The Eyes of the Accused: A dark disturbing mystery thriller (The Ben Whittle Investigation Series Book 2) (20 page)

Connie studied the pitiful wreck of her adversary. With his mouth bound with duct tape, Crowley’s eyes looked as if they were trying to act as his defence attorney.

Connie squatted down so as she was at eye level. ‘What do you want?’

‘Oomph, ma-oomph, oomph.’

‘Do you want water?’

Crowley bobbed his head.

‘No. You’ll only end up wetting yourself again.’

‘Oomph, oomph, ma-oomph.’

Connie shook her head. She didn’t have time to pander to his whims today. She was as busy as a bee in a tulip field.

Crowley waved his free hand at her as if trying to hail a taxi.

‘Put your hand down. You’re not in a classroom.’

Crowley flapped his hand even more enthusiastically.

She noticed a puddle of blood and urine on the garage floor. It would need a damn good scrub and a lick of paint before she put Fourwinds up for sale. Perhaps a nice shade of yellow to commemorate Crowley’s cowardice.

Crowley made a horrible gurgling noise in the back of his throat. It sounded like the garbage disposal unit in the kitchen.

Perhaps he’s emptying his thoughts down his throat.

Connie thought the Wolf might be right. ‘I’ve got business to attend. If you’re good, I’ll let you have some water when I get back.’

Crowley’s broken wing flapped again. He shook his head like a dog with a stick.

‘Don’t be such a child. From what I know of you, sitting on your fat backside all day should be right up your alley. You want to thank your lucky stars I’ve bandaged your leg.’

Crowley didn’t look very grateful. His cheeks puffed like bellows as he tried to defy physics and speak through a solid mass. Connie locked the garage door and left him to stew in his own juices. He could huff and puff all he liked, she wasn’t in any mood to kowtow to the demands of a filthy swine like Frank Crowley. Not today. Not ever.

By the time she reached Sunnyside, her tummy felt queasy. And little wonder. She had the Three Little Piggies to think about. Not to mention Da and work. It was like trying to juggle with one hand tied behind your back.

The Three Little Piggies will all be bacon, soon, Sweetcakes. And Crowley shall be crowned the King of Whodunit.

Connie walked into her office and sat at the desk. The Wolf was right. Crowley would be posthumously declared a multiple murderer. The sooner the better.

A lamb to the slaughter.

Connie wasn’t sure she agreed with the Wolf’s portrayal of Crowley as a lamb. ‘More like a jackal, if you ask me.’

‘Ms. Sykes?’

Connie jumped and banged her knee on the desk. ‘Didn’t anyone teach you to knock, Lisa?’

‘I did knock.’

‘Try using your knuckles next time. What is it?’

‘It’s your dad.’

‘What about him?’

‘I was trying to cut his toenails, and he went off on one. Started shouting about the “whizz-bangs” and the “blue baby” and foaming at the mouth.’

Connie’s stomach fell down a lift shaft. ‘And you’ve just left him up there on his own?’

‘No. Of course not. Sarah’s with him. We were getting him ready for his bath.’

By the time Connie reached her father’s room, he seemed to have calmed down. He sat in a chair overlooking the gardens.

Sarah held his hand and rubbed his arm. ‘He just started fretting, Connie. Like he was trying to say something but it wouldn’t come out. Then he started going on about—’

‘The whizz-bangs?’ Connie interrupted.

‘Yes. I—’

‘You can leave now.’

Lisa hovered in the doorway. ‘You’ll be all right?’

Connie nodded. ‘Aye. Go on, I’ll deal with it. Close the door on your way out.’

Connie tried to dredge a smile from the slurry in her mind. ‘What are you doing panicking everyone like that, Da?’

The old man had a trail of spit running from the corner of his mouth to his chin. He looked at her with red-rimmed eyes. Not the faintest flicker of recognition.

‘Oh, Da. You gave me such a fright.’

Da didn’t seem too concerned about that. One of his hands clawed at the air, as if trying to cling on to reason.

‘We’ll be going home soon,’ Connie promised him. ‘Back to where we belong.’

His tongue moved slowly across his lips, as if tasting words that would never be spoken.

‘Everything’s set. Hannah’s almost ready to give birth now.’

John Sykes looked at her with blank haunted eyes.

‘You remember Hannah?’

A grunt. A primal noise in the back of his throat.

Connie didn’t hear it. Her head was too full of plans and promises to hear anything other than her own thoughts. ‘As soon as baby Jacob is born, I’m going to take you back to Fourwinds. How does that sound? No more Sunnyside. No more care assistants messing about with you. I’ll look after you. Then we’re going back to Yarmsworth.’

John shook his head. He appeared to be trying to swallow his own lips.

‘The Wolf says that the whizz-bangs will go away once you’re settled at home. What do you think about that? No more headaches.’

He reached out a hand. Arthritis had sculpted the knuckles into a lump of gnarled wood.

Connie took his hand and squeezed it. ‘I’ll still take you home on Christmas Day as usual. But just for the day, mind. I’m too busy at the moment to make it permanent.’

Da squeezed her hand back.

Connie looked at him. ‘Do you understand what I’m saying?’

Another squeeze. This time a little harder.

‘Ooh, Da, I can’t wait until baby Jacob is born. It will be just like before.’

The old man gripped her hand tighter. His nails dug into her flesh.

Connie didn’t feel it. ‘We can take Jacob down to the mine when he’s old enough. You can show him how to shoot the tin soldiers.’

‘The…’

‘Da?’

A tear slipped down the old man’s cheek. ‘The… the…’

Something squeezed Connie’s heart. ‘Don’t fret, Da. It’s nearly over now.’

‘The… blue… baby…’

Connie closed her eyes. ‘Jacob’s all right, Da. Don’t start all that again.’

His nails dug deeper, drawing blood. ‘THE BLUE BABY! THE BLUE BABY!’

Connie tried to free herself, but this only caused him to grip tighter. ‘Stop it, Da. You’re hurting me.’

‘THE BLUE BABY! THE BLUE BABY.’

Suddenly, a switch flipped in Connie’s mind, transporting her back to the morning after she’d put the pillow over baby Jacob’s head. Back to hearing her mother screaming and yelling at the top of her lungs. ‘The baby’s blue. The baby’s blue, John. Oh, my God, he’s not breathing. He’s all blue. Call an ambulance. For God’s sake, call a fucking ambulance.’

Connie had never heard her mother swear before. Not even when the Ice Queen had sliced the tip of her finger off with a paring knife.

‘What do you mean, the baby’s blue?’ Her father’s voice, rolling along the landing, every word accentuated by the thud of his footsteps on the wooden flooring.

‘He’s not breathing.’

And then silence. As if the house had been swallowed whole. For a few moments, as Connie held her breath and gripped the edges of her mattress, she’d truly believed that she was dreaming. None of this was happening. Any minute now, baby Jacob would start hollering at the top of his bionic lungs. Her father would walk along the landing and talk to him in that stupid way most adults spoke to babies. All that bibby-babby-boo stuff that sounded as if it belonged in a nursery rhyme.

Keep quiet, Sweetcakes.

The voice came from her Beatrix Potter lampshade. But that was stupid. Peter Rabbit couldn’t talk; any idiot knew that.

Go back to sleep.

‘How can I sleep with all this going on?’

Just close your peepers and drift away.

The voice sounded like her Da’s. But he was downstairs now. On the phone in the hallway, by the sound of him. Shouting. Explaining how baby Jacob wasn’t breathing. How he was all blue. No, he didn’t know how long for. No, he hadn’t checked for a pulse. Yes, he was fine when they put him to bed. And a whole load of other stuff Connie didn’t hear too well with her heart thumping in her ears. 

Connie closed her eyes. She heard her father’s footsteps coming back up the stairs. She then heard her mother start sobbing. Da was saying something, but Connie couldn’t make it out above the awful racket her mother was making.

In spite of all of this, Connie managed to fall asleep. By the time Da woke her up some time later, baby Jacob had already been given a one-way ticket to the hospital. Da had snot and tears all over his face. He tried to explain to Connie what had happened to baby Jacob. Connie would never forget the look in his eyes. As if he was being haunted by all the ghosts in Hell.

Several times following the tragedy, Connie had heard her parents arguing about silly things. Was baby Jacob too hot? Too cold? Connie had been tempted to tell them to stop fretting; there was nothing they could have done. He was as fit as a fiddle. It was her fault. She’d sneaked into his room and put a pillow over his head.

‘THE BABY’S BLUE!’

Connie jumped back from memory lane as her father struck her across the side of the face. Not just a slap. A great big ear-splitting whack designed to capsize a brain.

‘THE BABY’S BLUE!’

Connie wrenched her hand free and staggered back. ‘Da?’

He’s not stable.

Connie jumped at the sound of the Wolf’s smooth, textured voice.

‘THE BABY’S BLUE! THE BABY’S BLUE.’

You need to sedate him.

Connie looked at her father. His arthritic hands flailed at an imaginary assailant. Spit foamed on his lips. His eyes bulged. The Wolf was right; he needed tranquilising. A great big knock-me-out dose to help him through this transitional period. The last thing she needed right now was the devil making work for idle hoofs.

Ben walked into the office and paced up and down in front of the desk. ‘Have the police found anything yet?’

Geoff shook his head. ‘They’re doing their best, son. They’re keeping an eye out for Crowley’s car. They’ve been to the mobile home site a few times as well.’

‘And?’

‘Zilch. The place is still all locked up.’

‘And that’s it?’

‘They’re doing the best they can on limited resources.’

‘On limited brains, more like.’

‘I know you’re upset, son. We all are. But we need to be patient.’

Ben stopped pacing and threw his hands in the air. ‘Patient? It’s been over three days since she went missing.’

‘It’s still early days. We —’

‘I didn’t want her to go anywhere near that twat in the first place.’

‘We’re not going to get anywhere arguing over the rights and wrongs of—’

‘I had a bad feeling about this from the start.’

‘Maybe you ought to go and see if you can speak to Crowley’s mother. Andy said the cops have been out there twice, but got no answer. He’s given me her postcode.’

Ben agreed. ‘Maddie said in her text she thought Crowley might be hiding something in that house. What if it was Hannah?’

‘I very much doubt it. Not right under the old lady’s nose. She lives in a tiny terraced house, not on Penghilly’s Farm.’

Ben wasn’t deterred. ‘I read a case once where this serial killer was taking prostitutes back to his mother’s house. Killing them and burying them in the basement. Some place in America.’

‘Well this isn’t America. Yet. You’d better get a shift on. The snow’s getting worse.’

Ben programmed Agnes Crowley’s postcode into his phone app. He drove to her house with macabre images of dead bodies swirling around inside his head. By the time he parked, there was a good six inches of snow settled on the ground. 

After almost five minutes without an answer, Ben was about to walk back to the car when the bedroom window opened. He looked up to see a woman in a knitted hat and jumper. ‘What do you want?’

Ben shivered and stamped his feet on the snow covered path. In his eagerness to get here, he’d forgotten his coat. The wind ripped through the thin fabric of his suit. ‘Mrs Crowley?’

‘Who’s asking?’

‘My name’s Ben Whittle.’

‘Are you a copper?’

‘No. I’m looking for someone.’

‘Are you looking for Frank?’

‘Not exactly. Can I come in and have a chat? It’s freezing out—’

‘Ronnie says to never let strangers in the house. Not unless they’ve got some form of identity.’

‘I’m a private investigator.’

‘And how do I know that?’

Ben rummaged in his pocket. Why did everything seem as if it was happening in slow motion? He pulled out a business card and held it up in front of him.

The old woman squinted at it. ‘I can’t see that. Anyway, you can get them cards made up most places these days.’

‘It’s not made up, Mrs Crowley. I am a private investigator. I’m looking for my partner. Her name’s Maddie. Maddie White.’

The old woman’s frosty demeanour suddenly changed. ‘Maddie? Little blonde girl? Pretty?’

‘Yes. Have you seen her?’

‘Frank said she was his girlfriend.’

‘It’s a long story, Mrs Crowley. Can I come in?’

‘I’m phoning Ronnie first. He’ll know what to do.’ She disappeared, leaving Ben to wait outside in the brewing snowstorm for the best part of ten minutes.

Finally, Agnes Crowley opened the front door. ‘All right. You can come in. Ronnie’s says he’ll be over soon. He’s only fifteen minutes away.’

Ben thought the last part was a thinly disguised warning. He didn’t care. He was just grateful to be able to get out of the cold. He stepped inside and tried to stop his teeth chattering.

Agnes led them into her front room. ‘It’s a bit parky in here. I’ve been away for a couple of days, minding the kids while Ronnie and Susan went Christmas shopping in Paris.’ She emphasised the word Paris as if it was the source of great pride.

‘That’s… nice.’

‘Ain’t it just. He’s a good boy, Ronnie.’

Ben didn’t really care if Ronnie was Saint Nicholas himself. ‘When was Maddie here, Mrs Crowley?’

‘Coupla nights ago. Frank brought her home for tea.’

‘What time did they leave?’

‘Not late. About half seven – eight. Something like that.’

‘Did they say where they were going?’

‘Back to Frank’s. For the life of me, I can’t understand why he would take anyone back there.’

‘How did he seem?’

‘Shifty, as usual. So what’s this really all about?’

‘We’re investigating the disappearance of a young woman where Frank works.’

‘The Heath girl?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you reckon he’s got something to do with it?’

‘I don’t know. We’re trying to find out what happened.’

‘Something don’t smell right. I know that much.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘He turned up about an hour after he left with Maddie. With a policewoman. She reckoned Frank had a load of stolen films.’

‘Was Maddie with them?’

‘Nope. Just the two of them. Scrawny looking woman in motorcycle leathers.’

Ben’s heart missed a beat. The mystery biker at the mobile home site? Had to be. Too much of a coincidence. ‘Did this policewoman give you her name?’

Agnes looked into the empty fireplace, as if the answer lay in the ashes.  ‘No. Come to think of it, she didn’t have no ID, either. Frank looked guilty as sin though. Scared, even. But it’s a job to read him sometimes.’

‘What did they do?’

‘Went upstairs to his room. Then they come back down ten minutes later with a load of DVDs. God knows what was on them. Frank put a padlock on his door a while back.’

‘Could I have a look in his room?’

‘There ain’t nothing to see. Just an empty cupboard and his poster of Marilyn Monroe lying on the bed.’

Ben didn’t believe Crowley had just been keeping dodgy films up in his room. ‘I’d still like to take a look.’

‘It’s like an icebox. I’ve had the window open to try to get the smell out.’

‘Smell?’

‘Stank to high heaven.’

Ben imagined a rotting corpse.

Agnes didn’t. ‘Truth is, that boy’s got an odour problem. Even as a kid he used to sweat like a stuck pig.’

‘Can I have a look?’

Agnes led him up the stairs and into Crowley’s bedroom. ‘You can close the window now. I don’t want it open when I go to Ronnie’s. I’m spending Christmas week with him. Be nice to get treated properly for a while. Put me feet up.’

Ben closed the window. ‘How long has Frank been keeping the room locked?’

‘Since the summer. He put a bigger padlock on it a couple of weeks ago. After the break-in.’

‘Break-in?’

‘While I was at bingo. Between you and me, Ronnie reckons it was Frank.’

‘Why would he think that?’

‘Because Frank’s no good.’

‘What did the police say about the break-in?’

‘Probably druggies nicking stuff to sell.’

Ben looked at the open cupboard door. ‘Is this where Frank kept the films?’

‘I guess so.’

‘And then Frank and this policewoman just left?’

‘Yep. He put the films in a carrier bag. Then they just buggered off.’

Ben thought it odd that the police would use a carrier bag to put evidence in. Didn’t they carry proper sealed bags for that sort of thing?

‘I can’t see why she was so concerned about a few dodgy films. There are perverts everywhere. I’m not saying I approve of porn; I don’t, but you’d think the police had bigger fish to fry.’

‘It does seem strange.’

‘I went straight upstairs after they left. Just to make sure everything was as it should be. I looked out the window and saw them getting into Frank’s car.’

‘Both of them?’

‘Yep. I thought it was odd, what with her all decked out in motorbike gear.’

‘Is it possible she was just getting a few more details off your son?’

‘No. I watched them drive away together.’

‘Who was driving?’

‘Frank.’

‘What did this policewoman look like?’

Agnes thought for a moment. ‘Medium height. Thin as a rake. Short, spiky grey hair. Glass eye.’

Ben heart flat lined. ‘I’ve got to go. You’ve been a big help, Mrs Crowley.’

‘Do you know—’

Ben hurried down the stairs and out the front door without a backward glance. He needed to find Connie Sykes. And quick. Maddie’s life depended on it.