The Puppet Maker: DI Jack Brady 5 Read online

  Brady’s silence forced Amelia to speak. ‘Think of it as good PR going to see this woman. You could do with some right now, Jack.’

  ‘Fine . . . I’ll drop by on my way back.’

  ‘Good,’ Amelia said. ‘And Jack?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Some advice. After you’ve got her statement, go home. Get some rest. If Macintosh is in London, there’s not a lot you can do here.’

  Brady didn’t bother to reply. Instead he cut the call. He couldn’t take any more well-intentioned crap. Not any more. He was still a copper. One with a gut feeling that Gates was off on a wild goose chase.

  Which is exactly what Macintosh wanted. Them searching in the wrong place for him and Annabel Edwards. While Brady was isolated and working alone . . . Brady breathed out slowly. He couldn’t shake the feeling he had that Macintosh was playing them – him. But why?

  Chapter Nine

  Saturday: 4:54 p.m.

  ‘Honestly. I’m fine.’ Brady smiled as he shook his head. It was the third time Barbara Houghton had offered him a drink. She had just made herself a gin and tonic. A generous measure at that. First of the day she had said.

  ‘Are you certain you don’t want something, DI Brady?’

  Brady nodded. Smiled. Tried to look relaxed, even if he was anything but. He was in a large 1930’s detached house on Jesmond Dene Road. The spacious living room was surprisingly minimalistic and contemporary. It had a Scandinavian feel to it. One wall of the room was made of glass which faced directly onto a large, well-established garden. It was clear that Barbara Houghton was comfortable in her retirement. What wasn’t so clear were her objectives.

  ‘So . . . what is it exactly that you want to tell me about James David Macintosh?’ Brady asked.

  ‘Well,’ she replied, finally sitting down across from Brady. ‘He lived next door to me for fourteen years. Came when he was six. Sullen, quiet boy.’ She shook her head as she remembered him.

  Brady waited. She was well into her eighties so would have been in her late twenties back then. Not that she looked her age. She was a small-framed woman but she still had fire in her sharp eyes. When she had told Brady that she had been a headmistress at one of the all-girl private schools in Jesmond it hadn’t surprised him. Regardless of her build, she would have been a formidable woman in her day. Barbara had short white hair. No make-up. She wore a woollen check skirt and jacket with a white blouse underneath accompanied with simple, but expensive jewellery. She had a no-nonsense appearance which matched her no-nonsense attitude.

  ‘You really should join me in a gin and tonic, DI Brady,’ she scolded. ‘You could do with some colour in your cheeks.’ She shook her head. ‘Then again, I imagine it must be very difficult for you. I still can’t believe what the papers are publishing. That they’re even allowed to print such things is beyond me.’

  Brady smiled. It was a pained one. Barbara Houghton was more interested in Brady’s infamous career than in offering any information on the suspect.

  ‘I understand that you don’t want to discuss it.’

  Brady nodded. Attentive. Polite. He had a bad feeling that this was going to take some time.

  ‘Right!’ She took a sip of her iced gin and tonic and then looked him straight in the eye.

  Brady waited.

  ‘As I said, James was a sullen, uncommunicative boy. He wasn’t much liked by the other children in the street. Or at school. So I was told. That continued up until the age of eleven. Then things got radically worse. His poor mother Eileen was beside herself. Her husband, Raymond, had recently died of a heart attack. Went to work one morning and didn’t come home. Polite man. He was an officer in the army for years, then took up a post as a civil servant. Worked in London during the week and commuted home every second weekend.’ She looked at Brady, her intelligent blue eyes gauging whether he was interested. Satisfied, she continued. ‘Always got the feeling Raymond didn’t like the boy. And after what James did, I can’t say I blame him.’

  ‘You mean his psychiatrist?’ Brady asked.

  ‘Oh no! This happened years before that. If someone had done their job properly, then James would never have been let out to attack again.’ Her small, delicate hands remained clutched around her crystal tumbler. She took another sip.

  He leaned forward, keen to hear more. ‘I don’t follow?’

  ‘I don’t suppose you would do. No charges were ever pressed. But then Eileen Macintosh sorted it before anyone had a chance to do anything. The boy was gone as soon as she found out. Overnight bag packed and taken immediately to St George’s.’

  Brady shook his head. ‘As in the psychiatric hospital?’

  ‘Yes, in Morpeth. It used to be called St George’s mental asylum back then. Nor was it the first time he had been placed there.’

  Brady frowned.

  ‘Raymond and Eileen arrived here in autumn of 1963. Remember it well. They had rented a house in Whitley Bay for a few months before buying this house. When they moved in, they didn’t have James with them. He didn’t arrive for another six months. Pale, sickly looking boy. Felt sorry for him to begin with. What with Raymond’s draconian strictness and Eileen’s remoteness with the child. I would spend time with him. I never had children you see, DI Brady. Too busy with my teaching career. But not too busy after work or at the weekends to entertain young James.’

  ‘Where had he been?’

  Barbara raised her eyebrows at Brady. ‘Good question. They had said he had been convalescing with relatives in the South. But it later transpired Eileen had had him admitted to St George’s, that he had already spent eight months there when he was six years old. That was how she was able to get him institutionalised so quickly the second time when he was eleven. No fuss. No police involvement. He just disappeared. He was gone for four years. And when he returned he was never the same.’

  Brady absorbed this information. He realised that when the Macintosh family suddenly left Mill Cottage in Northumberland, James David Macintosh must have been immediately placed in St George’s psychiatric hospital. But why? He then thought of the girl in the photographs he had found. Whether there was a connection he couldn’t say. At least, not yet. He accepted that the Macintoshes would not have wanted to divulge such sensitive information to their new neighbours and understood why they would have lied about their six-year-old son’s whereabouts.

  ‘Did James have any siblings that you knew of?’ Brady asked, even though it was clear that Lucy Macintosh had never made it here. But then again, neither had James Macintosh until much later. If Barbara Houghton was correct, he had been placed in a psychiatric hospital for eight months. Could the same have happened to his sister?

  He watched, disappointed, as Barbara shook her head. ‘No. They never mentioned any siblings.’

  ‘What about James? Did he ever mention having a younger sister?’

  Again she shook her head. ‘No. Never. Not that he talked much about his family.’

  Brady waited while she took another sip of her drink. He was suddenly overcome with the desire to have a scotch. But he resisted. The temptation was outweighed by the consequences. He was already being castigated as being professionally incompetent. Throw into the mix drinking on the job – while interviewing a witness – and he would be finished. He needed to focus. ‘What happened for him to be sent to St George’s when he was eleven?’

  Barbara nodded. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at Brady. ‘His behaviour had been escalating. Started really a few months after he first arrived. He would have been seven then. Fights at school. He would come home with his clothes torn and his face covered in cuts and bruises. Wouldn’t talk about it of course. But that didn’t worry me. It was his interest in animals. Unnatural interest, I should add. His parents had bought him a tortoise. Quite an exotic pet in those days. I think they were concerned about him as well. Anyway, Raymond had been burning some garden waste. I then heard a commotion in their garden and I went out to see what was wrong,’ she paused for
a moment as she looked out at her garden. ‘James had thrown his tortoise on the fire. Alive.’

  Brady nodded. Not that he was surprised. Torturing and killing animals was a typical psychopathic trait. The question was how far did he escalate to warrant being locked up in a mental institution for four years?

  ‘What happened next?’

  She shook her head, a look of sadness in her eyes. ‘Well . . . James was severely beaten by Raymond. I heard it. James’ screams. Him begging. And then the silence. The other neighbours heard it. It was hard not to. But in those days . . .’ she faltered. ‘Well, parenting was different back then. And it wasn’t your place to get involved. But the amount of times I wished I had reported it. Don’t get me wrong. I was a stickler for corporeal punishment in my day. But this was different. Raymond nearly killed the boy. Broke his arm and two ribs as well as dislocating his shoulder. The child was unrecognisable when his father had finished with him.’

  Brady couldn’t hide his surprise at this news. ‘And this wasn’t reported to the authorities?’

  ‘No. He was admitted to hospital with the story that he had been climbing a tree in the back garden and had fallen. But maybe Raymond knew what his son was capable of? Maybe that was why his punishment was so . . . so extreme.’ She could see the disbelief in his eyes. ‘As I said, Detective, it was different back then.’

  Brady resisted the urge to reply that it wasn’t that different now. He had dealt with child abuse cases. Arrested parents, step-parents, boyfriends. The evidence typically horrific. It still continued, regardless of the scathing media and press coverage. People knew it was wrong. But it was not enough to deter them from such cruel abuse. Drugs, alcohol and poverty had led to what seemed to be a rise in child abuse. Factors often overshadowed by the brutal consequences.

  His mind went back to a case years ago. He had been a young copper then. But the extreme physical abuse that he had witnessed on the eight-year-old’s murdered body had been an all-too-familiar sight. He was the only officer who had not been visibly traumatised at the scene. The numbness he had felt at the time had shocked him. Shocked his colleagues. However, his own father – then spending time in Durham gaol for murder – had attempted to kill him as a child. Many times. His drunken rages had suddenly ended one night when his mother had intervened. She had saved him and his brother, Nick. But she had paid for it with her life.

  But he had been saved. Unlike the eight-year-old boy he had found. Too late. Again, too late.

  Shame and guilt consumed him, but Brady made himself focus on the present. On Barbara Houghton and whatever information she still had to divulge. The past needed to remain where it was – buried.

  ‘Are you alright, Detective?’ enquired Barbara, her sharp eyes missing nothing.

  ‘Tired. That’s all,’ Brady reassured her. ‘You were about to tell me the reason James was sent back to St George’s?’

  ‘Yes I was. Well, the tortoise was just the beginning. When he came out of hospital he seemed more determined. Focused even. Cats would go missing from the neighbourhood. Owners would put up “Lost” posters. But to no avail. My Persian cat disappeared. Missing for three days. Then I heard her cries coming from the shed at the bottom of the Macintosh’s garden. I presumed she had accidentally been locked in. I knocked at the house and James answered the door. His parents were out. He refused to let me in but said he would check the shed for me. A few minutes later, he returned with my cat wrapped up in a towel. Her body was still warm.’ She stopped for a moment. Took a sip of her drink, then another, before continuing. ‘She had been grotesquely tortured. Patches of her skin had been removed. Not accidental. Cut by a knife. Her ears were both missing and all four paws had been removed. Brutal, it was. And cruel.’

  Brady looked at her. ‘I’m sorry.’ He genuinely meant it. He could see the pain in her eyes.

  ‘Oh I’m fine now,’ she said, batting him off. Her voice was level but her distressed eyes contradicted her calm tone. ‘I just wished I had acted upon it. I . . . knew he had tortured her. Killed her. But I was worried about what Raymond would do to him. He nearly killed the boy when he had thrown his tortoise onto the bonfire. Can you imagine what he would have done to the child if he had known James had killed my cat? Anyway, James had said he had found her in this condition when he opened the shed. Suggested rather lamely that the cat must have been attacked by a fox or something.’

  Brady waited. It was pointless explaining to her that this was very typical behaviour for someone like James David Macintosh.

  ‘I kept my distance then. Had nothing to do with the boy. Until a few years later. His mother was out. His father had not long since died. He was eleven then. I saw him playing with a five-year-old girl in his back garden. I didn’t recognise her as one of the neighbourhood children but I didn’t think any more about it. An hour or so passed before I realised I hadn’t seen or heard them for a while. So I stopped weeding and looked over the garden fence and saw that the shed door was open. I could hear him talking in there. To her. But I didn’t hear the little girl. And that’s when I started to worry.

  ‘I shouted out to James. Asked him what they were doing. He didn’t reply. That’s when I knew something was wrong. I went round to the front of the house and tried the door. It was unlocked. In those days that was usual, unlike now. So I walked through to the back garden. And that’s when I found him. Them. In the shed. He had . . .’ she shook her head at the thought. Her hands gripped the tumbler. ‘He had his hands around her neck and he was choking her with such fury. Such hatred. Such . . . such pleasure.’

  He thought immediately of Ellen Jackson. But that time there had been no one around to stop him strangling her to death.

  ‘What colour was her hair?’ Brady suddenly asked.

  Barbara Houghton looked surprised by the question. ‘Blond. Why?’

  ‘I was just curious,’ Brady lied. He could see in Barbara’s eyes that she knew he was lying. But she didn’t challenge him. His mind went back to the photographs of the blond-haired Lucy Macintosh that he had found at Mill Cottage. Then to the victim murdered in 1977 and to Annabel Edwards. ‘What else had he done to her?’

  ‘He had taken her clothes off and had made her lie down. When I walked in he was straddled over her body. His hands lifting her head. His face so close to hers. As if he was trying to breathe in her last breath.’ She shook her head, disturbed. ‘God only knows what would have happened if I hadn’t walked in when I did.’

  ‘What did you do?’ Brady asked.

  ‘I screamed at him to stop.’

  ‘Why weren’t the police called?’

  Barbara sighed as she looked at him. The horror in her eye gone. Replaced by a defeated acceptance. And a profound sadness.

  ‘I hate to think of what he’s doing to that poor Edwards girl. It turns my blood cold. You see, I’ve looked in his eyes. There is nothing there. Nothing.’ She took a drink. Her hands trembling as she did so. After a couple of meditative mouthfuls she looked back at Brady. ‘Eileen Macintosh begged me not to say anything. That she would deal with it. With him. From what I understood she paid the girl’s mother off. Silenced her with money and the assurance that James would be removed. That he wasn’t well and needed medical help. The girl’s mother, a cleaner for someone in the street I think, agreed.’

  Brady frowned at this.

  ‘Eileen Macintosh could be very persuasive. And she remained true to her word. James left that evening. And I didn’t see him again until he was fifteen.’

  ‘And what was he like when he returned?’

  Barbara smiled. ‘Complete transformation. I don’t know what sort of treatment he received inside St George’s that time, but it worked. He was polite and even . . . well, charming. It was as if he was a different person. He had even changed physically. He returned an attractive young man. Tall, athletic. So when he was arrested and charged with killing his psychiatrist and his family I could not have been more shocked.’

  Brady sa
t back for a moment and contemplated what he had just been told. He wanted to check out St George’s to see whether they still had Macintosh’s medical records. If they did, then they might mention Lucy Macintosh. He knew it was a long shot but it was worth it if it helped him get a better understanding of Macintosh’s mind.

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Houghton. You have been a considerable help.’ Brady stood up.

  Barbara followed suit. ‘I hope so. I wasn’t able to sleep last night knowing he has that poor child. I knew I had no choice but to talk to you. I . . . I still feel guilty for not phoning the police when I found him with the cleaner’s little girl.’

  Brady gave tried to reassure her. ‘It wouldn’t have made any difference. I promise. James David Macintosh would have gone on to kill regardless. He’s just hard-wired that way.’ But he could see that she wasn’t buying it. ‘What happened to Eileen Macintosh when he went to prison?’ Brady added as an after-thought.

  ‘She left. Had no choice really. The press were camped outside her door hounding her. But that wasn’t what made her leave. Nor was it the hate mail and phone calls she started receiving. No. It was the fact that the neighbourhood had ostracised her. No one looked her in the eye. Or talked to her. She was even getting dog faeces pushed through her letter box. Then the bridge club she belonged to turned their back on her. So she left.’

  Brady couldn’t imagine how difficult it must have been to be related to such a high-profile murderer like James David Macintosh. ‘Where did she go?’

  Barbara shook her head. ‘She moved as far away as possible. To the other side of the world. Sydney, Australia, I think. She wanted to start over. Not that I could blame her.’

  Nor could Brady. He just hoped he would be able to track her down in time. He needed to understand why Macintosh had abducted Annabel Edwards. Before it was too late.