Only the Dead Know

by C. J. Dunford

Truce wants to roar his rage, but he has no control over anything. All he sees is white. All he hears is the sound of roaring silence — the aftermath of an explosion. The fucker. The stupid bloody fucker. He’s got himself killed. It’s Truce’s fault. Truce was meant to protect him. He knew the risks. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  And then as his senses come together — shit, oh shit. Where is Leighton? Dear God, don’t let him have been caught in this, too.

  Then the pain comes. Flattening him like an express train. They got them, too. Not just the prisoner. All of them have been caught in the bomb. It’s not only the flare. He’s been hurt. Is he dying? He prays for the first time in decades as the pain streams through him once more, filling every cell with an agony he never knew he could bear. Dear God, he prays, let me die rather than live as some twisted, misshapen shell. He’s seen others caught in improvised explosive devices — IEDs. Death is preferable. To him. Again, the pain, stronger, fiercer, deeper, pulling him down through time, down to the forgotten abyss, down into forgiving darkness.

  CHAPTER 19

  Truce wakes to a pounding headache. He’s lying on top of the covers, dead man’s float position, still dressed in his jeans and T-shirt. He can smell the odour of last night’s drinking, mixed with sweat, reeking from his body. He opens one eye and finds his face inches from an empty bottle. A tiny trace of amber, not more than a cat lick, lies at the bottom of the bottle. He considers it with care — thinking of all the hours and all the care that went into making that whisky, only for it be lost as the last drip in the bottle. A wave of self-pity washes over him.

  His head hurts so badly he can hear each throb of pain. He rolls onto his back. He’s been sleeping at an angle across the bed. The pillow is now under his left shoulder. He thinks about moving it. Maybe even sitting up. But the thought alone is exhausting.

  “Truce! Daniel!”

  Between the pounding in his brain, he hears a woman calling his name. He doesn’t recall inviting a woman round last night. Leighton is always discreet about his own encounters, never bringing anyone home. Maybe it’s next door. But why would they be calling his name?

  “Truce!” The woman is screaming now. The pounding in his head increases.

  He is so hung over, it takes him more than ten minutes to realise that the pounding is coming from his front door and the woman calling his name, Wendy.

  When he does realise, he pulls out the pillow and puts it over his head. He closes his eyes and hopes it's all a dream. If he smells this bad, he doubtless looks even worse. He definitely doesn’t want Wendy to see him like this. He keeps his fingers crossed Leighton won’t open the door. He doesn’t.

  But neither does Wendy go away, so finally, to ease the pain in his head, Truce stumbles through to the hall. He vaguely registers passing the long mirror and turns his face the other way. He lurches towards the front door, which feels nice and firm beneath his hands. Then, steadying himself, one foot braced, he fumbles with the lock and finally manages to undo it. He throws the door open.

  A wave of fresh air hits him, forcing him to purse his lips to prevent himself from vomiting on the doorstep.

  Wendy’s hair flutters around her shoulders. She is dressed casually in jeans, and a bright-blue leather jacket with a cream silky slip underneath. The only make-up she is wearing, a thin sweep of navy eyeliner, exaggerates her large blue/violet eyes. He notices how beautiful her eyelashes are, long and tapering. They’re real. His eyes stray to her lips. They’re moving. She must be speaking, but he can’t process what she’s saying.

  With a manly effort, he swallows the bile in his throat and says, “Sorry, didn’t catch that.” Or that’s what he means to say. It comes out as a series of incoherent grunts.

  Wendy assumes the expression he thought only army wives knew. The one they displayed when he brought home their husbands, on a caution, after a night’s drinking. She brushes past him into the flat. Truce wheels and almost loses his balance. He leans against the door, which slams shut.

  “Kitchen?” says Wendy, arms now folded.

  Truce goes to open his mouth but feels another bout of bile coming up.

  “Point,” says Wendy.

  He does so.

  “You shower,” commands Wendy in the same tone of voice as you might order a dog not to shit in the house. “I’ll make coffee.”

  Truce doesn’t want a shower. He wants to head back to his nice, comfy bed and sleep for a week. But he definitely doesn’t want to face Wendy in the kitchen yet. He wants to at least be able to speak and defend himself — because, you know, he’s been so good at that recently.

  On auto-pilot, he stumbles into the shower room and turns it on. It’s only after the water hits him that he thinks to take his clothes off. By now hot, heavy steam fills the room, fogging over the mirror. He struggles free from his clothes and throws them out of the cubicle. Then he slumps down in a corner, leaning against the solid walls and letting the water wash over him. He has a pee while he is down there. After all, the waste water goes down the same pipes, and the shower washes all signs of it away. He spits bile out and wretches a few times. Both expulsions work wonders. He may just be able to talk now.

  Wendy pounds on the bathroom door. “Come out. You’ve been ages. You can’t hide in there. I’ll come in,” she says.

  Truce starts guiltily, as if she somehow knows he’s just taken a leak. “A minute,” he yells. He pulls himself up, grabs a bottle of something — could be body wash, could be shampoo — and empties it over his head. He massages his scalp tenderly and viciously scrubs the rest of his body, except for his bandaged arm. That stings enough under the water to wake him up.

  Five minutes later, he walks into the kitchen with a towel wrapped round his waist. His gait is still a bit wobbly. Wendy is sitting at the breakfast bar, sipping coffee. There is one made for him. Carefully, he slides onto the stool.

  “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.” Wendy doesn’t say this the playful way a lover might, but in a voice ragged with anger.

  “Sorry,” he mumbles and sips his coffee. It’s black, strong, and burns his tongue.

  “For what?” says Wendy.

  Truce thinks for a moment. “Everything,” he says, hoping that will cover it. He doesn’t put the coffee down. A bit of insurance. He’s not sure whether Wendy is going to take a swipe at him or not, but he thinks she won’t risk getting hot coffee on herself. Her face tells him she wouldn’t mind getting it on him, however.

  “You are a fucking idiot.”

  “Yes,” says Truce, hanging his head like the dog who ate the Christmas dinner.

  “Rose is so happy, she’s practically dancing round the office with joy. It’s sickening. You served yourself up to her on a silver platter.”

  Truce briefly wonders if he had seduced Rose, would things have worked out better? But he has enough remaining sense to keep this thought to himself.

  “How much of your brain is back online?” says Wendy.

  “Not much,” says Truce.

  “Drink up,” she says, refilling his mug from the coffee jug. “I’m going to make you a fry-up, and you’re going to eat it all, even if it kills you.” She gives him a fierce look. “I don’t cook for anyone,” she says. “This is a one-off. I need you sobered up.”

  “Okay,” says Truce. There’s a story here, but he’s in no state to make further enquiries at present. “I’ll be good. I’m not drunk now. Just hungover.”

  Wendy snorts. “Tell that to the breath analyser.”

  “I don’t intend to drive today.”

  “First sensible thing you’ve said in weeks.” Wendy rummages through his fridge and throws around a few pots and pans. It’s soon clear she’s not exactly a sous chef.

  Truce tries to slink off his stool back to the living room. He manages to lower one foot onto the ground when he encounters such a scowl from Wendy, he slides obediently back onto his seat and tries to block out the noise. He also closes his eyes as he sees her burn eggs onto the bot
tom of his favourite pan.

  The meal, when it appears — breakfast? brunch? — is burnt and undercooked. If he hadn’t seen the look of intense concentration on her face when she was cooking, he’d have presumed she’d done it deliberately.

  He chokes down the blackened bacon, the scrambled eggs (dry in places, raw and stringy in others), the cool, congealing beans (she’d mistimed and done them first). At least the toast should be okay, he thinks. But as he bites into it, he realises she has put that damned brown spread Leighton loves on it. He chokes down the urge to vomit. Wendy is standing over him watching, so he swallows it all down.

  “Feeling better?” she asks.

  “Definitely,” nods Truce, making unblinking eye contact. If he says no, he fears she’ll cook another round.

  “Right.” She takes away his plate and dumps it in the sink with a clatter that bodes ill for his bone china. Then she comes back. “I found information on Jonny Whiles. I know who he was. I’ve read the files.”

  “A senior policeman back in the seventies and eighties,” says Truce. “He died recently in the Sacred Pines home.” If he hopes his knowledge will impress her, he is quickly relieved of this idea.

  “That’s not the interesting part,” says Wendy. “There’s actually a case on file about his family. I pulled it. His wife died in eighty-nine. They were rumoured to be on bad terms. The death was investigated.”

  “Oh?” says Truce. He feels the hairs on the back of his neck rise. “How did you find it? I couldn’t.”

  “An old friend,” says Wendy.

  “Have you still got this file?”

  “No, but I’ve read it. He was exonerated. He had an unshakable alibi. He was across town at some police shin-dig. His wife was at home with his young son, Davie, aged seven. There was no sign of forced entry.”

  “What happened?”

  “She fell down the stairs and broke her neck. Apparently, the boy was so shocked he couldn’t give a statement. There’s a note on the file saying he didn’t speak for the next two years.”

  “Two years?” Truce asks incredulously. “You think he saw her fall?”

  “He might even have done it — by accident, on purpose. Who knows?”

  “The kid was seven.”

  “He was living in a home with two angry parents. Part of the reason for the investigation was Davie. His unwillingness or inability to speak. And then they discovered the bruises.”

  “Whiles was beating his son?” Truce flashes back to the eye peering through the cracked door, the darkened hallway crammed full of boxes behind him. No surprise the kid turned out the way he did.

  “Someone was,” says Wendy. “It could equally have been her. Don’t make assumptions.”

  “But that’s unusual, isn’t it? For a mother to do that?”

  “Agreed, but this was far from a normal family.”

  “Because he was a police inspector,” says Truce.

  “Well, that, but there are interviews in the file with the neighbours, who talk about hearing furious rows between the couple one minute, and the next seeing them hold large parties.”

  “Not something the neighbour mentioned when he was talking about how nice Mr Whiles was,” says Truce.

  “Apparently, they always let the neighbours know ahead of time about these events, but none were ever invited and they went on long into the night. Neighbours used to find people sleeping out in their gardens in the morning. Semi-clothed.”

  “We’re talking keys in the bowl kind of thing?”

  “I imagine.”

  “And we can bet no one ever called the police about noise or nuisance.”

  “Nothing on record,” says Wendy. “I’m reading between the lines here, but I’m thinking this man is a bully, who does pretty much as he wants without thought of others. His wife is not the shy and retiring type either. There’s mention of her being picked up drunk and disorderly and being released without charge. If Whiles couldn’t keep it off the books, she must have been in some state.”

  “What about the kid?”

  “His bedroom was in the attic. Neighbours used to see his face at an upper window. Watching.”

  “Don’t tell me he used to catch animals and torture them,” says Truce.

  Wendy shakes her head. “But his socialisation must have taken a dive when he stopped speaking for years.”

  “Why would a kid do that?” says Truce.

  “Trauma usually.”

  “Like his mum dying?”

  “Possibly. Everyone’s different.”

  “But it’s not usual for a kid to lose his voice when his mum dies.”

  Wendy shakes her head. “As I said, not a normal family.”

  “That much is obvious,” Truce says, again thinking back to the broken shutters and peeling paint on house number twenty-seven. “And now they’re all dead apart from Davie. How does this all fit together? That’s the question.”

  Truce pours himself a cold coffee — anything to get rid of the taste of Wendy’s cooking. “I appreciate the vote of confidence, but it’s too late. I’m out. Medical leave until I’m officially declared off my rocker.”

  “You’re giving up?” says Wendy, lifting her eyebrows.

  “It’s not a case of giving up,” says Truce, his temper rising, “I’m at a dead end.” He gives a grim smile. “No pun intended.”

  “Maybe not,” says Wendy. “Get your coat. I’ve got someone I want you to meet. And you better be on your best behaviour.”

  “Who?” says Truce.

  “Not telling,” says Wendy, rising and heading for the door.

  “You think I’ll come because I’m curious, don’t you?” says Truce.

  Wendy pauses by the front door. “You are curious,” she says, “but I think it’s your inquisitive nature that will make you follow me.”

  “A pedant as well,” mutters Truce under his breath. “Boy, can I pick ‘em.” But he grabs his coat off the hook and follows Wendy to her car. Before getting in, a sudden thought worms its way through his foggy brain. He glances to Wendy.

  “How do you know you’re not being followed?”

  “I’ve taken the tracker off my car,” she smiles wryly. “I heard what happened to you.”

  They drive for forty-five minutes in total silence. Wendy is an attentive and defensive driver. The way she changes gear, sometimes double de-clutching, and how she positions her car according to the vanishing point, tells Truce that she has likely done all the police driving courses there are. He tries to check unobtrusively in the side mirrors to see if they are being followed, but as they pull up outside a large detached Victorian house, Wendy comments, “I checked. I didn’t see any sign we were being followed.”

  Truce nods, unsure if she is pandering to him or if she is finally beginning to see things his way.

  Wendy gets out of the car and buzzes a bell next to a big iron gate. “It’s me,” she says, and the gate slides open. She gets back in the car and drives up the lane to the house.

  As they approach, Truce notices subtle signs of security. Although trees and bushes line either side of the drive-way, the area around the house is clear — like a killing field. There are also narrow, iron-slatted shutters, rolled up and discreet, hidden behind striped awnings that shade all the windows of the house. It’s a two-storey affair, with a double garage added into the ground floor. There is a solidity about the grey building, despite the rather jolly awnings.

  Wendy parks, and they approach the house, gravel crunching under their feet. Truce’s eyes go to the security cameras. Up to the left, on the eave of the house. To the right, just behind the driveway light. His eyes flicker around the house and he starts counting the cameras. He stops after twelve. This is top-notch security. High-end tech. Not the stuff you put in because you have a few valuables. He looks down to his shoes — could there even be sensor pads on the path? This place has as much security as Portland Down.

  “Who lives here?” he asks Wendy.

&nbs
p; “The man who convinced me to join the police force,” says Wendy. “My godfather, George Hoyer.”

  As they approach, the front door swings open. There is no one in the doorway. Wendy enters without hesitation. Truce warily follows her. The door closes with a heavy thunk behind them. It looked like an ordinary door, but the noise tells Truce it’s reinforced with metal. After the thud of the door, silence. Like a crypt.

  Inside, the house has been considerably remodelled. The wide corridors shine with polished oak-panelling. Hand-carved woodwork from the early 1800s, Truce guesses. White carpets brighten the space. Wendy walks confidently down the hallway and into a long corridor. The lights are semi-domes sunk into the ceiling. Truce follows without question. The corridor turns right and then left. On the second turn, they pass a wall niche with a Chinese vase sitting on a small pedestal. There are no windows. The carpet is thick enough to muffle their footsteps. She stops outside a double-panelled, white-painted wooden door, and knocks.

  “Come in, my dear,” says a man’s voice. It’s a deep, raspy bass; a pleasant voice ravaged by time.

  Wendy opens the door to a large study. The walls are lined with dark shelves, books piled haphazardly all over them. Dominating the room is an antique kneehole desk with a green leather top, cluttered with papers. A figure sits behind it, but the double window on the far side has made him no more than a silhouette.

  Wendy goes around to Hoyer and kisses him on the cheek. “Wheel me round, will you?” says the man. “Damn battery’s on the blink again.”

  She moves behind the wheelchair and manoeuvres it into the centre of the room. When the silhouette comes into focus, Truce sees a man who resembles his idea of Santa Claus. He is elderly, with a long, white beard, apple cheeks and twinkly eyes. He is not dressed in a red suit, but wears an old-fashioned tweed jacket with blue slacks. His feet, perched on the rest, are shod in brilliantly polished shoes that leave Truce in no doubt they were handmade.

  “Pull up some chairs,” says Hoyer. “The wing backs by the window are on wheels and very comfortable. I can lower the shades if it’s too bright.”