Rattle: A serial killer thriller that will hook you from the start

by Fiona Cummins

  Poppy’s mother, Mrs Smith, noticed that Clara was gone about six minutes after she had left the playground. By the time she had scoured the school grounds, and used her mobile phone to call the police, the skies had darkened and the van was driving away.

  3

  5.56 p.m.

  Two hours and seventeen minutes after Clara Foyle was abducted, Erdman sat down opposite his family. Lilith was cutting up Jakey’s carrots, her mouth a seam of displeasure; Jakey was singing under his breath, his mind elsewhere.

  Erdman ran his fingers through his hair, or what was left of it, as dull as the paintwork on Jakey’s toy car. The one he’d left in the paddling pool for two weeks, and which was now next to useless.

  Useless.

  That was a word he was well acquainted with. He could never quite shake the feeling that he hadn’t lived up to expectations: his mother’s, Lilith’s, his own. He’d always convinced himself there was plenty of time, but as his waistline thickened and his hair thinned, he was uncomfortably aware that his life was, in all probability, closer to its end than its beginning.

  Glancing at his son, Erdman’s heart gave a funny sort of jump. Jakey prompted in him a curious mixture of protectiveness and bafflement that even after six years he struggled to understand. Jakey’s lips moved, but Erdman couldn’t make out the words.

  As he tried to find a way into the silence, Lilith grimaced at her plate. She’d worn the same expression in bed that morning when he’d accidentally stroked her thigh.

  ‘Are you going to carve the meat or what?’ The gnat’s arse shrivelled. ‘I mean, really, who has roast dinner on a Friday night?’

  The words of conciliation on his lips congealed. Appetite dwindling, he gazed at the beef, marbled with fat and running pinkish juices, and switched on the carving knife. Its low buzz reminded him of the noise he sometimes heard from the locked bathroom door, when Lilith announced she was having a soak, so could she have half an hour’s peace, please. He wished he hadn’t bothered to sneak home early and had gone to the pub instead.

  Lilith was staring through rain-blurred windows into the dark square of their garden. He wanted to drag her back into his life, but he didn’t know how.

  A memory surfaced, unexpectedly, of a pub lunch a couple of months after they’d met.

  He’d always been wary of large groups, but she’d charmed his friends with funny stories from the school where she’d once worked. As they left, she’d slipped her hand into his, and he could still remember his absurd sense of pride.

  God, he missed her.

  Jakey’s singing went up several notches. It often did at mealtimes. Erdman wondered if it was his son’s way of drowning out the sound of a family’s disintegration.

  ‘What’s that song?’ said Lilith, her brow creasing.

  ‘Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit! I mean, ow, OUCH.’

  A burn of pain lit Erdman’s finger as the blade slipped and bit deep, its serrated teeth slicing through skin and subcutaneous tissue. Jakey stopped singing, saucer-eyed. The water in their glasses vibrated. Erdman’s empty plate was spattered with ruby droplets, like a grisly version of the Jackson Pollock he’d seen at the Tate last month.

  The knife spun in frantic circles until Lilith switched it off. As Erdman staggered against her, he was briefly aware, for the first time in several months, of the fullness of her breasts.

  After a few seconds, the heady sensation lifted and he looked down at his hand, which she’d wrapped in a napkin after lowering him into the chair. He could have sworn the fabric was white, but now it was a vivid scarlet.

  ‘Get Daddy some water,’ said Lilith. The boy didn’t move. ‘Go on.’

  With a six-year-old’s reluctance to leave the bloodied scene of the action, Jakey limped into the kitchen. As he reached the archway, he turned to look at his father. Erdman managed a smile. And a little wave. With his left hand, obviously.

  It was starting to sing, his finger. Scheisse. Erdman rested his injured hand on his thigh while Lilith lifted a corner of the damp linen. Fresh blood plip-plipped with purpose, speckling the pale laminate floorboards. He couldn’t bring himself to look at the cut, that thick flap of ruined skin. Lilith’s sharp intake of breath told him all he needed to know.

  Outside, a car alarm went off.

  Not a car alarm.

  Jakey.

  Lilith dropped his hand and sprinted towards the kitchen. When Erdman stood, the walls rippled like the inside of a swimming pool. As soon as they’d stopped moving, he stumbled after her. His heart filled his mouth at the scene before him.

  Jakey was sprawled across the floor, one arm beneath his body, the other stretched out in front of him. His head was twisted on its side. A stool had been tipped over. Fragments of glass were strewn across the tiles, and water was pooling near the cooker.

  Lilith’s face was stricken, guilt and fear and accusation rolling across her features. Jakey was struggling to sit up, gulping and crying.

  ‘Nice and easy does it, sweetheart,’ said Lilith.

  Pushing aside his own pain, Erdman held out his uninjured hand to his son.

  ‘Where does it hurt, champ?’

  Jakey didn’t reach for his father as he usually would. Instead he drew in a shuddering breath, winced and began to cry again. For the briefest of moments, Erdman’s eyes met Lilith’s.

  ‘My arm, Daddy,’ he said, through a waterfall of tears. ‘I fell on my arm.’

  As Lilith helped Jakey to his feet, Erdman was assessing the damage. Jakey’s working arm, the one he used to eat and drink and play and write, was now hanging by his side at an odd, awkward angle. Already, it was beginning to swell, and reminded Erdman of a fat pink sausage about to burst its skin. The other arm, rigid and unyielding, was drawn in at the elbow, fixed in that position since he was three.

  ‘Anywhere else, Jakey?’ he said. ‘Did you bump your head? Fall on your knees? What about your ribs? You need to be careful when you’re using your stool, we’ve told you that a hundred times before. Didn’t you use the handrails? Why didn’t you get the bottled water from the fridge?’

  His son’s bottom lip quivered and he began to sob again, noisily and messily. From the way Lilith was glaring at him, Erdman knew he’d pushed it too far. Jakey still hadn’t moved his arm and now it was a strange, mottled purple.

  ‘Sit down, sweetie,’ said Lilith. ‘I’ll get you a drink. And one of those biscuits you like.’

  Lilith’s whisper was hot in Erdman’s ear as she reached into the cupboard behind him for a tumbler. For a moment, he remembered the feel of her mouth on him, but the pain in his hand and concern for Jakey pulled him back to the present.

  ‘Listen, you need stitches. It’s a deep cut. Nasty. And I don’t want to scare Jakey, but we better get him down to A&E too. I’ll give him his steroids now, but he’ll probably need an X-ray.’ Her own mouth trembled. ‘I think his arm is broken.’

  Erdman groaned, regretting the wasted meal, but truth be told, his appetite had deserted him.

  Jakey swallowed down the anti-inflammatory. His tears had quietened, but now they tracked silently down his face. Using his good arm, Erdman hoisted his son onto his hip, careful not to knock him. After a few seconds, his bicep started to ache, but he ignored it and carried him outside to the car. The security light flicked on, the blood from Erdman’s hand leaving a trail of spots on the driveway. His son shifted in his arms to look at them.

  ‘Are you going to die?’ Jakey’s face was a pale moon against the winter night sky.

  ‘Course not, champ,’ said Erdman. He buckled Jakey into his seat and kissed his hair. ‘Daddy just needs a couple of tiny stitches.’ He forced his voice to steady. ‘And we need to get you checked over. Can’t have you with a poorly arm.’

  As Lilith drove them to the hospital, Jakey began to sing again. His voice was quiet but Erdman was sitting next to him in the back, and could make out his son’s clear notes above the drone of traffic.

  Unlike Lilith, he did re
cognize the song that Jakey was singing. He recognized it because Carlton – Erdman’s brother – had sung it with him when they were little.

  And Carlton had been dead for thirty-six years.

  At the Royal Southern, Jakey and Lilith were directed to children’s accident and emergency while Erdman had to wait an hour for a harassed trainee to inspect his wound. His name tag announced him as Dr Hassan.

  ‘It looks like you’ve nicked the bone but I don’t think you’ve damaged the tendon.’ He peeled off his latex gloves. ‘It’ll probably ache for a few days but you did the right thing by coming in. It’ll heal faster with stitches.’

  The curtain swished and Lilith’s head poked round. Erdman could see her knuckles were white with the effort of pushing Jakey in his hospital-issue wheelchair.

  In summer, the merest hint of sun made his freckles pop like a dot-to-dot puzzle. That November night, the 16th, Jakey’s skin was completely colourless, as if the network of veins and vessels just below the surface were filled with milk.

  ‘Sorry,’ she mouthed at the doctor. ‘I just wanted to let my husband know what’s happening with our son.’ She didn’t wait for permission to speak, but she was smiling. ‘They don’t think it’s broken, but he’s going for an X-ray, just to be sure.’

  The balled fist in the pit of Erdman’s stomach unclenched.

  ‘Seriously? But it looked so . . .’ He was aware of Jakey’s eyes on him. ‘That’s really great.’

  ‘I was just telling your husband he needs some stitches,’ said Dr Hassan.

  There it was, that word again. Erdman concentrated on keeping down his lunch, and tried to ignore the thumping in his ears. Sweat beaded his upper lip. He shut his eyes. He knew he looked like shit.

  ‘He’s funny with needles,’ said Lilith. ‘And blood. He fainted when Jakey was born. They had to whisk him off in a wheelchair. Took him a good couple of hours to recover.’ She leaned over and squeezed Erdman’s knee, to take the sting from her words.

  Dr Hassan chuckled and patted Erdman on the back. ‘Happens to the best of us, my friend. I fainted the first time I saw a post-mortem.’

  ‘What’s a post-mortem?’ asked Jakey, his eyes bright with interest.

  ‘Well, young man, it’s when—’

  Lilith interrupted the doctor. ‘It’s just a medical procedure, darling. Now, let’s get you down to X-ray, and then we’ll see about getting you something to eat.’

  4

  6.01 p.m.

  Clara’s mouth was pressed hard against something rough, and with every jolt, it rubbed the skin in the dip of her chin. Her wrists were tied behind her back with a length of surgical tape which criss-crossed the scant flesh. The binding cut deep between her thumb and her finger.

  The van was flying over bumps, its tail end thumping down heavily after every descent, and the pain in her chin and the strangeness of the situation was making the muscles of her stomach tighten. Clara was usually a child who cried easily, but for once the tears did not come. A kind of numbness had set in.

  The man had propped her against a box, and she was wedged between two rolls of carpet. There was a strong smell in the back, like butchered meat left to rot. It was cold and dark, and she couldn’t see.

  Something crawled over her cheek. She wanted to scream, but the man had said he would kill her mother if she did. Clara believed him. He had been smiling when he said it, just before he had shut the van doors, but she knew it wasn’t a joke.

  Her stomach rumbled again. During afternoon break, Poppy had told Clara they were having sausages and chips for tea. Clara’s mother never let her eat food like that. The van juddered again. Her thoughts flitted back to her mother: pink nails and thick black eyeliner, and the way she pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose whenever she told Clara off, the way she pressed her cheek against Clara’s in a facsimile of warmth, but always maintained a gap between their bodies. Mrs Foyle didn’t like sticky faces and hands.

  The van stopped and then reversed at speed before the rumble of the engine died away. There was a tick-ticking sound as it cooled. A loud metallic clunk made her jump, and Clara realized it was the van doors sliding open. A bulb without a shade was fixed to the ceiling joist, and it gave off just enough light for her to see she was inside a garage.

  This garage belonged to a house, tall and thin like the man who had taken her. She couldn’t see it, but the house had small, shuttered windows and a handrail flanking steps leading down to a basement. A path of cracked black and white tiles, woven with weeds, led to a front door where blue paint had peeled off and left patches shaped like countries. A wrought-iron number 2, dulled from age or weather, had lost a screw, and hung upside down, an inverted cedilla. Spits of freezing rain landed on the pavement. Almost completely dark now.

  The man lifted Clara from the van by hooking his arms around her legs. As her feet made contact with the garage’s concrete floor, the light seemed to dim, and the bulb popped and went out.

  The sudden change in temperature chilled her, and she blinked into the darkness. The man dug his fingers into her shoulders and propelled her towards an internal door.

  She was concentrating so hard on trying to keep her balance in the disorientating blackness that she didn’t notice the lip of the step, and she tripped, tearing her woollen tights and skinning both knees.

  A few moments later, she found herself inside the hall of the house. When her eyes had grown used to the dull lighting, she saw the floor was bare, and there was no furniture to speak of, except a glass cabinet in the corner on top of a bureau. Then she noticed another. And another. As Clara struggled to process what she was seeing, the man stepped out of the shadows, drying his hands on a towel. He undid the binding around her wrists and offered her a glass of milk. Some instinct warned her not to drink it, but Clara was so thirsty that she gulped it down anyway. The man’s pinched face seemed to collapse downwards and, for the second time that day, everything went fuzzy around the edges.

  5

  7.52 p.m.

  Amy Foyle sat perfectly still on her daughter’s bed while everyone else was in motion.

  Two police officers were searching Clara’s bedroom, opening her wardrobe, her chest of drawers, even the wooden jewellery box that she’d got for her fourth birthday and painted herself. One picked up her hairbrush and placed it in a see-through evidence bag.

  ‘For DNA purposes,’ he explained. ‘I might need her toothbrush, too.’

  Don’t touch that, she wanted to scream. It doesn’t belong to you.

  They had arrived, the police, just as she was having the dye rinsed from her hair, her throat exposed and vulnerable. She hadn’t picked up the frantic voicemails from Poppy Smith’s mother, her phone buried at the bottom of her Hermès bag.

  They’d led her outside, still wearing the hairdressing cape, and it was only when they were nearly home that she realized she’d left behind her coat and forgotten to pay.

  An hour later, when Miles had turned up, flanked by the officers who had driven through rush-hour traffic to collect him from his private practice in London Bridge, she was still wearing it. He had unfastened the Velcro, and it dropped, silkily, to the floor. The gesture had felt inappropriate, like he was undressing her for bed.

  ‘She better not be playing silly buggers,’ was the first thing he said. And then, ‘She’ll turn up.’

  ‘But it’s dark,’ Amy said. ‘There’s roads, the pond on the Heath—’ She put a hand over her mouth, to stop the horror from spilling out.

  He had taken the glass from her other hand, wrapped his arms around her, and she had pressed her face against the damp fabric of his suit. He smelled of soap and safety.

  ‘What are they doing, the police?’ He let her go, hung up his jacket on the back of the chair, ran his fingers through his silver-grey hair.

  So she told him the excruciating details; how they’d asked for a description of Clara, for some recent photographs, for the colour of the coat and gloves she’d been we
aring that day.

  How they were knocking on doors, searching the streets close to her school, the Common, and up into Greenwich Park, how they’d taken all the telephone numbers of the parents of Clara’s friends, how, because of her age, her vulnerability, if they didn’t find her within the next few hours, they were planning to issue a nationwide Child Rescue Alert.

  How most children who disappear are safely back home within twenty-four hours.

  Most, but not all.

  ‘She’ll turn up,’ he had said again, his voice calm. ‘Where’s Eleanor?’

  ‘At your mother’s. I thought it would be better—’

  ‘I want her here, with us. She needs to be with her family.’

  Amy didn’t like to point out that his mother was their family. She watched him open his briefcase, take out his laptop.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘I just need to finish this report.’

  Amy had picked up her glass from the hall bureau and let it slide through her fingers. At the sound of it shattering on the tiled floor, an officer stuck his head around the door.

  She saw her own anxiety reflected in the lines of Miles’ face, knew that switching on his computer was another way of coping, of maintaining some control, but she couldn’t help herself. Panic pinwheeled inside her. She threw words at him like stones.

  ‘Our daughter is missing. Don’t you think that’s more important than a fucking report?’ She picked up his jacket, thrust it at him. ‘Shouldn’t you be out there looking for her?’

  He peered at her over his glasses.

  ‘Don’t be hysterical, Amy. The police need space to do their job, and I want to be here when she gets home.’

  She couldn’t look at him then, couldn’t share his optimism. Always his fucking optimism. And that goddamn oh-so-reasonable tone. But there was a truth to his words that she couldn’t ignore.

  ‘You’re right.’ She reached for his hand, briefly squeezed it. ‘Sorry. I’m just scared.’

  He patted her arm. ‘It’ll be OK.’