“Or who.” Louise D’Acre placed the dental records back in the folder. “Or who it is hiding.”
“We know it was you,” Hennessey snarled.
“Oh?” Wayne Beadale sneered. “Really?” He was well built.
“Yes, really.” Yellich, sitting beside Hennessey and directly opposite Wayne Beadale, added, “You’ll feel better if you get it off your chest.”
“That’s coercion.” Tony Last of Last and Grimes, Solicitors, looked reproachfully at Yellich.
“It’s true, though...” Yellich mused. “You’ll sleep better with it all off your chest.”
“I sleep just fine as it is.” Wayne Beadale turned to Tony Last and winked at him. Last did not respond. Beadale turned his attention back to Hennessey and Yellich. “I like it on the outside. I’m as free as a breeze. So from now on it’s ‘no comment’ to every question you ask me.”
Hennessey and Yellich walked from Interview Room 1 to Interview Room 2, where Shane Beadale sat with his solicitor. Shane Beadale proved to be identical to Wayne Beadale in every respect, in appearance and attitude, revealing himself to be, as Yellich sourly described him, “another no-comment merchant.”
“It’s an old road.” Somerled Yellich sat on the settee next to his wife. “It’s mentioned in the Doomsday Book, makes the road about one thousand years old... but it was renamed in the Victorian era when someone bought a parcel of land at one side of the lane during a period of drought and when the rains eventually returned he found out that he’d bought a swamp...”
“Ah...” His wife rested her head on his shoulder. “Hence Bad Bargain Lane. Not as intriguing as I had hoped, but interesting.”
“He was just a smug, self-satisfied, no-comment merchant, as Somerled Yellich said.” The man swilled the mulled Rioja around his glass. “We have no evidence at all which links them to the boys’ murder, and they know it.”
“Just the body,” the woman replied. “At least that’s something... the parents know what happened and they have a grave to visit. It’s better than not knowing.”
“Yes...” the man sipped his wine, “that is something.”
“Will you be looking for the young Goth woman?”
“Very definitely. Very, very definitely. She knew the body was buried where it was found. She has a story to tell.”
Louise D’Acre inclined her head to one side. “It’s gone quiet up there... no patter of tiny feet... shall we go up?”
“Yes.” George Hennessey placed the empty glass on the low table. “Yes... let’s go up.”
Dr. D’Acre emerged from the white inflatable tent at the foot of the garden, and once again she peeled off her latex gloves as she did so. “Yes,” she looked solemnly at Hennessey, “it’s another male child... about ten years old.”
From within their kitchen Mr. and Mrs. Batty stood side by side watching the developments in their garden. Mrs. Batty said, “We will definitely get this house blessed. What on earth went on here?”
“I don’t know,” John Batty replied, “but I still have no bad feelings about the house itself... it still feels a warm building... I feel that whatever happened all happened outside, nothing happened under the roof.”
“Three children that I know of, but Lauren Sullivan says there are more.”
“Lauren Sullivan,” Hennessey asked, “who’s she?”
“She’s a real Goth. She goes to vampire parties in the ruins of Whitby Abbey on the top of the cliff... where Dracula arrived in England in the form of a big dog.”
“Yes, I know the story,” Hennessey growled. “So where will we find her?”
“She’s got a record for shoplifting; you’ll have her address in your files. She’s about twenty years old now.”
“All right, we’ll go and talk to her. So what can you tell us?”
“We were in the van, my brothers were in the front, Shane was driving... me and Lauren were in the back. We were up the top end of Bad Bargain Lane, fly-tipping some old worn-out tyres, when Shane saw the two boys and called them over. We knew Thomas because he was a neighbour, and he recognised us and came over... no one was about... no houses at the top end of the lane. Shane grabbed Thomas Slater and Wayne grabbed the other boy and just murdered them. No words, no plan... they just did it. My brothers are like that... they even say the same thing at the same time, like two bodies are sharing the same brain. So they took all the boys’ clothes off when they had strangled them and burnt them, burned the clothing, I mean... then, at night, they went to this house with an overgrown garden and buried them there, in the back garden. Shane said that if the two old men who lived there heard something they’d still be too frightened to come out. So that’s what they did and me and Lauren Sullivan watched them and Lauren was saying ‘wicked... wicked...’ and clapping her hands, ‘this is so wicked.’ ”
Hennessey paused. “You mentioned a third victim?”
“A little girl,” Francis Beadale spoke calmly, “about a year later. She was called Rose... Rose was her surname.”
“Anne Rose!” Yellich gasped. “Your brothers murdered her? We never linked her disappearance to the disappearance of Thomas Slater and Harry Riddle,” Yellich explained to Hennessey. “It was a long way out of York, and her clothing was left in a posed position... neatly placed along a footpath... each item exactly ten feet from the next item, a different victim profile... different M.O.”
“Yes,” Hennessey replied softly, “I remember that case.”
“Me and Lauren were with Shane and Wayne when they took that little girl and strangled her. They buried her near the coast. I can take you right there; I can show you where to dig.”
“Your conscience getting the better of you, is it, Francis?” Yellich spoke in a despairing tone.
“Nope...” Francis Beadale shrugged his shoulders. “I was seven years old; Lauren was about ten... there’s nothing on my conscience.”
“So why help us?”
“I want something in return,” Francis Beadale smiled.
“What,” Hennessey asked, “what can we do to help you?”
“Get the charges against me dropped...”
Hennessey sighed. “You’re in here for six months for receiving stolen property... and you’re prepared to give information which will get your own brothers sent down for three life sentences, just to get out of a six-month period of custody? Your own brothers...”
“Yes... I don’t like it in here; I want to go home to my mum... She looks after me and lets me do things. Here I have to do gym, and I have to get up in the morning, and I don’t get to say what I want to eat... but my mum lets me stay in bed and lets me eat what I want to eat. If I say I want fish and chips for supper, I get fish and chips for supper... and if my brothers are away it means there’s just me and my mum in the house.”
Hennessey and Yellich both sank back in their chairs. Hennessey looked into the eyes of the smiling Francis Beadale.
He thought it was like looking into two bottomless pits.
© 2017 by Peter Turnbull