Quieter Than Killing
Page 10
Under the sarcasm, he was scared.
Marnie said, ‘I don’t know which papers you’ve been reading, Mr Rawling—’
‘I’ll save you some time.’ Reaching into a calfskin briefcase, slapping a broadsheet onto the table. ‘Tabloids, I could think it was conjecture. But the editor of this clearly thought it was worth paying for. Even if he kept it off the front page.’
The piece was buried on page five, under a story about a council estate with a worse reputation than Jonas House.
‘Serial assaults end in murder,’ Rawling summarised while they read. ‘Police consider issuing a warning to those paroled in the Greater London area. What I’d like to know, what my lawyer would like to know is when you’re going to stop considering issuing a warning and actually issue it. Too late to save me the plastic surgeon’s bill but perhaps some other poor bastard can be spared the humiliation I went through.’
Humiliation? Ten weeks ago, from his hospital bed, he’d described the assault as an ‘unlucky thumping’. Nothing in the statement he’d given had hinted at humiliation. But perhaps he was talking about the jaw wires, speech therapy.
Marnie folded the paper and passed it back. ‘This is imaginative, but it isn’t accurate. If we were issuing a warning you would have heard that from us, not read it in here.’
‘Not accurate?’ He pointed at the scars on his jaw. ‘Does this look not accurate to you? Maybe I should be in a morgue drawer like Stratton. Not dead enough for your pay grade, is that it? So you palm me off with your pretty boy here. No offence.’
‘None taken,’ Noah murmured.
‘Three assaults in two months. One of which ends in murder. When the tabloids get hold of this they’ll have a permanent hard-on. Stratton served time for aggravated assault, although it doesn’t seem to trouble this maniac whether or not the convictions were sound. How’s he choosing us?’
‘Mr Rawling,’ Marnie said, ‘there are assaults every week in London. The fact that this reporter thinks he’s identified a pattern—’
‘All I want to know is do I need a bodyguard when I step outside? Too late for Stratton.’ He pushed two fingers at the paper then looked in disgust at the fingers, as if the newsprint had left a stain. The collar of his shirt was jaundiced; he’d sweated into the starched cotton.
Whether or not the convictions were sound.
Still pleading his innocence, but he was scared enough to have come here and not because of the story in the paper, which was the thinnest evidence imaginable.
‘What is this really about?’ Marnie asked. ‘Assaults happen in London all the time, and papers print speculative stories. As you’ve pointed out, we’re in the middle of a murder investigation. I’d prefer not to think that you’re wasting our time. So why are you here? Have you remembered what your attacker looked like? Perhaps he, or she, said something to you during the attack which you’d forgotten but now you’ve remembered and you’d like to make an additional statement.’
‘He – or she?’ Rawling repeated. ‘You think a woman’s capable of doing this?’ Jabbing at his jaw again, eyes sunk in the meat of his face, neck stained red. ‘You think you’re capable? Or your boy here? Do I look to you like someone who can’t take care of himself?’
‘In my honest opinion? You look scared.’
It reduced him to a stare.
‘You have my sympathy. What happened to you was frightening. You believe it was deliberate. You were targeted because of your time in prison, that’s what this paper’s speculating. A vigilante attack. Not unlucky. Deliberate, targeted. Why would you think that, unless your attacker said or did something to make you think it?’
‘You’ve got Stratton’s corpse. That’s not enough for you?’
‘Have they been in touch?’ Noah asked.
Rawling batted the question away with his fist. ‘Stratton’s dead, for Christ’s sake!’
‘Not Kyle. Whoever broke your jaw. Have they been in touch? Is that why you’re here?’
‘Are you accusing me of withholding evidence?’ His expression didn’t change, but his face thickened. ‘Only that’s the sort of thing my lawyer’d be keen to hear.’ He jerked his head at Marnie. ‘Is your sergeant accusing me of withholding evidence?’
‘Not if you’ve brought it with you,’ Noah said lightly. ‘Have you?’
Like the skin setting on custard, the way his face thickened. ‘If you’re hanging yourself, you’ll want a longer rope . . .’
‘Mr Rawling,’ Marnie said, ‘you’re wasting our time. I’d be happy to explain that to your lawyer in terms he’ll understand, but I’d rather you tell us what’s going on. Let us help.’
Finally, acceptance shouldered its way onto his wide face. He reached inside his jacket and removed an envelope, tossing it onto the table. A plain white envelope, letter-sized, too flat to be holding more than a single sheet of paper. A second-class stamp under an illegible sorting office mark. His ex-wife’s name and company address in Lincoln, handwritten in blue biro, all capitals. The envelope had been torn open.
‘Sent to Val at her office. With a second-class stamp, as if it didn’t matter when she got it.’ His contempt shifted down a gear to make space for an angry species of worry. ‘You can’t read where they posted it, I’ve tried. And it’ll have at least four sets of prints on it. Val showed it round the office before she passed it my way.’
Marnie took two pairs of crime scene gloves from her pocket.
When they’d gloved up, Noah turned the envelope to the light. ‘They’ve used wax. Crayon, maybe. A white wax crayon over the stamp. To stop the postmark from setting.’
Rawling shifted in the chair, folding his arms, turning his face away.
‘You don’t recognise the handwriting?’ Marnie asked.
‘I don’t recognise anything, other than the stamp. Second-class.’
Noah eased the contents from the envelope.
A pair of newspaper clippings.
The first dated from the time of Rawling’s conviction, reporting the two-year prison sentence passed down after he was found guilty of assaulting his wife. The second clipping was ten weeks old, stating that a fifty-five-year-old businessman had been attacked in east London and taken to hospital with facial injuries. Nothing else in the envelope. Nothing was underlined or highlighted in either clipping, although the letter C was written in blue biro at the base of each story.
‘When was this delivered?’ Marnie asked Rawling.
‘A week ago. Val sat on it for a few days, showed it around, nearly threw it in the bin but then decided to send it on to me.’ His jaw clicked. ‘In case it was important.’
‘She doesn’t recognise the handwriting?’
He shook his head.
‘No theories as to why it was sent to her?’
‘You’d have to ask her. I imagine they found her address on the internet. They’d have sent it to her home address if they had it, so that’s something. Maybe Stratton’s girlfriend’ll get a sick little note of condolence.’ He pointed at the envelope. ‘Sending it to my ex-wife? That’s passive-aggressive. But this,’ showcasing his scars, ‘is the real thing. So I’m asking again why I wasn’t warned this maniac is targeting people, killing them now.’
‘You’re assuming this was sent to your ex-wife by whoever attacked you,’ Noah said.
‘You want to put a positive spin on it, sunshine? Go ahead. I could do with cheering up.’
‘Why didn’t you tell us,’ Marnie said, ‘about the ear piercing?’
Rawling sat back, showing his teeth like a cornered dog. ‘What?’
‘Whoever attacked you tore a hole in your right ear. You didn’t mention it when we interviewed you at the hospital. You said you couldn’t describe your attacker, even though he was close enough to do that sort of damage.’
‘My face was full of blood.’ He stared her down. ‘I was fucking blind.’
‘An unlucky thumping . . . Why didn’t you mention the piercing, Mr Rawling?’
‘They spat in your face?’ Noah echoed.
‘In my mouth.’ A pulse beat blood-red under his eye. ‘In my fucking mouth. You’re looking for maniacs. Sick little fucking maniacs.’
Marnie waited for him to calm down. Then she said, ‘Plural?’
‘What?’ Thrusting the word through his teeth.
‘You said they knelt on your chest. And you said little. In your original statement, you told us it was a single assailant. Big. Now you’re saying . . . what exactly? That it was children?’
Like the ones who stole the shoebox from Lancaster Road, knowing exactly where to find it. Burglary-to-order. Assault-to-order?
Rawling blinked before he composed his face. ‘Two of them. In ski masks. One was a big bastard, but the other was just a kid. Little shits. And, yes, they punched something through my ear, but in the scheme of things? So what. They broke my face, smashed me up. The ear was a postscript, didn’t even hurt.’
He flexed his jaw until it crunched. ‘How hard can it be for you lot to catch them, that’s what I want to know. This isn’t a criminal conspiracy. It isn’t even grown-ups.’
He pointed a finger at Noah, then stabbed it at Marnie. ‘It’s fucking kids.’
21
HMP Cloverton was built a decade before Marnie was born. Search the floors and walls and you might find thumbprints from the men who’d mixed the cement, perhaps even initials scored here and there. But mostly it was graffiti, and failed attempts at whitewash. Every so often, a public petition called for prisons like this to be made more human, inmates to be given light and space, even a patch of earth to plant vegetables or raise chickens. Cloverton boasted vinyl flooring, decent insulation, what the architects called ‘softening devices’. Regardless, it had the worst reputation of any prison within a ten-mile radius of Greater London. Holloway had chickens. Cloverton had self-harm, and suicide. It also had Stephen Keele.
Marnie was made to wait in a room carpeted, as if from free samples, in ill-assorted green squares. The last time she’d visited Stephen he’d been the inmate of a juvenile detention centre with his own room, a sports centre, and vending machines that belched out Mars bars and Dr Pepper. Here, posters gave instructions for escalating a complaint to the prison ombudsman, and the official procedure for mandatory drugs testing.
Cloverton had set a room aside for the interview. It was a police matter, she’d explained. Stephen was the only person before Tobias Midori who’d known where the shoebox was hidden in Lancaster Road, the only person who could possibly have told the Crasmere Boys where to find it. Two people were in hospital as a result. She was glad of the wait since it gave her the chance to sort her feelings into order, shuffle the fear and anger to the bottom of the deck. She checked her phone for messages from Noah and the team – she was less than an hour from the station – but there was nothing. No news on Ollie or Lisa, or Carole. No developments following Stuart Rawling’s revelations. The visit to Reigate to see Kyle’s parents could wait another day. Nothing to distract her from here. Now.
In the interview room, Stephen sat with his dark hair buzz-cut to a bruise on his scalp. Hands linked on the table, shoulders broad enough to hold the shadow of his head. Dressed in a tight white T-shirt and grey sweatpants, his arms bare below the elbow, every muscle sleek as a dancer’s. She looked for the ghost of the boy she’d lifted onto the swing in Lancaster Road, but he was gone. Overwritten by this grown man with the strong pulse moving smoothly in his throat.
‘I have the shoebox.’ She drew out a chair to sit facing him. ‘Thank you for that.’
‘Thank you,’ he repeated. His voice was deeper, more nuanced. The muscles in his neck were slim but defined, like those in his arms. He could bench-press his own weight now.
‘You told someone where to look for it. Instructed them to take it from the house. I’m here to find out why you did that.’
Just for a second, she thought she saw surprise on his face. But it must have been the unfamiliar lighting in here because—
‘You wanted it.’ Dark eyes, unblinking. ‘Didn’t you?’
So it was true. Burglary-to-order. Her fault. Hers.
‘The kids who took it wrecked the house and hospitalised two people to get it.’
‘Your tenants.’
They looked at one another through silence thinned by static.
Marnie thought of the photograph, his hands pulling her arms around his neck. She could have snapped it in that moment, his neck. It would’ve been easy. Or later, an accident with the swing. Accidents like that happened all the time. Instead, she’d walked away. Leaving him in her parents’ house like a ticking bomb. He’d killed two people, and hospitalised two more with whatever instructions he’d managed to get out of here to Tobias and the Crasmere Boys.
‘How did you do it?’ Cloverton’s visitor list held no clues. But someone had sent him food parcels when he was in juvenile detention. Someone was looking out for him, despite everything he’d done. ‘Who are you in touch with out there?’
His stare flickered, but didn’t leave her face.
‘You should talk to me,’ she said. ‘I’m all you’ve got. That’s what this is about, isn’t it?’
‘That house.’ He leaned towards her, bringing his shadow onto the table. ‘Did it feel good, seeing it wrecked? I bet it did. I wish I’d seen it.’
She waited, counting out the beats in her head until he spoke again.
‘It had to feel good, seeing it like that. That fucking house.’
The room was filled with reflective surfaces that duplicated his smile, sending it back at her no matter where she put her eyes. That much was the same, but something was different. Not just his physical appearance. In the tone of his voice, and in his eyes. He was radiating hostility, but at an altered frequency. Because of this place? The walls were older, thicker. The juvenile detention centre was tiled in polystyrene. Cloverton was stone and cement. Behind him, the prison beat its blunt tattoo of noise, punctuated by the occasional shrill of a buzzer. Marnie had been in lots of places like this, over the years. But Stephen hadn’t. This was his first time in an adult prison. Twenty years old, looking the way he did, dossing down with the lifers and wife beaters, drug addicts and arsonists. He had to be feeling vulnerable. Was that what she was hearing in his voice, seeing in his eyes? The balance of power between them, always fragile, trembling in her favour?
‘Why?’ she asked him.
How many times had she asked that question? Too many to remember. The only answer he’d ever given her was a lie: ‘I did it for you.’ She expected him to repeat that lie now, but he didn’t.
‘You only ever ask that. Why did I do it?’ He thinned his lips. ‘You never ask what they did. Or do you know?’
‘What they did?’ The tips of her fingers fizzed. ‘They gave you a home, their love—’
‘That fucking house? You’re calling that a home?’ The words fell out of him, easily. Before, she’d always had to win each one. ‘You couldn’t live there any more than I could.’
Now, the skin clenched at her wrists.
They were doing this. Having this conversation, finally.
He was going to give her the answers she wanted. Needed. Was he?
‘You don’t kill someone because you’re unhappy in their house. You could have run away.’
‘Like you did?’ He wanted something back from her, a measure of understanding.
It was a dance between them, it’d always been a dance.
‘Like I did,’ she conceded.
‘You hated that house. We both did. And it hated us.’
‘I ran away,’ she agreed.
‘I slept in your room,’ Stephen said. ‘You were there with me. The two of us, the same.’
‘No.’ She wasn’t giving him that. ‘We’re not the same. I
ran, you stayed. If it was the house you hated, why didn’t you wreck that? You could’ve kicked holes in the walls, torn everything down. Burned it to the ground. But you didn’t touch the house. You killed them. Why?’
He shoved back in the chair, setting the heels of his hands at the lip of the table. Bruises on his knuckles, blood under his nails. She had to blink to be sure she was seeing it, that it wasn’t a flashback. Retinal ghost. The long shrill of a buzzer cut through the wall behind them and he flinched, eyelashes shivering, cheekbones lengthening. He was angry, and afraid.
He was afraid.
This place – God knows what it was doing to him, what these people were doing to him. Locked up with lifers, men who had nothing to lose and too much time on their hands. On their fists. Some of them, the worst, had probably given him a hundred reasons to be afraid.
Marnie let this new fact settle in her skull.
‘Why?’ she repeated then.
He clenched his teeth at her. ‘They fucked with me.’ He knew that she knew how scared he was. ‘They brought that bitch back into my life.’
‘What are you talking about? What bitch?’
Hate came off him in waves. Always before, he’d hidden it. She’d known it was there but she’d never seen it – felt it – like this. Hot waves of hate, breaking over her.
‘Stella,’ he spat the name.
Stella Keele, his mother.
‘How did my parents bring your mother back into your life? They saved you from her—’
‘Can you forgive her, Stephen?’ He mimicked her mother’s voice, curling his mouth around the words. ‘She’s so sorry, about everything.’
‘They didn’t do that.’ The mimicry was too good, making her throat throb. ‘They wouldn’t. Apart from anything else, Children’s Services would never have allowed it.’
‘Children’s Services?’ he sneered. ‘You mean those morons who told them I was harmless? Those morons who told you I was harmless?’