Remains of the Night (Murder Force Book 3), page 16
He squinted against the beam. There was something on the floor. Something small.
“Keep the light on it,” he said, walking over to the object and crouching down to inspect it. When he saw what it was, he said, “We need to get the SOCOs out here.”
Dani came closer and saw what the object was. “We need to leave, Tony. This is a crime scene.”
Tony nodded and stood up without touching the tarot card that lay on the floor.
The Ace of Swords.
Chapter 19
Two hours later, Rob Cross came out of the old stable block—which was now taped off and swarming with crime scene techs—and walked over to the detectives. They’d returned to the gate to let the SOCOs carry out their work.
“There’s a body buried down there ,” Cross said. “Been there a while. At first guess, I’d say a male aged ten to twelve years old. The pathologist will be able to tell us more when she examines the remains.”
“Cause of death?” Battle asked.
“Looks like a blow to the head from behind. There’s a hole in the skull big enough to put your fist through. Probably repeated blows from a blunt object. Again, we’ll know more when—“
“—the pathologist carries out her examination,” the DCI finished for him.
“How long do you think the body’s been buried there?” Dani asked.
The crime scene manager pursed his lips as he considered the question. “I’d estimate thirty or forty years, perhaps longer.”
Battle frowned. “Are we sure it’s our man who did this? He killed someone and buried them under the stables, and then waited thirty or forty years before he killed again?”
“It’s him,” Tony said. “This murder is the key. It’s someone he knows, someone close to him. He might have done it impulsively. He left this victim’s name off his list of accomplishments because he knows that if we find out who it is, it’ll lead us to him.”
“I hope you’re right about that,” the DCI said.
“The tarot card hasn’t been there for thirty or forty years,” Tony said. “He placed that there recently, after pursuing his dream of transformation. He retroactively numbered the murder of this child the first in his tally. Melody Stansfield was next. He waited a long time. Something triggered him.”
“And now he’s killed nine others. That we know of. Find out if this Henry Shaw knows anything. You’ll want to start early; it’s a long drive. Get one of the PCs to drive you home.”
“All right, guv,” Dani said.
The road was now full of police vehicles. Dani and Tony found a patrol car with a uniformed officer sitting behind the wheel. He was hunched down in his seat with his arms folded across his chest, as if he was trying his best to relax without actually falling asleep.
Dani knocked on the window. “We need you to drive us home.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, sitting up straight and unconsciously straightening his uniform. “Hop in.”
Dani picked Tony up at half past eight. Tony hadn’t slept since being dropped off at the flat. He’d spent the time staring at the television but not focussing on the programmes. His thoughts had been elsewhere, wondering about the child who’d been buried beneath the old stable block decades ago.
He went down to the street and climbed into the Land Rover. The radio was on, playing old chart hits.
“Morning,” Dani said. “Looks like it’s going to be another scorcher.” She sounded cheery, and Tony wondered if she’d managed to get more sleep than he had.
“You sound happy,” he said as he fastened his seatbelt.
“We’re getting closer, Tony. I can feel it. The net is closing in on him.”
“Have you heard something new about the remains under the stable?” He wondered if her sudden change of mood was based on a development in the case.
“No, nothing yet.”
In that case, he wasn’t going to share in her optimism. He’d had his hopes dashed too often, lately.
“Henry Shaw lives in Bamburgh,” she said. “It’s going to take two and a half hours to get there. I made some salad sandwiches, and a flask of tea.”
Tony, who hadn’t had any breakfast, wondered if it was too early to start on the sandwiches.
They drove out of York and merged onto the A1 motorway. It wasn’t long before their progress was slowed by heavy traffic.
“Two and a half hours might have been optimistic,” Dani said, peering at the road ahead.
“There’ll probably be less traffic once we get north of Newcastle. Mind if I have a sandwich?”
“Help yourself.”
He reached back and dug into a paper bag on the floor behind the driver’s seat. The sandwiches were wrapped in foil. Two neat, silvery packages. “Do you want one?” he asked.
“No, I had toast for breakfast.”
He took one of the packages and unwrapped it on his knee. He could smell spring onions, tomatoes, and beetroot. Dani had packed the contents, including lettuce and a vinaigrette dressing, between slices of malted, seeded bread. Tony’s mouth watered.
He took a bite and nodded in appreciation. “These are great!”
“Just something I threw together.”
“They’d go great with a cup of tea.”
She grinned. “The flask is on the back seat.”
He reached back and got it, pouring the hot liquid into the plastic cup. He took a sip. “Lovely.”
“Did you get any sleep last night?” she asked.
“No, I just zoned out in front of the telly. How about you?”
“I got a couple of hours, but I kept thinking about those remains. Why did he wait so long to kill again?”
“It isn’t unknown,” Tony said. “Serial killers usually operate on an escalating timescale, where their kills become more and more frequent as time goes on. But not always. The BTK killer in America went years between kills. What I think is happening with “C,” though, is that he murdered someone all those years ago but he wasn’t on the path of destruction he’s on now. He was a murderer, yes, but not a serial killer. Then, something triggered him and now he’s on an escalating timescale.”
“So you consider the murder of the child under the stables and the recent murders two separate things?”
“From a psychological standpoint, yes. The first murder was a single event. He may have planned it, or he might have murdered someone impulsively, but it isn’t really connected to the later killings. The fact that he left the name of the victim off his list tells me he tried to hide it from us for a reason. I think he and the victim are connected in a way that will lead us to him when we know the victim’s name. Sending the Two of Swords to Melody Stansfield’s parents was a mistake; it let us know there was a previous victim. His tally didn’t make sense, otherwise.”
Dani thought for a moment and then said, “So why would he put the Ace of Swords over the grave beneath the stables? If he didn’t want anyone to know about that murder, why mark the grave at all?”
“I think that when he put that card there, he had no idea we’d find that house. He burned down Dark Angel to stop us finding that connection. He didn’t count on Simon Brand’s cloud backup, or the brilliance of Chris Toombs and his algorithm. The tarot card was put on that grave because he had a compulsion to mark the kill as the first in his tally, and because he thought there was no way we’d ever find it.”
“So, I was right. We are closing in on him,” she said. “We’re finding things he never wanted us to find.”
“We are, but it all depends on whether we can make the connections we need to make to catch him.”
“The connections are there, though. Otherwise, why try to hide them from us?”
Tony knew she was right. “C” had hidden the Ace of Swords body for a reason. He’d killed Simon Brand and burned down Dark Angel to cover up his connection to Fieldstone Farm. The fact that they’d found the farm and the remains beneath the stables had to count for something.
He just couldn’t allow himself to build up hope again, only to have it dashed again.
“The connections are there,” he conceded. “But until they lead us to the Demon, they mean nothing.”
“The Demon? You’re starting to sound like Lexi Braun.”
“Well, I’d rather call him by his real name but unfortunately, I don’t know it.”
“We will,” she told him. “I’m sure of it.”
He smiled at her confidence.
“What?” she said, looking over at him. “What are you grinning at?”
“Whatever’s given you this sudden streak of optimism, I want some.”
She grinned. “It’s probably just lack of sleep.”
The traffic thinned—as Tony had predicted it would—when they got north of Newcastle. The weather also changed. The sky gradually changed from blue to grey the further north they travelled and dark rainclouds hung above the motorway.
The first spots hit the windscreen and the wipers pushed them away. Then more spots came down at a faster rate until they were driving through a downpour.
“Wow, this makes a change,” Dani said. “Haven’t seen rain for a while.”
Tony watched the rain drive down over the road and the distant fields.
“You’re quiet,” Dani said.
“I’m just thinking about what he does in the houses. When he kills the families.”
“Okay. Anything specific?”
“The message on the wall.”
“What about it?”
“When I saw the message in the Jensons’ bedroom, I’d assumed that the message was for them. That he’d wake them up and they’d see him along with the words, Look what I’ve become. But it was too dark in that room to see the message. I had to open the curtains to see it. He never intended them to read those words.”
“He could have brought a light with him.”
“Yes, he could have. But when he was writing the message on the Lloyds’ wall—when Laura Jones disturbed him—he’d already killed Doug and Sarah Lloyd. He writes the messages after killing everyone in the house.”
Dani shrugged. “Does that mean something?”
“It means that this is all about control. Todd and Mary Jenson were already dead when he posed them on the bed. For him, this isn’t about killing the families. It’s about what he does to them after they’re dead. He has complete control over them. A dead body is much easier to control than a live one.”
“I think it is about the killing, Tony. He may have posed the Jensons, and he might have been planning to do the same to the Lloyds if he hadn’t been interrupted, but Linda Danes wasn’t posed in any way. She was lying in her bath. And Joe Wakeman was lying in an alley.”
“He’s evolving. We can discount the first victim for now; it isn’t included in the current series. But the killings that came after “C” decided he was transforming into the demon Choronzon have evolved, both in method and victimology. First, he takes Melody from the street. A vulnerable young woman. Then he kills a homeless man, Joe Wakeman. Another vulnerable victim and possibly another opportunistic crime. Next, he drowns Linda Danes in the bath. A vulnerable old lady. He left tarot cards at all these crime scenes, but no messages. No grandiose statements about what he’d become.”
“Because he didn’t think he’d become the demon yet,” Dani said.
“Exactly. Killing those people was part of the transformation process. Now, he goes to the Jensons’ house and kills the entire family. Compared to his previous crimes, this is risky. He’s not drowning an old lady in the bath or killing a homeless man in an alley; now, he’s entering a house in a residential estate. He’s spent time watching the family from the tree in the woods. This is something different. He kills them, poses them, and leaves a message on the wall. Not to mention, he reported the crime himself. He wanted us to find the Jensons, see what he’d done.”
“What he’d become.”
“His next move involves even more risk. He enters the Lloyd house without carrying out any surveillance first. He watched the Jensons for some time before he visited them. Not so with the Lloyds.”
“Otherwise, he’d have known Dino wasn’t around anymore.”
Tony watched the water mist over the motorway. The rain beat down on the Land Rover like a thousand drums beating at an ever-increasing tempo.
“He’s taking more risks each time,” he said. “I have no idea what he’s capable of doing next.”
“Let’s hope we don’t have to find out.”
Tony nodded. “Let’s hope not.”
They left the A1 and got onto the B1341, a single lane road bordered by hedges that cut through the countryside to Bamburgh. The rain became a drizzle and Tony could see patches of bright, blue sky behind the thinning clouds. After a few minutes, he could see the sea in the distance, and a hazy horizon.
“It’s nice round here,” Dani said. “We came on holiday here when Charlie was eight. Visited Holy Island, saw some seals, and went to the castle.”
“Sounds nice.”
She smiled at the memories, her eyes glistening with unshed tears.
Tony turned his attention to the countryside outside his window. She was remembering happier times when her husband was alive. He let her reminisce in peace.
A few minutes later, they reached the coast and followed the road north. On their right, sandy beaches bordered by tall grasses led to the calm sea.
The SatNav voice suddenly said, “Destination on the left in two hundred yards.”
Tony glanced in that direction and saw what looked like a mansion set back from the road.
“I don’t think Henry Shaw is short of a bob or two,” Dani said.
She left the road via a short gravelled drive that led to a closed set of wrought iron gates flanked by high brick walls.
“Does Mr Shaw know we’re coming?” Tony asked.
“Battle said he’d phone ahead and let me know if there were any problems. I haven’t heard from him, so I assume Shaw knows we’re coming.”
“There’s an intercom there.” Tony pointed at a silver box mounted on the wall next to the gate. He got out of the Land Rover and walked over to the box.
The intercom clicked and crackled and a male voice said, “Who is it?”
“It’s the police,” Tony said. “Detective Inspector Summers and Doctor Sheridan. I believe we’re expected.”
“All right, come in.”
Another click and the gates swung open. Dani drove the car forward and Tony got back in. Dani parked in a wide gravelled area in front of the house and looked up at the place through the windscreen. The mansion consisted of four storeys and looked like it had been built during the Victorian era and had remained untouched architecturally since then. There were no modern additions and everything from the sash windows looking down at them from the gables to the tall wooden front door looked original.
“Swap the Land Rover for a horse and carriage and we could be in the 1800s,” Tony said.
The front door was opened by a middle-aged man in a grey waistcoat, white shirt, grey striped trousers, and shiny black shoes stepped out. “Detective Summers and Doctor Sheridan, this way please. Can I offer you some refreshment? A cup of tea, perhaps?”
“That would be lovely, thank you,” Dani said, approaching the door.
“Thanks,” Tony said. He had little hope that they were going to get any useful information about a serial killer a hundred miles from a mansion on the coast of Northumberland but he was willing to try.
“Mr Shaw will receive you in the library,” the butler said. He led them to a wood-panelled passageway and they followed him along it to an open door, beyond which Tony saw shelves of leather bound books reaching from floor to ceiling.
An old man with thinning, close-cropped white hair sat in a leather chair near an ornate fireplace that, thankfully, wasn’t lit. He wore a dark green cardigan over an open cream shirt, and brown cords. The clothes looked as if they were hanging from his skeletal frame.
“Mr Shaw,” Dani said, “Doctor Sheridan and I have come to talk to you about—“
“Please, call me Henry. And I know why you’re here.” He looked up at her with sad eyes. “I’ve known it ever since your chief inspector rang to say you were coming.” He looked into the dead fireplace and sighed. The sound seemed to be borne of years of regret and sorrow. “You’re here to talk about my son.”
Chapter 20
“Please, take a seat,” Henry said, indicating a leather couch by the fireplace.
As they sat, and Dani took the notebook out of her handbag, Henry turned his attention to the butler. “Wicks, I need a large brandy.”
“Very good, sir.”
“Would either of you like something stronger than tea?” Henry said, turning his attention to Dani and Tony.
“Tea is fine, thanks,” Dani said. “We’re on duty.”
“Yes, yes, of course.”
The butler disappeared from the room and came back a few moments later with a glass of brandy, which he placed on a side table next to Henry’s chair. The old man picked it up and immediately took a large swallow of the golden-coloured liquid.
“You mentioned your son,” Dani said.
The look of sadness returned to Henry’s eyes. “Yes, I expect that’s why you’re here; to talk about Victor. To be honest, I’ve been expecting your visit for the past thirty years.”
Dani frowned and put her pen on the open pages of her notebook. “Mr Shaw, why exactly do you think we’re here?”
“Victor’s done something, hasn’t he? Or have you come to tell me he’s dead? Is he dead?”
Tony thought the old man didn’t seem too upset at the idea of his son being dead.
“Henry,” Dani began.
“Or have you come about Edward?” His face lit up. “Oh my God, have you found him? Is he all right?”
“Henry,” Dani repeated. “I think we need to take a few steps back. We’re here about your house in Yorkshire. Fieldstone Farm.”
He looked confused. “Fieldstone? I haven’t been there in over twenty years.”
