Murderabilia

by Craig Robertson

  ‘We became addicted. I think that’s the only word for it. We didn’t stop because we couldn’t stop. And also we didn’t want to say no to Nathan.’

  ‘Because you were afraid of him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You could have gone to the police.’

  The laugh was twisted. ‘No, that option was long gone even if we’d wanted to. We were in too deep. And we were obsessed with it. All of us.’

  ‘So when he came to you with Martin’s body . . .’

  Tears began rolling down Dalrymple’s face. Self-pity or shame, Addison didn’t much care which, but he wanted to slap them away.

  ‘He contacted me and asked if I wanted something special. Something to complete my collection. When he told me what it was . . .’

  He downed another glass of water, refilling it from the jug in the middle of the table and drinking more. He was falling apart.

  ‘I was horrified. Genuinely. Martin’s books and clothing was one thing but this . . . I said no but he kept pressing, telling me he’d dig them up and throw them away, encouraging me to buy them. It was a game for him, to make me as bad as him. I know that’s what he wanted. In the end, I gave in. I couldn’t say no. I didn’t want to . . .’

  ‘How did you get the body?’

  ‘Bones. It was just his bones. That was all that was left of him. I went to a different spot near Nile Mile Burn and they were waiting for me. Four separate boxes. I took them home and dug the grave. When it was ready, I laid him out the way he should be, then covered him up. Respectfully.’

  ‘Jesus Christ! What about the headstone? Did you already have that?’

  ‘No. He got it for me later. From the one Martin’s family had put up for him. To complete me, he said.’

  ‘Did this Nathan ever tell you how Martin was killed?’

  ‘Yes. In a roundabout sort of way. He didn’t tell me directly, not that he did it, but said what had happened. He made me pay for it.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He said that Martin was standing at the bus stop and a white van pulled up – his white van of course – and the driver offered Martin a lift. He was reluctant at first but got in. It took him a while to notice the van had taken the wrong road but, when he started to protest, he was smashed over the head with a hammer. He was then driven to a place the driver knew and was murdered.’

  A white van. Michael Hill, the lorry driver, had been right all along. So too had Rachel’s father. Lone wolf, a random driver in a white van had seen a chance and taken the boy to kill him. Forty-three years it had taken but now they knew. The knowledge gave Addison no satisfaction at all.

  ‘What is Nathan’s surname?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Where does he live? What does he do?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘How do I contact him on Abbadon?’

  ‘You don’t. You can’t. He’d see you coming a mile away. Believe me, there’s no way he’s going to communicate with you.’

  ‘Believe you? I suppose I’m going to have to. But you must know that my believing you means that you will go to prison, quite possibly for what’s left of your life.’

  ‘I only collected things!’

  Addison laughed in his face. ‘Right. Among that collection is a book made from the skin of Burke the grave robber, isn’t there?’

  Dalrymple didn’t ask how Addison knew but nodded curtly.

  ‘Well I’m no historian but I know a bit about Burke and Hare. And the surgeon, the anatomist, Robert Knox, right? He bought the corpses the bodysnatchers stole from the graves but, when that dried up, Burke and Hare got inventive. They cut out the middle man and killed people so they could sell the bodies to Knox. Am I right?’

  ‘Yes but—’

  ‘And Knox’s great crime, even if it couldn’t be proven, was that he knew. He knew they were killing to order and he paid them what they wanted. Now Knox just about got away with that because he was an eminent surgeon, but that’s not going to work for you. We’re talking conspiracy to murder.’

  ‘What? No! We didn’t—’

  ‘Oh, but you did.’

  ‘Inspector! There’s no—’

  Dalrymple’s lawyer reminded them of her presence but not for long. Her defence died in her throat. She was collecting herself for a second attempt but was so far out of her depth she was struggling to get her head above water.

  ‘No point in arguing with me, Ms Cousins. That will be for the Procurator Fiscal to decide. All your client can do is help himself. By helping me.’

  Dalrymple was broken. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I want to know who they are. And where I can find them.’

  CHAPTER 74

  They had done everything they could to keep the discovery of Martin Welsh’s remains out of the press and away from anyone who didn’t absolutely need to know. That wouldn’t hold for long and they knew they had to work quickly and quietly.

  They had taken a risk informing Martin’s mother, but Winter had been adamant she had to be told and Addison had backed him all the way to the top. So the news Jean Welsh had waited on and dreaded for over forty years was finally delivered to her door. She reacted by dissolving into tears but the breakdown lasted all of two minutes before she pulled herself together and announced she would start arranging a proper funeral for her boy.

  What happened next needed the help of three police forces and Addison had to go to his Chief Constable to make the necessary contacts, ones high enough in each chain of command that they could keep the operation under wraps.

  Much as he wanted to be in three places at once, Addison couldn’t. Instead he and Winter were in the most northerly of the three locations, Richmond in North Yorkshire. Winter was along at his dispensation, negotiated with the Chief Constable, much to the disgust of a certain DCI Denny Kelbie.

  Kelbie was going to have more than that to worry about, though.

  The information that Addison extracted from Dalrymple went beyond the Four’s historical connections to the man they knew as Big Sleep. The collectors had bought or agreed to buy items from the murders of Aiden McAlpine, Calvin Brownlie and Dr George Jeffries. One killer, as yet unknown but closer than ever before.

  It had shown Kelbie’s investigation up as a shambles. His head would soon be served up on a plate to appease a very angry MSP and several gay-rights groups. For Winter and Addison that was an added bonus, some welcome light among all the dark.

  It was nearly two in the morning and they shivered inside an unmarked van with blacked-out windows just north of the banks of the River Swale. The van was about to drive into Frenchgate in the town centre and get inside the Landscape Gardener’s house before he knew they were there. And certainly before he could reach for a phone or laptop.

  Similar scenarios were going to be played out in Lewisham in south London and Clifton in Bristol, home to the Accountant and the Jeweller respectively. At precisely two, the signal would be given and all three residences would be raided. All teams had warrants that gave them the right to search everywhere and examine everything.

  The van was on the move now, gliding slowly into the end of Frenchgate to park some forty yards from the target’s house. The three cops who were squeezed into the van alongside Addison and Winter didn’t seem pleased to have two Jocks for company, and they were particularly suspicious of the fact that one of them was a journalist. A large shaven-headed guy who Addison had decided was ex-army had already twice turned quickly so that the helmet strapped to his shoulder zipped past Winter’s nose. When he did it a third time, Addison let him have it, quietly but firmly.

  ‘Sergeant! If you do that once more then I’m going to have to educate you in the way we do things in Glasgow when someone takes the piss.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean, sir.’

  ‘Do it again and you’ll find out.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The local inspector, Brian Huddlestone, sitting in the front seat, turned round t
o protect his man, ready to fire some verbal volley at Addison, when an alarm sounded quietly. Ten seconds to go.

  ‘Right. In ten,’ Huddlestone announced. ‘On my count. Ten, nine . . .’

  When he got to one, then ‘go’, Winter was the first to move. He turned sharply towards the door, causing the heavy photographic bag on his back to smash into the face of the cop who had hassled him. There was no time for apologies, just enough for grins between Winter and Addison as they jumped out of the van.

  The lead cop smashed open the front door in the blink of an eye and the rest poured inside. Two of them hared up the stairs, making for the bedroom so they could isolate the Landscape Gardener before he could do anything they didn’t want.

  Brendan Fallon was found bleary-eyed, sitting up naked in bed with his wife as the two cops charged in to arrest him and read him his rights. He was still shouting and protesting his innocence when Addison and Winter joined the show along with Huddlestone.

  The inspector looked questioningly at his two officers, one of whom nodded sharply in return. Huddlestone reached for the radio piece at his shoulder.

  ‘Richmond locked down.’

  He listened for one reply, then the other. All three collectors had been detained and read their rights. None of them had been able to get to any communication device or get rid of evidence. Now they could search the three properties at their leisure.

  Word soon drifted back from London and Bristol of caches of collectibles of John Reginald Christie and Dennis Nilsen. Murder-scene pieces from Rillington Place, Cranley Gardens and Melrose Avenue. The disturbing but relatively unsurprising was quickly followed by bulletin reports of congealed flesh, murder implements and atrophied body parts. They found photographs and clothing as well as letters that officers said were goldmines of information.

  In Richmond, they found a host of collectibles related to Fred and Rose West on display. Framed pieces of the demolished Cromwell Street house, a couple of official documents signed by Fred, and newspaper front pages about the House of Horrors.

  The first real surprise was when they slid open the drawers of a tall chest in Fallon’s second bedroom. The oak dresser seemed innocuous enough but, inside, the four drawers were all lined with purple velvet and each held a single piece of clothing in protective cellophane wrapping. The clothes, two blouses, a dress and a pair of flared jeans, were all made for young women and seemed dated in terms of fashion.

  Both blouses were bloodstained, the dress was torn and the jeans engrained in dirt. Everyone in the room thought the same thing. Teenage victims of Fred and Rose.

  ‘You’ll sue? Good luck with that, freak.’

  Fallon’s eyes widened on hearing Addison’s accent.

  ‘You’re Scottish? The fucking Librarian. I knew that bastard would fold.’ He slipped one arm out of his captor’s grasp and had to be held a second time.

  ‘You’ll pay for this. You’re too stupid to realise we knew you were coming. Is one of you with that bitch that went on Abbadon? She’ll wish she never came after us. Nathan will sort her. Get your hands off me!’

  Addison and Winter looked at each other. ‘Rachel . . .’

  CHAPTER 75

  Narey had been asleep for maybe an hour when she heard something that stirred her awake. She opened her eyes with a dream of Sharon Tate just slipping from her view. Had she dreamed the noise too?

  She strained her ears and eyes in the dark but couldn’t make anything out. Then, there, again. A squeak of floor-board. It was an old house, she told herself. It squeaked and groaned like geriatric mice.

  There was something else, though, something faint beyond the squeaks. Breathing. She could hear someone breathing.

  She slapped an arm to the other side of the bed to see if Tony had come home, sliding in beside her while she slept. Her hand hit only duvet and pillow.

  Every sense was on full alert, her own breath caught in her throat. She could sense it, feel it, there was someone else in the room.

  She fumbled for the bedside light and switched it on. Standing a few feet from the end of the bed was a man dressed in black with a balaclava covering his face.

  The window. Her ear to the street. The one she’d insisted Tony leave open just enough for her to hear the world go by on Great Western Road. That was how he’d got in. Stupid, so stupid.

  The man was slight, although reasonably tall. Wiry. Dressed in black with wild eyes staring at her through the peepholes of the balaclava. He didn’t say a word but the eyes betrayed his pleasure at her reaction.

  Her stomach heaved in fear. The fact that the man felt no need to move, either to flee or attack, worried her hugely. He was calm, unflustered. He’d done this before.

  ‘Who are you? What the hell are you doing in here?’

  She asked it, although knowing the answer. Not a name or a person as such. But she knew who he was and what he’d done. He was the Big Sleep. He was death.

  ‘My name is Nathan Phimister. I’m going to kill you.’

  The simplicity of the statement terrified her. She edged back in the bed away from him but stopped once she realised what she was doing. Showing him fear wasn’t going to help.

  ‘Why?’ It was a stupid question but it just burst out of her while she thought what to do.

  ‘You’ve been looking for me, haven’t you? Well now I’m here. Happy?’

  ‘Just get out. Go. I won’t say anything. Just go.’

  He laughed at her. ‘Yeah? Sure you won’t. Anyway, you made such an effort to get me here, it would be rude if I just left.’

  ‘Please!’

  ‘No chance.’

  His legs were spread, as if ready to spring, ready to attack.

  ‘Get the fuck out of here. Now.’

  He just laughed again. ‘No. We both know that’s not going to happen. You’re my next. Maybe my last.’

  She had a mental flash of Sharon Tate. Eight and a half months pregnant. Intruders in her house. The dreams of the long blonde hair swaying as she slipped from view. The horror that had woken her from sleep was now real and standing by the end of her bed.

  Images of the Tate slaying flooded her mind. She should never have looked at those things. All she could see in her head were the blood and the bodies. All she could think of was the murder of that unborn child.

  She put an arm over her stomach and cradled her refugee. This bastard wasn’t getting at her baby.

  She had to push him. Change this somehow. Reason with him. Beg him. Anything. Ask questions that she didn’t want to hear answers to.

  ‘My dad. Was that you?’

  He nodded slowly.

  The rage flooded through her. Her hands formed claws and she bared her teeth. She wanted to rip his head off. She began to lever herself against the bed to get up, but he took a step forward threateningly. She stopped, not caring for herself, but it wasn’t just her own life she’d be risking.

  ‘You killed all those people. All those pensioners.’

  ‘Nah, I just killed your old man. The rest didn’t matter. Just collateral. I’ve killed a lot more than that, darling.’

  The easy breezy way he said it chilled her, scared her, enraged her. He couldn’t care less. It all meant nothing to him.

  ‘Martin Welsh?’

  ‘One of my first. Hadn’t planned it. I drove past in my van and saw him standing there, so I stopped to offer him a lift. He got in and I drove to a place I know. Buried him there where no one would find him. Deep in the woods.’

  ‘And he’s still there?’ She knew the answer but wanted to hear it all.

  ‘No. He rose. Someone made it worth my while to go back and dig him up. Someone wanted him.’

  He reached up to his head and, after just a moment’s hesitation, pulled the balaclava back from his face. He didn’t care if she saw what he looked like. In no way could that be good.

  The face was gaunt and pale with two distinct lines stretched from either side of his nose to his jaw. There was sparse fair hair
on the sides of his skull but the top was shiny and freckled with cancerous looking blotches. With the mask removed, she could see thin lips pared back from uneven teeth. He could have been a young seventy or an old fifty.

  She felt the beginning of a searing pain that rose from her groin and spread like burning needles across her body. It spasmed and stung, stabbed and grabbed. She clutched at her stomach with her left hand and the man’s eyes followed her movement, seeing her bump and recognising it for what it was.

  ‘Please. Please. Don’t do this. My baby . . .’

  ‘Look, bitch, I don’t have any mercy for you. You’re going to die.’

  Did he say that? Had she heard him right, or was she hallucinating? That was what she kept hearing in her dreams, what Susan Atkins said to Sharon Tate.

  The pain seized her again, her shoulders rising from the bed as it forced her to double at the waist. She had to breathe. Count and breathe and slow it all down. She remembered what the doctor had told her. Breathe for two. Breathe for two. She exhaled the panic air and took in one long slow breath for her and let it go, following it with one for her baby. The pain grabs were slowing, just pinching rather than wounding, and she hoped it would pass.

  He was staring at her, curious at her discomfort and maybe enjoying it. He was rubbing at the side of his temple with his left hand, idly massaging the skin and the bone beneath. She watched his right hand slip inside the dark jacket and re-emerge glinting as the light caught the surface of something metal and sharp.

  The sight of the knife, the blade turning slowly in his hand, caused the stomach seizures to pick up again. He took a stride forward, his eyes burning cold, the knife gripped hard and pulled back ready to strike. Sharon Tate, eight and half months pregnant and stabbed sixteen times.

  One last try. Talking through the pain that bit her.

  ‘You don’t want to do this. Not to me.’

  ‘Oh, but I do. Especially to you. You’re worth money to me and you’re worth headlines. A pregnant cop. Guaranteed headlines. The whole world will know. And I’ll be well paid for things from this.’