The Nightmare Place

by Mosby, Steve

  I leaned back, considering her. From her manner alone, I could tell she wasn’t lying to me. That she had received these two calls, and that the man on the other end of the line had really managed to convince her he was responsible for the attacks. Of course that didn’t mean it actually was him. Still, I felt some sympathy for her. It must have been unpleasant enough regardless.

  ‘What was it that convinced you?’

  ‘The second call.’ She said this immediately, more definite now. ‘After the first one, I told myself it hadn’t been real. It was shocking while it was happening – while he was talking – and it was shocking afterwards too. But then I spoke to Richard and started to doubt myself. It began to feel a bit unreal. So I told myself that it couldn’t have been him, however genuine it felt at the time …’

  She trailed off and shrugged helplessly. She actually looked apologetic, as though she’d been sitting on a crucial piece of evidence all this time.

  I prompted her.

  ‘But then the second call …?’

  ‘It gave me the exact same feeling. And this time, I was sure he was telling me the truth. There was an atmosphere on the line.’

  An atmosphere, I thought. God help us.

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He was relieved to get through to me. I think he must have tried a few times before he did. And then it was just like the first call. He wanted to talk about the crimes. About what he’d done. Reliving it, I suppose.’

  ‘Like one of those sex calls?’

  ‘No, no. Because he wasn’t enjoying it. You can usually tell. But he was crying. It was like he was unburdening himself of it. As though he was upset about what he’d done, and talking to me was a way of making himself feel better.’

  ‘Like a confession to a priest or something?’

  ‘Yes.’ Jane nodded emphatically. ‘Yes, exactly that. Because the calls are anonymous, you see. We guarantee confidentiality. So he knew he could talk to me without getting into trouble.’

  ‘And yet.’ I picked up a pen and twiddled it. ‘Here you are.’

  Her pale skin gained a flush of colour at that, and she looked down at her lap, embarrassed. I decided not to press it. Presumably she and her colleagues took their vow of silence seriously. Putting myself in her position, I realised that it must have been a tough decision to come here today and report this – a breach of confidence that she might very well get in trouble for. Well, she didn’t need to worry about that, at least. I could pretty much guarantee the confidentiality of this conversation.

  Follow it through anyway.

  ‘I’m guessing you don’t have this individual’s phone number to hand?’

  ‘No. We don’t see the numbers.’

  ‘Someone does?’

  ‘I don’t know for sure. But you’re the police. You can trace it, can’t you? You could force them to reveal it. If you had to, I mean.’

  ‘I imagine that would take a court order. But I don’t think it’s going to come to that, Jane. And I really don’t want to get you in trouble for no reason. Like I said, we receive a lot of calls like that too …’

  I trailed off, because she seemed to be sinking into herself as I was talking: slumping down further in her chair. She thought she was doing the right thing, coming in here, at real personal expense, and I was just dismissing her.

  ‘All right.’ I sighed. ‘What about the content of the calls? Let’s see if there’s anything there. What did he talk about?’

  ‘He talked about what he did. Described it.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  Jane took a deep breath and began. The more she spoke, the more certain I felt. The information she was giving – that had been given to her – was nothing exceptional or revealing. There were no details that hadn’t been in the papers or on television, no special inside knowledge that couldn’t have been picked up from the news and that would indicate he knew more than he should.

  He was a crank.

  Of course he was. Serious offenders don’t suddenly get an attack of conscience and confess everything to strangers – and certainly not this offender. The violence accompanying the attacks had escalated steadily, and he had become much better at what he was doing. Even if he’d panicked after Sally Vickers, that wouldn’t have lasted. He wouldn’t be feeling the slightest hint of regret for his actions, or crying down the phone. He hated these women.

  ‘He said he killed the last one,’ Jane finished. The memory of the conversation was clearly distressing her. ‘He said he raped her and beat her, just like the others, but this time he decided not to stop. He was crying when he was telling me.’

  ‘Sick bastard,’ I said. ‘Look, I know it’s upsetting. I’ve had people confess the most awful things to me, and it’s never pleasant to hear, and sometimes you’re shaken afterwards.’ That wasn’t true; most of the time I was just pissed off at them. But I wanted to make her feel a bit better about herself. ‘In this case, I want you to know, I highly doubt that this is the individual responsible for these crimes.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really.’ I leaned forward. ‘And listen. You did the right thing coming in and reporting it. I can imagine it was a tough decision, but you’re not going to get in trouble for it. You’ve done everything you can. But there’s nothing in what you’ve told me that he couldn’t have got off the news. There’s nothing that hasn’t been reported. I’ll keep a note of it, but we’re so stretched at the moment.’

  Jane nodded slowly. She still looked miserable, but I thought I detected a hint of relief there now as well. She seemed lighter somehow. Unburdened. As though what the man had said was a physical weight he’d passed to her, something heavy that had become increasingly uncomfortable to carry. By coming to see me, she’d effectively passed it on. Here: you deal with it. And I had.

  ‘Is that it, then?’ she said. ‘Are we finished?’

  ‘We are.’

  She stood up.

  ‘It’s rubbish, isn’t it?’

  ‘What is?’

  ‘That somebody would do that. Phone up pretending.’

  I pictured Sally Vickers’ body, seeing it vividly in my head. The man who had done that was a monster, but there was something similarly despicable about the kind of man who would phone up pretending he had. The same pool of misogyny, just more towards the shallow end.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘If it was up to me, he’d be hung up by the balls too.’

  That made her smile: a small, secret little thing that was quite nice to see, but one that she put away quickly. I have no patience with mice, but I felt for her anyway. How dangerous she seemed to find it, interacting with another human being. Imagine going through your life like that.

  ‘That’s exactly how Rachel feels,’ she said. ‘Rachel’s a friend of mine who volunteers there too. She doesn’t have a lot of time for the sex callers.’

  ‘She sounds spot on to me.’

  ‘Why would someone do something like that?’ Jane moved over to the door of the interview room. Standing up, she looked even smaller than when she’d been seated. ‘It’s the way he talked about it. I keep seeing it in my head.’

  ‘Try not to.’

  ‘I can’t, though.’ She turned the door handle. ‘I keep imagining it. Him stuffing her down the side of the bed like that. Like a piece of rubbish. That was how he put it.’

  The image came back to me again. A detail that hadn’t been made public.

  ‘Wait,’ I said.

  Seventeen

  Why did it feel like she’d made a terrible mistake?

  As she sat in the passenger seat beside DI Zoe Dolan, Jane tried her best not to think about it. Instead, she watched out of the window as they left the main roads behind and headed into the smaller streets of Woodhouse. The policewoman seemed to know her way; Jane had asked if she needed directions, and Zoe had just shaken her head as though it was a stupid question. Actually, that was exactly the problem. She’d felt stupid walking into the police station in the fi
rst place, and then this woman had made her feel worse. Even now, finally being taken seriously, she felt like a child who didn’t understand and kept saying and doing the wrong things.

  A mistake.

  She’d just been trying to do the right thing. And maybe, as it turned out, she actually had. But Jane couldn’t escape the feeling that she’d messed up badly, and that all of this was going to blow up in her face in some unexpected way.

  It was a poor area round here: mostly student houses and families crammed into red-brick back-to-backs. A few of the smaller university faculties were scattered amongst them, nestled inside houses with cramped staircases and tiny offices that had once been bedrooms.

  Mayday wasn’t officially part of the university, although it was vaguely connected on some kind of funding level. It occupied a building halfway down a steep hill. There were only two parking spaces in front. One was empty right now, and Zoe swung the car into it.

  ‘You’re not meant to park here,’ Jane said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘They’re reserved for the volunteers.’

  Zoe gave her that stupid look again, this time shot through with disbelief. Jane felt herself blushing, embarrassed. With everything that was going on, she was concerned with a bit of pointless bureaucracy.

  Zoe was still staring at her.

  ‘You’re a volunteer, right?’

  Jane nodded.

  ‘Well then.’

  When they got out, the policewoman set off ahead. Jane hesitated slightly, looking at the building. Taking it in. The large front door, and the bay windows that bulged out on both storeys. The fact that, from the courtyard, it always looked unoccupied. After barely a month of shifts, it already felt so familiar to her, and even if she was doing the right thing, it wasn’t just stupid she felt, but guilty as well. The Mayday team weren’t exactly family, but she was a part of whatever they were. Or rather, she had been.

  Zoe was walking up to the front door.

  ‘It’s round the back,’ Jane called.

  ‘Is it?’ It sounded like even that irritated her. ‘Well, come on then.’

  There was an open gate between the building and the hedge that separated it from its neighbour, and a path led round behind. Zoe was already heading down it.

  Come on then.

  Taking one last look at the front of the building, Jane raced to catch up, feeling sick over what was about to happen inside.

  ‘Jane, what is going on?’

  She didn’t know whether it made the situation better or worse that Rachel had been on duty when the pair of them arrived. Better in some ways: Jane couldn’t deny it was nice to see a friendly face. At the same time, the girl’s presence brought home the inherent betrayal of what she had done, and not only to Mayday itself. The friendship the two of them had built up, while important to Jane, still felt tentative and uneven, and this might just end it altogether. It was also embarrassing to think how weak and powerless she must appear to Rachel right now. She couldn’t even look her friend in the eye.

  What is going on?

  That was what Jane wanted to know too. She stared at the door to Richard’s office. Zoe had been in there for nearly ten minutes, and had closed the door behind her after entering. However hard she strained to hear, Jane couldn’t make out anything of the conversation that was going on inside. She wondered what on earth the two of them were making of each other.

  ‘Jane? Please talk to me. You’re scaring me.’

  Finally, she turned to face Rachel.

  ‘I think I’ve done something stupid. So stupid. Maybe, anyway.’ She put her hand over her face. ‘Oh God, I don’t even know.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ She felt Rachel’s hand on her shoulder. ‘Come on. Calm down. Who was that woman you came in with?’

  ‘A policewoman.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A policewoman.’ Jane took her hand away from her face. ‘Oh God. I just feel sick, Rachel. Honestly. I don’t know what I’ve done.’

  ‘Whoa, whoa. Back up a little. Why are you here with a policewoman?’

  Jane hadn’t been exaggerating: she really did feel sick. Her stomach was tight, and she had to keep swallowing.

  Don’t cry.

  ‘I had a call. Well, I had a couple of them. Have you been following the news? About those poor women being attacked?’

  ‘Of course. But—’

  ‘They were from the man who did it.’

  ‘Okay. You’re going to have to explain a bit more than that.’

  So Jane told her, as best she could. After the first call, when she’d finished in Richard’s office, Rachel had asked her what had bothered her so much, and she’d fudged the answer: just said it was horrible and she didn’t want to talk about it. Now she told her the truth, and then about the second call.

  ‘And I just thought I had to do something. I couldn’t live with myself if he did it again. Not if there was a way I could have helped stop him somehow. Even if …’

  She trailed off, not wanting to say it. Rachel looked over at the door to Richard’s office, understanding.

  ‘Oh shit, Jane.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You did the right thing.’

  ‘I’m not sure. I just don’t—’

  ‘No. Look at me.’ Jane did as she was told. Rachel was looking at her with complete sincerity. ‘You did. I have no idea how Richard is going to react, but that’s really the least important thing right now.’ She gestured around the room. ‘All of this – all that confidentiality business – forget about it. The fucker killed the last woman he attacked. If you’ve told the police something that might help catch him, then that matters more than anything else.’

  ‘He told me a detail about what he’d done to the last woman that hadn’t been made public. The policewoman in there wasn’t taking me seriously before I mentioned that. But after that, she really, really was.’

  She didn’t mention that she’d almost been relieved at being dismissed at first, because that meant she’d done what she could, and none of it was going to come back and make her life difficult. A nice line drawn: the end. Obviously, that had all gone to pot now.

  ‘So what are the police going to do?’ Rachel said.

  ‘I don’t know. Trace the calls, I guess.’

  But she remembered what Richard had told her when she first reported her concerns: that Mayday would fight against it. Would it really come to that? DI Zoe Dolan didn’t seem like the kind of person who was going to take that very well. Jane could imagine her behind the closed door right now, increasingly irritated by Richard’s passive-aggressive I’m-really-sorry-but stalling. She suspected that Zoe was nothing like as scared of confrontation as she herself was.

  She got the answer a moment later, as the door to Richard’s office opened – a little too violently – and Zoe emerged, throwing it closed behind her with equal force. She barely broke stride, and it was obvious from the storm on the woman’s face that the meeting had not gone well.

  Zoe came across to the pair of them, then stood at a slight angle, looking off to one side, narrowing her eyes at the wall as though she wanted to murder someone. Maybe she did. She was barely taller than Jane herself, but there was real energy to her beneath the suit. She looked toned and strong, as though she could move very quickly if she wanted to. Right now, with the anger pulsing off her, Jane felt slightly threatened just being in close proximity.

  ‘That didn’t go well,’ Zoe said finally.

  ‘No.’ Jane didn’t know what to say. ‘This is Rachel, by the way.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s great.’

  Zoe took a deep breath, then gathered herself together.

  ‘Right.’ She checked her watch. ‘I’m going to ask you to come with me for a bit, Jane. When we get back to the department, I’ll have to make a large number of phone calls, and they’ll be a lot easier to make once I’ve got your statement down in writing. I’ll need a lot of detail. Okay?’

  It wasn’t real
ly a question.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Good. Let’s get going.’ Zoe already had the car keys in her hand.

  ‘Did you leave him alive in there?’ Rachel said.

  ‘For now.’ Zoe took the other girl in properly for the first time, then gave her a brief smile. ‘Hang them up by the balls, right? Nice to meet you, Rachel.’

  Eighteen

  Looking back on the night that changed my life, I realise that the plan for the robbery was almost painfully simple. To be fair to us, though, we were only fifteen years old.

  Rather than planning it weeks in advance, we more or less decided it on the night in question. The target was an Indian restaurant called the Paladin, which was about half a mile away from the Thornton estate. The front of it faced out on to a main road, but there was a car park behind, and the entrance to that was on a quieter residential street. The back of the restaurant consisted of nothing but a steel door and illuminated storeroom windows, half blocked off by metal bins and stacked crates, but it was well known that the Paladin kept alcohol in the storerooms, and that the back door was frequently left ajar. A number of kids at school had boasted of sneaking in and lifting some, which should probably have given us pause: indicated that the staff might be watching out. Instead, it simply affirmed that it was an easy enough thing to do. In fact, I wasn’t even thinking of it as a crime as such, more just something that was there to do.

  Four of us set out from the park that night. It was winter, and the air was sharp and sparkling with the cold. The tarmac glittered. Above us, the sky was black and clear, the stars just a shivery prickle dotted across, as though they barely had enough temperature in them to shine.

  Sylvie led the way, of course. She always did. The MacKenzie family was notorious on the estate. Sylvie was lean and angry, quick to fight, and already following in the footsteps of her father and cousins. You messed with her, you messed with them, and nobody wanted that. Sylvie was a gateway kid. There are always people when you’re young who offer access to boys, drugs, parties, all the mysterious stuff going on below the skin of the world that seems so important at that age. That was Sylvie. Natalie kept up with her, staying close enough to make the link between them clear. Sylvie’s little beta. Nat was all right when you got her on her own, but the slightest hint of a pecking order and there she was, right up in second place. She was the kind of kid who stands behind the bully, smirking. Of course, none of us thought of Sylvie as a bully, not when she wasn’t bullying us.