He had only stopped by the barn in the top field because he had noticed his father’s cap hanging on a nail where they kept an old bucket.
Daddy, are you in there?
He had called again for his father, excited to have found him, and hungry for his own meal. Pushed against the barn door, anticipation written into the innocence of his face, words of entreaty rising to his lips. Come on, Daddy, hurry up. It’s spaghetti bolognese.
Three memories had remained with him from that Thursday teatime on a sunny afternoon all those years ago.
The stink of hours-old urine.
A bucket on its side amidst the hay and dirt.
And his father’s body swinging from the rafters, a puppet on a string.
Fletcher blinked. Those photographs of the past – brought to life by the events of these final hours – were taking shape into something more concrete, drawing out the silver halides, sealing the negative in place. Black and white. Right and wrong. Life or death.
His fingers traced the silk cord he’d fashioned into a hangman’s knot.
Fletcher placed the ligature around his neck.
The film of his life – all those mistakes, the hurt and the highs, the love and the terrible, terrible lows – began to play. But each memory was a spike of glass.
Fletcher closed his eyes to shut off the images. He thought about the rarest of cloud formations he dreamed he would one day witness. The UFO-shaped lenticularis, the iridescent beauty of nacreous, the magnificent power of a supercell storm.
Lenticularis. Nacreous. Supercell.
He murmured them over and over again, as if the rolling rumble of the words would ward off the fear in his heart.
And then Fletcher Parnell – once a young boy filled with hope named Benjamin Turner – tipped forward and let himself fall.
91
Wednesday, 1 August 2018
Interview Room, Rayleigh Police Station – 3.40 a.m.
Wildeve could feel a fire within her grow.
‘Mr Lovell, that was a colleague on the phone. A sixteen-year-old boy has been shot with a gun that discharged in your shop.’ She slammed her hand on the table. ‘It was a deliberate set-up, apparently. A trap. What the hell is going on?’
DCI Sampson’s head jerked up in surprise. Lovell let out a moan.
‘Did it – is he—?’
‘You’re lucky he isn’t dead.’
Lovell seemed to shrink, as if the air was being sucked out of him. Wildeve moved her chair a little closer.
Her voice was ice. ‘That’s not the only thing in your shop. Perhaps you would care to explain how Detective Inspector Adam Stanton’s warrant card found its way there too.’
Lovell’s mouth sagged open.
‘This isn’t looking good for you,’ she said. She counted off on her fingers. ‘The dead body of your wife, the doll’s eyes, the paint on the bodies of the victims, the identification of a murdered police officer you spoke to on the day of his death found on your property, and now a kid with a gunshot wound. Concealing a body. Possession of unlawful ammunition and an unlicensed firearm. You’ll be going to prison for a very long time.’
‘I didn’t do anything,’ he said.
‘It will be better for you in court if you tell us the truth now,’ she said.
‘I didn’t do anything.’ He was insistent and his gaze was steady. No shifting eye contact or overconfident No comment. No body language to indicate he was telling her anything but the truth. To hide her confusion, she took a sip of water.
‘Mr Lovell, why would you have a gun in your shop?’
‘It’s not a real gun. It’s home-made. It fires newspaper pellets. Mix them with sodium chlorate and charcoal and sulphur and they pack a heck of a punch.’
‘But it was aimed at the door, ready to—’
‘It was suspended from the ceiling of the shop and connected to a battery-powered tripwire. It was aimed at the door to deter intruders.’
‘And you get a lot of those, do you? Reported them to the police yet?’
‘No,’ he said softly. ‘Except those damn kids. Didn’t expect them to break in, though, did I? I go in the back way and disable it in the morning when I go into work. I—’
‘But you think that someone is regularly coming into your shop?’
‘I know they are.’
She raised her eyebrows to express her disbelief.
She changed tack. ‘How long have you owned the Doll & Fancy Dress Emporium, Mr Lovell?’
An expression of startled surprise lit his face.
‘I don’t own it,’ he said. ‘I’m just a tenant.’ He looked at them both. ‘I thought you knew that.’
Wildeve was aware of Sampson pulling himself up a little straighter. Her own breath caught at the back of her throat. Lovell picked at a spot of dried paint on his trousers and carried on talking.
‘They’ve got a key, see? Let themselves in as often as they like. Muddling around. Taking things that don’t belong to them. My paints. The eyes. That’s why I set the trap.’
‘Who owns the shop?’
The question fell from her lips, a stone disturbing the stillness of the room. She imagined it rippling across the surface, setting off a chain of events that would allow those five lost souls to find their way home. Four words that might hold the key to this investigation.
To her husband’s murder.
‘The old couple at number twenty-seven. Cooper and Audrina Clifton.’
92
Wednesday, 1 August 2018
The copse – 5.11 a.m.
Evan was thinking about Lucas Naylor. An in-and-out friend. He called him that because sometimes he was fun to be around and sometimes he was cruel. Mostly cruel.
But he’d do anything to have Lucas Naylor by his side right now.
Cooper Clifton was burying the spade in the soil and each strike of the earth caused Evan to flinch. Although the heat had broken, most of the rain had run off the land and the mud was solid, difficult to split apart.
The edge of the blade hit the crate and the wood splintered. Cooper swore softly under his breath and Evan watched with wide-open eyes. The old man slid his spade down the side of the crate, into the dirt, and leaned on the handle, using his weight to lever it free.
The box loosened and lifted from its grave.
Cooper smiled at Evan.
‘Give me a hand, will you?’
Evan was used to obeying the command of an adult. Although some children might have refused, he was young for his age and not yet confident enough to challenge Mr Clifton’s authority. But he was stubborn too, with a keen sense of justice. As far as he was concerned, the box was his. He leaned forward and picked up two corners of the crate, Mr Clifton on the other side.
‘I’ll come back for my spade,’ the old man said.
Evan wanted to explain to Mr Clifton that the box belonged to him because his mother had found it, and he wanted to see if there was treasure inside. Everyone knew it was finders keepers. But the old man was edging towards the gate of his own house, a determined look on his face, and Evan had no choice but to follow him.
Despite the rain, the air was still warm and Evan could smell the waking up of the day, the freshness of the grass, the slow opening of the flowers. The sky was beginning to lighten. He rubbed his eyes and wondered how his mother was faring.
Mr Clifton dumped the crate on the kitchen table. Clods of dirt scarred the tablecloth but the old man didn’t seem to care.
Evan stood awkwardly, not wanting to be there but not willing to relinquish a prize he believed to be his.
‘Shall we open it?’ he said.
‘I don’t think so,’ the old man said.
‘But it’s mine.’ Evan’s voice was hot with injustice.
Mr Clifton laughed. ‘Actually, it’s mine. And I don’t want it getting into the wrong hands.’
If he had walked out of the kitchen then, Evan Lockwood might have been allowed to leave, to eat breakfast with h
is sister and speak on the telephone to his father, who would ring home in exactly six minutes’ time to tell them that their mother was in pain but expected to make a full recovery. But the fates conspired against him.
Whether weakened by rot from the years underground, or the force of Cooper’s spade, or the pressure of movement from earth to air, one side of the box fell open, dirt flying as it thudded against the tablecloth.
Two sets of eyes stared at its contents.
Evan did not know what he was seeing. He stared at it, trying to process it. A museum exhibit, perhaps. Or a piece of artwork.
He took a step towards it, leaned in for a closer look. And let out a cry.
Inside the box was a human skull, no bigger than his own.
93
Wednesday, 1 August 2018
Interview Room, Rayleigh Police Station – 4.32 a.m.
The floodgates had opened.
Trefor Lovell could not stop talking. He had taken over the shop almost thirty-one years ago, a few years after he had moved into the street with his wife, Annie. They had become friends with the Cliftons and their young son, Joby. A friendly place, full of community spirit.
But things had changed after Joby ran away. The Cliftons no longer socialized. They withdrew into themselves.
‘Wait,’ said Wildeve. ‘Their son disappeared?’
Lovell nodded. ‘They didn’t talk about it. Told most folk he’d been sent away to relatives because they couldn’t bear to go over every tiny detail. Agonizing, it must have been. But we saw Mr and Mrs Clifton the morning after he took off, and she was white as a sheet, trembling, she was. She had his Walkman in one hand, and Cooper had a bucket of cleaning stuff in the other. He’d been tidying up that treehouse before their neighbours got back. Audrina told me herself that Joby had run away, and Cooper shouted at her.’
‘So the police were involved?’
‘I suppose so. But we never saw them. We guessed the Cliftons had their reasons for acting like they did.’
‘And when was this?’
Lovell scratched his head. ‘It must have been the summer of 1985.’
‘Did he ever come home?’
‘Not that I know of.’
DCI Sampson was watching Lovell intently. Wildeve wiped her palms on her trousers. The time had come to bring up the contents of Adam’s documents, but she didn’t know how Sampson would react to having been kept in the dark.
‘According to some statements from old police files I’ve – um – obtained, it appears that a former owner of the shop you now rent – Bridget Sawyer – also disappeared. Around September 1966.’ Her cheeks reddened under Sampson’s gaze.
Lovell nodded, eyes downcast.
‘Aye, your husband was investigating that.’ He met her eyes. ‘He was getting close. I’m sorry about what happened to him.’
A heat again at the back of her throat. She nodded, an acknowledgement.
‘He was asking after Joby, too. About when he had gone missing.’
‘He knew about him?’ Her voice lifted in surprise.
Lovell shrugged. ‘I guess so.’
‘Do you know how?’
He shook his head, and she saw a drift of dandruff settle on his shoulders.
‘What about Bridget Sawyer? What do you know about her?’
The smallest of shrugs, almost imperceptible. ‘More than you, by the sounds of things. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.’
She fought to keep the anger from her voice. ‘Mr Lovell, you need to stop playing games and tell us everything you know before someone else is killed.’
So he did.
94
Wednesday, 1 August 2018
Major Incident Room, Rayleigh Police Station – 5.53 a.m.
DCI Sampson called an emergency briefing.
He was short and to the point.
New information had come to light in the past half an hour. It gave them grounds to suspect Cooper Clifton of 27 The Avenue of multiple murders, dating back to 1966.
They were going to bring him in.
And they were going to do it now.
95
Wednesday, 1 August 2018
Between Rayleigh Police Station and The Avenue – 6.15 a.m.
DS Wildeve Stanton was a passenger in her own car, Mac at the wheel.
The older man had come straight from the hospital to the police station. He deserved to be a part of this, even if he had been kicked off the case. ‘As long as he stays out of the way,’ Sampson had growled.
But it was all as clear as mud.
The police had not had time to verify Lovell’s latest revelations, but his story had the ring of truth about it. They would find out soon enough. He was still in custody, they weren’t that stupid. But she believed him. She believed every word he had told her.
But she was still puzzled about how Adam had known about Joby Clifton’s disappearance.
She watched the streets blur, and imagined her husband’s last day on earth. Talking to the neighbours on The Avenue, piecing it all together, a gradual dawning of the truth. The old police statements. The newspaper article. The missing school photograph from Adam’s old album.
Croft Lane County Primary School.
If Lovell had been telling the truth, Joby Lockwood vanished in the summer of 1985, when he was ten.
Adam would have been ten then, too.
Another distant ringing in her brain.
She pulled out her mobile, looked up the phone number of the school and left a message for Mrs Hardcastle, the headteacher, urging her to call back as soon as possible.
96
Wednesday, 1 August 2018
27 The Avenue – 6.17 a.m.
Cooper glanced sadly between the boy and the skull in its wooden crate.
‘Now, looky here. That’s a crying shame.’
He took a step towards Evan, but there was something in the shape of him that made the child edge away.
‘I’ve been here ages. My dad will be wondering where I am.’
‘Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.’ Cooper wagged his finger. ‘I saw him get into the car and follow the ambulance with your mother inside. A lie will always be found out, young man.’
Evan bit his lip.
‘I really did think things had gone far enough.’ Cooper’s sigh was full of regrets. He brushed the dirt off the cloth and into the palm of his hand. Lifted down the box and placed it, out of sight, under the table. Then he walked over to the door and called upstairs. ‘Audrina? Please come down here.’
He turned back to the boy, full of bonhomie. ‘I don’t think it’s too early for breakfast, do you? Sit down.’
Evan hesitated, his gaze straying towards the back door.
‘Sit down,’ said Cooper again, grin slipping, iron in his voice.
Evan sat.
‘Right,’ said Cooper. ‘Orange juice.’
He poured the child a glass.
‘Now,’ he said. ‘Breakfast.’
Evan had his back to the kitchen door and when Audrina entered she gave a little scream at the sight of his dark hair and pyjamas, her hand to her mouth.
‘What’s going on? What’s he doing here?’
‘This lad needs something to eat.’
Something unspoken passed between Cooper and Audrina. She bent over the boy who reminded her so much of her son.
‘A muffin?’ she said, a warm smile spreading across her face. ‘Or cereal with a sprinkling of dried fruit?’
97
Wednesday, 1 August 2018
The Avenue – 6.18 a.m.
Morning had officially broken on The Avenue, the sun drying the earlier rain.
The postman drove his van down the road and parked outside number thirty-two. Mr Lovell’s house. The police car was still there, but there was less activity than yesterday. He wondered what had happened to the old man, but knew he would find out soon enough. He trusted his instincts, though. Lovell was harmless.
&
nbsp; He swigged some water from a bottle. He had a horrible taste in his mouth, but he had left his toothbrush at home and didn’t have time to go back now. Something was worrying him. Nothing more than a niggle, but he had learned over time to trust himself. He had never been wrong.
Except about her.
He shut down the voice in his head. He was not going to fuck this up.
Mrs Clifton had seemed a little agitated this morning. He’d waved to her as she’d collected milk bottles from her doorstep. She always waved back. Always. But not today. Instead she had turned away and shut the door, more distracted than usual.
This concerned the postman a great deal.
He got out and opened the double doors at the back. One small sack of mail. A trolley. His makeshift bed. At the delivery office, he’d bumped into Arthur, who sometimes shared this van. Arthur had given him a strange look when he’d clocked the size of the mailbag and his pillow, but the postman had glossed over it. ‘Light load today, mate,’ he’d said, but Arthur had seemed unconvinced. He would leave it, he decided. Don’t draw attention to yourself.
But he was fed up with waiting. He had to do something.
The postman rummaged through the letters and parcels until he found the bundle he was looking for, sending up a prayer. He breathed out his relief. Mr and Mrs Clifton. Two letters. That was a stroke of luck.
He’d persuade Mrs Clifton to let him in for a cuppa. That should do it.
He shouldered the mail pouch and walked up the garden path.
98
Wednesday, 1 August 2018
Rayleigh Police Station – 6.20 a.m.
Trefor Lovell’s only regret was that he should have shared his suspicions with the police months ago.
The Neighbour Page 24