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

by Fiona Cummins

  ‘You’ll have to get a job. Any job. The Sun in the Sands is hiring.’

  ‘I’m not working in a pub. I’ll email Russell, see if he’s got any shifts.’ He didn’t tell her he’d done that already, and Russell couldn’t help. Sorry, mate. We’re on a budget freeze, like the rest of the planet.

  ‘You can’t be picky. You’ll have to take whatever comes up.’

  ‘Lili, I’ve been a journalist for nineteen years. I’m not about to switch careers now.’

  She laughed bitterly. ‘Exactly what career are you talking about? You’ve never been promoted, and you haven’t had a decent pay rise in God knows how long. You’ve been at the same crappy magazine for a decade. You’re unreliable, you never have anything interesting to say, and, frankly, I don’t think I can take another forty years of this.’ She grabbed a breath. ‘We were happy once, Erdman? Do you remember how that feels? Before you decided to give up on us. Before’ – she closed her eyes – ‘Jakey.’

  ‘Now, hang on a minute . . .’ He raised his hands, as if that would somehow dam the verbal torrent, but Lilith wouldn’t meet his gaze, and her mouth was fixed, unyielding.

  ‘It’s true.’

  She might as well have kicked him in the stomach. He looked at his wife. She seemed all hard, disappointed edges. Had she always been so out of focus? Was it only now, after years of blurred vision, that he was seeing her clearly?

  He remembered a time when it seemed like they’d never stop talking; when they’d sneak out of the cinema early because staring in silence at a screen had seemed such a waste of time, when they’d spent hours in the kitchen, cooking together. Christ, he even used to sit on the edge of the bath with a beer while she lay amongst the bubbles, chatting non-stop about her day.

  In the weeks before Jakey was born, he had rubbed oil into her growing belly and gone on late-night garage dashes for Marmite and cheese-and-onion crisps. They had pored over books about pregnancy, never suspecting the bomb inside her that would blow open their lives.

  He remembered when they were interested in each other.

  ‘Is that really what you think of me?’

  The expression on her face spoke more eloquently than any words. For the fourth time in less than twelve hours, tears threatened to overwhelm him, and this time it wasn’t the trickle-and-sniff, just-chopped-an-onion variety, but the kind of sobs that turned a man inside out.

  ‘Fuck you,’ he said.

  Then Erdman Frith slammed the door on his wife and stepped into darkness.

  25

  7.56 p.m.

  Upstairs, Jakey stirred as the front door shut on his father’s anger. He was neither asleep nor awake, but somewhere in between. The halfway world of awareness and dreams.

  A shadow man with sharp teeth and long skinny arms who looked just like the bogeyman on the cover of Daddy’s book was leaning over him, but Jakey gave a muffled scream, kicking out with his legs, and he disappeared in the dusty black hole beneath the bed, or inside the toy cupboard; Jakey wasn’t sure.

  All Jakey knew for certain was that the man meant to hurt him. Just like that little girl he’d heard them talking about on the television. And that dark things like dark places.

  He pulled his Spider-Man duvet up to his nose, and tried to reach out with his sore arm. His fingertips brushed the hard plastic of his torch and knocked it on the floor. The door was open when his daddy said goodnight, but now it was shut. Jakey didn’t like it when the door was shut.

  Ol’ Tommy Rawhead’s here, Ol’ Bloody Bones.

  As soon as the name came into his mind, Jakey fought against the rise of panicked tears.

  He’s in my bedroom. He’s come to take me away. And there’s no Daddy to scare him off.

  He tried to shout for his mother, but something was stopping him, something was crammed in his mouth. He clawed at it with his right hand, but it was only his old stuffed rabbit, Mr Bunnikins.

  Jakey squeezed his eyes tight, and counted to three, the way his father had taught him to when the pain was too much.

  Underneath the silence of the room, he could hear the quiet rattle of Ol’ Tommy’s breath. Could he make it to the door? No, nooo. Those bony fingers would wrap around his ankles as soon as he got out of bed. What about the window? Too high in the sky. If only he could turn on the light. That would scare the bogeyman away.

  His eyelids fluttered, heavier now, the twin ropes of imagination and sleepiness binding Jakey to his bed. Ol’ Bloody Bones has stolen that little girl, and next he’s coming for me.

  The boy lay unmoving, trapped by fear and the limitations of his body, but by the time his mother came to check on him, Ol’ Tommy was gone and he was asleep.

  26

  7.58 p.m.

  Miles Foyle was slumped in a chair. Since Fitzroy had last seen him on Saturday, he hadn’t shaved. A scratch scored his cheek, his eyes were swollen and baggy from lack of sleep.

  He wore the look of a man sentenced to death by public condemnation.

  She might have felt sorry for him if he wasn’t being so bloody-minded. Even when she had read him his rights, he’d refused a lawyer, insisting it wasn’t necessary, that he had nothing to hide.

  ‘For the benefit of the recording, it is Tuesday, November twentieth, 2012. I’m Detective Sergeant Etta Fitzroy, and I’m here with’ – she paused to allow Miles Foyle to mumble his name – ‘the father of missing child Clara Foyle. Interview is resuming at seven fifty-eight p.m.’

  Miles did not look up.

  ‘Dr Foyle, are you prepared to tell us the name of the woman you were with on the afternoon that Clara disappeared?’

  He didn’t answer.

  ‘Dr Foyle, you are obstructing an inquiry into the disappearance of your daughter. If you cannot tell us the name of the woman to verify your alibi, it suggests that you are lying. Do you understand that?’

  He lifted his head. A spider’s web of tiny red veins was visible in the whites of his eyes.

  ‘What happens if I don’t tell you?’

  ‘We can keep you here for another twenty-two hours or so. After that, we can apply for an extension.’

  He slammed his fist onto the table, making Fitzroy jump. ‘Why can’t you just take my word for it?’

  ‘What if the police had taken the word of Roy Whiting? Or Ian Huntley?’

  Miles’ chin dropped onto his chest, but she could see his weak mouth trembling. She pushed a box of tissues across the table.

  ‘Look, we will find out. Why don’t you make it easy on yourself?’

  She waited for him to compose himself, then changed tack.

  ‘Dr Foyle, is it correct that a teenage girl undertaking work experience at your private practice made an allegation of sexual assault against you last year?’ Fitzroy consulted her paperwork. ‘I believe that she claimed you held her at your workplace for three hours against her will?’

  A flush spread across his face.

  ‘It’s crap,’ he said. ‘She made it up. The allegation was withdrawn.’

  ‘Did you force her to drop the allegation, Dr Foyle?’

  Miles stared at the detective, wet lashes fringing his eyes like iron spikes.

  ‘You’ve already made up your mind about me, haven’t you?’

  ‘So change it.’

  Rain drummed its remorseless beat on the roof of the building. Fitzroy obsessively plucked at the fabric of her skirt over and over again, as if that might restore order to the chaos confusing her thoughts. She waited an hour for him to challenge her, to fight back, to do something to defend himself.

  But Miles Foyle refused to say another word.

  While she had been in the interview suite, the stain of night had deepened around her. Fitzroy, on a brief break, ducked across the road, caught the DLR to ride the escalators at Cutty Sark.

  She stepped onto the steel staircase and allowed herself to climb, to let the smooth motion carry her thoughts to a place where connections could be made.

  What was stopping
Miles Foyle from telling the truth? What was so bad that he’d rather be accused of his daughter’s abduction than come clean?

  Fitzroy stepped off the top of the escalator, turned right, walked a couple of yards, and placed her feet on the parallel moving staircase, heading downwards now. The young couple behind her nudged each other and grinned, but Fitzroy ignored them. Riding the escalators helped her to organize her thoughts, to listen to the music in her mind.

  Miles Foyle was niggling at her, discordant and jarring, a clanging of cymbals in the strings section. In her experience, most child killers did not place themselves so squarely in the frame, preferring to loiter at its edges.

  But that did not excuse one unassailable fact.

  Miles Foyle’s whereabouts were still unaccounted for at the time that Clara disappeared.

  27

  7.59 p.m.

  It was drizzling and the moon was smudged, its curves rubbed soft by scudding cloud. The houses, tightly packed as a line of dominoes, were silent. One by one, the street lamps turned talisman against darkening skies. Erdman stomped towards Tranquil Vale, and the lure of a drink.

  His cheeks were wet. His fingertips swabbed the moisture, but his skin was damp again in seconds.

  Lilith doesn’t love me.

  And then . . .

  How did it come to this?

  A longing to see Jakey filled him up. He half-started back towards the house, towards the muted square of his son’s bedroom window, but a shadow moved against the curtain, and he turned away. He couldn’t face Lilith again.

  Up Granville Park he strode. Right into Pagoda Gardens. Left towards Mounts Pond Road, following the bend where it joined Hare and Billet Road, the thoroughfare into the village.

  Lilith had persuaded him to buy in Blackheath eleven years ago, back when they were still high on life and each other. They had scraped together every penny they had and some they didn’t, and sweet-talked the bank manager into lending them too much.

  On the day they moved in it had rained and rained until the storm drains overflowed, splashing rivers of water down Lewisham Hill. Their cardboard boxes were sodden, the polished wood of their furniture slick with moisture. At dinnertime, they had raced across the waterlogged Heath in search of a meal, but Lilith’s boot had got stuck in the mud, and she had tipped over, face first.

  Erdman had slid his hands beneath her armpits and hauled her to her feet, but Lilith was laughing so much that her body went limp. She had mud on her chin, and in her hair. As her knees buckled and she slid back down into the dirt, she dragged him with her. They had lain together in the grass, rain drenching their faces, laughing until their stomachs ached.

  Too filthy to venture into any of the village’s restaurants, they had bought fish and chips, and eaten it with their fingers on the doorstep of The Conservatoire.

  Lilith had turned to him, breath steaming, her hair hanging in strings around her face.

  ‘I hope we stay like this forever.’

  He had slung an arm around her shoulder and pulled her damp body to his. She was shivering beneath her jacket, but she hadn’t complained of being cold, not once.

  ‘We’re a team, aren’t we? We’ll still be doing this when we’re eighty.’

  ‘And we’ll have dozens of grandchildren and a house by the sea—’

  ‘—and a couple of dogs and some chickens,’ he finished for her.

  She had swatted his chest lightly, but her eyes were smiling at him. They both loved building castles in the air.

  Later that night, they had lain down together again, but this time on clean sheets instead of grass. It was late, but the lack of curtains and the trains rattling along the track at the bottom of their garden kept them from sleeping.

  ‘Our own home at last,’ said Lilith, for the tenth time that day.

  Erdman laughed, and she had rolled towards him. His fingers traced the dip and curve of her bare skin.

  ‘I still can’t believe you chose me,’ he murmured into her hair.

  Lilith had propped herself up on her elbow, and touched the stubble of his chin with the back of her finger.

  ‘I was waiting for you,’ she said.

  Lilith made Erdman happier than he could remember. It didn’t matter that they had only been together for a year when they bought their house. It didn’t matter that he’d flunked university or had a string of disastrous relationships behind him. It didn’t even matter that he hated his job at a magazine which peddled claptrap. He would find a new job, propose to Lilith, and life would be perfect.

  And it was for a while. Weekends on the Essex coast in their tent; long, laughter-filled nights at the Railway; painting the walls of their first home. They had sex. They got married. They still had sex. Lilith got pregnant. Jakey was born. And their perfect life unravelled, stitch by stitch.

  A sharp wind was driving the drizzle into his face, so Erdman dug his hands into his pockets and bowed his head. The streets were empty. He would have a pint, cool off and head home.

  A gang of teenagers was messing about by the bus stop, their catcalls fracturing the evening still. One of the boy-men, hooded, low-slung jeans, was dancing to a beat in his head, each elaborate step for the benefit of the girl sitting alone beneath the graffitied shelter.

  ‘Dat is fit. Wassup, mama? Bin workin’ out?’

  She pretended to ignore him, fiddling with her mobile phone.

  ‘Party wit us, mama? Hither Green, innit.’

  She flashed a smile, but didn’t meet his eyes. Mumbled a reply. ‘Can’t tonight. Sorry.’

  The teenager stood, wide-legged, in front of the girl and grabbed his crotch. He thrust himself at her. ‘Wan’ sum?’

  His crew laughed, back-slapped him, but it wasn’t enough. Infuriated, the ringleader lunged for her handset. The girl shrieked, and Erdman ran towards them from across the street.

  ‘HEY! What the hell are you playing at? Leave her alone.’

  Five heads swivelled in his direction; five faces wearing the same mask of hostility.

  ‘Wha’ da fuck da matter wi’ cha? Tryin’ to get yoself some pussy, old man?’

  The gang circled him and he rifled through his mental filing cabinet. When surrounded by a pack of dangerous-looking youths do you a) act confidently and come out fighting, b) beg for mercy, c) play dead until it’s all over? Erdman favoured b), but when he held up his hands in a ‘Look, lads, let’s forget about it’ kind of gesture, someone shoved him in the chest and he stumbled backwards. The girl, it turned out, was nowhere to be seen. His insides liquefied.

  Another of the gang, a rat-faced boy with a studded belt and a rope of gold around his neck, flicked a fist at Erdman and the blood sprayed from his nose and collected at the back of his throat. He spat it out, then ran his tongue around his mouth, feeling for loosened teeth. A second punch to the stomach from Rat Boy and he was on his knees. A heavy trainer booted his kidneys, and he grunted in shock.

  As his body was buffeted by kicks and punches, his mind muffled the pain, slowing time to a second-by-second stopwatch. Someone eased his wallet from his pocket, his mobile. He saw a red shoelace trailing in a puddle, the glint of a gold sovereign ring before it cut him on the chin, tasted earth and copper.

  At first, he was sure it was a knife. The cool metal of a blade across his cheek. Less than a couple of seconds, and he realized it was heavier than it should be, and the wrong shape. Rat Boy waved it in front of his eyes. An unpleasant warmth filled his trousers.

  ‘Bitchin’ out, Big Daddy?’ he whispered. A final kick. ‘Yo pissed on my trainers, fucker.’

  The gang whooped and high-fived, pumped up by the violence. Someone stamped on Erdman’s arm, and they laughed and swaggered off.

  Perhaps it was Daddy, whispered an hour earlier by his sleepy son. Perhaps it was his sheer bloody-mindedness, which Lilith was always complaining about. Perhaps he was humiliated and angry. But the words were out of Erdman’s mouth before he could stop them.

  ‘Good. Fuck
er.’

  Rat Boy, who had lingered to tuck in his lace, uncoiled himself. In one fluid motion, he pulled a Webley 8mm from the band of his boxer shorts.

  ‘Booya,’ he mouthed and fired.

  Erdman barely took in the gun before the bullet punched a hole in his outer thigh. He registered warmth, then a pain which blazed brightly. Fire with white flame at its centre. People talked about the smell of cordite, but he caught only the faintest whiff of rotting vegetation.

  Underneath the ringing in his ears, he heard shouts, laughter and running footsteps. Erdman closed his eyes and rested his cheek against the pavement.

  A father was gunned down in south-east London last night. Erdman Frith, 39, should have minded his own bloody business.

  His fingers found his leg. His jeans were sticky but the flow of blood was more of a trickle than a spurt. Erdman wasn’t a doctor but he guessed the bullet had grazed his skin. Hurt like hell but he wasn’t about to bleed to death. He didn’t believe in God but thanked him anyway. He’d been shot and had survived. How many people could say that? He could write about it for the magazine. No, no, he didn’t work there any more.

  A swell of jubilation, and then his eyes were heavy as he fought against the urge to close them again. Wasn’t he supposed to stay awake? Or was that hypothermia?

  As he lay still, his body roared back to life. His lower back burned with every intake of breath – kidneys?? spleen?? – and his face was puffy and raw. His eyes were swelling rapidly. He imagined his flesh as a map of bruises and cuts.

  Slowly, he rolled onto his side. He tried to speak, to call out for help, but his mouth didn’t seem to be working.

  Erdman hefted himself across the grass verge. He waited for a comforting voice, strobing blue lights, strained to hear a siren above his still-ringing ears, but the Heath stayed empty.

  He shut his eyes, one foot on the ledge of unconsciousness, and prayed that someone had witnessed the attack.

  As it happens, someone had witnessed the attack, but if Erdman had realized who that someone was he would have recanted his prayer.