Free Those Who Feel Nothing by Peter Guttridge Page B

constables.’
    â€˜Bernard,’ his lawyer said quickly.
    Rafferty sat beside his lawyer and shook his hand heartily. Rafferty’s lawyer tried for expressionless but Gilchrist could see he was having trouble concealing his discomfort. Gilchrist gave the lawyer a look. He held it for a moment then looked down.
    â€˜Tell me about you and graveyards,’ Gilchrist said to Rafferty.
    â€˜Graveyards fascinate me,’ Rafferty said. ‘I know more about them than almost any living person. I should – I’ve been studying them for around twenty-five years.’
    â€˜Studying them?’ Gilchrist said.
    â€˜For years now I’ve been visiting cemeteries around Brighton and churchyards on the Downs to dig up women. I like them to be aged between fifteen and twenty-five.’
    Gilchrist looked at Heap.
    â€˜How did you get the remains home?’ Heap said.
    â€˜Bin bags. Those thick ones for the garden? Sometimes I’d dig up two in a night.’
    â€˜And put them in separate bags?’
    â€˜Not necessarily. It didn’t matter anyway. Part of the fun was taking the skeletons apart and putting all the different bones of the women back together in new combinations.’
    â€˜So the skeletons we found in your basement—’
    â€˜That’s right. Not all the bones in one skeleton are from one person.’
    Gilchrist found herself gripping the edges of the table. ‘Did you keep track of whose bones went where?’
    He laughed. ‘Heavens, no! Why would I do that? What mattered was the end result.’
    â€˜Why did you dress them up?’
    â€˜So they’d look nice at teatime.’
    Gilchrist looked down at her hands. She was a big-boned woman but her hands, whilst long-fingered, were relatively neat and tapered. She lifted them off the table. Her knuckles were white. She wondered idly if they were too narrow to knock Rafferty out with one punch. She wouldn’t mind trying one day. She had long despised Rafferty for the oleaginous creep he was but add this sick activity …
    â€˜You say you’ve been doing this for years,’ she said, keeping her voice level. ‘How many women have you dug up?’
    Rafferty raised his scrawny shoulders. ‘I didn’t bother counting. And they are hardly women, are they, Detective Inspector? They’re bags of bones. Corporeal life has left them – as has their spirit, if you think in those superstitious terms. Do
you
need to think in those superstitious terms?’
    â€˜How many?’ Heap repeated.
    The lawyer put his hand lightly on Rafferty’s arm.
    â€˜Let me think,’ Rafferty said. ‘I’ve probably spent around seven hundred and fifty nights in cemeteries.’
    â€˜Seven hundred and fifty?’ Gilchrist tried to make her voice expressionless.
    â€˜Over many years, that’s probably about right.’ Rafferty tried for a confiding expression. It came off as a leer. ‘I like to sleep in them sometimes. Often in a coffin.’
    She almost didn’t notice that last remark as she was doing the maths on the first.
    â€˜You’ve dug up seven hundred and fifty women?’
    Although she tried, Gilchrist failed to keep the high pitch of shock out of her voice.
    â€˜Calm down, dear,’ Rafferty said. ‘No, no, no – though that would be quite something, wouldn’t it? But where would I put so many house guests? No – I didn’t dig them up every time I was in a cemetery.’
    â€˜How often?’
    â€˜Maybe one in three visits.’
    â€˜Two hundred and fifty women,’ Gilchrist stated, her voice only a little lower down the register.
    â€˜Is it? Goodness, that’s quite a lot of digging. No wonder I have trouble with my back.’
    â€˜So where are they all?’ Heap said, all business-like.
    Rafferty yawned. He actually yawned. Gilchrist had the urge to reach over and slap it off his face. ‘Oh,