The Final Silence

by Stuart Neville

  He skirted the side of the house and approached the high wooden gate that led to the rear of the property. Between the slats, he could see a dilapidated garden shed, the lawn in need of mowing, large pots overrun by weeds. Last year’s leaves lay in drifts. A hole in the gate at waist height allowed his hand through to the bolt on the other side. Lennon slid it back, and the gate yawned open. He caught it before it could slam against the wall.

  Stepping through, he kept a watch on the windows of the kitchen extension that stretched beyond the back of the house. Again, he went to the glass and looked inside. Again, empty, gaps where the cooker and fridge would be.

  Lennon reached for the back door handle, expecting it to be immovable. Instead, it turned. The door sighed as it loosened in its frame.

  He stood still for a time, unsure if he had the courage to push it open, to step inside. Then he thought of Rea and put his fingertips to the wood.

  Cool air seeped from the house. Lennon entered the stillness. His feet scuffed on ancient linoleum. He advanced through the kitchen with as little noise as his lopsided gait would allow. An open door, an empty sitting room on the other side, the hallway beyond.

  Lennon peered into every corner of each room. When he reached the bottom of the stairs, he looked up to the darkened landing.

  No one here, he thought. No one here.

  He mounted the first step. As he ascended, he became aware of the thud in his chest, the shallowness of his breath. He paused, swallowed, waited for the straining to ease. When it did, he climbed again.

  At the top, he faced four doors. To the rear, he guessed the bathroom. He pushed the door open and stood back. Nothing stirred but dust and a steady drip from the shower-head pinging on the enamel of the bath. Limescale lined the toilet bowl.

  Lennon went to the next door, opened it, let it swing back into the room. A weathered and stained carpet. An old wardrobe against one wall, its doors hanging crooked from their hinges. He entered, went to the window and looked out over the back garden.

  Two more rooms to the front of the house. One stood open, a box room, barely big enough to hold a single bed. Again, he went to the window. From here, he had a clear view of Raymond Drew’s house. He’d be able to see anyone who came or went. Still leaning against his car, Roscoe Patterson stood smoking a cigarette.

  Lennon went to the last room. He hesitated at the door, afraid of what might be on the other side, even though he had no reason to expect it to be anything but empty. He turned the handle and pushed the door open.

  A large leather-bound book lay at the centre of the worn carpet.

  Lennon swallowed. The room had a stale smell, a man’s smell, heavy with sweat and mildew. A sleeping bag in the corner, a few empty tins, some bottled water, a brown satchel, loose pencils and paper.

  An iPhone, its screen black. He knew whose it was, and the knowledge chilled him.

  Pictures taped to the wall, drawn in pencil. The sketches were crude, but done with enough flair for Lennon to recognise the woman rendered on each page. Most showing her at windows or in doorways, looking out, observed from a distance. Rea Carlisle reborn in slashes of grey.

  He stepped over the threshold and into the tainted air. Five paces took him to the book, its cover glowering with a dull sheen. Lennon grunted with effort as he knelt down. He took a clean tissue from his pocket and kept it between his fingertips and the leather as he opened the book and turned the first page.

  Just as Rea had said, the fingernail, the lock of hair. The name, Gwen Headley.

  ‘Christ,’ Lennon whispered.

  He would not look at it any more. Time to hand it over to Flanagan, to tell her what he knew. Let her track down the Sparkle, Howard Monaghan, the man who had killed Rea. And, Lennon believed, the man who had killed the people in this book, with or without Raymond Drew.

  Lennon put a hand on the floor to steady himself as he got his legs under him. Pain stabbed at his flank as he stood upright. He went to the corner and lifted the phone, pressed and held the button at the top edge to turn it on. When it finally booted and found a signal, the battery icon showed a thin red line of remaining power. An image flickered in his mind: Rea calling him from this phone, no idea she had less than a day to live.

  He dialled the number for Ladas Drive from memory.

  ‘DCI Serena Flanagan,’ Lennon said.

  ‘Who’s calling?’

  ‘DI Jack Lennon.’

  A few moments’ silence, then, ‘Hold on.’

  He walked to the window overlooking the street as he listened to the synthetic chimes of the hold music. Patterson no longer stood by his BMW. Lennon couldn’t see through the car’s tinted windows, but he imagined Patterson in the driver’s seat, debating whether to drive off and leave him. Once he’d spoken to Flanagan, he’d go down and tell Patterson to make himself scarce. His presence here would only complicate matters.

  A click, then, ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’m in Deramore Gardens,’ Lennon said.

  ‘At the house?’ Flanagan asked. ‘Christ, you’ve some neck.’

  ‘No, across the road,’ Lennon said. He gave her the house number. ‘You’d better get down here.’

  ‘Are you ready to hand yourself in?’ she asked.

  ‘Just come now.’

  Lennon hung up and returned the phone to the corner where he’d found it. He walked back to the landing, closed the door behind him. Gripping the handrail to keep his balance, he made his lopsided way down the stairs, each step jarring his side.

  He heard the choked gurgling as he neared the bottom.

  From the hall, through the open doors and the rear sitting room, he saw them in the kitchen. Roscoe Patterson on his back, the hilt of what looked like a filleting knife jutting out from his chest. His breath bubbled wet in his throat, his blank eyes staring somewhere beyond the ceiling.

  Crouched over Patterson, a man, the one Lennon had seen in front of this house three days ago. Small, slender, the vest he wore showing a dancer’s hard and wiry body. The fine features given a suggestion of jaggedness by age. White hair greased flat to his skull. The tattoo on his neck that a shirt collar had concealed before.

  He was watching Patterson’s dying breaths with a kind of distant interest, like a child studying an insect impaled on a pin.

  After a while, he lifted his head to look at Lennon.

  The Sparkle said, ‘Hello, Jack.’

  43

  THE POLICEMAN TOOK slow steps towards the kitchen, like a child coming to meet its punishment. He could not hide his limp any more than the big man on the floor could hide the knife in his chest.

  ‘Howard,’ the cop said.

  ‘No one calls me that.’

  ‘No,’ Lennon said. ‘They call you the Sparkle.’

  The Sparkle stood upright, took a step back from the growing puddle of deep red on the linoleum.

  ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘Since I was a boy in the shipyard. They used to say, look, here comes the Sparkle, watch him dance along like a wee girl.’

  Lennon stopped at the kitchen doorway. ‘Did that make you angry?’

  ‘No. I didn’t like it, but names stick, don’t they?’ He looked down at the man who had stopped breathing. ‘Who’s your friend?’

  ‘His name was Roscoe. He wasn’t my friend. He just helped me out sometimes.’

  ‘Roscoe.’ The Sparkle felt a smile on his lips. ‘That’s a stupid name.’

  ‘Why did you kill him?’ the cop asked.

  ‘He tried to hit me. And I got angry. I can be quick-tempered sometimes. One minute I’m fine, and then it’s all . . .’

  He waved a hand towards the man lying at his feet, sure the policeman would understand his meaning.

  ‘I won’t hit you,’ Lennon said. ‘I won’t come any closer. We’ll just talk. All right?’

  ‘Who did you call?’ the Sparkle asked.

  The policeman shook his head. ‘I didn’t call anyone.’

  ‘Liar. Was it tha
t woman cop? The one I saw on the television?’

  ‘I told you, I didn’t call anyone.’

  ‘Will she come here?’

  ‘No,’ Lennon said. ‘No one’s coming.’

  ‘I’d like to meet her,’ the Sparkle said. ‘I’d like to show her things.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Secret things.’

  Lennon took one step further into the kitchen. ‘Do you want me to bring you to her? I can do that. She wants to meet you too.’

  ‘I know you called her. I know she’s coming here. But I suppose she’ll bring others. Listen.’

  Somewhere not too far away, the high whoop of a siren.

  Lennon asked, ‘Did you kill Rea?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To get the photograph from her.’

  ‘But she didn’t have it.’

  ‘I know that now. I didn’t mean to kill her. I shouldn’t have. But I did. And now look where we are. My wicked temper. My uncle said I had a temper ever since I was a wee boy. Wicked wee bastard, he used to call me. Wicked, wicked, wicked wee bastard.’

  ‘Did you kill the people in that book?’

  ‘Yes. Wicked, wicked, wicked, wicked . . .’

  He let the words trail off into a whisper, like smoke on his breath.

  ‘Did Raymond Drew help you?’

  ‘No,’ the Sparkle said. ‘He never had the nerve for it. He wasn’t strong like me. He didn’t have the wicked in him. But he liked me to tell him about the things I did. I wrote them down for him. Sent him things. We used to look at the book together. Just the two of us. It was nice. He was my friend.’

  ‘Just a friend?’ Lennon asked.

  The Sparkle tilted his head. ‘What do you mean?’

  Lennon kept his gaze hard on his. ‘I spoke to someone today. Someone you used to know.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Dixie Stoops. He said you and Raymond might have been more than friends.’

  ‘He’s a fucking liar!’ The force of the Sparkle’s voice bent him at the waist, his arms tucked into his sides, spit arcing from his mouth like sparks.

  ‘I know,’ Lennon said. ‘I didn’t believe a word of it.’

  The Sparkle laughed and wagged a finger at the cop. ‘You’re trying to bait me.’ He took one step towards the door leading to the garden. ‘Do you still have the photograph?’

  ‘Yes,’ Lennon said. ‘Do you want it back?’

  ‘Doesn’t matter now.’ He moved closer to the door. ‘It’s all lost. All gone. There’s nothing to hold back for any more.’

  Lennon came further into the room. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I’ve nothing to lose now. No more secrets to keep. Everyone knows, don’t they? Everyone knows how wicked I am. No point in hiding it any more. Everyone knows how bad I am. How dirty. I’m a wicked boy and everybody knows it.’

  The Sparkle felt a giggle in his tummy, a shameful laugh, like when he’d been caught with his fingers in his pants and he couldn’t help but grin.

  ‘All the other mummies know,’ the Sparkle said. ‘They all know, and they’ll point at me, and they’ll say there’s the dirty boy. The dirty, dirty boy, the bad boy, the wicked boy, the—’

  He slapped himself hard across the cheek. Brought his mind back into focus. Don’t let this cop see the madness in you, he thought. He’ll think you’re weak. The Sparkle slapped himself again, harder, so the cop wavered in his vision.

  Perhaps he should kill this cop. Lennon was a big man, but weakened by whatever made him limp. Still, the cop would fight. The Sparkle was quick, but quick enough to take the knife from the dying man’s chest before the policeman could move on him? He would not tackle the cop without a weapon.

  And the sirens coming ever closer. No time.

  ‘I should go now,’ he said.

  ‘Please don’t,’ the policeman said. ‘I want to talk to you.’

  ‘Do you have a gun?’ the Sparkle asked.

  ‘No. It was taken off me when I was suspended.’

  ‘Then you can’t shoot me when I run.’

  ‘Don’t run. Please.’

  ‘And you can hardly chase me with that limp.’

  Lennon came closer. ‘Please stay here. You’re right. She’s coming, the policewoman. She wants to meet you. You can show her whatever you want.’

  The Sparkle shook his head. ‘No. I should run away now. Oh, I know it’s only a matter of time before you catch up with me. You or the woman cop. And I’ve been holding myself back for so long. And now it doesn’t matter.’

  The Sparkle took a sharp step forward, his foot splashing in the blood. Lennon jerked back.

  ‘But you remember this. Everything that happens now is on your head. I’ve spent so many years keeping this inside me, the wicked, the lightning, and now it’s free. Because you set it free. When you see the bodies, you’ll know they’re yours as much as mine. And you can keep that book upstairs. There’s no need for it now. When my end comes, everyone will know. You before anyone.’

  He turned, ran for the door, to the back of the garden, light on his feet like everyone always said. Light as a feather. Up and over the fence, away, riding the breeze like a floating ember, the policeman’s hoarse shouts rising through the air behind him.

  44

  FLANAGAN LISTENED TO DS Calvin’s hard breathing as he pushed the car through the Sunday traffic, a marked vehicle with blues flashing and siren wailing ahead of them. He’s loving this, she thought, like a boy with a computer game.

  The pleasant middle-class neighbourhoods whipped by as they approached the Ormeau Road, Edwardian houses, bay windows, hedge-bound gardens. The good citizens looked up from their lawnmowers and secateurs to see the commotion as it passed. Flanagan was thrown against the passenger door as Calvin made the right turn onto the main road. Other road users moved aside, some braking hard as the police cars cut across their paths at traffic lights.

  ‘Calm down,’ Flanagan said.

  ‘I’m just trying to keep—’

  He slammed his foot on the brake pedal to avoid a bus that pulled out from a stop. The driver waved them past.

  ‘Fucking idiot!’ Calvin shouted, despite the negligible chance of the bus driver hearing him.

  ‘I said, calm down,’ Flanagan said. ‘This isn’t Starsky and Hutch, for Christ’s sake.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Calvin said, but he kept after the marked car all the same.

  A left turn took them into the narrow side streets, smaller houses bunched together. The siren echoed between the buildings. Another left into Deramore Gardens, a hundred yards along the house where Rea Carlisle died.

  The patrol car skidded to a halt alongside a BMW kitted out with tinted glass, spoilers and exaggerated wheel arches. Calvin pulled in to the kerb. Flanagan had the passenger door open, her foot on the ground before the car came to a rest. She looked across the street for the house number Lennon had given her.

  There, the side gate ajar.

  She sprinted over, along the driveway.

  ‘Ma’am!’ Calvin called from behind. ‘Ma’am, wait!’

  Flanagan pushed the side gate back against the wall. She unholstered her Glock, kept it aimed at the ground. ‘Jack Lennon, show yourself.’

  Her voice resonated between the neighbouring houses. No reply. She heard Calvin’s footsteps behind her, the heavier boots of the uniformed men following him.

  The kitchen door stood open. She edged towards it. Her fingertip slipped inside her pistol’s trigger guard, felt the cold curve within. With her free hand, she waved at the others to stay behind.

  A single concrete step at the entrance to the kitchen. She put one foot upon it, eased forward until she could see inside.

  There, kneeling on the floor, his back to her, Jack Lennon. Another man, on his back, staring at the ceiling. A red pool spread around them both. Lennon’s hand at the man’s neck. The handle of a knife,
the blade hidden in the man’s chest.

  Flanagan raised her Glock. ‘Move away from him, Jack.’

  ‘He’s dead,’ Lennon said.

  ‘Move away. Right now.’

  Lennon put his hands to the blood-slicked floor to push himself up and away from the body, a deep groan in his throat from the effort. He got to his feet and turned to Flanagan. Red stained his knees, dripped from his fingertips.

  Flanagan locked eyes with him. ‘Put your hands on your head.’

  Lennon didn’t argue.

  ‘Now step outside, slowly, very slowly.’

  Flanagan backed away, out into the clear air, away from the death smell. Lennon followed.

  ‘Face down on the ground.’

  His face twisted in pain as he obeyed, each movement awkward and stiff.

  When his cheek rested on the concrete, Flanagan said, ‘Hands behind your back.’

  One of the uniformed men had the cuffs ready, swooped down, had Lennon’s wrists bound within seconds. Flanagan clicked her fingers, pointed into the kitchen. Calvin raced in to check on the man who lay in there.

  The two uniformed officers rolled Lennon onto his back and pulled him into a sitting position. Flanagan slid her Glock back into its holster and hunkered down in front of him. Unshaven. Dark circles beneath his eyes. Lines a man his age shouldn’t have.

  ‘Who is that?’ she asked, tilting her head towards the kitchen door.

  ‘His name’s Roscoe Patterson,’ Lennon said. ‘He’s known to the police. I didn’t kill him.’

  ‘Then who did?’

  ‘Howard Monaghan. They call him the Sparkle. He also killed Rea Carlisle, and others. Upstairs in the front bedroom, there’s a book. The book Rea told me about. The one I told you about. Rea’s phone’s in there too.’

  ‘And where is this man now?’

  Lennon looked towards the fence at the rear of the garden. ‘He got away.’

  Flanagan stood upright, instructed the uniformed men to help Lennon to his feet. They rooted through his pockets, emptied the scant contents onto the ground.

  Calvin emerged from the house. He shook his head.

  Flanagan said, ‘Jack Lennon, I am placing you under arrest on suspicion of murder. You do not have to say anything, but I must caution you that if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court, it may harm your defence. If you do say anything, it may be given in evidence. Do you understand?’