The Death Collector (13 page)

Lorna sat silently in her chair so Joe started the conversation.

‘He was walking along the lane when I left him,’ he said. ‘It was very early in the morning and he said I would have to turn around if I drove him down, and that I would wake people up.’

‘He’s very thoughtful. Did you watch him go?’

‘There wasn’t much to watch. The trees and the bend soon swallowed him up, so I set off.’

‘So you definitely didn’t drive down the lane?’

‘No. I let him out and went.’

‘The lady next door said she heard a car right outside in the early hours. It set off quickly. So that wasn’t you?’

Joe shook his head. ‘Definitely not.’

Lorna stared at the floor for a few minutes and Joe let her take her time. Her cup trembled in her hand. ‘So what did Carl tell you?’ she said eventually.

‘That’s just it,’ Joe said. ‘Carl didn’t tell me anything.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘He’d been locked up because he was creeping around a house, looking in. A neighbour called the police. I asked him for an account and he wouldn’t tell me, was worried about someone listening in. Why would he think that?’

Lorna looked down and she clasped her fingers together. ‘Because of his father.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Do you know about my husband, David?’

Joe nodded. ‘Carl didn’t tell me, though. Nor you. Why not?’

‘He was scared. Carl was trying to find out what happened to his father. He’d become obsessed by it.’

‘Carl mentioned the Aidan Molloy case.’

Lorna looked up sharply at that and her chin quivered as tears rolled down her cheeks. ‘That name,’ she said, and her jaw clenched. ‘So Carl did tell you something.’

‘Just that it was connected somehow. He didn’t go into any detail. Why did Carl have a special interest in it?’

Lorna paused and looked at Joe, her gaze sterner now, more focused. ‘That’s not the question you should be asking.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You should be asking why my husband had a special interest in it. Carl was just following on from where David left off, trying to get some answers about what happened to him, except Carl doesn’t know all that David knew.’

Joe leaned forward and said quietly, ‘So tell me about David.’

‘What is there to know? He went missing six months ago. No one knows where he has gone.’

‘Including you?’

‘Yes, of course including me.’

‘So how did it happen?’

Lorna took a deep breath and wiped the back of her hand over her eyes, making them red. ‘Like most missing people, I suppose. One night he went out and never came home. There were no warnings, no letters. All I knew was that he had become obsessed by the Aidan Molloy case.’

‘And now Carl.’

Lorna nodded. ‘And now my son,’ she said, and began to sob loudly. ‘Don’t let Carl disappear like his father did. Please.’

‘You need to talk to me,’ Joe said, taking her hand and clasping it in his. ‘If I can help, I will.’

‘That must be why he chose you,’ she said, through her tears.

Joe gripped her hand a little tighter. Lorna’s words had just dragged him deeper into the case. He felt the need to know more, and an enthusiasm he hadn’t felt in a long time.

Hunter and Weaver walked quickly to the doors that would take them outside, as they headed to the home of the dead woman, Sarah Carvell. It was time to break some bad news.

They were talking to each other quietly and earnestly, excluding Sam. At first Sam thought it was just about making him jog to keep up, to belittle him, but then he started to wonder whether it was deliberate, so that he couldn’t hear their conversation. Hunter opened the door by slapping the green release button and then slamming the palm of his hand against the glass.

As Sam caught them up outside, he said, ‘Can I ask you something, sir?’

‘Fire away,’ Hunter said, staring straight ahead.

‘Why do you want me with you?’

Hunter exchanged glances with Weaver. He stopped and turned to face Sam, his hands on his hips, pulling his jacket back. ‘Don’t you want to be with us? Prefer swooning over that pretty thing next to you? What’s her name?’

‘DC Gray.’

Hunter’s mouth twitched a smile, although it contained little warmth. ‘But you don’t call her that, do you?’

‘Her name is Charlotte.’

‘Well, I’m sorry to tear you away from her.’

‘No, it’s not that, sir. It’s just that you didn’t seem that keen on my input.’

Hunter stepped closer to Sam and said, ‘The investigation needs to be focused, to have a direction. I don’t want you there as a distraction.’

‘A distraction?’ Sam said. ‘I thought you wanted ideas, that’s all. I haven’t been on the team that long, I know, but I’ve been a detective for a few years and I don’t need treating like some errant child, or a cadet who needs showing the ropes.’

Hunter moved even closer. He was breathing heavily through his nose. ‘This is your role, to stay close to me, so that you can report back to the rest of the team. That good enough for you?’ When Sam didn’t respond, Hunter pointed to a silver BMW, Weaver holding open the door. ‘You’ll do whatever I tell you to do, and for whatever reason I have. So stop whining and get in.’

Sam gritted his teeth. Weaver glared at him as he climbed in.

Sam pulled out his phone as they set off, both men silent in the front, Hunter driving. He texted Charlotte.

He looked out of the window as they drove on, conscious of the silence and with no desire to break it, only the steady drone of the engine filling the car. His phone was in his hand, set to vibrate. After a few minutes, his fingers felt a buzz. He checked the screen. It was a text from Charlotte.

Sam smiled to himself and put his phone away.

Sarah Carvell lived in a small town in a valley to the north of Manchester. It was an old cotton town of terraced houses and small mills, rejuvenated as a commuter town for those who wanted the city offices but the country living. They drove onto a modern estate of cul-de-sacs that branched off from one circular road, checking each road sign as they went, Sam dreading what lay ahead. He knew too well how the arrival of the police to deliver bad news devastated families. His sister’s murder drove his father into a grave and his mother into the bottle, the only blessing being the birth of his little sister Ruby two years later.

Hunter came to a stop. They were in front of a boxy detached house, with a small porch that jutted out at the front and a driveway shared with the house next door, the two houses connected by adjoining garages.

‘Come on,’ Hunter said, although it was directed at Weaver, not Sam.

Sam followed them both up the driveway. Hunter straightened his tie. Weaver hoisted his trousers onto his paunch and tucked in his shirt. Sam looked around as Hunter rang the doorbell. There was a view along the valley towards the grey shadow of Manchester in the distance, obscured slightly by the pink petals of cherry blossom on a tree at the edge of the garden, the gentle breeze scattering them across the neat square lawn.

The door was opened quickly, angrily almost, by a tall man with dark hair swept back, only his temples showing tinges of grey.

He stopped and then paled, as if he knew straight away what it was about. ‘Sorry, I thought you were someone else,’ he said, licking his lips, tears already in his eyes. ‘What do you want?’

Hunter pulled out his identification and introduced himself. Nothing else needed to be said. It was the pause that did it, the respectful smile and slight nod of the head.

‘Sarah?’

‘Can we come in, sir?’

The man turned and went into the house, walking slowly along the short hallway, his shoulders slumped, until he was able to reach the sofa in the living room. He sat down and perched forward. Hunter indicated with his head that Sam should get him a drink.

Sam went into the kitchen and listened as Hunter broke the news and closed his eyes when he heard the man wail. When he opened them again, it was the ordinariness that struck him. The kitchen looked out over a rectangular lawn, visible through a wooden pergola trailing honeysuckle and clematis just coming into flower. There were little touches that showed the woman who had lived there. Small magnets stuck to the fridge, souvenirs from holidays that she used to secure notes and drawings and the scribbles of young children, at school for the day, about to come home and find that their mother never would. Things would be different now. Grief changes everything.

Sam filled the kettle, and once it had boiled he took a mug of tea through.

The husband’s name was Billy. He wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand. He was staring forward, his expression a mixture of disbelief and misery.

‘She told me she was going to Wendy’s house, one of her friends,’ Billy said.

‘Wendy?’ Hunter said.

‘Wendy Sykes. Sarah used to go out with her a lot, and she stayed out late sometimes. I have to be up early for work, so I didn’t think anything of it when she hadn’t come home before I went to bed. Then when I woke up and she wasn’t there, I called Wendy. Sarah was never there. Wendy wouldn’t say anything more, so I guessed that, you know…⁠’

‘Sarah had been with someone else? Another man?’

Billy nodded, tears running down his face. ‘How did she die?’

‘She was found on Saddleworth Moor.’ Hunter didn’t elaborate on that, but he delivered it in the smooth tones of someone used to dealing with bereaved relatives. ‘I’m sorry to have to ask you these things, but we need to know, and the sooner we know, the faster we can act. How was your marriage?’

After a few moments of silence, Billy said, ‘What are most marriages like? We argued, we didn’t talk to each other much sometimes, but it was just something we had to work through.’

‘And were you working through it?’

Billy just shrugged.

‘What does that mean?’

Billy exhaled. ‘I don’t know. Something was different. She was buying smarter clothes, making herself look nice, but only for when she went out. When she was here, she was distant, as if she wanted to be somewhere else and all we had was too much drudgery.’

‘And she went missing the night before last?’

Billy nodded slowly.

‘And where were you that night?’

He looked up, anger in his eyes now. ‘I was here, looking after my children. It’s what I do when she goes out. Sarah went out with her friend, so she said, and now this.’

‘Do you mind if my colleague looks through her things, just to see if there is anything that might give us a clue where she went?’ Hunter gestured towards Sam.

Billy looked at Sam and shrugged. He didn’t have the will to fight anything.

Sam went upstairs and into Billy and Sarah’s bedroom. It was so ordinary. Silk cushions on a purple duvet. Clothes on the floor, waiting for the wash. Photographs of Sarah and Billy in happier times, their heads together, grinning at the camera. Sam’s mind went back to the grotesque display on the moors. How had Sarah gone from the happy woman in the photograph to how he had seen her not long before?

He went to the drawers at the side of the bed and went through those that contained Sarah’s underwear. He rummaged at the bottom. Billy wouldn’t go through her underwear drawer, so any secrets might be kept there, but there was nothing unusual. Some headache tablets, small bottles of perfume, like free samples thrown in after a shopping trip.

The wardrobe was all about Sarah. There were some shirts to one side, and a suit that had dust on the shoulders, but they were squashed by the blouses and jumpers and dresses. Shoes and boots were thrown in untidily. Sam was looking for boxes, anything that might contain souvenirs of what she was doing away from the home, but nothing struck him as unusual. He couldn’t find any diaries or letters.

When he went back downstairs, he said, ‘Do you have her bank statements?’ When Billy looked confused, Sam added, ‘If she’s been doing something out of the ordinary, it might show in her spending.’

‘We do online banking, but I think Sarah kept her passwords in a pocket in that case.’ And he pointed to a laptop at the side of a bookcase. ‘Sarah looked after that kind of thing.’

Sam was disappointed. He wouldn’t be able to touch the laptop until a copy had been made of the hard drive, so that they could look for traces of long-deleted emails and online chats without spoiling the evidence. Paper copies would have given him something instant.

He rummaged in the pocket of the laptop case and found a piece of paper. There were lists of online accounts and hints and clues to passwords, things that she would know. It showed some degree of caution, just in case the laptop case was lost.

Sam recognised the name of a bank and underneath the words ‘dob 79’ and then ‘cat 999’. Hints and clues.

He got the answers from Billy to all of the clues on the piece of paper, her date of birth and the name of her cat, and gave the nod to Hunter that he had what he needed, the sheet of paper with passwords in a sealed plastic bag.