“For the purposes of the tape, you’ll address me as DCI Edwards.”
“Fine, fine. Whatever.”
“What were you curious about?”
“Take a guess.”
“You’re going to need to be more cooperative than that.”
“It just struck me as odd that a man, of previous good character, walks into the house of someone who - by all accounts - he barely knows and brutally murders him.”
“Brutally?” Edwards flared him a look that said, ‘you weren’t supposed to know the details, so you better find your way out of that statement.’
“Well, that’s the local rumour anyway. Look, I’m sorry, it was late; I’ve not been sleeping. I won’t do it again.” He couldn’t bring himself to blame his behaviour on Alison’s death, that was one of those thoughts destined to stay just that.
“Do you know Martin Dalgliesh?”
“Huh?”
“The boy you assaulted.”
“Hey, hold on a minute.” Daniel straightened his posture.
“There were grazes all down his face.”
“Is he pressing charges?”
“Not as yet, we’re still talking to him.”
“Well the kid’s got some nerve if he does. What the hell was he doing there?”
“Perhaps he couldn’t get to sleep and just got a bit curious. It happens.”
He wanted to tell Edwards to fuck right off, and perhaps, over a pint, he’d do so. But for now, it was best to play ball.
“Look, I apologise. If the kid’s got a few scratches I’m sorry. Surely - no lasting harm done?”
“I’m going to have to caution you for trespassing.”
“Fine, I’ve been so cautioned. Can I go?”
“Shortly.”
Edwards voiced the interview’s termination, sealed the master CD, signed the seal and got Daniel to do likewise. He was left alone for half an hour, then released. Edwards’s parting words as Daniel left the station were, “Let it go Dan, and I’m not even joking.”
“No problem.”
Daniel hitched his collar against the night, and walked down the road towards the waiting taxi, more determined than ever to scratch away at the surface of Fallon’s death. The panic in Dalgliesh’s eyes as he’d pinned him down, was not the look of a gruesome souvenir hunter. He’d been desperate to retrieve something more personal.
CHAPTER TWELVE
How had he missed Sebastian Fallon’s cellar? He’d only been there yesterday and yet so much of the house was unfamiliar. This time the kitchen door hadn’t opened onto a Frigidaire. That had been replaced by an antique brass bed-warming pan, the type Daniel’s mum, God rest her soul, used to hang on the wall as an ornament. It resounded like a dinner gong as the door’s handle swung onto it.
Three rocking chairs faced each other in the living room, not one.
He found a hatch underneath a square cut into the carpet, just outside Fallon’s sculpting room door. Surely there was a cellar somewhere down there. Beneath the hatch, stone steps disappeared into the darkness and Daniel used his torch to get a sense of where the steps ended. They stretched into the void, far beyond torch range. Still, the bottom must be down there somewhere. As he walked down, bending his neck to avoid bashing his head against the hatch’s frame, he anticipated the ancient dusty wood aroma of a wine cellar. But the smell wasn’t like that at all. It was like the stench he’d endured in Fallon’s living room the day before, but even more rancid. His throat closed up and he coughed, pulling a tissue from his jeans pocket to cover his mouth, fearing he might be sick.
Hold on! Where were his overalls? He was sure he’d put them on at the back door, as he had the day before. In the dark descent his forearms were cold; why was he wearing a T-shirt? The chill goose-bumped his chest, turning his nipples to tiny hard pellets.
The steps were seemingly endless; he lost count at fifty and became sloppy at watching his step under torchlight, finally hitting the ground with a judder. He looked around seeing nothing but an ancient oak floor. He extended the torch’s reach in front of him, half expecting to see a speedboat at an underground jetty, waiting for him to escape.
Where was his fear? Despite darkness and the persistent stench, he was regarding this as an intriguing adventure … until he heard Alison’s cries rising from somewhere beneath the floorboards.
“Stop, please stop. For the love of Jesus, leave me alone.” Then the puppy-whipped sounds of Alison, nearing her threshold for pain. Daniel dropped to his knees and pulled up floorboards with his bare hands. He expected them not to budge and was ready to search for a crowbar or claw-ended hammer, but the boards lifted with his frantic, clawing fingers alone. He opened up an irregular four-foot wide hole in the floor. Blood seeped from the edges of his damaged fingernails, dripping onto the plasterboard ceiling of a room below. With the floorboards gone, Alison’s cries intensified and her voice was tinged with hope, “Dan, is that you?”
“Hold on, I’ll be there in a minute, hold on,” replied Daniel, as he desperately stamped his boots on the plasterboard.
The ceiling collapsed. Not just the small square that Daniel had attacked, the whole damn ceiling. It had fallen in flat irregular slabs, each the size of a kitchen tabletop. Through the rubble poked Alison’s arm. Chunks of her flesh were missing; precise injuries. Her bruised, dust-covered fingers twitched then became still. Daniel lowered himself, feeling tears of desperation erupting.
As he pulled away pieces of plaster, which inexplicably had the weight and texture of concrete, he heard a deep laugh ascend into a cackle. He paused for a moment to see who was there. Sebastian Fallon stood to his left at the perimeter of the room, white plaster dust giving his gargantuan frame a ghostly appearance. He wore a sculptor’s apron and was gripping a blood-tipped chisel. Dark, lightening-sparked clouds oppressed them, the house no longer there. He reached his arms out and looked up, as if giving thanks to a pagan God. Then he fixed Daniel with a wild gaze and came for him - not running - but moving with huge, rapid strides.
The chisel was arcing down towards Daniel’s skull when he woke. His Pyjama sleeves clung to damp, clammy arms. The duvet had risen over his head and he frantically pulled it off. He was on Alison’s side of the bed.
Four a.m. was an odd time for a shower. But sleep wasn’t an option and Daniel had the notion of washing away his nightmare’s taint. Even if it didn’t have that effect, a hot shower might banish the February chill; his breath showed with each step along the hallway towards the bathroom. It never occurred to him to have the heating on. Alison always said there was no need to run it during the night, ‘We can keep each other warm.’ He thought about this expression as he washed with a yellow shower scrub. ‘Keeping each other warm’ had been a euphemism for sex. It wasn't just the MS that put pay to that; their sex life had fizzled out long before her diagnosis. He couldn’t pinpoint the start of the decline. It had just sort of crept up on them. Pyjamas had become more comfortable than boxer shorts and negligees. Sex became the thing of weekends, perhaps after they’d shared a bottle of wine. Then it became every other weekend, then monthly, then perhaps on special occasions. It had begun to feel more like a duty, something you pretended to look forward to like turkey at Christmas. Then her MS had really taken its grip.
Daniel looked down as he cleaned his impotence and muttered, “Perhaps we’re both now retired son.” No response, not even a twitch of recognition. He sighed and turned the shower off.
With a dressing gown around him, and the nightmare a fading memory, he sent Charlotte a text: ‘I’ve been doing what you said I shouldn’t. Suffering alone. Can we meet tomorrow? No need to text back now - sorry it’s late.’ He didn’t expect a reply, yet he ached with hope. He needed human contact, even if just via text.
This wasn’t just grief. He was descending into something darker. He’d been fastidious about cases at work but never so obsessive. He’d never been woken by dreams of the people he investigated, even when the darkest of
crimes cursed his caseload. A memory came of a couple who’d systematically tortured their baby. Domestic cases such as these weren’t exactly his speciality, but he’d taken it on. Even that case, and the pictures of the child’s injuries, hadn’t haunted him. He’d treated it like he had every other case, like there was an immense invisible blanket covering the evidence, you just needed to know which bit to upturn. And he always knew, by instinct and logic, where to look. But this Fallon case was different. There was nothing to upturn, no logical need to do anything.
And that’s when it struck him. Anxiety is worrying about the future, and depression is dwelling over the past, over things that can't be changed. He’d fallen into a pattern of dwelling, not because of the case, as such, but because he was depressed. And who wouldn’t be, in this house, filled as it was with painful memories?
The photos in the living room were of the two of them together, post Alison’s diagnosis. Even in the ones taken before she was in a wheelchair, you could tell in her eyes that something had irreparably changed.
But it was too early to take her stuff down, to pack it away, far too early. Was it? Was there some rulebook you could google which said there was some magic number of days (like the twelfth night removal of Christmas decorations) when you’d wallowed in the constant reminders of your spouse’s pain long enough and you could start getting on with your life?
Did he really need her clothes, her perfume in the bedside cabinet, her Jo Jo Moyes novels in their bookcase (he visualised Fallon’s bookcase momentarily - there you go, dwelling again) to remember her by? As Daniel headed through an internal door off the hall, towards the garage to collect boxes, he set boundaries: Keep hold of your wedding album and choose one favourite picture of her to have on display. What about your wedding picture in Barbados?
Yes, perfect. Daniel didn’t even pause to get dressed, that might have given him time to change his mind. He started with their bedroom, and with the hardest piece, the strongest reminder: the watercolour of the lions from which Daniel was delivered.
The painting had just christened an empty box when Charlotte replied. ‘No problem. Let’s meet up tomorrow, 9 a.m.. Want to come to mine for a coffee?’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
He finally had the house to himself and was enjoying the sticky edges of the book; countless strangers’ fingers having pored over these pages just as his did now. It wasn't the results of the experiments which interested him, the growths and the tumours had excited him once, but he was becoming numb to those. What still got him off was the power the experimenters, these great men, had over their subjects. An endless stream of people to do with just as you wished, that was the fantasy. What he did was slim pickings, amateurish compared to what the Nazi's had done. His eyes closed and thoughts drifted to fantasies of torture, and she was barely ten yards below his feet, how easy it would be to make this a reality.
These thoughts were dangerous. He forced his eyes open, shut the book and slapped his face, hard, five times over, each with an accompanying grunt. "Discipline, discipline," he told himself and pressed down on the rising growth in his crotch. Just go upstairs and get it out of your system. Resist it.
He paused, sitting, taking deep breaths. His samurai sword was propped against the sofa. He leant to take hold of it then span it, his forefinger atop its handle, the blade glinting in the sunlight, its tip making a tiny hole in the carpet. He stood and the blade-spinning stopped. He would go upstairs. He would, he would.
He left the room, pausing outside a door close to the stairs, the door that would lure him, down and down. The temptation was too powerful to resist. No harm done. The plan will still be the plan.
The descent was a delicious, heart pounding journey. He took it slowly; this would be better than the act. The nerve endings in his scalp jangled pleasantly.
He opened the door and there she was, strapped as he'd left her. Her dark hair and severe fringe gave her an Asian appearance, though her skin was paper white. Her complexion had whitened further in the two days she'd been there.
Must let her loose, before bed sores develop.
The thought drew blood from his crotch and he refocused on the fantasy.
She was unconscious and would be for at least another hour. Even the pain wouldn't wake her. And so what if he was wrong about that, if she stirred a bit, all the better. He stood over her, the sword dangling from his right hand to the floor, and lowered his face, passively resting his lips on hers.
He stood away from her then and carefully, mechanically undid her blouse. He lifted her white bra enough to slip the sword underneath it. The material sliced easily. When there was a good square of her blemish-free midriff exposed, he lifted his sword, placing the tip of it just below her diaphragm.
The hammering in his chest was almost unbearable. He would have to be gentle, to resist the temptation. The weight of the blade was enough and, as blood seeped from the shallow wound, he lost control. It was all over.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
At five minutes to nine the following morning, Daniel stood at the lane’s end, the Church Road T-junction - Fallon’s place to the west and Charlotte’s to the east, their properties equidistant. The sun had woken with stunning omnipotence, painting orange the morning’s cumulus. The frosted silver of hedgerows and pavements reflected the orange glow. The temperature was slowly lifting. He placed his boot in a half-frozen puddle, enjoying the satisfying, splintering crunch as he breathed deeply; the air’s cold bite strangely comforting. He turned east towards Charlotte and the rising sun.
Telling himself to forget about Fallon was about as effective as shouting at someone with depression to cheer up. How frequently the mind is more powerful than our ability to control it. He despised the thought of therapy, but the T word had crossed his mind, he couldn’t deny that. Too early for that though, perhaps if he felt like this in a few months, he’d reconsider. Bereavement counselling perhaps, maybe that was more his thing. The C word wasn’t as bad, but it still felt like drowning; relying on the willingness and ability of others to throw him a lifeline. No … no counselling. He’d had his fill of kind words and smiles from their MS support group.
All you need is to talk to someone who understands you, and to get out of that damn house.
He checked his chunky, accurate-to-the-second diver’s watch. It was a minute to nine and he picked up pace, smiling in amusement at his own habits. He remembered being a young, naive, fresh-faced, skinny copper. The first thing he’d learned, by the second week of his training, was punctuality. He felt like he’d acquired a new habit, essential for his job. Now it was so engrained in him, he’d frequently pissed Alison off, chasing her out of the house to be on time. He reflected that perhaps the abilities we develop to survive, to thrive, might be the things that one day stop us truly living; he lived his life with one eye on the clock, even though now all he had was time.
Charlotte greeted him at the door of her cottage in a clingy hot-pink tracksuit, with Nike’s tick on the breast. It was the type he often saw the village stay-at-home mums wear as they simultaneously jogged and chatted. Charlotte had never been a runner, though her forehead beaded sweat as though that’s exactly what she’d been doing. Over her shoulder, on the TV, was a celebrity he recognised from Emmerdale (Alison’s favourite show, Dan’s least favourite). The b-list starlet was stretching out in a tight purple vest top, clearly surgically enhanced in the breast department. She listened intently to the fitness guru to her side, largely ignoring the two less attractive women standing behind, who were clearly there to inspire the more ordinary amongst the aspiring fit.
“Sorry Charlotte, should I do a couple of laps round the block?”
She would ordinarily have landed a kiss by now, one on each of Daniel’s stubbly cheeks, but there was a knowing that comes between old friends: she wasn’t going to get that close to anyone whilst wet with perspiration.
“Don’t be stupid, come in. I should have known nine meant exactly that. I was just tr
ying to cram in some exercise after dropping Kerry and Luke off.” He followed her into the open-plan living room which led seamlessly through to the kitchen. Charlotte’s ex-husband, Marcus, was a builder and had transformed the place; a cottage in Blaine was supposed to have small rooms and low ceilings. This was spacious, with a vaulted ceiling letting in light from banks of electronically operated, Velux windows. They’d remortgaged to do the conversion and, on her own, she was struggling.
Charlotte clicked off the TV, placed the remote on a low, square, chunky coffee table and rolled up a Yoga mat. "Feel free to put something on the TV, I won’t be long." They both knew he wouldn’t. TV was far too hum-drum to keep Daniel’s whirring mind distracted and, besides, television peaked in its banality around nine-thirty. “You know where the kettle is, why not make us both a coffee, while I jump in the shower.”
True to her word, by the time their drinks were ready, and Daniel had placed them on the coffee table (carefully; on coasters), she was back with him. This time in jeans and vest top, with a thin yet fluffy cream cardigan. She dressed like she was twenty-five not forty and it suited her. Her mahogany hair was wet and combed straight, giving her a severe fringe. He knew she didn’t like her hair to dry naturally; a small but noted sacrifice for their conversation.
“What time do you start work?” asked Daniel.
“Rota’d day off. You’ve got me for the whole day if you need me.”
There was a long pause as they cupped warm mugs and sipped coffee. Daniel considered how to start the conversation. He’d dismissed numerous lines of small talk before she placed a hand on his knee and leant forward to claim eye contact.
Prepared to Die Page 5