His gaze returned to the scarred surface of the table. “When I got there, the house was empty. At first, I thought James and Sarah were in the house, in the dark, but I checked every room, and soon realised I was alone. I inwardly cursed James for making me stay out in the cold when he wasn’t even here. The house was freezing, so I put the heating on and went up to my room to do my homework.
“About an hour later, I heard someone come through the front door. Knowing it would be James, I didn’t bother leaving my room. I didn’t particularly want to see him, and I was afraid that if his time with Sarah hadn’t gone to the way he wanted, he’d take it out on me, and demand the money back that he’d given me for chips.”
I heard him moving around in the kitchen for a while, and then he came upstairs. His bedroom was just across from mine, and I caught a glimpse of him as he walked past my door. He looked exhausted and sweaty. His clothes were covered in dirt. No sooner had I seen him, than he disappeared into his room and closed the door.”
Eric paused, and looked up at Rob, as if expecting some sort or reaction. Rob didn’t know exactly what reaction his uncle was looking for, so he just shrugged. “I don’t really get your point.”
“I didn’t understand, either, at the time. And I wasn’t about to question James. I stayed in my room, and about an hour later, I heard him go back downstairs. Then I heard the washing machine start up, and the sound of the hoover.”
Again, he looked at Rob, and again, Rob simply shrugged.
“He was cleaning up the dirt,” Eric said. “Washing his clothes. He never did that. As far as I knew, he didn’t even know how to work the washing machine. I found his behaviour odd, to say the least, but I just put it down to the fact that James was odd, anyway. Things didn’t take a sinister turn until Monday.”
Rob knew what his uncle was going to say, but he waited patiently.
“When we got to school, we found out that Sarah Rundle was missing. She hadn’t been since Friday.”
“Okay,” Rob said flatly. Did Eric suspect his brother was a murderer? That he’d killed and buried Sarah Rundle? If so, why hadn’t he gone to the police, or at least told his parents? Mind you, he himself hadn’t gone to the police when he’d found the bodies in the cellar.
“At first, I didn’t suspect James,” Eric said. “Despite the circumstantial evidence I’d seen with my own eyes—James walking to our house with Sarah, the dirty clothes, and the impromptu clean-up operation—I couldn’t get my head around the fact that he might have done something so terrible. I mean, I knew he was a bad person, but to kill someone? No, I didn’t believe it.”
He finished the tea and placed the mug back on the table with an air of finality. “Two weeks later, I discovered something that changed my mind. I was home alone again, watching telly in the living room. Mum and Dad were at church—no surprise there—and James had gone out in the Mini, which he seemed to do even more frequently now. I was getting bored with the telly, so I decided to go to my room and find a book to read. I read a lot of science fiction, even though Mum and Dad only allowed us to read Christian books. Every week, I’d go to the library on my own, and check out a sci fi novel. I kept them hidden under my pillow, and only read them when my parents weren’t there, or at night when I was supposed to be sleeping.”
Rob sighed. He was getting impatient. He had absolutely no interest in Eric’s reading habits.
“I went upstairs, but as I got to my bedroom door, I looked across at James’s room. The door was ajar, and I decided on a whim to have a look inside. That isn’t actually true; it wasn’t on a whim. I felt that I had to look inside. Because no matter how much I told myself that James had nothing to do with Sarah’s disappearance, a little voice inside my head kept asking what if. What if he had done something terrible? Shouldn’t I try to find out the truth?”
He paused, as if expecting Rob to answer the question, even though it had sounded rhetorical when he’d asked it.
“Of course,” Rob said, hoping Eric would leave soon. His eyes flicked to the cellar door. He longed to be down there, in the dim light, nostrils full of the smell of earth as he uncovered another buried girl.
“So, I went into his room. I don’t know what I was looking for, exactly. I just thought that if I looked hard enough, I’d discover something that would prove James killed Sarah. Or perhaps I was hoping I wouldn’t find anything, and that would quiet the voice in my head.”
“And did you?” Rob asked, hoping to spare himself a retelling of Eric’s search of the bedroom. Couldn’t he just get to the point? “Find anything, I mean? Was there anything there?” He already knew by his uncle’s shaken demeanour that the room had held some clue, something that pointed to James as the girl’s killer.
“Yes. Underneath a chest of drawers, I found a blue headband. The police report had said that Sarah had been wearing it the day she disappeared. As I held it in my hands, I could see a single dark stain on the material. It was probably blood.”
“What did you do?”
Eric sighed, a sound that seemed to be laced with years of regret. “I put it back. I didn’t tell Mum or Dad. I didn’t tell the police. I kept it secret.”
“Why?” Rob asked. He realised that he should already know the answer to that question. After all, he’d found the girls in the cellar and kept that secret. But the fact that his reaction to discovering that his father was a murderer had been the same as Eric’s, didn’t mean he understood it.
“I was scared,” Eric said.
As soon as he heard that, Rob knew that his reasons for keeping James Gibson’s misdeeds a secret were different to his uncle’s. He wasn’t scared. He had nothing to fear; his father was dead.
“What if no one believed me?” Eric went on. “I thought that James would, quite literally, kill me. That I’d end up buried next to Sarah Rundle.”
Rob nodded. “So, you never said anything to anyone?”
Eric shook his head. “Never. A couple of weeks later, Sarah’s coat was discovered on the riverbank, and I think that made the police assume that she’d drowned.”
“You mentioned my mother. What were you going to say about her?”
“Only that when I heard she’d left, I wondered if that was just a story James had concocted to cover what had really happened.”
“You think the same thing happened to her as happened to Sarah Rundle?”
Eric grimaced, then shrugged. “I’m sorry, Rob, I just don’t know. But you can see why I’d have my suspicions.”
“Because you found a hairband in your brother’s room decades ago?” Rob tried to make Eric’s conclusions sound ridiculous, even though he shared them. He also thought his father had killed his mother and invented the story about her running away, but he couldn’t have Eric thinking that. He might go to the police. What if they decided to investigate and came to the house with a search warrant? He wasn’t sure what laws he’d broken by digging up the girls and taking them to Temple Well, but he’d definitely broken some. Probably very serious ones that would involve jail time.
“Yes, I suppose it does sound silly when you put it like that,” Eric said.
Rob nodded, hoping to bring the conversation to an end. “Besides, it’s all water under the bridge, now.”
“It it?” Eric asked. “What about those bodies on the News?”
Rob put a confused frown on his face, pretending not to know what his uncle was talking about. He had to play this carefully; feigning total ignorance of the recent events would make Eric even more suspicious. “I’m pretty sure my dad hasn’t got anything to do with that; he’s dead and gone.”
“Yes, but those girls were killed years ago, when he was still alive. And they’re from this area. What do you think of that?”
“I don’t make anything of it. What do you mean?” He wasn’t sure if he was being tested; if Eric already suspected him and was watching his reactions. He tried to keep his face as neutral as possible.
Eric looked at him closely
for a few seconds before throwing up his hands in an exaggerated shrug. “I don’t know. Maybe I’m just seeing connections where there aren’t any.”
“Connections? Like what?”
“Well, what if James did kill Sarah Rundle?”
That’s a big if,” Rob reminded him.
“Yes, it is, but hear me out. If he killed her when he was just fourteen years old, isn’t it plausible that he killed others, as well? Later in his life? I’ve watched enough documentaries about serial killers to know that many of them commit murder for years, and no one around them even has an inkling. Look at BTK, or the Golden State Killer.”
“Wait a minute,” Rob said, trying to get his uncle off this train of thought. “My dad wasn’t Ted Bundy.”
“See, that’s what I mean. For years, no one suspected Bundy. He had a wife and a daughter. They had no idea he was a serial killer.”
“This is all getting a bit weird,” Rob said. “You’re basing all of this on a headband you found in your brother’s room years ago. It’s pure speculation and, to be honest, it doesn’t sound very plausible.” Even as he said those words, Rob was actually impressed at how close to the truth Eric was.
“I know, and after James’s death, I might have decided it was all water under the bridge, like you said. But then those two bodies turned up.”
“I don’t think Dad managed to dig two dead girls out of their graves when he’s in a grave himself,” Rob said.
“No, he didn’t. But someone did. And these bodies appeared right after James died. Don’t you find the timing coincidental?”
“It’s only coincidental if you believe your unfounded theory that he was some sort of serial killer. Otherwise, there’s no connection between Dad’s death and those bodies turning up at all.”
Eric nodded slowly, but he didn’t look convinced.
“Anyway,” Rob went on, “who would know where the bodies were in the first place? Are you saying Dad had an accomplice?”
“No, I’m not saying that.”
“So your theory doesn’t really make any sense at all. If Dad killed and buried those two girls, why have their bodies only been discovered now, after all this time? Maybe a jogger or a dog walker came across them—they’re always finding bodies, aren’t they?—but why wouldn’t they just contact the police?”
“I don’t know,” Eric admitted. “It’s all very confusing.”
“Too confusing for people like us to figure out,” Rob told him. “We should just let the police do their job. It’s nothing to do with us, and it’s nothing to do with Dad, either.” He looked at his uncle closely. The older man was nodding, his lips tight. Doubt was creeping in. Whatever notions he’d had about his brother for all these years, they were beginning to crumble, Rob was sure of it.
“Perhaps you’re right,” Eric said. “It doesn’t really make much sense.” He let out a long breath. “It’s a relief, actually. I’ve been carrying this around for a long time.”
“Well, you can return home with a burden lifted,” Rob said. “Where is it you live, now?”
“Exeter, in Devon.”
“Devon. Nice. Is that close to the sea?” Rob knew it was, he was just changing the subject, getting Eric off track now that he’d sown the seeds of disbelief.
“Yes, not too far. Cathy wishes we were closer, but we’re only a fifteen-minute drive from the beach.”
“Aunt Cathy. How is she? I didn’t see her at the funeral.”
“No, she didn’t come.”
“Well, if Sonia and I are in that neck of the woods, we’ll be sure to look you up,” Rob said, walking to the front with what he hoped was an air of finality that Eric would pick up on, and leave.
“Yes, do that,” his uncle said, finally getting up from the table. “We’d love to see you.”
“I expect you want to get on the road quite soon,” Rob urged. “You’ve got a long drive ahead of you.”
“Oh, I’m not going home yet. I’m staying at the hotel tonight. I’ll probably set off sometime tomorrow.”
Rob forced a smile onto his face as he opened the door. He’d rather Eric would piss off back to Devon straight away; if he stayed around here much longer, he might get more ideas regarding his brother and the bodies that kept turning up. As it was, Rob had already decided he couldn’t dig up another one tonight; if Eric woke up tomorrow and put on the News to see that yet another decades-old murder victim had been uncovered, he might decide to stick around and poke his nose in where it didn’t belong.
“Well, it was good to see you again, Rob.” He was out of the door now, walking towards the silver Lexus. “Give my best to Sonia and the kids.”
“I will. See ya.” Rob waved and closed the door. He went into the kitchen and watched as the Lexus’s headlights came on, and the car turned around before heading down the road and eventually disappearing from sight.
Rob let out a breath of relief. He’d begun to wonder if his uncle was ever going to leave.
The sense of disappointment he felt at not being able to reveal another body tonight was profound. He cheered himself up by telling himself that even though it was wise to wait until Eric had gone back to Devon before giving the police another body, he could still dig one up. He could wrap it up and leave it in the cellar until he was ready to deposit it somewhere else.
When he’d started digging up the cellar a couple of days ago, he’d found the task grisly, but now he was looking forward to getting his hands dirty.
Taking the padlock out of his pocket and replacing it on the counter, he opened the scrap of paper and examined the location of the Xs his father had drawn. There was one in the shadowy corner where he’d seen the frightened girl when he was young. He’d balked at the instruction to stab her, but he had no doubt that after he’d fled the cellar, the girl had met her fate at the hands of his father.
Was that where she was buried? In the same shadowy corner where she’d cowered?
He opened the cellar door and clicked the light switch on his way down the stairs. When he stood on the dirt floor, he felt a kind of satisfaction that he’d never experienced before. In the outside world, he was just an average person, or, if he was being honest with himself, a nobody. Down here, he was the ruler of a kingdom of the dead.
The thought surprised him, even as it entered into his head. He was beginning to think like his father. Surely that was why the old man buried the girls down here; to reign over them, keep them beneath his feet.
He instantly regretted giving the two of them away. What had he been thinking? He was an idiot to give away something so valuable. At the time he’d thought he was spiting his father, but now he felt he understood why the old man had buried the girls down here in the first place.
Crouching down, he ran his fingertips over the dirt, imagining what lay beneath. A secret collection like no other. And, now that his father was gone, he—Rob Gibson—owned this treasure. It was his. The girls beneath the cellar floor belonged to him, and to him only. Nothing could take that away from him.
Unless Eric goes to the police.
The voice startled him because, even though it was inside his head, it was his father’s voice.
“He won’t go to the police,” he said aloud. “I convinced him it was all in his head. Nothing more than a fanciful notion.”
Do you think that’s how he’ll see it in the cold light of dawn? You may have convinced him for now, but he’s been harbouring these thoughts for years.
“What can I do?”
You know what to do. You’ve already seen what’s on the shelf over there. You shied away from it when you saw it, but now you need to pick it up.
His eyes went to a crude wooden shelf on the wall. Sitting on the shelf were the usual items one might keep in the cellar: tins of paint, spare light bulbs, a metal toolbox.
But there was something else on there, as well. Something he’d seen the first time he’d entered the cellar and had avoided looking at since.
Take
it.
He slowly walked over to the shelf and reached out for the item. Picking it up, he held it in his open palm, inspecting it in the dim light.
A knife with the initials JAG carved into its rough, wooden handle.
Chapter 16
“Her name is Joanna Delia Kirk,” Battle said, standing at the front of the room. An old photo of a smiling, dark-haired girl was projected onto a screen behind him. “She went missing twenty years ago from Tideswell, which is a village north of here.”
The Emerald Room of the Rutland Arms Hotel in Bakewell was crowded with twenty or so uniformed police officers, a dozen plainclothes detectives, and at least a dozen support staff. Sitting at the back, Tony surreptitiously slid his phone from his trouser pocket and typed Tideswell into the search bar. When the results appeared, he clicked on a map that showed the location of the village and the surrounding area.
It wasn’t too far from Miller’s Dale, where he and Dani had spoken to June Harwood about her daughter.
He scanned the room for his partner and saw her sitting a few rows in front of him, among a group of uniforms. He’d missed her at breakfast this morning, and had eaten his full English in relative silence, with only the morning paper for company. Joanna Kirk’s name hadn’t been mentioned, so he assumed that this briefing, which he’d been texted the details of just as he’d finished breakfast, was the first time it was being revealed.
“Her parents have been informed,” Battle said from the front of the room. “Joanna was fifteen when she disappeared. She took her dog for a walk in the woods on a pleasant summer’s evening, and never returned. There were no clues, no leads, no witnesses. And no body, until we recovered it from the spring at Temple Well yesterday. Tests are being carried out, of course, but the body has been buried for two decades, so we need to manage our expectations regarding good forensic evidence.”
The DCI nodded to Chris Toombs, who was operating the laptop and projector. Toombs pressed the keyboard and the picture of Joanna Kirk moved to the left of the screen while a photo of Daisy Riddle appeared on the right.
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