Neil White - Beyond Evil

Sheldon thought that he had been brought to the room to be reminded of Alice, but he didn’t need to be reminded, because he thought of her every day. Then Ted opened one of the cupboards and Sheldon saw folders lined up, each with a title marked out in bold red on the spine. Friends . Parties . Neighbours .

‘These are all the notes I’ve made from the people I’ve spoken to,’ Ted said, and then he gave a bitter laugh. ‘At least, those who would speak to me.’

Sheldon went towards them and ran his fingers down one of the spines. His fingernails looked long and dirty.

‘Can I look?’ he said.

‘I’ll bring them downstairs,’ Ted said. ‘But first you eat.’

Sheldon was confused. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘Inspector …’

‘Sheldon.’

‘Sorry, Sheldon. You don’t look well. You look tired and hungry.’ He pointed out of the room. ‘Have a bath, relax for a few minutes. I’ll find you some clothes. I think I’ve got some that will fit. I’ll make you some food. Then we’ll talk.’

Sheldon felt tears jump into his eyes, and his mind went back to the moment on the church tower, to how that young woman had saved him. He knew Ted was right.

‘I don’t think I’ve been dealing with it very well,’ Sheldon said.

‘No need to explain.’

Sheldon smiled his gratitude, but the choke of his emotions caught in his throat stopped him from speaking.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Charlie knew he had to get rid of the knife first, and so he turned towards Amelia’s house, wanting to put the knife back in the block. Then he would call the police, tell them what he had found, and all about the two men in suits.

He followed the same route back, ducking down back alleys, dodging round the discarded boxes and junk and dogshit, the knife inside his jacket. He was able to circle the town centre without venturing onto the street, his eyes always looking out for an unlocked gate so that he could hide out of view if a police car passed the end of the alley. He emerged onto the main road further down the hill from the town centre, with Amelia’s house on the other side. He wanted to walk there casually, so that he wouldn’t seem suspicious, but just as he was about to cross the road, there were police cars bunched up ahead, blocking off the road near Amelia’s.

Charlie jumped back into the alley, the knife digging into his side. Someone had found her; the news was out.

He turned to retrace his steps, not taking as much care, just wanting to get away from where the police were. He jogged along the alleys that ran behind the terraced streets, short parallel strips that stacked up the hills. His apartment was somewhere to avoid as the two men would still be there, but he knew he had to get rid of the knife before anything. Then Charlie remembered a quarry, now filled with water, a favourite for the local kids whenever the sun came out. If he followed the line of the houses, he would get to it. So he moved quickly, one arm clenching his side to keep the knife lodged there.

A shale path went towards a bramble-covered waste ground and then curved downwards to the lip of the quarry. He checked around, even though he knew it made him look more suspicious, but he couldn’t stop himself. Charlie wanted to know who might have seen him, so he would know who might one day give evidence against him. He had never been in this position before, so he didn’t know the rules.

The quarry appeared as a cliff behind some wooden fencing twenty feet above the water. Charlie peered over. The surface was deep blue and still.

He took the knife out of the bag and looked at it one last time. The sun caught the blade and sent flashes of light to his eyes. He thought of Amelia again, of what harm the knife had done to her, and then took another look around, to make sure that no one was watching. It was quiet, just a brief moment of calm in a day that had so quickly turned his life the wrong way. Then he shook his head, suddenly angry with himself. What about poor Amelia? What had she suffered before she died?

As Charlie held his hand out over the wooden fence, towards the quarry edge, he paused. What he was doing was wrong. He was disposing of a murder weapon. Then he remembered how the evidence looked stacked against him, and so he had to act.

It didn’t take much more than a flick of his wrist and then the knife was tumbling in the air, bright silver flashes as it arced downwards. And then it was out of sight. Charlie didn’t even hear a splash.

Now he just had to work out what had happened.

Images of Amelia kept on coming back to him, and not just her body in her house. Her smile, or the elegant sweep as she came into the office most mornings, tossing her black hair and putting her sunglasses onto her head. They hadn’t been close, but there had been a bond, he realised that now, and suddenly he felt lost.

But he shouldn’t think like that. Sadness over Amelia was no good now. Or was it just self-pity? Whichever it was, it was draining, self-destructive. Everything had changed so quickly, the length of time it took for him to take in what had happened to Amelia. And now there were men in suits looking for him, ones he had seen coming out of the office the day before. The murder weapon had been next to him as he woke.

Charlie thought briefly about the possible explanations, like a jealous boyfriend or disgruntled client, but he came back to one obvious answer: Billy Privett, because Billy was Amelia’s client. But where did Charlie fit into it all? He had nothing to do with Amelia’s death, he knew that. He wasn’t a murderer, it wasn’t in him. If something had happened, he would have remembered it, he was sure of it.

Then the other reality hit home, that if someone else had killed Amelia, they had tried to frame him, and had planted the knife on him. What was the reason for that?

Charlie tried to think that one through, wanting it clear in his head before he went back into Oulton, so that he would have a plan. He didn’t dare go to the police, because if someone could plant a knife, what else could they do?

Whoever had put the knife there hadn’t expected him to be in the office, because he hadn’t planned to sleep there. So they must have gone to the office for a different reason. And the answer was so obvious; the Billy Privett file. He remembered the burglary. Amelia’s room had been the target, not his, and nothing was taken. That was the night Billy was killed, and the file was the one thing that Amelia had that connected her to his murder. It told Billy’s story. So Amelia must have given up the secrets, Charlie thought, or else why was he still alive?

Charlie got the shivers as snippets of memory came back, snapshots from the night before. He was with Ted, in the pub, The Old Star, but when he left for home, he went for a walk. He had stumbled and fallen into a wall, which must have been how he got the graze on his cheek and on his hand. He remembered people laughing at him, and someone used his name. Then he was in the office, rummaging around Amelia’s room.

He put his hands to his face. There was a hazy recollection now of finding Billy’s file and looking through it, trying to find some snippet to help Ted Kenyon, because in his drunken haze, it had seemed like such a good idea. When he was drunk, he was everyone’s friend. But like all drunken thoughts, such as late night calls made to his ex-girlfriend, it was only ever going to be a bad idea. What had he wanted to do; turn up at Ted’s house, staggering, holding out the file, hoping to be invited in as his saviour, giving him the details of how his daughter died? Not very heroic, when viewed in the harsh glare of sobriety.

So he had been reading the file, but because he was away from the pub and the alcohol had stopped flowing, he’d fallen asleep. So he ended up on the floor, and someone came looking for the file, and then the knife had been planted.