The Score

by Howard Marks

  The only homely touches were provided by a CD player painted pink and, in the far corner opposite the bed, a Spanish guitar with a red ribbon tied around the neck. Cat looked over at the café owner, who was standing by the door, preparing to usher them out.

  ‘Where do Delyth’s family live?’

  ‘Doesn’t have any. She worked at farms in Pembrokeshire over the winter, came here for the summer. Never any trouble.’

  Cat picked up the CD on the top of a pile, a copy of Cerys Matthews’s Awyren=Aeroplane, looked over at the woman. ‘Anything unusual in the last few weeks?’

  The woman began to shake her head before Cat had even finished the question.

  ‘Any sign she was unhappy?’

  She bent and picked a roll of fluff from the carpet. ‘Used to play her music a bit loud, but then she got an iPod. Just went to her room after her shifts. Never heard a peep from her.’

  Cat put the CD back on the pile. ‘She didn’t go out with friends?’

  ‘Not often. Never saw her with anyone. Weekends she was away usually.’

  ‘Know where?’

  The woman shrugged. Cat stood on her toes, looked out at the drive. ‘Anyone pick her up? Any vehicles you saw?’

  The owner shook her head emphatically. ‘Never heard any.’

  ‘She didn’t mention any names you remember?’ Behind her, Cat caught Thomas’s sotto voce, ‘Oh God, here we go’, but she ignored him and ploughed on. ‘Did she ever mention Griff Morgan.’

  ‘Morgan? The drugs man? Threw away the key, didn’t they?’

  ‘Spoke about him, did she?’

  The woman looked blank. The name Morgan didn’t seem to catch any fish. Cat moved towards the guitar. ‘You hear her playing this?’

  The woman’s face softened. ‘Occasionally she’d play simple songs: country, I think.’ Her eyes moistened. ‘Nice voice she had, I never complained.’

  ‘Remember any of the songs?’

  The woman shook her head again. Thomas was standing by the door, his expression suggesting this was a waste of their time. They thanked the woman, made their way out through the café, where the two customers were making their cups of tea last.

  Thomas led the way down the road towards The Lion, where Cat had stayed the night before. Not that she had seen the inside of the bar, having accessed her room via what was termed the guest entrance, aka the back stairs. The bar had seen better days. Its red flock wallpaper was faded and the carpet worn bald. The half-dozen figures around the bar were male, most of them casually dressed in tracksuits or denim jackets, and they had the air of the long-term unemployed.

  Thomas and Cat approached them, Thomas waving at the barman to attract his attention. He passed Cat her bottled water, eyes raised in mock disapproval as he did so. They moved away from the ears at the bar towards a snug table in the corner, beneath a handsome etched window. Thomas stared at his pint for what seemed an age.

  ‘All bets are off till the path’s reports come in.’ He took a swallow. ‘But I’m still feeling suicide ring.’

  ‘And the Kilroy?’

  ‘Wind-up of some sort, or it had some private significance for the girls. Either way it can’t literally mean what it says – we know that, at least.’

  Cat needed his help. She would be gentle. ‘Esyllt and Delyth were musical like Nia. It’s what brought all three girls together maybe.’

  ‘Ok, but how come no one ever saw the girls together?’

  Cat had already thought about this. If the girls had been online friends this might explain it. But then why had they used the cottage and the tunnel? They felt more like hiding places than hangouts, though at that age the line between the two was blurred. But why two places? Why not just use the more comfortable cottage, why also the tunnel? She didn’t have an answer, though she knew there might be several innocent ones.

  Thomas looked down at her glass of water as if he’d only just noticed it. ‘What’s with that?’ he said.

  She didn’t want to go there. Bad enough having to live each day as a cold raw birth without having to share it. He wanted her to be vulnerable to him and she wasn’t playing. Alcohol worked on the same receptors as the benzos, and one drink would set recovery back months, maybe irreparably – would be like pulling open her heart then fastening it with a stapler. Maybe she’d have said something like that, if he’d asked her right, but then again, probably not.

  He could be all right, Thomas, but he could be a boorish prick as well. That was the thing with other people, you couldn’t pin them down, they were riven with competing traits. Just like she was. Because to everyone else in the world, Cat was one of the other people too. She looked away.

  At another table two youths were having an animated conversation about rugby. And then Cat caught a glimpse of a familiar figure sitting at a table in the back room. She shifted behind Thomas but she knew Kyle had already spotted her.

  Kyle was with an officer Cat had seen from a distance around Cathays Park. He was bulked up like a bodybuilder and wore the off-duty uniform of rugby shirt and chinos. She recognised him as Kyle’s driver at the marina, waiting in the shadows of her car. When he turned towards her, his eyes were narrowed and blinking as he took her in.

  Thomas followed her gaze. ‘That’s Mo Probert. Armed Response Unit. He was the marksman at the bust.’

  She remembered the actor playing Huw Tulle on the gangplank at the marina. The first shot catching him. Tulle staggering back like a drunk. On the second impact the lights flickering as the black-clad ARs, their faces masked, closed in around him.

  ‘The inquest cleared Probert, said he’d had probable cause for shooting. Tulle reached into his pocket. Though later it turned out he wasn’t armed.’

  She glanced at Probert. ‘He’s Kyle’s bit of rough?’

  Thomas chuckled. ‘Talk is when they come to her cottage they don’t go out for days. So it’s a fair bet.’

  ‘Right, the trigger man.’

  Thomas chuckled again. ‘Pill man, more like. Think you get built like that from oat bars.’

  ‘Roids gave him the itchy finger?’

  Kyle was walking towards them now. Her tan jodhpurs were spattered with mud from the search. Probert was a couple of paces behind. There was no pretending she hadn’t been seen now so Cat just smiled at her. She expected Kyle to rip into her, but Kyle didn’t address her at all, just looked coolly at Thomas.

  ‘The third girl,’ she said, ‘any sign?’

  ‘No, ma’am,’ Thomas said.

  Cat thought of the T-shirt at the cottage, the stain at the waist, the metallic smell of it. Thomas had already pulled the medical records of all three girls. Some depression in Nia’s file, but nothing in the other two. If Esyllt was a cutter she had hidden it well. But as Thomas had said, all bets were off until the path’s reports came in. Until then they were all walking blind.

  ‘The father’s a friend of yours, Price?’ Kyle wasn’t looking at Cat as she spoke. Her voice was cold, final, as though after their conversation at the marina, when Kyle said she was keeping an open mind, that mind had now been closed by Cat’s disobedience.

  ‘Yes, ma’am. An old friend.’

  Cat tried to remember if she had given Martin’s name when she’d rung Kyle’s secretary. She couldn’t imagine she had, but the withdrawal symptoms were playing with her memory. Maybe Kyle had spoken to Martin. But it wasn’t her case, that would be out of line even for Kyle. Cat felt hot suddenly in her biker’s gear, sweat was gathering under her collar and her head throbbed.

  Kyle exchanged a look with Thomas that said she expected to be kept informed. Then she strode ahead of Probert to the door. As she opened it her profile was caught for a moment against the stained glass. She looked somehow medieval, Cat thought. Like an effigy in an ancient church, one of those who had been away on the crusades out of zeal rather than to plunder. Kyle headed out to her Subaru and got into the driver’s seat, not waiting for Probert to close his door before firing the engine. I
t sounded modded, rally-tuned. She disappeared up the lane into the quickening rain.

  ‘That’s a pity,’ said Thomas, finishing his drink.

  Cat refused to rise to his bait directly, but threw a look at him.

  ‘I was looking forward to hearing one of Kyle’s bollockings. Maybe she’s saving it up.’

  Cat ignored him, said nothing. Kyle’s exact words to her down at the marina had been: ‘Don’t leave town, not on my time.’ Cat had interpreted that as meaning she could go, but only if she took the time as unpaid leave. At the time she’d presumed that Kyle had meant exactly that, which was why it hadn’t been a hard decision to leave. But now she felt something else. Maybe Kyle had wanted her to go, had chosen her words in such a way to nudge Cat into going. Maybe or maybe not, but this was for sure: there was something weird about Kyle being here so quickly. Coincidences happen, but this one was already stretched beyond the snapping point.

  Thomas shoved his glass away from him, and headed out for the street. Cat looked down at her water, finished it, then followed Thomas out into the rain.

  @tt33w6yh: Thanks. Who are u?

  @purevoice94: A friend. Your voice is perfect. Are you a pro?

  @tt33w6yh: LOL! I wish!! Then, annoyed with herself, she clarifies.

  @tt33w6yh: Do want to sing professionally. Practise all the time. No band though.

  @purevoice94: You don’t need one. Not with my help.

  @tt33w6yh: Help me? Why?

  @purevoice94: I believe in you. Know talent when I see it.

  @tt33w6yh: But who are u?

  @purevoice94: I’m in the business. I’ll help you.

  6

  CAT PARKED IN the half-flooded yard at the back of The Lion and had a smoke while she was at it. She needed to call on Martin but couldn’t face it yet. She went upstairs, closed the flimsy curtains in the bedroom and put in earplugs. She lay in the semi-darkness. She shut out everything except the sound of her breathing and waited for the throbbing in her head to stop.

  It didn’t, but gradually it became manageable. She sat up, cracked the window and smoked another. The first three months of benzo withdrawal were the worst. Most people stayed in bed resting but she didn’t have that choice. She just had to roll with the punches and keep her eyes on the light.

  She booted her Mac. There was an unsecured wireless connection, probably the pub’s, and she piggybacked on that.

  While she was waiting for the connection, she made a call to Sol Bowles at Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons. It was a pay-for line. After getting through several recorded messages, a receptionist came on and told her Bowles was busy. She asked to be put through to his secretary and after a wait was told he would not be free. Then abruptly he came on the line.

  She didn’t offer any excuses for not having been in touch. She didn’t want to sound fake. She apologised for troubling him, and asked him to go through with her the conditions Morgan had been held in.

  She could tell right off from his tone that he thought they were both wasting their time.

  ‘Go on. Talk me through it,’ she said.

  ‘What, the strip search? The multiple visual confirmations? The thirty-foot walls with anti-grip paint? The security lighting and CCTV? The pressure sensors? And that’s just the prison as a whole. The maximum security units are even tighter, cameras everywhere. Prisoners spend most of their time locked in their rooms, with repeated visual inspections through the day. Cell checks are frequent. Morgan has been on communication blackout for several years. They have detectors that can pick up mobiles or any electronic devices. Unless he’s psychic he’s not talked to anyone they don’t know about.’ He was gathering steam. ‘If I put my prison inspector’s hat on, I’d say there were issues with the way Belmarsh is run – a propensity to use excessive force when it comes to prisoner restraint, overcrowding obviously, inadequate recreational and educational facilities – but if you want to ask me whether a dying man could get out of that place, then no fucking way. It’s impossible. Forget about it.’

  ‘Mouse’s arse,’ she said.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Something Thomas said.’ She thanked Sol and they chatted for a bit about the old days until the talk ran out on them, then after an embarrassed silence, they said their goodbyes and hung up.

  Cat felt relieved that she would not have to bother her mind any longer with Houdini-like scenarios. Morgan, in person at least, was out of the frame. She clicked through to her personal emails. In among the spam and follow-ups from letting agents, one item pleased her. It was from ‘Rob Benzo’. On the top margin was his forum avatar. It showed a cartoon Jack Nicholson from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Next to it, some children’s verse. They had started chatting on a site for trank survivors. He was meant to be cyber-buddying her through the withdrawal process. But things had quickly gone the other way. Rob had wanted to unburden himself and confide. It was his way of making her feel better about what she was going through, because what he’d gone through was so much worse. He was someone who’d had everything – a loving family, an involving job, true friends. But the tranks had sneaked in and pilfered the lot.

  He had encouraged her to talk to him in ways she hadn’t talked to anyone for years. Gratitude tumbled with affection, tumbled with reliance, tumbled with need.

  Cat sensed he was shy with women. She’d asked to meet him, to make him smile, to buy him coffee, anything to give back a small portion of what she had taken from him. But he always refused. When she finally coaxed him onto a webcam, he had reminded her in appearance of a young priest. She had expected someone tough and streetwise, but his eyes were soft still, and tender. His face had the pallor of a scholar. He sat in such a way that she couldn’t see his hair. From what she could make out it had thinned at the top, and looked unwashed. He had the air of a man with no pride or illusions left, except in his respect for the truth. That was the only condition he’d set on their friendship, that she never lie to him. She wasn’t sure what drew her to these unworldly types, or them to her; Martin had been the first of them.

  For a moment she caught her reflection in the screen. She didn’t like what she saw and looked away. It was time to do some proper work. When her Mac came to life, she ran searches on the names of Delyth Moses and Nia Hopkins. She found that beyond Nia’s YouTube clip, neither had any presence online. Same with Esyllt. The girls all seemed uncharacteristically antisocial for their age. She clicked onto Nia’s YouTube site. There were no links to other sites the girl had used.

  There was a screech of brakes outside. Cat raised her head. It was a local in a souped-up Mini. She watched the boy racer hunched now over his wheel, talking to a friend. Cat looked beyond the kids at the row of shops opposite. Two had been boarded over. The door of a travel agency displayed stickers for holiday companies, but the window had been whitened with cleaning fluid. A To Let sign hung there. Behind the shops stretched an area of public land, partly visible over the roofs. A group of youths slouched on a bench looking bored.

  Cat went back to her Mac. She began running searches on Gwen Kyle, looking for more about the suicide of her foster-daughter. It had no obvious connection with what was happening, yet Kyle was involved in this, or felt she was.

  Only one article from the right period came up, a page scanned from a local paper. The details of what had happened seemed as simple as they were sad. The piece reported that the girl had broken into a country train station about five miles from Kyle’s cottage where she’d been living for two years, having moved there from a previous foster-family in Llanelli. It had been early morning. CCTV footage showed how she’d waited alone on the platform for half an hour, not moving. At ten to five a night train had entered the station at speed. Tilly had walked fast to the edge of the platform, then thrown herself in front of it. Cat winced. The article went on to say that it had taken three days to recover all the body parts. Kyle had returned immediately from the flat in Cardiff she used when working but had refused to answer any q
uestions put to her by the reporter. The writer described her as ‘visibly upset’ and mentioned that Kyle was known to have been a ‘devoted and caring foster-mother’.

  Clicking over to the newspaper’s own website, Cat searched on ‘Gwen Kyle’. Several pages were suggested. The first was the report of her foster-daughter’s death, then a brief account of the funeral. The girl had been a promising singer and had won several local competitions. After the ‘tragedy’, as the episode was described, Kyle had involved herself in a campaign to keep the local youth club open. A photograph showed her standing in front of an ugly grey concrete building, talking to a local councillor. Kyle’s involvement seemed to Cat like a classic displacement activity; she was sublimating and displaying her grief at the same time.

  Cat bookmarked the page about the funeral, then called up the missing persons files on the PNC. Apart from a few teens that had disappeared, run away to Cardiff or London before resurfacing, there were no local cases that still remained open in the five years between Kyle’s foster-daughter’s suicide and the three current cases: Esyllt Tilkian, Nia Hopkins and Delyth Moses.

  Cat sighed, fingers hesitating over the keyboard. Her history screamed at her not to do what she was about to do, but the case demanded otherwise. She made a canna roll-up, started to smoke, then began the next phase of her searches. She was looking for websites aimed at teenage depressives and potential suicides. There were a lot of them out there.

  At the top of the Google list were responsible websites specifically aimed at parents and teachers. Young Minds, all pastel shades and informally blocky lettering, ran a service dedicated to counselling and advising children, teens, parents and professionals. There were links through to cosy public information notices issued by the NHS or semi-official bodies like EXIT. Concerned adults could sign up for a newsletter and an outreach programme. Another site, Battlefront, featured the subtitle, ‘You’re already involved’. Its ‘Teenage Suicide’ page contained videos and messages of support, mostly from teens who had lost friends, family members. There were links to Bebo, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace. It was earnest, dull, well-intentioned stuff.