by Sarah Hilary
‘In the bin, yes, but not in a liner. I’d let it all go. It was a pit, I know that. I had to stop caring so much because I was going mad.’
‘Did Ollie have his own key to the flat?’
No key had been found on him. Not in his jeans, not in the hoodie.
‘Yes, of course. And Himmat has a spare. Ollie was always losing his.’
Noah said, ‘Did anyone else have a key?’
Lisa shook her head. ‘No one.’
‘No one you trusted, or Ollie trusted, to be inside the flat when you weren’t there?’
‘Only Himmat. Ollie had friends round sometimes, but less and less since he started on about Carole. None of his friends liked to hear about her. I warned him not to lose friends by pushing them away. Zoe warned him too. It’s easy to fall out when you’re that age and he hadn’t many friends to start with . . .’
‘Zoe warned him?’ Marnie didn’t look at Noah, she didn’t need to.
He wasn’t missing a beat of this.
‘Zoe Marshall, you must know her. She’s one of the few round here who actually helps— Not that there was any helping Ollie lately, but she tried. And she was getting somewhere for a while. He got tired of it, though, tired of anything positive. The energy he put into being negative . . . you wouldn’t believe.’
‘But Zoe tried to help. When was the last time you and Ollie saw her?’
‘Back at half-term? She’d never have given up on him. They had a connection, right from when they first met. But that was over a year ago and he’s changed so much.’ She gripped the lip of the cup. ‘Had, I mean. He’d changed so much. Even so she stuck around. One of those rare ones who’s in it for the long haul.’
Lisa looked across the room, blindly. ‘I thought I was one of those rare ones. Until I wasn’t. Less and less of me every day and I had to leave. It wasn’t just breaking my heart, it was breaking all of me. I wasn’t there.’
She stopped, blinking. ‘I’m still not.’
Blinking. ‘I suppose I won’t ever be, now.’
Noah followed Marnie across the frozen tundra between the blocks of flats where the kids were smoking. ‘So much for tiger mum. That was a lie to put us on the back foot. Lisa thinks Zoe’s a hero, one of the few who stays the course.’
‘Another layer of Zoe’s alibi, should she need it.’ Marnie took out her phone, checking for messages. ‘Colin’s at the hospital watching out for Finn.’
‘You picked him because he’s the least likely to fall for her little-girl-lost act?’
‘If it is an act.’ She pocketed the phone. ‘The evidence is hardly stacking up on all sides.’
‘When you saw Zoe at the hospital earlier . . . How was she?’
‘Upset about Ollie, worried about Finn. And sorry for me, given yesterday’s outcome.’ Marnie enunciated clearly, as if she was reading from a cue card: ‘She knew that it wasn’t what I’d wanted.’
‘Was it what she wanted?’ Noah said. ‘I can’t make sense of her motive, not entirely.’
Fourteen feet away, the kids turned their backs, huddling closer together.
‘I think she told us,’ Marnie said, ‘when she was explaining Huell, or pretending to explain him. That speech about victims too often being ignored or forgotten, punishments never being equal to their crimes. And what was it she said about justice handed down by the courts? Too clean, too civilised, never personal enough. Well, she got personal.’
‘Huell wanted more than attention.’ Noah narrowed his shoulders against the cold. ‘That’s what she said. He was after gratitude. Is gratitude what she wants?’
‘It’s what she expects,’ Marnie said. ‘I imagine it made her angry when Mazi didn’t thank her for killing Kyle. And she got no thanks from Valerie Rawling, who saw fit to warn her abusive husband about the vigilante.’
‘It explains the press clippings,’ Noah agreed.
He hesitated, watching her weigh the car keys in her hand.
Marnie nodded. ‘You can say it.’
‘She expects you to be grateful for what she’s doing at Cloverton? Blackmailing Aidan Duffy into hurting Stephen—?’
Not just hurting. Killing him. Zoe had wanted Stephen hanging in his cell.
‘It’s why she took Finn.’ Marnie unlocked the car. ‘To get to Stephen. She wanted to punish him and, yes, I’m supposed to be grateful for that. Just as Mazi was meant to be grateful for Kyle.’
Was she blaming herself for what had happened to Finn? Or simply angry at the woman who’d eluded justice because she’d manipulated Huell Bevan into taking the blame, the way she’d manipulated everyone around her—
Ollie, and Tobias Midori, even Harry Kennedy.
‘You’re sure it’s her, aren’t you?’ Noah studied the clean cut of Marnie’s profile against the rinsed-white sky. ‘You weren’t, first thing this morning. But now you are.’
‘Oh it’s her,’ Marnie said simply. ‘But knowing it’s one thing. Proving it’s another.’
‘So . . . let’s prove it.’
‘It’s early in the day for optimism, but I appreciate the thought.’ She got into the car. ‘Be prepared for DCS Ferguson to take a more jaundiced view.’
‘We need a photo.’ He climbed in on the passenger side, reaching for the seat belt. ‘Of Zoe as a child. If we put it alongside the ones from the scrapbook . . . Better still, we get her birth certificate and find out who her mum is. You think she’s Carole’s kid?’
Marnie put her hands on the wheel, letting the engine run. ‘I think this is someone who’s been working close to the criminal justice system for years. At least four years, but probably longer. And there won’t be any photos. She’d never have let us find the scrapbook if it was that simple.’
‘Then her connection to Bevan. We tell Ferguson we want to look into that, in the light of what’s happened. As part of the clean-up job.’
‘Zoe volunteered the information about Bevan.’ Marnie turned the car towards the road. ‘That doesn’t make her look suspicious, the opposite in fact. She helped us short-cut the case. She’s Ferguson’s public ally number one.’
‘Then the attacks,’ Noah persisted. ‘We were always looking for a victim and a vigilante. Bevan doesn’t fit that profile. If we discount Zoe’s misdirection, his motive’s non-existent. But she was nearly killed, scarred for life. Her motive’s château-bottled.’
‘There’s the link between Iziah and Tobias Midori,’ Marnie conceded. ‘That’s as close as we’ll get without digging. We need resources and,’ Noah’s phone was ringing, ‘why do I get the feeling this is DCS Ferguson calling to tell us we’ve a new case that’s going to take up all our time?’
Noah put it on speaker and they listened in silence to what Ferguson had to say.
‘Spooky,’ he said when the call ended. ‘You, I mean.’
‘Hardly. No shortage of bodies. This is London; I’m surprised we didn’t trip over one coming back to the car.’
‘She’s told the press it’s over.’ Noah glanced out of the window. ‘She should’ve waited. If she has to back down now it’s going to ruin her complexion.’
Marnie looked a question.
‘Egg on her face,’ he elaborated.
‘Oh I expect she has a contingency for that . . . She doesn’t look to me like a woman who’s been caught in many backdraughts.’
Noah chewed on that thought, unhappily.
‘Cheer up,’ Marnie said. ‘I’m not done yet.’
He watched the way she kept her eyes dead ahead. ‘Damn.’
She flicked him a glance. ‘What?’
‘Just . . . damn. I wouldn’t want to be Zoe right now. Or Ferguson, for that matter.’
‘Right. I’m the dragon slayer.’ She sketched a smile, shaking her head. ‘I thought that story died a death years ago.’
‘From where I’m sitting? It’s alive and breathing fire.’
‘Optimism and wishful thinking?’ She clicked her tongue. ‘Much too early in the day.’
> ‘Tell me you don’t have a plan.’
Marnie said nothing, tucking the car behind a taxi, checking the mirrors.
‘You have a plan,’ Noah said. ‘I knew it.’
‘My plan is to return to the station and reassure DCS Ferguson that we’re aligned with whatever objectives she’s set for the week. I might volunteer for some of the paperwork needed to tie off the Bevan case, given how stretched we all are. She’ll consider that an appropriate penance.’
‘It doesn’t go with your suit,’ Noah said. ‘The hair shirt.’
‘Let’s see if DCS Ferguson agrees. I suspect she’ll approve of my wardrobe choices.’
A bicycle courier came out of nowhere, cutting across them, a blur of black Lycra.
Marnie swerved so smoothly Noah hardly noticed her doing it. He knew for a fact that she was at least as exhausted as he was, but the tiredness no longer showed under the metallic finish of this fierce new focus. For the first time, he felt optimistic.
Zoe Marshall thought she could play Marnie Rome?
Good luck with that.
58
‘Good lad. You’re doing much better.’ The nurse wrote on the chart that hung from the foot of Finn’s bed. ‘Your temperature’s coming right down.’
‘That means I can leave, yeah?’
She just smiled at him.
Finn tried to hate her. He tried. But he was too scared. Everything was a fat wad of fear, like a hairball working its way up his throat. He wanted to be angry, to punch the wall or call the nurse a cow, kick the shit out of this stupid room. At least in Brady’s house he’d had space. Here it was just one room and they didn’t even lock the door to stop— Her. Coming in here last night, and why wouldn’t anyone believe him? He’d told them, why would he shout like that at nothing? But that’s what he’d done, they said. Seen nothing, shouted at nothing, nearly pissed himself at nothing. This was his life now. Being scared of everything and even when it was real, when anyone would’ve shouted – being told he was seeing things. Fever, stress, whatever. That cow from Children’s Services with her teeth as bad as Brady’s, sneaking in when he was sleeping, waking him up with her rotten smile that was exactly like Brady’s but he was only seeing things, yeah. That was it. No one here was a scary freak who told him to calm down when they said his mum couldn’t come and of course his dad couldn’t and anyway he’d have to answer a load of police questions when he was well enough— Yeah. Nothing to be scared of in any of that. He should just lie here and suck it up without making a fuss that made their jobs harder.
Stupid thick tears in his throat . . .
He’d thought he’d had it planned out. In Brady’s house – he’d had it all planned out. Two plans. The first was to grow up and do good, make a difference in the world, make it a place where people never snatched kids from the street and kept them prisoner. The other plan came later, when he got sick. To grow up and teach those bastards a lesson. Get big and strong like Ollie, big enough to beat the shit out of people who thought they could mess with him, or with any little kid. But there were too many people he’d have to teach a lesson to – his mum, his mates, even his dad. Then there was that moment right in the middle of the worst of it when his head was banging and his legs were hollow and he was that whale, the one that went the wrong way and ended up stranded on the beach. First it’s swimming with the shit in the sea – the plastic bottles and bags, all the crap everyone dumps there – then it’s run aground, lunch for gulls, teeth as trophies.
Trollies banged in the corridor.
Cold sweat stuck his fringe to his forehead. He had to get out of here. And he had to do it by himself because no one else was going to help. Ollie wasn’t going to walk in with a weapon and a hoodie he could hide in.
Finn balled his fists in the blankets. He wanted that hoodie back. He’d felt safe— Shit, the door—
The door was opening. The nurse coming back, let it be her, thenursethenursethenurse— ‘Just checking you’re okay.’ Glasses, good teeth, blue jumper and jeans. ‘DC Pitcher. Colin. I said Hi earlier, but you were out of it.’
‘Yeah . . .’ A warm rush went through him, like a wave of relief, making him really sleepy.
‘I’m right outside the door if you need me. Or even if you don’t. DI Rome wanted me here, wanted you to know I’m here.’
‘Yeah?’ Finn blinked at him. ‘Okay.’
Colin moved to close the door and he said, ‘Don’t—’
He felt stupid saying it, but it was okay because Colin didn’t mind. He came into the room, pulling up a chair. ‘Boring in the corridor, so thanks.’
‘You’ve got a book, though.’
Colin held it up. Cool cover, the kind of thing Finn liked to read when he wasn’t having the piss taken out of him for being a nerd.
‘Read me a bit?’ He didn’t know why he said that, but Colin didn’t care.
He read for a while. It was a good book. Finn listened with his eyes on the door because he didn’t want to get too comfy and Colin was cool but he was skinny, didn’t look like he could put up much of a fight if anything kicked off, the way it had last night.
‘Is she coming back?’ he said after a bit.
‘DI Rome? Yes. She’s on her way, wants to see how you’re getting on.’
He shut his eyes because they were burning with being open. Any second now he’d be asleep. ‘Okay, cos I want to make a statement about what happened with Brady.’ He lifted a hand and rubbed at his eyes, so tired he was probably going to cry again. ‘And her.’
‘Her?’ Colin echoed.
‘She was here last night but no one believes me.’
A long pause then, ‘Who is she? What’s her name? Finn?’
‘Ollie knew her . . .’
Pictures fizzing in his head, of a red snake with Ollie’s purple eyes.
‘Said he did it for her . . .’
‘Finn?’
‘Sleepy, sorry. Cool book, though . . .’
59
Aidan Duffy leaned forward, hands linked on the metal table, his eyes tracking Marnie intently as she crossed the visitors’ room to where he was sitting. ‘Well?’
‘He’s safe. In hospital, but safe.’
‘Jesus and all the little children . . .’ He put his hands in his hair. ‘Can I kiss your hand, Marnie Jane, or will that get me re-arrested?’
‘You can sit still,’ she said, ‘and hear me out.’
‘How bad’s he hurt?’ He dropped his hands to the table, face flinching at her tone. ‘That bastard didn’t—’
‘Finn’s safe. He’s been through a traumatic experience that could have been worse and still might be. He stabbed Huell Bevan with another boy’s knife. That boy is dead.’
Aidan opened his mouth then shut it. His fingers fluttered until he linked them in a fist.
‘Bevan’s recovering after surgery. He’ll live, but I wouldn’t put it past him to press charges. That’s if the CPS doesn’t beat him to it.’
‘You wouldn’t put him in prison.’ All the softness, the charm, had gone from his voice. It was as stark as the pain in his face. ‘You wouldn’t do that. He’s ten years old.’
‘The age of criminal responsibility.’
‘The age of— Fuck you.’ Tears burned in his eyes. ‘Don’t do that. Don’t do that to him.’
‘I’m not doing anything. I’m laying out the facts for you.’
‘For what—? So I can cry myself to sleep over them?’ He let the tears fall, not bothering to wipe them away. ‘So I can think of my little fish in your fucking tank?’
‘So that you can help me,’ Marnie said.
Finn’s father stared at her. She glanced away, keeping her expression neutral, hoping he’d take his cue from her. The last thing she needed was the guard at the door reporting a conspiracy.
Lorna Ferguson had allowed this visit to inform Aidan of his son’s situation. ‘Out of the frying pan, facing the fire,’ was how she’d summed up Finn’s predicament. ‘Although
there’s every chance Aidan’ll be proud of his son following in his footsteps.’ Odd how little she understood of human nature given how high up the ladder she’d climbed, although Marnie was learning that much of the woman’s flintiness was body armour worn, like her heels, to lend her inches.
Aidan dropped his stare from Marnie’s face, relaxing his shoulders. Not a big show, just enough to take the strain from the picture they were presenting to the guard at the door. ‘Tell me.’
‘It involves Stephen.’
His cheekbones lengthened. ‘You’ve changed your mind. All that bollocks about needing answers. You want to trade. Him for Finn. Is that it?’
‘No, that’s not it,’ Marnie said crisply. ‘But your talent for jumping to the wrong conclusion remains as impressive as ever. There’s no deal to be done, no game to be played. I have Bevan, but he’s not the one behind this. He was used, the same as the rest of us.’
Aidan creased his nose in a frown. ‘He’s not the one who took Finn?’
‘Not the only one. And not the one who’s at large.’
‘Oh, Jesus.’ He thumbed the socket of his eye. ‘There’s more?’
‘One more. Finn’s identified her, or he’s tried to. But he’s in shock, and can’t give a clear description. Not enough for the CPS.’
‘Her—?’ Aidan paled, looking ill. ‘A woman?’
Finn had told Colin about ‘Brady’, his dad’s nickname for men who stole kids off the street. It followed that his nickname for women was one to strike fear into any parent’s heart.
Marnie said, ‘She wasn’t in the house with him. Everything was done through Bevan, who’s confessed. Taken all the blame, or the credit as he sees it. The case is closed.’
‘By DCS Ferguson.’ He tipped his head to the side. ‘But not by you.’
‘Maverick detectives don’t exist outside of fiction, Mr Duffy. I’m already on a new case.’
‘So – what? They’re just ignoring my boy’s evidence?’
‘He’s traumatised. He had a fever when he came out of the house. There’s nothing to suggest anyone else was there. Just Finn and Bevan, and the boy whose knife Finn used to geld him.’
