Where Wolves Fear to Prey (Manor Park Thrillers Book 1)

by G H Mockford

  He just shook his head. ‘When that bloodsucker’s gone,’ he said indicating the front door, ‘we’ll head back to James’ house.’

  ‘And what? Break in?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Paul, think this through. She can’t be there. The police would’ve searched the house when we were there earlier.’ I realized as soon as I said it that it was actually over a day ago. Time had become so warped. ‘If Charlie were there, they would have found her.’

  ‘But they’re not looking for her are they?’ he said. I wanted to say “who’s fault is that?” but bit my tongue. ‘Or,’ he continued, ‘maybe there’s a clue that only we would understand.’

  ‘Paul, call the police, they have all the information…’ I said to him, even though I knew the words were falling on deaf ears as usual.

  Eighty-Seven

  Rees and Stokes ignored the TV crew, flashed their warrant cards and signed the crime scene log before entering Connor Goodhand’s house. The SOCO team had left a few hours back, according to the uniforms on the door, and nothing had been found. One of the body dogs had gone mad at the cupboard under the stairs, but it turned out that there was a dog’s bed and pet food being stored in there.

  Rees popped the remains of the onion bhaji into his mouth and looked around at the work the SOCO team had carried out. The last time they'd been in this house it was half a day ago. They had no idea what they would find when they had rung Staffordshire police and asked them to assist them in checking the B&B for a suspect.

  Freeman had admitted he’d left the computer on for them to find. Little did they know that they would, just a few hours later, be sealing this house and taking forensic samples to see if Richard Rollins, Bethany Andrews, or anyone else had been held there.

  ‘What are you hoping to find?’ Rees asked as Stokes took them through the front room and into the back dining room.

  ‘It’s the bedroom, something’s not right,’ Stokes said as he led them upstairs. A quick look in the front room revealed the all-important PC had been taken away. No doubt it was in bits by now and thoroughly checked for any incriminating evidence.

  ‘It’s just a room, Uriel,’ Rees said. He pointed to where the telescope had been. The Exhibits Officer would have removed it once it had been photographed and videoed while it was still in position. ‘Maybe Goodhand was a peeping Tom as well as a rapist and murderer,’ Rees chuckled.

  ‘You laugh, but maybe that’s how it all started,’ Stokes said, his voice filled with an urgent excitement as he crossed the room and looked out of the bedroom window. Then, he quickly rotated on his heel and went into the back bedroom.

  ‘What is it?’ Rees called as he followed him through. When he’d caught up with him, Stokes was looking at the poster sized print of the girl over the bed. ‘When we came here we assumed that this was a house mate’s room, right? A girl he lived with.’

  ‘Yes,’ Rees nodded, ‘but we now know that the Council Tax records show this as a single occupancy.’

  Stokes crossed the room and began to inspect the other pictures. ‘He could have been lying to save money, but…’

  ‘But what? For Christ’s sake boy, spit it out.’

  ‘These pictures are all of the same girl.’

  ‘Yes, so?’

  ‘You’d have to be pretty vain to cover your room with pictures of yourself, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘You’ve obviously not had much experience with women,’ Rees said with a private chuckle. When he noticed that Stokes wasn’t joining in, but still staring intently at the large print, Rees walked over and scrutinised the picture.

  ‘Follow me,’ Stokes said, rushing past his boss and back into the front room. Stokes stood before the window and swept the net curtains to one side. ‘Paul Blackmore lives directly opposite, yes?’ Stokes said before he left the room again.

  ‘Will you stop bloody rushing around and just talk to me!’ Rees said as he joined him a few moments later. Stokes had taken the large print off the wall and was holding it in front of him for his sergeant to see. ‘What am I supposed to be seeing?’ Rees said.

  ‘Look at the eyes. Look carefully. We’ve seen those eyes before.’

  Rees looked at the picture and then with a sudden shock of instant recognition looked out the window at the house opposite – to Paul Blackmore’s house.

  ‘That’s the missing link. That’s why he drove all the way to Staffordshire. He thought the girl Goodhand had was his daughter, not Bethany Andrews,’ Stokes said.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ gasped Rees.

  Eighty-Eight

  While we were waiting for the reporter to leave us alone, Paul suggested we freshened up. Cleaned up and both wearing Paul’s clothes, we decided to head out, even if she was still there.

  ‘Would you mind driving again?’ he asked, opening the front door. ‘I can look for Charlie while you drive.’

  I nodded and stepped past Paul and out the door. Like some kind of bad penny, DS Rees and DC Stokes were standing outside.

  ‘Going somewhere, Mr Blackmore, Mr Freeman?’ came the Welshman’s increasingly familiar rumble.

  ‘You better both take a seat, we need a word with you,’ Stokes said, his voice not the usual friendly, easy-going tone that I had become accustomed to. ‘Where’s your daughter, Mr Blackmore?’

  Again, just like he had with Dr Howell, Paul seemed to respond to the authoritative tone. To my surprise, he sat straight down and told them everything, missing out my kidnapping, of course. He had finally decided that he couldn’t hold back the information any longer. There was no point in denying it now.

  ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell us this days ago?’ Rees said. ‘Two people are dead, two are in hospital. Your daughter’s missing. There’s a clear link between her and all the other victims. If you’d come to us sooner, maybe this would all have ended differently, not to mention your daughter could be safe by now.’

  ‘That’s what your lot said before,’ Paul replied, his eyes and tone dead, ‘but that bus load of kids were still blown up in Belfast. “Leave it with us,” the RUC said. You can’t trust the police to get things right, especially where there’s hostages involved.’

  Rees stopped for a moment and I was pleased that he didn’t pursue it. Instead, he turned on me. ‘What about you? Your girlfriend had been violently assaulted and we now know that it’s linked to another case. It wasn’t an assault, but almost certainly an attempted murder.’

  I felt the blood drain from my face. All this time I had been cursing Paul for being stubborn and selfish, but the truth was I had been acting the same way. I'd got so involved in it being Rollins, and in blaming myself for tipping him off, that I’d lost all sense of reality.

  Changing the subject, Stokes asked for a recent photo of Charlie so he could phone Central and get a description out. Paul pointed out the kitchen clock and I watched the young copper get up to retrieve one. He got out his mobile and I assumed he was about to ring Central when he stopped in the kitchen doorway, looked to his right and asked, ‘You have a cellar?’

  ‘Yes, all the houses around here do, unless they’ve been filled in,’ Paul said.

  ‘Alun,’ was all he said by way of explanation as Stokes turned and ran down the back of the sofa and out the front door.

  Rees, Paul and I all looked at each other for a few moments, then scrambled to our feet. We followed Stokes across the road and entered Connor’s house, much to the stunned annoyance of the two uniformed officers.

  Stokes stood in front of the cellar door. ‘Stay back. We don’t know what we’ll find.’

  ‘There’s nothing to find, Uriel. They found nothing except…’ Rees began.

  The young copper ripped open the door. ‘Shit,’ he said.

  ‘What is it?’ Paul said as he pushed past me so he could join Stokes at the door.

  ‘Nothing. There’s nothing. It’s just a cupboard. It must have been filled in.’

  When they moved to one side, I peeked under the stai
rs. There was a vacuum cleaner, bucket, an old dog bed, enough packets of dried dog food to keep even a large dog going for months.

  ‘Good thinking, Uriel. It would have been too easy, and besides, SOCO would have found it. Remember, the uniforms told us how the dogs went mad when they smelled the bed and food,’ said Rees, as he looked at his partner's confused and disappointed look. ‘Let’s get back down the station. You both need to give us a new statement, and we need to organise a search.’

  We started to leave and I felt disheartened after the sudden rush of hope and, dare I say it, excitement. I dared not think how Paul must have felt.

  ‘Come back,’ Stokes called from behind us. He was holding the dog bed in his hand. ‘Mr Blackmore, you said in the interview you know the Goodhands?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do they own a dog?’

  ‘Not in the two or three years we’ve known them.’

  ‘Maybe it’s just junk?’ I suggested.

  ‘Perhaps, but there’s other useful stuff in here like the Hoover, not to mention the food,’ Stokes said as he threw the bed to one side and got down on his knees. He studied the laminate flooring. ‘What if it was a deliberate diversion? Something to confuse the dogs, or make the handlers dismiss the dog’s reaction?’

  ‘You mean, that it wasn’t the food the dogs went mad at but something el…’ Rees began and then looked at Paul.

  ‘What do you mean? What have you found?’ Paul said as he pushed past me.

  ‘I’m not sure, like DS Rees said, SOCO have been all over this house. But look, there isn’t one of those metal bars you use to tidy up the end of the carpet under the door frame. Here, where the carpet and laminate flooring meet,’ he said, pointing at the tiny gap. ‘There’s no trim around the edges either.’

  ‘Maybe he’s not much of a DIYer or the landlord didn’t want to spend the money,’ I suggested, joining the group around the cupboard door.

  Stokes grabbed the Hoover, the packets of dog food, and several of the other bigger items out of the cupboard, and passed them to us to dump in the front room. Paul watched Stokes intently and after a few attempts, the officer managed to get his fingertips under the laminate flooring. He lifted the whole lot up in one go. The strips had been stuck onto a piece of MDF to form one large easily lifted piece.

  ‘Alun, we’re going to need a torch.’

  I looked down at what it had been concealing.

  A trap door.

  ‘I’ve got one,’ said one of the uniformed officers, who must have been drawn in by the excitement. He removed it from his utility belt and handed it over.

  ‘You can’t go down there, Uriel. This isn’t our investigation now. We need to call this in,’ Rees said.

  ‘She might be down there, Alun. I took the Oath. I need to check she’s not down there and hurt.’

  ‘You’ll be the end of me, bach,’ Rees said before telling the uniforms to call it in.

  I turned my attention back to Stokes. My stomach was in knots so it had to be worse for Paul. He started to move towards the revealed trapdoor, but Stokes, who had begun to lower himself down the hole, said in his usual, gentle voice, ‘I think you’d better wait here.’

  The detective went quiet as he used the PCs torch to investigate the dark hole. Paul stood doing nothing. He didn’t make a move to enter the trapdoor. Perhaps he was beginning to realize the enormity of his mistake.

  ‘She’s not down here,’ Stokes called and a few moments later his face re-emerged. I helped him out of the small opening. ‘We all need to leave now. I’m going to be in it up to here for possibly contaminating a crime scene.’

  ‘Then where is she?’ Paul managed to say before it all suddenly became too much. He fell against the wall and slid down it, like he had back in his cellar a week ago, and began to cry.

  Eighty-Nine

  The two detectives gave us some space and made whatever phone calls they needed to get things moving. I could see through the front door that the two uniforms that had been guarding the scene were busy trying to keep the news crews back. The arrival of more officers and a man Rees called DI Dykes signalled that something new must be happening inside. The bloodsuckers, as Paul called them, had obviously smelled fresh meat.

  Paul got to his feet and looked at me. He looked a shadow of the man I had only recently come to know. Charlie was right, he was a good man, even if his judgement was occasionally off, and his pride blinding. I reached out to him and I stood there cuddling this huge, solid, giant of a man.

  ‘Right,’ Rees said as he stepped through the front door. ‘We need to get you down to the station.’

  ‘Can’t it wait until tomorrow?’ I asked. ‘It’s what? Nine o’clock? We’ve been awake for….’ I was too tired to calculate the answer. Rees appeared to consider it for a moment and then nodded his head. ‘Let’s get you home,’ I said to Paul.

  Stokes wandered over to us and asked, ‘Does your daughter have a mobile phone? We’ve got permission from the Chief Super to try and get a lock on its GPS signal.’

  ‘Of course,’ Paul said, and read the number out from his mobile phone.

  ‘This shouldn’t take long, as long as she’s got the phone on,’ Stokes said as he wandered off to make the call.

  Paul began to bite his nails and I couldn’t help but think this was all a little unfair. Even if they located the phone, it didn’t mean Charlie was with it.

  The wait was untenable. Ten minutes of living hell.

  ‘You’re sure?’ I heard Stokes say into the phone as he came back to us.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ I asked.

  ‘No good, I’m afraid. The signal appears to be originating from your house. She must have left it there,’ Stokes said.

  ‘No, she doesn’t go anyw…,’ Paul stopped mid-sentence as he looked across at his home. I watched as a smile swept across his fatigued face. Then I followed his eyes and saw a figure looking through the bedroom window, the net curtains pushed to one side.

  It was Charlie.

  Despite his exhaustion, both physical and emotional, Paul ran into his home. I stood in the front door as I watched him run up to his daughter, who was now at the bottom of the stairs and hold her close. Once again, I was left the spare part, intruding on an intimate moment between the pair of them, but it wasn’t long before Stokes and Rees joined me. The TV cameras gathered around the door frame frantically trying to see what was happening inside.

  ‘What’s with all the police?’ Charlie asked.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ Paul said, his voice an odd mixture of concern and anger.

  ‘At Jackie’s,’ Charlie said, her voice showing she was shocked at her father’s angry tone and choice of words.

  Paul shook his head. ‘No, you haven’t.’

  ‘Yes, I have,’ Charlie continued to lie.

  Paul shook his head, held his daughter by the top of her arms and stared into her eyes. ‘Jackie’s in hospital with James.’

  ‘Oh god, is she all right?’

  ‘She’s fine. It’s James who’s in hospital.’

  ‘Mr Blackmore,’ Rees said, ‘I suggest you and your daughter get away from the cameras and we shut the front door.’ We did as he instructed and Rees went to get DI Dykes.

  Charlie looked bewildered for a moment, she and her father cuddled on the sofa while Stokes and I stood in the corner.

  ‘Where have you been?’ Paul asked her.

  Charlie began to explain what had been going on and where she had been. James Harrington had indeed brought her home on Thursday night, but once he was around the corner, she carried on walking somewhere but she was reluctant to tell us.

  ‘Charlie, please, just tell me the truth. I won’t mind. I’m just glad you’re alive.’ Paul said.

  ‘Ok. If you promise you won’t get mad.’ She waited for her father to nod his head. ‘I’ve been staying at Tom’s.’

  ‘Who the hell is Tom?’ Paul asked.

  ‘My boyfriend,’ Charlie
answered.

  ‘Your boyfriend?’ Paul said in surprise. Charlie looked at the floor for a few seconds and then back at her father.

  ‘Yes, Dad. I love him!’

  Paul didn’t say anything for a few moments. He was obviously weighing his options and how Charlie would react. ‘How long have you been at his house?’

  ‘Do we have to talk about this in front of everyone? In front of Mr Freeman?’

  ‘Yes. We’ve been worried sick.’

  ‘Since Thursday,’ Charlie hung her head in shame. ‘But I often stay there. Most of the time I said I was at Jackie’s I was, I promise, but not always.’

  ‘Does Jackie know you’ve been lying to me?’

  ‘No! I lied to her too. Honest, Dad. I didn’t want to put her on the spot,’ Charlie said. I couldn’t tell if she was covering for her friend or not.

  Then Paul finally asked the question that he should have asked her days ago. ‘Charlie, are you pregnant?’

  ‘No, Dad. Is that why you’ve been acting weird? Is that why you took my diary? Is this because of all the stuff about Mr Rollins? What on earth makes you think I’m pregnant?’

  Paul told her about finding the pregnancy test and she hung her head and went quiet. ‘So, you are pregnant. You’re lying.’

  ‘No, Dad. Jackie is.’

  ‘Jackie’s lying?’

  ‘No, Dad. It was Jackie’s test.’ I remembered how Jackie had put James’ hand onto her stomach when we saw her in hospital. I'd thought it was an odd gesture, but it made sense now.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell your school the truth when they interviewed you? That it was your friend who was pregnant?’ Stokes interjected.

  Charlie didn’t answer.

  ‘Charlie?’ Paul asked.

  ‘I was protecting Jackie.’

  ‘Because the father was James Harrington, her teacher?’ Stokes asked in order to get a clearer answer.

  ‘Her ex-teacher,’ Charlie was quick to point out. ‘They’re not doing anything wrong. They’re in love too.’