Ferocious beasts, p.11
Ferocious Beasts, page 11
To live in Seville was the dream. Will was all set to begin work as a foreman on an orange farm. Gabby had gotten a job in the city as a secretary. For the last six months, he’d been teaching her Spanish and was amazed at how quickly she picked up the language.
They planned to stay in Spain for as long as it took them to save up to buy a camper van and have enough cash left over to get them across Europe, the Middle East and into Asia. There, they’d sell the van and do whatever. Or maybe they’d like Spain so much that they would stay. Or stay in any of the other countries they planned on visiting, free to do whatever they wanted, this beautiful dream of theirs.
“And do you?” Mandy said, breaking into his reverie.
“Do I, what?” he asked.
“Do you love me?”
“Of course I do,” he lied, squeezing her in his arms the way she’d expect him to.
FORTY-ONE
Ugly and gray, a cruel mixture between a factory and a hospital, St. Clements sat upon the crest of a hill, looking like a gargoyle perched on a roof. Even in the sunshine it brought derisive looks from both detectives as they stepped out of their car and made their way to reception.
Security was lax, only a single electronic door separating the lobby from the rest of the hospital. A portly nurse with a brown beehive poking from the top of her head like a horn took their names and called a Dr. Jordon on the telephone.
“He’ll be right along,” she said after the quick phone call.
Dr. Jordon had a pleasant face. His blue eyes were friendly and he smiled at both men as if pleased to see them. They shook his warm hand and he led them to an office. It was down a long corridor that smelled of damp clothing. From behind closed doors came the murmurs of patients. Somewhere a woman cried softly. It was the most lonely sound you could ever imagine hearing.
Thankfully, the sound didn’t reach into Jordon’s office, the door shutting it out. The detectives took seats opposite the doctor and his desk. Behind him on the wall, alongside his diplomas, were several pictures of him fishing in different places around the world.
“You like fishing, Detective?” he asked Jack, having observed his fixation with the pictures.
“I never had anyone to take me,” Jack replied.
“A shame. It’s such a peaceful hobby.”
“Not for the fish.”
Dr. Jordon smiled. “I never keep what I catch.”
“I fish,” Glenn Morris interjected.
The doctor glanced at him. “Freshwater or salt?”
“Freshwater mostly. But I do like fishing off a boat. Is that Norway?”
He was pointing at a picture of the shrink leaning against the railings of a boat, surrounded by the crystal waters of a huge lake, a line of gray, snowcapped mountains in the background.
Jordon glanced over his shoulder and back again.
“Yes. It’s Røssvatnet. A weekend catching trout and halibut. Have you been?”
“No. But I’d love to. I’ve read lots of brochures about it.”
“You enjoy traveling,” Jack pointed out to Dr. Jordon.
“Yes. It’s good for the mind. Clears it out. To be in one place too long can make one forget who they are outside of their various societal roles.”
“Like what?” Jack asked.
“Well, for instance, here in my place of work I am Dr. Jordon, clinical psychologist. At home, I am husband to a wife and father to two teenage boys. At the local golf club, I’m a good partner for nine holes and good for a joke at the bar. But where, might I ask, am I?”
“I don’t follow you,” Jack said, Glenn Morris sitting next to him with a perplexed expression wrinkling his face.
“In all these things,” the doctor went on, “I am playing a role. Fulfilling a societal demand. But at no point am I living or acting directly for myself. Here at St. Clements, I act in the best interests of my patients. At home, those of my family. At the golf club, for my friends. After all, who hasn’t attended functions with one’s pals that they’d really rather not go to? Therefore, at each turn my own free will is in some capacity stifled, no matter how much I love my job, my family or my friends. Every person needs to spend at least some time each year living purely for themselves. Otherwise frustration and disenfranchisement seep in and we begin to feel trapped.”
Jack asked, “So traveling and getting away is a way of living for yourself?”
“Yes. If I had the running of this country, I’d make it every man, woman and child’s right to go away for at least a month every year to enjoy life without the constraints of societal demand.”
“The Nazis gave out free holidays,” Glenn Morris chimed in.
Both men looked at him, Jack frowning.
“Honest,” Morris went on. “Gave all the workers free holidays to Italy.”
“Well, then, if even a monster like Hitler agreed,” Jordon said, “it must be a good idea. Nevertheless,” his tone darkened, “I feel that we’ve already spent too long beating around the bush. You have a purpose and that purpose is Julia Bainbridge.”
“Yes,” Jack said, sitting up straight and becoming as serious as the doctor. “She attended six months here.”
“She did.”
“What can you tell me of that time?”
“I’m afraid not much,” Dr. Jordon conceded.
“Anything would be helpful.”
“Well, she hardly spoke during sessions. Spent most of the time sitting in her room reading the Bible. She claimed that she’d recently rediscovered religion.”
“Did you find anything odd in her sudden religiosity?”
“Religion can often weave itself into someone’s manic state. But it’s best not to jump to conclusions. It could be said just as strongly that she was bound to rediscover her religion during a time of hopelessness and loss.”
“And where did these feelings of hopelessness and loss stem from?”
“Again, she didn’t really cooperate with us. I could tell she had trust issues. Someone had certainly hurt her, but she never disclosed who.”
“What was she diagnosed with?”
“Acute paranoid schizophrenia.”
Glenn Morris asked, “You mean she saw stuff and heard voices?”
“Not quite,” Dr. Jordon said, settling his eyes on Morris. “See, not all schizophrenics have oratory, audial or olfactory hallucinations. Often it is simply an inability to gather fact from fiction. It’s mostly in the imagination, where lines of reality blur into fantasy and the patient begins to think the world is antagonistic towards them.”
Jack suggested, “Like thinking the village you live in is under the influence of the devil?”
“Exactly that,” the shrink said, pointing his eyes at Jack.
“And yet you didn’t think her religiosity had anything to do with her madness.”
“Like I said, she very rarely spoke at meetings and one-on-ones were practically a no-show on her part.”
“Were there any patients she was close to?”
“I’m afraid not. She spoke with no one. Merely sat and read her Bible.”
“She left here some time ago,” Jack stated next. “Do you know if she saw anyone privately after that?”
“Yes,” Dr. Jordon told him. “I gave her parents the card of a psychiatric friend of mine who lives close to Helm. I do believe Julia visited him several times. Perhaps he can give you a better idea of her state of mind.”
FORTY-TWO
Half an hour later, Jack was driving them towards Helm. Green fields dotted with white sheep slipped past the open windows, and both men leaned an elbow on the frame, smoking cigarettes and thinking thoughts.
“So what do you make of the guv being arrested?” Glenn asked.
Flicking his smoke out the window, Jack turned to him and replied, “What do I make of it?”
“Yeah.”
“What is there to make?”
“Do you think it was right?”
“The arrest?”
“No. What he did.”
“You mean,” Jack said, “do I condone the beating of a man for the purpose of an investigation?”
“I guess that’s what I meant.”
“No. I don’t.”
“But it got us the information, didn’t it?” Glenn put to him. “They’ve just nabbed Francis’s mate and the bloke that sold him the acid. Found phone records on both of them linking all three.”
“That’s true,” Jack agreed. “It worked this time. But you have to be very careful where this type of thing leads. You start busting teeth every time you need an answer and you begin down the road towards a terrible and violent world where the state systematically tortures information out of people rather than build cases. A person should have the entitlement not just to a fair trial, but also to a fair investigation. Beating things from a man is complacent and lazy. But worst of all—” Jack turned to him and met Morris’s eyes. “Worst of all is that it’s absolutely wrong. Don’t you feel that deep inside? That it’s a terrible wrong.”
Glenn said nothing and the two men resumed their silence. Smoked their cigarettes and thought their thoughts. Helm appeared on the horizon, the scattered buildings of the village looking like yet another herd of animals.
Their turn was coming up, so Jack checked the mirrors, and it was as he did that the car behind them flashed its lights.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Jack grumbled, having recognized the driver.
“What’s up?” Glenn asked as they pulled into the verge.
“Stay here,” Jack told him, opening the door and getting out.
The other car stopped. A man got out and when his pink face was only a yard or so away, Jack said, “Hello, Jonny.”
“Hello, Jack.”
The journalist was dressed in a white shirt that was almost transparent with sweat. His face shone and his hair dripped down his forehead.
“You look hot,” Jack observed.
“The prick shot my car with a shotgun,” Jonny grumbled. “Hit the electrics. Now I’ve got no air conditioner and the electric windows won’t open.”
Jack was frowning. “Who shot your car?”
“It doesn’t matter. What does is that you’ve blocked my number, haven’t you?”
“Shame I can’t block you physically,” Jack retorted. “Now get to your point.”
“All right. Well, you’re obviously here for the same thing as me.”
“And what same thing would that be?”
“The Bainbridge case.”
“I might be here for other things.”
“Don’t lie, Jack. I followed you out of St. Clements. Julia Bainbridge was sectioned there for six months.”
Jack sighed. “I’m gonna get straight to the point here. I can’t give you anything. Okay?”
“I know that,” Jonny put back. “But it’s not about what you can give me. It’s about what I can give you.”
Jack pierced his eyes. “What?”
Looking about, Jonny replied, “Let’s go somewhere that doesn’t smell of sheep shit. There’s a nice little pub not far from here. That’ll do.”
FORTY-THREE
Bert stood in the shadows of the living room, gazing through a crack in the curtains, furtively watching the press hounds loitering around the gate. They’d already knocked on the door several times and it appeared that they hadn’t believed Bert when he’d answered and told them Will was away.
“Wasn’t that the car he was pictured getting into yesterday?” one of them had observed, pointing at the black Aston Martin.
“Piss off!” Bert had shouted, slamming the door in their faces.
Coming away from the window, he rejoined the others in the kitchen. Mandy, never more than a few feet from Will, sat at the table next to her beau, her head rested in the crook of his neck.
“We should go to Bath,” Bert said as he took a seat opposite them, grabbing the bottle of Glenmorangie and tipping a shot down his throat.
“I told you,” Will replied in a tired voice. “I have to stay.”
“Maybe if I go out there with the shotgun,” Bert suggested with a grin, “they might bugger off. Fire a few rounds over their heads and send them scattering like pigeons.”
Will gave a crooked smile at the thought.
Mandy hadn’t even heard him. She was too busy with her own thoughts. Up until now, she had bitten her tongue, but she could hold her silence no longer. Before, when he’d told her he’d gone for a walk, she’d noticed that he didn’t smell like outdoors. He’d smelled of other things. Like a house, a bed, another woman.
“Where did you go last night, Will?” she asked.
“I told you, I went for a walk.”
“But surely you weren’t walking for all those hours. I mean your clothes don’t even—”
“Mandy!” Will shouted. “I told you to stop asking.”
“But, Will, I just want to know where you go at night.”
Pressing a finger into his temple, Will seethed, “My head is filled with raging hornets. They won’t give me any rest, Mandy. And here you are—”
“Will?”
It was Bert who had spoken. When the others turned to him, he was standing at the window, leaned over the sink and gazing through the curtains.
“What is it?” Will asked.
Turning back to him, Bert replied, “You need to see this.”
Will got up and joined his friend.
Placing an eye to the half-inch gap, he immediately felt his heart drop.
Several police vehicles had pulled into the yard. As the press began frantically grabbing their cameras, the doors flung open and policemen began getting out and marching towards the cottage, Carl Jones at their head.
Will had the door open before they reached it.
“Ah, Master Bainbridge,” Carl Jones announced, handing him a slip of official-looking paper. “This here is a warrant to search these premises.”
While Will gazed at it in horror, Carl Jones gently shoved him out the way and entered the cottage, the others following him inside as the detective called out, “I want the floorboards lifted!”
FORTY-FOUR
The pub was one of those thatched inns with no carpets, only clay tiles covered in the odd blackened rug, the ancient building a labyrinth of nooks and crannies under low ceilings. Arched fireplaces pitted the walls and the stench of smoke and animal dung compelled them to take their pints outside, where a pleasant beer garden shone in the sun.
Jonny got straight to it.
“About a year ago, I got a call from some drunken colonel. He’d called the Standard asking to speak to someone regarding a scandal involving a recently retired lord, and they’d put him through to me.”
“I take it this retired lord was Rupert Bainbridge?” Jack put to him.
“Yes.”
“Then who was the drunken colonel?”
“His name’s Gordon Masterson. He told me some guff about old Bainbridge fathering one of his sons. Said that he’d found out years ago that Bainbridge was bonking his wife and then discovered he wasn’t the only one sharing his spouse.”
Jack and Glenn looked interested, sitting forward and gripping their pints.
“And Masterson named names?”
This was where Jonny smiled. “Huh. The old goat wouldn’t give them to me unless I paid him. As Rupert Bainbridge was only small fry as far as the gentry went, I decided it wasn’t worth it and left him alone.”
“Until Bainbridge gets offed by his own daughter.”
“Yes, Jack. Exactly that. I got back in touch with him yesterday. He reckons Rupert Bainbridge had scores of bastards throughout Somerset.”
“Who, though?”
“Masterson, the crafty bastard, has seen the improvement in the market and upped his price. My editor is, as we speak, trying to raise the colossal sum before anyone else beats us to it.”
Jack took one of his cigarettes and lit it.
“Did Theresa know about Rupert’s affairs?” he let out with the smoke.
“Apparently she gave her begrudging blessing. So long as it never became common knowledge amongst the villagers.”
“Anything else this Masterson told you?”
“He reckons,” Jonny replied, removing a fleck of tobacco from his bottom lip, “that there’s several young girls who had to leave the village because of Rupert.”
“What girls?”
“Again, Masterson won’t tell until we pay him.”
“Police reports?”
Jonny grinned. “No, Jack. No police reports. Everything hushed up. But I’ve wondered if they too went away with bellies filled with Bainbridge bastards.”
FORTY-FIVE
Carl Jones was standing outside the cottage, staring at Will Bainbridge. The latter was sitting in the back of a patrol car, eyes front, looking confused, every bit the trapped rabbit. Just beyond him were the press, lining the gate and fence like pigeons on a telegraph wire, several of them videoing it all.
“Carl!” someone called to him from inside.
The Helm detective turned on his heels and reentered the house. Across the hallway was a trophy room filled with hunting memorabilia and taxidermy. A badger prowled a stone mantlepiece; sparrows and a woodpecker hung from the ceiling on wires, their wings frozen in mid-flight; a stoat stood erect on its hind legs; and everywhere the dead stared at you.
Frank Harris was kneeling in a corner. When Carl came before him, he looked up with a sad expression. A floorboard had been crowbarred free and inside the cavity underneath was a small cardboard box. With his gloved hands, Frank Harris lifted it out, laid it beside the cavity and removed the lid. There, gleaming dully in the light, was a four-inch-long cylinder. It was a dark gray color but with red streaks on its end.
“A suppressor,” Frank Harris observed before spotting the red and adding, “Is that blood?”
“No,” Carl replied. “It’s paint.”
FORTY-SIX
The office of Dr. Anthony Gross was situated beside a river. On the opposite bank was an old mill covered in little shuttered windows, its giant wooden wheel rotating slowly in the churning water.
