by Will Harker
“Except he isn’t.”
Garris stopped sorting through the photographs and looked up at me. “I’m sorry?”
“It’s odd,” I said. “But from the moment he handed the case over to me, he seemed to lose all interest in it. Almost as if a burden had been lifted from his shoulders. He hasn’t called for updates, isn’t interested in my progress. But when I was wavering about accepting his proposal, he…”
“Yes?”
“He looked frightened. Terrified that I might refuse. And now, total indifference.”
Garris flicked his forefinger against the file. “But this isn’t indifference. This is the compulsive and costly accumulation of evidence. And there was risk involved in amassing it too. If one of the officers he contacted hadn’t taken his bribes and had reported him, he’d probably be facing court right now.”
“I know,” I said. “I can’t explain it.”
“There’s too much about this case that can’t be explained. In fact, one of the only things that seems certain is that this isn’t our murderer’s first outing. As you’ve said, the lack of DNA is indicative. I wonder, have you considered a hibernating serial killer?”
I nodded. “Yes. I think these killings are discreet. They have their set historical pattern that he will attempt to replicate. But it’s such a fully formed idea—recreations of past tragedies—and so neatly executed, it feels like a template that’s been used before. And if it has, then my guess is that his past murders were either never discovered or, as you say, happened a long time ago. So long ago they’ve slipped from our memory.”
“Or we didn’t appreciate them for what they were at the time,” Garris said. “Because, like now, the victims appeared to be unconnected and so the murders were never linked.”
“So he repeats this pattern every few years, maybe even every few decades? That must take huge self-control.”
“Well, we know he has that from the arrangement of the crime scenes,” Garris said. “And there have been many cases of serial killers with big gaps between their activities. If our man fits the typical profile, he’s likely to be a loner without a family or normal home life, although he may give the illusion he has one. Then there’re all the typical traits: early age trauma, a record of petty offences from his childhood—theft, incidents of arson, maiming and killing animals. You know the sort of thing. He may appear superficially charismatic while having the psychopath’s ability to mimic any emotions he doesn’t actually feel. I’d say that goes double for this guy.” Garris tapped his pen against the reports. “This sense of control will be evident in all his actions.”
I scribbled a few lines in my notebook, nodding along as he spoke. There were new insights here but much of what he said accorded with my own feel for the case. Still, it was good to have my theories validated.
“I’ll take a look in all the usual databases,” he said. “See if I can spot him among any old unsolved murders. I’ll also take a look at the vics. I think you’re right, Scott, they must be connected somehow.”
Finally, he picked up the last photo ever taken of us together, exiting the station after our second interview with Lenny Kerrigan. His lips set into a thin line.
“The Thierrot woman shot this, didn’t she?”
“She did.”
“Bloody paparazzi. I know she was bothering you after you left prison. Is she still buzzing around?”
“I haven’t seen her for weeks,” I said
“Well, that’s a blessing anyway.”
“Amen. So, any final thoughts?”
Garris stood back from the table where the photos and reports were fanned out like a kaleidoscope of pain and misery.
“Only that…” He seemed to struggle for the right words. “It doesn’t seem real. Not like an actual case, know what I mean?”
I agreed. Everything about these murders had an air of heightened reality, almost like a detective story. It was as if the players had all been assembled onstage, the set appropriately dressed, the actors’ lines rehearsed. Everyone just waiting for the detective to show up and go through the motions. Only he had turned up late, missing the curtain. I said as much to Garris and he agreed.
“Although, what good that idea does us, I don’t know. Anyway, I should be heading back home. Harriet sends her best wishes by the way… Oh, and Scott?”
“Yes?”
“Once you find him, you hand him over to us. You understand?”
“Of course.”
He stood at the door for a while, his gaze never leaving my face. “I hope to God you do.”
Webster stirred as he pushed the door open. In the next moment, the juk was halfway across the trailer, barking his head off. Harry stood on the step, fist raised as if about to knock. I caught hold of Webster’s collar and hauled him back.
“Sorry!” I shouted, hushing the juk as best I could. “He’ll like you once he gets to know you, I promise.”
Harry’s frightened gaze flipped between Webster and Garris.
“Hello,” he said holding out his hand. “Harry. Moorhouse.”
Garris shook his hand. “Pete Garris. I’m a friend of Scott’s. I’ve heard a lot about you, Harry.” He looked back at me over his shoulder as I settled Webster. “One more thing before I go, Scott—remember your Sherlock Holmes. Goodbye, Mr Moorhouse.”
Harry moved aside to let Garris pass. A few seconds later, we heard the putter of his Nissan turning out of the cul-de-sac. With Webster quieted, we stood looking at each other for a moment, smiling tight smiles.
“I’m sorry about last night,” we said together and burst out laughing.
“You go,” I said.
He ran fingers through that mop of mousy hair. “I overreacted, running off like that.”
“You had every right,” I said. “I guess I’ve just been a bit edgy lately and I didn’t expect to find anyone in here. But I appreciated the note. Until I saw it, I was thinking of packing up and leaving–”
“No.” He came forward and Webster stirred at my feet. “I… I’m glad you stayed.”
I knelt beside the old juk and gestured for Haz to join me. Very gingerly, he got to his knees, the look of stark terror on his face making me laugh again. I’d forgotten how scared he was of dogs.
“His bark really is worse than his bite.”
“Like his owner, then?” Harry said, a nervous smile breaking out.
“Just stroke him here, right behind his ear, and I swear he’ll love you forever.”
The low grumble emanating from Webster’s belly gradually segued into delighted panting as Harry’s fingers got to work. Pretty soon they were both grinning at each other.
“He’s a cheap date.” I nodded.
“Hey.” Harry swatted my shoulder. “Which one of us was that directed at?”
“Take your pick.”
“Where did he come from anyway?” he asked. Webster was now showing his belly, a geriatric pooch reverting to his puppyhood. “You didn’t bring him with you.”
“A friend dropped him off,” I murmured.
“The one that just left?” He laid his hand against his cheek. “I’m not sure I liked the look of him. Who is he?”
“He’s easy to misread. That was Detective Inspector Peter Garris.” I sighed. “One of the best coppers you could ever hope to meet… and my old boss.”
I suddenly felt tired of secrets. For his own sake, I didn’t want to expose Harry to the complete reality of my world, but to keep everything from him—every facet of who I was and what had happened to me in those years since Oxford—that was no basis for starting again. If that was in fact what we were doing here.
“You were a police officer?” he asked. “Are you still–?”
“No. Not a for a while now.”
“Why? What happened?”
As our hands rolled through Webster’s fur, our fingertips touched. He didn’t pull away.
“I messed up,” I said.
“It didn’t end well.”
“I’m sorry,” Harry said quietly. “I bet you were a good police officer.”
I laughed. “I was a horrifically bad police officer, but a pretty decent detective.”
“Of course you were! You always beat me at Cluedo. Used all your little tricks as well, I bet. Funny, I never thought of you as a detective, though. So what was he doing here? Was it a social call?”
I almost bust a gut. The idea of Pete Garris paying a social call was like the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come popping in for a friendly natter.
“Now you’re friends, do you fancy taking this old boy for a walk?” I asked. “There are some things about me you probably need to know.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
IT WAS QUIET IN THE WOODS. The dank drizzle that had followed me from Anglesey had finally lifted and the last hour of daylight blazed among the treetops. We hadn’t spoken much since leaving the bungalow. In fact, Webster had been a welcome distraction, trotting arthritically after the sticks Harry threw for him, allowing me some space to get my thoughts together. Something Garris had said kept nagging at me: Remember your Sherlock Holmes.
It had been a while since I’d read those old adventures, but one phrase of the great detective resonated: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
I glanced at the man walking beside me. I’d assured Garris that there was no way Harry could be involved. I knew him, had loved him, still loved him perhaps. But as my mentor had said, a decade is a long time. Could something have happened to Haz in those years? Some trauma that had twisted him into the faceless monster Miss Debney had seen in McAllister’s doorway? Everything I knew about this kind of killer—how their perversions and fixations were moulded in the crucible of abusive childhoods—told me that Harry’s involvement was unlikely. As I’d pointed out to Garris, the murder of his father had been an act of compassion, not ritualistic carnage. But still, doubt lingered.
I was stiff after my long drive, joints cracking as I bent down to take my turn with Webster’s stick.
“Beautiful place,” I said.
I was being spoiled today—first that wild panorama of the Welsh bay and now the rustic charms of an English woodland. A light breeze crackled the canopy of sycamore and oak; pine needles snapped underfoot. Away to our left, a hidden stream chattered among the reeds.
Harry nodded. “All part of the smiling face of Bradbury End. Don’t be fooled, though. Fly-tippers are always dumping their rubbish into the river. There’s a planning application the council are waving through to dig up half the forest for a new supermarket. Oh yes, and the police are here every Saturday night, chasing the doggers out of the bushes.”
“Of those three, I sympathise most with the last,” I said.
“Course you do. You always were a champion of the underdog.”
We looked at each other and burst out laughing.
“Anyway, talking of the police?”
“It was just a chance thing,” I shrugged. “After leaving Oxford, I tried a few different jobs. None of them really took.” That’s right, Scott, start as you mean to go on: all the pretty lies and omissions. I made a fist and remembered some of the blood that had flecked those knuckles in my thug-for-hire years. “I just didn’t want to go back to the fair,” I said. “I don’t know why. Only that it would feel like a kind of defeat.”
Harry crouched to collect the stick from Webster. “Did you blame me?”
“What? No. Why would you even–?”
“Because I was probably the only thing keeping you there. After Dad…” He stroked Webster’s tattered ear, kept his head down. “After I left, you had nothing much to stay for. You hated your studies, you were never great at making new friends. So you drifted?”
“I did.”
And if only you knew what I drifted into, Haz, I’m not sure you’d be looking at me with such sympathy right now.
“If I’d stayed, we might have figured out the future together, I suppose,” he said.
I hunkered down beside him. Our hands touched as I took the stick and launched it between the trees. “You didn’t owe me anything, Haz. Not an explanation, certainly not any duty of care. I was just grateful for the time we had together.”
His face tightened. We stood, brushed off our knees, and continued down the path.
“So,” he said, “what happened next? Because as I remember things, you were never all that comfortable around authority. What got Scott Jericho into a police uniform?”
There was a layered question. The steps that led me to become Detective Constable Jericho were simple enough, but the motivations behind them, conscious and unconscious? I guess a psychiatrist might interpret joining the force as the ultimate ‘fuck you’ to my father. It isn’t that Travellers are actively hostile to authority, but almost every minority has a complex history when it comes to the police. It’s certainly not a career option taken by any showman I’ve ever heard of. And by joining up I’d known that returning would not be an easy option.
“Garris interviewed me,” I said. “I’d been a witness to a case he was investigating. I managed to provide him with a few details that led to an arrest.”
“What kind of case?”
“A child murder. Some poor street kid apparently robbed and cut up and dumped in a canal. The theory was a drug deal gone wrong. The kid was a pusher on the lowest rung of the ladder and the police suspected he’d been dipping into the take. The state of the body seemed to back up the idea. He’d been…” I glanced at Harry; this was his first glimpse into the shadows of my world. “Made an example of.”
“What do you mean?”
“His face had been mutilated. His nose cut off.”
“Jesus.”
He looked suddenly very pale, which was actually a kind of comfort. I doubted if the killer of Robert McAllister would be so squeamish.
“How did you get involved?”
“I was passing by the canal that night. I happened to hear a splash and then see a man leaving the scene. By the time I reached the towpath, the body had floated out of sight and I just assumed it was someone dumping their trash. The place was like a graveyard for broken fridges and busted mattresses. Anyway, when I heard about the kid, I contacted the officer in charge, DI Peter Garris. I’d only seen the man from the back, but what I told Garris changed pretty much everything.”
“Well? Don’t leave me hanging.”
“The man had a pronounced indentation in his hair,” I said. “Right around the back of his head at the level of his ears. Grey-haired, around fifty, so probably not a baseball cap. Something he wore habitually, possibly for work. As the streetlight caught him, I also saw this light mud splatter on the back of his left trouser leg. It started at his ankle and reached just below the back of his knee.”
“And?”
“My guess was a hotel porter. The indentation was from his cap. The mud splatter from where he opened taxis doors for hotel guests and then the taxi’s back wheel sprayed him a little as it pulled away. Whichever side of the street the hotel was on, he’d always be facing the guest and away from the driver as he opened the door, so it would always be the left leg that got dirty while the right remained clean. He hadn’t changed his clothes, so he’d probably come straight from work to meet the kid, which meant the hotel must have been reasonably close by. Garris didn’t give anything away while we chatted. He just thanked me for my time and showed me out. It was only later that I heard the kid’s stepfather worked as a porter at the Majestic, and that the kid had been threatening to tell his mother about the years of abuse he’d suffered at the bastard’s hands.”
Harry blew out his cheeks. “Wow. So how did things develop from there?”
“My regular back then was a pub called The Three Crowns. It wasn’t far from the local cop shop and I’d often see police in there after finishing their shift.” I didn’t tell Harry that I’d
chosen that particular pub because it was such a favourite of the force. After finishing my own activities for the day, I’d wanted a place where none of my underworld associates would choose to gather. “Garris spied me in a corner one night and we got chatting. I think I’d impressed him by identifying the porter.”
“I’m not surprised. You always had sharp eyes. I couldn’t get away with anything when we were together…”
Harry caught himself, and I quickly filled the pause.
“Garris asked me about my background. I told him that Travellers are great observers and are pretty good at weighing people up at a glance. After that night, we met fairly regularly and he eventually started discussing some of his current cases. General things at first, but I always seemed to pick up on a thread or two that he’d missed. It took maybe six months for him to persuade me to fill in the application form.”
“So why did you? Weren’t you satisfied in your current work?”
Beating up crooks for other crooks? No, Harry, my job satisfaction wasn’t all that high.
“You know I’d always liked puzzles,” I said instead. “Of course, I had to do my time in uniform before I could join Garris in CID. But even at street level, there were problems to solve. Sometimes what appeared to be a simple mugging could be more surprising than the most brutal serial murder. It’s human nature that’s fascinating, not the crimes themselves.”
“I can see why that would appeal to you,” he said. “It was the human drama you loved in stories. I think that’s why it broke your heart to pick them apart.”
I’d never really thought of it that way, but Harry was right. I’ve always been a sucker for a good story.
