BETRAYED BY DEATH
Roderic Jeffries
© Roderic Jeffries 1982
Roderic Jeffries has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
This work was originally published under the pseudonym Peter Alding.
First published in 1982 by Walker Publishing Company, Inc.
This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter One
Mark Bourg ran from the cinema down to the cross-roads, turned right, and continued for two hundred yards to the bus-stop. By the time he reached it, the rain was beginning to trickle from his long hair on to his neck. There was no shelter, and an icy wind had blown up with the dark, and this made conditions even more unpleasant. He shivered and wished he’d stayed at Greg’s house, as his parents thought he had, and had not gone to the cinema — the film had turned out to be a rotten one.
The minutes dragged past and he checked his watch yet again. 10.15. He stared up the road at the traffic lights and willed a 93 bus to come round from the left. If it was delayed much longer his father would telephone Greg’s father to check what was happening, and then he’d be in dead trouble. Normally easy-going, his father could really blow his top if he thought he had cause.
The bus would take at least eighteen minutes to get to Whetstone Cross — and that was being pretty optimistic — so he couldn’t hope to walk into the house before twenty to eleven. It was all too easy to imagine his mother at that very moment looking at the time and wondering where he’d got to because he knew she liked him to be back soon after ten.
Where on earth had the 93 bus got to? Ironically, there’d been a joke about the service in the local newspaper only the previous week. Question: How can you tell it’s a 93 when it’s too far away to read the destination board? Answer: If it’s not there, it’s a 93. Not funny when he was waiting for the last one which should have reached the stop at five past ten, so that about now he should have been walking into his house and assuring his parents that he’d spent a great time with Greg.
The wind gusted, hard enough to force him suddenly to move his feet to keep his balance. The rain intensified, and he could feel his trousers beginning to stick to his legs. Across the pavement, a recessed shop-front offered cover, but he’d become so frantic that he was convinced that if he moved over to it a bus would come shooting round the corner and pass before he could leave the cover and signal it to stop.
A car, with dipped headlights, came round from the left and then, instead of accelerating down the gently sloping road, it slowed and drew up at the bus-stop. The nearside front window, electrically operated, slid down. The driver called across from his seat: “You look as if you’re getting ready to go swimming! How about a lift if you’re going my way?”
A car could get him home in fifteen minutes, and provided he was quick about saying good-bye and thank you, there’d be nothing to suggest it hadn’t been Greg’s father’s car (his parents would not expect Greg’s father to go into the house.) But only last week there’d been another warning from the police.
“Where are you going to?”
“Whetstone Cross,” he answered. He shivered. The dry warmth inside the car made, by comparison, the cold and the wet outside twice as unpleasant.
“Then you’re in right royal luck! I’m going to only a couple of miles from there, so I can drop you off at your place. Jump in.”
After that police warning, his father had spoken to him for the third time about never accepting a lift from, or going anywhere with, a stranger. This followed what had been said many times on T.V. Over the past two years, eight boys had disappeared. The police had issued a statement that they believed all eight had been murdered by a sexual pervert. His father had asked him if he understood what was meant by a sexual pervert? Very embarrassed, he’d answered that he did. Later, he’d talked things over with Greg to make certain that he really did understand.
The driver smiled. “I suppose you’re worried about getting into a car with someone you don’t know?”
Mark hoped he wasn’t being too rude when he nodded.
“Very sensible. But you won’t be on your own. Mitzy will protect you.” He leaned over and picked up from the front passenger seat a small, very hairy dog. The dog yapped twice. “That’s Mitzy’s way of saying hullo and she promises to look after you.”
Mark had a dog of his own, and so for him a dog meant a normal home where people were kind and loving. A man who’d murdered eight boys obviously didn’t and couldn’t come from such a home.
“Hurry up and get in out of the rain before you’re washed away.” The driver spoke with cheerful insistence.
Mark opened the front passenger door.
“There’s no need to worry about making the seat wet. I do a spot of wild-fowling and many’s the time I’ve brought half the estuary in with me.”
He sat.
“You won’t mind having Mitzy on your lap, will you?”
“No, of course not.”
“I can always tell if someone likes dogs. Bet you’ve got one of your own?”
“Yes, I have.”
“What’s he called: or is she a she?”
“Alan - that’s after Alan Jones, the racing driver.”
The man put Mitzy down on his lap, and she immediately settled. A tongue parted the curtain of steel blue and tan hair which covered much of her face, and she licked his left hand as he rumpled her ear with his right.
“What breed is she?” he asked.
“A Yorkshire Terrier. She’s a pedigree with enough show champions in it to make her royalty.” He accelerated away from the pavement.
Mark settled back in the seat, enjoying the warmth which was already reaching through his damp clothes. This had been a real stroke of luck, he thought — getting a lift all the way home just when it seemed he was in terrible trouble.
“You look as if you’d been waiting at that bus-stop for a long time?” said the driver.
“Ages and ages. The last ninety-three should have been there at five past ten. I do hope my parents aren’t going to worry: if the bus had been on time I’d have been home by now.”
“Like me to put on a bit of speed as soon as we’re out of town, would you?”
The driver chuckled. “I can’t do much, not with the roads as wet as they are. Know something? You’ve told me your dog’s name, but not your own. What is it?”
“Mark.”
“That’s a nice name. Mark.”
The thought crossed Mark’s mind that the man’s voice had sounded somehow strained when saying his name, but it was a thought which led nowhere. Mitzy nudged his hand, because he’d stopped stroking her head, and he resumed the stroking.
The driver reached down with his left hand to the well compartment and picked up a paper bag. “I don’t suppose you’d say no to a toffee, Mark?”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
“Thought you’d be like me when I was your age: couldn’t keep me away from the sweets.” He chuckled again. “And
there’s someone else with a sweet tooth — Mitzy. Goes mad for a toffee. Like to give her one?”
Mark was passed the bag. He reached into it and brought out a toffee and began to unwrap it. Mitzy nudged his hand.
“You have to watch her, or she’ll grab it and bolt it down, paper and all. No manners.”
He held up the toffee out of her reach, unwrapped it, and offered it to her. She took it with surprising delicacy, considering her eagerness, and began to chew it with loud enjoyment.
“Don’t forget yourself, Mark. They’re good toffees.” He laughed. “The lady in the shop where I buy ’em says I’ve become addicted to ’em.”
Normally, Mark instinctively distrusted people who laughed a great deal for no readily apparent reason, but he was too concerned with getting home without his parents guessing what had happened to realize how often the driver laughed or chuckled.
They passed the last house which marked the limits of the town and the headlights picked out the speed derestricting sign. Pavements gave way to grass verges, suburban hedges of privet to country hedges of tough, ancient thorn, and neat gardens to sprawling fields.
“Whereabouts in Whetstone d’you live, Mark?” asked the driver.
He shifted the toffee to one side of his mouth. “At the end of the road which runs through the village. You can’t miss us ’cause we’ve a big front garden which Mum is always on about to Dad.”
“Your Dad doesn’t like gardening, then?”
“No, he doesn’t. Says it’s such a waste of time because in a couple of weeks you have to start all over again.”
“He’s got quite a point there!” He chuckled. “All I ever do is a little digging every now and then to tidy things up.”
Mark began to chew the toffee, being a sweet eater who seldom sucked for very long. Perhaps, he thought, he’d be home in time after all: his parents would be watching the film on T.V. and probably wouldn’t be keeping quite such a sharp eye on the time as he’d previously feared.
They went over cross-roads, and he suddenly realized where they were. “Hey! You ought to have turned off back there.”
“Should I?”
It occurred to Mark that it was odd the driver didn’t know which was the main way to Whetstone if he’d friends who lived only a couple of miles away. “It’ll be quickest to turn round.”
“It’s not worth doing that. We’ll take the next turning off to the right.”
“The right? You mean left.”
“Yes, of course.”
Mark began to feel uneasy, although just for the moment there was no focus for that uneasiness. “You can turn left there, just past that oak-tree: it’s a bit of a winding lane, but it does go through to the village.”
The car gathered speed and flashed past the lane he had pointed out.
Chapter Two
Fusil kissed Josephine good-bye — a perfunctory peck because he was in danger of being late — and hurried out of the house and round to the garage. He backed his Austin Allegro on to the road, turned, and drove the short distance to Divisional H.Q., where he parked in the courtyard, in the space reserved for the superintendent since someone had parked in the space reserved for him.
He passed a couple of P.C.s who were standing by a dog handler’s van and nodded in return to their brief greetings and entered the station. He looked at his watch as he climbed the stairs, two at a time, and saw with satisfaction that he had just two minutes in hand. Josephine sometimes mocked him for his determination to start work sharp at eight-thirty in the morning no matter how many hours he’d worked in the previous twenty-four, but he’d always demanded the same standards of discipline from himself as from those who served under him. Experience had convinced him that smartness in everything made for a better police officer.
His room was sharply cold despite the fact that Miss Wagner had already switched on the electric fire at maximum strength, but there was nothing unusual in that: the police station was old and it seemed as if all the winters had settled into its bricks, never to be dislodged. He hung his overcoat on the battered mahogany stand, went round to the chair behind the desk, and sat.
The mail had been placed in one pile, new memoranda in a second, local crime reports in a third. He read through the crime reports. They provided the usual mixture of major and minor incidents: several drunk and disorderlies down by the docks, a knifing, five cars stolen and to date only one recovered, an attempted break-in at a store at the back of the High Street, a successful break-in in a country house from which a considerable quantity of antique silver and some Continental porcelain had been stolen, a girl of sixteen found wandering in a state of drugged inability, an incident more funny than serious in the public lavatory in Bank Street, a wounding with intent in the new disco out in Oxover.
There was a knock on the door. “Come in,” he called out wearily. It had to be Miss Wagner. He’d told her again and again to walk straight in, but she was a woman who insisted on observing all the social conventions.
She entered. Intensely loyal, ready to work uncounted hours when necessary, openly and sharply critical if anyone, no matter what his rank, spoke crudely within her hearing, completely honest yet ready to be as devious as a labyrinth designer if this were necessary to gain her objective, she was a survivor from a past age. A very proud survivor.
Fusil half stood — her manner demanded this — said good morning, asked her how she was feeling and was her cat better, then settled back.
“Mr Fusil, this has just come in from A division, and I was certain you’d want to see it immediately.” She handed him a sheet of paper with a Telex message.
He read the brief report and felt sick. Mark Bourg, aged 13, missing. He’d told his parents he was spending the evening with a friend, Greg Adams, and his father had driven him to Greg’s house, dropping him at the front gate: Mark had said that Greg’s father would drive him home at the end of the evening. He’d never gone into the house. Greg had been questioned. Because of all the warnings from the police Mark’s parents had forbidden him to go to the films unless he went with someone else. Greg had already seen the horror film at the Palace and no one else would go with him, so he’d worked out a way to disobey his parents. The cashier at the Palace thought she’d sold a ticket to a boy resembling Mark, but she couldn’t be certain. No further information available. Physical description of Mark Bourg . . .
“Do you think he’s been murdered?” asked Miss Wagner.
“God knows,” he replied without conviction.
“Why can’t parents understand that it doesn’t matter what happens, they mustn’t let their children be out at night on their own?”
“Because some parents are too bloody thick to think, period.”
It was a measure of her concern that she did not sniff her disapproval of his language.
His initial anger gave way to a far more realistic sense of hopelessness. The parents hadn’t been bloody thick, they’d just been too ready to accept what their son had told them. (And how many parents in exactly similar circumstances would not have done the same?) In any case, no one could watch over a thirteen-year-old boy for twenty-four hours of every day. And one could explain things in their starkest terms, but it was ridiculous to expect a boy to possess the critical assessment of an adult. Mark had wanted to see a film and so he’d thought of a way of seeing it. Impossible for him to foresee the terrible dangers that could follow from such a deception.
“That will make nine boys,” she said bitterly.
Timothy, his own son, was eleven years old. He had just a slight idea of how he would be feeling now if it had been Timothy who had vanished.
“Why can’t you find out what’s happening?” she demanded angrily.
None of the boys who’d disappeared had lived in K division, so he’d not been specifically involved in any of the cases: generally, he’d been as involved as every other policeman both in the county and the country. He knew that every man with a record of sexual crime had been r
epeatedly questioned, that the circumstances of each disappearance had been checked and rechecked, that thousands of people had made statements in answer to a questionnaire, that every possible lead had been exhaustively followed up, that informers had been bribed, bullied, and threatened, to try to goad them into giving information, even that a famous medium had been consulted — all to no effect. Nothing more was known now than immediately after the first boy had disappeared.
“It’s become a terrible world,” she said, a look of hurt in her brown eyes. She turned and left, closing the door quietly behind herself.
He picked up his pipe and tobacco-pouch and began to pack the bowl with tobacco. Had the world become a worse place? Or had it merely become so liberal that evil dared to come out into the open? When he’d first joined the police force there’d been capital punishment and very few criminals carried weapons, even fewer used them. Now there was no capital punishment, and most criminals on big jobs carried weapons and used them whenever this made things easier. Was there a direct connexion betweeen these facts? He thought there was. Others with equal experience thought there was not.
Detective Sergeant Campson came into the room. A tall, well-built man, he wore his self-satisfaction as easily as he wore his rather flamboyant clothes. He respected Fusil and disliked him. He accepted that Fusil was a damned good detective, but his dislike stemmed from the fact that he saw Fusil’s sharpness of character as a threat. A man who was prepared to break the rules in order to get results, because of an idealistic idea of what justice should mean, was a danger not only to himself but to everyone around him. Campson was very concerned about his own future.
“Read this,” said Fusil, before Campson could speak. He held out the Telex message.
Campson read. “Bastard!” he said violently.
Fusil lit his pipe. God forbid another boy should disappear, but if this happened and it happened in K division he’d have everyone working round the clock. He was not big-headed enough to imagine that, if presented with no more evidence than others had been, he would inevitably be successful and identify the murderer because he was that much cleverer. But he knew that he might be successful because he would be prepared to take chances from which others would back away.
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