A Poison Tree

by J. E. Mayhew

“Yes sir.”

  “Just don’t… don’t fly off the handle like that again. Next time, someone might make a complaint and then where would your career be?”

  Kinnear reddened. “Yes, sir, sorry, sir.”

  Blake looked at Kinnear. “If you’ve got a problem with anything like that. Any kind of abuse from anyone, Andrew, you know I’ll always listen. Okay?”

  Kinnear looked out of the window. “Thanks, sir. I will,” he said.

  Blake knew his words sounded trite, anything he said would seem superficial, but he meant it. He was hopeful that things were changing but he knew that a lot of the old attitudes in the force had slipped underground; had become a sidelong glance rather than an open insult. Or embarrassing, personal questions disguised as an ‘attempt to understand.’ Blake related everything that Leech had told him and Kinnear listened in silence.

  “If there was someone killing random people and taking their shoes for trophies, sir, they’d be pretty old now, surely. Even someone in their twenties then would be in their sixties now. Why would they start up again? From what I’ve read about serial killers, they aren’t usually older men.”

  Blake nodded. “True. It could be a copycat. Or it could be that we’re just allowing ourselves to be completely distracted by these shoes and there’s a simpler explanation.”

  “Maybe someone just stole the shoes thinking the girl was blind drunk or something,” Kinnear said, not even convincing himself. “There’s still the chance that someone attacked her for the shoes and didn’t mean to kill her. That make and design of shoe from the eighties is up on eBay for over a hundred quid.”

  “It’s possible,” Blake said. “We need to build a better picture of Rebecca, her friends and lifestyle. Mum and dad seem to think she’s an angel but Gavin wasn’t so complimentary and he’s meant to be her friend.”

  “So, forgive me, sir, but why are we charging off to Victor Hunt’s house then?”

  Blake shrugged. “No stone unturned, I suppose. You never know. There was something about the haunted look in Leech’s eye that convinced me that the death of Drucilla is tangled up with this one in some way.”

  They drove through Heswall and Blake wondered aloud how one small town could support so many cafes and coffee shops. Soon the road widened into dual carriageway and Blake found himself back in murder territory.

  Victor Hunt’s house stood on an easily missed lane close to Raby Mere. Last century, the mere had been an attraction for Wirral people, with a tearoom, rowing boats and swings. Even as a child, Blake could just remember some swings and people still brought their kids down to feed the ducks. It wasn’t that far from Rory Evans’ place in terms of distance but in every other way, it was in another world. Woodland surrounded the mere and the lanes here became narrow and twisting. Two solid stone pillars, either side of a dark path and an old wooden sign bearing the name 'The Priest House' were the only evidence of a dwelling from the road. A thick curtain of trees skirted the property and the tyres of Blake’s car crunched on deep gravel as they approached the house itself.

  The sandstone manor house took a little while to reveal itself as the drive twisted around several bends and the trees continued to obscure the view. Blake’s first impression was of antiquity. This house had been down here for many hundreds of years, of that he was sure. It looked like a miniature castle, with gothic windows and ornate chimney stacks. He counted at least eight upper windows. His second impression was that the whole place had seen better days. The treeline gave way to a lawn that now looked mossy and unkept. There were a few slipped tiles on the roof and ivy engulfed much of the house. They drove past a tennis court, the net ripped and sagging.

  “Needs a bit of TLC,” Kinnear said.

  Blake nodded. “Still quite impressive, all the same.”

  They parked their car outside the front door, a huge solid oak affair studded with black iron rivets. “The place doesn’t even look lived in,” Blake said, peering in through the grimy windows. “The floors are bare inside. No carpets or furniture at all.”

  At that moment, an engine roared from the road. Blake could see headlights shining through the trees and then a bottle green Range Rover burst round the corner, kicking up gravel. It headed straight for Kinnear and Blake leapt forward pushing him out of the way as the car skidded to a halt inches away from them.

  The door swung open and a grim-faced man with dark hair and a khaki jacket jumped out, shotgun in hand. “What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing here?”

  Blake pulled his warrant card from his pocket and held it aloft. “DCI Blake, Merseyside Police. Would you mind putting that gun down before I arrest you for any number of offences including threatening behaviour, dangerous driving and assaulting a police officer?”

  The man stared for a second before lowering the shotgun, breaking it and resting it in the crook of his arm. He struck Blake as a military man, someone used to giving orders rather than taking them. His black hair was cut short but not squaddie short. He was craggy-looking but handsome. A slight scar interrupted his right eyebrow but only served to enhance the tough-guy appearance. He stood straight and wasn’t cowed by the fact that he and Kinnear were police officers. “What are you doing on my property, then?” the man said.

  Blake raised his eyebrows. “D’you mind telling me your name, sir?”

  “Marcus Hunt,” he said, brusquely.

  “And could you tell me what you’re doing here?”

  “I live here! Well, I did. I’ve just had the house cleared.”

  “I’m sorry, sir, you’ve lost me,” Blake said. “I was under the impression that this was the residence of Victor Hunt. I take it you’re his son.”

  Hunt frowned. “Well of course I am. My father is dying. He’s in a hospice. Cancer. Won’t be long now. Once the old man’s gone, the house can go up for sale.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, sir,” Blake said. “About your father, I mean. Would he be able to answer a few questions do you think or is he too ill?”

  “That wily old bastard? Still sharp as a pin, I can tell you,” Hunt muttered. His frown grew deeper. “What’s all this about, anyway?”

  “I’m afraid I can’t go into details, sir,” he said. “Just wanted to ask your father about something. I’d advise you to drive more carefully in future, even on your own land. If you could pop into your local station with your gun licence in the next ten days, we can forget the whole incident. Good day, sir.”

  Blake climbed back into the car along with a bewildered Kinnear. “What was all that gun licence malarkey, sir?” he stammered as they drove off.

  “Just making the stuck-up divvy’s life a bit difficult,” Blake said, smirking. “Well that was a wasted journey…”

  Before Kinnear could answer, Blake’s mobile trilled. “Manikas? He has? Bring him in. Arrest him if you have to but bring him in. Mr Rees has more than a few questions to answer.”

  ◆◆◆

  Alex Manikas stepped out of the car, closing the door as silently as possible. Rees was hurrying down the road with his arm looped through a carrier bag. In the time it had taken Manikas to call Blake and get out of the car, the distance between him and the suspect had opened up. Putting his hands in his pockets, Manikas began a casual stroll in the same direction as Rees but on the other side of the road. He didn’t want to spook Rees and precipitate a chase. For all he knew the man might have a heart condition or might run into traffic. Once he was closer, he could call Rees’ name and reassure him.

  Rees glanced over his shoulder and looked straight at Manikas then swung his head forward and continued walking. Manikas swore under his breath and scurried forward a little in a comical half walk-half run. For a moment, he remembered a game they played at primary school called Grandmother’s footsteps. One person stood in the front of the hall and the rest of the group had to sneak up on them. Manikas smiled at the memory as Rees glanced round a second time. Maybe it was the smile or maybe the Detective Constable’s suit just
screamed policeman but suddenly Rees was running.

  “Oh well,” Manikas muttered and sprinted after him.

  CHAPTER 16

  It was a beautiful black eye, everyone agreed. It squeezed Detective Constable Manikas’ right lid shut almost completely and the halo of red, purples and blues around it reminded Blake of a thunder cloud. Cryer pouted and made sickening clucks of sympathy as she pressed a bag of ice against his eye.

  “All right, Cryer,” Blake said. “Take it easy. He was hit by a pair of boots not punched in the face by a street-fighter.”

  Vikki Chinn smirked at the rebuke but then saw that Cryer was watching her and straightened her face.

  “It hurt all the same, sir,” Manikas said, taking control of the ice pack. Manikas had given chase when Rees made a break for it and, in a panic, Rees had thrown the carrier bag he was carrying. The shoes inside it flew out and caught Manikas in the face. Rees had nearly escaped too but an attack of cramp brought him down before he’d run more than twenty yards. Manikas had the foresight to arrest him for assault rather than just invite him to the station to help with their enquiries.

  “Where is he now, sir?” Manikas asked.

  “Talking to his solicitor,” Blake said. “In private.”

  Cryer sat down at her desk and pulled out a file. “So he’s in there talking about the arrest for assault,” she said. “Do you think he’ll mention that we also want to talk to him about him having a murdered girl’s boots in his carrier bag?”

  “He’ll have to,” Blake said. “But to be honest, I think his solicitor is out of his depth. Rees only called him because he’d handled his parents' will.”

  Gareth Cornell, the solicitor, finally announced that Rees was ready to talk to them. Blake took Chinn into the room with him. A female officer might seem less threatening, but he knew Chinn could be hard as nails when required. Cryer could too but Blake preferred Chinn’s quiet intensity beside him when he was questioning. Cryer might butt in and he didn’t want to risk having his questioning thrown off course.

  Gerald Rees looked as though he hadn’t slept in days. He was pale and a healthy crop of stubble spread across his pudgy face. He wore a tweed jacket and a white shirt with a grimy collar. His grey hair hung in lank ringlets around his temples, the baldness at the top making him look like a bewildered Roman emperor.

  Blake switched on the recorder and read Gerald Rees the caution. He also introduced himself and DS Chinn. Confused by the formality and strangeness of the place, Rees kept smiling and nodding. Sweat beaded his brow.

  “Can you tell me, Gerald,” Blake began. “Why did you run away from DC Manikas when he approached you today?”

  “I didn’t know he was a policeman, did I?” Rees said, trying to keep his voice steady. “He just started following me…”

  “How do you know he was following you?”

  Rees shrugged. “I don’t know. He kept looking at me.”

  “Are you often worried that people are following you, Mr Rees?” Blake said, running the ‘Mister’ into his surname so it sounded like ‘mysteries.’

  Gerald Rees blinked and frowned at Blake. “No. No of course not.”

  DS Chinn smiled. “He is quite imposing, DC Manikas. I could see how he might make you nervous,” she said. “Where were you going?”

  “To get ri…” Rees glanced over to his solicitor. “To get a bottle of wine. It’s Friday. It’s been a busy week…”

  “You work at the charity shop in Bromborough,” Blake said. “A volunteer.”

  “Yes, that’s right…”

  Blake sat back in his chair. “But you went home sick on Tuesday,” he said. “So how has it been a busy week?”

  Rees looked to Cornell again. “No comment.”

  “How come you were in possession of a pair of shoes that had been bought by Rebecca Thompson on Wednesday?”

  “No comment,” Rees said.

  “A few hours after she bought them, Rebecca Thompson was strangled to death,” Blake continued. “And those shoes went missing.”

  “N-no comment.”

  “Did you take them off her feet after you strangled her, Mister Rees? I thought you were a crime fighter in your youth?”

  Cornell looked confused at the line of questioning.

  “No Comment!”

  “Did you recognise the trainers, Mister Rees? From your illustrious past?” Blake turned to his colleague. “Did you know, DS Chinn, this fella used to solve murders and all sorts with his girlfriend Drucilla Hunt. Was that it, Gerald? Did you see the boots and want them back?”

  “Do you think he killed the girl to get the shoes back?” Chinn said, a brilliantly affected look of shock on her face. “Imagine that, guv, strangling a girl with her whole life ahead of her just for a pair of boots.”

  “I didn’t kill her!” Gerald yelled, slamming his fist on the table.

  “DCI Blake, I think you’re pushing my client too hard,” Cornell said. He turned to Rees. “You’re not obliged to say anything. I strongly recommend that you do not comment.”

  “It’s all right,” Rees said. “I did see her that night. She had the shoes on. They used to be Drucilla’s, you see. I just wanted them back. I offered her money for them but she mistook that for me making… unseemly advances to her. She ran off. So I chased after her but she was too fast for me and I lost her.”

  “So where did you get those boots?” Blake said.

  “I kept searching for her. Then I found her in the woods. I knew she was dead but I didn’t kill her. I swear I didn’t. I took the boots and ran.”

  Chinn stared at him. “You just dragged them off a dead girl’s feet and ran? You didn’t call the police or an ambulance?”

  Rees licked his lips and glanced over at Cornell. “No comment,” he said.

  “What is it about those shoes that makes them so important, Gerald?” Blake said, quietly.

  “No comment.”

  “If they’re that special, then maybe they’re important enough to kill for.”

  “I didn’t kill her,” Rees said. “She was dead when I found her.”

  “And if they belonged to Drucilla Hunt,” Chinn said, “then why do they have Cameron Lock’s name written inside them?”

  “I don’t know,” Rees said. He shook his head. “I want to go home now.”

  “I’m afraid we decide when you can go home, Mr Rees,” Blake said, leaning across the table. “If we decide to charge you with murder, you mightn’t be going home for a very long time. Can you do me a favour? Can you roll your sleeves up, please?”

  “Is this strictly necessary?” Cornell said, half rising as if he was going to wrestle Blake to the ground but then sitting down again.

  “Mr Rees doesn’t have to do it,” Blake said. “I’m asking as a favour.”

  Rees looked puzzled. “Very well,” he said, taking his jacket off and rolling up his shirt sleeves. Blake scanned the man’s pale, freckly forearms. They were smooth as alabaster. Not a mark on them. The killer would have gouges and scratch marks up and down his arms, according to forensics.

  “Thank you,” Blake said. He drew a long breath and then exhaled slowly as he regarded Gerald Rees. Rees was a broken man but what weighed him down was more than the toll of the last few days. “If I said I thought you were telling the truth, would you explain why you took them?”

  Rees paused, some kind of inner battle playing itself out. “No comment,” he said at last, his voice flat and dull.

  “Very well,” Blake said, sighing again. “Gerald Rees, I’m arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Rebecca Thompson. You do not have to say anything. But, it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.”

  “Wh-what are you doing? You just said that you thought I didn’t kill her. You can’t do this!”

  “I can, Gerald and I just have. I’m afraid your Friday night glass of red will have to wait,” Blake
said. “Mine on the other hand, is calling to me. DS Chinn will go through the charge sheet with you and we’ll organise for swabs to be taken etc. You look like you’ve been wearing the same clothes all week. We need to examine those too.” Blake stood up and turned to leave. “I’ll speak to you soon. Maybe a night of reflection in the cells will focus your mind.”

  ◆◆◆

  It was late when Blake finally got back to Rock Lodge. As he stood there in the dark hallway of his mother’s home, Blake almost envied Rees his night in the cells. The cells would be busy, and people would be talking or even shouting. Drunks would be kicking at the steel doors. Guards would be yelling for them to calm down. The chaos of the custody suite would be preferable to the resentful silence of Blake’s mother’s house. A house he now occupied; a prodigal squatter with nowhere else to go.

  It had been a similar Friday night two years ago that Blake had come home to the same darkness and emptiness. The front door had been ajar. Not wide open so that you could see down the hall, but just enough to elicit a nervous intake of breath. Just enough to tell him that all was not right. He hadn’t really lived in the last two years; he hadn’t really lived for a good few before that, if he was being honest. But in the last two, he’d become a ghost in his mother’s house. Just waiting for something that would never happen. The cold River flowed only a few yards from his front door and it had been a high tide that night.

  He sighed and flicked the light on. Serafina yowled and scurried past him out of the front door, pausing only to bat at his trousers with her paw. “Tomorrow,” Blake muttered, “I’m making that call.”

  Entering the kitchen, Blake was halted by a memory of his mother bending down and pouring dry cat food into Serafina’s bowl. Her white hair was permed into a neat candyfloss ball and the kitchen light glinted on her thick glasses. She stooped, her knees bent as she emptied the whole packet into and then over the bowl, frozen like a statue. “I think you’ve spilt some there, Mum,” Blake had said, gently taking the box from her thin fingers. “Let me tidy up.”