by Matt Hilton
Undressing in front of him wasn’t as humiliating as before. He’d leered at any show of nakedness at first, but familiarity was breeding contempt. When she began stripping off her work clothes, he snorted in disgust, and dropped his seething gaze to the handcuff dangling from his wrist. Two days ago, Kerry had returned to the house she’d shared with Adam, after checking first that he was out, and loaded what personal belongings she could fit in two suitcases, and brought them to the hotel room. With a lack of storage, she was living out of those suitcases. She chose fresh underwear, jeans and a T-shirt, and went in the bathroom to shower.
Swain had once threatened to torment her during her most intimate and private moments, but apparently he’d lost his appetite for it. If he could leave her alone completely, she suspected he would. Except, they were indelibly linked together. She, in one respect, had become his jailer. She showered, luxuriating in the act for the first time in ages, satisfied that she wasn’t being ogled. Once dried and dressed casually, she evicted Swain from the tub chair while she dried her hair at the counter. He stood in the back corner, bottom lip working silently.
‘Go and stand in the bathroom if you don’t want to see me,’ she commanded. ‘Instead of standing there like the ugliest lampstand ever.’
‘You’re stuck with me.’
‘Oh, so it can speak?’
‘I’ve nothing to say to you.’
‘That’s good. There’s nothing I want to hear from you.’
‘Liar. I know why you spared that piece of dog shit’s life. It’s because you’re afraid you’ll never learn the truth about the Fell Man.’
‘For having nothing to say you enjoy flapping your lips, don’t you?’ She switched the hairdryer to its highest setting, drowning him out.
He swept alongside her, leaning to growl directly in her ear. ‘You were supposed to kill Robson.’
‘No. You asked me to kill him and I told you I wouldn’t.’ She switched off the dryer, set it aside and turned to look up at him. His shaggy hair hung over his face, limp and dull. Even his silver earring had lost its sheen.
‘You said you couldn’t. Wouldn’t and couldn’t are two different things. I gave you the opportunity, but instead of drowning the rat you dragged him to safety.’ He leaned so close she could sense his electrical discharge on the tip of her nose. She jolted from her seat, forcing him to back away.
‘I’ve warned you about boundaries before,’ she snapped, and her double meaning wasn’t lost on him.
‘We made a deal,’ he growled.
‘No. You tried to force a deal on me. And repeatedly I told you it was something I couldn’t promise. I told you I’d arrest Robson and the others, and that’s what I did. Well, almost all of them. Derrick Lewis died. Isn’t his death enough for you?’
‘His death means nothing to me.’
‘He was the one who pulled the trigger. He killed that mother and child, the ones you were originally blamed for. The reason you ran and fell to your death.’
‘He was Robson’s puppet.’
‘Robson and Hettie’s puppet,’ she reminded him. ‘So here’s a question for you, Swain: why not demand that I kill Hettie too? They were equally involved in trying to destroy you. If I were you, I’d feel more betrayed by Hettie than by a rival gangster. I mean, you’d expect something like that from Robson, but not your girlfriend.’
He stared at her. Confused.
‘You have no idea why, do you?’
His mouth writhed, but he said nothing.
It occurred to Kerry that his rage was centred on Robson, as it had already existed within him in life, before she’d uncovered the truth and depth of the conspiracy against him. It was also why he couldn’t raise any genuine ire towards Derrick Lewis, or any of the others. ‘You have no idea why you want Robson dead, before you can move on. What do you expect will happen then?’
Again confusion reigned over him.
‘He needs to die.’
‘Not by my hand.’ Kerry rolled up the hairdryer’s cord and set it aside on a tiny corner shelf.
Swain hurtled at her, his bunched fists hammering her. She blinked in reaction, but his flurrying assaults had grown commonplace to her, and hardly surprised her any more. ‘Are you finished?’
‘I was only proving a point!’ Swain backed off, throwing up his hands. He held them under his nose, studying them in detail. ‘If I could do it, I’d kill Robson myself. But I can’t even ruffle your hair! So that means you have to do it for me.’
‘And I won’t. Besides, I can’t. He’s on remand at Belmarsh, on a high security wing, safely out of my reach. The next time we’re in the same room it’ll be when he appears at court.’
‘You’re the lead detective on his case; you can visit him in jail, doing follow up interviews or whatever the hell it is the Old Bill do. You could get at him then.’
‘You’ve watched too many American cop shows, Swain…’
‘Are you telling me you can’t arrange a visit with him…bollocks! Your ex works there for fuck’s sake! He can get you in. When I’ve been locked up before, I had plenty visits from CID after info on outstanding crimes.’
‘Yeah, ordinarily I could. But the thing is, right now I’m not on duty, and won’t be for a fortnight at least. I’d have no official reason to visit Belmarsh, so would be refused access.’
He sneered at the poor excuse. ‘How the hell would anybody at Belmarsh know you’re on leave?’
‘Listen to me, Swain. You can try convincing me, but I’ll save you the breath. It isn’t going to happen. If I kill Robson, who do you think will end up in prison for his murder? What good will it do me to know who the Fell Man is then? You see; the deal you’re offering is worthless if I’m in a cell for the next fifteen years.’
‘So find a way to do it without implicating yourself.’
She clamped her lips together, gently shook her head.
Swain threw his hands in the air again, and paced back and forward. He halted, glared at her. ‘If you don’t kill that bastard you’re stuck with me,’ he snarled. ‘Forever.’
‘Yeah, well, that goes both ways doesn’t it? You’re stuck with me too. So here’s the thing. You may as well tell me now what you know about the Fell Man, otherwise I’ll be the one mithering you forever.’ She returned his glare, and his attention switched from one different coloured iris to the other: they both held the same promise.
Abruptly he sat down on the end of the bed. He had less substance than it took to ruffle the purple comforter spread across the foot of the mattress.
She waited.
He wafted his cuffed wrist.
‘Stick the TV on,’ he said despondently. ‘The lunchtime news is about to start.’
His instruction came out of left field, but Kerry didn’t argue. She found the remote control and turned on the power. The TV was on an adjustable bracket suspended on the wall above the multi-purpose counter. Kerry stepped back far enough so craning was unnecessary to see the screen. She flipped to a BBC channel, turned up the volume. The picture was naff, the digital image breaking up and pausing. But there was enough of a picture to make out the gist of the report: politicians animatedly debating something or other in Westminster. Kerry gave Swain a sharp look for clarity. He waited, nonplussed, then waved at the screen again.
‘The picture’s terrible; I’ll change the channel.’
‘Leave it. It won’t get any better.’ His proximity to the TV was affecting the local electromagnetic field, and disrupting the channel.
‘What am I meant to be looking at? The bloody Muppet Show?’
‘Just give it a second or two.’
The picture froze, broke up, before it flickered to a newscaster in the studio. The picture froze again, shattered into zigzags of static. Then the scene was different. It had been years since she’d been home, but the scenery was timeless. Aerial footage taken by a drone swept the length of Derwent Water, towards the town of Keswick. Looming on the near horizon was the sad
dle formed between Skiddaw Pike and Blencathra, two of the most recognisable North Lakes fells. It was the landscape of Kerry’s childhood, before Sally vanished and she’d relocated to Carlisle with her mother. The footage segued to mountain rescue volunteers trudging up a muddy path, then to police officers in high-visibility jackets picking their way across a scrubby field in a skirmish line. The picture flicked to a morose young woman, reporting from a windswept scene, this time based in a city centre: behind the newscaster Kerry recognised the ancient clock tower of Carlisle’s town hall. She couldn’t make out the words on the ticker tape banner moving across the base of the TV screen, and the audio was too broken to hear clearly. But both were unnecessary. She knew what the organised search signified, and by the reporter’s sombre expression it had been unsuccessful.
She glanced down at Swain.
He raised his eyebrows but said nothing.
A tingle flooded through her; dread or anticipation she couldn’t decide.
‘Is it him again?’
‘I haven’t a clue.’ He raised his eyebrows, and nodded at the TV. ‘What do you think, Kezza?’
The picture on the screen abruptly froze. A young girl, eyes alive with mischief, smiled at the camera. She resembled Sally enough that a sharp blade drove through Kerry’s heart. The titles accompanying the photograph brought bile to her throat.
Hunt For Second Missing Girl Intensifies.
44
Heavy showers had been a feature all day, and would continue. When she sat at one of the wooden picnic tables outside Euston Station, it was during one of the drier spells, although the occasional drop of rain tapped against her exposed face. She gave up the shelter of the station for the modicum of privacy outside, pulling up the hood of her duffle coat to stave off the damp chill. The weather was poor, but it didn’t deter smokers who needed to feed their habits before boarding their trains home, but like Kerry, they chose their own company at other tables. The row of eateries behind her was busy, though fewer people visited the fast food kiosks arranged at the front of the station. Kerry managed to grab a coffee at one of them without queuing, but hadn’t removed its lid yet. It sat untouched before her on the table. The wide expanse of paving was greasy underfoot. The ever-present pigeons pecked for crumbs, and the ever-present beggars weaved a well-trodden route between the tables, offering sob stories in exchange for cigarettes and change. Twice already Kerry had sent the same young woman packing, whose tale of having lost her purse and needing money for a ticket home was an obvious lie. Kerry wasn’t cold to the young woman’s sad predicament; she was simply more concerned by the plight of certain other younger girls.
Earlier, a snap decision saw her hurrying to pack a bag and rush to the station. She didn’t book out of her hotel room, she needed somewhere to store her other belongings and her car while she was gone, just locked the door behind her and left without a word, and headed directly for the station. There was a direct train that could have her in Carlisle in around three and a half hours. It was scheduled to leave in another hour, no big delay, and it gave her the opportunity to catch up with messages that had backed up on her phone. Three of them were from Adam, two of them text messages asking her to ring him back, the third a voicemail message: he sounded cowed and said sorry. She was tempted to delete them all, and block his number, but she wasn’t a total bitch. She’d purchased the coffee while she thought about what she’d say to him, but when she sat down at the table it was with as little appetite for a confrontation as for the sludgy black coffee.
Swain was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Girl.
She took a deep breath, and called Adam.
The phone rang a half dozen times, and she was relieved. She was about to hang up when he came on the line.
‘Hiya. It’s only me,’ she said, needlessly. It was a phrase she used that Adam and others occasionally poked fun at, one of those northern expressions of greeting that was ingrained in her vocabulary.
‘Yeah,’ said Adam, and he exhaled a ragged breath. ‘Thanks for ringing, Kerry.’
‘What do you want?’ Her voice was barely above a whisper, and she had her phone under her hood, tight to her ear — the nearest smoker was ten feet away, but still close enough to overhear.
‘I, uh, hoped that we could meet to—’
‘I can’t.’
‘Can’t…or won’t?’
She thought for less than two seconds. ‘Can’t. I’m not going to be available for a few days, maybe after that we can—’
‘Shit. Kerry, look, we need to sort this now, love—’
‘You sorted things when you put your oar in with Porter,’ she snapped. ‘You lost the bloody right to call me love.’ A quick glance around showed she’d attracted no untoward attention. She silently counted to ten, calming her breathing.
‘I do love you,’ he said.
‘You hurt me.’
‘I was trying to do the right thing. Kerry, you needed help. You couldn’t see it, so I—’
‘Grassed me up to the chief inspector.’
‘No. I reached out. I hoped if you wouldn’t listen to me you’d pay more attention to your boss.’
‘You expected him to be sympathetic to me?’ She laughed, a harsh sound lacking humour. ‘You could’ve had me sacked, Adam!’
‘I…I didn’t know what to do. I only wanted to help you. I thought that if you were pushed you’d see what I was trying to tell you, and see a doctor or something.’
‘I spoke with my psychologist, as you bloody well know, and he reassured me I wasn’t having a breakdown.’
It was Adam’s turn to laugh scornfully. ‘He made that diagnosis based on one telephone call, did he? He has no idea what I was putting up with.’
‘Huh! So you were putting up with me?’
‘No. Sorry. That’s not what I meant. I could see how you were affected; you weren’t acting yourself. You were…I don’t know. Kerry, you know it yourself…you were acting crazy.’
‘I was stressed, under a lot of pressure,’ she reminded him, ‘and your attitude wasn’t helping.’
‘Yeah, I know. And I’m sorry. I’m genuinely sorry, Kerry. You have to believe me. I was wrong calling Porter like that.’
Kerry held her breath. Thinking.
Drizzle pattered on the table. A pigeon took cover under her bent knees.
‘Hopefully now you’ve solved the case, things will get better,’ Adam put forward. ‘I was hoping we could meet, talk this through and, well, you know, put it behind us?’
‘I haven’t solved the case yet.’
‘Sorry. I thought that—’
‘I’m not talking about the shooting of the Ghedis.’
‘Oh.’ He knew exactly whose case she meant.
‘He hasn’t left me, Adam,’ she whispered.
‘Who? Erick Swain?’ She could hear the disappointment in his voice, and it wasn’t because he believed a dead gangster was haunting her. ‘Jesus, Kerry, I thought with you catching Robson things would have ended there.’
‘Aye, well so did I.’
‘You’re still hallucinating him?’
‘Until you accept there’s more to my visions than hallucinations, we can’t move on, Adam. Can’t you understand that?’
‘Jesus, yeah, I hear you. But you have to see things from my point of view, Kerry. I don’t believe in ghosts and all that rubbish, I just can’t.’
‘See, that’s the problem. It’s rubbish, only because you haven’t experienced it. How about seeing things from my side for a change?’
‘Look, I believe that you believe, but…’
‘It’s still rubbish?’
‘Yes. No. I believe you’re seeing Swain, but I think there has to be another explanation for it. Something more…logical.’
‘Logic doesn’t explain the ineffable,’ she told him, though he had no grasp of the term – in fairness, she’d never heard it used before Elias Price mentioned it either. ‘What I mean is that sometimes you have to trust your ins
tincts, Adam. I can’t prove Swain’s real, the way I can prove a person’s guilt in court. But I can still feel when it’s genuine. Swain is visiting me, in fact it’s worse. He’s here all the time now. And he won’t leave until I give him what he wants.’
‘But you already arrested that bastard. He’s here in Belmarsh. You told me that once you caught Robson, Swain would give you what you wanted and it’d be over.’
‘Robson’s imprisonment isn’t enough for Swain.’
‘No, I know what you said before. You told me he wanted him dead.’
Kerry said nothing.
‘You really think it’s going to take Robson’s death before…’ he let the suggestion go.
‘I’d never do it. You should know me better than that, Adam.’
‘I know. I do…but you’ll be stuck with Swain until Robson dies? Jesus Christ!’
‘Our relationship has changed.’
‘You can say that again, I—’
Kerry laughed. This time her voice held a little music. ‘I meant mine and Swain’s,’ she said. ‘I’ve set some boundaries, as Elias Price advised me to, and it’s working. Swain doesn’t have the same hold over me as before. He does as I say.’
‘So he told you what you wanted to hear?’
‘He still prefers playing games. He hasn’t come clean, but he has suggested I go home.’
His voice raised an octave. ‘You’re coming home? Good. That’s great, I’ll come and help you with your stuff if you want?’
‘Home-home,’ she said, ‘as in home to Cumbria.’