The Death Collector (41 page)

‘How did he take that?’

‘Nastily. That was the thing with him, you see. I was supposed to be under his spell, and when I wasn’t, he became spiteful. He threatened me with some photographs he had of me.’ Gina blushed. ‘Intimate ones. But I just kept on ignoring him and eventually he got the message. He ruined me though. I thought I was cracking up. I’d lost everything I had with my partner, so that was it for me. I decided I was staying single. No man was ever going to hurt me like that again.’

‘You’re too special to be alone, Gina,’ Joe said. ‘Any man would be lucky to have you.’

‘Thank you.’ She sighed in exasperation. ‘I think I’m a decent person, but that was my flaw in the end. I thought he would treat me like I wanted to treat him, but I was naïve.’

‘And you think it’s similar to this?’

‘I recognise the traits.’

‘But being a bastard isn’t the same as being a murderer.’

‘It helps to be heartless though,’ Gina said. ‘And there are more connections you haven’t spotted.’

Joe frowned. ‘Go on.’

‘What was the prosecution theory as to why Aidan killed Rebecca?’

‘Rebecca was ending their relationship and Aidan became jealous and killed her in a rage. Her husband said they were trying to make another go of their marriage.’

‘And think back now to Melissa’s husband. What did he tell us just now?’ When Joe didn’t answer, Gina continued, ‘That they had been going through a tough time but it seemed like they were pulling back together.’

‘And?’

‘Join the dots, Joe. Two married women having affairs and both die or go missing just as they are trying to get their marriages back on track. Aidan says that Rebecca was seeing someone else too. Was Rebecca ending that relationship as well? It makes sense. She was cutting off all her extra-marital stuff and making another go of it, and it was the other person who killed her, not Aidan. Was that Declan?’

‘So you think he killed Rebecca because she was ending the relationship, and then did the same with Melissa? Can you be so angry twice? Once is a loss of control. But twice?’

Gina shook her head. ‘It’s not about rage in the way you’re thinking of it. If the killer is a narcissist, the loss of devotion will burn away at him. I’ve seen it and it’s unpleasant.’ As Joe took that in, Gina added, ‘There’s something else too.’

‘Go on.’

‘Everyone is married. Rebecca. Melissa. Then Rachel, even though she didn’t succumb. It’s not that he’s a player, collecting beautiful women like trophies. What seems to attract him is women who belong to someone else. What they have is happiness, something special, togetherness, even if it has gone a bit stale. He has nothing and that eats away at him. So he wants to destroy the one thing he can’t have, and that’s happiness. That’s just how Lloyd was. He liked to make out he was deep, but really there was nothing. He was a shell of a man, and he knew it.’

‘It seems a stretch,’ Joe said. ‘Maybe he’s just one of those men who have a lot of women on the go just so that he can boast to his friends. Deep down, there’s nothing, yes, but it’s all a game.’

‘But all he has is the devotion of these women. When that disappears, how does he react? If it burned away at him, it might just have ended in murder.’

Joe thought about that as Gina drove, looking along the rows of identical-looking streets, long curves of high grey Victorian houses behind millstone walls and black metal gates. Then he saw it. A Ford Focus. Dark red. An 06 plate, so it would have been around when Rebecca was killed.

‘There,’ he said, banging his hand on the dashboard.

Gina stamped on her brake and scraped the wheels along the kerb as she came to a halt. She turned to Joe. ‘You should have kept proper notes, so we knew for certain this was the actual address.’

‘Lesson learned.’

‘So what do we do?’ Gina said.

‘We could just knock on the door.’

‘And how do you think that will go down? David Jex went missing. Carl Jex is missing. I know there are two of us, but I don’t fancy turning it into a quartet.’

‘I’ll call Sam,’ Joe said, and reached for his phone.

‘And say what? Come and kick down a door because there is a car that is different to that mentioned in witness statements? It’s not going to happen.’

‘But it must relate to the body they dug up on the moors this morning.’

‘Why? What real link is there?’

Joe turned, frustrated, knowing that Gina was right. It was all surmising and guesswork in some hope that they could prove that Aidan was innocent.

Joe leaned forward and strained as he looked through the windscreen. ‘Okay, let’s watch for a while; see what we can work out.’

The houses on the street seemed pretty ordinary. They were spaced out, tall and imposing, with cars on the driveways, and just enough room to swing the gates closed behind. A laugh drifted through an open window and a car horn sounded from somewhere nearby. Midges danced in the faintest strains of daylight. The streetlights displayed faint glows as the sun disappeared behind houses at the end of the road, everywhere in evening shadow. There was no traffic noise – most people would be back from work – just the sounds of whooping children from a small playground visible through the gaps in the houses.

‘So what do we think?’ Gina said.

‘That someone is playing around with married women, but he doesn’t cope well with rejection,’ Joe said. ‘Like you said, what unites Melissa and Rebecca is not just that they were having affairs but that things were getting better – they both wanted to patch things up with their husbands.’

‘And David Jex?’

‘He spotted the link,’ Joe said. ‘He was the detective who spoke to Melissa’s husband. He must have picked up on the same thing Hugh did – the library – and checked it out.’

‘But why would he be so suspicious of the library?’ Gina said.

‘Because he was never convinced about Aidan Molloy,’ Joe said. ‘He was swept along by his admiration of Hunter. But he was a good man and always felt uncomfortable about doing the wrong thing. Carl said he became obsessive about Aidan’s case, looking into it again but in his own time. I think Melissa started that.’

‘So what happened to him?’

‘He got too close to real evil, is my guess,’ Joe said.

‘So we need to be careful.’

Joe nodded to himself as they sat in Gina’s car, hoping for a glimpse of the occupant of the house.

‘Someone’s coming,’ Gina said.

Joe looked through the windscreen. There was a car coming slowly down the road, and there was something about it that said that it wasn’t just passing through. It was rolling slowly, as if the driver was looking around.

The car stopped outside the house where the Focus was parked, blocking the drive, so that whoever was in there couldn’t get out.

‘I recognise that car,’ Gina whispered.

The driver door opened first, and Joe gasped when he saw who it was: Hunter, with Weaver climbing out of the passenger seat.

‘We might have misjudged him,’ Joe said, and his hand moved for the car door handle, until Gina grabbed his arm.

‘No, not yet,’ she said.

‘Why, what’s wrong?’

‘Look around. How many other cars can you see? None. Just Hunter and Weaver. If this were an arrest, there’d be more. Hunter would want someone else to see it. And have you heard anything about him in the last couple of days that makes you trust him?’

Joe dropped his hand. He knew she was right. He watched as Hunter walked quickly to the front door, looking around as he went. He banged loudly, angrily. A couple of minutes passed before the door opened, and when it did, Hunter pushed it open and barged his way in.

‘What’s going on?’ Joe whispered. ‘That’s not a social call.’

As he watched, Weaver blocked the door and the sound of raised voices drifted across in the dusk. A few minutes passed, then Weaver backed out, Hunter with him, pointing, snarling some threat about ‘one hour’, and then they were in the car and gone, driving quickly this time, the tyres squealing on the bald warm tarmac.

Joe watched them go and said, ‘What was that all about?’

‘I don’t know,’ Gina said.

‘I could call Sam.’

‘Why? He won’t go against Hunter, and if Hunter has been and gone, there’s nothing to do any more.’

‘So let’s just stay and watch. Just for a while. I want to see who’s in there.’

Gina settled back into her car seat. Joe checked his watch.
One hour
had been the shout. So Joe might find out the answers he was looking for soon. It was just a matter of being patient.

They had to wait thirty minutes before the door opened. Something was happening. No one emerged for a few seconds, and Joe wondered if he had been seen, but then a man rushed out, a bag under his arm.

Joe’s hand went to Gina’s arm, his turn to grip her.

The man went to the car, to the Focus, and jumped in. He hadn’t locked the door. He started the engine and reversed quickly.

‘What is it, Joe?’

He looked at her, shaking his head in disbelief. ‘It’s all wrong.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Him. The man, in that house, in that car.’

‘You know him? Declan?’

‘Yes,’ he said, his mind racing. ‘Except he wasn’t called Declan then.’

‘Who is he, Joe?’

‘He said he was called Tyrone. Tyrone McCarthy. He’s helping Mary Molloy with her campaign.’

Joe stared along the road as the car disappeared. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Say that again,’ Gina said. ‘You’re saying he’s the reporter who’s been helping Mary?’

Joe looked at her, and then back into the mist of exhaust fume that was just clearing. ‘I must have it all wrong. Carl might have been here because he was trying to help Tyrone, perhaps just being overly curious.’

‘What about Hunter?’

‘He’s making trouble for him. Tyrone is trying to overturn one of his cases.’

‘But we’re not here because of Hunter,’ Gina said. ‘We’re here because of his involvement with missing or murdered women, and because he gave a false address to the library. He’s a predator, goes after married women. Of course he’s going to use false names.’

Joe shook his head in frustration. ‘So what do we have?’

‘We have the one person who is somehow connected to all of it,’ and Gina pointed down the road. ‘He’s connected to Melissa, whose disappearance was connected to David Jex going missing, because he was looking into Melissa’s case when he started to become obsessed about Aidan Molloy. And he’s connected to Rachel. He is the theme through all of this and now he’s connected to Aidan through Mary Molloy. Joe, he’s not helping Mary. He’s monitoring, perhaps even manipulating.’

Joe looked across at the house, the lights turned off inside. ‘I’m going in,’ he said, and climbed out of the car.

As he strode across the road, Gina trotted to catch up. ‘What do you mean, going in?’

‘I’m not putting up with half-answers. I want to know what he’s been doing, and I’ll only find out by going inside.’

‘But what if you’re caught?’

‘What, the firm will sack me?’ he said. ‘The Law Society will strike me off? I’ll be out of a job any day soon, so let them. If I can do just one good thing before I walk away from it all, that will be freeing Aidan Molloy, and if Tyrone or Declan, or whoever the hell he is, turns out to be the key, then what is behind that door is crucial.’

Gina sighed. ‘All right, I’m with you, but just be careful. I don’t want to wake up in a police cell.’

Joe strode up the short path to the front door, their shoes loud in the street, and rattled at the front door handle. To his surprise, it was unlocked.

The door creaked as it opened, into a dark hallway, the shadows of the stained glass around the door painting the way ahead. Joe walked slowly, not wanting to make a noise, even though he had seen the man drive away. There was a room to his right. He pushed at the door and it swung open into what looked like a living room.

Gina went to turn on the light, her hand on the switch. Joe held up his hand. He pulled out his phone to light up the room, wanting to keep his presence secret from whoever was outside. The light from the screen was faint but enough to make out what was there. A standard lamp in one corner and a sofa and two chairs clustered around a fireplace, the tiles around it old and flowered, the grate matt black.

Joe frowned. ‘It’s an old-fashioned place. Look at all this stuff.’ And he pointed his phone towards the mantelpiece and a shelf by the fire. ‘Just knick-knacks. Old photographs. Souvenirs from Ireland. I can’t see anything new here. It’s like an old person’s house.’

There was a table in one corner with some envelopes. Gina walked over and noted the name. ‘Not Tyrone McCarthy,’ she said, lifting them up. ‘Declan Farrell.’

‘I’ll make a call and see what we can find out,’ Joe said.

He was about to dial Sam’s number when Gina said, ‘It smells fusty in here.’

Joe sniffed at the air. ‘It’s an old house.’

Gina left the room and went towards the stairs. Her feet made the wooden steps creak. Joe followed her out but then he stopped.

‘Wait, what’s that?’