Playing with Bones

by Kate Ellis

  ‘OK,’ Emily replied. ‘We’ll let Brian Selly contemplate the error of his ways for a while. I’ve not had much to do with the Drifton Estate so far. I suppose it’ll do me good to get to know more of my patch.’

  ‘Can’t do any harm,’ Joe said. It was mainly uniform, the drug squad and CID’s lower echelons who dealt with the relatively petty crime that dogged the Drifton Estate.

  Caleb Selly’s address was easy to find. Farley Rise was a cul de sac of small, shabby council houses with scrubby front gardens and a generally uncared-for look. This was the Eborby the tourists didn’t see.

  The curtains of Selly’s house were drawn over and as Joe pressed the doorbell, Emily went from window to window looking for a gap in the grubby, unlined drapes so that she could get a glimpse inside, but she had no luck. Joe pushed the doorbell three more times and heard the harsh jangling echoing inside.

  ‘According to Brian, he never goes out,’ said Joe.

  ‘You believe him?’

  Joe wasn’t sure what to believe. It was always possible the Caleb Selly was now fitter than he’d been when Bridget Jervis had seen him and was capable of making his way to Singmass Close to re-enact the murders of his youth. But, on the other hand, according to Brian, he was physically frail and never left the house. Joe was impatient to find out which was true.

  He lifted the letter box and looked inside at the hall. A couple of letters were lying on the floor – brightly coloured junk mail. And Joe was sure he could hear a faint sound coming from somewhere inside the house. Very low pitched and barely audible. A low buzzing like distant machinery. He let the letter box drop with a clatter and stood back, taking a deep breath, feeling the tingle of nerves in his fingers. It was a sound he’d heard before.

  He told Emily to stand away from the door but she put a warning hand on his arm. ‘You can cut out all that macho crap. The super’s not going to be delighted if we go round smashing doors down.’

  Joe ignored her and took a run for the door. It looked flimsy but the lock held and as he prepared to have another go, he felt Emily grab his wrist. ‘Steady on, this needs a woman’s touch,’ she said, delving into her bag and drawing out a set of skeleton keys.

  Joe stood aside, feeling a little foolish. He’d almost forgotten Emily’s hidden talent. Passing the time of day with the burglars of Leeds had some uses. A minute later they were inside the house and Joe knew that his fears were about to be realised.

  The buzzing seemed to come from the top of the stairs. Emily put the silk scarf she was wearing up to her nose, exchanging the scent of death for the sweet fragrance of Chanel. Joe knew what they were about to find and as he climbed the stairs slowly, almost catching his foot on the frayed carpet, he could hear Emily’s footsteps behind him and drew some reassurance from the thought that he wasn’t alone.

  The old man lay on the landing, a look of desperation in his staring eyes, as though he was clutching at something just out of reach. He wore an ancient checked dressing gown, rough as an old horse blanket, and his head was twisted at an unnatural angle. Out of habit, Joe bowed his head and said a swift prayer for his soul. When he opened his eyes he saw that Emily was walking slowly round the body, shooing away the gathering flies with her hand.

  Keeping his eyes on the corpse, Joe took his mobile phone from his pocket. ‘It doesn’t look suspicious to me but we’d better call the team out.’

  ‘That Sally Sharpe’ll be demanding overtime.’ She smirked at Joe. ‘But once she knows you’re here, she’ll turn up all the quicker.’

  Joe felt his cheeks burning but he said nothing.

  ‘We’d better tell Brian Selly his dad’s dead and all. What’s your money on then? Natural causes?’

  Joe studied the corpse for a few seconds. ‘There’s nothing to suggest otherwise.’ He leaned over and whispered in her ear. ‘How about a little look round before the circus arrives?’

  Emily’s eyes met his and her face wrinkled up in a mischievous smile. ‘Well he’s in no fit state to ask us for a search warrant, is he? Come on. We’d better not be too long.’

  Joe looked down at the body. Lying there dead, Caleb Selly looked frail and harmless. A shrunken old man robbed of all his muscle and aggression by anno domini. But once he had been young … and powerful. Once he had attacked Alice Meadows. And, if Joe was right, he had killed four women in cold blood way back in the 1950s.

  Emily interrupted Joe’s thoughts. ‘Now we’re here we might as well begin upstairs.’

  The bathroom obviously hadn’t been touched since the house was built but the two small bedrooms had had a fairly recent coat of magnolia paint. Perhaps Brian Selly had done some decorating for his father. But on the other hand, Joe thought, he had moaned enough about taking the old man to the dentist’s so he couldn’t imagine him making the effort to decorate his house.

  In the bedrooms they made a quick search of the wardrobes and drawers. But there was no sign of any antique dolls – or anything else suspicious, come to that – and Joe felt a little disappointed. Perhaps Brian Selly had lied about getting those dolls from his father’s house. Or perhaps Caleb Selly kept the things elsewhere.

  They sidled round the body on the landing and made their way downstairs. In the claustrophobic living room Joe began to make a fruitless search of a massive dark wood sideboard while Emily concentrated on a plywood chest of drawers in the corner.

  After five minutes he heard Emily say his name and, from the excitement in her voice, he knew she’d struck gold. ‘Listen to this. This is to confirm that the students named below have been assigned to help decorate your property as part of Hicklethorpe Manor School’s Community Action programme. I feel it is vital that Hicklethorpe Manor students develop social awareness and contribute to the needs of the elderly and disabled in the local community and each year I pay a personal visit to those people who benefit in order to discuss the programme and any special requirements they may have. Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any questions. Yours sincerely, Benjamin Cassidy, Headmaster.’ She turned to Joe with a grin on her face. ‘There were three students in all. There was an Andrew Young. And two girls. Guess what their names were.’

  ‘Go on, surprise me.’

  ‘Natalie Parkes and Karen Strange.’

  Joe gave a low whistle. ‘So Benjamin Cassidy must have come here to discuss the programme like the letter says.’ He let the idea sink in for a while. ‘He must have actually met Caleb Selly. Trouble is, there don’t seem to be any dolls on the premises.’

  ‘Perhaps those two we found at Brian Selly’s house were the only ones left. Apart from the ones he left by the bodies of Natalie Parkes and Abigail Emson.’

  ‘You still think Brian Selly did it?’

  Joe watched Emily’s expression as she considered the question. ‘If his dad was really the original killer, perhaps he made some sort of confession to his son. Perhaps Brian had been fantasising about it for a while. Then Natalie presented herself; he knew her from the parties. And Abigail worked at the pub he drank in and she had a lonely walk home on her own past Singmass Close. Maybe he targeted both of them.’

  Joe followed Emily’s logic but he had a nagging suspicion that the letter she’d just found from Benjamin Cassidy was important somehow. Suddenly he heard the sound of a police car siren. It was nearby, probably outside in the street. Their impromptu search was over and from now on things would have to be done by the book. His eyes met Emily’s and she winked at him.

  ‘We’ll make a more detailed search once they’ve dealt with the body,’ he said. He knew Emily was as keen as he was to delve into the murky waters of Caleb Selly’s private life.

  Joe’s mobile phone began to ring and after a short conversation he turned to Emily. ‘Gordon Pledge has just been picked up. And guess who he was with. The missing girl, Michele Carden.’

  Emily smiled. ‘Well isn’t life full of surprises?’ she said as the police cars screeched to a halt outside in the street.

&nb
sp; The killer had become used to the handwriting in the yellowed exercise book: an old person’s hand, flourishing yet neat.

  Old Caleb had killed four women back in the 1950s. And a year before the first death, he had made an abortive attempt to kill a girl called Alice who’d refused to dance with him. He had hacked off Alice’s toe to ensure she’d never dance again but she had survived. That was before Caleb had hit on the idea of the dolls. It was the dolls that had brought him luck and made him invincible.

  The killer didn’t understand the bits Caleb wrote about the children; how they’d taunted him, daring him to kill, calling him names. He’d written that the children wanted vengeance and they’d used him as their instrument. The killer wondered who these children were. Had they been the local kids who’d lived on the close back then? Hardly. These children hadn’t been ordinary. The way Caleb wrote about them, they sounded evil. But perhaps they’d just been in Caleb’s head … part of his grisly fantasies.

  But the little girl who’d been watching at the window of six Singmass Close was real enough and she must have seen everything on the night he’d killed Natalie. He’d looked up and he’d seen her face staring at him, pale as the moon. As far as the killer knew, she hadn’t reported what she’d seen to the police yet. Perhaps her mother hadn’t believed her or she hadn’t wanted her to become involved. But nobody could rely on the silence of an unpredictable child for ever so she had to be dealt with. The great taboo had to be broken. And when it was, the nosy kid’s silence would be of the permanent kind.

  The killer closed Caleb’s diary and then hid it in its special hiding place. The place where nobody ever looked. More than anything the killer needed to feel the power coursing through his veins again as the victim realised that death was inevitable.

  Power like that was addictive. It made you feel alive.

  CHAPTER 25

  Michele Carden was home at last in the heart of her loving family. Or at least that was what Emily had been told by Jamilla, although she detected a note of cynicism behind her words. According to Jamilla, Michele’s mother, rather than flinging her arms around her daughter in relief, had begun to scold her for going off without telling her and disrupting two important business meetings.

  As soon as Emily got a whiff of this new development, she’d joined Jamilla at the Cardens’ house, leaving Joe to supervise the search of Caleb Selly’s premises. Michele had poured out the whole story to Jamilla over tea and biscuits in their top-of-the-range kitchen. How she had been tricked by Sylvia Pledge – who’d called herself Palmer – into believing she was about to be signed up for a modelling agency; how she’d been persuaded to stay with elaborate promises before being drugged and kept there against her will to do the housework and look after Sylvia’s bedridden mother, Alice.

  Then Michele revealed something far more disturbing, as though she was keeping the best till last. She had found the body of a young girl of around her own age in a freezer in the lean-to off the kitchen. Once she’d made this discovery, she’d become terrified of what the Pledges might do if she tried to escape.

  And besides, she added gruffly, by then she’d become quite concerned about Alice. Sylvia had kept Alice drugged but, whenever possible, Michele had exchanged the drugged food for the food eaten by the rest of the household so that she was able to get some sense out of the old lady.

  Emily noticed how Michele’s eyes softened when she spoke of Alice and she let the girl continue with her story. She had learned secrets from Alice; terrible things that had happened to her many years ago. When she was young, a man had tried to strangle her and had chopped off her toe.

  ‘Where were you when we came to the farmhouse and searched the place?’ Emily asked, curious.

  ‘I saw you arrive and I was planning to attract your attention somehow. But Sylvia pushed me into the car boot and shut it. She must have put something in my drink because I slept for ages. I think I must have been there all night and when the car started I thought they were taking me somewhere to kill me.’ She shuddered dramatically.

  She told Emily and Jamilla how she’d been terrified when Gordon had opened the boot, but he’d told her that she was free to go if she wanted. Then he’d called the police and all hell broke loose. Things had happened that she didn’t understand. She’d even heard that a man had been found hanged. She looked at them keenly, hoping they’d fill her in on the things she didn’t know about. But Emily said nothing. The details could wait.

  Emily knew that the Pledges were now in custody and Social Services had taken charge of Alice. Police had swarmed all over the farmhouse and had found the girl’s body in the freezer. Sylvia Pledge had told the officers that the dead girl had worked for her and that she’d fallen down the cellar steps and died accidentally. Even though the girl’s death hadn’t been their fault, Sylvia said self-righteously, they’d panicked and hid the body from the authorities, knowing the police would jump to the wrong conclusion: just look what had happened to their Gordon.

  Emily wasn’t sure whether to believe her story, but no doubt the truth would come out when Sally Sharpe conducted the post-mortem. In the meantime Sylvia and Barry were being charged with false imprisonment and concealing a death … which was plenty to be going on with.

  The discovery of Michele Carden, safe and well, and Gordon Pledge’s rearrest had been a temporary distraction from the investigations at Caleb Selly’s house. When Emily returned from the Cardens’ at four o’clock Joe met her in Caleb Selly’s small front garden.

  Joe saw her glance at her watch as she walked up the path. ‘Jeff ’s promised to make me steak and chips when I get in,’ she said wistfully.

  ‘At least the Gordon Pledge business has been cleared up,’ he said, a sudden vision of Polly flashing across his brain. He wondered if she’d be reconciled with Gordon if and when his innocence was confirmed. But he told himself firmly that it was none of his business. ‘What have the Pledges got to say for themselves?’ he asked Emily. ‘What made them hold that girl prisoner?’

  Emily shrugged. ‘They say they were desperate for help in the house and they’d run out of money to pay anyone because they’d spent all their cash on Gordon’s defence. Apparently Sylvia couldn’t stand the thought of her inheritance from Alice going down the drain paying for a nursing home.’

  ‘Didn’t stop her driving round in that flash car and going around all dolled up.’

  ‘She likes the good things in life does our Sylvia. Apparently she tricked Michele into working there – said she could offer her modelling work. Then she was drugged and locked up so she couldn’t escape. It all got out of hand.’

  ‘Oh, Sylvia’ll find some way to justify it to herself.’

  ‘She must be mad,’ Emily said with a sigh.

  ‘The capacity of human beings to fool themselves that what they’re doing isn’t wrong never ceases to amaze me,’ said Joe quietly.

  Emily smiled. ‘We’re getting a bit philosophical, aren’t we?’

  As Joe led the way into Caleb Selly’s house he noticed that the weak sunlight had lured the neighbours from the comfort of their sofas. Kids in fake designer sportswear were haring up and down the street on bikes while their mothers, tattooed arms folded, were leaning on gates, chatting as they enjoyed the excitement. They stopped and stared like curious cattle as the uniformed officer on duty lifted the crime scene tape to admit Joe and Emily to the house.

  Joe knew that three DCs under the supervision of Sunny Porter had just completed a search of the premises and when Sunny came out into the hall to greet them he wore an expression of suppressed excitement, like a child who is in possession of some wonderful secret.

  ‘Well,’ said Joe. ‘What have you found?’

  ‘You’re not going to believe this.’

  ‘Try us,’ said Emily.

  Sunny produced a plastic box from behind his back. ‘We found this in the attic. Four silk stockings – or at least Forensic reckon they’re silk. And these wrapped in tissue paper.
’ He wrinkled his nose as he held out the open box for them to examine. ‘Look like big toes if you ask me.’

  Joe saw that Emily had taken a step back, distancing herself from whatever the box contained. He steeled himself and put on a pair of plastic gloves before taking the box from Sunny. Sure enough, there were four objects inside which could have been either thumbs or big toes.

  ‘Oh bloody hell, take it away,’ said Emily. ‘Give it to Forensics … they like that sort of thing.’

  But Joe was staring at the things in the box, fascinated. The objects rather reminded him of some obscure pickled vegetable you might find in an exclusive delicatessen. ‘I think they’ve been pickled,’ he said. ‘Some kind of alcohol by the smell. Find anything else?’

  Sunny nodded enthusiastically. ‘You should see the attic. Loads of them horrible dolls … all staring down with their beady glass eyes.’ He looked at Emily. ‘There’s a loft ladder, ma’am. Not too hard to get up there.’

  ‘Thanks a lot,’ she muttered under her breath. ‘You go and have a look will you, Joe.’

  Joe followed Sunny up the stairs, leaving Emily in the hall. He climbed the loft ladder and when he reached the top he looked around the attic. Sunny was right. There were about twenty dolls up there, sitting in rows on metal shelving.

  ‘He must have collected them,’ shouted Sunny who had stayed on the landing. ‘Probably pinched them from the dolls’ hospital while that Jervis wasn’t looking.’

  Joe made his way down the ladder. ‘Probably,’ he agreed as he joined Sunny on terra firma. He saw that Emily had come up the stairs and was standing beside Sunny, awaiting the verdict.

  ‘There’s just one thing that’s a bit worrying,’ said Joe.

  ‘And what’s that?’

  ‘Well, they’re sitting in rows on the shelves but it looks as if some are missing. It’s pretty dusty up there and you can see where they’ve been. They’ve been moved recently.’