The Death Collector (3 page)

He raised himself up on his elbows and looked at the fire. It kept him warm but it cheated him too. The heat would make her stiffen up too quickly, the rigor mortis setting in before the full rush of sunrise. All of a sudden she would feel alien and unreal against his skin.

He clenched and unclenched his right hand. Once tight round her throat, it was now cramping from the effort. He’d held her hands high above her head, stretched out across the floor, because she hadn’t drunk anything. He’d relied on pure force, and it had made it different, not how he’d expected it. Normally they drift away before he takes them. This one hadn’t worked out that way. He had looked into her eyes as he squeezed, tried to see her final thoughts in them, and they’d been there. Confusion at first, then fear, before he saw what he had been chasing. Realisation: the knowledge of what she should have always known.

No one leaves.

He’d seen that truth reflected in her tears. Her final view of the world had been his face screwed up in effort, brows furrowed, eyes narrowed, teeth gritted. If she’d mistaken that for passion she had been wrong. It was exertion, nothing more.

But it wasn’t about her death. It never had been. He didn’t fantasise about killing anyone. This was no pursuit of a rush he had felt once but couldn’t recapture. As her skin puckered under the grip of his hand and he heard the fast rhythm of her heels on the wooden floorboards, the spittle landing on his cheeks as she fought, it was something else that gave him pleasure.

For now though, all he had was the waiting.

Her hair had fallen over her face, so he brushed it to one side, making it neat again. He looked at her. Where did all the excitement go? He had changed everything for her, brought some brightness into her routine. It had made her feel alive, so she said. So why end it, to finish up just the way she had started?

The clothes were always the difficult part. Her weight was too much now, but still he had to do it.

He reached for her blouse, flicking at the buttons before lifting her, gasping with exertion, pulling her blouse from one arm and then wrestling her so that he could do the same with the other until it dropped from her shoulders. Her bra came off next, before he lowered her gently back to the floor. Her skirt was easier, once he had undone the zip at the back, then her knickers.

He lifted her blouse to his face and buried himself in it. It bore traces of her, the orange blossom and spicy ginger from her perfume mixed in with her own soft traces, something unique to her.

It was important to know perfumes. Scents evoke memories and he needed to retain them. If he wanted to remind himself when he was out, he would go to the free samples, pick a small white strip and just wave it under his nose as he walked around.

He put the blouse and skirt onto a hanger and zipped them into a suit carrier. When he needed them, the smells would come flooding out, taking him back to when she had been his for a moment.

More music was needed.

He thumbed through his record collection and selected a Sinatra album. He went through the same routine. The careful removal of the vinyl. The gentle wipe with the anti-static cloth. The click of the record player – an old Dansette in pale green with a matt grey turntable. And then the pause before the needle landed with a fizz. Only when the first notes crackled through the speaker did he go back to her.

He moved her left knee so that it was over her right and closed her legs, preserving her modesty. He took off his shirt, his skin glowing red from the effort of lifting her and the warmth from the fire, and lay next to her. He kissed her gently on the shoulder. Her skin still had some warmth but she would lose it soon. He put his arm across her and rested his head on her breasts once more. He closed his eyes. For a short while he would still have her, before she was gone for ever.

The first light of morning was still an hour away when Joe left the police station. Carl Jex was behind him, yawning, and Susie followed.

Joe wondered whether he should just say goodbye and let the boy find his own way home. There wasn’t much criminal work to be had out of Carl Jex. He was too clean cut and Joe hated being relegated to a chauffeur once he was out of the station, but Carl was young.

Susie said, ‘I’m going the opposite way.’

‘It’s all right, I’ll take him,’ Joe said, taking the hint that Susie thought she had done enough. He wanted his bed, but he had to admit that he was curious about Carl’s story.

‘Where do you need to be?’ he asked Carl, pressing the fob to unlock his car as Susie walked to her own. ‘I can take you there.’

The police interview had been short, once it was obvious that Carl was going to stay quiet. He was released and told to return two weeks later, to allow someone to look at the evidence and decide there was no case.

‘Are you sure you don’t mind?’ Carl said.

‘You’re too young to walk, and let’s just say I’m still curious.’

Carl paused, looking back at the station, and then said, ‘Okay, thank you. Can I go home?’

Joe remembered his address. He didn’t know the street but he knew the area and it was the opposite way from his own home. His night had been long enough already, but the journey would give him a chance to find out more. He glanced towards the hills in the distance as he climbed into his car, the brooding shadows of Saddleworth Moor just silhouettes against the faintest glow of a lighter blue, the stars fading into the slow spread of daybreak.

The moors made him shudder. Even on the sunniest days they seemed to drag the mood downwards. They were devoid of high vegetation, just a long spread of heather and moorland grass, sometimes undulating gently and at other times rising and falling in sheer drops. It was as though a dark grassy blanket of sour mood had been thrown over the Pennines, the long stretch of hills that divide the north, the bleakness broken only by the glimmer of reservoirs fashioned out of the valleys.

Joe turned away. Even though he had lived in Manchester all of his life, the moors never failed to remind him of murdered children. They had been used as a burial ground by an evil couple, the shifting ground of peat and soil making sure that one poor boy remained unfound, left for ever under the rough grass, his family in a never-ending search for his body. Myra Hindley and Ian Brady had stained those moors.

He didn’t want to think of murdered children. He had endured similar pain in his own life, when his sister, Ellie, was murdered sixteen years earlier. She was attacked on his eighteenth birthday as she took a shortcut from school along a wooded path. The pain never went away. Ellie’s death had defined Joe’s adult life and her shadow was always with him as he went about his day job knowing that what he did helped bad people, some of whom had done similar things to whoever had killed Ellie. Yet it was the career he had chosen.

Ellie’s killer was still out there, and Joe looked for him constantly. Every time he went to the police station he hoped to see the face of the man who had taken her away. Joe had seen him, a skulking figure who had turned to follow Ellie as she headed down the path, and he had done nothing. It was this secret that tortured him and had driven him to become a lawyer. He dreamed of seeing the man again, never letting that glimpse leave his memory. He had promised himself, and Ellie, that when he found the man, he would kill him.

Carl looked around before he got into the car, his eyes darting towards the murky corners of the car park.

‘You look nervous,’ Joe said, trying to shut away the brief memories of Ellie.

Carl was about to say something, his mouth was open and the words almost formed, but then he shook his head. ‘It’s too early. I need to find out more.’

‘What about? I thought you wanted to talk to me?’

‘I do, but not here, and I’m tired.’

Joe nodded. Carl was right. ‘Come and see me tomorrow, if you need to, after school.’

‘I will.’

Carl stayed silent as Joe set off. The roads were quiet and, apart from the occasional wait at empty traffic lights, they were soon heading uphill and towards the small towns and villages that spread themselves along the foot of the Pennines, the last stop before the quick rise and the bleak plateau. Carl was constantly in motion, looking ahead and then behind through the car windows, only relaxing as they got further away from the police station.

They passed a bowling alley. Carl pointed to a turning off the main road. ‘I was arrested a couple of streets further down there,’ he said.

Joe looked to where Carl had pointed as he passed the junction, but saw just houses, nothing specific. He turned to him. ‘Curiosity is getting the better of me,’ he said. ‘At least give me a clue: what’s this all about?’

‘Just watching two people dance in front of the fire,’ Carl said.

‘Oh, come on, there’s more to this than just some cosy night in.’

Carl paused, as if he was thinking of what to say. He turned towards Joe and said, ‘Have you ever heard of Aidan Molloy?’

Joe frowned. The name was familiar. ‘You’re going to have to help me out.’

‘He’s in prison, for a murder he didn’t commit.’

Joe raised his eyebrows and gave Carl a wry smile. ‘You’re too young to understand this, but every murderer I’ve represented didn’t do it, or so they said. But they all did.’

‘Aidan Molloy might be the one telling the truth. Honeywells represented him.’

Joe was surprised. The name was familiar but it wasn’t someone he had represented. ‘It must have been before my time,’ he said, and then something occurred to him. ‘Is that why you wanted Honeywells, because of Aidan Molloy?’

Carl nodded. ‘Your firm was the first one that came into my head.’

‘So was this connected to Aidan Molloy, whatever you were doing tonight?’

‘It’s too complicated,’ Carl said, putting his head back against the headrest. ‘Like you said, I’ll tell you tomorrow.’ He glanced towards the brightening sky. ‘Today, really.’

They drove in silence for a while longer, until Carl pointed to a small country lane marked out by trees that hung over its entrance. They cast growing shadows that twisted away from the streetlights that lined the main road. ‘I live just down there.’

Joe was about to turn into the lane when Carl said, ‘Here is fine. Otherwise you’ll have to turn your car around and it’ll wake everyone up.’

As the car came to a halt and Carl climbed out, Joe leaned across and said, ‘I knew the name was familiar. Aidan Molloy. It’s come back to me now. There’s a woman in Crown Square most days. She has placards. She doesn’t say anything, doesn’t shout. Just gets his name out there, runs something like a one-woman campaign.’

‘That’s Aidan’s mother, Mary,’ Carl said. ‘I’ve seen her there. I tried to speak to her once, but she didn’t seem interested.’

‘Who are you, Carl, and why does Aidan’s case involve you?’

‘I don’t know if I can trust you.’

‘I’m your lawyer,’ Joe said. ‘If I pass on what you tell me, you can get me struck off.’

Again, more silence as Carl considered that, until he said, ‘If you’re really interested, I’ll show you later.’

‘Why can’t you tell me now?’

‘Honest answer? I’m tired. I need to think.’

Joe smiled. ‘Okay,’ he said, and then gave a wave as Carl clunked the door closed. He watched the boy as he walked along the lane, just a shadow of awkward teenage limbs until eventually he disappeared altogether.

Joe shook his head. Carl was so young but there was something more worldly about him, as if he bore a burden that was beyond his years. Joe was intrigued, but it was late. He needed some sleep.

He set off again, heading back into the city to let the orange spread of Manchester take over his life once more.

The steady crunch of Carl’s footsteps mingled with the early-morning birdsong as he walked down the lane to his family home. Trees overhung the road and blocked out some of the glow from the lone streetlamp at the end.

He rounded the corner and then he stopped. His mouth felt dry and his heart began to pound. He thought there was someone up ahead but there was nothing tangible. It was a sensation, or perhaps his mind working things out too slowly in that strange place that existed between awake and asleep, where dreams interject into the waking world. They hadn’t been followed from the station, he had kept watch all the way home and there had been no car. So had someone got there ahead of them to lie in wait?

Carl listened, trying to hear something, nervous breaths or sticks snapping underfoot. He stood still straining for a sound, not breathing, but there was nothing, he was sure of it. He moved forward again, more slowly this time, his feet inching ahead, always ready to run, his footsteps silent so that he would hear any sudden movement. The lane didn’t help, all shadows, just the spreading glow of the sun over the hills providing some relief.

He stopped, startled. There it was again, something ahead. Some movement, he was sure of it, like someone darting into the cover of a hedgerow. He closed his eyes for a moment. It might be his imagination, nothing more. He took some deep breaths before opening his eyes and setting off again.

The light from the streetlight disappeared completely. His house was further along, one of the first on the left, part of a row of houses built in the seventies, semi-detached houses clad in pebbledash. He thought he could make it there, but he could be trapped as he fumbled for his key. His hand reached out for the hedge that lined one side of the lane, so that nothing could jump out from the shadows without him feeling it first.