The Death Collector Read online

  ‘What’s this?’ he said quietly. He reached in for it, and when he opened it he saw that it was filled with newspaper clippings, either photocopies of the page or printed articles from the internet.

  ‘Have you seen these?’ Joe said.

  Gina leaned in. ‘No. What are they?’

  ‘They are all reports of missing women.’ He flicked through them. ‘Some of these go back ten years.’

  ‘All local?’

  ‘They’re all from around Manchester, or just over the border, but not all are women. Some are missing teenagers, boys as well as girls.’

  Joe looked through them quickly. Abductor and abusers go for similar types. It might just be age that selected them as victims, or even something more specific, like hair colour or dress sense, but not many mixed and matched. Someone who snatched children would not snatch an adult, and the reverse was true. It’s all about the sick preferences that drive them, not just about opportunity.

  ‘Sift them by geography,’ Gina said. When Joe glanced up, she added, ‘Familiarity is important, or else how could an abductor be sure that he wasn’t going to be seen? If David Jex had seen something that made him think that Rebecca Scarfield had been part of a series, then it had to be local.’

  Joe went to his desk and made two piles of cuttings: one for the north of Manchester, where Rebecca lived, and the rest for elsewhere. Once he had sifted the pile by region, he discarded the ones of children. Rebecca had been a married woman. There was no point in looking for teenagers.

  Joe was left with a pile of clippings involving seven women in total. Three were from Manchester. And there was one woman who made up most of the articles.

  ‘Most of the clippings are about her?’ he said, holding up the bundle.

  ‘Melissa Clarke,’ Gina said, reading the name. ‘Went missing just over a year ago.’

  ‘Thirty-two years old,’ Joe said, skim-reading. ‘No children. Had been married for three years. A pretty blonde. Just went out one evening and never returned. About the time David Jex starting obsessing about Aidan’s case.’

  Joe went looking through the other files to see if he could find any other reference to Melissa Clarke. There was nothing.

  He read the articles again. Then he spotted something. It was a printout of a website dedicated to finding Melissa, and there was a telephone number to ring if anyone had any news.

  He raised an eyebrow at Gina. ‘Do we give it a call?’

  ‘We won’t find anything out if we don’t.’

  Joe smiled and reached for his phone. ‘I knew you’d say that.’

  Fifty

  As Joe and Gina were heading out of the office, on their way to see Melissa Clarke’s husband, Hugh was coming back in. He was out of breath, as if he had been rushing.

  ‘You two going out?’ he said, not quite meeting Joe’s gaze.

  Joe and Gina exchanged brief glances and both smiled. ‘Errand all done, Hugh?’ Joe said.

  ‘Yes, thank you. Got to keep the family happy. Where are you two going?’

  ‘Going to see another witness. Fancy a ride along?’

  ‘Why not? That’s why I’m here, to help,’ Hugh said, relaxing slightly and falling in behind them.

  The small group walked in silence to Gina’s car, Joe unable to think of a way to start a conversation, still too shocked from what Gina had told him. Her car was parked by a meter outside the office, and as Hugh climbed into the back Joe and Gina exchanged stern glances. They were watching him.

  The journey to where Melissa Clarke had lived hit all the rush hours. She was from the same area of Manchester as Rebecca Scarfield, one of the small towns on the climb towards the Pennine hills, and they were stuck in the stop-start through the shopping streets and then every small town on the way, until eventually they were driving uphill and away from the grey flatland of the city.

  Melissa’s address appeared to be a converted church, the high stone-gabled front boasting a metal plate with eight doorbells on it. It shouted young professionals, a couple who desired millstone living but without the means to buy the small cottage they really desired.

  Joe reached the doorbells first and, once they were buzzed in, a short corridor at the top of a flight of new metal stairs led to an oak door that opened as they got closer.

  There was a man there, tall and slim, stubble on his cheeks, although the shirt and tie he was wearing told Joe that life had returned to some degree of normality, that it was just the end of another working day.

  ‘Thank you for seeing us, Mr Clarke,’ Joe said.

  ‘It’s Chris,’ he said, and walked back into the apartment, to allow everyone to follow.

  The place was bright and airy, a small space made open plan to give it some light, with a kitchen at one end of the main room and a table in front of a window at the other, allowing meals overlooking the main road. A leather sofa and chair were grouped around a large television. There were some candles on the mantelpiece but they had never been lit, the wicks still clean. Photograph frames dotted the room, all showing a picture of the woman Joe had seen in the newspaper article not long before. The apartment hadn’t become a shrine yet, but Chris was making sure he was tortured by her memory wherever he looked, his own way of ensuring that he didn’t forget.

  Chris must have spotted them looking. ‘That’s Melissa,’ he said. ‘Beautiful, isn’t she?’

  Joe had to agree, although it wasn’t her gentle features or the kink of her blonde hair, but the brightness of her smile, the laughter in her eyes.

  ‘Not knowing is the hardest,’ Chris said, and sat down with a slump in the chair. Joe and Gina sat next to each other on the sofa, with Hugh sitting at the table in the window. There was a light hum of traffic from outside.

  Chris looked at his hands before saying, ‘You become all the clichés. All the things you’ve heard before and thought were just the things that people said for the sake of saying something, but they are all true. Every time I get a call or a visit, I wonder if it’s the police to tell me that they’ve found her, or perhaps even Melissa to tell me that she was coming home, that she was sorry for whatever she had done and would I forgive her. And I would, if it was as simple as that. Knowing that she had been unfaithful and wanted to leave would at least give me something to get over, to try to rationalise, but this? Just a disappearance?’ He blew out noisily and blinked away the moisture that had appeared in his eyes. ‘How can you rationalise anything when you don’t know what is true?’

  He smiled, and this time the tears did come, until he wiped them away with the heel of his palm. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘You didn’t come here to listen to me feel sorry for myself. It’s to do with Melissa, some news. So what have you got?’

  ‘There are confidentiality issues relating to one of my clients,’ Joe said, passing over a business card. ‘But Melissa’s case seems relevant somehow, and if it is, it will help my client, and perhaps help resolve what happened to Melissa.’

  ‘Resolve?’ Chris said. ‘That means whatever news there is won’t be good. And it’s all one-way? I tell you everything but you don’t help me get any closer to what happened to Melissa?’

  ‘It has to be that way,’ Joe said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Chris was silent for a minute or so, as if he was considering what to say. He wanted answers about Melissa, not just the chance to unburden himself, so they all listened to the hum of the fridge and the light chatter of a computer on a desk by the other wall. Eventually, he seemed to resolve his conflict as he nodded to himself. ‘Melissa just went out one night and never came home.’

  ‘As simple as that?’ Joe said. When Chris nodded, Joe asked, ‘Who did she go out with?’

  ‘She said it was with her book group, but it wasn’t; when I asked, no one else had gone out.’

  Joe frowned. ‘Where do you think she was really going?’

  ‘I don’t know. Why shouldn’t I believe her? We’d only been married a few years. We have no children and we had soci
al lives. We both worked hard but we saw each other enough.’ He took a deep breath. ‘We had been saving up for a house, not just this apartment, somewhere we could settle down, all the stuff you talk about, maybe even have children, so we put in the hours when we could.’

  ‘What did Melissa do?’

  ‘An accounts clerk at a local builders’ merchant. I’m an accountant and we met through my job.’ He shrugged. ‘She knew my job was more pressurised than hers, that I didn’t want to go out as much as she did. Sometimes you just want to get home and chill out, play some video games or stick some wine in the fridge. So I was used to Melissa going out without me.’

  ‘But she lied to you,’ Gina said.

  ‘Yes, I know that now, and a few times before. When I spoke to her friends after she disappeared, it seemed like they hadn’t gone out as much as she did.’ He sighed. ‘She was having an affair, I can guess that now.’

  As had Rebecca Scarfield, Joe thought, although Aidan thought he hadn’t been her only lover.

  ‘Do you know who with?’ Joe said.

  ‘No, and I wish I did, because then I would have something to give to the police. All I get are polite smiles from them, as if they know I had something to do with it but can’t prove it. She had no family really, her parents are dead and she was an only child, but none of her friends speak to me now. I have to deal with everything on my own. How am I supposed to work out how to do that?’

  Joe looked over to Hugh, who was staring at the floor, frowning.

  ‘No suspicions at all?’ Joe said.

  ‘None. But looking back, perhaps things weren’t right. She became more distant, used to complain that I didn’t show her enough affection or attention, and I thought she understood about my job. So I made an effort and it sort of worked back round again and I thought we were all right.’ He shook his head. ‘Obviously not.’

  ‘So you had no idea who this other man might be?’ Joe said.

  ‘None,’ he said, and sighed. ‘I can’t keep going over this. The copper who first came to see me took all this down. Why don’t you speak to him? I can’t tell you anything else.’

  ‘Can you remember his name?’ Joe said, glancing at Gina.

  Chris chewed his lip as he thought about it. ‘Something unusual. Like Hicks or Heck or Jacks.’

  ‘Jex?’ Joe said.

  ‘That’s it,’ Chris said. ‘David Jex.’

  Joe felt a tremble in his fingers. There it was. The connection.

  ‘Does that name mean something?’ Chris said. ‘I can see it in your face.’

  ‘No, it’s nothing,’ Joe said, stumbling over his words, unconvincing. ‘But you’re right, it’s time for us to go. Thank you.’

  He got to his feet and started walking towards the door, Gina behind him. Joe realised that Hugh wasn’t following him and looked back around. Hugh was still looking at the floor, deep in thought.

  ‘Hugh?’

  He looked up and turned to Chris. ‘Where was the book group?’ he said.

  ‘Darnside Library,’ Chris said. ‘They meet every two weeks.’

  Hugh got up to follow Joe, grim-faced as he went past.

  Joe looked at Gina, who shrugged. They needed to talk.

  Fifty-one

  He was behind her as she pulled into the car park of a small supermarket, the sort of place that you use to get the things you forgot and all the local kids hang around outside, their dogs and glares meant to intimidate. He parked two bays away and winced as he watched her. He’d wrapped a bandage around his neck, but the wound probably needed stitching. Emma had caught him well with that piece of glass.

  Watching her took away some of the pain, though. He’d been following her since she left her house, first to the fast food place and now to here. Adrenalin coursed through him; he felt like he was on a timer, that he had so much to do before everything came to a stop. She was pretty, he thought, as she climbed out, although she had that weariness he had seen so many times, where the light has faded, and all that young glamour has been replaced by a tired look in her eyes and clothes that are just functional. Jeans and jumper, hair tied back but with loose strands.

  She took her time unbuckling her two daughters, two sweet young things in blonde curls, who skipped and jumped their way into the shop. She laboured more slowly, stopping to pick up a basket as the two girls ran along the first aisle and then stooped to look at some comics.

  He stepped out of his car and looked around, just to see who was watching. He was going to walk into the shop, but then he remembered that there would be CCTV in there. He had to be careful. It would be what they play on the news when they talked about her, as she shopped innocently, not knowing what lay ahead. What would they call her? A stay-at-home mum? As if there was nothing else to her, her whole life defined by the way she dies a little inside the walls of what she calls home.

  So he climbed back into his car and watched through the windscreen, his fingers tapping a fast rhythm on the steering wheel. This wasn’t how he operated. Stepping away from the norm created risks. It was just something he had to do, knowing this was the end. No one leaves, but no one hurts him either. He had been hurt before.

  The windows were large and he could see her as she queued at the till, her two girls pulling at her. She held a loaf of bread in one hand and a container of milk in the other, her purse hooked into her elbow. It was mundane, ordinary.

  As she came back out and walked towards her car, her daughters running ahead, he stepped out of his car again. He fastened his scarf so she wouldn’t see the bandage and made as if to walk past her, looking down, casual. He stopped. He turned to her as she was fastening the two girls into their seats. ‘Alice? It is Alice, isn’t it?’

  She turned to him, wary, unsure.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, laughing politely to put her at ease. ‘I work with your husband, Sam. I’m on the same team. We met once before.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, relaxing. ‘Sorry. I didn’t recognise you. How are you?’

  Perfect response, he thought, not letting on that she had no idea who he was. They had never met before.

  ‘I’m good, thanks.’ He peered into the car. ‘They’re a pair of sweeties.’

  She smiled. ‘Tiring though.’

  He returned the smile and detected a blush as she enjoyed his interest in her. Nothing he hadn’t seen before, and for her it meant nothing, just the flattery of spotting something in a man’s eye.

  ‘I’ll bet,’ he said, showing that he understood her. She could trust him. ‘Anyway, I’ll let you get on. Good to see you again.’

  Alice smiled. ‘Thank you. And you.’

  He went towards the shop but didn’t go inside. Instead, he loitered in the shadows, and when she pulled out of the space, he walked quickly back to his car. He would catch her up and see where she went.

  Her time was now.

  ‘Melissa, she was the one,’ Joe said, breathless as they emerged back onto the street.

  ‘The one?’ Gina said.

  Joe looked towards the window of the apartment they had just visited, Melissa Clarke’s husband watching them go, one last chance to find out what had happened to Melissa.

  ‘The woman that made David Jex think again about Aidan Molloy,’ Joe said. ‘It was just another missing person, but then something clicked, and he started wondering about Aidan. Perhaps it brought a nagging doubt to the surface.’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘It was the library,’ Hugh said, his voice quiet. ‘It isn’t far away.’

  ‘The library?’ Joe said, climbing into the car.

  ‘Rebecca Scarfield was a librarian,’ Hugh said.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘At the same library where Melissa had her book group.’

  Joe looked at Gina, whose eyebrows were raised as she fumbled with her car keys. ‘No, I didn’t notice that,’ he said.

  ‘I suppose it didn’t seem important enough back then, where she worked. The police had their man and everyone who
worked there had alibis. It was just her job, nothing more.’

  ‘How far did you look into those alibis, just to see whether the police had got it right, to see if there was another suspect?’ Joe said.

  ‘What, spread the blame? Make someone else suffer the pointed finger? I didn’t work like that.’

  Gina’s hand reached across to touch Joe’s, just to tell him to slow it down, but Joe gave her a quick shake of his head. The time was now.

  Joe turned round in the car seat. ‘It’s not about blame.’