by Will Harker
Except perhaps that whatever costume they had been wearing might not have covered them completely. A patched and mended Harris Tweet jacket unmarked, except for the hem of the skirt? I thought again of Miss Rowell hurrying down the forest road, late for her bus, those muddy splashes at her knees.
I shook my head. Cloade, Gillespie, Rowell. Was there anyone I hadn’t pictured standing here, the hammer in their fist? Yes, one person came to mind, though the thought made me sick to my stomach. Because it was hateful and ridiculous and impossible. But again I returned to that mysterious spill of white wax on his sleeve and the pencil stub in his bag.
Harry in the veiled lamplight, fulfilling the promise of the wax doll.
I dialled and pressed the phone to my ear.
“Yes, police. I need to report a murder.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The fair was still buzzing with light and activity, though now the rides had been silenced and the costumes were different. Two and a half hours after my discovery of Aunt Tilda I was sitting in one of the tents the police had erected around the crime scene. The whole operation had swung into action with polished efficiency. Minutes after the first constables arrived, a perimeter had been established, and within the hour, the punters who were still onsite had all been processed and released, their names and addresses taken for follow-up interviews. I had remained, guarding Tilda until a sergeant and the divisional surgeon poked their heads into the tent and asked me, very gently, to step outside. Then it was the usual forensic rigmarole of swabs and fingernail scrapings before the sergeant returned to take my statement.
“Just hang on for a minute or two, will you, sir?” he had said as we finished up. “The chief inspector will want a word.”
“Looks like you’ve got a pretty decent guvnor.” I nodded. “Everything actioned very swiftly for an out-of-the-blue murder. Unless, of course, you’d expected something like this to happen.”
“Now why would you think that?” the sergeant asked, rising to his feet and looming over me. He was a big man and a free-perspirer, the armpits of his shirt sagging. I considered asking him to take a step back but thought better of it.
“No operation gets out the gate this fast, no matter how violent the killing,” I said. “But of course, I’m happy to hang on for your DCI.”
He looked as if he was about to bite back but instead tapped his pencil thoughtfully against his chin and left the tent. And so I stayed put, waiting for the officer in charge. Before it was confiscated by a random constable passing through, I still had use of my phone. Following the gavvers’ arrival, there had been a flurry of texts from Sal, Big Sam, and my dad, asking if I knew what was going on. Of these, I didn’t think it was wise to respond to any except the old man’s.
In a few words, I explained what had happened, and after a short delay, he replied, calmly and cautiously, knowing that the police might soon have access to my phone. Outrage and promises of vengeance would not do us any favours right now. He told me that the chap that had been guarding Tilda had left his post to use the toilet at about eight-fifteen. On returning, he’d seen Tilda’s sign and assumed she’d gone off for her tea break. Fancying a bit of refreshment himself, he’d retired to his own trailer and fallen asleep while watching a match on the box. I for one prayed he’d have the wisdom to pack up his things and leave the fair that night. His safety among the Travellers could not now be guaranteed.
But this also made me think about how the killer must have watched and waited for their moment. Perhaps they’d even visited Jericho Fairs before and learned of Tilda’s routine with her sign. That showed foresight and planning, or else they knew the fortune teller and her habits of old. In any case, it had been a brutally efficient execution. The timing meant a window of approximately forty-five minutes between the chap’s departure and me finding the body at around nine.
Just before my phone was taken, I had thought of calling Haz. Despite their last encounter when she had upset him by seeming to speak about his dead father, he’d always had a soft spot for Aunt Tils. Hell, Harry had a soft spot for just about everyone. My thumb had hovered over his contact but something held me back. Perhaps the shame of my imagining his involvement, perhaps the fear that he would hear that doubt in my voice.
The minutes crawled by, and I was about to go and ask what was keeping him when the DCI stepped into the tent. He was probably only a year or two older than me, which meant he was smarter than he looked. No one reached the rank of chief inspector by their mid-thirties without having both brains and a knack for office politics. He came forward with a broad, apologetic smile and grasped my hand in both of his. It seemed at once an act of submission and assertion, his handshake overly firm but his expression contrite.
“Inspector Tallis. I’m so sorry I’ve kept you waiting.” Falling into the folding seat opposite, he took out his notebook and flicked through the pages before looking up. “Mr Jericho.”
He hadn’t needed to consult his notes. He knew my name. I wondered if it was all part of the same performance that extended to that bit of bumfluff on his upper lip. An almost adolescent attempt to grow a moustache. He was youthful-looking anyway, tousle-headed, wide-eyed, all teeth, a man who’d look more at home in a school blazer than that almost creaseless suit. A man easy to underestimate, which was surely his intent.
“I’d like to start by saying how sorry I am for your loss. Miss Urnshaw was your aunt, I understand?”
“Aunt in the Traveller sense,” I answered. “Not a blood relative, but all the old-timers here are known as aunts and uncles.”
He made a note. “I see. Well, Scott, if I may call you that? I see from my sergeant’s notes that you’ve made some interesting observations about the crime scene. Didn’t touch anything, didn’t try to see if your aunt was still alive, just took it all in, didn’t you?”
There wasn’t anything accusatory in his tone. There wasn’t much of a tone at all.
“She’d been hit on the back of the head,” I said evenly. “Her face had been smashed in, all her teeth removed, and her left hand almost severed. I thought it was safe to assume she was dead.”
He smoothed down the open page and didn’t take his eyes from me. Despite the questioning, I think I made up my mind right then that I liked DCI Tallis.
“Still, not the usual reaction of a civilian,” he said. “I mean you didn’t disturb the body but nor did you run for help. You stayed at the scene until we arrived and then provided a catalogue of insights—victim attacked from behind, perhaps indicating he was known to her; some kind of point being made by the splattering of blood on the tarot card; indentations on the ground outside where he knelt to fasten the ties.”
“I never said ‘him,’” I corrected. “A reasonably fit woman would’ve been capable of any of this.”
“Another good point. And I understand you didn’t report the doll to the police when it first appeared. May I ask why not?”
I shrugged. “I knew you wouldn’t do anything about it.”
“Did you? But still, you were troubled?”
I looked down at my hands. Willed them not to tremble as I remembered discouraging my dad from reporting the doll.
“It seemed… carefully malicious, if you know what I mean?” I said. “No fingerprints, and then the pins, the bible quotation, the hexafoil. All of it thought out. Maybe even overdone.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“I’m not entirely sure. Yet.”
“But you were worried that there might be something more to come?”
I shuffled in my seat. “The doll is like the murder itself. Overkill, if you like. Almost too many little touches. The teeth, presumably taken as trophies as there’s no doubt about the identity of the victim. But still, it’s unusual for a killer even with a dental fetish to take all the teeth. And then there’s the fact that, although it was very elaborate—the planning of it, sending the doll, waiting for the right time to strike, performing each mutilation—there’s also
a sense of half-heartedness. A rush to complete everything. The fact the hands weren’t taken.”
Tallis scratched his eyebrow. “It was a public place. Maybe he was fearful of discovery.”
“Maybe. But these kinds of ritualistic killers are usually obsessive about their signatures. They take their time, even if it endangers them.”
“So what does that tell you?”
“It tells me I don’t know the full story.”
The inspector cleared his throat. “You see, Mr Jericho, all this—your sense of calm, your knowledge, observations, it’s suggestive.”
“Is it?”
“Unusual name, Jericho,” he mused. “Reminds me of a case I heard about a couple of years ago. Smart young detective. Brilliant, in fact. Rising star in CID. Just my sort of officer. But he throws away his career after losing his temper with the prime suspect in a murder case. Case then collapses and our golden boy is sent straight to jail. Do not pass go, do not collect your pension. You used to be a copper, Scott.”
I nodded. There was no point denying it.
“We don’t get many from your community joining up,” Tallis said. “It’s a shame, what happened. I was raised in a small seaside town, myself. My father owned an amusement arcade where I’d work for a few quid after school and at the weekends. Perhaps not a totally dissimilar upbringing?”
Much as I liked Tallis, this felt like a waste of time. “You don’t have to establish a rapport with me, Inspector. Shall we get on with it?”
He paid me the respect of closing his notebook. “What else would you like to tell me?”
“You were on alert for another of these, weren’t you?” I said. “So you tell me, did Genevieve Bell also receive a wax doll before she was killed? Were her hands taken? Was her body punctured with nails?”
He scratched his eyebrow again. “The details of that case haven’t been made public.”
“I know. You run a tight ship.”
“Then how did you connect the two?”
“It was hinted at in the press. The way you had to ID her—from stray hair follicles found on personal items at the house would be my guess. So her teeth and hands must have been taken, just like with Tilda. The crucial question is, were there others before Genevieve Bell?” Again the scratched brow—Tallis’ unconscious tell. “Then Tilda was his second. You have a serial killer targeting fortune tellers and psychics, Inspector, and unless we stop him, he will kill again.”
“Unless I stop him, Mr Jericho.”
Tallis rose to his feet. He was almost a head shorter than me and yet he held his ground with assurance.
“You’re out of jail, Scott, but you’re still not part of the game. I appreciate that the murder of your aunt will feel very personal and you’ll want to see whoever’s responsible punished. Believe me when I say, I won’t rest until that happens. But I also want you to know this…”
I’d followed him to the exit when he turned and laid a hand on my shoulder. Once more, I felt the tenderness from where Nick had struck me.
“If I discover that you’ve tried to rejoin the game, I’ll sweep you right off the board,” he promised. “And back behind bars.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I managed to control myself. Despite the vision of what I’d suffered behind the walls of HMP Hazelhurst rising up before me—the shower block with its bloodied tiles, the memory of that fire deep inside my gut as I lay shaking and weeping on the floor—I remained calm. Tallis couldn’t know of the assault I’d suffered while serving my sentence. Though he’d asked, I hadn’t even discussed it with Haz. Still, it was a lousy threat and I wondered if the inspector immediately regretted it. Stepping into the night together, his attitude appeared to soften.
“We’ll try to get all this cleared away by the morning,” he said, gesturing towards a huddle of Tyvek-suited SOCOs. “As long as your security remains tight, I’m happy if you want to open again tomorrow. I could spare you a few constables as well, just to keep up a presence.”
We spent a moment contemplating Tilda’s tent before I noticed his gaze stray beyond the fair to the bleak silhouette of the rectory.
“Do you know the reputation of this place?” I asked. “Those who seek to exploit it are often punished, apparently. Accidents, suicide, murder.”
He cast me a sceptical look. “I don’t believe in curses. I’m sure you don’t either.”
“What we believe is irrelevant, Inspector Tallis. It’s what the killer believes that’s important. Speaking of which, have you considered him as a potential victim?”
I pointed over to the darkened billboard where Darrel Everwood’s neon-white smile could still just about be made out. Tallis gave a non-committal shrug.
“You don’t need a licence to practice spiritualism, and so there’s no register of numbers,” he said. “But there must be thousands of clairvoyants and palmists and whatever else they call themselves operating in the UK. I assume you don’t know of any direct link between your aunt and Genevieve Bell?” I shook my head. “Nor of anything to connect Darrel Everwood to the case?”
I thought back to that phone conversation I’d overheard between Nick and Deepal Chandra. “The funny thing is, I reckon Darrel knew her too. He mentioned her name to me anyway.” And then Nick’s assertion that Everwood was afraid to come to Purley, “He told me that there’s something bad waiting for him here.” Had it been just a feeling or had Everwood also received a little wax doll? And if so, might he have spoken to Genevieve Bell about it? I told myself that it was a tenuous link at best. In any case, informing Tallis would lead to Nick being questioned, and almost inevitably, his past being exposed. He had, no doubt, faked his references to get the job with EverThorn Media. He was trying to go straight, to build a new life, and escape the clutches of mobsters like Mark Noonan. There may even be outstanding cases in which he was a suspect.
This was the noble side of my reason for keeping Nick’s secret. In truth, I also wanted a go at questioning Everwood before Tallis got to him. Despite the inspector’s threat, I was determined to play this game, and on my own terms.
“No connection I’m aware of,” I said.
Tallis fixed me with that steady gaze before digging into his pocket and pulling out my phone. “Glad to have met you, Scott Jericho,” he said, handing it over. “And for what it’s worth, I’m sorry things worked out the way they did. The force really can’t afford to lose good detectives.”
“I’m glad they still have a few.” I nodded, before turning away and heading into the shadows between the stalls.
Coming out into the corral of trailers, I checked my watch. It was long past eleven but there were lights in every window. Behind those glowing shades, toasts were being raised to a woman that even her elders had called ‘auntie.’ There would be tears and laughter as the tragedies and comedies of her life were shared, dates picked over and debated, her wisdom dispensed to red-eyed children so that fragments of her might live on. And in whispered asides between the men, the plotting of the killer’s fate would have begun. If little else, this instinct for private justice was something I shared with my people.
A chained Webster greeted me at the foot of my father’s trailer. Reaching down, I scratched behind a tattered ear. Juks are empathetic creatures and this one more than most. Something was happening that he couldn’t solve with a growl or a snap, so instead, he licked the bowl of my palm and whimpered as I mounted the steps.
I opened the door. A welcome waft of warm air, tea and whisky on the kitchen counter, some joyous old photograph of my mother and Tilda at a wedding, freshly dug out and placed in a black frame over the fire. I barely had time to register the three people in the room before Big Sam came rushing towards me. I’d prepared myself for their accusations—why hadn’t I seen this coming? Why hadn’t I protected her? Why didn’t I take that fucking doll more seriously? Wasn’t I supposed to be clever? I didn’t try to defend myself. I just stood there, ready for his denunciation, welcoming his blows.
Instead, he wrapped those enormous arms around me and tucked my head into his shoulder, as if I was a child.
“Jesus, Scotty,” he croaked. “What you’ve seen tonight, I can’t even imagine. Come and have a drink, sit yourself down. It’s gonna be all right.”
I allowed myself to be led to the big locker settee where Sal took my face in her hands and kissed my forehead. “You OK?” she asked.
I shrugged and she kissed me again. Meanwhile, Sam took the armchair next to my dad. Grey-faced with grief and exhaustion, the old man leaned forward and shook my knee.
“So what was done to her, then?” Sam demanded half-heartedly.
“Sam, please.” I sighed. “You don’t want to know.”
“I do,” he insisted, staring up at the ceiling and wiping his eyes. “I need to.”
Sal went over to him and took the great slab of his hand in hers. “Now you listen to him, Sam Urnshaw, and just you remember Tilda as she was. A mad old woman loved by everyone. Am I right, Uncle George?”
My dad nodded, his voice unusually tight. “The very best of old girls. She’ll be remembered in our stories, always.”
As one, we seemed to turn to the photograph hanging over the fire. Two dead women, both the victims of violence, perhaps reunited now, in the minds of some at least.
“You’ve talked to the gavvers?” Dad said. “What are they thinking?”
I explained that, in all likelihood, Tilda had been the second victim of a killer obsessed with ridding the world of what he considered to be ‘witches.’ I also told them she had probably been selected at random. Even then, I didn’t believe that, but it gave the others the comfort that we couldn’t have foreseen what would happen.