He felt helpless lying here in a hospital bed in Manchester while everything was happening in Derbyshire. Apart from a headache and a slight burning pain in his side, he felt fine.
“I’d like to keep you in for at least another night,” the doctor said. “I want to make sure you’re fit and well before I send you home.”
Mitch pursed his lips, considering his options. He wasn’t sure he could stand being here all night. “What if I discharge myself?”
The doctor’s face fell. “I would highly recommend you don’t do that, Mr. Walker. Look, it’s late afternoon already. All I’m asking is that you stay here tonight under observation. If you feel okay in the morning, you can leave then. How does that sound?”
Mitch thought about it. He supposed he could call Elly, and Battle was probably on his way here anyway. Hadn’t the nurse said the police wanted to talk to him about what happened last night? He nodded slowly. “All right, I’ll stay here tonight.”
“Good. You won’t regret it. It’s better to be safe than sorry. I’ll see you in the morning,” the doctor said as he left the room.
Mitch turned his attention to the TV on the wall but there was no further news regarding the bodies yet, so he settled on a programme about cars and watched it half-heartedly while his thoughts revolved around the events of the night before.
He barely heard the knock at the door. Turning his attention from the TV, expecting to see Battle entering the room, he was surprised to see Silas wheeling through the door.
“Silas,” he said, “what are you doing here?”
“I had an appointment with my consultant this afternoon,” Silas said. “I ran into Tilly downstairs. She told me you were here. It sounds like you’ve had a bad time of it.”
“It’s not too bad,” Mitch said. “Just a concussion, really.”
Silas brought the wheelchair to a stop beside the bed. “Have they got any idea who did it?”
“I haven’t spoken to the police yet. I’m sure they’ll be coming to see me later.”
“Well, hopefully they catch the bastard.” He paused and then said, “Look, Mitch, I’m here because we started out on the wrong foot. I shouldn’t have lost my temper the other day and for that, I apologise.”
“It’s fine,” Mitch said. He wasn’t sure if Silas was really here to apologise or if he was going to offer to buy Edge House again, but he realised he could use this opportunity to get a measure of his uncle. “Tilly was telling me that she doesn’t have much contact with you and Alice anymore.”
Silas shrugged. “That’s true. You know how families are. Sometimes people just lose touch with each other.” He looked closely at Mitch and said, “It’s probably for the best, anyway.”
“What do you mean by that?”
Silas looked towards the door, then back at Mitch. “All I’m saying is that Tilly is better off where she is, apart from the rest of the family.”
“Why should she be better off?”
Silas looked at the open door again and Mitch followed his gaze. Alice and Jack were walking along the corridor towards the room.
“Listen,” Silas said quickly. “Olivia and Sarah, our sisters, are in a better place. Don’t go digging up things that are best left alone. Everyone is better off where they are right now.”
“What do you mean by that?” Mitch asked, but Silas was already wheeling his way towards the door.
“Silas,” Mitch said.
“Don’t ask any more questions,” Silas said.
Alice and Jack reached the door. They looked at Mitch in the bed but neither of them said anything.
“What are you doing here?” Alice asked Silas.
“I came to see the lad,” Silas said, nodding towards Mitch.
“Well, come on now, we need to get going. I’ve got a meeting at the centre tonight.”
“All right, all right,” Silas said.
Jack took hold of the wheelchair’s handles and pushed his father out into the corridor. Alice followed after giving Mitch a look of disdain.
Mitch watched them walk away down the corridor and then a realisation struck him.
Jack was limping.
27
Connections
Battle didn’t arrive at the hospital until the following morning. Mitch had spent a restless night unable to sleep, constantly checking the news on his phone to see if there was any more information about the bodies the police had found.
When Battle arrived at nine, Mitch was certain the detective had also had a sleepless night. His eyes were bloodshot and there was an air of weariness that seemed to follow him into the room.
“Mr. Walker,” Battle said, “Good to see you’re up and about.”
Mitch had made an effort to get up earlier and sit on the chair next to the bed, believing his chances of being discharged were greater if he appeared fitter than he actually felt.
“It takes more than a stab wound and knock on the head to keep me down,” he told Battle.
“Yes,” the detective said, leaning against the wall. “So it seems. It also seems that you’ve been telling me lies. I had a chat with your friend Elly Cooper yesterday. She told me about a journal you found in your father’s safe deposit box. Funny, but I don’t recall you mentioning that to me, even when I specifically asked you if you had any information that would help my investigation.”
“I didn’t tell you because the journal seemed like nothing at first, just aimless ramblings set down on paper.”
“But they weren’t aimless ramblings, were they, sir? Those so-called ramblings led Miss Cooper to the grave of Lindsey Grofield. So I want to know everything about that journal. Everything that was written in it, every picture that was drawn on its pages, every comma and full stop.”
Mitch sighed. “I’ll tell you what I can remember but it isn’t much.”
Battle took a notepad from his coat pocket and flipped it open. “It’s a shame you didn’t tell me about the journal before, isn’t it? We might still have it in our possession.”
Mitch recounted what he could remember from the journal. Some of the lines came to him easily, but Battle already knew those bits and pieces because they’d been in the poem that had been sent to the police. When Mitch recalled something Battle wasn’t already aware of, such as the descriptions of walks to visit flowers that were out of season, the detective scribbled notes on the pad.
Mitch could only describe the drawings in the simplest terms because he had no idea where the places that had been sketched were. He realised Battle would probably have identified every location instantly had he seen the sketches.
Of course if he’d told the detective about the journal, it would have been taken from him and locked up in an evidence room, but the journal was gone now, anyway. Any clues it held to Sarah’s whereabouts were lost to him now.
When he’d told Battle everything he remembered about the journal, the detective questioned him about the intruder at Edge House, making Mitch go over every detail numerous times.
Finally, Battle seemed satisfied with Mitch’s account of the attack “Is it all right with you if I send some officers over to search the garden? The knife may still be in the weeds somewhere. The intruder might not have been able to locate it in the dark. That’s probably why he ran away and didn’t stick around to finish you off. That and the fact that you’d called for help. For all he knew it was the police you were talking to and not just your cousin.”
“There’s something else,” Mitch said. “It may be nothing but I think it’s worth checking out.”
“Go on,” Battle said, pen poised over his notebook.
“I told you I hit the intruder in the leg with the vase. Last night, Silas came to see me here. He told me to stop digging into things that were best left alone. Anyway, Jack and Alice came to the room to collect him and I noticed that Jack was limping.”
Battle raised an eyebrow. “Are you telling me that you believe the man who assaulted you at Edge House was your cousin, Jack W
alker?”
“I don’t know. It’s possible, isn’t it? I know he doesn’t like me.”
“Mr. Walker, there’s one thing I know for sure. Unless Jack Walker has a time machine, he can’t be responsible for what happened to the Hatton sisters, Olivia Walker, or Josie Wagner. He wasn’t even a twinkle in his father’s eye when those girls met their end. And although he was around when your sister was abducted, he’s innocent of that as well, unless he was a criminal mastermind at the age of five.”
“I know that,” Mitch said, “but I’ve been thinking about something Silas said to me a few days ago. He said that Jack did everything Silas couldn’t do for himself anymore. What if that includes murder? What if Silas is responsible for the older crimes and then Jack took over when his father was unable to carry on?”
“You think murder runs in the family, do you, sir?” Battle let out a tired sigh. “It’s not impossible, I suppose. Silas could have groomed the lad to become a murderer from an early age but it’s a lot of supposition. There’s no proof for any of it and, besides, Silas has an alibi for his sister’s abduction, remember? He was drinking in The Mermaid with his wife and father. None of them left the pub until closing time and by then, Olivia had vanished.”
Mitch threw his hands up in frustration. “I don’t know the answers to any of this, I’m just thinking out loud.” None of this was leading him any closer to Sarah.
“All right, Mr Walker, there’s no need to stress yourself out. You’ve probably struggled into that chair this morning so the doctor will discharge you but it looks to me like you need more rest. If you are discharged today, perhaps you should consider returning home to Leamington Spa instead of Edge House. I’ll contact you if we find anything regarding your sister. There’s nothing more you can do here.”
Mitch wondered if the detective was right. He’d exhausted his resources where finding Sarah was concerned. The journal had been his single strand of hope and now it was gone. “What about Jack Walker’s limp?” he asked.
Battle shrugged. “I’ll speak to him but he’ll probably say he was injured at the quarry or playing football, or even gardening. If he got that injury because you smashed him with a vase, he’s not going to admit it.” He put the notebook back into his coat pocket. “So do you want me to ask him about it?”
“No,” Mitch said. “What’s the point?”
“If we find that knife, we’ll have something concrete to go on,” Battle said, walking to the door. “In the meantime, think about what I said. There’s nothing more you can do here. You’ve gone thirty years without looking for your sister’s remains, so a bit longer shouldn’t make that much of a difference.”
Mitch watched the detective walk away down the corridor. He knew Battle was probably right; there was probably no point in going back to Edge House. For one thing, it seemed like everyone either had a key or was willing to break in. The house wasn’t safe.
There was no way he could take Leigh there for the weekend, so he was going to have to return to Leamington Spa before Friday anyway.
And he had to be realistic about his chances of finding Sarah’s grave. Without the journal, he had no clues, not even obscure ones.
As for Jack’s limp, Battle was right; it could have come from anywhere.
The doctor came into the room, smiling. “How are we today, Mr. Walker?”
“I feel fine,” Mitch lied, forcing a smile onto his own face.
The doctor looked at him closely. “Are you sure? It doesn’t look like you slept very well. Are you in any pain?”
“Nothing a good night’s sleep in my own bed won’t cure,” Mitch said. And the bed he had in mind was the one in his flat in Leamington Spa, not the bed in the sparse bedroom at Edge House.
“Well, I’ll just give you a final examination and we’ll see about getting you out of here.”
An hour later, Mitch was packing his things into a sports bag Tilly had used to bring them from Edge House. The TV was on, the volume turned down low. A morning show was being broadcast live. As he continued packing and half-listening to the TV, Mitch realized they were talking about the bodies recently discovered in Derbyshire. He found the remote and turned up the volume.
Sitting on the sofa with the presenters was a woman Mitch had seen before. She was some kind of psychologist and Mitch was sure he’d seen her on a programme about the Moors Murderers.
She was telling the presenters that the body of Rhonda Knowles wasn’t the first to be found on Blackden Edge and that the body of a nurse named Josie Wagner had been found in the same location in 1977. A picture of Josie’s smiling face appeared in the upper right corner of the screen.
“That’s the picture they have on the wall in the orthopaedic ward,” a voice said from the doorway.
Mitch turned to see the nurse who had been looking after him standing there. “Sorry?”
“That picture,” she said, nodding at the TV. “It’s on the wall in the orthopaedic ward downstairs. Josie was a nurse there in the seventies. She and some other nurses raised a lot of money for the hydrotherapy pool. There’s a photograph of them and some of their patients by the pool after it was built.” She pointed at the TV. “That’s a close-up of Josie from that photo. I don’t know how the TV people got hold of it, though.”
“She worked here?”
The nurse nodded. “It’s a shame how she ended up. They never caught her killer. I don’t think it’s anything to do with this new body they found, though. Too much time has passed.”
“I’d like to see that photo,” Mitch said. “Do you think I’d be able to?”
She looked at him with undisguised suspicion. “Well, you can’t just walk onto the ward. What do you want to see it for? You’re not with the TV station, are you?”
“No, I just have an interest in history,” Mitch said. He told himself that he wasn’t really lying because for the last few days he’d been obsessed by the brief period of history during which Josie Wagner had been alive.
The suspicious look on her face lessened but remained in place. “I could take you there, I suppose. You’ll be going downstairs on your way out anyway. If I take you, we’ll just have a quick look at the photo and then you’ll be on your way, all right?”
“Of course,” Mitch said. He felt a strong need to see the picture. Josie Wagner had been in his thoughts many times over the past few days and every time he’d thought of her, the images in his mind had been of her naked and bloody, exposed on Blackden Edge. Seeing a photo of her alive during a happy part of her life might realign his mental image.
“Come on, then,” the nurse said.
He finished packing his things and slung the bag over his shoulder, trying not to wince when pain exploded in his side.
Five minutes later, they were standing outside the door to the orthopaedic ward. The nurse pressed the buzzer and spoke through the intercom to a nurse called Sandra, whom she seemed to know. They were buzzed in and Mitch was led to a group of framed photos hanging on the wall of the main corridor.
“There it is,” the nurse said. “Just like I told you. See, there’s Josie and it’s exactly the same as the photo on the TV.”
Mitch studied the picture. Six nurses stood in their uniforms at the edge of a small pool, smiling at the camera. Josie Wagner was among them, her eyes vibrant and alive. Mitch resolved to see this version of Josie whenever he thought of her and not the version his mind had cobbled together from police statements and newspaper articles.
Also in the picture were four patients in wheelchairs. Mitch scanned their faces and then felt a chill run up his spine as he recognized one of them.
In the photograph, sitting in his wheelchair and smiling at the camera, was Silas.
28
Freedom
When he got outside the hospital, Mitch called Elly. During the walk from the orthopaedic ward to the main exit, he’d considered telling Battle of his discovery but, remembering the detective’s parting words, decided against it.
For Mitch, though, the coincidences that connected Silas to all the girls who had gone missing or been murdered were impossible to ignore.
Elly answered after a couple of rings. “Hey, Mitch.”
“How’s it going? I saw you on the news.”
“Ugh, not my finest moment. You still in hospital?”
“No, they let me out. I just walked out the door and I’m taking my first breath of fresh air.”
“Well, that’s good news. How are you getting home?”
He realized he hadn’t thought about that. He’d been brought here by ambulance. His Jeep was parked at Edge House.
He supposed he could ring Tilly but she’d be at work and he didn’t want to impose on her any more than he already had done. It was only by chance that he’d called her from Edge House but she’d gone above and beyond the call of duty. “I don’t know,” he told Elly. “I’ll probably get a taxi.”
“Want me to pick you up? My sister’s just about to leave and then I’m free. I can be there in a couple of hours.”
“You sure? That’d be great, thanks. We can talk about where we are in our investigation during the ride.”
“Our investigation, huh? Didn’t Battle warn you off? He came around here last night and told Jen and me to stop sticking our noses into police business. Said we should go home and forget about it.”
“Funny, he told me the same thing,” Mitch said.
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