Unbound Ties: When the past unravels, all that’s left is death ... A Gritty Crime Fiction Police Procedural Novel (Gus McGuire Book 7)

by Liz Mistry

  One bit of joy was that Compo had found that the sketch paper that the drawings were on, had elicited prints – none of which matched on IDENT1, still it was a valuable piece of evidence. Compo had also tracked the manufacturer of the paper to a firm in the Highlands of Scotland. Again, it was a popular brand, selling many sketchpads in the size of their sketch, and once again, it was circumstantial evidence that could be further explored later.

  ‘You know, it’s strange, don’t you think, that the killer left prints on the sketches, but none on the nursery rhyme paper or on any of the other ritual items.’

  Gus turned to look at Carlton. The man was right, and Gus kicked himself for not realising it sooner. ‘What do you think it means?’

  ‘Too early to say.’ As if dismissing Gus, Carlton wandered over to the crime board, hands in his short’s pockets, socks pulled halfway up his shins. Somebody really needs to tell the man that that is not a good look. Immediately contrite for his malicious thought, Gus was about to turn away when Carlton spoke again. ‘Could we be talking two killers? Or one killer with an artistic accessory? Or perhaps he’s just a clever bastard leading us up the garden path.’

  Gus digested Carlton’s observations, unsure which of the three scenarios made most sense. It was always harder for two people to gain access to a property – made them doubly visible. On the other hand, maybe one gained entry and then allowed the other access afterwards. ‘A man and woman? Two men? Two women?’

  Gus’s tone expressed his disgust at their lack of concrete facts and Carlton responded soothingly. ‘Exactly – it could be any of the above, which is what makes me feel our chains are being well and truly yanked by this killer.’

  Turning to the list of actions on the board, Gus saw a picture of their pulley had appeared next to it, with a printed list of its main distributers. He turned to Alice. ‘Any luck with the pulley?’

  ‘We’re working on it. The manufacturer produces millions of them every year, and we’re trying to get a list – shall I put that on hold too?’

  Gus considered. ‘No, check out local outlets and get their records. Might as well start there and see if we get a hit. We might be lucky.’

  With no warning, Compo jumped to his feet, raised both fisted hands in the air and did a sort of uncoordinated sideways shuffle on one leg. While Alice and Sebastian smirked, Gus glowered at his colleague and folded his arms across his chest. ‘This better be bloody good Compo, because you’ve built it up now.’

  Compo grinned and ground to a halt right in front of Gus, enveloping him in the scent of bacon butty, the remnants of the ketchup that Compo had doused it in, rubbed into a splotch right on The Artist Formerly Known As Prince’s eye. ‘Picked up a fingerprint on the dressing table that doesn’t match either of the Brookes. And I got a hit on IDENT1.’

  Compo began bouncing on his heels again and Gus wanted to reach out and grab his shoulders with both hands to stop him. Fortunately, Alice intervened. ‘Come on then, Comps, spit it out.’

  ‘It belongs to Jerry Jones.’

  Gus glared at Compo. He recognised the name. It belonged to one of a pair of rough sleepers that Gus had befriended a few years previously. ‘Don’t be daft, Jerry can’t possibly be our killer – it’s just not possible. You must be wrong.’

  But Compo was nodding, strongly resembling a nodding dog. ‘Yep, that’s what the science says, and you can’t question science – that right, Prof?’

  Carlton frowned and, seeing his mentor’s expression, the smile faded from Compo’s face. Nibbling a loose bit of skin from his sun chapped lips, Carlton exhaled. ‘Well, Compo, I know I usually say that, but, occasionally – very occasionally – the science can be wrong.’

  Compo pouted. ‘It’s not wrong, it’s here – look.’ He pushed the report towards Carlton, who smiled and slapped him on the shoulder. ‘I have absolutely no doubt that your data search was accurate or indeed that the print does belong to the person you matched it to, but…’

  The smile that had returned to Compo’s face faded at Carlton’s ‘but’. If Gus hadn’t been so frustrated by the byplay between the two men, he would have been as amused as Alice was. Instead he glared at her for daring to smirk and made a loud tutting noise in the hope that this would get them back on point – but no. Carlton was still massaging his friend’s ego – needlessly in Gus’s opinion. ‘Your work, as always, is stellar, Compo. Absolutely stellar. Above reproach, second to none…’

  Carlton’s voice faded, and he hitched up his shorts, revealing more of his hairy legs, causing an explosion of mirth from Alice. ‘However’ – he raised one finger in the air – ‘if you bear with me…?’ He tilted his head towards Gus as if asking for permission. Gus realised that far from asking his permission to grandstand, Carlton was actually only making sure his audience was attentive.

  ‘How many prints matching Jerry’s were found in Miranda Brookes’ home?’

  As soon as Carlton voiced the words Gus knew exactly what he was saying, and he began nodding.

  Compo, slower to grasp the psychologist’s inference, frowned. ‘They found only one.’

  ‘Do you think it likely that someone setting out such an elaborate crime scene with no other DNA found – that’s ignoring the ones confined to the sketch – would be foolish enough to leave one print?’

  Compo’s face screwed up as he considered this point. ‘Eh, well I suppose not … but well IDENT1…’

  ‘Oh, I know, I know, but come here, Compo, and I’ll show you a trick I learnt in my Quantico days!’

  As Carlton wandered off with Compo to demonstrate how a fingerprint could be lifted from a glass and then placed on a completely different surface using Sellotape and sleight of hand, Gus turned to Alice.

  ‘Bastard was playing us. If we hadn’t known Jerry personally, we’d have gone haring off down that road, spending hours interviewing him and wasting a load of time, wouldn’t we?’

  ‘He’s not only a sick fucker, he’s an intelligent one too.’ Agreed Alice.

  ‘Still, we need to check where Jerry has been in public that would allow our killer to obtain his prints. Maybe we’ll get a lead that way – maybe someone will have seen something that could point us in the right direction.’

  ‘Knowing Jerry, he won’t have been in too many public places.’

  Gus nodded. ‘No, him and Dave stay outdoors mostly, but that’s not to say our killer didn’t grab their prints from something they threw away in a random rubbish bin.’

  ‘I’ll get a couple of uniforms to check it out – fingers crossed.’

  Gus turned to look at the sketch and nursery rhyme retrieved from the crime scene. ‘I think we’ll need more than luck on this one, Al – a hell of a lot more than luck.’

  Chapter 11

  Bradford

  Jogging through Heaton Woods, Bingo by his side, Gus felt a rare and enjoyable sense of freedom. Too often he was stuck indoors or at crime scenes. This evening it was an absolute pleasure to feel the breeze through the trees on his bare legs as he ran. It allowed him to escape from the pressures of starting up a new investigation, especially one he suspected was going to get a lot more media attention than he liked. He was troubled by this and was glad that Nancy hadn’t baulked at bringing Carlton in on it. His lip twitched. Mind you, he suspected there was a little more to Carton and Nancy’s relationship than she was letting on. Not that he wanted to know any of the intimate details. Nancy had made a few mistakes in her past relationships – a few indubitably stupid choices, but this wasn’t one of them. Carlton was a bit eccentric – but then again, so was Chalmers. No, he and Alice had decided that they made a nice couple.

  Gus had no idea why his parents wanted him to visit, but after seeing his dad earlier, Gus was pleased of the excuse to exert a little pressure on them to get his dad’s health checked out. He hoped his father wasn’t poorly. The old man could stand to lose a good few pounds, but there was no telling him. He could probably also afford to cut out the occasional
cigar and his pipe completely. In fact, he could perhaps suggest that his dad spend a few more hours on the golf course and a lot less in the mortuary.

  He grinned. Who was he kidding? His old man wasn’t about to give up any of those three things, no matter what Gus said. Gus could almost hear his protestations. ‘Och, Angus, next you’ll be saying I’ve to cut oot my whisky tae. Might as well just shoot me.’

  Veering uphill, Gus whistled for Bingo to follow and the dog, with an excited yelp, changed direction, becoming momentarily tangled in the extend lead Gus had used to abide by the Heaton Woods Trust rules. His calves protested a little as the hill up to Shay Farm, his parents’ home, became steeper. There was a small ginnel adjacent to his parents’ property which he ran through, pausing to shorten Bingo’s leash before he continued along the main road towards the huge security gate he’d insisted his parents install after his mother’s life had been threatened a while back.

  Using his biometric fingerprint to gain access, Gus entered the property and hoped his mother hadn’t cooked. Despite not having eaten since the doughnuts at the office earlier, he was happy to have a takeaway or even a microwave meal later rather than endure any lumpy, near inedible offering his mother might have prepared.

  His parents sat on the patio garden furniture, his mum wearing an oversized sun hat and his dad, having changed from his golfing gear into baggy knee-length shorts and a stretched T-shirt. As he approached, they turned and the expressions on their faces made him falter. What is wrong?

  He increased his pace and when he reached the patio, he flung himself onto the lounger before them. Despite his dad’s usual florid expression and his mum’s golden glow, they looked pale. ‘Something up? Is Katie OK?’ A momentary spasm of guilt that he hadn’t been in contact with his sister this week, niggled him. They’d had a mega disagreement and weren’t on the best of terms. Still, Katie was his sister, and he worried about her.

  His dad shook his head, his expression mournful, which made Gus’s mind jump back to the concerns he’d been contemplating during his jog over. ‘Are you…’

  Interrupting him, McGuire senior batted Gus’s concern away. ‘No, Angus. It’s nothing to dae wi’ oor health. Yer mum and me are fine…’ He frowned, scratched his beard, and then glanced at Corrine McGuire.

  Gus’s eyes travelled from his father to his mother. ‘OK, whatever it is, you better just tell me.’

  Corrine McGuire picked up an envelope from the wicker coffee table and handed it to her son. Wondering what he’d find inside, Gus scrutinised their faces, but getting no answers there, he opened the unsealed envelope and slipped out a handful of sheets of paper. As he studied the topmost sheet, Gus’s brow furrowed, and he quickly scanned each sheet in turn. There were five in total. Without speaking or looking at his parents, he went through the sheets once more, wishing that he could make some sort of sense of what was on them.

  Before he could speak, his mum pointed at them, her hand trembling as she did so. ‘They arrived one at a time over the past few weeks. No name – just addressed to me and your dad. That was all that was in the envelope.’

  The desire to yell at them was high, so Gus swallowed instead. What had they been thinking? It was only the previous year that he’d been the recipient of anonymous letters that had turned out to be threatening in nature. The fact that his parents had received not just any old anonymous letters, but these were enough to send the pulse at his temple into overdrive.

  ‘That’s why you were so upset at the crime scene.’ Gus tried to modulate his tone, but it came out accusatory, all the same. ‘You recognised the sketch left by the killer at the crime scene as having been drawn by the same person who sent these.’

  Shaking the handful of sketches in his father’s face, he didn’t give his dad a chance to respond before jumping to his feet and pacing about on the lawn in front of the patio. ‘What the hell were the pair of you thinking? You should have told me the instant you got these. You both know that anonymous letters aren’t innocent – they’re sent anonymously in order to terrorise you and now, a sketch similar to these has turned up at a crime scene.’

  Breathing heavily, he glared at his parents, his blue eyes, darting like lasers between them and tossed the sketches on the table. When his dad opened his mouth to respond, Gus raised his hand. ‘NO! You’ve got no excuse. You should have told me about these when they arrived!’

  He gestured towards the sketches now spread over the table. ‘But you should definitely have told me about them before you left that crime scene this afternoon.’ His voice was raised, his eyes flashing, his frown furrowed. ‘I should arrest the pair of you with obstructing an investigation…’

  He paused for a breath and Fergus took the opportunity to speak. ‘Och, Angus. Do ye no think you’re being a wee bit melodramatic?’

  Gus closed his eyes and mentally counted to ten.

  ‘We thought we knew who’d sent them, Angus.’ His mum’s tone was pleading; conciliatory. ‘And it’s not like we did nothing about them. We got someone to check them out.’

  Gus was not to be mollified, but he sat down again. ‘Who the hell did you think sent these to you, Mum? Who the hell do you know who would send sketches of a naked woman hanging from a hook?’

  Defensively, Corrine met his glare, her fingers intertwined with her husband’s meaty ones. ‘They’re not all of a dead woman hanging…’

  Gus shook his head. This was unbelievable. His mum was defending the person who sent her anonymous sketches of dead women, but what was more worrying, was that she seemed to have an inkling of who the sender might be. His fingers raked through his sweat damp hair. ‘Who? Who could possibly have sent those to you?’

  If it was possible, his mum’s face paled even more, her eyes flitting to her husband and back, before head bowed, she spoke in a whisper. ‘My brother.’

  Chapter 12

  Bradford

  He savours the high. There is nothing quite like it. No doubt about it. The adrenalin rush, being right here, right at the scene, and they don’t realise it. It’s perfect. You need to know who your adversaries are and McGuire, as he’d expected, will be a really admirable one. The Man in Black is no longer dressed in black. No need. Not when you want to blend in.

  He has things to do and he doesn’t want to draw attention to himself, so he adds glasses and a mucky hoodie with a chavvy cap. He looks just like any other loser using the library services to avoid having to spend the day on a park bench somewhere. And now that he’s topped up the silicone on his fingers and made sure his head is completely shaved, he is ready to do a data search at the local library. Of course, wearing a mask is acceptable these days, so with his cap pulled down and the mask covering his lower face, he is unidentifiable.

  City Park is getting ready to send the kids back to school. Well, unless Covid springs up again. Poor sods, all that time studying and for what? A complete ball’s up with their results. He remembered his own exam results day. Straight As across the board for him. He laughs out loud, startling a woman walking by, closer than the requisite two metres – silly cow. Not that his current occupation required the straight As he obtained so effortlessly. Maybe he should offer his own unique brand of career advice to some of these youngsters. God! He visualises their parents’ faces when they came home from school proudly stating that their chosen career path is serial killing. What a blast!

  The Covid testing tent is still there and he sees only sporadic evidence of the social distancing the government has asked for. The Starbucks and Wetherspoons outdoor seating areas are filled to capacity, with a few groups hovering, ready to pounce should a table be vacated. He slouches past them, keeping his distance and enters City Library. The computers are upstairs, so he heads up, drifts round till he finds a vacant one and again smiles at just how easy the restrictions are making his job.

  Doesn’t take long to disable the paltry firewalls installed by Bradford Council. He uses a zapper he’d created himself – courtesy of his
years of studying – and is free now to surf whichever dark corners of the web he might want to. But this isn’t his bag – no, he just wants access to a few sensitive databases. Easy really, but the anonymity of using a well-used PC just adds insurance and he is nothing if not canny.

  He thinks back to the gobby CSI and sweat trickles down his back. Bitch has brought out the worst in him and he isn’t going to let her get off with it. No damn chance. She is going to get what is coming to her. He hums as he works, his fingers flying over the recently sanitised keyboard. Straight into the database that lists all the West Yorkshire CSIs. He scans the list, studying their personnel files. Sid … that would be the one they called Hissing Sid. Christ, the stench he produced had infiltrated even the attic space. Dirty little turd. Maybe he’d have been the one to get it tonight if Erica dear hadn’t shown her lack of respect. At least the human fart machine seems to be impressed by his work, by the detail, the ritual of it all.

  Not that bloody Erica though. She’d crossed a line and he is well happy to spread his particular brand of misery a little wider. Stretch the police a bit – make them work for it. They expect his next kill to be another ritual one. He laughs out loud, well more fool them – they won’t realise till it’s too late that he has two plans running congruently. Wonder if the Carlton bloke will pick up on that possibility. Probably not. Too easily groomed into following the DIY serial killer profile of a consistent type and modus operandi.

  He scrolls down, scanning the names until he finds it, Erica Smedley. There she is. Early twenties, superior smile, and there is her home address. Brilliant. He flicks his fingers over the keys again, making sure his obtrusion into their data base is hidden, but almost as an afterthought he takes note of Sid’s address too. Who knows? He might need that shortly.

  Next step is a little trickier. Medical records are always a bit trickier to get into, but he’s found this particular site quite easy to navigate anonymously. He’s already chosen his second ritual victim, but for his third, he wants to escalate. Wants to go for the shock – wants to make headlines. He’d been warming up before, but now he needs to up the ante. He scans down the list looking at dates, names, and addresses. He is very particular about what he needs and in a city the size of Bradford, he knows he’ll find it. The thing is, he needs time to research each target – make sure he can get access to them without alerting the neighbours – he’d had to give up on two other possible targets before he killed Miranda Brookes and before he selected his newest target, three women had proved inappropriate for one reason or another – usually to do with their lifestyles.