Killing Jericho: A Heart-Stopping Thriller (The Scott Jericho Crime Thrillers Book 1)

by Will Harker

We all turned and looked at Harry. He appeared so small, standing there outside the circle. Beyond the pool table, the Malanowski children had vanished, almost as if their watchful vigilance had been transferred to him.

  “Please.”

  Kerrigan broke into fits of laughter. “Who’s this then, Jericho? Your latest bumboy? Aw, is bumboy scared for his daddy? Poor little shit-stabber.”

  I could feel it then, almost like a physical force. The safety Harry offered me and the pull of the darkness. It had never been a factor in our relationship before. Back in Oxford, before my thug-for-hire years, before the rage birthed by the murder of three innocent children, the choice would have been easy. Now it took every morsel of will I had to step away from Kerrigan and take Harry’s hand.

  “He knows what you did inside, does he?” Kerrigan bellowed after us. “How you serviced—sorry, I mean served—your time up in Hazelhurst?”

  “Don’t listen,” Harry murmured. “Just keep walking.”

  “Faggots walking on the pink mile!” Kerrigan hooted. “Backs to the wall, lads!”

  When neither of us responded, he hurled one last salvo before we pushed through the door. “I got a surprise for you, Jericho. The biggest fucking surprise of your life. And I just can’t wait to see your stupid face when you find out what it is. Can’t. Fucking. Wait!”

  Outside, Harry guided me to the car. He was asking if I was OK but I could barely hear him over the blood drumming in my ears. After a couple of minutes just sitting behind the wheel, I turned the ignition and swept us into those narrow winding streets of Bradbury End.

  I couldn’t know then that Kerrigan was right. A surprise was coming, and soon, only days away now. Looking back, I wonder whether this was the moment that I should have seen and understood everything. But as bitter as it turned out to be, the revelation Kerrigan had in mind wasn’t the one that would end up shattering my world.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  ALL HARRY KNEW WAS THAT we were heading for Faro and that, once we arrived, I’d be taking us over the Portuguese border into Spain. He must have guessed that the trip was something to do with the case, but didn’t ask any questions. I wanted to believe that this was because he’d understood what I’d said about police work: how most of us like to keep our loved ones far away from the misery and violence that pollutes our world. But still, sitting together on the plane, his sleeping head against my shoulder, my thoughts kept wandering back to that phone call.

  “I think he bought it in the end…”

  No. I’d reasoned this out already, I didn’t want to go over it again. I could trust Harry. I had to trust someone.

  But did he trust me? We hadn’t spoken much after leaving the pub. He’d seen for himself what I had made of Lenny Kerrigan: the scars that went with that shattered cheekbone. It’s one thing to defend someone in the abstract but when you’re confronted with the reality of their actions? Sometimes that’s a harder thing to reconcile.

  We were both exhausted by the time we reached our hotel. I’d hired a car from the Avis rental at the airport and driven us through the Algarve and into a sleepy seaside town near the Andalusian border. Miss Barton had booked a quaint B&B, all trailing bougainvillaea and red terracotta, a stone’s throw from the beach. Not that we had much chance to enjoy the view. A glance at the black waves before we said our goodnights and slipped into our adjoining rooms had been about it.

  I unpacked my bag, popped a Zopiclone, stripped to my underwear, and collapsed onto the bed. Cicadas chirruped beyond the shuttered window. From next door, the sudden drum of the shower. I reached up and laid my palm against the stuccoed wall. Waited for the pill to work its wonders. Tomorrow we’d visit the scene of Agatha Poole’s incineration in her tin bathtub. That sickening recreation of Maria Landless, the Electric Lady.

  My eyelids drooped. In the darkness, I listened to the drifting hush of the sea, imagining a bay far from here where a dog-faced man stood tethered to a tree. Where a raving old woman bowed down before a white-winged demon that clutched at its wrist. Where red poppies grew around the tombstones of decaying caravans. Other figures stepped up to join the sacrificed man—a charred corpse with sparks flying from its fingertips and a girl who gorged herself on her own flesh. A stirring then as yet another pair shuffled in the shadows, waiting to take their place with the Jericho freaks: the Balloon-Headed Horror and the Contortionist. All five looked back at me, silent words on their lips, the secret of their connection taken and scattered by the wind.

  ◊ ◊ ◊

  OVER A QUICK breakfast on the hotel veranda, the awkwardness of yesterday seemed to have vanished. Harry looked more handsome than ever, the sun lighting his mousy brown hair until it looked like tarnished gold. We chatted about how well we’d slept, the breathtaking view of the whitewashed houses tumbling down to the beach, the stray cats curling their lithe bodies into any scrap of shade. Perhaps he had come to terms with what he’d experienced in The Green Man.

  Half an hour later saw us driving through a landscape of plunging valleys carved out by extinct rivers. A few lonely trees clung onto life but for the most part, this was a desolate vista. Away to our right, the Gulf of Cadiz gleamed like spilled ink against the white parchment of the coast.

  We crossed over into Spain via the bridge that spans the glistening saltmarshes of the Guadiana River. Once across, I took the first exit, following signs for the little tourist town of Ayamonte. We then climbed a shallow hillside before descending through cobbled streets lined with single-storey houses, then out of town again onto a redeveloped road that eventually led to what had once been an old fishing village. Here, on Isla Canela—the cinnamon island as it was known to the locals—British expat, Agatha Poole had bought her holiday home.

  The island itself was a strip of land barely forty metres across, bordered on either side with four-star hotels and apartment blocks. I dropped Harry off at one of the smart chiringuito beach bars, telling him I shouldn’t be longer than an hour or two. We could then enjoy the rest of the day together before our flight home later that night. He pulled his rucksack from the backseat and, unconsciously I think, leaned over and kissed my cheek.

  Then, after a slight pause, he said, “Whatever you’re doing, be careful.”

  I watched him pass along the boardwalk, his silhouette wavering in the heat haze, until he vanished into the bar. Then I turned around and followed the satnav the last few metres to Agatha Poole’s apartment block.

  Money is a universal language and what worked in Lincoln with Adya Mahal’s landlord now unlocked the door of Flat 3, Marina IV on the Spanish cinnamon island. The custodian of the block, who I’d found downstairs swearing at a malfunctioning pool filter, pocketed his Euros and threw me the keys, only asking that I returned them when I was done. What he imagined I was doing here, I had no idea, though I doubted he much cared. The apartment door slammed behind him.

  As with Adya’s flat, I soon discovered that my long journey had been a bust. All the furniture had been removed and the place was little more than a shell. Still, I now had Campbell’s file memorised, so could walk Agatha’s home while reconstructing the crime scene in my head. I moved to the master bedroom where the outline of the tin bath had been scorched into the tile floor. Scuff marks showed where the bed had been upended against the wall to make room for the staging of the corpse. At the dismantled electrical socket, safety tape now covered the place where the murderer had pulled out the wires before stripping them down and attaching them to the rim of the tub.

  Although technically an elderly woman, Agatha had been relatively fit and yet there had been no signs of a struggle. Would that have been the case if she’d been confronted with someone like Lenny Kerrigan? The autopsy report stated her neck had been broken and that the electrocution had occurred post-mortem. One swift snap and it was all over for Agatha. Again, the idea occurred to me that these deaths were not ends in themselves and that the killer had taken no real pleasure in them.

&n
bsp; But his care and experience were in evidence once more. The car he’d arrived in had been bought from a scrapyard over the border for a hundred Euro in cash. The dealer was known to the police in both countries and had a reputation for discretion, so it wasn’t surprising that he could recall very little about his customer. Male, English, he thought, anywhere between forty and sixty years of age, wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses. Along with the car he had also purchased an old tin bath that he had phoned about in advance and that the dealer had sourced and put aside for him. No, unfortunately, he had mislaid the receipts of sale.

  It was out of season when the killer arrived on the cinnamon island, most of the bars and restaurants still shut up for the winter. Those in Agatha’s block were almost all Spanish-owned holiday apartments and so no one had seen him come and go. The idea of the local Guardia Civil was that an English relative had staged the slaying to make it look like the work of a madman. Agatha’s estate had been fairly substantial and, for a time, a nephew living in Seville had been their prime suspect. However, after much questioning, he’d been forced to reveal an alibi involving three prostitutes, a chocolate fountain, and a time-stamped video. It had been the end of his marriage, but he was still a free man.

  I dropped to my haunches and played my fingertips around the scorch mark. Like the apartment, the junkyard car left in the basement lot had been wiped clean. I turned to the taped-over socket. Given the state of the corpse, the fuse box must have tripped and been reset a number times before the killer was satisfied with his staging. I thought of that half-fried body lying here, its liquified eyes staring into the dark until neighbour Senora Martinez had discovered it on the third day.

  There was nothing else the flat could offer and so I dusted off my knees and headed to the door. It had been a disappointing morning, but at least I got to spend the rest of the day with Haz before our flight home.

  I was just locking up when I heard the flap of sandals on the communal staircase. A boy of about ten came into view, a fishing net bouncing against his shoulder. He stopped dead when he saw me, his gaze meeting mine before flicking to Agatha Poole’s apartment then to the door across the hall. His eyes were round with fear and, dropping his net, he darted towards the neighbouring flat. I didn’t try to intercept him but stood back and let him pass.

  “I’m not him,” I said in broken Spanish that, by some miracle, I’d remembered from school. “Not the bad man. It’s all right, I won’t hurt you. Do you speak English?”

  He turned to me, his back pressed to the door. I picked up his fishing net and held it out to him.

  “My name’s Scott. I was a friend of Agatha.”

  “Agata,” he nodded, taking the net.

  “You liked her?”

  He shrugged. “She was OK,” he said in English. “She gave me pocket money sometimes. She stuck up for me with Mama. She was Mama’s friend. She didn’t deserve what God did to her.”

  I shook my head. “If God exists, he had nothing to do with this.”

  “He did!” The boy stamped his foot. “That is what Mama and the Guardia said. That I was making things up or dreaming, but God killed Agata and I saw Him. I couldn’t sleep that night because it was cold and Mama wouldn’t put on the heating. So I just laid on my bed thinking warm thoughts. Then the lights from Agata’s started flashing on my bedroom ceiling.” He pointed to a barred window to the right of the front door. “So I looked out. I thought Agata might be having a disco and the idea made me laugh. But then, a while later, all the lights went out, and even later than that I saw Him open the door.”

  I tried my best to keep my voice level. “What did he look like?”

  “He was God,” the boy insisted. “He was Cristo. He had a white halo and his body was shining. He looked like this.”

  He pointed to the icon on the wall beside his apartment. A representation of the crucified Christ painted onto a tile. The figure glowed with a spectral light while gore ran from its crown of thorns and the wound cut into its side. With arms spread, this Christ appeared almost to have wings.

  “Did you see his face?” I asked softly.

  The boy shook his head. “But I know it was Him.”

  “How?”

  He tapped his wrist. “Because He had a hole right here. Big and red and bleeding. Stigmata, the priest calls it. The hole where the Romans hammered in their nail.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  MISS DEBNEY HAD SEEN A DARK angel, faceless and terrible, its wings smattered with blood. Senora Martinez’s son had seen a Christ-figure, haloed and glowing in its murderous vestments, its wrist bearing stigmata. Separated by age, culture, and miles, I had no doubt that these two had witnessed the same killer and had viewed him through the lens of their experiences. For Miss Debney, he had been a phantom conjured from the literature that obsessed her; for this boy, an icon from the walls of his mother’s church.

  What were the commonalities? A form in white, featureless, but identifiable in some way by its left hand. Hillstrom’s spasming arthritis or Kerrigan’s swastika. Or wounded perhaps? The boy seemed insistent on a weeping stigmata. But McAllister had died in January and Agatha Poole in early March. What kind of wound could still be open almost three months later?

  Another commonality, and this time a reassuring one: he had left both witnesses alive. That seemed to confirm my theory that he took no gratification from the murders but revelled in some deeper purpose they served. Cold comfort for his victims. Colder still, if I didn’t stop him, for victims yet to come. But at least I knew my friends and family were safe.

  As I questioned the boy some more, a new idea occurred to me. I’d assumed that he had accidentally revealed himself to these witnesses, but did that accord with the experienced murderer Garris and I had profiled? Wasn’t there something purposeful about these appearances? He hadn’t retreated but had stood for a time and allowed them to drink him in. A madwoman and a little boy whose stories no one would take seriously. Outsiders who only an outsider might listen to. True, no witness had seen him at Adya Mahal’s flat but that didn’t mean he hadn’t wanted to be seen.

  It was clear after a minute or two that Alessandro Martinez had told me all he knew. I handed him a fifty Euro note and his eyes widened again, this time with wonder.

  “Don’t tell your Mama,” I said.

  He grinned, and as I took the stairs, called after me, “Was it Cristo who came for Agata?”

  I glanced back. Just a child with a fishing net, clasping his reward in his little hand. I had felt fear and disgust and, yes, a dark fascination for this killer. Now, looking at the boy he had terrified for no good reason, I hated him.

  “It wasn’t Cristo,” I said. “It was just a man. And you don’t have to be afraid anymore, Alessandro. He won’t be coming back here, I swear.”

  Downstairs, I threw the custodian his keys and, without sparing me a second glance, he went back to hurling expletives at his malfunctioning pool filter.

  My mobile chirruped.

  “Can I hear someone swearing in Spanish?” Garris grunted. “So I’m guessing you’re out visiting the scene of the Electric Lady. Find anything?”

  I told him what the boy had seen and he made a few positive noises regarding my thoughts. “Almost peacocking, isn’t he? Only, maybe that’s not the right way of looking at it. He’s not showing off exactly, but… I don’t know, inviting recognition?”

  “For his work?” I wondered. “Or because he wants to be caught?”

  “That, I can’t say. But I do have some news for you. A name you can tick off your suspect list: Leonard Kerrigan.”

  “You’re kidding?”

  “Is that disappointment I hear? Unfortunately, at the time Robert McAllister was being head-swapped with his dog, our friendly neighbourhood fascist was serving time for assault. Silly boy got himself videoed headbutting a peace activist at a rally. He then put in the boot when she hit the ground.”

  “And she sued him,
didn’t she?” I said, thinking of that fake Rolex on Kerrigan’s wrist.

  “Believe it or not, he’d already pissed away most of your life savings,” Garris said. “Half of it going up his nose.”

  “And our peace activist came for the rest. Good for her.”

  “You don’t sound surprised.”

  “It confirms a theory,” I said.

  “Well, I wish you’d come up with one to link these victims.” Garris sighed. “I’ve done another deep-dive into files and there’s nothing. Other than that they became the target of a certified nutcase with a hard-on for old fairground legends, our vics have zero crossover. I mean, it can’t just be a random selection, can it?”

  “No.” I stared up at the shuttered windows of Agatha’s apartment. “He wouldn’t have come all this way if she didn’t mean something. We just have to dig a little deeper… Pete, are you still there?” He grunted. “So I don’t know if I should ask, but how is–”

  “Hospice tells me she’s in her last hours.” He sighed. “I suppose they know their business. They must develop a nose for it, just like we do. Nurses and doctors and paramedics and police, we get a feel for when death’s round the corner, don’t we?”

  “Pete.”

  “Don’t say you’re sorry. Just go and find that fella of yours. You took him with you, I bet?”

  “I know you’re suspicious of him, but I–”

  “I’m always suspicious of everyone. Which means I’m almost always wrong.”

  He hung up, and for a few seconds I stared at the phone in my hand, wishing I could do something for him. It was strange to hear pain in Garris’ voice. A man who moved through the agony of others, bringing peace and resolution where he could, while keeping his empathy always in check. Outsiders might see it as coldness but really it was a survival technique essential to all officers who stayed on the force. A technique I had never learned.