Killing Jericho: A Heart-Stopping Thriller (The Scott Jericho Crime Thrillers Book 1) by Will Harker

Author:Will Harker [Harker, Will]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: End House Publishing
Published: 2020-12-06T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

THE ROTTED DOOR YIELDED to my shoulder and the breath of old house swarmed out to greet us. This wasn’t the same kind of stink as Miss Debney’s cottage. That had been the cloying odour of a living death; this was the smell of mould and absence and decay. We thumbed torchlight from our phones and swept it through the gloom.

“You’d think they’d lock up the place more securely,” I said.

My voice didn’t echo but seemed to sink into the emptiness.

“I reckon they’ve given up trying.” Harry ran his light across walls covered with graffiti tags. On the floor at the foot of the stairs, a couple of stained mattresses lay side by side, springs twirling through, full of the rusty promise of lockjaw. “Anyway, the kids seem to have got bored of their local haunted house. Hardly anyone comes here now.”

“Someone’s been here,” I said.

Before going inside, I’d secured Webster’s leash to one of the porch posts. He now gave us a weary blink and immediately sank his head to his forepaws.

Harry and I stepped over the threshold. Pushing through swags of spider web, we crossed the uncarpeted hall, careful to avoid the broken glass and discarded syringes that littered the floor. At the stairs, I nudged aside one of the mattresses with the toe of my boot and examined the first footprint on the step.

“Trainer, size ten. Fake brand.”

“How can you tell?” Harry asked.

“Pattern of the imprint. The circles are irregular and unevenly spaced. Brands take pride in that kind of nonsense.”

“So what does that tell you?”

“Not much. Other than that, from the sharpness of the print, he was here recently.”

“Do you think it has anything to do with your case?”

It was then that I noticed the letters carved into the newel post. Just a penknife scratch, but unmistakable: AFAMR. The initials of the bridge moto. The faceless creature who had spared Miss Debney and slaughtered three others had been here all right, and the footprints belonged to him. As he’d turned to carve his obsessive trademark, the outline of his right trainer had been scuffed and blurred in the dust.

“It could rule out an obvious suspect,” I said.

I followed the path of the footprints with my eyes. As I’d said to Garris, unless Campbell was a consummate actor, there was no way he was capable of walking up a flight of stairs unaided. And Miss Barton? Those tiny feet slopping around in a pair of size ten trainers? The image was almost laughable.

I’d taken the first couple of steps when Harry grabbed the back of my jacket.

“What are you doing? This whole building could come down at any moment.”

“I have to check something out,” I said. “You can wait outside, I won’t be a minute.”

His lips set into a thin line, but still, he followed as I edged my way up the staircase. Like the killer, I kept away from the bannister, my shoulder to the wall where the stair was more firmly planted. Nevertheless, the whole structure shuddered as we ascended.

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