by Lee Weeks
‘Where?’ He picked a lighter from the dresser and lit the spill.
‘Northwest London.’
‘I said where?’ He paused and half turned towards her but did not look at her.
‘A converted barn near Totteridge.’
He lit the tight wads of newspaper beneath the kindling and fanned the flame, then he picked up two large logs from the side of the massive grate and propped them against the kindling. He rested an elbow on one knee as he watched the growing flame. The light from the fire cast harsh shadows in his lined face. For a big man his body moved gracefully. His hands were precise and quick as they moved to catch the flame and fan the fire. Ebony noticed that kind of thing. She was the opposite: always clumsy. She always felt awkward. Her bones were big, gangly. Her hands and feet were large. Her broad shoulders were too wide for summer dresses and petite pretty clothes. She should have been a runner. She should have been a basketball player; her dad was athletic. Her mum was academic. But her mum hadn’t been clever when it came to choosing men and her dad hadn’t run away fast enough.
‘How many bodies?’
‘Two. . a woman and her baby.’
He moved the smouldering sticks into the flame. She had read his file: there was nothing Carmichael hadn’t seen in the world; there was no nasty experience he hadn’t been through. He was a methodical killer, a man who could kill to order. He could go into a frame of mind where he felt nothing for anyone. She saw the scars on his arms. There were white raised lines made by something she’d read about when she’d researched him. What did the term ‘violent torture’ mean? Amongst other things, it meant ‘the scalpel’. Its knife-like electrode that cut, burnt and cauterized. She knew he would have suffered more from wounds that couldn’t be seen on the surface. Ebony watched his movements and it struck her how gentle he was.
Carmichael sat back to give the fire a chance to take hold. He turned to look at her.
‘Tell me about the victims.’
‘The mother was mid-twenties, Caucasian, healthy, and had been pregnant before. The baby was about thirty-six weeks. The umbilical cord was cut. But it never took a breath.’
‘No “missing persons” answering?’
She shook her head. ‘Chief Superintendent Davidson is concentrating resources on finding that out.’ She watched him prickle at the mention of Davidson’s name.
Sparks sprayed out like fireworks and a burning scrap of wood landed on the rug in front of the hearth. He squashed it between finger and thumb.
‘How was she killed?’
‘We don’t know yet.’
‘I want to see the forensics report.’
Ebony didn’t answer. She knew he wouldn’t be allowed to.
‘The man who we believe carried out the murders went under the name of Chichester. Does that mean anything to you?’ Carmichael shook his head. ‘Can you tell me what you remember about that day at Rose Cottage?’
He shook his head again. ‘I try and remember as little as possible.’ He looked away for a few minutes. The silence resounded round the room. He looked back. He searched her face. ‘What does Davidson expect from me? He mishandled it from day one. He followed the wrong lines of enquiry. Whoever did it was long gone by the time he got his head out of his arse.’ Carmichael raised his voice but then it softened just as quickly. ‘Has he reopened my case?’
She shook her head. ‘Not yet, but we are pushing for it. There is a lot of respect and loyalty for you in the department. People will do everything they can to get a result this time.’
He prodded the logs with the poker. ‘I won’t help Davidson just so that he can get a lucrative fucking retirement deal after he leaves the Force. Come back to me when the case is reopened.’
Ebony sat on the sofa, hugging her legs in close to keep warm. Bridget came in and stood in the doorway:
‘I’ve finished feeding the animals. Does tha want me to stay?’
‘We’ll manage, thanks. How are you getting home?’
‘I’m staying with my dad tonight; haven’t been able to get to him for three weeks; I’ll drive tractor across the fields.’ Her eyes went back to Ebony. . ‘I’ll be back tomorrow, in the morning. . early. . ’
‘Okay.’
Carmichael thanked her and then turned his attention on the catching fire. Bridget took a last look at Ebony and was gone. A draft of arctic air came around the room as the door swung behind her. Ebony shivered. Carmichael stood and went to a box chest at the far side of the room, opened it and pulled out a shawl. ‘Here, put this round yourself.’
‘Thanks.’ She took it and wrapped it around her shoulders. ‘It’s beautiful.’ It was hand crocheted. The intricate weave looked like thick lace.
‘It’s a nursing shawl. It was my wife’s.’
Carmichael picked up the whisky bottle from the dresser. He poured out two shots and handed one to Ebony. He drank his whisky as he leant against the oak beam above the fireplace.
A few minutes passed as Ebony stared at the fire and Carmichael stared into his glass.
‘Can I ask you some things about your past?’
‘You can ask.’
‘You were tortured in the Iraq war?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you allowed to talk about it?’
‘Allowed, yes, some of it anyway. But I don’t choose to.’
‘Can I ask you about what you did after you left the Special Boat Service? Where did you go?’
Carmichael moved the logs around on the fire. He pushed the small sticks into the flames. His fingers were hardened to the pain.
‘I went travelling.’
‘Where did you go? I’ve never been abroad.’
‘Never?’ She shook her head. ‘Then I envy you. You have a world waiting for you out there.’
She smiled. ‘Maybe one day.’
‘I didn’t go anywhere specific. I searched for answers. I never found them.’ She looked at him with an expression that told him that wasn’t going to be enough of an answer. ‘South America, Africa, Europe. I told you I was searching.’
‘Searching for answers to do with Louise and Sophie?’
‘Yes. Mostly.’
‘Did you find anything?’ He shook his head.
She wrapped the shawl around herself and sipped the whisky. It wasn’t a drink she liked and she wasn’t much of a drinker, but the Scotch warmed her. She looked at him.
‘You resigned. Why didn’t you fight it? You have a lot of support from serving officers in the MET.’
He threw another log on the fire. Rusty jumped up onto the sofa next to Ebony. She was grateful for the heat of his small body as he lay across her lap. Carmichael shook his head, stared into the fire.
‘My mind went into meltdown.’ The fire crackled. ‘I trusted those in charge to think for me. . big mistake.’
‘Did you ever come up with a motive for the murders?’
He shook his head. ‘I delved into Louise’s life before she met me. . nothing. Nothing she hadn’t told me.’
‘What about Chrissie?’
‘She studied medicine at Edinburgh. She went off travelling for a year. She got pregnant — by accident or by design, I don’t know.’
‘Did you meet her father?’
‘Yes. . at the funeral. James Martingale is an arrogant fuck but you can’t argue with the amount of money he puts back into charities. Chrissie had an older half sister; I never met her.’
‘Were they here in the UK when the murders happened?’
‘No. Did you see his statement?’
‘Yes. I read it last night. I just wanted to hear things from you.’
He looked at her and almost smiled; deep creases were indented either side of his face. Ebony saw a glimpse of the handsome man of thirteen years earlier. ‘So. . at least I’m not the chief suspect in your mind, otherwise you wouldn’t have come here alone. Thanks. It’s a solid gesture. . it’s been noted.’
Ebony stroked Rusty’s velvety ears. He sighed. The room felt warmer.
‘Why didn’t you go there, that night, to pick them up like you were supposed to?’
‘I got drunk. Blind, steaming drunk.’ He spoke softly as he stared into the fire.
‘On your own?’
‘Yes. No one walks away from war and isn’t affected by it. You wouldn’t be human. You eat, sleep and pray to stay alive and see your family again but, when you do, you don’t know which is the reality any more. You live in constant alert mode and fear and nothing is real any more. Louise understood me when no one else did. . and Sophie gave me a purpose to my life. . but. . sometimes I needed to be alone. Sometimes my memories are too much for me. I thought they needed a break from me too. . I know how difficult it was sometimes.’
‘Was your marriage okay?’
He looked at her, surprised. ‘You mean about my affair?
She nodded. ‘Just seems an odd thing seeing that you were a family man.’
‘What you mean is: was it so out of character that it means if I could do that, I could do anything?’
‘No, not really. I just would like to understand what made you do it.’
He prodded the fire with a poker as he talked: ‘I’d like to say I really understood it, but I don’t. I had a brief affair with a woman I worked with. I let my guard down. I knew we were attracted to one another, had been for a long time and I kept well away from her until I had no choice but to see her every day, all day, all night. We ended up working together, staying late, we ended up in bed. She wanted it to happen, badly, and I was going through a phase of feeling unworthy, self-destructive. You destroy what you treasure most because you don’t think it can be real, it can’t last. I was guilty of believing I didn’t deserve Louise or Sophie. I regretted it as soon as I did it. It was one night, that was all. I told Louise. I couldn’t have kept it from her. Maybe I should have.’
‘How did Louise react?’
‘She considered leaving me, I know. She knew I was sorry. I wasn’t sure whether things would ever be the same between us or that she could ever forgive me.’
‘When you arrived that day at Rose Cottage and you saw what had happened. When you looked at the bodies. .’
He bowed his head. ‘Jesus. .’
‘I’m sorry. .’
‘Don’t be.’ He looked up and smiled sadly. ‘You have a job to do.’
‘Can I ask you why you moved the bodies?’
‘I moved Sophie. .’
‘You didn’t move the others at all?’
He shook his head as he swallowed the last of his whisky and wiped his burning mouth. He stared into the fire as he talked. ‘I got to the cottage and knew something was wrong even before I had parked the car. The curtains in the lounge were closed. The door was open. I saw Chrissie first. I walked into the kitchen and found Louise: butchered.’ He looked into the fire and coughed to clear his throat and his head before going on. ‘I looked around and I called Sophie’s name. Then I ran upstairs and found the baby, Adam, first; he was asleep, doped, but alive, and I had a few seconds’ hope that I would find my daughter. .’ He swallowed, shook his head. ‘They cut her throat.’ He stared at the fire. His voice dropped until it was barely audible over the hiss and crackle of the burning wood. ‘I know I shouldn’t have touched the crime scene but this wasn’t a crime scene; this was everything in the world I cared about and it had gone. These were my angels. I carried her down to lie next to her mother.’ He turned to look at Ebony and shook his head to clear it. ‘I don’t know why they did it but no matter what anyone says, if you ask me, it was premeditated, it was planned. There was a reason why my family died. Now we know that’s true because they’re back and killing again.’ The firelight reflected in his eyes. ‘I’ve waited a long time for this day to come.’
As he stared at Ebony she saw the eyes of a troubled mind that was never going to find peace. She’d seen it all her life. It was the look of someone not destined ever to live a normal life and be happy. The eyes were full of demons and nightmares. Ebony had seen eyes like that before, in the tortured souls that looked at her when she went to visit her mother. Broadmoor was full of them. Her mother was one. Rusty barked; Ebony jumped. He stood alert on the sofa and tilted his head to listen to some noise from outside. Carmichael held up his hand to silence him. ‘Stay.’
‘What is it?’ Ebony whispered.
Rusty jumped down from the sofa. Carmichael put his foot out to stop him but Rusty jumped over it. ‘Rusty. . COME!’ Carmichael picked up his rifle as he ran after the dog, but Rusty was already out of the door.
Ebony threw her coat on and ran towards the barn and the dreadful sound: the lambs like babies with their high-pitched cries and the deeper distressed bleating of their mothers trying to protect them.
The barn door was open. Inside the sheep were stampeding round their pens and the bodies of the killed lambs were littered in the straw. She stopped in the doorway. Carmichael’s face was murderous as he turned towards her, rifle in his hand. He swung away from her at the sound of snarling and yelping coming from the rear of the barn. He started running towards the sound, calling Rusty’s name as the sound of a dog’s growling turned to squeals of pain. The squealing stopped and an eerie silence fell in the barn as Carmichael searched the pens. The sheep scattered. He found what he was looking for. Rusty’s body looked as if someone had tried to skin it. Carmichael placed his hands beneath him and lifted Rusty out of the blood-covered straw. He carried him into the house.
The dog fox stopped on the brow of the hill and looked back down at the farmhouse. He saw the big man carrying the dying dog. The dog’s warm blood was on his mouth. Its flesh was in his teeth. He saw the pheasant that Carmichael had set to trap him, still hanging there, swinging now. Above him his mate stood guard, in her mouth the body of a newborn lamb.
Chapter 13
Carmichael laid Rusty on the kitchen table.
‘Look after him while I fetch the medical kit.’
He came back with an armful of neatly folded towels, old but clean, and a medical chest.
‘What can I do?’ Ebony asked.
Carmichael took out his knife and cut into the material so he could tear them into pressure bandages. ‘Lie him on the towels. I’ll be back in a minute.’
Carmichael disappeared. Ebony lifted up Rusty’s limp body, wet with blood, his flesh exposed, ripped over his flank and back. The fox had tried to tear him apart. Carmichael returned with a bowl of warm salted water and for the next two hours they worked together to sew Rusty up.
Carmichael pushed his hair back from his tired eyes. ‘He will survive or not.’ He picked Rusty up and lay him in his basket. He was just about alive. ‘There’s nothing more we can do: I don’t have any antibiotics to give him. I need to go out. Leave him here and go to bed. Upstairs, first door on the right. Bathroom’s the second one. It’s primitive but it’s clean.’ Carmichael was rubbing soot into his face. He smelt like he’d rolled in a dead animal and then slept on a dung heap. Ebony heard him linger in the tack room. Then he was gone.
In the lounge the fire was dying down. Ebony put another few logs on it and covered Rusty with a clean towel. He didn’t stir.
She went across to the dresser and picked up the photo of Louise and Sophie and wondered how many times Carmichael had held this photo in the lonely evenings he spent there on his own. Apart from the shelves with their few books, his writing desk was the only other personal addition to the room: neat, plain and functional, like the rest of the house. Sitting on the top of it was an old silver tankard used as a penholder and, the most incongruous thing in the room, his laptop, the newest and the best piece of kit. She went to open it and then stopped herself. Whatever she found on there it would have been left there on purpose, just for her to find. Then he would lose his trust for her. Already she understood that much about him. She looked around: the desk had one long thin drawer under its top. Ebony gave it a little rattle to see if it would open. But it was locked. After a last check on Rusty Ebony opened
the door to the upstairs. At the top of the landing there was the guest room on her right and then the bathroom. The bathroom was warm because it was above the Aga in the kitchen. Ebony brushed her teeth and opened cupboards. What little there was, was laid out in military order: toothbrush, paste, floss, antiseptic cream. Every surface was wiped and spotless on the old shelves that looked like they had been put up by someone a hundred years before. Carmichael had never put his stamp on the house: he was just a visitor. When Ebony emerged from the bathroom she opened the door opposite it, across the landing. The room smelt of saddle soap and liniment and a whiff of sheep. The bed was made with military creases. In the corner there was a cloth wardrobe that looked like it had been a temporary measure but never replaced. Now it was on its last legs. He hadn’t spent money on any of it, thought Ebony. If Carmichael had inherited all his wife’s large fortune then he hadn’t spent it on himself. Inside the wardrobe was a shelf stacked with small piles of perfectly folded T-shirts and sweaters. On the top of the wardrobe was a rifle bag.
She closed the door quietly and went back to the guest bedroom at the top of the stairs. Inside the room it looked like Carmichael had gathered anything feminine from all over the house and put it in there. There were old flowered curtains and peeling rose wallpaper. There was an old fifties dressing table, white, with a cracked, mottled mirror and a matching freestanding wardrobe that must have been someone’s idea of chic at one time. She turned the small brass handle on the wardrobe door and cringed as it squeaked on its hinges. She paused, no sound from anywhere in the house. She was pretty sure Carmichael would hear her if he was back inside. Inside the wardrobe were a few padded hangers hanging empty from the brass rail and on the floor were boxes covered by a tartan blanket. Ebony peeled the blanket aside and carefully prized open one of the two boxes. Inside it was packed neatly with mementos, knick-knacks. She lifted out a photo album that was resting on the top and turned the pages of Carmichael’s former life. It started with Christmas and Sophie standing by a snowman. It was spring by the end of the album. Sophie was running towards the camera; Louise was running after her laughing. The next one, Louise must have taken. It was a strange sight to look at Carmichael laughing in the photo. In the spring photos Louise and Sophie were wearing the same clothes as in the photo downstairs. Must have been his last recorded happy day with them. It must have been some of the last photos they ever took as a family. After she’d made up the bed from a neatly folded pile of bedding left on top of it, she phoned Carter.