Dark Peak

by Adam J. Wright

  “He’s got drugs. Strong drugs for his back. He puts them in a syringe and sedates the girls. Then he kills them while they’re lying there helpless.”

  Battle’s mind began poring over his recollection of the toxicology reports from Josie Wagner’s autopsy. There were drugs found in her system. And the pathologist had determined that Lindsey Grofield had been sedated and then buried alive. That nugget of information had been leaked to the press and mentioned on the radio and TV, so Jack could simply be regurgitating information he’d head in the news. “Does he indeed?” he asked. “You’ve seen him do it, have you? You’ve witnessed him murdering someone?”

  The question wiped away the smug look from Jack’s face. “I haven’t seen it with my own eyes, no, but I’ve seen the syringes.” A slight grin returned to his mouth. “And the journal.”

  Battle nodded. “Ah, the journal. Do you mean this journal, Mr. Walker?” He picked up the clear plastic bag containing the black leather journal that had been found in Walker’s Land Rover.

  “Yes, my father’s journal.”

  Battle nodded slowly, deciding to goad the young man. “I’ve had a look through this journal and it seems to me to be a load of nonsense. Nothing more than descriptions of flowers and a few sketches. Not exactly the diary of Jack the Ripper, is it?”

  “It’s about the girls. The girls are the flowers.”

  “Oh, is that right?” Battle asked, feigning ignorance. “You figured that out all by yourself, did you?”

  “Not at first. But the newspaper articles of the disappearances of those girls were with the journal in the attic and they helped me understand what it was all about. I still don’t fully understand everything but I understand the most important thing: my father is a clever, powerful man. All this time, people thought he was poor old Silas, stuck in that wheelchair but he’s outfoxed all of you.”

  “Mr. Walker, I think you don’t understand anything at all. You find a journal and some press clippings in an attic and you use that as a motive to go out and kill Rhonda Knowles?”

  Jack looked closely at him. “All of my life, my father has been in a wheelchair and do you know what? When I was young, I was ashamed of him. He wasn’t like the other dads who played football with their sons or went walking with them along the fells. My dad couldn’t do that and because he couldn’t do that, everyone thought he was weak.”

  He pointed at his own chest. “I thought he was weak. But all the time, he was living a secret life. He wasn’t weak at all, he was strong, holding the power over life and death in his hands. I pitied him because I was getting my kicks from hang-gliding, rock-climbing, and diving, and I thought he could never have that, never know that rush of adrenaline. But little did I know, he was doing something far more exhilarating.”

  “Killing girls,” Battle said.

  “Yes, killing girls.”

  “So when you found the journal, you thought you’d have a go yourself, experience the ultimate thrill. Is that why you did it? For the adrenaline rush?”

  Jack nodded. “Not right away. At first, I didn’t have the guts to do it. I thought about it, though. It played on my mind for years.”

  Battle interrupted him. “Years? When exactly did you find the journal?”

  “Eighteen years ago. I was seventeen. I went into the attic to find some rock-climbing gear I thought was up there. While I was up there, I noticed an old cardboard shoe box. When I opened it, I found the journal and the clippings inside.”

  “And the syringes?” Battle asked.

  Jack nodded. “And the syringes and some of my dad’s meds. That was the day I realized my father wasn’t the weak man everyone made him out to be. Even my mum is always putting him down and telling him he’s a disappointment to her. If only she knew the truth.” He grinned. “Well, she will soon, won’t she? Soon, everyone will know what kind of man my father is. He certainly fooled you and your cronies.”

  “Wait a minute,” Battle said, performing a mental calculation. Jack must have found the journal shortly after the murder of Lindsey Grofield. “You sent the letter to the police, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, that was me,” Jack said. “I wanted to bring some attention to the killings. I sent the same letter to the papers as well but nobody published it. It could have been huge, like the Zodiac case in America but nobody paid any attention.”

  Battle tried to form a timeline in his mind. “So why did you kill Rhonda Knowles now, eighteen years later? It doesn’t make much sense to me, lad.”

  Jack stared down at the table. “I couldn’t work up the courage to do it. I came close a few times but never actually went through with it. I wanted to, wanted to be like my father, but I couldn’t.”

  “And then suddenly, you could,” Battle said, “And Rhonda Knowles paid the price.”

  “My dad was growing weak,” Jack said. “My cousin Mitch arrived and took Edge House from us. My dad wanted to buy it but Mitch said no and brought up Olivia and Sarah. My dad broke down. I realised that he’d grown a lot weaker over the past few years. He was upset because he can’t do what he used to. I told myself that I had to finally find the courage to continue his work. And I did.”

  Battle said, “Excuse me a moment, sir.” He left the interview room and went upstairs to the incident room that had been set up for the Rhonda Knowles case. “Where’s DS Morgan?” he asked as he entered.

  “She’s giving Elly Cooper the bad news, guv,” DS Johnson said.

  “Right, get on to dispatch. I want a unit over at Blackmoor House. We’re going to bring Silas Walker in on suspicion of murder. His son has fingered him as the Blackden Edge Murderer but something about it doesn’t sit right with me.” He turned to leave the room.

  “Aren’t you going out there as well, guv?” Johnson asked.

  “No, I’m not bloody going out there. I need to find out what Walker’s done with Jennifer Townsend, don’t I?”

  “Yes, guv.”

  “Yes, guv,” Battle mimicked, closing the door behind him and going back downstairs to the interview room.

  DS Morgan was driving north after leaving Windrider Cottage wishing she hadn’t had to be the one to deliver the bad news to Elly Cooper. She knew it was part of the job but some parts of the job were terrible. She just hoped they’d find Elly’s sister soon and that she’d be alive when they did.

  She’d intended to return to the station to get an update about the interview with Jack Walker but as she drove towards Blackmoor House, she saw a white Honda CR-V with Alice Walker at the wheel come speeding out from between the eagle pillars and onto the main road. The vehicle turned north.

  Morgan followed. When she’d first joined the CID, she’d been told that she’d been told that she’d develop a gut instinct about some things and right now, her gut was telling her to follow Alice Walker. She was the mother of the accused, after all, and it looked like she was running away from something.

  Keeping her distance but making sure she had the white Honda in view at all times, Morgan followed the vehicle off the main road and onto side roads that snaked through the woods.

  32

  Blackmoor House

  When Mitch turned off the main road and guided the Jeep between the eagle-topped pillars that marked the entrance to Blackmoor House, he felt a jolt of déjà vu.

  The track that led from the road to the house was straight, unlike the track at Edge House, and the house could be seen from the road.

  The dream-memory Mitch had dismissed came back to him with frightening clarity. This was the track he’d run along in his pyjamas as a child. This was where he’d looked over his shoulder and seen that single light burning in the upstairs room.

  What had he seen that had made him flee the house? Fragments of memory returned to him. He and Sarah had been staying overnight here while their parents went out somewhere. He couldn’t remember where and it didn’t matter. What mattered was that he and Sarah had been staying here with Tilly and Jack. Silas and Alice were looki
ng after all four children.

  Mitch remembered waking up during the night. He’d been playing army all evening with Tilly, pretending to be a soldier and stalking her around the house with a plastic machine gun. She had a gun too and was also stalking him.

  The house was so large that the game sometimes went on for a while without them finding each other. But then, when they finally met, the toy machine guns rattled off imaginary bullets and he and Tilly pretended to die in agonizing ways. It was a good game but all that running around had made him thirsty later. He’d remembered there were some cans of Pepsi in the fridge downstairs.

  He had slid out of bed and opened the bedroom door quietly so as not to wake Jack, who was asleep in the next room. The girls were sleeping at the other end of the long hallway that ran along the second floor so Mitch didn’t have to worry about waking them.

  Moonlight shone in through the windows, so he didn’t have to turn any lights on. He padded along the hallway to the top of the stairs and began to go down to the kitchen, his hand sliding along the smoothly-polished wooden bannister.

  When he was halfway down, a noise reached him from the floor he’d just descended from. It sounded like someone crying. Curious, Mitch went back up and listened, trying to pinpoint where the sound was coming from.

  He crept along the hallway until he reached a closed door. The sound was definitely coming from the room behind that door. There was a girl crying in there. Was it Sarah or was it Tilly? Mitch couldn’t be sure.

  The only way to find out was to open the door. The trouble was, this room was one that the children had been warned not to enter. Tilly had told Mitch that it was her mother’s private room and there were fragile things in there that might get broken if they went inside. She didn’t know what those fragile things were because she’d never been inside herself. She said that to disobey her parents meant you’d get a slap or hit across the back of your legs with a wooden spoon.

  Mitch had heeded the warning and hadn’t gone into the room, not even during the game of army. But now there was someone in there crying. Whoever it was, he’d tell them to cheer up and then he’d get them a Pepsi.

  He grabbed the handle and opened the door as quietly as he could so he didn’t wake anyone else in the house.

  What he saw sent a shiver of shock through him and made him step back and gasp.

  Sitting on the bed was Alice. She was dressed in a white nightgown and she was rocking back and forth, tears streaming down her cheeks. Clutched in her arms were the bodies of two dead girls. They wore long blue dresses and lay limply in Alice’s arms, their faces covered by long, blonde hair.

  Alice heard Mitch gasp and turned to face him. The sorrow in her eyes turned to fury. “How dare you!” she spat. “How dare you come in here!” She threw the girls down on the bed and then Mitch realized they weren’t real at all—they were dolls. But they weren’t little dolls like Sarah’s Tiny Tears or Barbie, they were life-size.

  They were also life-like. Most dolls, like Sarah’s, didn’t look real because their eyes always looked fake. The eyes were made of glass or plastic, Mitch knew. But Alice’s dolls had their eyes closed, which made them look more real.

  He backed away from his advancing aunt. “I’m sorry,” he pleaded. He didn’t want to get a wooden spoon across the back of his legs.

  “Get out!” Alice shouted.

  Mitch fled down the stairs and to the front door. He had no desire for a drink now, he just needed to get out of the house. He was in trouble and he needed to escape whatever punishment was coming his way. The key was in the door. He turned it and ran out into the night.

  When he was halfway along the track the led to the road, he looked over his shoulder and saw the light burning in the room where Alice had been sitting on the bed with the dolls. He should never have gone in there. Why hadn’t he stayed out?

  He reached the road, panting for breath. He heard a shout coming from the house but it wasn’t Alice shouting at him, it was Silas calling his name. His uncle had come out of the house and was sitting in his wheelchair by the front door, peering into the darkness and calling for Mitch.

  Mitch stood where he was for a moment, wondering if he should keep running. But where would he go and what would he tell his parents tomorrow? That he’d been frightened by a pair of dolls? Maybe it was better to go back to the house now and take whatever punishment he deserved for breaking the rules. If he was lucky, Silas and Alice might not even tell his parents.

  Reluctantly, he turned towards the house and walked back along the track.

  Silas waited for him and, when Mitch got closer, asked, “Are you all right, lad?”

  Mitch nodded slowly. “I’m sorry, Uncle Silas.”

  “Come on, let’s go inside.” Silas turned the chair around to face the doorway. “Aunt Alice was just surprised to see you looking into her room, that’s all.”

  “Am I in trouble?” Mitch asked, following Silas back into the house.

  Silas stopped in the foyer and put a hand on Mitch’s shoulder. “I’ll tell you what; let’s not mention this to anyone. You keep quiet about the room and I won’t have to tell your parents you were in there. How does that sound?”

  Mitch nodded. He didn’t want to be in trouble.

  As he parked the Jeep outside Blackmoor House, Mitch recalled that he never told anyone about what he had seen in Alice’s secret room. At the time, he’d thought that a grown woman crying over dolls was strange but nothing that concerned him.

  Now, he wasn’t so sure. He got out of the Jeep and went to the front door. Elly beat him to it. She was pounding on the door with her fist before he reached it.

  “Silas,” she shouted, “I want to talk to you.” She stepped back from the door and glanced at the windows, probably looking for an open one she could climb through, so desperate was she to get into the house.

  “Get down here,” she shouted at an upper-floor window.

  Mitch followed her gaze and saw Silas looking out at them. Because he was in his chair, only the top part of his face showed through the window. His eyes were unreadable.

  “Silas!” Elly shouted again.

  The face disappeared and Mitch wondered if Silas wasn’t going to open the door at all. Then he realised that Silas’ only means of getting from the upper floor must be a stair-lift or an elevator, both of which took time.

  At last, the door opened. Silas said nothing to either of them. He merely wheeled himself back into the centre of the foyer.

  Elly strode up to him. “Where’s my sister, you bastard? What has Jack done with her? Where is she?”

  “I don’t know for sure,” he said simply.

  “Don’t lie to me,” she said, grabbing his shoulders and shaking him. “Where is she? Where is Jen?”

  “Please, Miss Cooper,” he said. “I’m not lying to you. Not at all.”

  “You tell me where she is or so help me, I’ll—”

  “Elly,” Mitch said. “I think he’s telling the truth.” There was something different about Silas. He seemed deflated somehow, as if his life-force had leaked out of him. It could be nothing more than the fear of being caught, but Mitch detected something else in Silas’ bearing as well: a great sorrow.

  Elly stepped back and looked at Silas, really looked at him, for the first time. “It isn’t you,” she said. “You’re not the Blackden Edge Murderer.”

  Silas shook his head slowly and said, “No, Miss Cooper, I’m not.”

  “Not even the early abductions, the ones before your accident.” She said it as a statement, not a question.

  He shook his head again and then looked down at the floor as if ashamed.

  “If not you,” she said, “then who?” Her brows furrowed as she thought about it. Then she said, “You knew Josie Wagner and she ended up dead. You knew Olivia and Sarah and the same happened to them. If you didn’t do that, then it had to be someone who had the same connections.” Understanding flashed in her eyes. “Your wife. She had exactly
the same connections. But why kill Josie?”

  Silas sighed. “You have to understand, Miss Cooper, Alice and I have had a strained relationship from the moment we met. That didn’t stop us from marrying at eighteen.

  “We knew nothing about the world. We were both so young and innocent. Well, one of us was innocent, I suppose. The year before we were married, Evie and Mary Hatton disappeared from their home in Leath, the same village Alice was from. So, of course, it came up in conversation every now and then, especially since the police were still scouring the countryside looking for the two girls. But every time I mentioned it to Alice, she acted strangely. A faraway look came into her eyes and she said the girls were in a better place, away from their father.”

  “So you suspected her,” Mitch said. “But you didn’t go to the police?”

  Silas scoffed. “With what? I had no evidence, nothing but a nagging suspicion.

  “Then Olivia disappeared,” he said. “And I saw the similarity between her and those poor Hatton girls.”

  “You mean she was abused,” Elly said. “I’ve seen photos of her with you and Michael when you were children. It was easy to see she was an unhappy child.”

  “Yes, that’s what I mean. Our father, Frank Walker, was a mean old bastard. And he was as misogynistic as they come. As far as he was concerned, women were good for cooking and breeding. He said so, too.” Silas let out a long breath. “Olivia had a terrible time of it. But it wasn’t Frank abusing her, it was Michael.”

  “What?” Mitch said. He felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach. He’d convinced himself that his father was innocent.

  “Oh, yes, your father was no saint,” Silas said. “I knew what was going on, and so did Alice.”

  “Yet you did nothing,” Elly said.

  “What could I do? My father—and Michael, for that matter—were untouchable. The police would never investigate my claims. Alice kept saying that Olivia would be better off if the same thing happened to her as happened to the Hatton girls. At least she’d be free of her abusers. I kept trying to convince her that wasn’t the case, but she wouldn’t listen. Alice has very strong opinions regarding abuse. I think, from some things she’s told me, that she was abused herself during her childhood. Her mother had a temper and often took it out on her.”