Splinter the Silence (Tony Hill)

by Val McDermid

  The first thing that struck him was the wind. Barely a breeze at ground level, up on the thirteenth floor it was a gusty tug, ruffling his hair and chilling his ears. The traffic noise from below swirled round him in phases. Tony checked out his surroundings. The ledge was about two feet wide, a dirty kerb of gritty concrete; cheap material here where it couldn’t be seen, unlike the ornate red sandstone and brick of the visible exterior. All around it ran a carved stone balustrade at waist height, its top about a foot wide. Deep enough to sit on comfortably, Tony calculated. He made his way gingerly to the corner, telling himself he was perfectly safe.

  He moved round the corner, trying not to startle Martin. He needn’t have worried. The other man didn’t stir. He was sitting on the parapet, his legs dangling over space, his hands loosely gripping the edge of the sandstone. His features were drawn, his eyes screwed up as if it hurt to focus. ‘Don’t come any closer,’ he said, his voice dark with tension.

  ‘OK,’ Tony said. ‘I’m just going to come round the corner because I can’t stand halfway round without it hurting. If that’s all right?’

  ‘Keep out of reach.’

  ‘You’ve no worries on that score. If you’re going down, I don’t want to be dragged down with you. You’re Matthew, right? Or do you prefer Matt? My name’s Tony. Tony Hill. I’m not a police officer. I’m a psychologist.’

  ‘You’re wasting your time.’ The tone matched the bluntness of the words.

  ‘I don’t think you’ve thought this through. Not properly.’

  A quick sideways glance. ‘You know nothing.’

  Tony sighed. ‘Actually, I know quite a lot. I know what happened to your mum. I expect that was devastating for you.’

  ‘Leave my mum out of this.’

  ‘I’d love to, Matthew, but you know I can’t. She’s the reason all of this happened.’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘I know that if she hadn’t gone off to Greenham, none of this would have been necessary. If she hadn’t listened to those women, she’d still be alive. Those women who don’t understand what it means to be a wife and mother. That’s the best thing a woman can ever be, isn’t it?’ He paused. Nothing. Time for a sideways shift from straight sympathy.

  Tony leaned against the parapet, stuffing his hands in his pockets to keep them warm. ‘I understand the point you’ve been trying to make. These women should shut up. They should stop trying to make men feel bad about wanting women to be proper wives and mothers. They should shut up, right?’

  Martin turned his head. ‘They can do what they want. But they’ve got no right to try and make other women think like them. If women want to be good mothers and take care of their families, nobody should tell them not to. Nobody should try to turn them against men who want to take care of them.’ It was a long speech in the circumstances and Tony was pleased to hear it.

  ‘When your mum and dad came here for their wedding reception, all they wanted was to be a happy family.’

  ‘Exactly. We were happy. She was happy. Till those women took her away from us.’

  ‘It’s what you wanted too, isn’t it? To make a family with Sarah?’

  Matthew flinched. ‘I don’t want to talk about Sarah.’

  ‘But she spoiled all that.’

  ‘Those so-called friends of hers, filling her head full of their shit, telling her it was too early to have a baby, telling her I wasn’t good enough for her to make her life with. She should never have listened to them. But they overwhelmed her. They didn’t give her space to think for herself.’ He shifted his buttocks, edging slightly forward on the parapet.

  ‘I can’t imagine how I’d feel if someone I loved killed my child,’ Tony said. Now it was time to start needling. To provoke a response. As long as they were talking, there was hope. ‘I guess I’d be grief-stricken. And angry too. She didn’t have the right to do that, did she?’ The thrust met no parry. Martin said nothing; he carried on staring down at the street below. ‘Any man would be driven to do something about it. The trouble is, Sarah was the tip of the iceberg. Everywhere you looked online, there were women pushing other Sarahs into doing the same kind of thing.’

  This time, Martin spoke. ‘You have no idea,’ he said, his voice grating in his throat.

  ‘I do, you know. They’re everywhere. I can see why you thought it would be a good idea to make it look like they’d come to their senses and killed themselves out of shame for what they’d become. It was a clever idea. And it worked. You got your suicide verdicts.’

  He saw a tiny twitch at the corner of Martin’s mouth. The smallest of smiles. The man was proud of what he’d done, even if he’d had to abort his mission before he was finished.

  ‘You were a bit too clever, though. The books were good signposts, but once somebody like me realised it wasn’t a one-off, it was obvious there was somebody controlling what was going on.’

  Martin grunted again. ‘They’re easily led. They might have copied each other.’

  ‘They might have, except that the cops didn’t notice so the media didn’t cover it so how would they have known about it? But still, you did get those verdicts when it counted. There’s only one problem,’ Tony continued. ‘If you jump, the suicides won’t stand.’

  He shot a quick look at Tony. ‘What do you mean? How can they not stand? The coroners gave their verdicts.’

  ‘Verdicts can always be overturned. The woman cop who’s running this show, Carol Jordan, she’s a real bitch. She’s furious with you, with the point you’ve been determined to make. She’ll go to the ends of the earth to have those inquest verdicts changed. And with you dead, she’s got carte blanche to say whatever she likes about you and what you did. She’ll piss all over the point you’ve been making. She’ll turn you into another internet troll, a mindless bully who hated women.’

  This time, Martin turned his head to face Tony, who thought he could see the faintest look of consternation on the other man’s face. ‘She can’t do that.’

  Tony gave a regretful smile. ‘Of course she can. With you gone, she’s got all the power. And she’s not afraid to use it. Like I said, she’s a bitch. There’s only one way you can get your point across.’

  Martin gave a bitter laugh. ‘I know what you’re going to say. “Don’t jump, have your day in court.”’ He rubbed a hand vigorously across his upper lip. Tony could see the tremble in his fingers. Sitting on the edge of his world was starting to get to him. It was all becoming too much. His head told him jumping was the only sensible thing to do, but deep down a powerful part of him was clinging to life.

  ‘Pretty much, yeah,’ Tony said. He was heading for the last throw of the dice, the appeal to vanity and the desire for posterity. The Achilles heel for so many killers. ‘Because that’s what makes sense. Otherwise, it’s all been for nothing. You had something to say. You obviously think it was something worth dying for or you wouldn’t be here right now. But if you give in and run away from the endgame, it’s all been a waste of time. Because she’ll turn it all into something it wasn’t. Something sordid and twisted and meaningless. And you might as well not have bothered.’ Martin turned away from him and Tony took advantage of that to inch closer. Now he was almost in touching distance.

  He carried on pressing his point. ‘You might as well have let Sarah and all those other women walk all over you, because Carol Jordan will walk all over you when you’re dead. If that sounds like a good deal to you, fine. I’ll walk away now and leave you to it. But if you do care about getting your message across loud and clear, unequivocally? Turn round and come back with me. Don’t let the bitch win.’

  He could see uncertainty in Martin’s body language. There was a slump to the shoulders, a spasm in the fingers, a bowing of the head, as if a weight was pressing down on him. ‘You promise I’ll have the chance to say my piece, but that’s bullshit. I’m not stupid enough to fall for that.’

  Tony nodded. ‘You go into the witness box and that’
s the one place you can say whatever you want and she can’t stop you. Come on, Matthew, don’t make it all for nothing. You’re a bright guy. You know I’m talking sense.’

  He straightened up, shoulders back, head up. Eyes front, chin up. He pushed down against the parapet with his hands. In that terrible moment, Tony knew he’d lost. But he wasn’t ready to give up. He lunged forward and grabbed Martin’s left arm just as he thrust off into space. Tony’s body smacked into the parapet, the jarring shock powering through his body. But he didn’t let go in spite of the joint forces of gravity and Martin’s determination. Time seemed to spin like a sycamore seed falling to earth. He could smell Martin’s sour sweat, feel his own heart pounding like a steam hammer in his chest.

  And then Carol was there, strong arms reaching past his to lock around Matthew Martin’s neck and shoulder. ‘Oh no you fucking don’t,’ she snarled. ‘You don’t get out of here without paying.’

  60

  Much later, Carol and Tony sat on a bench near the all-night coffee stall at Central Station, a black-and-white collie at their feet, steaming cardboard cups in their hands. It was neutral territory they’d established a long time before. ‘You did a good job up there,’ Carol said.

  ‘I felt sorry for him. He was always going to be damaged, given what happened to his mum. It was just a question of how the damage would manifest itself. If things had worked out differently with his girlfriend…’

  ‘She’d still be alive,’ Carol said, not an ounce of concession in her voice. ‘I don’t have your gift for compassion.’

  They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes. Then Carol spoke. ‘You don’t think I’m a bitch, do you?’

  ‘You were listening?’

  She nodded. ‘Paula and I were practically climbing over each other to get closest to the corner. You said it with such conviction,’ she added, a little sadly.

  ‘Of course I don’t think you’re a bitch. I was trying to save a man’s life. I’d have said you were a people trafficker or a Tory if that had been what it took.’

  Carol snorted with laughter. ‘Don’t do that when I’ve got a mouthful of coffee,’ she protested. ‘And it hurts my shoulder when I laugh.’

  ‘You did well to hang on till the Fire Brigade got their ladder up. He was wriggling like a toddler.’

  ‘Turns out being a builder did make me a better cop.’

  More silence. The dog shifted, leaning her weight against Carol’s shins. An infinitely long goods train grumbled its way across the bridge. ‘I’ve been thinking…’ Carol said.

  ‘Mm hmm?’

  ‘The barn’s nearly finished.’

  ‘It is. You’ve done an amazing job. I didn’t think you could do it, but I was wrong.’

  She sighed. ‘There’s plenty of room, you know. I’ve plumbed in the second bathroom and the screens are coming this week to separate off the sleeping area.’

  ‘So that means it’s more or less completed?’

  Carol ran a hand through her thick blonde hair. ‘Unless I wanted to run bookshelves along one wall.’

  ‘I don’t want to sound rude, but I didn’t think you had that many books.’

  ‘No, but you have. And it would be so much more convenient than a shipping container.’

  Tony frowned. There was no solid ground under his feet and he was certain that one misstep would be something he’d pay for forever. ‘You’re offering me a home for my books?’

  Carol cleared her throat. ‘More than the books, if you wanted. I kind of liked having you around. No strings, obviously. I wouldn’t expect you to give up Steeler, you’d probably want to spend time there too.’

  On the other side of the city, Sam Evans walked out of a nightclub, only slightly unsteady. He’d had a good night with a bunch of lads he sometimes played five-a-side football with. He’d been on the town every night since he’d walked away from Stacey, enjoying the life of a single man without a care in the world. But now it was time to knock all that on the head. To his surprise, he missed her.

  Tomorrow, he’d text her. Suggest dinner somewhere smart. Somewhere that would show her he cared, in spite of her dissing him by not standing up for him with that bitch Jordan.

  Sam yawned. There was a faint dampness in the air, as if rain was waiting to pounce on the unwary. He reckoned he’d avoid the risk by jumping in a cab. He was out of cash, but there was an ATM halfway down the next block.

  He leaned into the blue light of the cashpoint and let the machine suck his card into its maw. He tapped in his PIN and waited. PIN not recognised, the screen said. Sam decided he must be more pissed than he thought. He keyed in the number again, and again it was declined. He shook his head as if to clear an internal fog and gave it one more try. Your card has been confiscated on the orders of the issuing bank. Please visit your local branch to resolve the problem.

  ‘What the fuck?’ It made no sense. Had he suffered a bout of amnesia and changed his PIN? Oh well, at least he had another card that would allow him to withdraw cash without it costing an arm and a leg. He inserted the card and this time, it accepted his PIN. The only trouble was that it wouldn’t give him any money. He accessed his balance on screen and couldn’t believe what he was seeing. His account balance stood at zero. Two days after payday. It was impossible. Somehow he’d been robbed. Robbed by his own bank.

  He thought about using one of his credit cards to withdraw cash. It infuriated him to pay their charges, but on the other hand, he didn’t want to walk home in the cold and probably the rain. But something was wrong with the credit cards too. They both claimed the card was at its limit and nothing more could be withdrawn. ‘I don’t fucking believe it,’ he shouted at the machine. ‘I’m a fucking police officer, by the way. I’m going to have you.’

  Defeated by the technology, Sam decided he had no choice but to walk home. He turned up the collar of his jacket and hunched into it, taking the first steps of his new, electronically destroyed life.

  DCI John Franklin hadn’t been called out to the road traffic accident; he’d been on his way back to the station after a meal break when he’d seen the three cars twisted and shattered and obscenely amalgamated with the crash barrier where the road curved down the steep hill from the motorway into Halifax.

  But he was the kind of copper who was always ready and willing to help out. So he pulled over and headed for the scene of the triple pile-up. ‘What’s the score?’ he asked one of the traffic cops, a man he’d seen around in his own station many times.

  ‘Carnage,’ he said. ‘Tearaway in the Vauxhall came round the bend on the wrong side of the road doing way over the limit. Went head on into the Mini and the two careered into the Ford Galaxy. Two dead in the Vauxhall, the Mini driver’s off to casualty in a bad way. Two dead in the Galaxy. One died while the firemen were cutting her out.’ He shook his head vehemently. ‘I’m going to hear her screaming for a long time.’

  Franklin looked across at the Vauxhall with its distinctive spoiler and flared wheel arches. He’d seen that not so long ago in the police compound. He walked over to the car, where the driver and passenger were still trapped in their seats. He recognised the driver at once and felt the heartburn of rage swell in his chest.

  He couldn’t recall the boy’s name but the circumstances were burned into his memory. A week past Saturday. A clutch of drunk drivers righteously arrested then cut loose after a breathalyser was deemed to be unreliable.

  The boy in the Vauxhall who had taken at least three other lives to oblivion with him had been one of those liberated by the overarching need for Carol Jordan to be clean. Franklin turned away in disgust. He looked forward with a kind of savage delight to making the phone call that would inform Jordan of the true price of her new squad. Whatever they achieved, they’d be doing it stained with the blood of innocent people. ‘I fucking hope she’s worth it,’ he said to no one, knowing it was an impossible equivalence.

  ‘You think it would be OK?’ Tony asked.

  Carol
swallowed a mouthful of coffee. A gaggle of slightly drunk young men rolled up to the coffee stall, jostling and joshing as they ordered coffees and hot chocolates. Carol watched and Tony waited. Finally she said, ‘You’d be doing me a favour. It’s a lot easier to stay off the sauce when you’re around. Plus it would be helpful with the dog.’

  He tried not to show his delight. He failed. ‘As long as your pal George doesn’t come after me with a shotgun.’ He looked into his coffee and smiled. A couple of weeks ago, he couldn’t have imagined this outcome. It would have seemed impossible that he and Carol could move so far along the road of reconciliation. It was the next step on a journey that had started a long time ago, a journey waymarked in blood and hardship, a journey he wouldn’t have missed for anything. ‘Thanks for asking.’

  His words were drowned out by the ringing of Carol’s phone. Their eyes met; they shared a rueful smile. ‘And so it begins again,’ Tony said.

  Acknowledgements

  The great thing about inventing a police unit is that nobody can tell you you’ve got the procedure all wrong.

  But of course there are plenty of other opportunities for that. And to help me avoid the pitfalls, I’m grateful to digital forensics guru Angus Marshall and to fire and explosives expert Naimh nic Daeid. I’m grateful to Simon Veit-Wilson for the novel use of a shipping container.

  There is a whole squad of people out there who worked hard to put this book in your hands, among them Jane Gregory and her team; David Shelley, Lucy Malagoni, Thalia Proctor and everyone else at Little, Brown who supports me with such enthusiasm; Anne O’Brien, to whom I am eternally grateful that she gave up a promising career as a Jedi knight to be my copy-editor; and to my long suffering family who make everything possible.