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

  He smiles. It is fascinating to realise that Gus’s entire team is damaged goods. Even McGuire himself – a man who made the choice to kill his own best friend in a failed attempt to save his godson. A man who finds it hard to trust, who holds doubts about everyone around him – his parents, his colleagues, his friends. The only person McGuire appears to fully open up to is his psychiatrist. Gaining access to her files on McGuire has been revealing. Little did McGuire know that by opening up to Dr Mahmood, he’d put her right in the Man in Black’s firing line.

  Of course, the Man in Black knows exactly who is to blame for the darkness that envelopes McGuire’s heart. It is his mother. Convivial, educated, strong – everyone looks up to her, but just like her son, Corrine McGuire keeps her darkness hidden. Well, no longer would she be allowed to ignore it. No longer would she to be allowed to cover-up her darkness – he wants to see it released into the wild, visible for everyone she knows to see; a dark cloud over Bradford that would leave her suffering for the rest of her miserable life – just like he had.

  He’d toyed with the idea of making her a target, but his trawling over the past months had revealed a better plan – one, to make them all suffer; two, to make them realise that actions have consequences. That not taking responsibility for those actions would make the payment all the harsher when the debt was due.

  The sound of the familiar voice beneath him draws him out of his reverie. McGuire is here with Cooper, talking in low voices, analysing, assessing, trying to join the dots – but so far they’re only connecting the clues to the one puzzle. Maybe it’s time to jazz things up a bit.

  Gus’s voice rises a little. ‘Bloody parasites, the lot of them, you know, Al?’

  ‘Hmm.’ Alice’s non-committal reply is fainter.

  ‘He’s a toad … a bloody cockroach and a toad. I’ve a good mind to kick his slimy arse into the sewers so he can look for his morals among the shit that lives down there. You listening, Al?’

  ‘Can’t not bloody listen, can I? You’re ranting. You really need to get over this hatred you have of Hopkins. Maybe he’s not as bad as you think, once you get to know him.’

  Gus snorted loud and long. ‘Yeah right.’

  The sounds of their crime scene suits rustling as they move drifts up into the attic space.

  ‘You’re not shagging him again are you, Al?’ A loud guffaw and the sound of a hand slapping lightly onto fabric. Followed the words. ‘Joking … You wouldn’t be so stupid would you – not after last time?’

  The Man in Black’s scalp tingles as he presses his ear closer to the small hole he’d created right where the wall meets the ceiling. He is aware that his heart rate has increased in excitement and breathes quiet slow breaths to moderate it. This is delicious. Being able to hear McGuire talk, made up for all the hours spent attached to a catheter in the dark, uncomfortable little nook. The pleasure of knowing he is privy to the inside investigation, of hearing first-hand the voices of his targets, is thrilling. Now, he’s found out something he hadn’t realised. Alice had been shagging the reporter before – and lo and behold, here she is shagging him again, but this time her boss doesn’t know. Scrumptious!

  ‘Halllooooeee, Gus and Alice, boss woman. Let’s see what we’ve got.’

  The Man in Black’s grin widens. He loves Prof Carlton – doesn’t mean he isn’t going to punish him – that’s still to be decided, but he is drawn to the quirky character the man has created. Plus, he wants to hear what delightful little insights he’ll have about him. It is interesting to have access to other people’s honest thoughts about oneself – and incredibly rare – people are always so damn dishonest.

  Beneath him, Professor Carlton begins to hum.

  Lavender’s Blue Dilly Dilly,

  Lavender’s green

  The man has a lovely tenor, and it amuses the Man in Black to hear that the little ditty he’d left behind has made its way into an earworm.

  ‘For God’s sake, Prof. Inappropriate!’ That’s Alice’s voice, although her words are tinged with amusement.

  ‘Eh, what is?’

  The Man in Black imagines Carlton pushing his exceptional glasses up his nose and looking blankly at Cooper.

  ‘Never mind. It’s not that verse this time. It’s the second one – like you surmised;

  Who told you so, Dilly Dilly,

  Who told you so?

  Twas my own heart,

  Dilly Dilly, That told me so.’

  The Man in Black’s grin deepens … such fun. Carlton is really on the ball – do they think a victim per verse? Lovely.

  ‘You don’t really doubt me, my dear, do you?’

  Alice snorts at the psychologist’s complacence. ‘As far as I can see, that’s the only difference between the two crime scenes. I’m going down. Meet us back at The Fort when you’re done.’

  Carlton remains, humming to himself and occasionally sighing. ‘Such a waste, such a waste … poor thing, poor thing.’

  Two hours later, the scene below is empty, and it’s time for the Man in Black to make his way back to his access point two houses along. Careful not to spill, he removes the catheter, installs all his accoutrements into his bag and crawls along the floorboards, careful to remain only on the solid bits. When he gets to the appropriate house, he glances at his watch. The old biddy would be alone by now, watching the telly, the sound up really high. She’ll probably have downed a few glasses of sherry too.

  He slides the attic door back and unfolds the compact extendable ladder he carries with him. Gentle snores drift up the stairs, nearly indiscernible against the blare of some daytime gameshow or other. He descends the ladder and begins to pack it away, then follows his usual routine of changing clothes. He is ready to go downstairs when a series of heavy bangs reverberate round the small terraced house. Shit!

  Seconds later a voice accompanies another series of bangs. ‘Open up please, ma’am. We’re the police and we just want to check if you’ve seen anything. There has been an incident nearby and we need to chat with you.’

  Shit, shit, shit.

  ‘Hang on, hang on. I’m not as young as I used to be. Give me a minute.’ The old dear’s voice is hoarse, and she still sounds half asleep. He can hear heaving sounds as she elevates her bulk, followed by the stomp of her Zimmer frame as she waddles her way to the door. The Man in Black looks back up towards the attic, then shakes his head. No way does he want to risk the noise of opening the door. Instead, he does the only thing he can and opens each of the bedroom doors in turn to ascertain which is the spare room. Slipping inside one filled with junk, he hunkers in the corner behind a chest of drawers and waits.

  From here he can only hear the rise and fall of voices, but no words. After half an hour with no sound except the distant TV, he gets to his feet and tiptoes to the door. Pulling it open, he listens. She is snoring again. Taking care to avoid the middle part of the treads, he descends the stairs and slips along the hallway to the kitchen, pausing only when she stops snoring for a moment.

  When she recommences with a snorting rumble, he continues to the kitchen. Peering out the window, he doesn’t see anybody. He puts on his hi-vis vest, hefts his rucksack up, and slips out the door, leaving it unlocked behind him. Back straight, confident, and making no attempt to hide himself, he marches down the passage and slips into the crowds as they begin to disperse from the house a few doors up the street.

  In the distance he recognises a figure, hunched over, talking to a scruffy woman in slippers dragging on a cigarette. He is taking notes and nodding at the woman – no doubt trying to pry into the investigation. Sticking his neb in where it isn’t wanted. He remembers Gus’s scathing observation of the man – he’d called him a toad and a cockroach – both accurate opinions in his opinion, but Alice Cooper, the deceptive little wench had stayed silent, allowing Gus to rant on about the annoying press presence and his desire to send Jez Hopkins down the sewers in search of his morals.

  He turns away, pulls his cap down,
and heads down the street. There is a nice café at St Luke’s where he could grab a coffee before heading back to his den. He needs time to consider the pros and cons of going after Hopkins and he is gagging for a brew. It has been a long twenty-four hours. Grinning at being outdoors, enjoying the fresh air, he flings his shoulders back. It was a close shave earlier, but the adrenalin that pumps through his body makes him laugh out loud. He is unstoppable – completely unstoppable.

  Chapter 34

  Bradford

  According to the uniformed officer who’d taken the statement, Robert Flateau, the victim’s husband, worked as an anaesthetist at St Luke’s hospital. After finding his wife on return from his nightshift, Flateau had somehow managed to stumble to a neighbour’s house for help. After managing to make some sense of Robert’s garbled mutterings through his tears, the no – nonsense neighbour had roused her own husband, to double check her distraught neighbour wasn’t hallucinating. One look at her husband’s ashen face on his return from the Flateau home, had her grabbing the phone and phoning emergency services to request police and ambulance.

  ‘No need, Maureen – she’s dead.’ Her husband had said and had fallen onto a nearby chair and covered his face with his hands.

  ‘Not for her.’ Said Maureen, nodding towards the sofa where Robert Flateau sat huddled over, muttering to himself with tears streaming down his face. ‘For him.’

  As a result, Robert Flateau was now in BRI, under sedation. Although they’d need to interview him at some point, Gus didn’t consider it a priority, convinced that, as in Maureen Brookes’ murder, they’d find the anaesthetist’s alibi held. Nonetheless, he was pleased when Alice requested an officer’s presence by his bedside, so they could put some sort of timeline together.

  Driving back to The Fort, Gus’s knees scrunched up in the front seat of Alice’s Mini Cooper, they discussed the crime scene. ‘What do you reckon to that nursery rhyme, Al?’

  ‘Bloody creepy. Always hated them at school and was glad my parents were more into forcing me to remember bird species than reciting barbaric rhymes.’

  ‘Barbaric.’ Gus laughed. ‘Don’t be daft.’

  ‘You saying ‘Rock a Bye Baby’ isn’t creepy? What happens to the sprog when the bough breaks? Not a very nice image for kids to be singing about, if you ask me … and which responsible parent puts their child in a damn tree during a storm?’

  Clearly about to go off on one, Alice leant closer to the steering wheel. ‘And Jack and Jill? Bet you anything she was a sociopath – bet Jill pushed her brother down that hill and only pretended to tumble after him. It’s the sort of thing Katie would have done to you.’ Alice titled her head to one side and poked Gus in the arm. ‘In fact, I bet she got the idea from that rhyme.’

  Amused, Gus’s grin deepened. ‘Don’t be daft … Katie never pushed me down a hill when we were kids.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ Alice didn’t sound convinced. ‘You can’t deny she liked to torture you though, can you? Still does if you ask me.’

  The last part of her statement was muttered under Alice’s breath, but he knew exactly what she was referring to. Katie had asked him last year to donate sperm to his ex-wife who was now Katie’s partner. Her logic was that she and Gabriella wanted a child as genetically similar to them as possible. Typically, Katie hadn’t bothered to consider the implications for Gus and had enlisted their parents to pressurise him, using Katie’s ongoing cancer treatment to guilt trip him. While Gus wanted to push the entire sperm donation thing to the back of his mind, Alice was less inclined to do so. Fiercely protective of Gus, she’d been appalled at Katie’s request and even more appalled at the blatant blackmail and manipulation she’d employed to get Gus to consent.

  ‘Playing on her cancer was a low blow.’ Alice was still on the ‘Katie and Gabriella are bitches’ topic. And Gus, with his thoughts filled with his mum’s secrets, didn’t have the energy to get into that with Alice. Distraction was needed. ‘Mulberry Bush.’

  Alice frowned. ‘What?’

  ‘Here we go round the Mulberry Bush – that’s not a toxic nursery rhyme.’

  Alice laughed. ‘I used to think they were singing ‘Here we go round the mouldy brush’ – couldn’t work out what was so exciting about prancing round a mouldy brush.’

  Lips twitching, Gus laughed. ‘Trust you.’

  His partner glanced at him. ‘But … as it happens, Mulberry bushes are toxic. They’re hallucinogenic – been banned in parts of the USA for years – why would anyone encourage kids to prance round a toxic tree? Beggars belief…’

  Off on one big time now, Gus closed his eyes, content to listen to her diatribe about the evil of nursery rhymes because at least he didn’t have to talk about Katie, Gabriella, or the approaching birth of their baby.

  ‘Now take that one ‘Boys and Girls Come Out to Play’ … Bloody sure that’s a paedophile’s wet dream and that one about an egg falling off a wall – violent – as is the ‘Hickory Mickory Mouse’ one.’

  ‘Dickory…’

  ‘Yes, that’s a good way to describe them – they are all dickory. Isn’t there something about carving knives and tails being cut off? No wonder we have so many sociopaths … and don’t get me started on fairy tales … they’re as bad, if not worse…’

  Rolling his eyes, Gus didn’t bother to correct her. Instead he looked out the window and wondered what possible significance Lavender Blue, a lavender scented candle, and a sprig of the stuff could have to their killer. Then, there was the biscuit. Gus suspected that they’d discover the killer had forced Beatrice Flateau to take a bite from it too. Although all of that was very sinister, the most sinister aspect of it, after another of Rory’s sketches being present that is, was the foetal scan – now that both women had been pregnant, that took on a much greater significance.

  Again, Beatrice Flateau’s toenails had been painted in what seemed to be the same shade as Miranda Brookes’ toes. Of course they’d have to wait for forensic ratification on that one, but he was pretty sure that was safe to assume. He shuddered, the idea of their killer, painting the naked women’s toenails disgusted him. The knowledge that the women were probably conscious but unable to move during the entire event was appalling. Neither woman had been raped, which he was thankful for. One thing that puzzled him was that Miranda Brookes’ PM showed that she was manually strangled before being winched up on the pulley. The logistics of that puzzled Gus. Manipulating a dead person was difficult at the best of times, but to spend time drilling a secure hole with a plug in it to make sure the pulley held the victim’s body weight was strange enough. How did the killer hoist her up? Did it need two of them? He made a note to ask Compo to check out the logistics of an average male being able to do the hoisting with ease.

  When he zoned back into Alice’s monologue on the evils of nursery rhymes, she’d moved onto The Old Woman in the Shoe. Raising his voice, Gus interrupted her flow. ‘Can we get Compo to work out the logistics of hoisting the woman up so her feet were off the ground – you know get him to do some sort of programme or whatever it is he does?’

  Nursery rhymes forgotten, Alice nodded. ‘Good idea, Gus. If we know the how, it might give Prof Carlton more of an idea of the why.’

  Chapter 35

  Bellbrax Psychiatric Facility, Scotland

  They’re watching me more closely now and it makes me nervous. I’ve got to look normal. Can’t draw their attention to me. She keeps asking me what brought on my ‘episode’. That’s what she calls it, ‘an episode’. Like I’m in some fucking soap or other. Bloody Take the High Road in a mental hospital. Aye, that’ll be right. Right barrel of laughs that would be – with all the dribblers, the moaners, the yellers, and the screamers.

  Bernie’s on today and he’s not so bad. Respects my space, still, even he’s more watchful than ever. I need to act like I’m OK, like it was a blip.

  It was good being knocked out though. Gave my body a chance to recuperate – the nightmares were bad though. Voices calling
me a liar. ‘Liar, Liar, Liar!’

  At least with the restraints on, I couldn’t punch myself. Got to be careful, though. The scabs itch on my knuckles and Bernie keeps looking at me. I want to scream. I want to scrape and scrape and scrape the scabs off till they’re raw and bloody and then I want to just tell them everything.

  I thought he’d be back, but he’s not. Where the hell is he? What’s he doing? I don’t like that other woman either. Something is wrong, really wrong, and I feel sick. Shit, I’m scratching my scabs and they’re bleeding. I glance round and Bernie’s walking over – he’s got something in his hand. I shove my hands in my pockets and do my stretches – everyone knows I do my stretches – that’s normal, right. I’m normal. Not acting weird, not punching myself.

  ‘Here, got you this.’

  Bernie’s holding out a new trowel. It’s thick plastic – for some reason they think it’s less dangerous than giving us metal ones. But I know the damage I could do with one of those. I could split Bernie’s head right open – all you need is strength. I smile. It’s Bernie’s way of saying he trusts me. That he knows that my violence is only ever directed at myself, but what he doesn’t know is that there’s one person – one person in the entire world who I’d love to slam that plastic trowel into right now. But what kind of a father does that make me? I’m evil and I deserve to be punished, to be locked up here. Coco always said, we look after our own.

  If he were here, I’d do just that. It’d be done before anyone realised and then it would all be over, and I wouldn’t have to tell them the truth. They wouldn’t call me a liar and it’d all be done. Done and dusted.

  I look at Bernie. He’s waiting, hand out, smile on his face. I don’t know what to do. If I take my hands out of my pockets, he’ll see the blood. He’ll know I’ve been scratching. He might think he’s wrong to trust me and his smile will go. I don’t want Bernie’s smile to disappear. I like it.