For Reasons Unknown

by Michael Wood

  ‘Well she’s in,’ was all he replied. ‘That queer young lad from downstairs left her about an hour back.’

  ‘Jonathan? Jonathan Harkness?’

  ‘That’s the feller.’

  ‘Did Mrs Barrington go out with him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you seen her at all today?’

  ‘I don’t have nowt to do with her, lad.’ He pulled his head out of the small gap he’d made and slammed the door, securing a chain and deadlocks.

  ‘What lovely neighbours,’ Rory said to himself. He knocked once again and then bent down to the letter box.

  There was a light on in the living room at the end of the long hallway and Rory had to squint while his eyes adjusted from the gloom of the grey stairwell.

  ‘Hello? Mrs Barrington? It’s DC Rory Fleming, South Yorkshire Police. Could you answer your door please?’

  He listened intently but all he could hear was the distant sound of a couple of clocks ticking and what he guessed to be the faint humming of the fridge from the kitchen. He looked again and could just make out the figure of someone sitting in an armchair just inside the living-room door. Was it Maun? Was she sleeping? He doubted it. His banging on the door had been loud enough to wake the dead.

  ‘Shit!’ he said to himself as he stood up.

  Chapter 47

  Snow was falling at a steady pace now; the flakes getting fatter by the minute and the lying snow getting deeper. It wouldn’t be long until roads were closed and travel seriously hampered. In the tense silence, Ben wondered if the Snake Pass, the road leading Sheffield to Manchester, was already closed. It didn’t take much to close it; a strong wind, a heavy rain shower, or a few flakes of snow was enough to make it impassable. He made a mental note to give it a miss, just in case.

  Public transport in Sheffield wasn’t much use either. Buses would already be struggling on the steeper roads, and his Audi wasn’t faring much better. Unfortunately, Sheffield was a very hilly city. His choice of route was severely limited.

  He was driving at a snail’s pace and almost at a stop as he took the corners. Nothing seemed to be going right for him.

  He slammed on the brakes and braced himself. The locked wheels continued in the snow. He steered into the skid and the car managed to stop just short of hitting a four-wheel drive in front.

  ‘We’re here,’ he said.

  Jonathan looked up. He had spent the journey with his head bowed and dark thoughts running around his mind. He kept going back to Maun’s treachery and murderous actions. He’d no idea he’d been living directly below such a scheming woman all these years. How could he have misunderstood her so badly? Had his own self-pity blinded him to her evil manipulations?

  Through the thick flakes of snow Jonathan saw where Hales had brought them. At first it was difficult to make out. The last time he had been here it looked completely different; the house had still been standing. He’d left the demolition team to it after the roof was torn open and the corner of his bedroom had been exposed. The sight of his old wallpaper had plunged him back into his nightmare, and as he’d turned to walk away he’d hoped never to lay eyes on the place again.

  When he saw what was left of his home now, he recoiled in horror.

  The majority of the house had been razed to the ground. All that remained were the foundations and, for some reason, the staircase at the side of the house and a small section of the landing. Surrounding the site, wooden barriers had been erected with warning signs telling people not to enter as the site was unstable and dangerous.

  ‘Get out!’ Ben said. His voice was deep and angry. His face was red and tense; a heavy frown on his wrinkled brow.

  Jonathan had to battle with the wind to push open the door. He pushed his feet into the deepening snow.

  The snow didn’t seem to bother Ben. He marched around to the passenger side of the car, grabbed a handful of Jonathan’s collar, and forced him around to the front.

  ‘Nice house. Could do with a lick of paint here and there.’

  He kicked hard at the padlock on a makeshift door in the wooden surround and after two blows it eventually opened. The sound of banging and splintering wood echoed around the empty street. It swung open on its broken hinges and Ben pushed Jonathan inside. He swiftly followed, kicking the door closed behind him.

  Jonathan stumbled. He looked at his hands, white with cold, his fingertips almost blue, and sharp dashes of red where the jagged broken brickwork had cut into him.

  ‘What are we doing here?’ he eventually asked, his voice quivering with the cold.

  ‘Up the stairs.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Get up the stairs.’

  Jonathan stood motionless among the ruins of his former home and looked up at the exposed staircase. The last time he had been on them was twenty years ago; he was shivering with cold then too and he’d blood on his hands. History repeats itself.

  Driving through Sheffield wasn’t an easy task at the best of times; it didn’t seem to make any difference how much money the council spent on improving the roads and redesigning bus lanes, the traffic never seemed to ease. Add to this, late-night Christmas shopping and the heavy fall of snow, and it was almost impossible to find a clear road.

  ‘You’re going the wrong way,’ Matilda said as she looked up from her phone. She was using Google Maps, trying to find a quicker route to the murder house, but the red dot was travelling in the opposite direction, and so were they.

  ‘No. I’m going the quickest way. There’s no way I’m even attempting Chesterfield Road,’ he said through gritted teeth as he chicaned through stupidly parked cars.

  Matilda held on to the door handle as Aaron took a sharp turn without changing down a gear.

  ‘Did you actually pass the advanced driver’s test?’

  ‘Yes. It was a while ago though,’ he said with a wicked smile.

  Aaron took another corner at speed and was presented with an empty road ahead. He slammed his foot on the accelerator and ignored the twenty miles per hour speed limit signs.

  Matilda looked down at her phone and saw the red dot race back up the screen. They were back on track. They were getting closer.

  Jonathan was sitting on what was left of the landing. The crazed pattern of the well-worn carpet was covered in a layer of snow, which was soaking through his trousers. He was back at the top of the stairs, in the exact same position he had been when he was rescued by a neighbour two decades ago.

  Looming over him with a steely determination in his wide eyes, Ben Hales was shaking, but it wasn’t because of the cold weather and the biting northerly wind, but the magnitude of the situation he had created.

  ‘Does this bring back any memories?’

  ‘Of course it does,’ his teeth were chattering through fear and cold.

  ‘That’s good.’ He smiled. ‘Which memories?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘What are you remembering?’

  ‘Why are you doing this?’

  ‘Answer my fucking questions,’ he screamed, his angry face just inches away from Jonathan’s. ‘You faked it didn’t you? The whole shocked into amnesia thing. It was all bollocks wasn’t it? You know exactly what happened on the night your parents were killed. You saw everything and it has stayed with you ever since; every single detail. You’ve relived it over and over again. Tell me what happened.’

  A warm tear fell from Jonathan’s left eye, leaving a track mark on his face as it travelled down his cheek, thawing his cold skin.

  ‘I can’t do this.’ He voice cracked with emotion.

  ‘Charlie Johnson was right about you. He said you were a fucking nut job. Why wouldn’t you talk to him? Why wouldn’t you let him interview you? What are you hiding? He’s spent all these years trying to work out what’s going on in that fucked-up head of yours; tried to figure out the case, and he had two possibilities: either you were the killer or you saw who the killer was. We’ve decided to go with the second option, so c
ome on, tell me, who did it?’

  ‘Please…’ Jonathan whimpered.

  Losing his patience, Ben reached into his inside pocket and pulled out the kitchen knife with the seven-inch blade he had taken from home. The yellow sodium light from a lamp post hit the pure cold stainless steel, almost blinding Jonathan.

  ‘You’re really starting to fuck me off now, Jonathan. I knew there was something weird about you when I was by your hospital bed all those years ago.’

  ‘You were at the house on the night it happened?’

  ‘I was the uniformed copper who sat with you for over twenty-four fucking hours until your fat aunt came down from Newcastle. I looked deep into your soul that night and all I saw was blackness.’

  Ben grabbed Jonathan by the throat and lifted him off his feet. Jonathan fumbled behind him for a wall to gain some balance, but it was no use. There was no wall there.

  With the tip of the knife pointing to Jonathan’s stomach, Ben said, ‘This is your final chance.’

  ‘MIT, DC Easter,’ Faith answered her phone, stifling a yawn.

  ‘Faith, it’s Rory. Who’s there with you?’

  ‘It’s just me and Sian. What’s up?’

  ‘Put me through will you?’

  Rory’s voice was urgent and filled with panic. He had been trying to call Matilda but she wasn’t answering.

  ‘Good evening Rory, what’s troubling you?’ Sian asked in her usual cheery manner.

  ‘I’m at Maun Barrington’s. I’ve had to force my way in. She’s dead, Sian. She’s killed herself. I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘Bloody hell. All right Rory, calm down. I’m going to send a team over to process the scene. Seal off the flat and don’t let anyone enter…’

  ‘Sian,’ he interrupted, ‘she’s left a note. She’s confessed to running down Stephen Egan.’

  ‘There. Right there. I recognize that bastard Audi,’ Matilda called out.

  Aaron quickly pulled over and slammed on the brakes. The car skidded on the snow and almost crashed into Ben’s precious car.

  They both climbed out at the same time, neither of them caring whether they slipped on the icy snow. Before they could reach the broken door in the fence, a piercing scream broke the night’s silence. Matilda and Aaron were both frozen in horror for the briefest of seconds. They made eye contact then burst through the door.

  Aaron saw them first. ‘Over there. On the stairs.’ He pointed, and raced up what was left of the staircase and pulled at Ben by the shoulder, almost throwing him back down the stairs. He grabbed Jonathan, who was slowing falling to the floor. If it hadn’t been for his quick reflexes he would have fallen back into nothingness and onto the jagged rubble below.

  ‘He stabbed me. He stabbed me.’ Jonathan was in shock. He was hysterically holding onto his stomach where three-quarters of the blade was deeply embedded.

  ‘It’s OK, calm down. I’ve got you. You’re going to be all right,’ Aaron said.

  ‘He stabbed me. Get this out of me. Get this knife out of me right now.’

  With slippery red hands, Jonathan fumbled to get hold of the black handle and pulled.

  Aaron, a good three inches taller and two stone heavier than Jonathan managed to quickly subdue him. ‘You have to leave it in. We’ll get you to hospital and they’ll take it out. You’re in shock. Just breathe. Calm down; take deep breaths and try to remain calm. Listen to me Jonathan.’

  At the bottom of the stairs Ben looked up with wide-eyed bewilderment. Next to him, Matilda tried to get her head around the situation, but what she was witnessing didn’t seem to be making any sense.

  Was it possible? Had an Acting DCI just tried to kill a number one witness in a double-murder case?

  Chapter 48

  The atmosphere in the darkened police station had changed dramatically since Matilda had returned with a despondent Ben Hales in tow. News of his arrest quickly spread and it wasn’t long before officers on the night shift left their posts to try and catch a glimpse of what was happening. This was an unprecedented evening.

  Aaron had waited at the scene for the ambulance to arrive; delayed due to the rapidly falling snow. Once they arrived at the Northern General Hospital Jonathan had been whisked straight into theatre; the knife was deep and had pierced his stomach wall. He had internal bleeding and had been drifting in and out of consciousness during the bumpy journey through Sheffield’s streets.

  Back at the station Hales had been booked in as a prisoner and placed in an interview room. This was a very surreal experience for the duty sergeant; never in all his twenty-five years on the force had he booked in a colleague. Very little had been said to Hales; there wasn’t much anyone could say, and all parties involved found eye contact extremely difficult.

  Ben Hales was expressionless. His face was pale and his eyes staring. He was in deep shock.

  As much as Matilda wanted to go into the interview room, grab Ben by the lapels, and ask him what the hell was wrong with him, she knew this had to be played by the book, and, as much as she dreaded doing it, she phoned the ACC at home and told her of the situation.

  Within minutes, Val Masterson was out of bed, in her uniform, and shivering behind the wheel of her car. Fortunately, living on the outskirts of Sheffield on the border with the Derbyshire countryside she had access to a four-by-four and was ploughing through the snow at speed, not caring about the drifts, or the rapidity at which the thick flakes hit the windscreen, making her feel like she was in a snow globe.

  She entered the station and powered through the corridors in search of the DCI. How can it be possible for one woman to return to work and within a matter of days arrest her replacement for attempted murder?

  The incident room was lit by a single overhead light and Matilda and Sian Mills were hunched over Ben’s laptop. They were scanning through the email conversations between him and Charlie Johnson.

  ‘Do you know what this looks like to me,’ Sian began. ‘You’ve got Ben Hales in a position of power, able to ask the right questions, and Charlie Johnson has been more or less grooming him, getting him to find the answers to what he wants to know.’

  ‘He does seem to be fuelling the fire doesn’t he?’ Matilda agreed. ‘It’s not like Ben though. He’s a determined bloke. He’d never allow anyone to lead him. Have we managed to locate Charlie yet?’

  ‘No. I’ve made a note to give his agent another ring first thing.’

  ‘I wonder if she emailed over that picture of him.’

  While she waited for her computer to boot up Matilda sighed and leaned back in the chair, which squeaked with every movement. ‘What is this obsession people have with Jonathan Harkness? Maun, his brother, his boss, Ben, and this Charlie Johnson. You’ve seen him, Sian, what do you think?’

  ‘I have no idea. The guy is weird, there’s no denying that, but people seem to fall under some kind of spell with him.’

  ‘There’s nothing special about him. He doesn’t have a great presence about him or…’

  Suddenly the rest of the overhead lights were turned on and a loud, dominating voice filled the room.

  ‘For the time being, let’s ignore the fact that it is well past four o’clock and you’re still in the station; why don’t you tell me what the hell is going on here.’

  Matilda and Sian looked up and saw the ACC standing in the doorway, her hands on her hips, and a bitter expression on her tired face.

  Matilda slammed the laptop closed and explained what had happened, thankfully without any interruption from the ACC. She may come across as a tyrant at times but she always allowed people to have their say.

  ‘And where is Hales now?’

  ‘He’s in interview room one.’

  ‘Cautioned?’

  ‘Yes ma’am.’

  ‘Solicitor?’

  ‘He’s declined.’

  ‘Right. I’ll interview him. Sian, you can deputize.’

  ‘With respect…’

  ‘Go home, Matilda.’
/>   ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘You should not be in this station right now. I want you gone. We’ll discuss this tomorrow.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘Matilda, you have no idea how angry I am right now. Your presence is not required here. Go home right now.’

  Sian looked at the floor. She had never felt so uncomfortable before in her life. Masterson had the power to strike fear into anyone when she was determined. There was no point in arguing.

  Ben Hales could hardly believe what was happening to him. He felt like a stranger in the police station he had been working in for years. He tried to go over the events of the previous few hours but he couldn’t recall anything. His mind was blank. He sat in the sterile interview room and felt like a foreigner. He knew this room; he’d been in here hundreds, if not thousands, of times, but never this side of the table. It felt wrong. It was wrong.

  The door opened, making him jump, and the ACC entered, followed by a nervous-looking Sian Mills. He knew them, but when he looked up into their wide staring eyes they were complete strangers to him.

  They took their seats and with a quivering voice, Sian went through the preliminaries for the benefit of the recording and video equipment.

  ‘You’ve waived your right to a solicitor?’ Masterson asked.

  ‘I don’t need one,’ his voice was slow and sounded tired. ‘I don’t know what’s going on here.’

  ‘I want you to take us through your day. You went home around lunchtime I understand, that’s not something you usually do. Why today?’

  Ben looked blankly at his boss. ‘Did I go home today?’

  Sian and the ACC exchanged worried glances.

  ‘Yes. You went home and your wife was there. Apparently you had a bit of a disagreement.’

  ‘I honestly don’t remember.’

  The blank expression and cold wide eyes told Masterson he was telling the truth. Had the events of the day been so horrific for Ben that he had blocked them out? Sian wondered if he was going through a similar mental shutdown to the one Jonathan Harkness had suffered twenty years ago.