Dead and Buried (9 page)

And then there was the Butterfly Murder.

It was the crime that started the whole ‘mission’. Her mother had
not
been part of this. Rose turned back a few pages in the notebooks. There, a week or so before, she had written about it.

The Butterfly Murder was the beginning of everything
.

In 2002 ten-year-old Judy Greaves was abducted and murdered, her body left in a room full of mounted butterflies. She was discovered by a policewoman. A man called Simon Lister had been arrested and tried but was acquitted through lack of evidence. Brendan’s brother, Stuart, had known the girl’s sister, and had become obsessed with this miscarriage of justice. He’d contacted his brother and asked him to look into the case but Brendan couldn’t. Brendan went up to Newcastle in 2004 to visit him, taking my mother, his new girlfriend, with him. Stuart had gone to Simon Lister’s house and stabbed him. He got back home with blood on his hands. Brendan had been shocked. In order to save his brother from a life sentence he’d rushed round to the crime scene, removing the weapon and any trace that his brother Stuart had been there.

When the dead man was found the police searched his home and his computer and found evidence that he’d murdered Judy Greaves as well as others. They also found photographs and plans to abduct a further young girl.

It seemed to them that the murder had been a good thing.

The experience changed Brendan. Other police were involved in the cover-up and they must have stuck together. Policemen and women who were tired of criminals getting away with major crime. They decided that they would mete out justice and if that meant taking the lives of killers and those in organised crime then they would do it.

When exactly had her mother become involved?

Had she ever actually killed someone?

The only murder they knew about in any detail was that of Viktor Baranski. And as far as Rose knew her mother had played no part in that case. She turned forward a couple of pages and found the section of her statement that dealt with it.

The Second Notebook.

The photograph at the front of this book was of Viktor Baranski, a Russian businessman. He was linked to people trafficking and in 2003 the bodies of five teenage girls were found in the back of a container lorry. They had suffocated and the youngest was thirteen. They were being smuggled into Britain in order to become prostitutes. Viktor Baranski was never charged with this crime although the Cold Cases team (who were already investigating Baranski for other crimes) were convinced that he was responsible.

In 2006 he disappeared and his body was found near Cromer pier. His hands had been tied behind his back. It is my belief that Brendan Johnson and others carried out this assassination as a form of justice for the girls.

How willingly had her mother become part of this group within the police force? This was the question that had begun to play on Rose’s mind. It had been
Brendan’
s brother who had committed the first murder,
Brendan
who went and tidied up the crime scene. It was
Brendan
who had been part of the group who killed Viktor Baranski.

It was Brendan who did all of the talking on Skype.

Had her mother simply been pulled along by Brendan?

Did she regret her involvement?

Did she wish she had never got involved?

If only . . .
Rose thought as she continued writing her statement.

NINE

Rose sat opposite Sara and Maggie before class started. Sara had an arm linked through Maggie’s. They looked like twin sisters but they were just friends who’d been around each other for a long time. Now and then they saw it as their job to look after Rose.

‘Come out with us on Friday to the Pink Parrot. It’ll be fun,’ Sara said. ‘They, like, have talent spots. People get up to five minutes on stage to show what they can do – comedy, singing, dancing . . .’

‘This guy read his poems out!’

‘I liked them.’

‘Embarrassing!’

‘He had the bluest eyes.’

Rose looked from one to the other. ‘It doesn’t sound like my kind of thing.’

‘I’m sure you’d enjoy it. And, anyway, Jamie Roberts might come. He likes you.’

‘Jamie Roberts? From Law?’

Maggie nodded excitedly. ‘He asked us about you. We told him that you’re, like, a special girl.’

Rose had to smile. Sara and Maggie wanted Rose to live the kind of life that they did. They were both fiercely intelligent and they worked hard in their classes but outside they liked to play. They wanted Rose to have a boyfriend and come to the pub and go to parties. It was an alien life to Rose but they didn’t stop trying to persuade her.

‘Here’s a leaflet. The Pink Parrot is not a gay pub. Well, there might be, like, gay people in it, but you know what I mean. It’s in Kentish Town, about two minutes from the tube. Loads of kids from college go there.’

‘Not the rough lot,’ Sara said. ‘Nor the druggies.’

‘Just intellectuals like us,’ Maggie said, smiling.

Rose took the leaflet. The bell sounded for the last afternoon class and Sara and Maggie headed off while she sat finishing her tea. She looked at the piece of paper in her hand.
Variety Night! Readings, Comedy, Drama, Singers, Dancers. All Welcome. Every Friday, 8.30 start.
She couldn’t picture herself out on a night like this. Getting ready at home, deciding what to wear, meeting Sara and Maggie outside the tube, the three of them laughing and giggling on the way to the pub, getting a table or standing around watching the cabaret while keeping an eye out for Jamie Roberts from Law. Could she have a regular night out with college friends? With a frisson of possible romance thrown in?

This wasn’t the sort of life that Rose lived.

Sometimes she wished it was. Every now and again she
longed
to be ordinary, like Sara and Maggie. Each of them was comfortable in their long-term friendship, their days in college, their nights out in North London, their plans for university (the same one for both, of course). But Sara and Maggie didn’t have a history to carry round with them. How could she go out, have a laugh and joke with people, watch a show, flirt with Jamie from Law? How could she enjoy herself when these other things were happening in her life?

She folded up the leaflet and put it in her pocket.

Her phone beeped. She had a message from Joshua. It was two days since she’d seen him, since Henry had told them about Brendan’s tie. Two days of silence. She was apprehensive as she looked at the text.
Come round to the flat after college. Something exciting to show you. BTW sorry for the other night. XXX

Three kisses. She felt herself soften. She sent a reply.
See you just after five. XXX

She rang the bell to the flat and heard Joshua’s footsteps coming down the stairs.

‘Hi!’ he said. ‘Come up.’

She followed him. In the kitchen he helped her take off her coat and put it and her bag on a chair. She looked round and saw, with dismay, that it looked bare. The pots and pans that Skeggsie had lined up on the shelves had gone. The pictures that had been on the wall were gone. The work surface was clear of his mugs and the giant see-through salt and pepper shakers. None of it was there any more. Joshua saw her looking.

‘A bit empty now. I’ll have to buy a few things . . .’

Rose noticed something on the work surface behind Joshua. A large padded brown envelope. On the outside were the words
Private and Confidential. Joshua Johnson.

‘This arrived,’ he said, picking it up.

Joshua looked excited. Rose sat down at the narrow long table where she’d been on many occasions before.

‘It came by post.’

Joshua put his hand inside the envelope and pulled out a number of exercise books. This made Rose sit up. She didn’t speak but watched as Joshua laid the books out on the table. There were four of them. Rose stared at them one after the other.

‘The rest of the notebooks,’ he finally said.

‘Frank Richards must have sent them,’ she said, her voice low, ‘after he saw us in Wickby. He must have decided to send them.’

Joshua nodded.

She pulled one of the books towards her. She frowned. It was exactly the same as the two that they had once had in their possession. When she opened the first page there was a photograph there. The rest of the book was full of coded writing, page after page of unreadable prose. She closed it and pulled another one across. Then another. In the end the four books were lined up in front of her.

There was, however, something different about these books. They had a name and a date written across the cover in neat black capitals. The one she was holding had
2005 GEORGE USHER
on it. She picked up the others –
2007 MICHAEL McCALL, 2008 RONNIE BINYON, 2010 JAMES BARKER.

‘Frank Richards has given us more information,’ Joshua said. ‘He’s identified the men in these notebooks, the men who were executed.’

Executed
. Rose flinched at the word. It brought to mind a man with an axe or a hangman, an anonymous person who dispassionately ended the life of someone else.

‘You remember what James Munroe said when we were in Newcastle?’

She dragged her eyes away from the books. The printing on the covers was precise in a straight line, as though Frank Richards had written the names with a ruler underneath. She must have looked blank because Joshua went on.

‘He said that
six evil men
had been removed from our society. If you count the Butterfly Murder as the first one plus Viktor Baranski, that leaves four. These are the four other men who have been
removed
.
If you look at the inside of the back cover of each of the books you’ll see some other information.’

Rose took the first one and opened it up at the back. The word
Judgement
was there and underneath the details of the death of George Usher. It was blunt and cold. She picked up the second book and saw the word
Judgement
again and the name of Michael McCall. Again the cause of death was stated. A single word. No emotion at all.

‘I’ve made a list of them, here, look. I’ve included Baranski even though we don’t have his notebook any more.’

On a piece of A4 paper was a bulleted list.

•
2005 December George Usher: Shot.

•
2006 August Viktor Baranski: Drowned.

•
2007 July Michael McCall: Stabbed.

•
2008 June Ronnie Binyon: Hit and Run.

•
2010 December James Barker: Fell under a tube train.

‘What about the other two? The boy from my college and Skeggsie?’

‘They don’t count. They’re not part of this project. You know that. These are the people who they
meant
to kill. I’ve researched them. George Usher, sixty-two, big hotel owner in the West End. Possible cover for drug dealing and prostitution. Police arrested him for the murder of one of his own girls but couldn’t make anything stick. The newspapers hinted that his murder was drug related. Viktor Baranski we already know about. Michael McCall, forty-three, walked away from a prison sentence for the manslaughter of his second wife due to a technicality. His first wife died in mysterious circumstances years before and there’s even a suggestion that his mother died an unnatural death. Ronnie Binyon, fifty-four, money lender and property owner. High profile case of two brothers who lived in one of his flats beaten to death by his workers. Then the mother of the brothers commits suicide. Binyon stays out of prison. Lastly James Barker, thirty-nine, a serial rapist and killer out on remand awaiting trial. His victim kills herself so no trial. He falls in front of a tube train weeks later.’

Rose didn’t know what to say. She stared at the notebooks in front of her.

‘Why did Frank Richards give us these?’

‘I don’t know. Munroe said Frank was a maverick. Munroe was dismissive of the notebooks. Maybe the notebooks were Frank’s way of collecting the evidence. He had once been a policeman. While Munroe was trying to cover up what they’d done Frank Richards was trying to record it in some way. I just don’t know . . .’

Rose thought of the red notebook she had back at Anna’s. She was trying to record things in much the same way.

‘So the mystery of the notebooks is solved.’

‘There’s one more that I haven’t shown you yet.’

Joshua got up and disappeared for a moment. Rose heard him moving about in his room. He came back holding another notebook. This one looked brand new, unused. There was still a name written across it, though;
2013 MACON PARKER
. She opened it. Inside, on the first page was a photograph of a middle-aged man. His hair was receding a little but it was jet black, as if it had been dyed. The rest of the pages were blank.