The Goodnight Song: An absolutely heart-stopping and gripping thriller

by Nick Hollin

  Nathan is alone in the churchyard among the graves. Most of these poor souls will have died of natural causes, some in accidents, and some will have ended things themselves. There’s even a chance that one or two will have lost their lives as the result of a crime. How many people are still suffering from his brother’s actions? And how many will now suffer as a result of what he has done? Words cannot describe how he feels about what he did to Thomas Shaw.

  ‘I killed a man,’ he hears himself saying out loud, as he stares down at the headstone bearing his mother’s name. ‘Thomas Shaw,’ he adds. ‘I killed him to protect Katie, to defend the woman I love…’ He takes a step back and looks around him. It’s getting late, and the trees surrounding the graveyard are full of life, birds coming home to roost. ‘But what about the others I’ve hurt? Thomas Shaw has a mum. What must she be going through right now? She was probably blind to his faults. The way I hope you were blind to mine and Christian’s. And no matter the reason, no matter the justification, she’ll blame me for his death. The way I can’t help but blame you for doing what you did.’ He can picture his mum slumped over the table in the kitchen, with the empty bottle of pills in front of her. Even now when he pictures that scene, there’s a part of him certain that if he reaches out and shakes her he can bring her back. But he only needs to look down to see the grave, to see the name, to feel the reality.

  ‘Maybe I should be blamed. I didn’t have to shoot Thomas Shaw. I could have knocked him out. The problem is, I didn’t want to hesitate.’ Nathan does exactly that, drawing in a deep breath before moving on to the real reason he came to talk to his mum. ‘I hesitated before,’ he says, softly. ‘I couldn’t end Christian’s life. He was part of me. He was part of you.’ Nathan’s eyes are badly blurred now, and he can’t even make out the name on the headstone, or the dates of birth and death, far too close together. ‘But it came at a cost.’ Nathan holds his own stomach, as he’d seen Katie do so many times in Wales. He’d always thought it was because of the wound that his brother had inflicted; now he knows how little he’d understood of what she had been through. ‘I cannot have a family,’ he says, so softly that the words barely leave his lips. ‘I cannot be the parent that you were.’ He looks across at his dad’s grave. A tough man, a frequently distant man, but always fair and supportive. ‘That you both were.’ He turns his gaze skywards, staring up at the encroaching dark. ‘All I have is myself now.’

  Several crows are startled in the field on the far side of the cemetery and they let out a series of low craws. He stares through the gloom, but sees no other movement. Looking back at the graves, he considers the feeling that’s growing within him. He’s not alone here. Someone is watching. He assumes it’s the press. He’d done all he could to shake off any possible tails, but perhaps someone had put two and two together and figured he would come here. Nathan feels the desire to shout out, to scream at them to leave him alone, but they would only see it as more evidence of his madness.

  He scans the treeline, glaring instead. There’s no flash of late-evening light on a lens, no face peering out from behind a wall. If they are out there then they’re hiding from him, in the same way he desperately wants to hide from them. For so many years he had managed to remain anonymous, working behind the scenes to earn the successes that Katie’s bosses often took the credit for. How he wishes he could return to that simple and rewarding life, but to dream of that possibility, and to believe it might one day happen, is something beyond even his imagination.

  The longer he stands staring out of the graveyard, out at the world of the living, the greater the fear building inside of Nathan. What if it’s not the press watching him? He’s thinking of the last time he’d been watched, at the place where Carl Watkins’ body had been found. They’d discovered size eight prints at the top of the hill and Thomas Shaw had worn size eights, but the pressure of the feet hadn’t seemed evenly distributed. Were they there to mislead? Were those prints the first steps leading him towards Thomas Shaw? Had he been tricked? Had he been used? And if so, why are they still hanging around? What the hell do they want from him now?

  Thirty-One

  ‘What are you worried about?’ asks Sam, as they pull up outside the address given to them for the mother of Thomas Shaw.

  Katie doesn’t know where to begin. First, they shouldn’t be here, or anywhere near here; they should be letting the poor woman grieve, rather than searching for answers to questions that can wait. Katie’s always pushed too hard for the truth, but increasingly she can see that she’s being outdone by Sam. Worse still, Katie is growing concerned that the truth isn’t what Sam is searching for. On the contrary, Katie’s instinct is telling her that her superior is doing what she can to prevent elements of the truth coming out.

  ‘This isn’t right,’ says Katie, quietly.

  ‘Stay in the car if you want,’ says Sam.

  ‘Is it even necessary? I thought you were all about science, and so far science is telling us that Thomas Shaw killed Ben Peters. That being the case, Shaw is most likely responsible for the other crimes.’

  ‘“Most likely” isn’t science,’ says Sam. ‘Science is accuracy. Science is the eradication of doubt.’

  ‘Fine,’ says Katie, realising that’s exactly what she wants, too, certainly with regard to Carl Watkins. She looks across at Richard, who has tucked himself in the corner of the back seat, out of view of the house. ‘I take it you’re not coming in?’ she asks him.

  ‘I can’t have her see me,’ he says. ‘And I don’t want to see her. I killed her husband.’

  ‘You didn’t save her husband,’ says Katie. ‘There’s a big difference.’

  ‘No there isn’t,’ says Richard. ‘I’m also responsible in part for the death of Ben and Mike and Nigel Hartham. If not for that day in A&E twenty years ago, they would most likely still be here.’

  Katie is about to try and ease the doctor’s conscience again when Sam cuts in. ‘And what about Carl Watkins?’ she says. ‘Do you blame yourself for that?’

  ‘I suppose,’ says Richard, curling himself up even tighter. ‘Although I’d never even heard of the guy until a day or so ago, so his death can’t have been intended to hurt me.’

  ‘No,’ says Sam, throwing open her door, climbing out and then slamming it shut. ‘It can’t.’

  Katie is soon following Sam up the path to a property every bit as flash as Thomas Shaw’s, with almost identical shiny white cars in the drive. Katie finds the similarity uncomfortable. Even approaching a front door makes her feel strange, reminding her of the last time, of the face of Shaw on the other side, just seconds from what could so easily have been her death. And when the door is opened Katie sees that face, or at least familial traces of it, with eyes as wide as those that had stared into hers as he gripped her neck.

  ‘Oh Jesus, no!’ says a deeply tanned woman with bleached-blonde hair who Katie takes to be mid to late sixties. Tears have washed mascara down her cheeks and she keeps gasping for air. ‘This cannot be happening. You cannot be here.’

  ‘You know who we are?’ asks Sam.

  ‘Hers is one of the only faces I see now,’ says Vicky, jabbing an unlit cigarette at Katie. ‘Every time I turn on the telly, it’s there. Her and that murdering bastard.’ She looks over their shoulders, clearly searching for Nathan, with a sudden anger. Then it just as quickly passes, her features folding in grief once again. ‘And the face of my boy.’

  ‘Your son’s death was… tragic,’ says Katie, struggling more than she ever has before to find the right words, ‘but I’m sure you’ve been told the events leading up to it.’

  ‘I know what I’ve been told,’ says Vicky with another flash of anger. ‘But there’s no way my son would have had a gun by the door. Or all those drugs they were talking about. He was no saint, of course, far from it, but he was trying, and…’ She lifts a shaking hand and squeezes the bridge of her nose as if to stem the flow of tears. ‘He was succeeding.’

  ‘Can we come insid
e?’ asks Sam, glancing over her shoulder. Katie is also aware that the press might be around. In fact, she’s amazed that they’re not. There are neighbours watching, though, some from behind curtains, some peering over hedges, and it won’t be long before what they’ve seen has been shared on the internet.

  Vicky shakes her head in seeming disbelief at the stupidity of the question. Then she seems to see something through the tears and leans forward to consider Sam more closely. ‘Where do I know you from?’

  ‘Most likely the news as well.’ Sam shows her identification. ‘I’d like to hear why we’re wrong about Thomas.’

  ‘As if you’d listen. You lot want this neatly tidied up.’

  ‘What I want is justice for my friends,’ says Katie, hearing her voice rise. ‘Ben and Mike Peters.’

  ‘Now there’s something he definitely didn’t do!’ says Vicky, with a high-pitched shout, close to hysteria. ‘Absolutely no way he could have hurt anybody.’

  ‘He was charged with attempted murder before,’ says Sam.

  ‘Wrongly accused,’ says Vicky. ‘And acquitted.’

  ‘He was also going to kill me,’ says Katie, turning her attention to her hands. She can’t stop thinking of what she’d done with those hands, scratching at Shaw’s cheeks, digging her thumb into the corner of his eye. She might even still have a trace of his skin under her nails, the steaming showers having failed to remove all evidence of that night.

  ‘Because he was scared!’ says Vicky.

  ‘Of what?’ asks Sam.

  ‘I don’t know,’ says Vicky, lifting a hand to her mouth, a sign perhaps that she’d let something past her lips that she wishes she hadn’t. ‘He had a lot to lose.’

  ‘What did he do for a job?’ asks Sam. ‘I mean, he clearly had money. Might it have come from drugs?’

  ‘Of course not. He didn’t need to sell that shit. Most of his money came from the same place this money came from.’ She gestures towards a rather garish-looking vase and a gold-framed mirror. ‘Paying me for what they did to Thomas’s dad. Or rather, what they didn’t do.’ She crumples again, a wail emerging, as if the news of her husband’s death has only just been broken to her. It takes a moment for her to speak again and Katie and Sam give her time. ‘I know what the inquest said, I had to swallow that shit for months, but the truth is that geriatric doctor killed him.’

  Katie fights the urge to look over her shoulder at the car where they might just be able to make out Richard moving around in the back seat.

  ‘It really would be better if we could go inside,’ she says. ‘If you truly believe that your son was innocent, then I want to hear it. If you know about me, then you must know that I’m not scared of the truth. I’m not seeking to cover anything up. I’m not seeking to protect anyone.’ Katie lifts a hand to her neck, running her fingers over the bruises left by Thomas Shaw’s vice-like grip. ‘I just want justice.’

  Vicky looks at her long and hard, only breaking that look to suck in a shaky breath.

  ‘You know, the crazy thing,’ she says eventually, ‘is that when I read about what you’d been through with the Cartoonist and with some of your other cases, I remember wishing you’d helped me with getting justice for my husband. I know you wouldn’t have quit.’

  ‘Nor will I here,’ Katie says again. ‘Not until we have the truth.’

  Vicky wipes her cheek, nods and turns to walk down the hall behind her, taking the first right. Katie and Sam follow close behind and arrive at a brightly furnished living room, with almost as many framed photos of family members as they’d seen at Wendy Fish’s flat. Although this time Katie doesn’t doubt that here, the frames that look silver are the real deal. She moves across to them and picks up a photo of a young boy on the shoulders of his dad, both smiling broadly.

  ‘They were inseparable,’ says Vicky, snatching the photo from Katie and carefully placing it back on the mantelpiece. ‘And he was a good dad to Thomas. She rubs at her empty wedding-ring finger. ‘Bloody awful husband to me, sadly, but a good dad nevertheless.’

  ‘Can you tell me about the crash?’ asks Katie.

  ‘What possible relevance could that have to what happened to Thomas?’ asks Vicky, temper rising again.

  ‘Are you willing to dismiss the chance that it might? At the very least it shaped who your son became, the same way my mum’s death shaped me.’

  ‘She died giving birth to you, didn’t she?’ says Vicky, confirming to Katie once again that almost every element of her life now seems to be public knowledge. ‘Do you blame the doctors?’

  ‘I think over the years I’ve blamed almost everyone. Now can you tell me about your husband’s accident?’

  Vicky sighs and turns her attention to the floor. ‘Frank was pissed. Not unusual. He was driving like an idiot. Not unusual. Only this time he didn’t get away with it.’

  ‘Nor did the young lad whose car he hit,’ says Sam, standing on the other side of the room beside a cabinet bearing a large number of different bottles. A glass has been poured and the top not put back on the bottle. ‘From what I understand, the victim wasn’t that much older than Thomas was at the time.’

  Vicky looks up at the photos again and Katie sees one that shows Thomas in his late teens, the muscles already starting to grow, along with the look of menace.

  ‘Again, what’s this got to do with the murder of my son?’ says Vicky, shooting a look at Katie.

  ‘You believe Thomas has been framed for the murders of Dr Hartham, Carl Watkins and my friends,’ says Katie. ‘Therefore, should we not be looking at who might have had motive to do that?’

  ‘I’ve met the family of the boy my husband killed in the crash. I’ve said sorry plenty of times, and they’ve accepted my apology.’

  Perhaps it’s the tiredness, or the delayed effects of very nearly having the life squeezed out of her, but Katie’s feeling horribly dizzy and leans heavily against the back of a plush velvet sofa. ‘Any other ideas, then?’ she asks.

  ‘Maybe it was a copper,’ says Vicky, before lifting a hand to her mouth. Katie thinks it a strange reaction to an accusation that doesn’t seem in any way out of character for the woman.

  ‘What makes you say that?’ asks Sam, rapidly crossing the distance between them.

  ‘No reason,’ says Vicky, slipping past Sam and moving to the glass of alcohol, which she dispatches rapidly.

  ‘Do you want justice for your son?’ asks Katie. ‘Because if you do, you need to tell us everything.’

  Vicky pours another glass and then makes it disappear just as quickly. ‘I promised,’ she says quietly.

  ‘Promised what?’ asks Sam, closing the gap between them again.

  ‘Promised who?’ says Katie, also moving closer to Vicky. ‘Promised Thomas? Because you know exactly what he’d want you to do now. He’d want you to speak out, if it might prove his innocence.’ As she says this Katie is thinking of Nathan, of the harm it would do him if she proved that the man he killed was not the monster the world now believed him to be.

  ‘It’s got nothing to do with it,’ says Vicky. She’s slurring her words now, the alcohol taking effect. ‘Completely unrelated.’

  ‘Was he gay?’ asks Sam.

  ‘Gay?’ asks Vicky, looking first shocked and then offended. ‘My boy? ’Course he wasn’t. He had plenty of girlfriends.’

  ‘Any recently?’ asks Katie, sensing a discomfort in Vicky again, as if she’s skirting a little too close to whatever it is she’s hiding. Then the older woman’s eyes narrow.

  ‘You already know, don’t you?’ says Vicky. ‘Of course you bloody do. You want me to keep quiet, to stop your pal getting in trouble.’

  Katie is about to say that she doesn’t have a clue what Thomas’s mother is talking about, but realises at the last moment that this would be a mistake. ‘On the contrary,’ she offers instead. ‘We want it confirmed so that we can investigate. I told you, I’m not looking to protect anyone here.’

  ‘I don’t know who she was,
’ says Vicky, pouring another drink and this time filling the glass to the rim. ‘But then I guess I don’t need to. You’ll know her name. You’ll know where she works. The only thing I was told was that she’s a copper.’

  Rather than say it out loud, Katie draws an internal conclusion: Thomas Shaw was dating a policewoman. She looks across at Sam, whose face remains frustratingly emotionless.

  ‘Did you ever meet this policewoman?’ Katie asks.

  Vicky shakes her head. ‘I only knew about her at all because I heard Thomas on the phone once. And it weren’t his normal phone. It was one I’d never seen before. I asked him about it and he got angry, angry like he never did.’ She lowers her head. ‘Not with me. Not with his mum.’

  ‘And there’s nothing else you know about her?’ asks Sam. ‘No name? No words you might have overheard on that call?’

  Vicky considers this for a moment. The effort of concentrating seems to challenge her balance in the same way Katie’s is being challenged by her tiredness.

  ‘Nothing,’ she says, finally. ‘I didn’t really hear the words at all. I only knew it was a girl because he was smiling in a way that I recognised. And when I asked, he said it was a policewoman. And then he said I couldn’t tell anyone. Made me swear to it.’ She stops and considers the photos again, releasing a long, tremulous breath, before she speaks in a voice thick with emotion. ‘He wasn’t himself, not at the end. He was happy, excited. But at the same time he was…’ She searches for the word and it comes with a face to match. ‘Scared.’

  ‘Scared of the policewoman?’ asks Katie.

  ‘I don’t know,’ says Vicky. ‘Maybe he was just scared she was going to get caught.’ This possibility seems to take her by surprise and again she lifts a hand to her mouth. ‘I shouldn’t have told you. Not if it’s going to get her in trouble. It wouldn’t have been what Thomas wanted. Not if he loved her.’