Darkness Falls - DS Aector McAvoy Series 0.5 (2020)

by David Mark

  Always one fat bastard. Always one sensible type who’s brought his own notebook. Always a scummy fucker in jogging pants carrying a Netto carrier bag.

  The pride of the English legal system. Would lose a pop-quiz with a brick. Can’t decide on pizza or Chinese most nights but allowed to pass a verdict on a murder.

  Confirming their names now. Taking the oath. Some voices falter. Some can’t read the words on the card. Sweet lady with glasses drops the Bible.

  Words from the judge. Telling them about their important duty. Playing the kindly roll. Making them feel important.

  Cadbury tugging at his beard with his right hand. There’s a rosary wrapped around the pudgy mitt, clutched tight.

  Me. Rolling dried blood between my fingers. Looking around and thinking of murder.

  Monsters starting to giggle behind my eyes.

  Feeling hysterical. Oppressed. Grinding my teeth. Suddenly overcome. Over-wrought. Looking down, staring at nothing, ground opening beneath my feet. Legs jiggling up and down. Biting lumps of plastic off the Biro between my teeth.

  Hungry. Hungry for something.

  And the prosecutor is on his feet. Distinguished. At ease. Elevated above the baseness of the actions he is describing.

  A voice rolled in brandy, matured in oak barrels, describing horrors unimaginable, filling the courtroom with blood.

  Rain.

  A hard, persistent drumming on the glass ceiling - angels weeping for a defiled sister.

  9

  McAvoy stands facing the wind: face so pale it could be reflecting moonlight. He can hear his own heart beating. Can feel his pulse against the strap of his watch. A sharp, diagonal rain comes in from the water and finds the gaps in the canopy of trees; conspiring to soak him while giving the illusion of shelter.

  Behind him a tangle of trees and thorns. Sycamore; ash. A holly-bush; the remains of a den built by children some time over the weekend. Inside, two dead men. They look like lifeless birds in a ravaged nest.

  In his ear, repeating like the sound of an old locomotive, Roisin’s words as she departed. “You’re good at this. Believe in yourself. You’re a good man. A good man. A good man...”

  McAvoy chews on his lip. He feels sick. In his nostrils, the smell of Ella; the memory of her; the sensation of her drifting inside him and taking possession of his flesh. He cannot smell the dead men behind him. They are still fresh. He has glimpsed little of them since taking up his position a little back from the footpath, his back to the big chalky cliffs and the tree roots and creepers that snake over and through them like veins.

  “A good man,” he whispers, and rain sprays from his lips. He does not know if he believes it. And even if it were true, he wonders whether it marks him out as a good police officer. He has been told for the past decade that he is “too soft”, “a pushover”, a “sucker for a sob story”. One sergeant, early in his career, told him without malice that the police service was no place for ‘bleeding heart liberals’ and warned that he would get a reputation as a ‘do-gooder’ if he continued taking things to heart and trying to make a real change in people’s circumstances. McAvoy has mulled the accusation over for the best part of a decade and still can’t work out how doing good could merit derision.

  “This better be good, Jock! I‘m piss-wet through here. Dripping like a fucked fridge!”

  McAvoy turns at the sound of the voice. Coming down the wooden steps, clinging onto the greasy handrail and scowling into the downpour, is Detective Inspector Julie Stace. She has a homely, almost mumsy look about her, as if she might work in a pre-school, spending her days singing songs about silly wombats and helping toddlers find missing socks. McAvoy knows that the appearance is misleading. With her sensible bobbed haircut and librarian-style spectacles, she has been under-estimated by many an opponent in the interview room. Each has found, to their cost, that the small, soft frame serves as a cashmere mitten around a steel claw.

  A step or two behind is Detective Constable Duncan Slater. McAvoy doesn’t know either particularly well but in Slater’s case, he can’t help notice that ‘a step or two behind’ seems rather fitting. He’s a large, lumbering sort: workshy and happier doing as he’s told than offering anything in the way of creative thinking. He’s middle-aged and the muscles that marked him out as an athlete in his youth have loosened like old elastic and to McAvoy’s eye he looks like a taxidermist’s early work: disjointed and inexpertly stuffed.

  DI Stace fixes McAvoy with a glare as she crosses the ground between them. She’s wearing green wellington boots that are several sizes too big and they slip forward and back as she slips and slithers her way through the mud. “The boss said you’d killed a couple of people. Wanted us to help you make it look like an accident. That right?”

  McAvoy can’t seem to work out how to reply. He had an opening line prepared but he can’t extract it from the swirl of his thoughts. Instead, he steps aside, a little theatrically, and points at the white training shoe which pokes out from between a mesh of branches.

  “Ah,” says DI Stace, scowling. She looks up at him. Cranes her neck, and takes a step back. “This is what you do, is it? On your days off. I thought you were building a new database, or sticking paper snowflakes to the windows at HQ, or something. We could do without this.”

  Slater looks past him. Turns up his nose. “He’ll want it,” he mutters, half to himself. He gives a disinterested look at McAvoy, and then at DI Stace.

  “Yeah?” asks DI Stace. “Tell him, then.”

  “He won’t be up until after the opening statements. He’s got the camera crew with him. He’ll want to make it look right. Dramatic.”

  A decision has been made. McAvoy looks from one to the other, wondering what will come next. He has a pained, fluttering feeling in his chest. He wants these officers, these elite detectives, to pay some heed to the dead men in the tangle of branches and thorns. He wants their murders to be acknowledged; their endings mourned.

  “Couple of bad lads, by the look of it,” says Stace, angling her head. She reaches out to move a branch, and McAvoy stiffens, forcing himself not to grab her hand. She notices. Arrests her forward motion and gives him a smile that dies well before her eyes.

  “He said you wanted in. Be part of things. That true?”

  McAvoy nods: a child being promised a sweetie if they own up.

  “This?” asks Slater, scornfully. “Two bad lads in the woods? Druggies, probably.”

  McAvoy finds his voice. Wherever it has been, it has brought back something cold, and dangerous, like the growl of distant thunder. Not many people have heard him speak this way. “Druggies, Detective Constable?”

  Slater doesn’t catch the warning tone in his sergeant’s voice. He laughs, openly. “All very formal, aren’t we, Mac? Just call me Dunc.”

  McAvoy looks down at the floor. “Druggies, Dunc? What does that actually mean?”

  Slater laughs again, looking over at DI Stace, who is fiddling with her mobile. “Drug addicts, Mac,” he says, openly mocking. He sticks his tongue in his lower lip. Slaps at his forearm as if trying to raise a vein. “Scum. Wastes of space.”

  McAvoy’s eyes become pin-pricks, his pupils boring into the forehead of the amused DC. “That’s your considered opinion, is it, Detective Constable Slater? These men are drug addicts? Beneath you? An inconvenience in your day?”

  “Why are you getting bothered, mate…?”

  “Why am I getting bothered?” McAvoy feels a patch of prickly heat spreading across his back. “Why do the deaths of these men cause me concern?”

  “Okay, Mac, don’t split your knickers over it…what do you want me to do, bring a fucking wreath?”

  Two circles of colour bloom on the whiteness of McAvoy’s face. He alters his position, cocks his head, his eyes carving a circle in the junior officer’s face as if with a blow-torch. He forces himself to take a breath. “Those trainers, DC Slater. They are Nike Air Yeezys. They cost more money than most people see in a week. And
they are mint condition, save the mud and blood. People with a drug dependency will sell their own skin to get their hands on the drug of choice. Those trainers would buy enough heroin to kill an elephant.”

  Slater shrugs. “Okay, so one’s a buyer, the other’s the dealer. Got out of hand, killed each other. Job done. Fuck, you don’t have to be so prissy. Why are you always acting like a preacher? Guilty conscience, is it? Something to make up for?”

  “Dunc,” says DI Stace, quietly, typing out a text message. “Don’t be a dick.”

  “Who’s he to fucking talk to me like that…?”

  McAvoy steps forward, fast on his feet for a big man. Slater puts his hands up as if he’s about to receive a blow, transforming from aggressor into scalded spaniel in the time it takes McAvoy to close the distance between them.

  “I’m a sergeant,” he says, voice soft as silk. “I’m your Sergeant. And you’ll damn well listen to me. Roper may be happy with you treating murder victims like slaughtered cattle but you will afford these men some respect and you will do the same with me. You’re not ‘Dunc’, you’re not one of Roper’s good old boys, you are a Detective Constable on the Major Crimes Team and you will never use the word ‘druggies’ around me again ….,”

  DI Stace looks up from her phone, a half smile playing at the corners of her mouth. She considers McAvoy as if seeing him for the first time. Licks raindrops from her lips. “That’ll do, Pig,” she says, with a laugh. Then she holds out her phone. Roper has been listening at the other end of the line.

  McAvoy takes the phone. Holds it to his ear.

  “All right Mac?” asks Roper, a grin in his voice. “I heard we had a couple of dead druggies...”

  10

  “Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury. My name is Timothy Anderson and I represent the Crown in this case, assisted by my learned junior, Mr Figgis. The defendant, Shane Cadbury, is represented by my learned friend, Mr Choudhury, who sits to my right, and Miss Hall, who is seated immediately behind him.

  “At the time of her murder, Ella Butterworth was 18-years-old. At around 8pm on Thursday, January 29th of last year, Ella was at the home she shared with her family on Rufforth Garth on the Bransholme estate in Hull. She and her younger sister had been trying on their dresses, ready for Ella’s wedding, which was scheduled for two days later. During the course of the evening, a glass of red wine was spilled on Ella’s dress. Ella’s mother, Wendy Butterworth, suggested taking the dress straight round to her aunt’s house, approximately 500 yards away, on the next Garth. Her aunt had a reputation in the family as always knowing what to do in a time of crisis. Very upset at what had happened to her dress, Ella decided not to waste time by getting changed, and ran from the house, still wearing her wedding dress and veil. She left her shoes in the house, and ran barefoot. Wendy Butterworth had gone to get her coat from an upstairs room, but by the time she came downstairs again, Ella had gone, leaving her sister alone in the living room.

  “Wendy Butterworth would not see her daughter alive again.

  “Ella arrived at her aunt’s home, but nobody was home. Witnesses recall seeing Ella knocking repeatedly on the door, and looking very upset. After ten minutes, Ella left, heading back in the direction of Rufforth Garth. By now the time was around 8.15pm.

  “By tragic coincidence, the defendant, Shane Cadbury, had been visiting friends in the Bransholme area, and was making his way back to his home in Hull’s Garden Village, along the same route as Ella. Some time around 8.20pm, Ella was lured into an alleyway off Scampton Garth. In that alleyway, Shane Cadbury attacked her with a large knife. Forensic evidence later showed that the weapon was most likely a ‘kukri’ – a curved utility blade that we commonly associate with the Nepalese or Ghurka military regiments. In a frenzied, brutal and sustained attack, he stabbed her more than 47 times to the head, back, chest and stomach. He used such force that the knife repeatedly went right through her body. For more than a minute he plunged his knife into her, over and over again. The knife has never been recovered.

  “Cadbury then walked to the next street, and broke into a Ford Fiesta belonging to a Mr Arthur Kirkhope. He drove the car to the end of the alley, bundled Ella’s body onto the back seat, and drove her back to his flat on Berkshire Street, near Summergangs Road. Cadbury then dragged Ella’s dead body from the car to the front door of his property, and carried her up the stairs. A neighbour remembers seeing Cadbury struggling with somebody in his arms, but from their vantage point of 100 yards away, assumed it was one of his friends, who may have been drunk.

  “Cadbury then carried her into the bedroom of his flat, returned to the car and dumped it a mile away, at The Lambwath public house, on Lambwath Road. He then calmly walked back to the flat. He stopped to talk to a friend, Jonathan Sugg, at the end of his road. Mr Sugg questioned the blood on his clothes, and Cadbury said he had been in a fight. He was said to be “totally calm”.

  “Cadbury then returned to his flat. Cadbury then had sexual intercourse with Ella. Quantities of his semen were found inside her. There is evidence to suggest that this sexual activity was repeated over the course of the coming days.

  “Cadbury then set about cleaning the flat in an attempt to dispose of what must have been a large quantity of blood.

  “When Ella did not return home, her mother began telephoning family and friends. Those calls met no success.

  “The Crown’s case is that Shane Cadbury, at the time he inflicted those wounds, intended to kill Ella Butterworth, and is therefore guilty of her murder.

  “My task at this stage is to give you an outline of the evidence which you will hear during the course of this trial. In that way, when the evidence is called before you, either from the witness box or when it is read, you will have a framework in which to put that evidence.

  “Ella Samantha Butterworth was born on the 5th of June, 1991. She was the oldest of three sisters. Ella was of very slight build and at the time of her death, was just over 5ft tall, and weighed 52 kg. She was a very attractive girl, with shoulder length brown hair, with blonde streaks. At 15-years-old, she began a relationship with Jamie Thornton, who was in her drama class at school. Very much childhood sweethearts, the young couple were happy together and recognised as deeply in love, and on her 16th birthday, they were engaged. Ella then began a drama course at Hull College, while Jamie took an apprenticeship in stage lighting, which allowed him to save money for a deposit on a house, and for their wedding.

  “Shane Cadbury, the man in the dock behind me, is 26 years old. At the time of his arrest, he weighed 15 stones. He is 6ft 3” tall and of considerable physical strength.

  “Since January 2007, Shane Cadbury had been the tenant of the Berkshire Court property, where he lived alone. Cadbury lived upstairs, and at the time we are concerned with, the other flat was unoccupied. Cadbury was unemployed, and claiming disability benefit. He had few friends, and spent much of his time in his flat, watching videos and playing on his PlayStation. A considerable quantity of pornography was discovered in the flat, along with a sketch book of graphic and explicit sex scenes, that he had drawn himself. A journal of short stories, many pornographic, was also discovered. In that journal, Cadbury fantasised about having sexual intercourse while dismembering and decapitating a beautiful woman.

  “I now turn to deal with the movements of Ella and the defendant on the night of her death. On that fateful day, Ella had returned from college to the home she shared with her mother, father and sisters. Jamie Thornton had also been staying at the property with Ella’s family for several weeks past. After the family ate a meal together, Jamie said goodbye to Ella and walked to The Ship Inn, at Sutton, where he had arranged to meet friends. He had arranged to be out of the house so Ella and her 16-year-old sister Stephanie could try on their dresses for the wedding, which was booked for April 11th. Ella’s father took the family dog for a walk, so the girls could get ready. He and Jamie left the house at around 7pm. The youngest sister, Tara, was staying at a friend’s house.<
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  “Ella, Stephanie and their mother spent an hour making last minute plans for the wedding and tried on their dresses. Despite being asked to take them off so they would not be dirtied, Ella and Stephanie were so enjoying themselves in their dresses, they kept them on as they sat at the kitchen table and planned seating arrangements, giggling as they looked forward to the big day. Stephanie then knocked over a glass of red wine, which dribbled over the left leg area of the dress. Ella burst into tears, as did Stephanie, and their mother tried to sponge off the stain, but could not. She quickly suggested they take dress to Ella aunt’s house, her father’s sister, Joyce Butterworth. Ella ran from the house, in the dress and veil, and barefoot.

  “That same evening, Shane Cadbury had been visiting friends at Manston Garth, Bransholme. He had spent the evening eating a takeaway and watching a horror movie with Steve Venables and Daniel Lewis. The defendant had drunk at least three cans of lager that evening. He left at round 8.20pm, after falling out with Daniel Lewis. They had argued over Mr Lewis’s intention to propose to his girlfriend. The defendant tried to talk him out of it, and became insulting towards Mr Lewis’s girlfriend. The defendant eventually stormed out of the house in, what the Crown suggests, was a state of temper. The route that would take him from the property back to his own flat unhappily coincided with the route Ella would take from her aunt’s house back to Rufforth Garth.

  “Cadbury’s path crossed that of Ella Butterworth’s in a dark, unlit alley, just two streets from her home, with the most tragic of results. We contend that Cadbury used a large curved pocket knife that he was fond of carrying to inflict the fatal wounds. That knife has not been recovered, but we suggest the stabbing only ended when the tip of the knife broke off in the brick wall that he pinned her against as he murdered her. You will be shown the sharpened sliver of this murder weapon doing the course of the trial.