by Sarah Ward
‘And now he feels guilty?’
Connie thought back to Palmer’s behaviour towards her that day. ‘He didn’t seem to. He was relaxed about everything, but he’s gone all cold on me.’
‘Well, he is married.’
‘I know. That’s what I keep telling myself. What else did I expect? And the daft thing is that I don’t actually want a boyfriend. I’m happy as I am and don’t want anyone living with me. So the question I need to ask myself is, what exactly do I want?’
‘And what answer do you come up with?’
‘I wish that I’d never gone anywhere near him.’
84
Mark raced across a darkening Bampton, his foot hard on the accelerator. Kat hunched in the seat and prayed that Lena hadn’t made her way back to Providence Villa. She hadn’t said where she was going. Surely the house was the last place she would go given that she was still wanted by the police. The problem was, if Lena had decided to go to the house, Daniel might still be there.
‘Should I call the police?’
She thought he’d say no, but Mark looked grim. ‘I don’t think we’ve got any choice. I don’t like the sound of this man at all. Lena was convinced that someone was trying to kill her. You have to choose your battles, and I don’t fancy my chances against him.’
Kat pulled out her mobile phone from her bag, but Mark put his hand to stay hers. ‘If there’s trouble, they’re the people to call but I think we deserve at least a head start. Let’s see what we find when we get there.’
When they arrived at the house, dusk had fallen despite the summer hours. They’d spent longer on the moors than she realised, and she felt chilled to the bone. The place looked dark and forbidding. A too-large house falling to bits. It needed selling. ‘I hate this place,’ she said, getting out of the car.
‘You’ve got to wait here. I’d never forgive myself if something happened to you.’
‘Not a chance. This is my house and my family. It’s time some ghosts were put to rest.’
‘This man could be a danger. You’re not going to help Lena if she’s not there but he is. Think about it. Let me go in first.’
Kat halted. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘Do you have your keys with you?’
She pulled out the bunch from her pocket.
‘Which one is for the front door?’ She showed him, and he pulled it off the ring. ‘I know the layout of the house. Give me five minutes. If I’m not back by then, there’s a problem. Call the police.’ As soon as he passed through the gate she could no longer see him. The wait was interminable. After six minutes had passed, she got out her mobile and rang the number Connie had given her in the café.
There were was a loud hubbub of voices. It sounded like Connie was in a bar.
‘It’s Kat Gray.᾽
‘Are you okay?’ The voice was immediately on alert.
‘I’m not sure, actually. I’ve seen Lena . . . look, I can’t go into that now but I think she may be in danger. We think the person trying to kill her isn’t from Bampton but Whitby.’
‘Whitby?’
‘It’s a long story, and there’s not the time now. I’m at our house, and I’m worried about going in there by myself.’ An instinct to protect Mark prevented her from giving out his name or saying that he was already there.
Kat heard a sharp intake of breath down the line.
‘If there’s danger, you shouldn’t go inside. I’m on my way. I’m going to call for support. For God’s sake, stay put, Kat.’
Kat clicked off the phone. The temptation to go to the front door was excruciating, but she didn’t have a key. The path around to the back of the house was overgrown, of course. She’d probably end up breaking her neck if she went that way. As she waited for the sound of the first siren, she heard a movement through the front gate, and Mark appeared. He took her hand. ‘I know I was longer than I said. Did you call them?’
Kat nodded.
‘It’s just as well, but I want you to follow me first. There’s something I want you to see before they get here.’ He took her by the hand and brought her up to the front door, sliding her key into the lock.
The house was silent. It was not the stillness of absence but a deathly hush. Kat backed away. Mark’s hand was on her back. ‘There’s no one here now. There’s something you need to see before the police arrive. I’m really sorry, Kat, but this is important.’
He gently steered her into the living room and drew back the curtains. The light from the spring moon threw a pale light onto the long room. Kat’s eyes took a moment to adjust to the gloom. Mark took her arm again and guided her to the back of the sofa. There, on the floor, was a huddle of clothes.
‘Lena!’ Kat broke away from him and crouched down beside her sister. She was cold with the chill of the recently departed. Lying on her side Lena looked like she was sleeping, her face calm. Only the unusual angle of her sister’s head gave Kat the horrified realisation that this couldn’t be the posture of the living.
She looked up at Mark.
‘You need to see her. Once the police get here, this room, this house, will be sealed off. I want you to see her before they all get here.’
Kat stroked the top of her sister’s head as she’d done as a teenager, all those years ago before the chain of events had started. ‘Why? Why did you want me to see her?’
‘Because I want you to see what she looked like. I’ve known violent death. It preys on your mind. Sometimes the thought of what might have happened can drive you insane. I want you to see what she looks like. Have you seen anyone dead before?’
‘My parents.’ Kat could feel a weight of nausea behind her nose. She was about to be sick.
‘And now your sister. But despite the violence, this is what she looked like. She’s in the house she loved and felt safe in. I want you to try to hold on to the image in the days ahead.’
Kat could hear the sirens, getting louder and louder. ‘We need to leave. The police are here.’
‘We need to stay. You called them. They’re expecting you to be here. If you leave, they might think that you’re in danger. Or perhaps that you were in some way responsible for Lena’s death. We need to stay here and meet them.’
‘We?’
Mark crouched down beside her and lifted her up. ‘Both of us.’
85
At the station, Connie watched Kat compose herself, which she was managing to do, sort of. Connie was an only child so she couldn’t imagine what it must be like to lose a sibling.
Lena was lying dead, waiting for Bill’s ministrations at some point over the next day or so. The strange web of events was untangling. It had its genesis in a drunken night in 1987, but it had started earlier than that, when two rugby players had joined together to prey on the girls of Bampton. Lena had been an early victim. She had closed herself down, thrown herself into her painting and brooded. Marriage to anyone other than Andrew Fisher might have helped. His secret past had remained buried until one day she’d started an affair with her attacker, Philip Staley.
‘I think we have to believe Lena’s story,’ said Connie. Kat opened her mouth to object. ‘I know it’s hard. This is where I’m able to help you, Kat. Your heart is feeling deceived but it doesn’t have to be like that. Let me look at it from an outsider’s point of view. Will you bear with me?’ Kat nodded. ‘If she recognised Philip Staley as her attacker before she started the affair, then it must have taken a huge effort of will to have sex with him. Lena was frozen after her attack. You told me this. Do you really think she could have been so hard-hearted?’
Kat stared at her hands. ‘I don’t know. You’re asking me questions about a person I lost a long time ago. Could she have been so cold-blooded? You know, I think she might have had that in her.’
‘Okay. Fair enough. Well, let me put this another way. If she recognised her attacker, Philip Staley, for who he was, then the killing must have been premeditated and I don’t think it was. The hustling off of An
drew Fisher to Lena’s favourite place, which meant she could no longer visit there. That doesn’t sound right. She’d used Whitby as a refuge for years, and then she sends a man she knows to be a predator there. Does that sound like something she would willingly do?’
Connie could see Kat trying to assimilate the information.
It was late, gone one in the morning. She and Palmer had finished questioning the man they had discovered with Kat. Mark Astley. An interesting past, but nothing to suggest that he had anything to do with Lena’s killing. He was refusing to go home until they finished with Kat.
Palmer was shifting uncomfortably in his seat next to her. Well, they were all tired. She had downed two beers earlier that evening, which seemed a lifetime ago.
Connie leant forward. ‘You need to believe your sister on this one. I think she discovered that Philip Staley was her rapist that night in 2004 and killed him. Without premeditation.’
Kat looked at the table. ‘Why? She let that bastard ruin her life even further. Okay, she discovers that he’s her attacker from all that time ago but why kill him?’
‘That’s the point about unpremeditated killing. You don’t plan it. It just happens. I don’t think Lena was a natural killer. She acted in the heat of the moment.’
‘But she came up with a decent plan to let Andrew go free.’
‘She wasn’t going to kill him in cold blood though, was she? What was much more likely was she’d ring the police and tell us about him. But she didn’t want to do that. Partly to protect herself, not to have to relive the details of the assaults, and partly to protect you from everything coming out. She thought you were a victim too.’
Kat groaned. ‘But nothing happened to me. What a complete mess.’
Connie shook her head. ‘It was a rubbish plan, and yet it worked. Go to prison for murder, which was, in fact, what she had committed. A form of atonement. At the same time remove the man she also knew to be a sexual predator from his hunting ground. I think Lena’s motives were far from clear.’
‘But she was punishing herself,’ wailed Kat. ‘She went to prison for a crime with mitigating circumstances that a judge would have taken into account. She might have got off with a manslaughter charge.’
‘Was she always so hard on herself?’ asked Palmer.
Kat shrugged. ‘I thought she was being hard on me but now I’m not so sure. Have you found him? Daniel?’
‘Not yet. We’re still looking for him. Why didn’t you tell us he’d been in your house?’
‘He didn’t know where Lena was either, so I didn’t think it important. He was just another person looking for my sister. And all along she had been staying with Steph Alton.’
‘She told you this? Lena?’
‘She said she’d met Steph and her daughter one day in the park. And they’d got to know one another again. And Lena told me that’s where she’d been staying. With Mary.’
‘And what about Daniel? Did he give you a reason why he was looking for Lena?’
‘He told me he was in love with Lena. Obsessed with her, in fact. So he came to find her. And he did.’ Tears pooled in Kat’s eyes. ‘I thought he liked Lena. He was calm at the house when I saw him. The same in Whitby. I never suspected a thing. I thought he was trying to protect her.’
‘He blamed her as well as Andrew Fisher for what happened to his sister. Andrew might have been the rapist, but Lena got Daniel to help him start a new life in Whitby.’
Kat’s eyes widened. ‘What happened to his sister?’
‘We suspect that she was Andrew Fisher’s victim in Whitby. At least one of them. The sister of Daniel Frears, Alison Frears, reported an attack in February this year. We’ve been in touch with North Yorkshire Police and the description she’s given of her attacker matches that of Andrew. She knew the alleged attacker by the name of Peter Murphy, but we believe it’s Fisher. Police went to his address but were unable to locate him. The investigation into the assault is still active.’
‘So after the attack he came back here. To be killed.’
‘He didn’t have anywhere else to go. I think, but it’s only conjecture until we find Daniel Frears, that Andrew Fisher knew that he was searching for him. So he had to leave Whitby. Where else would he go? Although we haven’t yet discovered where he was staying. And you know what, Kat? The sad thing is that things have changed. If you report a sexual assault now, you are dealt with sympathetically. There are things we can do to secure a conviction. It didn’t have to end like this.’
‘And where is he? Daniel?’
Connie looked at Palmer. ‘We don’t know. He may be back in Whitby. Or at least travelling back towards there. We’re searching for him now.’
‘And it was him who killed Andrew at Hale’s End?’
Connie looked to Palmer again. He was leaving her to answer all the questions. ‘We’re not sure. He’s a strong suspect, of course. However, until we locate him, we can’t be absolutely sure.’
‘What?’ Kat hissed across the table at them. ‘What do you mean, you’re not sure?’
‘There are too many loose ends in this investigation for us to be sure of anything. The boy who gave you the gun, for example. He’s still unaccounted for. Don’t forget it was him who handed you the murder weapon. He needs tracing.’
‘Do you think he might be in danger?’
‘We need to find him and discover what role he played in this. What exactly did Lena tell you again?’
Kat shook her head. ‘I asked her about him but she wouldn’t tell me much. She was a great keeper of secrets.’
‘We all have our secrets,’ said Palmer. ‘It’s how destructive we choose to be with them that makes a difference.’
Is he talking about what happened with me? wondered Connie.
They finished the interview, and Connie walked Kat back to the station reception. Mark was standing outside the station, talking on his mobile.
Kat turned to Connie. ‘What the hell was Lena thinking? You get on with life, whatever it throws at you and you might find happiness. Finding happiness with someone makes everything else bearable.’
Connie smiled. ‘You talking about that handsome Mark outside?’
‘I suppose, although . . . ’
There was a defiant air about her. Connie could smell intrigue a mile off. ‘How did you meet?’
‘It doesn’t matter. He’s nothing to do with this. He never met Lena. Didn’t know Philip or Andrew.’
Connie raised a hand. ‘I was only curious. Don’t mind me. Romance is in the air, clearly. It will help you. Your grief, I mean. He seems like a nice guy.’
A red blush spread across Kat’s face. ‘He’s much younger than me.’
So that was it. She was mortified that she was seeing someone much younger than her. ‘Don’t worry,’ Connie said in her most cheerful voice. ‘Younger? So what? There are worse things that can happen, like seeing a married man. If anyone found out, that would be your career over around here. These things are best avoided.’
Connie smiled across at Kat and was dismayed to see her eyes fill with tears.
86
Three in the morning, and Sadler couldn’t sleep. It had been a late night for all of them. Palmer and Connie had interviewed both Mark Astley and Kat Gray and had got some answers. But not enough. Lena Gray was lying dead, and he still felt he was only looking at part of the picture.
He’d spent the evening coordinating the search for Daniel Frears and that had taken time. Two police forces and possibly more if Daniel was en route back to Whitby. He wasn’t a car owner, which made things more difficult. He’d arrived in Bampton under his own steam, and Sadler guessed he had probably made his getaway earlier that day, after killing Lena. By train or possibly by coach. Sadler suspected that he would be easy to find. Once he’d exacted revenge, what else was there for him to do?
Llewellyn had been updated. Although grumpy at being woken up, he had got dressed and had come into the station to help out. There weren
’t many bosses like him any more, and part of the reason why Sadler couldn’t sleep was the thought of his earlier anger towards him. Llewellyn had only done what he was told, and what he’d said to Sadler had been correct. You don’t always get to hear everything in an investigation.
He thought about opening a bottle of wine, but he needed to be up and driving by eight. It wasn’t worth the risk. He wished he was the sort of person to keep camomile tea in his cupboard instead of the builder’s variety. He went to the cupboard and opened it anyway. He winced. Never was it more blatantly obvious that he was a single man who spent too little time inside his own home.
In desperation, he boiled himself a cup of hot water and took it through to the living room. He switched on the television. Too many channels and nothing to watch. He flicked idly between them, stopping every once in a while to see if something was worth watching. It never was. He was running out of choices by the time he reached the Horror Channel.
The lurid colours of the film made him pause briefly. He looked at the screen titles to see what the film was. Brides of Dracula. Not his thing at all, but he’d caught the opening sequence so he could at least follow the story until he was tired enough to sleep. The film was as bad as he might have expected. Or maybe as good. In any case, there was enough to hold his attention. The source of the evil doings in the village wasn’t Dracula, but someone called Count Menster, who was going around vampirising the local villages. In an interesting twist, his mother discovered what he was up to and chained him in the castle to try to stop the killings.
The mother always knows. A pattern of images swam before Sadler’s tired eyes. What had Connie said about Janice Staley? That she didn’t think the woman held any illusions about her son. But there were other models of motherhood. Like Pamela Fisher. Jane Reynolds, who had originally spotted Andrew in Whitby, had been adamant that his mother would have known that he was hiding out there. But perhaps she had known much, much more.