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

by Joy Ellis

  ‘You sound like you wish you hadn’t.’

  ‘Stuff of nightmares.’ She pushed the window button, leaned out and flashed her identity card at the security camera on the entry gate to the police station car park. ‘The worst thing was the way it went from perfectly normal comments and almost boyish doodles, to terrible graphic images and horrible scribblings about his unimaginably insane beliefs.’ She drew in a breath. ‘I don’t know why, but as soon as I saw that attic wall, I thought of Terence Austin’s notebook.’

  Jackman released his seat belt and stepped out of the car. ‘And yet, if you removed the two main pictures, it could have been one of those brain-storming techniques that supposedly aid problem-solving.’

  Marie slammed her door and flicked the locking device. ‘Or one of our own whiteboards. I know I’m probably being neurotic, but that was the impression I got, that something was escalating.’

  ‘I don’t doubt that you’re right,’ said Jackman, as they walked across to the main building. ‘As soon as it’s all been catalogued, we’ll reconstruct that wall exactly as it was, and see what everyone else has to say about it.’

  ‘Do you think we could get a psychologist to give us a professional opinion?’

  ‘I’m going to talk to the super about it.’ Jackman wasn’t looking forward to that particular meeting. ‘We need all the help we can get, budget or no budget.’

  As soon as they were inside, a civilian approached them and said that the desk sergeant wanted a word.

  ‘What now?’ muttered Jackman.

  The uniformed sergeant was a stocky man with a shock of prematurely white hair and a ruddy complexion. He beckoned them into the back office and closed the door.

  ‘This may be nothing, but I thought you should be aware that there is considerable bad feeling being extended to our chaps down at the hospital.’ He ran a beefy hand through his snowy thatch and shrugged. ‘PC Roger Lewis has just rung in and said that they are being called “bad guys” because of Daniel Kinder’s almost saintly reputation. His newspaper article, the one that turned them from an irresponsible shower of apathetic layabouts into sparkling angels, has given him a lot of fans in that neck of the woods.’

  ‘Kind of to be expected then, isn’t it?’ said Jackman, sounding unimpressed.

  ‘Fair enough, but PC Lewis actually rang me from the gent’s toilet. There’s a very high possibility that someone slipped a laxative into his coffee.’

  Jackman’s first thought was to laugh, and he noticed Marie trying to stifle a giggle, then he thought about it. Daniel Kinder could well be a sadistic killer, and his adoring nurses were compromising their security, just because he had supported their cause.

  Sergeant Jim Masters waited until the penny dropped. ‘It’s alright. I’ve asked the super to have a strong word with the authorities at the hospital, and I’ve doubled the number of officers in attendance there. I’m aware that the hospital staff don’t know exactly what Kinder has or might have done, but that sort of behaviour is not good enough.’ He paused. ‘But that’s not what I wanted to tell you. PC Lucas has a theory.’ He relayed the constable’s idea that Kinder could be trying to get “inside” for an exclusive story.

  ‘And he came up with that little gem while he was in the karzi? Nice work, in the circumstances. I’m impressed,’ said Marie.

  Jackman glanced across at his sergeant and saw doubt behind her smile. She was wondering the same thing as him. Could Kinder be faking it? And if he was, what the hell was he looking for in Saltern police station? What, or who was the object of his interest?

  He thanked the sergeant and they walked slowly back to the wide staircase that led up to the second floor. Neither of them spoke. Then, as they reached the first landing Marie stopped, and gripping the polished wooden banister rail, slowly said, ‘Roger Lewis is a good, solid copper. If he’s right, this could be a serious problem for us.’

  ‘Agreed. There’s a very fine line between deranged and cunning. And if this is some clever scam to secure a story, what could be so important that it’s worth risking getting banged up for?’

  Marie shook her head. ‘I can’t begin to think. His career, his reputation, everything would go, and,’ she paused, ‘so would his relationship with Skye Wynyard, because I’m one hundred per cent certain that girl is worried sick over Daniel Kinder.’

  Jackman pulled a face. ‘She could still be worried sick if she knew that he was about to go after a scoop and was prepared to lose everything, including her, if he got it wrong.’

  They walked the rest of the way to the CID room in silence.

  * * *

  Daniel Kinder saw the black uniform next to his bed and felt a surge of relief. He would have felt even better if there had been a metal grip around his wrist. It would have meant they were really taking him seriously. His mind wandered. He’d heard that PACE, the Police and Criminal Evidence Act of 1984, had turned everything around in favour of the criminals, so maybe they weren’t allowed to cuff a suspect anymore.

  He tried to focus on the policeman, but his eyelids felt as if they were made of concrete. He blinked, and everything in the room had changed. The policeman now stood close to the door, and a nurse was doing something with a needle and a cannula taped to the back of his hand. He wished that the woman was not a nurse. He wished she was Skye. She was all he wanted right now. No drugs, no fussing, no nothing, just his beautiful Skye. He blinked again, and the man was back beside his bed. What the hell had they given him? He was sleeping between blinks!

  He groaned, and felt himself slipping away again . . .

  * * *

  Young Daniel looked around the unfamiliar room. It was plain, with stark white walls and the only furniture in it was two chairs. But what chairs! He sat in the huge soft leather armchair and wondered how much it must have cost. Hundreds of pounds, he guessed.

  He could hear his parents talking softly to the man who was about to join him.

  They stood just outside the room, but he could hear some of what they said, and he heard words like “anger”, “unreasonable” and “cause for concern.”

  He had no idea why he was here. Things just seemed to happen to you when you were young, and no one ever explained why. He had seen his headmaster and his father talking, in what his mother would have called a “hugger-mugger” manner, sort of secretive and serious. But that was nothing new. The funny thing was that he rarely saw other parents in the headmaster’s study. Sometimes Daniel felt that he was being watched, studied, assessed. When he’d mentioned it to his mother, she had laughed and told him not to be silly. In an expensive private school like his, every child was carefully monitored. It was part of the service.

  The door clicked shut, and a nervous sick feeling crept into him. Why was this happening?

  ‘Hi, Dan. I’m Conrad Young, and your mother and father want me to have a chat with you. Are you okay with that?’ A tall man with thick brown hair and heavy dark-rimmed glasses flopped casually into the other chair.

  The man’s voice was deep and calming, and Dan’s fears slipped away. ‘Sure, although I don’t know why I’m here.’ He hoped he sounded grown up, even though he was not yet nine.

  ‘I’m sure we’ll find out as we go along, won’t we?’ He reached into a pocket in the side of his chair and removed a handset. ‘Seen one of these before?’ he asked pleasantly.

  Dan looked up and realised that the room lights were fading and the wall opposite him was no longer white, but a soft golden yellow. As he looked it changed to orange, then to red. He watched the rainbow colours and said, ‘That’s really cool.’

  ‘It’s a light box. Helps you relax. Helps lots of things, actually.’

  Dan breathed in and sank even further into the comforting thickly-padded leather seat. He’d like a room like this. Maybe his father . . . ? He started to think of ways to approach his dad, but the man was speaking again.

  ‘So tell me, why did you hit your friend?’

  Dan didn’t feel so
comfortable any more. So that’s what it was all about. Lucas Rickard and his stupid Power Ranger.

  ‘You hurt him, Daniel. Did you mean to?’

  This was too ridiculous to be true! It was just some fight, over a toy that got broken. End of. He stared down at his hands. They had been folded calmly in his lap, and he saw that he was now digging his nails into his palms hard enough to make deep indentations.

  ‘He said I broke his Power Ranger, but he did it himself. He hit me first. It was nothing, just a stupid fight.’

  ‘You broke his arm.’

  ‘He fell over! I just pushed him a bit to get him off me. He was yelling and screaming and I wanted him to stop.’ He swallowed, and his voice dropped to a whisper. ‘I only pushed him.’

  ‘Okay, Daniel.’ The man smiled at him, then looked away and stared at the wall as it changed from soft lilac to pink. ‘You’re right. Kids fight all the time.’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘But you did that time, so what was different?’

  Dan felt thoroughly miserable. He’d seen awful fights at school. The kids involved received a dressing-down and if it was really bad they were excluded for a while, but they didn’t get sent to some weird clinic. He ignored the question and asked one of his own. ‘Are you a doctor?’

  ‘Yes, sort of.’

  ‘Do you operate on people? Cut them open?’

  The man smiled. ‘I’m not a surgeon, so no, I don’t get to do the gory bits.’

  His smile was reassuring and Dan began to feel safe again.

  ‘It’s people’s minds that I work with and children’s minds in particular.’

  Dan leant forward, his eyes wide. ‘You’re a shrink?’

  ‘I study behaviour. What makes people act in a certain way.’

  Dan flopped back. ‘Then you’re talking to the wrong person. You should have Lucas Rickard in here. His behaviour needs some serious attention.’

  ‘Tell me about Lucas.’

  ‘He’s a bully and a liar. And he’s not my friend.’ Dan stared at the soft green wall as it slowly became the colour of the sea when they were on holiday. ‘I have to play with him sometimes, because of something my dad calls “networking.”’ He frowned. ‘His dad is always creeping around mine, trying to get my father to invite him to places, like stupid golf clubs and things. I know my father doesn’t like him, but he’s called an investor, and that apparently means I have to be nice to Lucas.’

  ‘But Lucas makes you angry?’

  ‘Injustice makes me angry,’ Daniel said emphatically, with very adult certainty. ‘He broke the toy and because he was scared of his father, he blamed me. Now I’m sitting here and he has a new Power Ranger. That’s not fair, is it?’

  ‘No it’s not.’ The man looked at him thoughtfully. ‘Can you tell me exactly how Lucas finished up with a broken arm?’

  ‘I told you, he fell.’

  ‘Describe what happened.’

  Daniel opened his mouth to begin, then closed it. Because he couldn’t describe what had happened. And he couldn’t lie either, that would make him no better than Lucas. ‘I can’t remember,’ he said finally.

  There had been a gap. A very small gap, but there it was. One minute Lucas had been pummelling him and yelling at him, then his “friend” had been sitting on the floor howling fit to kill and nursing a limp arm.

  ‘I can’t remember.’

  * * *

  Daniel heard himself speak the words, and saw the policeman’s head jerk up.

  ‘Ah, you’re back with us.’

  Daniel blinked, looked around the hospital room, and this time everything stayed where it was. ‘I guess so.’ His mouth felt as dry as chaff and his head throbbed like he had some super-hangover. At least they wouldn’t interview him. He knew police procedures well enough. All he needed to do now was convince the doctor that he was fine, that his trip into police custody had simply overwhelmed him, and he’d be taken back to the station and locked up again. Thank God!

  Daniel let out a long relieved sigh, and closed his eyes again.

  CHAPTER SIX

  ‘Panic attack, nothing more.’

  Jackman stared suspiciously at Superintendent Crooke.

  ‘And there’s no use looking at me like that. The doctor said his blood pressure is now normal and declared him fit to interview. He’ll be back with us in a couple of hours, and the clock starts again.’ She glared at Jackman. ‘So you guys need to get your fingers out, we don’t want Operation Nightjar hanging around like a bad smell. He’s one of two things, Jackman, a time-waster or a killer, and it’s down to you to make up your minds which, and sharpish.’

  Superintendent Ruth Crooke was a slim woman with pointed features, thin hair and a permanent expression of displeasure. She had a strange way of contorting her narrow lips when she was thinking, which made her look as if she were trying to swallow something unbelievably bitter. Marie had suggested it might be her name that had given her such an acerbic expression. It couldn’t have been easy being a rookie police officer with a name like Crooke.

  ‘And has he had a psychological assessment?’

  ‘The A & E doctors have had the psych department take a look at him, and he’s exhibiting no outward signs of any kind of mental disturbance.’ Crooke exhaled noisily. ‘So,’ she looked pointedly at her watch, ‘in a very short space of time, he’ll be all yours. I suggest you go prepare your team and sort this out.’

  ‘I was hoping that we could get a psychologist’s opinion on the creepy montage that Kinder decorated his attic wall with, ma’am. Will the budget stretch that far?’ Jackman gave her his best smile, and added, ‘It would help to speed up the process.’

  The woman’s lips tightened until they almost disappeared. ‘Inspector, the budget is barely covering toilet paper. And getting someone in from outside the police service costs mega-money.’

  ‘Haven’t we got anyone of our own?’

  ‘There’s no one I’d trust with something of this nature, and as the Fenland Constabulary doesn’t warrant a police profiler, it could be difficult.’ She looked at him, worry lines scratched across her weathered skin. ‘I’ll see what I can do, but no promises.’

  Beneath the lines and the frowning countenance, Jackman remembered the fearless copper who had once loved nothing better than getting stuck in, no matter how dire the situation. Ruth Crooke had been a bright light, a tigress of a policewoman who had mounted the ladder with help from no one. Until she went one rung too high, and found to her horror that she had stepped out into thin air. Overnight her job description had changed from being a senior crime fighter to a desk-bound administrator. She no longer waded in to face off with the villains, now the only things she battled were targets, budgets, protocol, and agendas for senior management team sessions. Jackman knew she hated it all. He was one of the few who saw the sadness and bitterness concealed behind those tight lips.

  ‘Much appreciated, ma’am. Thank you.’

  * * *

  Back in the CID room he found all three members of his team carefully working on a new whiteboard. They had set it up next to the existing one, which bore a smiling photograph and the victim’s name, Alison Fleet.

  ‘I got the photographer to fast-track the pictures of the attic wall, guv. As we won’t be able to get the original material, we’ve used copy photos. We’ve isolated each item, enlarging it and printing it off.’ Max looked pleased with himself.

  ‘Excellent. That will save a lot of time. How’s it going?’

  Marie looked at their handiwork and raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, I wouldn’t hire him to do a make-over on my house. I think he was either high, pissed or—’

  ‘Barking mad.’ DC Charlie Button finished off the sentence for her.

  Jackman smiled. Charlie was the youngest member of the team, a scruffy twenty-two-year-old with unruly hair and a spotty complexion. He looked more like a naughty schoolboy than a police officer, but the lad was willing. Willing and eager, and he occasionally had
bursts of pure brilliance, which usually involved picking up on some blindingly obvious point that everyone else had missed completely.

  Jackman turned to study the recreation of Daniel Kinder’s visionary, schizoid artwork, and felt a chill. Even though they had lost the intense, deranged feeling of the old attic room, seeing the montage in this clinical setting made the hairs on the back of his neck rise up.

  He stood there for some time deep in thought. Then he heard Charlie Button’s voice breaking through the cacophony in his brain.

  ‘Can killing be inherited, sir? I mean, even if he was that butcher woman’s natural son, it wouldn’t necessarily follow that he’d be a killer too, would it?’

  Jackman tried to recall his college lectures. ‘That’s one for the experts, Charlie, although in Kinder’s case I would be very surprised. As an adopted son, Daniel had a wonderful childhood, and a privileged upbringing. It’s far more likely to be “like father, like son” in the instance of someone who had personally suffered at the hands of a brutal parent. I think it’s much more about conditioning and desensitisation at an impressionable age than the predisposition to kill being a congenital thing.’

  ‘And what if he simply believed that it was possible?’ asked Marie. ‘Sod all the rational thinking and the medical facts. If he believes it’s true, then he could kill, couldn’t he?’

  ‘Yeah, mind over matter,’ said Max emphatically. ‘If the silly bugger’s brainwashed himself into accepting that he has it in him to murder, then it’s easy-peasy, isn’t it?’

  Jackman listened to them and nodded. ‘Quite possible, but it’s also possible that he is a very clever and devious man who has found an extraordinary way of getting into the heart of this police station.’

  ‘But why?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘Because he’s a bloody journalist,’ growled Max. He turned to Jackman. ‘Do you think there’s something dirty going on within these walls, sir?’

  ‘If there is, then I certainly don’t know about it, but I think we should tread carefully with Daniel Kinder. Everything by the book, and meantime, keep our eyes and ears open. If Kinder has had a sniff of something unpleasant going on in Saltern-Le-Fen, then we need to get to the source of it before he does, okay?’