by Sarah Hilary
And now Kyle Stratton, with a shattered eye socket.
Marnie pinned the location of this latest attack to the map.
‘Has he been in prison?’ Noah asked.
It was the one thing connecting the two earlier assaults; Stuart and Carole had both served time for crimes involving violence, and worse. This fact, and the savage silence they were keeping, had sounded alarm bells. Marnie and Noah had been on high alert for a third assault, fearing a vigilante.
‘Yes, he has,’ Marnie said.
‘What did he do?’ Noah studied Kyle’s face.
‘A spell in a juvenile detention centre for racially aggravated assault, eleven years ago. He and a school friend thought it would be fun to set fire to a younger boy’s blazer. They pleaded guilty, said they hadn’t intended anyone to be hurt.’
‘What part of “setting fire to” didn’t they understand?’
‘The judge decided they’d shown remorse,’ Marnie said. ‘Kyle was let out after three months.’
‘How badly was he burnt? Their victim.’
‘Badly enough.’ She put her hand on the new map pin. ‘Let’s see what DS Carling’s found at the scene. And whether Kyle’s well enough to give us a statement.’
Page Street was lined with apartments built like a toddler’s first attempt at stacking bricks, in alternating blocks of grey and white. Security gates gave the place a penitentiary air not helped by the trio of kids kicking a bald tennis ball around the paved courtyard. Not the nice spot Noah had imagined; hard to believe they were a short walk from the Houses of Parliament.
Ron Carling was waiting inside the police cordon, fielding the kids’ antics with a glare. ‘Little bastards won’t move off. No parents around to make them.’
Marnie ducked under the tape, holding it for Noah who said, ‘Is that CCTV doing its job?’
‘Three guesses.’
In other words, no. Marnie had lost count of the number of cameras in London that existed purely for show. A deterrent supposedly, like the life-size cardboard police officers propped inside pound shops. ‘Forensics have finished?’
‘A while back.’ Ron stamped his feet, trying to keep warm.
Most of the day’s cold had congregated in the right angle where the assault took place, as if the crime scene had sucked a breath six hours ago and was still holding it. Noah measured the short space with his stare, hands deep in the pockets of his coat. It was always useful to see the crime scene, even one as carefully picked clean as this. Blood spatter on the paving slabs, but unless their assailant had got sloppy, it was Kyle’s and it would be the only DNA found here.
‘He’s getting his confidence up,’ Noah said. ‘Or he knew that camera wasn’t working.’
‘We’re assuming it’s him,’ Ron said. ‘Because of the broken face?’
The kids kicked the tennis ball towards them, dancing away when Marnie looked up.
‘Because Kyle has a criminal record,’ she said, ‘like our other two.’
‘Vigilantism.’ Ron stamped his feet. ‘As if we don’t have enough arseholes on our hands without the arsehole-hating arseholes pitching in.’
Eloquently put.
‘We’re going to St Thomas’s,’ Marnie told him. ‘Keep us posted on the door-to-door.’
‘We won’t find him.’ Ron sniffed. ‘Not from this. He’s too bloody crafty.’
‘He can’t stop. That’s how we’ll catch him.’ Noah took a last look at the crime scene, the street light, the blind CCTV camera. ‘He can’t stop, and he’s getting louder.’
The route to the hospital took them past Kyle’s offices, close to St James’s Park tube station. Marnie pulled up and parked, to consider the layout. A pub on the corner – where Kyle had been drinking? Ten minutes on foot to Page Street.
‘He wasn’t going home,’ Noah said, ‘or he’d have headed for Victoria, taken a mainline train to Reigate. Page Street was out of his way.’
‘He wasn’t going home,’ Marnie agreed.
CCTV right around them, a steel circuit of surveillance. Had their vigilante known where the gaps were, or didn’t he care? The earlier assaults had taken place in dead ends, dark corners. Last night was hardly broad daylight, but it was a lot riskier. Louder, just as Noah had said.
‘I want names.’ She considered the tinted windows of the office block. ‘Who was he drinking with, what time did he leave, was he on his own. DC Tanner can lead on that.’
‘Eleven years,’ Noah said. ‘Since he set fire to that boy. Over a decade since he was paroled. Our vigilante’s playing a long game.’
‘Or it doesn’t matter to him who he attacks.’ Three faces indiscriminately damaged, wiped out. Even Carole’s untouched face – wiped out. ‘He’s happy to attack anyone guilty of a violent crime, regardless of circumstances, or gender, or age.’
‘So he’s . . . sticking pins in parole records? Using DBS checks?’
‘It’s possible. You know what Welland would say. We’re clutching at straws, seeing connections that don’t exist.’ Marnie pulled away from the kerb, pointing the car towards the hospital. ‘What did he want, by the way? You were in his office when I got to work.’
‘Pep talk.’ A muscle played in Noah’s cheek. ‘About our teamwork.’
Welland was heavy work first thing in the morning. And more than usually dour of late, making Marnie worry about his health. For nearly five years he’d been in remission but cancer, like their vigilante, didn’t care. Indiscriminately destructive.
‘Our teamwork’s great,’ she told Noah. ‘There’s no one I’d rather be clutching at straws with.’
‘Maybe we’re about to catch a break.’ He kept his eyes on the other side of the river. ‘New victim, new evidence. This could be our first decent ID.’
Below them, the Thames shuddered with the same cold breath trapped in the right angle where Kyle Stratton’s bones had been broken.
Marnie took the turning for St Thomas’s.
‘Let’s find out.’
3
St Thomas’s was becoming a second home. How many hours of hospital CCTV footage had Noah and Marnie starred in? Walking through the main entrance, waiting to interview patients, not all of whom were victims. That smell, though—
Hot and cold and sweet and sour all at once. Noah would never get used to it.
Marnie went ahead of him, stripping off her gloves. Should he have said something in the car, about what was unravelling at her house? Alan and Louise Kettridge might be here in St Thomas’s. Noah hated secrets. He hoped DS Kennedy and the Trident team would clear it up quickly.
‘Kyle Stratton?’ Marnie was speaking with the woman at the desk. ‘He was brought in around two a.m. following an assault.’
Noah hung back, turning to watch the people on the plastic chairs. A red-eyed mother and her baby, two drunks propping each other upright, a man in stained overalls holding his towel-wrapped hand in his lap. What would tourists make of scenes like this? London showing the other side of its postcard-gloss. A tourist could’ve stumbled on Kyle in the early hours, lying in the gutter not far from Westminster Abbey. Instead, a cabbie found him, calling for an ambulance that took eleven minutes to respond. Fortunately the cabbie knew enough first aid to keep Kyle’s airways clear until the paramedics reached them. Door-to-door was yet to find anyone in Page Street who’d heard or seen anything. If the attack had been head-on, like the others, then Kyle had chosen not to shout when he saw his attacker approaching. Or it happened too fast for him to realise the danger, or he was too drunk to make sense of what was happening until it was too late. Apartments all around him, packed with people. Surely someone had seen or heard something.
‘He’s in surgery,’ Marnie said. ‘We need to wait to speak with a doctor.’
Noah moved with her, away from the crowded A&E. ‘Surgery for the orbital fracture?’
‘They wouldn’t say.’ She frowned, dark-eyed. ‘But it didn’t sound good. Emergency surgery.’
Their vig
ilante was keeping a lot of surgeons very busy.
‘We should speak with the cabbie who found him,’ Noah said. ‘I’ll get Colin to send us a name and address.’
Kyle’s surgeon was a young Iranian woman with beautiful eyes. She’d washed the blood from her hands, but spots of it clung stubbornly to her scrubs.
She beckoned Marnie and Noah to a quiet part of the corridor.
‘Traumatic subarachnoid haemorrhage,’ she told them. ‘He was bleeding into his brain.’
‘Was?’ Marnie repeated.
‘He died,’ her eyes were sorrowful, ‘twelve minutes ago. I’m very sorry.’
4
The fly wouldn’t die. He’d sprayed it with enough polish to turn it white – it was wearing a fur coat of furniture polish – but it kept moving. Walking along the windowsill leaving little gobs of foam like footprints. Fly prints. It kept trying to get off the ground but its wings were too heavy so it was walking towards the corner where the light was brightest, where it could see the sky.
‘Idiot.’ Finn aimed the can of polish. ‘Just die.’
He pressed his thumb on the nozzle. More spray hit the fly, knocking it back down, legs kicking stickily. It rolled sideways, found its feet, started walking.
‘Will you not just die—? There’s no way out. The window doesn’t open. It’s painted shut. You’re finished, you silly fucker. Just – give up already.’
The spray made Finn’s eyes sting. He coughed, hiding his mouth in the crook of his elbow. He was meant to be cleaning. He had the kitchen to do, and supper to cook. He should’ve finished in here half an hour ago. Would have if it wasn’t for this idiot fly who thought just because it could see sky it could get out, who didn’t know a window when it saw one and who wouldn’t just die.
‘You’ll freeze out there, you mad fucker, it’s fierce cold.’
Buzzing – he could hear it buzzing under the white fur left by the spray. There shouldn’t even be flies in winter. It should be hibernating not crawling, dragging one of its legs like it was broken. It wouldn’t give up, thought it could escape, fly home. How stupid could you get?
Finn was only ten but he’d stopped thinking he could escape after two days.
The house was locked down, tight.
He had cleaning to do, and washing, and cooking. He didn’t have time for this fly’s fantasy escapism shit. He lifted the can of furniture polish and set it down on the windowsill.
Not hard, but not gently either. The can had a hollow in its base that stopped it being flat. When he leaned in, he could hear the fly buzzing inside.
He pressed his cheek to the cold of the can, listening, wondering how long it’d take to suffocate, or even if it could suffocate. Air was getting in underneath, the windowsill wasn’t flat. He could be here a long time waiting for the fly to die. When he’d first seen it, he’d wanted it dead. He hated insects, especially flying ones. Didn’t mind spiders so much, liked beetles. But flies were all up in your face, walking with their shitty feet on your food. Butter, sugar—
Finn was meant to keep this place spotless. Fucking Brady would flip his lid if he saw a fly in here. For one thing, he’d think it meant an open window somewhere, a way out.
The can grew warm under his cheek, the fly throbbing on the windowsill.
He straightened slowly, raising the can.
The fly struggled to its feet and straightaway started dragging itself towards the bright corner where the windows met. Until Finn put the can on its back, rolling it until it crunched.
It was red and yellow inside, like pus from a bloody knee. He wiped the mess with a sheet of kitchen roll, carrying it to the metal bin. He pressed the pedal, dropped the ball of paper inside and let the lid come down on it slowly, bringing with it the reflection of his face.
He looked scared. Specks of white spray on his lips, sticky.
He licked his lips and tasted polish.
Dead fly taste.
He ran to the sink and spat then puked, spattering toast and tea so he’d have to clean twice as hard now, enough to see his face in the sink, like the bin where the rubbish went, the rubbish and his face and he’d better not cry, Brady hated that, he’d better not—
He turned the taps on full blast and let his knees give way.
Sat on the floor with the drops splashing back on his head like rain.
Water thundering in the sink above, draining down into the pipes behind, finding something he couldn’t find—
A way out.
5
‘Kyle Stratton died at ten minutes past nine this morning. He was alive when he was found in Page Street seven hours earlier, and alive when he arrived at St Thomas’s. But he suffered a massive haemorrhagic stroke caused by the blow to his head. So. This is now a murder investigation.’
Marnie looked around the room, waiting for questions.
‘He’s killing them now?’ Debbie Tanner shook her head.
‘Or it’s not the same guy,’ Ron said.
Of everyone on the team, he was the most sceptical about the connection between the attacks. London had criminals stretching to every dark corner and back. Why look for just one of them?
‘Frontal attack. Broken bones. Blunt instrument.’ Noah stepped up to the whiteboard. ‘Nothing stolen. Kyle had a wallet full of cash and cards, plus a brand new iPhone. If this was a robbery then someone missed a trick.’
No robbery at the earlier crime scenes either, as if the attacker hadn’t wanted the police wasting time identifying his victims. Nothing taken, and nothing left behind.
‘So what’d this poor bastard done to deserve it?’ Ron asked. ‘If it’s our mystery vigilante?’
‘Kyle spent three months in juvenile detention for racially aggravated assault.’
‘When he was fifteen.’ Debbie frowned. ‘That’s a long time for anyone to bear a grudge. Why wait all that time?’
‘Why wait seven years to smash Stuart Rawling’s jaw? Or twelve years to set fire to Carole Linton’s skirt?’ Ron glared at the whiteboard. ‘And why haven’t we got a hundred more GBH cases pinned up here? What makes this little lot so special?’
‘That’s easy. The criminal records. All three served time for violent crimes. Look what Stuart and Carole did, and now Kyle.’ Debbie smoothed the front of her blouse. ‘I can understand why someone might want to punish them, but I don’t understand why it took them so long to get around to it. All the paroles happened years ago. Why’s our vigilante only getting to work now?’
‘Two theories,’ Colin Pitcher reminded them. ‘Our attacker was a kid at the time of the parole. That fits with Carole’s victim.’ He winced when he said her name. They all did. ‘And now it fits for Kyle. Second theory: this is a recent parolee. Someone who’s only just out of jail themselves.’
‘Different prisons, different timescales,’ Ron objected. ‘No link between our victims. So what link’s he seeing that we can’t? Or has he got a random list he’s sticking pins in?’
Marnie was glad of his scepticism. It helped her to field Welland’s objections, and it was always good to have a voice of cold reason when they were testing the strength of a spider’s web of evidence. ‘Let’s find out as much as we can about Kyle. From his family, friends, workmates. Get his records from the detention centre. Look at his conviction and his parole. If our killer’s finding his victims from prison records, I want to see what he’s seeing.’
‘Do you think he meant to kill Kyle?’ Debbie asked.
‘Is the violence escalating? We’ll find out from the post-mortem. According to the surgeon who tried to save his life, the blow to his face was brutal but it was a single blow. If someone set out to kill Kyle then I’d have expected them to keep hitting until the job was done.’
‘None of these three,’ Debbie said, ‘were high-profile cases. In terms of public record, I mean. The press and so on. Well, except for Carole.’ She shuddered when she said the woman’s name.
‘Third theory.’ Colin polished his glasses
. ‘Our killer’s working in the legal system, or the justice system.’ He put the glasses back on, registering the silence in the room. ‘I didn’t say it was a popular theory. About as popular as Jar Jar Binks being a Sith Lord, but I’m putting it out there.’
‘It means there could be victims we’ve missed,’ Debbie said. ‘Murders we’ve missed.’
‘Jar Jar. Sith Lord.’ Colin spread his hands in apology. ‘I said it was unpopular.’
‘Fanboy conjecture aside,’ Marnie said, ‘let’s ask awkward questions of Kyle’s workmates. He was drinking late last night, and he wasn’t headed home when he was attacked. I want to know who was with him when he left the pub, and where he was going.’
‘I’ve put a call in for CCTV footage,’ Colin said. ‘I’ll move it up the line now this is a murder.’
‘Good. DS Jake?’
In the corridor, Marnie said, ‘Welland wants to see me. I’ll bring him up to speed. Can you check in with Fran on the forensics and post-mortem? And speak with the parents as soon as you can, find out whether Kyle was in any trouble lately. Take DS Carling with you.’
‘Will do.’ Noah nodded. ‘I’m here when you need me.’
She smiled thanks, walking in the direction of Welland’s office.
Noah tried not to think about the news Welland was about to break to her. He needed to focus on finding their vigilante before they had a fourth face to pin to the board. Broken and bloody like Stuart, or terrorised like Carole.
Was it sheer luck neither of them had died?
Or was there something special about Kyle? Some reason why the vigilante had gone further, stamping indelible damage, tipping over the edge from rage to full-blown murder.
Had he enjoyed it?
Gone home with the taste of Kyle’s blood in his mouth, still wet on his clothes.
