A Poison Tree

by J. E. Mayhew

  Cryer gave a sigh and jumped up. “I’m going to the canal.” She bundled all the papers and photos into the file and tucked it under her arm. “To have a look at the murder scene.”

  “Take some bread, Ma’am,” Kinnear called after her.

  “What?”

  “You may as well feed the ducks while you’re there.”

  ◆◆◆

  Kath Cryer sighed, glad to be out of the office and away from Kinnear. Something about him made her skin crawl. He had a kind of chubby face and often the stubble that sprouted from the pale skin made her shudder. It had nothing to do with him being gay. She wasn’t homophobic but he should just keep it to himself. She wouldn’t be surprised if he went running to Blake about her shoe comment. Ah well, let him. It was only a bit of fun. If he couldn’t see that, well it was his problem.

  Cryer focused on the case and tried to imagine the couple. Both young and stylishly dressed, attending parties and events like the Grand National. She got the impression from the rather scant case notes that Simmonds blurred the line between charging her clients for sex and expecting to be ‘treated well.’ That could be confusing for a young man.

  Cryer imagined how her boyfriend, Theo would react if she told him he couldn’t have it tonight because the restaurant he took her to wasn’t classy enough. She smirked. Maybe she should try it. The look on his face would be hilarious. He’d probably sulk though, she thought, which left her frowning for a second. Yeah. He'd sulk for bloody hours.

  It was possible that David Collins saw his relationship with Carly Simmonds as something more than just client and call-girl. Maybe he got jealous of her other clients.

  Cryer parked in the racecourse and, clutching some of the scene of crime photographs, made her way down to the canal. Shoppers and a few locals bustled along the streets. Unlike the centre and the Rows, where shops stood in two storeys and sported blackened Tudor timber frames, this part of Chester was more modern.

  On an October Tuesday morning, the towpath along the Shropshire Union canal was empty apart from a solitary dog walker. Kath Cryer stood with the map and the photographs, trying to get a fix on exactly where the body was found. A bridge crossed the canal behind her. Trees lined the towpath and, although losing their leaves, covered any real view from the road above. Behind them, the gable ends of buildings and the city walls made escape from the canal impossible.

  Cryer frowned and looked up and down the towpath. There wasn’t a place for an assailant to hide. Collins hadn’t really said how he had killed her. It was assumed he’d lay in wait for her, but where? The towpath ended when it came to the bridge. She looked at the photograph of Carly’s prone body lying on the ground, one arm dangling over the path’s edge, her legs splayed and the dress ridden up revealing a glimpse of stocking top. No shoes. Her hair and face were matted with blood from the hammer wound in the back of her head. The place she lay offered no cover for a would-be assailant and it was obvious from the photographs that little had changed on this narrow towpath in forty years, probably more.

  Carly Simmonds was struck from behind. If David Collins had appeared walking along the path, she would have stopped and have been facing him. So did Collins follow her down here and sneak up on her? That’s possible. The whole place didn’t seem to be Carly Simmonds’ style. She wasn’t a street worker; her work was conducted in the classiest wine bars, the quietest pubs and plushest hotel rooms of Chester and Liverpool. She didn’t take punters down onto a canal towpath for a quickie.

  “Then what brought you down here?” Cryer muttered at the photograph. Why would you make your way down to this dark towpath at night. Information? “Information,” she said aloud and suddenly realised how alone and isolated she was. Not that she felt threatened; there was nobody about. Besides, she could handle herself; any bloke who had a go at her would get the shock of his life. But dwelling on the murder and looking at the pictures of Carly’s battered body right where it took place, left her feeling spooked and vulnerable. Carly must have been lured down here. Had Collins told her to meet him? Or had someone else?

  She went back to the car and pulled the file out of the boot, spreading it out on the back seat. The contents of Simmonds handbag were listed. It must have been a small bag; it contained a condom, a lipstick, a small bottle of perfume and a tampon. Cryer felt a stab of sympathy for the woman. To be reduced to lists of scant belongings, injuries, wounds and toxicology reports. To become a piece of paper in a file for someone to pore over decades later. Just because some man couldn’t keep his shit together. “Get a grip, Kath,” she muttered to herself. “There must be something here.”

  She picked up a blurred photograph paperclipped to a sheet of paper. Collins and Simmonds sat in an open-topped Mercedes, beaming, all smiles and sunglasses like a pair of Hollywood movie stars. She turned it over and saw something scrawled on the back. ‘September 1980 – suspects together, Southport - Drucilla Hunt and Mr Rees.’

  Something about the writing made her uneasy. Kids spying on adults, informing on them. It just seemed wrong. But there was something else, one of those ‘gut’ things and Kath couldn’t pin it down. A list on the paper sheet stuck to the photo stared her in the face. But one name stood out - ‘Sister. Carol Simmonds…’ Cryer looked at the address on the list. If Carly Simmonds had a living relative and still lived at that address, it was worth a try.

  CHAPTER 31

  Something about the conversation with Kath Cryer had thrown Andrew Kinnear. The way she had looked at him combined with her assertion that all men loved stilettos. It felt like a challenge or an accusation. Especially after her previous comments about paedophiles at the meeting on Friday. That gross old detective, Leech, had rattled him. He didn’t hide his sexuality but he didn’t shout it from the rooftops, either. It was nobody’s business as far as he was concerned but every now and then, people made it their business. He could challenge open prejudice.

  It was those little comments like the one Kath had just made that really got to him. And the looks exchanged between people. Or a raised eyebrow. They were traps to fall into. He could shrug them off, but they would sit there and fester, joining the hundreds of other, tiny slights that weighed him down. He could challenge it. Go to Blake and say, ‘DI Cryer just looked at me and said that all men like stilettos.’ How would that sound? Pathetic. Over-sensitive.

  Kinnear ground his teeth and stared down at the Stephen Bradshaw file. He’d spent a fruitless morning trying to track Marcus Hunt’s movements and come up with nothing. Hunt’s car gave away nothing, his wallet had very little in it. In the end, he’d decided to have a look at the boy’s file to see if anything there leapt out at him.

  “Focus,” he muttered to himself. Maybe he’d have a quiet word with Kath later. That might sort it. He turned a few pages without looking at them. Of course, she might take it the wrong way. “Focus, dammit.” He picked up one of the sandals and looked at the thick, black letters inside. Leech had suspected that a serial killer was on the loose. The shoes could certainly be trophies. But to be so disparate; a prostitute in stilettos, a little kid and an old lady. Didn’t serial killers have a typical victim? Didn’t they follow patterns? The killer took shoes or footwear. Was that enough? But if there was a serial killer and Gary Archer didn’t kill Drucilla, then why wasn’t he used to cover up the other deaths?

  Stephen Bradshaw had vanished from the front of his house and turned up dead a few days later, strangled and naked but not sexually abused in any way. Then soon after that, Cameron Lock was arrested with Stephen’s clothes in his backpack. Case closed. The investigation had been haphazard. A number of local perverts were rounded up but they all had alibis. A wider search had been suggested but just at that point, Lock had been caught by Drucilla Hunt, arrested and the evidence found. All very convenient. Too convenient, bearing in mind that Leech was the investigating officer. Kinnear sat back.

  “Okay,” he muttered to himself. “Reasons why Cameron Lock didn’t kill Stephen Bradsh
aw.” For a start, he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box; he had learning difficulties which would make it hard for him to plan and execute an abduction without getting spotted or caught. “Plus, plus, plus,” Kinnear muttered, flicking through the pathology report. “No sex.”

  If anyone had been listening, they would have thought Kinnear had lost it. But it was true. Lock committed sexual assaults or exposed himself. All the crimes were directed at girls. Not small boys. Why didn’t Cameron Lock abduct a girl? Surely, if he’d been responsible for taking Stephen, there would have been a sexual motive.

  A movement behind him, made Kinnear turn. Manikas stood looming over his shoulder. “Jeez, Alex, you gave me a start.”

  “Fiona James,” Manikas said, his eyes wide.

  “What about her?”

  “She was Stephen Bradshaw’s mother.”

  CHAPTER 32

  The house was a ruin. A few remaining roof tiles clung to the rotting roof beams. Steel shutters covered the windows and a sign warned of danger on each one of them. The garden and the hedge surrounding it were so overgrown that DS Chinn had trouble seeing beyond it at first. It was clear that nobody lived at 35 Crabtree Lane, Bromborough and hadn’t for a very long time.

  Vikki Chinn tried the gate and it scraped open. Brambles and bushes choked the path to the front door and Chinn began to wonder at the wisdom of coming out here. She’d seen Cryer go and decided that a breath of fresh air might clear her own head, too. The Incident Room had felt stuffy and she couldn’t think freely with Kinnear puffing and sighing over his files. Looking at the information board was like staring at a complex puzzle that she had no chance of solving. But now, stood in this tangle of weeds and briar, she didn’t feel any better.

  Struggling her way round the back of the house, Chinn found herself in waist-high grass, standing at the spot where Josie Lock was killed. She opened the file and scanned the photographs. The old woman’s long, white hair had splayed across the dark lawn. She lay with one arm stretched forward, the other back, one leg bent and the other straight. Almost as if she was pretending to swim. A huge rose of blood blossomed on her back and her nightie tangled around her legs. Chinn shuddered and the trees hissed in the cold October wind.

  She turned and looked at the property. The back door had been kicked in; the steel shuttering only as strong as the rotten wooden frame that supported it. Still attached on one bottom corner, it hung inwards, inviting her. Vikki didn’t have a flashlight but she poked her head through the door and wrinkled her nose at the stink of damp and stale urine. Clearly, the place was used as a drinking den, judging by the smell and the number of bottles and crushed cans lying around. Other stuff too, she thought, kicking at an empty syringe with the tip of her shoe. As her eyes became accustomed to the dark, Chinn could see that she was peering into what had once been the kitchen. The cooker and fridge had long gone but she could see a steel sink and some cupboards. Vinyl wallpaper hung in strips and the ceiling paint blistered. Beyond that a wall of darkness blocked any view into what would have been the hall.

  Something moved behind Vikki and she whirled on her heel and, instinctively, raised a clenched fist. A stubble-face man with thin, lank hair gave a cry and staggered back. He wore a green shooting jacket with padded shoulders and held a walking stick in his hand.

  “What’re you playing at?” Vikki snapped, grabbing the stick from the man’s grasp.

  The man raised his hands to cover his face. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought you were one of those flippin’ kids who’ve been bunking off school and drinking down here. Causing trouble.”

  “I’m Detective Sergeant Chinn. Merseyside Police. I was looking around the property when you tried to assault me. Can I have your name please, sir?”

  The man lowered his hands. And swallowed hard. Vikki could see him properly now; a middle-aged man, filling out his jacket, a scarf digging into his fat neck. “No! I mean. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you. My name is Martin. Martin Johnson. I-I live across the road. I was only trying to frighten those little beggars off… I didn’t mean…”

  “I think in future, you’d be better off calling the police, Mr Johnson. If you hurt one of them, you could end up in serious trouble.”

  Johnson seemed to regain his composure at this advice. “I do ring the police, all the time. They never come. I’ve lived in this road man and boy. There was a time when you’d see a bobby walking around here but not any more…”

  Chinn shrugged. “I can’t help you there,” she said. “Tell me about the house.”

  Johnson looked up at the roof. “This old place? When I was a kid, an old lady lived here and her son. But he went to prison and she was murdered right here in this garden.”

  Vikki didn’t appreciate the relish with which Johnson said that. “You mean Cameron and Josie Lock?” she said.

  “Yeah,” Johnson said. “You know about it? Horrible business, really. I was a teenager at the time…”

  “You must’ve known Cameron Lock then?”

  Johnson shrugged. “A little bit. He went to a special school. Didn’t really hang around with us. Weird kid. Used to strip off all the time. Looking back now, I think he might have been abused himself or something, the way he went on about sex but you don’t think that when you’re a kid. We just used to think it was funny.”

  “And what about his mother?”

  “She was strange too. My mum always said to stay away from her. Never said why, though. She would stare at us through the hedge when we walked past. In fact, we always ran past the house unless it was for a dare. You’d see her walking up to the shops with her shopping trolley each morning. She looked more like Cameron’s gran than his mum.”

  “And then someone killed her,” Vikki said.

  Johnson nodded. “They never found anyone did they? I thought that Drucilla Hunt would solve it…”

  “You knew her?”

  “Nah. But we were all big fans. She was a bit of a pin up of mine, to be honest. Teenage boy, you know how it is…”

  “Right,” Vikki said and looked back at the house, trying not to think about a teenage Mr Johnson’s Drucilla fantasies.

  “I saw her round here a few times though. Especially after the murder. That’s why I thought she must have been investigating.”

  “Really? She came to the house after the murder?”

  Johnson smiled. “Yeah. She was with that lad who always hung around her. Can’t remember his name…”

  “Gerald Rees?”

  “That’s him. They broke into the house. I watched them from my bedroom window. I remember it really well because I nearly went down and offered to help.” Johnson’s baggy face fell. “But I chickened out.”

  “So, shortly after the murder, you saw Drucilla Hunt and Gerald Rees break into Josie Lock’s house? Didn’t you think to call the police?”

  Johnson’s brow creased. “Why would I do that? They were on the side of the police, weren’t they? They caught Cameron Lock. Anyway, it was just the Drucilla girl who went in. Rees kept lookout…” He blinked as if realising something.

  Chinn shook her head. “Yes sir,” she said. “Why would Rees need to keep lookout if they were doing something legitimate?”

  “But they were around the house a lot and I just thought with her dad owning the properties, it was okay…”

  “Victor Hunt owns the house?” Chinn said.

  Johnson nodded. “Yes. All of the houses in this road belong to the Hunts. They’ve been our landlords for as long as I can remember.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Although, she died in Chester, it turned out that Carly Simmonds grew up in Bebington on the Wirral. Francis Avenue was a small cul-de-sac behind the Oval sportsground. Kath had conflicting feelings about the Oval. Memories of swimming lessons that nearly drowned her vied with those of holding gymnastics trophies and medals at numerous competitions. That was a long time ago, now, though, and adult life, the job, years of desk work and driving around meant t
hat she was constantly battling with weight.

  Francis Avenue was a curious mixture of old Victorian villas with arched windows and pointed gables, interspersed with newly-built infill houses. The Simmonds house was one of the old ones; a tall, three storey semi with a narrow front door and a bay front window. The other half of the house, next door, had been rendered and whitewashed but Simmons’ place remained dark brick. The front garden had been replaced with a concrete hard-standing for cars but none were parked there now.

  Kath parked up and knocked on the shiny-black front door. Silence. Then a curtain in the front window twitched and she glimpsed a spray of blue-rinse hair and a cautious eye. A few moments later, the chain rattled on the door and it opened a crack. An old lady peered out, scanning Kath up and down. “Can I help you?” she said.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, my name is DI Kath Cryer Merseyside Police. I’m looking for Carol Simmonds,” Kath said, showing her warrant card.

  The woman paused for a little while. “What’s it about?”

  “Nothing to worry about. I just wanted to ask her a few questions about her sister Carly. I’m just reviewing the case and want to get some facts straight in my head.”

  “Reviewing the case?” The old woman said and closed the door. Kath could hear the rattling of the chain and then the door swung open again. “I’m Mrs Simmonds, Carly and Carol’s mother. You’d better come in.”

  Kath followed Mrs Simmonds as she shuffled her way back to the front room of the house, using a Zimmer frame. The old woman settled herself into an armchair that was surrounded by small tables piled with magazines, knitting and an extraordinary number of television controllers.

  The woman was very old. Possibly in her nineties. Thin veins snaked under her paper-white skin and deep wrinkles lined her face. But those eyes were sharp and keen and her hair, although thin, was immaculately coiffured. She looked up at Kath. “Now, love,” she said, breathlessly. “What do you want to know?”