Desperation Point Read online

  Jack regarded him for a second longer. “Oh? I hope it ain’t any kind of outdoor work. You ain’t dressed right for that. Anyway, what can I get you, Mr. Black?”

  Aaron pulled his gaze away from the shelves and back to Jack. “Actually, just some information. I’m looking for someone. Tess Pengelly. Do you know her?”

  A strange expression fell over Jack’s face. His smile faded.

  “Tess Pengelly?” he repeated. “I know her. She don’t live here anymore, though.”

  Shit. Aaron’s mind raced. “She moved?”

  “Last month. After all that terrible business.”

  “You know where to?”

  “A friend of hers, are you?”

  Aaron smiled. “Not exactly.”

  The old man’s brow crumpled into a frown. “I can’t say where she’s got to. All I know is she took her boys and left. Don’t blame her, neither.”

  Aaron felt a jab of frustration. This was going to make things difficult. But not impossible. Someone would know where she could be found. He turned back to Jack.

  “How about Carrie Killigrew?”

  Jack folded his arms across his chest, his initial friendliness now gone. “What are you? A journalist or something? Because you’re about three months too late for that story. We’ve had enough of reporters writing rubbish about Porth an Jowl. So, if you don’t mind, if you’re not buying anything, I’ve got things to do.”

  Aaron flashed the old man a disarming smile. He was a tricky one, this Jack Dawkins. He liked him. But he still needed to tread carefully. It was far too early to be making enemies of the locals.

  “I’m not a journalist,” he told him. “I’m an author. A mystery writer. Maybe you’ve heard of me.”

  “A mystery writer, eh?” Jack raised his eyebrows. “Aaron Black. . . Nope, can’t say I have.”

  “What about the Silky Winters Mysteries?”

  “I like to read the newspaper. Leave all that hokum to the wife.”

  Ignoring the sting of his ego, Aaron laughed. “So, you’re a facts man? In that case, you just might be interested in my latest project. It’s why I’d like to speak to Carrie Killigrew and Tess Pengelly.” He paused, waiting for Jack Dawkins to look up. “I’m researching a book, you see. Not a mystery this time, but a true crime account of Grady Spencer’s horrific legacy. Did you know him?”

  Across the counter, the old man raised his eyebrows. Then narrowed his eyes. “Everyone knew Grady Spencer,” he said. “And I don’t know what you’re doing writing a book about the awful things he done, but I’ll tell you this for free, Mr. Black—no one in this town is going to help you with that. All we want is to be left alone. For the world to forget all the terrible things that happened here.”

  “Surely you know that’s not going to happen. Not for a long time. Maybe not ever.”

  Aaron turned for a second, distracted by light bouncing off bottles of amber liquid. A wanton thirst was growing inside him. Pushing it away, he turned back to the old man.

  “Look, I’m not here to cause trouble, Mr. Dawkins. My intention is to write an accurate account of what happened. No embellishment. Just the facts. People need to know the truth, to understand exactly what went on here.”

  “People need to mind their own damn business,” Jack Dawkins said. “Now, you buying anything or what?”

  Sighing, Aaron shook his head. “Can you at least point me in the direction of Grady Spencer’s house?”

  Jack leaned across the counter, his eyes cold and steely.

  “That’s easy. It’s the last row on the left, on your way out of Porth an Jowl.” He leaned back again, folding his arms across his chest. “Do yourself a favour, Mr. Black. Go back to London. That can of worms has already been opened. You go stirring things up again, no good will come of it. I promise you that.”

  Aaron held his gaze for a moment longer. He felt a smile tugging at his lips and quickly pushed it away.

  “I’ll bear that in mind,” he said. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Dawkins.”

  The cold attacked him the moment he stepped outside. Pulling his coat around his body, he hurried back to the car and started the engine. He could no longer feel his hands, so he rubbed them together as he waited for the heaters to kick in.

  His first encounter with the locals had gone as expected. But now he knew where to find Grady Spencer’s house of horrors. Turning the car onto Cove Road, Aaron shivered as he wondered what was waiting for him inside.

  2

  AARON TURNED LEFT ONTO Grenville Row and parked the car. He stared out the driver window at the line of quaint homes and neatly kept gardens. Grady Spencer’s house stood on the corner like a tumour.

  Unlike the other dwellings, it was faded and cracked, as if time had accelerated, leaving it to crumble into ruin. Windows were boarded up. Graffiti covered the walls: CHILD KILLER. DEATH HOUSE. GHOSTS INSIDE.

  Aaron’s throat went dry. His heart raced.

  He could feel negative energy pulsing from the walls of Grady Spencer’s house in nauseous waves. Horrors had occurred inside, many of which had only recently come to light.

  Climbing out of the car, Aaron looked both ways along the empty street. He turned ninety degrees and glanced over the rooftops of the houses below. From here, the beach was a smudge of grey-brown; the ocean, a charcoal froth.

  He turned back to the Spencer house, then shifted his gaze two houses along to the left, where a FOR SALE sign was staked in the front garden. Reaching for his camera, Aaron took a picture. News reports had said the Pengellys lived just two doors away from where four-year-old Noah Pengelly, had been held prisoner for months.

  No wonder they moved, Aaron thought.

  Wherever they had fled to, there were resources he could use to track them down—phone directories, electoral registers, social media—but finding them wasn’t the issue; it was getting them to agree to be interviewed.

  Still, finding the Pengellys could wait for another day.

  Letting out a nervous breath, Aaron crossed the road, heading for the Spencer house.

  The rusty hinges of the gate moaned as he entered the garden. He walked along the path, noting dead and dying plants and the weed-choked lawn.

  Someone had spray-painted the words KIDDY FIDDLER in red across the front door.

  Aaron raised the camera and snapped away.

  The door had no handle, only a key latch. He pushed against it and was unsurprised to find it locked.

  What he really wanted was to get inside. A true crime book was nothing without pictures. Sure, readers lapped up every grisly detail, but photographs of where the terrible things happened took their imaginations to a whole new, depraved level.

  Following the garden path, Aaron turned the corner of the house and made his way toward the backyard. As he walked, he glanced over the fence at the property next door, observing the neat lawn and floral print curtains in the windows.

  Grady Spencer’s backyard was empty.

  Images he’d seen on TV had shown a dangerous maze of junk; old refrigerators, car batteries, broken cabinets and chest freezers. According to news reports, Grady Spencer had been a hoarder his entire life. The rooms of his house had been piled to the ceiling with boxes, newspapers, and other artefacts he’d collected over the years.

  Most of the human remains uncovered by police had been found in the basement, but some parts had been sealed in airtight bags or stored in containers and tucked away among the rest of Spencer’s hoarded possessions.

  Aaron couldn’t hide his disappointment as he stared at the dark stains of the now empty yard. No doubt it had all been taken away to be examined for evidence.

  Did that mean the house had been emptied, too?

  He stared at more boarded-up windows then rattled the locked back door. Frustrated, Aaron scuffed the ground with his foot. It was then he noticed the grille in the ground.

  Dropping to his knees, he twisted his neck and strained to see through the bars. There was a window down
there. One that hadn’t been boarded up. Perhaps it was a way in—if he could get past the grille.

  Wrapping his fingers around the bars, he pulled. Freezing metal bit into his fingers. The grille held fast. Frustration turned to irritation. There had to be a way of getting inside.

  As far as was known, Grady Spencer had no living relatives, which meant his house would have been deemed bona vacantia—ownerless property—and would duly become property of the Crown. Aaron thought it unlikely that the current Duke of Cornwall would lend him the keys for the afternoon.

  His other option was to ask the local police force for help, but their jurisdiction over the property would have ended with their investigation. The police could still prove helpful in other ways. Due to his death, Grady Spencer’s heinous crimes had not been brought to trial, which meant crime scene photographs had not entered the public domain. Perhaps, if he spoke to the right person, he could gain access to those photographs, perhaps even receive permission to feature them in his book.

  But crime scene photographs weren’t going to get him inside this damn house.

  Irritable and frozen, and aware he was fast losing light, Aaron snapped a few images of the house and yard, then returned to the front garden. He felt his mood sinking. With the Pengellys gone and Grady Spencer’s house locked up, he wasn’t getting very far.

  Screw it, he thought. He’d head back to the hotel, take a hot shower, then write up his observations. Maybe he’d go down to the hotel restaurant for dinner.

  His mind made up, he headed for the gate. He was halfway down the garden path when he stopped in his tracks.

  Someone was watching him.

  He turned to see a teenage girl with cropped dark hair standing in the adjacent garden and sucking on a cigarette. She wore an over-sized parka jacket, black skinny jeans, and military boots that looked like they could crush skulls with minimal effort. She stared at Aaron as she smoked. It was not a friendly stare.

  Aaron raised a hand and set his teeth chattering by smiling.

  “Hi, how are you doing?”

  The girl continued to stare as she blew out streams of smoke and frosted breath.

  “Got a spare one of those?”

  The girl sucked on the cigarette, blew out more smoke. “Not for you.”

  Her eyes wandered up to Grady Spencer’s house and, for a moment, grew very dark. Aaron watched as she took one last drag on the cigarette, dropped it on the garden path, and crushed it beneath one of her large boots.

  She turned to go inside.

  “Wait a second,” Aaron called. He stepped off the path and moved up to the fence separating the properties. “Did you know Grady Spencer?”

  “I don’t talk to the press,” she growled.

  Jesus, this girl had serious anger issues. He glanced down at her boots again, imagined them pulverising his head like a pumpkin.

  “I’m not the press,” he said.

  The girl stopped still, staring at him. “Then what are you? Another thrill seeker hoping to get off over a few dead bodies?”

  “Actually, I’m an author.”

  “Really.” There was no admiration in her tone, only deep-rooted cynicism.

  “Really, yes. My name is Aaron Black. I’m researching a true crime account about your deceased neighbour, Grady Spencer. The Pied Piper of Cornwall.”

  The girl raised an eyebrow and snorted. “The Pied Piper of Cornwall? That’s what you’re calling him?”

  Aaron shrugged. “It’s work in progress. The press didn’t come up with a name for him. Every serial killer needs a name.”

  “Sure, if you want to turn a child killer into a celebrity.”

  “It’s not about celebrating what they’ve done. Giving a mass murderer a moniker allows us to distance ourselves from the terrible acts they commit. It gives them mystique, turns them into legends. Monsters from horror stories. And a monster from a story, even if it’s a really scary one, is much less terrifying than a real-life monster, don’t you think?”

  The girl shrugged but made no move to leave. “Maybe. But still. . . It’s different when you live next door to one.”

  She was silent for a moment, contemplating. From her jacket pocket she pulled out a pouch of tobacco and a sheath of cigarette papers.

  “What books have you written?” she asked him as she worked.

  Aaron shivered in the cold. He could no longer feel his hands, but he was intrigued by this girl. And now that she had relaxed a little, he wondered if she might be of use.

  “Mysteries, mostly. I write the Silky Winters series.”

  The girl smirked. “Silky Winters?”

  “You’ve heard of them?”

  She shook her head. The cigarette rolled and sealed, the girl tucked it behind her ear and began rolling another. She nodded at Grady Spencer’s house. “Were you trying to get inside?”

  Aaron nodded. “Just to look around. But it’s all boarded up. I thought you kids would have found a way to sneak in already.”

  The girl’s eyes narrowed. “Watch who you’re calling a kid. I’ll be eighteen in three months. Then I’m out of this hell hole.”

  “Forgive me. Where are you escaping to? University?”

  “Nope. London.”

  She finished rolling the second cigarette. Glancing at Aaron, she let out a little sigh, and held the cigarette over the fence.

  Aaron took it. “Thanks.”

  “So why do you want to write a book about Grady Spencer?” She lit her cigarette, then held out the lighter.

  Aaron lit his cigarette and inhaled. He held back a cough. He hadn’t smoked a cigarette in three years. The acrid taste reminded him why. Then the instant high made him forget.

  “I have a fascination with true crime; it informs my writing. Besides, it’s not every day we have a serial killer in Britain. Someone will write about it eventually, so I thought, why not me?”

  “So, it’s about money?” The girl’s eyes were cold steel.

  Aaron smiled. “Everything’s about money, isn’t it?”

  “Not everything.”

  “Well, when you’re older, you’ll see that. . .” One look from the girl and Aaron cut himself off. “What I mean to say is, yes, it’s about money. But also, it’s about giving an honest and accurate account of the events. Grady Spencer murdered eight children. At least, eight that we know of. And he did it right in that house, in this tiny little town, without anyone noticing. Until Cal Anderson washed up on the beach.” He paused, staring at the graffiti-covered house next door. “Eight innocent victims. Don’t you think they deserve to have their stories told?”

  “You don’t think Cal was a victim?” The girl was staring at him with an intensity that made him feel uncomfortable. “How about Noah?”

  “Noah Pengelly’s a survivor. If it wasn’t for his brother, he would have been Grady Spencer’s ninth victim. Or perhaps Cal Anderson’s first.”

  Aaron paused, noting the girl’s pained look at the mention of Jago Pengelly. Was there something there? Had they been friends? Living next door to each other, it was possible. She was staring at him again. Aaron wondered if he should ask her about the Pengellys. She would help him, or she wouldn’t. Either way, it was too damn cold to be standing around for a minute more.

  But then the girl surprised him. She nodded at the Spencer house. “I can get you inside.”

  Aaron followed her gaze. “Really? But I looked; there was no way in.”

  “Maybe you were looking in the wrong places.”

  He stared at her. Was she playing him? “Well, that would be great. Lead the way.”

  “Fine, I can do that. But it depends on one thing.”

  Here we go. “And what’s that?”

  The girl took one last drag on her cigarette then crushed it beneath her boot. “How much you’re willing to pay.”

  She was sneaky. Sly. Aaron immediately liked her.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Nat Tremaine.”

  “
Well, Nat Tremaine, I’ll give you ten,” he said.

  “Don’t insult me.”

  “Twenty, then.”

  Smiling now, Nat shook her head. “Fifty.”

  Aaron’s mind was filling with nicotine-spun cotton. He stared down at the cigarette, feeling dizzy. “Fifty? I bet if I look a little harder I’ll find a way in for free.”

  “Okay, good luck with that.” Nat shrugged and turned to go inside. She turned back. Desperation flashed in her eyes. It was only for a second, but Aaron saw it clearly. “Look, I can get you inside for fifty. But for a hundred, I can give you something even better.”

  “Really.” Aaron smiled, curious now. “And what’s that?”

  “A first-hand account of my escape from the evil clutches of Grady Spencer.”

  “Is that so?” Aaron said, raising an eyebrow. There’d been no such story in the newspapers or on the TV, and he’d been thorough with his research.

  Nat nodded. “And I happen to be Jago Pengelly’s best friend.”

  That got his attention. A hundred was a lot, but if she was telling the truth, he’d happily pay. Besides, once his book became a bestseller, a hundred would be a drop in the ocean.

  “Deal,” Aaron said, reaching across the fence.

  Nat stared at his hand for a second, then shook it. “Deal.”

  “Great.” A gust of wind whipped around them, numbing what feeling Aaron had left in his extremities. “So get me inside Grady Spencer’s house before this cold fucking kills me.”

  3

  THE DOOR JAMB SPLINTERED. The door flew inward.

  Nat straightened, a crowbar swinging in her hand and a smile spreading across her lips as she stepped to one side.

  Aaron’s mouth hung open.

  “I thought you knew a way in,” he said, staring into the gloom as nerves fluttered in his stomach.

  Nat shrugged a shoulder. “You’re in, aren’t you?”

  “Jesus, what do I get for two hundred? Plastic explosives?”

  Glancing nervously over his shoulder, Aaron stepped inside Grady Spencer’s house. He was in the kitchen. Appliances remained, all from a bygone age and possibly hazardous. The rest of the room was empty, covered in unspoiled layers of dust.