The Unquiet Grave (37 page)

‘In a shed identical to this one,’ she said over her shoulder. She hesitated. ‘I had it rebuilt exactly as it was.’

Brook trained his eyes on the back of her head, fresh doubts surfacing.

‘You can say it,’ she said defensively.

‘Say what?’

‘That I’m weird,’ answered Rosie. ‘That I’m obsessed like my dad.’ Brook decided not to comment.

When Rosie stepped on to the low wooden veranda, the whole structure creaked. She grinned at Brook’s sombre expression. ‘Is this creeping you out?’ Brook didn’t answer. ‘It’s not like he died in
this
shed.’ Rosie unlocked the pine door with two keys and walked into the blackness.

She snapped on a lamp on top of a large desk, throwing jagged shadows on to the walls.

‘This is also a close copy of his desk,’ she said, trailing a loving hand across the leather top. ‘Everything is the same. Even the phone.’ She picked it up and brandished it at Brook. ‘It works too. Like I said, I had everything rebuilt exactly as it was. Mostly from memory. And a few photographs.’

Brook looked around. The place was more like a mobile home or a holiday cabin. The desk sat in the middle of the first room but there was still space for a fridge and a microwave against the back wall. Another door led off to a smaller room and Brook could see the end of a camp bed there. He turned his gaze on the desk, its surface covered in dozens of picture frames, all but one containing photographs of Rosie’s mother. The odd one out was an old photograph of a handsome young Sam Bannon, leaning with a young Walter Laird on an old-fashioned Jaguar, both smiling happily for the camera.

‘Dad had thousands of pictures of Mum. The one you saw in the hall was his favourite.’

‘There are no pictures of you,’ Brook observed, playing responsible parent for a moment. ‘Even as a baby.’

‘You
are
a detective.’ She laughed flippantly but couldn’t hold the mood. ‘Why would he have pictures of me? I killed the only person he ever loved.’

Brook looked at her but she wouldn’t make eye contact. ‘Your mother died in childbirth, Rosie. It could happen to anyone.’

‘It didn’t happen to anyone, it happened to my mum. And Dad never forgave me.’

‘You can’t possibly know that. Or say that he didn’t love you.’

‘If he did love me, he had a funny way of showing it,’ she said. ‘He never even held me. Not once.’

Brook tore a page from his unwritten autobiography and read it out. ‘Men have funny ways of showing things, Rosie. Especially love. And he was a copper. It’s hard in our line of work to let things affect us. Sometimes we bury our affections down deep so they can’t be used against us. Remember that when you think of your father.’

She shrugged but seemed pleased at Brook’s words.

‘Do you remember much about the night he died?’ asked Brook.

‘Not much. Officially it was an accident though, much later, one of Dad’s colleagues told me it was suicide. He said they put the thumbscrews on the chief fire investigator to change his findings so the insurance paid out.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Your father’s friends committed fraud,’ said Brook. ‘Telling you was a risk.’

‘It was Detective Sergeant Bell, if you must know. He was in charge that night, though Walter Laird called the shots when he got here.’

‘When did Bell tell you?’

‘Three years later. That’s when I knew for certain Dad didn’t love me. He’d rather kill himself than spend another day with me.’

‘He was ill,’ said Brook.

She nodded. ‘Yes, he was. And I was alone in the world – an orphan at fifteen, a mother I never knew and an unhinged father who committed suicide.’ Rosie lowered her head but bounced out of her reverie a second later. ‘But hey, when I was eighteen, I was rich. And ten years after Dad died, I used some of the money to rebuild Dad’s shed, everything as it was. Like a memorial,’ she said, her lip beginning to quiver.

Brook looked around. ‘This isn’t healthy, Rosie.’

She ignored him and waved a hand at her surroundings. ‘This is how it looked the day he died.’ She nodded over Brook’s shoulder. ‘Except that wall was covered in documents and photographs. His Pied Piper wall, he called it.’ Brook turned to look. The pine wall was bare.

He turned back to her, silent for a moment, searching for the right question. It wasn’t hard. ‘Why?’

‘The shed?’ Rosie considered the question as though for the first time. ‘My first shrink told me I was in denial about Dad’s death, turning back the clock to when he was alive. My second said I was trying to please a ghost. Who knows? But it seemed like a good idea at the time.’ She studied Brook. ‘I know it must seem weird and I can see that with hindsight.’ She laughed suddenly. ‘Though in one way I’m glad I did it because when Walter Laird and Clive Copeland saw it they thought I was off my trolley.’

‘And why was that good?’

‘Because being a fruitcake, they no longer thought I was a threat and they stopped visiting, socially at least.’

‘Why would they think you were a threat?’

‘Because Dad didn’t really kill himself and it wasn’t an accident. Somebody murdered him and I think they were involved.’

‘Can you prove that?’

‘No, I can’t. You said it yourself – there’s never been any concrete proof. But my window was open and I did hear something that night.’

‘What?’

‘Dad was arguing with someone.’

‘Are you sure your dad wasn’t talking on the phone? It would be the middle of the night.’

‘I heard another man’s voice.’

‘Your father rang Walter that night,’ said Brook. ‘They spoke about the Pied Piper.’

‘It wasn’t on the phone. The other man asked Dad why he had official documents on the shed wall. They argued. I heard them.’

‘Official documents?’ repeated Brook.

‘Exactly,’ grinned Rosie. ‘Who would know they were official documents except another policeman?’

‘What documents?’

‘His Pied Piper documents. Dad had all the incident reports, witness statements, autopsy reports, photographs of victims, newspaper coverage of all the kills.’

‘And they were destroyed in the fire.’

‘Yes. . .’ Rosie smiled and reached out to flick on a pair of spotlights trained on the bare wall. ‘And no.’

Puzzled, Brook’s eyes followed her to the desk drawer from which she pulled out a cheap wooden doorknob and moved to the wall. On closer inspection, Brook noticed a small screw, incongruously jutting out from the pine boards next to the door jamb as though someone had miscalculated the depth of the wood from the other side. She twisted the doorknob on to the inverted screw and when it was tight, pulled it. The whole partition was a false front on hinges and it swung away from the door jamb all the way to the adjoining wall, where Rosie fastened the hinged board in place.

The recessed wall and the inside surface of the false wall were covered in papers, photographs, copies of police reports, documents and newspaper pages. Brook’s jaw dropped.

‘The history of the Pied Piper,’ Rosie announced grandly. ‘The timeline of a killer who doesn’t exist.’

Brendan McCleary readied a bin bag. He brushed a little dirt from the trainers and placed them in the bottom of the bag. Next he folded up the hoodie as neatly as he could. Before putting it on top of the trainers, he held it to his face and took a deep breath. He nodded in satisfaction and placed it in the bag. Next the tracksuit bottoms. He held the trousers up first to get an idea of size then folded them into the bag. They were a bit creased but that was to be expected.

It was time. He slung the bag over his shoulder and stepped out into the black night, cloudy and grey. There wasn’t an artificial light to be seen anywhere on the horizon.

Perfect
.

Picking his way carefully across the field, McCleary unlocked the Land Rover and threw the bag of clothes into the boot. The loaded rifle was already there.

Brook shivered, feeling the bite of winter on his cheeks, in his bones. He looked across at Rosie who was lighting a stove attached to a gas bottle to warm the place.

‘They said Dad was crazy,’ she said. ‘Now you must think the same about me.’

‘You did all this?’

‘Who else? In fact I’ve made a few additions since Dad died.’

Brook approached the display to examine the multitude of papers pinned neatly to it. He recognised many of the documents from the Billy Stanforth file, though they didn’t appear to be originals. Besides police reports and other official documents, there were yellowed newspaper pages splashing the various stories and photographs and maps pertaining to the case as they’d appeared in the local press.

‘Look familiar?’ asked Rosie, sitting on the desk to observe Brook. ‘It’s not the same as Dad’s Pied Piper display. But I’ve done my best.’

‘These aren’t original reports.’

‘They’re copies. Dad was always meticulous about having duplicate paperwork. The amusing thing is that a lot of this stuff was copied by Walter Laird when Dad was still on his game.’

‘But if he kept them in the original shed, why weren’t they destroyed in the fire?’

‘They were. But newspapers can be replaced.’

‘And the police papers?’

She smiled. ‘Those are copies of copies. Just before he died, Dad took everything off the wall and photocopied it at the library. The photocopies got burned when he died; but the original copies, if that makes sense, were in a steel box hidden in the house. And only he and I knew where. See, Dad knew he was in danger. He was getting close to the Pied Piper and he knew he could end up dead.’

‘Murdered by the Pied Piper?’ offered Brook, sceptically.

She shrugged. ‘Or those protecting him.’

Brook lowered his head.

‘What?’ demanded Rosie.

‘That’s a huge leap, Rosie. Firstly, the fire investigator said it was suicide. . .’

‘Suicide can be faked. Especially by people who know what they’re doing.’

‘You’re suggesting police officers conspired to kill your father, a fellow officer and a friend. Why?’

‘To protect the Pied Piper.’

‘A killer that nobody knows exists, Rosie. Same question. Why would senior detectives in Derby want to protect a child killer to the extent that they’d kill one of their own? It’s very hard to believe.’

She took a sip of wine. ‘That I don’t know,’ she conceded. ‘But they all lied at the inquest.’

‘I know they did. And they shouldn’t have. But they persuaded the fire investigator to fudge his report so you and your father wouldn’t be saddled with the financial and emotional stigma of his suicide. They thought they were doing the right thing.’

‘I never cared about the money.’

‘You might if you’d been left penniless.’ Brook stared at her for a while, gathering his thoughts.
Bannon had mental problems. Is his daughter the same?
He turned back to the papers on Billy Stanforth’s death, looking at each in turn. Bannon had even managed to get copies of the photographs taken of the partygoers by Bert Stanforth on the day of the fire.

‘What’s this?’ Brook pulled an unfamiliar document from its Blu-Tack fastening. It was a letter from the Chief Constable of Derbyshire delivering an official warning to DCI Bannon about his conduct following a complaint by a harassed witness. It was dated 1969. He showed it to Rosie.

‘Dad had a couple of those.’

‘I didn’t see them on his personnel file.’

‘Presumably they expire or something, like driving endorsements,’ suggested Rosie. She became animated. ‘Or maybe someone’s removed them deliberately.’

‘Let’s not think everything’s a conspiracy,’ sighed Brook.

‘So you don’t think it’s significant.’

‘The fact your father kept it in his documents must mean something,’ conceded Brook. ‘But what’s it doing with the Stanforth papers? This letter was issued six years after Billy’s death.’ He found his answer at the bottom of the page. The complainant was Billy Stanforth’s mother.

‘Ruth Stanforth complained about your father’s conduct in nineteen sixty-nine,’ mused Brook. He turned to Rosie. ‘Any idea why?’

Rosie shook her head. ‘I don’t know for sure but he got that after he went to the funeral.’

‘Which funeral?’ demanded Brook.

Rosie pointed further along the wall. ‘That one.’

Brook approached the jaundiced copy of the local paper dated 23 December 1968. The headline read, TRAGIC TWIN DIES ON BIRTHDAY. It was the story of Francesca Stanforth’s accidental death, slipping and hitting her head on the side of the bath and drowning after consuming a bottle of spirits.

‘Billy Stanforth’s sister?’ Brook raised a doubtful eyebrow at Rosie.

‘I don’t know why Dad kept her death in the sequence. I think he thought it might be important because she died on Billy’s birthday. And hers. She was only eighteen.’

‘So five years after Billy’s murder, your father went to Francesca Stanforth’s funeral and offended her mother. How?’

‘He didn’t say.’

‘If he was mentally unbalanced it could be anything,’ suggested Brook.

‘Yeah, maybe he dropped his trousers and waved his dick around in the church,’ retorted Rosie, sarcastically.

Brook’s expression soured but he didn’t rise to the bait. ‘Whatever your father did, I’m not sure this belongs in Billy’s murder book.’ Nevertheless he returned the letter to its place on the wall. ‘Though finding out why it was issued could change that. And maybe tell us why your father saw fit to include reports of Francesca Stanforth’s death in his sequence.’

‘That’s always puzzled me,’ put in Rosie. ‘The Pied Piper likes young boys.’

‘Perhaps he was looking for a death that fitted his theory,’ suggested Brook.

‘Could be.’

‘I don’t see any papers from the Matilda Copeland case.’

‘Clive Copeland’s sister? That was nineteen sixty-five – not part of the Pied Piper’s cycle.’

‘I know but it’s one of the cold cases I’m looking into.’ Brook stroked his chin. ‘And there
was
a connection to the Stanforth murder that your father may not have known about at the time. You know the details?’

‘Dad mentioned it sometimes. Poor girl. Walter Laird was distraught, apparently. He knew the Copeland family. Clive was just a boy and took it hard.’