Mercy Killing (26 page)

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m DC Hazel Hamilton. I started here this morning. I can come back later.’

‘I’m Barbara Venice. Have you got time for a coffee? I know that you and Pierre had an early start today.’

Her name rang an immediate bell, loud and clear. Hazel knew that she was talking to the DCI and if truth be told she was desperate to get away now that she knew Harry wasn’t there. Even
so, she didn’t think it would do any harm to pass half an hour warming herself with a drink and chatting to her new boss.

‘Thanks,’ she heard herself say before she could change her mind. ‘I’ll make it.’

‘No, I’ll do it. Take a seat in my office and I’ll be with you in a minute.’

‘OK, ma’am. Milk, no sugar, please.’

Hazel followed the direction Barbara waved towards, having also guessed that the DCI’s office would be where it had always been.

A photograph of what was clearly the Venice family took pride of place on the desk, confirming that Hazel was in the correct room. Hazel didn’t have to wait long before she heard a
woman’s footsteps coming towards her.

‘How was your first day?’ said Barbara once she’d handed her a mug and they’d both sat down.

‘Odd, if I’m honest.’ Hazel blew on the coffee to cool it, although the benefit of instant water from a tap on the wall was that it was rarely too hot. Still, it gave her time
to collect her thoughts. She decided to keep her forthright attitude under wraps until her feet were firmly under the table.

When it was clear that Barbara expected her to expand on her comment, she continued. ‘It was hard going today speaking to Monica Lewis. I’ve mixed emotions about the whole thing: on
one hand, she’s a petrified little girl who didn’t know what to do when the balloon went up and everyone started to believe what she was saying; on the other hand, she did something so
stupid, eventually she cost an innocent man his life by saying he’d touched her when he’d done nothing of the sort.

‘It’s the problem with one person’s word against another’s, isn’t it? Monica was accusing Dean Stillbrook of something that wouldn’t necessarily lead to DNA
evidence, and certainly not in this case. Especially as it didn’t happen anyway.’

Barbara sat and listened. She allowed Hazel to unburden herself of the day’s events and after some time, said, ‘Well, according to what’s been happening in the cells whilst
you’ve been in Sussex, it seems that we may have some progress on who murdered Albert Woodville. I’ve a sneaking suspicion that it may well be the same people who put a rope around
Dean’s neck and hoisted him into the trees.’

Hazel’s eyes opened wide.

‘Really? That’s great news. We hadn’t been told this. What’s happened?’

‘There was a vehicle seen near to Woodville as he came out of the shop minutes before he was murdered. Two figures got out and followed him. We’ve got a partial registration and
we’re narrowing down the owner. I think we’ll have made some arrests by morning.’

‘That’s us set for another long day tomorrow,’ said Hazel, memories of working through the night flooding back.

‘Have you missed all this?’ said Barbara. ‘I doubt much has changed in the time you’ve been gone.’

Hazel hesitated to say any more but the long day with its mental strain and being new in the job meant she found herself letting her guard down.

She took a breath and said, ‘The work’s unique, I’ll say that much. I left Major Crime once because of a mistake I made. I failed to recognize the signs that one of my rape
victims showed and she took her own life.’

Both of them sat and absorbed the weight and sadness of Hazel’s words.

‘I know it wasn’t my fault. At least that’s what I tell myself. It didn’t stop me feeling bad and I can’t help thinking that the eighteen-year-old girl would now be
twenty-two. She might have got married, had a baby, I don’t know, become a scientist and made inroads into the cure for cancer. Instead, a random man with no thought further than his own
sexual gratification and the need to pretend that his own bloody miserable existence on this planet meant something, raped her and made her feel like shit.

‘The physical act is bad enough, isn’t it? A disgusting stranger with who knows what diseases forcing himself on you, but the constant, never-ending feeling that must stay with you
morning, noon and night that something bad has happened . . .’

Hazel paused for breath. The feeling didn’t escape her that she had probably said too much. And Barbara was the second person she had told in one day. The expression on Barbara’s
face was of mild concern, but largely interest.

‘We all make mistakes,’ she said. ‘If someone goes through their entire life without making a mistake, they’re either extremely lucky or a dictator. It can’t happen
that in thirty or so years of police work none of us will ever go wrong. It’s impossible.’

‘Can I ask,’ said Hazel, ‘what thought fills your mind and keeps you awake at night?’

A shadow passed across Barbara’s face. It might have been the lighting but Hazel thought she recognized the flicker of a personal torment. The glance away, sideways to the left, confirmed
to her that she wasn’t about to get the truth.

‘There have been a few, you know,’ she said with a liar’s smile. ‘There’s no single specific thing but now and again I remember something I hesitated to pass on, or
recall that I left an enquiry for a day longer than I should have. As SIO, I have to make bigger decisions, follow my instinct and lead the team in a particular direction. I suppose that I
wouldn’t always know if I’d got it wrong. Take one pathway and you’re never going to know where the other one would have led.’

They sat in silence for a second or two: Barbara knowing she had said something that was completely untrue and Hazel suspecting it.

‘You’re right about not blaming yourself,’ said the DCI, ‘though I doubt that my words help. Every victim of crime reacts differently, especially to something as serious
as rape or child abuse.’

‘I know and I expect that’s why I found today so tricky. It would have been bad enough if Dean Stillbrook had committed suicide, but the fact that he was murdered for something he
didn’t even do . . . that young girl is going to have some serious issues in her later life. Something that huge will always come back to haunt us.’

‘Tell me a bit more about who you saw following Albert,’ said Tom to Leon that evening.

He sat on one side of the interview-room table, Leon opposite him and Sophia to the side. It was the third interview, and the fourth time Leon had turned down the opportunity of having a
solicitor present.

If truth be known, Tom would have felt more comfortable with a brief there. He couldn’t insist but he had never known a prisoner suspected of such a serious crime as murder to go it
alone.

Leon’s bulk took up most of his side of the table and his backside was hanging over both sides of the wooden chair. He was dressed in police-custody-issue grey tracksuit bottoms and top,
the largest size they had. Both were stretched to capacity and almost required a trip to the shops when nothing they had in the store seemed to fit. The jailer managed to rummage in the recently
laundered returns and save them a dash into East Rise High Street’s many discount clothes shops.

Only once had Tom known a prisoner to decide that he wasn’t going to be interviewed and walk out. His money was on Leon seeing it through to the end, although he didn’t fancy his
chances of stopping him if he chose otherwise. The man was massive.

Fortunately, he also seemed to be passive with it.

‘Look,’ said Leon, picking up one of the three paper cups of water he had been supplied with, ‘I came in here to tell you that I’d sent Mr Woodville death threats through
the post. It’s not something I’m proud of. It was poxy stupid of me. I know it now and knew it at the time. He was a total git to me when I was a kid but I wouldn’t kill the
man.

‘The size of me, it wouldn’t take much to hurt him but I know that two wrongs don’t make a right. I wasn’t going to tell you about the bloke in the car I saw that night.
I may not be the fizziest cola in the fridge but I do know that I’ve just put myself near his flat on the night he was killed. I couldn’t help myself. I knew where he lived and I wanted
to see what he was up to. He lived near to a school and there’s always kids hanging around those shops. I suppose if I saw him talking to kids or doing something he shouldn’t be doing,
it would’ve made me feel less shitty about sending him death threats.

‘I feel bad that someone’s killed him, though I can’t say I feel any sadness that he’s dead.’

‘The bloke?’ asked Tom.

Leon’s forehead creased and his eyebrows became reacquainted.

‘Now you mention it, fella, it must have been a bloke in the car.’

Out of the corner of his eye, Tom saw Sophia smirk at the suspect calling him fella. Tom had bigger issues than what the prisoner was calling him. He needed details. They helped detect murders
and put those responsible inside.

‘Tell me about him,’ said Tom.

He watched Leon as he put the paper cup down and screwed his eyes shut.

‘He was driving slowly, it’s why I remember the car now, though it’s the first time I’ve thought about it.’ He paused and opened his eyes. ‘I probably
shouldn’t be telling you any of this. I followed Mr Woodville and I know that it’s not right what I did, but driving past a bloke’s flat one time, that’s not a crime, is
it?’

Leon put the question to no one in particular and the only response he got from Tom was a shrug. He didn’t want to interrupt his prisoner.

‘I can’t help you any more than that. I felt uneasy being there, watching him, like I was doing something wrong. I didn’t take a lot of notice of anyone else because I needed
to get away to meet Toby.’

He threw himself back in his seat, tiredness showing in the dark rings under his eyes, now with a gentle crease around them as a smile played over his mouth.

He didn’t strike Tom as being particularly intelligent, although he had to admit he was getting to like him. He hadn’t given them any cause for trouble and had walked into the police
station of his own accord. And now he was here, wearing himself out trying to help them find the identity of Woodville’s killer.

Perhaps it was too good to be true. Tom had seen
The Usual Suspects
.

He couldn’t argue with the CCTV from the number 72 bus, something they might not have got round to looking at for some time if it hadn’t been for Leon. Eventually, someone would have
viewed it along with about two hundred hours of other footage, and that might have taken weeks depending on what other murders, kidnaps and stabbings had come their way, constantly pulling staff in
a myriad of directions. Leon’s arrest had saved them days: something he would never know.

‘Is there anything else you can tell me about the car or driver?’ said Tom. He was aware that Sophia had sat forward in her seat, a sign that she was ready with her mop-up questions
when Tom had asked his last.

‘No, no, fella,’ he said with a shake of his head, jowl wobbling. ‘I’m sorry. That’s it from me. If I could think of anything else, I promise I’d tell you. I
wouldn’t have come in here and fed you half a story about Mr Woodville and the threats I made. I wasn’t going to mention the night he died, but now I have, I’ve let you have the
lot. I’m certainly not someone who’d jump straight on the nines and call you lot if there’s a problem but now I’m here, why would I hold back?’ He shrugged, his ears
disappearing under his enormous shoulders, neck nestled in his chest.

Sophia moved into Leon’s eyeline and tilted her head to one side.

‘Leon,’ she said, ‘other than when you saw Albert Woodville on Friday the fifth of November, the day he died, when was the last time you saw him?’

It was a flash of his eyes to the empty paper cup in front of him and a rapid licking of his lips that Tom took in.

‘Saw Mr Woodville?’ Leon said, voice dropping a level. ‘Blimey, I’m not too sure of the date. Toby saw him in town before I did, and be clear on this, he had nothing to
do with what I’m telling you I did. I, I suppose I saw him in town a week or so after Toby warned me that he was about and that was what started the whole thing off. As I said before, it was
seeing him wandering around, seeming not to have a care in the world.’

‘What was he doing that last time?’

Another ear-swallowing shrug.

‘Nothing really, love. He was walking around the shops. Hang on . . .’

A frown so deep engulfed Leon’s forehead it was more trench than lines.

‘Of course, of bloody course. That was the start of it.’

He pointed his index finger at her.

‘He was carrying a Toys ’R’ Us bag. I can’t believe I’d forgotten that either. The dirty, dirty fucker. Oh sorry, sweetheart.’

Sophia waved away his apology.

‘That’s why I followed him. He went to a café and ordered a drink. I went inside and asked for a sandwich, not really knowing if I’d get it and finish it before he left.
Obviously, judging from the size of me, eating it in one mouthful wasn’t too much of a challenge but I didn’t know how long I’d have to wait for it to arrive. Anyway, I thought
I’d leave it to chance and besides, that’s not important. I got the grub, and he was still sitting there.

‘That was when I started to wonder what I was doing. I suppose I wanted him to see me and recognize me. Perhaps if he’d have come over and chatted, explained, apologized for the
crappy way he treated me, I might even have felt differently. I would never have forgiven him but it might have made things a bit better. Oh, I don’t know.’

He leaned forward and put his head in his hands, elbows resting on the table.

‘I thought of moving away to another part of the country. I didn’t do anything wrong though, did I? I didn’t suffer as badly as some of the kids at the home, and there have
been other places he was messing around with children, so I read in the paper. That particular time I saw him in town and he went to the café, I remember it was a cold day. For October, the
weather was really on the turn. In my line of work, you’re always on the lookout for rain and when it freezes it cracks the skin on your hands.’