The Domino Killer (23 page)

Sam was back in his car, the traffic streaming past, some of it slowing down so that people could look at the crime scene, the tape acting like an advertising banner. Was the killer in one of the cars, cruising past to enjoy his work? Sam glanced into the faces of those passing now and again, hoping to see something he recognised, like satisfaction, but he saw nothing more than intrigue.

He was searching the internet on his phone, his notepad open on his knees. It seemed an easier place to start than the police computer. Some of the uniformed police officers were watching him, especially the younger ones, in their eyes the hope that they’d end up on the Murder Squad. It was long hours and often unglamorous, but there is no higher reward than catching a killer. That moment of arrest beats everything, even though it’s only the start of the journey, with a court case and potential pitfalls ahead. Sitting in his car close to a main road didn’t seem like much, but it was the case coming together, and he relished that part of it.

He’d put the name of the grassy area into the search bar, and he found something sixteen pages in. Katie King, a schoolgirl murdered just over seven years earlier.

He clicked on the link and brought up an old newspaper article. It was lacking in detail, mainly an appeal for information. Katie had been at her boyfriend’s house but they’d argued. She was fifteen, and the usual routine was that he’d walk her home. Not always the whole way, but at least so far that he could watch her until she turned into her driveway. That changed on the night she died. They’d fallen out over something trivial and Katie had stormed off. The walk home was a long one and it rained, so she took a short cut through the green. Her body was found the following day. She’d been strangled and her clothes partially removed. The article didn’t say whether there’d been a sexual assault.

The most recent hit Sam could find was a fresh appeal for information three years earlier, but no sign that anyone had ever been caught.

Sam put his head back, frustrated. That was too remote a connection. Every park or open space in Manchester has probably had a murder at some point. Open spaces in the city attract killers because they provide privacy and darkness.

There was movement ahead. It was Brabham, walking towards him, tugging on his lip, looking thoughtful. It looked as though there had been a development. Sam stepped out of his car.

‘I found something but it’s too old,’ Sam said, holding up his phone as Brabham came up to him. ‘A girl killed here just over seven years ago. Katie King, but apart from that, nothing.’

Brabham put his hands on his hips so that his suit jacket splayed out. ‘We’ve got a name,’ he said. ‘The hire car parked on the main road was hired out to a Mark Proctor. His occupation is listed as financial services.’

The space around Sam went quiet, like a door had been closed. He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry, his hand reaching out for the support of the car. Sam knew the implications of what had been said; they rushed at him like a gale.

‘Mark Proctor? Are you sure?’

Brabham looked surprised. ‘You sound like you know the name?’

Sam was confused. He went as if to say something, but couldn’t think what to say. He looked back towards the green.

‘His name came up in relation to something else,’ Sam said eventually. Unconvincingly. ‘I’ll go back to the incident room, try to find it.’

‘Can you remember what?’

‘No, not off the top of my head. If I go back there, it might trigger it.’

‘You sure? I was going to Proctor’s house. I wondered if you fancied coming along.’

‘No, no, I’ll need to do this,’ Sam said, and climbed back in to his car. ‘It might be crucial.’

When he was back in the driving seat, he wiped his forehead as Brabham walked towards his own car. He was sweating. He looked back towards the green. It looked different, threatening somehow, the shadows created by the trees darker.

Oh Joe, what have you done?
 

Joe gasped. The computer keyboard dug into his face, the desk banged against the wall. The man was screaming, not making any sense, loud in his ears. Joe pushed back using the edge of the desk. He needed to get away.

As Joe strained, the man’s grip slackened, as if he was losing his balance. One more heave backwards and the man stumbled, so Joe kept on back-pedalling across the room, grunting with exertion. The room filled with noise. The clatter of a chair. The man’s screams. A shout of pain. Two bodies stumbling, Joe on top.

A chair leg caught Joe in a rib, made him cry out, but he had no time to pause. The man was underneath him. Joe kicked back with his heel, catching the man on his shin, making him slacken his grip. Joe rolled away and scrambled to his feet. He leaned against the wall, panting from exertion.

He looked down at the man on the floor. He was holding his leg and lying in a foetal position. He turned to glare up at Joe. ‘Who are you? Why are you in my house?’

‘I’m the man who’s leaving,’ Joe said, and moved along the wall.

‘Wait, don’t!’ the man said, and he rolled over so he could get to his knees. ‘I’m not going to attack you,’ he said, and there was defeat in his voice. He swallowed and closed his eyes. A tear escaped. ‘Are you the police?’

‘No, I’m just a man looking for answers.’ Joe pushed himself away from the wall. He was wary of the man but he didn’t seem dangerous. ‘Are you working with Proctor? I saw him here earlier.’

The man opened his eyes and shook his head, incredulity on his face. ‘No, not ever.’

‘So why was he here?’

‘I can’t tell you.’

‘I know what Mark Proctor is capable of,’ Joe said.

‘How do you know?’

Joe wondered whether he should tell him, but the picture that had been emailed and the photographs on the wall told him one thing: the man’s daughter had been murdered.

‘Mark Proctor murdered my sister,’ Joe said.

The man’s mouth gaped open. ‘When was this?’

‘Seventeen years ago.’

The man stayed silent, staring ahead, until he said, ‘What was her name?’

‘Eleanor. We called her Ellie. Proctor killed her on her way home from school, strangled her and discarded her like rubbish.’

‘I’m Gerald King. That’s my daughter in the photographs. Katie. Like your sister, killed and left as if she was nothing. Seven years ago now.’

‘Tell me about her.’

‘Loving, kind, sweet, trusting.’ He wiped his eye.

Joe went over to the dining table and pulled out a chair. ‘Don’t sit on the floor, Gerald.’

He got to his feet and sat down opposite.

‘How did she die?’ Joe said.

‘Katie had gone to a youth club with her boyfriend. She went every Tuesday. It was late April so it got dark fairly early, and it was dark when she left. I told her to call me if her boyfriend couldn’t walk her, so that I could pick her up, but I’d been working late that night. She argued with her boyfriend. Katie didn’t call me, she called her mum. I’d have left work to collect her, but Nicola, that’s my wife, well, she’d been drinking. She’d started drinking more. Katie needed her less and Nicola felt a bit redundant, I think, so a glass of wine every night turned into a bottle. Katie rang home, her friends had gone on to a party so she was on her own, but Nicola couldn’t collect her because she’d been drinking. So Katie walked home on her own. She never made it. Found on the green at Worsley. Strangled. Her clothes were all messed around with, her jeans round her knees, but the police said she hadn’t been, well, you know…’

The green at Worsley. Where the man was killed the night before.

Gerald paused to wipe his eyes. ‘We should have been there for her, but we weren’t.’

The guilt of those left behind, thinking that if they’d done things differently, their loved one would still be alive. God knows Joe knew that feeling well enough.

‘Where’s Nicola now?’ Joe said.

‘What do you think a drinker does if she blames her drinking for the death of a loved one? I can tell you: she drinks more.’ Gerald looked at the ceiling and attempted to blink away the tears. When he looked down again, his cheeks were wet. ‘We moved house so that we didn’t have to see that place every day, but the hurt moves with you. So one day, she ended it. Hanged herself from the stair rail. I found her when I got home from work. I’d lost everyone then.’

Joe closed his eyes and let out a long sigh. This was getting too hard.

‘So why was Proctor here?’ Joe said.

Gerald clenched his jaw but didn’t respond.

Joe remembered the email.
You got the wrong one
.

‘It was you,’ Joe said, aghast. ‘You killed that man last night, whoever he was.’

Gerald stayed silent.

‘Talk to me. I need to know.’

‘What, so you can tell everyone what I told you and I go to prison for the rest of my life?’

‘You did it because you thought he was Mark Proctor,’ Joe said. ‘I was following him for the same reason.’

Gerald looked at the floor. He was silent for a few moments before he said, ‘He killed Katie. And he killed Nicola, in a different way.’

‘Where did the email come from, with the pictures?’

‘You saw it?’ When Joe nodded, Gerald said, ‘Someone who wouldn’t give his real name. He told me he’d burgled Proctor and taken a box. There were things in it. Pictures, jewellery, newspaper articles.’

Joe’s eyes widened. ‘And?’

‘He said he wouldn’t go to the police because he couldn’t go back to prison, and he hadn’t been out long,’ Gerald said. ‘But he said what Proctor had done was wrong. Whatever bad things he’d done, it was nothing compared to Proctor. He wasn’t prepared to come forward but he was giving me the chance to make it right. He reckoned Proctor would kill again, because people like him always do. The only way to stop Proctor was to kill him, and this person was giving me the chance. I’ve thought of nothing else for seven years. So when I got there, I couldn’t stop myself. I lost it, just stabbed and stabbed until he stopped moving.’

‘Why didn’t you just tell the police and let them trace the emails?’ Joe said.

‘Because he said he would destroy everything if I did. There were other things there too. Some earrings, and some pictures of Katie not long before she died. I could have them if I killed Proctor, if I got rid of the man who took my daughter away from me.’

‘How sure were you about this?’

‘I asked him for proof. He sent me a picture of Katie’s notebook. She carried one around with her because she used to pass messages in class. Just silly teenage girl stuff. I recognised her writing. Katie’s notepad was missing. I asked the police at the time, because I thought it would have her final thoughts in it. Who she liked, music, just the daft things that made her the person she was. He’d kept it, like some cheap souvenir. I wanted it back and I couldn’t stand the thought of him destroying it.’

‘Something about this doesn’t seem right,’ Joe said. ‘Could it have been Proctor you were speaking to all along?’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘That has to be it,’ Joe said, leaning forward. ‘Who else would have access to those souvenirs? And why was he here?’

‘Why do you think?’ Gerald said. ‘To taunt me, because I got it wrong.’ He shook his head again. ‘I killed the wrong man.’

‘Just taunt?’

‘And blackmail.’

‘Whoa, that changes everything.’

‘How so?’

‘You’re saying that you received emails that persuaded you that Mark Proctor is your daughter’s killer. You were told not to leak the information but instead kill Mark Proctor. The wrong man was sent and you killed him. Then Mark Proctor comes here and demands money from you. How much?’

‘Fifty thousand to begin with.’

‘And who’s the common person in all of this? I’ll tell you: Mark Proctor. He’s set you up to kill someone, and now he’s trying to get fifty grand from you.’

‘You think so?’

‘It makes sense.’

Gerald thought about that for a few moments. When he spoke, his voice was quiet. ‘So what do I do now?’

‘You sit and wait, to see whether they work out it’s you.’

‘And if they do?’

‘You’ve got problems.’

Gerald put his head in his hands. Joe thought he was crying, but when he looked up again, Gerald’s cheeks weren’t damp. He said, ‘Why were you there, at the green? How do I know you aren’t part of it, here to turn up the heat on me, advise me to pay out? You both get rid of some kind of enemy or rival, and you’re here to play some kind of good-cop-bad-cop routine? You were looking at my emails. Were you here to delete everything, or take my computer, so the police can’t examine it?’

Joe shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I was there for the same reason you were: to kill Mark Proctor.’

Gerald put his head back and looked at the ceiling. He laughed out loud. ‘So for once in my life I got there too early.’ He shook his head. ‘I should have just followed him, tried to stop him. I was sent other photographs too, proof of who was next, but I couldn’t work out where it was or who it was.’

‘Show me.’

Gerald went to his computer and located a file in his documents folder. He clicked on one of the thumbnails. An image came up on the screen.

Joe leaned in. It was a teenage girl in a school uniform, generic black trousers and white shirt. She was pretty, light skin and red hair, her demeanour serious.

‘Do you know the school?’ Joe said.

‘I haven’t looked that hard,’ Gerald said. ‘He only made contact a few weeks ago.’ Gerald nodded towards the screen. ‘So you think she might be the key?’

‘I don’t know,’ Joe said. ‘That’s part of the problem. But if we can find out why he’s chosen her, it might help us. We need to know more about Proctor. If we know the man, we might be able to understand him better and then work out his next move.’

‘He told me he was going to blame someone else,’ Gerald said. ‘He took the rag that I wiped the knife with. He’s going to do something with it. Plant it, I presume.’

‘Shit,’ Joe said. ‘That will be me.’

‘I’ll tell the police it wasn’t you.’

‘How can I trust you?’

‘Because I’ve nothing left to live for,’ Gerald said. ‘I’ve lost my daughter and my wife. I just exist, and now I’ve killed an innocent man. I don’t even know if I want to get through today, never mind blame someone else for my troubles.’ He reached out and gripped Joe’s arm. ‘Just stop him. Do whatever you have to do, but don’t let him hurt anyone else. I’ll be waiting here for the news. Once I know Proctor is taken care of, I’ll hand myself in for what happened last night.’

‘Thank you. I’ll do that.’

Joe left the house, unsure of his next move. His uncertainty was resolved when his phone buzzed. It was a message from Gina:
Joe, we need to talk
.