by J. E. Mayhew
“I see,” Blake said, not seeing at all. “If I may…”
“It’s about human nature, Blake. You should know all about that in your line of work. Humans are beasts, capable of the harshest cruelty and the tenderest love.”
“A fearful symmetry,” Blake said.
Xanthe Percival smiled and Blake couldn’t help thinking of the Tyger in the poet’s illustration. “I thought you weren’t familiar, Mr Blake.”
Blake shrugged. “I suppose sharing the poet’s name made me curious to find out a bit more, at one point,” he said. “It’s not something I’ve pursued for a long time.”
“You said on the phone that there was something you wanted to discuss,” Xanthe Percival said. “It must be important. Have you found Florence?”
Blake shook his head. “I’m afraid we’re still searching. Can I ask you, does the name Leonard Hill mean anything to you?”
Xanthe Percival looked as though Blake had slapped her. She glared at him. “I’m guessing that you know it does mean something, Mr Blake otherwise you wouldn’t be asking.”
“I know it may be painful but if you could explain your family’s connection to him, it would be very helpful.”
“Why are you asking us to drag up the past like this, Blake?” Roland Percival said. “It’s not on, you know.”
“It’s all right, Roland,” Xanthe said, holding her hand up. “Is there a reason, Mr Blake?”
“We have Hill in custody under suspicion of abducting Florence but we can’t be sure as he is reticent about explaining himself.”
The old woman straightened up in her chair. “Leonard Hill murdered our daughter, Undine, twenty years ago…”
“I wasn’t aware that he’d been convicted of murder,” Blake began.
“We know he did it,” Xanthe Percival spat. “He was a friend of Paul’s. A loner, more interested in computers than people. I don’t know what Paul saw in him, but he let Leonard tag along with him.”
“What we didn’t know then was that Hill was a deviant…”
“The boy was a monster, Roland. Undine was only a toddler, nearly three. She had Down’s Syndrome, but Hill would seek her out whenever he visited and make such a fuss of her.”
“It wasn’t right,” Roland muttered, shaking his head. “At the time we just thought he was being nice but with hindsight, we know that Hill was a paedophile.”
“We lived in Birkenhead then, on the park just as Paul does now. I never understood why he chose a house there. We had gone shopping and told Paul to look after Undine. Paul was distracted and went off to see a girlfriend, leaving Leonard Hill to look after her. A few hours later, they found her body in the lake.”
“Paul must have felt terrible about that,” Blake said.
“Hill tried to blame Paul,” Roland Percival said. “He tried to claim that Paul had pushed Undine in and let her drown. Luckily Paul had this girl who was able to swear that he was with her all the time. But in the end, the jury found Leonard guilty of manslaughter. They said he hadn’t meant to kill her but his carelessness had led to her death. We know better though.”
“Leonard Hill tried to destroy our family. He tried to drag Paul into the mire. When they searched Hill’s room at his parents’ house, they found all manner of unsavoury pornographic material. Hill turned out to be in a number of chatrooms associated with child porn. He’d even taken photographs of Undine and stuck her head onto pornographic pictures. It was absolutely horrible, Mr Blake.”
“I’m sorry…”
“To rub salt in the wound, Hill tried to imply that Paul hated Undine. That he had said that killing her would be a kindness,” Roland added. “It was a terrible time and we’ve never recovered.”
“Can you think of any reason why Leonard Hill would target your granddaughter?” Blake said.
“Revenge,” Xanthe Percival declared, slapping her palm on the table. “Plain and simple. In his warped mind, he blames Paul for his incarceration. At the trial, he called us monsters and said we had stolen his life from him. But it’s he who stole Undine away from us and left us in limbo and now it seems he’s robbed us of Flossie too.”
“I see,” Blake said. “I’m aware that you requested to be notified of his whereabouts.”
Xanthe Percival’s eyes hardened. “I want to keep as close an eye on that creature as possible. We know that he has been in and out of prison for various hideous offences and he was caught attempting to take a child from a playground recently. Prison doesn’t seem to discourage him, though.”
Outside, Blake sat in the car, digesting everything that had been said. Kath Cryer sat next to him in silence. Finally, she said, “So, you see. The bastard’s taken that poor girl. Probably killed her just to get back at her father. And to satisfy his own sick desires. It’s plain as the nose on your face, sir.”
“It is, Kath,” Blake said, staring off into space. “It is, isn’t it? But what would he get from that? I mean, he would know that we’d catch up with him eventually. He’ll be banged up for good this time. And why keep the knickers or the hair in such an obvious place?”
Kath shrugged. “You could ask why do any of it. I mean, he’s not right in the head is he, to do what he does to kids…”
“I don’t know,” Blake said, starting the car. “It still seems odd to me. Let’s go and talk to Paul Percival about the incident. He struck me as unusually composed given that his daughter is missing and might be dead.”
“But you can’t think that Florence’s father took her when the weight of evidence is against Hill, surely?”
“I’m trying not to think anything, and neither should you, Kath. Not until we’ve nailed this down completely.”
“We have, Will. All we have to do is wait for the DNA.”
There’s more to this than meets the eye, trust me.”
They drove in silence for a while. Kath staring out of the window at the passing hedgerows. Pretty soon, they were driving through suburban estates and then the urban sprawl of Birkenhead. “It’s funny to think that this used to be such a trend-setting town,” Blake said. “You know, first public park in the world, one of the first out of town cemeteries. It had the tallest iron tower, once too, bigger than Blackpool.”
Kath just grunted, not in the mood to change the subject to something less contentious. Blake was teased and even mocked by some for his ‘mini lectures’ on Wirral history but Kath normally enjoyed them. Right now, she wasn’t in the mood.
Blake turned the car into Park Road and immediately slammed on the brakes. Two people wrestled with each other in the middle of the road. One was Paul Percival, the other a woman who Blake recognised as Percival’s wife, Samantha.
Chapter 18
The Seraph was an old street corner pub in the part of Birkenhead trapped between the park and the docks. The area was a strange mixture of sixties infill building and old Edwardian terraces. These were the houses of dock workers and the shipbuilders, ravaged in the Blitz and rebuilt. Many of the corner pubs had gone to the wall in recent years as people took to drinking at home or preloading before going over to Liverpool on a night out. Propped up by local drinkers and a few shady types who needed a place to meet, The Seraph kept going. Reviews for it online made it clear it was a local pub for local people and outsiders weren’t to expect a warm welcome.
Jeff felt out of place the second he stepped out of the taxi. A few kids kicking a football in a side road stopped to eyeball him in his tweeds and cord trousers. Then they carried on bouncing the football against the pub wall. Back at Leslee Quinlan’s house, supping tea yesterday, it had seemed like a simple task to pop to a pub and talk to the landlord. Now the pub squatted in front of him, its door like an open mouth waiting to swallow him up. Above the door a faded notice announced that Dougal and Ailsa McClague were licensed to sell intoxicating liquor for consumption on the premises.
“Come on, Jeffrey,” he muttered to himself. “Think of the royalties.” He stepped inside.
It was
a murky twilight outside and it didn’t get any brighter inside the pub. As Jeff’s eyes became used to it, he could see just how tiny the place was. A small bar squashed itself against one wall and little round tables, barely bigger than the stools that surrounded them, dotted the floorspace. Men crammed in at the bar and hunched over the tables. The place didn’t look like it had been decorated for a hundred years. The other thing that struck Jeff was the silence that had fallen.
“Oh come on,” he muttered to himself. He felt like he was in American Werewolf and had just enquired about the pentagram on the wall. He squeezed past the bodies to get to the bar to see a young girl with a black dress and an enormous cleavage polishing a glass. “Yeah?” she said, not looking up.
“I’m looking for Mr McClague…”
The girl turned her back on Jeff and yelled, ‘Boredom!” at the floor. Jeff blinked, wondering what was happening. “Boredom!”
“What?” a voice drifted up from below.
“Some bloke here wants a word.”
“Who is it?”
“Dunno, never seen him before. He looks like a bit of a tosser, should we chuck him out?”
Jeff stiffened as a few curious faces looked up.
“Don’t be daft, girl, I’m coming up,” the voice said. Slowly, the man’s face appeared from below the bar where Jeff assumed he’d been working in a cellar. As soon as he saw the man, he realised that Boredom was the man’s nickname and he also realised how he’d acquired it. Boredom McClague had a long face, made even longer by his grey beard. His eyes drooped and his downturned mouth gave him a look of perpetual weariness.
“Can I help you?” he said, his voice a gentle Scottish lisp.
“I wondered if I could have a quick word,” Jeff said, looking over his shoulder. “In private.”
“I can’t leave the bar,” Boredom said. “What is it you want?”
Jeff lowered his voice. “I’m looking for Kyle Quinlan…”
“Really?” Boredom said, pulling a pained face. “Why would you be doing that?”
“He vanished about six years ago and I’m trying to find out what happened to him…”
Someone placed a glass down on the table noisily and got up. Jeff looked round in time to see the door swing shut.
“Sounds like you know as much as I do, young man. Sorry, I didn’t catch your name, Mr…?”
“Blake, Jeff Blake…”
More glasses hit the table and more men got up to leave. Boredom licked his lips, his eyes suddenly awake. “Would you be any relation to Will Blake? You have a look about you.”
“He’s my brother but…”
There was a scraping of chairs and a general exodus from the pub. Jeff looked at the empty room in confusion.
“Listen, Jeff Blake. Kyle Quinlan is gone and I don’t know what happened to him. Maybe you should have a chat with his sister…”
“She said to talk to you…”
“She would. Look, you may have a tough guy detective for a brother, but I can’t guarantee that will protect you round here. If you want to know more about Kyle Quinlan, you have to ask Harry Thorpe. Your brother will know how to find him. Mind you, talking to Thorpe might be a shortcut to a one-way trip out into the estuary. But that’s your lookout. Now, out of respect for your brother, I’ll phone you a taxi and then you get out of here sharpish. To put it mildly, Mr Blake, you aren’t safe. ”
Chapter 19
Pulling the car into the kerb, Blake launched himself out and sprinted towards the grappling couple. Kath was close behind him. Paul Percival seemed to be getting the worst of the attack, lying on his back and fending off the blows as Samantha straddled his waist. “Where is she you bastard? What have you done with her?” she screamed. Blake grabbed Samantha and pulled her away but Sam tried to lunge forward sending them both sprawling onto the floor. Kath caught up and put herself between Sam and Paul.
“Okay,” Blake said, clambering to his feet. “We need to stop this now and calm down.”
Sam stood up too, panting for breath and glowering at Paul through her dishevelled hair. “He needs to tell me what happened to Florence.”
“I wish I knew,” Paul said, dabbing the corner of his bleeding mouth with the back of his hand. “I thought you’d snatched her.”
“You…” Sam hissed and lunged at him but Blake grabbed her and Kath shielded Paul.
“Stop!” Blake snapped. “We all want to find Florence, Mrs Percival, and you need to explain what happened at the clinic.”
The mention of the clinic took the fire out of Sam and her shoulders slumped. “I’m just worried about my daughter, that’s all.” Her body shook and her face crumpled into tears. Kath put an arm round her. Blake breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of some genuine emotion. “Sam, we’d like you to come back to the station with us…”
Sam Percival stiffened. “You’re not going to lock me up… I need to find Flossy…”
“We’re all looking for Flossy, Sam,” Kath said. “We need to talk to you about what’s happened. Okay?”
Sam looked up at Kath and nodded. Paul Percival had limped over to his front door. Blake followed him. “What happened, Paul?”
“She just turned up at my door, shouting all kinds of nonsense about Flossy. I tried to get her to come inside but she attacked me. She’s unstable, Mr Blake. I just hope she hasn’t got Flossy somewhere…”
“It doesn’t seem like she has if she’s accusing you of somehow being responsible for her disappearance. Why would she do that, do you think?”
“She’s crazy, Mr Blake. Honestly, if you’d seen her a couple of months ago, you wouldn’t ask that question. She’s capable of believing those two contradictory ideas at once.”
“I see. I need to speak with you again, at some point,” Blake said. “Now probably isn’t a good time. I may pop back later, if that’s okay…”
“Or I could come over to you,” Paul said, suddenly. “It’d be no problem.”
“Okay,” he said, surprised. “How about we compromise, and I’ll meet you at Birkenhead Station this evening. Eight thirty?”
“Great,” Paul said, shivering and nodding at Sam who was climbing into the back of the car. “Watch that one. She’s a danger to herself and others.”
Driving off, Blake could see Paul Percival watching them from his doorstep, waiting for them to leave.
*****
He must have stood watching the street for a full five minutes after the police car had vanished round the corner before he slipped back into his house. Paul Percival closed the front door behind him and blew out a long breath. That had been close. Too close. Looking down the hall into the kitchen, he could see Brendan’s feet still sticking out of the cellar door where he’d dropped the body.
He had just been moving Brendan downstairs when Sam had arrived, hammering on the door. Demanding to come in, Sam had lunged at him and the only thing Paul could think of was to turn it into a fight. When Blake arrived, that saved his bacon, and Paul was relieved that Blake didn’t want to come in. He looked at the stiffening body. He needed to get it bound and bagged up before it started to smell. There was an old chest freezer down in the cellar and it wasn’t very full. He could keep the body in there.
Steadying his nerves, Paul clambered over the body and dragged it down the cellar steps, wincing every time the head bumped on the step. It amazed him just how heavy the body was. He could see where the term, ‘dead weight’ came from. He paused, exhausted from the fight with Sam and the stress of dealing with Blake. He mustn’t forget to go to the station this evening. Brendan’s eyes stared up at the ceiling, blank and empty. It wasn’t the fact that Brendan had gone and got himself killed that bothered Paul. It was the inconvenience it caused, in the middle of everything else. Blake seemed to eye Paul with suspicion and Paul realised that he had to keep calm and cool when he went to the station later. He smiled. That was easy. At least there were no witnesses and Dockley wasn’t going to say anything, was he?
“How did the old saying go?” he said, looking down at the corpse. “Dead men tell no tales, that’s it.”
*****
Interviewing Samantha Percival was going to be tricky, Blake knew that. On the one hand, she could be a worried parent frantic about the whereabouts of her daughter. On the other she may be the one who was holding Florence somewhere.
“To be honest, Kath,” Blake said, before they went into the interview room, “she’s the only member of the family who seems actually upset that Florence has gone missing. Everyone else just seems angry but trying to keep things together. As though remaining calm was the imperative. If it was my daughter, I’d be in bits.”
Sam Percival sat in the interview room, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. She had been offered a brief but had declined. “I’ll tell you exactly what happened at that fucking clinic and at home with Paul,” she said. “I don’t have anything to hide.”
“So you admit assaulting Dr Gillespie?” Blake had said. “And stealing his car.”
“I had no choice. I had to escape.”
“You weren’t being held there against your will,” Blake said. “Surely you could have left at any moment. That was our understanding.”
Sam Percival gave a cynical smile. “Yes, you’d think so, wouldn’t you? I’m not paranoid, Mr Blake. The clinic is in the middle of nowhere. You can’t just walk away from it. I did try to leave on several occasions; the taxi I booked never turned up and shortly after, Paul would call me out of the blue and talk me out of leaving. If I was adamant about leaving, he would come up and we would have a ‘meeting’ about the wisdom of my choice to discharge myself. I was bullied into staying.”
“Why didn’t you ring your father? Surely he would have come for you,” Kath said.
“There’s a no mobile phones rule up there,” she said. “It’s meant to be a retreat. The signal was poor at the best of times, anyway. Besides, my dad is full of good intentions but when it comes down to it, he goes AWOL. No, believe me, the only way I was getting out of there was to steal that car.”
