Killing Time

by Mark Roberts

  ‘Can you please pull Raymond Dare from his cell and bring him to suite 1.’

  ‘No problem, Eve. Hang on...’

  In the background, she heard the voice of an elderly man that she recognised immediately.

  ‘I’m talking to her right now. Eve, Mr Rotherham has just rolled up at reception and he’s most insistent. He’s got something for you and he wants to hand it to you personally.’

  ‘I’m coming right now.’

  As she came through the swing doors into reception, Clay noticed that Mr Rotherham was sitting on the same seat used by Father Aaron Bell on his first visit to Trinity Road Police Station.

  He stood up with a blue cardboard tube in his hand, which he extended to Clay.

  ‘She made two copies of three separate paintings. She wrote down what they are and asked me to explain the pictures to you. It’s to do with Marta Ondřej.’

  Clay withheld the words Waste of my time, and in spite of wondering what possible use the contents of the tube could be, said, ‘Sergeant Harris, hold back on Raymond Dare. I’ll see him after I’ve spoken with Mr Rotherham.’

  *

  In Interview Suite 1, Mr Rotherham sat next to Clay as she took the papers from the tube. She unrolled the three sheets and flattened them on the table.

  Clay recognised the first picture as a representation of the Wavertree Mystery on the morning Marta was discovered, a view from Kate Thorpe’s parlour window. Behind the black railings, fog and mist sat on top of the grass and in the distance beyond the railings a small figure – a vertical dash – stood on the spot where Clay had first seen Marta. A larger dash closer to the railings, which Kate Thorpe had managed through great artistic technique to energise – was moving away from Marta and out of the Mystery.

  ‘What did Miss Thorpe tell you about this painting?’

  ‘It’s what she saw when the little girl was discovered. She saw two figures enter the park. They weren’t clear. This is the point at which the person who abandoned Marta was heading in the direction of Kate’s house and the houses of dozens of other potential witnesses, and then turned around suddenly and headed away from the houses on Grant Avenue. She said, It was as if the person suddenly realised that other people could have seen them. She said, They were acting like they were panic-stricken.

  ‘Is there anything else you need to draw my attention to in this picture?’ asked Clay.

  ‘No. We can move on to the next now.’

  Clay moved the image across the table and came to a second picture, which at first glance was a replica of the first. She looked at it closely and saw the railings of the Wavertree Mystery and the mist that swamped it. Looking at the background, she was relieved to find that the Virgin Mary and the infant Jesus had not suddenly made a guest appearance. Instead she saw two blurred lines around the spot where she had first seen Marta standing.

  ‘Mr Rotherham, can you tell me about this painting?’

  ‘Kate didn’t know who the people in the painting were when she witnessed this. But now she does. This is the moment when Lucy Bell was with Marta Ondřej and Lucy called the emergency services.’

  Clay focused on the blurred figures of Lucy and Marta and wished with all her heart for an epiphany, that the picture would somehow yield some profound hidden detail. It took moments for her to realise that she was guilty of wishful thinking.

  ‘Can we move on, Mr Rotherham?’

  ‘We can.’

  Clay slid the second painting onto the first and felt the force of a hammer smack into the centre of her forehead as she turned her attention to the third picture.

  She started from the top and worked her way down, left to right, through Kate Thorpe’s picture of the heart of St Luke’s Church. Clay noticed the details of the church’s interior: paint hanging in scrolls from the plasterwork above the altar and the statue of Jesus dying on the cross that overlooked the whole scene.

  Father Aaron Bell stood behind the altar, the blessed sacrament between his upraised fingers and hands, his eyes closed as he showed the transformed Body of Christ to the congregation.

  She looked at the pews in front of Kate Thorpe’s vantage point and saw the backs of two heads: Mr Rotherham and another elderly worshipper, a woman.

  ‘Jesus,’ she said under her breath, as her eyes fanned to the right of the altar and pinpointed the detail that had drawn her initial attention. She checked, checked again, and felt her blood turn thick in her veins as her heart rushed to pump it round her body.

  In the doorway of the vestry, a teenage girl with a shaven head and dressed in striped pyjamas stood looking out, lost and confused, her hands raised in surrender to nothing.

  ‘I couldn’t see her from where I was sitting. Nor could Iris from where she was sitting. The only one who could see her was Kate.’

  ‘What happened next, Mr Rotherham?’

  ‘Father Aaron opened his eyes and saw Kate walking down the aisle towards her. She – Marta? Marta took fright and walked back into the vestry. At the time, I thought Kate was going up to the altar for communion. Then Father Aaron commanded Kate to go and sit down; it wasn’t time for communion yet. I saw that. I heard that. I did. I was amazed at the tone of Father Aaron’s voice. He said, Your visions must never get in the way of the consecration of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. This is sacrilege, Kate. Are your visions the work of the Lord or Satan, perhaps?’

  ‘What happened next?’

  ‘Communion. And silence. After the blessing at the end of mass, he told us to go home and pray for Kate, for the balance of her mind, and to speak to no one of what happens in the house of the Lord. Amen? Amen.’

  Heading for the door of the interview suite, Clay dialled Riley on her iPhone and said, ‘Gina, show the footage of Father Aaron Bell to Marta Ondřej. Please stay on the line as you do so.’

  She directed her attention to Mr Rotherham. ‘Thank you for your help, sir, but I’m going to have to ask you to leave.’

  As Mr Rotherham shuffled to the open door of the interview suite, Clay heard Riley instruct Kate to tell Marta that she was about to see a film of the man who brought her rosary beads.

  ‘If you go through the swing doors, Mr Rotherham, Sergeant Harris will show you out. Thanks again for your help.’

  The sounds of an alien language filtered into Clay’s ear.

  ‘Mr Rotherham, have you spoken with or seen Miss Thorpe today?’

  ‘No. No, I haven’t. Father Aaron was so rude to Kate. It was unthinkable. The three of us have decided to worship at St Paul’s instead.’

  ‘I am sorry for your upset, Mr Rotherham.’

  Clay closed the door and waited.

  More impenetrable language flooded Clay’s senses, followed by a dense silence.

  Marta spoke and Kate translated.

  ‘He is the devil who cut my hair. He is the devil who locked me up.’

  The talking stopped and the screaming began.

  ‘Gina, I’m going to instruct a family liaison officer to watch over Marta. I need you back in the fold.’

  Marta’s screams grew louder, their intensity deepening with each outpouring of terror.

  ‘I know you’ll want to stay with her...’

  Clay heard Riley leave the room and close the door.

  ‘I don’t think I can take much more. We have what we need.’

  Riley’s footsteps echoed down the corridor as she walked out of Marta Ondřej’s life.

  ‘I’ve done all I can here. I’ll be much more use to everyone back at Trinity Road.’

  99

  3.08 pm

  In the incident room of Trinity Road Police Station, the ringing of the phone on Cole’s desk roused him from the first sleep he had enjoyed in nearly twenty hours. He gave himself a mental shakedown in the two rings he counted before picking up the receiver. In the micro-beat of silence before he spoke, Cole detected that the call was long distance.

  ‘Detective Constable Barney Cole, Merseyside Constabular
y.’

  In the background, there was old-time Country and Western music and the chatter of a bar: a slice of middle America in a snippet of sound.

  ‘Mr Cole, I’m the author Dwayne Hare, returning your call, sir.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Hare, and can I begin by saying how much I enjoyed your book White Supremacists.’

  ‘Well, I guess they’re just one reason why we have the death penalty in the States. Tony Blair and New Labour really have a lot to answer for, closing down that option on your side of the pond.’

  As Dwayne Hare spoke, Cole listened to him making his way from the interior of a bar to the outdoors, with cars zipping past in the distance in both directions.

  ‘To put it mildly, Mr Hare, we’re having a little local difficulty with a far-right group aping Black Sun. When we searched our prime suspect’s residence, we found a copy of your book and related paraphernalia.’

  ‘Timing’s almost perfect.’ Dwayne Hare laughed.

  ‘How do you mean, Mr Hare?’

  ‘After all these years of silence, one of the Black Sun bitches is set to meet her maker. Kelly-Ann Carter. Death by lethal injection next month. She took great delight in breaking into the homes of Afro-American families, lying the children down on their fronts and shooting them in the back. All in the name of Jesus and his heavenly father.’

  ‘How did she justify the killings?’ asked Cole.

  ‘Obedience to the will of the Lord. Deuteronomy, Chapter Seven. Driving out the nations. When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations – the Hittites, Girgashites, Amorites, Canaanites, blah, blah, blah, seven nations larger and stronger than you – and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. Ethnic cleansing, rubber-stamped from on high. What the Canaanites were to the Israelites, blacks and ethnic minorities were to white Americans. White Americans who had the ears to hear and the sense to understand God’s will were God’s new chosen people. Bang, bang, bang, just doing the will of the Lord: you must destroy them. How many dead so far?’

  ‘Three.’

  ‘Not good but could be worse. You have the dudes behind bars?’

  ‘One, yes. The others, no.’

  ‘Shit. How can I help you, Barney?’

  ‘In your chapter about Black Sun, you mention one or two names of the ringleaders but none of them have any relevance to what we know about the situation we have here. Then there are all the Isaac Isaac pseudonyms, again no relevance to what’s going on here. What happened to the other members of Black Sun after it was infiltrated by the FBI?’

  ‘They either died in a shootout with the National Guard and the South Carolina SWAT team at the headquarters in Columbia, or were arrested and sentenced to death. Two of the assholes got away. Kelly-Ann Carter and, oh shit, what was the guy’s name? Kelly-Ann was picked up three days after the shootout in a McDonald’s drivethrough. The guy got clean away and was never heard of again.’

  ‘What was his name?’

  ‘It’s on the tip of my tongue.’

  Cole picked through the bones of what Dwayne Hare had told him. ‘What do you think happened to him?’

  ‘A. He was from a moneyed family. B. The other fuckers were poor white trash. Aristotelian logic at its harshest. They’re fucked, he’s alive, free, watching the sunrise and pretending it was all a bad dream.’

  ‘What was Kelly-Ann Carter’s Black Sun name?’

  ‘Sarah Sarah.’

  ‘Can you think what his name was?’ prompted Cole.

  ‘Yeah. His Black Sun name was Abraham Abraham.’

  A jagged icicle travelled through Cole’s heart.

  ‘You’ve gone very quiet all of a sudden. Are you OK, sir?’

  ‘Can you recall his real name?’

  ‘Got it! Got it... yeah... Christopher Darwin.’

  ‘Did he have a religious denomination outside of Black Sun?’ asked Cole.

  ‘Wealthy family, the Darwins. Big Roman Catholic clan. Made their initial fortune in the seventeen hundreds up to 1865 out of the slave trade, and lost a shitload of it fighting litigation from the descendants of slaves.’

  ‘Did they have to pay out a lot of compensation?’

  ‘No. The American justice system backed the descendants of slave owners and traders. Surprise, sur-fucking-prise.’

  ‘Dwayne, thank you so much. You don’t know how helpful you’ve been. Could you do me a massive favour. My boss is called Detective Chief Inspector Eve Clay. Her mobile number is +44 7700 900204.’

  ‘Again, please, Barney. I’ll write it in my notebook.’

  The click of a pen and Cole reeled off the digits.

  ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Can you go into your filing cabinet and computer and dig out anything and everything you’ve got on Christopher Darwin and fill Eve Clay in on it.’

  ‘Is he in Liverpool?’ Dwayne Hare sounded somewhere between bewildered and excited.

  ‘Possibly. Probably, even.’

  ‘Be my pleasure to help you nail the bastard. Call me if you need any other information, or I’ll call your boss Eve Clay when I come up with some information on Darwin. Ciao, Barney.’

  Cole heard the door of the bar opening and Hank Williams coming from a jukebox as Dwayne Hare closed down the call.

  Christopher Darwin, thought Cole, the only surviving member of Black Sun not behind bars. White supremacist. Roman Catholic...

  He picked up the receiver to talk to Clay.

  100

  4.01 pm

  As Detective Constable Clive Winters entered Interview Suite 2, Raymond Dare said, ‘Nigger.’

  ‘Excuse me!’ said Mr Robson, next to Raymond. ‘Cut that talk out right now.’

  Winters shrugged as he sat down, placing evidence bags and an envelope down on the table.

  ‘I wasn’t calling you names, I was thinking out loud. I mean, you’re a copper and you’re black? I just don’t get it.’

  ‘I’m getting déjà vu here. Don’t worry about the colour of my skin. Worry instead about yourself and where you’ll probably be spending at least the next twenty-five years of your life.’

  Winters looked at Mr Robson who said, ‘I can only apologise for my client’s outburst.’

  He smiled back at the solicitor, then honed in on Raymond Dare. ‘I’ve listened to the recordings of the interviews you’ve been involved in with DCI Clay and DS Hendricks. We’ll start with the good news. You were half-right about one thing. You did burn out the stolen white Fiat Uno. But you didn’t do it in Sefton Park, as you claimed. You did it in the Festival Gardens.’

  Raymond’s face twisted. Did I?

  ‘You didn’t make a very good job of it, though. You abandoned Dominika Zima’s T-shirt, jacket and skirt at the gateway into Otterspool Park.’

  ‘I didn’t take the bitch’s clothes. She was wearing them when I left.’

  ‘OK.’ Winters slid a set of photographs out of the envelope and showed the top picture to Raymond. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘It’s the car I burned out and, yeah, yeah, I was getting confused but it was in the Festival Gardens.’

  Winters showed him a second picture.

  ‘That’s the boot of the Fiat Uno, but I didn’t leave it open.’

  ‘We opened it, and guess what we found in the boot?’

  ‘I don’t know because I didn’t go in the boot at all.’

  Winters showed him the third of five pictures.

  ‘In the picture you’re looking at, what’s in the boot, Raymond?’

  ‘There’s a bra and a pair of women’s flat shoes. And a petrol can.’

  ‘The clothing belongs to Dominika Zima. You took five items of clothing from her dead body. You ditched three but I’m putting it to you, Raymond, when it came to throwing away the shoes and underwear you just couldn’t bring yourself to get rid of them. Right?�
��

  ‘Wrong, wrong, wrong.’

  ‘They were too intimate to throw away. You didn’t want to get caught but you wanted something of hers that was very, very personal.’

  ‘I didn’t take any of her clothes.’

  ‘You took her shoes and bra and you used some of the petrol to set her on fire near the railway bridge in Otterspool Park. As you drove away down Jericho Lane, reality head-butted you, and you realised that if you were in possession of her shoes and underwear, it was going to link you directly to her murder.’

  ‘I didn’t take her fucking clothes away. I didn’t.’

  ‘I’m saving the best for last here, Raymond, but look at this picture.’

  Raymond looked at the fourth picture.

  ‘It’s a hand, so what?’

  ‘It’s not just a hand. It’s her hand, and if you look closely at the palm you’ll see something that we believe you inadvertently left behind. Can you see anything?’

  ‘It’s a hair.’

  Winters looked at Raymond’s hair. ‘Same colour, same length as your hair, Raymond.’

  ‘Maybe it is mine, because she pulled my hair when I was shagging her. That doesn’t mean I fucking killed her and set her on fire because I didn’t.’

  ‘It’s being tested in the lab. Just as we had Dominika’s skirt fast-tracked for the semen that was on it.’

  Winters showed him the last picture of Dominika’s white denim mini-skirt. ‘The result’s come in,’ he said, catching Mr Robson’s eye. Raymond looked away. ‘It’s your semen. It’s your DNA.’

  Raymond looked at Mr Robson. ‘Did I deny being with her? Did I deny shagging her? Don’t just sit there, say something to help me, dickhead!’

  ‘There were several semen stains but they all came from you. There was no sign at all of a second or third source of semen. It seems you were telling the truth – you were there on your own with Dominika.’

  ‘Just as I’m telling it to you now – the truth.’

  ‘Or, for CJ and Buster, it turned out to be a spectator sport because they were too whacked out and couldn’t perform.’