Eye Snatcher (18 page)

The kitchen door opened as Harri’s crying got louder. Stan walked in, disapproval on his face at Brian.

Brian scraped his chair away from the table. Stood up. Watched Stan as he comforted his daughter, whispered into her ear, reassured her everything was going to be okay.

“Thanks for talking to me, Harri. I really appreciate it.”

“What now?” Stan asked.

Brian scratched the back of his head. Truth be told, he hadn’t got as much information from Harri as he’d hoped. “We check CCTV. Look for any signs of this man your daughter tells us about.”

He stepped out of the kitchen, headed back to the lounge with its rich cream walls, its luscious blue carpet, its mantlepieces filled with photo after photo of Harri, of Stan, of the rest of the family.

Brian stopped. Looked back. “One more thing. One of Janine’s earrings was missing when we found her. The silver ones. Did she—”

“She always wore them,” Harri sobbed. “She—she didn’t even take them off for P.E. She’d never take them off.”

Brian nodded. Just what he expected. “Thanks. I’ll be in touch. Sorry again for your loss.”

He walked out of the front door of the Johnson household and onto Walton Road. The rain was coming down lightly again, and the traffic was relatively busy for a late Monday morning.

Brian walked down the concrete pathway. Opened up the door to Brad’s black Honda, which was parked on the kerb. Perched himself in the passenger seat as the smell of a McDonalds breakfast filled his belly with hunger.

“Not sick enough to buy yourself a Maccies then, eh?”

He looked at Brad and he saw that look. That look Brad always had when he’d figured something out, usually something Brian hadn’t figured yet.

“What is it?” Brian asked.

The corners of Brad’s smile twitched.

“Come on, you bastard. Speak up. What’s—”

“Good news or bad news?”

Brian shrugged. “Both.”

“Got the CCTV results back. Bad news is, we’ve got a blind spot outside the Long Lane council houses.”

“Fucking blind spots. Let me guess—council funded CCTV?”

“Bingo. But there’s good news, too.”

Brad looked out of the car window. The rain tumbled down heavier, making the inside of the car feel like some kind of relaxation booth.

“Brad, spit it out. You know I don’t like this dicking around business.”

“We ran checks on the outside of the Johnson house like you asked. And we’ve got a car waiting outside the house with its lights on full beam. It’s there when Harri walks past, stays there for another five minutes, then it drives off in the direction Janine went missing.”

“And?”

“Last CCTV frames show Janine Ainscough walking down Long Lane. At almost the exact same time, this silver Ka disappears into the blind spot too. Doesn’t resurface for a good half hour.”

Brian frowned. “Please tell me you’ve got a match on the car.”

Brad smiled. “You’re not gonna believe whose car that is.”

When Brad told Brian, the whole case clicked into place in a staggering way.

Andrew Wilkinson lived in a large country manor just outside of Goosnargh.

Brad drove through the tall, iron gates, which were ajar already, made his way across the winding driveway and towards the big grey house. The place was impressive as hell. Fountains in the yard, the house itself made of old grey brick.

“No wonder he gave up the teaching gig so easily,” Brad muttered.

He pulled up just outside Andrew Wilkinson’s steps.

“No wonder he thought he could get away with something like this,” Brian said.

They both got out of the car, stepped onto the gravel.

“How we gonna approach this?” Brad asked, locking the car door.

“Like we approach any criminal. We have some fun with them, we tell them what we’ve got, and then we take them into the station.”

Brad shook his head. Smiled. “Too cruel, Brian.”

“Don’t pretend you don’t enjoy it.”

They made their way up the concrete steps towards Andrew Wilkinson’s house. Truth be told, Brian had always suspected that something was off about Andrew Wilkinson. There was his presence at Jean Betts’ the night and the nights after her son went missing. A disappearance on the night of the murder. And then the evidence: his car, outside Harri Johnson’s house last night when Janine Ainscough was murdered.

His car entering the CCTV blind spot just as Janine stepped into it.

His car not surfacing for another half an hour.

Brian knocked on the door.

“Place like this not have a doorbell?” Brad said, disapproval in his voice. “You’d think the first thing they’d put into a place like this is a doorbell.”

Brian listened for the sound of footsteps. Didn’t hear a thing.

He knocked again, looked around the grounds. Andrew Wilkinson would have no problem sneaking out of the back door of a place this grandiose. And the woodlands behind the house, he could hide in there for days before the police even got close to finding him.

There were a few discrepancies. Harri Johnson had said she’d seen a bald man driving the car that was confirmed registered to Andrew Wilkinson. But then when Brian had asked her again, she’d said she wasn’t sure. When you were as frightened as she was, a little cloudiness could be forgiven.

Brian went to knock again when he heard the locks rattling the other side of the door.

He exchanged a glance with Brad. By the look on Brad’s face, Brad too was expecting some kind of chase to catch Andrew Wilkinson. Yet here he was opening up the front door. Well, assuming it was him, of course.

The door creaked open.

It was Andrew Wilkinson.

He was wearing a white T-shirt with a V-neck and slim jogging bottoms. Had nothing on his feet. His hair was curly and messy, like he’d just woken up. Judging by the smell of sweat emanating from him too, he probably had.

He looked at Brian and Brad with a furrowed brow. “Can I help you?”

Brian nodded. “Andrew Wilkinson. You’ll remember us from—”

“McDone,” he said. “And Richards, was it?”

“Detective Inspector McDone and Detective Sergeant Richards, considering the circumstances.”

Andrew Wilkinson looked uneasily between the two of them. “Like I said. Can I help you?”

“Nice place you’ve got here,” Brad said. He looked up at the front of the house. “Must be a heck of a mortgage.”

“Yeah, well… I inherited a large estate. I… You aren’t here to ask me about my house. What’s the problem?”

Brian stuck his hand into the pocket of his Wood Wood coat that Hannah had bought him last Christmas. He reached for the CCTV screen-prints he’d picked up from the station before heading down here. “Drive a car, Andrew?”

Andrew narrowed his eyes. “Yes. I… Well. It’s been in for service—”

“A silver Ka?”

Shuffling of Andrew’s feet. “Yes. That’s… I do have a silver Ka, yes.”

Brian looked at Brad. Nodded. Smiled at him. “He does drive a silver Ka then.”

“Glad to get that cleared up,” Brad said.

“Look, like I said, it—it’s been in service.”

“Is it in service now?”

Andrew’s eyelids twitched as he stared at Brian. “No. It’s… I got it back this morning.”

“Convenient,” Brad said.

“Very convenient,” Brian echoed.

Andrew kept on looking at them in either fear or confusion, realistically both.

“When did it go in for service?” Brian asked.

Andrew scratched the back of his neck again. Puffed out his lips and peered into the distance. “Um, Monday. A week ago.”

“Heck of a long time for a car service,” Brad said.

“Couple of nights before your little date with Jean Betts?” Brian asked.

Andrew nodded.

“Is that why you were on a bike?”

Andrew nodded again.

Brian pulled the CCTV stills out of his inside pocket. Placed them in Andrew’s cold hands.

“This is what we need explaining. Last night, these stills are from. Your car, outside the house of Harriet Johnson.”

Andrew squinted at them with definite confusion this time, whether feigned or real was beyond the question. “I… I don’t… this can’t be—”

“Do you know who Harriet Johnson is, Andrew?” Brad asked.

Andrew looked back up for a second. Shook his head.

“I’ll tell him, Brad. She was best friends with Janine Ainscough. Janine Ainscough is the third victim of this Eye Snatcher fella we’ve got on the loose.” He turned the photographs over in Andrew’s limp hands. “Take a look at this image. This is the interesting one.”

Andrew looked.

It was the still of Janine Ainscough disappearing off the camera into the blind spot on Long Lane.

“See the front of the car at the bottom?”

Andrew diverted his eyes. The colour was draining from his cheeks. He moved his mouth as if to speak, but he couldn’t find the words.

“A silver Ka, believe it or not.”

“
Your
silver Ka,” Brad added. “You know. That one you picked up from its convenient week long servicing this morning.”

“This is wrong,” Andrew said.

“Yes,” Brian said. “It is wrong. What’s this place where your Ka got serviced called anyway?”

Andrew blinked a few times. Croaky voice hesitated. “Ahh, Galaxy. Galaxy Mechanics over at—at Whittingham.”

“So if we ring Galaxy up and ask about this car, they’ll be able to confirm that this car was in their garage for a whole week?”

Andrew’s eyes were glassy, distant. “Someone’s… this is a set up. I swear it’s a set up.”

Brad patted Andrew on the back. “Of course it is. Of course. The number for Galaxy, please?”

“It’s happening again,” Andrew blubbered. Tears were streaming down his cheeks. “Just… just like it happened before. It’s happening again. I swear I—”

“The number for Galaxy,” Brian said, sternly.

Andrew gave them the number. Brad wandered down the first few steps, called Galaxy up. Brian stood with Andrew as he cried. He looked a man defeated. A man caught.

“I should never have gone there,” Andrew said. “I should never have gone there.”

Brian kicked some stones off the concrete steps in front of Andrew’s house. “Gone where?”

Andrew’s lips quivered. “Three years ago. Damien. Damien Halshaw. His… his dad. He… He said he’d ruin me. He said he’d ruin me for what I’d done with his son if I ever… But nothing happened against Damien’s will. I swear nothing—”

“Brian,” Brad said.

Brian turned around. Brad had his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. Rain sprinkled down on him.

“No record of the silver Ka ever being serviced at Galaxy,” he said.

When Brian turned around to arrest him, Andrew Wilkinson didn’t even look surprised.

He just looked like he’d seen a monster that he always knew was hiding in the closet for the very first time.

Brian pressed record and commenced the interview on Andrew Wilkinson.

“Andrew Wilkinson, being interviewed on suspicion of the murders of Sam Betts, Beth Turner and Janine Ainscough—”

“I didn’t kill those kids,” Andrew Wilkinson spat.

They sat in the grey-walled interview room. The blinds were partly open, so Brian could see officers peeking in for their first look at the Eye Snatcher. In the interview room with him was Detective Inspector Samantha Carter. She was good at this interviewing business, so it helped to have her present.

Andrew Wilkinson was wearing the same white V-neck T-shirt and slim-fit jogging bottoms he’d had on when Brian had dragged him away from his house. A pair of tartan slippers wrapped around his feet. He looked rough, his eyes puffy and his nostrils streaming. Hardly what Brian expected a cold, brutal child murderer to look like, but often criminals like this were the most unexpected.

Brian leafed through a few of the CCTV shots of Andrew’s silver Ka. Then the ones of him on his bicycle as he went to get “wine” that night he was at Jean Betts’. “Galaxy Mechanics are pretty insistent you aren’t on their records. And yet you claim you sent the silver Ka in for servicing for a whole week. A whole week, that just so happened to be the whole week these murders took place. Why is that?”

Andrew Wilkinson shook his head. Stared intently at Brian, like a kid about to be beaten up bargaining with his captors. “I did not kill Sam Betts or any of the other kids. I swear to you. I’ve nothing to do with—”

“We’re searching the Ka now,” Samantha cut in. She leaned across the table. “We’re searching it for DNA. We’re also checking all the CCTV we can to confirm whether you were in fact trawling the city in that car when you said it was in for servicing.”

“And how about the CCTV at Galaxy?” Andrew shot back. “You’re looking at that, right? Then you’ll see my car was there.”

“Actually,” Brian said. He flicked over a few of the print-offs he’d been handed upon his return to the station. “There’s no trace of your car at Galaxy at all. No trace of it being repaired. It wasn’t there, Andrew.”

Andrew looked at the plastic table. Complete defeat covered his face. He looked broken beyond repair. “I knew it was gonna come to this. One day, I… I just never really accepted it’d reach this point.”

“What?” Carter said. “You’re killing sprees? Little eye-scoopings? Never thought you’d have it in you?”

“I want my lawyer,” Andrew said.

“Your lawyer’s on the way,” Brian said. “You say you never accepted something would reach this point. What are you referring to?”

Andrew looked up at Brian. The look in his eyes, it was like he was stuck in the middle of the ocean and he’d just been thrown a line, albeit a line that was still so far away. “I… He said they’d punish me for this. Said I’d… I’d never get away with what I saw.”

“Do you have an alibi for the days of Beth Turner and Janine Ainscough’s murders?” Samantha cut in.

Andrew opened his mouth. Looked like he had an answer ready, and then just sighed and let the strength drift from his body. He shook his head.

Brian wasn’t sure about this guy’s attitude. Something about it made him feel deeply uncomfortable. Usually, people in his position would be fighting to the death to prove their innocence. And sure, it had started as that with Andrew Wilkinson—he’d certainly had more fight when they’d first met him, that time he’d fled Jean Betts’ house, hidden in the Marriot.