The Death Collector

by Neil White

  He never forgot the victims, though. He had felt the raging fire of being one himself, the memories of how his eighteenth birthday had ended with his mother screaming his sister’s name. The unhappiness of the victims was just something he had learned to live with; he couldn’t ease their pain by letting his clients down. No one wins then.

  Then Monica happened.

  She had been a trainee solicitor at the firm, young and vibrant, with her whole life and career ahead of her, but working with Joe had exposed her to danger and he hadn’t spotted it. A dangerous client saw something in her that he wanted, and he took it. There was no reason why Joe should have realised – lawyers rarely fall victim to their clients – but that didn’t make it any easier. All that was left to show for her time at the firm was a plaque on a wooden bench.

  It hadn’t affected Joe too much at first, or so he thought. He had to keep going to show that he couldn’t be beaten, so he went into work every morning with a fake smile on his face and wondered when his spark would return. It took him a while to realise that it never would. He found it hard to find the same outrage or momentum; nothing seemed as important any more. He lost interest in his moaning clients and the gripes of his bosses at the declining fees. It seemed like he was watching everything he had strived for just slip away and he didn’t have the energy to stop it.

  But this morning seemed different. He wanted to get into work, to see if there was an update. He thought about Aidan Molloy’s mother, Mary, getting her stall ready for another day of empty campaigning.

  He recalled Lorna Jex’s certainty that something was wrong. Her paranoia about the police took on a different hue when it became apparent that she and Carl were related to a missing detective. It didn’t seem straightforward any more, and that intrigued him.

  He clambered out of bed and wandered into his living room, the next room along the short corridor in his apartment – the joys of cramped city living. White walls, black sofa, no clutter apart from the shelf of vinyl records and compact discs, most of them old blues and country music, the new digital tracks losing too much of the crackle and hiss. It was a cliché, he knew, the room screamed bachelor at anyone who happened to pass through, but it had been a long time since anyone had added any flourish or warmth to his home.

  The morning light put a smile on his face as he headed for his balcony, squinting into the sun that rose over the red brick of the railway viaduct that took the trains and trams northwards. The view ahead was idyllic, a small area of tranquility. It was almost ironic because it was the site of the start of the industrial revolution, where railways and canals converged, yet now it was the most serene part of the city. It was part of a ripple effect: as the ripples had spread outwards it was the first area to become still.

  He let the light bathe him for a while and then he went back inside, still smiling. The day felt good. The first one in a long time.

  Sixteen

  The day came back into view slowly for Carl.

  It started as faint sounds in the background. Tiny intakes of breath, a soft shuffle of feet. At first he didn’t know where he was. His mind seemed to take a long time to focus, the noises coming in waves, fading in and then out again until he became aware of the cold hardness of the floor against his body.

  He wanted to sit up, but when he tried to move his arms he couldn’t. They were fastened behind him, something tight around his wrists, the ovals of harsh chain links digging into his skin. He groaned, confused, and opened his eyes, but had to close them again quickly. The view ahead seemed to lurch at him, tilting from side to side like a rocking boat. He took some deep breaths but had to grit his teeth as sharp jabs of pain rushed at him.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he said, although it came out muffled.

  And then it came back to him. The images crept in, like the steady reveal of a slow stage curtain. He remembered coming to on the floor, confused, hurt, and the man coming towards him, and then something being forced into his mouth. After that, it was darkness once more.

  He opened his eyes quickly. The woman. He remembered the woman. Her body cold and stiff on the floor. He swallowed back the pain. But she was no longer there. The cellar was in darkness and where she had been lying before there was a sheen along the floor like black ice.

  ‘If you move too quickly, you’ll die.’

  Carl jumped at the voice. It was low and quiet, but with menace in every syllable. He winced and gasped as a jolt of pain shot to his forehead and then something tightened around his neck. The acidic taste rise of bile rose quickly. He tried to swallow it down but his throat was too constricted, stopping his breaths.

  ‘What did I say? You need to be careful where you move,’ the voice said, and then there were hands at the back of Carl’s neck. It was a rope, like a tow-rope. It was loosened slightly.

  Carl took some deep breaths and then said, ‘Where are you?’

  There was a click and a light shone in his face; the bright glare of a desk lamp, whoever was behind it just a dark outline. He grimaced against the brightness.

  ‘How long have I been here?’ Carl said.

  ‘A while. I gave you some water, but I put in some sleeping pills to help you drift off. You were in awful pain. I had to do something.’

  Carl let his head hang down, the rope digging in again but not as tightly. Sweat stuck his fringe to his forehead, despite the cool of the cellar. ‘If you care so much, let me go.’

  ‘I can’t do that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You’ll tell.’

  Carl looked back to the floor, where the woman had been. ‘Where has she gone?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The woman on the floor. She was dead.’

  ‘Was she?’

  ‘I saw her.’

  Silence.

  ‘Who was she?’ Carl said.

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘She was dead. There will be someone wondering where she is, worried for her.’

  ‘Like there is for you?’

  That made tears jump into his eyes. He thought of his mother. She would be worried. He blinked them away, and the thought of her replaced some of the fear with anger.

  ‘So what are you going to do?’ Carl said.

  Another pause. Longer this time.

  ‘I don’t know,’ the man said eventually. ‘I really don’t know, but you need to be careful with that rope around your neck.’

  Carl swallowed hard. He tried to stop the tremble in his legs but it was impossible.

  ‘So now I want you to do something for me,’ the man said.

  ‘But I don’t want to.’

  ‘I’ll kill you if you don’t. So think again.’

  Fresh tears sprang into his eyes and a small whimper escaped.

  ‘Stand up,’ the man said.

  Carl shuffled around so he could kneel up, which was hard with his wrists tied together behind his back. He grunted with effort as he rose to a standing position.

  ‘What now?’ he said.

  The man laughed and then pulled on the rope, tightening it again, and then fastened it around a ceiling joist. Carl gasped.

  When the man finished, he said, ‘Have you ever been in control of your own destiny?’

  Carl gulped and swallowed. ‘I don’t understand.’

  The man stepped closer, his face in shadow against the brightness of the desk lamp. ‘It’s a slipknot. If you pull against it, the rope will tighten and you’ll die. You’re at the very limit of the rope’s slack.’ He stepped forward and loosened the noose slightly. His breath was hot on Carl’s cheek. ‘Your wrists are tied up like that so that you can’t pull it away from your neck.’

  Carl licked his lips. ‘But how can I sit down or anything?’

  ‘You can’t. That’s why everything is in your control. You fall asleep and slump down, the rope will tighten and you’ll die. You move away or try to sit down, the rope will tighten and you’ll die. Think about that when I come in and ask you questions about wh
y you were in my house. I’ll give you time to reflect.’

  Before Carl could say anything, the lamp was switched off.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Carl said, his voice betraying his panic.

  ‘You don’t need to know.’

  Carl put his head back against the wall as the man’s footsteps went across the cellar floor and then up the stairs. A brief sliver of light shone down from above and then it was darkness once more.

  Joe skipped up the few small steps to his office building. The receptionist looked up as he walked in.

  ‘Good morning, Mr Parker.’

  ‘Hello, Marion,’ he said, chirpier than normal. He didn’t quite manage a whistle, but he was definitely a little quicker than usual on his way up the stairs.

  He had almost made it to his room when he heard someone shout. ‘Joe!’ He turned to look back along the corridor and saw it was Tom Newman again, the senior partner.

  ‘Hello, Tom. How are you?’ Joe’s voice was cautious. Twice in two days told him that this wasn’t a social visit.

  Joe let him walk past and into his office before he followed him in. He knew this was round two of the fees debate, so he closed the door behind him as he went in.

  ‘I’ve just been into the secretaries’ room,’ Tom said. He was grinning again, his head cocked to one side nervously. ‘I’ve told them that you’re deciding what to do, and how things might be changing.’

  Joe felt his energy evaporate. ‘You mean you’ve told them that it’s up to me whether I sack some of them or give up my own job to save them?’

  ‘They’re entitled to know. You’d like to make me out to be the villain here, but this is a business.’

  Joe didn’t respond. He stared at the Aidan Molloy papers, still on his desk from the night before.

  ‘Just let me remind you that we need your proposals by the weekend,’ Tom said.

  And with that, he left the room.

  Joe sat back and rubbed his face with his hands, deflated. He stared at the ceiling until the sound of footsteps disturbed him. When he looked, it was Gina.

  ‘Late night?’ she said.

  ‘No, just a good morning turning bad.’

  ‘I saw Tom,’ she said. ‘What did he want?’

  Joe thought about whether to answer, but he respected Gina too much to keep anything from her. ‘You know what it’s about. The department’s in trouble. We’ve got to make money or make savings, starting with the wage bill. But we can’t invent criminals and we can’t invent a need for what we do.’

  ‘So what do we do? Some of the secretaries have got families, they need the money.’

  ‘Tom says that he can employ the secretaries elsewhere,’ Joe said, and he shook his head. ‘He’s given me the choice: sack people or sack myself.’

  Gina didn’t say anything for a few seconds, just toyed with her hands. Joe knew what she was thinking, that if the criminal department closed, she would lose her job along with Joe. Her career had always been about crime. Thirty years in the police and then her job with Joe as his caseworker, his clerk, his investigator, his just about everything. She couldn’t do anything else.

  When she looked up, she said, ‘What are you going to do?’

  Joe looked at the box of papers. Aidan Molloy’s mother came back into his mind, and Lorna Jex. ‘Fight,’ he said.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Make it embarrassing for them to close us,’ he said. ‘I’m going to make a splash, give us a profile. It probably won’t make any money, but it might just make it awkward for Tom to shut us down.’ Joe pointed at the papers. ‘I’m going to see Lorna Jex. I want to know what it is about Aidan’s case that obsessed her son, and once I know, I’m going to stand side by side with Aidan’s mother with this firm’s logo held high. Speak to the papers, the television. Let’s see Honeywells close us down then, with the local media watching.’

  Gina frowned. ‘Would that work?’

  ‘I don’t know, but have you got any better ideas?’

  When Gina stayed silent, Joe knew that she didn’t.

  Seventeen

  Sam sat at the back of the room, a notepad open in front of him.

  They were in one of the empty rooms next to the Incident Room, everyone around a long table with a flipchart at one end. Briefings were best somewhere quiet, with all phones switched off.

  The previous hour had been all about setting up the procedures and allocating roles. Hunter had, as usual, appointed Weaver as his deputy. That had been anticipated as soon as the nature of the murder was revealed. Hunter had the experience and the clout, but above all else it gave him the chance to practise for yet another heartfelt television appearance, Glory Hunter in full flow.

  DI Evans had been given the role of Office Manager, to keep control of the Incident Room. The other roles were dished out: the Outside Inquiry Manager, Crime Scene Manager, Forensic Manager, Media Manager, House-to-House Manager. But it all came down to common sense in the end: what was suspicious and what wasn’t.

  At least the investigation had started.

  Hunter paced at the front of the room, acting with more composure and assertiveness than he had at the crime scene.

  The atmosphere around the room had the expectant air that always comes with the start of an investigation. Everyone attentive and silent, not the chair-twirling, joking and pen-tapping that comes later, when the initial shock has died down. It doesn’t matter how long you have been doing the job, the sight of a dead body, someone’s loved one snuffed out, still provokes anger and a desire for capture. When it stops doing that, it’s time to stop doing the job, because you’ll begin to miss things and killers will go unpunished.

  Hunter stopped and looked around the room.

  Sam knew all about Hunter’s reputation. Ruthless and flamboyant, he dominated Incident Rooms and inspired loyalty amongst those who worked under him.

  This was Sam’s first time as one of Hunter’s team, as the DCI switched from unit to unit, following the big stories, but still Sam thought there was something missing. Hunter seemed nervous and was mopping his brow, as if the heating in the room was turned up too high.

  He started by asking for ideas or motives. He got back the usual collection of ex-boyfriends, angry husbands and random stalkers, so he listed them on the first sheet of the flipchart.

  Someone asked about the post mortem, and Hunter replied that he expected it later that day. They needed to know how the body was cut up; it might help in linking it to any tools found with a suspect. It would give a better time of death and provide a better clue of what she had been doing. Had she just eaten and, if so, what? Had there been any sexual activity, and was there any sign that it was non-consensual? Were there any minute traces of the killer left on her that were not obvious from the scene?

  The suggestions were limited in the absence of the victim’s identity, although Hunter preferred a domestic angle. More than half of all murders fall into that category and it was all about playing the odds.

  Sam looked around the room to see if anyone was going to ask any questions, but most people were content to just look straight ahead and seem interested. He glanced at Charlotte and raised his eyebrows. She gave him a small shrug. No one had asked the question they had asked each other at the scene.

  Sam coughed and raised his hand slowly. Everyone looked round to him, and when Hunter pointed, Sam said, ‘Why did he choose that spot to dump the body?’

  Hunter’s eyes narrowed. ‘What do you mean?’

  Weaver sat down in a chair at the front, facing the room. He folded his arms and crossed one leg over the other.

  ‘It looked like a display, the way the body was laid out, as if it meant something,’ Sam said. ‘We were supposed to see it, and he had the whole of Saddleworth Moor to choose from, but he picked somewhere away from a path. It’s as if he didn’t want anyone to see the display straight away.’ He swallowed as he became aware of the awkward silence in the room, because he had raised something important be
fore Hunter had. He continued regardless. ‘She was found by a fluke, by that birdwatcher, and the moors don’t get busy with the walkers until the weekend. So why make a display if it isn’t going to be found straight away? Perhaps the location of the body is important.’