Foul Justice (17 page)

Recognising the tone of his voice, she swung back to face him. “Sir?”

“How are you holding up?”

“Fine. To be honest and not wishing to sound heartless, I’ve pushed Tony’s situation to the back of my mind, now that I know he’s being looked after. Sort of.”

“You know where I am.”

“I know and I appreciate it, Sean. I’m sure Tony will be home soon. And I’m also sure my team will track Zac Murray down soon, too. I’ll let you know what happens.”

“Two officers on an overnight stakeout. Let’s see what results that brings us.”

Pushing through the swing doors to the incident room, she shouted, “Volunteers for overtime!” A couple of the regular officers, always on the lookout for extra pay, raised their hands. She decided to go with someone more senior and pointed at AJ first. “Thanks, AJ. Knew I could count on you. John, do you fancy the graveyard shift?”

At first Fox pulled a face, but upon reflection, he nodded his agreement.

She glanced at her watch. “It’s just after four now. Why don’t you two go home for a couple of hours and meet back here at, say, nine?”

John and AJ both slipped on their jackets and left the room. Lorne returned to her office and rang DI Holland.

“Steve. I’m on the lookout for Zac Murray. Can you get your guys to keep an eye out for him?”

“Sure. What’s he done?”

“GBH, I think. He beat up one of the people we’re investigating. The thing is, I can’t issue a warrant for his arrest, as the victim refuses to name him.”

“Hmm…‌Tricky. I take it you’ve offered the victim protection.”

Lorne nodded as if he was in the room with her. “Yeah, but he’s not snatching my hand off to take it. I wondered if you had any other background information you can give me on him? You know the type of thing, details or hearsay that never make it to the computer.”

“Hang on. Let me bring up my personal file on him. We’ve all got one of those, right?” He laughed.

Lorne waited a few seconds as he tapped the keyboard before she specified, “The type of thing I’m looking for is family ties and maybe bother with other gangs. Either inside or outside of prison.”

She heard his fingers hit the keys faster. Had she jolted something in his memory?

“Here it is. He got into a scrap inside. One of my guys was investigating this other gang at the time. Bob Denman. Maybe he’s the guy you saw in the pub the other day.”

Lorne described the man in the pub while he pulled up another file on his computer.

Sounding pleased with himself, Steve reeled off the information he’d found. “Bob Denman, another petty-stroke-borderline hard criminal. He and his gang have been on the rob for years. I remember now—Murray had a brother. He was the top man. Something happened to him…‌Now, what was it?” Holland laughed. “Too many bloody criminals vying for attention in my brain at the moment. Can’t for the life of me recall what happened to him. Anyway, this Murray—the brother—and Denman go back years, rival gangs. Like I say, it was always just petty stuff.”

“That’s brilliant, Steve. It gives me something to go on, at least. This case is bugging the life out of me, and I want it sorted before any other murders are committed.”

“Hey, any time, kiddo.”

Lorne left her office and started jotting things down on the whiteboard in the incident room. Within half an hour, she had all the players, everyone who had cropped up so far—including the designer Danielle Styles—noted on the board. Now all she had to do was start joining them up.

“Molly, can you start delving into Zac Murray’s background? AJ didn’t come up with much when he searched, but he might have been looking in the wrong direction.”

“Ma’am? I’m not sure what you mean by that. AJ’s research is always thorough.”

Lorne held her hands up apologetically. “Sorry, I’m thinking ahead of myself here. It wasn’t a slight on AJ’s skills. What I meant to say is, instead of looking directly at Zac Murray, look around him—family, friends,
et cetera
. He’s the key to this, either directly or indirectly.”

“I see. I’ll get onto it straight away.” Molly sounded relieved.

“Katy, come here, will you?”

A bemused Katy stepped forward and stood beside her.

Her eyes still directed at the board, Lorne asked her new partner, “What do you see?”

Katy took a few moments to study the board before she shrugged and replied, “Nothing much. Let me rephrase that: nothing more than we had already, ma’am.”

“You’re right, Katy, and
that’s
what is so bloody annoying. The pieces just don’t match yet. Let’s hope John and AJ catch Murray tonight.”

“There’s a call for you, ma’am,” Tracy shouted across the room.

“Who is it?”

“It’s Mr. Dobbs.” Tracy sounded disheartened.

“Put it through to the office, Tracy, will you?” She ran into the office and slammed the door behind her.

“Hello, Mr. Dobbs. How’s your wife?” The man’s sobs took Lorne’s breath away and made her think the worst.

Then he managed to pull himself together long enough to say, “They’re putting her in a psych ward.”

“What? Why? Mr. Dobbs, please try and tell me what happened,” she coaxed gently.

“I only left her for a moment. She was eating, see, and…”

“And what, Mr. Dobbs?” Lorne coaxed urgently.

“She slit her wrists with the knife.”

The news devastated her. They had lost so much. The husband and wife needed to stick together as a united team, with their children’s funerals coming up.

“I’m so sorry. Is she all right? Did Trisha regain her memory?”

The man cried openly as he forced out the words. “She hadn’t, no, until a family member let it slip about the kids…‌She’ll never be the same again. The guilt is just too much for her to take. For me to take…‌I want our kids back.”

“I know it’s difficult, Dave, but you have to remain strong, for both your sakes. The doctors will take good care of Trisha. I’m sorry you’re both having to go through this.”

He remained silent for a few moments. “Tell me you’ll get the bastards who did this, please? I have to live with this god-awful pain and guilt for the rest of my life, our lives. It won’t bring my kids back…‌but I need to know the bastards who destroyed my family will be brought to justice.”

“You have my assurance, Mr. Dobbs. Again, please accept my apologies for what you’re having to go through. I’ll keep you informed as and when we have any news. Take care.”

Lorne replaced the phone and thumped the desk with her hand.
How dare these bastards rip that family apart like this! How dare they!

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

L
orne had insisted that
Katy should stay the night with her, after the sergeant had beaten the sunrise by a few hours that morning and carried out a full shift at work.

The following day, they arrived at work early, at a quarter to nine, to the news that Zac Murray had been in a cell all night and was ready for questioning.

Lorne punched the air and patted AJ and John on the shoulder. “Good job, guys. Why don’t you go home for a couple of hours? If things go the way I want them to, I’ll need all hands available later on today. That’s
if
Murray starts squealing.”

The two men left, and Katy followed her into her office.

“I’m going to let Murray stew for another hour or so. Arrange for a duty solicitor to attend, will you? Can you gather the information I asked Molly to collect for me? I’ll take a quick look through that before I tackle him.”

Katy left the office and returned with a manila folder with Zac Murray’s name on it and placed it on the desk in front of Lorne. “The solicitor is booked for ten. Molly said she couldn’t find much on Murray, but there are a couple of snippets of information in there that she thinks will prove to be interesting.”

“Thanks. Do me a favour and get me a coffee.” She reached into her coat pocket and threw a fifty pence piece on the desk.

Looking insulted, Katy turned on her heel and walked out of the room, reappearing almost instantly with two cups of coffee. “That’s the least I can do after you putting me up. Umm…‌I thought I might go home tonight, if that’s okay with you?”

Surprised, Lorne sipped at her coffee, then said, “It’s up to you. The offer is still open to stay while Tony is away, remember that. Will Darren be around?”

“I hope not. I told him to collect his stuff. That’s why I need to go home, really, to see if he’s done it.”

Katy half-smiled, and Lorne could tell she was apprehensive. “Would you like me to come home with you?”

The sergeant waved her hand in front of her. “Nah, I’ll be fine. You’ve got enough on your plate already, plus we don’t know how today is going to pan out yet.”

“If you’re sure,” Lorne said, before teasing, “We could always ask AJ to accompany you.”

Katy’s cheeks coloured slightly. “Crikey, don’t you dare. Can you imagine how that would look if Darren were there?”

Lorne smirked. “Yeah, it’d be good, wouldn’t it?”

Both of them laughed. “You’re wicked. What do you want me to do?”

“I’d like you to sit in on the interview with me. Until then, if you can, have a word with the team, see if they’ve managed to dig anything else up. Also, gather the crime scene photos for me, will you? All
three
scenes.”

“On my way.”

Watching Katy leave, Lorne picked up her phone and called Roberts. “Good news, I hope.”

Sounding interested he said, “Go on.”

“The overtime paid off. AJ and John managed to locate Murray. He’s in a cell. I’m going to start questioning him in an hour or so.” While she was talking, Lorne opened the file Molly had collated and scanned the pages.

Hmm…‌That’s interesting.

“Inspector?”

“Sorry, boss. What did you say?”

“I said ‘Let me know how the interview goes.’ Actually, I asked if you could remember how to interview a suspect, but I changed my mind.” Roberts chuckled.

“Charming! I’ll take that remark with the contempt it deserves. I’ll keep you informed, sir.”

She hung up and searched through the file some more, making notes in her notebook as she went. A little while later, she rang the desk sergeant to check if the solicitor had arrived. When the sergeant told her he had, she asked him to prepare an interview room and to transfer Murray to it within the next five minutes.

“You ready?” Lorne asked Katy as she slipped her notebook into the jacket pocket of her black business suit.

Picking up the file containing the crime scene photos, Katy nodded. Lorne couldn’t help noticing how troubled she looked, so on the way downstairs, Lorne pulled Katy to a halt. “What’s wrong?” If she hadn’t known any better, she would’ve said that Katy had reverted to the way she was last week when she’d first joined the team, burrowed deep in her shell.

Katy sucked in a deep breath and tried to give her a reassuring smile. “I’m fine. Seeing the photos again affected me for some reason.”

“It’s been a long week for both of us. I know this is going to sound harsh, but you do get used to it. I know we shouldn’t, but working on the murder squad, you have to get used to seeing horrendous pictures pretty darn quickly. It goes with the territory, I’m afraid.”

“Oh I know that, ma’am. It was just seeing the kids again, that’s all. How can the poor parents go on, knowing that their children died like that?”

Lorne shrugged. “That’s going to be the hardest part of all, as the Dobbses are finding out at this very minute. And that’s why we have to get in there and tease the information out of Murray. DI Holland reckons he’s one of these types that needs to be told what to do. Well, there’ll be no one holding his hand in there—apart from the duty solicitor, that is. Let’s give it our best shot, eh?” Lorne held up her hand, and Katy gave her a high five. “Come on. Copy me and shake all those negative feelings away.”

They both continued descending the stairs while shaking out their extended arms, much to the amusement of several uniformed officers passing by. One of them threw a cheeky comment over his shoulder, and Lorne shouted back at him, “Up yours, Cartwright.”

Lorne checked with Katy that she was up to the interview before they entered the room. After receiving the sergeant’s reassurance, they marched confidently into the room.

The duty solicitor was someone Lorne recognized, a gaunt-looking man in his early forties who had a receding hairline, by the name of Tyler. A uniformed officer stood in the corner behind Murray’s chair.

Katy sat in the chair opposite Tyler while Lorne took the chair across from Murray. He looked rough, with dark rings surrounded his sunken eyes and his hair sticking up as if he’d spent the night running his hands through it and trying to pull it from its roots.

Lorne turned on the tape and said the usual required details: the time, date, and who was present in the room. “So, Mr. Murray, how do you know Mr. Underhill?”

Murray eyed her with contempt. His eyes sparkled with amusement, and the left side of his lips lifted into a sneer, and the words Lorne expected tumbled out: “No comment.”

Lorne persevered with the nice cop routine for the next fifteen minutes and received the same response over and over. She took out her black notebook and dropped it on the desk. It was time to up the stakes. Startled by the noise, Murray jumped slightly, but his eyes never strayed from his hands, which were interlocked on the table in front of him.

With her pen, she tapped just in front of his hands. “You have some pretty nasty abrasions on your hands, Mr. Murray. Care to tell me how you got them?”

Instantly, Murray scooped his hands back and folded his arms, hiding his marked hands under his armpits. “No comment.”

Nonchalantly, she opened her notebook and said nothing for the next few minutes, just turned the pages back and forth a few times. Glancing up, she noticed the solicitor shaking his head and smirking as he made notes on his A4 pad.

“Okay, here’s the thing, Zac. I’m going to get the police doc to take a sample from your cuts, and if Underhill’s DNA shows up—” She clapped her hands together loudly, making Zac jump for a second time. “Bingo! The evidence will be handed to us on a plate. So?”