by G H Mockford
Then, in a single, terrifying moment of clarity, he realized that like many animals in traditional tales, he had been tricked by a wolf.
Seventy-Six
I staggered. It wasn’t Richard. In fact, it was the last person that I would have thought of. I tried to put it together. How had he come in possession of Sarah’s keys? Why would he want to hurt her?
I heard a cough from behind me. It was a doctor. ‘I’m afraid your time is up now, Alex and I’m going to have to ask you to leave. I want you to go home to bed now, and Sarah needs you to as well.’
Like hell I was. I thought of Paul. He’d want to know this information. This person was likely to be the one who had Charlie. Paul had said earlier today that it was a person he trusted, a second family to his daughter. ‘Yes doctor,’ I answered. I didn’t recognize him, he wasn’t Dr Howell. ‘Can I just say goodbye?’
‘Of course,’ the doctor replied. He didn’t move away or give us any privacy.
‘Goodnight, Sarah,’ I said as I kissed her forehead one more time and hoped that indeed when she did wake up it would be all over.
I had no problem getting a taxi from outside the hospital. It was seven thirty, but the roads were quite deserted, what with it being a Saturday. I got to Paul’s house, apologised to the taxi driver and told him I had no money, but my friend did. He barely disguised his anger and disbelief.
I hammered on Paul 's door and looked up. Paul’s curtains twitched, and a few moments later he appeared at the door in a towelling robe. ‘Alex?’ he said sleepily.
‘I need money for the taxi,’ I said. ‘Quick, I’ve important news.’
‘Come in,’ Paul said.
I stepped inside. I imagined the taxi driver having a fit as he saw his fee disappear, probably wishing he’d never taken a Manor Park fare in the first place. Paul left the door open to reassure him, and retrieved his wallet from the coffee table. The taxi pulled away the moment he was paid.
‘What is it?’ Paul asked as soon as he closed the door.
‘Get dressed,’ I said.
‘Why? What’s going on?’
‘Sarah’s woken up. I know who attacked her.’ I was bouncing around the kitchen. I felt pumped up and over confident and likely to do something foolish, like going after him.
‘Who is it?’ Paul asked.
I got my Blackberry out and checked the history in my internet browser. I selected the BT Phonebook page. It had worked before and hopefully it would work again. ‘Who is it?!’ Paul repeated. ‘You’re as bad as Charlie. Put the bloody phone down and answer me.’ I held up my finger to signal him to wait as I typed in the surname. I didn’t know where the man I was looking for lived, so just put Nottingham. I pressed Find.
‘Alex?’
The page loading bar crawled across the top of the screen as it accessed the 4G network.
‘Alex, for Christ’s sake!’
The page finished loading and I scrolled down the names. ‘Shit!’ I uttered as I read the address that went with the name.
‘What? For fucks sake, stop pissing around. What is it?’
‘He lives on your bloody street!’ I held up the phone for Paul to see.
‘Who?!’ Paul said as he squinted at my phone's tiny screen. ‘C. Goodhand, number 23,’ he said, reading it out.
‘Where is it?’ I asked.
‘It’s right bloody opposite!’ Paul shot out of the kitchen. He took me by surprise and by the time I followed after him he was pulling back the living room curtains and looking through the window. ‘C. Goodhand. Goodhand? That’s Jackie’s name, she has a brother called…’ Paul turned to me, his mouth open wide.
‘Connor,’ I finished for him.
Seventy-Seven
The morning briefing went well and Rees was pleased with himself. Three sergeants had been assigned to him. One, DS Helland, was being a bit of a jerk about Rees being in charge, but the others seemed happy to receive orders. It turned out the officer from the Child Protection Unit had some good ideas and Rees tasked one of the sergeants, Berridge, to work with her. Rees knew her well and was certain she would work effectively with the female members of the CPU team.
The Exhibit’s Officer, Booth, filled them in on what the SOCO team had been able to find out so far. There was plenty, but none of it was able to be matched to anyone on record. Neither Rollins nor Freeman had any previous, Rees reminded himself.
With the teams sent on their way, Rees and Stokes took their unmarked Skoda into Manor Park.
‘Not much of a manor or a park, is it?’ Stokes said as they drove through the dirty, dreary streets.
‘There was, once upon a time,’ Rees began. ‘There’s quite a story behind it. Belonged to some Norman knight. Some people think it’s connected to the Robin Hood legend. Anyway, the Knight was killed in the Crusades and he had no heir. Eventually some lord in the seventieth century took over, but then plague struck. The people of the surrounding villages of Sneinton, Bridgford, and the like, slowly stole the stone to build their own houses, and eventually the park was built upon.’
‘You should have been a history teacher,’ Stokes said.
‘Why, because I make the past come alive?’
‘No. You just reminded me of my old history teacher. Only, without the B.O.’
Rees looked across at the young DC unsure what he was getting at. He had certainly changed over the last couple of days. Maybe he had been right about Stokes needing a juicy case to get him to come out of his shell. Maybe he was coming out a little too much.
‘It’s that one,’ Stokes said, pointing to a house on the right-hand side of the street. Rees swung in and parked up. They both climbed out and Stokes knocked on Paul Blackmore’s door.
There was no answer.
‘Knock again,’ Rees said as his phone rang. He answered it and listened. ‘Thanks. Call the QMC back and tell them we’re on our way, and don’t let the doctor give you any shit about her not being ready to be interviewed.’ Rees put the phone back in his pocket.
‘He’s not in,’ Stokes said.
‘No problem. Sarah Alec’s awake. Let’s go and find out what she can tell us, and then we can come back for Mr Blackmore and talk to him about his daughter.’
Seventy-Eight
Paul broke in and we both stepped through Connor’s front door, and into the living room. I remembered how hours earlier I had seen a man come out of the house with a girl. Had I in fact seen Connor and Charlie leaving the house? I glanced across at Paul and wondered if I should tell him. I was a coward and kept it to myself as it wouldn’t achieve anything.
The house, the layout of which was a mirror image of Paul’s, was immaculately clean, even tidier than mine, but then it had hardly anything in it. The front room had a worn out sofa, a TV, X-Box and a stack of DVDs and games. The walls were adorned with posters and paintings of wolves stuck up with blu-tac. In some, they were howling at the moon, in others running through a forest.
We moved into the kitchen. It was spotless.
Paul rushed upstairs and I followed behind, my heart beating fast as the tension, fear and excitement grew. We had no way of knowing what we would find up there and I hoped we wouldn’t discover anything that would tip Paul into a murderous frenzy.
The front room was Connor’s bedroom. The bed was made. A computer, with a blinking orange light and a printer sat in the corner. There was a telescope on a tripod in the window. Paul rushed over to it and he was about to look through it when I stopped him.
‘Look,’ I said, stepping back from the window. Rees and Stokes were knocking on Paul’s door. I wasn’t sure if it was a good or a bad thing we had missed them, and they must have literally pulled up as we came inside. We watched them get back into their car and drive away.
Paul looked through the telescope. He turned and looked at me, but said nothing. Then he pushed past me to check out the last bedroom. When I looked through it, it was pointed straight at Charlie’s bedroom.
I felt compell
ed to look at the computer with its winking orange light. I wiggled the mouse and after a few torturous seconds the screen came to life and revealed Internet Explorer. The site showed photographs of rock faces with red arrows pointing to key features. I read the text that ran alongside them. It seemed to show routes up the steep face, but there was a lot of technical language I didn’t understand.
‘Alex!’ Paul sounded urgent, and a little afraid.
‘Hang on,’ I called as I looked at Connor’s favourites bar. I remembered something Connor had told me. He was going away this weekend to a B&B so he could do some rock climbing. Hell, he’d even invited me to join in!
‘Alex!’ This time Paul’s voice was more a bark, a command.
‘What is it?’
‘You need to see this,’ Paul shouted. I turned from the computer and followed the hallway to the bedroom door. I pushed it open and walked in. The place was a shrine. The room was empty save for a double bed, surprisingly made up in a purple delicately embroidered quilt. Above the bed was an A1 canvas photo portrait of Charlie. The adjacent wall was covered with A4 photos which, by the looks of things, had been printed out by the computer in the bedroom. They were all of Charlie. In many, she was sitting in the quadrangle at school by herself and reading. Some were close ups. Some, you could see that he’d tried to be artistic and they were taken somewhere else.
‘That’s at his mother’s. ‘Look,’ he said, pointing to one of Charlie sat in a garden, ‘that’s Jackie in the background.’
‘Paul,’ I said tugging on his arm, ‘we’ve seen enough.’
I expected him to snap at me and lash out, but he didn’t. He walked backwards out of the room and closed the door. ‘He has her, doesn’t he,’ Paul stated.
‘We don’t know that. Besides,’ I said barely even convincing myself, ‘she texted you last night.’
‘He could have sent that message to me. He could have used her phone. He would have known exactly what to say. He knows her. He’s known her for the last three years. I’ve met him a few times, but he always seemed a bit shy around me. Now I know why.’
I stood still for a moment, wondering what to do.
‘He has her. He’s clearly obsessed,’ Paul said, waving his arm at the bedroom door.
I knew that convincing him to go to the police would be useless, but I had an idea. ‘I think I know where we can find him.’
‘Where?’
I jerked my head for him to follow me and went back into the main bedroom. I stood next to the computer. I opened a new tab in Internet Explorer and clicked on the saved favourite I had seen earlier. The website for Doxie’s Doorstep B&B appeared on the screen. I moved out of the way so Paul could look, and I could load my map app on my phone. I typed in the postcode in the corner of the screen.
‘He’s here,’ I said holding the phone out for Paul to see.
‘That’s too small. I’ve a road atlas in the car.’ Then he said something that surprised me. ‘You drive. I’m too pumped up. I might do something stupid, and crash.’
‘Let’s go,’ I said, turning. We both left the room and went downstairs. As I hoped, Paul didn’t notice that I left the PC on.
Once we returned to Paul’s home, he got dressed in black jeans and a biker jacket, and we hit the road. We got to Derby at nine thirty, and the roads were already clogged with Saturday shoppers. Once we were clear of the city and on the A53, we picked up speed. Later, as we made our way along the A523, I was forced to slow down because of the speed cameras. Paul tried to encourage me to move faster, but thankfully I couldn’t because all the other traffic in front was obeying the speed limit.
We arrived at Leek and Paul directed me back onto the A53 and then out onto winding country lanes. The views were spectacular – all rolling hills and lakes. And rock faces.
And, one lonely B&B.
Seventy-Nine
It had been a busy few hours. Rollins had made a bit of a mess when he hit the rock below, even though it was only a fall of about twenty metres. It was maybe three times higher than Smart Alec had fallen, but the extra distance had sure made a big difference.
Travelling back to Doxie’s Doorstep, Connor found a wheelbarrow propped up against the back of the garage. It had deep sides, probably designed to collect and hold leaves in the autumn, and now it would hold Richard Rollins’ broken, worthless body. Like leaves, he would eventually break down to make compost, and continue God’s wonderful creation.
Pushing the barrow up to the crag had been easier than Connor expected and it was only right at the end that it proved to be tricky. Leaving the barrow behind, he climbed up to Richard’s ruined body and dragged him down the last bit, leaving a dark red smear behind. Rollins’ head bounced and cracked against the rocks as his body slid over the well-worn stone. Throwing the body into the barrow, Connor pushed it down to the house and began to sing ‘Whistle While You Work’ just as he sometimes did when he was maintaining Byron Comp.
Connor checked on A.J. and Tray before going up to the double room. He slowly opened the door and peered in at the girl. She didn’t move or respond. She must have been asleep. Quietly closing the door behind him, so as to not wake her up, Connor returned to the wheelbarrow. He pushed it around to the front of the house enjoying the sound it made as it passed over the gravel. Unlocking A.J.’s brand new Range Rover Evoque with the keys from the pot by the front door, Connor bundled the body into the back of the large 4X4.
He drove the vehicle off the driveway and down the winding roads. The first climbers had just started to arrive and Connor hadn’t had a chance to clean up the blood, but that couldn’t be helped now. Hopefully, they would just think someone had taken a nasty fall.
Connor kept following the road until he reached a turning he knew would take him to a nearby lake, or reservoir, he wasn’t quite sure. Pulling over, he walked back to the dry stone wall, which ran parallel to the road. He spent a few minutes selecting the largest, heaviest triangular shaped stone he could from the top of the wall, then he drove down the rutted track and stopped ten metres from the water’s edge.
It was a reservoir, he decided, as the side was built up with concrete to protect it. Jumping out of the car he took a closer look at the water. There was a five-metre drop, no doubt due to the drought. Built into the wall was a large pipe, which water trickled out of. He suspected that when it rained, or when the snow melted, water gushed forth like the Great Flood.
He went back to the car and pulled Rollins’ body out of the spacious boot. He threw it over his shoulder like a fireman and covered himself in blood. Carrying it around to the front of the car, Connor placed the body in the driver’s seat and put the seatbelt on it.
‘Don’t want you having a nasty accident, do we?’ Connor said to the silent corpse and chuckled to himself. Taking the stone from the passenger seat, he put it in the middle of driver’s foot well. Making sure the point was up, he checked that when it fell it would land on the accelerator. Finally, he opened the windows.
Facing Rollins’ body, he reached in with his right leg and pushed the brake down. He selected drive and slowly took his foot off the pedal. The automatic car began to move forward as the engine ticked over.
‘See ya, mate,’ Connor said as he tipped the rock over. It hit the accelerator exactly as he had planned and the car suddenly lurched forward and sped over the edge. It landed in the water, sending it spraying outwards in all directions. Some washed up onto the concrete and soaked Connor, cleaning some of the blood off him.
He watched the car float out for a few metres and when the water reached the open windows it began to sink. Connor turned around and started to walk back to the B&B.
Now it was the girl’s turn to pay for what she had done.
Eighty
‘Pull up here,’ Paul said, and we joined the eight or nine cars that were already parked at the side of the lonely road. We were maybe a kilometre away from the cottage, but it was definitely the one we were looking for. I recognized it
from the photos on the website. The cliff edge rose both spectacularly and threateningly behind it and was littered with oddly colourful ant-sized humans – climbers busily going about their thrill seeking activity.
‘Wait here,’ Paul said. ‘I’m going alone.’
‘No way, Paul, you’re not a one man army.’
‘Maybe not, but I know what I’m doing. You’ll just get in the way.’
I was half insulted and half glad that he was giving me a way out if I wanted it. He was right, what did I know about this sort of thing? ‘No way, buddy, we’re in this together,’ I said, hardly believing that I was saying the words myself.
He gave a short nod. It was one of acceptance, that we were a unit and that he trusted me. Our relationship, our friendship, had come a long way over the last week. The man who may well have killed me a week ago was now the man that I entrusted my life with. ‘Just copy me,’ he said, and I nodded that I understood.
We got out of the car and crossed the road. He crouched down, presumably out of sight, in front of a dry stone wall and, as instructed, I copied him.
‘Listen carefully. We can’t approach from the front. He’ll probably be watching. We’ll need to sneak around the back. We’ll follow this wall, keeping low, and then get on the other side of it once we’re closer. There’s a wall surrounding the property. We’ll follow it and then sneak around the back of the garage. Then we’ll have to play it by ear. Okay?’
I nodded. How the hell had he taken all that information in and formulated that plan? I didn’t know how long Paul had been a Para, or if he held any rank, but he seemed to know what he was doing. It was a good job because I certainly didn’t.
The crouching was a lot harder than I expected and my back was on fire by the time we reached where the walls intersected, but then it had been quite some way. At one stage we heard a car come, so we sat against the wall so we wouldn’t draw attention to ourselves. We must have looked an odd pair - Paul in his leather jacket and me in the suit I’d worn to work yesterday.
