Justice for the Damned (17 page)

‘Yeah, but there was something else too. A local journo claimed he had evidence Harding might be responsible for abducting and killing whores.’

‘That’s right. He came to us with some crazy theory about Harding being a serial…’ Stan’s words died away as his thoughts returned to the trench and the lye. ‘Jesus fucking Christ,’ he continued in a harsh whisper. ‘You don’t think—’

‘It doesn’t matter what I think. If Harding has some sort of connection to Edward Forester, whatever they’re up to is none of our business. Have you got that?’

Stan’s blotchy drinker’s nose twitched with irritation, but he said, ‘Yes, Doug, I’ve got it.’

‘Good. Remember who you are now, Stan. Leave the police work to me.’

It was still dark when Jim awoke from a fitful night’s sleep to a throbbing nicotine withdrawal headache. Upon arriving home he’d all but collapsed into bed, only to wake every hour or so, agonising over Bryan Reynolds. One question kept turning in his mind: why should he care whether Reynolds was alive or dead? The man was a parasite, feeding off the weakest in society. He deserved to be crushed out of existence. So why not simply leave him to his fate and concentrate on bringing down Edward Forester? He struggled to come up with a satisfactory answer. Maybe it had something to do with his own brush with death. He didn’t know. All he knew was his conscience wouldn’t allow him to abandon the gangster. He was also acutely aware that the best intentions in the world wouldn’t mean a thing unless he could come up with some sort of lead fast. The first thing was to find out where Forester was lying low. Not that there was much chance the politician would be careless enough to lead him to Reynolds, even if by some miracle the gangster was still alive. But whoever had dealt with Reynolds might well be keeping an eye on Forester in case any of the gangster’s goons came looking for their boss. And if he could identify Forester’s accomplices or associates, or whatever they were, that would surely bring him closer to both finding the gangster and nailing the politician.

Jim retrieved his notepad and the newspaper cutting from his jacket. A telephone number for somewhere called ‘Southview’ and a sixteen-year-old newspaper article about a house fire. It wasn’t much, but it was all he had to go on. Massaging his pounding temples, he went to his study. He swallowed his pills as he waited for the PC to boot up. He Googled ‘Southview Peak District’. Top of the search list was a map of South View Street in the village of Bamford. He clicked on a link to images of the street. It consisted of modest cottages. Not exactly the sort of places Forester would go for. He scanned further down the list. There was another South View Street in the neighbouring village of Bradwell. Again, Jim couldn’t picture Forester staying in its terraced cottages or bungalows. On the next page a listing for somewhere called ‘Southview Manor’ caught his eye. The link took him to the website of a local historical society. There was a photo of a large grey-stone house with tall, arched windows and cod-medieval battlements, overlooking expansive gardens. Moorlands and gritstone crags loomed over the house, creating an air of gloomy isolation. Underneath the photo a paragraph described how the house had been built in 1822 by a wealthy London industrialist as a holiday retreat for his family.
Now that is Forester’s sort of place
, thought Jim. Further down the page there was a historical map of the High Peak with the manor house marked on it. He printed the page off.

The next thing was to call the number, but it was still far too early for that. Jim turned his attention to the newspaper cutting. He navigated to the website of the South Yorkshire
Chronicle
and searched their archives for the article. There were several links to related articles. The first read ‘Police question dead man’s son over Huddersfield house fire’. Jim clicked on the article, which began, ‘Police say a fire at a residential address in Huddersfield in which a 67-year-old man perished is being treated as suspicious. A forensic examination of the property confirmed an accelerant was used to ignite the fire. Detectives are appealing for anyone who saw anything suspicious in the area on the night in question to come forward. It has also been revealed that detectives are interviewing Freddie Harding, the 34-year-old son of the dead man.’

Jim’s brow creased. Freddie Harding. There was something familiar about that name. He navigated to the next article, whose headline ran, ‘Police puzzled by mystery blaze’. Beneath it the article continued: ‘Detectives are still trying to solve the mystery of a suspicious house fire that killed a Huddersfield man. The dead man’s son was questioned but released without charge after it was confirmed he was working as a delivery driver in Mexborough on the night of the fatal blaze. Detectives have renewed their appeal for anyone with information to…’

Jim’s gaze drifted away from the text. He typed ‘Freddie Harding’ into the search box. Several pages’ worth of articles came up. The oldest related to the house fire. The final article about the fire was dated 15 April 1997, and shed no light on who the culprit might be. There was a gap of just under four years before the next article, whose 3 March headline ran ‘Sheffield prostitute brutally raped’. A flicker of memory passed over Jim’s face. An eighteen-year-old prostitute had been raped and beaten on wasteland off Pitsmoor Road. A passer-by had frightened her attacker away. Jim knew what happened next. A few days later a man walked into a police station and confessed to the attack. That man was Freddie Harding. Jim hadn’t worked the case, but it had stuck in his mind because it was so rare for rapists to give themselves up. The following article, which was dated 7 March, confirmed Jim’s memory was accurate. Its headline ran ‘Mexborough man hands himself in to police for rape of prostitute’.

The name of the article’s author – Vernon Tisdale – triggered another jolt of memory. Vernon had disappeared off the scene a few years ago, but with his colourful dress sense and poor personal hygiene he wasn’t someone you forgot easily. Even harder to forget was the crime reporter’s theory about a serial killer operating in the area. Vernon had gained a certain notoriety after presenting DCS Knight – who at that time was a DCI – with his infamous list of ‘The Damned’. It had quickly become apparent that the list was flawed. Prostitutes had a way of disappearing for all sorts of reasons. Even so, a couple of things had kept Jim from completely dismissing the journalist’s theory. Firstly, some of the women genuinely did seem to have vanished off the face of the planet. And secondly, Vernon had been so utterly convinced he was right it was hard not to listen to him. The overweight, shambling journalist may have been a somewhat off-the-wall character, but he was as shrewd as they came. If he believed there was a killer out there targeting prostitutes, then there was good reason for it. Vernon had even had a favourite suspect for the killer – Freddie Harding. His suspicion had never been proven, of course. But still, all this didn’t explain why the hell Edward Forester was interested in the murder of Freddie Harding’s father.

At the foot of the article there was a photo of Freddie Harding. Jim’s eyes jolted wide as if at a revelation. Harding looked like a nasty piece of work – mean slit of a mouth, sunken stubbly cheeks, scar like a sword cut running from above his left eyebrow to the right side of his mouth. But it was his eyes that caught Jim’s attention. Jim had seen those eyes before, only they’d been in another man’s face. How had Grace Kirby described them to Mark?
Nasty pissy little brown eyes.
Yes, that was it. Only she’d been talking about the Chief Bastard, aka Edward Forester. Jim opened an extra tab and brought up a photo of the politician. Harding and Forester’s eyes were the same colour, the same shape, even their bushy arched brows were the same. There were other similarities between the men. Both were balding. Harding’s teeth were crooked and overlapping, as Forester’s had been before he had them straightened. Their noses were sharp and straight. There were differences too. Forester’s lips were fuller. There was more flesh on his face. His complexion was ruddier. But what really set the men apart was the same thing that connected them – their eyes. Harding seemed to be reluctantly facing the camera, almost as if afraid of what it might expose. Forester, on the other hand, stared directly into it with a confidence that was probably intended to suggest openness and trustworthiness, but which came over as arrogance to Jim.

‘They’re related,’ Jim murmured. They had to be. How else to explain not just the similarities in their appearance, but the fact that Forester had kept the cutting? Jim navigated to an ancestry search site he’d used before to track people down. He searched the birth records index for Edward Forester. No hit. He changed the surname to Harding. The result came up – ‘Born: 1955; Birthplace: Sheffield; Parents: Norman Harding, Mabel’. Mabel had obviously changed her and her son’s surname back to her maiden name after divorcing her husband. He searched for Freddie – ‘Born: 1962; Birthplace: Mexborough; Parents: Norman Harding, Brenda’. So Norman had remarried and had another kid, but this time he seemingly hadn’t completely abandoned it. How would that have made Edward feel? Angry, certainly. Angry enough to kill, quite possibly.
Maybe that’s the way to nail Forester
, thought Jim.
If I could somehow connect him to Norman Harding’s murder—

He pushed the idea aside. That case was almost as cold as the Mark Baxley abuse case. If a team of detectives hadn’t been able to crack it back in 1996, how the hell was he going to do so now? Better to concentrate on Edward and Freddie. Was there any connection, beyond blood, between the brothers? One instantly sprang to mind – both were predatory sexual deviants. Whether that was a product of nature, or nurture, or both, didn’t concern him right then. What concerned him was finding out if the brothers had ever met. If they had, maybe they’d exchanged more than simply family stories. Maybe they’d shared, even indulged together in their warped fantasies. His thoughts returned to the Huddersfield house fire. Freddie had been questioned. Why? Clearly something had led the police to suspect he might have had it in for his dad. Considering Norman’s track record, it was entirely possible he’d given his youngest son as much reason to hate him as his eldest. A crooked smile pulled at Jim’s mouth as he imagined the brothers bonding over their father’s murder. Secrets like that had a way of bringing people together more closely even than love.

Jim did a quick internet search for Vernon Tisdale’s phone number. If the journalist was still alive, it would be worth talking to him. Knowing Vernon, he would have a lot of info on Freddie Harding that not even the police were aware of. He wasn’t surprised when the search came up negative. Vernon had always hated phones, preferring to do his talking face to face. Jim glanced at the clock. It was still too early to start phoning around for a contact number. He printed off a photo of Freddie Harding, then showered and shaved. There was nothing in the kitchen suitable for him to eat, except some stale bread. He toasted it and, ignoring his body’s cravings for caffeine and nicotine, ate it dry with orange juice. Watery sunlight dribbled through the windows. As its faint warmth washed over him, he closed his eyes and drew in a slow breath. A telephone number and a newspaper cutting. It wasn’t much to go on. But then again, sometimes not much was enough.

The ringtone drilled its way into Reece’s sleeping brain. Lifting one eyelid, he groped in semi-darkness at his clothes piled on the floor. His phone rang off as he pulled it from his jacket – ‘5 Missed Calls’ flashed up on its screen. All of them from Doug. He frowned. It must be something important for Doug to be so keen to contact him at this time of the morning, especially when they were going to be meeting up soon enough anyway. His thoughts returned to Wayne Carson. An image of the pimp’s pulped face flashed across the screen of his mind. With a heavy sigh, he started to get up, intending to return Doug’s call in the bathroom where he wouldn’t disturb Staci. He paused upon realising she wasn’t in the bed. Was she in the bathroom? He touched her side of the bed. The sheets were cold. Wherever she was, she’d been gone a while.

Pulling on his trousers and shirt, Reece left the bedroom. Staci and another woman’s voice drifted up the stairs. He made his way down to find them both cradling mugs of tea at the small, tatty table in the equally small, tatty kitchen. The woman appeared to have just finished a hard night working the streets. She was wearing high-heeled calf-length black boots, a tiny black skirt and matching vest top. A Celtic band tattoo encircled her left bicep. Thick makeup couldn’t disguise the wrinkles and shadows around her eyes. Or the scars on her lips, nose and forehead. Whatever beauty she’d once possessed had long since been stripped away by the street. Reece found himself grimacing internally. Her old whore’s face was a warning as to what lay ahead for Staci if he failed to get her out of this life.

‘This is Amber,’ said Staci, glancing at Reece. ‘She’s just told me something you should hear.’

‘It’s probably nothing,’ said Amber, her voice hard and weary at the same time. ‘But when I heard about Melinda’s disappearance, it reminded me of something that happened to me back in the early nineties.’

‘How early?’ asked Reece.

Amber’s brow creased. ‘Ninety-one, I think,’ she said unconvincingly.

‘You think?’

A defensive edge came into Amber’s voice. ‘Yeah, I think. It were a long time ago. So pardon me if I can’t remember the exact year, but that doesn’t stop me from remembering what those bastards the Winstanleys and their pals did to me.’

The mention of the Winstanleys banished any last vestiges of sleepiness from Reece’s eyes. ‘You mean Herbert and Marisa Winstanley?’

Amber gave Staci a caustic look. ‘Gaw, he’s a sharp one, this bloke of yours.’

In turn, Staci shot Reece a glance that warned him to shut up. Taking the hint, Reece folded his arms and waited for Amber to tell her tale. Lighting a cigarette, she began, ‘I was working on Rutland Street one night when this van pulled over—’