She put down her cup in order to wipe a tear, which had fallen down her cheek. “Call it a mother’s instinct but I just knew something had happened to her. Carol would have contacted me no matter where she was. When I saw on TV last night that a girl’s body had been found at the old Manvers site I just knew it was her, because you see I had walked her to the bus stop only a few hundred yards from there.” She paused momentarily “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure go ahead,” replied Grace.
“Why didn’t you show the cardigan she had on? I would have definitely known it was her then.”
“Cardigan?” enquired Grace, a puzzled frown on her face.
“Yes a blue and grey striped one, with flowers embroidered on it. I loaned it her because it was so cold that night.”
The description of that garment suddenly struck a chord in Hunter’s memory and he spluttered loudly as the tea he was drinking momentarily met a sharp intake of breath.
- ooOoo –
CHAPTER NINE
DAY SEVENTEEN: 22nd July 2008.
Linda Morris climbed the stairs to Rebecca’s room, carefully draping the freshly ironed T-shirt over her arm. She had found it earlier that morning, still clinging to the insides of the washing machine. She paused for a second at the bedroom door, took in a deep breath, and turned the handle slowly, edging it open like she used to, in case Rebecca was dozing. It entered her head that she would never be able to disturb her daughter ever again. She felt a sickness in the pit of her stomach and she fought back the urge to cry.
The room was exactly as it had been the day Rebecca had left for school. Well that was with the exception that she had to make some minor adjustments herself, after those detectives hadn’t replaced everything as exactly as it had been. She folded the T-shirt and put it in its rightful place, in the chest of drawers, beside the wardrobe. She opened up the other drawers and checked Rebecca’s socks and underwear. She closed them slowly and then moved to the jewellery box on top of the unit, placing it back into the position where she thought it should have been.
She could hear the sound of children outside, their voices bubbling with excitement and she sidled towards the window. She spotted her husband below on bended knees, doing something with the borders. He’d hardly spoken since the news had been broken to them. He even averted his eyes when she had tried to catch his vacant stare. It just seemed as though the life had been sucked out of him. She knew what he was going through. She felt as though her own life had been destroyed since she had lost Rebecca. She had lain awake night after night, struggling to come to terms with this needless act.
She turned her gaze back into the room, trying to take in every nook and cranny; every aspect of Rebecca’s life. She spotted her own dog-eared Enid Blyton Famous Five books on the small bookshelf, beside Rebecca’s CDs and DVDs. Mystery stories, which despite being dated, had delighted Rebecca night after night, when they had read together over the years. White flashes hit the back of her eyes and she realised just how drained she had become. An unbearable weight was still pushing down on her shoulders. She flopped onto the bed, falling across the duvet. Reaching across to the bedside cabinet she picked up the framed school photograph of Rebecca and hugged it to her chest. Resting her head on the goose-feather pillow, she breathed in all the smells of Rebecca, curled up in the foetal position, and sobbed uncontrollably.
* * * * *
He stood at the bottom of the stairs in silence, holding his breath, gripping the banister, whilst trying to decipher and make some sense of the moaning which was coming from upstairs. He checked each footfall as he carefully mounted the stairs in his stocking feet. His parent’s bedroom door was ajar, and with his senses heightened, he honed onto the sweaty pungent smell, which was wafting towards him through the gap. It was a smell new to him. Silently, pushing the door open further, he began to edge in to see what was happening. There was the almighty crash behind him, followed by shouting, and the form of his mother grabbing at the sheets, attempting to cover up her nakedness, whilst a man, whom he recognised as Mr Carson from across the road, scrambled for his clothing. In a flash his father was rushing past, bundling him against the jamb, causing him to smack his head against the woodwork. He witnessed his father’s lean and powerful arms delivering blow after blow to Mr Carson, but he couldn’t make sense of why.
Within seconds his dad was snatching off the broad leather belt that he always wore to hold up his work trousers, wrapping the buckle of it into his palm. He watched his father unleash it with such ferociousness across his mother’s back, before winding it around her neck. He could see her eyes bulging, fingers trying to pull it away from her flesh, mouth gaping, trying to force out words. Instinctively, he found himself crouching cat-like, before launching at his father, pulling at his hair and ears, and clawing at his face. He couldn’t understand why his father’s once embracing arms turned against him. He was slung against the wall. The pain was intense, and as the blood trickled down his face, the last thing he could remember was the screams of his mother tearing into his eardrums.
He awoke in a sweat, shooting bolt upright. He was wringing wet and there was a damp patch on his bedding around him. How many times had that dream come back to haunt him. So many nights he had lain awake. Scared to go to sleep because he had to re-live the nightmares of his past.
He leaned back against the wooden headboard, breathing deeply, rubbing the tension out of his neck and shoulders. Then, as always, he closed his eyes and conjured up the images of his childhood.
For the first ten years of his life he didn’t have a care in the world. He had a loving, doting mother, and a proud father, who shared his passion for photography. In fact he had built him a dark room, and spent many happy hours helping him to develop his photographs. His father had worked at the local pit, and he could recall the many occasions walking down his street with his mother to meet his dad strolling over the pit pony fields, breaking into a jog for his father to sweep him off his feet and throw him over his shoulders for a ‘piggy-back’ home.
Then she had spoilt it all.
His mother had screwed that fat and ugly Jimmy Carson, and father had left home.
He remembered how his once so-called mates called his mother a whore, and he had quickly lashed out, venting his anger so deeply on one boy that DC Newstead had come round and told his mother to sort him out, or he’d do it for her.
She had punished him with his father’s belt just as severely as she had been beaten with it herself.
But he had been determined not to cry, even as the blood had trickled from the weals on his back.
Father never came back.
He would never forgive her.
He slipped down the bed, curling up, pulling his knees into his chest, and wondering, like he constantly did, if that was the reason why he kept doing these gruesome things.
Fresh images sprang into his mind. The glint of his knife flashed before him. It was so vivid, as though he was still holding it. Then visions of the girl, throwing up her hands, gasping and screaming in terror entered his head. He was plunging the blade down, again and again, burying it in her chest and head. Her blood was everywhere.
He shot bolt upright again, springing open his eyelids, struggling for breath. He had drifted off again, dreaming the nightmares, which were becoming more regular. He hadn’t had a good night’s sleep for years. Why did he keep doing these things? He couldn’t answer his own thoughts, he only knew that whilst doing them the rush of pleasure and the feeling of supreme power overwhelmed him.
* * * * *
Immediately after speaking with Susan Siddons that previous morning, Hunter had set out to trace his old CID buddy Paul Goodright. A quick telephone enquiry revealed he was now attached to the Task Force Firearms Unit and he tracked him down on his second call.
Within minutes of catching up, and without revealing too much, he impressed upon him that it was urgent that they should meet. Between themselves, they arranged their liais
on that evening in the snooker room of Hickleton Club, which they had both frequented so regularly when they had worked together, and where Hunter thought the likelihood of bumping into another cop would be highly remote. If in fact they did bump into someone they knew it would merely look as though it was two old partners having a quiet drink together; ‘chewing the fat’ over old times.
Hunter hadn’t recognised Paul at first. His features had taken on such a dramatic change. He was completely bald and he was a lot stockier, virtually all muscle, obviously from intense weight training.
“Long time no see. What’s happened to the old barnet?” Hunter quipped as they shook hands.
“This.” He ran a hand over his shiny scalp. “I’ve been going thin on top for years so eighteen months ago I made the decision to shave it off. Makes me look quite macho don’t you think?”
“If you say so.”
Paul Goodright steadied his cue over the snooker table, scanning his eyes along the green baize to the triangle of red balls at the far end of the table.
There was a loud staccato retort as the frame of balls exploded. The white ball spun quickly away from the sides of the table and returned to the bottom cushion.
There was a glint in Hunter’s eye, as chalked his cue and strolled towards his first shot. ‘The perfect plant into the top right hand corner pocket’, he thought. With cue steady in hands he smashed white into red, causing it to disappear, as he had expected. It had been quite some time since he had last played snooker. During his early district CID days he had played the game on an almost daily basis, and had once been a member of a club. However promotion into a very busy department and the need to spend family time with his two football-playing sons Jonathan and Daniel now ate into the majority of his free time.
Hunter potted the black ball and then glanced around the table for his next shot.
“Still not lost the old touch Hunter,” said Paul, swilling the last dregs of his beer around the glass before swallowing it in one gulp.
“Another?” he offered raising the empty glass, and when Hunter nodded he turned towards the bar.
Hunter’s break of twenty-five finished, when the white ball miscued into a pocket, and Paul hurriedly put down the freshly pulled beers and snatched it up.
“Thank Christ for that” he announced, plonking it back in the D at the foot of the table, “I thought I wasn’t going to get a look in.”
Hunter smiled and slid the metal marker along the scoreboard fixed to the wall. “Sorry about the secrecy yesterday Paul, but I never trust works’ phones.”
“Me neither. When you said you needed to speak with me about finding the body of Carol Siddons, after she had been missing for fifteen years, and then hanging up so quickly, I have to confess I was more than a little puzzled. I was going to ring you at home last night but I’ve deleted your number from my mobile. I spent most of the night racking my brains over what you did say about her being reported missing back in nineteen-ninety-three. I just can’t remember that job at all.”
“You won’t, because where Carol Siddons was last seen wasn’t our area back then. You’ve heard that we’ve discovered a mummified body haven’t you?”
Paul nodded. “I guessed it had something to do with that.”
“Yeah, yesterday morning we found out that the body is that of Carol Siddons.”
“So why do you need to speak with me?” Paul quizzed, bending over the green baize, sighting up his shot.
“Remember when the CID car got nicked all those years back?”
“Not much.” That night ruined my life and my career. Even though you backed up my story about me radioing in to check up on a suspicious noise which was coming from the back of the shops, and then coming back to find the car had gone, my days in CID were numbered.”
“Well it’s come back to haunt us again,” Hunter responded, a serious note in his tone. “You more than me.”
Paul stopped his cueing action and turned to face Hunter.
“Why, what’s happened?” he asked, frowning.
“From what I’ve learned yesterday I’m now certain Carol Siddons was in that CID car on the night she was murdered. Do you recall when we answered the fire brigade shout, because they had found the CID car on fire on that track that used to run at the back of the old coking plant?”
“Yeah, when we got there they had put it out. Although it was only partially burnt it was a write-off as I remember.” He’d lost interest in the game now and was resting his hips against the side of the snooker table.
“And can you remember what you picked up from the back seat?”
He thought for moment. “A cardigan.”
“That’s right a greyish, blue cardigan. What did you do with it?”
“I bagged it and put it in my desk drawer. I can remember thinking it was strange finding that, because as you know back then we didn’t have lasses nicking cars in our neck of the woods.”
Hunter nodded in agreement. “And do you remember there was front end damage to the car?”
Paul pursed his lips. “On the same night it was nicked there was a hit and run accident in which my sister was seriously injured and her boyfriend was killed. I’ve always believed that the CID car was involved in that.”
Everything about that night, all those years ago, was now being played out in Hunter’s head. He could feel his face muscles pinch together in sadness and he nodded again.
Paul continued. “I told traffic what my thoughts were and they got involved in the fatal enquiry. But when I suggested to the DI that I should get involved as well, especially with my sister being one of the victims, he wouldn’t have any of it. All he kept whingeing on about was the loss of the department’s car. I had a head to head with him because he said that I only had myself to blame. The twat said if I had looked after the car better it wouldn’t have got nicked and therefore wouldn’t have been involved in the fatal accident. I totally lost it and one of the lads had to stop me from punching his lights out. That virtually signalled the end of my CID days.” Paul’s face was showing signs of flushing. Hunter could sense the frustration and anger welling inside his old colleague even after all this time.
“I went on a bit of a crusade for a while and showed the cardigan to every villain I nicked,” continued Paul. “But no one could place it to any of our female criminals. If you remember the gaffer went off on one when he found out what I was doing and gave me the shittiest jobs for months. That’s when I realised my days were numbered, so I decided to go back into uniform. And that’s when I joined Traffic division. To be honest it gave me some freedom to see if I could track down the bastard who crippled my sister.” He rubbed his shaven head again. “Do you know Hunter every time I see my sister in her wheelchair I play that night over and over again in my head, wondering if I have missed something or someone and especially regretting my stopping off for a stupid shag.”
“Don’t beat yourself up Paul. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. We’ve all done things we regret. Anyway the murder enquiry I’m involved in might now draw a line under who caused your sister’s and her boyfriend’s accident. That’s why I called you. I’ve mentioned the cardigan because yesterday I found out that our murder victim Carol Siddons was actually wearing the cardigan. Apparently her mother gave it to her to wear on the night she went missing.”
Hunter paused, as he saw Paul draw in his breath. He studied his features and saw a look of real perplexity. He was thinking how he could break the next couple of sentences, but there was no other way round it.
“You know what that means don’t you Paul,” he started. “The cardigan belonged to a victim and not to the person who had nicked the CID car. That’s why you didn’t get anywhere with your enquiries all those years back. You also know that we’re also investigating the murder of a Rebecca Morris don’t you?”
Paul nodded.
“Well the discovery of Carol Siddons body is linked to Rebecca Morris. The forensic pathologist has confirmed that the ki
llings are similar. It looks as though the killer picked up Carol Siddons after he’d nicked your CID car that night, drove her around in it, murdered her, and then buried her. Her body was found only about fifty yards from the old track where the car was dumped and set on fire. It had been buried in a shallow grave.”
Paul almost dropped into the chair beside the table where they had placed their drinks.
“Fucking hell, I can’t believe this,” Paul growled beneath his breath, and snatched up his beer and took a swift gulp.
“Do you still have that cardigan, because you know what I’m thinking now don’t you?” said Hunter now also seating himself at the table beside his colleague.
“DNA.”
Hunter nodded. His head tumbled around the knowledge he had of the scientific processes of matching DNA. Things had changed so radically since its introduction twenty years ago. He knew that forensic scientists were now able to work with the smallest sample of genetic material, such as sweat, or tears on clothing, often referred to as trace evidence, to enable a match.
“Bloody hell Hunter I never actually booked it in as evidence. I’ve told you what I was doing with it all those years back. It was like treading on eggshells with the gaffer so I kept a low profile with my enquiries. I just kept it in my drawer until I needed it.”
“Did you get rid of it then?”
Heart of the Demon (D.S.Hunter Kerr) Page 9