Destruction of Evidence

DESTRUCTION OF

EVIDENCE

Katherine John

Book 6 in the Trevor Joseph series

Published by Accent Press

Digital Edition converted and published by Andrews UK Ltd 2010

Copyright © 2010 Katherine John

ISBN 9781906373832

The right of Katherine John to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior written permission from the publisher: Accent Press, The Old School, Upper High Street, Bedlinog, Mid Glamorgan, CF46 6RY

Cover design by Red Dot Design

CHAPTER ONE

12.30 a.m.

The July night was warm, the sky bright, with a full moon surrounded by a bevy of stars. The watcher crept in the shadow of the long wall that bordered the lane at the back of Main Street. The houses were terraced, Georgian, five-storey, and in excellent repair. The Mid-Wales town was a by-word for wealth, courtesy of the nouveau riche who were prepared to pay high prices to enjoy the architecture and scenery. The only locals who could afford to reside there were those who’d inherited money and property, and the underclass who’d been pushed out of the centre into the housing association estates on the outskirts.

The watcher knew there’d be room to park in the yard behind the Pitchers’ house but too many windows overlooked the lane and the yard. If challenged, what explanation could be given for parking a car on private property at that time in the morning? Especially when logic insisted there were no grounds for suspicion.

But logic hadn’t prevented jealousy consuming like a cancer. Was the betrayal a figment of an over-active imagination as they’d both laughingly – mockingly – insisted when confronted. Or was their denial a lie?

Questions seethed, poisonous and unresolved. Were the signals real? Were the glances exchanged in the bar innocent? Or sly, meaningful looks secret lovers arrogantly assumed no one else could interpret. Was this expedition a fool’s errand? Was there an innocent explanation for absence, or was there a clandestine assignation?

Careful to remain close to the wall, the watcher stepped into the Pitcher yard. Alun Pitcher’s van was parked a few feet away. Next to it was Alan’s wife, Gillian’s, Mercedes and the two BMW sports cars that belonged to their eldest sons. Given the hour, it was reasonable to assume that four of the family were at home. The youngest son’s car was absent, but he often stayed at his girlfriend’s house. Would this be an exception? Would he return and…

If Michael Pitcher returned it would be in his car. The noise of the engine would act as an alert. There’d be time to hide.

The cellar had an up-and-over garage door, a standard door alongside it and two windows with frosted glass; frosted presumably so no prying, and possibly thieving, eyes could look inside. It was common knowledge that Alun stored the more valuable antiques in his cellar, not in his warehouse. The watcher also knew that Alun’s carpenter son James occasionally worked late there, restoring damaged pieces.

The cellar was in darkness. No lights burned. The watcher ducked into a stone shed on the opposite side of the yard to the house. The building was crumbling, semi-derelict. The wooden doors had either fallen off or had been removed because they were in danger of doing so. Their splintered remains leaned against the old stone walls inside. In places the roof was open to the sky. As the watcher’s eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, the outlines of wooden crates loomed. They were stacked in the centre of the building next to an open chest that held gardening tools. The black shapes of a hoe, a rake and a spade stood sharp and distinct in the grey gloom.

The watcher reached for the hoe. The handle was cold, metal and, judging by its smooth surface, free from rust. Why were the tools here? The yard was paved; there wasn’t even a planter, let alone a flower bed.

The rank, foul stench of urine and faeces, mixed with something even more unpleasant, emanated from the back corners. A derelict building in the centre of town would be a magnet for rats – and vagrants.

The watcher wondered why Alun Pitcher hadn’t renovated the place. It was large enough to accommodate a garage, warehouse or workshop. Space was at a premium in the town centre. So why leave a building like this to rot in his back yard when, even if he didn’t want it, he could so easily have rented it out?

Did Alun have plans he hadn’t yet implemented? The warehouse he owned and used to hold his auctions on the outskirts of town was massive…

The watcher smiled. It was idiotic. To be standing in this stinking shed after midnight, pontificating on, of all things, Alun Pitcher’s business affairs. How they would mock again if they could see…

A sound alerted the watcher. A footfall on a metal stair. Someone was climbing the fire escape that ran from the yard to the attic at the side of the Pitcher’s house. Landings connected the fire escape to wrought iron balconies that spanned the width of the house on the second and third floors. Both balconies could also be accessed from French doors to the house and both had sets of wrought-iron garden furniture. The staircase ended at attic level on a small platform that held two chairs and a table. Behind them was a door.

The watcher moved forward and saw a figure in front of the attic door. The figure stepped inside. The door closed.

An acrid tide of bile rose into the watcher’s mouth. The figure had been little more than a silhouette; a dark shadow in a world of shadows. Dressed in black, a black baker’s cap pulled low over the face, the watcher recognised it from the swaggering, confident walk and slim build.

Pain akin to knife wounds pierced; twisting, turning, tearing into a scream for revenge.

Lee Pitcher opened his eyes to see moonlight flooding in from the doorway. Someone had opened the outside door. Several friends had keys to the entrance to his room from the fire escape but only one had received an invitation to call that night.

‘I thought you were never coming.’

‘It’s getting difficult. I can only stay until six.’

‘I can’t set the alarm. James and my parents are light sleepers.’

‘The alarm on my phone is set to vibrate, I’ll slip it under the pillow.’

Lee turned back the bedclothes and made room for his visitor. Clothes rustled as they were removed and dropped to the floor. Weight depressed the mattress and an icy leg moved against Lee’s warm back.

‘You’re bloody freezing.’

‘It’s warm out there, but not on the bike.’

‘You could have put a sweater on.’

‘I was looking forward to you warming me.’

‘Keep the noise down.’

‘There was no light in James’s bedroom window. The kitchen window’s open. I heard the television.’

‘My father falls asleep in front of it. Michael’s out with Alison. They won’t be back tonight.’

Cold lips sought warm ones. Freezing hands ran over the contours of a muscle-honed body.

Within minutes the only sounds in the attic were gasps of breath and murmurs of pleasure. Lee hoped, if any of his family overheard, they would assume he was having pleasant dreams.

The watcher remained, frozen in anger. An owl flew low, swooping behind the house. A fox ventured close to the bins outside the cellar door. The whine of a motor bike struck loud and discordant in the town centre.

Oblivious to the beauty of the night – to everything except escalating, volcanic rage the watcher was suddenly aware that silence had turned to buzzing. Loud, menacing, it filled the watcher’s head.

Reacting without thought or plan, the watcher crossed the yard and put a foot on the fire escape. It took a long time to climb five floors. Perspiration streaming, the watcher finally faced the door. It was closed. The watcher depressed the handle expecting it to be locked. It wasn’t. It opened inwards. Metal grated against stone when the hoe caught the lintel. The watcher had forgotten the hoe.

The scraping woke the two curled together in the bed. They sat up, alarmed. The duvet fell back and their naked bodies gleamed pale, silvered by the moonlight that poured through the loft lights.

For what could have been a second – a minute – infinity – the three of them stared silently at one another. Afterwards the watcher wondered how long they would have remained there, if Lee hadn’t smiled.

The watcher saw it as gloating triumph. Lee opened his mouth as though about to speak. All the constraints that had been imposed on the watcher by family, education and civilization shattered in a red hazed instant.

The tip of the hoe caught Lee’s forehead, slicing his face open from crown to chin, cutting through his nose, severing his lips, exposing bone, teeth and gristle.

Lee’s lover was wide-eyed, open-mouthed, mesmerized by the blood that spurted from the wound. It sprayed bed, linen, wall and floor, gleaming dark and sticky in the moonlight. Lee’s scream died to a soft moan; a gurgling resounded from his throat. The watcher lifted the hoe and struck again. The point caught Lee sideways across his eyes. A sickening crunch of breaking bones accompanied by the squelch of soft tissue filled the room. Lee’s eye sockets caved in.

‘Stop… Please…’ Lee’s lover wanted to shout but the words were hoarse, barely audible.

Crazed by grief, savage with passion, the watcher rained blow after blow after blow.

What was left of Lee slithered, slippery with blood, sideways out of the bed. His body went into spasm when he hit the floor but the watcher could still see Lee’s triumphant smile, although his head was smashed to a bloody pulp.

‘Enough!’ Lee’s lover closed a hand over the watcher’s; holding the hoe fast, before wrenching it free.

Sanity returned when the watcher saw Lee’s broken remains. ‘You – you made me do it. You made me… I love you… you betrayed me…’

The moon shone down, illuminating Lee’s shattered skull and torso. Bloodied smears of bone fragments, hair and skin were spread over the wooden floor. Had that jellied mass been a living breathing human?

The sound of feet running up the stairs. The door handle was depressed from the outside. The lock held for an instant. But only an instant. The door burst inwards.

‘Lee? You all right? I heard a cry…’

James switched on the light. Saw the two people in the room. The smashed and broken body on the floor. The blood.

‘What…’

It was the last sound he made. Lee’s lover leapt from the bed and brought the hoe down on James’s head. There was a crack. A thud. James fell to the floor. Unlike Lee there was little blood. Just one groan. Then silence. The lover hit James three times again, before kicking his body aside and closing the door.

The watcher sank on the bed. ‘What have we done?’

Naked, disorientated, the lover took command because the watcher couldn’t. ‘Pull yourself together.’

The whisper echoed around the room to the accompaniment of footsteps downstairs.

‘James? Lee? Is everything all right up there?’ A man’s voice.

‘Lee? James?’ A woman called anxiously.

Lee’s lover gripped the hoe. ‘I can’t deal with both of them.’

‘I can’t…’

‘You just did. We can’t risk screams that could be heard outside.’

‘I can’t…’

A footfall on the stairs.

Lee’s lover handed over the hoe and went to the door. A Victorian bronze of the Dying Gaul stood on a side table. It was heavy. ‘I’ll wait for Alun to come in here. You run past him and deal with Gillian. Be quick. Don’t give her time to cry for help.’

The watcher hesitated.

‘You want to go to gaol?’

The watcher didn’t move.

‘You been inside a gaol?’

‘I can’t…’

‘You have to. We have to.’ Lee’s lover watched the door handle, waiting for it to move.

Destroy the evidence.

Many criminals had tried to do that and failed. But they weren’t criminals. They hadn’t meant to kill anyone. They didn’t deserve to be punished. But they’d need help. Professional help. Forensic technicians were clever these days.

There was someone. Someone with the knowledge. Someone they could trust. All they had to do was ask. Not phone. A call could be traced… one of them would have to go…

The door opened. Alun stepped in. The bronze crashed down.

Footsteps running down the stairs. Gillian Pitcher cried out once. Just once. Then silence.

Dress. Fetch help. Do what had to be done. Then home. They would be able to carry on as if nothing had happened – wouldn’t they?

They’d expected anger from the cleaner. Cold commands were worse.

‘There’s no time for tears. There’s too much to be done. Don’t switch on the light. I can see all I want.’

‘We’ll never clean this. There’s our DNA, the blood, the bodies…’

‘Fire, bleach and water. We have to bleach and wash first, then burn the house and the bodies. Did you beat them all?’

‘They’re dead.’ The watcher’s voice was flat, devoid of expression.

‘Is one intact?’

‘I don’t understand.’ A note of hysteria crept into the watcher’s voice.

‘If one body is unmarked we’ll hang it. Then we have murders and suicide. It can happen when one member of a family goes berserk. If they all have wounds the investigating officers will look for a murderer.’

‘They all have wounds,’ the lover reiterated dully. Shock had set in.

‘You’re covered in blood,’ the cleaner studied the watcher.

‘I showered before I fetched you,’ the lover protested.

‘You wore gloves when you went down the fire escape?’

‘No. But I didn’t touch anything…’

‘We can’t take the risk that you didn’t. Both of you; shower. Now. There’s a box of rubber gloves on the desk next to the jewellery case and tools. Put them on as soon as you’re clean; two pairs, one on top of the other. Dress in Lee’s clothes, we’ll burn yours. Cover yourselves completely. If you’re going to leave fibres leave his. Then set to work.’