The Runner

by P. R. Black

  ‘He told me he didn’t do it. Seemed sure. I guess I believed him.’

  Harvie openly barked laughter. He had ugly teeth, Freya saw, chipped like old crockery. ‘No offence. I know this is a weird time for you. You said your mother died quite recently, is that right? OK – it’s a stressful business all round. And out of the blue, this father figure appears. And he’s got this amazing story about how he got fitted up for something he didn’t do. Don’t give it headspace. Gareth Solomon is a liar. It’s part of his make-up. Hopefully not genetic, for your sake. He won’t take responsibility for anything, because he has no empathy. People are there to be manipulated. You know what he did, right? You know how he did it?’

  ‘I’ve read your book.’

  ‘He captured people, let them loose in remote places – confined environments – caught up with them before they could escape, and chopped them to pieces. That’s what he did.’

  ‘He was convicted of one murder, and that was on circumstantial evidence. And there was nothing physical linking him to June Caton-Bell.’

  ‘There’s plenty of circumstantial evidence linking him to every case connected to the Woodcutter. Times, places, the jobs he was doing, his knowledge of the areas. All that’s missing are the bodies and the witnesses.’

  Freya swallowed. ‘How about the woman who escaped? Natalie Grey? She spoke about a completely different man.’

  ‘Natalie Grey got bashed over the head for her trouble, and I know from meeting her more than once over the years, she’s still not right. Suggestion of brain damage, added to a whole textbook’s worth of psychological trauma. It’s something that happened with one or two people who got away from the Yorkshire Ripper, and others. They got confused in the heat of the moment – entirely understandably. And their experiences scarred them for life. Natalie Grey is a lovely woman, and my heart’s broken for her, but… No.’

  ‘That stance could support either theory,’ Freya said, smartly. ‘That he’s either the killer, or he’s been fitted up by Bernard Galvin and the rest of his team on the Woodcutter inquiry.’

  Mick Harvie pinched his eyebrows. ‘Bernard Galvin… and you can write this down if you like, a direct quote… is one of the biggest arseholes I’ve ever met in my life. But he’s also one of the best coppers. And he wasn’t bent. Never in his life. I take offence at that on his behalf. I’m no fan of Bernie, far less a friend. I felt the rough side of his tongue more than once. But he’s a straight shooter. And the Woodcutter inquiry almost killed him. He had a heart attack, and his own top men didn’t even know. And it haunts him that he couldn’t pin the other murders on Solomon. Especially in light of the fact the bodies are missing. I know that. Even now, he’s out there, looking for the other bodies. He might never find them. But he got his man. I know that for sure. I don’t like him, but I respect him. So, I’ll ask you kindly – never run him down in front of me.’

  ‘Noted,’ Freya said.

  ‘Now… seeing as I know what your angle is – what’s the hook?’

  She smiled. ‘That would be telling.’

  ‘So – that means you’ve got something new?’

  ‘Oh, I’m just here to take a nice picture. Don’t you mind what I know or not. What would I know?’

  He grinned. ‘Touché, miss. But if you want my help, you’ll have to do better than that. What’s in it for me?’

  ‘I’ll give your book a plug. I’ll even give you a quote.’

  He laughed aloud. ‘You’ve got the gumption, that’s for sure! You might do all right in this game.’

  ‘You might have to rewrite it. If I prove that my father’s not the Woodcutter.’

  ‘It’d be big news, there’s no denying that. I’ll set something up for you. You’re on.’

  ‘Shake on it?’

  He did – but after he’d let Freya’s hand go, his demeanour changed. ‘I’ve got something I want to show you. It might end up getting me in trouble. But I think it’s worth it, in this case. Wait here a minute.’

  Freya sat in the silence, growing oddly apprehensive. When Mick Harvie returned, he was carrying an old ring binder. Inside it were clear plastic wallets. He flicked through the files, then stopped at one in particular. He took care to take out what was inside – a black and white photograph. He held it by the corner, as if it was only just developed, and turned it towards Freya.

  ‘I obtained these from a friend on the force. I’m not supposed to have them. I was pushing for it to be published in the book alongside the other stills, but… taste and decency, and all that. It might not be totally clear what you’re looking at, here,’ Harvie said. ‘You need to look closely. Up at the top…’

  ‘I can see it,’ Freya said, her voice almost a whisper. ‘There’s a head.’

  ‘Nope, not a head. Not intact, anyway. But you can see eyes. He made sure Caton-Bell’s eyes were open. He wanted people to discover her; that’s the thing. He was taking more of a risk. Because I can tell you this about the Woodcutter: he was getting a taste for it. He was a thrill killer. But just kidnapping and hunting people in the woods wasn’t doing it for him any more. He needed a greater risk of getting caught. Now when you next look into your daddy dearest’s eyes, you think about these eyes. What you are looking at is what used to be a person. He kidnapped her, took her into the middle of a forest, then hunted her in the dead of night. But someone saw him. Someone who picked him out of an ID parade. Now I want you to remember this: no matter what your father says to you, he did this. He chopped a twenty-seven-year-old paramedic and part-time club bouncer in the prime of her life into pieces. Then he chopped some of the pieces into more pieces.’

  ‘Put that away. That does nothing for what I’ve said.’ She sniffed; she was hardly aware she’d been crying, until tears ran off her chin and pattered onto her skirt.

  Harvie’s expression softened. He appeared shocked that she had been in tears. ‘I’m sorry, love. I didn’t do that just to shock you. I did it to shake you out of any idea that your dad’s worth listening to. The guy who did that – he’s not normal, and he’s not nice. No matter how much you want him to be. You want to work with me, bear that in mind.’

  ‘I think I’d better go. I’ll leave you my number – let me know if your contacts pay off. Tell them I want to speak to them, and I want to be paid for an exclusive. I’m sure you’ll get some tip money for it.’

  Harvie slid the photograph back into its wallet. ‘OK. You’re on.’

  8

  It went against her nature so much it felt like a nightmare. Reality given a near-perverse twist; the shock of exposure, of being front and centre, of drawing the eye. This had never been Freya. But it was necessary. Harvie had been persuasive. He’d been up-front about the benefits to this farce, this public display that was the polar opposite of how Freya usually conducted herself. This was something she had to do, he’d said, in order to get to the truth. And also in order to give herself a future. He’d said this would give her a start in the business. He mentioned all kinds of future scenarios, even a life in front of a camera. “Play your cards right, you could front documentaries. You could explore other people’s stories, similar to yours.” All along, this was underpinned by his insistence that Gareth Solomon was a killer, and that Freya was another type of victim.

  Freya wanted to believe her father, which she knew was a failing. But quite detached from this, her reason told her that he had a case.

  The shoot was part of the deal, set up by Harvie. She felt so awkward that Harvie offered her a drink from a hip flask she’d never noticed him carrying before. She refused.

  The photographer made her part her fringe. He actually used his fingers to do it, flicking it back over her ears. ‘Sorry, love – you want to be in this article, or not?’

  Freya took a step back, defensively. It was the ‘love’ as much as the hands. ‘I didn’t know you were a fashion consultant.’

  ‘Could be doing with a bit less make-up around the eyes, too. It does look brilliant �
� but we have to see those eyes. You’ve got your father’s eyes, for sure – that’s the big sell. Put images of the two of you together and…’ He snapped his fingers and grinned.

  The photographer looked and sounded much older than he was – blond, stout and thick-lipped, the kind of overgrown baby you dreaded to see take root in your favourite pub. He wasn’t wearing off-grey jogging bottoms, but it was easy to picture him doing so.

  ‘You can see my eyes just fine. It’s make-up, not sunglasses.’

  ‘I’ve got some wet wipes in the car…’

  ‘Whatever for?’

  In the background, resting against a fence, Mick Harvie snorted, and turned his head away.

  ‘For people who need their noses wiped before we do a shoot,’ the photographer said, sullenly.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Freya said, diffidently. ‘I’ve chosen this look for a reason. I’m going with it.’

  ‘It’s just that, you look… Well, you look scary. Proper scare-the-kids scary. I mean, it’s up to you, it’s your decision.’

  ‘That’s right. It is,’ Freya said evenly.

  ‘She won’t always have the dark eye make-up on, or the whiter-than-white face,’ Harvie said. ‘Isn’t that right? I’d put money on you being in disguise, if I was a betting man. Which I am.’

  Freya smiled. ‘Spot on. There are too many nutters out there. They see me in a paper or on a website, fine. They won’t link it to me in real life. Who knows… I might wear a different shade of black.’

  Harvie grinned. The photographer shrugged, and checked his outsized camera. It was more of a bazooka, something that should have been rested on someone else’s shoulder. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘We’ll do some of you next to the forest, with it over your shoulder, then some of you in the foreground. Then maybe we’ll head inside.’ He turned to Harvie. ‘You know the spot, right?’

  Harvie nodded. ‘It’s a little way in. Off the beaten path. They grew trees in the spot where he caught her, though. Planted them about a year and a bit later. Thick vegetation all around it. Brambles. Thorns. Quite a good idea. Let Mother Nature obliterate a nasty patch. It also stops the weirdos. Of which there are many. You know – people who want to come in and pose for pictures.’

  ‘Can’t legislate for them, Mick.’ All Freya could see was the photographer’s uneven grin as he put the camera to his eye. ‘All right. Let’s do a few now, loosen you up a bit, love… It’s OK, keep your hands clasped for now. Maybe turn a little to the left, get you in profile… Lovely, you’ve got an excellent jawline – that works really well.’

  She tried to ignore the treacherous feelings his flatteries and mild exhortations had on her and simply followed instructions. She even smiled once or twice – a sad smile, she knew. The only one she had. She kept her eye on the waving line of trees that marked the start of Elsingham Forest, a green space on the fringes of a new town in the Midlands, whose unpleasant sprawl of pylons, shopping centres and pockets of red-brick houses was visible to the south. The forest was an oasis, and was meant to be – threaded through with paths for mountain bikers as well as a network of walking or running routes stretching out for twenty-one K in total. It was here that the killer dubbed the Woodcutter by none other than Mick Harvie had claimed his final victim. He had left the body to be discovered in a clearing, after taking June Caton-Bell into the woods after dark, after she had been abducted while walking her dog down a lonely road sixty miles away.

  Forensic analysis of the disturbed vegetation had shown that a desperate chase had taken place. Some of the marks on the body parts indicated that she had run through thick vegetation, and on one occasion had even tried to hide under a rotten tree. Whatever she’d tried, it hadn’t worked. The Woodcutter caught up with her, and it was here he’d lived up to his name.

  Sometimes when Freya closed her eyes, she could see Mick Harvie’s black and white pictures of the body. A gory pile that didn’t look like a body at all, until you looked closely. Which was exactly what the person who’d found the body – another luckless dog walker – had done, early in the morning, less than three hours after the Woodcutter had chopped it up with a fire axe.

  It was the only body to be found in the case; but there were four more very similar abductions, dating around the same time. Four women and a man, all young and fit. There was no obvious sexual element to what had been done to June Caton-Bell. The thrill, or so the thinking went, came from the hunt.

  But it was here that the Woodcutter, so they said, had made his cardinal error. It had been high summer, and there was plenty of light in the sky by the time a man had been seen by a woman who owned a cottage on the fringes of the woods. A keen birdwatcher, the woman had a pair of binoculars to hand, and had seen a man with dark hair and a large military-style backpack. She had a glimpse of his face – enough to pick him out of a police line-up later, once the slow snare of police work pinpointed a drifter named Gareth Solomon who had been working as a delivery driver at the time.

  Once the photographer had finished for the day and left for a job in the afternoon featuring a senior member of the royal family opening a petting zoo about twenty miles away, Mick Harvie walked Freya back to his car.

  ‘I had a look at your feature,’ he said. ‘Needs a bit of work. But quite a good effort.’

  ‘Thanks. Did you pass it on to Nuala Franklin? She’s the features editor, I think.’

  ‘Oh yeah. I remember Nuala, in fact; though she claims not to remember me. I still see a kid fresh out of college, but I guess she’s about forty now. Anyway, yeah, she’s well on board. But I know exactly what she’s going to say.’

  ‘And that is…?’

  ‘You need to state an opinion on your dad. And state it clearly.’

  ‘I don’t have one. I’ve met him once.’

  ‘Really?’ Harvie grinned. ‘Not sure I believe that.’

  ‘Believe what you like.’

  ‘Yeah… you describe him well. A touch melodramatic, but it is a little bit dramatic to meet your dad, the serial killer. Very Hannibal Lecter and Clarice. Like it.’

  ‘I just described what he said and what he looked like. I wasn’t writing a novel about it.’

  ‘What we don’t get is… your gut feeling. Do you think he did it? I think people need to know that.’

  ‘I can’t know if he did it. It’s not certain. So I can’t say if I don’t know.’

  ‘I’m not talking about knowledge. I’m talking about feeling. You don’t have to quote the science behind it, or show your working.’

  ‘I just don’t know. It’d be different if he’d been in my life – like a normal father. Do you have any kids, Mick?’

  He didn’t answer that, but he said: ‘Let’s put it another way. If I had to put a gun to your head, what’s your feeling?’

  ‘My feeling is no. He didn’t do it.’

  Harvie laughed. ‘You’re serious?’

  ‘Yes. There it is. You asked. That’s my answer. I don’t think he’s guilty. I believed him. But I’ll admit… there’s something off about the guy. No doubting that. I didn’t feel comfortable. But that could be something to do with the high-security prison, or the guards. Or the context. Or the possibility that he might have chopped five people up, for a laugh, whatever he says.’

  Harvie nodded. ‘That’s the right answer. I’ll drive you all the way home, if you like. You let me know if the cash arrives – should be in your account today from the paper. They work fast, these days. Instant transfer. Readies on demand. Used to be, you were waiting on the postie bringing a cheque.’

  ‘It’s there already, in fact.’

  ‘There you go.’

  Before she got in the car, Freya took once last look at the treeline, a blackened crucible stretching out for a couple of miles in either direction. A father and two young children emerged from one of the paths. One of the youngsters was on a bike with stabilisers, cheering at the sudden open path and the increased speed. Freya shivered, and got into Harvie’s car.

>   9

  She settled down back at the flat, clicking off the television and opening the laptop at the kitchen table. It had been a while since Freya had had to take notes, and arrange them into something that made sense. School had been a long time ago, now, and she’d never gone to university or college. At first, she’d bridled at the information that appeared on her screen about the Woodcutter. There had been reports over the years – some detailing violent incidents Gareth Solomon had been involved in, some as victim, but just as often as perpetrator. She tried to connect that sort of life, that feral existence behind bars, with her own, and couldn’t. Although she’d dealt with many strange and nasty customers when she’d worked behind the bar with her mother, she could not visualise what it must be like to exist in jail, to pull a man’s leg clean out of its socket, as one report claimed he had done. They used a particular photo to illustrate this story, and it was one that Freya had grown accustomed to – Gareth Solomon, teeth bared, his composure surrendered, running the gauntlet of photographers outside court as he made his way to the prison van after his trial. No blanket draped over the head for Gareth Solomon; they’d simply escorted him out, turning him into something of a show pony.

  His almost canine leer, lips peeled back, black eyes reflecting a photographer’s flashbulb in searing white crescents, was difficult to look at for too long.

  Freya became aware that she had her back to an open door. She closed it, then turned the machine around and sat at the other side of the table, her back to the wall.

  Opening a text document, Freya began to note down dates and times. She kept bumping into one website in particular, one that was professionally laid out compared to many of the others she looked at, although the prose could be a little flowery. Red Ink, it was called. While some of the murder websites had an obvious relish for the grotesque and the skin-crawling detail of crime scene photos, Red Ink was sober, and gave clear warnings when objectionable content was about to appear.