Sorrow Bound

by David Mark

  Goss settles back, too, mug resting on his thigh, his other hand tapping on the arm of the chair.

  “Hoyer-Wood,” he says again. “Nasty business.”

  “Hmm?” says McAvoy coaxingly.

  “More people should have heard of him.”

  “I read the file.”

  Goss makes a scornful noise. “File? Date of birth, date of arrest, and a couple of witness statements? They don’t know the half of it.”

  “Why don’t you fill in the gaps?”

  Goss stares for a moment, then appears to come to a decision. “Hoyer-Wood was a posh boy,” he says, sighing. “Mid-thirties when we got him. Nearly qualified as a doctor, if you can believe that. Left university under a cloud four years into his training. Went abroad for a bit and trained as a sports physiotherapist. That’s what he was doing when all this came out. Had a private practice at his nice big house out on the road to York. Nice place. Don’t know who’s got it now . . .”

  “You found all this out in the background probe, did you? After he was arrested?”

  “I went to town on the bugger. Spoke to everybody who’d ever met him, it felt like. We thought the case was watertight.”

  McAvoy waits. Drinks his tea. Listens to the silence and stares at the carpet. When he looks up, Goss is staring at nothing. Describing things only he can see.

  “We don’t know how long he’d been at it. How many there were. He liked them to watch, you see. That was his thing.” He snarls. Swallows, as if there is something vile in his mouth. “It wasn’t the actual sex that he got off on. It was the look on their husbands’ faces. Their kids. Their mums and dads . . .”

  McAvoy breathes out. “Jesus.”

  “He’d wander about in crowds. Take a shine to a family. Maybe a couple. Maybe some middle-aged woman pushing her old dad in a wheelchair. And then he’d just choose. Pick who he liked, and follow them. He’d just bloody choose!”

  Goss slaps the arm of the chair, then gives a joyless little laugh. “First one we heard about was a young mum in a holiday cottage in Aldbrough. Little village on the coast there. Her and her two boys, up here for a little break. All she could afford, poor cow. Petrol station attendant reckons Hoyer-Wood was there at the same time she was filling up her car, second day of her holidays, but they’d wiped the CCTV. Wasn’t much good in those days, anyway. Reckon that’s where he took a shine to her, though. Just caught his eye.”

  Goss bites on his lip. “He broke into her place the next night. Boys were sleeping in her bed with her. She said later they’d been scared. They’d heard noises the night before. Asked if they could sleep in with Mum. She woke up with a knife against her cheek. Him looking down at her. He wore a surgical mask. Can you believe that? Like he was carrying out a procedure. He woke the kids. Wasn’t rough with them. Just told them to wake up. Told the oldest to put the light on. Then he raped her. Just like that. Held a knife to her throat and told the boys that if they tried to move he’d open her windpipe. Then when he was done, he said that if she told anybody he’d come back and do it again. And again . . .”

  McAvoy stares at the floor. “She reported it?”

  “Not at first. Not until after. Not until we were investigating the one we got him for.”

  “In Bridlington?”

  “Yup,” Goss confirms. “This was a couple of years later. He’d got good at it by then. Perfected his technique, so to speak. Wasn’t enough for just the kids to see. He was into husbands by now. Same MO. Breaking in when they were asleep. He added a bit more of a kick this time, though. Started playing with lighter petrol.”

  McAvoy looks up. “What?”

  Goss nods, finding it hard to believe even as he relays it. “When they were asleep, all curled up in each other. He’d spray them with lighter petrol. Then he’d stand there with a lighter. Tell the bloke to stay still or he’d set fire to the three of them.”

  “The three?”

  “Oh aye, he’d be covered in the stuff himself. Blokes would wake up with this stranger in their bed, threatening to set them on fire. And they’d do what he said. They’d stand against the wall and they’d cry and call him a bastard and threaten him with all sorts. But they wouldn’t stop him. They wouldn’t do a thing. When he was done he’d tell them the same thing—he would come back. And nobody wanted to report it anyway. Not the blokes. Not the blokes who were too bloody scared to stop a stranger from raping their woman in the middle of the night.”

  McAvoy briefly imagines how the men felt. Imagines the fear and the rage and the helplessness. Then he imagines the women. Imagines their sheer, indescribable terror.

  Goss gives a smile. “I know what you’re thinking, son. Thinking you’d never do what he asked, yeah? I thought that, too. But these weren’t cowardly blokes, lad. These were ordinary fellas. Blokes who would wade in to a scrap if you asked them to. But there’s something about fire, isn’t there? Something that stops you dead. Hoyer-Wood knew that. He would have kept going if he hadn’t messed up.”

  “Bridlington, yes?”

  “Picked the wrong family, I’ll tell you that. Locals, they were. Not holidaymakers—”

  McAvoy sits forward. “Sorry, George, can I just ask, were these cases all seaside towns? Was that part of his thinking?”

  “No, there were a couple in little towns as well. Or at least we think there was. Half of this is guesswork, son. We put this together afterward, based on where we knew he had been, and with a lot of promises that none of the information we received would ever be shared. No, we think he liked the seaside because it’s where families and couples spend happy times. You know how it is when you see a family enjoying themselves at the beach. All that cotton candy and kiss-me-quick hats. That’s what he liked.”

  “But this happened in December, yes?”

  “You can get cheap breaks in places like Bridlington in winter. You still find holidaymakers. Maybe he’d seen this family before and got a taste for them then and couldn’t wait until the snows thawed. We don’t know.”

  “What happened?”

  “Same thing,” says Goss wearily. “Woke a family up. Cromwell, their name was. But he hadn’t done his research properly. Didn’t know the Cromwells like we did.”

  “Bad news?”

  Goss opens his eyes wide to demonstrate his strength of feeling.

  “He didn’t cooperate? The dad?”

  “Did for about five seconds. Did as he was told. Stood against the wall and watched Hoyer-Wood stick his cock in his wife, holding a lighter to her hair.”

  “He intervened?”

  “He hasn’t got many gears, Johnny Cromwell. He’s not one of life’s thinkers.”

  “And Hoyer-Wood dropped the lighter?”

  “We don’t think he’d ever have done what he threatened to. He just liked having the power. Soon as Johnny-boy came at him, he panicked. Tried to flick the wheel on the lighter, and dropped the thing. Johnny threw him around like he was made of straw. Beat the shit out of him.”

  “There was a fire, though, yes? The reports I read—”

  “Johnny told us that Hoyer-Wood did it himself. Flicked the wheel on the lighter. That’s bollocks. It was Johnny. Set the bastard on fire.”

  McAvoy purses his lips. “Was he naked? Hoyer-Wood? During the attacks?”

  “Aye,” says Goss. “Just the surgical mask. We found his clothes outside Cromwell’s house. We reckon he used to get changed before and after.”

  “Condom?”

  “Yeah. Put it on before he came in.”

  McAvoy considers it. “That rather suggests . . .”

  “That the anticipation of it got him hard? Yep. Sick bastard, like I said.”

  “What happened next?”

  Goss gives a laugh. “Threw himself out the bloody window, didn’t he? Third floor, straight through the glass. Tore himself to bits
and hit the ground like he’d fallen from an airplane.”

  “Bloody hell.”

  “He got up, though. Was thick snow that night. That took some of the impact out of his fall and put the flames out. Staggered a few hundred yards before Cromwell caught up with him again.”

  “This was on the seafront, yes? There were people around . . .”

  “That’s what saved the bastard. People in pubs and chip shops, looking out as this battered and burned naked bloke stumbled past the window.”

  “They stopped Cromwell? Stopped him from killing Hoyer-Wood?”

  “Couple of blokes held him back. They didn’t know what was happening.”

  “And Hoyer-Wood?”

  “Went into shock. Heart stopped. His leg had been cut coming through the glass. He’d fractured his skull, too.”

  “And Philippa Longman? Yvonne Dale?”

  Goss breathes out slowly. “I didn’t realize when I heard about the poor woman in Barton. But yeah, I remember Philippa. She was up in Bridlington for a mini break or something. Over from West Yorkshire. She pumped his heart. Blew in his lungs. Brought him back.”

  “Yvonne?”

  “I’ve brought her to mind since I got your message. Quick thinker, that one. Pulled off her tights and tied them around the wound. Tourniquet, it’s called, yeah? Then she sat there in the blood and snow, holding his hand until the ambulances arrived. They say you shouldn’t do that now. Guidelines have changed. You should just hold a compress over the wound. But back then, she did the right thing.”

  “They saved him?”

  “For a while. His heart stopped again in the ambulance. They brought him back. Then they operated. Saved him, though.” He shakes his head. “They should have let him die.”

  McAvoy finds himself nodding and then stops himself. “They didn’t know. And even if they did . . .”

  “The local uniforms turned up to arrest Cromwell. He told them everything. That’s when we got the call. CID.”

  “And?”

  “And it unfolded, lad. What he’d done. What he liked.”

  “How did you find out about the other incidents?”

  Goss points with his chin, as if Hoyer-Wood’s home is at the end of the garden. “Searched his place. Found his appointments book. Had a look at his magazine collection. Proper police work, lad. Appealed for witnesses and got a call from the Aldbrough lass. She said she could never give evidence, but thought we should know what he did to her. I think she wanted to know, more than anything. Wanted to know if it was the same man. Why he’d done it. Who he was. Just couldn’t bring herself to give a statement.”

  “And the others?”

  Goss closes his eyes. “Hoyer-Wood liked to write. In court, they said it was just fantasy. It wasn’t. He wrote it all down afterward. Described every bloody moment of it.”

  “What did he say? When he came out of surgery, I mean.”

  Goss laughs. “He didn’t say much, lad. He was a wreck. Paralyzed down one side. Couldn’t walk. No motor skills in one half of his face.”

  “But he was charged?”

  “We charged him with what we knew for certain. One count of rape. Figured that when we got him for that, we could start to build a case around any others that decided to give evidence. The important thing was locking him up.”

  “What happened?”

  Goss grinds his teeth. “His posh friends happened, that’s what. A psychiatrist said he was unfit to stand trial. Judge bought it.”

  “But you didn’t?”

  “He was an evil little bastard, but he knew what he was doing. The shrink was an old university friend. They studied together. Half his old university chums sent the judge letters saying what a super chap Hoyer-Wood was. They said they didn’t believe he had acted maliciously, but was suffering from some mental disorder or something.”

  McAvoy squeezes the handle of his empty cup. “He was sent to a mental facility?”

  “He was sent to his mate’s place. Private healthcare facility, licensed by the Home Office to look after dangerous patients.” Goss sneers. “Got the license about a week after Hoyer-Wood was arrested. It was a holiday camp! Went to live there in bloody luxury.”

  McAvoy rolls his head from side to side, his neck stiff and sore. He becomes aware how cool it is in here. Wonders where the chill is coming from. What is raising the goose pimples on his skin.

  “And he’s never stood trial? Never been brought to account?”

  “No.”

  “Cromwell?”

  Goss shrugs, instantly looking a little older. “Got sent down a couple of years later for attempted murder. Row in a bar. He never did control that temper. Still inside.”

  “So where is Hoyer-Wood now?”

  “Went to stay at his pal’s asylum, not far from here. Was there a couple of years, then moved to another facility. He’s still classified as unfit to stand trial, and there’s no hunger to change that. I heard he suffered a major stroke a few years back that left him worse than ever. He’s a cripple. Can’t do anybody any harm and has to piss and shit in a bag. The thinking is that, for a man with needs like his, that’s punishment enough.”

  McAvoy considers it. “No, it’s not,” he says finally.

  “Tom Spink was right about you.”

  They share a tired smile and McAvoy scratches at his eyebrows, trying to formulate his thoughts.

  “The murders I’m investigating . . .”

  Goss holds his gaze. “Bloody big coincidence if it’s nothing to do with this, but I don’t know how it could be. How, or why . . .”

  “They saved his life. Saved the life of somebody who did terrible things and ruined the lives of others.”

  Goss hesitates. “I don’t envy you,” he says ruefully. “Bloody shame, all this. I only spoke to Yvonne the once and Philippa not much more than that, but they were nice ladies. Didn’t deserve that. If somebody is punishing them, whoever they are, then they’re as bad as Hoyer-Wood. And he was the fucking worst.”

  McAvoy stares into the bottom of his giant cup.

  Goss softens his voice. “I made it with a bag, son. You won’t find answers in your tea leaves.”

  McAvoy runs his hands through his hair, wishing he had started taking notes when the conversation began. It would help him, now, to be able to read back through what he has discovered. To busy his mind, his eyes, his fingers, with something other than the thoughts banging like heartbeats in his head.

  “The facility. The one his friend ran . . .”

  “On the way to Driffield.”

  “You ever go?”

  “Tried to. His mate wouldn’t agree to the interview. Said it would interfere with his treatment.”

  “You push?”

  “Had to apply to the Home Office. Orders came down to leave it alone.”

  McAvoy reaches into his pocket and pulls out his notebook.

  “I’ll need some names and addresses. Whatever you can remember . . .”

  Goss considers. “I promised the people who came forward I’d never share.”

  McAvoy says nothing. Lets the old man consider it.

  He shakes his head. “I’ll see what I can rustle up. First thing you want to do is visit the shrink who got him off.”

  McAvoy raises an eyebrow. “You think?”

  “There are questions to be answered, lad.” He stares hard at McAvoy.

  “On the road to Driffield, yeah?”

  Goss reaches into his shirt pocket and pulls out a scrap of paper. “I wrote the address down before you arrived, son. Figured it would be your next stop. I think it’s in new hands, but there are some ghosts at that place worth exorcising.”

  McAvoy starts to stand, then stops himself.

  “Does it get easier?” he asks softly. “Living with it. The ones that beat the syst
em? Got away with it?”

  Goss is silent for a second, then lets out his breath in a hollow laugh. Shakes his head apologetically.

  • • •

  Come on, Mark, please, just a text, just a trio of kisses or a promise to call later . . .

  Helen sits at her desk, staring at the screen, desperate for her e-mail in-box to light up. She hasn’t heard from Mark since he slipped away from her home in the middle of the night. She woke unsure if he had ever been there. The warm residue of pleasure and the stickiness between her legs were the only evidence that they had made love. That they had made love the way they do in the movies and in a way that she wants to be made love to again.

  Her in-box flashes and she clicks on the screen. It’s not him. Just a message from another police force about Adam Downey: the little shit who’s been saying “No comment” for two days and who they are about to charge with possessing a large quantity of cocaine.

  Colin Ray’s team was among the last to hear about what had happened at the alterations shop on Southcoates Lane. The incident went to the Drugs Squad, who held on to it for as long as they could. Their detective inspector, a fast-track university graduate by the name of Rick Breverton, had done the first interview with Downey. He had done some decent work on the basics. Got his name. A list of known associates. Even persuaded the lass from the shop to give a statement. Breverton didn’t deserve to be called the names that Colin Ray threw in his direction when they both met with the assistant chief constable and the head of CID to decide who was going to be given the case. Ray was adamant that it fell within his remit. He had no doubt that the lad was involved with the drugs gang he had been tracking for months. Breverton believed the young man was more likely linked to an older, more established outfit within the city, and therefore nothing to do with Ray’s wild imaginings about the elite new organized crime outfit outmuscling the old guard. For an easy life, ACC Everett had given the case to Ray, who had briefed his team immediately. Given them chapter and verse on Adam Downey.