Blood of the Innocents

by Collett, Chris

  ‘What are you doing, Brian?’

  Goodway reeled round, shocked to see them. ‘It’s all right, you don’t need to tell me,’ Mariner continued calmly. ‘I know what you’re burning, and I know why. Burning won’t get rid of all the evidence. Even if the fabric is charred we can still get DNA. We’ll still find Ricky Skeet’s blood on those overalls, won’t we?’

  ‘And you’ve given us plenty of circumstantial evidence,’ added Knox, ‘the pictures of Shaun Pryce and the reservoir; the wire you used to strangle Yasmin.’ Goodway’s eyes widened.

  ‘There might be a way out of this mess, Brian,’ Mariner soothed. ‘Why don’t you tell us all about it?’

  Goodway turned away, wringing his hands. ‘I’ve nothing to say to you.’

  ‘Why don’t we start with St Martin’s,’ Mariner said, ignoring him.

  Goodway couldn’t help himself. ‘Nothing happened at St Martin’s,’ he said.

  ‘So why did you leave in such a hurry? There were rumours. No smoke without fire, eh, Brian. What was the boy’s name?’

  ‘Boy?’ Knox was totally lost now.

  ‘We were only partly on the right track,’ Mariner told him. ‘When Stewey Blake said Brian here had approached a sixth former, we both assumed it was a girl, because Brian here is a red-blooded, heterosexual family man. But that’s not true, is it, Brian? It wasn’t your wife who was having an affair with Shaun Pryce, it was you.’

  Brian Goodway sank to the ground, burying his head in his hands. For several minutes he said nothing, then just as Mariner began to approach him, he spoke, his voice hoarse and trembling. ‘I realised I was gay years ago,’ he said. ‘My whole marriage was a sham. I concealed it for years, satisfying myself with the occasional one-night stand. But it got more and more difficult, always feeling that I was living a lie and never being able to just be myself. I knew that eventually I’d have to give in to temptation.’

  ‘Is that why you went to work at the girls school, so that there couldn’t be a repeat of St Martin’s?’

  ‘Nothing happened at St Martin’s.’

  ‘Only because the kid ratted on you.’

  ‘I’d done nothing improper,’ Goodway insisted. ‘It was a conversation, a careless gesture, that’s all. But I thought working at Kingsmead would be easier. It was. For a while everything was fine, under control. Then when I met Shaun that evening at our house, it was love at first sight. I couldn’t get him out of my mind. Inviting him to model at school was just a way of seeing him again. I never dreamed that anything would come of it, especially when I saw him flirting so outrageously with the girls.’

  ‘Afterwards, I took him out for a drink as a kind of thank you and that’s when I discovered that he wasn’t averse to male company, either. I couldn’t believe my good fortune.’

  ‘Pryce is gay?’ Knox was incredulous.

  ‘He’s still in the closet,’ said Mariner. ‘Coming out would ruin his chances of being a leading man. You had an affair?’ he asked Goodway.

  ‘This time, I thought it was a proper relationship and I knew I’d have to tell Barbara. She’d been suffering from depression for a long time, partly because of the state of our marriage. I thought we’d be able to work out something civilised between us. But when I told her, she was devastated, starting talking about suicide. Then, suddenly, she announced that she was going to tell the children. I couldn’t let her do that. Not yet. I wasn’t ready. So one night when she went out I followed her. She went down to the reservoir. It was somewhere we used to go together, years ago. I would sketch and she would enjoy the peace and quiet.’

  ‘Not that night, though.’

  ‘I caught up with her on the wooden bridge. I tried to reason with her, but she wouldn’t listen. She said that I’d humiliated her and ruined her life and that now she would ruin me. In some strange way I even think she was jealous.’

  ‘She’d made a pass at Pryce. Did you know that?’

  Goodway snorted. ‘No.’

  ‘So you tipped her into the river.’

  ‘It was an accident. I had her by the shoulders, I was begging her not to tell the children. She just laughed at me. I pushed her—’ he frowned ‘—harder than I thought, the railings gave way and she fell. I went down to help her but knew straight away that she was dead. I was going to drag her out on to the bank and go for help, but then I thought about how it would look. Then I realised that the easiest thing was the drainage tunnel. We’d had a lot of rain and it just carried her down. It was as if it was meant to be.’

  ‘And Yasmin?’

  ‘She was a lovely girl, truly talented. She flirted a little with Shaun but I knew it was harmless.’

  ‘So what, then?’

  ‘She saw us together. Shaun and me. While the weather has been so warm Shaun persuaded me to meet him at the reservoir. I’d introduced him to it when he’d said he needed somewhere private to sunbathe. He talked me into going with him after school. It was exciting.’

  ‘So you were there on that Monday when Yasmin walked past.’

  ‘She’d been to see that boy, Everett, and was taking a shortcut through the reservoir back to the station. The next morning she came to tell me. She said, “You’re a queer, aren’t you? I saw you with Shaun. It’s disgusting.” Actually, I think she was quite shocked and upset herself, but she’d come to find out what I’d do to stop her telling anyone. But then I guessed that she was meeting Everett and we came to a tit for tat arrangement: I’d say nothing about Lewis if she would forget Shaun.’

  ‘Cosy,’ said Knox.

  ‘I knew it wouldn’t last, though. Everett was bound to let her down and then I’d never be able to trust the little bitch to keep her mouth shut. If she let it out I’d be ruined.’

  This was what Mariner didn’t understand. ‘What you and Pryce were doing is hardly illegal. You’re both consenting adults.’

  ‘There was my reputation though, the reputation of the school. I’d been lucky at St Martin’s. It was the word of a young, impressionable boy against that of, as you put it, a heterosexual family man; the interpretation of a conversation. The head believed me and I was able to resign with dignity and take up another post, my record unblemished. If my sexuality became public knowledge now, all that was bound to be dragged up again. Besides, I have my children and my mother to think of. What would it do to them? I couldn’t bear it.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘I started checking Yasmin’s phone during lessons. I don’t know what I hoped to find, I suppose knowing she was seeing Everett against her parents’ wishes I thought there might be something more incriminating that I could use to buy her silence. When I saw the message from Everett cancelling their meeting at the reservoir, I knew that was my chance.’

  ‘Chance to do what?’

  ‘Talk to her. During the lesson I took her travel pass, and before I left I dropped it on the classroom floor, knowing that she’d have to come back for it and giving me time to get there ahead of her.’

  ‘And what happened?’

  ‘When she got there I was waiting on the bridge. I just wanted to talk to her, but she told me there was nothing to say. Before I knew it she was lying at my feet, dead.’

  ‘Do you always carry sculpting wire around with you?’

  ‘I had it . . . just in case.’

  ‘In case of what?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘And the brown overalls?’

  He had no answer.

  ‘And what about Ricky Skeet?’

  ‘I dragged Yasmin down to the drainage tunnel. The water hadn’t released but I knew it would within a matter of an hour or so—’

  ‘And take Yasmin down with your wife.’

  ‘But when I climbed back on to the bridge, this boy just rushed at me from nowhere, shouting and screaming that he’d seen what I’d done. He started hitting me with this chunk of brick, but it slipped out of his hand, so I grabbed it and hit him over the head. He fell, but I had to be sure
so I hit him again and then I found that I couldn’t stop. I kept hitting him over and over.’

  ‘Why didn’t you dispose of Ricky’s body in the same way as the others?’

  ‘I was going to, but there was so much blood. The stream flows down into the park: I thought someone might see it. And also there would be two bodies in the tunnel already, a third may have caused some kind of blockage that would have drawn attention. I needed to think.’

  ‘So you just dragged him into the long grass and left him?’

  ‘Something made me look up. I thought I saw someone in the window of the nursing home. I needed to get away. I was going to come back later, after dark to move it, but when I came back he had gone. I looked around a bit but there was no sign of him, so then I thought perhaps I hadn’t killed him after all.’

  ‘Weren’t you worried that he might turn up somewhere and report what he’d seen?’

  ‘Of course I was. I even phoned round the hospitals to ask if an injured boy had been brought in. There hadn’t, so there was nothing else I could do.’

  Mariner remembered how strung out Goodway had seemed on that first meeting. He must have been beside himself. ‘And you didn’t know that Yasmin had dropped her phone.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It must have been a shock when that turned up. If it hadn’t been for that, our search would never have switched to the reservoir.’

  While they’d been talking, the light had faded fast. In the gloom Mariner moved towards Goodway. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s get all this down on paper.’ But as he moved forward he saw the glint of something in Goodway’s hand, the razor thin blade of a craft knife. ‘Don’t do anything—’ he began, but before either of them could stop him Goodway drew back the knife and slashed violently at his wrist. Blood sprayed out in a wide, crimson arc as over their heads the first dazzling scatter burst of fireworks lit up the sky.

  ‘Call an ambulance.’ Mariner sprang forward and seized the knife, just as Goodway collapsed to the ground, groaning in pain.

  Epilogue

  DCI Jack Coleman stood surveying the building work going on two hundred feet below him when there was a knock on the door. ‘Come.’ It was DI Mariner. ‘Tom.’ Coleman moved forward and the men shook hands.

  ‘Good to see you again, sir,’ said Mariner.

  ‘Seems you’ve done rather well without me these last few weeks: a high profile killer and a potential sex attacker arrested within twenty-four hours of each other.’

  ‘We nearly lost Goodway.’

  ‘But you didn’t.’

  ‘No. A dozen stitches and some pretty comprehensive dressings did the job, although I understand they’ve got him on twenty-four hour suicide watch at Winson Green while he’s on remand.’

  ‘And Andy Pritchard?’

  ‘We found dozens of photographs at his place that he must have taken over years, students and young girls around parks in south Birmingham, and we can place him on or near the university campus at the time of each indecent exposure, along with a couple more in other parts of the city.’

  ‘DCI Fiske seems to have left me with a lot to live up to.’

  ‘With all due respect, sir, I’m not sure that Mr Fiske had much to do with either.’

  ‘You got him off the hook with Complaints though, didn’t you?’

  ‘I’m sure he’s enjoying his refresher course on Risk Assessment. It’ll give him lots of opportunity to practise his vocabulary.’

  ‘And Colleen Skeet’s happy with that?’

  ‘She’s satisfied that we caught Ricky’s killer, but I doubt Colleen will ever be happy again.’

  ‘No. I’m sorry about your mother, too, Tom.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Welcome back.’

  Available now from Piatkus Books:

  The Worm in the Bud

  Chris Collett

  In Birmingham a local journalist is found dead in his home. A puncture wound in his arm a testimony to his death by lethal injection, the cryptic note by his side: ‘no more’, seems at first to suggest suicide but Detective Inspector Tom Mariner has learned to take nothing at face value. There is something a little too staged about events, especially as just that evening Mariner had witnessed Edward Barham pick up a prostitute in a bar he was frequenting. As the police investigate the house further they discovers there is another witness to events at 34 Clarendon Avenue. Barham’s younger brother, Jamie, is found in a cupboard under the stairs. It seems likely that Jamie Barham had witnessed his brother’s killing but his severe autism has left him without the means to communicate what he has seen . . .

  Mariner is determined to build enough of a relationship with Jamie to get to the truth. And the fact that this means spending time with Anna Barham, Jamie’s new - and reluctant - guardian, is no great hardship. But is Edward’s death related to his recent investigations into a local crimelord. Or is there something else, something that only Jamie can tell them - if he so chooses . . .

  Praise for The Worm in the Bud:

  ‘This first novel comes from a writer with twenty years experience of working with adults with learning disabilities and her depiction of Jamie and his effect on those who care for him rings true . . . While lonely Mariner is immediately engaging and his sexual vulnerability and lack of confidence adds both humour and poignancy. Collett sustains the intrigue - we want to know who done what and why - and is a writer with promise.’ Cath Staincliffe, author and series creator of TV’s Blue Murder

  Coming soon from Piatkus Books:

  Written in Blood, the brand new novel from Chris Collett featuring DI Tom Mariner . . .

  DI Tom Mariner’s life is beginning to look settled, with talk of a move to the country and even kids. But then an unexpected reunion with an old friend thrusts him into the unofficial investigation of a violent double murder to which he is inextricably linked. Tom enters a world of corruption where the boundaries of justice are blurred, making it impossible to distinguish between friend and foe.