Cut To The Bone

by Sally Spedding

  Hadn’t Rita mentioned big, rough hands?

  "You are Frank Martin, aren’t you?" Fraser shouted.

  "Yeah. So what? I've 'ad it. Me wife don't want me and now this goon says ‘e’ll’ waste me..."

  Fraser dug in his jacket pocket for the Mother's Day card Rita had given him. He held it up and for a moment, Martin seemed unsure of its significance.

  "From your son Jez to his Mum," said Fraser, advancing with it. "Yes, he's dead. But is risking your life now going to help your wife or your other two kids?"

  The man hesitated again as more drool hung from his open mouth. Then he snatched the card from Fraser's hand.

  "Least this way I'll see me boy again." He kissed it, smearing the pretty cottage picture with skeins of his blood.

  “Frank, just hand it over.”

  “Why?”

  "To nail his killer." Fraser's voice softened, now not even attempting to retrieve the card. "You've already helped us, in more ways than one. So, come on. Please."

  He grabbed Frank’s arm again to pull him to safety, but a massive, unseen shove from O’Donnell felled him to the deck. While struggling back into position, Fraser saw sheer terror in the other man’s eyes as he toppled from his perch. With a scream Fraser would never forget, Rita’s husband tumbled out of sight beneath the deck, with his son's card and its handwritten message of love, fluttering after him.

  *

  O’Donnell had vanished and, all too aware of Jarvis trying to raise himself, Fraser radioed Burrows giving Frank Martin's possible place of entry in the water, and a description of that the dangerous co-driver who'd driven him to it. A thug who could be anywhere. Now every minute seemed an eternity and there wasn't a fucking lifebelt in sight.

  "I don't think Frank Martin's a swimmer!" He yelled at the Detective Superintendent. "His teeth have gone and he’d be losing blood..."

  Then, having covered a winded Jarvis with his donkey jacket, urged him to stay put as help was on its way. He decided against leaving him his Glock and cursed that there wasn't a single security guard around. And why were the Portsmouth adolescents taking so long to get there? Kayleigh and Freddie's Dad was out in that treacherous Channel and, whatever the man had done, he didn't deserve to drown.

  "We'll get a lifeboat ready." Burrows radioed back, his voice distorted by interference.

  "That'll take too long. You got a diver anywhere? Someone we could winch down?"

  "A chopper from Ventnor would be quicker than from Thorney or even St Malo with all their red tape..."

  Fraser let out a sigh of frustration. Torn between waiting or taking matters into his own hands. He knew that water would be freezing. Frank Martin was unfit and might not be able to swim.

  “Leave it with me,” Burrows went on.” I’ve got contacts. Thumb squeezers, you know the kind of thing…”

  Fraser didn't wait for him to finish, because he was making his way behind the funnel, busy trying to signal a nearby fishing boat, moving at speed with the incoming current. He fired a single shot into the air from his Glock then waved his handkerchief like a dumb schoolboy, wishing he’d brought his new LD torch with him. The two men on board yelled back, unsure what he wanted, and in that moment, he made up his mind.

  71

  Bright daylight suddenly hit Louis’ eyes, and for a scary few seconds he lost his bearings until realizing a porky man lay slumped in front of the huge, navy blue funnel's base. He peered closer, recognising Detective Constable Derek Jarvis despite his two donkey jackets and a black woollen hat askew on his dishevelled head. The fat pig was just conscious, he could tell. The zip at the top of his fly opened to reveal a scrap of brown underpants.

  Louis bent over him, sensing his own dick begin to stir.

  "Who's got the power now, eh?" he crowed, recalling how Jarvis had held court so impressively at that Meadow Hill Neighbourhood Watch meeting and the school nearly four years ago. Who'd later given him too much grief. "Thought you were so fucking clever didn't you? Yet you didn't even recognise me when I was staring you in the fucking face."

  So, thought Louis, kneeling back on his heels and seeing the port of St Malo as clearly as if it was bang up close, why let an inadequate pig like him spoil the rest of his life? He wasn't worth it. A special goodbye kiss was called for - as the Yanks would say - for closure. He bent over Jarvis's prone body, and was poised to place his lips on his ruddy cheek before throttling him, when he realised someone else had joined the party. Someone calling him Pete Brown.

  He twisted round, but all at once the eye-level sun again made him blind, this time to the tall, fair-haired man with a shiny black Glock aimed at his heart.

  72

  Fraser had recognised him immediately as that same tall, black-clad figure who’d lurked on that very deck earlier, before giving him the slip. This time, there’d be no mistakes, but he had to be quick. Should he kill or simply impede the target with one bullet? No, he told himself. This creep wasn’t worth getting banged up for. Not after everything that had happened so far, and with an image of Rita’s lovely face in his mind, ordered him to lie down with his arms outspread.

  He stuffed the Glock deep in his jeans’ back pocket.

  “Piss off, you!” Yelled the crop-haired teenager, scrambling to his feet. “Go and bully someone else. I was only trying to make the guy comfortable.” At this he lunged towards Fraser, grappling with his lapels. Their two black leather jackets collided, and all the while, Frank Martin was slipping further away from the boat, probably unconscious, if not dead already.

  “You’re a real failure, aren’t you, Pete Brown?” sneered Fraser keeping a tight grip. “A cowardly failure. Blaming everyone else for the fact that your adoptive parents weren’t up to scratch. A man you tried to frame for serious crimes, and a woman who was scared of you…”

  “Shut your face!” The sixteen year-old glared in ominous close-up. His grip strengthening. Eyes hard as rock with no visible dilation of their pupils. White, even teeth on full show. Hair chopped by a blind barber. “What d’you know about not having a proper Mum and Dad? People you could believe in? Trust? A stepfather shagging someone else? And the rest…”

  He lashed out with his loafered foot and missed. Tried again, and got Fraser’s left shin. The pain of it juddered through him. But no way would this psychopath have the pleasure of seeing it. “That doesn’t excuse what you’ve done,” he countered, deliberately low-key while strengthening his hold. “How about an awareness of other people’s feelings, eh? Jez Martin and his sister would have been a start.”

  Fraser then changed tack. Began to shake him, almost losing control, before Perelman pushed him free, to hurl himself towards the other side of the deck. The anger of wrongs suffered; the life he could have had with his real parents, then, unexpectedly, a flow of confessions faded into sea and sky.

  “Come back you bloody idiot!” Fraser picked up speed on the slippery, slatted surface. “You won’t get away…”

  “Go fuck yourself!”

  With that, Louis Claus Perelman made a sudden detour, evading four beefy gendarmes and their big dogs who’d just arrived to give chase. But the teenager was quicker than them all, leaping up to the wooden deck rail and vaulting clear, legs tucked in, Vanishing from sight, without trace.

  *

  The four French officers craned over the rail where the murderer had jumped. Their dogs whining, keen to follow him, but never mind Perelman, Fraser told himself. He had Frank to think about. And Jarvis, still lying by that funnel in obvious pain.

  Meanwhile, where was Burrows? The Portsmouth boys?

  In reasonably good French, he urged the men to get his colleague to safety. How he’d share with them later what had happened. He then ran back down the steps through another lo
unge area full of cheaper upholstery, cheaper everything else, and once on the deck below, leapt up on to its top rail. Having steadied himself, he closed his eyes and pointed both hands in the prayer position at the greedy sea.

  73

  In order to contact Emma Dixon’s mum, Rita pretended she needed the loo, and Helen Dixon listened with mounting horror as she learnt of the morning’s news. How Kayleigh’s anonymous drawing of the psychopath might be in all the papers, and could she possibly be kept from seeing it?

  “Is that too much to ask?” Rita added.

  “Not at all, and please don’t worry,” Helen reassured her. “The girls have been out riding since eight, and Emma’s iPhone will stay on me even when they’re back. I can pretend it needs a repair and check what they watch on TV. I’ll also call you just before bringing Kayleigh over tomorrow morning. OK?”

  “I can’t thank you enough,” Rita said, pulling the chain. “Thank God there are some saints among the sinners.”

  *

  Then, in an overall and rubber gloves, fuelled by relief, Rita began mopping the floor and washing down the walls of BEST PRESS'S reception area while Mr Waring stayed in his office at the rear of the shop, dealing with accounts and occasionally breaking into snatches of song.

  He sounded a happy man, yet gradually, while unpacking the trade chemicals and cloths to wipe down both dry cleaning chambers, she dwelt solely on that deceitful teenager’s grisly crime and the fact that if he really was Pete Brown, he could soon be back in Mullion Road.

  Instead of taking a lunch break at the shop, she re-organised the store of finished items to be collected, and immediately at two o'clock, once Mr Waring had left his desk for the golf course, tried to make contact with Tim Fraser.

  “Number temporarily unavailable.”

  Next, she punched in Sandra Gregory's number where, because there was no reply, she left a message on the woman's answerphone to let Freddie know she'd soon be collecting him. They'd probably gone to McDonalds in the Mall after the football, she reasoned. After all, he had a tenner to spend and, knowing him, it wouldn't stay long in his pocket.

  However, once she’d began the journey home, her fleeting concern about him was overlaid by resentment at Frank's selfish agenda. Wasn't it typical that as better things were happening, namely the kids getting encouraging reports from school and an unselfish man had just shared her bed, along should come that waster? The Will he'd mentioned just another lie to get his toe in the door, and as for his ‘something for the kids,’ well, she thought, driving through Briar Bank's main street, being a full-time father might have been a start.

  Instead of going straight to Sallow Drive, she drove home to change out of her grubby work clothes before presenting herself at Sandra's door. Never again would she slum it in public and, having parked by Wort Passage, prayed she’d be spared the embarrassment of both men meeting. Prayed too, that Louis Perelman really was on his way to the Continent. As soon as she could, and in private, she’d find out more.

  Having hidden The Sunday Gazette in her wardrobe, Rita returned from the bedroom in clean jeans and a new pink jumper to notice her answerphone showed three messages. She pressed PLAY, thinking first of Sandra Gregory. But no. A man's voice, seeming far away.

  She froze. But not for long.

  "Rita? It's me, Tim. Something big's come up. I can't make tonight after all. I’II ring again when I can. OK? Say sorry to the kids for me, won't you? Must go…"

  Something big? Rita felt her pulse jump. She tried to reply, but his number was unavailable like before, and she suddenly hated these bloody machines that so quickly made one feel powerless.

  She pressed the answerphone for its second message in case it was him again, but instead, a breathless Frank said some unexpected business had come up and he'd be in touch once he was in the clear. "I still love you, Reet," he added at the end, which went straight to her heart. He sounded rough, still in trouble, but there was no time to dwell on this or to wonder where he was, because the third caller’s voice made her hold her breath in dread. Male, strangely disembodied, yet eerily familiar to her despite a poor line.

  "Don't fink I've done wiv yer lot yet, yerinterfering bitch. Ye’ll be seein' me again when I'm ready..."

  Rita stared at the answerphone before playing the three messages again, then realised with a jolt the third caller could be someone either aping Pete Brown, or was Louis Perelman himself. She called Briar Bank Police Station to be told by a temp that everyone was out on urgent calls and her message would be immediately logged.

  “And 315b, Mullion Road? What’s happening there? I mean, I’ve two kids who…”

  “You’re not the first who’s called about that address,” the girl butted in, “but I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to discuss it.”

  Rita swore to herself and slammed the receiver down, telling herself that right now, she should focus on Freddie.

  *

  Sunday afternoons in Scrub End were usually pretty quiet, with just the odd group of youngsters hanging about near the pub, or a dog walker heading for the waste ground by the church. But today, as she approached 18, Sallow Drive - the opposite end to Bessie Wright's house - everything was silent, as if the plague had descended.

  She rang the bell and waited, her chest beginning to hurt. Not a curtain moved in any of the windows, nor a single voice broke the silence. She knew Sandra Gregory kept her old Skoda in a lock-up round the back, so what was she waiting for?

  Someone was tinkering under the bonnet of an ancient Ford in front of a row of run-down lock-ups. She hesitated, remembering what Tim had said. This seemingly harmless individual could be anyone. However, it was a benign-looking pensioner who emerged from his oily labours as she approached.

  Excuse me," she began, “d'you know if Mrs. Gregory's around? Or if she's gone out in her car?"

  "I don't live 'ere, me duck, sorry. This is me son's old heap."

  "So you've not seen any cream-coloured Skoda leaving these lock-ups?"

  He shook his grey head. "Which one's hers?" he asked, wiping his hands on a filthy rag.

  "I’ve no idea."

  "Let's take a look, then."

  There were seven lock-ups in all. Each in varying stages of decrepitude, with gaps between their shabby planks. Rita started at one end, her new acquaintance the other. He finally stopped in the middle.

  "There's only a purple job in here. Nothing else."

  "Purple? You sure?" She peered through into the gloom beyond and gasped.

  Sure enough, Molloy's Proton lay clumsily covered with old rags - most of which had slipped to reveal the car’s familiar shape and colour. However, its plates had gone and, as far as she could see, there didn't appear to be a tax disc on the windscreen.

  "This is odd."

  By now her mind was racing in crazy circles. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and punched the Briar Bank police number yet again, but because her words were incoherent with worry, she had to repeat her story and whereabouts several times.

  “Stay there, and someone will be along as soon as possible," reassured the male officer who’d just returned to the station. Whose name she didn't recognise.

  "I also need to speak to DI Fraser. It's vital," Rita added, beginning to cry.

  "I'm afraid he's not available."

  She remembered his strange phone message.

  "Where is he, then?"

  A moment's pause. "I can't divulge that at the moment, Mrs Martin. Please try and understand that certain things are confidential. Now, like I said, you just wait there." He then ended the call.

  Rita watched the old man resume his explorations beneath the Ford's bonnet. She felt more alone and scared than ev
er, and like the sun behind a storm cloud, the day's earlier happiness had gone. St Peter's bells chimed out four o'clock. The minutes were speeding by and every minute was without Freddie

  "It's my son," she called out. "He's supposed to be here with Mrs Gregory."

  "Well, no good worrying, me duck. Kids will be kids."

  But all she could think of was 315b, Mullion Road, less than a mile away, and who might now be lurking behind its shabby curtains.

  *

  “Please take me to see it!” She almost screamed at Sergeant Crooker and Constable Frobisher the moment they’d got out of their chequered Mondeo. “It’s all I can think about. Supposing Freddie’s there. Supposing…”

  “It was me you spoke to just now,” interrupted the Constable. Fit, clean-shaven with an eager look in his blue eyes. “And I can understand your alarm, but let me reassure you, that property is no longer of interest.”

  “That’s correct,” said the one called Sergeant Crooker, “so let’s get cracking.”

  “But you must have found something.”

  “It’ll soon be dark. We need to shift.”

  Nevertheless, Rita followed them in a state of numb dread as they began their search around number 18, Sallow Drive.

  Both officers gave Sandra Gregory’s semi a quick once-over, then strode towards the lock-ups. After a cursory nod at the old man in overalls, they checked out the Proton by removing two front panels of the double door and replacing them when they left. Having confirmed the damaged car's chassis number as still belonging to the Molloys, Frobisher then radioed for a back-up car. Both officers accompanied her to Wort Passage in their Mondeo where she sat on the back seat in a sea of papers, high-vis jackets and half-empty Coke bottles.

  Minutes later, having listening to her answerphone messages, and at the sound of Tim Fraser's voice, they exchanged subtle glances.