Dark Lies

by Nick Hollin

  Again Tracy tries to deny it, but there’s something surging to every corner of Katie’s body that convinces her to ask again, finally cracking Tracy.

  ‘Not really. I was drugged and confused. He said something about giving up, just before… I mean, he might have meant he was giving up on life, readying himself to jump, because I just can’t see your dad doing that… Maybe Maclean wanted him to do it, took control of him somehow, like he was a devil or something, the same way he had with my dad.’

  ‘And what happened to your dad?’

  ‘He’d been cuffed, but I begged for him to be let go. Not so much for him, but for my mum. I couldn’t bear her knowing that Dad had been there, had stood and watched his own daughter being abused.’ Tracy wraps her arms defensively around her chest. ‘Of course, she had to live with him leaving her, and she was never the same, had no fight left when… when she got sick.’ She sucks in another uneven breath. ‘But it was better than her knowing the truth. That was why I threatened your dad, told him I’d heard everything that had happened, told him I could get him in the shit.’ She stares at Katie, blinking back the tears. ‘I didn’t know he had a daughter too. I guess that was the reason he agreed in the end.’

  ‘To what?’

  ‘He made my dad swear he would leave home as soon as he could without it seeming suspicious, and he said if there was any evidence he’d committed more crimes he would hunt him down and finish him off like the other guy.’ She pulls the curtain across, trying to cover her face, trying to block the path between them. ‘It was just words, it didn’t mean…’

  Katie knows exactly what it meant, there can be no doubt now; not when she remembers the change that had taken place in him, and the horror on his face in the care home when his darkest secret had broken free. Another possibility crawls unbidden into Katie’s consciousness, something she quickly suppresses. A resolution is close, though, she’s certain of that much; they’re coming to an understanding, or at least being guided towards one.

  Katie wants to sit down on the floor next to Tracy, to curl up and wait until she feels her strength return, but Nathan’s there too and when she looks back at him she can see the expectation in his face.

  ‘What now?’ he says.

  She has no answer. She is exhausted and in shock. Her phone starts to buzz. She struggles to squeeze it out of her trouser pocket, working through the possibilities and settling on it being DS Peters back at the office with news. But when she finally gets to look at the screen she can see that she’s wrong: it’s a message from an unknown number, the same number that had texted her in the car.

  LOOK AT WHAT YOU’VE DONE TO MY POOR LITTLE GIRL.

  The calculation is quick, as is the following movement. She lowers the phone and rushes over to the patio window, standing over Tracy as she draws the curtains fully back and peers out into the garden. The edges are lined with carefully maintained shrubs, some of which have grown higher than the surrounding wall. She determines it would be possible to climb the other side and see but not be seen. Her eyes dart around, looking for the slightest trace of movement, but there’s only a light breeze moving the leaves on a big oak tree in the far corner. When she looks down she can see that Tracy is cowering even more, as if fearing she is about to strike her, and suddenly she pictures her as a little girl, down on the floor of the warehouse, her own policeman dad standing over her, perhaps offering a hand as he lifts her to her feet.

  ‘Is there someone out there?’ says Tracy, twisting awkwardly to look outside. ‘Is it Dad?’

  ‘Just wait here,’ Katie barks, grabbing an open-mouthed Nathan by the arm as she hurriedly draws back the patio door. ‘And once we’ve gone, keep everything locked!’

  Thirty-One

  ‘What the fuck is going on?’ asks Nathan as they rush across Tracy’s back garden, heading for the stone wall at the bottom end.

  ‘He’s been watching us,’ Katie says breathlessly, her boot crushing the stem of a rose to place her foot on a much lower side wall so she can spring up and throw herself over the top. Nathan follows close behind and lands heavily on the other side into a bed of brambles and two-foot nettles that haven’t been maintained in a long time. He ignores their sting and the shooting pain in his ankle, heading across the unmown lawn towards the back of a small red brick house. He’s scanning around for movement, but all he can see is Katie, several strides ahead. They arrive at the back door and find it open.

  ‘Stay behind me,’ Katie whispers, shooting him a look that says no argument. He nods and they enter, the tiniest groan as the door is pushed open.

  At first he finds nothing, no sound, no evidence of life, until his nose picks out a smell, sickly sweet and unmistakable, the finishing touch on his most realistic of fantasies. He follows the smell to the living room, where the body of a man has been laid out across the carpet. Nathan’s heart freezes, desperate to look but unable to do so.

  ‘It’s not him,’ says Katie, and he hears himself breathe.

  It’s obvious now: he’s too tall and too far gone, his unfamiliar face turned a terrible blue. Dressed in black, his legs are bound together and his arms are extended equally on either side, as though his head, covered in thick black hair, is the tip of an arrow, pointing back to where they’ve just run from. It’s a comparison supported by the words written in baked beans on the floor alongside:

  LOCATION LOCATION LOCATION

  ‘Is he here?’ asks Nathan. ‘Markham, I mean.’

  ‘We’d better check,’ says Katie, already heading out of the room.

  When they’ve both carefully searched the sparsely furnished two-bedroomed house – Nathan fearful of finding his brother’s body, or bits of that body, at every turn – they push past the mountain of post, open the front door and slump down next to each other on the doorstep. They had intended to call it in and race back to Tracy’s to make sure she was okay, but from the upstairs window they could see that the local police had already arrived.

  ‘We’ll have to go and face the music soon,’ says Katie. ‘Jesus, when Taylor hears about this, when he finds I’ve gone off on my own again—’

  ‘Not on your own,’ says Nathan.

  ‘No,’ says Katie, and he’s aware of her hand resting on the step between them, just a few inches away from his own. The memories are returning now. His connection with Christian had been there from birth, it was natural and unshakeable, but with Katie it was different; their relationship was something they had formed together, and it could be broken.

  He looks up at the sky, spotting a buzzard circling above them, a sight that reminds him of his time in Scotland, a sight that reminds him why he can’t take that hand in his again. This might not be his last day on earth, but that last day is still coming. He cannot afford to think that just because his desire to kill at this moment is focused – normal, even – that it won’t return to how it was before. If anything, it’s likely to be far worse.

  ‘He killed the poor sod simply to be able to watch us,’ says Katie, finally pulling the hand away and tucking it in her lap.

  ‘More of a reason than any of the others.’

  ‘Why didn’t any of his neighbours suspect there was something wrong?’ She pushes herself up and peers over a hornbeam hedge at an identical-looking house with a white van in the drive.

  ‘Why didn’t his family? By the state of him I’d say he’s been dead for weeks.’

  ‘Is that how long Markham’s been planning this?’ Katie asks, as much to herself as him.

  ‘Years would be my guess. He’s certainly had time to figure everything out.’

  ‘But I still don’t understand why he’s targeting us. What have we done to him? He should be fucking grateful to my dad for letting him go.’

  ‘Your dad killed Maclean.’

  ‘But he can’t have been a true friend of Markham’s. Maclean was a monster.’

  ‘And that’s what Markham has become now. Maybe promising to stay away from his family, threatened and wa
tched by your dad, brought about a terrible change. Perhaps he can only find comfort in destroying families. Even his own.’ Nathan breathes out slowly, a tingle in his fingertips as he thinks about his brother. ‘Is he done?’

  Katie doesn’t answer, rising to her feet and tentatively rubbing the dull ache at the back of her head where Markham had struck her. Nathan closes his eyes and presses his knuckles against his temples, trying to trigger the positive side of his affliction – the ability to see inside a killer’s mind – but as had been the case in the last few months before he’d run to Scotland, he finds it almost impossible to escape from his own.

  ‘Shit!’

  He hears the word and opens his eyes, but Katie’s already off, running up the drive. He follows close behind.

  ‘Where are we going?’ he calls out.

  ‘He was never in there,’ she shouts back, without slowing. ‘There was no mud on the carpet, no side gate, no window open, and therefore no chance he could have got out the front door without disturbing the pile of mail.’

  He’s almost alongside her now, running effortlessly, his body seemingly delighted at the chance to do so. ‘So, the guy back there died for nothing after all?’

  ‘I think he died to keep us occupied for a while,’ says Katie, picking up her pace. ‘It was location, location, location, all right – ours and fucking his!’

  * * *

  They arrive back at Tracy’s house two minutes later, both twisting and turning to try and take in everything around them, to try and spot what Markham has been up to while they were away. Two police cars are parked haphazardly on the pavement and a fresh-faced PC has stepped out of the front door and is making his way towards them.

  ‘Have you seen anyone?’ says Katie, holding up her warrant card.

  The PC stops, nods and looks round. ‘Sorry, ma’am, but what’s going on?’

  ‘There’s a dead man in number five of the road behind this one, Chilcott Way, I think it’s called. You need to get round there and secure the scene. My colleague and I,’ she nods towards Nathan and cuts off the question when she sees the young officer’s mouth fall open, ‘the brother of the man you will no doubt have been told to keep an eye out for, came to talk to the woman here,’ she gestures towards Tracy’s house, ‘about something related to—’ Suddenly Katie breaks off.

  Nathan imagines she’s hurriedly working through what she does and doesn’t want to say, a last desperate attempt to protect Tracy’s identity. He imagines Tracy must have been the one to call the police, but from the PC’s confusion it appears she isn’t talking now.

  Katie pulls Nathan to one side, needing to talk, to share, to find one of those moments of revelation that brought them so much success.

  ‘He brought us here to have his fun,’ she says breathlessly, aware of the curtain twitching at Tracy’s house. ‘But there must have been something else, another reason he wanted us out of London.’

  ‘Another murder?’ says Nathan. He poses it as a question, but he’s already working through the possibilities. ‘But why would he need us out of the way for that? It seems his previous victims were entirely random. There’s no way we could have predicted who they would be.’

  ‘Which is what’s worrying me,’ says Katie. ‘He doesn’t need to pretend to be your brother anymore. He might still have Taylor fooled, but I don’t think he expects that to last long.’

  ‘So, what? So he can kill who he really wants to now, rather than just trying to hurt us?’ Again the question is out there, hanging in the air between them, but both are already working it through, weighing up the evidence, thinking of the man whose identity they have finally revealed.

  They come to the answer at the very same time, Nathan turning to warn Katie only to find her standing frozen, staring at the old Rover. Then she starts to run, arriving at the car in a few seconds, Nathan just behind. Thirty seconds later they’re accelerating hard, as a bewildered-looking PC shrinks in the mirror.

  ‘He must blame Dad for failing to stop him,’ she says. ‘For making him into the monster he is now.’

  ‘How far?’

  ‘Too far,’ she responds, placing her warrant on the dashboard, ready, he imagines, to be waved at any police car that might try to flag them down. ‘Maybe an hour.’

  ‘He’ll be okay,’ he says, reaching for the warrant to stop it sliding off. He wonders if this is it; if they’re racing for an ending that’s already mapped out. Or whether, for once, they’re moving ahead of Markham.

  ‘He was there,’ he says, as the old car takes a pothole badly. ‘The timing of the text told us that, proved that he was watching Tracy. And he’s not matching these speeds. He can’t afford to get stopped, not now his photo is everywhere.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Katie says, fighting the gears as hard as her thoughts.

  ‘Shouldn’t we phone ahead?’

  ‘But what if this is what he was telling us to keep quiet about? You wouldn’t risk hurting Christian, and I can’t risk him hurting Dad.’ He can see her knuckles whiten on the steering wheel. ‘If he has…’

  Nathan nods, falling back into his seat. He knows exactly what she means, reminded of the truth he’d shared right back at the beginning: it ends the way it has to end for us.

  ‘Do you think Christian might be there too?’ He can hear the desperation in his voice, embarrassed that for once he can’t predict Markham’s actions.

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Do you think he’s still alive?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she says, slipping out past the back of a lorry, barely a foot between them.

  He stares at the side of her face; it’s beautiful, there’s no denying it, not anymore, but it also has a tell, a tiny twitch at the corner of her mouth. She’s holding back. He tries to reassure himself that he’s mistaken, that it’s simply his imagination trying to make him doubt everything, and everyone, and lead him down the darkest path.

  He twists to have a look behind Katie’s seat, seeing the plastic bag with the evidence from the Steven Fish case that he still hasn’t looked at, that he will never look at for fear of becoming as bad as the person they’re after. They had been wrong about the murder of Steven Fish being the beginning for ‘The Cartoonist’. The beginning had been the day Markham had stood in front of another man attacking his own daughter and had done nothing other than absorb the evil.

  Nathan closes his eyes and seeks out the words of one of his favourite children’s books, but instead he finds the words that come are from the book he read in his youth, the book that spoke to him like no other, that made him feel like he was not alone. If only his mother could have shared her secret with him. If only Katie’s dad could have done the same before it was too late. If only they’d known what their silence would cost so many people. Nathan slumps back in his seat and lets the darkness take him without a fight.

  * * *

  When he opens his eyes again, everything is different. He’s surrounded by trees, manicured lawns, carefully tended rose beds and, in the distance, a gently meandering river. The rain has gone, replaced by a soft sunlight that seems focused on the large Victorian building at the top of the narrow drive ahead.

  What is this place? he’s about to say, but to his right is a sign stating they have arrived at GREEN ACRES, a private care home.

  Katie has slowed, perhaps not to the ten-mile-an-hour limit, but close enough. They continue up the drive before arriving at a car park in front of the huge building. She pulls into the nearest free spot and kills the engine. It feels strange to suddenly have silence and stillness, almost as though the chase is over, but then Katie pops open her seat belt, opens the door and is running towards an entrance at the back before he’s had a chance to ask what’s going on. What help can he be? Is he even ready to take on the man who’s outsmarted them at every turn? He hardly has the strength left to get out of the car.

  Looking around him, he almost expects to see men in white coats coming to take him carefully by the arm and le
ad him to his room, where he can stare out of the window at circling birds and draw patterns on the walls with dirty fingers. The truth is, he broke a long time ago; not when standing in the centre of an horrendous crime scene had started to give him pleasure, not even when he stood in the kitchen of his family home staring down at his mother’s lifeless body. But with his first, terrible thought. Everything that followed that moment had been madness. He’d solved a few cases, built a reputation, but it was nothing to be proud of; it was something to be feared. And what of his brother? The connection he senses between them has faded to the point where he’s not certain it was ever there at all. Does Katie know? Has she weighed up the evidence like she’s always done, meticulously piecing it all together, while he’s been lost in his fantasy?

  The sun is on him, a great shaft that’s cut between the oaks above that does nothing to stop him shivering. He’s holding onto the door handle as if they’re doing ninety again. He looks up the pathway to where Katie disappeared; of course she had to keep the truth from him, she needed to focus on saving her dad. But does he even want to save him? That’s the real question; the question that’s most likely kept him in his seat. Maybe he feels the same as Markham: that Katie’s dad is to blame for all of this, for creating the monster. Nathan squeezes his fingers, feeling the blood, feeling the pain. ‘But he did it for family,’ he says quietly to himself, before repeating it louder, ‘he did it for family!’ He’s thinking only of Katie now, as he throws open the door and jumps to his feet, sprinting towards the point where he’d last seen her.

  Everything about the care home screams money. He can see now how someone on Katie’s wage would have had to downsize her life to afford it. The likelihood is her dad is totally oblivious to it, but if it makes Katie feel better… They’ve obviously spent money on security, too – CCTV cameras are fixed above many of the doors.

  The door that Katie went through is locked with a keypad, and there’s nobody sitting behind the desk he can see when he presses his face up against the glass. He starts to run again in a desperate search for another entrance and eventually finds an open door round the back. He moves quickly through it, expecting to be accosted at any moment by someone who’s been watching the news and wants to act the hero, fearful of what he might do if they get in his way. But the place is empty. There’s no sound beyond the soft tick of a clock somewhere nearby. It reminds him of the clock in the Brooks’ kitchen; it reminds him he’s taken far too long already.