A Room Full of Killers

by Michael Wood

  ‘She certainly did. Nothing heavy at first, cannabis, a bit of coke. Then he went on to crystal meth.’

  ‘Bloody hell! So what happened for him to get sent here?’ Matilda asked, nodding at the imposing building in front of her.

  ‘He started dealing. And he was eventually caught in Manchester.’

  ‘Manchester?’ Where the Hartleys lived.

  ‘Has anyone seen DCI Darke?’

  It was the second time that afternoon Sian had heard that question. This time, she was reluctant to answer.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ she asked as Faith came over to her desk.

  ‘Not a problem as such. Well, it may be a problem. I’m not sure.’

  ‘You’re not making much sense, Faith. Have a seat.’

  Faith pulled up a chair and perched on the edge. She flicked her hair back and began. ‘John Preston has a silver Vectra. Registration number VF51 CJS. He doesn’t have a garage and keeps it on the driveway. According to his neighbour, it hasn’t been outside his house for about a month. Anyway, I’ve had the number run through the ANPR and it was last seen here in Sheffield just over a week ago.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘The A6102. Bochum Parkway.’

  ‘Please tell me he was travelling out of Sheffield.’

  ‘Sorry. He was heading for Sheffield.’

  ‘Starling House isn’t far from Bochum Parkway.’

  ‘That’s why I was looking for the DCI. If John Preston has been in Sheffield for the last few weeks or so, then surely he’s a possible suspect for the murder of Ryan Asher.’

  Sian thought for a while. ‘Do we have a photo of John Preston?’

  ‘I don’t believe so.’

  ‘Try and get one. Let’s see who we’re supposed to be looking for.’

  SIXTY-EIGHT

  Matilda had visited Wakefield Prison many times in the course of her career. However, the sense of the occasion was not lost on her. It was the same with hospitals. Whenever she entered one she thought of James; the many scans and sessions of chemotherapy he’d had to endure. The memories came flooding back. As she entered the prison, she thought of the cases she had worked on over the years; the suspects who had been found guilty and sentenced. She knew some of them would be here in Wakefield Prison. She often wondered about them. Another reason for her sleepless nights and heavy mind.

  For security reasons, Matilda and Amy had their phones, keys, wallets, and anything else in their pockets locked up in reception and were then shown into the Legal Visits Room. As Matilda saw her phone being locked away she wondered if she doing the right thing in putting Thomas Hartley before the Starling House case. What if she was needed urgently? She wouldn’t know of anything happening until she left the prison.

  Minutes went by slowly, which did not help Matilda’s anxiety at all. Anything could happen in a prison, and, knowing Matilda’s luck, it probably would. Her mind was charging full speed ahead as it conjured up the many dangerous scenarios – a riot, fire, explosion, lockdown, revolt. She wanted to recite her list of Prime Ministers. She needed the comfort of banality to settle her nerves but she couldn’t allow a detective sergeant she didn’t know to see how fragile and pathetic she was.

  Matilda looked over at Amy whose face was blank. She was chewing her bottom lip – was that her way of controlling her own anxieties or was she just bored of being kept waiting?

  Pull yourself together, for crying out loud.

  The door was unlocked and in walked Samuel Bryce, formerly known as Wesley Brigstone. He was followed by a female prison guard who showed him to a seat opposite Matilda and Amy. Once he was sitting, she unlocked his handcuffs from behind his back. He placed his hands on the table and knitted his fingers together.

  The only photograph Matilda had seen of Samuel was taken more than thirty years before when he was still called Wesley. Then, he was a fresh-faced thirteen-year-old boy wearing his school blazer and smiling his cheeky smile directly to the camera. The blue eyes were bright, his cheeks had dimples, and his hair was soft and flowing. Now, time, alcohol and drugs had ravaged his body. He had the harsh look of a man on the edge of life. His dull blue eyes had sunk into his face. He looked tired and drawn. His once shiny hair was lifeless and cut short. His uniform of navy trousers and sweater were old and stained and at least one size too big for his skeletal frame. He looked more than a decade older than his forty-four years.

  Amy cleared her throat and introduced them both. The silence returned. It was time for Matilda to take over and begin the interview.

  ‘I’d like you to tell me about what happened once you were released back in 1995.’

  ‘She knows,’ he nodded in Amy’s direction. His voice was quiet and gruff as if it physically hurt his throat to speak.

  ‘I’d like to hear it from you.’

  ‘There’s nothing to say.’

  ‘OK. What about from 2009 when you lost your job at the packing factory in Leicester?’

  ‘I didn’t lose my job. I was made redundant. I’d worked for them for more than ten years. I got a good payout.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘There weren’t any jobs going. People were being laid off, left, right, and centre. Companies weren’t hiring as they were scared by the economy. I managed to survive for a while; I had my redundancy money, but it didn’t last long. I had a few temp jobs, working behind a bar, as a postman at Christmas when they needed extra staff, then a milkman, but even they dried up eventually.’

  ‘It sounds like you wanted to succeed though. You didn’t want life to beat you.’

  ‘I didn’t. At first. It was the bloody Olympics that did it.’

  Matilda frowned. ‘How’s that?’

  ‘While the whole country was pissing themselves about the Olympics, saying how brilliant it was going to be for Great Britain, how the mood of the nation was high, I couldn’t get arrested.’ He laughed and showed a set of brown, broken teeth. ‘Actually that’s not true. I probably could have got arrested if I’d wanted to. I had to go and sign on. I’ve never done that before in my life. Do you know how degrading it is having to beg for a bit of money just so you can pay the rent? I had some snotty cow behind a desk asking me what I’d done to find work. What work? There was nothing out there. I ended up having my benefits stopped. I couldn’t even afford the bus fare to get food from a food bank. How bad is that?’

  Matilda started to feel sorry for Samuel. Had he been let down by the system or was he doomed from the day he was born?

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘Around September 2013 I started getting into drugs. I met this woman in a pub and I went back to her place. She had some coke and we had a pretty heavy night, if you know what I mean. Anyway, we met up a few more times, and it was always the same thing: coke, drink, and sex. One night, she didn’t have any coke and I had no idea where to get some from, but she said she knew a guy so off she went. She came back and said she had something new she hadn’t tried before but was told it was the bollocks.’

  ‘What was it?’

  ‘Crystal meth.’

  Matilda had to bite her tongue. Crystal methamphetamine was one of the most powerful illegal drugs available. Commonly known as the ‘club drug’ it is addictive from the very first hit. The first experience may involve some pleasure and act as a stimulant to party all night, but it would already have begun to attack the body and change the user’s life.

  Samuel noticed the look on Matilda and Amy’s faces. ‘You know what it does. At first I thought it was brilliant. It gave me so much energy. I was happy. But it doesn’t take long to bring you down. I was getting depressed. I stopped eating, lost weight, and the only way to stop yourself from feeling down is by taking more meth. I sold everything I had to buy more. I lost my flat, everything. I ended up moving in with Caitlyn but it wasn’t her flat to begin with. It was just a squat.’

  ‘Was Caitlyn supporting your habit?’

  ‘Yes. To begin with.’

  �
�Was she working?’

  ‘She was,’ he smiled. ‘But it wasn’t the sort of job you put on your CV.’

  ‘She was a prostitute?’

  ‘And a bloody good one too. The problem is the dealers know how much you need the drug so they keep putting the price up. You can’t afford it but you need it, so you’ll do anything to get it.’

  ‘What happened?’ Matilda was engrossed in Samuel’s story.

  ‘Caitlyn was going out more and more to get money. She started doing riskier stuff if it meant getting more cash. She didn’t like it.’ Samuel genuinely looked disgusted as he relived his darkest days.

  ‘What was she doing?’ Amy asked.

  ‘Trust me, you don’t want to know. You’ll be shocked if you knew what sick things some men like to do. I liked Caitlyn. I genuinely had feelings for her. It was horrible seeing her change into a shell. She stopped talking to me. She stopped eating, and she was crying all the time. Then I remembered.’

  ‘Remembered what?’

  ‘I remembered I had a friend … Thomas Downy.’

  SIXTY-NINE

  ‘Christian, any chance of a word?’

  Sian and Faith were standing in the doorway of his office. They looked pensive.

  ‘You can have as many words as you like if it’s going to distract me from these sodding overtime sheets.’

  ‘Faith’s been trying to track down John Preston all day. She’s run his car through the ANPR and it was last seen a few weeks ago here in Sheffield, despite John supposedly keeping a vigil at his son’s hospital bed. We’ve got a copy of his driving licence and … well … ’ she handed him a printed copy of the licence.

  ‘That’s not John Preston,’ Christian said, studying the printout.

  Sian and Faith exchanged glances.

  ‘I called the hospital that Malcolm Preston is in and spoke to one of the nurses,’ Faith said. ‘I sent an email of the driving licence and asked her to confirm that it’s John Preston. Six nurses all confirmed it.’

  ‘This makes absolutely no sense. What does Matilda say?’

  Sian looked everywhere apart from at Christian Brady. ‘She’s not back yet.’

  Christian blew out his cheeks. He would have to step up to the plate and make a decision. He hoped he would make the right one. If he did he would make sure the ACC knew it was him who solved the Ryan Asher case and not Matilda Darke.

  ‘Well … ?’ Sian prompted.

  ‘We need to visit Starling House. Someone is either a very good actor or everyone has been lying to us the whole time.’

  ‘The first thing you were told upon being released from prison was that you must never contact Thomas Downy,’ Amy said quietly yet firmly.

  ‘I know that. But when you’re desperate you’ll do anything.’

  Matilda was reminded of the inmates of Starling House and the crimes they had committed. Some of them found themselves in desperate situations and felt murder was the only solution. It could happen to anyone. That thought sent a chill straight through her. Was she capable of murder given the situation? She hoped not.

  ‘How did you know where to find him?’ Amy asked.

  ‘He was in the newspaper. I can’t remember the story, something about a protest over immigration. There was a group of people standing in front of a banner. I recognized him straightaway.’

  ‘But you hadn’t seen him since you were both thirteen. You went to different Young Offender Institutes. Surely he’d changed?’

  ‘It may have been thirty years but some things don’t change. The eyes never change,’ Samuel said. He was smiling. He seemed to be enjoying his audience.

  Amy was disgusted. ‘The newspaper wouldn’t have given his address though.’

  ‘No. The protest was in Heaton Park in Manchester. The picture that went with the article had the names of the people in it. He was calling himself Daniel Hartley now. He wasn’t too difficult to find.’

  ‘So what did you do?’ Matilda asked. ‘Did you just knock on his door and ask if he wanted to reminisce about old times?’

  ‘No, nothing like that. I had to do my homework. I found him, followed him, worked out his routine. He’d done all right for himself. He was married, had a nice house, new-ish car, two kids. He was fit and healthy, wore designer clothes, cufflinks, the latest mobile phone. To look at him you wouldn’t have thought he’d helped butcher an innocent child.’

  Samuel’s words were making Matilda and Amy uncomfortable. They tried not to make it obvious but it was difficult. He was revelling in his captive audience. He appeared to have no remorse over the killing of Felix Myers and would probably have given them an intricate account of the gruesome murder if they’d asked. He really was a disturbed individual.

  ‘One evening he pulled up outside his house and got out of the car. I’d been waiting for him all day. I was freezing. I called his name, his new name, and he turned around. You should have seen the look on his face when he saw me.’ Samuel laughed as he relived the memory. ‘He recognized me straightaway. It’s like I said, the eyes are a giveaway.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He was full of questions: What do you want? How did you find me? What are you doing here? He was stuttering and sweating and practically pissed himself. I told him I wanted to talk, that it was important. He told me to meet him at the bus station in an hour.’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Yeah. We went for a drive. We were driving for ages and didn’t say a word. I could see he was seething; he was itching to ask me all kinds of questions but he didn’t know where to start. We drove into the middle of nowhere. I think we were on the moors or something.’

  ‘What did you talk about?’

  ‘I told him straight – I needed money.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He asked how much, and I told him a grand a month would be good to start with. He said he couldn’t afford that, and he saw no reason why he should give me any money at all. I told him he had three good reasons – his wife and two kids. He called me a few names, which I won’t tell you as they were pretty harsh. He said he’d give me two grand right there but I had to promise to fuck off and not come back.’

  ‘Did you agree to that?’

  ‘Two grand’s better than nothing. We went back to Manchester. He went into a bank and got the cash. He drove me to the bus station and practically threw me out of the car.’

  ‘Please tell me that was the last you saw of him,’ Amy said. She was still in blind hope that it was the extent of Samuel’s breaking of the rules.

  ‘Not exactly.’ he grinned. ‘I went back a few weeks later.’

  SEVENTY

  While Faith concentrated on driving through another heavy rain storm, Christian and Sian were busy with their mobile phones.

  Christian had tried to call Matilda three times; each time it went straight to voicemail. On the fourth attempt he left a message. His voice was terse and there was anger behind his words. ‘Matilda, it’s Christian. I really need to talk to you. It’s urgent. Call me immediately.’

  In the back seat, Sian was feeling guilty. She should have lied and pretended she had no idea where Matilda was. Why did she say she was still grieving over her husband? She thought she knew Christian. She thought he was one of the good guys who would understand what Matilda was going through. Surely, he wouldn’t use her fragility to further his career? With nervous, shaking fingers, Sian sent Matilda a series of text messages. All of which went unanswered:

  I told Brady you were taking some time out. Thought he’d understand. Typical bloke he doesn’t. Sorry.

  Brady has been trying to ring you. He’s pissed off. Think he might go to ACC.

  You need to ring me, Mat. We’ve found John Preston. You’re not going to believe this.

  Brady, me and Faith are going to Starling House. Brady is seriously pissed. You need to get here Mat. Where are you???

  As the car turned into the grounds of Starling House, Sian looked at her phone one more ti
me. It was five o’clock and almost dark. There were still no messages from Matilda. She looked around the headrest to see Christian also staring at his phone as if willing it to ring. Was he worried he would mess up without Matilda or was he angry she had abandoned him when the case was finally getting somewhere?

  Starling House looked deserted. There were no cars or vans in the car park at the front of the building, and the windows were unlit.

  ‘Drive round to the back,’ Christian instructed Faith, who had already parked.

  She turned on the engine and slowly made her way to the back of the building. The car crunched on the gravel of the sweeping driveway. All three were looking up at Starling House, trying to see some sign of life.

  The car park at the rear of the building was for staff only, and there were three vehicles parked in random spaces. They recognized one straightaway. The Vauxhall Vectra belonging to John Preston.

  ‘VF51 CJS,’ Christian said, checking the Post-It note from his pocket.

  ‘Should we call for backup?’ Faith asked. It wasn’t long ago when Faith and Sian innocently knocked on the door of a witness and ended up being held at gunpoint. The memory was still raw for Faith; she had bad dreams about it from time to time. She hadn’t mentioned it to Sian but she looked at her in the rear-view mirror. Was she going through the same panicked emotions?

  ‘No. I think John Preston may actually be relieved he’s been found out,’ Sian said.

  ‘Really?’ Faith was surprised. ‘Why?’

  ‘He’s not a cold-blooded murderer. He just wants vengeance for his son.’

  ‘You sound like you have sympathy for him.’

  ‘I’m a mother of four. If anything happened to them at the hands of someone else, I’d want justice to be served.’

  ‘I agree with Sian,’ Christian said, suddenly thinking of his own two children.

  ‘So are we just going to sit here or are we going to go in?’ Faith asked.

  ‘We’re going in.’

  SEVENTY-ONE

  Manchester. December 2013