by Wes Markin
Andrew never found her. As far as Hayley was aware, he never even tried to. He died not long after from cancer. Yorke recalled Andrew’s final words to his son, recorded in Thomas Ray’s case file. ‘It’s through this same door in fifty years, they will come back for you, they told me so. And remember, those creatures can come in human or animal form.’ Yorke paused for a deep breath. It was the warning that would lead to the death of Dawn Butler, his best friend’s wife.
As Yorke read the next part of the tale, his heart quickened.
Eight months after her escape, Hayley gave birth to two identical baby boys. Hayley wanted, desperately, to keep them, but she was convinced by the church that they stood a better chance with a good family and that such an adoption could be arranged.
‘Besides,’ she was told, ‘do you want them growing up with the legacy that you bring to their lives or would you rather they started afresh?’
The children were taken to the church-owned Orphanage of Salvation. Three months later, Hayley finally resigned herself to never seeing her children again and was about to commit her life to the church when a funny thing happened.
Elysia Bennett came to the church and asked to speak to Hayley. She was an affluent, influential member of the community who had been unable to conceive. She’d recently adopted a baby boy from the Orphanage of Salvation and had called him Robert.
Elysia was a god-fearing woman and she believed that it was her duty to thank the person who had given her the ultimate gift of a son. She’d contacted the orphanage and used her power and influence to acquire the mother’s name. So, Elysia thanked Hayley and then asked her if there was anything she could do in return.
Hayley asked to be the Bennett’s live-in maid. She promised to never divulge the truth behind Robert’s parentage and would be content to just serve him and the rest of the Bennett family in any way she could.
The rest of Hayley’s document gave a potted history of the happiest parts of her life up until the stroke that left her paralysed. She had been content to be with her son and care for him without him ever really knowing the truth. The fact that she had ended up raising him due to his skin disorder was a bittersweet bonus. She’d come to terms with the tragedy of never seeing her other son again, simply because she’d been given this second chance at happiness and couldn’t risk ruining it.
She often described Robert as a ‘gentle’ person without a ‘bad bone in his body’ unlike his ‘natural father.’ She described the moment Robert found happiness with his wife as ‘the first real moment in her life when she realised that her existence, and great suffering, had been worthwhile.’
Yorke finished his cold fries.
Feeling emotional, he contacted Gardner and relayed the salient parts of the story.
There was a moment of silence before Gardner said, ‘Are you alright, Mike?’
‘I don’t know. I really don’t. There was so much pain and suffering in that story. And I just can’t stop thinking about Robert, isolated in his house, mocked by the other children. Despite what he’s involved with. I just can’t get that image out of my head.’
‘Maybe, you should take an hour off?’ Gardner said.
‘Not a chance. I’ve got to find out what happened to the other brother at the Orphanage of Salvation. And you and Jake have got to get back in with Robert. Tell him everything, although I suspect he already knows most of it. Tell him, the game is up. If he doesn’t tell us where his brother is quick smart, he’s going back into isolation. For good.’
Caroline lay on the bed in her treatment room. She was still unconscious after having the oxygen restricted to her brain by Lacey’s headlock.
Lacey hoped that she hadn’t squeezed too hard. If she’d accidently thrown her into a coma, she would struggle with the next stage of her plan.
This concern reminded her of ‘To a Mouse’, the Scottish poem by Robert Burns she’d read at school. She recalled the line, ‘The best laid schemes o’mice an’ men gang aft a-gley,’ which translated as ‘the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.’
She thought back to her last plan at the snuff house in Southampton in which she had lost control of the situation, leaving poor Tobias to bale her out in a bloody manner.
She smiled. Sometimes it was good when plans went slightly wrong. It brought excitement. Stimulation. Something she so desperately craved.
Caroline opened her eyes. She stared up at Lacey and gasped.
‘Don’t move,’ Lacey said.
Caroline’s eyes widened.
‘I have a needle against your neck. It contains a poison. You will not die in pain, but you will die.’
Caroline lowered her eyes to try and see the needle pressing against her neck. ‘Okay.’
‘Before you tried to run, I told you that it’s not you that has to die today. I made a promise to your stallion that I wouldn’t kill you.’
‘Jake?’
‘Do you have more than one stallion?’
‘He wouldn’t have anything to do with this!’
‘Do you trust a man cheating on his wife?’
‘What do you want?’
There was knock at the front door.
‘Sounds like you’re about to find out.’
After Gardner and Jake had told Robert Bennett everything, they waited for a response.
They were waiting a long time.
‘How much did you know of that already?’ Gardner asked, trying to move the conversation along.
Robert sighed. ‘Knew some of it, suspected some of it. Who cares? It’s all irrelevant. Changes nothing.’
Gardner, feeling a surge of frustration, hit the palm of her hand on the table. She could sense Jake staring at her. She didn’t care if he was shocked. Enough was enough. ‘What do you mean changes nothing? Wake up, for pity’s sake! We know there are two of you. One of you spun the story at the reception at the Mitchell farm, the other kidnapped the boy from the back of the maze. And then you both ate him.’
Robert pointed at Gardner. ‘Listen you, I ate no one. I had nothing to do with that. I may look like a fucking monster but I ain’t one.’
‘Did your brother eat him?’
‘Please don’t call him that!’
‘So, you have a brother?’ Jake said.
‘Can’t deny the evidence, can I?’
‘Do you admit you’re involved?’ Gardner said.
Robert took a deep breath and drummed his fingers on the table. ‘You’ve got DNA, camera footage, God knows what else. There’s no point in us dancing over the same old ground forever.’
Gardner and Jake exchanged glances, both feeling relief over the fact that they were finally getting somewhere.
‘Where’s your brother then?’ Gardner said.
‘If you call him that one more time, I’ll cut my own tongue out rather than talk to you again.’
‘Okay, where is the other man that looks like you?’ Jake said.
Robert glared at Jake. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know who he is. I don’t even know where he is.’
‘When did you make this plan together?’
‘I can’t tell you that.’
It was Jake’s turn to slam his hand on the table. Gardner took her glasses off and rubbed her forehead instead; she felt the beginnings of a headache.
‘You’re happy to let others die?’ Jake said.
‘Of course not. I just can’t tell you anything else. I’m sorry.’
‘Well, at least you’re sorry,’ Gardner said, ‘I do believe that this is the first time that you’ve shown any remorse.’
Robert narrowed his eyes. ‘Actually, detective, I feel remorse. A lot of it. But I do not feel the need to display it to you. After all, you and the other detective, are just two of the many people that walk this horrible earth showing no remorse over the way you treat others. There are only two people in my life that have ever shown me kindness. My mother, who is suffering in a home, and my wife, who …’ He paused.
‘Who
left you?’ Jake said.
There was a knock at the door. Willows was looking in.
‘I’ll go,’ Jake said.
While Jake was outside, Gardner and Robert stared at each other. Robert now had tears in his eyes. She thought back to Yorke’s words on the phone earlier, ‘I just can’t stop thinking about Robert, isolated in his house, mocked by the other children.’
‘I do feel sympathy with everything that has happened to you,’ Gardner said. ‘I really do. No one should experience what you experienced, but we weren’t there to stop it. We are only here now to stop this situation getting any worse. We are here and you are too.’
Robert shook his head. ‘You don’t understand.’
The door opened. Jake stood there ashen faced. Gardner and Robert both stared up at him.
‘What is it Jake?’ Gardner said.
Jake looked at the guard standing behind Robert and gave him a little nod. Gardner suspected he was warning him that there could be a reaction. The guard nodded back.
‘What?’ Robert said.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Bennett …’
Robert started to rise to his feet.
The guard put his hands on his shoulders. ‘Please sit down, Mr Bennett.’
‘What is it?’ Robert refused to sit down. The guard pressed him down hard into his seat.
‘We’ve recovered another body at the McCall farm, buried in the field behind the house ...’
‘Who?’ Robert said, trying to rise again, but failing due to the guard’s firm grip.
‘We have reason to believe that it is your wife, Robert. I am so, so sorry.’
‘NO!’ He writhed under the guard’s hands. ‘NO! NO!’
The guard was really having to dig in to hold him down now. Jake ran around the table to give assistance.
‘HE FUCKING LIED!’ He pounded his feet on the floor and tried to rise again. Jake pinned his arms to his legs, while the guard continued to press down from above. ‘HE LIED. HE FUCKING LIED!’
‘Who lied?’ Gardner said.
‘HE FUCKING LIED!’
‘Who? Let’s put a stop to this now. For Samuel, for your wife, for anyone in danger. Tell us and put a stop to this right now!’
13
DI MARK TOPHAM winced as he opened and closed his fists. His knuckles were raw.
Standing at the island in his kitchen, he stared at an unopened bottle of Southern Comfort. He’d turned the music up high in the background to try and drown out James’s voice in his head. No … no … please …
It wasn’t working. He could still hear the young man pleading for his life as he hit him again and again.
He ran a hand over his tangled mop of hair. He used to take such good care of his appearance. Used to care so much about the way he looked.
Used to.
As he unscrewed the cap on the Southern Comfort, he imagined Gardner sitting at the kitchen table, where she had been sitting the previous night when she’d come to his aid. He pictured her wagging a finger, scrunching up her face and delivering the words, ‘Mark, remember that drinking is what got you into trouble in the first place.’
‘But it’s the only thing that helps me to forget. It’s the only thing that drowns out the voices. Severance describing what he saw … describing Neil’s body. And now James’s voice, pleading for his life as I beat him. It’s not James I was seeing though, Emma. It was Mayers. The Conduit. The bastard responsible for Neil’s death. It is his fucking face I keep seeing …’
After Topham had retrieved himself from the darkness of his imagination, he saw that he’d poured himself a glass of Southern Comfort.
Just one, he thought, just one to help me forget for a few hours. Drown it all out for a time …
He swallowed the brownish liquid, felt it burn his mouth, throat, chest then stomach. He stood there with his eyes closed until his thoughts began to blur.
He opened his eyes and saw Neil sitting at the kitchen table wearing his ‘Pink Freud’ T-Shirt. He typed away on his laptop, pausing every now and again to stroke his goatee, and mutter, ‘I see.’
‘A breakthrough?’ Topham said and smiled.
‘Kind of,’ Neil said. ‘I really think I know now what’s eating this guy.’
‘Do tell.’
Neil looked at his watch. ‘What about the after-six ban on work talk?’
‘Good point, but you do realise that also involves putting the laptop away?’
Neil smiled and closed the laptop. ‘Let’s end the week how we started it.’
‘With a takeaway?’
Topham closed his eyes, and when he opened them, he stared at an empty chair.
He could hear the Conduit whispering in his head. His voice grew louder by the second.
Topham reached for the Southern Comfort, unscrewed the cap and started to drink from the bottle.
Yorke contacted the council and spoke to the department in charge of LAC - Looked After Children. Lauren Miller was fascinated by the request. She happily told Yorke that once upon a time, there had been many homes such as the Orphanage of Salvation but now very few remained. Record numbers of children were being placed with foster families. As happy as this made him, and her obviously, it wasn’t moving the case forward, so he politely steered her back to his enquiry.
It didn’t take her long to rustle through her archives. They were now all computerised.
The news wasn’t what he’d expected.
Yes, Robert had been adopted at three months of age by the Bennetts, but Christopher, his brother, had never been adopted. In fact, Christopher had died from influenza at the orphanage less than a month after Robert’s adoption.
He pleaded with Lauren, told her that it couldn’t be true, because he knew with absolute certainty that his twin brother was still alive. She apologised for being unable to help him any further.
Until the PVS medical trawl threw something up, Yorke realised that there was only one avenue left.
The church which had taken Hayley Willborough under its wing.
After entering the church into his SatNav, he took a call from Gardner. She informed him about the death of Robert’s wife. ‘Her death was different from the other deaths in this case. Less savage. There was no cutting, or dismemberment. It seems she died from a blow to the back of her head. Patricia seems to think it was from a fall backwards, but obviously that’s not conclusive yet.’
Gardner then relayed the entire interview with Robert, warts and all. Yorke absorbed it all as he followed the SatNav to the church.
It had taken a while for Jake and Gardner to get Robert to communicate again. He’d been inconsolable, and had simply muttered the words, ‘Liar … fucking liar …’ repeatedly. When the truth had finally spilled out, it had come fast and furious …
‘Sandra didn’t leave me. Obviously. She loved me. She’s the only person who ever gave two shits about me apart from my mother. My real mother, that is.’
Jake released Robert’s arms and the guard lifted his hands from his shoulders.
‘He came to me … the bastard. He marched right up to my bloody door. I thought I was dreaming and when I realised that I wasn’t, I thought I’d gone mad. He looked exactly the same as me. Even down to this.’ He pointed at his blotchy face. ‘Imagine that? It took me a while to even speak properly and when I finally did, he was sitting in my kitchen drinking tea. He said his name was Reginald Ray. I know! Bollocks, right? I told him I knew the history of the Rays and that they were all gone. I remember his laugh at that point. It was horrendous, like the sound of a blocked pipe or something. He had false teeth too, but they didn’t fit quite as well as my own and they clattered as the creep cackled. He repeated his belief that he was Reginald Ray. He said they’d hanged him from a tree, but the last laugh had been on them bastard soldiers because he’d come back! Took the body of a descendent. He said that the funniest thing was that I was his twin brother and if I looked closely at his face, how could I deny it? But what he said next shook me ev
en more. I felt his words sink into my bones and my soul. He told me I was Reginald too! We are Reginald, he said. You may not know it yet, brother, but we are Reginald.
‘The bastard then claimed that because we were Reginald, we could do something about our appearance. He talked through the idea that we could absorb the youth and freshness of a victim through consuming them and start reversing the damage our condition was doing to us. This man was completely insane! It was at that point that I was on my feet and reaching for the phone. Then, he asked me where my wife was.’ Robert buried his head in his hands and cried. Jake and Gardner respected these few minutes of despair, before he continued. ‘I told him that she was at work. He smiled and said: the butcher’s? In town? And then I knew. Knew that this man, my brother, wasn’t just insane, he was dangerous. I phoned Roland, the owner of the butcher’s, and discovered that she’d never turned up for work that day. Then, I flew for the bastard. Two old men, rolling around on the floor, I’m surprised neither of us walked away with broken bones. When we’d worn ourselves out, he gave me an ultimatum: if you want to see your wife alive again, you will do as I say.’ He rubbed tears from his eyes. ‘And I did. Everything he said. To the letter. And he lied. I’m never going to see her again, am I?’
Gardner finished recounting Robert’s experience of meeting his twin brother, and Yorke listened to her grow tearful on the other end of the phone.
‘Poor man,’ Yorke said. ‘We had him wrong.’
‘When I left him, he was inconsolable.’
Yorke sighed. ‘Well, he’s still guilty of assisting. I get the pressure he was under, but he remains partly responsible for the death of Samuel Mitchell.’
‘Yes, and he provided those details. Robert admits to setting up Samuel Mitchell by going into that reception and issuing an alert on his missing grandson, Jordan. As you were suspecting, Mike, it was the insidious brother who stole him from the back of that maze and drove him away in the car. He probably drugged him, slung him in the boot, so Bryce Singles didn’t see him when he passed his tractor. When Robert went to the McCall farmhouse to retrieve his wife, he was met by his brother feeding on the poor boy. He was challenged to do the same. Robert claims to have wanted no part in it. He just wanted his wife back. His brother gave him an ultimatum. Unless Robert joined him heart and soul, in this act of cannibalism, the whereabouts of his wife would not be revealed. He was told to go home and think about it and return the next day prepared to do as he was asked. Of course, there was no next day. At that point, Robert was taken into custody as our prime suspect. It’s easy to say this, but I think if it was me, I’d have come clean at that point and given us a chance to save his wife.’
