Authors: A.J. Oates
My next destination is Graves Park and a place I know well from my childhood. At close to 250 acres it’s the largest park in Sheffield, and for a kid growing up in the area it was heaven: a vast expanse of grass and woodland, as well as sports fields, children’s play areas, and even a small farm with a rare breeds centre. All those years ago, I’d learnt every short-cut and cycle route through the park, and during the long summer holidays I’d built bivouacs and camped overnight in the woods with school friends. Now, with Graves Park less than half a mile away and the entrance almost in view, I begin to relax a little for the first time, knowing that I’m close to home turf. But almost as if my newly found optimism has tempted fate, as I round a bend in the road and half a dozen or so car lengths in front, a police car is parked at the curb-side. Too close for me to consider turning back, I’ve got no choice but to continue on towards it.
Stay calm, Julian, stay calm
,
I whisper to myself as I reach the car and glance through the rear window. The driver and front-seat passenger are facing each other and showing no obvious interest in my presence. Relieved, I take a slow deep breath with my destination now so tantalisingly close; but again, as if my renewed optimism is provoking the Gods, the passenger door of a taxi parked in front of the police car abruptly opens. I have a moment to react, and I brake hard and swerve to avoid a collision, but my front wheel skids on the greasy road and I lose control. Within a split second I’m flying over the handle bars and then the side of my head and shoulder impacts hard with the tarmac. I’m momentarily stunned, lying face-down in the road with the bike next to me and the front wheel spinning but buckled and useless.
The passenger of the taxi, a woman in her twenties, clearly drunk, stumbles towards me in ridiculous six-inch heels. “Are you okay? I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she screams hysterically. She begins pulling at my arm as she tries to help me up. But as I get to my hands and knees and turn to face her, she stops short with a look of horror and then shrieks, “You’re bleeding, oh my God, oh my God … You’re
bleeding
.”
I glance down at my grey top to find it soaked in blood that’s been dripping from my neck wound, the hanky and scarf having clearly provided no effective barrier. Dazed, I struggle to my feet, and shrugging off her attentions I say, "Don't worry. I'm fine, I'm fine.”
Behind me I hear a car door open, and then another, and vaguely familiar, female voice. “Sir, are you okay? ... Do you need help?”
In the corner of my eye a woman picks up my bike and places it on the pavement. Then I hear the crackle of a police radio, which cuts through the fuzziness of my thinking. I turn around to see a woman whose face bears a look of recognition that I suspect mirrors my own: WPC Shaw. My thoughts are now more lucid but I still can’t quite believe what’s happening.
How can I explain all the blood?
There’s no way she’ll believe it’s all from the bike accident.
I know I can’t take any chances. I turn, and sprint in the direction of the park, leaving behind the bike and a stunned Shaw. Within seconds a car door slams, followed by the sound of grit flying up as the tyres on the police car lose traction on the wet road. Shaw isn’t stupid; I can’t be sure of course, but I suspect she’s already pieced it together and I’m the prime suspect in the attack on Musgrove.
I’m exhausted both physically and mentally but keep pushing myself on, knowing that my freedom depends on it. I picture Musgrove’s face: although I know he must be dead, my capture would be a victory for him and there’s no way I can let it happen. Within sixty seconds I reach the heavy iron gates at the entrance to the park. I frantically pull and push, desperately trying to get through, but after a wasted few seconds I see the heavy chain and padlock, not in use on my previous reconnaissance trips and now blocking my way. Without conscious thought I scale the gate, a good metre above head height, and then lower myself down on the far side just as Shaw’s car arrives. For a fraction of a second I lock my gaze with her through the windscreen of the car. Etched in her face is what seems like a mixture of disbelief and sympathy. I look away – I suppose with a sort of embarrassment – and then head into the darkness of the park.
The full moon flits from behind the thick cloud cover and provides just enough light to pick out the route through the children’s playground and then up the steep, heavily wooded hillside. In the near distance I can hear more sirens as reinforcements join the hunt, and briefly glance over my shoulder to see the pursuing officers decamp and give chase some twenty-five metres behind me on the far side of the gate. I pass the thicket of dense rhododendron bushes where I’d planned to ditch my already redundant bike, and then head up the steep winding path. The rain is torrential and drives into my face while the wind whistles aggressively through the trees above my head, almost as if it’s bombarding me with insults. The narrow path is covered in mud and wet leaves, and even in my cross-country trainers with their heavy-duty tread, I slip continuously and often resort to scrambling on all fours. Some way behind, I can hear the police presence, with their heavy breathing and the distorted voices and crackles from their radios.
I leave the path and run through the adjacent ice-cold, knee-deep stream, hoping to hide my scent from the tracker dogs that no doubt will soon follow. I picture the TV images from those fly-on-the-wall police documentaries, of a hapless criminal viewed brilliant white against a black background with the infrared camera as a police dog takes a bite out of his genitals. There’s no way I’m going to let it happen to me.
After a few minutes of hard running the sounds of the chasing officers begin to fade. Despite the freezing water sapping my strength, I surge forwards with renewed belief, now so close to my temporary bolt-hole and potential safety. But then, without warning, from over the brow of the hill comes the sound of helicopter blades, and the police chopper flies at speed just above the treetops directly over me with a great shaft of light projecting downwards.
Shit, Shit, Shit, surely they must have seen me.
The helicopter turns and starts a second pass, but just a second before the beam of light illuminates my presence, I dart behind a fallen tree trunk and scramble into my bolt-hole, cracking my forehead on the low ceiling as I enter. My head begins to throb and blood drips into my eyes, but this discomfort is the least of my worries.
I lie motionless in the hideaway, barely daring to breathe for what seems like hours, though when I check my watch I find that it has been less than thirty minutes. The helicopter continues to sweep overhead, clearly audible above the driving rain and swollen streams but never seeming to linger directly over the bolt-hole. There is the occasional raised voice accompanied by barking dogs, presumably police German Shepherds attempting to track my scent. My heart continues to pound, in part due to my exertions of the last few hours but mainly, I suspect, on account of my fear of discovery.
After a further thirty minutes I cautiously switch on my small torch, all the time keeping my hand over the lens to limit the scope of the light-beam. The bolt-hole is a five-metre-long drainage tunnel, approximately half a metre wide and half a metre high. It’s just large enough for me to crawl into; there’s little room for manoeuvre or to turn round. The conduit runs several feet underground and connects two nearby streams, but only ever comes into use after heavy rain or thawing snow. The walls and floor consist of loosely arranged and irregular pieces of stone. From above, I’m completely hidden from the searchlights and infrared camera of the helicopter, and at ground level the entrance at the lower end is obscured by fallen tree trunks while the top end is completely blocked by the rocks and earth that have accumulated since I played here as a kid with my friends many years earlier.
As the minutes turn into hours, for the first time since leaving the bedsit my emotions aren’t running at fever pitch. I begin to feel some small degree of relief as the sounds of the police presence become quieter and more infrequent and my pursuers move further away. With a long and hopefully undisturbed night ahead I attempt to get more comfortable; no easy task, with the low ceiling, hewn of rough stone, making sitting upright impossible. Fumbling in the confined space, I find the tarpaulin sheet and bin liner that I’d dropped off the night before, and I lay out the former to cover the damp ground. I then open the water-tight bin liner containing a rucksack, and begin unpacking the contents: spare clothing, walking boots, toiletries, a small radio, a few tins of baked beans and three large bottles of drinking water. The task becomes increasingly difficult with my cold, numb fingers, and I begin to shiver uncontrollably. My clothes are soaked with sweat, rain and blood, and with the adrenaline rush from the chase subsiding, the effects of hypothermia are setting in with a vengeance. As quickly as I can in the tight space, and with my awkward frozen fingers, I strip off the wet clothes and trainers, replace them with the dry clothes from the rucksack, and then crawl into the sleeping bag. I pull its insulating hood over my head and then tie the draw-cord tight.
As my expired breath warms the sleeping bag, the shivering of my aching body finally comes under control. After thirty minutes, I loosen the cord around the hood and breathe the relatively fresh air of the bolt-hole. Feeling more comfortable, I begin to reflect on the events of the previous few hours. I’d hoped, of course, that things would have been so different and that I’d be tucked up in bed at the airport hotel by now in readiness for my flight in the morning, but that’s not going to happen. It has always been my nature to be self-critical, often to a degree that’s counter-productive, as Helen would argue, and my first instinct is to direct the anger at myself. I curse my stupidity in cutting my neck and surely leaving behind DNA evidence. I’d planned meticulously and practised swinging the blade at a pumpkin, a substitute for Musgrove’s head, but had not rehearsed pulling the blade from inside my jacket. But despite my frustrations, I have sufficient insight to acknowledge that I also had bad luck: the police arriving outside the pub at the wrong time, and then being witnessed by WPC Shaw later on. Gradually, as my post mortem continues, my irritation begins to dissipate. I suppose I have to be grateful for the foresight of my rigorous planning and the inbuilt contingencies such as the bike stashed in the toilets along with the spare clothes – and, of course, the current bolt-hole. I suspect that if it wasn’t for my current hideaway, I would be in police custody by now, facing a murder charge.
By 3:00 a.m. and after close to four hours in the bolt-hole, the shouting police and barking dogs have gone silent and the drone from the helicopter blades has ceased. In the solitude and silence I begin to feel the first pangs of hunger, and realising that I’ve not eaten for close to twenty-four hours, I dig out my small camping spoon from the bottom of the rucksack and devour cold baked beans from the can and some dry crackers. Not the greatest meal I’ve ever had, but I still feel better for it.
I lie back down in the sleeping bag and listen to the driving rain and the wind blowing fiercely through the trees. It remains near pitch black in the drain, with the only light coming from the illuminated face of my watch. Although I doubt much natural light will ever permeate the bolt-hole, for the world outside it will be dawn in a couple of hours. In the darkness and current weather conditions I’ve been able to evade capture, but I fear that, with the daybreak, it may well be a different matter.
Chapter 4
Crammed inside my tiny bolt-hole, I’m mentally and physically exhausted but ever conscious of the slightest disturbance from the outside world
. I suspect there is little chance of meaningful sleep. With sunrise now just a couple of hours away, I close my eyes knowing that I should at least try to get some rest. Within a few minutes my consciousness begins to ebb from the present and my thoughts drift back a few months.
WPC Shaw drove me from the morgue to arrive home a little after 5.00 a.m. It was still dark but the milkman had already started on his rounds and bottles were waiting on the doorstep. Shaw had tried to start a conversation, perhaps attempting to ease her own discomfort as much as mine, but I was in no mood to chat and she quickly realised that her efforts were futile. I suspected that she was relatively inexperienced and doubted that she’d ever been involved in anything like it before. Ironically I began to feel almost sorry for her, believing that in some way I was responsible for her current discomfort. She’d offered to come in to make a drink but I declined for both our sakes. I wanted to be alone with my thoughts and attempt to rationalise the events of those last few hours.
Once at home I kicked off my shoes and headed straight to the spare bedroom. I climbed, fully clothed, into bed and closed my eyes but the images of my boys seemed more real than ever. Thinking the chances of sleep were minimal, I was surprised to wake several hours later to the sounds of the neighbourhood children heading off to school, their lively chatter coming up from the road below the bedroom window. In my first few seconds of wakefulness the events of the previous evening weren’t immediately apparent, and then, as if being bludgeoned with a hammer, they suddenly and painfully flooded my thinking. My breathing rate escalated, my heart pounded, and for a weird few seconds I thought I was going to die; not that I really cared.
What did I have to live for?
Over the next few minutes I slowly began to compose myself, and as I lay in the spare bed I could just hear the 8:00 a.m. news broadcast, barely audible, coming from the alarm clock radio in the master bedroom. During the weekdays we’d always woken to the 7:00 a.m. news on Radio 4, and the alarm had still to switch itself off. The Prime Minister was in India, a policeman had been stabbed in Manchester, and there were job losses at a midlands car plant. There was no mention of a hit-and-run killing five.
After thirty minutes of wallowing I willed myself out of bed. Struggling to summon the strength to move, it felt as if I’d aged fifty years overnight. In discrete stages I headed for the bathroom, all the time giving myself commands and encouragement: bed covers off, sit up, feet over the edge, standing position, right foot forward, left foot forward. I shuffled past the open door of the bedroom that my beautiful sons had shared, and the enormity of the loss was overwhelming. I repeatedly felt that an emotional rock bottom had been reached; but then a memory or thought would be triggered and the bar of desolation would be lowered further.
I showered trying to cleanse myself in the near-scalding water. I’d read how rape victims spent hours in the shower attempting to purify themselves of their attacker, and as I stood with the water pounding my body I could identify with those emotions; I felt violated, if not physically, then psychologically. After thirty minutes I stepped out of the shower with my skin reddened and close to blistering in places. I struggled to decide what clothes to wear, before settling on a suitably subdued navy blue top and jeans.
In the empty and unnervingly quiet house I headed downstairs to the kitchen. I made tea and slowly drank it while listening to the radio and waiting for the next local news bulletin. We never used to listen to local radio, with the banal approach of the presenters making even the most serious issues appear trivial, but it was different now; may be they’d pick up on the story more quickly than their national counterparts. Though part of me couldn’t bear the prospect of my life story being played out in the media, I held onto the hope that it would, in some way, be therapeutic. Of course, I was deluding myself.
At 10:00 a.m. the news bulletin began, and the hit-and-run was now the main story. Very few details were provided. No names, no ages, just the time and the place followed by an appeal for witnesses from a Detective Inspector Patel. As the news moved onto the next item I turned off the radio just as the phone started to ring. Not ready for conversation, I was sorely tempted to let the answering machine pick up, but then thinking that it might be news from the police, I answered. I recognised the voice immediately, it was Debbie from work. “Julian, what are you doing at home, we’re waiting for you and Bob’s …”
Debbie generally meant well but was intrusive at the best of times, and I was in no mood to give details. I cut her off mid sentence. "I’m sorry but I've got some kind of stomach bug, I won’t be in today but I'll speak to you later.” I put the phone down without giving her any time to respond, but before I’d a chance to sit down, it rang again.
Jesus, Debbie, what the hell do you want?
Irritated,
I picked up the phone but said nothing and waited for her to reprimand me for my abruptness. “… Hello, this is DI Patel from Otley Road Police Station. Could I speak to Mr … I’m sorry, Dr, Julian Scott, please?”
“Yes, erm … Yes, I’m Julian Scott.” I answered falteringly.
“Sorry to bother you, Dr Scott, I’m the lead investigating officer on the case involving the death of your family. I know that this is a terrible time for you but I’d like to ask you some questions if that’s okay?”
I struggled to connect brain and mouth in synchrony, “Erm … erm yes, yes. Okay … though I’m not sure how much more I can tell you but ... erm ... anyway I’ve got some questions myself.”
“When is convenient for you? I can come and visit you today at home, or if you prefer you can come to the station – whatever’s best for you.”
I was surprised that he wanted to meet so soon, though in a way I suppose I was grateful; at least it would give me something to do. But the thought of having police, or anybody else for that matter, in my house didn’t appeal. “Yes, that’s fine, but I’d prefer to come to you if that’s okay?”
“No problem, can you make it around noon?” responded DI Patel, and continued without giving me time to answer, “Make your way to the front desk and ask for me there.”
“Okay, thank you. I’ll see you then.”
I put the phone down and slowly made my way back to the sofa. The clock on the mantelpiece indicated 10:30 a.m., though I knew it was running a couple of minutes fast. The police station was only ten minutes’ drive and I had well over an hour to kill. I lay on the sofa staring at the light fitting on the ceiling. My emotions were in turmoil and I wasn’t used to the out-of-control feeling. I’ve always liked order. Even as a child I’d driven my mother mad; the night before school, my uniform had to be ironed and neatly stacked at the end of the bed along with polished shoes. As an adult my obsessions only got worse and I’d always thought I had some kind of obsessive compulsive disorder, though this wasn’t formally diagnosed. Perhaps that’s why I’d been drawn to a career in science and research, with its firmly established rules and logic. But with everything that had happened I couldn’t even make sense of my own feelings, sadness, anger, frustration, guilt, all at the same time. Nothing made sense anymore. I’m sure a psychologist would argue it was completely normal given what I’d been through, but it certainly didn’t feel normal to me.
The time dragged by and I still had another thirty minutes before the meeting with DI Patel but I desperately needed to get out of the house. I briefly considered walking to use up time and in the hope that the fresh air would breathe some life into me. But almost immediately I realised that the route on foot would go past the church and the site of the accident. There was no way I could face it, at least not yet. In the end I decided to drive, and, with little traffic on the road, and even taking the long way around, I pulled into the police station car park still twenty minutes early.
I’d driven past Otley Road Police Station numerous times on the way to work, though never had cause to go inside. It was the divisional headquarters, an imposing six-storey building with numerous massive radio aerials on the roof. Surrounded by a ten-foot metal fence topped with sharp spikes, it was clearly designed to withstand a serious public disturbance. I parked in one of the many empty spaces of the public area of the car park and then made my way to the entrance marked “Enquiries”. I gave my name to the PC sitting behind a glass security screen on the front desk. My presence seemed to be expected: he made a brief phone call before asking me to take a seat in the waiting area.
I sat for less than a couple of minutes before a man wearing a smart, expensive-looking grey suit came through a door at the side of the front desk. He was probably about the same age as me and had short cropped hair receding in the front. He approached me extending his hand. “Dr Scott, thank you for coming. I’m Detective Inspector Patel. This must be a terrible time for you.”
I took his firm grip and attempted a polite smile in response. “Yes, it’s all come as a shock – to say the least.”
Patel nodded “Yes, yes ... Let’s go up to my office, we can talk better there.”
We headed back through the door he’d just come out of and then up two flights of stairs. Despite the modern appearance of the building from the outside, the décor let it down. The carpet was stained and worn and the walls were a dirty grey colour with just the odd patch of the original pale blue emulsion showing through. Patel’s office was in the corner of a much bigger, open-plan office space. This larger work area was bustling with activity, with people either on the phone or tapping away at computer terminals, but nobody looked up as we passed by.
Patel’s personal office was a cramped affair containing a desk which was far too big for the small room and overflowing with folders and loose papers. He moved a further pile of papers from a spare chair in the corner and pulled it up, gesturing for me to sit. “Can I get you tea or coffee?”
I shook my head, “No, no thank you.”
Patel then took a seat opposite me on the other side of the desk. Behind him on the wall was a collection of framed photographs, mostly in his police uniform, and also several certificates. One of the certificates in particular caught my attention:
Nikesh Patel
B.
Sc., Psychology
First Class Honours.
University of Sheffield
It crossed my mind that it might be a cunning ploy to unnerve suspects – maybe they’d crack under the pressure at the prospect of him tapping into their inner psyche. It almost made me grateful that I had nothing to hide. Patel picked up the phone and punched in four digits. “Jane, can you come through?”
Within twenty seconds a woman in her mid twenties appeared at the door and Patel introduced her as DC Drife. She nodded her head respectfully and then stepped outside for a moment, returned with a chair, and then negotiated her way through the piles of paperwork on the floor, taking a seat in the corner behind Patel. The room was not designed to seat three people in comfort and I began to feel claustrophobic and undid the next button down on my shirt. Patel appeared to notice my discomfort and opened the small window behind him, although it barely made any difference to the stagnant air.
With everyone seated, he began asking basic personal details of my family: date of birth, place of birth, address, occupation, school, etc. My recollections of the previous night were vague at best, but I was pretty sure I’d given much of the same information already. DC Drife sat at the back, not saying a word and diligently taking notes. Patel then asked me to go through the events of the evening. Why had we gone to the restaurant? What time had we left? Why had the others walked? Why had I driven home? What time was it when I realised there was a problem?
At first my thoughts were sluggish, dulled by recent events. I struggled to respond to the most basic of questions, even pondering to recall my own date of birth. But as the interview went on I began to feel more comfortable and my responses were more articulate and free-flowing. Patel nodded intently with my every response, almost as if each snippet of information was going to be crucial in solving the case.
After twenty minutes or so he again checked that I didn’t want a drink, before continuing: “After leaving your house and on the way to the church, did you see anybody, or anything, out of the norm?”