Cut The Threads: A Serial Killer Thriller That Will Keep You Hooked (DS Marnie Hammond Book 2)

by Robin Roughley

  Marnie watched his hands shake with pent-up rage. When he eventually turned to her she could see the tears sparkling in his eyes. ‘The man who took your sister was called Boland, right?’

  On hearing the hated name, Marnie winced. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Wait here,’ Conway said, as he pushed the door open and stepped out into the rain.

  Marnie opened her mouth to question him but the door slammed shut and she watched him walk between the cars. For a moment, he was caught in the headlights’ glare, then he pulled the driver’s door open and leaned inside the vehicle. The urge for another cigarette grew and Marnie fumbled one from the packet, by the time he climbed back into the passenger seat she was blowing smoke through the open window.

  ‘You know I ransacked Phelps’s office?’

  She looked at the small, leather-bound book that was placed on his knees, his large hands folded over the book as if it were a precious bible.

  ‘Well, I kind of guessed when you turned up at the house that it was you who broke into his place of work.’

  ‘And you didn’t hang around to go through the files?’

  Marnie took another pull, her hand shaking as she shook her head. ‘No, I headed straight over to the house.’

  ‘Most of the stuff was the kind of thing you would expect to find in a solicitor’s office, letters to and from clients, written in a language designed to confuse the reader.’

  Marnie could feel her frustration start to build as Conway took a deep breath. ‘I found this locked away in his office drawer,’ he lifted the book and held it up.

  Marnie held out her hand and Conway turned on the interior light and flicked through the first few pages before handing it over.

  ‘Halfway down the page,’ he said.

  Marnie took the diary and looked at a page dated five months earlier, her eyes taking in the small, neat writing. When she saw the name Boland, her hands gripped the book tight, her heart seemed to stall for a moment before thudding back to life.

  ‘There’s no mention of Rowan but the name Boland rang a bell and then I remembered John emailing me about what had gone on a few months ago.’

  Marnie never heard him, her eyes were fixed on the page, the word Boland was coupled with Rae, a short dash separating the two names with a reminder to contact Rae in the margin.

  Marnie scanned the rest of the page that consisted of what she assumed were phone numbers and strange doodles of swirls and dots, the kind someone would make whilst their mind wandered during a boring phone conversation.

  ‘I have no idea why Rae and Boland would be linked,’ Conway said. ‘But we need to find Phelps, he kept Rowan prisoner and—’

  ‘Phelps isn’t working alone, he didn’t send the letter,’ Marnie interrupted.

  Conway looked at her and nodded. ‘I get that but we know he kept Rowan in the cellar so we follow the leads.’

  Marnie thought of the girl kept in the squalid space while above, Phelps lived in luxury, the hot tub, the gleaming kitchen; the place reeked of money. She pictured the screwed-up, brown paper bags, no doubt they had contained fast food tossed in by Phelps to keep the girl alive. Yet something had made him bolt from the house, driven him to take the girl and make a run for it. The question was: where had he gone and more importantly why had he decided it was no longer safe to stay in his house?

  ‘Phelps ran and we have to assume he took Rowan with him.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Conway replied.

  ‘The writer of the letter mentions Whitlow and John Hall,’ she saw the sudden hurt spring into Conway’s eyes. ‘They know about Rowan so they must also know that Phelps had been keeping her at the house, they—’

  ‘You don’t know that,’ he growled.

  Marnie held his gaze and chose to ignore the pain and anguish. ‘They knew about the body on the bed, they put the call into the station because it suited them to do so.’

  ‘Are you making this up as you go along?’

  Marnie closed both hands over the steering wheel. ‘You sound like my boss,’ she said sadly as she thought of Reese and how he would respond when he found out that she was talking about the case with a known killer.

  ‘This is a game to someone, no more than that.’

  ‘A fucking “game”!’ Conway leaned towards her, his face twisted in fury.

  Marnie kept her eyes locked on the windscreen. ‘The body had been on the bed for more than a few hours and yet no one reported it until someone else was in the house and they would only have done that in the hope that we would turn up when our man was still inside.’

  ‘Look, I don’t care about any of that, it has fuck-all to do with finding Rowan, I—’

  ‘It has everything to do with finding her,’ Marnie snapped back. ‘The letter proves that they are all linked and the only name that isn’t on there is yours.’

  Conway eased back a fraction. ‘That’s why you came here, isn’t it?’

  ‘There’s no mention of Hamer, no mention of Rae or Chelsea, and—’

  ‘Are you trying to use me?’

  Marnie turned slowly to look at the man beside her. ‘In the same way you’re trying to use me, you mean?’

  Conway opened his mouth but nothing came out.

  ‘You killed a man and yet I’m here asking for your help in sorting this. By rights, I should be trying to take you in.’

  ‘Yeah, well we both know how that would end, don’t we?’

  Marnie tilted her head slightly, her dark eyes instantly flooded with a hardness that made Conway frown in surprise.

  ‘If we ever get this sorted then maybe we’ll find out,’ she replied in a quiet voice.

  The two of them glared at one another, their eyes locked as if a battle of wills was taking place in the confined space. The rain continued to bounce off the metal roof.

  ‘I just want my goddaughter back in one piece,’ he eventually said as he faced front again.

  Marnie tossed the cigarette out of the window. ‘I know you do.’ They fell silent and Marnie rubbed at her tired eyes as she tried to find a way forward.

  ‘Do you know how many girls Boland killed?’ The question came out of the blue and took Marnie’s breath away, she closed her eyes for a moment and sure enough, Abby was there waiting, her hair swaying as Boland carried her away through the trees, the torrential rain turning everything grey with its intensity.

  ‘We managed to name ten, but—’

  ‘Ten?’

  Marnie whipped her head around, her eyes blazing, the words firing out of her mouth, a stream of anguish and anger as she told him all about Boland, about how he had worked as a dentist for years, travelling the country, visiting schools to check on the kid’s teeth whilst in secret he selected his next victim. She told him how Boland had procured them for men with specific tastes before they were handed back to him, their usefulness over, how he killed them in the rambling old house, disposing of their dismembered bodies in local woodland. All Conway could do was absorb what she was saying, he could hear the heartbreak in every word, see the anguish and horror in her eyes. Sweat coated her brow as she told him about the mad dash to Boland’s house only to find the place in flames.

  Marnie tried to stop herself but it was as if once the floodgates had been opened then it was impossible to stop the deluge of filth and horror that poured forth.

  Conway eased further to the side as she told him all about Boland burning, his face in ruins, his flame-filled mouth screaming out in madness as he died. When she finished, she slumped forward, resting her forehead against the wheel.

  Tom Conway tried to think of a reply but he simply couldn’t find the words, he had come here with the intention of grilling the woman, taking whatever information she provided and then heading out to sort this nightmare. He studied his own pain, the loss of his friend and the disappearance of Rowan and suddenly he knew that Marnie had been living with the same horror for almost sixteen years. He tried to imagine what it was like for her carrying the guilt yea
r after year and even when she had found the man responsible, he had died leaving her forever locked in a world of bitter pain and remorse.

  ‘That’s why you became a copper, isn’t it?’

  Marnie lifted her head and turned to look at him, Conway was surprised to see her eyes shimmer with tears though none had spilled onto her cheeks.

  ‘I wanted to find out what had happened to her and I couldn’t do that living the life of a civilian.’

  Conway felt his admiration for the young woman grow, she had moulded herself into someone capable of catching a monster like Boland, taken the only path that would give her that one chance to make things right. He had no doubt that she had bent her will to this one thing, driven by the need to attain her goal, to be ready when the chance came. She had caught her man but fate had played a cruel trick and Boland had died without revealing what had happened to her sister. Conway closed his eyes for a moment as he imagined the horror of her situation, the never-ending feeling that she could have done more, got to the truth sooner and perhaps had closure on the disappearance of her sister.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he mumbled as he opened his eyes.

  Marnie was looking at him and then she shrugged, her eyes lost the bewildered look replaced by a hard core of steel.

  ‘I want to know why Phelps had Boland and Rae’s name in his diary.’

  Conway sighed. ‘Rowan’s my—’

  ‘I’m not doing this to score points, Mr Conway. We have no idea where Phelps is hiding, Boland is dead,’ she paused, ‘but Rae isn’t.’

  She saw his eyes widen slightly. ‘And what if Rae has no idea about what Phelps was up to?’

  ‘Believe me, Rae likes to keep on top of things and let’s be honest here, someone like Rae would have no problem with a sick bastard like Phelps. In fact, he’d see it as leverage, a way to keep the solicitor just where he wanted him.’

  Conway thought about what she was saying and all of a sudden, he knew that she was right. ‘OK, but what about Whitlow?’

  Marnie frowned in confusion. ‘What about him?’

  ‘Well, someone is trying to take over from Rae, they killed Whitlow and according to you they used the same MO on the guy on the bed.’

  ‘Which only goes to prove that all this is linked,’ she said forcefully. ‘Like I said, this is a game to someone, someone who thinks they are pulling all the strings, they know all about me, about what happened to my sister, but they know nothing about you. You are the one factor that they haven’t allowed for and we have to make sure we use that while we still have the chance.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Because if we don’t, then whoever is doing this will eventually tire of all this and Rowan will die.’

  Conway tried to formulate a denial but he knew that what Marnie was saying was the truth.

  ‘They will kill her and vanish,’ Marnie said softly to hammer home the truth. ‘Do you know where Rae lives?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘OK, then perhaps you’d like to follow me and we can go and have a word?’

  Conway nodded and reached for the handle, then he stopped as he felt Marnie’s hand grip his arm.

  ‘This has to be done on the quiet, if we believe what’s in the letter then we can’t take the chance of being seen.’

  Conway smiled though there was no hint of warmth in his eyes. ‘I was trained not to be seen,’ he replied.

  ‘Yes, well I was trained to be highly visible so I’m in your hands until we get into the house. And then you leave Rae to me.’

  She saw the look of anger flare in his eyes.

  ‘That’s the deal,’ she said. ‘I want your word that you won’t go all Rambo when we get there or you don’t get the address.’

  Tom Conway snapped a nod. ‘OK, deal.’

  ‘Remember, I was honest with you, I stuck to my side of the bargain and I expect you to do the same.’

  ‘You have my word,’ he replied, stepping out into the rain and closing the door.

  When her phone began to drone, she lifted it from her pocket, seeing Bev’s name flashing on the screen Marnie grimaced, before dropping it back into her pocket.

  ‘Traitor,’ the voice inside whispered as she started the car and wiped a hand across her feverish brow.

  74

  Phelps stood, agitated, at the bottom of the stairs, sweat plastering his hair to his head, his palms clammy as he wiped them on the front of his trousers in distress.

  He looked back along the gloomy hallway, the walls covered by a hideous brown wallpaper with faded flower patterns of yellow. When he had received the phone call, the man had given him the address and told him to take the girl and lock her in the upstairs room and wait there. During the brief conversation, he had desperately tried to bargain with the man only to be told he had fifteen minutes to vacate his house or he would find the police pulling onto his long drive and then he would be left to explain why he had been keeping the girl in his cellar.

  Phelps hadn’t bothered to argue, besides what choice did he have? Now, he stood at the bottom of the stairs feeling the howling wind blowing through the house before vanishing under the front door, taking his life with it.

  Closing his tormented eyes, he thought of all the careful plans he had made to escape from Rae’s clutches, squirrelling away his little acorns of truth, storing them up for the day when he would need them. Now, they meant nothing and he knew that while he had been busy collecting the money and making plans, someone else had been doing exactly the same with him. He tried to think who the man could be that knew so much about him, it could be a number of people, people who shared the same pastime that he did.

  He could see the parade of faces, all men of a certain age, who had two things in common – they were successful and they loved to have sex with underage girls.

  The voice in his head snorted at the notion, ‘They’re not underage girls, they’re children,’ the voice hissed.

  Phelps whimpered at the truth, the voice was right, they were children. He snapped open his eyes as another howl of wind rattled the front door.

  How had it come to this? One minute he was in his beautiful home and the next thing the phone had rang and the man had started to tell him some home truths, truths that had rocked him back on his expensive loafers. The true horror was that the voice on the phone had known everything, every single thing about Arnie Phelps, his true self laid bare. The façade he liked to cultivate had been stripped away as the voice gave him names and dates, the parties, the children, the amounts of money he had spent to satisfy his perverted need.

  The faces of the other men swirled around his mind, he would latch onto one and try to see the truth hidden in their fevered eyes and yet the truth was, they were all pathetic, all driven to perform acts that everyone else would find abhorrent. This single truth is what bonded them together, the same truth that kept them from revealing their names or what they did for a living. Anonymity was key and crucial, an unspoken rule that they all abided by. Though Arnie now knew that someone had not been playing by the rules, someone had been gathering information and now he was caught in a web that would be impossible to escape from.

  The fear inside turned to anger as he thought of the girl in the room upstairs. Phelps had no real idea of her age, he just knew she was too old for his taste, too mature for his subtle pallet. Suddenly, her face lanced into the forefront of his mind, this was all her fault, he had been fine until she came into his life. The parties at the house with all the young, bright things and then every few months, the special parties, the ones he had loved above all others.

  Only now he knew that those days were over, there would be no more parties, no more anticipation as the date grew closer.

  Phelps placed a foot on the first step as he thought back over the years. He had attended ten parties and each one was emblazoned on his dark mind as a high point in his life, each a memory to be cherished and relived at every opportunity. Another step and he recalled the first time he had been invited
into the inner circle, the thrill and anticipation had been immense and the night had surpassed his wildest expectations. Now, the memories started to fade as he realised there would be no more fun and games, no more children to be shared amongst the chosen few.

  He tried to drag their faces into the forefront of his mind as he took two more faltering steps. But the truth was the memories were fading at an alarming rate, as if his mind were erasing all the things he had done, no doubt trying to prepare in case the police got their hands on him. All his life, Arnie had been good at ignoring the bad things he had done, managing to convince himself that it was the rest of the world that didn’t understand his nature. He told himself he had been born this way and that you couldn’t change your genes, couldn’t alter the way you were made. Occasionally, over the years he had felt a sliver of disgust at the things he had done yet he had always managed to quash the feelings of loathing. No doubt people would judge him harshly if they knew the truth but that was down to their narrow-minded outlook on life. The fact that he was a solicitor meant he had seen the worst of people on a daily basis. He continued to climb the stairs as he thought about all deals he had done over the years. Before Rae had come along to feather his nest he had specialised in divorce and family law. He could remember families at war after a parent died and a house was up for grabs, the spite and hatred as one sibling tried to crush another just so they could get their hands on the money. He recalled a father fighting for custody of his young daughter, the man had been wealthy and Phelps had bled him dry. In the end, the courts had allowed access, he could remember the man shaking his hand in joy and Phelps had smiled right back as he thought of the thousands of pounds in his bank. Six months later, the man had been taken into custody for abusing his daughter and Phelps had carried on as if nothing had happened, promising the desperate people who sat in his office that he was the man who could sort their problems. They would hang on his every word, their eyes wide and filled with hope as he laid out his plan of action and then watched as they maxed out their credit cards. Sometimes he would get lucky and manage to get the result they wanted and sometimes he didn’t. Yet the truth was it didn’t matter, the money was in the bank a never-ending pile that grew and grew and had Phelps rubbing his hands together in glee.