Harlequin

by Stewart Giles

  “Last Friday,” Alberto said, “I found a package outside my caravan. Somebody had left an alarm clock and a videotape. I knew it was Yorick straight away when I saw the ticking clock. The video confirmed it.”

  “What was on the tape?” Bridge said.

  “A man and a woman and two small children,” Alberto said, “they seemed so happy but when the camera zoomed in on Yorick’s eyes, I saw it.”

  “Saw what?” Bridge said.

  “The evil,” Alberto said, “the curse was back.”

  “Where’s the tape now?” Brownhill said.

  “I destroyed it I’m afraid,” Alberto said, “it made me so angry.”

  “Do you have any idea whatsoever where Yorick might be?” Bridge asked.

  “No,” Alberto said, “Yorick terrifies me to be honest. He can disappear and reappear just like that.”

  He clicked his fingers.

  “One minute he’s there and then he’s gone without you even realizing it. I don’t know if you’ll be able to catch him; he’s like a phantom, but you must try.”

  “We’ll catch him Alberto,” Brownhill stood up, “you have my word.”

  SEVENTY SIX

  King sized bed

  Smith stood in his living room and took a few minutes to admire his new furniture. His house was starting to look like a home again. He had arranged the home entertainment system on the unit and it had fitted perfectly. Theakston had already chosen a spot on the new three piece lounge suite. Smith smiled; he felt happier than he had been in months. He went upstairs to his bedroom and lay on the king sized bed. There was not much room in the bedroom for much else once the bed had been put in but Smith liked it. Theakston would be able to lie on it without pushing Smith to the edge like he used to.

  Smith went back downstairs and took a beer out of the fridge. He wondered how things were progressing in the investigation.

  Four more days, he thought, four more days and I’ll be back at work again.

  He went outside to smoke a cigarette. His neighbour was trimming the hedge next door.

  “Afternoon,” Smith said, “looks like rain.”

  His neighbour ignored him.

  “Sorry about the noise yesterday,” Smith said, “I promise it’s not going to be a regular thing.”

  “It’d better not be,” his neighbour said, “I don’t expect behavior like that from the police. You lot seem to forget who pays your wages sometimes.”

  Smith was about to say something but he was not in the mood for an argument. He was in a good mood and his neighbour would only spoil it. He went back inside and took a frozen pizza out of the freezer. He switched on the oven. While he was waiting for the oven to heat up he went upstairs to have a quick shower. As the warm jets of water hit his head, Smith braced himself for the wave of memories that always engulfed him when he took a shower. The vision of his girlfriend Lucy lying on the bathroom floor with her throat sliced open. The blood had soaked the tiles. The memory came but it was less intense somehow. Smith could not understand why. He got out of the shower and dried himself. The buzzer on the oven told him it was hot enough to cook the pizza.

  After eating, Smith watched the video that Pete had transferred to the DVD again. He watched it three times but he still could not see anything he had not seen before.

  “There must be something on here I’m missing,” he said out loud.

  He read the instruction manual for the DVD player and realized he could watch the video in slow motion, frame by frame. He watched it twice more but still could tell who the man or woman were. He paused the DVD on the image of the man’s eyes at the end. Something registered in the back of his mind but Smith could not seem to link it to anything in the investigation.

  A pair of eyes, he thought, these are Yorick Moreno’s eyes.

  He left the image on the screen and went outside to smoke a cigarette. When he had finished, he took another beer from the fridge and went back to the living room. The vacant eyes on the screen seemed to be staring at him. Smith had seen them somewhere before. They were similar to Alberto Moreno’s but that was not it. Smith had looked into those eyes sometime in the past week. He turned off the television but the outline of the eyes were still there.

  SEVENTY SEVEN

  Serene

  “Alberto Moreno told us everything,” DI Brownhill said.

  She had brought the meeting forward to three o clock.

  “He told us everything about Yorick,” she said, “he’s not human; he’s pure evil. Apparently there’s this curse. The Moreno curse. It sounds more like a history of psychiatric disorders in the Moreno family to me. Alberto seems to have his sanity under control but Yorick has been consumed by this curse. He shows all the traits of a psychopath. From an early age he demonstrated disturbing behavior. As far as I can tell, we’re dealing with a highly intelligent, manipulative individual without any morals or conscience. He tortured Jimmy Moreno constantly when they were children. He made Jimmy keep his mouth shut so nobody knew about it.

  “Why did Alberto suddenly open up?” Whitton said, “It doesn’t make any sense. Just now he was threatening us with a civil suit.”

  “Fear,” Brownhill said, “Alberto acted calm but you could see the fear in his eyes. He’s absolutely terrified of what his brother is capable of.”

  Brownhill looked across at Thompson.

  “What did you find out?” She asked him.

  Thompson leafed through the pile of papers in front of him.

  “Yorick Moreno’s wife,” Thompson said, “Isobel, was found in the bath tub with twenty seven stab wounds to her neck face and body.”

  “We already know all this,” Whitton said.

  “Wait,” Thompson said, “there’s more. It was Yorick Moreno who found her or at least he said he found her. He claimed he came home from a night out and found her dead in the bath. That was the third of January 2003. He phoned the police immediately and they arrived twenty minutes later.”

  “Anything else?” Brownhill said.

  She seemed impatient.

  “I spoke to one of the officers on duty that night,” Thompson said, “a DS Williams. He said he would never forget it. Yorick Moreno stood there and answered all their questions calmly like nothing had happened. He didn’t seem the least bit disturbed by the fact that his wife was lying dead in the bathtub. His facial expression was what Williams remembers the most. Serene was the word he used to describe it. Moreno denied killing his wife but seeing as though there were no witnesses and given the fact that he was the only suspect, he was arrested. Apparently he denied any involvement right up to the day he disappeared.”

  “He’s a psychopath,” Bridge said, “no conscience.”

  “I’m not finished,” Thompson said, “I also spoke with one of the men who was in the car that day when it went into the river. They were transporting Moreno to the courthouse. He described Moreno as a monster. He reckons he still gets a chill down his spine when he remembers the expression on Moreno’s face when the car spun off the bridge into the water. Pure evil is what he said.”

  “Did they do an extensive search of the area?” Brownhill said, “around the river I mean.”

  “They did everything they could,” Thompson said, “divers in the water, dogs on the banks of the river. They called off the search when it started to get dark but they found nothing. Yorick Moreno just disappeared into thin air.”

  “Thank you Thompson,” Brownhill said, “good job. It seems as if we’re starting to get somewhere.”

  “Me and PC Chu found something interesting,” Whitton said, “a very helpful clerk in the adoptions offices told us where Yorick’s children ended up.”

  “Where?” Brownhill said.

  “The baby girl was taken in by a young couple by the name of Beech and the four year old boy was adopted by a Mr and Mrs Swift.”

  Brownhill’s eyes nearly popped out of her head.

  “Tiffany Beech and Kenneth Swift?” She said, “Are you tell
ing me that Yorick Moreno killed his own children?”

  SEVENTY EIGHT

  Forensics

  Grant Webber was sitting in the canteen in the forensics building eating a sandwich when Brownhill, Bridge, Whitton and PC Chu walked in.

  “Are we being invaded?” Webber said with a mouthful of tuna mayonnaise.

  “Finish your lunch,” Brownhill said, “something urgent has come up and we need your help.”

  Webber finished the sandwich and wiped his mouth with a paper napkin.

  “What’s with the reinforcements?” He said, “Am I in trouble?”

  He pointed to the motley crew in front of him.

  “I want us to be ready to act on whatever information you can give us,” Brownhill said, “we don’t have much time.”

  “What can I do for you?” Webber stood up, “we can walk and talk.”

  Brownhill told Webber about what Whitton had found out about the adoptions of Yorick Moreno’s children.

  Webber held the door to his office open for her.

  “Are you telling me this maniac killed his own children?” Webber said.

  “That’s what we need you to find out,” Brownhill said, “the evidence from the crime scenes; the murders of the three children, do you still have it?”

  “Of course,” Webber said, “what do you need?”

  “Did you get samples of DNA?”

  “From who?” Webber said.

  “The murder victims,” Brownhill said, “the children. Did you take their DNA?”

  “No,” Webber said, “why would I? They weren’t suspects.”

  “Shit,” Brownhill said.

  It was the first time Webber had heard her swear.

  “Do you need samples of their DNA?” Webber asked.

  “We do,” Brownhill said, “urgently.”

  “Then I’ll get them for you.”

  Webber picked up the phone on his desk and dialed the number of the pathology lab. He frowned when he was put on hold.

  “Why do you need the DNA?” He asked Brownhill.

  “We’re certain that Tiffany Beech and Kenneth Swift were siblings,” Brownhill said, “we’re sure they were Yorick Moreno’s children. We just need to make sure.”

  “Yes,” Webber said into the phone, “Phil, I need you to e mail me the DNA samples of two of the children who were murdered. Tiffany Beech and Kenneth Swift.”

  Brownhill could hear talking on the other end of the line.

  “We’re all busy Phil,” Webber said, “please, this is important.”

  He put the phone down.

  Three minutes later, the e mail came through. Webber opened the attachment and put on a pair of reading glasses.

  “My god,” he said, “you’re absolutely right, “two of the dead children were siblings.”

  Suddenly something came to Brownhill. The idea seemed to hit her in the face like a brick.

  “Grant,” she said, “phone your friend Phil and ask him to send over a sample of DNA from the first murder victim, Nathan Green.”

  Webber sighed and picked up the phone again.

  “Phil,” he said, “sorry to bug you again. This is the last time today. E mail me the DNA sample from Nathan Green will you?”

  Brownhill could hear the sound of the phone being slammed down on the other end.

  “Phil’s alright,” Webber said, “he’s not as brilliant as The Ghoul but he’ll get there. He’s still learning about the etiquette of the job.”

  The bleep on the computer speaker told Webber the e mail had been sent. Brownhill’s heart started to beat faster. Webber sat down at the computer.

  “Well?” Brownhill realized she was shaking.

  “I can see why you got the DI position,” Webber said.

  “What does it say?”

  “It says,” Webber said, “that Tiffany Beech, Kenneth Swift and Nathan Green all had the same mother or father.”

  SEVENTY NINE

  Undercover work

  Smith was watching the DVD of the family picnic in the park for the twentieth time. He still could not figure what it was about the man’s eyes he had seen before.

  “Damn it,” he said and walked to his new sideboard.

  He had hidden his marijuana tin in there. He laid it out on the floor and opened it. He sighed, there was not much left. He poured what remained of the drug into a rolling paper and made a small joint. He started the DVD again and lit the end of the joint. He had watched the DVD from every angle of the room. He had watched it with the lights on and off but nothing had grabbed him. The image of the eyes on the screen were now imprinted on the back of his eyes.

  “Let’s try something else,” he said to Theakston.

  The dog was lying on his newly claimed position on the lounge suite.

  Smith had worked out how to watch the DVD backwards in slow motion. The first thing he saw were the haunted eyes of the man and then the woman putting her hands over her face. Then he saw the small boy kicking the ball and then the baby drinking milk. Finally, he watched the initial shot of the whole family. Smith repeated the exercise. He closed his eyes when the woman and the children were on the screen and opened them at the exact time the cameraman had started filming. The marijuana in his system was making him think differently. He could now picture the eyes belonging to the figure on the blanket.

  “Where did all this begin?” Smith said out loud.

  Nathan Green, he thought.

  He tried to remember what Nathan Green’s parents looked like. He could not even remember their names.

  “Time to do a bit of undercover work,” he said to Theakston.

  He picked up his car keys and left the house.

  Smith parked outside number twenty eight Meadowgate and stopped the engine. The lights were on inside the house. Smith got out the car and walked up the driveway. His head was spinning and he was experiencing the paranoia stage of smoking marijuana.

  “What am I doing here?” He whispered to himself.

  I’m on a suspension, he thought, I could lose my job for this.

  He was about to return to his car and go home when something stopped him.

  What harm can it do? He thought, how could it hurt to ask Nathan Green’s parents a few more questions.

  Smith knocked on the door and waited. There was no answer. He knocked again. The door was answered by a middle aged man wearing a green sweater. Smith recognized him now. He remembered he had not been too pleased when he had seen the police in his house.

  “Mr Green,” Smith said, “I don’t know if you remember me. I’m DS Smith from York police.”

  “Yes,” Green seemed lost in thought for a moment, “come in. Would you like something to drink?”

  Smith realized he should have told somebody where he was going but he also knew that he could be in serious trouble if anybody found out he was here.

  “Coffee if you have some,” he said.

  “Come inside,” Green said, “it’s going to rain. Take a seat in the living room. I’ll put the kettle on.”

  Smith made his way to the living room while Green was busy in the kitchen. He sat down on a two seater couch and looked around the room. His eyes rested on a photograph on the mantelpiece above an electric fire. Smith stood up and had a closer look. In the photograph was a woman and a small boy. Smith looked closely at the boy.

  “Almost ready,” Green shouted.

  Smith looked at the small boy in the photograph again and that’s when he knew. He also knew that the voice that he had just heard had not come from the kitchen where Green was supposed to be. Smith was instantly on his guard. The adrenalin started to surge through his body.

  Everything went black. It was as if somebody had turned off, not only the lights in the house but the lights outside in the street too. Smith could not see anything. He heard a strange sound. It sounded like a cat or a dog was scuttling down the stairs. Smith tried to adjust his eyes to the darkness but he still could not see a thing. There was just blackn
ess all around him. It was impossible; Smith had never experienced such darkness before. There was no sound in the house. Smith held out his arms and walked slowly to where he remembered the living room door to be. He tripped over something and fell to the ground. He managed to stand up again. He still could not see anything.

  This is what it’s like to be blind, he thought.

  He heard the sound again. The scuttling of an animal. The noise came closer and Smith felt a sharp pain on his left cheek. He put his hand to the source of the pain and even thought he could not see, he could feel it was covered in blood. The noise had stopped again.

  Something slashed at Smith’s arm and he instinctively kicked out but his feet met with fresh air.

  What the hell is this thing? He thought.

  He had been in plenty of dangerous situations before but this was different. He was now terrified. The blood was pouring out of the wound on his face. The slash to the arm seemed less serious. Smith felt a blast of air behind him and he turned round. He then experienced a sensation he had felt before. His heart sank when he realized he had been injected with a syringe.

  Smith’s muscles started to weaken and his mouth was now incredibly dry. The sound of whatever it was that had attacked him came in waves in his eardrums. His eyelids started to droop and he was finding it difficult to stay awake. His legs buckled and he fell to the ground.

  “I’m going to die,” he thought.

  EIGHTY

  Captive audience

  “You’re going to die.”

  The words sounded like they came from inside Smith’s head. They were spoken in slow motion. Every syllable was emphasized.

  “You’re going to die.”

  Smith opened his eyes and the bright light inside the room made his head pound. For a brief moment, he did not know where he was but then he saw the photograph on the mantelpiece above the fire. Nathan Green’s eyes. Yorick Moreno’s eyes. Smith turned his head to seek out the owner of the sinister voice.

  “You’re going to die.”