by Tiana Carver
And that did it. All the excuse she needed.
She was on him. One arm locked round his neck, the other pulling his own arm up behind his back, stretching it as far as it would go. He cried out in pain. She felt his muscles tearing, heard something pop.
‘Take it outside,’ the barman said from the safety of the bar.
‘Fuck off,’ said Rose, then turned her attention back to Daryl. ‘Now, where were we? Oh yes. Liars and pimps. I hate both of them. And that’s you, Daryl. Now talk. You were Faith’s boyfriend. Did you pimp her out?’
‘No …’
She pulled harder. He screamed. ‘Did you?’
‘No …’ he gasped out.
It sounded like the truth, she thought reluctantly. He was too weak to keep lying while she was doing this. She kept going. ‘Where were you last night?’
‘With Denise, I told you …’
She pulled again.
‘All right, all right … at home. At my mum’s …’
‘That’s better.’
‘Wait … wait …’
Rose waited.
‘Did … Donna send you? Did … she tell you that? Bitch …’
A sudden realisation hit Rose. She had been played. Read, wound up and sent after Daryl. Donna had played her.
‘Why’s she a bitch, Daryl?’ Wanting to let go of him, not knowing how to. Not knowing how to let herself go.
‘Because … she hates me. Always hated me … hated me bein’ with Faith, mad lezzer wanted her for herself. An’ she got her an’ all …’
Played.
It was a hateful feeling.
She gave him one last twist. He cried out and she let him go. He slumped to the floor beneath the pool table, gasping and crying. ‘You’re a psycho, a fuckin’ psycho …’
‘And you’re still scum,’ she said, and walked out.
Away down the street, not knowing where she was going, just moving, letting the adrenalin subside.
Played. She couldn’t believe it.
Dissatisfied and unfulfilled. That was how she felt. She had been made a fool of. Hadn’t learned what she wanted to know. And she had assaulted an innocent man. Well, she doubted he was innocent. But he was in this instance.
That didn’t bother her. That wasn’t upsetting her. She was only angry about being lied to. She could have kept on hurting him. Making him scream.
In fact, she had wanted to.
And she didn’t know how she felt about that.
So she just kept on walking.
32
Mickey hadn’t had much luck or help at the demolition firm and it seemed to be continuing at the building firm. He was becoming irritated.
He leaned across the desk. ‘Look, I realise your boss isn’t here; you’ve said that enough times. I just want to know when he’ll be back and when I can talk to him.’
The girl behind the desk just stared once more.
He was in the offices of Lyalls, the building contractors. He had checked them out. Once one of the East of England’s biggest firms, when the credit crunch hit they had found it hard going and the original owners had sold the company. But judging by the billboards and the blown-up photos adorning the walls of the reception area in the offices on Middleborough, they were still fronting, still looking prosperous. Still claiming to be responsible for the majority of new build going on in the town. Despite the fact that most of the projects had been completed a few years ago.
However, thought Mickey, whatever success the company had had didn’t stretch to them hiring a receptionist capable of independent thought.
She was pretty enough, beautiful even. He gave her that. In fact his first instinct had been to try and use whatever charm he had on her, but after her first, smiley response, all rictus grin and dead eyes, he had tried a more formal approach. That hadn’t worked either.
It was clear that whatever gifts she did possess were restricted to applying perfect make-up and choosing and wearing the right clothes, which, while looking suitably corporate, accentuated her gym-trim figure and showed just enough cleavage to distract from the fact that she was there primarily to stonewall.
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Can’t say. Sometimes Mr Balchunas is out all day.’
‘And sometimes he isn’t. Right. Is there anyone else I can talk to? Anyone else who can help me?’
‘Umm …’ She shook her head.
‘OK.’ Mickey took out a card, handed it to her. He spoke slowly. ‘Can you make sure he gets this, please? Tell him to call this number when he gets back.’ He underlined it with his finger to make sure she understood him. ‘Tell him it’s important.’
He waited until she had nodded, then turned, left the building.
Outside, he checked his watch. Back at the station, Milhouse was ploughing his way through computerised lists trying to find names behind the holding company that owned the property. Mickey seemed to be having no luck using up shoe leather. Time to call it a day, he thought.
As he did so, a car pulled up. Jag, chauffeur-driven. The suited driver got out, opened the back door. A small, dark man got out. Small but, Mickey noticed, compact. Solid. And well-dressed. Like a street fighter who had learned how to use his skills in business. He still looked like he could handle himself. But not at the moment. His eyes darted round nervously. They alighted on Mickey.
‘Mr Balchunas? Karolis Balchunas?’
The man jumped. ‘What? Yes, who are you?’ Spoken with an accent. Mickey couldn’t place it.
He showed his warrant card, gave his name. ‘Could I have a quick word, please?’
The man’s distress increased. Mickey sensed Balchunas was about to fob him off, brush him aside, but he stood his ground, took strength from stillness, didn’t move.
It worked. Balchunas sighed. ‘Come in, please. But I’m very busy, I can’t give you long.’
‘This’ll only take a few minutes, sir.’
Balchunas turned, entered the building, Mickey following.
He turned as the car pull away. And stopped.
There was another passenger. He ducked his head away as if not wanting to be seen, but too late. Mickey had glimpsed him. And recognised him.
The man from the solicitors’ offices. The one he knew but couldn’t give a name to.
Mickey’s stomach gave a small lurch. Something was happening here. He didn’t yet know what, but there was a pattern emerging.
Hurrying, he followed Balchunas inside.
33
Anni couldn’t concentrate. She was sitting outside the boy’s room, waiting. It wasn’t a skill she was proficient at at the best of times. And this wasn’t the best of times.
She felt out of her depth on this one. That was why she had called Marina in. But now Marina had left, and in her place was a child psychologist Dr Ubha had brought in. Jenny Swan seemed a pleasant enough woman, middle-aged, dyed blonde hair, curvy and handsome-looking. Probably a stunner in her youth, now more like a trendy grandma.
Anni had briefed her as much as she could, told her it was still early in the investigation and he was going to take a lot of working with. Jenny Swan had nodded as Anni talked, took it all in, asked questions.
‘I think it’s better if I work with him alone.’
Anni had nodded. ‘Fine.’ She felt happier about that.
Jenny Swan had then walked through the door to the room, smiling at the boy as she went in, putting him at ease as much as she could.
The door had closed behind her and Anni had been left outside.
When Anni had been in the room while Marina was talking to the boy, she had felt distinctly uncomfortable. She had been trained to work with abused children – her remit as a reactive DC in the Major Incident Squad encompassed that. But this boy was especially difficult. She felt it strongly from him, like a kind of chemical repellent.
All her usual tricks had failed. She could find no commonality with this boy. Nothing she could get a handle on. Nothing she could find to engage him wi
th. Like he was from a completely different tribe. Or race, even. Species.
He gave her the creeps. She felt guilty admitting it, but it was true.
Anni knew what traumatised kids were like. She’d worked with enough of them. They weren’t the airbrushed, doe-eyed victims the tabloids liked to portray. They were fractured, damaged individuals, sometimes irredeemably so. Occasionally they could be helped, put back on track with the right care and support, but she had seen too many of them go straight from hellish childhoods to secure units to young offenders institutions to adult prisons. Their crimes escalating each time, externalising the abuse they had suffered, taking it out on someone else.
But this boy … he was beyond even that. From what she had seen of him, he was a breed apart and she couldn’t begin to get a handle on him.
The door opened. Jenny Swan emerged, closed it quietly behind her.
Anni stood up. ‘How is he?’
The strain was showing on her face already. ‘Not … happy. He’s calmed down since he first came here and is communicating, after a fashion. I think your colleague helped to open him up.’
‘Did he tell you anything? Anything we could use?’
She looked momentarily unhappy about Anni’s question, the conflicting interest showing in her eyes. ‘I … it’s too early to say. Nothing yet, I don’t think.’
‘He talked about his mother before.’
‘And now. He’s very concerned that she should be safe.’
‘Did he manage a description, anything like that? Talk about a place where she might be?’
‘The garden, that’s all he said. She’s in the garden.’
Anni nodded. Nothing more than Marina had got out of him. ‘Thank you, Jenny.’
Anni turned away, checked her watch. There should be a uniform coming to relieve her soon for the night shift.
‘Oh, there is one other thing.’
She turned, waited.
‘Wherever this boy has been, wherever he’s been kept, it’s far away from the rest of society. And I don’t need an examination to know he’s been forced to do things against his will.’
‘Such as?’
Jenny sighed. ‘I … wouldn’t like to speculate. But my guess is something horrific. Sustained and repeated, too. And something else.’
‘What?’
‘Wherever he’s been kept, he and his mother, they weren’t the only ones.’
Anni frowned. ‘Oh my God.’
‘Exactly.’
34
Balchunas sat behind his desk. The room, like the reception foyer, was covered with photos of developments. Amongst these were framed certificates, citations and awards. Statuettes sat on a shelf over the filing cabinets, in front of photos of Balchunas shaking hands with politicians and celebrities. He looked the same in every photo – beamingly thrilled to be there; they looked the same in every photo – bemused and startled.
Balchunas fidgeted. He couldn’t get comfortable, shuffling round on the seat, making the leather squeak. He picked things up off the desk, played with them, put them down again. He fiddled with cuffs, the edges of his shirt. In response, Mickey sat as still as possible. Waited.
‘I can’t give you long, I’m afraid, Detective … I’m sorry, what was your name again?’
‘Detective Sergeant Philips. That’s all right, Mr Balchunas, I won’t need long. Just a couple of questions.’
‘Fire away.’ His smile was shaky, his voice resigned.
‘You know about the discovery at the property at the bottom of East Hill? On the land you were going to build a new housing estate on?’
Balchunas sighed, fidgeted some more. ‘Yes, yes, terrible business. Shocking.’ His eyes strayed away from Mickey, on to a photo of Karolis Balchunas shaking hands with Boris Johnson. In the flashlight, only one of them seemed pleased about it.
‘I’d just like to know who owns the property, the land that you’re building on. Is that you?’
‘No, no. Not us. We’re just the contractors. We just build. Sometimes we own the land, but not in this instance.’
‘So who does?’
‘I … don’t know.’
‘You don’t know.’
‘No.’ Shaking his head, building the point emphatically. ‘No. I don’t.’
Mickey frowned. ‘Do you often build properties and not know who owns the land?’
More shuffling, more fidgeting. ‘No …’
‘Then why in this case?’
‘I … look. Have you tried the Land Registry? They would know.’
‘And you wouldn’t?’
‘I could find out. It would take time …’
Mickey leaned forward. ‘Mr Balchunas, is there something you’re not telling me? Because if there is, I may see it as obstructing an investigation.’
Anger flared in Balchunas’ face. His cheeks flushed. Fists clenched. ‘Who’s your superior officer, Sergeant?’ His voice suddenly strong, clear.
Mickey didn’t answer straight away. Just nodded to himself. This was following a pattern. Whenever he questioned anyone who had money, who perceived themselves as having status or influence, that line always came up. But only when they were asked something they didn’t want made public knowledge. A fact they were ashamed of.
Or of losing control over.
‘Can I take it you’re not going to answer the question, sir?’
‘Are you going to answer mine? I have friends in the police force, Sergeant. High-ranking ones. Important ones.’ He gestured towards his framed photos. Unfortunately he alighted on Philip Glenister posing as DCI Gene Hunt.
Mickey thought of giving Phil’s name, the person he regarded as the boss, but didn’t think that was senior enough to impress Balchunas. So gave him another.
‘DCI Brian Glass.’
Balchunas sat back, face impassive. ‘I’d like you to leave, Detective Sergeant. I’m a busy man. I have work to do. Especially in light of what’s happened today. I could stand to lose an awful lot of money.’
‘I appreciate that, Mr Balchunas, but—’
‘I am not legally obliged to tell you anything. Any further questions can be put to me through my solicitors.’
‘Who are?’
‘Fenton Associates.’
Fenton Associates. Lynn Windsor’s firm. Based at the Georgian house at the bottom of East Hill.
‘Right, sir.’ Mickey stood up, turned to the door. Turned back. ‘Just one more thing.’
Balchunas waited, seemingly holding his breath.
‘The person in the back of your car.’
Fear flashed across his eyes once more.
‘Person?’
‘Yes. The man in the car with you. You got out, it drove away. With him in it. Who is he?’
Balchunas’ mouth moved but no sound came out.
‘Mr Balchunas?’
‘There … there was no other person. There was just me.’
‘You’re lying to me. Sir. There was a man in the back of that car. And I’d like to know who he is.’
Balchunas stood up. Anger in his eyes. ‘Get out. Now. Or I will have you reported to your superior. I’ll have my solicitor on you for harassing me. Go on. Get out.’
Mickey felt anger of his own rising. Tamped it down. ‘I’m going, Mr Balchunas. But I doubt this is the last you’ll hear from me.’
Mickey left.
Outside, walking down Middleborough, he tried to piece things together. Couldn’t. There was something just out of reach, something he couldn’t quite get.
But he knew that if he could remember who that man in the car was, it would all become a lot clearer.
35
Paul was shaken. He had to sit down.
They had let him go. They’d had to. Couldn’t even keep him as a witness, because he’d seen nothing. Or at least nothing he wanted to tell them. Because if he did, he would have to think about things too much and it would all start to fall in. No more sun on his face, no more breathing in the open air
. No more relaxing. No. It would be back in the cave for him and he didn’t want that. Didn’t want that ever again.
But they had kept on. And on and on. And on. They had told him things, waited for him to respond. To make their minds up about whether he was telling the truth from what he said and the way he said it. And he didn’t want that. He couldn’t have that.
Because if they didn’t like what he said or the way he said it, they would put him in a cell and never let him out again.
And that would be as bad as the cave.
Or nearly as bad. At least he might be on his own there. Just Paul. No Gardener. That would be something.
But he had said nothing. Given them nothing. Because they were the dogs. The earth. He was the wind. The butterfly.
‘I’m the butterfly …’
He hadn’t realised he had spoken aloud. People tried to pretend he hadn’t said anything, that they hadn’t seen him. Just glimpsed him out of the corners of their eyes and hurried on by. Made him invisible.
He didn’t care.
He walked up the street. Shops and people with bags. Going into shops to get more bags. And more. Hurrying before the shops closed, said they couldn’t have any more stuff till tomorrow. They would wait and then start again. That was their lives.
But not his. Never his. Because he had a joy within him they would never have. Could never know.
He said all this to himself as he walked up the street. Words coming out between his ruined teeth. Words only he knew the meaning of. Words they would never understand.
Up the street and away.
He could hear the cave calling. Knew who was there. What he would do. But Paul was soft. That was his trouble. He would go in, see if he was all right. See if he had changed, if he was ready to come out and be nice. Go from Cain to Abel. And sometimes he would say he was. But he was tricking Paul. Being nice just to get out. Then he would be the same as he always was. Bad. Bad man. Evil. The serpent in paradise. And he would throw Paul in the cave. And Paul would sit there in the dark. Crying, wailing. Feeling guilty for what he had done. Trying to find his way out. To see the sun and breathe the air. But there would be no way out. Not until the Gardener decided to let him out.
