The Death Collector

by Neil White

  She shook her head. ‘Then all my stuff would come out. It’s selfish, I know.’

  ‘So why are you telling us now?’

  ‘You’re the first person to ask. The rest had just been my secret.’ She looked at Gina. ‘Do you think he might have harmed someone? Like Melissa.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Gina said. ‘But something isn’t adding up.’

  ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if he had.’

  ‘What makes you so certain?’

  ‘Just something in his eyes. I can’t be more precise than that.’

  Joe leaned forward. ‘You said you followed him to his house.’

  ‘Yes. He hadn’t known I was there.’

  ‘Where is it?’

  ‘One of the streets off Greencroft Avenue, you know, the turning after the bowling alley. I can’t remember which one.’

  At the mention of the bowling alley, the memories of the police station visit with Carl rushed back at Joe. He hadn’t written down the street name where Carl had been arrested, but on the drive home Carl had pointed it out. He’d forgotten about that. They had been driving past the bowling alley. Down there, Carl had said, and gestured towards a street somewhere in the distance. Joe hadn’t taken any notice at the time, it was late and it hadn’t seemed important, but he remembered it now.

  He turned to Gina, his nerves fluttering. ‘That’s the place.’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘Carl was arrested somewhere near there.’ Joe looked at Rachel again. ‘What kind of car does Declan drive?’

  ‘A Focus. Dark red.’

  Joe’s eyes widened. Like Nicole had said, the one she saw on the moors. He grabbed Gina’s hand. ‘We’ve got to go.’

  Fifty-four

  Carl had hardly moved since the man left the cellar.

  The man had ranted and kicked furniture, even thrown some around. Then there had been the slam of the door and the house had fallen silent.

  Time had passed and all Carl could feel was emptiness. His head still throbbed from where he had been pushed against the wall, but that wasn’t the reason. It all felt so hopeless. His one chance and Emma had died.

  He’d let her down. He should have charged him, just to give Emma enough time to get to the door and make a run for it. She could have raised the alarm, and he could be waiting for the wail of sirens, instead of wondering what lay in store for him now. No, they had been too intent on striking out at him. Too angry, not thinking clearly enough. And now Emma was dead.

  Carl couldn’t look at her body, just a shadow in the murky darkness. Even if he was able to get out, seeing someone being killed was something he knew he’d never forget.

  There was the sound of the car and then the slam of the front door. The man was back. Carl didn’t move. Minutes passed, although Carl hadn’t got any better at counting them, before the cellar door was flung open. There was a pause and then shadows flickered against the wall, lighting up the cellar with movement.

  Carl struggled to a sitting position. The man was holding a large candle mounted on a white holder, the flame blowing slightly in the draught made by his movement. He walked slowly, carefully, his shadow cast as a moving giant, before he stopped to set the candle down on the floor. It lit up Emma, gave her skin some life. Carl turned away.

  The man straightened and walked over to Carl. He was holding a newspaper in his other hand. His jaw was set in anger. There was a bandage around his neck.

  He put the newspaper on the floor and then reached down for Carl, pulling him upwards by his hair. Carl cried out in pain as he was walked across to the noose. He struggled as the man placed it over his head again, but it was no use. Once it was back in place, the man yanked hard on the rope so that it went tight around him once more. Enough space still to breathe, but its tightness was an ever-present reminder.

  Carl’s legs ached straight away, even though he’d had some time resting.

  The man bent down for the newspaper and thrust the front page in front of Carl. The Evening Press.

  ‘Did you think I didn’t know who you were?’ the man said, snarling, spitting the words at him. ‘Read it.’

  Carl tried to focus, but the light was dim and the paper too close. ‘I can’t see,’ but then the man moved the paper away and Carl saw his father’s face.

  Sweat jumped onto his forehead and his stomach rolled, the taste of acid sharp in his throat. He caught the headline. MISSING DETECTIVE FOUND BURIED ON THE MOORS. Carl didn’t need to read the rest. He had found his answer.

  The hot prickle of tears flashed across his eyes. His gut clenched and he let out a long moan. The cellar receded as he felt the hard slap of shock and memories of his father rushed back at him. His laughter, loud and happy; the strong man who held the family together. Splashing in the pool on holiday, falling asleep against his chest when watching films, the feel of his hand in his hair as he ruffled it. The images came in a flurry, so that he couldn’t sift or sort them, and all he had now was the headline blurred through his tears.

  He looked up at the man, and then back at the page, to the truth he had always known, but the hurt was still deep, the anguish of knowing that the last faint hope of his father being alive was gone.

  ‘You bastard,’ Carl said, his voice thick with emotion. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Me? Nothing, would you believe?’ He smiled, although it was more like a cold sneer. ‘But you’ll never find out.’ The man reached for the gag that had been thrown onto the floor. He fastened it tight, making Carl grunt with discomfort. ‘I have to leave. I’ve got a few things to straighten out first. Remember, you started this, the end.’ He paused to look down at Emma. ‘I’m saving you this way, because you won’t be able to live with it if I let you go. Choose your own way out, Carl. I’m leaving the gas on when I go. Whoever is first in will make the house go up with a bang, or maybe when the gas reaches that flame. That will be painful. Maybe go your own way first. Remember, all you need to do is sink to your knees.’

  Then he was gone, moving quickly up the stairs, the door clicking shut.

  Carl put his head back and let the tears flow. His father was dead. He’d always suspected it, but now his hope had truly been snuffed out. What about his mother? How would she cope?

  He looked to the floor and felt the rope dig into his neck. His legs were weak, his energy sapped by the headline. He couldn’t go on.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, tears streaming down his cheeks. He’d let his mother down, by ending up like this. The man had gone. Carl knew he couldn’t hold on.

  Once more, his head filled with memories of his father. His smile, strong and funny, and the feel of his arms around his shoulders. His protector. His hero. Gone.

  He couldn’t last much longer. His legs ached, almost urged him to sit down. The man was right. It was the easiest way.

  He wanted to say sorry to his mother. The flame was hypnotic, casting shadows over Emma. He thought of how it would be when the gas came down the stairs, curling around the bare space, sinking, finding the heat. Everything would end in a flash. He couldn’t bear that.

  It was time to go. He had no fight left.

  Fifty-five

  Gina was driving around the streets beyond the bowling alley. Sam still hadn’t got back to Joe with the address, so they were looking for a dark red Ford Focus.

  ‘So you think this is the man?’ Gina said.

  ‘Carl was here,’ he said. ‘Now he’s missing. Whoever this person is, he is connected to a missing woman.’

  Gina nodded at that, satisfied. ‘I know this Declan.’ When Joe looked surprised, she added, ‘No, not the real Declan. I mean, I know people like him. How he thinks. I’ve come across people like him before.’ Then she smiled ruefully. ‘No, a person, not people.’

  ‘Tell me,’ Joe said.

  ‘It was more than ten years ago now,’ she said. ‘I was living with a man but we’d become distant, although I still loved him. So along came Lloyd, another detective. Full of charm and wit
, and he seemed to understand me, as if he knew what I was thinking, why I felt lonely. We had similar interests, or so I thought, but I felt bad about cheating. Lloyd wouldn’t let it go though. He got hold of my number and texted constantly. It was just relentless, and eventually I gave in. So we went out. He made me feel special, fed me bullshit, like we were star-crossed or something, and I just fell for him. I left my partner but as soon as I did, Lloyd dumped me. He’d got what he wanted, total devotion, capitulation almost. What further use was I to him?’

  ‘Sometimes it’s just the thrill of the chase.’

  ‘No, it was more than that. And it’s not just men; there are women like that too. He wanted to control me, as if it was just to prove that he could. But how can you walk away from someone you are so deeply in love with like that? So I made a fool of myself. I turned up at his house, sobbed and begged to be taken back, and he just abused it. He used me, like some plaything, knowing that I would do anything. He would leave it weeks without any contact, and I’d be calling and texting but nothing came back, until he decided he needed me, and I was desperate enough to jump at it. I realised what was going on eventually, that I was being stupid, but it took me a long time to get to that. And when I did, I walked away.’

  ‘How did he take that?’

  ‘Nastily. That was the thing with him, you see. I was supposed to be under his spell, and when I wasn’t, he became spiteful. He threatened me with some photographs he had of me.’ Gina blushed. ‘Intimate ones. But I just kept on ignoring him and eventually he got the message. He ruined me though. I thought I was cracking up. I’d lost everything I had with my partner, so that was it for me. I decided I was staying single. No man was ever going to hurt me like that again.’

  ‘You’re too special to be alone, Gina,’ Joe said. ‘Any man would be lucky to have you.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She sighed in exasperation. ‘I think I’m a decent person, but that was my flaw in the end. I thought he would treat me like I wanted to treat him, but I was naïve.’

  ‘And you think it’s similar to this?’

  ‘I recognise the traits.’

  ‘But being a bastard isn’t the same as being a murderer.’

  ‘It helps to be heartless though,’ Gina said. ‘And there are more connections you haven’t spotted.’

  Joe frowned. ‘Go on.’

  ‘What was the prosecution theory as to why Aidan killed Rebecca?’

  ‘Rebecca was ending their relationship and Aidan became jealous and killed her in a rage. Her husband said they were trying to make another go of their marriage.’

  ‘And think back now to Melissa’s husband. What did he tell us just now?’ When Joe didn’t answer, Gina continued, ‘That they had been going through a tough time but it seemed like they were pulling back together.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Join the dots, Joe. Two married women having affairs and both die or go missing just as they are trying to get their marriages back on track. Aidan says that Rebecca was seeing someone else too. Was Rebecca ending that relationship as well? It makes sense. She was cutting off all her extra-marital stuff and making another go of it, and it was the other person who killed her, not Aidan. Was that Declan?’

  ‘So you think he killed Rebecca because she was ending the relationship, and then did the same with Melissa? Can you be so angry twice? Once is a loss of control. But twice?’

  Gina shook her head. ‘It’s not about rage in the way you’re thinking of it. If the killer is a narcissist, the loss of devotion will burn away at him. I’ve seen it and it’s unpleasant.’ As Joe took that in, Gina added, ‘There’s something else too.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Everyone is married. Rebecca. Melissa. Then Rachel, even though she didn’t succumb. It’s not that he’s a player, collecting beautiful women like trophies. What seems to attract him is women who belong to someone else. What they have is happiness, something special, togetherness, even if it has gone a bit stale. He has nothing and that eats away at him. So he wants to destroy the one thing he can’t have, and that’s happiness. That’s just how Lloyd was. He liked to make out he was deep, but really there was nothing. He was a shell of a man, and he knew it.’

  ‘It seems a stretch,’ Joe said. ‘Maybe he’s just one of those men who have a lot of women on the go just so that he can boast to his friends. Deep down, there’s nothing, yes, but it’s all a game.’

  ‘But all he has is the devotion of these women. When that disappears, how does he react? If it burned away at him, it might just have ended in murder.’

  Joe thought about that as Gina drove, looking along the rows of identical-looking streets, long curves of high grey Victorian houses behind millstone walls and black metal gates. Then he saw it. A Ford Focus. Dark red. An 06 plate, so it would have been around when Rebecca was killed.

  ‘There,’ he said, banging his hand on the dashboard.

  Gina stamped on her brake and scraped the wheels along the kerb as she came to a halt. She turned to Joe. ‘You should have kept proper notes, so we knew for certain this was the actual address.’

  ‘Lesson learned.’

  ‘So what do we do?’ Gina said.

  ‘We could just knock on the door.’

  ‘And how do you think that will go down? David Jex went missing. Carl Jex is missing. I know there are two of us, but I don’t fancy turning it into a quartet.’

  ‘I’ll call Sam,’ Joe said, and reached for his phone.

  ‘And say what? Come and kick down a door because there is a car that is different to that mentioned in witness statements? It’s not going to happen.’

  ‘But it must relate to the body they dug up on the moors this morning.’

  ‘Why? What real link is there?’

  Joe turned, frustrated, knowing that Gina was right. It was all surmising and guesswork in some hope that they could prove that Aidan was innocent.

  Joe leaned forward and strained as he looked through the windscreen. ‘Okay, let’s watch for a while; see what we can work out.’

  The houses on the street seemed pretty ordinary. They were spaced out, tall and imposing, with cars on the driveways, and just enough room to swing the gates closed behind. A laugh drifted through an open window and a car horn sounded from somewhere nearby. Midges danced in the faintest strains of daylight. The streetlights displayed faint glows as the sun disappeared behind houses at the end of the road, everywhere in evening shadow. There was no traffic noise – most people would be back from work – just the sounds of whooping children from a small playground visible through the gaps in the houses.

  ‘So what do we think?’ Gina said.

  ‘That someone is playing around with married women, but he doesn’t cope well with rejection,’ Joe said. ‘Like you said, what unites Melissa and Rebecca is not just that they were having affairs but that things were getting better – they both wanted to patch things up with their husbands.’

  ‘And David Jex?’

  ‘He spotted the link,’ Joe said. ‘He was the detective who spoke to Melissa’s husband. He must have picked up on the same thing Hugh did – the library – and checked it out.’

  ‘But why would he be so suspicious of the library?’ Gina said.

  ‘Because he was never convinced about Aidan Molloy,’ Joe said. ‘He was swept along by his admiration of Hunter. But he was a good man and always felt uncomfortable about doing the wrong thing. Carl said he became obsessive about Aidan’s case, looking into it again but in his own time. I think Melissa started that.’

  ‘So what happened to him?’

  ‘He got too close to real evil, is my guess,’ Joe said.

  ‘So we need to be careful.’

  Joe nodded to himself as they sat in Gina’s car, hoping for a glimpse of the occupant of the house.

  ‘Someone’s coming,’ Gina said.

  Joe looked through the windscreen. There was a car coming slowly down the road, and there was something about it that said that it wasn
’t just passing through. It was rolling slowly, as if the driver was looking around.

  The car stopped outside the house where the Focus was parked, blocking the drive, so that whoever was in there couldn’t get out.

  ‘I recognise that car,’ Gina whispered.

  The driver door opened first, and Joe gasped when he saw who it was: Hunter, with Weaver climbing out of the passenger seat.

  ‘We might have misjudged him,’ Joe said, and his hand moved for the car door handle, until Gina grabbed his arm.

  ‘No, not yet,’ she said.

  ‘Why, what’s wrong?’