by Wes Markin
‘They’re dead, Mrs Ray—’
‘In his dreams, detective. Again and again. Every night. They come for him, and they want him.’
‘That doesn’t make any sense,’ Yorke said.
‘They’re driving him mad. This last month he’s barely slept and when he’s awake at night, I sometimes hear him crying. They won’t leave him alone … and now … now … he’s gone and done this.’
Yorke felt Patricia’s hand on his leg. ‘Mike. This is not up to you.’
Yorke put his hand on Patricia’s hand. ‘I’m still listening, Mrs Ray, but could this not just be a coincidence?’
‘I went to his room after I saw the fire on the news because I suspected he was involved somehow. I searched around, aimlessly. I was looking for anything to tell me where he could be. Then, I went into his bedside drawer, and … and then I knew …’
‘What did you find in there?’
‘It’s what I didn’t find, detective. His father’s zippo lighter. He never took it out of his bedside drawer. It’s his most treasured possession. And yet, tonight, when the Ray’s farmhouse burns down, he what? Coincidentally takes it out with him?’
The fire was almost out, but the air was heavy with smoke. When Gardner first saw Yorke approaching her, she wondered if her eyesight was playing tricks on her in the poor visibility.
He stopped in front of her and PC Sean Tyler.
‘Please to see you, sir … I like the beard,’ Tyler said, opening his logbook.
‘Thanks,’ Yorke said. ‘But don’t log me in just yet. I don’t know if I’m staying.’
He looked at Gardner. She was lost for words and could only manage a ‘sir?’
‘Wrong way round now, ma’am.’
At roughly the same time that Yorke had been demoted, Gardner had earned a promotion to DCI.
‘Yes … sorry … but Mike, why are you here?’
‘Sounds ridiculous, I know, ma’am, but I kind of need my job back.’
‘For God’s sake, quit it with the ma’am, and walk this way with me.’
Gardner walked Yorke away from Tyler and towards her vehicle in which Topham was sleeping off yet another session.
‘So, two days after you told me you were thinking about becoming a teacher, you decide to come back to work at …’ She paused to look at her watch. ‘Quarter past twelve? And to a potential crime scene?’
‘That’s about the size of it, ma’am, sorry, Emma … I got a visitor an hour ago which kind of threw the whole career-change plans on the backburner. The pipe, slippers and Shakespearian quotations will have to remain an elusive dream.’
‘I think the teaching profession has moved on since your time in school, Mike, but get to the point - who is this visitor?’
‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.’
‘Try me.’
‘Sarah Ray.’
Gardner looked away. She was surprised but not in the way that Yorke expected her to be. She knew the Rays were involved already – the abandoned Volvo had indicated that. What surprised her was the fact that Sarah would immediately go to Yorke. ‘Why?’
‘She thinks her son drove here tonight.’
‘She told you that?’
‘Yes. She’s got no evidence of it but she suspects it. Suspect being an understatement. She’s convinced.’
Gardner held back. It wasn’t the time to reveal the fact that they did have the evidence that he’d driven here. ‘But still, why you?’
‘A default reaction, I guess. I helped last time. I guess she thinks I’ll help again.’
‘Now, it’s your turn to use an understatement. You more than just helped. You wrestled them away from some man-eating pigs in a barn.’
‘Finding them was a team effort. We have only ever been as good as the sum of our parts.’
‘Which is why I am so bloody glad to see you, sir … Mike … I hope I don’t have to get used to that! I’m only standing in for—’
‘Detective Inspector Michael Yorke,’ Superintendent Joan Madden said. ‘I thought you were sick?’
Yorke wanted to reply like he imagined a movie character might reply. A quick flick of the hair and the statement – I said I’d be back.
But Madden was not the kind of person to appreciate sarcasm and any display of bravado. Unless, of course, it was coming from her.
‘I’m ready to come back, ma’am.’
She looked at her watch. ‘At quarter-past-twelve?’
Yorke wanted to quip that he had déjà vu following Gardner’s same observation but kept his dry comment to himself.
‘Yes, ma’am.’ He explained what had happened with Sarah Ray. The exact conversation, including the missing lighter.
Madden turned her back to him to look out over the farmyard and the smouldering farmhouse.
‘Hard to believe that this place was once covered in pigs,’ she said. ‘Seems so quiet. So dead. Especially now the property has burned to the ground. You know that pigs can learn their names at just two or three weeks old? Do you think these animals ever knew? Ever understood the evil they were living with? I believe that they probably did. They say dogs can sense these things and pigs are more intelligent … poor buggers. So …’ She turned back around. ‘The Rays, eh? The worst thing that has ever happened to this bloody place. And you know that and that is why you are here. I commend you on that Michael. Emerging from that prairie of depression when you are needed. There is no keener sense on the force but to just come here and expect to muck in? Really? Do I look like an idiot?’
‘Of course not, ma’am.’
‘There are procedures. You are still signed off. You need a psyche evaluation. This isn’t 1975.’
‘I appreciate that, ma’am, but you know how crucial time is here. I’m not saying your team won’t deliver on this but the more the merrier and do you really want to see me going through weeks of red tape when I’m willing to put in a shift?’
‘Go home, Michael. You are not just walking into this crime scene. Go home and sleep off this sudden burst of enthusiasm which has dragged you from your stupor.’
Yorke lowered his head. ‘Yes, ma’am.’
Madden turned away again and watched the final embers of the blaze fizzle away under a stream of water. ‘So many times the Rays have put a crack through this community. So many times. And every time, just when it seems as if the community had healed, they come back to smash it open again.’ She turned back. ‘Be at HQ tomorrow morning at eight. I’ll meet with you first and then DCI Emma Gardener can reinstate you.’
‘Thanks, ma’am.’
‘Don’t thank me, yet. All I care about is Samuel.’
‘Samuel?’ Yorke said.
‘Samuel Mitchell. The missing farm boy from last week.’
‘You think this is connected, ma’am?’ Gardner said.
‘I know it is connected. When the Rays are involved, everything is connected.’
Yorke took a deep breath and nodded.
She was right.
2
FOR YORKE, IT felt strange to be back in a suit after such a long period of time. It felt stranger still wandering the halls of Wiltshire HQ and greeting colleagues that he’d been quite close to but had opted not to reach out to him during his suspension.
He conceded that it would have been awkward for them, so he held no hard feelings; however, he did make a mental note not to behave like that if the shoe was ever on the other foot.
Being suspended had been a lonely experience.
DS Jake Pettman had been the exception of course. He’d made an effort to keep in in touch. Arguably, too much effort! He could be a right handful at times.
When Yorke sighted his close friend on the corridor as he approached Madden’s office, he opened his arms to him, and they embraced.
Pettman was a giant of a man. His shaved head wouldn’t have looked out of place in the circle up at Stonehenge.
Yorke backed away, catching his breath and rubbing his ribs. ‘I
’ve missed working with you, big man, but I’ll probably pass on the hug next time.’
‘Well, there needn’t be a next time because you’re not going anywhere.’
Yorke smiled. ‘Well, I’ll be honest, up until last night, I’d probably have disagreed with you.’
‘Yes, Emma mentioned you had your head turned by Sarah Ray.’
‘Still talking about me behind my back then?’ Yorke raised his eyebrows.
‘Always, sir.’
‘Well, you’re right. Sarah turned my head. But those memories … well let’s just say they’re raw. I don’t feel a sense of responsibility … or duty, really … but …’
‘You feel sympathy?’
‘Yes, I guess I do. Nobody deserves to experience what they experienced, and they certainly don’t deserve to experience anything like it again.’
‘And do you think they’re going to?’
‘I don’t know, Jake. I hope to God, no.’
‘I’m due in the incident room with Emma now,’ Jake said. ‘You coming?’
‘No, I’m meeting Madden, and then I’ll be catching up with Emma right after the briefing.’
As Yorke walked past, Jake clapped him on the back.
Yorke wanted to reply, but his best friend had again knocked the wind right out of him.
All the way through the meeting with Madden, William Proud’s words kept running through Yorke’s head.
I’m just the blunt instrument … there’s a bent bastard shitting in the same toilet …
Could it be Madden? His by-the-book lieutenant?
He’d already dedicated many hours of thought to this, but it just didn’t ring true.
He wondered if this was what he was condemned to now he was back in HQ. Would he fall foul to continuous paranoia? Would every colleague be a suspect in the murder of his sister?
After promising to accept his demotion to DI graciously, and assuring her that he would attend all his reintegration meetings, especially the psych ones, he met Gardner in her office. His old office.
‘It’s only temporary,’ Gardner said.
‘No, it isn’t. It suits you. You keep it tidier than I ever did.’
She smiled. ‘We’ll see.’
Yorke drank from a bottle of juice while Gardner opted for coffee.
‘So, how was the briefing?’ Yorke said.
Gardner sighed. ‘Slow. They’re a tough crowd. They think Samuel Mitchell, the missing young lad, is a goner, but I’m trying to keep them positive. I also introduced the suggestion that last night’s disappearance of Paul Ray could very well be linked, and I was given many dubious looks. However, someone did suggest that Paul could have burned the farmhouse down and done a runner.’
‘So why not take the car with him?’ Yorke said. ‘It was working I assume?’
Gardner nodded. ‘Parkinson said that he might have been concerned about the car being reported stolen by his mother, so he abandoned it.’
Parkinson. The name made him wince. ‘Still … if I was doing a runner from the arsehole of nowhere, I’d take the car. I wouldn’t leave it there as proof that I was the arsonist.’ Yorke took a mouthful of the artificially sweetened cordial. ‘No. Paul’s been taken again.’
Gardner eyed up Yorke’s bottle. ‘Why are you drinking that crap, sir?’
‘It’s a good question – I used to hate the stuff. Ewan started to get on at me about not drinking water. Juice is a compromise. I can’t drink from a bottle of water all day. It’s just too …’
‘Dull?’
‘Yep, anyway. I want you to run me through Operation Bookmark from start to finish while I drink these chemicals.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And I have another request, not unlike the one you gave me last night.’
‘Go on, sir?’
‘For the last bloody time, could you please stop calling me sir?’
Three days ago, seventeen-year-old farmhand Samuel Mitchell, had disappeared from his parents’ farm. Samuel was renowned for being a polite young man, as well as an intellectually challenged one. His GCSE results the previous year had been poor, and he was supposed to be attending college to retake his English and Maths. Supposed to be. His parents were content to turn a blind eye to his absence while he was helping out on the farm. When really pushed on this, they’d admitted that they didn’t think he had any hope of passing anyway and so had convinced him to snub the college and develop his trade on their farm.
Mitchell Farm was in The Downs, a stone’s throw from the Ray Pig Farm in Little Horton. Gardner admitted that she’d thought about the association between this young man’s disappearance and the Ray’s vicious history before Paul Ray disappeared the previous evening, but it hadn’t made it through to a briefing yet.
‘It’s a great farm for kids,’ Gardner said. ‘We took Anabelle up there a few months ago.’
Yorke smiled over the thought of his goddaughter. ‘Is it a working farm?’
‘Yes, for dairy. But they’ve got all sorts of things going on up there to attract visitors. Tractor rides, a petting zoo with gerbils, a park for children, a café selling homemade ice-cream. They’ve turned the place from a struggling farm into a goldmine. Twelve quid admission. When I first interviewed the parents, they said as much. They were about broke. With only a few loans, they established a day out for families, and their fortunes have reversed.’
‘Interesting.’
‘Getting quite common now. A lot of farms turning to welcoming in visitors. The only way they can keep going in the current economic climate.’
‘So how did Samuel Mitchell disappear?’
Gardner opened a paper folder and showed Yorke an aerial photograph of a bush maze. ‘Reynolds got very excited about sending his new drone up to snap this. He said the one on the internet wasn’t fit for purpose. I was dubious, but I let him have his fun.’
Lance Reynolds was the Scientific Support Officer. His talents with a camera were legendary. Although the often-gruesome subject matter ensured that none of these photographs would ever be making it into an exhibition for the public.
Yorke ran his finger over the photograph of the maze. The centre was made up of four circular bushes, framed by four rectangular ones. ‘It’s massive. Must have cost them a fortune.’
‘The maze is relatively new. They’d already made a reasonable amount of money before setting this up. So, anyway, the disappearance. At 2.46 p.m. an elderly man came to the front office of the farm to report his grandson missing. He claimed that the seven-year-old boy was lost in this maze. He gave his grandson’s name as Jordan but did not provide his own name. Samuel’s mother, Holly Mitchell, who was on the desk at the time, didn’t think to ask; later, she reported to feeling uneasy over the man’s appearance.’ She paused for a mouthful of coffee.
‘The man’s appearance?’
‘Yes, quite bad eczema, apparently. His face was covered in dry, red patches, some of which were scabbed over. By radio, she contacted her son, Samuel, to go into the maze and recover Jordan, the lost seven-year-old boy.’
Yorke pointed at the maze. ‘And what did Samuel find in there?’
‘We don’t know. He never came back out.’
Gardner led Yorke into the incident room.
The automatic light burst into life. It was bright and hard and made Yorke feel like the spotlight had just been turned on him for the first time in a long while.
Welcome back, Michael … let’s see if you still have what it takes.
‘Are you okay, Mike?’ Gardner said.
Yorke smiled. ‘Yes … just got nostalgic for a moment.’
‘Isn’t nostalgia a positive thing? Some of the things we experienced in this room evoke anything but positivity in me!’
Yorke wanted to reply that these memories could be, in their own way, positive. The passion he’d felt in this room leading his team to success was unforgettable.
Gardner took his arm. ‘Is it too soon?’
‘No. I�
��m fine. Nice display …’ Yorke pointed over at the collage of images that filled the front whiteboard. ‘Why don’t we start there?’
Gardener’s finger pointed at a tall boy with thinning hair. ‘That’s Samuel Mitchell.’ He wore a goofy grin, and a T-shirt with ‘KORN’ written across it. The ‘R’ was written backwards.
‘Korn are a heavy-metal band,’ Yorke said.
‘I always said you were down with the kids, Mike.’
‘Well, you clearly aren’t! They started out in the early nineties. They’re bloody retro.’
‘Everyone we’ve spoken to about this boy has only had positive things to say about him. Well-mannered, good-humoured with a passion for music and animals. No one has mentioned his low intellect in a critical way. Most people have been content to say that it is his simple manner that makes him so approachable. His parents, Holly and Ryan,’ Gardner moved her finger to the photographs alongside Samuel, ‘are obviously beside themselves. They kept telling me how much they adored his special nature.’
Gardner sighed and then continued to weave her finger around the crime tapestry until it fell on a forensic artist’s sketch of the grandfather who’d reported his grandchild, Jordan, missing. Alongside it was a grainy CCTV image of the same man walking away towards the carpark at 2.48 p.m. – two minutes after making the report.
The wiry man’s face was almost skeletal. His cheekbones were high and sharp. His eyes were burrowed so deep into his sockets that Yorke doubted that he had clear peripheral vision. Scaly red sores glowed from all over his face and he had bald patches all over his scalp.
Jake stepped up behind them at this point. ‘Yep. God wasn’t just content to make him ugly, he also decided to kick him around for good measure.’
‘Hi Jake,’ Yorke said. ‘So, this peculiar man just walked away at 2.48 p.m., and no one noticed?’
‘Why would they?’ Gardner said, ‘They were all worried about a seven-year-old boy lost in the maze. A fictional child by the way.’
‘Can we be 100% sure that the grandson doesn’t exist?’ Yorke said.