Remains of the Night (Murder Force Book 3), page 8
“Who was this?” Dani asked.
“I don’t know his name. He came in here a year and half ago, or thereabouts. It was a cold winter’s evening, I remember that. I’d hired extra warehouse staff to cover the Christmas rush and they were complaining about the cold so I had to hire extra propane heaters. We had a heated discussion about it—if you’ll excuse the pun—and just after they left the shop, this fellow came in.”
“What did he look like?” Dani asked, taking out the notebook.
Brand gazed at the ceiling while he tried to remember. “He was tall, slim, dark-haired. He was wearing a long, black coat.”
“Did you see the car he arrived in?”
“No, I was here behind the counter. Unless someone parks directly in front of the door, I don’t see their vehicle.”
“What about CCTV?”
Brand pointed at a small camera on the wall behind him. “There’s CCTV in here, but it automatically wipes itself after a week unless I stop it for some reason. And I’ve never had a reason.”
“You said he was zealous,” Tony reminded him. “What did you mean by that?”
“Well, he knew things that the normal punter doesn’t. He’d done his research, I’ll give him that.”
“You’re going to have to explain it to us in terms the ’normal punter’ might understand,” Dani said.
“All right. Let me put it like this. Most people who buy from me are dabblers. They might believe they’re serious but they’ve just read a few things on the Internet and suddenly think they can conjure and control forces they’ve got no business messing with. Weekend Satanists, I call them. I have the odd customer who knows what they’re about; people who are the real deal, you know. But this bloke knew every bit of minutiae regarding the dweller in the abyss. He was after the source material that Meric Casaubon used to write his book about Dee in 1659. I told him it doesn’t exist, unless some collector out there has got it. He wanted to pay me to find out.”
“This is important is it?” Dani asked. “This Casaubon thing?”
“The book itself is a rare find, but this bloke wanted the research material the author used. It’s like if I gave you the oldest book on a subject and you said it wasn’t good enough because you wanted to see the notes the book was based on. That’s what he wanted. The notes.”
“Why?”
“Writers of the occult are known to put deliberate mistakes in their work, either to protect the people who might be stupid enough to try to actually use the material, or to weed out the pretenders.”
“The weekend Satanists,” Tony said.
“Exactly. This geezer was having none of it. Said he’d tried too many ineffective conjurings and none of them had given him the result he wanted.”
“Which was to summon this demon?” Dani said.
“Yes, he wanted the unadulterated version of the conjuration John Dee used. I get a lot of people in here telling me they’ve done this or that, sometimes to try and impress me, I think, but when this bloke said he’s tried to conjure Choronzon, I believed him. There was something about him. He wasn’t having me on.”
“If he wanted to pay you to find these notes,” Dani said, “he must have given you his contact details.”
“No, he didn’t. I told him there was no way I could find those notes, even assuming they exist. He left in a huff. Told me I had no right calling myself a dealer of occult materials and that he’d never give me another penny of his money. Which was a laugh, because he didn’t buy anything in the first place.”
“Not during that visit,” Dani said, “but he might have been an online customer before that.”
Brand grimaced. “Oh, yes, of course. He might have been. I didn’t think of that. Looks like I might have lost a customer.”
“Mr Brand, could you check your records and look for online customers who stopped using your services from that date?”
“Yes, I suppose so. It would take a while, though.”
She gave him her card. “Please call me if you find anything. Is there anything else you remember about the man who came into the shop that winter evening?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“All right.” She put the notebook away. “Thank you for your time. I look forward to hearing from you.” She went to the door and opened it. Tony followed.
“Wait, there is one other thing,” Brand said. “He must have owned dogs.”
Dani turned to face him. “Why do you think that?”
“Because he had dog hairs on his coat.”
“Thank you, Mr Brand. We’ll be in touch.”
Tony followed her back to the Land Rover.
“Do you think the mystery customer could be our man?” she said as she slid behind wheel.
“It’s possible.”
“Let’s hope Brand finds something in his records.”
“A name and address would be nice.”
She started the engine and reversed away from the Dark Angel unit.
“Where are we going now?” Tony asked.
“We’re going to pay Mr and Mrs Stansfield a visit and see if they’ve still got that tarot card.”
“They’ll have it.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“They think it’s a communication from their missing daughter. They’ll treasure it.”
“That’s tragic. To think they’re treasuring something that may have been sent to them by Melody’s killer.”
“I know. And are we going to deny them that small comfort?”
“Not until we know for sure that she’s dead.”
The Stansfield residence was a semi-detached property on a quiet street in Fulford. Dani pulled up to the kerb and said, “We need to be careful what we tell them, Tony. Ideally, I’d like us to take that card away with us so we can send it to the lab for testing. But I’m not sure what we can tell the Stansfields that will let us to do that without telling them we think their daughter is dead.”
Tony thought about it. He didn’t want to lie to Mr and Mrs Stansfield, and there was no point telling them their daughter might be dead when there was no hard evidence that pointed to that conclusion. “What if we tell them we want to run some tests on the card so we can determine where it came from, and that might result in us finding Melody? That isn’t a lie, and it saves them from having to face something they don’t need to, at this stage.”
“Good idea.” She opened the door and got out.
They went to front door and knocked. Tony realised that as soon as the Stansfields knew the police were here, they’d expect the worst. They’d think Dani had come to tell them their daughter’s body had been found, or something bad had happened to her.
That meant they’d probably be more than willing to help regarding taking the tarot card away, because anything was better than what they feared most. For a family like the Stansfields, a detective appearing on their doorstep was the stuff of nightmares.
The door opened and a balding, bespectacled man in a blue jumper and white shirt peered out at them. “Yes?”
Dani flashed her warrant card. “Mr Stansfield, I’m DI Danica Summers and this is my—“
“Oh my god! Melody!” He sagged in the doorway, retreating back into the house and leaning heavily against the wall.
Dani was inside the door in a heartbeat, supporting the man by his shoulders.
“Mr Stansfield, it’s nothing bad,” Tony said.
He looked at them with tear-filled eyes. “You mean you’ve found her alive?”
“No, Mr Stansfield,” Dani said. “Would you like to sit down? Come into the living room and we’ll put the kettle on. You’ve had a nasty shock.” She shot a glance at Tony and nodded her head towards the kitchen at the back of the house.
“Right, I’m on tea duty,” Tony said. “Don’t you worry, Mr Stansfield.”
While Dani guided the man into the living room, Tony went into the kitchen to find Mrs Stansfield sitting at the table in there. Her cheeks were wet with tears.
“Is it true?” she said. “You’ve found her?”
Tony wasn’t sure if the tears were of grief because she thought her daughter had been found dead, or of joy because she thought Melody was alive.
“No, Mrs Stansfield,” he said gently. “We haven’t found your daughter. “Would you like to come through to the living room? Your husband has had a bit of a shock, and I’m sure you have to. You go and sit down and I’ll make us all a nice cup of tea.”
She stood and nodded, as if in a daze. “Yes, all right. I’ll do that. The tea bags are in the cupboard just there.” She went into the other room.
Tony busied himself with the tea and took it through to the living room on a tray, which he placed on the coffee table. Mr Stansfield was sitting on the sofa, next to his wife, his face almost as white as his shirt. Dani sat in an armchair, perched on the edge of it as if eager to get what they came here for, but also respectful of the Stansfields’ fragile state.
“We came here to ask you for something,” she told the couple as Tony poured out the tea. “We’d like to have a closer look at the tarot card you received in the post after Melody went missing.”
“The card?” Mrs Stansfield said. “But why? Melody sent that to us to let us know she was safe.”
“We’d like to see if we can find out exactly where it came from,” Dani said. “It might help us to find your daughter.”
“But we know where it came from. The postmark says it came from London.”
“Do you still have the envelope?” Tony asked.
“Yes, of course.”
Tony felt a sudden rush of optimism. If the envelope was available for testing as well as the card, the chances of finding the killer’s DNA were increased.
“But I don’t understand why you want it.” Mrs Stansfield said.
“As I said, we’d like to run some tests on it,” Dani told her.
Mrs Stansfield looked at her husband. “Jeff, what do you think?”
“If it helps find Melody, I’m all for it.”
“All right,” she said. “I’ll go and get it. It’s in Melody’s room.”
Dani moved forward slightly on the edge of the chair and for a moment, Tony thought she was going to suggest getting the card herself. But she seemed to think better of it, and relaxed again.
Mrs Stansfield said, “I’ll be back in a minute,” and left the room.
Tony quickly drank his cup of tea. He was sure that Dani would want to leave here with the card before Mrs Stansfield changed her mind about letting them have it. And she was just as eager as he was to get it to the lab for testing.
When Mrs Stansfield returned, she had a white envelope in her hand. She gave it to Dani. “That’s the envelope, and the card is inside.”
“Thank you, Mrs Stansfield. I’ll make sure it’s returned to you after we’ve finished with it.”
Although she might not want it back by then, Tony thought. Especially if we find it was sent here by Melody’s murderer.
Dani stood and smiled at the Stansfields. “Thanks for all your help. We’ll be in touch.”
Tony followed her to the front door and outside to the Land Rover. When they were inside the vehicle, he said, “Well, that didn’t go too badly.”
“Apart from nearly giving Mr Stansfield a heart attack,” she said, starting the engine. “I’ll drop you back at headquarters so you can pick up your car. Might as well go home and get some rest. We’ll have a fresh start in the morning.”
Tony nodded, but didn’t much look forward to going home. He doubted he’d sleep much tonight, and knew he’d be up at the crack of dawn.
Because the clock was ticking, and tomorrow, they’d be one day closer to the killer’s deadline.
Chapter 9
Tony’s night had consisted of a string of nightmares involving tarot cards, and long hours staring at the ceiling in the dark. In one of the particularly bad nightmares, he’d driven to Dani’s cottage on the moors. Her dogs had been standing outside, but there was no sign of Dani herself. Finding the front door open, Tony had gone inside and called out her name. No answer. After a quick search of the place, he’d found her lying on the bed, covered in blood with a tarot card on her chest. The Seven of Swords.
He’d started searching on her bedroom floor for something. He wasn’t sure what that was until Tom Ryan had come into the room and dragged Tony away, telling him to preserve the integrity of the crime scene.
As he was being pulled through the doorway by the detective constable, Tony had shouted, “Her eyes! We’ve got to find her eyes!”
Now, as the morning sun illuminated the bedroom curtains, and the birds outside the window began their dawn chorus, he slid out of bed. He ran a cold shower and stood under it until the freezing spray washed away the last vestiges of the nightmare.
He didn’t feel like having breakfast, but forced himself to eat a couple of Weetabix before he left the flat and went down to his car.
Even this early, with the sun barely washing the tops of the buildings with a golden ochre glow, he could tell the day was going to be a scorcher. He climbed into the Mini, started the engine, and put the air conditioning on full blast.
It was too early to ring Dani; unlike him, she might have been able to sleep last night, and might still be in bed. Deciding to have another look at the area around Chase Crescent, he pulled away from the kerb and made his way across the city to the Greenwoods Development.
When he got to his destination, he parked close to the police tape, which still surrounded the crime scene, and got out of the car, closing the door as quietly as he could so as not to wake the street’s residents.
A uniformed officer stood outside the front door of number 42. Tony walked over to the man and showed him his Murder Force ID. “Doctor Tony Sheridan, Murder Force,” he said. “Is it all right if I go inside?”
“Afraid not, sir,” the uniformed officer said. “The crime scene manager hasn’t released the scene yet, so no one can go inside without him being present.”
Tony dismissed that idea straight away; he had no intention of dealing with Cross again, and had no concrete reason to enter the house. He was simply attempting to get inside the killer’s head, as Ryan had so eloquently put it outside the Greedy Pig yesterday.
“What about the rear of the property?” he asked the PC. “All right if I go back there?”
“You can’t go in the garden.”
“No, not in the garden,” Tony said. He’d totally intended to go in the garden, but now dismissed that idea, as well. “Around the back of these houses. Behind the fences.” That was where “C” had come from, so it might be a good place to start.
“That’s fine, sir.”
“Thanks,” Tony said, going back to the pavement and following it to a little path that led behind the house. Less than a minute later, he stood behind the fences of the houses on the row. One fence in particular—the one enclosing the back garden of number 42—was smudged with black fingerprint powder. He went over to it and tried to see over the top. The fence was too high.
He turned around and looked for the fence Mrs Beech had seen “C” jump over. He walked over to the gap in the hedge and turned towards the road. He could see the upstairs window of number 39, as well as a number of other windows. The killer probably crossed this area quickly to avoid being seen upon his arrival.
Tony tried to imagine the scene as it would have looked two nights ago. The glow from the street lights wouldn’t reach back here; the entire area would be cast into darkness as soon as the sun went down. Even now, with the sun hardly risen, most of the space was lost to shadow.
“I’m not too worried about being seen,” Tony murmured to himself, trying to think like the killer. “As long as I’m quiet, there’s no reason for anyone behind those windows to look out and see me.”
He quickly crossed to the fence.
“This won’t stop me from getting what I want.”
Hooking his hands over the top of the fence, he lifted himself up so he could see over it. The living room window had been boarded up. “But that was just a distraction, wasn’t it?” Tony whispered. “You didn’t want us to know you had a key.” He lowered himself back down to the ground. “Why not? What is it about the key that you wanted to keep secret? The fact that you robbed this house last year? Why didn’t you want us to know that?”
No answer came to him, so he retraced his steps to the gap in the hedge. Beyond the gap, the field where he’d seen uniformed officers performing their search yesterday stretched to the distant woods. He scrambled over the fence and landed in the long grass on the other side. It reached up to his knees. He didn’t envy the officers who’d had to search through this lot.
Crossing the field, he realised he was in view of the houses again. He supposed that under the cover of darkness, “C” had felt safe moving across this field. And now that he thought about it, Tony remembered that it had been foggy the night before last. The killer had been completely hidden from sight as he’d moved towards his target.
Tony turned to look at the houses. “Why that house in particular? Because you had a key and could slip inside quietly? All right, but why did you choose that house last year? Did you know the Jensons were on holiday? Or did you think they were in but found an empty house, so you helped yourself to the key, knowing you’d come back at a later date? Did you know they had a dog? It didn’t seem to deter you. You probably knew they were on holiday and that Bertie was somewhere else. The kennels, perhaps, or a neighbour’s house. You broke in specifically to steal that key, didn’t you?”
He moved through the long grass towards the woods. What had “C” been thinking when he’d done the same thing two nights ago? He’d done what he came here to do. The Jensons were dead. He wanted to tell the police, show them what he’d done. He wanted them to see the scene he’d left in Todd and Mary’s bedroom. The words on the wall.
“The last thing Mary and Todd saw,” Tony whispered. “Before you took their eyes.”
He continued walking across the field, the long grass swishing against his trousers. He eventually reached the fence that bordered the track he and Dani had walked along. He climbed over and stood on the sun-baked dirt.
