Cold Blood by Jane Heafield (great books to read txt) 📕

46

As Bennet and Joe were playing Xbox, a call came through from a lady who introduced herself as a detective constable and immediately launched into a volley of facts. She got two sentences out before Bennet, surprised, realised what was going on.

The last thing he’d asked of his boss, back on the veranda at the Arrow Hotel, was to be kept abreast of the quadruple murder investigation. DCS Hunter had said he’d see what he could do, and what he could do had been to sway DCS Sutton into allocating a woman to play envoy. Bennet had expected a call from Hunter, not someone attached to the murder investigation. He paused the Xbox game so he could slip out of the room to talk. Not that he got to talk: Envoy Lady gave a lecture, asked no questions of him, and hung up rather abruptly when her task was done.

Bennet had informed the police of Councillor Turner’s extensive CCTV coverage of Lampton and they’d visited his stables with watering mouths. There the good news ended. Turner’s many cameras covered most of the village, but they didn’t automatically save what they saw. A control box’s trigger had to be depressed to record. Turner’s reason for such a set-up: privacy. He would watch his people, but only record activity he found suspicious. So, nine tenths of the cameras in Lampton were useless and the police couldn’t track the CaraHome or the film crew. What few private CCTV cameras the residents operated was still being collected, but nobody was holding their breath. If Bennet thought Turner wouldn’t be able to piss him off any further…

The last known place of visit for the film crew, Crabtree’s ranch, had been searched, but nothing of worth had been unearthed. A more specialised team would be returning soon for a detailed sift through the building, especially the annex where items had been burned, for bloodstains, DNA and the like – the place had been scrubbed clean and dedicated mega tidying affairs always raised tec eyebrows. Another team was working its way along the supposed route the CaraHome took from the ranch to its final resting place at Lake Stanton.

An investigator’s first port of call and best chance of finding a killer: the victim’s background. So far, police had found nothing suspicious about any of the four dead except for John Crickmer, the cameraman. He had a four-year-old conviction for drugs, so that was something to explore. People got their drugs somewhere, and drug dealers could be or could know vicious bastards.

So, Bennet found himself wondering about Lorraine. He’d been asked by the Derby boys if he knew of anyone who would want to hurt her. He’d said no, which was the truth, but he didn’t know much about her life over the last decade. He’d learned his information from social media, and she was hardly going to post about her criminal activities or those of friends. He prayed that, if the killer was connected to one of his kills, it wasn’t on her side. Her murder would be easier to digest if she was someone simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, like so many thousands of others. Better for Joe if she wasn’t blamed in the media.

The CaraHome had been retrieved from Lake Stanton, and a search of it had provided a possible motive: robbery. No mobile phones or expensive movie-making equipment had been found. Right now the CaraHome was in a vehicle lab for a more detailed examination.

And on to a new shocking twist. From the veranda at the Arrow Hotel, Bennet had witnessed people sneaking close to the crime scene for a nosey. There had been some more creative attempts since: folk had tried to get inside the cordon by moving through treetops like Tarzan, swimming across the lake, and even flying drones. Someone with a long lens had managed to capture video of the moment divers retrieved something from the water. It was a trunk that had been squashed into the lakebed, and thus hidden, by the nose of the CaraHome.

Inside, a human body. A small one. Word quickly spread: little Sally Jenkins, missing now a decade, had been found.

47

Following the discovery of Sally Jenkins’ body, things exploded. The crime scene virtually came under siege by reporters and extra police had to be pulled in to keep them at bay. Curiously, though, the locals had backed off, as if ashamed. They should be, Bennet figured. They had pulled the wool over their own eyes for ten years.

The story raced across the country far faster than that of four bodies found in a motorhome. Bennet was more interested in Lampton’s response to it. On YouTube, he found various short videos posted by users with untraceable names. He figured some of these people might be locals independent of Lampton’s hive-mind denial. Drone footage. Mobile phone footage. Even reaction videos, some whose creators’ voices and faces were obscured – could the latter be locals wary of Turner’s wrath for speaking out?

One video caught his eye because of the title: Moment Dead Girl’s Mother Hears The News.

It did what it said on the tin. A reporter was outside Anika Jenkins’ house on Grodes Place in Lampton. His cameraman stood back as the reporter banged the door. When Anika answered, it was with a pair of headphones in her hand. It seemed she must have been busy indoors and missed the furore. Shock as a microphone was thrust at her.

‘Have you heard about the body found in the lake? Did you know it was your daughter? Have you tried to get to the scene to view her body?’

What a moron. Anika reeled back, as if punched, and grabbed keys from the hallway wall, and fled out the door, knocking the reporter out of her way. As the cameraman turned to follow, the street was exposed. Many people, neighbours and friends, standing on the road or their doorsteps,