A Taste for Blood E-Book

David Stuart Davies

• Herausgeber: Sparkling Books
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2013

Seitenzahl: 300

Beschreibung

The sixth novel in the Detective Johnny (One Eye) Hawke series.

Two laser-sharp detectives, two thought-provoking cases and two skilful plots.
Featuring private investigator Johnny (One Eye) Hawke, and his one-time colleague in the police force Detective David Llewellyn. Llewellyn is investigating the chilling crimes of a top psychiatrist and his scheming patient who the doctor believes has knuckled under his authority. In the meantime, Hawke is on the case of a mysterious suicide in Edgware Road... soon discovered as not your average suicide.

The guts and insight of the two investigators bring both cases to a head - though you won't even begin to see how until you have turned the last pages.

Review:

“This is a delightful read because you are not quite sure what will happen and you are hooked enough to keep on reading. Enjoyable.”  – J Robert Ewbank, author

“Johnny Hawke breathes new life into the traditional British mystery. He’s a hero with a heart.” ‒ Val McDermid

“A well crafted thriller that had me gripped from the first chapter. I tend to be a fussy reader who is easily bored with so called thrillers that fail to live up to their billing. A Taste for Blood far exceeded expectations with its carefully crafted plotting and characterization. So good were these that it encouraged me to read the novel a second time.

“I had not read any of David Stuart Davies but now am eagerly waiting his next titles. Comparisons my be made with other novels in this genre such as Silence of the Lambs but Davies has produced a work that whilst being less extreme becomes more fearful through its naturalness.

“I wholeheartedly recommend David Stuart Davies to those who enjoy a good read.” ‒ Alan Semmens, Educator, UK.

Leseprobe

A Taste For Blood

A Detective Johnny (One Eye) Hawke Novel

David Stuart Davies

Sparkling Books

The right of David Stuart Davies to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved

© Sparkling Books Ltd 2013

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or places is entirely coincidental.

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted by any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher. Except in the United States of America, thispublication may not be hired out, whether for a fee or otherwise, in any cover or binding other than as supplied by the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

2.3

ISBN: 978-1-907230-48-6

Print ISBN: 978-1-907230-46-2

@SparklingBooks

David Stuart Davies

By the same author

Johnny (One Eye) Hawke Detective:

Forests of the Night

Comes the Dark

Without Conscience

Requiem for a Dummy

The Darkness of Death

The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes:

Further Exploits of Sherlock Holmes (with Matthew Booth)

Sherlock Holmes  & The Hentzau Affair

The Scroll of the Dead

Shadow of the Rat

The Tangled Skein

The Veiled Detective

and many other titles

To Alanna Knight

PROLOGUE

He would never forget the blood. It wasn’t just the quantity – although there was a great deal of it collected in dark, shining, sticky pools on the stone floor with errant rivulets escaping down the grooves between the flagstones. It wasn’t just that sweet sickly smell either, which assailed his nostrils with pungent ferocity and etched itself forever on his memory, or the crimson stains splattered on the walls and floor that had remained with him, to return at the midnight hour to haunt his dreams. Most of all it was that face, that crazed visage with mad bulbous eyes and chomping teeth. Revisiting the scene in his nightmares, these images seem to shift and spread like a living organism coagulating into one great patch of red and then from the crimson mist the giant mouth would appear ready to swallow him up.

At this juncture, he would jerk himself awake with a brief tortured sigh, his body drenched in sweat. ‘Just a silly nightmare,’ he would murmur to placate his concerned wife Sheila and pat her shoulder reassuringly. ‘Just a silly nightmare.’

Almost ten years later, the nightmares still came. Not as often but the images were still as vibrant, as threatening, as horrific as ever. He never talked about them to anyone, not even Sheila. They were his personal burdens and he was determined that they should remain so. He certainly didn’t want to reveal his secret to his colleagues and have some brain doctor try to analyse his disturbed psyche. Besides if it got out that Detective Inspector David Llewellyn was being scared witless by bad dreams it would hardly do much for his police career. So, with typical stoical reserve, his ‘silly nightmares’ remained private and self contained.

Until…

ONE

1935

The night was bitterly cold and the frosty lawn shimmered like a silver carpet in the bright moonlight. Concealed in the shrubbery, Detective Sergeant David Llewellyn gazed at the dark and silent house some fifty yards away. His body was stiff with apprehension and fear while his bowels churned with nervous tension. He knew he shouldn’t be here. He knew he was taking a risk. He knew he was following his heart rather than his head. But he also knew that sometimes one had to take risks to achieve the right result.

The house, Hawthorn Lodge, gothic and imposing, appeared as a black threatening silhouette against the lighter star-studded sky. It rose out of the earth like a giant claw, its gables and chimneys scratching the sky, while its windows glistened darkly in the moonlight. There was no observable sign of life or occupancy and yet Llewellyn knew that there was some one in there: Doctor Ralph Northcote.

No doubt he was in his basement, a section of the house that the doctor had successfully kept secret from the officers when they had searched the premises. What he was doing there? Llewellyn preferred not to think about it at that moment. His boss, Inspector Sharples, a whisker off retirement, was a tired and sloppy officer and had not been thorough or dogged enough in his investigations. Llewellyn had been sure that a house as large as Hawthorn Lodge would have quarters below ground – a wine and keeping cellar at least – but Sharples wasn’t interested. He was convinced that the arrogant and smarmy Dr Ralph Northcote was in no way associated with the terrible crimes he was investigating. How could a man of such intelligence, refinement and breeding perpetrate such horrible murders? The fiend who slaughtered those women was an animal, a beast, a creature of the gutter, not a respectable and respected medical man. Or so the blinkered, forelock tugging Inspector believed.

David Llewellyn had other ideas.

To satisfy his curiosity – at least – he had visited the local solicitor’s office where he had been able to examine the original plans for Hawthorn Lodge. To his delight and satisfaction he had discovered that, as he suspected, the house did have a series of cellars. The plans indicated that these chambers were accessed by an entrance in the kitchen. However, instead of passing this information on to his superior, Llewellyn had decided to carry out some undercover work of his own. Why should he allow the old duffer Sharples take the credit for his detective prowess? He’d been sneered at and ridiculed when he’d offered his opinion, his strong conviction, that Dr Northcote was the man they were after.

Now he intended to prove it.

Gripping the police revolver in his pocket with one hand and picking up his battered canvas bag with the other, David Llewellyn emerged from the shrubbery and with a measured tread made his way across the lawn towards the front of the house, his footsteps leaving dark imprints in the frosted grass like the trail of some ghostly creature. On reaching one of the tall sitting-room windows, he knelt down in the flowerbed and withdrew a jemmy from the bag. With several deft movements, accompanied by the gentle sound of splintering wood, he managed to prise the window from its fastenings and open it a few inches. That was all that was needed. Gripping the lower edge of the window with both hands and exerting all his strength he pushed it higher, creating an aperture large enough to allow him to pass through.

Within moments he was in the house, a gentle smile of satisfaction resting on his taut features. From the innards of the bag, he extracted a torch. He had visited the house on two previous occasions in a formal and more conventional capacity with Sharples. These visits, allied to his studies of the plans, gave him the confidence to move swiftly through the dark sitting room, into the hallway and towards the kitchen.

* * *

The murders had started six months earlier. The pattern was the same in all four cases. A young woman in her early twenties was reported missing by her distraught parents and then a few days later her mutilated body was discovered in woodland or waste ground. In all instances the victim’s arms, legs and breasts had been amputated and were missing. There was also evidence that the victim had been tortured. Most of the gruesome details had been held back from the press but despite that, because of the youth of the victims, the murderer had been labelled ‘The Ghoul’ by the more downmarket rags.

The limbs had been expertly severed and so it was suspected that a member of the medical profession was the perpetrator of these horrendous crimes. The girls had all lived within five miles of Hampstead Heath and doctors and surgeons residing within this radius had fallen under particular scrutiny. Two suspects emerged: Stanley Prince, a middle-aged GP who had been struck off the medical register some years before for conducting a series of abortions; and Ralph Northcote, a surgeon at St Luke’s Hospital who twelve months earlier had been accused of assault by one of the nurses who had mysteriously disappeared before she could testify against him at a medical tribunal. As a result, the case was dropped and Northcote continued to practise.

Inspector Brian Sharples was placed in charge of the case and given one of the promising new live wires at the Yard, Detective Sergeant David Llewellyn, as his assistant. The two men did not get on. Sharples was an old hand, steady on the tiller, a great believer in doing things by the book, a book it seemed to Llewellyn that Sharples had written himself at some time back in the Middle Ages. With Sharples it was a case of softly, softly, catchee monkey. This may work in the long run, thought Llewellyn, but there may be three or four more murders before this particular monkey was apprehended. Llewellyn was a great believer in stirring up the waters and in the power of intuition. He was convinced that he had a nose for sniffing out a murderer.

Both Prince and Northcote were investigated and interviewed, but apart from their past misdemeanours nothing could be pinned on them. However, Llewellyn did not like Northcote. There was something about his oh-so- charming and rather slimy manner that set alarm bells ringing for the young Detective Sergeant. So much so that, unknown to Sharples, and any other of his colleagues, he had started to do a little digging on his own. Northcote was now in his mid-thirties and living alone, but in his youth he had been a bit of a ladies’ man with, Llewellyn discovered, a string of broken engagements. Engagements which had all been ended by the girls. Llewellyn had managed to track one of these girls down and interview her. Doreen French was touching forty now, plump and comfortable looking. She had married a greengrocer and was the mother of twins. She seemed content with her lot and more than happy to talk about Northcote. She revealed nothing that was legally incriminating, but confirmed Llewellyn’s impression that the man was odd and put up a false front to the world. ‘In the end,’ said Doreen French, her eyes twinkling brightly, ‘he gave me the willies. He was… how can I say…? He liked to touch me. Not in a sexual way, you understand, but… just to touch my skin. He loved to run his fingers down my bare arm. He once gave my arm such a squeeze, it caused a great big bruise. He wasn’t much of a kisser, but …’ she giggled innocently… ‘he did like to lick me. On my cheek and round the back of the neck. I thought it was sweet at first. Affectionate like – but in the end… as I say, it gave me the willies’.

Llewellyn nodded sympathetically. It would give him the willies too. ‘Was he ever violent to you?’

Doreen did not have to ponder this one. ‘Oh, no. Not deliberately, anyway. There was that bruise I mentioned, but he never slapped me or anything like that. But I have to say, that towards the end, I just didn’t like being alone with him. He just seemed odd. What had started out as endearing quirks became rather spooky. And his eating habits… ugh!’

‘What about them?’

‘Well, he hardly ate anything that was cooked. He liked raw steak and his lamb chops hardly sat in the pan a minute before they were on his plate, all bloody and raw.’ Doreen pulled a face that effectively mirrored her revulsion.

Well, thought David, there was nothing in the interview that would provide evidence that Northcote was this Ghoul, but he certainly seemed a strange chap and it was certainly a strange chap with medical knowledge who was murdering these young girls. Now a fifth one had disappeared. Her body had not been found yet so there was a slim chance that she was still alive. Very slim, he had to admit. Sharples had refused to interview Northcote again – ‘We’ve nothing to go on, lad. We’re here to investigate crimes not cause a nuisance to respectable law abiding folk.’ And so David decided to take things into his own hands.

*  *  *

Once in the kitchen, he examined the walls carefully for some kind of hidden door that would provide access to the cellars. His search was fruitless, however. As he stood in the centre of the lofty chamber, the beam of his torch slowly scanning his surroundings, a sound came to his ears, one which froze his blood.

It was a high-pitched scream of pain. It was sharp and piercing like nails down a blackboard. He shuddered involuntarily at the sound. Where had it come from? It was clear yet distant, like a train whistle down a long tunnel. He listened, straining his ears in the hissing silence but the sound did not come again. As he waited in the dark, he relaxed the hold on his torch and the shaft of light sank towards the floor and rested on the base of a large kitchen cabinet by the far wall. What it illuminated made Llewellyn’s heart skip a beat. There were faint skid marks marking the dark wooden flooring: tiny groves that had imprinted themselves on the boards. It was quite clear to Llewellyn that these had been made by the stout legs of the cabinet as it had been pulled away from the wall.

With a tight grin, he rested the torch on the large kitchen table in the centre of the room so that the beam fell on to the cabinet and then he attempted to drag it away from the wall. Kneeling in order to obtain a more secure purchase, he tugged hard at the lower section. Slowly the cabinet moved, the feet following exactly the track of the grooves in the floor. When he had managed to create a gap between the wall and the cabinet big enough for him to squeeze himself into, he saw it.

Llewellyn’s grin broadened. ‘The secret door,’ he whispered to himself.

He now pushed the cabinet fully clear of the wall and attempted to open the door. The handle rattled encouragingly but the door did not budge. It was locked. This did not daunt Llewellyn for although the lock was new and stout, the door was old. Retrieving the jemmy from his canvas bag, he got to work levering the door open. It was the work of a matter of moments. The wood splintered easily and surrendered to the force of the jemmy.

Gingerly he pulled the door open and with the aid of his torch he peered into the darkness beyond. There was a set of stone steps leading down into ebony void. ‘Now the adventure really starts,’ he muttered to himself as he moved slowly forward into the cold blackness. On reaching the bottom of the stairs he thought he heard faint, indistinguishable noises in the distance. How far away they were he could not tell. Maybe it was just the movement of rats and mice – maybe it was something else. Using his torch like a searchlight, he tried to get a sense of his surroundings. He was in a passageway with a low vaulted ceiling. He saw that there were two light bulbs dangling down but no sign of a switch by which to turn them on. He knew, however, that it would be foolish to do so even if he could. He had no intention of announcing his presence in such an ostentatious fashion.

On reaching the end of the passage, he came to another door. A thin line of light seeped out at its base. This is it, thought Llewellyn, heart thumping. Swiftly he clicked off the torch and stowed it away in his coat pocket and then pulled out his revolver before turning the handle of the door. This one was not locked. Gently he opened it and stepped inside. The first impression was of the brightness of the chamber. The walls and floor were covered in white ceramic tiles while fierce strip lights hung down from the ceiling flooding the room with harsh illumination which created dense shadows. It had the antiseptic ambience of an operating theatre.

An operating theatre.

In the centre of the room was a stone slab on which was laid the twitching naked body of a young girl. At first glance, she seemed to be coated from head to foot in some dark shiny substance. Then, to Llewellyn’s horror, he realised that it was blood. Leaning over her was a man in a white coat which was also splattered with crimson stains. As Llewellyn entered the chamber the man glanced up in surprise, his eyes wide and manic. It was a moment that was forever etched on David’s mind. Like a scar, that image was to stay with him for life; it was seared into his consciousness ready to feed his nightmares and catch him unawares during unsuspecting waking moments. It was as though a fierce flashbulb had exploded, the harsh, vibrant light freezing the scene as vile photograph.

The creature seemed unconcerned that he had been disturbed in his activity. The lower half of his face was dripping with blood and something seemed to be trailing from his mouth, glistening and moist. As Llewellyn took a step nearer, he realised to his disgust that it was a piece of pink meat. Instinctively, his gaze moved to the mutilated body of the naked girl and then the truth hit him like a mighty blow to the solar plexus. This fiend was eating her flesh.

TWO

1944

After the death of my girlfriend Max… after her brutal murder… I spiralled down into an undignified state of self-pity. I tried to escape reality through booze and sleep, failing to function either as a detective or even a human being. I rejected the ministerings and comfort offered by those close to me: Peter, my sort-of adopted son, Benny, the little Jewish café owner who treated me like family, and my old mate Detective Inspector David Llewellyn. In their various ways they all tried to shake me out of my depressive malaise, but failed. It was not their fault. Perversely, I didn’t want to be shaken. I wanted to wallow. Ironically, as I think back to that period now, I can see that being deeply miserable was in a strange way the only thing that was keeping me sane.

As an orphan, I had never seen much affection in my life and then to meet the beautiful Max and receive it from her in spades was miraculous and wonderful. My innate cynicism forged out of a life of disappointments should have warned me that it wouldn’t last, but nothing or no one could have prepared me for the savage and dramatic way in which she would be taken from me. What increased my pain was the sense of guilt I felt for her death. She was killed by a crazed maniac as a means of wreaking revenge on me.* She was an innocent who had wandered into my dirty little world and because of me she had lost her life. It was my fault that she ended up with a bullet in her head.

* See The Darkness of Death, the fifth Johnny One Eye novel, for full details

My fault.

The image of my dead love with her wide staring eyes and the spidery tendrils of blood spilling down her face haunted me in those months and days that followed. And, indeed, haunt me still.

What dragged me back to reality and, in truth, saved my sanity was one of the strangest and most challenging episodes of my life. It was late March and winter’s grip on the country was still in evidence. It might have been spring on the calendar, but the elements were not acknowledging the fact. The daffodils and crocus may have reluctantly raised their heads about the stiff frost-bound earth, but the fierce gales continued to blow and sleet showers doused the city. It was on such a foul morning when the wind rattled the window panes and the rain sloshed against the glass that I was sitting huddled by the electric fire, clasping a cup of hot coffee while trying to raise some enthusiasm for facing the day. I realised that I had to go back to work and soon. I had been scrounging on my savings such as they were for the last few months and as a result they had dwindled drastically and were now in danger of disappearing altogether. I had turned down a couple of mundane cases simply because I couldn’t face the prospect of returning to my old routine, pretending that everything was normal again. ‘Pull yourself together man’, would be the sentiment. ‘What the hell, life goes on y’know!’ Sorry, but I just couldn’t accept that resilient and unfeeling philosophy.

However, as I sat in my cramped sitting room, staring at the small twisted orange wires of the electric fire gently vibrating with feeble warmth I came to accept that even mundane cases pay and I needed money. Even if I was just going to spend it on booze. I knew that it really was time to try and get back in the saddle as that stupid phrase has it. I could hear Benny’s voice in my head: ‘Work is the best antidote to sorrow, my boy.’ Well, perhaps the old boy was right.

With some effort, I dragged myself down the hall to the bathroom. I gazed at myself in the mirror over the sink. It was probably the first time I really had looked at myself properly since before Max died. I was shocked by what I saw. Here was a stranger. A grey, hollow-cheeked ghost of a man, wearing a haggard parody of my face, was staring back at me. My vivid impersonation of a consumptive tramp was enhanced by the several days’ growth of beard.

Suddenly I heard another voice inside my head. This time it was my own and surprisingly, shockingly, it came up with a new thought – something that had not crossed my mind until the image of the dissipated wreck in the mirror had prompted it. What would Max think? I asked myself. Would she be happy at the way you are behaving? Of course not. She wouldn’t want you this way, would she? Not her Johnny. By turning into a self-pitying drunk I was letting her down. This realisation struck me hard. What a stupid bastard I was!

With some effort, I held back a sob and rooted in my toilet bag for my razor. ‘Let’s get rid of the fuzz for a start’ I muttered to myself through gritted teeth.

Thirty minutes later, I was back in my sitting room fully dressed with a clean white shirt on and a smooth chin and combed hair. I still looked like death warmed up, but a much tidier version than before. As I checked myself out in the mirror I even afforded myself a smile. It was a stranger to my face and it had difficulty settling there but I persevered and made it stay for a few seconds before it slipped away into the ether. Perhaps I was only pretending to myself that I could do this but, I reckoned, if I stuck to the pretence maybe that would become its own reality. I’d just got to try.

As a reward for all my efforts, I sank in my armchair and lit a cigarette. Watching the bluish smoke spiral gently away from the amber tip, I made plans for my day.

My first port of call was St Saviour’s Church, the little Catholic church situated in one of the thoroughfares off the Edgware Road. It was here where Max was buried. I managed to buy a limp bunch of daffodils to place on her grave. The rain had stopped, but dark clouds loured over me and the wind stabbed me and pinched my nose as I stood in the graveyard and had a brief conversation with my dead love. ‘I’m back,’ I said. ‘Back as me. Back as you knew me. Well, almost. I still don’t have that spring in my step but I’m going to try, my love. I’m going to try for you. Be the old Johnny Hawke I used to be. I’ll never quite manage that, but… I’ll try to make you proud of me.’ I grinned and dabbed my moist eye.

As I turned to go I was conscious of someone standing close to me. It was Father Sanderson, the priest who had conducted Max’s funeral and had been so kind and understanding towards me.

‘Hello, Johnny,’ he said, his blue eyes twinkling. ‘How are you?’

I gave a gentle shrug. ‘I think I’m on the mend.’

‘That’s good to hear. The pain of loss never quite goes away, nor should it, but it does become easier to bear. It’s early days yet.’

I nodded.

‘I wonder if I could have a word with you. I have a little problem you may be able to help me with.’

‘Well, yes, of course, if you think I can be of any use.’

‘How about a cup of tea and a digestive biscuit in my office? That should help warm you up. I must admit you look like a frozen ghost.’

I grinned. ‘I’m anybody’s for a cuppa and a biscuit.’

*  *  *

Father Sanderson’s office was a cramped little chamber just beyond the vestry. It smelled of damp, dust and altar candles. Various tomes were piled up along the walls and there were a couple of bentwood chairs and a bench which also held books as well as a gas ring, kettle and other tea-making equipment. Alongside these were several goblets and a bottle of what I assumed was communion wine standing on an old newspaper. Around the base of the bottle, the paper was spotted with dried splashes of the wine, creating a delicate pattern in varying hues of red.

‘Sit yourself down, Johnny, and I’ll brew up.’

I did as he asked, wrapping my overcoat around me. For my money it was colder in here that it was outside in the graveyard. A few minutes later I was sipping a cup of scalding hot tea and nibbling on a damp digestive.

‘Sorry to bother you, but I’m in a bit of a quandary, really,’ said the old cleric as he seated himself opposite me. He had a kind, heavily wrinkled face framed by a thatch of thick white hair. I guessed that he was in his seventies, but he could have been younger: it was just that his desiccated skin and stooped shoulders suggested otherwise.

‘I know you are a kind of detective, Johnny, and I thought you might be able to offer me some advice,’ he began hesitantly. It was obvious that he felt awkward about having to approach me in this way.

‘If I can,’ I said. ‘What’s the problem?’

‘It’s one of my parishioners, Annie Salter. She’s a widow. A lady in her fifties. Lost a son at Dunkirk. Been a regular at St Saviour’s for many a year. A few weeks ago I found her in the church. She was praying in one of the pews near the altar and seemed upset. She was muttering something. I could not hear the words but it was quite clear that she was asking for help – for divine assistance. I stood in the shadows not wanting to interrupt her private moment. From time to time she would pause in order to stifle a sob and then she would begin again. My heart went out to the poor soul. Whatever afflicted her, it was tearing her apart.

‘I waited at the back of the church while she had finished and then as she made to leave I approached her. I could see clearly that she’d been crying – and I thought I might be able to help her. Offer comfort, at least.’

‘What is troubling you, my dear?’ I asked, taking her hands in mine.

She tried to shrug off her distress with a faint smile. ‘I’m all right, really. Just feeling a little low. Came in to ask Jesus for some help. It’s the war, isn’t it? Sometimes it gets you down a bit.’

I knew that she was not telling me the truth. Not the full story, at least. I told her that I was there to listen, to help. I was one of Jesus’s helpers. Perhaps I could come to her aid. My offer of help seemed to upset her more than ever.

‘At the moment, I don’t think anyone can help me,’ she told me as her eyes moistened again. Then she pulled her hands from mine and hurried away without further words or a backward glance.

‘That was the last time I saw her.’

I said nothing. I knew that there was more to come. There had to be.

‘The following Sunday, Annie did not turn up for the Sunday service. I had not known her to miss in three years, apart from one occasion when she was struck down with influenza. The following morning, I went round to her house to see if she was ill and needed some help. There was no reply when I knocked on the door. I knocked hard, I can tell you, Johnny.’ He smiled. ‘A priest always does. Sometimes the householder will hide behind the door hoping I’ll go away. If you bang loud enough, eventually guilt makes them open up.’ His smile broadened and then faded quickly. ‘But on this occasion there was no reply. I was just about to leave when the lady next door popped her head over her threshold. ‘I’ve not seen her since Friday. I reckon she might have gone away,’ she said. ‘Where to?’ I asked and received a puzzled shrug in response.

‘Annie’s behaviour in church and her absence prayed on my mind. I was worried about her – so much so that I visited the house again the following Thursday. Still there was no reply. My concern grew. I thought it was time to take further action so I went down to the local bobby shop on Frampton Street. They know me down there and took my concerns seriously. Sergeant Harmsworth came back to the house with me and after the rigmarole of knocking and waiting, waiting but no response, he applied his weight to the door and forced it open. ‘It’ll be up to you, Father, to pay for any repairs,’ he said trying to lighten the mood of the operation. We stood on the threshold and he called out Annie’s name. His voice echoed through the innards of the house but no one answered. I feared the worst. And so did Sergeant Harmsworth if his grim features were anything to go by. We moved into the tiny hallway and then into the kitchen. All was neat and tidy. All perfectly normal, I suppose. And then we came into the living room. It was terrible, Johnny. Simply terrible. There she was dangling from one of the beams, her mouth agape, tongue sticking out, her eyes… her eyes… well, it was terrible.’

‘She’d hung herself.’

Father Sanderson shot me a glance. ‘Well, that’s what it looked like. There was a dressing gown cord tied around her neck and a stool on its side under her. And there was a note on the mantelpiece.’

‘What did it say?’

‘I can tell you exactly what it said. Just five words only. ‘I just couldn’t go on.’

‘A fairly traditional sentiment for a suicide.’

‘Mmm. Exactly. Traditional. Cliché even. Oh, the police are quite convinced that poor Annie committed suicide.’ He paused and flashed me a piercing glance.

‘But you’re not,’ I said.

‘No, I’m not. It’s not her way. She was far more stoical than that. She’s not a quitter. And another thing… that note. It’s not her writing.’

‘You told the police this.’

‘Of course I did. They just said that when a person is in a disturbed phase of mind their handwriting goes haywire. They can’t control their movements or some such notion. But I know, Johnny, I know that Annie did not write that note. Apart from the writing, it was too brief and trite for Annie.’

‘What are you saying?’ I asked, fairly certain I knew the answer anyway.

Father Sanderson looked me in the eye and said sternly, ‘I am saying that she was murdered.’

THREE

Dr Francis Sexton sat in his car and stared through the windscreen at the forbidding building before him. Even on a bright day in March when the sky was making every effort to shrug off the greyness of winter and allow little patches of blue to appear, Newfield House looked bleak and gloomy. To Sexton the building, stark against the bright sky with drab stonework marked with the strands of long-dead ivy, and the strange acute angles of the gables, along with the blank shuttered windows, made the place look like an illustration from a work by Edgar Allan Poe – The Fall of the House of Usher – maybe. The house, an early Victorian monstrosity, stood in isolation in its own grounds, now uncared for and neglected, like the inmates within.

Sexton shifted his gaze to the paint-peeling notice erected near the main door:

Newfield House

Psychiatric Hospital

No Unauthorised Admittance

Home Office Property