The Hunting Ground, page 27
Heard a voice.
‘Live,’ said Karin.
And then there was clarity. He’d return to that moment in the years to come.
With a burst of strength, he pushed his face and body further down into the water. The action took his attacker by surprise and momentarily wrong-footed him. Finn took his opportunity and wriggled free of the loosened grip, twisting his body sideways. Spitting out filthy water, he hauled himself back on to his feet. The dark shape of a man was standing in front of him in the gloom and instinctively Finn swung a fist. It connected hard with what felt like a bony cheek and he heard Luke stagger back with a cry of surprise. He could hear shouting now too, but couldn’t tell where it was coming from. Luke threw a punch of his own which caught Finn just below his throat. The water was slowing them both down, like a pair of exhausted boxers in the final round of a heavyweight bout. This time as Luke came again, Finn ducked away, avoiding the blow. He snatched a much-needed mouthful of air and prepared for the next assault, but it didn’t come.
The splashing and shouting had increased, and the dark shapes around them were multiplying too.
‘Easy . . .’ screamed a voice and he realised there were uniformed police entering at the far end. They converged on Luke and Finn staggered out of their way. He watched as they subdued him, heard a primal howl of despair echo around the tunnel.
‘Are you alright?’ said a voice.
‘I will be,’ said Finn. And meant it.
Chapter 39
Finn had required some minor stitching to a head wound and had then been held up at the hospital while he was checked – then cleared – for concussion. There’d also been some concern for how much water both he and Luke had swallowed. A young doctor gave him a sober lecture about the amount of raw sewage, animal waste and pollution it probably contained. He’d been given a course of antibiotics and wondered if the gods weren’t actually trying to kill him off this week, after all.
After borrowing some ill-fitting clothes at the hospital, he’d made a quick stop at home to change and then returned to the station to catch up with Skegman. The media team had informed the press a man had been taken into custody by the detectives investigating the Nicholls killings. The press release revealed he’d been arrested on suspicion of two other murders and two counts of attempted murder. It also stated the police weren’t now looking for anyone else in relation to Sadie and Liam’s deaths.
‘They can’t make head nor tail of it,’ said Skegman with undisguised glee. ‘I’ve been inundated with calls from reporters wanting an off-the-record briefing. I told them all they can piss off and wait.’
‘They’ll have to – we still only know the shape of things. Not any of the actual detail of it. What’s Luke been like since you brought him in?’ said Finn.
‘Hasn’t said a word. To be honest, his psychiatric state is more of a worry than his medical condition.’
‘Patricide will do that for you . . .’
‘I’ll be happier once he’s been interviewed,’ said Skegman.
It was going to be an interesting conversation, thought Finn. He was in no doubt the forensic evidence from both crime scenes would overwhelmingly prove Luke murdered both his father and Fordyce. He may not even try to deny it. The real challenge was whether they could get him to answer the outstanding questions. They owed it to Dean Rawton for one, and Finn still felt a very personal debt to Sadie and her son. He was mindful too that another mother and child deserved some long overdue justice. He could feel a much-missed old feeling beginning to form: anticipation.
A search of Fordyce’s allotment had taken place and the bloodied ashtray used to beat Sadie and Liam Nicholls to death had been recovered from it. The remains of a small bonfire, too, had been discovered, with what appeared to be the burnt remnants of Liam’s clothing inside. With some answers starting to fall into place, the mood in the incident room was much lighter than it had been for a while. Finn still felt under scrutiny from his team, but it was more bemused curiosity than suspicion. None of them knew exactly what journey he’d been on over the past few days, but it was as if they could sense there’d been an important shift of some sort. There’d also been a brief text exchange with Murray.
How are you getting on, big fella?
Nearly drowned, may have E.coli. Nicked a killer. Tip-top then – thanks for asking.
It was Paulsen who seemed most affected by the day’s events. Abi was now recovering in hospital. Her injuries had turned out to be relatively minor but rather like her brother, it wasn’t her physical condition that was the prime concern.
‘She just doesn’t understand why Luke would do any of this. And she’s got no one now. We’re still trying to contact the mother, but it’s the middle of the night in New South Wales,’ she said.
Finn thought briefly about Jill and Lily Nicholls and the long emotional journey awaiting them as well. He was going to have to learn how to live side by side with other people’s grief going forwards, he realised.
‘Let’s try and find her some answers, Mattie,’ he said in reply.
Chapter 40
Even before a word was exchanged in the interview room, Luke Daws’ whole demeanour was different. The light, friendly Aussie who Finn and Paulsen had met in Abi’s house was long gone. Finn was fairly sure he’d never existed in the first place – more an artificially contrived character to match a few expected stereotypes. In his place, a silent figure, whose brooding stillness exuded menace. A duty solicitor was with them, and Finn was guessing he’d not got much change out of his client when they’d talked earlier. As they went through the formalities, he wondered what was going through Daws’ mind. If he was right, Luke’s whole life had led him to this room – to this conversation.
‘Let’s be quite clear – we’ve matched your fingerprints to those found on the flex wrapped around your father’s neck. We have a DNA sample from you too, so we can now compare that with anything we find at either crime scene—’
Finn stopped as an amused grin spread across Luke’s features.
‘Is something funny?’
‘You sound like you want a gold star, mate. I nearly drowned you back there – there’s probably a clue in that, don’t you think?’
‘Is that a confession, Luke?’ said Paulsen.
‘If you’d like it to be,’ he replied.
The solicitor whispered into his ear, but he barely seemed to notice.
‘For the record – did you kill both Tom Daws and Ronald Fordyce?’ said Paulsen, seizing the opportunity. Luke leant back in his seat as if reclining in a deckchair.
‘Shall we come back to that one? I’ve got a feeling it’ll come up in conversation again . . .’
He poured himself some water from a jug on the table and took a couple of noisy gulps. The solicitor tried to talk to him again but he turned his head away as if bothered by an unpleasant smell.
‘Why did you come back to the UK this week?’ said Finn.
‘Just for a visit. I haven’t been for a while – and with Dad starting to get ill, Abi wanted me to come over a bit more. I think she was hoping I’d help her with him as things got worse. Careful what you wish for, eh?’ He smiled broadly.
‘But you flew back early,’ said Paulsen. ‘You brought the flights forwards by a few weeks – why?’
‘Does it matter?’ said Luke.
‘I think it’s everything,’ said Finn.
Luke looked surprised, motioned at him to continue like a teacher encouraging a promising pupil.
‘I think you decided to come back early the moment Abi told you about the murders. Or more specifically, where they happened.’
This time there was no reaction. His face was neutral as he listened. Finn looked across at the PC standing at the back of the room. There was something too contained about Daws for his liking, a sense that things could easily escalate. He’d seen what this man was capable of, could still feel his hands around his neck.
‘You seem to have it all worked out,’ said Luke. ‘But you’re guessing, aren’t you?’
‘We just want to establish what happened this morning – and why it happened,’ said Paulsen. But Daws hadn’t taken his eyes off Finn.
‘Maybe you do – but this one . . .’ He nodded at Finn. ‘You need to know how all this fits together, don’t you? I know a case of OCD when I see it.’ He grinned again.
‘I think you came over because you knew what had happened,’ said Finn. He leant in. ‘You suspected it was your father straight away. You returned because you thought his crumbling memory was on the brink of giving up a very old and incriminating secret . . .’
Luke shook his head.
‘You’re still guessing.’
‘Maybe – but you’re right about one thing – I do want to know what happened thirty years ago.’
‘Why ask me?’
‘Because we’ve found your father’s fingerprints on the lamp which was used to beat Vicki Stratford to death,’ said Paulsen. She let that hang before adding, ‘And we’ll be re-opening the investigation into those two murders in due course.’
The smile disappeared from Luke’s face, something harder replacing it.
‘Now here’s another guess – I think you were a witness to what happened back then,’ said Finn. ‘Or quite possibly something more than that . . .’
Luke didn’t react for a moment, simply stared at Finn.
‘I was just a kid.’
‘Five, weren’t you? Here’s the thing – Ben Stratford was stabbed with a pair of scissors, and his mother beaten to death with a lamp. The forensics from the crime scene suggested Ben died first. So why didn’t the killer use the same weapon?’
Luke shrugged.
‘Just before we came down here we checked with the lab – there’s no prints at all on those scissors,’ said Paulsen. ‘So how come there’s a fragment of your dad’s prints on the lamp, but nothing on the scissors?’
‘How the hell would I know?’ said Luke, his voice sounding dry and reedy. ‘It was thirty years ago.’
‘I think someone wiped them both clean and missed a bit.’ Finn let that sink in for a second, then added, ‘And because I think you stabbed Ben.’
The idea hadn’t just come to him. He’d been working through the possible scenarios ever since he’d waded out of the tunnel in Lewisham earlier. He and Paulsen had thrown the theory around in the incident room, and as he looked across the table, he couldn’t help but think of the old Kate Bush track ‘The Man with the Child in His Eyes’. Somewhere in that hard, angry face opposite was a trace of the five-year-old boy he’d once been.
‘You don’t understand,’ said Luke.
‘So you were there, then?’ said Finn.
The solicitor had heard enough and whispered in his client’s ear.
‘No comment,’ said Luke.
‘What don’t we understand?’ said Paulsen.
‘No comment.’
Finn looked across at Paulsen.
‘I mean – you hear about children who’ve committed murders. And you wonder – without help, what becomes of them? Keeping something like that buried would be enough to turn anyone into a monster . . .’
‘I’m not a monster,’ said Luke, coming off-script, his voice cracking.
‘Says the man who murdered his father this morning . . .’ said Finn.
Luke brought his fist down on the table in a burst of fury.
‘He’s the monster.’
The PC behind him stepped forwards immediately, but Finn waved him back. The solicitor looked like he wanted to say something to Luke too, but then, seeing the look on his face, decided against it.
‘So tell us what happened,’ said Finn.
‘You’re desperate to know, aren’t you?’ snarled Luke, trying, failing to calm himself.
‘We just want the truth,’ said Paulsen.
There was a long pause.
‘Why was your dad a monster? Everything we know about him says that was the last thing he was . . .’ said Finn.
‘Stop . . . speaking,’ said Luke slowly, putting his hands against his head. ‘Just be quiet for a second.’ His voice was quivering with emotion. Paulsen looked at Finn for a lead; the solicitor and the PC were doing much the same. Luke was rubbing his eyes, massaging his forehead with his fingertips now. Finn gently raised the palm of his hand.
‘Take all the time you need, there’s no rush,’ he said.
Finally, Luke looked back up at them.
‘I’ll tell you how I remember it – but then I get to ask you a question. Okay?’
Finn nodded in agreement.
‘Me and Ben were playing in the bedroom. We’d been cutting up cardboard with his mum earlier – making soldiers or something. Then Dad arrived to pick me up and they started chatting in the living room. We got bored and began chasing each other around the room . . . cops and robbers, I think. I picked up the scissors and pointed them at him – it was just a game. But Ben was in his socks and he skidded on the carpet. Next thing I know, there’s blood spurting out from his neck like water from a hose.’
He faltered, looked down at the table.
‘It was an accident?’ said Finn.
‘That’s what I’ve always believed,’ he said, the words sounding carefully chosen.
‘But they thought you did it deliberately?’ said Paulsen. ‘Tom and Vicki?’
Luke nodded.
‘She screamed like you’ve never heard when she saw the blood, said I’d stabbed her son, and ran into the living room to call an ambulance. Dad . . .’ he shook his head, ‘panicked. He picked up a lamp and hit her over the head before she could get to the phone.’
‘To protect you?’ said Finn.
‘I don’t think he thought about it, he just did it. He was trying to save me, or at least save my future. Which is funny when you think about how things have turned out.’
‘What happened next?’ said Paulsen.
‘I remember her moaning on the floor. Dad was standing over her with the lamp, looking horrified. Just for a second, we caught each other’s eye – I’ve never forgotten that. Then he hit her again, and again, until she stopped making any noise. Like putting a half-dead animal out of its misery.’
‘And then what?’ said Finn.
‘He went straight to his mate, didn’t he? Good old Uncle Ron . . . and you know the rest. They tried to make it look like a break-in. They gave me some sedatives and knocked me out for the night, then Dad, Ron and my mum decided what they were going to do about it.’
‘And Abi?’ said Paulsen.
‘Was kept out of it. They wanted to keep at least one of us clean. And you’ve no idea how much I’ve resented her for that over the years.’
‘But how did they keep you quiet? You were five. Surely they didn’t keep you drugged up until you emigrated?’
‘No – they made up some cock and bull story for Abi about me being ill and needing to recover, told her I was staying with a friend of the family in Scotland. Which was sort of true. It was Ron’s sister.’
His eyes were red now, the emotion of it beginning to overtake him.
‘They kept telling me to keep it a secret. To be honest, I was so traumatised I couldn’t talk about it anyway. There wasn’t really much danger of me telling anyone anything. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep. Just a lot of screaming and bed-wetting, as I remember.’
Luke wiped his nose with the length of his hand. Again, Finn got a sense of the child, not the man. ‘Not much has changed over the years, to be fair.’
‘So what happened today?’ said Paulsen.
Luke looked up at them both.
‘Here’s where I want to ask you a question . . .’ He didn’t wait for their permission. ‘Do you believe me – when I say it was an accident?’
Finn regarded him carefully, weighed it up . . . taking just a little too long in the process. Luke laughed.
‘And there we have it . . .’ he said, pointing at Finn’s face. ‘You want to know if I killed my father and Uncle Ron – yes, I did. You want to know why? Because of that expression right there.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said Paulsen.
‘I’ve seen it all my life. Mum never believed it was an accident. You could see it behind her eyes every time she looked at me – she thought I was something evil. And when my life started bending out of shape . . . she never said it, but I knew that’s what she thought. The drip, drip of it every day. That I was lying about Ben, had always lied. It was there in her eyes – the judgement . . . the disgust.’
‘And your dad?’ said Finn.
‘I asked him about it again this morning when we were alone. I wanted to know – before he completely lost his mind – what he really thought. And you know what he said? That he forgave me.’
Luke laughed again. Loud and from deep inside.
‘He’s the fucking killer. The man who panicked and smashed a woman’s head in. The guy who killed a mother and her son. I was just a kid playing cops and robbers with my friend. But he forgives me?’
‘And you lost your temper when he said that to you?’ said Paulsen.
Luke nodded.
‘Tell me I’m a monster long enough – and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.’
‘And Fordyce? Abi at the river?’ said Finn.
‘Ron never believed me right from the beginning. All those chats he and Dad used to have – I think he convinced him of it over the years. As for Abi, she had the life I should have had. Perfect fucking Abi.’
‘Is that why the family was split up?’ said Paulsen. ‘To protect her?’
‘Yeah. Sainted fucking Abigail was protected from it. While I was buried on the other side of the planet.’
