Harlequin

by Stewart Giles

  “He’s alive,” Whitton said.

  “What makes you say that?” Brownhill said.

  “I don’t know,” Whitton said, “It’s just the feeling I get.”

  “What I don’t understand,” Yang Chu said, “and forgive me if this is a stupid question. I have only read through the preliminary case notes but you say Yorick Moreno disappeared seven years ago?”

  “That’s right,” Brownhill said.

  “Why had he suddenly reappeared now?” Chu said, “he’s appeared out of the blue and killed three children in the space of a week. Why?”

  “I’m afraid we don’t know the answer to that,” Brownhill said, “up until now, Alberto, Yorick’s brother has been very reluctant to open up.”

  “He knows something,” Whitton said, “I’m sure of it.”

  “I agree with you,” Brownhill said, “but unfortunately, we have to tread very carefully around Alberto Moreno. He’s already threatened us.”

  “Threatened us?” Chu said.

  “His brother killed himself in police custody,” Brownhill said, “the internal investigation is over but Alberto has every right to open up a new can of worms with a civil case. He’s said so himself and he has a particularly slimy lawyer on his side.”

  The room fell silent.

  “Any suggestions as to where to begin?” Brownhill said after a while.

  “Yorick Moreno had two children,” Whitton said, “a girl aged one and a four year old boy. They were put up for adoption after the murder of their mother. The adoption office is open this morning. We need to find out what happened to these children.”

  “Why?” Thompson said.

  Everybody stared at him.

  “Because we have to follow up on every lead we have,” Brownhill said, “and we’re a bit short of leads at the moment. This is the plan. Bridge, you and me are going to try and have another chat with the elusive Alberto Moreno. I trust you can be diplomatic when you have to?”

  Bridge nodded. His headache was getting better.

  “Whitton,” Brownhill said, “you and Yang Chu see what you can find out at the adoption offices.”

  Whitton found it hard to hide the smile on her face.

  “What about me?” Thompson said.

  “You stay here,” Brownhill said.

  Thompson glared at her.

  “I still work here you know,” he said.

  “I do know,” Brownhill said, “and we all have our particular areas of expertise. I want you to do some digging into the past. Find out everything you can about the Yorick Moreno case seven years ago. Speak with the officers involved; go through the forensics. Something about that murder is important to the case we’re working on now. Find out about the car that drove into the river. Everything. We’ll meet back here at four. Now, get out.”

  SEVENTY THREE

  Blues Master

  “Sir,” a hefty woman with black spiky hair woke Smith from the dream he was having.

  Smith forgot what the dream was about as soon as he opened his eyes. He looked at the woman. He was lying on a large bed. A crowd of people had gathered around it. A small girl was laughing.

  “Sorry,” Smith got off the bed, “I must have dozed off there. Rough night. This is the most comfortable bed I’ve ever slept on. I’ll take it.”

  The woman with the spiky hair smiled. She was a sales assistant at the furniture warehouse on the outskirts of the city.

  “I love this bed,” Smith said.

  “It’s our sweet dreams range,” the sales assistant said, “no turn mattress, guaranteed for fifteen years.”

  “I said I’ll take it,” Smith took out a piece of paper from his pocket, “I have a list. I need two more smaller beds for the spare rooms, a three piece suite, three sideboards, a dining room table and chairs, two wardrobes and one of those home entertainment units. I need one big enough to accommodate a television the size of a small cow.”

  The sales assistant looked as if she had won the lottery.

  “New house?” She said.

  “Something like that,” Smith said.

  Two hours later, Smith had bought everything on his list. He had been given a generous discount for the bulk purchase and the store had promised to deliver everything later that afternoon. Smith was tired of shopping. He decided to leave the appliance shopping for another time. He drove back towards the centre of town. It was not yet lunchtime. He smiled when he thought about what a huge success his DIY barbecue had been. He parked his car in the long stay car park and got out. He walked the short distance to the music shop in town. He was reluctant to go inside, he had found his beloved Fender Stratocaster for sale here after a break in at his house once but he knew this shop had the best quality musical instruments in the whole of York.

  The guitar spoke to Smith as soon as he walked in the door of the music shop. It was a cobalt blue Fender Blues Master Stratocaster made in the USA. Smith picked it up to feel the weight. It felt much lighter than his old Strat.

  “Can I try this one out?” He said to an acne riddled youth with a Marshall Music badge on his shirt. His name was Dwain.

  “Are you going to buy it?” Dwain said.

  “No,” Smith, “I was going to unblock my drains with it.”

  “Sorry,” Dwain said, “we get a lot of time wasters who come in here just to play the good guitars.”

  Smith was tempted to put the guitar down and walk out of the shop but he wanted this guitar.

  “Well?” He looked Dwain in the eyes.

  Dwain sighed, picked up a guitar cable and handed on end to Smith. Smith plugged it into the guitar. Dwain plugged the other end into a Fender Valve amplifier. Smith sat on a speaker, turned up the volume and started to play. It had been a while since he had last played a guitar but it soon came back to him. The tone of the guitar through the valve amp was something Smith had never heard before. It was clean but there was a certain grittiness at the lower end.

  “Wow,” he said, “this guitar is mine. I’ll take it. I’ll take the amp too.”

  “You’re good,” Dwain said,” it would take me years to learn how to play like that.”

  “Do you take lessons?” Smith asked.

  “Twice a week,” Dwain said.

  “Don’t,” Smith said, “just play. Sit down and play along to everything you can. You won’t be as technically proficient but you’ll have a much more personal style. Does it come with a case?”

  “It’s nearly two thousand quid,” Dwain said, “what do you think?”

  Smith put the guitar and amp in the boot of his car and smiled. He was going to but some CDs to replace the ones that had been destroyed in the fire but he changed his mind. He had had enough of shopping for one day and he wanted to be at home in case his furniture was delivered. As he drove home, he pondered over the funny twists and turns of life. His house and everything in it had been destroyed and then he had received the money from The Ghoul’s estate. It had enabled him to replace everything he had lost. Everything, apart from his Gran’s things but Smith did not want to dwell on that. He did a quick mental calculation. He still had more than half the money The Ghoul had left him to play with.

  A sudden pang of guilt hit Smith when he went inside his house. He realized he had been shopping up a storm while his colleagues were slogging it out to try and get to the bottom of the child murders. He decided he would wait for his furniture to arrive and then do some digging of his own. He wondered if they had found out anything useful in the investigation.

  SEVENTY FOUR

  Obese

  Whitton held onto the seat in Yang Chu’s Ford Focus. Her knuckles were white. Chu was driving far too quickly for her liking. She turned and glanced at his face. His eyes were concentrating on the road ahead. Drops of rain had started to fall on the windscreen. There was a strange smell in the car. It was a mixture of sandalwood and something Whitton could not put her finger on.

  “Do you have to drive so fast?” Whitton could not take it a
ny longer.

  “Sorry,” Chu slowed down slightly, “I always seem to drive fast when I’m nervous.”

  “Nervous?” Whitton said.

  “This could be my big chance,” Chu turned to Whitton and smiled, “if I mess this one up my chances of becoming a detective go up in smoke.”

  “You’ll be fine,” Whitton said, “do you mind if I ask you something?”

  “Single,” Chu said, “no children yet.”

  “No,” Whitton said, “it’s not that. Where are you from?”

  Yang Chu looked confused.

  “York,” he said, “why?”

  “Sorry,” Whitton said, “let me start again. Your features, you have Chinese in you don’t you?”

  Yung Chu started to laugh. It was a laugh Whitton thought she could get used to.

  “Vietnamese,” he said, “my Dads Vietnamese and my mother’s English. Where are you from?”

  “This is the address here,” Whitton wished the ground would swallow her up.

  Yang Chu parked outside the adoptions offices on Hope Street and got out of the car.

  Whitton and Chu were directed to the small office where the adoptions records were kept. Whitton knocked on the door.

  “Come in,” a friendly voice said.

  Whitton opened the door and gasped. She could not help herself. Behind the desk in the office sat the largest man she had ever seen. He was certainly what could be classed as clinically obese; he must have weighed over two hundred kilograms.

  “Take a seat,” the man said, “how can I help you?”

  Whitton and Chu sat opposite him.

  “It’s my glands,” the man noted the expression on Whitton’s face, “I also have an unusually slow metabolism and that, coupled with the fact that I can never feel full, doesn’t bode well for my physique. The name’s Bill but you can call me lard arse if you want.”

  Whitton laughed. She smiled and took out her ID.

  “We need to look through some adoption records,” she said.

  “Then you’ve come to the right place,” Bill said, “what exactly are you looking for?”

  “Two thousand and three,” Whitton said, “two children were put up for adoption. A four year old boy and a girl aged one.”

  “Do you have the name of the parents?” Bill said.

  “Only the father,” Whitton said, “his name was Yorick Moreno.”

  “Yorick?” Bill said, “as in Hamlet?”

  “That’s right,” Whitton said.

  “Let’s have a look shall we,” Bill opened up a program on the computer and started to type away frantically on the keyboard.

  Whitton was amazed that his fat, stubby fingers could type so quickly.

  “Here we go,” Bill said, “unfortunately, the children were placed separately. We endeavor to try and keep siblings together but sometimes it isn’t possible. Often, the adoptive parents only want one child.”

  “Do you know where these children ended up?” Chu asked.

  “They stayed in York,” Bill said, “the little girl, hold on.”

  He typed something on the keyboard.

  “Julie,” he said, “that was her name. She ended up with a young couple by the name of Beech and the boy, Kenneth was adopted by a Mr and Mrs Swift.”

  SEVENTY FIVE

  Odyssey

  “Detectives,” Alberto Moreno was packing some things into an old trunk when Bridge and Brownhill walked up, “why don’t you lot just pitch a tent here? You seem to like the place so much.”

  “Going somewhere?” Brownhill said.

  “We had to leave sometime,” Alberto closed the lid on the trunk as if he did not want Brownhill and Bridge to see what was inside, “it might as well be today or tomorrow. Our time here is finished. In fact, our time anywhere has passed. I’m closing the circus down. It’s all over. The lion has roared for the last time.”

  He sat down on the bench outside his caravan.

  “Can I get you some coffee?” He asked.

  He seemed to be more relaxed than he was before.

  “That would be lovely,” Brownhill said, “black, no sugar.”

  “Milk, four sugars,” Bridge added.

  Moreno went inside his caravan and returned a few minutes later with three mugs of coffee.

  “Take a seat,” he said.

  Brownhill and Bridge sat on the bench.

  “What happened to the door?” Bridge pointed to the door of the caravan.

  “Somebody broke it,” Alberto said, “nothing was stolen though.”

  “Strange,” Brownhill thought out loud.

  “I’m exhausted,” Alberto said, “my very soul is weary.”

  “Where will you go?” Brownhill said.

  “Wherever my own personal odyssey leads me,” Alberto said, “wherever there is sunshine. This episode in my life has surrounded me with grey clouds. I’m off to seek the light again. What are you doing here? I have nothing more to tell you.”

  “I’m sorry Mr Moreno,” Brownhill said, “but I think you have.”

  “Please,” Alberto said, “call me Alberto. I think we know each other well enough for that.”

  “I’m sorry Alberto,” Brownhill said, “but we really need to ask you about Yorick.”

  “Yorick,” Alberto repeated the name.

  Brownhill was ready for some kind of resistance but it did not materialize.

  “Yorick,” Alberto said again, “he was his own worst enemy. We all are in a way I suppose but most of us manage to keep that enemy at bay. Yorick couldn’t and neither could Jimmy. I came close but I always managed to find that extra strength; that extra bit of courage to fight it.”

  “Fight what?” Bridge said.

  “The self destruction that we all three shared,” Alberto said, “it’s in the genes I’m afraid; the Moreno curse.”

  “I don’t understand,” Brownhill said.

  “We come from a long line of circus clowns,” Alberto said, “but we were born with evil already in our blood, every one of us. I managed to keep mine under control, Jimmy used it on himself and let it destroy him but Yorick…”

  “Go on,” Brownhill said.

  “Yorick’s disease started early,” Alberto said, “we noticed small glimpses of it when he was a small child. It started off with simple things; pulling the wings off flies and watching them walk round in circles. Yorick seemed to take pleasure in watching the suffering of others. Later on, I think Yorick was eight or nine, we found a cat in Yorick’s room. He had locked it in a cage. The wretched creature was screaming in pain. Yorick had kept it there without us knowing. When we finally got to it, its eyes had been poked out and two of its legs had been cut off.”

  Bridge gasped.

  “It started to get worse after that,” Alberto said, “Yorick soon tired of animals. Jimmy took the brunt of it; he was the youngest. Yorick would sneak into Jimmy’s room in the middle of the night and cut Jimmy with a knife. He cut one of Jimmy’s toes right off and stood there watching him bleed.”

  “Why didn’t you do something?” Bridge asked.

  “I only found out much later,” Alberto said, “Yorick had told Jimmy that if he said a word to anybody, much worse things would happen. Things got much worse anyway. I don’t think Jimmy could have taken much more but then, when Yorick was eighteen, he left. He just disappeared from our lives. You must understand that Jimmy and I were in the circus by then and we had other things to think about. Jimmy changed when Yorick had gone. He was no longer withdrawn and he grew to be a fine young man. Woman loved him but then one day everything changed.”

  “What happened?” Brownhill said.

  “Yorick bounced back into our lives again,” Alberto said, “Jimmy refused to have anything to do with him but I was curious I suppose and he was still my brother. He seemed different somehow. He told me he was better and he asked me if I could get Jimmy to forgive him. He told me he was on medication and the curse was under control. He was married with two children. His
life had turned for the better.”

  “Why are you telling us this now?” Brownhill said.

  “Because you have to try and stop him,” Alberto said.

  “When was the last time you saw your brother?” Bridge said.

  “The day he told me the curse had been lifted,” Alberto said, “he disappeared again just after that and then, a few months later I got the phone call.”

  “Phone call?” Bridge said.

  “Yorick phoned me from prison,” Alberto said, “he told me his wife had been murdered and he was being accused of it. He told me he didn’t do it.”

  “What did you do?” Brownhill said.

  “Nothing,” Alberto said, “that was the last time I heard from him. A while later I heard about what happened when the car went into the river. My God, they even came to see me to find out if I was hiding Yorick at the circus. Then they seemed to assume he had drowned.”

  “I’m sorry,” Brownhill said.

  “To be honest,” Alberto said, “I was relieved. It was all over; we could all get on with our lives. But he didn’t drown did he?”

  “We don’t think so,” Brownhill said.

  “When did you realize he was back?” Bridge said.

  “When Jimmy started acting strangely again,” Alberto said, “he would disappear for days on end. Strange things started to happen too. The ticking box in Jimmy’s caravan. The lion fur you found on the dead children. Yorick is pure evil; he’s not content with killing, he wanted to make it look like we had something to do with it. Jimmy couldn’t take it anymore. There was no other way out for him. He couldn’t go back to how it was when he was a child. The alarm clock and the videotape were the final straw. That was when I knew he was really back and that was when I knew I had to tell you.”

  “What was that about an alarm clock and videotape?” Brownhill said.