Suffer the Children

by Adam Creed

  Becky Johnson sits at the dining table, young Charlie on her lap and Sian and Ricky at her feet: battling each other in a handheld, virtual world. Ricky whoops and Sian says nothing – as if there is no pleasure in it at all for her.

  And all the time, their mother stares at the computer screen with tears running down her face. She can see Montefiore trussed up and lashed to the aluminium cross, but wonders where Rick is, wonders when the man she loves will kill the child rapist. She prays with all her might for that salvation. She reaches down, runs her fingers through Sian’s hair and feels her daughter flinch, go stiff.

  When he makes it back to her, she will nurse Rick to death. God willing, they’ll be granted the time to do that together. She hopes that everything he planned comes to fruition.

  ‘Oh, Rick,’ she says, full of fear. Full of pride. ‘Why did it have to be you?’ On the table by the side of the laptop is a pile of documents from the insurance company. She has been re-reading them. Now the time is near, she can’t believe there isn’t some kind of loophole. But it is clear. Even should he be convicted and die in prison, the policy will still bite. It will reach out and comfort them – the family of a murderer. A serial killer, is what he said it would be. How sweet the law can be, sometimes. She remembers the way Rick smiled when he worked it all out – even though it was his life that was ending.

  She begins to sob and Ricky reaches out to her. He does it instinctively, doesn’t stop playing his Call of Duty with his free hand.

  ‘Don’t mind me,’ she says to her children. ‘Just being silly again.’

  ‘Is Daddy coming home?’ says Ricky.

  She can’t bear to answer. She doesn’t want to lie more than she has to, which makes her wonder about the lies Rick might have told her. He swore that he got the diagnosis as soon as he could, that he didn’t wait until the policy took hold. But how could that be true? She holds the baby tight and she looks down at her eldest. Poor Sian. She looks at Sian and she hugs young Charlie so tight that he begins to cry. She wants to hold Sian this tight but she knows she can’t.

  ‘You’re hurting him, Mummy,’ says Sian. ‘Stop it, Mummy. You’re hurting him.’

  Becky Johnson looks back to the screen, where Guy Montefiore hangs like a Scorsese Christ, and she wills her husband to stick it to him. For the children.

  *******

  ‘Will you call her?’ pleads Staffe. ‘Call Sally. Call it off.’ The needle is in Johnson’s arm and Staffe’s thumb is on the barrel.

  Johnson’s eyes well with tears. He nods his head.

  Staffe takes his thumb off the barrel and says, ‘Give me your phone.’ He leaves the needle in Johnson’s arm while he twists his torso, reaches round the robe and into his trouser pocket. He tosses the phone on the floor.

  Staffe removes the needle, stands up. He picks up the phone and scrolls down through the numbers, is amazed that she is there, under Sally. He presses ‘Speaker’, then ‘Call’, and listens as the number beeps through the handset. They look at each other, listening as the phone rings and Sally Watkins answers.

  ‘Who is this?’ she says, sounding like a child who might have been caught off guard in an empty house.

  Staffe hands the phone to Johnson, ‘It’s Rick. Have you started yet?’

  ‘I was just going to.’

  ‘Don’t, Sal. You can’t.’

  ‘But I have to. There’s a copper here, too. That woman.’

  ‘Get out, Sally. Go where I said. Remember?’

  ‘I’ve got everything sorted, Rick. I’ve got time. The police have been but they went to the wrong house, just like you said. I’m almost there.’

  ‘They’re here, Sally. They’ve got me.’

  ‘But what about Becky? What about everybody? You said …’

  ‘Careful what you say, Sal. People are listening.’

  ‘You said …’

  ‘I know. We’ve done what we could.’

  ‘What will I do, Rick? This isn’t what you said. I trusted you.’

  Rick Johnson’s eyes glaze. Tears form quickly and fall heavy. ‘I’m sorry you trusted me. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘What shall I do?’ She sounds lost, alone.

  ‘Do what I said. Exactly what I said. And don’t touch the policewoman.’

  ‘Or Regis,’ says Staffe.

  ‘And leave Regis. Please, Sally.’

  ‘You’re dying, Rick.’ Sally starts to cry.

  ‘You be careful, Sal. Remember what we said.’

  Staffe takes the phone from Johnson and steps away from him. ‘There had to be a better way, Rick.’

  Johnson looks up at Staffe. ‘You don’t know the half of it. You might think you do, but you don’t.’

  ‘Where will she go, Rick?’ Staffe picks up the syringe again, looks at it quizzically, as if it could still administer some good.

  ‘That wasn’t part of the deal. No fucking way, Staffe. You can do what you like but I won’t tell you that. Sally comes to no harm. She’s done no harm.’

  ‘You’ve got to be joking.’

  ‘It was all me. All me and you can’t prove otherwise.’

  ‘She’s assaulted Regis and Josie.’

  ‘That’s assault. She had nothing to do with the others.’

  Staffe looks at the screen, tries to see what is going on down at Gibbets Lane but the camera is on Regis. He can just make out Josie in the corner, and the back of Sally, crouching nearby. ‘What if she does it again?’

  ‘Does what again? And anyway, she’s among friends.’

  ‘What friends, Rick?’

  Johnson’s eyes lid down and Staffe checks his pulse. It is slow. He calls Leadengate and tells them to get an ambulance here, double quick. ‘It’s one of our own. I’ve got a DS dying here. One of ours.’

  Johnson looks up. He tries to smile but it collapses under its own weight. ‘I trust you, Staffe. I do.’ His eyes close and his great chest rises and falls in shallow, stolen breaths.

  Staffe taps the laptop’s cursor pad and the screen comes to life. He watches the Gibbets Lane room. Josie is struggling to sit up on the floor beneath the window, her face is wrought with pain. Errol Regis is still laid out on the table. By his bare legs rest an axe and a saw. At his feet is the bucket of tar.

  There is no sign of Sally Watkins.

  Wednesday

  Staffe watches Josie through the safety-glass panel of her private hospital room. She turns, catches his eye, and appears to reset her mood, smiling weakly and batting her eyes. But as Staffe opens the door, making a magician’s sweep with the flowers he had been holding behind his back, he can see that she has been damaged.

  ‘I’m out tomorrow. I said not to come.’

  ‘You look great,’ says Staffe.

  ‘Liar.’

  ‘When did I ever lie to you?’

  ‘How’s Errol?’

  ‘Just fine.’

  Her smile fades and she looks down at the scrunched-up blankets. ‘He’s never been fine. He didn’t do it, you know. He never laid a finger on Martha Spears. He swore that to me and I believe him.’

  ‘You should concentrate on getting yourself right.’ Staffe worries that after her ordeal she might never be quite the same.

  ‘I promised him I would track down his wife. I said I would help. Have you had any joy?’

  ‘We’ve got our hands full looking for Sally Watkins.’

  ‘Do you have to, Staffe?’

  ‘She did this to you.’

  ‘There’s nothing wrong with me.’

  ‘She drugged you and beat you. She tied you up and threatened to kill you. You’re traumatised, for crying out loud.’

  ‘She’s a child.’

  ‘We’re not in the business of letting people get away, Josie.’ He thinks about what might have happened if he had brought Sally in for being under age and on the game.

  ‘How is Montefiore?’

  ‘He’s not regained consciousness. They don’t think he’ll make it.’

 
; Josie looks as if she wants to say something, but decides against it. Her eyes are heavy. She sits forward and reaches behind her. Staffe rushes to her side and leans across, plumps the pillows. He hair needs doing and she has no kohl around her eyes but she smells fresh and cool. He puts a hand on her shoulder, feels her slide through him and back to the pillows. Her flesh is warm and soft.

  ‘Thanks,’ says Josie. She takes Staffe’s hand, holds it with both hers. ‘Helena came to see me. Montefiore’s wife. She asked me to do anything I could, to help Sally. She said if there was anything I knew about where she had gone, would I keep it to myself?’

  ‘You told me Sally said nothing to you.’

  ‘Is Helena Montefiore involved?’

  Staffe hooks his leg around a chair by the uncoupled intravenous trolley and drags it towards the bed. He sits down without taking his hand away from Josie’s and looks deep into her eyes. ‘Sally has got more friends than she knows.’

  ‘But she said she was alone in the world. All alone.’

  ‘They were looking after her. When I thought they were all tied into it, they were just doing their best to stop her.’

  ‘You mean Debra Bowker and Greta Kashell?’

  ‘Not so much Greta, but Ross Denness, too.’

  ‘You got him wrong, then?’

  ‘One act of kindness does not an angel make.’

  ‘Is that why he was round at Sally’s that time you went?’

  Staffe nods. On a cabinet by the window, he sees a Manila envelope, marked by a fountain-penned ‘S’. Josie catches his eye.

  ‘That’s not you. It’s a different “S”,’ she says.

  ‘Would that be Helena Montefiore’s handwriting?’

  ‘It is a personal letter, sir. And like I said, it’s not for you.’

  ‘You know, it’s a crime to protect a witness.’

  ‘How’s Johnson bearing up?’

  ‘Did you know he was so ill?’

  Josie shakes her head. Her eyes film over and she takes her hands away from Staffe, draws her sleeve across her nose and puts her head right back, stares at the ceiling. ‘Some friends we were.’

  ‘But what kind of a friend was he to us?’ Staffe stands up, wondering quite what sort of friend Johnson is to Jessop. He shakes his head, puts his hand into his pocket, touches the letter that came yesterday. ‘Johnson is saying he killed Lotte Stensson, too. His statement is very convincing.’

  ‘And what about Nico Kashell?’ Josie’s eyes flutter. Her lids are heavy.

  ‘My guess is, he’s going to have to cope with a life on the outside.’

  ‘And Rick takes the rap for the lot.’

  ‘And then dies a natural death. It looks as though he’ll get to take the truth to his grave,’ says Staffe, looking out of the window. Planes make criss-crossed white powder trails above the London roofline. His heart bleeds for Sally, running away. Ever since Montefiore raped her, she has only really been able to function when she was running at her enemy, plotting revenge. What will she do now? He checks his watch, sees he is running late for the flight.

  He puts on a smile and turns to Josie, but she is asleep. Her eyelids are dark grey, her lips pale and downturned like a sad clown. She doesn’t look anything like herself. He looks at the Manila envelope, marked ‘S’, and makes his way quietly round the bed, checking over his shoulder that nobody is looking through the safety-glass panel. He picks up the envelope and looks closely at the ‘S’. He turns it over, to see if there is any telltale sign – a crest or embossment, but all he gets is a waft of scent. He runs his thumb along the gummed flap and as he does, something outside in the corridor crashes to the floor, makes a metallic sound. His heart stops for a beat and Josie’s head lolls to one side. Her eyes don’t open but his mind is made up. Staffe places the envelope back on the bedside table and leaves the room, empty-handed, but somewhat the wiser.

  Making his way down the stairwell at the back of the hospital, Staffe walks through vast slanting columns of light from the eastern sun. Way down in the car park, he picks out his E-Type and the waiting Debra Bowker. She leans against the bonnet and blows out plumes of sun-dusted cigarette smoke. She looks up, shielding her eyes. It seems impossible that she might see him from all that way but she waves an arm, slowly.

  He will drive her to the airport, just as he promised, and he will try to prise from her the likely whereabouts of Sally Watkins. A part of him hopes she will not yield, but the bigger part thinks that he has no business in letting Sally off the hook.

  As he reaches ground level, Staffe pauses to let a cortège of wheelchairs pass. They are led outside by a nurse who has her Embassy Regals at the ready. Amidst the absurdity of the smoking cripples, he thinks of Jessop and takes out the letter that arrived this morning.

  Will,

  I truly hope there is no need for this. For my part, I am long gone and hope to find some kind of peace. But I need your help, friend. Please believe everything Johnson says. Take him at his word – which will be close enough to the truth for most people. The more you believe him, the less harm will be done.

  I’m home clear, but you’re not, Will, and there will come a time when you won’t be able to live with yourself if you don’t do the right things now. Suffer the Children.

  Your friend,

  J.

  Staffe still can’t quite make sense of it and nor will he, he suspects, until he sees Johnson, who is across town in St Thomas’s Hospital. Word is, he will die within hours rather than days, and Staffe knows that unless he goes soon, it is unlikely that he will get to speak to his sergeant ever again. The hospital said they will call if they consider Johnson strong enough, but they said not to hold his breath. That’s exactly what the young doctor said as he handed across Johnson’s confession: to everything, from Lotte Stensson right the way through to Errol Regis. The doctor had smiled, as if he knew the note was a granted wish, a thing of beauty.

  ‘Don’t take it all on your shoulders, Staffe,’ says Debra Bowker, twisting the sole of her kitten shoe on the cigarette dimp and pinching the corners of her mouth with finger and thumb. ‘There’s a whole legal system out there to make sure you don’t fuck up.’

  He laughs and goes round her side.

  ‘It’s the V12,’ she says, looking the Jag up and down.

  ‘You’re into cars?’

  ‘Karl was. He’d have killed for one of these.’

  Staffe puts the key to the door and lets her in. ‘I would have picked you up from the hotel.’

  ‘That young pup dropped me off.’

  ‘Pulford?’

  She slides in and fixes her skirt as she wiggles to some kind of comfort. She pulls at the seat belt, but it doesn’t work.

  Staffe leans across and his cheek brushes against her hair. It tickles him as he jiggles the webbing of the seat belt, unsnagging it. He leans away and their eyes clash as he clicks her in. ‘I’ve seen your testimony, you saying Johnson admitted to you about doing for Colquhoun and Montefiore?’

  ‘Don’t forget Stensson. He did for her, too.’

  ‘And how would you know this? What connects you and Johnson?’ He manoeuvres the car out of the car park, sets them on a course for Heathrow.

  ‘How do any of us know each other? It’s only through VABBA. As innocent as that,’ she says in a light tone but with a serious face. Her thin, pencilled eyebrows crease together.

  ‘VABBA? How can I be sure you’re not directly involved?’

  ‘If that’s a threat, it’s not a very good one. You know damn well where I’m coming from.’ She turns to face him, crosses her legs at the calf. She makes a downturned prayer of her hands and slides them between her thighs. She lifts up her chin. ‘I made a new life for my children after what my ex-husband did. It was what I had to do. They needed a new future, not me going over the past, getting myself sucked in. I have to believe that good is stronger than evil and good doesn’t get to be stronger than evil by killing people. I come from the same place as you, Will.
There’s no place for revenge in my world. My children’s world.’ She stares straight ahead, all the way to infinity, as if she is tuning out of what she is saying, thinking ahead to something else. ‘You don’t have to believe me when I say I’m not involved. I know I’m not. You believe in the law. I believe in the power of good.’

  ‘So why confuse the two,’ says Staffe. ‘Help the law. Tell me where Sally is.’

  ‘Good things can come out of this. All I can do is look after my children.’

  ‘And Sally?’

  ‘Sally is a child.’

  ‘When did you last speak to Helena Montefiore?’

  ‘What makes you think I ever did?’

  ‘Or Ross Denness.’

  ‘You might think Ross is a thug.’ She looks into her lap. ‘And he might be. But he cares. He’s not everything you think.’

  ‘If I don’t catch up with Sally Watkins, she could do this again.’

  ‘She won’t.’

  ‘She was hooked on it, Debra. That’s why you got the call to come over – to try and help talk her out of it. Am I right?’

  ‘No. We tried to show her some love. That’s not a bad thing, and it’s certainly not a crime.’

  ‘Sally has been filled with hate for three years. Since Montefiore, it has governed her. That’s not going to change overnight.’

  ‘You can’t put her in prison, is all I know. You can’t.’

  ‘So it’s all right to take the law into your own hands?’

  ‘She won’t do it again.’

  ‘You know you have to tell me where she is.’

  ‘I don’t have to do anything.’ The words catch in her throat.

  He looks across, sees that her lip is quivering. ‘Did you know that Errol Regis never touched Martha Spears? He did three years because of people lying to the law and he nearly died because of Johnson and Sally. Sally needs help, Debra.’

  ‘I can’t play God like this.’

  ‘It’s just the law. It’s the closest we have to good over bad.’

  ‘You’ve no right …’ Debra Bowker presses her belt release. and says, ‘I’ve had enough.’ The belt is stuck.