Murderabilia

by Craig Robertson

  The shape was clear to see from above. It was long and narrow, maybe five feet from tip to toe and no more than a foot across. It was a body. A boy’s body.

  The last cop was pulled out of the hole, clearing the area so it could be photographed as it was and then leaving the final touches to the forensics.

  Two white-suited figures kneeled on the edge of the hole that led to Martin Welsh’s gravestone and flooded the cavity with light as they took shot after shot of the risen shape six feet below them.

  Some forty yards away, across the wall and across the road, Winter photographed, too. From his precarious perch, hidden high in the branches of an ancient oak tree, his camera trigger fired and fired. He photographed them photographing it.

  He twisted slightly and let the camera hang round his neck so that he could reach into his back pocket and rescue his phone. Just one text, just one line: ‘You were right.’

  It took the crime-scene guys just forty-five minutes to brush away the thin layer of soil that covered the blanket, each grain placed in a bucket and passed back up to the surface. When that was removed, they carefully peeled back the blanket to reveal the white bones and grinning skull that rested beneath.

  Addison stared down into the hole, relieved they’d been right and angry they’d been right. He turned to the nearest cop and ordered him to bring Dalrymple and his lawyer to the graveside.

  The ultimate piece of murderabilia is how Narey had described it. A grave. Not just a stolen headstone but the actual grave of one of the country’s most famous murder victims. Dalrymple had a collector’s dream and a family’s nightmare.

  The man had tears streaming down his face when two cops frogmarched him to the graveside. His lawyer, standing just a couple of feet away, looked horrified.

  Addison stood opposite, the gaping grave between them. Dalrymple stared down into the depth.

  ‘Is that the body of Martin Welsh?’

  A huge, choking sob escaped from his mouth but he said nothing.

  ‘Is that the body of Martin Welsh?’

  Dalrymple nodded pathetically.

  ‘Answer me!’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Inspector, I must—’

  Addison cut the lawyer off. ‘That arrest for reset that I read to you earlier? Well I’ve got another one for you. Robert Dalrymple, also known as Alastair Haldane, I am arresting you on suspicion of unlawful interference of human remains. And I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Martin—’

  Dalrymple’s head snapped up, the tears disappearing.

  ‘No! I didn’t kill him. I swear to you I didn’t.’

  ‘No, of course not. He just tripped and fell into a hole in your garden.’

  ‘I didn’t kill him!’

  Dalrymple lost it. He shook off the grip of one of the constables and made to leap into the grave. His feet had cleared the ground and his body arched back when his jump was partially arrested by the other cop.

  He was left half in and half out of the hole, the burly officer struggling to hold back his weight till two colleagues rushed to help him.

  Addison kneeled beside Dalrymple’s head and whispered low enough that the lawyer couldn’t hear.

  ‘I’m so tempted to let you fall into that grave and cover you with enough soil that you never get out. The only thing that’s stopping me is that poor kid in there doesn’t deserve to spend eternity with a piece of shit like you for company.’

  He stood, his boot just a couple of centimetres from Dalrymple’s face. ‘Drag him up. And don’t be too gentle. As I was saying, Robert Dalrymple, I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Martin Welsh. You do not have to say anything but anything you do say may be noted in evidence.’

  ‘I didn’t kill him. I didn’t kill him!’ He was screaming.

  ‘Yeah. Sure.’

  CHAPTER 72

  Dalrymple and his lawyer, Victoria Cousins, sat at one side of the table, both looking thoroughly depressed. She’d appeared hassled when she’d been called to his door just after daybreak but that was nothing to how she seemed now. She had a possible child killer for a client and didn’t like it.

  He was distraught, staring blindly at the table in front of him and wiping tears from his cheeks. Looking old and broken, he rubbed obsessively at his spectacles. Addison saw someone on the verge of a breakdown and knew it was a useful place for an interviewee to be.

  The video was running. Rico Giannandrea sat alongside Addison, and one statement seemed to be on loop.

  ‘I didn’t kill him.’

  ‘So why was he buried in your back garden?’

  ‘I didn’t kill him.’

  ‘Mr Dalrymple, you need to give us some explanation of how he came to be there.’

  ‘I didn’t kill him.’

  ‘You knew he was there. You’re not denying that, are you?’

  ‘No. But I didn’t—’

  ‘So you knew he was buried there. And you were complicit in his body being placed there?’

  ‘I—’

  ‘Inspector, my client will not recognise a question involving the word complicit. It assumes guilt.’

  ‘Well, yes, I’d have thought so. Okay, let’s try this. Did you put the body there? Did you arrange for the body to be put there? Do you know how the body got there?’

  Dalrymple seemed absent. His brow furrowed and his eyes straying left and right.

  ‘I didn’t kill him.’

  ‘But you had his body buried in your garden! You’re seriously expecting me to believe you didn’t kill him?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Inspector!’

  ‘So you have to help me. If you didn’t kill him, how did he get there? At least tell me how that happened. Help yourself.’

  ‘I bought—’

  ‘Mr Dalrymple, don’t . . . Inspector . . .’

  Addison ignored her. ‘You bought what? You bought the body?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The word fell out of him like something that tasted bad in his mouth, and he wanted rid of it.

  ‘Okay, tell me how that happened. Who did you buy it from?’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Right. Then how can I believe you? You know it looks much more likely that you killed Martin. You were his teacher and you have his fucking body buried in your back garden. What do you think anyone is going to believe?’

  ‘I did. I bought it. I did.’

  ‘Okay. Tell me. How did you buy it? Who did you buy it from?’

  Dalrymple’s eyes widened and there was something Addison couldn’t quite catch.

  ‘A man.’

  ‘A man? The man who killed Martin?’

  Dalrymple was in his sixties but shrugged like a twelve-year-old. His lawyer stepped in to help him.

  ‘My client cannot conjecture about who killed Martin Welsh. He has already told you he didn’t do it. If he did interact with someone, he cannot know what he’d done.’

  ‘Uh-huh. Okay. Mr Dalrymple, did you believe that the person who sold you Martin’s body had killed him?’

  ‘Mr Dalrymple, don’t answer—’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Okay, good. So you believed you were purchasing the corpse of a murder victim from the person who murdered him. Is that right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Inspector! I need to speak to my client alone.’

  ‘Mr Dalrymple, the person that sold you the body, was that you? Did you kill Martin and then sell the corpse to yourself? Is that what you’re telling me?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘You killed Martin Welsh, didn’t you?’

  ‘I bought the body. I didn’t kill him.’

  ‘Inspector! I cannot allow my client to incriminate himself. I want to speak to him and I’m asking you to suspend this interview.’

  Addison was on his feet before she’d finished. A break was going to suit him, too. He had a call to make.

  ‘The weird thing is, I think I might believe him.’

  Narey sat
up in bed, phone glued to her ear, trying to take in what Addison was saying. ‘Me too. It fits. I’m not going as far as to say it makes sense because it doesn’t, but it fits that he’d do that. He’s a collector. A serious collector. If anyone would acquire something as grotesque as a body, it’s him.’

  ‘So if he didn’t kill Martin then the person that sold him his body did.’

  ‘Yes. And he’s sold plenty more.’

  ‘You still know more about this than you’re telling me, Rachel.’

  ‘I haven’t known it long and some it is guesswork, but I think there’s someone out there who’s been killing for years. A serial killer we didn’t even know was operating. I spoke to my dad and he said his fear was it was just some random who drove past, saw the chance and picked Martin Welsh up and killed him. Some maniac who had nothing to do with what we know. I think he was right. Except I think the same person has done it again and again.’

  ‘Jesus Christ! How many . . .? I mean, what are we dealing with here?’

  ‘I hate to think. But if I’m even remotely right then lots of it. The person who can best tell us, apart from the man who’s done it, is sitting in your interview room.’

  There was a long pause as Addison mentally released his murder suspect and tried to figure out how to make him a useful witness instead.

  ‘I think he’s scared. When I asked him about who he bought the body from, he changed. His eyes widened and he was shitting himself. He’d rather have gone away for this than tell me the truth.’

  ‘Then you need to work out what he’s more afraid of and use it. Offer to protect him from the killer and let him know only you can do that. We need whatever it is that he knows. I think you should ask him about the Four.’

  ‘The what?’

  She explained and he listened.

  CHAPTER 73

  ‘Okay, Mr Dalrymple. Let’s start again.’

  The man formerly known as Alastair Haldane looked much older than he’d done just a few hours before. His eyes were held up by dark circles and his brow was furrowed deep.

  ‘Are you ready to talk to me?’

  Dalrymple looked drained but summoned up enough energy to nod.

  ‘Good. Now here’s how I think it should work. I will start by believing what you say, that you didn’t kill Martin Welsh. That okay with you? And, in return, you tell me the truth. All of it. It’s the only way I think it can work.’

  Dalrymple and his lawyer exchanged looks that weren’t well served by a lack of words. He wanted help and she struggled to offer it. Her only true advice would be to recommend silence, and Addison was stealing that option away by offering him a possible way out.

  ‘Why should I believe you?’

  ‘Because you’ve no choice. Because I already know some of the things you need to tell me. I know you’ve spent years trying to keep everything secret but it hasn’t worked. Not as well as you think it has. You’ve got to realise that. It’s all over, Alastair. Now it’s about how you deal with it.’

  The man’s head came up at the sound of his real first name. Probably the first time anyone had called him that in many years.

  ‘What do you think you know?’

  ‘No. You tell me. The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. If you want me to believe you, then it’s the only way to go.’

  ‘No, I don’t think you—’

  ‘Why don’t you start by telling me about the Four?’

  Dalrymple’s lower jaw dropped by just a quarter of an inch but it was enough for Addison to know he’d get what he wanted. Now, all he had to do was steel himself to hear it.

  ‘Firstly, I did not kill Martin Welsh. I was as shocked as anyone else when he disappeared. He was a nice boy, nothing remarkable about him, not particularly smart, but I liked him. So when I was accused of . . . all that . . . it hurt. You can’t know what it was like. Everyone thought I’d murdered him. The police, the school, his village, his parents, other parents. Everyone. I was hated. It got to the stage I hated myself. I’d have been as well killing him for all it cost me.’

  That silenced the room. Even his lawyer sat open-mouthed, unable to intercede to defend him.

  ‘I don’t mean . . . You don’t understand. It ruined my life. I had no life left. Everything was affected by Martin. Everything was about Martin. I read everything I could, cut it all out of the newspapers, then got worried if I missed anything. I became a collector and it just . . . grew. I think it probably got out of hand.’

  As much as Addison wanted to stuff that understatement down Dalrymple’s throat, he resisted. ‘So you bought everything you could about Martin?’

  ‘Yes. After a while, I had to. The thought of anyone else having anything—’

  ‘And what about the Four?’

  Dalrymple hesitated, eyes blinking as he couldn’t decide which way to go.

  ‘That’s all over, Alastair. You’ve got to know that. It might have been fun while it lasted but it’s over now. You have to give me something and that means choosing between them and him.’

  Victoria Cousins offered her client a small shrug, then a nod of encouragement. Do it. Tell him.

  ‘We met in the USA. Ventura, California. It was a murderabilia convention and we got on well with each other. We realised we had . . . mutual interests. We formed a pact, a bond.’

  ‘And what was the pact?’

  ‘That we’d work together, to get the best collectibles that were available, helping each other to the exclusion of all others. We’d corner the market by pricing everyone else out of it. We all had our areas of interest and we’d respect that. If someone else saw a Martin Welsh piece before I did, then he’d acquire it so that it could be given over to me. And I would do the same for them.’

  ‘Who did the rest want to collect?’

  He looked distressed, the pains of treachery written across his face. But he gave it up just the same.

  ‘For one of them it’s Dennis Nilsen. For another it’s Fred and Rose West. The third collects anything he can about John Christie, Rillington Place and all that. We collect other things, too, but those are the exempt areas where the others agree not to go.’

  ‘And where did you do your collecting?’

  ‘At first it was on surface sites like KillingTime and Murder Mart but, as we bought more and had more clout in the trade, we started to go elsewhere.’

  ‘Like Abbadon and Whitechapel?’

  Addison enjoyed the surprise on the man’s face and the look of defeat that quickly followed it. He didn’t have much resistance left. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘We all wanted to buy things that the mainstream sites couldn’t give us. Things that couldn’t be bought openly but that we knew were out there. So we went dark and found Abbadon, then helped form Whitechapel inside it. We could . . . we could buy whatever we wanted. And, because we were together, we could control the place.’

  ‘Can’t beat a sense of power, right?’

  It didn’t get a reply, just a glare that proved Addison had been right.

  ‘And how did you come into contact with the person calling himself Big Sleep?’

  The fear flashed in Dalrymple’s eyes again. Unmissable, unmistakable. Addison could see he was terrified of him.

  ‘We saw him selling items that interested us. Items that wouldn’t normally be on an open market. We contacted him and invited him to operate somewhere that would work better for all of us. He got to know about my interest in Martin and said he might have some things I’d like. For the right price.’

  He paused to grab at the glass of water in front of him, swallowing heavily. Addison enjoyed his discomfort,

  ‘I wasn’t sure whether to believe him. Whether he could really get the things he said. But when he sent me a photograph of Martin’s clothes . . . I knew. I knew right away they were his. He wanted a lot of money but it was worth it to me.’

  ‘And did you ask him how he got them?’

  ‘No.’<
br />
  ‘How did you think he got them?’

  ‘I didn’t want to know.’

  ‘But you did know!’

  ‘I suppose I guessed. But I didn’t ask and he didn’t offer to tell.’

  ‘Very convenient for both of you. What happened next?’

  ‘I paid the price he asked and he arranged for me to pick the clothes up at a drop-off point near Nine Mile Burn in Midlothian. I was scared, not knowing what to expect, but Martin’s shoes and shirt were in a box, exactly where he said they’d be.’

  ‘And you bought more?’

  ‘Yes. In time, I bought everything he had. The rest of Martin’s clothing, his schoolbag, his homework jotters and books.’

  ‘And then you bought Martin?’

  ‘No. Not like that. Not then. It was years later. First, I’d introduced Big Sleep to the others. He said he had other things we might be interested in. And he had. Items we didn’t even know existed. That no one knew about. He offered us a lot.’

  ‘Oh, the rest of your little gang must have been pleased with you, bringing them such a good source of material. Did you ever meet him, any of you?’

  ‘No, never. That was the deal. All we ever got to know was his name, or at least what he told us his name was. Nathan.’

  ‘And did none of you stop to think this was wrong?’

  ‘No. We are just collectors. The objects were there already, we just paid to have them. We didn’t kill anyone.’

  ‘No but he did! And you all knew it.’

  ‘He never once said he’d killed any of these people. He just left us to assume he had.’

  ‘And did any of you doubt that?’

  The reply was quiet and shamed. ‘No. Not for a second.’

  Dalrymple catalogued the things they’d all bought from Nathan. It was a long and squalid list. Body parts, blankets that had held corpses, weapons, wallets and jewellery, clothing, teeth, hair. There was no end to what he could offer and what they were prepared to buy.

  ‘Why did you keep doing it? Why did you keep buying this shit from him?’