Buried Slaughter (23 page)

“My beautiful, beautiful little girl,” Darren said. He touched the screen and slid his fingers down it.

Brian didn’t move a muscle. He hadn’t finished with Darren Anderson, not yet. The video, and the date. 1/6/2012. It had to hold some sort of significance. “Did something…‌happen to your family that day? Something that might’ve…‌might’ve driven you to do some nasty things?”

As Brian spoke, he started to form a better picture in his head of what might have happened. All this time, David Wallson, the police, himself‌—‌they’d all been following the 1612 Pendle Witch massacre lead. They’d linked the amount of money paid with the year of the Pendle Witch massacre. And sure, the links had been there. The killing locations matching the Pendle Witch trial locations. Murder weapon.

But right now, with Darren sitting on his knees in front of a television screen, struggling to focus through inebriation, Brian didn’t see a man who was trying to dig up the 17
^th
Century to tell a contemporary tale. He saw a father filled with grief. A father who had something horrible happen to him on the 1
^st
June 2012, and who had used the Pendle Witch links to throw the police‌—‌throw everyone‌—‌off course.

And still, Brian didn’t understand why.

After a few moments of silence, DS Carter crouched down beside DS Molfer, who was wincing and panting with pain. Darren Anderson turned to look at Brian. His eyes weren’t clouded over anymore. They stared at him with a burning intensity and focus. “Don’t you see him? The man who took my family away? The man who took my family away and…‌and promised me? He promised me.” He tapped the gun at the screen, each tap getting harder and harder until the glass started to crack.

Before the screen cut out, Brian thought he did see somebody in the background of the video, dressed all in black. But he didn’t have much chance to focus because Darren’s gun smashed through the scene, causing the television set to spark with electricity.

Brian gulped and backed away, raising his hands again. “You have to let us go now, Darren. There’s a man with us here who isn’t well at all. And we don’t want to hurt you. We want to understand. We know you paid Phil Mcphee to steal that medieval blade. We know you’re holding the weapon you shot your fellow workers with. We know why you were so scared of media coverage, in case anybody you’d paid off or blackmailed recognised your face. But please. Why me? Why my sister-in-law? What have we ever done to you?”

Darren pointed the gun at Brian’s chest. His hand wasn’t shaking anymore. He wasn’t staggering. He was focused. He knew exactly what he was doing.

“Please, Darren,” Brian said.

“We have to hurry,” DS Carter said. She was holding Stephen’s head, supporting his body as blood oozed out of his leg. His eyes had closed and his muscles had relaxed. They had to get him to a hospital. Fast.

“What is it?” Brian asked, his heart racing. He felt like he was staring death in the face‌—‌a feeling he’d experienced far too many times in his life. “Darren, speak to me. Please. Tell me.”

A tear dripped down Darren’s cheek. “What have you ever done to me? You
did
this to me. You caused this…‌all of you. I wish…‌” He sniffed. The gun wobbled again. “I wish there was another way. A better way. But this is the only way. I see it now. I see it. I’m sorry.”

In what seemed like slow motion, Darren turned the gun away from Brian and shoved it in his own mouth.

Before he closed his red, tear-filled eyes, he mumbled something inaudible that Brian couldn’t make out.

“No, Darren!” Brian shouted.

But it was too late.

A loud gunshot rattled through the room, echoing in Brian’s ears.

Darren Anderson’s body slumped to the floor. The bottom half of his head was all that remained, fragments of bone having torn through his flesh, a large red crater of mashed brain and skull where his head once was. Blood had splattered across the wall behind him, thick and red. Some of the warm blood had splashed onto Brian’s face, too.

“Fuck,” Brian said. It was all he could manage. He couldn’t think straight. He couldn’t quite understand what had just happened. “Fuck.”

Brian sat back in the grey plastic chair and stared up at the ceiling. He had to squint a little, as the white tiles, white floor and beaming white light were overpowering for his tender eyes, especially after what they’d just seen a matter of hours earlier.

“D’you think he’s going to be okay?”

Brian looked to his side. DS Carter was in the plastic seat beside him in the waiting area of the hospital. Nurses rushed past, dressed in white uniforms, clipboards in hands. Ageing patients pushed themselves along on support frames, struggling their way to the toilets. A disinfectant stench was ripe in the air. Hospitals really were grim places.

DS Carter sighed, staring up at the light. From this side, the mole above her lip was barely visible. Not that it was off-putting in any way‌—‌she was a very attractive young woman. She played with her dark brown hair, and looked deep in thought and contemplation. “I mean…‌A gunshot to the leg. And the amount of time it took us to get him to‌—‌”

“He’s a tough bastard,” Brian said. He barely believed he’d be saying such words about Detective Sergeant Stephen Molfer, but times had changed. Circumstances had changed. Molfer had believed in him and put his job on the line to locate the truth of the “Harold Harvey II” case. The truth of which lay with Darren Anderson.

Who lay on a slab, half of his face blown into oblivion.

“I spoke to DI Marlow earlier,” DS Carter added, squeezing a Softmint out of its wrapper. She offered one to Brian, but he refused. “He says we’re in serious trouble. For breaching our duties. You shouldn’t even be here right now, not on Marlow’s orders, anyway. But he seems a little lenient now we’ve…‌well. Sort of caught Darren Anderson. Hopefully he’ll go easy on us.”

Brian sighed and shook his head. He was familiar with this feeling of dissatisfaction at the end of a case. A sense that so much had not yet been resolved.
“You did this to me…‌all of you.”
He’d never understand why Darren Anderson carried out the killings at Pendle Hill, Longridge Fell, Marie. He’d never understand what happened to his family on June 1
^st
t 2012. He’d never have a clue what he had to do with it himself.

“It’s just so sad,” DS Carter said. Her voice was lowered, and her cheeks blushed slightly. Brian wondered whether she’d intended for that one to slip out at all.

“What is?” Brian asked, unwilling to allow her trail of thoughts to slip away.

She cleared her throat then leaned forward, cupping her hands together. “Well, Darren Anderson. Obviously something…‌something terrible happened to him to drive him to do what…‌I mean, I’m not condoning what he did, but…‌I’m going to stop talking and digging myself a hole now.”

Brian offered a laugh of reassurance. “It’s okay. I know what you’re saying. I’m just more pissed off that we’ll never know exactly why he did what he did. Using the whole ‘Harold Harvey’ thing as an alias. All the witch stuff can’t just have been a coincidence, surely? But hey. He’s dead. His conscience got the better of him in the end. We’ll never know.”

DS Carter tutted. “Right. Unless something shows up when we’re searching.”

“In which case, you’ll be in touch with Freelance Officer McDone, I imagine?” He smiled.

DS Carter narrowed her rich brown eyes. “If you aren’t in a cell for interfering with the case, then sure I will.”

“Same goes to you,” Brian said.

“Touché.”

“Um, sir? Madam? You’re here for Stephen, right?” A short lady with her brown hair in a bun waddled over. She was carrying a bit of extra baggage around her waist, and her hair looked like it had been badly dyed. Her brown shoes squeaked as they rose from the floor, like ducks quacking.

“Um, yeah,” Brian said, looking at DS Carter, who was similarly bemused. She didn’t look like a nurse, in her checkered cardigan and knee-length skirt.

“I’m Marion. His ol’ mum.”

“Oh,” Brian said. He rose to his feet and straightened out his white shirt, offering a hand to Marion Molfer. “Pleasure to meet you. How’s he doing in there?”

“He’s battling on. Chatting away as usual about what he did to the other guy, and how tough he is. He thinks I was born yesterday, he does.” She rolled her eyes, then shook hands with DS Carter.

“Well, I’m pleased to hear that,” Brian said. “We should probably leave you to it now. We only dropped by to see how‌—‌”

“Oh no, you should go in and see him,” Marion said. She grinned, revealing a blackening set of dentures. “You’re Brian, right? He’s told me a lot about you. Thinks very highly of you, does our Stephen.”

Brian frowned and looked at DS Carter, before straightening his face again. Had Marion got the right Brian? “I…‌Well yeah. He’s a good officer. Committed.” He smiled. Commitment was the first thing he could come up with. Ironic, considering Stephen had gone against orders by storming into Darren Anderson’s house. Bad word choice, Brian. Bloody bad word choice.

“Then you should go say hello. It’ll cheer him up, I swear.”

Brian and DS Carter looked at one another. It didn’t look like this woman was about to take no for an answer any time soon.

“Alright,” DS Carter said. She held out a hand for Brian. “Come on, you. Let’s get in there and say hello.”

Brian took her hand, and before he even had the time to say a proper goodbye to Marion Molfer, he was being dragged towards the partly ajar door on his right.

“All the best, love,” Marion muttered, taking a seat and pulling a copy of the
Daily Mail
out of her Tesco carrier bag.

“Yeah,” Brian said, as he followed DS Carter in through to Stephen Molfer’s hospital room.

Receiving best wishes from Stephen Molfer’s mum.

Was he fucking dreaming?

The room that Stephen Molfer was in had eight beds, six of which were full, two of those of which had the white hospital curtains pulled around them to shield themselves from the world. Stephen was in the second bed on the right. He was sitting upright and moving restlessly from side to side. He didn’t look suited to a hospital, which was strange considering the number of times Brian had considered putting him in one.

“Hello,” Brian said. What else did he say? “Hey, old buddy”? No. He had to keep his distance. Respectful but not too over-the-top. Couldn’t let Molfer think he had the upper hand.

Stephen turned in Brian and DS Carter’s direction. He stared for a few seconds without responding, his cheeks flushing. “Oh, hi,” he finally managed, as he scratched his head. “What you two doing here, anyway? You should be back at home. Especially you, Brian. Not being a cop, and all‌—‌”

“Okay, okay,” Brian said, forcing a smile and leaning on the edge of Stephen’s hospital bed. “Let’s leave the egotism for the work environment, shall we,
Detective Sergeant
?”

Stephen smirked. “I appreciate it anyway, I guess. Going fucking insane in here. Old bloke on my right keeps making this weird clicking sound, and God knows what the pair behind the curtains are doing. Swear a woman went in there earlier. Probably tossing him off.”

One of the curtains edged to the side. A long-haired, grey man peered in their direction. “I heard that,” he said, before snapping the curtain back in place and returning to whatever it was he was doing.

“Anyway, have you heard from the Marlow?” Stephen asked DS Carter.

DS Carter shrugged. “Spoke to him briefly. He isn’t happy. We might lose our jobs. But then again, from what he said, they’ve got a team down there looking into any other links in Darren Anderson’s place. A couple of witnesses have stepped forward in the last few hours claiming they saw the exchange between Phil Mcphee and a bloke matching Darren Anderson’s description. So all signs point to him, yes.”

“Still don’t quite get why, though.”

Stephen frowned at Brian as he rested his marble-shaped head back on the pillow. “Sometimes you’re just too inquisitive for your own good, Brian. Not every mystery is like Sherlock pissing Holmes. Sometimes people do strange things. Now no doubt the police will look into that weird family tape Anderson had lying around in his player, and they’ll piece things together. But it’ll take time. Nothing to get worked up about. Especially when you…‌when you have an engagement party coming up.”

Brian was about to tear into Molfer, as he suspected he was going to bring up the fact he wasn’t really a police officer anymore. But the mention of the engagement party was a nice swerve. Well played, Molfer. Well played indeed.

“Well, happy recovery,” Brian said, patting Stephen on his shoulder. “Just thought we’d drop by, anyway, and pay some‌—‌”

Stephen’s hand clutched Brian’s forearm. His face had turned from its usual mischievous self to an all-the-more serious frown. His eyes scanned Brian’s face, like a kid trying to work out if they were in trouble or not.

“I’m sorry, Brian. Sorry for all the shit I gave you. I was…‌I guess I used to be a little envious of your position. But I never intended it to come across as anything more than‌—‌”

Brian tugged his arm away. He noticed the patient by the window, in a blue gown and with tubes up his long nose, was staring in their direction with a look of confusion on his face. “Leave it out,” Brian said, nodding at Stephen. “We gave each other shit. Now you just get recovered…‌mate.”

A smile twinkled at the corner of Stephen’s mouth.

“Okay, homos,” DS Carter said, breaking the awkward silence. “I’m famished, so either you two can stay here and play happy families or you can come with me for a sandwich, Brian.”

Brian smiled at DS Carter. “I’ll come grab a sandwich with you but then I should get back to my fiancé. We’ve got an engagement party to organise, I believe. It’ll be my bollocks on the line if I don’t have some sort of input in it.”

DS Carter and Brian walked down past the final beds and back towards the busyness of the hospital corridor, where nurses rushed past like cars on a motorway.

“See you, Stephen,” Brian called.