The Town Red by Kelly Creighton

Author:Kelly Creighton [Creighton, Kelly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Crime Fiction
Published: 2021-10-28T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 30

‘Has Larne got back to us yet?’ Chief Dunne asked during Tuesday morning’s briefing.

‘Not yet, sir. We got talking with William Samuel yesterday and got a sample of his DNA.’

Fleur Hewitt asked after his brother, ‘He has a criminal past.’

‘Robbery,’ I said, having a new understanding of Arthur. ‘He was hurt in his past.’

‘And hurt people hurt people,’ Hewitt said.

‘I suppose you’re right, ma’am, but Arthur was more about thieving than hurting people.’

‘So, if I stole from you, you wouldn’t be hurt?’ asked Chief Dunne.

‘I’m not saying that,’ I said delicately, feeling attacked. I could say that Arthur was sexually abused, but I didn’t, mainly because they wouldn’t give a shit. ‘Sir, I want to speak to Anita Hall some more. She is the sister of Kenneth, our young eyewitnesses,’ I added.

‘I believe he withdrew his statement,’ said the chief.

‘I don’t know if it was that clear cut.’

‘You have all Napier’s notes to go by.’

‘We do, yes, Chief, but Anita told me that soon after, Kenneth drank antifreeze and was brain-damaged. He lives in a care facility now. And his sister, well, I think she knows more than she let on.’

‘She admitted to the murder herself back in the day,’ said Fleur Hewitt.

‘What?’ I asked. This was news to me.

The chief perked up at this.

‘She gave a few statements.’ Hewitt lifted them up.

‘Where did you get those?’

‘I did some plundering in those boxes.’

‘There was another one?’ asked Higgins, exasperated.

‘No, these were in one labelled 1978, Hall. A different case. I can only imagine our man Mack put it in the wrong box.’

‘What age would Anita have been in 1978?’ asked Dunne.

‘Fifteen, sir,’ I said.

‘Could she have done it?’ he asked.

‘She and Karen would likely have been the same height. It’s not unthinkable.’

‘Don’t underestimate the female of the species,’ said Higgins. I wouldn’t; I’d done that before, to my peril.

‘Why didn’t Napier charge Anita?’ I asked Hewitt.

‘Because,’ she said, ‘Anita also gave a statement to say it was Wayne Simpson.’

‘Mack had his mind made up.’

‘Is that everything?’ asked Chief Dunne, reminding me of a worker at a fast-food drive-thru, rushing us to be done, handing us our order while we were still driving.

‘No, Chief,’ said Hewitt, ‘Anita also gave a statement that she suspected Karen’s boyfriend, but she never gave a name, and we know now that it was unlikely she had a boyfriend.’

‘Napier probably saw her as a nuisance,’ said Higgins.

‘What about Willie Samuel? Was he not Karen’s boyfriend?’ asked Dunne.

‘Just a crush, it seems,’ I said, ‘he had a brief teenage fling, if you could even call it that, with Janet.’

Greg Dunne coughed. ‘Okay, so moving on,’ he said, ‘Sloane, speak to Anita Hall and find out who this boyfriend of Karen’s was. Get DNA for her too, to be on the safe side.’

Hewitt leafed through her papers. ‘Napier wrote that, in a suicide note, Anita said she knew who did it – he presumed she was talking about Karen’s murder – her mother gave the note to police.

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