Flowers for the Dead

by Barbara Copperthwaite

  I’LL ALWAYS LOVE IRENE,

  SAYS LOVER CAGED FOR HER MURDER

  A man jailed for the horrifying murder of Irene McBride has today sensationally protested his innocence.

  Speaking from his cell, John Hammond exclusively told our reporter that he would always love his former girlfriend.

  “I’m innocent. I couldn’t have killed her, I loved her. All the evidence was just circumstantial – there’s no proof I did it,” he says.

  The 24-year-old nurse was found brutally murdered in her Inverness home almost a year ago, on 26 June 2011. She had been strangled and suffocated.

  But Hammond, Irene’s ex-boyfriend, claims a mystery man broke into her home and killed her.

  “She had told me there was a bloke who was after her. I don’t know who he was, but I’m sure he was the one who did it. The police refused to listen to my story though,” claims Hammond, 24.

  Detectives and the prosecution dismiss claims of a miscarriage of justice. They are convinced they have the right person.

  “All the evidence points to Hammond. I have no doubt in my mind that we arrested the right man,” says Detective Chief Inspector Lafferty.

  “He was the only one with motive and opportunity. Friends and family all bravely gave evidence under oath that Irene and Hammond had split up acrimoniously just before her death.

  “He used his key to her home to gain entry, then brutally murder her following an argument that was heard by her neighbours. There was no mystery man. There was only Hammond and his killer instinct.”

  The prosecution also made much of the flowers laid on and around Irene’s body. She was found with a bouquet of lisianthus blooms placed on her chest, and also surrounding her corpse.

  “It’s a clear sign that whoever did this loved Irene and felt regret. Who else could that have been but Hammond?” says DI Lafferty.

  But as Hammond starts his life sentence, after being found guilty of murder at Inverness Crown Court yesterday, he continues to protest his innocence. “Irene’s killer is still out there. People must believe me.”

  Mike frowns as he finishes reading, and craves a cigarette. Instead he drags on the e-cigarette thing he had bought earlier that day. He is willing to bet this John Hammond bloke was caught bang to rights. But there is one thing that has made the detective pause.

  His girlfriend’s body was lovingly laid out, surrounded by flowers and a posy on top. Just like Julie Clayton.

  It is not much but it is enough to pique Mike’s interest. He will look into the McBride case – it isn’t as if he has much else to do.

  The very next day he requests the case file of Irene McBride. As he reads his elbows rest on his desk among a drift of notes, stained but empty mugs, and a couple of packets of crisps. He can see why Hammond had gone down for this, his story sounds like a load of cock and bull. Mike is tempted to dismiss it himself.

  Hammond and his off-on girlfriend of two years had split not long before the murder. Irene had told friends it was permanent this time. On the night of the incident neighbours had overheard a man and woman arguing in the house, then seen Hammond hurrying from the scene. Forensics put her time of death at around the same time. What’s more, there was no sign of a break in – and Hammond had been the only one with a key to the house, beside Irene herself.

  Everything pointed to an enraged ex who had exploded in anger when Irene rejected his requests to get back together.

  The twenty-four-year-old woman’s body had been found in her bedroom, laid out on her bed in traditional funereal pose, arms crossed over her chest, eyes closed. Even her brown hair had been brushed. A bunch of flowers – lisianthus, according to the report, but Mike is none the wiser for them being named - rested on her, and some were also arranged around her. A forensic psychologist had said that the way the body was laid out suggested remorse and caring, which implied it was someone close to her. Someone like Hammond.

  The nail in the coffin had been the total lack of evidence of anyone else being in the house. No fingerprints. No DNA. Nothing.

  Yet still Mike finds himself putting two and two together. He fears he is making five, but starts putting things in motion anyway, checking with his boss first that she is okay with him working on another force’s case. She agrees with a curt nod of her head and wave of her hand to dismiss him. Soon he is on the phone to Simon – and at the same time notices a new stain on his computer keyboard. As he talks he rubs at it absently.

  “I’d like to visit Hammond. My DI and DCI have agreed it’s okay with them, if it’s okay with you,” Mike says. “I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes.”

  “The main signature is the mutilation, and this McBride case doesn’t have that; I think it’s a reach,” Simon replies. “But if you really want to go have a chat with Hammond, then go ahead.”

  “Great. You’re right, it’s probably nothing. I just want to check it out so I can stop thinking about it, you know?”

  “Trust your gut,” Simon agrees. “It’s why I want you on my team. Hey, you haven’t got to go to Scotland, have you? It’ll take forever to get there and back.”

  “Nah, Hammond is originally from Nottingham, got family there still, so he transferred to an English prison. He’s down the road in Belmarsh.”

  Belmarsh is a notorious category A men’s prison on the outskirts of London, that has housed no end of hardened criminals from hate preacher Abu Hamza al-Masri to child killer Ian Huntley. Mike arranges to visit one of its lesser-known inmates the very next day. There is no time like the present.

  That night, snow falls. Daisy is so excited by the blanket of white, and makes her father help her to build a snowman. These moments of innocent joy are what cleanse him of the dirt of his job and make his life worth living.

  ***

  The world has been turned monochrome overnight. The snow lies five inches thick everywhere, only trees and branches poking through, or the odd building’s walls standing out black against the stark white. The sky is unbreakably one colour too, and would have felt oppressive but for the fact it is the softest dove grey, which subtly takes the edge off. Even the sound is different, everything quieter. There is a gentleness to snow that belies the brutal struggle for life that its arrival heralds for nature.

  Adam puts some music on to calm himself. Instead of his usual classical fare, he tries something that reminds him of Laura: Louis Armstrong. To the strains of What a Wonderful World he starts to cry, loneliness eating him alive. It isn’t fair. He has finally found happiness with the perfect woman, and now it is all being taken away from him. After everything he has done for all his women, always putting them first, killing them not because he wanted to but because they wanted him to, is it not time that life was kind to him?

  Adam has always been so in control of his emotions. It is something he prided himself on. Just lately though, he is finding it harder and harder to keep a lid on them, and right now he is losing control. The meticulous nature that he has cultivated as a wall to hide behind for protection is disappearing. The house is a mess, he has not cleaned or tidied for days.

  He throws the French doors wide open, letting in the chill breeze, and marches into the garden. Behind him he leaves a trail of footsteps in the snow. When he reaches the fence he plunges his hand down, through the white covering, until his fingers close around the died-back remains of stalks of yarrow.

  Yarrow: cure for a broken heart. Ridiculous! He yanks it from the ground, furious and bitter. Nothing can rid him of the pain he feels, and certainly not a plant.

  He hacks at the willow herb’s pretension. Kicks out at the winter cherry’s deception. Lays waste to everything he lays hands on. What is the point in communicating when no one will listen? When all of his careful plans come to nothing? Even his garden of remembrance feels his wrath. Irene, Sandra, Sharon, Alex, Julie, none of them is spared as he hacks and pulls and kicks.

  Finally, he sinks down into the snow, steam rising from his sweat despite the biting temperatu
re. His frustration is not spent, but he is exhausted and the once beautiful garden is a scene of devastation. Adam sits amongst the wreckage, panting hard. Then makes a decision.

  He cannot live without Laura any longer. No matter what the risks, he is going back to Colchester.

  As he stands, brushing the snow from his knees, someone watching might have noticed he is wearing odd socks, but Adam certainly doesn’t.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  ~ Dog Rose ~

  Pleasure And Pain

  The buzz in Adam’s head is like a phone line that has gone dead, one continuous tone that builds until it hurts. The pain spreads from behind his eyes, across his temples, and down until it encases his whole body. Only when he is in Colchester does it recede.

  This is enough, he tells himself. To just be near her home is enough.

  But he is an alcoholic telling himself that he can handle just one sip of wine. The sweet pang of being closer to Laura makes him want her all the more, and instead of sitting in his car a few streets away, watching her online, he finds himself creeping from his car to edge closer to her.

  Just one look. One glimpse of her in the flesh won’t hurt.

  His instinct is screaming at him to stop. Everything he learned from his father about the stupid mistakes criminals make that gets them caught is racing through his mind. He knows he must stay away or someone might spot him, someone from his past, and connect him with Lisa.

  But he loves Laura. He cannot stay away from her any more than salmon can resist the urge to swim upstream.

  No one notices him lurking in the darkness. No one hears his sigh of relief when he lovingly lays a hand against her windowpane as the light is switched off. No one sees him slip to the front door and quickly let himself in with an ease that would falsely suggest he has a key.

  Silent as a hunter, he creeps along Laura’s hallway and into her bedroom. Warm, comforting, peaceful: he is home in a way he has never before felt, not even at his gran’s. He exhales long and slow as he relaxes, muscles unknotting, then inhales deeply, taking in the gentle aroma of rose perfume. For a moment he leans over her and watches her breathing, takes in her long lashes brushing her pale skin, the freckles that dance over her, her red hair tumbling across the pillow.

  His hand reaches out to wake her.

  But then he pulls back, remembering what happened with Sandra. He must be patient a little longer. Until the dust settles with this Lisa business.

  ***

  Despite the sprinkling of snow that has blanketed the country, Mike is pleasantly surprised that his journey to Thamesmead, in southeast London, goes smoothly. Generally it only take a couple of snowflakes to fall for traffic chaos to ensue, trains to stop running, and drivers to crash left, right and centre. For once though the councils have got the gritters and snowploughs out at the right time, roads have been cleared, and rush hour on the A12 is just the usual nightmare, rather than taking on epic proportions.

  At a couple of minutes to nine o’clock he parks outside the vast brick complex of Belmarsh Prison. Its sheer size makes it imposing, and it seems to stretch back for miles.

  Mike has a quick puff on his vapour cigarette before going in. It looks ridiculous in his big hands and does not feel the same as the real thing, in fact, he feels a total idiot using it. As soon as he is done interviewing he will buy some cigarettes, he decides.

  With a grumpy growl, he pops the e-cig into his inside pocket, fingers brushing against his mobile phone. That reminds him to switch it off before he goes into the prison; he does not want it going off mid-interview. He is pressing the off button as he wanders towards the prison’s welcoming red doors.

  ***

  Laura arrives ten minutes early for her nine am shift, which gives her just enough time to sneak onto the work computer in the back office.

  She logs onto a website that is now starting to feel thoroughly routine despite her only using it for the last eight days. What she sees makes her stand suddenly, the chair careering back on its castors and bouncing from the far wall then falling over as she swears in shock.

  Because on the screen is a picture of a man leaning over her as she sleeps.

  Nine days earlier she had gone onto her work computer and ordered a security camera, convinced that her own home might be under surveillance. She has heard news stories of the CIA years ago being able to use people’s mobile phones as microphones to listen in to conversations. This is not the stuff of conspiracy theorists; the America law enforcement agency has successfully gone to court and used the recordings gathered this way to prosecute mob bosses. It has made her wary of her own technology, in case someone is monitoring it. Someone watching her every move, listening to her conversations, perhaps even reading her text messages.

  So she had acted normally in her home, in order to lull her stalker into a false sense of security. Then used her work computer while no one was watching.

  Act dumb, box clever.

  The camera had been delivered to work the following day. Setting it up without being seen had been hard as she had no idea where she might be being watched from. It had involved her sneaking it into her home under her jumper then surreptitiously putting it in place under the guise of doing some energetic dancing round the room.

  It has all been worth it though. The sneaking around. Pretending to be comfortable at home when in reality it makes her flesh creep. All so she can get a picture of her stalker to prove his existence and help police track him down.

  Still, it is a shock seeing him. The noise of her reaction makes her boss hurry in as she is quickly logging off.

  “Everything okay?” Anthony asks. Looks at the office chair on its side, Laura’s white face and fever-bright eyes. “What’s happened? You look peaky.”

  “I’ve, err, got terrible stomach cramps. I think it’s a bug, it’s come from nowhere.” She holds her stomach and grimaces, she hopes not too theatrically.

  “Right, you’d better get home, I’m not having you handling food if you might be infectious.”

  He chivvies her from the office as if the hounds of hell were chasing him, as she had hoped he would.

  It takes her several minutes to pull on her hat, coat, scarf and gloves, ready to face the snow outside again. It does not help that she is trembling with glee at her victory. The plan has worked!

  It is ten past nine by the time she is hurrying home once more. On the way, she pulls out her mobile. She has not dared use it for days, fearing the messages would be intercepted, but with nothing to lose now she sends DS Michael Bishop a text message.

  “Got him!” she writes, and attaches a grainy photograph of her nemesis.

  Then she makes a quick call, putting the next part of her plan into action.

  ***

  Adam is sitting outside Laura’s flat trying to decide what to do. Should he go back to Birmingham? Or find a bed and breakfast to check into, and risk staying in the area? His heart is arguing one thing, his head another, and between the two of them he is trapped in place, sitting unmoving in his car.

  His phone vibrates with a message, making him jolt in surprise.

  It is from Laura to that policeman. Adam opens it, reads it, and white-hot anger explodes. Despite his warning to Laura just a handful of days ago, she has betrayed him again. He slides his hand into his jacket pocket, feels the comforting shape of the slim box that contains his scalpel. Soon it will be parting flesh once more, and Laura’s glorious lips will join his garden of remembrance.

  His phone vibrates again, this time to let him know Laura is talking. He quickly logs on to the website that lets him listen in. He is too late to listen live, but it has recorded everything.

  What Adam hears makes him curl his hands into fists and punch the steering wheel. The bitch really has done a number on him. Clearly she does not realise the full extent of what she is up against though – but he is used to being underestimated, by his mum, his dad, endless women. Even in anger he is as patient as time, as inevitable
as the tide coming in; there is no escape once Adam makes his mind up. He will teach Laura a lesson for hurting him in a way no one else has managed since his mother.

  His mother…. He had not thought of her for so long, successfully banishing her from his life, but these last few weeks she seems to be haunting him.

  With time to kill before he gets to work on Laura, he drives away, lured by an irresistible urge that has been stirred by thinking of Sara. On the way, he stops at a florist a few miles away.

  “Just these, please,” he says, picking up a spray of dried, bright yellow flowers.

  The young florist gives him a smile. “Are you looking for a bouquet? How about one of these instead?” She gestures to buckets full of pretty arrangements.

  “Just th-these thanks.” Adam pulls out a note, holds it out.

  The florist does not take it. “It’s just, the flowers you have aren’t really sold in bunches, they’re dried and used as pretty filler flowers in a bouquet,” she explains.

  “They-they-they’re exactly what I’m looking for,” breathes Adam.

  He seems so adamant that she stops arguing; after all, the customer is always right.

  Tansy is the perfect flower for this moment, Adam feels. Its meaning? A declaration of war. This is what he will lay on Laura’s body, so that the world knows what she has forced him to do.

  Before he gets round to her though, there is one more thing he wants to do.

  ***

  John Hammond sits in a visitor’s room in prison with his arms crossed and a stubbornly defensive look on his face. Despite being twenty-nine, he still looks as gangly as a teenager. He must have been stretched out on a rack as a child, Mike thinks as he looks at the way the prisoner’s arms seemed to stick out awkwardly. Endless legs stretch out in front of Hammond, whose foot waggles back and forth like a metronome on its fastest setting.