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

by Fiona Cummins

  He’ll come and find me when he’s ready. He always does.

  But he didn’t.

  At teatime, Lilith carried up a sandwich and a glass of milk, but Jakey wasn’t in the mood for talking. Not to her, at least. As she pulled the door shut behind her, she heard his voice. It had an oddly pleading quality to it.

  ‘Go away. Leave me alone.’

  A pause.

  ‘Daddy, where are you? I need you to come home.’

  She almost went back in to comfort him, but told herself it was his way of dealing with things, that she should leave him to it.

  When she went up to check on him later, he was asleep on top of his duvet, so she carefully undressed him.

  Her hand flew to her mouth.

  A flare-up, that’s what they called it. No one knew why or how it happened. Sometimes it happened after a fall. Or sometimes for no reason at all. The soft tissue swellings could be large or small, lasting a few days or a year, travelling around the body at will.

  Jakey’s ‘good’ arm was disfigured by four new lumps.

  She pressed her lips against his burning forehead, and cried until her tears dampened his fringe.

  Her heart constricted with love as she looked at his face, the last vestiges of babyishness still evident in his plump cheeks. She knew it wouldn’t be long before that disappeared too, along with the nappies, dummies and Wooby, which was now stuffed in a drawer in her bedroom. She wanted to keep this soft lump of rag which smelled of milk and baby powder and hope, even if Jakey didn’t.

  At some point Lilith must have dozed off because when she jerked awake the darkness had deepened and there was a dragging, gone-to-sleep feeling in her leg.

  She wandered downstairs, through dark, empty rooms. In the hall, she reached for the handset and pecked in Erdman’s number. The flat, female tone of voicemail greeted her. She hung up, suddenly furious with her husband for putting Jakey through all of this. As she stared, vacant-eyed, at the television, she wondered if she would ever forgive him such selfishness.

  37

  9.14 p.m.

  Erdman had a pounding headache. Trying to sleep in an unfamiliar bed always did that to him. And that was when he hadn’t been beaten to a pulp by a gang of feral youths, and shot in the thigh at point-blank range. Permit me a little slack. He snorted to himself.

  He turned over, wincing at the pain in his body, and at the feel of Amber’s black polyester sheets. Perhaps he should have stayed in hospital, after all.

  Ordinarily, he wouldn’t have taken himself off to bed so early but Amber had been on his case since coming in from work, Chinese takeaway in hand.

  ‘Ring your wife,’ she’d said, dumping a mountain of chow mein on his plate.

  ‘Gee, honey, I’m fine, how was your day?’

  She’d sighed then, ignored his sarcasm. ‘She’s left two messages on my phone, Erd. I haven’t called her back because I don’t want to lie for you, but I can’t ignore her for much longer.’ She loosened another cardboard lid. ‘She sounds desperate.’

  Guilt had coated each mouthful of his meal, and he’d pushed it away, half-eaten. If he was being honest with himself, he was starting to feel a bit of a heel, especially about Jakey.

  In fact, he hadn’t done much else except think about his family, and the stranger who’d been watching him.

  Cautiously, he eased himself onto his back. It required more effort than he had expected.

  He’d spent most of the day trying to recall his encounters with the man. He’d been on the train. At the cemetery. And he’d seen him somewhere else, he was sure of it. But where? The pub, was it? Yes. That’s right. The Bank. Monday lunch-time.

  If he counted the night of the attack, that made it four times he’d seen him. Four times in two days. But why?

  Perhaps he should confront him? But what good would that do? ’Cos he was in a fit state to physically take on this weirdo. Yeah, course he was. And Fergie was going to wake up tomorrow and tell the world that God had visited him in a dream and commanded him to manage Liverpool.

  Raindrops hammered the roof. He pulled up a mental image of this stranger; the narrow line of his shoulders, the gun-metal strands of his hair. It set off a quickstep of recognition, which whirled and danced, confusing his thoughts. His face was familiar, like a long-forgotten song that comes back slowly in snatches of melody. He knew him. He did.

  But who the hell was he?

  Erdman heard a quiet, rhythmic tapping. It took him a second to realize his teeth were chattering, and he pulled the duvet up to his chin. He could hear the low sounds of the television in Amber’s sitting room, the murmur of traffic in the distance.

  Sleep drifted towards him, luring him with its siren song.

  Lilith, I love you. I’m sorry.

  He dredged his memory for their wedding day. Long ago he had buried it in the very depths of his mind, and here he was, dragging it through silt to the surface. Not his finest hour. He’d been late, hungover, but, worst of all, had forgotten to confirm their booking at a castle near Bristol, and that oily bastard of a manager had given their suite to someone else. There had been a music festival on and every hotel for miles was booked up. So they spent their wedding night at a Premier Inn on the M5.

  No, he preferred to remember that golden day he proposed. Lili, sun-kissed and relaxed at Lulworth Cove, the wind lifting tendrils of hair from her freckled face, her throat exposed to the sun every time she gave a languid stretch. And him, laughing and still full of hope, in a pair of faded denim shorts, snapping the ring pull from a can of Coke, and sliding it onto her finger.

  ‘Will you marry me, Miss Lilith?’

  She had laughed at first, not taking him seriously. But as he bent in the sand on one knee, her face had grown serious, and she cupped his chin in her hands.

  ‘Do you mean this, Erdman Frith? Or is this another of your silly games?’

  ‘I want you to be my wife, Lili. I want you at my side for the rest of my life.’

  She had cried then, and that’s what he remembered most. The sun’s benevolent warmth, and the sheen of tears on her perfect skin. He still hadn’t got round to buying her a proper engagement ring, even though he knew she kept that bent old ring pull in a velvet case at the back of her jewellery box.

  Tomorrow he would go home. He would speak to the police, apologize to his family, and try to become a man worthy of their respect.

  His eyes were growing heavier now. He called up pictures of Jakey, to comfort him on his walk towards oblivion; his laugh; the way he slept; his tongue poking from his lips as he practised his reading.

  Jakey-boy. My champ. I’ll see you tomorrow.

  He clung to those pictures of his son, his precious boy. The flaxen highlights in his hair. The dancing spirit in his eyes. His tender body, perfect to him in spite of its lumps and contortions.

  But they drifted away as gently as gossamer until, finally, he was asleep.

  THURSDAY

  38

  7.49 a.m.

  The rabbit blinks, unsuspecting. With one swift crack of its neck, it is dead. The Bone Collector cradles its still-warm body in his hand, then picks up his knife and skins it, dropping its sodden coat into a bucket beneath his workbench. A careful incision, and the blood spools out, staining the galvanized metal. Another flick of his wrist, and the heart and kidneys thud against the rim, followed by its tongue, eyes and brain.

  For his sixth birthday, his mother had bought him a rabbit. It was white and black, and its whiskers twitched as it sniffed his hand. He could feel its heart beating beneath its fur, a vibrant reminder of life.

  He loved that rabbit. Played with it, fed it, brushed its coat for hours at a time. When it bit him, he hit it on the head with a cinderblock, and fractured its skull.

  He turns his attention back to his task.

  Using his scalpel, he saws at the excess flesh which clings defiantly to the bone. A spindly finger dips into the spatter and he smears it on his lips like salve. Glo
bules snag on the chapped skin. He wipes his latex gloves on his white coat and offers a bloody smile. He has searched everywhere for the lost rabbit bones. No matter. A few more hours and this new skeleton will be ready.

  It is only right that he leaves it behind as a gift. A thank you. A badge of his devotion to duty, and a sign for the detective. One likes to be recognized for one’s work.

  And the beetles must feed to stay alive, killing two birds with one stone.

  He reaches for his magnifying glass and plucks a dermestid from the creeping mass in one of seven perspex tanks he stores in the cutting room. He peers closely at its legs, and between its head and thorax. One stray mite and he will have to destroy the whole colony.

  The Woolwich dealer didn’t ask awkward questions when he said he worked for a museum, and the Bone Collector didn’t quibble over price. At £700 for three thousand adults, larvae and pupae, it was more than the going rate, but he could ill afford to draw attention to himself. He paid in cash without a murmur.

  ‘So, right, yer know not to let ’em get too wet and make sure the body’s been left a few hours, they don’t like ’em fresh. Dunno what size animal yer wanning to use ’em on but if yer wanna mount the skeleton, yer gotta check ’em every few hours, make sure they ain’t eaten through the joints and connective tissues.’

  The fat man, who had a shaven head and a tattoo of a ladybird on his forearm, lit a cigarette and took a deep drag, then blew out the smoke through his nose. It made his nostrils flare.

  ‘If yer wanna grow more, yer gotta keep ’em warm and dark. But make sure it don’t go mouldy, or too dry, then they won’t lay no eggs.’

  The Bone Collector nodded, and thanked the man for his help. He did not tell him about the ten-thousand-strong colony he already owns, stored in the unplugged chest freezer at his father’s house. Or the girl imprisoned upstairs. Together, they decanted the beetles into a plastic tank with some wood shavings and a foam block, and packed it into a cardboard box.

  Early Thursday morning, he comes back. The butchered remains of the rabbit have already begun to give off a unique perfume and the Bone Collector knows it will ripen. He revels in its cloying scent, will later lick his own skin to see if he can taste it in the dead cells and follicles.

  The beetle man has warned him to air-dry his specimen for a few hours before setting his army to work; now it is time. He places the rabbit carcass into the tank and watches his newest battalion advance, thousands of dung-coloured soldiers ready to unmask the enemy. Like a sentinel, he keeps watch as his colony strips down its quarry, until nothing remains but an almost perfect set of bones: tarsus, atlas, ulna, metacarpus. The top of the cervical vertebrae is broken but it doesn’t matter.

  The boy won’t care what the Bone Collector leaves as his calling card.

  He is pleased, surprised even, with the speed and efficiency of his newest colony; soon, he will be ready to set it to work on something larger.

  He croons to his beetles, calls them home. In one undulating mass, they swarm up his arms, round his neck, down the back of his jacket. He enjoys the sensation of thousands of insects crawling over his skin, prefers it to the touch of human hands. After a few moments, he coaxes them back into the tank, and they follow as one.

  The Bone Collector leaves the cutting room and bolts the door, climbing the concrete stairs up to his father’s house. He sniffs the air, picks out a faint scent beneath the unemptied rubbish bins. He has been so intent on the rabbit that he’s forgotten to check on the girl, but it will wait. Now he needs sleep, just an hour or so, to prepare himself for the next phase.

  The liquid sunrise drips beneath the blinds of his house, a nondescript building in an anonymous road. He is weary but excited. As always, the siren song of his collection lures him. He shouldn’t linger, but he does.

  He is drawn first to the glass cabinet labelled S. The bones are discoloured and crumbling. He learned long ago from his father that boiling in ammonia is quick, but the damage it wreaks endures.

  He patrols the room; there is G and her missing distal phalanges; the beautiful, misshapen skull of Q, a sufferer of Paget’s Disease, with its cruel weakenings and distortions, and the complete articulated skeleton of a horse. F, the perfect form of a stillborn foetus, is on show by the window, protected from the light by blackout blinds used in nurseries the breadth of the country. The irony does not escape him.

  Today, he makes himself wait. And the thrill, when it comes, explodes inside him. The sight of C’s lumpen bones renews him. Reminds him of his father. He wonders what secrets the skin of J will unveil, already dreams of displaying his skeleton in a familial embrace.

  Shutting the door on his personal museum, he permits himself a smile. His collection is a pleasure to behold, but by no means complete. There is still much work to be done; new specimens to prepare, exhibits to display, a colony to care for.

  Fresh targets to track.

  His wife is sleeping when he lets himself in. She is breathing through her mouth, and he listens to every breath as it flutters and flies. He takes off his jacket, hangs it on the back of her chair.

  The bedpan is full but the smell does not bother him. He is used to it. He checks to see if she has taken any medication, if the pain from her joints has wrenched her from sleep in the depths of the night. The foil is intact, and relief washes through him like warm water.

  While she sleeps, he sees the sadness in her ageing face. A criss-cross pattern of blade-thin threads, some woven into the fabric of her skin, some fresher, newly minted. She wears the lines of her motherlessness like scars.

  He sits on the edge of the bed, removes his shoes, his trousers, and folds them neatly. Daylight is pressing through the gaps in the curtains, and still she sleeps on. He rests his body on the cold strip of sheet next to her, feels her warmth pulling him in. Her hand finds his. He shuts his eyes.

  39

  7.56 a.m.

  Fitzroy was not supposed to be drinking coffee, but she downed the triple espresso and prayed it would be enough to get her through the morning.

  Her eyes felt full of grit. She tried to rub away her exhaustion, but the only salve was sleep, and there was no chance of that. Not until the ting in her brain had quietened, and with every passing hour, the volume was rising.

  She had almost cancelled, should have cancelled, but it had taken her months to persuade David to come. A light drizzle was varnishing the pavement. Fitzroy threw her paper cup into the bin, and pressed the buzzer.

  The seats were pale pink and comfortable. Four of them were occupied by couples holding hands and looking anxious.

  ‘Can you fill this in, please?’ said the receptionist, and handed her a printed form attached to a clipboard.

  She sat alone, head down, and tapped out a couple of emails. The clock on the wall said 7.58 a.m. She checked her phone. At 7.59 a.m., she sent him a text.

  Where are you?

  Nothing.

  At 8.01 a.m., her phone pinged.

  I’m sorry, Etta, I’m not coming today. I can’t.

  She stared at the words on the screen, hardly able to process what he was saying. What he was not saying.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Fitzroy?’ called the receptionist.

  Fitzroy rose to her feet. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘My husband has been held up.’

  ‘That’s fine, you can wait, if you like.’

  ‘Um—’

  She couldn’t think clearly, couldn’t accept that David had allowed her to come here, hopes raised, only to let her down. He was many things, her husband, but the casualness of his cruelty was unexpected. She wondered if it was because he didn’t care any more.

  She had been a fool.

  Her mind drifted back to Nina and Patrick’s engagement drinks three years ago, the flushed glow of her younger sister’s cheeks, despite the bottle of fizzy water in her hand.

  ‘Fun, wasn’t it?’ she’d said when they got home, flopping onto the sofa and kicking off her shoes.

>   ‘She’s pregnant.’ David’s tone was dismissive, even then.

  Oh, right. Of course.

  Several glasses of wine had fuelled Fitzroy’s courage. She’d stood up, wobbled slightly and taken his dry hand in hers. This was the solution to their marital teething problems, she just knew it.

  ‘Why don’t we try for a baby too?’ She’d started to unbutton his shirt. ‘Right here and now.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘When, then?’

  He had sighed, batted her hand away, and sat down, resting an ankle on his knee as he unlaced his brogues.

  ‘I don’t want to have children.’

  She had laughed, a shocked, surprised sound.

  ‘You never said.’

  ‘I think I did, Etta.’

  And he was right. He had said. Not when she had met him during the police investigation into the suicide of one of his overstretched colleagues. Then he had been respectful and polite, although he’d held her gaze for a fraction too long. Nor when he had pressed his business card into her hand and invited her out to dinner. No, that came later. Mostly during drunken conversations at the wine bar down the road in those early heady days when they had found each other as intoxicating as the contents of their glasses, when his experience and stability had been exactly what she had been craving, the antidote to the toxicity of her loss. He was a broker, for Heaven’s sake. He was used to negotiation. She had just assumed he would change his mind. That she would change his mind.

  A week after those engagement drinks, Nina had miscarried her baby. Her indifference had been startling.

  ‘I’ll have another in a couple of years,’ she said. ‘Anyway, I don’t want to be a fat bride.’

  Fitzroy had thought then that she wouldn’t care about being fat for the rest of her life if it meant she had a child.

  She worked hard to change David’s mind, and for a while, she thought she had. She shared with him her dreams of becoming a mother. When that didn’t work, she had shown him those heartbreaking photographs in a box in her wardrobe. Then she’d begged. Reluctantly, he’d gone along with it; the unprotected sex, the mid-cycle couplings, but still it hadn’t happened. Unexplained Infertility, the doctor said.