by Ryan Casey
“You sure you’re alright, Brian?” Brad asked.
Brian took a quick look at him. Saw that Brad was staring at him with wide, concerned eyes.
He frowned and loosened his collar. “Yeah. Fine. Stop treating me like a kid or something.” He got up. Took a deep breath. Grabbed his damp coat and walked to the door of the office.
“Where you off to?”
Brian tried his best to come up with a stock answer in his mind. Anything but the truth. “Late lunch,” he said.
And then he walked away with his damp coat in his hands and he did his best to hold a confident half-smile until he stepped out of the police station and let the nerves overcome him.
“Can you describe the emotions you’ve been experiencing lately, Mr McDone? If you could summarise them in single words?”
Brian scratched at his chin. He sat in the well-lit office trying his best not to make eye contact with Dr Gary Harrod. Tried not to look into those searching, judgemental eyes of his, that Hannah told him probably weren’t judgemental anyway, but everything was bloody judgemental to Brian.
“I’d struggle,” Brian said, looking out of the window of the second-story room. Out onto the streets of town. The rain had stopped and more people were flocking outside now, doing anything to enjoy a bit of afternoon sun. Sun was rare in Preston as it was. Sun in October was unheard of.
And here was Brian stuck in his therapist’s office.
He sighed and turned around to face Dr Harrod. Didn’t properly make eye contact with him, as he sat there all casual in his turtle-necked black jumper and his blue jeans. He had a beard and wore circular glasses, but he was more Steve Jobs than the clichéd evil doctor. His office constantly smelled of Haribo, and there were all kinds of things pinned up to the wall—mental health awareness posters, abstract paintings filled with bright colours, things like that.
“Try me,” Dr Harrod said. The smile twitched at the sides of his mouth.
Brian let himself look into Dr Harrod’s eyes for a split second and already he found himself lured in.
“I feel… like, I dunno. A bit nervy. Edgy. Easily pissed off. And like… like everyone’s working against me.”
“Paranoid?”
Brian’s fists tensed. “Don’t push it.”
Dr Harrod lifted his spindly hands. “I’m not accusing you of anything,” he said. “I’m just asking. Do you feel paranoid?”
Brian didn’t need to answer Dr Harrod for him to tick a box on his little notepad.
Brian took a deep breath in. The hunger returned to his body, but in the place of the hunger was the smell of Sam Betts. The sight of him, lying there all disembowelled, all gutted.
“You suffered a cardiac arrest last summer?”
Brian nodded. “Yeah. But it’s… I had a check up. Couple of weeks ago. Nothing to do with that.”
Dr Harrod ticked another of his boxes. “And how’s work?”
Brian wanted to give the stock answer—”work’s good.” But he couldn’t lie about that. There was no lying in the face of the all-seeing bastard that was Dr Harrod.
Brian rubbed his palms together. “Just … Got a new case. Just today. But this—these… these things.” He didn’t like using the word “feelings,” especially when he was just a little bit grumpy. “I’ve been getting them for a bit now.”
“But it’s just another stressor. Another external stimuli affecting your state of mind.”
Brian didn’t like the way Dr Harrod kept a smarmy smile on his face while he ran through his notes and said all this shit about Brian’s “state of mind.” Truth was, it was Hannah who’d called him. She’d noticed Brian was being irate. Not sleeping. Grumpy. And for some reason that warranted a meeting with an expensive therapist.
Granted, he’d had his issues with depression in the past. He’d had his health problems, his obsession problems—blah blah. But he was fine, really. Hannah was the paranoid one.
“Do you still get suicidal thoughts?” Dr Harrod asked.
Brian shook his head right away. Couldn’t look Harrod in the eyes though. Always hard to look him in the eyes. “No.”
Another tick on the notepad.
“And your son. Dave, is it?”
“Davey.”
“Davey,” Dr Harrod said. “How is he these days?”
Brian looked back out of the window. Watched a uni student wander down the street with iPhone headphones in his ears, oblivious to the world around him. “Yeah. He’s… he’s alright.”
“Do you see Davey much?”
Brian’s stomach sank. He shook his head. He wasn’t sure what the correct answer was. He didn’t see his son much anymore. His ex-wife, Vanessa, encouraged Davey to spend weekends with his dad, but they’d moved town a few months ago and his son rarely wanted to return to Preston. Fair play to him—lucky escape, and all that. But now Davey was getting older, he was finding even more opportunities at the weekends. Football. Cinema with friends.
Stuff that didn’t involve his dad.
It’d been three weeks since he’d seen his son and all he could think of when he pictured eleven-year-old Davey was Sam Betts’ innocent face in that school photograph.
“I see him every week,” Brian lied. “We’re alright. Nothing wrong there.”
Another ticking of the bullshit checkbox.
Dr Harrod leaned back into his tilted leather chair and sighed. His desk was filled with pictures of his family. Beautiful wife with curly brown hair. Two kids—little boy and a little girl on a beach. The perfect family.
“Harry’s six. He’s a bit of a nightmare at the moment. Well, he’s having nightmares.”
Brian looked into Dr Harrod’s eyes. It was weird to see him dropping his professional act and matching up with the casual look of his attire.
“Spoonful of cinnamon and honey before bed,” Brian said. “Davey used to have ‘em. Wake up sweating like mad. Screaming, sometimes.”
He didn’t tell Dr Harrod that Davey woke up screaming because of the things he’d seen. His dad hanging himself. His kidnapping during the Pendle Hill massacres. Seeing his dad in a hospital bed, time and time again.
“Cinnamon and honey?” Dr Harrod said. He got out another notepad and jotted that down. “Never heard that one before. But if it works—”
“It doesn’t work,” Brian said. “Sometimes with kids it’s about making them believe there’s a miracle cure for everything. An answer for everything.”
He nodded at Dr Harrod, who lowered his pen and half-smiled.
“So cinnamon and honey, chocolate, whatever you want to give him really.”
Dr Harrod put the lid on his pen. “I’ll bear that in mind.”
There was a silence between them for a few seconds. A silence where Brian felt like opening up. Felt like telling him about the arguments with Hannah. About the images he had—the stupid little images of ropes around his neck when he woke up first thing, of guns in his hand and pressed against his head.
He felt like telling him, but then his phone rang.
“Sorry,” Brian said, pulling his phone out of his pocket.
Dr Harrod shook his head. “It’s fine.”
“Yeah, McDone,” Brian said. A number he didn’t recognise, so probably someone from the police.
“Alright, Gramps.” DI Carter. Her voice was muffled and the wind tampered with the sound quality. “Got something down at the dirt track for you.”
Brian stood up. Lifted his hand at Dr Harrod and walked over to the door. “What you got?”
Shouting at the other end of the line. Cops calling to one another.
“Carter? What you—”
“His coat,” Carter said. “With blood on it.”
The rest of Samantha’s words went over Brian’s head like a blur.
“See you down there,” he said.
He ended the call. Lowered the phone. Looked around at Dr Harrod, who twiddled his thumbs expectantly.
“Sorry,” Brian said. “I’ve rea
lly gotta see to this.”
Dr Harrod looked at his watch. Opened his mouth as if to reply, as if to offer a comment or a word of advice.
Instead, he just nodded his head and half-smiled, like he knew this was as much a waste of time as Brian did.
SEVEN
It wasn’t raining when Brian McDone got down to the dirt track where Sam Betts’ coat had been found, but it might as well have been for how sloshy and muddy this little path was.
Brian and Brad looked at the scene where Sam’s coat had been found. Cold water squelched through a gap in the front of Brian’s shoes as he accepted this case was just gonna be a messy one. The place reeked—reeked of cow shit, sheep shit, horseshit, whatever.
“This is why I could never live in the countryside,” Brian said, clenching his nose as they got closer to the cordoned off scene.
“You’ve smelt enough shit in your life to be comfortable with a bit of cow muck, surely.”
Brian stepped further through the mud. Got closer to the barking dogs, the officers in their blue coats. “I’ve had to work with you for a few years. Suppose you’re right about that.”
When they got to the scene, DI Carter was there waiting for them. Seeing her outside, she always looked a lot smaller for some reason. And yet she was barking the officers around, commanding them to get their dogs to sniff in the long grass that lined the dirt track. Little terrier. But more attractive than any mutt.
“McDone, Richards,” she said, when they arrived. Nodded at them both. More so at Brad. Annoying.
“Where’s this coat?” Brian asked.
Carter pointed over to DC Chris Patel, who was standing over a dark blue coat while speaking down the phone to someone. Rain dripped from the end of his long nose.
“We’ll have it sent back to forensics for tests,” Carter said, rubbing her arms and shivering. “But it matches yours and the coroner’s description of Sam. Aged eleven on the inside tag.”
“Anything else down here for us?” Brad asked.
Carter looked around. Pointed at the muddy ground. “Won’t see so well ‘cause you just came stepping through it, but there’s some marks the dogs sniffed out. Loads of footprints then all of a sudden, this big skid mark in the ground. Just down there. You see?”
Brian squinted into the distance down the soaking path. Saw where the footprints became slide marks in the mud. “Yeah. Followed them?”
“Rain wasn’t so kind on the rest of the track. Not so much tree shelter down there, so any prints have been washed away.”
“Of course,” Brad said. “Elements wouldn’t want to make it too easy on us.”
“Any word on the Star Wars geek?” Carter asked.
“Nothing yet,” Brad cut in. Looked over his shoulder. Scratched his neck. “Sure we’ll hear something—”
“Why would he leave a coat lying around?”
The words came out of Brian’s mouth without much thought. They were more a kneejerk reaction than anything. Seventeen years on the job had that effect on a police officer. Quite often, gut instinct was wrong. Totally off the mark.
But every once in a while—every once in a million times—it was spot on.
“Rushing to get Sam away?” DI Carter said, turning around like she was more interested in the rest of the search as dogs sniffed around.
Didn’t sit right with Brian. He walked over towards Chris Patel, who was still on his phone, gold ring around his middle finger catching a glimmer of sunlight and shining in Brian’s eyes. “It’s too complacent. No prints or DNA at the scene of Sam Betts’ body, and yet the killer does something as stupid as leaving the coat lying around?”
Brad shrugged. “Maybe he isn’t as pro as he makes out. I’ve seen killers make more glaring errors of detail. They get so focused, so obsessed with the minute elements of murder, of body disposal, that they forget the obvious things. The things that you and I would notice.”
Carter whistled. “Try not to be too creepy, hun. Wouldn’t want you getting framed.”
Brad, naturally, just blushed.
“Can I take a look at that, Chris?” Brian asked.
Chris Patel nodded. Half-smiled at Brian. Stepped away from the coat, ruddy phone still glued to his ear.
He crouched down and examined the coat. Little blue anorak. No brand or anything like that. Slight tear on the material at the front.
A patch of blood surrounding that tear.
“So what. The killer stabbed him right here? And yet there’s no other traces of blood?”
“We can’t confirm that yet,” Carter said, rain beginning to sprinkle down again as the leaves rustled in the breeze.
“Okay. So say the killer did stab Sam here. He stabs him, manages not to spill any of Sam’s blood, and keeps Sam alive all the time for him to get to the old Whittingham Hospital before disembowelling him completely?”
“Sounds about right,” Carter said.
Brian shook his head. His arms and hands buzzed as he looked down at this coat. “No. It doesn’t sound right. There’s something off. Get this coat down to the station ASAP and have it checked out. The blood in particular.”
He stepped back up to Carter and Richards. Both of them looked at one another, wide-eyed.
“What?” Brian asked.
Brad shook his head. “Nothing. Just seem on tenters—”
“I’m on fucking tenters because a kid’s dead,” Brian said.
He only realised how much he’d raised his voice when Brad backed away. When he saw all the other officers looking at him.
Brad shook his head. “Sorry. I—”
“Carter, get the route from here to Whittingham Hospital checked. Arrange an HtoH. Get any CCTV. The killer has to have gone down there at some point. What is it, a ten, fifteen minute drive or something?”
Samantha had her head down, still a bit shocked from Brian’s shouting. “Um, yeah. We’ll get onto it.” She looked up. Looked at the officers with the dogs. “What you waiting for? Get on with it.”
The officers hurriedly got back to the search.
Brian walked slowly down the dirt track. Let the mud squelch through his shoes, through his socks. He imagined little Sam Betts walking down this path. Saw tiny paw prints in the mud, imagined the smile on his face as his dog ran beside him, the wind brushing through his hair and all kinds of innocent, childish thoughts in his mind.
“Brian, wait up.”
Brian’s stomach turned. Brad. Shit, he shouldn’t have snapped. But like he told his therapist, he’d been a grumpy shit lately. That’s all it was—a bout of grumpiness.
Brad stopped beside him. Almost slipped in the wet soil. “Back there. I’m sorry about—”
“The farm,” Brian said. He pointed up at the farmhouse just ahead. “Anyone spoken to them yet?”
Brad turned around. “Erm, Carter said something about no one being home. Called them about what’s happened though. About—”
“Then that’s where we go,” Brian said. He looked at Brad. Smiled.
Brad opened his mouth in that apologetic way again then just nodded back at Brian.
They approached the farm. Walked along the tire tracks which tractors had formed, heard the cows bustling around in the grey outhouses. There was a creepiness to the way the cows watched them as they passed. A dullness, a stupidity, to their eyes.
The things that these creatures could’ve seen and had no idea, no understanding, of.
How much easier life would be if animals could tell their side of the story.
Brian and Brad walked up to the driveway of the farmhouse. A red-bricked bungalow, quite modern and spanning a lot of ground.
“Hope you’ve brought your A game,” Brian said, as he stepped onto the recently tarmacked driveway.
“I always bring my A game,” Brad said.
The farmer watched the two officers with mud on their trousers coming down the driveway.
“Hide,” he said.
EIGHT
When Brian pulle
d the steel bell beside the farmhouse door, it didn’t take long for somebody to answer.
It was a balding guy with a lot of stubble. Tiny bit of dark hair clinging to his head. Had a speck of mud on his left cheek, his face red and puffy—healthy, as some would say. A fresh air face. He was wearing a burgundy jumper and black trousers that didn’t look like, or smell like, they’d been washed in weeks.
He looked at Brian and Brad with a big jovial smile.
“Mr…” Brian said.
“Jack. Jack Selter,” he said. Held out a dirty hand in Brian’s direction, which he shook with much reluctance. “You must be’t police. ‘Ere about that lad?”
“Indeed we are,” Brad said. “I’m Detective Sergeant Richards, this is Detective Inspector McDone. We’d like to ask you a few things about Sam Betts and the night of his disappearance. Can we come inside?”
Jack stared at the pair of them with narrowed eyes. In the surrounding countryside, birds sang in good voice as a rare bit of sun peeked out. Cows mooed. “Can prob’ly do a few minutes. Gonna ‘aft go see to’t cows in a bit though—”
“That’s fine,” Brian said, stepping away from Jack’s doorway. “We can come with you, if you’d rather. If that’d be easier on you.”
More narrow-eyed staring from Jack. Typical shifty farmer. It was always hard to pin down a farmer. Brian had dealt with a handful of them in his time on the job, and they were all as shifty as each other, no matter whether they were guilty or innocent. It was like they felt they didn’t have to follow the normal rules or codes of the rest of society. Probably a result of working for themselves, running their own little lifestyles—they were subservient to nobody.
Explained pretty well why they didn’t take too nicely to police requests.
“Suit yerselves,” Jack said, as he slipped his black wellies on, which were caked with sheep shit. “Might wanna wear some better shoes though.”
After changing into some of Jack’s spare wellies, which were way too bloody tight for Brian’s feet, Brad and Brian followed Jack over to the outhouses where the cows were kept. In there—this dark, damp place—the smell of shit intensified. God knows how anyone could find a lifestyle like this rewarding.
