Unforgiving

by Nick Oldham

  That morning he trotted to the next village along, having at one point to stand aside on the descent into Thornwell to allow one of the KountryKabs taxis, a Skoda, to pass. He arrived in the village and caught his breath outside the Swan’s Neck, then walked around to the back car park where he had found Laura Marshall’s hat under the hedge. The bushes had been ripped up and replaced by a low wall, and the gravel surface of the car park was now covered by a thin layer of cheap tarmac.

  Standing there, hands on hips, he re-imagined the visit he had made, squinting as he tried to visualize what might have happened to her here, because it was ‘here’ that whatever it was had taken place. Forensic and DNA analysis of the hat confirmed it did belong to Laura and that the broken glass in the gravel was from the window of a car of similar make and model to the police car she had been driving that night. Some minute specks of blood had also been discovered on the glass that also matched Laura’s DNA profile.

  Henry sighed in frustration, then braced himself for the run back to Kendleton, setting off at his usual slow pace. He was now determined to swallow some of his pride and call Rik Dean to see how the investigation was progressing.

  ‘Have you reached your verdicts?’ the coroner asked the jury spokeswoman.

  ‘Yes, sir, we have.’

  ‘Are they unanimous on all three counts?’

  ‘Yes, sir, they are,’ she said.

  ‘Could you read them to the court, please?’

  The middle-aged woman looked nervously at the sheet of paper shaking in her hands. ‘With regards to the death of PC David Ian Morton – unlawful killing.’

  Jake and Anna were sitting behind the screen, still masked from the rest of the courtroom. Jake was tense. His teeth clamped together, and his face was rigid.

  Anna slid a hand over his. He gripped her thumb tightly. The rest of his life was now about to be revealed.

  ‘And in regard to Saul Dyer?’ the coroner asked.

  The juror glanced at the paper. ‘Lawful killing.’

  ‘And in regard to Fraser Aldous Worthington?’

  Jake’s grip on Anna’s thumb grew even tighter.

  ‘Lawful killing.’

  A little gasp hissed out through Jake’s lips, then he closed his eyes and drooped his head.

  As much as Henry had no desire whatsoever to set foot inside a police station or police headquarters again, his curiosity made him follow several Twitter accounts related to the police and police activity. He was looking at his Twitter feed on his laptop when he picked up the phone and dialled Rik Dean’s mobile number.

  ‘Detective Superintendent Dean,’ came the terse voice.

  ‘I see you’ve dropped the “acting” bit,’ Henry said.

  ‘Too much of a mouthful … Henry, do you want to come back into this madhouse?’

  ‘Not for all the tea in wherever tea comes from,’ he said. ‘How’s it going?’

  The two men had not been in contact for almost two months, but Henry knew Rik was at the inquest in Blackpool concerning Dave Morton, Fraser Worthington and Saul Dyer. The outcome would be crucial to any criminal proceedings that followed.

  ‘Good result for Jake just in: lawful killings.’

  Henry breathed out. ‘Thank God.’

  ‘Yeah, you could say that … I’ll be speaking to him in greater detail, probably tomorrow.’

  ‘And everything else?’

  ‘Manic,’ Rik said. ‘Nightmare.’

  ‘You’re welcome to it.’

  ‘I don’t know how you did it, Henry. I have a shed collapse at least twice a day,’ Rik said, meaning a nervous breakdown.

  Henry laughed cruelly. ‘Now all I’m bothered about is drawing shamrocks in Guinness froth.’

  ‘Don’t,’ Rik said enviously.

  Henry smiled, watching his Twitter feed scroll down the computer monitor.

  ‘So what can I do for you? Long time, no see.’

  ‘Uh-huh … Laura Marshall?’ Henry asked.

  ‘Getting absolutely nowhere. She disappeared, Henry.’

  ‘Mm,’ Henry said doubtfully. ‘I seriously doubt that.’

  ‘Well, you didn’t exactly …’ Rik’s voice trailed off, and the line went silent. He didn’t dare add the words ‘find her’.

  Henry scowled. He knew what he ‘didn’t exactly’ do and wasn’t proud of it. ‘So, nothing new?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Bye.’ Henry hung up rudely and watched his Twitter feed, something he had only just got familiar with. He was a dinosaur where technology was involved, and it took him a long time to embrace new things, but for some reason he quite liked Twitter. Not that he himself had any presence on it (he had three followers, one of whom claimed to be Darth Vader’s brother), but it kept him abreast of news and police issues, of some of the idiotic things people were up to, and, of course, of what The Rolling Stones were doing.

  As he scrolled down, his eyes caught a tweet from North Yorkshire Police who were concerned about a teenager who had been reported missing in Skipton a couple of weeks earlier. There were now grave concerns for her safety. Henry clicked on to a link taking him to the local BBC site, showing an interview with a uniformed chief inspector. Henry watched it, grimaced, then skipped back to his Twitter feed.

  After a few more minutes he got bored, stood up and made his way out to the bar to relieve Ginny, where a few hardy locals had begun to assemble in the mid-afternoon, including the farmer and doctor who had almost wiped each other out earlier in a head-on vehicle collision outside the Tawny Owl.

  Henry joined in the conversation, but something was playing at the back of his mind, gnawing away. He wasn’t completely sure what it was.

  ‘What d’you think, Henry?’ Doctor Lott asked him.

  ‘About what, Doc?’

  ‘Horse meat in pies and burgers.’

  ‘That old chestnut?’

  ‘Well?’ the farmer, whose name was Don Singleton, demanded of him.

  ‘I thought it had all been sorted,’ Henry said. It was a heated subject that reared its ugly head from time to time in the pub: the scandal of horse meat being passed off as beef and finding its way into pies and burgers. It was one of those stories that had kept the nation enthralled a while back, but now seemed to have been resolved by the government, meat suppliers and supermarkets, who’d all promised to do better.

  ‘Still going on if you ask me,’ Lott said.

  ‘Around here?’ Henry asked.

  ‘Oh, aye.’

  ‘Tell me more.’ He feigned interest.

  ‘Bartle … Still at it,’ the farmer chipped in knowingly over his pint of Guinness.

  ‘Really?’ Henry said – now interested. ‘I thought he was horrible but honest.’

  ‘Cunt, if you ask me,’ Lott said, reverting to more old-fashioned medical terms.

  ‘Yuh – twat,’ the farmer concurred. He downed his Guinness and handed his glass to Henry. ‘Fill her up … I hear you bin practising shamrocks.’

  Henry took the glass and refilled a clean one, displaying his artistry, then handed it to the farmer, who peered at the image in the froth. ‘More like a cock and balls,’ he declared and showed Dr Lott.

  ‘And jizz,’ Lott added.

  The farmer tipped it into his mouth and guzzled about half a pint.

  ‘Bartle kills a lot of horses at his abattoir,’ Lott told Henry.

  ‘I thought he dealt in livestock – cows and pigs and sheep?’

  ‘He does – and horses. He buys old ones, zaps ’em, butchers ’em and sells ’em into the animal food trade, or so he would have you believe.’ Lott tapped his nose. ‘He got half-looked at by the health inspectors, but I think he pulled a fast one … Anyway, he didn’t get done cos he’s sneaky.’ Lott finished his drink and held it out for Henry, who was now feeling troubled. He had never explicitly discussed Bartle with the locals in the Owl, always going for subtlety; now he was kicking himself. Maybe he should have done. ‘You think Spencer could be a killer?’ he sai
d, tossing it out there.

  ‘Could very well be,’ they said in chorus, then each took a long gulp of their drinks.

  Henry was back at his laptop after Ginny took over again at the bar, re-watching the chief inspector talking to the BBC about the missing teenage girl from Skipton, North Yorkshire. Henry was still not certain why this was beginning to intrigue him, but as he sat at the desk in Alison’s office, his arsehole was doing a little bit of a dance: the ‘half-crown-thruppence’ as he called it, using old monetary terms to describe the way it reacted – contracting and expanding – when he thought he was on to something.

  After a further search with the computer, he dialled Rik Dean’s mobile again.

  ‘Acting Detective Superintendent Dean?’ Henry said quickly, before Rik could answer. ‘You’re right, it is a mouthful.’

  ‘Ahh – ex-Detective Superintendent Christie,’ Rik riposted wearily.

  ‘Sorry about hanging up on you before.’

  ‘What d’you want, Henry?’ He now sounded exhausted and not a little pissed off; Henry grinned. ‘I don’t really have time to chat to ex-coppers who can’t quite let go.’

  ‘Oh, OK, see you then.’

  ‘NO!’ Rik shrieked. ‘Sorry. What do you want?’

  ‘To share a hypothesis.’

  ‘That’ll be a first.’

  ‘And a last. Laura Marshall.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Spencer Bartle.’

  ‘What about them, him?’

  ‘Just for argument’s sake, let’s theorize that he did abduct and kill Laura, even though we can’t prove it.’

  ‘Gee, never thought of that.’

  ‘Shall I go on or not?’

  ‘Go on, go on.’

  ‘And then suppose … hang in there,’ Henry said when he heard Rik groan, ‘that she wasn’t the first or the last girl – stroke – woman he has abducted – stroke – killed.’

  ‘There’s no one else missing that could be attributed to him,’ Rik said. ‘So what are you getting at?’

  ‘Just suggesting a line of inquiry to follow … There’s a girl missing from North Yorkshire who the cops over there are concerned about.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘She went missing about two weeks ago, and they’re fearing for her life … Rebecca Merryweather, she’s called.’

  ‘And why are you putting two and two together? It doesn’t even sound like the same MO.’

  ‘I know that,’ Henry snapped. ‘It’s just that she went missing close to the cattle market in Skipton, and Bartle attends these sorts of places regularly.’ Henry found himself shrugging and wincing to himself because, as usual, when thoughts became the reality of speech they often lost their clout. ‘And,’ he added, ‘another girl went missing about a year ago in Richmond – last seen near to the auction mart.’

  ‘You sure of that?’

  ‘Uncle Google tells me that. Check her out … Grace Greenwood, not seen since.’ It was a little lie, because when Henry had found this on his Google search, there was no mention of a cattle market. He knew there was one there, though, and he’d put it in to spice up his theory. ‘Another thing that might be worth checking—’ He heard Rik groan, but kept on going. ‘There could be other patterns, too … Like, Bartle had been arrested for violent conduct quite a few times, sometimes hitting females. Might be worth seeing if his arrests coincide with any disappearances: y’know, psychopaths, moons, a build-up of tensions and all that shit.’

  ‘OK, Henry, I’ll look into it, just because it’s you.’

  After the verdicts, all Jake wanted to do was sneak out of the court room by the back door and head home. Behind the screen, he and Anna waited impatiently for the court to empty, his heart still pounding, head light, fingers dithery. He knew it was not all over, that there was a criminal trial to come – that of the armed robber who had surrendered. He also knew that the getaway driver, identified as a crim called Colin Gorst, had also been circulated as wanted. So there were still bridges to cross, but at least he was over the first one cleanly. It very much helped his cause that, in his summing up, the coroner had referred to ‘Policeman X’ (as Jake had been called throughout the inquest) as a ‘brave, committed officer who had acted with both restraint and decisiveness which had saved other lives’. He had added that X was ‘a credit to Lancashire Constabulary’.

  When the court was clear, Jake said, ‘Let’s go,’ to Anna. They exited via a side door, into the secure witness room, then left the court by a further side door, out on to the concourse between the court and the police station.

  ‘Constable,’ someone called to Jake as he walked towards the nick.

  Jake stopped and turned, recognizing the man approaching as the barrister who had been acting on behalf of Fraser Worthington’s relatives. He came towards Jake with his right hand extended.

  ‘What?’ Jake said warily. This man had been allowed to see Jake during the proceedings.

  ‘Nothing to worry about,’ the man said. ‘I just wanted to say I think the jury was correct in its findings.’

  ‘OK,’ Jake said. He did not extend his own hand. Jake had no desire to shake the hand of the man who had put him under severe pressure in the inquest.

  The barrister kept his hand out until he realized there would be no reciprocation. ‘Whatever,’ he said. He turned his handshake gesture into a pointed finger, then a wave, and walked away from Jake, who was uncomfortable about the incident.

  ‘What was that about?’ Anna asked.

  ‘You know as much as I do,’ Jake said. ‘Come on. Let’s head home, maybe stop for a brew on the way. I’m parched.’

  Emma Niven quite enjoyed school that day, maybe for the first time. It had been a laugh – a bit of teenage girlie stuff with a few new mates and a few half-decent lessons. Unlike Danny, who was at a different school, Emma had decided to try and settle in. After a few false starts, it seemed to be working.

  School finished at 3.30 p.m., and fifteen minutes later she was standing at the usual taxi pick-up point.

  It was late, and she was getting infuriated enough to think about calling the taxi firm to gee them up when she saw the same taxi that had dropped her off that morning coming towards her. It stopped, and she jumped in the back. As the vehicle set off she noticed it wasn’t the usual driver, but that didn’t bother her too much. Occasionally, there were different ones.

  ‘My brother’s playing rugby,’ she reminded him. ‘I presume you know that?’

  ‘Yep.’ The driver checked over his right shoulder and pulled into traffic.

  Emma could not help notice the size of the driver: a huge, broad shouldered man with long, ape-like arms and fingers as thick as sausages. ‘Where’s the usual guy?’ she asked.

  ‘Busy.’

  ‘You work for him?’

  ‘Now and then. When he’s short.’

  ‘What’s your name, then?’

  The taxi driver slightly adjusted the rear view mirror so that he could see Emma’s face clearly, and she could see his eyes in the reflection.

  ‘Spencer,’ he said.

  FOURTEEN

  Even Danny Niven had a good day, particularly enjoying the rugby match after school. He was getting into a game he was unfamiliar with but was growing to like. He managed to cadge a lift back to Kendleton with one of his team mates, whose parents were minted and lived on the outskirts of the village. He even enjoyed the chat with the other lad, sitting in the back of a huge Mercedes 4x4, before getting dropped off outside the police house, where his dad’s police Land Rover was on the drive.

  He stood outside and frowned at the house, but not for the usual reason.

  Evening was fast approaching, but there were no lights on in the house as he would have expected because Emma should have been home by now. Even though her bedroom was at the back of the house, the other lights would have been on because Emma was a lights-on monster. He knew his mum and dad were going to be late back – he’d got the text earlier – but Em should
be here now.

  He frowned as he walked up the drive. Thinking about his parents made him screw up his face: not in regards to them, but in admonishment of himself. He realized he had been a little bastard for the last few months, and yet they had never given him any real pain in response, in spite of their own problems. Maybe it was time to ease up on them, chill, and see if the move out here into the wild wasn’t perhaps as awful as he made it out to be.

  He inserted the key, opened the front door into the dark hallway.

  ‘Em … Emma,’ he called. No reply.

  He stepped into the chilly house and turned on the hall light. She usually dumped her school gear in the hallway and kicked off her shoes under the stairs, but there was no sign of her having come home.

  Danny sighed irritably, fished out his iPhone, found a signal (for a change, he thought) and called her as he walked through the house into the half-completed kitchen. Her phone went straight to voicemail, and he said tersely, ‘Call me.’

  Next he checked the downstairs room before going up to her bedroom, but it was empty, with no sign of her having been home at all.

  ‘Silly cow,’ he said under his breath, but felt uncomfortable. She was ditzy, but also a creature of habit and routine. ‘Don’t like this.’

  He sent her a text, also asking her to call him, then got out of his school gear into jeans and a T-shirt.

  There was no reply to his text.

  More from frustration than anything, he decided to call his dad, who might know something he didn’t. This call was immediately answered.

  ‘Hey!’ Jake sounded inordinately pleased to get a call from his son. ‘How was rugby?’

  ‘Yeah, good … Dad?’

  ‘Yep?’

  ‘I’m home, but Emma isn’t here. Was she doing something?’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Did she have anything on after school?’

  ‘Not that I know of … Hang on, I’ll ask your mum.’

  Danny heard the half-muffled sound of his dad talking to his mum, then Jake came back on the line. ‘Your mum doesn’t know anything … Er, it’s probably nothing to worry about. Tell you what – hang fire a moment and I’ll call the taxi firm. They should have picked her up, usual time and place.’