Come and Find Me (DI Marnie Rome Book 5)

by Sarah Hilary

  Ruth and Lara working as a team, as Marnie had suggested? Or Vokey and Lara, as Ron’s Bonnie and Clyde?

  ‘We won’t warn you twice,’ Joe said. ‘I’m sending the photo now. I’ve bagged it, for Forensics.’

  ‘Good work. Anything in the solicitors’ paperwork about the sale of their mum’s house?’

  ‘Nothing. But Alyson’s the executor, so possibly she’s thinking of a probate sale.’

  ‘Can she do that?’ Debbie asked. ‘Sell it, I mean. Without a will?’

  Colin was making notes, listening to everything Joe said.

  ‘She wouldn’t get as much money, but yes. As executor she can move things in that direction.’

  ‘DS Coen,’ Marnie said, ‘this is DI Rome. Any news on Alyson?’

  ‘She’s still unconscious, Ma’am. But they think the surgery was a success. Do I need to organise protection at the hospital? The way it’s looking, and with this letter?’

  ‘It would make sense.’ Marnie wore the stitch of a frown on her forehead.

  ‘Then we’re looking at attempted murder? My boss’ll want to know.’

  ‘I’ll give her a call. Detective Superintendent Jafri, yes?’

  ‘Yes, Ma’am.’

  Noah said, ‘Thanks, Joe. I’ll send you a photo of Lara. Driving licence, so you’ll have all the details. We’ve got her car going through Kendal on the day of Alyson’s accident. She said she was travelling back to Keswick from Edinburgh.’

  ‘Roadworks,’ Joe said reflexively. ‘We’re chockablock with diversions following the floods.’ He paused. ‘Thought I’d better mention that in case you’re thinking the worst.’

  ‘We’re thinking the worst,’ Ron asserted grimly.

  ‘Could you show Lara’s driving licence to the neighbours?’ Noah asked Joe. ‘And to anyone who might’ve seen her.’

  ‘Alone? Or with Michael Vokey?’

  ‘Either. Both.’

  ‘You think he’s on our patch.’ They heard Joe scrubbing a hand at his hair unhappily. ‘He tried to kill his sister and he’s with this woman, Lara. But she’s not a hostage. She’s helping him.’

  Marnie said, ‘We need to cover all the bases, but we can’t make any assumptions. Lara may be acting alone, or under duress. We’ll let you know as soon as we have more information.’

  ‘I’ll do the same,’ Joe said. ‘Good luck.’

  He rang off as DCS Ferguson stepped into the room, wearing her war-ready scowl.

  ‘I’ve had the press on the phone,’ she announced. ‘Just for a change. Asking what I know about an interview that’s going viral. Any chance we’re ahead of the curve on this one?’

  ‘Yes, actually. DC Pitcher found the interview.’ Marnie smiled at Colin, who brightened a little from the gloom which had engulfed him after the discussion around Lara’s broken promises.

  ‘Jolly good.’ Ferguson settled herself in the chair alongside Colin. ‘Enlighten me.’

  Colin angled his monitor for the team to watch, opening a link on his desktop. ‘Julie said she saw this on YouTube two days ago. It’s been taken down, but I traced it to a civil liberties website.’

  ‘Is it just me,’ Ferguson put in, ‘or do civil liberties websites exist purely to flout laws and bellow about it?’

  Noah was near enough to smell the coffee on her breath. The tension in the room had returned, everyone wanting movement on the case, and not only because Ferguson demanded it. The letters found in Alyson’s house, Lara’s car seen in the vicinity – both developments were unfolding too far away. The idea that Vokey might have skipped their patch without so much as a footnote caught on CCTV was gutting.

  ‘It’s an interview with a prison officer from Cloverton,’ Colin said. ‘At least that’s what it claims to be. He’s kept his face hidden, and distorted his voice. He didn’t want anyone to ID him.’

  ‘While he took uncivil liberties with his oath of office.’ Ferguson played with her police lanyard, tapping her polished nails against its edges. ‘Jammy sod.’

  Marnie and Noah gathered with the rest of the team to watch the interview on Colin’s monitor. Filmed against an improvised backdrop – a black sheet pinned to a wall – the footage was sixty per cent pixels, an amateur attempt to protect the identity of the uniformed whistle-blower.

  ‘They called everyone in.’ The officer’s voice was deep and distorted, disguising his age as well as his accent. ‘All of us. Handed out the riot gear. We kitted up and waded in. It was a jungle, a fucking jungle of blood. Wall to wall.’

  In spite of the vocal distortion, the way he sat angled towards the camera with his head cocked and his shoulders sharp, betrayed his age. He was young, like the majority of those employed at Cloverton. Julie had said he looked fifteen. She was right. He was younger than Noah, and Colin.

  ‘One of us skidded, put his hand right down in the worst of it. “Fuck’s this?” he’s holding it up, like it’s right there in his hand and I’m not even shitting you. An eye. Still with the – shit, the nerves, whatever, attached. A human fucking eyeball.’ He shaped his hands into a pair of pistols, firing at his own head. ‘Mental, right? You won’t find this in the papers, but it’s happening in this country’s prisons right now.’ Pointing both fingers at the camera. ‘They don’t pay us enough to deal with this shit. And it’s meant to be our fault he’s out there, doing fuck knows what. Some bastard gets his eyeballs ripped out, or his face bitten through. Because I’m not even shitting you— He’s the real thing, a proper maniac.’ He shifted in the chair. Sounding impressed, in awe. ‘Not like you’ve been told. Watch my lips.’ Pointing at the pixels blurring his face. ‘He is. The real. Thing. Psycho, cannibal, whatever. Okay? He’s it. These are the headlines they should be writing. He’s making Jack the Ripper look like nothing. Like your gran’s pet poodle.’

  Noah felt Marnie tense at his side, her focus sharpening on the distorted face.

  ‘Yeah.’ The whistle-blower dropped his hands to his sides, swaying forward, seeking the camera. ‘They’re making out he’s an animal, but he’s more than that.’ His voice dropped an octave. ‘He’s dead clever, cunning. You have no idea. He’ll blow your mind. He’s out there!’ Expanding his arms, chest swelling. ‘Top of the league, miles ahead of anyone. They’ll only find him if he wants to be found. My advice? Don’t hunt what you can’t catch.’

  He couldn’t sit still, squirming with excitement as he described Vokey. ‘The police’ve got nothing. No chance of finding him. He’s gone. A ghost.’ He held up his hands, opening his fingers as if throwing confetti at the camera. ‘They’re looking for a fucking ghost.’

  The film ended, freeze-framing on the officer’s pixelated face and his empty, splayed hands.

  Everyone waited for Ferguson to break the silence, but she was staring at the screen. Thinking about the press, Noah imagined. Calculating the damage that would be done if the journalist who’d contacted her chose to run with this story in tonight’s edition.

  ‘Well, he’s pleased with himself,’ Ron snarled. ‘Whoever he is.’

  ‘Not just himself. He’s pleased with Vokey. The body language, his choice of words.’ Noah straightened, meeting Marnie’s eyes. ‘That’s hero worship.’

  ‘Who is he?’ she asked Colin. ‘Do we know?’

  Like Noah, Marnie was waiting for Ferguson’s verdict. Because of what was at stake, and because they couldn’t afford to get this wrong. Nevertheless, her instinct was screaming at her to say it. Give a name to what she was thinking, a name to the man in the film.

  Colin said, ‘No clues from the IP address. I’ve cleaned it as best I can. They used a face-off editing function, and not very well. I was able to slow it down, isolate some of the frames where the blurring missed its target. You can see a bit more of him that way.’

  He opened a fresh window on his desktop, showing an image of the man’s face with the blurring restricted to the centre, leaving his neck and jawline visible.

  ‘Acne on his neck,’ Julie had said, �
��little twat.’

  There – below his left ear, an angry red boil.

  ‘I know who it is,’ Marnie said.

  She stepped back from the desk, aware of Noah’s eyes on her. Ferguson swivelled in the chair, to stare at the pair of them.

  ‘He’s the one who showed me Vokey’s cell,’ Marnie said. ‘He was edgy when I asked too many questions about the fan mail. He didn’t like talking about the letters, or the photos. That’s him.’

  She pointed at the face frozen onscreen. ‘It’s Darren Quayle.’

  17

  I’m thinking about Dazza today. High and dry in my hospital bed, my lucky nurse off on her rounds. Dazza hates his mum, that’s what he told me. ‘You’ve no idea, Ted.’ She’s a bully, always telling him what’s best for him, laying down the law until he feels like a little kid at home. That’s why he fell so hard for Mickey, I reckon, because Mickey made him feel powerful. But here’s the funny thing. Mickey was bullied by his mum. She made him feel less of a man, just like Dazza. Not that either one of them would ever admit to that. Families, eh?

  ‘Nice cacti.’

  ‘Thanks, I like them.’

  ‘They don’t need a lot of sun?’

  ‘They’d like more. I take them outside when I can.’

  ‘And is that a bonsai?’

  ‘Mmm. You’re new.’

  ‘I’m Darren. Daz. Dazza. You’re Ted, right?’

  This was his first day at Cloverton. Officer Quayle. He strolls in smelling of Lynx Africa, which is a nice touch given the jungle he’s found himself in. Either he sprayed a bit too much of it, or he’s sweating the stuff back to life. He looks like a rich boy who signed up for a safari only to find himself kidnapped by pirates and forced to beg for his own ransom. His face is twitching all over the shop, Adam’s apple stewing in his throat. Darren. Daz. Dazza. He’s been told to make friends and I can see what joy he’s had with that, higher up the corridor. It makes me want to give him an easy time of it, show him we’re not all animals in here.

  ‘We’ve an allotment.’ He’s watching me work the ligustrum. ‘Mum’s growing lilies.’

  ‘What kind?’ I ask.

  ‘Orange ones? And white, of course. Sorry, I don’t know the names.’ He shuffles his feet, worrying that he sounds like a posh tit, because who grows lilies in an allotment? ‘She’s doing veg too, of course. She’s trying for courgettes just now.’

  ‘I can’t stand courgettes.’

  His face tweaks into a grin. ‘Me neither.’

  After that he’s in my cell most days, chatting about his mum’s allotment and my cacti. I give him advice on soil types, and answer his mum’s questions, make myself helpful. We’re getting on a storm until Mickey moves in. By then I know everything about Dazza, where he went to school, the name of his first girlfriend, how much he hates his mum. He talks about her all the time. She’s protective of Dazza despite all his faults, which she names on a regular basis but also indulges and encourages. I’m sick to death of his mum, if I’m honest. It doesn’t surprise me she’s growing lilies on an allotment. I’m only surprised he hasn’t buried her under them.

  ‘Lilium bulbiferum,’ he tells me on his fourth day. ‘That’s the name of the orange lilies. I asked Mum and she told me. She’s pleased I’m taking an interest.’

  I give him more gardening tips to pass on, pest control, all of that. He’s grateful, wants to be in her good books, says he’s always struggled to be in her good books.

  ‘The lily bulbs are edible,’ I tell him.

  ‘Seriously? Wow.’

  Mickey makes a move on Dazza right away. Not because he wants to show him we’re not all animals in here. Because he sees Dazza the way he sees his women, empty, waiting to be filled. I’m invisible after that. Worse, since Mickey encourages him to bully me, about the cabinets and whatnot. Mickey wants to get rid of my bonsai because she stinks and she’s stealing his oxygen. He can’t sleep at night, he says. Dazza jumps to it, all of it. I can see why he lives with his mum despite the way she bullies him. Like Lara and Ruth, he’s begging for it. I start to despise him after a bit.

  ‘You’re wrong, by the way. Those bulbs aren’t edible. My mum says.’

  ‘Well, she’s mistaken.’

  ‘Mickey knows, don’t you, mate?’

  ‘You don’t eat bulbs,’ Mickey goes. ‘That’d be like eating batteries.’

  ‘You’re both mistaken. The bulbs of the lilium bulbiferum are edible. Sweet and mealy—’

  ‘Fuck off, Elms,’ Dazza sneers.

  He’s been told to make friends. I can forgive him for sucking up to his new mate. And in a way it’s good he’s taking the time to make Mickey happy, because he sees what sort of trouble an unhappy Mickey might be. I don’t want that sort of trouble, as I’m the one sleeping in the same space. Dazza gets to clock off and go home to his other bully, the one who cooks his meals and washes his socks and lies to him about the edible bulbs of the lilium bulbiferum. At least Dazza clears off. Mickey just takes up space. He’s the one stealing all the oxygen, poisoning the air.

  There’s nothing like that here in hospital with my lucky nurse. She makes sure my lungs keep working, no labouring required. She washes and feeds me, and whispers while she does it, calls me ‘love’ and doesn’t judge what I’ve done to deserve the dog-chain or the bed baths. I wish there was someone like her to look after my plants, that it wasn’t all burnt to the ground, sticky with smoke. Cacti can’t grow without sun, not the best ones. My horse crippler was always going to die, I accept that. He used to say he’d bring me a grow light. Darren, Daz, Dazza. He promised all sorts of things, little perks and privileges, before Mickey came along. After that he started saying the spines looked dangerous, might be considered a weapon. Oh, you think?

  Imagine how it feels to swallow spines. Worse than batteries, I bet. Lodging in the soft roof of your mouth and the wet red of your gullet, sticking in your gums. Imagine someone holding your head back by the ponytail – handy of you to have that, Mickey, thanks – and feeding you the whole thing, the full way down. A courgette made into a mace, studded all over with hard pins. You can’t grow that on an allotment. But you can bury it, with the rest of him. You can bury it in soil enriched by leaf mould until only his head’s showing, its mouth sewn shut with spines, running red into the soil, helping the lilies grow.

  18

  ‘Darren Quayle called in sick the day after you spoke with him at Cloverton,’ Ferguson said. ‘He’s not been into work since. Either you have a funny effect on men, DI Rome, or he’s an oily customer with something to hide.’

  ‘Where’d you want to start?’ Ron asked. ‘Hero worship, illegal interviews online, bunking off. For all we know he’s the one hiding Vokey. He’s clearly got a hard-on for the psycho.’

  ‘He lives with his mum,’ Debbie said. ‘Anita Quayle. They’ve a house in Harpenden. No Dad, just Darren and Mum.’

  ‘Lots of room for the psycho then.’

  ‘Yes, thank you, DS Carling.’ Ferguson eyed the team. ‘Who wants to pay a visit to Officer Quayle to see if he’s as sick as he claims to be?’

  ‘That’s us.’ Ron nodded at Noah. ‘You bring your psychology degree. I’ll pack the straitjacket.’

  Ferguson was watching Marnie. ‘DI Rome, you’re the one who had prior dealings with Darren. I suggest you and DS Jake hop on the North Circular.’

  ‘Can’t we arrest him for giving that interview?’ Ron persisted.

  ‘Oh yes, let’s do that. Because I’ve not been humiliated by the CPS lately for attempting to raise a warrant without enough evidence to wipe my own arse on.’ Ferguson drilled him with her stare. ‘Pipe down and let’s hear from someone who knows what sort of beggar we’re up against.’

  Ron subsided, shooting an eye roll in Noah’s general direction.

  ‘Darren was nervous at Cloverton,’ Marnie said. ‘Very different to the way he appears in the interview. The riot scared him. He was bitter about the police investigation and the la
ck of support inside the prison, worrying about another riot because of overcrowding, happy to voice his concerns. He only clammed up when I asked about the fan mail. It was clear he knew about Ruth and Lara, that he’d seen some of their letters, possibly the photos too.’ She frowned. ‘We could flatter his ego, the fact he knew Vokey better than most, the relationship he forged. He made great play of his training, how he gets close to the inmates to ensure their cooperation.’

  ‘Close enough to help them escape?’ Ron suggested. ‘From the evidence online I reckon he’d crawl over broken glass for Vokey.’

  ‘We should try for an informal interview,’ Noah said, ‘see if it’s possible to call his bluff.’

  ‘All right, let’s do that.’ Ferguson nodded. ‘DC Pitcher, see if you can’t make DS Carling’s dreams come true by finding hard evidence that’s Darren Quayle in that interview. DC Tanner, use your charms on the Cumbria lot. If they don’t produce Lara Chorley by lunchtime, I’m heading up their way myself.’

  The house in Harpenden faced a strip of village green which would have been picturesque but for the barricade of wheelie bins emitting a thick stink of heated plastic and methane. Anita Quayle and her son lived at the end of a thatched terrace in a brown brick house which an estate agent would’ve spun as ‘rarely available and enviably positioned’. A narrow leg of garden had been planted with crazy paving, slimy from the morning’s rain. It led to a white front door, security light to the left, burglar alarm to the right. Six leaded windows glazed by sunlight kept the house’s secrets. The doorstep was chilly and exposed, traffic running behind them as Marnie and Noah waited for Darren’s mother to let them in.

  ‘Mrs Quayle? I’m DI Rome, this is DS Jake.’

  ‘Metropolitan Police?’ She pulled yellow rubber gloves from her hands, narrowing her eyes at Marnie’s badge. In her late fifties, ferociously thin and plain but with a striking and unsettling face; a late Garbo given the Edward Ruscha treatment, trashed with gunpowder and graphite.

  ‘We’re hoping to speak with Darren,’ Marnie said. ‘We understand he’s off work.’