[Kitt Hartley 05] - A Witch Hunt in Whitby

by Helen Cox

  ‘But when he tried to set up Cyril, he left medical needles to frame him. Why not leave the real weapon to make it more convincing?’ said Kitt with a frown.

  ‘I imagine it was just another level of insurance. If he’d provided the real weapon we could have started looking into places that sold them. He didn’t want to take the risk that his name would eventually crop up when we started asking questions.’

  ‘I’m not sure I’m going to be able to eat Christmas pudding ever again without thinking about that,’ Evie said.

  ‘You and me both,’ said Halloran. ‘The good news is, Sykes has admitted to manipulating Cyril, so he’s now safely back at Seaview Care Home with all charges dropped as we speak.’

  ‘Is he all right?’ said Grace. ‘Stupid question, I know, but I hate to think about the long-term effect something like this might have on him.’

  ‘I don’t know exactly what the impact of this case will be but I promised that I’d check in on him and suggested that you and Kitt might do too.’

  ‘Definitely,’ said Grace. ‘We need to reassure him that we never meant him any harm.’

  ‘How did Sykes manage to get Cyril believing he’d done all this?’ asked Kitt. ‘The story Cyril told you was so elaborate, did he really believe he’d done all those things, including throwing that rock at me?’

  ‘It started just as you suggested: Sykes wrote those letters to Stella Hemsworth and planned to frame her for the killings. His back-up was to find a way to blame the Creed of Count Dracula, which is why he bought the gargoyles. We received the description from the local stone works and they described Alan Jenkins, aka Arnold Sykes in disguise. The first thing Banks found at Sykes’s home was the wig and moustache he used for the part.’

  ‘And nobody saw through that?’ said Evie.

  ‘These things can be quite realistic now and in fairness most people aren’t expecting a person to be in disguise. They just take people as they come,’ said Halloran. ‘At any rate, Sykes had a stroke of luck, from his point of view, that he wasn’t expecting. He kept close tabs on anyone who had performed in his play in case another scapegoat presented itself, alongside Ayleen Demir of course who he knew had been up to no good on the camp and might prove a useful patsy if the other scapegoats didn’t stand up to police interrogation.’

  ‘But then he learned that Cyril was being moved into a home because of his dementia,’ said Kitt.

  ‘He’d deliberately started the bookshop to make himself look like more of a target for the killer, so nobody would suspect him. And running a shop like that in a small town, he was privy to all the local gossip, so keeping track of a situation like that wasn’t difficult. Before Cyril was moved into the home he contacted him via email professing to be a distant cousin and promised to visit him. Cyril, who was probably scared at the time and with no other family around him, accepted Sykes’s claim at face value.’

  ‘And it wasn’t much of a risk to pose as a distant family member,’ said Kitt. ‘Even if he did get some detail wrong about the family, he could pretend to Cyril that it was him who was misremembering because of his dementia.’

  ‘From the sound of things, that’s pretty much how he worked it,’ said Halloran. ‘But he also started planting things in Cyril’s mind about his upbringing. About his parents being deeply religious and opposed to any kind of occult practice. That was all sewn into Cyril’s mind over the course of about three years, so it was no wonder he believed it by the time he talked to us about it. When the time came, Sykes used his visits with Cyril to plant evidence in his wardrobe when he wasn’t looking. One day, Cyril noticed it there at the back and got scared. So he did what he always did when he got scared about something.’

  ‘He asked his only remaining family member what he should do,’ said Evie. ‘God, this is heartbreaking. That poor man. It’s not just the manipulation, it’s the fact that he made Cyril believe he had family left in the world. Now, he not only has to live with the knowledge that he’s been so horribly manipulated, but also that he doesn’t have any family left after all.’

  ‘Ooh,’ said Grace, punching her palm with a clenched fist. ‘I could swing for Sykes, I really could.’

  ‘Get in line,’ said Kitt. ‘So Sykes then convinced Cyril that those things were in his closet because he was the murderer?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Halloran. ‘Sykes, disguised as Jenkins, told Cyril that he hadn’t wanted to tell him the truth because he knew the truth would upset him, but he had known for a while that Cyril was having lapses of memory and carrying out the vampire killings. By this point, Cyril trusted Sykes more than he trusted his own memory. Sykes even rang him the day Kitt was attacked and told him he’d gone out that morning and tried to kill her. Then, of course, he put the phone out of service knowing that you were going to visit and Cyril would no doubt confess.’

  ‘Eeee, this is a twisted tale even by my standards,’ said Ruby.

  ‘And all because he was made bankrupt,’ said Grace.

  ‘Well, this was back in the early nineties, don’t forget,’ said Halloran. ‘Going bankrupt at that time was more serious than it is now. It affected people in all kinds of ways and if a person is made bankrupt it is publicized in the papers. It can cause terrible reputational damage on top of the financial hardship. I’m not justifying what Sykes did, of course, nothing could. But he must have been pretty desperate to go to these lengths.’

  Again the group fell into silence. It was impossible for Kitt to feel pity for Arnold Sykes after he had tried to kill her and had murdered so many others. But it was also sad to think about how his life could have turned out differently. If the Children of Silvanus had never bankrupted Sykes, he may have, even now, been out on the dales herding cattle. Just as his father had before him. Instead he’d spent years trying to come to terms with that soul-destroying event and when he hadn’t been able to he’d begun plotting his revenge. Between the arson, the organising of various scapegoats and committing the vampire killings, almost twenty-five years of his life had been consumed by his obsession. It was difficult not to think about what a terrible waste it all was.

  ‘Well, I think I’m ready to go home now,’ said Ruby. ‘Get back to my little house, and me pets.’

  ‘Yes, come on,’ Evie said, offering Ruby a hand up off the bench. ‘We’d better get packed up.’

  Grace followed them, giving Kitt and Halloran a moment alone. He wrapped his arms around her and squeezed her tight. ‘I can’t believe how close I came to losing you,’ he said.

  She held him just as tight but wasn’t about to give him more fuel for his nightmares. ‘Oh, I would have thought of something,’ she said. ‘I always find a way out of these situations. And, of course, I did technically also manage to solve the case before you did. And you know what that means?’

  Halloran withdrew just far enough for her to see the sparkle in his eyes. ‘Oh dear,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry I lost. I suppose now I have to be true to my word and be your unquestioning servant for twenty-four hours.’

  ‘That’s right, time to get your vocal cords warmed up, Mal. Your first task is going to be reading my favourite passage of Jane Eyre to me.’

  The smile on Halloran’s lips faded. ‘Oh, is that er, all we’re going to be getting up to, like?’

  Smiling, Kitt patted him on the arm and began to follow after the others.

  ‘Kitt?’

  ‘You’ll have to wait and see,’ she called back to him as they started their walk back to the Elysium Guest House.

  Thirty-Three

  Whilst putting on her coat at the end of her Saturday night shift at the Vale of York University Library, Kitt took just a moment to appreciate the smell of old books filling her lungs and the vibrant colours of the mosaic that adorned the ceiling. It depicted Prometheus giving the spark of fire to humanity. After almost being burned alive by a serial killer just shy of a w
eek ago, Kitt wasn’t sure she would ever look at that mosaic in quite the same way but she couldn’t deny she was glad to be back in the comforting environs of her book stacks.

  Remembering that she needed to collect the post from the agency offices, Kitt picked up her satchel and turned off the lights on the third floor of the library. She then made her way down the spiral staircase and out through the large double doors at the front. She hadn’t gone ten paces towards Skeldergate Bridge, however, when she sensed someone walking behind her and not a moment later a hand grabbed her shoulder.

  Kitt only just managed to keep herself from crying out as she turned round to see who it was. ‘Ruby!’ she said. ‘What are you doing lurking around here at this time of night?’

  ‘I knew you were working the late shift, like, and I just wanted to check in with you about the case, see if there’ve been any new findings in the last week that haven’t made it onto the news.’

  ‘Couldn’t you have swung by a little earlier?’ Kitt said.

  ‘No, I were busy today with me meditation.’

  ‘Sounds frantic,’ Kitt muttered under her breath.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘Um, fantastic to see you, Ruby. I’m just heading to the office briefly, do you want to walk and talk?’

  ‘Aye, that’ll work,’ said Ruby, following Kitt up the steps to Skeldergate Bridge. ‘I just wondered if there’d been any leads on that Penelope lass, you know, the one who disappeared?’

  ‘Nothing concrete, although Banks did learn that the people who disappeared for disobedience at the camp were kept in solitary confinement and that some of those people did escape when the fire happened, so there is still hope that she’s out there somewhere.’

  ‘Good,’ said Ruby. ‘Hope is very important. If I have any visions that I think are relevant, I’ll let you know. I must admit, I was very glad to be able to provide you with such strong leads in this case.’

  Kitt took a deep breath, trying to temper her frustration at that sentence. ‘Strong leads? What were those, exactly?’

  ‘Well, you know, telling you it was a witch and all that.’

  ‘But it wasn’t a witch. It was a bloke who’d been made bankrupt.’

  ‘’E might have been the one doing the killing but the person who led you to him was a witch – Ayleen Demir. She was the one who told you about the Children of Silvanus, and she owned a tattoo shop. I told you about the butterfly tattoo in me vision as well. If it wasn’t for that then you might never have found out about that cult and so might never have found the killer.’

  Kitt opened her mouth to argue but thought better of it. Ruby had been through a lot in the past few weeks and it wasn’t in Kitt to be cruel, no matter how exasperated she was. But also, the sheer amount of false logic in Ruby’s statements made it difficult to know where to start even if she had wanted to argue with her.

  ‘I’ve heard on the news, about them other fires Sykes started,’ said Ruby, clearly astute enough to know it was best to move the conversation on.

  ‘Yes, he’s admitted to starting fires every few years using Justin Palmer’s journal to select targets.’

  ‘Some of those places would have had smoke alarms though. I still don’t understand how he managed to burn them down without the alarms going off. Or how he started the fires without the fire brigade determining the cause of the fire.’

  ‘In the cases where the fire was in a house, he found a way in a good month before he was due to set the fire and replaced the batteries in the alarms for dead ones. In the case of hard-wired alarms he’d disconnected the power unit and removed the back up battery. The people in the house had no idea what he’d done so when the fires happened they weren’t alerted until it was far too late.’

  ‘He really did ’is homework,’ said Ruby shaking her head.

  ‘Yes, and I’m afraid it doesn’t stop there. He claims he picked the lock into the premises he targeted a second time to start the fires. He wrapped a rag around a piece of wood, set fire to it and used it to set fire to the curtains, to the carpet, anything that enabled the fire to spread while the victims were sleeping. Once he was satisfied the fire wouldn’t go out he took his home-made torch with him and extinguished it.’

  ‘Eee, it’s the amount of calculation in this case that really scares me. He waited years for payback, and had made sure he’d thought of almost everything, except for your love of books, of course.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well, most people wouldn’t start a murder investigation in a bookstore; there’s only one person I know who would do something like that. And if you hadn’t, you wouldn’t have been able to piece together the motive.’

  Kitt chuckled. ‘I wonder if I can convince Halloran that I should never walk past another bookshop again just in case it later becomes an important clue in unravelling a mystery.’

  ‘Worth a try,’ said Ruby, as Kitt slowed. They were approaching their offices and she began rooting around in her satchel for her key. After finding it, she unlocked the door, switched the light on, picked up the post and threw it on the desk.

  ‘As well as checking in about the case, I just wanted to say thank you again.’

  ‘You’ve already thanked me plenty of times, Ruby,’ said Kitt. ‘There’s really no need to say it again.’

  ‘I think there is. Lots of people would have looked at me, a lonely old woman approaching her ninetieth birthday, and thought, well, she’s had a good run. No point wasting my time trying to save her life. But you didn’t think that.’

  ‘Of course I didn’t,’ said Kitt, her eyes glazing with tears at the idea that Ruby could even imagine someone saying that about her. ‘You’re part of this world and someone was trying to take you out of it before your time. I wasn’t going to stand for that.’

  As she said these words, Kitt reflected on how true they were for her too. Between the rock-throwing incident and the showdown at the crematorium, Arnold Sykes had tried to cut Kitt’s time short more than once. Both times, it had almost been the end of her. It was by luck more than anything else that she was still standing there, and for that she was very grateful. She didn’t intend to squander the second chance she’d been given to make every day count.

  ‘I know, but many people wouldn’t have bothered to save someone like me,’ said Ruby, snapping Kitt out of her thoughts. ‘And I know I was spot on about the tattoo in my vision but I didn’t understand what the butterfly meant at the time. I thought it was literal, that we were looking for a killer with that kind of tattoo. But that wasn’t it.’

  ‘Oh, enlighten me?’ said Kitt.

  ‘It was just a symbol from the powers that be that everything was going to be all right in the end. That there wasn’t any need to worry. You see, a butterfly can be in its chrysalis between five and twenty-one days. I was in the dark for eleven but at the end of it I was allowed to fly free again. The butterfly was a sign that the light would return.’

  No sooner had Kitt smiled at Ruby’s rather sweet explanation than the room around her descended into darkness.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Kitt. ‘Grace probably forgot to pay the electric bill. We were on our last warning.’

  ‘Not to worry, not to worry, I’ve got just the thing,’ Ruby said. Kitt heard the sound of a match being struck and then a flame began to burn in the darkness. ‘Here you go,’ Ruby said, handing the candle to Kitt.

  Thanking her, Kitt stared into the orange glow of the candle flame and finally permitted herself to feel true relief that they had managed to save Ruby’s life. It seemed that, even in complete darkness, light was never far away if you had a friend by your side.

  Acknowledgements

  I am always posting to social media explaining how grateful I am to my readers, who have followed Kitt and her friends through so many adventures in this series. I think it’s important to also mention here how
ever just how much it means to receive such a wonderful reception to the stories and characters I have created. It brings me true joy to know I have played a part in yours.

  Enduring thanks to Hazel Nicholson who provides such valuable feedback on police procedure. Fiction is a bit like elastic – you can only stretch it so far – and I’m very grateful to Hazel for ensuring the elastic never quite snaps.

  Heartfelt thanks to Dan Freedman who shared his medical expertise in order to bring the Vampire Killer to life.

  A huge thank you to my agency Hardman and Swainson who have not only championed these books from the moment I submitted the first instalment but have also worked to have the first in the series translated in several languages. Much gratitude also goes to Quercus Books and to my editors Stef Bierwerth and Kat Burdon; their ongoing commitment to the Kitt Harley series and their support of me as an author is beyond heart-warming.

  Many thanks also, as ever, to my family and friends who are very gracious about the fact that I disappear into the world of Kitt Hartley for months on end before finally coming up for air.