The Domino Killer

by Neil White

  Then he saw it, the domed lid over a blue plastic tub on wheels, handles at the end.

  He sauntered over, checking around as he got there, and lifted the lid just enough to drop in the bloodied rag. It wasn’t much, but enough to deflect attention.

  Proctor carried on walking, whistling as he headed for the footbridge and the scenic route into the city centre. He had an appointment with Gerald King.

  ‘So what can we find out about Proctor’s counselling service?’ Gina said, as Sam drove on the motorway that encircled Manchester.

  ‘I’ll see if there’s anything official, but I’m not expecting it,’ Sam said. ‘I wonder if it’s just his little hobby.’

  ‘But remember what Tim Smith said about Proctor’s wife – her sister was murdered and Proctor ended up falling for her.’

  ‘That won’t be right, though, will it?’ Sam said. ‘If Proctor is some cold-blooded killer, some psychopath, he isn’t going to fall for anyone. If he ended up with someone, it was for a reason. For people like Proctor, everything is a tactic.’

  ‘Perhaps she was throwing out more grief than most and he found it intoxicating?’

  ‘He’s creating his own grief, that’s his thing.’

  ‘You have to think that Joe’s theory is looking more credible now,’ Gina said.

  Sam nodded. He couldn’t argue with that. ‘So where now? Do you want taking back to your car?’

  ‘What about the SIO in the case that ended up with Proctor getting married, Chief Inspector Neave? Or Harry, to me. He’s retired now but I know where he lives.’

  ‘And am I driving?’

  ‘You’re doing an okay job so keep going. Head for Ramsbottom.’

  Sam did as he was told, flicking on the radio as he went, so that they would get any updates about the murder that were fit to broadcast. The greyness of the city was soon behind them as they headed north, the gentle green of the Lancashire hills in the distance, the Irwell Valley to their left as it cut through the sprawl of Bury.

  Ramsbottom lay in the valley, below the road that headed towards the Lancashire mill towns that were the last pieces of industrial blight before the countryside took over, and everything was rural and ancient all the way to the Scottish border. The town was once just another mill town, its history built on cotton, the stone buildings blackened by smoke through the decades and forgotten when there was a push for modernisation in the sixties. It was reaping the rewards now. A clean-up and a steam railway had turned the small Victorian shop fronts and stone cottages into must-haves for the people who liked to work in the city but wanted to escape to the country at five o’clock every day.

  They rumbled over a level crossing and turned left at the sculpture of a fallen urn that served as a fountain, in front of the high splendour of the Grant Arms, where Dickens stayed when he was writing Bleak House. Harry Neave lived on an estate of newbuilds, in small cul-de-sacs that ran from a circular road.

  When they turned in and parked up, Sam asked, ‘Do you know Harry Neave well?’ He glanced over at the house, wide with white pillars in the porch and sand-coloured brick, fake Tudor timbers attached to the first floor.

  ‘Well enough,’ Gina said, and climbed out of the car.

  Sam was about to step in front of her as she marched towards the front door, but Gina held out her hand. ‘He’ll respond to me better than he will to you.’

  Sam relented as Gina pressed the doorbell. The door was opened by a middle-aged woman with combed-back dark hair and an open-necked mauve shirt. There was a moment’s pause before she smiled and said, ‘Georgina, how on earth are you?’

  Sam spotted the formality of Gina’s full name.

  ‘Lillian, you look well,’ Gina said. ‘Is Harry in?’

  ‘At the end of the garden,’ she said, and stepped aside to let them both in.

  Gina led the way as Lillian went into the kitchen. ‘Tea?’

  ‘That would be lovely,’ Gina said, and carried on through the house towards the door that opened onto the garden. As they stepped outside, she whispered, ‘Lillian used to be a prosecutor. She and Harry are both retired now, but they were always a little above everyone else, if you know what I mean. Lillian came into the law late and reinvented herself, acquired a few airs and graces, and Harry modelled himself on something from a detective novel. They’re decent people, though, and Harry was a good copper.’

  They walked down some steps and along a path that ran alongside a neat lawn and beds overflowing with colour. There was a small fountain in one corner and a stone sundial in the middle of the lawn. They were trying to create a large country garden in a town garden plot. The view ahead made it worthwhile, though, straight down the Irwell Valley, the high buildings of Manchester just vague shadows. The sun shone as beams onto green hills in the far distance and the railway track snaked along the valley floor. Sam could imagine how pleasant it must be every weekend when the trains were running, blowing steam and noise into the air.

  Harry Neave was sitting on a cushioned chair on wooden decking at the end of the garden. He turned round as they got close and a grin spread quickly.

  ‘Well, well, Gina Ross. To what do I owe this pleasure?’

  He was wearing a dark shirt and a paisley cravat, his grey hair slicked back. A small cigar was clamped into his fingers and his moustache was stained brown by it.

  ‘I thought I’d see how retirement was treating you,’ she said, and then pointed towards the view. ‘It looks as though it’s treating you just fine.’ She turned to Sam. ‘This is Sam Parker.’

  Sam held out his hand to shake. ‘I’m a DC,’ he said. ‘We’re looking into a murder and we thought you might be able to help.’

  ‘I’d be delighted.’ Harry gestured to the two garden seats opposite. ‘Sit down, talk to me. I know you’re here about one of my cases, not for my expertise. Which one?’

  ‘I don’t know the victim’s name but her sister was called Helena; she married a grief counsellor. The killer was never found.’

  ‘The girl found behind the warehouses?’ He nodded slowly, his smile gone. ‘Yes, I remember that one. You always remember the ones you never solve. Adrianne Morley.’

  Gina glanced across at Sam, knowing the truth of it. ‘Did you have any suspects for it?’

  ‘Not hard and fast,’ he said. ‘She’d been dragged into the bushes and strangled, but there was no sign of a sexual assault. No clothes disturbed or semen anywhere. She had a black eye and a swollen cheek. It looked like she’d put up a fight.’

  ‘It doesn’t mean it wasn’t a sex attacker,’ Sam said.

  ‘No, it doesn’t, and there were a lot of things going on at that time. Inter-school stuff. Gang-fights, planned meet-ups to brawl it out. Adrianne had passed the exams for a good Catholic school outside the area and we wondered whether she’d been attacked when she was on her own, because no one recognised her, and it got out of hand.’

  ‘What about her family?’ Gina said.

  ‘Not much of it,’ Harry said. ‘Adrianne lived with her older sister in the family home; her parents had been killed in a car crash. Pretty bad luck for her sister; she lost her parents and then her sister within a few years.’

  ‘Do you remember the man her sister married? Mark Proctor. Some kind of grief counsellor.’

  Harry took a long pull on his cigar as Lillian appeared with a tray of cups and a teapot, a small jug of milk to one side.

  ‘Thank you, dear,’ Harry said, as she placed the tray on the small table between them. It was as though Harry and Lillian had chosen to spend their whole retirement in a state of affectation.

  Harry poured the tea, his cigar in his mouth, and once everyone had a cup he sat back and furrowed his brow. ‘Yes, I remember him. Some good has come out of it, then. I used to wonder about Helena, whether she would go off the rails or something. A lot to deal with and she was only in her early twenties.’

  ‘How was Proctor?’

  ‘Friendly, quiet. We didn’t recommend him.
Came through some charity, I think.’

  ‘Was he ever in the frame for Adrianne’s murder?’

  ‘No, not as I remember. He didn’t come along until a few weeks later. The main focus was on the school.’

  ‘Why the school?’ Sam said.

  ‘Rumours about Adrianne and a teacher, but nothing could be proven. We wrote it off as some crush.’

  ‘Which school was it?’ Sam said.

  ‘St Hilda’s,’ Harry said. ‘The Catholic school on the way to Uppermill.’

  Sam felt a niggle of something. St Hilda’s. The first victim had been a teacher there – until he was found stabbed to death near the canal, with Henry Mason’s bloody fingerprint on the knife.

  ‘That’s the connection,’ Sam said, leaning forward.

  Gina looked at him quizzically. ‘What is it, Sam?’

  ‘The teacher who died a month ago, with Henry Mason’s fingerprint on the knife – Keith Welsby. That’s where he worked. Henry Mason is a posthumous suspect in that murder because of the fingerprint, and he wound up dead this week, with Mark Proctor fast becoming a suspect. Now the sister of Proctor’s wife went to the same school. What do we say about coincidences?’

  ‘That they’re probably not coincidences.’

  Harry looked down, deep in thought. After a few seconds, he said, ‘That was the teacher.’

  ‘Harry?’ Gina said.

  ‘Keith Welsby was the name of the teacher Adrianne had a crush on.’

  Sam stood up. ‘We need to go.’

  ‘But you haven’t finished your tea,’ Harry said.

  ‘Another time, I promise,’ Gina said, joining Sam. She scribbled her number onto a scrap of paper she found in her pocket. ‘Call me if you think of anything.’

  He lifted up the paper and looked at it. He tapped it against his chin. ‘I’d heard you’d retired.’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘It’s hard to walk away from it, isn’t it?’ Harry said, and he chuckled. ‘I might ring round a few people, all off the books.’

  ‘Thank you, Harry, and look after yourself.’

  They both rushed through the garden and then the house, Gina shouting her goodbye to Lillian as they passed through.

  Once they were outside, Sam said, ‘I’m going to the school, see what I can find out, but I’ll have to go on my own. I’m sorry, but they keep records of visits like this.’

  ‘I know; don’t worry. Drop me off on the way. I’m going to try to find Joe. I don’t want him doing anything stupid.’

  As Sam set off, he felt the darkness descend on him. He was getting closer to finding out what lay behind his sister’s murder, but it wasn’t something he’d wanted to spend his life dwelling on. It had motivated his career choice but he’d long since resigned himself to the fact that he would never get an answer. He wasn’t sure he was ready for the possibility that there might be answers after all.

  Joe was the problem. He was in trouble. He had to do it for that reason alone.

  Fifty-four

  Proctor called the police as he walked away from Joe’s apartment building. He went at a slow amble, not wanting to attract attention. His number would come up as withheld. When an operator answered, he said, ‘I won’t give my name, because I’m a neighbour, but I’m worried about a man in my apartment block. Joe, he’s called. He’s a solicitor. Joe Parker.’

  ‘What’s wrong, sir?’ she said, over the faint clicks of her fingers on her keyboard.

  ‘I saw him last night. He was dishevelled, with blood on his clothes, hanging around the bins outside the apartment block. He looked really, well, suspicious, I suppose.’

  ‘Can you give me an address?’

  ‘It’s the apartments at Castlefield. I’m not telling you any more because I don’t want him to know it’s me. If it’s nothing, I don’t want him thinking I’ve got him into trouble. I’m just a neighbour, but he looked scared. I could see blood on his shirt, and he was wiping his hands.’

  ‘We can get someone to speak to you later, if you —’

  ‘No, I can’t, sorry.’ And he clicked off the phone. He smiled. Little ripples, the seeds sown.

  He quickened his pace along Deansgate, marching past the small shops set into what were once railway arches and towards the crowds bustling around the designer shops and the large glass cube of a bank’s Manchester office. As he reached St Ann’s Square, he looked around: no one was following.

  He scanned the corners of the square, an open space surrounded by shops and the Royal Exchange building, the solid stone of which had protected St Ann’s Church from most of the blast of the IRA bomb in the nineties. It was busy with lawyers and office workers taking a slow lunch, mixed in with the shoppers drifting away from the retail complexes around the corner, pausing only to glance at the high-end jewellers and boutiques.

  Gerald was further ahead, speaking on the phone. Proctor’s stomach tightened. It wasn’t through fear of how close he’d come to being a victim, because he’d never been close; he’d been one step ahead all the time. No, it was irritation, a tremble of anger at his impudence, that Gerald thought he was dim enough to wander into an obvious trap on some dimly lit patch of grass.

  Gerald turned round as Proctor got closer, putting his phone into his pocket.

  ‘Have you got any money yet?’

  ‘I can’t raise it that quickly,’ Gerald said, his jaw set. ‘It’s a lot of money.’

  ‘How much can you get?’

  ‘Why are you so desperate for the money?’ Gerald said.

  ‘Is it about the money? Perhaps it’s just about breaking you.’

  ‘You did that a long time ago.’

  ‘So when do I get it?’

  Gerald put his shoulders back. ‘You’re getting nothing from me,’ he said, his eyes filled with defiance. ‘You got what you wanted. You’re alive, and you’ve turned me into someone just like you.’

  Proctor stepped closer. ‘You’ll never be like me.’

  ‘Do your worst,’ Gerald said, and prodded Proctor in the chest. ‘Go to the police, but I’m not letting you have your little victory.’

  He turned to walk away. Proctor’s anger rose quickly inside him, his cheeks flushing red. He stopped himself from doing anything. Not there. Nowhere so public.

  Gerald turned. ‘I failed last night. I won’t fail again.’

  As Gerald threaded his way through the crowds, Proctor stopped seeing him. Everything was blurred by rage, his blood rushing through his head.

  Now was the time.

  St Hilda’s was an old Catholic school built in Victorian times. Ivy covered shiny red bricks and threatened to grow over the small windows that were dotted along the walls. It was in stark contrast to the glass and prefab that made up so many of the schools in the area. It protected itself behind high fences but, once the final bell rang for the day, the pupils were at the mercy of whatever the mean streets had for them.

  Sam approached the entrance, a modern glass structure tacked onto the front, and, once inside, approached the hatch that constituted the access to those who worked at the school. He tapped on the counter but no one looked up until he coughed. Even then it took a while before anyone ambled over, a woman with glasses hanging from a chain. He had his identification ready.

  ‘I’m here about Keith Welsby’s case,’ he said.

  The woman took her time putting on her glasses and reading his identification card, before pointing to some chairs on the other side of the reception area. ‘Sit over there and I’ll get the deputy head.’

  Sam did as he was told and studied the walls as he waited. There was a framed rugby shirt, a present from a former pupil who’d made it big, and pictures of the various heads of department.

  Before he had the chance to take a closer look, the door opened in front of him and the woman he’d spoken to before beckoned him forward. ‘Mr Bullman will see you now.’

  Despite himself, Sam felt nervous, as if he were some errant pupil. He followed her into a long
and dim corridor. There was a trophy cabinet along one wall and a wooden board with names of previous head boys and girls written in gold.

  The woman knocked on the first door they came to, and swung it open when a ‘come in’ was bellowed from inside.