The Lazarus Secrets by Beryl Coverdale Page A

Darrington. He didn’t want the flow interrupted.
    Calway continued, “I realised she was crying because I was holding her too tightly, she tried to pull away but I couldn’t let her go. She was too perfect, too precious. I just wanted her to stay with me a little longer, but she got frightened and began screaming really loudly. I panicked and put my hand over her mouth and in the struggle we fell to the ground. I fell on top of her. I can’t believe I did what I did.”
    â€œYou raped her?” Darrington said.
    Calway put his head down and wept bitterly, “Yes.” For a few moments he covered his face with his hands while his accusers watched in stony silence, then brushing aside the tears, eyes fixed on his long fingers now interlocked in his lap, he continued in a flat unemotional voice. “She didn’t move and I thought she was dead. I was horrified. I was going to run away but suddenly she did move. She wasn’t dead and she would tell everyone and I was so scared, I didn’t know what I was doing. Her eyes opened and she began to scream again so I put my hands on her throat and mouth, just to keep her quiet. She seemed to die instantly.”
    â€œWhat did you do next?”
    â€œI sat with her for ages just holding her in my arms. I think I was hoping she would come round again, that she wasn’t really dead, but I suppose I knew she was. I picked her up, she was as light as a feather, and I put her underneath a thick bush and pushed the bike in beside her and covered her with branches and then I left.”
    â€œDid you see anyone else on the Common?”
    Calway was calm almost detached as he described his monstrous actions lucidly and with precision. “I saw the Reverend Phillips in the distance, I used to go to the youth club at his church when I was younger and I thought he might recognise me. He had his head down and I couldn’t be sure if he’d seen me. So, I took off across the Common, out of his line of vision and I ran and ran until I was almost home, at the other side of the town. I went into the supermarket and Averill Platt was at the checkout, I knew her from school so I got into a conversation with her. I thought if anyone had seen me on the Common, Averill would say I was in the supermarket around that time. I told her I’d been looking for black shoe polish for ages to give the impression I’d been there for a while.”
    Darrington breathed out heavily, that was exactly what had happened. Calway was interviewed at the time of the murder, as someone possibly seen on the Common. He had been most helpful and even with his suspicious policeman’s mind Darrington had not regarded him as a serious suspect.
    Calway looked relaxed. His confession discharged he was at peace with himself. They always are , thought Darrington bitterly, when they’ve passed on the horror .
    Known in police and criminal circles as ‘Red Max’ for red his hair and bad temper, Darrington had a tough reputation, but still had not managed to harden himself to crimes involving children. The perpetrators usually ranged from pathetic specimens who had been headed toward the eventual sick conclusion since birth, to the ignorant and unrepentant who, after denying and threatening, pleaded a variety of mitigating circumstances purely to negate their punishment. Either way it was easy to dislike, even hate, such people but not this young man. Ivor James Calway reminded him of his own sons, a fact he found deeply disturbing.
    Sergeant Jean Morrison read back the statement in a voice barely concealing outrage. It was usually Darrington who took the role of aggressor while she, totally belying her true nature, coaxed and cajoled suspects to unburden to her and be saved from wrath of the frightening ‘Red Max’. More often than not the tactic was successful but there were no motherly tones for the child killer.
    Calway was formerly charged. Sergeant