[Kitt Hartley 05] - A Witch Hunt in Whitby

by Helen Cox

  ‘I’ll be honest, I didn’t think you’d wake up after the dosage I gave you. That wasn’t part of the plan. You must be strong.’ Sykes sounded almost bemused as he spoke. ‘I thought that there might be a small chance of you waking up once your body started to burn but it’s so hot in there even if you did momentarily regain consciousness, you’d be out again in a matter of seconds.’

  ‘You mean . . . you mean you’re going to burn me alive?’

  ‘The plan was to lure you here, give you so much Xylazine you’d never wake up again anyway and then yes, burn the evidence.’

  Kitt felt her whole body tense at Sykes’s words. For a moment she thought she was going to be sick but thankfully she managed to control herself. ‘I’m not evidence. I’m a human being. Where’s Ruby?’

  ‘She’s safe. Until midnight at least. After that, well, she’ll pay the price for setting Justin Palmer on his path all those years ago.’

  ‘Please . . . don’t do this, Arnie . . . I mean Victor.’ More than anything she wanted to scream at the man but that wasn’t going to help her get out of this. Reasoning with him might not either but if she could keep him talking long enough Grace might be able to pick up her trail. Or the police might have tracked his vehicle to this spot via CCTV. Either way, there was still hope. The crematorium wasn’t that far from the fairground.

  Sykes’s face darkened on hearing his real name. ‘Victor Greenwood doesn’t exist anymore.’

  ‘I know what happened to your farm,’ said Kitt, making eye contact and seeing a flicker of sadness in Sykes’s eyes as she did so. ‘I am so very sorry you went through that, but this, all this, what you’ve done, is not the answer.’

  ‘What is then, eh?’ Sykes snapped. ‘You tell me that. Because after I lost everything I spent the six years it took for the bankruptcy to be removed from my credit history trying to figure out what the answer was to having everything crumble. All the hard work your father and his father have done, gone in one fell swoop. And there’s nothing you can do about it.’

  ‘You have suffered but there is help, even now there is help, and there is hope. If you don’t take this any further, if you admit what you’ve done, accept the consequences, you can get real help.’

  ‘I find it interesting that once you start picking people off, once you really get their attention, all of a sudden people are so keen to help you. Never mind before, when you’re just a hard-working farmer who never did anything to hurt anyone and had everything taken away. People weren’t remotely interested then. If you want to find out who your real friends are, I can recommend going bankrupt. You soon learn who will stand by you and who will stab you in the back. But now that I am a killer, now that I’m a threat, you’re falling over yourself to help me, and you’re not the only one. Every last one of the victims offered me something to try and save themselves but it is too little, too late.’

  ‘Well, if you’re really going to kill me,’ said Kitt, thinking of yet more ways to bide time, ‘at least grant me the satisfaction of knowing why you selected the victims you did. We know that your second victim was a police officer who worked in Sandersdale and likely, to your mind, didn’t do enough to shut down the camp; and I know that Ruby was accidentally a guiding force in Justin Palmer’s life, but why the other two? Is it because of their connection to Ayleen?’

  ‘No, it is not. To be honest I didn’t know those three people were connected. If anything, that was an unfortunate coincidence for me as I was trying to avoid any obvious patterns. I had to be careful when I was selecting the victims. Don’t get me wrong, my plan was to go for them all, every last person involved with the Children of Silvanus, and their children on top of that. I wanted them all gone, no trace left, no lasting legacy of that vile man.

  ‘But I had already taken a big risk in killing Palmer’s son. Something like that, if it had been discovered sooner would have blown my whole plan.’

  ‘When did you kill him?’

  ‘Last December. I used his house for the rest of that month as a base and to plan the killings. It was easier with him out of the way, without worrying that he’d somehow tip someone off that something untoward was happening in that house.’

  ‘Just before the killings we knew about started,’ said Kitt. ‘So that’s why you didn’t paint a V on his door? You didn’t want anyone to find him because then the police would look back in his history and might discover he was Palmer’s son?’

  ‘That’s right. After that, I couldn’t just go for all the people at the top of the cult, not right away. I had to bury them beneath people who were not so obvious. Who were part responsible for what happened at that camp but in such a way that no one would guess they had any affiliation with them unless they dug a long way into that person’s history. Otherwise the police would have likely figured out the pattern and traced it back to me. Nobody knew me around here, so they just believed me when I said I used to work in insurance. But it wasn’t a cover story that would hold up to police scrutiny.’

  ‘So why kill Tucker in the first place?’

  ‘I didn’t intend to kill him quite when I did. I’d built up a . . . a friendship is a bit strong. Tucker didn’t trust easily. But he thought I lived on one of the neighbouring farms. That’s what I told him about four years ago when I explained to him that the post office said they had accidentally delivered some of my mail to him.’

  Kitt frowned for a moment, and then realized the significance. ‘Stella Hemsworth’s replies to the letters you sent. Tucker handed them over thinking they’d been incorrectly delivered . . .’

  ‘Aye. I stopped by now and then after that. You know, just to check nothing else had been falsely delivered. But I knew even then that one day I would kill him. I knew he had his father’s journal. Unfortunately, he caught me snooping around for it during one of my visits when I thought he was in the kitchen making us a cuppa.’

  ‘So you killed him for it?’ said Kitt.

  ‘Not right away. I held him hostage at his house for a good while before I did that. Six weeks or so. Benefit of him going off the grid. So long as his bills were paid nobody bothered us. Eventually, though, once I had got all of his passwords and banking information out of him, he had to die. I needed him out of the way so I could get on with bringing everyone else to justice. There were so many people involved in what happened in that place. So many people complicit. Some of them were already dead, but many of them are walking around in society without paying any price for what they’ve done. That’s not justice, so I had to dish out some of my own.’

  ‘But what connection did Anna and Alix have to the group?’

  ‘Anna Hayes was another one of Palmer’s offspring. Like most cult leaders he wasn’t exactly into monogamy. She didn’t know who her father was, but I did, thanks to his journal. I couldn’t let all that evil pass down from one generation to the next. As for Alix, as well as publishing books online she was a journalist. She planned this big exposé on the cult right at the beginning of her career. She must have heard some rumours and started digging around. But Palmer intimidated her out of running the piece. The camp could have been shut down years before it was if she’d run that story. She decided not to. She decided to turn a blind eye. So myself and who knows how many other victims lost out.’

  ‘Until you burned the place to the ground, killing Palmer.’

  Sykes shrugged. ‘Someone had to do something. The police weren’t going to help. Nor the media. Who else was left to get rid of them?’

  ‘There are other people onto you besides me, Arnie. Regardless of what happens next, you’re not going to get away with this. So why make it worse on yourself by killing me? I’ll be just another murder you get charged for.’

  ‘Well . . . I am sort of thinking now that it’s in for a penny, in for a pound. You see, you’ve got in the way of me ridding this country of some truly evil people. I had so many other people set-up
to take the fall. Stoke Bramley, Demir, Armitage, Hemsworth. Nobody was ever going to look at me. If it wasn’t for you, I could have just kept whittling them down until they were all gone, but now I will be going to jail, if I don’t kill myself first. And if it’s really over then the final thing I am going to do is find a way to torture the people who loved you. That’s the penalty for getting in my way.’

  ‘What do you mean by that?’

  ‘You are going to burn like the interfering little witch you are. And then I’ll sweep up anything recognizable as a body. By the time anyone knows I’ve been here the furnace will have cooled. Even if they do guess what happened to you, they won’t be able to separate your ashes from any of the others. There won’t be anything left of you, Kitt. What they will find, though, is a jar of your blood and that will be enough to leave your police inspector boyfriend wondering. Did you get away? If you didn’t, where is your body?’

  Kitt’s eyes filled with tears. This was all just too much. If she didn’t find a way out of this right now, she would be gone and Mal would be left never knowing the truth.

  It seemed however that Sykes wasn’t about to waste any more time in executing his plan. She watched Sykes pick up a needle and in her desperation, the only thing Kitt could think to do was scream.

  Thirty-One

  ‘No, no, no!’ Kit screamed. ‘Not like this!’

  With all her might she threw her weight against the side of the coffin. It was made of thin plywood and to her surprise it shunted towards the edge of whatever table she was lying on.

  ‘Don’t make this harder than it needs to be. You’re not getting out of here,’ said Sykes turning away to reach, Kitt presumed, for yet more Xylazine. If he drugged her again there was no way she would ever wake up. Once more, she rammed her whole body against the right side of the coffin and this time it was enough to shunt the box off the table. It rear-ended as it clattered to the floor and Kitt hit the hard stone. Not even waiting for the pain of that to register, she at once grabbed for a shard of wood and began working it against the duct tape around her wrists.

  ‘What are you doing?!’ Sykes spat as he kicked at Kitt’s side and tried to roll her over to face him. Kitt resisted, keeping her hands hidden. She had to break free of the bonds if she was going to get out of this alive.

  ‘The coffin was just a little flourish,’ Sykes said. ‘You’re going in that furnace one way or another.’ Kitt craned her neck to get a clearer view of Sykes. The needle in his grasp was filled with liquid; without a blink, he began moving it towards her neck but just before the needle met her skin she managed to free one of her hands and stop him, grabbing his wrist and squeezing it hard enough for him to know she wasn’t going out without a fight. Sykes flinched and renewed his efforts to push down harder. Twisting around so she was facing him, Kitt brought her other hand up, fending him off while the needle danced just inches from its mark.

  ‘You can’t hold me off for ever,’ Sykes said with a satisfied grin, and Kitt knew he was right. Her hands were already beginning to weaken. If she didn’t think of something quickly, he would get the better of her and Halloran would be left to suffer. For the second time in his life the woman that he loved would have been taken by a serial killer. Given how he still bore the psychological scars from the first time it happened, Kitt didn’t know if that was the kind of trauma Mal would ever recover from. She had to live. Not just for herself but for him.

  For a few seconds this thought offered her renewed strength as she pushed back against Sykes’s assault. There was no missing the fact, however, that he was stronger than her and within a few moments he had regained the advantage. Kitt felt the needle graze her neck. Tears of exasperation and dread were flowing freely now and she was just preparing herself for the worst when the unexpected happened.

  Something long and hard crashed over Sykes’s head, momentarily stunning him. Both he and Kitt turned to see Ruby standing next to them holding a pitchfork.

  ‘How did you get free, witch?’ he spat at Ruby. In response Ruby swung the pitchfork back and hit him again with the blunt side of it. This time, Sykes did go down and the needle dropped to the floor. Without even stopping to think, Kitt began tearing at the duct tape around her ankles.

  ‘Run,’ Kitt said to Ruby.

  ‘Run? I know I’ve got a new set of knees but—’

  ‘Just go!’ Kitt said, at last freeing her legs from the tape and clambering to her feet. She paused just long enough to stamp on the needle a couple of times. Hard enough to shatter it.

  She took just a moment to watch the Xylazine trickle away when Sykes grabbed her ankle. ‘What have you done? You’ve ruined everything. Everything.’ He moaned. He was trying to move but after two hard strikes from the pitchfork, Sykes couldn’t find his balance. Kicking away his grip, Kitt ushered Ruby up the stairs to the room where funeral services were probably held. She closed the door on the crypt and bolted it shut, praying there was no other way out and that by the time the police arrived the Vampire Killer would still be down there waiting for justice to be served.

  Thirty-Two

  Kitt, Grace, Evie and Ruby sat on a bench on Whitby pier. It had not taken the police long to arrive at the scene and arrest Sykes. Kitt and Ruby had been given a quick medical check-up at the scene. She still felt woozy after being drugged but was otherwise unscathed. Halloran had been out of his mind with worry, but once he’d reassured himself of Kitt’s safety, he’d gone straight down to the local nick to interrogate Sykes. That had been four hours ago now and Kitt had spent those hours wondering over so many elements of Sykes’s plan that it hadn’t occurred to her to ask Ruby some vital questions about what played out between them.

  ‘Ruby,’ Kitt said. ‘How exactly did Sykes manage to kidnap you from the guest house in broad daylight?’

  ‘He drove me off in ’is car,’ said Ruby.

  ‘Yes, but how did he manage to get you into the car?’

  ‘I went willingly,’ said Ruby.

  ‘What?’ Grace, Kitt and Evie all said at once.

  Ruby chuckled. ‘I don’t mean I volunteered, I mean, when he broke in through the back door I knew there wasn’t much point in putting up a fight.’

  ‘Doesn’t sound like the same Ruby who hit the killer over the head with a pitchfork,’ said Evie with a little giggle. ‘I don’t think I’m ever quite going to get over that you did that.’

  ‘Yeah, I can’t believe I missed that,’ said Grace before turning to Kitt. ‘You could’ve taken a picture.’

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ said Kitt, her tone arid. ‘I was rather consumed with fighting for my life.’

  ‘And when Sykes broke in to the ’otel, I didn’t have a pitchfork handy,’ said Ruby. ‘That belonged to the crematorium. I had the choice of a rake or a pitchfork but pitchfork seemed more fitting given what that bloke has been doing to people associated with the occult for the past few months. And besides, I knew that the killer might go after someone else if they couldn’t take me. I didn’t want anyone else to take my place. I was the one who read those tarot cards all them years ago. I was the one who had to face the consequences of that.’

  ‘But you didn’t do anything wrong,’ said Grace. ‘You tried to pull Palmer back from going down a dark path.’

  ‘I know, but it was still my mess. And I ’ad a feeling that Kitt would come to the rescue.’

  ‘I remember it being more the other way around,’ said Kitt. ‘You rescued me. But one thing I don’t understand, if Sykes tied you up how did you manage to get free?’

  ‘He did tie me up with duct tape in the small kitchen area in the crematorium, but there was a sink in there. Took me a while, but I managed to shuffle my chair over and get me hands under the tap.’

  Kitt smiled. ‘You weakened the adhesive and broke free.’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Very smart thinking,’ said Kitt. ‘Do we wan
t to know how you knew what to weaken it with?’

  ‘You make it sound so sinister,’ Ruby said, shaking her head. ‘I know I don’t look it, but I’ve been around a long time and if you keep your eyes and your mind open you never stop learning.’

  ‘And if you hadn’t done that I probably wouldn’t be here,’ said Kitt.

  ‘Which I suppose puts me for ever in your debt, Ms Barnett,’ said a deep, familiar voice.

  Kitt smiled as soon as she heard it. It was Halloran’s.

  As they had a bit of an audience, Halloran kissed the top of Kitt’s head and gave her a squeeze – she had no doubt she’d be getting a lot more than that later though.

  ‘What happened in the interview, was it awful?’ said Kitt.

  ‘These things are never pleasant, but he’s confessed to all the murders,’ said Halloran. ‘We’ve found Palmer’s journal and there are some sections in it that have been highlighted so we’ll be looking into those.’

  ‘Did you find out what weapon he used to make the marks on the victims’ necks?’ asked Grace. ‘Was it a needle?’

  ‘Of sorts,’ said Halloran. ‘He’d modified a cooking syringe used to inject brandy and such into cakes and puddings.’

  There was a moment’s silence as Kitt, Evie and Grace took in this strange discovery.

  ‘That, and I don’t say this lightly, is possibly the weirdest thing about this case you’ve told me yet,’ said Kitt, barely able to believe what she was hearing.

  ‘I know,’ said Halloran. ‘You can buy them in shops for a couple of quid. We’d never have thought of looking at something like that.’