by Wes Markin
‘Yes, precisely,’ Lacey said. ‘And, if you think about it, right now, in this situation, there’s no better type of person to be … so, let’s stop fucking about … get on with it.’ She moved her eyes to gesture his lieutenant behind him.
‘You’ll break if I put a bullet in your leg,’ Young said.
‘No, I won’t. I’ll just sit here and bleed to death. Tick-tock. Tick-tock.’
‘I’ll pull your nails and teeth out.’
‘Yes, you could do that. Except I don’t really feel fear and I can always retreat into my Blue Room if it gets too painful.’
‘Blue what?’
‘Meditation. Come on Simon. Tick Tock. Tick Tock.’
‘What do you expect me to do?’
With a word per tick, she clicked her finger from side to side like a metronome. ‘Shoot … David … Hewitt … in … his … head.’
She could see Young thinking. Calculating a way out of this mess. When he realised there wasn’t one, he turned back to look at Hewitt.
The colour drained from Hewitt’s face. ‘Hey, you can’t be serious.’
‘Of course not,’ Young said.
Hewitt sighed in relief.
Caroline’s expression didn’t change though. She knew what was coming. ‘David—’
There was an explosion. The white walls of the treatment room were spray-painted red. Caroline clawed at the blood and brain in her eyes, screaming. Hewitt fell forward and what was left of his head bounced off the bed frame with a sickening clunk.
Young turned back to Lacey. ‘Now my son. As you promised.’
‘Easy tiger. Just one more thing,’ she pointed at Caroline. ‘Pick up that needle and put it in her neck. Once you do that, I’ll take you straight to your son. No tricks.’
Young looked back at Caroline. Her wide eyes shone white through the mask of blood. ‘No, no …’
‘Go on, I’d do it,’ Lacey said, ‘but I made a promise. The only person who could tolerate her in this room is dead, so you’ll be doing us all a favour.’
Young knelt and picked up the syringe.
Lacey recalled the line of her favourite poem: the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.
To be honest, she thought, there’s nothing awry about any of this so far.
‘Is Ewan okay now?’ Yorke said down the phone to Patricia.
‘Not sure. He’s in his room. I took him in a glass of water, but he didn’t even look in my direction.’
Yorke stared up at St. Francis Catholic Church. It wasn’t particularly large and hulking, like most churches, but it still maintained an impressive presence due to it being the only building for several acres. There was a small rectory alongside it that Yorke walked towards now.
Patricia had called him after she’d returned home from the McCall farm where Robert Bennett’s deceased wife had been unearthed. Her mum, Jeanette, had been taking care of Ewan during his suspension from school. When Patricia had arrived back, there was a smashed glass in the kitchen, and Jeannette had been crying on the sofa. She’d told Patricia, ‘He just lost it, completely. Started saying no one really understood and then just threw his glass across the kitchen. He went upstairs but hasn’t been down yet and he won’t talk to me through the door.’
‘Give him a bit longer to cool off,’ Yorke said, ‘I’ll try and make it back as early as I can, but I’m on to something here.’
Patricia sighed. ‘Okay. Love you.’
‘Love you too.’
Yorke knocked on the rectory door and was admitted by Father William. He was ninety-years old, and despite being in impressive health for his age, he still accepted Yorke’s offer of a supportive arm.
‘I could manage it myself, young man, but you’d be waiting all day for me to hobble to the lounge.’
‘It’s no bother, Father,’ Yorke said, helping him all the way to his sofa, ‘but if I could just record you calling me “young”, I can play it back to my wife later who has started to ridicule my grey hairs.’
‘Be my pleasure,’ Father William said with a chuckle. ‘She’s a spicy one then?’
‘If she was on a menu, she’d have three red chilli peppers by her name.’
Father William laughed again.
Yorke sat down on the sofa beside him.
‘I’d offer you a cup of tea, but you’d be sitting alone a fair old while,’ Father William said.
‘Don’t worry, Father. There’s nothing I’d like more than to share a cup of tea with you right now, but I have some really pressing issues …’
‘Yes, I know you have, son. I know you have.’ He sighed. ‘I’m glad you called ahead. It gave me time to focus. My mind is not what it once was. It also gave me time to come to terms with the information I’m about to share with you because I have never shared it with anyone before.’ He sighed again.
‘We appreciate it, Father. And it may ensure no more harm comes to anyone.’
‘You are going to wonder why I’m not presenting you with documents, but I’ll tell you in advance that there aren’t any, son. We’re going back to a time I miss greatly. A far kinder time. A time not dressed up in red-tape and bureaucracy. A time that doesn’t fail people because they do not tick certain boxes or delays things unnecessarily to the detriment of those involved.’
Yorke disagreed. This bureaucracy was necessary. It was there to protect people and help people. To stop things going badly wrong.
‘The event you want to know about came after Robert Bennett was adopted and spirited away to safety and happiness,’ Father William said.
Yorke thought about that reclusive boy, staring out of the window. Happiness didn’t seem like the best word to describe his life with the Bennetts.
‘A rumour got out. I don’t know how. Maybe one of Ray’s cult members saw Hayley in the church grounds, pregnant. Maybe someone else told the cult members. Although, why anybody would share information with that lot would be anyone’s guess. So, after Robert had left, Andrew Ray visited the Orphanage of Salvation looking for Hayley and her child. Fortunately, he had no idea that there was a second child so we could keep our story simple. Hayley’s child had died in childbirth.’
‘Do you know how he responded? Is there any record at all of the meeting?’
‘No record. Although I know how he responded alright.’
‘How come?’
‘Because it was me, son. I was the one who lied to him.’ He paused to sign the cross on his chest. ‘And I ask for forgiveness for my sin of deceit, but I believe that this was the only option available to me. Andrew Ray believed my lie. I told him he could come back and see the documents the following day if he wanted evidence, and I even went about forging them that evening.’ He crossed his chest again. ‘But he never returned. He died not long after I believe. Cancer.’
‘Did he want to know where Hayley was?’
‘I told him she’d disappeared into the ether. No, he didn’t press this. And I still, to this day, do not know why.’
Probably, Yorke thought, he knew he was dying, and didn’t want his name sullied by the truth that he’d murdered someone within the cult. If he let her be, to live her life, she might keep the secret. If he started to hunt her, she might have revealed the truth.
‘So, the second child?’
‘Christopher Steele.’
Yorke felt his nerve-ends tingle. He swooped into his pocket for his notepad and wrote the name down frantically as if it might suddenly evaporate from his brain as quickly as it had come into it.
‘The Steeles were a good family. They were connected to the church and I asked them for this favour. They had no children and were happy to raise him. I asked them to move away and change churches so there was no connection to the Orphanage of Salvation. Just in case. I knew Andrew Ray was dying but there were more Rays, as I’m sure you well know, and a clean break was necessary for Christopher.’
But that clean break hasn’t worked out, I’m afraid, Yorke thought, feeling despair bub
bling like acid indigestion in his stomach. ‘And apart from the false record of Christopher dying in infancy, you are certain none of this is written down?’
‘Not a thing, son, like I said before, there was no pressure for paperwork. It wasn’t a time of bureaucracy. It was simply a time of compassion.’
Except, Yorke thought, that act of compassion may have delayed this investigation.
Father William told Yorke all he knew about the Steele family. They were a charitable, middle-aged couple who had farmed most of their lives. ‘They will probably have passed by now. They were older than me at the time. But as to where they went and what became of them, I cannot say, detective. That boy was away from the Rays and that was all that mattered. All that mattered.’
Yorke thanked Father William, told him not to get up, and left the rectory.
His phone rang before he had the chance to update Gardner on the news. It was from HQ and turned out to be Gardner anyway.
Yorke sighed when he heard Gardner’s news and wished that Father William had opted for bureaucracy rather than compassion way back then because having Christopher Steele’s name earlier may just have spared another young man’s life.
The crime scene flickered in and out of Jake’s focus like a candle flame. His concerns for Sheila and Frank were pulling at him.
And I am working with Lacey Ray! How the hell has it come to this?
‘Jake, are you with us?’ Gardner said.
‘Yes, sorry, ma’am. Just shocked by what I’m seeing.’
Steve Crawford had been ravaged. Unlike Samuel, he still had all his limbs, but huge chunks had been bitten out of him. The killer had chewed deep down into his right eye, leaving a cavernous, bloody hole. Nearly his whole cheek was missing, and the braces on Steve’s teeth shimmered through the opening.
Lance Reynolds usually danced around the victim to take his photos, but he was restricted here because Steve had been killed in a narrow corridor leading from the bar into the back. So, he simply hovered in as close as possible without disturbing the pool of blood and fried everyone’s retinas with his flashbulb. ‘He looks like he’s been attacked by something inhuman.’
Patricia Yorke had been contacted to attend the scene, but she was dealing with a family crisis, so another pathologist had been sent up from Southampton. Pathologists were usually hardy when it came to bodies, but such was the state of this body, he’d rushed for air. He did manage to establish the cause of death before fleeing the scene, even if it was obvious. Jake looked down at the bloody hammer beside the body.
Gardner took a deep breath which whistled through her facemask. ‘So, as I was saying, Jake, he probably wanted to feed for the reasons Mike went through back at HQ. For freshness, potential of rejuvenation … Jesus, I can’t believe I’m saying all of this.’
‘Go on,’ Jake said, still trying to focus his distracted mind.
‘But maybe the killer hadn’t the time to go to work with the saw and needed a quick fix.’
‘Ah for God’s sake, look at that neck,’ Lance said, zooming in. ‘He chewed right through it. Look, you can see what’s left of the Adam’s apple.’
Jake and Gardner took this as a cue to step away from the body, bumping into a queue of SOCOs behind them, desperate to get into that narrow space and hunt for trace evidence. Jake suspected that once they’d squeezed their way in there, they’d be desperate to squeeze out again.
They went outside to continue their conversation. The Southampton pathologist passed them on the way. He nodded a greeting but didn’t say anything. He looked too green at the gills for that.
Outside, Gardner said. ‘I hope Mike is right. I hope that it is Christopher Steele and grabbing him tonight will put an end to this fucked-up business.’
‘It looks like it is him.’
‘Yes … but if there’s one thing I’ve learned over the last couple of years on major crimes, it’s never that simple.’ Gardner’s phone rang. ‘Excuse me, Jake.’
Jake leaned against the wall of the public house and waited for Gardner. He could hear her in a heated exchange with Topham. She was telling him to get himself home, and that she’d see him later. Judging by the frustration in her tone during the next parts of the exchange, he wasn’t complying with the request.
Jake sighed. Everyone was preoccupied when people were dying, violently, around them. It really wasn’t the best show for a usually capable team. Would Yorke also be drawn away by the family crisis that was affecting Patricia?
His phone vibrated. He pulled it out of his pocket and read the message on the screen.
These words had a worse effect on him than the body lying on the floor in the pub.
15
AFTER LOOKING AROUND at the carnage in the treatment room, Lacey said, ‘I think that this may just be the most beautiful room I have ever been in.’
Simon Young certainly didn’t see the funny side. ‘I’ve just killed my best friend.’
‘Come on Simon, you’ve done worse.’
‘When all this is done, I’m going to kill you, do you know that?’
‘Simon, your threats have never worried me.’
‘They should.’
‘Leave your gun on the body and let’s go. I’ll take you to your son. You can have him back, and then you and me … well … we will never see each other again.’
Young relinquished his silenced pistol and they headed to the front door. There were several men outside the house. Young instructed them to fall back.
‘And if they follow us, Simon, I’ll simply stop directing. And if I stop directing … well … tick tock …’
‘You heard the lady,’ Young said. ‘If any of you follow, and my son dies, I’ll kill your children too.’
‘Spoken like an employer who really cares about the mental wellbeing of his staff,’ Lacey said.
Once in the car, Lacey told him to drive straight on.
After she’d taken him on a wild goose chase through Salisbury city centre, to ensure that nobody followed, she started fiddling with the radio. The car filled with eighties classics. ‘Tobias likes music,’ she said.
‘Fuck you.’
‘Next left.’
It was at this point, Lacey texted Jake and waited for him to respond with his location. If he was all the way up at HQ, that would affect timings and she’d have to keep the wild goose chase going a while longer. He texted back quickly. He was ridiculously near.
‘Who are you texting?’ Young said.
‘Who is in charge here?’
‘You will die slowly.’
‘Every experience is worth savouring. Next right … and stop there.’
After exiting the vehicle, Young went around to the boot, opened it and reached in. He pulled out an axe.
‘Wow,’ Lacey said.
‘Fuck you if you think I’m going anywhere unarmed.’
‘Yeah, I get that, but an axe?’
‘You made me leave my gun.’
‘So you didn’t pack a spare gun, you packed an axe?’
‘I wasn’t always what I am today, bitch. There was a time, long ago, when I was more down-to-earth.’
Lacey thought about the axe. Yes, she preferred him disarmed and she could possibly push for it, as she had done back at Caroline’s house … but she had to admit, she was quite impressed. Besides, it might come in handy as her plan evolved. ‘Why not?’
‘Wasn’t a choice as I said.’
‘Well, you may want to keep it under your jacket or something because we still have a five-minute walk and I don’t want to get arrested before we get there.’
‘Five minutes?’
‘Yep. As if there isn’t a tracker on that car …’
She noticed his eyes narrow.
‘You haven’t got a great poker face, Simon. Also, take your phone out and chuck it in the boot. You’ll get your son, I promised, but none of your friends are coming – this isn’t going to be the OK Corral.’
After Gardner provided a f
urther update on the damage wrought on Christopher Steele’s second victim, Yorke completed his journey to the Steele Farm with the fast food from earlier clawing its way back up his throat.
Already CCTV footage had thrown up images of Christopher worming his way into the public house, and less than an hour later, away from it. Unfortunately, he’d then become lost in the winding streets around the pub and could have hopped into a vehicle off-camera. Door-to-door was already flaring up with intensity to establish the trajectory of this elderly killer.
Considering how the case had evolved to date, Yorke was unsurprised to find the Steele property another disused farm in need of severe renovations.
Yorke had already acquired the Steele family history. Well-meaning crop farmers who, like the Bennetts, had something of a respectable reputation. Again, their son had been rather reclusive but unlike Robert, he’d attended school despite the PVS. Medical records had already confirmed that Christopher had PVS but had not attended a hospital or doctor appointment in over ten years. Not since his parents had died.
So, Yorke thought, we have another Ray, and we have another recluse. What box of delights are we about to open at this home?
Yorke was not the first on the scene. Local officers had already attended the property to try and arrest Christopher if he was there. He wasn’t. One female officer was leaning over a male officer, consoling him. After he parked up, and approached them by foot, Yorke realised she was not actually comforting him, she was holding him as he vomited.
Another officer joined this pair and logged Yorke. She then informed him what they’d found.
‘Human?’ Yorke said.
‘No, animal,’ the officer said, turning grey, and spinning to one side to gulp air. ‘Sorry.’
‘No need to apologise, officer. Can you show me?’
She nodded.
SOCO and the rest of major incidents were yet to arrive. Yorke was happy to see that all the officers had worn their protective clothing. He followed their excellent example and pulled on his paper suit.
As the officer led Yorke through the house, he thought about Christopher and Robert.
