The Gathering Man (A DI Erica Swift Thriller Book 7)

by M K Farrar

  “Help? Help with what?”

  “I can’t talk about it on the phone. But meet me, okay? There’s a pub in Stratford called the Hammer Arms. I’ll be there at seven.”

  Shawn relented. “Okay, see you there.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  DC Howard approached Erica’s desk.

  “Boss, I’ve found something on a CCTV camera from one of the buildings on the road adjacent to the east side of the park. I’m not sure what to make of it, to be honest.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re going to need to see it. I’ve sent it to your computer.”

  She clicked her mouse and brought up the footage. It was from two-fifteen in the morning. For a moment, the street looked completely empty, but then a figure wearing white, with a hood up to hide their face, walked on-screen. The white outfit was very similar to the long smock the victim had been found wearing.

  Erica frowned and tilted her head slightly. “Is that our victim? They might be too tall.”

  “Keep watching,” Howard said.

  A second figure drifted on-screen. Yes, drifted was the right description. The long dress went right down to the ground, hiding the person’s feet and making them appear to almost float across the pavement. In the dark, with the CCTV in black and white, the effect was chilling.

  “Is that a man or a woman?” Erica pondered.

  Howard shook his head. “I don’t know. It’s hard to tell.”

  The outfit hid most of their shape and kept their faces in the deep recesses of black shadows. Maybe that was the point of it.

  “What do you think they’re doing?” Howard said. “Some kind of Ku Klux Klan shit?”

  Erica pressed her lips together as she thought. Yes, they wore white, but it wasn’t the pointed hoods of the notorious white supremacist hate group. “Our victim was Caucasian. If she’d been black, perhaps that might be something to take into account, but I don’t think that’s what we’re looking at here.”

  “Who the hell are they then?”

  “I have no idea, but we need to find out. The marks on the victim’s skin point towards this being ritualistic, and I can’t help thinking those outfits make them out to be the same.”

  “Do you think it might be some kind of cult? Here in East London?”

  The term hadn’t occurred to her yet, but hearing it out loud jolted something inside her. “If we’re considering this being a cult, then the girl’s death might have been a sacrifice.”

  Howard blew out a low whistle. “Holy shit.”

  “Do we have any experts locally? People who know about this kind of thing?”

  “I’ll get right onto it.”

  “Thanks, Howard.”

  How many more people were involved in the girl’s death? Was she one of the figures in the CCTV footage, or could there be at least three people out there who knew exactly what had happened to Stacey Ford? What if there were more? The thought of there being multiple people hiding the secret of a teenage girl’s final hours boggled her mind. How could they live with themselves?

  Chapter Fifteen

  After she’d finished school, Bethany crept into the house, her breath shallow in her lungs. She was hoping to slide through the door and tiptoe upstairs and hide in her room without anyone even noticing she was there, but the moment she pushed the front door shut, the click reverberating painfully loudly through the house, she knew that was going to be impossible.

  “Bethany? Is that you?”

  Her mother’s call came from the kitchen.

  Bloody hell.

  She forced her tone to be lighter. “Yeah, it’s me.”

  “Come in here a sec. I want to talk to you.”

  Bethany knew what her mum was going to ask her, and her stomach sank. Would Mr Henniger have called home and told her mum that she’d walked out?

  Her mother, Rita, was chopping vegetables at the kitchen counter, creating small piles of onion, garlic, and celery. Bethany wrinkled her nose. Great, that meant they’d be having risotto tonight. Definitely not her favourite. Her mum complained that the only time Bethany ate everything was when she’d produced what she called a ‘grey meal’ which was basically just freezer food—chicken nuggets, chips, fish fingers.

  She stopped chopping long enough to twist to face her daughter. “How did it go with the counsellor today?

  For a moment, Bethany was tempted to lie and tell her it went well, but she knew if she did that, she’d be expected to go back, and there was no way she wanted to do that. “It was stupid. I knew it would be.”

  Her mother gave an exasperated sigh. “You’ve barely given it a chance.”

  “Yes, I have. You told me to go to one session, and that’s what I’ve done, and it was stupid and a waste of time, just like I told you it would be.”

  She turned back to the kitchen counter and picked the knife back up. “Okay, okay. There’s nothing more I can do then.”

  “I never asked you to do anything in the first place.”

  “Well, I’m your mother, Bethany, and I love you, so shoot me for wanting to try something that might help.”

  A sudden stab of resentment and anger went through Bethany. She so badly wanted to scream at her mother that maybe if her and Dad weren’t fighting all the time, then she’d at least have one safe place to go to, and maybe that would help, but she couldn’t say the words out loud. What if by saying that she made her parents split up? Sometimes she thought it would probably be for the best if they did separate, but she was worried about Florence. Would Flo blame Bethany if that happened? Flo was the one person in her life who she could rely on to still love her, and never look at her any differently, no matter how ugly she made herself, but if she was the cause of their parents getting a divorce, Florence might change her mind about her big sister.

  “Well, you’re not helping, are you?” Bethany threw at her mother. “I just want you to leave me alone.”

  Bethany stormed out of the room and ran up the stairs, her throat a painful knot of unshed tears. She wished she could just disappear, squeeze herself into such a tight ball that she’d shrink into nothing. At least then everyone would leave her alone, and maybe she wouldn’t hurt so badly all the time.

  She managed to hide in her room until dinnertime, but then she came down to meet the disappointed expression on her father’s face. He shook his head at her, his lips pursed. She’d expected him to launch into a tirade about how she was letting them down all the time, but instead he remained silent, and somehow that was worse. Only Florence said anything that mealtime, chattering away about what she’d done at school, seemingly utterly oblivious to the tension around the table.

  The moment Bethany had finished eating, she grabbed her plate, stacked it in the dishwasher, and headed upstairs again. She’d half been expecting them to call her back, but when she reached her bedroom and they hadn’t, she breathed a sigh of relief.

  An hour or so passed. Bethany remained hidden in her room, not even emerging to say goodnight to her sister when she went to bed at seven. Her parents left her alone for once, but the peace was short-lived.

  Her mother’s shouts drifted up the stairs. “You’re a fucking arsehole, do you know that?”

  Her father’s deeper voice yelled back, “An arsehole who pays the bills. How do you think that makes me feel, huh, when I’m working all day to get enough money to put food on the table, and I come home to find you’ve been spending it on clothes?”

  “What am I supposed to do? Go around naked?”

  Heavy footsteps paced around downstairs. “Don’t be so ridiculous. You have plenty to wear.”

  At least Bethany wasn’t the cause of the drama this time.

  Bethany sat with her head in her hands, her fingers digging into her scalp. Her fingers itched to wrap around the strands and twirl and tug, but she knew that would result in yet more bald patches, so instead she clawed her nails into her scalp until it hurt.

  Still, downstairs, the shouting
continued. They’d moved on to something else now, her mother claiming that her father never noticed her anymore and that if she left, the only time he’d realise was when the dinner didn’t arrive on the table, or his clean socks no longer miraculously appeared in his drawer.

  Bethany thought her mother was probably right about that one. She experienced an unexpected pang of sorrow for her mum—did her parents even love each other anymore? It didn’t seem that way. She couldn’t remember the last time she saw them even smile at one another, never mind show any kind of affection. The only conversations they had were about practical things like what needed to go on the shopping list or what days the bins had changed to after a bank holiday. Bethany found herself observing her parents and promising herself that she would never get married. If this was all there was to look forward to, what was the point? Or if she ever did get married, she’d make a deal with her new husband that if they ever reached this level of bickering between each other, they’d just walk away and be happier apart. What was it that kept them together? Was it her and Florence, or were they both just frightened of being alone? When it got to a point where there didn’t appear to be any kind of respect or affection for the other person, why bother to keep trying?

  Bethany had to get out of the house. She felt bad abandoning Florence, but she checked on her sister quickly and Flo was somehow managing to sleep through all the shouting. Bethany prayed her sister would remain in the land of nod and not wake to their parents screaming at each other.

  It was already dark outside, and the temperature had cooled. She hadn’t thought to grab her coat on the way out, though, and was grateful for her hoody. She yanked the sleeves down over her hands and wrapped her arms around her body. She moved at a brisk walk, not quite breaking into a run.

  The further she got from the house, the more she was able to breathe. Sometimes it felt as though she had no escape. School was hell, and home wasn’t much better. She didn’t even have a friend’s house she could go to. It was stupid, but she had a reoccurring daydream where she met a new girl who would be her friend, and the girl had fun, cool parents who didn’t mind if Bethany hung round all the time. They’d have sleepovers every weekend, and in the end the parents would just offer to let Bethany move in, since she was there anyway.

  Of course, in her daydream, her parents were happy to let her go, and she didn’t have to feel guilty about abandoning Florence, either. In real life, she knew things would be different.

  She wasn’t sure where she was going and suddenly became aware of how dark and cold it was. Her neighbourhood wasn’t bad, but it definitely had its rough parts. Could it really be any worse than the rest of her life?

  Someone could decide to rape and murder me.

  So what if they did? At least then it would be over.

  The thought shocked her. Did she really want that? For it to be over? Her heart ached at the thought of what it would do to her little sister, and even her parents—who loved her, no matter how they acted—but the thought of nothingness appealed. No more lying awake at night, dreading going into school the following day. No more walking home with her head down and her heart pounding, praying that no one would follow her. No more cycle of growing her hair, only to pull it all out again during a moment of stress.

  A different kind of thought pushed its way into her head, and with it came a strange sense of righteousness. Maybe it would serve her parents right if something horrible did happen to her. It wasn’t as though they’d exactly been loving towards her recently. Most of the time, she just felt as though she was an inconvenience to them. She bet they hadn’t even noticed she’d left the house.

  She pictured them in each other’s arms, clinging to one another as they cried for her loss, finally united in their grief. Her eyes filled with tears of her own at the imaginary scenario. She was being ridiculous, but she couldn’t seem to stop herself, torturing herself with her imagination.

  Still unsure of where she was going, she took a right and passed through a set of metal gates and entered a children’s park. It was too late for any small kids to be around, so she walked over to the swings and parked herself in one of them. She kicked up her feet and leaned back, taking comfort in the repetitive flowing motion of the swing. It reminded her of when she was younger, and life had seemed so much easier. A bad day back then had been when she hadn’t been allowed to have sweets after school or dropped her ice cream on the floor before she’d had the chance to finish it. Now it felt like she was failing at all parts of life. Where other girls her age seemed to be perfect in every way—perfect looks, perfect friends, perfect homelives—she was just a mess.

  Movement on the pavement running parallel to the park drew her attention. A man walked along, his head down, his hands in his pockets. He must have sensed her watching him, as he glanced to the side.

  He caught sight of her and stopped. “Oh, hello.”

  She recognised the man, though for a moment, she couldn’t place him. It was that thing where someone was in a different setting than you were used to, and wearing different clothes, and for a moment her mind couldn’t put the two things together. But then she realised who it was.

  “It’s Bethany, isn’t it?” he asked.

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  He turned to face her, just the low metal railing of the park dividing them. “What are you doing out here, Bethany?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Just thinking, I guess.”

  He gestured at the swing beside her. “Mind if I sit down?”

  “I suppose not.”

  She could hardly say no, could she, even though she cringed inside with the sense of awkwardness, and her brain flipped over and over, trying to think of a way out of this conversation. She should say she needed to be home, or that she was meeting someone. For once, she wished she had a phone, so she could pretend she’d had a message or just to use as a distraction.

  He went to the park gate, opened it, and crossed the short distance to where she was sitting. He took the swing at the end, so there was an empty one between them, and for that, at least, she was glad.

  “It’s kind of cold and dark to be sitting in a park, isn’t it? Wouldn’t you rather be at home?”

  “Not really,” she muttered.

  “How come?”

  “My parents are fighting. I couldn’t stand to listen to them for a moment longer.”

  She stared down at where her fingers were entwined together. Already the urge to pull at her hair, to twist the strands between her fingers, and even put them between her teeth had taken hold, the uncomfortable situation setting her off.

  “Ah, I see. I can understand why you wouldn’t want to stay around for that.”

  She’d been expecting him to tell her to go home, and that he said he understood surprised her.

  “I hate that they fight,” she blurted. “I have to listen to them all the time, and then I go into school and the girls there are absolute bitches.” She glanced up, wondering how he’d take the swear word, but he didn’t react. “So sitting here on a crappy kid’s swing is the only place I can get any peace.”

  “It must be hard, having stress at school and then more at home.”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  A small part of her unwound inside. It felt good to have someone listen to her for once, to have them on her side, to make it seem as though they understood.

  Stupidly, she found herself blinking back tears. She hated that she cried all the time. “It is hard, but I’ve only got another few months at school and then I’m done.”

  “You’ll be going to college, though, won’t you? You seem like a bright girl.”

  “Yeah, I’m doing my A levels, assuming I get decent enough GCSEs.”

  He frowned slightly. “Won’t those same girls also be at college?”

  She swallowed hard. “Umm...I suppose so.”

  “And do you think they’ll change when they start college? Do you think things will change?”

  S
he’d been looking forward to the end of school as though it was a hurdle she’d have to get through before she could reach freedom on the other side. She’d imagined that they’d all be grown up once they got to college and things would change. Besides, it wasn’t like school, was it? She wouldn’t be forced to stay on campus during lunch or break, and the girls wouldn’t hang around in groups. Somehow, she’d thought people would behave differently, but what if he was right? What if nothing changed and she had another two years ahead of her of yet more of the same? She wasn’t sure she had it in her to handle that.

  She might not make it out alive.

  “It sounds to me like you need a safe space,” he continued. “A place you can go where other people are going through similar trials to you, a place where people will listen and understand without judgment.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He fished into his pocket and pulled out a card. “It’s just a little group I organise for people like yourself, who are having troubles in different parts of their life. It’s really informal. We put on teas and coffees, and sometimes even manage to rustle up a biscuit or two, or, if we’re really lucky, someone might bring in cake. It’s just a safe space where you can talk about the things that are troubling you, and listen to others, too. I know lots of people who’ve made lifelong friends there.”

  She frowned down at the card. “And people my age go?”

  “Absolutely. We have several girls of your age. I promise they’re nothing like the one’s you’re having to deal with at school, though. These ones are kind and caring, and they’d love to have you there as well, I’m certain of it.”

  “I’m not sure. I mean, I don’t think I really need this. I’m fine, really I am.” She knew her appearance practically screamed ‘I’m not fine’ but she discovered she wanted to get out of this conversation.

  “Well, just think about it.”

  She got to her feet. “I should probably go.”

  “Of course. No problem. Keep hold of the card, though, in case you change your mind. We’d all be happy to see you.”