Murder on the Moorland, page 2
‘Murdered? ‘ow?’ Kerr licked his lips.
‘Why don’t you tell me?’ Halloran stood up and began to circle around the table, arms folded.
‘I don’t think I understand what you’re getting at there, Malc.’
‘What I’m getting at is I know that one way or another you’re involved in this woman’s death. It’s only a matter of time before I find out exactly how, but of course, you could help yourself by just confessing now.’
Kerr frowned. ‘I was very good at what I did, my son. Took you a bloody long time to piece together what I was up to an’ all. But even I ’ave to admit I’m not good enough to commit a murder from behind bars in a village twenty miles away. Flattered you think I’m that creative though.’
‘Someone like you would find a way.’
‘With all the ne’er-do-wells between ’ere and Teesside, what makes you think I ’ad owt to do with it, eh?’
‘Let’s just say this body had some things in common with the bodies you left strewn across the village five years ago. Only difference is, you didn’t do it yourself this time,’ said Halloran. ‘You got Goodchild to do it for you.’
Kerr started to laugh. He had a quiet huffy laugh that sounded as though he couldn’t quite catch his breath. ‘If that’s the best theory you’ve got, I don’t like the odds of you solving this one, lad.’
Halloran glowered. ‘Underestimating me hasn’t done you any favours in the past. You might as well be out with it and come clean about what you said to Goodchild.’
‘I already told you. Nothing about a murder. If Kurt ’ad anything to do with it, it weren’t because of anything I said to ’im.’
‘So it’s just a coincidence that Goodchild visits you and three days later a woman is murdered in the village you used to live in, using your MO?’
‘And it couldn’t be a copycat, eh?’ Kerr said. He shook his head at the inspector. ‘You didn’t even entertain that thought, did yer? Jumped straight to the assumption this case was about you. About what I did. That’s always been your problem, Malc, you always take things too personally. When I killed K—’
‘Don’t you dare say her name,’ Halloran spat, trying not to imagine wrapping his own hands around Kerr’s throat. Squeezing hard enough to let him know the pain and sheer terror his victims would have felt right before the end. Kamala included.
As if able to guess at Halloran’s thoughts, Kerr stared at him. His face was more serious than Halloran ever remembered seeing it. ‘Well, this is a sorry state of affairs. After all these years, you still think that what ’appened was all about you, don’t yer?’
Halloran remained silent and folded his arms.
‘Malc, the killing I did was never about the victims or their families. I was just doin’ what I was told to do by a voice in ’ere.’ Kerr tapped the side of his head and let out a hollow chuckle. ‘It was like a hunger I ’ad to feed. There was nowt personal about it. I thought a copper as bright as you would’ve clocked that by now.’
Halloran frowned at Kerr for a moment, digesting what he had said. Whilst he was killing, Kerr had claimed he was under the instruction of Woden, an ancient god of death. Halloran had never known whether Kerr really believed this or was just using it as a way of distancing himself from the atrocities he’d committed. Five years in a high security prison might have afforded him that level of reflection on his crimes; to reassess his own psychological make-up. But Halloran had been played by Kerr once before and he wasn’t going to let it happen again.
‘What do you want, understanding? Some kind of gold medal for philosophizing what you did?’
‘Just tellin’ it ’ow it is,’ said Kerr. ‘A small part of me was relieved when I first got banged up. The choice about whether I submitted to that voice was taken away from me. After the cases you’ve worked over the years, some part of you knows what I’m talking about. You just don’t want to listen to that part of yerself right now. Too busy making this girl’s murder about you and pointin’ the finger. It’s not what you want to hear, but I’m innocent, Malc.’
‘Innocent,’ Halloran said bitterly through gritted teeth. ‘Not a word I’d readily choose to describe you. I don’t know how you’re involved in this woman’s death but mark my words, I am not going to stop until I find out.’
Three
A fresh breeze ruffled Halloran’s dark hair as he stood on the gondola of the Tees Transporter Bridge. The ‘Tranny’, as it was known to the local people of Middlesbrough, had carried workers and residents across the river to Port Clarence, and back again, for more than a hundred years. Consequently, its blue, geometric outline had become a symbol of resilience to those who lived in the region. Halloran stared over at the north bank and noticed a familiar figure with long red hair sitting on a bench. Though he was too far away to make out the title, he could see she was reading a book. Halloran might have guessed. He wanted to smile at the warmth and familiarity that always stirred in him at the mere sight of Kitt Hartley but after all that had passed that morning, he couldn’t quite manage it.
Besides, after his confrontation with Kerr, he hadn’t been able to get hold of Kitt via mobile, at the cottage or several other places he’d gone in search of her. Seeing she was safe was a relief but it was unlike her to cut herself off. Was she angry at him for not being there when she awoke? Had she heard about the murder on the news and made the connection with his disappearance? If so, perhaps she was cross that he hadn’t let her know what was happening. Whatever the issue, something was definitely amiss.
This particular area of Middlesbrough had once been packed with chimneys, factories and blast furnaces, almost all of which had been stripped away by Thatcher’s government. The sparseness of the landscape somehow made Kitt look even more lonely than Halloran imagined she felt just now. If she was angry with him for leaving her to wake alone, he could only hope she could forgive him for ruining what should have been a very special morning after.
Once he had disembarked the gondola, Halloran made his way down a small, grassy path that ran along the riverside and in minutes he was just a few feet away from where Kitt was sitting. She raised her head from her book before he was within speaking distance, a frown fell over her face, and she froze. She made a few awkward gestures as though she was trying to figure out just what she would do with herself but a moment later her eyes dropped back to the page, her safe space, even though Halloran could tell she wasn’t reading. Despite his first thought being about how best to open this conversation and quickly get to the bottom of whatever was troubling Kitt, he was only human and it hadn’t escaped his notice that she was wearing a green polka dot sundress that clung to her in all the right places. It was not the kind of garment Kitt would have worn when the pair had first crossed paths but she had become increasingly daring in her clothes choices over the past six months. Halloran liked to think he had a little something to do with that. The dress she wore today emphasized the way her waist pulled in, which in turn accentuated the ways in which the rest of her jutted out and reminded him of the warmth and comfort he found in her soft curves. Something about that thought made the horror of this morning fade. It was replaced by an ache to be close to her.
Slowly, he sat down on the bench.
‘How did you find me?’ Kitt said, her tone neutral. ‘You didn’t track my phone, did you?’
‘I don’t need to do that to find you.’
‘That’s not what I asked.’
Halloran shook his head. ‘I didn’t track your phone. Once I’d been to the cottage, to the library, to your favourite bookshops and to Evie’s, this was the next stop.’
‘That’s the problem when you let someone in,’ said Kitt. ‘You tell them about all the songs and books and places that’re special to you and then they can always find you, even when you don’t want them to.’
‘Kitt . . .’ Halloran went to take her hand but she pulled away. ‘Talk to me, what’s wrong?’
Tears rose in Kitt’s eyes. ‘How can you even ask me that? I deserve better treatment than this, you know, and I don’t have to put up with it. If I walk away from you it won’t be my loss, that I can tell you.’
‘Don’t say things like that, pet,’ said Halloran. ‘I know having to go into the station this morning wasn’t ideal but it’s my job, and I left you a note to explain.’
‘A note? No you didn’t,’ said Kitt with a frown.
‘Oh God,’ Halloran said, the realization hitting him. ‘You didn’t get my note?’
‘No,’ Kitt said. Her voice had softened but her eyes remained narrow enough to let Halloran know he still wasn’t completely off the hook.
‘I wrote a note explaining I’d been called into the station,’ said Halloran. ‘And I may have included one or two details about how much last night meant to me.’
‘Oh really,’ Kitt said, ‘and where did you leave this alleged note?’
‘On my pillow. I wanted it to be the first thing you saw when you woke up.’
Kitt’s frown deepened. ‘There was no note on your pillow. But . . .’
‘But what?’
‘Well, when I woke up Iago was sitting on your pillow, purring away, and now that I think about it he was looking a little more smug than usual.’
‘That bloody cat hates me,’ said Halloran, leaving out that he didn’t have a lot of love for Kitt’s feline friend either.
In spite of herself Kitt chuckled. ‘No, he doesn’t, he’s got used to it being just the two of us, that’s all, and he’s taking some time to adjust.’
‘What do you think he did with it? The note, I mean.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Kitt. ‘I’ll have another hunt when I get back to the cottage but either way I don’t think he was deliberately trying to sabotage our relationship. He can’t read, after all, at least not as far as I know. For years he’s snuggled up on that pillow on cold mornings waiting for me to wake up. He probably saw an alien object there and took it upon himself to move it out of his territory.’
The inspector nodded, though despite Kitt’s insistence to the contrary he was fairly sure the ‘alien object’ Iago would like to remove from his territory was Halloran himself.
For the first time since he’d arrived, Kitt looked deep into Halloran’s eyes. ‘So, what was so important that you had to leave like that after . . . what we shared?’
‘I drove out to the moors, near Irendale, this morning.’
Kitt’s head jerked backwards and she glared at him. Perhaps given the village’s association with his ex-wife, that wasn’t the best piece of information to open with.
‘There’s been a murder there,’ he quickly clarified.
Kitt frowned. Her voice softened even further than it had before. ‘That’s awful. Was it someone you knew? Someone you were close to? Did you have to go and identify them or something?’
‘No, it was the nature of the murder, not the victim, that drew me there.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘A young woman was strangled on Friday night and the killer had carved a runic symbol into her hand.’ Halloran paused and then added, ‘That’s how Kamala died, and the others Kerr killed.’
Kitt’s breath caught in her throat. She spoke slowly then, still trying to make sense of what Halloran had just told her. ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t know that Kerr had . . . I didn’t know that was how Kamala died.’
‘I was hoping you’d never know, that I could spare you that kind of detail. After I found out about this new murder I spent most of the morning behaving . . . well, like a bit of a madman, truth be told. Went straight out to Esk Valley prison to interrogate Kerr . . .’
‘Oh, Mal.’ Kitt shook her head. ‘This must be just horrible for you after all this time. And what, you think the killings have started again? But how? Kerr’s in prison. Is it a copycat?’
‘Just because he’s behind bars doesn’t mean he hasn’t had some part to play. As for whether it’s a copycat, I don’t know. I’m not supposed to try and find out, either.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean I didn’t take the news well when Ricci broke it to me this morning and she’s put me on stress leave effective immediately. She expects me to rest for two weeks and lie low; she’s probably hoping an arrest will be made in that time and that will be enough to calm me down. After two weeks there’ll be a meeting when she decides whether or not I’m fit to come back. In the meantime, according to her, I’m not to go anywhere near this case.’
‘I know we had a few initial reservations about Ricci but from what you say she’s proven to be firm but fair over the past few months. I’m sure she’s only thinking of what’s best for you, and the team.’
‘I know.’
‘When you say you didn’t take the news well . . .?’
‘Honestly, I don’t quite know how I’m going to face her again after the way I went on. She was trying to do me a favour. On the way here I already listened to a news report about the murder on the radio. It’s likely all over the TV stations and the internet too. She called me in as soon as she heard about it to make sure I didn’t hear it on the news or that some reporter didn’t come knocking in the early hours because I was the one to close the last case like this in Irendale. Unfortunately, the favour she did me backfired.’
‘How so?’
‘You have to understand, we’d just had this incredible night together and I was really starting to believe this was all behind me. So when I was called into the station and Ricci told me, all the grief came surging back and . . . I took it out on them.’
‘I do understand,’ said Kitt. ‘And I’m sure your colleagues will too.’
Halloran shook his head. ‘I don’t know. About three seconds after Ricci told me what had happened I was planning my own investigation. The others tried to reason with me but I wouldn’t have it. I wasn’t listening. Then Ricci said the case was out of our jurisdiction. She was right but . . . I totally lost it.’ Tears formed in Halloran’s eyes. ‘Kitt, I don’t know what happened to me. I was shouting and mouthing off. It was like something inside me just burst.’
‘Poor old thing,’ Kitt said, running a hand through his hair.
‘Crackers old thing, more like.’
Kitt was quiet for a moment, seemingly mulling something over, while Halloran noted with a wry smile that she didn’t immediately jump in to contradict the idea he was crackers. ‘So, let me get this straight: you’ve been told not to work the case?’
‘Yes.’
‘Even when you were instrumental in catching a killer with the same MO last time?’
‘If I’d been able to keep my cool, Ricci might have got in touch with Eskdale, and suggested a consultation. But nothing I said or did in that room this morning was calm or collected, and now she thinks I can’t be objective.’
‘Well, she’s probably right on that point,’ said Kitt.
‘Thanks for the vote of confidence.’
‘We wouldn’t be together if you were the kind of man who could stay objective after something like that.’
Halloran slid a little closer to her on the bench. ‘So, we are still together?’
Kitt stared at him and then looked out at the river with half a smile.
‘Given Iago’s part in this morning’s misunderstanding, yes. Besides, finding out that there’s been a murder identical to your ex-wife’s has to rank somewhere amongst the top excuses of all time for not indulging in a lie-in.’ Kitt looked back at him. ‘I’m glad we’ve got it sorted. When I woke up and you weren’t there I thought—’
‘That I’d left you,’ Halloran said, pushing a stray strand of hair out of her face. ‘But I would never, ever do that. If there is ever a time where you don’t hear from me, it’s because something is stopping me from getting back to you. I’m not Theo, I’m never going to do what he did.’
Kitt stroked Halloran’s beard. ‘He said he’d never hurt me, too.’
‘I’m afraid that’s not the promise I’m making,’ said Halloran. ‘I can’t promise I won’t hurt you. When you let someone in pain is inevitable at some point.’
A mischievous glint surfaced in Kitt’s blue eyes. She opened her mouth to speak but Halloran cut her off.
‘And no, before you say it, I’m not just talking about what we got up to last night.’
‘I do hate it when you step on my jokes,’ said Kitt, the glint still in her eye. ‘I have so few of them. Can’t you let a girl have her moment, once in a while?’
‘My point is,’ Halloran had a faint smile on his face but corrected himself before continuing, ‘if I hurt you in some way, I will be here to iron it out with you, to talk it through, to make it up to you in any way I know how.’
Kitt took a deep breath, looked at him quietly for a moment and then nodded. ‘That’s probably the most honest thing a boyfriend has ever said to me. All right. But in the spirit of making things up there’s something else I want you to promise.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Before, you said you wanted to spare me certain details,’ said Kitt. ‘Please don’t. If you are going through something, I can only be here for you if you let me in. If you let me share the pain with you. Keeping me at a distance will hurt me more than any truth about what you’re thinking or feeling ever could. I want you trust me, completely.’
Not one to give his word lightly, Halloran closed his eyes for a moment, thinking. ‘I want to, pet,’ he said, opening his eyes again so they could look into hers. ‘I really want to and I’m trying. Last night was a big step, I’ve never shared my wants with someone the way I have with you.’
