Confession (The Mark Pemberton Cases Book 3) Read online

  Confession

  A Mark Pemberton Case

  Nicholas Rhea

  About the Author

  Nicholas Rhea was born in Glaisdale, a Yorkshire Moors Village, in 1936. The oldest of three sons born to an insurance agent and a teacher, he won a scholarship to Whitby Grammar School but left at 16 to become a police cadet. In 1956, he joined the North Yorkshire force in Whitby.

  He began to write seriously in the late 1950s after years of casual interest, having his first short story published in the Police Review. Continuing to rise through the ranks at the region’s Police Headquarters in Northallerton, he published his first novel, Carnaby and the Hijackers, in 1976.

  Rhea is primarily known for his Constable series, inspired by his many years of police service. He retired in 1982 to concentrate on his writing, encouraged by an interest in his Constable books from Yorkshire Television. This was to become the highly popular Heartbeat series, which ran for 18 seasons and over 350 episodes.

  Rhea had four children and eight grandchildren and lived with his wife in a quiet North Yorkshire village. He died in 2017.

  Also By Nicholas Rhea

  The Mark Pemberton Series

  Family Ties

  Suspect

  Confession

  False Alibi

  Grave Secrets

  Death of a Princess

  The Sniper

  Dead Ends

  Murder Under the Midnight Sun

  The Montague Pluke Series

  Omens of Death

  Superstitious Death

  A Well-Pressed Shroud

  A Full-Churchyard

  Prize Murder

  The Carnaby Series

  Carnaby and the Hijackers

  Carnaby and the Goalbreakers

  Carnaby and the Assassins

  Carnaby and the Conspirators

  Carnaby and the Saboteurs

  Carnaby and the Eliminators

  Carnaby and the Demonstrators

  Carnaby and the Infiltrators

  Carnaby and the Kidnappers

  Carnaby and the Counterfeiters

  Carnaby and the Campaigners

  This edition published in 2019 by Agora Books

  First published in Great Britain in 1997 by Constable

  Agora Books is a division of Peters Fraser + Dunlop Ltd

  55 New Oxford Street, London WC1A 1BS

  Copyright © Nicholas Rhea, 1997

  All rights reserved

  You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  Chapter One

  With a crackle of its exhaust, the bright red sports car raced past Detective Superintendent Pemberton’s more leisurely Vauxhall. The action of overtaking seemed to produce a brief and louder reverberation, a throaty roar which sounded alien to this quiet road. It could have been a substitute for a two-fingered V sign, a display of contempt by the young against the mature, because the sports car surged past the Vauxhall as if the latter was moving at snail’s pace.

  Momentarily, Pemberton wondered if the lone driver was trying to impress Lorraine who was sitting in the rear seat of the Vauxhall but he was not tempted to compete. He was not going to challenge the youngster and he was content to watch the car pull away, the thick red hair of the driver vigorously rumpled in the quickening turbulence around his cockpit. It was a young man playing a young man’s game as the gallant little vehicle, aged but lively, bounced and bounded ahead upon the country road.

  On this stretch the carriageway was straight, bordered by neatly trimmed hawthorn hedges and wide verges now rich with the summer growth of meadow flowers. Behind them on either side were open fields with not a house in sight, but Mark Pemberton knew that a very sharp right-hand corner lay just ahead, announced only by a small roadside ‘bend’ sign and a couple of reflector posts.

  There, the geography altered. A stream, running in a deep gulley, flowed beside the carriageway before abandoning its route beside the twists and turns of the road and meandering through the fields to join a distant river. The stream’s path through the meadows was marked by a straggling line of heavily leafed alders and willows, but at this corner it flowed beneath a row of tall, sturdy oaks rooted at its far side, and the road swung sharp right beneath their overhanging branches. Pemberton knew the corner well; everyone had to slow down to safely negotiate such an acute right-hander.

  Then the brake lights of the sports car showed red. The redheaded young man was braking yet the car continued to hurtle forward without any perceptible reduction of its speed. He’d never negotiate that bend. The driver seemed to be struggling with the controls. He should have slowed down long before now; at this late stage, he’d have to brake mightily and with great skill if he was to safely drive his speeding car around that corner.

  Mark Pemberton, cruising at a steady forty-five miles an hour, found his heart pounding at the sight of the onward rushing sports car. An accident seemed inevitable — the overtaker must have been touching eighty when he’d passed Pemberton and now he was fighting for control of the vehicle.

  ‘Look at him!’ Pemberton called to the priest at his side. ‘If I was on duty and in uniform, I’d have him for speeding! He’ll never take that corner…’

  ‘Typical of young people nowadays.’ Father Flynn’s strong Irish accent had a hint of music about it. ‘Always rushing, never enjoying what’s there to be seen around them. But if I had an old car as fit as that one I might be tempted—’

  ‘He’s going to crash!’ cried Lorraine from the rear, as if reading Pemberton’s mind.

  What happened next appeared to be occurring in slow motion. The open-topped car roared ahead as if there was no corner. It sped across the verge and literally took off across the ditch. Upon leaving the road, its long bonnet collided head-on with the immovable trunk of an oak at the far side. There was a sickening thud accompanied by the rending of metal and the crashing of glass and then the car, with its driver slumped over the steering wheel and its engine ominously silent, sank towards the earth. It all seemed to be happening so slowly, like a film. For a moment, everything became very still and Pemberton continued to drive as if he was in a dream. As he approached the scene, he saw that immediately beneath the falling car was the open ditch — it was about ten feet deep and six feet wide with steep banks.

  The wrecked car sank bonnet-first into the depths while its rear wheels, or perhaps the underside of the boot, settled on top of the near bank. As the bonnet disappeared, the car came to rest at a steep angle with its battered nose in the water and its rear end protruding above ground level.

  Then they saw a cloud of something — steam or even smoke. Almost imperceptibly at first, it started to rise from the depths of the ditch. There was no indication of the driver’s fate. From their position of approach, he was out of sight in the ditch but only seconds later, having driven as close as possible, Pemberton halted to assess the accident. He took one look, saw the driver strapped into his seat, made a rapid appraisal of the situation and its dangers, then snapped, ‘Use my car phone, Father; it’s between the seats. Call an ambulance, and the police. Tell them a doctor’s needed — it’s urgent. Lorraine, come with me.’

  As the priest, a large and gentle man in his mid-fifties, began to punch out 999, Pemberton and Lorraine, trained police of
ficers both, leapt from their car and raced to the hissing vintage MG Roadster. From the rim of the ditch, they could see the driver crumpled over the grossly distorted steering wheel and dashboard with his head among the shattered remains of the windscreen. His arms were dangling at each side of his inert body; he was like a rag doll that had been thrown into the wreckage of the fallen car. The impact must have been horrendous. The engine continued to produce ominous hissing noises; there was a smell of petrol, a leak somewhere, and it was all made more threatening by the steam or smoke which continued to issue from the engine cavity, emanating from somewhere beyond his sight. The vehicle had come to rest at an impossibly steep angle, its engine compartment shattered, its ignition system alive and shorting to cast rogue sparks, while its loose contents were strewn about the head and back of the man. Some of his belongings had been thrown out due to the impact and were floating in the shallow water or lying on the mud beside the stream. A black briefcase was amongst them and, somewhat incongruously, Pemberton noticed a heavy road atlas in the outer edge of the shallows of the stream.

  ‘Let’s get him out,’ Pemberton snapped at Lorraine. ‘Seat belt first…’

  Working as a skilled and professional team, they leapt into the ditch, feet sinking into the water up to their calves as Pemberton released the seat belt. His first instinct had been to leave the man alone — with the injuries he had undoubtedly suffered, it would be best if he was not moved without skilled medical attention — and yet, mindful of the dangers from the car itself, there was no choice. The thing could burst into flames at any moment, so the man must be freed immediately; he’d have to be hoisted upwards from his seat. Carefully, Pemberton climbed on to the vehicle. It shifted beneath his weight but settled with him aboard. He had to do this to gain the leverage necessary to lift the unconscious driver. Standing behind and above him with his feet braced against the dashboard, Mark Pemberton put his hands beneath the armpits of the casualty as Lorraine managed to haul open the tiny door. The car began to rock with their movements.

  ‘I hope it doesn’t slide sideways and tipple over…’ Pemberton muttered.

  As he lifted the man free of the seat, Lorraine turned the casualty’s legs to the right, towards the exterior of the car. Pemberton managed to rest the man’s bulk momentarily on the side of the vehicle.

  When he was supported in that position by Lorraine, Mark leapt back into the stream and then controlled the descent of the bloodstained man until he lay across his shoulder in the fireman’s lift position. By this stage, the smell of petrol had intensified while the hissing continued. Petrol from the elevated tank was being thrust out of a fractured pipe; it was squirting out under the pressure. Fire was the real and imminent danger; Pemberton must not relax. With the casualty over his right shoulder, chest, head and arms dangling down his back, the detective clasped his right arm around the back of the man’s knees. With his load securely aboard, Pemberton now hurried along the bed of the stream in water up to his calves seeking a place to clamber out. Lorraine, having found a route to the top of the bank, indicated the spot and Mark Pemberton aimed for it.

  Meanwhile, Father Flynn had contacted the emergency services and was running along the top of the ditch, hands reaching out to help Pemberton clamber to the level of the road with his inert burden. He struggled out of the ditch some thirty yards from the wrecked sports car. Moments later, it made a whooshing sound; within seconds it was encased in flames and smothered with black smoke which rose into the air in a thick cloud. Meanwhile, other cars had halted behind Pemberton’s and people were asking if they could help. There was noise and chatter now; the silence of those awful first moments had been broken as the rescue operation continued.

  ‘I’ll put him down here,’ Pemberton said with relief, panting beneath the weight of the rescued man. Lowering himself to his knees, he gently allowed the man to be eased from his shoulders by the priest and Lorraine. Now free from danger, they laid him carefully on the grass verge, face upwards, and endeavoured to make him as comfortable as possible. They could see that his face was smashed and bloody, one arm appeared to be lying at an awkward angle, there was blood oozing from his chest, lots of it…his chest was a mess. A terrible mess. Pemberton also worried about the casualty’s neck, mindful of the impact against the steering wheel. Where his broken body had rested against Mark’s shoulders and back, the immaculate summer shirt and light trousers were soaked in rich red blood. Arterial blood.

  ‘You told the emergency services where to come, Father?’ asked Pemberton.

  ‘I did, Mr Pemberton, sure I did.’

  ‘He’s breathing, thank God,’ Mark whispered to Lorraine. ‘I couldn’t give him respiration of any kind, not with those injuries to his face and chest…I think his chest’s caved in, his rib cage is smashed by the look of it.’

  He shouldn’t have been moved, Pemberton told himself yet again, but there had been no alternative. God knows what his heart and lungs must be like, or his spine, neck bones, internal organs.

  ‘If we touch his chest,’ he said to Lorraine, ‘we could do terrible damage but we need to stem the blood, it’s from an artery, or arteries…’

  In the surrounding noise and commotion, Pemberton spoke so that the injured man would not hear his words or learn of his concern. You never told a casualty how serious their injuries were — you had to reassure them, make them believe they were going to survive and that they were being cared for by knowledgeable and attentive people. That was elementary first aid. But Mark Pemberton had seen this sort of injury before. The man was in a desperate state, and he needed urgent medical care. As Lorraine attended to the growing number of watchers and would-be helpers, trying to keep traffic moving and urging a small group of spectators to keep off the road and away from the casualty, Mark and the priest remained with him. Mark was trying to decide the best way to treat this man, wondering what he could do now to prevent his death or prolong his life until expert help was available.

  He had to stem the flow of blood, that was vital. He knelt at the man’s side to examine him at close range, the priest doing likewise at the opposite side. The expression on Pemberton’s face revealed everything to the priest. Mark recalled a motorcycle accident where the casualty had suffered similar appalling injuries — he had died soon afterwards in spite of intensive roadside care. First aid could not cope with such appalling damage to human bodies.

  ‘We’d better not touch him; it’s a hospital job.’ Mark examined the man’s mouth to make sure his tongue had not moved to obstruct the rear of his throat.

  ‘His eyes flickered,’ breathed the priest, continuing to squat at the man’s side opposite Mark. ‘He’s alive, thank God.’

  Then the young man opened his eyes. They looked bright against the bloodied skin of his face and the rich red colour of his hair, but for a few seconds did not appear to be focused upon any particular thing or person. Then they fixed not upon Pemberton but upon the dog collar of the priest. For a fleeting moment, a frown appeared on the injured man’s brow and then his frightened eyes moved to look the priest in the eye. He had recognised the helper as a Catholic priest; he knew that beyond all doubt, and it seemed to give him some relief. A smile appeared on his face and then there followed a long moment of silence before the casualty, apparently oblivious to Pemberton’s presence, gasped, ‘Father, I’m going to die…I know I am.’ Then he blurted, ‘Father, I committed murder…I haven’t been to confession since then…God forgive me…she didn’t deserve that…’

  The man’s words became fainter as the priest leaned nearer and then his eyes again closed as the confession dwindled into a mere whisper. Having heard the reference to murder, Pemberton automatically leaned closer to catch anything that might follow, but he failed to distinguish anything further. The man was talking quickly and quietly, speaking at some length as the priest leaned very close to his face, hoping it would help him hear the man’s urgent whispered outpourings. In spite of Pemberton’s detective instincts and in s
pite of the reference to murder, his own good manners told him he should not eavesdrop.

  He moved away because this was a dying man’s confession, a moment of total honesty in the last seconds of his life, a vital link between him and a priest, the easing of a terrible burden as he went to meet his God. But in spite of his reservations, Pemberton could not ignore the fact that he had overheard a wholly voluntary admission of murder. For any detective, that was wonderful, a freely made statement of the finest kind, a firm and free admission of guilt. But to which murder was the red-haired man referring?

  As Pemberton remained at his side, he ceased to whisper to the priest who then uttered the words of absolution as he made the sign of the cross. Then the youngster’s battered head turned to one side as his tortured body visibly relaxed. It looked as if he had suddenly fallen asleep. While his little car burned like an inferno in the ditch, the man’s life came to a quick and peaceful end. Quite suddenly, it was all over. With blue light flashing and siren sounding, an ambulance arrived and Lorraine guided the driver towards the casualty.

  ‘He’s gone,’ said the priest. ‘May the Lord have mercy on his soul.’

  Chapter Two

  Because an ambulance should not be used to convey a dead body from the scene of a traffic accident, Pemberton produced his warrant card and told the driver, ‘He’s still alive; he needs a hospital immediately. Urgent.’

  The driver did not argue with the bloodstained detective. Within a few moments, the mortal remains of the red-haired driver were being placed in the ambulance for a speedy journey to the hospital. He’d be declared DOA — dead on arrival — but it was a practical ploy to effect the removal of the body. As the ambulance sped smoothly away, a uniformed traffic constable approached Pemberton. He was one of a double-crewed patrol car.