Authors: Ryan Casey
“The girl. The beautiful girl. I just wanted to speak with her. I just wanted—”
“There was someone else there. Wasn’t there?”
Adrian’s eyes narrowed. He looked out into the garden again, but he seemed in a world of his own.
Movement just outside this recreational area. Voices and footsteps getting closer.
“Adrian, there was someone else there, wasn’t there?”
“Yes. Yes, I think there was someone else there. You’re right. Someone who wasn’t me or Mark or Joseph. Someone who wasn’t the beautiful.”
Brian leaned in closer to Adrian. “This person. What did they look like? Please. You could help me a lot here, mate. You could help me a lot.”
More staring into space from Adrian. A slight humming from the bottom of his throat.
Footsteps getting nearer.
“Adrian, what did they—”
“They told me to put it there,” Adrian snapped, swinging around to glare at Brian. “The earring, they told me to put it somewhere safe. Somewhere they wouldn’t find it. They weren’t supposed to find it.” He hit the side of his head. “You weren’t supposed to find it. I did bad. I did a bad, bad thing.”
“There he is.” The voice from the side of the recreational room. Three security guards, all coming in Brian’s direction.
Brian leaned further forward. Grabbed Adrian’s hand before he could hit himself again. “You did nothing wrong. I promise you did nothing wrong. Just the man, Adrian. The—”
Hands on Brian’s biceps. “Time to go now, sir.”
“The man, Adrian,” Brian shouted, struggling as best he could. “What did they look like? Tell me, Adrian. You could help me. You could help yourself.”
Adrian stared out of the glass, distant, lost in a world of his own.
Brian kicked out at the guards. “I’m a fucking police officer. Get your hands off me.” But still, they kept hold. Still, they dragged him away. “Talk to me, Adrian. What did you see?”
Adrian looked at Brian and Brian saw something. Clarity. Not glassy-eyed, but complete clarity. “The friendly man,” he said.
“That’s enough now, Adrian,” one of the nurses accompanying him said. “You just relax now.”
Brian struggled some more as he was dragged around the corner. “Which man? Which friendly man?”
Adrian’s smile widened as he kept on staring at Brian with complete lucidity. “The one with the farm animals.”
Brian didn’t put up a fight anymore. He didn’t protest.
He just thought back to Jack Selter’s farm right by the dirt track and he knew he had something.
Brian stepped out of his car and headed to farmer Jack Setler’s front door.
As he knocked, he saw movement behind the frosted glass right away. Someone appeared at the other side of the glass, then stopped, walked a few steps back, then walked towards the door again.
Brian stood. Waited for Jack to open the door. Thought about what Adrian had told him. What he’d told him about the person present in the Booths toilet that night.
The friendly man with the farm animals.
The front door creaked open. The smell of sizzling bacon cut through the countryside smells of cow shit, a refreshing change for Brian.
Jack smiled. He was wearing a white jumper with a Nike tick on it and blue trackie bottoms. Slippers on his feet. “Detective McDone, right? How can I ‘elp you? Anything more on the lad?”
Brian gulped. He’d thought about how he was going to approach this right from driving away from New Blue Brook Hospital. He had to be subtle but open. Honest without being too direct. “I wanted to ask you about New Blue Brook patients. Whether you’ve ever seen any around here.”
Jack stared at him a few seconds. Bacon sizzled in the background. A kettle whistled. “Tell you what. Why don’t you get yerself inside? Get a bacon buttie down yer neck—”
“I don’t eat bacon anymore. Heart issues.”
Jack looked mortified. “My God. A man who doesn’t eat bacon. Our own pigs too. Feel for you, I do. Well, ‘ow about a coffee?”
“Not a lover of coffee either.”
“A glass of water?”
Jack looked around. Looked at his car, pulled up in the middle of nowhere. Looked down the dirt track, the place where Sam Betts had first gone missing. Listened to the leaves dancing in the wind. He knew he shouldn’t go inside. Not when bad things happened whenever he was alone. He knew he couldn’t take another solo fuck up. Not just his career—his health. Hannah. Nobody could take it.
But being human, he smiled, nodded, and followed Jack Selter through to the kitchen.
“So, ‘ow long’s the bacon-free lifestyle been a thing?” Jack asked, as Brian followed him through the darkened hallway, lined with little pot animals. The carpet underneath was hard, like it hadn’t been relaid for years.
“Heart attack a year ago,” Brian said. He stepped through into the brighter kitchen area. Nice view from the patio windows—looked out over a little garden, then beyond at some cow-filled fields. The kitchen itself was tidy. Show home tidy.
“Awful tidy for a family home,” Brian said, stepping around the side of the circular wooden table, a bowl of over-ripe fruit sat in the middle of it.
Jack winced as he leaned down into the grill and flipped the fat-spitting bacon over. “Yeah, well. Wife’s a clean freak. Amy takes after ‘er too. Handy for me, y’know. Been told I’m a bit of a slob by a few people.”
Brian noted the muddy wellingtons piled by the patio doorway. “Never got that impression.”
Jack moved away from the grill. Wiped his dry, soily hands. “Water, was it?”
“Yeah, sure,” Brian said.
Jack got a glass of water and handed it to Brian. Brian tried not to watch him too closely. Tried not to rub him up the wrong way as he took a sip of the slightly tepid tap water.
Tried to find out as much as he could about the “friendly man with the farm animals” and his relationship with Adrian West without outright asking him the question.
“What was it yer wanted anyway?” Jack asked, slipping some thick bacon between a gorgeous, doughy bap and stuffing half of it in his mouth right away. “Blue Brooks?”
Brian took a sip of the tepid water for show. “Yeah. You… it’s not far off here, is it?”
Jack chewed on the bacon, which Brian wanted more and more to take a bite out of by the second. “See a few of ‘um walkin’ around ‘ere sometimes.”
Another sip on the water. “You see patients coming down here?”
Jack nodded. “Yeah. They come down ‘ere to clear their heads, whatever. Get umselves out of the confines of that shithole. Never cause any ‘arm though. Think they might ‘ave summat to do with Sam Betts?”
Brian took another sip of the water. Vowed to himself never to sip it again with how lukewarm it was. “I’m not sure if you’re aware, but another girl turned up.”
Jack frowned. “Like the lad?”
“We found her in Booths toilets yesterday morning. She’d been raped so hard that there were signs of internal bruising as far up as her bowels. Her intestines were torn out of her body, as was her stomach. And her eyes were scooped out. An eleven-year-old girl. Your daughter is how old? Thirteen?”
Jack stopped chewing on the bacon bap right there. His eyes twitched. “Jesus Christ. That’s just… that’s…”
“We have suspicions that a New Blue Brook patient might be involved in these murders. Adrian West. Dark hair. Wears a weird red shirt and tie and trousers too small for himself. Funny socks.” He revealed a photograph. “Seen him before?”
Jack put his bacon butty down. Studied the photograph, squinting. “Yeah. Yeah I ‘ave seen ‘im before. Few times, actually.”
Brian let Jack study the photo for a few minutes, though.
I bet you fucking have.
“The thing is, Adrian has an alibi for the night of Sam Betts’ disappearance. So something isn’t adding up.”
Jack handed the photo back to Brian. Went to pick up his bacon butty again, but opted against it. “Is that right?”
Brian was about to speak when he felt his phone buzzing in his pocket. He thought about ignoring it, but he didn’t want to take any more chances today. He didn’t want to piss Hannah off too much, and he didn’t want the department wondering where he was. Plus, he needed a few seconds to regroup. To work out his next question to Jack.
“Sorry, is there a bathroom I can just take this in?”
Jack nodded. Pointed to the door next to the bottom of the stairs.
Brian locked himself inside and answered the call.
“Yeah?”
“Brian.” It was Samantha Carter. “Where you at?”
Brian turned the little silver tap on so the running water covered his voice up a bit. “I’m just—”
“Doesn’t matter. We got news back on the car registration from outside Booths. Our toilet runner. Think you’re gonna be pleasantly surprised.”
Brian turned the other tap on so the noise got a little louder. He could hear Jack whistling in the kitchen down the corridor.
“Old Farmer Jack said he had a son, right?”
Brian flushed the toilet. More disturbing noise. “Yeah. In Yorkshire with his family or something.”
“Jack’s son doesn’t live in Yorkshire. He doesn’t have a family. Patrick Selter left prison six months ago.”
Brian tensed as he tried to listen to Carter’s words beyond the flushing toilet. “What for?”
“Child pornography. Production and distribution. Lowest scumbag of the low. And what more, this black Renault Clio outside Booths. It’s his. Used to be his daddy’s, but they switched the insurance over six months ago.”
Brian turned off the other tap. Listened to Jack Selter whistling away outside the bathroom door, like everything was okay, everything was normal. “Where does he… where’s he registered as living?”
“At home with his parents,” Carter said. “Where you at anyway?”
Brian heard the footsteps creaking above his head. Heard more sizzling of bacon. Heard his heart pounding against his chest.
“Samantha, I… I’m…”
“You okay, Brian? You’re breaking up.”
The call cut out.
Brian paused a few seconds. Waited, absorbing the information, taking it all in. Listened to Jack Selter’s whistles.
Patrick Selter. Shit. Shit.
He stepped up to the bathroom door. Took a deep breath in of the lavender air freshener.
And then he opened the bathroom door.
Jack barely looked up at Brian as he stepped out of the bathroom, which was just as well because it gave Brian a free minute to lunge up the creaky staircase of the converted bungalow attic.
He heard Jack shouting as he stepped up the spiralling stairs. Heard a plate drop and hit the hard kitchen floor as Brian turned onto the upper floor, looked at the two dark wood doors either side of him.
His heart pounded. He stepped up to the first door. Reached for the handle. Tried to turn it, completely locked.
Tried the second door. Same problem. Same predicament.
“You don’t have a bloody warrant to search this place,” Jack shouted, as he came around the stairs.
But Brian wasn’t listening.
He smacked into the door on the left. Barged into it, shoulder first, hurting his shoulder in the process. Barged again, as Jack poked his head around the top of the stairs, shouted at him some more.
The third barge, something snapped, and the handle came loose.
“You don’t step in there!” Jack shouted.
But Brian didn’t need to step in. He didn’t need to step in the room to see what he’d seen.
The tripod at the bottom of an unsheeted double bed. Cuffs and chains at the top and bottom ends of the mattress.
Posters of Barbie, Disney films, and teddy bears and toys all scattered around the room.
He felt sick. Sick to the bottom of his stomach. Sick and angry, as Jack looked on with a reddening face.
He stumbled into the room, his knees weak. Jack didn’t even try to stop him.
His sickness reached new heights when he saw the bed closer.
When he saw the red stain in the middle of the mattress.
When he saw the little purple earring, just like Beth Turner’s, beside the pillow.
“It’s okay, Dad,” a voice said.
Brian turned around. A tall, muscular lad with dark hair wearing a black V-neck T-shirt and blue skinny jeans stepped out of the room opposite.
“I’ve got this,” he said.
He was pointing a rifle at Brian’s face.
“Put your hands behind your head and sit on the bed.”
Brian’s heart pounded as he stood in the doorway of Patrick Selter’s fucked up little bedroom. He tasted the sweat from his forehead dripping down onto his lips. Felt his knees going weak as he got the dull smell of stale semen, of old urine.
He stared at Patrick Selter as he pointed the rifle in his face. As his dad, Jack, the farmer, looked on red-faced, inconsolable.
“Now!”
Jack reached for his son’s shoulder. “Pat, you don’t have to—”
Patrick brushed his dad away. “I’ve got this. I’ll handle it. Sit the fuck down.”
Brian wasn’t sure whether he physically could sit down, especially not on this unsheeted mattress that had blood and other stains all over it.
“Don’t for a fucking second think I wouldn’t,” Patrick said. He stepped forward. His muscly biceps underneath his dark V-neck T-shirt were tensed as he held on to the rifle, pointed it closer into Brian’s face. “On the bed. So we can sort this out. Get it done with.”
Brian wanted to stand up to this creepy little fucker. He wanted to tell the little noncey pervert to get fucked. He wanted to shove the gun up his ass and cause him pain for what he’d done to Sam Betts, to Beth Turner, to countless other kids.
“Now!”
He prodded the gun against Brian’s forehead.
Brian fell down. Fell down on the hard, grey mattress of the bed. Tried to steady his breathing as the bed springs squeaked. Tried his best not to look at the dusty teddy bears, the princes and princesses on the chipped walls.
Tried not to look at the camera tripod at the other side of the room.
“Now here’s what you’re gonna do,” Patrick said. “You’re gonna climb over to those cuffs and you’re gonna—”
More protestation from Jack. “Patrick, you don’t need to do this—”
Patrick swung around. Pointed the gun into his dad’s chest. Bloodshot mania in his eyes.