by Shaun Hutson
You deserve to die for what you’ve done.
You sick bastard. If I see you in the street I’ll spit in your filthy face.
You scum.
If you go near my lad I’ll kill you.
That’s a promise.
The last letter (two words … it hardly constituted a letter, did it?) was written on a single piece of bonded typing paper.
He could see the watermark in the paper, even the make.
Conqueror paper.
Reed looked at the words.
He felt warm tears flowing down his cheeks once again and this time he made no attempt to stem the flood. Instead, through misted eyes he fixed his gaze on the two words which stood out so starkly from the almost blinding whiteness of the paper.
Frank Reed wept as he’d never wept in his life.
CHILD MOLESTER
Eighty-six
‘We can’t do that, Mr Talbot’ said the voice on the other end of the phone.
‘Without the necessary care your mother could die within hours of leaving the hospital.’
‘You said she wasn’t going to make it through last night, but she did’ Talbot snapped. ‘I want her home with me.’
There, it’s said.
‘I can’t authorise that.’
‘She’s my mother’ the DI rasped.
‘She’s my patient at St Ann’s, I won’t take responsibility for her once she leaves the hospital.’
‘No one’s asking you to. If she wants to die at home, then let her. At least give her that much dignity.’
1 can’t authorise it.’
Talbot gripped the phone tightly, trying to control his temper.
If she comes home she dies. End of story.
‘I realise how painful this is for you, Mr Talbot, but if you insist on taking your mother home then she’ll die.’
‘She’ll die anyway’ Talbot said, quietly.
He could think of nothing else to say.
‘Can’t you do it for her sake?’ he asked, finally.
For her sake? Or for yours?
Guilt pricking a little too sharply this time, is it ?
‘Perhaps we should talk about this when you come in later’ the doctor offered.
Talbot didn’t answer. He merely put down the phone.
The DI ran a hand through his hair and sat back in his chair.
You gave up too easily. You should have insisted.
‘Jesus’ he murmured, exhaling deeply, wearily.
What next? Wait for the phone call telling him it was all over.
His thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door, then Rafferty walked in without waiting for an invitation.
Talbot looked up at him, gaze momentarily blank, then he seemed to collect his thoughts.
‘Is the girl OK?’ he asked.
‘I’ve got her downstairs in protective custody’ Rafferty told him. ‘She’s got a TV set, a bed and plenty of food, one of the WPCs is with her. She’s fine.’
Talbot nodded and got to his feet.
‘Did you order searches of the houses and grounds around Parriam’s, Hyde’s and Jeffrey’s places?’
‘Sorted’ said the DS, nodding. ‘Where do you want to start?’
‘Let’s see what Macpherson turned up when he interviewed the parents of those kids.’
As the two men made their way down the corridor, Rafferty looked at his colleague. ‘What if it does turn out to be true, Jim?’ he said.
‘Witchcraft?’ The DI shook his head. ‘It’s bullshit’ he murmured.
Rafferty noticed that some of the conviction had gone from his voice.
‘Frank!’
He heard her call his name, but he didn’t answer.
Even when she banged on the door, Frank Reed didn’t stir. He continued to sit at the kitchen table, the three letters still laid out before him, the whiskey bottle close by.
She called again, then there was silence.
The phone rang. He managed a wan smile.
She was calling him on her mobile.
Standing outside his front door, she was holding her phone and calling his number.
The phone continued to ring.
Catherine Reed listened to the tone impatiently.
He had to be inside.
Where else would he be?
She pressed the End button on the phone and bent down, peering through the letterbox into the hall beyond.
‘Frank’ she called again through the small aperture. Still no answer.
Frank Reed got to his feet and stole into the sitting room, where he slumped onto the sofa and closed his eyes.
A second later he heard the letterbox clang shut, closely followed by the sound of Cath’s receding footsteps.
He was alone again.
God, it felt so good.
As the warm water splashed her body, spurting from the shower head, Shanine Connor turned her face towards the spray. Water ran in rivulets across her skin, her hair.
Her scars.
The WPC sat outside the room while she washed away the accumulated filth of her time on the streets of London.
What would happen to her when all this was over she had no idea.
If it ever was over.
But, for now, she was safe. As safe as she was likely to be, anyway, and warmer than she’d been for a while.
She glanced down at her feet, at the soap suds and grime which were flowing down the plughole.
It was as if some outer skin was being washed away.
Shanine felt the swell of her belly, running both hands across the skin.
As she looked down she saw more scars on the insides of her thighs and knees.
There were some on her buttocks too.
The ones she had not shown to Talbot.
Reminders.
She knew that if they found her now there would be fresh ones to join those which already covered her skin.
Shanine had told Talbot that they would not kill her but, as she stood beneath that cleansing spray, she realised that the child was their only concern.
Her betrayal had left them no choice.
She would have to die.
And they would still take the child.
With her finger, she traced a path from her pubic hair to just above her navel.
That was how they would cut her to reach the child, rip her open if necessary.
What they would do before that she could only imagine.
Even beneath the warm shower spray, she shuddered.
Eighty-seven
Talbot got to his feet, pacing the room slowly, one hand rubbing his stubbled cheek.
‘No physical evidence at all’ he said, incredulously. ‘Are you fucking serious, Mac?’
DI Gordon Macpherson shrugged.
‘Twenty-three houses raided, seventeen kids taken into care, every single one of them examined and interviewed. Seven, no, sorry, nine of them. Nine. Nine of those kids exhibiting signs of physical abuse, enough porn and dodgy videos seized to start a fucking mail order business, and you’re telling me you haven’t got enough physical evidence for one single conviction?’ Talbot raged.
‘What did the parents say? What did you ask them for Christ’s sake “Did you molest your kids?” “No.” “OK, then off you go.” What the fuck were you doing?’
‘Don’t come down here throwing your fucking weight around, Jim,’ snapped Macpherson. ‘What’s wrong, do you reckon you could have done better?’
‘On the amount of evidence we had piled up it had occurred to me.’
‘We had medical reports on those injured kids: there was nothing to suggest that any of the physical damage
was inflicted by the parents,’ Macpherson told him. ‘Call the medical examiner if you don’t believe me. What did you want me to do, change the geezer’s report because it doesn’t fit in with what you want?’
‘So who abused them, if the parents didn’t?’ Talbot challenged. ‘How did they get to that warehouse? How come all t
he kids’ statements were virtually the same?’
‘A week ago you were the one saying it was all because of the videos they’d been watching, that they all had overactive imaginations. Make up your fucking mind.’
‘They’re going to walk,’ said Talbot. ‘Every fucking one of them. They’ll let this die down, then in six months’ or a year’s time, the same thing will happen again. More kids will be hurt, maybe even killed.’
‘There was nothing we could do, Jim,’ Macpherson told him. ‘I wanted someone nailed for this abuse business as much as you did, but we can’t prove anything against the parents. I interviewed most of them myself: some of them were as frightened as the kids.’
‘Frightened of what?’
‘That their kids were going to be taken away from them when they hadn’t even done anything.’
‘You told me yourself that there was a child abuse ring in operation,’ Talbot reminded his colleague.
‘I was wrong.’
‘No you weren’t.’
‘Then where’s the fucking evidence?’ Macpherson shouted.
‘Nine physically injured kids, seventeen statements. Jesus Christ, even Hackney Council believed there was something going on. Something bad enough to take seventeen kids into care’
‘They’re releasing the kids back to their parents tomorrow’ said Macpherson.
Talbot stared at him. ‘I don’t believe this’ he said, quietly.
‘The whole case has collapsed around our fucking ears, Jim’ Macpherson said, irritably. ‘There’s nothing left.’
‘Somewhere out there are the real abusers’ said Talbot. ‘If those parents didn’t commit the acts themselves, they know who did.’
‘And what do you propose we do? Pull them all back in for questioning?’
‘If necessary.’
‘Get real, Jim’ Macpherson said, dismissively. ‘It’s over. Face it.’
‘It’s not over for those kids.’
A heavy silence descended.
DS Rafferty glanced at the other two men in the room.
Talbot was still pacing agitatedly back and forth.
Macpherson reached for a cigarette and lit up, blowing out a long stream of smoke.
‘The girl told us that kids are sometimes bought by these abusers, bought from the parents’ Rafferty offered, finally.
‘What girl?’ Macpherson wanted to know.
Talbot explained briefly about Shanine Connor.
‘That might be the case with these kids’ Rafferty continued. ‘The parents might not have inflicted the damage themselves but they might know who did.’
Macpherson sat forward in his seat.
‘Let me get this straight’ he said. ‘You’ve got some bird in protective custody who reckons she’s a witch?’
Talbot nodded.
‘And you’re taking the piss out of me?’ Macpherson snapped.
‘I was more sceptical than you, Mac’ Talbot told him. ‘She’s very convincing.’
‘She must be. What else did she tell you? Your fortune? What’s going to win the three-thirty at Haydock?’
‘She told us how these abuse groups operate’ said Talbot.
‘The other witches?’ Macpherson chuckled.
‘Fuck you, Mac’ Talbot snapped. ‘I want those parents brought in and questioned again.’
‘No’ Macpherson said, defiantly.
‘Mac, I’m telling you.’
‘You’re telling me nothing, Jim’ the older man exploded. ‘This isn’t even your fucking case. It never was. Why the hell does it mean so much to you, eh? It’s over. We tried, there’s nothing more we can do. End of story. I’m as sorry about it as you are, but we’re fucked. No evidence, no case.’
Talbot glared at his companion.
‘You let them slip through, Mac’ the DI said quietly.
‘Fuck off, Jim. Just go, will you?’
Talbot headed towards the door, Rafferty close behind him.
The DI paused, prepared to say something else, then wrenched open the office door and walked out.
In the corridor beyond, Rafferty had to quicken his pace to keep up with his colleague.
‘Where to now?’ he asked.
‘Hackney Social Services.’
Eighty-eight
Every shred of common sense told Catherine Reed that what she was doing was insane.
And yet, common sense seemed to have deserted her.
She had been through her flat slowly and carefully, through every drawer, cupboard and container.
Searching.
She had removed books from their shelves and checked behind them. She had even checked inside shoe boxes in her wardrobe. The Misfortune Box was nowhere to be found.
Not that she even knew what she was looking for.
Shanine Connor had described it as being about six inches long, rectangular and more than likely made of hardwood.
Like a small coffin, she’d said. The similarity seemed appallingly apt.
It would be placed near the victim’s home.
Cath looked around her, satisfied after her exhaustive search that the box wasn’t hidden within the flat itself.
But where else?
How far away could it be?
In one of the other flats perhaps?
What was she to do, knock on each door, request entry and permission to search the dwellings of the other residents?
And when they asked her reasons?
‘A Death Hex has been placed upon me by some practitioners of Black Magic’
Great.
‘Come in,’ they would say. ‘Make yourself at home while we phone the nearest asylum.’
Cath locked her flat door behind her and stood in the corridor for a moment, then headed down towards the lift.
She rode the car to the ground floor and the doors slid open.
She hesitated a moment, then glanced at the panel of buttons inside the lift.
There were the numbers designating floors. A G for ground, and then another button.
She pressed the last button and the lift descended once again.
When it bumped to a halt in the basement there was a moment’s hesitation before the doors opened. When they did Cath was surprised that the smell which swept into the lift wasn’t that of damp and decay but of wet paint.
She stepped out of the lift, the smell strong in her nostrils. So strong in fact it made her wince.
The doors closed behind her and she looked up at the lighted panel to see that the lift was rising again, back towards the first floor.
The basement was huge and surprisingly well lit.
She couldn’t remember having been down here more than twice since she had moved in.
The residents were allowed to use the cavernous area for storage if necessary, but Cath had forgone that option. Others she noticed, had not.
The basement wasn’t crowded, but there were over a dozen large chests, some marked with the numbers of the flats upstairs, dotted around gathering dust.
There were cupboards on the walls too, also for storage.
In the centre of the room was a boiler, a massive metallic monolith which, she reasoned, at one time had perhaps provided heat for the entire building. It was no longer functional, the pipes leading from it along the ceiling now cold. It stood like some lifeless heart, the thick pipes that had once carried heat from it resembling wasted useless, arteries.
As Cath moved deeper into the basement the smell of paint grew stronger, closing around her.
She realised it was the wall closest to her that had been re-covered in a dark, iron-grey coat of emulsion.
The basement was lit by two large banks of fluorescents and, as Cath moved through it, she could hear them fizzing and buzzing above her like predatory insects. One flickered and she glanced up at it, seeing the long white tube flash quickly on and off, then glow brightly once again.
She crossed to the cupboards closest to her and began pulling them open.
The
first two were empty.
As she opened the third a large, bloated spider scuttled across one of the shelves.
Cath gasped as the hairy creature disappeared into a funnelled web at the back of the wooden storage unit.
She checked several others and found little inside except a few old newspapers and magazines. One or two contained some yellowing paperbacks. There was even a set of copper pans in one, unusable because the handles were missing.
Cath moved towards the boxes, the tea-chests stacked in places like huge wooden housebricks.
She peered inside the first and saw that it was half full of children’s clothes.
The journalist reached inside, fumbling around, trying to find the box she sought.
About six inches long, wooden. Rectangular.
Nothing.
She moved to the next.
And the next.
There were several board games inside. Monopoly. Cluedo. Others she hadn’t seen before, the boxes of most were yellowed and ripped.
At the very bottom was a small wooden box.
About six inches long.
Rectangular.
Cath swallowed hard and reached for it.
She could feel her heart thudding hard against her ribs as she inspected the box.
It was sealed with black masking tape.
She tugged at it with her nails, cursing when one broke but she continued to pull at the tape until she finally freed the lid.
It slid back easily.
There was a number of chess pieces inside.
‘Jesus,’ breathed Cath, dropping the box.
As she raised a hand to push back a strand of hair she noticed that her hand was shaking.
She looked around relieved.
The furnace stared back at her, its rusty door closed.
Cath sucked in a deep breath then took a step towards it.
Talbot had sat in virtual silence since he and Rafferty had left Theobald’s Road Police Station.
The traffic was heavy, their progress slow.
There’d been an accident in Old Street.
Talbot tapped agitatedly on the side window, glancing across irritably as Rafferty lit up another cigarette.
‘At least wind down the fucking window,’ hissed the DI, waving his hand in the air to dissipate the smoke.