Butterfly Grave (Murder Notebooks)

by Anne Cassidy

  He stood at the door. In moments they would be gone.

  ‘What about Joshua?’ Rose said, pointing to the cuff attached to the leg of the bed.

  ‘I fear if I free Joshua now he will make some dramatic stand and there will be unpleasantness. Rose, you come down to the car with us. As we’re about to leave I will give you the key to the handcuffs.’

  Unpleasantness. Such a polite word. Did Munroe think that Skeggsie’s murder was unpleasant, she wondered.

  Margaret Spicer was walking round the room, opening drawers. Then she opened the bathroom door. The small dog walked out, wagging its tail. It hadn’t made a sound the whole time they’d been there. Perhaps it was well trained. Margaret hooked a lead on to its neck, picked up a bag, and went out without a backwards glance.

  James Munroe followed her with the rest of the bags.

  ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can,’ Rose said to Joshua, going out of the door.

  Rose stood by the silver SUV as Margaret Spicer put her case on to the back seat of the car. In the passenger seat the dog stood on his hind legs and looked out of the window. Its tail was wagging and its eyes were following Margaret as she walked round to the driver’s seat and got into the car.

  Munroe put his laptop on top of Skeggsie’s brown suitcase.

  ‘Why do you have to take that stuff? It’s important to us.’

  ‘This is what got you into trouble. Forget about all this. Your parents will contact you when they are ready. Here are the keys to the handcuffs. Goodbye, Rose.’

  She stood and watched as the car swung out of the car park and on to the Promenade. When it was gone she turned and quickly went back into the hotel. Michelle looked up from the reception desk but Rose waved her question away and rushed past. When she got back to Room 213 Joshua moved impatiently around, holding out his hand for her to undo the lock on the cuffs. She squatted down as quickly as she could and undid the lock. The cuff fell apart and Joshua held his wrist. There was a red ring where the skin had rubbed. As soon as he was free he stood up, his fists clenched and walked to the window. If he was looking for the SUV it was long gone.

  ‘Where’s my phone?’ he said.

  It was over by the bathroom door. She picked it up and held it out to him. He didn’t take it, though. His back was to her and he was staring out of the window. She stayed away from him. His anger had been boiling up while he’d been stuck in one place and she didn’t want to be near him if it erupted now. She looked at the screen of his phone. He had a new message. She didn’t know whether to tell him or not.

  Her mother’s face came back into her head, the black glasses were new, the frames heavier than she usually wore. Perhaps that was part of her disguise. Brendan said they were on their last mission. It meant that they were planning to kill some gangster, someone who deserved to die. Would her mother actually take part in that act?

  Joshua was looking at her. His haggard expression seemed to reflect everything they’d learned and heard over the last hours. They were bewildered. Abandoned children who thought they’d lost everything five years ago. How little they’d known then.

  Then he was beside her. He took his phone and then hooked his other arm around her neck and pulled her towards him. She felt as if he was overheating, the back of his jumper damp. She rubbed her face against the wool and put her arms around him. He was staring at his phone.

  ‘Look at this,’ he said, his voice soft in her ear.

  She looked at the screen of his phone. There was a message. We only just found out about your friend’s death. We’re more sorry than we can say. We would never have let this happen but some things seem to have got out of hand. We love you both and talk about you every day. One day we will be together again. XXXX Dad (and Mum).

  ‘They didn’t know,’ Joshua said, the thinnest of smiles on his lips. ‘They knew nothing about Skeggsie’s death.’

  Rose nodded staring at the word Mum. In brackets.

  ‘I was right. Dad and Kathy were innocent of that,’ Joshua said.

  But guilty of other things, Rose thought. Guilty of murder.

  THIRTY

  The house was straight by the time Stuart Johnson came out of hospital. Everything had been cleaned and tidied. The pay as you go mobile phone had been placed back into the small money box, locked and put among Stuart’s things from his school locker. The other steel box had been refilled with all the paperwork from the Butterfly Murder, locked and wrapped in a tea towel. They then placed it in the engine of the MG. Joshua fastened the spare wheel in place again and then they covered the old car with tarpaulin and locked the garage door.

  Joshua replaced Stuart’s confession in the envelope and glued the opening together. Then he put it back into the Last Will and Testament package and put it in his bedside cabinet drawer.

  Everything was as it had been before they’d arrived there.

  Now Stuart would have no idea that his secret had been discovered.

  He was smiling as he got out of the taxi and looked up at the house with some relief. No doubt, during that long night on the ledge of the cliff, he may have thought he would never see it again. Rose felt an unexpected wash of pity for him. He didn’t look like Brendan at all. He was younger and shorter and his skin was florid. He leant on Joshua as he came up the path. Joshua’s face was unreadable. At one point he gave a little laugh and Rose wondered how he could pretend.

  Just for a day, Rosie. Just pretend none of it ever happened just for a day. Then we’ll get off back to London, Joshua had said.

  Part of Stuart’s leg was in a cast and he was still a bit bruised and ill-looking. He moved awkwardly along the hallway and then into the living room and sat down with a thump on a chair. Rose stayed with him while Joshua made some drinks. He grabbed her hand and held it tightly and told her how sorry he was about her friend. She kept a smile on her face and asked him about his injuries. Then they talked about the hospital and how long it would be before he got back to work.

  Joshua brought the bomber jacket and gave it to him. Stuart liked it, Rose could tell. He was smiling and looked it over, remarking on all the pocket space and well worn leather. He said he couldn’t wait to wear it.

  They kept the pretence up.

  Nothing difficult was mentioned.

  In the afternoon there was a knock on the door and when Rose opened it Susie Tyler was standing there. Beside her was a large holdall. Rose brought her in and she rushed into the living room and sat down by Stuart and hugged him. Her ponytail bobbed up and down as she burst into tears and said how glad she was that he was alive and how much she loved him.

  She’d been seeing him in the hospital for a few days and told him that she’d left Greg for good and was coming to live with him so that they could have their baby together. Joshua and Rose had looked with disbelief at the pair.

  She left him to die, Rose thought as Susie rushed upstairs to unpack her bag. But Stuart was beaming and humming tunes all evening.

  The next day the Mini sat under the shadow of the Angel of the North. It was New Year’s Day and the sun was a dazzling globe hanging in a flat blue sky. The Angel’s wings threw a shaft of darkness across the fields and the car park. Rose cricked her neck to look out of the car window to see the very top, the faceless creature that she’d seen in the poster in Skeggsie’s bedroom.

  They were on their way back to London.

  Everything was packed into the back of the Mini.

  Joshua was looking at his mobile phone. Rose wondered if they were going to get out or sit there. She didn’t ask – she just let the silence hang in the air. This was how things had worked over the last few days. They were together and yet there was this great unspoken mass of stuff between them.

  There were groups of people making their way across the fields and from the road towards the great statue. In the distance she could see a train going past. No doubt there were people there looking out of the window, pointing at this monolith. Skeggsie had wanted to take Joshua to see
it. Rose imagined the two of them looking up at the metal giant, Skeggsie giving Joshua as much information as he had. Wings the width of those of a jumbo jet! Maybe Joshua would talk about the engineering aspect of the statue, how many men it had taken to make it, the erection of it, the welding. Not so different from a bridge, she imagined Skeggsie saying, just to please Joshua.

  She felt her throat go hard and tried to swallow a couple of times. She was near to tears so she turned and looked in the other direction towards Newcastle. It was the place where Skeggsie was brought up and now would never leave.

  Joshua was staring out of the window towards the Angel. He didn’t look as if he was going to say anything. She closed her eyes and laid her head on the headrest.

  She was tired.

  The investigation into Skeggsie’s death was continuing.

  Bob Skeggs had come round to see them a couple of evenings before. There had been some good news on the forensic front. Skeggsie had put up a fight. They had found skin and blood under his fingernails. It meant they had a DNA sample and although it hadn’t matched anything at the moment it would be on the database. On top of that some shop CCTV cameras further along Jesmond Road had picked up an image of a young man in a balaclava walking away from the scene round about eleven twenty. They’d also picked up an image of a woman with light-coloured hair walking her dog but Bob Skeggs had laughed this off. It was one of those Jack Russell dogs, he’d said.

  It was too soon to talk about a funeral for Skeggsie, Bob had said, but as soon as it was set he would let them know. Bob had insisted again that Joshua use Skeggsie’s car and the flat until the end of the academic year. Then they would think again. When Bob got up to leave Joshua followed him out into the hall and she heard them talking for what seemed like a long while. When he came back in he looked tearful and turned the television on, the sound loud.

  They’d talked about their parents and the Butterfly Murder but only ever for a short while. The conversation started well but quickly drifted into acrimony. Joshua had become defensive and said that they hadn’t heard the whole story, that they didn’t know all the facts. Rose sank into gloom. They knew one fact for sure. Their parents were involved in murder, assassination; whatever name they wanted to give it. It was not something that Rose could stomach.

  There was a beep in the car.

  ‘New message,’ Joshua said, his voice breaking the quiet.

  She looked over to see who the message was from. The name Bob Skeggs was there.

  ‘Why is Skeggsie’s dad texting you?’

  ‘I asked him to do something for me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I asked him to pull some strings and trace the origin of the text message I got from Dad and Kathy.’

  Rose didn’t say anything. She stared at her hands.

  ‘It’s a difficult thing to do. It needs all sorts of warrants but Bob’s in a good position at the moment. A lot of people are feeling sorry for him and he can ask a few favours. So he asked someone he knows in the Drugs Squad to do it and they did.’

  She wasn’t going to speak. She wasn’t going to be drawn into this any more. She was leaving the past behind. Joshua didn’t notice her silence and went on talking.

  ‘They can only triangulate an area that it might have come from. Here, he’s given me some postcodes . . .’

  Joshua got Google Maps on his phone.

  ‘Look, somewhere between Wickby, Southwood and Hensham. That’s where the text came from.’

  ‘Why have you done this?’

  ‘I want to know where they are, Rose.’

  Rose looked at the triangle on the map. Three small villages in Essex.

  ‘Dad sent the text from there. Doesn’t mean that’s where they are but that text was sent in a hurry. I’m guessing they’re somewhere in that area.’

  ‘Doing what? Waiting to kill someone?’

  ‘I don’t know. But whatever they’re doing I’m going to find them. I’m not going to give up. I have to go on. For Skeggsie’s sake.’

  Joshua’s hand was on hers. She knew she would support him whatever he wanted to do but in her heart she didn’t want to get involved. Not now that she knew the truth.

  ‘Come on,’ he whispered. ‘let’s go and see the Angel, close up. The way Skeggsie wanted.’

  They got out of the car and walked towards the Angel, its arms out as if welcoming them.

  Also by Anne Cassidy

  Dead Time

  Killing Rachel

  Bloomsbury Publishing, London, New Delhi, New York and Sydney

  First published in Great Britain in November 2013 by

  Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  50 Bedford Square, London WC1B 3DP

  This electronic edition published in November 2013 by

  Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

  Copyright © Anne Cassidy 2013

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

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  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978 1 4088 2655 3

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