by Wes Markin
He heard DI Mark Topham behind him and turned to see a heavy clustering of police vehicles; the orange on their bodywork was the only colour in a gloomy mix of black sky and snowy white fields. Topham, who’d just emerged from the hulking black Major Incident Vehicle, was approaching Yorke in a grey suit, which fit so well, it could almost be an extension of his skin. Yorke had never really felt too much concern over his own appearance; his suit today was too baggy, and the heavy overcoat he wore blinded the observer to the fact that he was in reasonably good shape. He smiled when he realised that Topham was so proud of the way he looked, he’d not worn a coat despite the extreme cold; as per usual, he suffered in the name of looking good.
Topham addressed Patricia first, who was now alongside Yorke. ‘At least there’s a body for you this time.’
‘What’s left of it,’ Patricia said, scrunching up her face again. ‘Too early to say how long he’s been dead, but we’re talking days if not longer. A pathologist is on the way.’
‘With no official ID, are you sure it’s Thomas Ray?’ Topham said.
Yorke said, ‘I’m sure, and you will be too, once you’ve been in and had a look.’
Topham didn’t look too happy about Yorke’s request; probably didn’t want to get his suit close to that ripe body. ‘Ray’s not our man then.’
‘No, but I’m wondering if Paul’s abductor is responsible for this. He wanted us to look here; he left a video of the barn at the farmhouse and a key that he knew we’d find. He also left a photograph showing several generations of the Ray family. In the Blood. Seems like a continuation of the game which began back at the school.’
Topham and Patricia nodded. They turned around to continue surveying the scene. Scientific Support Officer Lance Reynolds was conducting his usual dance as he led a team of white suited SOCOs into the glowing wooden husk. He noticed another SOCO behind the taped line videoing Gardner and Brookes returning from the farm house.
‘The house is a mess, SOCOs are working on it now,’ Gardner said when she drew close enough. Yorke could smell the spearmint tic-tacs on her breath. It was a welcome relief from the fetid smell of decomposition which had lingered in his nostrils since he’d left the barn.
‘There’d been a struggle in the bedroom,’ Brookes said, not making eye-contact with anybody. ‘But no blood; at least none yet. Looks like the bastard was grabbed in there and then executed in here.’ He gestured over his shoulder with his thumb at the barn as if pointing out a car parking spot for someone.
Yorke thought for a moment and then said, ‘Iain, could you take some officers around the local farms? Neighbours must have known Ray had returned, and they may have noticed any visitors. I bet most of these farms have CCTV too.’
‘Aye, aye, sir,’ Brookes said, disappearing towards the cluster of vehicles.
‘Emma, we need to ensure soil samples are taken, as well as have the entry road scoured for footprints and tyre tracks. You may not find anything due to all the heavy snowfall ― but it’s worth a shot. Also, could you please get all these vehicles moved back thirty yards or so? They’re too close.’
‘Yes, boss.’
‘Mark, time for your look at the body, and get Andrew to bag up that photograph stuck to Ray’s leg and bring it out, I want to take another look.’
He looked around for Jake. No sign. He must still have been contacting PolSA in the car.
Topham stepped nearer and started to speak quietly, Yorke knew what was coming even before he’d finished his first word.
‘You must be thinking what I’m thinking?’
Yorke nodded, but looked dead ahead, avoiding Topham’s eyes.
‘It’s too much of a coincidence. They’re both Rays; one’s missing, one’s dead. The message said, “In the blood.” It all stands to reason, who would hate them this much―’
‘I already agree, Mark.’
‘So?’’
‘Listen, the Rays have history, right back since Reginald brought this farm at the beginning of the last century, they’ve pissed people off. See that tree.’ He pointed at an old oak in the distance.
‘Yes,’ Topham said, ‘Reginald was hung from it by angry neighbours after he killed six local kids.’
‘Precisely. They’ve never been popular, with anyone, let’s not lose sight of that―’
‘You sound like you’re defending Harry, after what he did―’
‘What he did can have nothing to do with this, and you know that.’
‘His phoning you – the SIO on the case – is really striking me as a smart piece of subterfuge.’
Yorke sighed. ‘Okay, stop with the hassling. I’ll arrange to meet him, but I’m not dragging him into the station. Not only will it look like I’m getting personal but, despite everything he did, he was still one of us, and is owed more than that.’
‘Okay,’ Topham said. ‘Time to face the barn.’
Yorke watched him change into a white over-suit. He looked at his watch. Eight twenty-seven. Paul Ray had not been seen for nine and a half hours.
‘Sir,’ Jake said, coming alongside him. ‘I’ve just been on the phone to Sean back at the station. Joe and Sarah Ray have received a video by e-mail. Their son is on the video.’
Yorke turned and lifted his eyes to meet Jake’s. ‘A ransom demand?’
‘No. Violent scenes of someone butchering animals.’
‘Pigs?’
‘Yep. The butcher was also wearing a real pig’s face as a mask like some kind of freak in a horror film. At the end of the video, the man reveals Paul to the camera.’
‘Jesus. How must his parents feel after seeing that?’ Yorke popped a piece of chewing gum in the hope of shifting the noxious stench which returned full force after the update. ‘Could you go personally to their house and watch the footage, decide whether to take the laptop as evidence? I will join you there shortly.’
Jake nodded and left. Topham approached him, hurriedly peeling off his white over suit. Yorke could see the plastic bag containing the photo in his gloved hand.
‘Thanks for that,’ Topham said. ‘I’ve only ever seen one death more gruesome, and that was an accident on a railway track.’
‘It’s all experience.’
‘If experience is the death of my belief in the goodness of the human condition, then you’re right. By the way, we will have two bodies in there, if we don’t get it back to Andrew soon; the vein throbbing on his head looked particularly unhealthy.’
Topham came alongside Yorke and held the photo up. Yorke used his Maglite. White snow scratched lines into the narrow tunnel of light.
There was a hole at the top of the black and white photo where it had been pinned to Thomas Ray’s thigh. Reginald’s descendants were sitting under a sky painted red by their own blood.
Yorke had seen the photo before. Almost ten years ago when Thomas Ray had killed Dawn Butler. In fact, a copy of this was currently sitting at HQ in an old brown file.
The photo had been taken in Nineteen forty-four. Sitting on the pig pen fence were Thomas’ aunties and uncles.
‘Thomas Ray,’ Yorke said, pointing the light at a small child being dangled in the air by a young girl and a young boy. Thomas Ray looked over the moon. And a far cry from the tortured individual he would later become.
‘The boy is Richie Ray, Joe’s dad.’
‘The young girl?’
Yorke moved the torch across the photo to her. ‘His sister, Beatrix Ray.’
‘She was killed, wasn’t she?’
‘Yep, by Richie.’ He flicked the torch back to her brother. ‘A childhood scrap that resulted in a fatal fall. The authorities weren’t totally convinced it was an accident; he spent a lot of his youth institutionalised. When he was released, he married Joe’s mother.’
‘Where are Paul’s grandparents now?’
‘They died in a car accident in the late nineties.’
Yorke moved his torch over to one of the men sitting on the fence. He had a boxer’s nose an
d a beard like tangled straw. ‘That’s Andrew Ray, Thomas’ father. Obsessed with aliens, he managed to recruit people to his cause and set up a small cult. Couple of local churches suffered during their riotous marches. This was around the time that the phrase, “Pray for the Rays” became commonplace.’
‘I know all this. You’re still trying to argue that the Rays have generated a lot of enemies over the last century. But, we can’t get away from the fact that Andrew Ray, on his deathbed, blamed the aliens for his lung cancer, and managed to convince his son to commit murder fifty years later. The murder of an innocent woman. Harry’s wife. The more I think about it, the more I become convinced that Harry should be brought in immediately.’
‘As I said before, I’m on it. Meanwhile, you’ll be organising a team to consider everyone else that has a reason to hate the Rays – living and dead. You can start by grabbing an update into the investigation of Joe Ray’s lovers and there’s also Lacey Ray to consider.’
‘Lacey Ray has been gone almost five years.’
‘True, but she is one of only four Rays left alive. Last I heard she was prostituting herself in Southampton. It could be connected. Get someone to contact Southampton and have her questioned.’
After Topham had headed off to return the photo to Andrew Waites, Yorke scrolled down to Harry’s number. As the phone rang, he stared at the glowing barn, thinking about those that used to pray for the Rays.
They obviously didn’t pray hard enough, he thought.
6
IT TOOK ALMOST ten minutes for Lacey to reach her apartment at Spire View from the train station. Pushed back in an industrial part of Salisbury, the modern apartment blocks dazzled like a new car in the middle of a scrapyard. She could afford a property in the better end of town, but there’d never seemed much point; she was hardly ever back. Neither did she ever consider getting rid of it, thinking it important that she had a permanent residence.
At her apartment, which was regularly cleaned by a local agency, she bundled her ruined coat and clothes into a bin liner, and slipped Brian’s platinum wedding ring underneath the fridge. After redressing, extracting a quilted coat from her wardrobe, and an umbrella to fend off the snow, she set off by foot to her brother and sister-in-law’s cottage, dropping the bin liner in a skip beside a row of Indian restaurants.
She passed under a grubby arched bridge, which suffered under the fast modern trains in much the same way that some parts of historic Salisbury suffered under the brash, contemporary chain shops. As she walked beside the run-down pub, Deacons, in the toilets of which she’d lost her virginity at the age of fifteen, she heard Slade’s “Merry Christmas everybody” and caught the scent of real ale. She smiled over the memory of drinking pints in there with her first serious boyfriend.
Beside the turn off to Salisbury Theatre, she switched on her mobile phone and listened to a message from the police, who desperately wanted to talk to her regarding her missing nephew.
It took her about twenty minutes to reach the whitewashed cottage. Once she was under the porch, she lowered her umbrella and knocked on the door. A squat man with cheeks like a bulldog opened it. A blast of hot air rushed out over her.
‘Hi, I’m here to see Joe and Sarah,’ she said.
‘Sorry, who are you?’
‘I’m Lacey, Joe’s sister.’
‘Ahhh ... I’m the family support officer, Bryan Kelly. My colleagues are eager to talk to you at the station.’
‘I would prefer to speak to my family first, if that’s okay?’
‘That’s fine, but I have to notify the station immediately, so they can send someone to collect you.’
Lacey nodded, and Bryan opened the door wider. Her brother approached and stood beside him. He used to be a very thin man, but he’d put on weight since she’d last seen him, and he was starting to swell around his chest, making his choice of an almost skin-tight white polo neck questionable. ‘Lacey - what are you doing here?’ He took a step back as he spoke and his face turn paler, as it always did when she paid a visit.
‘Sarah phoned me.’
Sarah appeared behind the two men, looking uncharacteristically dowdy in a shapeless dressing gown.
Lacey’s eyes darted between the couple’s repugnant clothing. Is this what grief and sadness did to you? If so, she was glad she would never have to experience such feelings.
Sarah wriggled between the two men; her eyes were glassy and her breath smelled of sherry. ‘We need family here with us.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Joe said. ‘I was just surprised, it’s been...’
‘So long?’ Lacey said.
‘Yes,’ Joe said and swallowed.
‘You always did know how to make me feel welcome! If it’s not a good time―’
Sarah took Lacey’s hand and gently pulled her through the door into the hot hallway. The two men parted to allow them past. ‘Please take off your boots and come into the lounge.’
Lacey propped the umbrella by the wall, peeled off her boots and followed Sarah. She noticed a tilted picture of her brother show jumping on the wall. She straightened the picture as she passed. Wouldn’t want you to fall now ...
Lacey sat down on a black, leather sofa on the side furthest from the burning fire and closest to the Christmas tree. She stroked the tree’s real pines, while surveying the clean and organised lounge. There was an open medicine bottle on the sparkling glass coffee table, with a half-filled crystal tumbler of sherry beside it. Further along the table was Joe’s glass of bourbon.
Joe and Sarah sat down on the sofa opposite her while Bryan left the room to call the station.
‘Can I get you a drink, Lacey?’ Sarah said.
‘No thanks.’ Lacey leaned forward and offered the most sympathetic look she could manage. ‘Any developments?’
‘We received a video,’ Sarah said. The colour drained from her face and she pressed a tissue to her mouth.
Joe explained what was on the video. ‘The police are on their way now to watch it and collect the laptop.’
Bryan came back into the room. ‘There’ll be here shortly.’
Ah, I really must be on my best behaviour then.
‘What do you think the kidnapper wants?’ Lacey said.
‘We don’t know. Money, presumably,’ Joe said.
‘Well, if you need any help with that.’
Joe’s hand trembled as he took a mouthful of bourbon. Do I still scare you Joe, after all this time?
‘We have enough,’ Joe said.
‘Okay, but the offer is there.’
But you’ll never take my money, will you Joe? Not when you know where it comes from.
Someone’s phone beeped. Joe identified it as his and took it out of his pocket. He fiddled with the keypad and his eyes opened wide. While reading, he leaned forward. Bryan came over to him.
‘What does it say?’ Sarah said, clutching her husband’s leg.
‘Tomorrow. The entrance to Tesco on Southampton Road.’ He clasped the back of Sarah’s hand. ‘Have your wife drop fifty thousand pound in the bin adjacent to the RBS cashpoint at two PM and then return to her car.’
‘Is that it?’ Sarah said.
‘Not exactly.’
‘What else does it say?’
‘I don’t―’
‘What else?’
Joe took a deep breath. ‘If she’s late or is with you or the police, your child will be slaughtered in exactly the same way as the pigs were. Your son will be left outside Tesco only after the money is received.’
Before taking a breath, Joe grabbed his glass from the table and filled his mouth with the remaining bourbon. Lacey watched Sarah’s hands whiten as she tightened her grip on Joe’s leg. ‘But this is good, Joe. It means we’re going to get him back.’
‘Can I take your phone please?’ Bryan said. ‘I need to contact the station.’
Joe handed him the phone and Bryan left the room again.
‘Yes, dear, we just need to get the money togeth
er.’ The tone of Joe’s voice did not reflect the certainty of his answer.
‘Remember,’ Lacey said, ‘I can help with the money.’
‘Who could be doing this to us?’ Joe said.
Sarah said, ‘Who do you think? All those people you hurt, is it any wonder―’
‘Not now.’
‘One of those women, one of their husbands. Why do you think the police were so desperate for that list?’
Lacey wanted to smile, but forced it back. So, Joe, you’ve still not gotten control of yourself? You’re still indulging.
Sarah reached into her dressing gown pocket and pulled out a dust cloth. She stared at the table for a moment and then scrunched the cloth up into a ball and hid it in her fist. ‘I should have left you, years ago. Look what you’ve done to us.’
The doorbell went. Bryan called in. ‘I’ll get it.’
Joe put his glass down on the table with a clunk. He looked up at Lacey. ‘Maybe, you should leave us to talk.’
‘I want her here,’ Sarah said, opening her fist and looking at the cloth again. ‘Just because you struggle with the idea of family.’
‘That’s nonsense.’
In fairness, he always cared more than I did, Lacey thought.
Sarah leaned over and using the cloth, started to polish the gleaming coffee table.
Lacey straightened her razor-sharp fringe. ‘Sarah needs your support, Joe.’
He looked at his wife, who was now on her knees cleaning the table. ‘Stop cleaning, Sarah.’
As she polished harder, the table surface squeaked.
‘Would you like me to leave, Sarah?’ Lacey said.
Sarah didn’t answer; she was polishing so hard she was out of breath. They both watched her begin to sweat.
Joe said, ‘For God’s sake, Sarah, stop it!’
Lacey stood up and crossed the Persian rug. Joe straightened up as she neared. With narrowed eyes, she stared down at him. ‘Your wife has had a shock. Be respectful.’
Joe lowered his head.
Lacey offered Sarah a smile, but she didn’t notice; she was now polishing the underneath of the table.
‘Hello,’ someone said from the lounge door.
