Written In Blood

20-2

OLIVER RYDER PAID NO attention to the footsteps that approached his cell, he had been checked on several times since he was put in there, and was sure the steps merely preceded another check. His eyes flew open, however, when he heard the rattle of keys and the sound of the door being unlocked.

“What d’you want?” he asked sharply of Mitchell when he saw the sergeant in the doorway. “Isn’t it way past time an office monkey like you was home? You don’t normally work this late.”

“I’ll be on my way home soon,” Mitchell said. “I thought you’d want out of here first, though.”

Oliver looked at Mitchell in surprise, not sure he had heard him right. “What’re you talking about? You don’t normally release me ‘til you have to.”

“If you want to stay here, you can,” Mitchell told him. “I thought I’d save someone the job of keeping an eye on you, though. I can’t see the point in putting anyone out for the sake of a pain in the ass like you.” He made to shut the door and lock Oliver in again, but the young man was on his feet in an instant.

“If you think I’m staying here any longer than I have to, you’re a bigger i***t than I thought,” Oliver said, slipping quickly through the door before Mitchell could change his mind. The moment he was out of the cell, he stopped; he wanted to head straight for the nearest door, so he could find something to eat and drink, especially something to drink. He also wanted to find Kieran Wright and finish what he had started before being dragged away by the cops. Before he could leave, however, he had to get the things that had been taken from him prior to him being put in the cell.

Mitchell saw the eagerness in the teen and moved to curtail it. “There is a condition to me letting you go tonight,” he said. “Under no circumstances are you to go near Kieran Wright. I’ll be speaking to him in the morning, and I’m sure I can convince him not to press charges; if you go anywhere near him again, though, I’ll have no choice but to charge you with assault, attempted murder, and anything else that occurs to me. I don’t think you’d like that; if you add up all the sentences you’ve had previously, I don’t think they’d come close to what you’d get for attempted murder.” He was not sure how long a person could expect to get for attempted murder, but he had seen someone in the news recently who got ten years for it, and that was longer than any other sentence Oliver had got.

“That bastard deserves whatever happens to him, and if I have to be the one to give him what he deserves, so be it,” Oliver said, heedless of the possibility that he could end up right back in the cell he had just left. “If you’d do your job, I wouldn’t have to deal with the sick bastard. Why the hell haven’t you arrested that murdering r****t?”

“Because Kieran Wright isn’t a murderer,” Mitchell said. “Nor, as far as I know, is he a rapist.”

“Didn’t Mel tell you what I told her earlier, about what that bastard did to Lucy?” Oliver demanded.

Mitchell nodded. “She told me, but as I explained to her, even if Kieran did attack Lucy and try to r**e her, there’s nothing we can do because it happened a while ago, and the report hasn’t come from Lucy herself. Since we can’t establish that the incident took place, we’ve got no reason to question him over what has happened to Georgina and Lucy, especially when we already have another suspect.”

“Who?” Oliver had no sooner asked that question than he realised what else the sergeant had said. “What’s happened to Lucy? What’s happened to Lucy?” He repeated the question without giving Mitchell, whom he grabbed by the front of his shirt, a chance to answer the first time.

Mitchell freed himself from Oliver’s grasp, at the cost of a button, and straightened his shirt as best he could. “The same thing happened to Lucy as happened to Georgina,” he said. “Inspector Stevens and the search team found her body in the woods while examining the area around Georgina’s body; as far as we know right now, they were killed by the same person. And before you go off on one about Kieran, we believe that both of them were killed by Zack Wild.”

“Who?”

“He’s the guy that moved into the old Henshaw Cottage.”

“How d’you know it’s him?” Oliver wanted to know, his whole body trembled as he fought the urge to race from the station in search of Zack Wild.

“I can’t go into the evidence I have,” Mitchell said pompously, as though he actually had evidence, rather than just a belief that Zack Wild was guilty of the murders. “But trust me, Wild’s the one who killed Georgina and Lucy, not Kieran, so stay away from him and you’ll stay out of trouble.”

“If you’re so certain he killed them, why the hell haven’t you arrested him?”

“I did, but he’s got an expensive lawyer and she forced me to let him go. Believe me, I’m no happier about it than you are, but until I can find enough evidence to charge him, he’s a free man.”

**

* * * *

DOWN THE CORRIDOR IN the small locker room, Melissa listened to the conversation taking place between Mitchell and Oliver Ryder in disbelief. It was not the fact that Oliver was being released without charge that she had a problem with, she could understand that, even if she didn’t wholly agree with it; what she had a problem with, was Oliver being told that Zack Wild was their one and only suspect in the murder of his cousin and his girlfriend, when he had already been arrested for attacking the person he believed responsible.

Her first thought was to confront Mitchell and demand to know what he was doing. No sooner had the thought occurred to her, than she realised that confronting her superior would be asking for trouble, which she didn’t want, especially when she couldn’t say that he had done anything wrong. Her mind raced as she considered her options, but she came up with no answers; she needed advice, and could think of only one person to get it from – her gran.

Not wanting to give Mitchell reason to think that she had been listening to his conversation, even though that was what she had been doing, Melissa grabbed her things and headed for the door.