by S. B. Caves
‘It wasn’t on the cards,’ Bernard said with a grin, and then, sensing that the sergeant was looking at the plaque on his teeth, quickly closed his mouth.
‘So here’s what I need you to do,’ Richmond began, removing another cigarette from the pack and placing it between his lips. Before lighting it, he said, ‘I need you to knock off early, right now in fact. Go to the house and get me the exact address. Do you think you can do that?’
He was only two hours into his shift. Getting out of this godforsaken shithole to stitch up that bitch Emily was a welcome reprieve. ‘Yeah, I can do that,’ Bernard said. ‘But what about me?’
Sparking the lighter, Richmond said, ‘What about you?’
‘I mean where does this leave me? Am I gonna get in trouble for this or what?’ He wasn’t thinking about his job at all, but there was a kernel of fear threatening to blossom into something greater at the idea of jail time.
‘Trouble for what? As far as I’m concerned, we came about this intelligence via our internal investigation. It had nothing to do with you, did it?’ He met his subordinate’s eyes with a knowing stare. ‘I look after my own, Bernard. Later, when we’ve got all this resolved, we’ll throw you a bloody party, you silly bugger.’
Bernard snorted laughter. ‘A party. Ha! All right. Well, should I go to the house now?’
‘No time like the present, mate.’
Bernard nodded and headed back inside the station for his jacket.
When he was gone, Sergeant Richmond made a phone call.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Emily had been listening to Morley wailing for an hour before she went to investigate. He had been making some vague attempt to cry for help, but his words were gibberish, lost in a soup of despair. He sounded like a toddler who had just learned to talk, stringing combinations of words together with incoherent nonsense.
This did not sound like the man that had shrugged off hammer strikes and rampaged through the warehouse. She tried ignoring it at first, but the warehouse was perfect for his acoustics. The boxes that Jack had assured her would dampen any sound he made, had not lived up to his claim. She had been sitting in the kitchen area, trying to think of some way to get out of this predicament.
‘Just want… gluuurgh… pleaash…’ Morley moaned. Emily wanted to slam her hands over her ears like a little girl and pretend she couldn’t hear him. ‘Eeeaghn DO IT!’
She ignored his mush-mouthed rambling until he fixated on two words, which he pronounced without any problem at all.
‘He’s wrong,’ Morley said, and continued saying it over and over again until the mantra was practically bouncing off the walls. He’s wrong, he’s wrong, he’s wrong…
Emily approached the oiling room, trembling with trepidation. She had found a Stanley knife upstairs and now she held it out in front of her, ready to swipe through the air if he came bursting through the door. She would not underestimate him again. She had seen his tenacity first-hand and understood exactly what she was dealing with: a very strong man who was in fear of losing his life. She did not rule out that his blubbering was all a ruse, designed to get her to the door.
‘He’s wrong,’ Morley chanted, his voice gaining strength as she neared the door. ‘He’s…’ He faltered, must’ve heard her approaching, and said, ‘Don’t burn me again! Please…’
Burn you? Was that why he was going out of his mind? She had assumed he’d be hungry or thirsty, or perhaps driven to screaming from discomfort. But Jack had burned him?
She tapped the door. ‘Keep your voice down in there.’
‘You,’ he panted. ‘It’s you! Oh, thank god. You won’t burn me, will you?’
‘Nobody’s going to burn you,’ she said.
‘He already did! He boiled up the kettle and… I’m in so much pain!’
‘He poured hot…’ She stopped, biting back the words. She didn’t want to engage in conversation with him, not while Jack was away. ‘Just keep your mouth shut and save your energy.’
‘You’ve… got… the… wrong… person,’ he said, labouring on the words as though each syllable physically taxed him. ‘Please… please…’
Everything that comes out of his mouth is designed to trick you. He’s as slippery as the devil…
Had she ever been completely satisfied that Morley was Kate’s killer? She had managed to convince herself that he was, but that wasn’t the same thing as truly believing it. And how could she truly believe it based on Jack’s word alone? Even with the music video, which had struck her as nothing more than a young man showing off on camera, spewing vile and detestable lyrics in an attempt to amplify his ego, she still wasn’t sure. But she made herself believe it, even with the doubts and inconsistencies, because she needed an end to the torment. Kate’s murder had changed the course of all their lives, and none of them had ever been the same since. She needed to move past this horror; she needed a reason as to why this atrocity had happened so she could salvage whatever life she had left.
Jack had seemed so sure, and yet there was still that tiny, niggling doubt that ate away at her like a maggot through an apple core. No matter how much she had wanted justice, closure, or – call it what it was for god’s sake, vengeance – it could not begin to equal Jack’s own needs. He was completely obsessed, so blindly fixated on finding her killer that he had started to seem… unstable, was that the right word?
Still, for all her doubts, it still didn’t mean that Jack was wrong and that Morley was innocent.
She pulled the key from her pocket and considered unlocking the door.
It is him. You know it is.
She put the key into the lock and was about to open the door when she stopped.
But what if it isn’t?
‘He’s wrong…’
‘Hey.’ She banged the door with her fist. ‘Listen to me. I’m opening this door. If you try anything I’m going to stab you, do you understand me?’
‘He’s wrong,’ Morley groaned. His words had dulled and lost their potency. The fire in him was finally dwindling.
‘Just shut up. I’m opening the door.’ She turned the key and pushed the door open. She had been bracing herself for Morley to rush her the way he had done with Jack, but instead Morley cringed away from the light and whimpered.
There was a big puddle on the floor and she couldn’t tell if it was from the boiling water, as Morley had said, or whether he had wet himself. Then she saw him peer into the rectangle of light from the open doorway. His face looked distorted and it took a couple of seconds for her brain to understand why. A roll of pale, boiled skin flapped off his cheek, revealing a large, oozing red sore. His eyes were nothing more than slits in golf-ball-sized welts. Blisters lined his lips and the skin on his neck was violent red.
She could not neatly compartmentalise the maelstrom of emotions she felt just then. She felt revolted at the sight of him, but whether that was because of his appearance or because of what he was – or what she thought he was – she couldn’t tell. The fear felt like the worst case of heartburn she’d ever had. There was even pity, weakly trying to push through the crowd to make its presence known.
What she didn’t feel was the one thing she was supposed to feel: hate.
She didn’t hate Morley. She had thought she would eventually, when she became more convinced of his guilt. But that moment hadn’t come. Not yet.
‘He’s wrong.’
‘You killed my sister,’ Emily eventually said.
‘I didn’t.’ His tongue licked at the sores around his mouth. ‘Look at me… he burned me! Please, it hurts so much.’
‘That’s the least of your worries.’ She swallowed, still unable to keep her gaze on his face for longer than a second at a time.
His head whipped up and he dragged himself forward on his knees until the rope around his neck pulled taut. ‘Do I look bad? I can’t see properly… please, tell me…’
He looked like a horror show, like a melted Halloween mask.
‘You
’ll live,’ she said, and then bit her lip at her poor choice of words. Morley had picked up on it too. He rolled onto his side like a sick dog.
‘He’s wrong and he’s still going to kill me,’ he said, drooling.
‘He isn’t wrong. He saw you murder my sister. And there’s no point in trying to build a case for yourself because I know exactly what you are.’
Tears, or maybe it was oozing pus, rolled down the sore of his cheek. ‘I am whatever you say I am,’ he said in a slow drawl, ‘as long as you don’t say I’m a murderer. Because I’m NOT.’
‘You are,’ she said, her voice rising and quavering. ‘You killed my sister for no reason at all and he saw you.’
‘He saw a teenage boy in the back of a car.’
‘He recognised your eyes,’ she countered, aware of how stupid it sounded now that it had left her mouth. ‘You knocked on his door and you stabbed Kate in the neck and then you ran off. He saw you and he’s not going to let it go.’
‘He didn’t see me.’
‘Oh yeah? Think about this, then,’ she began. ‘Why would he be so insistent that it was you, after all these years? Why would a man like him – who has no criminal record, probably never even had so much as a parking ticket – want to go to all this trouble if he wasn’t entirely sure that you’ – she pointed the knife at Morley – ‘killed his wife?’
‘It’s obvious,’ Morley said, twisting around on the floor in a futile attempt at finding comfort. ‘He’s insane.’
‘No, you’re the one that’s insane.’
‘No,’ he said, the word coming out in a short, flat note. ‘I’m not.’ He lay stretched out, resting his good cheek on the floor. ‘You’re not like him,’ he said softly. ‘I can tell.’
‘Shut up. Just shut up.’
‘You only hate me because he’s told you that I’ve killed your sister. But he isn’t right in his head. And you know that. I can see it in your face that you don’t really think it was me.’
‘And I’m supposed to take your word over his, am I?’
‘Yes,’ Morley said with a dry, chalky chuckle. ‘Even if there is one tiny bit of doubt about me in your head, you should undo these ropes and let me go.’
‘You disgust me,’ she said with a sneer. ‘Even now, lying there with half your face falling off, you think you can talk me round, don’t you? Have you forgotten back in the flats, when you chased me down the stairs?’
‘I didn’t chase you…’
‘You think I’m going to feel sorry for you because he poured a bit of hot water on you? Boo-fucking-hoo. Do you know the grief you’ve caused? The pain my family have suffered through, that Jack has suffered, because of what you did?’
‘How could I know? I wasn’t even aware of what you’re accusing me of until the other day.’
‘You would say that, though, wouldn’t you? You think that if you deny it long enough he’ll just let you go?’
‘No,’ he coughed weakly, his face scored in pain from the effort. ‘I know he’s going to kill me. I could admit to it, deny it, tell him that it was Santa Claus and it would make not a bit of difference to him because he’s lost his fucking mind.’
She looked at the way he was flopped on the floor, the spill of his hairy stomach, the mess of his face. She wondered what it would feel like if she walked over and cut him with the Stanley knife. She wondered if hurting him would feel good. Because up to now, none of this had felt good at all. She thumbed the lever and brought the blade out another inch, but she knew she would never have the nerve to slice him. The knife was nothing but a useless prop in her hands, and by the dopey, awful smile on Morley’s face, he seemed to know it too.
‘If you let him kill me,’ Morley began, still smiling grimly, ‘then you’ll be a murderer. You’ll be no better than the boy that stabbed your sister to death.’
‘You were the boy that stabbed her!’ All her nervousness rocketed up through her and was expelled in one loud blast that left her reeling, light-headed. She steadied herself and said, ‘Jack saw you and that’s good enough for me, because I believe him. I believe you did it.’
Gently, he said, ‘No, you don’t.’
‘It wouldn’t make a difference if I did let you go. Everybody in the country is looking for you.’
No surprise registered on his damaged face.
‘You had eight kilos of heroin in your flat, didn’t you?’ As she said this, he began pushing himself up to a sitting position. She finally had his attention. ‘Well, the police are looking for you because they want to link you to the person you got the heroin from.’
She watched him untangle it all, his mind spinning like a Catherine wheel.
‘Where’d you…’ he started to say and then shook his head. In that one instant, he had shrugged away the pain and swept any fear he harboured for Jack under the carpet. ‘That’s not…’ His mouth struggled to find the right words. Then he settled on a sentence so incredulous that it almost made Emily laugh. ‘This isn’t fair.’
‘Fair?’ She shook her head, laughing drily. ‘So you understand the concept of fairness, do you? Or maybe you understand it when it suits you.’
‘Listen to me, you stupid fucking idiot, I didn’t kill your sister. I didn’t kill anyone!’ He jerked forward like an angry pit bull leashed to a fence post. ‘Do you know what you’ve done? I didn’t kill her! You have to let me go!’
‘Really?’ she said in a weak attempt at casualness. ‘Maybe you see why your word is worth less than shit to me. You’re a fucking drug-dealing bastard.’
He didn’t even flinch at the verbal jabs. She knew by this new expression on his face – a stony, unwavering seriousness surfacing through the welts – that she would not be able to say anything more that would unsettle him. Even battered and disfigured as he was, he now looked fierce enough to spew fire and blow gouts of black smoke from his nostrils. A renewed sense of strength seemed to take him over and he began transforming right before her eyes.
‘OK, listen to me,’ he rasped.
‘No, you don’t give the orders here, Morley.’
‘Please, please just listen to me for a minute. Just give me that. Please.’
‘What’s the matter? You’ve grown a conscience all of a sudden?’
‘I have kids. They’re in trouble.’
‘I doubt it,’ Emily said. ‘The police have probably interviewed them while they’ve been looking for you. Nothing is going to happen to them. You should be thinking about the innocent people that you’ve hurt throughout your miserable life.’
He tugged his head away from the pipe, trying to break the leash around his neck. A growl rumbled through him as he wrestled the rope, and then when he understood that it would not snap he turned and bit down on it. He snarled like an animal, his head vibrating with tension, the blood rushing to his face and turning his complexion purple.
‘It’s no use,’ she said, hoping to dissuade him. His intensity had begun to frighten her, even though she could see there was no way he could physically chomp through the rope. Still, he yanked and bit down and screamed, drawing on some new reservoir of strength. ‘You’re not going anywhere.’
‘Then kill me now,’ he said, turning away from her, the muscles in his back flexing beneath the fabric of his shirt. He panted and rested his head on the pipe. ‘You say I’m a coward?’ he began breathlessly, wheezing as he spoke. ‘But you’re the one that doesn’t have the courage to do the right thing. Just fucking kill me and get it over with.’
‘Tell me why you killed Kate and I will.’
‘Liar. Coward.’
‘Fuck you,’ she spat.
‘Yeah, fuck me.’ He sank to his knees. ‘Fuck me,’ he murmured again. ‘I was obese as a teenager. I have asthma. He says I stabbed her and ran away; I say I couldn’t have run two feet without collapsing. So fuck me.’ He reared his head back and slammed it into the pipe. The sound of the impact resonated hollowly.
The shock startled Emily and she shed all pretenc
e of toughness. She watched as he pulled his head back and slammed it into the pipe harder, screaming as his skull cracked against the metal.
‘Stop it!’ She rushed over to him as he was rearing back again. She was going to prevent him headbutting the pipe by grabbing hold of his shirt and pulling him back, but he whirled on her, quickly and fluidly, his rank, fetid breath smothering her. She felt the bulk of his stomach as it pillowed against her, and felt very small and very vulnerable. Up close, she saw the pus oozing from his scalded cheek, the blood blisters lining his lips like cold sores. Fresh blood seeped through the bandages around his head, adding a vibrant red to the cola-brown stains.
‘Please,’ he begged, beginning to cry, and his breath took on a character of its own. It was shitty smelling and sour, like a gust from an open grave. ‘I’ve never killed anyone. Please, I don’t want to die.’
‘Sit back and behave yourself,’ Emily said, trying to keep the panic out of her voice.
He reached up and touched the bandage. When he saw his fingers come away red, he said, ‘Don’t let him kill me. Not for something I didn’t do.’ His head rolled, his chin falling down on his chest. ‘My head. My head hurts so much. Please. He’s crazy. He’s—’ he said, and then passed out.
Chapter Forty
Edward Dekkers had been working out of his central London office just off Tottenham Court Road since the unfortunate business began. He did not care for London and only ever came to the capital when it was necessary. Now, with everything going on, he wanted to be right there in the middle of things, to feel the city’s heartbeat and be close to the action.
He had made a rare and uncharacteristic error of judgement in trusting a thug like Morley, but these hiccups occurred from time to time. They were, he supposed, a rather useful way of keeping his mind sharp and his senses keen. Success could breed complacency, and these mishaps provided him with a ball of knots that would be hard to untangle. In some perverse way, he enjoyed the sport. The drama, while worrying to a certain degree, gave him a blunt sense of excitement that his life had long since lacked. He had been a cautious man for many years, trading his gun for a laptop, swapping violence for Excel sheets. He no longer had to show his teeth to let people know they could be bitten, but from time to time, the mongrel in him had to make an appearance.