by Will Harker
“Did you know what he was planning from the outset?” I asked.
“Oh, the murders?” That old disinterested tone entered his voice again. “Yes, I believe he went into all that. I mean, he had to so that I could brief you about them during our little tete-a-tete.”
“So you knew that he intended to slaughter five innocent people?”
“I didn’t relish the idea of it, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Jonathan snapped. “But what alternative did I have? Five strangers set against my own liberty. You might think it selfish, but for me, that wasn’t a difficult decision.”
“And for you, Mrs Matthers?”
At last she spoke. “It wasn’t just about Jonathan being sent back to prison, Mr Jericho. You think you know this man, I assure you, you do not. I have spent two-thirds of my life disguising the true face of a monster.” She cut her eyes to the grinning figure of her son. “Next to Peter Garris, I’m an amateur.”
“What did he say to you?” I asked.
She didn’t flinch. “He said he would murder us both. After detailing every mutilation he was going to perform upon these poor people, he said that all of that would be nothing compared to what he would inflict upon us if we didn’t go along with his plan. And he would kill Jonathan first, slowly, agonisingly, while I watched.”
I closed my eyes. Saw the rage dancing in the dark. “You could’ve gone to the police.”
“With what evidence? Just the word of a convicted child molester and his mother against that of a distinguished detective. And anyway, would you take such a risk with your own child?”
Would I with Jodie? She wasn’t even my daughter, but if a sadistic killer threatened her life, what wouldn’t I do to protect her?
“Did he tell you why he was doing all this?” I asked.
“No. He never said.” Finally, Jonathan Matthers’ idiot smile fell away. “Bad men don’t always have motives that people like you would understand, Mr Jericho. It’s just in them: the compulsion to inflict harm. I did get the feeling that it was personal, though. Do you think he hates you? Wants to torment you? It’s all about power, after all. These bad things we do.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
“WHY DID YOU REALLY SET the fire back in Bradbury?” I asked Jonathan Matthers.
I’d grown sick of his paederast’s gallery and was now standing just outside the front door. Down at the end of the long driveway, the taxi waited, a light rain stippling the glare of its headlights. Inside the doorway, Jonathan and his mother looked back at me.
He shrugged. “Because I hated her. I think she always knew what I was and didn’t like the idea of me being around children my own age. My father knew too. You discussed it before he died, didn’t you, Mother? What to do with me. Father had found me, you see? Playing games with one of the neighbour boys. Then word got around and my parents decided the best thing to do was to move us lock, stock, and barrel to some old family home Dad had inherited. But before we could all sail off, poor old pops departed on his own journey, right through the windscreen of his vintage Jaguar.
“I suppose she thought she was honouring his final wishes, keeping me locked away. Anyway, the night those teenagers came to throw stones at our house, I decided I’d had enough. If I couldn’t escape my prison, I’d burn it down around us. After that, Mother changed.” Smiling, he caressed the burned side of her face. “She realised she couldn’t stop me playing the games I wanted to play. Not forever. And so she gave in.”
I looked at the tiny, diminished form standing beside him. All she could do was shake her head.
“He’s my son.”
It was the only explanation she had.
“And because of him, because of you, four innocent people are dead.” My rage kicked against me and I answered it. “That young man who first made contact with me at the fair—Jeremy Worth. I suppose Garris must have blackmailed him too.”
Jonathan nodded. “I never met him, but yes. As far as I know, he came to Garris’ attention via some online misdemeanour that a police colleague was investigating. He hadn’t actually done anything in the real world, if you catch my drift, but Garris had enough to frighten him.”
“Online is the real world,” I spat back. “Real kids suffer. So let me tell you what I told Jeremy: I have my eye on you now, Jonathan Matthers. From this moment on, you so much as look sideways at a child and I will end you. Do you understand? I will fucking end you.”
A strange expression crossed Delia Matthers’ face when I spoke. Though she had protected him all his life, I wondered whether such an outcome would be wholly unwelcome to her.
“You’re no different from him,” Jonathan shrieked as I turned my back and hobbled away into the night. “You’re killers both!”
Killers both.
The phrase ghosted me all the way to the road. Perhaps he was right.
Tonight would tell.
“Back to Bradbury?” the cabbie grunted as I collapsed into the backseat.
“Give me a second.”
Gasping against the pain, I leaned forward and slid the partition between us closed. I then looked at my phone. More missed calls from my dad. I suddenly felt a stab of guilt followed swiftly by a fresh tide of anger against Garris. His crimes, his depravity, had made me doubt my own people.
It was time.
I made the call
“Hello Scott,” he said. “What mischief have you been getting yourself into?”
There was a lightness to his tone, a humour I’d never heard before.
“Lost for words? Well, well. Your father has been on the phone. It appears you’ve vanished from the hospital. However much you might respect me, I knew you wouldn’t be capable of just handing over the case. In fact, I counted on it. So I assume you’ve been to see Mrs Matthers and her charming son?”
“I have,” I said. “And I know what you are.”
He laughed at that. “To paraphrase the old Travellers Bridge inscription: a mind intent upon false appearances will always fail to recognise the truth. That was your mistake, Scott. You saw in me what you wished to see.”
“Well, I see you now,” I said. “And I’m coming for you.”
“Of course you are, my boy. I’d expect nothing less. Bradbury End library then. I’ll be waiting.”
The line went dead.
The library. Harry.
Christ, why hadn’t I seen it before? After all, Harry was another of those improbable coincidences that had made the entire atmosphere of the case seem so unreal. He had been placed in my way, a character from my past reintroduced into the narrative to play his role as companion, as lover, as suspect, and now, perhaps as victim. Manoeuvred into position by a blood-soaked storyteller, probably using the same technique he’d employed with Jonathan Matthers. Blackmailed, but how? The answer was obvious, and it honed my fury into cold, hard hatred.
I don’t remember ever telling Garris the story of the Jericho freaks. Lost in a haze of booze in our corner of The Three Crowns, unburdening my past to this man I had trusted, I suppose I must have. I’d told him many other fairground stories and legends; all, I now realised, at his prompting. What I do remember, is spilling the secret of the only man I had ever loved. How, in an act of mercy, Harry had taken his father’s life and then afterwards rejected me. Garris must have recalled that conversation and hunted Harry down. Another piece of scene-setting, ready for my arrival in Bradbury End.
Haz had claimed that he’d been in town for over a year, but the inconsistencies of his story now occurred to me. Roebuck mentioning Harry’s “short time among us” and his fellow librarian Val saying something about a colleague Moira warming up to him after just a few months. Whatever corroborating evidence Garris could possibly have unearthed concerning his guilt, it had worked its magic. Harry Moorhouse had come to Bradbury and played his part to perfection.
The question was, like Jonathan Matthers, had he known about Garris’ larger plan? I shook my
head. He might have deceived me, but I could never believe that of him.
I brought up his contact and hit call. It went straight to voicemail.
“Harry, it’s Scott. I know everything, OK? Listen, I need you to go to the fair right now. Stay with my dad until I come and get you. We can talk then. If Garris calls, don’t pick up. I still…” I rested the back of the phone against my forehead for a second. “Doesn’t matter. Just do as I say.”
I hung up and tapped the partition.
“Bradbury End library. Fast as you can.”
While the cabbie performed a three-point-turn in the narrow lane, I took a last glance at the Matthers residence. But it wasn’t the occupants of that soulless house I was thinking about. I was remembering Harry in the sitting room of his bungalow, on the phone to Val, so he’d said. “Yes, I think he bought it in the end…” Bought what? The possibility of an old lover returned? Of romance rekindled? Had all of it been an act directed by Garris? That moment we’d shared on the beach of the cinnamon island, had he scripted each word?
Even if he had, I didn’t care. I still needed to make sure that Harry was safe.
At close to midnight, it was a clear run back to Bradbury. Still, every minute passed like an hour. Both Garris and Harry’s phones kept going to voicemail. I left messages—threats for the former, repeated pleas to seek sanctuary for the latter. I called Dad too, told him I was OK, asked him to look out for Harry. When he said he could tell by my voice something was wrong, I hung up. I wouldn’t put him or any of the Travellers at risk by telling them about Garris.
Finally, the cab pulled up outside the darkened shell of the library. Except, not quite dark. A single light burned in the windows. I heaved myself onto the curb and the cabbie wound down his window. I handed over my card.
“Pleasure doing business,” he yawned. Then, giving back the card, he glanced up at the still-troubled sky. “Weird night, eh?”
“You don’t know the half of it,” I said.
The wind groaned. In the distance, I could hear the whipcrack of tarpaulin and the clanking of steel guy ropes. The night-time chimes of the fairground. I wondered then if I’d ever see it again. Ever walk among those stalls and rides, listen to the stories of old showmen, find the safe embrace of that community I had once rejected. I hoped so, but first I had to face this creature who stood now in the doorway of the library.
I lumbered up the path, agony coiling around my ribs like hot wires. By the time I reached the entrance, I’d had to dig my nails into my palms to stop myself from screaming.
“Is he here?” I gasped. “If you’ve hurt him–”
This man I had trusted, this father who had given my life some purpose, smiled in a way I had never seen before. He no longer looked the exhausted, grief-stricken wreck that had shuffled into my hospital cubicle. Those emotions were like the makeup of a clown, now rubbed away to reveal a face untroubled by such human weakness.
“Harry is fine,” he said. “I just popped by the bungalow to borrow his key to this place. I left him safe and sound, I assure you. But please, Scott, continue your thought.”
He led the way inside. The door sighed shut behind me.
Decommissioned, the library had been stripped bare. This in itself struck me like an act of violence, like a murder even, the heart of the place torn out.
“If you’ve hurt him,” I said. “I will kill you.”
At the issue desk, he turned and, folding his arms across his chest, nodded.
“I really think you might. You’ve always had that potential. I saw it many times before you finally unleashed it on Lenny Kerrigan. It was one of the things that fascinated me about you. That and those keen insights and intuitions, of course.”
I barked out a bitter laugh. “Not keen enough though, eh?”
He shrugged. “I don’t judge you for not seeing me as I am. My disguise was years in the making and honed to perfection long before I met you, Scott Jericho. Even so, in giving in to my curiosity about your talents and recruiting you to the force, I knew almost immediately that I’d made a dreadful error. But we’ll come to that. Why don’t you ask the question you’re burning to ask?”
“Why?” I said simply. “Why all this horror and bloodshed? Were you mocking me? My family, my background, was it all some sort of twisted, spiteful parody? Did these people die because you hate me, Peter?”
He looked genuinely surprised. “You think I did this to mock you?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
He shook his head. “My boy. I did it to save you.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
“SAVE ME?” I ECHOED. “What do you mean?”
He waved my question away. “Indulge me first. You know how I’ve always enjoyed seeing how your mind works. Tell me how you unravelled my clues.”
I could see that we were playing this game on his terms. Unless I wanted to beat the answers out of him, of course. I wasn’t discounting that idea, wasn’t even sure right then that either of us would leave that place alive, but for now I was willing to play along.
“Your clues,” I nodded. “That’s right. Because it was your mystery story, wasn’t it? Even before you gave your little hint about how unreal the case seemed, how manufactured, I’d sensed it too. The most extraordinary serial killer investigation doesn’t have this many oddities and coincidences.”
“Always told you to mistrust coincidences.” He smiled.
“What put me onto you tonight began with Webster,” I said. “Your hint about Sherlock Holmes finally landed. If Jonathan Matthers had tried to take him then Webster would have alerted the whole fair. He was bred to be a guard dog after all. So it had to be someone the juk had become familiar with. Someone who had been visiting the fair on a regular basis, checking in with my dad, delivering those casefiles I never reviewed. I remember Webster seeing you outside Harry’s bungalow when I got back from Wales. He’d barked his head off when he first met Haz, but with you, he just wound around your legs like you were old friends. You’d been the one to mention the curious incident of Webster in the night-time and so would have known it couldn’t possibly have been Matthers who came for him. And then I realised you had also provided that information about the injuries Matthers sustained in prison. They couldn’t be wrong, unless you had invented them.”
“If you remember, I told you not to rely solely on my research,” he said, his smile wider than ever. “But to follow your own instincts. It was always an Achilles’ heel of yours, Scott. Not to doublecheck information from what you assumed were trusted sources. Cleverness will only get you so far, you know.”
I offered a smile of my own, a bleak acknowledgement of his critique.
“Anything else?” he asked.
“I’ll tell you if you can give me a guarantee that Harry is OK,” I said.
He nodded. “That seems fair. Just a moment.”
Garris took out his phone from his rumpled jacket pocket and dialled. When the call connected he put it on speakerphone. Haz’s voice, fearful and tremulous, echoed around the empty library.
“What’s happening? You have to tell me. I did everything you wanted me to, just as you said. But please, please tell me…” I could hear the emotion catch in his throat. “Is he OK?”
Into all this darkness, cutting even through the hatred and rage that roiled inside me, I felt the reassurance of Harry’s love. There was no pretence in his words. This was the same bright, compassionate, generous man I had first met all those years ago in Oxford. Whatever he’d done, he had done it for me.
“Scott is with me right now,” Garris said. “He was likewise concerned about your welfare and wanted the reassurance of hearing your voice.”
“I’m so sorry, Scott,” Harry cried. “You have to believe me, I never–”
“Remember our arrangement, Mr Moorhouse,” Garris cut in. “Be where we agreed in, what shall we say, half an hour? If things conclude satisfactorily between Scott and
me, you may still seem him there. Although that depends on how he reacts to my final proposal. In the meantime, goodbye.” Garris ended the call and replaced the phone in his pocket. “I instructed him not to answer any of your calls tonight, by the way. Oh, and one other small detail that’s probably been troubling you—he knew nothing of the murders.”
I closed my eyes. “What did you tell him?”
“That my plans were my own,” he shrugged. “He obviously knew that something untoward was going on. Kept demanding reassurances that, if he played along, no one would get hurt. I soothed his qualms as best I could, though I wonder in his darkest moments what he imagined I was up to. Of course, there was always the risk that once you became involved, you might reveal the details of the case to him, but on balance I thought not. It’s almost the police officer’s code, isn’t it? To keep all the horrors away from the people they love. And why would you frighten him off when you’d only just found him again?”
“Why did you involve him?” I asked.
He spread his hands. “Man cannot live by puzzles alone. Not even you. Harry’s role was to intrigue, to distract, to wrongfoot you. To add another layer to the drama. And as a clue, of course, to the entire artifice of these murders. Another almost unbelievable coincidence that might suggest that the true motive at work wasn’t anything to do with some absurd fixation on the historical tragedy of Travellers Bridge, but solely upon you. Your background, your history. I suppose you’ve guessed how I coerced Harry into coming to Bradbury End?”
“You exploited what I told you about his father.”
Garris tapped his jacket pocket. “A small confession. I hope you won’t regard it as an intrusion, but those conversations in The Three Crowns? I happened to record everything you ever told me.”
I stared at him. “Why?”
“That is indeed the crux of the whole matter,” he said. “For now, let’s just say I was fascinated by you. I had been ever since we first met over the case of that wretched boy drowned by his stepfather. I had never met anyone like you before, Scott. The largely hidden world of the showpeople from which you came; the innate talents it had given you, so uniquely perfect for the detection of crime; and then, of course, that darkness, that potential for extreme violence which almost felt like a mirror of my own. Except yours, while equally destructive, had not only a quality of empathy and justice but was still a living, breathing thing.”
