by Michael Kerr
Pete appeared at the open and badly damaged kitchen door. “We’ve got something, boss,” he said, “But not much. The only living relative Harris appears to have is an aunt. She’s in her mid-eighties now and in a care home over at Brentwood.”
“That’s our next port of call, then,” Matt said. “You’re with me. Tam can stay here and look around and wait for the techies. Errol can go back to the squad room and be on call if we need him.”
“With any luck Harris will have used the M25 or some major road with CCTV coverage.” Pete said as Matt drove northeast to pick up the A12, which would soon bring them to Brentwood.
“I think he’s too cute to do that,” Matt said. “I’d stick to back roads, change the plates on the car ASAP, and dump it when I got within walking distance of where I’d decided to go. He could have parked at a tube station and be at the other side of the city by now.”
“You reckon?”
“No, Pete. This is the area he knows. He could already be in some isolated spot, content to let the manhunt run its initial course before he even thinks of moving on.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
VIOLET Pearson had no idea what day it was, or who the prime minister of the day might be, or where she was now living. Certain things seemed to be clearer than others, and she had her lucid moments; just fewer of them with each month that slipped by. And yet her memories of being a little girl in the thirties and of her wedding day in nineteen fifty-one were as clear as a bell. And some days she would recall that her beloved Leonard had died, and would cry softly and do her best to remember his face, until the thoughts melted away and she found a disconnected state of awareness to be at peace in.
Matt saw the sign for the Hepworth Grange Care Home. He slowed and drove between the open gates and kept to the posted five miles an hour. Pulling into the staff car park at the side of the building, he thought of how sad it was that so many people reached a stage when everything they had worked for was behind them, and they were taken from their homes to places like this to end their days.
“Nice setting,” Pete said as they climbed out of the car and walked round to the front. “Seems very peaceful.”
“It’s one of God’s waiting rooms,” Matt said. “When you end up in a place like this you know that you’re on the last lap.”
Pete thought about that, and the pleasant surroundings took on a more sinister aspect, like the landscaped grounds of a crematorium, that had a furnace and a chimney as a centrepiece.
They entered the home, walked up to a desk in the brightly decorated foyer and showed the receptionist their warrant cards and asked to see whoever was in charge. The girl made a call and within less than a minute a cheerful-looking woman appearing to be in her forties emerged from a doorway at the end of a short corridor and approached them.
“Hello, I’m Barbara Sperling, an administrator here at the Grange,” she said, offering Matt and Pete her hand and a warm smile in turn. “How can I help you?”
“We need to talk to one of your…er, residents,” Matt said.
“Follow me,” Barbara said. “We can discuss it in my office over coffee.”
They entered a homely office with a large picture window that afforded a view of the grounds.
Barbara asked them to take a seat, switched on a coffeemaker and explained to them that Hepworth Grange was a purpose-built fifty bed property offering residential and respite care for, in the main, elderly people suffering from dementia and associated illnesses.
“So who is it that you would like to visit with?” Barbara said as she handed them both steaming mugs of coffee and indicated where the milk and sugar was, should they take it, which neither of them did.
“Violet Pearson,” Matt said. “She is the aunt of a man that we need to contact.”
“Ah, yes, Gabriel,” Barbara said. “He’s a lovely man. He visits Violet very irregularly, but always seems to cheer her up. Last time he was here he brought her a beautiful wooden fruit bowl that he had made and carved roses on.”
Matt wondered if he had used the same blade that he carved GUILTY on victims’ backs and then cut their throats with.
“How is Violet?” Matt asked.
“You mean is she lucid enough to answer questions?”
Matt nodded.
“She has Alzheimer’s,” Barbara said. “Sometimes she can remember past events and seem quite normal. But in general she is becoming further beyond our reach.”
They made small talk about the care home, but did not discuss the case. When they had finished their coffees Barbara led them through to the residential wing at the rear of the home and knocked on one of the doors before entering.
“How are you feeling today?” Barbara said to Violet.
The old lady turned in her chair and looked quizzically at Barbara, as if she had asked her to explain Einstein’s theory of relativity.
“Do you feel up to talking to these two gentlemen?” Barbara asked.
“Are you a friend of Leonard’s?” Violet said to Matt.
“No,” Matt said, not knowing whether Leonard was one of the staff, another resident or a figment of her imagination. “I’m Matt Barnes, and I’m trying to contact your nephew, Gabriel.”
Violet carefully brushed a lock of silver hair back from her forehead with a swollen, crooked finger, and smiled. For a moment Matt could see a much younger woman looking out from hooded eyes. Age is a real mean bitch, he thought. It just creeps up on you, feeding on your youth, stamina and fitness, until you were no longer the person you had been; just a shadow of the past.
“Oh, Gabe is a wonderful boy,” Violet said. “I went on a day trip to Southend last week with him and Beryl. We made sandcastles on the beach, and then had fish and chips in a little café.”
“Beryl was Violet’s sister,” Barbara whispered to Matt. “And Leonard was Violet’s husband. He’s been dead for over twenty years.”
“Does Gabe have a favourite place that he likes to go?” Matt asked, clutching at straws.
“He loves to go to the cinema,” Violet said. “We went a few days ago to see Sean Connery in the new James Bond film, Thunderball.”
“I mean does he have a special place that he likes to visit?” Matt asked her, knowing that at the moment she was reliving the mid-sixties, back when Harris would have been ten or eleven years old.
“He has an old box Brownie and loves go on long bike rides and take photographs,” Violet said. “He takes a lot of an old chapel and says it’s his favourite place in the entire world. And that’s funny, because he’s never been outside Essex, apart from a couple of trips to London Zoo.”
“Do you know where the chapel is?” Matt said.
Violet frowned and then pointed a shaking finger to an alcove of the small room. “There are photos in a shoebox in the cupboard under those drawers,” she said. “Gabe gives me copies of some that he’s taken.”
“Do you mind if we look at them?” Matt asked.
“No, please do. That’s what photographs are for, to be looked at.”
Barbara went over to the cabinet, opened the two doors and found the shoebox.
Matt and Pete started to go through the photos, which were all in black and white. As they did, Violet fell asleep.
Out of perhaps a couple of hundred images there were at least twenty of an old chapel taken from different angles. Some were of the interior. There was faded writing on the backs of them: To Auntie Violet, Love, Gabe. It was a flimsy lead, but one that they would have to follow.
“Looks as if it was abandoned back then,” Pete said. “It could have been demolished decades ago.”
“We won’t know until we find it,” Matt said as he turned to Barbara and asked, “May we take some of these photos with us? Violet will get them back.”
Barbara walked out of the room and Matt followed her and quietly closed the door behind them.
“I think an explanation would help,” Barbara said.
“Okay,” Matt said. “Gabrie
l Harris is wanted for murder. He’s on the run, and we need to find him. Those photos may be of some help.”
“My God, are you sure that Gabriel is guilty? He seems such a nice man.”
“There is absolutely no doubt.”
“Then take the photos. I’ll think of something to tell Violet.”
“Thanks,” Matt said. “Please keep what I’ve told you between us.”
Back in the room, Violet woke up as they were about to leave. “Who are you?” she said, not even recognising Barbara. “What are you doing in my house?”
“It’s alright,” Barbara said. “We’re your friends.”
“Leonard…Leonard, there are people in the house. Tell them to go away,” Violet shouted.
“You’d best leave.” Barbara said to Matt and Pete. “She’ll settle down when you’ve gone.”
Back in the car, Pete used his mobile to take shots of the photos. He then phoned the squad room and told Errol about the aunt and the photos of the chapel. “I’ll send the pics to you now,” he said. “We need the location of the place if it still exists. It should be in Essex, that’s all we know.”
“Thanks a bunch,” Errol said and ended the call.
Matt stopped at a café on the way back to Harris’s bungalow. Let Pete buy them coffee, and they sat and talked.
“That creeped me out,” Pete said. “Seeing people sat around in those places brings it home that we’ve all got a shelf life.”
“I feel the same,” Matt said. “You have to somehow push it away. Thinking about it too much would drive you crazy.”
“My grandfather went like that,” Pete said. “Ended up just staring at nothing and mumbling gibberish under his breath. One night he climbed out through a window of the nursing home he was in and wandered off bollock-naked. It was the middle of January, and they found him the next morning. He was as dead as mutton, curled up in the back yard of a pub, frozen solid. Hard to believe that he’d been a big, jovial hardworking bloke all his life.”
“It can seem all for nothing if you think too deeply about it, Pete. The passing of time is the biggest crime. It’s the things that you do while you can that have to count for something.”
“I know, but seeing what might be in your future if you live long enough is bloody frightening.”
When Matt and Pete arrived back at the bungalow The Scene of Crime Officers were working in two teams; one diligently searching the house, the other, the gardens, garage and workshop. A major find had been made at the rear of the garage by an officer who’d noticed a rectangular piece of the lawn that had been disturbed. Examining it, he determined that squares of turf had been presumably dug up and then re-laid. It was logical to presume that something or someone had been buried. Two of the officers had used short handled spades to remove the loose turf and dig down over a foot before the tips of their tools struck wood. It was a box. Prising the lid off, they were faced with a padded bed cover; a duvet. Folding it back, the body of a dog was uncovered, lying on its side. A collar and lead, two stainless steel bowls, a rubber ring and an old tennis ball had been placed next to the corpse, which was now stinking.
“Anything?” Tam asked Matt.
“A little. His aunt was in and out of the Twilight Zone, but she told us that as a kid he spent a lot of time at a derelict chapel. He took lots of photos of it, and I think it holds a fascination for him. If it’s still standing and in a remote location, then it would be a special place that he may consider safe to hide at.”
“Where is it?”
“We don’t know, yet,” Matt said. “Pete sent Errol JPEGS of it, and he’s doing a search for old abandoned chapels in the area.”
“Long shot,” Tam said. “He could have switched cars and be anywhere by now.”
“True, but all we can work with is what we’ve got.”
Errol searched Google, found several sites that had details of old chapels in Essex, and eventually found an image that appeared to be a match. There were only a couple of sentences relating to it. The building had been erected in the seventeen-fifties; a Wesleyan Methodist chapel that at the time attracted large congregations. But by the mid nineteen hundreds the bubble had burst, worshippers dwindled in number, and by the nineteen-forties, after World War Two, the chapel was abandoned and had been left to be eroded by the weather, partially reclaimed by nature and vandalised, no doubt by bored teenagers.
“Yeah,” Matt said when Errol phoned.
“I think I’ve found that Chapel, boss,” Errol said. “It’s an old abandoned place; a ruin that doesn’t show up on any map. I phoned the Methodist Church help desk at their headquarters on Marylebone Road, and some guy by the name of John Grace said he was a member of the Connexional Team, whatever that is. He did some digging and called me back and told me that the chapel was situated between Rayleigh and Rochford. I’ll text you the directions. It’s in a remote part of Hockley Woods.”
“Good job, Errol,” Matt said. “We’ll check it out.”
“You get to hitch a ride back with the Techies,” Matt said to Tam. “And make sure that there’s a uniform outside the bungalow before you leave. This is a multiple crime scene.”
Gabriel used B roads and back roads to drive on. He couldn’t risk footage of his number plate being picked up on motorways by CCTV, and swapping plates with another vehicle in broad daylight was not a consideration.
He eventually reached the area, found a now partly overgrown bridle path and drove along it until he came to a gap in bushes that he could manoeuvre the car into, to park it completely out of sight from any walkers that might use the path. Being tan-coloured, the Golf blended well with the brown bark of tree trunks and the wild hawthorn and beech that formed a barrier between it and prying eyes. With everything in a backpack or buckled securely to it, he set off in the direction of the chapel.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
THE light was failing fast; low iron-grey clouds packed the sky, and the search for the old building took him over half an hour. It was almost by accident that he came across it. Trees crowded around the crumbling dark shell, and the foliage had gone wild and screened it from view. Very few people came here anymore. It was a place that had been forgotten for the most part as it was slowly devoured by nature.
The arch-shaped windows were shadowy gaping maws, and yet the door at the front of the chapel was fashioned from solid oak, tight in its frame and padlocked to bar conventional entry.
Walking around the side, he stepped carefully over exposed and gnarled tree roots that were concealed amongst high weeds and shards of dirt-coated pieces of window glass that had long since been broken. At the rear of the chapel a narrow doorway was half-filled with masonry.
Slowly and carefully, still wearing the bulky backpack, Gabriel climbed up and over the obstruction, to slide down the other side and into the main body of the building. The only sound was that of eddies of wind swirling around the inside of the structure, entering through the remaining part of the roof and the openings that had once held windows. And beyond that, outside, the strengthening breeze caused tree branches to bend and creak and clatter against one another.
He sat still for a minute to get his breath back, before seeing movement less than forty feet from him, on the ground, up against a wall. It took few seconds for him to realise that he was not alone, and that two other people were in the chapel with him.
They had left the road and driven up a narrow lane, to park the car in front of a wooden field gate that was green with damp and rotted at the bottom. At either side of the posts that it hung from was thick unkempt hedging.
Lifting the sagging gate up, Alfie forced it open far enough to allow access to the trail behind it that he knew led to what he had always called Charlie’s Chapel.
Alfie remembered his father telling him to stay away from the place, because it was haunted by the ghost of a tramp who had roamed Essex for decades. The story was handed down from his dad’s grandfather, and Alfie did not believe in ghosts, or that
there was any truth in the tale. The legend had it that an old vagrant by the name of Charlie ‒ surname unknown ‒ had slept within the ruins whenever he was in the area, and that on a snowy New Year’s Eve, had got drunk and frozen to death, to be found by a couple of ramblers a few days later; his frost-coated corpse huddled up next to the ashes of a small fire, with an empty sherry bottle in hand and his one-eyed collie dog lying next to him, as dead as Charlie. It was believed that his faithful friend had stayed by his side, until it too was overwhelmed by the freezing cold.
Fortunately, Judy didn’t believe in ghosts either, and followed on behind him, carrying a thick, tartan blanket that usually covered the back seat of the ageing Mazda that Alfie owned.
Reaching the wall of the chapel, Alfie interlaced the fingers of his hands and cupped them for Judy to put a foot in and be lifted up to the crumbling sill of a window. She sat on the wide ledge, twisted round and dropped down the other side, to wait for Alfie to climb in.
“This is wicked,” Judy said as she found a sheltered corner, spread the blanket out on a patch of the flagged floor that they had cleared of rubble on a previous occasion, and sat down on it and took a pack of cigarettes and a throwaway lighter from the pocket of her fleece.
They sat together and cuddled up and smoked, and then Judy said, “Let’s do it,” and leaned forward to untie the laces of her trainers and kick them off. Within seconds she had unfastened her jeans and pulled them off, too. She had not worn underwear, knowing that Alfie was going to fuck her. And being naked beneath her jeans made her feel really randy and up for it.