The Anglesey Murders Box Set

by Conrad Jones

  I wasn’t sure if I believed him or not at this stage. When a passing motorist found Max on the road, he was handcuffed so there was no doubting that they belonged to Critchley, but I thought that the handcuffs had been part of their sex game.

  ‘He said, ‘If you don’t do what I say, I’m going to kill you.’ He said, ‘I’ve done this before. Don’t make a move because I can kill you,’ he snapped his fingers, ‘just like that.’’

  Although I was still debating what to do with Max, I was concerned for his well-being. His breathing was laboured, his eyes watering. I noticed Max’s fingertips were stained yellow from the tobacco and I also noticed how his hands shook. I suggested he take a break, but Max waved me off with a better-to-get-this-over-with look. He seemed to be reliving the attack, but I was convinced that he was performing a well-rehearsed monologue which he had re-enacted for any reporter willing to listen.

  ‘The knife in my side was black handled with a curved, double-edged blade.’ I was impressed at Max’s recall and his descriptive powers, although I had the impression that he had seen the blade before. ‘It felt as if it had been sharpened to a point that would split hairs. I’ll never forget what that blade looked or felt like.’ He shook his curly hair and closed his eyes for dramatic effect.

  ‘Was it a ritual knife?’

  ‘What?’ his face reddened, and he looked me in the eye but quickly looked away. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘You said the knife was curved and double edged, so it wasn’t your average kitchen knife or hunting knife was it?’

  ‘No.’ He shook his head effeminately and looked at the floor. He reminded me of a young girl being told off. ‘I don’t know if it was a ritual knife or not.’

  ‘Okay it’s not important,’ I lied. ‘Carry on.’

  Max took another drag on his cigarette and swallowed hard. ‘It was all so quick, he was experienced at snapping on the handcuffs, he must have had practice. It was all in one motion. I’ve got the beer in my hand and I’m talking about fish and in a flash the handcuff is on my wrist and the tip of the blade stuck in my side. I looked down and I could see through my shirt. I was bleeding.’ Max caressed the bandage under his T-shirt.

  ‘Then his eyes changed,’ Max said. ‘Maybe the sight of my blood did it. At first, I couldn’t face him,’ Max said, fervently, ‘but God made me look right into his eyes. It was like confronting the Devil. He was pure and simple evil. Critchley looked nothing like when we first met in the summer holidays. He had changed completely. He had transformed somehow into evil. I could tell by the look in his eyes that he had killed before.’ He paused as his eyes filled with tears and spilled over, running down his cheeks.

  ‘You could tell that he had killed before?’ I leaned forward to study his reaction. ‘Just by the look in his eyes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s quite some statement.’

  ‘He had changed,’ Max insisted. ‘The look in his eyes had changed completely.’

  ‘I get the feeling that something happened between you when you worked on the farm,’ I needed to get the answer to that question because it made all the difference to his story. ‘Did you have a relationship with him when you were at school?’

  ‘Yes,’ Max began sobbing uncontrollably. ‘He was my first, you know?’

  ‘Was it serious?’

  ‘I thought so,’ he sobbed. ‘I loved him.’

  ‘I understand.’ I nodded. Now it all made sense. ‘You obviously had feelings for him.’

  ‘Back then when I was a teenager I did.’ Max wiped his nose with the back of his hand. ‘He was handsome and strong, and he sensed that I was the same as him, you know. I had a huge crush on him until…’ He didn’t finish the sentence.

  ‘Until what?’

  ‘He got all weird.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘It’s important to the story that you tell me the whole thing.’

  ‘It’s personal.’

  ‘It’s the truth and if you don’t tell the truth—’ I pointed a finger at him ‘—people will tell that you’re lying.’

  ‘Okay.’ He whined.

  ‘What did you mean when you said he got weird?’

  ‘At first the sex got rougher and that was a shock, but I just thought he was experimenting, you know? I thought it was just fooling around but then he started hitting me,’ Max squeezed his eyes together and tears spilled over, running down his cheeks. ‘Then he asked me to do stuff with some other men too.’

  ‘In the cellar?’

  ‘Yes, it was horrible.’ Max sobbed, and his shoulders heaved. ‘They hurt me.’

  ‘You said that you had never been inside the farmhouse.’

  ‘I didn’t want anyone to know that part of things.’

  ‘Where you part of a ritual?’

  ‘Yes.’ Max tried to pull himself together. ‘I was blindfolded but I could hear them doing stuff. Chanting stuff and then, well, I’m sure you can guess.’

  ‘How many times did you go into that cellar?’

  ‘A few.’

  ‘How many times, Max?’

  ‘I can’t remember.’

  ‘Did you ever see a pretty black woman called Fabienne Wilder?’

  ‘Why are you asking me all this?’ He snapped but his eyes told me that he had. ‘I thought you wanted to know what happened to me that day. I don’t want to talk about the other stuff. It’s private.’

  I sat back and took a deep breath. I needed him to finish the story before I decided whether he was a victim or a pervert. ‘Sorry, I’ll leave any questions until the end.’ I bit my lip and listened. ‘Carry on.’

  ‘I knew that he had changed and that I was in trouble’ he composed himself and began recounting his fairy tale. I could tell this was the concocted version he had used for the Press. ‘A chill ran down my spine when I realised that the rankness in the farmhouse wasn’t coming from any sewer. It was coming from the cellar. It was the smell of death.’ Max’s eyes were wide and staring at a point behind me. I looked over my shoulder just to make sure Critchley’s ghost wasn’t standing behind me.

  ‘He kept telling me that he loved me and because of that, he was going to kill me so that I couldn’t leave him. For an instant I felt incredibly stupid,’ Max said, spitting out the last word. ‘Then I realised I had no time to retrace my steps. I knew I’d been smelling death all along. And it was sitting right next to me.’

  I frowned to show him that I was being sympathetic, but my mind was made up at that point.

  ‘I know I’m only little, but I’ve had martial arts training and I know how to take care of myself. I’m stronger than I look but he was just so strong. It was so surreal. He couldn’t quite force me to get my other arm around so that he could handcuff me. He didn’t hit me. He kept telling me, “C’mon, babe, let me get your other arm.” But I kept resisting, wrestling it away.’ Max mimicked his panicked movements, twisting and pulling his arm close to his body. He stopped as a new, more macabre thought dawned on him. ‘Critchley was trying to sweet talk me into my own murder.’

  ‘Through all this time, you never once screamed for help? Didn’t you ever consider screaming or fighting for your life?’

  Max turned sullen. ‘It’s in the middle of nowhere. I was already bleeding from the cuts in my underarm,’ he said. ‘That knife seemed as sharp as a razor. They put eight stitches where he cut me. There was no doubt in my mind that if I’d raised my voice, he would have struck me dead right then.’

  He had a point. The farmhouse was remote, and the area was unpopulated, but I think most men would have died fighting, rather than die easily.

  ‘Critchley told me to stand up and he led me across the room by the handcuff. The knife was firmly stuck in my armpit. I told him, ‘you don’t have to try to hurt me. I’m not going to fight with you.’ I tried to reason with him as he pulled me through the door into a scary scene. His bedroom
was just off the living room; it was gloomy and foreboding. The dingy grey walls were plastered with nude pictures of men in all types of disgusting sexual poses. I’d never seen anything like it before and they weren’t there when I worked for him.’ He looked directly into my eyes as he spoke.

  That was an admission that they’d had sexual relations in that house. ‘But I didn’t look at the pictures for very long,’ Max said. ‘I couldn’t take my mind off the knife. The blade felt hot as fire. Every time I’d catch a glance of it, it was looking bigger and meaner. Meanwhile, Critchley was going through these wide mood swings. He’d whine a low moan over and over. One minute he’d be as cool as a cucumber and the next minute his face was screwed into the Devil’s mask telling me how he would kill me and eat me. He kept telling me that you just can’t trust anybody anymore, you can’t believe people. I told him, “Dewi you can trust me.” We had feelings for each other once, at least I thought we did. If I didn’t trust you, I wouldn’t have come here with you. You’ll never leave here,’ Critchley said. ‘It won’t be long, I’ll show you. I’ll show you things you won’t believe. You’ll stay here with me forever. You and the others.’’

  Max’s monologue broke off with a cough. He sipped his stone-cold coffee, grimacing at its temperature. Max looked up and I noticed his eyes seemed out of focus. But as long as the story was clear, it didn’t matter.

  ‘The bedroom was dark except for a lone light in the corner and a television set on the other end of his double bed,’ Max recited the details. ‘A video tape of The Exorcist was playing on the television. Critchley pointed at the television and told me, ‘This was the best movie ever made.’ I almost laughed. This nutter thinks he’s a film critic,’ Max said. ‘The windows of the bedroom were blocked, and I could see that he had security alarms hooked to the windowsills. Nobody could get in or out of the place without an alarm going off. I was trapped. There was no escape from this room. I looked at the bed. There was a huge stain on the bed sheet. I guessed it was a bloodstain, but it had turned to a tarnished brown colour,’ Max said, his face pale at the memory. ‘I was beginning to lose it, the smell, the sounds of the television and Critchley. It was all getting to me. I felt dizzy and disoriented.’

  But you still didn’t fight for your life, I thought. I had to wonder how much of this was still a game to Max.

  ‘Then I saw it – a hand was sticking out from under the bed.’ Max’s eyes were clenched shut so he didn’t see my puzzled expression. Not one of the interviews with Max had mentioned a body under the bed. ‘I could see the end of it. It was just a hand on the end of a small piece of arm. At first, I couldn’t convince myself that it was real. It looked like something you might buy in a trick shop. But it was real.’

  ‘Why haven’t you mentioned this to anyone else?’

  ‘I felt stupid for being there,’ Max shrugged. ‘It was my own fault. I just thought we’d have a few beers and a bit of fun, you know.’

  ‘Carry on.’

  ‘I wanted to throw up, but I couldn’t. Just a dry retch was all I could manage. ‘Don’t be sick,’ Critchley whispered wetly in my ear, ‘I’ll take care of you.’ He pushed the knife harder and cut me with the blade a little deeper. He forced me to sit down on the filthy bed and sat down next to me.’

  My eyes were riveted on Max as I listened to his bullshit. I didn’t believe a word of it. ‘Next to the bed Critchley had a small bedside cabinet. He reached over and pulled open one of the drawers. Inside the drawer was a human skull with the hair still attached.’

  ‘Go on,’ I urged Max.

  Max blinked and rubbed his eyes. ‘Critchley rubbed the top of the skull while he stared into my eyes. He said that I looked a lot like the men on the wall, but that I had a better body.’ This was said almost proudly. ‘He kept telling me I was very beautiful; it was as if he were talking to a woman. I was freaked out, but I kept focused on his eyes, looking for a chance to bolt out of the hellhole. I knew the man was possessed. ‘I’ll let you go if you just let me put your other hand in the handcuff so that I can take some nude pictures of you,’ Critchley told me. ‘Let me be more in control. Let me take some nude pictures of you then I’ll let you go.’ I guess I was in shock by this time. All the while he was stroking me slowly, my legs, my back and my head. I just kept talking – talking about anything to keep his mind off what he might have planned. He was holding on tight to the handcuff and once in a while he’d shove that huge knife further up into my armpit,’ Max winced in memory of the blade.

  ‘I said you’ve got to trust me; I’m not going to leave you. I’m going to stay with you.’ I tried to reason with him, but I could see that he was going to do what he had to do. He wasn’t buying it. He said, ‘you’re persistent, aren’t you? You’re real good – but you’re going to stay with me forever.’ I knew right then that he was going to kill me. He put the knife right in my groin and pushed steadily on it.’

  I watched as Max started to cry again. He was a drama queen all right, but the tears and shaking were real. He had experienced genuine terror at the hands of his ex-lover. Even more horrifying was the realisation of what he had escaped from – how close he had come to his own end.

  ‘Every so often, Critchley would open the cabinet drawer and rub the skull, then he’d look back into my eyes,’ said Max, his voice breaking again. ‘He was going through some type of ritual. He had done this before. Then he pulled some Polaroid pictures of dead men out of the cabinet. The bodies in the photos were decomposed and Critchley told me, ‘You’ll look really good this way. You’ll look better than they did.’ Then he put the knife deeply back into my armpit and ordered me to lay down on the bed. The pain was searing,’ Max cried openly. ‘I laid down on my back and he lowered himself slowly down on top of me with his ear to my chest. He said he wanted to hear my heartbeat. He told me he wanted to see how my heart looked. Then he said that he wanted to eat it.’

  ‘Bollocks,’ I muttered, but he just looked at me and carried on.

  Max resumed. ‘I told Critchley that I had to go to the bathroom. And, if he let me, I’d come back and take off all my clothes so he could take photos. I was trying to buy time, but I was already beginning to feel like a dead man. While I was going to the bathroom, he stood right there with me watching and keeping that knife in my armpit. When I finished, I unbuttoned my shirt all the way down, you know, to make him think I was going along with him. I said, “let’s have another beer.” He went to the refrigerator and got two, dragging me with him by the end of the handcuff. The kitchen was filthy. There were pots and pans with disgusting gunk in them everywhere. He wanted to go back into the bedroom. But I said, “It’s cooler in the living room, let’s have the beer in there.” I noticed that he wasn’t sticking the knife so close to me and I thought he might be getting drunk.’ Max sounded hopeful for the first time in his narrative.

  ‘He just kept telling me how pretty I was and how I had such a nice body. But he never tried anything sexual with me. I guess that came later. He told me he liked to keep bodies around. He said he liked it when they didn’t move or struggle. We went back to the couch and I sat down. I made him think I was right at home, but I was watching his eyes every second.’ Max sat forward in the chair, his hands resting on his knees and talked directly to me. ‘Critchley said he’d soon show me things I’d never believe. He asked me if I was drunk and then told me he’d been drinking all day. I told him I was a bit tipsy. Then he started weaving back and forth, not saying anything, just humming in a low tone. It was like he was in a trance. I finally decided that this guy was going to have to kill me. I wasn’t going to give in to him. I thought to myself, he’s going to have to stab me or whatever, but I’m going to try to get out of here. I figured I was going to die either way.’

  This bit gained my attention. It was about time the man thought about escaping.

  ‘The fish tank was blocking the front window and there was no window in the bathroom. I wasn’t going back in that bedroom. I couldn’t
see how I could get out. I told him that I had to go to the bathroom again and this time he let me get up from the couch by myself. I thought to myself, now’s your chance. In an instant I grabbed the handcuff from his grip and ran for the door. He reacted like he was in slow motion. I got to the door and turned the dead bolt. It clicked open. Just then, Critchley grabbed hold of my arm. I turned and hit him flush in the face with my fist and kicked him backward. He reeled and I never looked back. He underestimated me and it was his undoing.’ Max grinned proudly. ‘I bounded at top speed down the hallway and I never even slowed down. I flew through the front door of that house and at last took a deep breath of sweet fresh air. I ran into the woods with the handcuff still dangling from my wrist and eventually spotted a car. They took me to the hospital, but I didn’t want the police called. I was terrified of him coming after me.’ Max attempted a pious mien as he moralised. ‘I thank God I’m alive and I pray for all the poor souls that visited that farmhouse and never left. I know that God sent me to Dewi Critchley. It was my destiny to help put him away. I’d like you to quote me on that.’ He smiled humbly.

  For a few minutes it was quiet in the room as I digested what I’d just heard. ‘But you didn’t help to put him away, did you?’

  ‘I didn’t what?’ Max looked shocked.

  ‘You didn’t help to put him away.’

  ‘Of course, I did.’ He sat up and put his hands on his hips. ‘I came forward as soon as I felt safe. Once he’d been arrested, I told them everything. Haven’t you listened to a word that I’ve said?’

  ‘Yes,’ I nodded. ‘And I’ve listened to what you haven’t said.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’re a lying bastard, basically,’ I reached into the holdall for my gun. The sawn-off shotgun looked ugly and dangerous and the colour drained from Blackman’s face as he stared into both barrels. I grabbed a blue nylon rope from the bag and waved the gun towards the coffee table. I held up the noose and let it dangle in front of his face.