House of the Dead, page 10
The psychologist shook his head and tapped his finger on the notebook. “No, there’s a pattern. I just can’t see it yet. It would help if we knew who the man in the water tank was, and how he’s connected to the two families.”
“What if he was just picked up off the street by chance? He’s walking along the pavement, minding his business, and the next thing he knows, he’s bundled into a van, taken to a warehouse, and thrown into a tank.”
“It wasn’t opportunistic. Everything the GameMaster does is planned out. I’m sure there’s a meaning behind every detail.” He sighed and placed the notebook in the door pocket. “It’ll all become clear eventually.”
When they knocked on the door of the house in Flanders Road, Helen answered with a look of confusion on her face.
“Dani, you’re back.”
“Helen, we’d like to ask you a few more questions, if we may.”
“Of course, of course.” She stepped back from the door, allowing them into the house. “I’ll put the kettle on. Make yourselves at home.”
Five minutes later, Helen was serving the tea. Tony was in the armchair and Dani was next to Helen on the sofa.
“I don’t know what else I can tell you,” Helen said, placing the teapot onto the tray. “I’ve already told you everything I know.”
“We’d just like you to think back,” Tony said. “Is there anyone who had a grudge against Greg?”
“There are the criminals he caught over the years, I suppose, but other than that, no one. Everybody liked Greg.”
“Around the time he disappeared, did he mention bumping into someone from the past? Perhaps someone he hadn’t seen for a decade or so?”
Helen shook her head. “No, nothing like that. I told you what I think happened. Someone Greg had put away saw him on the street and decided to get revenge. It was probably someone who’d just got out of prison and had built up a lot of resentment all that time they were inside. It can happen.”
“But you have no idea who that could be?” Dani asked. “Greg didn’t mention seeing anyone like that? Someone he’d put away in the past?”
“No, he didn’t.”
She looked at Tony and Dani closely. “You seem very eager to get to the bottom of this all of a sudden. Is it connected to another case?”
“We believe it could be connected to a case we’re currently working on,” Dani said.
Helen frowned. “You mean those families that were killed?”
Dani nodded.
“What’s the connection?”
“We know that the person who set up the website that broadcast those crimes is in possession of Greg’s driving licence.”
“What?” Helen’s hand flew to her mouth and her eyes widened. “I don’t understand. Why would they have that?”
Tony leaned forward in the chair and softened his voice. “Mrs Hughes, did Greg have his driving licence on his person when he left the house?”
“Yes, of course. He had his wallet. He was going to the chemist.”
“But it wasn’t recovered when they found Greg on the beach.”
“No. They assumed his wallet had been lost at sea.” Tears sprang into her eyes as realisation struck. “So, it’s true. He was murdered.”
Dani took the woman’s hand in hers as a gesture of comfort. Even though Helen had suspected for the past two years that her husband had been killed, having that suspicion confirmed must have come as a shock.
“You’re saying the person who murdered Greg is the same person who killed those families?” Helen whispered.
“And the man yesterday,” Dani said.
“What man yesterday?”
“It was on the news.” Dani wasn’t sure what details had been released to the press, but she knew yesterday’s tragedy had been reported on the news, along with an artist’s rendering of the victim’s face. The police didn’t have an ID for the man in the tank, and were appealing to the public for help.
“I haven’t seen the news,” Helen said. “I was at my church group yesterday and I was too tired to watch anything when I got home. I haven’t put the telly on today.”
“Oh,” Dani said. She wasn’t sure how to explain the events of yesterday to Helen. The man in the tank had drowned, just like Greg. Helen might get the idea in her head that Greg had been drowned in a tank as well, and his body dumped at sea.
Perhaps that was exactly what had happened.
Deciding that Helen would find out sooner or later anyway, Dani said, “A man drowned.”
Helen’s eyes widened. “Like Greg?”
“No, not in the sea. He was in a plastic tank.”
“Oh my goodness, that’s awful! Who was he?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Helen looked down at her hands and Dani could see her mind working. She was wondering if Greg had met the same end as the unknown man.
“Helen, it doesn’t mean that’s how Greg—“
“Tell me the details,” Helen said. “I want to know everything.”
“I don’t think—“
“I want the details, Dani. If this is how Greg was killed, then I want to know exactly what happened.”
Dani paused, gathering her thoughts.
She was about to explain yesterday’s events when Tony came to her rescue, leaning forward in his chair and touching Helen’s arm lightly.
“The man was in a tank that filled with water,” he said gently. “He was held down by a pile of fishing nets.”
Helen’s brows furrowed. “Fishing nets?”
“That’s right,” Dani said.
“And they were piled on top of him?”
“Yes,” Dani said. “Helen, there’s no reason to believe the same thing happened to—“
“Wait a minute,” Helen said, holding up a hand to silence Dani. “I need to think for a minute.”
Dani and Tony were silent while Helen closed her eyes. Dani wondered if the poor woman was imagining Greg in a tank, stuck beneath a pile of fishing nets as water poured in from above.
“Do you have a picture of this man?” Helen asked.
“We have an artist’s sketch,” Dani said. She wasn’t about to show this distraught woman the photos from the crime scene.
“May I see it, please?”
“Here,” Tony said, showing his phone to Helen. “This is the man.”
Helen studied the artist’s rendering, pursed her lips, and nodded. “His name is Frank Moseley.”
“You know him?” Dani asked.
“Not really, no. Greg saved his life a couple of years ago. Not long before he disappeared, actually. Frank was homeless and was sleeping on the beach. A group of youths thought it would be funny to throw a pile of fishing nets on top of him and film it on their phones.
“They left him there, unaware that the tide was coming in. Or perhaps they were aware, who knows these days? Frank was tangled in the nets and unable to free himself. Luckily for him, Greg was walking along the beach early that morning—he’d had trouble sleeping the night before and had gone for a walk to clear his head. He saved Frank from drowning.”
She got up and went to a bureau. Opening the drawers, she found what she was looking for and returned to the sofa with a newspaper clipping, which she gave to Dani.
Dani looked at the headline.
Retired Detective Saves Homeless Man’s Life.
The article was accompanied by a black and white photograph of Greg at the side of a hospital bed.
The caption beneath the photo read, Greg Hughes at the bedside of Frank Moseley, the man he saved from certain death.
The photo was slightly faded, but there was no doubt that the man in the bed was the same man who had drowned in the tank yesterday.
“Do you mind if we keep this?” she said to Helen.
“If it will help with the investigation, you’re welcome to have it.”
Dani put the newspaper clipping into her bag. “You said Greg saved this man shortly before he disappeared?”
Helen nodded. “A week before, I think. I got the paper to send the me the original of that photo. It’s the last photo of Greg before he died.”
“Did you ever meet Frank Moseley?” Tony asked.
“No. He was discharged from the hospital the next day and went back to living on the streets, as far as I know.”
Until the GameMaster found him two years later, Dani thought.
“Did Greg mention anyone taking a particular interest in him rescuing Frank?” Tony asked.
She shook her head. “It was in the paper and mentioned on the local news, but it wasn’t a big deal. Greg was never one for publicity.”
That was true. Dani remembered Greg trying to avoid media attention whenever possible.
“Thank you, Helen,” she said, getting up. “We’ll stay in touch.”
“All right,” Helen said, seeing them to the door. “And remember, Dani, Greg was very proud of you. It was one of the last things he told me before he disappeared. He had faith in you and knew you’d catch the Snow Killer. Just like I have faith in you now and know you’ll catch Greg’s killer.”
Dani gave her a thin-lipped smile. She wasn’t going to make any promises.
When she got back in the Land Rover, she used the radio to call in the identity of the man who had died yesterday.
“Any thoughts?” she said to Tony as she started the Land Rover.
“I have lots of thoughts. Just let me get this down.” He was writing in the notebook, which he’d left in the door pocket.
Dani turned around at the end of the road. She waved at Helen as they passed the house, wondering how the news about the tank was going to hit the poor woman once it settled into her mind.
They might never know exactly how Greg died, and in some ways, that made it worse for his loved ones. They could only speculate on the details and sometimes, the imagination was worse than reality.
Dani hoped that was the case, and that her old partner’s death hadn’t been too horrific.
Tony looked up from his notebook. “Have any members of the Thompson or Goddard families had any dealings with the police in the past?”
“You mean a criminal record? I don’t think so.”
“No, not as criminals. As victims of a crime.”
“I have no idea. Do you have a theory?”
“Maybe.” He picked up his radio and keyed it. “Chris, are you there?”
It only took a couple of seconds before Toombs replied. “I’m here, Tony. What’s up?”
“Can you check the database and see if anyone from the Thompson or Goddard families has been involved in a crime in the past? Probably as a victim.”
“Yeah, sure, I’ll have a look.”
“Thanks.” Tony put the radio on his lap.
“You think they were victims like Frank Moseley?” Dani said.
“I can’t find any other connection. If they’ve all been victims of a crime, it’s something that ties them together.”
Toombs came back ten minutes later, as they were driving out of the outskirts of Scarborough.
“Yeah, they’ve been involved with crimes,” the technician said. “But they weren’t victims, exactly.”
“What do you mean?” Tony said.
“They were potential victims, but they weren’t hurt in any way.”
“Give me the details.” Tony had the notebook open in his lap and his pen poised over it.
“Twelve years ago, Luke and Wendy Thompson lived in a house in York that had been divided into two flats. They lived in the first floor flat. An anonymous tip was phoned in to the police that the bloke who lived on the ground floor was storing explosives in his flat for a terrorist group.”
Memories came flooding back to Dani. “I can tell you what happened next,” she said. “Greg and I were in the area and our priority was to get the couple on the first floor clear of the building. We went upstairs and knocked on their door but while we were up there, the man on the ground floor saw our car parked in the street and realised he’d been rumbled. He set off the explosives.”
“Really?” Tony said, his eyes wide with surprise. “What happened?”
“Before the explosion, Greg heard noises downstairs and realised what was about to happen. All four of us went out the kitchen window and jumped down onto a shed roof. If we’d gone back down the stairs, we’d have been done for. The explosion ripped the staircase apart and the entire first floor caved in.”
“That’s right,” Toombs said.
“I didn’t make the connection,” Dani said. “That was Luke and Wendy Thompson.”
Tony was scribbling in his notebook. “What about the Goddards, Chris?”
“Richard and Elaine Goddard were at a restaurant called the Blue Turtle ten years ago—“
“When the chef tried to poison everyone,” Dani continued. “Greg and I got there before the ambulance. Everyone in the restaurant was dead or dying. We rushed four people to the hospital in our patrol car. Two of them didn’t make it. Two of them had their stomachs pumped and survived.”
She searched her memory for the names of the survivors.
“Spoiler alert,” Toombs said. “The two people who survived were Richard and Elaine Goddard.”
“So, all of this is connected,” Dani said, feeling a chill creep up her spine. “The victims are people whose lives we saved.”
“Got it in one,” Toombs said.
“What happened to the chef at the Blue Turtle?” Tony asked.
“He poisoned himself as well as the customers,” Dani said. “He didn’t survive.”
“And the guy who blew the house up?”
“They dug his remains out of the rubble. What was left of them, anyway.”
“Damn it,” Tony said, putting his pen down. “No suspects, just survivors.”
“At least we have some idea about what’s going on now,” Toombs said from the radio.
“Yes,” Tony said, looking down at his scribbled notes. “It’s certainly intriguing.”
Intriguing wasn’t the word Dani would have used. The fact that someone was revisiting her old cases and changing the outcomes was terrifying.
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
When they reached the outskirts of York, Tony’s phone rang. He checked the screen and saw it was Battle calling.
“Hi, boss.”
“Doctor, I want you and Summers to question the boy. He can’t still be sedated. Get over to the hospital and find out what he knows.”
“All right,” Tony said, feeling a knot tighten in his stomach.
Battle hung up.
“What’s up?” Dani asked.
“Battle wants me to talk to David Goddard.”
She nodded. “Probably a good idea.”
He sighed. “I doubt we’ll learn anything useful. The GameMaster is too clever to reveal his identity to anyone.”
“We’ll know whether he is or not when we talk to David.”
Tony said nothing. He folded his arms and tried to breathe deeply to calm himself. After spending time in a mental institution in Canada, he couldn’t set foot in a hospital without experiencing a sense of dread which turned into blind panic.
When Dani pulled into the hospital car park and killed the Land Rover’s engine, Tony said, “Perhaps you should talk to him. I’ll wait here.”
She looked him over. “Are you all right?”
He felt clammy and shaky. He didn’t feel all right at all. “I’m fine,” he said.
“You don’t look fine. What’s the matter?”
He let out a long breath. “It’s hospitals. I have a problem with them.”
“With hospitals? I don’t understand.”
“After the Ripper thing, I was in a Canadian hospital for a while. A number of them, actually. It wasn’t a good time. I’d been affected by what happened in his house. Solomon Gantz’s house. Mentally, I mean. During my stay in one particular facility, I was hallucinating. Like I said, it was a bad time.”
He realised he was rambling. His memories of the psychiatric hospital were vague, probably because of the cocktail of drugs he’d been on at the time, but even those drug-addled memories had planted a seed in his mind that had grown into a fully-fledged phobia.
He remembered a headline in the Toronto Star—British Psychologist Loses Mind After Encountering Ripper—and wondered if his subconscious feared he would lose his mind again if he set foot inside any place that was similar to those mental health facilities in Canada.
“Does Battle know about this?” Dani said.
He shook his head. The only other person who knows is Tom Ryan. He helped me through a panic attack outside Whitby Hospital when we were working on the Abigail Newton case. He talked to me, distracted me.”
“Do you want me to do that?”
“I don’t think it would work. I’d know what you were doing. Ryan came out of nowhere and before I knew what was happening, I was in Abigail’s room.”
“If it’s really that bad, Tony, I can go in there and you can wait here,” Dani offered.
“Would you mind?” He felt weak, pathetic.
“I don’t mind at all. Is there anything you want me to specifically ask David?”
“Not really. I know you’ll ask the right questions.”
She opened her door and got out. “See you soon.” She closed the door and walked across the car park to the hospital building.
Tony felt his muscles relax. His breathing became more even and the trembling subsided. He felt bad about not accompanying Dani into the hospital but he also felt relieved that he didn’t have to go in there.
He read through his notes again, particularly the ones he’d made after leaving Helen Hughes’ house. The GameMaster was reversing the outcomes of cases Dani and Greg Hughes had worked on in the past, making sure the victims suffered the fate they would have all those years ago had Dani and Greg not intervened.
Tony couldn’t see a motive. And why was the GameMaster doing all this now, all these years after the original events that had almost killed these people?
It didn’t make any sense.
He mentally corrected himself. There was some kind of sense here somewhere, he just couldn’t see it yet. Whatever motive was driving these crimes made perfect sense to the GameMaster.
