Remorseless: A British Crime Thriller (Doc Powers & D.I. Carver Investigate #1)

by Will Patching

  This was the first time he had driven since Natalie’s death, but it was not as bad as he thought it would be. As he joined the M4 motorway the autopilot inside him took over the mechanical function, allowing him the freedom to think. To analyse.

  Was it possible that Leech really was innocent of murdering his parents? That was the question uppermost in his mind. It could explain why Shaun Leech had no fear of his brother... If he knew Peter was not responsible for their deaths. If he knew his little brother was not the murderer.

  Yet Peter was a murderer... Gruber and his neighbour were dead and there was little room for doubt at whose hands. Violent deaths, one a stabbing, the knife in Gruber’s temple covered in Leech’s prints.

  Like the knife he had used to kill his parents.

  Doc shifted lanes, glanced at the driver overtaking. The man had been flashing him and Doc moved out of his way as soon as he became aware of the car behind, but not quickly enough. The driver was purple in the face, mouthing at Doc as he passed, his fist pumping a livid middle finger at him. The man was in his forties, was smartly dressed and had a top end Audi.

  It saddened Doc, this display of intemperance, the fact that such a small thing could incur disproportionate anger. For a moment he was diverted, the thought of road rage breaking his pattern of thought.

  Rage.

  The knife wounds from the original Leech murders were indicators of an attack provoked by extreme fury. The motive had been obvious. The delay of trust fund monies enough to push a psychopathic son over the edge, inspiring a furious frenzied attack...

  Or. Could it have been staged to look that way? By Shaun? Wanting to inherit everything, to see his brother jailed?

  Yet, the evidence pointed to Peter. The blood in the shower drain from both parents. His bloody clothes aflame in the barbeque.

  But could Shaun have killed them and framed Peter?

  What evidence was there? Doc pondered.

  The phone call had clinched it. The cab driver had confirmed Shaun had been speaking to his girlfriend when they arrived at the house.

  Or seemed to be... The driver only heard Shaun speaking. Could he have pretended to be on the phone, killed his parents and then phoned Suzie a few minutes before calling the police?

  She had testified that she heard background noises, Shaun slamming the cab door, speaking to the driver as he paid. But that could have been recorded on a miniature device, similar to the one Judy used for her interviews, played back by Shaun for the benefit of his girlfriend during their brief phone conversation. Placing him in the cab, arriving home, supposedly with insufficient time to commit the murders...

  A perfect alibi.

  The cab driver was unsure, vaguely thought he may have dropped Shaun several minutes earlier... Until the exact time was confirmed by the mobile phone company. That was the critical factor that led the police to drop their investigation into Shaun and to focus on Peter.

  Which left the murder weapon and Peter’s bloodstained clothes in the barbeque.

  Peter’s bloody prints were on the knife. That was the most damning piece of evidence. Yet Shaun had knocked him cold before the police arrived. Could he have murdered their parents, found Peter in the shower, thumped him hard enough to send him unconscious, breaking his teeth?

  And while Peter was out cold could Shaun have put the knife in his hand? Showered blood off himself to ensure some ‘evidence’ was found in the drain? Lit a fire with some of his brother’s clothes, having smeared them with parental blood first? Maybe even worn some of them for the attack? Setting his brother up for the fall?

  Then called Suzie. Then the police. And sat with his parents, not bothered that he was coated in their blood again.

  How many minutes would it take in total? Ten?

  Doc pulled in at a service station, his mind reeling. It was all highly speculative. All highly unlikely. But all totally plausible. He sat in the car, staring out at the Wiltshire hills, unseeing.

  Could they really have convicted the wrong son?

  ***

  Rose Cottage. It certainly was – the front garden and walls were covered with the thorny plants. It made him think of Judy again. He felt a smile flicker on his face as a vision of his own English Rose appeared. He needed to concentrate. He pressed the bell.

  A scrawny old man answered and invited him in.

  ‘Thank you for seeing me at such short notice Dr Henley.’ They shook hands and Henley led Doc through to his lounge.

  ‘Please sit.’ Henley walked with a limp and had an odd expression when he spoke, Doc assumed from the remnants of the stroke. The cadaverous geriatric lowered himself into his ancient leather armchair, the type that would be at home in an old gentleman’s club. Doc sat on the sofa opposite and quickly took stock of his surroundings.

  The overall impression was dark. And there was a smell, a vague aroma that Doc could not figure, one that seemed out of place in this room. He tried once more to concentrate on the reason for his visit.

  ‘Peter Leech was your patient? For therapy? For how long?’

  Carver had explained the reason for this meeting and Doc was not about to waste his time on pleasantries.

  ‘Peter? Several years. His parents brought him to me when he was almost seven. Just before his birthday I think.’

  ‘So, you knew him well? How often would he come? What sort of regime were you treating him under?’

  Henley cackled, wheezed then coughed into his hand. A smoker’s cough, but there were no cigarettes to hand.

  ‘Regime? Oh in those days therapy for wayward little rich boys was a relatively new phenomenon in the UK. It was all rather casual. He would come for an hour most weeks.’

  ‘I see, but you did get to know him well. Say forty sessions a year. Several years?’ Doc hoped he had not wasted his journey, began to wonder if the old man actually had any professional qualifications.

  ‘Oh yes. It’s what caused my stroke, you know. Well, triggered it. I think we can safely say my diet, lack of exercise, drinking and smoking caused it.’ A humourless grin made his skinny head seem even more like a skull.

  ‘What do you mean? The murders? They affected you that badly?’ This was news to Doc. And made him more hopeful that Henley might be able to give him some insights into Leech.

  ‘Indeed. It happened the night of the murders.’ The old man’s eyes were dreamy, remembering. ‘I was watching TV when the news came on. Of course, I was devastated that a boy I had treated could have done such a thing...’ He gazed at the ceiling. Lost to Doc for a moment.

  ‘The shock. Brought on the stroke?’ Doc tried to keep Henley on track.

  ‘Yes.’ He dropped his gaze to Doc’s face. ‘A detonation in my head, as it were. Followed by the headache from hell. It was like someone had parked a car on my skull...’ The dreamy look had gone, a twinge of fear there instead. ‘I collapsed and Mary, my wife, heard me fall from the kitchen.’ He waved his fingers vaguely at the doorway. ‘I was paralysed down one side.’

  It seemed to Doc a massive over-reaction to the shock. Okay, Henley knew the Leech family personally, but he could not understand the reason the psychologist had been so badly affected.

  ‘But you had stopped seeing Peter some years before, hadn’t you?’ Doc vaguely recalled from his involvement in assessing Leech’s mental state for the trial.

  ‘Yes. He had started using drugs. Initially just harmless experimentation with marijuana. He was about thirteen then.’

  Marijuana. Doc placed that strange smell now.

  ‘And he stopped coming? Just like that?’

  ‘Not exactly. He came. His father drove him, physically handed him over to my care. I had rooms near Reading then. It didn’t do much good. At the end he just refused to speak. Wouldn’t answer me. It was a waste of time, and his father’s money. I told him so. Peter did start visiting me after though, for casual advice. He was much more himself, relaxed when he was no longer compelled to attend.’

  Doc wondered
about this man, this product of the sixties. Even wondered about how Peter Leech had discovered drugs... There had been a time when some Californian psychologists advocated its use with troubled patients. But on a young boy? Doc tossed the thought aside.

  ‘My wife died.’ Henley had drifted off track, the words rending the delicate fabric of Doc’s composure.

  My wife died too. He wanted to say it. Then he heard the clacking.

  Not now. Go. Leave me.

  Silence.

  Henley continued speaking, unaware of the impact his words had had on Doc.

  ‘She was careworn. I had to give up my practice. Mary looked after me – us both. Initially they thought I would never walk again. The poor woman. Died five years after my stroke, even though I had started to improve. She just gave up. Seven years older than me.’

  Doc felt for the man, but needed to hear about Leech’s psychotherapy. ‘You were trying to help Peter? To moderate his behaviour? To control his impulses?’

  ‘What?’ Henley was confused, then seemed to remember why Doc was sitting in his lounge. ‘Of course. That’s what the father wanted...’ Henley seemed to float away again, searching for his dead wife perhaps. Doc knew how that felt.

  ‘Peter. Did he respond to your treatment?’

  ‘No. Not really. I thought he was in denial. Accused his brother of being responsible for his misdeeds.’

  ‘The pattern started young then...’ Doc could see how the young boy could have entered a parallel universe, his life a mixture of fact and fiction, blurring the realities of life.

  ‘The pattern? Oh, of blaming Shaun? I don’t know any more...’ Gone again.

  ‘Dr Henley? What do you mean?’ Doc leaned forward, wanted to wring the man dry of his knowledge, frustrated at Henley’s inability to concentrate. It was his age, combined with the stroke, of course.

  ‘I believed him about Shaun. Not at first. But gradually it made sense.’

  Doc fell back on the couch. Shaun? The hypothesis he was developing took on more shape. Could Peter have suffered at his elder brother’s hands since early childhood. Been cynically framed, and ultimately blamed, for everything the older boy did? Exactly the opposite of what Shaun had told him.

  ‘Please explain, Dr Henley. What brought you to that conclusion?’

  Henley stood up, wobbled a little, reached behind his chair and got a walking stick. ‘I’m going to make some tea. By all means join me in the kitchen.’

  Doc screamed inside, his frustration peaking. Then Henley answered as he disappeared out the door.

  ‘Animals Doctor Powers. Pets and the like.’

  ***

  They were in the cramped kitchen, the tea brewing, Henley pottering around, talking to himself, it seemed. He was talking about his dog. Long since dead. How playful it was, how it sometimes nipped but never drew blood. Then he got to the point.

  ‘Peter loved that animal. In all our meetings he never once harmed him, even when the dog gave him a playful bite.’

  Doc’s mind leapt back to his meeting with Shaun Leech. His story about why he had been forced into therapy. How Peter had blamed him for cremating their puppy. It made no sense if Peter was a dog-lover.

  ‘You think he could have burnt his puppy?’

  Henley seemed not to have heard the question. ‘At first, I thought it was an act. To convince me, and then of course his father. Later I understood. He loved all animals. The devastating thing was that his parents refused to allow him another pet after the episode with the dog. Mind you, he wanted a snake.’

  ‘You couldn’t convince them it would have been good for the boy?’

  ‘No. You see, Mr Leech also caught Peter apparently crucifying a cat.’

  Doc remembered that from his meeting with Shaun. The boy caught red-handed.

  Henley continued, ‘Poor Peter was there, hammer in his hand, the cat nailed to the door, screeching.’

  Poor Peter? What was Henley thinking? Doc probed. ‘His father found him like that... Pretty conclusive don’t you think?’

  ‘Not at all.’ Henley poured the tea, infuriating Doc with his procrastination. The man probably had few visitors, made the most of those he had by stringing them along. Doc held himself in check. Waited for Henley to spit it out.

  ‘Peter’s story, the one I dismissed at first as fantasy, was that Shaun had taken him in hand, together with the cat, to see, in Shaun’s words, something really funny. He nailed the creature to the door while Peter pleaded with him to stop, the younger lad frantically pulling at his much larger brother. Shaun was laughing, but when he realised their father was coming he handed Peter the hammer and told him to put the beast out of its misery. Then he ran off.’

  ‘Leaving Peter to carry the can.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Mr Leech caught Peter as he smashed the animal’s head. He was almost seven. Was brought to me almost immediately after the event.’

  ‘My God. If that’s true – ’

  ‘I don’t doubt it. You see I grew to rather like the boy. I told his father that I didn’t think he was as bad as they thought... By then Shaun had turned into something of an angel. His behaviour seemed impeccable. The bad apple was the one in therapy, eh? Got blamed for everything rotten that happened.’

  ‘And it was too late to convince them otherwise?’

  ‘Bear in mind Doctor Powers it took me a good few years to start believing him and eventually be convinced myself. Things calmed down for a while, although his father did consult me again when Peter was fifteen or so. When his girlfriend was raped... Susan. I think that was her name.’

  Henley seemed sharper now, his concentration improving as he got into his stride, but Doc realised the therapist’s memory was not up to scratch still.

  ‘You mean Suzie. Shaun’s girlfriend. Now his wife.’

  ‘Suzie. That’s her. She was Peter’s girlfriend, not Shaun’s...’ He was visibly shocked. ‘Did Shaun really marry her?’

  ***

  Doc had asked Carver to see if there were any of the original files on the rape, but other events had taken over. Instead he now probed Henley’s recollections.

  ‘Peter had not seen me for a year or two, in my professional capacity. He’d occasionally come by, to walk the dog. Chat... I liked to think I helped him. I was one of the few people who believed anything he said.’

  Doc speculated on the marijuana again. Let it slide. It was not important now and the old man would never practice again. His mind pictured the two of them, a younger, hip Henley and the teenaged Leech, sharing a joint, putting the world to rights. He let Henley talk.

  ‘When he was accused of raping his girlfriend, I was confused. I didn’t see it as something he would do... He was obsessed with her. His beautiful classmate. They had been seeing each other for some months. No sex, just some adolescent foreplay. He asked me for advice. I think they were both planning to take it further.’

  Doc was certain about the dope now. That Henley and his young friend had a strange relationship that extended beyond the professional boundaries. His distaste must have been apparent.

  Henley pierced him with a hard stare, seeing the expression, but misreading it.

  ‘Why would he knock her unconscious and rape her? Sex was likely to occur naturally and he was not unduly impatient. I advised him so. To take it slowly. He was only fifteen or thereabouts. And so was she.’

  Doc reached back again, thinking. Didn’t Shaun say she was older than Peter by a couple of years? Making her appear to be nearer his own age? No wonder he didn’t want Doc to speak to her. ‘Shaun told me Peter was jealous of him. That Suzie was his girlfriend.’

  ‘Rubbish. I’d seen Peter with her. They sometimes came by together, to walk my dog... She was Peter’s first love. He was infatuated with her.’

  Doc’s mind boggled. Shaun was a liar. A very accomplished liar. But how deep did it go? He started to wonder about False Memory Syndrome in relation to Shaun’s version of events the day his parents died.

  ‘T
he case was dropped?’

  ‘Yes. Suzie’s parents were having financial troubles. Mr Leech assisted...’

  ‘And they dropped it? For money? I thought it was through lack of evidence.’

  ‘Oh, that too. It was Shaun’s word against Peter’s. The younger boy claimed he’d left Suzie alone in their annex, a teenage den the Leech’s had built, somewhere for the boys to get away from their parents. They’d been drinking and smoking weed, and Suzie was feeling the effects. He went to get some coffee from the house for her... When he got back Shaun was in the act, with Suzie unconscious. Peter went for him of course. But Shaun, always bigger, stronger and trained in karate, beat his young sibling senseless. Dragged him to his father and accused him of the deed. Meanwhile he had roused Suzie and told her to use their shower. She was in shock. She did as he bid.’

  ‘Hence no evidence.’ Doc could see it. How the bad boy would never be believed. How big brother, the angelic Shaun, could convince their parents of his own innocence and Peter’s guilt.

  ‘That’s right.’ The faraway look returned to Henley’s eyes. Then he said, ‘That night. When I had the stroke. I knew it was him. Just knew it.’

  The man’s erratic mind had lost Doc for a moment. Was he saying that Peter Leech was innocent of rape, but killed his parents? He pressed for clarification.

  ‘Peter? You knew he killed them?’

  Henley laughed, coughed and wheezed again before replying. ‘Not Peter! Shaun... I knew he’d killed them.’

  ***

  Henley was back in the kitchen again. Doc, this time, had opted to gather his thoughts and leave the man to make yet more tea.

  Everything he had heard confirmed what he now believed was the truth. Shaun had bullied his little brother throughout the whole of his childhood. Doc knew the younger lad had psychopathic tendencies – a fondness for animals rather than humans was sometimes a trait. As, conversely, was torturing them...

  It was in their genes. Both of them capable of murderous behaviour. Not just the one convict. Not just the one who went to prison.