A wall of flickering pink filled the screen.
‘So I thought, well, today’s going to end delightfully after all. Look what the baby Jesus has sent me.’
Callum turned his face away from the TV. Tried not to listen to the muffled sobs and pleas.
‘“But,” said I to myself, “where are this delicious little offering’s parents?” Here’s a lovely boy, on his own, in a car park. Surely Mummy and Daddy can’t be far away.’
Shannon had his teeth bared, a look of utter disgust slithering its way across his face.
‘And then I saw them. Mummy and Daddy. And … Have you ever seen a wildlife programme when a lion meets the hyenas? Here’s this magnificent apex predator, with his beautiful blond mane, king of all he surveys, and there’s the hyenas. Dirty, squat, and evil. They’re not noble like he is, but there’s more of them than there are of him so they can chase him off and steal his prey.’
The Slug pouted, eyes fixed on the screen. ‘I always thought I was the lion. The noble apex predator. But standing in the car park – watching him beat that man and woman with an iron bar, bind them with duct tape, and bundle them into the boot of his beautiful white Range Rover – I realised I was never the lion. I was the hyena. And there was only one of me.’
Callum cleared his throat. ‘Who was he?’
‘So I hid in the shadows and watched him take his prey. I watched him scoop up the pretty little blond boy, lower him gently onto the back seat, ruffle his hair, and strap him in. Then I watched the Lion drive away.’
‘Who – was – he?’
A dark, slithery smile. ‘Oh, you’d know him if you saw him. He’s famous.’ Pike leaned forward, trembling, the images on screen reflected in his bloodshot eyes. ‘Isn’t it magnificent?’
‘I want a sodding name!’
‘Shut up. Don’t spoil it. This is the best bit.’
Callum grabbed the TV, wrenched it off its stand, and hurled it to the filthy floor. The cathode ray tube popped and crackled, sparks flickered inside the casing, smoke curled up through the vents in the back.
Shannon just stared at him.
‘Gareth Pike, I’m arresting you for violation of Section Fifty-Two-A of the Civic Government Scotland Act, as I believe you to be in possession of indecent images of children. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention something that you later rely on in court.’
Pike grinned. ‘Finally. I thought you’d never ask.’
46
‘Interview recommenced at twenty-three fifteen.’ Callum held up the evidence bag. ‘I am now showing Mr Pike “Exhibit A”. Do you recognise this video cassette, Gareth?’
Sitting on the other side of the interview room table, Pike smiled his slug-like smile. ‘Of course I do. It’s the video I bought from a lovely man in Doncaster, who, I’m afraid, shall have to remain nameless.’ Pike raised a hand. ‘Oh, I know, I know, but honour among pederasts, Detective Constable. I’d hate to disappoint the brethren of my … shall we say distinctive congregation.’
Interview Room Two stank of fresh paint, the walls, door, and skirting remarkably clean and blemish free. Even the carpet tiles looked new. Bright-white vertical blinds shut out the night, swaying above the pinging radiator. All very clean and hygienic. Which somehow made the stench rolling off Pike all the more cloying.
The uniformed PC sitting next to Callum had her chair pushed as far back as it would go, putting as much distance as possible between herself and the man opposite. She had the same look of revulsion on her face as Shannon had, back at the flat. As if she’d trodden on something she couldn’t wipe off. She wouldn’t even rest her notebook on the same table Pike leaned on, holding it in her lap instead as she wrote down everything he said.
Just the three of them, steeping in the smell of fresh paint and stale BO.
Callum stuck the evidence bag in front of him, the dirty cast on his right hand clunking against the clean Formica tabletop. ‘And you are aware of the contents of this video cassette, Gareth?’
‘Oh indeed I am. Very much so.’ Pike leaned forward. ‘I’ve watched it many, many times. My favourite bit has worn almost through, but that just adds to the mystique, don’t you think? The mind’s eye is so much more powerful than reality.’ He looked up, stretching out his chins, staring straight into the camera mounted in the corner. ‘It’s a pornographic video involving two pretty young blond boys and one very lucky man.’
Callum stared at him. ‘Why?’
‘Oh, because who doesn’t dream of having two—’
‘No, Gareth: why did you show us the video? Why didn’t you hide it? Why did you choose not to have a solicitor present? Why aren’t you sitting there saying, “no comment” to everything?’
He curled his shoulders forward, hunching over the table. ‘You’ve seen my home, Detective Constable, would you want to live there? I miss my lovely cell, with its regular meals and its working radiator. I miss my friends. Out here, if I talk to someone with … similar interests, I’m breaking the law, but inside? Ah, the joy of discussing my passions and past triumphs without being spat at!’ He winked at the PC. ‘How I long to never see another face contorted in ignorance like yours, young lady.’
She glared back, but kept her mouth shut. Wrote it all down instead.
‘You want to go back to prison?’
‘Who wouldn’t? Out here I get excrement posted through my letterbox; in there I can spend time with kindred souls and live in peace. Unmolested.’ He spread his chubby fingers wide. ‘Perhaps I could finally work on my novel?’
‘So you’re confessing to the charges.’
‘It’s about a little boy whose wicked stepfather beats him every night and locks him in the attic. But the stepfather doesn’t know that there’s a portal to a magical world up there, hidden in an old wooden chest from the First World War. And the little boy goes on adventures with his best friends – a talking cat and a world-weary teddy bear – to save Wunderwelt from the Darkening armies of King Dunkelheit.’
‘Are you confessing to the charges, Mr Pike?’
‘Oh most certainly.’ A frown. ‘I can’t decide if the teddy bear should harbour the soul of the boy’s dear departed grandfather: killed in the trenches, I think. Maybe mustard gas. Or would that be too dark?’
Callum just stared at him.
‘Of course, it’s semi-autobiographical. I didn’t have a talking cat or a haunted teddy bear, but I definitely had a stepfather. I’ll leave out the bits where he shared me with his friends, though. No one likes a tattle-tale, do they?’
Was that supposed to make him sympathetic?
Tough.
Callum held out his good hand for the PC’s notebook, then slid it across the table. Passed Pike a pen. ‘Sign at the bottom there. And date it.’
‘I’d like a south-facing cell, if at all possible?’ He scrawled his name across the bottom of the page, followed by today’s date. ‘Would that be possible?’
‘You said you recognised the man who abducted my parents and brother.’
‘I suppose it all depends on what’s available, but it’d be nice to feel the sun on my bars.’
‘You said he was famous.’
‘Oh I said many things, Detective Constable. And now,’ he poked the notebook with its signed confession, ‘I’ve got what I wanted, so why should I help you with anything? Supply and demand.’
‘All I want is a name.’
‘I know. And all I want is a south-facing cell. Something on an upper floor so there’s a nice view. If you can’t supply me with that, then our business here is concluded.’ A wink. ‘So why don’t you scurry off and see what you can do about my cell? Off you go. Scurry, scurry.’
Callum snatched the notebook back and returned it to the PC. ‘I can’t believe I was afraid of you, all those years. You’re pathetic.’
‘Oh, indubitably. And now I’ve got power over you all over again.’
The slug smile grew. ‘Isn’t that delicious?’
Shannon leaned back against the wall in the cupboard masquerading as the Downstream Monitoring Suite, mug of tea clutched to his chest. ‘Told you: men like him, they like screwing with people.’
Callum closed the door behind himself and slumped into one of the three office chairs lined up in front of the monitors – the screen in the middle had a view of Interview Room Two on it, peering down from the corner at the empty chairs and table. He covered his face with his hands. ‘Did you see?’
‘Oh, “indubitably”. Urgh … I mean, who uses words like “indubitably” these days? Dicks, that’s who.’ A sigh. ‘I should’ve let you play bad cop.’
‘He saw him. He saw this guy, this “Lion”, attacking my parents and he didn’t do a thing.’
‘We had twenty-six flights of stairs for him to fall down.’
‘He could’ve called the police. Taken the number plate down. He could’ve done something.’
‘I know.’ Shannon’s hand landed on Callum’s shoulder and squeezed. ‘Look on the bright side: at least now we know the rumour was true. That drunken DI was right, it was someone famous. And they drove a white Range Rover.’
‘I was terrified of that lardy sack of crap …’
‘Callum, it’s OK. I’ll get my OAPs to go digging through their notebooks and attics and sheds. We’ll find out who he is.’ One last squeeze. ‘But it’ll take a day or two. Meantime, you sod off home and get some sleep. I’ll give you a call soon as we know anything.’
Callum thumped the Mondeo’s door shut and stood on the pavement, in the drizzle, staring up at the third floor. Twenty to twelve and the lights were still on in the flat.
Home.
Or what used to pass for it.
He pulled his shoulders back and let himself in through the communal front door. Ignored the pile of post on the windowsill at the back. Marched up the stairs.
The cats had been at Toby’s pot plants again.
Tough.
Callum took out his key and slid it into the lock of 3F-A. It didn’t turn. And the little brass plaque above the letterbox was gone too, replaced by a white plastic rectangle with ‘R POWEL & E PIRIE’ carved into the surface. They hadn’t even waited till his grave was cold …
So he bunched his left hand into a fist and gave the door the same three hard knocks Shannon had given Gareth Bloody Pike. The police are here, and they’re not sodding happy.
Took a while, but eventually the door swung open and there was Powel, in jeans and a Rolling Stones T-shirt. Big white trainers that looked as if they’d never seen the outside world. He didn’t seem as intimidating out of a suit, more like someone’s dad trying to be trendy and ‘down with the kids’. And failing.
He scowled out at Callum. ‘I’ve been waiting.’
‘Where’s my stuff?’ Pitching it as a challenge, rather than a question.
Powel closed his eyes and shook his head, then turned and marched back into the flat on his ridiculous white trainers. ‘Elaine packed everything into boxes.’
‘I’ll bet she did.’ Callum followed him. ‘And did she pack the TV and the couch and the bed and the microwave and—’
‘Oh for God’s sake, Callum, will you grow up?’ Powel turned, arms out. ‘Yes, OK, I get it: you’ve been betrayed. We hurt your feelings. Everything’s terrible and it’s all my fault.’
Callum’s left hand curled into a fist. Chest out. Shoulders back.
‘Does that make you feel better, Callum? I admit it: it’s – all – my – fault.’
Grab him by the throat and squeeze the life out of him.
‘But do you think you were so easy to live with? Do you think Elaine didn’t struggle every day, with your moods and your obsessions and your neediness?’
Kill him.
‘We fell in love, OK, Callum? We reached out for someone and we found each other.’
Kill him right now.
Powel’s arms dropped to his sides. ‘She didn’t love you, Callum. She was just going through the motions because she didn’t want to hurt you. It wasn’t a conspiracy, it just happened.’ He walked through to the living room. Pointed at the cardboard boxes stacked up by the window. ‘I know it doesn’t help, but I’m sorry.’
They’d obviously raided the nearest supermarket, because the pile was a mixture of small boxes that used to contain wine, big boxes that used to contain frozen chips, boxes for toilet cleaner, crisps, bin-bags, cauliflower florets, and Stork vegetable fat. Each one sealed with brown parcel tape and marked with black pen: ‘CLOTHES’, ‘CDS & DVDS’, ‘LEGO’, and ‘MISC’.
But by far the largest number were marked ‘BOOKS’.
‘Elaine packed your favourite mugs and cookery things. There’s some ornaments in there too, and photos of the two of you. She says, if you don’t want them just let her know. Don’t throw them away: she’d like to hold onto them for old time’s sake.’
There it was, his whole life for the last five years, all neatly packed up in scrounged cardboard boxes.
Callum stared at the floor. ‘What about the furniture, the TV, the crib? All the stuff I paid for?’
A sigh. ‘If I write you a cheque, will that make you happy?’
‘Happy?’
There was a lamp, sitting on the empty bookcase at the back of the room. They’d bought that on a weekend away in Anstruther. Back before she’d got pregnant.
He picked it up, turned it over in his good hand.
Powel folded his arms. ‘And we’ll need to sort something out about the flat. Putting it up for sale isn’t going to do much good, not with the market like it is.’
Pale-brown pottery, the colour of a hen’s egg. A little scene of boats and dinky wee houses wrapped around it. Heavier than it looked. Seagulls on the blue shade. They’d been happy then.
‘As I see it, we’ve got two options: I refund your mortgage payments and we get the title deeds transferred into my and Elaine’s names, or we buy you out at the current market value and you pay off half the mortgage.’
Or maybe they hadn’t been happy at all. Maybe he’d been happy, but Elaine was miserable. Maybe she was already shagging Powel behind his back. The pair of them laughing at how stupid he was.
‘Though, if I were you I’d go for the first one. The market being what it is, you’d probably end up losing out on the deal. At least if you take the cash you’ll get something out of it.’
Poor stupid gullible little Callum. Buying twee lamps, when everything around him was lies.
‘What do you say, have we got a deal? Like adults?’ Powel stuck out his hand for shaking.
Callum stared at it, then at the lamp.
Bared his teeth.
Slammed the lamp back down, grabbed the nearest box, and marched out of the flat.
47
Callum loaded the last box of books into the back of the Mondeo. Looked up at flat 3F-1.
Standing out here, you’d never guess—
Sodding hell. Callum pulled out his phone. ‘What?’
Nothing.
He checked the caller display: ‘NUMBER WITHHELD’.
Not this again.
‘Look, whoever you are, I’m not in the mood, OK? I’ve had a crappy day, so you can take your phone and jam it up—’
‘Piggy?’ A little girl’s voice, broken and jagged. Her breathing jerky and trembling, punctuated by damp gurgling sniffs.
‘Willow?’
‘He’s here! He’s … he’s come … he’s come back.’
Callum closed the Mondeo’s boot. ‘Who’s come back?’
‘Dad. Dad’s come back …’
The man who’d broken his four-year-old daughter’s arm as a farewell present.
Right.
Callum marched around to the front of the car and climbed in behind the wheel. ‘Where are you?’
‘He’s in there with Mum and Pinky and the baby!’
‘OK. You stay away from him. I’ll be there soon as I can.’ Callum turned the key and put the Mondeo into drive. Stuck his foot down. The fingers of his good hand reached for the ‘999’ button mounted on the dashboard, and the car’s siren wailed into the rain, blue-and-white lights flickering behind the radiator grille – reflected back by the wet road.
Callum fumbled his Airwave handset out, the thing lumpy and awkward in his broken hand, working the buttons with his thumb. ‘DC MacGregor to Control, I’ve got report of a domestic at forty-five B Manson Avenue, Kingsmeath.’
‘Oh aye?’
‘Yes, “Oh aye”. There’s a grade one flag on that property, I need backup—’
‘I’m going to stop you there, Detective Constable. There’s no flag on that house.’
‘I asked for one days ago!’
‘Aye, well I’m looking at the system now, and there isn’t.’
‘Oh for God’s sake …’
Shops and cars and cones flashed past the Mondeo’s windows. Then the industrial span of the Calderwell Bridge.
‘Who have you got in the area?’
‘Dawson and Cooper, but they’re dealing with an assault.’
Right at the roundabout, the tyres screeching on the wet tarmac.
‘Soon as they’re done, get them over to Manson Avenue.’
‘Aye, well, I’ll do my best, but—’
‘But you can’t promise anything. Yeah, I know.’ He let go of the button. ‘Thanks for nothing.’
Callum swung the car hard left onto Munro Place, tearing up the hill, over the top and down the other side. Threw the Mondeo around onto Manson Avenue.
The depressing rows of flat-faced houses with their tiny weed-strewn gardens reared up on either side, the road lined with parked cars in various stages of decay.
Thirty-nine. Forty-one. Forty-three. There: forty-five.
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