Candles and Roses: a serial killer thriller

by Alex Walters

  It was a human body, as she’d expected, face down on the wet sand, the waves already beating against its torso and legs. The arms and legs were tied and the ropes weighted with piles of stone. Horton looked further along the beach. Another similar body, again face down, already half-sunk in the rising tide.

  She ran to the far body first, suspecting she was already too late. She grabbed the nearest arm and leg and hauled the body as best she could back up the beach. It was a dead sodden weight, dragged down by its wet clothes, constantly being sucked back by the pull of the waves.

  After what felt like far too many minutes, she managed to drag it on to the stones above the debris that marked the high point of the tide. Not stopping to check the body, she turned back to where the first body still lay. The tide had risen another few centimetres. Elizabeth Hamilton was standing a few yards away, her frail body whipped by the wind. Horton wanted to call for her help, but knew there would be no point. Instead, she turned to the first body and began to drag its resistant bulk from the clutch of the sea. The body was weighted more heavily by the stones and its own heavy clothing, and the effort was almost too much. But slowly, inch by inch, she pulled the body away from the sea, up towards the tide-line.

  She’d almost dragged the body to safety when she finally looked up. Hamilton was standing behind her. She was holding the flashlight at her side, its beam glittering on the wet sand and pebbles.

  ‘No,’ Hamilton said. ‘Don’t listen to him. Don’t believe him. We were safe. We were almost safe.’

  And she raised the flashlight and brought it down hard against the side of Horton’s head.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Where the bloody hell was she?

  McKay pulled into the space by Horton’s abandoned car and climbed out into the wet night. He’d kept calling during the short drive over, but the calls had simply rung to voicemail. Why the hell hadn’t she called before buggering off on whatever fool’s errand she was pursuing? Visibility was down to a few metres, and he could see nothing beyond the narrow inlet where the burn ran into the sea.

  ‘Ginny!’ His voice was almost immediately whipped away by the sharp wind.

  With nowhere else to go, he took the path to the beach cafe, peering into the gloom for any sign of movement. There was nothing but the roar of the tide, the clatter of the wind in the trees.

  Then, suddenly, he saw an unexpected flash of light by the water’s edge. Something moving in the near dark.

  With no rational thought, he began to run towards the sea, slipping and stumbling down the wet grassy bank until he reached the firmness of the beach path. It was only as he reached the end of the path that he realised what he was seeing.

  Out on the narrow strip of beach, two figures were struggling, the waters already around their ankles. McKay jumped on to the sand, trying to work out exactly what was happening. One slender ghost-like figure, pale against the roaring sea. The other larger, bulkier, stumbling backwards as if about to topple into the water.

  He dragged his own powerful flashlight from his waterproof. ‘Police!’ Again, he was conscious his voice was almost inaudible, but the shout was sufficient to cause the pale figure to turn. Almost immediately, the other figure jumped, pushing the pale figure further back up the sand.

  ‘Police! Stop!’ McKay screamed again. The bulkier figure, he realised now, was buried in a heavy dark waterproof. Horton.

  ‘Hold her,’ Horton yelled. ‘Just fucking hold her!’

  McKay grabbed the pale figure, a slender young woman dressed only in flimsy everyday clothes. She wriggled and almost managed to extract her slippery body from his grip, but he threw his arms around her and dragged her back up the beach on to solid ground.

  Horton was wrestling with something large and heavy further down the beach, dragging it away from the waves. It took McKay a moment to realise it was a body. Still gripping the struggling woman, he watched as Horton pulled the body above the tide-line. She was crouching, feeling for a pulse, and then she began pounding on the chest, trying to extract the water from its lungs. Trying, it seemed, to bring the dead back to life.

  She hammered at the body for what seemed an eternity, long after McKay knew there was no chance of success. Finally she stopped and looked up at McKay. ‘I was too late,’ she said. ‘Too bloody late.’

  Almost immediately, the young woman in McKay’s arms relaxed, the fight suddenly gone from her body.

  ‘Safe, then,’ she said. ‘Finally. We’re all safe.’

  ***

  McKay wrapped Elizabeth Hamilton in his own waterproof and led her back to his car, Horton following behind. Hamilton was a passive figure now, meekly accepting McKay’s direction.

  McKay looked back at Horton. ‘We need to get you to hospital. And this one. How are you feeling?’

  Horton fingered the bruise already appearing on her temple. ‘I’ll survive,’

  ‘We need to get you checked.’

  ‘I’ve always said I need my head examined, working for you.’

  ‘Sounds like you’re making a good recovery already.’

  They helped Hamilton into the back seat of the car, and Horton climbed in beside her. ‘Turn on the heater. I’m bloody frozen, never mind her.’

  McKay had called for back-up, including an ambulance, and there was nothing they could do until that arrived. They’d left the bodies at the top of the beach. Strictly speaking, McKay supposed, one of them should have stayed out there, but Horton was neither in a condition to do that nor to look after Hamilton by herself. In any case, he reasoned, he was buggered if either of them was going to get any wetter than they already were.

  ‘I take it that’s John Robbins?’ McKay said, gesturing back to where the bodies lay.

  ‘And Denny Gorman,’ Horton said. ‘No question.’

  ‘Not the best night for a swim,’ McKay said. ‘What’s the story, Lizzie?’

  Hamilton looked at him, as though surprised by the question. ‘We’re safe now. Me. Her.’ She waved her hand towards Horton. ‘All the victims.’

  ‘You did it to make yourself safe?’

  ‘All the victims.’

  ‘Were there many victims, Lizzie?’ Horton said.

  She frowned, thinking. ‘Lots. I don’t know how many. Girls he damaged, like me. He wanted to control them, like he controlled me.’

  ‘How did he control them?’

  She shrugged. ‘He had ways. Power. Money. Violence.’ She stopped. ‘He wanted them to be little girls. Like I used to be. They came to him—they were sent to him—because they were damaged. He said he’d make them better but he wanted to take them back to what they used to be. Make them small again.’ Her eyes were fixed on nothing, as if remembering something from long ago. ‘When he couldn’t control them anymore, when they went away, he went to bring them back. Bring them home. Make them his forever.’

  There was a smile playing round her lips. ‘When I was small, he’d bring me here. He’d make me sit here with him, on the beach. Not playing. Just sitting. Telling me I wasn’t allowed to play because I’d been naughty. Even though I hadn’t. Then later he’d punish me. But first I had to do what he said. Just sit and wait.’ She paused, the smile wider now, as if she were recalling some private joke. ‘Watching the tide come in.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  It was nearly midnight before McKay arrived home. The rain had lessened slightly, but as he’d driven through the city the sky was still fogged with drizzle. The house was in darkness. He pulled into the drive and turned off the engine, sitting for a moment to drink in the silence.

  The aftermath of a major case always took much longer than the investigation itself. Whatever the exact outcome here, there’d be weeks of gathering and collating evidence, preparing documentation, making sure that everyone’s backsides were covered when it eventually came to court. Even the thought exhausted him, but now wasn’t the best time to worry about what the next few weeks would hold.

  He hadn’t realised
till afterwards how shaken he’d been. Or quite how worried about Ginny Horton. She was more than capable of looking after herself, he knew. But that had no doubt been true of most of the officers listed on the memorial plaque in HQ. You could never afford to think the worst. When it came to it, you could only assume that, this time, it would somehow work out all right. That would take you safely through until the time when it didn’t.

  Horton herself had seemed unaffected by her experience. Well, of course she did. She was running on adrenaline. Maybe it would hit her tomorrow. Or sometime in the future. Or not at all. Who knew?

  They’d kept her in overnight at Raigmore for observation, though she’d repeatedly insisted she was fine to leave. The doctors were fairly certain there was no concussion, but no-one was taking any chances. As McKay had been leaving, he’d met Horton’s partner, Isla, who’d turned up to spend the night sitting by the bedside. They’d met briefly at a couple of office social dos, but he couldn’t claim to know her. A lawyer, Horton had said. She was a tall woman with swept back blonde hair, more patrician in manner than Horton. Someone who wouldn’t take any nonsense, McKay thought.

  ‘How is she?’

  ‘She insists she’s fine. And I’m pretty sure she is. Docs just want to keep an eye.’ He was wondering whether the woman was inwardly blaming him for allowing this to happen.

  ‘She’s very resilient. A bit too resilient, sometimes. She won’t let anyone in, you know what I mean?’

  ‘Aye,’ McKay had said. ‘I know exactly what you mean.’ He left the sentence hanging, then said: ‘Take care of her, won’t you?’

  ‘We take care of each other.’

  ‘Aye.’ He’d had nothing else to say, so he’d turned and headed out towards the car park.

  Elizabeth Hamilton was in the same hospital, in a private ward being watched by a couple of uniforms. She’d been sedated so they had no expectation much would happen before morning, but McKay had wanted to take no chances. He didn’t know what mental state the young woman was in. The docs had said she appeared to be in shock and had been on the verge of hypothermia when they brought her in.

  In the morning, assuming she was well enough, she’d be charged with the murders of John Robbins and Denny Gorman. Then, perhaps, they might get a clearer idea of the story.

  Perhaps.

  McKay climbed out of the car with some reluctance. After everything, its womblike warmth felt more enticing than entering that unlit, unloved house. He fumbled for his keys and opened the front door.

  He’d assumed that Chrissie would be in bed. But, even as he opened the door, something about the quality of the silence told him that wasn’t the case. He turned on the hall and landing lights and, without bothering to check the ground floor, made his way up the stairs.

  The door of the main bedroom was open and the bed was empty and undisturbed. He checked the two spares—one of them still decorated in the teenage style Lizzie had chosen before she’d left home. How many years ago? They’d packed away what few possessions she left behind, but never changed the wallpaper or furnishings.

  The downstairs rooms were equally empty, equally tidy. There was a folded sheet of paper in the middle of the kitchen table. He picked it up but dropped it back on to the table without opening it.

  Time enough for that tomorrow, he thought.

  Time enough for everything.

  ***

  ‘So before we organise the press conference,’ Helena Grant said, ‘we are sure he’s our man?’

  ‘As certain as we can be,’ McKay said, already wishing that he could be more so. ‘In the circumstances.’

  ‘It’s not going to come back to bite us?’

  ‘No,’ McKay said, more confidently this time. ‘I’m sure of that.’

  They were in Grant’s office and for once McKay was sitting peaceably in his chair. He looked, she thought, utterly knackered, but that was understandable enough. ‘OK,’ she said, finally. ‘Tell me about it.’

  As it had turned out, Hamilton had been kept under sedation for most of the next day. She’d been running a temperature and the medics had been worried about some kind of infection. Her condition had improved by the following evening, but the police had been dissuaded from taking any further action until she’d had another night’s sleep.

  It had only been that morning, therefore, that McKay had finally been able to charge her with the murders. She looked frail lying in the hospital bed, but seemed calm and unsurprised, a much more coherent figure than the shivering wee thing curled up in the back of his car two nights earlier. The doctors had allowed her to be interviewed, with a warning that the interview should be adjourned if Hamilton showed any significant signs of fatigue. McKay had offered her the option of delaying the interview, but she’d seemed keen to get it over with.

  Horton had been released from hospital after her overnight stay and, despite McKay’s protests, had insisted on returning to work the next day. He’d known there was no point in arguing. She wanted to be there when Hamilton was interviewed and, in the circumstances, McKay felt she’d earned that right.

  ‘Tell us about Denny Gorman first,’ McKay said. He and Horton were seated by Hamilton’s hospital bed. They’d set up the recording equipment close to the bed and arranged for a solicitor to be present, but Hamilton seemed uninterested in those details. The solicitor, a local lad well accustomed to being patronised by McKay, sat making copious notes but saying almost nothing.

  Hamilton took a moment before replying. As she lay there, washed and rested, McKay was struck even more by the resemblance to his own Lizzie. The similarities were only superficial, of course—the pale hair, the slender, vulnerable-looking face and clear blue eyes—but they were sufficient that McKay knew he’d have to control his inclination to protect her. This woman was responsible for two men’s deaths.

  ‘He scared me,’ she said, finally, her voice small.

  ‘Scared you how?’

  ‘He was—you know, he was only interested in one thing. He was like that with all the women who worked in the bar. Hands everywhere. Most came and went pretty quickly. I stayed longer than most.’ She shook her head. ‘It was my fault. I shouldn’t have put up with it.’

  It would be a constant refrain in the interview. My fault. Always my fault. Later, he discovered she’d said the same to Horton when the two women had been alone together in that rain-soaked night. It was, he imagined, what had been drilled into her head by her father. Your fault, Lizzie, always your fault.

  ‘Put up with what?’

  ‘I could see what he was doing. He started off friendly enough. Tried to buy his way into my affections. You know, presents, topping up my pay. But he thought he was owed something for it. Just the usual groping and pawing at first. Then once he tried to force himself on me, but I fought him off and he pretended he’d been joking. He kept trying to get me drunk—’ She stopped, those pale blue eyes staring at McKay. ‘I thought I could look after myself,’ she said. ‘I thought I was big enough and strong enough.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘We were drinking one night after hours. I knew I could hold my drink. Better than he could. And then, suddenly, a couple of drinks in—bang. It hit me like a sledgehammer.’

  McKay exchanged a glance with Horton. ‘Go on.’

  ‘There must have been something in the drink. One of those date-rape drugs, I suppose. I could barely keep upright, could barely think. Next thing he was taking me upstairs, undressing me, putting me in his bed—’

  ‘Can you remember what happened after that?’ Horton said.

  Hamilton shook her hand. ‘Not clearly. But I’m fairly sure he assaulted me. Probably raped me.’ She shivered. ‘I shouldn’t have been so stupid.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault,’ Horton said, firmly. ‘Whatever happened, he did it. Not you.’

  ‘I know, but—’

  ‘Did you report this?’ McKay said.

  ‘No. I didn’t think anyone would believe me. And even if the
y did—’

  They’d think it was your fault, McKay added silently to himself. It was maybe true, if you came up against the wrong officer. And there were still too many of those.

  ‘We understand,’ Horton said. ‘So what happened after that? I mean, with you and Gorman.’

  ‘It was—well, awkward.’ Hamilton smiled at the inappropriateness of her language. ‘Listen to me. Awkward. I left before he was up the next morning. I remember going home and standing under a scalding shower, trying to wash myself clean of him.’

  ‘But you went back to the bar?’

  ‘There was nothing else I could do. Not straight away. I needed the money. But we both knew, even though neither of us would say anything. I started looking for other work. There wasn’t much going locally, but I thought I’d find something before long.’ There was a long pause, as if she was trying to find the right words. ‘Then, a couple of weeks later, I started to think I might be pregnant. I was—well, late, you know. And if I was pregnant there could only be one candidate.’

  ‘Gorman?’

  ‘There was no-one else. I got into an almighty panic. I mean, I couldn’t afford to have a child anyway, but Gorman—’ It was as if she was reliving that panic now, McKay thought. The look of horror in those blue eyes. ‘I didn’t know what the hell to do. In the end, I could think of only one thing.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘I called my father.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  McKay had called a short break at that point, conscious of the emotions he could read in Hamilton’s eyes. He and Horton left Hamilton with the solicitor, while they retreated to a nearby coffee vending machine to compare notes.

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘It ties in with what Gorman told us.’ Horton took a sip of her coffee and grimaced. ‘Christ, must be kill or cure in this place. But, yes, it all rings true. Whether it justifies what she did—’