The Dead Tell Lies: an absolutely gripping mystery thriller

by J. F. Kirwan

  One in six chance. Fifty-fifty, or even a hundred per cent would be better, but he’d promised himself – and Kate, during one of their few arguments, because he believed people had the right to choose in extreme and enduring circumstances – to abide by the rules of the game if it ever came to it. He raised the gun to his right temple, the barrel’s ring cool against his skin. His breathing sped up again, his heart hammered, tried to gain his attention, to put a stop to what, after all, had to be an egotistical gesture. But it didn’t feel that way. He’d written no note. No one would be surprised. He’d be missed, but he reckoned most would be relieved. They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? Another film. Kate had loved films, studied them, could tell him things he’d never otherwise see beneath the stories. She… Enough. He focused on the central photo in the morbid fresco opposite, her on their honeymoon in Mauritius, a crown of flowers around her head.

  He took a breath, held it, and pressed the barrel deeper into his skin, because missing just wasn’t an option.

  He squeezed the trigger.

  Click.

  The shock from the Colt’s hammer reverberated into his skull. No bullet. His jaw trembled. He blinked hard, his breath spilling out of control. He should stop now. He’d done it, he’d pulled the trigger. Now he should put the gun down, drink the entire bottle of Talisker, start over tomorrow, move on. That was the deal. He stared at the photo of Kate, felt his heart tearing itself apart. He couldn’t face another day.

  Fuck the deal.

  He took another breath, tensed his finger, pushed the barrel deeper into his flesh, teased the trigger.

  Click.

  A single tear coursed down his cheek – grief, anger, pain – no matter. I’m coming this time, Kate, ready or not. Rules be damned. He closed his eyes, and readied to pull the trigger a third time.

  The phone rang.

  Greg’s gaze flicked to his mobile on the other side of the room. It was no longer Kate’s preferred ringtone. He’d changed it to Hurt by Johnny Cash. No explanation needed. He wasn’t expecting a call, rarely got any these days. Parents long dead – thank God they’d been spared all this – and friends preferred emails. Less obtrusive they would say, but also less unsettling, because when anyone asked him how he was doing, he’d tell them. No one asked twice.

  He waited, the Colt’s barrel still pressed against his temple, his chest heaving. Cold callers usually gave up after twelve seconds, never leaving a message. He thought about shooting at the phone for spoiling the moment, but that would be self-defeating, whether or not it worked, humiliating if he missed. Besides, his answerphone would switch on after twenty seconds, then he could get on with the matter in hand.

  The guitar chord intro blended into the first line. But as Johnny sang the words, a tiny part of Greg wondered, what if…? He fixed on one of the bloodier images of Kate’s face, then stormed over to the phone. Transferring the revolver to his left hand, he snatched up the mobile. He tapped the green circle.

  ‘What?’ he shouted, without really intending to. Adrenaline. Hardly surprising. He listened. No sound. Not entirely true. There’s always some sound on an open line. God knows he’d listened to Kate’s message a hundred times – the one where she’d called his office after he’d left – as had the police, trying to hear who else might have been there that night. This time there was breathing, raspy and nervous. Not The Dreamer then.

  ‘Who’s there?’ he asked. Still no reply. He was about to curse and hang up, then he imagined Kate standing before him, arms folded, with the look on her face that said Don’t be a dick. He took another breath and let it out slowly.

  ‘M-my name’s Fergus,’ a small voice said. ‘I saw your ad in the paper.’

  Ad? Shit, that was nine months ago. He’d offered ten grand of his own money for any lead. No one had come close to getting a penny. And now here was just another time-waster. Greg’s thumb hovered over the red circle.

  ‘The tattoo,’ Fergus began, a sense of urgency in his voice.

  Greg’s thumb froze. He hadn’t heard that word in months. Only the police unit investigating knew of it, to avoid copycat wannabes.

  ‘D-did you check it against the… the others?’ Fergus asked.

  Greg was about to say of course he’d bloody checked it, but then caught himself. He hadn’t, not personally. Donaldson had told him it was the same. He closed his eyes, remembering precisely what Donaldson had said. This was one of his gifts, and also a curse. Almost perfect recall. Not visual, just exactly what people said, and how they said it. A faculty that had played no small part in helping him identify and put away a number of serial killers.

  What Donaldson had actually said was close enough. Same MO. Okay, so this guy calling himself Fergus was better informed than others, but it didn’t amount to anything. In police terms, close enough was what it said on the tin. And Greg could feel his own trigger-pulling window of resolve closing.

  ‘What’s your point?’ Greg asked.

  ‘The Dreamer, it wasn’t him. He didn’t kill your wife.’

  Greg felt his pulse pick up again. Bullshit. Had to be.

  ‘And you know that how, Fergus?’

  There was a pause. Greg loathed pauses. Borrowed time used to concoct lies, to come up with a story. Pauses were trapdoors. You pause in speech and honesty slips into free fall.

  ‘I know,’ Fergus said, ‘because The Dreamer is dead.’

  Those last four words ricocheted inside Greg’s head. He so wanted it to be true. It would explain a lot, including why there had been no further killings. But he backtracked. Fergus had said The Dreamer hadn’t killed Kate, and if The Dreamer hadn’t done it, then who?

  ‘Prove it,’ Greg said.

  ‘I… I can’t. Check the tattoo. Then we can meet.’

  ‘Let me guess. I should bring the money, right?’

  ‘N-no. No money, I mean. I don’t want your money, any of it.’

  That was new. Greg removed the mobile from his ear and checked the screen. Fergus’s number was displayed. A landline. It would be saved on Greg’s call register. He surveyed the wall, all those leads going nowhere. Maybe because they couldn’t. Because it was a different spider altogether. Or a different web. He hung his head a moment. Could he do it, pick this up again, resurrect the case? But he already knew the answer. For Kate he could. To avenge her, and to prevent it happening to someone else. That was his job – at least it had been. Maybe the only thing he was good for. If he still had it in him.

  He put down the revolver.

  ‘Fergus, you’ll either hear from me in a couple of days, or never.’

  ‘I’ll be waiting,’ Fergus replied, then hung up.

  Greg flicked through the short list of numbers in his phone address book and tapped Donaldson’s. He always worked late.

  ‘Donaldson, it’s Greg… Yeah, my watch works just fine… I need to come down to the station… No, something else, the tattoo, I need to see it… Yes, I’m sure… 10am works fine.’ He clicked off. He’d buy pastries on the way, because Donaldson couldn’t resist them, and Kate would have told him to buy him some if she’d still been around.

  Walking back to the table, he picked up his drink, inhaled its woody aroma. It calmed him, helped him focus. Staring at the spider’s web, he mentally transformed the macabre mural with this new theory, that The Dreamer hadn’t done it, that The Dreamer was dead. A third of the lines vanished. Not necessarily leaving a pattern, but far less like spaghetti hurled at the wall.

  He needed sleep. He took a sip, felt the whisky warm his throat, knowing he’d have to look at the original crime scene shots – the gorier ones of Kate he’d been spared – for the first time. He put down the glass.

  Before he could sleep, he had to know. Picking up the revolver, he pressed the release, and flicked open the cylinder.

  The bullet was in the top slot.

  He approached the wall as he’d done every night since Kate’s murder, leant his brow against the honeymoon photo, and kissed her fa
ce.

  He went over to the sofa that had been his sleeping place the past year, then changed his mind, and headed upstairs to the bedroom. Their room. He lay on top of the duvet, exhausted, and fell asleep, his hand on her pillow.

  3

  Greg heaved the oak door shut and made sure it was double-locked. Maida Vale was one of London’s few remaining quaint leafy suburbs, but burglary in London was rife, an ever-present opportunistic plague. He didn’t care too much about theft, but one more violation would tip him over the edge.

  He’d considered wearing a suit, but he wasn’t a Yard employee anymore. Besides, he’d never been one for formal wear. Still, he’d put on his good shoes and a pair of posh navy blue jeans, added a dark blue shirt – no tie – then thrown on the beaten-up grey leather jacket Kate had bought him on their first anniversary. Technically it was a summer jacket, but all he needed to do was walk a little faster.

  He cut through Paddington Recreation Ground. As always it lifted his spirits, if only a fraction. He glanced at the tennis courts, and the Yoga centre beyond, that he and Kate had frequented. Maybe he should have gone back after, especially as he had no job now. He slowed down. The rhythmic sound of tennis balls being whacked was as soothing to him as a running stream in a Zen garden. He tried to store it, as a shield against what he’d have to face in the coming hour.

  He dropped into the Starbucks opposite Maida Vale tube station for an espresso macchiato, though he wasn’t supposed to drink coffee anymore. Was it his imagination or did the conversation dip when he entered? The locals didn’t know him personally, but some knew well enough who he was. He recognised a yoga student nursing her herbal tea in the corner. She looked the part – young, skinny, straight blonde hair and loose clothing – with that glow of a yoga adept. She looked up, beaming as she recognised him, but then her smile plateaued as she connected him with the story that had been in every tabloid for a whole week almost a year ago, making Maida Vale infamous, denting its property prices for almost a month.

  Don’t get up, he willed her, to no avail. She approached him, held out a limp hand. Christ, two hands. Oh no, she was going to give him a hug. Too late. She embraced him in that animalistic yoga way.

  ‘Greg, isn’t it?’ she asked as she withdrew to a safer distance.

  He nodded, trolling the depths of his memory for her name, finding nothing.

  ‘Anushka,’ she said, and it clicked into place. Polish. They’d taken the same class occasionally.

  ‘I’m so sorry for your–’

  He held up his hand. ‘No platitudes, please.’

  She blinked. ‘Of course. Then let me try something else.’ She said it loud, ‘I hope they skin him alive when they find him.’

  Conversation around them fell off a cliff.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, meaning it.

  ‘Are you still training? You look… you know…’

  What, yoga-thin?

  She must have read his face. ‘Well, you’re always welcome at the Centre, Greg, you know that.’

  She returned to her seat, and the server deposited the macchiato in front of him. Greg tried to pay, but the server ignored him and turned to the next customer.

  Greg gulped down the coffee, almost scalding his throat, tossed the foam cup into a bin, and walked out. He then strode across the zebra crossing to the entrance to the tube. Passing through the electronic turnstile, he headed down the long escalator past the white tiles and moving ads to the anonymous, non-judging sanctuary that was the London Underground.

  As he boarded the Bakerloo Line train towards central London, it was refreshingly empty, but he stood anyway. By the time he reached Baker Street all the seats were taken, people sardined against him closer than yoga-girl’s hug earlier. Crush hour. He exited into the autumn sunlight at Piccadilly, zigging and zagging past Edwardian mansions, and what Kate used to call nonsense shops, on account of the unusual wares they sold at extortionate prices. He reached St James’s Park and threaded his way through sluggish joggers, manic cyclists, and chatting mums with toddlers in pushchairs.

  Reaching the small lake, he paused a moment to watch the royally-protected swans and wondered what it would be like to have such a carefree existence. He walked on, exiting the park. A few streets later he approached the unspectacular block that was home to the cutting edge of the British police force.

  He was early, so he crossed the road, minding the cyclists on their super-highway who were far more of a hazard to pedestrians than the slow-moving snake of cars, and reached the bank of the Thames by the lead-grey Battle of Britain war memorial. He made an indiscreet salute to the pilot bursting out of the sculpture. He’d never served in the armed forces, but those men who’d died in that horrendous dog fight in England’s skies… to him they represented the best of humanity. After a decade hunting down serial killers, he needed a counterpoint, something to believe in.

  He descended the few stone steps towards Westminster tube, bought some pastries and a couple of cappuccinos-to-go from a wooden shack, then went back up to the road, facing New Scotland Yard. At the crossing, the light turned green, but his feet didn’t budge until someone behind bumped into him, cursing under his breath in a foreign language that needed no translation. Greg’s feet seemed to stick to the tarmac as if it was freshly laid. He just made it across before an articulated lorry honked its horn and thundered on right behind his heels.

  Greg hadn’t been back for three months. Serial killers had been his career, a number of whom were behind bars at least partly on his account, because of one simple, if unpleasant, truth. He could think like them. While others interviewed suspects who would quickly become selectively mute, when Greg entered the room it was as if they recognised him as one of them. They’d look at him sideways, then open up. Even The Divine had, to a certain extent. Rickard had been unsure about this trait, initially not wanting Greg on his team, but Donaldson had said it was stupid to ignore talent.

  A hand clapped him on the shoulder as Greg caught a waft of Hugo Boss aftershave. Donaldson. His powerful arm uprooted Greg and drove him forward.

  ‘Come on, Greg, let’s get to it.’

  Donaldson’s brisk nature broke the spell, and Greg walked with him into the building. Donaldson waved security aside with a flourish of his hand indicating Greg’s paper bag. ‘What, you think his cakes are lethal? Of course they bloody are,’ he shouted, pointing to his own generous waistline, cracking the stone faces of the security guards as they ushered him and Greg through the metal detector. One of the guards gave Greg a knowing nod.

  ‘Bring your pass next time, sir.’

  At the lift, Donaldson keyed in Floor 5, and Greg felt himself relax a notch, because they weren’t going down to the basement levels where the autopsies were carried out.

  Donaldson hadn’t changed: he was still a large man, but no one would ever call him fat, or – God forbid – obese. Not to his face at least, because he had gravitas by the shovelful. He sported his eternal, if faded, blue pinstripe suit as if he worked in one of the swanky banks in the City, his greasy black hair parted on one side. He had a granite face that hadn’t exactly been carved, rather it had been ground down by two decades of dealing with the nastier inhabitants of London and its surrounds. Donaldson hadn’t just been around the block numerous times, he’d trawled the sewers. Apparently, he had a wicked sense of humour. No one Greg knew had ever checked.

  ‘No calls,’ Donaldson bellowed to his long-suffering assistant, Muriel, as he entered his small office, threw his coat onto the stand, dropped the blinds on the windows, and parked himself behind his desk, the worn leather chair creaking as he did so. He relieved Greg of the pastries and a cappuccino. The door sealed with a click. Greg sat in the chair opposite and kept his jacket on, because the office wasn’t heated, a trick Donaldson employed to get rid of people as soon as possible. Neither of them said anything for a while. Greg eyed the manila folder lying innocently on the polished desk. He put down his cappuccino and reached for it
.

  Donaldson was fat – that was the word he himself sometimes used in close company – but fat didn’t mean slow. He slapped his hand down on the folder before Greg could retrieve it and leaned across the desk.

  ‘First you talk, Greg. Full disclosure or you don’t see anything.’ He leaned back, popped a chunk of moist croissant into his mouth. The rest followed close behind.

  Greg sat back. His licence had been revoked; the pass the security guard referred to no longer valid. He had no legal or procedural leverage here. But full disclosure?

  ‘I had an insight,’ he said. Not quite a lie. ‘That maybe it wasn’t The Dreamer.’

  Donaldson paused mid-chew, then continued, no longer looking like he was enjoying the pastry. ‘Because?’

  ‘He hasn’t struck for a year.’ Greg tried to make light of it. ‘You know we have a saying, that serial killing is a terminal addiction.’

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ Donaldson said. ‘Never found it funny.’

  Greg nodded. ‘Anyway, I got to thinking. What if he’s dead?’

  Donaldson pushed the half-empty bag out of the way. ‘Interesting theory. I won’t ask what brought it on. Clearly you’re not going to tell me. But I get it: you want to be sure. Okay, let’s do this.’

  He took out a ready-wipe from his drawer and cleaned his fingers one by one. Then he pulled open another drawer and plonked a half-empty bottle of Jameson on the desk, unscrewed it one-handed, and poured a measure into Greg’s cappuccino, leaving the bottle on the table. He didn’t pour himself any.