The crying cave killings, p.1
The Crying Cave Killings, page 1
THE CRYING CAVE KILLINGS
WES MARKIN
To Peter and Janet
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
More from Wes Markin
About the Author
Also by Wes Markin
The Murder List
About Boldwood Books
PROLOGUE
2003
PC Paul Riddick stared at Knaresborough over the River Nidd, wondering what loss on an unspeakable scale felt like. From behind him came the incessant buzzing of colleagues searching out the truth.
Truth!
A mere consolation prize to those over the river about to experience the unspeakable.
Riddick burned his nostrils with a deep winter’s breath and, with his back still to the Petrifying Well at Mother Shipton’s Cave, he closed his eyes, exhaling as he revisited his memories.
Eight years old and on his first visit to Mother Shipton’s with his father. He’d been wowed by the Petrifying Well. In profile, it looked like a giant’s skull and Riddick’s eyes had been wide and innocent. There’d also been another boy beside him, a little older maybe, but equally fascinated.
Riddick remembered some of the boy’s words as he pointed at the stone objects hanging from the lip of the well.
‘Everything is frozen solid. Fixed. Still. Why call it the Petrifying Well when everything looks so peaceful?’
After that day, eight-year-old Paul Riddick had asked to come again.
Begged, in fact.
But his old man didn’t possess those same wide, innocent eyes. ‘It’s not worth the money, son.’
At fourteen, Riddick had been given another chance. A school geography trip with Mr Thomas. Little had changed in the Petrifying Well. Hanging from the lip of the cave, bathing in the mineral-rich dripping water, remained the same array of ‘petrified’ items: the road bike, the bowler hat, the china teapot and the cricket bat. Frozen solid. Peaceful.
Mr Thomas’ voice, laced with excitement, had broken his reverie. ‘It doesn’t take long for the sulphate and carbonate in the water to give these objects their stone-like appearance.’
Riddick opened his eyes to the present and took another deep burning breath. He was grateful to have memories because he wouldn’t be able to come to this wondrous place again. How could he ever unsee what was behind him?
Again, he closed his eyes, and returned to that school trip. To the moment he’d bought the small carbon-encrusted bear from the shop. A bear that had first become lost in his mother’s belongings in the loft, and then, following her passing, lost completely.
‘Three months, Paul!’ enthusiastic Mr Thomas had said on seeing his student’s chosen souvenir. ‘It took only three months to petrify that bear!’
Riddick had smiled at his teacher. ‘He doesn’t look petrified, sir. He looks… I don’t know… peaceful?’
Opening his eyes, Riddick realised that he’d been distracted for too long. He’d a job to do. He looked at the logbook. Recording the visitors who came and left the crime scene wasn’t the most glamorous of jobs, but it was a start. The first step on the path to the truth.
He turned from the River Nidd.
Graham Lock, fifteen years old, sat on the ground beneath the Petrifying Well, dead centre, legs crossed. Head hanging forward as the drips fell. Wet hair and clothes plastered to him.
Three months, Paul! Only three months to petrify that bear!
Riddick sighed and wondered, with no small amount of shame, how long it would take to petrify a dead boy.
He watched the forensic team chew through the scene. He tried to capture insightful words that floated over on the light breeze but caught only groans. Beside the dead boy, mineral-rich water pattered against the white suit of the pathologist.
It seemed busier than Riddick had expected. Almost chaotic. He’d expected it to be more controlled.
There was a cough beside him.
He turned to see DCI Derek Rice and DI Anders Smith.
Riddick had never spoken to these senior officers before but had seen them about. DCI Derek Rice was a squat hothead, who liked to shout a lot. DI Anders Smith was a tall athletic man, who often had people laughing in his company.
Derek growled as he logged himself in with Riddick, who hoped he wasn’t the cause of the DCI’s discontent. ‘I’m the SIO, and DI Anders Smith here, is my deputy.’
‘All right, son?’ Anders said.
Riddick nodded. ‘Yes, sir.’
Anders raised an eyebrow. A ghost of a smile. ‘Your first?’
Riddick nodded again. ‘Sir.’
‘Not pretty, eh? I remember standing where you were, and I can tell you’ve got this in hand.’ Anders offered him a wink. ‘Keep at it while we sort this chuffin’ rabble out, PC Riddick.’
Riddick smiled. He felt a warmth rushing through him. He felt as if he’d been communicated with properly for the first time since he’d got this gig.
Riddick watched Anders and Derek slip on white over-suits and his eyes weren’t the only ones fixed firmly on the two leads. The sudden quiet that descended over the crime scene suggested that the leaders had been noticed by their colleagues, too.
After suiting up, Derek made a point of surveying the scene with his face screwed up. He wasn’t happy about something. Maybe, like Riddick, he considered it too crowded?
Riddick had heard that Derek had a tendency to lose it with his colleagues, and he wondered if he was about to witness it first-hand.
Anders placed his hand on Derek’s arm and the two men exchanged a glance. The SIO gave a swift nod to his deputy, then quickly, efficiently and politely, Anders reduced the number of SOCOs and officers, while leaving the pathologist to examine the body.
After logging out those asked to take a backstep for the time being, Riddick noticed how organised and controlled the place now looked.
Anders then knelt in front of the sitting boy identified as Graham Lock, shaking his head and staring. Eventually, he said, ‘Poor lad.’ He turned and looked behind him at some of the officers. ‘Graham was a good lad, eh? Good little footballer. Is Cassandra here?’
‘She left just after she saw the boy,’ an older officer replied.
‘Chuffin’ hell,’ Anders said.
‘Chuffin’ hell indeed!’ Derek mimicked. ‘Why? Does she not realise what we’re dealing with here?’
Anders stared at Derek for a moment. He looked unruffled, but the length of his stare spoke volumes. ‘Sir. Cassandra’s kid is Graham’s best friend. They played on the local football team together.’
Derek looked away, shaking his head.
‘Cassandra will have been shocked and upset, understandably so. I doubt very much she’ll have approached the father; however, let’s be prepared for any eventuality.’ He pointed to an officer. ‘DS Sykes, can you see if we have eyes on Graham’s father, yet? If not, can you get over there yourself? We don’t want him driving here.’
‘Of course, sir.’
‘And on your way out, Detective Sergeant, check we have a strong presence at the cave entrance.’
‘Will do, sir.’
‘Unbelievable,’ Derek said, looking at Anders.
Anders gave him a brief shake of his head and Derek looked away again. ‘We have a volatile, trying situation here, for many. Let’s all keep that in mind.’
When it came to the emotional fallout, Anders had his finger on the pulse, and Rice clearly relied on that. As a result, you’d be forgiven for thinking Anders was the SIO here. That warm feeling from before swelled in Riddick. Here was a man to watch… a man to emulate…
As the team worked the crime scene, Riddick, who was already suited, edged as close as he could without being too obvious. He eventually ended up with a reasonably good view of the body, which both excited and repulsed him in equal measure.
The pathologist put one hand to Graham’s chin, and the other on the back of his head, so he could tilt and reveal the face. One evening was not enough to encrust the boy’s skin with carbonate. Riddick saw only young flesh, wet and grey. Sad and lifeless.
‘Fifteen years old,’ Anders said, hovering above the pathologist, shaking his head. ‘How?’
‘Nothing obvious, I’m afraid.’
‘Well, he didn’t come here alone in the middle of the night,’ Derek said. ‘Someone killed this boy. Why the hell choose here?’
The pathologist looked up at the mineral water raining down. ‘Locals used to drink and shower here,’ the pathologist said. ‘They believed it had healing powers.’
Derek grunted. ‘What’re you getting at exactly?’
The pathologist shook his head. ‘Nothing. I’m just telling you what I know. Maybe someone thought they could heal him?’
‘Well, it didn’t bloody work. Listen, it’s a bit early to be sieving through local folktale and other horse shit,’ Derek said, turning to walk away. ‘Get me a cause of death and a time, please – let’s start in reality.’
Anders followed him. Derek stopped and turned. ‘Don’t start, Anders, for crying out loud! Let’s just establish facts first.’
‘I agree,’ Anders said, keeping his voice low. ‘But just go easy. Everyone is going to be wound up by this one, not just us. Let them speak, or they may just end up clamming up. Welcome anything, sir.’
‘Whatever you say,’ Derek said, sardonically. ‘I can’t wait to hear that Mother Shipton used to predict the future, and we should really consider trawling through her prophecies.’
He turned and continued walking away.
Anders caught Riddick looking at him and rolled his eyes.
The warmth that Riddick was feeling before started to boil. That eye roll! Anders had just trusted him with his reproach of Derek’s over-the-top sarcasm.
As the night wore on, the crime scene was processed. Plastic bags were taped up. Camera flashes tore through the cave’s blackness like lightning. Numbered markers peppered the damp stones.
All the while, the dripping on Graham Lock’s head continued.
Drip, drip, drip.
How long did it take to petrify a dead boy?
The dripping from the well may have been slow and steady, but the thrashing of Riddick’s heart was anything but. He’d always wondered what it would feel like to be at the centre of something so different.
He felt excited… alive…
And disappointed when Anders logged himself out of the crime scene. ‘I’m going to catch up with the person that found our boy. The security guard.’ He shook his head. ‘Aye, I know. Not deserving of that title is he, eh?’ Mother Shipton’s Cave was privately owned. Trespassers were an expected hazard – either via the Nidd or from the fields above. ‘Seventy thousand visitors a year, Paul; I think they should splurge on tighter security.’
Riddick clocked the use of his first name and his adrenaline surged again.
A short while after Anders had left, Riddick tried to blank out the investigators, and imagined the Petrifying Well in the early hours of the morning: dark, quiet and empty. The security guard doing his rounds… whistling, perhaps… master of his domain, in love with a job that took him away from the rat race…
Until…
The moment when he looked down on that dead boy.
Never had the well’s name seemed so fitting.
Growing tired now from the excessive adrenaline, Riddick turned back to the river again and the glowing lights of Knaresborough. Before long, he was lost in his memories again.
That rapt boy: ‘Everything is frozen solid. Why call it the Petrifying Well? Everything looks so peaceful.’
His overly enthusiastic Geography teacher: ‘Tufa and travertine rock. That’s what forms around the objects.’
And his ever-miserly father: ‘Take a gander at that stone lobster, my boy. Cost a bleeding fortune. Bleeding waste if you ask me.’
Riddick turned and wandered closer to the well to see if the stone lobster still hung there.
He sighted its pincers, forever poised, ready to grab.
Over to his right, Riddick heard the mutterings of a confident SOCO. ‘Over there, in that smaller enclosure, that’s where Mother Shipton was born to a local prostitute. Her mother fraternised with the devil. They used to say the Petrifying Well was cursed by the devil…’
Derek, who’d, unfortunately for the SOCOs, overheard, growled, ‘She also predicted the end of the world in 1881. Was she right?’
No reply.
‘Was she right?’
It was the first time Riddick had heard him use his infamous loud voice. On any other day, it would’ve unnerved Riddick, but today, in the presence of this… it felt trivial – at least to him.
‘No sir,’ the once-confident SOCO murmured.
‘Anyone mentions witchcraft in this crime scene again so bloody help me…’
Riddick forced back a smile, and thought again of Mr Thomas, his geography teacher. ‘Mother Shipton predicted the Great Fire of London in 1666.’
Closely followed by his father, who had moved away from the lobster and onto the next object. ‘That sock. Looks in better nick than yours, Paul!’ And the next one… ‘Look at the state of that thing! Looks more like a bloody gargoyle than a teddy bear.’
And then Riddick noticed something.
In the here and now. In, maybe, the most consequential moment of his thus-far inconsequential life.
The teddy bear was gone.
And this was a memorable teddy bear. Not just one of those little stone bears that the shop had flogged to him as a souvenir. It’d been unique. Larger than most. Fat, maybe? Or was it just swollen? It was most definitely ugly.
Repulsive.
His father had called it then. ‘It looks reyt evil that bear. Imagine having that in ye bed. Kid that originally owned it was better shot of the beggar.’
As a confident fourteen-year-old, Riddick had moved closer to the bear, wondering if it hung low enough for him to jump up and grab it. Of course, he hadn’t, but it allowed him a clearer look. The stone had either concealed one of its ears completely, or it’d never had one to begin with. One beady eye poked out through the crust, but where the other eye was set, there was nothing. The stone on its forehead was creased and folded, making the bear look angry and intimidating, or evil as his father had suggested.
It was something he’d not given a thought to for a decade, yet, in this moment, at this crime scene, he saw the monstrous little toy clear as day.
‘The bear is missing,’ Riddick said, only realising on the final word that he’d delivered it as an announcement rather than an intended murmur under his breath.
‘Come again?’ Derek said.
Shit! Riddick felt his stomach turn. He looked at the DCI, whose screwed-up face suddenly appeared more malevolent than any cursed stone bear.
Nothing for it now, I guess. ‘I noticed something. I thought it might be important.’
‘Something important, new recruit?’ Derek said, edging closer. ‘Spill the beans then.’
‘There’s a bear missing.’
‘A bear?’ Derek looked around to see if anyone else was paying attention. Of course, they all were, but very few had the guts to look in his direction as they did so. ‘A grizzly bear?’
He was taking the piss. ‘A teddy bear, sir.’
Derek nodded as if giving it careful thought. Riddick’s cheeks burned. He wondered if his embarrassment was noticeable. He hoped that people would just assume the bitter wind had reddened his cheeks.
