Page 36 of Gone in the Night (Detective Morgan Brookes #16)

THIRTY-SIX

Morgan googled the head office for the campsite and was surprised to see it was on a farm not too far away. For a moment she wondered if the farm was owned by Joss, the farmer who’d discovered Sharon’s body. It wouldn’t sit well with her if it was.

When she arrived at the farm, she found it wasn’t the same and felt her shoulders drop a micromillimetre with relief.

Joss had seemed like a nice guy, if he was connected to both murders it would have meant he’d be coming in for questioning.

Driving into the yard through the open gate, she saw Sammy, who’d found Lydia’s body, coming out of a static caravan and waved at him.

He didn’t look surprised to see her and waved back.

‘Hey, can I take a look at the trail cam footage? Have you had time to review it?’

She hoped he said yes because if he said no, she would be furious with him. His head bobbed up and down.

‘Yeah, I told my boss to ring you but he’s mid-argument with his wife, so, you know, priorities.’

This made her smile despite the graveness of the situation. ‘Can you show it to me? Did you see anything?’

‘A couple of deer, a fox, gazillion rabbits and a dog sniffing around the trail where the rabbits had been running around.’

‘Lydia’s dog?’

He shrugged. ‘Has to be, it was happy enough mooching around so it was definitely alive. It headed some way down the fell, out of sight of the camera, but the weird thing is its tail was wagging as if it was excited.’

‘That is weird. Why would its tail be wagging when its owner had just been killed? Unless it knew the killer?’

Sammy’s head snapped up to stare at her. ‘You think it was someone she knew? Wouldn’t they have taken the dog? That’s sick, man, I mean I don’t get it anyway but to leave her dog on its own out here.’ He was shaking his head. ‘I sent the footage to the email address you gave me. Is that okay?’

‘Perfect, thank you, Sammy.’

Raised voices came from inside the caravan.

‘I’ll leave you to it unless you think I need to intervene.’

He shook his head. ‘They both have big mouths, but they never get violent and they’re both as bad as each other so don’t worry about it. I hope you catch the sick bastard who did this. I don’t think I’ll ever close my eyes again without seeing the inside of that tent screaming at me.’

Morgan gave him a sad smile of commiseration and thought me too, Sammy, me too .

Morgan went straight into Ben’s office, barely acknowledging Stan or Amber as she strode past the desks they were sitting behind.

It didn’t feel the same that was for sure.

She was hoping that Stan would end up with Amber, and she and Cain could team up.

So fired up with her theory about Leah, she didn’t knock on the door and walked straight in.

Ben looked up from his computer. ‘Well, hello you.’

‘The dog was alive and well, it’s on the trail cam footage heading away from the campsite, tail wagging and everything. Unfortunately, there was nothing to show the killer though. I have a theory.’

‘Let’s hear it because I’ll take anything.’

She smiled at him; he was grinning at her with that cheeky smile that never failed to make her heart do a little double jump. The rough stubble on his jaw only added to his charm.

‘What if Leah King killed Sharon, realised that Jack figured it out so killed him too, then killed Lydia Williams to make it look like a serial killer.’

‘That’s a lot of what ifs, even more than mine earlier.’

She shrugged. ‘It’s the best I have.’

‘What’s her motive?’

‘Revenge, greed, anger that Sharon caught her sleeping with her stepdad and cut her off out of her life, therefore cutting off the free ride that she’d enjoyed all these years. I spoke to the maid, and she said that Leah was a thief, always taking things without asking.’

‘Being a thief and lacking in morals doesn’t necessarily make her a killer though.’

Morgan sat down on the chair opposite him and sighed. ‘No, but she’s a good suspect. We need to work on the assumption that she could have killed Sharon and Lydia.’

‘How did she kill Jack? I mean he would have been a dead weight, how on earth did she get him up to the tree branch to hang him?’

‘I didn’t say it was a hundred per cent fool proof, did I?’

Ben laughed. ‘It’s an interesting concept and yes, you’re right, we need to consider her involvement with Sharon’s murder. I just don’t know about Lydia and Jack.’

‘If we consider her for Sharon’s murder then she has to be responsible for Lydia’s, they’re identical MOs.

Maybe Jack really did take his own life out of guilt or grief, stress about Amy having a baby he never wanted, problems at work.

It could all have got on top of him, and Sharon’s murder was the last straw. ’

Ben was nodding. ‘Yes, you’re right about the women. Let’s say we push Jack to one side at the moment. What do we need to do or what are you thinking we should do? Oh, and I thought you’d want to know Palmer is in custody, or he was. Marc told Cain to release him.’

Morgan was leaning over Ben’s desk her elbows resting on it. ‘Did he now? That’s a shame. You should have heard him talking crap on the radio, it was shameless. I’m glad Cain locked him up, and why did Marc wimp out? That’s just typical.’

‘I didn’t wimp out; I’m just trying to keep this department off the radar whilst we have so much going on.’

Neither of them realised that Marc had stepped into the room. ‘I know you have beef with him, Morgan, but we still have to do things by the book.’

‘I don’t have beef with him. He has no morals and doesn’t care about any of the victims or their families; all he cares about is writing stories that sensationalise their murders.’

‘Whatever, it’s sorted. Some journalists thrive off it, we can’t police them all. What were you both talking about that had you so engrossed with each other anyway or is that a private matter?’

Morgan had to stop herself from sticking her fingers down her throat and pretending to vomit all over Ben’s desk.

‘No, sir. We were talking about Leah King being a possible suspect for both murders.’

He nodded. ‘The friend who was sleeping with the stepdad?’

‘Yes.’

‘Have we got enough to bring her in?’

Ben answered for them both. ‘Not really, we could do with some forensics.’

His phone began to ring, and he picked it up. ‘Matthews.’

‘It’s me.’

‘Declan, what have you got because we’re clutching at straws.’

‘I have something very interesting for you as a matter of fact. The rope around Jack’s neck looked familiar to me, not that I’ve used that kind of rope before, but the colour and texture that kind of thing.

To cut to the chase, I found a couple of strands of blue fibres stuck to the chest wound on Sharon Montgomery.

I also found a single fibre that was identical to the ones retrieved from Sharon on Lydia Williams’s neck wound. ’

‘And?’

‘When I compared all three samples under the microscope, they are identical to each other. I mean they need to be confirmed forensically but whoever killed Lydia and Sharon came into contact with the rope that was around Jack’s neck.’

Ben whistled. ‘The knives used to kill both victims, could they have been used to cut the rope around Jack’s neck?’

‘That is for you to figure out. I’m just giving you a heads up on my findings. It’s clear to me that the same person came into contact with the rope and all three bodies.’

‘Thanks, Declan.’

‘Anytime, let me know how you get on.’

The line went dead, and Ben fixed his gaze on Morgan. ‘All three crime scenes are linked to each other. Declan has found the same fibres on both bodies that match up to the rope around Jack’s neck.’

‘What the actual—’ Marc stopped himself from completing the sentence.

Morgan was looking at Ben who said, ‘So, either Jack killed both women and then himself or someone killed all three of them.’

Morgan asked, ‘Why would Jack kill them? He had no motive, he’s only been going out with Sharon for a couple of months, so it doesn’t make sense.

I mean that’s a big leap, killing Sharon in a fit of rage maybe, but he would have killed her at home, wouldn’t he?

There would be evidence all over her house and we found nothing.

What would he gain from waiting until she was camping then finding her and killing her in her tent?

That would prove it was premeditated and I’m sorry, but I don’t buy it.

The arguments he had with Amy and that time he got into a fight with Cain were all the same kind of stressors, and he didn’t try to kill either of them – he just lost his temper and wanted to strike out at someone. ’

Marc turned to leave. ‘Who knows what he was thinking? We’re never going to know and to me it looks as if we already have our killer.

I don’t see the point in wasting any more time.

It’s obvious Jack White killed Sharon whether it was in a fit of rage and then maybe he thought he’d cover it up by killing Lydia, realised that he’d only made things a hundred times worse and then killed himself.

It’s the only explanation. Now I’m going to have to speak with HQ to see how we approach this because it’s going to cause public outrage. ’

Morgan didn’t agree with him, not one little bit, but continuing to openly disagree with him wasn’t going to work in her favour at all.

He’d made up his mind that Jack had done this.

Even though Jack wasn’t the good guy she’d once thought, she knew he wouldn’t kill two women and then take his own life, it didn’t make sense to her.

She was going to have to prove he was innocent all on her own.