by Wes Markin
Topham, still wearing his suit from Yorke’s wedding, addressed the officers. He pointed out the randomly generated operation name: Operation Coldtown. The complete opposite to how it currently feels, Yorke felt like saying, but he kept his poor attempt at humour away from an unreceptive audience.
Topham went through the particulars of the case. Everything he’d experienced in the church with Willows and Tyler, who were both in attendance now. He relayed the frustrating interview with the young man who continued to exercise his right to remain silent.
‘We’ve yet to get any kind of hit. Fingerprints, DNA, facial recognition software have all turned up nothing,’ Topham said. ‘We have no idea who this man is. We suspect he arrived early at the church when Father Simon was setting up. He managed to knock him unconscious, gag, and tie him.’ He pointed at a photo on the whiteboard. ‘He was left incarcerated in an old, disused toilet at the back of the church.’
Topham took everyone on a journey from picture to picture over his whiteboard. Jeremy Dawson typed fast. Everyone would be able to access all of this data on the file-sharing system. There wasn’t a great deal yet, but every morsel would need to be consumed again and again over the coming hours.
‘Familiarise yourselves with it as soon as you leave this room,’ Topham said. ‘As the data grows, we need to grow with it.’
Yorke looked down. It wasn’t an expression he would use. It was typical Topham-esque hyperbole. ‘We don’t have a post-mortem yet, but we know that most of his tongue was cut away by a sharp instrument. This could be a scalpel, but that has yet to be confirmed. They will also probably confirm that he died from a haemorrhage.’ Topham paused to check his notes. ‘From the branches of the lingual arteries. This was unlucky – the killer may not have anticipated this reaction.’
There was a snort from someone in the crowd. It was Parkinson again. Yorke bit his lip one last time. Parkinson had been allowed two strikes tonight already; Yorke wouldn’t allow him a third.
Parkinson immediately threatened a third when he thrust his hand up. ‘How can dying from having your tongue cut out be unfortunate? I’d anticipate my victim bleeding to death!’
It wasn’t a strike; it was a fair question. Yorke held back.
Topham said, ‘The pathologist told me that a similar injury can be caused by accidents such as biting your tongue, or even having a piercing, but that the tongue has a good capacity for clotting and bleeding can usually be stopped quickly. Ryan experienced a rare condition called lingual hematoma.’
‘If the bastard even knows this!’ Parkinson crossed his arms. ‘Anyway, whichever way you look at this, it’s still murder.’
‘No one disagrees,’ Yorke said, looking Parkinson directly in the eyes.
‘Focus of the investigation at this stage,’ Topham said, ‘is to gather all possible information about Ryan. Yes, most of us in this room knew him very well. But everyone in this room understands that you never really know everything about someone until you really look.’
‘He was the best of us,’ Parkinson said, uncrossing his arms and leaning forward.
Yorke leaned forward too.
‘And no one is disputing that,’ Topham said, ‘no one. We want to know why someone targeted him. Because without motive, we have little.’
Yes, Mark, that is correct, Yorke thought. Parkinson leaned back.
Topham continued, ‘We interview Father Simon. We interview those who know Father Simon. It looks cut and dried that he was ambushed and incapacitated, but it’s not gospel. We talk to every person in that church today. Everybody. We want the events through every possible perspective. CCTV footage around that church for the last 48 hours. The comings and goings of every individual. Who does this? On someone’s wedding day? There is a severe amount of hate here and we will get the answer soon enough even if the bastard in that other room refuses to open his mouth between now and the day they close that cell door.’ He paused for a breath. ‘Individual assignments on the noticeboards as usual. Bring everything to me. Immediately. If you can’t get hold of me, then head to Willows.’
Topham turned to look at the picture of Ryan Simmonds at the top of the board. ‘However tired and frustrated we feel, just remember how much we owe Ryan.’ He turned back and looked at Jeremy Dawson. ‘You get everything?’
Dawson nodded.
‘And everyone, please, before you start, get on the system and digest all of this again.’
As the officers left, Topham stared at the photo of Simmonds. Yorke came and stood beside him.
‘What a way to go,’ Topham said.
‘Different,’ Yorke said. ‘Creative. There’s a purpose here.’
‘Remind you of anything?’
‘How could it not?’ Yorke said. ‘It has not even been a year since that slaughtering bastard tore this city apart.’
‘And now someone’s trying to do it again.’
‘Trying … but we will stop them,’ Yorke said.
‘Have we got him? Is he really in that room?’
‘Let’s go and find out.’
Jake’s phone battery had died. So, sitting in the car, with his engine running and his phone connected and charging up, he read carefully through the letters written from Susie Long to her father. There were four in total. After he’d finished reading, he checked his phone, and saw that it had burst back into life. He had several missed calls from Gardner, and several text messages instructing him to call her back.
She answered on the first ring. ‘I’ve been trying to phone you.’
‘Yes, I can see—’
‘It’s awful … Jake. Just awful.’
She explained to him what had happened to Simmonds. As she did so, he felt like he was suffocating, so he opened the car door to let air into the vehicle.
By the time, she’d started to explain that Yorke had left his own wedding day to assist in the investigation, Jake was outside of the car, pacing around. He didn’t say anything and just listened, for fear of breaking out into a series of incomprehensible expletives.
He looked up at the dominating prison fences and wondered if he felt more trapped than the people in there.
Trapped in the knowledge that this was the world he lived in. That these things just kept happening. You stopped one senseless orchestrator of violence, only for another one to start a new symphony.
‘But, it’s not ours, Jake. Mike and Mark have a suspect in custody. If they can’t get to the bottom of it, no one can. We stay focused on Operation Autumn, and I’ll see you at briefing tomorrow.’
Jake took a deep breath. She was right. Back to Susie Long. And only Susie Long. It was too late for Simmonds – it might not be for her.
‘I’ve got a handful of letters here. She’s been writing to her father in prison for the past year. Approximately one every three months,’ Jake said.
‘Have you read them?’
‘Yes.’
‘And?’
He sat back in the car, closed the door, ensured the air conditioning was on to fend off the late evening humidity, and switched on the overhead light. He ran his eyes quickly over the first one again.
‘It begins obviously enough. She felt isolated and abandoned for a long time … now she just wants to understand … she is willing to write to him a few times but isn’t ready to see him yet.’
Jake switched to the second letter, had a quick look again, and then checked Gardner was still on the line before continuing, ‘He obviously wrote back with his excuses, and it looks as if she bought them … she understands now that he was a sick man … the third letter is about the power of love and how it can cause tragedy. She, too, has been experiencing the same effects of love.’
‘And the final letter?’
‘She’s going to come and visit him.’
‘Correction. Was going to come and visit him. In your opinion, does he know more than he is letting on?’
‘Yes.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Hard
to explain, I just know.’
‘We will have a closer look at those letters tomorrow morning in briefing.’
Lying here, during this tiny window of reading time before they killed the lights, Marcus Long was desperate to feel his hand around a cold whisky glass and listen to the ice trembling in the coarse liquid, just before it burnt his mouth, and throat, and mind.
It would be easier to do what had to be done with some of the good stuff in him.
He climbed off his bed and paced the several steps in his tiny cell to the desk in the corner.
He’d spent so many cold, and more recently hot, evenings at this desk with his daughter’s letters laid out before him with his fingers tracing over the lines etched by her pen into the paper. Words of forgiveness and words of acceptance.
And now that fucking detective had them, and he would probably never see them again.
He reached over for a copy of A Tale of Two cities by Charles Dickens. He opened to the first page and read the first line. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It had been the best of times – he’d had his daughter back in his life. And she’d not been forced into his life. She had come of her own will.
He shook out the envelope he’d hidden in the book. He slid out the letter, read it again, and sighed. What was demanded of him was … was … unthinkable.
It was the worst of times and he longed for a drink.
‘What’s wrong? Cat got your tongue?’ Yorke said to the young man sitting across from him at the table. ‘At least say no comment rather than staring off into space like a bloody zombie.’
Topham said, ‘You could even try asking for a solicitor?’
The young man scratched his forearm and continued to ignore them. At least he wasn’t smiling any more. Topham had said that the grin had been persistent and eerie.
‘Well, as I’m sure DI Topham explained to you earlier, this is about to get very ugly for you. We have enough to charge you. Sitting there with his tongue in the graveyard wasn’t the brightest idea. At least tell me one thing: did you mean to kill DC Ryan Simmonds?’
No movement.
Yorke continued, ‘I don’t think you did, did you? We should have been able to save him. The problem is he haemorrhaged, and they couldn’t revive him. That means you are going away for good, Mr … sorry … your name?’
Nothing.
Topham leaned forward. ‘Earlier, when I was here with you, you were about to tell me something. I’m certain of it.’
The boy didn’t even look at Topham.
‘I said you were good-looking.’
Yorke looked at Topham. For creativity in interviewing techniques, he’d just scored full marks.
‘I think handsome was the word I used,’ Topham said.
Yorke looked at the young man, wondering whether he was going to have to step in and stop this peculiar approach, but then caught a flicker of movement on the suspect’s face. Feeling a rush of adrenaline, he joined in with the creativity. ‘So much wasted potential in such a young, good-looking boy…’
Then the young man lifted a hand and pointed at Yorke’s notebook.
Yorke looked down at the book and said, ‘Why do you want that?’
The young man pointed again, more forcefully this time.
And then it dawned on Yorke. ‘Open your mouth.’
The young man refused with a slow shake of his head.
‘You can’t talk, can you? You’ve no tongue.’ Yorke said.
He shrugged and again pointed at the notebook.
Yorke pressed him. ‘Is that why you took officer Simmond’s tongue? Did he have anything to do with why you lost yours?’
No response.
Yorke ripped out a page and slid it over with a pen. He looked up at the camera and said, ‘For the record, interviewee has been handed a piece of paper and is now writing a response.’
Yorke took it back. ‘Interviewee has written: someone else called me good-looking once.’
Yorke paused and considered the strange words. His mother? His father? Why has this bothered him? Why has a reference to his appearance woken him up from his inane stupor?
‘Who?’ Yorke said.
The boy wrote quickly, but in clear, printed letters. That doesn’t matter.
‘Well, why bring it up then?’ Topham said.
Yorke tore out the pages with his notes on it and handed the entire notebook over.
The boy nodded and wrote: because I want you to know the irrelevance of that man and his words.
‘Ryan Simmonds?’ Yorke said.
The boy wrote: No
‘Who then?’ Topham said.
He wrote: Irrelevant again. What is relevant is that I have been healed.
‘Healed? Are you talking about your mouth?’ Yorke said.
The boy wrote: Just healed.
And then a thought struck Yorke which made his blood run cold. ‘Where is this person who called you good-looking?’
The boy didn’t need long to produce the one word.
Yorke spoke for the camera. ‘Interviewee has written dead.’
The best of times…
Marcus Long thought about the first time he’d held his baby daughter in his arms. 6.6 lb of innocence swaddled in a cloth. It was the moment in which he’d truly realised that the world was the most wonderful place to be. He’d tried so hard, for so long, to hide from his sexuality and fit in. And this was his reward. A beautiful daughter.
He tucked the envelope back into the Charles Dickens book, and returned it to his small library at the back of his desk.
The worst of times…
But you cannot hide from what you truly are. Temptation had got the better of him, and even though his young daughter, who he so adored, had only just turned five, he’d committed that atrocity.
A small buzzer sounded and a minute later the room lights went off. It wasn’t pitch black as there were still lights out in the corridors which would remain on all evening, but it was dim.
He then kneeled in front of the small stool he’d been sitting on.
Since that moment, since the atrocity, his life had been on a downward spiral. Mistakenly, he’d thought that this, his second stint in jail, had been the final nail in his coffin for lying to himself and lying to others. It hadn’t been. This was.
The final nail.
After this, it would be over.
He parted his teeth to allow his tongue out into the air. His breathing had quickened now, and his hands were trembling as he clutched the edges of the stool. He pressed his teeth down onto the fleshy centre of his tongue.
He squeezed his eyes shut, and felt the tears running down the sides of his face.
He prayed this was quick. God, he needed this to be quick.
He slammed his chin down onto the stool as hard as he could. With his eyes squeezed shut, he saw only a blinding white light. Before he had chance to truly register the pain, he drove his chin full-force into the wood again…
And again.
Now, the pain was kicking in, and there was a salty taste in his mouth. He reached up, touched the flesh hanging loose from his mouth, forced back the need to scream, grabbed the stool and thrust repeatedly until his teeth were just bashing against one another.
He opened his eyes. His tongue lay on the stool like a slug arching its back under a dose of salt.
He lifted his head up and wailed.
4
THE YOUNG MAN had finally stopped smiling.
‘So,’ Yorke said, ‘did you kill the man who said you were good-looking in the same way that you killed Ryan Simmonds?’
No response.
‘How many people have you killed?’ Topham said.
There was a knock at the door. Yorke was grateful for the interruption. A small break from this frustrating interrogation.
Outside, Yorke and Topham greeted Willows in the corridor. She’d been tasked with tracking back through Simmond’s career and all of his cases. She looked agitated.
‘I found something. In fact, I can’t quite believe what I found…’ She looked down at her notes, shaking her head.
‘Go on,’ Topham said, edging forward.
Yorke noted the impatience in Topham’s voice, and the eager movement. This case had got hold of him. Really got hold of him.
‘Three years ago, Christian Severance, came to the station to report that he was being followed—’
‘—by Marcus Long?’ Yorke said.
‘Yes, sir.’
Topham looked at Yorke and said, ‘Is Christian Severance the man wanted in connection with the disappearance of Susie Long in Operation Autumn?’
‘Yes,’ Yorke said, ‘go on, Collette, what else have you found out?’
‘Christian Severance filed a report with DC Ryan Simmonds in which he claimed he was being followed by Marcus Long, two weeks before an attempt on his life was made by the same man. Simmonds had dragged his heels over the investigation which is how I came across the report so quickly – it had been flagged. He was questioned about his approach to the investigation, but no disciplinary charges materialised.’
Topham gripped Yorke’s shoulder and said, ‘They’re connected. The cases are fucking connected.’
‘Follow me,’ Yorke said.
Together they charged down the corridor to the room for Operation Autumn. They opened the door, automatic lights burst into life, and a warm torrent of air speared them. Yorke hit the switch to ignite the air conditioner.
Yorke approached the whiteboard which was covered in information; all quickly accessible due to the neatness of Gardner’s handwriting. He scanned the images quickly: Susie Long, her father, Marcus Long, relatives, friends … then his eyes fell to the two images of Christian Severance. One was taken before, and the other after, his appearance was dramatically altered by Marcus Long.
‘Just back me up here.’ Yorke pointed at the scarred face of Severance. ‘That is definitely not the boy in the other room?’
