The Puppet Show

by M. W. Craven

  ‘So?’

  ‘She convinced George to keep quiet until she could work out what was the best thing to do. The best thing for me. First time in a long time someone had put my needs before theirs. I liked it.’

  ‘And she helped you?’

  ‘She did, Poe. It wasn’t easy but she knew what she was doing and she had the patience of a saint. It didn’t take her long to realise that I was trapped in a cycle of reliving my ordeal. It’s the big issue with PTSD and she needed to break it. I needed to be able to remember what happened without reliving what happened.’

  ‘So, you moved up here?’

  ‘You know we did, Poe. We were at school together. They both loved the Lake District and she wanted me to visit the places involved: Ullswater, the stone circle where my friends were killed, Carmichael’s house. Show me that it was over. She got a CBT job in Westmorland General Hospital and George opened his practice up here.’

  Victoria Reid had uprooted her life for a boy who wasn’t hers. Her husband had done the same. Poe didn’t come across good people very often – he felt a hypocrite when he did – and now he wished he’d spent more time with them.

  ‘And gradually you got better?’

  ‘It took a while but, yes, gradually I got better. I stopped wetting the bed. I stopped cringing every time someone came near, or touched me. I stopped reliving it.’

  ‘And you became Kylian Reid,’ Poe stated.

  ‘In those days everyone assumed you were who you said you were. I was registered at school as their son. I met you. No one questioned my past. And as Victoria worked for the NHS it was a simple job for her to slip some new birth records in.’

  For someone to have gone through so much in such a short time beggared belief. For that person then to finally get the chance to have a life was heart-lifting. A testament to human endurance.

  So what had happened? He asked the question.

  ‘Why didn’t I enjoy the rest of my life with parents who loved me?’

  Poe’s eyes were moist. He didn’t trust himself to speak.

  ‘You know, I think I might have. I really do. The plan had always been that, when I was ready, I would go to the police. Report it and take my chances in the criminal justice system. But . . . when I was ready, I found that I didn’t want to. The thought of a peaceful life with two good people appealed to me more than revenge.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘Fate happened, Poe. I went to a vets’ function with my dad. One of those networking events. A meal and a few drinks afterwards. It was at the Masonic Hall in Ulverston and, lo and behold, guess who was there?’

  Poe didn’t answer.

  ‘Graham fucking Russell, that’s who. Larger than life, laughing and joking, brandy stains all over his shirt.’

  Shit . . .

  ‘Victoria had helped me stop reliving everything I associated with my past, but when I saw that fat, flabby piece of shit something inside me snapped. I was no longer in the Masonic Hall, I was back in Carmichael’s basement – Russell sweating and heaving on top of me.’

  ‘And that was when you decided to kill them?’

  Reid shook his head. ‘No. Even then, Victoria’s therapy held.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘The evil bastard came over and introduced himself to my dad. They chatted while I was struck dumb with fear. I listened as he bragged about this and that. About how influential he was. About how, even though he was retired, the rich and powerful still feared him. He knew where the bodies were buried, he said. George assumed he was talking about his time on the newspaper. All the scandals and secrets they’d uncovered when they were tapping the rich and powerful. I knew he was talking about my friends.’

  That would do it . . .

  ‘The feeling of hate overwhelmed me, Poe. It was all I could do not to slit his throat there and then. For more than a minute, I stared at my steak knife as I considered it. Prison would have been a small price to pay to avenge my friends.’

  ‘But . . .?’

  ‘But something inside stopped me. A cold logic stayed my hand. Killing one of them made no sense.’

  Reid stared at Poe.

  ‘Not when I could kill them all.’

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  Victoria Reid had been diagnosed with motor neurone disease later that year, and Reid vowed nothing would happen while she was alive; he loved her too much.

  That didn’t stop him preparing. He decided that to give himself the best chance of succeeding, he would join Cumbria police. George had been wary – he’d wanted Reid to join him at his practice – but Victoria encouraged it; she thought that by helping others it could form another stage of the healing process. He planned to dedicate himself to passing the detective’s exam, then get attached to major crimes. And once there, he’d make sure he stayed. Poe often wondered why Reid had refused to go on the inspector’s course or to consider more interesting roles, but this explained it: he’d planned to be in the middle of his own investigation, subtly steering it in the direction he wanted, staying ahead of the hunting pack.

  Gamble hadn’t stood a chance.

  Poe had attended Victoria Reid’s funeral, and although hindsight gives you twenty-twenty vision, he remembered Reid showing steely determination rather than the grief he’d expected. Instead of something more sinister, he’d put it down to watching someone you love waste away in front of your eyes, and having mentally prepared for their death many months ago.

  ‘Did you know the men involved?’ Poe asked.

  ‘Only Russell. I wanted to take him and force the rest of the names out of him but I opted for caution. I wasn’t ready. Ideally I’d have liked another year.’

  ‘But then Carmichael’s body was discovered . . .’

  ‘That was my starting pistol. If I’d left something on the body that could identify him – although by then his children had done a bang-up job of convincing everyone he’d died abroad – the other men involved might have taken precautions. I needn’t have worried. Carmichael’s identity was never discovered. Not until you turned up.’

  ‘So you started earlier than you wanted to?’

  ‘There were some things I did immediately. Buying the vehicles and some other equipment. I needed somewhere to work. My dad had told me about this place. Said it hadn’t been farmed for years. I’d stolen some paperwork when I investigated a burglary a few months before I started, and I’d applied for a passport in case I needed formal ID for anything. I used it to lease this place, and paid cash for a year.’

  So that’s why Bradshaw couldn’t find it. The farm wasn’t in his name.

  ‘When I was as ready as I could be, I went live.’

  ‘You abducted Graham Russell?’

  ‘And with a little persuasion he gave up everyone except Montague Price, who’d never used his own name. Only Carmichael knew his real identity and he’d been dead for over twenty-five years. I didn’t find out Price’s name until you uncovered that bank statement. By then he’d worked out what was happening and was in hiding.’

  It explained why it was only Russell’s body that had the additional signs of torture.

  ‘And then I went to work on finding them.’

  ‘How long did it—?’

  ‘Not long. I killed Graham Russell to ensure a major investigation was launched. It gave me every excuse I needed to look in databases that would have earlier raised suspicions. I found them quickly and compiled dossiers on them all. One by one, I abducted them.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Come on, Poe, you know how easily a police badge opens a door. A cup of tea while we discussed their security, a good dose of propofol and into the van they went. It was easy.’

  Murder was easy if you were organised and knew what you were doing. It was the unorganised killers who got caught. ‘What about George, though? He’s no psychopath; he wouldn’t have had truck with this. Not unless you forced him.’

  ‘George? You think George had something to do with a
ll this?’

  ‘You didn’t do this on your own, Kylian. You had an accomplice.’ He said it as a fact. He pointed at the van and the lorry. ‘And it was the Scafell Veterinary Group that bought these vehicles.’

  ‘My father died over a year ago, Poe. Opened a book one night and never got to the end. I guess he just wasn’t as interested in living after Victoria died. He had nothing to do with any of this.’

  Poe said nothing.

  ‘It’s possible I forgot to report his death,’ Reid added.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ And he was; George had been a good man.

  Reid cleared his throat and Poe knew he was struggling to hold it together. ‘I buried him on these moors, Poe. It’s not far from here. I’ve marked the grave with a simple cairn. The PM will show when and how he died. Other than me using his company as infrastructure, George wasn’t involved in any way.’

  ‘You didn’t do this on your own, though,’ Poe said. He had been saddened when he thought George had been assisting a serial killer. He was relieved. But everything did point to an accomplice. If not George, then who?

  ‘No, I didn’t. I did have help. But the “who” isn’t important and I won’t discuss it now. Just so you have peace of mind, though, I’ve included the information with the evidence in the four-cell van.’

  ‘You’re shopping your accomplice?’

  Reid shrugged. It didn’t seem important to him.

  ‘As soon as I drugged them, my accomplice would drive them away in the four-cell van. I also disguised their abduction dates. I’d already made it look like Graham Russell was in France. I sent Joe Lowell to Norfolk and Michael James on a whisky tour in Scotland. I followed it up with emails and texts, enough to stop their families worrying. I had them at the farm for longer than anyone realised, even you, Poe. Lowell, James, Owens and Doyle were all here at the same time.’

  The planning and preparation were extraordinary. Poe rubbed his neck. It was beginning to ache – he’d been looking up at Reid for nearly twenty minutes.

  ‘Anyway,’ Reid continued, ‘I had the four of them all nice and secure in the ten-cell. But killing them wasn’t the only goal. I wanted confessions, I wanted information gaps filled, but, more importantly, I wanted the locations of my friends’ bodies.’

  ‘And they told you? Just like that?’

  ‘Not at first, they were still thinking of their reputations. It wasn’t until I hit upon the idea of making an example of one of them that they came round.’

  ‘Sebastian Doyle,’ Poe murmured. It had always bothered him why Doyle had been stuffed into Carmichael’s coffin rather than displayed publicly.’

  ‘Sebastian Doyle,’ Reid agreed. ‘I showed the others what happened when they didn’t talk. Until they watched Doyle burn, I think they still thought they could buy their way out of it. I put him in Carmichael’s coffin to keep you interested. Make sure you kept going.’

  Poe had plenty of questions about why he’d been involved. For now, though, it seemed best to get a linear version of events. ‘They told you everything?’

  Reid nodded. ‘And, unbelievably, none of the sick bastards had wanted to get rid of their prizes completely. They’d all been buried somewhere close to where they lived. James admitted to visiting his site at least once a month.’

  ‘You recovered them?’

  ‘One at a time. Carefully. These were my friends.’

  ‘And Swift?’

  Reid scowled. ‘I’d always intended to kill her last – hers was the greatest betrayal of all – she didn’t have the sick urges of the others; for her it was purely financial. You want to know where Carmichael’s missing three hundred grand went? It was her fee.’

  Poe had suspected as much. The depth of her involvement meant it was the only reasonable explanation. ‘But why didn’t you take her when you took the others? Surely she’d have spotted the pattern?’

  ‘She was the only one of them whose abduction I couldn’t disguise. By the time I was ready, she’d booked her holiday to Australia. If she didn’t turn up there’d have been a missing person’s investigation, and as it wouldn’t have been conducted by major crimes, I would have been in no position to steer it.’

  ‘How could you be sure she wouldn’t run? She must have realised what was happening.’

  ‘She’d always denied ever being on the boat, remember? As far as she was concerned, the only people who could contradict her were dead. Running would only establish her guilt to whoever was doing this.’

  Poe understood the perverted logic behind it all. ‘You should have told me, Kylian,’ he said softly. ‘Just think how formidable we’d have been together. We’d have got justice for your friends. They wouldn’t have stood a chance.’

  ‘This wasn’t about justice, Poe. It was never about justice. This was about vengeance.’

  Vengeance . . . Poe was reminded of the Chinese proverb: ‘He who seeks vengeance must dig two graves: one for his enemy and one for himself.’ Poe could pretty much work out the rest of his narrative – Reid didn’t intend to leave Black Hollow Farm. The building was the second grave.

  He looked up and held Reid in his gaze. Asked the question that had plagued him since day one. The only question that mattered. ‘If you weren’t seeking justice, Kylian, then why involve me at all?’

  Reid looked down and smiled. ‘Three reasons. First, you’re the best detective I’ve ever met. You’re intuitive and relentless, and you aren’t scared of doing what’s needed. You don’t care who you piss off and you don’t accept the first explanation that presents itself. Although I’d misdirected the early stages of the investigation with the Leveson-revenge angle, I needed it to start catching up. Even when they had a second victim, Cumbria police couldn’t see past a random serial killer. They weren’t looking for a motive beyond the usual psychobabble bullshit.’

  ‘But you knew I would?’

  ‘I wrongly assumed that with the crimes being committed where you grew up, worked and now lived, SCAS would have lifted your suspension immediately.’ He stopped to smile. ‘But it seems you’ve managed to make as many enemies down there as you did up here, Poe. When they didn’t recall you, I took matters into my own hands. I sent them a message.’

  ‘You carved my name into someone’s chest.’

  ‘No more than he deserved. And because I needed to make sure you didn’t become a suspect yourself, I killed Clement Owens when you were down in Hampshire.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Poe grimaced. ‘I assume it was you that sent me the postcard?’

  ‘Yep. I hadn’t realised just how deep the burns on Michael James had gone. The percontation point was virtually destroyed. I needed to give you a nudge when I found out that the MSCT report said the symbol next to your name was the number five. I needed you to re-examine it to get the Shap link. And also, I didn’t want you thinking you were my intended fifth victim.’

  ‘Kind of you,’ Poe said.

  ‘The second reason for your involvement was that I didn’t have a clue who the last man was. He’d not given his name to anyone other than Carmichael. I knew my best chance of identifying him would be to set you loose.’

  Jesus . . .

  He hadn’t thought about it like that. His discovery of the bank statement had given Reid Montague Price’s identity. Poe might as well have killed him himself. Although it was hard to feel sympathy for someone who’d been complicit in the rape and murder of children, Poe knew he’d made a mistake. He’d been Reid’s puppet.

  ‘By then, Price had already gone to ground. During the raid I planted evidence at his home to ensure Gamble made him suspect number one and started a national search. I was confident that when he was caught, he’d have solid alibis and make bail. And as soon as he did that, he’d be mine. All I had to do was wait.’

  ‘But he didn’t get caught. He handed himself in and tried to make a deal.’

  ‘And that meant Hilary Swift’s charade of not being on the boat would come to an end and she’d be arrested as well.
With them both in custody, neither of them would get bail because the full story would start to come out. Using the van, I had a contingency plan to abduct one person from custody, but it was a trick that wouldn’t work twice.’

  ‘You needed to get to Swift before Price talked.’

  ‘Before we left Shap Wells for Seven Pines, I called my . . . accomplice and told him to get on the road. He knew the address. By that time, I had the dosages bang on. I made the drinks and I gave Swift a smaller dose. I wanted her drowsy but awake. My accomplice came in, took Swift, then went back for the kids.’

  ‘And half an hour later we woke up. She was gone, and you were a victim just as much as I was,’ Poe finished for him. It was genius, really.

  ‘Which gave me a little bit of breathing space. I knew you were close, though, and the way Tilly had the board laid out in Shap Wells was exactly how you’d figure it out. That fucking money-laundering law – I knew that if the van was ever identified as the abduction vehicle its paper trail would be my undoing, but the rewards of having it outweighed the risks. I’m assuming that’s how you put everything together?’

  ‘The Sunday abduction. There wasn’t a special court on and prison transfers are strictly Monday to Friday.’

  ‘Jesus, you’re a clever bastard, Poe, you really are. And with the van, you got me? That was quick work. I thought it would have taken you longer to track down who’d bought them. GU had put nearly two hundred vehicles on the market over the last couple of years and you didn’t have the van’s original registration number.’

  ‘It wasn’t just the van,’ Poe said.

  ‘Oh?’ Reid said.

  ‘You never take your jacket off.’

  ‘I never take my . . . ?’ he said, before it dawned on him what Poe meant. For several moments he said nothing. The tears that had dried began running again. ‘My scars.’

  ‘In all the time I’ve known you, I’ve never seen your arms. Not once,’ Poe said. He had almost everything now. But . . . there was still something he wasn’t being told. Everything Reid had said could have been said by phone or sent via email. For some reason he wanted Poe here.