A Deadly Thaw (27 page)

At the station, Connie watched Kat compose herself, which she was managing to do, sort of. Connie was an only child so she couldn’t imagine what it must be like to lose a sibling.

Lena was lying dead, waiting for Bill’s ministrations at some point over the next day or so. The strange web of events was untangling. It had its genesis in a drunken night in 1987, but it had started earlier than that, when two rugby players had joined together to prey on the girls of Bampton. Lena had been an early victim. She had closed herself down, thrown herself into her painting and brooded. Marriage to anyone other than Andrew Fisher might have helped. His secret past had remained buried until one day she’d started an affair with her attacker, Philip Staley.

‘I think we have to believe Lena’s story,’ said Connie. Kat opened her mouth to object. ‘I know it’s hard. This is where I’m able to help you, Kat. Your heart is feeling deceived but it doesn’t have to be like that. Let me look at it from an outsider’s point of view. Will you bear with me?’ Kat nodded. ‘If she recognised Philip Staley as her attacker before she started the affair, then it must have taken a huge effort of will to have sex with him. Lena was frozen after her attack. You told me this. Do you really think she could have been so hard-hearted?’

Kat stared at her hands. ‘I don’t know. You’re asking me questions about a person I lost a long time ago. Could she have been so cold-blooded? You know, I think she might have had that in her.’

‘Okay. Fair enough. Well, let me put this another way. If she recognised her attacker, Philip Staley, for who he was, then the killing must have been premeditated and I don’t think it was. The hustling off of Andrew Fisher to Lena’s favourite place, which meant she could no longer visit there. That doesn’t sound right. She’d used Whitby as a refuge for years, and then she sends a man she knows to be a predator there. Does that sound like something she would willingly do?’

Connie could see Kat trying to assimilate the information.

It was late, gone one in the morning. She and Palmer had finished questioning the man they had discovered with Kat. Mark Astley. An interesting past, but nothing to suggest that he had anything to do with Lena’s killing. He was refusing to go home until they finished with Kat.

Palmer was shifting uncomfortably in his seat next to her. Well, they were all tired. She had downed two beers earlier that evening, which seemed a lifetime ago.

Connie leant forward. ‘You need to believe your sister on this one. I think she discovered that Philip Staley was her rapist that night in 2004 and killed him. Without premeditation.’

Kat looked at the table. ‘Why? She let that bastard ruin her life even further. Okay, she discovers that he’s her attacker from all that time ago but why kill him?’

‘That’s the point about unpremeditated killing. You don’t plan it. It just happens. I don’t think Lena was a natural killer. She acted in the heat of the moment.’

‘But she came up with a decent plan to let Andrew go free.’

‘She wasn’t going to kill him in cold blood though, was she? What was much more likely was she’d ring the police and tell us about him. But she didn’t want to do that. Partly to protect herself, not to have to relive the details of the assaults, and partly to protect you from everything coming out. She thought you were a victim too.’

Kat groaned. ‘But nothing happened to me. What a complete mess.’

Connie shook her head. ‘It was a rubbish plan, and yet it worked. Go to prison for murder, which was, in fact, what she had committed. A form of atonement. At the same time remove the man she also knew to be a sexual predator from his hunting ground. I think Lena’s motives were far from clear.’

‘But she was punishing herself,’ wailed Kat. ‘She went to prison for a crime with mitigating circumstances that a judge would have taken into account. She might have got off with a manslaughter charge.’

‘Was she always so hard on herself?’ asked Palmer.

Kat shrugged. ‘I thought she was being hard on me but now I’m not so sure. Have you found him? Daniel?’

‘Not yet. We’re still looking for him. Why didn’t you tell us he’d been in your house?’

‘He didn’t know where Lena was either, so I didn’t think it important. He was just another person looking for my sister. And all along she had been staying with Steph Alton.’

‘She told you this? Lena?’

‘She said she’d met Steph and her daughter one day in the park. And they’d got to know one another again. And Lena told me that’s where she’d been staying. With Mary.’

‘And what about Daniel? Did he give you a reason why he was looking for Lena?’

‘He told me he was in love with Lena. Obsessed with her, in fact. So he came to find her. And he did.’ Tears pooled in Kat’s eyes. ‘I thought he liked Lena. He was calm at the house when I saw him. The same in Whitby. I never suspected a thing. I thought he was trying to protect her.’

‘He blamed her as well as Andrew Fisher for what happened to his sister. Andrew might have been the rapist, but Lena got Daniel to help him start a new life in Whitby.’

Kat’s eyes widened. ‘What happened to his sister?’

‘We suspect that she was Andrew Fisher’s victim in Whitby. At least one of them. The sister of Daniel Frears, Alison Frears, reported an attack in February this year. We’ve been in touch with North Yorkshire Police and the description she’s given of her attacker matches that of Andrew. She knew the alleged attacker by the name of Peter Murphy, but we believe it’s Fisher. Police went to his address but were unable to locate him. The investigation into the assault is still active.’

‘So after the attack he came back here. To be killed.’

‘He didn’t have anywhere else to go. I think, but it’s only conjecture until we find Daniel Frears, that Andrew Fisher knew that he was searching for him. So he had to leave Whitby. Where else would he go? Although we haven’t yet discovered where he was staying. And you know what, Kat? The sad thing is that things have changed. If you report a sexual assault now, you are dealt with sympathetically. There are things we can do to secure a conviction. It didn’t have to end like this.’

‘And where is he? Daniel?’

Connie looked at Palmer. ‘We don’t know. He may be back in Whitby. Or at least travelling back towards there. We’re searching for him now.’

‘And it was him who killed Andrew at Hale’s End?’

Connie looked to Palmer again. He was leaving her to answer all the questions. ‘We’re not sure. He’s a strong suspect, of course. However, until we locate him, we can’t be absolutely sure.’

‘What?’ Kat hissed across the table at them. ‘What do you mean, you’re not sure?’

‘There are too many loose ends in this investigation for us to be sure of anything. The boy who gave you the gun, for example. He’s still unaccounted for. Don’t forget it was him who handed you the murder weapon. He needs tracing.’

‘Do you think he might be in danger?’

‘We need to find him and discover what role he played in this. What exactly did Lena tell you again?’

Kat shook her head. ‘I asked her about him but she wouldn’t tell me much. She was a great keeper of secrets.’

‘We all have our secrets,’ said Palmer. ‘It’s how destructive we choose to be with them that makes a difference.’

Is he talking about what happened with me?
wondered Connie.

They finished the interview, and Connie walked Kat back to the station reception. Mark was standing outside the station, talking on his mobile.

Kat turned to Connie. ‘What the hell was Lena thinking? You get on with life, whatever it throws at you and you might find happiness. Finding happiness with someone makes everything else bearable.’

Connie smiled. ‘You talking about that handsome Mark outside?’

‘I suppose, although . . . ’

There was a defiant air about her. Connie could smell intrigue a mile off. ‘How did you meet?’

‘It doesn’t matter. He’s nothing to do with this. He never met Lena. Didn’t know Philip or Andrew.’

Connie raised a hand. ‘I was only curious. Don’t mind me. Romance is in the air, clearly. It will help you. Your grief, I mean. He seems like a nice guy.’

A red blush spread across Kat’s face. ‘He’s much younger than me.’

So that was it. She was mortified that she was seeing someone much younger than her. ‘Don’t worry,’ Connie said in her most cheerful voice. ‘Younger? So what? There are worse things that can happen, like seeing a married man. If anyone found out, that would be your career over around here. These things are best avoided.’

Connie smiled across at Kat and was dismayed to see her eyes fill with tears.

Three in the morning, and Sadler couldn’t sleep. It had been a late night for all of them. Palmer and Connie had interviewed both Mark Astley and Kat Gray and had got some answers. But not enough. Lena Gray was lying dead, and he still felt he was only looking at part of the picture.

He’d spent the evening coordinating the search for Daniel Frears and that had taken time. Two police forces and possibly more if Daniel was en route back to Whitby. He wasn’t a car owner, which made things more difficult. He’d arrived in Bampton under his own steam, and Sadler guessed he had probably made his getaway earlier that day, after killing Lena. By train or possibly by coach. Sadler suspected that he would be easy to find. Once he’d exacted revenge, what else was there for him to do?

Llewellyn had been updated. Although grumpy at being woken up, he had got dressed and had come into the station to help out. There weren’t many bosses like him any more, and part of the reason why Sadler couldn’t sleep was the thought of his earlier anger towards him. Llewellyn had only done what he was told, and what he’d said to Sadler had been correct. You don’t always get to hear everything in an investigation.

He thought about opening a bottle of wine, but he needed to be up and driving by eight. It wasn’t worth the risk. He wished he was the sort of person to keep camomile tea in his cupboard instead of the builder’s variety. He went to the cupboard and opened it anyway. He winced. Never was it more blatantly obvious that he was a single man who spent too little time inside his own home.

In desperation, he boiled himself a cup of hot water and took it through to the living room. He switched on the television. Too many channels and nothing to watch. He flicked idly between them, stopping every once in a while to see if something was worth watching. It never was. He was running out of choices by the time he reached the Horror Channel.

The lurid colours of the film made him pause briefly. He looked at the screen titles to see what the film was.
Brides of Dracula.
Not his thing at all, but he’d caught the opening sequence so he could at least follow the story until he was tired enough to sleep. The film was as bad as he might have expected. Or maybe as good. In any case, there was enough to hold his attention. The source of the evil doings in the village wasn’t Dracula, but someone called Count Menster, who was going around vampirising the local villages. In an interesting twist, his mother discovered what he was up to and chained him in the castle to try to stop the killings.

The mother always knows. A pattern of images swam before Sadler’s tired eyes. What had Connie said about Janice Staley? That she didn’t think the woman held any illusions about her son. But there were other models of motherhood. Like Pamela Fisher. Jane Reynolds, who had originally spotted Andrew in Whitby, had been adamant that his mother would have known that he was hiding out there. But perhaps she had known much, much more.

Connie sat at her desk reading through the case files and feeling the visceral heat of raw anger. Case number five: a woman who had turned up at the police station claiming to have been raped, but she refused to give any further details or to be medically examined. Classified as ‘no crime’. Case number eight: a woman claimed to have met a man at a nightclub, and he had taken her somewhere in his car and raped her. A doctor’s examination the next day declared her injuries to be consistent with the victim having fallen while inebriated. Victim was an alcoholic. Classified ‘no crime’. So it went on. Case number twelve: transcript from the police interview, ‘Did you, at any time, enjoy the experience?’

Connie put her head in her hands. She briefly looked up to see Palmer walk into the office. He ignored her, which was just as well given that she felt like slapping someone. He would do. She put the files to one side. Despite herself, she couldn’t resist glancing over to where he stood. He was more smartly dressed today than his usual attire, which was saying something, given that he was easily the best-dressed man in the place. He had on grey trousers that looked like they could be part of a suit, and a leather jacket. Connie felt her heart lurch.
It’s only sexual attraction
, she thought.
A purely physical response
. She saw his compact movements suddenly tense. ‘What is it?’

He focused on her. Not as the lovers that they had been nights earlier, but as a colleague. ‘These photos from Julia Miles’s wall. Have you looked through them?’

‘I’ve not had time. They were only collected yesterday from Shallowford House. What’s up?’

Connie got up and crossed the room to him. He froze and moved away from her slightly.
Don’t respond
, she willed herself.
Stay calm
.

‘Look at this.’

She could do nothing but lean in towards him, although she noticed he moved away from her again.

The picture was poor quality. Probably someone had snapped it on an iPhone and then printed the image off onto cheap paper. It showed Stephanie Alton squinting into the sunlight, wearing cut-off denim shorts and a lemon T-shirt with a logo that Connie couldn’t make out. She had her arms wrapped around her daughter, who looked around thirteen. She was smiling into the camera uncertainly, but the arm that she had wrapped around her mother was confident. It was a moment of happiness frozen in time.

‘It’s her daughter, Mary. I interviewed her after her mother died. She’s older now, nineteen.’

Palmer was scrutinising the photograph. He turned the image towards Connie. ‘Look at her. Forget about the bobbed hair. Look at her body.’

Connie frowned. ‘She’s in her early teens there. She hasn’t started developing properly yet. Could be a boy or a girl.’

‘What does she look like now?’

‘Definitely a gi—, bloody hell.’ She took the photo from him. ‘You know, she cakes on the make-up, but she’s built all gawky and angles. You think this is our teenage boy?’

‘It’s got to be a possibility, hasn’t it?’

‘You knew, didn’t you?’

Pamela Fisher opened her mouth to say something and then shut it.

Sadler had eventually managed to get some sleep, but only about three hours in total. His head felt heavy on his shoulders, and he was fighting the urge to call around to his sister’s house even if it meant entertaining her boisterous children. He needed normality, of the kind you can only get from your own family. Certainly not from the warped sense of family solidarity that assailed him from all directions in this case.

‘You knew that your son attacked women and you shielded him. Is that why you encouraged him to marry Lena? To give him another alibi?’

‘I never encouraged him to marry either of his wives. They were his choice. I did want him to settle down, but he never could. It was that Philip Staley. He was a bad influence.’ The woman’s tone was bitter.

‘I don’t think it was as simple as that. They fed off each other. They worked as a pair.’

She refused to look at him.

‘Is this where he stayed? When he came back from Whitby? Did he stay with you? Or did he go to Lena?’

‘Lena? Of course he didn’t go to her. When he wanted to come back here, it was me he came to.’

‘And you knew he was in Whitby all along?’

The woman shrugged. ‘I knew he was alive. I never saw him but I knew where he was.’

Sadler swayed on his feet. He hadn’t been invited to sit down, and, in any case, he wanted to get this visit over as quickly as possible. ‘Do you know why he had to leave Whitby?’

The woman stayed silent.

‘Can you guess?’

Silence.

‘Did he leave anything here?’

The woman looked like she was debating whether to say something. ‘Andrew? Only the clothes he brought from Whitby. Nothing special.’

‘Can I see them?’

Pamela Fisher led him up the stairs to a small back bedroom. Whatever her affection for her son, she’d put him in the box room with a view of the neighbour’s wall. Sadler shook the contents of a rucksack onto the single bed and looked through them. She was right; there was nothing special. He could feel her eyes on the back of him. What was he missing? ‘There’s nothing else?’

‘From Andrew, no.’

The hairs on the back of his neck began to rise. ‘But you have something from someone else?’

She hesitated. ‘There’s an envelope. It’s not from now but from before.’

‘Before Andrew went missing?’

‘Yes, even before that. He used to come here. When he was married to Lena. Get changed, that sort of thing.’

‘Get changed?’ Sadler could hear the incredulity in his voice.

She flushed. ‘Sometimes Philip came with him. I didn’t like the man.’ She folded her arms. ‘Then, that September . . .’

‘In 2004?’

‘Yes. Philip came here with a load of stuff. He was supposed to move abroad. I think he said Australia or New Zealand. I can’t remember.’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ Sadler was impatient to hear what was coming. ‘He left some things.’

Pamela nodded at the rucksack. ‘It was like that. Full of stuff.’

‘Do you still have it?’

She went over to the built-in wardrobe and opened one of the high cupboards. ‘It’s there.’

Sadler helped her bring down a scruffy navy-blue rucksack and opened the flap at the top. ‘Have you looked through this?’ he asked her.

‘Just once.’

There was an odd assortment of things. Scrappy notebooks, some clothes. Near the bottom was a large blue envelope folder. Sadler pulled it out and opened it. Photographs. Of women’s faces. He felt the bile rise in his chest and gather in his throat. ‘Have you seen these?’

‘Just once,’ she repeated. She sounded like she was on automatic pilot.

‘Don’t you feel any compassion for the women affected?’

‘They were at a club. Wearing God knows what. What do you expect, going out looking like that?’

Thank God Connie’s not here
, he thought.