by David Haynes
“Hey, Mouldy.” The boy pushed his tray.
Maldon slid down the bench to reach his dinner. He hated being called that name.
“I hear you’re a bit of a musician, Mouldy.”
It would either happen now, in a few minutes or next week but it was inevitable. He just wanted to eat his dinner.
“I’ve got something for you.” The voice carried real threat now. It would be soon.
Maldon looked up from his meal. The boy’s cock was almost touching his nose. “Try eating your dinner now.” He started pissing all over the cottage pie.
For a moment, he was too stunned to move and his mind went back to being in the rear of the van...
“Crawley’s pissing on Mouldy’s dinner!” A crowd had gathered and someone was laughing.
Maldon stood up and shoved the other boy back. Urine flew off in all directions. The music went up to full volume in his ears.
Crawley didn’t fall back very far and had already got his balance back. Maldon looked around, he was hemmed in on all sides. There was nowhere to go but if he could hold him off for a minute, a staff member might come and stop him.
Crawley launched himself forward. As he leaped, he punched Maldon in the mouth. He felt his teeth rattle and tasted blood. Then another punch hit him in his guts and he went down against the bench. He needed to get up. If he went down completely, he was done for.
He gripped the edge of the bench and tried to pull himself upright but another blow hit him on the temple. That one knocked him to the floor. He was barely conscious but the music was so loud he had no alternative other than to hum along.
He opened his eyes long enough to see the bottom of a boot come down on his face and knock him out completely.
“When he stamped on my head, the music stopped. I never heard it again until last week. Until I started wearing this.”
Ben didn’t need to look up to know he was pointing to his clown mask again. The name of the boy who stamped on his head hadn’t gone unnoticed. Even then, Crawley had been a thug.
“I missed it,” he continued. “I missed it because everything else grew louder. Especially voices. People spoke so loudly and I could hear everything they said. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to hear any of it. The worst one of all was my social worker. He just wanted to talk and talk and talk.”
“Do you miss your parents, Maldon?” White asked.
“What do you think?” he replied.
“I think you miss them very much.”
“Well you’re wrong, I don’t miss them at all.” He could feel anger bubbling away. It was just under the surface and that’s where it needed to stay. This was his exit interview. Everything was in place for him to move to London. To start again.
“It doesn’t mean you’re weak if you admit it.”
Maldon sneered at him. He’d been in the system long enough to know that showing weakness was liable to get your head kicked in.
“I just don’t think about them any more. Nine years is a long time.” He thought about them every day. He thought about their gaping throats and the sound the knife made as it cut through their skin. And the blood. He thought about the blood a lot.
“What are you going to do when you get down there?”
“Work and sleep.” There was a flat waiting for him. It was in a shared building and the job, in a chocolate factory, sounded like shit.
“That all?”
His voice was so loud. Why wouldn’t he just shut up?
“Drugs, booze and prostitutes. Some of that too.”
White sighed. “Say that to the wrong person and they won’t let you go. Good job I know you so well.”
How much blood would there be if he cut White’s throat? From ear to ear, that would be the way to go with him. God, he wished the music would come back. Then he could just tune out of this shit and relax.
“Bingo.”
Had White just said that? “What?” Maldon asked.
“Nothing. I didn’t say anything,” White replied. He looked confused.
“You did. You said... You...” But he couldn’t bring himself to say the name. “You should watch what you say to people.”
“Why? What do you mean, Maldon?”
Because I’ll stab you in the fucking face with a pen if you say that name again, he thought.
A knock on the door and a woman poked her head around. “The car’s waiting.”
White stood up. “Have you got everything?”
Maldon nodded and picked up his bags. He stared at White for a moment and felt relief. He wouldn’t have to jump through any more hoops or talk about his parents to this man ever again.
White broke eye contact and offered his hand. “You know where I am if you need me.”
Maldon ignored the hand. “Oh, I know where you are.”
He walked out of the door.
“And I didn’t smile or laugh for twenty years. It’s just not been in me. Know what that’s like?”
Ben shook his head. It felt like a very long time since he had laughed or smiled. Maybe even years. But twenty? Nowhere near. What would it be like to lose such a huge part of humanity like that?
“That guy stole the last trace and ate it. That’s what that sort of person does. They take it all away. Newman, the copper, Crawley and the social worker. They took it all and left me with nothing!” He screamed and stabbed the knife into the desk, just missing the keyboard.
Ben jumped to the side. “What did I do?” he shouted. The words forced out of his mouth by panic.
The clown withdrew the knife. It left a stab mark in the wood like a cut, surrounded by drops of blood.
“You? You helped me get it back.” His voice changed in an instant. “You sent me the book. You told me what I needed to do to get my smile back. I had to take back what they had stolen from me. The only way to do it was to become Sparkles.”
“It’s just a book,” Ben whispered.
The clown rummaged underneath his overalls and brought out a copy of Clownz. “Will you sign it for me?” He dropped it on the desk with a dull thud.
Ben looked at it and then back at the clown. Was this happening? Was it really happening to him?
“Here’s your pen.”
He took the pen from the clown’s hand and opened the book. His hand was shaking but not enough to stop him signing his name.
“Make it out to Sparkles.”
He could feel, and smell, the clown close to his shoulder. He signed it and closed the book.
“I read it the first time in prison. And in that week I read it four times. I hid it in my gear when they released me and I’ve had it ever since. It’s the most incredible...”
He stopped mid-sentence. Ben looked up. All around the mask were cuts where he had been stabbing himself. And out of these cuts, trickles of blood were running and painting the mask. The clown looked to the ceiling and screamed.
“Noooooooo! I can’t hear him! I can’t hear him!”
Ben forced himself as far way as he could. His chair crashed against the window.
“It’s too loud! I don’t want to hear it any more! Pleeease! Stop the music!”
The knife was slashing through the air just a few inches from his face. If he moved it would cut him to ribbons.
“It’s my story. I have told him everything!” The clown was swaying back and forth in some sort of trance.
“Please,” Ben muttered.
“I don’t want to think about them any more!” The clown roared and stabbed the knife into his cheek.
“I’ll cut you off! You’ll never make me think about them. You’ll never make me...”
Ben watched as the clown started cutting at his face.
“I won’t do it. I won’t tell him!”
Blood flew across the computer screen.
Ben jumped up and grabbed his wrists. “No!” he shouted.
25
“Shit,” Jane whispered. The roar in her ears was deafening.
“Boss!�
�� she shouted. The office was empty now. There was just the two of them here. Why wouldn’t there be, it was after three in the morning.
“You want me?” Hargreaves walked out of his office.
Jane looked up. “Pull up a chair.”
“That good, eh?” He wheeled a chair toward her.
She turned the screen so he could read it easier. “I’m not sure good’s the right word.” She let him read in silence.
After five minutes he looked up. “Shit.” He looked back at the screen. “Why didn’t we know about this?”
Jane shrugged. “It’s before our time. Stu wouldn’t have had that much service by then.”
Hargreaves sighed and leaned back. “Surely he would have mentioned this.” He tapped the screen.
“He was pissed most of the time. I doubt he wanted us rummaging through his old case notes either.”
“Christ.” Hargreaves rubbed his eyes.
Jane turned the screen back around so she could see it. “I’ve got to go through this again,” she said.
As she started reading, she could picture everything Stu had written. It played out before her in vivid detail. The summary report was far more impactive than the long-winded statement which was attached. This report told her everything she needed to know.
Report of DC 1209 Kelly
Incident 761
At 21.05 hours on 7th August 1989 I was on duty, single crewed, as the Night Crime Car. I attended 12 Wilson Croft, Derby following a report of domestic disturbance at the address.
On attendance there were no replies to either knocking or repeated shouts from myself at the front and so I walked to the rear of the property. As I approached the back door I saw there were lights coming from inside and so knocked on the door.
There was no reply and the back door had frosted glazing at the top preventing any view of the inside. I could detect no signs of disturbance coming from inside.
I called out several times, with words to the effect of, “Police, can you open the door please,” without response.
Due to the nature of the call I walked past the door to the window and looked inside. Immediately I saw there was a considerable amount of blood on the floor and walls and ceiling. I also saw a man sitting at the table. He was slumped forward with his forehead resting on that table.
As a result I took a rock from the garden and used it to smash the glazed part of the door and reached inside to turn the key.
Once inside I ran directly to the man. A large amount of blood had pooled on the floor beside the table where he was slumped. Blood also covered the table. I checked his pulse and saw the wound to his throat. It had been cut open from below his left ear, extending all the way to behind his right ear. There were no signs of life, although his body was still warm. A newspaper was on the table in front of the man. It was illegible such was the amount of blood.
I left the man and looked about the room. At that point I saw a female lying on the floor in the kitchen at the other end of the room. Blood covered her body and the floor around her. I ran forward and slipped, falling to the floor beside her.
The female was on her right side and I could clearly see the wound on her throat. It was in a similar fashion to the male. Her neck had been cut from one side to the other.
At this time I looked around for a telephone and saw in the doorway to the kitchen the boy I now know to be Maldon Williams. He was wearing a clown’s mask.
He said, “Boo!” and then smiled at me. The mask was covered in blood, as were his hands, clothes and the blade of the knife. Droplets of blood fell from his nose.
I asked him if he was injured. His reply was “Boo!”
At this time I also saw he was holding a large carving knife. I asked him to put the knife on the floor. He looked at the blade and then at his parents and the blood. He laughed.
I asked him again and this time he dropped the knife to the floor and shouted “Boo!” On this occasion it was much louder. He continued shouting in this manner until he was taken out of the address by the paramedics despite my efforts to make him stop.
My original statement is attached.
Stu’s report didn’t get any easier to read the second time around. There was more too. Findings, evaluations and assessments, and all of them came back to the same point.
Maldon Williams had murdered his parents.
They didn’t know that Newman had molested him back then. How could they? Maldon never told anyone.
She heard Hargreaves’s phone ringing in his office. She hadn’t noticed him leave her. He came out a few seconds later. “They’re saying the dog’s been out for nearly four hours now. Should we be worried, Jane?”
There was no way of knowing what Night’s routine was, but the dog didn’t look like he was normally left out all night.
“They’re saying it’s going mad. Barking, whining and scratching at the door. It’s running from front to back constantly. There’s a small window at the back of the house and the light’s on, has been since it got dark.”
“That doesn’t sound right.” She looked at the report on the screen. Her eyes felt like they were full of razor blades. “Fancy a drive out?”
Hargreaves frowned. “At this time of night? He’ll either be fast asleep or drunk.”
Whether it was the report she had just read or something else, she felt on edge. She needed fresh air and to stretch her legs. It wouldn’t take long to get there and back.
“When was the last time you went out on an enquiry, boss?”
Hargreaves ended the call and went back in his office to fetch his coat. “Let’s go.”
It was only a short drive from the city but it felt like a different world. Jane looked at the dark houses as they drove past. After this week, a change of scenery might be just what she needed.
Hargreaves pulled onto the track leading to Night’s house. All the time, he was talking to the surveillance team on his mobile. Jane kept her eyes on the hulking shadow of the house as they got closer. From this angle, she could see no signs of life.
He put the car into neutral, switched off the lights and coasted the last fifty metres. His tyres crunched on the gravel surface of the track.
“What do you reckon?” he asked.
They both looked at the house. “No harm in knocking. I’ll say we were just doing the rounds and wanted to make sure he was okay,” Jane replied.
They both climbed out and walked toward the door. “Looks like he’s doing all right for himself anyway.” Hargreaves nodded at the house.
“Was. Was doing all right,” she said in response.
Stan came trotting around the house and ran straight to her. He wagged his tail and chattered his teeth. “Hello, boy,” she said and stroked his head. As well as a change of scenery, a dog might be a good idea. It had to be better than having a man in the house.
She banged on the door and waited. There was no response. Hargreaves stepped back to look up at the front bedroom. “Nothing.”
Jane banged again and still there was nothing. “Back?” she asked.
Hargreaves shrugged and followed her.
26
Maldon’s hand was steady as he dragged the knife across his cheek. He felt the air caress his flesh, his own flesh for the first time in days.
“You can’t get rid of me, you daren’t, you big scaredy-cat!”
Sparkles was screaming and wailing. His high-pitched squeal rising above the music. The music was slipping away into a jumble of notes now. It was almost unrecognisable as his beloved tune.
He stepped back, away from Ben and his grasping fingers.
“Stay where you are!” he ordered.
“Oooh hark at you, big, brave and bold now, aren’t you! Well you’re only like that ‘cos I taught you how to do it. You weren’t like that in the back of Bingo’s van...”
“Shut up! Shut up, shut up!” Maldon screamed and hooked a lump of flesh off his face. It fell to the floor silently. Ben stepped toward him again. He was
mouthing something but his words fell silently, like the slice of Bingo’s face he had just hacked off.
“Stop, you’re hurting me!”
“You told me I’d get my smile back! You told me if I killed the men who stole it I’d get it back. Only I haven’t, I haven’t got anything back. You lied to me. You lied just like Bingo!”
“Kill the writer, that’ll do it. Kill him and we’ll sit at the table and eat his brains. You’d be a writer then. A smiling writer!”
“No, you’re a liar. You can’t give me anything!” Maldon screamed and it was louder than he ever thought his voice could go. The knife reached beneath the mask and pierced his own flesh. Warm blood flowed down his wrists. It felt no different from the blood of the others he’d killed. It shocked him. Shouldn’t it feel different? Wasn’t his blood somehow distinct to theirs?
“Please!” He heard Ben’s voice now. “We’ve still got to write the final chapter. It’s not done yet. Your story isn’t finished. Your story, Maldon, not Sparkles’s story, not anyone’s but yours. It’s not finished! I can’t write it without you.”
The writer looked at him. On his cheeks were tears. Who were they for? For him?
“Kill him, Mouldy, kill him dead. He’s right, you’re not finished. Kill him!”
Sparkles’s voice was fainter. Fainter than it had been, at least. He flicked a piece of flesh away. He saw the black diamonds rotate in the air and land by the writer’s feet. Why should he kill him? Why did Sparkles want the man who created him dead? It made no sense. No sense at all. He kept cutting.
“Stop! No!” Ben jumped toward him, reaching for his wrists. Holding his slick wrists with his own hands. His writer’s hands. The same hands that had written all those books and taken him out of his own mind to somewhere else.
His wrists were slippery though and Ben’s hand kept falling away from him. Sliding down the blade, cutting him across his arm. No, this was wrong. He didn’t want to hurt this man. He just wanted Sparkles gone.
