Written In Blood

Chapter Forty-Four

Melissa yawned mightily as she leaned on the doorbell at her superior's house. Her mouth gaped like the entrance to a cave suitable for roosting bats but she closed it hastily when the door opened. She was so tired she could barely keep her eyes open, and she couldn't help wondering what she was doing there at that ungodly house; she knew why she was there, she even knew why she was there at that time, she just would have preferred to be home in bed.

"Melissa, what are doing here so early?" Irene Stevens asked when she saw who was on the doorstep. "Constance." If she was surprised to see the constable, it was nothing to the surprise she felt at seeing who was with her. "Has something happened? Something new?"

Melissa hesitated briefly and then nodded. "You could say that," she said, wondering if Sergeant Mitchell had told the inspector any of what had happened at the hospital the previous evening; she doubted it, it been past midnight when they made it back to the village, and she didn't imagine the sergeant would have wanted to admit what he had done. "I know it's early, but I really need to speak to the inspector, it's important."

Ordinarily Irene would have told Melissa to come back later, she knew the constable wasn't the sort to come knocking without a very good reason, however. "Come in, I'll get Robert." She stepped back from the door so Melissa and her grandmother could enter and then closed the door behind them. "Wait in here."

Stevens found his guests on the sofa when he reached the living room. "So, Melissa, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?" he asked once they had exchanged pleasantries. "I take it you're the one who wants to see me." He glanced at Constance, but most of his attention was on his subordinate.

"It's about Sergeant Mitchell, sir, and Mr Wild," Melissa said. She was a little worried about how the inspector was going to take what she had to say, he had always been a fair and reasonable boss, but she couldn't help remembering that he was good friends with Mitchell, and had been since she was a baby. "And about the murders." She fell silent for a moment, waiting for the inspector to say something, when he didn't she continued, "I think Sergeant Mitchell needs to be taken off the case, I think we need a detective to take over."

"Why's that?" Stevens asked. "Lewis has already caught the killer. I know he hasn't arrested Mr Wild yet, but he has assured me that Mr Wild's blood-type matches that of the killer, and he will arrest him once he has proved his alibi is a fake."

"The blood-type match means very little, sir; the killer's blood-type is the same as that of a third of the male population. That aside, Mr Wild's alibi is solid, so the only way he could be the one who attacked Emily is if we're wrong about when she was attacked, and given all the information we have, and the phone call we got at the station, that seems pretty unlikely. If he can't be responsible for the attack on Emily, he can't be responsible for the murders of Georgina and Lucy either."

"You're certain of that?"

Melissa nodded while trying to read the look on her superior's face. "Yes, sir, very certain," she said. "At the time we received the call in which we heard someone – we still haven't been able to confirm that it was Emily, though it's extremely unlikely that it could have been anyone else – being attacked, Mr Wild was on the phone to his daughter. We've confirmed that both with his ex-wife and through his phone records, and before that his agent was at the house. If Emily was the one we heard being attacked, there's no way Mr Wild could have been responsible. Not only that but I've been able to prove that the attack we heard must have been committed by the same person who attacked Georgina and Lucy."

"How's that?" Stevens wanted to know.

"It took a while, but I was able to find out whose phone the call we heard the attack on came from," Melissa said. "It was Georgina's. The killer must have kept hold of it for some reason, and Emily must have found it. Sergeant Mitchell has been so obsessed with proving that Mr Wild's the murderer that he hasn't even considered that someone else might be the killer. He never properly checked whether Kieran Wright saw Georgina the night she disappeared; he never checked Kieran's car or anything, he just took Kieran's word for it that he hadn't seen Georgina.

"There's more, sir," Melissa said when she saw that the inspector was about to say something. "I think Mitchell may have been involved in the two attempts on Mr Wild's life..."

Stevens' face darkened when he heard that. He had sat back in his armchair while he listened calmly to what his constable had to say, but now he leaned forward angrily. "Are you really trying to suggest that Lewis Mitchell, a man I have known for almost as long as you have lived, would have had anything to do with attempted murder? I'll give you one chance to withdraw that claim, Melissa, before it has serious repercussions for your career. I know you are ambitious, as ambitious as anyone, but a claim like this could bring your career to an end."

"I realise that, inspector," Melissa said. She went pale at the mention of serious repercussions for her career, but didn't back down; now that she had made the decision to tell the inspector her suspicions, and what had led her to them, she was not prepared to back away from them just because they might harm her career. "But I have good reason for what I've said, and I believe it can be proved if you want to check it. In fact, there's worse even than him being involved with the two attempts on Mr Wild's life..." She hesitated for a long moment and then plunged on. "Last night at the hospital, I witnessed Sergeant Mitchell try to kill Mr Wild. After we left the Wrights, we went down to speak to Mr Wild; Sergeant Mitchell got very angry and ended up with his hands around Mr Wild's throat, trying to strangle him. It took me and a nurse to pull him off, and I needed a security guard to help me get him out of the room. If the nurse hadn't arrived, I don't think I would have been able to stop him killing Mr Wild."

A lengthy silence fell over the living room as Stevens considered what he had been told. Without tears, he could not have looked more unhappy. "Why are you here, Constance?" he asked to give himself more time to think. "This has nothing to do with you," he said, his words a harsher than he intended them to be.

"I'm here to support Melissa," Constance answered. "And to make sure you listen to what she has to say." She had no illusions about her lack of authority over Stevens, she could not compel him to do as she wished, but she did have a position of respect in the village that made it more likely that he would listen to Melissa if it was clear that she supported her. "I think you should read the file Melissa has put together; she makes a good case for all she says."

With a degree of reluctance, Stevens reached out to take the file. It took him some time to get through the pages, which were more detailed than anything he had been told or shown by Mitchell, and by the time he was finished he was far from happy. He was unhappy with his friend for claiming to have solved the case when it appeared that he had actually made it a whole lot worse, and he was unhappy with Melissa for making him aware of the situation.

"You heard Malcolm Wright threaten to harm Mr Wild if Lewis didn't deal with him and find his daughter; and then, when he was forced to release Mr Wild because of a lack of evidence, you heard Lewis on the phone to Malcolm Wright, telling him not to do what he was thinking of doing." When Melissa nodded, Stevens sighed heavily. "Yet he hasn't arrested him."

"No, sir," Melissa said with a shake of her head. "Mr Wild hasn't filed an official complaint yet, either, but I think that's probably just a matter of time."

"If the attack was as serious as you say, I'd have to agree." Stevens shuffled the papers together. "Okay, you'll get what you want, I'll call the chief inspector and request a detective to take over the case and look into your allegations. You'd better hope he or she agrees that Lewis has a case to answer to, though; if the detective we get disagrees with you, I think you'll have to give serious thought to finding a new career."