Weirdo

by Cathi Unsworth

  Her former form teacher, Philip Pearson BSc, testified that it was the same depiction as one of the paintings he had caught the sixteen-year-old Samantha Lamb defacing on the school wall, the day before Moorcock was killed by those same hands that had covered the original with obscenities in black marker pen. Although, like Dr Radcliffe, he had no idea where Moorcock’s idea had originated, also assuming it had been sketched from life along the local beaches.

  Janice Mathers had been able to tell them all where it was from. The cover of Darren Moorcock’s favourite – or maybe second favourite, he had never had the time to really decide – LP. Some of the jury had been moved to weep at the irony of its title: Heaven up Here.

  This time, when all the evidence had been presented before the court, including the testimonies of Pearson, Sheila Alcott and Paul Gray, the real tragedies at the heart of this case had finally been allowed to emerge. Darren Moorcock as a person who had lived and breathed and dreamed of his future, rather than a sensational element in a lurid farce. Corrine Woodrow as a girl whose unfortunate circumstances, including her unsuspected blood ties to the man who had been allowed to take charge of the original investigation, had been spun into the deadliest propaganda, effectively robbing her of the rest of her life too.

  The only point that the QC had not been able to fully prove was that the pentagram drawn around the corpse in the victim’s blood had been added to help frame Corrine as a devil-worshipping murderess after the body was found. Former DS Gray reiterated on oath that he could not remember seeing it when he made the discovery. His former colleague Alf Brown was equally adamant that he had – and his original crime-scene photographs appeared as unequivocal evidence. But by then, Brown was the only member of the original murder squad who was left in a position to testify.

  DS Andrew Kidd and DS Jason Blackburn had both been dismissed, pending their own trials for misconduct brought by the Independent Police Complaints Commission. Rivett was in the ground and Smollet, unable to come to terms with events, had resigned on medical grounds.

  Mathers had some sympathy for Smollet, unaware that he had also been set up by Rivett, to shield his best friend’s murderous progeny for the past two decades with the myopia of his love. But then, the QC had never thought that Smollet was really all that bright.

  She had always known that it would take an outsider to see through the complex web woven by those two terrible old men in that small town so long ago, to see what had been hiding under everybody’s noses all along. Sean Ward had brought it down strand by strand, revealing both the arrogance and ignorance of Leonard Rivett in the process.

  From what they had managed to piece together, Rivett’s last act had been an attempt to murder Francesca Ryman and frame his protégé for it. The gun he had aimed at her was Smollet’s police issue, removed from the safe in his office without the DCI’s knowledge. Documents linking Smollet’s marriage to Samantha and the business assets he acquired through it had been left on the desk of the Leisure Beach office, along with a tell-tale photograph of Samantha and her mother. Rivett had intended to make the scene look as if Smollet had stumbled into a break-in that would have given the Ernemouth Mercury editor the evidence she needed to tie up the business interests between the Hoyle and Rivett families, while pointing Ward towards the identity of the person with the phantom DNA.

  It hadn’t take Mathers long to ascertain that the identity of the DNA match Rivett provided for Ward was a fake: the biker, Adrian Hall, had gone under a lorry ten years ago, another of Rivett’s dark little jokes. Perhaps he had intended to reveal Samantha Smollet’s identity after her husband had been safely arrested, claiming it as part of a strategy to draw him out – while getting rid of Ryman with the same stone. But Ryman and Ward had no idea how Rivett had been one step ahead of them when they started down this trail.

  The premises of The Ship Hotel, where Ward has been staying, were searched for clues and the landlady’s son was found to be a computer expert. Damon Boone had admitted that he let Rivett use his computers and had taught him some elementary programmes, but maintained that he had no idea to what end the man he considered to be an old family friend was using them for. After due consideration, and with a lack of any other evidence, he had been let off without any charges.

  Rivett’s belief that he was both indestructible and impenetrable had been his downfall. His doctor had warned him of a heart murmur, told him to give up the booze and the cigars and all the rich food. But even in death there was still something of a last laugh in it for him. He had evaded both capture and public scrutiny. Still, Ryman was writing up as much of the truth as anyone could discern, for the record at least.

  Samantha Smollet would not have to stand trial either. Once a fresh test had matched her to the phantom DNA, she had been admitted to a high-security hospital – long before the appeal took place and the public had a new face to focus their outrage on. Not for her the hysteria of the mob. Where she was, not even the front pages of the tabloids could reach. She had swapped places with Corrine one last time.

  “I’ll leave you two alone,” said Dr Radcliffe. “Knock on the door when you need me.”

  Mathers nodded her thanks, stepped inside the room and waited for him to close the door. Corrine turned her head slowly. As the QC walked towards her, her gaze fell to the paper stretched across the covers of the narrow single bed.

  It was blue, so blue. The long stretch of the sea, the seagulls taking off from the shoreline, the four figures standing there, hunched against the wind. She had lost count of how many times she had stared into this picture, willing with all her might that the figure on the second from the right, the one he had modelled his hair on, would somehow turn around and that she would see Darren’s smiling face again. But, unlike Corrine, she did not believe in magic. When, many years before, she had changed her own name, she had chosen the surname Mathers as a dark joke, a way of proving, once and for all, that there was nothing to the superstition and folklore that had brought down this disaster on them in the first place.

  That book, the one that everyone had mentioned at the original trial, but that no one could actually produce, that book that had sent Corrine and Darren down to the pillbox and their damnation, had been written by Aleister Crowley and Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers. But Crowley was the only one anybody mentioned. Everyone always forgot about Mathers.

  She put her hand down gently on Corrine’s shoulder, looking through the painting now, another image replacing it. At last, she thought, I can leave him there, in peace.

  Darren Moorcock, her one and only love, still young and beautiful on the shore of memory, his eyes an iridescent blue, captured in the last golden rays of the sun.

  “Reenie,” she said, “it’s safe now. We can go.”

  Acknowledgements

  For those interested in finding out more about Captain Swing, the book recommended by Mr Farrer, Unquiet Country: Voices of the Rural Poor 1820–1880 by Robert Lee (Windgather Press) was a major inspiration for this book. Mr Farrer would also recommend Captain Swing by Eric J. Hobsbawm and George Rude (Pheonix).

  My most profound thanks to Caroline Montgomery for every piece of advice and support during the making of this book and those previous, none of this would have been possible without you. Likewise to John Williams for all your wisdom, patience and insight, Pete Ayrton for being The Unsinkable Lord of Misrule and Doreen Montgomery for always being awesome.

  This book owes a large one to Dr Theodore Koulouris, for invaluable help on all that is Greek to me, Ruth Bayer for consulting her crystal ball and The Lone Ranter for embodying the spirit of Captain Swing. Special thanks also to Mum and Dad, Lynn and Kriss Knights, and Paul Willetts for the Remembrance of Things Past.

  Champagne for my dear friends, Pete Woodhead, Joe McNally, Ann Scanlon, Emma and Paul Murphy, Lynn Taylor, Richard Newson, Benedict Newbery, David Knight, Martyn Waites, Cath Meekin, Danny Meekin, Frances Meekin, Danny Snee, Eva Snee, Meg Davis, Ross MacFarlane, Phoebe Harkins
, Chris ‘I can’t walk’ Simmons, Jay Clifton and Vanessa Lawrence, Billy Chainsaw, Damjana and Predrag Finci, Lydia Lunch, Max Décharne and Katja Klier, Mark Pilkington, Mike Jay and Louise Burton, Fen Oswin, Stephen Prince, Roger K. Burton, James Hollands and Dr Paddy, Ken and Rachel Hollings, Raphael Abraham, Jake Arnott, David Peace, Stewart Home, Marc Glendening, David Fogarty and All The Good Sohemians. Cheers to my fellow drinkers in a certain pub not unlike Captain Swing’s: Hel, Luke and Adam Cox, Sal Pittman, Andi Sapey, Marc Fireman and Shaun Connon. Glasses charged for the assistance and support of Anna-Marie Fitzgerald, Rebecca Gray and Niamh Murray at Serpent’s Tail, Guy Sangster Adams at Plectrum: The Cultural Pick, Andrew Stevens at 3AM, Suzy and Ian Lowey-Prince at Nude (RIP), Katie Allen at Fat Quarter, Dave Collins at Planet Mondo, Jane Bradley at For Books’ Sake, Danny Bowman at Pulp Press, Alan Kelly in Psychoville, and all at The Bishopsgate Institute and Housman’s Bookshop. Salutations to François and Benjamin Guerif, Karine Lalechere, Jeanne Guyon, Hind Boutaljante, Estelle Durand, Claire Duvivier, Thomas Bauduret and Ced Fabre.

  Special Reserve for my dearest Mr M, Michael Meekin – you will always be the guv’nor.

  The music of Bauhaus, Crass, The Cravats, Echo & The Bunnymen, Joolz, Killing Joke, The Mob, New Model Army, Poison Girls, Public Image Ltd, Theatre of Hate, Shock Headed Peters, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Sisters of Mercy, Southern/Death/Cult and Spear of Destiny – who made the worst of times into the best of times.

  And in loving memory of Carol Clerk, Charlie Gillett and Paul ‘Hofner’ Nesbitt – Heaven Born and Ever Bright …

  Stanza from ‘Some Man’s Business’ reproduced by kind permission of Benedict Newbery.

  Lyrics from Vengeance by New Model Army reproduced by kind permission of Justin Sullivan.