The Death Collector Read online

  Tyrone reached across and put his hand on hers, squeezing tightly, supportive.

  Mary’s anger was strident, insistent, almost accusatory, but there was a touch of desperation about her that touched Joe. She was a lone voice, with only some reporter on the make to help her.

  Mary took a drink before putting her mug down with a loud clink. ‘So what is it?’ she said.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What is special about what you know that can help me?’

  ‘I just feel that something isn’t right, but I don’t know what it is,’ Joe said.

  Tyrone tutted. ‘So you’ve come to get information from us? You’re going to have to do better than that.’

  Mary looked at Tyrone and then back at Joe before she said, ‘There’s something else too, I can tell. You wouldn’t just come to me because a detective went missing a few months ago. So what is it?’

  Joe wondered how far he could go. He had a duty of confidentiality, but Joe had always been prepared to overlook his professional duties if the case demanded it. Being a lawyer is about helping people, and sometimes that meant doing the wrong thing for the right result. It isn’t about what you do, but about what will catch you out, and right then, there was a reporter with a notebook and a voice recorder. He didn’t see anything in Mary Molloy that was a threat, but he wasn’t sure about Tyrone.

  ‘This has to be off the record,’ Joe said, pointing at the voice recorder. ‘I’ll tell you when you can go on the record.’

  Tyrone looked at Mary, who nodded, so he clicked off the voice recorder.

  ‘David Jex’s son has gone missing too,’ Joe said.

  Mary looked surprised for a moment, but then she recovered her composure. She looked out of the window and took another sip of her coffee, before she said, ‘But how does this help Aidan?’

  ‘Because he had become interested in Aidan’s case too, and he knows it’s linked somehow to his father’s disappearance. Has he ever got in touch with you? Carl Jex? Just a teenager.’

  ‘No, he hasn’t,’ Mary said, and Tyrone shrugged and shook his head when she looked at him. ‘I would have recognised the name. It’s unusual.’

  ‘How do you know that he isn’t trying to prove that his father was right?’ Tyrone said. ‘Perhaps he’s worried that we’re starting to change people’s minds about Aidan?’

  ‘That would make you a suspect in their disappearances,’ Joe said.

  Mary’s cheeks flushed purple. ‘Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, eh?’ she said. ‘Is that what you mean?’

  Joe leaned forward and softened his tone. ‘We shouldn’t be enemies,’ he said. ‘Just tell me where to start looking.’

  ‘And what’s in it for you? More money for your firm? Didn’t you make enough last time, when you failed?’

  Joe sighed. Mary was a difficult person to get on with, but Joe tried not to judge her too harshly. He knew what it was like to lose a loved one. Mary still had her son, but every day she believed he was being treated cruelly for something he didn’t do. Joe had felt the hard smack of injustice through his career, where a case had gone the wrong way, but the feeling had never lasted long. There was always a new case to move onto.

  ‘I just want to do the right thing,’ he said, looking at both Tyrone and Mary. ‘My time at Honeywells is nearly done. If you don’t use me now, I won’t have access to Aidan’s file any more.’ Mary didn’t respond, so Joe continued, ‘If I find anything out, will Aidan talk to me, if I go to see him in prison? I can’t do anything without his permission.’

  Mary looked at Tyrone, who shrugged, before she turned back to Joe. ‘If you can help him, Aidan will see you,’ she said, her voice quiet.

  ‘So where do I start?’

  ‘With those lying witnesses,’ she said, the snap coming back into her voice. ‘They couldn’t look at me at court. They knew they were lying to get Aidan locked up, and if you can untangle their lies, the case falls away.’

  Joe dug into his pocket for a business card. He slid it across the table. Mary picked it up to look at it, turning it in her hand.

  ‘I can’t promise anything,’ Joe said. ‘Perhaps I’m being selfish, but if I can make a difference it will help me, and it will help you, and Aidan.’

  Mary nodded and then she took Joe by surprise by reaching across and grasping his hand. She held it tightly and stared hard at him, leaning forward so that he had no chance of avoiding her stare. ‘Don’t fill me with false hope, Mr Parker, that’s all I ask of you.’

  ‘I won’t, I promise,’ he said, and in the fast blinks that followed his reply, he got a glimpse of the sadness behind her campaign, her yearning to have her son back home with her.

  Mary reached into her pocket for her phone and sent a short text, reading the number from Joe’s business card. A few seconds later, Joe’s phone buzzed to let him know that he had a message.

  ‘You have my number now,’ she said. ‘I want to know if there is any news. Anything at all.’

  Joe nodded his agreement and went to slide out of the seat. As he went, he looked at Tyrone and promised himself that he would try to make more of a difference than Tyrone had. Once he’d returned to the warm glow of daylight outside, Joe felt the rush of a new cause, the feeling that he could make something happen. He just had to prove it now.

  Twenty-three

  As they arrived back at the station, Hunter and Weaver walking ahead again, excluding him, Sam said, ‘What now?’

  They both stopped and turned round. Hunter said, ‘You dig the dirt on the husband. Don’t rush it though; he might have covered his tracks well. We don’t want him to know he’s a suspect. Look at her social media stuff and for any bitching about him. You’ve got access to her bank accounts. Get his. Take our time and we’ll find something.’

  ‘And you’re sure it’s him?’

  ‘We can never be sure, but he’s the main focus until something else comes up. Remember, this is how policing works. It’s not about theories. It’s about putting in the hard work.’

  Sam bit back his retort that he wasn’t a complete novice. Hunter had an opinion of him and nothing he could say would change that. He would have to come up with what Hunter needed to gain his approval. The problem was that Sam was convinced Hunter was getting it wrong.

  Once they were back in the Incident Room, Hunter and Weaver retreated into a huddle in one corner. Sam wasn’t invited, so he took a seat next to Charlotte and logged onto the computer.

  ‘How did it go?’ she said, speaking with a mouthful of some chewy health bar, her hand over her mouth so that she didn’t spit oats over him.

  ‘Not great at the victim’s house. It’s the part I hate the most, seeing the news given over.’

  ‘Brings back bad memories?’

  ‘Something like that. You see a life changed for ever by just a few words, where everything crumbles in front of you.’

  She screwed up the wrapper and put it in the bin under her desk before asking, ‘What did you make of the husband? Is he a suspect?’

  ‘Hunter thinks he’s the number one.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘He seemed genuine to me. Hunter thought differently. Said it’s all about playing the odds, how it’s always the husband or boyfriend until something tells you otherwise.’

  ‘And Weaver?’

  Sam shook his head slowly. ‘He let Hunter do the talking, as if he’s just his bagman.’

  Charlotte shrugged. ‘Isn’t he right though? Unless there is something else, it is always the man in their life.’

  Sam exhaled. ‘You saw the body this morning. That was a display, a taunt. Why would the husband do that? Or even a boyfriend. She was sawn up, for Christ’s sake. Who could do that?’

  ‘To deflect us, if he was planning it?’

  Sam gave a small laugh. ‘You sound like Hunter. Okay, I get it, maybe I’m the one getting it wrong. I’ll do the background checks, speak to her friends and family. Not straight away though.’
>
  ‘Why, what are you doing?’

  ‘I just want to do more on the victim. She was up to something. She told her husband she was at a friend’s house, but it turns out that she wasn’t. And what are people usually doing if they are using a friend as an alibi?’

  ‘Having an affair,’ Charlotte said.

  ‘So there should be a change in her spending habits.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘She was married, early thirties, with two children, both at school. My guess is that she wanted to put some sparkle back in her life.’ His mind flashed to Alice and he felt a stab of guilt over the hours he put in at the station, followed by a rush of panic as he wondered whether he was describing his own marriage. He resolved to take Alice out for a nice evening soon. ‘That can involve money,’ he went on. ‘I’ll look for an increase in buying clothes, or perhaps even the odd hotel in her accounts? If we can find the man who was getting the benefit, we can find out where she was before she was killed.’

  ‘And it gives the husband a motive,’ Charlotte said. ‘He follows her, knows she’s being unfaithful, and he kills her to make it look like some sick attack, maybe even to humiliate her. Perhaps her lover even left his semen inside her, meaning we will go straight to him. Billy portrays himself as the victim, not her, and sobs away at the press conferences so that no one suspects him.’

  ‘Except that everyone suspects whoever does the press conference now,’ Sam said. ‘The killer has to do it so that he doesn’t raise suspicion, but all people do is point at the television and accuse the person crying into the microphone. I’ve done it, and I bet you have. Sometimes I’m right. Sometimes I’m not.’

  ‘But you don’t see it as the husband?’

  Sam shook his head. ‘No, I don’t, but I’ll do my job first.’

  He started to search for previous reports of domestic violence, under both Sarah and Billy’s name, and then the address. A lot of violence in the home goes unreported, but anything that makes it as far as a phone call to the police gives a good snapshot of a relationship, a desperate and dark glimpse into a couple’s private life. Too often the police were unable to make a difference, where the pattern of reports and retractions is played out, just empty promises to change that only last until the next six-pack of lager.

  When he searched under Billy’s name, Sam found two reports. One from a neighbour who was concerned that she could hear a woman’s screams coming from the house, and another one from Sarah herself, complaining that she had been hit. When the police got there, she didn’t want to tell them anything.

  Sam thought about the area. Quiet, suburban, aspirational, the first stop for those trying to get away from the rougher estates. Enough for Sarah to not want to give it up? Did that make her put up with a bully who took it too far?

  He put the exhibit bag that contained the list of password hints onto his desk, and next to it the list of answers he had got from Billy.

  Sam logged onto the bank account first, and once online, got the screen to display a list of all transactions from Sarah’s current account for the preceding two years. He printed it off and spent a few minutes taping the sheets together, so that it was a long scrolling bank statement. He rummaged in a drawer for highlighter pens, sorting out five colours in total, so that a quick glance would show whether there had been an increase in types of spending. He separated them into categories of what were obviously perfumes and clothes, identified from the online names, and then hotels, and high street chemists and department stores. As he worked through, he could see from the frequency of the strikes that there was an increase in department stores and online perfume shops. She was making herself look nice for someone, and Sam guessed that it wasn’t for Billy.

  He logged onto the credit card account next, and was struck by how her spending had changed. It was increasing, becoming more extravagant. The credit card was in her own name, according to the account details, whereas there was a joint account listed alongside the current account. The credit card account was harder for Billy to see.

  As Sam went through the months, he saw some hotel bills, along with department stores. He could also see that she had been paying back less than she had been spending. Whatever extravagances she had been enjoying, she hadn’t been able to afford them.

  Before he could look any further, Evans came into the room. She looked pale. She headed to the centre and clapped her hands, making everyone look round.

  Evans waited for the murmurs to die down before she said, ‘I’ve just been to the post mortem.’

  ‘That was quick,’ Hunter said, sitting on the edge of a desk in the corner of the room.

  Evans turned to him and said, ‘The ritualistic way in which the body was displayed helped it to jump the queue. They’re still slicing and dicing in there, but I thought I needed to give everyone an update.’

  Sam noticed that it was the group she wanted to update, not Hunter. Evans was setting out where her loyalties lay.

  Evans made sure she had everyone’s attention before she continued. ‘The key questions were whether she was sexually assaulted in some way, whether she died on the moors, and whether she was alive or dead when the amputations started.’

  ‘Why is it important whether she died on the moors?’ Hunter said, stepping forward, his hands on his hips.

  ‘For the same reason that the location of the body is important. I agreed with Sam Parker earlier – if the choice of that location was deliberate, it means something.’

  Hunter glowered at Sam and clenched his jaw. He didn’t stop Evans, though.

  ‘The doc says that there is no evidence of a sexual assault,’ Evans said. ‘That doesn’t mean that there wasn’t one, but there was no tearing, no semen deposits, no bruising at the top of the thighs.’

  ‘Perhaps a condom was used,’ someone said from the other side of the room.

  Evans agreed. ‘They’ll swab for lubricants, but there were no signs of force around there. There are some bruises around her wrists, the back of her head and on her shoulder blades, so it looks like she was held down with her hands held over her head.’

  ‘So how did she die?’ Hunter said.

  ‘Strangulation or suffocation,’ Evans said. ‘The little red marks in the eyes are there.’

  ‘That sounds like an angry killing,’ Hunter said.

  ‘The husband offed her before she met up with lover boy,’ Weaver said, stepping forward. ‘Killed and dumped her to make it look like a sick killing.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Evans said. ‘The doc would agree that she didn’t die on the moors. It was a dumping ground, nothing more.’

  ‘How does she know?’ Hunter said.

  ‘The wounds are clean cuts, done after she died. If she had been alive, there would have been a struggle of some description, making the wounds more jagged. There were also some small pieces of green plastic stuck in the flesh, like she had been rested on strong garden bags and the saw had caught and snagged them.’

  ‘Do we know it’s a saw?’ Hunter said.

  ‘That’s the best guess. The limbs have been sawn off like a lamb’s leg for the butcher’s window – there are small lines in the flesh that criss-cross each other.’

  ‘The forwards and backwards of the saw-blade?’ Hunter said.

  ‘That’s the one,’ Evans said. ‘It’s looking like she was strangled and then dismembered so that she could be dumped. The body parts would fit into a car boot a lot easier. Which means that the location was selected. So why there?’

  Hunter looked over at Weaver before he said, ‘So we would find it. It’s remote enough to let him dump her without being seen at night but near enough for the ramblers to find her in the morning. He’s distracting you. You’re buying the bluff.’

  ‘He?’

  ‘Husband. It looks like she was playing away. She told him she was at a friend’s house but she wasn’t, and her friend won’t give up her secrets. So he plans it so that he kills her and dumps the body in a way that an angry husband
wouldn’t. Is there a history of violence?’

  Sam raised his hand. ‘A couple of reports.’

  Hunter smiled, although there was no warmth to it. ‘There you are.’

  ‘So what now?’ Evans said.

  ‘I’m going back to the victim’s house,’ Hunter said. ‘Except this time I’m taking a CSI with a search team with me. We’re looking for green garden bags and traces of blood where she was cut up.’