Chapter 8

I reached Corwen in twenty minutes or so and when I passed the pub where I had stayed, I turned left down the hill towards the river. The houses there were built on a steep gradient and the roofs of the buildings at the bottom of the hill were at eye level as I steered the truck down the narrow road. I could see the shops halfway down the street. The newsagents had an awning above the window. The red and white stripes were faded and dirty, years of weathering had taken their toll. The chip shop was next door and there was a queue of people outside waiting to order their supper. As I drew nearer, the smell of chips and vinegar drifted into the truck making my mouth water. I hadn’t eaten all day and my stomach was telling me to give it something to digest. As I pulled up near the curb, I saw Williams Street on the left. The odd numbers were on the left and the even on the right. Number 16 was too far away for me to identify from the numerals on the door. The houses were uniform from the front although the odd one or two looked freshly painted and stood out from the rest.

I turned off the engine and climbed out of the truck. I stretched and focused on the houses in Williams St. There wasn’t a soul about. The queue outside the chip shop was dwindling but I decided to let it go down while I bought a newspaper. I walked into the shop and a bell above the door alerted the owner that they had a customer. A woman in her sixties half smiled and eyed me suspiciously. Tourists were a novelty this far from the main roads. I scanned the rack of red-top newspapers, taking in the headlines.

A knot squeezed my guts when I saw my picture looking straight back at me. The Sun had linked the satanic cult in Carrog to my plight a year before and although they were speculating that it may be the same cult that had forced me into hiding and that the murders could have been self defense, the photograph was the last thing that I needed now. The article read, ‘Author still on the run in connection with three murders, could have been targeted by a cult connected to the Cannibal Killer.’ It read on to describe briefly the events of twelve months ago and was almost sympathetic to my situation. They highlighted the fact that there was irrefutable evidence that the dead policeman found at my house was a member of the Order of Nine Angles. My appearance in the photograph was much heavier with a fuller face. I was slimmer now and disguised enough not be identified easily from the photo but raising the profile of my disappearance didn’t help me one bit. The last line made me smile as it warned the general public not to approach me as I was considered to be dangerous. They were spot on, hunted men are dangerous but in my case the only danger I presented was to the niners. I had decided a long time ago that if the police came for me, I would give myself up and take my chances with the judicial system. Despite hating confined spaces, being gunned down in the street didn’t appeal to me either.

I picked up the newspaper when the woman behind the counter coughed into her hand. I must have taken too long reading the headlines without making a purchase. I folded the paper into my jacket and dropped a fifty pence piece onto the counter without speaking to her. She grunted something as I turned and walked away but I didn’t respond. I could feel her eyes following me as I walked past the window into the chip shop. Maybe I was being paranoid or maybe she had recognised me. Either way, I didn’t want to stand and chitchat with the miserable cow while my photograph was splashed over the front pages.

I ordered chips, fish and mushy peas on a tray and drenched them in vinegar, before climbing back into the truck to eat them while I watched out for Harris. I scanned the headlines but couldn’t concentrate on anything outside of the front pages. The food tasted as good as it smelled and I demolished the fish and left half of the chips uneaten. My appetite was not as keen as it once was. As I screwed up the wrapping paper, a heavy-set man stepped out of a doorway roughly where number 16 would have been. I grabbed my mobile and dialed the number for David Harris which I had taken from Blackman’s contact list. As the number that I had dialed began to ring, the big man reached into his jeans and took out his mobile. He looked at the screen with a confused look on his face. Bingo, I had found him.