A Killing Resurrected (2 page)

More words crossed out . . .

The letter ended there with the last two lines crossed out and completely illegible – if indeed it was intended to be a letter and not something the boy was rehearsing to tell his aunt. The Superintendent passed the letter over to Paget, and turned to the next page. It repeated much of what had been said before, except this time it seemed to Alcott there was an undercurrent of hysteria as Barry Grant tried to explain to his aunt how he wanted nothing more to do with the others, but wanted to go to the police and try to explain what had happened.

Give me a
name,
for God's sake!
Alcott scanned the page, searching for a name, a nickname, anything that might point to an individual, but there was nothing.

The rest was a jumble of words crossed out, ending in three heavy lines across the bottom of the page, and the word
SHIT!
scored into the paper with such ferocity that the
page was torn.

The third page was shorter and even less coherent. Whole sentences were crossed out, and Alcott sensed a rising desperation rather than mere frustration at being unable to find the right words. The boy was trapped and saw no way out.

‘Who else knows about these letters?' he asked Claire.

‘To my knowledge, no one. The envelope was sealed when it was given to me by Aunt Jane's solicitor. He told me she had given it to him a couple of years ago, with instructions to hold it until after her death, then give it to me when the will was read. Aunt Jane didn't tell him what was in it, and he said he didn't ask.'

Alcott opened the bottom drawer of his desk, took out several clear plastic bags, and gave them and the remaining letters to Paget, saying, ‘I doubt if Forensic will be able to find anything of value after all this time, but you never know.'

He turned back to Claire. ‘This David he refers to?' he said. ‘That would be David Taylor, the son of George Taylor, the baker who was killed?' Alcott had had Records dig out the file, now archived, after his conversation with Claire Hammond on the phone.

Claire nodded. ‘That's right, Superintendent,' she said. ‘I wasn't in the country at the time, but I heard about it later, and I could never understand why they killed Mr Taylor and Mrs Bergman, but after reading those notes from Barry, it makes more sense.'

‘It does,' Alcott agreed. ‘It was a sensational case at the time, but I wasn't directly involved. The case was handled by Detective Inspector Rogers, who's retired now. But I was directly involved with Barry Grant's suicide, and there was never the slightest reason to connect the death of the Grant boy to the robberies. They were two completely separate events as far as we were concerned. You say you grew up with Barry, and you were a close friend of Mrs Grant, but I don't recall talking to you at the time. Did any of our people speak to you?'

‘No. As I said, I was out of the country, attending a summer arts course in Spain when Barry died. I came back for his funeral, but returned to Madrid the following day. No one so much as mentioned the death of David's father at that time, in fact I didn't hear about it until I returned a month later. But even if they had, there would have been no reason to connect it with Barry's death.'

‘Mrs Grant didn't mention it, knowing what she did?'

Claire shook her head. ‘She was in shock. Uncle Arnold had died the year before, and she was only just beginning to come to grips with that when Barry killed himself. Now, having read the letters Barry tried to write to her, I realize she must have been absolutely devastated. I could see she was suffering, and I offered to cut my course and stay with her for a while, but she wouldn't hear of it.'

Alcott still looked puzzled. ‘But surely some of Barry's friends and yours were at the funeral? Yet you say no one so much as mentioned the burglary?'

Claire shook her head. ‘I think that was the saddest part of it all,' she said softly. ‘Aunt Jane and I were the only ones there.'

‘And she said
nothing
about why she thought Barry had killed himself?'

‘No. Except she blamed herself.'

Alcott frowned. ‘Why would she do that, when she knew the reason?'

‘Aunt Jane felt she'd failed him. She felt it was her fault that he'd turned out the way he did, although God knows she had done everything she possibly could to give Barry a good home. But Barry was a strange boy. He . . .' Claire shrugged and fell silent, seemingly unable to find the words to express her thoughts.

Paget looked up from the letters he held in his hand. ‘You say he was a strange boy, Miss Hammond. Would you mind telling us in what way? Because if what Barry Grant is saying in these letters is true, and we reopen the investigation into the deaths of the two people who died during that robbery, the more we know about him and his friends, the better.'

Claire didn't respond immediately, but sat looking down at her hands, lips pursed, her brow furrowed. ‘I find it hard to describe Barry,' she said at last. ‘You see, I prefer to remember him as he was when we first came to live next door. He was a year older than me, and I suppose you could say he sort of adopted me.'

Claire smiled as she saw the questioning look on Paget's face. ‘It isn't obvious now,' she explained, ‘but I was born with a deformed leg, and I had to wear a metal leg brace for several years. It was an ugly thing and, as children will, they picked on me, called me names, and made fun of me. But Barry never did. He was only a year older than me, but he literally took me under his wing when I started school, and he would always walk with me. It was funny, because he was no bigger than I was when I first met him, although he soon filled out with Aunt Jane's cooking, but he was ready to take on the world if necessary.

‘And that,' she ended wistfully, ‘is the way I prefer to remember Barry, because he changed so much over the years that almost everyone he'd grown up with avoided him – including me, I'm afraid. So when you ask about his friends, all I can tell you is that he knew a lot of people, and I'm sure he regarded many of them as his friends, but I can't think of anyone who would claim Barry as
their
friend.'

‘Changed in what way, Miss Hammond?'

‘In trying too hard to be liked,' said Claire. ‘He couldn't stop acting: acting the fool; putting on a show; doing almost anything to draw attention to himself. He simply
had
to be the centre of attention, and that put people off. He couldn't bear to be excluded from anything. He would attach himself to people, insist on being part of the group even when it was clear to everyone except Barry that he wasn't wanted. He was his own worst enemy in that regard, and I felt sorry for Aunt Jane and Uncle Arnold, because they did everything they could to make him feel loved and wanted in their home, but it still wasn't enough for Barry.'

‘You told us earlier that his mother died in tragic circumstances,' Paget said. ‘How did he come to live with the Grants? Was there no father? No other relatives?'

Claire became aware of Alcott moving restlessly in his seat as if impatient to be off somewhere. ‘It's a long story, and not a very pleasant one,' she said quickly, ‘but to give you an idea, I can tell you that Barry's mother, Aunt Jane's niece, was a prostitute who died of an overdose of drugs, and Barry, by all accounts, had a pretty miserable upbringing. There were no other relatives, at least not in England, so the Grants adopted him.'

‘Which was very good of them, I'm sure,' Alcott said brusquely, ‘but the lad must have had
some
friends, surely? I mean according to what he's written here, he claims to be part of a gang.'

‘What about David Taylor?' Paget broke in quickly before Claire could reply. ‘Barry speaks of David in these letters as if he were a friend. Was that true?'

Claire smiled wryly as she said, ‘When David was about sixteen, his uncle gave him an old broken-down Hillman Minx, and said he could have it if he could get it going and make it roadworthy. There was nowhere near David's home where he could work on it, so he asked Uncle Arnold if he could use the space beside the old shed at the back of the orchard. There was a bench and a vice and all sorts of tools in the shed, and Uncle Arnold let David have the run of the place. David likes to work on his own, he always has, but Barry kept pestering him so much to let him help that finally David gave in, and that was a mistake, because Barry wasn't content with that; he expected David to include him in everything he did. No matter where David went, no matter what he did, Barry would be there, and he kept it up until David went off to Slade. David thought that would be the end of it, but it wasn't. When he came back to work in the bakery during the summer break, there was Barry once again, cocky as ever, ready to pick up where he thought they'd left off.'

‘I remember David Taylor,' Alcott said. ‘He was one of the boys I spoke to at the time of Barry's suicide. He worked for his father, I believe. Did he stay with the business after his father died?'

Claire shook her head. ‘No. He stayed on until the end of summer, then left to continue his studies in art at Slade. But he still lives here. He owns the Brush and Palette art shop in Sheep Lane. We work together occasionally.'

‘Your work being . . .?'

‘I'm a designer and interior decorator. Small businesses, mainly, banks, shops, offices and private homes. David is an excellent artist, and he's been a great help to me on some of the bigger jobs. I did the overall design and interior decorating, but he did that big mural in the town hall last year.'

Alcott was impressed, and was about to say so when Paget asked a question. ‘Do you believe Barry when he says in his letter that he had no hand in the killing of those two people, Miss Hammond?'

‘Yes, I do,' she said firmly.

‘Why?'

‘Barry was great on bravado, but it was all show. I could be wrong, but I think Barry was scared to death most of the time.'

‘Scared? Of what?'

‘Of not being accepted. Not belonging. Of failure.'

‘But why kill himself if he was innocent?'

‘That, I don't know,' said Claire. ‘Perhaps he felt he'd been backed into a corner and couldn't see a way out. I've read those letters over and over again, and I think Barry had come to the end of the line. He was in over his head, running with a bunch of people who were quite obviously prepared to go to any lengths to protect themselves. They used him. People did that to him all the time. They took advantage of the fact that he was prepared to do almost anything to be liked and accepted, which may be how he came to be involved in the robberies in the first place. He loved cars, so I believe him when he says he was just the driver. The others probably wouldn't trust him with anything else, and when they said they'd swear it was he who did the killings if he didn't keep his mouth shut, he must have felt trapped.'

Paget looked perplexed. ‘I don't understand,' he said. ‘If, as he says, they were prepared to swear that he was directly involved in the killings, why doesn't he give their names? From what you've told us, it sounds as if you knew Barry as well or better than most, so while these people may not have been friends in the strictest sense of the word, surely you must have known who some of them were?'

But Claire was shaking her head. ‘Once Barry left Gordon Street and went on to Westonleigh Secondary, I saw very little of him,' she said.

‘Even though you were living next door to the Grants?' Paget persisted.

A flicker of irritation crossed Claire's face. ‘I think it was simply time for both of us to move on,' she said. ‘I suppose it was the end of our childhood in a sense. Barry became so involved with impressing his new-found friends at Westonleigh, that he spent very little time at home from then on. From there, he went on to Leeds University to take Mechanical Engineering, while I went to York on a scholarship, so we only ran into each other again on rare occasions.'

‘I'd like to go back to David Taylor,' Paget said. ‘Barry says in one of the letters that David's father pulled a mask off one of the thieves, and that was why he was killed. He goes on to say he couldn't face David after what happened, but that is something that can be taken two ways. Is it possible that the reason Barry Grant stopped short of naming names was because he couldn't bring himself to turn on someone he considered to be his friend?'

Claire stared at Paget. ‘You're accusing
David
?' she said. Her voice rose. ‘Of killing his own
father
?'

‘I'm not accusing anyone of anything,' he said. ‘I'm simply looking at possibilities. You know these people better than I do. All I'm asking is, do you think that's possible?'

‘Absolutely not!' Claire said icily. ‘I think I know David pretty well, and there is no way he would have been involved in such a terrible crime.'

Claire Hammond had gone. Alcott, who had risen to usher her out, returned to his seat. ‘So what do you think?' he asked. ‘Was young Grant telling the truth about those murders? Or did he actually kill those people, then try to put together a story to tell his aunt?'

‘Judging by the writing, I'd say he was telling the truth or at least trying to,' Paget told him. ‘But whether he was or not, we can't ignore this new evidence, although to be honest I don't relish the idea of opening up a thirteen-year-old case. Memories fade, witnesses move. It won't be easy.'

‘What about Miss Hammond herself?' Alcott said. ‘She seems to be a no-nonsense sort of woman, but I'm not convinced she was telling the truth when she said she didn't know who Barry's friends were?'