No Justice

Book 0: DC Donna Morris

by Kate Evans

Genres: Police Procedurals

Synopsis

The next in a thrilling new police procedural series set in Scarborough and following DC Donna Morris - middle-aged, seemingly ordinary - but hiding many secrets. . .

Rape and organised crime sully even the pretty streets of the small Yorkshire town DC Donna Morris is beginning to think of as home. The National Crime Agency inevitably gets involved but their methods put more people in danger. Guns - though she used one once in anger and fear - are really not how Donna would prefer to nail the guilty. And there are some people who believe their actions are always justified. Then there are others who will never get justice. Can DC Donna Morris negotiate some kind of resolution while dealing with betrayal in her own life?

Praise for Kate Evans

'Kate Evans delivers a gripping crime debut with a truly original policewoman as the central character. Highly recommended' Irish Independent

'Well written and without any flashiness, this believable police procedural deals with guilt, vengeance, love, a serial killer with a God complex and redemption. . . effective and moving' Literary Review

'Read this book' 5 Stars, Reader Review

'A rich and rewarding police procedural with a candidly portrayed and memorable central character' 5 Stars, Reader Review

'A brilliant read' 5 Stars, Reader Review

Release date: June 1, 2023

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 272

Sample

Gordon Yates would hardly be recognisable even to himself. DC Donna Morris hopes no one has given him a mirror. And the pain must be tremendous. The whole right side of his face is a livid mulch of yellow and purple. This and the broken humerus were caused by his fall. After the clout he received, which has closed up and blackened his left eye. Apart from this his white skin looks unlaundered against the starched hospital pillow.

‘Mr Yates,’ Donna says softly. If he is sleeping, she decides she will leave him to it. But his good eye snaps open and the other one becomes a slit. Donna continues, explaining who she is and why she has come.

At eighty-nine, Gordon Yates probably has the reflex to stand when greeting a woman or someone in authority. He seems determined to try something of the kind.

‘There’s no need to sit up,’ Donna adds hastily. Gordon is linked to various monitoring machines. However, he was lucky to be found so quickly – the postwoman investigating the open front door – he hadn’t become too dehydrated and got quick attention. Beyond the usual hospital smells of linoleum and cleaning fluids, there is the slight acidic odour of vomit. The nurse told Donna, they are concerned about concussion. They will keep him in overnight and then will (hopefully) release him into the care of his son.

Donna pulls over a plastic chair and sits. She divests herself of scarf and padded jacket. Outside, a breeze native to the Siberian Steppes – it feels like – is blowing in across the sea and a fog has mobbed the sun. In contrast, the ward is a roasting oven and for Donna one of her internal heat waves is threatening. She brings herself to focus by opening her notepad: ‘I wonder if you could tell me what happened, Mr Yates?’

‘I was attacked,’ he says gruffly. ‘It was that Khalil. I shouldn’t have trusted him.’ He said much the same to the paramedics as he went in and out of consciousness.

‘Perhaps you could give me some more details?’ prompts Donna as Gordon does not appear to be about to carry on.

‘What more do you want? You should be out there arresting him.’

‘And we will, Mr Yates, we will arrest whoever has done this to you—’

‘It was Khalil. Are you saying I’m a liar?’ Once again he tries to pull himself more upright and his face screws up in agony. ‘Dammit,’ he says in a weakened voice.

‘Please, Mr Yates, I know this has all been very distressing, but I do need some more information.’

After several stuttering breaths, Gordon growls, ‘What do you want to know?’

‘Why don’t you start at lunchtime today and move forward from there?’ With some reluctance, Gordon Yates agrees. He slowly, precisely, answers Donna’s questions and she pieces together his story. Lunch was at twelve-thirty, as it always is. It consisted of pea soup which he had made earlier from scratch, with a ham and mustard sandwich. He washed up and set the tea tray ready. This was found by the attending PC, untouched, in the kitchen – two cups and saucers, milk in a jug, sugar in a bowl, ginger biscuits on a plate and the pot a quarter full of water which had once been warming. After making his preparations for his visitor, Gordon Yates sat and read for thirty minutes. By then it was one forty-five and Khalil was late. Gordon went to the front door to look up and down his road. Nothing was stirring. On returning to his chair, he decided to leave the door on the latch. ‘I take a bit longer these days to get up on the old pins,’ he explains to Donna. ‘I thought Khalil could let himself in and bring in the tea tray without me having to bother.’ He closes both his eyes, liquid seeps from the bulging slit. ‘Why did I do that? Why? If I hadn’t been surprised, I could have defended myself.’ He contracts the fist at the end of his unbroken arm.

Donna waits for him to settle a bit, then asks him what happened next.

His eyes remain shut. ‘I don’t know, I think I dropped off, I must have, because I woke up and there was someone in the room. Well, of course, it was Khalil and he was rummaging through the drawers in the sideboard behind me. I stood up, I asked him what the hell he was doing. Pardon my French. I turned and then …’ He stops. Breaths gutter like sobs.

Donna would take his hand and squeeze it, if it wasn’t unprofessional. Instead, she gently pats his arm.

‘He hit me,’ Gordon says finally. ‘And I went down.’

‘And it was Khalil?’

‘Yes, I’ve said so haven’t I?’ His agitation turns quickly fiery.

‘Tell me about Khalil.’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘A family name would help and contact details?’

‘Family name? Oh. you mean surname. I could never get my tongue round it. But it’s written down, in my address book under K, with his phone number. I don’t know his address.’

‘How did you meet him?’

‘He came round one day, about ten months ago, said he could help with the garden. I told him I wasn’t that old, I could manage. But really, after all these years, who wants to keep doing all the weeding? Betty, my wife, it was her domain. I haven’t kept up with it properly, I have to admit. And I like it when people try to do something for themselves, don’t always sit there waiting for handouts. So I gave him a chance. And he was very hard working. Very. He started to do small bits around the house. Things I was finding it difficult to manage. And then I’d give him a cuppa and he’d ask me things. He was a good listener. Kids these days, they don’t care what an old codger like me has done with my life. No curiosity. But Khalil, he always had the time to listen. And he remembered what I’d said. He was interested. Bah,’ Gordon pauses. ‘I should never have trusted him. My son warned me. They are always up to no good.’

‘They?’ She steels herself for disappointment. Disappointment for what she is about to hear. Disappointment that she won’t challenge it.

‘Those people who come here on those boats. They’ve no right to come here and expect everything handed to them on a plate.’ This last harsh statement seems to drain him. He puts his hand up to his mouth. His skin, if possible, goes a further shade of grey.

‘Are you OK, Mr Yates?’

‘Not really, lass. I wonder if you could find a nurse for me?’ he says very softly as if it pains him to push out the words.

‘Of course. And, rest assured, we will find whoever has perpetrated this attack against you.’ She stands.

‘Khalil, it was Khalil. And he’ll be long gone, lass, long gone. I won’t see him again.’ He says it as if this thought tortures him the most.

‘It’s his smell, I can’t get rid of it. Some fancy, poncy … what do they call it? Men’s perfume? Christian Dior or what the fuck. It makes me feel sick, literally physically sick.’ Kelsey Geraty has screwed herself up, arms around body, legs around each other.

Hannah Poole feels a parallel tightening and twisting inside herself. She’s aware this is not merely a mirroring of her client’s distress, there’s a resonance in this story for her. Twenty-year-old Kelsey is chunky. Brash and brassy with her platinum-dyed hair and mask of make-up – warpaint, Hannah had observed to herself during the first session – she favours tight tops, short skirts and high heels. She’d spent the first two weeks explaining in language littered with expletives how she’s ‘gonna deal’ with her attacker herself, since the police ‘fucked the case up’. And now they only have six sessions left after this one, six hours to unravel it all.

Hannah senses the ooze of her frustration. Primarily at the government, doling out therapy sessions as if they were rationed favours at a wedding for thousands and then patting itself on the back for its supposed generosity. Then there’s her frustration at … herself. Because she can’t fix this, for Kelsey. I’m not good enough, the thought ambushes her. Ah, there’s the rub, isn’t it, Hannah? ‘We’re not here to fix, we can’t fix,’ the words of her supervisor come to mind. ‘We’re here to listen.’

Hannah refocuses herself on the youngster in front of her. ‘Kelsey,’ she says gently. ‘I believe you. I believe he dragged you to the edge of the park, away from anyone who could see or help you, and he raped you.’

‘Everyone says, everyone says I asked for it,’ the words come out as hiccups. She sounds about five.

Hannah wonders again whether this is the first time Kelsey has been raped. Six weeks is not enough time to unwrap all that, she cautions herself. Work with what is in front of you. ‘No one asks to be raped.’

‘The porkers think I did.’

‘The police have to be guided by the Crown Prosecution Service and they felt a conviction would be unlikely.’ Hannah doesn’t tell her client the DI in charge, Theo, is a close friend, and she knows he would have done everything in his power to get the case to court. ‘It’s not about belief, or even truth, it’s about the amount of evidence available.’ And what a defence lawyer would do to you, my love: tear you to pieces. Would that have been better? ‘Take a breath, Kelsey, that’s it, and another.’

Kelsey’s voice is stronger as she continues, her feet flat on the ground, her elbows resting on her knees, ‘I see him, he’s fucking everywhere, fucking everywhere I go.’

‘Has he approached you? Is Nathaniel Withenshaw harassing you? You can get a restraining order.’

Kelsey’s head rears upwards, ‘I’ll fucking kill him, I’ll get a knife and fucking put it in his heart—’

‘Kelsey, are you following him around?’

The youngster drops forward again, face partially hidden behind hair.

‘Kelsey, don’t do this to yourself.’

‘He’s having such a great time,’ the words are muffled. ‘Like, like nothing fucking happened, got girls all ova ’im. Why should he fucking get away with it? Have his life when I …’ The plump hands, the colour of daisy petals, are held out, beseeching, empty. Then she says, ‘I have to know where he is.’

Hannah takes a moment to compose herself; anger, sadness, defeat all competing with each other. She lets her eyes rove around the room, an elegantly appointed, high-ceilinged room in an elegantly appointed Victorian town house on the south side of town. In the mid-nineteenth century an up-and-coming destination for the rich. The coving remains, as does the extravagant marble fireplace and tall arched windows. Now that it’s owned by the Scarborough Centre for Therapy Excellence (SC4TE), however, the furnishings are bland, comfortable, practical. Hannah trained here and now she practises from here. She hears a colleague ushering a client down the graceful sweep of the stairs. Not for the first time, she wonders what tales these old walls might tell. Kelsey’s being added like another skim of plaster. ‘It’s not fair,’ Hannah says quietly. ‘It’s not fair, Kelsey. Tell me, tell me what’s going on for you, right now.’

The fists form, the hair sways back. ‘I’m fucking angry, that’s what, I’m going to get him.’

Cushion hitting? Punch the anger out? Something stays Hannah’s suggestion, she sees it in Kelsey’s eyes. She’s not noticed them before, had always been distracted by the make-up, they are a tincture of forget-me-nots. Fear? Yes. ‘He won’t hurt you again.’

‘How do you know?’

Good question. And which ‘him’ are we talking about? The one when you were a kid? The one who raped you eighteen months ago? Or the future hims who are going to misuse you? Her shoulders click painfully, she’s been holding herself too still, she tries to stretch her back without being too obvious about it and to snatch a glance at the clock. What can we do in ten minutes? She breathes slowly. ‘You’re right, I don’t know. You’re right, I can’t keep you safe from everyone and everything. I want to but I can’t. One thing I do know, though, is that following him around and getting yourself armed with a knife are going to put you in danger. You know enough kids around you who’ve been hurt by knives or arrested for possession to be sure of that yourself. What’s going to keep you safe, Kelsey? Who can support you?’ It’s stuff they’ve already been through and it sounds lame even to Hannah, but it fills the time and maybe, just maybe, it’ll get Kelsey through another week.

‘Sometimes cases just are that straightforward,’ says DS Harrie Shilling. The younger woman is slighter than Donna has been for some twenty years. Her dark trouser suit is sharp. As she glances at Donna sitting beside her, Harrie raises a tweezered eyebrow. The acute contours of her white-skinned cheeks are ferociously blushered.

‘What’s bothering you, Donna?’ asks DI Theo Akande. They are gathered in his small office. He is a black man in his mid-forties. There is a neatness about his medium build which belies his athleticism. His hair is in orderly cornrows. His navy suit is as dapper as it was at the beginning of this long day. The pinstripe in his tie matches the green of his shirt and rims of his glasses. Through the small square office window, a daylight which hardly got ignited is dimming into dusk. Both Theo and Harrie have waited beyond the end of their shifts to hear the report from Donna’s interview with Gordon Yates.

And now they have heard it, why should I keep them longer? she wonders. A gut feeling? Or is it just that I didn’t like Gordon Yates’s racism? ‘I don’t think we should rush to conclusions, that’s all,’ she says carefully.

‘We’ve certainly got to identify, find and speak to this Khalil,’ says Theo. ‘And review the forensic evidence. We won’t take Mr Yates’s ID of the perpetrator as the end of the matter, if that’s what you are worried about.’ He sounds mildly affronted.

Donna rushes in to say, of course, she knows this. Harrie suggests they do a handover to the night shift to ‘move things along’. There’s a weariness in her tone and she stands. But Donna isn’t ready to stop. At the very least she wants to find out something more about Khalil. Theo agrees she can go to Yates’s house to unearth his address book and talk to the crime scene manager. However, if she can’t immediately locate their suspect, she must let the duty DS take the next steps. ‘It’s too early in the financial year for me to blow my overtime budget,’ he says, pulling on his knee-length wool coat. Donna recognises this is mostly – though not completely – a joke. The robbery at Gordon Yates’s house had been audacious and violent. None of them wants the perpetrator free to act again.

Donna takes a short cut through a corner of the Dean Road cemetery which, for the last two centuries, has scored a green swathe between the South and North Bays. It is nearly eight months since Donna arrived in the town for her probationary year as detective constable, choosing to come to follow her daughter, Elizabeth. As a relative newcomer, Donna has explored many of the ways to the sea. And this is one she has come to know well. Despite the gathering darkness over the graves, it is a familiar route, the path is wide and still populated by dog walkers. As she hurries past, she, nevertheless, glances at what has fast become one of her favourite graves. It’s difficult to miss. A memorial to Adelaide, born Arras in 1852. The same question always presents itself: What had brought her to this country? Was it a story of happenchance? Like my own? This evening, she adds Khalil to her thoughts. What had washed him up on these shores? If indeed, Gordon Yates’s prejudices are accurate, and Khalil doesn’t turn out to be a native of Manchester or somewhere else in the UK. Donna tells herself off for jumping to the conclusions she had wanted them all to avoid.

Gordon Yates’s house stands on a pleasant residential street next to the cemetery and the wooded glen which leads into Peasholm Park. It is a detached 1930s property with its modest bay windows downstairs at the front and pebble-dashed brickwork. Well maintained but in need of some renewal, Donna imagines an estate agent’s kindly appraisal.

There is a young PC sentinel at the gate who is receiving some advice from PC Trevor Trench. He greets Donna warmly. He is a big man made bulkier by his uniform jacket with all its accoutrements and a yellow hi-vis. He makes Donna think of a bee. A bee which has spent the afternoon gathering honey, albeit rather ponderously and slowly. He has been leading the house-to-house. There’s not much to report. Most residents were out at work or too busy with childcare to notice much. Just one, watching for the postie, said she thought she saw a young man running towards the cemetery around two-ten in the afternoon. Trev describes their witness as an ‘elderly lady’, which makes Donna wonder about her eyesight – Trev is no spring chicken. Once they have a photograph, they’ll check back with the woman. Meanwhile, however, Donna says Trev can get off home.

She walks up the path to the house. There’s a slightly tipsy, small, glazed porch protecting the front door, which had allowed Gordon Yates to leave it unlocked even with the less than clement weather. Donna stands in the porch and calls through the hall. The CSM, Ethan Buckle, comes to meet her. Squat and ex-military, he is still swaddled in his white suit, but the hood is pulled back to show his bald domed head. They are packing up. She can come in. There is a short hall with both the kitchen and sitting room branching off it at the back. The sitting room is stuffed to bursting with dark wood furniture: sofa, armchairs, TV, occasional tables, sideboard, chest of drawers, bookshelves. Every surface covered with something: an ornament, a book, clutches of photographs. Donna can see how Gordon Yates gathered most of his life around the chair positioned with the best view of the TV, its fading upholstering sagging and covered by a dark blue throw. On the table nearest are the phone, a hardback history of the Second World War, a framed photo of a smiling woman in her seventies, a glass of water, a sm. . .