Mercy Killing

by Lisa Cutts

  He pushed this thought from his mind as he turned off the engine and looked up at the front of his house. He could make out the dim light of his wife’s bedside lamp through a crack in the curtains. That immediately annoyed him.

  The memory of their row in the department store was engraved on his mind, despite it being over five years ago: she had insisted on ordering the most expensive made-to-measure curtains, fully lined with blackout material to ensure eight hours’ shut-eye. And she never closed them properly.

  ‘Two bloody grand,’ he murmured to himself as he got out of the car and fumbled in his pockets for his door keys.

  He tried to keep as quiet as possible, but he was clumsy and usually made more noise when he attempted to creep around the house. All too often, he was chided for not putting something back when he had finished with it. Some of his wife’s complaints were well founded.

  Harry glanced up at the kitchen clock, saw with surprise that it was after three in the morning and wavered between putting the kettle on and pouring himself a whisky. The trouble with whisky was that one was never enough, and he was in need of sleep, so he opted for a glass of milk.

  He stood leaning against the kitchen cupboard, eyes closed, thoughts turned to decades before when a glass of milk was a childhood comfort, no space in his head then for mutilated bodies, raped children, sexually exploited young girls, paedophiles and their murderers.

  He downed the rest of the milk, wiped his hand across his mouth and felt his way in the darkness of the hall to the stairs.

  Three steps from the bottom, he was able to make out a sliver of light from under the master bedroom’s door. He hoped that by now his wife had realized that he was home and at least done the decent thing and was pretending to be asleep. Luck clearly wasn’t with him tonight. He was going to have to talk to her.

  ‘Hello, sweetheart,’ he said as he pushed the door open. She was lying on her side, long blonde hair swept back, a book about the partition of India and Pakistan held in front of her face. ‘You look both beautiful and intelligent, as ever.’

  Her features hardened as she dropped the book and glared at him.

  ‘What’s made you late this time?’ she said.

  ‘Murder,’ he answered as he hung his jacket up.

  The conversations always went like this when he got home in the middle of the night. She knew what his job as detective inspector involved, and so he couldn’t for the life of him work out what it was she expected him to talk about.

  Trying his best to avoid a row, he sat on his side of the bed, his back to her, as he removed his shoes, socks and tie. Harry dawdled deliberately, hoping that by some miracle by the time he was ready to stand up and take his trousers off she would have lost interest in his day and would want to talk about something else. Or if the gods really were picking him as their favourite, would even want sex. That last bit was too much to hope for, but avoiding a row still had a slim chance.

  ‘And don’t roll your bloody socks into a ball.’

  Her words were accompanied by the sound of her turning over, then the click of the light switch.

  Harry stood in the darkness next to the bed, the trousers he had already undone now around his ankles.

  Sex was certainly off.

  Chapter 18

  Saturday 6 November

  The following morning’s briefing took some time. Both police officers and civilian investigators had been called in on their days off to supplement the meagre number of staff on weekend cover. There was a time when the senior investigating officer would have had his or her pick of the entire department, but as the overtime rate was now slashed by twenty-five per cent most preferred to keep their days off. So the conference room was made up of the usual people who never turned down a bit of extra pay and those who felt too guilty to ignore their ringing phones when off duty.

  Eventually the DI said, ‘We’ve covered all we need to and everyone’s had a chance to raise issues. Has anyone got anything else they want to say?’

  Harry looked around the room at each member of staff in turn. Each of them shook their head at him.

  Once again, DCI Barbara Venice had been in the conference room with them. It wasn’t unusual for someone of a higher rank to attend another officer’s briefing, but it was a little odd for her to arrive after it had started, sit at the back, say nothing and then leave without a word.

  ‘If that’s it,’ he said, ‘you all know what you’re doing and I’d like to talk about staffing with the DS.’

  He remained in his seat at the top of the table with Sandra Beckinsale, his stony-faced detective sergeant, next to him.

  Once they were alone in the conference room, the noise of stampeding staff making for the toilets and kitchen in the background, Harry started with, ‘We need more staff. Six would do it.’

  ‘No,’ she said with a shake of her head that made her jowl wobble, ‘we won’t get six.’

  ‘Well, let’s ask for six and we’ll probably get four. We ask for four, we’ll get two.’

  ‘Fine.’ She made a note in her book and looked at Harry with a blank expression.

  ‘How are you settling in to Major Crime?’ he said.

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Any problems?’

  ‘No.’

  For the couple of weeks she had been working in Major Crime, Sandra Beckinsale’s force-wide reputation for being professional and hard-working had already shone right through, unlike her personality. No one so far had got a glimpse of that.

  ‘I’ll ask for more staff,’ she said as she closed her notebook. ‘I’ll get on to that as soon as I’ve given out these other enquiries. And DC Rainer’s back from his holiday on Monday. I’ll earmark Pierre for outside enquiries and we’ve the new DC, Hazel Hamilton, starting then too.’

  She paused.

  ‘That’s if you’ve finished, sir?’

  Harry nodded as he wondered why some people were such hard work.

  ‘Yeah, of course,’ he said as she got up to leave the room.

  Within minutes Sandra Beckinsale had almost finished giving out the work she wanted completed; that was all except two enquiries.

  She found DC Delayhoyde at his desk searching through his notebook for something.

  ‘I’ve run out of staff so I’d like you to take a look at both of these, please,’ she said as she handed him the relevant paperwork.

  He glanced down at the sheets she was holding, inches from his grasp, and tried in vain to read the names on the pages.

  ‘One is one from Albie Woodville’s past,’ she explained. ‘The other, very much his present.’

  ‘Have you got one from his future?’ asked Tom. ‘You know, like Scrooge?’

  Beckinsale ignored his remark and said, ‘I know you’ll do your homework on them both before you go, but one was originally part of the trial against Woodville years ago and the other is his girlfriend, Millie Hanson. Take a look at this lot and get back to me if you need to.’

  The DS started to walk away from him and called over her shoulder, ‘You never know how they’re going to react; potentially you’ll be sitting on the sofa in a murderer’s house so take someone with you and keep your eyes open.’

  Chapter 19

  The street where Toby Carvell and his family lived was on the outskirts of East Rise and filled with neatly kept semi-detached homes. It was the sort of area sought after by those with decent incomes who wanted the convenience of a town centre, a railway station and a beach near by, but didn’t want traffic and noise. The road was devoid of both people and vehicles when they arrived.

  As Tom pulled the unmarked Peugeot over to a stop outside number 34, he nodded appreciatively.

  ‘Toby Carvell is doing OK,’ he said as much to himself as to Sophia sitting beside him.

  ‘So we got his name from the original trial against Woodville in the 1990s?’ she asked. ‘That was bloody fast work. Why wasn’t the paperwork archived or destroyed?’

  ‘It was archived,’
said Tom as he checked the facts from his file, wedged beside his seat. He tapped his finger on the page as he read. ‘Woodville was on trial for sexual abuse against five children. He was found guilty in 1991 of several offences of indecency against three children but acquitted on all counts against another two of them. Toby Carvell was one of the two victims he didn’t go to prison for. Someone dug this out from the original operation on the HOLMES system and printed off statements, reports and other stuff.’

  ‘Right, well, let’s see what he’s got to say about where he was last night,’ said Sophia as she gathered her own stuff from the footwell.

  The two of them stood next to their unmarked car which was covered in seagull droppings – one hazard of working so close to the coast – and made their way along the driveway to the Carvell family home.

  It didn’t escape Tom’s notice that the dark blue Ford Focus registered to Toby was missing from the front of the house.

  The door was answered a couple of moments later by a woman dressed in a purple onesie. Her long dark hair hung loose but was stuck to one side of her face. She looked from Tom to Sophia as they stood on her doorstep, warrant cards in hands.

  Concern ran across her features at the unexpected visitors on a Saturday morning.

  She opened her mouth to say something as the hand gripping the door frame tightened, turning her knuckles white. The other hand flew up to her chest.

  ‘No, Mrs Carvell,’ said Sophia as she recognized the look of a panicked mother when she saw one. ‘Please, it’s your husband we’ve come to see.’

  The relief exploded within her and forced a nervous, high-pitched laugh.

  ‘Thank God,’ she said and stepped aside. ‘The kids were at a bonfire display last night and stayed at their cousin’s house.’

  Although Mrs Carvell moved out of their way, as if to let them in, it wasn’t until the realization sank in that they weren’t about to deliver a death message that she pulled the door behind her.

  She stood almost six feet tall, a ferocious Amazon of a woman despite being clad only in her nightwear.

  ‘What do you want to speak to him about?’ she said, arms crossed.

  ‘It’s best that we tell him ourselves,’ explained Tom in a tone intended to placate rather than provoke.

  A movement behind her on the stairs caught Tom’s eye, and he witnessed two bare, hairy legs descending towards them.

  The officer really hoped that Toby Carvell was clothed and just as important that his attitude didn’t match his wife’s. This thought was interrupted by the person they had come to see as he shouted from the staircase, ‘Let them in, woman. And why are you standing there like Barney the fucking Dinosaur?’

  Chapter 20

  Once the four of them were seated in the Carvells’ living room, Toby insisted his wife put the kettle on.

  ‘You’re sure you don’t want me here?’ she asked him over her shoulder as she got up from the two-seater sofa she’d been sharing with her husband.

  ‘Absolutely, Shirley,’ he replied, raising his eyebrows at the two officers on opposite ends of a larger leather sofa. ‘I’m gasping for a cuppa. I had a couple of beers last night and my breath’s as rough as crap.’

  He aimed the last remark at Tom, as if to band together with the other man in the room, somehow implying this was how their entire gender began its Saturday mornings.

  Sophia took her opportunity to give Toby Carvell the once-over and drew her opinion that he was a good-looking middle-aged man who kept himself in shape. She then found herself shifting self-consciously in her seat because his loosely tied, mid-thigh-length dressing gown was beginning to gape in the middle.

  One awkward aspect of police enquiries was at what point the officers informed their witnesses that their genitals were on display.

  ‘Shirley,’ he called out towards the kitchen, ‘put some toast on as well. I’m starving.’

  ‘The reason we’re here, Mr Carvell,’ began Tom, ‘is that we’re investigating a murder.’

  He looked closely at Toby’s face for any sign of anxiety or the tiniest indication that he had any idea what he was going to say next.

  Not one facial muscle moved.

  Tom edged forward on his seat, the squeak of the leather loud in the otherwise silent room.

  ‘The victim’s name is Albie Woodville.’

  Tom Delayhoyde saw something pass across Toby’s face. The detective had a feeling that he was hiding something from him. The problem being, he wasn’t sure what that something was.

  Toby Carvell might have been hiding his part in a murder, but he equally might have been hiding the secrets of his childhood. Tom was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, but not to the extent of letting a murderer go free, whatever the circumstances.

  As soon as the sound of the kettle boiling could be heard, and Toby was safe in the knowledge that its hum obscured their conversation, he leaned forward and said, ‘So what exactly brings you to my door?’

  ‘We know that you knew Albie Woodville,’ answered Tom as he held the older man’s stare.

  ‘Knew?’ said Toby, as he ran a hand over his shaven head. ‘I more than knew him, the dirty, fucking bastard. You’ll know all this anyway.’

  His last remark was made with a glance across to Sophia.

  ‘Are you comfortable talking in front of both of us?’ asked Tom, not wanting to be left alone without a colleague for back-up but wondering if it would be a better idea if Sophia wasn’t in the room.

  ‘Ah, the police at their best,’ said Toby with a wry laugh. ‘I had all this, you see, the first time round, when I gave evidence against the scum that is Albert Woodville. The police came round to see me, a nice couple of blokes they were. They gave it all the spiel: Was I all right talking about it? Did I prefer to speak to fellas or women? Did I care? How was I feeling? Don’t upset yourself, Toby. We believe you, we really do. They took me to a house somewhere, made me tea, bought me a sandwich, put me in touch with support groups.’

  He stopped talking and wriggled in his seat, fingernails on the sofa either side of him. He was almost digging them into the material, trying his best not to tear the cover.

  ‘Worst thing of all, worse in some ways than the abuse I suffered at the sick fuck’s hands, was the way I was treated in court. That horrible sod probably couldn’t help it, but here was a courtroom chock full of legally trained professionals, intent on ripping me up for arse paper. And the fucking judge let them.’

  The two officers watched in silence as the person they had come to talk to about his whereabouts on the night of the murder of a convicted sex offender seemed to melt into the furniture.

  ‘I got into that witness box,’ he said, voice full of horrors never quite forgotten, ‘and I was made to feel like a lying piece of crap. I was accused of making it up for compensation. I didn’t want money, I wanted justice. Except, justice is a bloody joke.’

  He seemed to remember where he was and that there were two detectives sitting in his front room on a Saturday morning whilst he poured out his heart over his second degrading assault, this one in a court in front of a judge, jury, legal teams and spectators in the public gallery.

  ‘So, in answer to your question,’ he said, voice louder now, ‘I’m fine talking in front of you both. I’ve been laid bare in a court, so why should I object to you two?’

  The kitchen door opened and Shirley walked in with three mugs of tea.

  ‘Do me a favour, love?’ said Toby as she plonked the last of the three mugs down.

  ‘I know,’ she sighed, ‘make you some toast.’

  ‘No,’ he said, as he reached for his tea, ‘go and get dressed. You’re offending my eyes.’

  On her way out, she called a few choice words in her husband’s direction, which made him grin as he watched her leave the room.

  The problem for him was that his brash way of dealing with people wasn’t fooling Sophia and Tom for one moment.

  They had seen the real, vul
nerable Toby Carvell and they had a growing feeling that he was involved in Albie Woodville’s murder. Their problem was going to be how they proved it.

  Chapter 21

  Try as hard as he could, DI Harry Powell could only summon feelings of hatred towards Albert Woodville. Yes, he saw him as a victim of murder, the worst crime imaginable, but he had also handed out his own death sentences. One of his victims of sexual abuse had attempted suicide following the end of Woodville’s lengthy trial, and another had an impressive criminal record, beginning around the time he was placed into Woodville’s care, when, presumably, the abuse started.

  Harry knew that however the enquiry went, there would be no winners, certainly not amongst his staff.

  He hadn’t failed to recognize what Sophia was trying to tell him about Gabrielle Royston but as ever, it was what he did with the information. He could call Gabrielle into his office and ask her for her opinion of perverts, but even if for one minute she didn’t jump to the conclusion that her senior officer was trying to come on to her, she would hardly tell him if she had a secret longing to annihilate everyone convicted of sexual offences. Nothing in life was ever that simple.

  This particular Saturday was likely to turn into a very long one. Harry gave a brief thought to the hours he worked and the strain it had put on his marriage over the years, something that for so long he hadn’t considered to be a problem. His domestic instructions were now very clear: unless he fancied the idea of being divorced, he wasn’t to ‘hide at the sodding police station’. Even he knew that the threats weren’t idle and that their marriage was on the rocks. He could either pay Mrs Powell more attention or she would leave him, obliterating everything he had aimed for and built. He simply didn’t want to risk it.

  Not that he would ever tell anyone that. He made excuses that he was getting on a bit and didn’t have the staying power of his younger years. The truth was that he hated the idea of his marriage going wrong and was petrified of being alone after being a husband with children around. He was sure that life had the potential to go the right way for him and he wasn’t going to let a dead paedophile spoil things.