[Kitt Hartley 05] - A Witch Hunt in Whitby

by Helen Cox

  ‘But . . . but . . . but . . .’ Hemsworth stammered. Her face was flushed and it was visible even through all the powder she’d applied. ‘Oh dear, I don’t quite know what to do.’ She paused for a moment before speaking again. ‘I should have known something like this was going to happen. You don’t get anything for nothing. That’s a lesson I learned early. I knew it was too good to be true. I’m being framed. Oh, framed! I’m too young for my career to be over!’

  ‘Framed? By whom?’ asked Kitt, trying to temper her surprise at Hemsworth’s unexpected outburst and somewhat disorientating rambles.

  Hemsworth looked between Grace and Kitt. ‘I’m . . . not sure I should say anymore.’

  ‘Oh, well, we wouldn’t want to pry,’ said Kitt. The prospect of prison hadn’t rattled Stella quite as much as she needed. Perhaps a touch of reverse psychology was in order. ‘We just thought you might want the help of two people who admired you. I’ve been accused of something I didn’t do by the police before and really found out who my friends are. But, if you’d rather deal with this without our help, we understand. Come on, Grace.’

  ‘Wait . . .’ said Stella, her eyes darting left and right as she considered her options. She was quiet for a moment and then jerked her head in a way that indicated she wanted them to follow her over to the side of the room where they were less likely to be overheard. ‘Can you keep a secret?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Kitt. ‘We’re your fans, we’ll do anything if it helps you.’

  ‘Good, good. That’s who I need on my side right now. True fans who understand what it means to be discreet.’ Stella paused and took a deep breath. ‘Look, the truth of it is, I didn’t actually write The Curse of James I.’

  ‘Oh . . . then who did?’ said Kitt.

  ‘I . . . Well, I don’t know exactly. One day, I received the script alongside a letter from an anonymous admirer of my work. They said they had written a script that they thought I would bring great directorial flair to and if I agreed to produce it they would pay me a handsome sum of money and let me take full writing credits.’

  ‘How much is a handsome sum of money?’ said Kitt.

  ‘I’d rather not disclose the exact sum,’ said Hemsworth, looking Kitt up and down. ‘But we are talking thousands of pounds, not hundreds.’

  ‘What was the catch?’ said Grace.

  ‘I asked the same question in my reply,’ said Hemsworth.

  ‘So you have an address for whoever sent you this letter? I mean, you had a place to send a reply to?’ said Kitt.

  ‘I can remember the area, at least. It was a place out in Sandersdale,’ said Hemsworth.

  ‘Sandersdale?’ Kitt repeated, her stomach churning at even the mention of that name. Somehow, even this part of the investigation was leading back to the Children of Silvanus, or so it seemed. Surely it couldn’t be a coincidence that this person, whoever they were, had been based in the same area as the cult? ‘But you don’t have the full address?’

  ‘I might be able to remember some of it if I really think hard about it. But burning all correspondence once the money was paid was part of the deal and I didn’t make a separate note of the address. The only record I had was on the letters themselves.’

  ‘And you never ventured out there to find out who this mystery admirer was?’ said Kitt.

  ‘I thought about it,’ said Hemsworth. ‘I didn’t like the idea of doing any kind of deal with someone I didn’t know, even someone claiming to be an admirer. But the letter was so gushing in its praise for me and my work – well, I suppose part of me just wanted it to be a genuine offer. I was instructed that I could reply to any letters I received via that address but if I turned up or otherwise tried to find out the identity of my admirer, the offer would be withdrawn. He said he was too shy to ever meet me and that’s why he had chosen to communicate in this manner.’

  ‘And you didn’t think it was odd that he wanted you to burn the letters afterwards?’ said Kitt.

  Hemsworth shrugged. ‘Not particularly. He said it was to make sure they weren’t dug up by a family member if something happened to me. You know, like if I was in a car accident or something and my family went through my belongings. He said he wanted me to take full writing credit and the only way to ensure that was to get rid of any evidence that he had any hand in writing it.’

  ‘So what did you do?’ asked Grace. Though Kitt was fairly sure she knew the answer to that question, it was important to hear it from Hemsworth in her own words.

  ‘I double-checked with him that there would be no catch, no later claim to copyright if the play ended up being a huge success. And then, when it seemed as though all of my questions had been answered, I agreed to produce the play. The money came in the post in several instalments and I burnt all of the correspondence . . . well, almost all of it.’

  ‘You kept something?’ Kitt said, her hopes once again rising that there might be some way of tracking this person down. The letter might have the correspondent’s DNA on it and this mystery correspondent was more than likely the real Vampire Killer – or at the very least an accomplice for them.

  Stella paused for a moment, seemingly suddenly realising that she was revealing rather a lot to two people she’d only just met.

  ‘If you kept something, you might be able to clear your name,’ Kitt added quickly. ‘And it would bring us great peace of mind to know that our favourite performer wasn’t going to be wrongfully prosecuted for a horrible crime like this.’

  ‘I can only hope it doesn’t get that far,’ said Hemsworth, her focus back on self-preservation. ‘But there’s nothing in the portion I kept that would help with identifying who this person was. Despite the reassurances, I didn’t trust that he wouldn’t crawl out of the woodwork and try to sue me for lots of money at a later date if the play went on to be a stunning success. So I secretly kept the page where he renounces all rights to the play. I decided he would never know that that one page wasn’t in the stack of pages I burned. But what if I was wrong? What if he knew I didn’t do as I asked and this is my punishment? Being framed for murder? Oh my!’

  ‘I don’t think that’s what’s happening here,’ said Kitt, doing all she could to keep Hemsworth’s melodramatic eruptions to a minimum. ‘I think whoever this person is, framing you was part of their plan all along.’

  ‘Dear me,’ said Hemsworth. ‘I knew I never should have taken that money. But you know, when you’re a woman and you get to . . .’ Hemsworth paused to whisper the next word as though it were some forbidden mantra, ‘forty, well, the only place for you on the stage or screen is as the mother of someone so much younger than you are. Roles are hard to find. The money I was offered, well, it was enough to keep me in the lifestyle I’d become accustomed to and the opportunity opened up a new avenue in my career. Direction!’

  As she listened to Hemsworth’s explanation, Kitt couldn’t help but feel a small pang of pity for poor Stella. Your livelihood relying on your ability to stay for ever youthful hardly seemed fair. Kitt frowned then, remembering something she’d thought about Bramley when she met him. Kitt had wondered if his youthful look was part of the lure for his potential members; that they were attracted to vampires because of their eternally beautiful appearance. What if Hemsworth had become bitter about her acting career coming to an end because she wasn’t twenty-two any more? What if some twisted part of her had decided to get people’s attention another way? Kitt had read about such behaviour in other cases, people committing serial murder simply for the attention and fame it brought. Perhaps Hemsworth didn’t feel she’d done quite enough yet to reach the level of fame she was looking for and this mysterious admirer she had described was nothing more than a fabricated scapegoat, a twist in the story she would tell after she was ultimately unmasked as the true Vampire Killer.

  ‘It seems to me your best bet is to take all this information to the police before they come to you
asking questions,’ said Kitt. ‘Being proactive and cooperative will definitely put you in their good books. But it would help if there was some way of verifying who your admirer really was. There was nothing in the letters you received that might speak to his identity?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Hemsworth said, shaking her head. ‘Except that he signed every letter with two initials. A.J.’

  Kitt and Grace looked at each other, frowning. Did their list of suspects include someone who matched those initials? Kitt quickly ran down the list in her head. Ayleen Demir, Peter Tremble, Stoke Bramley, Cyril Armitage, Penelope Baker, none of those were a match. They didn’t know the name of Justin Palmer’s son . . . but then Kitt’s eyes widened as she did think of a mysterious figure mixed up in all this who did go by those initials.

  Alan Jenkins. The long-lost cousin who had conveniently reappeared in Cyril’s life just after he was diagnosed with dementia. If he wrote the play and was responsible for the killings, he may have planned to use Stella as his scapegoat. But then he experienced a stroke of luck that he never could have planned. The man who played the leading part began to suffer with dementia and became a more pliable patsy than Hemsworth ever would have been. Kitt could only hope that Mal had managed to obtain contact details for Jenkins while interviewing Cyril. Kitt didn’t believe for a moment that he was really Cyril’s long-lost cousin but, whoever he was, she was almost certain now that he was the one behind all this.

  Twenty-Three

  The next morning Kitt awoke to Halloran’s hand stroking the side of her face. She smiled absent-mindedly for a moment, still caught in that dreamy place between sleep and wake. After a few seconds, however, her eyes sprang open as she remembered Halloran hadn’t made it home the night before.

  She had texted him the information about Alan Jenkins and had received a message in return that explained that Halloran was in for a long night and she shouldn’t wait up for him to return to the hotel.

  ‘Are you OK? What happened with Cyril? Did you get a chance to look into Alan Jenkins? He’s the key to all this, I’m sure of it. I—’

  ‘Kitt,’ Halloran said, ‘slow down. I’ve got a lot of news, and I’m afraid you’re not going to like what I’ve got to say any more than I do.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ Kitt said, her voice small. She sat up, only to realize she was still in last night’s clothes and there were papers strewn across the bed. Papers that had seemed so important and integral to catching the Vampire Killer, until she had just heard the tone of Halloran’s voice. She knew that tone. It always meant the worst had happened.

  ‘It’s Cyril, pet. We’ve finished verifying all he’s told us.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And it all checks out. Right down to the last detail. It doesn’t mean I’m convinced that he’s the killer, but I’ve poked and poked at his story for nearly two days and I can’t find any holes in it. At the very least, given the evidence on display, my superiors are going to insist he’s charged as an accomplice to these crimes.’

  Kitt swallowed hard, trying to digest what Halloran was saying. Cyril was being manipulated. They’d all agreed on that. How could the police be charging him with anything?

  ‘Are you saying the care home verified he was missing on the nights the murder took place?’ said Kitt. She couldn’t just accept this. If she did an innocent man was going to be charged with conspiracy to murder . . . or maybe, ultimately, even worse.

  ‘No . . . they weren’t able to do that exactly,’ said Halloran. ‘But they were able to verify certain facts that support the explanation Cyril’s offered us.’

  ‘But the killer was striking all over the region. How did he even get to those places?’ said Kitt. ‘Is he able to drive in his condition? Does he have access to a car?’

  Halloran shook his head. ‘Remember, he’s telling us that he played up his symptoms. But he says he took public transport. He’s still got the tickets he purchased for the buses and trains.’

  ‘How did he pay, by card?’

  ‘No, cash.’

  Kitt’s eyes narrowed. ‘I can just about see public transport working for Scarborough and Middlesbrough. I think the last bus to Scarborough gets in just before nine o’clock. The last one to Boro gets in just after eight so assuming he was the killer he would have had a couple of hours to prepare before he struck.’

  ‘That’s . . . impressive working knowledge of the local bus network.’

  Kitt shrugged. ‘Yes, well, the fact that something like that impresses you is probably the reason we’re together. But actually the timetables have barely changed in the last twenty years and growing up in Boro, Whitby and Scarborough were regular summer daytrips. So yes, I think it’s possible he could have used public transport for those two places. But Malton is another matter altogether. It’s not impossible to get there from here, of course, with the York to Scarborough train stopping there, but you have to get to either York or Scarborough first.’

  ‘In that instance he took the bus to Scarborough and then the train from there to Malton,’ said Halloran.

  ‘But none of those routes run that late – certainly not till midnight when the murder took place.’

  ‘He took the first trains and buses back to Whitby the next morning. In the case of Middlesbrough and Scarborough he was back in the care home by nine o’clock. In the case of Malton he was back in there by ten, so he says.’

  ‘And nobody at the home noticed he was missing?’

  ‘Understandably, once Cyril received his diagnosis he was watched quite carefully to make sure his symptoms didn’t result in harm to himself or others but there’s a couple of factors at play. Firstly, as you may have noticed, the home is quite significantly understaffed.’

  ‘I did spot that, difficult to miss,’ said Kitt. ‘So he’s claiming he got away with it because everyone was too busy to notice?’

  ‘That’s part of it, but one of the reasons Cyril chose Seaview is that they’re very committed to resident privacy and dignity. So although a close eye is kept on them, each resident has a sign they can hang on their door handle when they don’t want to be disturbed, a bit like in a hotel. After the evening meal, that’s what Cyril did. He bundled some pillows up beneath the sheets on the off-chance anyone gave him a look-in. His room is on the ground floor so he was able to just climb out of the window when the coast was clear and catch the last bus to his chosen destination. He says he caught the first bus back bright and early the next morning, waited until the receptionists switched over from night shift to day shift, and then walked in claiming he had just been out in the garden because he wasn’t able to sleep. All residents are allowed in the garden between six in the morning and dusk so nobody was any the wiser.’

  Kitt paused for a moment. ‘But if his dementia isn’t causing him to re-enact parts of the play he appeared in, if he isn’t as sick as he says, what is his motive supposed to be?’

  ‘Cyril said that he has had an unhealthy obsession with witches and the occult from a young age because he was brought up in a very religious household. He was taught such people were working with the devil and for a long time he had a sort of fantasy of killing those who he was raised to believe were evil.’

  ‘Is there any way of confirming that?’ said Kitt.

  Halloran shook his head. ‘His parents are dead and he doesn’t have any siblings. He was baptized and confirmed as a Catholic but that hardly counts as evidence at a forensic level. But when you have a confession from a killer, you don’t really need it. A jury will take the confession as evidence of the killer’s motive.’

  ‘What about the gargoyles then?’ Kitt said, still determined to find some hole in the theory that Cyril was responsible for these deaths. ‘Was there any evidence that he was the anonymous bidder?’

  Halloran nodded. ‘Benji said late last year the pair had taken several trips into town. Cyril had insisted on going to t
he cash machine every time and taking out what he thought was a sizeable amount in cash. When he asked what all the money was for, concerned he might be being victimized by some kind of scammer, Cyril confirmed it was for a local charity auction that he’d bid on and won. Benji asked for further details to try to make sure he wasn’t handing his money over to someone suspicious but Cyril would only confirm with him that his cousin Alan knew all about it and it was a bit of fun between them. We’re hoping to confirm with the stone works today that Cyril was the person who picked up the gargoyles from the workshop.’

  ‘So, if I’m understanding right, I’m supposed to believe that Cyril was the man on the cliff top yesterday morning. The one who nearly killed me? Can he even lift one of those blocks?’

  ‘I got him to do it down at the nick,’ said Halloran. ‘He’s surprisingly strong. I told him to lift it over his head and he did just that. Banks was making cracks that he was able to lift the thing easier than I had.’

  Kitt sighed. ‘What was his rationale for buying them?’

  ‘He told us that he was going to plant them at one of the crime scenes if he ever thought he was close to being caught. His plan wasn’t to use one in an attempt on your life, but when the care home arranged a visit with you, he checked into you online and saw that you ran a private investigation agency in York. He assumed, since the last victim he’d marked was in York, that you were here about the case and didn’t want you sniffing around. He said he threw that rock at you to avoid having to sit through your questions. He wanted me to tell you that he never intended to kill you. Just scare you off the case. He wanted to avoid talking to you because, he said, he knew if he did he’d end up confessing to what he’d done.’

  ‘Well, all right, fine, he can lift one of those gargoyles over his head but how did he carry it all the way from here to the cliff edge without anyone seeing him, and without a car?’ said Kitt, a triumphant note in her tone.