DC Gabriel Harper sat forward, gaining Michael’s attention. ‘Ashe Miller was a junkie, so he needed to pay his debt to a society he helped to fill with drugs and lives he helped destroy.’
Michael nodded. ‘That’s what I’m saying.’
Claire stared at them both as she processed the idea. ‘That’s all well and good…’ she said, taking a seat. She pulled out a photograph which showed a wide-angle shot taken of Wainwright’s mutilated body. ‘But what did Wainwright do?’
CHAPTER 50
1999
‘Amelia I know you’re up there!’ his voice called up the winding stairs. Stephen heard a little girl giggle, followed by footsteps racing along the landing above him.
He grinned and gave chase up the stairs, pausing on the landing to listen. All he could hear was the sound of his own breathing, slightly laboured from his little sprint up the Manor stairs. He strained his ears as he heard the front door creak open.
Father Manuela and Father Wainwright.
Stephen could hear their voices and he rushed across the vast landing.
‘Amelia?’ he hissed as close to a whisper as he could manage.
He heard the sound of tiny feet patter behind the door to Father Manuela’s study.
Stephen listened for a few moments, making sure Manuela and Wainwright were not coming up the stairs. He heard Manuela’s voice further off now, walking to the other end of the Manor.
Then the back door slammed shut.
Breathing a sigh of relief, he crept inside the study and over to the window which overlooked the Chapel in the vast garden.
Manuela and Wainwright were walking across the grass talking together and pointing at various parts of the Chapel exterior.
Realising he was holding his breath, Stephen exhaled and turned to look around the large room. His eyes found the old mahogany desk, cluttered with paperwork and files around a small 15-inch computer monitor.
There were various pens and empty coffee mugs scattered across the top, along with a small vial of Holy Water.
He picked it up and inspected the intricate cut glasswork pattern on the vial. It was half full, with a pretty plaited velvet cord wrapped around the top. He pulled the cord gently through his fingers and found a tiny statue joined to the end of it.
It was of the Virgin Mary.
He sneered and placed it back on the desk.
The dark wallpaper made the room seem smaller than it was, and he realised he’d never been in this room before. It was off-limits.
The room was a backwards ‘L’ shape and he walked past the desk into the far end of the room. Here there were religious pictures on the wall, and a large oak crucifix with a fake-gold Jesus hanging on the far wall. There was also an old tatty dark-brown leather sofa.
He observed the couch with interest as he caught sight of her hair visible from behind the nearest arm. He ran towards it, finding Amelia kneeling behind the sofa.
‘Got you!’
He reached out and grabbed her small shoulder. Amelia shrieked and let out fits of laughter as he tickled her under her arms. He giggled as she rolled around on her back trying to escape him.
‘Stop it!’ she squealed.
He stopped and she sat up, grinning at him.
‘Come on, you,’ he said, ‘we shouldn’t be in here. Mark’s in the Chapel still and Manuela has gone in there with Wainwright. We’ll be for it if they catch us in here.’
Amelia jumped up and clasped his hand. She looked up at him with admiration.
‘Why do you call Daddy Mark and not Daddy?’ she said.
‘Because he isn’t my daddy, or yours.’
‘But he’s like a daddy, though. He does what daddies do.’
Stephen sighed and knelt down to her eye level. He brushed her hair back behind her ears, away from her pale face. He noticed the little gold cross-shaped earring studs in each of her ears and frowned.
‘Baby-girl…nice daddies don’t make you swallow all this religion bollocks every day.’
‘You said a bad word!’ she said, her hand covering her mouth. She grinned as he held out his hand for her to smack. She tapped the back of it.
‘I don’t understand what you mean though.’ Her face pulled into a frown.
He sighed, standing up again, looking down at her. ‘You’re six. Of course you don’t understand.’ He pulled her towards the door. ‘If anyone asks, we were never up here, and certainly not in the study. Punishment will be more than Hail Marys. Downstairs, now.’
Amelia ran from the room and down the stairs, and he followed behind her.
Skipping across the parquet flooring, Amelia’s black shoes sounded a noisy rhythm ahead of him. It made him smile.
As Amelia turned into the drawing room she stopped suddenly in the doorway, frozen. Stephen’s brow furrowed until he too stood in the doorway.
Mark Jenkins was there with his hands behind his back, staring down hard at Amelia. His eyes rose to Stephen’s before he turned to Manuela, who was sitting in an armchair, his hands locked together, his chin resting on them.
‘You see, Father. He leads her astray,’ Jenkins said, returning his glare towards Stephen. ‘I rue the day, boy. Make no mistake about it,’ he spat.
Stephen stepped forward, pulling Amelia from view behind him. The animosity between him and Jenkins was more than obvious. The tension hung heavy in the air.
‘I’ve always known it. I’ve felt it right here,’ Stephen said, taking his clenched fist and hitting it once against his chest.
Jenkins sneered and slapped him hard across the face, sending Stephen’s head reeling.
Amelia screamed as Jenkins grabbed her arm roughly, pulling her towards Manuela.
Stephen ignored the pain in his face and rushed after her but Jenkins shoved him from the living room and slammed the door behind them, leaving Amelia alone with Manuela.
‘Get out of my way!’ Stephen screamed in Jenkins’s face.
He tried to push past him, but Jenkins anticipated his every move. With force, he shoved him back onto the stairs. Jenkins was stronger than the boy, whose frame was no more than that of a lanky sixteen-year-old.
Ignoring the pain in his back, Stephen hammered his fists against Jenkins’s chest, until Father Wainwright appeared from outside.
They both stopped to stare at him.
Stephen pointed at the door. ‘Do something! Amelia’s in there with him again!’
Wainwright looked at them both, pausing for a moment, his eyes sad. Then he turned, walked past them both and hurried up the staircase without saying a word.
In the living room, Manuela sat with Amelia standing in front of him.
Her head was lowered, sending her hair falling around her face.
Manuela stared at her, his weak heavily-hooded grey eyes watering a little. He sniffed and placed his reading glasses on his face, setting them low on his nose.
His light-brown hair, which had wisps of silver in it, had recently been cut and was now cropped closely to his head, making his nose and ears appear more prominent.
‘Your father tells me you were supposed to be praying with him in the Chapel when you suddenly ran off. He says you knocked over a statue of our blessed Virgin Mother in your haste and broke it, ignoring him when he called after you.’ He paused, sucking in a deep breath. ‘What have you to say in defence of your crime, child?’
Amelia’s eyes rose. She sniffed back tears.
‘I didn’t break it. It fell over but it didn’t break.’ Her voice sounded small, as if the light had left it.
‘Are you calling your father a liar?’
Amelia lowered her eyes back to the floor.
She knew her father had broken it himself. This wasn’t the first time she’d been punished for something she hadn’t done. She was unsure what to say. She’d been taught never to lie, but considering what her punishment had been previously for telling the truth, she felt hopeless.
What do I do?
She remembered the bruises on her
back, which were only now starting to fade, and she thought of how Stephen had tried to spare her a lashing by taking the blame himself.
Manuela glared at her, and lowered his head down to her eye level, his face pulling into a sneer. ‘As I thought… I don’t like liars, child, and we all know where liars go, don’t we?’
‘They go to Hell, Father.’
‘Indeed they do.’
He began to unbuckle his belt and Amelia felt tears welling in her eyes. He removed the belt and began winding it around his hands, pulling it firmly.
The big brass buckle hung in front of her face.
Her eyes glazed in a mist of misery and loathing as she prepared herself for what was to come.
***
That night had brought thunder and lightning.
It was the fitting end to the horrors of the day. Amelia was sore. Bruised and broken, she lay on her bed crying into her pillow, Stephen by her side, holding her hand.
She was shaking. She’d barely stopped since it happened. The assault that was to be the first of many at Manuela’s hands.
Manuela had done more than use his belt on her. He’d violated her in such a way that had shattered her already fragile world.
Stephen had cleaned her up afterwards. He’d wiped away the blood from between her legs.
He felt useless.
He knew no one would believe them if they reported it. He’d spent so much of his life being thrust into precarious situations, to be at the mercy of strangers, he had no respect for anyone who should’ve been there to protect him…protect her.
All he could do to help her right now was to hope the assaults would be few and far between.
Chloe had watched them, from her bed, in the room she shared with Amelia, too young to fully understand what had happened. She had been frightened by the blood.
That hadn’t stopped her creeping from her own bed, snuggling in Amelia’s and holding her hand.
Stephen had watched them both, a smile on his lips. He knew, as he stroked Amelia’s hair, that their time would come. All three of them. It would be a sweetness worth waiting for.
CHAPTER 51
The boy called Jude was hiding behind the large grey van parked behind the building, in the courtyard. He knew his friends never thought to look here, three hundred or so yards from the playground in the park. He loved to play hide-and-seek, and his record time was about twenty minutes before being found.
All the children knew about the Blackley Farmhouse, which in fact wasn’t really the farm the name would otherwise suggest.
There were fields attached behind it with a few acres of unused land that went in tow with the abandoned property but despite its potential, it had still sat derelict and empty for the past few years. There was a new sign at the front, Jude had noticed, with information about the property going to auction in a few weeks with an estimated guide price of a mere £90,000.
Jude hoped it wouldn’t be sold, for it had been the focal point for his friends’ stories that they told the smaller children around Halloween. They told tales about ghosts which haunted any child brave enough to go near its gates at night.
Jude, however, didn’t scare easily and, ever brave, had decided to choose here as his hiding place.
The van outside hadn’t raised any alarm bells in his head that there might be anybody inside the building. The game in hand was all he thought about.
That was until he saw the smear of something dark along the door at the back of the van, which looked like dried blood. He ran his little fingers over the stain and then scratched his fingernails through it.
He inspected the dirt under a fingernail, and raised it to his nose.
It smelt like copper.
He stared at the van door for a few seconds and looked over his shoulder.
He couldn’t see anything or hear a sound other than that of his own breathing.
He tried the door handle, slow and steady. It creaked ajar. He noticed the smell from inside and grabbed the handle fully in his hand, pulling the door open wide.
He recoiled, covering his nose, and dared a look inside the van.
He saw three men slumped inside, surrounded by flies, their bodies piled on top of each other like soft toys, stuffing spilling on the outside.
Jude stared wide-eyed and turned to run but tripped over his own feet.
As the earth came rushing up to meet him, he put his arms in front of him, bracing for the impact. He lay back on the gravel, staring into the van, and screamed, but as much as he wanted to flee the horror, he remained frozen to the spot.
CHAPTER 52
Claire was nearly ready to wrap up the morning’s briefing and scanned the faces sitting around the table.
‘So, to summarise,’ she said, reading her notes before looking up at DC Jane Cleaver opposite her. ‘Jane, I want you to do some background checks. Find out what you can about past and present members at Shrovesbury Manor, including staff, especially Manuela. Anything that seems out of the ordinary, I want to know about it. Also find out who landscaped the Manor’s gardens, and when.’
Jane nodded. Claire looked across to DC Harper at far end of the table. ‘Harper, I want you and DC Fielding to re-interview the last known people to have seen Wainwright alive during the last twenty-four hours before his murder. And Stefan,’ she said, looking to a man sitting on the other side of Michael, ‘I want to bring you in with Michael and me ASAP.’
Detective Inspector Stefan Fletcher looked a little surprised but also thrilled. Then he felt Michael’s stare. Stefan shrugged at him.
Michael looked back at Claire and tried to hide the annoyance in his voice. ‘Why are you bringing in Fletcher?’ He turned to Stefan again. ‘No offence meant, by the way.’
Claire looked at Michael and he knew the truth was hidden in her eyes. She didn’t want him compromising the case after his behaviour at the Charity Ball. Maybe he shouldn’t have wound up Matthews so much either.
Claire looked at the rest of the team. ‘I’m temporarily taking DI Fletcher off another investigation. DSI Donahue authorised it this morning. DI Fletcher can offer a fresh outlook on the case. I believe you’re all aware of the Mariner’s case a year ago, where DI Fletcher broke the codes that were sent in by the killer, which led to the capture of Geoff Mariner and his ten-year-old hostage, Gemma Green.’
Claire looked at Michael.
‘I believe his expertise could prove invaluable so I want him working closely with us.’ Michael felt his face redden as the others looked at him and then at Stefan, who was trying to look neutral.
Claire broke eye contact with him and addressed the room. ‘Any other questions?’ No one raised any further issues.
Stefan waited until Michael was leaving the room before approaching him. ‘That was embarrassing for me too. No hard feelings I hope?’
Stefan’s blue eyes were shining under the fluorescent lights overhead. Michael looked at him and shook his head, but offered none of his usual chat.
Stefan watched him as he headed down the stairs. He raised his hand and pushed his floppy light-brown hair from his eyes and sighed.
‘Don’t worry yourself over him, Fletch,’ Claire said, her body now close beside him. He turned to her as she leaned in. ‘He’s suffering from a bruised ego.’
‘I’m not worried. Guess I’d be a bit pissed if the boot were on the other foot.’
Stefan started walking and Claire followed beside him, watching his tall lanky frame closely, but didn’t offer any further conversation. When they reached the incident room, David Matthews was standing there waiting for them.
CHAPTER 53
Claire sat behind her desk and waited. Michael and Stefan sat to one side of the office, while Matthews stood holding a file.
‘I’ve just had it confirmed that the body found in the penthouse suite on upper George Street is that of Adrian Brown, an estate agent at McCarthy Lacey & Co. Their head office is situated in Haverbridge town centre.’
�
�I thought this was about the Wainwright investigation? Who is Adrian Brown?’ Stefan aimed his question at Claire. She ignored him and looked at Matthews, her face unreadable.
‘I called McCarthy Lacey & Co. and apparently Brown had a large client bank and his area included Swanton Place.’
Matthews paused on purpose, watching to see if Claire had understood the significance of the name. By the look on her face, he guessed she had. Michael, already bored by Matthews’s presence, crossed his legs and shrugged.
‘And?’
Matthews turned to him and smiled. Then his eyes returned to Claire’s, as if giving her permission to do the honours.
‘Swanton Place is the flats where Ashe Miller was found,’ she said, as if he should have recognised the name immediately.
There was an uncomfortable silence, until Matthews stepped in again.
‘Miller’s murder is similar to Wainwright’s. The mutilation of the chest being identical suggests the likelihood of this being committed by the same person.’ He opened the file on his lap and scanned the pages. He picked up a photograph of Adrian Brown and held it up.
‘Brown was arrested in 2010 when his then employer, Homes & Property Ltd, suspected him of laundering money. The case was thrown out for insufficient evidence. He then moved to McCarthy’s, where he’s been a pretty successful employee, rising from tenancy officer to a manager almost overnight.’
Matthews risked a look at Michael, who was staring at the floor, his face blank.
‘Go on, Matthews,’ Claire said.
‘Yes, Guv… You remember I informed you that on the night of the Charity Ball, my team were carrying out surveillance on Gavin Hargreaves?’
Claire nodded, risking a glance in Michael’s direction.
‘Hargreaves met with a man not currently known to the investigation and they seemed to be striking a deal, although our “John Doe” seemed reluctant to initially.’
Matthews handed another photograph to Claire, and she studied the picture taken from across a busy pub. She recognised Hargreaves immediately, his huge frame dwarfing the man sitting opposite him. After studying the picture, she handed it to Michael.
For All Our Sins: A gripping thriller with a killer twist (DCI Claire Winters, Book 1) Page 23
