Sorcerer

by Menon, David

  ‘He was just stuck outside that café like he didn’t matter’.

  ‘Anne, I’m sure that’s not true’.

  ‘It is true!’ she insisted, tearfully. ‘I would never have left my little boy like that. These women don’t deserve to be mothers. They just don’t deserve it!’

  ‘Anne, please calm down’.

  ‘Oh go away! You don’t care about me or the child’.

  ‘Yes I do, I care about you both’.

  ‘You’re a liar! You only wanted me back here so I could back up your story to the police about my father’.

  ‘Oh so that’s why I put you up in a place like this, is it? Because I was just using you for my own purposes? Anne, you have to calm down and start thinking more rationally’.

  ‘They’re going to charge me, you know? The police are going to charge me but they’re not going to charge you. How is that, eh? How come I get charged but you get off scot free?’

  Maybe because I didn’t witness a murder or commit one, thought Jack but he didn’t think it would be appropriate to say that just now. ‘I don’t know, Anne’.

  ‘It’s because I killed my own kid, my own little boy, but I couldn’t help it, Uncle Jack. I didn’t do it on purpose. After all I went through the bastard police are still going to bloody charge me! It’s not fair, Uncle Jack. It’s not fair’. She fell to the floor and began crying loudly and uncontrollably. Jack sat down beside her and pulled her to him.

  ‘So much about all of this isn’t fair, Anne’ he said, gently. She felt like a little girl in his arms. A little girl who was upset and needed her Daddy to make all the monsters go away and never come back. But poor Anne’s Daddy had brought all the monsters with him and Jack didn’t know how Anne would ever be able to chase them away.

  ‘I only went down to Chorlton because it was where I used to go with Leroy. We found this burger bar place one night and went there time and time again. I think we must’ve gone through the whole menu we were there so often. I went looking for it which is why I was in the café because it was in the same row of shops and … ‘. She was sobbing her heart out.

  ‘Oh Anne, you poor, poor girl’ said Jack as he held her close.

  ‘All I’ve ever had in my life were those few moments of happiness’ she cried. ‘Leroy loved me and we were going to be together and we were going to be a family, a proper family where everybody was loved and nobody went without or was hurt or suffered in any way. We were going to protect each other from anyone who ever wanted to do us any harm. We were going to live our own life where my father couldn’t hurt me anymore. We were going to watch Ben and Nathan grow up to be decent, kind, loving men who protected their families like we’d protected them. Why was it all taken away from me, Jack? If somebody could tell me why I never got to be a proper little girl who didn’t have to take beating after beating off my father or why I didn’t deserve a chance of lasting happiness with Leroy then I might be able to understand. But I can’t understand. I can’t understand, Jack and now they’re going to charge me and I’ll have to go through it all again in court. I can’t do it, Jack. I just can’t do it’.

  ‘You can do it, sweetheart’.

  ‘No Jack, I can’t, I can’t do it’.

  ‘I’ll make sure you have the best lawyer and no court in the land is going to send you down when you tell them your story’.

  ‘They’ll want to make an example of me’.

  ‘No they won’t’.

  ‘I’ll get some judge who doesn’t believe in mitigating circumstances’.

  ‘Oh Anne, look, you’ve got to stop looking at the negative all the time’ said Jack. ‘I know it’s tough for you, Anne, believe me, I do know that it’s more than just tough. But I’m not going to be able to help you whilst you’re in this state’.

  ‘Are you trying to tell me to pull myself together?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be as crass as that, Anne. But you’re going to come back to my place and live with me until you can start to put the pieces of your life back together again’.

  ‘I don’t want to get in the way of your life’.

  ‘You won’t’ said Jack. ‘I’ll be glad to have you around. But there’s one thing we need to do first’.

  ‘Take the baby back?’

  ‘Yes’ said Jack. ‘His parents must be going out of their minds and none of this is their fault’.

  Anne looked up at the little boy. He’d been crying so much he’d actually cried himself to sleep. ‘He must be hungry’.

  ‘I’d have thought so’ said Jack. ‘Even from my limited experience of these things I do know that at that age they like their food’.

  ‘I just wanted to know what it felt like to be a Mum again’ said Anne. ‘I just wanted to remember’.

  ‘I know but why don’t you rest up here and I’ll take him into the police?’

  ‘Would you?’

  ‘Of course’ said Jack who was silently cursing George and Mary Griffin, his own sister for God’s sake, for their evil crimes that were still leading to so much suffering. ‘Leave it with me. I don’t know what they’ll want to do but we’ll face it together, Anne. Okay?’

  ‘Okay’ said Anne who could barely see through her tear stained eyes. ‘Tell them I’m so, so sorry’.

  ‘I will’ said Jack who then scooped up the sleeping child in his arms. ‘Now you get some rest and I’ll see you later’.

  Jack took the child back to his room, grabbed a coat and then went downstairs where he called for a taxi. Once at the police station he handed over the child and asked to speak to Detective superintendent Barton.

  ‘Well done, Jack’ said Jeff when she caught up with him in the interview room. ‘Half the city have been looking for that child and his parents are going crazy. You’d better tell me the story’.

  Jack told Jeff that it was Anne Griffin who’d taken the child and all the reasons why.

  ‘Detective, he’s only been missing a few hours’.

  ‘Jack, it’s a crime and I have to deal with it in that way regardless of how long he was missing for. Five minutes or five days makes no difference’.

  ‘But didn’t you hear what I just said?’

  ‘I heard you loud and clear, Jack, but I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do’.

  ‘Anne is distraught too, detective. She can’t bear the idea of having to relive all the traumas in front of a court room. She’s panicking at the very thought that she may go to prison’.

  ‘I don’t think it will come to that given the circumstances’ said Jeff.

  ‘But can you guarantee that she won’t?’

  ‘No of course I can’t but I’m going on my personal experience of all these years in the force’ said Jeff. ‘And I don’t believe she’ll be sent to prison’.

  ‘Would you put money on it?’

  ‘I don’t gamble. Look Jack, I’m up to my neck in it trying to find your sister and her husband. I assume you’ve heard nothing from them?’

  ‘No, not a thing’ said Jack. ‘And do you still have no leads?’

  ‘We’re following up on a couple of possibilities but they don’t seem to offer much’ Jeff confessed.

  ‘So no clue as to the identity of the mysterious stranger who rescued Gabby?’

  Jeff paused before answering that one. He still hadn’t followed up on the fairly outrageous hunch he’d been nursing these past few days but the longer they went without getting any closer to what might be considered the plausible truth, the more he felt the pressure to follow up on his theory.

  ‘No’ she answered. ‘So are you moving back home now?’

  ‘Yes’ said Jack. ‘I think the threat has passed’.

  ‘How do you?’

  ‘Well the stranger who let Gabby go must have it in for Mary and George and must have them somewhere. That makes me feel safer in my bed at night’.

  ‘So you don’t think they might have it in for you? After all, we are working on the assumption that the stranger is a former victim of the Griff
ins paedophilia and you kept quiet about all that for years’.

  ‘With good reason’.

  ‘That’s what you say, others might feel differently’.

  ‘And what do you think, detective?’

  ‘What do I think? I think it’s all a little convenient that some stranger has given you the confidence to move back to your house’.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Well you take the rather dramatic step of moving out of your own home when you know George Griffin has skipped bail because you fear for your safety and on the evidence that someone may or may not be holding them now you decide to move back in again. From some angles that might make you look guilty of something, that’s all I’m saying’.

  ‘I’m not guilty of anything here, detective. I’m only going on the instincts that spring out of what I know’.

  ‘But you’ve got to admit that it does seem a bit too convenient?’

  Jack was furious at what he was suggesting. ‘You think I’ve got something to do with Mary and George disappearing and Gabby being rescued? You think I’m behind it all in some way and that I used the move out of my house to cover all that?’

  ‘I know you’ve got more than enough cash to throw at these kind of games, Mr. White, and you’ve got to admit it is plausible from an outsider’s perspective’.

  Jack leaned forward. ‘The only plausible thing here, detective, is your sheer incompetence at not being able to find a couple in their sixties who’ve disappeared under your very nose and who aren’t exactly Bonnie and flaming Clyde. I thought you were one of the better police officers but now I see that if you screw up and feel like you’re cornered then you turn into someone who’s just like the rest’.

  Barely a couple of hours later Jeff and Rebecca were called to the Lowry hotel and the room where Anne Griffin had been staying. The pathologist June Hawkins was in the middle of the cordoned off area but it was pretty clear what had happened.

  ‘June?’ said Jeff.

  ‘Well as you can see she slashed her wrists’ June answered as the three of them surveyed the scene on the bed. The sheets were covered in blood. ‘And she knew what she was doing. She slashed them vertically in line with the veins. Most people make the mistake of slashing them across which means a much smaller cut in the vein and a much longer time to die. That’s why there’s so much blood here. She lost it all very quickly’.

  ‘She was so thin as well’ Jeff remarked.

  ‘She was, Jeff’ June agreed. ‘That would’ve helped for sure’.

  ‘I want this room combed from top to bottom for clues’ said Jeff. ‘I want nothing left untouched. If there is something in here I want it found’.

  ‘What do you think we might be looking for?’ asked Rebecca.

  ‘I don’t know, Becky’ Jeff replied. ‘But it could prove to have been worth a try’.

  ‘I doubt if Jack White would agree with you’ said June. ‘He found her’.

  Jeff was quiet as Rebecca drove them back to the station.

  ‘You didn’t do much to fight your corner with Jack White’ said Rebecca.

  ‘He wanted to hit out at someone and it was me’.

  ‘Jeff, he accused you of not reassuring Anne Griffin enough and that’s what led to her taking her own life. That was out of order, Jeff, and it was wrong’.

  ‘I know it was wrong’ said Jeff. ‘But I wasn’t going to get into a slanging match with him about it when earlier they’d taken a dead body from the room next door.

  ‘Well you showed a great deal more self-restraint than I would’ve done’.

  ‘It wasn’t about me, Becky. It was about him and his feelings over the suicide of his niece. I can put myself and my own feelings above that’.

  When they got back to the station Jeff looked at his watch and saw that it was just before eleven. ‘So it’ll be about ten over there’ he said, thinking aloud.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I’m going to make a phone call’ said Jeff, scuttling off to his office. ‘I think it’s a twelve hour time change down there so I’ll just have to hope they don’t go to bed early’

  ‘Who? And where?’

  ‘If I get anywhere you’ll be the first to know’.

  Jeff got himself a coffee and sat down in his office with the door closed. He rang the number which was on the file and after only a couple of rings it was picked up. The female voice had a strong New Zealand accent.

  ‘Hello? Sheila Fitzgerald here?’

  ‘Hello, Mrs. Fitzgerald, this is Detective Superintendent Jack Barton of the Greater Manchester police in the UK calling. We haven’t spoken before but you have spoken to one of my officers?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right about Dominic and the awful things he went through’.

  ‘That’s it, yes’ said Jeff. ‘I’m sorry to bother you when it’s so late down there’.

  ‘Well that’s okay’ said Sheila, cautiously. Why would the police be ringing her all the way from Manchester at this time? ‘I think. What is it exactly?’

  ‘I just wondered if Dominic was there and if I could speak to him?’

  ‘Dominic? Well no he isn’t here. As a matter of fact he’s on holidays in Bali with some friends. They went over there a week ago and I’m not expecting him back until the middle of next week’.

  ‘Mrs. Fitzgerald, could you give me the number of the hotel where he’s staying?’

  ‘Why do you want that?’

  ‘I just want to ask him a few questions about the past’.

  ‘Well surely it can wait? He’s on holiday for God’s sake and he works very hard. He deserves some down time’.

  ‘I’m sure he does, Mrs. Fitzgerald, but as I’m sure you can appreciate my investigations here are very fast moving and I don’t think it’s possible for me to wait’.

  Jeff heard Sheila Fitzgerald sigh impatiently ‘Oh very well, just a minute. Dominic wrote the name and number down for me and pinned it to the kitchen notice board. Here it is. It’s called the Golden Temple hotel. Are you ready for its number?’

  Jeff wrote down the number and then asked Sheila for the date Dominic left for Bali. After Sheila had given him the date Jeff thanked her and went into the squad room to put his theory to the troops. And when he did their jaws dropped at the insanity of it but also at the realization that it might just be true.

  SORCERER NINETEEN

  DC Oliver Wright knocked on the door and then went in.

  ‘What have you got for me, Ollie?’ asked Jeff.

  ‘Sir, Dominic Power entered Bali at the Denpasar airport on Friday 14th. A couple of hours later he checked into the Golden Temple hotel accompanied by four friends. There’s no record of him leaving the country since then’.

  ‘So have we tried to get in touch with any of his friends?’

  ‘Yes, sir. A Mr. Mike Hancock, New Zealand citizen, 44 years old, said that Dominic went walkabout in the jungle on 17th and they haven’t seen him since. But he said they were well used to that. Dom is a great guy and all that but he likes to go off on his own whilst the rest of them chill out by the pool. He said that they’d had a couple of text messages from him letting them know he was okay and that he’d be back a couple of days before they’re all due to fly home to New Zealand’.

  ‘When was the 17th?’ said Jeff looking at the calendar on his desk.

  ‘Six days ago, sir’.

  ‘And what date are they due back home?’

  ‘On the 3rd, sir, which is in five days time’.

  ‘So they’ll be expecting Dominic Power back at the hotel any day now?’

  ‘Yes, sir’.

  ‘Right’ said Jeff. ‘Did we get this Mike Hancock’s mobile number?’

  ‘Oh yes, sir, and I’ve asked his service provider in New Zealand for a record of his incoming texts since he arrived in Bali’.

  ‘What did you say for a reason why we needed to contact Power?’

  ‘I just said it was a family matter to do with his relatives back in the UK
. The Balinese authorities seemed happy with the same answer too’.

  ‘Good, because I don’t want him held there or else it’ll take us years to get him back. This is good work, Ollie. Thank you’.

  ‘He would’ve had time, sir’.

  ‘So you don’t believe I’ve lost the plot?’

  ‘I thought it a bit incredulous at first, sir, I must admit. But the more we look into it, the more I think you may be onto something’

  Rebecca then came rushing in. ‘Sir, two bodies have been found in a house in East Didsbury. Their descriptions match those of George and Mary Griffin’.

  Jeff and Rebecca went to meet June Hawkins once again at a crime scene.

  ‘Well it looks like they committed suicide’ said June. ‘They’ve taken a bunch of pills washed down with a bottle of scotch. The liver would’ve gone first and then the rest of their organs would’ve fallen like dominoes. My only reservation against an entirely suicide verdict would be the slight cuff marks on their wrists and ankles. They’ve obviously been restrained at some point recently although because the marks are only slight I would suggest that the cuffs were covered in some kind of material to minimize their potential for leaving a mark’.

  ‘Somebody was careful about what they were doing’ said Rebecca.

  ‘Yes, they were’ June concluded. ‘We’re combing the place for DNA. We’ll see what we can find. They did leave these though which you might find interesting’.

  June handed Jeff two signed confessions from George and Mary Griffin.

  ‘My God’ said Jeff as he read. ‘They’re confessing to absolutely everything. As far as I can see at first glance they haven’t left out one name or one crime we’ve been investigating them for. Then there’s everything about Dr. Josef Smets in Belgium and the whole continental picture. There’s so much detail in all of this that it has to be real’.

  ‘So who would restrain them, get them to sign detailed confessions, and then get them to commit suicide?’ June wondered.

  ‘I don’t know for sure yet, June’ said Jeff. ‘But I’ve got a bloody good idea’.

  When they got back to the station, Gabby Lake was waiting to speak to Jeff. They sat down together in a hallway just off the main reception area.