by M J Lee
WHERE IS MY SISTER’S BODY? ASKS BROTHER OF ALICE SEAGRAM
‘It looks like the shit has hit the fan.’ said Ridpath, reaching for his phone.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
James Dalbey lay back on his bed, arms folded under his head. Around him the rest of the prison was winding down after a long day of doing nothing.
There were the usual prison noises: the creaking of the building as it cooled down at the end of the day; a prisoner in a nearby cell weeping quietly, hoping nobody would hear him; two other cons on the landing above having sex; a prisoner officer’s slow tread down the corridor as he completed his evening rounds.
The usual sounds of the animals in the human zoo.
He had just finished saying his Hail Mary’s and Our Fathers in front of the crucifix. Father Keaveney would be giving mass on Sunday. He liked the priest: a gentle man with the patience of a saint and the aroma of whisky on his breath.
Surely it wouldn’t be long now. They would have to let him go soon
The radio announcer had reported the disappearance of the girl’s body with an edge of incredulity in his voice, followed by a report hinting strongly at a series of damning mistakes by Manchester Police.
How long would it be before they joined up the dots? How long before they worked out the man in black was responsible, not James Dalbey. How long before they realized that without a body they couldn’t keep him here much longer.
He had checked the law books in the library that morning. Funny – the best-stocked part of the prison library was the law section. But despite the place being full of cons, hardly anybody used it except him.
The books had told him what he needed to know. For assaulting the police he would be up for a six stretch at most. And as he’d already served nine, he should be able to get out straight away.
Today was a good day.
They could charge him with the murders of the other girls, but it wasn’t likely. After ten years, any new witnesses would be difficult to find. And if they had damning evidence they would have charged him in 2008.
Besides, he knew something they didn’t.
He was innocent.
There was no way he would have hurt Alice. He loved her – maybe too much, but he loved her. She was the only one who spoke to him kindly. The only one who helped him with his reading on Sundays. The only one he allowed to touch his hand.
That’s what the police didn’t understand.
He would never have harmed her, not in a million years.
But he had to get out of here. All he had to do now was keep up the pressure. He would call Tony Seagram tomorrow. Get him to demand he be released. The newspapers would be all over the story like a pack of wolves. What better story than the brother of a murder victim calling for the release of her accused killer?
A front page, without a doubt.
One thing he’d learnt about British newspapers was if you gave them the story and the angle, they would print it verbatim, without checking any of the facts. They were the laziest journalists in the world. After all, when you worked for a Beaverbrook or a Murdoch what did truth have to do with anything? The angle was the story, not the facts.
He smiled again, turning it into a loud laugh, which fed on itself. What a joke this world was. Inhabited by a bunch of idiots intent on scrambling to the top, one over the other. Didn’t they realize the game was rigged from the start?
He screamed with laughter.
A bang on the wall from the con next door. ‘Shut the fuck up in there. I’m trying to sleep.’
He placed his hand over his mouth, stifling his laughter.
Today was a good day.
Tomorrow would be even better.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Two hundred miles further north, Ridpath was also lying in bed staring at the ceiling. But in his case, the only noises he could hear were the gentle snores of his wife beside him.
After seeing the Manchester Evening News headline, he had called Margaret Challinor. ‘I presume you’ve seen the papers?’
She sighed on the end of the phone. ‘Tony Seagram pushing his own agenda again.’
‘His parents must have told him and he went straight to the newspapers.’
‘Let’s hope it won’t be picked up by the nationals or TV. If it is, the chief coroner will be sticking his rather long nose in from London. It’s the last thing I need.’
As soon as he got home, he’d switched on BBC News.
‘Hi, Dad, how was your day?’
‘Give me a second, Eve, I just need to check something.’ He turned the sound up.
His daughter mimed a face and mouth with her hand. ‘Hi there, Eve, how was your day? Fine thanks, we’re doing a science project at school,’ she answered herself, letting one hand speak to the other. ‘Do you know the man over there? I think he’s a Mr Ridpath, our dad, but I’m not sure.’
He turned the TV off. ‘Sorry, sweetie, how was the science project?’
‘Pretty easy, except I don’t like touching the frogs.’
‘Have you tried kissing them?’
‘Yeeugh, no!’
‘You mean you haven’t checked if one of them isn’t a prince who’s been turned into a frog by a wicked teacher like your mother?’
‘Not these frogs, Dad. Mr Stevens grew them from tadpoles. There’s as much chance of any of them being a prince as you playing for Manchester United.’
‘Didn’t I ever tell you about the day I had a trial?’
He hadn’t told her or anybody. He’d turned up at the training ground one afternoon with all his kit after being spotted by some scout while playing for his school. He was excited and nervous. This was his big chance to mix with the stars like Beckham and Scholes and Sparky Hughes.
He was met by a man sweeping leaves on the front driveway. The training ground looked deserted.
‘Trials?’ The man stopped sweeping and scratched his head, ‘Ain’t no trials today, lad. That were yesterday. Made a right mess, they did too.’
He had gone home and locked himself in the bathroom, crying as silently as he could. Of course, his mum noticed but she didn’t say a word. She didn’t want him to go in the first place, just like she didn’t want him to go into the police.
In the last nine months, he found he had been thinking about the past a lot, trying to make sense of it all. Trying to understand how his mum had managed after his father had died. Cancer had taken him at the age of thirty-nine, when Ridpath was just five years old. Perhaps the Ridpaths were fated to die young.
‘Dad, what’s up with you? You’ve got that dreamy look about you again. Can we have risotto tonight?’
‘Risotto? Sure. Can you check with your mum?’
His wife was in the bath, something she often did after a day at the school – to wash away the smell of chalk dust, she joked.
‘I’m sure it will be OK.’
He stood up.’ Can you help chop the mushrooms and grate the Parmesan? In their house, he did most of the cooking; his wife could just about boil an egg on a good day. Actually cooking a meal was far beyond her. So they spilt responsibilities. He cooked; she cleaned up after him.
It worked for both of them: she had the clean kitchen she loved, he ate food that was palatable.
He and Eve worked together well as a kitchen brigade. Within no time, the table was set, risotto was oozing across their plates, white wine was poured into glasses, with orange juice for Eve, and Polly had come down smelling as fresh as an English country garden.
‘Looks delicious,’ she said, sitting down at the table.
‘Eve made it.’
‘Don’t fib, Dad, I helped grate the Parmesan.’
‘And chop the mushrooms.’
‘So, a joint effort. I’ll help by finishing my plate,’ his wife said.
And then Ridpath’s mobile rang.
At first he ignored it, desperately pretending it wasn’t ringing as he raised his glass in a toast with Polly.
It stop
ped ringing, only to start again five seconds later.
‘Oh, for God’s sake, answer it. You know you want to.’
He picked it up; it was Mrs Challinor.
‘Turn on your television. Channel 4.’
He walked through to the living room and searched for the remote before finding the right channel. A presenter was standing in front of Alice Seagram’s grave, the freshly turned earth dark against the grey of the gravestone. Ridpath turned up the sound.
‘… Sources tell us the exhumation occurred in the early hours of yesterday morning. The grave was opened and the coffin removed, but no body was found inside the coffin.’
The camera panned right to reveal the elderly gravedigger standing nervously next to the presenter.
‘I have here with me Mr Ned Thomas, the gravedigger who opened the grave. What did you see, Mr Thomas?’
‘Nothing.’
The presenter looked flustered. ‘You did open the grave yesterday morning?’
‘Aye, that was me and my son, Jasper.’
‘So what happened?’
‘Well, we opened her up like, and took the coffin out, but she were empty.’
‘The coffin was empty?’
‘That’s right. Just a couple of breeze blocks in it. Never seen the like before and I’ve been digging here for 40 years, man and boy.’
‘Thank you, Mr Thomas. This is Stuart James for Channel 4 News in Manchester.’
He stared at the television. The shit really had hit the fan.
For the rest of the evening, Polly had tried to chat with him, before finally going to bed. He had joined her after two large glasses of Laphroaig. Now here he was, staring up at the ceiling, thinking about the job, unable to sleep.
Why had a coffin filled with breeze blocks been buried in Alice Seagram’s grave?
What had happened to her body?
Who had stolen it?
Was there any link to James Dalbey and the murders of the Beast of Manchester?
Why had they never found the bodies of his other victims?
The questions swirled round and round in his mind, tumbling and twisting like rubbish caught in a whirlpool.
The last question repeated itself again and again as he finally fell asleep.
Would he ever make sense of it all?
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Lesley had gone over her instructions in her head three times. As usual he had been precise.
Drive to Northenden; turn right down Mill Lane; continue to the end of the road as it bends round to the right; park in the car park of an abandoned pub.
She had followed his instructions to the letter. She was now sitting in the car park in front of the Mersey. On her left a row of Victorian houses was quiet, just one light showing in an upstairs window.
In front of her, the Mersey flowed noisily over a weir, the water cascading and frothing. Over the river stood a metal pedestrian bridge painted bright green.
Check the car park.
Empty. No other cars here. Why would other cars park here at this time of night?
If all clear, open boot and remove body.
She stepped out of her white BMW. The night was overcast, with a fresh breeze ruffling the row of trees along the river. From the left, the haunting hoot of an owl. Behind her, in amongst the Victorian terraces, a baby crying plaintively for its milk. All around her the low drone of constant traffic on the M60, echoing off the buildings. Looming over her like a giant black ogre, the dark, boarded-up windows of the abandoned pub.
Her senses were so alive.
This is what he had told her to enjoy. The hyper-awareness of the world, as if each sense, from smell to taste, to hearing, touch and sound were amplified and reinforced.
She was in control.
She knew everything.
She felt everything.
The metal of the boot lid was icy to her touch. It squeaked as it opened, rocked for a moment on its hinges and then stilled itself.
Lesley looked around. The light in the upstairs window was off now. The far bank of the Mersey, where the golf course was, was dark and deserted, waiting for the thwack of club against ball at first light. In front of her the river rushed past, racing down to Liverpool and the sea.
Take the body out of the boot. Check your surroundings once more. Then walk up the steps to the pedestrian bridge.
The body was wrapped in a moth-eaten blanket. It didn’t look like a body, just a lump beneath the grey wool. A dark stain had appeared at one end where her head should be. Was that her blood? She reached out and touched the stain with her fingertips.
Damp.
She smelt her fingertips and then touched them to her tongue.
Metallic. Rusty. An aftertaste she couldn’t describe, like someone’s soul in liquid form.
She knew what she wanted to do with the next one now. Would he mind if she took the lead? Suggested something new to assuage the boredom? She would see what sort of mood he was in before she broached it. She didn’t want to be punished, not again.
She hefted the body across her shoulder as she did when she was moving her patients from their beds, dead or alive. The girl was lighter than normal. The crack having done its work on her fragile body.
There would be no more crack for this young girl. No more fumbled encounters in steamy cars. No more standing on the mean streets.
No more pain.
Lesley took one last look around the car park – eyes, ears and pores open for anything new, anything different.
All clear.
She strode the three yards up the steps onto the wooden boards of the bridge.
Take her to the middle of the bridge, where the river is deepest, and throw her over the left-hand side towards the weir. Keep hold of the blanket. The police will find her eventually, but not until the water, and the weir, has removed any forensic evidence.
She strode to the centre of the bridge, feeling her footsteps reverberate under the wooden boards, stopping in the centre on the left-hand side.
The river was dark and deep flowing, with the fresh scent of decay in the air. It had rained heavily last night, the water pouring down from the Pennines into the waiting banks of the Mersey.
On her right a sharp scream of death. The owl had swooped down, catching an unwary field mouse in its talons. She could see the black outline of the bird as it flew back to the roost to devour its feast.
Nature red in tooth and claw.
She positioned the body on the metal parapet, checking it was going to fall into the deepest part of the river. She watched as it slowly tumbled into the dark waters, landing with a splash.
The noise was so loud somebody must have heard. She glanced left and right. Her body tensed, waiting for the shout: ‘Oi, you, what you doin’ there?’
But no sound came. Just the river flowing down to the sea beneath her feet.
The body won’t sink, but it will float down over the edge of the weir, buffeted by the current until it finally comes to a halt. It may get caught up on a sandbank or in some reeds, but it doesn’t matter where as long as they find the body. Remember, we want them to find it. Fold up the blanket and place it back in the boot of the car. Drive home, and park in the garage.
Everything so precise, so ordered. She knew exactly what to do.
She began to roll up the blanket but, as she did, a gust of wind raced down the valley, tugging it from her hands. For a moment, it hung in the air like a giant bat before floating away from her into the dark.
What should she do? She thought about clambering down the banks and wading into the river to get it. She stared out into the dark water. Where had it gone?
She had no instructions for this. What should she do?
She looked over the metal parapet. No sign of the body or the blanket. Just the white caps of the water as it struck the metal stanchions of the bridge.
If she didn’t tell him, he would never know. She had another blanket exactly the same – she could just cut he
rself and stain it. He will never know it’s not the right one.
That was it. That’s what she would do.
She rushed down from the bridge into her car, putting it into gear and racing away from the bridge.
He mustn’t find out she had failed him.
He must never know.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The following morning, Ridpath went to the station at nine o’clock. This time it felt like coming home. The sergeant on the front desk recognized him and he was buzzed straight through without waiting.
The office was as busy as ever, every desk occupied in readiness for the meeting. He had picked up a text from Charlie Whitworth when he awoke telling him to come in.
He strode over to the Bubble and knocked on the door.
‘Morning, Ridpath. I see it’s all gone tits up for you.’
His detective chief inspector held up a copy of the Daily Mail. In a spread on page four and five was the bold headline: ‘What Happened to Alice Seagram?’ with a picture of the gravestone, the newly turned earth now greyer than in previous shots. Standing in front of the grave was a grieving man, captioned as Alice’s brother, Tony Seagram. He scanned the article. They’d interviewed the family and the gravediggers, plus there was a whole sidebar with Mr Health and Safety covering his not inconsiderable arse.
‘The coroner is giving a press conference at 2 p.m. today to present an update. She’s visiting the family this morning to reassure them.’
‘You not going?’
Ridpath shook his head. ‘She wants me to keep investigating. Find out what happened.’
‘Lucky you. We’ve got enough problems identifying a body from a day ago never mind one that vanished ten years ago.’ He picked up a sheaf of folders from his desk. ‘Come on, you’re invited to the update on the murder of the swan tattoo girl. In the interests of cooperation with the Coroner’s Office, of course,’ he finished archly.
Ridpath followed him through the office to the incident room. Most of the detectives were already assembled and waiting, a few hurrying into the room as they saw the boss had arrived.