The only thing he did take credit for: putting an undercover officer inside to get Noel Cunningham to give up the locations of his remaining victims.
That had the potential to be an ever bigger mess than the Foley debacle. So when DCI Harmer of Devon and Cornwall police corroborated Tom Killgannon’s story, especially in light of the conspiratorial behaviour of DC Blake and the inmate Barry Foxton, not to mention hiring the hit man Dan Jameson, he was more than happy to take credit for it. The whole thing was an unmitigated disaster. And he knew he was lucky to still have his job. However he also knew that what had happened since, Cunningham finding the locations of his victims, made up for a lot of that.
And now he was here. Keeping his part of the bargain. Cunningham had asked to see his terminally ill mother in return for giving the locations of the remaining bodies. And Paul Shelley was a man of his word.
As he was waiting, the car drew up. Like sharks scenting blood, the media knew this was the vehicle and gathered round it, smothering it in their bid to be the first to get a photo, a quote, a piece of moving footage. The police officers present held them back, allowed the car to pull up, Cunningham to get out.
He looked terrified when he saw all the cameras, tried to get back into the car. His police escort ensured that didn’t happen.
He would look very different in the papers. They had been using the same photo of him for years, the baby-faced, bow tie wearing choirmaster. Neat hair, big smile. They hadn’t been expecting this dishevelled, sweating, greasy-haired obese man wearing prison-issue sweats. But, Shelley thought, they could spin that to their advantage. Write some tabloid piece about his inner degeneracy now showing on the outside. Wouldn’t be the first time they had done something like that. And it wouldn’t be completely wrong, either, he mused.
Cunningham was bundled inside the house as quickly and efficiently as possible. The cameras went after him. Shelley, spotting his chance, inserted himself between the cameras and the closed front door. This was the address he had been waiting for.
‘I’m Paul Shelley,’ he began, in what he hoped was some kind of rousing Churchillian manner, ‘Governor of Blackmoor Prison. Noel Cunningham is here today because of the tireless efforts of myself and my staff. And it is important that we send a message. That our rehabilitation regime works. That this is the end result of the work we do in Blackmoor. Rehabilitation. Repentance. Restitution.’ He smiled once more. Why had he never thought of that phrase before? It just came to him. Clearly, he was a natural at this. He smiled, but noticed out of the corner of his eye that cameras were being turned off, journalists turning away. This wasn’t how he’d planned it at all. He made one last ditch attempt.
‘What you see today is the culmination of all our work at Blackmoor. All my work. I think I can take full responsibility for what you are witnessing today.’
He had lost them now.
‘Thank you very much.’
He turned, knocked on the door, went inside the house.
The house was depressing. It had the stench of the old, the dying. Shabby, undecorated for years, the only new additions were council-supplied aids for movement and independence. Or at least the independence of getting to the toilet. Shelley couldn’t wait to get out of there.
Cunningham was in the living room, alongside police officers. He looked up when Shelley entered.
‘Hello Noel,’ he said, as if bumping into him at a party, ‘Everything all right?’
Cunningham stood, nodded. ‘I want to see my mother now.’
‘Of course.’
‘That was the deal.’
‘Absolutely.’
Cunningham remained standing, staring at Shelley.
‘You all right, Noel?’
Cunningham moved right up close to him. Shelley could smell his unbrushed teeth. ‘You tricked me,’ he said.
Shelley was aware of the police moving towards him.
‘I didn’t trick you, Noel. How did I trick you?’
‘You sent Tom in to see me. I liked Tom. He was my friend. And now I can’t see him anymore. You sent him away.’
‘I’m sure he’ll . . .’ What? He was sure he would what? ‘Come and visit.’
Cunningham stared at him for a few seconds longer, turned away. ‘I want to see my mother now.’
‘Come on then,’ said his police officer escort and began leading him upstairs.
Shelley tagged along too.
When they reached the landing, Cunningham stopped. ‘I want to see her on my own.’
The police officer looked at Shelley who shrugged.
‘All right then, Noel,’ said the officer, ‘I’ll go in and check the room’s secure, then I’ll let you in. Right?’
Cunningham nodded.
The officer stepped inside, checked the room. Shelley peered through a crack in the door. An elderly woman, made even older from disease, lay near-comatose under the sheets. So light she was almost a skeleton.
‘All clear.’
Cunningham nodded his thanks, went in. Closed the door behind him.
Shelley and the officer waited.
‘How long has he got?’ asked Shelley.
The officer shrugged. ‘How long does he need?’
‘Could be minutes, could be—’
Shouting came from behind the door. Crying.
The officer rushed towards it, pulled it open.
And there was Cunningham, bent over the still body of his mother, pillow over her face.
‘I hate you . . . hate you . . . All my life I’ve hated you . . . what you did to me, how you hurt me . . . I hate you . . . hate you . . .’
Screaming, tearful, unstoppable.
Other officers ran upstairs, bundled Cunningham out of the bedroom. Shelley looked in. He didn’t need to be an expert to know the woman was dead.
Cunningham, now sobbing uncontrollably, was taken forcibly downstairs.
Shelley watched him go.
Thought of the last words he had said to the TV crews.
Watched Cunningham leave the house.
Taking Shelley’s career with him.
69
It’s often said that doctors make the worst patients. But Dr Louisa Bradshaw knew that just wasn’t true. Besides, she wasn’t that kind of doctor.
Very lucky. She heard that a lot in the first few days after she came round and found herself in Truro’s Royal Cornwall Hospital. Broken arm, broken leg, concussion but no internal bleeding and no major organ damage. You should do the lottery.
She had no memory of the crash. Or the hours that preceded it. Only that she had been told she had been going to Exeter to talk to the police. That part had come back to her but she wasn’t sure if it was an actual memory or whether the doctors and police had told her so many times that it had become one. She of all people knew things like that happened.
But she could remember the previous few days at work. Talking to Tom Killgannon and Dean Foley. Trying to arrange a meeting between them to settle their differences. No chance of that now. Don’t dwell on your work, she had been told, again by the doctors. Concentrate on getting well.
Nicole had been to see her several times. She had woken once to find her sitting by the side of the bed, crying silently. Asked her if she looked that bad. Nicole had replied with a hug, a weak smile and a second bout of tears.
Nicole. She had been thinking about her a lot. More so than work. About what was important in her life – who was important in her life. Despite living together neither of them had been in a hurry to make some kind of commitment. But she felt differently now. An event like this, she thought, puts the rest of your life in perspective.
So she was on the mend, trying not to think about work, when the nurse, Toni, came into the room.
‘You’re popular, aren’t you?’ she said.
She was carrying a bunch of flowers almost the same size as she was.
Louisa sat up. ‘What?’
‘For you. Just delive
red to the nurse’s station.’
‘Who are they from?’
Toni laughed. ‘That’s for you to find out. You’ve got an admirer.’
She left them by the side of the bed, arranging them so they wouldn’t fall over. ‘Oh,’ Toni said. ‘There’s a note. Here you go.’
She took the small envelope, opened it. Read the card.
And her heart skipped a beat.
She read:
‘I WILL DO SUCH THINGS,
WHAT THEY ARE YET
I KNOW NOT’
She recognised the quote straight away. King Lear. And knew immediately who had sent it.
The signature was another quote from Lear:
‘From a man more sinn’d against than sinning’
She put the card down, lay back on the pillow. Felt like the wind had been knocked out of her.
Dean Foley. He hadn’t forgotten her.
She didn’t know if that was a good thing or not.
No, she told herself. Of course it’s a good thing. It meant that her work had value, that she had made significant breakthroughs with him. Given him insights into himself, his psyche, that he was going to carry forwards into whatever he did next, wherever he went next.
She read the card again. Studied the quote. It wasn’t complete. He had only written the first half of it. Mentally she completed the whole thing:
‘I will do such things, what they are yet I know not; but they shall be the terrors of the earth . . .’
She put the card down, looked at the flowers.
Her good mood suddenly gone.
70
It had turned into an impromptu party.
Nobody intended that to happen. Just a few drinks at Tom’s house one Sunday night. Pre-Christmas. Tom and Lila, Anju, Pearl. And some of the new staff from the Sailmakers. Not really a party. But Pearl had arrived with a couple of boxes of beer, plus wine, and Tom had made a huge pan of chilli, so things became more festive than perhaps expected. And no one minded.
Life was good. Tom tentatively admitted that. There had been little comeback for his exploits in prison but plenty for Blake and Harmer. Neither had jobs and one was looking at a life sentence. They had cleared Sheridan’s name in the process. Tom felt it was the least that could have happened.
Shelley was no longer governor and after the murder of his mother, Noel Cunningham had been moved to Broadmoor prison for the criminally insane. Tom considered sending him a Christmas card. Decided against it.
Dr Louisa was on the mend and Dan Jameson, the fake Quint, was also looking at multiple life sentences. The body of the real Quint had been found on Blackmoor days after Cunningham had shown them where his bodies lay buried. He had raised a glass or two for his old friend Quint on several occasions, felt like maybe his death would become another burden to carry round, another ghost to haunt him.
Lila had seen what he was doing and talked to him about it.
‘It wasn’t your fault,’ she had said to him one particularly dark night after he had been released, as he was attempting to come to terms with the enormity of what he’d been through. Put his ordeal into perspective so he could carry on with his life. ‘It wasn’t. You said yourself Quint was a security consultant. That’s what he did now. You’d have paid him, wouldn’t you? For his work?’
‘Yeah, I was going to. Probably not as much as he usually made, though.’
‘There you go, then. It was a job. And it went wrong. You weren’t to know. You can’t blame yourself for it.’
He didn’t talk about Quint again. At least not to Lila.
He resumed his therapy sessions. Talked about it plenty there. But that was what they were there for.
He attended Nick Sheridan’s funeral. Sheridan had turned out to be a decent bloke after all. And his decency had got him killed. Seeing the turnout at Exeter crematorium, how many colleagues attended, how well his wife and children were supported, he felt like Sheridan would have been a man he could have enjoyed getting to know. He didn’t speak to anyone, didn’t stay for the reception and drove away afterwards on his own. He had paid his respects. That was enough.
And then there was Hayley. He had come so close to finding out what had actually happened to her, only for the chance to be taken away. For ever. He was unsure how he felt about that. Part of him was still in turmoil. But another part of him felt like that was the end of something. Nothing he did or could do would bring her back so he just had to get on with life. Let her death – and his responsibility for it – go.
His inner jury was out on which voice he would eventually listen to.
And Dean Foley was in the wind. For some reason Tom didn’t feel too bad about that. He didn’t think Foley would come back into his life but he couldn’t be sure. Foley wasn’t the type of person who could be second guessed. But he felt safe from him, for the moment at least.
Or as safe as he could ever feel knowing Foley was walking around free.
He stood in the kitchen, watched everyone enjoying themselves. Lila and Anju seemed really happy. He could tell just by watching the way they were with each other. Their happiness communicated itself. He found himself smiling.
Pearl caught him. Crossed to him.
‘What you mooning about?’
‘Oh, nothing. Just how happy Lila looks.’
‘I know. Sweet, isn’t it?’
‘Yeah. I mean, just think, all those months ago what she was like. You’d never have believed she could smile like that.’
‘Well that’s what happens when someone shows another person kindness.’
He felt Pearl looking at him. Knew she was slightly drunk. He felt her body pushing against his.
Pearl was very attractive. And single, which he found inexplicable. But she was his boss. He also felt that if something started between them it would be serious. And he wasn’t sure if he was ready for that kind of commitment. So he had kept her advances at arm’s length and not made any of his own. No matter how much he had wanted to.
But now, the alcohol relaxing everyone, the ordeal of prison in the past, things felt different. Perhaps it was time to move forwards.
‘You mean me or Anju?’ he said.
‘You just did what you always do.’ Slightly slurring her words, hand on his arm, leaning into him.
He put his arm round her. ‘Steady.’
She looked up at him, her expression unmistakable.
And they kissed.
Afterwards, neither would be able to say who had made the first move. It felt like it had been done simultaneously. But it felt so right. Their mouths locked, bodies pressed together. Arms held each other.
It was only the surrounding silence that made them both look up. The rest of the room had stopped whatever they were doing and were watching them.
They quickly pulled apart.
Lila was the first to cheer. Everyone else soon joined in.
Tom and Pearl looked at each other, smiled.
Pearl laughed. ‘Well that was a long time coming. Merry Christmas.’
Tom felt himself redden. ‘I . . . I just need to . . .’
He slipped out of the room as another cheer went up behind him.
He made his way upstairs, stood with his back against the wall on the landing. Took a deep breath, another. That wasn’t him, he thought. That wasn’t him at all. Another deep breath. Or maybe it was. Maybe this was Tom Killgannon. This could be his character, his life, going forwards. He smiled. He could get to like this man.
He knew they were thinking he had gone to the bathroom but that wasn’t where he was headed. There was something he had to do, something he had to check. He had been avoiding it since he got out of prison and knew that now, with a house full of people, it was completely the wrong time. But the alcohol gave him courage. And it needed doing.
He went into the spare bedroom, looked round. It was undisturbed. Good. He crossed to the chimney, knelt down before it. Put his arm inside. Fingers searching.
Found
it. Pulled it out.
The plastic brick was filthy but undisturbed. Good. The fake Quint hadn’t found it. He put it on the hearth, felt inside again. The others were all there. He took his arm out, picked up the first one again. Wiped the plastic clean. Saw the notes, tightly bound, the Queen’s face staring off uninterested, as if financial transactions were beneath her. He knew what denomination the notes were in. Knew how many there were.
And knew where they came from.
‘Tom? You coming back down? We’re missing you.’
Lila’s voice from the bottom of the stairs. He looked once more at the bundle in his hands.
‘Yeah. Be down in a minute.’
He put the brick of money securely back in place, dusted his hands. Stood up.
Ready to rejoin his guests.
Ready to be Tom Killgannon once more.
Acknowledgements
First of all, I should say that HMP Blackmoor is not a real place. I’ve worked in prisons and young offender institutions in the past and it’s nothing like any of them.
Thanks as always to my agent Jane Gregory and all at Gregory and Company for always having my back.
And to Katherine Armstrong, Jennie Rothwell, Francesca Russell and the rest of the gang at Zaffre.
To all my friends in the crime fiction world. It’s the best gang to be part of.
A special thank you to all the readers, bloggers, booksellers and journalists who enjoyed the last novel. You really help enormously and I can’t thank you enough. Hope you like this one even more.
And lastly to my wife, first reader, co-adventurer and professional geek Jamie. You actually made me enjoy witness protection . . .
About the Author
Martyn Waites was born in Newcastle upon Tyne. He trained at the Birmingham School of Speech and Drama and worked as an actor for many years before becoming a writer. His novels include the critically acclaimed Joe Donovan series, set in the north-east of England, and The White Room, which was a Guardian book of the year. In 2013 he was chosen to write Angel of Death, the official sequel to Susan Hill’s Woman in Black, and in 2014 won the Grand Prix du Roman Noir for Born Under Punches. He has been nominated for every major British crime fiction award and has also enjoyed international commercial success with eight novels written under the name Tania Carver.
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