Gardner had been set up with some accommodation in a newbuild property on the edge of Knaresborough.
She wandered around the three-floor property, marvelling at the space and the modern furnishing before settling into her new kitchen. It was still light, so she gazed out over a trim garden.
I could get used to this. She poured herself a large glass of red wine, thinking about their poky little affair down south with its garden full of muddy patches.
She looked down at her mobile phone. There was little reception, and no sign of either 3G or 4G. The price of being so far out of town. Worse still, the internet in the house was not yet connected. Bloody admin department! Lovely house, yes. Great décor, indeed! But the logistics! How does an SIO run a case without the internet?
She phoned her husband Barry, who sounded his usual bored self, but she didn’t pass comment. Even before this move up north, she felt as if the marriage was heading past the point of no return. Usually, a reminder of her struggling marriage would send her spiralling into anxiety; however, right now, she was halfway through a bottle of Merlot, and everything had started to glow a little. Eventually, the bore fed back on Anabelle’s success: a certificate from her class teacher for her remarkable progress with phonics. This added to Gardner’s warm feeling.
Throughout most of the call, her mind was elsewhere, and at the end she hit him up with a favour. It was the least he could do for his persistent lack of interest in her. ‘I want you to google the Winters case in North Yorkshire. I also want you to google Detective Inspector Paul Riddick.’
‘Why?’
Because I asked you to. ‘He’s my deputy SIO. There’s some history. Big history, I expect. He hasn’t been forthcoming, and as I told you before, I have no internet.’
‘Couldn’t you just have found out from someone at work, or better still used the internet when you were out and about?’
Marsh wasn’t exactly forthcoming! Add to that I’ve had barely five seconds since I arrived. However, strike any excuses, you’re my husband so… ‘Could you just do it please?’
He reluctantly agreed.
‘And phone me back as soon as, please.’
‘Okay, love you,’ he said and hung up.
Do you? she thought. In fact, do I love you?
In the fading light, she watched a magpie dig for worms in her new garden and worked her way through the remainder of the bottle. She’d picked up a microwave meal on the way home, but after arriving home, she’d not fancied a red-hot Madras any longer and had chucked it into the fridge, along with a bottle of Chardonnay she was saving for tomorrow…
Her phone rang. She looked down and saw with a small burst of excitement that it was the man responsible for nurturing her career, DCI Michael Yorke. If anyone knew the perfect things to say to her right now, it was this man!
‘Mike!’
‘Emma, how’re you?’
‘Okay. Two days and you’re missing me already?’
‘Exactly right.’ He paused. ‘Have you got a minute?’
Something was wrong. ‘You sound even more serious than usual and that takes some doing.’
‘Thanks.’ He sighed. ‘It’s about Jack…’
Her mind went blank. ‘Jack who?’ It was a defence mechanism. She knew well enough who Jack was.
‘Your brother.’
Her chest froze. She closed her eyes. She was in Malcolm’s Maze of Mirrors again. Jack was in front of her, holding his stone. She clutched her bleeding head and stared into his cold, dead eyes.
She opened her eyes. ‘Are you sure? Jack Moss?’
‘I’m sure, Emma. I’m looking at the report on screen now. Jack Nathan Moss. He’s out. Good behaviour.’
‘Shit. Where’s he now?’
‘A halfway house in Tidworth… Listen, Emma, this doesn’t have to be your problem. You don’t owe him anything.’
‘You’re damn right!’
‘I just thought you should know.’
‘Thanks.’
‘I understand that this may be a bit of a shock to you, so shall we schedule a catch up tomorrow night instead? Give you time to get all those new colleagues of yours eating out of the palm of your hand? Then you can dish the dirt on life up north?’
She laughed. ‘That would be great, Mike.’
After the phone call, she emptied the remainder of the bottle into her wine glass. A bit splashed over the rim and onto the wooden tabletop.
Jack Nathan Moss.
Her younger brother.
Again, she recalled those cold, dead eyes regarding her in Malcolm’s Maze of Mirrors.
As a child, the doctors had diagnosed him with a multitude of learning difficulties. Her parents had fawned over him. But Gardner had seen the truth that day. He lacked emotion.
Actually... he lacked soul.
A teenager with no qualifications, no hope, and a significant lack of empathy was always going to fall in with the wrong crowd. By the time he was in his twenties, that crowd became just plain bad. Gardner had learned enough about Jack’s past to know that her cold, empty brother became a go-to for jobs that were often dirty, and violent.
Unbelievably, he was only tried for one killing, and this was downgraded to manslaughter.
Because he ‘accidentally’ drove a car over someone from a rival gang. As you do.
Of course, Gardner knew the truth. Not only because she’d seen it in his eyes that day in the maze while he was holding that bloody stone, but she’d seen it countless times since.
On the day of their mother’s funeral when he didn’t shed a tear, for example.
And the day of their father’s funeral when he didn’t even bother attending.
She thought of the bottle of Chardonnay cooling in the fridge and looked at the bottle on the table she’d demolished in less than an hour.
Be sensible, Emma. Briefing at six.
She went into her new lounge and threw herself onto the sofa. It was too soft and certainly wasn’t the highlight of the luxurious home she’d received gratis. She’d already tested the television earlier, so knew it would work when she hit the remote.
She was just in time for the regional news on ITV.
There was a photograph of Bradley Taylor on the screen. Shaved eyebrow. Aggressive expression. The same one that was on the Operation Eden whiteboard.
Well, that will endear him to the public I’m sure…
She sat up and cranked up the volume. She was at the end of the broadcast, but she caught this: ‘Emotional locals paid their respects.’ A camera panned over flowers that had been laid at the entrance to the castle. There was a soundbite from an elderly man. ‘We’ve never seen the like… not here… not in Knaresborough.’ He pulled off his glasses and wiped an eye. Then, Marianne Perse, the irritating journalist who’d confronted Paul Riddick at the crime scene, offered her thoughts on the matter. ‘The police are referring to him as the Viaduct Killer.’
‘No, we’re not,’ Gardner said to the screen. ‘Why in God’s name would we do that?’
Sure enough, the presenter interviewing the freelance journalist asked a similar question. ‘But Bradley Taylor was found behind the castle keep wasn’t he?’
Marianne shrugged. ‘The Viaduct Killer. That’s what my source tells me. Maybe it’s to do with the view of the viaduct from the crime scene?’
‘You don’t have a bloody source,’ Gardner said.
‘My source also informed me that the victim was strangled.’
‘You do have a source you bloody bitch!’ Gardner stood.
She watched the end of the broadcast with her mouth hanging partially open. It concluded with a telephone number for the public to contact with any information.
Gardner killed the television.
Again, she thought of the Chardonnay. ‘You have a briefing, Emma!’
Her phone rang from the kitchen table. She sighed as she headed back for it.
Barry.
Ah shit, she thought. The Winters case and Paul. It’d completely slipped her mind following the revelation regarding Jack.
‘Barry?’
‘Bloody hell, Em, I didn’t expect that.’
At least he sounded more enthused than usual. ‘Go on.’
‘Where do I start?’
‘Right now, I feel nowhere, so start anywhere.’
‘Most of it’s tragic… In fact, it’s all tragic.’
‘Do I need to sit down?’
‘Do you have wine?’
‘No,’ she lied. ‘Just get to it, please.’
So Barry told Gardner all about the Winters case. As promised, it was a tragic tale.
‘Awful,’ Gardner said. ‘Just bloody awful. And it makes a lot of sense. No wonder he’s public enemy number one.’
‘I wish that were it,’ Barry said.
‘Really, there’s more? You must be over the worst by now.’
‘I wish…’
Gardner felt a cold chill work its way up her spine.
‘What is this Paul Riddick actually like?’ Barry asked.
‘Well, that’s a question and a half. He’s kind of a mixed bag. Standoffish. Angry and aggressive a lot of the time. Erratic, but passionate.’
‘Sounds like most detectives.’
Gardner rolled her eyes. ‘There are moments when he seems more tender, gentle even. It’s hard to explain. There’s definitely something gnawing at him.’
‘You can say that again.’
‘Just get to the point, Barry.’
‘That man will be seriously damaged, Em. In fact, if that were me, I wouldn’t even be working. Hats off that he is actually working.’
‘Barry, for pity’s sake.’
So, Barry told her, and when he’d finished, she was forced to end the conversation because the tears were coming, and she was struggling to find the words to speak.
She did, however, manage to go to the kitchen and retrieve the Chardonnay from the fridge.
And while she drank the white wine, she thought about, in no particular order: her brother’s cold eyes, Riddick’s tragic history, Bradley Taylor’s lifeless body, and Collette Willows lying dead on the roundabout far below her.