The Unquiet Grave

by Steven Dunne

  ‘When have I done that?’

  ‘Sam Bannon was a great man and the finest detective I’ve ever served with.’

  ‘I still need an answer.’

  ‘The way me and Sam conducted our investigations is none of your business.’

  ‘With respect, Walter, it’s my only business until I get transferred back to active cases,’ said Brook quietly. ‘You know the routine. I ask the questions you asked at the time and then try to come up with some you didn’t ask. I don’t like it any more than you, but until I’m told to stop, that’s my job.’

  ‘Get out. I’m tired,’ croaked Laird, beginning to pant again. ‘Billy Stanforth died near fifty year ago. You can talk to me and all the other witnesses until we’re blue in the face and we won’t tell you anything new.’

  ‘And Matilda Copeland?’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘While we’re on the subject of partners, I couldn’t find a single reference in the file about Matilda’s relationship with boys.’

  ‘So?’

  Brook sighed impatiently. ‘So she wasn’t a virgin when she died, Walter. She was sexually active. If she didn’t have a boyfriend, you and Bannon must have given some thought to. . .’ Brook hesitated, trying to find the right words, ‘an abusive relationship.’

  ‘You’re disgusting,’ panted Laird. ‘George Copeland was a good father. . .’

  ‘You checked?’

  ‘Yes, I checked,’ insisted Laird. ‘Tilly wasn’t abused by her father. He was a good man.’

  ‘Well, someone was having intercourse with her,’ replied Brook.

  ‘You’re wasting your breath until I clear it with Clive, understand?’

  After a beat, Brook stood. ‘Talk to Clive. But I’ll be back.’

  A door opened somewhere in the back of the house.

  ‘Fish and chips, Dad,’ shouted a voice with a strong Derbyshire accent. ‘Get that kettle on. It’s freezing out there. Haven’t you put plates on to warm? Come on, me duck. Have I got to do everything meself?’

  The uniformed sergeant Brook had encountered at the care home emerged from the kitchen carrying a parcel of steaming fish and chips wrapped in newspaper. Sergeant Laird was startled to see Brook.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

  ‘Take it easy, son,’ warned his father.

  Brook realised his hands had balled into fists when he saw the officer who had been so offhand with him at St Agatha’s. He took a few deep breaths, counting the seconds off in his head. It had been a while since he’d had to do the technique. ‘I’m a detective inspector, Sergeant, so I suggest you mind your manners or you’ll be up on a charge.’

  Laird the younger stared at Brook, uncertain what to say, before finding his grin. ‘You’re that washed-up detective from London who nearly got canned a few months back.’ He turned to face his father. ‘What’s he doing here, Dad?’

  Brook answered for him. ‘We were talking over old times, reviewing some of your father’s old cases.’

  ‘Which old cases?’

  ‘You’ll have to ask your father,’ said Brook.

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘Billy Stanforth.’

  ‘The Stanforth boy? After all these years? You’ve got to be joking me.’

  ‘We’re done now, son,’ said Laird, putting a shaking hand to his brow.

  ‘Are you all right, Dad?’ His burly son rushed over to him.

  ‘Tired out and that’s a fact,’ said the old man.

  ‘Do you need a drop of rum?’

  ‘Maybe a small one – we’ve been at it a while.’

  ‘Have you now,’ said the younger Laird. He turned to look at Brook with disdain. ‘Time you were off, Brook.’

  ‘Detective Inspector Brook,’ replied Brook, enunciating clearly. He hesitated over his options but decided not to push too hard. He and Walter Laird still had a lot of ground to cover. ‘I was just leaving.’ He moved to the front door. ‘We can pick this up later, Walter.’

  ‘My dad can’t pick nothing up later,’ said the younger man. ‘He’s in his seventies and needs his rest so I’d advise you not to come back. Whatever business you had is done with. Got it?’

  Brook had no fear of bullies and enjoyed cutting them down to size but he didn’t want to poison the small pool of potential witnesses. He ignored the younger man, opening the front door to an icy blast.

  ‘Did you hear what I said?’ Laird advanced, unwilling to let Brook leave without an answer. The amused expression on Brook’s face was not what he expected. ‘What you grinning at?’

  Brook’s amusement was genuine. For reasons unclear to him, aggression always aroused in him the same reaction. Perhaps it was the sight of the less powerful trying to assert control in the only way they knew how, but whatever the cause, Brook had discovered that his apparent pleasure in the face of such hostility never failed to disconcert the aggressor.

  He calmly held the younger man’s gaze. Uncertainty lurked behind the belligerent façade and Brook knew he had his measure. ‘Enjoy your meal,’ he said from the front door. He turned but halted in the threshold. ‘Oh, one more question, Walter. Have you ever heard of the Pied Piper?’

  Sergeant Darren Laird sneered at Brook but his father’s expression was blank as he shook his head.

  ‘No.’

  Just that. No curiosity, no amusement or contempt – a simple negative. Brook nodded and stepped out into the drizzle. The old man had heard the name before.

  Twenty

  Back at the station late that afternoon, Brook knocked on Copeland’s door and marched in. He wasn’t there so Brook made a mug of tea and retreated to his stark office, suppressing the urge to search Copeland’s office for the file about the death of Jeff Ward in 1973.

  Sipping his tea, Brook mulled over his interview with Walter Laird. He wondered about the old man’s relationship with the late DCI Bannon. What had happened at the time of the Stanforth investigation to cause an experienced SIO to delegate interviews with tricky witnesses like children to a detective constable?

  ‘Or maybe he didn’t,’ mumbled Brook. ‘Maybe it was Bannon who kept McCleary’s mystery girlfriend under the radar.’ And, out of misguided loyalty, Walter Laird is covering for him. ‘And that’s not all. You’re talking to yourself, Damen. Please stop.’

  ‘I will,’ he answered a second later.

  Brook took another sip of tea and turned on his laptop to hunt down DCI Bannon’s personnel records. It took him much longer than it would have taken Noble but eventually Brook had the information he needed. He read with interest.

  DCI Samuel Bannon’s career was shorter than most detectives of the day but his record was distinguished nonetheless. Despite this, as he read Brook got the sense that something wasn’t right. There was nothing actually on file but, reading between the lines, it seemed to Brook that something had happened in the sixties to blight Bannon’s career. That there was no indication of a setback on the file didn’t surprise Brook. Mistakes and poor performance were often glossed over and if you didn’t actually know what the problem was, it could be difficult to spot. But Brook knew that chief constables often used coded shorthand on an officer’s record to describe a career on the slide because similar references had appeared regularly in his own file.

  Like Brook, Sam Bannon was initially much admired and often cited for excellent performance. He rose quickly through CID ranks and became a DCI at the tender age of thirty-eight. He was forty years old when he picked up the suspicious death at the Stanforth house in 1963, a case that was to be conspicuously unsolved, as was the even higher profile Matilda Copeland murder, two years later. Bannon was the SIO on both and Brook sensed that his career had started to turn sour around this period. It wasn’t a nosedive, more a gradual falling-off of his clear-up rate and a sharp decrease in commendations. And according to the record, his health began to deteriorate at the same time because there seemed to be several long absences from duty which became a feature of his lat
er years in the force.

  Although there were few details, his absences were noted and this was reflected in the profile of cases he was allocated. From 1967 onwards, Bannon began to be assigned less important cases and he was shuffled into an administrative role in 1970. Two years later, Bannon took early retirement on health grounds at the age of just forty-eight and died at his home in the suburb of Littleover in 1978, at the age of fifty-five. There was no exact date of death.

  Brook fumbled for his notebook, scrambling to find the right page amongst his notes.

  Pied Piper

  63 WS 1st?

  22/12/73 JW 2nd or 3rd? Wrong MO

  Dec 78? 3rd or 4th?

  Others?

  No 68. Why? FS?

  Brook stared at Bannon’s note then at the blank wall to think it through. ‘If you’re right, Sam, WS is William Stanforth, first Pied Piper victim on his birthday in nineteen sixty-three. Leaving out Francesca Stanforth, Jeff Ward was the second victim in nineteen seventy-three, also on December the twenty-second.’

  Brook read and reread the fourth line. It made no sense. ‘Dec 78? 3rd or 4th?’ His brow furrowed. ‘Third or fourth victim.’ Brook sighed and his fingers twitched for a cigarette. ‘Help me understand, Sam. If there was another victim on December the twenty-second, nineteen seventy-eight, why is there no record of any murders on that day in the Derby area?’ Brook stared some more, his brain banging up against the facts.

  ‘Or maybe it was just a theory and you died before you could confirm it.’ Brook banged his head gently with a fist before looking sharply back at the screen. ‘When did you die?’

  He flicked through his pad and fumbled for his mobile, tapping out the number quickly. After a dozen rings, Laird picked up. ‘Walter?’

  ‘What do you want, Brook? I haven’t spoken to Clive yet,’ answered Laird sourly.

  ‘It’s not about Matilda.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘Sam Bannon died in nineteen seventy-eight.’

  ‘You rang to tell me that?’

  ‘No. I need to know what date he died.’

  There was a pause at the other end of the line. Brook got the impression Laird didn’t need to search his memory for the details.

  ‘My friend died in the early hours of December the twentieth.’

  ‘The twentieth?’ Two days before the anniversary of William Stanforth’s death. As an afterthought Brook asked, ‘How did he die?’

  ‘A tragic accident,’ said Laird quietly. ‘He burned to death in a shed in his garden.’

  Brook returned from the kettle in Copeland’s empty office and wandered back to his chair. A shed fire. Coincidence? According to Laird, Bannon’s death was a tragic accident, not a murder. And presumably it had been looked into by ex-colleagues.

  Brook’s laptop was still showing Sam Bannon’s personnel information. Before he left the page, Brook noticed that Bannon’s wife Alice had died fifteen years before her husband in 1963. Again there was no exact date but the odds suggested it would have been before the penultimate week in December.

  ‘Nineteen sixty-three!’ Brook sat back in his chair and sipped at his tea. The year of the Stanforth fire. The year Bannon had identified a young boy’s horrific murder as the first strike of an unknown serial killer – the Pied Piper.

  ‘Your wife’s death might explain your negligence at the Stanforth crime scene,’ mumbled Brook. ‘But if you were distracted by grief, Sam, when did you get the idea that Stanforth was killed by a serial killer? And how do you know about a third or fourth victim in nineteen seventy-eight, if you died two days before Billy’s birthday? Either you made a mistake. . .’ Brook’s eyes narrowed, ‘or you were the next victim.’ He shook his head. ‘In which case, why didn’t you die on the twenty-second?’

  Brook banged his head with his hands, realising he was tired and hungry. ‘This is nuts. I’m sorry, Sam. There’s nothing here.’ He stood, tempted to go in search of a vending machine but he didn’t want to miss seeing Copeland. He had too many unanswered questions rolling around in his head and he was damned if he was going to write them all down.

  McCleary reloaded and took aim again. He fired but the beer bottle remained resolutely on top of the crumbling drystone wall. At least dust from the stone had sprayed the bottle. Getting better. He took aim again, remembering to get his breathing right, and fired. The bottle disappeared from the stone. He took aim at the next bottle. It too disappeared, as did the next.

  ‘Like riding a bike,’ grinned McCleary, hitching his rifle and taking a roll-up from behind his ear.

  He lit up then bagged the broken bottles and trudged back to the Land Rover through the mud.

  Twenty minutes later, Brook woke in his chair, yawned and sat upright to massage his neck, feeling vaguely refreshed mentally, if not physically. Looking at his watch, he realised it would be dark when he dragged himself out to the car park so he sat still for a moment, enjoying the last call of that netherworld between sleep and consciousness, a foot firmly in both camps.

  His bleary eyes came to rest on the small photo array of the Stanforth party gathered for a group shot, just hours before the fire that killed young Billy. He lingered on the two outdoor shots of Amelia and the younger children, posing in formation. Gazing blankly, he drank the details down into his semi-conscious mind. His eyes moved on but were drawn back. Then he stared harder.

  A second later, he bounded from the chair and tore the formal shot of Billy and his grinning friends from its Blu-Tack fastenings. He also removed the tracing sheet that accompanied the group shot, identifying every partygoer where they stood. He counted the people in full view in both shots and compared them against the tracing paper and then against the guest list. ‘Twenty. Plus the Stanforth family.’ There was no mistake. All were accounted for.

  Brook snatched the first attempted portrait from the board, the one ruined by the dog that had run across the shot. He peered at the willowy right arm reaching in from the edge of the frame to grab the black dog. There was a bracelet on the wrist.

  ‘So if everyone else is in position, who the devil are you?’ The question was answered before fully formed and his mouth fell open. He stared into space as he thought it through then scuttled over to the far wall to look at the large map of Derby. He found Kirk Langley then followed the single road south to Mackworth.

  Radbourne Common was equidistant from both Kirk Langley and Mackworth. Brook tore across the corridor to Copeland’s empty office and grabbed the picture of Matilda Copeland on the desk. It was her. The dog, the bracelet. . .

  ‘What’s going on, Brook?’

  Brook turned to face Copeland at the door but no words were necessary. As soon as the retired detective saw the picture of his sister in Brook’s hand, the Stanforth party photograph in the other, his eyes fell to the floor and he visibly sagged. After what seemed an age he shuffled, ashen-faced, to slump on to his chair.

  ‘I might ask you the same thing,’ said Brook, giving the old man little time to gather his thoughts. ‘Your sister and Billy Stanforth are in the same photograph on the day of his death.’

  Copeland sighed and reached into the desk for a small flask. He poured what smelled like rum into the aluminium cap and drank it straight down. Brook sat opposite, refusing a drink with a swift shake of the head. After another shot of rum, the old man nodded. ‘This is a good thing. This is why I gave you the files. I was sure you’d make the connection.’

  ‘I’m flattered by your confidence,’ said a deadpan Brook. ‘But if you wanted me to review both murders, why didn’t you just tell me?’

  ‘I wanted you to—’

  ‘Never mind,’ snapped Brook. ‘I have a better question.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘When did you make the same connection, Clive?’

  ‘Have you read Tilly’s file?’ mumbled Copeland, ignoring Brook’s query.

  ‘I’ve read it.’

  ‘I want you to find her killer, Brook.’

  ‘The
n answer my questions,’ demanded Brook. ‘Your sister died in nineteen sixty-five, two years after this photograph was taken.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She was only fourteen in this picture.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So she was at the Stanforth house on the day of the party.’

  ‘She was.’

  ‘Then I’ll ask again, when did you find out she was there?’

  ‘When I reviewed the Stanforth case for the first time in nineteen seventy-eight, I saw those pictures and I knew straight away it was Tilly.’

  Brook’s brow creased. ‘You didn’t know until nineteen seventy-eight?’

  Copeland took a deep breath. ‘You have to remember, I was just a boy when Tilly died. As a kid, all I thought about was football and cars. Tilly was sixteen, a young girl on the verge of womanhood, an adult in so many ways.’ He hesitated.

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Quite often she had to look after me when my parents were out, which she resented.’

  ‘Is this important?’ asked Brook.

  Copeland nodded. ‘You see, it’s not that she didn’t love me, it’s just that I was holding her back when she. . .’ He choked on the words.

  ‘When she wanted to be with her boyfriend,’ finished Brook.

  Copeland nodded again. He looked at the flask of rum but resisted. ‘Sometimes she’d say things, funny things, adult things, none of which made much sense to me at the time, they were just. . . odd.’

  ‘And that changed?’ asked Brook.

  ‘When I saw that picture in nineteen seventy-eight, I knew. And then those things she said, some of the sudden disappearances, made sense. You see, she was. . .’

  When he couldn’t finish, Brook stepped in. ‘Matilda was Brendan McCleary’s other girlfriend.’

  ‘One of them,’ smiled Copeland bitterly. ‘Though Tilly didn’t realise she was just one of the chorus line until the day Billy Stanforth died, you must believe that.’

  ‘She wasn’t a virgin when she died,’ said Brook.

  Copeland hung his head. ‘She’d been sexually active for at least a year before she died.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘In nineteen seventy-eight, when I found that picture, I remembered some of the things Tilly had said. I went up to Leeds to see McCleary in prison. I asked him if he was having a sexual relationship with Tilly.’