The Unquiet Grave (23 page)

Craig the orderly approached again and, without speaking, stopped a few yards away and pursed his lips. Amelia held out a hand for him to help her and Craig led her inside.

‘I don’t know, Amelia,’ Craig chided her. ‘You’re going to get me the sack, staying out this long. I don’t know where you get the energy. I wish you’d give me some of it.’

Amelia turned at the double doors leading back into the building and took a deep breath. ‘I’ve seen him since the funeral, Inspector. He came to see me here and he scared me.’

‘Who?’

‘Teddy.’

‘How did he scare you?’ asked Brook.

She hesitated, looking up at the dark clouds beginning to gather. ‘He told me he’d seen Billy.’

‘Seen Billy? When?’

‘Spoke to him after the fire,’ continued Amelia, her eyes registering the significance of what she said. ‘Do you see? After.’

‘But Billy was dead,’ said Brook.

‘He
told
me he’d seen Billy,’ Amelia insisted. ‘He spoke to him.’

‘Teddy Mullen spoke to Billy after the fire?’ repeated Brook, trying to keep the scepticism out of his voice.

‘That’s right. And Billy told Teddy to come see me, to tell me it wasn’t my fault.
Tell Amelia it wasn’t her fault
, he said.’

‘When was this?’

Amelia shook her head. ‘I forget.’

She looked at her hand in Craig’s then up at the orderly as he guided her back towards the building. ‘Are you taking me for a dance?’

Craig turned away, one arm across Amelia’s back. ‘You wish,’ he said indulgently, with a final roll of the eyes towards Brook.

‘Can you tell me if Amelia Stanforth has had any visitors recently?’ said Brook, back at reception.

Sharmayne logged on to her computer and tapped in a few commands. ‘Not getting anything for the last year,’ she said brightly. ‘And she’s only been in here three. She gets confused. They all do.’

‘Could someone visit without you knowing?’

‘Almost impossible. Visiting hours are very strict and if the patients aren’t in their rooms, they’re doing monitored activities.’ She smiled. ‘We occasionally get one of the sprightlier ones make a break for it, usually men, but there’s nowhere to go except the village at the bottom of the hill and we always find them in the Heifer, having a pint and a bag of pork scratchings.’

‘And Amelia’s far from sprightly,’ conceded Brook. ‘Do the records go further back?’

‘Just a minute.’

While she tapped out commands on her keyboard, Brook tore out a blank page from his notebook and wrote his name and number. ‘I want to be contacted if she has any more visitors.’

‘She’s very popular all of a sudden,’ said Sharmayne. ‘That’s what the officer from Ashbourne station asked before he left.’

‘The officer who was here about the prowler?’

‘That’s right. Poor old Jessica, one of our residents, thinks she sees men prowling around outside her window.’

‘But he asked to be kept informed about Amelia Stanforth?’ said Brook.

‘He did. He said it was official business and I’m to give him a call whenever—’

‘Can I see the log?’

‘I haven’t had time to enter it yet.’ Sharmayne rustled around for a piece of paper and handed it to Brook. The name next to the mobile phone number was for a Sergeant Laird. Brook stared for a moment before pocketing the paper.

‘You don’t need to worry about his number,’ said Brook. ‘I’m his superior officer.’

‘So should I enter your number on Amelia’s record instead?’

Reluctant though he was to bandy about his contact details, Brook confirmed. ‘So can you tell me if Amelia has had any visitors at all since she’s been in here?’

Sharmayne scrolled down her screen. ‘The last was two years ago. Just before Christmas.’

‘Before? It wasn’t December the twenty-second, was it?’

‘Actually it was,’ replied Sharmayne, impressed.

Brook nodded. Billy’s birthday.
‘Who?’

‘Edward Mullen.’

On the way back to his car, Brook’s mobile began to vibrate.

‘Yes, John.’

‘Notebook handy?’

‘Pencil too,’ replied Brook, fumbling in his jacket. He pictured the smirking on the other end of the line. ‘Go ahead.’ He listened and scribbled the name with difficulty, the phone held to his ear by a shoulder. ‘What about an address?’ Brook wrote hurriedly before the phone fell to the ground. Eventually he threw pen and notebook on to the roof of his car and held the mobile in his hand. ‘Still there? Any breaks on the Wheeler case?’

‘Yeah, we’ve cracked it wide open,’ replied Noble, sarcastically. ‘An eighty-year-old blind woman on St Chad’s Road claims she heard a boy shouting the night Scott disappeared.’

‘Whereabouts on St Chad’s?’

‘Are you serious? Did I mention she was blind?’

‘Where?’

‘Just before you turn on to Whitaker Road.’

‘Whitaker Road?’

‘Where the derelict house used to be.’

‘Right location, at least. And just because she’s eighty and blind doesn’t mean she’s unreliable,’ added Brook without conviction, remembering his struggle to get answers from Amelia. There was a sceptical grunt from the other end of the line. ‘What did she hear?’

‘She said she heard a boy shouting, “Just wait!” Over and over. “Just wait!”’

‘Was there a pause between the two words?’

There was a momentary silence from Noble.
‘How did you know that?’

‘Because maybe she heard Scott shouting, “Josh. Wait.”’

More silence as Noble thought it through.
‘That would make sense. But even assuming it’s reliable, where does it get us?’

‘I don’t know, John. But we can’t pick and choose our evidence. We can only gather it and follow where it takes us.’

Seventeen

Brook arrived at his metal desk just after lunchtime. Fortunately, Sergeant Grey was on duty at reception so he was spared having to face Harry Hendrickson en route. He knocked on Copeland’s door but, for the first time since Brook had started working in the CCU, his office was locked. Entering his own room, Brook found an envelope on the table in Noble’s handwriting.

Brook opened it and read Noble’s thank you for last night’s
‘pep talk’. He grimaced as he read the invitation but resigned himself. ‘OK, John, if I must.’ Under his signature Noble had written, ‘Nice office!’

Brook texted Noble about the invitation – ‘I’ll be there’. He sipped hot tea from his flask while he updated the Stanforth file with confirmation of Amelia’s new address then mulled over his interview with her as well as his exchange with the uniformed officer outside the care home.

‘How many coppers called Laird can there be in the county?’ After a little digging and a couple of phone calls, Brook found his answer – Sergeant Darren Laird, forty-one years of age, working out of Ashbourne station, was indeed the only son of retired DI, Walter Laird.

No wonder Amelia thought she’d seen the original Laird that morning
.

He loaded the electoral roll and confirmed father and son’s separate addresses. Then he found the scrap of paper with Laird’s phone number that he had pocketed at the care home.

A mobile number for official business? I don’t think so
.

What could justify Sergeant Laird checking out Amelia Stanforth’s visitors unless it was part of the search for Brendan McCleary? And then an official contact number would be appropriate.

Brook resisted the impulse to simply ring the mobile number and ask.

The light was worsening as Brook arrived at the junction of St Chad’s Road and Whitaker Road, the spot where a blind witness had heard a young boy shouting on the night of Scott Wheeler’s disappearance. A pair of police vans along the road told him the house-to-house inquiries were ongoing.

Brook locked his car and retraced his steps along St Chad’s to the large house, site of Chelsea Chaplin’s birthday party. A small gate at the side of the building gave access to the rear; whoever had terrified Scott by imitating the late Joshua Stapleton would doubtless have used it.

Brook decided against wandering around the back garden unannounced; instead he walked back past his car and on up to Whitaker Road to the site of the derelict house, now demolished. A lone police officer stood guard outside the site’s metal boundary fence.

A familiar-looking suntanned, grey-haired man in his mid-fifties wearing a sheepskin coat over shiny jogging pants and bright white training shoes was wagging a right index finger at the officer while a large husky strained at the leash in his left hand. Brook heard the man utter a forceful, ‘See that you do,’ before yanking on the leash and marching away. As he approached Brook, the man’s eyes squinted in recognition but he looked away and kept walking.

‘Constable,’ said Brook, greeting the unknown PC with his warrant card.

‘Sir.’

‘Quiet in there,’ said Brook, nodding towards the heavy plant vehicles sitting idle.

‘Yes, sir.’ The PC nodded at the grey-haired man crossing over to Carlton Road with his dog. ‘But they’ll be back to work on the new foundations tomorrow, thanks to Councillor Davison.’

‘So the site was closed to search for the missing boy,’ said Brook.

‘DS Noble’s idea,’ replied the constable. ‘But Davison owns the site and was livid. He’s the chair of Police Liaison. You’d think he’d be more sympathetic.’ The young man shook his head. ‘Local politicians. . .’

‘Thought I recognised him.’
And him, me
. Brook looked after the councillor. ‘He lives in Normanton?’

The constable puckered up his lips to take a sharp breath. ‘I wouldn’t say that to him. The councillor lives in
Upper
Normanton.’

Brook was puzzled for a second. ‘I didn’t know there was an Upper Normanton.’

‘It’s not on the map,’ grinned the officer. ‘It only exists for them that think they’re better than the rest of us.’

It was dark when Brook arrived back at his car. Looking around, his eye was drawn by a large wooden gate across an access road. The gate was chained and beyond lay darkness and vegetation into the distance. He pulled out his phone.

‘John, what’s that big padlocked gate at the top of St Chad’s Road?’

‘It’s an allotment.’

‘Did—’

‘We did. We got them to open every shed. We looked in every greenhouse, poked around in every water tank, turned over every old bath. We got nothing except dirty shoes and a lot of earache from grumpy smallholders. And before you ask, we also checked for any freshly dug soil.’

‘And?’

‘There wasn’t any. The ground’s like iron. See you tonight.’

‘See you. . .’ began Brook but Noble had already rung off. ‘And sorry to be a nuisance.’

A few minutes later, Brook turned off Carlton Road and pulled into a quiet side road, locating the address he was looking for. Staring at the house, he found it hard to believe that the redbrick, detached residence in front of him was occupied. In the sulphurous glow of street lights, it appeared as though it had been abandoned years ago.

From top to bottom the building spoke of decay. On the roof, the chimney was crumbling, the pointing almost skeletal. Brickwork and mortar had washed away, creating a channel of red silt which had stained the slate roof as it trickled down. Several slates were missing or had slipped away from their rotted fastenings to nestle against the sopping, sagging gutters which had decayed so badly, a large section hung down across the front of the house like an unkempt fringe.

What little paint Brook could see on the wood-framed windows was in the final throes of peeling away from the weather-bleached, warped timbers and the glass in the casement was caked with years of impenetrable dirt. On the upper storey, Brook spied yellowed net curtains, suspended lifelessly, shrouding occupants from prying eyes. Heavier curtains, brown and worn, barely visible behind the film of grime, hung from the large rectangular bay on the ground floor.

A movement drew Brook’s eye back to the upper storey window on the corner of the house and he was in time to see a curtain shift slightly.
Someone at home
. Brook locked his car and strolled across the road.

‘If you’re thinking of knocking on Vlad’s door, you’re wasting your time,’ panted a voice.

Brook turned to see Councillor Davison, in full tracksuit now, glide to a halt, pulling hard on the leash to restrain the eager husky.

‘Vlad?’

‘Dracula, Lord Lucan, take your pick, Inspector Brook.’

‘You know me, Councillor?’ said Brook.

‘Only by reputation,’ said Davison. ‘Or the lack of it.’ He was taken aback by Brook’s one-note laugh. ‘Something funny?’

‘People who think I’ll take offence are funny,’ replied Brook.

‘Aye, well, I was in Magaluf when your hearing came up in the summer so count yourself lucky you’re still in a job. And you’re no sooner back on duty than the negative publicity starts all over—’

‘Do you live in Normanton, sir?’ interrupted Brook.

‘I live in
Upper
Normanton,’ corrected Davison sourly. ‘North of Carlton Road is Upper,’ he explained to enlighten Brook’s fake confusion.

‘And do you know Mr Mullen?’

‘What’s he done?’ asked Davison, nodding towards Mullen’s house.

‘I can’t discuss that,’ said Brook.

Davison raised an eyebrow. ‘Is that right? You do know I’m on the PLC?’

‘I do now,’ replied Brook.

‘Have you come about that missing lad?’ said Davison, his tanned face lighting up. ‘It were only a few streets over.’

‘No,’ replied Brook. ‘I’m here on another matter.’

‘What other matter?’ snorted Davison. ‘There’s nowt so important as a missing kiddie.’

‘Agreed,’ replied Brook. ‘But I’m not on that case.’

‘I see,’ said Davison, grinning. ‘Cleaning out the stables, are you?’

Brook managed an answering smile. ‘In a manner of speaking.’

‘Well, you’ll get nowt from Vlad. He’s a weirdo and a recluse. I’ve been jogging down to Normanton Park for twelve year and I don’t think I’ve seen the man more than twice and never outside.’

‘Is he disabled?’ asked Brook.

‘Hard to tell,’ replied Davison. ‘He never comes out, never opens the door to visitors during the day, unless you’re a Sainsbury’s delivery man, and even then you’ll only see an arm reaching out for the bags.’