Cage of Bones

by Tiana Carver

  ‘Fff …’ His front teeth looked rotten, painful as he placed them on his lower lip, tried to make a sound. ‘Fff … Ffinnn …’

  They waited. He offered nothing more.

  ‘Finn?’ said Marina. ‘You’re called Finn?’

  Another glance between the three of them. Then a small nod of the head.

  Anni let out a breath she was unaware of holding. She stole a glance at Marina, saw a glint of joy, triumph in her eye.

  ‘Well hello, Finn,’ said Marina, still smiling. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you.’

  The boy seemed to relax slightly. His mouth kept twisting, trying to form more words, or just repeat the same one.

  ‘Ffinn … Finn …’

  ‘Very good,’ said Marina, an encouraging teacher. ‘So where are you from, Finn?’

  More tortuous mouth-twisting. ‘Thhh … Gahh … denn …’

  Anni and Marina stole a glance at each other. ‘The … Garden?’ said Marina. ‘Is that where you’re from?’

  Another nervous look between the pair of them, then a nod.

  The Garden, thought Anni. Her mind was immediately working. Checking through a mental Rolodex for a match. Children’s homes, care homes, residential, secure units, YOIs, anything that would match … The Garden … She came up with nothing.

  Marina was about to ask another question, but Finn’s mouth was twisting again. She kept silent, waited.

  ‘Mmm … mmoth … eh … moth … er …’

  ‘Mother?’ said Marina. ‘Your mother?’

  Another nod.

  ‘What about her? Is she … is she looking for you?’

  Finn frowned. A dark shadow covered his face. His mouth twisted once more. ‘Thh … thhuh … god … thuh god … nerrr …’

  ‘The gardener?’ said Marina. ‘Your mother is the gardener?’

  Finn shook his head viciously. ‘Nnnuh … nnnuh …’ The darkness was seeping back into his eyes. The terror.

  ‘Your mother,’ Marina persisted, trying to head off those dark thoughts. ‘Tell me about your mother, Finn. Is she … is she in the Garden? Would we find her in the Garden?’

  Finn’s eyes snapped open wide once more. The terror dissipating. He nodded.

  ‘Right. Where is the Garden, Finn?’

  He twisted his mouth, searched for words.

  They waited.

  And Marina’s phone went.

  Finn jumped, screamed, pushed himself back into the headboard.

  ‘It’s all right,’ said Marina. ‘All right …’ Although inwardly she was cursing. She stood up, walked into the corridor to take the call.

  Anni remained with Finn. She tried the smile Marina had used. Hoped it would work. ‘Hey, it’s OK, Finn. It’s just a phone. Just a phone call.’

  The boy was calming down. Anni was stunned – had he never seen a mobile phone before? Or any phone? ‘It’s OK,’ she said once more, hoping her words would soothe.

  Marina pocketed her phone, motioned to Anni from the doorway. ‘That was Phil. He wants me at the crime scene.’

  ‘Didn’t you tell him what was happening here?’

  ‘I did, but …’ She shrugged.

  ‘You’re doing great. He was just about to tell us where he was from.’

  ‘Perhaps. If he knows, which I doubt. Anni, he can barely speak. I mean, I’m doing the best I can, but I’m limited. This isn’t my area. They really need a professional child psychologist to come in and work with him. It’ll take time.’

  Anni looked once more at the boy lying there. A lost boy. Her heart went out to him.

  ‘I’d better go,’ said Marina. ‘Keep talking to him. Ask about his mother. But don’t let him talk about this gardener, that seems to upset him.’ Then she too looked at Finn. ‘I’ll just say goodbye to him first.’

  19

  Phil was getting nowhere.

  He stared at the wreck of a man in front of him, exasperated, lost for words. Tried again. ‘OK … look.’ He sighed. ‘I’m not going to hurt you. You’re not in any trouble. We just need some help.’

  The man stared off over Phil’s shoulder. Seeing something Phil couldn’t, something that wasn’t even in the room. Phil tried not to let his exasperation show.

  They were sitting opposite each other on folding chairs in the back of the incident support van. Phil hadn’t noticed how cramped those vans were. Or how badly ventilated. But he did now. With a vengeance.

  The tramp smelled like parts of him were dying. Like he was decomposing before Phil’s eyes. When he stood up, Phil wouldn’t have been surprised if he left some body part behind. His clothes were just the tattered ghosts of the garments they had once been. Shirts, T-shirts and vests had been wrapped around him, the layers solidifying into one filthy mass. His trousers were ill-fitting and torn, scabbed and ulcerated legs peeking out from beneath. His boots were holed, his feet sockless.

  And his face. Phil was usually good at spotting people’s ages and backgrounds. Physical tics and tells always gave them away. But he had no idea with this man. The lines on his face were deepened and ingrained by dirt, like permanent comic-strip etchings. His skin was reddened by various abuses. His hair long, greying and filthy, like his beard. Ravaged, scarred and weather-beaten, he could have been anything from forties to seventies.

  Phil tried again, his voice as calm and unthreatening as possible. He didn’t think it a good idea to tell the tramp he was the prime suspect in a kidnapping and possible murder inquiry. ‘So what’s your name?’

  The tramp swivelled his head towards Phil, eyes coming slowly into focus. He stared blankly ahead.

  ‘Do you have a name? What would you like me to call you?’

  ‘Paul.’

  Result. ‘Paul. Good. I’m Phil.’ He leaned forward. ‘Right, Paul, what were you doing in that house? Is that where you live?’

  ‘I live … By God’s grace, I live …’

  ‘Right. And by God’s grace, do you live in that house? The one where I found you?’

  A sigh, as if mention of the house brought with it a great burden on his soul. ‘My … house.’

  ‘Your house. Right.’

  His voice rose. ‘In my house there are many mansions …’

  Here we go, thought Phil. This was what he had dreaded. ‘There are. Yes. So you live there, where I found you?’

  Another blank look, then Paul put his head back as if remembering. Then a nod.

  ‘Good. That’s fine. That’s great. Maybe you could help me, Paul. You know the house opposite yours? The one we’ve been going in and out of all day?’

  Paul’s face darkened, eyes came together. Fear crept over his features.

  ‘What’s the matter, Paul? Is there something wrong with that house?’

  He shrank back from Phil, as if trying to physically get away from his words. ‘No … no … There was … there was … evil in there …’

  Phil leaned forward. This was it, he thought. Getting somewhere. Even if the tramp was addled. ‘Evil? What kind of evil?’

  ‘There was … No. I can’t … can’t say …’

  ‘Why can’t you say? Paul, why can’t you say?’

  ‘Because he’ll … come back and I … No … he’s evil, evil

  ‘Evil? The man in the other house is evil? The house we were in?’

  Paul’s brow creased. He seemed confused by the question but continued anyway. ‘A man. With a dream. Of love. The love of creation … Of creation …’

  Phil leaned back, suppressed a sigh. He had thought he was going to be given a lead. Instead it was just a story from the tramp’s damaged mind.

  ‘Was this man evil? Is he the one you meant?’

  Paul stared off somewhere, kept talking as if he hadn’t heard Phil.

  ‘This man … he … he shared that love with others … And it was good … But then … the bad, the evil … men … came …’

  Paul stopped talking. Phil leaned forward once more. ‘Where did the bad men come, Paul? To the house? The
house you live in? Or the one opposite? Which one d’you mean?’

  Another frown. ‘The bad men … Serpents in paradise …’ Paul frowned once more, face screwed up as if he was about to cry. ‘I just … just want to see the sun …’ He trailed off into a troubled silence, chewing his lower lip with rotted teeth, head moving slowly from side to side, body beginning to rock back and forth.

  ‘But … what about the evil?’ Phil knew his words weren’t reaching him.

  Paul’s voice, although as broken and ravaged as the rest of him, held traces of education and perhaps erudition. The echoes of someone else, the person he had once been. Phil reflected on that, knew that was why he didn’t allow his first response, to dismiss the story as just a deranged ramble, to take hold. Paul’s words nagged at him. He thought of the designs on the wall of the house and in the cellar. They looked to have been drawn by two different hands, but they were the same kind of design. Something mystical, but not quite a pentagram. And now Paul’s words. Serpents in paradise …

  Again something gnawed at Phil. Something he couldn’t quite reach.

  He tried a different line of questioning. ‘That design on the wall of your house,’ he said. ‘Did you draw that?’

  Paul stopped rocking, looked at him quizzically.

  ‘On the wall. That design. What does it mean, Paul?’

  ‘It’s … life. It’s … everything …’

  He fell back into silence. Rocking backwards and forwards, mouth moving with words he wouldn’t speak.

  Phil tried to talk to him again but got no response. He sensed he would get no more from him for a while now. He stood up.

  ‘Just stay here a minute, please, Paul. I’ll be back soon.’

  He turned, left the van, glad of the fresh air. He popped a mint into his mouth to take away the smell. One of the Birdies could chat to Paul next. See how they got on with him.

  Phil didn’t think the tramp was the man they were looking for. Instinct told him that, and he had learned to rely on instinct. He thought Paul might know something, but whatever that was wasn’t going to be unearthed quickly. If at all.

  He checked his watch. Time for Marina. Good. He was looking forward to seeing her.

  And also not. Because something was wrong. Inside of him. That house … it had touched something deep within him, something dark, twisted. Unpleasant.

  Something soul-deep that he couldn’t understand.

  But something he didn’t want Marina to see.

  Not until he understood it better himself.

  So he waited for her. In trepidation.

  20

  As soon as the door opened, Rose knew she had been sized up, made.

  Copper. Filth.

  But that was OK. Because Rose had made equally strong, instant assumptions about the woman before her too.

  Druggie. Whore.

  She held up her warrant card. ‘Detective Sergeant Rose Martin. Donna Warren?’

  The woman gave a grudging nod of acknowledgement.

  ‘Could I come in, please?’

  The woman’s attitude was aggressive, confrontational. Strong as a physical barrier. Her body language tensed and rigid, preparing to fight.

  That’ll all change when she hears what I have to say, thought Rose.

  ‘I ain’t done nothin’. I ain’t been out.’

  Rose looked round. A small, shabby house in a nondescript street just off Barrack Street in New Town. Terraced houses squashed together, old cars and vans bumper to bumper either side of the road. The street was gated on one side by a convenience store, its windows barred, a chalkboard advertising the latest cheap deals on full-strength lager and cider. And opposite that a fried chicken and pizza fast-food restaurant, closed, the smell of cheap stale oil perfuming the air. Gang tags adorned the walls. A big, dark sedan, expensive-looking, sat incongruously amongst the MOT failures and dodgers that filled the street. The local drug dealer’s, Rose assumed.

  She felt anger rise at this woman’s attitude.

  ‘Could I come in, please? It’s best if we talk inside.’

  Without removing her gaze and without seeming to move, Donna Warren let Rose in. Closed the door behind her.

  The inside didn’t look any better. Rose had felt nothing but disdain for this woman since knocking on her door, but now she felt that disdain was justified. The place was a mess. The front door led straight into the living room. A sofa sat against one wall, old with ingrained dirt; the armrests were shiny and threadbare and had been used as ashtrays. Pizza cartons sat open and festering on the sofa. Stained mugs and empty bottles lay on the floor. Dirty ashtrays with dead fag and spliff ends were dotted about. And in amongst all this were a scattering of children’s toys, old, used, broken. Underneath, the carpet was filthy. A big old silver box of an off-brand TV dominated one corner. DVDs spilled out underneath it.

  Rose wasn’t asked to sit down. She didn’t want to. She stood, facing Donna Warren. The woman had her arms folded across her chest. Rose looked at her.

  She had been on plenty of police training courses. Diversity. Ethnicity. Equality. Treating everyone she came into contact with as a police officer with respect no matter what the circumstances or how the individual behaved. She had nodded along with the rest of them, paid lip service to the idea, as was expected of her. But she hadn’t believed it. Not one word of it. Because, as the sort of people she came into contact with realised, that respect had to be earned. And they did very little to earn it.

  Like Donna Warren. The hardness of her features, the tension in her posture. Her Primark clothes and her home-dyed hair. Her indiscriminate racial origins, her mongrel skin colour. She reeked of substance abuse and her body looked well-used and sold. Rose wondered just how desperate a man would have to be to pay to have sex with Donna Warren.

  ‘Had a party in here?’ she asked.

  ‘What d’you want?’ Donna Warren’s voice was still strident, but now there was a slight shake to it. Like she’s worked out why I’m here, thought Rose.

  ‘You might want to sit down.’

  Donna Warren remained standing.

  Rose made a play of checking her notebook. ‘Does … Faith Luscombe live here?’

  ‘Yes.’ Another waver to her voice. ‘Have you … where is she?’

  Rose looked at her notebook. Donna Warren spoke before she could say anything further.

  ‘Have you run her in again? That it?’ Her voice getting stronger, feeding on the anger of her words. ‘Come to take her kid away, that it?’

  ‘She’s got a child?’ said Rose.

  ‘Little boy. I’m looking after him.’

  ‘Well you might have to look after him a while longer.’ Rose hated the next bit. Even with people like Donna Warren. She slipped into the voice she had been taught to use on another course. ‘I’m afraid Faith’s dead.’

  21

  ‘What? What you talkin’ about, dead?’ Donna spat the words out rapidly, another shield. ‘She’s not dead.’

  ‘I’m afraid she is, Donna. Would you like to sit down now?’

  Donna was about to sit down, then stopped herself. ‘What for? Ain’t gonna bring her back, is it?’

  ‘No. But we could talk about it.’

  Donna, not wanting to give ground or show weakness before a police officer, reluctantly lowered herself into an armchair. Rose perched on the edge of the sofa, hoping she wouldn’t stain her clothes or catch something.

  ‘What … what happened?’

  ‘She was hit by a car. Out in Wakes Colne. On the way to Halstead.’

  Donna frowned. ‘Wakes Colne? Halstead? What was she doin’ out there?’

  ‘I don’t know, Donna. Perhaps you could tell me.’

  Donna looked at her, about to speak. Then changed her mind.

  Rose tried to prompt. ‘It’ll help if you can tell me where she was last night.’

  ‘Help how? Won’t bring her back, will it?’

  Stupid bitch, thought Rose. She was getting angry
all over again. She felt like getting up and leaving, but stopped herself. This was a chance, a case. She could prove she was fit to return to work, that she was worthy of the rank of DI. She stayed where she was, bit back her natural reaction, kept her voice calm and consoling.

  ‘I know this is difficult for you, Donna, but if you could cooperate with me, it would be a great help.’

  Donna said nothing.

  ‘Where was Faith last night, Donna?’

  Rose watched the battle being fought on Donna’s face. Talk or not talk. Go against years of conditioning, of not helping the police, in order to help her friend. She didn’t let it show, but she quite enjoyed seeing it.

  ‘Please, Donna. I know you haven’t had good experiences with the police in the past—’

  ‘You know that, do you?’

  ‘Yes. I know that. I’ve read your record. And I’ve read Faith’s too. But this isn’t about that. This is about finding out what she was doing in Wakes Colne last night.’

  Silence from Donna. Rose waited.

  ‘Tell me,’ Donna said eventually, her voice weary. ‘Tell me what happened.’

  ‘She was killed early this morning. She ran out of a clump of trees on to the road. By the viaduct. She was hit by a car. She died almost instantly.’ She thought it best not to mention the second car.

  Donna’s eyes glazed over. She blinked. Hard. Her lower lip trembled. Her breathing changed.

  Here it comes, thought Rose.

  But it didn’t. Donna took control of herself, looked up. Shields down, composure regained. Still blinking, but clearly willing the tears not to fall.

  A tiny part of Rose admired her for it.

  ‘What was she running from?’ Donna’s next words.

  Rose’s grudging admiration for the woman increased slightly. Whatever else she was – and a glance round the living room showed that – she was bright.

  ‘Well that’s what I hoped you might be able to help me with.’

  Donna said nothing, retreated into silence.

  Rose leaned forward, nearly toppled off the edge of the sofa. Hid her irritation. ‘Come on, Donna. Just tell me. Was she out working? Seeing punters? Scoring? What?’

  At the mention of scoring, Donna gave Rose a fierce death-ray stare. ‘She wasn’t an addict.’ Her voice rising, a growl at the edges.