Beyond Evil

by Neil White

  ‘But how can I truly commit if I don’t fully understand?’

  Henry stared for a few seconds, and John was aware that the others around him had gone quiet. He licked his lips, but then Henry smiled.

  ‘What do you think about our country now?’ Henry said, his voice low, so that everyone leaned in to hear. ‘I’ll tell you; it’s gone sour and forgotten how to look after its young people. You remember the riots last year. There’s your answer. They have tried to pass it off as just kids pinching trainers, but it wasn’t that. They are called feral and sent to prison just for getting the things that they need. They were so desperate that they scrambled through broken glass, just to get shoes for their feet. Look around the room.’

  John did so.

  ‘We were all there, John, in the middle in Manchester, and we felt the mood. People are angry, because all they see is greed. That’s why we have rejected society. But the people in power are scared, because all movements start small, but some are unstoppable. People are joining together, and the authorities know that, and so they are watching, because they are scared of a repeat. It won’t be the same this time though, because you can’t repeat spontaneity, it doesn’t work, and so they know this time it will be planned. They are looking at us now, I know that, but we are smarter than before.’

  ‘So what do we do?’

  ‘We bring everything forward and move now. They will try and crush us if we give them the chance, but they can’t, because we have made promises to ourselves, and so all of this will be soon worthwhile. The sacrifices, the pledges.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘You are still tied to your old life. You can’t just live here and pretend that is enough. You need to do more.’

  ‘So what do I have to do?’

  ‘Cast everything off that you once had,’ Henry said.

  John looked at the other women sat with Henry, and he saw that they were listening intently, their lips pressed together in tight smiles. Two of the women were holding hands.

  Henry leaned forward, and his voice turned into a whisper.

  ‘Just trust me, and follow me,’ he said. ‘Feel it, in here, like I do,’ and he banged his chest with his hand.

  ‘I do, Henry, I do. Tell me what to do.’

  ‘First, you sever your ties, because if you leave the link to your old life, you are accepting their will. If you have family, you don’t see them anymore. If you have money or property, you hand it over to us, for the good of this group, so that we can use it to do more.’

  ‘I understand, Henry,’ John said, nodding.

  ‘Don’t be afraid, John. Stare down your fear, look into its face, and you will no longer fear it. That is freedom.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘Just do as I ask, because whatever I ask, it is for the good of the group and the cause.’ Henry pointed around the room, towards Gemma and Lucy, who were huddled in a corner, talking earnestly. At the Elams, Jennifer rocking herself, her arms clasped around her knees, her eyes vacant, and Peter next to her, staring into his cup of home brew. ‘I worry that someone in here will betray us, because some are not strong – but I trust you, John, I don’t know why.’ Then he waved it away. ‘But tonight is for a party.’

  John nodded, his head heavy again, and sat down on a cushion on the floor. He heard Henry click his fingers, and then Gemma appeared in front of him. She was holding the spliff, and she straddled John and took a long pull, tiny sparks flying in the air in front of her. Then she leaned forward so that her face was in front of his. He knew what to do. She started to blow smoke out slowly, and so he sucked it in hard, felt it burn the back of his throat. His world started to spin, and as he flopped back onto the cushions, he started to laugh, uninhibited, gleeful. He felt Gemma fall onto him, her lips on his cheeks, her hair over him, her fingers entangled in his. And the room started to fade as she drew him in, and he knew that he was home, his entire body consumed by happiness. She kissed him, and he responded, and it didn’t matter that other people were there, because it felt right.

  As his hands started to lift Gemma’s dress, Henry let out a slow growl.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Charlie thought he heard a noise.

  Like always, he thought it was in a dream. Movement around him, whispers, just shadows creeping around. He saw a man with a pale face and long dark hair. He was laughing.

  Charlie’s eyes flew open. Something wasn’t right. His bed felt hard, and as he looked around he could see shadows. The black plastic wheel of a chair, the strong wooden leg of a desk. The curtains weren’t closed. Then reality started to filter through. He had slept at the office. The curtains weren’t closed because there weren’t any. Just blinds.

  He checked his watch, eight thirty, and groaned. He put his hand to his forehead. It wasn’t the first time he had done this.

  He moved to try and get up, but he had to pause as the room seemed to spin and lurch. His mouth was dry and his hair felt wild. He got to his feet gingerly and then tottered for a few seconds before pulling on the cord for the Venetian blinds. Charlie shielded his eyes as the sun streamed in. The sun rose behind the office, but it was bounced off the windows opposite, so that looking out was like staring at brickwork decorated by squares of sheet metal.

  The noise he had heard was just the sound of the day starting up. A takeaway wrapper tumbled down the road and there was the warning beep of a street cleaner, the brushes scraping on the pavement and leaving behind a damp trail.

  He shut the blinds again. Daytime could wait. He looked down at the floor. His jacket was there, crumpled from where he had been sleeping on it. He knew he had a tough day ahead now.

  Then he saw it.

  There was a knife next to the jacket. It was steel-handled, like it was from a kitchen set. It was distinctive though, with a twist at the end of the handle. He bent down, curious, knowing that he had never seen it before. Then he noticed something else. A stain on the knife. He thought perhaps it was a trick of the light, and so he got closer, just to make sure. The blade was wide, like a carving knife, and it looked new and sharp, except that there were reddish-brown streaks all along it.

  Charlie reached down to pick it up, curious. There were more of the stains on the handle, and it was sticky to the touch. Then he saw something on his hand, some red stains on his palm. As he looked at it, the room seemed to sway.

  It was blood, he knew it straight away. He had seen enough crime scene exhibits to know what he was looking at.

  He closed his eyes. Was he imagining it, some drunken remains of the night before? He expected to open his eyes and find an empty floor. Except when he did that, the knife was still there, and the blood was still on his hands.

  Panic surged through him. He looked at his clothes. There were smudges on his shirt, probably from his hands, but whose blood was it? What had he done? He checked his own body for cuts, his best hope being that he had hit some drunken low and tried to harm himself, knowing he wouldn’t do that, because even in his lowest moments, he knew there was always a better day ahead. His hand was grazed, the skin red and exposed.

  He looked towards the window again, just to focus on something different, to clear his mind. How did he get here? He couldn’t remember leaving The Old Star. He had a drink with Ted Kenyon, and then another one after that. Were there more? As he looked towards the window, he saw that the cord for the blinds was now stained with the blood from his hand.

  Charlie was fully awake now, adrenaline chasing away the hangover. He rushed out of his room and into reception, where Linda spent her days. Had someone been into the office? He looked down the stairs, towards the door that came from the street, a wooden panel door with a glass porthole. It was locked. He could see the latch. No one had broken in and placed the knife there.

  He went back into his room, unsure what to do. He had to think rationally. What could it mean? Had he found it and brought it with him, out of some kind of drunken curiosity? But why would he do that? He�
��d never done anything like that before. Was it a discarded butcher’s knife? Could it be animal blood, something left out by the kebab shop downstairs?

  Then he thought about Julie and her message the day before. Had he called her? Worse still, had he gone round? Oh fuck, what had happened?

  He checked his watch again. He couldn’t hang around, Amelia liked early starts, but what should he do with the knife? Discard it? Except being caught throwing it away would almost be as bad as being caught with it. No, he had to conceal it somewhere until he could work out what was behind it all.

  Cleaning it was the first job though.

  He rushed into the kitchen, nothing more than a small space with a couple of cupboards, a small fridge and a kettle. There was a sink, and so he ran it under a tap, the water turning pink as it swirled into the sink. Once the water ran clear, he dried it on a towel and then looked around for a bag to carry it in. He would wash the towel too, just to get rid of any traces, but before he bagged it up, he wet it to rub against the blood on his shirt. It made the stain a little paler but didn’t remove it.

  He bundled the knife and towel into a plastic bag he found under the sink and then fastened his jacket to conceal the stain. He checked his reflection in the chrome of the kettle. His eyes looked wild and scared, and that’s how he felt, his heart drumming fast against his ribcage. His jacket was dishevelled. He ran his hands down it to straighten it out, and he even tried out a smile, but it looked forced.

  Then he noticed a red mark on his face, over his cheekbone. He touched it and then he winced. It was another graze. When he brought his fingers down, there was more blood on them. This wasn’t good, he knew that.

  There was a noise coming from the bottom of the stairs. It was the sound of a key in the lock. Amelia or Linda coming into work.

  Charlie froze, unsure how to react. He listened as the door pushed against the post on the mat and then watched as the sliver of light that came in through the doorway expanded, before Linda’s familiar silhouette came into view.

  When she got to the top of the stairs, she jolted and put her hand to her chest.

  ‘Oh, you surprised me,’ she said, laughing to herself. ‘You’re here early, Charlie.’

  He put the bag containing the knife into his jacket and then shrugged, unsure how to respond at first. ‘I came to get the court files. I’ll go home first. You’re early too.’

  ‘I know, but I’ve got some post to get out today. It was supposed to go out yesterday, but you know how it was, with the burglary.’

  As Linda walked to her desk, she wrinkled her nose and frowned. She looked at Charlie suspiciously, and he realised why she was doing that. Charlie could taste the booze on his breath, and he guessed that the office smelled like a wino had been dossing down in there. Which, of course, was true.

  She went to her desk and handed him three thin files. He took them from her and was about to go down the stairs, when he stopped.

  ‘I was looking for a sharp knife before, but I couldn’t find one,’ he said. ‘I thought we had a carving knife in the kitchen.’

  Linda shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. Why did you need a knife like that?’

  ‘I just did. I’m sorry. I thought we had one.’

  ‘What’s happened to your face? Your cheek. It’s grazed.’

  ‘I tripped,’ he said, and then turned away, walking quickly down the stairs, not wanting the same discussion with Amelia, who was due into the office at any time.

  Charlie grimaced and shielded his eyes as he went onto the street. Someone shouted his name. He looked over. It was one of his clients waving at him.

  He turned away. He wasn’t in the mood to be pleasant. The plastic bag with the towel and the knife was clasped tightly against his chest, and so he put his head down and walked as quickly as he could.

  He needed to work out what had happened.

  Chapter Twenty

  Sheldon stared out of his windscreen at the brick wall of the police station. The skin underneath his eyes felt sore. He looked into the mirror and saw dark rings. It was late, almost nine o’clock, and he was angry with himself. He had wanted to be the first one in, but images of Alice Kenyon had taunted him as he tried to sleep, of the swirl of her hair in the water, and the post mortem photographs he had copied, kept securely in a metal box that he hid under the bed, fastened shut with a combination lock. He had looked through them again, once more hoping to find that elusive answer. He had turned in his bed for hours and then drifted off as the first licks of daylight painted his room soft blue.

  He remembered reaching out to the empty side of the bed when he finally stirred, as he did most mornings. His wife had left him six months earlier, because she hadn’t understood about Alice. Neither had Hannah, his daughter. Like Alice had been, she was at university, but they didn’t speak anymore. His family didn’t understand that it wasn’t just Alice. It was all of them. The victims. The forgotten ones.

  He climbed out of his car, feet crunching on loose stones on the tarmac. There was a police officer standing by a patrol car. He seemed to be looking over but pretending not to be. Sheldon tugged on his cuffs and headed for the entrance.

  The corridor was quiet as he got inside, although he heard low rumbles of conversation as he got closer to the Incident Room. The talking stopped when he walked in and everyone looked round. It was the detective sergeant, Tracey Peters, surrounded by a small group of detectives.

  Sheldon smiled, but it felt strained. ‘Good morning. Nice to see you keen.’

  There were some mumbled greetings but nothing more than that.

  There was a newspaper on one of the desks. It was open at the Billy Privett story, a picture of Alice Kenyon prominent, Jim Kelly’s by-line at the top. Sheldon turned away. He didn’t want to know what the press were saying.

  ‘Anything come in overnight?’ he said.

  It was Tracey who spoke. ‘We did the calls to the neighbours last night, like you said, and guess what; someone went out in Ted Kenyon’s car the night Billy was killed. He remembered because it was late, past eleven o’clock.’

  ‘So Ted lied about staying in?’

  Tracey nodded. ‘Is it enough to bring him in on?’

  Sheldon thought about that for a moment, and then shook his head. ‘We need more than that, and if news gets out that we’ve arrested him, people will think the case is closed and stop calling with information. But I want to know why he didn’t tell us the truth.’

  He turned towards the board at the front and looked at Billy’s body, the face missing, so that he looked anonymous, and the very essence of him taken away at the point he died. It wasn’t how Sheldon remembered him. The Billy Privett he knew was bullish, had a swagger, the knowledge that Sheldon couldn’t touch him. The Billy in the pictures was different to that. He was a victim. Helpless.

  Sheldon started to feel some pity, but he shook that away when he thought of Alice Kenyon. He remembered how limp her body had been as he’d pulled her out of the water, so that she flopped onto the wet tiles like a caught fish. Sheldon had seen the bruises straight away. Blue marks around her neck where strong hands had held her under the water, and there were bruises around her wrist, as if she had been held down before she was drowned. And there were marks on her thighs, and between her thighs. There were some cuts on her stomach, small slashes.

  It was the face that he remembered though. Alice had been a beautiful young woman. Young, with high cheekbones and smooth bright skin, and red hair that seemed to swirl over her face in the pictures he saw. When she was dragged out of the water, it was lank and wet, draped across her cheeks.

  Then there had been Billy’s behaviour after she had been found. He’d refused to answer questions, and so was brought in to get his side of the story, but he had stayed silent. He’d seemed frightened at first, but once he was in the station, familiar territory, he acquired an arrogant smirk as he sat across from Sheldon, his arms folded. He looked to his lawyer, Amelia Diaz, every time a
question was asked. She gave the same response each time; a small shake of the head, and then he would repeat, ‘No comment.’

  Sheldon had tried to speak to Amelia after the second interview, when he knew that he would have to watch Billy walk out, but she hadn’t been interested. ‘Just doing my job,’ was all she’d said.

  So he’d kept watch, waiting for Billy to slip up, to meet up with the others who’d been there. But what had he found out? Only that there had been a party. Just another raucous night, except that by the time Sheldon and the young cadet arrived, the house was deserted. Even Billy was gone.

  The blood had been a mystery. A pool of it had been congealing in one of the party rooms, with spray on the walls. They never did find out whose blood it was. It wasn’t Alice’s. It wasn’t Billy’s. It wasn’t on the DNA database. But it had been spilled that night and so was part of the story. Had someone else died?

  He heard someone behind him. It was Duncan Lowther.

  ‘Sir, about Christina.’

  Sheldon nodded. He remembered her. Billy’s housekeeper. ‘What about her?’

  ‘She’s gone.’

  Sheldon turned from Billy’s death pictures, confused. ‘What do you mean, gone?’

  ‘Just that. I went up to the house last night, after you’d gone, just for a welfare check, and to see whether she remembered anything else. She was gone, no trace of her. Her clothes. Toiletries. No sign she had ever been there.’

  ‘She might have gone home, wherever that is. She’d just been made jobless. There was no point in hanging around.’

  ‘I checked that,’ Duncan said. ‘The address she gave us doesn’t exist. There’s a street, but not that number. We checked with the DVLA. No one of that name holds a driving licence around here.’

  Sheldon closed his eyes. He felt the tension build again.

  ‘So we need to find her,’ Sheldon said quietly.

  ‘We’re trying,’ Lowther said. ‘We could release her picture. She’ll be on the CCTV in the station.’