Don't Make a Sound

by David Jackson

  ‘Right, then. Who wants to watch Frozen?’

  He holds up the DVD as he says this, as if awaiting a massive cheer from his audience. What he gets is three solemn faces, not a smile among them.

  His face drops. ‘Well, that’s what you’re getting. You can thank me later.’

  He opens up the case and extracts the DVD, but hesitates before inserting it into the player.

  ‘Listen to me, girls. This is very important. While you’re watching this film, I’m going to be over there, talking to Mr Cody. You are NOT to turn around while I’m doing that, okay? OKAY?’

  They all nod. So this is it, thinks Daisy. This is the real reason for the presents. Just like I thought.

  ‘I’ll have the curtain open,’ Malcolm continues, ‘so I’ll be able to see you. Anyone who turns around or takes off their headphones will be punished. Do I make myself clear?’

  More nodding. We’re his prisoners, thinks Daisy. We do as he says. So much for this being a time for fun.

  Malcolm finds a smile again, and it makes Daisy want to be sick.

  He loads the DVD. Waits for the movie to begin. He steps to one side, his eyes on the three girls, checking that their attention is on the screen and nothing else.

  And then he disappears behind them.

  Daisy finds it a struggle not to turn immediately. She wants to see Cody, wants to get a proper look into his eyes. Wants to know what Malcolm is about to do to him.

  But she doesn’t. She sits rock-still and stares at the bright colours emanating from the TV, the joyful songs ringing loudly in her ears, and she tries to take herself to a happy place.

  56

  Cody sees the shadow looming again on the other side of the curtain. He has been dreading this moment. He has no clue what plans have been made for him, but he has heard all that Malcolm has said to the children. They are not to see or hear what is about to take place, and that cannot bode well.

  The curtain is whipped back. Drawn all the way round the rail. Cody gets his first proper view of the bedroom. He notices the wooden boards screwed into place over the window. He sees the three girls, all facing dutifully away from him. The cartoon images on the television seem strangely incongruous.

  He wonders what is going through the heads of the children. Are they happy here? Have they been looked after or badly abused?

  At least they are alive.

  Malcolm looks over his shoulder. ‘You can turn round now, girls,’ he says.

  Nobody moves, and Malcolm faces Cody again, satisfied that the headphones are serving their purpose of cutting the girls out of what is to come.

  Malcolm collects a carrier bag from the bed, then sweeps up a child’s chair and drops it in front of Cody. When he settles his bulk onto the miniature furniture he looks almost comical.

  Almost.

  ‘I said we’d have a talk,’ Malcolm begins. ‘This is it. This is our talk. In a moment, I’m going to take that tape off your mouth. First, I need to tell you the rule. The rule is that you don’t try to call out to the girls. You talk in a normal, quiet voice. Is that understood?’

  Cody nods.

  ‘All right, then.’

  Malcolm stretches forward. Grabs the edge of the duct tape. Rips it from Cody’s face in one swift, savage motion.

  Cody yells, his cry soaked up by the cotton wool in his mouth.

  ‘Spit it out,’ Malcolm orders. ‘Go on.’

  Cody bends his head forward and does his best to expel the stuffing. It takes several attempts to get it out, and even then there are remnants adhering to the inside of his mouth. He moves his tongue, trying to dislodge them, and it rasps as though his saliva glands have been drained. He can smell his own breath, and it is like the odour of a cesspit on a hot summer’s day.

  ‘There,’ says Malcolm. ‘Better? Don’t worry, I’ve got plenty more where that came from.’ He empties the plastic bag onto the carpet. Cody sees duct tape, cotton wool and a small pair of scissors. Malcolm picks up the scissors and begins toying with them – opening and closing them like a vicious snapping turtle.

  ‘Water,’ Cody croaks. ‘I need a drink.’

  ‘Well, we’ll have to see about that, won’t we?’ says Malcolm. ‘This will be a two-way street, you see, Mr Cody. You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.’

  ‘I . . . I don’t know what you want from me.’

  Malcolm smiles. ‘That’s easy. Nothing to worry about. All I want is some information. The answers to some questions.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘About you. About the police. About what brought you to our door. What’s going on, Sergeant Cody? Explain it to me, please.’

  ‘There isn’t much to explain. I already told you everything when we arrived yesterday afternoon.’

  ‘Tell me again.’

  Cody hesitates. He’s not sure why, but something whispers to him that he shouldn’t be too forthcoming. Shouldn’t be too hasty in satisfying Malcolm’s demands.

  He says, ‘We were . . . We were following up on a lead. The sighting of a van near the crime scenes. We produced a list of people who own vans matching the description. You were just one of many on that list.’

  Malcolm continues opening and closing his scissors. Snap, snap, snap.

  ‘You expect me to believe that?’ he says finally.

  ‘Yes. It’s the truth.’

  Malcolm shakes his head. ‘Do I look like a fool to you? Do I look like some kind of idiot?’

  No, thinks Cody. You look deranged. You look unhinged. You look dangerous. But not a fool.

  Malcolm says, ‘There must be thousands upon thousands of vans in Liverpool alone. You couldn’t have been checking out every single one of them. You must have had more to go on than that.’

  Cody still doesn’t understand what happened over the van. It was Quigley’s information that led them to Malcolm, and yet his van didn’t fit the sighting.

  ‘We hit lucky,’ he says, because now he’s starting to think that’s what it was. Or unlucky.

  ‘No,’ says Malcolm. ‘You knew, didn’t you? You knew about my other van.’

  Cody has to fight to hide his surprise.

  ‘DIDN’T YOU?’ yells Malcolm.

  Cody jerks back in his chair. The wood creaks with his movement. He looks across to the girls and sees that they are still blissfully unaware of what is going on.

  Malcolm follows his gaze. ‘Didn’t you?’ he says again, quietly this time. ‘You knew about my other van?’

  ‘Yes,’ Cody says. ‘We knew about that.’

  He has to think about the reasons for his sudden impulse to lie, and realises it’s not just because it’s the answer Malcolm is expecting. Something is telling him he needs to get across the notion that the cops know a lot more than Malcolm thinks.

  Yes, that’s it, Cody. That’s what you need to do. Make him believe he’s not out of the woods. Make him fear that there is still a good chance of his being caught, and that killing a cop is not in his best interests right now.

  Whatever you do, don’t give him the true story. Don’t allow him to realise that nobody knows you’re here, that he could kill you right now and nobody would be any the wiser. Because that’s the harsh reality, isn’t it? You’re alone.

  Malcolm rubs his hand across his pate. Spends a while circling that deformity in his skull. He looks uncomfortable with what Cody has just told him.

  ‘How?’ he asks. ‘How did you find out about my other van?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Anger crosses Malcolm’s features. ‘What do you mean, you don’t know? You came to my house looking for a white van. That means you know about the van. How?’

  ‘It doesn’t work like that. What you have to realise is that what you’ve done is a big deal. It’s major news. You must have seen it on TV. There is a massive team working on this case, and I’m just a foot soldier. I do what I’m told. So when my boss tells me to go to a certain house and ask about a van, that’
s what I do.’

  ‘You’re a sergeant.’

  ‘A sergeant is nothing. Above me are inspectors, chief inspectors, superintendents, chief superintendents . . . Then there are the intelligence people – the ones who really know what’s going on.’

  Malcolm thinks for a second. ‘It still doesn’t make any sense. If you were sent on a mission to find the other van, why didn’t you just come out and ask me about it?’

  ‘There was no sign of it on your property. We weren’t sure you still had it, but if you did, we didn’t want to spook you into getting rid of it somehow, just in case it contained vital evidence linking you to the crimes.’

  Cody is having to think fast. He’s not sure how much probing his deceit will take before it crumbles into dust.

  Malcolm looks around, working the scissors as he tries to come to terms with this new information. Cody thinks his lie is just about standing up, but he can’t be certain. He’s also more than a little worried about the signs of agitation building in his captor. If he gets caught out now, he’ll be in serious trouble.

  ‘So who else knows? Who else knows about the second van?’

  ‘Probably lots of people. It’s right there on our computers.’

  ‘But they don’t know what I used it for?’

  ‘No. Don’t you think we would have arrested you at the time if we’d known?’

  ‘Your friend. The woman who was with you. Does she know what you know?’

  Cody decides he needs to deflect attention away from Webley. He’s not sure what this psychopath is capable of.

  ‘Yes, but she’s just one of many. Like I said, we’re all part of one big team.’

  Malcolm takes another time-out to consider this. It’s clear he hates the idea that police officers could still come to his door. Cody realises this might be the only thing to keep him alive.

  ‘Will they come?’ Malcolm asks. ‘Will they come looking for you?’

  ‘When they realise I’m missing, yes. They will.’

  Malcolm nods. His eyelids flutter, and his eyes seem suddenly to lose focus. It looks to Cody as though the man is entering a trance state.

  And then a yell from Malcolm. A release of pent-up frustration that drives him out of his chair, has him springing towards Cody and plunging a blade of his scissors deep into Cody’s thigh.

  Cody screams with both the shock and the pain of the attack. He stares with wild eyes at the scissors, which are now embedded in his leg. Malcolm leans over, brings his face within inches of Cody’s.

  ‘I think you’re lying. I think nobody knows you’re here, and they’re not coming for you. I think you’re making it up to save your scrawny neck.’

  ‘No,’ Cody says through teeth clenched in pain. ‘It’s the truth. They’ll be here. Eventually they’ll come looking for me. You need to accept that, and you need to do the right thing.’

  Malcolm’s spittle rains down on Cody’s face. ‘I don’t need to do anything you say. I know what the right thing is. The right thing is to look after these girls. We give them everything they need. Everything! We would die for these girls, and when it’s necessary, we will kill for them.’

  Cody can see in Malcolm’s eyes that there is little point in arguing further. The man has moved beyond the reach of plain reason. The slightest push is all it might take for Malcolm to grab those scissors again and open up Cody’s belly.

  And so he says nothing. He just waits for the fire to die down.

  When it does, it is as though Malcolm suddenly becomes aware of where he is and what he’s done. He looks at Cody with apparent puzzlement at first, and then down at the scissors protruding from Cody’s leg.

  ‘We’ll have to see, won’t we?’ he says. ‘We’ll have to see if your police friends show up, like you say they will. If they don’t, I’ll know you were lying. And then it won’t matter.’

  He reaches for the scissors then. Cody grimaces as they are yanked out. There is a spurt of blood, followed by a dark circle widening across the leg of his trousers.

  Malcolm reaches for the cotton wool and starts to rip pieces from it. ‘Open wide,’ he says.

  Cody does as he is told. He is too frightened to do otherwise. He lets his eyes drift to the three girls as his mouth is filled with the cotton wool, as though he is a soft toy being stuffed. The girls are oblivious to his torture.

  He is grateful for that small mercy.

  57

  He’ll be there, thinks Webley.

  When I walk back into that incident room, Cody will be there at his desk, working away as if nothing has happened. And when I ask him about it he’ll say, ‘Sorry, I didn’t know you cared,’ or something equally stupid. And I’ll hate him for it, but I’ll love it that he’s back with us, safe and sound, and I’ll shout at him for making me worry unnecessarily. Because that’s what Cody is so good at, the bastard: making me care about him, even when I shouldn’t.

  But then she walks into the incident room, and he’s not there. His chair is empty, and none of the papers on his desk have been disturbed. And the worst thing is that nobody else seems to have noticed.

  She stops at Ferguson’s desk on the way to her own.

  ‘Still no sign of Cody?’

  Ferguson looks across at Cody’s desk as if only just becoming aware of its lack of an occupant.

  ‘No. Do you think maybe he’s gone back undercover? A top secret mission that we’re not allowed to know about?’

  Webley doesn’t feel the humour. ‘I’m serious, Neil. This isn’t like Cody. He doesn’t just fail to show up like this.’

  Ferguson seems to sense her unease. ‘Relax. He’s probably sick or something. He’ll have phoned it in, and somebody will have forgotten to pass on the message.’

  Webley nods, but she’s not convinced. Not at all.

  She takes a seat at her desk. Tries phoning Cody again. Voicemail.

  Shit.

  He can’t be too sick to answer the bloody phone. He can’t be too sick to have listened to her earlier voicemails and to have responded, even if only with a brief text.

  Except that he is sick, isn’t he?

  He’s got issues. Mental health issues. He was in a really dark place a few months ago. Hallucinations, nightmares, violent outbursts, insomnia. Yes, he has seemed much better recently, but perhaps he’s had a relapse. What if he has totally lost it this time? What if he’s done himself some serious damage?

  Webley leaves her seat again, goes to knock on Blunt’s door. Blunt beckons her in.

  ‘Don’t tell me,’ says Blunt. ‘You’ve had no luck with the vans. I can see it written all over your face. When in God’s name is someone going to bring me good news for a change?’

  ‘Actually, ma’am, it’s about Cody.’

  Blunt’s expression changes. A different hue of dark.

  ‘What about Cody? Have you heard from him?’

  ‘No. And that’s the problem. Nobody has. He seems to have disappeared.’

  Blunt shakes her head. ‘He hasn’t disappeared. He’ll be up to something. If there’s one person you can count on to do his own thing around here, even when I expressly forbid it, it’s Cody. He’s shown me that enough times in the past. Just watch. He’ll come swanning in, I’ll give him a bollocking, and then he’ll tell me he’s solved the case, and I’ll have to forgive him.’

  Webley hears the words, but isn’t convinced. This is Blunt trying to reassure herself that nothing untoward has happened to her favourite copper.

  ‘Ma’am, I’ve been calling him all day. I’ve left several voicemails. Something is wrong. Finding whoever abducted these girls means as much to him as it does to you. He wouldn’t go off on a tangent at such a crucial point in the investigation. You know he wouldn’t.’

  Blunt falls silent.

  ‘All right, Megan. What do you suggest?’

  ‘I’d like permission to go round to his flat. He lives above a dentist’s, who is also his landlord. Maybe he can tell me something.’
/>   Blunt sighs. ‘I could really do with you here, Megan. We’ve got kids to find.’

  ‘I know. I know. I’ll be as quick as I can, and I’ll make up the time. If I leave it till later, the dentist will have gone home.’

  Blunt taps her pen on her desk. ‘All right. Go.’ She aims the pen at Webley. ‘But if you find Cody, you can tell him from me that his days are numbered.’

  58

  Rodney Street. Webley loves it here. Wishes she could afford to live in a flat in one of these Georgian buildings. She knows that Cody can afford it only because the dentist is a mate of his and has done him a good deal. Lucky bastard.

  Before she approaches the door, she spends a couple of minutes walking up and down the street, checking out the cars. She can find no sign of Cody’s.

  She goes into the building, where an effervescent receptionist greets her. Webley introduces herself with her warrant card, and asks to speak to whoever’s in charge.

  Simon Teller is the best possible advertisement for his business: a perfect smile on legs. A handsome beast, he oozes charm. As he shakes Webley’s hand, she can imagine the number of women who have gone weak at the knees during that simple contact.

  Not me, though, she thinks. Not my type.

  He shows her into his surgery, and they sit on leather chairs opposite each other. He seems very relaxed, with his rolled-up sleeves and his open collar. On one of his tanned wrists he wears a very expensive-looking watch. Webley guesses he’s stinking rich. There are no signs of a wedding ring.

  Not that it matters, she thinks. He’s still not my type.

  ‘Business or business?’ he asks.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Well, I assume you aren’t here for pleasure, so is it my business, in that you want me to do something about your teeth, or is it police business?’

  ‘What’s wrong with my teeth?’ she asks, slightly panicky now.

  ‘I didn’t say there was anything wrong.’ He leans forward in his chair. ‘Give me a smile and we’ll see.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Go on. I won’t even charge for it.’

  Her impulse is to say no, but Teller has this way of making her think it would be downright rude to refuse him.