“The Scribbler creeps up on you. Iain Maitland’s latest brilliantly creepy creation is a master class in slow, patient suspense. Barbara Nadel
“A brilliant read [… on] LGBTQ+ crimes that traditionally were underreported … Thankfully, times have changed.” Neil Boast MBE, former LGBT Liaison Officer, Suffolk Constabulary, and former head of task force on sexual exploitation and trafficking
Praise for Mr Todd’s Reckoning:
“Splendidly creepy.” Geoffrey Wansell, Daily Mail
“Maitland conjures madness from the inside, looking out … a brave book.” Jeff Noon, Spectator
“With stylish economy and a remorseless eye for detail, Iain Maitland’s Mr Todd lures us in to his moral abyss. The banality of evil … drip feeds us its shockingly tense story of unending horror … Riveting, terrifying.” Paul Ritter
“Hurls you through the secret underground tunnels of an insane mind bent on destruction … phenomenally dark and utterly compelling.” Chris Dolan
“A dark chilling read, but I have to say a lot of fun too. There is a clever poetic ending that restores balance to the world but it’s a long journey down a dark tunnel before the light. Mr Todd’s Reckoning is gripping and gritty, exciting and scary.” NB literary magazine
“Superbly crafted … spellbinding and gripping … brilliantly observed … The setting of an ordinary two-bedroomed bungalow in suburbia is genius … the possibilities presented in Mr Todd’s Reckoning are quite terrifying. … Sparkling, mesmerising … absolutely magnificent.” Linda Hill, Linda’s Book Blog
“The characters are brought to life so vividly I could see and smell them … genius … You can’t stop turning the pages … a jaw dropping, atmospheric, creepy and uncomfortable read.” Tracy Fenton, Compulsive Readers Blog
“Truly scary … a fabulous dive into the mind of a classic, self-justifying psychopath … A fantastic book.” Barbara Nadel
“Chilling … compelling … extremely thought provoking and shocking.” Jera’s Jamboree
“A sinister novel with a build that [is] totally unexpected … A quite unique thriller.” A Knight’s Reads Blog
“The kind of creepy disturbing read that stays with you … It’s dark psychological crime fiction with no ground rules or boundaries … don’t get too comfortable.” Cheryl MM’s Book Blog
“This novel grabbed me from the very first page and refused to let go … wonderfully quirky yet frightening … The atmosphere that Iain Maitland creates with his writing is incredible … he is a master of suspense.” Bookaholic Confessions
“Pure creepy gold … A superb storyline, brilliant characters and subplots that tweaked my adrenaline … This is a stunner!” Books from Dusk till Dawn
“A deliciously dark and disturbing read … incredibly dry wit … dark to the nth degree …wonderfully surprising, with a couple of real gasp-out-loud incidents.” Raven Crime Reads
“Iain Maitland is a genius what a book Mr Todd s Reckoning is … A really fantastic read.” It’s All About the Books Blog
“A very clever psychological thriller … A really dark, almost claustrophobic story, with some genuinely creepy moments that had me reeling in disbelief.” Jaffa Reads Too Blog
“There is no way the bloke who wrote this isn’t some kind of psychopath.” Alicia Harrison, Streetwise Publications
Praise for Sweet William:
“A breathless journey through fear and love that explores how interdependent those two extreme emotions are.” Ewan Morrison
“Extremely well written and very frightening.” Barbara Nadel
“A dark, rocket-paced thriller.” Jon Wise, Sunday Sport
“Taut, darkly humorous and heartbreaking, with an unforgettable narrator, Sweet William packs a real emotional punch.” Lisa Gray, Daily Record
“A compassionate novel imbued with a deep knowledge of mental health issues … Tense and insightful … A heart-stopping thriller with a powerful denouement.” Paul Burke, Nudge Books
“Tense … astounding … dark and chilling … and shockingly realistic. Gripping and immersive … an intelligently written thriller that deals with the intricacies of the human brain, mixed up with the emotional ties of the family.” Anne Cater, Random Things Through my Letterbox
“A story of danger, delirium and devastation … absolutely electrifying.” Alix Long, Delightful Book Reviews
“Enthralling … makes us cold to our bones … a stunning novel.” Buried Under Books
Praise for Out of the Madhouse:
“An excellent exploration of the phenomenology of mental illness and its wider impact.” Joshua Fletcher, Psychotherapist
“I love this book; profoundly moving, beautifully written … incredibly important …wonderfully hopeful.” James Withey
“Confronts the shocking bleakness of mental illness head on.” Charlie Mortimer
“The overriding ingredients … are the warmth of his connections, … and the power of communication.” Dr Nihara Krause
Praise for Dear Michael, Love Dad:
“A wonderfully entertaining and moving book, with lessons for every parent.” Daily Mail
“A moving read – honest, funny and sad.” Woman and Home
“Raising the issue of men’s mental health is important and Dear Michael, Love Dad is to be praised for that … [a] loving and well meant mix of letters and commentary. Daily Express
The Scribbler
THE FIRST GAYTHER & CARRIE
COLD CASE THRILLER
BY
IAIN
MAITLAND
For Georgia, Glyn and Sophie.
CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE
DEDICATION
PROLOGUE
PART ONE THE CARE HOME
PART TWO THE SUSPECTS
PART THREE THE HOUSE
PART FOUR ANOTHER VICTIM
PART FIVE THE OLD BARN
EPILOGUE
AUTHOR’S NOTES
AUTHOR’S ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALSO BY IAIN MAITLAND
COPYRIGHT
PROLOGUE
MONDAY 12 NOVEMBER, 7.25AM
The Carrie family – the 20-something woman, her middle-aged mother and her five-year old son – sat around the kitchen table of a semi-detached bungalow on an estate on the outskirts of Ipswich in Suffolk.
Eating breakfast. Cereal. Coco Pops. Tea. Orange juice. Milk. Toast. Marmalade. Nutella.
Watching the clock on the wall.
The two women both had jobs to go to and the little boy had to be dropped off at school before that, by the older woman on her way to the hospital.
“So, Georgy …” the older woman sipped at her glass of orange juice as she looked across at her slight, crop-haired daughter, “… you’re sure this new job’s what you really want to do?”
“Bit late to change my mind now, Mum.” The younger woman checked the clock. “An hour and a half before I start work.” She bit into a corner of her toast.
“It wouldn’t be the first time, sweetheart.” The mother smiled back.
“Mum!” the young woman shouted in mock exasperation. “I know what I want to do now … something that makes a difference to people … changes lives … and something I can get stuck into. DI Gayther’s new LGBTQ+ Cold Case section allows me to put things right from years ago. It’s better than spending my time deciding which officer should attend to a dog that’s got loose on the by-pass.”
The older woman sat quietly for a moment, chewing on her toast and thinking about what she was going to say next.
The younger woman leaned towards the little boy, reaching out her hand to push his hair out of his eyes with her fingers.
The boy moved his head from side to side, giggling, and
then shook his hair, which flopped back into his eyes.
“Which one’s DI Gayther? Is he the one that kept pestering you?”
“No, that was creepy Greening – he transferred to the Met six months ago. Gayther, Roger Gayther, is the one I worked with when I was a special at uni. He lives up by that little Co-op at the mini roundabout. I pointed his house out to you once, remember? The one with the clematis. He’s quite funny in a dry sort of way. You have to tune into his wavelength a bit …”
“Is he …?”
“You met him a couple of times before I passed my test. He gave me lifts to work sometimes. Biggish man, he’d be about mid-fifties. Grey suit and tie and grey hair … receding a little … balding now probably … you know the one, you said he’d look quite nice with a wash and brush up. He worked on crime investigations. The heavy stuff.”
She looked at her young son, Noah, and smiled widely at him.
The little boy smiled back sweetly as he spooned Coco Pops into his mouth. Some of it went in, most of it didn’t. He looked down at the milky mess on the tablecloth and then looked back up at his mum, who pulled a pretend-angry face at him. He wiped at the puddle of milk and Coco Pops with his sleeve.
“He’s really nice,” the young woman added, taking a mouthful of tea and mopping at the boy’s sleeve with a piece of kitchen roll on the table.
She turned away from her son towards her mother and dropped her voice. “His wife passed away earlier this year … it’s said she was an alcoholic and took her own life. He then had some sort of breakdown and is now back at work heading up this new section. They’re easing him back in, I’m told. At his own pace. I think he might be a bit depressive, too.”
“Well, I hope you know what you’re letting yourself in for, that’s all I can say … if he’s not well up here.” The older woman touched the side of her head.
“He was always kind to me,” the young woman replied as she put her emptied glass of orange and cup of tea on her plate ready to clear away. “I’ll learn a lot from him. He’s very open … or was, I don’t know how he’ll be these days. He has a son who did, or does, something terribly hush-hush in the Met. He’s based in London, so DI Gayther must be on his own at home and quite lonely, I’d have thought.”
“Well, you be careful, don’t take any nonsense …” the older woman instructed. “LGBTQ+. Lesbian, gay, bi–”
“Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer or questioning and others,” the younger woman interrupted. “They’ve a big cold case team at work that covers all of the unresolved cases – missing people, serious sexual offences, murders – all going back to the sixties and seventies. Massive, it is. All the files. And they’ve a couple of big cold cases that they’re looking into … a tenth and twenty-fifth anniversary … the media will be all over them … it’s just got too many cases at the moment.”
The younger woman paused before carrying on.
“So, they’ve set up a separate section for LGBTQ+ cases, going way back, and all across East Anglia, and put DI Gayther in charge. It ticks the politically correct boxes and they’ve had loads of local publicity in the papers – on the radio and he’s been on Anglia TV, BBC and ITV. It gives him a way to come back in at his own pace.”
“So,” the older woman replied as she stood up and began putting the breakfast crockery onto a tray, “you’ve no idea what you’ll be doing when you get into work this morning then?”
“No,” replied the younger woman. “… It could be anything from a hate crime to a murder. Whatever it is, I’m ready …”
They smiled at each other.
The young woman ran her fingers through the boy’s hair.
The older woman said, “Good luck.”
PART ONE
THE CARE HOME
1. MONDAY 12 NOVEMBER, EARLY MORNING
Newly qualified Detective Constable Georgia Carrie walked slowly up the steps of the temporary portacabin office to the side of the main police station building, balancing two full mugs of tea, one in each hand. She stopped to read the sign, ‘DI Gayther, Cold Cases’ and the handwritten scrawl above it, ‘LGBTQ+’. She put the mugs down on the top step to open the door and then paused for a moment, thinking what she might say.
“Sorry to hear about your wife, sir”? No, not even that cursory sentence of sympathy would be welcomed. His wife’s alcoholism was an open secret at the station, but he had never talked of it. “I’m looking forward to working with you again” sounded suitably keen. But she was sure he viewed his sideways move – “a washed-up old has-been shuffling through dead files,” as he’d probably put it – without much enthusiasm.
She opened the door. Picked up the mugs. Stepped inside. The older man, in his battered grey suit and brown loafers, looked up as the young woman put the mugs of tea on the desk. One on his side, the other on hers. He smiled briefly and nodded his thanks. She went to say her opening words, “Good to see you again, sir”, but as she did so, he turned the papers he was reading round so they were facing her on the desk. Old man in a hurry, she thought.
“Read this, Carrie,” he said abruptly, pushing two sheets of A4 paper across towards her.
She took the sheets and sat down at the desk and began reading the first one. He picked up his mug of tea and swung round on his chair, his back to her, looking out of the window towards the back of the main building and what looked like a building site. The police station was being renovated. Ladders, pots and paints and stacked-up scaffolding seemed to fill the whole space. It was a mess. He hated mess.
“Still At Large,” she read the front page headline of the local newspaper out loud, “The Scribbler.”
“When was this…?”
“Two years ago. Thirtieth anniversary of the first killing,” he replied. He gestured towards the two sheets and she carried on reading without speaking.
“Police are still searching for The Scribbler, the serial killer who murdered six people in Norfolk between 1988 and 1990.
“He is described as white British and would now be in his fifties.
“The Scribbler met his victims in bars and clubs in and around Norwich and later stabbed them to death.
“He carved a cartoon likeness of each victim onto their torso.
“The first victim was Donald Worthington, a 53-year-old abattoir supervisor.
“The second victim was 42-year-old office clerk Andrew Marven.
“The other four victims, middle-aged men from the Norwich area, were found dead in the summer and autumn of 1990.
“Police believe The Scribbler may have killed twelve men in total.”
She stopped, cocked her head at an angle, and looked across the desk at Gayther. “If he drew a cartoon likeness of each victim, should he not be known as ‘The Caricaturist’ rather than ‘The Scribbler’?”
He turned and looked at her. “‘The Scribbler’ is snappier. And more accurate, although the press, the media, don’t know it. He used to criss-cross the body with cuts after he drew the likeness … as if he were scribbling it out in a rage. Read the other page, Carrie. I’ve started a summary.”
She nodded and continued reading. She worked her way down the half-page of bullet-pointed, handwritten notes in his small, neat hand.
The Scribbler. White Male. Early twenties/Now mid-fifties. Slim build. No distinguishing features.
She looked up. “Do we have a likeness … of this Scribbler?”
He dug into the briefcase by his feet and pulled out one more sheet, which he handed to her. “It’s probably the worst I’ve ever seen in thirty or so years. Mr Potato Head. Your little boy could have done a better job with his crayons.” He stopped and thought and then added, “How is … your little boy?”
“Noah’s well. Started school in September … just round the corner from my mum’s. We’ve moved in with Mum for now. She’s helping out, taking him and collecting him from school when I can’t.”
“Is … your partner—”
“No,” she said, int
errupting and shaking her head. “He’s gone for good this time. I had enough of it. I’m just trying to sort out the legal stuff. Solicitors are involved. He doesn’t make things easy. Do we have an aged version of this?” She changed the subject, holding up the picture of The Scribbler.
“I’ve just asked for one, for what it’s worth. It’s in the system, but Christ knows how long that will be. It’s certainly not a priority.” He leaned forward suddenly, took a fountain pen out of his inside jacket pocket and drew three lines across the forehead of the image and lines between and to either side of the nose and mouth. He stopped and added stray hairs from the nostrils and ears. “There, that’s what he looks like now. Old Mr Potato Head.”
“Eyes?”
“Blue. Or Blue-grey. Or brown, according to one witness.”
Gayther drew a pair of glasses on the image. “He might have glasses these days, unless he’s like me and pretends he doesn’t need them.”
“Height?”
“Five eight, nine. Slight build. Lean. Stringy. Everyone seems to agree on that.”
“No distinguishing features at all?”
“None that were recalled by anyone. One witness said he had ‘staring eyes’ and another ‘mad eyes’, but someone always says that … especially when the person has just tried to murder them. That’s about it.”
She stopped and paused. “And who gave us the descriptions?”
“Three of his victims escaped. We also had statements and descriptions from a barmaid at the time. And an old boy who got into a conversation with him … read on, though. My summary. I’ve not finished it yet. You were here earlier than I expected.”
Six victims – forties, fifties, family men, closet gays.
Three got away – teacher, bank manager, vicar. Now aged 65 to 80+.
Three prime suspects: Challis (plumber), Halom (drag act), Burgess (sales rep). All released without charge.
The Scribbler Page 1