A Little Death Read online

  ‘Your garden’s a good size.’

  She looked up at him. ‘It’s the reason we bought the house. Laurie likes gardening.’

  ‘Mind if we take a look at it?’

  If she was surprised at police officers taking an interest in a suburban garden it didn’t show.

  ‘Go ahead. The door isn’t locked,’ she said.

  They stepped out onto a small patio, their eyes on the far fence lined with trees as Watts closed the door behind them. He recognised an oak and a willow.

  ‘I don’t recognise half of these,’ he said to Corrigan.

  Corrigan pointed to a couple near the side fence. ‘Those two with white flowers are dogwoods. They’re popular in the States. That one over there is a sycamore. That’s all I know.’

  Watts headed for the small greenhouse to one side of the garden and shaded his eyes to squint through the glass at empty plant trays, a coiled hose and a large, heavy duty plastic bag, its top slashed open, its label indicating the contents to be bark chippings. Nearby, a car door slammed and the children inside started up a cacophony of excited squeals and shouts.

  ‘Sounds like Vickers is home,’ murmured Corrigan looking through the glass, pointing out another bag: wood chippings.

  Heading back inside, they found Lawrence Vickers in the large sitting room, his attention seemingly on his children as he smiled and nodded at what his wife was telling him about her and the children’s day. It was convincing if you didn’t look at his eyes. They waited as his wife took both children into the kitchen.

  Vickers turned to them, pretence gone, eyes skittering between them and the kitchen door. ‘Why are you here?’ he demanded, his voice low. ‘I expected you’d come to the college if you wanted to talk to me again.’

  Watts kept his words and his tone casual. ‘Take it easy. We were in the area and decided to drop in.’

  Only now did Vickers make very brief eye contact with them. ‘My wife said something about an incident near the college,’ he said, his voice loud enough to reach the kitchen.

  Watts gazed into his face. It was rigid. A mask. It was evident that Vickers hadn’t told his wife about Elizabeth Williams and was now envisaging the possibility of an axe about to fall on all that he had here. He chose his words, mindful of Mrs Vickers’ proximity.

  ‘That’s right. We’re speaking to people who work in that area such as yourself. I think most people at your college know about the finding of Elizabeth Williams’ remains.’

  Vickers’ face blanched.

  Watts lowered his voice. ‘Tell us exactly what happened on that Saturday morning.’

  Vickers shot a quick look in the direction of the kitchen. ‘I already did,’ he hissed.

  Watts stared down at his open notebook then up. ‘You gave us the bare bones.’ He saw colour rush Vickers’ face.

  ‘OK, OK. She was late. She came into the office and she looked – upset, excited, I told you, I don’t know what it was about. She drank the juice I gave her—’

  ‘Where’d the juice come from?’

  ‘What? I took it with me from here. Part of my lunch.’ He stared at Watt. ‘If you’re thinking I put anything into—’

  ‘Carry on,’ murmured Watts. ‘She’s got her juice.’

  Vickers ran a hand through his hair. ‘I talked her through the assignment I’d marked, pointed out the good bits and others I thought she could have improved on and that was it.’

  ‘Not quite. What about your invitation?’

  Vickers’ hand went to his mouth and his eyes went to the kitchen door. They heard the children’s voices, Mrs Vickers making placatory noises. ‘I told you what I said.’

  They waited. Vickers’ voice dropped further. ‘I told her I thought she looked very nice. She smiled. I said that I thought she was … attractive.’ His word was scarcely audible. ‘I asked her if she’d meet me for dinner.’

  ‘Where?’ demanded Watts.

  ‘I don’t know! We didn’t get that far.’

  ‘Did she tell you where she was going after she left you?’

  There was a tremor in Vickers’ fingers as he passed his hand across his forehead. ‘I was distracted by what I’d said to her, like I told you. She said something about a dry cleaner but to be honest I wasn’t listening.’ He looked from Watts to Corrigan. ‘As she left I think she said something about meeting somebody.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘She didn’t say.’

  It was Watts’ turn to frown. ‘Did she say where and when?’

  ‘No. I don’t know. I don’t remember what she said.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Like I told you, my mind was taken up with what I’d said to her—’

  Mrs Vickers was standing in the kitchen doorway, looking at her husband, her face bemused. ‘Is everything all right, Laurie?’

  Vickers went to her, his eyes still on the two officers. ‘Darling, I forgot to tell you about something that happened near the college a couple of days ago.’

  She looked at him, then at Watts and Corrigan. ‘It isn’t anything to do with the awful news on the radio? About that woman who was found?’

  ‘It’s a long way from the college. Nothing for us to worry about.’

  Her eyes on his face, she turned away as shrill squeals took her back to the kitchen.

  Watts tucked his notebook into an inside pocket. ‘Family life, eh? Keeps you on the go, I bet. Tell you what, Mr Vickers. We don’t want to intrude on your home life so if we need to follow anything up, we’ll do it when you’re at work. We know where to find you.’

  Vickers’ face was wooden. ‘I’ll show you out.’

  They followed him into the hall. At the door Corrigan turned. ‘I have a question, Dr Vickers.’

  Vickers waited, his face empty, shoulders slumped.

  ‘I just moved into a new place and the garden’s real wild. It needs some care. I noticed you’ve got bark and wood chips in your greenhouse. You think I might need some of that stuff?’

  Vickers said nothing for a few seconds, looking thrown by the conversational change of direction. ‘Probably. It improves the soil. Encourages worms. It also cuts down on watering.’

  Corrigan raised his hand. ‘Thanks for that.’

  They felt Vickers’ eyes on them as they walked the path to Corrigan’s car.

  Inside it, Watts made speedy notes. ‘Don’t know what you think, Corrigan, but Vickers strikes me as a man who’s able to lie himself out of a deep hole without too much trouble.’

  Inside a low-lit UCU Julian checked the board for messages and any requests for his expertise. Finding none he went to the desktop computer. The screen’s glow on his face, he scrolled through the incident log which he did most days he came in here. He loved data. It had caused him a load of trouble a couple of years back. That affinity mixed with curiosity had taken him into the university’s financial records database. That was all in the past. No way would he hack again. Ever. Hanson had defended him when the VC was ready to pull the plug. He wouldn’t let her down. He wanted his doctorate. Headquarters’ demands on his time were less since he’d started it, but he called in often, liking the relative quiet here when everyone was out. Better than trying to read at uni. He drank tea, realising he was hungry.

  Information appeared on the screen and he began reading. No more than half a dozen words in and he’d forgotten about food. He reread them, excitement rising. He scrolled downwards, reading the whole of the Incident Log. The door opened. He glanced up. It was Watts.

  ‘You need to see this.’

  Watts leant over the youthful shoulder, lips moving as he absorbed the first few words. ‘Where’s this from?’

  ‘It was picked up by Hagley police who responded to a call from a couple of residents about a hysterical woman banging on their door late last night saying she’d been attacked. Look at what she told them.’

  Watts read it. He read it again, more slowly. ‘Good lad. Pass us the phone.’

  Hanson reached for her phone. It was Watts. ‘Gla
d you called. We didn’t get much opportunity to speak to Downey at Renfrew yesterday so—’

  ‘Can you drop whatever you’re doing and meet me at Corbett Hospital near Hagley, soon as you can? I’ll give you the address and postcode.’ She wrote it down and was on her feet.

  ‘I’ll be with you in— Watts?’

  Forty minutes later she walked past several police cars, into the hospital and on to the inquiry desk.

  ‘Hello, my name’s Kate Hanson. I’m meeting a colleague here, Detective Sergeant Watts.’

  Following directions she headed down a long corridor then took the stairs to the first floor. She didn’t need to be told which room. There were two uniformed constables, one either side of the door. They examined her identification and allowed her inside.

  She and Watts exchanged glances in the hush, broken at regular intervals by subtle, repetitive bleeps. Hanson looked towards the bed. Whoever was lying there was scarcely visible, hooked up to drips, surrounded by machines and nurses.

  He came quietly to her side, keeping his voice low. ‘I persuaded them to allow us in by promising not to get in the way and to leave when told.’

  She stared up at him. ‘What’s going on? What’s happened?’

  He nodded at the bed. ‘Amy Bennett, aged twenty-six. She was driving along the A456 last night sometime between half nine and ten. She pulled off the road and into a garden centre where she was attacked. She managed to get away from him.’

  Hanson absorbed the few details. ‘So, why are we involved?’

  He took an A4 sheet from an inside pocket. ‘Read this and you’ll see why. These are notes one of the householders made after she arrived at their door.’

  She took the page, her eyes flying along the words: ‘… He said to me, “I’m going to turn you to face me.” He did and he hit my head and said, “I want to see your eyes blaze. Keep your eyes on me.” I was terrified. I couldn’t understand what he meant about my eyes. He was stroking my neck and then he pressed and I felt faint. He said the word “mother” so he knew exactly what he was doing to me.’

  Hanson’s head snapped up. ‘These words—’

  Watts took the sheet from her and looked at it for probably the sixth time. ‘Maybe Myers isn’t as out of it as he seems.’

  She pointed at specific words. ‘I don’t understand this: “He said the word ‘mother’ so he knew what he was doing …”?’

  ‘Amy Bennett is seven months pregnant.’

  Hanson stared up at him aghast, looked back to the woman surrounded by equipment and nurses. ‘How is she?’

  ‘Nobody’s saying,’ he said, his voice gruff. He looked down at her.

  ‘Come on, doc. Buck up. We’ve got a lot to do. The local station is expecting us.’

  They left the hospital. She got into her car and followed Watts’ vehicle for a short distance then parked.

  ‘Who have we come to see?’ she asked as they approached the building.

  ‘Al Jones used to be part of the Birmingham force years ago. The Bennett case has just landed on his desk now he’s part of the Hagley local police force, but he doesn’t know what we know: that it’s linked to the Williams murder. It’s ours. I want it. What I don’t want is for it to look like the big city headquarters is muscling in. We haven’t got time for resistance and delay.’

  Inside Hagley Police Station it was a scene of high activity, phones ringing and officers moving at speed, emails and other information in their hands. Hanson was willing to bet it far exceeded what happened here on any normal day.

  They were shown into an office where an officer a few years Watts’s junior was sitting. His black epaulettes and insignia told Hanson he was an inspector.

  He stood. ‘Bernard. Good to see you again.’

  Watts took the outstretched hand and nodded. ‘Al.’ He introduced Hanson.

  ‘How’s Goosey?’ Jones asked of Chief Superintendent Gander.

  ‘Big as ever.’

  Jones fixed him with a direct look. ‘I’ve heard about this cold case unit of yours.’ He glanced at Hanson. ‘Read about it in the press as well. I’m guessing there’s a connection between it and your interest in the Amy Bennett attack.’

  ‘Spot on.’ said Watts. He reached into an inside pocket and took out two A4 sheets, one of them Hanson had read at the hospital. He laid it flat on the table and pointed at the lines of writing.

  ‘See where Amy Bennett quotes what her attacker said to her?’ Jones read it then looked up to see Watts handing him the second sheet.

  ‘Now have a read of this. It’s a statement from a witness in our case. Read what he says where it’s highlighted.’

  Hanson watched Jones’ eyes move over the words. He stopped reading, looked up at them.

  Watts nodded. ‘I want to investigate the Bennett attack alongside our cold case.’

  Jones paused then lifted the phone and asked for someone to join them. When a constable came inside he handed a thin file to him. ‘Copy everything in this, quick as you can.’ As the constable left, Jones gave both of them a steady look.

  ‘That’s everything we’ve got on Bennett. It’s not much. I’ll ring Gander and suggest we do the transfer with a minimum of paperwork. This attack is bad. The doctors aren’t telling us yet if she’ll be OK. Even if she is, will she remember anything?’

  The door opened and the constable came inside with the slim file and some photocopied sheets. Hanson thought how meagre they looked. She reminded herself that the Amy Bennett case was only hours old.

  EIGHTEEN

  At eight the next morning, Hanson came into her study and gazed down at the information from the Bennett case she’d left there late the previous night. She’d read it all, such as it was. She touched the handwritten sheet of words spoken by Amy Bennett. Next to it were formal statements given by the householders from whom she’d sought help.

  Both witnesses described someone beating on their front door and a woman screaming. Alarmed, they’d looked through a window to see a car abandoned haphazardly at the side of the road, its driver’s door open and a heavily pregnant woman they now knew to be Amy Bennett swaying and crying on their porch. They had helped her inside as she implored them to lock the door.

  Hanson read on, skimming the words with her finger. The householders had called the police and comforted Miss Bennett, who’d repeatedly referred to her attacker’s focus on her neck. Both described Miss Bennett as extremely upset and agitated. Police and paramedics had arrived, performed a swift physical examination then removed her from the house to the nearby hospital. They had observed a bruised area to one side of her face but no other visible injury to her head, neck or elsewhere.

  According to the female householder, ‘The woman who came to my door who I now know to be Amy Bennett told us that she had been approached by a male at the garden centre off the main Kidderminster Road about a mile from my house. She said a large vehicle, similar to a Jeep, was parked there when she arrived. A man had appeared suddenly, dragged her from her car then subjected her to further assault, holding her so she could not move. He forced her to face him and look into his eyes as he held her and stroked her neck. Miss Bennett said that he kept insisting she look him in the eye. She described him playing with her neck. She told me that he used the word “mother”, which she found particularly disturbing and upsetting, given her condition.’ The witness had ended the statement with a reference to Amy Bennett managing to escape her attacker by kicking him.

  Knowing she had a full morning at the university, followed by a second visit to Renfrew, Hanson quickly pushed the statements inside her briefcase. She wanted to read them again at the first opportunity. They had raised a number of questions in her mind, not the least of which was, ‘Why would any man intent on attacking a woman insist that she look at him?’ In Hanson’s experience of violent offenders who attacked women the reverse was the norm. They insisted that their victims not look at them and were willing to use violence or cover the victims’ eyes to ensu
re they didn’t.

  She doesn’t say he had a mask or other covering on his face so why wasn’t he concerned about being described later, possibly identified?

  She shrugged into her jacket then reached for her keys.

  Was it his intention at the outset to kill Amy Bennett but he was deflected from doing so because he hadn’t anticipated that she would fight him?

  NINETEEN

  At Renfrew Hanson was greeted by the secretary she and Watts had met on their first visit.

  ‘Good afternoon, Dr Hanson. Hugh’s on his way. He’s asked me to apologise for his lateness. We’ve got some really good coffee. Can I offer you one while you’re waiting?’

  ‘That would be nice, thank you.’

  The secretary went to the coffee maker in the corner and Hanson searched her memory for her name. Something short. Alphabetic. A-B-C-Dee. She glanced at her watch, wondering how long Hugh Downey was going to be. She’d left work unfinished at the university and on the journey here she’d questioned the value of a further visit to the consultancy. The only link had been the imprints of three letters: ‘REN’, and Renfrew’s historically distant connection to where Elizabeth Williams’ remains had been found. It wasn’t much, even if considered in the light of Elizabeth’s passion to save the planet.

  Hanson frowned. If it comes to that, we don’t even know for sure it was a passion. Whether it was or not, it was perfectly possible that Elizabeth had approached one of the other conservation consultancies in the city which Aiden Malahide had mentioned in passing. So far, they had persons of interest known to Elizabeth but the Amy Bennett attack suggested the likelihood that it was a faceless killer they were looking for. Hanson bit her lip, wondering how the young woman was. She’d heard nothing from her colleagues. Dee was speaking.

  ‘He doesn’t have far to come. He’s been working since seven thirty this morning in Hall Green. At Sarehole Mill. You’ve probably heard of it?’

  Hanson had. It was a well-known place of local interest. She tried to recall what Maisie had said about it. ‘My daughter went on a school visit there a few months ago.’