Michael Fowler - Secret of the Dead

The team stayed at the house, going through Armstrong’s collection, for almost seven hours, but had only scratched the surface. They planned to continue sorting and cataloguing that morning.

Hunter highlighted all this when he addressed the room, following Detective Superintendent Michael Robshaw’s request for an update.

“It looks like his laptop and his Dictaphone are missing.” Hunter said. “It was his editor who brought it to our attention. Apparently he should have filed a story yesterday morning, via e-mail from his laptop, regarding the lead he had from Jodie. As we know it never happened because he was killed before he could do it.” He looked around the room. “The editor assures me that he took them everywhere with him. I can confirm that about his Dictaphone, because I saw him drop it when he had his run-in with Peter Blake-Hall witnessed by Grace and I three days ago. We’ve not found them at his place and they’re not in his burned-out car.”

“So that’s one of the priorities,” said SIO Michael Robshaw. “Sorry to interrupt.” He aimed a quick glance at Hunter. “Find that laptop and his Dictaphone and we should find out who our killer is. We already know from his editor and from the message stored on Hunter’s voicemail that he had a lead on a story which was going to prove Daniel Weaver’s innocence in the murder of Lucy Blake-Hall.” He stared into the room. “Someone has gone to great pains to silence three people who all had stories to tell about the murder of Lucy, and the sooner we can bring them in the better. Everything seems to centre on that case from nineteen-eighty-three. And so that’s where we are going back to. We strip everything back to that original investigation. I know some of the witnesses have died but we still have quite a number around. You’ve done a sterling job in tracking them down, and now I want them all visiting and sitting down with the original statements they made back then. See if it’s still relevant, or if there’s anything’s different, or was missed when they made it. We already know, because of the forensic examination of Weaver’s contemporaneous notes found in Howson’s safe, that his confession is unsafe. That may well be corroborated by something which was missed out in one or more of the witness statements.” The Detective Superintendent’s look changed. “I don’t need to emphasise to you how serious the implications are in this and how sensitive the case is. We have two suspects at the moment, one is as yet a mystery, but he has turned up twice in this enquiry and already assaulted one of the team in order to escape. Our other suspect is a retired DCI and we cannot afford for that to be leaked outside of this room.” Pausing for a few seconds, he continued. “Resources wise, this is it ladies and gents. Sheffield have a double shooting, involving rival gangs and so their job takes priority. The only other help I’ve managed to get is from forensics. Guy Armstrong’s car has been removed to the drying room for further examination and SOCO are going to finish off with the crash site today. Road Policing Unit and Air Support are going to complete a GPS survey of the location. The forensics team I’ve brought in are going to the old Barnwell Inn and doing another sweep of the cellar. Task Force will follow up with a search in and around the perimeter of the place and there will be another post-mortem carried out on Jodie’s body this afternoon. Finally, I want everything on Guy Armstrong. Not just recently, but what he was up to back in nineteen-eighty-three, when he originally covered the Lucy Blake-Hall investigation.” He paused again and held up one hand. “I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again we are up against the clock on this. Daniel Weaver’s appeal court hearing is this Friday and I have no doubts he will be freed. In a few days’ time we are going to be under the spotlight. Every aspect of this current enquiry, as well as the original case into Lucy’s murder, will be scrutinised. I don’t need to emphasise the pressure this places on us all.”

* * * * *

Hunter, Grace, and Mike Sampson pulled up at Guy Armstrong’s house shortly before 10am and trooped down his drive, each holding an armful of exhibit bags.

Hunter opened up the back door with the new key the locksmith had supplied to him the previous evening. He was anticipating a long day. Ahead lay the task of cataloguing and collating the things they had discovered in the study, the lounge and the dining room. It didn’t help that they were a team member down; Tony Bullars had been given the job of speaking with Lucy’s parents.

The stale and musty smell greeted him once more, though, as he pushed open the door into the kitchen, Hunter thought that it wasn’t as strong as yesterday. As he made for the stairs he decided to leave it slightly ajar and let some fresh air blow through.

Before leaving the previous day the team had already gathered up much of the paperwork from the floor and desk in the study, and stacked them into organised piles, and today’s mission was to sift through and record the items, notably to collate and bag anything relevant to the Lucy Blake-Hall investigation.

As Hunter entered the small room and looked around, he knew that this was going to be a laborious task.

Picking up one of the piles from the desk, he set it to one side, creating himself some room and dropped down his stack of clear plastic exhibit bags into the space.

“Okay, let’s get this organised. Mike you record and log, and Grace and I will gather and bag.” He reached up to the wall and removed the first exhibit, a newspaper article Guy Armstrong had written when he had been the Crime Correspondent with The Barnwell Chronicle in 1983. It was a front page piece, reporting the disappearance of Lucy Blake-Hall and the discovery of the damning evidence at Weaver’s flat. There was a subsequent quote from a Force press officer ‘that a man was in police custody and had been charged with the murder of a twenty-two year old woman.’ The story contained the same black-and-white photograph of the smiling Lucy, which Hunter had found in the original prosecution file. Looking along the wall, he identified the follow up edition, which focused on the search for Lucy’s body up on Langsett Moor. He was interested in this story, because precise details had not been given in the file; only short reference had been made of it in the documents’ summary. He skip-read the opening couple of paragraphs and looked at the accompanying photograph. It depicted a single line of uniformed officers tramping across moorland heather. The picture made a powerful statement, given the fact that Lucy’s body had never been found, and it gave him goose-bumps. He carefully peeled back the tape fastening the article to the wall and slipped it inside an exhibit bag. As he scoured the gallery of newspaper cuttings, notes, maps and photographs and studied the content Hunter realised he was looking at Guy Armstrong’s storyboard, chronicling, in date order, every event relating to Lucy’s disappearance and Daniel Weaver’s trial. There were even articles about his appeal. The reporter had covered it all, and for him to leave it up here as a permanent reminder meant that he always had a suspicion or belief that something wasn’t right about the investigation. Hunter hoped that by the end of the day they would find the answer in this lot.

The team missed lunch, deciding to work through because they were making such significant inroads, though they had taken timeout, munching through a packet of biscuits they had found in Armstrong’s kitchen cupboards, and Grace had busied herself scouring out three mugs so that they could have a warm drink.

Hunter had almost cleared two of the room walls when a cry from Grace broke his concentration.