by Tania Carver
‘Jesus,’ he gasped, pressing a hand-held button with his thumb. ‘Morphine. Or something like it. Brilliant stuff, though. See why the junkies get hooked.’
Phil waited for his equilibrium to be restored to a semblance of normality, continued.
‘So apart from the pain and the permanent discomfort,’ said Phil, aiming for lightness, ‘how you feeling?’
‘Never mind all that,’ said Sperring. ‘I’ve got to talk to you. It’s important.’
‘What about?’
‘There’s something I have to tell you.’ Grimacing and gasping through the pain, the drugs not yet fully hitting their target.
‘Tell me.’
‘It’s… important.’
‘You said. Is it about the Lawgiver? Something from last night?’
Sperring frowned. ‘What? No. I don’t know. Last night’s a bit of a blur. I can’t remember what happened. I was in the toilets, I turned…’ He attempted a shrug. ‘Nothing. I’ve tried to think, tried to remember, but it just won’t come.’ He sighed. The drugs seemed to be kicking in now. ‘You know, I used to think that when people said that they were talking bollocks. Something as important as that, as traumatic as that, course they would remember. But they’re right.’
‘So what did you want to talk to me about?’
‘I think I’m on to something. I need something chasing up.’ He managed a feeble smile. ‘I don’t seem to be in any fit state to do any chasing.’
‘Okay, then. Tell me.’
‘Moses Heap.’
Phil sighed. ‘Ian —’
‘Just listen to me. Hear me out.’ He tried to move forward, impress upon Phil the urgency and importance of his words. The move only resulted in pain. He lay back again, gasping.
‘I can’t deal with anything that doesn’t involve the Lawgiver at the moment,’ said Phil. ‘I haven’t got time for this.’
‘Please,’ said Sperring, ‘just hear me out. Letisha Watson went to see him yesterday. At the studio.’
Phil shrugged. ‘So?’
‘So, it’s important. I’ve been…’ Sperring looked slightly shame-faced. ‘I’ve been trailing them. Her. Him.’
‘What?’ Phil’s voice rose. ‘You were supposed to be working on the Lawgiver investigation, not carrying out your own vendetta.’
‘It wasn’t a vendetta.’ Steel had entered Sperring’s voice. Despite his pain, his situation, he was still a forceful personality. ‘It was work. I had… an intuition. I thought there was more to them than they were letting on. The fact that when we brought Heap in he just hid behind that fucking bent mouthpiece Looker confirmed it, in my book. So I went digging.’
‘When you were supposed to be doing something else.’
Sperring sighed. ‘Yeah, all right. You’ve got me bang to rights. It’s an honest cop, guv. Now can we get over that and can you listen to what I’ve got to say?’
Phil held up his hands. ‘Go ahead.’
‘I was following them because I suspected something more was happening. I don’t know when or what but I knew it. I could feel it. I was sitting outside the studio. Waiting for… I don’t know. Something to happen.’
‘And did it?’ It was clear from Phil’s tone of voice that he expected a negative answer.
‘Well,’ said Sperring, ‘that’s the thing. I’d just got the call to come back to base. But before that, I saw Letisha Watson going into the building. She didn’t look in a good way. She looked round, all anxious and nervous. Then she went in.’
‘Then what?’
‘Don’t know. Got the call to come home.’
Phil shook his head. ‘Moses Heap isn’t the Lawgiver. I think we’ve established that.’
Sperring gripped Phil’s arm. Despite his pained and precarious state, there was real force behind the clasp. Eyes imploring, he continued. ‘Boss, listen to me. I’ve been doing this job long enough to know when my copper’s instinct is on to something. And I was on to something. I know I was.’
The grip lessened, fell away.
‘Okay,’ said Phil finally. ‘I’ll check it out. I’ll pay them a visit when I’ve got time.’
‘Go now.’
Phil stared at him.
‘Sir.’
Usually, Sperring would have given a smile when he said that. Or even a sneer. But there was nothing in his eyes now except honesty. ‘Now. Please. We’ll miss something if you don’t. I feel sure of it. Whatever’s happening there is happening right now. We leave it, it’ll be too late.’
‘Right,’ said Phil. ‘I’ll pay Letisha Watson a visit.’
Sperring relaxed. ‘Thank you, boss. If I’m wrong, feel free to take it out of my wages.’
Phil smiled. ‘Oh, I will. One way or another.’ He stood up. ‘I’d best be off. But look after yourself.’
‘Like I have a choice.’
‘I’ll come back and see you. And I’ll bring grapes next time.’
Sperring smiled. ‘Fuck the grapes. Just bring me a bottle of Bell’s.’
82
T
he Lawgiver was just getting into his story.
‘Diana started… living it up, you could say. Enjoying herself. She said she had hated being cooped up with me and my oppressive father. That’s what she said. Her words exactly. And her doormat mother.’ His voice shook as he continued. ‘She said she hated the way I was trying to suck up to my father, be like him. Be him. She said she could see the damage it was doing to me, twisting me out of shape…’ He shook his head. ‘She had no idea. No idea. Yes, I wanted to be him. But that was because he was a great man. I loved him.’
The words echoed round the dark space. Died away.
‘Diana said she hated her childhood,’ he continued, his voice lowered now. ‘Wanted to get away. Just… get away. I wanted to keep the place as it was. Honour my father’s memory. Keep the house and the workshop as it was. Make sure his work, his life wasn’t forgotten. Keep his memory alive.’ Another shake of the head. His voice dropped even lower, like he was only talking to himself. ‘Diana and I argued. Some… awful things were said. Hurtful things. Deliberately so.’ He sighed. ‘I told her she was just some… slag. Some drunken, pill-popping slut who went round town fucking anyone who would have her. She said horrible things to me.’ His voice trailed away.
Looker sensed he was getting to it, the heart of the Lawgiver’s story. He knew he had to proceed carefully. ‘Such as?’ he said, voice low, like a priest in confessional.
The Lawgiver sighed. He kept talking in the same small voice, as if accepting his role as confessor. ‘I was a… weirdo. A freak. I… that my obsession with my father had twisted my mind. That my father and the things he used to do to me had twisted my mind. That’s what she said.’
Looker remained silent, knowing there was more to come.
‘That I used to spy on her in the bathroom. And in her bedroom.’ His voice even smaller now, like he was no longer confessing to someone else, but only to himself. ‘That I used to… to try on her underwear when she was out.’
Gotcha, thought Looker. This is it. ‘And did you?’ he asked.
The Lawgiver nodded. ‘Yes. And she knew, of course she knew. Because of the… way I used to leave her, her knickers…’
Silence in the dark space as the whispered words echoed away.
The Lawgiver sat down on a nearby chair, shoulders slumped, head in hands, body forward.
‘Well… I hit her for that,’ he said. ‘I had to. I couldn’t have her…’ A sigh. ‘I had to.’ He looked up. ‘I didn’t mean to, not as hard as I did, but… I was angry…’
His shoulders began to shake as the sobbing started, reliving the moment once again.
‘She fell backwards, down the stairs… into the workshop.’
‘Was… was she dead?’
The Lawgiver nodded. ‘Her neck was broken. She… she was… she didn’t get up again.’
Looker waited. The air felt suddenly cold.
‘I was terrified,
didn’t know what to do. I went to pieces…’ He sighed. Looked up. Eyes red-rimmed, wet. ‘But I knew I had to do something. So I… I imagined what my father, what he would have done. Tried to be like him. Used his strength to guide me.’
‘So what did you do?’ Looker was dreading the next part. He had a good idea what was coming.
‘I used his tools.’ There was pride in his voice now. Self-congratulation at his resourcefulness. His eyes were shining. ‘Dismembered her. Right here, right in this workshop. It seemed fitting, somehow. I mean, she’d gone, my sister, she was just meat now. Components. To be disassembled or reassembled. Then I wrapped her up neatly in parts and took those parts to the incinerator. And that was that.’ He gave a little smile.
‘And nobody questioned you?’ asked Looker. ‘Nobody called, came to see where she was? None of her friends were interested or suspected anything? Surely she was missed.’
‘Not really,’ said the Lawgiver dismissively. ‘A few people called – on the phone. No one came round here. I just told them she’d taken her inheritance. Gone round the world. World tour. No idea when she’d be back. Eventually they just… forgot all about her. Moved on to leech off someone else.’
‘So you got away with murder.’
The Lawgiver stood up. ‘No,’ he said, finger pointing at Looker. ‘No. That’s where you’re wrong. Dead wrong. Here’s the thing.’ He put his hand over his chest, his heart. ‘I can still feel her. In here. Inside me. Always. With me all the time.’ Eyes shining with a twisted kind of joy. ‘After she left, after I got rid of her meat, I fell apart. Like when my father had died, bad as that. But she came to me. Told me what to do. What my calling was. It was Diana who told me to become the Lawgiver. To get justice for those who’ve been denied it. Like my father. Like Diana. That’s what she told me to do. And that’s what I did.’
The Lawgiver smiled at Looker, like his logic was irrefutable.
‘Bollocks,’ said Looker.
83
T
iny’s henchman grabbed Letisha by the wrist, twisted it hard. She gasped, screamed. With his other hand he applied the pair of pliers he was holding to her little finger. Tiny bent down, picked up something from the pile of clothes he had shed on the floor. A T-shirt. He crossed to Letisha, stuffed it in her mouth. Roughly and hard. She nearly choked, nearly gagged.
‘Don’t want you wakin’ the neighbours,’ Tiny said, then gave the nod to his henchman.
The henchman nodded in response, squeezed the pliers, twisted her finger back at an unnatural angle. Letisha screamed, the T-shirt in her mouth acting as a partial silencer. There was a snapping sound, then he removed the pliers, looked down at his handiwork. Her little finger was hanging uselessly off her hand.
Tiny had been watching the whole thing. He turned to Moses, raised his eyebrows. ‘Enough? Or you want more?’
Moses, chest and shoulders heaving with ill-suppressed rage, was being held in place on the sofa by the other henchman. He stared at Tiny, eyes burning into him, wishing him death. And a painful one at that.
But there was something else in his eyes also. Compassion for Letisha. And fear of what would happen to both of them if he spoke. Or even if he didn’t speak.
Tiny shrugged. ‘No? Oh well.’ He turned back to his henchman who, after being given the nod once more, moved the pliers to the next finger along. He grasped her wrist, twisted once more. Squeezed the handles.
‘Wait,’ shouted Moses. ‘Stop. Please… stop.’
Tiny gave the henchman another nod. He removed the pliers from Letisha’s finger. His face betrayed no emotion, no pleasure, no pain. Like he didn’t care one way or the other whether he hurt her or he didn’t. A flesh-and-bone automaton, doing his master’s bidding.
‘You got something to tell me, Moses?’ asked Tiny, crossing the room, walking slowly towards him. ‘If you don’t…’ He gestured to the henchman once more.
‘Yes,’ gasped Moses. ‘All right. I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you what you want to know. Everything that happened.’
Tiny smiled. ‘Good. Now we’re gettin’ somewhere.’
‘But you let her go, Tiny. You got to let her go.’
Tiny laughed. ‘Look around, bro. Does it look like you’re in any position to be issuin’, like…’ He couldn’t think of the word. It irritated him, he let that irritation show. ‘Just look around you, bro.’
‘Let her go, Tiny,’ Moses said again. ‘She had nothing to do with what happened to your brother. She’s innocent.’
Tiny stared at Letisha as if she was some inferior sub-species. ‘Her? Innocent? She ain’t never been innocent, bro. Not since she was born. She’s a slag. Takes it for money, or, like, the worst kind. Just takes it for fun.’
Moses struggled to keep his anger controlled, his voice calm and even. ‘She’s innocent. Stop hurting her. Let her go.’
Moses was aware of Letisha staring at him, trying to catch his eye, shaking her head at what he was about to say. He looked away from her, at anything in the room but her. He knew what he was about to do. So did she. And she was trying to stop him.
‘I’ll let her go when I’ve heard what you’ve got to say.’
‘Okay then,’ said Moses. ‘I’ll tell you. But it’s not going to be pretty.’
Tiny frowned, suspecting a trick. ‘What you mean?’
‘About Julian. Your brother.’
‘What about him?’
Moses stared at Tiny. Wanting to be listened to, understood. ‘He was a bad man, Tiny. A very bad man. I know you idolised him, grew up thinking he was your hero, but he wasn’t.’
Moses could see that Tiny was getting angry but he continued.
‘He was a monster. Especially to women. Especially to this woman.’ He pointed to Letisha. ‘The things he made her do, the way he used to make her behave… you wouldn’t believe it, man.’
Tiny smiled. ‘I might. Tell me.’
Moses could see from the sick, prurient gleam in Tiny’s eyes that his approach wasn’t going to work. That Tiny seemed to be as bad as his brother had been. But he persisted. ‘A monster, Tiny. A real monster. And she,’ again he gestured to Letisha, ‘didn’t deserve it. She was too good.’
Tiny’s grin persisted. ‘Sounds like you got the hots for her.’
‘I fell in love with her, Tiny.’
Tiny laughed out loud. ‘Oh, bad move, bro. Really bad move.’
‘We don’t plan what we do,’ said Moses. ‘The heart wants what the heart wants.’
Tiny laughed again. Moses knew this wasn’t going the way he wanted it to. Again, he persisted.
‘I fell in love with her, Tiny. That’s not something your brother could ever say about her.’
‘My bro didn’t have to,’ said Tiny, rage building behind his words. ‘He didn’t need to. She was his woman, his property. Man could do with her what he wanted. His right.’
‘No, Tiny, she wasn’t his property. She wasn’t his to do with as he wanted. She’s a woman. A human being. She’s no one’s property. All right, she was his girlfriend when we fell in love, and that was wrong, getting into another man’s territory.’
‘Wrong? You don’t know the half of it, man. Gonna suffer now ’cause of it.’
‘Is that it?’ asked Moses. ‘Can we only be men, can we only be strong, if we’re punishing someone else? Inflicting pain? Trying to hurt someone, own them? Can we?’
Tiny didn’t answer. From his blank expression, Moses’ line of enquiry wasn’t one he had ever considered, nor ever wanted to.
‘Just tell me what you did, Moses. Tell me how you killed him.’
Moses just stared at him, stalling. Trying to formulate a story that Tiny could believe. That would make him let Letisha and him go.
‘Tell me,’ said Tiny, the rage there again in his voice.
‘Hurting someone, owning them, doesn’t make you strong, Tiny. Not really. It makes you weak.’
‘Yeah?’ said Tiny. ‘What makes you strong, then?’
<
br /> ‘Love,’ said Moses simply.
Tiny laughed like it was the funniest thing he had ever heard, howling and guffawing, bending double with his hands on his thighs. ‘Love…’ He shook his head, laughing again.
Eventually, he straightened up, stared at Moses, still laughing. He pointed a finger at him. ‘Man, that bitch got you pussy-whipped good. Real good. Love don’t make you strong, Moses. Look where you are now.’
‘No?’
‘No,’ said Tiny with finality. ‘Just makes you weak.’
Before Moses could reply, Tiny looked at the henchman holding Letisha, gave him a command. ‘Get in the kitchen. Put the gas on.’ He turned to Moses, smiled. ‘Boy’s gonna tell us a story.’
84
T
he Lawgiver stared at Looker.
‘That wasn’t your sister talking to you,’ said Looker, voice as steady and plain as he could make it. ‘That was your guilt talking.’
‘Bullshit.’ His voice vehement again.
‘It’s not bullshit.’ Looker knew he shouldn’t have continued, should have just agreed with him, but he couldn’t let it go. Had to challenge him. ‘You couldn’t cope with what you’d done to her. To your own sister. So you externalised it. You needed to punish someone and it couldn’t be you. So you came up with the idea of the Lawgiver.’
‘Shut up… shut up…’ The Lawgiver started pacing. Looker was suddenly struck by how small the space was, how near he was to him. ‘Guilt… guilt…’ He turned back to Looker. Eyes wild, mouth white at the edges, spittle-flecked. ‘You think guilt could do everything I’ve done? Everything I’ve achieved? Could guilt choose victims as well as I’ve done? Contact online hacktivists and learn how to hack bank accounts? Plan everything as meticulously as I’ve done? Leave no trace, no sightings, no forensics?’ The Lawgiver shook his head, leaned in close to Looker’s face. ‘That’s not the sign of a guilty mind. A guilty conscience. That’s the sign of revenge. Retribution. Justice.’