by Steven Dunne
Brook emptied out an A4 wallet crammed with crime scene photographs showing serious-looking men with baggy trousers, white lab coats and thick, round spectacles sifting through the wreckage of the shed. The blackened, locked padlock, attached to the twisted remains of the metal hasp, was photographed on the ground next to a twelve-inch ruler.
Brook wondered aimlessly if the padlock was still in storage anywhere. Not that seeing it would be of any value. No fingerprints, partial or otherwise, had been discovered on any of the metal components.
Brook took out his notebook and a pen from the jar on his table but hesitated over the blank page. ‘Nineteen sixty-three! Am I really going to do this?’
After an internal debate, Brook wrote, ‘Screaming?’ then skimmed back over the witness statements of Billy’s parents, sisters and fellow partygoers. Not one report of anyone hearing screams. Had Billy already inhaled a lethal dose of toxic smoke by the time the fire was discovered? Possible. If he had screamed, had the noise in the house been so loud that Billy couldn’t be heard? What about neighbours? None of them had mentioned screaming in their statements either. Given the struggle evidenced by the damage to Billy’s hands, screaming in panic would be a natural response. But perhaps the intense toxic fumes had made it impossible to inhale sufficiently for an audible cry.
Brook reread the statements from four of the Stanforths’ neighbours. Several had seen Brendan McCleary walking along Moor Lane towards the Stanforth house before the fire. No one had seen him entering or leaving the Stanforth property or walking back to his home in Pole’s Road less than a mile away.
‘But it was winter and it would be dark and cold, so curtains would be drawn.’
Brook scanned the witness list at the front of the file again, stopping at Charlotte Dilkes’s name. Next to her entry, DC Walter Laird had recorded the date of her death – June 1964.
Only six months after Billy Stanforth’s death. Interesting.
Brook thought no more of it before coming across a further note about her demise. He checked the signature at the bottom of the page. Again Walter Laird, now a DS, had written it.
Brook skimmed the account of Charlotte’s sad but banal death. She had gone out to play on her own in nearby fields and had fallen into a pond. The pond wasn’t large or particularly deep but Charlotte was small for her age and, unable to swim or clamber out, had drowned in just five feet of water. She was only thirteen years old. There were no witnesses and no signs of force or trauma on her little body. The inquest had returned a verdict of accidental death.
Interestingly, in spite of the inquest, DS Laird had seen fit to interview Brendan McCleary and Amelia Stanforth in an attempt to establish a connection between the deaths of Billy Stanforth and Charlotte Dilkes. Brook sat back to ponder this. Perhaps Laird had been convinced that one, or both, of them had murdered Amelia’s brother, Billy. Why they might then have decided to kill Charlotte was unknown but if she was a witness to Billy’s murder they might have decided to cover their tracks.
A moment later, Brook shook his head. It was a bit thin. If Charlotte Dilkes had witnessed something during Billy’s murder, presumably she would have given evidence to that effect during the original inquiry.
Brook finished reading Laird’s notes – neither Brendan McCleary nor Amelia Stanforth had an alibi for the approximate time of Charlotte’s death. McCleary, by then an eighteen year old, claimed he was out fishing, though nobody could be found to corroborate that, and sixteen-year-old Amelia said she was alone in her bedroom. So at the time of the drowning, the two were less than half a mile from the scene, although this wasn’t enough to affect the coroner’s verdict.
Brook turned to the final wallet in the file – photographs of the partygoers taken before the fire. He took them out and picked through them. There were only a dozen, mostly taken by Mr Stanforth because he was only in one of them – a family shot taken of Bert and his wife Ruth, smiling happily with Billy and his twin Francesca, each sitting on a parent’s knee. Presumably elder sister Amelia had taken this snap because she was missing from the family group.
All four wore a folded newspaper, in lieu of a party hat, and the kind of jovial, crooked-toothed grins that traditionally made Americans bemoan the complete absence of dental surgeries in the UK.
Other pictures showed bright-eyed, thin-limbed children enjoying the luxury of orange squash and trifle, playing various party games and generally grinning happily for Bert Stanforth’s camera. Unlike digital cameras, however, there was no data that could give a clue as to what time, and in what order, these pictures had been taken so Brook had to piece them together the best he could.
He turned to the back of each photo. There was a developer’s stamp on all of them, J.E. Browns of Derby, and a date – 20 January 1964 – nearly a month after Billy’s death. Assuming it wouldn’t take as long as a month to develop photographs, even in those days, Brook surmised that these pictures had been forgotten about in the aftermath of the tragedy. Later, they must have been sent for processing, whether by the Stanforths or detectives, Brook couldn’t be sure.
The final three photographs in the pile were shots of the entire gathering, much like schools would take an end-of-year picture of an entire class. One had been taken inside the house and two had been taken earlier in the afternoon, in the garden, while still light. Bert Stanforth was absent from all three and presumably behind the camera. The rest of the family, including Amelia, were in shot, as were all of Billy’s friends and schoolmates. Billy was arm in arm with one particular lightly built boy as they leered at the camera.
One of the garden pictures was similar to the image taken in the house – a group shot. The other picture was clearly a dry run, a failed attempt to take the ensemble photo, which had ended in disarray. The assembly had broken up and children were scattering in all directions, looking towards a dog which had run across the garden and distracted them. The dog was visible at the edge of the shot being collared by a young arm out of the frame. The arm sported a bracelet so – assuming boys didn’t wear jewellery in 1963 – must have belonged to one of the girls.
In both outdoor pictures, the sky was darkening and the wind was getting up. Several people were hanging on to their paper hats and some girls were pushing down their billowing skirts.
Brook plucked a large fist of used Blu-Tack from a drawer and arranged all the photographs on a large whiteboard, putting them in the best chronological order he could come up with. He looked carefully at each picture in turn.
Brook found a sheet of tracing paper at the bottom of the packet of photographs. It had been used to trace around the figures in one of the group photographs and, helpfully, whoever had gone to that trouble had put a name to each member of the shot. Brook looked at the three group photographs then Blu-Tacked the sheet of tracing paper above the second picture taken in the garden. Everyone but Bert Stanforth had been named on it.
When he’d finished, he turned again to the list of witnesses at the front of the file. In the fifty intervening years, the list had been amended many times by reviewing officers, as people who were there that afternoon had passed away.
Brook scrolled down the list of names. Amelia Stanforth and Edward Mullen, Billy’s best friend, were both still alive four years ago when Greatorix had reviewed the case. So were three other school friends of Billy’s though only Edna Spencer (nee Hibbert) still lived in Derby. Brendan McCleary was also alive and living in the city. All the other people in the photographs were either dead or untraceable.
Bert Stanforth had died, in 1976, at the age of sixty-five. His wife Ruth had followed in 1981. Beside both their names and dates of death were the initials ‘NC’ – natural causes.
Brook’s finger came to rest on the name of Billy’s twin sister, Francesca Stanforth. She had died in 1968 at the tender age of just eighteen. Significantly, she had died on her birthday which, as Billy’s twin, was also the fifth anniversary of her brother’s death – 22 December. Her date of death was f
ollowed by the initials ‘AD’ – accidental death. There were no other details, which suggested that her death had been properly investigated before being deemed an accident.
Brook was solemn. Mr and Mrs Stanforth had buried two of their three children – the unspoken dread of all parents. Worse, they had both died on their shared birthday, five years apart. Brook’s thoughts drifted to his daughter, Terri. It was against nature to outlive your offspring. They were the future. They carried the torch forward when you fell. Brook resolved to ring Terri to arrange a visit at the earliest opportunity.
He gazed again at the group photographs from the party – all those happy smiling faces just hours before tragedy had struck.
Correction: assuming Billy’s killing had not been spur-of-the-moment, maybe one of them was not happy, maybe one of them was harbouring murder in their heart. Yet, apart from Mr and Mrs Stanforth, all the suspects were children. Today, though still horrifying, thirteen year olds committing murder was all too plausible. In the sixties, the idea would have been greeted with shock and disbelief.
Brook’s pen hovered above the notebook. With a sudden shake of the head, he tossed both aside. Interesting case but see it for what it is, Damen – bureaucratic form-filling.
He looked once more at the three group pictures on the display board on his dingy wall then at Billy Stanforth’s grinning, leering face. ‘Sorry, Billy,’ he said. ‘I’m sure better men than I have tried to give you justice.’ He shook his now empty flask, hauled himself up and stepped wearily into the corridor.
He knocked on Copeland’s door and marched in without waiting for a reply. He caught the tail end of Copeland’s arm moving to cover something on the table. Under his arm Brook could see the spine of a folder much newer than the ones he’d been handed.
‘I’m just going to get a tea from the vending machine,’ said Brook. He eyed Copeland, his arm still held self-consciously across the folder, although his demeanour tried to convince Brook that his position was natural. ‘Want one?’
Copeland glanced beyond Brook to the far corner of his room and Brook followed his gaze to a kettle, a packet of tea bags and a carton of milk that he hadn’t spotted earlier when Charlton had brought him down to meet his new colleague.
‘Help yourself,’ said Copeland. ‘I get through about twelve cups a day. You don’t want to be drinking filth out of a vending machine.’
‘That’s why I bring a flask,’ answered Brook. ‘But I’m empty.’
‘Boredom,’ said Copeland. ‘Pointless denying it,’ he added, when Brook began to prepare a rebuttal. ‘It’s the nature of the beast – sitting around in grimy rooms reading ancient history makes you thirsty.’
‘But you get used to it.’
‘Give it a few months,’ Copeland replied.
‘God forbid,’ said Brook before he could stop himself. He glanced at the single picture frame on Copeland’s desk. A string of rosary beads was draped over it. Brook edged round to see the photograph’s subject but couldn’t get a good angle without going to stand beside Copeland. ‘You’ve cracked one of these cases without DNA, you said.’
‘I wouldn’t do the job otherwise,’ replied Copeland.
‘How does that work?’
‘Like I said, sometimes a killer forgets what lies he’s told and gives himself away or an eyewitness remembers some apparently unimportant detail.’
‘Deathbed confessions?’ suggested Brook.
‘That can happen as well and it’s good to get closure but it doesn’t count as a win,’ said Copeland. ‘To chalk up a result, there has to be some notion that the doer faces earthly justice as a result of our inquiries.’
‘Earthly justice?’ said Brook, glancing again at the rosary. He tried to keep the cynicism out of his voice. ‘You mean, before God has his say.’
Copeland’s answering smile was thin. ‘You’re not a religious man, I think.’ Brook declined to answer. ‘Nor was I, once. Not until. . .’ Copeland halted, before smiling more effusively. ‘There comes a point in every man’s life when he realises he has to make amends.’ He glanced sadly at the picture on his desk before closing his eyes to remember.
‘Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done.’
Brook studied him briefly. ‘Tennyson.’
Copeland looked up in surprise. ‘You know “Ulysses”. I’m impressed.’
Brook raided his own memory.
‘Come, my friends,
’Tis not too late to seek a newer world.’
‘They said you were bright,’ said Copeland softly. ‘Too bright to believe in God?’
‘It’s not that,’ said Brook. ‘I was raised a Catholic.’
‘What then?’
Brook wasn’t sure he wanted to be drawn into a theological discussion. ‘Like Tennyson, I believe redemption has to be earned in life. Religion condones the worst sinners performing appalling acts by allowing them to wipe the slate clean with one act of contrition, one deathbed confession.’
‘So you don’t believe in forgiveness,’ said Copeland.
‘Not from a third party,’ said Brook. ‘We can forgive ourselves once redemption is earned through deeds, not mumbling a few words at a priest as you slip away.’
‘My God,’ said Copeland. ‘What happened to harden your heart against us poor sinners?’ He smiled at Brook. ‘Or was it something you did?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The worst poachers make the best gamekeepers, Brook.’
‘Do they?’
‘And have you?’ asked Copeland, a thin smile on his lips.
‘Have I what?’ inquired Brook.
‘Forgiven yourself.’
Brook was uncomfortable but held Copeland’s gaze. ‘Have any of us?’
Copeland blinked and his eyes flicked towards the photograph on his desk, before returning to Brook, a tentative smile appearing on his face. ‘Help yourself to tea whenever you like, Brook.’
‘Tomorrow perhaps.’ Brook turned to the door, glad to be leaving. ‘I didn’t bring a mug. Besides, I need to see daylight at least once before I go back to my dungeon.’
‘They’re not the best rooms, are they?’ said Copeland. ‘Not a lot of money floating around the budget for this kind of work.’
‘Not a lot of staff either,’ said Brook.
‘Don’t tell me you’re missing the warmth of human companionship,’ mocked Copeland. ‘I was told you were a loner.’
‘I’m used to having a partner to throw ideas at.’
‘You mean a dogsbody to show off to,’ grinned Copeland. ‘Don’t deny it, Brook. I was a DCI. I know how much ego can influence the clear-up. It’s pointless having skills if there’s no one around to appreciate them.’
Brook threw another discreet glance at the folder under Copeland’s arm and left the room.
Ten
Brook sipped his bitter tea in the car park, determined to enjoy the cold fresh air and fading daylight in spite of the gunmetal sky and dipping temperature. He was unaware of the two men, one a photographer with a telescopic lens at the perimeter fence, the other, a small rotund man grinning maliciously as he pointed at Brook. The cameraman responded by training his camera on the DI as he drained his cup and turned to walk back into the building, oblivious to the scrutiny he was under.
Noble walked round the corner, lighting a cigarette in a cupped hand. ‘Three times in one day.’ He smiled. ‘You might as well have kept your old office.’
‘I wish,’ retorted Brook.
‘How goes it?’
‘It’s like being in prison,’ said Brook, repeating his earlier grumble to Copeland.
‘You’ll get used to it. Cigarette?’ asked Noble, making no move to produce the packet.
‘I’ve given up, John. For good this time.’
‘It won’t last,’ retorted a grinning Noble. ‘And it’s expensive for me from the day you’re smoking again until the day you accept you’re
smoking again.’
‘Thanks for the vote of confidence,’ replied Brook. He crushed his plastic beaker and set off back into the building. Before he was out of sight, he turned back to Noble. ‘By the way, John, a word to the wise. Expect a visit from Copeland soon.’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Noble. ‘I’ve already spoken to him. I bigged you up, good and proper.’
Brook closed his eyes in pain. ‘Meaning?’
Having found his target, Noble grinned again. ‘I gave you a glowing testimonial – nearly had myself in tears, I can tell you.’
‘That’s nice but he won’t be asking about that.’
‘Oh?’
‘I think he’s looking over the Wallis and Ingham files.’
‘He’s re-opening the Reaper killings?’ said Noble, suddenly animated. ‘Those are our cases. At least the Derby murders.’
Brook shrugged. ‘They’re unsolved. That’s what he does.’
‘And he had the brass neck to tell you he was looking.’
‘Not exactly. I went in to speak to him and he covered up the file he was looking at.’
‘Then how do you know it was the Reaper file?’ asked Noble. ‘Maybe he was looking over his sister’s murder again, like Rob said.’
‘Possible, but the file looked too new for that. Besides, why hide it unless he was embarrassed?’
‘He might be embarrassed looking over a file that’s personal to him.’
Brook conceded with a gesture. ‘You could be right. But best to be forewarned.’
‘Makes no difference,’ said Noble. ‘He can look all he wants; he won’t find anything at our end. We did everything we could and we did it by the book.’ Remembering Brook’s recent suspension, Noble’s eyes betrayed a glimpse of doubt. ‘Didn’t we?’
Brook’s answer didn’t reassure. ‘I think so.’