by Sarah Hilary
‘I know how this works.’ His neck was flushed with anger. ‘You’ll keep in touch, yes.’
Ron walked to the door, and Gerry followed.
Noah crouched to collect a scrap of black plastic from under the desk, the room’s sole trace of untidiness. Pocketing it, he went down the stairs to where Brenda was waiting in the hall.
‘They’ll be in touch,’ Gerry told her. ‘Everything’s just like I said it’d be.’
His wife held the front door open. She’d washed her hands, taken off her rings, fingers pinched white at the tips. Cold crawled in from outside, making her toes curl inside their sandals.
‘Thanks for the coffee,’ Ron said. ‘And sorry, again.’
‘Shit. Well, that was fun.’ Ron started the car, rubbing an elbow at the inside of the windscreen. ‘Awkward, when you brought up the detention centre.’
‘You heard him. He was expecting the question.’ Noah fastened his seat belt. ‘Drive round the block, would you? I want to check something.’
‘What?’
‘Whether it’s bin day.’ He took out the scrap he’d pocketed. ‘This’s from a bin liner, right?’
Ron peered at it. ‘Brenda was putting them out, that’s what she said, doing the washing-up and putting the bins out.’
‘Gerry knew we’d want to see Kyle’s room. He’d tidied in there.’
Ron whistled under his breath.
‘It might not be relevant.’
‘Yeah. Could just be ditching his porn. But still . . .’
The bins were out in the road behind the Strattons’ house. Wheelie bins with house numbers painted on them. If all the bins in the neighbourhood followed the same pattern it wouldn’t be hard to identify the one into which Brenda had put the black plastic bag from Kyle’s room.
Noah took a photo on his phone, texting it to their contact at the local police station with a request to monitor the waste collection from outside the Strattons’ house.
‘You reckon they’re dodgy?’ Ron rested his forearms on the steering wheel. ‘They weren’t too cut up about Kyle. Busy planning their next cruise, probably.’
‘I think they were upset. I’m just not sure what was upsetting them.’
Ron pulled away from the kerb, joining the traffic back into town. ‘He hated being asked about the detention centre. She’d been told to keep quiet, I reckon.’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t get the impression Gerry was in charge in there. Or Brenda, especially.’
‘A house that clean and tight? Like a bloody drum.’ Ron shook his head. ‘Someone’s locking it all down. I reckon it’s him. Napoleon complex.’
‘Napoleon was five foot six. Two inches taller than Nelson.’
‘Taller than Gerry, too. Wonder if she hates having to wear flats all the time . . . If he’s not making the rules in that house, who is?’
‘Maybe no one. Or maybe Kyle. Out late, using the place like a hotel, not letting them forget the trouble he was in once before. You’re right, Gerry hated me bringing that up, but I didn’t have to bring it far. He hadn’t forgotten what his son did. Racially aggravated assault.’ Noah watched the houses going by, each with the same Tudor pretension. ‘What did their neighbours think of that? It must’ve made their lives tricky. And if Kyle didn’t grow out of it, whatever his dad says, if he was making trouble for someone the night he died . . .?’
‘Or being made to pay for it, by someone who’s not forgotten what he did any more than his dad has. You reckon they’d cover for him, if they knew something? If he’d been threatened?’
‘Possibly. It’ll be interesting to see what’s inside that bin—’
Noah’s phone buzzed. ‘DS Jake.’
‘Your post-mortem results await.’ It was Fran Lennox. ‘You’ll want to bring DI Rome. This gets interesting.’
8
Finn emptied the bins, going from room to room with a plastic liner, checking for dust balls and scraps of tissue, anything that might make trouble for him. Dirt was his enemy, he’d learned that lesson the hard way. He hated bin day, hated hearing the lorries in the street, the one that rattled with glass and the big one with the crusher at the back that dripped all the way up the road.
He watched from the window upstairs for the bin man with the tartan beanie. His lorry had a purple Teletubby jammed in the grill at the front. He’d seen Finn standing in the window. Weeks ago, right after Brady took him. He’d pushed the beanie to the back of his head and looked up and seen Finn. Their eyes had met.
Finn had waved his arms and thumped on the window. ‘Help me—!’ He’d hated doing it, like some shithead Disney princess, but it was the first time anyone had seen him and he’d been starting to feel invisible. He’d thumped on the window, ‘Call the police!’ and okay so the windows were soundproofed maybe, the whole place was sealed up tight, but that pig in the beanie had seen him. Their eyes had met. And he’d – waved. Put his hand up and wriggled his fingers like Finn was a fish in a tank he was teasing. Not even a proper wave, like – like a fucking finger-tickle.
Finn had thumped the window with both fists, kept thumping until the lorry drove off and the road was empty again. He’d watched for them after that. Made a sign, writing on the inside of a cereal box, holding it pressed to the glass: Call the police! I’m Finn Duffy! I’ve been kidnapped!
The man hadn’t looked up again. Not once in ten weeks.
Finn had destroyed the sign, scared Brady would find it. He’d wiped away the marks he’d made on the window because he still had the bruises from the last time Brady found him out, on both legs under his jeans which were proper Gucci, bought with money his dad sent home. Wrecked now, bleached from all the cleaning Brady made him do, and that time he had to kneel in his own piss to learn a lesson. If Dad could see him now . . . He’d make someone pay. No one messed with Finn’s dad. He’d be ashamed, though, of Finn for getting himself in this state. For not getting himself out.
‘Shit happens,’ Dad had taught him when Finn was five. ‘It’s how you deal with it that counts.’
Finn hated the bin lorries crawling up the road like tanks, a pretend rescue party. That pig in the beanie waving at him. If he ever got out of here he’d tell the police to find that man and arrest him for failing to report a crime, assisting a kidnapper. Dad would’ve sorted that pig in no time, but Dad wasn’t here. It was up to Finn to deal with this shit.
He wrenched a knot in the neck of the bin bag, setting it by the kitchen door. And then, because he couldn’t help himself, he reached out and put his little finger in the lock.
He’d done this with every lock in the house.
In case he ever got hold of Brady’s keys. So he’d know right away which ones fitted the important locks, the ones that’d let him out of here.
He put his little finger in the back door lock and turned it, sucking down a sob.
Imagining his finger was a key and he could leave, any time he liked.
9
Marnie stood with Noah at her shoulder, looking down at the remains of the vigilante’s third victim. Five hours ago, they’d hoped for answers from Kyle, perhaps even their first description of the attacker they were hunting. Now their hope rested in Fran Lennox, whose clever hands and eyes extracted secrets from the long dead or those, like Kyle, more recently killed.
‘No DNA from your vigilante, or not yet. But here . . . in the orbital socket.’
Kyle’s right eye had been laid to one side, allowing them to see inside the fractured socket to where Fran was pointing with a fine-tipped swab, at a black patch in the red and white wreckage. ‘That’s a burn mark. They cleaned him up at St Thomas’s which made it tricky but I found traces of aliphatic solvent naphtha. Lighter fluid.’ She straightened. ‘Whoever did this?’ Indicating the rest of Kyle’s broken body. ‘Thought it would be fun to set fire to the inside of his eye.’
They stood in silence for a moment, studying the vivid patch of damage.
‘No other burn marks?’ Marnie ask
ed.
‘None. Fractured wrists. Broken femur, broken elbow. All done with the same blunt instrument, most likely a baseball bat – radius of impact’s too wide for a hammer, too narrow for a cricket bat.’
The injuries were mapped starkly across Kyle’s body, all the places he’d been struck, all the ways in which he’d tried to save himself.
‘His wrists and elbows,’ Noah said. ‘Defensive wounds?’
Fran nodded. ‘He saw the attack coming, and tried to protect his face and head.’
Marnie could see it: Kyle cornered on Page Street, surrounded by CCTV and street lights, disbelieving the audacity of the attacker. Putting out his hands, getting them smashed aside. Then falling back, trying to make a tent with his arms, hoping to protect his head from whatever weapon was being used to break his wrists, his face. She couldn’t look at the mess of his eye, kept seeing Welland’s surgeon wielding his scalpel, her own flesh retreating in panic. Fear had been at the surface of her blood since he’d broken the news that his cancer had returned. If she wasn’t careful she was going to start jumping at shadows, losing her focus. She concentrated her attention on Kyle, the marks around his mouth where they’d unpeeled the tape used to hold tubes in place, a puncture wound on his left arm where a cannula had been inserted. The evidence of how they’d tried to save him was almost more distressing than the injuries inflicted by his killer. The tape had left a furred outline around his mouth, smudged by blood. He looked younger than twenty-six. Blond hair waxed into a fringe, a recent manicure, body hair clipped short. He’d cared about his appearance.
‘Do you think he was conscious after the blow to his head?’
‘It’s possible,’ Fran said.
‘So he was conscious when they burned his eye?’ Noah sounded nauseated.
‘I’m afraid that’s possible, yes. The damage is very precise. If they’d been trying to set fire to him, they’d have started with his clothes. The human body doesn’t ignite easily, too much water content. When I see these sorts of burns?’ Fran tipped her head. ‘I think torture.’
Beaten, bones broken, then burnt. Deliberately.
‘Our other victims,’ Marnie said. ‘Carole had burn marks, but Stuart?’
‘I knew you’d ask.’ Fran stepped back. ‘Let’s reconvene in my office where there’s tea. I’m out of biscuits, but I have Easter eggs.’ She cocked an eyebrow. ‘Of the kind they hide in DVDs.’
‘Let’s talk about Stuart Rawling.’ Fran pulled on an oversized grey jumper, drawing its sleeves over her hands as she cradled a mug of tea. ‘His jaw was broken with a golf club. Bruises and contusions, but it looked like a mugging. Stop me if I’m getting any of this wrong.’
‘You’re right,’ Noah said. ‘If it hadn’t happened so close to where Carole was attacked, we might not have made any connection. We don’t usually ask victims for details of crimes they’ve committed, not those dating back any length of time. Stuart was paroled nearly seven years ago.’
‘He’d served thirteen months of a two-year sentence.’ Fran sipped at her tea. ‘For beating his wife over the course of their twenty-year marriage.’
‘He pleaded not guilty,’ Marnie said, ‘but yes. What did you find?’
‘I looked over the hospital reports after discovering that burn, and knowing you’re after evidence to link the assaults. Your vigilante theory.’ Fran pinched at the high part of her right ear. ‘Rawling’s ear was pierced through the cartilage. Under the hairline, out of sight.’
‘Helix piercing. It’s a look,’ Noah said uncertainly. ‘Perhaps he thought he could carry it off.’
A businessman built like a heavyweight boxer, Rawling had no time for anyone, not even the police when they were looking for his assailant, resenting Marnie’s questions as he lay in his hospital bed, gold wedding ring worn like the single portion of a knuckleduster.
‘I’m not talking about a professional job,’ Fran said. ‘This was done crudely, and not with a hollow point needle or a piercing gun. A tapestry needle, possibly. And it was done on the night of the assault, the wound was bleeding when they brought him in.’ She rubbed a hand at her spiky blond crop. ‘Everyone was busy fixing the facial injuries and this was nothing, probably healed itself in a couple of days, but it’s the deliberateness that caught my eye. Like Kyle’s burn. The rest of it could be written off as a random attack, any lunatic with a blunt instrument and a head full of pills . . . But a cigarette lighter, and a needle? That’s personal. That’s nasty.’
‘Rawling didn’t bring it up,’ Marnie said. ‘When we interviewed him.’
‘Look at the press coverage from the trial, the detail in it. When he beat his wife he never broke bones or left bruises where they’d be seen. He pulled out her hair. Hanks of it, until she ended up needing a wig for work. On one occasion?’ Fran tapped a finger on the table. ‘He ripped out her earrings, tore both lobes in the process. I’m not surprised he didn’t mention the amateur piercing.’
Marnie’s scalp bristled.
‘They burned Kyle.’ Noah leaned forward, his face thinned. ‘Is this—?’
Personal. Vengeance.
Marnie looked at Fran. ‘Go on.’
‘That’s all I’ve got.’ She reclaimed the mug, standing and going to the corner where the kettle was kept. ‘It’s niggling at me, though.’
‘Carole Linton.’ Noah linked his hands, tension in his shoulders.
‘Carole. Yes.’ Fran didn’t wince as the team at the station had, but she hesitated again. ‘She was stabbed three times in the abdomen and stomach, and then stamped on. Hard enough to rupture an ovary, and her spleen. Her skirt was set on fire.’
‘The worst attack,’ Marnie agreed. ‘Until Kyle.’
‘Because he died? I’m not sure I’d downgrade what happened to Carole on that basis. And Rawling could’ve suffered a stroke. Head trauma is unpredictable.’
‘If we’re looking for a connection,’ Noah said, ‘something personal – nasty – that happened to Carole? Take your pick. But she wouldn’t talk about it, not even the obvious injuries. If we’re looking for something smaller, damage we couldn’t easily see? I don’t think she’ll give it up.’
‘She kidnapped a toddler.’ Fran was making a fresh mug of tea. ‘Held him for a month. Hurt him. Bullied him . . . But the ruptured ovary was part of an indiscriminate attack. I’m not sure we can call it payback, not of the kind we’re looking at with Stuart and Kyle.’
‘Very little of what Carole did was made public,’ Marnie said. ‘If our vigilante did something subtle then it could mean he has access to court records.’ Colin’s unpopular theory. ‘Or he was there, eleven years ago.’
‘Ollie Tomlinson,’ Noah said.
Ollie was the toddler kidnapped and bullied by Carole.
He was fifteen years old now.
‘If the ruptured ovary was deliberate then it could be punishment of the kind we’re talking about. Tying the assault directly to the original conviction.’ Noah rubbed at his cheek. ‘Punishment, or justice. Whatever our vigilante imagines he’s meting out.’
‘We should speak with Carole and Stuart again.’ Marnie stood. ‘See what secrets they’ve been keeping. Other than the ID on our suspect . . . Neither of them would describe their attacker.’
‘The head trauma,’ Fran said as a parting shot. ‘Stuart may not have seen much. Blunt trauma doesn’t need to be life-threatening to throw your vision out of whack.’
‘That doesn’t explain Carole’s silence.’ Noah buttoned his coat. ‘The attacker stayed away from her face and head. She’s keeping secrets. If the attacks are personal, if there’s a dialogue involved? Torture, punishment . . . Maybe that’s why she’s so terrified.’
‘We should re-interview the pair of them.’ Marnie nodded at Fran. ‘Good work. We have a stronger case for connecting the assaults now. It’s not DNA, but it’s distinctive.’
‘I’ve got the easier job,’ Fran said. ‘Interviewing the corpse. Kyle will give up his secrets, even
tually. Good luck getting what you need from your two.’
‘She’s right,’ Noah said, as they were driving back to the station. ‘How’re we going to handle these new interviews with Carole and Stuart? Do we say we think their attacker killed Kyle? If the assaults are personal . . . I’d ask for protection, wouldn’t you?’
Marnie took a moment to answer, her eyes on the traffic. ‘Kyle’s death was an accident. You heard Fran. Any one of them could’ve died the same way. Our vigilante’s not on a killing spree. He wants these victims to live. Far easier to kill them, less chance of being caught, or ID’d.’
‘D’you think they know him?’
‘Possibly. We’ve been assuming it’s the same attacker because we saw a pattern. Fran’s given us a new reason for seeing one. Burning, piercing . . . But there’s still no DNA. If our vigilante is getting up close and personal, I’d have expected something. Some trace evidence to link the crime scenes. We know there’s no connection between the victims, no shared experience before the assaults. None of them served time together, none of their victims have anything in common.’
‘You think we’re looking for more than one vigilante?’
‘I’m wondering if we need to widen our net. I’d like to take another look at their victims, even if only to rule them out. Rawling’s ex-wife. The boy Kyle burned. The child Carole took—’
Her phone rang. She took the call hands-free, with the speaker on. ‘DI Rome.’
‘Sorry to be calling so soon.’ It was Harry Kennedy. ‘I need your help with something. In Lancaster Road.’
Marnie kept her eyes on the traffic, hyper-alert to the cars ahead and behind. Aware of Noah at her side, sitting with his head turned away, giving her space for the conversation. ‘Can it wait? My GBH is a murder now.’
‘Of course. Whenever you have time.’
Her thumbs pricked. ‘Is it worse than you thought? Alan and Louise. Still GBH or—’
‘Still GBH. No better, no worse. It can wait.’
‘I’ll call you.’
