by Neil White
She didn’t. She put some more things into the bin and let the lid drop, then she turned and went back into the house.
Joe sat down and let out a long breath. Sweat coated his forehead. He looked at his hands. They were shaking.
He was just about to stand when he looked to the wall at the end of the workshop. There was a workbench, and at first Joe had thought there was nothing underneath. As he looked again, however, helped by the sliver of extra light brought in by the curtain that was still hanging open, he saw the gleam of shiny metal.
Joe scurried over. It was a metal box, the sort used to hold documents. He reached in and found the handle, pulled it towards himself. The clang of a padlock echoedas he brought it out. He couldn’t get into it, but the way it was concealed, along with the padlock, told him that it must be important. He decided to take it.
As he made his way back to the door, he stopped at the toolbox and rummaged for a hacksaw. He grabbed one and pushed at the door, making a gap again, the wood screeching on stones once more, but he wasn’t going to stop. Once outside, the cool breeze hit the cold sweat on his forehead. He jammed his back against the door to give the illusion of it being closed and threw the hinges into the narrow space behind the workshop.
He didn’t look at the house as he rushed through the garden, the metal box and hacksaw swinging in his hand, and tried to look casual as he emerged from the driveway and then back towards his car. No one paid him any attention. He was waiting for a shout from the house, perhaps he’d been spotted, but there was nothing save the occasional noise of passing traffic all the way back to his car.
He climbed inside and started the engine straight away, the metal box on the passenger seat.
As he headed away, he placed one hand on the box. He’d taken a risk but he wondered whether the answers he needed were in there, the beginning of the end of his quest for justice for Ellie, an attempt to make good for all of his secrecy through the years.
His mind went to Gerald King and his daughter. That was the terrible flipside of his decision all those years ago; every murder after Ellie could have been a death prevented. For years Joe had been weighed down with the split-second decision he made on his eighteenth birthday.
He couldn’t think of that. All he could do was try to make it right.
Fifty-six
Sam was back at the station. He had been hoping to sneak into the Incident Room and find out how the investigation was going, but as he got closer Brabham shouted, ‘Parker!’ and pointed to one of the rooms nearby.
Sam turned and went inside, waited for Brabham to join him. Brabham closed the door behind him as he came in and folded his arms.
‘Sir?
‘We’ve had the deputy head from St Hilda’s on the phone, complaining about the attitude of one of my detectives, like he was acting out some maverick cop fantasy.’
Sam bit back his sigh. ‘It wasn’t like that.’
‘So what was it like?’
‘I was chasing a lead.’
‘Which was?’
Sam wondered how much he should say, but then realised that he had to say everything or say nothing. It would all come back to Joe, but he couldn’t help that.
‘Can I sit down?’ Sam said. ‘It’s a long story.’
Brabham paused for a moment, as if he preferred that Sam stood like a naughty schoolboy, but then pointed towards a chair. ‘Help yourself.’
Sam sat down as Brabham leaned against a wall.
‘I was looking into Mark Proctor, the man whose hire car was used by the victim last night,’ he said. ‘You’ve gone with this Domino Killer theory so I went through the camera logs around the time Henry Mason was killed.’
‘Explain.’
‘You remember how you said one murder tips into the next, with Henry Mason’s fingerprint at the scene of Keith Welsby’s murder before Mason himself turned up dead? So it stood to reason that if your theory was right, whoever killed Mason might have been the victim last night.’
Brabham was nodding, his anger dissipating. Sam had gambled on stroking his ego and it had paid off.
‘And?’ Brabham said.
‘Mark Proctor’s car was in the area around the park where Henry Mason was found. A traffic cop stopped him for having no insurance and his car was seized. The thing is, later that night he broke into the compound and took back the seized car. That’s pretty strange, because Proctor has no record, he’s not the burglar-type. What he did next was even stranger: he torched it. Why would he steal back his own car just to set it on fire?’
Brabham frowned but said nothing.
‘To get rid of forensic evidence?’ Sam volunteered.
‘I can see where you’re going with that, but what does this have to do with St Hilda’s?’
‘There should be a link between Henry Mason and Keith Welsby because Mason’s fingerprint was on the murder weapon, but we can’t find the link. But if Proctor murdered Mason, what if there is a connection between Proctor and Welsby? Somewhere there has to be a link between these people. So what connects Proctor and Welsby?’
‘You tell me.’
‘Proctor’s wife Helena went to the same school that Keith Welsby taught in, St Hilda’s, as did her sister, and her sister was murdered a few years ago. It’s her murder that brought Proctor and his wife together. He was some kind of grief counsellor and had a habit of befriending the families of murder victims. That’s how he met his wife – Helena Morley as she was then – by befriending her after her sister Adrianne was murdered.’
‘That’s what they do, isn’t it, grief counsellors? And how does this link in with Keith Welsby or the school?’
‘It seems that Mr Welsby liked the pupils more than he should have done. I’ve spoken to Harry Neave, who was in charge of the Adrianne Morley investigation, and there were rumours that she was involved with Keith Welsby. Sexually. Just rumours.’
‘That makes it damn interesting,’ Brabham said. ‘A link between the first and third murders. But what about Henry Mason? He’s got nothing to do with St Hilda’s, so there’s no revenge motive there. You’ve got plenty of loose threads and rumours but nothing to pull them together.’
Sam paused. He knew he’d come to an impasse, because if he carried on, he would drag Joe into it.
‘Sam?’
He closed his eyes and said a silent apology to Joe, but he had no choice. He wouldn’t be allowed to carry on with just half the story. To get Proctor, he had to put Joe at risk.
‘My sister was murdered seventeen years ago,’ Sam said, opening his eyes, trying to speak clearly, so that his thought processes didn’t come across as muddled. ‘My brother is convinced Mark Proctor did it. He was following him yesterday, and…’ Sam paused to take a breath. ‘He followed him all the way to the green in Worsley. Or at least he thought he did. It looks like Proctor sent someone in his place. The victim on the green? My brother found the body when he arrived and ran away.’
Brabham’s eyes widened. ‘Why was your brother following him?’
‘Because my brother thinks Mark Proctor killed my sister.’
Brabham stood away from the wall and started to pace. ‘What were your brother’s intentions?’
Sam didn’t answer. He could have said Joe had followed him out of idle curiosity, but it wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny. He settled for silence instead.
‘You’re off the investigation,’ Brabham said.
‘I expected that.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?’ Brabham asked, his voice rising.
‘I was trying to get everything in place first, so that I could be sure.’
‘Sure of what?’
‘Sure that my brother hadn’t killed that man. And he didn’t, I’m sure of it’
‘Jesus Christ, Sam!’
‘I know how it looks.’
‘Do you, really?’ Brabham shook his head in disbelief. ‘You have no idea how this looks. And there’s another big problem.’
; ‘Which is?’
‘Proctor might be a suspect in the murder of Henry Mason, but he can’t be a suspect in a case where he was supposed to be the victim. Your brother thought it was him and, if what you’re saying is correct, he was lured to that park for his intended death. That puts your brother in the frame. Worse, maybe. He might be the next in the line, the fourth domino.’
Sam didn’t respond. Brabham had reached the same conclusion he had.
‘I’ve got one question to ask you,’ Brabham went on. ‘You have got to answer it honestly, because if it turns out you’re wrong, you’re done, over.’
Sam stayed silent. He knew what the question was before Brabham asked it.
Brabham stopped pacing and put his hands in his hips. ‘Did your brother kill the man last night, thinking it was Mark Proctor?’
‘No, he didn’t.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because he’s my brother, and I know him.’
Brabham’s lips twitched as he thought about that. ‘You’re still off the case,’ he said. ‘If we catch someone, the defence will deflect onto your brother. If you’re part of the team, the case will be thrown out. Too much bias, as it will look like the investigation was about clearing your brother.’
‘I know that.’
‘But if it wasn’t your brother, who the hell was it? And why? And why the bloody hell should we bother?’ he said, exasperated. ‘If Proctor killed your sister, why don’t we just let the psychopaths of Manchester kill each other until the chain breaks?’
‘We could, but we won’t, sir. We’re cops.’
‘I’m not bloody serious!’
Sam blushed. ‘If Proctor was the intended victim, the poor sod last night was an innocent man, sent along by Mark Proctor in his place.’
‘So who’s behind it? Someone must be pulling all these strings.’
‘What about Mark Proctor himself?’ Sam said.
‘But what about last night?’
‘If Mark Proctor was supposed to be the victim, he sent his decoy to his death. Perhaps that was always his intention? It deflects us and makes him look like a victim. Did he have something on Mason and got him to kill Keith Welsby? Mason was chatting to an underage girl online, or at least someone he thought was underage. I’m thinking that he was blackmailed into it, that Mason disclosed secrets he couldn’t bear to be revealed. Proctor got Mason to kill Welsby, and then Proctor killed Mason. The use of a decoy last night was just that, a decoy, not just for the killer but for us. If we keep on looking, we’ll find a better link.’
‘There’s no we in this, Sam. You can’t be near this investigation. Take a rest day. I’ll get you reassigned until the case is finished, whichever way it goes. We have to look into your brother to clear him. Or,’ and Brabham sighed, ‘we have to look into him in case he’s guilty and fooled you.’
Sam opened his mouth to object, but he knew it was pointless. Brabham had reached the same conclusion he had, that Sam was conflicted, because somewhere in this tangle of connected deaths his brother was a suspect.
As Sam got to the door, something occurred to him. ‘We can at least solve our own case. Henry Mason’s murder. If I’m right, Proctor was arrested after trying to dispose of forensic evidence. He won’t have gone home. He might have been smeared in Mason’s blood but no one noticed. Check Proctor’s custody record for Mason’s DNA. At some point, he will have touched it to sign it.’
Brabham smiled in response, but then jabbed his finger towards the door. ‘You’re off the case. Go.’
Sam turned to walk away.
Just before he was out of sight, Brabham called, ‘I hope it works out for your brother.’
‘Thank you,’ Sam said. ‘Me too.’
Fifty-seven
The air was still outside as Joe sat in his car on the edge of the moors.
He was on a gravel car park that overlooked the long spread of heather and grass, the spine of England, broken only by the occasional glint of water all the way to Derbyshire. He went there often, sometimes to walk, other times just to reflect, because it was timeless and peaceful. It was often shrouded in low cloud, or buffeted by winds that blew hard across the treeless plateau, but today everything was still, as though the weather was being respectful to what he expected to find in the box.
He’d driven some of the way with his hand on the metal lid, unsure as to whether he wanted to see inside. Sometimes it was better to be left without answers. Could his imagination match Proctor’s own sick fantasies? What was in there? Why had Ellie been chosen?
But he had to know, because there was his own guilt too. He’d felt the sharp stab when he saw the sorrow in Gerald’s eyes, the pain inflicted by Proctor many years after Ellie’s murder. Joe could have prevented that, and perhaps others, if he’d reported what he’d seen. How could he live with the true scale?
The padlock had already been broken, ten minutes with the hacksaw gaining him access, but he hadn’t lifted the lid. He considered waiting for Gerald, but he hadn’t called and Joe wanted solitude.
Joe lifted the lid slowly, putting off the moment of the reveal. It creaked. The light spread across the contents. He let out a long breath. His stomach rolled.
Everything was neat and ordered. Eleven envelopes, each with a description and a nickname. Was that because a name made them too personal? No, it was more than that, Joe realised, as he looked inside, because the envelopes were filled with photographs and newspaper clippings, like a collection of memories for each of his victims.
Ellie’s envelope was near the bottom. Bile rose in his throat when he saw the nickname on the front: Leggy fun. That described her, but it was too personal and yet remote at the same time. It was Proctor knowing her, how she was, getting too close, but yet reduced to a description, not even a name.
Joe lifted out the contents carefully. There might be traces of Proctor on them, his DNA, or fingerprints on photographs, and they might be crucial. He placed them in the seat and put the box into the passenger footwell. His throat closed and tears welled in his eyes as pictures of Ellie appeared in front of him. Ellie walking home wearing large foam headphones, or hanging around near the shops, her arms folded over her chest, her legs crossed at the ankles, all teenage awkwardness and angst. In one, she was smoking, but it didn’t look natural, the cigarette jutting out between her fingers as if she was just trying it out. In another, she was smiling. That was the Ellie he remembered. The laughing girl, annoying and fun and frustrating and endearing. He hadn’t known at eighteen how much he’d loved her, but he understood it when she was gone.
Realisation hit him like a punch to the stomach. Proctor had been watching her. It wasn’t random. But why Ellie? Were all his selections random, or was there a reason he’d chosen her, down to his own preferences or something different, a common link, a shared friend?
Then another realisation filtered in: even if Joe had followed Proctor when he set off after Ellie, there would have been another time. Something about Ellie had made him want her. She was always going to be his victim. He felt some of his guilt lift but it was replaced by some more, that it wasn’t about making him feel better about himself. Or was it? Was this the whole point of it all, that it had never been about losing Ellie but about making himself feel less wrung out by guilt, because he wanted to make some right out of the wrong?
He moved the top layer of photographs and gasped.
The final picture was of Ellie lying down, her hair tangled in the leaves and soil, scrapes of red on her cheek where she’d hit the ground, but her eyes were closed, as if she was feigning sleep. But it wasn’t sleep. It was Ellie as she lay dead, her last breath squeezed out of her moments before.
He didn’t stop the tears this time. His cheeks became warm with them as he stared at the picture, his hands trembling. Proctor had photographed his dead sister as a trophy, so soon after her death that there must have still been something of her in there somewhere. Some sparks of life must have been detectable, her
precious embers glowing, like dying sparks in her brain or the final slow crawl of her blood, her heart slowly coming to a stop. It can’t have just ended like that, with whatever made her special extinguished. This picture was the epicentre, capturing the moment that everything became still, the ground under her no longer disturbed by her struggles, the pain now rippling outwards, about to hit her family, her friends.
There was something else too. She was wearing a necklace in the picture. He remembered it, a black inverted cross with a snake wrapped around it. Ellie liked it because her parents didn’t. The disapproval was the whole point, but it provoked arguments. Joe couldn’t remember it being returned to them.