Buried Slaughter (12 page)

What was “Harold Harvey” trying to make people see?

“Damn this thing.” Brian threw his iPad to one side. He wasn’t learning anything new. Harold Harvey killed twelve suspected witches in 1612. Made them walk all the way from one side of Lancashire to the other in order to be executed. Did all sorts of unspeakable things to them along the way. Sick bastard with a sick fascination, in Brian’s opinion.

Brian closed his eyes, the images of the case spinning around his mind. Twelve murders.

Ten killings.

Ten sets of bones.

Brian’s eyes opened inadvertently.

He reached for his iPad and opened it up again.

If “Harold Harvey” really was replicating the actions of his namesake, then there were still two yet to die. Or perhaps two already had died that he’d failed to identify. Two killings that had not yet been linked.

He needed to know more about the suspected witches. He needed to know more about those events in the 17
^th
Century to understand events right now in the 21
^st
Century. He just knew it had to be linked in some way. Two archeological groups. That couldn’t be a coincidence, could it?

He searched for the name “Brabiner” and “Davidson”, adding “witches” at the end of his search. Perhaps there was a link to the names. Perhaps they were descendants whom “Harold Harvey” was still vengeful about.

Every search, no results.

Brian cursed. He almost smacked his clammy hand into the iPad screen, but something else caught his eye on the page he had open. It was a walking website aimed at high school students. A fun map-route page with information on the Pendle Witch trials to make the whole thing seem a lot more fun.

Brian lifted the iPad closer to his face. His heart raced. His throat swelled up. He felt like he’d just made some immense discovery as a child; like he’d just made contact with an alien being and nobody else on the planet knew.

“Holy fuck, it’s not the names. It’s not the names…‌”

He prodded his finger on the map.

Spooky Point One: Pendle Hill Witch Camp‌—‌Creepy voices have been heard here! See if you can hear them!

“Spooky Point One” was the exact location of the Pendle Hill massacres.

He panned over to “Spooky Point Two”, his fingers shaking with excitement and adrenaline.

Spooky Point Two: Longridge Fell Meeting Place‌—‌Witches of the area said to meet here and do all sorts of scary things! See if you can find any creepy clues and make up some spine-tingling stories…‌

Sure enough, “Spooky Point Two” was the location of the Longridge Fell killings.

He gulped back a frog that seemed to be leaping like mad around his throat, and he panned out of the map. Judging by the key, there was another “Spooky Point”. Just one more.

Ten killings. Twelve witches executed.

He zoomed in on the area labelled “Spooky Point Three” and he gasped as he stared at the location in disbelief.

“It’s not the archeologists…‌” Brian muttered. “It’s not the ‘who’. It’s the where…‌Fuck. Fuck.”

He leaped off his bed and threw on his shoes. He didn’t bother tying the laces properly as he reached for his phone and dialled Hannah’s number, his hand shaking more than ever.

He rushed out of the room, the ringing tone going on and on, the iPad screen dimmed, but the location still very much there.

The fields surrounding Hannah’s sister’s house.

Ten killings. Ten sets of bones.

Two to go.

Chapter Thirteen

Brian barged through the front door of his house. Hannah still hadn’t answered her phone, as the ringing tone rang on and on.

“Come on,” Brian said through gritted teeth. “Pick up. Pick up.”

“Hi, you’ve reached Hannah’s mobile. Busy at the mo, so give me a call back in an‌—‌”

“Argh.” Brian yanked the phone away from his ear and paced around the driveway at the front of the house. It was dark out there, the streetlamp outside their house broken. He looked at his phone again: 00:07. Shit. He’d missed the last bus. He was without a car. There was no way he was getting to Marie’s on foot, not tonight anyway.

Brian crouched on his porch-way and held his head in his hands. The locations on the Pendle Witch map website. Two of them had perfectly matched the locations of the first two killings. Ten people had been killed that were in those locations. Twelve witches were executed back in the 17
^th
Century. Two to go. One location remaining.

And that location just so happened to be the field in front of Hannah’s sister’s house.

Hannah’s sister who’d just got a brand new dog and regularly took it for walks on that field.

Brian’s heart started to race again as he dialled Marie and Hannah, but neither of them were answering. He couldn’t help but fear the worst. He remembered the bones as they circled the ground. The grey eyes staring up into nothingness. The killer must’ve chopped the heads off with the sharpest of tools.

Hannah and Marie would scream as their vocal cords were severed.

No. Brian tensed his fist. He couldn’t think that way. He couldn’t afford to let himself admit defeat. No‌—‌he might’ve been sat on the porch of his house after midnight without a car or bus to get out of here, but he needed a plan. A truly productive plan.

Taking a deep breath, he opened up his phone again and scrolled down to the direct line to Preston Police Station. Nausea welled up in his chest as he hovered over it. He knew that by calling them, he’d be admitting defeat. His involvement in these discoveries would be over. Might even get punished for withholding information.

But fuck. Involvement in the discoveries. What did that matter when his family was involved?

And hell. Was he really withholding information or just coming up with theories?

Regardless, he scrolled away from the police and moved over to “Dickhead Dave”. A sinister smirk came from nowhere to occupy his face. When he was at his wit’s end, he’d turn to a fucking scumbag journalist. Typical.

All he needed was a ride. A trip down there. He didn’t need to call the police, not yet. He just needed to see that Hannah was okay. That Marie was okay. Then he’d call the police when he had more to go on.

Hitting David Wallson’s name with his thumb, he pulled his phone back to his ear and waited. His jaw tensed even further as he waited and waited. Seriously, not another person gone AWOL?

“Brian? Why are you calling at this time?”

“David,” Brian said, the relief evident as he spoke. He’d never been so relieved to hear David Wallson’s voice, that was for certain, as tired and raspy as it sounded. “I need your help. There’s something I’ve found out. My girlfriend, she’s‌—‌she’s staying right by the third killing site. She’s staying there and she’s‌—‌”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” David said, yawning between the second and third “whoa”. “Slow down, old boy. What are you talking about?”

Brian closed his eyes and took another deep breath of the October air as a car sped down his road. “It’s not the archeologists the killer is targeting, David. It’s the people in the locations. And there’s a very real chance my girlfriend is in one of those locations right now.”

There was a pause on the line. Brian heard David mutter something to somebody, before returning. “Look, what happened earlier shit me up. Big time. It’s time we took a step back. My…‌my wife wouldn’t have it any other way. Besides, you’re wrong. The killer was targeting the archeologists. He paid them £160,120 to do a job, for fuck’s sake.”

David was right. Brian was stunned to silence. The killer
had
paid the archeologists. There was no denying he’d set them up some way or another.

“You need to let it go. Your girlfriend will be okay. But we…‌we need to take a step back. Like I said, can’t have it any other way.”

Just at that point, an interesting thought entered Brian’s head. It was a thought that he hadn’t even considered before, and yet when it struck him, he couldn’t actually believe his detective brain hadn’t yet pondered it.

“Sleep well, Brian. I’ll‌—‌”

“Maybe the ‘Harold Harvey’ character and the killer are two different people.”

David stopped in the middle of his closing remarks. “Come again?”

The idea was still raw in Brian’s head, so he was piecing it together as he spoke. But he sensed he was onto something. He really did. “The killer and the hirer of the two archeological groups. Maybe they are different people.”

“That’s insane,” David said. Brian heard more murmuring in the background. “Look, Brian, I really do have to go. It’s bloody late. The police are probably way ahead of us with this investigation, too. Get some rest.”

“It’s not insane. Not at all. Think about it. A person using the ‘Harold Harvey’ alias hires two archeological groups to dig up two locations. Both groups are killed and left in some ritualistic fashion similar to the patterns of 17
^th
Century witches. Now tell me, why would a killer going by the name of ‘Harold Harvey’‌—‌a well-known witch killer‌—‌use witch-like methods to display his victims?”

David Wallson was speechless for a few moments. “I…‌I don’t know. Shit, he‌—‌sorry, darling‌—‌he’s a nutter. He’s killing people, for fuck’s sake‌—‌sorry, again.”

“Perhaps,” Brian said, without believing it one bit. “Or this person going by the ‘Harold Harvey’ alias is setting people up. Dropping them in respected lands and forcing them to dig. Unearthing treasures that…‌that descendants of these witches aren’t happy about. Say, did we ever check the family lines of these witches?”

After a few more moments of bickering with his wife, David returned to the phone and sighed. “I…‌No. We didn’t get that far. Didn’t think much of it. But as far as I know, the entire family lines were killed. Which means there were no descendants. And besides, I didn’t think you believed in witches?”

Damn. If all of the witches and their families had been killed, then the chances of a vengeful descendant were unlikely. “I still think that somebody is provoking somebody else into killing. And I think they’re using the Harold Harvey name as a decoy. To…‌to metaphorically ‘kill’, of sorts.”

“What about your girlfriend, then? Where does she come into things?”

Shit. Brian’s body filled with dread. All this hypothesizing and he’d actually managed to forget why he was on the phone in the first place. He needed to get to Hannah and Marie and check they were okay. But judging by his new thoughts, they would be.

Just as long as they weren’t digging for some reason.

Or letting Marie’s dog shit on the park.

“Seeing as I’m up and out of bed and, quite frankly, the wife is giving me a hell of a lot of grief, I’ll take you to this wife of yours‌—‌”

“Girlfriend,” Brian said.

“Well, girlfriend. Whatever. But fuck, Brian. Just don’t make a habit of this. I’ll be down there in twenty or so.”

Without saying anything else, the phone cut to silence.

Brian lowered his phone and stared out at the street. A couple of lights in the semidetached house across the road had flicked on, as a pair of kids peeked out of their curtains at Brian, standing there in the darkness.

Hannah would be okay. But he’d go check on her just to make sure.

And then he’d offer his research to the police. It was the only legitimate way of going about this situation with his morals still intact.

As he sat on his porch and waited for David to arrive, chewing at his nails, his mind couldn’t help but race at the thought that “Harold Harvey” and the killer might just be two different people after all.

But why?

Chapter Fourteen

“I can’t believe how fast he’s grown in such a short space of time.”

Hannah tickled Rocky’s stomach as they sat on the white leather sofa of her sister’s house. The sun had set a short while back, and if it wasn’t for the imitation fireplace underneath Marie’s 50-inch television, it would’ve been one of the coolest nights of the year by a mile.

“That’s what dogs do,” Marie said, as she took the plates away from the table. “Grow quicker than fucking hair. Speaking of which, I need an appointment. This mop is getting on my rag.”

As Marie moved from the dining table that she had set up in the living room to the small kitchen, Rocky‌—‌her border terrier‌—‌hopped to his feet and followed her, jumping up at her legs, scouting for any potential fallen scraps.

“Sweet to finally see you settling down with someone,” Hannah said.

Marie rolled her eyes. She had a piercing in her nose, and her hair was short, blonde at the tips. She’d lost a fair bit of weight since Hannah last saw her, which was surprisingly recent. “He gets me out of the house. That’s more than any bloke has ever managed.”

“Tell me about it,” Hannah muttered under her breath as she stretched her legs across the cool leather of the sofa and took a sip on her red wine.

“I always warned you about those detective types,” Marie called. Plates clattered in the dishwasher as she loaded it up. Rocky’s sharp nails tapped against the floor. “I told you, you little devil. There’s no food. We cleaned it out.”

“He’s alright most of the time,” Hannah said. “Great, in fact. Just when he puts his mind on something, he becomes…‌obsessive.”

Marie brushed her hands together as she returned to the room. “And what is it he’s putting his mind to, eh?”

Hannah thought about responding but took another sip on her wine instead. The Pendle Hill and Longridge Fell killings. She couldn’t start moping about those to her sister. She’d be convinced Brian was some kind of lunatic for certain. Besides, look at the pair of them, chatting about men. Talk about a living, breathing stereotype.

“Well, whatever. Between the two of you. But‌—‌Oh. Here he is again. Your phone’s buzzing. Want me to answer and give him a barrel of grief?”

Hannah’s cheeks flushed. She wanted to answer her boyfriend’s call. As cosy as her sister’s lounge was, there’s nothing more she really desired than a return home and some rough make-up sex with Brian. He might not have looked all that special to the majority of women, but Hannah liked his type. Rough. Rugged. And experienced in the sack, too. In fact, even she hadn’t been totally enamoured with him until she got a grip of his fat cock that first time. It really was a swayer, that’s for sure.