Blood Mist (Eve Clay)

by Mark Roberts

  Clay felt the rush of loss. The picture on the TV was wrong, but that wasn’t all. She had forgotten something very important. Chaos stabbed her in the back. But what had she done? Forgotten?

  ‘Thank you,’ said Hendricks, and the picture changed again, back to the studio and the grim-faced newsreader.

  Sandy Patel’s cigarettes and lighter. She looked in her bag. They weren’t there.

  She headed straight back towards the meeting room. George was standing in the middle of the corridor as the other two came away from Adrian White’s room.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ asked George.

  ‘Open the meeting room door.’

  As soon as he did so, she saw that the cigarettes and lighter were not on the table.

  George walked quickly alongside Clay, past identical facing doors. ‘Did you see him self-harm? Did you give him a cigarette?’

  ‘Open his door!’ Clay banged on it.

  ‘Come in,’ White’s voice oozed.

  George turned the key and pushed the door open. The cigarette packet and lighter were in White’s extended, unfolded right hand. Clay reached out, took the cigarette packet and lighter and felt the tips of White’s fingers squeeze her hand.

  ‘They’ll do anything to attract your attention.’

  ‘Who?’ She glanced at the tattooed numbers either side of White’s heart. 1 and 7. He turned his back on her.

  She felt as if some shadow had just fallen across her, that her life was about to change. It made her walk away as quickly as she could. But she knew that however fast she ran, it would never be fast enough to stop the shadow from overwhelming her.

  51

  12.30 pm

  ‘Have you got any good news for me?’ asked Clay, her voice echoing faintly around the hallway.

  ‘We’ve contacted all the families in the Patel and Tanner address books,’ replied Stone. ‘Sandy Patel gave the password for the family computer to his mate. We’ve found a few additional contacts on that database. They’ve been warned.’

  ‘Any other mutual acquaintances, like families showing up in both lists?’

  ‘No. No crossovers. Four of the families in the Tanners’ book have moved out of Liverpool. We managed to track down three. One family, the Watsons, emigrated to Australia seven years ago.’

  ‘I’ll order patrols in the streets where those families live.’

  ‘Bill Hendricks has got all the Patel and Tanner bank statements going back years and years.’

  She pointed upstairs.

  ‘Their bodies have all gone away for post-mortem.’

  ‘Have you got a picture of the bodies in situ?’

  He took out his phone and showed her the screen.

  Mr Tanner in a straight line at an angle to the longer continuous line that was his wife, daughter and son. Two lines, two dead ends.

  The sky was dense and the afternoon light was grey. She took a notebook and pen from her bag and, catching sight of the cigarette packet and lighter, felt completely duped by White.

  ‘Hold the image there, please, Karl.’

  Clay started with Mr Tanner and drew a straight line. Beside it, she drew the line of Mrs Tanner’s body and that of her daughter and son.

  ‘They’ve gone to the trouble of making this picture,’ said Clay. Pictures are made to be seen. Pictures tell us stories, information, news. Who died where?’

  ‘The father died in Maisy’s room. The mother, Rebecca and Daniel in their own rooms. Are they coming out again tonight?’

  ‘According to White, yes.’

  ‘But that was all?’

  ‘More or less.’ She nodded.

  ‘Did you kick him between the legs for me?’

  ‘No, but it was a fairly big target, I can tell you that.’

  Stone laughed and Clay shrugged, deadpan.

  ‘How do you know, Eve?’

  ‘He walked into the meeting room stark naked. He never wears clothes these days.’

  ‘Really?’ Stone’s amusement turned to mild bewilderment. ‘Any distinguishing features?’

  ‘Tattoos.’

  ‘The ones on his hands? The realigned Satanic universe?’

  ‘He’s got two tattoos he didn’t have seven years ago.’ She pointed either side of her heart and said, ‘Number 1 here, number 7 here.’ Her scalp crawled at the memory of White’s naked chest.

  ‘What’s the matter, Eve?’

  She looked at her watch. On the way back from Maghull, as she’d listened over and over to Stone’s recital of Adrian White’s religious writing, the sense of being personally spooked hadn’t diminished. It had increased and an unwelcome connection between herself and White formed in her mind.

  ‘I’ve got to go, Karl. Do me a favour, please. Call Mrs Harry. Tell her I’ll come to her house to meet with her. If she asks you any questions, fob her off, tell her she can ask me when we meet up.’

  As she got to the front door, Stone said, ‘1 and 7? What do you want me to do with that?’

  ‘Call the reading team at Trinity Road,’ replied Clay. ‘1 and 7. The first of July. The Baptist’s birthday. Tell them to think 1 and 7 in trying to crack the code. And the inversion of my birthday. Seventh of January. 7 and 1.’

  52

  1.05 pm

  As Clay stepped over the threshold of her house in Mersey Road, Thomas came quickly down the stairs. In the front room, Philip was singing along to the TV.

  ‘I saw you parking from the bedroom window.’ Thomas sounded pleased, excited to see her. ‘God, Eve, you look shattered.’

  ‘Half my head feels like rock, the other half feels like it’s going to lift off and float away.’

  She sank into his embrace, felt the weight of his lips against hers and was consumed with the need to escape into intimacy with the man she loved and craved.

  ‘You know I’d love to,’ she said. ‘But I’m only here for minutes and...’ She pointed at the front room. He let her go. ‘There’s something I’ve got to talk to you about, Thomas.’

  ‘Go ahead.’

  ‘They’re going out again tonight.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘The Baptist told me.’

  ‘You’ve been in touch with White.’

  ‘He’s been in touch with me. He’s got the inside track on this case. I’ve been to see him in Ashworth. Twice.’

  ‘The slimy little shit-bag.’

  ‘Shit-bag!’ Philip’s voice piped up as he ran across the hall towards his mother and father.

  ‘Naughty!’ She wagged a finger at Thomas. ‘Naughty word!’

  She stooped and picked Philip up. Though her back ached, her heart danced. She kissed him over and over and squeezed him.

  ‘I was about to call you, Eve, and tell you...’ Thomas wrapped an arm around her shoulders. ‘You were pretty stressed out the other night, worrying about Philip’s safety.’

  She went back in time to The Serpentine and recalled the churning fear for her son’s safety, with the killers so near at hand.

  ‘I’m packing and taking Philip to my parents,’ said Thomas. ‘You’ve got enough to contend with. You really don’t need the worry of us.’

  She felt a wave of pure relief. He had isolated the one thing he was capable of changing to make her life better and acted on it. She looked at him and fell in love yet again.

  ‘That’s why I made a bend to come home,’ said Clay. ‘I was going to tell you to get Philip and yourself out of town.’ The channels of their thoughts were running closer with the passage of time. ‘I guess we’re just turning into an old married couple...’

  ‘White? Did you have to go and see him?’

  ‘Don’t be so anxious, love,’ said Clay.

  ‘Did you go alone?’

  ‘No, I didn’t go on my own,’ she lied. ‘I was with Hendricks.’

  ‘He sees more of you than I do.’

  ‘Yes, but when you see me and I see you, it’s here.’

  Philip wriggled in her arms. She p
ut him down and he danced off into the front room.

  ‘There’s something else I want to see you about, something I want you to do for me, Thomas. OK?’ She gathered the front of his shirt between both hands and pulled him in close. ‘Are you listening? Good, then I’ll begin. As soon as this thing’s over, I want you to jump in the car, drive very, very quickly back to Liverpool, put Philip in the bath and when he’s fast asleep...’ She pressed her lips against his ear and whispered for many moments. She felt the pulse in his neck quicken and the colour rise in his cheek. She stopped whispering and drew a tiny question mark on his earlobe with the tip of her tongue. She pulled away so she could look into his eyes and asked, ‘Do you think you can do all those things to me? Would you like to?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘Well then, that’s fine, because that’s exactly what I need.’

  ‘Eve, just hurry up and catch them, OK?’

  She kissed her fingertips and stuck them on his lips. ‘I’ve got to go. But when I come back...’ She held back the if.

  ‘You are on the promise of a lifetime.’

  53

  1.45 pm

  There was an object in the front room of Mrs Harry’s house that hadn’t been there on her first visit and, Clay guessed, it had been brought out of the attic to ward off evil spirits.

  Within touching distance of Clay, in the corner of the room, an eighteen-inch statue of the Virgin Mary stood on a table looking directly at the viewer. The Virgin crushed the Serpent beneath her bare feet, offering beatific grace to the world and violent death to the Devil. It was a domestic version of a much larger statue she recalled from the chapel in St Claire’s, one she had prayed to every day with Philomena.

  She placed a finger on the Virgin’s bare foot and traced it along the back of the Serpent to its gaping jaws and exposed fangs, full of rage in its death throes, one eye looking skywards in accusation of heaven and one at the viewer.

  Why are you not saving me? Don’t you know who your real friend is?

  She took her finger away at the sound of teacups and saucers rattling on a tray. Mrs Harry entered, looking like she hadn’t slept since Clay had last called there with Stone. She handed a cup of hot tea to Clay, who swallowed half of it in two gulps.

  ‘Be careful,’ said Mrs Harry, in her best school-teacher voice, ‘that you don’t get burned.’

  Clay, who was parched, said, ‘Thank you.’ And finished off the rest.

  ‘Would you care for another?’

  ‘No thank you. No time.’

  ‘It was on Radio Merseyside. A ten-year-old boy being questioned by the police in connection with the murders. The child couldn’t be named for legal reasons.’

  ‘Mrs Harry, that boy is Jon Pearson.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘We found your mobile phone in his house. His two older brothers, Vincent and Robert, committed a serious assault on a police officer. They’re on the run as we speak. They’re our prime suspects.’

  Her face paled and she looked at Clay in extreme shock. ‘I taught all three of them. I don’t believe it.’

  ‘What do you know about them?’

  ‘Robert and Vincent were mischievous and were often sent to the head’s office, but they were never involved in any serious violent incident in school, at least not during their time at St Bernard’s. Jon’s just quiet, introverted, young for his years.’

  ‘You’ve seen all Jon’s records? You remember going through Vincent and Robert’s files? And nothing leaped out at you?’

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘Did the boys ever display overtly or inappropriate sexual behaviour?’

  ‘No. Absolutely not.’ There was a painful silence. ‘Will I...?’ Mrs Harry stopped, looked embarrassed. Clay knew she was trying to ask an uncomfortable question without making herself look weak. It happened in every single case she worked on.

  ‘Will you have to go to court?’ prompted Clay.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Most certainly, if this current line of enquiry leads me where I think it’s heading.’

  Mrs Harry blew her cheeks out and her shoulders slumped.

  ‘There are people who will support you through the process. You’re under my strict instruction from this moment to not discuss the case with anyone at all. You understand, Mrs Harry?’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘If Mrs Sweeney gets you in the office and starts to sweat you down, pick up the phone and I’ll be there as quickly as I can. She can talk to me.’

  Relief swept across Mrs Harry’s face.

  ‘Talking of phones, I’d order a new mobile if I was you. You won’t see your old one again.’

  ‘I never want to own a mobile phone ever again, DCI Clay.’

  ‘It’s not the phone that’s put you where you are now.’ She stood up. ‘Thanks for the tea. Most welcome.’

  As Clay left the room, she glanced back inside.

  With both eyes, the Virgin was still watching her, as was the dying Serpent.

  54

  5.55 pm

  Clay poured three heaped teaspoons of white sugar into her mug of tea. She rewound to the beginning of chapter one of The Matriarch and prepared to listen to the passage for the fifth consecutive time, not just because of the use of the words red and cloud but because there was a strange coherence in the surface that mostly wasn’t apparent elsewhere in the book.

  She looked at Adrian White’s spidery yet crystal-clear handwriting, his labour of Satanic love.

  Clay closed the book and her eyes and listened to Stone’s actorly recitation.

  ‘The Matriarch, chapter one, verses one to three. Evening is on a the is the fall all and a on child of actor artifact the one to one to one to who reigns parasite yes you in darkling red cloud oneness...’

  She opened her eyes, stopped the iPad, picked up a pen and jotted down in her notebook: A time of day, a fall (from grace?), a child, a deceit, an object, a king, a parasite.

  She listened again, this time allowing the words to flow over her, not listening for meaning but just to hear the words, to find the poetry if she could, as she stared hard at the surface of her desk.

  ‘Evening is on a the...’

  Her phone moved on her desk and she felt her heart leap. It vibrated against the wooden veneer and the rest of White’s words were lost.

  On the display panel: Thomas mobile.

  ‘Thomas, where are you?’

  ‘With the parents, at their house. Philip is asleep and all is well with the world. Wish you were here.’

  She listened. In the background she could hear the steady rhythm and seductive swoosh of evening tides on the shore.

  ‘You’re sitting outside, right?’

  Swoosh.

  ‘What’s the weather like?’ she asked, from the stuffy confines of the incident room.

  ‘It’s as cold as it is where you are, but the sky’s clear. The moon’s full and the light’s spilling onto the water. The water’s jet black. And I’m missing you badly.’

  She looked out of the window, saw the sudden change in the weather conditions, could see the same moon as Thomas. Clay cupped her hand around the mouthpiece and whispered, ‘Are you sure you’re not with some Welsh floozie?’

  ‘Yeah. How did you guess?’

  ‘I can smell her perfume from here. Has she got a tramp stamp?’

  ‘Three, actually.’

  ‘You dirty rascal, Thomas.’

  The tide heaved in and she pictured the moonlight rippling over the dark water. ‘When you look into shadows, you look into mirrors. When you look into mirrors, what do you see?’

  ‘Where are you, Eve?’

  ‘At my desk...’

  She closed her eyes and for a moment imagined Thomas’s arms around her. The familiar scent that was his and his alone coursed through her senses.

  ‘Thomas, I have to go. Call me in the morning.’

  ‘I will do. I love you, Eve.’

  ‘I needed to hear that so badly. A
nd guess what?’

  ‘I guess you love me too.’

  ‘You guess correctly. Thomas...’

  ‘I know, you have to go.’

  She hung onto the silence between them and then disconnected the call. She took a moment to turn the screw inside herself and focused on the gravity of the task in front of her.

  People have died in horrible circumstances. More will follow. You are the best chance they have.

  The ground beneath her was moving and the sky above was pressing down on her head. With the darkness around her, she pressed play on her iPad again. And listened. And listened. And listened.

  55

  6.05 pm

  On the border of Aigburth and Garston, Vincent Pearson drove down Riversdale Road at ten miles per hour, his eyes flicking from the road ahead to the petrol gauge on the dashboard. The needle was firmly in the red zone.

  He glanced at his brother Robbie in the passenger seat. His head was propped against the window, his eyes shut, after a night and a day spent hiding in a lock-up garage they’d broken into near John Lennon Liverpool Airport.

  It had been over twenty-four hours since either of them had eaten. His head throbbed and his stomach ached with intense hunger.

  Vincent steered the female copper’s Audi right at the bottom of Riversdale Road and wished he was one of the people living in that road with their nice houses overlooking Liverpool Cricket Club.

  ‘Wake up, Robbie!’

  He parked the car on the tarmac in the small bay behind the snow-capped lawns leading down to the Promenade, the walkway that extended over five miles to the Pier Head, following the curve of the River Mersey.

  ‘It’s cold,’ said Robbie, still dressed in just the T-shirt and jeans he’d been wearing when the cops had made their unexpected call.

  ‘Wake up, Robbie!’ Vincent smacked his brother’s arm.

  ‘What?’

  The sky was clear, the moon was out and, across the river, thousands of points of light glittered at the gates of some promised land that was for other people but never them. The river washed back and forth across the mud flats, filling Vincent with a sense of peace that was welcome but he knew was utterly false.