Mercy Killing (33 page)

Neither of them ever intended to kill him, and he was very much alive when they left him. Between them, they hadn’t even hit him that hard; in fact now he came to dissect it properly with
time on his hands in a police cell, Jonathan wasn’t even sure that Jude had hit Woodville at all.

It had been Jonathan who had grabbed him, Jude trotting alongside to keep up. Jonathan had pushed Woodville’s face up against the wooden plank that formed part of the bin shelter. That he
remembered perfectly because he rubbed his face up and down, gleeful at the thought that the nonce would get a splinter. It was also him who then pushed his face to the floor, forcing his cheek
into spoiled food that had rolled out from under the gap between the concrete and the bottom of the shelter. It was also Jonathan who couldn’t resist giving Woodville a kick when he was on
the floor, and then he remembered how Jude had grabbed his arm just as he was ready to go in for another kick.

‘Enough,’ Jude had hissed in his ear. ‘That’s enough. Just a warning this time.’

The part he recalled most vividly of all was the rush of gratitude he had felt, which Jude would never know about.

For the first time, he had wished that he’d always had a Jude in his life.

If Jonathan had had someone looking out for him, perhaps the events of twenty years ago would have been different. With a friend beside him to tell him enough was enough, he might not have put
the boot in that one too many times. The eighteen-year-old student who bumped into Jonathan in the Students’ Union might still be alive today instead of ending up fatally injured in the car
park, all alone without his friends.

Jonathan might not have taken the beer spilt down his shirt quite as seriously as he did, aiming punch after punch at the younger man.

Jonathan might not have stamped on his head, causing a brain bleed that meant he died in hospital two days later without regaining consciousness.

At least Elaine had gone along with it and given him an alibi, telling the police that he had been at her flat from ten o’clock, an hour before the soon-to-be-brain-damaged student was
seen to leave the bar.

In the last twenty years, Jonathan had learned a lot about forensics and contact traces on clothes. He would be pushed to distinguish what part of it was hobby, and what part obsession.

One thing he was fairly certain of was that as long as Jude had also stuck to the plan and told the police nothing, they would soon be free.

‘Well, isn’t this our lucky day?’ said Harry.

Barbara Venice was still looking a little under the weather and Harry couldn’t help but think it was down to the investigation.

‘I wouldn’t use the word “lucky”,’ she said as she shifted uncomfortably in her chair. ‘I didn’t sleep very well. Haven’t you got any good news
for me?’

‘This is good news,’ he said.

She stared at him. He filled the frosty silence.

‘I admit, it’s not good news as far as finding out who murdered Albert Woodville goes but Cold Case are over the moon that Jonathan Tey’s DNA was a match on the database for
their unsolved student murder from 1996. I found it very funny that their DCI’s extremely pissed off that he doesn’t get to go on
Crimewatch
for the twenty-year anniversary next
week.’

He was relieved to see that Barbara also saw the funny side, especially as her counterpart in Cold Case was someone she had little time for. It warmed his heart that she at least managed a
smile.

‘Sorry, Harry,’ she said. ‘Of course it’s good news. A young man’s family, who have been wondering for decades who killed their son and why, can finally find some
peace and get justice.’

‘I’m not sure that they’ll ever know why. Jonathan Tey has a propensity for violence. You can call a donkey a Grand National winner, but it doesn’t mean it’ll win
any races.’

‘Did you just make that up? That’s not a saying, Harry.’

‘I know, but I thought I’d try it out, see if catches on. With all the management-speak bollocks out there, no one’ll even notice. The chief’ll be saying it before the
week’s out.’

She shook her head at him. ‘After all these years, you’re still an imbecile. Talking of catching, please don’t tell me it’s going to be twenty years before we get
Woodville’s murderers. Early retirement or not, I definitely won’t still be here.’

‘You’re not that old, Babs.’

‘I don’t mean that I’ll be dead, you silly old fool. I mean not here in this job.’

He laughed. ‘Where’s the time gone? We’ve known each other for so long but I don’t think I’ve seen you look so defeated, especially over an undetected
murder.’

‘It’s currently undetected. Let’s not forget that. I haven’t given up hope. We’re making good progress on the EA52 number-plate enquiry. The team are working their
way through everyone in the local area, including one old lady who had her plates taken off her car a few weeks ago. They’ve since been used in bilkings and theft from other vehicles, stuff
like that.

‘Whoever murdered Albert Woodville, and possibly Dean Stillbrook too, is out there somewhere. At some time they have to surface. Let’s hope it’s before they decide to take the
law into their own hands again.’

It hit Millie in one go exactly how horrendous everything had been for her and the children since Clive’s death. The way she had fought a battle with herself every single
day to carry on and build something of a life for them. Now, what was the point?

Millie Hanson’s world had imploded. She knew that now. It was too late to change it.

She was alone with not a soul in the world to turn to. She had gone down the path too many times of trusting people and letting them into her world. That had got her nowhere.

The police had been back to see her and she didn’t think she could keep her nerve for much longer.

Perhaps the children would even be better off without her? She could never contemplate suicide but perhaps she could leave them at the door of social services, or simply not pick them up from
school and disappear. She wasn’t sure she could be one of those mothers from the news who jetted off to Spain for a fortnight, but she could go somewhere where she’d never be found.

One day, Sian and Max would forgive her. They’d realize that she had abandoned them for their own good. Even their father’s death had been her fault. If they hadn’t rowed that
morning before he left for work, he might not have been so angry with her, he might have seen the lorry in the distance as it started to jackknife and managed to get out of the way. In fact, now
she allowed herself to think about it, he left fifteen minutes earlier that day after she called him selfish and refused to talk to him over their shared morning cup of tea.

There was no doubt in her mind that her daft attitude that day had led to his death, as if she had killed him herself.

She sat at the kitchen table, untouched tea in front of her, torturing herself all over again with the haunting thoughts of the morning Clive had walked out of the front door for the very last
time.

The best way for Millie to tackle her day was to concentrate on anything else her mind could find to fixate on. This used to work, until along came Albie Woodville.

She had let her guard down completely, and a paedophile into their lives.

She disgusted herself with her own stupidity.

Millie placed her elbows on the table, put her head in her hands and wept with shame at the absolute chaos she had created for them all.

Through her tears, she convinced herself that she could see the blurry outline of her brother as he stood in her kitchen a little over a week ago, and he told her that someone ought to do
something about Woodville.

She shuddered at the memory of him bending down and shouting in her ear, spittle hitting the side of her face as he spat the words, ‘Have you any bloody idea what a paedophile does to a
child’s mind?’

Her response was to shake her head, wipe his saliva from her cheek and plead with him to stop. She didn’t want to hear it. She couldn’t hear it.

Her children had been exposed to the worst kind of evil and she had allowed it to happen.

A shadow at the front door caught her eye. For some reason, her stomach lurched, possibly from fear, although she wasn’t sure what she had to be afraid of. All the bad stuff had happened
now.

The unspeakable would have been someone harming her own children, but she was careful how long she left them for in the company of anyone. Even if she was a little naïve, she was still a
mother and would give her own life before allowing anything bad to happen to them. Albert was dead and in their last conversation, which was on the phone, minutes after DC Laura Ward had left her
house, three long, torturous weeks ago, he had told her that he had never touched her children.

She got up and moved towards the front door, certain that someone was outside, about to knock.

Millie flung the door open and saw her brother standing on the doorstep.

‘Have you been there long?’ she asked, as she took in his dishevelled clothes, several days’ worth of stubble and a whiff of body odour.

‘You’ve been crying,’ he said.

Ian reached up to wipe his sister’s cheek and produced a startlingly white handkerchief from his pocket, incongruous with the rest of his attire.

She took it from him and couldn’t help but wonder if it was symbolic of his surrender.

They sat down on the kitchen chairs they had occupied only a couple of days before when he had made such an effort, even bringing her flowers, now wilting and dropping dried petals over the
tablecloth.

‘Will you please tell me what’s wrong?’ she said.

‘Me?’ He gave a wry laugh. ‘You’re the one who’s crying. And have been for some time, I’d say, from the non-existent whites of your eyes.’

‘Something’s not been right with you, Ian,’ she said.

‘You could say that.’

‘If you tell me that you didn’t go round and hurt Albie, I’ll believe you, or even—’

He got up from his chair, pushing it back against the wall in one movement. He put his hands over his ears. ‘Fuck’s sake, Mills. When are you going to see what’s right in front
of you?’

‘Even, even if you went round there to scare him and it went wrong or he fell or something. The police wouldn’t tell me how he died. Tell me you didn’t do it on purpose and
I’ll believe you.’

She was leaning halfway across the table towards him, her hands together as if in prayer.

He stood stock-still, a measured calmness about him.

‘I could tell you what you want to hear.’

She squeezed her eyes shut as if that could silence the words, or lessen their impact, for she knew what was coming, had known it all along really. It was only a matter of time before her
troubled brother imploded.

‘I went to his flat, kicked the door down and strangled him. I put a cable-tie around his neck and pulled and pulled until he took his last, vile, pointless breath. I took no pleasure in
it but I really thought it would stop what’s in my head. It didn’t work. It doesn’t stop when I’m sober, or awake.’

She looked up at him, fascinated and repelled at the same time.

‘You couldn’t have done it by yourself. The police were here asking about you and Dave. Tell me that you didn’t involve Dave, too.’ She was aware that her voice was near
hysterical now.

‘Why, Ian?’

‘Do you know what Woodville said to me?’ Ian said, voice at a whisper now. ‘When I went round to his flat after the police first contacted you, I went to confront him. He said
to me, “OK then, Max, your nephew, I’ll admit I shouldn’t go near him, but Sian, that’s entirely different. We love each other.” She’s eight fucking years
old!’

She felt the bile rise in her throat. This was all her fault.

‘Sian,’ she whispered. ‘He . . . he touched Sian.’

Millie had been wrong: things had been even more horrifying than she had imagined.

She had begged her brother not to do anything stupid, had even picked the phone up on more than one occasion to ask Dave to look out for Ian, as he always did, but she had done no more than shy
away from the problem. If Clive had been alive, none of this would have happened.

She only had herself to blame for that too, at least that was how she rationalized it in her confused, overtired and anxious mind.

‘You killed him?’ she said, unable to believe the very words she spoke. ‘What are we going to do?’

She couldn’t help but say ‘we’. It had always been the two of them. She couldn’t remember a time when Ian wasn’t there to walk her home from school, help her with
her homework, vet her boyfriends.

Besides, if Ian had killed someone, he had done it to protect her and her children. To protect Sian.

The terrible thing was she knew exactly what she had to do; bringing herself to do it was another thing entirely. Her heart was telling her that if she went with her conscience she really would
be on her own.

The phone was in her hand before she had time to change her mind. The selfish part of her wanted to replace it in its cradle, ignore the instinct to do the right thing and sit by and do
nothing.

The pull of the righteous was so very strong, even though what Ian had done had been for her sake, Max’s and Sian’s. She saw the pleading in her brother’s eyes. She was about
to condemn herself to a life of loneliness.

‘Don’t, Mills,’ he said, ‘I’m begging you.’

‘I can’t do it, Ian,’ she said, tears streaming down her face. The terrible truth was that she’d given in to an act of selfishness. Keeping quiet meant she could keep him
here, close to her, and not have him taken away from her by the police. And he no doubt believed that she had done it for him.

The knowledge that even her act of kindness was wrought with selfishness was the only thought that filled Millie Hanson’s mind as she dropped the phone and found herself in her
brother’s arms.

Friday 12 November

‘Hello again, everyone,’ said Harry to his depleted staff at the morning briefing. ‘I know that we’ve lost a couple of staff, including our DS. Sandra
got called out last night to go and help Riverstone with a rape of a twenty-two-year-old woman. We’ve lost a couple of DCs too, plus some civilian investigators, so we’re thin on the
ground.’