The Dead Tell Lies: an absolutely gripping mystery thriller

by J. F. Kirwan

  For a yogini, she seemed to have a pretty good tolerance to alcohol. She’d been grilling him, and for some reason he’d let an anonymised version of what had been going on flood out. If he was going to find Finch, he needed his mind clear and agile, able to mine the data in his head until he could construct a lead. Yet each time he took a sip of wine, he imagined Finch’s parched lips, her by-now near-delirious state of mind, her fingers bloody… He stopped himself.

  He hadn’t told Anushka everything. Just enough, the parts with most emotional gravity clogging his thoughts. But he also outlined the general frame of what was going on, the conundrum, in case a fresh, non-cynical mind could help him make the required mental connection.

  ‘Seems weird, putting all those serial killers together in one place,’ she said, not bothering to lower her voice, though the pub was pretty noisy.

  She had a point. In theory, they should have been kept apart. Had Rickard somehow overcome that barrier? He’d phone and ask Collins in the morning.

  ‘Any thoughts on Fergus?’ he asked, fishing. He’d used the real name because it had already been in the papers.

  ‘Maybe he was telling the truth.’

  Greg winced internally. Ah well, kind of goes with the yoga territory. ‘The dead don’t lie,’ he said. ‘My criminology professor taught me that.’

  ‘It’s a sad world you live in, Greg.’ But she must have read his expression. ‘No, I don’t mean… Wait. What did he say exactly?’

  ‘He said The Dreamer told him, from the other side.’

  ‘The other side of what?’

  ‘Life, death, the great wide river, I don’t know.’ He was getting irritable, which was unfair, she was only trying to help him. ‘Sorry,’ he said.

  ‘You need sleep.’

  He smiled. ‘Tell me about it.’ Their glasses were empty. Greg figured he’d reached the point of diminishing returns. His mind had cleared a little, but there was no point befuddling it with wine. He paid, kissed her on the cheek, and they parted company. As he walked away, he had the feeling she lingered a while, watching him. He’d noticed she’d seemed keen on him in the pub, another reason he’d called it a night early.

  Another lifetime, maybe.

  Back to finding Finch. Back to Fergus.

  He thought again about Fergus’s state of mind. Matthews had said he hated noise. The opposite of noise was silence. With silence you hear everything better. He stopped walking. Fergus had heard The Dreamer from the other side. Wait a second… it couldn’t be… surely it couldn’t be that simple! What if the killer had mimicked Fergus, repeating what he had said word for word, knowing the reaction it would have on Greg, but at the same time taunting him, teasing him to see if he’d get it, knowing he wouldn’t? And if Greg had understood, he’d have been Tasered and killed there and then. Classic psycho mind games, the meaning of clues only apparent much later. Almost like The Divine.

  But did Rickard know? Did he know what the second killer had said?

  No. Which meant…

  Holy shit!

  He pulled out his phone and walked quickly to the main road, scouting for a taxi. He speed-dialled Donaldson, but his line was engaged. He broke into a run towards the tube station, saw a taxi cruising in the distance and flagged it down.

  He called Matthews, got his answerphone, and left a message.

  ‘Matthews, it’s Greg, meet me at Fergus’s place as soon as possible.’ He wanted to ensure an instant response, so he added, ‘Bring a sledgehammer.’

  The taxi slowed and Greg leaned into the window, told the cabbie the address and jumped in. They took off.

  Twenty minutes, he’d be there. He tried Donaldson again. Still engaged. Come on! There was a chorus of sirens in the distance. Something big was going down.

  His phone lit up with a text message from Matthews. On my way.

  Good. Another one lit up. Check the news.

  What? He switched to internet and clicked on BBC.

  Bomb goes off at New Scotland Yard was the breaking news.

  Shit. That’s why Donaldson wasn’t answering. And it meant all spare coppers would be called in from the search for Finch. Which meant it was down to him and Matthews.

  He dug into his wallet, pulled out a fifty and passed it forward to the taxi driver. ‘Fast as you can, mate, keep the change.’

  No sooner was the note accepted than Greg was flung backwards into the bench seat as the taxi accelerated. ‘You’re the boss,’ the cabbie said.

  Greg watched the lights flash by as they wheeled around tight corners and then sped across Chelsea Bridge. He put his hand inside his coat pocket, cradling Kate’s Colt.

  Hang on, Finch, we’re coming! Just bloody hang on!

  31

  Donaldson needed to crawl, but his legs were pinned down. He was dimly aware that one of his calves was smouldering, if not on fire. Flames danced across the underside of an upturned desk, refusing to be doused by the drizzle from the sprinklers, while thick veils of smoke advanced on him, relentless grey waves rolling over a cinder beach. He couldn’t hear properly, as if someone had smacked both his ears hard, like his elder brother used to do when they were kids. But he could make out shouting, screaming, and moaning. Everything strobed in the flickering blue emergency lighting. The putrid smell of burning electric cables made him want to hold his breath, but he had to keep breathing. That was the one thing he had to do. Possibly the only thing.

  Except…

  He really needed to crawl. He could feel his leg muscles, so whatever had landed on him, heavy though it was, hadn’t broken his back. He squirmed like a demented snake, grunted and groaned until one leg came free. He could have yelled over here! to the rescue workers whose boots he glimpsed through fallen ceiling debris, but given all the screaming, he reckoned he wasn’t the priority. With his free foot he kicked at whatever still trapped him. His other leg came free. He could finally turn and pat down the baby flames on his right leg, scorching his hand in the process. Most of his trouser legs had gone. Thank God they were cotton, not nylon.

  Getting up wasn’t an option. What was left of the ceiling had ignited, despite the sprinklers, and besides, you know the fuck what? Heat rises, so down is better. He crawled, searching for her, and then he spied her: Muriel. When the explosion had happened, he’d been about to send her home. Earlier he’d asked her to work late, although he knew full well she looked after her elderly mother. Muriel had stood by him through thick and thin these past two decades, covered for him more than once in the early years when he’d stretched the rules to breaking point to get a conviction. She’d never transferred, even though she’d had plenty of offers, and God knew he could be a difficult arsehole to work for at times. Okay, all the time. When his mum had died, following shortly after his father, and he’d become an orphan, he’d fallen apart. She’d helped piece himself back together, got him back to work again. Saved his sorry excuse for a life.

  And now she wasn’t moving.

  He tested an iron beam that was at a crazy angle where it had spiked up through the floor in a neat hole like a giant spear. It was hot to the touch but wasn’t going anywhere fast, so he used it to tug himself along, because his legs weren’t helping much; he was mainly relying on his toes. Shit, he was too fat for this. He’d once seen a cow burn in a barn fire. It wasn’t pretty. He really didn’t fancy going that way.

  Why couldn’t the rescue workers see her? Because she wasn’t making any noise, hidden down in the smoke layer. Always so quiet, so meek. He could now see her more clearly. One of her fingers twitched. He redoubled his efforts. Something fell onto his head. Scalding, liquid plastic. He clawed at it with his fingers, manically scraping it off, not caring that it burned his hands, because if his head caught fire it was all over, and Muriel bloody well needed him right now.

  He got the last of it off his scalp, tufts of barbecued hair on his fingers. He almost laughed, because his hands made him look like he was some kind of caveman, which is what his elder bro
ther, Clive, used to call him when they were kids, before Clive had fallen in the lake, and Donaldson hadn’t been able to save him because he couldn’t swim. Still couldn’t. He’d been athletic back in the day, both he and Clive had. His sport had been long and triple jump, Clive’s had been the high jump. Clive had loved doughnuts, any kind of pastry… The smoke cut into Donaldson’s eyes, making them water. He’d stopped. Why had he stopped? What the fuck? The smoke. He was slowly asphyxiating, and it was messing with his brain. Focus! He pushed on.

  Almost there. He could see her face. Her eyes were closed. He reached her and pulled his bulk around her, to protect her, to insulate her, at least he was good for that, and he held her, saw she was still breathing. She murmured something, coughed and wheezed and trembled in his arms.

  ‘It’s okay, Muriel,’ he said. ‘I’ve got you, I’ve got you.’

  And then he took a breath and shouted in his most commanding tone to the firemen. ‘Over here! I need help over here! Now!’

  They came running.

  Donaldson sat on the banks of the Thames in a cordoned-off area, with a bunch of other evacuees similarly wrapped in aluminium blankets. They’d tried to ship him off to hospital, but he outranked everyone present. He made sure Muriel was conscious in the ambulance, using her phone to call her mother to tell her all was okay, which was a whopping big lie, but too bad. He’d held Muriel’s hand until it was time for the ambulance to leave. The paramedics had put freezing blue gel on his leg and his head, which numbed the pain. They’d warned him it would be hell on earth when its anaesthetic effect wore off.

  The flames were mostly doused now, and in the disco light of dozens of police cars and fire engines, not to mention several helicopters, he noticed one corner of the building completely blackened, the windows on three floors gutted, thick black smoke spilling from them.

  Four dead. Sixteen injured, three of them in critical condition. When they caught the bastard who’d done this…

  Taking three deep breaths, he backed out of his anger. First, they had to find the bomber. It might have nothing to do with Rickard – there were dozens of cases ongoing, and it could be a terrorist attack, pure and simple. Yet as he stared at the third floor, he located one particular window on the east side. He was no expert, but it looked like the starting point, because of the way the window frame had completely blown out, taking most of the bricks with it, whereas the other windows were at least partially intact, though charred and melted. He reckoned that was the room where the bomb had detonated.

  Rickard’s office.

  They’d swept it, of course. Twice. So how…? Later. That’s what Forensics were for.

  Someone handed him a cup of tea, a sergeant he didn’t know. He looked around to check if all the others had a cup as well. They did, so he took it. Sugary as hell. Good. He set his mind to work.

  MOM. Well, Method was bloody obvious. A bomb. Opportunity, well, Rickard had had plenty, though the sweep would have included sniffer dogs, and they rarely missed a trick. Okay, park that one for now.

  Motive. Revenge? Not Rickard’s style. Getting rid of evidence? No, he’d have made sure of that before he’d left, and knew his way around computers, as they’d belatedly found out. Rickard had known his time was running out, so he’d purged his hard drives, obliterated most of his records on the servers. He’d had few paper notes of any interest, and no memorabilia.

  That left diversion. The area between Battersea and Waterloo, where Greg and Matthews thought he was most likely holed up on account of the geographical pattern of murders, had been crawling with coppers for days now, so he could have used the bombing to create an escape route. But Greg had said he reckoned Rickard wasn’t running, that he’d overplayed his hand and knew his time was up. Donaldson wished he had his phone, lost in the fire, because he’d really like to ask Greg what he made of this.

  Okay, not diversion then. Which left an unsavoury alternative. Rickard wasn’t the bomber. It was the other killer. Why? Donaldson tried to reason it out. The other killer had already left a clue for Greg that it was Rickard by leaving Amelia Dankworth’s initials at the scene of the crime. Rickard hadn’t known about that particular ruse until later. How did Rickard feel about it? What would somebody like Rickard have done?

  He’d have left an insurance policy.

  Donaldson stood up, gulped down the last of the tea, handed the tin mug back to the sergeant, and walked over to the anti-terrorist unit who were technically in charge. Donaldson had no problem identifying the boss. He was the one not moving. Everyone else walked up to him, said a few things, then hurried off.

  A man in a suit tried to bar his way, but Donaldson flashed his badge without even looking the guy in the eye and continued onwards, unstoppable in any case. The one thing he’d always had in his favour was momentum.

  The lead guy turned to look him up and down before he arrived. ‘Donaldson, isn’t it?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Peterson,’ he said, ‘ATU.’

  Anti-Terrorist Unit, the elite, usually with their sense of humour surgically removed. But Donaldson appreciated the fact that Peterson didn’t say something like ‘Shouldn’t you be in hospital?’, or ‘What do you want, I’m busy’, or, even worse and possibly deckable in the circumstances, ‘Go home and get some rest, we’ve got it covered’. Instead, he just waited to hear what Donaldson had to say.

  Donaldson pointed. ‘East side, third floor, Emerson Rickard’s office. The bomber was trying to destroy evidence. I don’t know what it was, possibly the identity of the serial killer who has DCI Finch.’

  Peterson’s eyes swung to the location of Rickard’s office, and Donaldson predicted his response along the lines of, ‘Probably destroyed by the explosion and fire, at least five hundred degrees in there, etc.’

  No such thing.

  Peterson put two fingers to his mouth and whistled. Four guys and a woman dropped what they were doing and ran over. He gave them crisp commands, and one by one they peeled off, two of them approaching the firemen at the main entrance.

  Peterson and Donaldson were alone again.

  ‘Thanks,’ Donaldson said. ‘Want a cup of tea?’

  Peterson smiled. ‘Now you mention it…’

  Donaldson went over to the sergeant. ‘He’s thirsty,’ he said, pointing. ‘And I need to borrow your phone.’

  Donaldson sat down on the ground, and leant against the Second World War Battle of Britain sculpture, where a pilot was almost running out of the bronze frieze. Without warning he was shaking. He needed to take more painkillers, but he had one more thing to do. He tried calling Matthews, then Greg. No reply from either.

  He popped two pills from the blister pack the paramedic had given him and dry-swallowed them. With an effort of will, using the RAF pilot for support, he got to his feet and turned to face the Thames, surveying the opposite bank. Greg and Matthews were there, somewhere. So were Rickard, the second killer, and Finch.

  Watch your backs, guys. Watch your backs.

  32

  In the moonless night, Greg glimpsed the Shard, farther down the river. Its ice-cold white light speared the gathering, brooding clouds. He shied away from the street lamp in case he might be seen. His gaze trained across the square’s private park area that was penned off by iron railings, past its untrimmed hedges, towards Fergus’s place. A breeze rustled the autumn leaves of the trees in the park, not quite ready to surrender and fall.

  A couple walked arm-in-arm, talking softly to each other, both a little unsteady. Two hoodies smoked silently in an alcove between Fergus’s terraced row of three-storey houses and the ugly apartment block next door. A baby wailed in the flats behind Greg. A TV cop show blared from somewhere, American voices shouting amidst rapid gunfire. Someone’s living room window was open up above Greg, despite the chill night air.

  Normality. And in its midst, just below ground, a killers’ lair, where people could do unthinkable things to other people. A spider’s web and its flies. Anushka�
�s words had led him here tonight.

  Maybe Fergus was telling the truth.

  Fergus had heard voices. In his disturbed mind, he’d thought The Dreamer had spoken to him from the dead, from the other side. In fact, it had been a voice from next door. Who knew what he’d actually heard, but Greg was convinced Rickard, the other killer, or both, had been on the other side of the wall to Fergus’s basement apartment when they killed The Dreamer, or talked about it. Fergus was quiet, abhorred noise. They may not have even realised someone was living next door, or how well sound travelled through the wall or via the pipes, because they never, ever heard Fergus. Rickard must have kicked himself when Fergus texted his address to Greg.

  It also explained how they could have killed Fergus, then masqueraded as him with Greg, and placed Fergus’s body at the scene of the crime, all within a few hours. It also explained how the second killer could have slipped back to paint the letters ‘A–D–A’ in fresh-tapped blood, starting a trail of breadcrumbs that would lead to Rickard.

  When Finch had gone to see Rickard, and he’d decided to act there and then, it was the obvious place to go, because it was available and hadn’t been discovered by the police. Oldest trick in the book, if you had the balls for it: hide in plain sight. Greg was sure that one or both killers were there, right now. But probably just one. Rickard. Because the other killer had given Greg the clue that had led him back here. Whatever partnership there had been between Rickard and the other killer, it was now in shreds.

  He just prayed to God Finch was there and still breathing.

  He glanced at his phone. Matthews had said ten minutes. It was already fifteen. Greg touched the Colt in his jacket pocket.

  ‘Which side do you reckon? The flat on the left, or the one on the right?’

  Greg spun around. ‘I didn’t hear you.’

  Matthews shrugged inside a thick waterproof jacket. He was carrying a heavy-looking black cylinder with two sturdy handles.