A Poison Tree

by J. E. Mayhew

  “Police, stand where you are!” One of them shouted, then pulled up short. “Bloody hell, Andy? What’s going on?”

  Kinnear recognised the uniformed officer from another case. “Scott?” he said, flashing his warrant card for the benefit of the others who he didn’t recognise. “Call an ambulance. Shotgun wounds. She’s still breathing. But I… couldn’t stop it… she jumped in front of me…” The world spun around Kinnear as the shock took hold.

  “Whoa, steady, Andy, come on, sit down,” Scott said, placing a firm hand on his shoulder.

  Kinnear sat on the bottom step of the stairs. “Just got a call from Blakey. Asked us to come down and check on Gerald Rees. Part of the Becky Thompson investigation. Then this mad woman leapt out on us with a shotgun.”

  “Where is she now?”

  Kinnear jumped up and turned to the two officers he didn’t know. “Check out the back. Be careful. She’s probably long gone but you never know.” He looked down at Cryer, who lay in the recovery position. She gave a little groan and Kinnear’s heart leapt.

  “Ma’am, Kath, Can you hear me?”

  Cryer’s eyes opened a fraction. “You look like shit,” she whispered. Her grin turned into a grimace and she doubled up in pain. “Chest feels like it’s on fire…”

  “Don’t worry Ma’am, you’ll be fine,” Kinnear whispered, partly to convince himself. “Why did you jump in front of me?”

  She gave a strained smile. “I saw it happening, made a call… you’d do the same… we’re a team, right?” She closed her eyes.

  “Where’s that bloody ambulance,” Kinnear hissed. Cryer looked bad, there seemed to be a lot of blood.

  Some pellets had nicked the side of her neck but her body had taken the main brunt of the blast. He caught a glimpse of his own face in the fractured mirror and noticed a fine cut across his cheek. Blood smudged his face. A stray pellet must have grazed it.

  The other officers came back in. “Nothing there. Neighbours say they saw Gerald Rees, the man who lives here being forced into a blue Toyota Yaris at gunpoint by a woman in a hoody. They drove away.”

  “What about the woman? Any more detail?”

  The PC shrugged. “Not much help. Slight, small build. It was dark.”

  “Okay,” Kinnear said. “Get Rees’ Reg number. Notify any cars that might be in the area and warn them, there’s a gun. I’ll contact DCI Blake. Get back onto control and hurry that ambulance!”

  ◆◆◆

  The bedroom could have belonged to a couple of unruly teenagers once; a bunk bed sat in the corner, the top mattress bare but the bottom had a bundle of sheets and a duvet, curled up into a nest. A sea of discarded underwear and clothing lapped against a white dressing table. But there the similarity ended because, instead of posters of popstars, the walls were covered with pictures of Victor and Marcus Hunt, Drucilla, Gerald Rees, along with newspaper clippings of the Becky Thompson case.

  Marcus and Drucilla’s photos had lurid red crosses daubed across them. But there were older photographs up there too and documents typed on yellowing paper. To one side of the photos, at the edge of the wall, a picture of the hospice shop had been pinned up and ‘Burn St Judas. BURN!!!’ scrawled across it and underlined several times. Blake inched through the abandoned clothing, trying not to disturb things; this was a crime scene.

  As he drew closer to the documents on the wall, his foot bumped against something under the clothing. He squatted down and gently drew back the old sweatshirt that lay over the object. It was a shoe box, plain and brown with a number six written in the corner of the lid. With a single, gloved finger, he pulled back the lid, surprised that it slid open so easily.

  Vikki Chinn appeared at the threshold, recognising what Blake had found straight away. “Is it another pair of shoes?” she asked.

  “No,” Blake said, leafing through gently. “Looks like more papers and photographs.” He stood up for a second and took a picture of the box’s location in the room, then picked it up. “Let’s take this downstairs.”

  “What about Mrs Murphy?”

  “Have any uniform arrived yet?”

  “Yes, just but…”

  “There’s not much we can do and we’re better employed here.”

  Chinn hurried off to sort out the ambulance team. Blake knew he should have left the evidence for CSI to process but what he had glimpsed inside had answered all his questions. He took the box to the dining room and placed it on the large table like a priest lowering a holy relic on an altar. He eased open the lid again and began to take out each sheet, searching it for information. Vikki returned and settled beside him, watching as he unearthed the past.

  Fading polaroid photos of a child on a tricycle lay between sheets with numbers, dates and times on them. “It’s a timeline,” Chinn said. “An observational timeline. Look there, ‘11am FJ opens door to check.’ And that one: ‘fifteen minutes max time alone.’ FJ. That must be Fiona James, right? Stephen Bradshaw’s mum.”

  There was more. A photograph of Carly Simmonds taken from Cheshire Life. She was dressed to the nines, smiling whilst nestling in the arms of a beaming Victor Hunt. Her face had been crossed out with two thick, black lines from a permanent marker. Beneath that was a grainy, blurred polaroid photo of Simmonds’ body lying by the canal side. More observation notes of Simmonds, Stephen Bradshaw and Cameron Lock followed. The sheaf of notes on each victim was divided by a large photograph of their face crossed out with a black ‘X.’

  “The photographs act as a cover,” Blake murmured. “Each one is like a book that maps out how the murder was committed. Bloody hell.” He turned over the next sheet and saw the name Josie Lock scribbled in block capitals at the top of the page. There was a map of the house and in the garden, a large ‘x’ dominated the diagram. “They even planned where to kill her.”

  Vikki looked up at Blake. “The two pictures of Marcus and Victor Hunt. They’re from some time ago. Marcus is a little boy on it.”

  “Natalie Murphy didn’t compile this,” Blake said. “She would have been a child herself when this was all kicking off. She must have found this box with the other ones that came in and taken it home when Gerald found Drucilla’s shoes.”

  “All this information could have tipped her over the edge, like you said.”

  “If everyone featured in this box is a potential murder victim, then we have to assume Marcus and Victor were on the hit list,” Blake said. “It seems Natalie picked up where the previous killer left off.”

  Vikki lifted the lid. “Could her mother have been the killer all those years ago? Maybe she knew about Stephen Bradshaw’s link to Hunt. Natalie would be carrying on her work…”

  “If Mrs Murphy was the killer back then, why would she kill Josie Lock? They had no link to Hunt apart from being tenants of his. Plus, I can’t imagine Mrs Murphy engaging the services of Drucilla, right after she’d just exposed her husband as a fraud and an adulterer. Not to mention the allegation that Drucilla actually murdered her husband and made it look like suicide! No, Natalie Murphy is continuing somebody’s work but it isn’t her mother’s.”

  “Drucilla, like you said before?”

  “But she was one of the victims,” Blake said dropping the papers back on the table. “She didn’t strangle herself.”

  “She’s the only one missing from this box, sir,” Vikki Chinn said. “There isn’t even a crossed-out photograph. The picture of her upstairs is a photocopy of an old Newspaper report. There’s nothing here outlining Drucilla’s movements. She’s got an intimate connection with every other death”

  “You’re right,” Blake admitted. “But someone else killed her. Maybe to stop her from killing again or…” Blake looked down and fell silent.

  At the bottom of the box was one last photograph. Sixth-former and love-struck teenager, Gerald Rees in jacket and tie grinned up at them from what was clearly a school photograph. “He was the next victim?” Chinn said.

  Blake pursed his lips. “If he wasn�
�t then, he certainly is now.”

  The phone buzzed, startling Blake and Chinn. “Cryer’s down, sir,” Kinnear said. “A woman with a shotgun jumped us. Kidnapped Rees. Neighbours saw him being hustled off in his car. I’ve alerted all units. We don’t know where he is but somebody’s just reported a break-in at the hospice shop in Bromborough…”

  CHAPTER 42

  Flames had already started dancing in the upper windows of the St Joseph’s Hospice charity shop when Blake arrived. A small gang of teenagers in cloaks and face-paint laughed and pointed at the burning building. More fireworks went off around them. A girl screamed and someone shouted something about Clocky wanting his shoes back.

  After the call from Kinnear, Blake had turned and hurried downstairs to his car, almost chased by Chinn. “Sir, where are you going?”

  “Charity shop,” Blake had called back. “That’s where Natalie first got reacquainted with Rees. She’s furious with the hospice for looking after Hunt too. Remember the picture? St Judas? What better way to punish them than to burn their source of income down?”

  “With Rees in it?” Vikki said, slamming the passenger door behind her as they sped off.

  “Two birds with one stone. I hope I’m wrong. I really do,” Blake had replied but as he slammed on the brakes outside the shop, he could see the fire. “Call the firefighters and an ambulance.” He climbed out of the car and started towards the shop but Vikki ran around and grabbed his arm.

  “Sir, you can’t run into a burning building,” she said. “Rees might not even be in there. You’d be risking your life for nothing.”

  He hesitated but then a silhouette rose up in one of the second-floor windows and head-butted the glass. It was Rees. Blake could just make out something binding his arms. The man would die if he didn’t do something. “Fuck it,” he said, breaking free from Vikki and sprinting to the front of the shop.

  A forlorn, stone planter, relic of a distant Britain-in-Bloom competition, sat forgotten at the side of the shop. Mustering all his strength, Blake heaved the planter above his head and brought it down on the glass of the front door. It splintered, crazing into a thousand white lines. Grunting, he hefted it up again and threw it.

  This time, the glass gave way and the door shattered into glittering fragments all over the shop floor. Cautiously, Blake stepped into the shop. The smell of smoke was strong and the lights had already shorted, meaning he was walking into darkness. Slowly, he edged his way to the back of the shop, trying to remember the layout from his last visit.

  Something hit his legs just below the knee and he realised too late that he’d walked into a coffee table. A sharp pain blossomed on his left side as he fell, clipping the table and falling heavily on the hard floor. Cursing, he clambered to his feet, groping his way further back. Coat hangers rattled as his shoulder brushed a rack of clothes, he kicked over a vacuum cleaner that got in his way and tripped headlong over what looked like a golf bag that lay across the aisle. Finally, he got to the back room.

  A faint, orange light illuminated the room and Blake realised with a sinking stomach that it was the fire upstairs that provided the light. Squeezing round cages of clothes and bins full of cardboard, he began to question the wisdom of coming in; this fire would spread quickly. The smell of smoke grew stronger and he could taste it in the air.

  Keeping low, he hurried around to the back office and the stairs behind it. Smoke pooled around the ceiling here, thick and black. He clambered up the stairwell, his throat raw and his breath laboured. Two flights of steps brought him to a door that stood wide open. The heat blasted from inside and Blake blinked in the orange glare.

  Bales of cloth, old dresses and suits, books and card, blazed all around the room, plastic toys melted and popped and TV monitors from old computers exploded. A thick veil of smoke was slowly descending from above as it filled the room. In the centre of all this, Gerald Rees whirled around on an old computer chair, throwing himself from side to side in a pathetic attempt to break the bonds that tied him to it.

  Coughing and spluttering, Blake rushed forward to unfasten the old belts and ropes that had been used to bind him. Rees grunted at Blake through the pair of stockings that had been stuffed in his mouth.

  “Hold still,” Blake croaked. “I’ll get you free.”

  Gerald Rees shook his head and wriggled harder, his eyes widening as the pitch of his grunts rose to a terrified, animal squealing. Blake frowned and turned just in time to glimpse Natalie Murphy’s snarling face and hear the whoosh of something heavy cut through the air. It sounded like a golf club, he thought, briefly, then stars exploded before his vision and a blinding pain lanced through his head.

  Dazed, Blake staggered from the blow. He watched as Natalie Murphy vanished out of the door. He lurched drunkenly after her and fell to the floor. The smoke thickened. It was on his tongue; reaching into his throat and choking him. Intense heat seared his skin and the bright flames blinded him. All around him the fire roared in his ears.

  Gerald Rees screamed, his hair aflame, clothes flickering with blue fire. Through sheer animal fear, he had managed to drag one arm free, the belts had torn his flesh but he obviously hadn’t cared. Now he beat at his head trying to kill the flames. Shaking himself, Blake dived forward, pulling at the man’s bonds. One came free, then another. He tried not to breath as the smoke and heat tore at his throat. Another belt came loose and a scarf that had partially burnt through snapped. Unconscious, Gerald Rees fell forward, pinning Blake.

  With a grunt, Blake pushed Rees over. In front of them, the inferno blazed. Not many things at the far end of the big room retained their original shape or form now, some furniture was still recognisable, but most things were a blazing, molten mass. Plastics had melted onto the tiled floor and formed burning pools that slithered towards them. Grabbing Rees beneath the armpit like a swimmer rescuing a drowning man, Blake began to slide backwards on across the floor towards the exit, dragging Rees with him.

  The fire chased them, seizing on a rack of wedding dresses by the door and rearing up next to them. Rees groaned but showed no sign of regaining consciousness. With a final effort, Blake scrambled out of the door, kicking it shut, then rolled down the first flight of stairs with Rees, oblivious to the pain inflicted by the hard steps. He found himself pressed up against the back door of the building and reached up to find an opening bar.

  The door swung open as he pulled it down, sending him flying backwards with Rees on top of him. The cold air bathed him and swept into his lungs. Strong hands gripped his arms and suddenly he was weightless as he flew from the blazing building. Blake closed his eyes and let darkness take him.

  ◆◆◆

  Two nurses and a volunteer huddled over a phone in the corridor outside Victor Hunt’s private room, talking animatedly but keeping their voices hushed so as not to disturb anyone. Hunt was a man who knew the value of being alert. It had served him very well during his army days and even when he went into business, he’d found it wise to constantly review his surrounding for any imminent threats. Although painkillers and sedatives coursed through his veins these days dulling the ever-present pain, he never let his guard down. He could hear them saying something about a fire at the charity shop in Bromborough. Someone on social media had said there were people in there. There were police cars and ambulances, a fire engine, the lot. He knew it was time. She was coming. But he was ready.

  CHAPTER 43

  The sway and rattle of the ambulance drilled through Will Blake’s head. A plastic mask blasted cool oxygen through him but he could still smell and taste the smoke. His throat felt like it had been sandpapered and his lungs burned every time he breathed in. Every muscle in his body ached and sharp pain stabbed at his ribs. He tried to sit up but the paramedic eased on his shoulder, forcing him back onto the trolley.

  “Steady, mate, you’ve had a rough time,” the paramedic said. “Just take it easy. You saved that guy’s life. You’ve earned a rest.”

  Blake tried to s
ay something but the paramedic just frowned and shook his head. Blake pulled the mask off. “I have to go to the hospice,” he croaked.

  The paramedic gave a confused laugh. “No, you’ll be fine. You don’t need a hospice just yet, mate.” He tried to put the mask back to Blake’s face but Blake slapped him away.

  “No. You don’t understand,” Blake said, the effort of talking making him breathless. “The man I saved was tied up. The building set alight to kill him. The woman who did it is on her way to the hospice to kill another man there. I have to stop her.”

  The paramedic looked alarmed and confused. He must have known Blake was a police officer but his duty was to get Blake to hospital. “Should I get the driver to radio control? They could send some officers to the hospice.”

  “Yes, do that but tell your mate to drive there too…”

  “I dunno. You’re in a bad state…”

  “Just do it,” Blake snapped. “Or I’ll have you charged with obstruction.” The chances of that happening were nil but the paramedic didn’t know.

  “Alright, keep calm,” the paramedic said, his eyes widening. He knocked on the window that linked the driver’s cab and the back of the van. “Oy, Kieran. Change of plan. We’re going to St Joseph’s.”

  “What? The Hospice? What for?” The driver said.

  “Never mind that, just do it. Police business,” the paramedic said. He eyed Blake. “Get the lights on too, put yer foot down.”

  The siren wailed and the whole ambulance rattled as they rumbled along the road. Blake gripped the sides of the trolley he lay on, feeling his innards swirl around as they hurtled around corners, braked suddenly and swerved around something. “Is it far?” he asked, his voice coming out as a low rasp.

  “The hospice is on the way to the hospital anyway, detective,” the paramedic said, gripping the sides of his seat. “Should be any minute now.” He’d barely finished his words when the ambulance came to a sudden halt. Blake closed his eyes and swallowed his stomach back down. He eased himself up off the trolley, wincing with every electric stab of pain.