Eye Snatcher (23 page)

Samantha’s smile flattened. She shook her head. “There was nothing in the van of the sort. I want to believe you, Bri. Trust me, I do. But I just…”

“You think I’m some kind of liar?”

“No. I just don’t think you know how to let go unless you get the answer you want to hear.”

Brian felt his cheeks heating up. He turned away from Carter, stared out of the passenger window. Maybe she had a point. Maybe he couldn’t let go. But he knew Andrew Wilkinson hadn’t killed those three children. Okay, the link between him and Sam Betts was a tad coincidental, and yes, his car was seen in the location Janine Ainscough had been kidnapped and murdered. But what about Beth Turner? The night she’d entered those Booths toilets, that was the same day Brian and Brad had visited him at the Marriot hotel swimming pool showers. Exercise enthusiast by day and child murderer by night?

Samantha sighed. “Maybe Andrew has an accomplice. Or maybe something else will show up. Knowing our luck in murder cases, it probably fucking will. But right now, we need to focus on the facts we have. Andrew Wilkinson is confessing to the murder of those three children—”

“Because his family were threatened. Threatened with violence.”

Carter raised her voice. “He’s confessing to the murder of those three children. And when somebody steps forward and owns up to something like that… Brian, you have to see it. You can’t take something like that lightly.”

Brian listened to the thumping rain, scraping away at his mind, and he stared out of the passenger window. “You should never have come got me from those woods. I was so close.”

Samantha puffed out her lips. “So close? Close to being fucking knifed—”

“They were about to tell me Damien Halshaw’s dad’s real identity.”

“In exchange for what?” Carter asked.

Brian looked at her now. Looked into her eyes. She knew that they must’ve bribed him in some way. Some not entirely legal way.

She nodded. Tapped her fingers against the steering wheel. “See, that’s the problem here. I’m worried about you. Worried that you’re making decisions that might seem good in the short term but are chaotic in the long term.”

“Whatever. You aren’t my boss.”

“No,” Carter said, raising her voice some more. “No I’m not. But thanks to me, two dangerous men are in custody. And for what it’s worth, they haven’t spoken a word about ‘Halshaw’ or anyone for that matter. As for Halshaw’s family—haven’t lived in Preston for years, and never filed a single complaint except for the one against that ruddy nonce Andrew Wilkinson. But anyway, if you’d just let those two men get away with their murders over the years, think about how many more people’s lives you’d be putting at risk down the line.”

Brian wafted his hand at Samantha. It didn’t surprise him that the two men, identified as Steve Linder and Jamie Holton, weren’t talking. “They were looking for a way out.”

“For how long?” Carter asked. “How long until the money ran out, until someone else came along with a nice little ‘disposal’ job for them, as you put it? How long before someone else died all because Brian McDone’s personal motivations came before the interests of a thorough police investigation once again?”

Brian’s jaw quivered. He wanted to shout at Samantha. Wanted to tell her to piss off, to get out of his face.

Instead, he shook his head and opened her car door.

“Where you off to?”

“Home,” Brian said. “Not sitting around listening to this.”

“Home? In what car?”

Brian leaned against the top of the car door. Remembered his car was in repairs after its tires were slashed and windows smashed some time after his capture. “I’ll get a bus.”

He slammed the door shut as hard as he could and walked off into the rain.

Anger coursed through his body as his jelly-like feet waded through the puddles of water. He tried to take in deep, steadying breaths of the cool autumn air, but whenever he did he was reminded of the smell of that black bag over his head when he’d been taken to the middle of the woods.

The taste of blood from Darren’s neck as it spurted over his face.

He kept his head down as he walked. Kept his head down as he made his way out of the police station car park, made his way towards the bus stop.

He knew this case wasn’t over. He knew that he couldn’t just let Andrew Wilkinson go down for something he hadn’t done. There were still avenues to check. Damien Halshaw’s dad. Galaxy—there needed to be a more thorough investigation of Galaxy. Darren couldn’t have hidden those tapes and service documents too far away. Andrew Wilkinson’s wife and kid, too—they had to know something, especially after the scare tactics Brian learned about just earlier. And even Steve Linder and Jamie Holton. Brian had to speak to them. Maybe he could strike a deal. Strike up some kind of understanding.

He sat on the damp seat of the bus stop. Smelled the familiar scent of fallen rain. His head hurt, as cars whooshed past and kicked up water. His stomach growled. He’d lost all sense of time, lost all sense of when it was he’d last even eaten.

He wanted to power on with the investigation. He wanted to go back into the station and get the truth out of Andrew Wilkinson.

But as the number four bus pulled up on the kerb and opened its doors, he knew he physically couldn’t.

He stood up. Stepped onto the bus, paid his money, went to a spare seat right at the back.

He sat down. Closed his eyes.

When the images of the events of the case filled his mind again, the images of Sam Betts and Beth Turner and Janine Ainscough and Patrick Selter’s studio and the blood from Darren’s neck, he opened his eyes.

There was no respite, not even in darkness.

It didn’t take Brian long to realise he’d taken the longest possible frigging bus route back home, but he didn’t mind. It gave him time to be alone. To not have to talk about anyone or anything.

The bus was relatively empty. There was an old man a few seats down in a grey cardigan who reeked of piss. It would usually bother Brian, but with the things he’d seen, smelled in this current Eye Snatcher case, a bit of a pissy smell was nothing.

Brian watched the sun make its final descent outside the window as the bus drove down Long Lane, right near where Janine Ainscough was found. Shitting hell. If he’d known this bus went past this place, which he was doing his best to etch out of his memory, he’d have got a direct route after all.

The bus went fast, bumping over the potholed road and making Brian’s head sting even more. But stinging was okay. Stinging was better than thinking. Because all he could think about right now was the case, the things he’d seen on the case. He couldn’t think of home—there was the issue of Hannah’s pregnancy to discuss, so that was hardly a respite from work.

The bus took a left. Drove up the A6. Drove past Ashton, past where Adrian West used to sit in his short trousers and bright socks and stare at the kids in the school opposite. Brian leaned his head against the window and looked out at the subway, a reminder of all the winding roads the case had taken, only to end up here: with someone Brian didn’t believe guilty confessing their involvement in three murders.

He wanted to close his eyes and block out at the reminders outside his window, but he knew the images in his mind were much, much worse. So he just kept on leaning against that window. Kept on letting the bumpy roads shake him in his seat, knock his head against the glass. Kept on staring, distant, vacant, rattled.

The bus took another right. Headed away from Ashton and down the road to where Booths was. Brian’s stomach turned when he saw that Booths. The very Booths that Beth Turner was found butchered in. By the lack of lights, the place still hadn’t reopened. He wasn’t sure anyone would want to go there again anyway.

Beth Turner. There was something about her. Something different to the other kids, something unique. She’d been with Patrick Selter. Something had happened. She’d got the bus to Booths, or to somewhere. Gone into the Booths toilets to see Patrick Selter, to meet him about something. A vow of silence? Patrick had said something about ditching her coat in a panic.

So what had happened in those toilets? What had happened in that half an hour? What had changed?

Brian felt like he was on the verge of his thoughts clicking together when he realised where he was. The pitch black country lane, Westhaven Road, where Sam Betts lived.

The bus flew past the dirt track entrance.

A chill came over Brian. He had a rush of thoughts, but none of them were comprehendible, as he sat there as a passenger in this piss-reeking bus. He took a few steady breaths. Tried to calm himself. Tried to ease his racing heart.

Beth Turner had told her parents the bus had broken down.

Brian stood up. Used the poles as monkey-bars to work his way down to the driver’s cabin.

The bus went from town, down Long Lane, around Ashton, by Booths, down Westhaven Road…

“Excuse me?” Brian said.

The fat, bald bus driver glanced at him over the top of his glasses. “Missed your stop. Another one up the road in a sec.”

“That’s alright,” Brian said, shaking his head. “I actually just… this bus. Did it break down last Friday at all?”

Bus driver frowned. Had another glance at Brian as the bus rocked from side to side. “Did, yeah. Around ‘ere, actually.”

A mixture of excitement and dread pumped through Brian’s body. “Right by the… by the farm track?”

Bus driver nodded. “About tennish, it musta been. Absolute worst place for a bus to break down. Luckily ‘ardly anyone was on. Just some girl.”

The excitement grew more acute, the dread more sickly. Brian had a million questions, but he could only get a grasp on one of them at a time. “What… what time’s the latest bus?”

The bus driver whistled and glanced at his watch. “Don’t ‘ave to worry about that yet. We run ‘til midnight.”

Brian thought back to Harri Johnson. She’d told the police she was out playing with Janine Ainscough and her friends around eleven-thirty.

Eleven-thirty was when the bus four went down Long Lane.

“Do you keep CCTV on these buses?” Brian asked.

The driver looked at Brian a bit longer this time. Peered at him, glassy-eyed. “Why? Should I be worried about you doin’ summat?”

Brian looked away. Shook his head. “I just—”

“We ‘ave to, what with the New Blue Brook nutters getting on this bus. Sorry, shouldn’t call ‘um nutters. What’s the PC term for nutters?”

Brian didn’t respond because he was frozen.

New Blue Brook.

“Anyway, pal, gonna have to ask you to sit down. Procedure when there’s seats available, that sorta thing.”

Brian heard the driver’s words but he didn’t register them.

He saw the glowing white lights of New Blue Brook Hospital approaching in the distance.

He watched as the bus passed by it. Passed by it, like it passed by Long Lane, like it passed by Booths, like it passed by the dirt track.

And in his mind, he saw a man dressed in a black suit sat on a bench, the only brightness on offer those of his blue socks and his bright red tie.

Adrian West.

Feigning psychopathy was a tiring ordeal, but it was a small price to pay for security.

Adrian West sat in the trees opposite the Fulwood Grasshoppers Rugby Club. It was a cold night, so he’d been sure to put on two coats, two layers. Not that he didn’t always wear two layers when he was kidnapping someone. Always helped to have a change of clothes when there was the risk of blood being spilled.

Across the road, outside of the jet-black darkness of the trees, Adrian watched as people emerged from the Guild Wheel cycling and walking track. Watched as men and their wives cycled out. As teenagers, a little younger than the adults, but not young enough, zoomed out of the exit.

He waited for his moment. Waited for a child. A child, all on their own.

He was growing thirsty.

He checked his watch. Half eight. If he was lucky, he’d be able to nab a kid some time in the next half hour. Take them through into the woods, have his fun with them. Ditch them at the opposite side of the golf course. All in time for the final bus four to loop him back round to New Blue Brook Hospital, for the soft bastards behind the counter to roll their eyes and nod their heads as he entered, late again.

He felt his hands shaking as he focused on the opening of the cycle path at the other side of the busy Lightfoot Lane. He didn’t like rushing his time with his victims. He preferred to spend days with them, like he had with Sam Betts. Days of extreme pain, extreme agony. But extreme release for him, nobody even batting an eyelid. That was perfection.

That was heaven.

But the kidnappings were growing harder now. Sam Betts was one of a kind. He was loved, for one. Not like the others he used to capture. He was loved, and therefore that meant that the police would be hot on Adrian’s tail.

But killing someone like that. Disembowelling them while they stared up at him, tears in their little eyes.

Taking out those little eyes…

It sparked a light inside him. A new urge for uncharted territory.

And that’s what brought Beth Turner into the mix.

He breathed out slowly, watched the cloud of air from his lungs emerge like smoke from a chimney. He kept on looking across the road, the smells of gasoline and awful manmade constructions clogging up the air. Beth Turner was an accident. A lucky accident. He’d watched her get off that bus four when it broke down around the very dirt track he’d taken Sam Betts from so easily—watched her from the back of the bus.

And then he’d got off at the next stop. Unable to fight the urge. Unable to beat it.

But then he’d seen something. He’d seen someone—the Selter lad, horrible pervert—with his hands all over her. And her face, the look on her face like she was enjoying it. Little slut.

So he’d gone in there and he’d showed her what enjoyment was and okay, okay, maybe he’d gone too far, maybe he shouldn’t have blabbered about what he’d done to Sam Betts and maybe he shouldn’t have cut her so he’d panicked and…

Well. Patrick and Beth had kissed and made up. Arranged to meet at Booths to talk it out. To discuss what they were going to do. To discuss the police.