A Place To Bury Strangers (Atticus Priest Book 2)

by Mark Dawson

  She knocked on the glass.

  The curtain was pulled back, and she saw him.

  He opened the door. “Afternoon, Detective Constable.”

  “Sorry I’m late. Traffic. Can I come in? It’s pissing down.”

  Atticus stepped to the side. There was a mattress on the floor.

  She looked at it. “Do you live here, too?”

  “Now and again,” he said, evidently embarrassed.

  She was diplomatic enough not to say anything else. The dog bounded over the mattress and launched himself at her, his docked tail wagging. Jessica knelt down so that she could make a fuss of him. “What’s his name?”

  “Bandit.”

  “He’s gorgeous.”

  He clicked his fingers, and Bandit detached himself, his tail still wagging as he went to Atticus. He told the dog to go back to his basket.

  “The office is this way,” he said.

  She followed him through the door into a larger space with a two-seater sofa in a bay window, a desk, a coffee table and walls that were fitted with whiteboards. There were cardboard boxes stacked in a corner, and documents had been dumped into the one at the top. There was a laptop with two extra screens on a large desk; Jessica went over to them and saw a photograph of two men standing in front of a couple kneeling on the floor before them. The two in the back were aiming pistols down at the couple’s heads.

  “What’s that?” she said, pointing.

  “The case I’m working on for the police here.”

  “That doesn’t look recent.”

  “It was taken in 1981,” he said. “I’m just trying to work out where. And who’s in it.” He held up two mugs. “Coffee?”

  She said that that would be nice, and, at his invitation, sat down on the sofa while he disappeared out of another door to attend to the drinks. The dog padded over to her and nudged her hand until she scratched him behind the ears. She looked at the open door and wondered if she should bring up what had happened between them after Shayden and Molly had been found in London. She had the distinct impression that he would be uncomfortable discussing it, and, with that in mind, she decided that her instinct was right: better to chalk it up to a drunken mistake and forget it ever happened.

  She looked around. The set-up was not quite what she had expected to find. Atticus clearly lived in the room next to this one. She had Googled him and had read about his success in the Mallender case; she had assumed that he must have been prosperous, but could see now that she had been wrong. Who lived on a mattress in a room next to their office?

  He came back inside with two mugs. “Black okay? I don’t have any milk.”

  “Fine,” she said. He handed her a mug, and she took a sip. “So—do you have anything on Molly?”

  “Nothing more than I told you on the phone.”

  “Shayden must have come to get her.”

  “Looks like it,” he said. “Where they are now is the question. London?”

  “Not here?”

  “It’s not big enough for them to stay hidden for long.”

  “You said you’d introduce me to her father.”

  “I’d take you out to meet him myself, but I’m tied up on this.” He waved a hand at the photograph on the screen.

  “Just call ahead and introduce me. You don’t need to be there.”

  He nodded. “Thanks.”

  “Feels like I’m doing your job for you,” she said.

  “I found Shayden for you last time. You owe me.”

  “True,” she said. She sipped the coffee and then laid it down again. “I’ll get over there now. Can you set it up?”

  “I’ll call him now.”

  59

  Jessica followed Atticus’s directions, turning off the A343 and following Salisbury Road into the village of Broughton. The weather was still filthy, but she could still see that the surrounding countryside was spectacular. The area was flat, with gentle hills rising to the left and fringes of forest to the right. Cow parsley whitened the verges on either side, stalks swaying in the wind. She turned onto the narrow track Atticus had identified and bounced along it for half a mile until she reached the farm.

  She stepped outside and went over to the intercom next to the gate. She pressed the button.

  “Hello?”

  “Mr. York? It’s Detective Constable Jessica Edwards. I believe Atticus Priest has spoken to you?”

  “He has indeed. Please—come in.”

  A moment later, the lock buzzed and the gate swung open. Jessica got back into the car and drove along the gravelled drive to a parking area at the rear of the house. She saw barns and other agricultural buildings, none of them in particularly good condition.

  She parked next to a Ford Ranger and got out as a man approached from the house.

  “Mr. York?”

  “That’s right,” he said.

  She took out her warrant card, holding the wallet open so that he could look at it.

  “Atticus told me you were coming,” he said.

  Jessica looked at him. He was immaculately turned out, with salmon-coloured corduroy trousers, a checked shirt and Hunter boots.

  He extended a hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  She shook it. “Likewise. I understand your daughter has gone missing.”

  “Last night,” he said.

  “I think she might be with a suspect I’m looking for.”

  “Shayden Mullins,” he said. “The shit she was with in London?”

  “That’s right. He’s in Salisbury again. We think he arrived on Thursday. Have you seen him?”

  “No. But I don’t think it’s him this time.”

  “No? Why not?”

  “We had a visitor last night. She was seeing a boy in Salisbury. A bad lad—I understand that he was dealing drugs from a house in town.”

  “Jordan Lamb?”

  “Yes,” he said. “That’s right. He said his name was Jordan. Didn’t tell me his surname.”

  “What happened?”

  “He said he wanted to see Molly. I told him that wasn’t going to happen—I might have been a little more brusque than that—and he didn’t take it well. He told me he was seeing her whether I liked it or not. I said I’d call the police unless he cleared off.”

  “Did Molly see what happened?”

  He nodded. “She tried to go after him, but I managed to stop her. We argued. She told me she hated me and that she couldn’t wait until she was eighteen.”

  “And then?”

  “She went to her room and locked the door. I left her there to think about things, but when I went to see if she wanted breakfast today, there was no answer. I panicked and forced the door.”

  “And she wasn’t there?”

  “No,” he said. He pointed back to the farmhouse. “That’s her bedroom window. She must have climbed out and then gone down the drainpipe; it was loose when I checked it. She must have broken it on the way down.”

  “Have you looked for her?”

  “I’ve been to all the places she might have gone to, all her friends, but she was nowhere. The two of them—her and Jordan—are obviously together. I called the police this morning to report her as missing.”

  “Atticus told me that you didn’t want to involve us before.”

  York exhaled wearily. “I was concerned she would get into trouble, but it’s as clear as day that she won’t listen to me. It doesn’t matter what I say—she’s not going to pay any attention. I can’t protect her from the consequences of her actions, and maybe my trying didn’t do her any favours—there were no consequences before. I just brought her back so she could run away again. Maybe she needs to see that the real world isn’t like that.”

  “Even though she’s associating with criminals?”

  “She’s made her choice. I’ve given her the idea that she can do whatever she likes and nothing bad will come of it.”

  Jessica nodded her understanding. She could see the exasperation in York’s demeanour and cou
ld well imagine that Molly’s most recent disappearance—after all the trouble that he had gone to in order to find her—might have been the straw that broke the camel’s back. She was certainly not in any position to judge; she didn’t have kids and wasn’t about to criticise a single parent who had been given a difficult set of circumstances to negotiate.

  “It’s not out of the question that Shayden is involved,” she said. “I’ll keep an eye out for her.”

  “Thank you. I’d be grateful if you could keep her out of trouble, but if not… that’d be her fault. I want her home—of course I do—but I need her to know that she can’t keep behaving this way.”

  Jessica drove away from the farmhouse and continued on to Broughton. She pulled over at a bus stop, called Atticus and put him on the speaker. “Can you talk?”

  “Just quickly,” he said. It sounded as if he was breathless.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’ve had a breakthrough,” he said. “I’m on the way to the station. What is it?”

  “I saw James York.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think he’s had a tough time of it recently.”

  “What about Shayden and Molly?”

  “It’s not Shayden.”

  “Why not?”

  Molly relayed what York had told her about Jordan Lamb’s visit.

  “I thought she’d moved on from him.”

  “She’s a teenage girl,” Jessica said. “Maybe she had a change of heart. I’m going to go over to Lamb’s place now. If I don’t find her there, maybe I’ll find him. If Shayden didn’t come down here for Molly, then it would have had to be something to do with the drugs. Maybe Jordan owes him money.”

  “Good idea,” he said. He was evidently distracted.

  “Can you just check with the local police to see what they’re doing about her?”

  “What?”

  “York’s reported her missing.”

  “He said he didn’t want to get the police involved.”

  “That was before she ran away again. He’s at the end of his rope.”

  “I’m nearly here. I’ll see who’s got the file. I’ll call you if anything comes up.”

  60

  Mack was speaking to Stewart Lynas when she saw Atticus through her office window. He had just turned off the street and was half-walking and half-running to the main doors of the station, holding a newspaper above his head in what must have been a futile attempt to shelter from the rain. She woke her PC and busied herself with a review of the documents that had been generated by the investigation, knowing that Atticus would come straight up to her. He did, not bothering to knock as he stepped inside and took off his wet jacket.

  “Out, out, out,” he said to Lynas, holding the door for him.

  “You what?”

  “You heard me. Out, please. Out!”

  Atticus was buzzing with excitement, almost manic. Mack had seen him like this before, and knew that, first, he wouldn’t care about whom he offended and, second, that whatever had animated him so was something he would want to share, and she would likely want to know. She mouthed an apology to Lynas and gave a little nod that he should leave, following him to the door and closing it behind him.

  “Manners don’t cost a thing,” she chided.

  “I need to talk to you.”

  “I can see that,” she said. “You’re soaked. Go and dry off.”

  “Never mind that,” he said, waving his hands in frustration. “This can’t wait.”

  “Deep breaths, Atticus.”

  “I know who he is.”

  “Who?”

  “The man standing next to Burns in the photograph,” he said impatiently, as if she was slow. “I know who he is.”

  He came around to Mack’s side of the desk and swept her papers onto the floor. He opened the satchel he was carrying and took out a plastic folder. He opened it and laid down a printout, his palm slapping against the desk as he did. Mack looked down: it was the photograph that had been on the hard drive that Atticus had found in Burns’s flat.

  “We start with what we know,” he said. “We know that Burns was in the Royal Green Jackets between 1976 and 1982. And we know that he served in Northern Ireland. Right?”

  “We do,” she said.

  “Specifically, we know that he was posted to Londonderry. Right?”

  “If you say so.”

  “I do say so,” he said. “Look—here.”

  He took another sheet from his stack and slapped it down. It was a printout from Google Maps; Atticus had picked out the name of one of the streets, ringing it in red ink.

  Drumcliff Avenue.

  “The filename,” Mack said.

  “Exactly. Drumcliff. It’s in Londonderry. Bogside, to be precise. The British army was there during the Troubles. It’s close to where the Bloody Sunday shootings took place.”

  “How can you know that? There’s only one Drumcliff in Northern Ireland? No Drumcliff Road? Drumcliff Street?”

  “Sixteen, actually.”

  “So, even assuming that the filename relates to where the photo was taken, how do you know which Drumcliff it is?”

  He took the photograph from the bottom of the pile and put it on top. Atticus pointed to the bedroom window and then took out a third sheet of paper and laid that down next to the photograph. Atticus had isolated the window, zoomed in on it and then cleared it up. He had focused on the spire that was visible above the roofline of the surrounding buildings. Atticus took a fourth sheet of paper and laid that down on the other side of the photograph. It was a printout from Google Street View, from a vantage that appeared to match the sightline from the window. The spire was much more clearly visible.

  “I Googled every Drumcliff in Northern Ireland and looked for anything that might look like that spire. It took me a while, but I found it. It’s St. Columb’s Cathedral in Londonderry.”

  She shook her head in admiration. “Okay. I’m with you so far, but how do you go from knowing where the picture was taken to knowing who the second gunman is?”

  He held his hands together, the fingertips touching. “A lot of patient work. I’ve been on the phone to the army most of the afternoon. Took me a while to persuade them that I was authorised to search their records, but we got there in the end.”

  “Atticus,” she began, “please don’t say—”

  “Doesn’t matter,” he interrupted. He was speaking with an intensity that Mack recognised. He had the scent of his prey in his nostrils, and the excitement of the hunt was evident from the glitter in his eyes. “Too important to wait. Remember the filename?”

  “160681/Drumcliff/RM.”

  “Exactly so. I got them to search the regimental records for anyone with the initials RM who served in Londonderry in June 1981. It’s a common combination, and there were six hits. I took them and then Googled for each name plus Alfred Burns, and I found this.”

  Atticus slapped another piece of paper onto the desk. It was a printout of a newspaper website. The masthead identified the Londonderry Sentinel, and the story was dated from 2002. Atticus had ringed a passage in red ink, and Mack read it aloud.

  “‘A visit to Ballykelly was provisionally pencilled in for Margaret Thatcher’s Christmas visit to Northern Ireland in 1982; however, the Prime Minister ultimately visited the Musgrave Park military hospital to visit survivors of the infamous Droppin Well bomb attack instead, newly declassified state papers reveal.’”

  “Last paragraph,” Atticus urged.

  “Thatcher said: ‘We had a wonderful welcome in Bangor. From there we went to the Musgrave Park military hospital, very conscious that we were in the wake of Ballykelly. We found a few people there who had experienced that terrible tragedy. We also found some of the armed forces who had suffered whilst on patrol in Crossmaglen and others in Belfast. We were very much reminded how very much we owe to the courage and bravery of all of those in the security forces who are trying to eradicate terrorism from our li
ves. I would like to pay a special tribute to Captain Richard Miller and Rifleman Alfred Burns, both of whom were badly injured as a result of the bombing yet displayed great resilience and senses of humour in the face of what will be long and difficult recoveries.’”

  Mack felt a buzz of anticipation. “RM. Richard Miller.”

  Atticus reached into his pocket and took out his phone. He woke the screen, selected his browser and laid the device on the table next to the photograph taken in the sitting room of the house in Londonderry. The phone showed the website of Richard Miller, the Member of Parliament for Salisbury. His smiling face was offset to the left, beaming into the camera. Mack looked at the website, then the photograph, then back at the website. It was hard to be sure given the quality of the image, plus the time that must have intervened between the taking of the two photographs, but it could have been the same man.

  “There’s a resemblance,” she said.

  “Open his biography.”

  She tapped the screen and read the paragraph that described his career.

  “‘Richard was educated at Dauntsey’s in Devizes from where he went directly to the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. He won the Sword of Honour and was commissioned into the Royal Green Jackets. He served for thirty-one years, completing five emergency tours in Northern Ireland and other campaigns before retiring into politics. He was present at the scene of the Ballykelly bomb in 1982, where he was seriously injured by shrapnel, and spent six months recovering from his injuries in hospital.’” She laid the phone down. “Holy shit. It is him.”

  Atticus nodded, a smile of satisfaction playing at the corner of his mouth.

  “Fine,” she said. “Burns and Miller knew each other. What were they doing in that house?”

  Atticus had one more piece of paper, and he laid it down atop the others. It, too, was a printout from a newspaper website.