He stuck out the tip of a white, furry tongue and attempted to lick his lips, but death had halted saliva production along with everything else, and it made a scritch-scratch sound.
He muttered something, but I couldn’t quite make it out. Not Ben. Ben’s brother, or Ben’s mother, or maybe even ‘other’. Surely not Ben’s lover? The more I turned it over in my mind, the less sure I was. Malcolm’s head drooped. He put his hands around his ears. For a moment he was still enough that he looked like he really was dead.
‘Malcolm, I can’t hear you. You need to tell me again.’
The air is kept close to freezing in the ZDC for obvious reasons. I shivered, and Malcolm quivered with me but for entirely different reasons. He stayed where he was. I was impressed with his self-control. Then he seemed to shake himself out of it. He looked a little confused. He squinted at me. ‘Jillian?’
I thought he’d have more time before his mind started fizzing. And when it went, it would go fast.
‘Malcolm, what happened? What did you want to tell me?’
The sound seemed to rouse him. He raised his head and stared at me. And in his eyes, there was nothing left of him but the hunger. His body made a wet sound as it hit the glass, over and over again.
20
Considering how much they like to discourage visitors, it may seem a little odd the ZDC has a public canteen. However, due to a Health and Safety rule that never made much sense to me, you’re not allowed to bring food in, and starving your visitors isn’t polite. It’s not the most exciting place: folding tables, stale sandwiches, and coffee that clears your sinuses. Not much more than provision of the bare basics so the non-permanent inmates of the building are fed and watered.
I sat at a table in the corner and ran a finger over the surface, leaving a greasy smear. A plastic cup of coffee from the machine heated my fingers. I’d run my eyes down the specials board but nothing appealed. The stench of the dead clung to everything in the building, and I didn’t want to eat anything that had spent any time in the place. The coffee didn’t count because nothing could survive in something so vile. I took a gulp and swallowed immediately so it came into minimum contact with my tongue.
Dunne wasn’t as fussy. He returned to the table with a cup of tea and an egg sandwich.
‘Really? You can eat?’
He stripped the plastic wrapping off the sandwich. The stench of the dead took on an eggy overtone. ‘Haven’t had a chance yet. Haven’t slept either. But I’m used to that.’
Dunne and Mrs Dunne, whose first name I’d long forgotten and could no longer ask without sounding foolish, had four children under five. And according to Dunne, none of them slept. I made a sympathetic noise and pushed the plastic cup away. I wasn’t that desperate for caffeine.
Dunne leaned across the table. ‘So? What did Brannick say?’
‘He said, “He killed me.”‘
‘What? Who? Did he say?’
I shook my head slightly. ‘He muttered something I couldn’t make out, then he just lost it.’ I wasn’t quite prepared to pass on the fact I’d been asking about Ben at the time. It made no sense. Somehow Malcolm’s addled brain had got it wrong, and Ben was in enough trouble.
Dunne sat back with a curse. ‘That just complicates things. He’s refused autopsy, but we were assuming natural causes.’
‘Have you tracked the source of infection yet?’
He shook his head. ‘No. He spent most of the holidays at home, and no sign of bite marks. He was probably a carrier, but where he picked that up...’ Dunne stirred his tea with a plastic stick which he then licked and laid on top of the lid. ‘No sign of the boy either. You sure he was alive?’
I nodded.
He made a harrumphing sound. ‘Stupid kid. He risked the lives of every single person in the United Kingdom, if not the world. And for what? He’ll be looking at a custodial sentence for that little stunt. At least. The Crown Prosecutor’s already getting pressure from above to make an example of him.’
‘He’s just a boy. He made a mistake.’
Dunne swallowed his tea the wrong way and began coughing. ‘Don’t look at me like that. I don’t throw away the key. I just bag ‘em and have to figure out the mess they’ve made. Thinking of which, remind me what Malcolm did at the Trust?’
‘He was press officer.’
‘Did he do talks with schools?’
‘He used to. Donna took those over a few years ago.’
Dunne rubbed at his bald head as if trying to soothe his brain. ‘What about kids’ classes? You lot do those, right?’
‘We rent out the clinic room to other organisations when we’re not using it. The St Anguiculus Children’s Home uses it on Thursdays to hold dance classes for shifter street kids—the ones too stubborn or too old to stay at the Home. It’s a way to get them in and make contact and make sure they’re okay without scaring them off.’
‘What else?’
‘We’ve got an art therapy class for children we run in conjunction with Social Services. It’s mostly those who’ve been through some sort of trauma, and the children work through their issues with painting and drawing. It’s been quite successful. But Malcolm doesn’t really get involved in any of them.’
‘What do you mean by “doesn’t really?”‘
‘The actual classes are run by teachers and therapists from outside the Trust. Habi arranges them and does all the paperwork. We take turns filling in for her when she’s off.’
‘When’s the last time Malcolm filled in for her?’
I thought about it. ‘I’m not sure. You’d be better off asking Obe. He authorises all the holidays. Where’s this going?’
Dunne pulled open the flap of his shoulder bag and pulled out a slim folder. He pushed it across the table to me. I opened to the first page.
It was a photo of a girl printed on ordinary paper, so the image was slightly dulled. She had a round face and deep brown eyes. The shadow of a moustache covered her top lip. Above her eyebrows, I saw a thin but distinct ridge indicating a partial troll heritage. I recognised her.
‘This is her. The dead girl I saw in Malcolm’s house.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yes.’ The ridge hadn’t been there, but that wasn’t surprising. The dead don’t just shape their death world, they shape themselves.
‘Her name’s Berenice Nazarak.’
That was it. The memory of her spelling it out returned.
‘She was one of your art therapy students.’
I stared at the picture again. The girl’s eyes were accusatory. The date of birth stamped on the picture told me she was only fifteen. ‘Oh,’ I said.
Dunne picked up the plastic stirring stick and tapped it against the side of his cup. ‘So he could have made contact with her there?’
‘I suppose so, but we take child protection very seriously. A lot of the children who come in have been...’ I paused to consider my words. ‘The term is “known to Social Services.” They’re vulnerable, high risk of abuse. Fran—that’s the art therapist—is pretty clued up. I can’t see that she would have let anyone—even someone in the Trust—get close to a child there without her knowing about it. Have you spoken to her?’
‘I’ve got an appointment this afternoon. How do the children get to the classes?’
‘They’re dropped off by their parents or foster carers. They have the class in the clinic rooms. Fran waits in the classroom and makes sure they’re collected at the end, and by the right people. She keeps a roster. Like I said, these are high-risk kids.’
‘Do you know if Malcolm ever joined the class? Or helped out?’
‘Not as far as I know. But you’d be better off asking Fran. He was in charge of a few classes years ago, but he doesn’t do them now.’
Dunne looked uncomfortable. ‘Yes, I know. We put Brannick’s name into the system, and it flagged up an old complaint. Inappropriate behaviour at one of your classes. There were never any charges filed so I don’t have full inf
ormation, but it looks as if one of the parents complained.’
‘I didn’t know,’ I said quietly.
‘I’m also told he had a thing for unclean women.’ Dunne used his fingers to put little quote marks in the air around ‘unclean’. ‘I think the phrase used was “anything with spots or stripes”’
I opened my mouth and closed it again. I’d always believed Malcolm would stick it in a knothole if he thought no one was watching, but I’d never been interested enough to notice a pattern. I ran through a mental list of human women we saw in the office and realised I’d never seen him hit on any of them. Spots and stripes indeed. But Berenice had been fifteen. That was a whole other world of disturbing. It was also something new.
‘Women, not girls,’ I said. ‘He hit on anything that moved, but I never saw him try it with anyone underage.’ But even as I said it, all Malcolm’s distasteful jokes began to run through my head. Maybe they hadn’t all been jokes. I shuddered.
Dunne gave me a sharp look. ‘I know how the Lipscombe works. Your clients don’t always trust the police, and I understand that. But you understand how this looks? Discreet clients, high risk children, fear of authority. It’s making all my internal copper alarms go off.’
I couldn’t meet his eyes. The queasiness in my stomach wasn’t just from the smell of the dead. You always hear of people saying afterwards I thought there was something a little off about him. Was that going to be me? My mouth went dry. I tried to ignore the rising sense of dread.
Dunne gave me a sympathetic look and swilled back the last of his tea. ‘I want you to speak to the dead girl again. See if you can find out what happened to her.’
‘I can do that.’
‘On the house? I don’t know if I’ll be able to get Haddad to give me another sign-off.’
‘Yes.’
Dunne nodded. ‘Good.’ He gathered the photos and paper and dropped them into the file, then stood up.
‘One favour?’
He raised his owl eyebrows.
‘Can I see Jillie? I want to check she’s okay.’
Dunne hesitated, considering, then gave in. ‘Fine. But you tell me if she tells you anything.’
‘Of course.’
I watched him leave. I did want to check if Jillie was okay, but she also might know where Ben had gone. Lying to the police was never a good idea, but Malcolm was already locked away. All that remained was to find Ben and get him out of the trouble he was in.
21
I found Jillie in a cell not much bigger than the one that held her dead husband, with Finn in the one next to her. The child was asleep, half on, half off the bed, arms straight at his side and feet on the floor.
She sat on the bed and watched the boy sleep. She hadn’t been given any new clothes. Goose pimples covered her white skin, and she wore little more than the red hair that frizzed out around her head. Her fingers twirled and tugged at the ends of her hair. Red marks from the medical clamps were still visible on her wrists and upper arms. All my carefully planned questions went out the window at the sight of her. She looked broken.
‘You’re entitled to compensation, you know,’ I said helplessly. ‘They’ll pay for the damage to the house.’
Her head snapped up at the sound of my voice.
‘I’m sorry about Malcolm,’ I said.
Jillie’s fingers rubbed at the marks on her arms. She shook her head slowly. ‘They make mistakes on this sort of thing all the time.’
I thought of the dead man attacking the glass, of his dull eyes and the feeling of wrongness that radiated from him. ‘Jillie, I’m sorry, but he is.’
‘Oh, yes. Supposedly you can tell, can’t you? I saw you at the house.’ She fell silent. Her red eyes considered me. She gave a short snuffling little laugh without any humour to it. ‘You know, Mal was really pleased when the Lipscombe hired you. Quite the coup.’
I remembered that. He’d been too friendly in the interview, enough to make me a little uncomfortable.
The little boy on the cot shifted and burbled in his sleep. Jillie’s eyes snapped to him. The boy sighed once, then settled. She drew in a deep breath.
‘He hasn’t woken up,’ she said. ‘Not once. And they won’t tell me what they gave him.’
‘It’s a tranquiliser. They’ll give him a fresh dose every six hours. He’ll be okay. It’s better than him being stuck in there unable to get to you.’
‘I suppose. What do you want anyway? I’m not going to tell you where Malcolm is. Even if I did know.’
I shut my eyes. Dunne must have known Jillie hadn’t been told. Son of a bitch left it to me. I opened my eyes to see her watching me with an odd expression. ‘They’ve already got him.’
She went very still. I knew her expression. I’d seen it on a hundred spouses in cells like this. She was racking her brain, desperately searching for the reason I would lie to her. She swallowed hard. Her hands gripped the metal supports of the bed.
‘I just saw him. They picked him up in Putney Vale,’ I said. ‘He asked after you.’
‘Of course he did.’ She started to cry. ‘They shouldn’t have taken him. He wouldn’t have hurt anyone.’
‘He wouldn’t have been able to help it,’ I said gently.
She sobbed louder, shaking her head. I wanted to reach out and comfort her, but the glass barrier held me back. I waited helplessly while she got herself under control.
‘Jillie, do you have any idea where Ben might have gone?’
She looked up. A line of snot ran down under her nose. She reached for the grey toilet paper tucked alongside the bowl, and tore off a piece. She blew her nose noisily. ‘They didn’t pick him up with Mal?’
‘No.’
‘I don’t know.’ She looked for somewhere to deposit the tissue. There was no bin, so she balled it up and threw it in the open toilet bowl. ‘Have you tried Neil or Adam?’
‘Adam’s out looking for him. I haven’t spoken to Neil yet. I’m thinking he may have gone to a friend?’
‘Like who?’
‘There must have been someone.’
Jillie shook her head slowly again. ‘Ben had no friends. I’ve never seen a child so stuck in his own head. Mal was always trying to get him to come out of his shell.’
Exactly what Adam had said. Perhaps we should have been thinking about abandoned places or homes where the owners were away. He could have broken in somewhere, but before I could ask, Jillie said, ‘Mal took him to some youth club a few times, but Ben never mentioned meeting anyone.’
‘Which one?’
She shrugged. It gave her an air of nonchalance, but I could see her hands. They were shaking. ‘I don’t know. It wasn’t far. Mal took him in the car, but he was only gone ten minutes.’
‘Did Ben ever go out on his own?’
‘Sure, all the time. But he never went with anyone. He likes the museums, especially the Natural History Museum.’ She began to cry again. ‘Oh God, I hope he’s okay. He’s a sweet boy.’
‘Did you tell the police this?’
She tore off another strip of toilet paper and blew her nose again. ‘They didn’t ask about that. They were more interested in Malcolm. “Where’s he been? Has he been alone at any time?” For God’s sake, it’s Christmas. He’s been with his family.’
‘So you didn’t leave him alone?’
‘Not really. I mean I went to the corner shop to get milk yesterday. And I took Finn out to the park for a couple of hours. He bounces off the walls if I don’t. Otherwise, I was home. And they kept on and on about the contents of my freezer, for God’s sake. As if that has any bearing on anything!’
‘Why? What was in your freezer?’
‘Nothing! I had some rabbit meat that wasn’t labelled. It was just wrapped in plastic, but they should have been able to identify that quick enough if they had a sniffer.’
‘Rabbit meat?’
‘Yes! Ben brought it down with him. He does a lot of hunting back home. Always brings something. Last
year, it was this huge box of fish.’
I changed tack. ‘Did Malcolm or Ben ever mention a half troll named Berenice Nazarak?’
She looked blank. ‘No, never heard of her. Why?’
‘Just wondering. I heard DS Dunne mention it.’ It wasn’t quite a lie.
Little Finn shifted again. Jillie’s attention swung back to him in a heartbeat. There was a wet patch on the bed where he’d been drooling. ‘I don’t know,’ she said softly. ‘I don’t know where Ben is. Or what’s supposed to be in my freezer. I just want my husband back. And my son.’
She lay back on her cot and reached out for Finn. He was out of reach, but she laid her hands against the cool glass anyway and closed her eyes.
‘Jillie, I...’
Her eyes snapped open. ‘I don’t want to talk about this anymore.’
And in case I didn’t get the hint, she shifted. Her body blurred and elongated, and in place of a chubby, red-headed woman, a large brown snake lay on the bed. It lifted its head, and its tongue flicked the glass, eyes on the sleeping child. Then it closed its eyes and appeared to go to sleep.
I watched her thoughtfully. Something else had just occurred to me. Why would a zombie with a freezer full of human flesh risk eating his neighbour’s cat?
22
I collected my backpack and mobile on the way out and endured the requisite medical exam with my eyes closed, grateful I wasn’t wearing my laundry day underwear.
Outside, I breathed in the scent of the rain and the river, even the exhaust from the traffic. The rising sun gave the clouds a heavenly yellow glow, but the rain had started again, a fine drizzle that landed softly on my face, rinsing the scent of the dead away.
The skin tingled on the back of my neck along with a sense of being watched. I turned around slowly. There were a dozen or so cars in the parking lot, but all appeared empty. A small river boat made its way up the Thames, and a train rattled somewhere in the distance, indicating Slender had finally made his mind up about the lockdown or had succumbed to pressure to downgrade the alert. Other than the train and boat, there was nothing moving, and nothing living, in sight. I shivered and tugged my woolly hat down over my ears.
The Secret Dead (London Bones Book 1) Page 10