by Danuta Reah
McCarthy’s phone rang, and he picked it up wearily. The tension of the past three days was beginning to get to him. He was having trouble focusing. The different strands of the investigation floated randomly in his mind, and as he reached for the patterns he knew must be there, they drifted away into a confusion of names, faces, events. Barraclough put her head round his door, saw him pick up the phone, and put a cup of coffee on his desk. He nodded his thanks as he said, ‘McCarthy,’ and took a swallow of the coffee. It was black and sweet and, in a moment, he felt the artificial alertness of the caffeine.
It was one of the technicians from the fingerprinting section. ‘We’ve matched up those prints you sent us,’ he said, his cheerfulness a sharp contrast to the tension and foreboding that was weighing McCarthy down. He listened as the technician told him what they’d found. The prints taken from Simon Walker’s flat, the only prints they had found there, matched the previously unmatched ones they had found at Shepherd Wheel, and the ones they had found at Suzanne’s house after the fire.
Simon Walker suffered from a disorder that made him anti-social and reclusive, but he was also intelligent and resourceful. Simon Walker had a wicked temper. Simon Walker could fit the profile of their intelligent killer.
‘Forget the Asperger’s Syndrome,’ the psychologist had advised. ‘It will make him withdrawn, it might even make him behave in a way that people find threatening or intimidating – but systematic violence like this, that’s something else. If it’s him, it’s coming from something else in him. There isn’t enough. I need to know more about his background, about all of them. There’s a lot of anger here.’ Tell me something I don’t know, McCarthy had thought. But background was just what they didn’t have.
The psychologist had come up with one suggestion. ‘Maybe his anger comes from a history of rejection. His mother gave him away, but later she kept his sister. He wants his family, but he can’t cope with people. So he thinks they’ll reject him again. Maybe the only way to stop them from leaving you is to kill them.’ McCarthy was unconvinced, but, on the other hand, Sophie’s death had occurred around the time she had decided to leave Sheffield. ‘I’m only speculating,’ the psychologist had said. ‘I don’t have the data.’
Simon Walker or Phillip Reid? If Phillip Reid had killed to hide his involvement in a drugs deal – but that didn’t make sense, not unless there was a lot more to the drugs deals than they had realized. Would he kill to conceal his relationship with his children? Again, McCarthy couldn’t see any reason for that. It made no sense. Had he killed to hide his involvement with his daughter? If that involvement had existed, then yes, he might. McCarthy could see that.
On the other hand, if Simon Walker was their intelligent killer, and if his target had been his family: his half-sister, and his sister and brother, what was the motive there? Some impulse from a damaged mind that saw threat and danger where none existed? Would his oddness and his behaviour make him a monster in Lucy’s eyes? And where would he go now and what would he do? There was no one left, apart from his father and himself.
The window was covered, but the sun, as it sank lower, illuminated the curtains, making the faded pattern of flowers glow in the early evening light. The flat was sparsely furnished: a table, some candles, a lamp suspended from the ceiling. And on the floor, confetti, white confetti, torn and scattered from sheets of paper that had been ripped again and again. On some of the larger pieces, it was possible to see the drawings, or parts of the drawings. This one could have been a fair-haired teenager. This one could have been a dark-haired youth. And a larger piece, and another. One picture, torn across. A child.
Suzanne supervised Lucy and Michael into bed, looking at her watch. She’d thought that Joel was going back, not staying another night, but he was still downstairs, an enigmatic and threatening presence. She stayed upstairs, talking to the children, reading an extra story lying on Michael’s bed with him cuddled up on one side of her, and Lucy, uncharacteristically, cuddled up on the other. She felt as though she could stay there all night in their soft, undemanding presence, watching them sleep, watching over them – the way she’d wanted, against all sense and reason, to watch over Ashley. Michael was almost asleep. She disentangled him gently and tucked his quilt over him.
Lucy looked at her doubtfully. ‘Are you staying in our house?’ she said. Lucy’s face was serious. She wasn’t a child given to smiles and laughter, but tonight she looked worried and unhappy in a way that Suzanne hadn’t seen before.
‘Are you all right, Lucy?’ she said. Lucy didn’t respond. ‘You don’t look very happy,’ Suzanne explained.
Lucy climbed into her own bed and picked up the teddy bear in yellow pyjamas that she’d brought upstairs with her. ‘I’m sad about Tamby,’ she said. ‘I gave him my peacock feather to keep him safe.’ She looked at Suzanne again. ‘I want to go to sleep now,’ she said.
Suzanne turned off the overhead light, leaving the dim night light that Lucy had started asking for. Michael was already asleep, sprawled on his back, his hands on the pillow by his face. She whispered goodnight to Lucy, and went along to the bathroom. Joel was still downstairs. She could hear his voice, and she knew he found her presence as welcome as she found his. She could just about have faced an evening talking with Jane, letting herself be distracted by Jane’s vagaries, drinking enough wine to numb the way she felt, concentrating on getting through the hours, letting another day pass, and then another and then another, and surely, after a time, it would start to get better. But she couldn’t talk to Jane with Joel there, under his shrouded, ironic gaze, trying to find some response to the gentle, almost polite way he spoke to her when Jane was there, while all the time his eyes were saying something else, entertained by her awareness of it and her inability to challenge him.
She had her escape route here. She got out the small pill bottle they’d given her at the hospital. ‘Just enough sleeping pills for the next couple of nights,’ the nurse had said. She hadn’t used one last night, and she hadn’t told Jane about them. She checked her watch. Half past nine. She’d been with the children for over an hour. She was going to take one of the pills now. In fact, she was going to take two, go next door to her house and collect the transcripts from her study, then go to bed. If the pills didn’t work, she would pass the time by doing everything she could to reconstruct the sound of Ashley’s voice, every pause, every stress, every intonation, and give it to Steve tomorrow.
She told Jane where she was going, and went down the passage to her house, unlocking the door and flinching at the smell of smoke and ashes. She would have to do something, get someone to clean it up, get rid of all the evidence of that night. Tomorrow. She didn’t want to think about it tonight. She ran up the stairs to the attic. The transcripts were there. She collected them together, then remembered she had some handwritten ones that might help her. Where were they? She pulled open the drawer of the filing cabinet and began flicking through the files. Her head was starting to swim now, with the effect of the pills and lack of sleep. Maybe she should just leave it. She obviously wasn’t going to do any work tonight. But she could do something tomorrow morning. There was a file marked Transcripts, stuffed full of bits of paper. She pulled it out and sank down in the easy chair to sort through it. She felt so tired. The writing blurred and danced in front of her eyes. It was difficult keeping them open. She let them close, succumbing to the heaviness. Just for a minute, just to clear her head, just to get rid of that swimming dizziness that was pulling her down into blackness.
Lucy pretended to be asleep. She lay there with her eyes shut, listening to Mum talking downstairs. Suzanne was going out. She heard the door shut. Then she heard the door open and shut again. She could hear footsteps in the passage, then another door opened and shut, and she heard footsteps on stairs, but a bit more far away. Suzanne was next door.
She opened her eyes and looked at the black shape of the window. The curtains moved. It was just the draught. She could feel it on her fa
ce. Mr McCarthy had said about the monsters, and she’d wanted to tell him, but then her daddy had got cross. And then she’d seen Tamby in the park, and she thought it was all going to be all right again, but now she wasn’t so sure. She listened. The house was quiet. It was just making those noises that houses make, sometimes a creak, sometimes a clunk, but safe noises, house noises.
She could feel her chest starting to get tight. She reached for her inhaler and put it in her mouth. She clicked the button and felt it cool in her throat. She waited. Her chest felt better, but the inhaler felt wrong. It was nearly empty. She called to her mum who came quickly, her feet going tap, tap on the stairs. ‘What is it, love?’ Mum was whispering, not to wake Michael.
Lucy shook the inhaler at her, and Mum put her hand to her mouth. ‘The new one. I’d forgotten. It was in that bag we lost in London. Don’t worry, Lucy. I’ll go to the special chemist and get another one. I’ll do it now. Daddy’s here.’
‘Daddy can go.’ Lucy didn’t want her daddy looking after her, not when the monsters were here, in the house, hiding somewhere.
‘Daddy doesn’t know what to get.’ Mum was looking worried. ‘Suzanne’s here as well. She’s just next door and she’ll be back in a minute.’ Lucy thought about it. She was cross with her daddy. But Suzanne would make it all right.
She listened as Mum’s feet went back down the stairs, tap, tap, tap. She could hear Mum talking to her daddy. She could hear Daddy’s voice, but she couldn’t hear what he was saying. Then the door opened and shut, and she could hear Mum’s feet on the road outside.
Suzanne was up in her attic now, clunk, clunk, clunk, walking around. She would come back soon, Mum said. Now she could hear something else. Something was making footsteps downstairs. She listened. It was her daddy. Her daddy was listening out for them. Daddy’s feet went pad, pad, pad, up and down and up and down. Then she heard the door of the middle room open, and her daddy’s feet were coming up the stairs the way he did, quick and quiet. She heard him going along to the bathroom. She heard him pee, not a little trickle like when Lucy did it, but a loud splashy noise. She heard the clank as he pulled the chain and the whoosh of the water. Then she heard water splashing in the basin, and the click of the bathroom door. Michael made a whimpering noise.
Pad, pad, pad, back along the corridor. The bedroom door opened, and Lucy forgot to pretend to be asleep. She looked over, and her daddy was there. ‘I’m going down to the pub,’ he said. ‘Suzanne’s next door. She’ll be back in a minute.’ Daddy always went to the pub when he was listening out.
‘Michael’s waking up,’ she whispered.
‘He’ll be fine,’ her daddy said. ‘Suzanne’ll see to it when she comes back. Shut up and go to sleep.’ He turned out the night light and closed the door. Lucy stared at the darkness. She heard her daddy’s feet on the stairs, clatter, clatter now, and then the door opened and closed. She listened. Suzanne was quiet next door. Maybe she’d got her stuff. Maybe she was on her way back. She waited. Her eyes felt sore and tired. It seemed to be a long time. Then she heard the door open and shut, and knew that Suzanne was back. She didn’t need to listen out any more. Her eyes closed by themselves.
McCarthy got himself another cup of coffee. He looked across at Barraclough and at Martin. He didn’t know if they were working overtime, or if they were on the new shift. He rubbed a hand across his eyes, trying to remember. They were still looking through the papers from Simon Walker’s flat. Barraclough looked at him and shook her head. ‘There’s nothing to tell us …’ she said. Nothing to tell them where Simon Walker might be, nothing to lead them to Phillip Reid.
He went over to have a look. He picked up one of the remaining folders. It was bulky, but that was because it contained large sheets of paper, folded up. He opened one, and, for a moment, he couldn’t understand what he was looking at. Bright colours, lines of blue and green, a daub of yellow, patterns. Then he recognized it and a cold wash of dread ran through him. It was a child’s drawing. The writing wobbled across the top, and across the bottom. The letters were black, apart from the first letter of each word, which was a bright, poster-paint red. Across the top it said The Ash Man’s brother, and, across the bottom, in the park. Lucy’s drawing. She’d shown him another picture like this, a picture of someone else who was part of her fantasy world. The word, in red letters, jumped off the paper at him. TAMB. Tamby, her friend. Tamby, the Ash Man’s brother. Simon Walker was Ashley Reid’s brother … His mind whirled through the things she had said. Tamby’s my friend… He’s Tamby’s friend. Only not really… the Ash Man is Emma’s friend… And Tamby is, too. Simon Walker.
Lucy trusted him, and he was still out there. And the monsters. He should have stayed, he should have talked to her, he should have insisted!
He looked across at Barraclough who was opening a buff envelope, pulling out what looked like another birth certificate. She glanced at it, looked at it again, her frown of puzzlement suddenly changing to enlightenment, and to alarm. Wordlessly, she passed the certificate over to McCarthy.
They hadn’t gone back far enough. It was the birth certificate for Phillip Reid. McCarthy read it. Phillip Reid had been born in Sheffield in 1956. His father was Joel Matthew Reid. His mother was Lucia Reid, formerly Severini.
McCarthy was wide awake now. ‘I want Joel Severini in here, tonight! Get Brooke,’ he said to Corvin. Then the full significance of what he had seen hit him. He thought of Ashley’s tape. Ashley had said, ‘I’m telling you!’ And he had. He had told Suzanne. She hadn’t understood. McCarthy had read the transcript. He hadn’t understood either. He remembered what Ashley had said, what Suzanne told him that Ashley had said, the night he’d broken into her house. He checked her statement. Where are they? … Next door. Loose. The house had been empty. Jane and Lucy had gone away unexpectedly. Ashley was worried, Ashley was panicking because he didn’t know where they were, so he’d come to the only person who might know, and help him – Suzanne.
It wasn’t Loose that Ashley kept saying. It was Luce. Joel Severini’s name for her. What’s up with our Luce? A line came to him from the transcript. Simon brings the stuff so she didn’t like that… it was loose, you see, and so didn’t want… Simon brings the stuff. Sophie, she didn’t like that. It was Lucy, you see, and Sophie didn’t want… So, Em, Luce. Sophie, Emma and Lucy. He’d read it, he’d known there was something there, and he’d missed it. It wasn’t finished.
18
Suddenly, Lucy was awake. Something was different. Something was wrong. She listened. Michael was making funny snuffling noises in his sleep. She listened again. Creak, creak… very faint, very quiet. Lucy knew what that sound was. She’d heard it before. She sat up. It was all right. Suzanne was downstairs. She listened again. Pad, pad, quiet as quiet, along the corridor outside their room. She looked at the door. It was shut tight. She looked at the handle, waiting for it to start turning, waiting for the monster to come through the door. Maybe he didn’t know they were there. Tamby! Tamby had been in the park. Like a mouse, Tamby would say. And Mr McCarthy. He’d said, Tell me. But Mr McCarthy wasn’t here. And Tamby wasn’t here. Her eyes felt wet and stinging. She’d find Suzanne. Or her daddy. She’d find her daddy. She looked at Michael who was sleeping. She needed to look after Michael as well.
She climbed quietly out of bed and tiptoed across to the door. Like a mouse, like a mouse. She turned the handle carefully. It made a small click in the quiet. Lucy froze. Listened. All quiet. She pulled the door open a little way and slipped out onto the landing. It was dark, but she didn’t turn the light on. The light would bring the monsters. Where was her daddy? It was too quiet. He wasn’t playing his music downstairs. She crept across the landing to the bedroom door. She pushed it open. She could see the bed in the moonlight from the window. It was empty.
Lucy pulled the door shut. Her daddy had gone to the pub. Suzanne was downstairs. She listened again. She couldn’t hear anything. The stairs were dark, and the rooms were dark, she could tell.
She started to go down the stairs, but then she looked down into the shadows below her. And she knew, knew that the monster was waiting down there, and Suzanne wasn’t there, she knew that as well. She and Michael were alone in the house with the monster and soon it would come upstairs and there was no one to help them at all. For Christ’s sake, Luce… Like a mouse… Be careful… Tell me. Her chest began to feel tight.
She backed up the stairs and to her bedroom door. The monster might be coming up the stairs now. She could hear Michael waking up, feeling the monster in the house as well. He made a whimpering, just-woken-up noise. ‘Be quiet!’ she whispered as fiercely as she could, and she felt him go stiff and silent. She didn’t know what to do! Tamby! She didn’t know if she said it in her head or out loud, but then she heard it. ‘Lucy! Lucy!’ Not a call like in the park, but a whisper, a whisper that seemed to say, Quick! Now! She took Michael’s hand and they stood at the bedroom door listening. He was shivering. The voice came again, ‘Lucy!’ And it came from the attic stairs.
The attic! The attic with its darkness and its dusty smell and the strange noises on the ceiling. Her chest was tight. She couldn’t think! She wanted her mum. She wanted Suzanne. Mr McCarthy had told her, ‘Be careful, don’t be alone’, but her daddy had left her alone. She wanted Mr McCarthy. She could go to Tamby, go up the dark attic stairs and Tamby would keep her safe. Be careful, little Luce, he’d said. The whispered call again, ‘Lucy! Quick!’ She peered through the darkness, and there on the attic stairs, like a sign, was her peacock feather. Tamby!
She pulled Michael’s hand and he came with her out of the bedroom and she ran with him up the twisting staircase. The room was full of junk. Her daddy said, Throw it out! But her mum put it all in the attic and now it made strange shapes in the darkness, and Michael whimpered as he tripped and nearly fell. She had to look after Michael. She was the oldest. ‘Tamby?’ she whispered. Where was he? She could see a light across the room, a light coming from a hole in the wall, the roof space where the smell of dust came from. There were spiders in the roof space, and dark and dirt.
