by Mark Sennen
‘Yes, Jakab, I know, but I’m sure I’d remember if I’d done something with a girl.’
So if you’re not the killer, then who is?
‘Somebody up at you-know-where.’ Raymond took in the newspaper headline again. ‘Somebody who’s been listening to you talking on the wind. Promising them things like you did to me way back.’
Raymond waited for another denial, but there was only silence. He hoped there wouldn’t be another argument. ‘Jakab?’
Let’s say you’re right. That somebody has been listening to the wind. That somebody has been, shall we say, influenced?
‘Yes.’ This was more like it, Raymond thought. Jakab had read the headlines and heard the reports on the radio. He was coming round to Raymond’s point of view that this was, in fact, a uniquely Mézáros problem. ‘Let’s say they have.’
Well, it’s about the strings, isn’t it? When the strings become invisible, then the wood and the cloth and the hair become alive.
‘You already said.’ Raymond turned from the drainer. ‘But what happens once the puppet comes alive?’
You’ve read the book, so you know the answer to that.
‘It escapes from its master. It gets a mind of its own. And that’s when the puppet becomes truly free.’
Exactly.
***
Back at the station first thing Monday, Riley sensed an air of despondency. Something almost tangible. The weekend’s events had left everyone battered and bruised, and the media onslaught had been ferocious, the questioning unforgiving. He’d seen the morning’s newspapers and the criticism was repeated in half-a-dozen headlines. Devon and Cornwall Police had lost control of the situation. They’d allowed blatant prejudice to enter the operational arena. The result was one man dead and two children without a father. Never mind that Frey’s sniper had saved the life of the kid Matt Anderson had been trying to throw over the rail. The press had conveniently forgotten that.
Collier, at least, had been hard at work, seemingly unaffected by the whole thing. He was reassigning roles, drafting in additional civilian staff, even rearranging the furniture.
‘As per Hardin’s instructions,’ Collier said. ‘Farlight is a triple murder investigation. We go all out to try and crack the case. Good news pushing out bad, right?’
‘Right.’ Riley stepped to one side as somebody behind him uttered an excuse me and manoeuvred a table into position. The despondency already seemed to be fading, the room abuzz with a renewed purpose.
‘And DI Savage is no longer the SIO, I guess because of the debacle with Marcus Clent.’
‘Really? ’ Riley let out a whistle. ‘I thought what the DSupt said on Saturday was heat of the moment stuff. Doesn’t seem right considering he brought her back in the first place.’
‘Right or wrong doesn’t come into it, Darius, it’s politics. The Chief Constable was most insistent.’
‘Who’s going to replace Charlotte? Davies or Maynard?’
‘You haven’t heard?’ Collier said before helping to shift the table. When he’d finished, he turned back to Riley. ‘DI Davies and DI Maynard want to remain focused on Tarquin. They still believe they can salvage something from the operation, and given the amount of work that’s gone into it, I agree.’
‘Sure. If there’s a chance we can get a result, then it’s worth a try.’
‘That being so, the Chief Constable feels there’s only one option for the SIO role in this case.’
‘And who’s that?’
‘You, Darius.’ Collier waved across the room at a civilian researcher who was carrying a pile of folders. He told her to bring them across and then turned back to Riley. ‘OK to give a squad talk in ten minutes?’
***
SIO: Senior Investigating Officer. Riley felt a surge of pride in the title. He’d led investigations before, but this was his first murder case – strike that – triple murder case, and his first time as lead since he’d been promoted to DI.
‘Nice,’ Collier said after Riley had given a quick brief to the assembled team. ‘Succinct and not too many long words.’
‘Succinct because I’m not up to speed on the Abigail Duffy murder,’ Riley said. ‘I want to speak to Charlotte about it. Any ideas where she is?’
‘Nope.’
‘And what’s the situation with Marcus Clent? We need to continue the interview DI Savage started.’
‘There’s a wee little problem with that.’ Collier itched his chin. ‘Clent has been released from custody.’
‘Since when?’
‘Since late on Saturday when the Chief Constable intervened. She turned up at the custody centre, spoke with Clent, and ordered him to be freed immediately.’ Collier tapped the whiteboard. There was a picture of Clent top right. ‘Clent and the God’s Haven community are to be left alone unless there’s substantial new evidence. We’re to concentrate on other suspects.’
‘And how on earth can we gather evidence if we can’t speak to the members of the community?’
‘We can’t.’ Collier waited for a beat. ‘To be honest, it’s a shit-show, but you could see it coming. Maria Heldon is literally making us work with one hand tied behind our backs so she can persuade minority groups she takes harassment seriously.’
Riley nodded. Discrimination – personal or institutional – had no place in the modern police force, but neither did political interventions such as Heldon’s. He was about to say something else when he caught a sudden chill. He’d met Heldon a while back, and she’d commended him on a case he’d been involved in. She’d also made a crass comment: We need to do more to promote people like you in the force. It was only afterwards he’d realised that people like you hadn’t meant bright, young rising stars; the phrase had referred to his race. Black and ethnic minority officers were very thin on the ground in the Devon and Cornwall force, and it was apparent Heldon wanted a more visible presence. Was that what this was about? Was he merely a tick in a box, a minority face to appear at press conferences to make her look good?
‘Darius?’ Collier interrupted his brooding. ‘As a start, we should take a look at the list of suspects and work out a way forward.’
‘Yup.’ Riley shook himself back into the present. Stuff Heldon, he thought. What was important was doing his job and catching the killer. Right now, nothing else mattered. ‘Good idea.’
***
Savage had spent Sunday moping around at home. Being removed as SIO on the Duffy case was humiliating, to say the least, especially since it was Hardin who’d wanted her to take on the role. She’d simply been doing her job and using the experience she’d gained from previous cases to find Abigail’s killer. While Hardin was right about the circumstantial evidence, she was pretty sure Marcus Clent was involved.
Monday morning and she slunk into the crime suite, hoping to stay beneath the radar. DI Riley was at a table with Gareth Collier and DC Enders. As she walked across, she noticed other members of the team turn away; they knew what had happened and it was embarrassing.
‘I don’t think Hardin played this the right way,’ Riley said as she pulled out a chair and sat. ‘Just wanted to let you know.’
‘Thanks, Darius,’ Savage said. His response was warm, but it didn’t remove the feeling she was losing control. On Saturday, after arguing with Hardin, she’d concluded she’d rather resign than go back to being on PLOD duties. ‘Where are we at?’
‘While you were dealing with the crisis on the bridge, there were a number of interesting developments.’ Riley had his phone out, a picture of another puppet on the screen. ‘This was discovered, in a rather roundabout manner, in the woodland where Abigail Duffy was buried.’
‘How come I wasn’t told about this?’ Savage turned to Collier.
‘It’s a long story,’ Collier said. ‘Someone cocked up.’
‘Too right they bloody did. It changes everything.’
‘Yes,’ Riley said. ‘It positively links Abigail’s murder with the killing of Dave Smeeton and Faye, one of Smeeton’
s runners.’
‘Right.’ Savage felt all eyes on her. The drugs link she’d pondered on Saturday was blindingly obvious, and Marcus Clent could no longer be considered a prime suspect. Even Zac Francis, who she’d thought might be involved on account of the brutal treatment meted out to the solar farm victim, seemed like an outside bet.
‘Smeeton was a dealer but he’d turned snitch. He was helping us with the conclusion of operation Tarquin, and somebody found out and shut him up. One possibility is the puppet is some kind of gang trope. That gets us to Jack Duffy by way of Barry Schultz or his associates. The puppet is a warning to other gangs thinking of getting in on the action.’
‘But if this is related to Tarquin, why comprise a major drug deal by murdering a top cop’s daughter?’
‘She was killed long before the deal was set up, but what seems odd is that the puppet at the Abigail scene wasn’t found anywhere near the byre and could easily have been overlooked. I’m not sure of the point of a symbol like that if you don’t highlight it. We also now know they’re not any old toys but valuable works of art created by a Hungarian craftsman called Jakab Mészáros. It seems unlikely to be something a gang would come across or decide to use.’
‘And the letters from the person calling himself the Puppet don’t fit in with the gang line either.’ Savage wondered how committed Riley was to the drugs angle. He appeared to be wavering. Perhaps she could win him round. ‘I’m more inclined to think this is the work of a lone crank.’
‘A crank who has some sort of puppet fetish?’ Enders said. ‘Is that even a thing?’
‘It is now,’ Collier said.
‘In that case, it’s got to be Thomas Raymond.’ Enders turned to Riley. ‘Totally weird, wouldn’t you agree, Darius.’
‘He’s worth a revisit, but would he send us a letter and sign it “the Puppet” when doing so makes him so obvious?’
‘Two of the letters were sent before your visit.’ Collier flicked at his tablet. ‘Postmarked a week ago Monday and the Thursday before that. Not the third, though. Perhaps he didn’t realise you’d put two and two together.’
‘But I thought Raymond was well known in Plymouth?’ Riley turned to Enders. ‘A local bogeyman, right?’
Enders accepted the point. ‘Sure. Doesn’t let him off the hook, though.’
Savage glanced at the whiteboard where various names were written at the top: Marcus Clent, Zac Francis, Barry Shultz, Thomas Raymond. ‘I don’t know the details around Raymond. Tell me about him.’
‘He owns this weird shop in the Barbican,’ Riley said. ‘Went down for fifteen years for the manslaughter of a young girl back in the nineties. He tied her up as some sort of revenge for her spurning his advances, but the ropes were too tight and she died. We came across him accidentally when we were looking at places the Smeeton puppet might have been purchased from. He was the one who filled us in on Jakab Mészáros.’
‘Thomas Raymond is a nailed-on cert, ma’am,’ Enders said. ‘There’s a room crammed full of puppets in his shop, including a Mészáros. Abigail and Faye are a similar age to his first victim, and when we showed up to talk to him, he assumed we were there about the Duffy case. We should bring him in right now.’
‘Hold on.’ Collier waved at the room where other detectives were head down over keyboards. ‘We’ve barely started. The PM on Faye Doe hasn’t taken place, John Layton hasn’t submitted his report from the lodge, the neighbourhood teams haven’t finished the house-to-house sweep, and we’ve still got people searching the woods and fields at the solar farm. We’re also waiting on forensic from the letters. I say we delay until we’ve got something substantial.’
‘I agree with Gareth,’ Riley said. ‘Raymond’s an odd bloke, but he’s not stupid.’
‘Odd?’ Enders made a face. ‘He’s off his rocker. The way he strung up the girl he killed is so similar to the latest victim that it puts him right in the frame, excuse the pun.’
‘Does he have a connection to Dave Smeeton?’ Savage asked.
‘That’s just it,’ Riley said. ‘We haven’t found one yet, and I’m struggling to see how we will. Smeeton and Raymond live in completely different worlds.’
‘What about a link to God’s Haven and Marcus Clent?’
Riley cast a look at Collier before answering. ‘Not that we know of, and if there is one, then we’re going to have to come at it from the Thomas Raymond end. Clent is out of the picture until we find new and incriminating evidence.’ Riley spread his hands. ‘In the absence of that, we have no choice but to consider the alternative suspects.’
‘Any idea as to the significance of this puppet maker?’
‘Jakab Mészáros?’ Riley made a face. ‘There’s an interesting backstory about the man, the sort of thing you might use to scare young children, but I’m struggling to see how Mészáros fits in, to be honest. For a start he died back in the sixties. He’s also Hungarian, which to my mind makes him incidental.’
Savage was quiet for a minute or two as Riley and Collier went over some other points.
‘Have you talked to Maynard and Davies about Barry Schultz?’ she said.
‘Not yet. I know Schultz is connected to Jack Duffy, but I’ve not heard his name mentioned during Tarquin briefings.’
‘What about Zac Francis?’
Collier raised his head. ‘It would be good to eliminate him from our enquiries. Do you want to interview him again?’
‘Sure.’
‘So Darius checks with Maynard about Schultz while Charlotte visits Francis. After that we’ll see about Thomas Raymond.’ Collier made a couple of scribbles on his pad and looked up. ‘Sound good?’
Chapter 24
After the meeting had broken up, Savage tried to convince Riley they should continue investigating Clent. But, despite her best efforts, she couldn’t persuade him. Fair enough, she thought. He wanted to stay on the right side of DSupt Hardin, which meant doing things by the book and keeping to the missive handed down by the Chief Constable.
Savage didn’t feel constrained by that, but she still had to proceed carefully. For now, it meant accepting Riley and Collier’s plan and carrying out the tasks they’d assigned her. The first of those was revisiting Zac Francis.
This time Francis was somewhat less cowed when he answered the door.
‘You,’ he said, making no effort to disguise his contempt or invite Savage in. ‘I didn’t think I’d hear from you again. I assumed you’d checked out my alibi and that was that.’
‘We’re not sure exactly when Abigail was murdered.’ Savage tried to appear apologetic and then slipped a small untruth in. ‘Plus, there are one or two anomalies in the hostel logs.’
‘I didn’t kill Abigail Duffy. I’m not stupid. I’m the first person you’d come looking for, the first person you’d try to pin the murder on.’
‘Where were you last Friday evening?’
‘Why?’
‘Answer the question, Mr Francis.’
Francis peered over Savage’s shoulder. Across the road, a man stood in his driveway washing his car. He turned, interested.
‘You’d better come in,’ Francis said.
Inside, the kitchen – previously neat and spotless – was a mess. Pots and pans lay piled in the double sink, crockery scattered across the drainer. A dustbin bag sat on the floor brimming with beer cans.
‘So,’ Savage said. ‘Where were you?’
‘I was working at the pub. Afternoon and evening. Is that good enough for you?’
‘It might be.’ Savage looked at the messy kitchen. Something had changed in the household, something possibly to do with Francis. ‘There have been two more killings, and we believe they’re connected to the Abigail Duffy murder.’
‘So fucking what? It’s got nothing to do with me, so why can’t you stop hassling me?’
The man before her had tortured and raped more than half a dozen women, but here he was acting like he was some sort of victim. The performance might have fo
oled Francis’s probation officer, but it didn’t wash with Savage. Francis was too defensive. He had something to hide. She tried another angle.
‘Perhaps you can help me.’
‘What do you mean?’ Francis walked over to the sink. He turned on the taps and ran water into the bowl.
‘You can tell me about the mindset of somebody who likes to tie their victims up and have power over them.’
‘That’s what they did to Abigail?’
‘They?’
‘He.’
Why was Francis asking about Abigail Duffy? Why not the new victim? And was the use of the plural simply bad English or a slip of the tongue from somebody who’d been involved?
‘The last victim was tied up and tortured before she died.’
‘Back in the day, I didn’t kill them, remember?’ The pile of crockery chinked as Francis reached for something. He turned from the drainer, a large carving knife grasped tightly in his right hand. He ran the forefinger of his other hand down the blade and a cut opened, a line of crimson on the ball of the finger. ‘Perhaps that was a mistake.’
‘Doing something stupid would be a mistake, Zac.’ Savage moved slowly, placing the kitchen table between herself and Francis. ‘The next time, the judge will throw away the key.’
‘Maybe that’s what I want.’ Francis stared at the rivulet of blood running down his finger. A drop grew at its base until he flicked his wrist and it fell, splashing red on the white floor tiles. ‘Freedom isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, especially when in reality it’s no freedom at all. I’m stuck in this village in the middle of nowhere, working minimum wage for a boss who knows I dare not answer back. My parole officer is waiting for me to put a foot out of line, and here you are trying to fit me up.’
‘Look, Zac, I’m simply doing my job. If you’re innocent, then you’ve got nothing to worry about.’
‘Easy for you to say.’ Francis raised the cut finger to his mouth and sucked on it for a moment. His other hand was low, the knife held tight. ‘You can’t imagine the pressure I’m under.’
Playing the victim again, Savage thought. The world against him, none of his troubles his fault. ‘I’m sure it’s difficult.’
