The Dying Place

by Luca Veste

  ‘They’re on their way,’ Rossi said softly, returning to the room. ‘Be about fifteen minutes. Do you want a tea or something, Sally, while we wait?’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Sally replied, forcing herself upright, ‘I’ll do it. You want one?’

  Murphy shook his head, leaning back as Rossi followed Sally through.

  Denial. He was sure it was on one of those lists about grief he’d once read. He just hoped acceptance wasn’t too far behind.

  6

  Murphy and Rossi returned to the station, leaving the support officers with the task of taking Sally Hughes to the morgue to identify her son; Murphy hoped they’d managed to make Dean look presentable at least before showing his mother the body. Murphy was relieved that the next time they’d speak to her she might be more accepting of the reality. At the moment, they had little to go on without speaking to her, other than a list of people whom Dean Hughes might have spent most of his time with. He read through it as Rossi questioned the officers who had been going door to door around the church that morning. Murphy realised how long it had been since he’d been in uniform, where you’d come across the same people, the same names, over and over. Now the names meant nothing. The people on the list would have only just entered primary school when he was in uniform in the late nineties, before the explosion of technology which seemed to have occurred a decade later. Now everything seemed to centre on a computer. Even those weren’t really needed any longer, as everyone seemed to have a brand new mobile phone which did the job just as well.

  Not even forty, Murphy thought as he scanned the list. Barely late thirties, and he already felt left behind.

  Social media, that was the thing. Everything being laid open. Murphy shunned it completely – didn’t like the idea of anyone from his past being able to find him that easily. He’d been involved in a few cases in the previous years which had involved the websites – Facebook, Twitter, Bebo – so he knew enough about them that he wasn’t lost in a conversation.

  Twitter was the new thing, it seemed, for the genesis of such cases. The papers went through peaks and troughs with the story – usually when nothing much else was happening. Trolls, bullies, threats. Each platform gets their turn. They all get blamed, when Murphy knew the real cause.

  The people.

  It didn’t matter which website or avenue was used, they’re all just a way of exerting power.

  Murphy had no doubt Dean Hughes would be on there, so he rolled his hand over the mouse of his computer, typing www.face—before the page auto-filled itself.

  Scrolling down the page, he realised just how common a name it was. He tried to narrow it down by putting in Liverpool as the location, but it was still difficult to find the right one from all the results. Dean and Hughes was obviously a popular combination of names in Merseyside. He clicked on two different profiles before finding the right one. Profile picture set to a group of five lads, shaven heads on three of them, the other two with a swept-over quiff thing going on. Dean Hughes in the middle. All arms spread wide, cans of lager in one hand, teeth showing. First comment on the picture when Murphy clicked on it …

  Gay as fuk lads!

  Murphy shook his head, clicking the x in the corner of the picture and returning to the profile page itself. He waited for the inevitability of the page being set to private, which was supposedly happening more often these days. He was only mildly surprised when he was able to start scrolling through Dean’s wall posts. Most of the youngsters – or teenagers he should say – he’d had reason to investigate this way seemed to revel in the lack of anonymity. Everything was left open for public viewing and consumption.

  ‘What you on?’ Rossi said, swivelling her chair around the desk and stopping as she reached his side.

  ‘Dean’s Facebook page. Look at this – Carnt be assed wth dis. Ned 2 gt stned lads – how do you misspell “need”?’

  ‘No one gives a toss online.’

  Murphy grunted in reply and carried on scrolling, only pausing to read the various status updates. ‘Last one was seven months ago. Which ties in with the theory of him disappearing suddenly.’

  ‘Anyone posted on his wall recently?’

  Murphy scrolled back up to the top, looking to the left side of the screen. ‘Few here. Mainly when he went missing. People asking if he’s all right. Nothing of interest really … wait.’

  ‘What?’ Rossi said, leaning forward.

  ‘Same name posting a few times. Gets more and more angry. Paul Cooper. Dean owed him money by the looks of it.’ Murphy made a note of the name.

  Murphy’s phone rang before Rossi had a chance to reply. ‘Sally Hughes has finally confirmed it’s Dean,’ he said once he’d finished the call from Dr Houghton’s assistant. ‘Post-mortem starts in an hour.’

  ‘We’d best get over there then.’

  Naked, stark light shone above the body as Dr Houghton began his work. Murphy had begun to find the whole process quite boring. Once you’d winced and felt your stomach turn over the first ten or twenty times you attended a post-mortem, it became more methodical.

  ‘I count sixty-three different contusions and marks. Some inflicted close to death, some occurring days or weeks before. The worst of those are concentrated on the torso and arms,’ Dr Houghton said, speaking into a digital recorder as well as for the benefit of Murphy and Rossi. ‘Healing contusion to the eye area, around a week old, I’d suggest. Bruising to the neck area, asphyxiation a possible cause of death.’ He pressed the stop button on his recorder before turning towards Murphy. ‘He was beaten severely and then strangled by a thin ligature. It’s pretty obvious.’

  ‘Rule out suicide then?’ Rossi said.

  ‘Unless he’s worked out a way of hanging himself whilst lying down, then yes. He was on the ground when he died.’

  ‘What was used to beat him?’ Murphy asked, before Rossi had a chance to swear at the doctor in her mother tongue.

  ‘There are three different distinctive markings,’ Dr Houghton said, turning the body over with a sigh, before his assistant moved quickly to lend a hand. ‘On the back here is a marking from some kind of heavy object, a bat or plank of wood maybe. On the front, something thin like a whip or something similar. And then here,’ Dr Houghton pointed to the left-hand-side rib area, ‘half a boot print. He was stamped on so hard I’d guess there are a few broken ribs in that area.’

  Murphy tried and failed to keep the grimace off his face. The memory of the injuries he’d sustained a year earlier – broken arm and ribs after being pushed down concrete steps which led into the darkness of a basement – was still fresh. The breathlessness of having your ribs broken in more than one place. The look on the doctor’s face in the Royal Hospital – only a few floors above from where he was standing now – as he’d explained to Murphy that they had to heal on their own. It was a couple of weeks before he could even stand walking any kind of distance.

  Still, the sick pay was nice. Plus, he’d suddenly became more accepted around the station again, which made things much easier than they’d been previously. The snide remarks and sideways glances, just waiting for him to screw up, had pretty much ended that day. Injured in the line of duty had that kind of effect on petty differences.

  Murphy absent-mindedly rubbed at his right-hand side as he replied, ‘Think you can get a print off that?’

  ‘I imagine so,’ Dr Houghton replied, sounding amused by the question. Hiding a grin behind his mask, Murphy assumed. ‘Wonders of modern science. We have scrapings underneath the fingernails as well, which I imagine are from the back of the hands of the person who was strangling him to death.’

  ‘Good. Full report?’

  Dr Houghton sighed. ‘In the morning at the latest.’

  Murphy kicked at a stone in the hospital car park, watching as it jumped up and hit the side of someone’s Ford Focus. He didn’t move slowly enough to check if he’d chipped the paintwork as he continued to trot towards his car.

  ‘Who interviewed
the kids who found him?’ Murphy said, turning to Rossi who was, as ever, struggling to keep up.

  ‘Harris and some other DC I can’t remember the name of. They’re basically interchangeable at this point.’

  Murphy smirked, knowing exactly what she meant. Local cuts to the police service meant that constables in CID were being sent all over Liverpool to fill in where and when needed. It meant there was no kind of consistency on who was working at St Anne Street from one week to the next. Once you got used to one face, they were sent over to the other side of the city to fill in on some other case. Murphy didn’t even want to consider the mind who had thought up this gloriously stupid way of working.

  ‘I’m guessing nothing came of it, otherwise you would have told me?’

  Rossi shook her head. ‘Just found him and ran. Didn’t see anyone at all. Nothing from door to doors either really. Other than a neighbour who thought she heard an argument near Castlesite Road. Wasn’t sure of the time because she was half asleep. Could have been dreaming, for all we know.’

  ‘CCTV any good?’ Murphy said, pressing the button on his keys to activate the central locking.

  ‘Not sure yet,’ Rossi replied, opening the passenger door and getting into the car. ‘I know there’s a few cameras around the cross near the Sefton Arms pub, but not the other side. Depends which way they came in. It’s not like we could tell if he was killed anywhere else in the area, unless there’s blood.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean we don’t look,’ Murphy said, turning the ignition. ‘We need to organise a bit of a search, I think.’

  ‘Seems like a lot of effort. Probably going to turn out to be an argument got out of hand.’

  Murphy drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he waited for traffic to pass so he could pull out onto the main road. ‘I’d usually agree, Laura, but there’s a few things wrong here. The fact he’s been missing over six months. The placing of the body at the church …’

  ‘Like an unwanted baby,’ Rossi murmured.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘When you hear about these abandoned babies, you know, where the mother is too young or whatever, they leave them outside churches, don’t they?’

  ‘I’m not seeing your point.’

  Rossi sighed, pressing the button to half open her window. ‘It could be that Dean Hughes was left at the church because they thought he’d be looked after there.’

  ‘Possibly. I think the damage was already done though, don’t you?’

  Rossi shrugged and turned to look out the window. Murphy stared ahead, trying to get the cogs within turning.

  Concentrating hard to stop the demons coming back in.

  The Farm

  Five Months Ago

  Goldie had become used to life there pretty quick. It was the same all the time, really. Days spent in the quiet, waiting for the evening, when the ‘fun’ would begin. Three meals a day. Anything they wanted to read.

  Okay, there was no TV, PlayStation, or even Xbox. No iPhone, Samsung … fuck, he’d take a Nokia at some points, just to be able to speak to his mum or something. He reckoned he’d even phone her first, rather than check Facebook or Twitter.

  His muscles ached in so many places, he’d given up trying to work out where it hurt most. He’d caught sight of his face on one trip into the farmhouse. It was becoming harder, older.

  Scarred.

  Goldie was inspecting a fresh mark on his right thigh when they brought in the Bootle lad. Just dumped him in there, without a word.

  They’d been getting a bit more light in the Dorm than in the first couple of weeks, so Goldie could see him fine. Dean, the other lad, wouldn’t have seen shit. He was in his usual position – lying down on his bed, facing the wall, pretending to be asleep. He’d barely spoken two words to Goldie in the month he’d been in there with him.

  Just shut down.

  ‘All right lad?’ Goldie said, standing up slowly, his thighs burning from overuse, his calves numb. It seemed too little a thing to say, but what the fuck else could he say? The lad had no idea what he was in for.

  ‘Who the fuck are you? What’s going on?’

  Goldie held his hands out in front of him. ‘Calm down mate. It’s them out there you want to be pissed off with, not us.’

  ‘Us? Who else is here?’ the lad replied, standing up fully now. ‘Youse best tell me what’s fuckin’ goin’ on, or there’ll be fuckin’ murder, you get me?’

  Goldie put his hands down. Curled them into fists instead. ‘Look,’ he tried a softer voice, but it didn’t really work. ‘Look, we’re in the same boat. I’m Goldie, the lad over here is Dean. We’ve been taken by a bunch of nutters who want to give us some kind of army training or some shite …’

  ‘Well, I’m MC Cray-Z. And MC Cray-Z doesn’t take any shit, you get me?’

  ‘You’re called what? Where you from?’

  ‘Bootle. What’s it to you?’

  Goldie shook his head. ‘I’m not calling you MC Fucking Shit. I’m just gonna call you Bootle for now. That all right?’

  ‘This is bollocks …’

  ‘No,’ Goldie replied, taking a few steps towards him. ‘It’s not. It’s as fucking real as it can get. But you need to calm down, otherwise …’

  ‘Or what? What’re you gonna do about it?’

  Goldie almost smiled. It had been a long time since someone had spoken to him like that when a gun wasn’t being trained on him.

  ‘Listen. I’ll give you one warning,’ Goldie said, stepping closer, five yards away from Bootle now, taking in his full five foot five figure. Small man syndrome exuding from every pore. ‘One warning, given what you’ve been through. But I won’t give you another.’

  Bootle took a step forward, hands shaking, sweat on his forehead.

  ‘Do something,’ Bootle said as he stopped in front of him.

  Goldie smiled then.

  Gamma spoke first as they watched the camera feed from inside the Dorm. ‘We might have a problem here …’ she said, nudging Delta.

  ‘What do we do?’ Delta replied.

  Gamma looked around at the only other person in the small monitoring room. Tango chewed on his bottom lip for a second or two, then spoke.

  ‘Get Alpha.’

  A minute or so later, Alpha bounded in, forcing his way in front of Gamma and staring into the screen.

  Gamma cleared her throat. ‘Should we go and stop it?’

  Alpha stepped back, rubbing at his face before folding his arms.

  ‘No. Let’s see what happens.’

  Goldie didn’t know where the lad had got the strength from, but he was starting to tire already. It was probably down to the endless drills he’d been forced to do in the previous weeks. Muscles not having been given a chance to heal properly, now screaming for him to stop. Lie down and don’t move.

  Bootle had his small hands wrapped around his throat, trying to choke him but not succeeding. Goldie had his chin ducked down low, meaning he could suck in air. All the time, he was concentrating on trying to prise away the grip.

  It had started as it normally did for Goldie whenever he was in a fight. Quick movements forward and a closed fist punch to the side of the other lad’s head. That usually put them down, then he could jump them. Put the boot in and end it.

  But this time he’d miscalculated, and only skimmed the top of Bootle’s head. Then he’d been surprised by the force of the little bastard’s rugby tackle as he was forced backwards onto the floor.

  Goldie stopped trying to prise the hands away. Drew back his fist as far as he could, and drove it into the side of Bootle. Kidneys. Instant pain. Bootle’s hands loosened and Goldie took his chance. He pushed him away, letting him fall to the side, before punching him in the jaw, hearing a click or snap – he couldn’t tell which one – in his right hand. He ignored it, punching again, hearing the satisfying thump of flesh on flesh as he carried on. Bootle’s face started turning red as knuckles met skin, cuts forming around his eyes and cheekbones. Blood mixing wi
th sweat and tears.

  Goldie left him coughing and retching on the floor, stood up, and began stamping on the cunt.

  He was in his socks, so he wasn’t doing as much damage as he’d have liked, but it didn’t lessen the pain he knew he was inflicting. Drawing his leg up, smashing his heel right into Bootle’s stomach. Then a volley into his bollocks, to really take his breath away. Then he moved up. He had a wicked right foot on him, when he’d played footy instead of getting pissed or stoned with his mates, and he lined up Bootle’s face as if he was about to fire in a free kick in front of the Kop.

  Bang.

  The sound was deafening in the small space, making Goldie jump and lose his footing.

  A soft voice from the corner, that’s all he could hear after the ringing had stopped.

  ‘No … no … no …’

  Goldie looked over the broken body of Bootle towards the door. The main guy – Bally-Suit – stood there, backed up with two others. Holding the rifle level with him. The bang had come from one of the other two rather than him, Goldie guessed. Bally-Suit wouldn’t have fired a gun without it being pointed at someone, Goldie reckoned.

  Goldie realised he was shaking his head, moving backwards all the time. The fight disappearing from him.

  He was in the shit.

  Bally-Suit man had offered up the name Alpha as he’d tied him to the rack. It suited him. Better than what Goldie had come up with.

  Alpha. He was the one in charge.

  Goldie tried not to pay much attention to what was happening. Thought he could zone out of whatever they did to him, think above the pain.

  It didn’t – couldn’t – work like that. He was restrained so he couldn’t make any movement at all. Every possible part of him was strapped down, tied together, and immovable. Lying spreadeagled in just the black boxer shorts he’d been given a pile of at some point – fucking Asda brand; he couldn’t believe he was putting his junk into something so shite – exposed and useless.

  ‘It’s a shame it’s come to this,’ Alpha said from somewhere to his left. Goldie couldn’t move his head to check for certain. ‘I knew you’d end up here at some point, but it is really a damn shame it was due to this. We simply cannot tolerate you lads fighting each other. It will not happen again. I hope the next couple of hours convince you of this.’