by J. E. Mayhew
“I’d be careful what you post, Mr Vale. Nobody has been charged with anything. I’d hate for you to get into trouble for libelling anyone. I suggest you move on and try not to cause any trouble…”
“Okeydoke,” Ian Vale said, stuffing his hands in his pockets and sauntering away from Blake. “He better have the book thrown at him, though,” Vale said loudly, without looking back. “What he’s done isn’t right. Needs more than a slap on the wrist.”
“I agree,” Blake muttered quietly to himself. “If he’s guilty.”
*****
Blake was beginning to think that bringing Kath Cryer into the interview room with Leonard Hill was a bad idea. She seemed edgy and snappy. Hill leaned forward and looked into his paper cup of coffee. Leonard Hill’s brief sat next to him
“So where is she, Leonard?” Kath said before Blake could even open his mouth.
“Where’s who?”
“You know very well who. Florence Percival. The little girl you abducted yesterday morning from Birkenhead Park,” Kath said. Blake gave her a sidelong glance but she didn’t seem to notice.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Really? When I spoke to you yesterday, you told me you’d not left the house except to walk the dog first thing.”
“That’s the truth,” Leonard said, licking his lips. Blake had to admit, he suddenly looked very shifty.
“Is it? Then how come our ANPR cameras picked up a car with your registration number driving down Park Road North at 8:20 yesterday morning?”
Hill looked startled. “They did?”
“Yeah, Leonard, they did. And we have CCTV footage of you driving down Ashville Road where the little girl disappeared not long after.”
He glanced at his brief. “No comment.”
“How come two schoolboys saw you hanging around the children’s play area around 9?”
“No comment.”
“And what about the little girl’s knickers? How did they end up in your house, Leonard?” Kath snapped.
“No comment.”
“It’s not looking good, Leonard, just tell us and be done with it.”
“Kath…” Blake muttered.
“Come on, Lenny, you know you want to. Get it off your chest…”
“I don’t know. You must have planted them there…”
“Ha!”
Blake raised his voice. “DI Cryer, can I have a word outside?”
They rose and stepped into the corridor, Blake closing the door behind him. “What is your problem, Kath?”
She folded her arms and looked at the floor. “I dunno what you mean.”
“Yes you do, all that ranting at him. What are you trying to do, get any chance of a case thrown out?”
“It just boils my piss when men like him think they can get away with…”
“With what? We don’t know what he has or hasn’t done yet. He may have abducted Florence he may not. But if he has and she’s still alive, then browbeating him like that isn’t going to help and it’ll just get us in trouble.”
“Sorry,” she said. “But he’s lying sir and you know as well as I do that time’s running out for that little girl, if it hasn’t already.”
“I know but just cool it. Keep schtum and let me do the talking, okay? Otherwise I’ll get Kinnear instead.”
Back in the room, Blake sat back in his seat. “I think you’re frightened of something, Leonard. Can you tell me what that is?”
Leonard pursed his lips. “No comment.”
“You see, there is a little girl missing, isn’t there and you’d want to do all you could to help her wouldn’t you?”
Hill winced and glanced at his brief. “Yes, of course,” he said at last.
“So, we know you were in the Birkenhead Park area yesterday. If you weren’t there to abduct a child, why were you there? Once we know that, we can unravel what on earth is going on here.” Blake gave a theatrical sigh and ran his finger through his hair. “I don’t know about you, but I’m bone weary and worried about Florence Percival.”
“I was meeting someone. A woman.”
“Okay. And who was this woman?”
“She’s called Geri Sharpe. I met her online. We spoke for a bit,” Hill looked away and reddened. “Exchanged a few pictures. We’ve hooked up a couple of times before. We always meet at the playground in Birkenhead Park at 9am.”
Cryer opened her mouth, but Blake gave her a look and she sealed her lips, glaring at Hill like she wanted to strangle him.
“So, if we contact this Geri Sharpe, she can vouch for you and verify your story, can’t she?” Blake said.
“That’s the trouble,” Hill said. “I stood there for ages in the drizzle, waiting for her but she didn’t turn up.”
“That’s unfortunate,” Cryer muttered.
“What were you going to meet up for?” Blake said, ignoring Cryer.
Hill glared at Blake. “What d’you think? Sex of course. I texted her and she said she’d been delayed. We met up at my house, later.”
“So to get this straight, You hung around Birkenhead Park until what time?”
“About 9:30. Then I went home and met Geri.”
“And what time did you get back home?”
“About 9:50 something like that? If I’d snatched that kid, how could I have got back so quickly?”
“That doesn’t explain the underwear, the tissues and the lock of hair in the jiffy bag under your mattress, Leonard,” Blake said. “Where did they come from?”
“You tell me.”
“Why are you being so reticent about them, Leonard? You know that we’ll be running a forensic examination on them. Any DNA will tell us who they belong to.”
“No comment.”
“Do they belong to Florence Percival?”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Have you harmed her, Leonard?”
“No… no I haven’t I haven’t seen her or those knickers before. Someone planted them there. I’m not going to say any more. If you want some answers, go to the Percivals.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“No comment.”
Chapter 16
Brendan Dockley carried the heavy bags of shopping up the step to the front door. It was all he could think to do to take his mind off the waiting. Maybe, too, if he presented Paul Percival with a well-stocked fridge, it might soften the man’s judgement of him. Brendan doubted this, though. Paul Percival was anything but forgiving.
Rattling the keys against the door, he struggled into the hall and dumped the bags on the floor. He stopped and stared into the living room. Shards of glass sparkled on the floor in the otherwise grey twilight of the November day. The tubular steel frame of the coffee table lay on its side. A chunk of shattered vase lay there too. The TV lay facedown in the debris and furniture was upended. It looked like a hurricane had struck the room. Cushions had been emptied of their stuffing, torn books slumped on the shelves that still remained horizontal. The light, minus bulb and shade, swung gently above the carnage.
In the midst of all this, Paul Percival perched on the upturned sofa, staring at the floor. His face was pale and a single coil of hair had slipped out of place across his botoxed forehead. He sat so still, he looked like a wax work. Brendan swallowed and raised a hand.
“Hi Paul,” he said. “Erm…Are you okay? Can I make you a coffee or something?”
“Yes. A coffee would be fine. Thank you,” Paul said, his voice distant and haunted.
Brendan picked up the shopping and wandered into the kitchen, trying to process the destruction in the other room. Paul was usually such a calm and collected person. Cold almost, unless he was talking to someone in authority or someone useful to him, then he became animated and alive. With Brendan, he was always polite, but the hierarchy had been made abundantly clear from the outset.
He filled the kettle and switched it on. He twisted the lid of the coffee jar, turned and had to stifle a scream. Paul
stood directly behind him. He hadn’t heard him come out of the living room.
“You gave me a shock,” Brendan said, with a nervous giggle.
“So, what did you tell them?” Paul said, not taking his eyes off Brendan. The kettle rumbled behind him.
“I- I told them what happened… that she just vanished… that I didn’t know where she went…”
“Only, the way the police have been talking to me, I’d say they even suspected me!”
The water started to bubble and wisps of steam escaped from the spout of the kettle.
“That’s ridiculous, Paul. Why would they?”
“Yes. Why?” Paul said, frowning a little. He gripped Brendan’s wrist and pressed it against the boiling kettle. Brendan gave a strangled cry. “I’ll ask you again. What did you tell them?”
“Get off me!” Brendan yelled, trying to drag the back of his hand away from the heat. The pain seared into his skin and up his arm as the kettle hissed and steam billowed from its top. Paul’s hold was strong and in desperation, Brendan swung his lose hand up, punching Paul in the side of his head. Paul’s grip slackened, giving Brendan a chance to snatch his burning hand away and stagger back across the kitchen.
It all happened so quickly. Brendan’s leg became entangled in the shopping bag and he fell backwards cracking his head on the hard tile floor. Paul leapt on him, grabbing him by his jacket. “Tell me!” Brendan lay staring at Paul with glassy eyes. Paul shook him. “Brendan?” He pulled him to a sitting position but his head lolled to one side. “Come on, what are you messing around for? Are you okay?” A small line of blood trickled from Brendan’s ear. Paul checked the pulse in the man’s neck and found nothing. “Oh, shit.”
He pulled a tissue from the kitchen work surface, ripped it in half and poked the two pieces into Brendan’s ears before the blood could get on the floor. Already his mind was working overtime. The young man was dead, his body cooling already. Like every other time he’d felt a surge of panic, or guilt or sadness, he squashed it down so he could remain effective and efficient. He’d been doing this since he was a boy. Battening down the emotion, figuring out the best course of action. The best way of getting out of trouble.
His first thought was that he mustn’t be caught. He hadn’t meant to kill Brendan, but he had and there it was. So he wouldn’t be done for murder; it would be manslaughter. Paul didn’t know what the sentence for manslaughter was but he mustn’t go to prison. He was sure it wasn’t his fault. If anyone was to blame it was Brendan. Yes, the lad had brought this on himself.
But if Paul just dumped the body somewhere, he’d be a prime suspect if it was found. And how feasible would that be right now, anyway? The press were still lurking around, the media filming the policemen and the divers who were searching through the park’s two lakes. He wouldn’t be surprised if there was a camera trained on the house either at the back or front.
He scurried over to the back of the house and the conservatory, peering out beyond the garden but the wall obscured any view from the park. A sudden spark of panic flared in his chest and he ran to the front. What if a hovering journalist had seen Brendan come into the house? The less that was known about his movements, the better. Paul peered cautiously out of the front window but couldn’t see anyone.
What if he faked Brendan’s suicide? Or made his death look like an accident? Like he’d just come in and found Brendan like that? Paul pulled at his bottom lip as he stared at the back of Brendan’s hand. It was scorched red. Paul was no detective but even he’d guess that it would take quite prolonged contact with a hot surface to burn that much. Any thought that Brendan burnt his hand, staggered backwards in shock and tripped would be undermined by just how serious that burn was.
He’d just have to hide the body and then dispose of it somewhere far away when all this was over. Then people would just think Brendan had run away, unable to bear the shame of losing Flossy. For a few seconds, Paul stared at the body smiling faintly and marvelling at how clever he’d been to work all that out under pressure. He shouldn’t be, though; he’d wriggled free of fixes like this before and come out smelling of roses.
Then he snapped out of it. Time was of the essence. There were things he needed to do. He took out his phone and called his father.
“Paul? Where the hell have you been? We’ve been worried sick. Have there been any developments about Flossy?”
“No,” Paul said. “I saw that Blake character before. Looks more like a gardener than a policeman if you ask me. They hadn’t got any further. Listen, have you seen Brendan? I expected him to be at the house when I got in from the station but he wasn’t here. He’s left some shopping but then I don’t know where he is. Any idea where he’s gone?”
“I haven’t,” Roland said. “Don’t worry, Paul. I’m sure everything will work out for the best…”
“Yes,” Paul muttered, looking down at Brendan’s body. “I think it will in the end.”
*****
Blake was pretty sure he could do without Kath Cryer’s ‘I-told-you-so’ face. His softly-softly approach hadn’t proved as fruitful as he had hoped. All the same, Kath had risked being downright aggressive. Leonard Hill could have put a complaint in. But there was still something nagging Blake about Hill.
“We need to talk to this Geri Sharpe. The woman Hill claimed he was meeting.”
“If she exists at all,” Kath Cryer muttered. “He’s probably sending us on a wild goose chase just to buy himself time. I’m telling you, sir, these people know the ropes. They’re clever and manipulative.”
“Then why did he give us full access to his mobile phone?”
“Leonard Hill is a computer nerd. He keeps all his filth on a PC, I bet you.”
“Is there something I’m missing, here, Kath? I mean, I’m no fan of paedophiles but you seem to have it in for Leonard Hill.”
“Just don’t like ‘em, sir. Like I say, they’re sneaky and manipulative. I’d lock ‘em up and throw away the key.”
“But if Leonard Hill didn’t abduct Florence, then he’s an innocent man…”
“Is he? Innocent of everything? I bet you he’s up to all kinds of evil. People like him are never satisfied.”
“But we aren’t judge and jury, Kath,” Blake said. “We just establish the truth. The law will take care of the rest.”
“If the law took care of people like Hill properly, then he wouldn’t be out on the streets harming little girls,” Kath said, folding her arms.
“Looks like you’ve solved this case then, Kath. It must be Leonard Hill because you said so. Just humour me, okay? Pretend he is innocent. What do you think he meant by saying that we should ask the Percivals.”
Kath pursed her lips. “Well, you know what I think. He’s being manipulative. He’s throwing the shadow of suspicion back on the family. Only a real sicko could do that and he’s a real sicko.”
“But didn’t you think the way he said it was odd? He sounded like he was familiar with them.”
Kath gave a non-committal shrug, spun round in her chair and typed into the computer. “Oh my,” she whispered and turned the screen to face Blake. “Hill has a string of offences connected with inappropriate images, but I didn’t go that far back in his record. Look at the first offence.”
Blake’s mouth hung open. “Hill was right. We do need to go and talk to the Percivals again.”
Chapter 17
Blake had been to Caldy several times in a work capacity, whether to question witnesses or, on one occasion, to investigate a grisly murder. “It’s well-posh round here, sir,” Kath Cryer said, looking around at the extended and almost fortified houses along the road.
“Bit of a contrast to the rows of terraces around Birkenhead Park, eh? I wouldn’t live up here for a big clock, though.”
Kath pulled a face. “Why not?”
“No shops to walk to.”
“Where’s the nearest shop to your house?”
“Hmmm. Good point,” Blake said, smiling.
“And I can’t think of the last time I walked to the shops anyway. Maybe I will buy a place here when I win the lottery.”
“You have to do the lottery first, sir.”
Roland Percival’s house wasn’t as big as Blake had expected. Nor was it as old. It was a bungalow probably built in the 1960s set in extensive, well-maintained grounds.
Roland Percival was waiting for them at the front of the house and ushered them in through the side gate into the back of the house. Blake found himself in a large kitchen-cum-dining area. It was all stripped pine and Welsh dressers covered in plates. It reminded him of his mother’s house. Roland offered them a seat at the kitchen table. He seemed jittery and on edge, smoothing the gingham tablecloth down and almost dancing from toe to toe.
“I’ll just tell my wife, Xanthe, you’re here,” he said.
“It’s all right, Roland, I heard them come in,” a voice said from the door. Xanthe Percival was a tall, elegant woman with pure white hair tied up in a bun. Her high cheek bones and long neck gave her an exotic beauty that made Blake think of a fairy queen he’d once seen pictured in a children’s book. She wore a long dress and Victorian boots. Her heavy eyelids made her look as though she was bored with Blake already.
Blake stood up without thinking. “Hello, Mrs Percival, I’m DCI Will Blake, this is my colleague, DI Kath Cryer.”
Xanthe Percival nodded and sat down at the table. “Very pleased to meet you Mr Blake. Tell me, were you named after the famous poet?”
“Not especially, Mrs Percival but it has been mentioned before.”
“I was an English lecturer at Liverpool University many years ago. I used to love teaching Blake but not the obvious ones, The Tyger and Jerusalem…”
“I’m not really that familiar…” Blake began. Which wasn’t entirely true. He’d learnt The Tyger off by heart basically so he could make people squirm when they began reciting it to him but then realised they couldn’t continue.
“A Divine Image is a favourite of mine, Mr Blake,” she said. “Cruelty has a human heart, And Jealousy a Human Face, Terror, the Human Form Divine, And Secrecy, the Human Dress…”
