Darkness Falls - DS Aector McAvoy Series 0.5 (2020)

by David Mark

  “Lena,” I start …

  “I’m sorry,” says Lena, suddenly looking up at me. Eyes the colour of stone-washed denim fill with apologies and shame. She looks at my notebook as though it’s a doorway she’s afraid to pass through. It feels conspicuous in my hand. My pen is cumbersome, an irritation; a lance held between finger and thumb. All at once I’m horribly aware of myself, of her, of the nature of our association. We’re not friends. Not colleagues. Not lovers. I’m a stranger asking questions in her living room and idly wondering if her cunt smells of haddock or cod. It all feels real, as though I’m actually living my own life.

  She leans forward in her seat, like a jockey. Elbows on her knees. Rubs her hands on her leggings.

  I put the pen down.

  Lower the notebook like a sail.

  Stand up.

  Cross the room.

  Take the seat next to her on the sofa, close enough for my hand to brush the soft hairs on her bare arm.

  And she starts to talk.

  It’s fucking good.

  Dynamite copy.

  Revelations and remorse. Anger at herself. At me. At her son and the devil that sired him.

  Disappearing into her bedroom more than once; returning with hankies, touched-up make-up, a lop-eared stuffed rabbit that she asks me to put on Ella’s grave.

  Say I will.

  Probably won’t.

  By the time I start writing things down, she’s opened the drinks cupboard and we’re necking Taboo. I’ve told her about Jess. Kerry. Created a fictional brother who died of leukaemia. Given her absolution and held her as the sobs came.

  Cherry picked from her pain until pound signs danced in my eyes.

  20

  Back in the car, scribbling in the dark.

  Getting it down while it’s still fresh and raw.

  Before it gets swallowed up and diluted.

  I have to get Cadbury out of me. I don’t want his secrets to meet my own.

  As twisted child abuser Shane Cadbury begins a life sentence for an horrific murder, reporter Owen Lee spoke exclusively to his mother about how she feared him even as a child…

  There is little about Lena Winstanley to suggest she once gave birth to a monster – a violent sexual sadist who butchered and decapitated a young bride-to-be in her wedding gown and kept her corpse for his own sick pleasures.

  Petite, polite and proud of the fish shop she runs in her home city of Hull, East Yorkshire, Ms Winstanley, 47, is a popular member of her community and a good friend to her neighbours and customers.

  But Ms Winstanley has a secret she hoped to hide from the community she calls home. 26 years ago, she gave birth to Shane Cadbury, the man whose horrendous slaying of young Ella Butterworth shocked the city and led to a high-profile court case which this week ended with Cadbury being sentenced to ……

  At the culmination of the trial, Presiding Judge (**check name**) Skelton labelled Lena’s son a “**wtvr he fukng calls hm***.”

  The jury, who wept as they were showed photos of the beautiful and innocent young victim, were told how Cadbury had a long history of violence towards women and had spent time in young offenders’ institutes and adult prison for vile sex attacks on children.

  Ms Winstanley, who adopted her mother’s maiden name when Cadbury’s crimes were first exposed, said last night: “Every young girl who gets pregnant is afraid of how their child might turn out, but they do the best they can and will stick up for them regardless. I did that for so long. I kept saying people got it wrong, that it wasn’t his fault. But I was lying to myself. He was an animal, and when I think of what he did to that young girl, I can’t stand to look at myself in the mirror.”

  Lena was just 17-years-old when she fell pregnant during a brief relationship with a visiting seaman. A much older man, he beat and raped her when she told him she was expecting a child, and then left the city.

  Lena believed she had miscarried in the wake of the attack, but several months later discovered she was still pregnant, and it was too late for the termination she admits now she desired.

  Disowned by her family, Lena struggled to raise Shane on her own and debts forced her to move to a succession of flats around the city.

  She said: “I tried to give him what I could, but I couldn’t work because there was nobody to watch Shane. We were together all the time, and he was a hard baby. He didn’t sleep much and he would scream like no other child I knew if he didn’t get what he wanted.”

  Shane grew into an even more difficult child, who earned a reputation as a neighbourhood bully.

  She said: “Parents were always knocking on the door and saying he had been attacking their children. He didn’t really play with them, so they would call him names, and then he would get them, one by one. He was a big boy.”

  A poor performer at school, who suffered from what Lena now believes was Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder, Shane was frequently in trouble. He began smoking at nine-years-old, when he was also involved in a physical confrontation with a man who was then Lena’s partner.

  She said: “He hated the man I was seeing. He didn’t want to share me. He would pretend he was ill if he knew I was supposed to be seeing him. My friend stayed over one night, and Shane came into our room and attacked him with a hammer. It was like something from a horror film. He was shrieking and crying and trying to kill him.”

  Following the incident, Shane withdrew into himself. He became fascinated by the occult, and in his teenage years spent most of his time in his bedroom, sketching images of women in horrific poses and listening to music.

  When he was 13-years-old, he was expelled from school and charged with indecent assault after molesting a younger girl in an empty classroom.

  A similar incident followed at his new school, and he was sent to a young offenders institute. When he was released, he was a much more sociable person, and found a group of friends from the surrounding East Hull estate, but they barely went to school and spent most of their time at an older friend’s home, watching pornography and horror films.

  By now an obese but muscular young man, Lena came to fear her son.

  She said: “He was still my son and I loved him but I was becoming so ashamed. I couldn’t make excuses. He would tell me that the girls had wanted it, or that he was being set up, but it was happening all the time. He would watch girls from his bedroom window and I would know what he was doing to himself. It was vile, but I couldn’t get through to him. He ignored me, and was always out with older mates.

  “The police were constantly knocking on the door. He was getting done for theft and assaults and drinking more and smoking cannabis, and I didn’t know who he was. He’d come home while I was asleep and draw symbols in red paint on the wall, just to scare me.

  “He wouldn’t get a job, and just drifted. I could go weeks without seeing him, and then when he was 22 I just reached the end of the road with him.”

  At 22, Cadbury was arrested and charged with raping the eight-year-old daughter of one of his friends. Remanded to Wakefield Prison, he bullied other inmates and was frequently in trouble.

  At the trial, where his counsel told of his drug addiction and low IQ, he spoke only to confirm his name, and his conversion, through the prison chaplain, to Catholicism. Conflicting reports and a mix-up over forensic evidence meant the charge was reduced to indecent assault. He entered a guilty plea to the lesser charge and spent 14 months in prison.

  Upon his release, he made no attempt to contact his mother, who had now opened her new business.

  She said: “Despite the trouble he’s been in I know he feels no guilt. I know he has done truly evil things and I can’t stand the thought he was once a part of me.

  “When that young girl was missing I had this feeling, this hollow, empty feeling, that he was involved. I was just waiting for it to be confirmed. I’m not his mother. He’s taken my life too. I was his first victim.”

  Bang.

  Job done. Most of it true a
nd all of it juicy. Exclusive. Mine.

  Gun in my waist-band, humming, softly.

  Jobs to do, people to see.

  Needing a drink.

  The press of flesh and stink of ale.

  Need to fish in the sea of humanity.

  Reel something in.

  21

  “Good evening, this is Inspector Dave Simmonds on the Humberside Police media line. The time is now 6.57pm on December 8. Just a brief update, as promised, on the ongoing inquiry into the two suspicious deaths at the Country Park. Many of you have been calling me to ask me to confirm two names that are currently doing the rounds. As I’ve explained, until all of the families have been informed and certain forensic tests completed, I will be unable to release any identities and would request that you do not print any names in association with this case until we are ready to formally release them. I can only say at this stage that a post mortem examination has been carried out by Professor Murray, that’s John Murray, with an ‘h’, and spelled M.U.R.R.A.Y, before you ask, of Sheffield University, which showed that one of these men died from a brutal and sustained attack, and that the other met their death as the result of a gunshot wound. This is now a murder inquiry. There will be an informal press conference at Priory Road police station at 10am tomorrow. I am aware that many of you may be covering the Shane Cadbury murder trial at the moment and I’m sorry for the inconvenient time, but Det Supt Doug Roper is heading this investigation personally and unfortunately this is the only time he will be available. Further to the questions I have been asked about the CCTV tapes which cover the car park, I can confirm that yes, a tape has been recovered and will be viewed by officers. I would like to thank you for your patience. I will update this media line as soon as I am able to do so.”

  8PM. One elbow on the bar at the Tap & Spile on Springbank. Full of disenfranchised liberals seeking asylum and finding solace in conversation with the like-minded; the lefties who don’t want to admit they’re getting secretly pissed off at the amount of olive-skinned faces on the street beyond the leaded glass.

  Decent boozer, this. Walking distance from the Hull Daily Mail main office. Quick stroll from Kerry’s. Never more than two feet from a fuck.

  Busy. Must be 60 people milling about in the two rooms, spilling beer on the wooden floors, squeezed in at tables and leaning against columns, shredding the labels off bottles of Budweiser, and building pyramids with beer mats on the varnished tables. It’s a theme pub, and the theme is drinking and having a laugh. Mixed crowd tonight. Students in corduroy flares and tiny tops, middle-aged women in jeans and Monsoon dresses; blokes with long hair and leather waistcoats, old blokes nursing a pint of Smooth and talking about the rugby. Lots of ornaments and knick-knacks on the walls. Turn of the century bottles and tin cans, huge keg of beer standing in the centre of the back-bar. Got a yellow feel about the place. Got a good reputation for music, too. Holds the infamous ‘Tap on Wood’ acoustic competition every year. I caught the final a couple of years back, when one of Kerry’s mates came second, losing to a skinny bloke who did a ballad version of Ace of Spades to end his set. It was a good night. Kerry hadn’t unravelled yet, though some of her stitching was beginning to come loose. She still believed, then. Still wore the CND badge and posted leaflets through doors for the Legalise Cannabis Alliance. Still ate food when she needed to, rather than when she remembered. Still had arms that didn’t look like tea bags. Still laughed at what was funny, instead of giggling at silence and empty air. Still worked at the animal shelter and spent most of her wages on toys and treats for the cats that nobody wanted. Still called Dad every couple of days. Still kept her legs shut until somebody opened them nicely. Still my sister.

  I take another gulp of lager, and made room at the bar for a middle-aged woman in leather trousers. She thanks me with a smile.

  “Getting pretty crowded,” she says, motioning over her shoulder at the crowd while trying to catch the attention of the barmaid by waving a £10 note. I look at her hand. Risen veins snake over pale skin like tree roots.

  “Band on, is there?”

  “Yeah, King Rollo. Blues lot. Really good.” She has to shout over the noise of the crowd, and opens her mouth wide. I can see the fillings in her teeth.

  “Aye? Has he got a pony tail?”

  “Yeah, that’s him. I’m a bit of a groupie. Me and a few mates follow him everywhere.”

  “Come far?”

  “Hornsea.” 15 miles up the coast. Bridlington’s middle-class half-sister. “There are a dozen of us tonight. My round. Oh, hiya. Four halves of Stella, two lager and lime, three Diet Cokes, a vodka-tonic, rum and coke, and an Orange Reef, please. Phew, got that right. And you?” She looks at me, gesturing at the drink in my hand.

  “Oh. No, I’m fine, thanks.”

  “Sure?”

  “Well, if you don’t mind? Cool. Bell’s whisky, please. With ice.”

  The barmaid starts putting the order together while I run an eye over my new friend. She’s late 30s. Short dark hair fluffed up and ruffled. Round face. Brown eyes. Gap between her two front teeth, like Madonna. Hint of a double chin. Tits worn well in a black top, with a pendant hanging in her cleavage. White blouse worn over. Quite chunky round the middle. Big arse. Black boots. She’s sweet, like a sex symbol in a Disney cartoon; an alluring mouse, maybe.

  “Thanks,” I say, downing the whisky as the barmaid places it in a beery puddle in front of me, and diluting the burn with another gulp of lager. “You need a hand to carry the rest?”

  She gives me what she thinks is a twinkle of the eye and says: “No, I’ll do it in shifts. Give me an excuse to keep coming back.”

  I finish the drink while she’s still looking at me, and turn my back, ordering another lager from the blonde barmaid. I’m served before anybody else. When I glance back over my shoulder, the woman is already retreating into the crowd, with an added swagger in her hips. She’s definitely got an hourglass figure, but it’s got too much sand.

  I bite the top two inches off my next drink, hoping it will work like medicine. I’m starting to feel faint, as though my head could float from my body.

  There’s a vibration in my pocket as my phone rings. I look at the screen and see the number is being withheld. Ramming a finger in my ear I flip open the phone, and strain to hear.

  “Owen Lee,” I say, raising my voice over the rumble of the rabble.

  “Owen? It’s Simmo. You free?”

  “Pub. Working hard.”

  “Tough old life.”

  “Think I’ve earned it today. You’ve got to organise a better system. You can’t go having double murders on the first day of a trial. And not on a Monday when I’ve got a bitch of a hangover.”

  “I’ll have a word. See if we can’t spread the juicy crimes and retributions over the course of a year. In fact, fax me a copy of your holiday schedule for the next 12 months and I’ll distribute it around the criminal fraternity.”

  “You’re a good man, Simmo.”

  “I aim to please. Anyway, just checking in with a few titbits, if you’re interested.”

  “You know me, mate. Always like a bit of a tit. That’s why me and Tony are mates.”

  “Well when you see him give him a good-natured slap from me,” he says, a mild note of irritation creeping into his voice. “He’s always a pain in the arse but he’s gone into overdrive on this one.”

  “So which way does Roper’s nose think the breeze is blowing?”

  “It’s too early to say, Owen, and I mean that. He asked me to give you what we’ve got, but that’s fuck-all. You’ll be the first to know when there is something concrete.”

  “I never need concrete. Sloppy cement is more than enough.” I’m shouting as I talk, trying to make myself heard over the noise of the bar, and I’m getting a few looks.

  Simmo senses I’m losing interest and fills up the silence with speech. “Well, at the moment you could do worse than follow up the drug deal angle, with a smattering of gangland cult
ure thrown in,” he says, and quickly begins to warm to his theme. “No doubt you’ve heard the names that are doing the rounds. Well they’re spot on. And one of them is somebody West Yorkshire Police know very well. A real proper villain. Muscle for hire. Quite a bright spark, too. Inventive. Used to rob banks when he was younger but after he got out of Wakefield Prison he had what some would consider a bit more class and clout. He leathered the head doorman at a club in Leeds that belonged to a real nasty piece of work, and came to the attention of a lot of big names. Got offered a few jobs with the big leagues, but didn’t like to be tied down. Got himself a nice little number doing the occasional piece of work. Cash-drops, the more dangerous deal, that sort of thing. But he found his niche in punishment beatings, and worse. The lads in West Yorkshire have him down for at least three murders last year. Remember that bloke whose body they found in a suitcase in the car park at Ferrybridge services? You remember, they still haven’t found the head. Well they reckon that was his handiwork.”

  “Nice chap, then. Christ, you’re really going to waste man-hours solving his death? Somebody’s done you a favour.”

  “No doubt, but we’ve got that old public duty thing to worry about. Not a problem in your line of work, I realise.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I say, suddenly bored, feeling too hot and jostled in the confinement of the bar, but not wanting to leave in case the tit who’s staring at me takes it as a victory.

  “Anyhow, past few months he’s been almost exclusively on staff for Mr Petrovsky …”