TWENTY-TWO
There was no way McNeil
was in any state to give any sort of statement and Kirsten was
still in surgery. The knife had just missed her heart but she was
still in danger. Joe tried to pray for her but it was difficult.
The woman had accused him of murder and made his life a misery. But
forgiveness takes more guts than loathing and he still felt some
obligation to her. She was Kaitlin’s closest relative after
all.
When they returned to the police station through
the quiet streets it was almost midnight and the first thing Emily
did was to hurry to her office to ring Jeff – to let him know I’m
still alive, she joked. But if things had gone differently it might
not have been a joking matter.
He waited for her in the incident room. There was
somebody they needed to talk to. Jamilla had questioned Carla
Vernon and, according to her report, the woman knew more than she
was telling. Now that Ethan had been caught, there was a chance
that Carla would understand that she couldn’t protect him any
more.
There was a hush over the whole building as he
walked down the dimly lit corridors to the interview room with
Emily at his side. Even though they’d caught the killer, nobody
felt much like celebrating. Maybe things would be different in a
couple of days.
Carla was waiting for them. During their absence
she’d acquired a solicitor, a slim, horse-faced young woman in a
grey trouser suit who looked as though she’d rather be somewhere
else.
Carla looked exhausted. Her eyes were bloodshot and
her hair was a mess; she looked so different from the businesslike
woman they’d first encountered at the offices of McNeil and
Dutton.
Joe sat down beside Emily and switched on the tape
machine that sat at the end of the table. He outlined everything
that had happened that evening at the office above the Fleshambles
jewellers, leaving nothing out. Then he gave a vivid account of
Ethan’s injuries, telling her he would be charged with the murders
of at least three women, probably more, and the attempted murder of
Kirsten . . . if she pulled through.
Carla bowed her head but there was still a hint of
spirit, of defiance, in her eyes.
‘Is there anything you want to tell me, Carla? Did
you know what he’d done?’
She shook her head vigorously.
Then he told her about their visit to the house in
Flower Street and Carla looked up.
‘He took me there once,’ she said, almost in a
whisper. ‘He told me about his stepfather. He told me what he did
to him.’
‘What did he do?’ Joe thought he knew the answer
but he wanted it confirmed.
Carla was silent for a few moments and when she
spoke her voice shook a little. ‘Ethan’s real father died when he
was three. His mother married again but the man she married liked
to experiment. It was just trivial things at first. Cutting his
hair and seeing how long it took to grow back. Then finding out how
well he could see in the dark after he’d eaten certain
foods.’
She hesitated.
‘Go on.’
‘Then his mother died and that’s when the tests got
really cruel.’
‘He imprisoned him in the cellar?’
There was no reply. Joe repeated the
question.
‘He told him he wanted to see what would happen if
he couldn’t see. He said he was interested in what would happen
when he was let out. Then it was hearing. He tied earphones on him
and transmitted white noise so he couldn’t hear. Then he put padded
gloves on him and tied his hands behind his back so he’d be
deprived of the sense of touch. And he had a horrible bridle he put
on him so that he couldn’t move his tongue to stop him making a
noise or even taste anything. And he recorded it all. He wrote it
all down.’
‘Who was this stepfather? What did he do for a
living?’
‘He was a professor at the university. He was
researching the effects of sensory deprivation. He published papers
on it. Ethan showed them to me.’
‘Professor G McNeil. I think I found his notebooks
at the house.’
Joe looked at Emily, imagining the terrified child
in the darkness. ‘I presume this man is dead?’
She nodded. ‘He died a couple of years ago. That’s
when Ethan inherited the house. He came back from London and bought
Dutton out.’
‘In an upstairs room there’s a lot of material
about a Victorian murder case – a man called Obediah Shrowton who
was supposed to have murdered his family.’
Carla nodded again. ‘That was another of Professor
McNeil’s interests. He’d found stuff up in the attic. There was
even a diary covered in Shrowton’s skin. Ethan showed it to me.
Professor McNeil discovered that the real killer actually lived in
that house . . . His name was Jacob Caddy and Ethan
was his direct descendant. His real name’s Caddy, you know, but his
stepfather made him take his name. McNeil used to tell Ethan that
he had bad blood. Evil blood. That there were demons inside him.
How can someone say that to a child?’
Joe sat quiet for a while. It disgusted him that a
grown man could treat a child with such icy, sadistic cruelty. When
people thought of abuse these days, they tended to think of the
sexual kind. But the calculated torture of a child for supposedly
scientific purposes was just as evil.
‘Weren’t the neighbours ever suspicious?’ Emily
asked.
‘Professor McNeil was a highly respected man, an
academic. Nobody asks questions of respected men, do they?’
The face of Barrington Jenks leapt unbidden into
Joe’s mind. Carla was right. The mask of respectability can conceal
many dark sins.
‘Why do you think Ethan told you all this?’ he
asked.
Carla looked up at him, suddenly defiant. ‘Because
he loves me and he wanted me to know everything about him. Because
he was going to leave his wife for me. I can’t believe he killed
those women. He’d been through hell when he was a kid and he’d been
hurt so much himself that he’d never put anybody else through
that.’
Joe was reluctant to tell her that it often didn’t
work like that. Carla was deluding herself. But she wouldn’t be the
first woman to do so and she, no doubt, wouldn’t be the last.
Emily gave him a gentle nudge with her elbow and he
announced that the interview was over for the benefit of the
tape.
‘I’ll send someone along to take a formal
statement,’ he said to Carla. ‘Then you’ll be able to go home.’ He
looked at the solicitor who seemed anxious to be on her way to
salvage what remained of her ruined Saturday night. ‘I’m afraid
there may be charges . . .’
‘I need to see Ethan,’ Carla said
pathetically.
Joe followed Emily out of the room.
Joe had returned to his flat at two in the morning
but he hadn’t been able to sleep because his head was filled with
images of that dreadful little room in the cellar at Flower Street
and Ethan McNeil’s twisted, bloody face. Eventually he fell into a
restless half-sleep and awoke at six a.m. to find himself tangled
in his sheets, trapped in cotton and unable to escape. In that half
waking moment, he felt a sudden flurry of panic. But then when he
woke properly he disentangled himself and lay down again, closing
his eyes in an attempt to get some more rest. But it wasn’t long
before his thoughts returned to the horrors of the night before and
by eight he was more than ready to get up.
It was Sunday but this Sunday wouldn’t be a day of
rest. They had interviews to conduct and they would have to see
Kirsten and McNeil if the doctors judged them well enough to
receive visitors.
After the swiftest of showers Joe was about to put
on the clothes he’d been wearing the night before but he noticed
that they bore smears of blood. He rushed into his small kitchen
wearing only his boxer shorts and threw the clothes straight into
the washing machine. He’d see to them later.
He put on the only shirt that wasn’t in his ironing
pile and a pair of trousers he found hiding in the dark depths of
his wardrobe, before leaving and making for the police station. As
he walked he called Emily’s number on his mobile. Although it was
nine o’clock she was already at her desk. Somehow he knew she would
be.
She told him that the doctors hadn’t given the
go-ahead for either Kirsten or McNeil to be interviewed but they
were going to review the situation later in the day. Joe felt a
pang of disappointment because he’d been looking forward to getting
the whole affair cleared up. Then he had an idea. There was
something he wanted to do. And this might be the right time to do
it.
‘I’m going to see Pet Ferribie’s housemates. Then I
think I should have another word with her father.’
Emily considered the suggestion for a few moments
before saying ‘fine’. Soon they’d be fully occupied with tying up
all the loose ends of the investigation so he should grab the
opportunity to give the victims’ friends and relatives some police
attention while he had the chance. He borrowed a pool car from the
car park and drove to Bearsley through deserted streets.
Thirteen Torland Place had been on Joe’s mind and
he wondered whether the gaping hole in the ceiling above Matt
Bawtry’s bedroom had been fixed. He’d been a little concerned about
Matt and how the traumatic experience of having a mummified corpse
landing on his bed had affected him.
The curtains at number fifteen next door were all
shut against the feverish press attention of the past couple of
days. But with the advent of more dramatic fare in the form of last
night’s police activity, it seemed that the fourth estate had lost
interest in the tale of the MP and the schoolgirls; a story which
would surely have provided front page material for days in happier
times.
The curtains at number thirteen were closed too but
that didn’t stop Joe ringing the doorbell twice. He wasn’t
surprised when he had a long wait. But eventually his patience was
rewarded when Caro, wrapped cosily in a long towelling dressing
gown, answered the door. As she stood aside to let him in he
thought she seemed more friendly today, more relaxed.
‘The news said you’ve arrested someone for Pet’s
murder?’
‘That’s right.’
‘It wasn’t Cassidy, was it?’
Joe shook his head. He was about to say that it was
nobody they knew but then he remembered that Cassidy had called in
Ethan when he needed a valuation on number thirteen. He had been
there, in the sanctuary of Pet’s house, probably after marking her
out as a victim when she’d visited his office in search of her
mother. He had infiltrated the party dressed as the Grim Reaper to
watch his prey and the thought made him shudder.
When he told Caro the identity of the killer, she
nodded as though she’d known it all along. Then he asked her
whether Matt was in and she said she’d heard sounds from his room –
now cleaned out and repaired by Cassidy – and when she offered to
go upstairs and chivvy him out, Joe thanked her.
He entered the living room and was surprised to
find that it no longer felt oppressive, almost as though some sort
of curse had been lifted. But Joe told himself not to be so
imaginative.
He waited there five minutes before Matt appeared
in the doorway fully dressed in jeans and a T-shirt proclaiming the
virtues of a certain local brew.
‘Hi, Matt. You OK?’
Matt nodded.
‘Recovered from your shock?’
‘Suppose so.’ Matt gave a coy grin. ‘I went out
last night and I’m finding it rather a good chat up line.’
Joe looked round, wondering what had changed since
his last visit. ‘I get the feeling there’s something different
about this place. I can’t think what
but . . .’
Matt sat down heavily on one of the old wooden
chairs arranged around the table. ‘Even Jason commented on it last
night. It’s like . . . like there was a sort of
atmosphere of misery but now it feels normal. Does that sound
really stupid?’
‘No, not at all.’
‘It seemed to happen all of a sudden. When we got
back last night the place seemed different – like it wasn’t the
same house. Do you think it was something to do with that girl in
the loft? I feel stupid thinking about presences and all
that . . .’
Joe hesitated, wondering if what he was about to
say would sound foolish. But he said it anyway. ‘Last night we
discovered for certain that Obediah Shrowton was framed for the
murders that happened here. He didn’t do it and we’ve proved his
innocence once and for all.’
Matt looked astonished. Then he smiled. ‘Maybe
that’s it. Old Obediah’s cleared his name.’ He glanced upwards.
‘Caro said you’ve caught him . . . the man who
killed Pet. She said it was that mate of Cassidy’s who came round
to view the place. Do you think Cassidy knew?’
Joe shook his head. ‘I think he was as fooled as
anyone.’
Then someone else spoke. ‘If I get my hands on the
bastard I’d rip his throat out.’ Jason was standing in the doorway,
his fists clenched by his side. He looked angry. And Joe could
hardly blame him.
Matt frowned. ‘Why did he have to go and kill Pet?’
He bowed his head. ‘She was lovely. Like an angel.’
Joe stood up. He’d broken the news and his job was
done. ‘Never forget her, will you,’ he said quietly.
Matt shook his head. ‘I won’t forget. She’ll stay
with me forever.