Two Wrongs (Detective Inspector Ross Reed Book 1) (10 page)

     
Reed didn't phone Kate to let her know why he wasn't home. He wasn't sure if this was to annoy her or if he wanted to see if she noticed.

It was a good indication of how he was feeling at the moment that finding a murder site was something to be happy about. It was a good thing for the investigation; it might hold the evidence that led to the killer. Carmella was dead and nothing could change that, all that mattered now was catching the bastard who was responsible.

Reed's head was awash with thoughts as he made his way to the investigation room, a mixture of Kate, Carmella and Tina all vying for his attention. As he opened the door, all he could hear was the low hum of the computers; this was despite a group of five people huddled in the furthest corner of the room: Whitehead, Tyler and Plumridge were joined by Detective Constables Eddie Horn and Jerome Dade . Horn was a wily old fox whose quiet demeanor hid a steely determination for the job and a dry sense of humour. Dade was a little more aloof and Reed wondered if anyone on the force really knew what he was about despite him being quick to join in with any banter.

They stood in silence, obviously not very happy at being called into work when they had only finished a few hours ago. Reed wondered if he was the last one called by Whitehead just so they would all have to wait for him, shifting their annoyance from Whitehead. All they wanted to do was get the necessary work done and get home to sleep. Then it would all start again in the morning.

Whitehead stood up and stretched as though he had been waiting a week, “Right, now we can begin.”

Reed felt honoured that Whitehead had even waited.

      After picking up some papers and glancing over them, Whitehead started, “At 7.16pm today, a phone call came in from a Mr Simpson. His dog took an interest in a certain area and couldn't be called away. Afraid that she might run onto the road, he went to retrieve her. When he bent down to grab her collar he noticed what he thought might be a patch of blood. I got a call shortly after and an officer was sent out with someone from forensics and it has been confirmed as blood. There's a good chance that the weapon has been found too. Of course, we could have saved many an hour if we had done our jobs properly in the first place, you know why?” Whitehead waited a few seconds, “Because it's an area we have already searched.”

Everyone looked at one another with a mixture of confusion and horror on their faces.

“Where?” Tyler asked.

“Thetford Common. It seems that our highly trained search teams focused their search on the car park before heading onto the common itself. Not one person there thought it might be a good idea to check the small area of growth between the car park and Bury Road. It's no more than a metre wide and twenty metres long. It would have taken ten fucking minutes.” Whitehead slammed his fist onto the table for added emphasis.

“What was the weapon?” Reed asked. His voice was unemotional.

“What?” Whitehead shouted.

“The weapon, what was it?”

Whitehead seemed to take a moment to compose himself before answering, “It seems to be a stone. It was found very near to the patch of blood, about eight inches away. The forensic guy had a look at it and although it's possible it was just part of the area that was covered in blood, there is a distinctive blood pattern that would suggest it was used for the impact to Carmella's head.”

“Well this should be interesting for Mr. Gulliver in the morning.” Reed thought out loud.

“Why?” Whitehead asked sharply.

“Well sir, as you probably know, he lied about his journey home from Newmarket. He said he used the A11 but he was caught by a speed camera on another route.”

“Innocent people don't lie. He must have something to hide and I want you to find out what it is.” Whitehead said, pointing his finger as he spoke. Reed couldn't help but be amazed by his wisdom. The prick.

Reed turned to Tyler, “We won’t spill the beans first thing. I want to question him on this bleach connection first, if that doesn't work, we'll drop this on him.”

“OK. I want to watch in on this one.” Whitehead interrupted. “We'll start at 9am. You and Tyler should get off home, you can check out the murder site tomorrow if you need to. I'm making the blood tests a priority, so we should know by morning. You three can go to the scene now to make sure there are no more mistakes.” Whitehead said to Plumridge, Horn and Dade before standing up and leaving.

“You get all the best jobs, Plummy.” Reed said, fluttering his eyebrows and smiling.

“Yeah, and now he's dragging us two along for the fun. The day you joined the force was the best day of my life.” Dade said to Plumridge, lifting himself off the table. His partner, Horn, followed silently but with just as much enthusiasm.

“Oh yeah, I stuck my hand up straight away, pick me, pick me, I want to stand in the cold until the small hours, it'll be fun .. It's not my fault for Christ's sake.” Plumridge countered. Then he started to leave with the demeanor of someone who had an appointment for a rectal examination.  

Reed and Tyler sat still until everyone else had left the room. Reed was staring at the incident board. Whitehead had already updated it with the information on the murder site. Even his handwriting looked angry, the thickness of the pen line was wider than the rest of the writing on the board. Although Reed could understand why Whitehead was angry, but it had been a mistake by the search team and Reed knew that they would be hurting more than anyone.

“Are you okay?” Tyler asked.

Reed was anything but okay, but said, “Yeah, I'm fine.”

“You sure? It's just that you seemed a bit off at the restaurant.”

“To be honest, I feel shit. Whitehead pisses me off. It's like everything that goes wrong with this investigation is my fault. When we do get a break, he makes out it's because of him. In reality, he's done fuck all, which is exactly what he seems to think I'm doing.”

“I'm not convinced that's your real problem.” Tyler said.

“What?”

“I don't believe for one second that you of all people needs his approval.”

“I didn't know you had been studying me so intensely.”

“I haven't. Anyone would say the same.”

“Right. Look, I don't want to be rude but I could do without this right now. I'm just a little pissed off. It happens to most people. I'm sure I'll get over it.”

“I'm sure you will.” Tyler stood from her seat and made to leave. She paused at the door “I'm always here you know, if you want to talk.”

Reed didn't reply. He forced a smile in her direction; she smiled back and left. He looked at his watch, Kate would most likely be home now, Evie would be in bed. He knew he should go home and get some sleep but he really didn't know what he would say to Kate if she was awake. She hadn't called to see where he was.

Reed sat alone at the incident room for another half an hour, the only reason was to put off going home. He wanted to know what Kate had been doing today but on the other hand, he didn't want to know. He wanted to know before he knew, that way he could decide if he really wanted to know. God, his mind really was scrambled.

At 11.22pm he finally pulled into his driveway; admittedly he had taken the scenic route, well it would have been scenic if it had been daylight. At this time of night it was just the longest route. His stomach was doing somersaults of anticipation. He hadn't felt like this since singing at his school nativity play. What if she didn't say anything? Would he ask her outright what she was doing? Probably not.

Every movement he made was being drawn out, he even checked all the car doors were locked; he never done that, the central locking invention had put an end to that particular routine. He made his way to the front door, rifling through his keys as he walked, he was sure he found the front door key at least three times but dropped it around his little key ring each time just so he could look for it again.

He finally put the key in the lock and turned it. He entered the small hallway and wished he had a coat to take off to use up a little more time. The lounge door was closed. Kate would normally be curled up on the sofa watching TV but Reed couldn't hear it. He peeked around the door but she wasn't there. Perhaps she had gone to bed and he could put it off for another day. Then he heard a sound coming from the kitchen, it sounded like glass on glass. There was also a strange noise which he couldn't place. Worried, Reed hurried through to the kitchen. As he pushed the door open he saw Kate sat at the kitchen table. Her head was in her hands and her body was shaking. There was a wine glass on the table which contained more wine than the bottle beside it. She didn't look up. Reed could hear she was crying. He hadn't recognised it because he wasn't sure if he had heard her cry like this before.

“What on earth is wrong?”

“I. . . I'm . . .” Kate half stuttered, half cried.

“What? Is Evie OK?

“Yes, she's fine. It's me. . .”

“Are you ill? What? Tell me for Christ’s sake.”

Kate finally looked up. Her eyes were red and puffy. She looked straight at him, “I'm seeing somebody else.

Reed was feeling rough. Really rough. His eyes had throbbed as the sunlight shining through the window invaded them. He had slept for two hours maximum, having spent the night on the sofa. Kate had said how sorry she was over and over again. Anything else she might have said he didn't hear, he was too shocked. Even though he had suspected something might be going on, he had been caught unaware when Kate had just blurted it out, the words hitting him harder than he could ever have imagined.

She had waited for a reaction but he couldn't give her one, especially one that might make her feel better. So he said nothing. She probably expected one of his outbursts. He had always let his emotions bottle up until it got too much, then he would erupt like a volcano that suddenly came to life, unleashing more power than was really necessary. He would shout, swear and say things he really didn't mean. He would simmer for a couple of days afterwards and then be back to his usual self. When it was safe, Kate would tell him that he should have said something earlier so that he wouldn't get so angry. He'd promise that he would next time and then the whole cycle started again.

Last night he had felt numb. All he could tell Kate was that he didn't want to speak about it because it wouldn't change anything. He had told her to have the bed as he couldn't be sure that it was clean. To her credit she hadn't taken the bait for an argument and just simply said that she would never do something like that, before leaving the room.

Reed hadn't had a drink in a long time, but sat there alone with too many thoughts bouncing around his brain. He felt it was a good time to start again. He didn't think he really wanted to but having watched this scenario on TV many times, it had seemed to work for the various actors and actresses and, to be fair, it had worked for him too. He had finished a bottle of vodka that he had searched out from the back of the cupboard, wincing with every gulp. He had always hated vodka, and he hated it even more now he had this hangover.

Now, as he was driving to pick Tyler up so they could interview Lee Gulliver, he wished he had never touched a drop. Tyler would be her normal self, excited that they were going to grill their possible murderer. She would want to know how to approach the interview. Whether they should reveal what they knew straight away or feed it to him slowly? Whether they should try to be his friend or his enemy? Reed hadn't even thought it through.

He pulled up to Tyler's house. She had bought it with her ex-boyfriend about five years ago. It was in a village called Kimberly, which consisted of too many new housing estates, a school, a pub and a small grocery shop which also housed a post office. Tyler's house was down a small track with six other houses. It was painted yellow with dark brown window frames and a dark brown oak door. There was enough parking for two cars but with a car like Reed's, which was a black Volvo V40 estate, it was somewhat of a chore to reverse into the drive and then drive forward out of it because of the thick bushy hedge that was opposite all the houses. Tyler, who was usually a very logical person, had placed her wheelie bins in such a position that you had the option of forcing the front of your car into the bush on the opposite side of the track or rubbing the side of the car against the wheelie bins as you drove out. Maybe she placed them there so she didn't have to remember to put them out. That would be logical.

Tyler and her ex had split up about two years after buying the house and she had taken on the mortgage by herself. At the time she had been worried about the financial burden but Reed had broken a few minor rules that he didn't really care for by telling her that a promotion was on the way and would probably be confirmed before the paperwork for her mortgage could be completed. This was enough for her to go ahead and that was enough for Reed to realise that his little rule breaking had been worth it.

Tyler came from around the back of the house; she didn't use the front door very often as she didn't want people dirtying the carpet in the lounge. She was wearing a grey skirt suit with a white shirt underneath which was open at the collar. She wore black tights and black shoes. Her hair was tied back in a neat ponytail.

Reed thought she looked annoyingly happy as she approached the passenger door, although this probably had more to do with his mood than hers. Normally if she was happy, it would be enough to cheer him a little.

“Morning.” Tyler said.

“It is.”

“Always the detective.” She smiled, mistaking his comment as part of their usual banter. The silence that followed told her that it wasn't. “Everything OK?”

“Not really.” Reed replied. After a few seconds of silence he continued, “I've got the biggest case of my career and a boss that doesn't think I can deal with it, probably thinks I'm hindering it actually. Then the opportunity presents itself this morning that I might just be able to nail the bastard who committed the murder, but I can't concentrate on any of it. You know why? I'll tell you why, Kate has been screwing around with some bloke.”

Tyler was shocked. She wasn't friendly with Kate and had only met her a few times, but when she had seen them together they had looked happy enough. Probably more like friends than lovers but Tyler had assumed that was a good thing. What could she say? ‘Sorry’ always seemed wrong to her as she hadn't done anything. The tension was building, she had to say something. Reed had never really spoken about his personal life and now he was revealing what must have been one of the most painful experiences of his life. 

“Tyler, I'm only telling you this because I consider you a friend. As a friend, I'm asking you not to tell anyone else. I don't want to talk about it, I only told you because I don't want you to think I have a problem with you.”

“OK.” After a few seconds, she quickly changed the subject for both their sakes, “Back to the interview then, we know Lee Gulliver lied about the route he took home. He was the last person to see Carmella on the night she went missing. He just so happens to work at the factory which produced the bleach that was poured over her body. He also felt the need to run away when he spotted us yesterday.”

Reed was wondering why she was saying all this when she continued, “Remember all this and I'm sure you'll be fine at the interview.”

The rest of the journey passed by in silence. Tyler's words had refocused him on the challenge ahead. By the time they pulled into the police station's car park he felt a renewed vigor about what they had to do. Gulliver was beginning to look really guilty and if he was, Reed wanted to nail him.

Reed had always had a knack of putting certain feelings to one side, dealing with them one at a time. It was time to ring Kate so he could get a few things out of the way and concentrate on the upcoming interview. He told Tyler to go in and he would catch her up. As she walked away he got his phone from his pocket. All of a sudden, for the first time in years, he wished he had a packet of cigarettes to get out too.

Kate had been the one who had decided they should give up. After countless times of trying they had finally managed it. It was about four years since his last cigarette, now he would happily light one, starting the addiction cycle all over again. He knew Kate would think he was stupid and he wondered if that was half the attraction.

“Hello.” Kate answered.

“I just want to say something without arguing.” Reed said.

“I don't want to argue either.”

“I just think, if you want to be with someone else, you should be.”

“I'm not sure what to do.” Kate confessed.

“Well you'll have to make your choice and live with it. I can't live in limbo. If you do go, you won’t be coming back. I can't be your fallback plan.”

“I know you well enough to know that already.”

“I'd want regular access to Evie, to still be involved in her life.” Reed stated.

“That would be a step up.”

Reed chose not to acknowledge her attempt to wind him up. He wasn't at home enough and he knew it. “I would want to sell the house, or you could buy me out, it's up to you.”

“Anything else?” Kate asked.

“Yes. Hopefully we could stay friendly for Evie's sake, but I can't promise anything, we would have to see how that pans out.” It was Reed’s turn for a low blow.

“You finished?”

“Or you could stay.” He suggested, his bravado weakening.

“We'll talk later OK? Bye.” Kate said and then hung up.

Reed looked at his phone, confused that she hadn't said more. He put his phone back in his pocket, got back in his car and headed for the nearest shop.

“Have you started on the cancer sticks again?” Plumridge asked as Reed leaned over his shoulder to pick up Lee Gulliver's report.

Reed walked to the front of Plumridge's desk, stood tall and just stared straight at him. It didn't take long before Plumridge started to look uncomfortable, fidgeting in his chair, eyes darting around the room.

Reed held the stare long enough to let Plumridge know he had said the wrong thing, before adding, “You know, it really is beyond me how I made Detective Inspector ahead of you. Honestly. A whiff of smoke on my breath and you come to the conclusion I might have had a cigarette.”

Not waiting for a response and happy at his own remark, Reed walked to his own office. He walked with purpose hoping it would send out the signal he didn't want to talk to anybody. It worked. Reed shut the door and sat at his desk. He looked at some papers that had been tossed onto his desk. If there was one part of his job that really annoyed him, it was the fact that everybody had access to his office. He liked things organised. He had trays for his paperwork and a holder for his pens. He had a tray for the investigation he was currently working on, another for less urgent crimes like vandalism, thefts and non-fatal arsons. Things that would keep him occupied when there weren’t the more serious issues of rape, missing persons and murder to deal with.

The less serious crimes would be given straight to Reed. He would then delegate them through his team. The serious crimes would be delegated to him when DCI Whitehead wanted to see him struggle with something. 

Reed also had two large filing cabinets which he used to store all the paperwork from completed cases. He would photocopy everything that was handed to Whitehead to be signed off. This way, if anything went missing or Whitehead tried to pick up on a mistake that wasn't there, Reed had back-up. They also doubled as an excellent reference library. It was surprising how many cases linked together. The criminal community was a large but intertwined one. One name was always linked to another and before you knew it, you were looking in all the same places.

Reed gathered the files together that somebody had obviously thrown from the door rather than take the few extra steps and put them in the section clearly marked “In Tray”.

Finally satisfied that everything was in its appropriate place, he opened up the report on Lee Gulliver's night in the cells. It said that he had been quiet and polite throughout the night. There had been no tantrums, shouting or threats. This could mean that he was nervous, scared or even dejected at being found out. Or it could mean absolutely nothing.

When Reed made the journey down to the interview rooms he was surprised to see Tyler sitting down on a plastic chair in the corridor, staring down at her feet. She looked up at Reed, gave him a half-smile and said, “He's not here yet.”

Without responding, Reed looked at his watch before picking up one of the handsets for the internal phone system.

“Why isn't Lee Gulliver in an interview room?” Reed demanded from whoever answered.

“He's on his way now sir.” Answered the PC who was in charge of the cells this morning.

“I asked for him to be here at nine. It's now nine thirty. I wanted him to wait for me, not the other way round.”

“Sorry, sir. It won't happen again.”

“No it won't. What's your name?”

“PC Murphy, sir.”

Reed hung up the phone without saying another word. He had no intention of taking the matter any further but he took the PC's name to indicate that he might. Tyler had a smirk on her face, knowing him well enough to realise that he was just trying to scare the officer a little as he was not comfortable with using the authority that came with his rank.

They waited in silence for Gulliver to arrive. Reed busied himself looking in the various rooms. There were eight in total, four small and four large. All the rooms were painted magnolia and had a table in the centre of the room which was fixed to the floor. Each room was fitted with a double tape recorder and CCTV. There was a panic button near each door.

It had already been agreed that the interview would take place in Room 7. It was one of only two rooms with a two-way mirror. DCI Whitehead would be watching Reed's every move.

Gulliver was escorted in through the doorway at the end of the corridor. Reed held the door open for the two officers to take the prisoner into the interview room. Gulliver had his head lowered, not looking where he was going, taking full advantage of his escort.

“In here please. You can take the handcuffs off him.”

After the two officers came out, Reed shut the door, leaving Gulliver alone. “Who will be bringing his solicitor down?”