Suffer the Children

by Adam Creed

  ‘What about Regis’s house?’

  ‘Keep an eye on it. Call me if anything happens. For God’s sake don’t go in.’

  ‘I’m going to call Smethurst. Tell him where I am.’

  ‘No. You can’t do that.’

  ‘It’s his case, sir.’ Josie stares out of the window, down Gibbets Lane – into the darkness and rain. ‘He’s on our side.’

  ‘He doesn’t believe there will be a fourth – it goes against everything he’s saying about this case. He doesn’t want it. He’ll go storming in and ruin everything. They’re working to a different agenda.’

  ‘Maybe it’s you that’s got the different agenda, sir.’

  ‘Think what you like.’

  ‘At least tell me where you’re going.’

  ‘Will you hold off from telling Smethurst?’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To Jessop’s flat.’

  ‘But he’s gone. That’s what you said.’ Josie looks at her watch, says, ‘I’m calling Smethurst in an hour. Sooner, if anything happens.’

  ‘Thanks,’ says Staffe, taking out his car keys.

  Outside, he ducks his head to the rain and runs full pelt for his car, wondering if the lie he has just told Josie may come to haunt him. He quickly calculates that it could cost him dear.

  The traffic is terrible, the way it always is when the rain comes. Nobody is walking and taxis are everywhere. Staffe switches into pursuit mode. He overtakes and undertakes, constantly switching lanes and mounting the kerb or going the wrong side of bollards. He switches on his hazards and all the way along Holborn he drives through red lights with the heel of his hand pressed full to the horn.

  As he drives like a maniac, Staffe questions whether this could all prove to be a horrible misjudgement – a jump, feet first, into a pool full of mistaken conclusions.

  J, the recipient of the fifty thousand from VABBA.

  J signing off the note that says he was ‘showed how and I had to follow’.

  Turn everything on its head, perhaps. ‘Don’t follow me’, Jessop had written.

  The traffic slows to a dead halt, nose to tail with three lanes cramming into two, so Staffe turns left down a no-entry street, switchbacking north of Oxford Street and through the embassy squares to the sound and vision of blaring horns and abusive fingers. Then he’s on the taxi-cuts up towards Marble Arch and across Hyde Park towards his own place.

  He leans back, relaxes his hold on the wheel, begins to re-rack the evidence that led him to a final hunch that brings him snooping on himself: wanting to be right but praying he is wrong.

  Staffe parks round the corner from his Queens Terrace flat and breathes in, deep. He calls Helena Montefiore. Why would Guy go walkabout when he knows the venger is waiting to catch up with him? Staffe can think of only one type of wild horse that would drag him outside.

  ‘Mrs Montefiore, it’s DI Wagstaffe, Leadengate.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Can I speak to Thomasina?’

  There is no response.

  ‘Please.’

  ‘She’s out.’

  He can hear Helena’s breath catch on the edge of her words. ‘They told you not to speak to the police, did they?’

  ‘Are you involved?’ she says.

  ‘She’ll be all right. I have a feeling. They’re just using her to get to Guy.’ He looks down along his street. His curtains are drawn shut. He knows he left them open and his heart leaps. Then sinks. A bright light glows beyond the curtains. ‘I’m sure she’s fine.’ He walks slowly towards his flat, heavy footed.

  ‘Are you there?’ he says, stopping, listening hard. He is sure he can hear her breathing: slow, even.

  ‘You’re not always right, are you, Inspector?’

  The light within his flat seems unnaturally bright – or is it simply that the storm’s black sky makes it seems so?

  ‘I have to go,’ he says, hanging up and putting his key in the door, urging himself to slow down but his head is pounding, hands shaking. He can’t make sense of what Helena Montefiore has said.

  The lock slides across and he slowly presses open the door, goes into the communal hallway and leans back against the wall, cups his hands around his mouth and nose, taking back his own carbon dioxide.

  Staffe eases the door shut. The hallway is dark but he doesn’t want to use the lights so he feels his way along, treading as lightly as he can. The closer he gets to his own oak door, the thinner the oxygen seems to be. He presses his ear to the oak, can hear something happening inside. He is sure there are low, measured voices. He can feel the rhythm of an earnest exchange. Or can he?

  He uses his Yale key and eases open the door to his flat. A bright band of white light shows under the closed door to the lounge and he questions what his eyes tell him. The light seems ridiculously bright. He holds his breath, the better to hear what is going on inside. At least two people are talking: one man, one woman. Maybe more. Staffe feels his thigh vibrate. ‘Shit,’ he hisses under his breath. His phone is about to burst into ringtone and he fumbles it from his pocket, retreating towards his kitchen. As he goes, the sound from the lounge diminishes and he opens the door to the dark kitchen, goes inside quickly and closes it silently behind him, looking at the screen. Pulford is calling and he holds the handset tight to his ear, cups his hand around the mouthpiece, and whispers quickly, ‘I can’t talk.’ He wonders what the hell he can do now – trapped in his own home.

  ‘The website’s on the move,’ says Pulford. ‘It’s switched to indoors. There’s a body laid out on a table and a figure in a cloak – just like the Karl Colquhoun photograph.’

  Staffe’s mind races. He wants to tell Pulford to get himself down to Gibbets Lane straight away and to alert Smethurst, but he daren’t say anything. Figuring whoever is in the lounge will hear anything he says, he stays quiet, nudges inch by inch, round the kitchen that is fed only by the storm’s dark twilight. He reaches for his knife block but it is empty. He opens the cutlery drawer, peers in. It is empty. ‘No knives,’ he says to himself. Someone has made it a safe house.

  Pulford says, ‘I feel like I should go down there. Jesus! … What shall I do? Where are you?’

  Staffe cups his hand back round the phone and whispers, ‘I can’t talk.’ A sound appears from somewhere in the flat. Low and human. He presses himself to the wall, behind the door.

  ‘I’m going down to meet Josie,’ says Pulford. ‘If you don’t want me to, don’t hang up. If you hang up, I’m going.’

  Staffe closes his phone down and lets his arm drop to his side. All he can hear is the thud of his own pulse, the roar of his own tight breathing. He tries to fathom what to do for the best. He knows he cannot stay here, skulking in his own disarmed kitchen, waiting for the situation to come to him. So he steels himself, stands tall and opens the kitchen door, walks steadily towards the bright seam of light underlining the door to the lounge. It sounds as if the conversation is becoming more heated and he pauses with his palm wrapped on the brass handle.

  He twists the handle and pushes, walks quickly into the room, his arms taut, flexing at the knees ready to swerve or rush his adversary, but he is blinded by a fierce light. The room is floodlit and Staffe has to blink his eyes open-and-shut to adjust. He squints and holds a hand up to shield the direct glare. His heart races to catch up and he suddenly feels weak, slightly absurd. All he can see, when he has adjusted to the glare sufficiently, is history repeating itself.

  Strung up and gagged, Montefiore is lashed to a steel cross, a piece of wood jutting from the floor and his trousers ruched around his ankles – his legs bound up and tied to his chest like trussed fowl. His mouth is stuffed with gauze and his eyes bulge, pleadingly. His cheeks are streaked with dried blood, the shape of blades, like the last time.

  Staffe wants to look away but he makes himself watch as fresh blood trickles from Montefiore’s eyes, down his face. He can’t help think that the man has had enough. He wants to die. They have finally got
him to the point they wanted. A fate worse than death. Staffe turns quickly on his heel, checking behind him, but nobody is there.

  On the floor, by the fireplace, his portable TV broadcasts an unravelling drama. These are the voices he heard earlier. He feels a fool. ‘Who’s here? Who did this!’ He strides to Montefiore, reaches up to untie the gauze and when he gets up close, he smells faeces. He looks down, sees it on his floor; sees also that the jutting wood is inside Montefiore – God knows how far.

  Staffe can’t believe that he could have got in here so easily. This makes him afraid – as though anything might be possible. What else has he overlooked or underestimated? What horrors might simply lie outside of his own abilities? He can’t work out why Montefiore has been left like this, alone. Why do this? He weighs up the options, but he thinks he hears something shift, behind him. He freezes. Before Staffe can turn around, Guy Montefiore convulses. He open and closes his wild, bleeding eyes, and he shakes his head. Staffe’s heart sinks. Montefiore is trying to tell him something.

  But Staffe knows already. He didn’t check the bedroom. He senses a presence behind him coming closer in the same instant that he hears the voice.

  ‘Don’t touch him. Don’t help him,’ says the voice.

  Staffe recognises it immediately.

  He turns, sees Johnson – as if he is seeing him for a first time, the fatigue replaced by a bright-eyed zeal. His sleeves are rolled up, as if he has been getting stuck into a job of work. He has thick forearms, big hands, dappled with freckles. Johnson puts on a pair of black sunglasses and smiles at Staffe, watching the light hurt his eyes.

  ‘Sergeant,’ says Staffe.

  ‘You shouldn’t have come,’ says Johnson.

  ‘You wanted me to, though. Didn’t you?’

  Johnson shrugs. He reaches behind his back. He pulls out a short tubular length of steel from the back of his trousers. It gleams, looks freshly machined. Johnson lets the steel hang loosely, down by his side. He taps the side of his knee with it.

  ‘I said, you wanted me to catch up with you. Why the messages – on my car, in my flat.’

  ‘It wasn’t me, that’s for sure,’ he says. ‘Sounds more like Jessop.’

  ‘You were in it together.’

  Johnson laughs, sneeringly. ‘That couldn’t be further from the truth.’

  ‘You can’t do this, Rick.’ Staffe turns to look at Montefiore, shielding his eyes from the photofloodlights as he takes in the sight of a human reduced to its barest bones.

  ‘Don’t for one minute think he deserves any better. The lives he has ruined. The things he did – to Sally – and how many others have there been? To just kill him isn’t enough.’

  ‘Sally?’ says Staffe. ‘What have you done, Johnson?’

  *******

  ‘OK, I’ll wait for you,’ says Josie to Pulford, closing down her phone. But he could be twenty minutes, maybe more, and – judging by what Pulford has described as going on in number 18 – that might be more time than they have, so she puts on her coat and leaves a two-pound coin for the coffee. As she walks through the storm to Errol Regis’s house, she palpitates, feels weak. She knows she should call Smethurst, but she promised Staffe she would wait an hour and he still has half of that. Even so, she knows she should call.

  As she walks quickly down Gibbets Lane, head down, the rain running inside her clothes, Josie takes out her phone and calls AMIP. Someone she doesn’t know tells her Smethurst is out.

  ‘Unavailable,’ they say.

  ‘I need back-up, number 18 Gibbets Lane, just behind the Limekiln.’

  ‘What’s the call-out?’

  ‘Suspected break and enter.’

  ‘That’s not a CID call.’

  ‘I’ve reason to believe a suspect for the Karl Colquhoun murder is on the premises.’

  ‘That case is closed.’

  ‘Speak to Smethurst! This is urgent.’

  ‘I told you, he’s not here.’

  ‘It could be another attack.’

  ‘Look,’ the AMIP officer sounds uninterested, ‘I’ll send a local unit round. Number 18, you say?’

  ‘Tell them to be quick.’ Josie ends the call and turns the phone to vibrate. She takes a deep breath and walks quickly, almost overshooting the house she last visited with Johnson. At Regis’s gate, she sees that the bucket of tar has gone from next door. The butane flame is extinguished, too. She goes up to his window, curtains now completely drawn, backlit by a strong light and she immediately knows the house is occupied. As she draws back to knock on the door, she sees her hand shaking. She knocks, takes a half-step back and feels for her warrant card. The number 18 is cheap and askew.

  There is no sound of life from within, so she leans forward and peers through the mottled window panel. She knocks again and a slender shape appears through the frosted glass. Whoever it is pauses and adjusts their clothes then comes right up, sliding the lock across. The door opens slowly and a small voice says, ‘Come in.’

  Josie takes a step closer and crooks her head to see who has answered, but nobody seems to be there. ‘Who is that?’ she says, her words cracking at the edges.

  ‘Come on in. You must be soaking.’

  Josie doesn’t recognise the voice but she guesses it is a young girl, possibly in her teens. She relaxes a little and says, ‘Is your father in?’

  ‘Oh yes. He’s in,’ says the girl.

  She takes another step forward, into the dark, placing a foot in the doorway and pushing the door further open. Something stops it from opening all the way.

  ‘Don’t let the rain in,’ says the girl.

  Josie steps right into the house and the door moves sharply, knocking into her shoulder and slamming shut behind her. Josie shouts: ‘What the …!’ And then she sees the girl, smiling. It’s a face she knows. The girl holds up a small canister and Josie hears the ‘sshhhh’ of the spray at the same time as the jet of mist hits her eyes. It stings her nostrils and tastes acrid in her mouth. She begins to choke and falls to her knees. The last thing she feels, as she prays for the back-up unit to arrive, is a rough fabric being pressed to her face.

  *******

  Staffe clenches and unclenches his fists. He could try to get out and to his car. But, as if he knows his superior too well, Johnson smiles, says, ‘You know there’s nowhere to go. Even if you could get out.’ He taps the length of steel against the palm of his hand. It slaps. ‘Pennington doesn’t know what to think about your relationship with him.’ He jabs his head in the direction of the impaled Montefiore. ‘Very odd, wouldn’t you say? And I’m guessing the alibis he asked you for don’t quite come up to scratch.’

  ‘You bastard.’

  ‘I don’t have to be. Not if you do the right thing, Staffe. Just let me get on with things.’

  ‘And Jessop takes the rap.’

  ‘Him? You? As long as this gets done.’

  ‘And what about you, Rick?’

  ‘I’m sorted,’ says Johnson. He clutches his chest, coughs hard and dry. ‘But before you go, I’ve got something you’ll want to see.’

  Staffe takes his phone out of his pocket. ‘One call from me and a squad car will be here before you know it.’

  ‘Try it. And, anyway, what will they find?’ Johnson sneers again, crossing his arms. The steel glistens bright in the white light.

  ‘Why in God’s name are you doing this?’

  ‘Same reason you do what you do. Exactly the same, so don’t kid yourself you’re good and I’m bad. Nothing is black and white – you know that. We have no choice in what we do.’

  ‘But it is black and white. It has to be.’

  ‘Don’t waste your breath, Staffe. And don’t waste my time. I don’t have much.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘And don’t do anything rash. If you do, I’ll give the word.’

  ‘Give the word? Who to?’

  Johnson coughs again, holding his chest. When he is done, his face is more gaunt, his lips more pale
– as if he’s suddenly got the wrong kind of blood running through him. ‘This bastard is going to pay!’ Johnson takes a stride towards Montefiore and hits him across the shins with the steel.

  Staffe is certain he can hear the thin crack of bone. He is frozen, has to watch as Montefiore whimpers. His head hangs.

  ‘Where does this come from, Rick? How can you do this?’

  ‘Somebody has to. Somebody fucking has to when bastards like him shit on people, shit on them and rub it into what’s left of the lives that are left behind. And people like you do nothing. Nothing! There has to be people like us.’

  ‘Us?’

  ‘Empty your pockets, on that table. Everything.’ Johnson reaches down and takes something from under the sofa. When he straightens up, he is holding a machete. He rubs the face of the blade up and down along the one rope which suspends Montefiore. ‘Go on!’

  ‘Where’s Thomasina?’ asks Staffe.

  ‘She’s safe.’

  ‘Is her mother involved?’

  ‘I said empty your pockets. Now!’ He presses the machete blade to the rope again.

  Staffe does as he is told. Wallet, warrant card, keys, change, all going on to the coffee table in the middle of the room.

  ‘And the phone.’

  Reluctantly, he takes hold of the phone. He looks at Johnson, knows that if he were to press green he would get Pulford, but in the time he took to respond, what would Johnson do? And where is Josie?

  It begins to dawn on Staffe that he has missed his chance, so he pulls out the phone and looks towards the door but Johnson immediately takes a step to his right and reaches out with the machete, touching the rope again. Staffe slowly places the mobile on the Cobb table that Karl Colquhoun had restored with such love.

  Johnson takes a step towards him. ‘Stand by the window. Go on!’ As soon as he retreats, Johnson raises the steel high, brings it down on the phone, smashing it to pieces. The battery drops to the floor and the marquetry on the table cracks, like a smashed windscreen.

  Staffe slows himself down: clenches, unclenches his fists. ‘What’s the morphine for, Rick? You said you haven’t got long.’