Death Line (12 page)

“What about the letter?” Knight asked. Coupla lines of type on a bit of paper? A copy was pinned on the whiteboard behind. Bev knew it by heart, wasn’t difficult.
God
forgive me. I can’t take any more. Suffer the little children...

She drew fire from her partner. “It could’ve been written by anyone, boss. Killer who tries faking someone’s death’s more than capable of faking a suicide note.” He
wasn’t as smart as he thought, though. Overdale sussed Haines hadn’t topped himself before she’d even set foot on the crime scene.

Knight shook his head. “So a man whose face has been all over the papers, who was in effect named prime suspect in Josh Banks’s murder, walks out of here without a stain and a few
hours later is found decapitated on a railway line.”

That was the size of it and that was Knight’s problem. Bev narrowed her eyes, seeing now why he was preoccupied, clutching at dead straws. So much media shit was going to hit the police
fan, Highgate was going to smell like a sewage plant. And if the recent leaks were anything to go by, it wouldn’t be long before the press got a sniff.

“OK, listen up.” Maybe a case of when the going gets tough. Suddenly galvanised, Knight straightened up, sharpened his act, started issuing tasks. Officers were assigned to check
Haines’s movements, trace and interview friends, family, drinking cronies, neighbours, anyone who could shed light on the man’s life.

Knight gazed over the heads of the squad, could almost have been talking to himself. “It’s just possible that Haines’s death isn’t connected with Josh Banks’s
murder. Obviously it could be a motive but not the only one. Let’s not get fixated. Haines was no contender for a good citizen award. Man with his past must’ve made enemies along the
way. This could be someone settling an old score. It’s an angle needs serious checking.” He landed it on two DCs who looked less than overjoyed. “Take this on board, everyone:
Haines’s murder gets the same treatment, same priority as any other murder inquiry.”

Course it would. Death of a sleazy perv was on a par with a ten-year-old kid’s, wasn’t it? Pensive, Bev started doodling on her pad. Knight wanted a quick collar, on the off-chance
the Haines’s development could be kept under wraps. Dream on, mate.

“It’s likely there’ll be overlap with Operation Swift. We’ll hold joint briefs but the Haines murder needs a separate senior investigator. Sergeant?”

She squinted. Doodle looked like a turd. Grimacing, she pencilled in rising steam. Given Josh’s killer was still out there, no one on the squad was going to bust a gut over a
slimeball.

“Sergeant Morriss?”

“Boss?” Hell had she missed?

“The Haines murder? I want an SIO. Deputy. OK?”

Like she had a choice. “Sure thing, boss.” She glanced down. Holy shit.

Within an hour the faeces started flying. Bev was shifting a bit of paperwork in her office before heading out to Foxton again when the phone rang.

“Paul Curran here, Bev. Is it true what they’re saying about Roland Haines?” The press officer’s customary smooth delivery held an edge. She’d bet his pink flush
was on the rise.

Pen poised over a pad of A4, she aimed for casual. “Who’s they and what are they saying?”

“I’ve had a couple of reporters on wanting confirmation Roland Haines is dead.”

“Where they from?” Local hopefully. It might give the police a few hours’ grace before the big guns started firing.

Sounded as if Curran was rifling a notebook. “Toby Priest from the
Birmingham News
and some woman off the
Mercury.
Didn’t catch the name.”

Bev blew out her cheeks. Wondered how’d they got on to it so quick? It didn’t have to mean another hole in the Highgate sieve. There was a hell of a lot of ongoing police activity in
the village. It was possible a punter had tipped them off. “What did you tell them?”

“Said it was news to me.” Was that a baby crying in the background? “I’m on call this weekend. I’m at home at the mo, Bev. Is it true?”

“Train ploughed over him at Foxton last night. We’re treating it as murder.” She heard a low whistle on the line. “The last bit’s not for release. Not yet
anyway.”

“No surprise there. I’d best come in. They’ll be after a statement at the very least.”

“Nah. It’s...” Suit yourself. He’d hung up. Prob’ly best. Hopefully Curran’d be able to keep the pack off her back.

“So, sergeant, is this another instance of the police failing to do their job properly?”

Bev could happily smack the smirk off Toby Priest’s superior mug except her sweaty fists were balled in her lap. They’d lain there five minutes, getting tighter, moister. Keep the
pack off her back? This was back against the brickwork time. Little wonder Lancelot had been so happy to pass the poisoned-buck-chalice.

Struggling to keep a civil tongue, Bev lapsed into police speak. “I don’t think
any
of us here could have foreseen this tragic event, Mr Priest. I’m sure we
all
agree Mr Haines’s death is regrettable.” The emphases were deliberate. Considering recent coverage, the press claiming exclusive rights to the moral high ground was rich to say the
least. Predictably several eyebrows rose, a few hacks cleared their throats. Bev, making a conscious effort not to shift in her chair, cut a glance to the back where Mac leant against the wall
keeping a watching brief. His downturned mouth said it all.

Beside her, a casually-dressed Paul Curran was making notes. Four hours on from his phone call and they were attempting to present a united front from behind a desk in a conference room at the
nick. Bev’s bum was sticking to the plastic. Whether it was down to the sun streaming through the windows or the grilling from the press she’d be hard pushed to call. The press
officer’s hope that a bland news release would keep the media happy had proved as misguided as an Exocet with Tourette’s. Soon as the nationals and the broadcasting outfits got wind of
it, Curran suggested the least worse course would be to hold a news conference. Get it over with in one fell swoop. Glancing round now, Bev wasn’t so sure. There was something in the air, and
not just the dust motes sinking slowly in a shaft of light.

Toby Priest, small, dark and dangerous, lifted a languorous hand. “So you don’t think it an oversight, then, sergeant?” The question, though woolly and casually posed,
contained pointed criticism, however tacit. Shutters clicked as she lifted her head. Curran tapped a nervous foot.

Bev reached for water, registered a slight tremble in her fingers, had second thoughts about lifting the glass. She’d no need to be clairvoyant to see where Priest was going with this.
“Oversight?”

“Not to offer Mr Haines police protection?”

Bang on. She stiffened. Far as the media should be concerned Haines’s death was still under investigation, accident, suicide. The police hadn’t breathed a word about foul play. She
feigned ignorance. “Not with you, Mr...”

“I understand Haines was dead before the train hit him.” Priest wasn’t the only one with inside track judging by reactions around him. Or lack of. “In my book, that makes
it murder.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed Curran scribbling frantically. OK. She was on her own then. “Where do you buy your books, Mr Priest?” Icily polite, but the stress was on
buy
this time.

He studied his nails. “Is it true?” The little bastard knew. He was enjoying this.

“As I said...”

“No, sergeant.” Priest glared. “You’ve said nothing... worth listening to. Was Roland Haines murdered? It’s an easy question. Yes or no?”

She felt a tap on the shoulder. Curran nodded at a note he’d pushed in front of her.

“I’m not at lib...” She pulled the note closer.

“Do me a favour sergeant. At least stop trying to fob us off.” She frowned as she read the words. Priest was still banging on. “You might not be at liberty, but Haines’s
killer is. And Josh Banks’s. That’s the truth. And as I said, isn’t it another instance of pol...”

“Enough.” She raised both palms, waited for pin-drop silence. “Believe me, this line of questioning would seriously jeopardise our inquiry.”

“Never heard that one before.” The reporter sitting next to Priest stifled a yawn. She’d seen the guy’s face recently, couldn’t figure out where.

“No bullshit.” She leaned forward. “I’m dead serious.” That was new. A cop telling it like it is. She ran a steady gaze over every journalist’s face.
“I’m asking each of you to hold back. Soon as it’s safe, I’ll personally release the information and co-operate every way I can.”

“Easy for you to say,” Priest muttered.

Three, four second pause to add gravitas. “I’m giving you my word, Mr Priest.”

He shrugged, but at least zipped it. Bev took a few less contentious questions from the floor, repeated an appeal for anyone who’d seen Haines to come forward, then the gathering broke up
in desultory fashion. As she drained the glass of now tepid water, she spotted the guy who’d sat next to Priest in conversation with Mac at the back. What was that about then?

And where’d she seen the guy before? It was recent if she recalled right.

“Pitched it well, Bev. Nice one.” Curran smiled, pocketing a pen and his phone.

She gathered her papers, smiled back. “Thanks for your help, mate.” It had been his call: the note suggesting taking a candid line. Much as it grieved her to admit it, she’d
been struggling to hold her own back there. Unlike Powell she was no media tart; her natural instinct dealing with the press was to clam up or, being Bev, rise to the bait. At least the latest
tactic had silenced them for a while. “Think it’ll work?”

“Maybe.” He waggled a hand. “Could go either way.”

No chance then.

Sleeves neatly rolled back, DCI Knight perched on the edge of a desk, fine hair on his muscled forearms glistening in the evening sunlight. He’d just brought the squad up
to speed on where the Josh Banks inquiry lay. Strongest lead by miles was the fact they now had a name and address for the lad who’d tipped them off about the red motor. Ironically, Brett
Sullivan still wasn’t answering his mobile. Sumi Gosh and another DC had dropped by the teenager’s house in Balsall Heath. According to his mother, he was staying at a mate’s. She
didn’t know where but he was due back first thing. It was to be hoped he’d have something useful to add. Eggs, basket and all that.

“OK, sergeant...” Knight shoved a hand in his pocket. “What’ve you got for us?”

It was Bev’s unaccustomed turn in the senior investigator hot spot. Thank God she’d not missed the start of the late brief. She and Mac had run a couple of reds haring back from an
afternoon in Foxton. They’d spent most of the time liaising with FSI guys, directing a small inquiry team and dodging daft questions from nosy residents. Take away the police activity and the
village resembled something out of
The Archers
with Bev and Mac playing walk-on roles. She hoped she’d got rid of the cow shit on her shoes.

A tad self-conscious, she made her way to the murder board, turned to face the troops and registered Byford’s presence at the back of the room. The guv must’ve made a late appearance
and was now leaning against the wall keeping a watching brief. Tucking her hair behind her ears, she glanced at the latest visuals pinned on the board. Apart from Haines’s creepy mug shot,
there were six or seven pictures of the crime scene including close-ups of the embankment, the railway line and surrounding foliage.

Pointing to an image she said: “Chris reckons this is probably where they got down to the track.” Chris Baxter, crime scene manager. “Car, van, whatever, could’ve been
parked here.” Handy passing place alongside a stile. “Likely this is the field they cut across.” She indicated a gap in the hedge, trampled undergrowth. It was a shame Daisy and
her cow pals couldn’t talk. Even greater shame there’d been no rain for a fortnight, it meant no footprints or tyre impressions. “Where the grass is flattened here?”
Squinting, her finger hovered over another ten by eight. Even standing as close as this, the twin trails weren’t easy to distinguish. “Chris thinks it may be where Haines’s heels
caught as he was dragged down the slope.”

“Haines was what?” Knight scratched his jaw. “Ten, eleven stone?” An obvious question.

“Ten and a half,” Bev said. Sixty-six kilos. Dead weight either way.

“How far from the lane to where the body was dumped?” Powell asked.

“Hundred and twenty metres give or take.” Which meant a killer with broad shoulders or helping hands.

Knight frowned. “And no one saw
anything?”
Like it was her fault.

“Nada.” House-to-house and pub-to-parish-hall had drawn blanks. Press coverage might prompt a passing motorist to come forward. But Dag Lane wasn’t exactly Spaghetti Junction.
“On the plus side... forensics lifted a few strands of blue cotton from the hedge.” No one cheered. Everyone knew fibres were less than useless without a comparison. And that assumed
they’d been deposited by the killer. “Fly in the ointment?” Bev tapped her top lip. “Local kids use the area as a playground.”

“So much for today’s brats being glued to Playstations,” Powell muttered. The DI was all heart.

More to the point, where’d Haines been glued? Inside or out? They’d uncovered nothing on the guy’s movements since his release. And it wasn’t for want of trying. A couple
of DCs were still out there on the case.

“What about Haines’s known associates?” Knight nodded at an officer near the window. It was open but not far enough, room was like a sauna.

“Hand you over there, gaffer.” Bev already knew the top lines. Darren New who’d run the checks had kept her informed throughout the day. “Dazza?” Credit where due
and all that; he’d put in the leg work in the local area. Not that there’d be any gold stars. The cronies and KAs he’d tracked down hadn’t come up with the goods. As he
talked the squad through it she headed back to her seat, cutting the guv a covert glance en route. God knows why he’d smiled at her. She’d not exactly covered herself in glory.

If she was being dead cynical, he was probably in need of a friend. The Highgate grapevine had it that Byford had been sitting in on interviews conducted by Knight in connection with the
evidence allegedly planted in Haines’s bedsit. Informal, not recorded, it wasn’t up there with the Spanish inquisition. But it was no way to win mates. The uniforms who’d found
the child’s sock were royally pissed off to the extent they’d consulted Police Federation lawyers. A couple of crime scene investigators who’d also been questioned had complained
to their boss, who’d be taking it up with one of the big chiefs. With dark clouds of suspicion and unsubstantiated rumours floating round, the nick was not a happy place. If push came to
shove, the troops would close ranks and Knight would find himself out in the current heatwave.