by Ben Cheetham
‘A what?’
‘A Scene of Crime Officer. They gather forensic evidence.’
Fiona heaved a sigh. ‘Looks like I’m not going to be getting back to bed anytime soon then. Not that I could sleep if I did.’ Her gaze returned to the door and she shuddered again. ‘How long do you think Anna will be in Manchester for?’
‘Not long.’ It suddenly occurred to Jim that Anna would be waiting on tenterhooks to hear from him. ‘Excuse me a moment.’
He went outside and phoned her. She answered on the first ring and asked anxiously, ‘Is she OK?’
‘She’s fine. Do you want to speak to her?’
‘No. Just tell me what happened.’
‘Someone broke in the back door.’
‘The fuckers!’
‘Listen, Anna, after you speak to Heather Shanks tomorrow I want you to return to Sheffield.’
‘What about Jamal Jackson?’
‘He wasn’t taken to any of the houses. So chances are you’ll get nothing out of him we don’t already know.’
‘Yeah, but that doesn’t mean I won’t learn something that helps me track down Spider.’
‘I’m sorry, Anna, but this has gone far enough. I can’t risk you getting hurt.’
Anna’s voice grew hard with determination. ‘And I’m sorry, Jim, but unless you lock me up, you’re not going to stop me from seeing this thing through. Besides, the last thing we should be doing is backing off. What we should be doing is showing them that if they fuck with us we’ll fuck with them right back.’
‘And how do you propose we do that?’
Anna gave a humourless little grunt that suggested she knew exactly how. ‘I take it you’re going to be keeping a close eye on my mum from now on.’
‘Of course. What are you going to do?’
‘You’ll find out soon enough.’
Anna hung up. Jim stood in thoughtful, frowning silence a moment, before phoning for a SOCO. When he returned inside, Fiona was cradling a mug of tea in the living room. ‘Your daughter’s an extremely stubborn woman,’ he said.
Her lips pulled into a flat smile. ‘She’s always been the same. Once she makes up her mind to do something, there’s no stopping her.’
Jim turned at the sound of footsteps and saw Reece. ‘Any luck?’
Reece shook his head. ‘I’ve spoken to both sets of neighbours. Nobody saw or heard anything.’
Jim wasn’t surprised. Villiers and his accomplices didn’t hire amateurs to do their dirty work. ‘Forensics will be here soon. Not that I expect them to find anything.’
‘Can I have a word before they get here?’ asked Reece.
Jim guessed at once what Reece wanted to have a word about. He followed the big detective into the back garden. ‘You’ve obviously rattled a few cages,’ said Reece. ‘I take it there have been developments.’
‘You take it right.’ In a low voice, Jim brought Reece up to speed on everything that had happened since they’d spoken on Saturday.
Reece blew out an astonished breath. ‘Jesus. Well no one can say putting the names out there didn’t get things moving. Does the DCS know about this Spider’s connection to Jessica—’
Jim made a quick shushing motion. ‘The only people who know about that are you, me and Anna Young. And that’s the way it’s going to stay. At least until I find out what Heather has to say to Anna.’
‘You’re taking a big risk, Jim.’
‘I know,’ he said heavily. ‘But what other choice do I have?’
It didn’t take Anna long to track down Thomas Villiers’ address on the internet, even though his telephone was ex-directory. A small fee bought her access to the most recent electoral roll. Villiers lived in the well-heeled Sheffield suburb of Dore. A Diane Villiers was registered to the same address. His wife, no doubt. The slimy little scumbag probably had kids too. A dog. All that crap. Every trapping of respectability and normality provided another layer of protection between who he appeared to be and who he really was.
Next, Anna looked up Linda Kirby’s phone number. Ever since her daughter Grace’s murder, Linda had been loudly campaigning for the death penalty to be reinstated. She and her supporters had gathered thousands of signatures and marched to 10 Downing Street to present them to the Prime Minister. She made no bones about it. Her ultimate wish was to look into Freddie Harding’s eyes as he drew his last breath. It wasn’t going to happen, of course. The death penalty was an issue no right-minded politician would touch. But that hadn’t deterred her. Anna had spoken to her once at a rally for signatures outside Sheffield City Hall. She’d told her about Jessica’s abduction. Not because she thought Linda would be able to help her, but because it felt good to talk to someone who could even remotely understand how she felt. Linda was a small, timid-looking woman. But she’d spoken with the fervour of a newly converted believer about how prison was too good for men like Freddie Harding, adding conspiratorially, ‘Shall I tell you what I really think, Anna? Even a lethal injection’s too good for filth like him. If it was up to me, I’d do to him what he did to those poor girls. I’d break his bones one by one, gouge out his eyes, pull out his teeth. And when he was finally dead, I’d string him up by his balls for all to see.’
Anna didn’t doubt for a second that Linda had meant what she said. She’d never heard such pure anger as there was in her voice. Her own parents’ anger had been leavened with a heartbreaking sadness. There’d been no sadness in Linda’s voice, only an all-consuming desire for bloody retribution. Instead of destroying Linda, Grace’s murder had remade her in its own brutal image. Anna had spent countless hours wondering what she would do if she ever found Jessica’s abductors. Would she seek Old Testament justice? An eye for an eye. Or would she let the law take its course? The answer depended on her mood. Usually she pictured them rotting in prison. But sometimes in the dead of night, she fantasised about hurting them badly and slowly.
Linda picked up the phone and asked, ‘Who the bloody hell’s this?’
‘It’s Anna Young. We spoke once about my sister Jessica.’
‘Anna Young?’ Linda’s voice softened. ‘Oh yes, I remember. What can I do for you, love?’
‘I’m sorry for waking you, but there’s something I think you ought to know.’ Anna told Linda about Herbert Winstanley’s book and how the authorities had been shielding the names in it from public exposure. She went into particular detail about Thomas Villiers – his connections to Grace’s murderers; where he worked; where he lived.
‘Christ, how could they let him near those kids knowing what they know?’ Linda asked incredulously.
‘I’ve been asking myself that since I found out about the book. As far as I can see, it comes down to two things: who he is and who he knows.’
‘Well that bastard’s going to find out who I am and who I know.’
That same throat-clogging rage was back in Linda’s voice. Anna permitted herself a faint smile of satisfaction at the thought that life was about to get very uncomfortable indeed for Villiers. ‘Do you have internet access?’
‘Yes. I’d never used a computer in my life before Grace was killed. Now I can’t get by without one.’
‘Search for me and Herbert Winstanley. You’ll find the full list of names.’
‘Will do. And I’ll let you know what I’m going to do about Villiers.’ Linda drew in a deep breath – a breath that said she’d been ready for this moment for a long time. ‘I’ll tell you this right now, Anna. We’re going to show all of them we won’t take any more. Enough is enough.’
Anna said goodbye, cracked open the curtains and sat watching for the dawn. Tiredness burnt behind her eyes. Not the tiredness of sleep. There was too much adrenalin coursing through her for that. It was the bone-tiredness of years of searching, years of frustration and pain. Linda was right, enough was fucking enough.
7
Nine a.m. seemed to take forever to arrive. The minute the bank opened, Anna hurried inside and withdrew the money Jim had t
ransferred to her account. She fought her way through the morning traffic back to Heather’s maisonette and hammered on its door. Kyle appeared in boxer shorts and the same vest he’d been wearing the previous day. He scowled blearily at Anna. ‘What the fuck do you want?’
‘What do you think?’ Anna patted her coat pocket. ‘I’ve got what we agreed on.’
‘You can keep your money. We don’t want it.’
Anna frowned. ‘But we had a deal. Three thousand for the information.’
Kyle’s lips curled up over his stained teeth. ‘Fuck your three thousand. I wouldn’t give you the shit from my arse for that much.’
Anna saw the gleam in Kyle’s eyes and guessed immediately what had happened – someone had come in with a far superior offer. Coupled with the events of the night, it added up to one obvious conclusion – the police department was as leaky as a broken tap. She craned her neck to see past Kyle. ‘Heather! It’s Anna Young.’
‘Keep your voice down. You’ll wake Leah. She’s not feeling well.’
Ignoring him, Anna continued, ‘Don’t do this to yourself, Heather. No matter how much they’re paying you, it’s not worth it.’
Kyle thrust his face close to hers. ‘One more word from you and I’m gonna fetch the dog.’
Her nose wrinkling at the stink of his morning breath, Anna held her ground just long enough to let him know she wasn’t afraid. Then she walked away.
‘And don’t come back here, bitch,’ he shouted after her.
When she was out of Kyle’s sight, Anna phoned Jim and said, ‘Someone got to Heather. She’s refusing to talk to me.’
‘Shit.’ Jim’s voice was sharp with disappointment. ‘And we were so close too. Do you think you can change her mind?’
‘I don’t know. If I could get her away from that arsehole she lives with, maybe I could talk her around. But that would take time.’
‘Might as well give it a shot. What else have you got to do?’
Anna considered telling Jim about the Horned God lead. Lying to him didn’t sit easily with her. But now that Heather had been silenced – probably through the same mix of money and intimidation as in ’89 – she felt even more protective about the lead. ‘Nothing.’ She quickly changed the subject. ‘Any news on the break-in?’
‘There were no prints left behind, and no one saw anything.’
‘Did you expect any different?’
‘No. These people know what they’re doing. They’ve been getting away with this for a long time.’
‘Yeah, well not much longer if I can help it.’
Anna hung up and located Moonchild and The Mystic Palace on Google maps. She fully intended to talk to Heather again, but not until she’d found out where the lead took her. The shops were on opposite sides of the city centre. She started the van and headed for the closest. Moonchild was a tiny place on a backstreet whose faded sign depicted a sickle moon in a starry sky. The gloomy interior was thick with burning incense and cluttered with astrological candles, healing crystals, books on myths and magic, tarot cards, pagan jewellery, Ouija boards and all manner of other mystical tat. A man with long greying hair was sitting behind the counter. A rack of keyrings caught Anna’s eye. She rotated it and her stomach gave a squeeze. There it was! The exact same keyring that had fallen out of Spider’s pocket. She unhooked it from the rack and ran her fingers over its curved horns and bearded goat-like face. She took out the Gliderol key and attached it to the keyring, before approaching the counter.
‘Six quid, please,’ said the man.
Anna paid him. ‘This is the Horned God, right?’
‘That’s one of his names. I call him Old Horny myself, obviously because of the horns, but also because, well, he’s a horny old bugger.’ He pointed to a bookshelf. ‘If you’re interested, I’ve got some books about him.’
‘Thanks, but no thanks.’ Anna withdrew the police sketch. ‘What I’m really interested in is if you recognise this man. You might know him as William Keyes or Spider. He has a spider’s web tattoo on his chest.’
‘A spider’s web tattoo, you say.’ There was a glimmer of recognition in the man’s eyes. As he took a long look at the sketch, the glimmer solidified into certainty. ‘Now that’s a face I haven’t seen in a long time. He used to come in here,’ he puffed his cheeks, ‘it must be twenty-odd years ago. He didn’t call himself either of the names you mentioned, though. He called himself by his pagan name. Clotho Daeja. It means deadly demon. He was a bloody odd character.’
‘How do you mean, odd?’
‘I mean he wasn’t a very nice bloke. He had some, shall we say, extreme views.’
‘About human sacrifice?’
A trace of wariness came into the man’s expression. ‘Let’s just say he was the kind of pagan who gives the rest of us a bad name. Why are you so interested in him anyway?’
‘He…’ Anna searched for the right words, ‘stole something from me.’
‘Well unless it was something you can’t do without, I’d steer well clear of him.’
‘When was the last time you saw him?’
‘Like I said, twenty something years ago. Maybe in ’89 or ’90. I had to ban him from the shop. He was pestering the customers, trying to convert them to what he called the real Wicca.’
‘What’s the real Wicca?’
‘There’s no such thing. Paganism’s what you make it. I told him that and he flipped out. Called me a fake. Threatened to burn this place down. He reckoned he was going to show the world what it means to be a true Wiccan.’
‘And you’ve never heard from him since?’
The man shook his head. ‘I never want to hear from him either. Good riddance to bad rubbish, that’s what I say.’
Anna thanked him and returned to the camper van. She sat frowning thoughtfully at the keyring for a long moment. There was a faint smile on the bearded face. Almost like a taunt. She took out her iPhone and Googled ‘Clotho Daeja’. Nothing of interest came up. She tried again, including the search term ‘real Wicca’. This time she got a list of links to articles with titles such as ‘How to become a Wiccan’ and ‘What is Wicca?’. She repeated her search with slight variations until she found a link that caught her eye. It was entitled ‘The True Wiccan’. It took her to a database of UK pagan shops and practices. The entry read ‘I am the True Wiccan. I do not sell New Age fakery. I sell the truth. Come and see me if that’s what you’re looking for.’
The truth. The words stood out as though they’d been written in blood. It was like some sort of mocking echo of her blog’s title. There was a phone number under the listing but no address. The number had a Leeds area code. She dialled it. She struggled to stay calm as the dial tone rang. Someone picked up.
‘Hello.’ It was a man’s voice with a broad Yorkshire accent.
Despite herself, Anna’s heart was thumping in her mouth as she asked, ‘Am I speaking to the True Wiccan?’
‘Who?’
‘Are you the True Wiccan?’
‘Sorry, I think you’ve got the wrong number.’
Anna told the man the number she’d dialled. ‘That’s my number,’ he confirmed. ‘But I’ve no idea who the True Wiccan is. Maybe they were a previous tenant. You could try speaking to my landlord. Do you want his number?’
‘Please.’
The man gave Anna another Leeds number. She dialled it and got an answering service message. ‘This is Tony Hulten Lettings.’ Once again, the voice had a nasal Yorkshire accent. ‘There’s no one in the office right now, but if you leave a—’
Anna cut off the message and Googled ‘Tony Hulten Lettings’. She found a listing with an address in Harehills, Leeds. Feeling slightly deflated, but relieved that the lead was still tenuously alive, she studied a road map, then threw the camper van into gear.
Jim sifted through the statements volunteered by those named in Herbert’s book. All of them were as well-rehearsed as a politician’s speech. And all of them led to the same place the investigat
ion had been going both before and after its suspension – nowhere. ‘Shit,’ he muttered for about the tenth time since speaking to Anna. No matter what moves he made, Villiers and Co always seemed to be one ahead, backing him further and further into a corner. A cornered animal was often the most dangerous, but if none of the Hopeland victims talked he might yet prove to be something of a toothless lion. He wasn’t simply interested in what the victims had to say. After all, Brennan had already coaxed most of that out of them. It wasn’t even getting the names of their abusers that mattered most to him. As Garrett had pointed out, a good solicitor would tear them to shreds in court for withdrawing their statements. No, what he wanted most was a sign that one of them was willing to break the dam of silence. The abuse had been going on for decades. It involved a network of people spread the length and breadth of the country. There had to be dozens more victims like Debbie, Heather and Jamal out there. If they saw that one person had the courage to speak out, perhaps they would come forward. And then one would become two, three, four… Until finally sheer weight of numbers would make it impossible for their accusations to be ignored. But they had to find that one elusive person, otherwise the dam would remain intact.
Reece and Scott Greenwood entered the office. In the light of day, Reece looked if anything even more tired than he had before the weekend. His wired, bloodshot eyes suggested the stress of dealing with Staci’s illness was getting on top of him. Scott looked the same as he always did – smart, alert, solid. ‘We’re kind of at a loose end,’ he said.
Jim sighed. ‘You and me both. Have you got anything else you could be working on?’
‘Plenty.’
‘Then go do it.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Scott, but he remained where he was, waiting to hear what Jim had to say to Reece.
Jim wafted him out of the room. ‘I’ll give you a shout if I need you.’
‘I take it it’s not going well with the Hopeland victims,’ Reece said, when they were alone.
‘It’s that obvious, is it?’