by Wes Markin
Yorke felt the air quiver as the train thundered nearer.
Tears were streaming down Paul’s face now. Yorke, too, wanted to cry but he had to remain in control.
‘I hurt Mum. I hit her and hurt her. My own mother. She loved me. She kept telling me she loved me. I kept hitting her and then … the wall … oh God, WHAT HAVE I DONE?’
‘It wasn’t you, Paul. It was something else. A part of you that needs taking out.’
‘Where is she?’
‘The hospital.’
‘You’re lying.’
The entire bridge lit up. Yorke looked right. The train had roared out of the darkness.
Paul took a deep breath and stared up at Yorke. ‘This time you were too late, Mike.’
Yorke felt a carnivorous emptiness in his stomach growing and consuming. ‘No, I’m here now, Paul.'
‘No, you are too late. I’m the same as all the rest. Just another Ray.'
‘It’s not true. I can help—'
‘No one can help, Mike.’
Yorke felt a searing pain in his knee; Paul had kicked him and broken away from the hand on his shoulder. ‘There’s only one way now. It’s just like you said.’
‘Like I said?’
‘It has to be taken out.’
He said something else, but Yorke couldn’t hear it over the sound of the approaching train. Yorke pounced, and was quick, but Paul was quicker. He evaded Yorke and so his hand closed on empty air.
‘PAUL, I CAN HELP YOU!’ Yorke prayed he could be heard over the sound of the train.
Paul stared at Yorke as he backed away.
‘PLEASE!’ Yorke shouted.
Paul let himself fall back over the brick barrier to meet the train head on.
19
AFTER GARDNER HAD seen both bodies, she stepped outside, crossed the road and climbed into the car. She hadn’t yet decided whether she was going to burst into tears, or vomit.
She wasn’t long off a decision though.
On the journey to this crime scene, where both Sarah Ray and Christopher Steele had perished as a result of catastrophic head wounds, she had received notification of two other crime scenes.
There had been two bodies recovered at the house of a beauty therapist in Salisbury, and a body had been recovered at the Pettman’s.
Jake, Sheila, Frank and another young boy called Tobias were at the hospital. Jake had given a statement already. From what Gardner could gather, Lacey Ray had returned to Salisbury with two criminals from Southampton. The first man had been dispatched by Lacey at the beauty therapist’s home, along with the beauty therapist; and the second man had been executed, with an axe, in Jake’s house. The boy, Tobias, had been the victim’s son, and the child kidnapped by Lacey a few years ago.
Jake was unable to provide a reason as to why Lacey would take this infamous man along to his house to kill him, but as he had succinctly put it, ‘Does a woman like Lacey need a reason?’
He was right with that one, Gardner thought. Lacey quite often acted outside the boundaries of reason.
Jake hadn’t been able to get involved with what transpired in the house as the criminal in question had knocked him unconscious with a fire poker. Gardner could only imagine the terror Sheila and poor Frank must have felt as they watched Lacey end a man’s life in so brutal a fashion. Apparently, Jake was beating himself up for not being awake to stop it and his concussion was only adding to his poor state of mind. Lacey had fled the scene but had been collared only minutes later. She clearly hadn’t anticipated the speed of the police response following the emergency call from the Pettman’s. Jake was one of their own after all, and so was entitled to the Full English. Lacey had had nowhere to run and would now, God willing, be spending the rest of her life in jail.
While Gardner had been standing over Sarah’s body back in the house, thinking that things could not possibly get any worse, Yorke had phoned her, and delivered the news.
The fact that Paul had gone was devastating enough, but the manner by which he’d departed had hit her hard. She’d struggled to keep the phone in her hand as Yorke had relayed his discoveries.
Dissociative Identity Disorder … a fragmented, malignant personality born from traumatic experiences … an identity in the form of Reginald Ray after being exposed to Christopher Steele in his slaughterhouse … his other personality made him believe that he was chained up … the other personality fed on Samuel Mitchell … the other personality did this to his mother…
The other personality showed him everything before he died.
Paul had to live through everything he did.
She felt vomit in her throat and tears in her eyes.
Her phone rang. The screen informed her that it was Topham.
‘Tell me you’re at home.’ Gardner couldn’t believe she delivered the instruction with such force. She felt fragile and her body shook.
Topham didn’t respond.
‘Mark?’
‘I’m sorry, Emma.’ There was no force in Topham’s voice.
‘What for?’
‘For not listening.’
‘Mark, what’s wrong? Where are you?’
‘Goodbye, Emma.’
‘Don’t you do this, don’t you say this to me, Mark Topham! Where the hell are you?’
‘You’re the best of us.’ Despite his voice being brittle, his statement came with conviction.
‘Mark? Mark? MARK?’
Nothing.
She tried ringing him back but was sent straight to Topham’s spritely voicemail request. It sounded like a completely different person.
After the beep, she said, ‘Ring me back!’ She hung up. ‘Shit! Shit!’
Deciding to go to Topham’s house, she started the engine. Her phone rang as she started to accelerate. She hit the brakes and answered. ‘Damn it, Mark, don’t you hang up on me!’
‘Err … sorry, ma’am.’
‘Collette?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘Sorry, Collette, me and Mark just had a disagreement … anyway … is everything okay?’
‘Not really, ma’am. We have another body.’
‘You’re fucking kidding. What is happening around here? Where?’
‘The Blue Forest Hotel in Salisbury. It’s a relatively new place. Commotion was heard from one of the rooms and they phoned it in. A young man. His name is Dan Tillotson. He’s a male prostitute from Southampton …’
Gardner’s vision started to swirl. ‘Say again?’
‘A male prostitute—'
‘How did he die?’
‘Beaten, ma’am. To a pulp.’
No … no … no. ‘Any indication of who has done it?’
‘We have witnesses seeing a tall man going in with the victim and leaving alone. CCTV footage will clarify—'
She’d moved the phone from her ear and pressed it against her thigh so she couldn’t hear Willows anymore. Gardner thought her ribs would splinter under the force of her beating heart.
I’m sorry Emma … for not listening … you are the best of us.
She cracked the car door, allowing in some air.
She threw up first and then started to cry.
20
YORKE SLID PAST Patricia after she opened the door. He saw her bewildered expression and apologised, but he was already halfway up the stairs before he could catch her reply.
Out of breath, he knocked on Ewan’s door.
‘Go away.’
He knocked more forcefully.
‘I said go—'
The last word never came. Yorke was already in the room, looking down on his adopted son, who was lying on the bed with a magazine beside him.
‘Not now, Mike. Not now.’
Yorke sat down on the edge of the bed beside Ewan.
‘Are you listening to me, Mike?’ He felt Ewan pushing him from behind, urging him away. ‘Leave me the fuck alone.’
Yorke turned on the bed and slipped his hand around the back of Ewan’s head.
He tried to pull his boy’s head towards him, but he resisted.
‘Get off me!’ He slammed a fist against Yorke’s chest.
Yorke didn’t.
‘Get off me!’ He hit him again.
Yorke increased his efforts and forced Ewan’s head towards his chest.
The young man relented and crumpled against his adopted father. ‘Mike …’ He started to cry. His entire body shook.
Yorke had never seen Ewan in such despair. Not even when he’d woken in hospital to discover that his father, Iain, had died.
Ewan’s whole body seemed to fold in on itself. Yorke held him as tightly as he could, terrified that if he didn’t, the young man would disintegrate in his arms. ‘Mike … I feel alone … so … fucking alone.’
‘I know you do,’ Yorke said in between mouthfuls of his own tears. ‘But you’re not alone, and I want to make sure that you never feel this way again.’
Epilogue
TODAY, FOR A change, the Orchard Care Home felt more welcoming than usual. The colourful orchard remained pretentious and the meandering white corridor was still sterile but, as he sat beside Hayley Willborough, Yorke felt a sense of contentment which he’d not felt for months.
Hayley was at peace. Her passing had brought her the closure she’d longed for since her youth when Andrew Ray had stolen her innocence, and a finality that had continued to evade her as she lay locked inside her own body.
Yorke clutched her withered hand.
When Yorke had learned of her death, he’d requested a moment alone with her. They were happy to allow him that time.
He’d had the journey here to reflect on why he’d made this request, but it hadn’t taken him particularly long to reach a conclusion.
This woman, who had endured so much, and had fought so hard for the child she had borne but could never name as her own, deserved a final farewell. And with Robert Bennett incarcerated, and everyone she’d ever known or loved gone, Yorke felt that the responsibility fell to him.
Hayley had offered him the truth, even when that truth seemed so desperately out of reach. She’d summoned up the energy within her dying body to communicate with Yorke in so grotesque a situation.
She deserved this moment of respect.
So, Yorke stroked the back of her hand, told her of Ewan and Patricia and the embers of happiness that still glowed in his own life and occasionally, leaned over to kiss her cold forehead.
Then, after Yorke had bidden her a final farewell and left the hospital, his thoughts turned to his late mother and sister too, as they so often did, and he shed a tear for them all on his journey home.
When Robert Bennett learned the news of his mother’s passing, he was granted compassionate time alone in his cell.
Since the death of his wife, his own health had been declining rapidly. His skin ailment had worsened, he was gripped by nausea for the most part of every day, and the weight had relentlessly fallen off him. As he reclined back on his bed, with tears in his eyes, he struggled to even stay conscious.
But he did. Because if anyone deserved the last dregs of his life and fight, his mother did.
He spent some time reminiscing over the countless times she’d sat beside him at the window, offering him the companionship that no one his age had ever offered him. She’d teach him, yes, but they’d also talk for hours, about his greatest love, animals, and about the joys of life that awaited him when he was old enough to leave the prison his adoptive parents had created.
Robert felt a twinge in his chest. He knew that it was his heart. It’d happened yesterday but he hadn’t bothered to report it. The sooner the better as far as he was concerned.
His mind turned to Christopher Steele, his twin brother. The bastard who had taken his wife. This man had been his flesh and blood. He should have come to him with open arms, not with an appetite for destruction.
What had caused the evil to flourish within Christopher? Was it destined to come to him too?
The Ray family, he thought. I’m not even the last one, am I? There’s another. A woman. In prison too—
There it was again. The twinge. Fiercer, this time. He could feel it spread along with a rising tide of nausea. He felt the numbness in his arm …
Robert Bennett turned over and pushed his face into the pillow so no one could hear him having a heart attack.
Knowing that he was escaping the evil that had ravaged the minds of so many of his kin, he died content.
Jake stood and watched the large black birds tearing lines through the low-hanging moonlit clouds. He didn’t think he’d ever seen anything quite like it.
He looked back towards the tree that Reginald had swung from and his own car beneath it. He’d parked where Paul had parked several nights earlier. Jake lowered his head. Paul’s tracks were still fresh and yet the boy was no more.
He glanced also at another part of Paul’s handiwork: the blackened, skeletal remains of the farmhouse. Then he did what he’d come here to do.
He fell to his knees and yelled. There were no words. For days his emotions had remained caged within him so now they came as a roar.
Lacey had blackened him. Turned him into a murderer. And she thought she’d just walk away? Again? He’d accepted her offer. Allowed her to put her DNA on the axe that had ended Simon Young, but then he’d turned the tables on her. He’d grabbed Tobias and refused to allow him to leave with her. She’d become desperate, threatened his life, as she so often did but she’d been forced to run when the sirens came.
But you didn’t run fast enough, did you?
For days, he’d waited for his colleagues to turn up on his doorstep and lead him away in handcuffs. It never happened. Why? He had no idea. Why would she not tell them everything? The bitterness she must now feel towards Jake must have been eating her up inside. Maybe, she just wanted to save him for herself, but that wouldn’t be happening any time soon. Not with her incarcerated.
Jake stopped roaring and gasped for air.
You deserve everything. You are the last of them and you deserve to be locked away in nothingness.
He imagined her sitting in her sterile room. Alone. No one to visit her. Living off emptiness and fiery memories.
He smiled. She would burn under the weight of those memories and the longing for what she could never have again.
Burn like this farmhouse had burned.
And when she finally became ash, he wouldn’t be there to say goodbye.
He would rejoice with the rest of the world over her demise, knowing that she was the last of the Rays.
They wouldn’t allow her a pen to write a letter. A potential weapon, they said. You could also commit suicide with one, they claimed.
They told her that a phone call was the best they could offer. She told them it wasn’t good enough and continued to kick up a fuss until they relented.
Tomorrow, they told her, she could dictate a letter to a guard which would then be posted to the recipient.
So, Lacey sat alone in a room which had been stripped of everything but a mattress and planned out what she would put in her letter, the first of many, to Tobias. A letter, she knew, they would never actually send. Yet, still she would rejoice in its creation.
Later, she descended deep into her Blue Room.
They were all there tonight. Her parents, Lewis Ray, Billy Shine, and some of her more recent kills from the Southampton snuff set. All of them sat hunched over in chairs, looking solemn. They bathed in blue light but did not find the comfort that Lacey found from this colour.
She moved among them, and when she moved past Simon Young, she smiled.
When she wasn’t writing letters to her son, this is where she would stay.
She could be happy here.
Well … at least for a little while.
Tobias watched the woman they called his mother fuss over him.
First, he was shown to his new bedroom. The walls, and bedsheets, were decorated with robots.
‘Transformers,’
she told him. ‘We can change them if you want?’
Tobias approached a toybox in a corner. He picked up a plastic figure which was a cross between a robot man and a plane. After staring at it for a few moments, he put it back.
‘They belonged to your father,’ she said, ‘when he was your age. He loved them.’
He looked up at his mother. He certainly didn’t recognise her, and he wasn’t sure if he liked her. Her face looked too gentle. He reached up to touch it. It felt too soft.
She closed her eyes and sighed. ‘I love you, son.’
He turned and looked out of the window. The garden, and the surrounding bushes, were large. He noticed some cats enjoying the space.
He liked animals. Liked to play with them. He thought about what games he could play.
‘I think we will be happy again, Tobias,’ his mother said from behind him. ‘Even after everything that has happened, we can be happy.’
She felt her kiss the back of his head.
‘Welcome home, Tobias Simon Young.’
Tobias turned slowly to look up at his mother. She smiled. He didn’t smile back. She opened her arms to him. He didn’t go to her.
‘It’s Tobias Ray,’ he said.
Dance with the Reaper
A DCI Michael Yorke Thriller
For Ian and Eileen
1976
DOUGLAS FIRTH WATCHED his son’s trickery with the football through the living room window. He smiled. Ian was really coming on with the football, and Douglas was glad. Poor lad had no one to practise with while he was away at work. And that was often. The curse of the travelling salesman.
Obviously, Ian’s older sister had wanted nothing to do with a man’s game.
‘One day, it will be a woman’s game too,’ Jeanette had said, but their stubborn daughter did not believe her. Neither did Douglas for that matter.