Recompense

by Caroline Goldsworthy

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  10th July 2018

  Gippingford

  ‘Mrs Waite?’ asked DC Lacey of the white-haired woman who answered the door. ‘Remember me? Once again, I wanted to say how sorry I am for your loss.’

  ‘You’d better come in,’ came the reply. ‘Don’t stand on the doorstep. I’ve got another of your lot in the kitchen. She keeps making me tea. I don’t want tea. I want my son.’ The old lady’s eyes glittered but Jane saw the jaw was firm as the woman held back her tears.

  Jane stepped over the threshold into the tiny hallway. She nodded at the PC who was in the kitchen tending to a boiling kettle.

  Mrs Waite opened the door of the sitting room. Jane followed.

  ‘Tell me about Adam. What was he like?’ she asked.

  ‘He was a good boy. Always looked after me. Brought me presents and sent postcards from his trips.’ Mrs Waite gesticulated at the display cabinet which was filled with trashy knickknacks from Spanish tourist shops.

  ‘Spain was his favourite?’ Jane observed.

  ‘Yes, always had been since he was a little boy. We used to go to Benidorm. Tried Marbella once, you know on the Costa del Sol, but we preferred Benidorm. Much more home from home, you know?’

  Jane nodded encouragingly.

  ‘Adam’s been to other parts now, though. He likes… liked to travel. Even went to that bull run thing once, can’t remember where. He brought a T-shirt back. It’s upstairs, so I can show you in a bit.’ She shifted her gaze to the sideboard and the photographs of her son throughout his school years, and the tears fell. ‘Such a good boy.’

  Jane shifted uncomfortably in her seat, and the family liaison officer walked in with more tea and a carton of tissues. She knelt by Mrs Waite and held her hand until the tears slowed. To Jane she nodded her head indicating the upstairs of the house.

  ‘May I see Adam’s room?’ Jane asked, taking the hint. ‘Perhaps you can show me some of his things?’

  Mrs Waite sniffed and struggled to her feet, and Jane followed her upstairs.

  The room was that of a teenage boy, not a man of twenty-nine. There was a Buzz Lightyear toy on the bookshelf, posters of scantily-clad female singers, and the Athena poster of the tennis player with no knickers. Jane reckoned she’d seen it on the wall of every man who still lived with his mother. Adam’s bedroom, however, didn’t have the ripe smell of the other victims’ rooms in this case. Perhaps because his mother cleaned it for him.

  ‘What can you tell me about Adam’s friends?’ she asked, dragging herself away from the pathetic contents of the room.

  ‘They were a bad lot. I kept telling him, but he wouldn’t listen. I said they’d get him into trouble and I was right wasn’t I? They’ve got him killed.’

  ‘How do you mean, Mrs Waite?’

  ‘First there was that Steven. Stevo he liked to be called. Then Matt, he wasn’t a bad lad. He and Adam had been friends since school. Then Nick and now my boy.’ She pointed to the corkboard. Photos of Adam with a group of men his age. Holiday snaps in various places. ‘This is the T-shirt I was telling you about.’

  Jane looked at a red T-shirt with an image of a bull and men running from it. All were dressed in white, with red neckerchiefs and long red scarves with tassels tied around their waists. She’d seen a scarf like that before. ‘May I take this, Mrs Waite?’ she asked. ‘I’ll make sure you get it back. Did he do this often?’

  ‘No, dear. He didn’t like it much. The bulls were a lot bigger than he’d imagined. He changed after that trip. Didn’t go out so much. He seemed a lot quieter. Even had a few nightmares.’ The old woman clutched the T-shirt to her chest, and her tears flowed again.

  Jane held her hand out and Mrs Waite gave it to her reluctantly. ‘I’ll take good care of it,’ she promised.

  ‘And will you find out who killed my son?’

  ‘I can assure you that we are, and will continue to do, our very best to bring your son’s murderer to justice,’ said Jane.

  13th July 2018

  Wheelwrights Bar, Gippingford

  ‘When’s the funeral?’ Aaron Hammond asked, raising his pint in a silent salute to their dead friend.

  ‘No, idea,’ muttered Joe Davis. ‘I’m not sure I’m gonna go.’

  ‘Why the hell not? He was our friend. You’ve been to the other funerals.’ Aaron’s voice was loud enough for people in the bar to turn around and stare at them.

  ‘Perhaps I’m sick of funerals. We’ve been to a fair few recently. I keep wondering when mine’s going to be.’ Joe put his glass down and twisted it around on the table in the puddle formed by the condensation.

  Aaron said nothing. It wasn’t as if he’d failed to notice how many of his friends were dying either. He had grown anxious. Constantly checking over his shoulder to see if he was being followed, varying both his route home and the times of leaving work. If this was what being a spy was like, he wasn’t cut out for it. The lifestyle looked glamorous on the screen. His parents were huge fans of the James Bond films and he’d spent his childhood watching them. Now that he was wondering if today was the day he was going to be killed, it all seemed a lot less beguiling.

  He realised that Joe was talking. ‘I missed that. Say again,’ he said.

  ‘I think we should demand police protection,’ Joe said.

  ‘You are fucking kidding me!’ Aaron laughed aloud. ‘After all you said to Adam. If you’d allowed him to go to the police when he wanted to, he might still be alive.’

  ‘We might be next,’ Joe insisted. His jaw was thrust forward, making him look like a petulant, but bearded, toddler. ‘We have rights don’t we? We pay taxes and council tax. We pay their wages. We should get something back.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Aaron. ‘But I bet there’s nothing they can do to help us.’

  14th July 2018

  Gippingford Police HQ

  ‘You need to protect us, we’re the victims here!’ Joe Davis slapped his hands on the table causing ripples in the cup of cold coffee in front of him.

  ‘How on earth do you work that out?’ Jane began, but Carlson placed a hand on her forearm.

  ‘We don’t have the resources to put you under police protection,’ he explained more formally than Jane’s explosion, but essentially it was the same message. Privately he thought the two men’s past actions had caused the trouble that they were in, and even if he did have the resources, he would struggle to justify protecting them. This was not their first time in a police interview room. Even the ease in which they sat themselves at the other side of the table indicated a level of, not exactly comfort, but certainly familiarity with their surroundings. Before coming down to speak with them he and Jane had taken a deep dive into the men’s previous encounters with the law. Neither were as pure as the driven, both were named suspects in several sexual assaults, although nothing had gone to trial. Victims who had made a complaint, with alarming regularity, withdrew the claim later. Now, however, of their little gang, four were dead, and the last two were in front of him.

  Carlson realised that Davis was standing and preparing to leave. ‘I can only suggest that you stay somewhere else for the time being until we catch this guy,’ he said, although not hurrying to rise himself. ‘Change your routines, go a different way to work at different times. Better still take some time off and move away for a few weeks.’

  ‘A few weeks?’ Davis shouted. ‘I’ve got a living to make, you know! I can’t take a few weeks off and hide myself away. If this bloke has got something to say he can damn well come and say it to my face. I ain’t afraid of no one.’

  ‘Very good,’ said Carlson and he rose too. ‘Do take care of yourselves, both of you. Jane, find someone to show these gentlemen out, could you?’

  Jane nodded and slipped out of the room, returning momentarily with a uniformed officer. She held the door ajar for the two men.

  ‘Good luck,’ said Carlson as Davis and Hammond sauntered to the door. Davis turned. His face reddened a
nd harsh – dark eyes glittering as his upper lip twisted into a sneer. Whatever he was about to say was lost, as Hammond grabbed him by the arm and pulled him away.

  Hammond gave Carlson a curt nod and pushed his friend after the uniformed PC.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  4th October 2016

  Bristol

  ‘How have you been?’ Torrie asked. ‘Have you been getting out and seeing people?’

  Lissa rested her head on the back of the armchair, wondering what to say. Jenni had been away with her parents again and so there had been no walks or trips to cafés. All of her old friends had agreed to come to the flat to see her and then cancelled at the last moment, citing problems with babysitters or sick toddlers. She opened her eyes and sneaked a peek at Torrie. ‘I’ve not done very well,’ she said. ‘In fact this is the only time I get out of the flat.’

  ‘How are you occupying your time?’

  Lissa flushed. ‘Reading,’ she said. ‘Sometimes my parents come over. Life is pretty quiet.’ She twisted her hands in her lap, eventually chewing the edge of her thumbnail. Her legs trembled and she began tapping her shoe on the floor.

  ‘I see,’ said Torrie. ‘Are you still taking your medication?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And how about the breathing exercises? How are you getting on with them?’ Torrie probed.

  ‘Okay, when I remember to do them. Most of the time I just sit and stare into space. My thoughts are either racing or I feel completely shut down. Hours pass and I don’t know where they went.’

  Torrie nodded. ‘If Jenni is no longer at the house would it make sense to move back in with your parents? How would you feel about that?’

  ‘They don’t understand. They think that I should be the same as I always was. That I should put it all behind me and move on, but I’m not finding that so easy. I find it hard going out of the flat because I am scared that I will run into them.’ She raised her hand as if to silence Torrie. ‘Yes, I know that makes no sense. I have no idea where they are, but I do know that they are out there somewhere.’

  ‘How do you feel towards your attackers?’ Torrie asked.

  ‘Numb mostly. My father is angry. He’s surprised that I am not angrier. I tried to explain all the things that I have lost and he can’t believe that I am not angry about those.’

  ‘Which things have you lost most of?’

  Lissa snorted a bitter laugh. ‘What haven’t I lost? Freedom. My job. My livelihood. Photography and the blog were my life. Now that’s all gone, but I don’t have the energy to be angry. I just want to curl up in a ball and hope it all goes away.’

  ‘Do you still want to harm yourself?’ Torrie pushed the tissues closer and Lissa grabbed one, screwing it into a ball.

  ‘I don’t even have the energy for that anymore. I’m just so tired all the time.’ She pulled at the tissue, tearing it into shreds which she dropped on the floor.

  ‘What does Dr Jarman say?’

  ‘He’s increased the antidepressants and told me to get some fresh air. I’m not sure he really understands.’ Lissa sighed and put her head in her hands. ‘I hate feeling like this. I really do, but I don’t seem to be able to move past it.’ She caught sight of the clock and gathered up the shreds of tissue.

  ‘I’ll see you next week, Torrie.’ She sighed and walked out the door.

  Lissa pulled open the street door and stood on the threshold, willing herself to step onto the path. It was cracked in places, the paving slabs slightly uneven, and she watched a pensioner on the other side of the road pulling her shopping trolley along. Sod it, she thought. If she can, then so can I.

  She was about to move forward when someone called her name. It was him. The one from the hospital. The one she thought Torrie had planted on her. Even so, was he following her?

  ‘Hi, remember me?’ He trotted up to her but kept an arm’s length away.

  ‘Of course,’ she said stiffly.

  ‘Fancy a coffee?’ he said.

  Lissa hesitated for a moment before accepting. Did she want to get her life back or not? If she wanted to recover then there was no time like the present, she told herself. Her body trembled and she did not dare to speak as she didn’t trust her voice, but she followed him into a café three doors away from the consulting rooms. She collapsed into a chair facing out at the other customers in the café. She had made it.

  Mal slid into the seat opposite her. ‘I got you a flat white,’ he said. ‘I seem to remember you had milk in your coffee at the hospital.’

  Lissa nodded, hardly hearing what he was saying, still shocked and shaking from having made it into the café. Suddenly realising that he was still speaking she said, ‘I’m sorry. What were you saying?’

  ‘Nothing important,’ he smiled. ‘Just saying I liked the short hair. It suits you.’

  Lissa reached up to her left ear and stroked the shortened strands. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘My mother hates it. But then she hated my short hair when I was younger. Said it made me look like a tomboy.’

  ‘And were you?’

  ‘Was I what?’ Lissa frowned, wondering how much of the conversation she had missed.

  ‘Were you a tomboy?’

  ‘Oh. Well yes, no, maybe. I’m not really sure. I had a bike and raced with the boys, but I hung out with girls in the village too. There were only about seven of us children in Nunney when I was growing up there. Anyway how are things with you?’

  ‘Good, thanks,’ he said, stirring his coffee, although Lissa could not recall him putting any sugar in. ‘How about you?’

  ‘Meh,’ she replied. ‘I just had a session with Torrie and I’m not sure I’m making any progress.’

  ‘Can I ask why you see her?’ He tilted his head to one side, an anxious smile flitting across his lips.

  ‘I thought you knew,’ Lissa frowned. ‘Didn’t you say we were both suffering from PTSD?’

  ‘I did but I wasn’t sure why you were. I just seemed to recognise some of your symptoms.’

  ‘I see,’ said Lissa. She fell silent, not sure that there was anything she could say to him that she’d not already tried to say to Torrie.

  ‘Are you able to talk about it? To tell me why?’ His face seemed as guileless as a child’s.

  I opened my mouth to say no, later I was unable to explain why or how it happened, but I told him everything that I had been bottling up for months. I don’t know what made it the moment to talk. It just happened. Perhaps it was the childlike face, the crooked smile, or perhaps it was simply because he asked.

  I found myself telling him the lot. Words that had been backed up in my head, my stomach, were suddenly discharged. I wasn’t angry, I told him. I was still too numb to be angry, but I talked about my father and his rage. I was afraid for my father if the men were ever discovered. Afraid for what he might try to do. He was no longer a young man and, knowing what they had done to me, I had no trouble envisaging the pain and torture they would inflict on an old man.

  As I spoke, I saw Malcolm’s face taking on my anger, and I realised how much I had lied to myself. Of course I was angry. What an idiot I was to deny it. I had been lying to my parents, to Torrie and, above all to myself, it was the reason I was still stuck in the persona of victim. I want to be a survivor, I told him. I want my life back, I said. Ranted, to be honest. People had started to turn their heads to look at us, wondering if I was shouting at him; with good reason I suppose. Perhaps I was. I didn’t know. I didn’t care. Every emotion that I had been keeping buried deep inside me, burst out. The torrent was unstoppable.

  My forefinger became sore. I looked at it and saw it was bleeding. I had cracked the nail while tapping the table furiously as I emphasised each point and a shard had embedded itself in the nailbed. Mal wrapped a tissue around it and held my hand. At first I wanted to pull away, but realised that one of the things I had missed was the touch of another human. A caring, non-sexual touch. I had rejected all hugs from my parents and even with Jenni I had only e
ndured them, but hers were quick and not cloying. I was able to bear them. Just.

  I felt hot tears fall down my face, but I wasn’t sad. It was relief. Pure and simple. The understanding that finally someone saw me. Saw my pain and reciprocated with their own. I had finally found a true friend.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  16th July 2018

  Gippingford Police HQ

  ‘Okay, settle down,’ Carlson shouted. ‘Let’s have a catch-up on where we are. As you know we have an addition to our list of victims and, as you can imagine, Mr Tasker is not at all pleased with the progress so far. And, you know what? I don’t blame him.’

  Carlson glared around the room, although he knew it was not the fault of the effort his team had put in. Every single one of them was exhausted by the hours they had clocked up over the last few months with little to show for it. He was now under pressure to review the case with a more experienced senior investigating officer from Scotland Yard. Although the Yard no longer swanned in and took cases over as they had in the past, Carlson was determined to see the case through to the end. Tasker’s recommendation of consulting a profiler who worked with the National Crime Agency, however, might be one he needed to consider. Frankly he was getting to the stage where he’d consult the mystic from a popular daily newspaper if it would get him a result.

  He took a sip of tea and prepared to create more energy in the team. ‘We now have four young men, fit young men, more than capable of putting up a fight. Dead and mutilated in a variety of different ways. How did our killer manage to lure them to their deaths? How did he overpower them? Questions you lot need to be finding the answers for!

  ‘Now, if that wasn’t enough,’ Carlson continued. ‘We have these two gems, put the photos up please, Jane, asking for police protection.’