Darkness Falls - DS Aector McAvoy Series 0.5 (2020)

by David Mark

  “Ella’s screams were overhead by several nearby residents, but as you will hear, they thought it was simply the sound of children playing.

  “Within half an hour, Ella’s mother had become concerned. She telephoned Joyce Butterworth but got no response. She then walked to her house, but there was no reply when she knocked on the door. She then walked to The Ship Inn, where she saw Ella’s boyfriend, Jamie Thornton, and explained that Ella could not be found. Together they searched nearby streets and started making telephone calls to Ella’s friends.

  “By this time, we suggest that Ella Butterworth had been murdered, sexually assaulted, and her body was in Shane Cadbury’s flat.

  “Eight days later, and following a police appeal, detectives received a telephone call from Daniel Lewis. He had been to Cadbury’s flat the day before in an attempt to reconcile their friendship. Cadbury allowed him into the living room of the flat and the two patched up their differences. During the course of the afternoon, Cadbury had taken a trip to the bathroom, and Lewis decided to pop into Cadbury’s bedroom to look for a video they could watch together. As he walked through the door, he saw the decomposed, violated and blood-soaked body of Ella Butterworth, laid out on the bed. She was still wearing her wedding dress, which was now red with blood. The top had been pulled down to expose her breasts.

  “Mr Lewis ran from the flat in a state of shock. He ran back to his own home, where he drank a great deal of whisky and passed out. He woke the next day, sickened and disgusted at what he had seen, and telephoned the police.

  “Almost three weeks later, as the city united in a desperate search for a missing daughter, Police Sergeant McAvoy, together with Police Constables Dicker and Poyser from Humberside Police, followed up the call. Cadbury let them into the flat, and immediately pointed them towards his bedroom. Sergeant McAvoy entered the room. He saw what Mr Lewis had seen, but by this time, Ella Butterworth had been decapitated. Cadbury was immediately arrested. Due to the extreme nature of the wounds to her body and the presence of a footprint on the collar-bone, we grimly suggest that Cadbury used his bare hands to remove Ella Butterworth’s head.

  “The officers were overcome by a stench they described as being like rotting food.

  “As the officers waited for scenes of crime officers and lead officer Detective Superintendent Douglas Roper to arrive, Cadbury began to talk about Ella and what he had done. He called her “his girl”, and spoke of her sexual prowess, and how she had been a gift from the devil, just for him. He spoke normally and without emotion.

  “Scientific investigation of the alleyway found a large quantity of blood. Slash and scratch marks consistent with a frenzied attack were found on the wall. The car in which Ella was transported was also recovered. More blood was found on the stairs leading to the defendant’s flat, and in the living room and bedroom.

  “The knife used to inflict the wounds was most likely tossed into the drain, but despite an extensive underwater hunt, has not been recovered.

  “During police interview, Cadbury declined to answer all questions bar one. When asked why he had killed her, he said he did not. He said he found her dead, and looked upon her as a gift.

  “The Crown says that the defendant is responsible for the murder of a gentle, loving and fragile young girl, and that he is guilty of murder. Thank you.”

  ENOUGH FOR A SPLASH. Few decent quotes and a bit of gore. Have to make a judgement call on the grisliest stuff: anal swabs and manual decapitation. A bit much for some readers; not enough for others. I’ll leave that to Neil on newsdesk. Let the bastard earn his pay.

  Good stuff, though.

  Hard.

  Nasty.

  Easily digestible. Good versus evil, beauty and the beast, all boiled down to 600 words. A bitesize morality tale with a punchy headline.

  My sort of caper.

  Cadbury looking at his feet as the details poured out. Breathing deeply as Anderson talked about her nakedness, spoke of violation and deprivation and made it sound like poetry.

  Reporters pulling faces and trying to keep up as we scribbled shorthand. Putting asterisks next to the choicest quotes.

  Sickened for a moment, then down to business.

  The copy running through my head like a mantra.

  Bored by 11.30.

  Looking up and around and inside.

  Spinning in my seat as two detectives slip quietly into the courtroom and whisper in The Flash’s ear.

  30 seconds of eyebrow raising.

  Conversation behind a palm.

  Then Roper getting up, nodding to the judge.

  Sliding out of the courtroom in a swish of leather.

  Acolytes riding his coat-tails.

  Me mulling it over.

  Judgement call.

  Twitching.

  Up.

  Bowing.

  And out the door.

  11

  Clive Sullivan Way, 12.15pm, heading West out of Hull towards the country park.

  Two bodies found in the woods…

  Taking it easy, careful of the speed trap round the bend past the pharmaceutical warehouse. Bastards have already got me twice. Six fucking points and £120. Entering the sixty zone now. Flip a finger to the coppers in the van as I pass the camera, and floor it.

  Waters of the Humber, brown and choppy to my left. White caps on the ripples. Paper chase of gulls, squabbling over shit; a taste of things to come.

  A fast 80 in the rain.

  Only one wiper works, so I’m leaning across to the passenger side and peering through the gap, carved in the waterfall running down the windscreen.

  Cigarette smoke clinging to my damp clothes.

  Johnny Cash dead beside me.

  Passing the Arco warehouse. Christmas lights and a fat Santa Claus on the roof.

  Thinking of Christmases past. At Drayton. The country estate we called home. Dad, the game-keeper for a poor boy done good. So much less than he deserved. I get heartburn when I think of those days. That time. That Christmas. Mulled wine and egg-nog, carols and bad sweaters. The Winter shooting party, and the one that would come six months later under a blazing sun. Of that day. Mam and Kerry in the cottage; me and Dad, men at work. Serving the rich men. In among them. Mingling. Not exactly beneath, but a step down, and to the left. Feeling like the guttering on their mansion, the shingle on their drive. Me, a child, with watery grey eyes and a good right hook, sniffing the Bloody Marys on their breath, and watching, as Dad thanked them for the grubby notes they stuffed in his waxed jacket.

  Remembering myself, nine-years-old, in the back of the jeep. Dad winking, to show it was all OK, and me knowing it wasn’t. Trying to work it out. Trying to fathom why we lived in the cottage, and Mr Blake, with his red nose and fleshy lips and lecherous hands, lived in the Big House. Wondering where his magic lay. Why our presents, once opened, were so clearly shop-bought. Why I recognised them from last year’s January sales. Why Santa loved the Blakes more than us, when they already had so much. Sniffing spent cartridges; the earthy, sharp tang of gunsmoke. Cheek tugged and hair ruffled by fat men in tweed. Shiny coins dropped in my pocket. The occasional hand on my arse. Sometimes wondering if Dad served them because they were better than him, or because of the powerful, shiny thing in their hands.

  And later, bouncing back to the cottage in the old 4x4, resting my head on the dead grouse, listening to Dad talk about football.

  A Volvo estate suddenly honks loud and long as I drift into the inside lane, and I open my eyes with a jolt, lighting a cigarette, chewing the top off a bottle of Nurofen and gobbling three down, as I press the accelerator hard and tear through the curtains of rain.

  I pass a lorry. In the dirt on its back end, somebody has written: “Please overtake quietly – refugees asleep.”

  Mobile phone tucked under my chin, spouting nonsense to a copytaker: last of a dying breed.

  “Right, read that third para again, will you? Yeah. Ta. Right, scrub that bit. Ok, first par again. Ready? A teenage
girl was brutally murdered while wearing her wedding dress then decapitated and sexually abused – two days before she was due to marry her childhood sweetheart. New paragraph.

  “Ella Butterworth’s dead body was repeatedly molested by her alleged killer, Shane Cadbury, 26, in the days after her death, and body-parts were found more than a mile away. Her body … shall we say ‘the bulk of her body?’… is that too harsh?... okay, leave it as is... Body was discovered in Cadbury’s flat in Sutton, near Hull, where the accused is said to have carried her after murdering the ‘angelic’ teen in a frenzied attack in an alleyway near her home.

  “Right, then it’s as it was. Remember the inverted commas around delicate and fragile, yeah? Oh, I took them out did I? Stick them back in. Cool. Whack that over to the desk and stick my mobile number on top. Tell them I’ll let them know how this body in the woods thing turns out. Nice one. Cheers, princess. Ta’ra.”

  Bang. Job’s a good ‘un.

  Switch the phone off and dial the police voicebank again. Heard it three times already but it doesn’t hurt to be thorough.

  “This is Inspector Dave Simmons in the Humberside Police press office, the time is now 11.37 on the morning of December the 8th. This is an appeal for information over a suspicious death. This morning, at 9.15am, police received a telephone call from a concerned local business owner at the Humber Bridge Country Park, near Hessle, who reported the presence of a body in a dense patch of woodland. Police immediately attended the scene. Two bodies were confirmed. Scenes of Crime investigators are now in attendance and the park has been closed to the public. I am now on my way to the scene. I would like to stress that we are at a very early stage in the investigation, and I know you will all want identifications as quickly as possible, but that could take some time due to the nature of the injuries. We are treating both deaths as suspicious at this stage. A murder enquiry has now been launched. Thank-you.”

  Pull off at the roundabout, past the foody pub overlooking the water, and the carved grizzly bear, down Ferriby Road. Trees either side. Leafy, even in bleak mid-winter. Big houses. The smell of money.

  Know the road like the palm of my hand.

  Copper in a yellow jacket standing by the entrance to the Country Park. Huddled in his jacket, collar up.

  I slow down and wind down the window. He ambles over. Young lad. Ernest face. Don’t know him.

  “Park’s closed, mate,” he says.

  “Yeah, so I heard,” I say, smiling. “I’m with the Press Association, mate. Have the pack arrived yet?”

  “Pack?”

  “Press pack. Heard we’ve got a murder.”

  “You’re the first.”

  He’s leaning in the car window now. Christ he’s young. Doesn’t look like he even needs to shave every day. Pink cheeks, blonde hair. Bit fleshy. A human Battenburg.

  He looks wet through. His whole head is in the car, helmet touching the roof, rain dripping from his chin. He’s looking for warmth. Smiling. Obviously lonely. I dare him to mention the knackered windscreen wipers.

  “Simmo around?”

  “Simmo?”

  “Inspector Simmonds, mate. Skinny fella. Press officer. Of a sort.”

  “Oh yes, he’s just arrived.”

  “I’ll see him in the car park, will I?”

  He looks worried, and withdraws his head.

  “I haven’t had instructions yet. Best you wait here.”

  “Oh, fair enough mate, but there’s going to be a pack here before too long and we’ll be blocking the road. Last time we had a spot of bother in the country park we set up shop in the car park. As soon as Simmo gets his bearings it’ll all be sorted. Tell you what, I’ve got his mobile number in my phone. I’ll give him a call.”

  The lad sticks his tongue in his cheek as he thinks. Then he shrugs again.

  “Ok, go on through.”

  I treat him to a warm smile, and drive on.

  I turn left into the overflow car park and pull in close to the gates. The rain is easing off but it’s still miserable beyond the glass. The trees that edge the car park stand tall and brooding, their tips stretching upwards to puncture the grey clouds which hang low, like a hammock holding a fat man, over the park.

  I get out of the car, and as the rain and the wind grab at my coat tails and the crows and the seagulls scream overhead, there’s a moment of clarity and astonishment; as though a normal person has suddenly taken a look at the world through my eyes.

  Hours.

  Just a matter of fucking hours since I was parked up, not more than a hundred yards from here, yearning for death.

  Hours since I was smashing in a stranger’s face with a rock.

  It’s a funny old world.

  12

  Standing beneath a striped golfing umbrella, the collar of his leather jacket turned up and his hands deep in his pockets, Detective Superintendent Doug Roper is enjoying the rain. Very cinematic, he thinks. Very noir.

  “Sir.”

  Roper’s standing on a thick tree root, slick with moss, watching the forensics team erect a white tent around the two corpses. The TV crew are being kept back until he’s got to grips with this. Doesn’t want there to be any unforeseen balls-ups. He needs to come across as confident, together, unflappable. Caring, but not soft.

  “Sir. Excuse me. Detective Superintendent Roper, sir.”

  He turns at the rumble of the low, deep voice. There’s a Scottishness, in there, but it’s refined, like good whisky. He’s had a good education, this one. Learned to speak the Queen’s. Roper’s been through his personnel file with a red pen and committed the details to memory. He’s a clever sod, his new sergeant, but there’s no cunning there. Sensitive, too, but without the guile to use it to his advantage. He’s dogged, certainly. Diligent. Handsome sod, too, under the blush and the beard. Big lump of a thing. 6ft 6” and a Viking look about him, if Vikings were given to shyness and didn’t swear in front of the ladies. He’s not the sort of chap Roper would have picked for his team, but the sly sod banked a favour when he found Ella’s body last year and Roper couldn’t think of a good reason to refuse his request for a transfer to the Major Crimes Unit. He’s kept him out of the way for months, giving him every kind of pointless, tedious task he can come up with, but he’s still got a zeal in his eyes that turns Roper’s stomach. He’d have loved to have been there when he found Ella. He’s got it on good authority that there were tears running into his beard as if from a tap. Still wouldn’t let PC Poyser boot the boot in, though. Stood his ground and kept his two constables from laying a single finger on Cadbury; standing there, blushing, arms folded, tears and snot and steam rising from his face and the knot in his tie half strangling him: letting Poyser strike him like a drum. All to save a sad sack of shite like Shane Cadbury. It doesn’t make sense to Roper. There hadn’t even been a TV crew handy to capture his display of morality.

  “You talking to me, son? Sorry, it’s the accent.” Roper licks his lips, remembering a joke. “Did you hear the one about the Scottish Mafia Don? Made people an offer they couldnae understand...”

  McAvoy gives a dutiful smile. “Very good, Sir.”

  Roper rolls his eyes. “Not much fun in you, is there son? Learn English from Jeeves, did you? Lighten up, lad.”

  “It’s a crime scene, sir,” says McAvoy, quietly. “Two men are dead.”

  “Yes, but you’re not. I’m not. And we’ll solve it. There are reasons to be cheerful.”

  Roper smiles, broadly, as he watches McAvoy struggle to find the appropriate expression. It’s like watching a cat chewing a toffee. He seems to Roper like a visitor from another planet: as if Mister Spock had fathered a child by a big ginger yeti. He doesn’t seem to understand how adults communicate with each other. Never gets the bloody joke.

  “Go on then,” says Roper, sighing. “Tell me.”

  McAvoy nods, gratitude etched into his face. “Sir, the big one’s still got his watch. No wallet, but that’s a nice piece on his wrist. Expensive. I thi
nk we can discount a robbery. At least, not an opportunistic one. And I’ve been speaking to one of the park wardens. Got a list of descriptions of people who use this area regularly. Joggers, dog-walkers and whatnot. There’s a remote-control car club use the car park on a weekend …”

  Roper treats his sergeant to his best smile.

  “Hector...” he begins.

  “Aector, sir. Hard to say, I know. I don’t object to McAvoy.”

  “Fucking big of you, lad.”

  “Sir?”

  Roper shakes his head. He wonders if it wouldn’t be easiest just to wire some money into the big fella’s bank account from an anonymous source and get him suspended while subject to investigation. He might just be a liability. He hasn’t got the hint he’s not welcome. Too fucking earnest by half, thinks Roper. Big clean hands and a scrubbed neck. Always first in and last out. Real ale man. Never going to be one of the boys. The other lads and ladies in his part of CID know how to play the game. They leave it to Roper. They deal with the robberies and the straightforward rapes and the unglamorous shit, and they let Roper solve the murders, and they don’t ask questions and they smile at his jokes and they stay the fuck out of his way. But the Jock is different. He turns up at crime scenes to see if he can help. Drafts suggested working practices in his own time. Cross-references filing systems. Builds new databases on his home computer so staff can share knowledge and make suggestions. There’s something unnervingly wholesome about the cunt.

  “You could be right, Sergeant,” says Roper. “You get back to the ranch and start working the database. See if you can find any other robberies where something valuable was left behind. Get on to the remote control club. Check their members for any dirt. Nationwide search. Give Interpol a tinkle, too. Mention my name.”

  McAvoy, with mud up to his shins and his feet swimming inside his black shoes, gives a puzzled look. “I’m not sure that the watch being left behind is a signature, Sir. I don’t think they left it on purpose. I just mean they didn’t take it. Or want it. And I was thinking of the car club as witnesses rather than suspects, sir. But…”