'I'm assuming so. The number was withheld, but I presume we can still get it from the phone company. There were another couple of texts with vague threats, I've noted the times and dates, hopefully we'll be able to pin them down.'

'Don't you have the phone?'

'I kind of promised Liz nobody else would look at it unless absolutely necessary. She's really upset about all of this, as you can imagine. However, she did tell me something new. Apparently it all seems a bit unreal, but she vaguely remembers hearing the doorbell ring, and one of the guys talking to someone she thought sounded older, more mature and well-spoken than the others. She thinks this guy opened the door of the room she was in, just enough to look at her and Linda, but not enough that they could see him. She got the feeling there was something a bit scary about this guy. The other thing she told me..... and she emphasised she would never stand up in court and repeat this..... she thinks she kind of remembers someone on top of her at one point, but it was vague, like remembering something from a bad dream.'

'And she can't describe him in any way?'

'The only thing she can remember, and she says this sounds really stupid, but she remembers thinking that at least he smelled nice.'

That definitely rules out Darren Hill, Ann thought to herself.

'There was a hint that the girls may have been offered money to go to the flat,' Kit added, 'I got the feeling things were a bit tight at home, and going with older boys in flash motors who were throwing money around may have been tempting, but I couldn't pin her down on that.'

'That's ok, you've done really well Kit, we'll chase up the phone companies and hopefully get some names. You never know, with a bit of luck this could be the breakthrough we've been hoping for.'