Page 31 of Gone in the Night (Detective Morgan Brookes #16)
THIRTY-ONE
Everyone was in the blue room ready for a briefing.
Ben was there with two blue folders now on the desk in front of him.
One for each victim. Task Force was still on drugs warrant at another empty shop in Barrow that had been turned into a cannabis factory.
Morgan and Cain were sitting nursing mugs of coffee.
Marc came rushing in, cheeks flushed, and Cain glanced at Morgan.
She could read his thoughts without him having to say a word.
They were both wondering why Marc was in such a flap, but nobody cared enough to ask him.
Stan followed him in with a mug in one hand and a sheaf of papers in the other, looking the complete opposite.
He was more chilled than any of them, and Morgan envied him a little.
She was still raging about Fin Palmer being a witness and at the scene – of all the people in the entire world it had to be him.
On the drive back to the station, Ben had asked her if she was okay and she’d told him she was fine, it had been a shock seeing him again that was all.
The reality was she was not fine, she was reliving the utter betrayal he’d put her through when he’d written that article about her early life and splashed it across the News and Star for the whole world to see.
Not only that it had been picked up by the tabloids then splashed across those too the next day, and she hated him for that.
The guy had the morals of an alley cat and given the choice she’d rather take on a four-legged, wild, biting, scratching, flea-riddled cat than him.
‘What are we thinking as a collective about both scenes?’ Marc was standing up staring at them.
‘Same killer, same MO, same victim type, similar locations,’ said Morgan.
He was nodding. ‘Totally agree, are Sharon and Lydia connected in any way? Do we know if they’re friends?’
Morgan had to try her best not to roll her eyes at him.
‘Boss, we’ve come straight here from the scene, no one has had time to do any background checks or look into that yet.
Lydia isn’t on my initial list of Sharon’s followers.
And we haven’t even spoken to the main witnesses from Sharon Montgomery’s case.
There’s her best friend who is sleeping with her stepdad.
They both need speaking to separately to see if their stories add up.
We need to ask them about Jack too, to see if either of them knew about his relationship with Sharon. ’
Marc sighed. ‘Then we need to split into two teams, and I think I’m going to have to draft in more officers from South maybe, if they can spare them.’
Ben nodded. ‘What about Will Ashworth or Gilly Mahaffy? Can we see if either of them is available? If we need help, I’d like it to be from detectives we know are capable and have an amazing track record. If they’re busy, maybe they can send someone up.’
‘I’ll ring Will when we’ve finished here.’
Ben looked at Morgan. ‘Morgan, you concentrate on Sharon Montgomery, you’ve already made a good start on her. If you and…’ He paused then smiled. ‘I was going to say Amy. How about if we borrow someone from section for now? Amber keeps asking if she can do an attachment with CID.’
Morgan felt her heart sink; Amber would be her last choice, but maybe she was being mean. Cain was groaning; he didn’t care who knew how he felt.
‘If you bring Amber up here, do not put her with me. I cannot work with her. I’ll take Stan over her any day. Sorry, Morgan, you’re going to have to work with her. You won’t take any of her crap and will get her told.’
Stan looked hurt. ‘Thanks a lot, I get the feeling I’m only slightly preferable to this Amber and you guys don’t even know me.’
Cain began to backtrack. ‘I didn’t mean it like that, mate, of course you’re not, it’s just difficult when you’re new to an established team. We know each other inside out, know how to not get on each other’s nerves, but you’ll get used to us all.’
Ben turned to Morgan. ‘Are you okay if we borrow Amber?’
She nodded. He’d already put her on Sharon’s case so she didn’t need to see Fin again. She couldn’t really complain too much, and besides, she would tell Amber if she got too much.
Marc clapped his hands. ‘Good, that’s a start. I’ll speak to Madds and see if he can spare her for a couple of weeks.’
Ben had brought up pictures of the crime scene on the Smart Board.
‘Let’s go over what needs doing with Lydia.
We need to find out if she took her dog camping with her because that’s either gone AWOL or the killer disposed of it.
We literally know nothing about her except her address; Lancs police are going to do the death message to her family and sort out the ID.
Cain, can you liaise with them to get all the info we need about her from them, place of work, friends, that kind of thing.
Once we have that information we can go speak to them.
Morgan, you and Amber, if she’s free, can follow up on the interviews with Sharon’s friend and stepdad.
Do you think he’s going to give you any bother?
Because if he is we can swap and send Cain there. ’
‘He’s nothing that I can’t handle.’
Marc smiled at her. ‘No, I guess he isn’t. Are these murders connected then?’
Morgan’s head snapped up from the piece of paper she was writing notes on, was he being serious? He looked as if he was and she couldn’t stop what was about to come out of her mouth for love or money.
‘Connected as in we have two women with identical situations, both on their own, both camping in roof tents, both have popular social media accounts and love solo adventuring, both found stabbed multiple times inside of their tents with a knife protruding from their chests. I mean, I don’t know, boss, maybe it’s two separate killers who just happened to be emulating each other, in this area at the same time. What are the chances?’
Ben was staring down at one of the folders in front of him, but she could see the sides of his mouth turning up the tiniest bit. Cain, on the other hand, was full-on sniggering out loud, not caring who could hear him.
‘Yes, when you put it like that, I can see they’re clearly connected, Morgan, it was more of a hypothetical question.’
‘Good, because if you couldn’t I would be extremely worried. Same MO for both murders. I think we seriously need someone to do a deep dive into their social media accounts. I think both of them knew the killer, knew of the killer or if they didn’t their killer certainly knew about them.’
She did manage to stop herself from saying, stop talking, stupid boss out loud and instead nodded. Standing up she grabbed her sheet of paper. ‘Are we done here? Because I want to go talk to Leah King.’
Ben nodded. ‘Go find Amber.’
Morgan smiled at him, hoping he didn’t have the knowledge to decipher that it meant go fuck yourself, I’m going on my own .
Although Ben hadn’t been trying to make her mad, he was annoying her almost as much as Marc.
He forgot she was a capable detective who didn’t need babysitting every time she left the station, and she wasn’t remotely worried about being in this killer’s field of vision.
Morgan wasn’t and never had been or would be a solo adventurer who would go camping on her own.
The one time she tried to take up running to beat Cain at a bet, she hurt her ankle so bad it still ached on rainy days and that was the end of her fitness spree.
She wasn’t the outdoor type. She was a mug of coffee, rainy weather, light a candle and read a book kind of gal and always would be.