by Will Harker
As Zac came bounding up, I tried not to picture those Michelangelo buttocks and focused instead on what I could see. A tight, nervous smile; a day or two of growth on those usually smooth cheeks; shadows under the eyes; fingers raking through a briar of blonde-streaked hair. He looked jittery as hell, which was reassuring. Unless Zac was putting on an act, our killer was not the jittery type. Only one thing troubled me: another ballpoint scrawl on the back of his hand, this one reaching under his cuff. He was obviously in the habit of making these reminders, and I thought again of a figure in white clutching at his wrist.
“Hey,” he said, a little breathless.
“Hello, Zac.”
I felt like a bastard, but I let the silence stretch out between us. Guilt abhors a vacuum.
“How’ve you been?” he asked.
“Fine.”
“You look well… So I’m sorry about that text I sent the morning you left,” he said, his words suddenly rushing together. “I guess I was upset that you didn’t say goodbye and I…”
I allowed another beat. “Don’t worry about it.” I nodded.
He started twisting his fingers together, almost like Jodie had done minutes before.
“I just thought we’d connected, you know?”
“That was my fault,” I said gently. “I wasn’t in a great place back then and, if I’m honest, I didn’t treat you very well. In fact, I suppose I used you. I’m sorry, Zac. You deserve better.”
He stepped forward. “I don’t care about that. But look, I do think that maybe something was beginning to happen between us. I like you, Scott.”
“Zac–”
“Just hear me out. I know you’re a bit older than me, but I don’t care about things like that.” His fingertips caressed my wrist. “I suppose I’d like to get to know you properly. Maybe we could start by having that drink we talked about.”
I pulled his hand away. “I can’t.”
“You… You know, don’t you?” He started scratching fiercely at that ballpoint scrawl. “He told you what I did. That evil fucker, he promised he wouldn’t. Scott, I’m sorry. But that morning you left, I was so angry. It felt like you were abandoning me and I suppose I just… I fucked up, OK?”
I shook my head. “Zac, what did you do?”
He looked at me with desolate eyes. “I wanted to hurt you. Wanted to lash out. I don’t know. But I cared about you and I–”
“What’s going on?” Harry asked, appearing from nowhere and slipping in beside me.
Zac’s gaze flicked downwards to where Harry’s hand slid into mine. His features twisted, in pain or in anger, I couldn’t tell. In the next moment, he was gone, vanishing back into the chaos of the fair.
“What was that all that about?” Harry asked.
“I don’t know,” I said.
But already a bleak suspicion was forming in my mind.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
AT HARRY’S INSISTENCE, we went in search of my father. I was actually surprised we hadn’t seen him. Usually, he’d be patrolling up and down the main strip and side grounds, checking the take on his own rides, calculating punter numbers in his head. This went double for any opening day, but no one seemed to know where he’d got to.
Dropping Webster off at his kennel, I mounted the steps to Dad’s ancient Colchester and knocked. I can’t say I wasn’t relieved when he didn’t answer. I glanced back at Harry and shrugged.
“Nobody home.”
“That’s a shame,” he said. “I never did get to meet him when we were together in Oxford. Maybe we can take him out to dinner before the fair leaves town? Unless…”
I came back down the steps. “Unless what?”
“Well, we haven’t really talked about what you’re going to do once this case is over.” His gaze roamed around the corral of caravans. “I mean, when you find whatever it is you’re looking for, what will happen to us then?”
Something in the way he said those words ought to have alerted me to what I would discover later. At that moment, however, I took them at face value.
“Then I think you and I should take a little holiday.”
“Couple up your trailer and hit the road?” he smiled, though his smile looked sad. “I like the sound of that.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do.” I checked my watch. “In the meantime, I better get to my appointment with Roebuck. God only knows what he does to latecomers, but I’m imagining inquisitorial torture devices.”
Harry nodded. “And I suppose I should look in on the library girls. Smooth things over with Val.”
We said our goodbyes to Webster and headed back towards the main gate.
People were still streaming through, eyes wide, tickets clasped in sweaty hands. After a mild morning, it had grown ferociously hot, a hard sun glinting in every sunglass lens. Glinting too in Alistair Carmody’s binoculars as he trained them on the ponderous revolutions of the Ferris wheel. He stood in the parking area at the western edge of the fair, alone it seemed, his balding head slick as an ice rink, the tip of a pink tongue poking between his teeth. He reminded me of that other watchful loner who had come to the fair—the paedophile, Jeremy Worth, who had originally set me on this strange journey. I wondered then whether Carmody might just be the same kind of predator.
“See you back at the house?” Harry said, kissing the side of my face.
“Sure. In about an hour. And Haz?” He glanced back. “Be careful.”
“Don’t worry,” he said, waving away my concern. “I’ll steer well clear of the protest.”
I watched him go. In truth, it wasn’t Lenny Kerrigan and his Knights of St George that worried me. Today, someone far deadlier was lurking behind the pretty façade of Bradbury End.
All the anti-mosque demonstrators appeared to have reached their rally point in the town’s east end. At least I didn’t encounter any of the placard-waving buffoons as I marched back up the hill. The heat was intense and building. Already a static frisson could be felt in the air. No grumble of thunder yet, but soon they’d have to shut down the Ferris wheel in case a stray lightning strike caught one of the gondolas and fried a pair of young lovers mid-kiss.
Thoughts of Zac accompanied me all the way to Roebuck’s door. “I wanted to hurt you. Wanted to lash out.” I believed I knew what he’d meant. At least it explained one of the minor mysteries that had been dogging me ever since this whole mess began. Once I’d got what I needed from our eccentric historian, I’d go back to the fair and question Zac again. It wasn’t a prospect I relished, but it had to be done.
The street was quiet. With everyone seemingly at the rally or the fair, only the baking breeze moved here, creaking Roebuck’s gate on its rusted hinges. Up ahead, I could see the door standing open, almost like an invitation. On a day like this, anyone might want to air their home, yet every window facing the street was closed. Crossing the garden, I paused only to reconsider that broken pane in the door. He’d thought a child had done it. Now I wondered if it had been prepared earlier. So easy then to reach through and unsnib the latch on the other side.
“Mr Roebuck?”
No answer. I stepped inside.
The daylight seemed to stop dead at the threshold. Beyond, the hall stretched away, almost every inch of wall covered in mounted artefacts and framed historical curios. Not a single personal photograph that I could see. To my right stood the stairs, where even the bannister had been painted yellow by the tarry touch of Roebuck’s cigarettes. Further down the corridor, a kitchen with the vague shapes of pots and pans stacked on the drainer.
Before closing the door, I wiped the handle with the hem of my T-shirt and then slipped my hands into my pockets. An old bit of training coming back to me—idle hands might well be the devil’s tools but they also had an unconscious habit of touching things and leaving traces. I turned to the sitting-room door. The toe-end of a muddy footprint here. I recognised the same irregular pattern from the impression of t
he fake trainer I’d seen at the Matthers’ house. There was no doubt that it had been made deliberately—there were no other prints on the carpet and the earth outside was summer-hard. He had bought the trainer with him and left this as a trademark for me to find. I stepped around it and used my shoulder to push open the door.
It’s a common misconception that a dead body will almost immediately invite hosts of insects. In reality, the blowfly only begins to lay its eggs in a corpse forty-eight hours after the heart has stopped. True, I had once heard a mortician claim that certain species of fly can predict death and start to hover in anticipation. This is in cases of advanced disease, however, where triggering odours play a role. In instances of violent death, the scavengers take a while to gather.
That was why I knew the flies in Roebuck’s sitting room were more interested in the spilled milkshake on the carpet than in the corpse. Soon enough their intentions would turn to the figure in the office chair, but for now, that curdling mess at his feet was a more enticing treat. Laced into the odour of sickly-sweet strawberry, I could also detect the iron tang of blood. Strange, because even with his back to me, I could see that Roebuck had been strangled. The ligature mark on the back of his neck stood out, about the width of a thumb, suggesting something thinner than a belt had been used. Perhaps a tie or a dressing gown cord.
The historian’s head was tilted forward but he hadn’t collapsed to the floor. Though the rope fastened around his upper body and the chair-back was too thin to have been the ligature, it held him in place securely enough. On the cluttered desk in front of him, his laptop screensaver rotated a galaxy of stars. Light, which in the curtained dimness of the room, played eerily across the smooth surface of two floating red balloons.
At first, I thought that the corpse must be holding onto them. That the killer had maybe taped their string to his hands. But then I saw those long white fingers hanging down on either side of the chair and, thinking back to the Jericho freaks, I guessed what had been done to Gerald Roebuck. Those cheery carnival balloons, taken in all likelihood from my father’s fair earlier in the day, had been anchored in the most fitting way. For here he was, our fourth victim: a twisted recreation of Gulliver Rice, the Balloon-Headed Horror.
My heart hammered out a thick beat as I rounded the chair. I’d guessed correctly, but still couldn’t suppress my disgust.
“Fucking animal.”
But no, no animal savagery here. Just that calm, collected mind at work again. Upon Roebuck’s forehead, the carved and dripping letter ‘M’ for ‘Meloria,’ the fifth word in the Travellers Bridge inscription. Horrible enough, but this was not the focus of the killer’s design. With his latest effort, he had interpreted the recreation in a symbolic sense.
First scooping out the historian’s eyes, he’d probably used some kind of long, curved needle to thread a single string between the vacant sockets. I imagined him standing here, one hand supporting the back of the dead man’s head as he tunnelled the instrument into soft tissue and under the nasal bridge. It might have been hard going, a little worrying required as the needle found cartilage and gristle. Then, as the gleaming point remerged, he’d have drawn the string free and, pulling through enough length to attach the balloons to either end, would have set them bobbing against the ceiling.
I straightened up from my examination. Mixed in with horror and contempt for the crime, I had to admit to a less noble emotion. Relief. This proved, beyond doubt, that Harry was not involved in the case. Except for those few minutes when Jodie had taken him on a tour of the fair, he’d been with me ever since we left Roebuck alive at 12:15. This window of opportunity probably also ruled out Zac. It would be hard for a chap to get away on opening day, and anyway, my suspicions concerning him were not tied to the murders.
Did this also rule out the other Travellers currently in Bradbury End? Not necessarily. Ride and stall owners would have more freedom to come and go. Like my dad, they might slip away for half an hour to chat with their mates or to see how the competition was doing. And where exactly was my father anyway? No one seemed to know. I looked back at Roebuck, that blood-flecked string springing from his eyes like strange optic stalks. No. I didn’t always like my father, but I could never imagine him doing something like this.
And yet Roebuck had wanted to go to the fair. That had been part of my deal with him—to provide an introduction to some of the old showpeople so he might interview them for his archives. Had he gone there already? Spoken to someone, let a detail slip that put the killer on edge? Or was he simply selected because he was a descendant of those Bradburians who’d supposedly conspired to weaken the bridge?
I turned from the corpse to the plaque on the wall behind him. The commemorative stone bearing the names of the original benefactors of Travellers Bridge: William McAllister, Daniel Poole, Margaret Fielding, Stephen Roebuck. These names had all been scored out using, I was certain, blood from the inkwell of Gerald Roebuck’s eyes. But one name was missing: Gideon Hillstrom.
I moved across to the plaque, resisting the urge to touch the place where the name had been chiselled away. On the floor below sat a small hammer and a dusting of stone. What did this mean? That Marcus Hillstrom was not to be the fifth victim? That he was, in fact, the killer?
My thoughts were interrupted by the sudden ringing of my phone.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
“YOU’VE GOT THAT EDGE in your voice. What’s happened?”
I knew what Garris meant, though I didn’t like to admit it. The tension, the excitement, the thrill that always came in the closing hours of a case, I could feel it coursing through me.
“Pete, I’m so sorry about Harriet–” I began.
He cut me off. “You can give me your sympathies later. Tell me.”
So I did. It felt good to unpack my thinking as methodically as I could. Like the old days, in fact, when we’d pass facts and theories between each other over a pint in The Three Crowns. Garris listened, interjecting only to pose a question or challenge an assumption. When I reached the defacement of the commemorative stone, I heard him take a sharp drag on his cigarette.
“I think it’s impossible to say right now what the removal of Hillstrom’s name might mean. You said he was in meetings all day?”
“His secretary said he’d call me when he got out at four,” I said. “But listen, I’m pretty sure the mayor can rearrange his schedule at will. He might easily have slipped away during his lunch hour and paid Roebuck a visit.”
Garris cleared his throat. “Or it could be this Jonathan Matthers returned? You said Roebuck knew him as a boy?”
“That’s right. He said the kid used to come into the library when he worked there. That he was ‘captivated’ by the story of the Jericho freaks.”
“So Matthers might not only have wanted to add Gerald Roebuck to his design but also silence him? I mean, if he was back in Bradbury End and Roebuck recognised him?”
“Possibly,” I said. “But look, I need to find Marcus Hillstrom. Whether he’s the killer or in danger, I–”
“No.” There was no mistaking the finality in his tone. “I told you, I’ve alerted the police to a threat against Hillstrom.”
“And Roebuck,” I laughed bitterly. “Didn’t work out too well for him, did it?”
Garris sighed. “We discussed this at the beginning, Scott. It’s time you handed the case over. Surely you see that? Look, if you wait there, I’ll make a call to my contact in the nearest Major Investigation Team. They can be with you inside the hour…”
But I wasn’t listening anymore. Feeling the case slipping away from me, I was picturing all the victims; not just the four unfortunates the killer had remade into such sick caricatures, but Miss Debney and Alessandro and even Jodie. She hadn’t known that she’d seen a monster that night, but when the news of the murders broke it would be hard to keep it from her. Then what nightmares might come in the dark?
“Scott, are you there?”
“I’m sorry, Pete, I have to go.”
“Don’t be a bloody idiot,” he barked. “Just listen!”
I cancelled the call. It was a betrayal of my promise to Garris, but I had to see this thing through to the end. I had to be the one to find him.
I was about to take one last look around the sitting room when a knock sounded from the hall.
“Package to sign for, Mr R!”
“Fuck,” I muttered under my breath.
No way I could risk leaving by the front door now. With Roebuck’s being one of the first houses, the postman would be in the street for a while. How I’d left things with Garris, I didn’t think he’d call the case in until we’d spoken again, and so there was no reason just yet to associate myself with the crime scene. Only one option then.
The outline of the postie was still lingering behind the glazed portion of the front door when I slipped into the hall. Thank God it was so gloomy, he didn’t appear to see me as he knocked and called. Meanwhile, I crept into the tiny kitchen at the rear. One of the milkshake flies had followed me, darting over my shoulder and settling on the handle of the back door. I swatted it away and used the hem of my T-shirt to turn the knob. Another lucky break: it was unlocked.
I emerged onto a scrubby patch of garden just as the postie dropped his ‘Sorry We Missed You’ card through the letterbox. I closed the door behind me. Even with most of the street out at the fair or attending the rally, I was glad that the rear of Roebuck’s property wasn’t overlooked. A high fence ended in a gate that led to a back alley where the bins were kept. Here a black cat sunning itself on the paving stones watched me out of one lazy-lidded eye as I passed into the road beyond.
I checked my phone. Garris hadn’t tried calling back. I wondered if he’d finally despaired of me or, worse still for my conscience, had left his dead wife and was already on his way to Bradbury End. Striding down the hill, I did my best to ignore the guilt that gnawed at me. My opportunity to reach Hillstrom was already closing and I needed to be focused when I questioned him. It was bound to be a subtle balance, probing his movements without arousing his suspicions.