Dark Tides Thrillers Box Set

by Tony Hutchinson

  Ed stumbled as he missed the left trouser leg. ‘Look I’ve got a long day ahead.’

  ‘Oh poor you,’ the sarcasm biting. ‘Got a long day have you?’

  ‘Yes I bloody well have,’ Ed snapped. He yanked up his zip and scanned the bedroom for his work shoes.

  Sue stood quiet for a moment, rubbing her dark Asian eyes.

  When she spoke again Ed was struck by the snarling hatred in her voice.

  ‘I’ve had enough of this,’ Sue said. ‘I’m sick of her and sick of you. Deny it as much as you want but I know you’re having an affair.’

  Ed whipped his head to face her, shouted ‘You know shit!’

  He stood still, shoeless in front of the glass-fronted wardrobe and fastened his tie. Her face didn’t look any happier when it was staring at his back.

  ‘How many more times have I got to tell you,’ he said to Sue’s frozen reflection. ‘I’m not having an affair with Sam Parker or anyone else for that matter.’

  ‘Well you’re getting it somewhere because you’re not getting it from me and your whore of a boss is my favourite,’ Sue raged. ‘I warned her off when you were in hospital.’

  Ed marched downstairs, Sue following two steps behind, the stairs giving her the height advantage, a bird of prey waiting to swoop on a field mouse.

  Time for the mouse to roar, Ed thought.

  He spun around at the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘Is there any wonder I don’t go near you? Listen to yourself? It’s just a battle. Who wants sex after that?’

  Ed stormed into the kitchen, spotted his black brogues and put them on.

  Sue wasn’t finished.

  ‘You’ll be getting it somewhere,’ the anger still raw. ‘And if I find out it’s with that slut I’ll be straight on the phone to the Chief Constable.’

  Ed put on his jacket and slammed the front door.

  I can’t put up with this much longer.

  Maybe he should get involved with Sam. The shit couldn’t get any deeper.

  By contrast Sam’s house was quiet. It was always quiet. That was the problem.

  ‘I’d rather hoped you would be here sooner.’

  Ian Stirling, the bean-pole headmaster, greeted them in the school foyer wearing a grey suit as dull as his smile and towered over Ed. His yellow dickie-bow hinted at a personality, but more likely it was a distraction from a face wrecked by hard liquor. Stirling might as well have had ‘alcoholic’ tattooed on his forehead, the ghostly white skin with patches of red from the mass of broken veins telling a story no one could fail to follow.

  His nose, a bulbous luminous glow, meant he’d be in with a chance of a one-night gig if anything happened to a certain reindeer in the next few days.

  ‘I’ll be late for church.’

  Ed stepped forward, the gap between him and the headmaster narrower than was polite. The veins in Ed’s neck were bulging so much they were forming an escape committee. He was in no mood for niceties, the early morning row with his wife fresher than Stirling’s booze-rancid breath.

  ‘We left the north-east at 5am,’ Ed growled. ‘I have sat in a car for over six hours because you wanted to speak to us. Maybe you can go to church later, maybe not, I don’t really care, but I’m sure the victims of your former colleague will be grateful that after all these years somebody on the staff has finally done something for them, even if it’s only missing church.’

  The headmaster puffed out his ingrowing chest and glared at Sam.

  Sam smiled. Stirling’s aggression and intimidation might work with children but he was in her playground now.

  ‘You should see him on a bad day,’ Sam said pleasantly. ‘Now if we can get on? We do have another six hour drive ahead of us.’

  Stirling turned on his heels without a word.

  Ed nudged Sam and mouthed ‘wanker’ as they began to follow.

  Sam smiled, nodded in agreement.

  Stirling led them into a mahogany-panelled office, bookcases covering every inch of wall space, all filled to capacity. A fountain pen sat on the green leather inlay of the desktop, the only item on the desk apart from a Tiffany lamp.

  Sam and Ed sat on the maroon leather high back Milton armchairs; the type found in a cigar-smoke filled Gentleman’s Club.

  ‘You had some information for us,’ Sam said, glancing at the Christmas cards on the windowsill: Victorian carol singers, churches, Dickens’ London. Not a cartoon Santa in sight.

  The headmaster shuffled in his seat. ‘Jeremy Scott was, as you know, on the staff. I was young, probably the newest member of staff, certainly the youngest. You hear rumours…hear accusations… from the boys…’

  He shook his head.

  ‘But you did nothing?’ Sam said.

  ‘I thought they were making it up.’ Stirling’s eyes darted around, anxious to sound sincere. ‘Jeremy was an old fashioned disciplinarian and I thought the boys were just getting their own back. He was an excellent teacher and, of course, he was acquitted.’

  Ed uncrossed his legs and leaned forward in the chair, oozing as much aggression as he could without grabbing Stirling by his bird-thin neck.

  ‘Someone felt he had to die an agonizing death.’

  The headmaster blinked once and eased back in his chair.

  ‘Can I get you some coffee?’ his tone more cordial. ‘As you were at such pains to point out, you have had a long journey and you’re only half way through.’

  Ed said no, not bothering to hide the urgency or irritation in his voice.

  ‘So why are we here?’ Sam demanded.’ You haven’t dragged us all the way down to tell us Scott was a misunderstood disciplinarian.’

  Stirling shook his head and briefly closed his eyes.

  ‘I am caught between a rock and a hard place,’ the eyes open again. ‘Whilst I want to avoid any adverse publicity for the school…’

  He scratched the back of his left hand, before continuing.

  ‘There were a couple of others who didn’t go to court,’ Stirling said quietly, as if someone might overhear. ‘I actually thought at the time they would have been better witnesses. I had no doubt Scott was assaulting boys physically but sexually…I didn’t know.’

  Stirling paused, the eyes briefly closed again.

  ‘Or perhaps deep down I did and just didn’t want to acknowledge it.’

  ‘And you did nothing?’ Ed interrupted.

  ‘Suspicion, gut feeling, as you know sergeant they aren’t enough,’ Stirling was on the hunt for sincere again. ‘The two boys I’m thinking of didn’t attend the school but Scott gave them private piano lessons at the weekends. They came onto the school site. I knew their parents. That’s how I know they didn’t report anything to the police. Their parents only told me after the trial.’

  Sam understood where Stirling was heading, why he had invited them to the school.

  ‘And you think the boys would talk to us now?’ Sam said.

  ‘I don’t know but I thought you might want to speak to them,’ Stirling said. ‘One is now a high ranking military officer.’

  Sam asked which service.

  ‘They both joined the Army,’ Stirling told them. ‘The other is a Trooper.’

  ‘As in SAS?’ Ed said.

  Stirling snapped instinctively back to the unbearable pomposity that had become part of his DNA.

  ‘I think sergeant,’ Stirling gave a superior smile, ‘the correct terminology is the Special Air Service.’

  Ed returned the smile with top spin, spotting his chance.

  ‘You related to the David Stirling then?’ Ed asked.

  ‘Sorry?’ Stirling’s brow concertinaed.

  ‘Founder of the SAS,’ Ed said. ‘David Stirling.’

  The headmaster’s spectral face was suddenly crimson.

  ‘Of course not,’ Stirling barked.

  ‘Thought so,’ Ed said, still smiling.

  Ed was convinced Stirling would happily have caned him there and then.

  Instead, the head
master turned his eyes back to Sam, told her he would have been uncomfortable talking on the phone, that he didn’t think it right to speak to anyone else.

  ‘I understand,’ Sam said. ‘You obviously have their names?’

  ‘Yes, but I’m not sure whether to give them to you now,’ Stirling playing games, Sam thought.

  She paused. ‘I understand why you might wrestle with confidentiality and it might be we never need to go to see these two men. But we need their names just in case.’

  ‘Just in case they’ve done it you mean?’ Stirling shifted in his seat. ‘Murdered Jeremy.’

  ‘Every possibility has to be investigated,’ Sam dead-batted with the stock reply.

  ‘There will be some I suppose who will say he deserved it,’ Stirling steepled his hands, the movement deliberate, almost religious. ‘An eye for an eye.’

  ‘And you?’ Ed said. ‘Do you think he deserved it?’

  Stirling put both hands back on the desk, his face neutral.

  ‘I am a Christian,’ the smile thin, patronising. ‘I cannot countenance violence of any sort.’

  ‘Religion has sparked more violence than…’

  Sam stepped in. A rant from Ed would be counter-productive and he was on the edge of one already.

  ‘If we could have the names we will be on our way and you can make it to church,’ she said.

  Stirling opened a drawer, took out a plain piece of paper bearing two handwritten names, and thrust it towards Sam.

  They followed him along echoing corridors towards the front entrance. The walls were covered with light oak boards, columns of names and a corresponding year written in gold leaf…the school’s great and good, head boys down the ages, prize winners, those who had fought and died in the Great War and the conflicts that followed. Amongst the boards were framed class photographs, many in black and white.

  Sam spotted the board titled ‘Gregson Prize for Music’ and she thought of Scott and potential victims.

  She stopped and began reading the names, not expecting an Elton John on the list but maybe someone had become a name she recognised.

  As she scanned the board the name of one winner caught her eye.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘This prize.’

  Ed and Stirling stopped, turned, and walked back.

  ‘What’s it for?’ Sam asked, eyes still on the name.

  Stirling glanced at the title. ‘Best music student.’

  ‘And this boy,’ Sam touched the board. ‘The winner in 1983?’

  Ed looked, blinked twice and refocused. The name didn’t change.

  Stirling’s face suddenly beamed, his shoulders lost their stiffness, and even the dickie-bow looked in place.

  ‘Everyone remembers him,’ he gushed. ‘A quite brilliant pianist, taught by Jeremy but gifted by God. The best we’ve ever produced and only thirteen when he won that.’

  Ed’s eyes ran further down the list. ‘If he was that good why didn’t he win it in the following years?’

  ‘He left the school,’ Stirling stared at the name. ‘I never did find out why…’

  The smile had vanished. Now the shoulders tensed and his head moved slowly from side to side.

  ‘Oh no,’ Stirling sounded wounded. ‘Not him Jeremy, surely not him.’

  Ed patted him twice on the shoulder, a little weight behind the contact.

  ‘Maybe you’ve got your answer,’ he said into Stirling’s ear.

  Sam finally looked away from the board, asked where the boy had gone, whether the school might have his picture.

  ‘I should be able to look up his next school in the records,’ Stirling said. ‘As for a picture, there was a photograph taken each year of all the prize winners. Just find the photograph taken in 1983. They follow each other around the walls in date order.’

  They had walked about twenty feet in silent procession before they found it.

  The face was a lot thinner, the eyes sadder, but there was no mistaking the skinny kid staring at the camera.

  John Elgin, councillor of their parish.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Sunday fry-ups were a happy but distant memory for Billy Skinner, the grease-laden full English he clean plated replaced by smoked salmon and scrambled eggs served on top of seeded bread, lightly toasted.

  The breakfast tasted better than Marge’s bolognaise but it was still shit, Billy reckoned. All in the quest for lower cholesterol.

  ‘So Mekins is gone?’ Skinner asked, forking egg and salmon into his mouth with no enthusiasm.

  Luke and Mark were sat at the table opposite their father. Marge was upstairs in the shower.

  Mark smiled. ‘Sleeping with the...’

  ‘It’s about time you grew up!’ Billy stopped him dead. ‘We’re not in fucking Hollywood.’

  Mark dropped his eyes to the floor, mouth clamped shut.

  Skinner wiped flakes of egg and salmon from his face and turned to Luke. ‘Jimmy okay?’

  ‘Sound,’ Luke said. ‘And yes, Mekins is gone.’

  ‘And our Mat?’ Skinner asked him. ‘He can’t have just vanished.’

  ‘No idea,’ Luke told him.

  ‘What about you Don Corleone?’ Skinner turned to Mark, glowering. ‘Any ideas?’

  Mark kept his head down, stared at the table, and silently shrugged his shoulders. Now was not the time for Marlon Brando lines.

  ‘Well somebody must know,’ Skinner was angry, not loud. ‘Jesus. Ask around. We need him found. Your mother’s going out of her head.’

  He sat back. ‘I’m at the cemetery this afternoon.’

  ‘We’ll come with you,’ Luke said.

  ‘No you won’t,’ Skinner shook his head. ‘I’ll be okay. I’ll take Stuart. No need for you to come. You never did like your Auntie Irene.’

  ‘Only because she wasn’t an auntie and mum always said you and her were having an affair,’ Luke said.

  Skinner sighed, his mind on a time-trip to a destination he couldn’t quite leave behind.

  ‘It was years ago,’ he said now. ‘And it was more than an affair, I’ve told you that before. Anyway, no point in you two upsetting your mother, you’ve never been any other year, why start coming now?’

  ‘Things are a bit different,’ Luke said. ‘A bit more dangerous at the minute.’

  Skinner appreciated Luke’s concern, liked the way he was looking out for him, his caution.

  ‘I’ll be fine,’ he told him. ‘I go there once a year. Hardly a pattern anyone’s going to notice.’

  Luke held his father’s eyes, his voice quiet.

  ‘Except our Mat.’

  ‘Good morning John,’ Harry Pullman raised a hand in greeting as Elgin walked into Scaramangers. ‘Just.’

  Elgin, unshaven but reeking of aftershave, sat at the bar. His bloodshot eyes, sallow face and creased white polo shirt hinted at a late night and a hangover for the ages.

  ‘Black coffee…and a new head,’ Elgin’s throat sounded sand-blasted.

  Harry was already at the coffee machine pressing buttons.

  ‘That Tara will kill you,’ he grinned. ‘Should be an occasional treat not a regular work out at your age.’

  Elgin watched Harry put a cup on the bar and stared through the steam at the still-swirling contents.

  ‘Sod it you might as well give me a hair of,’ he said, hand shaking lightly as he pushed the coffee away. ‘You choose. A pint of something light.’

  Tara was young but legal. That was the difference. Not like that bastard Scott, the way he took advantage of him and the others. They were just kids. Tara was an adult in the eyes of the law. He hadn’t even reached puberty when Scott started.

  It had been easy getting Curtis to open up. They both had an interest in the piano, although neither played anymore, and all Elgin had done was tell Curtis how he had been a victim of the same pervert.

  What were the chances? Him and Jill’s son abused by the same man all those years apart? Astronomical.

  As they b
ared their souls it became obvious Scott had used the same techniques on Curtis as he had on Elgin and his fellow pupils. He hadn’t bothered with grooming. That took time. Scott just used a full-on assault with the threat of death if they said anything, bending them over the piano stool, the pain unspeakable. That was the bastard’s forte. Setting their bodies on fire but not in a nice way. Not like Tara.

  ‘Try this,’ Harry said, putting a pint in front of him. ‘New brewery. Decent though.’

  Elgin sipped the light coloured beer and nodded his approval. ‘Any joy with the tape?’

  Harry told him it was in hand, wheels were in motion.

  ‘You’ll have it this week,’ Harry confident, relaxed.

  He held a tumbler under the Glenmorangie optic, pressed twice, and put the double on the bar in front of Elgin. ‘What you up to today?’

  Pixie Carlton was laid on his back staring at the damp canvas and replaying his conversation with Declan Doherty.

  He had told him everything he knew about Skinner’s operation. No benefit at all in remaining loyal to him, not now. His ruined hand would always remind him what he owed Billy Skinner. Loyalty wasn’t high on the list.

  Doherty had told him not to worry, that Skinner and his boys would be sorted.

  Now Pixie wanted out. Playing the Big-I-Am with his cocaine mates had been stupid. Getting mixed up in all of this was a plain death wish and no way was Pixie ready to meet his maker. Even thinking of the ways the Skinners might call time on his fucked-up life made his bowels go ballroom dancing.

  If he’d just put the money back in time…

  The ties on the tent flap were unpicked by nimble fingers and her blonde hair - brushed now - popped through the opening.

  Christ she’s as dangerous as the Skinners.

  She looked him in the eyes. ‘You still want a cuppa?’

  Even a simple question sounded loaded.

  ‘I’m fine thanks,’ Pixie feeling heat on his neck.

  Just leave me the fuck alone!

  She inched her way into the tent and refastened the flap once she was inside.