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

Bennet was eager to see how Turner would try to explain away everything that pointed to him as a five-time killer, but the new statement tried no such magic trick. It was simply a more bloated and flashy repeat of the alibi Turner had offered ten years ago when the Sally Jenkins case was hot. At a function at the time Sally vanished, called home to sick son, stayed home all night. The alibi was good, undisputed. But prepared-statement-aware detectives always held a little back for the next round.

Bennet said, ‘At first glance, there was no external sign of how Sally Jenkins died. No damage. Until the post-mortem. Sometimes, you see, a blow hard enough to smash bone doesn’t even lacerate the skin or flesh. There’s a springiness to the skin. Sally Jenkins had no damage to the flesh and skin on the top of her head. No visible clue anything was out of the ordinary. But underneath, her skull was broken.’

He showed Turner a photo, but the councillor didn’t want to look. The bone showed two clear breaks connected by a fracture in a semicircle.

‘The pathologist was quite certain about what broke the bone and pushed fragments deep into her brain. Look at the shape. Isn’t it clear? It was a horseshoe. She was killed by a massive kick to the head from a horse. And you owned the only horses in the village back in March 2010.’

Turner looked horrified, but it wasn’t the look of a man who’d been caught. He stood up. His hands were shaking. He was ordered back into his seat, but instead he snatched Bennet’s phone from the table. The DC next to Bennet stood up and got two words into an objection, but Bennet grabbed his arm. Bennet wasn’t outraged, simply curious. He doubted the councillor was about to call in a rescue team or instruct a disciple to burn evidence.

Turner dialled a number and paced in the small area between the table and the back wall as it rang. He was furious. Bennet was nervous with anticipation. He knew this phone call, whoever it was to, was about to change everything.

‘Lucas? It’s me. I’m with the police,’ Turner virtually screamed into the phone. Both detectives raised an eyebrow – so, Turner had known how to contact his son after all: at the end of a phone nobody knew about. The councillor then gave the address of the police station. ‘You’ve got some explaining to do. Get your arse down here, right now.’

67

Bennet and Sutton agreed that they were going to see fireworks if Turner and his son were together, so they arranged for both men to sit in the same interview room. And this time Sutton wanted in, even though he hadn’t attended the interview of a suspect since he was a detective sergeant. The wait was agonising, probably more so for Turner, who was left alone with a uniformed officer, instructed not to say a word. The detectives wanted Turner to stew in his own thoughts.

When Lucas turned up, in a car nobody recognised, uniforms raced across the car park to intercept him. The young man wore trousers and a shirt, neatly ironed, and his face was smooth. Wherever he’d been since fleeing his home and his village, it clearly hadn’t been a box in a cardboard city. Lucas walked towards the officers as if to meet old friends. The officers surrounded him, but nobody made contact other than to snap on handcuffs. Lucas looked terrified, but the cause of it wasn’t his new location. Outside the door of the interview room, he stopped and took deep breaths. His own father scared him more than the police.

Bennet opened the door and ushered Lucas inside. Lucas was brought into the interview room where his dad sat. He came in like a man to the gibbet, and his father leaped to his feet upon seeing him.

‘You lied to me, Lucas,’ Turner yelled. ‘To me, of all people. And you’re burned with me now. Sit down. Sit down and tell them what you did. Now.’

Mesmerised, the detectives standing nearby watched the young man sit across from his father, but his eyes were anywhere but on the older man. Yet it was to his father he spoke, as if both men were alone in the room.

‘You would be out all evening at your function. The babysitter would be stuck in front of the TV again. I crept out of the back door, across the yard, and scaled the wall. I was at the playpark soon afterwards, watching the entrances for Sally…’

And the reason for this secrecy? Lucas’s father had always been in the house when Sally rode Reeve, making it impossible to have a sly go with B’fly, the giant Clydesdale she was determined to master. But now there was a chance! The day before the party, he and Sally had hatched a plan. Sally would leave the party one hour earlier, so they could have some secret time together. With his father away and the babysitter locked into her TV drama, Sally would get her ride, and Lucas would get his kiss.

‘Deal done,’ Lucas said. ‘I guess her fate was sealed in that moment.’

Across from him, Turner watched with anger on his face. When his son paused, the councillor said, ‘So that was the first lie. You told me she came to ours to borrow your bike. Continue.’

Lucas needed no time to consider. So, together he and Sally sneaked out of the park and along the streets. They knew who had cameras, who liked to watch out the windows, and puddles of darkness and cars helped them find hiding spots as they made their way to Turner’s home. They hopped the wall and approached the stables. Sally was virtually jumping for joy as B’fly was brought out. Using a stool, she tried to climb aboard.

‘I smacked him. He moved as she was climbing up. He knew she’d fall, and