Dead and Gone: A Gripping Thriller With a Shocking Twist

by D. L. Michaels

  I skip breakfast, gather my belongings and check out. Reception books me a taxi to the railway station and ten minutes later I slide gingerly into a filthy Toyota that smells of curry and beer.

  Since getting up, I’ve made numerous phone calls. Some to Liz, my PA, and Fin, my Mr Fixit. Others have been to Danny and Martin. Neither of the latter picked up. Neither returned my calls.

  I’m about to call Terry, when he rings me.

  ‘Good morning,’ he says in a voice deepened from lack of sleep. ‘How are you today?’

  ‘Morning. I’m fine. Well, you know, fine, given everything that’s happened in the last few days.’

  ‘Then maybe I can make you feel a little better. It seems your erstwhile husband Danny is not as badly injured as we first thought. He’s at Horton General, not far from your Chipping Norton home, and after some fairly routine surgery yesterday is what they call “stable and comfortable”.’

  ‘I’m pleased to hear it. Any news on Martin?’

  ‘Thames Valley Police held him overnight but haven’t yet charged him.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘They want to take a statement from Danny first. They’ve got a bobby outside his ward and later today CID will send someone over to interview him. Once they have Danny’s testimony they’re sure to put the version to Martin and then charge him.’

  ‘What a mess.’

  ‘Messes are usually not as bad as they first look,’ says Terry, reassuringly. ‘Danny was trespassing, so that’ll mitigate in any case brought against Martin. And from what I was told, he’s been very cooperative and forthcoming. Probably more than he should have been.’

  I can’t help but smile. ‘That sounds like Martin. He’s a decent guy. He shouldn’t be caught up in all this.’

  ‘Nor should you.’ Terry takes a breath, then adds, ‘You do know they could still charge you with Crewe’s murder, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, I got that impression last night.’

  ‘In law, they only have to prove there was a crime – they don’t have to produce the corpse.’

  ‘I know that. And I know Crewe is dead, Terry.’

  ‘Well, if Danny also confesses to the killing, or worse, if he says you did it and he later moved the body because you told him to, then we have problems.’

  ‘I didn’t do that.’ Until now I hadn’t imagined that anyone would even think such a thing.

  ‘Is there anything else you think I should know?’ asks Terry, earnestly. ‘Anything you’ve not yet told me that could help me protect you?’

  ‘I think maybe I’m going insane. Would that help my defence?’

  ‘Not unless you could prove insanity and say you made everything up.’

  He says it in a way that throws me. ‘Is that what you think, Terry? Do you seriously believe I’m some kind of lunatic, The Girl on the Train fantasist?’

  There’s an unsettling pause before he answers. ‘No. Of course not.’

  ‘Then if you believe me, answer this: how can it be that the corpse of Ashley Crewe has been replaced by a mannequin dressed in his clothes?’

  Terry blows out a tired, baffled breath. ‘Well, I’ve thought a lot about it – especially last night as I was driving home.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And – if you’re absolutely sure Crewe was dead…?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Then the only possibilities are that someone moved the body. Either you – and I’m sure you didn’t. Or Danny – which is a possibility.’

  ‘Or a third party,’ I suggest. ‘Someone Danny told about the murder.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ And I really don’t. This thought has rattled through my head like a lost train over the last hours. ‘The only name I can come up with is Kieran - Kieran Crewe.’

  ‘His brother? Why would he do it?’

  ‘Again, I’m guessing, but it’s not beyond the bounds of possibility that Danny, in later years, anonymously tipped Kieran Crewe off that his brother’s body was buried in the woods, thinking that maybe the family, especially the parents, needed to be put out of the misery of guessing if he was still alive or not.’

  ‘But if that was the case, then wouldn’t it have been made public?’ argues Terry. ‘Wouldn’t Kieran have called the police and told them to dig it up?’

  ‘Not if he thought they might have suspected him of the murder. And they would have done.’

  I can see the sense in that.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ says Terry, almost abruptly, ‘I’m going to have to end our speculation for now, I have to rush to a meeting.’

  ‘That’s okay.’

  ‘Let me know if the police contact you. And please – don’t say anything more to them, unless I’m present.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘Promise.’

  ‘Good. I’ll catch you later.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Terry hangs up and I get a strange and instant feeling of being abandoned. Then I realise why. My lawyer is my only armed protector. Well, him and Fin. Without them, no one else in the world is rooting for me.

  82

  Danny

  Maybe I should ask for that lawyer.

  Or tell Parker that I really am too sick to do this shit right now. Which I am, by the way. Half my body feels like it’s been doused in petrol and set ablaze – and that’s the good half. I need time. Time, to get my old brain buzzin’ again and wriggle out of this jam.

  ‘I’m waiting, Danny,’ says the copper, staring at me like a cat what’s cornered a mouse.

  ‘I think you owe it to your wife – your pregnant wife - to bring this to an end,’ she adds, tryin’ to make me feel guilty.

  ‘What’s happened to Paula, then?’ I ask, part out of caring, mostly out of trying to divert the conversation.

  ‘We’ve released her,’ she says, ‘pending this interview, and anything the labs find when they’ve examined the clothes, mannequin, soil samples and other items we found at Black Rocks.’

  The tricky bitch listed all that stuff so I’d know how thorough she’s being. And them forensic bastards can find anything, no matter how old it is. They DNA’d that Richard the Fuckin’ Third, didn’t they? – and he must have been a thousand years old – so twenty-four years is nothin’ to them.

  ‘Just tell me, Danny – is Ashley Crewe dead? Yes, or no?’

  I don’t reply. This is a trapdoor that drops straight into hell and I’m not keen to go jumpin’ up and down on it.

  ‘You’re a bright lad. You’ve done the rounds, so you know silence speaks volumes. Silence tells only the truth. And your silence here is damning. The way things are going, Danny, body or no body, you’re getting charged with murder.’

  I’m suddenly aware of how much I need to piss. How badly I want her to stop starin’ at me like I’m a rude word sprayed on a wall.

  ‘Just bloody tell me!’ she shouts.

  ‘He’s alive!’ I scream back. ‘He’s-a-fuckin’-live!’ Nerves at the back of my neck tingle. For almost a quarter of a century I’ve kept that secret. Told white lies, black lies, red-hot forged-in-the-fires-of-hell lies.

  Her eyes light up and she pulls out a pen and notebook. ‘Address?’

  I shake my head. ‘I don’t have an address for him, and I reckon he ain’t even called Crewe no more.’

  ‘Then illuminate me, Danny. I need the full story.’

  Oddly enough, I feel ready to tell it. To detox. Squeeze out the poison. ‘Ashley needed to disappear. By that, I mean he and his older brother Kieran were in trouble with a drugs gang.’

  ‘The Appletons?’

  ‘I’d really rather not be namin’ names. Getting’ in trouble with the Crewes is bad enough.’

  She sizes me up, then says, ‘Okay, what did you care if Ashley was in trouble or not? Why help him out? You hated his guts, didn’t you?’

  ‘Yeah – I did. I wanted to kill him. I actually told him I was going to do it.�
�

  She perks up after I say that. ‘When? When did you say that? And where were you when you said it?’

  ‘It was the day after…’ I struggle to say it ‘…after he raped Paula. I got him at school. She’d told me not to, but I was boilin’ inside. I walked up behind him at lunch when he was sittin’ with all his mates and I arm-locked him around the neck, pulled him up and put two fingers across his throat like it was a blade.’

  ‘Didn’t his friends try to stop you?’

  ‘Did they fuck. After what I’d done to Ashley last time, they shit their pants and ran off. I told him, “I’m goin’ to do you, Ash. Not now. Not here. But when you’re alone. I’m goin’ to cut your throat, then I’ll slice your fuckin’ rapist cock off.”’

  ‘Okay,’ she says, dead cool like, ‘so how did you go from all that hatred and anger to suddenly being his mate and helping him out?’

  ‘I wasn’t his mate. Not never. His brothers Kieran and Raurie cornered me and said they’d hurt Paula if I didn’t help them. Hurt as in eyes gouged out, limbs chopped off, acid in your face. That kind of hurt.’

  ‘And you believed they’d do that?’

  ‘Too fuckin’ true I did. Kieran Crewe was mental. There were stories of him bottlin’ and burnin’ anyone who crossed him.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you go to the police?’ she says in a softer tone. ‘Ask for protection.’

  ‘Listen, I wanted Ashley gone. Paula wanted Ash gone. And now his brothers were comin’ to me sayin’ they wanted him gone – not dead, but gone from the area, which, like, I figured was as good as dead. You get me?’

  ‘Yeah, I get you.’ She looks at her pocket book, then asks, ‘Talk me through this dramatic charade, the mannequin dressed in Crewe’s clothes – what was the reason for all that?’

  ‘They wanted film, didn’t they?’

  ‘Who wanted film and why?’

  ‘I dunno. I mean, the Crewe brothers wanted the film, to show some people they were in trouble with. I don’t know who, but Kieran said Ashley had cocked up big time and the whole family would be killed if they didn’t do him in, and prove they’d done it.’

  ‘So how did you do that?’

  ‘Kieran had a video camera, a big thing what took whopping cassette tapes, and we rehearsed everything. How I’d pretend to knife him, but cut a placcy bag of pig’s blood beneath Ashley’s jacket, so it looked all realistic.’

  ‘Where did that come from?’ she asks.

  ‘Ashley worked Saturdays in a butcher’s shop. They threw out gallons of the stuff.’

  She writes some more, then looks up at me. ‘Okay, Danny. I need you to talk me through exactly what you did in the kitchen that night at the children’s home.’

  In a blink, I’m sixteen again. I smell chip-pan grease from the cooker, see mousetraps near the fridges, hear my feet on the sticky lino floor when I cross it. ‘It were simple really. Kieran stood in the corridor and filmed through a crack in the door to make it look more realistic, like it hadn’t been set up. Ash comes in. We go through all this pretend shit about me buying some dope and Es from him. Then I give him the money. He’s countin' it, and bosh! I knee him in the bollocks – I did that bit for real – then as he doubles up I slip round the back of him and cut his throat with a Stanley knife Kieran had given me. Ashley drops to the ground, so I give him a kick – which again I did for real – then I bend over him, with my back to the camera, and I squeeze the blood bag so it goes all over his neck and face. It sort of puddled around him. Looked really good.’

  ‘And then?’ she asks.

  ‘Then I went and got Paula.’

  ‘Why did she have to see this? Why was she involved?’

  ‘Kieran figured she’d freak when she saw the blood. And she did. With that on camera it would look more realistic when the other gang saw it.’

  ‘And the mannequin?’

  ‘Raurie got that, and the van. It were the smartest bit really.’

  ‘Why?’

  I smile, because it’s genius when I think about it. ‘I got Paula to help me wrap Ashley in sheets. So, she really did see it were him. No mistake. Ash played dead as we lugged him to the back of the van and put him in. When he were in there, he stripped off, put the clothes on the mannequin and wrapped it in the sheets that’d been around him. He put on the clobber that the dummy had been wearin’ and then hid under a black tarp in the back of the van where originally the mannequin had been hidden. We parked up at Black Rocks, a spot me, Kieran and Ash had already dug out, then heaped soil back on, so it would be easy to shovel out in the dark. I left Paula in the van, while I did the diggin’, then I got her to help me move the body. I didn’t let her touch it cos she’d be able to tell it was lighter. Not that she wanted to – she was in bits. But she held the van doors open for me while I carried the Ash doll out and she watched me put it into the pit. Then I heaped the earth back in, drove her back to the home and then, once I’d settled her there, I took the van back to the Crewes and cleaned up.’

  ‘Well done. Award-winning performances all round,’ says Parker, all sarcastic like. ‘Only instead of for Best Drama, it should be for Arsehole of the Decade, because instead of helping your girlfriend – your future wife – recover from the ordeal of being raped, you inflicted a whole new trauma on her. You made her think she’d not only witnessed a murder but had been responsible for it.’

  ‘And if I hadn’t,’ I say angrily, ‘then she’d have had to deal with being burned by acid or bleach. How do you think she’d have coped with that? You’ve no fuckin’ idea what a mess we were in. I did what I had to.’

  ‘Maybe,’ she says.

  ‘No. Not maybe. I had no choice.’

  ‘But you could have told her later, couldn’t you? When you were married and had moved away, when you were out of reach of the Crewes, why didn’t you tell her then?’

  I can’t answer that. There are reasons. Of course, there are. Good ones. But I’m not tellin’ this cow. I just want her to go now. I need some peace. Need to take everythin’ in that’s been said and done. ‘I dunno why,’ I lie. ‘I didn’t, that’s all. I guess I hoped it was all in the past and had been forgotten.’

  ‘That’s rubbish, Danny.’ She gives me a sarcastic smile, then adds, ‘I don’t believe that and neither do you. You didn’t tell her because the big lie gave you a hold over her. It stopped her leaving you, stopped her divorcing you, didn’t it?’

  I press a bell for the nurse. ‘I’m done listening to your shit. You want to charge me with somethin’, then do it. Otherwise, piss off and leave me alone.’

  ‘Oh, I’ll be charging you, all right. But when I’m good and ready, and not before,’ she says as she starts to leave. ‘Expect that knock on your door, Danny. I’ll be making it very soon.’

  83

  Paula

  The journey back to London is agonisingly slow. The train I’m on is older than Stephenson’s Rocket. An engine problem, cheerfully announced over a muffled loudspeaker system, is apparently the reason my arrival is getting further delayed with every mile of track crawled.

  I’m sharing a table for four. Trapped in the window seat. Alongside a flatulent businessman with an obsession for nose-picking and opposite a Goth couple who can’t stop touching each other.

  Flatulent Man gets off at Loughborough and I breathe a sigh of relief, albeit a very shallow one because of how fetid the air is. My mobile rings. I try to take it, but the signal is so bad that I can’t hear anyone at the other end and I’m just left saying, ‘Hello. Hello. Can you hear me?’ This at least amuses the glum, white-faced Goths.

  I put the phone down.

  It instantly rings again.

  This time I get up and don’t take the call until I’m between the carriages, where reception is always better. ‘Hello, hello?’

  ‘Sarah – this is Martin.’

  Oh, my God. I can’t believe he has called me.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I ask pathetically.

  He
gives a half-laugh. ‘I don’t know. Probably not. My head is so messed up right now, I can’t remember what “all right” feels like.’

  ‘Where are you?’ I tense as I ask the question, fearing he is already in a prison.

  ‘I’m at the village police station. Grudgingly, they’ve given me a little privacy and this call. Paula - last night, Danny came to my house – and—’

  I stop him struggling for words. ‘I know what happened, Martin. The police told me.’

  ‘I wanted to kill him, Sarah.’ He sounds close to tears. ‘There was a moment – a moment when I looked down the barrel of the gun and it was aimed at his face and – and – I – I - almost shot him in the head, instead of the arm and shoulder.’

  ‘But you didn’t. That’s the important thing. You didn’t do that.’

  ‘I know, and I hadn’t used lead shot, but I’ve still seriously injured him.’

  ‘Have they charged you, sweetheart?’

  I hear him blow his nose. Maybe a cold. Or his dust allergy. Or, more likely, emotions that have become too much to bear.

  ‘No. Not yet.’ He sighs deeply. ‘They said they wanted to interview him, first. Hear his side of the story.’

  ‘What did he do, Martin? Did Danny try to hurt you?’

  ‘I don’t think I want to talk about it.’

  ‘Tell me. Please.’

  There’s a pause. All I hear is the rattle and noise of the train. Then he continues, ‘He crept into the house with a metal bar in his hand and I think he would have beaten me with it.’

  I sense he’s looking for justification. ‘He would. I’m sure you’re right. I thought you had gone to your parents’, darling. I told the police you were going there.’

  ‘I needed to see him. I had to look him in the eye and try to understand what you saw in him. I guess, I was searching for some answers.’

  ‘Answers to what, baby?’

  ‘I don’t know. To why you couldn’t leave him. To why you still love him more than me.’