Bleed Like Me (23 page)

The reservoir was secured by high, locked gates and monitored by CCTV so they ruled that out. Of the two lakes one was part of a country house estate, now used as a wedding and exhibition venue and not open to the public. The other, Kittle Lake, was a popular beauty spot. The river and canal were more problematic, with multiple access points at road bridges and in Porlow country park, and webbed with a network of public footpaths and bridleways.

‘At best it would be a scattergun approach,’ Mark Tovey said. ‘A body of water the size of that lake alone could take several days to cover. Meanwhile, if the bodies are in the river they’re getting moved downstream. We’re dealing with small bodies too, so that’s an additional factor to consider.’

Gill understood. ‘Harder to find. I’m not interested in a PR exercise,’ she said. ‘I’d rather hang fire and use you wisely. And all we’ve got to go on is his claim that they’ve drowned. He’s refusing to back it up with anything at all.’

‘What about forensics from the cars or his clothing?’ Tovey said.

‘Working on it. The Hyundai’s likely to give us less than we might have hoped for because of the fire. I’ve been promised results on the Mondeo today. Cottam’s footwear and clothing are being fast-tracked now.’ Gill had got the forensics lab to pull out all the stops, which meant paying extra, but if anything could tell them where he had come from to the retail park, his shoes were probably the best bet. ‘Soon as I get anything on that, we’ll look at this again, yes?’

He agreed.

She saw him out, then turned back to look over the map. An area of almost two thousand square miles. There have to be some clues somewhere, she thought. We’ve got to find them.

Everything was in the system but now it was a waiting game.

Cottam was taking his statutory break and Gill had pulled together the team for updates. ‘Gallows Wood gave us nothing, except the Mondeo,’ Gill said. ‘No sign he even entered the wood itself. We have increased patrols and we are repeating the appeal to the public throughout the Lancashire area to look in their garages and outhouses.’

‘When he took the car it was low on petrol. He didn’t fill up anywhere,’ Mitch said.

‘That we know of,’ said Kevin.

‘There are only four petrol stations in the area,’ Gill told them, ‘and all have been visited and alerted. So, yes, it’s more likely he kept his mileage low. Holed up somewhere like he did on the first night. Nevertheless, we are keeping the net wide in terms of public assistance. Today is day four, over forty-eight hours since the children were seen by Rahid. Forty-eight hours since he bought provisions. Janet’s just gone three rounds with him. He’s been less than cooperative, yes?’

‘He’s implied repeatedly that the children are dead,’ Janet said, ‘and that they drowned, but I’m interested in how he put it. The first time he said
They’ll be dead
, and the second
Not if they’re drowned
. Conditional. He was not making a definite statement.’

‘It means the same thing, though,’ Rachel said.

‘I’m not sure,’ Janet said. ‘I think they might still be alive and he’s stalling because he doesn’t want us to find them. He doesn’t want us to save them.’

‘But the bin bags,’ Rachel said. ‘Whether he’s killed them by drowning or strangled them with the missing shoelace or whatever, the bin bags point to him having something to get rid of.’

‘If they are still alive he might have been planning to drown them,’ Pete said. ‘Drown them in the bags like you would kittens.’

‘Isn’t it usually sacks?’ Mitch said.

‘Water wouldn’t fill a bin bag as quickly,’ Andy agreed.

‘Suppose it’d still do the job,’ Rachel said, ‘if you weighed it down with a brick or stones or whatever, tied it up, chucked it in. Maybe the air runs out before it fills with water. Either way the job’s done and it’ll take months for the bin bag to rot so no nasty surprises for a while.’ Rachel pragmatic as ever, Gill thought.

‘He’s not worried about surprises,’ Janet said. ‘He’s not been trying to escape detection. He didn’t expect to be around much longer anyway so he’s not been planning long term.’

‘Okay,’ Gill said, ‘we’re speculating. We don’t know if the drowning is fact or fiction but it’s all he’s given us. If it is, or was, his intention and if he’s remained in the area as we think, these are the places where he might accomplish it.’ Andy pulled up a satellite view of the area. ‘We’ve ruled out Lundfell Reservoir and the smaller lake at Groby Hall House. That leaves Kittle Lake in the west, the River Douglas near Wigan in the east, and the Leeds & Liverpool Canal. Several small meres in the north.’

Gill heard the various sighs and murmurs from the team as they reacted to the sheer scale of potential crime sites. ‘I’m in touch with a POLSA. Until we narrow it down, I can’t call out fire service search and rescue,’ she said, ‘but if we reach a point where we can focus our energies that’s what I intend to do.’

‘But the rope,’ Rachel said. ‘The rope must be so he could string himself up.’

‘Or to tie up the bags—’ Kevin began.

‘No, listen,’ Rachel interrupted. ‘Everyone’s saying that he wants to die and he wants to take the family with him. So we want trees, don’t we, or something else with some height.’

Gill almost reprimanded Rachel for barging in but the point she was making was valid, so she let her continue.

‘And I bet he’ll want them to be together, the three of them, so he’ll do it next to the kids if they’re dead already, drowned or whatever. If they’re alive he’ll hang them with him.’

‘Not easy to hang a child, not enough weight,’ Mitch said. His army experience had given him a breadth of knowledge beyond that gained in the police.

‘We know that; he might not,’ Rachel said. ‘All this talk of drowning – I think he’s trying to throw us off the scent. We fart around in wet suits and the kids are in some forest somewhere. It’s bollocks.’

‘I’ll be the judge of that, DC Bailey,’ Gill said, irritated that Rachel dared to criticize her strategy. ‘Janet, you and Lee go prep for your next interview. The rest of you, actions as follows: Pete talk to Dennis and Barry Cottam – any link, however slim, to the area. Rachel – same with Margaret Milne and Lynn. Mitch, work with Andy on any sightings, timeline, CCTV, ANPR. Go.’

Rachel had been sent to ask Margaret Milne and Lynn about the location. Any ties they could think of. Pete was asking the same questions of Dennis and Barry Cottam. Rachel thought it should have been the other way round, since she had already met the Cottams and continuity was always thought to be an advantage in liaison with the families and victims.
But given that Godzilla still had her on the naughty step she wasn’t going to quibble.

She had briefed herself before driving over, read through Janet’s report on the Margaret Milne interview, revisited what Lynn had told them.

Lynn’s house was in Moston, north Manchester. A council house but in one of the better parts of the area where the tenants were more likely to be in work and some had exercised their right to buy and set up home watch schemes and the like. Red-brick semis, three bedrooms and a garden.

One of Lynn’s teenage lads answered the door, nodded at her request to see Lynn, moved to fetch her, then appeared to think better of leaving Rachel on the doorstep and invited her in. She could smell pizza or something similar and her stomach growled with hunger.

Lynn, a scrawny black woman, came through from the kitchen at the back, wiping her hands on a tea towel.

‘Rachel Bailey.’ Rachel showed her warrant card. ‘Did the family liaison officer explain?’

‘Yes,’ Lynn said, unsmiling. ‘You want to talk to Margaret as well?’

‘Please.’

‘She’s been trying to rest,’ Lynn said. ‘We’ll go in here. I’ll let her know.’

Rachel waited in the front room. The television was on mute, showing some chat show. Rachel had no idea what it was. She watched precious little television and never in the afternoon.

Margaret Milne looked wretched, broken. Hair flattened at one side of her head, face a sickly grey, no make-up. She shook hands with Rachel and her hand felt cool and limp as though there wasn’t enough blood pumping round her veins any more.

‘As you know,’ Rachel began when both women were seated, ‘Owen was detained yesterday.’

‘There’s still no news?’ Margaret said slowly, her eyes painfully bright in contrast with her dull complexion and sluggish manner.

‘No, I’m sorry,’ Rachel said. ‘Can either of you think of anywhere in Lancashire that Owen has a connection with, perhaps near Porlow, or Wigan? I’ve brought a map to help you see exactly where we’re talking about.’

Rachel’s hand stung as she unfolded the map, a large-scale one, which made it easier to see the towns, villages and natural features in the area.

‘This,’ she touched the map south of Lundfell, at the edge of Gallows Wood, with the wrong end of her pen, ‘is where Owen’s car was found. Over here,’ she tapped the retail park over to the right at Porlow, ‘is where he was apprehended. That’s a distance of ten miles. You can see these are the main towns.’ She named them: Ormskirk to the west, Wigan to the east, Skelmersdale between them, Parbold and Lundfell in the north. ‘Anything?’ She looked from Margaret to Lynn.

‘No,’ Lynn said, and Margaret shook her head.

‘He was working at the pub nearly all the time,’ Lynn said. ‘It was hard for them to get away. They had to get cover.’

Margaret nodded. ‘It wasn’t like he had a social life or a gang of fellers he’d be going off with,’ she said. ‘You
are
still looking?’ Fear trembled in her eyes. ‘There
is
a search going on?’

‘There is, but it’s a large area and we’d be more effective if we could narrow it down,’ Rachel said.

‘But there might not be a link,’ Lynn said. ‘Owen might never have been there in his life before. That’s possible, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ Rachel agreed, getting ready to leave. And if that is
the case, she thought privately, then we really are buggered.

She had just opened the car door when Lynn came rushing down the path. ‘I’ve just remembered,’ she said. ‘When Owen took Michael fishing, I think they went somewhere over that way, going towards Liverpool. That’s the right direction, isn’t it? I don’t know if that helps.’

‘Why go all that way to fish?’ Rachel said. ‘Surely there’s fish nearer?’ She remembered kids in Langley heading off down the cut with makeshift rods. Anything they pulled out of there would be toxic, but no one bothered.

Lynn shrugged. ‘I think it was one of the regulars put them on to it, went with them at first. Perhaps he had a ticket thing, the thing you need.’

‘Fishing licence,’ Rachel remembered from training. You could be fined for fishing without one. Bought them at the post office. ‘You know who he was, the feller that took them?’

‘No,’ Lynn said.

‘Might Margaret?’

Lynn shrugged. They went back through to the lounge, where Margaret was sitting staring into space. She hadn’t moved since Rachel had left. Rachel wondered what she was thinking about, or if she’d escaped into some blank vacuum away from her sorrow. She asked her about the fishing, about a pub regular who introduced Owen and Michael to it, but Margaret just gave a small shake of her head.

From doing the house-to-house, Rachel had a clear tally of the regulars in her mind. There weren’t many: the pub had been on its way out. She drove back to the Larks estate. The inn was still cordoned off and a couple of CSI vans were parked on the roadside as the investigators continued to work at the scene. Floral tributes lined the grass verge.

Rachel followed one of the crescents round to the house
where the birthday boy lived. He had been celebrating his thirtieth at the pub on the night of the murders. One of the last group of customers to be served by Owen Cottam.

‘You’ve arrested him?’ he said, looking concerned.

‘Yes.’

‘Still hard to believe.’ He was shaking his head, looking for her to respond. After a murder everyone they came across wanted to go over it with them, pick apart the reasons, relive the shock of hearing, speculate on how close they’d been to the horrific event. But once the police had taken initial statements they simply didn’t have time to stand around chewing the cud.

‘I don’t need to come in,’ Rachel said. ‘I wanted to ask you about Owen and Michael going fishing. If you knew of a regular at the pub who took them with him?’

‘That’d be Billy,’ he said.
The neighbour, the one whose dog Cottam let loose.
‘Billy Dawson. He was from Ormskirk originally – think he was in an angling club that way. He’s in hospital now. Cancer.’

Rachel had no idea whether Billy knew anything about events at the inn but presumably Tessa would have had to tell him something to explain why his dog Pepper was no longer being looked after by the Cottams. And unless Billy was comatose he’d have heard about the murders from the news and the papers and the gossip swirling round the town.

Rachel rang Andy before she set off. Avoiding too much one to one with Her Maj till things blew over.

‘The dog, the one from the crime scene, who’s got it now?’ she said.

‘Not sure, hang on . . .’ Before she could object she heard him say, ‘Gill, where did the black Lab end up?’

‘Who wants to know?’ Rachel heard the boss ask.

‘Rachel,’ Andy said.

Rachel’s heart sank. There was a clatter, then, ‘Rachel?’ Godzilla’s voice came on.

‘I might have found a connection to the area,’ Rachel said, ‘but I need to talk to Billy Dawson. If he asks about his dog I wondered what to tell him.’

‘Neighbour’s got it. Tessa,’ Godzilla said and hung up. No pretence at civility. Stuff her, thought Rachel. She can’t keep it up for ever. Though it felt like a lifetime already. Because the boss was everything Rachel wanted to be, in the professional sphere. She led the best syndicate in Manchester. Ninety-nine per cent of the time she was solid, giving support and encouragement in equal measure. But when she wasn’t, when she went off on one, it was fucking horrible. And it always seemed to be Rachel on the receiving end. Sometimes Rachel wondered if Her Maj was jealous, of Rachel’s youth, perhaps, or of how much easier it was to progress in the twenty-first century. But then she felt a tit for thinking like that. The boss had no need to be jealous of anyone.