Recalled to Death

by Priscilla Masters

  He stood for a moment, paralysed, then shook himself and moistened his throat. ‘Get a grip, Hyde,’ he exhorted himself hoarsely, his voice sounding loud with a wavering echo as it bounced around the small chamber with its domed ceiling. Then a wave of terror rippled right through him as a new thought struck. Someone had done this. He looked back up the steps, at the arc of light at the top, suddenly fearful. This man had not inflicted that horrible wound on himself. He noticed no knife. He took a step back. Was a killer out there, at the top of the steps, waiting for him? Was he hidden behind the jagged stones, watching and waiting for him to find … this? His head swivelled back. Was he waiting for him to emerge from this … tomb?

  John backed up the steps, his ears straining for any sound, his eyes moving from the person in the corner to the exterior which both beckoned and threatened. He was now searingly aware of his own real terror, his eyes peering around. When he reached the top he looked across the tumbled stones, so familiar and now so strange. He walked quickly back through the archway which lacked a door, constantly scanning the ruin, imagining he felt a cold finger or a sharp blade stroke his own throat, his panicked ears full of a rushing sound as loud as a waterfall as he strained to hear: a loose stone falling, a quiet step across the grass, the sound of another’s breathing. Was the person who had done this still here? Were they now waiting for him? In this dead house there were secret passages and rooms partially blocked by stones. There were plenty of places for a killer to hide. His eyes darted around the site but they could not see everywhere. They couldn’t peer into priests’ holes or search secret passages. And this was a deceitful house which was not as it seemed. The facade made a great pretence at past splendour but in reality it never had been the complete great house it masqueraded as. War and superstition had put paid to that. Someone could easily still be hiding here, watching him from behind the stones, peering through the fallen archways, stalking him, waiting for him to find the dead man.

  His walk broke into a run back towards the gate, still mercifully open. His eyes skittered from one tumbled wall to another. Children who came here to play hide and seek were not always found quickly. Its angles and random passages were perfect for hiding or playing dead in. He looked back towards the lower chamber. The man was not playing dead. And now John Hyde had reached the relative safety of the gate. His eyes scanned the ragged ramparts and his ears registered only stillness. Apart from a blackbird’s liquid song there was no sight or sound of anyone. And now he was a little calmer he recalled something. When he had arrived at the small car park it had been empty. And now he was out in the open again he almost wondered whether he had imagined the entire incident – the dead man slumped against the wall, the wound across his throat, the spots of blood on the steps and the smell …

  He closed his eyes, but that brought the picture all too vividly back, with more detail. The man with the terrible wound, hands flung back, the thick coat he had been wearing drenched with blood, the rusty sprays across the walls and ceiling which told their own story. And more: the man’s grey, shocked complexion, the grubby trousers, his legs outstretched and he remembered something else. Clinging around the dead man, polluting the small cellar had been another scent – the smell of staleness, the smell of the unwashed, the homeless. Only then did Hyde fumble in his pocket for his mobile phone.

  The fingers that pressed the three digits were shaking.

  THREE

  Friday, 12 September, 10.40 a.m.

  At Monkmoor police station in Shrewsbury, DI Randall was struggling to appear normal and professional when inside all was turmoil. He was sitting, motionless, at his desk. Something inside him was bubbling up and he wasn’t quite sure how to deal with it. He knew he’d had enough. He knew he couldn’t carry on like this. He recognized he had come to the end of his tether. But what was he going to do with her? Erica? He slammed his hand down on the desk then dropped his head down, defeated. Whichever way he looked at the situation, it crushed him. He could not see any way through. Every solution brought more problems in its wake. Each problem compounded the other like Hydra’s head and there was no way he could have what he wanted. Randall’s mouth twisted in a smile. His heart’s desire.

  Then he sat up straight. ‘Not going to happen, Alex,’ he murmured. ‘Just not going to happen. There is nothing you can do except accept and live with the situation.’

  The knock on the door was a welcome distraction.

  ‘Sir.’ Even more so when it was Detective Sergeant Paul Talith’s plump, happy face which peered round.

  ‘Talith?’

  ‘Body’s been found at Moreton Corbet, sir.’

  Randall raised his eyebrows. Moreton Corbet was a spectacular ruin eight miles to the north-east of Shrewsbury, near the RAF base at Shawbury. Some might describe it as a house that had never been finished. Others as a house with a past. One thing was for sure: it had a bad history. And now this.

  Talith continued, frowning, an expression of disgust darkening his features, ‘According to the member of the public who found him it looks like his throat’s been cut, sir.’

  Randall looked up, his troubles dissolving like sugar in boiling water. He was suddenly aware, given this sense of perspective, that his own problems were small, practically non-existent. ‘Is anyone out there?’

  ‘Gethin Roberts, sir.’

  Randall smothered a smile. Roberts was a PC who frequently found himself in the thick of it. He’d seen a body washed out from a cellar, tried to save a boy from a burning house, recovered the body of a suicide from a police cell, held a long-dead baby. And Roberts would glance around, bemused at where he found himself. Then he would embellish and exaggerate to his long-suffering, long-time partner, Flora Connelly. Detective Inspector Alex Randall knew a lot more about his officers than they realized.

  He was already on his feet and reaching for his jacket. ‘Let’s go and rescue Roberts then, shall we?’

  A few miles away (left turn at Shawbury), PC Gethin Roberts, summoned by the 999 team as the officer nearest to the call, had pulled up in the squad car, leaving the blue light flashing almost as reassurance as well as a signal. The law was here. Hyde strode towards him, meeting him on the road. He was a big man, a little pale from his recent experience but with a strong tread and a steady gaze, and he had recovered himself enough to proffer a firm handshake.

  Roberts introduced himself and Hyde ventured a traumatized smile.

  ‘You have no idea how glad I am to see you,’ he confessed. ‘There’s something beyond scary about being here alone with a murdered man.’ He couldn’t resist scanning the area, as if still half expecting to see a madman brandishing a knife come screaming, like Braveheart, towards him.

  Roberts began to say something about not being certain the man had been murdered. Hyde responded with a ‘Harrumph’ and ‘his throat’s been cut.’

  Roberts gulped. Why was it always him? Why was he always first on the scene?

  ‘Besides,’ Hyde continued eagerly, ‘I didn’t see a weapon. And wouldn’t he still have been grasping it?’

  Roberts nodded noncommittally. He wasn’t absolutely sure about this but he thought probably … yes.

  Roberts took down Hyde’s details and followed him through the small gate which he immediately sealed off with Do Not Cross tape. They headed towards the shell of a house.

  In spite of his apprehension, Roberts couldn’t resist being impressed by the ruin. ‘Gosh,’ he said, looking up at the three-storeyed Queen Anne facade. ‘What a place. How long’s it been like this?’

  Hyde turned around, humour on his lips and in his eyes. ‘Oh, about four hundred years,’ he said casually.

  Roberts gaped at him. ‘Really?’

  Hyde smothered a smile. ‘Yes, really,’ he said.

  For the briefest of moments the body was forgotten in awe and respect for the building. Then Roberts cleared his throat. ‘Hmm,’ he said, trying to sound authoritative. ‘You’d better take me to …’ He felt sick. It wa
s about the last thing he wanted to do – view a body with a cut throat. But he was a police officer.

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Hyde immediately returned to the grave matter. ‘Sorry.’

  As they walked, Roberts started his questions. ‘What time did you discover the body?’

  ‘It would have been just after 10.30 a.m.,’ Hyde said. ‘I always take a look around the site first. Check it, you know, for any vandalism or rubbish. That sort of thing.’

  They had reached the Great Tower. As though it was a learned line, Hyde could not resist muttering, ‘Built in 1200 AD.’

  PC Gethin Roberts nodded.

  A long time ago then. They climbed over a pile of stones and walked into a long, oblong area.

  ‘This is the dining chamber,’ Hyde supplied, then climbed through what might once have been a window and headed towards some stone steps. ‘Down here,’ he said.

  Roberts followed him, dread slowing his step and making his feet heavy.

  The cellar was brick lined, with a low domed ceiling. Roberts, six foot two inches, needed to duck to enter it. The light was gloomy as the entrance faced east and the light was blocked by a tumbled wall outside. It was chilly and dank, the usual scent of stale air and urine. People will use anywhere as a piss pot, Roberts thought. He took another step down, saw the stains on the step and registered the new smell. He had brought out his flashlight and illuminated the huddle in the corner. Hyde stuck close behind him.

  Handing the torch to Hyde, Roberts slipped on a pair of latex gloves and bent over the man. Hyde directed the beam on the wound but averted his eyes away from the figure. Roberts took it all in: the position of the body, still propped up in the corner, supported by the stone, the thick coat open, the wound a bright scarf around his neck, his anatomy all too visible. And blood? He looked around him. It was everywhere. It had sprayed out in an arc, defacing the wall and ceiling, and a large pool of it was on the man’s clothing, down the front of his sweater, soaking into his coat and the ground at his feet. Roberts felt suddenly claustrophobic in this dank cellar, his exit blocked by Hyde. To counteract the feeling, Roberts performed his usual defence, silently recanting lectures on the preservation of evidence at crime scenes.

  Keep your eyes open and be aware where your feet are treading.

  He took a step forward, the phrases swimming around his head like a random shoal of herring changing direction, flicking here, flicking there. Isolate the scene. Preserve the evidence. Avoid contamination. That was the first rule. He frowned. Oh, no, it wasn’t. The first rule was: Make sure your victim really is dead.

  ‘Not a lot of doubt about that, boyo,’ he muttered to himself. Then he remembered a salient point from a particularly cynical lecturer in forensic psychology and swivelled his head to peer back at the person who was blocking his exit. And don’t forget: the person who finds the body is often the last person to have seen the person alive. No, really, the lecturer had insisted when another junior constable had demurred. You’d be surprised how many killers want to be the one to make the headlines, live the drama, report the crime and gauge the police responses without acknowledging their part in it. They want to involve themselves.

  Roberts eyed the man suspiciously.

  The lecturer had pursued the point. Keep an open mind.

  He would certainly do that. He focused back on his victim.

  He didn’t need to move the coat to see the white face, the mouth open in a grimace and glazed eyes peering at him from beneath drooped lids. Or to register the blood staining, or the gaping wound in the throat. Wet hair, long and unkempt, was stuck to the scalp. Roberts sniffed the air and breathed in the very same smell that Hyde had earlier: sweet blood and underneath that, the stale smell of the unwashed. He looked closer at the man’s thick tweed coat. It was filthy. Roberts thought then: thank God it was too chilly for flies. They were Roberts’s particular hate ever since he had witnessed a flyblown body washed out of a cellar when the Severn River had flooded. He reached out a hand, hoping that Mr Hyde would not see he was trembling like a blancmange, and stupidly touched the man while at the same time recalling the lecturer’s advice: Use your eyes, not your hands.

  So Roberts looked around him. There was blood on the floor around the man and plenty on his coat too. He took the torch from Hyde, who was standing over him with a fixed smile. Roberts flashed the torch on the ceiling and saw the spray of blood. He touched the front of the coat. The blood was stiff. First on the scene, Roberts, he thought, again. And now he started to make deductions. The man had been killed here. This was the crime scene. Time to call in the reinforcements. He went over the process.

  Call for reinforcements. Summon the police surgeon. Bag up the hands. Tape off an access route. Above all: preserve the evidence. And take a statement from your witness, bearing in mind he just could be your perpetrator.

  But first of all … He looked up at the short flight of steps and, hoping his witness wouldn’t realize his motive was to escape the cellar and avoid being sick, suggested they move upstairs.

  He immediately felt better in the relatively fresh, clean air and focused on Hyde, hoping he wouldn’t realize he was being interrogated. ‘When were you last here – before this morning, I mean?’

  Hyde looked worried. ‘It isn’t open every day,’ he said defensively, ‘but I take a quick shifty around most mornings.’

  ‘Did you yesterday morning?’

  Hyde frowned, as though anxious to give the exact truth. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I was here around nine, I think.’

  Roberts glanced back down the steps. ‘I take it he …’ his eyes signalled down towards the top of the cellar steps, ‘… wasn’t here then?’

  ‘Of course not.’ Hyde was affronted.

  Roberts took a look around him. ‘I don’t think you’ll be opening to the public for a while yet,’ he added. ‘We’re going to have to shut off the site.’

  Hyde made no response to this.

  That was when the reinforcements turned up.

  FOUR

  Friday, 12 September, 11.30 a.m.

  Roberts was getting fidgety. The troops were here but there still seemed to be an inordinate wait for anything to happen. There was a long wait at the gate while the car park, no more than a lay-by really, was sealed off in case there were tyre marks. A plan of action was formulated, the approaches to the crime scene clearly marked out. Then there was the wait for the forensic team to assemble and another wait for the arc lights to arrive and a tent to be erected around the entrance to the cellar to shield forensic activities from public view. Then there was yet another long wait for the police surgeon and/or the forensic pathologist to make a formal pronouncement of death. And a wait for the photographer to record everything before they could touch a thing. He knew the theory but it didn’t diminish his impatience with the system. Once the body is moved you have disturbed the crime scene for ever, perhaps destroying the one piece of evidence which would have led you to the killer. Then there was a wait for the SOCO team to start analysing the crime scene. A wait for the coroner to give permission to move the body to the mortuary for the post-mortem. A wait for equipment to arrive. A van to use as an operational base. A wait for …

  And all the time in the background the investigation would be beginning, officers taking statements, asking questions, finding out who saw what. And if possible find out who the poor blighter is – or was.

  Roberts fidgeted, impatient to be moving.

  DI Alex Randall was a little more brisk. Almost as soon as he arrived, he donned a forensic suit and approached the remains of the castle. Even with the job in hand, he couldn’t resist admiring the skyline before approaching the cellar. It took him less than five minutes to make a preliminary assessment. ‘Do we know who he is?’

  Roberts shook his head. ‘I’ve had a quick look through his coat pockets, sir,’ he said. ‘Just bits and pieces.’

  Randall looked up. ‘No wallet? No driving licence? No ID at all?’

  PC Get
hin Roberts shook his head. ‘I’ve only looked through his coat pockets, sir,’ he said, flushing slightly. He didn’t want to confess that opening the buttons and touching the smelly old sweater had made him almost as sick as the thought of the congealed blood and the throat wound.

  Randall frowned. ‘Any sign of a weapon?’

  ‘Not so far, sir.’

  Randall’s frown deepened. The victim looked and smelt a vagrant. His clothes were filthy, as were his fingernails, and there was a few weeks’ stubble on his chin. Last night had been rainy. Possibly if he was homeless he’d decided to shelter here for the night and … had somehow met his fate. Randall looked around him. The blood spatter told its own story.

  Judging by the position of the body the sequence of events had been this: the man had been down here, and someone had come down the steps. The man had stood up. The perpetrator had slashed at his throat – Randall’s eyes swivelled upwards to a telling spray of blood on the ceiling – and the man had stumbled backwards into the corner, dying more or less instantly. One could almost picture the action. Here … a spray of blood which had diminished as the man had fallen backwards.

  Randall studied the hands Roberts had already bagged up separately. There was blood on them. He had clutched at his throat and staggered backwards. Randall took a quick look around the cellar. There didn’t appear to be anything else here. It didn’t look like the tramp had made himself a bed. Possibly he had simply relied on his thick coat as his mattress, pillow and blankets. Last night had been rainy rather than cold. Randall ascended the steps thoughtfully, already piecing events together in his mind. There wasn’t a lot else he could do until the pathologist arrived. He and Talith made a survey of the site, which consisted of a large grassy area surrounded by the ruins of a tower, gatehouse, halls and a dining chamber.