Joe put his phone away. Gerald had told him that Proctor was in the city centre. Joe reckoned he had thirty minutes to look around his workshop. He stepped out of his car and tried to close the door quietly, but the clunk seemed to echo along the empty street. He didn’t want any curious neighbours checking to see whether it was a delivery van or some relative coming round for a chat.
His clothes were innocuous: jeans and a hooded top. Forgettable, that was the look he was trying to achieve. As he reached Proctor’s home, he paused and tried to take in the building.
Most of the houses around had been turned into flats and bedsits. Joe had lived in accommodation like it when he first started out as a young trainee, living out of a studio flat in Salford that made his clothes smell damp. There would be at least one flat on every floor, and maybe more, every available space rented out. Proctor’s house was different, because it was one of the few that was still a house, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t neglected and old. Paint flaked from the stone window sills and the door was faded with age.
He looked around. He couldn’t see anyone paying attention, although whether anyone was watching him from the houses opposite was something he could only guess at. He cursed himself. He would attract suspicion as he looked around. He knew that from every shoplifting CCTV he’d watched, from every statement from store detectives he’d read. Looking around gives the game away but it was human nature too strong to ignore; know the risks to have the chance to back out.
But backing out wasn’t in his plan.
He turned into Proctor’s drive and went straight along the path at the side of the house. His head was down. Straggly rose branches snagged at his clothes. His steps echoed between the walls. He paused when he got to the corner.
Joe closed his eyes and took a deep breath. No one had come out.
He peered around the corner, ready to duck back, his fingers gripping the edges of the bricks. There was no one there. He let out a long sigh. His heart was thumping hard.
The garden was long, bordered by a high wall on one side. In better times, there would have been a neat lawn and beds teeming with shrubs and flowers, stone circles making stepping stones across the grass. Better times were a long way in the past, though. The grass grew long and was strangled by thistles, the stone circles like small interruptions, bald patches. The bushes around it overhung the lawn, making it gloomy, with weeds like a green tangle.
At the end, there was a building. It was the size of a small garage, with a sloping roof covered in moss and lichen. There was one window, dusty, a curtain on the inside. The walls were pebble-dashed but it was patchy and cracked.
He had one last check along the back of the house. There was a door, solid wood, no way to see who might be on the other side. He moved closer, looking around as he did. He couldn’t see anyone. He had to start with the window.
His feet crunched on the stone patio as he crouched down, his back against the brickwork, his tongue flicking onto his bottom lip with nerves. He edged along slowly, his hands feeling his way, the stone sill getting closer. Once he was next to it, he closed his eyes and swallowed. He had to be ready to run if he was seen.
He rose slowly until he was standing, stretching and grimacing at the aches in his leg muscles, and let the room creep into view.
It was dim inside. It was a back room, with a dining table and a dresser. There were plates inside a glass cabinet, a dusty decanter and glasses. The room was empty. No one was watching.
He stepped away from the window and moved quietly to the garden. He tried to keep his footfall light, avoiding the paving stones and relying on the grass. It swished against his legs, the rustles loud as he went. When he got to the workshop, he looked back to the house. Still no one there.
The doors were large and wooden, painted green, but old and faded. He cursed. They were locked together with a shiny new clasp and large brass padlock. Gerald said there’d been a burglary. It must have been put on after that.
Joe looked around the door, hoping to see a weakness. He pushed at them. They moved against each other and clattered loudly.
He looked to the doorframe. It was rotten in places, the hinges rusted. He rattled the door again. The hinges rocked against the frame. That gave him an idea.
His took his keys from his pocket and used the end to scrape out the dust and dirt from the head of the screws holding the top hinge to the frame. Once done, he dug the tip of the key into the groove and pressed, turning slowly.
The screws had little purchase in the rotting wood, and once they began to turn it didn’t take long to remove them all. Joe pulled at the top of the door and was able to make enough of a gap to lift his leg into and then squeeze his body in. He pressed his hands against the frame, his whole body jammed into the small gap, and pushed. As he pushed, the bottom hinge started to come away from the frame.
There was a tinkle as the hinge fell to the floor, followed by the loud scrape of the door as it swept over small stones.
Joe ducked inside and pulled the door closed again, panting through exertion as he leaned back against a wall. He was a burglar now, there was no getting away from it. He was trespassing; if he was caught his career would be over, he might even lose his liberty for a short while, but none of that seemed important. A memory of Ellie’s grave came to him. He’d promised to do the right thing by her. That was driving him.
It was dark inside – a rag of a curtain at the dirt-covered window blocking out any light. Joe let his eyes adjust. There was a large black leather chair in the middle of the room, standing on a thick red rug, with small tables around the rest of the floor, large candles on each. There was a gas heater in one corner.
Joe used his phone to create some light and dust moved in the faint shimmer. He looked along the walls, hoping for some kind of display, a memento board that Proctor could gaze at all night, but there were just tools: rusted old shears, a strimmer with no twine, a dirt-covered spade. A wheelbarrow with dried cement caked on the inside. A lawnmower was propped up against the wall, a yellow toolbox was alongside, the lid open, screwdrivers spilled onto the floor.
There were some cupboards but they didn’t reveal anything. Boxes of lawn-feed and weed-killer, unopened, and empty boxes that once held beer cans.
Joe was disappointed. He’d expected something more than Proctor’s hideaway, for when he wanted to be alone.
There was a noise outside.
Joe crouched down and held his breath. It was the sound of a door and footsteps on the patio. He looked over to where he’d forced his way in. The door was pulled back to the frame, kept upright only by the padlock holding the loose door to the one still attached to hinges. Through the small gap, he could see the two hinges on the floor.
He shuffled across to the window, listening for the sound of movement outside. He waited for the heavy footsteps to get closer, or even to hear the soft thuds of feet on grass, but there was silence. He moved the curtain just enough to give a view. He lifted his head carefully, the wall in front of him getting lighter as he got higher, knowing that he was coming into view of whoever was outside. He swallowed.
It was a woman. Helena Proctor, Joe presumed. She was putting something in the rubbish bin and tidying up some loose twigs on the patio. If she looked along the garden, she would see that the doors weren’t as they should be, and the hinges nearby. Joe’s fingers gripped the sill as he watched, waiting for her to turn towards him.
She didn’t. She put some more things into the bin and let the lid drop, then she turned and went back into the house.
Joe sat down and let out a long breath. Sweat coated his forehead. He looked at his hands. They were shaking.
He was just about to stand when he looked to the wall at the end of the workshop. There was a workbench, and at first Joe had thought there was nothing underneath. As he looked again, however, helped by the sliver of extra light brought in by the curtain that was still hanging open, he saw the gleam of shiny metal.
Joe scurried over. It was a metal box, the sort used to hold documents. He reached in and found the handle, pulled it towards himself. The clang of a padlock echoedas he brought it out. He couldn’t get into it, but the way it was concealed, along with the padlock, told him that it must be important. He decided to take it.
As he made his way back to the door, he stopped at the toolbox and rummaged for a hacksaw. He grabbed one and pushed at the door, making a gap again, the wood screeching on stones once more, but he wasn’t going to stop. Once outside, the cool breeze hit the cold sweat on his forehead. He jammed his back against the door to give the illusion of it being closed and threw the hinges into the narrow space behind the workshop.
He didn’t look at the house as he rushed through the garden, the metal box and hacksaw swinging in his hand, and tried to look casual as he emerged from the driveway and then back towards his car. No one paid him any attention. He was waiting for a shout from the house, perhaps he’d been spotted, but there was nothing save the occasional noise of passing traffic all the way back to his car.
He climbed inside and started the engine straight away, the metal box on the passenger seat.
As he headed away, he placed one hand on the box. He’d taken a risk but he wondered whether the answers he needed were in there, the beginning of the end of his quest for justice for Ellie, an attempt to make good for all of his secrecy through the years.
His mind went to Gerald King and his daughter. That was the terrible flipside of his decision all those years ago; every murder after Ellie could have been a death prevented. For years Joe had been weighed down with the split-second decision he made on his eighteenth birthday.
He couldn’t think of that. All he could do was try to make it right.
Sam was back at the station. He had been hoping to sneak into the Incident Room and find out how the investigation was going, but as he got closer Brabham shouted, ‘Parker!’ and pointed to one of the rooms nearby.
Sam turned and went inside, waited for Brabham to join him. Brabham closed the door behind him as he came in and folded his arms.
‘Sir?
‘We’ve had the deputy head from St Hilda’s on the phone, complaining about the attitude of one of my detectives, like he was acting out some maverick cop fantasy.’
Sam bit back his sigh. ‘It wasn’t like that.’
‘So what was it like?’
‘I was chasing a lead.’
‘Which was?’
Sam wondered how much he should say, but then realised that he had to say everything or say nothing. It would all come back to Joe, but he couldn’t help that.
‘Can I sit down?’ Sam said. ‘It’s a long story.’
Brabham paused for a moment, as if he preferred that Sam stood like a naughty schoolboy, but then pointed towards a chair. ‘Help yourself.’
Sam sat down as Brabham leaned against a wall.
‘I was looking into Mark Proctor, the man whose hire car was used by the victim last night,’ he said. ‘You’ve gone with this Domino Killer theory so I went through the camera logs around the time Henry Mason was killed.’
‘Explain.’
‘You remember how you said one murder tips into the next, with Henry Mason’s fingerprint at the scene of Keith Welsby’s murder before Mason himself turned up dead? So it stood to reason that if your theory was right, whoever killed Mason might have been the victim last night.’
Brabham was nodding, his anger dissipating. Sam had gambled on stroking his ego and it had paid off.
‘And?’ Brabham said.
‘Mark Proctor’s car was in the area around the park where Henry Mason was found. A traffic cop stopped him for having no insurance and his car was seized. The thing is, later that night he broke into the compound and took back the seized car. That’s pretty strange, because Proctor has no record, he’s not the burglar-type. What he did next was even stranger: he torched it. Why would he steal back his own car just to set it on fire?’
Brabham frowned but said nothing.
‘To get rid of forensic evidence?’ Sam volunteered.
‘I can see where you’re going with that, but what does this have to do with St Hilda’s?’
‘There should be a link between Henry Mason and Keith Welsby because Mason’s fingerprint was on the murder weapon, but we can’t find the link. But if Proctor murdered Mason, what if there is a connection between Proctor and Welsby? Somewhere there has to be a link between these people. So what connects Proctor and Welsby?’
‘You tell me.’
‘Proctor’s wife Helena went to the same school that Keith Welsby taught in, St Hilda’s, as did her sister, and her sister was murdered a few years ago. It’s her murder that brought Proctor and his wife together. He was some kind of grief counsellor and had a habit of befriending the families of murder victims. That’s how he met his wife – Helena Morley as she was then – by befriending her after her sister Adrianne was murdered.’
‘That’s what they do, isn’t it, grief counsellors? And how does this link in with Keith Welsby or the school?’
‘It seems that Mr Welsby liked the pupils more than he should have done. I’ve spoken to Harry Neave, who was in charge of the Adrianne Morley investigation, and there were rumours that she was involved with Keith Welsby. Sexually. Just rumours.’
‘That makes it damn interesting,’ Brabham said. ‘A link between the first and third murders. But what about Henry Mason? He’s got nothing to do with St Hilda’s, so there’s no revenge motive there. You’ve got plenty of loose threads and rumours but nothing to pull them together.’
Sam paused. He knew he’d come to an impasse, because if he carried on, he would drag Joe into it.
‘Sam?’
He closed his eyes and said a silent apology to Joe, but he had no choice. He wouldn’t be allowed to carry on with just half the story. To get Proctor, he had to put Joe at risk.
‘My sister was murdered seventeen years ago,’ Sam said, opening his eyes, trying to speak clearly, so that his thought processes didn’t come across as muddled. ‘My brother is convinced Mark Proctor did it. He was following him yesterday, and…’ Sam paused to take a breath. ‘He followed him all the way to the green in Worsley. Or at least he thought he did. It looks like Proctor sent someone in his place. The victim on the green? My brother found the body when he arrived and ran away.’
Brabham’s eyes widened. ‘Why was your brother following him?’
‘Because my brother thinks Mark Proctor killed my sister.’
Brabham stood away from the wall and started to pace. ‘What were your brother’s intentions?’
Sam didn’t answer. He could have said Joe had followed him out of idle curiosity, but it wouldn’t stand up to scrutiny. He settled for silence instead.
‘You’re off the investigation,’ Brabham said.
‘I expected that.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?’ Brabham asked, his voice rising.
‘I was trying to get everything in place first, so that I could be sure.’
‘Sure of what?’
‘Sure that my brother hadn’t killed that man. And he didn’t, I’m sure of it’
‘Jesus Christ, Sam!’
‘I know how it looks.’
‘Do you, really?’ Brabham shook his head in disbelief. ‘You have no idea how this looks. And there’s another big problem.’
‘Which is?’
‘Proctor might be a suspect in the murder of Henry Mason, but he can’t be a suspect in a case where he was supposed to be the victim. Your brother thought it was him and, if what you’re saying is correct, he was lured to that park for his intended death. That puts your brother in the frame. Worse, maybe. He might be the next in the line, the fourth domino.’
Sam didn’t respond. Brabham had reached the same conclusion he had.
‘I’ve got one question to ask you,’ Brabham went on. ‘You have got to answer it honestly, because if it turns out you’re wrong, you’re done, over.’
Sam stayed silent. He knew what the question was before Brabham asked it.
Brabham stopped pacing and put his hands in his hips. ‘Did your brother kill the man last night, thinking it was Mark Proctor?’
‘No, he didn’t.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because he’s my brother, and I know him.’
Brabham’s lips twitched as he thought about that. ‘You’re still off the case,’ he said. ‘If we catch someone, the defence will deflect onto your brother. If you’re part of the team, the case will be thrown out. Too much bias, as it will look like the investigation was about clearing your brother.’
‘I know that.’
‘But if it wasn’t your brother, who the hell was it? And why? And why the bloody hell should we bother?’ he said, exasperated. ‘If Proctor killed your sister, why don’t we just let the psychopaths of Manchester kill each other until the chain breaks?’
‘We could, but we won’t, sir. We’re cops.’
‘I’m not bloody serious!’
Sam blushed. ‘If Proctor was the intended victim, the poor sod last night was an innocent man, sent along by Mark Proctor in his place.’
‘So who’s behind it? Someone must be pulling all these strings.’
‘What about Mark Proctor himself?’ Sam said.
‘But what about last night?’
‘If Mark Proctor was supposed to be the victim, he sent his decoy to his death. Perhaps that was always his intention? It deflects us and makes him look like a victim. Did he have something on Mason and got him to kill Keith Welsby? Mason was chatting to an underage girl online, or at least someone he thought was underage. I’m thinking that he was blackmailed into it, that Mason disclosed secrets he couldn’t bear to be revealed. Proctor got Mason to kill Welsby, and then Proctor killed Mason. The use of a decoy last night was just that, a decoy, not just for the killer but for us. If we keep on looking, we’ll find a better link.’
‘There’s no
we
in this, Sam. You can’t be near this investigation. Take a rest day. I’ll get you reassigned until the case is finished, whichever way it goes. We have to look into your brother to clear him. Or,’ and Brabham sighed, ‘we have to look into him in case he’s guilty and fooled you.’
Sam opened his mouth to object, but he knew it was pointless. Brabham had reached the same conclusion he had, that Sam was conflicted, because somewhere in this tangle of connected deaths his brother was a suspect.
As Sam got to the door, something occurred to him. ‘We can at least solve our own case. Henry Mason’s murder. If I’m right, Proctor was arrested after trying to dispose of forensic evidence. He won’t have gone home. He might have been smeared in Mason’s blood but no one noticed. Check Proctor’s custody record for Mason’s DNA. At some point, he will have touched it to sign it.’
Brabham smiled in response, but then jabbed his finger towards the door. ‘You’re off the case. Go.’
Sam turned to walk away.
Just before he was out of sight, Brabham called, ‘I hope it works out for your brother.’
‘Thank you,’ Sam said. ‘Me too.’