Dead Cold Mysteries Box Set #3: Books 9-12 (A Dead Cold Box Set), Blake Banner [reading in the dark TXT] 📗

“That’s perfect.”

He hesitated. “Have you got a name yet?”

“Yes. But let me prove it, Chiddester. It isn’t straight forward. It’s complicated. But I hope to have the whole thing wrapped up by tomorrow morning, at the latest.”

He gave a reluctant grunt. “Very well.”

“I’ll keep you posted, I promise.”

I called down to reception for them to arrange me a car, and twenty minutes later, after I had showered and we had both dressed, we went downstairs. I signed for the vehicle, saw the price, thanked the gods in Valhalla that I wasn’t paying and we headed out toward Kent, and the village of Goodnestone.

It was a nice drive. Kent is known as the garden of England, and as we drove down the A2, the countryside all around us was green and abundant, with hedgerows like huge billows of green smoke, heavy and dense, clinging to the hillsides. At Barham, we turned north and east, down small winding roads and through woodlands, ever deeper into Tolkien landscapes where tall, red brick chimneypots peered out from among bushy clusters of foliage in every imaginable shade of green. There were villages of just a handful of houses, that had names like Nonington, Easole—which made Dehan giggle like a schoolchild—and Womenswold, which made me think of a department store in Stepford.

Finally, we came to a small crossroads with wooden signs pointing, amusingly, to Ham one way and Sandwich another, and a third pointed to Goodnestone. We followed this road through dense forest, over blacktop dappled with patches of sunlight and the shadows of twisted branches and dancing leaves, until at last we came out of the woods onto the rim of a shallow valley. We stopped a moment to have a look.

Ahead of us, the road, like a thin, black ribbon, curved gently to the east, leading to a small hamlet of ancient, red brick houses. From there, the road turned sharply west to what looked like an old Georgian manor house, surrounded by smaller, more modern buildings, and several acres of parkland contained within a high wall. This was the Goodnestone High Security Psychiatric Facility, otherwise known as Goodnestone Park.

“It just blows my mind, Stone, that after all these years, it turns out they had him all the time, and never let on. Why would they do that?”

“Politics,” I said, then looked at her. “Politics with a small ‘p’. Not party politics, conservatives, liberals, all that crap. Just avoiding a public outcry. The fewer people who knew about it, the fewer could get upset.” I started up the engine again. “When you think about it, it’s pretty controversial, with the potential to upset just about everybody. Man gets sentenced to life, without even trial; or, man murders seven women and gets off without even a trial. But from a pragmatic point of view, it saved the country a very expensive trial and took a very dangerous man off the streets without the risk of a clever defense counsel getting him off. The file was sealed to protect his identity, which some would also think controversial.”

Dehan nodded. “We have a right to know who killed our daughter. I get that.”

“Yeah. It’s tricky.”

I pulled up at the gate and a guy in a private security uniform came over to look in the window. I showed him my driver’s license.

“Detectives Stone and Dehan. Lord Chiddester arranged the visit. I believe you are expecting us.”

He checked my license and nodded. “Very good, sir. Leave the car in the car park at the right of the main building and report to reception, through the main door.”

“Thanks.”

We did as he said and ten minutes later pushed into what would originally have been the entrance hall of the manor, but was now a quiet, still reception, paneled in dark wood with bare, highly polished boards on the floor. To our left, there was a woman sitting behind a functional, white counter, looking at us through glasses that reflected the windows and concealed her eyes. Standing, leaning on the counter, smiling at us, was a man in chinos and a white coat, with reading glasses hanging around his neck. He was a well-preserved sixty and knew it. He approached us with his hand held out to Dehan.

“Detectives Dehan and Stone, I believe. I am Dr. Fenshaw, the director of this facility. Shall we go to my office? And you can tell me exactly what it is you want.”

We shook his hand and followed him down a short passage to an office with a large window overlooking a lawn at the back of the house. The office was old world, but functional, with leather furniture side by side with sage green, steel filing cabinets that looked like they had been salvaged from World War I. He waved us to a couple of chairs as he moved behind the desk and we all sat.

“You want to talk to Simon Clarence.”

It was more a statement than a question, and it felt like a subtle challenge. I gave him the dead eye and said, “That’s why we’re here. I hope you didn’t have us drive down from London just to tell us we can’t see him.”

He smiled. “Not at all. Lord Chiddester outlined the reason for your visit and I was happy to help. I am just curious about a couple of points.”

“Like how we knew he was here?”

He nodded. “The file is sealed.”

“I worked the original murders fifteen years ago. I went back to the States and almost simultaneously, your investigation here stopped. A recent murder, which has not yet been reported in the press, resurrected that investigation. So I did what I should have done fifteen years ago, I looked to see if there had been similar murders in the States. There had, and the sheriff was pretty sure it was Clarence. So