One Left Alive: A heart-stopping and gripping crime thriller (Detective Morgan Brookes Book 1)

by Helen Phifer

  The door opened and he stepped in. The woman wasn’t anywhere in sight, thank God.

  ‘Please, have a seat and tell me what this is about?’

  ‘Ms Brookes.’

  ‘Officer Brookes?’

  ‘Whatever. She came to my house to ask me questions about the murders yesterday afternoon. I didn’t like the tone of her voice or the way she spoke to me. You do know who I am, right? I have friends in high places.’

  ‘What’s your name again? I missed it the first time.’

  Greg knew his game; well, two could play that.

  ‘Mayor Gregory Barker.’

  ‘Date of birth, Mayor?’

  ‘Mayor is my title not my name, and what has my date of birth got to do with anything?’

  ‘Whenever we, and by we, I mean the entire police force, have to speak to someone and take their details we have to make sure they’re correct, to put on our system.’

  ‘Why are you putting me on your system?’ His voice was incredulous.

  ‘If you want to log a complaint it will have to be submitted on our system, and I need your full details, sir: name, date of birth, address. It’s standard procedure.’

  Greg felt his chest tighten. ‘Twenty-second of May 1950. Look, I want her spoken to; she had no right turning up at my house like that.’

  ‘I’m afraid Detective Brookes had every right, sir. This is a serious murder investigation; your name has come up in our enquiries, therefore we are duty bound by the law to ask you questions in relation to the case. It wouldn’t matter if you were my boss, the rules apply to everyone. How else would we solve crimes?’

  Greg pushed back his chair and stood up, leaning over the desk, waving his fist. ‘You’re all in this together. You lot are a pack of wankers and I’ll see you pay for this.’

  He watched in slow motion as the man in front of him slammed his hand against a red button on the wall. The door behind him burst open and in rushed three coppers. Before he knew it he was pushed face first against the wall and in handcuffs.

  ‘What are you doing? Get off me, you morons. I’ll sue you all.’

  ‘Mr Barker, you are under arrest for an offence under Section Four of the Public Order Act. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence…’

  Barker let out a roar as he began to grapple with the two officers holding him. He didn’t hear the rest of the caution the copper was reading out because he was too busy trying to throw them off.

  There was a hiss and he heard a shout of ‘PAVA deployed’. The next thing his eyes were watering and stinging so much he buckled to his knees, screaming. He felt himself being dragged out of the small room. His legs were dragging along the carpet, but he didn’t care because his eyeballs were burning out of his skull and he couldn’t see for the tears pouring down his cheeks.

  Forty-Four

  Morgan watched, open-mouthed, as Gregory Barker was dragged screaming and in handcuffs down to the custody suite. Ben came out of the interview room, his eyes watering.

  ‘Christ that stuff goes everywhere in a small space.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Our esteemed mayor lost his shit, so I arrested him.’

  She started to laugh and Ben joined in. Both of them were almost bent double with laughter when Tom came striding towards them.

  ‘Am I interrupting?’

  Ben stopped laughing. ‘No, boss.’

  ‘Care to tell me what the hell just happened and why Gregory Barker is in custody having his eyes rinsed by a nurse?’

  ‘He was angry and aggressive towards me, and I feared for my safety. He’s been arrested under Section Four.’

  ‘Jesus, you’re having me on. Why couldn’t you have sorted this out amicably?’

  ‘Boss, the man is an idiot. Just because he’s the mayor doesn’t give him the right to threaten me or my team.’

  ‘No, it doesn’t but it sure as shit makes my life difficult. I’ll have to talk to him, smooth things over a bit.’

  ‘Tell him if he drops his ridiculous accusations, I’ll drop my charges. I still want to talk to him in connection with these murders, so you can break that news to him. He can either come back a little later when he’s calmed down or get it over with now. His call.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  Tom stormed off towards custody and Ben looked at Morgan. ‘Come on, let’s grab a coffee and you can fill me in on why you went to talk to him alone. I hate lecturing people, but that was risky. Especially with people like him. They have a way of using their connections to make their life easy and everyone else’s difficult. You saw how he kicked off. What if he’d done that to you and no one knew where you were?’

  Her cheeks began to burn. ‘Sorry, I thought I was helping.’

  ‘You were.’

  Morgan followed him to the office where Amy and a couple of others were mid-conversation. She went to switch the kettle on.

  ‘Anyone?’

  Everyone held their hands up. Three mugs of tea and two coffees later she was sitting opposite Ben in his office. The others were watching, and she felt a little awkward. It was as if she was the entertainment factor of CID.

  ‘So?’

  ‘He knew the O’Briens very well; he also knew the Potters. When I asked him if I could talk to him about the murders, he didn’t even mention the O’Briens. If you knew two families that had been murdered in the same house, wouldn’t you mention it? He got really cagey and told me to leave when I asked about his business partnership with Jason O’Brien.’

  ‘Very odd. I’m going to have to keep you out of anything to do with him now though. Even though he won’t make a formal complaint, it’s easier that way.’

  ‘A formal complaint?’

  ‘Look, one thing you need to be ready for in this job is the complaints. It doesn’t matter how good you are or whether you didn’t do anything wrong. People don’t like being accused or arrested. They sometimes get arsy and will blame everyone but themselves. It’s usually the arresting officer. Most of them get dropped before they even start, so don’t worry about it. But next time make sure you don’t go on your own. For your own safety.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  She took her mug of coffee and walked down to the office she now called home. She still didn’t know who had banged on her window last night, but in the clear light of day she reasoned that it could have just been teenagers, messing around. But what if it was Stan? The thought brought her back to the whole Stan situation. She had to speak to him. She wanted to know what he had done with her necklace and what he might be able to tell her about the Potters. She doubted he would have opened up to Ben about them. Stan had a long-standing hatred of the police due to various run-ins with them over the years, further fuelled by her decision to become one. Maybe it was time they had their first adult conversation of her life. Before she disappeared through the door, she turned around.

  ‘Can I go to the library?’

  ‘If you need to, I don’t think you’ll get in any trouble there.’

  Ben winked at her and she smiled. She wanted to get the newspaper reports from the O’Briens’ murders. How would the person who killed the Potters know about the cloths on their faces and the killer hiding in the cupboard if it wasn’t them? There was some kind of connection she had to figure out. And when she’d finished there, she’d hunt down Stan. It wouldn’t hurt to visit The Grain either.

  The small library wasn’t even open when Morgan arrived. Deciding to grab herself a coffee, she wandered down the high street to the small coffee shop she favoured. Taking her latte with her, she was glad to see the librarian opening the doors.

  ‘Morning.’

  She smiled back at her. ‘Morning, I was wondering if you kept copies of old newspapers.’

  ‘How old?’

  ‘The seventies.’ Morgan was praying they did; she needed to find something to warrant her interest in Barker.

  ‘We do, although most of them have been scanned onto the compute
r. That’s a popular decade.’

  She smiled.

  ‘Come in and take a seat at one of the computers in the corner, I’ll come and get them up for you in a minute.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Morgan walked in and felt her whole body relax. She was instantly transported back to her childhood. The library had been her favourite place to hang out; she loved reading more than anything. She sat down, the worries and stresses of the last few days pushed to the back of her mind. Tonight, she’d be taking her baton and cuffs home with her, maybe even her police radio. Better to be prepared should whoever the idiot who was messing around come back. She scanned the paperbacks; it had been ages since she’d lost herself in a book. The last six months had all been nonfiction books about law and order while she’d been in training.

  ‘Right, let me see.’ The older woman leant over her shoulder and began typing in the search bar. Within a minute she was on the archive pages.

  ‘Was there any particular year, date you were looking for?’

  ‘Yes, the murders on Easdale Road in 1975.’

  The woman stared at her. ‘What are you, a reporter?’

  Morgan shook her head. ‘No, definitely not. I’m a police officer.’

  ‘Oh, well I hope there’s something here that can help you. If you type it in the search bar it should bring everything up. Shout me if you need anything else.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  The woman walked away to sort out the large pile of books on the desk, leaving her to it. Morgan waited for the articles to load and lost herself reading them, scribbling down notes as she read. Greg Barker’s name was mentioned a few times; there were pictures of him looking haggard despite his youth. A lot of pictures of him: visiting the house to lay flowers at the entrance to the drive; at the funeral, wearing dark glasses and a long black woollen coat, looking more like a Mafia boss than a friend. She finally found what she was looking for in a small column. A police source had confirmed they believed the murderer had lain in wait for the family to come home from an evening celebrating at a restaurant for Jennifer O’Brien’s birthday. The reporter on this case had an inside source; there was no doubt about it. There were pictures from inside the house and on one of them the hall cupboard with the caption ‘Waiting to Slaughter’. These headlines were repeated not only in the Cumbrian News, but the reporter had sold them on to the nationals as well. There were several articles stating that close family friend and business associate Gregory Barker had been helping police with their enquiries. Nothing about being a suspect or arrested, and no other suspects had been singled out either. After an hour of reading everything there was, she slipped her notepad into her handbag and finished her now cold coffee. Standing up, she heard a voice.

  ‘Did you find what you were looking for?’

  ‘I did, thank you.’

  ‘That seems to be the hot topic at the moment.’

  ‘It is unfortunately.’ She walked to the door then turned back. ‘What did you mean when you said it was a popular decade?’

  ‘A slight exaggeration on my part. You’re only the second person to ask to look at them.’ She laughed.

  ‘Do you remember who the first was?’ Morgan crossed her fingers, excited at the thought of there being some connection.

  ‘I do, it was a teenager. He said he was doing research for a college project. Strange research if you ask me, but it’s not my job to judge. I just loaded them up for him like I did for you.’

  ‘Do you have his name?’

  Morgan felt her stomach begin to churn with excitement; the thought of someone coming here to look up the first murders was a huge coincidence and would explain how they knew about the cupboard.

  ‘I don’t, sorry, I didn’t ask.’

  Her excitement was short-lived. ‘Can you remember when he came in?’

  ‘About a fortnight ago.’

  ‘Do you remember what he looked like, was wearing?’

  ‘He was a little taller than you, smartly dressed for a teenager. He had nice hair, though, he was forever running his hand through it. I’m pretty sure he had a girl waiting outside. She was on her phone chatting rather loudly to her friend.’

  Morgan rushed back to the computer and brought up Instagram and searched for Harrison Wright’s page. After scrolling through the list, she found him. The woman came over and stared at the screen.

  ‘Looks like him, but I couldn’t be a hundred per cent sure of it.’

  She found a picture of Harrison and Bronte. ‘What about her, did you see her?’

  ‘Hard to say, she’s similar but I wouldn’t want to say for definite. I’ve been off for ten days. This is my first day back in work, and my memory isn’t as good as it used to be. To be honest, after all the gin and tonics I consumed, half of my brain cells are probably dead. Sorry, I’m not much help, am I?’

  Morgan smiled. ‘No, you’ve been very helpful. Thank you.’

  She walked back to her car. She’d pass all this on to Ben as soon as she’d hunted down Stan.

  Forty-Five

  Morgan drove at a snail’s pace through Rydal Falls, keeping an eye open for Stan. With his drunken shuffle he wouldn’t be too hard to find. Turning into Harrison Street, she stopped outside Carol’s terraced house. She’d been here twice in four years and it had been twice too many, but needs must. This wasn’t about her and Stan, it was about the O’Briens and the Potters. She owed it to both families to try and figure out what the hell went wrong and why so many people had died in the same house.

  Opening the rusted gate, she walked along the short path and knocked on the broken front door. A dog began to bark inside; she could see it through the yellowing net curtains as it tried to jump at the window to get to her. It was an ugly thing that looked like some kind of pug crossed with a bulldog. She heard the click-clacking of Carol’s heels as she tottered towards the front door. Morgan stepped back, unsure what kind of mood the woman was going to be in or whether her ugly dog would come pounding out of the front door.

  The door opened a couple of inches and one of Carol’s eyes stared at her through the crack.

  ‘Oh, it’s you. What do you want?’

  ‘Is Stan here?’

  ‘Piss off, Spot.’ Carol screamed at the dog so loud Morgan thought her eardrums had burst.

  ‘Mangy dog, it never shuts up barking. Always the same whenever he’s not here.’

  ‘Who, Stan?’

  There was a bang as the front door slammed shut, what sounded like a full-on scrap from inside and then another loud slam as a door inside was closed. The front door opened a lot wider this time and Carol smiled at her. Morgan smiled back.

  ‘Christ, sorry about that. I can’t hear myself think with its constant yapping. Where were we? Oh yeah, Stan. He’s got a nerve your dad, he thinks he can do what he wants whenever he wants.’

  Morgan nodded, and thought to herself same old Stan. ‘Is he here though?’

  ‘Sorry, love, I’ve had enough of him. Chucked him and his stuff out a few days ago. I tried, you know, to put up with him. But there’s only so much lying and stealing I can take. Is it important?’

  ‘Yes, I need to speak to him urgently about a work matter.’

  ‘Oooh, finally got himself in trouble with the cops, has he? I’m amazed it’s taken this long to be honest.’

  ‘He’s not in trouble, I just need to find him.’

  ‘Try the pubs along the high street. He was spending more time in that little crappy one, The Kings, that’s full of the heavy drinkers like him, than he was anywhere else. If not, I don’t know where else to suggest really; the homeless shelter maybe? If they’ll have him that is.’

  ‘Thanks, Carol, I will.’

  Carol slammed the door shut, no ‘goodbye’ or ‘take care’. Morgan turned and walked out of the gate. The dog was still barking and slobbering all over the already filthy net curtains.

  The Kings was next on her list.

  She walked inside, and her stomac
h churned at the lingering smell of stale lager that hung in the air. She looked around, couldn’t see Stan and was about to walk out when the barman shouted: ‘What’s up, who you looking for?’

  She walked towards him. ‘Stan Brookes, do you know him?’

  He nodded. ‘Reckon I do, what’s he done to get in trouble this time with the law? If he carries on, I’m going to have to ban him. He’s bad for my business all these coppers turning up looking for him.’

  ‘How do you know I’m a copper?’

  He arched an eyebrow at her. ‘Who else would you be? No one wants to know where Stan is for anything good.’

  He pointed towards the toilets. ‘If you hang around, he’ll be out in a minute.’

  She felt her shoulders relax and perched on one of the bar stools.

  ‘I’d offer you a drink, but have you got any ID on you? I mean you look all of about seventeen and I’m not getting caught serving underage. Sneaky bastards caught my daughter out last year. She got an eighty quid fine.’

  ‘I’m not here to catch you out. Can I have a Coke, please, and whatever Stan drinks.’

  The barman nodded. Poured out her Coke and a pint of lager, passing them to her. She handed him a fiver, but he pushed it back.

  ‘On the house, but don’t tell Stan that. It’s the only free drink he’s getting off me this month.’

  He walked away, leaving her sipping the Coke and staring at the door to the gents. Finally it opened and Stan walked out looking much cleaner than she’d expected him to.

  He stood and stared at her. She nodded her head.

  ‘Stan, I need to talk to you.’ She pointed to a table in the corner and crossed the room, holding the pint of lager towards him. She saw him glance towards the exit, then back at the drink she was holding. If he’d thought about escaping it had only been for a fleeting moment; instead he followed her and sat down opposite.

  ‘Morgan.’

  ‘Stan, let’s not mess around. I know you worked as a gardener for the Potters and the O’Briens. Please can you tell me what you knew about them, what sort of people they were, if they had any problems we might not have been aware of? I want to find out who would kill those families; they deserve justice.’