The Deep Secret Read online

  “They’ll catch up with you, Croft,” he had yelled, “and if they don’t, I will.”

  How could he do that from his cell?

  The answer occurred to Croft at once. How do you destroy a successful man? Not by killing him. That would simply turn him into a martyr. You first had to tear his reputation apart, crush him, grind him slowly into nothing and when you were through, then you would end his life. Hadn’t Burke tried it once? Wasn’t that the very reason he abducted Trish? Wasn’t that the reason he had Croft arrested on suspicion of The Handshaker crimes?

  He damn well near got away with it, too. He hadn’t banked on Croft escaping police custody, and he hadn’t banked on the persistence of Millie Matthews and her belief in Croft’s innocence. But for those incalculable variables, Burke, the careful, master planner, may well have succeeded.

  Was he still trying? If so, how could he do it?

  Sunlight flashed from the deck of a sea-going yacht as she pulled out of the harbour, and, at the same moment, the answer flashed into Croft’s mind. Burke would send him on a wild goose chase. Pressure him into pursuing the impossible, The Deep Secret, and in doing so, make him look a complete fool.

  Croft smiled down at the handwritten manuscript. It was a fake. It had to be.

  “Nice try, Gerry,” he muttered to himself and picked up his mobile phone. Pressing the speed dial for Millie’s number, he was through in a few seconds.

  After exchanging pleasantries, asking when she was next planning to visit him, he told her of the parcel he had received.

  “Client confidentiality is maintained even in the nick, Felix,” Millie explained. “Conversations between Burke and his solicitor are privileged, so the prison would have known nothing about this. If Burke had it in a safe deposit at the bank, or something like that, he only had to sign a letter of authority for the lawyer.”

  “In other words, you think it may be genuine?”

  “I can’t say,” Millie replied. “Can you get a sample to me? I can have our scientific support people analyse the paper and the ink.”

  “And what will that prove?” Croft asked.

  Millie was airily confident. “Something. Nothing. I don’t know. It may prove that the paper and ink are consistent with those used in prisons or generally available in the seventies.”

  “But even that wouldn’t guarantee the document to be genuine.”

  “Nope, but it would be a start…” Millie fell silent for a moment. “Tell you what, when Burke’s house was cleared out, there were a load of photographs in a display cabinet. I seem to recall that one was autographed by Zepelli. I could get a graphologist to compare the handwriting.”

  Croft vacillated a moment. “I’ll think about it, Millie. Maybe I’ll bring it with me the next time I’m in England. For now, I’ll put it by and forget about it.” He put a smile into his voice. “Now, for the second time, when are you coming to see me again?”

  2

  Flashing blue lights cut into the rainy night, the bright yellow and green streak of an emergency ambulance hurtled along Derby Road towards Nottingham and, without pausing, took the traffic island at the point where Middleton Boulevard met Clifton Boulevard. Careful not to spill his human cargo, the driver eased his speed for the right turn into Queen’s Medical Centre, and the loop round to A & E.

  Medical staff hurried out, nurses wearing dark blue coveralls, junior doctors in pale green. They yanked open the rear doors and the paramedic travelling with the patient leapt out, lowering the ramp.

  The doctor in charge glowered at handcuffs binding the patient to the trolley. “Lose them.”

  Senior Prison Officer, Vince Alton, looked to his superior and elder statesman, Jack Carter, who shrugged at the medics.

  “He’s a category A prisoner,” Carter argued. “Dangerous. Our orders are—”

  “I don’t care about your orders. He’s had a heart attack, for Christ’s sake.”

  “He murdered ten women,” Alton warned them. “Maybe more.”

  “And you’ll murder him if you don’t get a move on,” the doctor snapped. “He’s not going anywhere like this. Now lose the bracelets.”

  Carter, whose twenty-odd years of service permitted him to retain the now-defunct rank of Principal Officer, shrugged and nodded to Alton. “Do it.”

  “On your head, Jack.”

  “Just do it.”

  Alton released the cuffs at both ends. The paramedics yanked at the trolley, dragged it down, from the ambulance, and rushed it through the automatic doors of the hospital, the doctor and nurses following.

  Carter and Alton came behind at a slower pace. “Why the hell did you transfer down here, Vince?”

  “I looked after Burke when he was on remand in Ringley,” Alton replied. “I thought it’d do me good to follow him, help me specialise in looking after psychos.”

  Carter took off his cap as they entered A & E. He pointed to his balding head. “Drive you nuts, you mean. You’ll end up like me. No money, no hair, and no wife.”

  ***

  Gerald Burke lay upon the stretcher, a mask covering his face, forcing oxygen into his lungs, and thanked his lucky star that he had been present when his mother suffered a mild heart attack.

  Death had long held a strange, almost sexual, fascination for him, and he had watched his mother for some time before calling for an ambulance. He noted her symptoms, the way she clutched at her chest, then her left arm, the wheezing, as if she were struggling to get her breath even though she knew the next breath may well be her last. The way she had begged him, ‘Help me, Gerald, there’s a good boy. Call an ambulance for Mummy’.

  Well, he had been a good boy (a good forty-five-year-old boy), he had called an ambulance and she had survived for another three years, but he had managed to make notes on her symptoms. Years later, he had compared her death to those of all the other women (and men) he had watched expire. They all had one thing in common, a curious facet of the dying: the way they struggled to survive. Even when death was inevitable, they fought to avoid it. His mother did, and so did all The Handshaker victims. It was as if they hoped to fight off the inevitable.

  The symptoms of a heart attack, he had kept in his mind, certain that one day, they would prove useful, and today was that day.

  It had been almost a year in the planning. Ever since Billy first came to visit. Billy had balls; the sheer neck and air of authority needed to deal with those of suspicious minds. Even as boys, Billy had always been the more commanding. Burke had led by ingenuity and cunning, Billy had been tall, authoritarian, and throughout their childhood there had been a constant tug of war for the position of leader. By Burke’s reckoning, he had won, but only by a hair’s breadth. Billy was still the more physically commanding.

  “You don’t wanna be wasting your years away in here, Gerry,” Billy had said, “You need to be out there, doing what you do best. Shagging those dollies and silencing them after you’ve done with them. Just like we did in the old days.”

  Burke had been surprised to see his childhood and teenage friend. Three decades and more had added to Burke’s waistline and taken from his muscle tone, but they had been kinder to Billy. He still had those same, square shoulders, the massive, powerful hands, and thick, sinewy wrists. No waste on him, and if his hair had begun to grey, it merely lent him a more distinguished air.

  Burke, however, had always been the smarter, and he knew Billy would have a price in mind. “Something more than just getting your end away,” he added when he posed the question.

  “You always were sharp, Gerry.” Billy smiled. “Yeah, you’re right. You know what I want. The Deep Secret.”

  Burke had chewed his lip. “Difficult. I don’t have it. It’s locked away in a bank vault, and hidden in a manuscript written by my father. I’ve been trying to crack it for the last thirty years, Billy, without any luck.”

  “That’s awkward, Gerry. Very awkward. If you could let me have it, I have a buyer who’s willing to pay an awfu
l lot of money.”

  The casual, almost offhand admission piqued Burke’s interest. “Really? How much is an awful lot?”

  From the corner of his sharp, blue-grey eyes, Billy checked on the warders. Satisfied, he lowered his voice. “A hundred grand.”

  Burke was well-practised in hiding his emotions, especially from inquisitive prison officers. “Hmm. That is a lot of money. But it’s no use to me, Billy. I’m here for the rest of my life.”

  Billy smiled. “And if we could arrange, er, parole? On a permanent basis?”

  “You’d need a cover to fool the screws,” Burke said. “Suppose you were a lawyer?”

  Billy laughed, attracting the attention of Vince Alton.

  Burke maintained his calm equilibrium as the officer approached. “Mr Alton, may I introduce Mr William Harper. He’s a solicitor.”

  Alton was surprised. “If you’d introduced yourself as such, Mr Harper, we could have arranged for you to meet Burke privately.”

  Billy was as quick off the mark and as glib as Burke. “It’s a civil matter, Mr Alton, not criminal.”

  Burke picked up the theme. “Would I be permitted to draft a letter from Mr Harper, allowing him to access a handwritten manuscript held at my bank.”

  Alton nodded. “It’ll be vetted, obviously, but I shouldn’t think there’ll be a problem. As long as it is only a manuscript.”

  Burke nodded obsequiously. “Of course. There you are, Mr Harper. I’ll write the letter this week, have Mr Alton or the other officers look it over, and forward it to you.”

  A month later, when all the formalities had been completed, Billy was back, grumbling this time.

  “I’ve read the damn thing, Gerry, and I can’t make head nor tail of it. All that garbage at the front.”

  “I told you. Father encrypted the secret. It needs someone with a mind like that prick, Croft, to crack it.”

  “Bit difficult, old son. Croft lives in Tenerife now.”

  “Difficult, yes,” Burke said, “but not impossible.”

  And thus had been born the plan. Stage one, retrieve the manuscript from Burke’s bank in Bristol and mail it onto Croft with the appropriate letter, was soon completed. Billy had designed a fake, solicitor’s letterhead with an address in Bath which, if anyone chose to check, was a café and accommodation address. No one did check, and by mid June, the manuscript was on its way to Croft via the University of North West England.

  Coming up with a scheme to free Burke was more difficult, but over the months, Billy gradually put it together and Burke had polished it to near-perfection. Faking the heart attack was the first stage, and the riskiest, but it had worked. Not that he had ever doubted it, but there was a degree of satisfaction to be had from seeing a plan come together so flawlessly. All it needed now was for Billy to be in place at Queen’s.

  According to Burke’s research, the hospital would have to keep him overnight. Bloods had to be taken; one set immediately, a second set twelve hours after the event. Only if and when that second lot came back clean and green, would they clear him of any cardiac problems.

  He would have to be admitted, and a part of the process would involve moving him from A & E to a ward, where Alton and Carter would take it in turns to guard him. Burke smiled inwardly. He would be gone before that could happen. He would not be around for the second set of bloods in the morning; and neither would his two warders.

  ***

  “Can’t you keep him here?” Carter grumbled.

  “This is A & E,” Sarah Paul, the nurse, reminded him as she helped Burke into a wheelchair. “We don’t think it’s a heart attack, but he has to stay in hospital overnight, until we can take a second blood test. That won’t be until about ten tomorrow morning. He can’t stay here. We have a bed upstairs for him.”

  “That means we have to stay with him,” Alton complained. “We’re due off at six in the morning.”

  “Not my problem,” Sarah said, dragging the wheelchair out of the A & E cubicle and towards the exit. “You can sit with him, one at a time, but he goes to the ward.” She tapped her pockets and her possessions rattled. “I’m off duty myself shortly, so I know how you feel, but we have our own rules here, and they take precedence over yours.”

  Still grumbling, they followed the wheelchair along the lower corridors and to the lifts. Steel doors slid open and Sarah pushed the chair in.

  Burke, now minus his oxygen mask, watched the door close again. “Oh, needlewee.”

  Alton looked uncomfortable.

  Sarah smiled. “What?”

  “Sorry, nurse,” Burke apologised. “It’s something my granny used to say. Needlewee. It made her pains go away. Doesn’t seem to be doing me much good.”

  Alton looked even more uncomfortable. “I could do with a leak.”

  “Now that you mention it, Mr Alton, so could I,” Burke said.

  Sarah tutted and opened the lift door again. “There’s a toilet just along the corridor.”

  The doors opened, Sarah wheeled Burke out into the chilly corridor. A few yards ahead of them, a man entered the toilets. Sarah stopped at the door and set the brake on the wheelchair.

  “You all right on your own, Vince?” Carter asked.

  “I don’t think Burke’s going anywhere, Jack.”

  Sarah came to the front of the chair to help Burke up.

  “I’ll manage, thank you nurse.”

  Burke stood up and followed Alton into the toilet. Scanning the cramped environment, he registered three booths, one of which was taken by the man who had entered ahead of them. Alton moved quickly to the nearest urinal. Burke approached from behind, smiling to himself. How useful was that trigger word, ‘needlewee’?

  “Jeez, I needed this,” Alton said with a satisfied sigh. “You do cause us some trouble, Gerry.”

  Burke clasped his hands together. “Not anymore, Mr Alton.”

  He brought the clenched fist down on the back of the warder’s neck. Alton slumped forward, his head hitting the tiles above the urinals with a hard thump. Burke beat him again as he sank to the floor.

  “Billy,” Burke whispered. “Quick. Give me a hand.”

  The closed cubicle opened and the stranger, who had entered the toilets ahead of them, emerged, his face split into a wide grin. “All right, Gerry?”

  “Just help me deal with him.”

  With the warder slipping out of consciousness, Burke removed his key chain, wrapped it around his neck and, crossing his arms, leaned all his weight on the makeshift ligature.

  Heart pounding with exhilaration, he helped his pal drag the lifeless guard into one of the cubicles where they left him, sat on the toilet, and pulled the door shut. Billy took Alton’s baton and, while Burke returned to the urinal, Billy waited behind the main door. Two minutes passed before Carter entered the toilet.

  “Vince, where the hell are you…”

  Billy brought the club down on Carter’s head, and the warder crashed to the floor. Two more blows and the elder warder was also dead. Between them, they dragged him into the second cubicle.

  Burke could feel an erection stirring in his loins. Killing always did that to him. Especially killing a woman, and he knew that any moment now…

  They stationed themselves either side of the door again as Sarah came cautiously in.

  “Is everything all right with you gentle—”

  Burke dragged her in and her voice cut off with a gurgle as Alton’s keychain came round her neck. She struggled to free herself, reaching for the red alarm string hanging by the door. Burke yanked her away from it, pulled harder on the chain. Before her, Billy grinned sadistically as he watched the life draining from her. Her face began to turn red; such breath as she could manage came in short wheezes. Clinging fiercely onto her, Burke felt his erection pounding. This was a thrill he had not enjoyed since the last of The Handshaker victims.

  “No time to fuck her, Gerry,” Billy chuckled.

  “Pity,” Burke gasped. He snatched on the chain o
ne last time and Sarah fell limp in his arms.

  They dragged her to the third cubicle, where Burke first made sure she was dead, then searched her. Mobile phone, locker key, but he didn’t know where her locker was. Probably on the ward. No use to them.

  They dragged off her uniform, and while Burke threw off his prison clothes, then slipped into her pants, Billy fondled her dead breasts.

  “Never tried cold meat,” he said.

  “Neither have I,” Burke replied. “I like them live. They kick harder. Did the manuscript get to Croft?”

  Billy shrugged. “It should have done. I sent it to the university three weeks ago. By my reckoning, they would have talked to Croft, he’d have asked them to send it on, and giving it, say, a week or two to get to him, he must have had it a week at least.”

  “Good. Let’s hope it’s enough to bring him back here.” Dragging on the dark blue top of Sarah’s uniform, he paraded before Billy. “How do I look?”

  Billy studied the attire. “Pants are a bit short and she had bigger tits, but you’ll do. Come on. We need to scram before anyone misses you.”

  Burke stowed her phone in the pockets, then removed Carter’s jacket and, tucking the baton on the inside, carried it under one arm. Billy left the toilets, cautiously checked both ways along the corridor and, happy that there was no one in sight, gave Burke the nod.

  Main reception was empty but for a single security guard sat at his desk reading a newspaper. Billy went first and Burke followed a few moments later, hurrying out along the corridor making for the exit.

  “Night, luv,” called the guard.

  Burke raised the pitch of his voice to something effeminate, and grunted at him. The doors at the end of the reception corridor opened, and he stepped out into the night.

  ***

  “A taxi?” Burke asked as they sped along Derby Road.

  “Only car I could get,” Billy said. “And they’ve been calling him for the last hour. Won’t be long before they’re looking for him so we’ll have to get rid soon. Driver’s in the boot.”

  “What’ll we do for money?”

  Billy dipped into his pockets and came out with a wad of notes. “I found it in the driver’s wallet. Two hundred sovs.” He pointed to the glove box. “Plus a shed load of change in there.”