DYING EMBERS an unputdownable psychological thriller full of breathtaking twists

by MARGARET MURPHY

  ‘What was it, Barry?’ she demanded, breathing heavily from the exertion and the fury she felt against Mandel. ‘What did you give him?’

  Baz stopped talking. He glanced briefly at the floor, then turned to look at Geri.

  No, she thought, having difficulty controlling her rising anger. You don’t do that to me. You don’t try intimidating me with your dead-eyed stare.

  ‘I asked you a question,’ she said, holding his gaze.

  ‘I’ve forgotten what you said.’

  ‘What did you give him?’ Geri repeated, louder this time, enunciating every word.

  ‘Give who?’

  ‘Jay Davies.’ The fleeting alarm she saw on his face was quickly extinguished, and he shrugged, relaxing against the window ledge.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re on about.’

  ‘He’s in a state of collapse because of you.’

  ‘Because of me? You’re sure about that, are you?’ He made no attempt to hide his contempt for her. Geri subdued an impulse to take him by the lapels and shake him; she needed to know what Jay had taken.

  ‘He won’t tell us what he’s taken, Barry.’ She heard the plea in her voice, and knew that Barry would, too. Sod it, as long as she found out what poison he had fed Jay, she didn’t care.

  ‘I’d ring for an ambulance if I were you.’

  You cold-hearted bastard! She tried again. ‘He’s on his way to hospital—’

  ‘Best place for him, if he’s feeling poorly.’

  It was the smirk that did it. Jay might be dying, and he was prepared to make a joke of it, seeing how far he could push her.

  ‘I’d like a word with you, outside,’ she said, barely able to get the words past the rage that swelled inside her like a bubble in her chest. She was afraid it would burst, and she would not be responsible for her actions.

  Baz looked like he was thinking about it.

  ‘Now,’ she added quietly.

  Barry raised his eyebrows, inviting the others to share his astonishment, but nobody would meet his eye. Someone turned down the stereo and the techno-beat became no more than a tinny background rhythm. No one spoke.

  Geri felt her cheeks flush at Barry’s unspoken challenge to her authority. She didn’t wait to see if he was following: she knew he would take his time. She stood outside the door, trying to get herself under control. The shaking was worse. She had time for two deep breaths before he appeared.

  ‘Well?’ she said. ‘You can tell me now. You don’t have to play the part in front of your mates.’

  ‘Tell you what?’ He was calm, and if he resented being hauled out in front of the others, he didn’t let it show.

  ‘Don’t mess me about. I know you’re supplying.’

  ‘You’re talking to the wrong guy.’

  The lie was so blatant she lost her temper and grabbed his coat by the lapels, flinging it open and groping for the pockets.

  ‘Hey!’ he shouted, his voice rising an octave. ‘What the fuck?’

  They struggled momentarily, then Coral appeared at the head of the stairs.

  ‘Miss Simpson!’ she boomed. Geri let go of Baz, and he straightened his coat. ‘The registration bell has gone,’ Coral said.

  Geri stared at Baz, breathing hard, torn between a strong impulse to beat the shit out of him and an almost stronger urge to cry.

  ‘I could have you done for assault.’ It was said in a low growl — a threat — more evidence of Baz’s coercive powers.

  ‘I want him searched,’ Geri said, turning at last to look at Coral. Alan Morgan was with her; Geri had avoided him since his outburst about Ryan. She couldn’t look at him without wanting to take up where they had left off, to tell him that his view of the world was jaundiced, hard-hearted and cruel. He had not attended the memorial service on Monday — he had let it be known that he felt Christians should not endorse sinful acts by commemorating the sinner. She knew he was enjoying seeing her like this, and she knew that he would use this incident to remind her that everyone succumbed to his brand of realism sooner or later.

  ‘It’s best you go now,’ Coral said, not unkindly. ‘Mr Morgan and I will deal with this.’

  Geri hesitated. Baz was getting away with it again. He would oil his way out of this situation like he did every other. She looked back at him. He was ruffled but defiant. He knew he was free and clear.

  ‘You’re the lowest form of pond life, Barry,’ she said. ‘You deal in death and you’ve no conscience about the people you hurt.’

  Baz looked past her at Coral Jackson, and something made him drop his gaze. If he hadn’t, Geri would have floored him, one way or another, and to hell with the consequences.

  * * *

  ‘How was Jay when he arrived for detention?’ Coral asked.

  ‘Truculent, but he seemed okay.’

  Coral had sent for her after registration, and they were talking in the pastoral tutor’s office, Geri standing, Coral seated at the far side of her desk.

  ‘Any news? Geri asked. Her nerves were still tingling an hour after her confrontation with Baz. She experienced alternating waves of hot outrage at his response to her questions and cold dread at the possible consequences of her actions.

  ‘He’s adamant he hasn’t taken anything. Mrs Golding will stay at the hospital until they’re certain he’s out of danger. You’re sure he didn’t take anything while he was with you?’

  ‘Do me a favour, Coral!’

  ‘All right. I had to ask.’

  ‘He was late. I had to send for him. He had plenty of time to pop any pills he wanted to before he got to me.’

  ‘All right. Nobody’s accusing you.’

  ‘Really?’ Geri was beginning to feel more than a little beleaguered: first Mrs Connelly; then the scuffle after the memorial service; now this — and Barry’s threat to prosecute for assault didn’t make her feel any more secure.

  It was evident Coral wasn’t going to mention it, so Geri gritted her teeth and asked, ‘Has Barry put in a complaint?’

  Coral didn’t answer immediately. She took a breath and glanced at the framed photograph of her family, on the wall behind Geri. ‘He hasn’t, and I don’t think he will, but . . .’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘You cannot go about manhandling students, Geri.’

  ‘Is this a verbal warning?’

  Coral winced. ‘There’s really no need to take that attitude. I’m . . .’ She searched for the right word. ‘Concerned about you. It’s not like you to react like this, and it just isn’t on.’

  ‘I’ll consider myself ticked off, then, shall I?’ It sounded petty, spiteful even, but she couldn’t help herself. It was either that or break down in front of Coral, and she wasn’t about to do that, not over Barry Mandel.

  * * *

  She tried talking to Nick about it when she got home. She sat next to him on the sofa in the TV room while he flicked through the channels with the sound turned down. She was still feeling bruised from her discussion with Coral, and although she tried, she couldn’t keep the righteous indignation out of her voice.

  ‘I don’t know why she had to have a go at me. I didn’t give him the damn stuff.’

  Nick frowned, concentrating on the TV, glancing briefly across at her. ‘You’re being paranoid. She had to make sure, so if she was asked—’

  ‘All right, smart arse.’

  He ruffled her hair. ‘You hate it when I’m right, don’t you?’

  ‘It’s not reason I need, it’s sympathy. And I wish you’d put that bloody thing down.’

  He pressed the ‘off’ button on the remote control and tossed it onto the chair next to him.

  ‘What did he take?’

  She shrugged. ‘They don’t know. He’s not admitting to anything. They sent him home after checking him over; he seems all right now.’

  ‘So maybe he’s telling the truth.’

  ‘Yeah, and maybe the Pope’s an atheist. He was off his face, Nick! I’m not stupid; and neither are the
doctors in casualty.’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ he said. ‘Did they search him?’

  She nodded. ‘We checked his school bag as well. Nothing. Why do they do it? Why do they protect Barry?’

  He grinned. ‘It’s always worth protecting a good source.’

  ‘He wants locking up!’

  ‘Come on, Geri! We went to uni together, remember?’

  ‘That was different.’

  ‘Don’t tell me — you didn’t inhale.’

  ‘We were nineteen, twenty. These are young kids. And it isn’t just the odd spliff. He’s giving, selling, them pills: Es, speed.’

  Nick laughed. ‘You haven’t got his number, have you?’

  Geri glared at him. ‘Ryan died, Nick. He died in a filthy condemned building. Maybe he was conscious when he set fire to himself — they don’t know for sure — but he was alive.’

  Nick got out of his chair, scowling. ‘You know, you’re so up yourself, it’s a miracle you don’t come out the other end.’

  ‘Is that it?’ she demanded. ‘Is that all you can say?’

  He thought for a moment. ‘No, you’re right. There is something else. Fuck off.’ He slammed the door behind him, leaving Geri blinking back tears.

  * * *

  Nick stamped upstairs. It didn’t matter to her that he had spent the past three years in dead-end jobs, working forty hours a week for half her salary. When had she ever shown him any consideration? Kids, school, rehearsals, parents’ evenings, marking, marking, marking. Too tired to go out, too shagged to fuck, he thought.

  It was Geri who had encouraged him to go for the job at the research facility. She just couldn’t stand to see him doing nothing. Something — anything — was always preferable to doing nothing in Geri’s eyes.

  * * *

  What had happened to them? Geri wondered. What had changed since Nick had so gently brought her back to the world after the death of her mother?

  The day after her mother died, Geri had woken to find fronds of frost on the inside of the windows. She had forgotten to set the central heating, and the house shivered, preternaturally silent, as if in sympathy with her numbed sorrow.

  She lay awake in bed for hours, listening to the creak and sigh of the woodwork, straining for the sound of her mother busying herself in the kitchen, although it had been many months since she had heard the chink of crockery as her mother set out the breakfast things. Once or twice she almost convinced herself, but then the silence would reassert its presence and she was forced to acknowledge that the only sounds her mother had been capable of making of late were the sounds of the sickroom: a cough, a groan, the querulous demands for attention. Sporadically, the phone would ring, on and on shattering the stillness, but she could not find the energy to answer it. How could she? If she answered, she would have to say that her mother was dead, and for now there was a perverse comfort in pretending that she might come into her room, demanding to know why Geri was lying in bed so late on a working day.

  She tried not to think of the night before, of how her mother had died. She did not ‘go gentle into that good night’ — God, no — and Geri had been powerless to help. Powerless and appalled by her mother’s ravings, and — though it shamed her to admit it — even afraid.

  Nick had rescued her, hammering on the front door until she answered, sullen, red-eyed, still in her dressing gown. Without fuss he led her through to the sitting room and switched on the gas fire, then he vanished into the kitchen. Moments later she heard the gurgle of water in the pipes as the central heating came to life again. He cooked her breakfast at two in the afternoon, the smell of bacon and mushrooms provoking a fresh wave of weeping.

  He sat and watched as she tried to eat, struggling against the unbearable constriction in her throat, gently urging her on, passing no comment when she pushed the food away uneaten, but listening patiently as she told him over and over how it had been. What had happened to Nick since then? Had she used up all his reserves of patience, all his quiet consideration?

  * * *

  Since they found Ryan’s body, Frank had become more and more shrill — making accusations, talking to all the wrong people, stirring things up. He found the pathetic whiner plodding to school, the day after the service.

  ‘Get in.’ That’s all it took. He just drew up alongside Frank and said those two words. An order, given in a tone of voice that brooked no argument. It still surprised him that it was so easy. You said, ‘Do this’, ‘Give me that’, and they did. They gave it to you, they did it for you, to you, with you. It was a question of faith, except the belief wasn’t in a God who looked down and wept over his creation; this was self-belief. Hesitate, look over your shoulder to check if the sheep were following, and you were sunk. The illusion was shattered, and they saw you were just another human being, like them, that they didn’t have to do what you told them to. Keep faith with yourself, and the sheep recognized your authority. They respected it — and that meant they respected you.

  He wondered if Frank had known when he got into the car what was going to happen to him. Perhaps he suspected, but still he did as he was told.

  Frank wasn’t attractive — not like Ryan. Frank was skinny and gawky; his Adam’s apple jumped up and down as he swallowed. A startling revelation burst upon him: the very fact of Frank’s physical unattractiveness gave him licence to go further than he had with Ryan. Because although Ryan had been just as compliant, with the persuasive assistance of the cocktail of drugs in his veins, he had been to some extent inhibited, in awe of Ryan’s beauty.

  Now, seeing Frank on his knees, begging to be allowed to leave, he was aroused by him; he even felt a certain tenderness for the lad. He would maybe keep him a little longer than he’d kept Ryan. They would talk, and he would make Frank tell him everyone he had talked to. Then he could assess the danger.

  * * *

  Frank was coming round enough to be able to wonder if he had a future. He still had enough of the chemicals in his system for this to be an academic question; one which didn’t frighten him, but which nevertheless perplexed him.

  He tried to move, but he was cocooned inside a sleeping bag, and it seemed to be sealed around his neck with something. He struggled momentarily, then gave up. It wasn’t worth breaking into a sweat. Was it? He couldn’t answer the question and gave a mental shrug: he couldn’t be bothered pondering over it. He nodded, waking, dreaming — sometimes the dreams were so real, so filled with light and warmth, that it was a surprise to wake up in the damp, echoing chamber, dripping with snowmelt.

  It was pleasant for him to drift in this way, thinking on things he hadn’t dared remember from his early school days: the bullies, the beatings, missed meals because someone had threatened to thump him if he didn’t give up his lunch money. Until he’d met Ryan, he couldn’t remember a day he hadn’t been scared. But he wasn’t scared now. Rats squeaked in the far corners, and he was unable to move, to defend himself. He would return soon, as he always did when Frank started to make sense of things, to be able to think, but Frank didn’t care. While there was enough of this kindly stuff in his veins, he was afraid of nothing.

  18

  ‘Another one down, eh, Vince?’ Garvey’s voice carried from the far end of the corridor.

  Vince Beresford stopped, one hand on the door. ‘What?’

  ‘Just saying — another kid’s gone missing.’

  Even with his back turned, Vince could tell that Garvey was grinning.

  ‘So it seems.’ He pushed the door open.

  ‘They drop like flies around you, don’t they?’

  Vince let the door go and turned to face Garvey; by now, he was just a few feet away. ‘Look, Garvey, if you’ve got something to say—’

  Garvey raised his eyebrows. ‘I just said it.’ He walked past Vince, smirking.

  His pupils were dilated, his eyes darted back and forth, not quite fixing on anything. Vince edged forward, talking all the time, talking over the babble of the boy’s wild rambli
ngs. His raised his hands slowly, waiting for his chance to strike.

  ‘You all right, Sarge?’

  WPC Dhar was staring up at him.

  Vince shook himself, tried to raise a smile. ‘Fine,’ he said, holding the door for her. But it wasn’t fine. Garvey knew. It was stupidity, thinking he could escape his past. The past was something you carried with you. Everywhere.

  * * *

  One moment Geri was standing, the next she was sitting. Between the two, there was a blank of a fraction of a second — not much, but enough to confuse and disorientate her.

  ‘Frank?’ she echoed sickly. Coral had called her into her office after Thursday morning registration. Geri had braced herself for an announcement that Barry Mandel had decided to press charges. Nothing could have shored her up against this news.

  ‘He left for school on Tuesday and hasn’t been seen since.’

  ‘Tuesday? Why didn’t his parents report it before now?’

  ‘His mother,’ Coral corrected. ‘His parents are separated. Apparently, he’s done this sort of thing before. Run off. He usually heads for his dad’s place, in Lancaster.’

  ‘Has his dad heard anything?’

  Coral shook her head.

  Geri groaned. ‘Oh, Coral, it’s happened again, hasn’t it?’

  ‘He just didn’t go home, Geri. I don’t think we should panic.’

  ‘It’s been two days already, Coral. Wouldn’t he have been in touch with someone by now?’ She swallowed. ‘I spoke to him after the service . . . I wasn’t very kind to him. He was frightened. Frightened enough to run?’ she added, half to herself. ‘God, I hope he did, I hope he did run.’

  ‘Frightened of what?’ Coral asked, intrigued now.

  Geri looked down at her hands. They were shaking. ‘He wouldn’t tell me.’ She recalled his nervous glance in Barry’s direction. ‘Barry Mandel, maybe?’

  ‘Oh, now Geri.’ Coral half rose from her seat. ‘You got to give up on this . . .’

  ‘You think I’m victimizing him. Ask Siân what she thinks of that. Or Jay.’ Jay! What if he’d deliberately given Jay an overdose? Tried to shut him up because he knew too much. She couldn’t say this to Coral — she already thought her paranoid. But it might be worth talking to Jay’s friends.