Free Dead and Buried by Anne Cassidy Page B

BTW sorry for the other night. XXX
    Three kisses. She felt herself soften. She sent a reply. See you just after five. XXX
     
    She rang the bell to the flat and heard Joshua’s footsteps coming down the stairs.
    ‘Hi!’ he said. ‘Come up.’
    She followed him. In the kitchen he helped her take off her coat and put it and her bag on a chair. She looked round and saw, with dismay, that it looked bare. The pots and pans that Skeggsie had lined up on the shelves had gone. The pictures that had been on the wall were gone. The work surface was clear of his mugs and the giant see-through salt and pepper shakers. None of it was there any more. Joshua saw her looking.
    ‘A bit empty now. I’ll have to buy a few things . . .’
    Rose noticed something on the work surface behind Joshua. A large padded brown envelope. On the outside were the words Private and Confidential. Joshua Johnson.
    ‘This arrived,’ he said, picking it up.
    Joshua looked excited. Rose sat down at the narrow long table where she’d been on many occasions before.
    ‘It came by post.’
    Joshua put his hand inside the envelope and pulled out a number of exercise books. This made Rose sit up. She didn’t speak but watched as Joshua laid the books out on the table. There were four of them. Rose stared at them one after the other.
    ‘The rest of the notebooks,’ he finally said.
    ‘Frank Richards must have sent them,’ she said, her voice low, ‘after he saw us in Wickby. He must have decided to send them.’
    Joshua nodded.
    She pulled one of the books towards her. She frowned. It was exactly the same as the two that they had once had in their possession. When she opened the first page there was a photograph there. The rest of the book was full of coded writing, page after page of unreadable prose. She closed it and pulled another one across. Then another. In the end the four books were lined up in front of her.
    There was, however, something different about these books. They had a name and a date written across the cover in neat black capitals. The one she was holding had 2005 GEORGE USHER on it. She picked up the others – 2007 MICHAEL McCALL, 2008 RONNIE BINYON, 2010 JAMES BARKER.
    ‘Frank Richards has given us more information,’ Joshua said. ‘He’s identified the men in these notebooks, the men who were executed.’
    Executed . Rose flinched at the word. It brought to mind a man with an axe or a hangman, an anonymous person who dispassionately ended the life of someone else.
    ‘You remember what James Munroe said when we were in Newcastle?’
    She dragged her eyes away from the books. The printing on the covers was precise in a straight line, as though Frank Richards had written the names with a ruler underneath. She must have looked blank because Joshua went on.
    ‘He said that six evil men had been removed from our society. If you count the Butterfly Murder as the first one plus Viktor Baranski, that leaves four. These are the four other men who have been removed . If you look at the inside of the back cover of each of the books you’ll see some other information.’
    Rose took the first one and opened it up at the back. The word Judgement was there and underneath the details of the death of George Usher. It was blunt and cold. She picked up the second book and saw the word Judgement again and the name of Michael McCall. Again the cause of death was stated. A single word. No emotion at all.
    ‘I’ve made a list of them, here, look. I’ve included Baranski even though we don’t have his notebook any more.’
    On a piece of A4 paper was a bulleted list.
     
    • 2005 December George Usher: Shot.
    • 2006 August Viktor Baranski: Drowned.
    • 2007 July Michael McCall: Stabbed.
    • 2008 June Ronnie Binyon: Hit and Run.
    • 2010 December James Barker: Fell under a tube train.
     
    ‘What about the other two? The boy from my college and Skeggsie?’
    ‘They don’t count. They’re not part of this project. You know that. These are