Loose Tongues

by Chris Simms

  ‘Sean! What are you doing? Sean?’

  ‘I’m going.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Her voice carried after him as he started up the stairs.

  ‘Sean, where are you going?’

  ‘Should have done this years ago.’

  He knew that she’d come up the stairs. That she’d use every single thing she could to dissuade him. Including, if necessary, her disability. Or was it, he wondered, really his? To live an independent life. She might be physically incapable. What was his excuse?

  He’d rammed enough clothes into a holdall by the time he heard her at the bottom of the stairs. He didn’t want to set eyes on her. As soon as her mouth opened, he’d be tempted to punch it. And for the first time in his life, he didn’t know if he’d want to stop himself.

  By the time the whirr of the stair lift started, he had put some music on a low setting and slipped quietly out of his room, leaving the door almost closed.

  He stood in the spare bedroom. The one they used as a storage area. His sleeping bag, like a giant stubby sausage. The silver roll mat next to it. A black pull-up bar he hadn’t used in months. Lying across a cardboard box was the tweed coat she’d bought on impulse. As he waited, he fiddled with one of its giant tortoiseshell buttons. Eventually, he saw her through the crack in the door. She looked panicked and a bit ill as she shuffled along the corridor toward his room.

  ‘Sean? Can we please talk? This is silly. Can I come in?’

  His bed was positioned behind the door; she would only see he wasn’t lying on it when she had fully entered the room.

  He heard her tentative knock.

  ‘Sean?’

  As soon as he heard the hinge creak, he stepped onto the landing and silently descended the stairs.

  FORTY-TWO

  ‘No, I fully agree. As does Sascha. We just spoke. It’s ridiculous, well – actually – it’s so arrogant of him. I know! Doesn’t even realize he’s doing it. Never. Not with a male colleague. But us? Every single time. OK, honey. Not tomorrow. I’ve got the day off, remember? The tram’s stopping, hang on.’

  He trailed her onto the platform, hanging back as she transferred her handbag to her other shoulder.

  ‘Where were we? Oh yes. A lie-in? I wish! I’ll get up at eight thirty: I have a class for nine forty. Pilates. It’s a new studio, just round the corner. Introductory offer. Aah, thanks, sweetie. You too. We will. Definitely. You take care and let’s talk later in the week. Bye!’

  They had walked down the platform ramp and onto the pavement as she tucked the phone back in her pocket. He immediately crossed to the other side of the street; experience had shown him that, when a call ended, awareness of surroundings increased. And people were definitely getting more nervous. Women, especially. If she glanced over her shoulder now, he’d be sufficiently far away so as not to be a worry. With each clock of her shoes on the pavement, a tremor went through her blonde ponytail.

  This was a problem: to stay behind her meant moving from a casual stroll to something that resembled a pursuit. She’d soon realize all wasn’t as it should be.

  On the tram, her conversation had been so obnoxious. The male colleague they were plotting against had been scathingly described. Even mocked. His coffee breath. His poorly trimmed eyebrows and chewed nails. It was her derisive tone that made him decide she would be the one to die. Up until that point, he’d been more tempted by an obese woman loudly complaining about the shit service she’d just received in a restaurant.

  The rhythm of the woman’s footsteps altered. She was slowing down. He looked across the road. Is this it? A shoulder-high brick wall ran along the front of the property. There was a thick metal gate set into it. He scanned for any CCTV, saw none. Perfect. Back on the tram, she’d received a call from someone called Clive. It was raining in Boston. She missed him. Being alone in their place wasn’t her idea of fun. His return at the weekend seemed like a lifetime away.

  He was making a mental note of her house number when he realized she wasn’t actually stopping. Just retrieving a set of keys from her pocket. The next property was as large as its neighbours, but it had an open area at the front for parking.

  He checked the houses directly behind him. The view across was uninterrupted. That was bad, as was the fact there were three cars on the drive of the property she was approaching. Worse was what he could see in the two spaces that lacked a vehicle: white numbers painted on the tarmac. That meant the house had been divided into flats. He slowed to a stop.

  Disaster.

  Once she’d let herself through the front door, he crossed over. There was a camera directly above the front entrance. He kept his face averted as he strode up the drive. He didn’t know her name. Beside the front door was an intercom. The neat labels beside each buzzer all spelled the same thing: failure.

  Flat 1 – C. Reynard

  Flat 2 – J. Cartwright

  Flat 3 – B. MacArthur

  Flat 4 – C. Sheldon

  Flat 5 – J. Baxter

  He squeezed his eyes shut and moaned. This didn’t make sense. Why wasn’t his project working? What was causing it to go so wrong? The pressure in his head was building. Like his brain was swelling and the plates of his skull were about to come apart. He dropped into a squatting position, pressed the heels of his hands against his temples and started to rock backwards and forwards on the balls of his feet. Why? Why? Why?

  ‘Excuse me, are you OK?’

  He hadn’t heard the front door open. His eyes opened on a pair of white trainers and smooth shins.

  ‘Are you … do you need help? An ambulance?’

  He stood up too quickly and the world faded from view. A hollow crashing sound. His sight surged back: he’d staggered into a row of wheelie bins.

  ‘Oh! Here, let me—’

  Small hands gripped his upper arms. Twisting away, he swung an elbow at the voice. A bony impact jarred his arm. The woman who fell backwards on the front steps was wearing an orange T-shirt and grey leggings that ended just below her knees. Her head cracked against solid stone. It was like someone had opened a valve in the woman’s nose: blood poured from both nostrils.

  He saw that her hair was brown and curly. It wasn’t the one from the tram, but it was still a woman. Without thinking, he leaped forward and swung a foot into her side. The impact jackknifed her body and she flipped over. A string of blood flew out, necklacing the cold stone by her cheek. He stepped over her and used his forearm to smash her raised hand aside.

  The fingers of both hands sank into the soft mass of her curls. The step’s stone lip jutted out a couple of inches. Clenching her hair in each fist, he had started to raise her head up when a man shouted out somewhere above him.

  ‘Leave her! Hey! I said leave her!’

  An open window? He didn’t dare look. Releasing his grip, he whirled round and fled down the drive.

  When he got home, he headed straight for the garage. His keys jangled as he unlocked the side door. Once inside, he stood perfectly still, soaking up the silence, breathing in the still air. After a minute, he felt able to turn on the lights.

  A hum went through the plastic casings and the bulbs inside flickered and plinked before settling into steady brightness.

  He took a moment to regard his collection. Puckered lumps hanging in honey-coloured liquid. The sight of them made him feel better.

  From beneath his workbench, he slid out a high stool. He so rarely sat on it. Set against the wall was a rack of little drawers. Fuses, switches, resistors, transistors, diodes, crystals. He thought he’d established why his plan had ceased to work. Rather than simply accepting what destiny chose to present him with, he’d acted on his own, rashly attempting to silence Katherine Harpham. Evidently, that theory was wrong.

  So where did the fault lie?

  He reached across to the coat hanger bent into the shape of a hand and traced a finger up its wrist then along to the little finger. He hooked the end part of his own little fing
er into it.

  Let me deduce what’s going wrong and I’ll work so hard. Promise.

  When a circuit board failed, the reason usually fell into one of two categories. Manufacture problems included errors like misreading the schematic, mislabelling a component or installing it incorrectly. Poor soldering also resulted in failure. He found it inconceivable that he was responsible for the problem.

  That left environmental problems. Exposure to variables such as moisture, heat or dirt. Factors that degraded or corroded.

  He considered recent developments. The police had started to find the women he’d killed. They were asking for information on the television. Sharing images of the victims. All factors he had planned for. Stresses the circuit was built to withstand.

  What else?

  The police had made an appeal. They’d shown the face of a man they urgently wished to question. A man they said was known as Dutch Pete. He lifted his hand and ran a finger slowly along the coat hanger’s cool wire.

  How had they decided that man was the one who had to be found?

  He slid off the stool and hurried out of the garage, locking it behind him. After he’d let himself into the house, he made straight for the television. Excitement was shallowing his breath. He had an idea.

  Once he’d positioned his laptop alongside the television, he switched both devices on. Using the TV’s remote, he went into the recording he’d made of the police appeal earlier that day. When footage reached the victim’s photos, he pressed pause.

  Next, he opened the laptop’s browser and typed in ‘suspect’s photo Manchester killings’. The Daily Mail’s report topped the list of results. He scrolled down to the still of the suspect’s face.

  He pressed play on the TV remote. The photo of Pamela Flood stayed on the screen for a few more seconds. He could remember her; she’d been on the bus he sometimes caught outside the college. The 63. Not as good as the 148, but it ran far more frequently. Her image was replaced by a photo of the second victim, Francesca Pinto. She’d been on the free shuttle bus, number three, which ran a purple route around the city centre. She’d boarded at Deansgate, outside the big Waterstones. The third victim came up. Julie Roe. He remembered this one most fondly. The foul-mouthed harridan.

  He paused the footage and stared at her face. Yes, this one felt right. He shuffled closer to the screen, close enough so her face began to break into pixels. Close enough to see his breath temporarily dull the glass surface. He continued to stare and, slowly, it came to him.

  Where he’d seen Dutch Pete was on the same bus.

  The man the police were now looking for had asked the woman called Julie Roe to lower her voice. In a very reasonable manner, too. But her response had been the opposite. In fact, she’d subjected him to a whole barrage of disrespectful language.

  He crawled back from the screen and thought about the bus journey. Which other variables were present on it? A few school-aged children on the back row of seats. And a woman – rather overweight – in some kind of mobility scooter at the front. When he’d originally got on, she’d pressed a form into his hand.

  It was her, he realized. She’d called the police. He could remember her head tilting as she listened to every word of the argument.

  He got up and walked over to the dresser. There was the form she’d handed him. He sighed with relief and smiled. He now knew the cause of the problem. Her. She was the dirt in the system. The disruptive element ruining his project. Remove her and everything would start flowing smoothly again.

  He studied the form more carefully. Customer Satisfaction Survey, Transport For Greater Manchester. So that’s who she worked for.

  FORTY-THREE

  Janet sat at the kitchen table and stared glumly at the walkie-talkies. It was their utter silence that announced most loudly to her that he’d gone. He’d really gone.

  When she’d woken up, part of her had hoped that – somehow – he’d returned so quietly in the night she hadn’t heard him. But his bedroom door was wide open when she emerged from her room.

  She didn’t need to look inside to know his bed was empty. She could sense it and the knowledge made her feel sick.

  There were two eggs beside the frying pan and a pot of tea was cooling on the table. It was almost eight o’clock. He must have eaten breakfast somewhere else by now. He’d be at work, or travelling in. She hoped he’d been able to go in. To face his colleagues knowing that they all knew. How the hell had it got out? Who had Tony mentioned it to? Maybe it was DCI Ransford. Yes, it was probably DCI Ransford. Who wouldn’t resent being told who to recruit? She’d been so stupid. Sean would have been allocated a detective’s position, eventually. He didn’t need her interference.

  She wasn’t sure if it would ever be the same again. Something in him had changed. And it had changed because – this time – she’d really hurt him. He’d been close to crying and she’d never seen him like that before. Not since he was little. The memory made her eyes sting.

  She bowed her head as a long shuddering sob fought its way up into her mouth. She dragged in a lungful of air, fighting to regain control. Using the backs of her fingers, she wiped at her lower eyelids. She wondered briefly if she might throw up.

  The terrible lack of sound pressed down on her. She deliberately let her chair scrape across the tiles, relieved to shatter the silence, if only for a moment. Gripping her walking frame, she slowly made her way into the telly room and gathered up the sheets she’d promised to shred. It was the least she could do.

  The machine was in the alcove beneath the stairs, computer on an L shaped desk next to it. As she fed the paper in, she pondered the latest developments in the case. The search was on for the person known as Dutch Pete. Officers would be handing out leaflets, speaking to anyone with knowledge of the comings and goings in their neighbourhood.

  She thought back to when Cahill had been caught. Sitting in a McDonald’s. Criminals, as she’d said to Sean, weren’t generally the brightest bunch. Was anyone checking the bus route she’d seen him on? Because, if he was still in the area, that could be a good place to spot him.

  All the man had to do was dye his hair, turn his collar up and keep his head down. People didn’t make a habit of checking their fellow passengers. Eye contact was minimal. Non-existent when people could focus on a screen instead.

  She closed her eyes and turned the thought over in her mind. Are you just clutching at straws here? No, she told herself. The chances were slim, but not non-existent. And certainly as good as any other avenues that were being pursued.

  She let herself imagine catching sight of him. If that should happen, all she’d need do was call Sean. He could be there in minutes and appear to make the sighting himself. Then it would be his collar! And everyone – all the cynical bastards making his life a misery – would have to drop their sneers. They’d have to start showing him the respect he deserved.

  Even better, though she hardly dared admit it, it might – just might – prompt him to forgive her. Things could go back to how they were.

  After falling in the bath, her doctor had signed her off work until the following week. As an employee of Transport For Greater Manchester, she had a pass granting her unlimited travel. She also had a stack of customer survey forms in her bag. She nodded: That’s what I’ll do. I’ll do my best to put things right. The queasy feeling in her stomach shrank slightly. I’ll travel that route all day, every day, if necessary. And I’ll scan the face of every man who gets on until I find him.

  Gravel crunched under Katherine Harpham’s feet as she hurried towards her Fiat. Balanced in her arms were three box files. The paperwork involved in being the principal of an academy! She’d worked on the feasibility study of the Health and Beauty students moving to a new purpose-built salon in the corner of the college grounds late into the evening.

  The central locking pipped and she lifted the boot door to place the three files inside. As was often the case in the morning, the feeling that she’d forgotten somethi
ng nibbled away at the back of her mind. Mobile phone. Handbag. She didn’t need a brolly; the weather forecast was light cloud with sunny spells. Why, then, the feeling there was something she’d missed?

  She started the engine and the radio came on. More about the on-going investigation into the spate of murders in Manchester. There was now one man in custody, and another they urgently wanted to locate. She stared at her cottage for a second. As she put the car into reverse, realization struck: the package! That’s why the mention of police had made her pause. It was still on the kitchen floor. She cursed herself for coming so close to forgetting it, again.

  FORTY-FOUR

  The Transport For Greater Manchester office was in Piccadilly Gardens. It wasn’t an area he found pleasant, not since the ugly grey wall had been erected. The thing acted as a barrier – visual and auditory – to the ranks of bus stops on the far side. But ragtag groupings of young men were always loitering at its base. What were they doing there the whole time? Nothing good, judging by their demeanour.

  It didn’t matter, though. The tram platform for Piccadilly Gardens faced the office’s main door. The row of plastic seats beneath a rigid canopy meant he could just sit there and watch the entrance to the office without anyone giving him a second glance.

  He checked his watch. Eight seventeen. That was good: he couldn’t imagine her arriving for work earlier than nine. The intercom above his head let out a short crackle before a voice spoke. Next tram was an Altrincham service. Passengers wishing to travel to Eccles, MediaCity or East Didsbury should alight at Cornbrook.

  Altrincham, he thought. That would be a good route to go searching on. There was a railway station out at Altrincham. If he found no one on the tram, he could hop on a train back to the city centre. Twenty minutes later, he’d be at Piccadilly. Once there, all he had to do was head down the escalators to the tram platform and he could repeat the journey.

  He had to stop his mind from wandering. First, he needed to find the woman. Trail her home and silence her. Once he’d done that, his project could work again. Normal service, resumed.