The Death Collector (18 page)

‘So I just get on with it, assume he’s right?’

‘He’s the senior investigating officer. For as long as he’s in charge, that’s just the way it is. If you take on the mantle of maverick cop, you won’t last long on the team, or maybe even on the Force. Your job is about obeying orders. You catch crooks, yes, but by doing as you’re told. Like it or not, that’s what you signed up for.’

Sam gripped the wooden arms of the chair as if to stand up, but Evans held out her hand to stop him. A smile twitched at the corner of her mouth. ‘What do you think might have happened?’

Sam settled back down again and scratched his temple before he spoke. ‘I don’t know, but that’s my point. I’m keeping an open mind. What troubles me is that it is a lot of fuss to wrap up the body limbs just to leave them there. He could have just buried her and reported her as a missing person. Her body was meant to be discovered, but why, and why that spot? And why like that?’

‘But you agree that it has to be somewhere, so why not just there? There’s not necessarily some hidden meaning.’

‘I understand that, but it’s not like that area is just some local woodland. There’s nothing around it for miles. Yes, there’s less chance of being caught with the body, but why go onto the moors as far as he did? The body was found around a hundred yards from the closest place to park a car, which is a long way to carry a torso. Why not just dump and arrange the body closer to the car and get out of there? The longer he’s carrying limbs to and fro, covering himself with her DNA all the time, the other body parts still in the car and awaiting transportation, the greater the chance of discovery.’ Sam stopped and took a deep breath.

‘And?’

‘And why would the husband go to all that trouble of driving to the moors to avoid discovery, with the risk of being stopped by the police, and then spend longer up there than he needed to? It doesn’t make any sense.’

Evans stayed quiet as she thought, her fingers steepled and tapping against her pursed lips. ‘If it doesn’t make sense, it usually means there’s something else,’ she said, almost to herself.

‘That’s what I was thinking. By concentrating too much on the husband, I think we might miss something.’

‘I can’t tell you to go against Hunter,’ she said.

‘So what are you saying, ma’am?’

She sat back and put her hands on the desk. ‘That I won’t tell Hunter what you’re doing if you follow your own inquiries. Speak to her friends to see if she complained about being followed. Look for anything similar, if there could be such a thing. Chase old reports of men being caught hanging around the moors.’

‘And if Hunter finds out?’ Sam said.

‘You’re on your own. Unless…⁠’

‘Unless?’

‘If it isn’t the husband and whoever did this strikes again, wouldn’t you rather be the person who looked at everything, the one in the squad who got it right?’

‘And then?’

‘Then I’ll take the credit.’

Sam smiled. ‘So I’m on my own if I have it wrong, but if I’m right, I’m operating with your guidance?’

Evans returned the smile. ‘Power is just a bitch, isn’t it?’

Sam nodded and got to his feet. ‘Thank you, ma’am.’ He turned towards the door but then stopped as his hand reached the door handle. He turned back to Evans. ‘Does Hunter get it wrong much?’

‘No,’ Evans said. ‘He gets his man. Every time.’

He clenched his jaw and closed his eyes as the first tremors of anger shook him. They were back, the vibrations in his head, stopping him from thinking clearly. It had been like that ever since the boy had told him his name: Carl Jex.

The house seemed silent, more so than usual. No ticking clocks. No computer hum or the clicks of cooling radiators. There were just the fast taps of his foot on the carpeted floor as he stared towards his wardrobe. Soon, he would lose everything.

He took deep breaths to let his anger subside. His emotions bubbled up sometimes. He knew he should have more control, but it was hard to stay rational.

He got to his feet and went to the wardrobe. The door opened slowly, revealing the neat row of suit carriers. He reached for one from a couple of years earlier, the package rustling as he took it gently from the rail. He sat down on the bed and put the carrier over his knees. It calmed him as he moved the zip slowly, and once it was halfway down he lifted it to his face, inhaling deeply. He closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh. There were still soft traces of her perfume, the heavy flowers that reminded him of her, those nights spent with her, when he had given her a new life. The life she deserved.

It was always the smells that brought them back. They were evocative, sensual, overpowering, much stronger than any other of the senses. They could catch you unawares and carry you back to a different time. Hot tarmac. Cut grass. The smell of someone baking. It’s not just the memories. The scents take you back to the actual time, transport you back there, to that place.

He surrounded himself with her scent. Her faded perfume, along with that musky smell all of her own, heady and warm, so his mind was flooded with memories. Her laugh, joy-filled, exuberant, different from how she was when he first met her, when she seemed quiet, almost flat, as if she had forgotten how to enjoy herself. He thought back to their first time, when she had seemed timid, stopping him, stopping herself really, knowing that she was getting carried away, not wanting to expose her true self to him.

He had changed that. He had released her, helped her find the real woman within, the person she always knew was underneath. He had been damn good for her. Why hadn’t she realised that?

Why would she want to walk away, to go back to what was waiting for her at home? He had saved her.

He buried his face into her clothes and took another deep breath. Her scent lingered in the air as he zipped up the suit carrier.

He hung his head as he thought about how it was all over. He stayed like that for a moment, then he put the suit carrier back into the wardrobe, making sure it was in the right place, before walking slowly towards the room next door. His parents’ bedroom.

He didn’t go in there much. It was the place where he weakened. He leaned against the doorframe as he pushed at the door, opening slowly to reveal the bed. He could still smell the mustiness of a Sunday morning, the room heady with warm bodies and stale booze.

His mother’s clothes were in an old wardrobe along the wall next to his room. He looked down at the floor before he stepped over the threshold, his tongue running over his lip as his foot pressed into the carpet. It was thicker than anywhere else in the house, dark brown swirls that spoke of a different time.

The wardrobe door clicked as he opened it and he gasped as the odour rushed at him, swamping him in memories of being clasped against her, his face buried in her clothes as she held him close, her arms around him, protecting him, the rage from his father muffled.

He held one of her dresses against his face and she was still there. Stale cigarettes and cheap perfume. Nights in front of the fire rushed back to him. Music and booze, laughter and dancing. Two people swaying in the flickering light. Until things changed. It always went wrong.

His eyes dampened and his throat felt thick. By moving on, he’d be leaving this behind too. Could he do that?

But with the identity of his captive in the cellar confirmed, he knew he had no choice.

The boy had ruined everything. All of his memories would be snatched from him.

The vibrations came back. He would make him pay.

Joe had wanted to avoid the office after his meeting with Mary Molloy, so he decided to go back further into the story, to a person who was one of the subjects of Mary’s anger: Hugh Bramwell, Aidan’s solicitor at Honeywells.

Joe had joined Honeywells after falling out with the people at the firm where he trained, when his fiancée decided she preferred the attentions of one of the married partners to Joe’s. Hugh had given him a way out, allowing him to take over as the criminal lawyer at Honeywells when the older man retired.

Hugh Bramwell had been one of the last old-school defence lawyers in Manchester, full of country-set charm, well-spoken and impeccably dressed, in tweed three-piece suits and a pocket watch, as if setting himself apart as the city’s eccentric would get him more clients. And it did.

The law didn’t attract characters like Hugh any more. Joe had been drawn to it because of what had happened to his sister. It was a way of keeping alive his hope of meeting her killer. For most young lawyers the returns in crime were too low, so criminal law had become a magnet for chancers, failures, and those who lived lives not too far from the clients they represented.

Joe contacted Hugh and arranged a meeting, and as it could be his last week at Honeywells, he decided to have the meeting in a pub.

He paid the taxi driver and stared up at the Horse and Jockey. It looked like an old country pub, with Tudor beams and a low roof, except that it was in leafy suburbia, with its view over what people called ‘the Green’ lending a village feel, although in reality it was just a triangle of tired grass with an old Victorian lamp in the centre.

He texted Gina.

A reply shot back.

Joe set his phone to silent. He didn’t want to be distracted.

It had been a few years since he had been in the Horse and Jockey. It was in the Chorlton area of the city, an area settled by the urban professionals, those who wanted the buzz of the city and to enjoy the thought that they were just a short drive from some of Manchester’s roughest edges. They were only ever places to drive past, though, not stop in – danger experienced through a windscreen. He knew Kim Reader didn’t live far away, in a first-floor apartment in one of the high Victorian buildings, with large windows and peaked roofs. Kim had opted for original features over the bland newbuilds. It had been a few years since Joe had been there, too.

Joe spotted Hugh sitting outside, as he said he would be, drinking from a foamy pint that sat on one of the long dark tables.

As Joe got closer, Hugh lifted his glass as a welcome before he drained what was left.

‘It looks like it’s my round,’ Joe said.

‘I knew you’d get the message,’ Hugh said, chuckling to himself.

Joe dipped his head to get in through the doorway, returning shortly afterwards with two pints of bitter, the head running down the side of the glass like spilled cream.

Hugh didn’t say anything until he had made the top three inches disappear.

‘I thought they’d ruin this place by letting the children in,’ Hugh said, ‘but they make up for it with the beer.’

‘The barman knew what you wanted.’

‘I’m here whenever the sun comes out.’

Joe was about to ask him what his wife thought of that, a throwaway comment, but then he remembered with a jolt why Hugh had retired: his wife was dying of cancer and he had wanted to be with her. Joe had heard the news that she had died a year earlier. As that came back to him, he looked more closely at Hugh. His clothes looked worn and in need of a wash, and he had stubble on his cheeks, whereas in work he had always been immaculate. His eyes were red and his veins were showing as tiny red scratches across his nose and cheeks. Joe guessed that sitting in the Horse and Jockey was better than sitting in a silent house, with only his memories to keep him warm.

‘How’s retirement, Hugh?’ he asked, knowing the answer.

Hugh looked over. ‘Slow,’ he said, smiling softly, realising why Joe had asked. ‘But I’d rather be here, where the beer is good, than where you are, wasting your years.’

‘Not for much longer,’ Joe said. When Hugh raised his eyebrows, grey and bushy, strands pointing skyward, he added, ‘Honeywells are ditching crime. There just isn’t the mark-up any more so they’re packing it in.’

‘When?’

‘They won’t see out the year, is my guess. They want me to trim the department or give it up altogether.’

‘But they’ll miss the post-Christmas bonanza. The burglaries, the pub fights, the family arguments that end up as brawls. It’s a time of great joy.’

Joe smiled. ‘They don’t share it.’ He paused. ‘Don’t you miss it? Truthfully?’

Hugh took another swig before he answered. ‘I do, but not the way it is today. I miss the theatre of the courtroom, and seeing the other lawyers, and the police. I miss the clients sometimes, although not quite as much. But it’s not the same these days. It’s bureaucracy and form filling and box ticking, everything regimented and scripted. There’s no room for someone with a little panache any more.’ And he emphasised the word
panache
with a flourish of his hand. ‘The Law Society had me doing so much in the name of quality control that I never had the time to do anything that needed controlling.’ He shook his head. ‘No, I’m well out of it.’

‘There aren’t many who think the law is a good place to be any more,’ Joe said, his voice heavy with weariness. ‘There’s a long line of students ready to step in, but only because they are weighed down by debt. Once they get in, most with any sense want to get out again.’

‘And do you, Joe?’

Joe sighed. ‘I just want to enjoy it again. Is that too much to ask?’