For Reasons Unknown (26 page)

South Yorkshire Police HQ was reeling from the aftermath of Ben Hales’s attack on Jonathan Harkness and the fallout from his subsequent interview. It was obvious he would no longer have a job within the police, but his ending was more difficult to fathom. Was he going to face charges of attempted murder, assaulting his wife, and a very public trial, or would his resignation be enough to draw a line under the entire affair?

ACC Masterson had spent more than an hour on the phone to former Chief Superintendent Monroe, trying to convince him no good would come of his daughter pressing charges against her husband. She hoped, as a former upholder of the law, he would understand her predicament and acquiesce to her request. However, he seemed reluctant to do so.

‘At the end of the day Val, he threatened my daughter. She was in fear of her life and the lives of her own daughters.’

‘I’m not trying to influence your decision or that of your daughter, but the man will be losing his job.’

Having a serving officer facing a trial for stabbing a victim was one thing, having a domestic element to the case was something Masterson didn’t want the public seeing. How would it look for her having a violent and emotionally unstable Acting DCI heading the MIT? The press weren’t keen on Matilda Darke returning to active duty, they would slaughter her over the revelations of Ben Hales. ‘I see no benefit to your daughter or your grandchildren from dragging him through the court.’

‘I just think…’

Val cut him off. ‘There is also a strong possibility Ben may be deemed unfit to stand trial. He is displaying all the signs of a manic depressive. A court case could send him over the edge and the outcome would not be in anyone’s interest.’

It wasn’t in Val’s interest either. All morning she had been cognisant of the media and their glee over yet another high-ranking officer’s downfall. With the Hillsborough Inquiry and the events of child abuse cover-up in Rotherham still making headlines, any more scandal from South Yorkshire Police could result in ACC Valerie Masterson’s leadership being called into question. There was always a fall guy in these cases and the Chief Constable may think her resignation would be enough to placate the press.

There was a long silence while Monroe seemed to consider the facts. At the end of the day the decision to press charges was down to his daughter, but Monroe was clearly the driving force in her decision.

‘You can consider the charges dropped. You will hear no more from me on the matter.’

Val’s relief was apparent. ‘And your daughter?’

‘I’ll smooth everything over at this end.’

With the call ended, Masterson began to relax. It was never easy to have a domestic case turn bitter. Nobody won in those cases. The stabbing of Jonathan Harkness was a different matter entirely, but from a legal point of view, it was more manageable.

In the bowels of the station, in the holding cells, Ben sat on a makeshift bed. His clothes had been removed and he was wearing a blue all-in-one. He hadn’t slept and his face showed the sorry signs of fatigue, sadness, and depression. His eyes were heavy as he stared into the distance. His mind was blank, all thoughts had been deleted. His career, his marriage, and his life were all but over.

It was too early for the Murder Room to be full and Matilda thought she would have the room to herself when she entered. As soon as she closed the door behind her, Sian, at the far side of the room, got to her feet. She was still wearing her coat so had not been in long.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m bleeding these sodding radiators again.’

‘Any joy?’

‘Well they’re gurgling. I’ve no idea if that’s a good thing or not. I thought you were going to see Jonathan Harkness in hospital.’

‘I’m going in a while. I thought I’d check on things here first.’

‘You mean see what’s happening with Ben?’

‘Am I that obvious?’

‘I’ve known you a long time. Sit down I’ll make you a coffee.’

Sian Mills, mother to the whole team, set about making two coffees while Matilda looked about the room. There wasn’t a desk that actually belonged to her in here any more. She didn’t feel right going into the office while it was still full of Ben’s things. Instead she sat at Sian’s desk.

‘Do you still have the chocolate drawer?’

‘Help yourself.’

Matilda opened the bottom drawer, helped herself to a Twix, and pushed the drawer shut with her foot just as Sian was bringing the coffees over.

‘What’s on your mind?’

‘I’ve been thinking about Maun Barrington’s suicide. I mean, the reason behind it is all in that scrapbook she kept, but do you think Jonathan found it, or she confessed?’

‘I doubt she would confess, not after all this time. According to her note Stephen was in love with Jonathan. If she confessed to killing Stephen, he wouldn’t give her a hug and forgive her would he?’

‘I suppose not.’

‘Maybe you should ask Jonathan Harkness what happened.’

‘I will. I’m just not sure I’m going to get an honest answer out of him.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘People seem to die around Jonathan. His parents, his brother, his boss, his neighbour; the people who know the most about him and can help in solving the case seem to get silenced before they can tell us anything.’

‘Surely you’re not suggesting Jonathan has anything to do with all of this?’

Matilda looked at her trusted colleague over the top of her coffee mug. They made eye contact and her reply was given in silence.

Sian continued. ‘So you’re saying Jonathan killed his parents, waited twenty years to kill his brother, then killed his boss, which he’s blamed on his neighbour, and killed her, but made it look like suicide?’

Matilda scoffed. ‘Sure when you say it like that it sounds crazy. Oh I don’t know what I’m saying. There’s just something about Jonathan that’s irritating me. He’s not the innocent victim he’s making himself out to be. It pains me to say it, but I think Ben Hales may have been on to something by looking into Jonathan’s life more thoroughly.’

‘Go and talk to him. Sit down with him and just tell him to spill all the details on everything that’s happened in the past twenty years. Off the record if you like; if you think it will make him open up more.’

‘Maybe. Oh, any joy on that abandoned car that was found; was it involved in our hit-and-run? I know Maun’s confessed, but it would be nice if we have evidence to back it up.’

‘I meant to tell you; that guy with the lisp from forensics called late last night. I told him to email the report over to you.’

‘Good. Mind if I use your computer?’

‘Go ahead.’

Matilda logged on and opened her email inbox. There were over thirty unread messages. She couldn’t remember the last time she had looked at them. She didn’t have the time, or the interest, at the moment to go through them all. She sent the forensics report to print then briefly cast her eye over the rest of the emails. There was one from Charlie Johnson’s agent with an attachment. She clicked it open, and then jumped up from the seat, sending it crashing to the floor.

‘Fuck me!’ she exclaimed.

Sian jumped. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘The photo’s come through from Charlie Johnson’s agent. Now I know why his face wasn’t on the book.’

‘Why? Is he ugly?’

Matilda didn’t reply. Sian put her coffee cup down and walked around to her side of the desk. She looked at the screen and into the eyes of the author of the ‘definitive book’ about the infamous Harkness killings.

‘Bloody hell! Is that who I think it is?’

‘Good morning.’

Matilda had been waiting patiently for Jonathan to open his eyes. She had all the time in the world. She would have waited all day if she had to.

‘Good morning,’ he replied, croaking. He tried to sit up but the pain in his stomach wouldn’t allow it.

He was in a private room in the Northern General Hospital and was slowly recovering from the surgery to remove the stainless-steel blade and repair his stomach wall. At one point it was touch and go whether Jonathan would survive; the internal bleeding was so severe, but the medical team battled hard throughout the night to save his life.

‘How are you feeling?’

‘Fragile.’

Matilda sat on a chair at the foot of the bed. She had her arms folded and her legs crossed at the ankles. Her hair, freshly washed, was neat and tidy, and her clean clothes gave off the smell of fabric conditioner.

‘Will you be out for Christmas?’ she asked, knowing the petty small talk would be irking Jonathan.

‘I’ve no idea. I’m not a big Christmas fan anyway.’

‘No. Me neither. I think I’ll probably be working anyway. What did you do last Christmas?’

‘I had lunch with Maun, my neighbour.’ He frowned.

‘You won’t be able to do that this year will you?’

His face remained in a state of confusion.

‘Haven’t you heard? Maun took her own life last night. DC Fleming found her.’

‘She killed herself? Why?’ He looked genuinely shocked.

‘I think you know the answer to that one.’

‘I know she was lonely, but…’

‘Please don’t insult my intelligence, Jonathan. A neighbour saw you leave Maun’s flat just minutes before you were picked up by Acting DCI Hales. You slammed the door behind you and charged down the stairs.’

‘She wasn’t dead when I left her.’

‘No, but from what we found in her flat I think it’s safe to say you stumbled upon her little secret.’

Jonathan swallowed hard. He frowned; it evidently caused him some discomfort. ‘Well, actually, yes, I did.’

‘I can’t prove any of this, obviously, but I’m guessing an argument broke out in which you told Maun she would be better off taking her own life.’

‘That’s ridiculous.’

‘Not really. Maun was a killer, and even though it happened a long time ago she still would have stood trial for the murder of her husband and his secretary, along with the death of Stephen Egan. I’m guessing it was Mr Egan’s death that affected you more than anything else. He was an innocent bystander in all this, wasn’t he?’

‘Yes.’ Jonathan could barely talk.

‘Did Maun tell you she’d killed Stephen?’

‘No. I found the album she’d kept full of press cuttings. The last entry was the car-hire receipt.’

‘Which you left for us to find when we forced our way in?’

Jonathan looked at Matilda briefly before quickly breaking eye contact.

‘So what happened then? Did you tell her to kill herself, or you’d do it for her?’

‘No. It wasn’t like that at all. We argued, yes, she’d killed the only person who cared about me.’ He raised his voice. ‘Stephen had done nothing wrong. I didn’t know her any more once I’d found that out. I didn’t want to stay in the same building, let alone the same room. I told her I intended moving away but she wouldn’t accept that. I stormed out.’

‘Was she alive when you left?’

‘Of course she was.’

‘You didn’t give her the alcohol and bottle of pills and tell her to do you a favour?’

‘If that’s supposed to be a joke then I don’t like your sense of humour at all. Yes, I hated Maun for what she did, but I did not kill her.’

‘I believe you,’ she said, and meant it. ‘There is something else you could help me with, however. When we searched your flat, after you reported the attack on you by your brother, we also searched your bins. We found the usual things people throw away; empty coffee jars, empty tins, empty packets, a half empty can of deodorant.’

‘So?’

‘It’s a silly thing to fixate on I know, but I kept wondering why you would throw away a can of deodorant that still had plenty left inside. I did wonder if you had bought a different kind than your usual and didn’t like the fragrance, we’ve all done that, but your bathroom cabinet had three identical cans inside. I then wondered if the can in the bin was faulty, but on closer inspection I found it to be working perfectly. So then I wondered why you would just throw out a usable can of deodorant.’

Jonathan was almost smiling. ‘I have no idea. I don’t recall throwing it away.’

‘I can actually answer the question myself. I sent the can to the lab and had it tested. I had no idea what they were going to find, if anything really, but they did and the results were very surprising. There were traces of faecal matter, blood, and skin cells on it. We matched those to the swabs the doctor took on the night you reported your sexual attack, and guess what – a perfect match.’

‘I don’t see where you’re going with this.’

‘I’m sure you do. You’re a very smart man and you’ve read a great deal of crime fiction, so you know what happens during an investigation in a sexual assault case. Unfortunately you need to read a bit more when it comes to hiding evidence. You used the can of deodorant to sodomize yourself in order to try and convince us you had been raped by your own brother.’

‘I was attacked,’ he said with reduced determination than the last time he’d uttered those words. ‘My brother forced himself…’

‘No he didn’t. There is no evidence of your brother having sexual intercourse on the night he died. You inflicted the injuries onto yourself because, after you’d beaten your brother to death and were back in the safety of your own home, reflecting on what you’d done, you would never be able to claim self-defence. Jonathan, you kicked, beat, and stomped on your brother. What you did to him was beyond evil.’

Jonathan looked down at his shaking hands.

‘You have no proof of any of this.’

‘Not solid proof, no. Tell me, when Matthew came to see you that night, did he happen to reveal anything? A secret maybe that would cause you to fly off the handle?’

‘No,’ Jonathan replied. He looked confused again.

From her bag Matilda pulled out a dog-eared copy of Charlie Johnson’s book and threw it onto his lap. He cried out at the pain to his stomach caused by jumping as the paperback landed.

‘What’s missing from this book?’

Jonathan looked at it but refused to pick it up. ‘I’ve no idea.’

‘I’m guessing you’ve read it.’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m guessing you’ve read it more than once, several times in fact.’

‘Yes.’ He bowed his head.

‘You read a great deal of books so you know a lot about what goes in them; an acknowledgements section, a dedication, a biography of the author, but what else?’

Jonathan’s thoughtful frown was giving him a headache. ‘I don’t know.’

‘A photograph. A picture of the person who wrote it. You’ll have noticed there isn’t a snap of Charlie Johnson anywhere in this book.’

‘So there isn’t,’ he said with a slight smile.

‘So in the past twenty years when Charlie has written to you and badgered you, you never knew what he looked like, did you?’

‘No.’

Matilda went into her bag once more and pulled out a folded sheet of A4 paper. She opened it carefully and placed it on his lap. ‘This is Charlie Johnson.’

He laughed. ‘No it isn’t. That’s my brother. That’s Matthew.’

‘Exactly.’

The world stopped turning and a heavy silence fell. Matilda sat very still in her seat staring at the patient while a wave of emotions swept over his pale and tired face. He looked shocked and confused, angry and frightened.

‘You really had no idea did you?’

He shook his head.

‘I’ve spoken to his agent. She had no idea who Charlie really was. She didn’t know him as a child so didn’t make the connection. She emailed me his CV and it’s full of lies; claims of articles he’d written for local and national newspapers. He made himself out to be a very well-respected journalist. Nothing was checked out because the book he’d written about the murders was so incredibly well researched. Now we know why.’

Jonathan eventually spoke. ‘Why would he write a book about it?’

‘Now that is a question I would love to know the answer to. You really had no idea did you?’

‘No.’

‘So what’s the real reason you killed him?’

Once again they made eye contact. He didn’t try to deny it this time. The minutes ticked by without any words being spoken.

‘There’s nothing I can say,’ he said quietly.

‘You’re trying to think of a lie aren’t you? Why don’t you just tell me the truth?’

Jonathan reached out to the bedside table and, with a shaking hand, poured himself a glass of room-temperature water. He took a long drink. He lingered over it while he came up with the words to use.

‘He knew.’

‘I’m sorry?’

Jonathan swallowed hard. Twenty years of keeping everything hidden from the world was about to come out. In one sense it was a relief. In another, he was sealing his fate.

‘What did he know?’

‘He knew what happened to Mum and Dad.’

‘That you killed them?’

Jonathan nodded, refusing to say it out loud.

‘How did he know?’

‘He worked it out. He said his mind had been returning to events since he found out the house was to be demolished and he just put two and two together.’

‘So what happened on that night twenty years ago?’

‘There was a Christmas carol concert that we were going to. Mum and Dad didn’t really want to go but they were quite important people in the community and it would have looked bad had they not gone. Mum came up to my bedroom and I was sat on the floor playing with my Lego. She wasn’t happy as I wasn’t fully dressed. I think I was only wearing my underwear and a shirt.

‘She was furious as we were running late. She told me to finish getting dressed and then to get Dad to tie my bow tie. I picked the tie up and put it around my collar. Surprisingly I tied it perfectly at the first attempt. I was eleven years old and I could tie a bow tie. Can you believe that? It made me realize that if I could do that for myself what else could I do?

‘I knew Mum and Dad never really wanted me. I was a mistake. In an ideal world Mum would have had an abortion. She gave birth to me and that was it. She left me to fend for myself and that’s exactly what I did. Matthew was their blue-eyed boy. He got all the love and attention. I got nothing.’

‘Did you really have to kill them though?’

‘They neglected me. They may as well have left me in a cardboard box on the church doorstep. Don’t think they’re the victims in all this. They were useless parents who didn’t deserve to have children. Everybody thought we were the perfect family; successful parents, two boys, and a nice house. Well, you know what; a hug wouldn’t have gone amiss once in a while. That’s all I wanted, a hug, to be tucked in at night, but no. I was ignored. I was invisible. Well fuck them.’

His anger exploded as the memories came to the front of his mind. He was no longer the pale, scrawny victim living on his nerves. He was a seething mass of boiling frustration and anger that was erupting from deep within.

‘So what happened?’ Matilda was mesmerized at his story. It was shocking to see such a timid young man turn into a cold-blooded killer before her eyes.

‘I went downstairs to the kitchen. I was going to show Mum how I’d tied my tie by myself but she wasn’t interested. I was just about to leave the room and my eyes locked on the block of knives. They stood out as if they were in the spotlight. I was drawn to them. I picked up the largest one and went back upstairs. You know, I didn’t even have to hide it from Mum. I could have shouted at the top of my voice that I was going to stab my father and she wouldn’t have batted an eyelid. That’s how much interest they paid me.

‘Dad was sat at his desk in their bedroom. He had some kind of speech he had to give at a dinner before New Year and he’d been fretting over it for weeks. He was hunched over, scribbling away. I didn’t even creep into the room. I wasn’t on tiptoes or anything, I just marched right up to him and I slammed the knife right down into the back of his neck. I couldn’t believe how easy it was.’

Matilda swallowed hard at the callous way he revealed the truth. ‘The attack on your mother was more frenzied, what happened?’

‘When I heard her coming up the stairs I hid behind the door. She saw the blood on Dad’s white shirt as soon as she entered and ran over to him. That’s when I made my move. Unfortunately she looked up and saw me reflected in the mirror. Can you believe that? She noticed me at the one time I didn’t want her to. I was midway bringing the knife down when she reacted. She half turned and I stabbed her in the hand. She screamed. I think I screamed too but I just pulled it out and carried on. I couldn’t stop. I think I hated her the most.’

‘You didn’t go mute?’

‘Of course I didn’t,’ he laughed. ‘I got the idea from an old Agatha Christie novel. There was an old woman who fell down the stairs, but it wasn’t an accident. The only witness was her little dog. It was called
Dumb Witness
and I remember thinking how clever that would be; the only person who saw the crime couldn’t actually say what had happened.’

‘Why didn’t you kill your brother all those years ago?’

‘Because I wanted him to suffer. He was a bully. I told you all the things he did to me; they were all true. I wanted him to know what it would have been like to not have any parents.’

Matilda looked blank. Despite the confession she still couldn’t get her head around it. ‘So your motive was because you could tie a tie?’

‘There was no motive. Motive suggests predetermination and I didn’t plan it. The opportunity was there and I took it.’

‘What happened to the knife?’

Jonathan looked up at Matilda. He looked younger somehow, as if telling his story was releasing a heavy burden he had been carrying around with him ever since it happened.

‘Nice try.’ He gave a smile that would have made Moriarty proud.