by Conrad Jones
“I am not sure that I do.”
“Did he tell you about my mum being poisoned?”
“Well,” she frowned. “It was a long time ago but I remember him talking about it.”
“A year or so ago.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“Someone spiked my mum’s sports drinks with anti-freeze,” he became animated as he spoke. His arms waved around like a weatherman on acid. “Did he tell you that bit?” He paused and Janice nodded that she knew that. “Someone poisoned her and then as if by magic, they found two bottles in the fridge that tested positive for chemicals and I could tell that they thought that I had done it.” He waved his arms again. “I could just tell!” His face darkened as he spoke. She could literally see the anger rising in him. He studied her eyes as he spoke. “Did he say that they thought it was me?” Janice tried not to react but she must have done because Ryder slapped his knee with his hand. He stood up and pointed the finger in her face. His hand went to the gun for a moment but he left it tucked into his belt. “I fucking knew it! I can tell by your face that he said that I had done it.” He turned around and sat down again. “Tell me what he said. Tell me exactly.” He leaned forward and waited.
Janice swallowed hard and licked her lips. There didn’t seem to be much point in making things up. She didn’t know what he wanted to hear the most, that they did think it was him or that they didn’t. It was all that she could do to tell the truth. “I remember that he said they found evidence in the fridge and that the bottles had been injected with a syringe, I think,” she paused. His expression was calm for now, although his eyes were boring into her as if he was searching inside her skull for the answers. She felt her hands trembling as she recounted what she remembered. “I remember that he said you shot your uncle and escaped in your car.” Ryder wasn’t satisfied with her answer. She could see it on his face. He wanted more. She took a breath before continuing. “He said that he was sure that you had done it.”
“He said that I had poisoned my mother?” He frowned.
“Yes.”
“No doubt about it?”
“No,” she shook her head.
“They never suspected Uncle Geoff?”
“Never.”
“He was positive that it was me?”
“He was positive.”
Brendon covered his mouth with his hands and shook his head in disbelief. “Why, why, why, would they think that?” He seemed to be asking himself. Suddenly he punched Janice on the left thigh. The heavy blow deadened the muscle instantly. Janice rocked back, both shock and pain battling for supremacy in her brain. She grimaced against the pain, her breath hissed between her teeth. He carried on as if nothing had happened. “Did he say why they were so sure?” He asked curiously as if seeking directions from a pleasant-faced stranger.
Janice had to ask questions of herself. Her own sanity was being brought into question. Brendon Ryder had just punched her hard enough to floor her, yet he hadn’t even paused to take a breath. She knew that he was a mad man and that she had to try harder not to say anything that would rile him. Her brain raced for words which were chosen carefully. “They found your prints on a bag in the rubbish, I think,” she paused and waited for another blow. He seemed to be processing the information.
“A bag?” He frowned.
“Yes. The bag had a syringe in it.”
“What bag?” He snapped and punched her leg again. Her mouth opened in a silent scream, saliva dribbled from the corner of her mouth. He screamed in her face. “What fucking bag?”
Janice recoiled in fear. His eyes narrowed and she was holding her breath waiting for another punch to come her way. “I can’t remember exactly what bag it was, honestly, but I do remember that it was a carrier bag, just a plastic shopping bag in one of the bins.”
Ryder stood up again and growled at the ceiling. Janice cringed and held her breath waiting for another attack. “How can I deny anything when the bastards come up with stuff like that, hey? How can I deny anything?” Sitting down, he leaned towards her, his voice hushed. “You see?” He shrugged. “This is exactly what I am talking about. It is not what you have done. It’s what they say you have done.” He wagged the finger in her face again. “They think that I poisoned my mum and hey presto, they find my prints on a carrier bag which happens to have a syringe in it.” He shook his head and grinned. “Oh come on, Janice. I am not Einstein, but I am not stupid either. Would I leave the syringe in the rubbish?” His expression told her that he required an answer. He asked the question again, very slowly. “Would I be stupid enough to leave a syringe in a carrier bag in the bin?”
“I doubt it.”
“Doubt it?” He whistled and clapped his hands together. “Janice doubts it everyone!”
“I mean that it wouldn’t make sense to go to those lengths to poison someone and then make such a simple mistake,” Janice tried to placate him. Her thigh was throbbing incessantly and she could feel the muscle swelling beneath her jeans. The pain was sapping what little energy she had remaining.
“My point exactly, Janice!” He sat back and folded his arms. His expression said that he was deep in thought. “Why would I poison my mother?” He stood and leaned on the chair. “She is about the only person who really gave a shit about me. Her and the Bissells and now they’re telling me that they’re dead?” His eyes glazed over and Janice felt her knees trembling. “What exactly are they trying to do?” Ryder shook his head and sat down again. “You can see what they’re doing, can’t you?”
Janice didn’t have a clue what he meant but she nodded that she did.
****
In the trailer, Annie looked at Alec and frowned. “Is that for our benefit, or his?” she asked. “I can’t make my mind up with this lunatic. Is he trying to convince himself that he hasn’t done anything because if he is, then he is far more dangerous than we thought.” Jim Stirling nodded his head and sighed. He couldn’t take his eyes from the screen and what he was hearing wasn’t doing anything to give him any hope of his wife being released any time soon. “It’s like listening to three people in there.”
Alec shook his head and turned to the screens which showed the thermal imaging that was being sent from the conjoining building. The two green shapes were overlapped, no matter which angle the firearms officers looked from. There was no clean shot to take him out. “As long as he is talking, Janice is valuable to him,” he turned to Stirling. “It doesn’t matter if he talks all day, as long as Janice is unharmed,” he tried to reassure him.
“Unharmed?” Stirling pointed to the screen which showed Janice’s bloody face. “Are you watching the same thing as me?”
Alec felt embarrassed but he knew what he meant. Janice Stirling was breathing, which when taken in comparison to most of the females who came into contact with Ryder, was a bonus. “She’s a strong woman. She’s doing well and we’ll get her out of there.” He patted Stirling on the shoulder. “Trust me.”
******
“Surely those days have gone,” Janice shrugged. “They can’t plant things and get away with it any more, can they?” She turned her palms to the ceiling as she spoke. “DNA and forensics nowadays separates the guilty from the not guilty, don’t they?” Brendon eyed her suspiciously. Janice felt like she was sitting next to a firework. The blue touch paper had been lit and she knew that it was going to explode; she just didn’t know when, or how loud the bang would be. “They either have the proof that you did it, or they don’t. If they don’t, then you’ll be fine.”
“What about the prints on the bag?” He snapped. “I didn’t poison my mother, yet they have my prints on a carrier bag. Explain that!”
“In my mind, it can only be one of two things.”
“Really,” he said sarcastically, “would you care to expand that comment.”
“You said that you didn’t poison your mother,” she said calmly trying to keep her voice conversational despite being terrified, “if I take that you’re telling t
he truth for granted, then either the police planted the evidence or someone else put it there.”
“Correct!” He clapped his hands slowly and tilted his head. “If you were on a jury that would be brilliant but now look at it from the other side, where I am a liar plain and simple?”
“The truth usually comes out at some stage.”
“Maybe I can convince them that I didn’t poison my mother but they’ll stitch me up for the murders anyway,” he said, matter of factly. Janice noticed that his eyes glazed over, as if he was somewhere else completely. His eyes had that glassy look that junkies get straight after a hit. It’s a look that Junkies and psychopaths share; one was caused by mental imbalance, the other by chemicals, either way it was a detachment from planet Earth. She was scared anyway but when he seemed detached from reality, she was more scared than she had ever been.
“They can’t say you murdered anyone without solid evidence,” she tried to convince him.
“It’s not that simple. I was there, you see,” he shook his head vigorously, “just because I was there, doesn’t mean that I killed anyone but they will try to pin it on me.”
“Pin what on you, exactly?”
“They’ll start with Charlie Keegan and Lacey Taylor and take it from there,” he snorted, “that’s bad enough but then on Crimewatch, the bastards were saying that they suspect that I am the Butcher!”
“You didn’t kill any of them?” Janice asked curiously.
“It’s complicated.”
“I don’t see how it can be.” She shook her head. “You did or you didn’t.”
“What does your fella say about it?” He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. His piggy eyes had that sparkle in them and Janice thought that he would be really crap at poker. When he was calling, his eyes were full of anticipation. He wanted to switch the conversation back onto her every time it became uncomfortable. “I’m very interested in what he had to say about it at home.”
Janice didn’t want to get into this conversation. Her options were zero but she had to be considerate of the fact that he was unbalanced. She sighed and said, “He said that Charlie Keegan had his head removed and was dumped in a pond,” Janice said flatly. “How complicated can that be?”
“Very.”
“They think that you had a motive,” she added. “Your stepfather did business with him.”
“He was a grass,” Brendon snapped. “That isn’t tolerated in this city but I didn’t actually kill him.”
“I don’t care what he did and neither does anyone else. The fact is he was murdered and they think you did it,” Janice answered sharply. “So you killed him because he was a grass, what has this got to do with me?”
“I didn’t kill him,” Brendon repeated. “We were asking him some questions and my mate Gaz went too far and he died.”
“Too far,” Janice was exasperated. “Too far is putting a guy in hospital, breaking his legs or something. Your definition of too far is very different from what the vast majority of people would think.” She shrugged. “He cut his head off, for God’s sake!”
“Afterwards, yes,” Brendon protested. He pushed his hands into his tracksuit pockets and looked at the floor. Janice thought he looked almost embarrassed. “That was to stop them identifying his body.”
“And your friend is where?”
“Dead,” Brendon said quietly. The brooding look on his face warned her not to pursue that unfortunate fact.
“In which case, you will have nothing to worry about,” Janice said impatiently. “If you say that you didn’t do it and there are no witnesses because your friend is dead, then they won’t be able to prove it one way or the other, will they?”
“That was what my uncle said at the time,” he snorted as he thought back to when they snapped Gary’s neck. Brendon stood up for a moment and walked around his chair. He leaned on the back of it with both hands and bit his lip. “Maybe I can swerve Keegan’s murder, but I did kidnap Lacey Taylor with Gaz.” He fiddled with his fingers and wouldn’t make eye contact. Janice had seen enough liars in her time, to know another one when she met one. He was manufacturing this bit. “She was going to grass my stepfather to the police. Her and Keegan were in cahoots.” He frowned as if that justified double murder. “She was a lippy bitch, so I roughed her up.”
“You raped her.” Janice regretted saying it as soon as she had said it. “I mean, that is what the evidence says,” she tried to soften the blow. “I read that much in the Echo.”
Ryder sat down and nodded. He messed with his fingers again. Janice thought that he was almost childlike when he was uncomfortable with a subject. She didn’t think that he would last long under interrogation from the likes of Jim Stirling and his colleagues. “I have a bad temper,” he explained. “It runs in the family.” He was almost apologetic about the fact. “She made me very angry and I lost my temper with her. She needed to know who was boss, you know?”
She ignored his excuses. Mental abuse, physical abuse, rape, it was all the same psycho babble that was used to explain why some men were animals. “They have your DNA on her, don’t they?” Janice said quietly. “So you can’t exactly say the sex was consensual, can you?”
“No.”
“They’ll nail you for that then, won’t they?” There was little point in beating around the bush. She was hoping that he wouldn’t mention Lacey and the other women. A conversation with the Butcher of Crosby Beach about his victims was not something she relished, without an axe in her hand. “You can’t swerve that, can you?” His face darkened again and she wished that she hadn’t answered him at all, but not answering him could make him even worse.
“This is my dilemma,” he looked her in the eye. The glint was gone. He blinked. “I fucked her but I didn’t kill her.” He was lying. She could see it in his eyes. “What do you think they would give me for kidnap and rape?” He paused. “If they nail me for Keegan too, maybe even conspiracy to murder?” She bit her bottom lip and looked down at the floor. He was staring at her intensely, studying her reaction. She could feel his beady eyes boring into her skull. “What has Stirling said to you about her murder? You had better tell me the truth. I can tell when you’re lying.”
She sighed and rocked back slightly in her chair. She wrung her hands together as she thought about her next answer. He had her backed into a corner. She was damned if she answered and damned if she didn’t. If she thought that she could break the double glazed units in the patio doors by sprinting at them, then she would have tried. Janice felt like a rat in a trap. There was nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. He was pressing her for the information that had become the key to the entire case. How could she answer him without risking riling him? She exhaled and smiled thinly. It was a nervous smile. “They know that whoever killed Lacey killed the others too.”
He frowned. His expression was one of genuine surprise. “How do you mean?”
“The other women.” Her voice was almost a whisper.
“The Butcher’s victims?”
“Yes.”
“Because they’re on the beach?”
“Not just that.”
“You’re telling me that the police are saying that whoever killed Lacey Taylor is the Butcher?” Janice remained silent and nodded almost imperceptibly. Brendon frowned and put his head into his hands. He picked up the empty glass and looked into it, then put it down again. His throat was suddenly dry. He laughed but there was no mirth in it; it was a harsh hoarse sound. Suddenly, he picked the chair up and swung it over her head. It whistled through the air. He spun through a full circle and grunted like an Olympic athlete. Janice cried out in fear and ducked.
****
Stirling stood up and held his breath as he watched. Alec and the tech watched the view from the thermal imaging cameras. There was no clear shot. He was directly in front of her. Annie took a sharp intake of breath and bit her nails as the scene played out on the screen. “Get her out of there,” Stirling muttered. “For fuck’s s
ake, get her out of there!” He put his hands to his face but he couldn’t take his eyes from the screen.
*****
Ryder slammed the chair down onto the floor and sat on it. His face was like thunder and he glared at Janice. He shook his head and took a breath before speaking. His voice was surprisingly calm. “Whoever killed Lacey Taylor killed the other women?”
“That’s what they think,” she said meekly.
“That is one hell of a jump in assumptions isn’t it?” He cocked his head and studied her reaction. Janice couldn’t look at him in the eye. She was terrified. “What the fuck makes them think that?”
“The way they found her.”
“I don’t understand how they have come to that conclusion,” he shook his head, his expression incredulous as he spoke. “That is impossible.”
“I’m just telling what I was told.”
“I know you are,” he said coldly. Impatience crept into his tone. “Why do they think that?”
“The MO,” she muttered staring at her feet. If ever she had needed to be teleported to another place it was now. “The MO was the same.”
“What are you talking about?”
“They call it the MO,” she explained as calmly as she could. “It means modus operandi.”
Brendon jumped to his feet and kicked Janice hard in the shin. She cried out like a wounded dog. The veins in his forehead pulsed blue beneath the skin of his temples. “I know what it means, you cheeky cunt!” He stepped backward and kicked out a second time. She screamed as the toe of his training shoe ripped the skin from her shin. He grabbed her hair and stamped on her toes hard, cracking several and bruising her instep. She cried out and tried to throw herself backwards away from him but he held her tightly. “Do you think that you’re clever?” He grabbed her chin and put his face inches from hers. “Anyone who watches the television on a Saturday night knows what an MO is, you twat!”
