Ferocious beasts, p.12
Ferocious Beasts, page 12
It was visible from the doctor’s window and Jack couldn’t help admiring the view as he sat beside Glenn Morris on a chaise longue.
Opposite them was the doctor. A man in his mid-forties, thin and blank faced. Lacking in the warmth of Dr. Jordon.
“I’d been waiting for someone to come see me,” Dr. Gross was telling them. “After all, I did call the head of the investigation, a Sergeant Jones, I believe, and told him I was willing to help with any inquiry into Julia.”
“What did you want to tell them about Julia?”
“Well, the last meeting we had—”
“Which was when?”
Glenn Morris had his notepad on a thick knee, ready to take down the doctor’s statement.
“The nineteenth,” Gross replied. “Four days before the shooting. Julia was very concerned about her children.”
“You mean the custody battle with Peter Warne?”
“Yes. It’s been a severe stress on her.”
“Do you think it had any bearing on things?”
“Don’t you?” Gross retorted with a knowing raise of an eyebrow.
“Did she talk to you about the fact that her parents had begun to support Peter’s claim?”
“Yes. And this is why I’ve been wanting to speak with someone. You see, on the hypotheses that Rupert and Theresa Bainbridge had pleaded Peter Warne’s case, I would have been of the view that this could have had a potentially catastrophic effect on Julia and affected her from two points of view. Firstly, from the point of view of having her children removed from her care, and secondly, from the point of view that she may have projected onto her father the concept of evil in which he had hitherto not been involved in her thought process.”
“The concept of evil?”
“You spoke with Dr. Jordon, right?”
“Yes.”
“And he explained the way her religion had seeped into her mania?”
“Yes.”
“Then you must understand that Julia Bainbridge truly believed in evil. Believed there was a war between good and evil and that demons and angels walked the earth disguised as people.”
“Did she speak to you about the fete last year?” Jack asked.
“Yes. She said that she’d been feeling unwell that week, but her mother insisted they make an appearance. In some ways, her episode was an act of rebellion.”
Looking up from his pad of paper, Glenn Morris asked, “An act of rebellion?”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Gross replied coolly. “I’m not suggesting that the illness itself was an act of rebellion. Only the fact that Julia felt that her mother was forcing her to attend the fete against her will, and the helpless frustration she experienced that day exploded into illness. A subconscious act of rebellion, you could say.”
“What did she tell you about that day?” Jack asked.
“Like I said, her mother had practically dragged her there. She was feeling unwell already and the fight at the house beforehand only intensified those feelings. She told me it was a hot day. That straight from the offset she’d felt confused, her thoughts spinning and colliding. She began to have an overwhelming sense that people were staring at her. That they were staring at the children. The sense of impending doom and hostility to those around her came crashing down and she began shouting and screaming at them. All her monomania, her fantasies, her paranoias, came swirling into her and she snapped.”
Jack said, “Someone told me she was shouting about the vicar feeding children to the trees.”
A slight grin curved the doctor’s lips. “That is true. But it has basis in reality.”
Glenn Morris frowned. “How can that have basis in anything?”
“You’re unaware of the history of Helm?” Gross put to him.
“We’re both Helm novices, I’m afraid, Doc,” Jack explained. “So you’ll have to give us a quick rundown of the local folklore?”
“Well, Helm—like all tight-knit communities of this size—is a place of stories and traditions that are passed down from generation to generation. Before the Romans brought Christianity to Britain around the third century AD, the pagans in this area had their own beliefs. And like a lot of paganism, it revolved around human sacrifice and the harvests. In this area of the country our ancestors considered the summer solstice as the most important day of their gods. It signaled for them the beginning of their calendar year. When the day is at its longest then surely night will fall. It was on this day that they would perform the majority of their sacrifices. The level of success of the previous year’s crops would determine how many lives were to be lost. If the harvest was bountiful, then the offering had to be so. Up to ten adults would be burned alive. Often the oldest.”
“And what if it was bad?”
“Not so many would be offered as thanks. But something more precious had to be thrown on the fire. Something that would please the gods into bettering the previous year’s harvest.”
“Children,” Jack guessed.
“Yes. Legend has it that after one particularly bad year, the village gathered every child, brought them to the trees, which they worshiped. There, before the mighty oak, they went about cutting every one of those tiny throats, and making sure that the blood soaked into the soil, before burying the bodies within the roots.”
“That’s insane,” Glenn remarked.
“That was their belief system,” Gross pointed out. “They believed they were doing what the gods wanted.”
Jack asked, “Do you think Julia Bainbridge was capable of murdering her own children?”
“Julia had a mania,” the doctor told him. “Perhaps in her head killing them was saving them. On one level, Julia believed that Peter Warne was in league with the devil. Therefore, under that logic, handing them to him was worse than their death.”
“As well as the fact,” Glenn Morris suggested, “that her parents were in league with him.”
“Yes.”
“Did Peter Warne ever hurt her?” Jack asked.
“No. From what she told me of their relationship, he was in awe of her. A puppy dog that wouldn’t lift a finger to strike her or open his mouth to chastise her. I suppose he couldn’t believe his luck that he’d gotten a woman like Julia.”
“What did Julia see in Peter?”
“Escape, Detective,” Gross explained. “She got married to him to escape her parents. But after a year or so, he too made her feel suffocated. It was hardly the type of life she was used to. Peter went from job to job and their financial security—with two children to feed—was dubious, at best. In the end, she returned to her parents for the children’s sake.”
FORTY-SEVEN
Upstairs at Helm Police Station, in Brian Daniels’ office, the thick, black eyebrows of the chief constable were raised as he gazed at the contents of an evidence bag.
Inside was the suppressor. The missing piece as far as Carl Jones was concerned.
“And you’re sure it fits the murder weapon?” Daniels asked Carl, who stood before his desk.
“Yes, sir. John Dunn is going to take it to Bath lab. I’m sure he’ll confirm that the paint on that suppressor belongs to the wall in the master bedroom. Proving that it was on the end of the rifle when Theresa Bainbridge fought with her killer. My guess is she was awoken by a scream. Not a shot. When she reached her door, he was there. They tussled over the gun, scraping the end over the wall, and she scratched him.”
Daniels, clearly exasperated, leaned back heavily in his chair and tossed his head from side to side. In a tone of utter defeat, he wheezed, “Go on, then. What next?”
“I brought Will here under arrest,” Carl explained. “However, there’s not enough yet for a proper charge. I need to fill out all the paperwork first. Get the results back on the suppressor. He’s under caution, but I’ve not got everything in order for the Crown Prosecution Service at this moment. I was going to interview him and then keep him in cells until it’s all ready.”
Daniel swiveled around in his chair so that he was facing the window, Helm spread out beneath him like Eden.
“I just spoke to Benjamin Tate,” he said. “He tells me Marcus and Harriet Bainbridge called him in lieu of Will. They’ve already conveyed the family’s wishes concerning the burial. The funeral is on Wednesday.”
“Will won’t be making it,” Carl informed him.
“I’m afraid he will, Carl,” Daniels replied, turning back in his chair and meeting his subordinate with his eyes. “You’ve admitted yourself that you’ve not enough to go to the CPS. Wouldn’t it be better to hold off on the charges until Thursday? You can do that, surely?”
“He’ll abscond.”
“No. He’ll be under bail with a total travel ban. House arrest.”
“He killed children.”
“Allegedly.”
“He should be on remand in a prison.”
“Look, Carl,” Daniels said, sounding exhausted. “You’ve only been with us in Helm for what, six years?”
“Seven.”
“Seven years. But before that you were in Bristol. A city of crime and disorder. Here we do things differently. Decently. So, please, let the man go to his family’s funeral.”
“A family he killed,” Carl pointed out.
This hung in the air for a moment, the two men staring at each other, when Frank Harris knocked on the door and broke up the stare-off.
“Mandy’s ready in the interview room,” he said when all eyes pointed his way.
FORTY-EIGHT
Jack and Glenn were following the waddling behind of Mrs. Muggins as she led them into a pretty garden overflowing with colorful flowers. It lined the back of the bed and breakfast and was bricked in by an ancient, half-crumbled wall that had long ago been swallowed up by ivy. In the center of the garden, beneath the flowing canopy of a weeping willow, a stone bench held the weather-beaten figure of Peter Warne.
He looked to be praying, his hands clasped together and his eyes closed tight, and it was only when Mrs. Muggins landed a plump-fingered hand on his shoulder that he opened his eyes and realized he wasn’t alone.
“These men are from Scotland Yard, Peter,” she told him in a soft, motherly voice.
His expression of general curiosity changed to one of wariness.
Mrs. Muggins left them.
For a moment, the two detectives stood before Warne while he stared up at them. His face was haggard, coated in thick stubble, and his clothing looked like he’d spent the last week sleeping in it. There was a musty smell to him and Jack realized that it was the stench of a hundred pubs—the wretched combination of cigarettes, stale booze and sweat.
“Where’ve you been, Peter?” Jack asked.
“Mostly pubs,” he confessed in a gruff croak, his voice thick with Welsh accent. “Wandering about. Sleeping in hotels. I couldn’t face the house. Too many memories of when the girls came and…”
He trailed off, eyes going blank and then wet, the tears gathering at their bottoms. He quickly wiped a soiled sleeve across them and then alighted his eyes on the cigarette that Jack was lighting.
“You mind if I have one of those?” he asked.
“Of course,” Jack said, handing him the pack and then holding the lighter to the end when he required it.
“How’d you find out about their deaths?” Glenn asked.
Warne blew the smoke out and answered, “Television.”
“Where were you?” Jack asked.
“At home in Cardiff.”
Glenn asked, “Why’ve you not contacted the police yet?”
Warne inhaled a deep toke. “I was in shock,” he said, blowing smoke out between his yellowed teeth. “Needed a drink—and have been drinking ever since.”
Glenn asked, “You didn’t want to come straight here?”
Lowering his gaze, Warne replied softly, “No.”
“Why not?”
“I told you, I was in shock.”
“That why you had a drink after so long?” Jack asked.
Peter Warne frowned at him. “So long?”
“Yes. You haven’t had a drink since the girls were born.”
The frown grew larger. “How do you know that?” he asked slowly.
“You were mumbling about it when we carried you up to bed.”
Fear returned to his eyes, taking over from bewilderment. “What else did I say?” he breathed.
“Nothing else that was coherent.”
Peter Warne looked genuinely fearful. Trembling fingers lifted the smoke to his lips and he took a long pull.
Jack asked, “We were hoping you could give us something on Julia.”
“What like?”
“Her mental state.”
He widened his wet eyes. “Christ. What’s there to say? She hasn’t been good for a long time. Not since she had the children. At first they called it post-natal depression. But after a year it was something else. Just plain madness, I suppose.”
“Her psychiatrist claimed that she believed evil existed in the manor.”
“Oh, yes. As far as Julia was concerned it was everywhere. Behind every corner lurked a demon or a devil. But whenever you’d try to get to the bottom of her thinking, she’d take you around in circles. One minute it was her parents possessed by demons. The next it was the whole village. And on other occasions it would be her or the children—with the rest of them all angels.”
“Was she always so religious?”
“No. I first met her when she was eighteen. Back then she hated religion. Said her mother had used it to make her and her brother’s lives hell.”
“So she had a bad relationship with her mother?”
He tipped his head forward and nodded. “Oh, yes,” he said. “It was ugly. You should have heard the arguments they used to have. Screaming matches. Like scrapping cats, they were. But you know what?”
“What?”
“Through it all, the two of them couldn’t leave each other alone. Julia would say she hated her mother and Theresa would treat her like a child. But no matter how far Julia ran from Theresa, they always ended up back together.”
“What about Rupert?”
“What about him?”
“What was his relationship with Julia?”
“Rupert was always on the outskirts,” Warne replied while shaving off the ash from the cigarette against the edge of the stone bench. “He let Theresa deal with everything regarding the house and the children. She was the matriarch and he merely ceded to her will.”
“So he wasn’t close with Julia?”
“Not really. She wasn’t a daddy’s girl or anything. No, it was always Theresa who was meddling.”
Glenn asked, “But Julia and Rupert got on, though?”
“They hardly really interacted to be fair. Look,” he added in a different tone, “I’m having a hard time with all of this. She really did do it, right?”
“It’s looking that way.”
“So why are you digging so deeply? Can’t you just let them rest?”
Jack ignored the question. “You were in regular contact with Theresa and Rupert, weren’t you?”
Peter Warne gazed up at him, a murmur of incredulity on his face. But realizing that the two men had no interest in leaving off, he dropped his shoulders in resignation and replied, “You mean over the girls?”
“Yes.”
“We were. Julia was getting worse. It was only right that their father should be able to take them.”
“Did you ever think she’d do something like this?”
He sniffed and trembled. Looked up at the sky through the leafy beads of the willow’s shawl-like canopy. “Are you a God-fearing man, Detective?” he asked when he returned his gaze to Jack.
“Sometimes,” the latter replied. “But it depends what I’ve done to be fearful.”
“Well,” Peter Warne said in a defeated tone of voice, “even though I have abandoned the faith I had as a youth, I cannot help fearing some reprisal for the things I’ve done on this earth.”
Glenn Morris asked, “And what are those things, Peter?”
Warne turned to him. “One of them,” he said, “is never getting Julia the help she needed.”
FORTY-NINE
Mandy looked up at Carl Jones with giant fear-filled eyes as he came into the interview room and took a seat on the other side of the worm-ridden table.
“Where’s Will?”
“In a cell.”
“For what?”
“What do you think?”
“No,” she muttered, shaking her head.
“Why do you think he needs you to lie for him?”
“He doesn’t,” Mandy assured Carl unconvincingly. “I’m here to tell you the truth. I was with him when Rupert called.”
Carl Jones started laughing at her. It sounded unnatural coming from a man she’d never previously noticed even smile. It was like a mechanical sound, some cogs squeaking and turning in his throat to project the imitation of a chuckle.
The laugh came to an abrupt end and Carl snapped, “That’s utter bullshit and you know it. You were nowhere near Will Bainbridge at that time. Because Will was too busy killing his family.”
“Will wouldn’t do that?”
“Yes, he would. Will Bainbridge is a soulless vampire with no conscience. He murdered his family and I can prove it. And let me warn you: if you continue to go down this path of sticking up for him, you will end up in a prison cell as well. Would you like that?”
Mandy said nothing, but her lip trembled and a tear spilled out of an eye. He had her right where he wanted her.
“You know what those old dykes in there would do to a pretty little thing like you?”
“I was with him,” she whispered.
“They’ll make you their bitch. Make you do things for their protection.”
“Will didn’t kill them.”
“You’ll come out of there after a year or two completely changed. No longer the happy-go-lucky girl about the village. More the jaded, washed-out remains of a girl. You think going through that will be worth it for a man who couldn’t give two shits about you?”
