The half burnt house, p.11
The Half Burnt House, page 11
‘No,’ Laurence said.
Gaunt put the smile away quickly.
‘What happened to the child?’ Laurence said.
‘There was a fire. Mr Hobbes was away from the estate at a conference. The fire broke out in the room his son was sleeping in. There was staff there at the time, and they managed to raise the alarm and contain the blaze, but not in time to save Mr Hobbes’s son. You might have noticed the damage it caused when you visited yesterday?’
Laurence thought back to arriving at Hobbes’s house and recalled the charred, collapsed section he’d seen at the centre of the building.
‘What was the cause of the fire?’
Gaunt hesitated. ‘I can imagine what you might be thinking,’ he said. ‘But my understanding is the incident was fully investigated at the time. It was an electrical fault. It’s an old building, and parts of it have been in a state of neglect for quite some time.’
‘Why would I be thinking anything else?’ Laurence wondered.
‘Sorry?’
‘It just seems odd you would say that.’
‘I—I’m not sure.’ Gaunt shook his head. ‘What does the fire have to do with anything?’
‘Nothing, I’m sure.’
Which was most likely the truth, and yet Laurence realized his thoughts kept running off on these strange tangents. Perhaps that was just a result of his natural curiosity, but whatever might be most likely here, he couldn’t quite shake the sensation of there being a complicated network of cogs turning below the surface of this case. But again he stored the information away for now.
‘You told us yesterday that you had some knowledge of Professor Hobbes’s possessions?’
‘Yes. He had an extensive library. Some of the philosophical texts he’d collected over the years are intensely valuable. Your DCI has kindly allowed us to begin removing them for safekeeping.’
‘Yes, DCI Barnes is renowned for his kindness. Is anything missing?’
‘Not from there.’
‘From where then?’
‘Mr Hobbes was a very rich man.’ Gaunt looked awkward. ‘Over the years, he had amassed an additional collection of … I don’t know how to describe it. Shall we say artwork?’
‘I don’t know. Shall we?’
‘Well, it’s all just money in another form, isn’t it? Some of the items in this collection were also valuable. Very valuable indeed. As far as I’ve been able to tell, most of it’s there. But there might be a couple of things missing. Although one of them in particular – potentially the most expensive – there’s no way of knowing if it’s actually missing, or if it’s stored elsewhere, or if it even –’
Laurence lost patience. ‘What is this item?’
Gaunt gave a humourless laugh. ‘A book,’ he said.
Laurence was quiet for a moment. He thought back to the footage he had watched, picturing the object that Christopher Shaw had brought out from the archway. It was about the right size and shape for a book. It had glinted in the light, but he presumed a valuable book would need to be wrapped in something to protect it.
He was about to press Gaunt for more information when his phone rang. He held up a hand to signal their conversation was far from over and the lawyer must wait, and then stepped away and took the call.
It was Pettifer with an update on the search for Christopher Shaw. She and another officer had gone to Shaw’s mother’s house and spoken to her, but the woman insisted she hadn’t seen her son in two years. Laurence detected in his partner’s frustrated tone that the woman had not been particularly easy to deal with. Regardless, Pettifer had managed to excuse herself for the bathroom, at which point she had ducked her head quickly into the various rooms and found no evidence of Shaw’s presence.
‘Did you believe her?’ Laurence said.
‘I don’t know,’ Pettifer said. ‘But given what happened two years ago, it wouldn’t surprise me if Shaw really was keeping away.’
‘Anything else?’
‘Post-mortem’s just finished; we’ll be getting a provisional result from that shortly. And we might have visuals on Shaw. I’ve found a bank account registered to him, and he’s made various withdrawals from cash machines over the last few months. The most recent was yesterday. I’m waiting on security footage from that now.’
‘That’s something,’ he said.
Silence on the line.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Of course what I meant was that’s excellent work.’
‘That’s better. And how are you doing?’
Laurence glanced at Gaunt. ‘I’m not sure yet. I’ll let you know shortly.’
He ended the call and then stepped back over, joining the lawyer by the graves, and staring down at them for a moment. Two were filled with the victims of terrible tragedies. One was waiting to be with the victim of an equally horrific murder.
And all because of what?
Laurence looked up at Gaunt.
‘Tell me about this book,’ he said.
16
Katie had time to kill after she left James Alderson’s art studio.
She couldn’t go home without letting Sam know she hadn’t been at work that day, and yet she had no obvious further options in terms of finding Chris. All she could do now was hope he would see the message she’d left and call her. Unable to think of anywhere else to go, she drove at random, ending up in an area of the city she didn’t know well, and then found an anonymous cafe, in which she did her best to make a sandwich and two cups of coffee last as long as she could.
It gave her an opportunity to think.
Which was not necessarily a good thing. Her phone was on the table. There had been no contact from Sam all day, and part of her was relieved about that. After all, he thought she was at work; if he texted her now, then any reply she sent would be a lie. And, of course, she had ended the call that morning brusquely. At the same time, he often texted her during the day – just little connections, perhaps even especially after arguments – and so a different part of her was upset not to hear from him. Even if there was no reason for it, it felt like the events of the last twenty-four hours had exacerbated troubles that had been lying just beneath the surface of their relationship for a while now.
Money, of course.
She usually tried not to think about that, but she forced herself to do so now. She knew how important music was to Sam – in all the forms he pursued it – but increasingly it felt like he was chasing a dream they both knew was unrealistic. Of course, there was much more to a relationship – a life together – than the money you brought to it, but there had been lean times recently, and perhaps she didn’t always reassure him as convincingly as she should.
And yet neither of them was able to acknowledge that openly, and so instead the tension had started to come out in little asides and oblique references, never resolving itself. Sometimes she thought he was ashamed, which she hated. But at other times he would overcompensate almost bullishly, so that she’d come home to find he’d effectively done nothing all day, and all the chores and housework were waiting for her. At times like that it was almost as though he was trying to provoke her.
But she never took the bait. And while it bothered her that they were keeping things from each other right now, perhaps the worst thing was that it didn’t bother her as much as it should have. Part of her accepted that it was just who they were now. That they had started sleepwalking in different directions, and if they weren’t careful, then one day they were going to wake up in different rooms.
Katie looked at her phone. She could have texted him herself, of course.
But she didn’t want to, and that was part of the problem. Instead, she took the newspaper clipping out of her pocket and put it on the table, smoothing out the creases and then looking down at the little boy in the picture.
Nathaniel Leland, 7 months, remains missing.
This child was a mystery to her, but he was in the composite painting and so clearly Chris considered him part of his history – as important on some level as the photographs of her and their parents. She picked up her phone and opened the internet, and then searched for variations on the name. There were plenty of hits, but none seemed obviously relevant. There was nothing about a missing child.
But in the afternoon light the paper appeared even older than it had before. Whatever had happened to Nathaniel Leland, it had obviously been a long time ago. And while every missing child was newsworthy to someone, the sad truth was that people could disappear from history just as easily as they did from life.
She closed the browser and put the phone down. Just as she did, it vibrated and the screen lit up. She was picking it up when the waitress approached.
‘Another cup of coffee, love?’
Katie checked the screen. A text from Sam.
Hi there. Just a reminder I have a gig tonight in case there’s a danger of you ‘working late’ again! Love you.
She stared at the message for a couple of seconds, breathing slowly, wondering what it was about it that annoyed her the most. The exclamation mark? The quotation marks, which seemed designed to diminish her concerns about her students? The lack of the usual kisses at the end?
Perhaps it was all of these.
She put the phone down and smiled flatly at the waitress. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Another coffee, please.’
Not that she was late home, of course.
She actually arrived a few minutes early – although whether that was to show willing or to maintain the high ground was open to interpretation. She walked inside to find Siena seated in front of the television – again – and Sam’s guitar and equipment leaning against the wall of the front room. He emerged from the kitchen as she closed the front door, already pulling his coat on.
‘Can I grab the car keys?’ he said.
Not even a hello.
Katie handed the keys over but checked her watch.
‘I thought the gig wasn’t until … eight?’
‘It isn’t. But I want to get there early to set up. Say hello to a few people and have a catch-up. Plus, we’ve not had a chance to practise much recently.’
‘Right.’
He hesitated. ‘Is that not OK or something?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Of course it’s OK.’
He hesitated again, then gave her the look that pissed her off more than any of the others in his arsenal. It was an expression that said: I can see you’re in a bad mood for no reason, and I’m going to be the bigger person and not rise to it.
OK,’ he said. ‘Fine then.’
Katie sat down with Siena while he made a couple of trips to the car with his gear. Then she made a point of getting up and beginning to prepare Siena’s dinner just before it was obvious Sam was ready to leave.
‘Bye then,’ he called through.
‘See you later,’ she called back. ‘Break a leg.’
She finished making Siena’s meal, and then sat with her on the settee while she ate it. Normally Sam insisted on them eating at the table, but Sam wasn’t here, and so she let Siena balance the plate on her knees, occasionally helping her manoeuvre the food with her fork and spoon. There was the predictable amount of spillage, and she made a mental note to add Siena’s T-shirt to the washing that still needed to be done that evening.
Eventually it was time for bath and bed.
Katie washed her daughter’s hair slowly and carefully.
‘Everything go OK today, Snail?’ she said.
‘Yeah.’
‘Tilt your head back.’
She rinsed out the shampoo, making sure to keep the foam away from Siena’s eyes.
‘Nothing weird happen at nursery?’
‘No.’
She squeezed out the sponge, wishing she was more relieved by her daughter’s answers. She didn’t want to alarm her over what had probably been nothing. But she also knew from experience that, while Siena had an astonishing memory when it came to pictures in a book, or the exact number of treats she was entitled to, a bomb could have gone off at the nursery today without her feeling it necessary to remember and relate.
Once Siena was in bed, Katie read a Julia Donaldson book to her, and then spread out her beloved flag on top of the sheet. The flag was a relic from her and Sam’s past. They had been together since their teens, but that first year apart, studying at separate universities, had tested them a little. They had emailed constantly, visited each other as much as they were able, and then, in the summer holidays at the end of that first year, had gone backpacking together.
Their trip had begun in Italy, with a few days spent in Siena. Even now, she could still remember the oppressive heat of its narrow sandy streets, and all the districts, with their lanterns and fluttering flags. The experience had felt magical on every level. The flag was a souvenir she’d bought from the Snail district, and it had spent close to two months that summer tied casually to her backpack as she and Sam travelled around. While the city was not where they had fallen in love, it was the place their relationship had been cemented after what felt like a period of both tragedy and uncertainty. It was where both of them had decided: Yes, I really do want to be with this person for the rest of my life. And so they had given its name to their daughter when she was born, and Katie had passed the flag on with it.
When she had finished reading, the two of them walked over to the window together and Katie opened the curtains. The sky was black with cloud.
‘Moon?’ Siena said.
‘Too cloudy tonight, kid. In fact, I think it’s going to pour down. But here’s the thing. Even if you can’t see it, the moon’s there somewhere. So I’m sure it will still hear you.’
‘Goodnight, moon.’
‘That’s the ticket.’
Katie tucked her into bed. ‘I’ll be back up to see you in a minute. Sleep well in the meantime, Snail. I love you.’
‘Love you too, Mummy.’
She put the washing on downstairs, then went up to check on Siena a few times until she was sure she was safely asleep. Then she made herself some dinner and sat at the kitchen table, eating slowly, the glass of wine beside her plate more appealing than the food. She was facing the window that looked out over the cottage’s small back garden. Her reflection stared back at her from the black world outside, chewing thoughtfully.
When she was done, she put the plate in the sink and then got both a second glass of wine and her laptop.
She wasn’t sure if she’d really expected Chris to phone her, even if he’d seen the message she’d left at the studio, but she had hoped he would. Perhaps she hadn’t exhausted every avenue, though. She opened up a browser on the laptop and did a cursory search for James Alderson. The name was so common that it was hard to find him on social media, but she stumbled on a couple of accounts that might have been him, and an Instagram account that certainly was. None of them were helpful. The Instagram was exclusively photographs of his artwork, and he seemed to have only a handful of followers there. The other accounts, assuming they even were his, didn’t appear to have been used much in years.
So what else?
Katie took a sip of wine, watching her reflection in the window do the same. She was at a loss for a moment. But then she remembered the sheet of paper she’d seen briefly in the drawer at Chris’s flat.
What had the headline been?
THE DESPICABLE HISTORY OF JACK LOCK.
Probably nothing.
But she typed Jack Lock into the search bar anyway. When she pressed return, she was met by numerous links, and clicked on one at random. It took her to what appeared to be a biography of the man.
OK then, Jack, she thought. Let’s see how despicable you really were.
17
JACK LOCK
Introduction
Jack John Lock (2 July 1908–28 September 1956) was a mid-twentieth-century serial killer who is also known by the name ‘The Angel Maker’. Following his arrest on 6 March 1956, Lock was charged with the murders of four children and his wife, Elaine. The remains of his younger victims were found buried in the garden of his manor house in Dree, while Elaine’s body was discovered inside.
Lock was found guilty of all charges and sentenced to death on 8 May 1956. While he was scheduled to be executed by hanging on 28 September 1956, he was found unresponsive in his cell early that morning and pronounced dead shortly afterwards. His death was recorded as suicide. There was a great degree of speculation at the time as to how Lock had obtained the item discovered in his cell that facilitated his death. While Lock was convicted for his involvement in five murders, the precise number of his actual victims has never been ascertained.
OK, Katie thought, taking a sip of wine. Fairly despicable, then.
Beside the introduction was the same photograph she remembered seeing at her brother’s flat: a sepia print of a man from a different age, one which appeared to have been taken even further back than the dates referenced in the text. There was something of the Victorian aristocrat about him, with his neatly styled hair and enormous moustache. The smart black suit with the flower in the lapel. His expression was stern but, looking more closely, she thought there was also a slight glint of amusement in his eye.
I know something you don’t.
She scrolled down slowly, continuing to read.
Early Life
Jack Lock was born on 2 July 1908 to Mary Anne Lock (née Williamson) and Gregory John Lock. His parents were active members of an obscure religious chapter known as Deus Scripsit, which was based around a number of close-knit local family groups.
The beliefs of Deus Scripsit – ‘written by God’ – involved contested readings of the Bible and more esoteric aspects of theology. These revolved around the notion that God is eternal (i.e. situated outside time itself) and therefore sees the past, present and future of our world simultaneously. Since every moment already exists before God, it follows that whatever we do is preordained and inescapable. Moreover, to attempt to do otherwise should be viewed as a terrible sin. The sect was notable for its extreme puritanical leanings and strict physical punishments.
