Mania

Excerpt from Mania

The woman’s expression changed from curious to severe. In a growling tone of voice she said, “Go away. David doesn’t want to talk about that girl. Go away.” She slammed the door.

As Alice would have said, ‘curiouser and curiouser’. I glanced at my watch: four-fifteen. The car was parked out front. An idea struck me. In case the old lady was watching I walked down the street, so she wouldn’t know which car was mine. After five or ten minutes I walked back and climbed in the car, settling in for a stake-out. David Bloomfield would be coming home eventually. Though no one had given me a description of him, simple deduction told me he would be the first man to enter the house.

The Bloomfield house looked a typical suburban, detached bungalow with the garage sitting by the side of the main building; it too was unattached. A fairly nice and well-kempt front yard sprawled beside the concrete driveway. Even so it looked dowdy, no excitement; sort of ordinary or even mundane. It’s funny, when you have nothing better to do, you can see how humdrum people and things really are.

The temperature in the car slowly crept up to unbearable as the sun beat down on it. After raining every day, why couldn’t it rain when I needed it? Time dragged and my mind wandered, giving me the time and the peace to contemplate the awful business I was investigating. What if this kid Bloomfield was the mass killer? Maybe they would be digging my head up in a few years time.

At last there was activity as a rusty old 1987 Chrysler rattled into the driveway. A tall, thin, middle-aged man climbed out. This guy must be the kid’s father, I thought. Quickly, I climbed out and hurried to meet the man before he reached his front door. I didn’t want the old bat interfering.

“Excuse me. I’m looking for David Bloomfield.”

and in the westernmost corner of this escarpment lies the small and picturesque town of Dundas. Dundas is not on the shores of Lake Ontario as its much larger neighbour, the city of Hamilton separates it from the huge expanse of fresh water. Just below the escarpment and within sight of the 165-metre-high Dundas Peak is the street where I live.

Although I could easily afford my own pad, Gran and I cohabit. Gran says she’s the brains while yours truly is the brawn. What the heck? There’s no harm humouring the old girl. Compared to my 6 foot 2, 220 pounds, Gran’s a little wimp of around 62 or 63 years old – she never actually admits to her age. Although officially we’ve gone metric, I still like to use pounds and inches. It doesn’t sound right to say I’m 188 centimetres tall and 100 kilograms. I live with Gran because my parents died three years ago in 1997 and I got myself kicked out of university. After the fiasco on Fiend’s Rock the old girl and I have sort of been very close.

Freda Davis shot me on my own island and since then you could say I’ve grown up a bit. The experience changed me and caused me to see life from a different perspective. I don’t like guns and now if anyone should point one at me, my temper just boils over and a deep, powerful urge makes me want to take the weapon and shove it down their throat.

Above Dundas, up on the mountain, as we call the upper part of the escarpment, are several large parks run by five different agencies and all are open to the public. Some are wild and some are manicured for your Sunday picnickers. Close to the edge of one park owned by the Niagara Escarpment Authority, a machine grunted and groaned as it scraped the soil, making way for a new house. The digger growled and strained as it pulled at the root-strewn soil and a huge, earth-filled bucket lifted from the ever-growing hole. Suddenly, the site foreman yelled and waved his arms at the backhoe driver. Foreman Roy jumped into the excavation to examine what had just fallen from the earthen wall. He didn’t touch the skull as it lay staring at him through its empty eye sockets.

“Somebody call the cops,” he yelled.

It was late May in the year 2000 and school would soon break-up for the summer holidays. On this particular occasion, as I came down the stairs for my breakfast, Gran called me from the kitchen. “William.” She always calls me William.

“Coming.”

I parked myself on the chair opposite her. “What is it, Gran?”

She had the morning newspaper spread out on the table, her goggles balanced on the end of her nose. “They have found a human skull, while digging a basement for a new house, up near Tew Falls.”

“So?”

“So, William, doesn’t it interest you?”

“Should it?”

“I thought you were training to be a detective. Or is that just another one of your passing fads?”

“Well no, Gran.”

“Then I would have thought this would have interested you.”

“So who is it, or was it?”

She shook her head in disgust. “Eat your breakfast and go to school, William.”

Last year we had a real adventure – Gran and me that is. Well, this year I enrolled in a law course at Mohawk College in Hamilton. The idea being that I should become a real detective; private that is. Money’s no problem as Uncle Edgar died last year and left me millions. What with that and old Fiend’s treasure you could say I was comfortably set for a while – a long while.

The trouble with Gran is she plants a thought in your head and allows time for it to fester. All day at school I couldn’t concentrate because of that skull found at Tew Falls. I began to wonder who it was. Why was it buried up there near the falls? It’s inherently difficult to study when your head is filled with other questions.

After a thoroughly miserable day at the college, I drove back to Gran’s house in Dundas. Gran’s a real whiz in the kitchen, she could make a feast from a pig’s foot. The smell of food seemed almost overwhelmingly enticing as I walked in the front door.

“Supper’s ready,” she sang out from the kitchen.

“Gee, Gran, it smells wonderful.”

“By the time you’ve washed-up, I’ll have it on your plate. Now scoot.”

I was bursting to ask her about the skull, but it’s not good practice to cross Gran. If she says do something, it’s best to just do it.

On my arrival back at the dining table, I asked. “What about that skull, Gran?”

Knowingly, she smiled and sat opposite me. “My dear boy, I thought you were not interested in such things.”

“Ah, come on, Gran. You know how I am in the mornings.”

“Very well, William.” She pulled her notepad from her pinafore pocket. “First, it has to be murder. There’s very little in the paper. You see, they don’t yet know who the victim is or how long the skull’s been in the ground. There is one interesting fact, though.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s not the first one found there.”

“Not the first? What d’you mean, Gran?”

“William, for someone who’s twenty-first birthday is this year you give an excellent impression of a fool. Not the first means simply that there was one or more before.”

“Sorry, Gran. I just, well ... I mean, er, like, who was the first?”

“That is a much finer response, William. Some years ago, a skull was found in the forest on the Dundas Mountain, somewhere close to the Bruce Trail.”

“I bet they’re Indians.”

“Well, William, you would lose your money. The skull found a few years ago was not that of an aboriginal American. It turned out to be a girl from Burlington that had gone missing some time before.”

I had to think about that for a few seconds. “If it was just a skull, how did they know where she was from?”

Gran opened her ever-faithful notebook, flipped a few pages and said, “There were several other bones there, too. Strangely, they were not human. The dental records identified her as Mary Elizabeth Bean. At the time of her disappearance, she was 15 years old. That was in 1981.”

“So you’re saying there’s a connection?”

“There is no point jumping to conclusions, William. Though I personally find it rather suspicious that another skull should turn up in the same forest and not more than half a mile from the first one.”

“It’s obvious, Gran, you’re leading up to something. What’s the plan?”

“It’s very simple, William. You will be finishing school for the summer in a week or so. I think we should investigate this case ourselves.”

“Don’t you think the fuzz would already have done far more than we ever will?”

“Who solved the case of Fiend’s gold and after 200 years?”

“Well, we did.”

“Exactly, William. For almost 200 years it was a mystery until Reyner and Grantham put their minds to it. And I may add in the face of adversity, right under the nose of the police.”

As always she was perfectly correct. My mind was in a little bit of a spin. I didn’t want to come up against another load of dead people.

“I really don’t want to get anyone killed, Gran. I’ve seen enough death to last a lifetime.”

“It is not for us to choose, William. These murders are as they are. They have already been committed. Our job will merely be to catch the perpetrator.”

“Or to get caught by him,” I added wryly.

“Pessimism does not become you. Now, William, I need your help when you’ve finished your meal.”

“Sure, Gran. What?”

“I want you to take this stuff down to the apple store for me.”

She had sorted out several small pieces of furniture, including a bedside table and a funny-looking cupboard thing with a rack of shelves at the top.

“So where’s this apple store, Gran?”

“Good heavens, William. I am beginning to think it’s a waste of time sending you to school. You act like a living brain doner. I think I could train a dog more easily.”

“Now what did I say?”

“You know very well where the apple store is.”

I shrugged my shoulders in resignation. I had no idea where this store is or was. “Sure, Gran. Whatever you say.”

Immediately after supper she started on me again. “Now help me with the chiffonier, William.”

She meant the thing that looked like a cupboard. It wasn’t all that heavy, but its size made it awkward to carry. We struggled with it all the way to the basement stairs.

“How did you get it into the hall in the first place, Gran?”

With her eyes rolling upwards she replied, “It’s been standing in the hall for eighteen years.”

“Oh!” Funny, I’d never noticed it before. “Why are we moving it?”

“It’s an antique. I don’t want it damaged by your clumsy friends. Now be careful.”

With great difficulty we managed to get the thing to the basement stairs. I could see that the real problems would start on the way down. In my mind’s eye I could see the thing lying at the bottom as a heap of splinters.

“I think it would be better if I took it myself, Gran.”

She looked at me as if I had suggested something rude. “How?”

“Well if you have a good leather strap or belt, I can hitch it up on my back and carry it down easily, while you guide it from bumping the walls.”

Funny old girl, she could at least see the sense in my suggestion. I easily had the strength to carry both it and her down the steps – both at once, even, but my arms weren’t long enough to go round them. In a couple of minutes Gran came back with a large canvas strap. She handed it to me and scowled.

Together, we put the strap round the thing’s legs and then round my shoulders. Lifting it was easy. All I had to do was mind the doorframe. Gran barked the orders as I did all the work. It wasn’t really difficult. In the basement I awaited her to point out the apple store. She opened a door on the south wall, which led to a dark passage.

Gran led the way and turned on the lights as we proceeded. The passage was arched at the ceiling like a mine tunnel or something. At the other end, more than 7 yards, or 6 metres if you prefer, anyhow, a good distance away, stood a second one. It looked like the door to a furnace or something – all rivets and bolts. It creaked terribly as she opened it. Beyond lay a large room, almost as big as the living room upstairs. It looked to be filled with junk, though neat and tidy, of course.

“What is this place, Gran?” I asked, placing the chiffonier gently on the floor.

She unstrapped me so that I could stand up straight. “Your grandfather was a little bit of a pessimist. In the Fifties, they had this nuclear-war scare.”

“So?”

“So, poor dear, in order to protect us from the communists he had this fallout shelter built. I prefer to think of it as an apple store.”

It was my turn to shake my head. “Fallout shelter? What’s it for?”

“Well, if there should be a nuclear attack you hide here until it’s safe to come out again.”

I looked around the strange room trying to understand why anyone would go to such extremes. “If there was a nuclear attack, how would you breathe?” I asked.

“Your grandfather spent a lot of money building this facility. I neither know nor care how it works. There are electric things that do something to the air, or something like.”

One wall looked like a library, with books and shelves. The opposite wall had the storage racks and a control centre. It was straight out of a science-fiction movie. It’s just amazing what people have in their backyards.

“You can’t see this place from the outside, Gran?”

She smiled her approval at my question. “We’re underground, under the side garden. That’s the way out, though I have allowed it to become overgrown now. You have to use the house entrance. That door’s locked and I don’t know where the key is. Haven’t seen it in years.”

She’s a funny old girl with real peculiar ideas. Rather than have this antique stuff where you can see it, she brings it down here.

“You amaze me, Gran, you really do.”

Jokingly, she cuffed me round the head and said, “Come-along, Sherlock, we have other work to do.”

About three days later I’d just driven home from school when Gran came out to the driveway all excited and bubbly.

“William, William, my boy, guess what I have?”

I climbed out of the car and gave her a respectful grin. “Dunno, Gran what have you got?”

Her eyes sparkled with delight. “Come into the kitchen and I’ll explain.”

We walked into the house with me close on her heels. I know she often gets excited about things that don’t even bother me, but you have to go along with it, just to keep her happy.

“Mary Elizabeth Bean,” she said gleefully and handed me an old newspaper.

Still puzzled, I took the paper and sat. “So now what, Gran?”

She grabbed the paper back and spread it out on the table. “Listen, boy.” She found the spot and began to read. “The skull found last week on the Bruce Trail is that of Mary Elizabeth Bean, a 15-year-old who disappeared several months ago from the Burlington area.”

I could see that to her it was significant, yet I couldn’t see why. “That’s very nice, Gran. When’s supper?”

“Don’t tell me you don’t see the importance of this.”

I shrugged and smiled. “Oh yeah, sure, Gran.”

“William,” she snapped sternly. “We know who and where, so now we only need to find out why and how.”

You know, if anyone in the world could confuse me, she could. “I don’t understand, Gran. So we know her name, then what?”

“Mary Elizabeth Bean was a real person who disappeared in 1981. Then, fifteen years later, they find the girl’s skull, up here in the forest above Dundas. She’s from Burlington. We can find her friends and interview them.”

“But she died twenty years ago.”

“True. Her 15-year-old friends will be in their mid thirties by now. All we have to do is find them.”

I sat looking at Gran and thinking. Man, this was crap. The last adventure was at least profitable. At length, I spoke. “Gran, I think we should look for something else. There’s no profit looking for a girl we know is dead. And where’s the adventure and the excitement?”

Silently, she folded the old paper and then sat glaring at me. You could almost see the cogs moving in her brain. “William, oh hapless William. Did we go to Saucer’s Island with the intention of having an adventure?”

“Well, no.”

“Did we allow those people to die for the fun of it?”

“Well, no.”

“Then buck your ideas up, boy. We have a mystery that needs our help. Think in a positive manner. This is a simple case and this time we are starting with everyone already dead.”

I smiled at the thought. “Sure, Gran. So how do we solve a 20-year-old murder that the police have given up on? And what’s it got to do with a skull they found recently?”

“Your school starts its summer break in a couple of weeks. It will be good legal and detective practice for us both. Think of it as a summer exercise. We’ll allow the police to solve the mystery of the new skull while we investigate history.”

I nodded in agreement. There’s never any point arguing with Gran. She always wins. It’s sort of funny, when you think about it. Poor Pete and Dee died last century, even if it was only last year. I was going to be a twenty-first century PI. Somehow, that thought gave me a smug feeling. So some 15-year-old broad got herself killed twenty years ago, then what?

The thought suddenly struck me. Mary Bean had been a real person, one who lived and breathed, but now she’s dead. I wonder why they only found her head. What happened to the rest of her? Why bury a head in the woods above Dundas? A shudder went through me as I thought about it. I could imagine some spooky individual creeping through the forest with a head under one arm and shovel under the other. How could he dig there in the half-light with that girl’s head watching every move? And what happened to rest of her? Gran walked back into the room and caught me daydreaming. She clapped her hands to shock me.

“Where are you, William?”

“Oh, Gran. I was thinking. Yes, yes, I reckon we should take this case. There’s a couple of points I don’t understand, though.”

She smiled and sat down again. “Good, I think it’ll make a perfect summer project for us. Besides, it’s nice and close.”

“What do you think happened to the rest of her, Gran?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know, William. The report said the police dug up a large area but found no trace of anything useful.”

“How do you suggest we start?”

“The first thing to do is visit the library and dig out all the newspaper reports. Maybe we can find something concerning the time she vanished. We won’t know until we actually begin reading. Now, you be a good boy and finish your school. We’ll start on your very first holiday Monday. All right?”

“Well, what about the skull they just found recently?”

“One thing at a time. Let’s worry about Mary Bean first.”

“Sure, Gran.”

Now, my granny Hubert is an amazing old girl. When she puts her mind to it, she can do anything. And when she says that’s the way it is, well, look out, because that’s the way it is. Although I can easily afford my own house, I live with Gran because she’s an excellent cook, housekeeper, alarm clock and general all-round neat person – neat in every sense. Her house is a really nice, old Victorian place not far from what we call the Dundas Mountain, which as you already know is part of the Niagara Escarpment.

Dundas is a valley town right in the nook of the Niagara Escarpment. The highest point is Dundas Peak, about 530 feet; like 165 metres. Most of the escarpment is wild or parkland, with rivers and waterfalls. It’s a grand area to live, with nice and friendly people. I guess that’s what’s so shocking about finding a human skull up there in the woods.

I would hazard a guess that the person was murdered somewhere else and brought here because they figured it would never be found. Seems funny, though, this is the second one, and a head but no body. The more I thought about it the more spooky it seemed. Could the first head have anything to do with the second?

My school, Mohawk College, is on the escarpment right across the valley. They call that the Hamilton Mountain. I drive there every day in Gran’s car. Funny, with all my money you’d think I would buy my own. Maybe I will when school’s finished.

A strange thing happened about a week later, when I was in the college library just talking to one of the students – no one in particular. We were waiting to check out some books for the summer, when Bobby, that’s the girl I was talking to, said, “What have you been up to over the weekend?”

“Looking into the Mary Bean murder,” I replied.

Bobby laughed. “Mary Bean. That’s a dumb name.”

Miss Norville, the library assistant, butted in. “Do you mean Mary Bean, the girl who was murdered some years ago?”

“Sure,” I said. “You’ve heard of it?”

With an all-knowing smile Miss Norville said, “Everyone’s heard of poor Mary Bean. We’ve even got a book about her.”

“You do?” I said in surprise.

“Certainly. I think it was written by some lawyer from Burlington or somewhere. Would you like me to look it up for you?”

“Sure.”

She dickered around with the computer for a few moments, muttering to herself, and then suddenly, all wide eyed, she said, “Oh here it is. What Happened to Mary by Jethro M. Goodie.”

“Great,” I encouraged. “I’d like to take it out.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, the book’s missing. You’ll have to try the downtown library.”

“So what happened to her?” Bobby asked.

“Ah, well, I’m not sure. Someone bumped her off and buried her head up on Dundas Mountain.”

“That’s terrible. Why would you want to read about stuff like that?”

“Interest sake.”

“You must be warped. What’s interesting about a murdered girl?”

“I’m studying law, because I want to be a private detective.”

She laughed as though I’d cracked a real funny joke. I didn’t think it was funny at all. Not the dead girl Mary or becoming a detective. The way she’d laughed changed my outlook. Just to spite her, I felt it imperative to discover the answer to the secrets of poor Mary Bean. Her attitude made me all the more determined to find out everything there was to know about the dead girl. The great Bill Reyner was going to solve another ancient mystery.

Checking the time, I decided to go downtown to the main branch of the Hamilton Public Library and get this book. We do have a library in Dundas, but it’s nowhere as big or complete as the main branch in Hamilton. You can still get everything there, but it just takes longer. Parking my car by Copps Coliseum, I walked along York Street to the library. You wouldn’t believe how popular that particular branch is. There were loads of people there at the main desk, mostly students.

“Excuse me, miss, how do I take out a book?” I asked the first librarian.

She smiled. “Look up the catalogue number on the computer, sir.”

“Oh, right.”

Several computers were scattered around the large room, but all were in use. The library assistant immediately saw my dilemma. “You could try the third floor, sir.”

“Oh, sure. Thank you.” The problem being, I knew the McMaster Library, but not this one. Walking through the entrance barrier the elevators were to the left and moments later I reached the third floor and walked to the not so busy desk. “Excuse me, sir; I’m looking for a book.”

The guy grinned. “You’ve come to the right place then.”

“I’m looking for ‘What Happened to Mary’ by J. M. Goodie.”

The guy played with his computer for a few seconds. “Oh, I see. This book is in the stacks.”

“Stacks, where’s that?”

“Hmm. Well it means the book has been withdrawn from the shelves. I can get it for you if you’re prepared to wait.”

“Great, yes please.”

The guy picked up his phone and made a call to someone. Then he put the phone down and smiled at me. “It’ll take about half an hour, sir.”

“Okay, I’ll come back. Do you want my name or anything?”

“No, sir, just come to this desk and the book’ll be here waiting for you.”

The library is part of Jackson Mall and this would be a good opportunity for me to do a little looking around. Giggling to myself, I was thinking that maybe I’d buy a deerstalker and a magnifying glass. Imagine the expression on Gran’s face if I turned up looking like Sherlock Holmes!

Half an hour passed very quickly and I hurried back to the third floor of the library. The same guy was there and as soon as he saw me he grinned. “I’ve come for –”

He cut me off. “Yes, sir, Mary Bean.”

The book looked a little worse for wear, dog-eared and faded.

“How do I check it out?”

“Take it down to the main desk, sir. Do you have a library card?”

“No. I’m a Mohawk student.”

“No problem, they’ll sign you in and issue a card, sir.”

In the elevator I flipped through the pages. Gran would be amazed. I felt proud, as it was me who’d discovered the first facts. A quick glance at my watch told me that Gran wouldn’t be so pleased, particularly if she’d cooked supper. Still, heads up, off we go. Then the thought struck me, ‘The Heads Up Mystery’, would be a grand name for this case.

Serial Murders

Chapter 2

With school finished until September, Gran and I were able to devote more time to researching Mary Bean. As the old girl said, the library would be our best bet to start with. You have to know as much as other people before you can ask new and pertinent questions. The Hamilton main branch is one of the largest libraries in the country with seven floors adding up to 15,000 square metres of shelf space. Well, that’s what the adverts say.

Just then I discovered an article on two children from Stamford Row who’d been playing on the mountain brow, just below the old Rail Trail, when they’d discovered human bones yesterday.

“I’ve found another, Gran. Look at this,” I said excitedly.

“Shush,” she exclaimed. “We do not want to disturb other people.”

I looked around. We were the only people in the main library reading room, where they had all the old newspapers on microfilm. I think it’s easier than reading the real thing, you see the reader is motorized. You can just sit there and wheel through the pages.

Gran came and looked over my shoulder. “I don’t think this has anything to do with our research, William. Please confine your efforts to Mary Bean and examine reels that are relevantly dated. When was that find?”

“In ninety-five.”

“I’m sure it’s not relevant, dear. Please try to refrain from wasting our time.”

“Don’t you see the similarity, Gran? It’s a girl, and dead, and found on a mountain.”

“Print it, then. We’ll examine it later. Now back to looking for Mary Bean, please. All right?”

You just don’t argue with Gran. I went back looking for evidence of Mary, but I kept my eyes open for this new find, too. A few papers later I found another story: ‘Bones Identified’.

The article was real gruesome. It looked as though Gran was right. The bones were the remains of Kate Agnes Chester, a 17-year-old from Stoney Creek. She had been buried under a rock fall, not too far from where she lived.

Man, was I glad when Gran tapped me on the shoulder and said, “I think we’ve had enough for one day, William.”

“Sure thing, Gran. Home?”

“Yes, I think so, dear.”

I shook my head, trying to shake out the kink in my neck. A few more minutes of watching film whiz by and I think I would have got seasick. We gathered up all our papers and made tracks for the exit. Library research is okay, but I’d rather be out there in the field actually looking under the rocks and questioning real people. I’m an outdoor detective, not a library researcher.

The drive home was peaceful and Gran seemed very quiet and thoughtful. I knew better than to bug her while she was thinking. If there should be anything of importance, she’d soon tell me.

The rain began falling lightly as we parked in the driveway. Man, this had to be the wettest year on record. It seemed as if it rained every day. Gran silently walked to the house. You could see she was still thinking.

“Is there anything worrying you, Gran?”

With a broad and friendly smile on her face she unlocked the front door. “I’m thinking, William. I’m thinking.”

Supper was a light affair, with ham, beef and turkey sandwiches she’d made earlier. I got stuck into the nosh and Gran brought the tea in.

“I’m a little worried, William,” Gran said sitting herself opposite me. Slowly, she poured tea into my cup.

“What about, Gran?”

“In a short space of time we have found four mysteries – cases that the police have never solved. They’re all rather gruesome and concern a rather bizarre series of circumstances.”

“I don’t know what you mean, Gran.”

“Well, there is the head of Mary Elizabeth Bean, 1981. Then there was a human thighbone found in the city dump in 1985. They think it belonged to a female who died in 1983.”

“So?”

“The most resent, Kate Agnes Chester, disappeared in 1993 and was found under a rock fall in 1995. And finally, an unknown girl’s head has been found at Tew Falls.”

“Do you think I’m right; it’s a serial killer on the loose?”

“I didn’t say that. We’ll have to go back to the library and modify our search pattern.”

“Modify it for what, Gran?”

“I think we should look directly for links. Dates, anything that may show a connection.”

“Don’t you think the fuzz would already have done that, Gran?”

“I am not privy to anything the police may or may not have already done, William. We must do it for ...” she suddenly stopped, a broad smile spreading across her face.

“What is it, Gran?”

“George Crosswell.”

I had no idea what she was talking about. “So who’s George Crosswell?”

“He, William, may be more important to us than you think.”

“I don’t think anything, Gran. Who is he?”

I could see the smugness in her eyes. She knew something that she would reveal in her own way and in her own time. I sat and glared at her.

“Well, you see, William, your grandfather did a big favour for Mr. Crosswell many years ago and his son became a policeman.”

“That’s very interesting, Gran, but how does that help us?”

“George Crosswell is the son and he was injured in a shooting incident some years ago.”

“You’re going round the houses, Gran. Explain in plain English what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, hapless William. I’m getting there. George Crosswell works at the Hamilton downtown police station. I would hazard a guess that if I were to introduce myself to him, sort of hint about your grandfather’s favour, he would feel obliged to assist us in our investigations.”

“That’s very crafty, Gran, and probably illegal. Sort of blackmail.”

She chuckled. “Just being neighbourly, William. In the meantime, we’ll continue our present line of inquiry.”

For the rest of the day, I read all the newspaper copies we’d found and then finished up reading the book ‘What Happened to Mary’. I found the book fascinating, though there were no really useful facts in it. Goodie reckoned Mary was some form of Druid or something, a real religious nutter. She would go to church every day and on Sunday would visit the TOD; whatever that stood for. According to the book, Mary wasn’t murdered; instead, she committed suicide, a sort of self-sacrifice to the ancient gods of the TOD. Goodie claimed it was her parents who’d dissected and hidden the body, according to some ancient rite. He said she was buried in a sort of cross configuration. Head to the north, body in the centre, with the legs and arms to the south, east and west.

The police couldn’t prove any of it and never found the rest of her, anywhere. According to Goodie, she was a one-off, a very unusual case and quite unique. Of course, when he wrote the book he didn’t know about the one they’d found a week ago. I wondered if maybe this new one was a relative of Mary Bean or perhaps some form of copycat murder.

Gran and I went back to the library again the very next day. When we got there, just before entering, she said, “William, I have something to do, will you continue today’s research on your own for a short while?”

“What? Where you going, then?”

“Oh, I have an idea. Now be a good boy, I’ll be back in an hour or two. All right?”

“Sure, Gran.” She toddled off leaving me to do all the hard work. You never know with Gran, I figured she had some new crazy idea and she would follow it through. Whatever it was I would learn about it later.

There must have been some project or other going on at one or more of the local summer schools, for the library was rather busy. Most of the patrons were around the same age, female and Asian. I knew where to look and soon collected half a dozen films. Then I wandered around for several minutes trying to find a reader; the Asian girls were using all of them.

After a while I spoke to the lady at the information desk. “Excuse me, miss, I’m trying to do some research and all the reading machines are in use.”

She smiled sweetly. “Try special collections.”

“Oh, where’s that?”

She pointed. “I’m sure they’ll be able to help you, sir.”

Sort of round the other side of the elevators, almost hidden from general view and right beside the toilets was what I thought to be an administrative office. The door was closed. I walked over and found another large room with desks and readers. A guy sat at the reception desk reading a book.

“Excuse me, sir,” I began.

At first he ignored me and then he slowly lowered his book. Looking over the top of his spectacles at me he said, “Well?”

“I, er, I wondered if I could use one of the readers in this room.”

He slowly put the book back to his face. “Go ahead.”

There were only three machines and none were in use. Several people sat at different tables reading various books and stuff. One, a youngish guy, very blond and tall, kept looking at me. Every time I looked up from the reader he was staring in my direction and every time he looked away as if he didn’t want me to know he was watching.

Progress seemed slow and fruitless. With the gawky kid watching me and no Gran to talk to, I just was not having a good time. The geezer with the book noticed my unsettled condition and after fifteen minutes he came over to me.

“Is there a problem, sir?” he said in an all-knowing tone of voice.

“Problem? No, no. Everything’s just fine.”

“Can I get a reel for you?”

“No, thanks. I’m ... I’m waiting for my, my ... er, my partner. She knows more about the case than I do.”

“Case, sir? What case is that?”

“Oh, well, we’re working on the murder of Mary Bean.”

The attendant’s expression remained constant, just like an undertaker, an all-knowing, all-confident look.

“Have you seen our files, sir?”

“Your files. What files do you have?”

For the first time the guy smiled. “Here, in special collections, we specialize in ongoing stories. Anything we find that is vaguely related is catalogued together. If you give me a few minutes, I’ll look up related extracts for you.”

“Wow, thank you. That’s great.”

I continued scanning through the films already in my possession, as there was nothing else to do. The skinny youth still watched me, making me feel uneasy. Somehow, he seemed out of place, sort of scruffy, and his eyes were penetrating. I wanted to go over there and pound him out but reckoned that wouldn’t look too good in a public library.

Eventually, the attendant returned. His face was all smiles. Obviously, he had succeeded in his quest. He handed me a piece of paper he had scribbled some notes on. “I think you’ll find this of interest to you, sir.”

“Thank you.” I looked at it. Unreal, he had marked 1981, ’83, ’84, ’92, ’93, ’95, ’96, ’98 and ’99. “Are they all murders?” I gasped.

He smiled again. “I’m not sure, sir. They’re listed as local disappearances.”

“Thanks, local disappearances. Great. Now what do I do?”

“The reel numbers and relevant dates are these here,” he said, pointing to his piece of paper.

“How do I get the reels?”

“Just write the ones you want on the loan card and hand it to me or whoever’s on duty.” He turned and walked back to his desk.

Gran would be surprised. She used to be a librarian and even she didn’t know about all this stuff. Man, what a shock for the old girl. Now with something positive to work on I extracted my notebook and pen. After making a few notes I walked to the desk and asked for a loan card and ordered five reels. I figured that would be enough for a start. Gran could take the other four or five. He told me to go back to my machine and he would bring the films as soon as they were available. The gawky kid watching me got up and left the room. Still he stared at me as he went out. I couldn’t help but think that I’d seen him somewhere before.

Around ten minutes or so later a girl came to me with five microfilm reels. “Mr. Reyner?” she asked.

“Yes.”

With a very sweet smile she handed me the film. “Do you need any help, Mr. Reyner?”

Looking her up and down the thought struck me that she certainly could help after work. For a librarian she was very nicely built.

“No, no thanks. My Gran will be along in a minute. Thank you.”

I was dying to get stuck into theses reels to see what they had that we didn’t already know. Mary Bean was 1981. That figures, I thought. Although I knew about her it would still be a good starting place and maybe they had something we hadn’t yet found.

“July, girl missing”. Man, I had no idea. The papers were full of it. “Mary Bean, a 15-year-old from Burlington, vanished on her way home from church”. I previously had no idea the story was so interesting. Goodie’s book was boring compared to the papers, though the information was almost exactly the same.

“How’s it going, William?”

I looked up and Gran was standing there all smiles.

“Oh, hi. I didn’t hear you come in.”

“No you wouldn’t. I walk softly. Though I did have a little trouble finding you. I didn’t realize there was a specials section here.”

“Yeah, they’ve got everything. What have you discovered, Gran?”

She pulled a chair over and sat beside me. “Well, I have been talking to George Crosswell.”

“Who’s he?”

“He’s that policeman I told you about. You’ll never guess what?”

“No, go on then.”

“Constable Crosswell is the keeper of the Black Museum.” She said it all smug-like, as if it should mean something to me.

“Yeah, and then what?”

“Don’t you see? The Black Museum is where they keep all the evidence on ancient cases. Anything concerning Mary Bean will be there, as it’s an unsolved murder.”

“Oh. How will that help, Gran?”

She sighed deeply. “Sometimes, boy, I think it would be better if you stayed in bed and allowed the living to do their work. Evidence, physical evidence, her clothes, bits and pieces found at the scene.”

“The skull?”

“I doubt that, but there should be many interesting things we can look at. Perhaps even some things not mentioned in the papers.”

“Talking about papers, Gran. There are nine girls missing. Look, here are the dates.”

She perused the handwritten paper from the library assistant and then said, “Looks like two separate cases to me. There’s an eight-year gap between ’84 and ’92 and then they are regular until ’99.”

“You figure we’re looking for two different murderers, then?”

“Maybe, or perhaps he spent eight years in jail. We must learn all about every case and see if they tie-up. They may be separate incidents altogether and have nothing to do with each other.”

Gran took the piece of paper and ordered the last few reels. I soon learned that it’s far too hard reading from a projected image; time alone was limiting. Whenever it looked interesting, I printed it and then went on to the next one. We worked diligently until my eyes began to hurt and my head started to spin. The time had already reached past three in the afternoon and I hadn’t had any lunch yet.

With a shrug, I turned the reader off and looked around for Gran. She was engrossed in her machine just across the room. As I walked over to her, she spotted me and figured out what I was going to say.

“Are you hungry, William?”

“Yeah, Gran.”

“Very well. I think we should have a rest. Do you want to come back tomorrow or after something to eat later today?”

“How about asking that question when we’ve eaten, Gran?”

“Very well. Let’s go to a fast-food outlet. Eat and then decide. I’m getting rather famished, myself.”

I couldn’t believe that Gran would even be seen in one of these joints; indeed, I can’t ever remember her ever having done such a thing before. With Gran, food is a religion, not just something to eat and, well, there’s the tea.

“I didn’t think you approved of these fast-food eateries,” I said half joking.

Her eyes widened and her chest rose in pride. “One must partake of that which is expedient, dear.”

“Does that mean you like fish and chips?”

“No, no. It means that I cannot cook us anything in the middle of the library.”

We eventually settled for hamburgers and fries, with a milkshake to wash it down. Gran figured the ingredients almost made a proper meal and we spent much of our lunchtime expressing the merits of various factions of the repast. I mean, like, who cares how many calories this or that has, or how many of whatever vitamins the other has?

I wanted to talk about the dead and the missing, but every time I brought it up, she would expound the food value of another piece of grub.

Eventually, she smiled at me and said, “Well, are you ready for another session at the library?”

“Sure, Gran. I wanted to tell you about what I’ve found.”

“We’ll discuss it at home. I think we should confine our examinations and analyses to privacy.”

“What?”

“William, if your brain was half as developed as your muscles, you’d be a genius.”

I could never be sure if she was complimenting me or insulting me. She would always use words in a funny and unnatural order. It was much cooler and quieter in the library. Quickly, we wrote up the order forms and handed them in to the new girl at the desk in the special collections area.

I sat and waited, staring at the ceiling. You can tell a lot about a place by its ceiling. This one was far away and totally commercial. It was simple industrial concrete, just something to cover the room with.

“Here are your reels, sir,” said the nice assistant, waking me out of my daydream.

“Thanks,” I said, taking the stack she presented on a small tray.

Gran was busy in the card file. She used to be a librarian, so all that stuff interested her. She was there a long time and spent rather a lot of time talking to the assistant, leaving me to do all the real work again. I soon became totally involved with the task at hand and forgot all about Gran. Each girl fascinated me in a different way. Poor kids! I wondered what had happened to them. It seemed a lot more personal when you knew their names. It wasn’t just a skull found in the woods – it was Mary Elizabeth Bean. And the pile of old bones had been Kate Agnes Chester.

What kind of horrible beast could do that to a young girl and why? It brought back memories of Freda and how cold and callously she’d murdered Dee and Henny, and poor old Peter. It had to be another crook like her. Some demented monster deluded by their own greed and fantasies. Man, it makes shivers run down your spine when you think about it.

I really needed to get home that evening having spent the whole day studying in a public library. Man, it’s a killer. I couldn’t believe it; Gran had already made sandwiches for the evening meal, having planned ahead by making them that morning. I sat at the dining table as Gran got the food out of the fridge.

“Here you are, William, get stuck in.”

“But they’re cold,” I protested.

“All the better on a hot day, my boy. Did you bring all the photocopies in?”

“Sure, they’re here.” I pulled the wad of papers out of my attaché case. “It’s going to take longer to sort them out than I thought, Gran. We’ve found nine cases. I figure we’ve got a madman on our hands – a serial murderer. Maybe even two serial killers.”

“Hmm. Well, don’t jump to conclusions, William. We must first study the facts. Why do you think the police have done very little?”

“’cause they’re cops. What do they know?”

“Hmm, I see. Well, I was talking to Constable George Crosswell. I think you should put your brain to work before you jump to any conclusions. Mr. Crosswell said he would give us a conducted tour of the Black Museum any time we wanted.”

“And do we want, Gran?”

“We most certainly do, but first let’s examine our facts. Become experts on the subject of ...” she stopped to think for a moment. “Let’s say the subject of missing persons.”

“Okay, Gran, you’re the boss.”

After eating the sandwiches we spent about fifteen minutes in silence reading the photocopies from the library. She was right as usual – I had jumped the gun. On the surface the nine cases looked unrelated and totally dissimilar. I mean, there was Mary’s head, but nothing else of her, and the skull of an unknown person found at Tew Falls. They were almost twenty years apart. For a mass or serial murderer he sure worked slowly. Then there was Kate Chester, a whole skeleton, nothing similar in that, except she was quite dead.

Martha Mackey disappeared without trace in 1998 at the age of 15. The cops said it was common for girls of that age to take off, especially if they were having a hard time at home. The only similarity being that she came from the same town as Mary. Then there was Rhonda Maxwell, age 15 – vanished from Hamilton in 1996. Ester Neals was aged 17, having scarpered from Dundas in 1995.

I found nothing to go on at all. The only odd one I found was the bone of an unknown female discovered in the city dump. Nothing else turned up, just a single bone. The odd thing, according to the newspaper, was that the bone had been scraped, like as if someone had scraped the meat off it. Weird, man! I guess Gran was right; these cases were unrelated, except maybe the two skulls, but now they definitely looked similar.

Now certain there was no case for serial murders, I couldn’t think what the next step would be.

“So what do you think we should do now, Gran?”

She thought for a few minutes and then a smile slowly spread across her sweet old face. “Well, William. There are three things to do, all of which I am sure you will be able to accomplish admirably well.”

“Like what?”

“First, find some friends of Mary Bean who are still alive and question them. Second, visit the TOD.”

“The TOD? I read about that, where is it?”

She fluttered her eyelashes with that all-knowing smirk. “I got the address from the library. And thirdly, we shall visit the Black Museum.”

North

Chapter 3

Finding a person who knew Mary Bean turned out to be a great deal easier than we had at first thought. On Gran’s instruction I paid a personal visit to the Lord Nelson School in Burlington. The city of Burlington is just round the bay to the north of Hamilton. Unfortunately, there were no teachers still at the school who knew Mary. However, the records quickly revealed the names of her classmates and the library has phonebooks going back decades. Armed with the last known addresses of her classmates I was off to find the first one on my list.

The third name turned out to be my first success. Doris Normans, still unmarried and still living in the same house. I knocked on the door and stepped back to await someone to open it. A fat, middle-aged woman in a plain one-piece dress confronted me. “Yah?” she growled in a rather unfriendly tone.

“Oh, hi. I’m Bill Reyner PI. I wondered if you could help me. I’m looking for Miss Doris Normans.”

“So?”

“Do you know where I might be able to find her?”

“What you wan’ ’er for?”

“Just a few questions about Mary Bean.”

Her eyes expressed surprise. She obviously recognized the name. “What about ’er?”

“Well, I would like to talk to Miss Normans on a one-to-one basis, if that’s at all possible.”

“You’re talking to ’er. So talk.”

“Oh! You went to school with Mary. Well, I wondered if you could tell me a little about her.”

“I didn’t go to school with ’er. I was in the same class. I didn’t like ’er. She was a religious freak – a ruddy nutcase. Now if that’s it, goodbye.”

“Do you know who her best friend was?” I said, trying to squeeze the lemon a little harder.

“She didn’t ’ave many friends, but ’er boyfriend still lives in the next street. David Bloomfield. Ask ’im, ’e’ll know everything. Wouldn’t surprise me none ’e done for ’er.”

She almost slammed the door in my face. The next street – where and what is a next street? David Bloomfield was not on my list of classmates. A quick check of the local phone directory gave me the address and she was right, he lived in the very next street. I knocked on the door, stepped back and waited. This time, an elderly lady opened it. She reminded me a little of my gran.

“Hi. I’m Bill Reyner PI. I’m looking for David.”

She smiled and inspected me over the top of her half-glasses. “David’s at work, dearie.”

“Oh. Well, when do you think I might be able to catch him in?”

She stroked her chin and still examined me over her spectacles. “What yah want him for, dearie?”

“Just, er ... just to talk about Mary.”

The woman’s expression changed from curious to severe. In a growling tone of voice she said, “Go away. David doesn’t want to talk about that girl. Go away.” She slammed the door.

As Alice would have said, ‘curiouser and curiouser’. I glanced at my watch: four-fifteen. The car was parked out front. An idea struck me. In case the old lady was watching I walked down the street, so she wouldn’t know which car was mine. After five or ten minutes I walked back and climbed in the car, settling in for a stake-out. David Bloomfield would be coming home eventually. Though no one had given me a description of him, simple deduction told me he would be the first man to enter the house.

The Bloomfield house looked a typical suburban, detached bungalow with the garage sitting by the side of the main building; it too was unattached. A fairly nice and well-kempt front yard sprawled beside the concrete driveway. Even so it looked dowdy, no excitement; sort of ordinary or even mundane. It’s funny, when you have nothing better to do, you can see how humdrum people and things really are.

The temperature in the car slowly crept up to unbearable as the sun beat down on it. After raining every day, why couldn’t it rain when I needed it? Time dragged and my mind wandered, giving me the time and the peace to contemplate the awful business I was investigating. What if this kid Bloomfield was the mass killer? Maybe they would be digging my head up in a few years time.

At last there was activity as a rusty old 1987 Chrysler rattled into the driveway. A tall, thin, middle-aged man climbed out. This guy must be the kid’s father, I thought. Quickly, I climbed out and hurried to meet the man before he reached his front door. I didn’t want the old bat interfering.

“Excuse me. I’m looking for David Bloomfield.”

He looked withered and old. I would have guessed, at least sixty-five. He was totally bald and with a slight hunch to his back. He glared at me with sparkling almost transparent steel-grey eyes. “That’s me.”

“No. I’m looking for the lad who knew Mary Bean.”

He chewed his bottom lip for a second with an expression more like a disappointed dog than an angry man. “Watcha want, eh?”

“I’m investigating her death.”

His expression changed to confused or quizzical. His eyes seemed to drift into another plane of time. He said in a slow and careful voice, “Are you a friend or the devil himself?”

“All I want is to put the bad guys in jail. Don’t you think it’s about time somebody did?”

He smiled ever so lightly, hardly moving his mouth. I could see a slight sparkle in his eyes as if he just saw a small ray of hope. “Come in.” He opened the door and entered the house.

The old woman stood glaring at me. She didn’t say anything. The house had the appearance of the city dump: junk on the floor and piled on every chair. Everything looked clean, but too much stuff all over the place. Gran would have had a fit if she’d seen this mess. David picked up a pile of junk from a chair and invited me to sit. He sat at the table with the pile of junk in his arms.

“I ... well, I’m trying to find out anything I can about Mary,” I said as softly and as friendly as possible.

“The cops thought I’d done it – the bastards. Do you think I done her in?”

“No. Or I wouldn’t be here. I want to get to the truth. I’ve read that book by Goodie ...”

“What?” he said raising his voice, cutting me off in mid sentence.

“Do you know Goodie?”

“He was one o’ the bastards trying to get me lynched.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I just want to know about Mary, you know, her friends and especially her enemies.”

He carefully placed the pile of junk on the table. “I loved her, you know. I would never have harmed her. She was pure, clean and refreshing. Never a foul word passed her lips. Mary was an angel on this earth.” Tears welled up in the corners of his eyes.

“Did you see her that last day? Like the time she went missing?”

He wiped his nose on his cuff and stared into infinity. “I hated her going to that temple – nothing but a bunch of loonies. She wouldn’t listen.”

“So did you see her that day?”

He looked at me. “You think I killed her, just like them lawyers.”

“No. I just want the truth. Whoever took Mary from you will pay. I’ll find him. I’m good at that sort of thing. I can do things the cops can’t.”

“No, I didn’t see her. I always met her out of church with the car, but this time she never came out. That’s why they said I done it. Them holy rollers swore she came out and got into my car. She never. If it hadn’t bin for Nicholas, they’d have hanged me, for sure. There weren’t no one else to blame.”

“Who’s Nicholas?”

“When she didn’t come out of the church, the only reason could be they was giving her special lessons again, that meant she would be there a couple of hours more. So when the last person left, I walked over to Nicholas.”

“So who’s Nicholas?”

“It ain’t a he, it’s a what. Nicholas is the name of a gamin’ house just across the street from the church. Everybody there knew me in them days. You buy tickets for horse races anywhere in the world. The tickets have the date and time on them. I was there for three hours or more. If Mary didn’t see me in the car she would know where I was. She didn’t approve of gambling.”

“So you had the perfect alibi?”

“I don’t need no alibi. I didn’t do anything. Mary was young, but she knew her own mind. As soon as she were of age we was goin’ to marry. Look at me, do you think any woman would want me. I got Mum and she’s a halfwit who never leaves the house. I do everything for her. But Mary loved me, no one else, just me. I wouldn’t have no reason to do her in, would I?”

“So what do you think happened to her? Do you think it was her parents like Goodie said?”

He looked at me as though I’d just smacked him in the face with a wet halibut. “You sure don’t know much.” He put his hand in his pocket and extracted a wallet. Opening it he took out a raggedy old photo. “This is her, the Sunday afore she went.”

I took the picture and for the first time saw the face of the girl I was investigating. She was absolutely beautiful. Her face looked sweet and angelic, slightly childlike. She had delicate features and seemed well developed. Her hair was pure gold, about shoulder length. Looking at the picture gave me goosebumps. This was a real girl that some depredator had slaughtered.

“You see,” he said, “she were perfect and she loved me and only me. Can you believe that?”

I handed the picture back. Funny there wasn’t a picture of her in the book.

“So, do you think her parents had anything to do with her disappearance, then?”

He frowned at me. “No bloody way. Dead people don’t murder the living.”

“What do you mean?”

“Mary’s parents were dead before she disappeared. They couldn’t do nothing.”

I thought it prudent not to argue, there remained much that neither Gran nor I knew. By our conversation he gave me the impression he had not accepted Mary’s death, for he always referred to her as missing. I thanked him and left the house more confused than when I had entered. He seemed a simple man, much older than Mary, and yet I thought he was too innocent-like to lie or cheat, or even murder.

The next day I drove up to Tew Falls in Flamborough, a large park on the edge of the Spencer’s Gorge on the escarpment above Dundas. Some of it’s just like a city park, manicured lawns and a neat car park, but the majority is wild land with a cultured footpath through it. A lookout or viewing place had been built jutting out into the canyon, giving a view down to the bottom of the waterfall. A very nice fall, not terribly spectacular, though the height seemed to vaporize the small amount of water before it hit the rocks 140 feet below. In the modern idiom, that’s 43 metres.

I checked my map. According to the newspaper, Mary’s head had been found just off the Bruce Trail on the eastern edge. The trees gave cover from the glaring heat of the sun. Just across an old right of way, which used to serve a Victorian rock quarry, the trail became dense. According to the map, a rocky clearing just 50 metres north of the trail is the place where some campers made the grizzly find of the first skull.

Kids, or locals, had beaten a side trail that was fairly easy to follow. At the end of the short path a clearing marked the evil spot. An eerie feeling came over me as I walked into that rocky place. A huge almost square boulder lay in the centre of the clearing; almost as tall as a man it dominated the area like an ancient altar stone. Whoever buried her head here obviously knew the place well – must have been someone local.

As I turned, I almost fainted with shock. A tall, skinny lad stood in my path silently watching me. It was that kid from the library.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I said abruptly and trying to show aggressive manliness.

He smiled and waved his head gently from side to side as if in embarrassment. “I fort you might be lost.”

“No, I’m not lost.”

“Yous that Mr. Reyner, ain’t yah?”

“Yes. How come you know my name?”

“I recognized you in the library the uver day.”

“Well, nice meeting you,” I said and pushed past him. The lad was slightly taller than me, though I outweighed him by at least 20 kilograms. I could hear by the sound of the undergrowth that he was following me back to the Bruce Trail. “You following me, boy?” I said, turning to face him again.

“Yeah.”

I glared into his face and growled, “Why?”

“There ain’t no uver way out.”

I smiled and walked to the end of the old trail and then began the walk back to my car.

“How come you’re in the same part of the forest as me?” I growled, trying not to be friendly.

He hurried to reach my side. “Well, I saw yah, when you looked at the falls, so I follo’d yah. Me name’s Norf.”

“Norf. That’s unusual.”

“Nah, not Norf, it’s Norf, like opposite to sarf.”

“You what?”

“You know, norf, east, sarf and west.”

“You mean North?”

“Yeah, Norf.”

His speech pattern was unusual and at times difficult to understand. “So why are you here at all, North?”

“I’m keeping an eye on yah. Yous looking for Mary, ain’cha?”

I stopped and stared him straight in the face, trying to look as imposing as possible. “What of it?” I growled.

“Keep your ’air on. I ain’t no fret. I saw watcha were doing in the library. I know all about Mary Bean.”

“You’re not old enough,” I said and began walking again.

“I’m twenty-free. Anyway, watcha expect to find? They dun dug her up years ago.”

We reached the falls, where I walked over to the safety fence and stared blankly at the water as it vaporized into a heavy mist on its descent.

“Why did you follow me, North?”

He screwed his face up in a contorted and strained, thoughtful expression. “Well, they’s found another, ain’t they?”

“So why follow me? I didn’t do it.”

“I figure yous a lot smarter ’an me, so’s you’d know the answers, wouldn’t yah?”

I thought about it for a few moments. He was a strange character. Perfectly clean-shaven, childlike face and wavy golden blond hair. He looked a little simple with his eyes deep set.

“Alright, what do you want from me?”

“Nofin’. But I could ’elp yah?”

“How?”

He shrugged. “Anyfin’ you want. You name it.”

I turned back to face the water; somehow it made me feel peaceful, its constant rushing and business going nowhere, like me.

“All right,” I said slowly. “Who killed Mary Bean?”

North laughed as though I’d cracked a really funny gag. “There’s a ten farsand dollar reward out on that ’un. If I knew I’d collect it. I fort you might know.”

It was my turn to laugh. North presented himself as a likeable juvenile. I guess, because he seemed dumber than me he made me feel at ease. Somebody I could talk down to, almost like a pet dog.

“I’d pay as much as the reward just to get the answer. Alright, if you like, we’ll find out together.”

North brightened up and a big smile lit up his face. “My name’s Norf East.”

“You mean North East?”

“Yeah.”

I shook my head. His parents were even stupider than Dee’s. “Like North is your first name and East is your last name?”

“Yeah. But everybody calls me Newf. ’ave you seen the new dig.”

“New dig?”

He reminded me of an excited kid as he pointed in the direction we just came from. “Yeah, the ’ead they found. It’s not far.”

Indeed, I had not seen it. Newf bounced like a puppy, as he knew something I didn’t. With a sort of excited glee he led me to the place where the second skull had been found quite recently and he chattered all the way. Tatters of the police ribbon still hung from temporary posts on the building site. The digging machines were still there, even though the workmen had begun pouring the concrete basement of the new house. A shudder passed through me as I observed the place.

“See, it ain’t far,” North said, breaking the silence. “That’s the road over there. The killer could have arrived in a car.”

“So in a straight line, how far is this place from the site where they found Mary?”

A wry grin spread across his face. “Yous finking along the same lines as me ain’cha?”

“Quite probably. What exactly are you thinking?”

“The same guy done it. The same mefod – MO, right?”

I cocked my head to one side and gave him a nod of approval. “Twenty years apart?” I said, to see how he would respond.

“Watcha bin looking in the library for? I’ll betcha were looking at the list of uvers.”

“Yes, I looked at the list of others. What do you know about them?”

“There ain’t Nofin’ to see ’ere, let’s walk over to Tew Falls,” he said in a friendly manner.

Newf seemed a really strange character. I couldn’t make up my mind whether he was leading me or I was leading him. Was he trying to find out what I knew? Or was he eager to help me find more? We reached the lookout place again, where I leaned on the railing, gazing at the misty water below.

“Alright,” I said slowly, “how did you know I was here?”

“Saw yah.”

“How? I drove here.”

“You got glass in the windows, ain’cha?”

Slowly, I turned towards him and tried looking as imposing as possible. “Listen, you flaky wimp. I don’t like being followed. I don’t know whether to smash your face in or pat you on the back.”

He took on the expression of a scolded dog. You could almost see his tail stop wagging. Mournfully, he said, “I was only tryin’ to ’elp. I don’t have no friends, see.” His eyes suddenly sparkled. “I know where the TOD is.”

You can’t help but smile at a person like that. The lad made me feel superior, like as if I was years older and wiser than him.

“It’s on Barton Street,” I said.

“No it ain’t. It’s in Brant County.”

“What makes you think that?”

Newf’s eyes sparkled with delight and his tail was wagging again. “’cause I bin there, ain’t I.”

I turned round and leaned on the fence again. “So how did you know I was here?”

“Told yah, I saw yah, didn’t I? I live over there.” He pointed towards Greensville. “Just up the road. I were in my front yard when you passed. I knew where yous goin’, so I come over ’ere and follo’d yah.”

“Okay, Newf, you can call me Bill, it’s short for William. If you were investigating this murder, what would you do next?”

“I’d talk to Mary’s boyfriend.”

“David Bloomfield?”

“Yeah, you know him, then?”

“No, but I talked to him.”

“Wow! Did he do it?”

“No. He wasn’t much help at all. Got the perfect alibi, you see.”

Newf leaned forwards and said in a very low tone. “Where was he when this new ’un vanished?”

“Who knows? When did this new one vanish?”

He smiled a sickly smile and whispered in my ear, “Lizzy Cooper, that’s who she is. Lizzy Cooper, sixteen. You know ’er?”

I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and stretched upwards as his eyes bulged.

“Don’t hit me, please don’t hit me.” Tears welled up in his pitiful eyes.

Somehow, I suddenly felt sorry for him. I released him slowly and said, “How could you possibly know her name, when the police don’t?”

He shrank back, trying to make himself a smaller target. “I guessed,” he whispered.

“Guessed? What do you mean, guessed?”

“Lizzy Cooper disappeared just before the solstice in ’94. Same as Mary, though different year. She was a member of the church of the old faith, just like Mary. I reckon the cops know who she is, they just don’t want to say anyfing.”

“I’m sorry, Newf, I kinda get worked up about this sort of thing. Didn’t hurt you, did I?”

He cracked a forced smile. “Nah. I’d like to ’elp yah. I’m good at sniffing fings out. “’cuz people fink I’m a halfwit; they’ll say more to me than they would to you. What can ’armless old Newf do? ’e’s a nutter anyway.”

“My boss is Zelda Hubert; I’ll have to talk to her first. You want me to drive you home?”

“Nah, I can walk there.”

“So why do they call you Newf?”

“’Cuz when I was little I couldn’t say Norf.”

I suppose that made some kind of sense. I walked slowly back to my car, climbed in and watched him walk off in the direction of Greensville. I sat thinking for a few moments and then started the engine, when I was suddenly struck by an idea. Pulling out of the gateway from the park I turned right, instead of left. Just under an old ramshackle railway bridge and at the top of the next hill I turned right at the crossroads. The area was new to me. Not much of a road, but there were a couple of houses scattered along it. Not too far distant on the right-hand side I found the building site, where Newf said Lizzy Cooper’s head had been dug up. I slowly became orientated to the district and in my mind it all began to gel.

Gran had prepared a nice, cooked meal; I really don’t know how she managed it. Built in radar, a sixth sense, maybe a crystal ball and definitely the hands of a chef. I walked into the kitchen with its luxurious smell of good food. Gran pointed to a chair and I sat.

“I can see you’ve had an excellent day, William.”

“Yes, I have, Gran. I think I know who the new skull belongs to; you know – the one they found up the Dundas Mountain.”

She smiled and sat. “Very well, I’m listening.”

“I think it’s a girl called Lizzy Cooper. Do we know anything about her, Gran?”

“I’ll check our files after a good meal. You tell me all you’ve learned while you eat.” She got up and began dishing out the repast.

I could tell she was excited to know all there was, though she tried to hide it. We were making good progress in a case that I’d presumed to be unsolvable.

“I have good news, too,” she said, smiling.

“Oh, what?”

“We have an appointment to meet Jane Overland and Detective Constable Crosswell.”

“Oh, who’s Jane Overland?”

“She’s the crime librarian at the newspaper in Hamilton. She phoned me, willing to help.”

“How did she know what we’re doing?”

Gran’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t know, I really don’t know. She also knew my phone number.”