The Death Collector Page 14

  ‘And don’t forget the car,’ Evans said.

  Hunter took a deep breath through his nose. ‘Thank you, Inspector, I’ve done this before.’ And then he left the room, Weaver going with him.

  Charlotte leaned into Sam. ‘It looks like you’re no longer teacher’s pet.’

  That brought a smile from him. ‘I don’t think we gelled,’ he said. ‘First dates are like that.’

  Evans turned to Sam and raised her eyebrows, as if to query whether Hunter could be right.

  Sam shrugged, avoiding a proper conclusion, and then he shook his head. No, he didn’t believe it. Hunter was getting it wrong, and Sam wanted to know why.

  Twenty-four

  Carl tried to keep track of time but it was impossible. The cellar was in complete darkness. He didn’t know if it made time go more quickly or whether it dragged out every minute so that he had only really been there for a few hours. He was waiting for hunger to hit him, but the fear was keeping that at bay.

  The pain in his head was easing now but his back and shoulders were still shooting sharp twinges through his body, the bruises from the fall down the stairs. He had learned to manage it by moving slowly, just tiny stretches, but his fear of moving made him stiffen up more, the tightness of the rope around his neck a constant reminder.

  He put his head back against the cold wall as he fought against the tears. He should have told his mother where he was going. Or his lawyer. No one knew where he was and he had to find a way to stay strong. It was hard, though. His legs were aching from standing, and he was scared of the man coming back.

  He couldn’t believe it had come to this, being tied up in a cellar, all because of his father’s obsession.

  Carl had once been so proud of him. He was a detective, and Carl had wanted to grow up to be just like him, even wanted to follow him in his career, but he wasn’t sure any more. The job had changed his father. It had taken him away. All he had wanted to do was find out why.

  It had started more than a year earlier. Just another routine day.

  Carl had been in his room when his father came home. He was upset, angry, throwing things around. That wasn’t like him. Carl had been upstairs, just browsing the internet, but he had stopped and listened. His parents didn’t argue often, and his father never ranted like he did that day – he wasn’t making any sense. He had mentioned a woman’s name, so Carl had closed his door and put his hands over his ears. He didn’t want to hear that.

  His father went into the smallest bedroom, his sister’s old room, and slammed the door. When he emerged a few hours later, it was if the argument had never happened, but from then on his father was different. There were moments of distraction, his thoughts elsewhere, where his father would suddenly stop eating or be caught looking out of the window when he was watching television. When he was in his room, he spent a lot of time on the telephone.

  A few months later, his father went out and never returned.

  So Carl had been searching for him, and his search had ended up here. He took a deep breath. Is this where his father had been, too? In this cellar, tied up? If he had, he hadn’t left alive, and Carl knew with growing certainty that he had to find a way to get out. He couldn’t trust whoever the man was to let him go and, if he didn’t escape, his mother would be left alone to wonder where both the men in her life had gone. He couldn’t bear the thought of that.

  There was a noise outside, the faint rumble of a car. Carl tensed. He waited for the anticipated sound of the door through the ceiling, which was followed by footsteps on the wooden floor, slow and deliberate. Carl held his breath as it fell silent above him. There were flutters in his chest as the quiet was broken by the sound of the cellar door being unlocked. He listened to the slow clomp of footsteps down the stairs until the lamp was clicked on. Carl winced in the glare, turning away.

  The man stood in front of the light, so that he was just an outline. Carl got the upward flick of his hair and the scent of aftershave.

  ‘I’ve got something for you,’ the man said.

  His tone was soft, which surprised Carl. There was the rustle of a plastic bag and then a drip of liquid onto the floor. Carl yelped when something cold was placed on the back of his head. It was a bag of ice.

  Carl grimaced at first, but then the pain started to recede and he was able to put his head back against the wall, jamming the ice pack in place.

  ‘So what do you know about me?’ the man said.

  ‘I don’t know anything,’ Carl said.

  A hand shot forward and pushed Carl’s head back. He cried out as the ice cubes dug into his scalp.

  ‘Don’t play games, that is my advice to you,’ the man said, his face close, so that Carl felt the warmth of his breath and the spray of his spittle.

  ‘I’m not playing games,’ Carl said, grimacing.

  ‘So answer my questions. I’ll get the answers one way or another, so make it easier on yourself. Tell me what you know about me.’

  Carl closed his eyes, his mind racing, filled with panic and fear, yet understanding that the man in front of him wanted desperately to know how much he knew. It was the only bargaining position he had. ‘I don’t know anything about you,’ Carl said. ‘I was just watching the house, to burgle it.’

  Another push to Carl’s head, so that it banged against the wall. He shouted out and grimaced as he tried to put his hands to where it hurt, remembering belatedly that they were held back by the chain.

  ‘I want your name,’ the man said.

  ‘It’s Carl,’ he said, the words coming out as a gasp. ‘Carl Jex.’

  The man reached forward and pulled the ice away. ‘All right, Carl,’ he said. ‘So tell me again what you were doing outside my house.’

  ‘I told you. I was going to burgle you.’

  The man put his face close to Carl’s, making him recoil, although there was nowhere to go. All he got was the smell of his breath. Stale whisky, some coffee. ‘And I’ve got so many nice things that you thought you’d have another go?’

  Carl didn’t respond. Instead beads of sweat ran down his forehead, despite the coldness of the cellar.

  ‘Why should I keep you alive?’ the man said. ‘You’ve seen things in here, so you know I can’t let you go. If you’re just Carl the burglar, I could end this now.’

  Carl swallowed and looked away for a moment.

  The man’s fist slammed into his cheekbone, knocking Carl to the side, his fall prevented by the taut yank of the rope making him gasp as it pulled tight around his neck. Blood flew from his mouth and onto the floor and half a tooth went with it.

  He bucked and gasped as he tried to draw in air, his legs unsteady, swinging around as the rope went tight. He panicked and his bladder gave way, soaking his trousers. After a few seconds he felt arms around him, pulling him back to his feet and pushing him against the wall. There were fingers behind the rope, digging in and scratching Carl’s neck, loosening it again, allowing him to breathe.

  Carl sucked in air but the intake of coldness caught the nerve endings in his broken tooth, making him screech in pain.

  ‘Don’t lie to me again,’ the man whispered into his ear, with a menacing hiss. ‘I can leave you down here to die. Just remember that.’

  Carl nodded that he understood. A tear ran down his cheek. ‘How long am I staying here for?’

  The man moved away. ‘Until the end,’ he said, and he turned and walked out, throwing the cellar into darkness as he clicked off the light. The cellar door slammed.

  Carl put his head back against the wall and sobbed. Despite the new pain in his teeth, he let the cold air rush in as he wailed in despair. He’d seen so little of his life, and he knew then that it was going to end in darkness, the faint shadows ahead of him the last things he would ever see.

  Twenty-five

  Sam put the phone down after another call revealed not very much.

  Charlotte looked up. ‘You seem frustrated.’

  ‘I am. I’m finding nothing
out about Sarah’s husband that makes him a suspect. There are those calls to the police, but her friends say he’s a quiet man. Perhaps too quiet for her, but that’s all.’

  ‘Quiet to the outside world doesn’t mean he’s the same behind closed doors.’

  ‘I know that, but no one has suggested Billy might be responsible apart from Hunter. And why would he leave his children at night to do what he did? He seems pretty devoted to me.’

  ‘So what are you going to do?’

  Sam thought about that, and about how DI Evans had supported his suspicions about the location. ‘I’m going to speak to Evans.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I don’t like the way this is going.’

  Charlotte glanced to the front of the room, where Hunter and Weaver were talking still, just whispers in the corner. ‘Don’t make Hunter your enemy,’ she said.

  ‘Sometimes it’s about doing the right thing,’ Sam said, and walked out of the Incident Room to Evans’s small office next door. She was staring into a coffee cup when Sam knocked lightly on the door and walked in.

  She looked up. ‘Sam?’

  He closed the door behind him. Now that he was standing there, his notion to speak to her didn’t seem like the greatest of ideas. Although he sensed the tension between Evans and Hunter, he didn’t know how far they went back or where her loyalties lay. His gaze flitted between her raised eyebrows and the framed photographs on the edge of her desk. Family pictures. A young girl, Evans smiling with her.

  ‘Come on, get on with it,’ she said, impatience showing in her voice.

  He took a deep breath and said, ‘It’s about the investigation. I’m concerned.’

  ‘Why?’ Evans said, frowning now.

  ‘It’s DCI Hunter, ma’am.’

  She pointed to the chair in front of her desk. ‘Sit down.’ When he followed her direction, she said, ‘Talk to me, Sam.’

  He looked at his hands, unsure how to start, not knowing if he was about to begin a dialogue he would later regret. But he realised that he was too far in to stop now. There was only one way to say it: as it was.

  ‘I don’t want to appear out of tune here,’ he said, ‘and if you think I’m saying things I shouldn’t be saying, tell me and I’ll carry on doing what I’m supposed to be doing.’

  ‘Just say it.’

  He took a deep breath. ‘Hunter has fixated on the husband, and I don’t know why,’ he said. ‘I saw him, the husband, and the shock was genuine. Hunter has already allowed the crime scene to be messed up, and now he seems set on making it about the husband.’

  Evans sighed. ‘Hunter has been around a long time and thinks that whatever answer is obvious to him can be the only answer; and with his history, who could tell him he’s wrong? He’s put away a lot of really bad people.’

  ‘So I just get on with it, assume he’s right?’

  ‘He’s the senior investigating officer. For as long as he’s in charge, that’s just the way it is. If you take on the mantle of maverick cop, you won’t last long on the team, or maybe even on the Force. Your job is about obeying orders. You catch crooks, yes, but by doing as you’re told. Like it or not, that’s what you signed up for.’

  Sam gripped the wooden arms of the chair as if to stand up, but Evans held out her hand to stop him. A smile twitched at the corner of her mouth. ‘What do you think might have happened?’

  Sam settled back down again and scratched his temple before he spoke. ‘I don’t know, but that’s my point. I’m keeping an open mind. What troubles me is that it is a lot of fuss to wrap up the body limbs just to leave them there. He could have just buried her and reported her as a missing person. Her body was meant to be discovered, but why, and why that spot? And why like that?’

  ‘But you agree that it has to be somewhere, so why not just there? There’s not necessarily some hidden meaning.’

  ‘I understand that, but it’s not like that area is just some local woodland. There’s nothing around it for miles. Yes, there’s less chance of being caught with the body, but why go onto the moors as far as he did? The body was found around a hundred yards from the closest place to park a car, which is a long way to carry a torso. Why not just dump and arrange the body closer to the car and get out of there? The longer he’s carrying limbs to and fro, covering himself with her DNA all the time, the other body parts still in the car and awaiting transportation, the greater the chance of discovery.’ Sam stopped and took a deep breath.

  ‘And?’

  ‘And why would the husband go to all that trouble of driving to the moors to avoid discovery, with the risk of being stopped by the police, and then spend longer up there than he needed to? It doesn’t make any sense.’

  Evans stayed quiet as she thought, her fingers steepled and tapping against her pursed lips. ‘If it doesn’t make sense, it usually means there’s something else,’ she said, almost to herself.

  ‘That’s what I was thinking. By concentrating too much on the husband, I think we might miss something.’

  ‘I can’t tell you to go against Hunter,’ she said.

  ‘So what are you saying, ma’am?’

  She sat back and put her hands on the desk. ‘That I won’t tell Hunter what you’re doing if you follow your own inquiries. Speak to her friends to see if she complained about being followed. Look for anything similar, if there could be such a thing. Chase old reports of men being caught hanging around the moors.’

  ‘And if Hunter finds out?’ Sam said.

  ‘You’re on your own. Unless…⁠’

  ‘Unless?’

  ‘If it isn’t the husband and whoever did this strikes again, wouldn’t you rather be the person who looked at everything, the one in the squad who got it right?’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Then I’ll take the credit.’

  Sam smiled. ‘So I’m on my own if I have it wrong, but if I’m right, I’m operating with your guidance?’

  Evans returned the smile. ‘Power is just a bitch, isn’t it?’

  Sam nodded and got to his feet. ‘Thank you, ma’am.’ He turned towards the door but then stopped as his hand reached the door handle. He turned back to Evans. ‘Does Hunter get it wrong much?’

  ‘No,’ Evans said. ‘He gets his man. Every time.’

  He clenched his jaw and closed his eyes as the first tremors of anger shook him. They were back, the vibrations in his head, stopping him from thinking clearly. It had been like that ever since the boy had told him his name: Carl Jex.

  The house seemed silent, more so than usual. No ticking clocks. No computer hum or the clicks of cooling radiators. There were just the fast taps of his foot on the carpeted floor as he stared towards his wardrobe. Soon, he would lose everything.

  He took deep breaths to let his anger subside. His emotions bubbled up sometimes. He knew he should have more control, but it was hard to stay rational.

  He got to his feet and went to the wardrobe. The door opened slowly, revealing the neat row of suit carriers. He reached for one from a couple of years earlier, the package rustling as he took it gently from the rail. He sat down on the bed and put the carrier over his knees. It calmed him as he moved the zip slowly, and once it was halfway down he lifted it to his face, inhaling deeply. He closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh. There were still soft traces of her perfume, the heavy flowers that reminded him of her, those nights spent with her, when he had given her a new life. The life she deserved.

  It was always the smells that brought them back. They were evocative, sensual, overpowering, much stronger than any other of the senses. They could catch you unawares and carry you back to a different time. Hot tarmac. Cut grass. The smell of someone baking. It’s not just the memories. The scents take you back to the actual time, transport you back there, to that place.

  He surrounded himself with her scent. Her faded perfume, along with that musky smell all of her own, heady and warm, so his mind was flooded with memories. Her laugh, joy-filled, exuberant, di
fferent from how she was when he first met her, when she seemed quiet, almost flat, as if she had forgotten how to enjoy herself. He thought back to their first time, when she had seemed timid, stopping him, stopping herself really, knowing that she was getting carried away, not wanting to expose her true self to him.

  He had changed that. He had released her, helped her find the real woman within, the person she always knew was underneath. He had been damn good for her. Why hadn’t she realised that?

  Why would she want to walk away, to go back to what was waiting for her at home? He had saved her.