Playing with Bones

by Kate Ellis

  ‘You’ve got to remember this was the fifties. It was a different world and people weren’t as aware of things like that. If Selly was good at his job and my dad was always on the premises anyway, I guess he thought he couldn’t do any harm. And besides, I don’t think he had any evidence that Selly was a pervert. Just a gut feeling. And you can’t sack someone who’s perfectly good at their job because you feel uncomfortable about leaving them alone with your daughter, can you?’

  ‘And were you ever alone with him?’ Emily asked.

  Bridget nodded. ‘Just the once.’

  ‘And?’

  Bridget shook her head. ‘Nothing. He never said a word … just kept looking at me and smiling, all nervous like. I thought he was creepy but there’s no way I can accuse him of anything improper. Look, you don’t think he killed those girls, do you? Because if you do, I can tell you you’re wrong. He isn’t capable.’

  Joe saw Emily lean forward, like a cat who’d spotted a bird. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked. Joe could tell she was trying to sound casual.

  ‘I saw him a while ago. It must have been in the school holidays because it was the day this woman came in with her two obnoxious brats who kept trying to lift my dolls’ skirts to look at their knickers. The woman had just gone when I left Simone to hold the fort and ran across the road to get a sandwich. I remember I was feeling pretty stressed with the foul kids and I thought I’d treat myself to a cake while I was at it.’

  ‘Go on,’ Joe prompted, wishing she’d get to the point. It was almost nine now and he was hungry. And besides, he’d promised to call Maddy.

  ‘I was just about to cross the road when this car pulled up on the double yellow lines. A man got out and then helped this old bloke out of the back. He had one of those metal frames and I could tell he was having problems walking so I didn’t say anything about the double yellow lines. The younger man helped him out and they went into the dentist’s surgery next door to my shop.’ She paused to take a breath. ‘I had a good look at the old man and I’m certain it was Caleb Selly. I saw the birthmark on his cheek. He wouldn’t have recognised me of course, cos I was only about eight when he last saw me.’

  ‘So you didn’t speak to him?’

  She shook her head.

  Joe said nothing for a while. From what Bridget had said it looked as if Caleb Selly was still in Eborby. And Caleb Selly was top of Joe’s list of people to interview.

  Brian Selly had left work early because he had to make sure the old man was OK. He was his father, after all.

  Brian Selly’s father had hated his middle name Caleb, and yet that was what everybody had called him until his marriage. But from that time on he’d been known by his first name, Edward – a new man.

  The old man seemed so frail now … quite unlike the father Brian had known in his youth. His father had been a big man but he’d never been a bully. He hadn’t been one of those men he’d seen around the rougher pubs of Eborby who were quick with their fists and always liked to come off best. His father had been a quiet, brooding, watchful presence.

  Edward had started life under the thumb of his mother – Brian remembered his grandmother as a formidable Yorkshirewoman with a sharp tongue and unshakeable opinions. Then he’d married another strong woman. Brian’s mother had called the shots in their house while Brian and his father just went along with it. It had always been difficult to know what Edward thought of the situation: father and son had never had the sort of relationship that included sharing confidences.

  During his teens, Brian had come to suspect that his father had some hidden life away from his wife’s domestic tyranny. Secret drinking, perhaps, although he had never found any evidence. Or betting. Or even a mistress … although his father always seemed rather gauche with the opposite sex. After a while Brian had dismissed the idea as rubbish. But even now he still had the feeling that there were certain hidden things in his father’s life that must never be mentioned.

  They had never been particularly close but, since his mother’s death ten years before, Brian felt obliged to visit his father regularly, just to keep in touch and see that he was coping.

  When he arrived, opening the door with his own key, he found his father in the living room, slumped in his armchair with a shabby blanket over his knees. Brian noticed that there was a brown stain down the front of Edward’s shirt and felt a pang of filial guilt.

  The old man looked up at him with watery blue eyes. They had once been a bright, cornflower blue but the colour had faded with the years. The birthmark on his right cheek stood out a vivid red in contrast. ‘What you doing here? Bugger off home. I know you want to.’ The voice was weak but the eyes held a determination that surprised Brian.

  ‘You need more help, Dad. I’m going to get onto Social Services … see if the home help can do more hours.’

  ‘Stupid bitch doesn’t do owt. Flicks a duster round for show and that’s your lot. Them kids were better. At least they painted the bloody bedrooms.’

  The ingratitude annoyed Brian. He knew the home help did her best, and if he would accept extra help, it would take some of the burden off his shoulders. As for the kids, that had been a one-off … some community project. However, he had to hand it to them, he’d called in while they were painting and they’d certainly been working hard. And that pair of girls had been easy on the eye with their crop tops revealing the pale flesh of their bare midriffs.

  One of those young decorators had been that girl who’d got herself murdered. Natalie Parkes. She’d worn a paint-splattered shirt, which kept falling open to reveal a low-cut T-shirt, and her blonde hair had been scraped back in a ponytail.

  The other girl on the project had faded from Brian Selly’s mind … totally unmemorable. But Natalie Parkes wasn’t the sort of girl you’d forget very easily.

  CHAPTER 20

  The previous evening Sunny Porter had contacted the dentist whose surgery stood next door to Bridget’s shop and the man confirmed that he had treated an elderly NHS patient by the name of Selly – he wasn’t a regular but he remembered him particularly because he had a disfiguring birthmark on his cheek. He’d seen him a couple of months ago – although he couldn’t tell them the exact date of the appointment, or the patient’s first name or address, without consulting his records at his surgery. However, the old man’s son, Brian Selly, had been a patient of his for a long time and he knew that he lived somewhere in Abbotsthorpe.

  Sunny hadn’t needed any more details. The knowledge that Caleb Selly was alive and still living in Eborby had been enough to satisfy Emily Thwaite.

  Emily looked tired as she drove out to Brian Selly’s address with Joe. It was half-seven in the morning so they’d be sure to find him in. Abbotsthorpe lay 3 miles south of Eborby city centre, sandwiched between suburbia and open farm land.

  As they pulled into Selly’s road she yawned.

  ‘Everything OK, boss?’ Joe asked.

  ‘I had another bad night last night, that’s all,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s just starting to catch up with me.’

  ‘How’s your Sarah?’

  A smile appeared on her lips, softening her face which up until then had worn a hard, businesslike expression. She looked rather gratified that he’d taken the trouble to ask about her daughter. A lot wouldn’t have bothered. ‘She was the reason for the bad night. I’m going to take her to the doctor’s, Joe. This thing with bloody Grizelda’s getting beyond a joke. We thought her having an imaginary friend was quite cute at first but now it’s beginning to get to me, and Jeff too, especially now Grizelda appears to have developed insomnia. It’s as if she’s obsessed.’ She suddenly realised she was saying too much. This was working time. ‘Looks like this is it.’

  Selly’s house was semi-detached, built in the 1930s for the respectable lower middle class. In more prosperous times it had sprouted a kitchen extension and acquired gleaming plastic windows. There was a brand-new black Mercedes saloon in the drive – Bridget Jervis had said the car Cale
b Selly got out of was a black saloon, but she hadn’t been sure of the make.

  Joe reached for the doorbell and pressed it long and hard. After a couple of minutes the door opened to reveal a large middle-aged man with a fine beer gut and dressed in his working suit, ready for the day ahead. Joe held up his ID and Emily did likewise.

  ‘Brian Selly?’ The answer was a wary nod. ‘We’d like a word regarding the murders of Natalie Parkes and Abigail Emson. May we come in?’

  There was no mistaking the worry on the man’s face. Joe caught Emily’s eye. Perhaps this was the lead they’d been waiting for.

  As they entered a neat living room a plump woman in a dressing gown appeared in the doorway looking more curious than concerned. When Brian Selly told her it was OK, nothing to worry about, to Emily’s surprise, she retreated to the kitchen. Joe knew there was no way the DCI herself would ever have been so obliging but Mrs Selly’s acquiescence would make life easier for them. And it told them something about the couple’s relationship.

  ‘Mr Selly,’ Joe began. ‘Are you the son of Caleb Selly who used to work at a dolls’ hospital in Singmass Close in the nineteen fifties?’

  Brian Selly looked wary. ‘My dad’s called Edward Selly.’ He paused, as if making a decision. ‘His middle name’s Caleb but he uses Edward. I don’t know where he worked in the fifties. That was before I was born.’

  ‘Has he ever mentioned the dolls’ hospital? Or his boss … a man called Albert Jervis?’

  He shook his head but the wariness was unmistakable. The subject of his father obviously made this man uncomfortable. And Joe wondered why.

  ‘Do you see much of your father?’ Joe asked innocently.

  ‘Not much.’ Something about the way he said it told Joe and Emily that he was lying.

  ‘He’s a hard man to find. Why the change of name?’

  ‘He’s not changed his name.’

  ‘He used to be known as Caleb.’

  Brian shrugged. ‘He hates the name Caleb. Maybe people used to call him that to wind him up.’

  ‘A couple of months ago you took your father to the dentist.’

  The man’s eyebrows shot up, as though he was surprised that his domestic arrangements were of such interest to the police. ‘He asked me for a lift. He can’t get about much these days.’

  Emily glanced at Joe. She’d take over. She looked into Selly’s eyes. ‘We need your father’s address,’ she said in a voice that suggested that Brian Selly didn’t have much choice in the matter.

  There was a short period of silence while Selly considered his options. But he realised he didn’t have any. He recited an address on the Drifton Estate and Joe wrote it down carefully in his notebook.

  ‘Look, I don’t want him upset. He’s an old man. He’s not well.’

  ‘We only want to ask him a few questions,’ said Emily firmly. ‘Can you tell us where you were around one o’clock last Saturday morning?’

  Brian Selly began to drum his fingers on the side of his chair, a nervous habit. ‘I was in A and E with Craig, my son. He’d fallen out of bed and banged his head so I thought I’d better get him checked out. Waiting three hours I was. Disgusting the state of the Health Service.’

  ‘And around midnight on Tuesday. Where were you then?’

  ‘In bed. Some of us have to get up in the morning, you know.’

  ‘Have you ever met Natalie Parkes or Abigail Emson?’

  The man’s mouth opened and closed like a fish. Then he shook his head.

  But Emily and Joe knew that he was lying. He’d known one or both of the girls all right. There was even a chance that he might have killed them.

  ‘I didn’t like Brian Selly,’ Joe pronounced as he bit into his tuna mayonnaise sandwich.

  ‘Unfortunately we can’t arrest everyone we don’t like,’ was Emily’s reply. She sounded as if her mind was elsewhere – with Sarah probably. She was worried about her daughter but only during their increasingly rare breaks from the investigation did she allow herself to let down her guard and show it.

  Joe looked round. They’d decided to grab some lunch at the Black Lion on Gallowgate – the pub where Abi Emson had been employed as a barmaid for two evenings each week. It was a pleasant pub – comfortable and old-fashioned with dark oak panelling, plush red upholstery and a richly patterned red carpet, all slightly shabby, which added to the homely atmosphere. It was hardly a dive. Abigail Emson should have been safe here. But of course what happened outside the pub, in the narrow night-time streets after closing time, was a different matter.

  ‘Think we should bring him in for questioning?’ Emily asked.

  ‘He has a good alibi for the first murder.’

  ‘That still has to be checked out. His alibi for the second is shaky to say the least.’

  ‘If you’re innocent you don’t expect to have to account for your movements.’

  ‘I still think Brian Selly was hiding something,’ she said absentmindedly. ‘But it hardly sounds as if old Caleb’s in a fit state nowadays to go round murdering and mutilating women. Mind you, it’s always possible that his son’s carrying on the family tradition.’

  Joe nodded. Emily could well be right. Perhaps the old man had confessed what he’d done and the son had felt the urge to try it out for himself.

  Joe’s mobile rang and he had a sudden notion that it could be Maddy ringing with momentous news … like she’d been offered the job. But when he took the phone from his pocket, his heart racing, he saw that it was the police station. After a short conversation he looked up at Emily with a triumphant smile.

  ‘They’ve found the Pledges. Place called Windy Hill Farm about two miles south of Pickering. A search warrant’s being organised.’

  Emily sat back, a satisfied expression on her face. ‘Good. Hopefully we’ll pick Gordon up and Alice will provide us with the name of the Doll Strangler. Don’t you think it’s odd that the first murder took place the night after Gordon Pledge’s escape?’

  ‘The thought had occurred to me.’ Joe drained his half pint of shandy. He yearned for a pint of Black Sheep but he knew he’d be driving. Perhaps a visit to Windy Hill Farm would solve all their problems.

  He hadn’t been able to find the hook for the attic. That son of his must have put it somewhere. Hidden it from him. But he wasn’t going to give up.

  He shuffled along the landing, trying to ignore the pain welling in his chest, tightening like a band of steel … like the stocking had tightened around their slender necks. The stairs swam before his eyes as if they were bobbing on a rough and treacherous sea.

  If he could just see his souvenirs once more … relive that time when he’d been all powerful. But the shabby hallway around him was fading in and out of focus and he felt ice cold. His legs began to buckle beneath him and he suddenly felt afraid.

  Laughter. They were laughing. The children had come back to torment him. Or was it those women with their doll faces and their dirty looks?

  ‘Please,’ he uttered as he sank to his knees. ‘Please help me.’

  But as he collapsed to the floor, scratching at the threadbare carpet, the children became one again with the shadows and he knew that the last enemy was in the house. And his name was death.

  CHAPTER 21

  Emily stared out of the window as they passed the white horse carved into the hillside, a landmark visible from miles around. ‘The Pledges certainly chose somewhere out of the way,’ she said after a short silence. ‘No neighbours to gossip about you out here. What did uniform say?’

  ‘According to the letting agent, Windy Hill Farm is rented by a Mr and Mrs Barry Palmer. They fit the description we have of the Pledges and they said they wanted three bedrooms because Mrs Palmer’s elderly mother was going to live with them. A couple of patrol cars are meeting up with us there to search the premises.

  ‘We’re here. This is it.’ Emily had spotted a battered wooden sign that told them they had reached their destination. Windy Hill Farm. Once they had
turned onto the rough track it seemed a long time before they caught sight of the house, which looked rather dilapidated with a large, overgrown garden separated from the surrounding fields by a tall hedge. If the Pledges had chosen the place to escape from the public gaze, the pointing fingers and the wagging tongues, when their son had been convicted of strangling twelve-year-old Francesca Putney, they had certainly made the right choice, Joe thought. And they had been using a false name – Palmer – which had made them doubly difficult to find.

  ‘There’s a car parked outside,’ Emily said as Joe steered down the rough track way. ‘Big posh model. Where did they get the money for that, I wonder? They must have spent a bloody fortune on their precious son’s defence lawyer. Mind you, from what I’ve heard our Sylvia has always liked to keep up appearances.’

  ‘There was talk of an appeal, wasn’t there?’

  ‘Escaping won’t help his case.’

  Joe brought the car to a halt and switched off the ignition. ‘He claimed he went for a walk and saw the neighbour, Jones, talking to the little girl just before she disappeared. Trouble is, nobody else saw him … and he had no witnesses to the little walk he said he took. It was raining so the place was deserted.’

  ‘You have to admit, all the evidence was circumstantial.’

  Joe didn’t answer. He climbed out of the car and walked towards the front door. He lifted the knocker and banged it down. It must have sounded like thunder inside the house – but that was the intention.

  The front door was opened by a thin, hard-faced woman. She looked elegant in beige slacks and a v-necked pink cashmere jumper with a silk scarf artfully tied at the neck.

  ‘Sylvia Pledge?’

  At first the woman’s eyes widened in panic but when she saw their warrant cards she nodded grudgingly, her expression giving nothing away. She had no idea where her son, Gordon, was, she said, but as far as she was concerned, he’d told her he was innocent and she believed him. If she’d thought for one moment that he’d killed the little girl, she would have disowned him. A mother could forgive most things but not that.