Sympathy for the Devil

by Howard Marks

  Because she was the one who came back, after only four days. But it was months, sometimes years before the other girls were found. Out in the woods, somewhere wild and remote at the western edge of the country they’d turn up, left for dead in places they’d never been in their lives before. He always wore a hood or mask, they said, the man who’d taken them. Moved them about in a closed van, kept them, drugged, in cellars without windows. Even under hypnosis, after months of patient questioning, none had any idea where they’d been held, or by whom.

  The only common thread – and it wasn’t until much later that it came out – had made their ordeal even worse, if that were possible. The girls, it turned out, had all been in the small BDSM scene in Cardiff. Subs who got off on pain and degradation. But not that sort, nothing like what they had been put through. What had happened to them in captivity wasn’t leaked. All that was known was that some had been burnt with acid, others hung from hoists for months by hooks worked into their flesh. They were disorientated when they were found, almost blind after the long periods in darkness. Most hardly knew who they were and no amount of therapy seemed to bring them back into the world of the living.

  Because of the long periods the victims were held for, the worst was always presumed when any young person went missing in the area. The police went undercover into the BDSM clubs, kept up surveillance for months. But they drew a blank. The months dragged out into years, the years into a decade or more. And still it carried on, every few months another girl missing, their faces on the hoardings, their doomed eyes staring out from the cuttings.

  It had become a fact of life that just had to be endured. And then out of nowhere, as suddenly as it began, it was over. And all by chance, it seemed. Rhys, an officer with no connection to the case, busted a small-time dealer in Bute. From the dealer’s house, he followed a grey van to a street behind the station. In the back of the van, he found a rack and shackles, a long cloak and hood. He followed the driver to a house nearby, found a trapdoor and below it a secret floor excavated into a warren of cells. He brought the house’s owner out in cuffs. A loner, an out-of-work builder called Angel Jones. And after that the abductions finally ended; or at least they seemed to.

  Catrin twists the tabloid, so she doesn’t have to meet the eyes of the girls, feel their reproach again. You were the lucky one, they all seem to be saying to her, we don’t know why but you were. Some of the victims had committed suicide afterwards. Most had shrunk away into a twilight world of antidepressants and tranquillisers, ghosts of their former selves. She wonders if it wouldn’t have been kinder if some of them had died in his dungeons without knowing how the memory of pain can be many times worse than the pain itself, a life sentence more final and binding. And she can never forget that there but for the grace of chance, or something else she didn’t understand, she too could have gone.

  In the weeks to come, their eyes will follow Catrin again. She has no answers to the questions they put to her, to their mute stares. In the sidebar every time she opens her emails, on the news-stands as she walks down the streets, flickering on TV screens in the windows of shops. The case against Jones had finally got to court; the Angel of Darkness, the tabloids called him. But if he had taken her, why had she been released? Why did she remember several men in the car, when Jones had always operated alone? Nothing added up, and the only man who might have an answer – Rhys – had disappeared from her life like a phantom.

  This time her work offered her no consolation, no protection. Due to a technicality Jones was still out on bail. And as the trial gathered momentum, within the London BDSM scene there’d been several copycat abductions. None of the missing girls had been found, but traces of spiking drugs had been found at clubs they’d disappeared from. So, undercover, Catrin found herself working the same case that Rhys had broken, following in his footsteps, a phantom following a phantom.

  The terms of Jones’s bail were as tight as legally possible, a curfew. He was under round-the-clock CID surveillance, under police guard in a safe house for his own protection. But in the public imagination, Jones had assumed near-supernatural status. Every copycat incident had brought speculation in the tabloids about the Angel slipping his captors, perpetrating further atrocities like some demonic being from Victorian folklore.

  It was impossible of course, Catrin knew that, as did every officer in the Met working the copycat cases. But until the London copycat was caught, CID down in Cardiff and the Met were getting roasted in the press. Without Catrin knowing it her undercover work had been part of a major multi-unit operation to net the copycat and restore public confidence in the police. The bond with Rhys was there all the time, she saw that now, their purpose and fate still a shared one.

  The day Rhys’s evidence was due, she bought every paper, watched every newscast. But due to court restrictions his face did not appear, not even sketched by the court artists. It was as if his role was already airbrushed out. There were several pictures of others from Cathays Park – Rix smiling confidently at a news conference, DS Thomas posing in Jones’s dungeons. But of Rhys there was not a single sign.

  Of Jones himself there was also little to see. He was bundled into court under a blanket and taken out the same way. The pictures of Jones in the press had told her nothing about the man who might have been her abductor. Most were grainy shots of a man in a hood with long hair that covered his face. The arrest shots showed features blanched and flattened by the flashlights, eyes that were almost closed so they gave away nothing of the man within.

  No one was in any doubt they’d got the right man. The evidence against Jones seemed airtight. There were IDs of the tattoo on his chest from every one of his victims. There were matches between drug traces in the tox reports of all the victims and those found on Jones’s person and in his cellars at his arrest. The DNA evidence from the cellars and the van showed Jones had always acted alone. As everyone expected, Jones was sent down for life to Broadmoor Hospital for the Criminally Insane. The copycat incidents abruptly petered out. They turned out to have been no more than a stunt by a few opportunists wanting to sell fake stories.

  Gradually interest in the case began to fade, and the Jones teams were disbanded. Catrin found herself assigned to more conventional roles, the standard routines of a drug officer’s life. She had no idea what Rhys was doing, had no contact from him, and respected his wish that she never contact him. The man she owed her life to had withdrawn himself so completely it felt at times as if he existed only in her mind. The years had formed into a pattern around his absence, a discipline in forgetting. They passed in a blur of clubs and biker bars and stake-outs: in time she’d become almost one with the netherworld of dealers and users she snared.

  Sometimes she picked up men in the clubs she worked. Sometimes she saw the same man for months on end, never taking him to her flat, meeting him between shifts at his flat and at hotels. The types she liked were lean and rough but with sensitive eyes, eyes she wanted to forget herself in, drown in. It was a way of seeing if men could still be trusted with her soul, and often they could be. She respected them for that. But it hadn’t anything to do with love. It just helped her forget for a while. She knew she would never be loved like Rhys had loved her. A part of her wondered if she could ever love again.

  Now he was gone forever, her rescuer, the junkie saviour. And still she had the nightmares. She lit another cigarette, drew deeply, then stubbed it out and fell back into a shallow, dreamless sleep.

  When she finished the cigarette, Catrin did an hour of shen chuan, krav maga, jabs and kicks. She had a quick cold shower, drank her yoghurt and berries straight from the blender.

  Then she sat on the sofa and looked again at the tapes.

  She noticed nothing new. She ran the sequence with the money changing hands again. She wasn’t even sure there was anything that significant to it now. It looked as if Rhys had only decided to strike after the money had passed hands, almost as an afterthought. He’d seen an opportunity to take the
other man’s stash, and taken it.

  Like Pugh had said – snapshots of the law of the street. She watched it through one more time. It wasn’t that complicated to read. The few ambiguities didn’t really alter the overall picture.

  She picked up her phone, called DS Thomas.

  ‘Della Davies,’ she said. ‘What’s she about these days?’

  ‘Rich media dyke. Big fuck-off house in Llandaff, weekender in the Mumbles near Catherine Zeta-Jones’s people.’

  ‘Her money comes from?’

  ‘Her agency mostly. Any hot story out of South Wales – celebrities, crime, politics. She’s always involved somewhere.’

  ‘Did Rhys ever work for her?’

  ‘Unlikely. She only uses the best, pays top dollar – and she only ever uses women, fine ones preferably.’

  She heard Thomas’s yawn turning into a light burping noise. He was sniffling, he still had a cold. Jesus, Thomas, she thought, for a good-looking bloke you’ve certainly got some unattractive ways about you.

  ‘Any chance Della could’ve kept up with Rhys?’

  ‘No. He hadn’t been in touch with her for years.’ She nodded to herself, let him go on. ‘About seven years back, Rhys went round once pestering her for money. She slapped a restraining order on him. He never went anywhere near her after that.’

  Catrin smiled grimly. She was learning about Thomas: he was an arrogant, lazy sod, but he had a good memory. He rarely made mistakes, that was how he kept out of trouble, and got away with doing as little as he did.

  ‘Any signs Rhys went out west recently or owned a camera?’ she asked.

  ‘Not that I know of.’

  ‘Nothing photography-related in Rhys’s room. Rolls of film, negatives. Old cameras?’

  ‘No. Nothing. Anything of value like that he’d have sold years ago to buy his shit.’

  She heard a bleeping noise. Thomas had started playing something on his hand console. It was his tactful way of telling her time was up.

  ‘That second man in the CCTV film, any sign of him yet?’ she asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘You didn’t want to talk to him before you closed the file?’

  The bleeping increased in volume, there were some crashing noises. Probably Grand Theft Auto, just about Thomas’s cultural level.

  ‘Well, he wasn’t going to be much of a witness, was he?’ He was sniffling again. ‘The one thing we can say for sure about him is he didn’t see a damn thing.’

  Catrin hung up. She knew Thomas was right. The second man was a dead end. Everyone was right, the death had been an accident. She had to accept that now. If she carried on like this her reputation would be in tatters.

  She’d have to find another way of honouring Rhys’s memory. She shifted the file back into her PGP key and sent it off to an anonymous server in South Africa. Then she deleted all trace of it from her Mac. She wouldn’t want to look at it again for a while. It wasn’t how she wanted to remember him.

  There were only four days left of her leave. She’d be wise to keep her head down from now on, stop calling Thomas; he might even begin to think she liked him. She had to build a life for herself back in the city, and that wasn’t going to be easy with half the force probably thinking she was a few cards short of a full deck. The dead junkie’s ex, it was hardly the best introduction.

  Pugh was probably her safest starting point. He was a decent sort, even if he seemed to have turned in on himself. She could begin playing tennis again. She could check out the gyms and clubs, begin making new social contacts removed from the gossip in Cathays Park.

  She remembered Pugh’s words to her on the phone. ‘There’s one thing I’ve learnt from doing this job and that’s to take care of the living. We can mourn the dead, but we should never let them pull us down into their graves.’ He didn’t know though, did he, he didn’t know how much Rhys had been for her.

  She took out her box, her papers, rolled a cigarette with a pinch of kanna in it. She put on ‘Fire and Rain’, the original Taylor version, the volume full up, the languid notes weaving with her smoke through the room.

  It wasn’t a song Rhys had liked, he’d said it was self-indulgent. Too close to the bone, maybe. She took down Pugh’s guitar and strummed along to the deceptively simple chords. The music was haunting, pure still, but now she felt she’d moved on to a place beyond its reach. She closed her eyes, felt herself trying to drift gradually back into a period when it had still held some magic for her.

  Over the music she heard the door buzzer going. She ignored it at first, but it carried on. She went to the window, peered through the nets. There was a car parked in the lane, a black Range Rover.

  In the glow from the headlights she saw that Della was wearing a long, dark coat. Her high boots caught the glare. Her face looked very pale, no make-up.

  What does the witch really want with me, Catrin wondered. She waited, silent, still as a statue, hoping Della would go away.

  The buzzer went again, the noise building like a drilling in her head.

  Catrin opened the door. Della’s hair was soaked through, hanging down limply over her face.

  ‘I just wanted to apologise for last night,’ Della said. Her voice was weak, slightly tremulous.

  Catrin watched Della reach into her pocket, but leave her hand there. Her coat was soaked through. Catrin blocked her way.

  ‘If this is another job offer, Del, you’re wasting your time.’

  ‘No, it’s not.’

  Della was leaning back on the windowsill, looking slightly unsteady on her feet. Her eyes were bloodshot, tired-looking. There was a hint of fear there.

  ‘I shouldn’t have lied to you about Rhys,’ she said. ‘It was wrong.’

  ‘You hadn’t seen him for years, had you?’

  ‘No.’

  Catrin moved forward to the door, held it open. The wind and rain were running down Della’s face. ‘Just keep away from now on.’ You sleazy crazy bitch was what she really wanted to say, shout right into Della’s face, then knock her to the ground.

  Della made no move away from the windowsill.

  ‘Look, what I told you about the photos,’ Della said slowly. ‘It’s possible Rhys did have something to do with them.’

  Catrin waited, saying nothing, her hand still holding open the door. Della was staring out into the rain.

  ‘They came to me via that documentary maker, the one who’s obsessed with the Owen Face mystery.’

  ‘So what?’

  ‘He told me he’d got them from an ex-copper, someone down on his luck.’

  ‘That doesn’t narrow it down much.’

  ‘Someone who’d just died, he said.’

  ‘He wouldn’t say who.’

  ‘No.’

  Catrin took this in. Even if it was true it offered no real indication Rhys had been involved.

  ‘That’s all,’ she said.

  ‘That’s all.’

  Della was tapping her boots lightly on the floor. They came up above the knee, tucked into cashmere leggings that were a few shades lighter than the cashmere of her drenched Versace coat. All the rich tart’s gear, she’s sending me the same message as last night, Catrin thought. You come work for me, you can spend like I spend.

  At last Della seemed about to leave. Catrin turned away, hoping the disgust showed on her face.

  ‘So why bother to tell me this?’ she said.

  ‘I thought you’d find it interesting.’ Della had begun to turn towards the door.

  ‘The film-maker,’ Catrin said. ‘What’s his name?’

  Della just stood there with her back to her. Catrin waited, didn’t really expect Della to answer. More than likely this has all just been another nasty little power game, she thought, leading nowhere.

  ‘Huw Powell,’ Della said.

  The name rang a vague bell, but Catrin couldn’t place it. Not at first, then it came to her. ‘He was a copper himself, wasn’t he?’

  ‘Once, long ago.’

>   ‘In Drugs. Didn’t he leave under a cloud?’

  Della didn’t answer, began walking back towards her car. Briefly through Catrin’s mind had flickered the ghost of an idea, it wasn’t more than that, just a ghost. She felt her pulse quicken, not with fear this time, but with something more like hope, and with it came an anger deeper than she had felt for many years.

  ‘It was before my time,’ Della called back.

  ‘Corruption, wasn’t it, something like that?’

  Her words were lost in the wind. Della had started the engine. For a moment the air was filled with strains of some retro disco beat. Then the car was gone, and Catrin was left looking out at the rain and the night.

  5

  As Catrin reached the services on the road back to Cardiff, the weather was closing in again, visibility low, the rain turning to driving sleet. Her heavy bike was slipping in the slicks left by the trucks, her leathers soaked through by their spray. She decided to pull in, stay the night.

  She parked and peered at her phone. She’d found Huw Powell’s number the old way, in the telephone directory. She’d left two messages already, but still no reply.

  The café area at the back was brilliantly lit up, but there was no one in sight. Next to the door, a jukebox – a replica fifties model – was playing a medley of Tom Jones hits. She’d heard them so many times it was like walking into silence.

  She helped herself to a coffee from the counter, sat by the window. The dimly lit car park was empty. Down at the pumps, a single figure was filling a heavy-goods truck. The only other sign of life came from a television, the screen covered with weather warnings. A notice showed that all ferry services out of Fishguard had been cancelled. On the ticker she saw the bad weather had closed many smaller roads along the coast in the far west.

  The truck driver went over to a booth. She’d noticed the truck had come from the west, a Cardigan address on the side, its roof dripping with melting ice.