by Luke Delaney
‘Have they ever covered each other’s routes – say, if one of them was sick or on holiday, for instance?’
‘That information’s not going to be in the system, I’m afraid. There would be a paper trail, but it could take days to trace and cross-reference. I’ll do it for you if you still want to know, but I can’t do it straight away.’
‘I haven’t got that sort of time.’ Sean rubbed his temples with his middle fingers. ‘What about yesterday? Who covered the address in Streatham?’
‘Mathew Bright,’ Trewsbury answered unhesitatingly. ‘Same as he always does.’
‘How can you be so sure?’ queried Donnelly.
‘I was here yesterday and so were these three guys. No one covered for any of them.’
‘But this would have been in the afternoon,’ Sean told him, ‘some time after 2 p.m. That’s a bit late for post to be delivered.’
‘Not here it’s not,’ Trewsbury said. ‘We’ve got such a backlog we’re permanently paying guys overtime so they can catch up on deliveries, and yesterday was no different. Mathew was working all the way up to six o’clock.’
‘Tell me about him,’ said Sean. ‘Tell me about Mathew Bright.’
‘He’s not the man you’re looking for,’ Trewsbury insisted. ‘I’ve known him for years. He’s a straightforward family man who likes a pint with the boys every now and then. He’s as predictable as he is unintelligent.’
‘What does he look like?’ Sean asked.
‘He’s white, in his forties, a big man …’
‘It’s not him,’ Sean stopped him. ‘What about the other two? What do they look like?’
‘Plant is white and Saddique is obviously Asian, both in their fifties …’
Sean cut him off again. ‘In their fifties?’
‘I would say so.’
‘Then it’s not them either.’
‘Anything else you want me to try?’ offered Trewsbury.
‘Is there anyone who works here who’s given you cause for real concern – strange behaviour, violent outbursts, reclusive, secretive?’ Sean asked.
‘Hundreds of people work here, some for years, others only last a few days. Full-time employees, casual workers – we have them all. There are plenty who aren’t exactly angels, but no one’s ever given me real trouble, nothing I can’t handle. There’s a group think they run the place, give the other workers a hard time now and again, but they’re just shop-floor bullies, all bark and no bite. Nobody here strikes me as the type to do what you’re talking about. I’d like to think that if there was, I’d be able to tell.’
‘Not always that easy,’ Sean told him. ‘Do you have photographs of the men that work here?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can I see them?’
‘I want to help, Inspector, but I can’t let you do that. If I start pulling up employee records, someone somewhere is going to work out it was me that gave you unauthorized and frankly illegal access. I’m sorry, but I just can’t do it.’
‘OK, but if it was something more subtle would you help me? Something no one could trace. Something off the computer system.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘I’m looking for someone who’s worked all three of those routes at one time or another during the last twelve months or so. Maybe they were his routes or maybe he was just filling in. There’d be a paper trail of that, right?’
‘There would.’
‘Can you do that for me? Will you check the paper trail?’
‘It’ll take a couple of days.’
‘I know, but will you do it?’
Trewsbury paused a few seconds, exhaling before speaking. ‘I’ll do it, but if anyone says I did, I’ll deny it.’
‘Fair enough.’
‘Well, if there’s nothing else, gentlemen, it appears I have a lot of work to get through.’
‘I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this,’ Sean assured him, handing him his business card. ‘Give me a ring on the mobile number as soon as you find anything, no matter what time of day.’
‘I will,’ Trewsbury promised.
‘Thanks for your time,’ said Sean, heading for the door. ‘Oh, one more thing.’ He turned back to the supervisor.
‘Go on.’
‘Have there been any reports or allegations of unusual thefts here in the last few months? Drugs or medical supplies?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘I can’t tell you. If I could, I would, but I need to know.’
Trewsbury slowly nodded his head, the belief that he might be working alongside a man who had killed a young woman troubling him deeply. ‘A few months ago there was an incident,’ he confessed.
‘Go on,’ Sean encouraged.
‘A consignment of alfentanil went missing. Our investigation team looked into it, but whoever took it was never found.’
‘You have controlled drugs passing through this sorting office?’ Donnelly asked disbelievingly.
‘Of course,’ Trewsbury answered, ‘particularly smaller consignments going abroad, often for relief agencies working in the subcontinent. We’re still the cheapest way to get small packages overseas, despite what you may hear.’
‘I assume you keep them in a secure location?’ Sean asked.
‘Yes. We lock them in our strong room, but someone got in and out without being seen and took the alfentanil.’
‘CCTV?’ Sean queried.
‘No. Unions won’t allow it – quoted the European Commission on Human Rights, no less.’
‘A very unfortunate piece of legislation.’ Donnelly shook his head mournfully.
‘Fair enough,’ Sean conceded. ‘If you find anything, call me straight away.’
‘I will,’ Trewsbury promised. ‘Wait a minute.’ He scribbled something on a notepad, ripped the top sheet off and handed it to Sean. ‘My mobile number, in case I’m not on duty when you need to speak. I probably shouldn’t be doing this, but what the hell.’
Sean took the note and slipped it in his inside jacket pocket. ‘Appreciated,’ he told Trewsbury.
As Trewsbury watched the detectives walk from his office back into the gloom of the corridor he chewed the soft end of a pen and considered Sean for a while. He’d met dozens of Donnellys in his time with the Post Office, but he sensed a difference in Sean, a rare intensity and determination. He would do what he could to help him.
As the detectives headed for the exit, Sean could think of nothing other than the man he hunted, seeing him everywhere he turned in the giant building, imagining him standing by a bank of pigeonholes organizing his daily drop; climbing the same staircase he and Donnelly had as he headed for the canteen or even Trewsbury’s office, hands gripping the same rail, feet stepping on the same flooring tiles. He breathed the air in deeply, hoping to somehow pick up on the scent of his prey, seeing himself walking up behind the faceless man, resting a hand on his shoulder and slowly turning him around, confident that as soon as he looked into his eyes he would know he had found the killer he hunted.
His thoughts were broken like shattering glass by Donnelly’s gruff voice, a mixture of Glaswegian and Cockney, his throat rubbed raw by the thirty cigarettes he’d consumed every day for the last twenty-five years. Donnelly couldn’t wait to be free of the ubiquitous No Smoking signs so he could fill his lungs with warm, nicotine-laced smoke. ‘So, what do we do next?’
‘He works here,’ Sean told him. ‘It all makes sense. I should have been on to it quicker.’
‘You need to slow down, guv’nor, not speed up. Don’t get me wrong – in theory what you’re saying makes sense. But hard evidence – we don’t have a thing. One witness saying a postie put junk mail through his door even though he told the Post Office not to, that’s really all you’ve got. The rest is in your—’
‘In my what?’ Sean barked. Donnelly didn’t answer. ‘We need to take DNA off everybody who works here. Within a few days we’ll match it to samples from Karen Green and he’ll be dead in the water. Fucki
ng game over.’
‘That’s gonna take some time to organize,’ Donnelly reminded him. ‘Today’s Saturday which means tomorrow is Sunday. This place won’t even be open and nobody at the Yard’s gonna authorize a mass DNA screening until it’s been discussed to death by the powers that be, so maybe we get it authorized by what … Tuesday at the earliest? Start testing on Wednesday or Thursday?’
‘That’s too slow. We need to start now.’ Sean sounded desperate, almost irrational, ignoring the very real legal obstacles that meant it was impossible to do what he wanted when he wanted.
‘Guv’nor, we can’t. It isn’t going to happen.’
‘So what do you suggest, Dave?’
‘I don’t know, but we had better pray we don’t have to rely on a mass DNA screening to find Louise Russell. Because if we do, then she’s fucked and so are we.’
Sean recoiled from Donnelly’s crass assessment of their hopeless situation. ‘Then we’ll have to think of something else,’ he said.
‘Listen, guv’nor, I’ve seen you pull a rabbit from the hat more than once, but we can’t always rely on that. I mean, walking around here, chasing leads and witnesses, we shouldn’t be doing this – the DCs and the uniforms should be. We should be back in the office checking through everything that everybody brings to us. The devil will be in the detail, that’s how we’ll find this bastard.’
‘I know,’ Sean agreed reluctantly, calming down, ‘but I needed to come here, I needed to see the scenes. If I don’t, then all the information reports and the witness statements mean nothing to me, d’you understand? I might as well be looking at blank bits of paper. I have to feel him. We will do what you want, but not just yet. I’m not ready yet.’
‘Well, don’t take too long,’ Donnelly warned him. ‘For all our sakes.’
Thomas Keller stood naked in front of the smeared cabinet mirror bolted to the wall of his dingy bathroom. The place reeked of damp from the black mould growing up the walls, the once pristine white seal inside the shower had long since rotted away to nothing. Cold water sprayed from the shower head behind him as he inspected the damage Deborah Thomson had done to his face. He poked and picked at the gouged scratches around his eyes and down his cheeks, their stinging pain and gaping, bloodless ugliness making him wince and moan. Maybe she wasn’t the one after all? Maybe she wasn’t the real Sam, just another imposter sent to try and destroy him? The wounds to his face told him it was something he had to consider.
He lifted a cotton-wool pad from the antiseptic it had been soaking in, took a deep breath and pressed it into the first of the cuts, waiting for the burning pain to come, screaming into the mirror when it did. Over and over he soaked the pad and applied it to his wounds, each time bawling like a child, the noise of the running shower distorting his agony.
When he was finally finished he surveyed his work, happy he’d removed the risk of infection. But it was obvious the scratches would take a while to fade and would probably leave him scarred. He thanked the God who had already forsaken him that today was Saturday and he didn’t have to go back to work until Monday. By then the injuries should have calmed down a little and he would have had time to think of an excuse for how they came to be. For the time being all he could do was force himself into the waiting cold shower to ward off the lingering effects of the anaesthetic. He stepped into the freezing water and felt it sweep his breath away, the pressurized drops like the pricks of thousands of sharp needles on his skin. His mouth gaped open as he struggled to draw breath, his diaphragm refusing to relax and let him breathe. As he slowly grew accustomed to the temperature, the cleansing water had a revitalizing effect on his mind and body and he began to feel better.
He rolled his head on his shoulders and closed his eyes, allowing his mind to drift, hoping it would take him to a happy memory, back when he was with Sam or maybe the times spent in the cages with the women. But he had so few happy memories and so many nightmares. Suddenly he was a boy again, thirteen or fourteen, he couldn’t remember. Small for his age and sexually immature, he would cower in a corner of the communal shower in the large, open changing room at the comprehensive school, hoping the other boys wouldn’t notice him, but all too often they did. He felt someone kick his legs away, knocking him to the floor as the shower head above sprayed blinding water into his eyes, rendering his attackers almost invisible. He heard the squeaking of the tap as one of his tormentors turned the water from warm to cold and then up to scalding while kicks and punches battered his slim body. When the blows stopped, the whipping with damp towels began, their whip-crack mixing with the sounds of high-pitched hysterical laughter, the merciless attackers spurred on by the sight of violent red welts erupting all over his body, his thin white skin threatening to tear apart, the torture only ceasing when commanded to by the booming voice of a man.
‘That’s enough of that, boys. Turn off the showers, get dried, put your towels in the used towel basket and get dressed. If I hear any of you were late for your next class you’ll be in detention.’ The boys’ laughter turned to moans and protests as they begrudgingly did as they were told.
Thomas Keller waited for the boys to leave the shower before pulling himself to his feet and heading for the exit, but as he reached the gap that led to the changing room, the teacher’s arm stretched across his escape and blocked his path.
‘Not you, Keller,’ said a low voice. ‘You’re not dry yet.’
He looked up at the man in front of him. One of the much feared PE teachers, dressed in a green tracksuit, whistle around his neck on a ribbon, stared back at him with the same look in his eyes as he’d seen in the past, when others had made him do things he didn’t want to do. ‘Hurry up, you lot,’ the teacher shouted over his shoulder to the rest of the boys. ‘I want you all out of here in two minutes flat.’
Thomas stood in front of the man, shivering, one arm across his chest and the hand of the other cupping his undeveloped genitals. ‘Please, sir, I’m cold. Can I get dressed?’
‘Of course, Thomas,’ the teacher agreed, but he stepped in front of the boy before he could pass. ‘First, there’s something I want you to do for me.’
‘I don’t understand,’ he lied, all too familiar with the lascivious look in the man’s eyes and what it meant.
The teacher stretched out a hand, making the boy take a step back.
‘Don’t worry, Tommy,’ he reassured him. ‘I won’t hurt you. I’m here to protect you, to keep the other boys away from you – you’d like that, wouldn’t you, to have someone to look after you?’
‘Please, sir,’ the boy pleaded, ‘I’ll be late for my next class.’
‘Don’t worry about that. I’ll make sure you don’t get in trouble.’ Again he stretched his hand out, but this time the boy didn’t move away, even though all his instincts told him to run. The promise of having someone to protect him, an adult to trust, overwhelmed his instinct to survive the moment. The teacher gently stroked his hair before allowing his hand to drift downwards, caressing the side of the boy’s face. ‘But first there’s something I want you to do for me. You understand, don’t you?’
Thomas shook his head. ‘No, sir. What do you want me to do?’
The teacher’s hand followed the curve of the boy’s slim shoulders and slid down his arm, taking Thomas’s hand in his own and pulling it towards the elasticated waistband of his tracksuit.
‘Take it out,’ the teacher ordered.
‘I don’t know what you want me to do,’ the boy pretended.
‘Yes you do,’ said the teacher, still smiling, still holding the boy’s hand. ‘If you want me to help you, you’ll have to do this for me first.’ He let go of the boy’s hand and rested both of his own on the boy’s shoulders. ‘Now do it.’
Tears of self-loathing began to sting the boy’s eyes as he reached inside the teacher’s tracksuit bottoms, feeling the warmth, the coiled pubic hairs scratching and itching his hand as his fingers found the teacher’s rapidly swelling penis. ‘Take it
out,’ he commanded, and the boy did as he was told. ‘Move your hand up and down,’ said the teacher between moans of pleasure, his head lolling backwards as his eyes began to close. The boy continued almost frantically pulling at his abuser’s penis, experience telling him that the faster he did it, the sooner his humiliation and degradation would be over. ‘Too fast,’ the teacher managed to say. ‘Do it slowly.’ The boy obeyed. ‘Good. Good. That’s better. You know what to do next.’
‘No,’ the boy pleaded. ‘I don’t know how to do that.’
‘Don’t lie to me,’ snarled the teacher. ‘You don’t think I know? You’d better do as you’re told, you little slut, or I’ll have to tell the children’s home how I caught you stealing from the other boys’ bags – then you’ll be fucked, won’t you, you little slut. When the grown-ups come on visiting days, when they come to find someone to adopt and take back to a proper home, they won’t take you, will they? Not after the staff let them know you’re a thief. Now, do as you’re told.’
The boy felt sick, constricting convulsions in his chest and throat making him gag, but he knew he had no choice. If he ever wanted to be loved again, accepted again, he had no choice. He shuffled forward on his knees and did what the teacher wanted, the man’s ecstatic moans drowning out the sound of his weak sobs. ‘Yessss,’ the teacher hissed, ‘yessss, that’s good, oh you little slut – you little fucking whore. You fucking whore, yes.’
Keller’s body suddenly remembered it hadn’t breathed for minutes, not since the memory returned to haunt and torture him. He breathed in as if he’d just broken through the surface of water he’d been trapped beneath, held under by an invisible force trying to drown him, his eyes springing wide open, the water from the shower washing over his eyelashes like tiny waterfalls. He buried his face in his hands and began to cry like he’d cried when he was thirteen or fourteen years old, alone in the shower with a man who’d promised to look after him. But the man hadn’t protected him, he’d used him over and over again until he grew bored of him, his eyes turning to other vulnerable boys – boys living in care, boys whose parents couldn’t cope with another mouth that needed feeding – and then he’d given Thomas to other men, all of whom had the same special name for him – The little whore. He slid down the wall of the shower and cowered on the floor, mumbling as the water filled his mouth. ‘Mummy. Mummy, why did you leave me? You said you’d come back for me, but you didn’t, you fucking bitch. Why did you leave me?’ He curled into a tight ball and waited for the other boys to start kicking and punching him – to start tearing at his skin with their whip-like towels.