by Luca Veste
‘Best I answer,’ he said, lifting himself out of the chair. He seemed to have aged even more since they’d arrived. Deep lines appearing in his face, yellowed skin and teeth. ‘They’ll want to see their dad.’
‘You reckon they’ll all be like this?’ Shipley asked, once Bill had left the room. He kept his voice low, meaning Louise had to lean in further in order to hear him. ‘All the victims, I mean?’
Louise went to answer, but was stopped by the sound of the door opening and a cry from the hallway. They sat in silence for a few seconds. She was suddenly scared to say what she really thought.
Instead she gave Shipley a look, gazing into those soft eyes of his. Then, she silently nodded.
Twenty-Five
He had to take a deep breath and be calm. Had to be careful, if he didn’t want to be caught before he had the chance to go inside the house and do what he wanted.
There were many places he could find someone easily enough. Spend enough time hiding in the shadows and you came across similar people in the world. Those who hid from the light the world provided, whether by choice or not. It didn’t matter who they were; all of them were targets. Even those who felt safe and sound, locked in their houses, sitting in their cars, walking through busy towns and shopping centres.
It started, as it always did, on the streets.
There are many towns in the city, each different and similar in many ways. Some more rich than others, more working people, more educated residents. Nice houses, newer cars parked outside them.
It was one of those houses he was standing near now.
Darkness had fallen a few hours before, some lights remaining on, dotted around in the homes on the quiet street. He could see houses either side, lights coming on in various rooms, then switching off. He wondered how thin the walls would be. Whether anything could be heard through them. The air was still, no sounds other than the occasional rustle of leaves as a cat searched for something to do in the black of night.
And him.
It hadn’t taken much to hop a fence and gain access to someone’s back garden. To stand there, waiting. There was no light in the garden, but nonetheless he kept as still as he possibly could. Waiting, concentrating, as he stared at the back of the house, the door and window, wondering if they would notice him crouching in the bushes. Cloaked in darkness, an animal ready to pounce.
A light came on in the kitchen, the back door opening with a creak, a man stepping out and closing the door behind him. The flick of a lighter, the red glow and loud exhale. The man’s face illuminated by the mobile phone in one hand, fingers cradling a cigarette, pausing between inhalations to flick at the screen.
He watched him, holding his breath and wondering how the man’s blood would look as it dried on his hands. Watched, as he smoked his cigarette and looked at his phone. He could kill him there, on his back step . . . but something kept him still, just watching the man in the darkness.
The door opened again, the kitchen light flicking off moments later.
He waited a few more minutes. Then, a few more. Allowed them to settle back in, safe in their home again; then he walked towards the back of the house, moving across the small garden. Past the tired-looking furniture, the uncut grass, the muddy patches. Towards the door, cupping his hands around his face to look into the darkness inside. He opened the door slowly, moving into the dark kitchen beyond, wondering why anyone would think leaving the back door open would be a good idea. Not with things like him out there. He could hear the television playing in the living room, through the closed door. Canned laughter, the occasional grunt of appreciation from someone sitting watching. He stood near the living room door, listening to normal life from within. The hallway was dark, but his eyes had become accustomed to that. He waited there for a few moments, closing his eyes and imagining everything behind the door. The young couple he had been watching for days without their knowledge. The furniture, the television they were glued to. The way her legs curled up against his, the familiarity of touch which was so alien to him.
He slipped past the living room door, the couple inside still chuckling, and made his way soundlessly up the stairs and found their bedroom.
There was a moment of movement downstairs. He slipped his hands around the knife in his pocket and held his breath. He left the room; seeing a guest bedroom on the other side of the landing, ducking inside and waiting for them to finally come to bed.
And waited.
He could have saved himself the trouble. Stayed outside until they were safely tucked up in bed. Broke into the house and slaughtered them in seconds.
This way had appealed to him more.
There was something about wanting to watch them sleep. To watch them at their most fragile, most vulnerable. When they were least expecting anything to happen to them.
When it was safer.
He waited. An hour, possibly longer.
He listened in the darkness, waiting for any sound other than his own breathing. Then, there was movement. He smiled to himself as the voices grew closer, enjoying the sound of their routine. Heard the sink in the bathroom.
He wondered if he would hear anything else, once they were in bed.
Another hour.
Then, in the dark and silence, he slipped out from underneath the bed and took a deep breath. Left the guest bedroom and walked across the landing. He stood outside the door of the main bedroom, listening to the soft sounds of breathing from within. Waited, for any sign they were still awake.
Then, he opened the door slowly and went inside.
Twenty-Six
Louise was going through CCTV images, frame by frame, hoping to catch sight of something, anything, which would point them in the right direction. This was the deal now they were over in the Major Crimes Unit; smaller cogs in a larger machine. At least they were still involved, she thought. The case could have disappeared and they would have found out if they caught anyone at the same time as everyone else.
As it was, she was still a part of the large machine. Which meant she could help in some way. Willingly putting herself through torturous hours of monotony, in the hope of finding a single face that didn’t fit. Someone returning, to see what was happening. The hope that he wouldn’t have been able to help himself, coming to watch as they trawled through his hiding place.
She paused the images flashing past on her screen as Shipley perched himself on the edge of the alien desk she was sitting at.
‘Latest report from the woods is five bodies found,’ he said, picking up a pen from the desk and twirling it between his fingers. ‘They reckon there’ll be more as well. Quite the operation going on. DI reckons they’ll be there for days.’
‘Any identifications yet?’
‘Just a couple. One should be familiar. Adam Porter.’
There was a moment before she recognised the name, but then it came to her clearly. ‘Oh no . . .’
‘Couldn’t believe it myself,’ Shipley said, unable to hide the excitement in his voice. ‘He’s been gone what, ten years?’
‘Pushing fifteen now,’ Louise replied, feeling that familiar dread in the pit of her stomach. The feeling that she had managed to get herself involved in something that was too much for her. The anger was back as well. The thought of the young teenager, his face so recognisable to the local populace, even if his name was harder to recall. Left to rot under the ground. ‘Must have been 2002, 2003 when he went missing,’ she found herself saying. ‘It was huge news for a good few months. His mum still pops up every now and again, usually around the anniversary of him going missing.’
‘Yeah, well, the date seems about right. The body they dug up was in bad shape. It was only because he had his name on him that we can say it’s him at the moment. You never know, we might get lucky and it’s someone else.’
‘Any other names?’
Shipley stopped twirling the pen in his hand, took a piece of paper from his pocket and laid it out in front of her. Three names, listed unde
rneath the ones they already knew. Seeing them there, just written on a piece of paper, it lost some of its grandeur. She thought of all the families linked to those names. The people left behind, never knowing the truth.
‘I don’t recognise anyone else here. How about you?’
‘Possibly,’ Louise replied, extending a finger and tracing down the names on the list. She could smell Shipley’s aftershave, a trace of it lingering even after all the work they had done in the previous few hours. ‘Maybe that one?’
‘Nicola Borthwick,’ Shipley said, as if he were testing the name, seeing if it jogged his memory. ‘No, don’t recognise it.’
‘Maybe I’m mistaken.’
‘Do we really think Rhys Durham was killing people that far back? A teenager as a serial killer?’
‘I don’t know what to think any more,’ Shipley said with a sigh. The stubble on his face was getting longer with each day. It made a noise as he swiped a hand across it, like a hard brush scraped along concrete. ‘He’s the only lead we have.’
‘I suppose so,’ Louise replied, feeling unconvinced. She hated the idea of focusing on one person, when it could be someone else entirely. ‘He could be a victim, that’s all I’m saying.’
‘Keep on with what you’re doing,’ Shipley said finally, tearing himself away from her desk and standing up fully. ‘Until we find anything that says otherwise, we have to try and find Rhys Durham. I’ll show my face at the press briefing.’
‘There’s another one?’
‘I get the feeling there’ll be a fair few before this thing is out.’
Louise watched him leave, her eyes lingering on his diminishing figure as it retreated, then turned back to the paused screen in front of her. She preferred to stay there, rather than be anywhere near the news cameras, which she assumed were increasing in number with each passing hour. The television perched on the wall in the corner of the office said as much. Sky News, now running the story as breaking news. She was better off being left in the unfamiliar office of the Major Crimes Unit in the city centre. The dull brown-brick building, looking out onto student accommodation and the river. It would have been a nice view a couple of years before, she thought. Now, it had been blemished by the unending desire to keep building and building.
They had pulled CC TV from the Ford Road – and everywhere else they possibly could – near the woods, going back to before they’d had cameras and uniforms on scene. The crowd which had gathered nearby, watching and waiting for any news – those who had possibly not had their details taken down by anyone. She had suggested going through it, earning a frown from Shipley but a nod from DCI Sisterson. They had heard enough tales of perpetrators of crimes returning to the scene for it not to be out of the question to check. Not a waste of time, rather a covering-all-bases check.
She hummed the tune from her childhood without thinking, the words running through her mind.
‘The Bone Keeper’s coming. The Bone Keeper’s real. He doesn’t stop. He doesn’t feel. He’ll snatch you up. And make you weep. He’ll slice your flesh. Your bones he’ll keep.’
Louise looked back at the names on the paper, wondering whether they had heard that tune themselves.
Whether the Bone Keeper was really out there somewhere.
She decided to carry on looking at the list of names, to allow her eyes a little rest from the CC TV images. As before, they didn’t really ring any bells for her – other than that of Adam Porter. She wondered why that one was different. Why he had been chosen. Whether the Bone Keeper had purposefully strayed from his usual modus operandi, or had simply chosen wrong.
Adam Porter. She typed his name into Google. The youngster’s face immediately popped up. An almost ridiculously angelic-looking young boy, dimples and freckles to boot. That was the image most circulated around the time of his disappearance, but Louise knew there was a more apt one. A more dour, shaven-headed appearance, in a photo taken a few weeks before he went missing.
There had been rumours for years that he’d got mixed up in the wrong crowd, but his mum wouldn’t have any of it. She had shouted from the rooftops that he was a good boy, one who could do no wrong, and she’d had the media behind her from day one.
Teenagers go missing all the time, but some are more missed than others.
He’d been fourteen when he disappeared – it looked like he had ended up always being that age. She was glad she wasn’t going to be the one doing that death knock. She felt sorry for the officers who would be tasked with that one. Especially as it would be one of the more decayed of the bodies buried in the woods. Adam’s mum wouldn’t accept the news in any way, if Louise had read her right.
That’s how they were, the mothers left behind. The fathers tended to be more pragmatic. They didn’t have a ‘father’s intuition’ breathing down their necks. Mothers were supposed to know what had happened to their children. Somehow. In Louise’s experience, though, no one had any clue what happened until someone like her knocked on their door.
Louise searched the official police database for more information, safe in the knowledge that it wouldn’t be odd if her name appeared on the search records. The detail was extensive, but ultimately pointless. A number of people had been interviewed – some under caution – over the years, but no one could ever be linked to Adam’s disappearance. She looked for the last address he’d lived at before he had gone missing, and felt a jolt of recognition at the name of the road which came up. She worked out how far it was from where she’d grown up, quickly realising it was only a few minutes.
Was that the Bone Keeper’s old stomping ground, she wondered. Her adopted hometown when she was a teenager? There were woods in the area; Otterspool wasn’t a far walk from where her house had been. She imagined they would be too small for him, though. He’d prefer somewhere easier to get lost in.
The south of the city wasn’t far away.
Sefton Park was even closer, but she thought that would be too populated for it.
She shook her head, admonishing herself for thinking of this man as something mythological. He was simply someone who enjoyed killing people. He wasn’t some sort of spectre hiding in the woods.
He was just a man.
Had to be.
She thought about fire. The images returning with ease. Louise began rubbing at her thigh absent-mindedly, almost able to feel the heat again. Then she blinked her eyes rapidly, returning to the present, her present, and went back to watching the CC TV. She kept her eyes on the screen, watching a new angle now that showed the group of people who had arrived to watch the developing scene. The camera was so far away that she couldn’t see in any great detail, but it might give them something, she supposed. The crowd had started out small – just two or three people – but had quickly grown in size. Within fifteen minutes, there were at least twenty people there. Word travels fast in the small towns. Old communities. Might be that they hadn’t had cause to speak to their neighbours for the previous year, or longer – but Louise imagined they’d be talking now.
She imagined walking among them without anyone knowing she was there. Judging them, silently and savagely. Picking apart each of their lives and deeming them worthy or not.
She shook her head, pulled a few folders closer to her and started reading.
Tiredness was beginning to take over now; she read the same line in a witness report three times. She glanced at the clock, wondering where Shipley had got to. Wondering if he’d offer her a lift home, as he always seemed to do now. She knew he didn’t do that for everyone and that there was something different about the way he felt about her.
She didn’t know what to do about that.
Louise closed everything down and waited for Shipley to return. For now, she had to stay focused on not screwing this up by allowing the edge she was always teetering upon to drop from beneath her. Ignoring the small voice in her head, the anger bubbling inside her.
She thought of fire and how it destroyed everything.
Ev
en memories.
She thought of what might be hidden in the woods. What might have lived there for decades without being seen. Only a story passed around from child to child, adult to adult. A legend, which people would laugh off, never acknowledging how it really affected them. How they wouldn’t venture alone anywhere near where someone said they’d seen the monster.
She thought of the marks on the trees. What they meant, what they symbolised. Whether they were just carved into the trunks by kids wanting to extend the myth, or actually signified something.
Louise could feel the heat grow around her as she recalled the fire in the woods. The way the reek of it seemed to seep into every pore in her body. A thousand showers not enough to get rid of it. The path of destruction it might take.
She leaned back in the unfamiliar chair, at the unfamiliar desk, in the unfamiliar office. Everything had moved so quickly, she hadn’t had a chance to breathe.
There was too much to think about. Too much to take in. She could feel her chest constricting with the weight of it all. Her breathing becoming more shallow, rasping, as if she were underground. Buried under a mound of earth. Sucking in soil instead of oxygen. Butterflies flew in her stomach, turning it into a cauldron, a swirling, twirling mess of anxiety.
Close your eyes. Count to ten. Count to twenty. Count to thirty.
She could picture herself, buried with all the other bodies discovered in the woods. That could have been her. Desperately trying to escape, digging herself out, struggling with the weight of the earth surrounding her. Giving up, allowing the darkness to crash over her. Waiting for death to come.
Count to fifty. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.
That could have been her. She could have been covered in dirt and mud. Left to rot.
It should have been you. If you weren’t such a COWARD.
Louise gripped the sides of the chair, feeling the pain enter her body now. The flashes of knives, piercing her skin, slashing across her chest.