The Death Collector

by Neil White

  As Hunter lay stunned, groaning and wheezing, Sam turned to Weaver and said, ‘You better start talking, and make it good.’

  Sixty-two

  Declan Farrell dragged Alice out of the hole. He pushed her back towards the cottage. She stumbled. He grabbed the rope round her wrists and pulled her, dragging her along the floor, her clothes getting muddier. He threw her against the wall once they were back inside.

  He straightened, sweat sticking his shirt to his back, dirty trails across his forehead where he had wiped away the perspiration.

  Alice drew her knees up to her chest, her feet blackened. She put her head down and shivered.

  There was a small posy of flowers against the wall, just pansies in a small ribbon. He had left them there a couple of weeks earlier. They were dried out and the stalks were rotting, but it was still enough to invoke some memories, his mother’s body buried not far beneath. She would never move from there, be transported around by the ever-shifting peat soil. The walls would keep her in.

  He went over to Alice and pulled down her gag. She gasped and smacked her lips to try to get some moisture back into her mouth.

  ‘Don’t scream,’ he said quietly, putting his finger to her lips, almost tenderly.

  She recoiled and then nodded quickly, tears streaming down her face. She gulped and said, ‘What are you going to do me?’ He didn’t answer straight away. ‘I’m a mother. Please don’t kill me. My babies shouldn’t grow up without me.’

  That stalled him. He looked back again at the dying flowers and for a moment his mind was flooded with memories. Her laughter, the feel of her cheap dress against his cheeks as she held him close to her, static dancing on his cheeks; swaying with her in front of the fire, his father glaring from the nearby chair. Her laugh was easy, happiness just one of the gifts life gave her. His father had to go looking for it, and was often found wanting.

  For a moment, tears tickled his eyes, but then the memory of her cold hand as he helped his father bury her came back to him and pushed them away. His emotions retreated, like the slam of a door. Only the recall of his father’s arms wheeling at the top of the stairs gave him any satisfaction.

  It was the look in his eyes that stayed with him. Acceptance, and knowledge of what he had turned his son into.

  Declan pushed her gag back over her mouth and stepped away. He went to the window and gazed out at the moonlight that cast a silver glow on the moors.

  Hunter pulled himself up onto his haunches, pointing at Weaver, wiping the blood from his lips onto the sleeve of his jacket. ‘You need to be quiet,’ he shouted, and then to Sam, ‘And you too. That’s an assault. I should have you arrested.’

  Weaver laughed, in derision at first, tears still streaming down his face, but then it got louder, more hysterical.

  ‘Talk,’ Evans said.

  Weaver’s hysteria disappeared as he said, ‘Do you suspect me of being connected with the death of David Jex? So you have to arrest me, which means you can’t ask me any more questions now if you want this ever to be mentioned in a court.’

  Evans clenched her jaw.

  ‘So this is just about finding Alice, right?’

  ‘You bastard,’ Sam said.

  ‘Or I can shut up right now and not give you anything,’ Weaver snapped back. ‘Is that what you’d prefer?’

  ‘Just talk,’ Evans said.

  Weaver put his head back and let his tears subside before saying, ‘Declan Farrell killed Rebecca Scarfield, not Aidan Molloy. And we might have caught him if we had kept on looking, done a proper job on the cars we were looking at, except he was too hung up on Aidan Molloy.’ And he jabbed his finger towards Hunter. ‘That’s all it was for him. Aidan or no one, because Aidan had been meddling in Rebecca’s marriage, the assistant chief’s little angel.’

  ‘So when did you know?’ Evans said.

  ‘When Melissa Clarke went missing. David Jex was doing most of the work on that, and he had been with us when we looked at Rebecca, so he knew both cases. It was the library book group thing that did it. That was where Melissa went, and it was where Rebecca worked, and David became suspicious. He got a list of every dark red Ford Focus in the north-west and was working through it, trying to find a link with the library.’

  ‘So Joe is right,’ Sam said. ‘The witness statements were false. You wrote them up to make them fit Aidan.’

  ‘It wasn’t as simple as that,’ Weaver said, as if he was pleading for understanding. ‘We spoke with the witnesses who saw the car, and Hunter thought they had got the car wrong, because he was certain it was Aidan Molloy, particularly when Aidan’s mother changed her story. So he talked them into thinking that it was Aidan’s car they had seen. Like he said at the time, if they had been so certain, they wouldn’t have changed their story. And Aidan’s mother had lied, Aidan too, and he had the motive as Rebecca was going back to her husband. We thought we had done the right thing. Yeah, we had twisted the evidence a bit, but for the right reason.’

  ‘What about the spade in the boot, with peat soil on it?’ Sam said.

  Weaver looked down for a few seconds before saying, ‘We bought it from a DIY shop and stuck it into the ground, and put it into Aidan’s car when we took it away.’

  Evans gasped. ‘That goes way too far. Talking witnesses round is bad enough, but that? Planting evidence?’

  ‘Oh come on,’ Hunter said, making everyone look round. ‘Who hasn’t dropped some drugs in a house to justify a search or an arrest, or into someone’s pocket? Padded out a statement to make it say what we needed? It’s a matter of degree.’

  ‘I haven’t,’ Sam said.

  Hunter scowled in response.

  ‘We were trying to put away Rebecca’s killer, that’s all,’ Weaver said. ‘Why is it always us that have to play fair? We couldn’t let Aidan just get away with it.’

  ‘But he hadn’t done anything,’ Evans said, incredulous.

  ‘Yeah, well, I know that now.’

  ‘So tell us about David Jex.’

  Weaver took a deep breath.

  ‘David got panicky,’ Weaver said. ‘He realised that we were in trouble. He whittled it down to Declan Farrell and did some background checks on him. Farrell had form, a couple of assaults on ex-girlfriends, and had been arrested for a rape once but it hadn’t gone anywhere. It was a married woman and she wouldn’t go into any detail. She’d been found bloodied and sobbing, and she told a friend but wouldn’t speak to us, in case her husband found out. When David went through Rebecca’s case again, he found a connection to Farrell. She had gone away for the night once, told her husband that she was staying with a friend, but she had gone to a hotel. The bill showed up on her bank statement. When David went through Farrell’s bank statements, he found a bar bill payment from the same night at the same hotel.’ Weaver scoffed. ‘Farrell didn’t even have the decency to pay for the room, just a couple of drinks.’

  ‘That might have been his leverage,’ Evans said. ‘Accumulate evidence that she is having an affair and she becomes scared; he’s got something to use.’

  ‘So David convinced us that Aidan hadn’t done it, and that Farrell was the killer,’ Weaver said, and glared at Hunter.

  ‘So what did you decide to do?’ Evans said.

  ‘We need to get a move on,’ Sam said, starting to pace. ‘This is about Alice, not Weaver cleansing his soul.’

  ‘We need the story,’ Evans said. ‘That’s what he said.’

  ‘David wanted to come clean,’ Weaver said. ‘If we got into trouble, that was just tough. We had done wrong, and we didn’t have to admit to the spade or the wrong witness statements. All we had to do was pin it on Farrell and get Aidan out of jail. But that prick,’ and Weaver pointed at Hunter, ‘he thought it was too risky for us, that we might end up passing Aidan at the prison gate, with us on the way in for a while as he came out. So he decided to kill him.’

  ‘What, David Jex?’ Evans said, incredulous.

  ‘No, Declan Farrell,’
Weaver said, slamming his hand on the chair. ‘He was a cold murdering bastard, we knew that because of Rebecca, and we had no idea where Melissa was, but she seemed dead to us. What loss would he be to humanity? None, that’s what. So we waited for him after the book club, until everyone else had gone, and we lifted him. No one saw us, we knew that. Hunter drove. David and I wedged him in the back, and we were going to do to him what he was going to do to Rebecca.’

  ‘Bury him on the moors,’ Evans said.

  Weaver looked down, rubbing his hands. ‘David was quiet all the way. We had a spade in the boot and a lump hammer. We were going to hurt him first, just for what he had done to Rebecca, and then bury him. No one would ever find him, we were sure of that. We got away from the road so no one would see us, and just as we were going to start on him, David said we shouldn’t.’

  ‘It’s conspiracy to murder,’ Evans said.

  ‘That’s what David said, and that we shouldn’t go through with it, and he got physical, tried to wrestle the hammer away, and that bastard…⁠’ And Weaver pointed at Hunter again. ‘He started swinging that thing, the hammer.’ He took a deep breath and looked up at Evans, and then to Sam. ‘Have you ever heard a melon hit the ground? It’s like a liquid crack, and that’s what it sounded like when the hammer hit David on the side of the head. He went straight down and he didn’t move. I touched his head and I could feel the fracture in the skull. It was a dent and the bone moved. I didn’t think he was breathing. So we panicked. Farrell was gone by this time. He’d started running as soon as David went down, and he must know those moors well, because I tried to chase him and I just couldn’t catch him. It was like the darkness just swallowed him up.’

  ‘So you buried David Jex?’ Sam said.

  Weaver nodded. ‘Hunter thought he’d killed him. What could we do? Say, Oh, we meant to kill someone else?’

  ‘So you watched Lorna Jex grieve and sob for her husband, and you knew all along where he was?’ Sam said.

  ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

  ‘You’re a coward.’

  ‘Yes again. And Declan Farrell had us. He wrote up everything that had happened, including the map reference as to where they could find David, and joined one of those online legacy sites. You know, where if you don’t log in for sixty days, whatever you store there is sent to a nominated person, a way of passing on your crucial information if you die suddenly. Your passwords, things like that. He told us he had put Lorna’s name in, and Rebecca’s father, and Melissa’s husband, Mary Molloy and two newspapers.’

  ‘So if Declan Farrell died it would all come out?’ Evans said.

  ‘No, worse than that,’ Sam said, stepping closer to Weaver. ‘He can’t log in from prison. So you two bastards had to keep Farrell free, or else it would all come out.’

  Weaver nodded slowly.

  ‘Call him,’ Sam said to Evans. ‘We’ve got the story now. Let’s get Alice back.’

  Sam and Evans had been focused on Weaver. They hadn’t been aware of Hunter getting out of his chair until he made a run for the door.

  Sam went after him, but Hunter slammed the door behind him, trapping Sam’s hand in the jamb, the few moments of excruciating pain enough to allow Hunter to bolt along the corridor, already with his car key out.

  Evans went to the door, but faltered, looking back at Weaver.

  ‘Leave Hunter!’ Sam shouted. ‘Call Farrell. Get Alice back.’

  ‘I’ll go,’ Joe said, as he made for the door.

  ‘Where?’ Evans said.

  ‘I’m going to find Alice,’ he said. ‘And Hunter might just take us there.’

  Sixty-three

  Mary had waited in the car for Joe. She had seen Hunter rush out, his car racing away down the street. As Joe drove in the same direction, he told her the basics of what Weaver had said, that Aidan had been framed and that they had known Aidan was truly innocent for a few months. She had cried, more from anger than sorrow, before she turned to Joe and said, ‘So Tyrone, sorry Declan, has her?’

  Joe nodded grimly.

  Mary put her hand to her mouth and tears appeared in her eyes. ‘This is my fault,’ she said, almost to herself.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He called me earlier. He asked about you at first, how you were getting on, but then I told him about Sam finding David Jex, the coincidence of it.’ She looked across at Joe. ‘I didn’t know, Joe. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ Joe said. ‘You can help though.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘You might know Declan’s secrets.’

  ‘What do you mean? I don’t know anything about him. I thought I did, but I don’t.’

  Joe glanced across and winced at the pain in her eyes. He gripped her hand for a moment. He tried to smile, but his worry for Alice kept it away. ‘He can’t just take her somewhere new. He has to know where he is going or else he might be caught. You might have an idea.’

  Mary looked at him, scared, confused. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘He must have somewhere. A secret place, somewhere private, just for him.’

  ‘Nothing he said was true, so how am I to know anything?’

  ‘Because people like him want you to know, deep down. He told you a lie to get on your side. He used you to deflect attention from himself, to find out what you knew, but he would be unable to lie all the time. Convincing liars wrap the lies up in some truth. I’ve seen it with clients and witnesses, that provided you stay near enough to the truth it is harder to catch them out.’

  Joe’s phone rang. It was Sam. He answered.

  ‘Where are you, Joe?’

  ‘Trying to find Hunter and Alice. Have you heard anything else yet?’

  ‘No, nothing.’

  ‘So have you told Farrell what Weaver said?’

  ‘Yes, a text. He hasn’t texted back to tell me where she is.’ Joe heard Sam gulp back the tears. ‘I’m never going to find her, Joe.’

  ‘We’ll find her,’ Joe said, and clicked off. He turned to Mary. ‘He’s on the moors somewhere, going from the picture of Alice. Did he ever take you there?’

  ‘Only a few times, to where Rebecca was found,’ Mary said. ‘We ended up walking up there. He said it would help me, to see the location where Aidan’s life changed, even if Aidan had nothing to do with it.’

  Joe pulled up sharply at the side of the road. ‘Did he say anything up there that might mean something else? Think.’

  ‘I don’t know. Yes, I suppose. He seemed different there, more human somehow. He’d talk about himself, get sort of nostalgic, talk about how his parents died and left him their house, and how he used to enjoy watching them dance together. They’d play records and drink and dance in front of the fire, and he told me that he liked to watch them, that it was when they seemed close, together somehow.’ She shook her head. ‘That must have been untrue as well. I used to think I was such a good judge of character – that I could read people, decide when I could trust them. It looks like I was wrong.’

  ‘That’s what Carl Jex saw,’ Joe said, his voice getting faster. ‘Peeping through the window, he saw a man and a woman slow-dancing in front of the fire. That must be his ritual. When they wanted to leave him, he got a promise of one last night. He recreated his parents’ evenings in before he killed them. The woman Carl saw through the curtains when he was arrested? She will be the woman found dead on the moors. Tell me, how did he seem when he talked about them, when he was up there on the moors?’

  ‘It was like he showed a bit more of himself. I thought at first it was because of what the location meant to me, the place that led to Aidan being locked up, but then I realised that the place itself made him different. It’s the moors, I suppose. They do make you feel small somehow.’

  ‘No, you’re seeing it wrong,’ Joe said, eager now. ‘That location meant something to him, because it was where he was getting rid of Rebecca’s body before he was caught. And what did everyone think Aidan was going to do?’
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br />   ‘Bury her.’

  ‘Because of the spade in the boot of his car. It was seen as a one-off, a crime of passion, a way of getting rid of the body. And not a bad theory. She would never be found, but if the spade was planted then it was just a guess by whoever planted it. Except he was interrupted by that couple and he raced off, leaving Rebecca. But if he became different up there, more reflective, more human, was it something more practised than that?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What would make him reflect up there? If he killed more than one person, was that place special because he was looking at his own personal graveyard, where he goes to remember?’