by Sarah Hilary
‘May Beswick.’ Marnie stripped the words back to a knife edge. ‘We’ve found her.’
Dead.
Noah could hear it in her voice.
May was dead.
He put down the foil dish of rice, turning away from the table. ‘Where?’
‘Battersea Power Station. How quickly can you get here?’
12
London leaned in through long windows to look at what was done here. Its shadows stained the floors and walls, and the glass gravel in glazed pots where fat cacti sat. The same shadows stained the girl’s feet and legs, lying in the gutter of her stomach like dirty water.
Noah stood in the penthouse flat with the power station’s famous chimneys at his back, seeing a dead daughter and sister. A murdered girl.
London looked indifferently on May Beswick. Wiped out her face, pressed her hands to her sides, made it hard to read the black scratch of words across her body. She looked very little, lying on the bed. She was sixteen years old. Naked except for a pair of white cotton knickers and the writing. Her body was covered in writing. Black ink, from the broad nib of a marker pen.
Ugly. Slut. Dog. Bitch. The same words, over and over. Up her legs and down her arms. Across her stomach and chest. Higher, right up to her sternum. Bitch. Slut. Dog.
In the open palms of her hands. Whore.
The words shouted, filling the room, throbbing in Noah’s skull as if someone had turned up the volume in here. Everything shouted. The colours, the smell, her stillness. The way she lay on the bed with her pale-blonde hair brushed neat on the pillow.
Round cheeks and a wide forehead, but she was no longer the girl in the photograph who’d haunted his sleep for the last twelve weeks. He could hear brush strokes in her hair, the slow settling of the blood at the backs of her legs. He clenched his hands and his jaw, focusing on the crime.
The words were neater on the left side of her body. If she was right-handed, she could have written them herself. It was hard to look at her, but he had to look. That was his job, the only excuse he had for being here, staring at a dead teenage girl. The picture broke up and became just so much static. He heard rather than saw it, a high-pitched scrabble adding to the noise in his head.
‘We need Forensics. Fran Lennox …’ Marnie was speaking into her phone. Her mouth marked a line on her face. ‘No, I want Fran. Tell her I asked for her especially. And put Family Liaison on standby.’ She was at the foot of the bed. ‘This is now a murder investigation.’
Noah could hear the man’s hands on May’s throat, squeezing. Big hands, their size shouting from the blue spread of bruises. She’d been strangled. Recently, by her colour. He could hear her feet kicking. It didn’t happen here.
‘Talk to me,’ Marnie said. ‘Tell me what you’re seeing.’
‘He didn’t do it here. She was dead when he put her here. It’s not … I don’t think it’s a sex thing. She’s … a child. He sees her as a child.’
‘He undressed her.’
Noah shook his head in protest. ‘She looks like a child.’
‘We’ve been looking for a child. The Beswicks’ daughter. Their child.’
‘Loz’s sister.’ He felt nauseous. ‘Her big sister.’
‘Why isn’t it a sex thing? Tell me what you see.’
‘The way he’s brushed her hair …’ Noah had seen women laid out like angels by their killers, or laid out like whores. This wasn’t the same. ‘He’s brushed her hair like a child’s.’
‘Plenty of people kill children. Too many.’
‘Yes. But this doesn’t sound … doesn’t look like that. Not to me.’ He had to stop looking at the bed, just for a moment.
Hanging above it: a painting of the power station. It had been chilling his peripheral vision since he’d stepped into the room. A cool grey study of scale and slippery depth – the feeling that if you looked too long or hard you’d fall into the canvas and struggle like a fly in a spider’s pantry before acid ate you alive. He’d seen paintings like it in exhibitions he’d visited with Dan. Dirt scraped from railway arches and storm drains made the paint fat and irregular, clots of dust and hair growing like cysts under the skin of the canvas. His gut fisted, looking at it.
‘How did he get her in here?’ Marnie turned from the bed towards the long windows. ‘It’s secure. Probably more secure than it’ll be when they’ve finished the work. CCTV, alarms, patrols.’
A patrol had called in the crime. A security guard, doing his rounds, had found May’s body and called the police, sounding sickened but not panicked.
‘Jamie Ledger, ex-soldier,’ Marnie said. ‘He’s seen worse, but not in London. He’d thought this was a quiet job, guarding penthouses. We need to talk to him.’
Noah nodded, but didn’t move. He wanted to stay here until the body on the bed was quiet. ‘The killer risked getting caught to bring her here.’ The chimneys were heavy at his back. Monolithic. Iconic. ‘He wanted us to find her like this. And here … right here.’ Her hair brushed neat, hands at her sides. ‘It’s a ritual, or a confession.’ All Noah’s training, in psychology and as a detective, said that this was someone who’d do it again. It was a long climb through the building site. CCTV, alarms, patrols. ‘He went to trouble to leave her here.’
‘It’s a message,’ Marnie agreed. ‘But what? What’s he trying to say?’
‘He has access to the building, or he knows someone who has. We need the names of everyone who knows the security set-up. He came here before he killed her. I think … he saw all this, and he wanted her to be part of it.’
‘An expensive resting place,’ Marnie murmured, ‘where she’d be found, and quickly. You’re right. Workers, estate agents, prospective buyers – we need a list of everyone who’s shown an interest in this flat in the last twelve weeks.’
Noah watched the city’s lights flexing in the Thames below. ‘I was talking to Dan about this place. He mentioned urban explorers, place-hackers. They love it here.’
‘Not everyone will be on a list. All right. But we have to start there.’
Noah nodded, remembering what else Dan had said about the lure of places like this.
It’s about getting under the city’s skin.
He turned back to the bed. Shouting, still. The words on her body. His head throbbed blackly. ‘Do you think she did that? The writing, I mean.’
‘Lots of Sharpie pens in her bedroom. Sean said she was always sketching.’
‘Battersea Power Station … Wasn’t this one of the things she sketched?’
Marnie nodded. ‘This place meant something to her, too. Not just to her killer.’ She joined him at the side of the bed. ‘Go on. What else?’
‘Twelve weeks and a day.’ Noah looked at May’s hands, and her feet. ‘He had her somewhere clean, decent. Fed her, looked after her. Her nails are trim, legs shaved recently, hair washed … He brushed it, after he did this. After he killed her. Could he’ve done the rest of it post-mortem as well?’
‘Not all of it,’ Marnie said. ‘Look at her skin. No bruises, except the ones on her throat. No cuts, no visible damage. She’s not malnourished. She was cared for, or allowed to care for herself. She wouldn’t have done that if she was afraid. Not if she thought she was in danger.’
‘The writing’s ugly. Do you think she was doing it to herself before she left home?’
‘Perhaps. We asked the Beswicks about self-harm, and they denied it.’
‘Is it self-harm?’
‘At the very least it’s an act of self-reproach. A warning, maybe.’ Marnie glanced away, silent for a beat. ‘She’s still blonde, and she’s not skinny. But I think we should ask Joe Eaton about the girl he saw. Specifically about the black scratches.’
Noah looked at the jagged ink on May’s body. ‘You think it was writing, like this?’
‘I think … Maybe. Yes.’
‘They knew one another? May and the other girl? Or they knew the killer?’
‘I’m not saying that. It could
be a coincidence.’
‘No such thing,’ Noah said automatically.
‘He read them.’ Marnie’s voice was so soft he had to turn his head to hear. ‘Damaged girls, running away. He found them, took them in. And he read them. He read their skin.’ She looked at Noah. ‘We need to find him before he does this again.’
Ritual. Spectacle …
Everything signalled the start of a killing spree.
London was full of missing girls.
How many of them had this man found?
13
Aimee
I had her pens. May’s. The ones she’d used to write on herself. It was Grace’s game, but May kept her company, wanting Grace to feel less of a freak, less alone. I’d hated the writing, all those lies. Ugly. Bitch. Whore. ‘You aren’t any of those things,’ I’d told her, but she wouldn’t stop.
She was gone.
I couldn’t believe it. She didn’t even say goodbye. Just another empty place at the table when we sat down to breakfast.
‘She went back home.’ Harm’s face was a full stop. ‘It’s what she wanted.’
No one asked any questions. Not at breakfast, not of Harm. I couldn’t swallow his food, had to keep it in the sides of my mouth until I could spit it down the toilet. It was shock, mostly. I was such a coward. How could she’ve trusted me to keep her safe, let alone the baby?
After breakfast, I went to her room, hoping she’d left a message for me, instructions for how to find her. I couldn’t stay there without her. But where would I go? If even she didn’t want me …
‘What’s up, freak? Missing your little girlfriend? Even now you know she’s not a lezzer?’ Ashleigh was filling a bin liner with things from May’s locker. ‘Lezzers don’t get pregnant.’ She tied a knot in the neck of the bag. ‘She liked dick.’
‘Can I have that?’ I held out my hand.
‘Yeah? For what? What’ve you got to give me, freak?’
‘Paracetamol.’ I put my hand in my pocket. ‘I’ll give you two paracetamol.’
I was the only one allowed pills, because I was supposed to be sick all the time.
Ashleigh wanted the pills, but she was greedy. ‘What about that locket he gave you?’ She twisted the neck of the bin bag round her wrist. ‘Two paracetamol and the locket.’
‘You can’t have the locket. He checks all the stuff he gives me. If it’s missing, he’ll know you nicked it and you’ll get a bollocking. I can say I ate the pills because I felt bad.’ I took out the foil strip and pressed two into my hand, holding them out. ‘He doesn’t check these.’
‘Why’d you want her crap anyway?’ Ashleigh took the pills, gave me the bag. ‘She’s a dirty bitch. Shagging around, sneaking out to get some. Lucky cow. Unless it was him.’ She covered her mouth, pretending to be shocked. Only half pretending. If he heard her talking like that, or if I told him, she’d be sorry. It’d be the candle and face-scrubbing all over again, only worse.
‘He’s not like that. And May’s not like that.’
‘Oh fuck off. She’s pregnant. How’d you think that happened? She was sneaking out to get some. Well, good luck to her. And good riddance.’ She turned to the locker where she’d put the tin of Vaseline she’d used to slick her lips, and I thought:
You’re next.
Good riddance.
I took the bag upstairs, sitting on my bed to look through the things May had left. A couple of T-shirts, old scrunchies with her hair in them, her pens and her sketchpad. I turned the pages, looking at our faces. The others hadn’t wanted to sit for her, so Ashleigh’s face was just slices. Christie’s hadn’t turned out right, like people wearing paper masks with her face photographed on them. The ones of Grace were good. I missed her, mad Gracie. No pictures of Harm in the sketchpad, but plenty of me. He’d made May draw me over and over. Sitting at the dressing table with his gifts. Brushing my hair, fastening the locket round my neck, lying in bed. A lot of me lying in bed: Aimee, in decline. She agreed to draw me because it meant we could spend time together. I’d liked watching her work, hair tied back, mouth bitten in concentration, sky and clouds leaning in across her shoulder. All of London was out there. If I stood at the window, I could see Battersea Power Station. Its chimneys were the last thing she drew.
I looked for messages, something written just for me. I couldn’t believe she’d gone without saying goodbye. We shared everything. That time Christie gave me a box of sanitary pads – I could still feel the flush of embarrassment, shame, creeping all over me. I don’t know what I’d have done if May hadn’t made a joke out of it: ‘Padded cell …’
No messages in her sketchpad, nothing I hadn’t already seen, except that last picture of the power station. We’d watched the scaffolding go up, workmen moving all over the site in their hard hats. They were turning it into flats and we used to say we’d live there one day, May and me and her little sister. In the biggest flat, with the fuck-me windows, making the whole of London into pictures like the ones she’d drawn. Was it a message, this last picture? Was she waiting for me there? She’d found a way out, like Grace. She’d got away, but she’d left me here. With him …
The door handle was turning.
I shoved the sketchpad and everything else under the pillow, lay down and shut my eyes, blood thumping in my throat, sweat running like a rash up my arms and down my legs, its itch in my armpits, on my lips …
The air in the room thickened, buckling about me.
He came across to the bed and stood for a long time, looking down.
Seeing what he wanted to see.
His sick little girl.
Aimee, in decline.
14
Outside the penthouse flat, the power station looked derelict. Raw cement, rotten tiles, floors tacky with grease and dust. Wiring in nooses from the ceiling, waiting to be connected, plugged into the rest of the city. Down here, the site smelt like a diseased lung.
Marnie was talking to the security guard, Jamie Ledger. ‘You’re saying you don’t have CCTV footage from last night?’
‘I’d be surprised. It’s why they have us. And the dogs.’ He jerked his head at one of his fellow guards walking the perimeter with an Alsatian on a heavy-duty leash. ‘Brain on a chain.’
Ex-soldier, mid forties, tattoos on his fingers. He’d seen some trouble in his time, and this? Was a half-arsed job, nothing like the life-or-death career he’d left behind, recently, judging by the buzz cut.
‘How long have you been working here?’
‘Three weeks on Tuesday.’ Ledger put his hands behind his back.
‘Has there been any trouble before now?’
‘Dead bodies? No, this is the first.’
‘But there’s been trouble of another kind?’
‘Kids, climbers, a couple of drunks. Nothing like this.’ Pale eyes in a dark face. One of the finger tattoos was a hawk. He topped six foot, in good shape, better than the other security guards she’d seen on site. All muscle, his gravel-coloured stare summing her up in a single sweep. He’d known she was in charge before he’d seen her badge. A good soldier, she guessed, wondering at his reason for leaving, seeing the coin-sized scar above his left ear. He’d asked if she minded if he smoked, and she’d said no, because she needed him onside. He rolled each cigarette, smoking it to a shred before flicking it away.
‘CCTV isn’t working inside the main building? Why not? Plenty of cameras about the place.’
‘Cameras need connecting. They want to sell more pods before they start spending more money.’ He shrugged. ‘That’s developers for you. Tighter than a camel’s arse in a sandstorm.’
‘Is this what you think, or what you know? I could use some hard facts. Such as how many cameras are working here, and which ones. Upstairs in particular.’
‘None of the ones upstairs. They don’t reckon on anyone making it that far unless they’ve got a few million to spend.’ He ran his tongue along a cigarette paper. ‘We’re supposed to have the perimeter covered down here.�
� The edge of his eye on her, checking her out the way he’d check a piece of kit to see whether it was likely to jam on him or kick to the side if fired. Nothing personal in it, certainly nothing sexual. He’d checked Noah in the same way.
Marnie needed someone on site who was watchful. It made a change from the average security outfit. What had he said about the guard with the dog? Brain-on-a-chain. She filed it for future reference. ‘You saw the body, upstairs. But you didn’t touch anything.’
‘No.’ The pale stare ran over her like a searchlight. ‘It was obvious what it was.’
‘What was it?’
‘A killing. Some psycho strangled her. Probably raped her too.’ A lick of anger in his voice. ‘I’d forgotten what a pit London is.’
‘How long since you got back?’
He sandbagged the anger with a smile. ‘Couple of years, give or take.’
‘Where were you?’
‘Afghanistan.’ No boast in his voice. Serving her the facts, plainly.
‘She weighed eight stone.’ Marnie matched the man’s unflinching tone. ‘Whoever carried her up there was fit and strong.’
‘And quiet. It’s not easy to be quiet around here.’ He stirred a booted foot at the loose topcoat of rubble, raising a noise like heavy rainfall. ‘I found her on the first sweep. She could’ve been there a couple of hours before I got started.’
‘No one else did a sweep before you came on shift?’
‘Everyone, according to the rota. I asked around while you were up there. The rota was filled in, but I’d be gobsmacked if they actually got off their arses and went up.’
‘You’re the only one who does that?’
‘I like the exercise. Beats sitting listening to them whining and farting.’ He perfected the cigarette with his fingertips. ‘She was already up there by the time I checked in. I’d have spotted something otherwise.’ He looked in the direction of the river. ‘I don’t miss much. It’s how they train you. Ears and eyes open. Some things you forget, but not that. Forgot what I was coming home to, though.’ He struck a match and lit the cigarette. ‘Afghanistan’s got nothing on this place.’
