by Mark Dawson
“So?” Atticus said.
“So,” Mack replied, exhaling. “It’s been busy. Where do you want me to start?”
“York,” he said. “Anything on how he got that razor?”
“No. We interviewed the solicitor, and he swore blind it had nothing to do with him. We looked into his background, and there’s nothing to suggest that he would ever have done something like that.”
“So York had it on him?”
“You were there—Betts swears he searched him thoroughly.”
Atticus was minded to suggest that the search had not been thorough enough, but there was no profit in sniping at the sergeant now.
“We’ve reported ourselves to the IOPC,” she said. “There’ll be an independent inquiry.”
“What about York?” Atticus said.
“There’ll be no charges against him now that he’s dead,” she said, “but the coroner will get all of the evidence that we’ve put together. His confession and everything else. The families of the victims will get answers.”
“But not justice,” Atticus said. “He took the easy way out. And Burns is dead, too.”
They climbed through the wood and up to the top of a tumulus that offered a panoramic view of the countryside in all directions.
“Burns,” Mack said. “We’ve got a little more on him. He started work at the youth club in 2000, right after he left the MoD. The thing that we can’t quite figure out is why he got a job working with kids. He didn’t have any experience, at least not as far as we can make out.”
“He wouldn’t have had a CRB check, would he?”
“No. That only started in 2002. He would’ve been checked off against List 99 for any offences against children, but he hadn’t been investigated for anything back then—his record would have been clean. We’ve spoken to some of the other staff who worked there then. They said it was all a bit of a mess. Record-keeping was non-existent, and no one noticed that some of the kids who went there had disappeared.”
“Why would they? It was spread out over time.”
“And it wasn’t the sort of place that had regulars. Kids dropped in and dropped out again.”
Bandit checked back to make sure that they were still following him before racing off again. Atticus and Mack walked on.
“What about ID’ing the victims?” he asked.
“Francine’s been busy on that. We’ve got three of them from their dental records: Abbie Ross, seventeen when she went missing; Orna Foster, nineteen; and Lindsey Alexander, twenty.”
“And the last two? Catherine and Evelyn?”
The girls had been given the names as they had been the third and fifth to have been found.
“Not yet. We’ll keep looking.”
Atticus knew there was a good chance that the two would never be identified. The teenagers who visited the youth club were often drawn from the fringes of society, and there would have been many who passed through its doors who would not have been fortunate enough to have loved ones who would miss them when they did not return home. They had been waifs and strays who had found an evening’s distraction from the sadness and difficulty of their day-to-day struggles, only then to find that they paid for their transitory fun with their lives.
“Are the parents still alive?”
“Some,” she said. “I went to see the Fosters this afternoon. They’d never been able to get over the fact that Orna didn’t come home. They’ve been grieving for her for fifteen years. I don’t know whether knowing what happened to her will make it easier or harder to deal with.”
They continued downhill again, toward Blissford Hill.
“Have you seen Molly?”
“She came in the day before yesterday,” Mack said. “She’s been placed with foster parents until something more permanent can be sorted out for her.”
“How was she?”
“Surprisingly well given what happened to her. Her evidence is strong. She also said that she thinks her dad might have had something to do with her mother’s disappearance. She says she left and never tried to get back in touch with her. She said that York told her there was someone else involved, but she never really believed him. It’ll be hard to prove anything, but we’re looking into it.”
They climbed a stile over a fence and followed the track up into another wood.
“And Miller?” Atticus said.
Mack sighed. “That’s going to be very difficult. He’s only admitted to being in the bedroom in Londonderry with Burns and York.”
“He couldn’t very well say he wasn’t—he’s in the photograph.”
“But that’s all he’ll admit. He says he left the house immediately after the picture was taken and that he had no idea that Burns was planning to murder the couple they robbed. The only witnesses to what happened that day—the two victims and Burns and York—are dead. It’s going to be difficult to prove that he’s lying. We’ve passed our file to the PSNI—it’ll be up to them now.”
“What’ll he be charged with?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “That’s for the PSNI to decide. He’s out for now, though.”
“And Imber?”
“We’re searching the buildings. Nothing useful found yet, but there’s a lot to check. We’ll keep looking.”
Bandit sprinted back to check on them and, after ensuring that they were still where they were supposed to be, flashed down to a stream and splashed through it. Mack and Atticus followed, stepping carefully through the clear, icy water. Mack lost her footing on a lichen-encrusted rock, and Atticus put out a hand to steady her; she grabbed it, and, even after fording the stream, did not attempt to take her hand away.
Atticus had been interested in finding out about progress in the investigation, but that was not the subject that had occupied him the most since the last time he and Mack had been together. He had told himself that he wouldn’t ask her, that he would let her tell him when she was ready, but he couldn’t stop himself.
“What about you and Andy?”
“What about us?”
“What have you decided to do about the divorce?”
“I don’t have a choice,” she said.
“You could contest it.”
“I can’t make him stay married to me,” she said.
They walked on for a moment, her hand still in his.
“Do you want to?” he said. “Stay married, I mean?”
She thought about that for a beat. “No,” she said. “I don’t think I do. I was thinking of the kids before, but I had things the wrong way around. We weren’t happy, and I don’t see how they could be happy when we were arguing all the time. It wasn’t doing them any favours.”
She stopped and tugged on his hand. Atticus stopped, too, and turned to face her. She stepped closer to him, let go of his hand and reached up with hers to cup his cheek. She pressed herself against him and kissed him on the lips.
“I’m going to do what I want to do for a change,” she said.
Atticus felt a nudge on his hand. Bandit was back, watching them, his tail wagging enthusiastically.
82
Richard Miller drove through the open gate and into the wood that formed a natural boundary around the big house. It was eleven at night, and the thick banks of cloud overhead blocked out the moon and stars; it was as black as tar, and he could see no farther than the reach of the car’s headlights. The trees on either side grew close together, the darkness between their trunks absorbing the glow as the car drove on. Miller gripped the wheel a little tighter, fancying that he saw the flash of an animal’s eyes in the undergrowth to the right. A fox, perhaps, or a badger. A predator in search of prey.
He had been here many times, ever since they had moved the private broadcasts from Imber. Summers had regaled him and the others with the history of the estate, how the tools that had been excavated from the grounds in the 1920s proved that Woodyates had been occupied since Neolithic times. He had taken them to the ancient Roman well in the Well House an
d had pointed to the handful of coins that were displayed in a case on the wall, explaining how they had been dated to the reign of Constantine I, eighteen hundred years earlier. The coins were fine, Miller thought, but he had been more interested in the axe-heads and laurel-leaf knives, the blades that might, at some point in the past, have been dipped in blood.
The road passed out of the trees and descended into a depression, and then, as he crested the hill, the house was revealed. It sat in a hollow, with the hills rising gently all around it and with open farmland to the front and the oak forest of the Cranborne Chase to the rear. It was secluded and offered privacy and security; that was important, given the business that took place there.
Miller parked his car. He drew in a deep breath, composing himself for what he suspected might be a difficult conversation, and then got out and made his way to the side entrance. The door was open, and Miller went inside, making his way along the hall, passing the darkroom and the cloakroom, crossing the empty dining hall and library and reaching the door to the drawing room.
Harry Summers, the owner of the house, sat in his leather armchair by the fire.
“Richard,” he said.
“Harry.”
Summers gestured to the Chesterfield. “Please—sit.”
Miller lowered himself into the chair as Summers picked up a bottle of what looked like an exceptionally fine red and offered it. Miller nodded. Summers poured out a glass and handed it to him.
“It’s very sad about James,” Summers said. “Very unfortunate.”
Miller sipped the wine, then placed the glass on the table next to him. “He knew what would need to be done if he was discovered. And he didn’t have long left—not with the cancer.”
“Both true,” Summers said. “But his sacrifice is still admirable.”
“There but for the grace of God, and all that.”
“Quite so,” Summers said, nodding his agreement. “What have you heard about your own situation?”
“The case has been passed to the authorities in the Province.”
“And what will you say when they question you?”
“I can’t very well deny the armed robbery charge. But I’ll say that I left before the two of them were shot.”
“How do your lawyers rate your chances?”
“They say it’s hard to predict. I’ll get time for the robbery—I can’t say that I wasn’t there; I’m in the bloody photograph. But there are no witnesses to the murders. Alf and James and the two Micks are all dead. I’ll say I left before that happened.” He shrugged.
“Whatever the verdict,” Summers said, “we’ll make sure that the sentence is as brief as possible and that you can serve it in a pleasant establishment. I suspect you’ll spend a month or two somewhere insalubrious, but, once the attention is off, you’ll be moved and looked after properly. We have some levers to pull over there, as you know.”
“I do.”
“It’ll be fine,” Summers said.
“I know. You don’t need to worry, Harry. I’ll do what I have to do.”
“I know you will.”
He raised his glass. Miller raised his, and they touched them together.
Miller gazed into the flames. “What about Priest?”
“A minor irritant,” Summers declared with a downward curl of his lip. “It was bad enough with his crusade against Alf. If it weren’t for him, I doubt he would have made the foolish decisions that he did. But we all knew that Alf was weak. Weak and venal and a problem waiting to happen. I should’ve realised much sooner that he couldn’t be trusted.”
“Will anything be done—about Priest, I mean?”
“We’re watching. The concern is that he’ll keep digging, pardon the pun. We won’t allow that to happen.”
“What about Alf’s brother?”
Summers tutted. “That was irritating. Doyle missed him by minutes. He’s looking for him now. I doubt he’ll be resourceful enough to stay out of the way for long.”
“Do you think he has anything damaging?”
“We didn’t find all of Alf’s material, did we? So I think we can assume that he has that, at least. But there’s no reason for him to threaten us with it. He’ll see it as insurance to keep us away.”
“He won’t be tempted to blackmail us?”
“Alf tried that. I find it difficult to believe that his brother would be that stupid.”
Summers spoke with the confidence of a man with the resources and disposition necessary to eliminate threats. It had been a bumpy few months, one way or another, and Miller had found a little peace of mind knowing that Summers was on top of everything. Alf had damned himself and had eventually brought York down with him, but there was a firebreak now between them and the rest of the business. Miller would serve time for the crimes that could be proven, but that would be that.
He sipped his wine. “What about Jones?”
“The detective chief inspector has family problems,” Summers said. “Her husband wants a divorce. She might be open to being reassigned away from Salisbury. But, either way, it’s in hand.” He finished his glass and stood. “There’s no need to dwell on it. Come on—we need to get down to the chapel. There’s a lot to do tonight.”
Summers led the way to the chapel in the grounds of the house. It dated back to the fourteenth century and was small and simple. The timber door was ajar, and Summers pushed it open and went in.
The room inside had been equipped as a film studio. The stone walls had been draped with sound-absorbent material that shone red in the glow of uplighters set around the floor. Several cameras were arranged on tripods that, carefully positioned around the mattress on the floor, offered coverage of the action from all angles. There was a table with various lenses laid out on it and LED lights set on tripods that could be moved around to accommodate the requirements of the scene being recorded. There were microphones on stands and booms, a mixing desk and two large monitors that allowed them to view the live feed.
The operation was overseen by Adam, a technician who was paid generously in return for his discretion. Apart from the sating of his greed, Adam’s continued obedience was guaranteed by the fact that Summers had made it plain that he knew everything about him and his family: his wife’s place of work, the schools that his kids attended, the fact that he had taken money to work on these broadcasts for months.
“Is everything ready?” Summers asked.
“We’re good,” Adam said. “There was a problem with the uplink, but that’s sorted.”
Their films had been much less sophisticated when they had started making them more than twenty years earlier. They had used the Manor House in Imber, a spacious property that offered additional privacy thanks to the tall brick wall that surrounded it. Miller remembered it fondly. He, Burns and York had transported their equipment in the back of an old Ford Transit that Burns had bought, set up and filmed scenes in accordance with the orders placed by their customers, and then removed all evidence of their presence by the time dawn broke. Burns had edited the films and supplied them to the customers on DVDs. The Manor House’s proximity to the cemetery had been another bonus, especially when it became obvious that there was a demand for content that pushed the boundary, and that patrons were prepared to pay through the nose to satisfy the most taboo of kinks.
Summers had been a customer himself back then, but, having seen the potential of the business, he had become involved in it. It had been his recommendation that Imber be abandoned and his suggestion that they make the chapel their permanent studio. The business had become known in the darkest corners of the internet as the Red Room, on account of the lighting that they had incorporated in their first shoots; they used the same lights, to the same effect, today.
“What are we doing tonight?” Miller asked.
“MFF,” Summers said. “The two from before and the junkie. Doyle’s getting them now.”
They didn’t have long to wait. The actors in their films were kept in one of the
old servants’ cottages, the door secured with padlocks and the windows barred. Doyle arrived, pushing three teenagers—one male and two female—into the studio. Doyle was a big man, with a barrel-like chest and arms as big as Miller’s legs, and a disposition that did not brook disobedience. Miller did not know anything more than his surname—and doubted that even that was real—but York, in an unguarded moment, had suggested that he was a soldier that Summers employed to clear up the occasional mishap that threatened his businesses. Miller knew that someone had been sent to Alfred’s flat in Andover when Atticus Priest had been inside, and suspected that it had been him.
Miller watched the trio as they came inside and looked around. The first young woman was slender with dark hair that hung over her face as she bowed her head; the second was a redhead, younger, her face scattered with freckles. Miller hadn’t seen her before; she was, to use the term that Summers preferred, ‘fresh.’ The young man was rail thin, his arms marked with tracks that identified him as an addict. Miller knew that Summers had found him in a shooting gallery in the Priory and tempted him here with the promise of free smack. His habit would kill him, although not in the way that he might have feared. All three of them were dressed in clothes that had evidently not been changed during the time they had been kept in the cottage.
“Over there,” Summers said, pointing to the mattress in the centre of the room. “Get undressed.”
Doyle nudged them forward, and Miller saw the fear in their eyes. He had seen that same fear countless times before. Some of those who had been in the Red Room had been allowed to leave. Others—those selected for a particular type of feature—had not been so lucky.
Adam set the cameras to record and opened the live link to whichever customer was paying for tonight’s show. They used the dark web to hide their activity, and there was never anything in shot that could identify them or their location. It was convenient, secure and remunerative.
The three actors were naked. They stood around, nervously looking at each other and at Doyle.
“What are you waiting for?” Summers said. “Go.”
