Kissing the Demons (24 page)

Joe felt his heart sink with disappointment. ‘You've thrown them away?'

‘Why? Do you think they're important?'

‘Pet definitely wrote down some addresses?'

‘Yes. But I didn't think the stuff was worth keeping.' He thought for a moment. ‘They might still be in the recycling. I'll have a look when I get home if you like.'

‘That'd be great.' Joe handed over his card. ‘You'll call me if you find them?'

‘Sure.' Paolo yawned. ‘Sorry, but I'm going home to get some kip before the evening rush.'

‘Where do you live?'

‘I've got a place near Queen's Square. Very handy.'

‘Very,' said Joe, his mind working overtime. ‘Where were you last Saturday night around eleven thirty?'

‘On a Saturday I usually leave here around eleven thirty. I'd probably be on my way home.'

‘And last night?'

‘I was here all night . . . left around ten thirty. We close up a bit earlier on week nights.' Paolo stood up. ‘If that's all, I'd better get out there and see if I've got a kitchen left.'

Joe knew when he was being dismissed. As he walked out of the restaurant it struck him that Paolo had shown little curiosity about how Pet had died.

Perhaps that was because he'd known all about it already.

Joe was on his way back to the police station when his mobile phone rang. He checked the number and his heart sank. Kirsten.

He stared at the phone for a few seconds then he cut off the call. He didn't have time for her right now.

His only consolation was that, as far as he knew, she was over two hundred miles away in the West Country.

He walked on past the Museum Gardens trying to focus his mind on the case. Was it a coincidence that Pet had been murdered so soon after she began investigating her mother's disappearance? He didn't believe in coincidences. And neither, he knew, did Emily.

When he arrived in the office he opened his desk drawer and took out the photograph Andy Cassidy had lent him, the one of the Yorkshire Schools and Youth schoolboys on their summer camp. He made a search of his desk and eventually he found a magnifying glass at the back of the bottom drawer.

He began to study the immature, earnest faces in the photograph. Cassidy was there standing by a much slimmer Den Harvey; two men with such different lives but united by a common youthful experience. Or were they united by another kind of experience – the act of murder?

His eyes were drawn to the other figures on the edge of the picture, at the side of the wooden hut sitting on the grass near to the posed group. There was something vaguely familiar about one of them but, like the film of Jade Portright, the image would need enhancing. This would be another job for Scientific Support and he just hoped the budget would stand it.

After putting the photo to one side, he began to search his in tray for the still image of the person who'd been watching Jade from the bushes and the arm that was pushing back the foliage. When he found it he placed it squarely on the desk in front of him. He stared at it as he'd stared at the YSY picture, seeking inspiration. Only this time it finally came. It really was so obvious and he cursed his own stupidity.

Emily timed her entrance well. She hurried into the office looking stressed and solemn and Joe followed her into her office, armed with the photo, hoping what he had to tell her would cheer her up.

‘Come in, Joe. Tell me some good news. You've cleared up the case and the murderer's down in the interview room just waiting to be charged.'

Joe smiled dutifully. ‘Not exactly, boss. But I know who was watching Jade Portright from the bushes.'

He handed her the picture and the magnifying glass. ‘Look at the arm parting the bushes. That's a tattoo. Portright's got a tattoo exactly like that.'

‘So why didn't he say it was him when we showed him the picture?'

‘Good question. Why didn't he want us to know he'd been watching his own daughter and her friend?'

‘Messing about in bikinis.'

Their eyes met in understanding.

‘Have we just got dirty minds, Joe, or . . .'

‘I think we've just hit on a possible reason why Jade would want to disappear.'

‘But what about Nerys?'

‘Perhaps we'd better have another word with her family.' He paused. ‘There is another possibility of course.'

Emily looked away. ‘That Portright tried it on with both girls and things got out of hand. But that doesn't explain why he says he saw Jade.'

‘He could be trying to put us off the scent. If he did harm the girls it must have really put the wind up him when the case was reopened.'

Emily yawned. She looked tired. ‘Did you find Paolo Jones?'

‘Yes. Pet went looking for him. She was trying to trace her mother. Helen Ferribie stayed with him for a while when she came up to Eborby but then she got her own place and they lost touch. I really don't think he knows anything but Helen left some papers at his place – mostly details about houses and flats she was looking at. He showed them to Pet and she wrote down some details. He's going to try and dig them out of the recycling for me. But I'm not hopeful that they'll be any help.'

‘A dead end then.'

‘Looks like it.'

There was a knock on the open door and Joe looked up to see Jamilla standing there. She looked serious. ‘They've traced Anna's parents in Poland, ma'am,' she said. ‘They'll be coming in on the next flight to Manchester.'

When Joe looked at Emily she turned away.

Zepper's hand hovered over the telephone. He could feel it shaking and he told himself to keep calm.

He picked up the receiver and dialled Cassidy's number. He didn't altogether trust Cassidy but he had little choice in the matter.

Cassidy picked up after the fourth ring and said a wary hello.

‘I've got Pet's notebook. I think we should meet.'

There was a long silence at the other end of the line. Then Cassidy spoke. ‘It's difficult at the moment. Anna's dead.'

‘She wasn't the girl near the hospital . . . ?'

‘Yes. They say it's the same killer.'

It was Zepper's turn to fall silent. He knew he had to choose his words carefully.

‘Pet went into a lot of detail,' he said after a few moments. ‘And it doesn't make either of us look good.'

‘Are you going to take it to the police?'

‘I don't know.'

‘Maybe you should tell them about it. It might get them off our backs.'

‘What exactly does kissing the demons mean?'

When Andy Cassidy slammed the phone down, Zepper was left listening to the dialling tone droning away like an angry wasp.

EIGHTEEN

M
att lay in bed listening to the noises, the scraping and thumps that seemed to come from the ceiling above him. He glanced at the glowing red numbers of his alarm clock. Twenty past midnight.

Before he'd put the light out he'd lain there on his back, staring at the cracks on the dirty white ceiling. Those cracks certainly seemed to have grown since he'd looked up at them the previous night. It was as if something was up there, weighing on the joists. And he hardly liked to think what that something could be.

He knew Jason and Caro had heard the sounds too but Jason made a joke of it, saying that it was old Obediah come back to haunt the place. Caro dismissed it as sounds from next door. But the Quillans didn't seem the type to be shifting things around in the loft at midnight. Jackie Quillan looked like the sort of woman who'd panic if she broke a nail. And Rory always looked clean and immaculate. Besides, the activity wasn't in their loft. It was directly above Matt's room.

Matt had found George Merryweather's visit earlier that day reassuring and the fact that Caro and Jason hadn't been in had come as a relief. The last thing he'd needed was their scepticism. He hadn't really known what to expect when George did his bit; thunder and lightning, green vomit, screaming spectres or nothing at all. The reality had been closer to the latter but he did feel that the place seemed a little less hostile now. Or maybe that was just his imagination.

He recalled the prayer George had recited. Visit this place, oh Lord, and drive from it the snares of the enemy. He liked those words, ‘snares of the enemy'. Number thirteen seemed full of them. But he wasn't quite sure whether the enemy in question was spirit or flesh and blood.

The noises were louder now as though something was being dragged across the ceiling above him. Matt covered his ears with his pillow but he could still hear it . . . shuffling and speaking in wordless whispers. Was it old Obediah in eternal torment, dragging the corpses of his victims across the floor? Or was it the dead clawing their way out of purgatory? He slipped beneath the duvet and shut his eyes tight, trying to summon the courage to get up and go downstairs. But that's where it had happened so maybe the terror would be even stronger down there.

He heard a crack, almost like a muffled gunshot, and he peeped out from the duvet, lying quite still. Something was in the room with him. Something unpleasant.

As he began to wriggle one hand towards the bedside light, there was a loud crash and something heavy hit the bed.

He jerked his body up and scrabbled for the light, and as his hand hit the switch the lamp fell over and lay on its side, its feeble bulb illuminating the scene. Above him through billowing clouds of dust he could see a yawning black hole in the ceiling. And he knew that someone or something was moving up there.

Then his eyes travelled down to the bed where a black bin bag lay, grey with powdery dust, weighing down his lower leg. The bag had split open and he could see something inside. Something that looked like matted hair.

Matt opened his mouth to call out but instead the sudden intake of dust into his lungs made him cough uncontrollably. He pulled his legs from under the bag and covered his mouth but the movement caused the bag to shift and the black plastic opened wider to reveal the thing inside.

He stared, horrified, at the mummified head with long, dusty brown hair clinging to the skull and brittle, desiccated flesh pulled back to show a set of grinning teeth.

Then he leapt from the bed and rushed out on to the landing as if the devil himself was after him, unaware of the murmuring voices in the roof space above.

Joe was asleep when the phone by his bed rang just before one in the morning. He had been dreaming about Kirsten. He had come across her body in undergrowth. She had been stabbed and her tongue had been hacked out like Pet Ferribie's, silencing her accusations for ever. While he had been bending over her body her eyes had flicked open and she had sat up, staring at him with dumb hatred. Then a fire alarm had gone off somewhere and he'd woken up to realize that it was the telephone. For once he was glad to have his sleep disturbed. It hadn't been a good dream.

It was Emily. She sounded as tired as he felt. ‘A body's been found at thirteen Torland Place.'

Joe sat up, suddenly wide awake. ‘One of the students?'

There was a pause. ‘You're not going to believe this, Joe, but a bin bag containing a mummified body has just fallen through the ceiling in Matt Bawtry's room. Frightened the life out of the poor lad.'

Joe swore softly under his breath. He knew student houses could be pretty unsanitary but desiccated corpses in the attic seemed to be taking things a bit far.

‘I've said we'd get down there,' Emily continued. ‘Apparently the students are in a bit of a state.'

‘Any idea who the corpse is?'

‘Not yet. But the attic was sealed off on the students' side and the party wall up there had been partially knocked through. Next door were using it to store God knows what . . . including mummified corpses.'

‘There's more than one?'

‘They're still conducting a search. They've arrested the couple next door, by the way. The Quillans.'

‘Then we'd better have a word with them.' Joe yawned. The initial rush of adrenalin was wearing off but he forced himself out of bed and stumbled towards the chair where his clothes lay in an untidy heap, cradling the phone between his shoulder and his ear as he reached for his trousers.

‘And there's something else. A black BMW was spotted driving away from the Quillan's. All the traffic cameras in the area are being checked to see if we can get the registration number. A patrol car's coming round to get you in ten minutes so get your clothes on. And Joe . . .'

‘What?'

‘Doesn't Barrington Jenks drive a black BMW?'

Joe didn't answer. He was too busy buttoning up his shirt.

Both thirteen and fifteen Torland Place had been sealed off with police tape and when Joe arrived the scene was alive with activity.

When Emily met him at the door to number thirteen, she informed him that the Quillans were still next door under the guard of a couple of uniformed constables. She'd considered having them taken to the police station but she reckoned that they might be more talkative if they were there on the scene with the incontrovertible evidence. The students, too, were still in number thirteen, huddled together in the living room as if for comfort.

Joe made straight for the living room with Emily following behind. Matt, Caro and Jason were sitting around the table in their dressing gowns, empty mugs in front of them.

‘I'll put the kettle on again,' Caro said, making for the kitchen.

Matt gave her a grateful nod. He looked as if he was in shock and Joe reckoned he needed something stronger than tea.