The Bone Keeper

by Luca Veste

  ‘First time for everything.’

  ‘Smart alec,’ Shipley replied, shooting her a quick grin. ‘We’ve found two pieces of evidence pointing us towards this place. Nathan Coldfield and the photograph in Jon Durham’s bedroom. Only locals would know about the place though. It’s probably not even got a name on Google Maps.’

  ‘It doesn’t, I checked.’

  ‘Right,’ Shipley said, turning and looking at her. She held her breath for a second or two, waiting for him to speak again. ‘So,’ he went on, ‘that means someone with local knowledge is involved. Nothing in Rhys Durham’s record – basically the only thing we know about him – puts him anywhere near here. Not this far south of the city.’

  ‘Apart from his aunt.’

  ‘That’s still miles away. No, this is something only those from round here would know about. How did Rhys find out about this place, that’s key.’

  ‘We don’t even know what we’re dealing with yet. We’re probably getting ahead of ourselves.’

  Shipley murmured an agreement, but she could see he didn’t mean it.

  He knew exactly what this was.

  Another hour went by, but it was all beginning to feel like much longer. When you’re just sitting around doing little to nothing, time drags. Louise could feel the beginnings of hunger pangs returning, but tried to dismiss them. Simply remembering the blackened and charred body in the clearing a few hundred yards away should have been enough, she thought; an image like that was difficult to forget. Never mind the dead woman in the shallow grave.

  There had been time to take in the scene one last time, before more CSI techs arrived and they let them get on with their job. She had been glad to get out of there and leave them to it. Simply leave the scene behind for a little while.

  She usually didn’t believe that places had a sense of darkness about them. Of evil. She was now questioning that idea. An unnerving quality had surrounded the scene through the treeline ahead of her. It was as if it could feel the borders around them closing in. Keeping the scene sacrosanct, like it knew what was hidden there.

  ‘How long until we know if anything else is buried under there? Can’t imagine that’s going to be a quick job.’

  Louise turned to Shipley, who was pacing back and forth behind her. ‘Hopefully not long,’ she said, placating him, knowing he was starting to become aware of how little time they had left as lead detectives on the case. ‘They have all kinds of technology now, don’t they? I’m sure they’ll know if there’s more bodies under there soon enough.’

  ‘Not sure I want to know,’ Shipley replied, stopping in his tracks and looking past her. ‘Think we’re about to get some kind of information though.’

  Louise pivoted to where he was looking and began walking towards the treeline again. A CSI tech in full protective gear was making his way towards them.

  ‘What have we got?’

  ‘We won’t know if anything other than the one body is buried underneath for a few hours yet,’ the CSI tech said to Shipley, coming to a stop a few feet from them. Louise recognised the face, as much of it she could see anyway. His head was mostly covered, but the features were recognisable.

  Mind, she wasn’t the best for remembering names anyway, so it hardly mattered.

  ‘What have you got so far?’ Louise said, hoping for something they could work with at least. Anything to keep Shipley happy, even if only for a few more hours. ‘The last body we dug up was identified within minutes, so I’m hoping you can make it as easy as that was?’

  Louise waited for him to speak, but it looked like he wanted to make a performance of it. She imagined strangling him, wrapping her bare hands around his throat and watching the life drain from him. She blinked and the vision disappeared, annoyingly. Sometimes she enjoyed the bursts of imaginary murder she thought up.

  ‘The body has been there at least a year, but we’re guessing it was in the process of being moved. It was a shallow grave, so we’re thinking it could be the same for any others possibly buried there. We don’t want to disturb any evidence, so we’re going to take our time. We’ll try and go as quick as we can though. Hopefully you’ll be able to find out who she is pretty quickly. She’s in good condition, considering.’

  ‘Good condition?’ Shipley said, before Louise had the chance to say something similar. Maybe with an added expletive.

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘Right, of course,’ Shipley replied through a clenched jaw. The CSI tech took the hint and left them to it.

  They turned back to the road behind them, knowing there was little else they could do there now. Some traffic was being allowed to pass down the road, given the actual scene was a good walk away, but with the number of both marked and unmarked vehicles now taking up space, it wouldn’t be long before they’d have to come up with an alternative plan. Louise stopped, once Shipley had moved far enough away, so that she was standing on her own in the field. She turned in a circle, thinking about the location, the history of the place. Face one way, you’re looking at the outskirts of a council estate in south Liverpool. The other way, it could be old English countryside, anywhere in the northern part of the UK. In the distance she could see the town of Hale, only a couple of miles away but not counted as part of Liverpool. Almost as if it were on a hill and they were currently sat in a valley at its base.

  The air around her stilled and she could almost hear the laughter of the other kids who would come to play here. The excited shouts, the jibes being passed between them. That would be how it would have been usually.

  She wondered what had become of them all. The children who would tell each other stories, filling this now empty field with laughter and frivolity. The streets were now more deserted than when she’d been younger. She wondered if places like these would forever be tainted for her now. Whether that be woodland, fields, parks . . . all those places that had held so much wonder to her as a child, now turned to something else.

  Where something dark and unseen lurked within every shadow, without her ever realising. She found it difficult to picture this place being used for something else. For evil. She turned towards the trees again, the thickness of the woods there. Louise could see it all playing out now; how easy it would be at night to fall into darkness and not be discovered. Live for years as a myth within those woods, no one ever brave enough to discover the truth – being able to hide if anyone ever was.

  Lived in the woods? Are you crazy? It’s not real.

  ‘Think you were right about the possibility of tyre marks,’ Shipley said, walking back slowly towards her, looking at the ground beneath him. ‘If there were ever any here, he’s got rid of them. Covered his tracks, if you’ll excuse the pun.’

  ‘You are excused,’ Louise replied, still staring towards the woods. ‘You don’t just stumble across somewhere like here. There’s no reason to drive down this way, unless you’re going somewhere or know someone who lives here. Or, you grew up close by and knew about it.’

  ‘I agree, for what it’s worth,’ Shipley said, now standing next to her and staring into the same empty space she was. ‘I didn’t even know about this place until I was an older kid. Maybe nine or ten. It just wasn’t really talked about.’

  ‘These places exist all over the city. Little clumps of nature. Most people don’t even notice them. Which makes them good places to do things like whoever our guy is. Little patches of tranquillity.’

  ‘Quite nice really, if you forget about the dead people a few hundred yards away.’

  ‘Do you think it’s Rhys Durham – the burnt body, I mean? I never really got a look at who or what I was chasing. Could have been a fox or something stupid like that,’ Louise said, voicing what she knew Shipley had been suspecting. She guessed he hadn’t wanted to say it out loud. He liked finality to an investigation – a chance to question a suspect and find out their reasons for committing whatever crime it was.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Shipley replied with a weary sigh. Louise wa
tched as he rubbed his fingers against closed eyes. ‘We need to identify him as soon as possible. That burnt body could be important. Whoever was in those woods set that fire in order to make our jobs more difficult.’

  ‘Or her,’ Louise replied, sniffing and scuffing a shoe along the grass in front of her. She was becoming better at affecting a cool exterior, even as her body tried to rebel. She hoped it wouldn’t happen again, knowing it was a futile wish. ‘It’s not like we could tell all that much from what we could see. Don’t think we got there in time. Probably not going to be enough left to get a quick ID. He probably set the fire so he could get away. A distraction.’

  Shipley nodded an agreement, then turned and made his way back to the road, leaving Louise alone again. She took her phone from her pocket, checked for any messages, unsurprised when it didn’t show any. Who would call her anyway? She could feel her chest becoming constricted again, hands shaking. They became clammy, the phone sliding from her hand as she thrust it into her pocket. She could feel sweat peppering her brow, so she wiped her sleeve across it. Closed her eyes for a few seconds, fighting the urge to scream and shout. Fall to the ground and thrash around. Feel her arms and legs hit the earth, the pain shooting through her bones.

  Instead, she opened her eyes and walked back towards Shipley and the others.

  Powerless, that’s what she was.

  She didn’t enjoy the feeling at all.

  Twenty

  A knock at the door.

  Val always thought she would know the moment it changed. When she would sense he was gone. Ceased to exist. Mother’s intuition and all that went with it. She was supposed to know if something had happened to her son.

  In twenty years, she had felt nothing but emptiness. A sense that her world had shifted and would never be righted. Even if he reappeared now, after all this time.

  Two decades . . . Had it really been that long? Time had stopped the moment he had gone. That moment of realisation that he wasn’t simply missing for a few hours. Those hours becoming days becoming weeks becoming months becoming years. On and on. The hurt the same every day.

  There had been other times, when he had been younger. Moments of dread when she had lost sight of him in a shop, or in the park down the road. When horror dropped into the pit of her stomach for a few seconds, before he suddenly reappeared in front of her. Every parent recognises those moments.

  You have one job. Keep them safe until they can keep themselves safe.

  She had failed.

  Now, she waited. For them to arrive and tell her they had found him. The idea of doing anything else was unthinkable. That’s all she had now. An interminable wait for the truth of what had happened.

  Her daughter seemed to be dealing with the loss better, on the surface, but Val knew she hurt as much as she did herself. Just as hard. That her life had suffered because of her brother’s disappearance. She remembered her little girl back then, growing up before her eyes. A teenage girl in an adult’s body. On the cusp of leaving and finding her own path.

  Her brother going missing had fractured that natural process. Made her grow old overnight. An adult before her time, forever tainted as a result. Her daughter wasn’t the same woman she would have become without that. Living with a mother who had dedicated her life to finding her lost brother. A stepfather who disappeared just as quickly, as suspicion had rained down around them.

  A real father who was never there. Not even when his son had disappeared. Making a show of being concerned for five minutes, before rushing back to his comfortable life, where nothing bad ever happened.

  Left to pick up the pieces alone.

  She wondered what her daughter looked like now. Whether the years would have been kind to her or not. Whether she would still see that loss etched across her features, like a second skin.

  Would either of them cope if they finally found out what happened?

  She could hear footsteps outside, but was lost in her own thoughts, staring at the television screen in the corner of the room.

  Wondering, considering.

  Was this the time?

  Was this the moment she would find out?

  She suddenly didn’t want to know. She wanted to continue her life as it had been. Left in limbo. The mother of a missing child. A failed parent. He was gone. Still gone.

  Nothing was going to change that. It didn’t matter if they found him now, she would still have been an unsuccessful mother. Unable to do her job properly.

  The knock came again, but she made no move towards the door. She found herself stuck to the couch, unable to stand.

  Still staring at the screen. Watching the news ticker run along the bottom of the screen.

  BODIES FOUND IN SOUTH LIVERPOOL

  She didn’t want to know. Not now. Ignorance was bliss.

  The knock came once again, more persistent now, and she buried her face in her hands. Shaking her head and moaning the word ‘no’ over and over again, as if that would be enough to send them away.

  This wasn’t how she wanted reality to hit. She wanted to continue to live in this stasis that had become her reality. Never knowing the truth. If this was it, they could keep it. She would happily live her life never finding out what happened to her boy. Safe in the knowledge that she would never know what his last moments were really like.

  She didn’t want to know anything. No more.

  Not like this.

  A knock came at the window, banging, insistent.

  Val rose to her feet, checking her reflection in the mirror, then crossed the living room and went into the hallway. Reached for the door, ready to open it up.

  To allow the truth, whatever it was, to rush in and devour her.

  Twenty-One

  The mood at the station was different now. News of what had been discovered in the woods – what was still being discovered – had filtered through the entire building. The pointed looks from other officers she passed on the way to her boss’s office said all she needed to know.

  Rather you than me.

  They knew how things would change for everyone connected to the case.

  What had started with one woman running away from an unseen danger had now become at least three dead bodies. Far too swiftly for her liking. She had read enough about serial killers to know what all of this meant.

  The word she hated even more than ‘moist’.

  Escalation.

  Louise reached her detective inspector’s office, knocking once and entering before there was any answer. She was already late, having spent far too long in the bathroom trying to compose herself. She took a seat next to DS Shipley, who gave her a quick look, but snapped his attention back to the conversation that had already begun.

  ‘We don’t know if they’re connected,’ DI Hardy said, barely acknowledging Louise’s arrival. He had been usurped from his usual chair, a new face sitting there instead. Louise knew who it was, of course.

  DCI Peter Sisterson, from the Major Crimes Unit. The city’s top team. And Sisterson looked the part. Silver at the temples, immaculate suit. She guessed his shoes cost more than her monthly mortgage payment. His eyes were blue, piercing through anyone they encountered.

  DI Hardy was attempting to remain calm, but she could see that events were moving too quickly for him as well. ‘We’re believing a fairytale here.’

  ‘It would be one hell of a coincidence,’ Shipley replied, exuding calm from every pore. He’d been waiting for this, Louise thought. Now was his opportunity.

  ‘Whoever did this knows we were getting close,’ Shipley continued, directing his explanation towards the DCI. ‘He was in those woods. We almost had him. He can’t be too far away now. He’s running out of options for where to go.’

  ‘How are we getting on with identification?’

  ‘The bodies are being processed at the moment,’ Louise said, taking her cue from Shipley’s look to join the conversation. ‘Shouldn’t take too long if they were reported missing. We haven’t ruled out
that the body in the hut was Rhys Durham, or whoever this turns out to be. We have a list of dates, carved into a tree, but we’re not entirely sure what relation they have to the bodies we have found so far. The last date was yesterday, which would make sense if the individual found burnt was killed then.’

  DI Hardy sighed audibly, for effect, Louise thought. He obviously wasn’t happy that two of his detectives were already handing things over to the DCI from the larger – and more important – unit.

  Power games. Louise had never liked them.

  DCI Sisterson interlocked his hands, resting his elbows on the desk. He ignored the DI and kept his eyes on Louise and Shipley instead. ‘What are we looking at here? The story being real?’

  Shipley gave Louise a quick glance, but she looked away, settled her eyes on the window. She could barely see through the blinds, but the view had been blocked anyway. Another office building built, waiting to be occupied. She knew it was the same in the city centre, where the DCI had travelled up from. She didn’t go into town often, but when she did, there was always something either newly built or in the process of being put up.

  ‘I think the story is still a story,’ Shipley said finally, which caused Louise to tune back into the conversation. ‘Someone is just using it. Building up their own myth, as it were. All these things are connected. Rhys Durham is still the main person of interest and that’s all he is. A person. We find him, we find our answers.’

  ‘If he’s willing to talk . . .’

  ‘Oh, he will be,’ Shipley replied quickly, gripping the arms of his chair. Louise wondered what he meant by that. Whether he had the same kind of anger inside of him that she buried within herself.

  ‘We need to go more public, which probably won’t be as difficult now.’

  ‘No, three bodies in as many days is enough to grab the national attention, it seems.’

  Louise looked over at DI Hardy, who seemed to have taken a sudden vow of silence. He had been defeated quickly, without fanfare. She had never liked him much – she’d thought of him as someone who believed they should be followed without question. Now, she could see the weight of expectation beginning to weigh heavy on his shoulders. He was nearing sixty, which seemed to affect every decision he made now. Professional, yet always looking over his shoulder. Cautious of what could be coming up behind him. A thin-faced weed of a man. She had no idea how he had survived any time in uniform.