‘What! You’re passing this over now.’
‘Yes. I’ve had my fill of it and I’m sure it will be straightforward anyway. The fellow’s confessed. There will be no conflict.’
Before Bob Fellows could respond, there was a brief knock at the door and Susan Morgan bustled in, holding a suit carrier so that it didn’t drag along the ground.
‘Hello, sir. Your suit, shirt and tie, dry, pressed and ready to wear.’
Snow beamed. ‘You are an angel,’ he said and then blushed slightly when he realised what he’d said.
‘I have friends at Easy Clean and when I said these were the clothes of the detective who had hauled in the child-killer, they did the business quick sticks and for nothing.’
‘You see, sir, there are some perks to being a copper.’ observed Bob Fellows.
‘So it seems. Thanks, Susan. Much appreciated.’ Snow took the suit carrier from her with a smile. ‘Now if you two don’t mind, I’d like the privacy to change out of this smelly old uniform back into my own clothes.’
‘What you need is a phone box to change from mild-mannered copper to Super Snow,’ grinned Bob, ushering Susan out of the office with a smile.
Ten minutes later, back in his own clothes and feeling very much his old self, DI Paul Snow emerged from his office and was greeted by a mild ripple of applause from the small group of officers there. He was, it seemed, the hero of the hour for bringing in Frank Hirst. No doubt Bob Fellows had overdramatised the event, as was his wont, but this reaction amused and pleased Snow. He accepted the approbation with a gentle smile and a wave of the hand as he moved swiftly through the room into the cool corridor beyond. His smile faded as he made his way down into the basement where the cells were located.
PC Braithwaite was gatekeeper and he seemed surprised to see Snow.
‘I’ve come to see Hirst,’ he said quietly. He knew this was not protocol. He should have another officer and Hirst’s solicitor with him for this to happen.
Braithwaite hesitated. He didn’t want to challenge a senior officer but he knew the rules.
‘I won’t be long. Nothing serious. It’ll just help the case. You understand,’ said Snow gently, placing a friendly hand on Braithwaite’s shoulders.
The constable, like most of the officers at the station, respected and even admired Snow for his diligence and professionalism and his considered treatment of the lower ranks. He was all right was old Snow, was the mantra in the canteen. It was because of this general feeling that Braithwaite acceded to Snow’s request.
‘Don’t be too long, sir,’ he added sotto voce as he led Snow down a narrow corridor to Hirst’s cell.
‘No, I won’t,’ came the murmured reply.
Frank Hirst sat hunched up on the small pallet bed in the cell, a blanket around his shoulders. His hands were clenched and he was staring at the far wall in front of him. He was now dressed in standard issue prison wear but his hair was still damp and flattened to his scalp. He looked like a bedraggled statue and did not move one inch as Snow entered the cell.
The policeman pulled up a chair and sat close to him and waited a few seconds to see if the man would react. He did not.
‘I just want to know, why?’ said Snow quietly. ‘Tell me why, Frank. Explain it to me.’
Hirst’s face remained immobile.
‘There must be so much you want to get off your chest. Now’s your chance. Now’s your chance before you are hounded by police officers, lawyers and others. Those that will twist your words and motive.’
Still not a flicker on the prisoner’s face.
‘This is unofficial. Nothing is being recorded. I just want to know why … why you killed those girls.’
Slowly Hirst raised his head and turned his watery eyes towards Snow. His lips trembled momentarily before he spoke. ‘Daddy.’ The word emerged as a tortured whisper. ‘She said, “Daddy”.’
‘Who said that?’
‘The girl. Elizabeth. She said “Daddy”. She thought … she thought that I …’
Tears trickled down Hirst’s face and it froze in an agonised stare.
Snow wasn’t quite sure what Hirst was talking about but he knew instinctively that he should remain silent and wait. He had begun talking now and the policeman felt fairly certain that the dam would break soon and the information he was seeking would cascade out.
Hirst wiped the tears away with his sleeve. ‘Have you got kids?’ he asked.
Snow shook his head.
‘You can’t understand then.’
‘Try me. As a police officer I’ve seen a lot and understand a lot. You get to dig deep into feelings. Outsiders often see more.’
Hirst thought about this for a moment and then said: ‘I had a daughter. Debbie. Little Debbie. She was the light of my life. Little … She meant the world to me. No doubt, people thought I doted on her too much. Worshipped her. We both did, me and my wife.’
Snow nodded judiciously.
‘Don’t get me wrong: I loved my wife, too, and she loved me, but we channelled our …’ He struggled to find the right word. ‘We channelled our passion into her. Our lives were dull, mundane, humdrum but hers … was like a rainbow. Full of colours and excitement.’ For a fleeting moment his face twisted into a crooked smile which even reached his eyes.
‘And then,’ he continued, his voice growing stronger now and his body posture more relaxed, ‘she was taken away from us. Cruelly. Without warning. Killed. Without reason. One minute she was kissing me goodbye and hugging me tight and the next she was torn and bloodied on a slab like a piece of meat in the butchers.’
‘That must have been terrible.’ Snow meant it. He had the imagination and sensitivity to empathise completely.
‘Terrible doesn’t touch the half of it. Why her? Why was my beautiful daughter crushed in that coach? Why was she one of those who died? It’s a question I asked a thousand times. It bore like a drill in my head. Why couldn’t she have lived?’
There was no answer to that one and Snow was not about to attempt to provide one.
‘It was so unfair. I mean … if she deserved to die, the others did as well. That’s only fair.’
‘But she wasn’t the only one to be killed in the crash. There were others who died,’ Snow suggested gently.
Hirst shook his head in agreement. ‘I know, I know. But what bit into my soul, kept me awake at nights, was the thought of those who by a whim of chance had got away with it. They’d missed out on death.’
‘You saw it as their fault that they had survived?’
‘Yes. They were the smug ones walking away from the twisted wreck unharmed, able to carry on living while Debbie was placed in a coffin. What did they care as they returned home to their lovely, little happy lives? They were all right. They could laugh again. Laugh without a thought for my poor darling, their dead friend. They forgot her. It didn’t matter to them because they were all right. It wasn’t fair. Don’t you understand? It wasn’t bloody fair! That’s what haunted me. That’s what ate away at my brain. That’s what drove me on.’
Hirst gulped for air and clutched his hands together in a wringing motion as his emotions overtook him again.
Snow waited.
‘And then my Pam went,’ he resumed after a moment. ‘She felt the same pain as me but in a different way. While mine smouldered like a bonfire, growing hotter and angrier, she gave in to despair. The door on her future had been slammed in her face when our Debbie died. I was no use to her. Debbie had been our link and now that had gone. There was nothing to hold us together. Living … just living became too much for her. Making a cup of tea, having a sandwich, reading a book – which she used to love – meant nothing to her any more. So … she took her life. Jumped off a bridge on to the bloody motorway. Splat!’ He gave an agonised cry halfway between a wail and a laugh, both horrified and amused at his expression. ‘I had no idea that she’d do it. To be honest I didn’t think she had it in her. I mean it takes some guts to jump off a bridge �
� but I can say that if I’d known what she intended to do, I wouldn’t have stopped her. It was the only way that she could have prevented her suffering. Living was now just pain and only death was the escape.’
‘But you didn’t think like this.’
Hirst shook his head vigorously. ‘No. I wanted revenge and when Pam went, the flames of that bonfire I mentioned consumed me. Her death spurred me on.’
‘To do what?’
Hirst’s face twisted again into that dark, mad smile. ‘You know what. It was mad, wasn’t it? I was mad, wasn’t I? I thought that by killing those girls, those blessed survivors, I would somehow be justifying Debbie’s death, her cruel and unfair death. If she had to die, they should, too.’
With a brisk, angry motion, he ran his fingers through his hair.
‘It gave me a purpose, you see,’ he continued, his whole demeanour becoming more animated now. ‘I had a reason to get up in the morning. That’s what I was living for. I planned each one – each killing – meticulously. It was imperative that I wasn’t caught before I had completed all five. I was in some kind of demented trance. Reality and logic had drifted away from me. I see that now. I see that now. I was a monster. A deranged animal. I know it’s no excuse to say grief made me that way. It’s true but it’s not a fucking excuse, is it?’
‘No,’ Snow said softly.
‘And do you know what lifted the veil, what suddenly made me see what I had done? What I had become.’
‘Tell me.’
‘It was that little girl, Elizabeth. In the van. Up at Scammonden. There I was leaning over her, ready to strangle her to death and … God help me … she opened her eyes and called me “Daddy”. She thought that dark monster looming over her … “Daddy” she said, in that same soft sleepy voice that Debbie used to use. Then it hit me like a fucking ten-ton truck. My head exploded. I saw clearly what I had done. How wrong I had been.’
Suddenly Hirst’s body stiffened and his arms reached out for Snow without actually touching him. The detective remained calm and still.
‘Hey, don’t get me wrong. I’m not asking for sympathy or anything like that. I deserve all that’s coming to me. Whether you’re recording this or not, I don’t care. I am guilty. Guilty as hell and hell is where I belong. I killed those girls. Those poor innocent girls. That’s what you wanted to hear, wasn’t it?’
Not really, thought, Snow. I knew that. There can be no doubt that you are guilty and will serve a life sentence. What I really wanted to know is what drove you to do such terrible acts and now I do. But Snow kept these thoughts to himself. Instead he replied: ‘As I said, I’m not recording this interview. This is a private visit, but I sincerely recommend you inform the interviewing officers tomorrow all you have told me.’
‘Sure. Why not? It won’t do me any good and why should it? I don’t want it to. I don’t deserve sympathy or mercy. I just want to die now. I deserve to die. Not to be locked away for years. I’ll still be eating, sleeping and functioning after a fashion when I should be rotting in some grave somewhere.’
Snow had no answer for this. He knew the death penalty was not only barbaric but also made no allowance for any miscarriage of justice, but in cases like Hirst’s when the perpetrator is drowned in remorse, perhaps the rope would be the best solution for all concerned. He was sure the mothers of the three murdered girls would support that notion.
‘Thank you,’ said Snow, rising from his chair.
‘What for?’
‘For being honest with me. I cannot feel sympathy for you. The faces of those dead girls would haunt my dreams forever if I did that, but I now understand why you did what you did and as a police officer that is important to know. And, as I say, I thank you for that.’
‘What did the bastard have to say for himself?’ snarled PC Braithwaite as he locked up the cell again.
‘Not much,’ said Snow.
‘Nah, these looneys always keep it stashed up here.’ He tapped the side of his head. ‘Don’t think they know themselves why they do what they do.’
Snow nodded noncommittally.
A headache was building steadily and with some ferocity around Snow’s temple as he returned to his office. Suddenly he felt very weary and strangely depressed. Time he went home, he thought, take some paracetemol and get an early night. He was just reaching for his coat when Bob Fellows popped his head round the door.
‘Thought you might fancy a pint, sir, as a kind of celebration. Catching the bugger, like.’
Snow was about to shake his head and refuse when he had a sudden change of mind. A fuggy pub and a few pints in cheery company might be exactly what he needed. It was likely to be more effective than pills and that early night for easing his spirits.
‘Why not,’ he said, managing to raise a smile.
It was now around five o’clock and although the County was reasonably quiet, it was starting to fill up with workers catching a quick drink on their way home. The warm, blurry atmosphere wrapped itself around the two policemen as they entered, protecting them from the harsh realities of soberland outside. Snow and Fellows secured a quiet corner seat in the back snug. Bob raised his glass and clinked it against Snow’s.
‘Cheers.’
Snow gave a smile that he did not feel. ‘It seems wrong in a way, celebrating like this. There are three dead girls that we failed to save.’
Bob gave an exaggerated grimace. ‘I know. But we did our best. The odds were really stacked against us. And had we not eventually been successful, there would have been more killings.’
Two more, to be precise, thought Snow. He saw the logic of Bob’s observation but it did not alter the strange sense of sadness he felt at the girls’ deaths, a mixture of guilt and despair. He knew that it would pass in time and, ironically, this fact added to his unhappiness. We soon forget the pain and the treachery as the wheel of life spins on.
‘Come on, drink up, sir. My round next,’ said Bob cheerfully, before draining a good third of his pint.
Attempting to shrug off his bleak thoughts, Snow mimicked his sergeant, taking a large gulp of the cold, harsh brew. He hoped that it would help soften the hard edges of his dark mood.
Two pints later those dark edges were well and truly softened as were, to some extent, Snow’s brain and tongue. While not exactly drunk, he knew that he was not fully in control of his body or his speech. If anything, Bob Fellows was far worse and was about to switch drinks and go on to the whisky. Time, thought Snow sluggishly, to move, to get moving, to leave, to absent himself, to hightail to the hills. To go home. He grinned inanely to himself as his mind ran along this particular tautological gamut. He was sober enough to realise he was not fit to drive and that he’d have to leave his car behind at HQ and take a taxi home.
He rose a little unsteadily, desperate to keep his uncertain limbs in check. It wouldn’t do for a DI to be seen stumbling out of a pub in a tipsy fashion. ‘I’m making tracks, Bob,’ he said, adding another interpretation to his actions and aware that his diction was not as clear as he would have liked.
‘One for the road, sir, eh?’ Bob waggled his glass temptingly.
Snow shook his head. ‘I’m fine,’ he said, feeling far from it.
The cool night air came as a shock to him, making his head seem even lighter. Why, he pondered, is it with alcohol that one always goes one drink too many? Two pints would have been sufficient. He had felt better after two, but the third had allowed the depressive thoughts to return. With a slow, steady gait he made his way along town to St George’s Square by the station and secured a taxi to take him home.
Once there, he felt the indignity of the situation as he fumbled with his key, which failed several times to slip into the aperture and allow him to turn it. Eventually, he gained access and, slamming the door behind him, he slumped to the floor thoroughly exhausted. He remained in this position for ten minutes or so, dozing a little, no longer fighting the alcohol in his system.
Coffee, he thought after a while
. That’s what I need. With the movement of an infirm geriatric, he struggled to his feet and made his way into the kitchen. He filled the kettle and secured the mug and jar of coffee before he saw it. It was on the work surface near the hob: a bottle of champagne. It had a bright pink ribbon tied around the neck and a card dangling from the side. Snow frowned. His alcohol-dulled brain could not make this one out. What was the bottle doing there? How had it got there? He hadn’t put it there. So, someone else had. That meant that someone had been in his house. With the laborious working out of this, his mind sharpened as the disturbing reality took hold.
He tore off the card and read the message inscribed on it: ‘To Pauley, all my love, CB xxx’.
It did not take Snow long to work out the meaning of the message and more significantly the implications.
‘The bastard’s been in my house. Colin Bird,’ he grunted, throwing the card down. He glanced around him desperately, as though he was expecting Bird to pop up by the sink unit. He rushed into the sitting room and froze in the doorway, for there on the little coffee table was an enormous bunch of flowers in a glass vase. Again there was a card loosely attached to the side. This time it read: ‘Here’s hoping our love blooms like these pretty flowers. All my love, Pauley – from CB.’
Instinctively and irrationally, emitting a growl of fury, Paul knocked the vase over with a swipe of his hand, water spraying on the carpet and the glass vase cracking as it hit the floor, spilling the blooms at his feet. What on earth was the mad devil playing at? Was he really this delusional, thinking there was a future in a relationship together, or was this some kind of crazy scheme to unnerve him, the man who had rejected his advances? And how the hell had he got into his house? Well, on quick reflection there was no mystery in that. He was a policeman. He would have ways.
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