The Dying Place

by Luca Veste

  ‘I’m afraid that’s not going to be the case, David. I can call you that, right?’

  ‘Call me what you like, but let me hear from Peter.’

  A high-pitched wail made him jump back against the wall.

  ‘You asked … now come in here.’

  Murphy moved slowly, shuffling against the wall and around the doorframe, the wood-panelled door still blocking Simon Thornhill and Peter from view.

  He stood strong when the scene came into view.

  Peter was tied to a chair, hands behind his back, jacket ripped open on one side, revealing a dark T-shirt underneath. One trainer had fallen off, lying a few inches from where his black-socked foot was flat to the floor. One side of his face was dark red, crimson drying blood crusting on his cheek and jawline. His hair was matted from the wound which had caused it. His eyes were red and puffy from crying, the smell of ammonia filling the air as the dampness of Peter’s trousers became apparent.

  ‘What a horrible little coincidence this is for you, detective,’ Thornhill said. ‘How did you find me?’

  Murphy ignored the question, his attention fixed on Peter. ‘It’s all right son. It’s going to be fine.’

  From the way his head lolled forward onto his chest, Murphy could see Thornhill had grabbed him somewhere a man never wants to be mistreated, the hitching breaths relaying most of the story.

  The gun being held to his godson’s head – the closest thing to a child he’d ever had, the boy he’d known since he was nothing but a scan picture.

  Murphy locked eyes with Thornhill.

  ‘I think you need to stop now. Lower the gun, we’ll talk. But you need to let this boy go.’

  Thornhill stared back for a second, then laughed. ‘He thinks we should stop now? Now?’

  Murphy stared again, inching forward towards Thornhill. ‘Yes. In a minute, two, tops, this house is going to be surrounded by firearms officers with itchy fingers, just hoping to put you down. Let’s not go through that, hey? Let’s me and you just walk out of here without any drama and your guts on the floor. How does that sound?’

  Thornhill seemed to ponder for a second, lips pursed as he looked towards the ceiling. ‘Erm … how’s about no. How about, instead, you drop those silly little things you’re holding, or I put a bullet in the boy’s head.’

  Murphy stayed still for a second, watched as the finger around the gun’s trigger tightened a little and then dropped his baton and pepper spray.

  ‘Good. You see, finally, I’ve got your attention. For years we tried to tell you what these little bastards were doing to us, but no one listened. Well, we’ve got your undivided attention now, haven’t we?’

  ‘It’s just you left now, Simon,’ Murphy said, noticing a flinch in Thornhill’s face as he called him by his name. ‘No one else. And you have my attention, yes. So, tell me, what do you want to talk about?’

  Thornhill pushed the gun further towards Peter’s head, making the boy lean over to one side, almost toppling over the chair. ‘I want to talk about these little pricks and why you’ve let them get away with murder. Every fucking day, the little parasites. And then … then as soon as a few of us get together and start trying to do your fucking job for you, you come after us. It’s not right … it’s not right …’

  Murphy inched another step forward. ‘Right. But this isn’t helping, can you see that, Simon?’ Another flinch. ‘You need to step away from the boy and look at what you’re doing, Simon.’

  Murphy didn’t even see the gun raise to the ceiling, but he heard it go off, almost diving towards Peter a split-second later, before working out what had happened.

  ‘My name is Alan Bimpson. When I’m doing this, it’s Alan Bimpson. Understand?’

  Murphy nodded. Watched as the gun went back to Peter’s head.

  ‘How did he know your name, your voice? Why did he call you uncle?’

  Murphy breathed in. ‘He’s my godson.’

  Another laugh. ‘See. You see now? Even having someone like you in his life wasn’t enough.’

  ‘He’s done nothing wrong.’

  ‘Has he shite. Look at him. Dressed like them, hanging around with his little gang. He’s exactly like them. A little scally for a godson. How proud you must be.’

  ‘It’s not like that …’

  Thornhill waved the gun in his direction, Murphy holding his breath and almost closing his eyes.

  ‘It doesn’t matter how it is. I can see it clearly. I know how this ends. I’ve seen it before,’ Thornhill said, looking past Murphy and through the window. ‘They’ll think I’m crazy. That we were crazy.’

  ‘They can think what they like,’ Murphy said, risking another step forward. He was now only a few feet away, unarmed and with no backup.

  Other than that, things were going well, he thought.

  ‘Only you can stop this, Si—Alan. What’s it going to be? Are we going to walk out of here and you can talk to me somewhere else, all about your … your grievances?’

  Thornhill looked past him again as sirens began sounding in the street. Peter’s sobs filled the silence, as Murphy tried to make some eye contact with him, to let him know everything was going to work out.

  ‘It’s not right. This used to be a good city. A good country. Now we’re infested with this lot of work-shy, lazy bastards.’

  ‘They’re not all like that …’ Murphy said. ‘Not even most of them. Think of the positives …’

  ‘There are no positives. Live on the streets a bit, detective. You’ll see what it’s like then. Have your family targeted by scum like these and then see how you feel. No …’

  The room didn’t need a light any more. The amount of red and blue flashing across the three of them in the living room was overwhelming.

  ‘They killed them. Both of them.’

  ‘I know, Alan.’

  A sharp laugh. ‘You should be cheering me on. My fucking mum. And dad as well. Didn’t give a fuck about either of them. Just let them die.’

  ‘So this is about revenge, for you?’

  Thornhill ran a shaking hand through hair which was plastered to his head by sweat. ‘No. No, no, no. It’s more than that. It has to be. It’s a mission … yeah, a mission. Someone has to sort them out. An eye for an eye …’

  The room fell almost silent, save for the deep breaths Thornhill was making, like a bull ready to charge.

  ‘Please,’ Murphy said, lifting his hands up. ‘Just talk to me some more. We can make this right …’

  ‘I want you to see this,’ Thornhill said. He dropped the shotgun to the floor before placing his hand inside his jacket to bring out a handgun. ‘You have to tell them all the things I’ve said. Maybe things will change.’

  Murphy watched as the gun levelled.

  Bang. Bang.

  Rossi hadn’t got there in time. She could see that instantly. The road packed with cars, two ambulances, a row of uniformed officers. AFOs with guns drawn, pointing towards the house.

  She leapt out the car as it came to a stop, running towards the house ahead.

  ‘What’s happened?’ she shouted into the face of a uniformed sergeant. Then she saw DC Harris being loaded onto a stretcher by two paramedics, one of them pumping his chest.

  She ran to his side, shrugging off the restraining hand of the sergeant.

  Gunshots, then shouts from the firearms officers, made her glance towards the house.

  Silence fell as the firearms officers walked slowly towards the building from where the shots had sounded.

  Watched as Murphy emerged with a struggle. Almost falling under the weight in his arms.

  ‘He’s one of us,’ she screamed. ‘Don’t fucking shoot, he’s one of us.’

  Murphy went down on one knee as he was surrounded by officers. Rossi tried to push past, but her way was blocked. She looked past the shoulder of the burly armed officer who was standing in her way. Tried to listen to what was being said. Snippets. That was all she got.

  ‘Get paramed
ics over here.’

  ‘Let him go now. We’ve got him.’

  ‘Come on, just let him go. He’s all right …’

  ‘Move away …’

  Epilogue

  She was going to bury her own son.

  The thought ran through her mind over and over. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t the correct order of these things. You’re not supposed to do it this way. She was supposed to see him get married, have grandchildren. Grow into an adult. Make mistakes. Make more mistakes. Argue with her more. Make up, laugh, and be happy. Live a life. Look after her when she was older. All that circle of life bollocks.

  It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

  She’d been hounded for days by the press but hadn’t said a word. Didn’t want to make things worse than they already were. Didn’t want the judging eyes of people on her. Knew she couldn’t resist clicking online to see her exclusive interview – the comments underneath left by those who didn’t care about what they said and what effect it could have on her, on anyone. She’d already read enough. Even though they weren’t mentioning her or her son’s name, people still felt able to pass judgement on the families of every victim. All sixteen of them. Leaving hate-filled comments they thought were common sense.

  She’d had nothing better to do. Just waiting around for this day. The day she put her son in a coffin, said goodbye as he was burned to ashes, and then a buffet at some function room.

  It didn’t make sense.

  She didn’t believe in God, not one that could take a child away from its mother, but she didn’t know if he did or not. They’d never really spoken about it. She didn’t know if he wanted a secular funeral, or a proper religious one. She’d ransacked his room, trying to find some evidence of a belief in there, but only found unmarked blank dvds which contained nothing but porn and downloaded music, and a whole host of dirty washing.

  In the end, she’d played safe and gone with middle-of-the-road religion. Nothing over the top. Not full-blown catholic style, but religious enough to cover herself. No church, just a crematorium.

  She was burying her child. It didn’t matter that he was basically an adult. He was her baby. Nine months growing inside her – she barely remembered that now; sixteen hours of labour – she remembered that. Then years of watching him grow into the young man he always would be.

  The priest, or vicar – she could never tell the difference – droned on for a good fifteen, twenty minutes. She imagined he’d had his hands full with teenage funerals lately. He still managed to make it sound like he hadn’t said the same things at those ones though. He’d never met her son, but you wouldn’t know that. Managed to convey the sadness that hung over the gathering.

  He’d asked if she wanted to say something, but she’d said no. Didn’t want to lose it up there, under the staring eyes of those watching. She asked a friend to read a poem she’d always liked. She didn’t know if he would have liked it.

  Probably not.

  She tuned back into the vicar-priest’s words as she could tell it was coming to an end. She knew what was going to happen next. The coffin would move around, be wheeled away through the curtains, never to be seen again.

  ‘As we say our final goodbye to Peter David White, please stand for the song chosen for this event by his mother, Jess.’

  Murphy watched from the back of the crematorium, Sarah on one side, Rossi to the other. Sarah holding his hand, Rossi giving the occasional elbow squeeze.

  He wanted to be down there, on the front row, next to Jess. But she’d made it quite clear that he wasn’t wanted.

  He shouldn’t be there.

  When he thought back to those last moments, as Simon Thornhill pulled out a handgun from a shoulder holster, squeezed the trigger and put a bullet into the brain of his godson, then stuck the gun in his own mouth and fired … when he thought about those seconds, milliseconds even, it was always much slower. He was able to cover those few feet quicker, made it in time to stop.

  Instead, he’d watched as Peter slumped over, the chair falling with him. Blood pooling around his head. He’d cut him free, using the penknife he’d been keeping in his back pocket, knowing Thornhill would make him drop his police weapons.

  Weapons … it almost made him laugh. They were nothing when facing a man holding the ultimate.

  Carried his body out the house, knowing.

  He was gone. It was his fault. He should have saved him. Standing there at the back of the church, the last words Jess had spoken to him the previous day, as he tried to comfort her, still rang through his head.

  Come, but after that, we’re done. You should have saved him. It’s your fault.

  He knew on one level it was just misplaced anger. That she was blaming him just so she could blame someone. Anyone.

  It didn’t matter. Peter was gone.

  And nothing was going to bring him back.

  In Conversation with Luca Veste

  What got you into crime writing?

  They say write what you know, so being a criminal mastermind (never caught – go me!), it was a natural progression …

  Okay, that’s not strictly true. It was more a fact that it was the genre I enjoyed reading most which led to crime writing. As a very young reader I read Enid Blyton’s Famous Five and Secret Seven series endlessly (and also those boarding school ones as a guilty pleasure), before moving on to the fantasy of Brian Jacques, and then eventually the horror genre, which took up most of my teenage reading. Stephen King, James Herbert, Dean Koontz, Clive Barker … etc. I was a voracious reader, often reading a novel every few days. I spent most of my spare time reading. Then, at around the age of fifteen-sixteen, I stopped reading one day. The odd newspaper here and there, but no novels of any kind for about eight years. I was twenty-four, married, working full-time and with a young daughter, when someone passed me a Mark Billingham novel to read (his first Thorne novel – Sleepyhead). It sat on the dining room table for a while, before I picked it up and read the opening chapter.

  I was hooked again. Harlan Coben came next, before I moved on to many other crime writers. There was just something about the genre I loved – the genesis of which can probably be traced back to those early Enid Blyton reads – which has turned into a deep appreciation and almost obsession. The myriad of stories which can be told within the crime genre, the different characters and settings you can learn about, and, of course, that feeling you always get with a good crime novel … racing through the last few pages to devour the ending as quickly as possible, breathless with excitement.

  Why crime writing? Because I don’t think I’m made for anything else.

  Have you always wanted to be a writer?

  Not at all. I wasn’t one of those other writers who like to make me feel inferior by talking about the stories they wrote at seven years old and were made to read out to the class. Apart from a co-writing credit on a nativity story a friend and I wrote for a school Christmas concert, which was done strictly for laughs – three wise Scousers who bring a gold chain, a can of Lynx deodorant, and the Mayor, being just one example of our fifteen-year-old sense of humour – I didn’t write a word until I was twenty-eight. And even then, it was a total fluke. I was in an online conversation with a great writer called Charlie Williams, when a joke I made about an uninspired vampire named Jeff provoked Charlie to say ‘write it.’ I decided to try it out for a laugh and a 650-word short story was sent over to him as a ‘Ha! Look what I did!’ He gave me the push to go on writing, and it snowballed from there. Within a few months I’d written a whole bunch of short stories, before deciding to write a novel. After one (very bad) attempt at a different kind of crime novel, I wrote what would become – after several hundred drafts – Dead Gone. Now, writing is all I want to do. I know I don’t have the experience many other writers do before embarking on it as a career, but I do believe all those years of reading everything I could get my hands on have provided an excellent education. Plus, as the great philosopher Yazz (well actually it was Otis
Clay first but, never mind) once said – the only way is up. Baby.

  What is it particularly about Liverpool that made you choose it as a location?

  Well, apart from the fact that as a child I grew up thinking anywhere outside of Merseyside was a foreign country – which meant Liverpool (and the Wirral) was the only place I knew about – it’s the only place I ever wanted to write about. It’s a city often overlooked for crime fiction. When I was going through my ‘read every crime book ever written’ phase, I searched for modern crime fiction set in Liverpool to read. Apart from Kevin Sampson, Margaret Murphy, and Martin Edwards, I really struggled to find anything contemporary set in what is one of the biggest cities in England. There is so much to Liverpool as a city – especially since the 2000s and all that they brought with it – that hasn’t been explored much in crime fiction. The growing middle class, the vast wave of youth unemployment, the diverse nature of its population … I could go on and on. It’s a city of absolute disparity. In a thirty-minute drive you can go from derelict housing and high crime rates, to gated communities and mansions, before going back to relative poverty. That kind of inconsistency fascinates me. The ‘haves’ and ‘have nots’ living so close together, the abundance of universities, the worst life expectancy rates in the country in some areas … all great fodder for crime novels.

  Plus, Liverpool is the greatest city in the world. I’ve decided. Gave it a trophy and everything. So there.

  Not that many crime novels are set there, why do you think that is?

  I honestly don’t know. It’s not like we’re not overrun with talent within the city – there are numerous writers I could mention who are without book deals right now – it’s there all right. It’s a northern city which hasn’t really been tapped into in the same way as, say, the Scottish ones have been by the brilliance of McDermid, MacBride and Rankin. Manchester is similar, with only a few novels being set there despite its size (Leeds, Sheffield … I could go on). I wonder if the setting puts, say, a publisher, off from the beginning, believing it to be too parochial to be enjoyed by a wider audience. Or perhaps they’re just not as exciting as a major city such as London. I honestly have no clue. However, one only has to look at the accomplishments of, say, Peter Robinson, whose novels are set in a fictional place in Yorkshire, to see that northern settings can be successful with readers.