Boo!

by David Haynes

  Ben pulled onto the memorial ground. Coming so early meant he missed all the commuter traffic, so it hadn’t taken him as long to get here as he thought. The ground was all churned up, by both the weather and the number of vehicles that had driven over the grass in the last few days. Most of the caravans were bunched together to the side of the big top. The enormous tent’s red and white stripes reminded him of the fevered nightmare he’d experienced a couple of nights before. The colours stood bright against what was otherwise a bleak scene. But one stood on its own, at the bottom of the field. It was a hundred metres from the others and he knew immediately that it was Jim’s van. It didn’t surprise him to see it was so far away from the rest.

  He drove toward the van and saw Stan stand up in the back seat. He sniffed the air like he did in the days when Rachel cooked steak.

  “Doubt you’ll find much to eat where we’re going, boy.”

  Only one or two of the other vans had lights on but Crawley’s van was lit up against the bare trees behind it. The light wasn’t strong, it looked like he had a low-watt bulb in a lamp. It looked grim. He pulled up beside the van and turned the engine off. The van looked to be the same as it was the last time they met. It might be a safer idea to take him for breakfast rather than risk stepping inside.

  “We won’t stay long, I promise.” He climbed out and opened the door for Stan to charge from the car, but the dog sniffed the air again and sloped out slowly.

  “Take your time, why don’t you?” He took Stan’s lead and the dog whined in reply.

  It was probably just the smell of strange animals that made him reluctant to get out. There were elephants somewhere, and Stan wouldn’t have smelled too many of them in his racing days.

  They walked to the door, Ben reached up and banged on it. There was a sign on the door which wobbled as he knocked. He was about to read it when Stan pulled back away from the door. He whined again and backed away until the lead was taut.

  “Don’t be daft, come here.” He tugged on the lead but Stan braced his powerful back legs. There was no way he was going to move. Ben felt too weary to get into a tug of war he knew he couldn’t win.

  “Go and have a wee then, but don’t go far.” He dropped the lead and banged on the door again.

  “Jim, it’s Ben Night, are you up?” He looked at Stan but the dog hadn’t moved. He was still standing in the same spot. He made a long, low growl that made his jowls vibrate. Ben had never heard anything like it from him, or any other dog before.

  “What’s wrong with you? I’ll take you to see the elephants in a minute and if they’ve got any tigers you can have a really close look at them too.”

  But Stan wasn’t looking in the direction of the big top, or the woods. He was looking at the door handle. He was looking at it like he’d been looking at the clown the other night. Ben felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, and shivered.

  He reached up to knock again but Stan barked once. “Shut up, you’ll wake everyone up!” Inside there was a feeling of dread winding its way through his stomach.

  He looked at the door again. If Jim was in there then he would have heard him and answered the door, especially since he knew there was money in the offing. He looked over his shoulder at the rest of the site. Nobody was moving. It was dead.

  The door handle was greasy and cold, as if it had been dipped in oil. It moved down easily and the door swung open.

  “Jim, are you there, mate?” A smell rushed out of the van. A smell of stale cigarette smoke, of alcohol, of grease and something else too. It was the smell of a butcher’s shop.

  Stan whined softly but he was back at his side again. Ben took the first step and then the second before he could see inside. He craned his neck but it was gloomy and the only lamp seemed to throw a filthy stain around the interior. A dirty old fridge obscured his view down the van but there was shape on the bed. A big lumpy shape. Maybe he was just drunk. He felt slightly reassured that someone was home.

  “Jim?” No reply and no movement. “It’s me. It’s Ben.”

  He took the final step into the caravan and heard Stan’s paws ring on the metal step below. The dog was following him. Was it a good idea to wake Crawley up, to shove him and disturb his rest? He should just leave and come back tomorrow morning. Waking a man with a bad hangover was never...

  As his eyes adjusted to the gloom he saw dark stains on the bed, huge dark stains, and on the walls there were more dark stains. Great arcs of liquid had been sprayed up the walls and onto the tacky posters. He lifted his head. There were the same spatters of liquid on the ceiling too and the lamp shade was dark but not by design, but the coating on it. A thick, congealed coating of blood.

  Nausea swept over him immediately, nearly knocking him off his feet, but as he looked away his eyes settled on the floor. There were letters written in blood.

  “Boo!” he whispered and his vision closed in at the sides. Sweat dripped into his eyes and he retched.

  “Back, Stan, ba...” And then the scene was gone and Stan was yelping as he fell onto him, onto the metal steps. Blackness.

  *

  It was the screaming that brought him back to the world. The piercing shrieks of someone who saw what he had just seen. He felt sick again. The stink of butchered meat was still in his nostrils. But it wasn’t pig, cow or lamb, it was human. It was Jim Crawley.

  Ben rolled onto his side and vomited. It made his eyes water, both with the strength of the heave and the acid clawing at his fragile throat. He winced and wiped his mouth.

  “Police, someone call the police!” a woman’s voice shouted.

  Stan. Where was Stan? He rolled over and looked at the van. The dog was lying down next to him, panting and watching people running across the field toward them. A lone woman was standing in the door to the caravan, just where he had stood, with her hands over her mouth. She looked down at Ben with wide-eyed horror. And then her eyes narrowed and there was another emotion in there too. Fury.

  She jumped down the steps and stood over him. “You! You did this!” She spat the words at him.

  “What? No! I found him. I found him like that!” His throat burned and his voice sounded like a whisper although he was shouting.

  A man charged up the steps and stood motionless at the top. It looked like he was about to take another step but he looked down, stopped and tilted his head to read what had been written in Crawley’s blood.

  A second woman stood on the steps behind him. “What is it? What’s happened to him?” She was craning her neck to look in but the man blocked her view.

  The woman standing over Ben turned to them. “He did it! I’ve got him here.” Stan whined and pawed at Ben’s arm. He didn’t like how things were panning out. Neither did Ben.

  “I didn’t do anything!” he shouted. “I found him, for god’s sake!” He tried to stand up but his legs felt like they were made of custard, and when he moved an explosion of pain erupted in his head. If he’d felt ill this morning, he felt like death right now.

  The man in the caravan pushed past the woman and stood over Ben. He had the most perfectly clipped handlebar moustache he had ever seen. He looked like a strongman from a Victorian circus.

  He twisted his head, looked Ben up and down. “I doubt it.” He looked at the woman. “This is that writer. Look at his clothes. Whoever did that would be covered in Creepy’s blood. Go and make sure someone’s called the rozzers.”

  She opened her mouth to reply, but seemed to realise it was futile and sprinted back up the field.

  “Nice dog you’ve got there, Mr Night. Racer, is he?” He offered his hand and Ben took it to pull himself upright. The friendly nature of his greeting and the normality of the conversation was almost as shocking as finding Crawley.

  “Was. He’s retired now.” Ben smoothed Stan’s head. “And yes, he is a good dog.” His head was swimming and his vision was blurred at the edges.

  “You look like you need a cup of tea. Come on, I’ll take you up
to my van.” He looked at Crawley’s van. “We’ll let the police sort that out. Good riddance, I say.”

  Ben was shocked by the remark, but he let the other man take him by the elbow and lead him away. He clutched Stan’s lead tightly in his hand. As they walked toward the other caravans, he could already hear the sound of sirens in the distance.

  “Thanks,” Ben said. “I thought I was going to get lynched back there.”

  “There’s not many folk who care whether Jim Crawley’s dead or alive. You were just unlucky, that woman happens to be one of them.”

  He helped Ben inside the van, which was more like a house than a caravan. The woman who had accused him was sitting on the sofa with the phone in her hands. She eyed Ben as he walked in.

  “You’ve met my wife, Denise. Whoever did that to Creepy saved me a job. Sooner or later I’d have done it myself.” He switched the kettle on. “Tea?” He smiled.

  Ben nodded.

  Half an hour later there was a knock at the door. Fred Ring opened the door to a young-looking detective. Immediately, his appearance gave Ben the impression that this was going to be a different approach to the one by DC Kelly.

  The officer was slow and methodical, taking down every detail about Ben’s association with Crawley: how he had made contact with him, what Crawley was like on the phone and his route to the circus that morning. He made fastidious notes, pausing only to clarify a detail Ben felt was minor. By the time he was describing how he found Crawley in the caravan, he felt exhausted and his headache had grown into a whopper.

  The detective offered to call an ambulance but Ben refused. He had been unconscious but only for a few seconds. If he was made to wait at accident and emergency, it would only make things worse.

  After he told the officer everything he expected to be able to go, but the detective went on to write it all out again in front of him. As he read the long version back, Ben was astounded by the level of detail. Some of it he thought was inconsequential unless...

  “Am I a suspect?” He signed the last sheet on the statement and handed it back.

  The detective opened his mouth but as he did, a call came through on his radio which he answered. It might have been his imagination but Ben thought he looked relieved not to have to answer the question.

  “On my way.” The officer ended the call and stood up. “You’re free to go now, Mr Night, we’ll be in touch.” He started walking out and Ben followed behind with Stan. He opened and closed his mouth several times. Did he want to ask that question again? Why would he be a suspect? He hadn’t done anything wrong.

  He walked down the steps and walked across the field to his car. As he got closer, he could see how many people were buzzing around the caravan. Blue and white striped tape had been secured around two trees to contain the scene. Unfortunately his car was inside the cordon.

  He approached it and asked an officer in uniform if he could get his car.

  “I’ll check,” he said and spoke to someone on his radio. He turned his back to Ben as if that would stop him hearing the conversation.

  After a second he turned back around. “Someone’s coming to talk to you.”

  Ben sighed. All he wanted was to get back home and crawl into bed. He wanted to sleep, forget what he’d seen and what it meant. He would think about that tomorrow when the pain in his head wasn’t quite so crippling.

  “Mr Night?”

  He turned. A petite woman with flame-red hair scraped back from her face stood in front of him. She reached down and stroked Stan.

  “I need my car back, please,” he said.

  She winced. “I’m really sorry but we need to keep it here for a few more hours.” She was attractive, and her blue eyes never left his. It was disarming.

  “For how long?” he asked.

  “I’ll give you a lift home. It’s not too far, is it.” It wasn’t a question, she clearly knew exactly where he lived. “Then when we’re finished with it, we’ll drop it off. Okay?”

  “Finished with it? What are you going to do to it?” He looked past her. A man in a white suit was already looking around the car.

  “It’s in the middle of a murder scene, Mr Night.” As if that was all she needed to say to answer his question. “Have you got your keys handy?”

  He reached into his pocket and handed them over. She tossed them to the white-suited man by his car.

  “My car’s up there.” She pointed toward the big top. “Come on, I’ll take you home, you look and sound like you need a lie down.” She turned and looked at a tall, bald man who was busy writing something into a large pink book. “Just taking Mr Night home, boss.”

  The Boss held his hand up without lifting his head.

  “I’m Jane Brady, by the way.” She started walking away from the caravan. Ben took one last look at his car and the caravan, then followed her.

  “Well, you know who I am and this is Stan.”

  Whoever Jane Brady was, she wasn’t just another detective. She had an air of someone who was more in charge than The Boss, whoever he was, would ever be.

  “Did anyone take your fingerprints or a sample of your DNA yet?” she asked casually.

  “No,” he answered. He was a suspect then.

  “No problem, I’ll do it when we get to your place. We just need to make sure we know who’s been inside Mr Crawley’s van.” She paused as if hearing his thoughts. “So we can eliminate them from the enquiry.”

  “Right,” Ben replied. He felt sick again. Very, very sick.

  12

  Jane hadn’t offered to take Night home out of kindness. No, it was an excellent opportunity to spend some time with the man. A chance to speak to him and find out what he was like. The evidence would prove whether he was involved or not, but finely honed instinct told her he wasn’t. Officers were already accessing all of the CCTV cameras on his route to see if his story was true. And if it was, there was still a connection between him and the three murders. How did that link work? That was the question.

  The forensics team should have taken his samples and she should have kept him at the scene to complete that task, but taking them at his house was another opportunity too good to miss.

  Sparkles was his creation. The mutilated paedophile, Newman, had used that creation to further his own vile crimes. He was acquainted with Night too. The author told Stu that he’d signed thousands of books and had no idea who Harvey Newman was. Plausible.

  Stu had spoken to him about the murder and had not been impressed with the man. That fact alone didn’t make him a bad guy. Stu tended to rub most people up the wrong way and reactions to him were usually negative.

  And then there was Crawley and all that blood. She had never seen that much blood before or in such spectacular patterns all over the interior. It meant he was alive when he was carved up. At least through part of it anyway.

  The clown mask Crawley wore had been stabbed so many times that it had sunk into the spongy flesh beneath and had to be pulled off his face. Beneath the mask was nothing more than a ruined lump, parts of which had been cut away. The killer had also paid attention to his hands and cock. Both of these had been hacked off and thrown on the floor, unlike parts of his face which had been taken away again. It was horrific, it was a bloodbath and her initial reaction had been to run outside and throw her guts up into the woods, but she hadn’t. She had parked her revulsion to one side and considered her options, considered her strategy and how she would brief DI White.

  On the surface, it looked like a frenzied attack. That was unlike the other two where it seemed the mutilation had been more deliberate. More care had been taken to remove the face, rather than stab the hell out of it. The word written at the scene, in the victim’s blood, was always the same though. That never changed.

  Night was surly in the car on the way back. But no more than the average man who had just lost his car and was suffering from a cold. She hadn’t learned anything she couldn’t have found in an internet search, and she wasn’t famil
iar enough with his books to try and massage his ego. So she made do with small talk about the dog.

  He evidently loved the dog and the sentiment appeared to be reciprocated.

  She knew from the file that Night was within a year of her age and divorced. His house was beautiful from the outside, the surrounding fields giving it a wonderfully remote feel. She hadn’t gone farther than the hallway but the house looked big enough for a family of ten to live there, in some comfort.

  When Jane returned to the station, she immediately went online and ordered six of his books for her Kindle. She knew it was good research and it might make a refreshing change from the crap she normally read.

  DI White poked his head out of his office. “Jane, you got a minute?”

  He was already back at the station by the time she returned, but had been on the telephone for almost the entire time, intermittently jabbering away followed by a prolonged period of silence. By the sound of it, he was speaking to someone above him in the command chain.

  She walked into his office.

  “Shut the door a minute.” He took a deep breath as if he was about to deliver some bad news. “And take a seat.”

  Jane did as she was asked.

  “Hargreaves has been told by the command team to bring someone in.”

  This is what always happened. The chief got tense if nobody was arrested within a week. Appearing in front of the press to tell them that they had a suspect in custody made everyone happier, including the public. Even if it wasn’t the right person.

  “Who do you suggest?” She wanted to get someone locked up too. But only if it was the right person.

  “What about Night? He’s the only link to all three we’ve got at the moment.”