THE MURDERER'S SON a gripping crime thriller full of twists

by Joy Ellis

  Skye drew in a deep, long breath. ‘I don’t know, but . . .’ She stared at the desk before continuing. ‘He takes his work very seriously. Perhaps things have got on top of him. He’s had a lot on his mind recently.’

  Jackman thought the explanation pretty lame, and was certain the woman knew far more than she’d divulged thus far. But he’d take it steadily. She could be very useful, so there was no point in alienating her on their first meeting. ‘Personal things? Work-related things? Health issues? Can you be more specific?’

  Again Skye Wynyard hesitated, and Marie leaned forward, her face closer to the girl. ‘I can see how much you care for him, Skye, but if you really want to help him, you have to tell us everything you know. He’s in serious trouble.’

  Jackman took over, not waiting for a reply. ‘Maybe more than you realise. Apart from wasting our time, even if he is not involved in Alison Fleet’s death, he could be looking at a custodial sentence for obstructing the police in the execution of their duties. Perverting the course of justice? While we’re dealing with Daniel, Skye, the real killer could be getting away with murder.’

  The girl swallowed loudly, as if the gravity of Daniel’s situation had finally hit home. Then she looked from Marie to Jackman and finally said, ‘Could you come back to Daniel’s house with me? There’s something I think you ought to see.’

  * * *

  Half an hour later, Jackman and Marie were standing at the bottom of a narrow flight of stairs. Skye Wynyard was staring up towards the landing at a solid-looking door, a key clutched tightly in her hand. She was clearly having serious misgivings about inviting them to Daniel’s house.

  ‘Don’t feel badly, Skye,’ said Marie gently. ‘We would have had to come here anyway. Daniel’s confession is serious enough to warrant searching his home. It’s so much better like this, honestly.’

  ‘He trusts me, and now I feel I’ve betrayed him,’ said Skye. ‘Please, just try to understand that Daniel is . . .’ Her voice trailed off, then realising that there was no going back, drew in a determined breath, gripped the key tighter and marched up the steep stairs, saying, ‘You’d better see for yourself.’

  Jackman stepped inside the long, attic room, and looked around.

  It was nestled into a steeply angled roof with small boxy windows that jutted out. Dark stains on the walls beneath the dormers told him that they leaked when the wind blew the rain in from the east. He turned to look at the rest of the room and was unable to stop the gasp of shock that escaped his lips. He sensed rather than felt Marie tense beside him.

  The only furniture in the room was a desk and a chair. The desk was worn, battered wood, covered in pale rings from ill-placed damp coffee mugs, and looked incongruous when you saw the state-of-the-art, touch-screen computer that sat on it. Dozens of boxes of copier paper, both new and used, were stacked unevenly in great piles across the floor, fighting for space with folders, files and carrier bags full of paperwork.

  But none of this worried Jackman. It was the long wall that ran the length of the attic room that had shocked him. It was covered from floor to ceiling with press-cuttings, photographs, computer printouts and graffitied notes. And it wasn’t just the volume of Daniel’s research into his parentage that made Jackman shiver, it was the way it was displayed.

  In the centre, at the hub of his weird wall-work, was a massively enlarged photograph of a woman. He recognised her immediately, as would most of the adult population of Great Britain.

  It was a close-up of Françoise Thayer. Over twenty years ago, she had brutally and callously murdered her employers, George and Lydia Haines. Françoise Thayer, labelled by the media as the ‘Blonde Butcher.’ And just like that iconic police photograph of Myra Hindley, Françoise Thayer was also instantly recognisable, and equally as chilling. Hindley’s eyes were shark-like — emotionless and dead, but Thayer’s held a hint of dark amusement, and Jackman had always found that even more disturbing.

  All the other pictures and paperwork radiated from the woman’s evil smile, and below it, slightly apart, was a picture of Daniel Kinder. Beneath that, scrawled in giant, jagged black letters on the wall itself, were the words, THE MURDERER’S SON.

  ‘I’m afraid that’s what he believes.’ Skye’s voice was little more than a sigh. She shrugged, then looked beseechingly across at Jackman.

  He eased his phone from his pocket. ‘Sorry, Skye, but we need forensics in here, especially a photographer.’

  ‘No! Please! This is not my house. It belongs to Daniel’s mother and she’s away.’

  He could see her tears welling up, but before he could speak she was crying out. ‘Oh God! I had no right to bring you here. No right at all.’

  Marie moved quickly forward and placed an arm around the girl’s shaking shoulder. ‘Hey, don’t worry. It’s just part of the enquiry, and you’ve done the right thing showing us all this,’ she said softly.

  ‘Believe me,’ added Jackman, ‘as DS Evans said earlier, it’s far better that you’ve invited us here. Now how about we go downstairs?’ He closed his phone. ‘We need you to explain exactly what this means. So we can try to understand.’ He gave her what he hoped was an encouraging smile. ‘Come on, let’s go and sit down and you can tell us about Daniel.’

  * * *

  The whole thing seemed utterly surreal. They sat in the lounge and Skye felt that she should be offering light refreshments and making small talk with her guests. She needed to get her brain into gear, in order to make them understand what she knew about the real Daniel and his desperate wish to know the truth about his birth.

  It took over half an hour, but at the end, she knew that she could do no more. She had silently prayed to whatever angels were around her and tried to make her speech succinct and her story credible. Maybe she had, because both officers seemed deep in thought.

  ‘Is there the slightest chance that he’s right?’ The inspector looked at her with those infuriatingly sincere eyes. ‘Could he be Françoise Thayer’s child?’

  ‘I’ve been helping Dan with his research. I’ve studied that woman for months but I’ve found absolutely no evidence, although . . .’ Skye hated herself for saying what followed. ‘The date of his birth does coincide with when Thayer had a child. A male child, but I can find no official registration.’

  ‘And Thayer is dead, isn’t she?’

  Skye nodded. ‘She died in prison, a year after her incarceration.’

  ‘Murdered, as I recall,’ added Sergeant Evans.

  ‘They think it was a miracle that she lasted a year,’ said Skye. ‘Even the inmates thought she was the devil incarnate. And no one was ever charged.’

  ‘Well, there’s a surprise.’ The sergeant threw the inspector a wry smile and they each raised an eyebrow.

  Skye felt something like relief wash over her. For the first time since they had arrived, she thought that perhaps she had done the right thing after all. The two officers were certainly not what she had expected. For a start they had actually listened to her, and there seemed to be some kind of empathy going on between them. She wondered if they were an item. The woman was probably quite a bit older than the inspector, but that meant nothing these days. And the police force was well known for its “in-house” relationships. Daniel had written an article on the kind of jobs that were prone to produce unfaithfulness, and he had discovered that many police stations seemed to be hot-beds of illicit sexual liaisons. Not that that seemed quite accurate somehow for Jackman and Evans, even though he was good-looking in an “upper crust” kind of way. Skye decided that they were probably just a close and well-matched pair of working colleagues.

  ‘Can you get hold of Daniel’s mother?’ the inspector was asking.

  Skye pushed aside her thoughts about their personal lives and said, ‘She’s in Asia in some sort of retreat, but I don’t know exactly where. Daniel doesn’t either.’

  ‘Maybe we can trace her through the embassies, or card transactions,’ said Marie.

  ‘I c
an tell you her last known destination, but it’s rather vague.’

  ‘What about a mobile phone?’

  Skye shook her head. ‘I’m afraid she took her husband’s death very badly. She took off on what she called a healing spiritual journey. Cell phones aren’t part of the package. The last I heard, even shoes had been discarded.’

  ‘Risky,’ muttered Evans. ‘Don’t they have snakes out there?’

  Skye began to warm to the older woman. ‘Oh yes, and poisonous ones at that, vipers, cobras, kraits . . .’

  ‘Then let’s hope her angels walk ahead of her.’

  Skye looked intently at this policewoman. She had never heard a copper speak like that before. And it hadn’t been sarcasm either. Skye believed in angels, and without thinking, touched the silver pendant that she always wore. Daniel had bought it for her, and it was engraved with the words, “Protected by Angels.”

  ‘Yes, let’s hope,’ she echoed, then added, ‘Will you be seeing Daniel? Would you tell him that . . .’ she faltered. Tell him what, she wondered.

  ‘We won’t be seeing him, Skye. Not until the doctors have said that he is fit to be interviewed.’ The sergeant’s voice was soft, understanding. ‘It’s the law. We can only hold him for a certain amount of time without charging him, and when he entered hospital that clock stopped. If any of us talk to him about the case or anything relating to it, the clock starts again, and we can’t stop it.’

  Skye nodded, and part of her was almost glad. Until she’d seen Dan for herself, she didn’t want to try to second-guess what on earth was happening in that mixed-up head of his. ‘And what happens here? I’m worried about the fact that it’s not my home, and policemen are going to be trampling all over it.’

  ‘A forensic photographer will photograph the attic, then everything will be packed up and taken away as evidence. Considering the severity of the crime that Daniel has confessed to, the whole house will have to be searched, but we’ll do everything we can to ensure that nothing is damaged and everything is replaced as it was, but . . .’ The inspector pulled a face.

  ‘I get the message,’ said Skye. She wondered if Daniel had any idea of the mayhem that his ridiculous action had caused.

  ‘Tell me, Skye,’ asked Marie Evans. ‘Regarding his journalism. Does Daniel work from home? Only I haven’t seen an office.’

  ‘No. He says he gets too distracted if he works here. He rents a small office in a friend’s unit out on the industrial estate. The company is “Emerald Exotix,” and his friend is called Mark Dunand. He imports exotic foliage from all around the world. I suppose you’ll need to check that as well?’

  The police officers stood up. ‘If you could give us the address, Miss Wynyard, we would appreciate it. We will need to go there.’

  Skye went to the kitchen and tore a sheet of paper off a memo pad. On it she wrote Mark Dunand’s address and telephone number. ‘I want to help Daniel, really I do,’ she suddenly blurted out. ‘He never killed that woman, I know it! I think his pain about his background has caused all this chaos.’ She looked at them imploringly. ‘When you do speak to him again, please try to see past what he tells you. Look at the actual evidence. Maybe you can convince him that he’s terribly wrong about being a murderer’s son.’

  The inspector held out his hand. ‘One thing we do really well, Miss Wynyard, is look at evidence. Believe me, we’ll be taking everything to pieces, bit by bit, until we get to the truth.’

  She nodded again and took his hand. The policeman’s grip was firm and reassuring. ‘The truth is all any of us wants, Inspector Jackman. And although it might be hard for you to believe, that’s exactly what Daniel wants too.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Two nurses stared down at the sleeping figure of Daniel Kinder. Then one of them looked angrily at the uniformed constable who was stationed close to the bed.

  ‘He’s a hero, you know. Do you have to watch him like this?’

  The officer, a man named Roger Lucas, chose not to get into an argument, and simply said, ‘Sorry, miss. Orders are orders, and this man is under arrest.’

  ‘There has to be some mistake,’ said the other nurse, a chubby bottle-blonde with too much eye make-up. ‘This man championed our cause a little while ago. He spent a lot of time with us. He’s really nice. And,’ she added almost aggressively, ‘in our eyes he can do no wrong.’

  ‘Then I’m sure he’ll have nothing to worry about, but right now, we stay put.’ Roger sat back on the chair next to the bed and grimaced. It felt quite strange. After all, it was usually the prisoner who was regarded with suspicion, not him.

  As the nurses left, he glanced up at the glass window that separated him from his fellow escort, and his face darkened.

  Outside the room, PC Zane Prewett lounged casually against the wall and talked to one of the other nurses. Roger wondered how long it would take for the girl to succumb to Zane’s well-worn chat-up lines. He gave a disgusted snort and looked away. He hated working with Prewett, but today he’d had no option. His own crewmate was on leave and PC Kevin Stoner, Zane Prewett’s long-suffering mate, had thrown yet another sickie. Not that Roger blamed him, poor sod. Working with that pig of a man must be hell. Roger liked Kevin, he was a good bloke, and for the life of him, he couldn’t understand why he hadn’t asked for a transfer away from Zane Prewett. Prewett, fellow police officer or not, was pure poison.

  A different nurse entered the small room, and checked his prisoner’s blood pressure.

  ‘Excuse me, miss, but when will the doctor be seeing Mr Kinder again?’ he asked politely, fully expecting another ear-bashing.

  Surprisingly this woman smiled at him, and then shrugged. ‘We’re snowed under, so he’s held up, but hopefully pretty soon.’ She smiled again. ‘Can I get you a coffee? I know you’re not allowed to leave him and your mate seems rather involved with other things at present.’

  ‘That would be great, if it’s not too much trouble.’

  She paused at the door, ‘Let me guess? Milk and two sugars?’

  Roger beamed back, and even though he usually took his coffee black with one sugar, said, ‘Perfect.’

  Her badge had said she was a staff nurse and her name was Kelly King, and although — unlike Zane Prewett — Roger was no womaniser, he couldn’t ignore the fact that with her long fair hair caught back in a neat plait, she was very attractive.

  He watched her go with a little sigh. A girl like that would not be unattached. If she wasn’t married, then she’d be certain to have a string of admirers and he was no David Beckham.

  He returned his gaze to his prisoner, who had begun to move restlessly on the bed.

  Now this was a weird one alright.

  Roger drew his brow together, puzzled. He’d read quite a few of Daniel Kinder’s articles about local stuff, and one or two had been pretty thought-provoking. They were well-researched but with an edgy angle to them. He had always felt that Daniel should have been given a permanent slot in one of the big papers, a regular column. So why the sudden turnaround from competent journalist to sadistic killer?

  Roger’s first thought had been drugs. They were behind nearly all the irrational crimes that he’d ever come across. They could addle the finest brain and turn it into mush. And he was of the opinion that on the right cocktail of drugs, anyone could kill.

  But then he’d heard that Daniel was clean. And if that was true, what then?

  Roger looked at the good-looking young man who was mumbling incoherently in his sleep, and began to wonder whether it was all a hoax. Was it a scam? Had one of the big papers given him a chance at a once-in-a-lifetime scoop? Was Daniel Kinder some kind of undercover reporter investigating the police?

  It was possible. There was a lot of bad feeling against the police right now. Two high profile cases about police corruption were hogging the headlines on an almost daily basis. His eyes narrowed. And if anyone was capable of getting under the skin and stirring things up, it was this man here. Maybe he should share h
is concerns with his skipper. Roger bit his lip. He hardly noticed Kelly King’s alluring smile when she handed him his coffee.

  * * *

  Jackman sat in the passenger seat and glanced across at Marie Evans. ‘You’re unnervingly quiet.’

  ‘I’m thinking about that attic room, sir.’ She glanced at the rear mirror, then pulled into the fast lane. ‘I sensed a real desperation in that place, didn’t you?’

  Jackman wondered if it had been desperation he had felt, or just mania. ‘Even reading his articles, you know that Daniel has a passion for getting to the truth, and he’ll find it no matter what the cost. Maybe his nature won’t allow him to back off once he gets the bit between his teeth.’

  ‘And maybe those teeth bit off more than they could chew when they started delving into his biological family tree.’ She accelerated along the straight road towards the station. ‘I think his inability to find answers is driving him nuts.’

  ‘Nuts enough to kill?’

  ‘I didn’t say that,’ Marie said seriously. ‘But I’d say he’s sliding into paranoia, wouldn’t you? That stuff on the attic wall was mega-creepy.’ She paused, then said, ‘I know it was a while back, before you came into the force, but did you follow the trial of Terence Marcus Austin?’

  ‘Up to a point,’ said Jackman, trying to recall what he knew. ‘He was the young man from Sheffield who murdered his whole family, wasn’t he?’

  ‘And several others. He was plagued by obsessive thoughts, and sadly no one saw the warning signs until he’d killed seven people — three children and four adults. If someone had looked at him earlier they would have seen all the classic symptoms of schizophrenia.’ Marie indicated and slipped the car neatly back into the inside lane.

  ‘He degenerated rapidly. In eighteen months he’d gone from university graduate to ruthless killer.’

  ‘Are you suggesting that Daniel Kinder is a schizophrenic?’

  ‘I’ve no idea, I’m not a shrink. But Terence Austin kept a diary, a notebook full of his thoughts, and I saw it.’ Marie gave an involuntary shudder.