Dark Truths

by A. J. Cross

  ‘I could have been to the bloody reservoir and back in the time you’re taking—’ He stopped. Green was facing the big American-style fridge freezer, his hands on its handles. ‘What’s up with you?’

  He gave Watts a sideways look. ‘Kumar’s been filling me in on the investigation. You haven’t found the head of that woman who was killed at the trail.’ His eyes moved back to the tall double doors. ‘It’s got to be somewhere, right?’

  Watts pushed him aside. ‘You’ve been watching too many horror films, lad.’ He reached for one of the handles. ‘Hop it.’ Hearing quick footsteps leave the kitchen, Watts lifted his other hands to the freezer handle, gripped both tight, his heart climbing into his throat. If it was here, it was evidence. Tensing both arms, he started a slow count. Three. Two. One. He pulled. Hard. Both doors swung towards him. His phone rang. He reached for it. ‘Yeah?’

  He listened to Chong’s voice. ‘In case what I said about the DNA wasn’t clear, it doesn’t identify individuals. It indicates relationship only. It’s DNA inherited from the mother. But that’s not why I’m ringing. Wherever you are, you need to come to the scene. Traynor has something for you.’

  His eyes on what was inside the fridge-freezer, he said, ‘Yeah, OK.’

  ‘You sound odd. What are you doing?’

  ‘Staring at shelves of frozen peas and ready meals. I’m on my way.’

  THIRTY-TWO

  Watts drove quickly to the scene, Judd beside him, having refused all suggestion of medical attention. His eyes were on the dashboard clock: ten p.m. His phone rang. It was Jones, calling from the scene. ‘What’s happening?’ Watts asked.

  ‘We’ve had sightings of one male moving around the edge of the field adjoining the trail. He’s gone to ground but thermal imaging equipment is arriving any minute.’

  They reached the top of Blackfoot Lane, a twenty-five-minute journey which had taken fifteen. Judd sat forward, face intent. ‘Look, Sarge.’

  He’d seen the red performance car parked half on the grass verge, its doors wide, white-suited officers approaching it. He drove on, down the lane and into the car park. They got out, headed for the trail. Watts called out ‘You!’ The officer came at a clip. ‘What’s happening?’

  He pointed to a line of uniformed officers moving along in the distance. ‘He’s somewhere over there, Sarge.’

  ‘Thermal imaging arrived yet?’

  ‘Not yet, Sarge.’

  Taking Judd’s arm, Watts headed back to the car park and on to where Chong was sitting with Traynor on the tailgate of one of the police vehicles. She stood, came towards them, hands cautioning. Watts slowed. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘He’s exhausted, in all ways it’s possible to be.’

  He pointed to Judd. ‘Can you take a look at her head?’

  Judd submitted to Chong’s search of her hair. ‘How do you feel, Chloe? Any headache?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nausea?’

  ‘No.’ Chong looked her in the eye. ‘Any visual disturbances?’

  ‘Nothing. I’m fine. I don’t like fuss.’

  Chong looked up at Watts. ‘She’s OK. Come with me. I’ll show you how Will got to be so exhausted.’ They followed her to the high brick wall, continued along its length, pushed through thick undergrowth to a point where some serious clearance had recently occurred. Chong pointed to a small area of dark soil between two brick buttresses being worked by two white-clad SOCOs. ‘Will has located human remains.’

  A sudden shout brought them back to the car park. Jones was pointing in the direction of the trail. ‘Movement up there, Sarge! He’s heading to the incline.’

  Traynor was on his feet, moving in the same direction. Watts went after him, ‘Judd, you stay with Dr Chong. Will? Wait.’

  They moved at speed towards the figure now heading up the incline. Traynor got there first, continued after it, Watts following. Gasping, he grabbed Traynor’s arm. ‘Easy, Will. He could have a knife. Anything.’

  Traynor’s eyes were fixed on the man standing some way above them, lights now flooding the area, picking up the metallic fastenings on expensive-looking white trainers. ‘I want to talk to him.’ He took a couple of steps, looked up. ‘Alec? Listen to me. I know what you’re going through. I understand.’

  Prentiss’s voice drifted downwards. ‘I’m tired. I have to finish it.’

  ‘Alec, it is finished. You’re having a breakdown. You need help.’

  ‘I don’t need help. I’ve completed my task. I am justice, not you.’

  Traynor stared up at him. ‘What does that mean, Alec? Tell me.’

  ‘Transgressors must be punished and that punishment must continue after death. They don’t deserve any release.’ Prentiss appeared to be listening to something, nodded. ‘I’m ready now.’

  ‘Wait, Alec. We need you to tell us about it. All of it.

  As Traynor took a step forward, Prentiss raised both arms, smiled down at him and dropped out of sight.

  ‘Alec!’

  They rushed up the incline, brakes screeching, horns blaring, hearing the unmistakeable sound of metal on metal. They reached the top, looked down at hazard lights flashing in that deathly quiet which often follows sudden chaos. Prentiss had made it as far as the middle lane. Watts took out his phone, delivered the required information for a major incident: ‘One known fatality. Individual on carriageway. Minimum of ten vehicles involved, two directly.’ He added the access junction number. ‘There’s a Works Only Unit between the incident and that junction. Ambulance plus motorway police units required.’

  ‘Information received. Actions imminent.’

  As officers passed them on their way to assist people who had left their vehicles and were now gathering at the metal barrier, Watts and Traynor came down the incline to where Judd was waiting. ‘Good job it was late, Sarge. Not so much traffic.’

  He shook his head. ‘It was years too late, Judd.’ He took her arm and they walked on to the car park, Watts thinking how slow he had been when Alec Prentiss brought flowers here that day. He knew where to leave them. Because he knew exactly where he’d killed his sister. He glanced at Judd. ‘All right?’

  She gave a careful nod. ‘Was he insane, Sarge?’

  Watts looked at Traynor who said, ‘He was experiencing reality issues. He could have been helped.’

  Chong was coming towards them. ‘Adam has just confirmed identities for the remains. Daniel Broughton, Annette Barlow, Justin Rhodes.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Come with me, please, Will.’ They watched as he walked away with her, saw her stand close as she looked up at him, saw Traynor’s head lower, both his hands going to his face. She came back to them. ‘I’ve just given him the news he didn’t want. His wife’s remains aren’t here.’

  Watts was picking up some quiet sniffs. ‘Come on, Judd.’ He whispered. ‘Buck up.’

  ‘I’m not upset. It’s a cold.’

  THIRTY-THREE

  Tuesday 30 August. Ten a.m.

  Investigative officers filed into Watts’ office, Adam and his colleagues following with Chong. They all looked tired but upbeat, Jones with a tray of doughnuts, Kumar and Miller bringing coffee. Watts glanced across at Traynor, recalling the first time he’d talked to the team, laid out what was facing them, telling them they could do it. Looking at their faces, Watts could see that now they knew it.

  Watts got to his feet. ‘In fifteen minutes, Chief Inspector Brophy wants to address all of you as a team …’ He paused at suppressed groans. ‘But before he does, Will has agreed to give an overview of the case so that we all, regardless of our roles in it, have the facts.’ He sat.

  Traynor stood. ‘These are the facts. Alec Prentiss’s early years were characterized by problems related to his relationship with his sister, a forceful personality, who bullied and took advantage of him. Prentiss senior has confirmed it and that she was never reprimanded for it. Neither was Alec Prentiss provided with help to manage his severe anxiety as he entered his teens.’ He lo
oked at them. ‘Neither parent is psychologically-minded. They couldn’t see that those difficulties left him vulnerable to distorted thinking about people, about situations and culminated in his experiencing psychotic episodes. Mrs Prentiss is unwilling to acknowledge those aspects of his development because she believes it would place responsibility on to Zoe, which she cannot accept. Mr Prentiss fully acknowledges them. Those are the facts relating to Alec Prentiss. Mr Prentiss has also provided other facts which he and his wife have known for fifteen years: Zoe babysat for Suzanne Elliot on the night of the traffic accident which killed both her and her baby. Zoe spent most of that evening on the house phone to her boyfriend. When Mrs Elliot returned, it seems that she knew immediately that the baby was ill and rushed him to the hospital, with the outcome we now know. She swerved to avoid a skip, property of Daniel Broughton, and struck another vehicle coming in the opposite direction. The people in that vehicle, Annette Barlow and her drunk brothers, were unhurt. Annette told police she was driving. Traffic police took no further action. Alec Prentiss knew about that accident because he witnessed his parents’ anger towards Zoe for her part in it, knew that they grounded her for many weeks afterwards.’ He looked at each of the officers. ‘This is where I diverge from facts. From what Mr Prentiss has said, it seems that familial concern at the time was less about Zoe’s irresponsible behaviour and more to do with their fear that if she were to confide in anyone about what happened, it might impact on the family business. Alec Prentiss himself became increasingly fixated on that. His attitude to that business was one of general disinterest, yet he was very much aware of the benefits he enjoyed from it and that they stood to lose them if the truth emerged.’

  Traynor sat on the edge of the big table. ‘Which brings us to part of his motivation for killing Zoe: to remove the risk she still posed. But that wasn’t the sole reason that Alec Prentiss killed his sister. He had a huge sense of injustice about her treatment of him during his early to mid-childhood and their parents’ failure to emotionally support him. I mentioned earlier his distorted thinking and brief periods of psychosis. It was at those times that he decided that all of those individuals who contributed to that road traffic accident had to be punished. If the law wouldn’t do it, Alec Prentiss would. He is dead so we can only guess how he tracked them down, perhaps via social media or newspaper reports. He learned about them as people, then made contact. He was the client Broughton was trying to find a book for; he offered to help Rhodes with information about the disappearances in the Birmingham area; and he offered Annette a job – a way out of sex work. But in his skewed view, they were bad. They had to die. They also had to know why they died. Alec Prentiss would “tell” them in death. That’s the reason their skulls were buried carefully, close together, the hearing, thinking part of them an available audience for Alec Prentiss, whenever he wished.’

  The big room was silent. Jones spoke. ‘I saw him that day he came here. Saw his car. I looked at him and I thought, “Blimey, mate, lucky bastard, you’ve got it all”.’

  Watts glanced across at Judd. When Traynor had shown them the full significance of what Prentiss had told her during that visit, she had been furious with herself for not seeing it. Watts guessed from the little he knew of her life that it had been difficult for her to see in Alec Prentiss anyone other than the spoiled son of an indulgent family. It chimed with Jones’ ‘lucky bastard, you’ve got it all’, comment. He glanced at her. She was still looking vexed.

  ‘Why kill the newspaper reporter?’ asked Kumar. ‘He hadn’t done anything.’

  ‘No,’ said Traynor, ‘but Justin Rhodes was about to do something. He had a plan. He wanted to write about the disappearance of two people from this city. It seems likely that those two people were Annette Barlow and Daniel Broughton. Rhodes was a determined, meticulous researcher. He had to have found out about their involvement in that accident. Prentiss would have done his own research of Rhodes’ career, learned that once he had a story, Rhodes wouldn’t let it go. He had to be stopped. To protect the Prentiss family.’

  Traynor glanced at Watts, looked back at them. ‘That’s it. Facts and likelihoods. This case needed psychological and criminological theorizing to reach a solution, but in the end it was proved by hard science: glowing fibres in the car Alec Prentiss borrowed from the company and drove to Blackfoot Trail, the footprints found there which matched the trainers he was wearing on the day he died, the mitochondrial DNA which indicated that Zoe Roberts’ killer was related to her via her mother.’ Traynor’s eyes moved over them. ‘And good teamwork.’

  Miller’s hand rose. ‘What about Zoe Roberts’ other remains? The knife? Where are they?’

  Traynor stood. ‘They’re still “unknowns”. I need to say something else. While you were all focused on this investigation … I sometimes wasn’t.’ The silence in the room was palpable. ‘If I had been, I would have read about Alec Prentiss’s visit here, seen the massive problem he had. I apologize.’

  They all stood. Watts saw Miller approach him. ‘Will? We’re all going for a drink later. How about joining us?’

  He saw Traynor smile. ‘Thank you, Josie. Maybe another time.’

  Watts’ eyes were fixed on the floor, arms folded as Brophy addressed the team, trying to recall a word Chong had used to describe Brophy’s voice whenever he addressed a group of officers. Portentous. He looked up. Brophy was enjoying himself.

  ‘Alec Prentiss was clearly a man plagued by a heavy conscience. A man who valued the lives of others very little. A man who believed he had the right to pass judgement when he considered that the law had failed to do so, who took the law into his own hands, driven by his own internal demons.’ Some officers had their eyes on him, most were looking elsewhere. Having located his inner psychologist, Brophy droned on: ‘I consulted with Dr Traynor at some length at the conclusion of the case. Prentiss was clearly insane.’

  Watts had been present when Brophy had ‘consulted’. He had listened to Traynor say much of what he’d said to the team not ten minutes before. Insanity was never mentioned. Brophy was off again. ‘His final act of self-destruction at the motorway was, of course, his choice and is no reflection on this force. In my view, it was the appropriate outcome. The warnings I’ve issued during this case about the press still apply, of course. There’s a need to avoid casual comment which the press might overhear, misconstrue, and use against this force …’

  Watts stared at him. Brophy’s main consideration, first, second and last, was how this or any force to which he was attached could avoid all criticism. Law enforcement, justice came a long way down Brophy’s list. He shook his head. With any luck, some village down south would soon realize it was missing an idiot. He stopped listening. He was back at the start of it all, many of his investigative team anticipating they were looking for a killer who was ‘off the planet’. Prentiss never was. Mental health problems, yes. Insane, no. Everything he’d done was by choice, via planning, covering his tracks. He stared out of the window, retuning to Brophy, thinking that if there was ever a stick with a wrong end, it would be found in Brophy’s hands. Subtlety hadn’t figured large in Watts’ thinking when he’d joined the force. Back then, he’d viewed the law as certain: right-wrong, sane-insane. Job done. He’d learned it wasn’t that straightforward. Brophy was now ramping on about Prentiss’s guilt, his madness. During the investigation he’d sat in his office, putting together self-interested ideas about the case, never visiting the scene or talking to the team.

  Watts had gone to see Edward Arnold the previous evening to warn him that the death of his ex-wife was about to be news. He’d also been to see Mr and Mrs Prentiss, found Prentiss senior much preoccupied with the potential impact on his business of what was now emerging. He denied that Zoe had had any involvement in the escort industry. Watts had no idea what Mrs Prentiss thought or knew. She hadn’t spoken.

  Brophy’s voice had stopped. He looked up at officers standing, stretching. Across the room, Traynor was on his feet.
Watts went over to him, Judd following. He and Traynor hadn’t talked about his wife and Watts decided not to mention her now. He held out his hand.

  ‘Thanks for everything, Will. We wouldn’t have got half of what we did without you with us.’

  Traynor gripped his hand. ‘You were focused at those times when I wasn’t, so thank you.’ He smiled at Judd. ‘You too, Chloe.’ She flushed.

  Watts walked with him to the door, knowing that he couldn’t leave it there. ‘Will? I just want to say I’m sorry this case didn’t give you what you wanted.’

  Traynor looked at him. ‘I’m not sure now that it was what I wanted. If Claire had been there, I would have had to accept that she’s gone.’ He smiled. ‘I’m seeing my daughter later. I’m going to ask if she’ll consider coming home, just for term breaks, see how it goes.’

  Watts followed him out of the squad room, watched him go down the stairs. ‘Good luck, Will!’

  He turned away, running into Judd. Her face, always a pretty reliable barometer of what was going on in her head, was telling him that she had something on her mind. He thought he might know what it could be, although it was only a guess. He knew nothing about her early life beyond what Chong had told him and he was happy to keep it that way. They walked downstairs together.

  ‘Look, Judd, what you, we, know about Prentiss … his story was bad from his early days … because of how his parents were and it never changed. Never got any better.’ He glanced down at her. ‘It’s not your story, Judd. It’s his.’

  ‘I know.’

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Friday 30 September. Nine thirty a.m.

  Watts headed for headquarters’ main entrance, breathing air with a hint of sharpness. He spotted a small figure with spikey blonde hair just ahead of him. ‘Aye-up, Judd!’ She turned, grinned at him. ‘How’s things?’ he asked.