by Lucy Cameron
‘Please Mrs Morgan, your son will be fine. Please go downstairs, let us do our jobs.’
Anna sat on the couch and hugged Louise, Louise who was ridged with fear. Louise who didn’t hug her back. They listened to the thumps and screams above. Anna hadn’t realised there was a Constable at the door to the front room, until Harry started to scream too, and she tried to leave to get back upstairs, to get to her baby.
‘Please, Mrs Morgan, if you could stay in the front room.’
‘But that’s my son?’ It was non-negotiable.
More police arrived.
Harry was bought to the door of the front room, but he wouldn’t come in. His neck was purple and swollen. He croaked for his dad. He croaked at Anna for not believing them, for scaring the Nosferatu away. He croaked that he hated her, would never forgive her. A large female Constable took Harry into another room.
Then the ambulances start to arrive.
‘Anna. Anna, please!’ Rhys begs as they bring him downstairs, hands cuffed behind his back. He struggles against the paramedics, against the police. He writhes and throws himself against the wall. Someone shouts to call ahead to the hospital.
‘Anna, please don’t do this. Don’t do this to me.’ Rhys cries now. Snot and tears pour down his face. ‘Anna please.’ Harry breaks through from somewhere. Clings to Rhys. He croaks he loves him, joins in the words to Anna that she’s wrong. What she’s doing is wrong. She has to stop them taking Rhys away. The large female Constable comes and lifts Harry, who kicks and screams all the way back to the kitchen.
‘Louise!’ Rhys shouts. Anna hadn’t noticed Louise come to the door of the front room. Rhys tries to lunge towards her. The policemen hold him firm. ‘Louise, it will be okay.’ Rhys fights for eye contact. There is a small movement in the veneer of Louise’s face. ‘I promise it will all be okay. You don’t need to be afraid.’ Anna wants to shout that they are all afraid, petrified and it’s Rhys’s fault.
The sight of an ambulance through the open front door makes Rhys shout louder.
‘Elsie. Where’s Elsie?’ He swivels his head back and forth. It’s the only part of him left free to move.
‘She didn’t make it Rhys,’ says Anna. The words sound like someone else is saying them. They had taken Elsie in the first ambulance, her body at least.
‘Of course she didn’t make it. He killed her!’ Rhys shouts. ‘Like he was going to kill you, the children. Like he will kill you, like he will kill the children if you don’t listen to me, if you don’t let me stop him.’ From the dark street dozens of pairs of eyes peer at them.
‘Enough,’ says a Constable Anna doesn’t recognise.
‘She had a massive heart attack, Rhys,’ says Anna. Anna doesn’t know how she knows this. Someone must have told her. Everything feels like a dream.
‘No. No she didn’t. Check her neck, check her neck. He killed her I’m telling you, he killed her. Kier Finnegan killed her and no one is listening.’ Rhys twists to look through the open front door at Kier’s house, desperate. His words muddle as they dash out. ‘Look under his house, go on. It’s where he keeps his daughter. He told me, he told me that that night…’ Anna turns away. She can take no more. Where does Rhys get these things from?
Across the road, Anna sees Arthur stand in his front doorway. She raises a hand. He smiles sadly back.
As they lift him towards the ambulance, Rhys starts to scream.
Slowly, Anna shuts the front door, the sound of Rhys’s screaming still ringing in her ears. She pads back to the kitchen. Harry gets up as she enters, says,
‘I hate you.’ He pushes past her and stomps upstairs.
71.
He didn’t think he nodded off but he must have because the noise causes him to wake. He isn’t surprised. Leaning against a tree in the cold is more comfortable than many of the places he has slept over the years. The foliage keeps the frost out.
The street is deathly quiet. How long has he been asleep? No sounds, no police lights, no commotion. Anna’s house is dark. He giggles.
But there is the sound. There’s the sound of footsteps on gravel. Footsteps that crunch up the path past his hiding place towards the front door behind him. He can only see a pair of smart polished shoes. He twists round, ducks into the bushes. The shoes stop at the front door. An orange pool of light spills out as it’s opened.
In the bushes he doesn’t hold his breath for fear of being caught. He’s not afraid of being caught hiding in a bush. He isn’t sure if he’s afraid of anything anymore. Nothing is more frightening than what he’s already endured and he put an end to that. He giggles, remembers the sensation of the hammer against Strong Hands’s bones.
‘Perhaps you should be afraid.’ The voice is so close at first he thinks he imagines it. The feeling of breath continues next to his ear. ‘Because I really don’t like finding people lurking in my garden, especially people like you.’ He turns slowly, looks into the most piercing blue eyes he has ever seen. They are set in a pale white face, haloed with fire-blond hair. The creature tilts its head to one side, shakes it slowly. ‘You really have been a very naughty little boy.’
The vile young man may have screamed he can’t be sure. A silent scream that lasts a very long time.
72.
It was definitely a date. Quinn was sure of it. He’d left no room for misunderstanding. No two ways to interpret it, but obviously she had. Constable Chantelle Watts had lost interest the second her friends walked into the pub, the second they mentioned a firework display.
‘You don’t mind if I go do you?’ A flutter of those eyelashes. No offer for him to go too. No offer to pay for half of dinner.
Quinn kicks at a can of beer left upright on the curb. Why the hell can’t people use bins? Somewhere in his pocket, God Save the Queen begins to play.
‘What?’ It’s late. He’s pissed off.
‘Detective Inspector.’
‘Sir?’
There’s another body.
Only one.
Quinn notes the location even though it’s somewhere he’s already been. He alters his route, wonders if soon there’ll be anyone left alive in this town.
Detective Chief Inspector Alec Jenkins is waiting as Quinn arrives. Quinn is glad. Everything feels like it’s spiralling out of control.
‘Get a grip, Quinn,’ he says as he tramples across the gravel. They’re back at the old cottage, the ‘elephant’s graveyard’ as it has been nicknamed. What the fuck is a body doing here? For one horrible second Quinn wonders if they missed something, the first time round. Not possible, surely?
‘Pat.’ Jenkins extends a clammy hand. His face is red, sweaty. ‘You’re not going to believe this.’ Jenkins shakes his red face within the white boiler suit hood.
Winters appears in the doorway behind Jenkins. He walks away from the house. Takes deep gasps of air. Leans against a nearby tree. Quinn should be glad, Winters looks traumatised. Instead Quinn’s stomach sinks even lower.
Around them the CSI team is already in place. Someone jokes it was hardly worth them taking down the lights, falls silent as the Detective Chief Inspector catches his eye. Above them, the ramshackle cottage’s dark, dead eyes stare down, unblinking and cruel.
‘You sent a team back to the cottage, right?’ Quinn nods. That feels like a lifetime ago.
‘Yes, sir. Once we identified Jonas Jones Junior as the son of the woman murdered here. He’s our number one suspect. We wanted to cover all bases.’ Jenkins nods for Quinn to follow him inside.
‘Brace yourself,’ says Jenkins. He isn’t joking.
There’s a smell in the air as they step into the hallway, Quinn sniffs a couple of times, until he realises what it is. The tang found in a butchers shop. His feet slow down as he approaches the door to the living room. He stops. Stands side by side with Jenkins. Closes his eyes and turns, opens then to look into the room.
‘Holy shit,’ says Quinn. His hand rises to his mouth involuntarily as it fills with warm bile. Som
ething in his stomach convulses in a way it hasn’t for a very long time.
A man sits in a chair in the centre of the room. A young man. His head lolls back on the chair edge. His throat gapes open. A deep black slash grins at them in a way his mouth no longer can. His wide eyes stare blankly at a spot on the ceiling. Sandy blond hair, close shaven. His once white T-shirt is soaked a deep crimson. So is the top of his jeans. And the padding of the chair he sits on. His right hand rests in his lap, fingers loose around the handle of the long sharp knife, its blade dulled with thick, congealing blood. His other arm flops outwards. His open hand has dropped what looks to be a lock of hair. A lock of hair stuck in the pool of blood at his feet.
There are glass jars broken all over the floor. They look thrown rather than dropped. Blood red on the inside and out. Some of the larger glass fragments hold bloody pools. Some have dried, look like they have been painted and left in the sun.
The walls are soaked in blood. There are circular stains on the walls, a pattern not on sale in any shop. The only way Quinn can described them, and he will many times in the pub for weeks to come, is as if water bombs of blood have been thrown at the walls. The whole room is various shades of deep red. Colours that all bow down to their King who sits frozen in the centre.
The metal tang settles in the back of Quinn’s throat.
Quinn is no blood splatter expert, far from it. He once attended a road traffic accident where a mother of two was pierced through the jugular on impact. Blood sprayed ten metres down the road as her own body pumped her life away. All she could do was watch in horror and betrayal.
The man before them knew exactly where to strike.
They can go no further until CSI have finished. Quinn pulls on his professional face.
‘Jonas? It’s got to be, hasn’t it?’ says Quinn. Jenkins nods slowly. They’ve all seen the A4 photograph.
‘First impressions seem to suggest that. He’s the right age.’ Young. ‘The right build.’ Muscular. ‘He seems to match the description from the hospital. Plus we know this is where he grew up, probably where it all began. Still waiting for a positive ID.’
‘But what… how?’ Quinn runs a finger across his own throat. ‘Did he do that to himself?’ He looks at Jenkins who shrugs. ‘Bollocks. I don’t believe it.’
‘Winters’ initial thoughts are yes.’
‘What the fuck? How does someone slit their own throat? Why does someone slit their own throat?’ This doesn’t make sense. Nothing quite makes sense. This is something he’s never heard of, let alone seen.
‘With a very sharp knife and a lot of loose screws apparently,’ says Jenkins. ‘Again we don’t want to speculate. But look, look at the scene. No footprints. No sign of anyone else being here when…’ Both men scan the room.
‘Bollocks,’ say Quinn again. There must be. He can see there isn’t. ‘What about all this other… stuff?’ Quinn points to the carpet of smashed glass and blood. So much blood.
‘I don’t know,’ say Jenkins, unable to fully hide his frustration. Quinn knows they are alike in many ways. Need instant answers. Don’t like being kept out. Don’t like it when science and analysis have to help produce the answers. Have to go first. ‘Looks like it could have been thrown, but, well you can see as much as I’ve been able to.’
‘Why now?’ says Quinn.
‘Maybe he got wind we were getting close, that he was about to have to spend his life behind bars.’ Jenkins shrugs again. ‘Maybe something finally snapped in that dark mind of his. That’s one for the head people.’
‘Once they’ve finished with Rhys,’ says Quinn. Jenkins almost smiles. They stand for a moment, both looking into a black hole of humanity. A kind of conclusion but with none of the answers.
‘There’s a lot of blood,’ says Quinn, ‘a heck of a lot of blood.’ Jenkins just nods.
Two women who look as fragile as birds pick their way inch by inch through the carnage. They bag and swab in silence. Chosen, Quinn imagines, for their tiny feet and delicate nature as much as the strength of their stomachs. Quinn turns away from the room. His skin is sticky. Jenkins gestures for them to head out. Breathe some air not heavy with blood.
Outside it’s cool. The night even darker. Quinn lights a cigarette. No one complains. It annoys him if this is how it’s going to end. Which it probably is. No glory, although Jenkins will dress it up as such. Great police work leads to villain taking his own life as the net closes in. Smiling faces in pressed uniforms on the front page of the local paper, maybe even the nationals. He grinds the cigarette end into the dirt. Someone slitting their own throat though, Quinn has never heard anything quite as dark. It makes him feel very uncomfortable. Like everything he believes and knows has shifted slightly out of kilter.
He calls Chantelle Watts.
She doesn’t answer.
73.
Rhys’s eyes are glued shut. Someone has taken sand paper to his throat. Weights have been tied to his limbs.
The world is dark for a long, long time.
Is he dead?
He sees himself standing in a cold, empty space. Why is his mind so empty, so blank?
A pinprick of light appears. His body is thawing out. The weight starts to lift. The throbbing pain begins. He can feel something soft beneath his back. He manages to peel an eye open. A room he doesn’t recognise, a room in shadow. He blinks. Everything is still blurred. Where is he? Is this his shroud?
Endless time crawls past.
His body is stiff and slow. Shadows form memories. He was so close. So close he could taste the dust of Kier’s skin. One second more, that was all he needed, one second more.
He moves his fingers and his toes. The feeling comes back slowly. Faces from before, faces from the house seep back into his mind. He remembers hugging Harry close, refusing to let him go. Then they all arrived. Penned him into a corner like an animal. Rhys had shouted for a long time.
They took him from his house, heads shaking, still refusing to listen.
They took him from his house! That means they’re alone, unprotected. He wants to scream but his lips won’t move. His mouth’s too dry.
Rhys understands with clarity. There’s no point trying to explain. No point trying to make them understand. They’ve made their position clear. All of them. Anna. Quinn. Davies. Jenkins. The only answer is to get out of here, wherever here is. He needs to get to Kier, finish what has started. Kier will be asleep now – it’s daytime, right? It’s hard to tell in this gloomy room. All Rhys has to do is get into Kier’s house. Breaking and entering will be frowned upon, but as part of the overall picture it isn’t so bad. Kier is vulnerable now. Once dark falls that will not be so. He will be strong. He will be angry. A dog someone has spent all day poking. A wasp released after a day trapped under a glass.
Rhys shoves off the heavy blanket. The effort of forcing his weighted limbs into an upright position makes him want to cry out. His head is submerged. Liquid sloshes between his ears. It’s hard to catch his breath. He uses all his willpower to push himself off the bed. He moves too quickly. His legs buckle. He crashes to the floor.
The light in the room is dazzling as they all rush in.
74.
‘Your husband’s very sick Mrs Morgan. It’s never an easy thing to deal with.’ Anna can’t decide if the words make her want to cry with relief or despair. She watches her own life from inside a bubble.
She’s not slept, not one wink. She sat in the living room, stared at the blank wall. She was so angry for most of the time. So angry she wanted to charge to the police station, or the hospital or wherever Rhys was and shake him by the throat until his neck was bruised and torn. Make him so afraid he’d wet himself.
She remembers someone, one of the policewomen, saying Rhys was being taken somewhere he could be helped. She remembers one of the policemen saying he was being taken somewhere he couldn’t hurt them.
They wanted to take Harry to the hospital but he screamed and screamed until he was si
ck. The police called a doctor to come to the house, at least that’s who Anna thinks it was. She was nice. Calmed Harry down. Looked at his throat, told them all everything would be okay. Harry eventually cried himself to sleep. Anna carried him to bed. Hot and heavy, and damp with tears. Anna cried herself as she stroked his bruised neck. What the hell happened in there? What had Rhys done? When will everyone stop screaming for long enough to tell her?
Everyone apart from Louise. Louise hadn’t spoken a single word. Hadn’t cried a single tear. She sat. Unresponsive until she was told to go to bed. She did. She lay and stared at the ceiling. The doctor said that’s normal.
Anna doesn’t know what’s normal is anymore.
By dawn, Anna feels a great sense of sorrow for Rhys. For herself. Most of all for her children.
‘Your husband is very sick. Mrs Morgan. It’s never an easy thing for anyone to have to deal with.’ The head of psychiatry, or someone like that’s words repeat from far away. They all sit at the kitchen table.
‘But why, how, why him?’ says Anna. She knows she gabbles, tries to pull herself together. The children both sit silently at the kitchen table. ‘What I mean is, why has this happened now?’
‘Is there any family history?’ asks the possible head of psychiatry. Anna shrugs. Rhys’s mum hanged from the banisters in a cheap council house? His father smashing someone’s face into the pavement over and over again? His sister walking out and never coming back? The list is too long. Anna shrugs again. ‘We will need you to come in and give us as much of a medical history as you can.’ Anna blanches. ‘Not right away of course, but the sooner the better, so we can best assess his care. We appreciate this is all a lot to take in.’
There is an awkward cough from the doorway. An overweight detective stands there. He looks like he’s slept in his clothes. He extends a hand.
‘Detective Inspector Pat Quinn,’ he says. ‘I am here to have a chat with the children.’ He seems to notice the way she stares at his crumpled clothes, unwashed hair. ‘Busy night.’ He smiles then sees she could misunderstand. ‘On another job, got some extra guys coming in to help, might get back to my flat before I completely forget what it looks like.’ He laughs. A sound that’s loud in the silence of the kitchen. Anna says she wants to stay while Detective Inspector Pat Quinn speaks to her children. He says this is fine. He needs to speak with them separately. Eventually Anna allows the possible head of psychiatry to take Louise upstairs. Louise doesn’t seem to hear her, doesn’t seem to care.