Her Last Breath: The new crime thriller from the international bestseller (Sullivan and Mullins)

by Alison Belsham

  Rory answered his phone.

  ‘Mullins’s lawyer’s here,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll come down with you,’ said Francis.

  As Rory greeted Jayne Douglas, Alex’s lawyer, in the reception area, Francis heard someone say his name.

  ‘DI Sullivan?’

  He turned around to find Tom Fitz bearing down on him. The last person he wanted to see. But he had a few things to say to the reporter. He hadn’t had the chance to vent his spleen earlier, as he’d chased Marni out of the courthouse to try and explain. Only when he caught up with her, he had no explanation. What he’d done was vile and he couldn’t blame her for being angry. While he stood in front of her, lost for words, she’d got into her car and driven off.

  Now he felt a pressure in his chest – his anger returning.

  ‘Fitz, how the hell did you know about the call out for Alex Mullins? Who told you?’

  ‘Picked it up on the radio.’ Fitz’s mouth widened into a leering grin.

  ‘Funny. But you know as well as I do police communications are encrypted these days.’

  ‘I have to protect my sources.’ Fitz raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips, making Francis feel the urge to punch the gurning idiot in the face.

  ‘You’re sailing close to the wind, Fitz. You know that.’

  ‘Can you confirm that the two girls that died in the recent attacks had both been tattooed with poisoned ink? And also that they were both marked with stigmata?’

  ‘No, I won’t confirm those things. This information isn’t for public consumption, Fitz, and if you print more critical details of the crimes, I’ll charge you with putting a police operation in jeopardy.’

  ‘So those things are true? I heard their toxicity tests came back showing massive amounts of poison in their systems.’

  Where the hell was he getting his information?

  This called for damage limitation.

  ‘Tom, I’ll talk to you off the record, if you can undertake to respect it.’

  ‘Is there anything you can give me on the record?’

  ‘You tell me what you’ve got and I’ll see if I can confirm any of it.’

  He couldn’t afford to make an enemy of the press. And if he knew what information Tom had, he might get a handle on where it was coming from.

  Five minutes later, they were sitting upstairs in Francis’s office, with the door firmly closed.

  ‘I know that two girls have died after being attacked. Both had tattoos that were poisoned, both had injuries to their hands, feet and sides. One was found by the café under the bandstand, one was a cleaner at the Brighton Aquarium. Can you confirm any of that?’

  ‘Off the record,’ – he couldn’t emphasise this enough – ‘those facts are correct. I know news of the attacks and the deaths is public knowledge but I’m asking you not to publish any more details about the tattoos or the poison.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Come on, Tom, you know the drill. We hold stuff back to see if suspects know things they shouldn’t.’

  ‘But these are things the public have a right to know.’

  ‘It’s about timing. If you hold back on this stuff now, I’ll give you first dibs when the time’s right.’

  ‘By which time every other journalist will have it too.’

  ‘I don’t want to cause a panic.’

  ‘Panic sells papers.’

  ‘Maybe at the expense of the next victim’s life.’

  ‘No way, Sullivan. If anyone can be blamed for the next one, it’s you and your boys for not catching the killer.’

  Francis pushed his chair back. He was getting nowhere.

  ‘A few days, Tom. That’s all I’m asking.’

  He stood up and held out his hand for Tom to shake.

  Tom Fitz gave him a begrudging nod and shook his hand.

  ‘You scratch my back. I’ll scratch yours.’

  Francis let go of the reporter’s hand abruptly.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ said Francis.

  Tom shook his head, grinning again.

  ‘Nothing. Nothing at all.’

  Francis stared at him.

  ‘You know how the world works, Sullivan. Give me something good to print – it’ll stop me printing other stuff.’

  ‘What other stuff?’

  Tom shrugged.

  ‘That sounded like a threat, Fitz.’

  ‘Take it how you like. Just make sure I get a good run at the story.’

  He opened the door of Francis’s office and left, leaving a sour taste in Francis’s mouth and the conviction that Tom Fitz was a man he couldn’t trust.

  35

  Thursday, 24 August 2017

  Alex

  It wasn’t right. There were laws about how long you could lock someone in a police cell for – and after two days, Alex was sick and scared. Sick of the sight of four walls and a ceiling, all painted institutional grey, that seemed to be closing in on him, little by little. And scared that he was never going to get out. He’d shouted at the locked door and he’d thrown a cup of water at the PC who’d brought his breakfast to him. The cup had been made of paper and it had less than an inch of water in it, but it had made him feel better. For less than a minute.

  He wanted clean clothes and he wanted a smoke. He wanted to see his mother and he wanted to talk to Liv. She was the only one who understood him. She believed him.

  He lay on the hard, narrow bed, scrunching the threadbare blanket with his fists and staring at the pattern of peeling paint on the ceiling. The toilet bowl in the corner stank of sick – his own sick, from having released the contents of his stomach the previous day. Anxiety gnawed at his gut more fiercely than hunger and, since the water-throwing incident, they’d refused to bring him anything to drink.

  He got up and banged on the door.

  ‘Fucking bring me some water,’ he shouted.

  The heat was enough to do him in. His torso was wet with sweat and his mouth was dry.

  ‘Water!’

  Never had the grind of a key turning in a lock sounded so good.

  But it wasn’t a PC with a drink of water for him that came through the door. It was Jayne Douglas, the lawyer he’d seen when he’d originally been questioned. She walked into the cell and seemed immediately out of place, in her smart navy suit, high-heeled shoes, and carrying a soft leather briefcase. She smelled of something sharp and citrusy, but couldn’t help wrinkling her nose at the rancid air that greeted her.

  Alex stepped back from the door to give her some space.

  ‘You’re here to get me out – about bloody time.’

  But the door clanged shut behind her and she gestured to Alex to sit down on the bed.

  ‘Wait. What . . .?’

  ‘They’re not releasing you yet, Alex,’ she said. ‘They’ve had custody extended up to the full ninety-six hours. That means another day and a half. After that they’ll have to charge you if they want to keep you.’

  ‘No fucking way. There’s nothing to charge me with.’

  ‘Hitting a police officer?’

  ‘They were all over me. I panicked.’

  Her raised eyebrows told him that she’d heard it all before.

  ‘They’ll use what they can.’

  ‘So if you can’t get me out, what can you do?’ Alex knew he sounded belligerent, and that she was on his side, but he’d had enough.

  ‘Do you mind if I . . .’ She pointed at the space next to him on the bed.

  Alex gave a slight nod and she sat down.

  ‘Listen, Alex, I can’t get you out right now, but I can give you some advice.’

  ‘What?’ Did he want advice from Jayne Douglas? She had no idea what it was like to be in his situation. If she couldn’t get him out she was just a waste of space.


  ‘Alex, the police are building a case against you. They’ve got CCTV footage of you following Tash along the front before she was attacked, and they’ve found a witness who claims that you hit Tash on a previous occasion.’

  ‘Who? Who said that? It’s a bloody lie.’

  ‘A girl called Sarah Collins. Do you know her?’

  Alex nodded. ‘That makes sense. She’s a massive bitch.’

  ‘But why would she come to the police with a lie like that?’

  ‘I don’t know. But it is a lie. I never hit Tash.’

  Jayne Douglas’s eyebrows went up a couple of millimetres. Didn’t she believe him?

  ‘Alex, the first and most important thing is for you to get your alibis straight. I’ve got the time frames of the two attacks here,’ she said, opening the flap on her briefcase and pulling out a sheaf of papers. She flicked through them to find what she wanted. ‘Right. Here’s Sally Ann’s. The hours in question are from five thirty last Thursday until approximately seven on Friday morning.’

  ‘They asked me about that already.’

  ‘What were you doing?’

  Alex shrugged. ‘I was at my cousin’s house for some of the evening. Then I went home.’

  ‘You’ll need to be a little more precise with times than that.’

  ‘I don’t know the exact times.’ He’d been over this so many times already, with the police and in his own mind. And each time it slammed it home to him that Tash and Sally Ann were both dead, and he started hurting all over again.

  ‘Make an accurate estimate and then stick to it. And what about witnesses? Is there anyone other than Liv and your parents who can vouch for you being in those places? After all, they’re related to you.’

  Alex sighed. ‘No. It was just Liv and me at her house. And my parents were asleep when I got in, so they didn’t even see me.’

  Jayne Douglas glanced towards the cell door. ‘Alex, we need to do better than this.’

  ‘You mean lie. Or find someone else to lie on my behalf?’

  She didn’t answer him, but instead looked down at her piece of paper.

  ‘What about the night Tash was attacked? I’ve got here that she left the club at just after one and was seen on CCTV cameras walking down the front. You were seen on the cameras following her, though several minutes later.’

  ‘What?’ This was news to Alex.

  ‘You followed her.’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘Apparently you did.’

  The ceiling and the walls rushed towards him and he couldn’t breathe. He shook his head, desperate to speak but unable to form the words.

  Jayne Douglas put a hand on his forearm.

  ‘Take it slowly, Alex. Tell me what you told the police.’

  ‘I told them what happened. I left The Haunt and had a spliff outside. Then I wandered around a bit and went home. That’s it.’

  ‘So how do you explain what’s on the CCTV footage?’

  Alex dropped his head into his hands. Had he walked along the front that night?

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I can’t remember where I went exactly.’ He moved his arm to disengage Jayne Douglas’s hand, then stood up and paced the short way to the opposite wall and back.

  ‘I blacked out.’

  The lawyer stared up at him, unblinking, for several long seconds.

  ‘Never, never, never admit that to anyone else, Alex.’ She stood up and put her hands on his shoulders. ‘Not to the police, not to your mother, not to Liv. Never mention that fact to me again, either. Do you understand?’

  Alex pulled away from her.

  ‘Yes.’

  Oh, yes, he understood all too clearly.

  Like the police, Jayne Douglas thought he was guilty of the crime.

  His own lawyer thought he was a murderer.

  ‘Now get the hell out!’

  The policeman who let Jayne Douglas out came back and handed him a cup of water. But Alex’s hand was trembling too much to take it.

  36

  Thursday, 24 August 2017

  Marni

  Marni knew about sleepless nights. She would count herself as an expert. She could chase sleep from one side of her bed to the other for hours on end. She knew about anxiety, gnawing at her belly, tightening her chest, making her feel cold, making her sweat. She greeted dawn like an old friend, with a dry mouth and a pounding head, more often than she would choose to. Pills were a temptation but she’d tried them before. Alcohol helped – occasionally, but not often. And it played havoc with her blood sugar levels.

  The heatwave made things worse. Even a sheet was too much, and she lay awake, her body clammy with sweat that didn’t cool her, thinking of Alex. She knew how he’d be feeling, how scared, how alone. Claustrophobia threatened to overwhelm her and she pushed the sheet to one side and sat up. How could she sleep? They had to release him soon or charge him – and what if they did that? She couldn’t handle it.

  Next to her, Thierry snored gently. He could always sleep. Drunk, high or sober, it made no difference. He was bored with her insomnia and there was no point both of them losing sleep.

  She got out of bed and padded through the dark house. The upstairs windows were open, but there wasn’t a breath of air. It didn’t feel right. She could sense Alex’s absence in the air, in the walls, floor and ceiling. Empty in the same way it was when she first kicked Thierry out as their marriage ran onto the rocks. There was a vacuum in the space Alex had taken up, an echo of his laughter just out of earshot.

  Marni went into his room and seeing the outlines of familiar objects, but no Alex, broke her heart. Salty tears stung her eyes and her head ached, though not as much as her heart. She lay on his bed and buried her head in his pillow, taking a deep breath to get the smell of him, like she used to do when he was a baby.

  Fuck Francis Sullivan. He had no grounds to hold her boy. He certainly had no grounds on which to charge him. Please God, let Alex be back in his own bed by this time tomorrow.

  She slept.

  In her dream, Alex was being taken away from her by armed police. They were in a courtroom and up in the public gallery, a row of girls with bleeding stigmata watched as Alex wrestled to break free. She had the dream over and over, but he never escaped.

  When she woke, only fifteen minutes had passed. Insomnia rendered time elastic.

  It was still dark outside. It would still be dark in Alex’s cell. She tried to imagine herself being there with him, willing him to feel her presence and take comfort from it. Wide awake again, she slipped downstairs to the kitchen and drank vodka from the bottle, standing naked in front of the open fridge, welcoming the flood of cold air on her heated body.

  Senses dulled by the alcohol, she went back up to Alex’s room and climbed into his bed. This time she slipped under the covers, determined to sleep for longer than a quarter of an hour. She lay on her front and burrowed into the pillow. Searching for something cool to the touch, she slid her hand down between the mattress and the wall. It brought scant relief but as she was pulling it free, her fingers felt something. A piece of folded paper. She pulled it out and dropped it to the floor by the side of the bed. She settled herself again.

  Sleep didn’t come, despite – or maybe because of – the heat of the vodka spreading through her body.

  She turned on the light and picked up the piece of paper from the floor. An envelope. The stamp was French and it was addressed to Alex.

  France?

  The letter had already been opened and she pulled it out frantically, not caring that she ripped the envelope more in the process. Her hand shook as she unfolded it and then held it in the small pool of light created by the bedside lamp.

  Mon cher Alexander,

  You probably don’t know who I am. Your mother and my brother will probably have ne
ver mentioned me during your childhood. No matter. I understand they must hide the truth from you.

  Of what truth do I write?

  Alexander, my name is Paul Mullins. I am your father. The man you know of as your father is my brother Thierry Mullins. He is not your father, he is your uncle. Your mother was with me, and we three are a family. I know this will come as a shock to you but, by God, I swear this is the truth.

  Of course, you will want to meet me, just as I want to meet you. I will be coming to England soon. I will do all I can to come to Brighton. When I arrive, I’ll write you again.

  Mon cher fils, it’s time that we got to know each other, do you agree?

  Affectionately,

  Ton père,

  Paul Mullins

  Marni gasped and dropped the letter. Paul was in prison in Marseilles. How could he have sent this? She studied the envelope. It had been posted in Aix-en-Provence, where Thierry and Paul’s mother lived. That explained it and then she recognised that the writing on the outside of the envelope, different to that on the inside, was Paul’s mother’s. She would have happily smuggled it out of the jail for him. She’d do anything for her favourite son.

  How long had Alex had this? She looked at the envelope but the postmark was obscured and she couldn’t see the date. She thought about how secretive he’d become recently, how uncommunicative. Was this the reason why?

  She looked around his room, trying to find answers in the abandoned trainers, kicked off into a corner, or in the jeans, discarded on the floor. Four brands of deodorant on the chest of drawers, his desk a muddle of books and drawings, pens and pencils. He’d tacked pictures to the wall – a sketch of Tash, photos of him and his friends at the beach.

  No pictures from his childhood. No pictures of her, or of Thierry. She thought about the gulf that had opened between them. Was Paul the cause? Had he already sowed the seeds of doubt in Alex’s mind about who he really was?

  Paul was coming. Maybe he was already here.

  Fear stole the oxygen from her lungs and made her hyperventilate.

  37

  Friday, 25 August 2017

  Rory

  Rory reached out to take the copy of the Argus that the boss was holding out to him. The paper trembled in Francis’s hand and the colour had flooded back into his cheeks. He looked more alive than he had done for weeks.