Lethal Ties

by Christmas, Helen

  ‘I hope everything works out for you, dear girl, though there is no predicting the future. I won’t forget you, and I’m certain our paths will cross again.’

  Staring at him in disbelief, I felt a ball of fear rise in my throat.

  Why would he say that?

  “Strange,” Hannah murmured. “Do you wonder if he was playing with you?”

  “I-I’ll never be sure, but the way the way he looked at me turned my stomach.”

  I could see his face now, piercing through the darkness. I didn’t want to be reminded of him, but the image seemed real, so horribly real. His protruding grey eyes burned into me with such intensity, it was as if he were in the room with me, watching through the dark twisted labyrinth of my mind.

  Frozen in panic, I clung to the sides of my chair. I could not bear his image swimming around in my head any longer, and it forced my eyes wide open.

  “Maisie, what is it?” Hannah gasped. “You look petrified.”

  “I always said he was a nasty man,” I whimpered, “but it feels as if he’s here... in Bognor... and I-I’m sure I’ve seen him more recently.”

  Hannah’s face turned rigid. “Mr. Mortimer could be in Bognor?”

  Suddenly she was the one who looked petrified. It was hard to imagine the impact this was having but as I scoured the tunnels of my subconscious, I was still searching... where had I seen those eyes?

  They flashed again, sending shivers through me.

  Only this time I was imagining an older man. Those same grey eyes, no longer so bulbous but shrunken. Glinting with evil, they sagged in a recess of folds, a familiar creepy smile... Yet who did that face belong to?

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  It was a long time since Joe had seen the inside of a prison, but on this occasion he was determined to do some good in the world. If Thomas Parker-Smythe was innocent, Joe had to clear his name. But he was on a mission. A chain of monstrous crimes had been committed and now he had faced his enemy, it was time to redress the balance.

  Before this most unusual situation arose, however, he had spent an intense couple of hours with the police.

  First it was essential to describe Mortimer, and he didn’t hold back. “You wouldn’t recognise him now. Used to be a big fat bastard like a puffed up balloon, but it’s as if someone’s stuck a pin in him.”

  Looking at DI Fitzpatrick, he detected a twitch of amusement in his lips. But with every detail recorded by a composite artist, they might soon be able to release a photo-fit image.

  “Good stuff, Joe,” he reassured him, “and to keep you informed, we’ve done a little digging of our own. It seems Richard Lacey moved to Thailand in 1998 where he led a covert existence. That in itself is disturbing, given the sex tourism you read about in the Far East, but he was also a collector of books.”

  “What sort of books?”

  “Occult books. He was obsessed with it - devil worship, black magic rituals... for all we know he could still be running a satanic cult.”

  As Joe absorbed the information, he felt his blood run cold. Yet it drew his mind to another dilemma that had been disturbing him: Lord Parker-Smythe.

  “He vehemently protested his innocence,” DS Havers enlightened him, “swore the material we found on his computer was planted.”

  “I wanna talk to him,” Joe pressed and leaning his body forwards, he stared deep into Mike’s eyes. “Please! I bet he knows more about Mortimer than he’s letting on, and I wonder if that bastard had some hold over him.”

  “I wish I could help but our hands are tied,” Mike protested gently. “I doubt if there’s time to secure a visiting order at such short notice...”

  DI Fitzpatrick, on the other hand, had surprised him.

  “Well, I say we should agree to it. This is urgent police business and if Joe can get him talking, then what have we got to lose?”

  It gradually came to light that the DI was relying on him implicitly - as if perhaps facing Mortimer could allow him to regress back to his own childhood, a boy who had survived Orchard Grange - the theory being that only someone in that position would be able to ask the right questions. In all those formal interviews Thomas had been cagey; would meeting a survivor release the valve? Joe, a kindred spirit he could confide in.

  “We can get you in,” he informed Joe later, having spoken to his superiors, “but on one condition.”

  Joe met his steely blue eyes with intrigue. “Go on.”

  “Would you agree to being fitted with a wire?”

  Seeing the stark square towers of Wandsworth Prison looming would have filled him with dread under normal circumstances, but if anything, Joe felt a buzz of excitement. He would fight his enemies until his dying breath, though mindful of their last-ditch attempt to intimidate him. That in itself left one final fear flashing through his mind.

  Dear little Maisie, all alone and being watched...

  At least word had come through from Sussex Police, where to his heartfelt relief Matt had done everything he promised. With proof of Mortimer’s threat on their system, he prayed they would act accordingly. Ensure she came to no harm.

  Thirty minutes later, however, he found himself face to face with the man he had suspected all those months ago. As previously observed by Cecelia, Thomas Parker-Smythe had become a shadow of his former self. With his cap of silver hair gleaming, he stood out distinctly yet his face was cadaverous, his cheeks hollow.

  “Well, hello,” he croaked softly. “I’ve only ever had two visitors, and certainly not in private, so would you start by telling me who you are?”

  “My name’s Joe,” he began. “I lived in Orchard Grange once, I was a victim.”

  “Does this mean you’re one of my accusers?”

  He inhaled a deep breath, priming himself for his reaction. “I saw you at the home with Mortimer and I’m sorry if I said you seemed over-friendly...”

  “I see,” Thomas whispered. Suspicion narrowed his eyes as he surveyed him. “I have a feeling I know who you are now. The police showed me a photo of a boy when they questioned me. I wasn’t leering at you. I was concerned. Cornelius said you were ‘trouble’ but I saw bruises on your arms. Suspected abuse.”

  “Yeah,” Joe sighed, “but I never meant you to be implicated.” Fiddling with his cuffs, he was finding it hard to meet the older man’s frosty stare.

  “What else did you say about me?”

  “Not a lot. I was suspicious of your friendship with Mortimer, that’s all. Could never understand why a politician would wanna invest in his homes, and that’s God’s honest truth. I thought maybe you had some personal interest.”

  “Personal interest?” Thomas snorted. “As Minister for Education, the only interest I had was in the children’s schooling, and those homes fell short. I was deluded enough to think injecting government funds would help matters.”

  “But why his homes?” Joe kept baiting. “What did he offer you in return?”

  “Nothing,” Thomas spat. “Now let me ask you something. Are you the one who accused me of partaking in some party?”

  Joe lowered his head, heart racing. He could not ignore the lash in Thomas’s voice, but he had to keep the man talking. “No. That was someone else. What I wanna know is why you never spilled the beans about Mortimer... and you suspected abuse?”

  “I did, and we fell out because of it. I could not endorse his homes. What you need to understand, though, is he was not a man to cross. Cornelius had friends in high places, one of whom wielded great power.”

  “Right,” Joe nodded, “but I’m still confused. If you’re so innocent then why are you here? What evidence did they use against you?”

  ******

  Evidence? Oh, the hours Thomas had spent mulling over this, his mind drawn inevitably to Pianissimo Café. That elegant English tea shop had heralded the advent of a new era, the ravishing waitress he had met there unforgettable.

  “Her name was Poppy,” he said. “Charming girl! If anything, she was the one who flir
ted with me...”

  With his mind wandering down past avenues, reminiscing about meeting Poppy ultimately evoked memories of the cleaning firm she had recommended.

  Gleam Gals.

  “Even she laughed at that ridiculous name,” he sighed. “Two young girls working as cleaners. Never once did I suspect anything, until they turned up wearing French maid’s outfits.”

  “Did you wonder why?”

  “I made some joke,” he snapped, “some casual throw-away remark about how I’d love to see them dressed as French maids. What an idiot! I should have asked them to put their coats on and leave, but I didn’t have the heart.”

  “So you left them in your apartment,” Joe mumbled.

  Thomas nodded sadly. Relating it again tied twists of shame in his belly; what had he been thinking? Swept up in his fantasy, the risk he was taking had never occurred to him. It was all a game to them, but the thought of what it had led to...

  “It pains me to tell you this,” he shuddered, “but I’m sure that’s the day my computer was meddled with. I was on my way to the House of Lords, you see, and just as I was leaving, I spotted some character lurking around...”

  His hand folded over his eyes. One notable characteristic about Pimlico was its tranquility; few cars, few people ambling about, other than the occasional passer-by. That streak of shadow on the pavement had barely been noticeable.

  “At worst I suspected a journalist, but it was too late to turn back. The taxi had set off. I was due at the House of Lords by noon, and a decision I will regret for the rest of my life. When the police informed me of that filth on my computer, I felt sick to my stomach! That’s when I recalled that figure hanging around; tall, thin, hunched over a mobile, baggy jeans, black hoodie... sadly, I never did see his face.”

  He inhaled sharply, pinned with the hope someone would believe his story.

  “Ever since my home was raided, I’ve had a horrible feeling that person was a hacker and those girls let him in. He must have spent a good while loading that rubbish, not just images, but a whole fake browsing history. Strangest of all, they chose my oldest computer; an Apple Mac I’d bought in the nineties.”

  Raising his head, he captured Joe’s gaze. He seemed to have frozen in the last few seconds, his dark eyes suddenly penetrating.

  “What is it?”

  Joe’s eyebrows shot up into an inverted V. “This guy you spotted... by thin would you say gangly?”

  “It’s hard to say,” Thomas frowned, “his clothes were so baggy they hung off him like a sack, but I assumed it to be some youth.”

  “So what was found in your browsing history?” he kept probing.

  “Evidence I belonged to some fiendish newsgroup,” Thomas said. A chill spread over him, the room feeling dark. “This was before social media of course, but a group set up by none other than Cornelius Mortimer... contents so awful, I cannot bear to tell you.”

  “Try me,” Joe pressed.

  He let out a long rattling breath. “I swear to God I’d never heard of it, but it had a lot to do with ritualistic abuse. ‘Babes in the Wood.’ Children were involved, sex parties and those last horrific allegations cemented it.”

  “Really?” Joe questioned. “But you were accused of downloading images, weren’t you? How long had they been there?”

  “That I will never understand,” Thomas said. He discharged a sob, a sense of powerlessness running through him. “The police informed me they were downloaded over the course of a decade. Some as early as 1996.”

  ******

  “Do you wanna know what I think?” Joe said, keeping his voice steady. “That man you saw lurking about weren’t no ‘youth.’ It was Mortimer.”

  “But that’s impossible,” Thomas whispered. “Why would you think that?”

  Joe’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve seen him more recently, and you wouldn’t recognise him, ‘specially if he was dressed up in all that baggy shit and a hoodie. How old would you say he was when you knew him?”

  “Forties maybe? It couldn’t be him though, surely, he was a giant of man.”

  “Yeah,” Joe nodded, “’cept he’s older now and looks like he’s lost ten stone. So supposing it was him? Just say he really did get into your apartment and found your old computer, ‘cos from what you’ve told me, something don’t add up.”

  Thomas swallowed. “What exactly are you suggesting?”

  “The age of the material,” he muttered, “the years it’s been there. There ain’t no way that stuff could just be ‘planted,’ not without leaving traces...”

  “That’s what the police said,” Thomas shivered. “So how is it possible?”

  “If those images were copied into your hard disc, it would show in a log file. I reckon whoever did this spent years collecting this stuff, knowing you had a Mac. They didn’t copy it onto your machine. What’s more likely is they kept an identical hard disk, copied everything from yours and switched them.”

  “My God! How do you know so much about computers?”

  “Used to dabble in ‘em as a teenager,” Joe said, fighting an urge to smile. He was almost tempted to tell him about the computer games he’d counterfeited in his youth, but remembered the wire the cops had fitted. “Shame I didn’t keep it up really, I could have done a lot better for myself in the long run, but my life went tits up.”

  “That makes two of us,” Thomas said, his expression softening. “Now why are you here? You hardly know me. What is the real reason for your visit?”

  “Mortimer,” Joe said coldly. “Last night I bumped into him and something inside me snapped. I want this sorted. I’m sick of hiding, sick of him and his goons stalking us, abusing me online and trying to murder me.”

  Thomas nodded. “So how do you imagine I can help you?”

  “Maybe I’m the one who can help you,” Joe replied. “Why rot in jail if you ain’t done nothing? It’s Mortimer who’s behind this and I want as much info as you can spare, so come on, tell me... what did he have on you?”

  Thomas flushed, as if on the verge of spilling his darkest secret. “A camera. One I used to carry whenever I visited schools and children’s homes. I took pictures of kids in lessons, the classrooms, the facilities... but on one of those visits, I was foolish enough to leave it in his office. I should have been more careful, especially after expressing my concerns about abuse...”

  “And I’m guessing that pissed him off?”

  “Yes,” Thomas nodded. “He took umbrage. So one of those vile guards grabbed my camera. Used it to photograph naked girls in the showers...”

  “Bloody hell,” Joe whispered.

  “It gets worse,” Thomas choked. “When the government refused funding, he was apoplectic... took pleasure in warning me that if anything was exposed about his homes, he would drag me down with him.”

  “Expose what,” Joe spluttered, “that you suspected abuse? Do you think he’s still got this camera of yours?”

  “I assume so,” Thomas nodded, “and it’s covered in my fingerprints. So can you see how bad my situation is? Given what I’ve been charged with, this could be the final nail in the coffin. Those photos were taken in Orchard Grange, the very place at the heart of this scandal, girls aged around twelve...”

  Joe shivered. His immediate thought of Maisie being in those photos turned him cold with dread but he pushed the feeling aside.

  “Christ,” he said. “So he did have some hold over you?”

  “I’m afraid so, and I’m sorry to hear you were a victim, but I don’t know which way to turn. Cornelius is a very clever man and has a powerful network of allies. It wasn’t just my Mac they must have tampered with, you see, but my phone. They managed to hack into my Instagram account.”

  Instagram. Such words brought another spiral of fear.

  “That’s weird. I think the same thing happened with Maisie’s phone and I haven’t had a chance to warn her yet. Shit.”

  The words slipped out automatically but Thomas froze.

>   “Maisie,” he whispered. His face turned chalky pale. “Dear God, not the girl the police mentioned, the one who’s having psychotherapy? I gather part of her statement alluded to those parties he organised.”

  “Are you saying you knew about them?” Joe breathed in horror.

  “Of course not,” Thomas snapped. “Cornelius might have mentioned them at a time I was present - told her he’d ordered pretty dresses - and that is all. Yet like everything else in this charade, all evidence points to me. Did you know, for example, that memories recovered under psychotherapy can be fake? And I’m guessing your friend made up this dreadful story about me attending one of those parties?”

  “She did not,” Joe spat. “Can’t you see we are all victims of Cornelius fucking Mortimer, so let’s just concentrate on the truth, shall we?”

  “Of course,” Thomas relented. “I’m sorry to get upset, but that story is a wicked lie.”

  Joe nodded, while at the back his mind unravelled another thought. It seemed obvious why Thomas didn’t want to voice anything negative about Mortimer.

  Yet why was he still protecting him?

  “I don’t get it! Why didn’t you just offload all this to the cops when you had the chance?”

  “Of course you don’t get it,” Thomas sighed. “This goes right back to what I was saying from the start. The people at the top - and there was one in particular. Someone who is not just powerful but incredibly dangerous.”

  “How can anyone be more dangerous than Mortimer?” Joe scoffed.

  “Because of his position. There was a time when this QC had the police force and the entire judicial system in his back pocket. He protected people like Mortimer. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he’s the reason I’m here.”

  “QC,” Joe said. “Not a High Court judge as well, by any chance?”

  “I’ve said too much,” he muttered sadly, “but that is all I am prepared to tell you, so please tread carefully. He is not a man you want to cross.”