Silencing the Dead

by Will Harker

  At the far side of the Dartford Crossing, I lost the light and passed into the shadows of the motorway. Tallis had given me few details regarding Thorn’s murder, saying only that he’d meet me at the dead publicist’s house, just outside the town of Tunbridge Wells. Despite hardly having slept, I was filled with the nervous, skittish energy that always came in the closing hours of a case. So much remained unclear but still, I sensed, that whatever the killer’s ultimate purpose, the final threads of it were being drawn together. I only hoped that Nick Holloway wouldn’t find himself enmeshed in the web.

  Before setting out from Purley, I had run into Deepal in the carpark. I’d thought she might still be annoyed with me for having tricked my way into an interview with Everwood, but the PA looked as if she had other things on her mind. Her hair was back in that severe bun and there were already coffee stains on the sleeve of her jacket.

  “You’re up and about early, Miss Chandra,” I said.

  She glanced towards the Ghost Seekers’ production trailers. “The whole crew will be arriving in a couple of hours, then the chaos will really begin. I’ll need to touch base with your father, by the way, just to make sure he knows the timing for when we go live. It’s looking like our catering has hit a snag, so we might need to commandeer some of your food trucks. Oh, and now Darrel’s insisting he needs time alone before the broadcast to ‘attune with the spirits.’ God. Makeup is going to love that.”

  “If you don’t mind me saying, it doesn’t sound like you enjoy your job very much. I wonder why you do it?”

  Deepal looked at me curiously. “You see a lot, Mr Jericho, but I promise you, I take my work here very seriously. I only wish others did the same.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Seb Thorn, Darrel’s manager for one. The night before the biggest broadcast in Ghost Seekers’ history and he wasn’t answering his phone. Darrel started fretting about some production detail or another and needed the old man’s reassurance. In the end, things got so stressed I suggested sending Nick over to Seb’s to see what was going on.”

  I nodded, remembering Nick being flagged down by the constables in the carpark at around midnight. Glancing over at the driveway, I now saw an empty space where the Bentley was usually parked.

  “Nick’s still not back?” I asked.

  “No, and now he’s not picking up either,” Deepal sighed. “Still, I suppose if he got to Seb’s and couldn’t get an answer at the door, he might simply have turned around and started back. If so, he could be here any minute.”

  We both looked towards the forest road as if the Bentley might reappear by magic.

  “But you’ve been calling him?”

  “The hands-free system in the car has been glitching.” She shrugged. “He might not be able to answer. It also doesn’t help that Seb is deaf as a post. He could have fallen asleep before twelve and not heard Nick banging at the door.”

  I kept my mouth shut. It wasn’t for me to tell her that the co-creator of Ghost Seekers had been ritualistically murdered sometime in the past few hours. I doubted it would improve her stress levels anyway. What concerned me from that point on was the consequences for Nick. He’d been desperate to shrug off the shadows of his former life and make a new start, far away from the jealous, violent clutches of mobster Mark Noonan. For Nick, I think this had been more than just a break with the immediate past. In the form of Noonan, he had discovered another possessive, abusive parent figure to replace the father he’d escaped back in Hull. Wanting to finally end that cycle for good, he’d begged me not to expose his background to Everwood. I now worried that Nick’s choice in the matter may have been taken from him.

  The rush hour traffic was starting to hit gridlock when I eased off the motorway and passed into Kent’s leafy suburbs. Even in deepest autumn, the county clung to its reputation as the Garden of England. Fields and churchyards bustling with maple and rowan, blueberry bushes crowding against a gatepost, the light on their leaves reminding me of the marigolds in Garris’ garden. The only marker for a killer’s grave.

  I had parked up at the end of an isolated lane when my phone pinged with a message. It was from Sal. Where are you? Look Scott, even if this means you never talk to me again—you MUST call Harry. I’ve spoken to him—told him what you told me yesterday. There’s so much you don’t know, so—call him!

  “Scott? Thank you for coming.”

  I looked up to find Tallis striding towards me. Shoving my phone back into my pocket, I shook his outstretched hand. Whatever Sal was going on about, it could wait.

  “Have you been inside already?” I asked, looking to the house at the end of the lane.

  The home of Sebastian Thorn was as impressive, in its way, as that of his old client, Genevieve Bell. The styles were very different. Instead of a modernist mansion of steel and glass, Thorn’s residence was a Tudor fantasia complete with a thatched roof, a jutting timber frame to support the overhanging first floor, and small lead lattice windows. It stood by itself in acres of almost treeless land, no neighbour in sight.

  In a SOCO tent outside the front door, Tallis and I donned Tyvek suits and the rest of the forensic paraphernalia before signing our names into the scene log. I could see that Tallis’ sergeant wasn’t best pleased by my presence, but a look from his senior officer quelled any objection. As we passed into the stone-flagged entrance hall, the DCI gestured towards my forehead.

  “That wound you got from Cloade still looks nasty. You should get it seen to.”

  “I will,” I muttered. At that moment, all I could feel was a dull ache. “Any news on him, by the way?”

  “Seems to be hunkering down in his church,” Tallis said. “One of my DCs looked in on him last night. Found him flat on his face before his altar, begging God to deliver him from evil spirits.”

  “He should do the tour at Purley,” I said. “The housekeeper there would soon set him straight.”

  Tallis might have asked what I meant, but by then we’d reached the great staircase with its dark-oak bannister and the faceless man sprawled across its steps. A photographer had just finished filming the corpse in situ when Tallis begged a moment before the waiting forensics team swept in.

  “Keep your distance,” he told me. “If you need any details confirmed, I’ll get one of these guys to take a closer look.”

  I was pretty sure that wouldn’t be necessary. The morning light streaming through the gallery windows above our heads illuminated the scene better than any floodlight. I could see from the angled stain on the newel post—thick with blood at the top of the cap, tapering into a light smear as it ran downwards—that, like Genevieve and Tilda, Thorn had been struck from behind. A spot or two of unsmeared blood on the flagstones as he staggered to the staircase. Then, his right hand automatically going to the wound before he grabbed the newel cap for support, he had finally fallen, twisting around as he clung to the post. He had landed on his back, the blood flowing freely onto the step pillowing his head until his heart had stopped.

  “He knew the killer,” I said, explaining my reasoning to Tallis. “Let him in just like the others.”

  “Except this one isn’t quite like the others,” Tallis observed.

  Those words from Mozart’s Lacrimosa, the requiem Haz claimed he’d been practising with his fictitious choir, replayed in my head. Full of tears will be that day; When from the ashes shall arise; The guilty man to be judged. Well, Sebastian Thorn had certainly been judged guilty by the killer. In this latest recreation of the witchfinder’s execution methods, we had reached the hanged witch. After death, a coarse rope had been knotted around the victim’s throat, and drawn taut, lashed to one of the staircase spindles on the landing. Just as with the drowned doll and the pricked doll, a wax effigy had been left beside the corpse.

  But Tallis was right. There were differences here in the killer’s MO, ones that had already been suggested in the murder of Tilda Urnshaw. For a start, although his doll was faceless, my initial impression of Tho
rn’s injuries had been mistaken. His features masked with blood, I hadn’t realised that most of them remained intact. His hands, too, had been spared, though the effigy’s had not.

  “Most serial killer rituals evolve over time,” I said. “Become ever more detailed and elaborate. But our murderer seems to be devolving, losing his enthusiasm for the trademarks of his slaughter.”

  Tallis nodded. “But he persists.”

  “I wondered with Tilda if there was something half-hearted about it all,” I said. “As if the ritual itself wasn’t crucial to the killings. Have his teeth been taken?”

  Tallis made a gesture and a forensics officer went to huddle over the body. After a moment or two, he glanced back at us. “The teeth haven’t been touched but there is something caught at the back of his throat. Give me a second.” He went to work with a pair of tweezers before finally dislodging the foreign object. “Got it.”

  Although the scrawled biblical quotation from Exodus had not been attached to Thorn’s doll, a different passage had been left inside the victim. On a scrap of moist paper, I read: 1 Timothy 6:10. Tallis looked it up on his phone.

  “For the love of money is the root of all evil.”

  I nodded. “He mocked Genevieve’s power by taking her hands. Mocked Tilda by claiming she was a fool. Now he’s condemning the legacy of Sebastian Thorn, a man who made his fortune from the promotion of witches. I wonder what he’ll be laughing at while his fourth victim burns.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  “Burns?” Tallis echoed.

  “If the pattern holds, that’s the fate of the last victim. The burned witch.”

  Before leaving the hanged man, I took a final look around the entrance hall. In the shadow behind the doorway, I could see a scatter of white pills, left like a trail of breadcrumbs in a children’s story. There were about a dozen in all, each the same size and shape.

  “We’re checking his medical records, but we assume they’re Thorn’s,” Tallis said. “Maybe they dropped out of his pocket when he fell.”

  I knew the DCI was too smart to believe this explanation. Was he already aware that Nick had been sent by Everwood to check in on Thorn? His constables in the carpark would have made a note of the time the Bentley left the site. Perhaps someone had told him about Nick’s addiction. He might even be aware of our past association and was waiting for me to reveal it before he asked the question himself.

  All I could think of when I saw the pills was a pair of pinprick pupils and trembling hands. Hands that would reach instinctively for the dulling reassurance of the pain meds, and fumbling, drop them. Of course, in his time, Nick had seen sights as bad as this, worse even, but he was trying to leave such horrors behind. Now, finding the battered corpse of Sebastian Thorn, had the blood and agony of other men returned to him? Men he’d broken under his fists? In my mind’s eye, I pictured Nick fleeing both the scene of the crime and the dark memories that pursued him.

  “But if they were Thorn’s, why would he be carrying them loose?” Tallis said.

  Our eyes met and I asked, “Any CCTV installed?”

  “Not that we can find.” He led the way back to the SOCO tent where we started to change out of our forensics gear. “We’ll check any local cameras for vehicles coming this way, but it’s a pretty rural spot. I doubt there’ll be much we can work with.”

  He walked me to my car, where we shook hands again.

  “Do you think they’ll go ahead with the broadcast after this?” I asked.

  “I haven’t managed to speak with Everwood yet,” Tallis said. “But I have touched base with the network people this morning. They tell me that postponing the event would be the last thing Sebastian Thorn would have wanted.”

  I almost laughed. “That, I do believe. Well, I suppose with millions watching, Darrel’s as safe as he can be, although I imagine his paranoia will go into overdrive when he hears about Thorn. If it is paranoia.”

  The inspector gave me one last, long look. “Let me know if anything else occurs to you, Scott. And thanks for the tipoff about Thorn.”

  Cursing myself for not having taken Nick’s number, I’d just got back into the car when my phone rang. No caller ID. Praying that this was him, I started rehearsing a couple of reassuring lines that might settle his nerves and bring him out of hiding. I had no doubt he’d scurried away to some bolthole, terrified that the police would take one look at his record and implicate him in the murder. If I could convince Nick that Tallis would give him a fair hearing, then everything might still work out.

  I answered the call.

  “Hello Scottster, long time no speaky, eh? If I didn’t know better, I could swear you’ve been avoiding me.”

  As soon as I heard that voice, I knew it was too late for Nick.

  “What do you want, Mark?”

  The mobster Mark Noonan cooed softly in my ear. “Now, is that any way to speak to an old friend? Let’s keep our manners nice and sociable, shall we? Cos if you do get snappish with me, Scottster, I might have to start snapping back.”

  I took a breath. “Have you heard from Nick?”

  “Yes indeed, I might have to snap back very, very hard.” He laughed. “You stabbed me right to the heart when you went off and joined the filth, but I didn’t bear a grudge. Long as you kept shtum about my business, I was happy enough to let you run around with your new detective friends. Oh, I heard you got into a bit of trouble, though. Beat up some Nazi cunt, wasn’t it? Landed yourself a nice little stretch. I also heard,” he said in a delicate whisper, “that some boys jumped you in the showers up at Hazelhurst. Well, I want you to know, Scottster, that unpleasantness was nothing to do with me.”

  I closed my eyes, fought back the vision of myself curled up on those blood-streaked tiles. I didn’t have time for this.

  “Say what you’ve got to say, Mark. I’m listening.”

  “No, no,” he cooed again. “This ain’t no kind of reunion. If you want to know what Nick has just told me regarding a certain murder he might have witnessed last night, you come see me at Nana’s. I’ll have the kettle on ready.”

  The line went dead.

  “Fuck,” I muttered. “Nick, what have you done?”

  It was hardly a question worth asking. Frightened and confused, high on his illegal meds, Nick had sought the protection of the only man in his life who had ever offered it. Executing a quick three-point-turn in the lane, I wondered why he hadn’t come to me. The answer was equally as obvious—he knew that I was just starting again and that I had someone I cared for. Conscious of his own now-shattered hopes for a new life, he wouldn’t have wanted to bring trouble to my door. In the end, Nick had seen Noonan as his only option.

  Now I ran through mine. I could inform Tallis that Nick was being held against his will and that he possessed information about Thorn’s murder but required police protection. Even if the DCI was willing to action a raid on Noonan’s base, however, that sort of operation would require time to organise and implement. Meanwhile, any delay in me reaching the house would arouse Noonan’s suspicion. In any case, it was likely that Nick was being kept at a separate location.

  Time wasn’t the only factor. I could call my dad and have a crowd of local Travellers waiting for me outside the house when I arrived. Backup in case things turned nasty. But given the ingenious setup of the place, that probably wasn’t wise. If I wanted to learn what Nick had seen last night, then I had to play by Noonan’s rules. I checked the dashboard clock. 9:50 am. Plenty of time to swing by the house in Hounslow and get back to Purley for the broadcast at eight.

  If I survived, of course.

  An hour and twenty minutes later, I pulled into a charming crescent of semi-detached houses that backed onto the Hounslow Loop railway. At one end stood the overground station, at the other, a community allotment and the humpbacked railway bridge. The street was clean and litter-free, its pavements weeded, its hedges neatly trimmed. Pensioners in old-fashioned housecoats and peaked caps looked out from th
eir gardens as I parked up. They all smiled and waved as if they knew me. Lending a hand in the gardens, washing cars, carrying shopping were a few good-looking young men with biceps for days and necks like tree trunks. I felt every eye on me as I pushed open Nana’s gate and walked up the path to number 56 Sanford Crescent.

  This wasn’t only Noonan’s base, it was his street. He owned every house and let them rent-free to a select club of pensioners—men and women of impeccable reputation who had never so much as received a parking ticket. Noonan’s ‘husbands’ helped to maintain the properties and were always delighted to carry out any small chore that was asked of them. People wandering down Sanford Crescent might wonder at so many attentive grandsons and the fact there seemed to be no one here aged between forty and sixty, but the charm of the place would soon overwhelm their misgivings.

  It was the perfect camouflage for organised crime. All that was asked of the residents was that they keep their eyes peeled and their mouths shut. That was why I knew I couldn’t risk bringing in backup. A worried call from an old dear about strangers congregating in her street would only end in the Travellers’ arrest. And so, under that keen surveillance, I turned and knocked at the smartly painted front door.

  There was no nana at Nana’s house. Noonan’s grandmother, who had brought him up in this modest Edwardian terrace, had died some years ago. Still, the beloved matriarch was memorialised on every wall. As the door swung open, I saw her puggish features grinning down at me from half a dozen different angles. I didn’t recognise the kid in the doorway, but he was wearing one of those tacky diamonds on his ring finger, so it was safe to assume he was a husband.

  “You’re a new one,” I said, pushing my way inside. “So where is he?”

  “Mark’s been called away on urgent business,” he squeaked. “Says to offer you his apologies. He’ll be back in an hour or two.”