On Cold Ground (Detective Karen Hart) Page 23

  ‘How many people did he kill before he got caught?’

  ‘Seventeen.’

  Karen’s eyes widened. ‘Let’s hope we don’t get to seventeen deaths before we capture The Cleanser.’

  Morgan sat in his office watching security footage. There were four exits and entrances at Nettleham HQ: the main entrance, along with the custody door and two fire exits. There were cameras on every one.

  He checked the fire doors first. No one had entered or left the building using those doors today. The custody suite entrance had been used by three officers he recognised, bringing in two arrests.

  The main entrance would take more time.

  He watched the video on 3x speed, and checked the time-stamped logged IDs from the swipe cards against the footage.

  Morgan knew most of the people he saw coming into the station, but not all of them. Every time he saw someone he didn’t recognise, he made a note of the time they entered and put a question mark next to it on his notepad, intending to go back to them later.

  He was worried about Karen. She’d seemed so convinced the Post-it note was a message from The Cleanser. But no one else had seen it. It was very concerning.

  It meant either someone had stuck the Post-it note inside the file and then taken it back when Karen left her desk, or Karen had imagined the whole thing.

  He trusted Karen implicitly, but she’d been through a very difficult time. The past few years had been a trial that would test even the strongest character, and last night . . . well, that would have shaken anyone, even Karen.

  Perhaps she hadn’t slept last night. She could have fallen asleep at her desk and dreamt the note.

  But there was no evidence that had happened.

  So, as unlikely as it seemed, he believed Karen was telling the truth. There had been a note.

  His first instinct made him think someone was playing a sick practical joke, but just in case, he needed to review all the footage. If it was an outsider, Morgan was determined to track them down.

  ‘All right, boss?’ Rick said, poking his head into Morgan’s office.

  ‘Yes. I’m going through this footage.’ He gestured at his computer screen. ‘There’s a few people I don’t recognise. You’ve been here longer than me. Perhaps you could take a copy of the footage, look up the times I’ve noted down here, and see if you recognise them?’

  ‘Oh, great.’ Rick’s shoulders slumped. ‘More CCTV footage. Fabulous.’

  Morgan leaned back in his chair. Rick looked tired. He had been overwhelmed with video footage over the past few days. ‘Yes, sorry. You’ve been a bit loaded down with recordings. How’s it going with the traffic cameras?’

  ‘It’s never-ending. We may as well send Forensics to look at every car in Lincoln. It feels like I’m up against insurmountable odds. I haven’t been able to narrow it down much.’

  ‘I know it seems like we’re not making progress, Rick, but we can’t give up. Sam’s parents . . .’

  ‘I know, boss,’ Rick said. ‘They need a result. Whoever hit Sam left him to die at the side of the road. That’s sick.’

  Morgan gave a grim nod.

  Rick sighed. ‘I’ll keep at it. It just feels a bit frustrating at the moment.’

  ‘Yes.’ Morgan understood exactly how Rick felt.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  When Karen and Sophie got back to the station, DCI Churchill was in the open-plan office, giving Arnie and Leo a pep talk. They were all standing around Leo’s desk, looking thoroughly discouraged.

  ‘We don’t give up that easily,’ Churchill said, tapping the top of the desk for emphasis. ‘Follow up on Ashworth. Talk to his boss, his friends and his wife.’

  ‘You want us to ask his wife whether or not he was having an affair, boss?’ Leo said.

  ‘That’s going to cause a bit of marital strife,’ Arnie said, folding his arms and chuckling.

  ‘I’m not interested in their marital situation. I’m interested in catching a killer,’ Churchill said.

  Karen and Sophie paused by Leo’s desk.

  ‘Ashworth was in the vicinity when Laurel was killed, but he’s got an alibi for the time Lloyd was killed. And he doesn’t have a motive,’ Arnie said with a shrug. ‘I reckon we’re barking up the wrong tree with Ashworth.’

  ‘I agree,’ Karen said. ‘I think we need to start looking elsewhere.’

  ‘It’s very easy to criticise, Karen, but I don’t see you uncovering any further evidence or suspects.’ Churchill turned away with a shake of his head. ‘Apart from disappearing Post-it notes of course.’ He muttered the last sentence under his breath.

  Leo’s eyes widened, and even Arnie looked shocked.

  Churchill flushed, then waved a hand. ‘Sorry, that was uncalled for.’

  Karen didn’t respond. She walked over to her desk in silence. Sophie walked away too, after giving the three men a scathing look.

  After Churchill had left, Leo and Arnie approached Karen cautiously.

  ‘He was bang out of order,’ Arnie said. ‘You okay?’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘You don’t look okay,’ Leo said, pulling over a chair and sitting down. ‘We’re all on the same side, you know? We all want to bring whoever’s done this to justice.’

  Karen raised an eyebrow. ‘But you think I’m lying about the note. You think I made it up.’

  ‘No, of course not,’ Leo said. He paused. ‘It’s just that no one else saw the note.’

  ‘You’ve got to admit it’s a bit weird,’ Arnie said, perching his ample backside on the corner of Karen’s desk. ‘Look, you’ve had a terrible twenty-four hours. No one can blame you if you misread a Post-it and assumed the worst. We’re all jumpy. We’ve had police officers getting notes sent to their homes, and now one of our own has been murdered by this killer.’

  Karen took a long, deep breath. ‘I didn’t imagine it. I saw the note, and it said I’m closer than you think.’

  ‘But it could have been an old Post-it that had come unstuck from some paperwork and got attached to one of your files,’ Arnie suggested. ‘It might be harmless. Maybe a quote, or something someone wrote down ages ago, and just by chance it stuck to your file.’

  Karen looked at him doubtfully.

  He shrugged. ‘All right, so I’m clutching at straws, but the alternative . . . well, it means someone who works here is messing with our heads.’

  ‘Or The Cleanser’s one of us,’ Leo said in a quiet voice.

  They all looked around the room nervously, and then Arnie snorted. ‘Don’t be daft. You’re going soft. It’s just someone with a bad sense of humour, having a laugh.’

  ‘Could be,’ Karen said. ‘It’s a pretty sick form of humour, though.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Arnie said. He stretched, his shirt tightening around his large stomach. ‘Right. I’m going to get something to eat. Can I get anyone else anything?’

  Karen shook her head, but Leo asked him to bring back a ham sandwich from the canteen.

  Alone at her desk, Karen pulled the files towards her. Was this case related to a grudge against the police? Was it personal? Had Anthony been targeted because of his close connection to Karen?

  The first letter from The Cleanser had mentioned Morgan. They’d been through Morgan’s old cases, looking for possible suspects, but perhaps it was time for Karen to look through Anthony’s past cases.

  She sighed. That would take a very long time.

  Then again, it could be unrelated to Anthony’s previous cases. He could have been killed because of what he knew. Her thoughts returned to DCI Churchill.

  They couldn’t discount the possibility that Anthony had been murdered to stop him talking. Whatever he’d been about to tell her would now never be said.

  Frustrated, Karen tapped a pen against her notepad. The letters The Cleanser had sent were filled with nonsense. They hadn’t been able to verify all the claims in any of the messages, and she was certain that the corruption allegations against Anthony were false.
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  A little voice in the back of her mind whispered, But you thought you could trust DI Freeman.

  She slammed the pen down on her desk. She wouldn’t give in to paranoia. Yes, she’d trusted Freeman, and yes, he’d betrayed her in the worst possible way, but that didn’t mean she could never trust anyone again.

  She was part of a team, and there were honest, hard-working police officers all around her. They believed in the job just as she did, and she needed to trust them.

  Karen decided to talk to DS Grace again about Churchill. It was Grace’s job to investigate the corruption, and if Anthony had known something about the officers involved, then perhaps DS Grace could find out what it was.

  Karen sighed. She had to admit Morgan was right about the holes in her theory. If Anthony’s death was related to the corruption, why was he killed by the same person who’d murdered Lloyd Nelson and Laurel Monroe?

  It was possible that it was smoke and mirrors, like the letters. Perhaps Anthony had been killed in a copycat murder. The Cleanser’s crimes may have been used as a way to mask the true motive for Anthony’s death. Maybe the perpetrator just wanted the police to believe Anthony was killed by The Cleanser.

  Anyone working at the station would know the case details. They’d know about the marking of the body after death. The board was up in the briefing room, which meant the details of the crime were on display to anyone with access to Nettleham HQ.

  Karen tapped her pen on her pad again, thinking. The alternative was that all three cases were related.

  Were Lloyd and Laurel’s murders also linked to corruption? Had they witnessed a crime? A crime that someone powerful wanted to cover up?

  What if The Cleanser was simply a cover for the assassination of people who were a threat to the corrupt officers? The Cleanser could be a tool to confuse and misdirect the police.

  But they hadn’t come across any evidence that Lloyd or Laurel had crossed anyone rich or powerful, or anyone in the police service. Karen mulled it over and then rejected the idea.

  She had no evidence, and that was the problem. All she had were fanciful ideas.

  Karen rubbed her hands over her face, then reached for the landline phone on her desk and dialled DS Grace’s number.

  ‘DS Grace.’

  ‘It’s Karen. I hoped we could meet up? There are some ideas I want to discuss if you have time.’

  ‘Sure, though I’m busy this afternoon. Does it have to be today?’

  ‘Preferably. It concerns DCI Shaw’s murder.’

  ‘All right. I could call into Nettleham when I finish my last interview – about six thirty, if you’ll still be there?’

  ‘Perfect,’ Karen said.

  ‘Right. See you later.’

  After she hung up, Karen turned to her computer and logged on to the system before filing a request to access Anthony’s old case files. She’d need the application to be approved by the superintendent, but she could fill in the form so all the superintendent had to do was sign.

  The drinks scheduled tonight in Anthony’s memory started at five. She’d have time to stay for an hour and then get back for her meeting with DS Grace. An hour was enough to pay her respects. And besides, solving the case was a better way to honour his memory than getting drunk.

  After she’d submitted the request for the superintendent’s digital signature, Karen took her notepad and pen down to the lab to see Harinder.

  She knocked on the open door of the lab before walking inside. He turned away from the microscope bench and smiled.

  ‘Hope I’m not disturbing you. You look busy,’ she said, nodding at the array of slides beside the microscope.

  ‘I’m always busy,’ Harinder said with a dramatic sigh, ‘but now and again it’s nice to see someone who doesn’t wear a lab coat. How can I help?’

  ‘Just a quick question about handwriting.’

  He looked thoughtful. ‘That’s not my area of expertise, but I could probably find out anything you need to know. What is it?’

  ‘It’s about a handwritten lower-case a. On a note I received, it’s written unusually, more like a typeset a with the arc over the top.’ Karen put her notepad down on the bench beside Harinder and showed him what she meant. ‘Do you know how common that is?’

  ‘I think it’s more common to write them the other way, without the arc,’ Harinder said, ‘but I don’t think it’s that unusual. Does this have something to do with the Cleanser case?’

  ‘Someone left a note on my desk. It could have been a joke, but if it was, it was in pretty bad taste. They wrote the a like that. Don’t suppose you know anyone at the station who writes that way?’

  Harinder shook his head slowly. ‘Can’t say I do. What did the note say?’

  Karen hesitated, and Harinder quickly followed up by saying, ‘Sorry, you don’t have to tell me.’

  ‘No, that’s okay. It was a single line written on a Post-it, and it said, I’m closer than you think. Then I left my desk after putting it in an evidence bag, and when I came back, about fifteen minutes later, it was gone.’

  Harinder’s eyebrows lifted.

  ‘I know it was stupid to leave it on my desk. Whoever wrote it must have come back and removed it. Maybe they had second thoughts and realised it wasn’t very funny after all.’

  ‘I hope that’s the case,’ Harinder said, ‘because the alternative is not good. Not good at all.’

  ‘No,’ Karen said, putting her hands in her pockets and frowning at the notepad.

  ‘Because you know what it could mean, don’t you?’ Harinder asked gently.

  Karen nodded. ‘If it was written by The Cleanser, then they have access to the station.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘One possibility I was mulling over,’ Karen said, ‘is that the killer and the letter-writer might not be the same person. That’s possible, isn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose it is, yes.’

  ‘Someone trying to distract us.’

  Harinder rubbed his chin thoughtfully. ‘Why would they want to do that?’

  ‘I don’t know. This case is baffling.’

  Karen glanced at the clock on the wall, and Harinder did the same. ‘Are you going to the drinks for DCI Shaw tonight?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, at five. I need to get back here to talk to DS Grace afterwards, but I’ll go for one. You?’

  ‘Yes,’ Harinder said. ‘For once, I’m going to leave work at five o’clock.’

  ‘You know . . .’ Karen hesitated. ‘All those things in the letter weren’t true. He wasn’t corrupt. He never took bribes.’

  Harinder gave Karen a sympathetic smile. ‘He’d be the last person I’d suspect of corruption.’

  ‘We’ll get the financial reports soon, and we’ll be able to prove it, but I don’t need to see those because I know he was innocent.’

  Harinder put his hand on Karen’s shoulder. ‘I’m sure you’re right. DCI Shaw was a good man, and he didn’t deserve this.’

  No, Karen thought, he didn’t. He didn’t deserve to die in such a way. No one did. And as an insult to his memory, now his old colleagues were digging around in his private life, going through bank statements and savings looking for evidence of corruption. He deserved so much better than that.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  At a quarter to five, Karen was still sitting at her desk. She’d worked her way through some of Anthony’s most recent cases, after getting the superintendent’s approval. His older files hadn’t been digitised, so tomorrow Karen planned to go to the document storage facility to access the old paper files as well.

  An hour earlier, Morgan and Rick had gone to Waddington to talk to the Picketts, and were planning to drive straight to the pub from there.

  Karen logged off her computer, stood up and stretched, and looked over at Sophie’s desk. ‘Is it all right if I get a lift to the pub with you?’

  ‘Oh,’ Sophie said, looking up. ‘Sure. Harry is driving, but you can come with us. I’m sure he won’t mind.�
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  ‘I can give you a lift,’ Leo called over as he grabbed his coat from the back of his chair. ‘We’re just about to leave.’

  Arnie stood beside him. He chuckled. ‘Yes, you should give the lovebirds their privacy.’ He waved a hand at Sophie, who blushed furiously.

  ‘We’re not lovebirds,’ Sophie muttered, tidying away the things on her desk. ‘I’m just getting a lift.’

  ‘Whatever you say.’ Arnie smirked and shrugged on his padded jacket.

  They all walked downstairs together. Sophie headed off to the lab to find Harinder, and Arnie, Leo and Karen walked across the freezing car park to Leo’s car. The sleet had turned to light, fluffy snow.

  ‘They got the forecast right for once,’ Arnie said, looking up at the sky. ‘I reckon it’ll settle overnight.’

  The drive to the pub usually took two minutes, but Leo drove cautiously as the snow got heavier. Slush had been pushed to the side of the road by passing vehicles on the main road, but the smaller lanes were white and slippery.

  The journey took twice as long as usual, and when they pulled into the car park Arnie said, ‘Did you hear about Assistant Chief Constable Fry’s car?’

  ‘It was stolen, wasn’t it?’ Karen asked.

  ‘That’s right. But it’s been found.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Burnt to a crisp in a farmer’s field just outside Newark. Apparently he was spitting with rage. I’d have loved to be a fly on the wall when he found out.’

  ‘Not a big fan of his, then?’ Karen commented dryly.

  ‘He’s a pompous old fool.’

  Karen didn’t think Fry was much older than Arnie, but decided not to mention that. ‘He likes to throw his weight around, a bit like Churchill,’ she muttered.

  Leo grinned, catching Karen’s eye in the rear-view mirror. ‘You’ve got a point there. They are similar in some ways. Though I don’t think Churchill’s as bad as Fry.’

  They entered the pub, which was dimly lit and busy. A fire burned brightly at the back of the main seating area. The ceiling was low with dark wooden beams. It felt cosy and warm.

  The bar was packed, but there were plenty of free tables and seats. There were already a few officers and civilian staff from Nettleham sitting at two large tables.