The Devil Came to Abbeville

by Marian Phair

  Looking at Mary’s angry face, Ruth knew she had over-stepped the mark and apologised to her. She tried a different approach.

  “Can you recall anything that might give us a clue where they might be? Where they go to play, anything at all that might help us to find them? Think, Mary! Think hard!” Mary noticed, a note of desperation had crept into Ruth’s voice, and realised she was close to breaking point.

  “It’s no good. I’ve already racked my brains. I can’t think of a thing. If I had, I’d have told the police. Since they got together, Liam has become very secretive about their friendship, and tells me very little. We don’t talk all that much anyway, never have done, he’s a boy who likes his privacy. When he’s not with Sally, his head’s always stuck in a book, or he’s scribbling things in that damn diary John got him for school.” Mary sipped sedately at her glass of wine, lost in thought.

  Ruth felt her heart sinking. She had hoped Mary would be able to give her some idea where to look. She rose to go; there was no point in staying any longer.

  “I’m sorry, Mary. Of course you’re just as worried as I am. I’m sure wherever they are, they’re okay.” She wasn’t sure who she was trying to reassure, but guessed it was mostly herself. Mary, with her pills and wine, appeared less concerned.

  They were saying their goodbyes at the door, when a thought occurred to Ruth.

  “Do you think Liam would have written anything in his diary about him and Sally?” Mary shrugged her shoulders. Why hadn’t she thought of this?

  “It’s supposed to be used for his school time-table and to keep track of his school activities. He was always forgetting his P.E kit, or swimming trunks because he got the days mixed up. It’s hardly likely, but it wouldn’t hurt me to look, we’ve got nothing else to go on. If you want a glass of wine while you wait, feel free to help yourself.” Ruth waited impatiently in the kitchen, while Mary went in search of Liam’s diary.

  In Liam’s room, Mary checked his school bag. The diary wasn’t in it; nor was it in any of the drawers she rummaged through. Remembering where she used to keep her ‘secrets’ hidden as a teenager, Mary went over to the bed, and checked under the mattress. Almost immediately, her hand came into contact with a paper bag, she withdrew it and looked inside. There was the hard blue cover of Liam’s journal.

  She returned to the kitchen where Ruth stood anxiously waiting.

  “You’ll never guess where I found it,” she told Ruth. “It was under his mattress, in a paper bag. Why would he hide his school diary under his mattress?”

  Mary stood with a puzzled look on her face. Ruth’s heart missed a beat.

  “Mary, he would only hide it there if he didn’t want anyone to read what he had written in it.” Ruth almost snatched it from Mary’s hand in her eagerness to read its contents, and quickly scanned its pages, struggling in places to decipher the childish scrawl. Liam had made a note of Sally’s birthday, the music she liked, and her favourite flowers, Lilies. His diary told of his love for her daughter, and how she, Ruth, had told him, that one day Sally might see again. There were notes of class times and where he was supposed to be on certain days. Several pages were covered with little cartoon drawings, with funny captions alongside. Then she found what she was looking for, their ‘special place,’ the cornfield! It was less than a mile down the road, and she remembered that there was an old shed in the field used by Percy Grimes. Barely able to contain herself, she handed the diary back to Mary.

  “Mary, I think I know where to find them. I’ll bet they are sheltering in that old shed in the cornfield. I’m going to go and look there. You phone the police and let them know where I’m going.” Before Mary could say anything, Ruth had gone, hurrying off into the night, head bent against the howling wind, and using the beam from the flashlight to guide her way.

  Reaching the cornfield, Ruth made straight for the shed. She felt her feet slipping and sliding on the muddy ground, and fought to stay upright. In the flashlight’s beam, the shed came into view. Ruth called out their names, but no one answered.

  She shone the flashlight onto the window, and shading her eyes, tried to peer through the dirt and grime. Her heart sank, when she saw no sign of them. There appeared to be something large and bulky in the far corner, but she couldn’t see clearly enough to make out what it was.

  Going around the other side to the door, she tried the handle. The door wasn’t locked, and she breathed a sigh of relief as she crossed the threshold. Sweeping the flashlight around the dusty old shed, she could make out in its light, a few farm tools hanging on rusty nails. There was a scythe, a pitchfork, and an evil looking slash-hook. Drawing nearer to the corner of the shed, she saw that what she hadn’t been able to see clearly from the window, was just a pile of old sacks.

  She was turning away, when something in the flashlight’s beam caught her eye. She moved closer to see what it was, then realised it was a child’s trainer. Ruth had seen Liam wearing identical ones many times. Picking it up, she shone her light into it and saw his name written in ink on the inside. So the children had been here, but where were they now, and why had Liam left one of his trainers here?

  On closer inspection, Ruth noticed one sack appeared to have something in it, and it had been pushed to the back of the shed, partly buried under the rest. Thinking the children may have hidden something in the sack, which might help in the search for them, since they had obviously been playing here, she moved the dirty, smelly sacks aside in order to reach the one at the back.

  The sack had been secured with a piece of cord. Carefully balancing the flashlight so that its light shone onto the sack, Ruth struggled to undo the knot breaking a fingernail in the process. Finally, she managed to free the sack, and shone the flashlight into it. What she saw made her with recoil with horror. She was looking into the dead face of Liam Findley.

  His once handsome, young face, had a bluish tinge, and the tongue protruding from his mouth, was swollen and purple. His huge green eyes, fringed with long dark lashes, held a look of terror, and were almost popping from their sockets. His slim young body was curled in the foetal position inside the dirty sack. The poor lad was completely naked, except for the cord tightly wrapped around his neck. The same type of cord she had struggled just a few minutes earlier to undo. The flashlight fell from her trembling hand and its light went out. Ruth screamed, and within seconds she had followed it, falling down onto the dusty floor in a dead faint.

  DCI Fletcher heard Ruth’s scream, as he brought the patrol car to a halt in the gateway of the field. When the call came from the station over his radio, relaying Mary’s message, he had been patrolling the lanes. The rest of the search party were busy checking out garden sheds and outhouses in the neighbourhood.

  Leaving the car headlights switched on, so that the light from their beams lit up the shed, he hastened across the ground not knowing what he would find when he got there. The shed door was open. Jake Fletcher stepped inside.

  When Ruth came to, she found herself lying on a stretcher in an ambulance. Through its open back door she could see two patrol cars, their blue lights flashing. From the back of a police van, a large German shepherd emerged. She watched as a dog handler clipped a lead to its collar, before moving away. She tried to raise herself up, her head felt fuzzy, and her vision was blurry. There was something solid around her throat. With trembling fingers, she felt it, and realised she was wearing a surgical collar.

  A hand was placed on her chest pushing her back down onto the stretcher, and a male voice told her to lie still. Ruth looked up to find a paramedic bending over her, whose face she could barely make out. Unable to focus properly, she lay still.

  “You sustained a nasty bump to the head when you fell, and may have a concussion. We are taking you to hospital,” he told her, as he placed a blanket over her, before buckling two straps across her body securing her to the stretcher.

  “I didn’t fall, I passed out,” Ruth said. Then she realised how silly her remark sounded. Her mou
th felt dry, she tried to swallow, the constricting neck brace suddenly reminding her of the ligature around young Liam’s neck. The horror of what she had found caused her to cry out. Where was her baby! Where was Sally! She started sobbing uncontrollably.

  The paramedic seeing her distress quickly filled a syringe with a mild sedative.

  “I’m going to give you something to help calm you down. Try to relax your arm for me. You may feel a slight prick from the needle.” The paramedic administered the drug, telling her she was a ‘good girl.’ Ruth looked into his young face, as he bent over her. Through her hazy vision, he appeared to be in his early twenties. She managed to give him a weak smile.

  “Have they found my daughter?” she asked him; inwardly praying Sally was safe, and that she hadn’t suffered the same fate as poor young Liam Findley. She felt in her heart that Sally was still alive out there, somewhere. Something inside her wouldn’t let her believe otherwise.

  “Not yet, but you must try to remain calm. They are searching the area now, and they have a tracker dog out there now as well. I believe the local priest gave the police a sweater of your daughter’s for the dog to find her scent trail.”

  As the ambulance drove off into the night taking Ruth to Abbeville’s St Jude’s Hospital, the police tracker dog found the terrified Sally, in the middle of the cornfield. She lay wet through and ice cold, shivering uncontrollably under her jacket on the muddy ground. Speaking into his radio, as he bent down beside the child, the police officer informed the searchers. “One six nine to all units, it’s a Delta ten.” The police code for everything in order, then he propped his flashlight into the muddy ground.

  “I’ve got the little girl, she’s alive, and as far as I can tell she’s unharmed, just frightened, wet, and cold.” Removing his police jacket he wrapped it around her and lifted Sally into his arms, telling her she was safe now, and quietly reassuring her.

  Sally, reaching up and finding the officer’s neck, put her arms around it and clung to him, sobbing with relief. As he retraced his steps across the field, the dog followed at his heels. Reaching the patrol cars, the officer was met by Jake Fletcher who breathed a sigh of relief as they came towards him.

  Police officer’s were taping off the area, and erecting tent cover to protect as much of the crime scene as possible. Jake dismissed the search party, thanking them all for their efforts. When all was done, he left just three officer’s at the crime scene, deploying them at strategic points. They were ordered to remain at their posts until the Scene’s of Crime Officer, and his team arrived, and remain until they had finished their job, and they were no longer needed, before returning to the station and signing off duty. Abbeville was too small a community to have its own SOCO team, and specialists had to be brought in from elsewhere, when required, to assist the local police.

  Jake went over to the officer he had put on gate duty. Jim Clarke stood blowing into his hands, trying to warm them.

  “Here, Jim, use this for now. Make sure you enter and log the time and the names of everyone who comes in and out of here until the job is done.” He handed over a pad and pen, then removed his own gloves and shoved them into the officer’s hand.

  “Take these, and don’t think you can keep them. I want them back.”

  “Thanks, ‘Fletch,’ you’re a star. I’ll see you get them back. What kind of sick bastard have we got out there? The poor little chap never had a chance. I’ve a lad around Liam’s age. God! I wish we still had the death penalty in this country. We could rid ourselves of scum like this instead of locking the bastards up to be kept on tax payer’s money. Even the prisons get more like bloody holiday camps, with gyms, televisions, and three square meals a day. Damn it, don’t get me started!” Jake felt the same way, but kept his thoughts to himself, now was not the time to vent his feelings.

  “Don’t worry Jim, we’ll get the evil sod, as God’s my witness, I’ll not rest until I do.”

  Jake Fletcher cradled Sally on his lap on the back seat of the patrol car, while officer Colin Harris using the Blues and Two’s, to warn other motorists to make way for them, drove at speed to St Jude’s hospital.

  Sally, unafraid now she was safe in the detective’s arms and recognising the voice of their long-time family friend told him. “It’s all Liam’s fault! He’s naughty Uncle Jake. We were having a picnic, and he went off and left me, and I couldn’t find my way out of the field. He’s supposed to be my best friend. I won’t play with him anymore now!”

  Jake Fletcher fought back his tears, and never answered the child. He could still see Liam’s distorted face, frozen in an expression of terror. This image he knew would stay with him forever. He caught Colin Harris’s eye in the rear view mirror, and mouthed the word ‘murdered.’ Colin Harris shook his head sadly, and then turned his full attention on the winding, wet road.

  As Jake cradled Sally, he realised the truth in the words she had just uttered…

  ‘I won’t play with him anymore now!’

  CHAPTER 5

  The autopsy report on young Liam Findley lay open on DCI Fletcher’s desk.

  In his hands he held the file report on the victim, dated on the day his body had been discovered. Liam Findley was now Case Number 17568.

  Jake’s eyes skimmed over the required file details: Name, Address, Sex, Race, Height, and Weight. Sadly, he was all too familiar with these details already.

  At the bottom of the form was the means of attack, it was listed as Asphyxia.

  The location, the tool shed, in the cornfield.

  The crime appeared to be spontaneous. Jake knew this, because of all the physical evidence found at the scene. The killer appeared to have little concern whether the body would be discovered. Unless the killer’s intention had been to throw suspicion on someone else, possibly long enough for him to make his getaway. Someone like Percy Grimes, for instance, who stored farm tools in that shed; or even Bill Kershaw, whose land Liam’s body had been found on. It would appear from the evidence found at the scene, that Liam’s killer was unprepared, attacking suddenly and physically overpowering his victim, who somehow had been lured to his death.

  Jake felt he was missing something, some important fact. It was niggling away at his brain. Something just didn’t add up now, but he would make it fit together eventually. He always did. He’d gnaw away at this, like a dog with a bone, until it fit! The DCI knew one thing to be true. He knew that murder leaves marks.

  No matter how cunning the killers are, they can’t hide the tell-tale traces of violence on the bodies of the victims, and every touch leaves a trace. In every crime, some evidence was bought to the scene, and something was always taken away. Jake also knew that the Medical Examiner, the pathologist Dr Dan Carter, would follow the marks of death. Like the routes on a map, locating the cause, and confirming if the body he examined, was a victim of a murder, or not.

  He re-read Dan Carter’s autopsy report, searching through the evidence found. Once again, he read:

  ‘There were clear signs of bruising, and lacerations on the neck. The Hyoid bone was fractured, with a blood clot around it.’

  If Liam had been strangled, why was there a cord around his neck? What was the reason for the cord? This was the ‘niggle’ that was troubling him!

  In his findings, the M.E. had also reported:

  There were further signs of bruising and anal tearing. Semen was found in and around the anus. The victim had been sodomised.

  Jake felt sick to his stomach on reading this. Liam, the happy-go-lucky ten years old, loved by all who know him… sodomised!

  Reaching for his coffee, he continued to read on. Dr Dan Carter’s report stated that this act had been committed… post-mortem!

  Under ‘Cause of Death’ he had written in his inimitable scrawl.

  Death was due to asphyxia, caused by manual strangulation.

  Was Liam Findley’s killer a Necrophiliac, a Paedophile, or God forbid both!

  Another thought occurred to further wor
ry his overtaxed brain. Liam and Sally were inseparable. So how had Liam’s killer lured him away to the place where his body was found, and why had the killer spared Sally? Did Liam’s killer know that Sally was blind? If this was the case, then Liam’s killer would more than likely be a local, and that thought really disturbed him. He would need his officer’s to do a ‘house to house’ enquiry to find out if anyone had seen any strangers hanging around, or any unusual activity in the area; anything at all, no matter how insignificant it may have seemed at the time.

  Semen, and pubic hairs had been found on the body, but the forensic report stated all DNA found at the scene matched nothing on their data base. This meant they would need samples from all males in the area for a start, to see if they could find a match. He knew that forensics would find Percy Grimes fingerprints at the scene, since this was the shed where his farming tools were kept, but they would still need samples of his DNA. They would need the co-operation from all the townsfolk, in their effort to catch this sick perverted killer. He’d have to take this case, just one step at a time.

  His head was now aching from lack of sleep, due to many hours spent poring over these reports, and going through the evidence time and again, trying to find something that might help, anything that would give him an idea where to start looking.

  He rummaged through the drawer in his desk looking for the Paracetamol tablets he knew were in there somewhere. Finding them, he popped two into his mouth, and washed them down with the remains of the cold coffee he’d made earlier.

  He decided to pay a call on Molly Flemming on his way home, and ask her American cousin Scott Holden, the retired Criminal Profiler, if he would take a look at the Emily Anderson file, and get his opinion on her killer who still remained at large. He would pick his brains on the Liam Findley case as well. With this in mind, he opened the top drawer of his desk, and removed his cigarettes, lighter, and car keys.