Michael Fowler - Secret of the Dead

Hunter looked at the weak contents, decided it was the best he was going to get and picked up the steaming brew, muttering his thanks.

“What about this visitor of yours then?”

Barry pretended to spit. “Time to circle the wagons! The press have got wind.”

“Who’s that then? Local or national?”

“I think the guy’s a freelance, but to be honest I’m not sure, I never gave him much chance. I threatened to put my boot up his arse.”

“Good to see the old Barry Newstead is still alive and kicking.”

Barry took a sip on his tea. “Well, they get on your bloody nerves don’t they? And the cheeky bastard had managed to get to Sue before she could speak to me.”

“Has she said anything?”

“She’s told him a little. He knows about Howson and how we’ve re-opened the Blake-Hall case. He knows the link between them because he told me he worked on the case years ago, but he doesn’t know about the notes we found.”

Hunter watched Barry’s eyebrows knit together.

“He caught her on the hop. He knows her. They were colleagues when she worked for the Chronicle.”

“Barry there’s no need to apologise on Sue’s behalf. I guessed it wouldn’t be long before someone would sniff out our investigation.”

“Yeah, I guess so. Anyway, just in case you come across the leech, his name’s Guy Armstrong. He was the crime reporter at the Chronicle when the Lucy Blake-Hall story broke. Sue tells me that he made his name from the case, and got a staff job with the Mail as a result. He became one of their northern crime reporters. There is, however, a bit of a black cloud hanging over him. Sue told me that she’s certain that a few years ago he was involved in an accident in which a cop got killed and she’s almost sure he went to prison because of it. I’m going to follow that up and see what’s behind it.”

Hunter’s concentration was broken by the sound of clicking heels, followed by female voices, coming from outside the department. The office doors opened and in stepped his partner Grace, along with DC Carol Ragen. He glanced at his watch 7:45am — fifteen minutes to briefing.

He switched his gaze back to Barry. “Okay, thanks for the heads up. Keep me posted once you find out something, will you? And let me know if he contacts you again.”

“Somehow I don’t think he will. My size tens are a fearsome weapon.” Barry winked, picked up his mug, scraped back Grace’s chair and drifted to his own desk.

* * * * * *

Morning briefing was short. Detective Superintendent Michael Robshaw took it, with Dawn Leggate looking on.

It was Hunter’s first opportunity to feed in the results of his follow-up enquiries from his interview with Alan Darbyshire. “As you know, when I asked him about anyone who might have a grudge against Jeffery, especially from high profile cases that he and Jeffery had been involved in, instead of him mentioning Lucy’s case he referred to the Beast of Barnwell investigation from the seventies. He told me that he thought the offender, Terry Braithwaite, had been released to a bail hostel two years ago. I’ve made a couple of phone calls and found that Terry Braithwaite is in a care home in Bridlington. He’s seventy-two years old now and in very poor health. He suffered a stroke shortly after his release and lost the complete use of his left side. He needs a wheelchair to get around. I think we can definitely rule him out of the enquiry.” He then reported on his and Grace’s visit to Daniel Weaver. The SIO sympathised and responded with an update from his meeting with the Head of the Crown Prosecution Service. An appeal had already been lodged with the Home Secretary by Weaver’s Barrister and had been listed for the following Friday. He added that, given the new evidence, The Appeal Court Judges would not hesitate to grant bail; Daniel Weaver would be out before the next weekend. The news was met by silence.

Det Supt Robshaw asked Barry to give an update about which of the original witnesses from the Lucy Blake-Hall case were still around. Barry had been working with the HOLMES team who had been transferring information from the old card index system from the 1983 investigation onto the computers. He was the ideal choice for this work. Not only did he have experience with the previous recording method but was also familiar with the current protocol for capturing information.

He said, “The girls on HOLMES have been working round the clock, and they’re not far away now from listing all the witnesses and summarising what’s in their statements. I’ve been doing the electoral register checks against the names and made a number of phone calls. What I’ve learned is that Weaver’s mum is no longer around. She died of a heart attack six years ago. And the landlady of The Coach and Horses, where Weaver and Lucy had their last drinks together, has also died. The three witnesses who saw the pair arguing in the market place — a man and two women — lived on a street which was knocked down fifteen years ago. I’ve got the council going back through their records to see if they were re-housed locally. We’re having difficulty tracing the women because they were just young girls at the time, eighteen and twenty, so the likelihood is they’ve got married and changed their surnames. We’re also having trouble finding Lucy’s best friend, Amanda Smith. Once again, we’re guessing she’s got married.”

Hunter remembered his earlier conversation with DS Jamie Parker of the Cold Case Unit. It looked as though they would have to bring in someone from his team to help with the tracing.

“On the plus side, we’ve tracked down Lucy’s husband, her parents are still around, and living at the same address in Bakewell, Derbyshire, and we think we know where Lucy’s daughter, Jessica, is now living. She’s now married and has a daughter of her own. With regards the detectives who worked on the case, we know where they all are from the Forces pensions records. That’s it, boss.”

“Okay, good work Barry. Right, actions everyone,” said Robshaw. “We’ve got our work cut out on two fronts. Firstly, the murder of retired detective Jeffery Howson, and secondly the re-opening of the Lucy Blake-Hall murder from nineteen- eighty-three. The links between the two enquiries rest with the finding of those interview notes in Howson’s safe. With regards the murder of Jeffery Howson. Sad as I have to say this, but as we all know, our major suspect to date is a retired DCI. He told Hunter and Grace that he last saw and spoke with Howson two weeks prior to his murder. We now know that is a lie. Phone records clearly show that Alan Darbyshire rang Howson on the Saturday evening, twenty-second November, prior to his body being discovered on Monday the twenty-fourth. Given the circumstances, it is not something he would forget, and therefore we have to assume that he’s covering for himself, and, or, for someone else. As we know from the pathologist’s examination of Howson’s body, two people were involved in his killing. Plus, the finding of the contemporaneous notes in Howson’s safe, now indicates he perjured himself in the Lucy Blake-Hall murder trial. We know from Barry here that Howson was about to spill the beans on the whole affair, so it gives Darbyshire the motive for wanting Howson dead.” The SIO tapped the top of the incident board. There was now a photograph of Alan Darbyshire stuck alongside those of Jeffery Howson. It was an enlarged, very formal shot of him in a collar and tie, from Force archives. He looked in his early to mid-forties.

Robshaw continued. “Because of who he is, I want to make sure we have as much solid information as we can possibly get before we bring him in for interview. Therefore, I want as many of the witnesses as possible from the Lucy Blake-Hall enquiry tracing and re-interviewing. If we are still struggling to track down people by the middle of the week, I’m going to make an appeal through the media. Sooner or later the press are going to learn of our enquiries, and I’d rather have them with us than against us, especially now that we know Daniel Weaver is going to be released.” The Detective Superintendent clapped his hands together. “Okay guys, that’s it, unless anyone has any questions or anything to say?”