Kissing the Demons

She could hear noise downstairs. The boys had switched the TV on and were probably sitting, mesmerized on the sofa munching on something unhealthy. But she had neither the time nor the inclination to do anything about it.

She lay there going over everything she had to do that day. After what she considered to be her well-deserved lie in, she would meet Joe and they would call at the address Jenks had given them for Jasmine, his alibi. Jasmine, unless they had a remarkable stroke of luck, would be long gone but there was always a chance that someone, an elderly neighbour or a landlord perhaps, would be able to provide a clue to her whereabouts. And if that failed they’d try the university first thing on Monday.

She put her hands behind her head and lay there with her eyes closed. Jeff had opened the window so she could hear church bells ringing in some distant tower. She had always liked Sundays – until police work took over and Sunday became a day much like any other. But at least today the case they were working on lacked the usual urgency. Those two girls had been missing for twelve years so it would hardly be a race against time to find them.

When the phone on the bedside table began to ring she looked at it with distaste for a few moments before picking it up.

‘Oh bloody hell, Joe, what do you want?’ she said as soon as she heard the voice on the other end of the line. ‘I’m having a nice lie in here. Can’t it wait till later?’ She knew Joe well enough by now to know that he wouldn’t take offence . . . unlike some.

‘Someone’s just called the station to report a missing person. Female student at the university.’

‘Can’t uniform deal with it?’

‘Wait till you hear the address.’

‘Go on,’ said Emily, suddenly alert.

‘Thirteen Torland Place. The address Jenks gave us for Jasmine.’

Jason’s lips had arranged themselves into a sneer but Matt stood his ground. They stood facing each other either side of the kitchen table while Caro positioned herself at the end, looking from one to the other like a tennis umpire.

Matt opened his mouth, trying to think up an answer. Since the strange call, the cut off cry of pain, he had lain awake worrying about Pet, the scenarios in his tired brain becoming ever more dire and disturbing, and at eight thirty that morning he had rung the police to report her missing. Now, over tea in cracked mugs and barely tanned white toast, he felt that perhaps he’d been a little hasty. But Jason annoyed him so he stood his ground.

‘I think she’s in trouble,’ he said, glancing at Caro whose expression gave nothing away.

Jason’s full lips twitched upwards in a knowing smirk. ‘I reckon she’s with some new bloke. What you heard was probably a cry of pleasure. She probably rolled over on to her phone and it got switched on by accident at the moment of ecstasy.’

Matt squared up to his opponent. ‘Pet’s not a slapper.’

Jason gave a knowing chuckle and Matt resisted the urge to punch him in the mouth.

‘Shut up. You’re like a pair of fucking kids,’ said Caro, the umpire. ‘Does it matter whether or not Pet screws around? The question is, is she in trouble at this moment?’

The answer was silence. Both Matt and Jason knew Caro was right. If Pet was in any sort of danger, the last thing she needed was for her housemates to be bickering about the niceties.

Matt spoke first. ‘Well I’ve reported her missing now and they’ve got her details. They said it was too early to worry but then I said it was really out of character and I told them about the phone call and said it sounded as if she was being hurt. They said someone would call round.’

‘Probably some uniformed plod with a notebook,’ said Jason. ‘They won’t do anything.’

Matt felt his fist clenching but he told himself to let it go. He found it hard to believe that he’d actually liked Jason in their first year in hall of residence. He’d liked Caro and Pet as well. They’d all got on so well. Until they’d moved into number thirteen and everything had started to fall apart.

‘Anyone fancy a beer?’ Jason said, making for the fridge.

‘It’s too bloody early.’ Caro stared at him. ‘And where’s your share of the electricity bill? You promised to transfer the money into the house account.’

Jason raised a grubby hand. ‘I told you before, I’ve got a bit of a cash flow problem at the moment but I’ll ring my dad tonight. He’ll pay up. No worries. Since he left mum for the tart, he’s been very generous with the readies.’

Caro grunted. They’d all heard the saga of Jason’s parents’ broken marriage and his father’s infatuation with a younger woman at work. He’d moved in with the woman and had assuaged his tender conscience by throwing cash at the problem. This hadn’t gone down well with his wife and three teenaged children and Jason had no qualms about turning the situation to his advantage.

‘Well I need that money by Tuesday.’

She was about to leave the room when Jason spoke. ‘I think we should look up Obediah Shrowton on the Internet . . . see if he existed.’

‘OK, if it’ll stop you going on about it.’

Without a word Caro marched out of the room and returned half a minute later carrying a laptop case. She cleared the table of breakfast debris, took the computer out of its protective case and placed it carefully on the Formica surface.

When the thing had woken up she typed in the name Obediah Shrowton and waited, the others huddling round her in anticipation.

Matt watched the words appear and he heard Caro swear softly under her breath.

Obediah Shrowton was a murderer. In 1896 he killed five people at a house in the Bearsley district of Eborby. And he lived at thirteen Valediction Street. Wherever that was.

Emily held up her warrant card and recited her name. Joe watched the young woman’s face and saw that she had merely raised her eyebrows in mild surprise. No worry, no panic. It was almost as though reporting a missing person was a routine matter, something that happened every day.

‘Well, I must say you’re very quick off the mark,’ she said. ‘I didn’t expect such good service. My name’s Caro Smyth, by the way.’ She stuck out her hand and Emily shook it. Joe was rather surprised to see that the nails were ragged and bitten; somehow they didn’t fit with the efficient persona Caro presented to the world. But we all have our hidden side. ‘You’d better come in. I told Matt that it was far too early to involve the police but he seems really worried. I think she’s just met someone and gone off for the weekend but . . .’

‘So you share this house with the missing girl, Petulia Ferribie?’

Caro was about to lead them inside but she turned and focused her intense gaze on Joe, looking him up and down, as though assessing his suitability for the task. Joe guessed that she didn’t have a high opinion of men; Emily, being one of the Sisterhood, had received no such examination.

‘That’s right. There are four of us. This way.’

Joe looked around. He had known many places like it during his student days in Manchester: large semi-detached houses built in the last decade of the nineteenth century with high ceilings, and shabby paintwork. Like many student houses he had seen, someone had made misguided alterations in the nineteen sixties, ripping out original features and installing cheap coloured bathroom suites and hideously coloured chipboard kitchens on the smallest possible budget. At one time these measures would have been termed improvements but now nobody pretended any more.

Caro opened the first door on her right. ‘The police are here.’ She announced. She didn’t sound too happy about it. But, Joe thought, few people do.

They followed her into the room. A young man was sitting at an old, bulbous legged table, drumming his fingers nervously on the stained wooden top. He was medium height with short ginger hair and had the pale, slightly puffy look of a student who survived on lager and pizzas with too little exercise. He stood up as they came in, fingering the hem of his washed-out T-shirt nervously.

‘I’m Matt Bawtry,’ he said, his voice a little high pitched. ‘I reported Pet missing. Nobody’s seen her since yesterday morning and . . . Well, it’s out of character. She’s never gone off like this before.’

Joe heard a muffled snort from the direction of the doorway and turned to see another young man enter the room. He wouldn’t often have described a man as beautiful but this one could have served as a muse for any variety of Italian Renaissance artists with his dark curls, warm brown eyes and flawless, slightly tanned complexion. He wore skin tight jeans and a thin cotton shirt and underneath the mask of cynical bravado, Joe sensed an underlying tension.

‘Did I hear someone say the word “police”?’

Emily turned to face him. She looked unimpressed. ‘And you are?’

‘I’m Jason Petrie. I live here. I assume you’ve come about Pet. Matt’s panicking. She’ll be back as though nothing’s happened . . .’

‘Mr Bawtry said her absence was out of character,’ said Joe.

Jason shrugged.

‘How long have you known Petulia?’ Emily addressed the question to all three of them.

It was Caro who answered. ‘About eighteen months. We met in our first year when we were all in Dewsbury Hall – that’s at the university. We decided to get a house together and . . .’

‘I take it you’re all students?’

‘Apart from Jason,’ said Matt. ‘He failed his exams. Dropped out.’

Jason gave a wry smile and inclined his head.

‘What do you do now?’ Joe asked.

‘Good question,’ said Caro under her breath.

‘Bit of busking. Bit of bar work to make ends meet. I get by.’

‘And he’s got a rich daddy with a guilty conscience,’ said Caro with a hint of bitterness. ‘OK for some.’

‘Actually I’ve got an audition on Tuesday – playing guitar with a jazz group,’ said Jason. He sounded a little defensive. ‘They get regular gigs at weddings and hotels and . . .’

‘You never mentioned that,’ said Caro.

‘Why should I?’

‘Oh fuck off,’ said Caro. ‘I just wish you’d grow up.’

The vehemence of Caro’s words surprised Joe. There was hostility in this house. He could almost smell it.

Emily took charge of the situation. ‘Let’s get back to Petulia, shall we? When did you last see her?’ She looked at Matt expectantly.

‘We had a party on Friday night. Fancy dress. Pet was floating around dressed as a fairy or something. I didn’t see her the next morning but then I slept in till lunchtime.’

‘Was she with anyone at the party?’

Matt shook his head. ‘She was just wandering about on her own. I thought she looked a bit lost.’ He looked regretful, Joe thought. Perhaps he’d have liked to have been with Pet himself.

‘She was probably bored,’ said Jason. ‘I know I was. What idiot invited that rugby crowd anyway?’

When Matt didn’t answer Joe suspected a guilty conscience.

He gave Caro a businesslike smile. ‘And you, Caro? When did you last see her?’

‘The Saturday morning after the party. She was going into town. The Eborby Music Festival was on and there was an outdoor concert of early music. Pet’s a music student and she’s into that sort of thing.’ She paused. ‘Actually she seemed quite excited about it . . . which isn’t like Pet. Maybe there was going to be an added attraction – something more interesting there than a load of flutes and lutes.’

‘A man?’

‘Well, she’s not interested in women,’ Caro said, sounding slightly disappointed. ‘And like Matt and Jason said, she certainly wasn’t with anyone at the party.’

‘And you?’ Joe was suddenly curious.

‘What about me?’

‘Were you with anyone at the party?’

She was suddenly on the defensive. ‘I don’t see that that’s relevant.’

‘Oh come on, Caro,’ said Jason. ‘You were draped around that rather butch girl from Media Studies.’ Caro was about to open her mouth but Jason continued. ‘And for the record I borrowed a white coat and stethoscope from a medic mate of mine and Matt here went as a cowboy. Such imagination.’

‘What are you all studying?’ Joe asked.

‘I’m doing Accountancy and Business Studies,’ said Caro. ‘Matt’s electrical engineering and, as I said, Pet’s studying music.’

‘And I was wrestling with the finer points of the Metaphysical Poets before I was chucked off my course,’ said Jason. ‘English.’

‘I did English at Leeds,’ said Emily, hoping to establish a rapport.

‘Then you followed the path of Dogberry and Verges?’ said Jason with a smirk.

‘We’re not all “foolish officers”,’ she answered quickly.

Jason looked rather surprised that she’d picked up so quickly on Shakespeare’s description of his two inept law enforcers from Much Ado About Nothing. Surprised and a little deflated.

‘You don’t seem very worried about Petulia, Jason? Why is that?’

Jason shrugged. ‘Caro’s just told you she was excited about that concert or whatever it was. I was out busking – entertaining our illustrious tourists – and I saw her making for Stone Street where this festival thing was being held. At a guess she’ll have been meeting someone who wasn’t at the party. That’s why she’d been looking so pissed off in her little fairy costume.’

‘What about the phone call? Tell us again what you heard.’

Everyone looked at Matt as he told them about the strange call from Pet’s mobile, stumbling over his words as if rendered suddenly nervous by his rapt audience. When he’d finished Jason chipped in with his salacious interpretation of events but Matt shook his head vigorously.

‘And what time was this exactly?’

‘Eleven thirty last night. I’ve been trying ever since but I’m just getting voice mail.’

Joe and Emily exchanged looks. If necessary they could pinpoint where the phone had been when it had been answered so strangely. But Joe hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

They kept the conversation going, finding out all they could about Pet, about her background, her friends and her lovers. Not that there had been many of the latter, according to Caro who seemed the most dispassionate of the trio.

Then Joe asked whether they had Pet’s home address. Caro shook her head. There was a stepmother, she said, but there was no way Pet would have gone to her because she detested the woman. There were no brothers or sisters and her father was in Dubai. Pet didn’t talk about her family much. In fact she hardly mentioned them at all.

When Joe asked if they had a recent photo of Pet, Caro left the room and returned a minute later with a photograph. Joe took it from her and studied it. There were four people in the picture: Caro, Matt and Jason and, at the edge of the group was a girl with fine blonde hair tumbling to her shoulders. She was small with perfect, almost feline features. But despite her beauty, she had a rather vacant look, as though her mind was somewhere else.

‘Mind if I keep this?’ he said.

Caro shrugged. ‘Help yourself.’

Joe tucked the picture carefully into his wallet. Perhaps Caro was right. Perhaps Pet had just gone off for the weekend with some new lover she wanted to keep from her housemates. But Matt was sure that was out of character so maybe he was right to worry. If she didn’t turn up soon he’d want to speak to Jason again as he was apparently the last of the group to see her – Joe almost mentally added the word ‘alive’ but it was far too early to fear the worst.

He caught Emily’s eye. It was time to ask their next question – the original reason for their visit. Emily gave him a small nod. She was leaving it to him.

‘I know this is a long shot,’ he began. ‘But have you heard of a young woman called Jasmine who lived at this address about twelve years ago?’

As expected, Jason gave a dismissive grunt. ‘You’re joking, aren’t you. We would have been about eight.’

‘I realize that but I imagine you can put me in touch with your landlord.’

‘He won’t be able to help you,’ said Caro. ‘He only bought this place three years ago. And twelve years ago he would have been at uni.’

‘Where?’

Matt looked up. ‘Here in Eborby. He stayed and went into property development.’

‘Then we’ll need his contact details,’ Emily said.

Caro wrote something on a sheet of paper and handed it to Emily who stood up.

‘If Pet turns up, inform us right away.’ she said, making for the door.

He stood a little behind Emily as she rapped firmly on the door of number fifteen Torland Place. In contrast to its neighbour, here the paintwork was fresh and the windows, with their Roman blinds, sparkled clean in the weak spring sunlight.

The door swung opened to reveal a woman in her late twenties. She had a wide mouth, shoulder length blonde hair and her jeans and loose floral top showed off her slim figure to best advantage.

But her attractive face was marred by the angry scowl she aimed in Emily’s direction. ‘We’re not interested,’ she said, preparing to shut the door in the DCI’s face.

But Emily held up her warrant card and introduced herself and the scowl turned into a worried frown.

‘What is it? What’s happened? Is it Rory?’ The words came out in a rush.

He saw Emily’s expression soften. Finding two police officers on the doorstep was enough to make any law-abiding person fear the worst, especially if a loved one is away from home.

‘It’s nothing to worry about Mrs . . .’

‘Quillan. Jackie Quillan.’

‘We’d just like to ask you some questions about the house next door. How long have you lived here?’

‘Two years.’

Joe saw the look of disappointment on Emily’s face.

‘Do you know where we can find the previous owner?’

Jackie Quillan nodded. It looked as if they were in luck. ‘We bought the house from my husband’s uncle. He couldn’t manage any more so he went into sheltered accommodation. We were coming back up to Eborby to live so it seemed like the ideal arrangement.’

‘Where can we find him?’ Joe asked, notebook at the ready.

Jackie recited an address in the suburb of Pickby, not far from Emily’s own home. ‘What’s all this about? Why do you want to see him?’

‘It concerns something that happened twelve years ago. We’re trying to trace a young woman who lived in the house next door. Number thirteen.’

‘There are new students in there every year so you’re going to have your work cut out.’ She held the door half open, as if she was anxious to shut it and get rid of them.

‘Do you know the students who live there now? There’s a girl called Petulia Ferribie?’ Joe asked.

The answer was a shake of the head. ‘I don’t know their names. They don’t communicate much. Are you going to see Uncle Norman then?’

‘Yes. We’ll pay him a visit. Just routine. I don’t suppose there’s anyone else in your house who might have had more contact with the students next door?’ Emily asked hopefully.

‘There’s only me and my husband and we’ve hardly said a word to them. High fences make good neighbours, so they say. And so do thick walls.’ She gave them an insincere smile and made to shut the door.

‘Don’t take too much notice of anything Uncle Norman tells you. He gets confused,’ she said before the door swung shut in their faces.

‘The lady doth protest too much, me thinks,’ Emily muttered as they made their way back to the car.

‘You’ve got a suspicious mind,’ Joe said, flicking the remote control that opened the car doors. ‘Where next?’

‘Let’s go and spoil the landlord’s Sunday lunch.’ She sighed. ‘Ever get the feeling you’re wasting your time, Joe?’

‘Frequently.’ At that moment Joe longed to be in some cosy town centre pub with a Sunday roast and a pint of Black Sheep to wash it down with. ‘Fancy lunch at the Star?’

Emily looked at her watch. ‘I’m tempted but we’d better see the landlord first.’ She paused. ‘I think those students were worried about something other than the missing girl. There was an odd atmosphere in that house, don’t you think?’

‘And it backs on to the woods where Jade and Nerys were last seen.’

‘You’re right, Joe. That house is the epicentre for something but God only knows what it is.’ Emily gave him an enigmatic smile. ‘So let’s go and see this landlord and then mine’s a roast beef and large Yorkshire pudding.’

He sat in his room, overlooking the wood where the skeletal branches of the trees had acquired a green mist of buds. There was something unsettling about those trees. They leaned together as though they were sharing some nasty secret and at night when the wind blew they whispered like conspiring ghosts. He’d always liked trees; they represented the fun of climbing and the beauty of nature. But Dead Man’s Wood was different somehow. And he didn’t know why.

He’d already discovered the bare facts of the Shrowton case but it was time to find out more. After clicking on a variety of websites eventually he struck gold. Obediah Shrowton’s full biography, laid out neatly and easy to read.

He balanced his laptop on his knee and stared at the text. Obediah Shrowton had been an upright citizen of Eborby, employed in the City Treasury. He went to work in the Town Hall each day and was respected by the small army of clerks under his command.

In 1889 at the age of thirty-two he had married a girl called Violet Nicksen. Violet was the daughter of a clergyman from near Sheffield and she had been working as a governess in Eborby when the couple had met at a church event. They settled in the Bearsley district and Violet gave birth to five children, only two of whom survived infancy. The children who hadn’t survived were buried in St Aiden’s churchyard, their little graves marked by the most costly headstones their parents could afford.

Then one day – an apparently normal day in April 1896 – Obediah had come home from work and proceeded to slaughter his wife, his two young children, the nursemaid and the cook. He had taken an axe from the garden store – probably like the crumbling brick outbuilding that stood near their back door – and hacked his victims to pieces. Newspapers at the time had called it a scene of butchery and carnage. This was probably an understatement.

Obediah had denied any involvement, claiming that he’d returned home and been greeted by a scene of unimaginable horror. A postman who had been delivering the evening post investigated the open front door and discovered the gruesome tableau of dismembered bodies and Shrowton sobbing on the hall floor with a bloody axe in his hand. Later Shrowton had claimed he’d been too shocked to report the deaths immediately to the authorities and this went against him at his trial. The jury hadn’t believed his story and he was hanged for his alleged crime at Eborby jail in October 1896.

Matt picked up his mobile phone and tried Pet’s number again. Somehow he felt a little better now that the police were aware that she might be in danger – almost as if the burden was now shared – although he hadn’t felt that the pair they sent had taken her disappearance seriously enough. They’d seemed more interested in someone called Jasmine who’d lived in the house many years ago. Still, they had both been senior detectives. At least they hadn’t sent a brace of probationers.

He knew he had work to do for university but he found it hard to concentrate. He typed Torland Place into the search engine. A number of sites came up and his eyes scanned the results. Then one in particular caught his eye and he clicked on it.

Valediction Street, it said, was renamed Torland Place after the gruesome murders of five people at number thirteen.

‘Shit,’ he whispered, his heart beating so fast that he could almost hear it in the heavy silence.