Darkness Falls

by David Mark

  “Wendy Butterworth would not see her daughter alive again.

  “Ella arrived at her aunt’s home, but nobody was home. Witnesses recall seeing Ella knocking repeatedly on the door, and looking very upset. After ten minutes, Ella left, heading back in the direction of Rufforth Garth. By now the time was around 8.15 p.m.

  “By tragic coincidence, the defendant, Shane Cadbury, had been visiting friends in the Bransholme area, and was making his way back to his home in Hull’s Garden Village, along the same route as Ella. Some time around 8.20 p.m., Ella was lured into an alleyway off Scampton Garth. In that alleyway, Shane Cadbury attacked her with a large knife. Forensic evidence later showed that the weapon was most likely a ‘kukri’ – a curved utility blade that we commonly associate with the Nepalese or Gurkha military regiments. In a frenzied, brutal and sustained attack, he stabbed her more than forty-seven times to the head, back, chest and stomach. He used such force that the knife repeatedly went right through her body. For more than a minute he plunged his knife into her, over and over again. The knife has never been recovered.

  “Cadbury then walked to the next street, and broke into a Ford Fiesta belonging to a Mr Arthur Kirkhope. He drove the car to the end of the alley, bundled Ella’s body onto the back seat, and drove her back to his flat on Berkshire Street, near Summergangs Road. Cadbury then dragged Ella’s dead body from the car to the front door of his property, and carried her up the stairs. A neighbour remembers seeing Cadbury struggling with somebody in his arms, but from their vantage point of 100 yards away, assumed it was one of his friends, who may have been drunk.

  “Cadbury then carried her into the bedroom of his flat, returned to the car and dumped it a mile away, at The Lambwath public house, on Lambwath Road. He then calmly walked back to the flat. He stopped to talk to a friend, Jonathan Sugg, at the end of his road. Mr Sugg questioned the blood on his clothes, and Cadbury said he had been in a fight. He was said to be ‘totally calm’.

  “Cadbury then returned to his flat. Cadbury then had sexual intercourse with Ella. Quantities of his semen were found inside her. There is evidence to suggest that this sexual activity was repeated over the course of the coming days.

  “Cadbury then set about cleaning the flat in an attempt to dispose of what must have been a large quantity of blood.

  “When Ella did not return home, her mother began telephoning family and friends. Those calls met no success.

  “The Crown’s case is that Shane Cadbury, at the time he inflicted those wounds, intended to kill Ella Butterworth, and is therefore guilty of her murder.

  “My task at this stage is to give you an outline of the evidence which you will hear during the course of this trial. In that way, when the evidence is called before you, either from the witness box or when it is read, you will have a framework in which to put that evidence.

  “Ella Samantha Butterworth was born on the 5th of June, 1992. She was the oldest of three sisters. Ella was of very slight build, and at the time of her death was just over five foot tall, and weighed fifty-two kilos. She was a very attractive girl, with shoulder-length brown hair, with blonde streaks. At fifteen years old, she began a relationship with Jamie Thornton, who was in her drama class at school. Very much childhood sweethearts, the young couple were happy together and recognised as deeply in love, and on her sixteenth birthday, they were engaged. Ella then began a drama course at Hull College, while Jamie took an apprenticeship in stage lighting, which allowed him to save money for a deposit on a house, and for their wedding.

  “Shane Cadbury, the man in the dock behind me, is twenty-six years old. At the time of his arrest, he weighed twenty stone. He is six foot three inches tall and of considerable physical strength.

  “Since January 2007, Shane Cadbury had been the tenant of the Berkshire Court property, where he lived alone. Cadbury lived upstairs, and at the time we are concerned with, the other flat was unoccupied. Cadbury was unemployed, and claiming disability benefit. He had few friends, and spent much of his time in his flat, watching videos and playing on his PlayStation. A considerable quantity of pornography was discovered in the flat, along with a sketchbook of graphic and explicit sex scenes, that he had drawn himself. A journal of short stories, many pornographic, was also discovered. In that journal, Cadbury fantasised about having sexual intercourse while dismembering and decapitating a beautiful woman.

  “I now turn to deal with the movements of Ella and the defendant on the night of her death. On that fateful day, Ella had returned from college to the home she shared with her mother, father and sisters. Jamie Thornton had also been staying at the property with Ella’s family for several weeks past. After the family ate a meal together, Jamie said goodbye to Ella and walked to The Ship Inn, at Sutton, where he had arranged to meet friends. He had arranged to be out of the house so Ella and her sixteen-year-old sister Stephanie could try on their dresses for the wedding, which was booked for January 29th. Ella’s father took the family dog for a walk, so the girls could get ready. He and Jamie left the house at around 7 p.m. The youngest sister, Tara, was staying at a friend’s house.

  “Ella, Stephanie and their mother spent an hour making last-minute plans for the wedding and tried on their dresses. Despite being asked to take them off so they would not be dirtied, Ella and Stephanie were so enjoying themselves in their dresses, they kept them on as they sat at the kitchen table and planned seating arrangements, giggling as they looked forward to the big day. Stephanie then knocked over a glass of red wine, which dribbled over the left leg area of the dress. Ella burst into tears, as did Stephanie, and their mother tried to sponge off the stain, but could not. She quickly suggested they take the dress to Ella aunt’s house, her father’s sister, Joyce Butterworth. Ella ran from the house, in the dress and veil, and barefoot.

  “That same evening, Shane Cadbury had been visiting friends at Manston Garth, Bransholme. He had spent the evening eating a takeaway and watching a horror movie with Steve Venables and Daniel Lewis. The defendant had drunk at least three cans of lager that evening. He left at round 8.20 p.m., after falling out with Daniel Lewis. They had argued over Mr Lewis’s intention to propose to his girlfriend. The defendant tried to talk him out of it, and became insulting towards Mr Lewis’s girlfriend. The defendant eventually stormed out of the house in, what the Crown suggests, was a state of temper. The route that would take him from the property back to his own flat unhappily coincided with the route Ella would take from her aunt’s house back to Rufforth Garth.

  “Cadbury’s path crossed that of Ella Butterworth’s in a dark, unlit alley, just two streets from her home, with the most tragic of results. We contend that Cadbury used a large curved knife that he was fond of carrying to inflict the fatal wounds. That knife has not been recovered, but we suggest the stabbing only ended when the tip of the knife broke off in the brick wall that he pinned her against as he murdered her. You will be shown the sharpened sliver of this murder weapon doing the course of the trial.

  “Ella’s screams were overhead by several nearby residents but, as you will hear, they thought it was simply the sound of children playing.

  “Within half an hour, Ella’s mother had become concerned. She telephoned Joyce Butterworth but got no response. She then walked to her house, but there was no reply when she knocked on the door. She then walked to The Ship Inn, where she saw Ella’s fiancé, Jamie Thornton, and explained that Ella could not be found. Together they searched nearby streets and started making telephone calls to Ella’s friends.

  “By this time, we suggest that Ella Butterworth had been murdered, sexually assaulted, and her body was in Shane Cadbury’s flat.

  “Eight days later, and following a police appeal, detectives received a telephone call from Daniel Lewis. He had been to Cadbury’s flat the day before in an attempt to reconcile their friendship. Cadbury allowed him into the living room of the flat and the two patched up their differences. During the course of the afternoon, Cadbury had taken a trip to the bathroom
, and Lewis decided to pop into Cadbury’s bedroom to look for a video they could watch together. As he walked through the door, he saw the decomposed, violated and blood-soaked body of Ella Butterworth, laid out on the bed. She was still wearing her wedding dress, which was now red with blood. The top had been pulled down to expose her breasts.

  “Mr Lewis ran from the flat in a state of shock. He ran back to his own home, where he drank a great deal of whisky and passed out. He woke the next day, sickened and disgusted at what he had seen, and telephoned the police.

  “Almost three weeks later, as the city united in a desperate search for a missing daughter, Police Sergeant McAvoy, together with Police Constables Dicker and Poyser from Humberside Police, followed up the call, which had been mislaid among the huge volume of documents and potential leads. Cadbury let them into the flat, and immediately pointed them towards his bedroom. Sergeant McAvoy entered the room. He saw what Mr Lewis had seen, but by this time, Ella Butterworth had been decapitated. Cadbury was immediately arrested. Due to the extreme nature of the wounds to her body and the presence of a footprint on the collarbone, we grimly suggest that Cadbury used his bare hands to remove Ella Butterworth’s head.

  “The officers were overcome by a stench they described as being like rotting food.

  “As the officers waited for scenes of crime officers and lead officer Detective Superintendent Douglas Roper to arrive, Cadbury began to talk about Ella and what he had done. He called her ‘his girl’, and spoke of her sexual prowess, and how she had been a gift from the devil, just for him. He spoke normally and without emotion.

  “Scientific investigation of the alleyway found a large quantity of blood. Slash and scratch marks consistent with a frenzied attack were found on the wall. The car in which Ella was transported was also recovered. More blood was found on the stairs leading to the defendant’s flat, and in the living room and bedroom.

  “The knife used to inflict the wounds was most likely tossed into the drain, but despite an extensive underwater hunt, has not been recovered.

  “During police interview, Cadbury declined to answer all questions bar one. When asked why he had killed her, he said he did not. He said he found her dead, and looked upon her as a gift.

  “The Crown says that the defendant is responsible for the murder of a gentle, loving and fragile young woman, and that he is guilty of murder. Thank you.”

  *

  Enough for a splash. Few decent quotes and a bit of gore. Have to make a judgement call on the grisliest stuff. A bit much for some readers, not enough for others. I’ll leave that to Neil on newsdesk. Let the bastard earn his pay.

  Good stuff, though.

  Hard.

  Nasty.

  Easily digestible. Good versus evil, beauty and the beast, all boiled down to 600 words. A bitesize morality tale with a punchy headline.

  My sort of caper.

  Cadbury looking at his feet as the details poured out. Breathing deeply as Anderson talked about her nakedness, spoke of violation and depravity and made it sound like poetry.

  Reporters pulling faces and trying to keep up as we scribbled shorthand. Putting asterisks next to the choicest quotes.

  Sickened for a moment, then down to business.

  The copy running through my head like a mantra.

  Bored by 11.30.

  Looking up and around and inside.

  Spinning in my seat as two detectives slip quietly into the courtroom and whisper in The Flash’s ear.

  Thirty seconds of eyebrow raising.

  Conversation behind a palm.

  Then Roper getting up, nodding to the judge.

  Sliding out of the courtroom in a swish of leather.

  Acolytes riding his coat-tails.

  Me mulling it over.

  Judgement call.

  Twitching.

  Up.

  Bowing.

  And out the door.

  11

  Clive Sullivan Way, 12.15 p.m., heading west out of Hull towards the country park.

  Two bodies found in the woods…

  Taking it easy, careful of the speed trap round the bend past the pharmaceutical warehouse. Bastards have already got me twice. Six fucking points and £120. Entering the sixty zone now. Flip a finger to the coppers in the van as I pass the camera, and floor it.

  Waters of the Humber, brown and choppy to my left. White caps on the ripples. Paper chase of gulls, squabbling over shit, a taste of things to come.

  A fast eighty in the rain.

  Only one wiper works, so I’m leaning across to the passenger side and peering through the gap, carved in the waterfall running down the windscreen.

  Cigarette smoke clinging to my damp clothes.

  Johnny Cash dead beside me.

  Passing the Arco warehouse. Christmas lights and a fat Santa Claus on the roof, still promising presents as the year moves towards March.

  Thinking of Christmases past. At Drayton. The country estate we called home. Dad, the gamekeeper for a poor boy done good. So much less than he deserved. I get heartburn when I think of those days. That time. That Christmas. Mulled wine and eggnog, carols and bad sweaters. The winter shooting party, and the one that would come six months later under a blazing sun. Of that day. Mam and Kerry in the cottage; me and Dad, men at work. Serving the rich men. In among them. Mingling. Not exactly beneath, but a step down, and to the left. Feeling like the guttering on their mansion, the shingle on their drive. Me, a child, with watery grey eyes and a good right hook, sniffing the Bloody Marys on their breath, and watching, as Dad thanked them for the grubby notes they stuffed in his waxed jacket.

  Remembering myself, nine years old, in the back of the jeep. Dad winking, to show it was all OK, and me knowing it wasn’t. Trying to work it out. Trying to fathom why we lived in the cottage, and Mr Blake, with his red nose and fleshy lips and lecherous hands, lived in the Big House. Wondering where his magic lay. Why our presents, once opened, were so clearly shop-bought. Why I recognised them from last year’s January sales. Why Santa loved the Blakes more than us, when they already had so much. Sniffing spent cartridges, the earthy, sharp tang of gun smoke. Cheek tugged and hair ruffled by fat men in tweed. Shiny coins dropped in my pocket. The occasional hand on my arse. Sometimes wondering if Dad served them because they were better than him, or because of the powerful, shiny thing in their hands.

  And later, bouncing back to the cottage in the old 4x4, resting my head on the dead grouse, listening to Dad talk about football.

  A Volvo estate suddenly honks loud and long as I drift into the inside lane, and I open my eyes with a jolt, lighting a cigarette, chewing the top off a bottle of Nurofen and gobbling three down, as I press the accelerator hard and tear through the curtains of rain.

  I pass a lorry. In the dirt on its back end, somebody has written: “Please overtake quietly – refugees asleep.”

  Mobile phone tucked under my chin, spouting nonsense to a copytaker: last of a dying breed.

  “Right, read that third para again, will you? Yeah. Ta. Right, scrub that bit. OK, first para again. Ready? A teenage girl was brutally murdered while wearing her wedding dress then decapitated and sexually abused – two days before she was due to marry her childhood sweetheart. New paragraph.

  “Ella Butterworth’s dead body was repeatedly molested by her alleged killer, Shane Cadbury, twenty-six, in the days after her death, and body parts were found more than a mile away. Her body… shall we say ‘the bulk of her body?’… is that too harsh? OK, leave it as is… Body was discovered in Cadbury’s flat in Hull’s Garden Village, where the accused is said to have carried her after murdering the ‘angelic’ teen in a frenzied attack in an alleyway near her home.

  “Right, then it’s as it was. Remember the inverted commas around gentle and fragile, yeah? Oh, I took them out did I? Stick them back in. Cool. Whack that over to the desk and stick my mobile number on top. Tell them I’ll let them know how this body-in-the-woods thing turns out. Nice one. Cheers, prince
ss. Ta’ra.”

  Bang. Job’s a good ’un.

  Hang up and dial the police voicebank again. Heard it three times already but it doesn’t hurt to be thorough.

  “This is Inspector Dave Simmonds in the Humberside Police press office, the time is now 11.37 on the morning of February the 6th. This is an appeal for information over a suspicious death. This morning, at 9.15 a.m., police received a telephone call from a concerned local business owner at the Humber Bridge Country Park, near Hessle, who reported the presence of a body in a dense patch of woodland. Police immediately attended the scene. Two bodies were confirmed. Scenes of crime investigators are now in attendance and the park has been closed to the public. I am now on my way to the scene. I would like to stress that we are at a very early stage in the investigation, and I know you will all want identifications as quickly as possible, but that could take some time due to the nature of the injuries. We are treating both deaths as suspicious at this stage. A murder enquiry has now been launched. Thank you.”

  Pull off at the roundabout, past the foody pub overlooking the water, and the carved grizzly bear, down Ferriby Road. Trees either side. Leafy, even in bleak midwinter. Big houses. The smell of money.

  Know the road like the palm of my hand.

  Copper in a yellow jacket standing by the entrance to the Country Park. Huddled in his jacket, collar up.

  I slow down and wind down the window. He ambles over. Young lad. Earnest face. Don’t know him.

  “Park’s closed, mate,” he says.

  “Yeah, so I heard,” I say, smiling. “I’m with the Press Association, mate. Have the pack arrived yet?”

  “Pack?”

  “Press pack. Heard we’ve got a murder.”