Kennedy 01 - Into the Shadows (8 page)

They fell silent, each thinking, Jill supposed, of young Michael.

‘How’s Liz?’ Jill asked at last.

‘Fine, thanks. I expect she’ll be along in a while …’

Jill didn’t stop to find out. She was ready for her bacon and eggs.

It was after nine when Max called at Lilac Cottage that evening. Jill wasn’t in the least surprised by his visit.

The cats, despite knowing he wasn’t a cat person, gave him a royal welcome. Even Rabble, who didn’t approve of visitors, was walking in and out of his legs. It did her no good; he took no notice whatsoever.

‘Michael confessed,’ he announced grimly. ‘Just like that.

He asked for a glass of water, then said he’d like to tell us how he killed his mother.’

Jill had liked Michael. She’d warmed to him from the start, and she felt let down. Saddened and let down.

Everyone in Kelton Bridge would feel the same, too.

Michael was a popular member of the community, the young man who’d been so helpful at the pub, and the lad who had visited an injured bird every day.

‘So what’s with the long face?’ she asked, sighing as Max threw himself down in her armchair as if he’d come home after a hard day at the office.

‘His confession’s complete crap.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘According to him, he came home from school, carrying a knife he’d bought from a complete stranger in Rochdale or it might have been Burnley some time ago, saw his mother standing in the hall, looked her in the eye and killed her.’

‘So he can’t say where he got the knife from?’

‘Nope. Or when.’

‘Looked her in the eye? She was killed from behind, wasn’t she?’

‘She was. It doesn’t seem as if our Michael’s aware of that though.’

‘So who is he protecting?’ Relief flooding through her, Jill sat in the chair opposite Max. ‘We know he arrived home early, and we know he was expecting his father to be out. Was he also expecting his mother to be out? Perhaps he had someone with him? Does he have a girlfriend?’

‘He doesn’t have many close friends - lots of acquaintances, but not what you’d call real friends. But he couldn’t have witnessed the murder,’ Max pointed out. ‘If he had, he’d know his mother had been attacked from behind.’

‘Does his father know?’ Jill asked.

‘That he’s confessed, yes. That his confession is worth diddley squat, no.’

‘How did he react?’

‘I’ve just come from there and he’s pretty distraught.

When it first happened, he was amazingly calm. But he was still trying to resuscitate her when we got there couldn’t accept she’d gone. I thought he was doing OK

considering, but he’s going downhill.’

‘He didn’t look too good when I saw him, poor chap.

Only the thought of praying for Michael seemed to help.’

Max grimaced. ‘He can’t accept she’s dead, and he certainly can’t accept that Michael killed her. His latest idea is that someone was at the vicarage and was still there when we arrived. Either that, or the driver of the mysterious red van killed her and then took off.’

‘It’s a possibility, I suppose.’

‘A very slim one,’ Max replied. ‘There was blood everywhere.

Whoever killed her would have been covered in the stuff, just as father and son were. There’s no sign of any by the front door or the back. No shoe-prints.’

Jill curled her feet beneath her, and tried to get things straight in her mind. Michael hadn’t seen the murder perhaps, but he had to be protecting someone. Who? It must be someone he cared about deeply.

‘What about Michael’s mobile phone?’ she asked. “I assume he does have one? Any text messages from girlfriends on it?’

‘Nothing visible but it’s still being checked.’ He gave her one of his coaxing looks. ‘Will you come in tomorrow and have a look through his confession? See what you can come up with?’

“I suppose ‘

‘Thanks.’

He looked at his watch and, with a heavy sigh, got to his feet. “I need to go home and get some sleep. Oh, and the photo that was put through your letterbox

‘Yes?’

‘Clean as a whistle.’

Jill wasn’t surprised.

He liked the card, found it appropriate. On the front, From Your Valentine was written amid a mass of tiny, glittering hearts.

Inside, it read: One day you’ll be mine. It appealed to him.

Later, he would put it through her letterbox.

He enjoyed being in her garden, so close to her, and often spent an evening watching her move around. She rarely pulled the curtains across until late. Even then, he liked to see lights go on and off in the various rooms.

Better still, he liked to go inside the cottage. That was best. He liked to walk around the rooms and look at her things. She was neat and tidy, and he approved of that. He had to have order in his life and he guessed she did, too.

Still, it was OK watching from the outside. Funny how he was at home in the dark. He supposed that was one thing he could thank his mother for. Probably the only thing.

He hadn’t liked the darkness as a child. Those hours spent locked in the cupboard had filled him with horror. He’d begged and pleaded for a torch but she’d only laughed at him.

‘Great baby,’ she’d scoffed. ‘Not scared of the dark, are you?’

He’d shaken his head, not daring to admit that it terrified him.

He and his mum had shared a bedroom, and he’d hated that, too. It always smelted funny - a mixture of perfume and something else that he hadn’t been able to identify for years. He hadn’t known it was the smell of sex. All he had known was that he was banished to the cupboard frequently and, although he didn’t have many toys, those he did have had to be out of sight before he went to the cupboard.

That smelted funny, too. Dusty and unused. He did nothing in there; there was nothing to do.

It was when the men came that he was sent to the cupboard.

Or sometimes, she sent him there when she was angry with him.

She’d never been much of a cook, but for some reason she had enjoyed making biscuits. As she only possessed one cutter, the biscuits were heart-shaped. Once, he helped himself to a biscuit, still warm from the oven, and she was so enraged because he hadn’t asked that she sent him to the cupboard. From then on, he was sent to the cupboard whenever she made biscuits.

‘You’re a thief. You can’t be trusted,’ she’d said, and no protests from him would change her mind.

“I won’t touch them,’ he’d cried, tears rolling down his cheeks.

‘You won’t,’ she’d agreed, laughing at her own little joke as she’d dragged him by the arm to the cupboard.

These days, he liked the dark. It didn’t take long for his eyes to adjust and then he was fine.

No, he was better than fine. Standing here, at the bottom of her garden, behind the lilac tree after which the cottage had perhaps been named, he saw all sorts of things. Last night he’d seen a sleek, bushy-tailed fox. The fox hadn’t seen him. He was as wily as a fox …

Her bedroom light dimmed and he guessed she was sitting up in bed with the lamp on. What would she be reading?

He’d watched that policeman, Detective Chief Inspector Trentham, come and go. Some detective he was. Some psychologist she was, come to that. There he was watching them both and they were no nearer the truth than they ever had been.

Still, credit where credit was due. That profile she’d come up with had been close. They’d published it during her glory days when Rodney Hill had been arrested.

Rodney Hill - the very thought of the man filled him with rage. Hill had been a nothing, a nobody. All he’d done was have sex with a whore. Any idiot could do that. During those long hours spent in the cupboard, he’d peeped through the crack and seen hundreds of men arrive, all of them on the verge of wetting themselves in their excitement. They were nothing. Worthless pieces of nothing.

At first, he hadn’t known what the men came for. It was Micky Muldoon who told him.

‘They have sex with your mum,’ he’d said in a matter-of-fact way. ‘She’s a whore. A dirty, filthy whore.’

He had been seven years old, too young to know the facts of the life, but no one called his mother dirty or filthy. Micky Muldoon hadn’t done it again.

His fist had connected with Micky’s face and the blood had spurted from his nose.

‘Hey, I was only tellin yer what me mam said,’ Micky had yelled.

That was the first time he’d felt the rage and, lucky for Micky Muldoon, he’d raced off to the woods to be alone with it …

He’d soon had to accept that Micky was telling the truth. His mum was a whore. She took money from men and let them do filthy, disgusting things to her. He’d seen dozens, no hundreds of men over the years. Men like Rodney Hill.

Had they honestly believed that Hill was Valentine? It was an insult.

He could feel his heart racing with anger, and he had to take a few steadying breaths to calm himself. No good getting angry about it. Hill didn’t matter. Valentine was the one they were after. Valentine was the one who had outwitted them. Valentine - as cunny and wily as a fox.

For two pins But,

no. Later, he’d leave the card for her. It was fun playing games with her.

When he tired of that, he would kill her. That would give the celebrated Detective Chief Inspector Trentham something to think about.

Jill was awake early and she dressed quickly, pulling on black jeans and a shirt. She wanted a quick breakfast before heading off to read Michael’s confession. No way was she doing it for Max’s benefit; she was curious. She was also in a good mood. Dance to the Music had won by a short head last night.

She was halfway down the stairs when she spotted the envelope lying on the mat. It was too early for the postman to have called. This envelope had been hand-delivered.

Just like the other one.

Blood began pounding in her ears. Pull yourself together, she instructed herself sharply. Some harmless crank was trying to frighten her, that’s all. The strict lecture didn’t help.

She walked down the stairs and was about to pick it up when she heard a car slow to a stop outside. A car door slammed and she went to the window to look out. Max was unfastening his seatbelt and getting out.

Relieved, she stepped over the envelope and held the door open for him.

‘I’ve just come from the vicarage,’ he said, ‘and thought I’d see if you wanted a lift in.’

‘Oh, er, yes. Thanks.’ She showed him the envelope still lying on the mat. “I expect that’s another photo - or something.’

He scowled at it, opened a pair of tiny tweezers that hung from his key ring, and carefully picked it up. There was no writing on the envelope. No name, no address, nothing.

‘Of course,’ he said drily, ‘it could be a note from the milkman.’

He sliced the envelope open and, using the tip of thumb and forefinger, pulled out the card.

‘Shit!’

Jill could have echoed that.

Inside the envelope was a Valentine card. It mocked the crisp, cold November morning. There was no message, just a printed: One day you’ll be mine.

“I don’t like this, Jill. I really don’t like it.’

‘I’m not thinking of placing an order for champagne and party poppers myself.’

‘How do we know it’s not Valentine playing games with you?’

‘We don’t,’ she allowed, ‘but even if it is, he’s unlikely to hurt me.’

‘He’s put seven women in the morgue.’

‘Yes, but all prostitutes. If it is Valentine, and I can’t imagine it is, he won’t kill me. He’ll want to show me how clever he is. And anyway, why now? Why not a year ago?

No, it can’t be Valentine. It’ll be someone playing a sick joke on me. Someone who wants to remind me that I got it wrong.’

‘We’ll check it out,’ Max said, ‘and we’ll have a look to see who’s been released from prison recently. Think back over your old cases. We’ll have a word with Rodney Hill’s sister, too.’

‘It won’t be her!’ Jill could remember the woman - short, plump, bleached blonde and very angry - screaming abuse at her as she’d left the court. ‘She might be a nasty piece of work, but she wouldn’t do this. What would be the point?

And why now? Why wait all this time?’

“I don’t know.’ Max put the card on the table and strode through to the kitchen. “I need some coffee.’

He filled the kettle and switched it on, then leaned back against the sink.

‘Jill ‘

‘No.’

‘You don’t know what I was going to say.’

69

“I know exactly what you were going to say. You think I should go back on Valentine’s case and the answer is no.

I can’t do it.’

“I think I know how you feel, but you won’t rest, not properly, until he’s behind bars. He’s taken too much from you.’

‘No,’ she said briskly, ‘and I refuse to discuss it. Have you eaten?’ she asked, changing the subject. “I was going to have cereal but I’ve got some bacon and eggs if you fancy it.’

‘Yeah?’ He looked at his watch. ‘Thanks, I’ll have a bacon and egg butty. I’ll even make it myself. Do you want one?’

‘No, I’ll have cereal.’

Conversation was desultory as they ate. Jill, trying to retain at least some of the good humour she’d woken with, gazed out at her garden. Like everything else about Lilac Cottage it was begging for some tender loving care, but it looked beautiful this morning. The grass was white with frost and an icy cobweb stretched from the old wooden seat to the remains of a clematis climbing the shed.

‘We’ll get someone watching your cottage,’ Max said as he put his plate in the sink. There was no hope of washing up; he’d never mastered that.

‘No resources,’ she reminded him.

‘With some crank playing postman,’ he muttered, ‘we’ve got resources. Have you seen anyone or anything? Have any cars driven by slowly? Has anyone been out walking and looked at this place? Have you seen someone with a dog?’

“I haven’t seen anything,’ she told him, ‘but I rarely look out at the front.’

‘Get looking and make a note of everything. Get car registrations, descriptions of people walking dogs anything.’

“I will.’

‘We’ll get that card checked out but I expect it’s clean,’