by Wes Markin
‘You threatening me?’
She smirked. ‘Look, why can’t we just be friends?’
‘Because I’m a police man, and I know what you do for a living!’
The smirk fell from her face. ‘Before you were rude, now you’re just being plain nasty. How long have you been struggling with Sheila?’
‘What makes you think we’re struggling?’
‘A sexless life like that must be a challenge for you.’
‘What the―?’
‘I know what sex does to a man. The fact that you’re going without was written all over your face earlier.’
‘Goodbye, Lacey.’
She waited. The phone didn’t go dead. She’d got to him. The smirk returned.
‘Even if that were true, which it isn’t, do you really believe everything is about sex? You’re emotionally stunted. Heard of love?’
Ah, you’re angry.
‘Does a man need love?’ Lacey said.
‘Well I do.’
‘You never seemed too bothered about those things when you were shagging me in the pub toilets. You know I walked past Deacons this evening. Those are good memories.’
‘I don’t remember. Besides, we were young. I’ve obviously changed.’
She snorted and said, ‘Men don’t change; they’re not the same as women.’
‘That’s a very sexist view.’
‘Or realistic. Men are like chameleons, adapting to their surroundings, but actually changing is beyond them.’
‘I’d love to chat about gender roles all night, Lacey, but you’re keeping me from very important matters.’
‘Like trying to find my nephew?’
‘Precisely, something you don’t seem to care about.’
‘I think I’ve just fallen in love with you.’
She paused to listen to him snort.
‘I’ll be at my flat in Spire View if you want to talk some more. I can be good company, you know.’
‘I am sure there’re a lot of men who could testify to that.’
‘Bye Jake.’
She hung up and thought about the conversation.
Did she feel victorious? Not really. He gave as good as he got. And his rejection niggled her. It was something she really wasn’t used to.
She sighed. She wanted to carry on playing, but she was leaving the country in two days, and winding up a police officer was not a good idea.
She was going to have to resist.
And that was something she always struggled to do.
7
YORKE BYPASSED THE bar at the Haunch of Venison, resisting the smell of hops, and the urge for a pint of Summer Lightning to cool his boiling brain.
He walked up the uneven stone steps, weaved around the enormous oak beams taken from fourteenth century sailing vessels, into the snuggest and warmest part of the pub, where he found Harry Butler reading a newspaper.
Harry looked very different from last time Yorke had seen him. He’d started to go bald, but he had the kind of weathered, chiselled features that allowed him to shave his head without looking aggressive. He’d put on weight, but looked healthier for it, and his dress sense had improved; he wore a black raincoat which fitted him perfectly – much more perfectly than any of Yorke’s clothes fitted him.
‘Harry?’
‘Mike,’ he said, rising to his feet. ‘I’ve been calling.’
‘I know.’ Yorke sat down.
Harry retook his seat and drank a mouthful of ale. ‘I thought I’d have been called in for an interview by now.’
‘You have. That’s why I’m here.’ He nodded down at Harry’s pint. ‘But you can finish that first.’
‘You always were a gentleman, Mike. Even after everything that happened between us, you still wouldn’t want to see me hauled in.’
‘Why did you phone me first, Harry?’
‘I knew I’d be a suspect after I saw the news. Thought I’d try to pre-empt that.’
Yorke remembered Mark’s view that this could be a smart piece of subterfuge.
‘Well, if that’s the case, why didn’t you just come into the station? Why wait until we found you?’
Harry shrugged. ‘Needed to work. I get paid hourly now. My days of earning a regular salary are long gone.’
Less than a year after the death of his wife, Harry had planted evidence on an innocent man, believing him guilty of murder. It allowed the real perpetrator to run, and disappear into hiding. Not only had this cost Harry his job, but also his friendship with Yorke, because the victim of this particular murder had been Yorke’s older sister.
‘Are you anything to do with this Harry?’
Harry took another mouthful of beer. ‘What do you think, Mike? Do you really think I have that in me?’
‘There was a time when I would have answered that question without a moment’s hesitation.’
Harry fixed his eyes on Yorke’s. ‘I had nothing to do with it.’
‘You’d have motive. More than anyone else seems to have.’
‘That man killed Dawn, yes. I have to wake up to the fact every morning, but this child had nothing to do with that. Additionally, there would be nothing to gain by it – this boy does not have any contact with Thomas Ray.’
‘And how would you know that?’
Harry narrowed his eyes. ‘I spoke to his parents after the trial. They tried to apologise on his behalf, said they would be having nothing to do with him anymore. They were convincing.’
Yorke nodded.
Harry gazed up at the black rafters for a moment. Yorke looked too, wondering how on earth they had managed to last so long.
‘Every day I wonder what things would have been like if she’d not gone to that bastard’s farm that day. We were having IVF – trying for a baby, you know?’
‘I know.’
He took another gulp of his pint. ‘Is this case connected to Thomas Ray?’
Thomas Ray’s death was yet to be released to the news. ‘I can’t discuss the case with you Harry, you know that. I need to know where you were this morning.’
‘I was working. Check with the cab company, they’ll give you all the details of my fares.’ He sighed. ‘You know he’s out, don’t you? Eight years - that’s all he got!’
‘I know.’
‘Eight years for ruining our lives. It’s not enough.’
‘It’s not enough.’
After another sigh, Harry looked around the pub. ‘You know seven hundred years ago this place would have been rowdy as hell. Cathedral craftsmen, fighting and gambling. In the fourteenth century, it was a brothel with a secret tunnel for clergy men to move between St. Thomas’s church and the tavern. Uncivilised. But it’s no different now really, we still haven’t moved on.’
‘I disagree. What happened to Dawn was unthinkable. But I still disagree. We have to make these occurrences less commonplace, and more often than not, we succeed, and we have to succeed in the right way.’
‘The right way,’ Harry said. ‘Guess I know where you’re going with this one.’
Yorke didn’t reply.
Harry slid a card across the table. ‘My company. Phone them to check. I worked all day from eight AM.’
Yorke pushed it back. ‘Keep it for the station. I’m going to have you officially interviewed by someone else rather than me.’
Even if Harry’s alibi ruled him out of the kidnapping, there was still the hideous murder of Thomas Ray to consider.
‘Have you been in touch with Thomas Ray since his release?’
Harry stared at him. ‘No.’
There’d been a pause as Harry thought. Yorke felt his body stiffen. ‘Or while he was inside?’
‘No.’
‘So, you’ve not reacted in any way to his early release? No phone call, angry letter, nothing?’
‘It was a compassionate release. He’s dying, what revenge could I possibly have?’
‘Still, if I put myself in your shoes, I would struggle to stay so calm. Go t
o work, drink a pint. As we said before, eight years is not enough.’
Harry reached behind himself and tapped the lit glass container. Inside was a mummified hand. It had belonged to a whist player who’d paid a high price for cheating. ‘You know already Mike that this pub is haunted; disappearances and reappearances of that hand have bothered the bar staff for hundreds of years. Back after it happened, I used to sit here most nights wondering, hoping, that I might suddenly disappear like this hand. The idea didn’t bother me, and I remember thinking that it wouldn’t bother anyone else either. Now, I can honestly say, I don’t want that to happen. I’ve met someone else and I’m happy. Why would I put everything in jeopardy by getting involved with the Rays again?’
‘It’ll be in the press tomorrow morning so I’ll tell you anyway, Thomas Ray has been murdered.’
Harry’s eyes widened. ‘Shit.’ He looked at the table, deep in thought, shaking his head from side to side. Then, with a trembling hand, he finished his pint in two gulps. ‘It wasn’t me.’
‘We need to go―’
‘How was he killed?’
‘I can’t tell you that.’
‘I’ve been nowhere near him, Mike, believe me. When was he killed?’
‘Days ago. Come on Harry. It’s time to go.’
In the car, with Harry in the driver’s seat, Yorke took a call on his mobile phone from Topham.
‘SOCOs have discovered more evidence at the farmhouse.’
‘Go on.’
‘Are you sitting down?’
‘Driving.’ He looked across at Harry who was looking back at him curiously and wondered whether to tell Topham he was in the car with him. He didn’t.
‘They found a letter to Thomas Ray, dated over a month ago. It’s from Harry.’
Yorke felt the blood rush to his head. ‘Shit ― what does it say?’
‘It’s not long. He goes into detail about how Ray ruined his life and finishes up with a few cold comments about how he’s glad he’s dying, and he hopes he experiences as much pain as he inflicted on him.’
‘Okay, could you e-mail me a copy?’
‘Yes.’
He hung up. ‘You sent him a letter, Harry.’
Harry looked down.
‘Lying to me ... again,’ Yorke said, tightening his grip on the steering wheel.
‘I didn’t think it was relevant.’
‘Bollocks. I should have had you hauled straight in.’
‘Ah, crap, Mike, I wrote that fucking letter years ago, but they’d never have let me send it to him while he was inside. So, I sent it when he was released.’
‘There’s the motive. Signed, sealed and delivered.’
‘I know it doesn’t look good, but it was a parting shot, that was all. He was dying anyway; why risk my own freedom by killing him?’
‘A good lawyer could argue that you probably felt it was your right to take his life, rather than the cancer.’
Harry sighed as they pulled into the station. Yorke turned and stared. ‘Are there any more surprises?’
‘No.’
Yorke continued to stare.
‘No, Mike, honestly.’
Paul Ray opened his eyes and saw that he was lying on his side by a camping lamp. Remembering where he was, he bolted up into a seating position, and gasped for air.
Someone was here ...
His eyes focused. It was Martha. Sitting cross-legged with the cattle-prod on her lap.
‘You don’t snore like Mother, she makes a racket.’ She flashed Paul a huge smile; her white teeth glowed in the lamplight like angel’s wings.
‘You have to let me out of here.’ His voice was weak, so he cleared his throat and repeated the plea. ‘It makes me sad that you didn’t eat the food earlier,’ she said, pointing into the darkness where he’d thrown the dog bowl.
He looked in the direction she was pointing. The pig, which had woken him earlier, stood barely two metres away in the shadows, staring at him with eyes like burnt wood.
‘Don’t worry,’ Martha said. ‘It’s just interested, we don’t get many visitors.’
‘I want to go home, it’s so cold in here and I’m starving.’
‘Well, Mother would have said you were cutting your nose off to spite your face by throwing that food away. I know that Mother and Lewis want you to stay. If you stop doing all those bad things, I’ll try and get you more food. Mother still doesn’t know about the last food I took, I went into the kitchen, all quiet.’ She smiled, and started to whisper. ‘If she knew, I wouldn’t be allowed back in ... are you crying?’
‘Why are you doing this?’
The girl lifted the cattle prod. ‘Mother is always sad. It’s been worse since she got sick. The best thing to do when she’s sad is to leave her alone. Would you like me to leave you alone?’
He raised his voice and clenched his fists. ‘I just want to go home!’
‘If you shout, Mother will come in and you won’t want that. Can you stop being mad? If you can, I’ll stay and we can be friends.’
There was an unbearable burning itch on his thighs. He tugged at his trousers, which had been glued to his skin by dried piss, and groaned. Tightening her grip on the prod, Martha said, ‘You want to touchy feel yourself!’ Her eyes widened and she ignited the spark at the end of the cattle prod.
‘I wet myself earlier. It itches―’
‘You dirty boy!’
She thrust the prod toward him.
‘Please,’ Paul said, leaning back and raising his hands to shield himself. ‘I meant nothing by it.’
He could feel his heart about to burst from his chest, but he knew that he had to think. He was reasoning with someone very different to him. There were students at his school with severe special needs, some even went into different classrooms, but he’d never met anyone quite like this. Not only was she childlike, but she seemed like she’d come from a different world altogether.
He needed to understand her world, tell her what she wanted to hear. ‘I don’t want to do bad things anymore. I want to be your friend.’
Her eyes narrowed, there was a moment of silence and then she started to lower the prod. ‘Really?’
‘I was going to eat your mother’s food, it looked so nice. But one of the pigs came too close, and I got scared, so I threw the bowl at it.’
The spark died; then, smiling, she placed the prod back on her lap. ‘That’s okay, there’s plenty more. Mother always cooks and I help. She says I’m the best pair of legs she’s ever had. She’s in a wheelchair, you know. I’m Martha by the way. My Mother calls me Barfa Martha because I used to get sick loads when I was a baby.’ She blushed. ‘I can’t wait to tell Cuddles about you.’
‘Cuddles?’
‘Cuddles is my hamster. Hopefully you can meet soon.’
Paul looked at the cattle prod in her hand. His dad had once told him that they packed about eight hundred volts, which would give you a nasty shock, but wouldn’t actually kill you. Maybe, he should just tackle her. If he won, he’d be away. If he lost, he’d probably just wet himself again. However, there was the risk it could also draw Martha’s mother and Lewis in to hurt him.
Lewis ...
Would he really hurt me? He couldn’t believe it, but ... how else did I get here? It must have been him.
He didn’t know what to do, but he did know he needed to focus and think. God, I’ve never wanted Mum and Dad so much in my whole life.
‘Do you have any pets?’
‘No.’
‘I should try and sneak Cuddles in here so you can meet him.’
Was he dreaming? The whole situation seemed to be getting crazier.
‘Mother has an illness called MS, she can’t walk so well anymore. I push her everywhere. Sometimes I sing to her. Round and round the garden like a teddy bear, one step, two steps, tickle you...’ She blushed again. ‘Mother used to sing that to me all the time. She can also make yummy scrummy food.’
Paul tried to think what Doctor
Who would do in this situation. He wouldn’t succumb to fear and despair that was for sure. Knowing him, he would probably enjoy it. He would definitely be trying to work things out – find out what and who he was up against. ‘How did you meet Lewis?’
She put her hand over her mouth and shook her head.
‘I don’t understand.’
She pulled her hand away. ‘I’m not allowed to talk about Lewis.’
‘My father will find me you know, and when he does, you’ll all get into trouble―’
The barn door burst open and an ice cold wind surged in.
‘Shush,’ Martha said. ‘It might be Lewis. We’re not supposed to be talking.’
The barn door slammed shut. Paul took a deep breath and held it. His heart thumped painfully in his chest.
‘Martha, come out, you’ve been in here with this little runt long enough.’ The voice rasped and gurgled like a very old woman’s.
‘It’s Mother, I have to go.’
Paul heard a squeaking noise like an old shopping trolley being pushed.
‘Don’t go, you can’t leave me alone again.’
The squeaking grew louder.
‘I have to, sorry.’ She rose to her feet, still holding the prod.
A wheelchair rolled out of the dark. A tiny old woman, covered in a blanket, stared at him from the chair. Her shrivelled face reminded Paul of the old apples that rotted beneath the tree at the bottom of their garden. His first thought was that this must really be Martha’s grandmother. Unless, and he shuddered at the thought, Martha had been stolen from her real parents?
‘You’ve been told already, not to make friends with the pigs,’ Martha’s mother said.
‘Sorry, Mother.’
‘Do you remember why?’
‘Yes.’
‘Tell me.’
‘Because it’s sad when they die and you have to eat them,’ Martha said more quickly than she’d said anything up until this point.
The old woman smiled; most of her teeth were gone. ‘Go Martha.’
Martha mouthed ‘bye’ to Paul, before turning and scurrying out of the barn.
Paul, sweating all over, watched the old woman turn slowly in her wheelchair to follow her daughter. The ancient contraption crawled back toward the door.
