Lee Weeks - Dead of Winter

Davidson stared down at the prints on his desk.

Bishop spoke; ‘It was difficult. Louise and Sophie weren’t meant to be there that evening. Carmichael was supposed to pick them up but he didn’t show. He was the first on the scene the next morning. He said he arrived at about eleven. On that Saturday evening someone went to Rose Cottage and they brutally murdered everyone in the house except for the baby, who they left sedated, perhaps they had plans for him and ran out of time.’ He shook his head. ‘This wasn’t a quick process. These women were butchered, tortured over many hours. Louise was raped.’

‘Yes,’ Davidson agreed as he looked down at the prints on his desk. ‘And the only DNA apart from a handprint, this handprint-’ he pointed to the partial palm, finger and thumb print on his right, ‘was Carmichael’s. That was everywhere in abundance. He was covered in his daughter’s blood. He said he moved her. But why would a trained police officer do such a thing?’

‘Different when it’s your family, I suppose,’ said Carter.

Davidson shook his head, a worried man. ‘The more we looked into it the worse it looked for Carmichael. Things began to be uncovered about him. It turned out he was going through a bad time. He’d been behaving strangely, out of character, before it happened. He was diagnosed with massive mood swings. He was ex-military. He had Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.’ Davidson sighed. ‘Carmichael was our chief suspect for the murders at Rose Cottage. But we didn’t have enough evidence to charge him. He was in no state to tell us what happened. So, we protected our own that day. We closed ranks. It left questions but no answers.’

‘Could he have done it?’ Carter asked.

‘Easily.’ Davidson nodded his head slowly. ‘Would have been very easy for a man trained like he was. He was in the Special Boat Service. He’d been held captive at one time.’

‘Did he ever show signs of cracking beforehand’ sir?’

Davidson looked across to Harding for an answer.

‘No,’ she said. ‘But we know a lot more about Post-Traumatic Stress now than we did then. It could have come out at any time.’

‘And,’ said Davidson, ‘the women would have trusted him. Carmichael could have walked in, killed his daughter Sophie without anyone knowing and then come back downstairs and killed the women. He could have been there all night. He had no witnesses to back up his alibi that he arrived the next morning. He could have been there all night.’

Carter shook his head. ‘What’s the motive, sir?

‘He inherited a lot of money when his wife died. Maybe that was it, or maybe he was not himself that night. Maybe he went in there with one of his military buddies, off his head with drink, drugs, PTSD. It took a madman to do what someone did at Rose Cottage and Carmichael fitted the bill.’

‘What about Chrissie Newton’s mother? What made her a suspect?’ asked Carter.

‘She had known mental problems,’ said Bishop. ‘She was on medication and was volatile. She and Chrissie had fallen out in the weeks before Chrissie’s death. The scene looked like a maniac had done it. People, the press, made assumptions that she had killed herself out of remorse for her actions and set her own house on fire.’ Davidson looked up at Harding and then around the room at the others. ‘We let that presumption ride. Maria Newton died before we could verify that it was her print next to Sophie.’

Davidson gathered the prints together and pushed them across the desk to Bishop. ‘You can go, Trevor. I’ll let you know what we’re going to do about it in due course. And Trevor? This whole conversation stays within this room, understood?’ Davidson looked at each person in the room and waited to get their individual agreement. Bishop nodded, picked up the prints and left. Harding remained. She sat watching from the sidelines. Her top leg twitching. Davidson looked at Carter. ‘I want you to find out everything you can about Carmichael now. Go and see him. He lives on a remote farm in Yorkshire. Find out what he’s been doing for the last thirteen years. He didn’t explain some things at the time. Find out why he moved his daughter at the scene. He was a trained police officer — why would he move one of the bodies? I want to know what the state of his marriage was. If he was screwing someone I want to know. . ask around. Ask Robbo in Intelligence. He worked with Carmichael. Now, after all this time, people might be willing to open up. If there is anything about Carmichael we didn’t know thirteen years ago I want it out now, do you understand, Carter?’ Davidson waited. Carter nodded.

‘I would like to send DC Willis down to Rose Cottage, sir. We need to get the whole picture.’

‘Okay, but DC Willis is to be made aware that the only leads we are looking for are ones that will help to solve the Blackdown Barn case. I repeat, I am not reopening the Carmichael case at this stage. Understood?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Concentrate on the bodies we have now.’

‘I’ll go with her to Rose Cottage,’ said Harding.

Davidson looked over at Harding and Carter could see his mind working.

‘Do you think that’s necessary? Our priority is here.’

‘Any help I can give might be useful at this stage. I went there the first time round. It’s surely better to have her go with someone who worked on the case last time.’

Davidson nodded but he didn’t look pleased about it.

Carter left Davidson’s office and walked back down the corridor to the second largest office on the floor, the Major Incident room. It was the room where all the initial calls came in and the information was loaded onto HOLMES, the central program which sifted and collated Major Incident data. The room had four long desks and housed eight staff in all, at the moment there were just two: Robbo and Pam the civilian employee who answered the phone and logged the calls.

Robbo had worked in nearly all the departments within the ‘Dark Side’ of MIT17.

‘Did you hear about the print Bishop found?’ Carter sat down next to him and helped himself to the bag of Haribo sweets next to Robbo’s PC.

‘Yes. It’s a turn-up for the books.’

‘Any thoughts about it?’

‘Plenty.’ He pushed the plunger on his cafetière down and indicated that Carter could grab himself a mug. Robbo looked across to Pam to ask if she wanted coffee. Pam was the woman Robbo’s wife had been convinced he’d been having an affair with at the last social. Robbo was flattered his wife thought he could still muster up some interest from the opposite sex but Pam was happily married and Robbo had never been remotely tempted to stray in his twenty-three year marriage to Arlene.

‘We’re trying to put together a whole picture of Carmichael. You served with him, didn’t you? What kind of bloke was he?’

‘Yes, I served with him. There’s a few of us here that were around then: Davidson, Harding, Bishop, Sandford and me.’

Robbo had joined the Force at the same time as Davidson. They had worked together often along the way but while Davidson had flown up the ranks, Robbo had clipped his own wings. He loved what he did and he knew he did it well but he would stay a DC because he couldn’t take the stress of being in command. He never sat the exams to take him any higher.

‘I didn’t socialize with him. He wasn’t one for going off to the pub after work. He was fanatical about the job: you got the feeling Tactical Firearms Inspector was the role he’s been made for. Plus he had a huge knowledge about Intel work. I wish I had him working in here now. He was allowed access to stuff in the SBS, spyware that we can only dream of. There was nothing Carmichael couldn’t hack into.’