A Poison Tree

by J. E. Mayhew

  “We’ve been jumping around on this case. Getting pulled in all directions. Drugs, sibling rivalry, petty squabbles. Now we have another body on our hands. Thoughts?”

  “They’re both Hunt’s children, sir,” Cryer said. “But someone would have to know Rebecca’s true parentage for that to link them.”

  “True,” Blake murmured, thinking aloud. “And even then, why would you kill them? What would you hope to gain?”

  “Not money,” Vikki said. “You’d kidnap and ransom them for that.”

  Blake nodded. “Rebecca and Marcus had only just started to get to know each other, so I find it hard to believe that they’d be involved in anything that might get them killed.”

  “Revenge, sir,” Manikas said. “If you wanted to get back at Victor Hunt, you might make sure he outlived his children. It could be revenge, pure and simple.”

  “But revenge for what?” Cryer said.

  Manikas held his hands in the air. “Victor Hunt wasn’t exactly all sweetness and light, was he? He might be dying now but, by all accounts, in his prime he was a total bastard. He’s bound to have made enemies.”

  “Enemies who want his children dead?” Chinn said. “What would he have to do to provoke that?”

  “Hunt has lost all his children,” Manikas said. “Don’t forget Drucilla.”

  “All the children that we know about,” Cryer said. “There might be more lurking out there.”

  “When Kinnear and I interviewed Detective Leech, he said he feared that a serial killer was responsible for those deaths,” Blake murmured. “The collection of shoes that turned up at the charity shop might well point to that. But Gary Archer doesn’t strike me as a one-man killing machine. And he was physically incapable of killing Rebecca or Marcus. We need to try and trace Marcus Hunt’s final movements but I want us to delve into these past cases too. As far as I can see, this whole business kicked off when those shoes appeared. There’s a connection between the killer and the shoes. We’re going to find it.”

  ◆◆◆

  People certainly looked different, she decided as she walked through Bromborough Village. They reminded her of cattle; dull-eyed and slow. She could still feel the blood spatters on her face even though she’d wiped them off long ago. It wasn’t an unpleasant feeling. She felt more alive than she ever had. But her smiles and nods of the head went unacknowledged by the people she passed. They stared through her. If only they knew she was different from them. They were prey. She’d been like them once; trying to connect with others who might have the same grievances. Not realising that she was really a huntress.

  She stopped and looked at the butcher’s window. Chops, sausages, liver and steaks lay cold side by side. It had gone very well, better than she had imagined it would. Well, that wasn’t strictly true because she’d never doubted that it would go well. He was a big man and strong with it. Full of red, red blood. And she’d known what would push his buttons; he was territorial and grasping. The mere suggestion that Priest House was being burgled would bring him charging down to the house. She knew he wouldn’t call the police; he wasn’t the type. He was a ‘deal-with-it-myself’ sort of person. All it took was a phone call to bring him hurtling down in that oversized car of his.

  A police car flashed by, blue lights reflecting in the shop window and she turned to watched it. When she saw his shotgun, she’d been a little afraid then. Just a tiny bit. But she’d moved so fast, brought the pick down so hard, he really didn’t know what had hit him. which was a shame really. His skull had just popped. It was a ridiculous sound, really and she had wondered if it was real or just her imagination. His gun had gone clattering across the room unused and he had fallen like a sack of spuds. Then she’d been on him, boiling with rage. She frowned at her reflection. Why couldn’t she remember those few seconds, when she’d made such a mess? She’d hit him and hit him. She smiled at herself; a secret smile. Nobody knew. Nobody but her.

  CHAPTER 29

  Gary Archer sat up in his hospital bed, looking like a faded Country and Western star. His long, grey hair spilled down over his shoulders and a huge bushy beard hid his hawkish face. Fortunately, Chinn’s fast action meant that any injury was confined to his legs and his hands when he had tried to beat out the flames himself in panic.

  The hospital had called to say that he had recovered enough to answer questions, so Blake left the rest of the team bringing in stacks of files on any case that Drucilla Hunt had been involved in. They would be ploughing through old documents and, although Blake wanted to solve this case, secretly, he was relieved that he could get away from the paperwork and ask a few questions for a while. Kinnear had let him borrow his car too, which was handy.

  “How are you feeling, Mr Archer?” Blake said, pulling up a chair to Archer’s bedside. “You know you can have a brief here, if you want, but it’s nothing formal yet. We can discuss the cannabis farm in your house later. I want to talk about Drucilla Hunt.”

  Gary Archer’s long face grew longer. “I’d rather not talk about her. I’ve put that behind me. I’m not that man anymore.”

  “Oh, I dunno,” Blake said. “I don’t think you’ve changed one bit, Gary. I think you’re the man you’ve always been; a smalltime weed seller, nothing more. You never were a murderer, were you?”

  “I think the jury had a different opinion back in the day, Mr Blake,” Archer said, with a nervous laugh. “I did it. I strangled that poor girl and I wish I hadn’t every day of my life.”

  “Yeah, you say it with such conviction. What did you do with her shoes then, Gary?”

  Archer blinked in surprise. “Her shoes? I-I don’t know. I threw them in the water, maybe. There was a big pool nearby…”

  “Why?”

  “What? I dunno why. I just did. I wasn’t well. I was a loony. You may as well ask me why I killed her. And before you do, I don’t know that, neither.”

  Blake scratched his neck. “So, you threw them in the water and they floated out to sea or sank to the bottom of the marsh, never to be seen again?”

  “Yeah, that’s right. I remember now. I threw them away. They’re gone. I had a whole thing about feet then.” He pointed a twirling finger to his head. “I was a proper fruitloop.”

  “How come they turned up again, forty years later in perfect condition, then?”

  Archer looked as though a freight train was bearing down on him and he was tied to the tracks. “Have they? I don’t know. It was a long time ago. I can’t remember what happened to her boots…”

  “I never said they were boots, Gary. How d’you know that?”

  “I-I’ve been questioned before. Look, I want a brief here. I’m not making any more comments. You’ll just tie me in knots…”

  Blake raised his hands. “That’s fine,” he said. “I just want to work this all out for Eric’s sake.”

  Archer glared at Blake. “What d’you mean? What’s Eric got to do with this? He’s a good lad. Didn’t know about the weed or any of that.”

  “Last week, a girl was murdered right in the woods where Eric works. Found minus her boots. When we recovered them, it turns out they used to belong to Drucilla Hunt. Also, they have the name of Cameron Lock, the infamous child killer, written inside them. Eric can’t account for his whereabouts on the night of the murder.” It was a lie but Blake hoped it might give him some leverage on Archer.

  “He was with me,” Archer said. “All evening.”

  “No. He wasn’t. He’s tangled up in the murder of a young girl and he’s mixed up with the Cameron Lock case somehow.”

  “He wouldn’t harm anyone. He’s a good lad,” Archer said.

  Blake shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe he’s got the same problems his old grandad had. You know, a bit too much wacky backy, a secret thing about shoes and feet… and killing young girls…”

  “No. Eric’s got a good job. He’s a…”

  “Good lad. Yeah, you keep telling me. The other scrotes inside won’t see that, though, will they? To the
m, he’ll just be a nonce. Up for grabs. I bet you know what that’s like. Is that what you want for him?” Archer lowered his head, then shook it. “Then help me, Gary. What happened that day Drucilla died?”

  Gary Archer paused and looked out of the hospital window as if he was weighing up his options. “Alright. I’ll tell you what I know.”

  “In your own time, Gary.”

  “It was December 1981. Bloody freezing it was. D’you remember that snow and ice?”

  “I was just a baby," Blake said. “It was lost on me, I'm afraid.”

  “Snow everywhere,” Archer said. “Never seen anything like it, since. The weather must have been bad for me to even notice. I was in big trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble? Law?”

  Archer laughed. “Worse than that,” he said. “I’d been growing a bit of me own weed on the side and pocketing the takings from one of my suppliers too. Bloody stupid. They were a big outfit from over the water in Liverpool. They’d rumbled me and sent someone over to make an example of me.”

  “You must’ve been scared.”

  “Dead right I was. I had a wife and a little kid to think of. What use would I be if I was found face down in the Mersey or something? I was hiding anywhere I could think of, but they caught me in the Jockey.”

  Even though he didn’t live in Neston on the other side of the Wirral, Blake had heard of the Jockey. It was a notorious pub on the edge of the town, a locals-only drug den. It had since been sold and become a classy Italian restaurant but back then, you took your life in your hands if you went into the Jockey uninvited. “They must’ve been an evil mob if they went in there and came out unscathed,” Blake muttered.

  “I’m tellin you. These blokes were hardcore. Connections all over the place. Anyway, this guy, Millington, a big rasta sat down opposite me and I thought, ‘this is it. I’m gonna die.’ But he asks me what I’m drinkin' and gets me a pint. ‘We got a big job for you, Gary,’ he said. They told me that if I confessed to the Hunt girl’s murder, they’d wipe my debt and even pay me handsomely. There was no haggling. It was like money wasn’t a problem. I didn’t ask any questions. They told me what to say and I said it.”

  “Which was?”

  “That this Drucilla kid was investigating me and following me around and I started to get paranoid. That I believed she was from MI5 and she was going to kill me. So I led her out onto the marshes and strangled her. I was so horrified by what I done that I ran away. That was it.”

  “And they bought it?”

  “Come on, Blake, we’re talking DCI Leech, ‘investigating’ officer. It was December. He just wanted to wrap things up like a Chrimbo Prezzie and get back to the party. I wondered if the outfit had him put on the case deliberately.”

  “So you spent thirteen years in a secure psychiatric unit? That must have been hard,” Blake said. “And you never knew who you were doing it for?”

  “My wife was in on the deal, Blake. Couldn’t bear it if she thought I was a real murderer. Anyway, once I was assessed, they saw I wasn’t a threat. They moved me to an open prison. That wasn’t so bad. The wife got regular payments from wherever while I was inside. I missed my little girl but she was safe and happy enough with her mum. Sometimes, being a dad, you just do what you have to do, don’t you?”

  Blake nodded. “Go on.”

  “Then when I came out, July 1995, this posh solicitor type comes rockin up to me. Gives me the keys to a house in Spital and a big fat cheque. I thought we were going to pause for a photograph or something, the way he shook my hand. And there I was set up for life, so you’d think. If anyone asked, I just said I won the lottery, didn’t I?”

  “The solicitor,” Blake said. “What was his name.”

  “I haven’t a clue. He was an old fella; didn’t introduce himself. I bet he’s dead now.”

  “Can your wife corroborate all this?”

  Archer lay back on his pillow. Tears glinting in his eyes. “You know, sometimes I think I should’ve just let them get on with it.”

  “Sorry?” Blake said, frowning. “You’ve lost me.”

  “Millington and his pals. I should’ve just let them kneecap me or whatever it was they were planning. I should’ve told them to stuff their money.” Archer stared into Blake’s eyes. “Do you believe in judgement, Mr Blake?”

  Blake shrugged. “You mean God? Fate? The Universe? I don’t know.”

  “I do. I had a good life after prison. I had my Harley Davidson, my wife. My daughter got to go to that private school over in Parkgate. She got a good job and married a bank manager. Hard times, followed by good times. Then the judgement. My wife was on the back of the bike when that lorry ploughed into us at the traffic lights on the Chester High Road. It killed her but she shielded me, so I just ended up in a wheelchair. Around the same time, my daughter got breast cancer. It all happened so quickly. Like a sword came down and cut my family away. Maybe if I’d taken my punishment, none of that would have happened. I don’t know who he was but I covered for an evil man. I didn’t hesitate. I just said yes and let a stone-cold killer go free. It’s Karma, Mr Blake. What comes around, goes around. Sometimes, I wonder if whoever killed Drucilla Hunt suffered too. Maybe their life fell apart or maybe they got ill. In my darker moments, I worry that they’re still out there, living it up. That would be the worst.

  CHAPTER 30

  While the main team worked through any actions arising from the murders of Rebecca Thompson and Marcus Hunt, Blake had created a sub team of Kinnear, Chinn, Cryer, and Manikas to follow up the Drucilla case. This included the shoes that seemed to have started all the trouble.

  The Stilettos and sandals had been retrieved from the charity shop in Heswall and had been passed onto forensics. The other shoes had taken a little while longer as the collection for recycling had gone on the Wednesday Rebecca was murdered. The recycling company took old clothing from many shops and the team who went there faced a sea of rags and footwear.

  It had taken them the best part of a week to find one of the slippers with Josie Lock’s name in it and a court shoe with ‘Fiona James’ written inside. The real kicker had been Forensics announcing that the shoes revealed next to nothing because they had been handled by so many people and moved to so many locations. All they could say were that they were ‘quite old. Possibly 1980s’ and that it was very likely that the names inside them had all been written by the same person with the same thick, permanent marker.

  The team crowded round Tev, the Exhibits Officer’s desk as he passed out the large plastic bags containing the shoes. Kath Cryer had clapped her hands like a little kid when the stilettos appeared in the office. “I got these,” she said. Chinn didn’t say anything. Instead she picked up the slipper and looked down at it like it was a live scorpion.

  “Yeah, well don’t try them on,” Tev said. “Don’t take them out of the bag. And don’t take them out of the office. Okay?”

  Sitting at her desk, now, Cryer stared at the name Carly Simmonds written in thick marker in the insole. She ran through what she knew about the case. It had been closed for nearly forty years, seemingly straight-forward.

  David Collins, the man Drucilla had suspected of embezzling from her father’s company, had been having an affair with her but then smashed her skull in with a hammer and committed suicide. A note arrived in the post from him, saying that he was ashamed.

  She leafed through the notes and photographs, the dustiness of the paper tickling her nose. Where to start? That was the question. There were many reasons why Collins might have murdered Simmonds. She might have been threatening to tell his wife if he tried to end the relationship. He was funding the whole affair by fiddling the books at work. Perhaps the whole thing just got too much and he realised it was only a matter of time before he was caught out. But something was amiss, she felt it in her bones.

  Vikki Chinn may not have put much store in gut-feelings or instinct but Cryer just knew when things weren’t right sometimes. Not that you coul
d submit that as evidence but it did point her in the right direction nine times out of ten. “So what doesn’t feel right with you?” Kath said, holding up the stiletto in its bag. What did it say to her? Red, sexy. “Passion.”

  “What?” Kinnear said, looking up.

  “Passion,” Cryer replied. “These shoes say ‘passion’ to me. Somebody who likes the way they look and uses it. Whoever got involved with the wearer of these shoes would do so through passion, lust. I mean, men can’t resist stilettos right?” She wiggled her eyebrows at Kinnear, held his gaze for just long enough to make him blush.

  “Maybe some can’t, Ma’am,” he said, looking down at his file.

  “Go on,” Cryer insisted, waving the bag in front of Kinnear’s face. “No red-blooded male could turn down a hottie in a pair of these, right?”

  “I wouldn’t know, Ma’am.” He returned to his notes.

  “Anyway, if you were going to bump off your lover, it would be in the heat of the moment, right? A crime of passion.”

  Kinnear nodded “Possibly.”

  “You wouldn’t skulk around on a canal towpath waiting for her with a hammer, surely. He would have lost the plot in the hotel room and killed her there.”

  “I don’t know, Ma’am,” Kinnear said. “It’s pretty thin. I mean he could have got himself worked up about it and planned to finish her off at the canal.”

  “It’s a starting point, at least,” Kath said and turned back to the shoe. “And who the hell posts a suicide letter?”

  “Sorry, Ma’am?” Kinnear said again, trying to suppress the irritation in his voice as he dropped the notes he was trying to read.

  She held up the letter. “He sent it by first class post. To the police, explaining why he’d killed Simmonds and himself.”

  Kinnear frowned. “Hmm, that is weird.”