Silence of the Bones: A Murder Force Crime Thriller

by Adam J. Wright

  “You don’t have to kill her in the cellar, just as long as she ends up there.”

  “I’ll do it in the woods,” Rob offered.

  “No, not the woods. You killed Eric in the woods. The girls are more special than that. You don’t have to do it in the cellar, but it’s got to be somewhere meaningful.”

  “I don’t know anywhere like that.”

  “Of course you do. You’re doing this for me, aren’t you? To show me what a good son you are? Then there’s a very particular place you can kill her. If you do it there, we can both share in the experience.”

  Rob knew instantly the place his father was referring to. The grin returned to his face and he headed towards the one place where he and his dad could share the experience of killing the girl.

  Chapter 24

  Dani’s phone rang. She left the room to answer it.

  Tony said to Sonia, “Did Rob give any indication of where he was going when he left here?”

  “No, he just got in his Land Rover and drove off at speed.”

  “Do you know the number plate of the Land Rover?”

  She shook her head. “It was his dad’s. Part of his inheritance, along with that bloody house.”

  “How about the colour?”

  “It’s blue. A blue Defender.”

  Tony resisted the urge to sigh with frustration. A psychotic would-be killer was out there somewhere, and all they had to go on was that he was in a blue Land Rover Defender. He mentally amended the term would-be killer. Rob might have already killed. What had happened to Eric? His car was at Miller’s Dale, but the man himself was missing. It wasn’t looking good.

  “He’s taken a girl,” Dani said, coming back into the room. “From the Co Op in Bakewell.”

  “Shit,” Tony said, closing his eyes and saying a silent prayer. He wasn’t usually a praying man, but he knew what Robert Gibson was capable of. He also had a feeling that James Gibson had killed his victims almost immediately, and Rob was likely to do the same.

  “Where will he take her?” Dani said, looking at Tony for an answer.

  “The house at Miller’s Dale, of course,” he said, standing up. “But he can’t take her there because of the uniforms checking the Lexus and the woods.”

  Dani nodded and pursed her lips. “So where will he go?”

  Tony tried to think. In theory, Rob could take the girl anywhere, but in reality, his psychological makeup limited his choices. He was doing all of this for a reason; to carry on his dead father’s work and make his father proud of him. So, he wouldn’t just kill the victim at any old place; it would be somewhere that meant something to both Rob and his father.

  He turned to Sonia. “Was there any place where Rob and James went together? A place that was special to them?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head. “Rob barely ever saw his father. There isn’t anywhere like that.”

  On one hand, that was good because it limited the number of places Rob might have gone, but on the other, it was bad because it made it impossible to predict where Rob was going.

  There had to be a place that linked father and son. They hadn’t connected in life but now, Rob wanted that connection.

  “Eric drove up here for the funeral,” he said, thinking aloud. “Was James buried? Is there a grave?”

  “Yes,” Sonia said. “It’s in the churchyard up the road. Not far from here.”

  Tony looked at Dani. “It’s the grave. Rob will take the girl to his father’s grave. What better way to show his old man that he’s becoming the son he always wanted him to be?”

  “Are you sure?” Dani asked.

  He nodded; certain he was correct. “It’s the grave.”

  They went out through the front door. “That way,” Dani said, pointing at a church spire a couple of streets away. As they ran along the pavement, she dialled a number on her phone and said, “I need officers at Hatherfield churchyard. We think that’s where Robert Gibson is going.”

  I just hope we’re in time,” Tony gasped. His lungs were already burning, but he increased his pace. Dani, who was obviously much fitter than him, was at least ten yards ahead, and increasing that distance with each stride.

  When he reached the churchyard gates, Tony wanted nothing more than to rest, but he had to put that aside for the sake of the girl Rob had with him. Besides, a blue Land Rover Defender was parked by the gates, with its boot open. Rob was already here. There might not be much time.

  As he entered the cemetery, he saw Dani some distance away. She had her hand raised in a halting motion, as if beckoning someone to calm down. Standing in front of her was a dark-haired man in a blue checkered shirt and jeans. In one hand, he held what looked like a knife. His other arm was wrapped around the throat of a teenage girl with long, dark hair.

  Tony got closer and realised the girl was bound and gagged with duct tape. She was on her knees, as if she too scared—or too weak—to stand.

  Knowing Robert was suffering from psychosis, Tony realised this was a crisis situation. The fragile threads of Rob’s psyche that still had a tentative hold on reality were about to snap.

  “Stay back,” Rob said as Tony joined Dani, “or I’ll kill her.”

  “You’re going to kill her, anyway,” Tony said. “There’s nothing we can do to stop that, is there, Rob?”

  Dani shot him a look, but Tony ignored it. She was just going to have to trust him.

  “At least you’re aware of how useless you are,” Rob said.

  “Is that your dad’s grave you’re standing on?” Tony pointed at the gravestone behind Rob.

  “Yes, it is.”

  “James Andrew Gibson,” Tony read aloud. “Father and brother. Not much of an epitaph, is it?”

  Rob looked confused. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, it’s not very personal. It doesn’t say loving father, or beloved brother. Usually there’s something like Sadly Missed, but it’s not on there. Because no one misses your father. He wasn’t loving, or beloved by anyone. He was a nobody, really, wasn’t he?”

  “He certainly was not.”

  “Yes, he was. Killing young girls didn’t make him special. It made him sad and weak. Are you the same as him? Sad? Weak?”

  “No, I’m not, and neither was he.”

  “So, what’s this all about?” Tony gestured to the girl, who was staring at him with fearful eyes.

  “It’s what he wanted.”

  “Oh, really? What about what you wanted, Rob? I’m sure you wanted a mother, but he took that away from you, didn’t he?”

  “I don’t know. He said she left us.”

  Tony snorted. “You know that’s not true. Deep down, you know she’s in the cellar with the others. He lied to you. Has he been lying to you lately as well? Telling you how proud you can make him?”

  “Shut up.”

  “Did he tell you to do this?”

  “No, I’m doing what he wanted me to do when I was a young boy. I disappointed him then, but I won’t do that again.”

  “Oh, I think he’s very disappointed in you, Rob. You’ve destroyed his life’s work by taking two girls out of the cellar. And now, all his dark secrets are going to be brought out into the light. The police will take away every single body from the cellar. All because of you.”

  Rob faltered. “What? No, that’s not right.”

  “Wasn’t it you who removed Daisy Riddle and Joanna Kirk from the collection and took them to Temple Well?”

  “Yes, but at the time, I wanted to hurt him for what he did to me.”

  “What did he do, Rob?” Tony could hear cars pulling up at the gate, the sounds of footsteps and voices behind him.

  Rob seemed unaware that the police team Dani had summoned had arrived. “He laughed at me when I didn’t kill that girl. He never mentioned it again, but I saw disappointment in his eyes every single day as I was growing up.”

  “That hurt, didn’t it? And you wanted to hurt him back. That’s totally understandable
. You certainly achieved your goal. Your actions have made sure his entire collection will be taken away.”

  “No, I didn’t mean to do that.” A look of panic entered Rob’s eyes.

  “Of course, you did. You just told me you did.”

  “Stop trying to confuse me.”

  “I’m not trying to confuse you, Rob, but you do sound confused. On the one hand, you say you want to be like your dad, but on the other, you ensured the destruction of everything he held dear.”

  “No, I didn’t do that.”

  “Of course, you did. If he was disappointed in you when you couldn’t kill one girl, imagine how disappointed he is now that you’ve made sure his entire collection will be dismantled. He couldn’t be more disappointed.”

  Tony saw the rage building in Rob’s eyes. “Get ready to grab the girl,” he whispered to Dani.

  Turning his attention back to Rob, he said, “Could a father be any more disappointed in his son? I don’t think so. As disappointments go, you’ve really taken it to a new level.” He stepped a little closer to Rob, presenting himself as a target. “There should be a picture of you in the dictionary, under the word disappointment.”

  Rob roared and pushed the girl aside so he could get to Tony. He crossed the space between them quickly, the wicked-looking knife blade glinting in the sunlight.

  Tony stepped back, meaning to lead Rob into the waiting arms of the officers who surrounded them, but the back of his shoe connected with something solid on the ground and he felt himself falling backwards.

  He landed on his back, the air leaving his lungs in a loud “Ooof” sound that exploded from between his lips. As he struggled for breath, he saw Dani rush over to the girl and drag her away. A shadow fell across his face and he looked up to see Rob standing over him.

  There was no mistaking the murderous rage in Rob’s eyes. If Tony didn’t do something to protect himself, he was going to die here, on someone else’s grave.

  He kicked out, his foot connecting with Rob’s chest, sending the man flailing backwards. The uniforms moved in as Tony scrambled to his feet.

  Rob hadn’t hit the ground, as Tony had hoped. Instead, he’d moved back to his father’s grave. The difference was that now, the girl was safe. Dani had taken the tape off her legs and mouth and was moving her away from the area.

  “Stay back!” Rob shouted, swinging the knife in wild arcs as the officers moved in on him.

  “Give it up, Rob,” Tony said. “There’s nowhere to go from here. Let us get you the help you need.”

  Tears were streaming down Rob’s face. He pointed at the earth beneath his feet. “He wanted to see blood. He wanted me to make him proud.”

  “No, Rob, he didn’t want any of that. He’s gone. It was all in your head.”

  Rob shook his head violently. “No, no, no. He spoke to me.”

  “Come on, now. Put the knife down and you can tell me all about it on the way to the station.”

  Rob’s eyes darted around the officers circling him before meeting Tony’s. He turned the knife around in his hand so that the blade pointed at himself. Then, with both hands, he plunged it into his own stomach.

  Staggering backwards, he slid down his father’s gravestone, reaching out to touch it with one bloody hand before collapsing in the dirt.

  “Shit!” Tony shouted. “Get an ambulance! Now!”

  Chapter 25

  St Edmund’s Church Burial Ground

  Castleton, Derbyshire

  Five Weeks Later

  Tony drove into the car park of the 12th Century church in Castleton and got out of his Mini. It was a warm, Spring day, and the early morning sunlight that touched his face felt good. He saw Battle’s green Range Rover parked near the church, the only other vehicle here.

  Tony had come to the burial ground at the church because Dani had told him that the surly DCI—who was getting surlier by the day—came here every morning to visit Daisy’s grave. The psychologist saw nothing wrong with that behaviour, and knew it was part of a process Battle was going to have to get through, but he wondered if the DCI was beating himself up internally every time he came here.

  There was something he had to tell his boss.

  Admiring the architecture of the church, he walked around the building, following a cement path to the graves.

  The hulking figure of DCI Battle stood with his head bowed among the gravestones. Tony approached him slowly and stood a couple of feet behind him.

  Daisy Riddle’s grave was adorned with flowers, teddy bears, and tea light holders. The gravestone itself had a picture of the girl attached to it. She looked happy.

  “Tony,” Battle said, lifting his head. “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to see you, actually. And pay my respects to Daisy, of course.” He placed a bouquet of flowers, which he’d brought from the car, among the others on the grave.

  “What do you want to see me about?” Battle said, wariness in his voice.

  “I want to talk about Daisy. About when she went missing.”

  “If you’ve got any information, add it to the report.”

  Tony had seen the report, which had been written since the search of James Gibson’s house and the exhumation of the bodies in the cellar had been carried out. Gibson’s work records—which were part of the accumulated junk in his house—had revealed that he’d been working at the Marston family home, where Daisy’s friend Sylvia lived. That was where he’d seen Daisy, and that was how he’d known she’d be on the street, walking from the Marston place back to her own house, at the precise time she’d been abducted. Gibson had either followed her out of the house, or he’d been waiting for her in his Land Rover outside.

  But what Tony had to tell Battle wasn’t anything to do with that. It wasn’t a detail about the girl’s disappearance; it was something regarding James Gibson’s psychological makeup that the DCI needed to know.

  “This isn’t for the report,” he said. “This is for you.”

  Battle frowned at him. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’ve read the sections of the report that refer to what happened when Daisy was abducted. You searched for her at the train station. You thought she’d run away. I think you partly blame yourself for what happened.”

  Battle said nothing.

  “I need to tell you that there was absolutely nothing you could have done that would have made any difference. While you were searching for Daisy, she was already dead. She was dead by the time you first heard her name.”

  “You can’t know that.”

  “I do know that. James Gibson killed his victims straight away. He didn’t leave them tied up in that cellar for days, or weeks on end. That wasn’t what he was about. He dispatched them and added them to his collection. That was what it was all about for him, the collection of bodies in the cellar. There’s no way you could have saved Daisy. Or any of the others, for that matter.”

  Battle took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Do you know what really rankles me, Tony?”

  “No, what’s that?”

  “Gibson died before I could get my hands on him. Where’s the justice in that?”

  “Our job isn’t to deliver justice. It’s to shine a light into the dark corners and reveal the bad things that are hiding there. We did that with James Gibson. His victims are in the morgue now, and they’ll soon get the proper burial they deserve, just like Daisy.”

  Battle thought about that for a moment, and then nodded. “I suppose you’re right.”

  “Anyway,” Tony said, turning away. “I have to go. There’s somewhere I need to be.” He set off down the path towards the car park.

  “Tony,” Battle said from behind him.

  Tony turned to face the DCI.

  “Thanks,” Battle said.

  Tony smiled and nodded and walked back to his car. When he got in, he waited a moment before starting the car, reflecting on the fact that Battle wasn’t the only one who was going to have mental scars th
anks to James Gibson.

  Yesterday, he and Dani had visited Colleen Francis to tell her that one of the bodies from the cellar had been identified as that of her sister, Mary Harwood. As Tony had correctly guessed, Mary’s skull had been marked with a single X. She’d been the first victim to make up the collection.

  But not James Gibson’s first victim. As well as the collection of girls, a skeleton with an unmarked skull had been exhumed from the cellar. It had been buried beneath the grave from which Rob had dug Daisy’s body, and the extra talus bone had belonged to this skeleton.

  There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that this unmarked victim was Penny Gibson. James had disposed of her so he could begin his series of murders. Tony had delivered the news to Rob, who had recovered from his self-inflicted stab wound, thanks to a capable paramedic team, and was currently residing in Kingsway Hospital in Derby. Rob had simply shrugged upon hearing that his mother’s body had been found, but Tony was sure the laissez-fare attitude was simply an act. Or a result of the drugs they were pumping into Rob at the hospital.

  Yet according to the research they’d done on the man, there might have been another victim even before Penny. A girl named Sarah Rundle had disappeared from James’s school, years before, and the circumstances—the victim’s coat found by the river to suggest drowning—were similar to Mary Harwood’s. That case had now been reopened, meaning that another family would probably be affected by Gibson’s actions.

  And Tony’s fears regarding Eric Gibson, James’s missing brother, had been confirmed when the uniforms Dani had sent into the woods had found a grave partially hidden beneath a pile of dead leaves. Eric’s body had been buried there. Bizarrely, there had also been an Action Man buried in the dirt beneath the body.

  Tony started the car and reversed out of the car park. As he’d told Battle, there was somewhere he needed to be.

  Chapter 26

  The morgue at Chesterfield Hospital was a hive of activity. As Tony walked along the corridor that led to Alina’s office, he was passed by various medical staff and even a reporter being ejected from the premises by a security guard.