by Graham West
He shouted her name, falling to his knees and grasping her wrist. There had to be a pulse. He swore there was something. “What has he done to you?” he heard himself cry. “What?”
He was about to pull the jacket from her head when he noticed the traces of blood on her legs; instinctively he pulled back the skirt. He recalled the mocking voice, taunting him. Now it all made sense—her underwear was torn and there were traces of semen over her legs and groin. Blakely began to sob. “I’m so sorry, Kim! I’m so sorry, baby. I’m gonna get the bastard who did this, I swear! I’m gonna rip his balls off!”
He lifted the jacket. Praying that her eyes would open, praying that he would see that gentle smile. But there was blood…a hole in her forehead, neat and deep. Blakely turned cold and faint as he saw the rivers of red seeping into the earth. It was a bullet. It had to be a bullet. He gently moved her head to one side, to make a pillow out of the jacket. His stomach lurched, and he let out a single scream as pieces of shattered skull fell away revealing a gaping wound. The world began to spin as Dennis Blakely turned away and vomited. What remained of Kim’s head resembled nothing more than a gruesome cave. Blood, bone and grey matter.
Her voice echoed in his head. Just don’t treat me like some shit you trod in! Then there was that crack. The sound of an angry lover throwing her phone on the floor. But it hadn’t been the phone. It had been the sound of a bullet, and that meant only one thing. Darth, whoever he was, had murdered Kim before he had raped her.
***
Blakely was still shaking violently as the young male officer wrapped a blanket around his shoulders. It had taken three attempts to call the police, and his incoherent ramblings had been considered to be a hoax call from a local drunk. There would be questions—plenty of questions—but Darth’s DNA was all over Kim’s body. It was a stupid thing for a killer to do, he thought. But the guy was a psychopath—there was no doubt about that. Maybe he’d been a jilted lover. Maybe Kim had worked one on him too, breaking up his marriage and destroying his life.
But no, Blakely thought. This was the same freak who was vandalising the grave. He drove a mini cooper with false plates. This wasn’t Jenny Adams, unless the girl had a male accomplice who like jacking off over dead bodies. Unless it was that bloke she was with. What was his name? Jake? That didn’t seem too likely either, but he guessed Jenny would still be getting a visit from the cops pretty soon.
The whole forest was now a crime scene, and the press would be crawling all over it. His father would go batshit crazy when he heard. This was going to set back the opening by months. No one would want to come. Apart from the ghoul lovers, of course, but you couldn’t run a park like Mosswood on their custom. This might be the end. His father would find out about his fling and cut his balls off. Kim had died because she had come looking for him. If he’d kept his dick in his trousers, she’d still be serving meals at The Lakeside and the park would be on schedule.
Not that any of that mattered much at the moment. He had vomited four times before they had erected some kind of tent around Kim’s body. A horde of fluorescent jacketed officers milled around it like bees around a hive. It was just like the TV, just like the movies. But this was real. This was happening. Blakely couldn’t even remember even having seen a dead body before, let alone a dead body of a young woman with half of her head blown off. The police were going to be trawling through the forest hoping to find a weapon even though he guessed that Darth was unlikely to have left it behind.
The local force, the force that had been dealing with traffic offences and litter louts along with the odd orgy in a parking lot, were now dealing with a major incident. They would be well out of their depth with this one. This was big time. One of the officers turned and walked towards him. His square jaw and deep, heavy, jutting forehead gave him a natural look of authority.
“Are you okay, sir?” he asked.
Blakely nodded, managing a weak smile.
“It must have been a bit of a shock,” he began, sounding sympathetic. “Finding a body is bad enough, but this…”
Any moment now, Blakely knew, the question would come.
“Did you know the victim, sir?”
“She worked at The Lakeside Hotel. I’m staying there.”
“You know her well?”
“Quite well.”
“So I gather she was one of the staff?”
Again, Blakeley nodded.
“Do you know why she would be wandering around in the woods?”
“I dunno. I think she might have just come nosing, wanted to take a look at the park.”
The officer’s eyes darkened. “What? In the woods?”
“Look, I don’t know!” he replied impatiently. “I don’t know what she was doing here! I just found her, that’s all!”
Blakely was already regretting the lie. He was digging a giant hole for himself, and the officer knew it.
“Look, Mr. Blakely, let me introduce myself. I’m Officer Bridges, and I’ve served on forces in some of the big cities, so if you think you’re talking to some small-town cop who’s still wet behind the ears then think again! I’ve done it all and seen it all, and now I’m here to see out my days. So how about we start again.” He paused, parking himself on the stump of a tree. “The guys on site said you went looking for her. Would that be right?”
“Okay, I admit,” Blakely replied. “She came to see me. She thought I was in the woods.”
“And why did she come looking for you?”
“We had an argument. She wanted to talk, I guess.”
Bridges grinned knowingly. “So you were in a relationship with her?”
Blakely nodded. They would get the full story soon enough.
“Sir, we need to ask you some questions. It will be more comfortable down at the station, if that’s okay.”
He shrugged. “I’m not okay, but I’ll do anything to help you catch that bastard!” Blakely followed the officer through the woods, stumbling several times on the tangled roots underfoot. Four police cars were parked up outside the manor, their lights still flashing.
“Am I a suspect or something?” he mumbled, climbing into the back seat.
The portly officer didn’t answer at first, firing up the engine. “With all that semen, it shouldn’t be too difficult to eliminate you from our enquiries,” he said. “So providing you didn’t do it, I wouldn’t worry too much.”
But Blakely wondered who would be next. Jenny? Robert? He just prayed these cops were up to the task. They needed to catch Darth, and they needed to catch him pretty damn quick.
Chapter Thirty-Two
The Kirkland Estate hadn’t changed in the years since Darren had shared a three-litre bottle of cider with Kevin Taylor in the bedroom of his terraced home on Norris Avenue. He remembered the address. It was number thirteen, which had been pretty unlucky for him because it was there he’d mistakenly decided that Taylor wasn’t such a bad guy after all.
The house was a dump. No one seemed to care too much about cleaning up, and the garden was full of discarded toys, two rusting motorbikes and crates containing empty bottles. They’d had a dog but someone had shot the thing; apparently, it was some kind of revenge killing, but Darren hadn’t bothered to ask.
His uncle had warned him. “What the hell do you want to go back there for, son? What’s the point?”
“Because he screwed my life up!” Darren had answered with a grunt.
“But Taylor isn’t there. So what are you going for?”
“His dad is, though.”
Harry Pascoe frowned. “So you’re going to kick shit out of him?”
Darren shrugged.
His uncle rolled his eyes. “It was your decision to take up with the lad, son. You can’t shift all the blame onto him.”
Maybe he was right. Perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea after all. Taylor’s father could hardly be described as a tough guy, but he wasn’t a push over either. The scrawny, ponytailed loser had never worked a day in his w
hole life, and his son had no intention of stepping onto the treadmill, either. Maybe that had been the attraction. The absence of any rules. Taylor’s mother was quite capable of finishing a bottle of vodka in a single evening and probably lived in her pyjamas. Everything they needed was local. The off-licence, the corner shop where they bought their cigarettes and the takeaway. Darren wondered if the Taylor family had ever seen a salad.
Kevin didn’t need to hide his pornographic magazines under the bed. They were littered around the house in full view of his little sister, Masie, who wondered around in a pair of dirty knickers for most of the day. Taylor knew all the sites on his laptop and the names of the local girls who would screw around for the price of a kebab. It was a different world that Darren had been drawn into, fuelled by the resentment he felt at his parents’ broken marriage.
They had let him down. Their neat and tidy life was crumbling around them. The boundaries they lived within, the parental locks on his computer, the homework before TV and the household chores. Where had that got them? At least the Taylor’s family were still together, and if Mr. Taylor wanted a bit of excitement, he just loaded up one of his porno DVDs, got himself a beer and a packet of paper tissues, and tossed himself off while Kevin waited patiently for his dad to finish before Doctor Who started. It was no wonder he’d turned out so screwed up.
But now Darren wondered why. Why had he got himself involved with that feral family? The wasters from hell. He wished he’d never set eyes on them, and if telling that streak of piss what an arsehole he was made him feel better, then that was exactly what he was going to do.
Darren turned into the estate. The no-go area, where the communication engineers would only work in pairs between eight and ten in the morning. That was when they assumed the kids would be out of bed and looking for a van to rob. He looked at his watch. Maybe he should hide it down his sock, along with his mobile phone. The street was deserted, almost like a ghost town. No couples screaming, no girls sitting on the walls with their hair in rollers.
Darren turned into the Taylors’ road. They would still be around, of course. People like that never moved. He looked up, a feeling of fear rising within him. This was a crazy idea, but it was too late to turn back. What would they think of him? All smart and probably a couple of inches taller. A man, no longer a boy. If only he had a decent job and a girl. Maybe even a child of his own. Hey look, look what I’ve got! Look at how well I’ve done while your kid’s still in jail!
But the first thing Darren Pascoe noticed about number thirteen was the front garden. The lawn was neat with a border of pansies. The junk had gone, along with the three-foot-high weeds. The rotting windows had been renewed and the old orange curtains replaced by wooden blinds. His heart sank. The Taylors had moved out. Social services had probably taken Masie away after finding them watching porn while the kid was playing with her dolls.
He knocked, just the same. The new occupants might be able to give him a lead on where the family had gone. Darren’s hands trembled as he rapped a second time. Why was he doing this? Just then, the door opened. A man, similar in size to Taylor’s father, stood peering out from beneath the peak of a navy blue baseball cap.
“Hi,” Darren said, “I’m sorry, I was looking for Mr. Taylor. Do you know where—”
The man looked confused. “I’m Mr. Taylor. Who are you?”
Darren stared, his mouth hanging open. “Mr. Taylor? You look—”
“Tidy?” the man replied with a wry smile. “Thanks. But who are you?”
Tidy was a fair description. The dirty, baggy sweat top had been replaced with a designer shirt, and the joggers had gone too. Mr. Taylor had treated himself to an expensive-looking pair of denims, and those trainers didn’t look too cheap either.
“Hang on,” Taylor said, squinting against the light. “I recognise you—you’re Kevin’s old mate?”
Darren nodded.
“Hey, come in, lad!”
Taylor turned, and Darren followed him into a home that bore no resemblance to the hovel he remembered. “Jesus!” he gasped. “This is like one of those homes off the telly!”
Taylor grinned. “Yeah, we’ve changed quite a few things around here.”
Darren was only half listening. The whole place seemed to sparkle. The new wooden floor, cream suite, oak furniture. My God! What happened? Taylor grinned. He still hadn’t had his teeth fixed. “Sit down, lad, take the weight off.”
Darren sank into the chair behind him.
“Fancy a drink? Sorry, it’s just tea or coffee these days. We don’t have any alcohol.”
No alcohol? Maybe this was a dream. He’d wake up soon and realise this was all in his head. “I’ll just have a juice or something, thanks.”
Taylor nodded, disappearing through the door. “Coming up!”
“Holy shit!” Darren whispered to himself, staring at the sixty-inch Plasma screen on the wall. It was showing some kind of wildlife documentary. Not the stuff he would have watched two years ago.
Taylor returned with a glass of fresh orange juice. “You look like your catching flies with that mouth of yours!” He laughed. “A bit different from the last time you were here, eh?”
Darren nodded.
Taylor sat opposite, leaning forward. “The thing is, son, when you and our Kevin…you know…had that accident, me and Jessie, we were devastated. We couldn’t get our heads around it. That poor woman and her kid. I got really bad depression, and Jess, well, she was on the verge of a breakdown. I found her at the front of St Mary’s, sobbing uncontrollably. We weren’t religious—not in that way—but Jess was brought up Catholic, so the church was the first place she turned to.”
Darren frowned. “So you two found religion or something?”
Taylor shook his head. “Nah. Not me.”
“What happened?” Darren asked.
Taylor stared down at his clasped hands. “I woke up in hospital. After they’d pumped my stomach…” He looked up. “Masie and Jessie were standing at my bedside, crying, and I thought, okay, this is enough. If we didn’t get our act together, Masie would end up on the streets like Kevin. Jess saw an advert in one of the locals—some life coach bloke was touring the country, giving some kind of seminar thing at The Park Hotel, just down the road. We got ourselves a couple of tickets and went along. It was a full day, but I’ll tell ya something—it was fucking brilliant.
“For the first time, I realised it was possible to turn my life around and climb out of the hole I’d gotten into. When I got home, we cleared out every drop of alcohol, and with the money we saved on booze I bought myself some decent clothes and went looking for work. The one night we had a bonfire—all that porn and any other junk that would burn.
“After two months I got myself a job.” Taylor smiled. “I’m a bricklayer. A lazy one, but I found someone willing to give us a chance and watch over me while I got back up to speed. I worked hard, long hours. Got this place sorted. Jessie dropped five stone—she looks amazing—got herself a job as a receptionist at one of those companies on the new industrial estate. The money isn’t great, but it helps.”
Taylor stopped, looking Darren up and down. “You’re looking quite smart yourself, lad. What have you been up to?”
Darren shrugged. “I’m living with my uncle. Got a job at his mate’s garage.”
Taylor leaned over and high-fived him. “Hey, that’s great. I’m hoping we can get Kevin sorted when he gets out.”
There was a pause. He knew what was coming next. “So, what brings you here, kiddo? I’m guessing it’s something to do with our son.”
He was here for a reason, but everything had changed. The transformation that had taken place at number thirteen had caught him off guard. He couldn’t hate the new improved Taylor; he admired him. He had achieved everything that Darren wanted to achieve. A job, a home and a family. But it might be easier to go with the truth and hope he didn’t get himself thrown out before he’d finished his fresh orange.
�
��I hated you,” Darren admitted. “Sometimes I get sick of blaming myself, so I kind of blamed you—the way you lived. It all started here.”
Taylor sighed. “We had no rules, kiddo. I blame myself for the way Kevin turned out. I knew it was wrong. The way we were living. All the bad stuff I did. I…I was either high or pissed—or both! Then I just stopped caring.”
Darren shook his head. “But it’s me I really hate. No offence, but I should never have got involved with Kevin. I knew he was bad news.”
Taylor winced. The truth hurt. “I know that, son. He’s still bad news, and I’m not sure a fancy home is gonna change all that.”
“I wanted to stand at the door and rant at you,” Darren continued with a forced smile. “I imagined myself landing a right hook—smashing your face in! How sad is that?”
Taylor laughed. “You should have done that two years ago. I was that high on weed you wouldn’t have had to land much of a punch, either. It might have taught me a lesson!”
Darren sighed and pushed himself up out of the chair. “Anyway, I’d better get going.”
Taylor stood and followed him to the door, patting him on the shoulder as he stepped out. Darren turned. “Thanks, Mr. Taylor. I’m glad things have turned out well for you.”
The willowy figure in the cap smiled. “Look after yourself, son. What’s done is done. You’re a smart lad. Don’t live in the past.” Taylor waved and closed the door behind him.
Darren walked to the end of the road and then broke into a run. He ran until the Kirkland estate was behind him. He ran until he was far enough away to pretend he’d never stepped foot on Norris Avenue. He ran until he found a quiet place—a small wooded area just off the main road. It was there that he stopped and, sinking down beside a tree, began to sob.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Blakely had expected the questions. How long had he known Kim? When had the relationship started? When had his wife found out about the affair? Did she have any other enemies or ex-lovers? And then, of course, they wanted to see his phone. Damn it. They would see those texts. Kim was hot, but the thought of some stranger reading them made him squirm.
