by Carol Wyer
‘Well, I don’t.’
‘Because you did badly at the test?’
‘No. Because he creeps me out. He’s always smiling and being so friendly to everyone. It’s not normal for a teacher to behave like that. You all treat him like he’s some pop star. He loves it. All that attention.’
‘Now you’re being stupid. He doesn’t. He’s just… nice. You’re annoyed with him because of the test.’
Florence marched off, leaving Amélie to scurry after her. ‘Florence, wait!’
‘Get lost, Amélie. I’m fed up hanging about with you. I’m sick of you putting me down all the time. I’ll never be like you. Everyone laughs at me because I’m your friend. Clever, pretty Amélie and her thick, ugly friend.’
‘Florence, stop! I don’t put you down! I never have. And no one thinks that about you. Florence, please. I was only joking with you. You know I don’t mean it.’
Florence ignored the protests, her mind foggy. She turned by the door of the library. ‘You don’t struggle like I do with school stuff and I don’t want it rubbed in every time you do well. I tried hard today for that test and I came bottom. You didn’t even ask how I did in it. You assumed I did rubbish as always. Do you know how that makes me feel? Do you know what it’s like to come last in the class? No. You don’t.’
‘I didn’t know you came bottom. Oh, Florence, I’m dead sorry. I was so excited about coming top. I had no idea—’
‘Try thinking about other people sometimes, Amélie. We’re not all perfect like you. Now piss off. I don’t want to be your friend.’ She slammed the library door in her friend’s face and stomped off, furious that the one person who should understand how she felt didn’t know her at all.
Thirty-Four
Siobhan lay on the mattress that smelt slightly of urine, and sobbed. The lunatic holding her prisoner had left the room, taking with him the only light. Dried blood had hardened like a clay mask on her face, tightening the skin, stretching it and making her forehead hurt like mad. It had bled copiously, but he hadn’t moved to mop up the blood, leering at her as he carved into her skin.
She shifted uncomfortably. She needed painkillers urgently. Her throat was bone dry from the material that had been rammed into it to prevent her from calling out. He had removed it after she passed out with pain. She had no clear idea of how long she’d been unconscious, vaguely recalling him humming as he removed the restraints and lifted her from the table. She’d blacked out again and come around on the bed, not daring to move in case he heard her and returned to inflict more pain.
If only she hadn’t rowed with Adam and accused him of shagging a co-worker. She knew in her heart he wouldn’t have been unfaithful to her. She shouldn’t have broken up with him. The relationship was a bit turbulent, but Adam understood she was volatile. That’s what had attracted him. She was feisty. They were good together. When she got out, she’d tell him how much she loved him. She’d never shout at him again.
A sharp smarting in her head made her wince. Oh God, she really needed some painkillers. She screwed her eyes up tightly and concentrated on thoughts of Adam. If she hadn’t had a complete freak-out on him and thrown him out of their flat, he’d be out searching for her. Maybe he was anyway. Maybe he’d returned like he usually did after a falling-out, and discovered her missing. It was likely. He always came back. He was probably at the flat now, a bunch of flowers in his hand, calling for her. He’d know something was up and check with Lucy, her manager at Tesco. He’d find she hadn’t come to work and would become anxious. He’d call the police. He’d find her. Everyone would be looking for her. Adam would make sure of it.
‘Please, Adam. Look for me,’ she whimpered. ‘Please come and find me.’
The sound of a key in the door made her choke on her words, and she was overcome by uncontrollable shivering. She pulled her knees to her chest, wrapped her arms around them, and tried to curl into the tightest ball.
‘Tsk, Siobhan. You’re behaving like a baby. Pull yourself together. I’ve brought you some painkillers. Your head must be throbbing.’
The soft murmuring made her shudder. It was mocking and cruel. She raised wet eyes.
‘Oh, yuck. You look a mess. Better wipe off some of that manky blood.’ The torchlight shone onto a bowl he put on the bed next to her. A grubby facecloth floated in the water. He passed her two tablets and a bottle of water ‘Take those first. It’ll help with the pain.’
She uncurled and held out a shaking hand for the pills and took them without question.
‘Face,’ he hissed, pointing at the cloth. ‘The water’s warm.’
Siobhan wrung out the facecloth and rubbed a cheek with it. The blood was caked on and needed to be dampened before she could lift it. Her head was too tender to wipe. She pressed the cloth several times against it, wincing as she touched it. After a few dabs she returned the cloth to the plastic bowl. The water was rust-brown with her blood.
‘You could try saying thank you.’
‘Thanks,’ she mumbled.
‘You’re welcome, Siobhan. You look a little better. Unfortunately, not as good as you used to look. What a pity. No more strutting your stuff. You’re one of the ordinary ones – no, not even ordinary. You’re one of the misfits now.’ He cackled.
‘Time for a photo.’ He pulled out her smartphone. ‘Now, how shall we do this? Want to pose on the bed, or stand up?’
Siobhan pulled her knees into her chest again.
‘Come, come. You love taking photographs of yourself. Don’t be shy. Phone’s filled with them.’
‘No, don’t,’ she whispered.
‘No, don’t,’ he repeated in a girlish voice, then more loudly, ‘Siobhan, pose for the camera or I’ll come over there and break your arms.’
Siobhan’s eyes filled again and she began to snuffle. ‘Please,’ she begged. ‘Please stop this.’
‘Stop what, Siobhan? I’m not doing anything. I’ve given you painkillers, water and a cloth. I’m going to take your photo. That’s really nice of me, isn’t it? You love having your photograph taken. Look at all these super piccies you have on your mobile.’
‘Stop tormenting me.’
He laughed loudly. ‘Tormenting, that’s the key word. You know all about tormenting. I haven’t finished tormenting you yet. Now smile or I’ll smash your face to a pulp.’
Siobhan stared out with huge eyes into the darkness and forced her lips into a stretch. The shaking had begun again. She clenched her knees and kept her head raised. There was a flash of light as the picture was taken.
‘Good. I think that’s okay. Hmm. What do you reckon?’ He lifted the screen to her face. Siobhan gulped back a sob and stammered, ‘Let me go. Please. What more do you want? You’ve ruined my face. You’ve ruined my life. I don’t know what to say to you to let me go. Please, please…’
‘Shut up! I can’t bear needy, whining, whinge-bags. I thought you were one of the strong ones. I thought you’d battle this out with me, resist, shout and scream and put up a decent fight. You’re so full of yourself and yet now you’re acting like a little, wussy, girlie-wirlie.’ He sang the words, his voice rising in pitch.
Siobhan sucked in air. ‘Please…’ A noise rose from deep within her body and the room was filled with loud blubbing. He thrust the mobile back into a pocket and held his hands over his ears.
‘Shut up! Have some dignity.’
Siobhan wrestled to take control, until eventually the cries became dull sobs.
‘Dear, oh dear. I’m going to have to dispatch you sooner than I hoped. You’re not going to be as much fun as I’d anticipated.’ He paced around the room.
Siobhan struggled to speak. ‘Please. I’ll get money or whatever you want. Just tell me what you want.’
With two quick strides, he dropped down beside her on the bed. ‘But you’re already giving me what I want. What I want is for you to suffer. You see, Siobhan, I had rather hoped to string you along for a while. Keep you here another day or two. Ta
unt you with false hopes. Convince you I was going to free you. Tease you by telling you Adam and the police were searching for you. That people cared about you enough to look for you.’ He sniggered, making little tee-hee-hee noises that confused her.
‘The reality is, no one gives a damn about you. Adam has no idea you’ve disappeared. And your work colleagues couldn’t care less where you are. No one knows you’re even missing.’
Siobhan could barely hear for the thumping in her chest. The fear had mounted to such a level she thought she would die. He turned his head this way and that, studying her and, all the while, grinning at her in a demented fashion until her eyes burned and she wanted to scream.
‘What do you want from me?’
He pulled out the phone again, thumbed the screen and showed it to Siobhan, handing it to her.
‘Comprehension. Dismay. Regret. I want you to understand.’
‘But I don’t,’ said Siobhan. ‘I don’t get it. Please. Let me go. I haven’t done anything.’
He let out a lengthy hiss that chilled her. ‘But you have. Think, Siobhan. Think. Look. Look and understand.’
She shook her head manically. ‘This is crazy. You’re completely mad.’
‘Crazy? You have no idea, have you? You self-obsessed cow.’
‘I haven’t… done… anything… wrong,’ she repeated, her voice wobbling with fear.
He snatched back the phone and marched to the far end of the room. She gulped as the light turned once more onto her, causing her eyes to squint, then close. She heard him approach and mutter, ‘Siobhan, I’ve decided your time is up. I’ve become decidedly bored of you.’
With those words, he produced a plastic bag from out of nowhere, dragged it over her head and held it tight around her neck while she thrashed, hands tearing at his. Her legs kicked out but didn’t connect with him. She flailed for only a few minutes before her body went limp and her hands fluttered and dropped, unable to fight any more.
Thirty-Five
It was quiet in the office with only the tapping of keyboards and the odd stifled yawn from Matt Higham. It was five o’clock and pitch dark outside. Cars rumbled down the road as people anxious to start their weekend left offices and headed home. The day had seemed to go on for a week. Robyn read through all the findings from her team and absent-mindedly rubbed her hip. She really ought to get it massaged at the gym.
‘Coffee, guv?’ Anna’s eyes were sunken and her face pasty.
‘Thanks.’ Robyn scrolled through the search engine pages. Amber’s note lay in front of her. There was too much information online to get any clarity. Orion, a man with a bow, was the god of hunting in Greek mythology, and the constellation was named after him. Horus, an Egyptian god, was portrayed as a man’s body with a falcon’s head, and like Orion he was also a god of hunting. The third name was yielding pages and pages of information that had to be sifted through. Anna placed a cup filled with dark liquid on Robyn’s desk.
‘Cheers. Anna, do you know anything about mythology?’
‘Studied it a little way back. Why?’
‘Orion, Horus, Wōden. Amber wrote these names down on a piece of paper.’ She passed the note to Anna.
‘Sorry, can’t help you. I only recognise Orion and I can’t remember what he was a god of.’
Robyn stared back at the computer. ‘Hunting. The first two names are gods of hunting. Oh, hang on, I have something interesting here.’ She read the page and eased back in her chair, shifting to get comfortable. ‘Wōden is the Anglo-Saxon equivalent of the Norse god Odin. If this website is correct, he was the leader of a band of predatory warriors. I figure that makes him a hunter too.’
‘It seems that way. What’s the significance?’
‘I don’t know yet. Amber might have enjoyed fact-finding, but drawing hearts with curling tails around the names is curious.’
‘They look like doodles. I do that sort of thing when I’m on the phone sometimes. I doodle triangles that interlink, or anchors. No idea why.’
Robyn looked at the paper again. ‘I suppose she could have been talking to someone on the phone and doodling at the same time. Amber studied English and economics, not mythology, yet she’s jotted down the names of three gods all associated with hunting. It’s out of place, and that makes me suspicious.’
She took a sip of her coffee and wrinkled her face. ‘I must get that machine looked at. That’s way too strong. It’s dumped an entire jar into that cup.’
‘It’s probably been tampered with, in a dastardly attempt to keep us operating on full power.’ Matt grinned. ‘I better get a cup. I need all the caffeine I can get.’
‘Take mine. I can’t drink it. I’ll be far too hyper.’
David Marker tapped lightly on the office door. ‘Guv, Jade North is here.’
Robyn rose. ‘Any volunteers want to assist me?’
‘I’ll come. I’m getting nowhere here.’ Anna shoved her chair under her desk. ‘I’ve counted the custard creams, Matt.’
‘It isn’t me who’s nicking them,’ he said, hands up in protest.
‘Whatever. They’ve been counted, so be warned,’ she replied her face deadpan.
Jade North looked more upset and bewildered than the last time she’d been interviewed.
Robyn spoke as she eased onto her seat. ‘Hi, Jade. Thanks for coming in.’
‘When can we hold Carrie’s funeral service? I can’t get nothing out of Mr Miller. He doesn’t want to talk about it. Taken to drinking down the Hounds. Leah looks like shit too. I went to see them. She says he’s off his face most of the time and not been into work since you found Carrie.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’ She took in a breath and let it out gently. ‘We really would have liked to let Carrie come home, but because it’s an open case we’ve not been able to release her as quickly as we’d like. We’ll do our best to make sure it isn’t for much longer.’
Jade pouted like a petulant child. ‘I think that’s stupid. We need her back, you know? To say goodbye properly.’
Robyn nodded to diffuse the anger building in Jade. ‘I understand. Try and be patient with us for a little longer. And I’ll ask a bereavement officer to visit Mr Miller and talk things through with him.’
Jade relaxed a little. ‘Yeah. Might be good.’
‘Jade, if you don’t mind, I wanted to ask you about your schooldays with Carrie. You were her best friend.’
A smile played on Jade’s lips. ‘Besties, yeah. We were. Did most stuff together. She was such a laugh. I’ll never have another mate like her.’
‘She seemed to be a popular girl.’
Jade’s cheeks dimpled at the memories. ‘It was cos she was always up for a challenge and was so adult. She always had the trendiest clothes and hairstyles, and even when the teachers told her to take the coloured extensions out of hair, or remove the studs in her ears or nose, she wouldn’t. She’d stand up to them. I think that’s why she was so popular. She was rebellious. Most of us wanted to be more like her, cos she didn’t give a shit about the teachers, lessons or exams. She was just Carrie. She got away with things too cos she looked so much older. If there was a concert on in Derby, she’d blag tickets and get us in. She only had to bat her eyes at the bouncer on the door and we’d get in.’
‘Did she have sex with these men?’
Jade clamped her mouth shut.
‘I’m only trying to work out who might have harmed her, Jade. I’m not judging who she was. She was your best friend. Help me find her killer. Did she have sex with any of the bouncers?’
Jade shifted in her chair and twiddled at a bracelet on her wrist. ‘She wasn’t a slag. There was a bloke on the door at Stardust nightclub who let us in a couple of times. She went round the back with him. Gave him a blowjob.’
‘You don’t happen to know this man’s name, do you?’
‘Logan. Don’t know his surname. He told Carrie he was married.’
Anna wrote down the name of the bouncer and the night
club and threw Jade an encouraging smile.
‘And can you describe him?’
‘Big, huge shoulders, big hands. Carrie said he had a giant boner too, said it was like trying to suck on a giant cucumber and she had to stretch her mouth to get it in. She pulled a face like this.’ Jade pulled at her lips, widening her mouth comically. ‘She said she nearly choked to death on it. And she almost made me wet myself laughing.’ She paused, eyes dewy with tears. ‘He wasn’t bad-looking, had a shaved head, and a tattoo down his arms, one of those tribal tattoos, of a deer with horns. He showed it to us. Carrie loved it. Wanted one like it. I think she’d have had it done too when she had enough money.’
Robyn threw Anna a look. ‘That’s very helpful. Thank you. Were there any more men in her life?’
‘She didn’t want serious relationships. Liked being a free agent going with whoever she fancied when she felt like it. She’d not had a bloke for a while. That’s why I was surprised when she suddenly found this new fella and buzzed off with him without telling me first. We always shared secrets. I figured she’d finally fallen for someone. She told me so.’ Jade bit her lip to stop the tears.
Robyn didn’t contradict her. Jade had to come to terms with Carrie’s death in her own way. She’d eventually accept that there had been no boyfriend. ‘I wanted to ask you about an incident last year, at Fairline Academy. Mr Shah, your form teacher, said he had to reprimand you both for bullying another girl in the class.’
‘I don’t see how that’s got anything to do with Carrie being killed.’
‘Like I said, Jade, we’re looking into anything that might be relevant.’
‘It was only a bit of fun. The silly cow got lippy with us. Made some comment about Carrie’s hair. Carrie told her to button it or we’d shave her head and make her sorry for opening her gob. She backed down. Carrie didn’t take criticism from anyone. It’s like that at school.’