The Silent Children: A serial-killer thriller with a twist

by Carol Wyer

  ‘I know we can’t. It’s been eating away at me. It was so wrong of us to even think about cheating that couple like that. I’m such a lousy example for my children, aren’t I? I want to make this right now. I want to make amends. I’ll come in later today.’

  ‘I’d like to send an officer around to keep an eye on you while we investigate further. Or, if you’d rather, we could move you somewhere out of harm’s way.’

  ‘No, that’s silly. I have to go to work this morning. I can’t let them down at such short notice. I’ll go to work and come straight to the station as soon as I finish.’

  Juliet hung up. Robyn dialled DCI Flint’s number and brought him up to speed.

  ‘I’ll arrange for officers to watch her house,’ he said. ‘What about Liam Carrington and Roger Jenkinson?’

  ‘I’m going to bring them into the station, sir, for further questioning. We might need to keep an eye on them afterwards.’

  ‘I’ll sort it first thing.’

  Flint disconnected, leaving Robyn alert and eager to get started. The puzzle was at last taking shape. If Henry Gregson knew about the ticket being stolen, was that enough to get him killed? Robyn suspected it might be. She had a lot of work to do. Leaving the cat slumbering, she padded downstairs. It was going to be a long but productive day, of that she was sure.

  Fifty-Four

  THURSDAY, 23 FEBRUARY, MORNING

  * * *

  Juliet Fallows slipped out of the clinic where she worked and slunk along the road, turning past the Volkswagen dealership into the side road behind the workshop. It was a grim day and she was feeling especially tired. She hadn’t slept one wink for worry. At least she’d now come clean. Even if she had to face the consequences, it had been the right decision to make.

  Behind the clinic stood a grand retail park of several furniture and electronic stores, supermarkets and cafés. She checked left and right to ensure nobody had spotted her and slid into the alley behind the garage, out of sight, as planned. The call she’d received an hour earlier had made her pulse race. She didn’t want to sneak out but she wanted this to be over. It was doing her head in.

  The clattering and high-pitched noises coming from the garage drowned out all other sounds, and she didn’t hear the person approach until they were close to her.

  ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake. You made me jump,’ she said. ‘My nerves are bad enough at the moment.’

  ‘What did you tell the police, Juliet?’

  Juliet was taken aback. The icy stare was unnerving.

  ‘It had better not have been the truth.’

  Juliet’s blood ran cold. The barrel of the gun was pointing at her. Her mouth opened and shut. How could she have been so stupid as to agree to the meeting? She’d have to lie to get out of this. There was nothing else she could do. She tried to speak calmly.

  ‘I already told you when I rang you up yesterday. They know about the syndicate but I didn’t tell them everything, okay? I’m not that stupid. They don’t suspect anything.’

  ‘I don’t believe you. You’ve told them what happened, haven’t you? I know you. You’re weak. You’ll have caved in and told them.’

  Juliet’s voice rose. ‘No, I haven’t. I need this money. I’m not going to give it up. Not now we’ve come this far. You know how important this is to me. I was a bit vulnerable, that’s all. They put me in one of those interview rooms and it freaked me out. They kept on at me. In the end I had to give them something to go on.’

  ‘You stupid cow. You’ve probably put them onto us.’

  ‘You’d have done the same if they’d interviewed you.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have been so dumb as to turn up at the station in the first place.’

  ‘I didn’t tell them the truth,’ Juliet whimpered.

  ‘You still told them too much,’ came the reply. The figure lowered the gun, turned and walked away from Juliet. She watched the retreating figure move away and breathed in deeply. She’d leave today. She’d collect the kids and go. It didn’t matter where they went as long as they were together. She couldn’t stay here any longer. As she prepared to leave as well, the figure stopped and turned back towards her.

  The gun fired once and the bullet smashed into Juliet’s nose, sending fragments of cartilage and blood spinning into the air like bloody raindrops. The noisy drilling next door obliterated all sound of gunfire, and the murderer casually walked away from Juliet’s crumpled body.

  Fifty-Five

  DAY TEN – THURSDAY, 23 FEBRUARY, MORNING

  * * *

  Robyn was in a determined mood, and now her office was free of Shearer and his officers, she felt more in control of the investigation. Juliet’s phone call had been another boost, and she was making sure she scrutinised every last detail of those in and connected to the lottery syndicate.

  ‘We have new information. The lottery ticket that won the jackpot was stolen from a couple who regularly shop at MiniMarkt. They are probably unaware they won.’ She summarised Juliet’s confession. ‘I’d like to find out who they are so we can pass the names on to the lottery syndicate and get the money to the rightful winners. What’s important is that it gives us a motive behind Henry’s murder. Henry was going to blow the whistle on the team. How he found out about the stolen ticket remains a mystery. He might somehow have put two and two together, or given he was friends with Liam and Ella, one or the other might have confessed the truth to him. My instinct says one of the team, or one of the team’s partners, killed Henry. I want us to look very carefully at each of the syndicate’s alibis again for the three days in question. Anna, will you look into Ella Fox? She claimed she was visiting a friend the morning of Henry Gregson’s murder – Cassie Snow, who was in Queen’s Hospital in Burton She didn’t get to the hospital because she missed a bus connection and was then too late for visiting time. Could you confirm Cassie was in hospital and, if possible, the bus times? Here are the details she gave me. Also, and this is going to be trickier, see if Ella actually caught the bus from Yoxall to Burton.’

  ‘On it,’ came the reply from Anna.

  Robyn logged on and searched for Ella Fox, figuring two heads were better than one. A more general search yielded no results. The woman didn’t have a social media footprint at all. Robyn found that really strange – a stay-at-home mother – surely she’d be online, posting photographs of her child, even if it were within the privacy of mum-type Facebook groups. It didn’t feel right. She must have other friends – from the exercise class she gave and from the village itself. Was she really that much of a loner?

  She stared at the whiteboard and wondered just what to make of it.

  Anna bounded from her desk.

  ‘We were lucky. I emailed a shot of Ella across to the bus depot. The driver for that morning was in the office and remembers her clearly – the scar, he remembers the scar.’

  Robyn nodded. ‘Okay, so she got on the bus and went to Burton.’

  ‘Cassie Snow was definitely in hospital on the fourteenth. Appendicitis.’

  ‘So Ella probably did go to visit her?’

  ‘Looks that way. There’s only one thing. According to the bus depot, there’s no reason for Ella to have missed her connection. The buses were running on time that day and she ought to have been able to catch the connecting bus that goes to the hospital.’

  ‘That’s interesting.’

  ‘I’ve also pulled this from the police database. An Ella Fox was attacked and robbed on her way home from work in Nottingham in May 2011. An anonymous caller saw a young man run away from the scene of the crime. They never caught the man who assaulted her or found the knife used. She was badly injured.’

  ‘She lived in Nottingham?’

  ‘Last known address was this.’ Anna passed a note to Robyn, who read, ‘Lee Potter, The Stables, Amble Lane, Beeston. And this is Lee’s contact number?’

  Anna nodded furiously.

  ‘Great stuff.’

  Robyn rang it immediately. Lee Potter
sounded distant and vague.

  ‘Mr Potter, my name is DI Robyn Carter of Staffordshire Police. It’s concerning somebody you might have known or indeed still know. It’s nothing alarming.’

  ‘Go on. I’m at work but go on.’

  ‘Ella Fox.’

  His voice dropped. ‘Is she all right?’

  ‘Yes, please don’t concern yourself. I was making enquiries about the terrible attack that took place in 2011.’

  There was a pause as he moved away from where he was speaking, wind rustling down the phone. When he next spoke it was clearer. ‘Yeah. It was horrific. Poor Ella. She didn’t deserve that.’

  ‘What happened exactly?’

  ‘She was on her way home from the nursery school where she worked, when she was attacked. Police suspected it was a random attack. She told them her attacker looked like he was spaced out on drugs but couldn’t describe him – just young and scruffy. He stole twenty pounds. Twenty quid and in return she gets a lifetime of looking like that.’ He sucked his teeth.

  ‘What was your relationship, if you don’t mind me asking?’

  ‘We were living together. Thinking of making it more permanent too. The attack changed everything. She wasn’t the same person after that. It wasn’t so much the fact her face was carved up, but she shut down, rejected me. Like she couldn’t bear me to look at her. I still feel bad about it. I didn’t want her to leave. It was entirely her choice.’

  ‘You haven’t heard from her since then?’

  ‘Nah, she went off with her brother and that was the last I saw of them. He was a bit odd. Lived in Stoke but was always hanging about our place like he had a crush on her. He couldn’t seem to function without her. He was always tipping up for money, or because he was drunk. I don’t miss him.’

  ‘I was unaware she had a brother. I don’t suppose you have a contact address for him?’

  ‘Nah. No chance. Only put up with him for Ella’s sake. Like I said, I didn’t much care for him and he mostly kept out of my way. He’d visit Ella when I was out. I always knew he’d been though. Ella used to have this sort of guilty look on her face. They had different fathers, so I don’t know his surname, but his first name is Liam.’

  Fifty-Six

  THEN

  * * *

  The young man may as well still be locked up. Friends and punters he’d served at the betting shop and laughed with over the last two years now observe him warily as he walks about town, barely acknowledging him.

  He misses Sid badly. He’d always been so positive and seen the good in everyone. He’d been an honest man. That was the trouble with life – it made no difference if you were honest and kind – life was bloody unfair.

  He’s alone in the dingy bar, a half-pint in his hand. Here, he isn’t haunted by memories of beatings, abuse, ever-deepening sorrow and deception. Here, he doesn’t think about Johnny’s cruel sneer, or Kayley’s ice-cold, Arctic-grey eyes, or his sister’s face when she told him about the abortion. Johnny Hounslow had ruined too many lives. Here, he plots his next move. He knows what that’ll be. Prison has toughened him up. Hopefully, it’s toughened him enough for this plan to work.

  He sits undisturbed in the furthest corner of the pub and calms his mind, emptying it of all the memories. Here, alone in the pub, there’s nothing to interrupt his thoughts and he can sit in complete silence.

  The hunt for Johnny Hounslow has been his priority and he’s combed the area the last couple of weeks, talking to old schoolmates and those who knew Johnny, in an attempt to find out where he might be. Johnny’s father hadn’t even known he was in the area, let alone hanging out only a few streets away.

  Kayley Frost is impossible to track down. Nobody of that name has ever worked at the radio station. He isn’t surprised. She went to a lot of trouble to pretend to be somebody she wasn’t. He doesn’t have any idea how to find her, but he knows if he can locate Johnny, he might come across her. Two days ago, he had a breakthrough when he bumped into Kevin Blackford on the high street in Stoke. Kevin, who still looked fifteen years old and wore the same glasses he’d worn at school, was busking, a cap at his feet. The young man dropped fifty pence into it and stopped to chat. Kevin finished his song and sat on the wall, guitar by his feet.

  ‘I don’t often come into Stoke town centre. I usually stick to Newcastle-under-Lyme. Funny me seeing you here,’ said Kevin, as he rolled a joint.

  ‘How come?’

  He scratched his head, pulled something out of his hair and studied it before dropping it onto the ground. ‘Well, I saw Johnny only last Tuesday. He drove past me in that black Porsche of his. You two used to be inseparable at school. See much of him these days?’

  ‘You recognised him?’

  Kevin sucked on his joint and scowled at the passer-by who frowned at his actions. ‘Sure. I’ve seen him quite a few times over the last couple of years. I once even spoke to him in a pub, but he walked off, like he didn’t know me. Guess he’s not into druggy friends.’ He laughed and removed a bit of tobacco from his brown teeth. ‘Now, whenever I see him, I keep my head down. He looks like he’d plant one on me if I said anything. He’s often out and about in Newcastle-under-Lyme, and since that’s where I usually perform, I see him.’

  Kevin sniffed and wiped his nose on the sleeve of his grubby jumper. A loose thread hung from it. He looked up and grinned. ‘Don’t suppose you fancy going for a pint, do you?’

  He shook his head. ‘Too early for me, but I’ll stand you a beer if you like, later.’

  Kevin nodded. ‘Great. See you over there at five,’ he said, pointing to the pub opposite. ‘Best get back to this. Who knows, one day I might get discovered and get my own recording contract.’

  The young man slapped Kevin on the back and left him to his singing. Kevin was always a bit off the wall. His thoughts quickly moved from Kevin to Johnny. So, the bastard was in the area. That was exactly what he needed to hear.

  He sips his pint and waits. He’s arranged a meet for 9 p.m. and he’s only got half an hour to wait. The guy who’s meeting him is an ex-con like him. He’s integral to the plan and had better show up with the goods. The young man shivers in anticipation – he’s never owned a shooter before.

  Fifty-Seven

  DAY TEN – THURSDAY, 23 FEBRUARY, AFTERNOON

  * * *

  By mid afternoon. Robyn had obtained birth records proving Liam Carrington and Ella Fox were related.

  ‘I want both Liam Carrington and his sister, Ella Fox, brought in for questioning immediately,’ said Robyn aloud. ‘They’re somehow involved in this. Has Juliet Fallows rung in yet?’

  ‘No, guv.’

  ‘She said she’d come by the station as soon as she finished work. Call the clinic in Tamworth and see where she is.’

  Anna squirmed in her chair. ‘I might be about to throw a spanner in the works. Got a response to the email David sent asking for more information about Roger Jenkinson and an incident with Michael Judd, the man who trespassed onto his land. Here’s Michael’s statement.’

  Robyn read through Michael’s statement that detailed his actions that day and paused at one section:

  I didn’t know the land was private. I thought I was on a public footpath. Mr Jenkinson shouted to get off his land. I put up my hands and said, ‘I don’t want any bother.’

  ‘Of course you do,’ said Mr Jenkinson. ‘Or you wouldn’t have climbed over my fence and onto my land. You know what I’m going to do to you?’

  He pointed a gun at me. ‘Don’t shoot,’ I said.

  ‘Bit late to say that now, you shitbag. You come onto private property, no doubt to rob me, and don’t expect me to defend myself? You’re stupid. You know what this is?’

  I nodded. ‘It’s a gun.’

  ‘Well done, Einstein. It’s one of the best – it’s a Smith & Wesson. And I’m a great shot. I can blow your head off with one little pull of this trigger and my eyes closed.’

  He raised the gun and I ran. I ran as fast as I cou
ld. I ran back to the fence and scrambled back over it. He shouted something else I couldn’t make out and I fell from the fence, stumbled and twisted my ankle.

  He walked up to the fence, his gun still in his hand. ‘Run, you bastard, before I splatter what’s left of your brain everywhere,’ he said.

  And I did.

  ‘Henry Gregson was shot with a Smith & Wesson, wasn’t he? Do you think Roger Jenkinson could be his murderer?’ Anna’s face creased in frustration.

  ‘Oh, you’re kidding me,’ groaned Robyn. ‘We’ll have to bring Roger back in and ask him again about the gun. He might still own it. David, instruct the officer currently outside Roger Jenkinson’s place to bring him in. Looks like we’ll be in for a full house. Hope we’ve got enough interview rooms.’

  David departed to do her bidding. Robyn racked her brains to fathom why Liam and Ella would be attempting to pass themselves off as a couple. And what about Astra? Surely she didn’t belong to both of them? There were lots of parts to this investigation that continued to bug her.

  David raced back into the room. ‘Roger Jenkinson’s not at home.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  David shrugged. ‘The officer watching the place said he must have slipped away, over the fields. It’s a huge property, plenty of places for him to get lost in.’

  Robyn groaned. This was rapidly turning into a farce and all she needed now was Shearer smirking in the corner.

  As if on cue, Shearer stuck his head in. ‘Came to see if you missed me,’ he said, sidling up to Robyn.

  ‘Not now, Tom. I’m up to my neck.’

  ‘Heard that was the case. Flint made some comment.’ His eyes glittered.

  ‘Tom, go away. I really haven’t time for this now.’