Heart of the Demon (D.S.Hunter Kerr)

by Fowler, Michael

  “We don’t exactly know if he has killed anyone, but he is a suspect.”

  “Who’s been murdered?”

  “It’s actually two murders we’re investigating, both teenage girls, but they’re years apart. In fact fourteen years apart. Steve Paynton was in a relationship with the mother of one of them – a Carol Siddons. Carol disappeared all those years ago but we’ve only just discovered her body and as a result of our enquiries we tracked down her mum. She’s told us that at the time Carol disappeared Steve was living with her and was violent to both of them. Then yesterday we found out he was with you prior to being with this woman, and that you’d reported to Social Services that he’d also assaulted you on a number of occasions. That’s why we felt it necessary to speak with you.”

  Margaret drew anxiously on the cigarette again. She blew out the smoke. “Assault is an understatement. He was a real evil bastard.” There were nervous inflections in her words.

  Hunter could sense the tenseness shackling her and sought to dispel her fears by recounting Susan Siddons story and explaining the measures, which were being put in place to protect her from reprisals, now that she had given a statement against Steve Paynton.

  “You don’t know what he’s like. I had to live with him for two years. I’ve been in constant fear since that night I ran away. He always said he would track me down and kill me if I ever told the police.”

  “Things have changed in the last fifteen years,” Grace said reassuringly. “We’ve moved on with how we deal with victims, particularly of domestic violence. The magistrates also have a different approach as well when it comes to punishing offenders. If he’s not caught up with you after all these years, then he’s not going to do that now. We can protect you and will protect you, but we do need your help to put him away. Susan Siddons has already made a statement and if you also give us a statement about his abuse towards you, it’ll give us a real lever and will help us to get him remanded so we can investigate him properly over the murders of the two girls, without him interfering or hindering the enquiry.”

  Margaret finished the cigarette she had been smoking and stubbed it out in an ashtray beside her. Then she took another and lit it. All this time she said nothing, just stared towards a photograph, which was on the wall above the fireplace. It was an arranged shot of herself flanked by two smiling elderly teenagers – a boy and a girl. Hunter guessed they were her children.

  Waiting patiently for Margaret to say something, Hunter suddenly realised what the saying ‘the silence was deafening’ meant. He was mentally screaming for her to open up and talk about the battering Steve Paynton had exacted upon her.

  She seesawed her gaze between Hunter and Grace. A tearful film glazed her eyes.

  “Do you know,” she began “I’ve not been able to have a relationship with another man? Since that day I ran for it with both my kids I’ve not been able to trust another man. Do you know what that’s like?” She drew deeply on her cigarette.

  Neither Grace nor Hunter responded.

  In fact Hunter didn’t know how to respond. He’d always been in a loving relationship.

  “I’ve never talked about this. I didn’t tell Social Services at the time, and I haven’t ever discussed this with Jamie or Samantha – they’re my two children. They’re twenty and twenty-three now, and I know they wouldn’t remember what went on all those years ago, but I’m just so afraid of the damage it would cause them if I brought it all up again. Some might accuse me of burying my head in the sand but that’s how I feel I’ve needed to handle it to get me through all those dark days.” A tear fell from the corner of one eye and trickled down the side of her nose. She dabbed at it with her hand.

  “I can’t imagine for one minute how painful this is but don’t you feel now that we’re here that it’s time to get rid of your demons,” said Grace quietly.

  “What’s really hard about all this, is that some would say I brought it all on myself. You see I knew Steve Paynton from my schooldays. I knew some of the tricks he’d got up to, and yes I also knew about his violence, but he was different around girls. A real charmer in fact. We bumped into each other several years later when I was going through a bad patch with my first marriage and he still had the same rugged good looks and the charm. We used to meet up in the pubs and my mates did try to warn me when we first went out together, but I thought they were just jealous because he was quite a good looking guy. I suppose a real ‘Jack the lad’ springs to mind. I’d already got Jamie and Samantha from my first marriage but it wasn’t working out. Their Dad spent his days at work and his nights at the pub and so I’d already left and moved back in with my parents. Steve was the first bloke after we split up to show me some attention and make me feel wanted, and I just fell head over heels for him. Anyway after we had been seeing each other for the best part of a year he persuaded me to take out my savings and rent a flat with him, and against my Mum and Dad’s wishes I did.” She paused and took another drag of her cigarette. “Sorry I’m going round the houses with this but I suppose I need you to understand why I ended up with the bastard.”

  It was the first time Hunter detected real anger in her words.

  “After about six months together he started hitting me,” she continued. “I kept getting on at him about getting a job. I was out working all day and he was frittering the money I earned down at the pub, so I kept nagging him. They were just slaps at first. But then he would come back from the pub pissed up and wanting sex, and because I said I was tired, he would thump me until I gave in.”

  “He raped you,” interrupted Grace. “You didn’t give in.”

  “It was easier to deal with it that way. The hidings weren’t as bad if I gave in to him and I wouldn’t have to cover up the bruises so much.” More tears ran down her cheeks and she stubbed out the half-smoked cigarette so that she could use the backs of both hands to wipe them away. “Look, what I’m going to tell you now I’ve never told anyone. Not anyone.” She gripped the sides of the armchair, digging her nails into the leather upholstery. “He also abused the children really badly. And the reason I’ve never told anyone this before is because, for a long time, I didn’t do anything about it when I should have done.”

  “I can see this is hurting you Margaret, but trust us we won’t pass judgment on you. We just want enough to put Steve Paynton behind bars so he can’t hurt anyone else.” Grace said moving forward to hold her gaze with her own probing yet reassuring look.

  For the next hour Margaret Brown told them of the terror with which Steve Paynton had held her and her two children over a nine-month time span. “He started by beating Jamie, who was eight at the time, with his belt when he wouldn’t eat some of the food Steve had cooked. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the food,” she explained, “but that Steve had burned it because he’d cooked it when he was in drink. At first, he forced Jamie to eat food coated with curry and chilli sauce, depriving him of his pop. And then when he lost control of his bowels Steve would rub the faeces into his face. Then he had began to deprive Jamie of food and would lock him in a cupboard under the stairs. He would keep him there for several days, hungry and thirsty, forced to lie in his own excrement.” She tried to hold back her own sobs when she revealed that she would lie awake listening to the cries of her little boy caged under the stairs.

  “The last straw,” she continued, “was when I came back from shopping one day and found that Steve had totally stripped Samantha of her clothes and was photographing her. She was only five year old for God’s sake. I just lost it and I flew at him, but he was stronger than me and he gave me a right thumping. He took his belt off and strangled me with it. I must have passed out and when I came to he had a knife at my throat threatening to cut me up if I so much as whispered this to anyone. That’s when I came to my senses and realized just how much danger I was in, and was putting my children under. I knew that I had to get away before he killed one of us. So when he went to the pub that night I gathered together everything I cou
ld get in two suitcases and with the help of Social Services got into a woman’s refuge. Unfortunately I could only stay for a week because they don’t allow males in them, even though Jamie was only eight. So that’s when I changed my name and came to Retford. Somewhere where no one knew me. For over a year I didn’t even contact my parents, just in case Steve got to them.” She sighed. A long sigh, as though a great weight had been lifted off her. “Can you understand now why I’ve never brought this up with Jamie and Samantha? I feel so guilty. It holds too many bad memories for me, and I blame myself for allowing this to happen to them.”

  Throughout Margaret’s narration of events Hunter had seen the pain, grief and anxiety, etched so visibly on her face, as she had unfolded the horrors, which she and her children had endured at the hands of Steve Paynton.

  For the next two hours Grace guided Margaret through the anguish of recounting everything again into a written statement, and as she put her signature to the pages, Grace touched her gently on the back of her hand. “I promise you this Margaret,” she said. “Steve Paynton will not be causing you any more pain. After this you can put your nightmares behind you.”

  - ooOoo -

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  DAY NINETEEN: 24th July.

  Early that morning, along with a small team of uniformed officers from the day shift, Hunter and Grace sped to Steven Paynton’s terraced house, using side streets as cover because they knew how quickly the criminal grapevine worked in his location. They needed the element of surprise on their side.

  Before the third knock Hunter put all his force behind a flying kick at the front door. The lock and metal hasp parted company with his first attempt and the door crashed inwards. He and Grace stormed into the hall, followed by the uniformed officers garbed in dark blue ‘search’ overalls.

  The first thing that faced them was the strong pungent stench of cannabis, which immediately overwhelmed their sense of smell. It was the really offensive barbed type that was referred to as ‘skunk’ on the streets, and caused them to screw up their faces.

  The two detectives quickly mounted the stairs whilst the uniform team dashed off to secure the ground floor of the house.

  Before Hunter and Grace had even got halfway up the narrow stairway they were confronted by a snarling Steve Paynton on the landing above, wearing only a pair of boxer shorts and wielding a baseball bat.

  “What the fuck?” he shouted, glaring down at them.

  “Police.” shouted back Hunter halting his jog. “Drop that now.” he bellowed, pointing towards the wooden bat.

  Hunter could see why many feared Steve. Although he wasn’t big in terms of his physical proportions, his frame was lean and muscular. The definitions of his well-toned muscles were punctuated here and there by black tattoos of barbed wire and tribal markings. Add to that the shaved head and he realised why to some he could cut such a menacing figure.

  “I hope you’ve got a warrant?” he demanded, lowering the bat to his side.

  “Sure have,” Hunter responded now continuing back up the narrow stairway, though much slower, wary of how Steve Paynton might react.

  “You could have fucking knocked. You didn’t need to kick my bastard door in.”

  “I did knock – repeatedly,” he emphasised, “but no one answered...did they Grace?”

  Behind Hunter, Grace Marshall nodded.

  “Repeatedly” she agreed.

  “Bollocks.” Steve groused as he backed-off to his bedroom. “I’ll get fucking dressed, you fucking morons.”

  They followed him into his room. It was a pigsty of a mess. Hand rolled cigarette butts, porn magazines, several loose weight training barbells, and an array of clothing in various states of dirtiness littered the floor. It was hard to determine whether the marks on the carpet were design or stains. This room also had a strong smell of cannabis, mixed with the musty stench of body odour, causing Grace to crinkle her nose at the unpleasantness.

  “Cleaners day off Steve I see,” she said rubbing thumb and forefinger across the bottom of her nose, as though it might wipe away the stench.

  Steve Paynton was just fastening the last button on his jeans and he stepped forward to within a foot of Grace.

  “You really don’t want to be doing this you black bitch,” he snarled moving his shaven head forward into her face. A large prominent vein, which threaded its way from the front of his ear to where his hairline should have started was pulsing angrily.

  She held his stare. She had heard this type of abuse so many times over the years. “Roll with it girl,” her father had told her so many times. “Never let them see they’ve got to you. You’re better than them. Fight back how you know best.”

  “A bit of a racist as well as a wanker,” she curtly replied.

  “Me, I’m a signed up member of the Ku Klux Klan,” he quipped back.

  Hunter rocked onto the balls of his feet, curling his hands into tight fists yet leaving then dangling at his sides – ready.

  She pushed a polished red fingernail towards his nose. “Hey, white boy you really don’ know who yo’ messin’ wid,” she mimicked her Jamaican father’s patois.

  “You stupid bitch,” he snapped “I’ll sort you out.”

  In that same instant Hunter sprung forwards, swinging a punch from his hip. It smacked into Steve’s side, catching the bottom two ribs and the breath exploded from his mouth.

  He sank to his knees clutching his side, and for a few seconds his face went bright red, eyes almost bulging from their sockets as he fought for breath. Then he caught it, gasped loudly, and fell to one side.

  “You bastard. You fucking bastard.” He screamed.

  Grace stepped over Steve Paynton’s prostrate figure, grabbed the rigid handcuffs from the waistband of her suit trousers and snapped one end onto his right wrist. Then she forced her knee into the small of his back, completely flattening him to the floor and slammed the jaws of the remaining cuff onto his other wrist.

  “Fancy that, Steve Paynton being done over by a little black girl. This is really going to damage your street cred,” she announced twisting the rigid cuffs until he winced. “You’re nicked.”

  He tried to push himself up, but Grace was now pushing his head into the carpet. “What for?” he mumbled, trying to avoid swallowing the fibres from the pile.

  “Assaulting a Susan Siddons, and assaulting and raping a Mary Bennett. Those names ring any bells?”

  “Might do, but they wouldn’t dare make a statement against me.”

  “Oh believe me when I tell you they have given two very detailed statements about your activities. And we’re adding to that resisting arrest, just in case you feel like complaining about police brutality. Now get up and get down those stairs you insignificant little piece of shit.”

  As Steve scrambled to his feet, helped by Hunter’s hands under his arms, Hunter turned to Grace “My my, we are somewhat tetchy this morning ma’am.” He said smiling, before helping her guide the prisoner towards the stairs.

  As Steve Paynton was led away by the arrest team Hunter and Grace donned their latex gloves and joined the search team who were already busying themselves in the downstairs room.

  Much of the house was squalid, despite some very expensive items of furniture and electrical equipment dotted around. They picked their way amongst dirty crockery, some of which still held days’ old remnants of food, strewn across stained seat cushions, which had to be removed in order that they could search down the sides of the suite. They also checked several large screen televisions and DVD players, no doubt stolen, as the serial numbers and markings had been erased, and removed them to the marked police van outside. Behind the washing machine in the kitchen they discovered a stash of cannabis weed, about half a kilo in a plastic bag, amongst hundreds of packets of rolled tobacco, but they knew these day’s that this amount wasn’t quite enough for CPS to prosecute for supplying, or smuggling, and so they continued. What they really needed was something that could connect him to either
of the two murdered girls, and so they methodically and painstakingly moved appliance after appliance, household effect after household effect, and even tore up the carpets in the hope of a breakthrough. And it came; in the bathroom; virtually the last room on the checklist. Working under the strains of a dull glow from the bare electric ceiling bulb, probing the nooks and crannies beneath the bathtub, one of the searching officers spotted a chink of light catching the edge of something metal deep in one corner, and only Grace was small enough to crawl into the space to remove it.

  She cursed as she dragged herself back out, her pale grey suit now covered in cobwebs, dirt and other detritus.

  The tea caddy she held was probably from the late 1950’s and was in poor state. She pulled at the lid and it jerked forward as she prised it open, spilling some of its contents over the bathroom floor. What they stared at took them all by surprise. A collection of black and white, and colour photographs of girls, from pre-pubescent children to young teenagers, in various stages of undress, including nude, lay scattered around their feet. Grace lowered herself onto her knees, and Hunter joined her as she carefully shook out the remaining contents of the caddy. Using only a forefinger she separated the photos and began to sift through the images.

  “Bingo.” she exclaimed as she dragged away four, single, faded colour photographs. They depicted a young pubescent girl doing what could only be described as posing indecently. In two she was wearing only a pair of white cotton panties, and in two others she was completely naked.

  “Recognise her?” Grace enquired catching Hunter’s gaze.

  “Certainly do,” he replied, recollecting the images from the missing from home files. “That’s Carol Siddons; a very young Carol Siddons.”

  * * * * *

  “Which one do you want to be: good cop or bad cop?” asked Hunter as he paused at the cell area interview room door, glancing through the folder of paperwork and evidence he was carrying, ensuring it was in correct order for the interrogation.