Seeking the Dead

by Kate Ellis

  Jeff spoke with straightforward honesty and Joe doubted whether anybody could have put on such a convincing act. As the informal interview progressed, Joe found himself accepting Jeff’s version of events, which, as far as he could judge, had the ring of truth.

  Jeff swore that he hadn’t seen Jane Pyke since his arrival in Eborby and he had no idea how his new details had come to be in her address book. It was a complete mystery and, besides, why on earth should he wish to make contact with the girl who had almost wrecked his life? This was a question Joe had asked himself. It hardly seemed to make sense. In fact he thought it far more likely that Jane Pyke had traced Jeff’s whereabouts for some reason known only to herself. Gemma had hinted at an obsession and this certainly fitted with what he already knew of the young woman’s strange and disturbed character. It was just Jeff Timmons’s misfortune that she’d chosen him as the object of her twisted affection.

  ‘I hope all this isn’t making it difficult for Emily at work,’ Jeff said as Joe prepared to take his leave. ‘She’s worked bloody hard to get where she is and none of this is her fault.’

  Joe smiled but said nothing that might be taken down and used in dinner table chat. He had to stay neutral, professional. And there was always the possibility, albeit infinitesimally slight, that his judgement was wrong. Stranger things had happened.

  It had all been dealt with. But it had been done much earlier than the killer would have liked. These things were best when there was a long period of anticipation before they were savoured slowly.

  The body of Terry Jevons had been taken from its temporary resting place and put in the back of the van, wrapped carefully in plastic sheeting, a transparent shroud that allowed a distorted glimpse of the victim’s face … like a drowned corpse viewed underwater. It was important to get everything right. There must be no fingerprints left or any traces that could lead to his discovery.

  The choice of the last resting place was the killer’s and his alone. Mabworth church. Fourteenth century. Such a pretty place. Mother had liked it when they had visited a few years ago.

  He would move under cover of darkness. That was always best. But he had a dilemma. If Carmel Hennessy made herself available, he would have to strike, to carry her alive in the van along with Jevons’s corpse. He didn’t like the idea … it offended against his sense of neatness, of order. But the Seeker knew best. Carmel Hennessy was one of them. And they had to be destroyed before they destroyed him.

  The killer climbed out of the van and walked slowly towards Vicars Green. He usually took them off the street, took them by surprise with a blow to the head to stun them. But there was no guarantee that Carmel Hennessy would come out of her flat during the hours of darkness. Maybe it would have to be different this time. Perhaps he would have to come to her.

  He reached Vicars Green, walking past the National Trust teashop until he found himself outside number five. He stood and looked up at the house: it stood a little forward from the rest of the row of ancient buildings, its whitewashed top floor protruding slightly over the pavement.

  He smiled to himself. His mission would be easy this time. A piece of cake.

  Suddenly the killer spotted someone walking across the green, making for the house, and stepped back into the shadows, holding his breath as the visitor rang the top doorbell of number five.

  The caller didn’t have to wait long before the door was answered by a young, dark-haired woman. She greeted her visitor with a cautious smile and stood aside to let him into the house.

  Carmel Hennessy had company. He hadn’t taken that possibility into account. Perhaps he would have time to deal with the mortal remains of Terry Jevons before undertaking his next assignment after all.

  One thing at a time, he thought as he drove off into the night.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The call came through at eight twelve a.m. precisely. There was a body in Mabworth churchyard, the caller said, seemingly unaware that this was one of the oldest jokes in the book. But the woman in the communications headquarters knew this wasn’t some kids dialling 999 for a laugh. This body in the churchyard was above the ground rather than six feet below. It was male and it was naked. It was another of them.

  A couple of phone calls set the full machinery in motion and at eight forty-five Joe found himself driving north to the village of Mabworth with Emily yawning by his side.

  ‘Wonder who it is,’ Joe mused as they drove.

  Emily didn’t answer. She’d had a quick look through their list of local missing persons and concluded that it could be any of them. She was keeping an open mind.

  She had left Jeff in bed that morning. He had a headache, he claimed. A slight hangover from the night before when he’d gone to the pub. He’d gone alone because he fancied a drink after a day spent with the kids. Emily had said nothing. Men went to pubs alone to meet people … to get chatting over a pint. It was all quite normal, she told herself. But then his name and their new address had been in Janna Pyke’s address book and the doubts had come creeping into her brain in the small hours of the morning. Could she really be married to a murderer? But Joe Plantagenet had interviewed him and he’d seemed satisfied with his story – he had even observed that getting hold of Jeff’s new address was just the sort of thing a weirdo like Jane Pyke would do. In the brightness of a North Yorkshire morning her suspicions about Jeff seemed laughable. She knew Jeff wasn’t capable of such things. And yet in the course of her career she’d met so many murderers’ wives who’d convinced themselves of their loved ones’ innocence and this thought made her uncomfortable.

  Mabworth was a pretty North Yorkshire village on the edge of the National Park. An area of outstanding natural beauty … and the not quite so final resting place of their latest corpse.

  Emily and Joe climbed out of the car and assessed the situation. Joe hadn’t mentioned Jeff so far that morning and for this she felt rather grateful. She turned her mind to the matter in hand. The local police had sealed off the area in a calm, efficient manner to preserve the crime scene. Not that it was likely that it was the crime scene: if this latest murder followed the pattern, the man – whoever he was – had died elsewhere.

  It was a cool morning and a chill breeze blew from the east, whipping round the bulk of the church, which was perched on high ground at the edge of the village. The scenes of crime people and the pathologist had already arrived and Joe and Emily waited, clutching their thin summer jackets around them, until the body had been examined in situ before stepping forward to get a better look.

  The corpse lay there naked on the grass in the shadow of a tall memorial, a lichen-covered statue of an angel. His pallid, waxy flesh was stained dark where the blood had sunk and settled and he stared upwards, his lips drawn back in a snarl of agony. His hadn’t been an easy death.

  ‘Well, that’s a turn-up for the books,’ Joe said quietly after a few seconds.

  ‘Terry Jevons,’ said Emily.

  ‘The man himself. The Master. The man who raped Amy.’

  ‘He was supposed to be the killer not the victim,’ Emily said softly. ‘Where do we go from here?’

  ‘Goodness knows,’ Joe replied. Things were getting more complicated by the minute. ‘How about starting at the House of Terrors?’

  Emily nodded in agreement. It was as good a place to begin as any.

  James Waters sat at Terry Jevons’s desk in the office behind the House of Terrors, twisting the leather swivel chair gently to and fro, relishing the warm glow of being in charge, of telling others what to do. He wasn’t particularly worried about Terry. Terry Jevons was a man who could take care of himself. And it was hardly surprising that he’d decided to disappear after what had happened at the Black Hen. It had all gone too far. Especially when Terry had pointed the finger at that woman, Gloria, who, up till then, had been up for anything.

  Terry had told her she was going to die and everyone knew he’d really meant it. They had sensed it in the way he pronounced sentence, by
the glazed, staring look in his cold grey eyes as he savoured the power he had over life and death. And, in the frenzied atmosphere of that night, it had just seemed like the natural progression … the next step along the path. A blood sacrifice.

  But the next morning, away from the disturbing darkness of that cellar room and back in the sunlight of sanity, it had seemed like a mad dream, an aberration. But James knew that Terry hadn’t seen it that way. He had been excited by the power he had exercised over everybody there and over the girl, Amy, in particular. And the thought of that ultimate power over life and death had thrilled and exhilarated him to such an extent that he’d lost touch with reality. James was convinced he would have gone ahead with his plans if Gloria had been compliant and other things hadn’t got in the way. There had been a loss of control; an abandonment of all normal inhibitions; a mob following a charismatic and crazy leader. It had happened so easily that it was frightening.

  The door to the office swung open, interrupting James’s thoughts. When DCI Emily Thwaite strode into the room followed by the man James recognised as Inspector Plantagenet, he stood up, his legs shaking a little with nerves. He looked at the pair expectantly. Maybe it was time to come clean and tell them the lot. After all, it had been Terry’s idea. Nothing to do with him.

  But Emily spoke first. She came straight out with it. Jevons was dead, seemingly the victim of the Resurrection Man. Did James know of any next of kin? The answer was no. When was he last seen? The answer was three days ago. James had gone to his flat and found it empty. That was all he knew about his boss’s disappearance.

  The police insisted on closing the House of Terrors while they questioned the staff and James acquiesced without complaint, feeling a little sick. No longer in control.

  Joe sat down opposite James and looked him in the eye. ‘We know all about the rape that took place at the Black Hen. Were you there?’

  James stared at the desk. ‘Yes,’ he whispered. ‘I didn’t think he’d go that far, honestly I didn’t. Me and my girlfriend gave the girl, Amy, a lift home and dropped her outside her house. She was in a terrible state. Hetty said we couldn’t just leave her wandering about.’

  ‘That’s very considerate of you,’ said Emily. James could hear the heavy sarcasm in her voice. ‘You never thought to tell the police that a serious crime had been committed?’

  ‘I’m telling you now,’ he answered, the seeds of defiance in his voice.

  ‘Anything else to tell us?’

  James nodded and took a deep breath. He might as well get it over with. He proceeded to tell them about Jevons’s plans for Gloria; how she’d been chosen for death – to make the ultimate sacrifice. When he had finished, Joe and Emily’s eyes met in unspoken understanding. It explained a lot.

  They left James uncertain whether charges would be brought against him. But that was Joe and Emily’s intention. To make him sweat.

  Now that Jevons was dead, the field of suspects was wide open again. There was Joe’s tree and forest theory … that meant virtually everyone connected with the case might be a suspect. Or there was the alternative, and probably more feasible, theory that the victims were linked in some way as yet undiscovered. Or, of course, there was the most unpalatable theory of all – that the killer was a madman who slaughtered at random for his own twisted reasons. That was the theory that Joe found most depressing – and probably the most likely.

  And it seemed that the killer was allowing less time between murders now – he was getting cocky, too confident by half. Which meant he had to be caught quickly – taken off the streets before he claimed more victims.

  Just as Joe settled down at his desk, Jamilla appeared, smiling shyly and clutching a thin file.

  ‘Just thought you’d like to know, sir. John Wendal’s wife called earlier. He’s being allowed home from hospital today. And I rang the psychiatric department. They said that Gloria Simpson’s been sectioned and she’ll be staying in for treatment.’

  ‘Poor woman,’ said Joe, earning himself a curious look from Jamilla. As far as she was concerned Gloria had attacked an innocent man, causing a car crash, and hardly deserved anybody’s sympathy.

  ‘And do you remember that travel agent Carla Yates ran off with? The one who died?’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘You wanted to trace his widow. I’ve made some enquiries and I’ve looked through the local electoral register but there’s no mention of her. Perhaps she’s moved out of the area.’

  ‘Perhaps she has.’ Joe felt a momentary pang of guilt for sending Jamilla on a fruitless errand. Suddenly another idea popped unbidden into his head. He looked at Jamilla’s eager young face and thought he’d take a chance.

  ‘The killer’s been leaving all the victims’ clothes outside the Mirebridge Hospice charity shop. Perhaps our man has some connection with the hospice. Perhaps a relative was a patient there. Get on to the matron and see if you can get a list of all their patients, will you, Jamilla? I think the last five years is enough to be going on with.’

  Jamilla smiled bravely. It was a long shot but it was worth a try.

  Carmel strolled over to her office window and looked out. She was sure that the white van parked outside had been there earlier that morning. But perhaps she was mistaken. One white van looked very much like another. Although this one had some kind of white plastic cover stuck on the side, obscuring a name or logo underneath. But she could still make out the letter that peeped out beyond the edge. The letter K.

  She returned to the report she was preparing for Peta Thewlis and thought no more about it. She was anxious to get things right. Peta had been on edge for the past few days and it was rumoured she had berated one of the girls working in the shop for making a mistake which resulted in a till roll being inserted wrongly and several purchases left unrecorded. And the nagging interference of the police, always round asking questions about those carrier bags, hadn’t helped her mood.

  Carmel sighed and read the report through for a third time. A white van is just a white van.

  Dr Keith Webster wasn’t one of nature’s vandals. He loathed wanton damage to anything. Even to one of the unlovely grey metal lockers that stood in the basement of the history department, placed there to accommodate any possessions the students wished to leave in the department on a temporary basis.

  As he approached locker number 379 he looked around to make sure he was alone, all the time listening for approaching footsteps on the stairs. When he reached his destination he produced a screwdriver from the pocket of his linen jacket and thrust it into the space between the frame and the door.

  He really wasn’t any good at this sort of thing, he thought as he attempted to lever the door open. Up till that moment he’d never regretted his law-abiding youth but now he wished he’d been a little less studious and a little more worldly. But in spite of his inexperience in matters mildly criminal, he felt a glow of satisfaction as the locker door swung open.

  It was there … lying on the shelf in front of him. He had seen it so many times, the file with the pattern of Celtic swirls on the front; the file he knew contained the research for Janna’s dissertation. She had taken it out of her bag and placed it on the desk during their many discussions and it had lain there between them as they talked.

  His hands shook a little as he took it out of the locker, intending to take it back to his office and study it at his leisure. Then something else caught his eye. A notebook with a padded denim cover. He’d never seen it before and his curiosity got the better of him so he reached in and picked it up.

  He looked round to check that he was still alone before opening the small denim book. The lined pages inside were covered with Janna’s spidery handwriting. Keith had found that writing hard to decipher when they had first met but experience meant that he now found it easy to understand. And from what he had read so far, he guessed that he had found some sort of diary.

  Full of curiosity about Janna’s secret thoughts concerning himself, Ke
ith Webster slipped the book inside the file, pushed the locker door firmly shut and headed straight for his office.

  That evening Joe Plantagenet took an assortment of files home with him. The atmosphere of the incident room was hardly conductive to creative thought and he needed to go through the files on his own, undisturbed, to pore over them and turn the facts over in his mind until they began to make sense.

  After making himself a plate of pasta with a sauce straight from a jar, he switched off his mobile phone and settled down to read the files spread out on the coffee table in front of him.

  One by one he read through all the statements carefully, looking for discrepancies. But by seven thirty he’d found nothing and his eyes were beginning to sting with the effort of concentration.

  There must be something there. Something he’d missed. In the end he decided that a break would do him good and switched on the TV to find that he was just in time to witness the first scene of a popular soap opera.

  He lounged self-indulgently on the sofa, but after ten minutes idleness began to pall and he left the soap opera characters to their own devices for a few moments while he went to the kitchen to fetch a bottle of Theakstons Old Peculier, a glass and a bottle opener. If he was snatching half an hour of leisure he might as well do things properly.

  As he poured the golden liquid into the glass he took his eyes off the screen for a few seconds, only to look up again when he heard the squeal of brakes and a dull thud as some actor coming to the end of his or her contract met an untimely end.

  Suddenly he put his glass down and scrabbled amongst the files, trying to find the relevant sheets of paper. There was something he wanted to check.

  He picked up the telephone and punched out the number that was listed in the file for Harold Uckley’s widow. But there was no answer.