by Alison Bruce
THE SILENCE
Also by Alison Bruce
Cambridge Blue
The Siren
The Calling
THE
SILENCE
Alison Bruce
Constable & Robinson Ltd
55–56 Russell Square
London WC1B 4HP
www.constablerobinson.com
First published in the UK by Constable,
an imprint of Constable & Robinson, 2012
First US edition published by SohoConstable,
an imprint of Soho Press, 2012
Soho Press, Inc.
853 Broadway
New York, NY 10003
www.sohopress.com
Copyright © Alison Bruce 2012
The right of Alison Bruce to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication
Data is available from the British Library
Source ISBN: 978-1-84901-203-4
eISBN: 978-1-84901-786-2
Soho eISBN: 978-1-61695-166-5
Typeset by TW Typesetting, Plymouth, Devon
Printed and bound in the UK
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Cover photos: main image, Derek Langley 2012/darknessandlight.co.uk, leaves, Corbis
Bruce, Alison.
The silence / Alison Bruce. -- 1st US ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-61695-165-8
1. Teenage girls--Fiction. 2. Detectives--Fiction. 3.
Murder--Investigation--Fiction. 4. Suicide--Fiction. I. Title.
PR6102.R83S54 2012
823'.92--dc23
2012018507
Iakona,
Ko aloha makamae e ipo,
Aloha no au ia ’oe,
Alekona x
PROLOGUE
July 2007
Saturday, 14 July 2007 started hot, and stayed hot. For the six plain-clothed officers waiting out of sight behind an empty house in Histon Road, Cambridge, there was no choice but to attempt to ignore the dual discomfort of sweat-damp clothes and the stench of unemptied food bins.
DC Michael Kincaide was less than impressed, and only his boss’s conviction that this operation would lead to the arrest of Roy Kelvin had persuaded him that it would all be worth it.
Apart from DI Marks, Kincaide was the most experienced officer on the current team and, even after a wait of almost two hours, he was determined to lead the others in a quick and decisive arrest as soon as the moment presented itself.
After two hours and five minutes, Kincaide’s radio came to life.
Ten turns through the network of streets to the other side of Madingley Road, a man called Ratty was sitting on the grit-strewn tarmac that ran between two long rows of facing lock-up garages. He had his back to a low, partially collapsed wall, and the only things in front of him of any interest were a half-drunk can of Strongbow and an open tin of tobacco. Ratty was muttering disjointed words which sounded like the mumblings of a hopeless alcoholic. The words emerged all mashed by a mouth that had lost too many teeth and too many nerve-endings. The one person who never seemed to find it difficult to understand Ratty, without reading his lips, was crouching on the other side of the wall.
‘What can you see?’ Goodhew whispered.
‘I’ll cough – all right?’
‘You cough all the time.’
‘All right, I’ll stand up, and then you’ll see my hand on the top of the wall.’
‘Don’t draw any attention to yourself.’
Ratty swore twice, and the next few words were totally unintelligible, then: ‘I told you before, I never get involved.’
‘And I told you, you didn’t have to stay. You showed me which lock-up, and that was enough.’
A few seconds later, Ratty erupted in a volley of coughs, and beyond him Goodhew heard the unmistakable squeal of an up-and-over garage door.
So much for subtle signals.
Goodhew scrambled over the wall and ran towards the Lexus, parked facing forwards inside the fourth lock-up to the left. He stopped about six feet in front of the car and held out his warrant card.
‘Police! You are under arrest!’ Goodhew shouted.
In response came the sound of the engine gunning. He repeated his instruction just as the driver slammed his foot full on the accelerator and released the clutch.
Goodhew didn’t have time to jump out of the way. But then he didn’t need to. Only the driver’s side of the car moved because Goodhew had already clamped the other back wheel, and the full power of the XE20’s three-litre engine propelled it into the passenger-side wall of the garage.
The driver killed the engine and burst out of the car, but he was coughing too hard to run and Goodhew brought him down and cuffed him within a couple of yards of the front bumper.
Goodhew had no idea what the damage to the car might be but, judging by the amount of tyre smoke in the air, he suspected he could add four bald tyres to the aggravated burglary charge. He’d left his mobile for Ratty in case there was a problem, but Ratty was already gone and Goodhew’s phone lay unattended on top of the wall.
He rang DI Marks.
Marks answered, saying, ‘It’s your day off.’
‘Sorry, just how it worked out, sir. Didn’t have time to call it in.’
Marks didn’t acknowledge the excuse and then, in the background, Goodhew could hear him speaking to Kincaide on the radio. Marks was instructing him to bring his team over to join Goodhew.
Then Marks was back. ‘Kincaide’s not happy, but I’m sure you’ll have worked that out. Stay there till Kincaide relieves you, then go home. And report to me in the morning.’ On reflection Marks didn’t sound too happy either but, by morning, Goodhew suspected that his boss would be more pleased to have Roy Kelvin off the streets than displeased about having one extra officer turning up uninvited.
Once relieved, Goodhew walked homewards, stopping at University Grocers in Magdalene Street for a can of Coke and a copy of the Cambridge News. Roy Kelvin’s arrest would provide tomorrow’s headline, but for today he was happy to just sit in the sun on Parker’s Piece and catch up on any other local news.
As Goodhew sat reading on Parker’s Piece, the same hot sun was scorching the wide tarmac that ran along Carlton Way. Like much of Cambridge, the street was totally flat. Regularly spaced trees had been planted when the houses were built half a century ago, but they had still not grown sufficiently to provide any decent shade. True, there was shade in the bus stop, but its metal roof and frame caused the air to be intensely hot, and even the broken windows refused to let a draught through.
Joey McCarthy knew these things; in fact, he reckoned he still knew everything there was to know about hot summers on the Arbury estate, though it was a long time since he’d lived here. A long time, too, since his natural aptitude for anything connected with a computer had first opened the door to the possibility of a proper ‘career’.
Not that he’d wanted one, but it had taken only a few short
contract assignments to show him how easily the application of skills he cultivated on his home PC, combined with tidy dress and the kind of bullshit he usually reserved for visits to his grandmother, could be converted into actual currency.
Real cash.
So he’d peeled away all the unwanted layers of his former life. He’d thrown away the idea that if you didn’t want the cheap replica you had to nick the real one. And if you couldn’t nick it, you couldn’t have it.
He had broken off contact with most of his former friends, kept contact with his own family to a minimum. They didn’t seem surprised by his lack of interest in them, but their expectations of anything in life had never been that high.
Joey had rented a large apartment halfway between the Cineworld Multiplex and the train station. It came with private parking, and shortly afterwards he had filled that space with a black Audi. It was two years old but top of the range.
Of all the layers he’d stripped away, one he had never quite managed to dispense with was Arbury itself – the Carlton Arms in particular.
The best pint is always the one in your first local, or so the landlord said.
But Joey knew, and admitted only to himself, that his real reason for going back there was to measure the ever-widening gulf between his success in life and the mediocre existence that he’d nearly been condemned to. He loved the way the regulars pretended not to notice his car as it swung into the car park. He accepted each nod of greeting as he strode into the bar, knowing that, behind their brief smiles, they felt the same sort of envy that he’d grown up feeling every day of his teenage years. He guessed that they looked at him with contempt. He knew exactly why, knew what it felt like to be on their side of the fence and felt proud that he’d left them behind.
Joey left two hours later, by which time the only remaining punters were male, and too absorbed in some European football game to pay any attention to his leaving.
‘Cheers, mate,’ he threw over his shoulder, in the direction of the landlord. If he got a reply, he didn’t hear it.
He’d parked halfway across the car park, under the branches of a cherry tree where he hoped the car would catch plenty of shade but not too much birdshit. Joey pulled his keys from his pocket and aimed them towards his Audi, pressing the remote.
Nothing happened, so he guessed he was still too far away.
As usual, he cast his gaze a little further, just to see whether there was any sign of anybody casting an admiring glance in the direction of his vehicle. A woman, eyes down and ear bonded to her mobile, turned in from the main road and went inside the pub, still talking.
The car was about fifteen yards away when he tried again, but still no response. He pressed the button a couple more times, then studied the key, half wondering whether the battery was going flat. When he looked up again, a familiar figure stood in his path.
Despite the fact that this was their first contact in . . . he really didn’t know how long, Joey found his lips curling into the same sneer that their encounters had always prompted. ‘What d’you want?’
‘Are you interested in politics?’
‘Politics? What the—?’
‘I’m not. Except for that moment when it suddenly gets interesting, like when one of them gets caught out – you know, put on the spot in front of a reporter. I always want them to get caught lying, but I stop listening and instead, watch their faces. And that’s how I judge them. And that’s why I came to see you.’
‘About what?’ Joey couldn’t imagine why he now felt threatened, but he instinctively planted his feet squarely, shoulders-width apart, and felt himself puff out his chest and bulk up his shoulders. ‘Seriously, when have I ever had anything to say to you?’
‘I meant it literally. It’s just to see you, to look at you. Do you really think I’d want some meaningless dialogue either? I only came to watch your face.’
Joey scowled. ‘Just piss off.’ He stepped to one side, wanting to get into his car and go.
‘I know everything.’
The last thing Joey expected was any physical intervention. He knew he was the stronger of the two, and he doubted the owner of such precise hands would have the guts to lay a single finger on Joey’s sleeve, yet those three words halted him with the same force as a punch to the guts.
He turned slowly, trying to maintain his mask. ‘You don’t know anything about me, so what are you getting at?’ He was sure that his face remained expressionless, but knew his eyes were darting about uncontrollably.
For several seconds neither of them spoke, or moved, until finally, Joey stepped back, a small rebalancing of his weight, nothing more. ‘You mean back then, don’t you?’
‘What else would I mean? We’ve barely seen each other since, have we?’
‘It was just an accident.’
‘Just an accident? And what would you say to me if I said I knew it wasn’t? I’m standing here in front of you, and I’m telling you I know what happened – every detail. Now you are the politician, the one with the chance to tell the truth. And I am the audience, the one who is watching your face to see if you lie.’
Joey thought he had an aptitude for reading people, especially when, like now, he considered them a soft touch. It was always easy to spot when childlike fear had been visible too long into adolescence, and had then been picked upon by the stronger ones in the pack. But a single look told Joey that the eyes that returned his stare were dilated with something far more potent than fear, or even anger.
Resolve.
Then Joey half smiled: did the kid really think they were about to square up for a fight? ‘Stop wasting my time.’
No reply.
‘It’s madness.’ Joey tapped his temple a couple of times. ‘You were never going to let it drop, were you?’ He pushed past and, this time when he jabbed at his remote control, the central locking responded with a muted beep.
‘It’s a nice car.’ A pause. ‘I mean, I don’t really like it – too pretentious. You’d only drive a car like that to a pub like this if you were trying to make a statement, one that you couldn’t manage by turning up on foot.’
Despite knowing he ought to go, Joey turned his back on the car. ‘And your point?’
‘Brand new, top-of-the-range Audi which only unlocks at the fourth bloody attempt? I don’t think so.’
Joey was caught between the urge to step forward, and further into the confrontation, and an unfamiliar but stronger urge to get into his car and drive away. So instead he didn’t move.
‘So I’m thinking there’s nothing wrong with the technology, which means there has to be something wrong with your aim, perhaps, and your level of soberness without doubt. So what’s the truth I see? You’re not somebody who has learned a sense of responsibility, or really suffered, or knows any compassion.’
Joey scowled. He realized that this was the moment to speak, but there was nothing he could say that would ever be genuinely heartfelt or truthful. So he stayed silent. And unmoving. And, in his remaining seconds, he was aware that his quick wits and speed had deserted him when he needed them both most.
He became a spectator as, with no sign of a stumbling childhood or awkward adolescence, his assailant moved closer.
The reversal of the roles was absolute, and Joey finally understood the power that a bully wielded from the point of view of the stunned prey.
This was action without hesitation. No self-conscious wavering, just a single fluid movement from pocket to hand to neck. A 6-inch thin shaft of flathead screwdriver, rubberized handle. No slip or resistance, through skin, into artery.
Joey’s eyes were wide, his mouth wide, his blood pumping. It splattered across his driver’s side window, and he reached towards it, his fingers sliding through slippery wetness as he sank to the ground and died.
ONE
Libby wrote: Hi, Zoe, thanks for the friend request. How are you? I heard you died.
‘Doing well for a dead person. LOL.’
There was a gap o
f a few minutes before Libby replied. Sorry, that was bad taste.
Then there was a gap of a few minutes more.
‘I heard about your sister,’ Zoe wrote. ‘You know she was in my year at school?’
Of course. Your profile picture comes from your class photo. I think you’re standing just behind Rosie. She’s got a funny look on her face, told me once how you pulled her hair just as the flash went off.
‘Yeah, I was in the back row and we were all standing on gym benches. The kids in her row were messing around, trying to get us to fall off. Mrs Hurley saw me wobble and yelled at me. I tugged Rosie’s hair to get my own back. I reckon that was Year Seven or Eight. I don’t remember seeing Rosie much after that.’
Libby had hesitated over the keyboard. She didn’t want this to become nothing more than awkward and pointless chit-chat. She had an opportunity here and, although she guessed it was going to be difficult to get things started, she knew that she needed to do it.
I have a proposition . . . a favour, I suppose. You see, I don’t have anyone to talk to. Rosie’s death left a hole, but there’s more and, if I’m honest, I’m struggling a bit. I’ve tried writing it down, but it just doesn’t work. I get so far, then I’m stuck. So I wondered if I could message you?
‘Do you think that would work?’
I don’t know, but I’d like to try. I thought you might ask me some questions, prompt me to look at things differently. Or maybe I just need to let things out, I’m not sure. The point is, I need to talk.
Those first messages took up little space on her computer screen, yet Libby felt as though getting even that far had taken up the equivalent effort of a 2,000-word essay. She had worked hard to balance her words, to load them equally between truthfulness and understatement. I need to talk had been a tough admission, as it stank of being unable to cope. The last thing she had wanted, through all of this, had been to load anyone else with any part of this burden. But she now accepted that it was the only way to move forward. She thought of Nathan and wished she could speak to him – or her parents even, but they were almost as inaccessible as her brother.