Cruelty Has A Human Heart: A DCI Will Blake Novel (DCI Will Blake Crime Mystery Thrillers Book 4)

by J. E. Mayhew

  “Quinlan used to work for me. A bit like these chaps,” Thorpe said, pointing to the gorillas surrounding them. “He leaned on people when required, kept me safe, that sort of thing. But he had brains.” Thorpe looked up at the men again. “No offence lads. You know I love and respect you, but you all have Velcro fasteners on your shoes.”

  The men frowned and looked at their feet in unison.

  “So Kyle Quinlan was one of your security guards?”

  “Yeah, that’s it. Call him a security guard. I like that. He wanted a bit more, though. I never thought he’d actually steal from me but one day we were moving some cash. All very hush hush and behind the tax man’s back. Well, Kyle comes back all bruised and bleeding. Claiming he’d been jumped. The money was gone.” Thorpe paused, lost in the memory, his face had darkened.

  Jeff kept his voice low, as though he was talking to a bereaved relative. “Can I ask how much money went missing?”

  “Seven hundred and fifty fucking grand,” Thorpe said through gritted teeth, the mask slipping for a second. “Three quarters of a mill.”

  “A lot of money,” Jeff said, faintly.

  “We asked around, did some digging, but nobody knew anything about it. Normally, rumours would circulate if someone had nicked that much dosh. Somebody wouldn’t be able to contain their excitement and would blab or buy a flash car or something. But there was nothing. It occurred to me that the reason nobody knew anything was because it had never happened. Quinlan had staged the whole thing and kept the cash for himself.”

  Jeff glanced around the room, wondering whether he should ask the next question. “So, what did you do?”

  “Nothing. Quinlan and the lovely Laura had done a flit, hadn’t they? I don’t blame them. It would have been game over if I’d caught up with them.” He paused. “It’s odd her returning to the Wirral, though. She must know I’m not a forgiving soul…”

  “Maybe she thought you’d stopped looking for her after six years. Are you certain she was involved in the robbery, too?”

  Thorpe shrugged. “They were inseparable. Plus, I know I said Quinlan had brains but she’s clever in other ways. She could twist Quinlan, and most men, round her little finger. I bet she hasn’t told half of this to Blakey. He’ll get a shock if he found out.” Thorpe’s shoulders shook with mirthless humour. “I think your friend Mr Gambles has just opened a very nasty can of worms. Ah! Here’s our bacon butties.”

  Jeff smiled and took the package from Bjorn, but he really had no appetite as he watched Harry Thorpe tearing at the sandwich.

  “Yeah,” Thorpe said with his mouth full, a blob of tomato sauce at the corner of his mouth, “it’ll be great to see Laura after all these years. So much to catch up on.”

  Chapter 24

  A gentle curtain of drizzle had blown in from the Irish Sea as Kath pulled up outside Geri Sharpe’s house in Noctorum. It was a big estate of mixed housing, overlooked by a ridge that was the thin end of a wedge that was Bidston Hill. The houses up on that ridge were big and looked down on the humbler dwellings literally and probably metaphorically. She realised that she wasn’t that far from Leonard’s house in Woodchurch, but the motorway formed a barrier between the two. She could hear the traffic swishing along the wet tarmac in the distance.

  Despite the chaotic background that Geri’s Sharpe’s record suggested, her house looked surprisingly respectable and innocuous. It was a semi-detached with a small, well-tended front garden. An old Vauxhall Zafira sat in the drive and a child’s tricycle stood next to it. Clearly Geri had children, more than one judging by the size of the car; anyone with just themselves to worry about would have a smaller one.

  Geri was probably in her late thirties, small, with a flat nose and peroxide blonde hair. Kath thought she looked too skinny to be healthy. It flashed across Kath’s mind that the woman could easily pass as a child if not subjected to too close scrutiny. Perfect for Hill. Geri was all smiles when she first answered the door but her face fell when Kath produced her warrant card.

  “Is this about Leonard?” Geri said, leaning against the front door.

  “It is,” Kath said. “Can I come in?”

  “You’re like vampires you coppers, aren’t you?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You can’t enter a building unless you’re invited, can you?” Geri said, she grinned, relishing Kath’s discomfort. The drizzle had developed into a proper shower and the house had no porch. “Okay,” she said. “Come in. You’ll get soaked!”

  Kath pursed her lips and gave Geri Sharpe a hard stare as she stepped into the house. “Thanks,” she said, acidly.

  They went into a living room dominated by a huge box of Lego. “My Dominic and Bertie,” Geri said. “They love making things. You were lucky to catch me. I’ve only just got back from dropping them off at school.”

  “Right,” Kath said, smiling tightly.

  “I’ve got four of them,” Geri said. “You know what they’re like, right?”

  “No,” Kath said. “I don’t have any kids. Can I ask you about Leonard Hill?”

  “Fire away,” Geri said. “Do you want a coffee or something?”

  Geri’s chatter was beginning to grate on Kath. This might take a while. “No thanks,” Kath said. “Need to crack on. So can you tell me what happened the day before yesterday?”

  Geri composed herself as if she was trying to remember the details. “Yes. I was meant to meet Leonard Hill at the playground at Birkenhead Park around 9am…”

  “That’s an unusual place and time. Didn’t you have the kids to drop off?”

  “No, Sheila the woman across the road said she’d take them. She’s good like that if I’ve got someone to meet…”

  “Why the playground and the park?”

  Geri shrugged. “Dunno really. I thought he suggested that but maybe I did. I’d taken the kids there a while back, so it was probably just stuck in my mind. Anyway, it was somewhere we both knew. I never give out my address for obvious reasons.”

  “What was the purpose of your meeting?”

  Geri grinned and winked. “You know, good times, a bit of fun…” Her grin faded, quickly. “Except it wasn’t that much fun, this time.”

  “So you were meeting Hill to have sex?”

  Geri rolled her eyes. “Yeah, if you want to be so… so what’s the word?”

  “Factual,” Kath said. “What time did you meet him?”

  “Well I didn’t, did I? Sheila wasn’t well. Silly cow had too much Prosecco the night before. Too hung over. I said to her, ‘you wanna watch that, boozing on a school night.’ I wasn’t best pleased. Anyway, she said…”

  “So you didn’t actually meet Leonard Hill at the park?”

  “No. I had to drop my kids off, didn’t I? And bloody Sheila’s, too. And her little one, Kanye, he’s a bloody handful…”

  “So what did you do?”

  “I told him, didn’t I? I said to Kanye, ‘don’t be undoing your seatbelt when I’m driving along or …’”

  “I mean what did you do about Leonard?” Kath was losing the will to live.

  “Oh, yeah. I called him and said I’d meet him at his house. I’ve been there a couple of times. I went there after I’d dropped the kids off.”

  “How did you two meet?”

  “Oh, you know, one of them apps, swipe right, swipe left,” Geri said. “To be honest, he was no looker but I thought, you know, he might have a nice personality. Or a bit of money to spend.” She winked.

  “Right,” Kath said, scribbling a note down. “So you went to his house. Wasn’t that a bit risky?”

  “That’s the chance you take, isn’t it? Anyway, like I say, I’d met him a few times, so I was pretty sure I was safe.”

  Kath paused for a moment. “I don’t know, Geri. You go to a stranger’s house for a quicky in the morning. I mean aren’t there better ways to meet people?”

  “Look, I’m not saying it’s perfect but it’s better than walking the streets…�
�

  “So you were selling sexual services,” Kath said.

  “I never said that. If a man gives me a few quid as a present, then that’s fine by me. I’m not fussy about looks if they’re kind and generous.”

  “So you got to Leonard’s house,” Kath said. “What then?”

  “Well he didn’t show up, did he? Not for ages…”

  “How long?”

  “I dunno. I texted him twice, I think, asking where he was. It was gone half ten by the time he turned up, I remember that because I was hoping to have been on my way home by then.”

  “Did he give any reason for being late?”

  “No. He just looked a bit flustered and muttered something about traffic.”

  “Did he have anything with him?”

  Geri shook her head. “Nope. Oh, wait a minute. Yeah, He was carrying an envelope thing. What d’you call them? The ones that sound like the condoms…”

  “What?”

  “Or lemons… Jif.. Jiffy, yeah. A Jiffy bag. He had a Jiffy bag in his hand.”

  Kath scribbled down a note, trying not to think about Geri’s thought processes. “Did he say what was in the bag or what it was?”

  “Nah. He just left me in the living room and ran upstairs with it,” Geri said. “Dunno where he took it.”

  “So then what did you do?”

  Kath expected another saucy wink or a smile from Geri but she looked serious. “We went upstairs, and we undressed. It wasn’t very nice, to be honest. He kept saying things… calling me his ‘good little girl’ and trying to get me to call him ‘Uncle Len.’ He hasn’t done that before. It felt wrong. Anyway, he finished, gave me a few quid and I got out of there as quick as I could.”

  “And you haven’t seen him since?”

  “God no. I’d run a flipping mile if he came near me, now. He gave me the creeps. All that talk. He sounded like some kind of paedo. Is that why you’re here? Has he been caught with a kiddy?”

  “It’s just a lead in a serious case. I’m afraid I can’t tell you any more than that. Mr Hill may not be involved at all.”

  “I bet he is, whatever you’re investigating,” Geri Sharpe said, looking at the Lego on the floor. “God, I’m glad I never let him come here…”

  Kath stood up. “Right. Well, thank you for your help, Ms Sharpe, you’ve been very helpful. I’ll get on.”

  Sitting in her car outside Sharpe’s house, Kath flicked through her notes and listened to the rain rattle on the roof of the car. It all fitted together. Leonard Hill had killed the little girl and then gone back to his house and had sex with Geri Sharpe. The poor girl was dead. This man was a monster and needed bringing down.

  *****

  Alex Manikas and Andrew Kinnear scowled in silence at the map in front of them. Neither of them could figure out how, in the time given, someone could snatch a child, bundle them into a car, take them somewhere secluded and then… what?

  “Between the park and Hill’s home, there are more than ten fields, parks or public open spaces that he could have visited. And that’s assuming he chose the most direct route home to cut down travel time. But how could he have done it without being spotted?” Kinnear said.

  “What about this stretch of woodland alongside the M53. It’s not far from his home.”

  Kinnear shook his head. “But where would he park his car?”

  “There, in Manor Drive or Ford Road?”

  “And then drag a reluctant child across a busy carriageway and into that scrubland? It’s possible, I guess. Maybe worth a search.”

  “What about Bidston Hill?”

  “Being generous and allowing him five minutes to get into his car with the girl, then allowing ten fifteen minutes to get home, assuming the traffic’s in his favour. Do you think he’d have time to go up Bidston Hill?”

  “It’s as possible as anywhere else?” Manikas said with a shrug. “He could have gone the other way, towards the docks. The poor kid could be in the River Mersey…”

  Kinnear put his head in his hands. “Or Arrowe Country Park near his house or Prenton Golf Club. We could search for weeks with any number of men and find nothing.”

  “But he wouldn’t have had time to hide her very well, would he?”

  “Unless he prepared earlier.”

  Manikas grimaced. “Did Hill have any known associates? Someone who lives near the park who he could have dumped the kid with to return to later?”

  “The man’s a complete loner. He doesn’t have a job, he walks his dog and watches TV. Unless there’s something dynamite on his computer and we haven’t had anything back on that yet. We may as well close our eyes, stab a pin in this map and go and search there for all the good it’ll do.”

  Manikas chewed his thumbnail. “He can’t have planned it, though. He wouldn’t have known that Florence would run away from Brendan Dockley at that moment. If he did plan it, then either he was going to take Dockley out somehow which seems unlikely…”

  “Or Dockley was in on it from the start,” Kinnear said, looking up at Manikas. “It’s too much of a coincidence that Hill abducts a child from that particular family by chance. And he obviously has an axe to grind with the Percivals. What if he somehow concocted some kind of plan with Dockley?”

  “It makes as much sense as anything else,” Manikas said. “And if that is the case, then Dockley may know where Florence was taken.”

  “We’ll identify some likely areas and then have a word with Mr Dockley. I think there’s more to him than meets the eye.”

  Chapter 25

  Things had been tense between Will and Jeff Blake for many years but Jeff insisting on being Josh Gambles’ biographer really wound Will up. So when his phone rang and he saw it was Jeff, Will almost ignored it. But he’d done that in the past and it had nearly cost him his life. Will answered. “Jeff, this isn’t a great time. Is it important?”

  “It is Will but I need to talk to you in person about this. Not on the phone.”

  “Right. How about tonight? I might be a bit late but…”

  “Urgently, Will. It’s about Laura. I think she might be in danger… I’m in Birkenhead. I could meet you in Liverpool in half an hour…”

  Blake looked down at his files. “It better be important Jeff. I really don’t have the time. I’ll meet you in the foyer…”

  “No. Somewhere a bit quieter. I can’t be seen to be going to the police station. I’ve had an… interesting night…”

  “There’s a coffee shop on the corner of Castle Street. I’ll meet you there.”

  *****

  Paul Percival sipped the hot coffee and winced. It tasted bitter and strong, but it kept him alert and awake. He’d need his wits about him today. Last night had been a nightmare but he thought he’d pulled it off.

  All he had to do was to sit and wait for the police to come knocking, which they would.

  Once they’d found the body.

  He’d known that he couldn’t keep Dockley in the freezer forever, so he reasoned that dumping his body sooner rather than later was the best thing to do. After all, once it was clear that Dockley was missing, they’d search the house again, wouldn’t they? And if Paul could make it look like an accident or maybe a possible suicide, then any suspicion would fall on the young man. True, Brendan had the scald marks on the back of his hand but Paul could just deny any knowledge of where they came from. But if they found the body in the house, in a bloody freezer, then there was no denying that. No, Brendan’s body had to go.

  It looked like they were going to charge Leonard Hill anyway and Dockley might look like an accomplice then. That would work in Paul’s favour, pushing the suspicion away from him.

  He’d waited until early in the morning and dragged Dockley’s stiff corpse back up into the kitchen. It was awkward and unpleasant. The body was stiff with rigor mortis and had partly frozen. Fortunately, Paul had curled it into a foetal position when he pushed it into the freezer so arms and legs weren’t sticking out at awkward angl
es. But the curled-up position made the body hard to handle. It smelt a bit too and the skin looked a bit grey. After much struggling, Paul had managed to get the body into the barrow.

  The riskiest part was pushing the body in a wheelbarrow to the lake in the lower park. It wasn’t that far but there could be someone about, even at this time. On the plus side, it was a dark night, and the moon was smothered in a thick layer of cloud. So, keeping to the shadows beneath the trees at the edge of the park, he’d inched his way around. His heart had thumped so hard, he thought someone might hear it. But it was exciting, too. A fox had trotted across his path, pausing to stare at him before scampering away. The park seemed different at this time, twigs cracked and things scuttled in the undergrowth. The occasional bird chirped up in the trees as it roosted for the night.

  The edges of the lake were well-worn with children squatting at the banks to poke sticks in the water and feed the ducks. But here and there, the bushes were too thick to allow access and hung over the water. Paul heaved the barrow as close as he could to the bank and then dragged the body into the water, pushing it under cover of the bushes. There would be plenty of dog walkers in the morning but with any luck, it might be a couple of days before it would be discovered. By that time, the water might have done a good job destroying any DNA evidence.

  Getting back with the empty barrow had been as fraught as taking the body. The barrow clanged now it was free of any load and the wheel squeaked all of a sudden. Once he got back, he hosed it out and leaned it up in the garden shed, piling a few spades and rakes on top of it to make it look like it hadn’t been used for a while. Then he crept back into the house for a shower and to wash the clothes he’d just worn.

  Now he sat, waiting for the police to call. He’d practised his concerned look in the mirror. “I wish there was some way I could help you, detective,” he said to his reflection and then smiled. But something squirmed in his gut. A worm of anxiety. What if someone had seen him last night? What if there was some tell-tale DNA on the clothes he’d worn? He shook himself. The clothes were clean, there were no tracks, and nobody had seen him last night. He was certain.