[Kitt Hartley 05] - A Witch Hunt in Whitby

by Helen Cox

  ‘So, if Penelope Baker is the killer, you think she blames Ayleen for what happened to her, and Penelope – or somebody who knows her – is taking revenge?’

  ‘It is just a theory at present. We’ve asked Ruby if she knows, or has ever known, a Jamelia Park or Ayleen Demir. She doesn’t recognize the names so she and the second victim don’t seem to be acquainted with Ayleen. She hasn’t heard of the Children of Silvanus either, which I must admit I was slightly surprised about. I didn’t think there was anything weird out there that Ruby wouldn’t be well-versed in.’

  Kitt smiled at the thought of Ruby’s eccentricity but just as quickly the smile disappeared. ‘And yet we do seem to be led back to that group over and over again. But there’s nothing about them online – except for Stoke Bramley’s post on Reddit. So it’s very difficult to find anything out about them.’

  ‘Maybe for a civilian investigator,’ Halloran said with a twinkle in his eye. Kitt knew what he was doing. Baiting her to try and take her mind off just how many different strands there were to this case and how little time they had left to untangle them all. Still, just because she saw straight through his efforts didn’t mean she didn’t appreciate them.

  ‘Oooh, give over, you and yours wouldn’t even be in Whitby if it wasn’t for Hartley and Edwards Investigations. You don’t know that you’ll get to the bottom of it before I do.’

  ‘Want to make it interesting?’

  ‘What do you have in mind?’

  ‘How about, if you solve the case before me, I will be your unquestioning servant for twenty-four hours.’

  ‘And in the unlikely event that you solve the case first?’ Kitt said, just to see Halloran smile.

  ‘You will do the same for me.’

  ‘Well, that sounds like a win-win,’ said Kitt, leaning in to kiss him. ‘Ooh, I wish I had longer to spend with you,’ she added, once their lips parted again. ‘But I’ve got to get back to the hotel. Me and Grace have to get our questions in order for Cyril Armitage.’

  ‘What? The bloke who thinks he’s the reincarnation of James I?’

  ‘I’m not sure that’s quite what’s going on. I’ll know more after we’ve talked to him but either way the poor old chap sounds very confused. I can tell by your tone that you’re not convinced it’s going to be a particularly lucrative interview, and I’m minded to agree with you, but at least once we’ve spoken to him we can rule him out as a suspect and focus on Ayleen, Bramley, Penelope or whoever it is from the Children of Silvanus that is really pulling the strings here.’

  ‘All right, I’m parked up on the cliff top so I’ll part ways with you here,’ Halloran said, pulling Kitt in for one last hug. ‘You’ll update me on anything you find out from Cyril?’

  ‘Of course, how else will you crack the case if I don’t help you?’ Kitt chuckled. With that, she blew Halloran a kiss and turned back towards the guest house. She had only travelled ten paces or so and was just wondering which details she should add to Ayleen’s file after the interview she had witnessed last night, when all of a sudden she heard an ear-splitting crack from above. She looked upwards and her eyes widened in terror to see a large block of stone hurtling off the cliff towards her.

  ‘Kitt, look out!’ she heard Halloran bellow. She started to run but couldn’t be sure she was fast enough to move out of harm’s way. A second later Halloran knocked her off her feet and rolled her over several times in the sand before an almighty thud sounded out as the hunk of rock landed mere inches from where they lay.

  Kitt felt as though there was no air in her lungs at all and she gasped and gasped to catch her breath. Her whole body was shaking like it never had before.

  Halloran held her face in both of his hands. ‘Are you all right? Kitt? Are you all right?’

  She nodded. Not yet able to speak.

  ‘I just looked back at you one last time and I saw a figure on the cliff top, holding the rock above his head. For a second I couldn’t believe what I was seeing but it quickly became clear you were standing right below him and something in me – I don’t know . . . I just knew you were in danger. It ricocheted off the side of the cliff as he threw it over. If it hadn’t been for that I probably wouldn’t have got to you in time.’

  ‘Are . . . are you saying somebody knew I was walking down here and they threw the rock at me deliberately?’ said Kitt, her eyes filling with tears.

  ‘I’m . . . I’m afraid so,’ Halloran said, running a hand through her hair.

  Kitt could barely digest what this meant. Someone had tried to put her out of the picture, possibly for good.

  Catching her breath she rolled over to take a look at the rock that had almost crushed her to death. As she did so, she cried out.

  ‘Kitt, what is it?’ Halloran asked.

  But she couldn’t find the words to answer him. She blinked, checking she really was seeing what she thought she was seeing. The piece of rock was long and a garish face had been carved into it. The carving was of a devilish creature with a tortured expression that Kitt recognized at once. There was no mistaking it. This wasn’t just any old hunk of rock. It was a gargoyle from Twilight Manor. And the unnerving animalistic face wasn’t the only thing carved into it. Along the top, someone had scratched a single word into the stone.

  Die!

  Nineteen

  ‘I am going to kill him. Just you wait til I get my hands on him,’ said Halloran, who was pacing up and down, seemingly intent on completely wearing out the grass near the bench at the end of Henrietta Street on the other side of the harbour from where Kitt had been attacked. Below, the East Pier was bathed in mid-morning sunlight and the red-roofed buildings of the town beyond seemed to be stacked on top of one another, built, as they were, between the two steep cliffs on either side of the Esk river.

  ‘Mal, come on now, for goodness’ sake calm down, will you? said Kitt.

  ‘Yeah,’ Grace chipped in. ‘Calm down, Halloran. If you kill him it will cost you your badge. If I kill him, I’ll go to jail, but it’ll still be worth it.’

  ‘Stand down, the pair of you,’ said Kitt, her voice sterner this time. ‘I’m really not convinced that yet more cold-blooded murder is the answer to our problems here. And besides, Stoke Bramley is not behind this.’

  ‘But you said the gargoyle was from Twilight Manor,’ said Grace. ‘It’s not quite a smoking gun but it is near as dammit, if you ask me. I knew that guy was too smug for his own good, he’s been plotting this all along.’

  ‘And don’t forget, there’s the timing, Kitt,’ said Halloran. ‘Ayleen’s in custody so she couldn’t have done it – or at least not directly. We just conducted a major search of Bramley’s property. Perhaps this is an attempt to scare you off because if we keep digging we’re going to find what we’re looking for. Evidence that he really is the Vampire Killer. For all we know, these victims have something to do with his sister’s disappearance and he’s taking revenge. Or Penelope is the real killer and he’s trying to protect her.’

  ‘I agree that a lost sister, or protecting one’s sister, would be motive for revenge killings,’ said Kitt, knowing that if anything happened to her sister, or indeed any member of her family, she would stop at nothing to see justice served. ‘But if you wanted to get someone out of the way would you use a weapon that incriminated you? Because that’s what that gargoyle is. It’s designed to make you think that Bramley wants me dead or at the very least in hospital for the foreseeable future. If it really had been him, I think he would have found a more subtle way of scaring me off.’

  ‘I’m not sure if you noticed,’ said Halloran, ‘but subtlety isn’t exactly Bramley’s strong suit.’

  ‘Be that as it may,’ said Kitt, ‘unless a witness steps forward who got a good look at whoever was on top of that cliff this morning, and until forensics come back on that gargoyle, nothing is certain.’

  ‘Someone mi
ght have seen something. I’ll be canvassing nearby houses and hotels,’ said Halloran.

  ‘Given that it happened just after half past six in the morning a fair way down the beach I think you’ll be lucky to have any witnesses,’ said Grace.

  ‘Won’t stop me trying to find some,’ said Halloran.

  ‘If you really think about it, what happened this morning was a good thing,’ added Kitt.

  Halloran frowned. ‘Forgive me for not quite yet being able to see the silver lining.’

  ‘The fact that this has happened simply means we’re getting close to the truth. We wanted to smoke the killer out. Prompt them into doing something rash that might get them caught. And that’s just what they’ve done.’

  ‘You almost getting crushed to death by a falling rock is not what I had in mind,’ said Halloran.

  ‘Well, I’m sure I wouldn’t have been crushed to death. Maybe I might have sustained a head injury I couldn’t have recovered from but . . .’ Kitt trailed off, noticing the thunderous look on Halloran’s face. ‘That’s not a comfort to you, is it?’

  ‘I know it all happened really quickly but you didn’t notice any details that could help us track them down?’ Grace said to Halloran. ‘When you looked up there, I mean. At the time, I know you will just have been focused on Kitt’s safety. But in retrospect, you don’t remember anything about their clothes?’

  Halloran shook his head. ‘They were dressed in black. They were possibly – possibly – wearing the same hoodie as the person who spray-painted Ruby’s door. But I couldn’t even say that for certain. I’m trained to notice details but it all happened so quickly and I could see what was going to happen to Kitt if I didn’t move fast.’

  ‘I’ll never make fun of you going for your morning jogs again,’ Kitt said.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Well, no, not really. If you insist on going out with a northern lass you have to suffer the banter, I’m afraid. But I’m obviously very grateful that you’re so quick on your feet.’

  Halloran paused his incessant pacing long enough to smile at her. After a moment, however, his smile evaporated as his mind switched back to thoughts of Bramley. ‘The second we get confirmation that it was him I am taking him in to the nearest nick and I will not be going easy on him in the interrogation room.’

  Kitt closed her eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath and being thankful that she was still in a position to do so. Both Halloran and Grace were already so wound up about her brush with death she thought it prudent to downplay the effect it had had on her. She couldn’t deny it had rattled her. Someone wanted her out of the way. Someone didn’t want her interfering. Whether it was somebody they had already spoken to or an acquaintance of one of their interviewees, Kitt could not be sure, but one thing was clear: somewhere along the line she had hit a nerve. And whoever she had provoked, they certainly didn’t lack in confidence. A murder attempt in broad daylight, even that early in the morning when so few people were around, was a bold move.

  ‘You said yourself, Mal, we can’t discount the fact that Ayleen might have an accomplice,’ said Kitt.

  ‘Or either Ayleen or Bramley have someone who wants to protect them,’ said Grace. ‘And that’s who threw that rock.’

  ‘Hm, yes,’ said Kitt. ‘I would wager that someone like Stoke Bramley has quite a few admirers.’

  ‘And what exactly makes you think that?’ Halloran said, raising an eyebrow.

  Kitt just about managed to hold in a chuckle at his reaction. Halloran’s jealous streak was well worn in. It greatly amused Kitt that he thought anyone could hold a candle to him in her eyes, and at the same time made her more determined to keep showing him that could never be true. ‘He thinks so much of himself and I can’t think that much bravado comes from ego alone. Plus, this is Whitby, home of the goth weekend, and I imagine quite a few people who frequent the event are somewhat drawn to the vampire aesthetic. He’s probably beating them off with a stick at this time of year.’

  ‘So, you think one of his many admirers might be trying to protect him?’ said Grace. ‘Hoping to win his affections?’

  ‘Well, if he happened to mention in passing that he had been questioned by a detective when he was innocently trying to find his long-lost sister, if whoever he told was possessive over him, they might have taken matters into his or her own hands.’

  Halloran nodded. ‘Assuming Bramley or Ayleen are clever enough to understand that pulling something like this the day after we’ve interviewed them would incriminate them – and I’m not saying I’m giving either of them that much credit, especially Bramley – then the idea that somebody wanted to protect one or both of them is more plausible. Besides anything else, I just don’t know if Ayleen or Bramley would be able to pull off what this killer has, at least not alone. Given the fact that neither have successfully kept their past aliases a secret, perhaps it’s more likely that this is the work of somebody else. Somebody behind the scenes that we’re just not seeing.’

  ‘Like Palmer’s son?’ said Kitt. ‘You heard what Bramley said, he’s gone off grid. No phone. No computer. Nobody knows where he is. Bramley thinks that he has access to his father’s journal. He could be using it to target people involved with the cult. People like Ayleen and even Bramley himself. He tried to go after the cult after Penelope disappeared. It might have felt enough of a threat for Palmer to record it in his journal.’

  ‘Well, Banks is looking into Palmer’s past partners now to see if we can get a lead on his son. It’s not a quick job as we don’t exactly know when he founded the cult and he clearly wasn’t short on girlfriends.’

  ‘I didn’t get a chance to tell you earlier because of the near-smushing incident,’ said Grace. ‘But I may have another potential suspect for our list related to Cyril Armitage.’

  ‘Who’s that?’ asked Kitt.

  ‘Stella Hemsworth,’ said Grace.

  ‘Stella – the director at the amateur dramatics company?’

  ‘The person who wrote and directed The Curse of James I, A Musical,’ said Grace. ‘There are some clips from the rehearsals on YouTube. There’s a scene in which one of the witches has their blood drained and the witches all have marks put on their door when the witch hunter comes after them. Not a V, I admit, but when I was watching the clips these elements did seem to stand out.’

  Kitt frowned. ‘Yes, that doesn’t feel like a coincidence.’

  Halloran pulled out his phone. ‘I’ll ask Banks to start looking into her too and see if he can find anything dubious in her records. She won’t thank me for the extra workload right now, hunting down Palmer’s son is a job and a half in itself, but we can’t afford to overlook any potential suspect.’

  At that moment Kitt’s phone rang. It wasn’t a number she recognized.

  ‘Ms Hartley?’ said a plummy voice at the other end of the line when she answered the call.

  ‘Speaking.’

  ‘Veronica Miles here from the Sandersdale library and archive.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Thank you so much for getting back to me. I know it was a bit of a strange request. Any luck on that name I gave you?’

  ‘I am afraid there is absolutely nothing in our archive about a group called the Children of Silvanus. Are you sure that’s the right name?’

  ‘Yes, that’s definitely the one,’ Kitt said with a sigh.

  ‘Oh dear, I am sorry. I did think it was a long shot. I’m afraid we had a terrible fire here a couple of years back. We lost most of our paper records and I suspect that any documents pertaining to the Children of Silvanus would have been in those files, if indeed any existed.’

  ‘I’m so sorry to hear about that. What caused the fire?’ Kitt said, feeling cold all of a sudden.

  ‘It happened late at night when there were no staff around so the cause was never confirmed. It was a proper blaze. We lost so much.’

 
Kitt could hear the pain in the archivist’s voice. As a librarian, she understood that pain. ‘Again, I am terribly sorry to hear about that. I do appreciate you trying to help anyway.’

  There was another minute of mutual commiseration before Kitt hung up the phone. Despite the fact that both Halloran and Grace were shooting quizzical looks her way, Kitt didn’t speak. She simply sat still and rigid on the bench.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Grace said after a moment or two. ‘You’ve got that look about you. The look that means you’ve just learned about something terrible, I know it well enough by now.’

  ‘The library and archive at Sandersdale lost a great deal of their records in a fire a couple of years ago.’

  ‘OK,’ said Halloran. ‘That’s sad news, pet, and I know you take the destruction of books very seriously but—’

  ‘Oh, Mal, will you give over?’ said Kitt, shaking her head at him. ‘Of course I’m not ecstatic about that news from a cataloguing perspective but it’s more than that. They couldn’t find the source of the fire.’

  Grace’s eyes widened, the realization dawning on her. ‘Just like the fire at Ayleen Demir’s house when she was young. It was suspected arson but the cause of the fire was unknown.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Kitt.

  ‘Those fires happened almost twenty years apart,’ Halloran said. ‘Are you really trying to insinuate they’re connected?’

  ‘But those aren’t the only fires we’ve heard about,’ said Kitt. ‘The Children of Silvanus camp . . .’

  ‘. . . also burned down in 2011.’ Halloran finished her sentence. ‘It’s still quite a long time between each instance, though they are all in the same area of Sandersdale. So perhaps there is something in it.’