Kissing the Demons (18 page)

There was no entry for Den Harvey and the rest of the names in the book meant nothing to Joe, apart from the one under D for Dad. Pet's mum, so he'd been told, had disappeared when she was young, and had never attempted to contact her daughter again. Her stepmother, Jane Ferribie's mobile number was there but no address.

When he reached the back of the book something caught his eye. It was written in bold capital letters on the inside of the back cover. ‘Paolo GP'. He stared at it for a while before handing the book back to Jamilla.

‘Any idea who Paolo is? No address or phone number, just GP by the name.'

‘A doctor perhaps?'

‘Check if there's a GP called Paolo in the area, will you? Or maybe her father will be able to throw some light on it when he gets here. When I go to Torland Place I'll see if her housemates can tell me anything about it.'

Before he left the office, he asked one of the younger DCs to go through any available CCTV footage of the Fleshambles area at the relevant time. Pet's body had been moved. And if they were really lucky, the whole thing might have been caught on camera. But he wasn't getting his hopes up.

Caro hadn't been sleeping well. She tried to tell herself that it was Pet's murder that was making her jumpy but she knew that the real cause was that stupid seance and its aftermath.

Each night she lay awake in the darkness listening to the sounds. They seemed to be coming from somewhere above her, maybe in the sealed off loft they'd never been able to access. It didn't sound like birds; the sort of birds that nested in lofts didn't drag things around.

She had never been the imaginative type but recent events had changed all that. Everything seemed to have changed since Obediah Shrowton entered their lives.

When she heard the door bell ring she made her way downstairs. There was a shadow behind the stained glass of the front door and somehow she knew it was the police. But after Pet's murder, it was hardly surprising that they wouldn't leave them alone.

She opened the door. It was DI Plantagenet and he was smiling apologetically. ‘I know you must be getting fed up with us but I'm afraid I need to speak to you again.'

Caro stepped aside to let him in. And then she turned and saw Matt standing in the living room doorway.

‘I wanted to thank you for those photographs of the party,' Joe said.

‘No problem.' Caro replied.

‘We're still trying to identify that person dressed as the Grim Reaper.

‘We've asked around but nobody knows who it was.' Caro hesitated. She'd kept her suspicions to herself for far too long for fear of making a fool of herself. ‘I thought it might be Pet's tutor, Ian Zepper.'

‘What made you think that?'

‘Well she had a bit of thing for him and she was going to live in a flat in his house next year. The Grim Reaper – I don't know what else to call him – seemed to be watching her and I just thought she might have invited him, that's all.'

‘Why didn't you say you thought it was him?' Matt spoke for the first time.

‘Because I'm not sure. I didn't want to accuse someone who might be innocent.

‘Dr Zepper says he wasn't at the party.'

‘Then it wasn't him,' said Caro.

‘There's something I'd like to ask you both. Have you ever heard Pet mention the name Paolo?'

Matt and Caro shook their heads.

‘He might be a doctor – a GP?'

‘We go to the university medical centre and I'm pretty sure there's no Paolo there.'

‘Matt, I know we've gone over this before but have you remembered any more about that last phone call you made to Pet's number?'

Matt frowned. ‘I've told you . . . it sounded like ‘please . . . no.' Then there was a sort of . . .' He wrinkled his face in concentration, trying to find the right words. Then he made a noise, a cross between a gasp and a yelp. ‘Look, it was over so quickly. I've gone over and over it in my head but that's all I remember.'

‘Did you hear anything in the background?'

‘Like what?'

‘A voice, music, traffic. Anything.'

Matt shook his head. ‘No, like I said the call only lasted a few seconds.'

Caro suddenly felt a wave of irritation. ‘Look, why do you keep asking us all these questions? You should be out looking for whoever she met last Saturday. That's when she disappeared.'

‘Following the Waits like that woman in the story,' Matt said softly.

‘What's this?' Joe asked.

‘It's just an old ghost story. A beautiful woman used to follow the Waits when they played in Queen's Square. When they moved off towards Stone Street she just vanished.'

‘Eborby's got ghosts coming out of every orifice,' Caro said, annoyed with Matt for muddying the waters. ‘Crap for the tourists.' She looked round for support but she couldn't read Matt's expression. He looked as if he was in a world of his own. A world where Pet might vanish and then reappear.

Once the DI had left, Matt went upstairs and Caro returned to her own room to settle down to work. A hefty dose of economic theory would dispel the demons that seemed to have moved into number thirteen since the day Pet disappeared. Or perhaps they had been there long before that, listening behind the battered skirting boards, hiding in crevices, stirring up trouble, disturbing the peace.

However, as soon as she'd sat down at her desk and opened her file, the door to her bedroom burst open and when she looked up she saw Jason standing there, breathless, as though he'd run up the stairs.

‘I've just seen him.'

‘Who?'

‘Zepper. I asked him straight. Was it you dressed as the Grim Reaper?'

Caro stood up. This was something she needed to hear. ‘And?'

‘He denied it. Have the police checked his alibi?'

‘Probably. Just leave it to them now.' She took a paper from her file, hoping Jason would take the hint that the conversation was at an end. But, on the other hand she couldn't ignore the fact that the Grim Reaper had been there, scythe and all. It had to be someone . . . and probably someone they knew. Caro had asked around everyone who'd been there but nobody had been able to throw any light on the mystery.

If she didn't change the subject, she knew Jason would go on and on about it, worrying at the subject like a dog with a bone. And she was getting heartily sick of thinking about Pet's murder. Pet had irritated her in life and she was continuing to do so in death.

Jason turned to go. But Caro had a question.

‘Have you ever heard weird noises from the loft . . . as though someone's up there?'

‘I thought it was pigeons.'

‘It's not birds.'

‘Well we can't get up there to have a look cause the entrance is sealed up.'

‘Which is odd, don't you think? I mean the water tanks must be up there and . . .'

Jason's eyes lit up as though he'd suddenly been struck by a brilliant idea. ‘Why don't we have another seance? We can try and get in touch with Pet. She can tell us who killed her.'

‘That's sick. Now piss off and leave me alone. I've got work to do.'

‘Mind old Obediah doesn't get you in the night,' Jason said with a chuckle as he stalked off down the landing, leaving Caro's door wide open.

The black cloth lay in the bottom of the incinerator, licked here and there by orange tongues of flame. Soon the cloth would be reduced to a pile of grey but the mask and the scythe were more problematic. Plastic melts and leaves a sticky mess that, once cool, solidifies into a mutilated residue. But the remains could be buried in a place where nobody would think to look, all evidence destroyed.

Death gave the fire a hard prod with an old wooden stake. It was almost time to kill again. But he had no need of a uniform to complete the task.

FOURTEEN

T
here had been a time when Joe had enjoyed solitude. When he'd just left university a life of spiritual contemplation had seemed so attractive. The peace, the connection with the eternal, the chance to consider the great questions of life. But love and age had altered everything and since he and Maddy had decided on an amicable parting, the thought of returning to his silent flat each night depressed him a little.

He thought of Emily with her chaotic home life. She moaned about it sometimes, saying that juggling her priorities left her exhausted. But as he entered his narrow hallway, he would have done anything to exchange places with her.

He heard the phone ring and he froze for a few seconds before picking up the receiver.

It was her. But some instinct had told him that already.

He took a deep breath. ‘Kirsten. What can I do for you this time?'

‘I'm in Devon.'

‘And?'

‘I'm going to ask the police down here to reopen the case.'

‘You need evidence to do that.'

‘I'll get it. I hear that you've been living with another woman. You never mentioned her.'

‘That's because it's none of your business.' He suddenly realized that he sounded too defensive – as though he had something to hide.

‘You haven't killed her as well, have you?'

‘We decided to go our separate ways and she's in London now. And I've never killed anyone.'

‘That's a lie.'

‘What do you want? I'm busy.'

‘I think I've found a witness.'

‘A witness to what?'

‘Wouldn't you like to know? I'll be in touch.'

He stood there listening to the dialling tone and wondering whether, if Kirsten had been standing there in front of him, he'd be tempted to commit murder. Are we all capable of the ultimate act of violence, given the right provocation? He'd known the answer once in his seminary days. Original sin. But now he lived in a world of doubts and he sometimes longed for the old certainties.

He needed to get Kirsten out of his head so once he'd eaten he took out his laptop. Before her call something had been nagging at the back of his mind and when he typed in the name Obediah Shrowton he was surprised by the number of sites dedicated to famous killers. The poor old policemen who brought them to justice didn't seem to be afforded any similar immortality, which struck him as rather unfair.

There were pages dedicated to Obediah and his dreadful deed but Joe clicked straight on to an account of the trial. He needed the facts without sensational additions.

Obediah Shrowton had been a devout and upright man and in that courtroom he had sworn on the Bible that he was innocent of all the charges laid against him. He never wavered from his story that he'd arrived home to find a dreadful scene of carnage and that he'd collapsed with shock after trying to revive the blood-covered victims, hoping one or more of them might still be alive.

But the thing that caught his attention particularly was Shrowton's assertion that before the murders he'd been receiving threats which he hadn't taken seriously. He also named the culprit in court: a young butcher called Jacob Caddy who had harassed his wife after she'd rejected his advances. Caddy, however, had been given an alibi by his mother and the police found no evidence against him. But then any potential witnesses to his alleged harassment had been hacked to death at number thirteen Valediction Street.

Joe closed the lid of the computer. Maybe it was wrong to leap to the obvious conclusions.

Cassidy had left the house without a word, leaving Anna seething with resentment as she always did when he treated her like a servant. When they had begun sleeping together she had assumed that her status in the house would rocket. But little had changed; she still worked and cooked while he made use of her.

She peeled another potato for that night's meal, comforting herself with various scenarios of revenge. She could steal his credit cards and take the train to Leeds where she could hit Harvey Nichols before he'd even know she'd gone.

Or, alternatively, she could make a bit of trouble for him. She'd seen him with the murdered girl, Pet. He had taken her into the drawing room, closing the door so that she couldn't overhear what they were saying or doing. She knew that he hadn't mentioned the girl's visit to the police, just as he hadn't told them about that man who sometimes called – the scruffy one who worked at the leisure centre where the girl's body had been found. There was a lot she could tell the police about Cassidy. But first she needed to check something out.

She abandoned the potatoes and helped herself to a glass of wine from the open bottle on the worktop. If Andy was arrested and put in prison, would she have this lovely house all to herself? She would have to use all her cunning but she was sure that she could manage it. After all, she'd be doing him a favour . . . looking after his property while he served a life sentence.

She put the glass down and picked up the phone. This would be easy.

Matt had never considered himself to be a violent man and he had never felt the temptation to hit anybody before. But when Jason had said that he wanted to get in touch with Pet to ask her who'd killed her, he'd lost control and landed a rather feeble punch on Jason's jaw. Jason had wanted to make her death into a silly parlour game. In Matt's opinion he should have showed more respect.

Jason had merely smiled that maddening, superior smile of his before accusing Matt of being scared of what Pet might say. Maybe he was the killer and he didn't want the truth to come out. Matt hadn't dignified this with a reply. But the fury he felt had surprised him. Perhaps he was capable of murder after all. He'd certainly felt like killing Jason that evening and the realization disturbed him. Then Jason had gone out with his guitar, saying he was going to do a bit of late night busking. Maybe he knew he'd pushed things too far.