Skin and Bones

by Tom Bale

  Dispensing with a greeting, Sullivan barked, 'You've got two minutes, max.'

  'That's long enough,' Craig said, handing him an envelope. 'Have a look, but don't flash it around.'

  Slightly wary, Sullivan opened the envelope and took a peek at the contents. He frowned. 'Your kids?'

  'Yeah. There's a message on the other side.'

  Sullivan read it, then silently thanked his maker that he'd agreed to this meeting. Being the good actor he was, he affected disdain.

  'All this proves is that someone doesn't like you.'

  Craig's face darkened with fury. 'Someone like you, for instance?' Before Sullivan could respond, he added, 'Don't try to deny you're in Matheson's pocket. I won't believe you. But did you know this is the kind of thing he'll stoop to, or are you part of that as well?'

  'I'm part of nothing,' Sullivan growled. 'I dunno what the fuck you're talking about. You got any proof it was George that sent it?'

  A few passersby must have heard the aggression in his voice, for suddenly the space around them grew larger. Sullivan glanced round, concerned only that the uniforms were well out of earshot.

  'A journalist friend of mine was investigating the massacre,' Craig said. 'Now she's gone missing. I've come to London to find out what's happened to her.'

  Sullivan was mystified. This was something he knew nothing about. At the same time he realised Craig wouldn't yet know about Alice Jones.

  'Tell me her name. I'll see what I can find out.'

  Craig looked dubious, but gave him the details, and the name of the Met officer in charge of the case. He ended by saying, 'All that crap on Thursday about me being the second killer. This had better put an end to it.'

  Sullivan handed the envelope back. He grinned. 'You never really struck me as a mass murderer, shame to say.'

  'Good. And if it is Matheson who's behind this, you can tell him he won't get away with it. No one threatens my kids. No one.'

  'Hey,' Sullivan said. 'I know you're angry, but I won't say this again. I am not part of this. I'm as much in the dark as you are.'

  Craig stared at him, his eyes narrow with suspicion. Finally he sighed. 'Then God help both of us.'

  The phone call changed everything. The killer saw immediately how it could be exploited. This would fit perfectly into his plans.

  The net was closing. No point denying it, or pretending it wasn't happening. But that was okay. He was smarter than the people who were looking for him. Smarter and more devious and, most importantly, more ruthless. He was still one step ahead, and Alice Jones had just put him further in front.

  The existence of the second killer couldn't be disputed for much longer. Even without physical evidence, the combination of witness accounts and media pressure would soon convince the police to take it seriously. And once the killer's existence had been accepted, all that mattered then was his identity.

  What he had to do was give them someone else. Someone plausible. Someone with a clear, undeniable motive.

  Like greed, for instance.

  And viewed like that, there could be only one possible candidate.

  * * *

  Julia drove back to Lewes, haunted by the dream and the terrible sense of desolation as her body crumpled in the face of the tsunami. Alice's fate remained heavy on her conscience. The desire to share her burden created an almost physical ache, but the only possible candidate was Craig. And he was out of bounds.

  Back at the flat, she checked her phone. Someone had called twenty minutes before, but withheld the number. That only added to her despair.

  She ate a bar of chocolate and slumped on the sofa for an hour, watching some God-awful excuse for Saturday-morning TV. This is ridiculous, she thought at last. Sitting around all day would send her insane.

  On impulse, she decided some gentle exercise would do her good. She found her gym bag and packed a towel and a one-piece swimsuit. With the weight she'd lost, it probably wouldn't be a great fit, and some of her scars might be visible. Did she really want people staring at her?

  Then she thought, Sod it. She was past caring. Let them look.

  She was almost out of the door when the phone rang.

  George concluded his conversation with Kendrick, feeling like a starving man who'd crawled into a den of wolves in search of meat. But it was too late now. The deck was shuffled, the cards would fall as they landed.

  He returned to Vanessa's room. The nurse raised a finger to her mouth: Don't wake her. George gazed at his wife's pygmy form beneath the sheets. Even though it was barely an hour since he'd left her, she seemed yet more diminished, as if her intention was to depart the world via a process of miniaturisation, becoming smaller and smaller until finally she vanished altogether.

  He smiled at the thought. If only it were that benign.

  The nurse had unplugged the phone extension, so as not to disturb her. George didn't realise until he felt the buzz of his mobile. He read the display and felt his heart tighten.

  He listened, incredulously, to the first glimmer of positive news in what felt like a lifetime. 'You're sure?' he said. 'There's no doubt at all. She is waking?'

  Now the caller grew more sombre, more guarded. Adopting the same tone, George said, 'There's a long way to go, of course. But it's cause for hope, at least. Thank you. Thank you so much.'

  He finished the call and gave a start when Vanessa said, 'What's happened?'

  Her eyes were open, her brow creased with concern. It was only then he registered the tears on his cheeks. He brushed them away with his fists.

  'Nothing,' he lied. 'It's nothing.'

  Let it be Alice, Julia thought, or failing that, Craig: apologising for Nina's tirade.

  But it was a male voice, educated and polite with just a touch of the Estuary wide boy. A combination that Julia instinctively knew meant trouble.

  'Julia Trent? My name's Guy Fisher. I'm calling about Alice Jones.'

  'What's happened? Is she all right?'

  He sounded perplexed. 'Good as gold. Why?'

  'She called me this morning. It sounded like . . .' Now she felt ridiculous. 'I got the impression she might harm herself.'

  'No, she's safe and sound. Done herself a very nice deal with us.'

  Julia was frowning, relieved but confused, until it clicked. 'You're a journalist?'

  'Yeah, though I can't divulge which paper. All top secret at the moment. Can't have our rivals getting wind of it and beating us to print.'

  Now Alice's garbled conversation made sense: It's not quite what you suggested.

  'A tabloid, I suppose?'

  'One of the biggest and best,' Fisher shot back. She could hear the grin in his voice.

  'What has she told you?'

  'The works. It's explosive stuff.' He snorted. 'But I don't have to tell you that. Bloody scandalous, the police ignoring what you said about the other gunman. Thanks to their incompetence we've got a mass murderer still on the loose.'

  She opened her mouth to explain that it wasn't so simple, then stopped herself. That was precisely what he was angling for.

  'Don't worry,' he said. 'Alice is safe and sound with hubby and the kids, and we're gonna keep them that way till this guy is behind bars.' He sounded ridiculously proud about it. 'But this isn't just about her. You're a big part of the story. A much bigger part, to be honest. And that's where it gets a little tricky.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'This is a lot of money we're shelling out. You appreciate we have to make sure we're not being sold a pup. Part of the deal with Alice is that we talk to you, strictly off the record . . .' A hopeful pause. 'Unless you want to sign up as well?'

  'I'll pass on that for now,' she said. 'Go on.'

  'All right, off the record it is. We need to run through Alice's statement, make sure what she's given us is kosher. You're the only one who can corroborate it.'

  'And if I say no?'

  Fisher sucked air between his teeth. 'It could jeopardise the deal. I'm not saying it will.
But it does make round-the-clock protection a bit harder to authorise.'

  Bastard, she thought. Using Alice's safety to coerce her into helping.

  He added, 'Alice assured us you'd be willing to help. She said you were a really decent person. The fact you were worried about her proves that.'

  Julia sighed. 'What would I have to do?'

  'Just meet up and go through the statement. It'll take twenty minutes, half an hour at most. I'll bring a disclaimer, forbidding us to quote directly from you.' He hesitated. 'Unless you want to reconsider? I can give you the name of a good PR firm if you want to get some advice first.'

  'No,' said Julia firmly. 'I'll do this for Alice, but that's all.'

  'Fair enough. We're on a tight timeframe, though. Can we meet this evening?'

  'I suppose so.' And immediately thought: I don't want you in my flat.

  'You're in Lewes, aren't you?' he said. She could hear the tap of a keyboard. 'Is the Hamsey Arms any good?'

  'That's fine.'

  'Great. Probably the earliest I can get down there and still meet my deadline is seven o'clock. That okay?'

  She agreed reluctantly. 'How will I recognise you?'

  'Easy. I'm drop-dead gorgeous.' More laughter, all from him. 'Nah, I'll be the guy still working his butt off. You won't miss me.'

  She put the phone down in a temper. To think she'd worried herself sick about Alice committing suicide, and instead the woman had hawked her story to the gutter press. She snatched up her bag and slammed the door behind her.

  Sixty-Two

  Heading south, Vilner felt faintly queasy. This was his third visit to Chilton in four days, and potentially the most important one. He still wasn't sure if he was doing the right thing, but he'd weighed it up as best he could and decided it was worth a punt.

  He drove carefully, observing the speed limits and traffic signals. He couldn't risk getting pulled over with some of the gear he had on him. When Kendrick phoned him, he ignored it. He wanted to delay the conversation until after this was done. By then he'd know exactly what he was facing.

  The meeting might get unpleasant, so he had prepared carefully. For one thing, he was more than an hour early. He'd borrowed an anonymous two-year-old Volvo, which he parked in the village. He wore a dark grey suit and cashmere overcoat. The weather was turning, and there were only a handful of people around, mainly sightseers by the look of them. Vilner attracted barely a glance as he took a briefcase from the boot and crossed the road into Hurst Lane.

  The trees were straining in the wind, as though they wanted to be somewhere else. The sound was like a hundred human voices crying a lament. Leaves and twigs fell all around him, and he felt a brief nostalgic longing for the noise and smell of traffic, the buzz of the crowd.

  As he walked, he didn't think too much about what lay ahead. Instead he thought about the woman.

  Julia timed her swim about right. In the early afternoon the indoor pool was at its quietest, and she easily ignored a few prurient glances. She intended to be long gone by three o'clock, when an inflatable assault course was floated out on the water and hordes of local children materialised to play on it.

  In the course of a dozen unhurried laps her anger melted away and left her far more forgiving of Alice's decision. Unlike the police, a newspaper would have few qualms about providing protection on the basis of what might be spurious allegations. They appreciated the pure news value of the story, never mind its veracity.

  For a woman torn by an agonising separation from her family, it must have seemed like the perfect answer. And in a roundabout way it might achieve what Julia wanted: a renewed police investigation. The only thing that rankled was the way Alice had volunteered her assistance, although Julia suspected that was more the reporter's doing.

  The pool was part of a leisure centre, with large windows along two of the outside walls. Each time she rested, she gazed up at a slice of sky above the cliffs that overlooked the town. Now she watched a finger of grey cloud slowly gliding across the blue, like a bruise spreading on clear skin.

  She shivered. It was time to go.

  She dried off and dressed in a cold, poky cubicle that brought to mind her school days: damp clothes and teasing and towel snaps. As she walked out through the lobby, the automatic doors opened and a gust of wind buffeted her. The woman at the desk gasped. 'My goodness, it's blowing out there.'

  Julia nodded, glad she'd brought her car, but wishing she didn't have to go out again this evening.

  It took her only a couple of minutes to drive home, but longer to find a vacant parking space in the busy streets near the castle. As she got out of the car, the sun was finally extinguished by cloud and a whole different season seemed to take hold. No rain yet, but there was a vicious edge to the wind, something almost malicious as it whipped up from nowhere and subsided just as quickly. She hurried back to her flat, litter and dry leaves skittering in her wake. More than once she turned, convinced there was someone behind her.

  Her name was Louise, and she'd recently started work at a pub in Crouch End part-owned by Vilner. She was twenty-five, petite and pretty, with large liquid eyes and an alluring gap between her front teeth. From what he'd gathered, she had spent a few years travelling and working abroad, returning to the UK when a relationship ended.

  What impressed him was that she wasn't intimidated by him the way most people were. She looked him in the eye, and when he tried out a bit of sarcasm she came right back at him. They'd had one date so far, concluded with no more than a prim goodnight kiss, but he'd sensed a real chemistry between them. Tonight he was taking her to a favourite restaurant of his, out in Amersham, and then, with any luck, back to his place for a nightcap.

  That was later. First, there was this.

  The house looked cold, empty, abandoned. Vilner waited in the lane, hidden by trees, and watched for five long minutes. The wind swirled over the roof, rattling the tiles and keening round the chimney pots. A crushed can blew across the yard and snagged in the hedge. In one of the outbuildings a loose plank drummed against something metal. Lots of noise to distract and deter him, but at last he was satisfied.

  He made a full circuit of the building, examining the windows and doors, frequently pausing to listen. He knew the place was unoccupied, but there were curtains and blinds drawn everywhere, so he couldn't scope out the interior. The back door was just as solid as the front. It didn't give a fraction when he tried the handle.

  He returned to the front door. There were two locks: a straightforward cylinder at the top and a mortice deadlock below it. He opened the briefcase and took out an electric pick gun. In prison he'd learned the basics of lock picking, and over the years he'd developed his skills with a traditional set of hand tools, but once mastered the electric picks were much quicker and less obtrusive.

  Today his luck was in: the mortice hadn't been used. It took him less than a minute to overcome the cylinder, and the door sprang open. He lifted the briefcase over the threshold and shut the door behind him. A gust of wind boomed in the chimney breast. The roof timbers creaked like a ship in a storm.

  He could see the room to his left was empty, furrows in the carpet where furniture had once stood. He knelt to put the pick away, and take out his gun. Flipping the briefcase lid, he caught a flash of movement from the room to his right. Something coming in fast and heavy. No time to use the gun. All he could do was twist sideways and ride with the blow, but it wasn't enough.

  His last conscious thought was, Not lucky at all.

  There had been another recent call, number withheld, but no messages. Nothing from Craig.

  She fretted for more than an hour before finally deciding she had to warn him. Unwilling to risk another confrontation with Nina, she tried his mobile and got the answering service. She quickly composed a message.

  'Craig, it's Julia. I thought I should warn you, Alice Jones has sold her story. The journalist wants me to corroborate it, so I've agreed to a meeting this evening. I'll ring you whe
n I get back, probably around eight. If you get a chance, ring me and we can discuss how much I should reveal.' She swallowed, thinking: But we're not allowed to speak to each other.

  Less than a minute after she put the phone down, it rang again. Either Craig was responding to her message, or Nina had intercepted it and was about to scream at her.

  But it was neither. A woman with a cultured but slightly abrasive Scottish accent said, 'Am I speaking with Julia Trent?'

  'Yes.'

  'Julia, my name is Sheila Naughton. I believe you're aware there's a major new exclusive being prepared, and I wondered if you'd care to add your own comments to—'

  'No, thank you. I have nothing to say.'

  Julia put the receiver down and held it there, as if restraining a small animal. Within ten seconds it rang again. She lifted the receiver and cut the call. Another ten seconds and it rang again. She pulled the line plug from the socket.

  Clearly Guy Fisher had failed to keep the story under wraps.

  The onslaught had begun.

  Vilner was thirteen again, conning money from a nonce in a Gents near Sovereign Street. Too late he realised he'd been set up for an ambush. A second man stepped from a cubicle and shoved him off his feet. His head hit the grimy tiled floor and he passed out. When he came to he was lying face down in a puddle of stale piss, one of the men tugging on his jeans while the other knelt over him, stroking his cock and breathlessly explaining where he was going to put it.

  In a sudden frenzy Vilner kicked backwards and caught the first man in the face, then reared up and grabbed the other one by the balls, wrenching them as hard as he could. Slippery from the wet tiles, he wriggled through a flurry of blows and managed to get away. Bursting into the twilight of a winter afternoon, he sprinted towards the safety of the Christmas shopping crowds on Briggate, and the intoxicating blend of terror and elation felt just as vivid upon recollection a quarter of a century later as it had at the time. For a moment he was truly superhuman, capable of anything.

  Then he opened his eyes and saw he wasn't in Leeds. He wasn't thirteen any more. And he wasn't about to fight his way to freedom.