His Third Victim

by Helen H. Durrant

  “We have officers going over the route home, speaking to shopkeepers.”

  Bella felt sick. She was deathly white. The policewoman helped her to the sofa. “What do you mean? What do you think has happened to him?” Her head was spinning, full of different possibilities, all of them horrific. She turned on Mrs Stamford, her face red with sudden rage.

  “Why didn’t he come home with you? It’s not far. Surely even you could manage that.” Bella spat the words then watched the woman dissolve into tears. This was all wrong.

  The policewoman put a hand on her shoulder. “Right now we’re not sure what happened, Bella. We don’t know if it’s significant, but Oliver was seen with a man outside the newsagents. We’re talking to the shop assistant now.”

  A stranger had taken her child. Oh God, no. Anything but that.

  * * *

  Oliver Richards was asleep on the passenger seat beside him. He’d given the boy a bottle of cola with something added to it. Nothing major, a sedative, but it had knocked the boy out cold.

  He had left the town and driven for miles up onto the moors. By now Bella Richards would be frantic with worry. What she was going through this time would be infinitely worse than losing Alan Fisher. Her thoughts of what might be happening to her boy would be eating her raw. Served her right. Loving Fisher so much had been a mistake.

  Time to get rid. He pulled off the road onto a dirt track and drove for another half a mile. He stopped outside a small cottage and turned off the engine. He went round to the passenger side and hauled the boy out. Oliver Richards hardly stirred. The man dragged him across the yard, banged on the cottage door and then dumped the kid on the step. He shivered. It was cold, and it had started to rain.

  * * *

  The police had appointed a family liaison officer, Alison Wray, to stay with Bella. She’d insisted that Bella went up to bed, and try and get some rest. How was she supposed to sleep? There was no way she was going to swallow the pills the doctor had left for her. She needed to be alert in case anything happened. Anyway, her head was too full of Olly. It was late now and pitch black outside. He was out there somewhere, wanting her, possibly hurting. Crying. They had a routine, the same thing every night. Bath, supper, teeth then a story in his bed. He’d snuggle in and she’d lie beside him while she read a bit more of the pirate book he liked. What was her little boy doing right this minute? Was he cold? Hungry? This was more than she could bear. If she lost Olly for good, she wouldn’t want to go on. She’d rather be dead.

  From time to time she heard voices downstairs, Alice talking on the phone to her colleagues. Alice was supposed to keep her up to date with events. Events! Bella sobbed into the pillow. What that meant was, if they found Olly — dead or alive. She knew they would have spoken to all his friends by now. He wasn’t with any of them, so someone must have taken him.

  Bella tossed and turned, torturing herself until daylight. It was no use, she couldn’t lie there and do nothing. She pulled a dressing gown around her slim frame and went downstairs. Alison was dozing in the armchair. Her clothes were creased, her short hair a tousled mess.

  Bella went into the kitchen. She always made herself tea and toast before calling Olly. Today she couldn’t face eating anything, the thought of it made her sick. She pulled up the blind. It was raining outside. If Olly was out there in the open, he’d be wet and cold.

  Alison stood at the kitchen door, stretching and yawning. “Bella, you’re up. There has been a development overnight.”

  Bella’s eyes flew to the woman’s face and she tried to glean what the ‘development’ might be. There was no smile, Alison’s expression stayed the same. So it was bad.

  “We have found a bag, the type children take a packed lunch to school in.”

  Bella inhaled deeply. “Olly’s bag has pirates on it, and it has his name inside.”

  “Yes, we know. The bag is his. It has been taken to our forensic people for them to look at.”

  Bella had so many questions, but they stuck in her throat. The answers had the power to destroy her. Still, she had to know. “Where did you find it? Was there any sign of Olly? Were there houses nearby?”

  Alison spoke gently. “It was found by a member of the public. Olly’s disappearance has been on the news. A woman walking her dog found it in a ditch on a road not far from the motorway.”

  The words hit her like a physical blow. Bella doubled up in pain. “He’s dead, isn’t he?” she screamed. “Some bastard has killed my little boy!”

  Alison helped her to the sofa. “We don’t know that. We can’t presume anything. It is still early in the investigation.”

  The words were meant to comfort her, but they didn’t. Bella howled into a cushion. She might never see Olly again, and she couldn’t bear it.

  Chapter 7

  Day 9

  It was early, just after dawn. Matt Brindle woke with a start. His eyes were wide open, and a cold sweat blanketed his body.

  His demons were back. The nightmare had returned and served up another bad night.

  He sat up, rubbed at his head and looked around the room. Everything was exactly as it should be. He wasn’t in that building. No one had tried to blow him up. All that had happened to another man, in another time. He was at home, in his own bed, exhausted but whole. In body, at least. He wasn’t so sure about his mind. He steadied his breathing. Six months had passed, but the effects of that day’s trauma hadn’t dissipated.

  His mother came into the room without knocking. “Coffee and the paper. The builders will be here at ten. I hope you’ve worked out what you want. If this project is to be up and running by next spring, you’ll need to spell it out.”

  Oh yes, the builders. His project. His plans to breathe new life into Brindle Hall, and into himself. He would turn the decaying Georgian estate into a vibrant business. Josiah Brindle, his entrepreneur forebear, would be proud of him. He had better pull himself together.

  His mother, Evelyn Brindle, was in her late fifties. She was slim and vivacious, with dark hair and brown eyes. Sable brown, her husband used to say. She’d passed on these attributes to both her children.

  “Freddie is good at his job, Ma. He’s done this sort of thing before. He won’t let me down.”

  Freddie Redman was a friend who ran his own building firm. Several months ago, he and Matt had concocted the plans for Brindle Hall during a drunken night in the local pub. Despite its dubious conception, the idea had merit, and Matt had followed it through.

  His mother shook her head. “Personally, I think it’s too much, too soon. You are supposed to be taking things easy, remember?”

  “I need to earn a living, and the estate desperately needs the money. We’re sitting on a goldmine here. This house — the entire Brindle estate in fact — is ripe for development.”

  It was a sore point between them. Evelyn did not want him to return to CID, but she did not want him changing anything on the estate either. As far as she was concerned, things were just fine as they were. But Matt knew very well that they were not. The family was just a hair’s breadth away from bankruptcy.

  “Not the house, Matthew. I don’t want people tramping all over the place.”

  The same old argument. But his mother wasn’t stupid. She must realise they had to do something. For years now, the Brindle estate had been falling into disrepair. His salary as a DI was nowhere near sufficient to cover the upkeep of the grand old house and the land. The family coffers had been at zero for decades. Matt had considered selling part of the land to a developer for housing. He hadn’t discussed this with his mother, because he knew exactly what her response would be. This way, apart from the visitors, things could remain very much the same as ever. The bank was prepared to back him, so there was no reason to delay.

  He sighed. “We agreed, Ma. We’ll open part of the house, the main rooms only, not the private ones. We’ll open the gardens, have fishing on the lake, a small petting farm for the kids, tea rooms and a gift shop. We’ve
got all the outbuildings we need. It’ll bring in the crowds, but more important, it’ll provide the family with a much needed cash injection. There is a lot of interest in the history of this area and what Josiah Brindle did for the people around here. People will come, Ma, and they’ll spend money.”

  “Are you sure about that, Matthew? Do we really need to do this? We’re hardly broke.”

  “We’re very close. Cut the injured pride, Ma. We have to face facts. There isn’t even enough money to replace the windows in the west gable. We need money to keep this place afloat. The Brindle estate is not what it was. There are no woollen barons like Josiah in the family anymore. Sarah will benefit too. She’s on her own with two kids. She can help run the place and earn herself a good wage into the bargain.”

  “You’re sister isn’t keen.”

  “She’ll be keen enough when the money starts coming in.”

  “Where will they put all the cars? I don’t want them clogging up the courtyard.”

  “The lower field will be tarmacked. It’ll make a great car park. We’ll be able to charge an entrance fee. More money coming in.”

  Lady Brindle might be a first-class snob, but she did have a practical side. Matt was confident that, given time, she’d see sense. After the ‘incident,’ as he’d taken to calling it, Matt had been broken, mentally as well as physically. Six months later, despite the limp, his leg had mended reasonably well. The bruises had gone, and the blow to his forehead had left only a very small scar. He had his mother to thank for that. She’d nursed him through it, and he was grateful to her. Evelyn Brindle had dedicated herself to his recovery and had done everything she could to make her son whole again.

  But there were parts of Matt Brindle that could not be healed. The mental scars would remain with him for a long time yet. What happened that day had changed his life for ever. It had marked the end of his career in CID, but that was nothing compared to the loss of his sergeant. He had to take part of the blame for that.

  He and DS Paula Wright had been searching a derelict cottage up on Marsden Moor. They’d had a tip-off that a local villain had arranged to meet a dealer there, and a large amount of drugs was going to change hands. The tip-off had come from a reliable source and Matt had no reason to be suspicious. But it was a trap, and he and Paula had walked straight into it. Once they were inside, the door was barricaded shut and a hand grenade thrown in through a broken window. Paula Wright was killed instantly, and Matt was badly injured. The memories were bad, sometimes unbearable, but he had to live with them.

  “You have costed this thoroughly, Matthew?”

  “Yes, and I got Thomas to help me.” Thomas had been the family accountant for years. “He thinks it’s a great idea. Frankly, Ma, it’s either capitalise on what we’ve got or the National Trust, if they’ll take it. How would you feel about that?”

  She stuck her nose in the air and tutted. “No. Brindle Hall is your inheritance. Your father would turn in his grave.”

  “There you are then. Subject closed.”

  Matt was only in his mid-thirties. Given that his career in the police was over, he needed a project to throw himself into body and soul, something big enough to fill his life. He’d had plenty of time to think it through. He’d formulated the plans for the Brindle estate during the dark hours of recovery.

  He closed his dark eyes. He had lived for his work in the police. This thing with the house wasn’t simply a way of earning a living, it was a strategy for forgetting, putting his past life behind him. Matt Brindle was hoping that the transformation of the estate, and then running the new enterprise would give him no time to dwell on what might have been. He’d been so ambitious once. He had been looking at making DCI within the next year. After that, who could say? He’d been good at his job, and well liked.

  He downed the coffee, and turned on the radio. The reporter trolled through the sport and the weather, but Matt’s attention was elsewhere. Then he heard the name ‘Alan Fisher,’ and he pricked up his ears.

  The police were to interview Bella Richards. She wasn’t a suspect in Alan’s murder, but her child had gone missing. An odd coincidence, if that’s what it was. He’d read in the press about what had happened at Victoria Station. When he spoke to Bella at the funeral, she seemed to have precious little information. He hadn’t known Alan Fisher well, but he’d seemed a straightforward enough person. It was a mystery why he’d been targeted.

  Matt wondered who the SIO was, and if he should have a word. He’d been a policeman for ten years before the incident. He had a good gut instinct, and trusted it. His gut was telling him that the missing child was part of the same crime as the murder of Alan Fisher.

  * * *

  They’ll have done a post-mortem on Fisher by now. They will have seen the mark, the signature, and sent the bullet for analysis, so they will know. They will add Fisher’s name to the growing list, and wonder what to do next.

  It was the waiting that got to him. He was lonely and itching to start again. He thought about Bella every waking moment. He had been watching her, and knew she would be different. She would not be as demanding as the others. Bella would accept her fate. If she didn’t, if she were to fail him, refuse to do what he wanted, then there would be a heavy price to pay. He had the boy, his ace in the hole that would ensure her compliance.

  When she disappeared there would be no clues. Not that that was important because no one would even report her missing. He was making sure of that. A couple more loose ends to sort, a short wait for the hullabaloo to calm down, and then he would act.

  One of the loose ends was the boy. He might be the ace in the hole, but he needed the police to stop searching for him. He had an idea. He just needed to work on the detail, make sure the plan was perfect, and then he’d be ready.

  He picked up the local paper when he went out for his morning walk. No mention of arrests, but it did say that Bella had been questioned, and then released. That was to be expected. What had she told them? Things had happened fast at the railway station, as he had intended they should. All she would remember was the uniform. She had not seen through his disguise, the wig, the prosthetics. If she had, the police would have been banging on his door by now. But he would just make sure.

  The second loose end.

  He took a photo from his jacket pocket and studied it. It showed a woman in her mid-fifties with curly hair and a wide smile. Bella knew her. She and the boy had visited this woman a number of times. Researching the puzzle that was Bella’s life had not been easy. He had no idea if the woman was a relative or a friend, but the man knew enough to know she was a liability. He would have to get rid of her too. She was going to the Costa Blanca on holiday and was expecting a taxi to pick her up and take her to the airport. He would not disappoint.

  Chapter 8

  “I’m sorry to barge in, but I had to see you. I heard on the news about your son,” the man said.

  It was Alan’s neighbour. Bella had met him at the funeral. “What do you want?” she asked.

  He smiled. “To offer my help. You might not remember, but I mentioned that I was a solicitor — Robert Nolan?”

  “Why would I need a solicitor?” Bella was puzzled.

  “A new senior investigating officer has been put in charge of finding Alan’s killer. I spoke to him last night. He’s a Detective Superintendent Dyson. I told him, that with your agreement, I would act for you.”

  Bella didn’t understand. “Am I in trouble?”

  “No, but you were one of the last people to see Alan. You were with him when he was taken. The police will need to interview you, get your statement. Plus there is your son’s disappearance.”

  She looked at the man. “Surely they can’t think that I had anything to do with what happened to Alan, or Olly?” The idea was so far off beam as to be almost funny. But Robert Nolan wasn’t laughing.

  “I don’t know what information the police already have. They may link the two events. In my opinion, you need someon
e in your corner, Bella.”

  Robert Nolan reminded her of Alan. A little older perhaps — there were grey flecks around his temples.

  “They want to speak to you today,” he told her gently. “Since your child is missing, they also want to search this house.”

  She almost giggled. She was fast becoming hysterical. In the space of a week her world had descended into total madness. “They won’t find him here. Why would they think that?”

  “It’s routine in all missing child cases,” he explained. “This morning I will accompany you to the police station where you will answer some questions. While we’re away, the house will be searched.”

  “They won’t mess everything up, will they?”

  Alison, the policewoman, had been sitting quietly out of the way. Now she said kindly, “I’ll make sure they’re careful.”

  * * *

  Nolan ushered her into the small interview room and gave her a reassuring smile. “All you have to do is tell them the truth.”

  “What do they think I know? I can only repeat what I’ve said already. I told them what happened at the station.”

  “That’s all they need. This is simply procedure. You were there. It’s a while now, and you’ve had time to think. You may have remembered something you didn’t think of before.”

  Bella shook her head. This was torture. Her mind was empty of everything but Oliver. Her son filled her waking thoughts and she dreamt about him at night. She’d taken leave of absence from work. There was no way she could go in, try and pretend things were normal. Not with Oliver missing.

  Shortly after Bella and Robert had settled themselves, two detectives entered the room. They introduced themselves as Detective Superintendent Dyson and DC Beckwith. She’d met Beckwith before. They sat on the opposite side of the table. The room was intimidating. The blinds were shut and there was only one small wall light on.