Rattle: A serial killer thriller that will hook you from the start

by Fiona Cummins

  Sometimes she cried, but mostly she talked to herself, muttered imaginings with her ‘pillow’ doll.

  They went on long journeys. To the beach near her old home. To the swimming pool with Gina on a Saturday morning.

  A footfall outside caught her ear, and her stomach fell through her bottom. He did not touch her in places he shouldn’t or look at her in the way she sometimes saw men glance at Gina. He had not hurt her. But she knew what was coming, and that made it worse.

  Clara drew the urine-stained sheet up to her chin, and listened as the lock clicked and the door swung in.

  The Night Man was pushing a grey machine on wheels with a box attached to it and a long metal arm that stuck out. She watched as he plugged it into the wall and it made a whirring sound. His mouth twisted.

  ‘Time for your X-ray, my dear,’ he said.

  19

  10.57 a.m.

  On Tuesday morning, when Erdman blew in late on a gust of rain and a hangover, Daniel Jarvis was waiting for him. It was four days since he had cut his hand.

  He should have been at the office an hour ago. But Jakey was playing up, clinging to Erdman’s legs as he laced up his trainers, begging him not to go in today, not to go anywhere.

  ‘Can’t you work from home, Daddy? Please. Pleeeease.’

  When Erdman had explained that no, unfortunately he could not, the little boy had become hysterical. Coughed and coughed until he was sick. He’d spent ages trying to calm him down, promising to get home as early as he could, but Jakey refused to listen. Eventually, Lilith had forcibly peeled him off. He’d tried to ignore the sound of his son’s screams as he jogged down the garden path, grateful for his wife’s no-nonsense attitude. Both of them knew how Jakey could get after taking his medication.

  And then his train had been delayed.

  ‘Erdman?’

  His boss was perched on the edge of Erdman’s desk, staring pointedly at his watch. A freelancer Erdman didn’t recognize was working quietly in the corner.

  ‘Daniel.’

  He didn’t mean to sound quite so brusque, but he’d hardly slept. He’d been up until late, trying to finish off last week’s features, and he still had to write some bollocks on the healing properties of the amethyst, as well as squeezing in a break to buy Jakey’s guilt gift.

  ‘A word,’ Jarvis said, unsmiling. As Erdman followed him into the editor’s office, he caught a glimpse of Amber’s agonized face. He rolled his eyes at her, but for once, she didn’t grin back.

  ‘Sit down, Erdman.’

  It was bad, then. No stupid nickname, no pretence that everything was all jolly-jolly. But the question was how bad?

  Jarvis began a well-rehearsed spiel about magazines facing tough times, what with straitened budgets and dipping circulation. ‘You get the picture, mate.’

  Erdman stared hard at a patch of grease on Jarvis’s jacket and wondered where this was going. It didn’t take long to find out.

  ‘So the point is, I’m afraid we’re going to have to let you go,’ said Jarvis. ‘You’re just too expensive for us these days.’

  A bubble of nausea worked its way up Erdman’s throat and he swallowed it back down. Jarvis was talking shit. They both knew it. It was a clash of personalities, simple as that. To his shame, he found himself struggling to speak.

  ‘We’ll sort you out some redundancy. And you’ll obviously get your notice period. A month, I believe. Thanks very much for your loyal service. Ten years, isn’t it?’

  ‘Twelve.’

  Erdman stood up. Jarvis clapped him on the back. ‘Chin up, Erdman. You’ll easily walk into another job with all your experience. Oh, I almost forgot . . .’

  To his credit, Jarvis flushed as he handed over the plastic bag filled with old notebooks, chewed biros and paper clips. Erdman spied an empty Crunchie wrapper in there too.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said awkwardly. ‘It’s company policy. We prefer employees to leave on the day now, you know how it is.’

  Erdman wasn’t a violent man, but as Jarvis dialled down to Pete, the ageing security guard, he experienced a profound longing to smack his smarmy bastard boss – ex-boss – one right in the mouth.

  20

  11.07 a.m.

  DS Fitzroy returned home to shower and change as soon as she was sure David had left for his job as a commodity broker in the City. Sleep was an extravagance she could ill afford. Every hour that passed pulled Clara Foyle further into darkness. But even she needed to wash now and then.

  A plate of congealed fish pie sat on the kitchen counter. Her husband loved to cook, often making her elaborate meals. Fitzroy acknowledged the rebuke and served her penance by microwaving it and eating it for breakfast.

  Hair damp, she sat on the edge of the perfectly smooth bed and tapped out a text to remind David about their appointment at the clinic on Thursday. Halfway through, she stopped and deleted it, suddenly worried he might phone in response. She pulled a pad from her bedside drawer and scribbled a note instead. She did not have the energy for that particular conversation.

  When she had finished, she placed it on David’s pillow. Her message was brisk, businesslike. Once upon a time, she had drawn doodles and kisses while he had slipped his own scraps of paper, full of love, into books for her to find. On their first date, he had surprised her by taking her to a basement salsa club in the east of the city, moving with a rhythm that had excited and exhilarated her, which made it all the more painful that they were so out of step.

  At first, his age – he was twelve years older than her – hadn’t seemed to matter. His stability, his financial acumen, his focus on career over family, had steadied – and aroused – her.

  But now her desire for a child was stretching the distance between them, dragging them both into uncharted territory. If she – or he – moved a single step backwards, something would surely snap.

  Detective Constable Alun Chambers was picking her up in five minutes, in time for a briefing with The Boss. She already knew what he was going to say. That they were frighteningly, dangerously short on viable leads. That they needed to eliminate Miles Foyle without arresting him, if possible. That he needed lateral thinkers on his team. That finding Clara was the priority.

  But there was nothing.

  So far, Mrs Foyle was coming up clean, and Mr Atwal, the shopkeeper, was about as useful as a chocolate teapot, changing his statement every five minutes about who had been in the shop on the afternoon that Clara had vanished. There had been one confirmed sighting of the little girl – dozens of others from Land’s End to Mallorca – and a vague description of her abductor. Someone had reported a silver or grey van travelling at speed a few minutes after she was last seen, but they didn’t get its registration plate, not a single letter or number. And the CCTV cameras close to the school had been filming – but in the opposite direction.

  Fitzroy knew exactly the type of individual who stole girls like Clara, and prayed she wasn’t suffering.

  She wondered what her father would do if he was running this investigation, and called up his face, unsmiling, hard. Even in repose, the lines around his mouth fanned downwards.

  Years later she could still hear him, strident and unwilling, the first – and last – time she had approached him for help with a case, a stabbing on an estate which protected its own.

  ‘Don’t think about what I would be doing, silly girl. Find the patterns yourself.’

  She should have known better. No special favours. A patronizing dismissal. Even though she had scored the highest exam marks of her intake at Hendon and, at twenty-one, was no longer a girl.

  It was nothing new.

  If only she had been more like Nina, who had laughed off a childhood lashed by his critical words and charmed him into paying for drama school.

  When Nina had played Rosalind in As You Like It, he’d led the standing ovation and clapped until his palms were sore. But not once had he told Etta he was proud that she’d followed him into the force.

 
Too late now. Her father had moved to Greece with his new wife two years ago, and she hadn’t seen him since.

  Fitzroy wandered into the living room. The sofa was the same grey as the sky outside. Every magazine, every book, every thing was in its place. She tried to imagine a heap of toys in the corner, spilling across the expensive rug that David had brought back from his last business trip to Italy. She tried to imagine the cry of a baby with David’s muddy eyes, his dark curls, pulling at her from its cot. She tried to imagine a future for her and David without a child, but the pages were blank, unwritten.

  Outside, Chambers sounded his horn and she slipped from the flat like a ghost.

  21

  11.15 a.m.

  Shit, bollocks, fuck. Shit, bollocks, fuck. Erdman’s feet pounded out the rhythm of his misery.

  He was officially Unemployed. Out of Work. Up Shit Creek Without a Paddle. Any of the above would do.

  Humiliated Erdman Frith was sacked yesterday. The loser, 39, couldn’t even hold down a job at a magazine for nutjobs.

  Behind him, a young boy laughed. He sounded so much like Jakey that Erdman spun around, but the pavement was empty, apart from a couple of people with their heads down, immersed in their mobile phones. Should be called anti-social media, he thought.

  He pounded the heel of both hands against the heavy wooden door, but even though the glass juddered, it wouldn’t budge. The Bank didn’t open until 11.30 a.m., and it was fifteen minutes shy of that.

  There was always the offie. Nah, maybe not. He wasn’t desperate enough to risk being seen with a six-pack in the park. That was the province of tramps and winos. And he wasn’t there. Yet.

  Not that he could go home either. It was Tea Bread Tuesday, and Lilith was hosting some hospital fundraiser at the house. She’d been up since the crack of dawn, making cakes that cost more than she’d raise. Should have just donated a few quid and saved herself the trouble.

  What the hell were they going to do for cash when the redundancy ran out?

  And what the hell was he going to do for the rest of the day?

  He couldn’t face a museum, full of camera-happy tourists and noisy school kids. Wait for the pub to open? Possibly. But he couldn’t afford to drink all day, in more ways than one.

  The splats of rain which had drenched him on his way to work had stopped, and although the skies were grey, he hoped it might stay dry for a couple of hours at least. Of course. He knew what he’d do. He’d go and see Ma.

  One of Erdman’s earliest memories was of seeing his mother cry. Shirley Frith didn’t cry much, which was why he remembered it.

  He’d been three the first time he’d asked where his brother had gone, and pretty soon he learned not to. Not long after that all the photographs had disappeared. As the years faded, so had his memories of Carlton.

  And so Erdman grew up in a house where two should have been four, where grief wore the soft edges of his mother into sharpened points, where he was smothered and shunned in equal measure.

  Back then, whenever Erdman caught a glimpse of his reflection, he always saw an echo of himself, a skewed mirror of his own face. These days he tried not to think about his childhood at all.

  As he got off the bus and walked up the street, his legs felt heavy. He was getting older, there was no denying it. At least his eyesight wasn’t going. Every morning, before he got up, he checked he could still read the Phases of the Moon poster Lilith had stuck on their bedroom wall. A waxing gibbous moon is one which is illuminated by more than half but less than full. It was as much a part of his routine as brushing his teeth.

  God, he hated visiting his mother. Why had he decided to come, today of all days? Must be his masochistic streak. It didn’t make him feel any better and it certainly didn’t help her. Christ, it was all of six months since he was last here.

  He trudged up the path, nodding at the gardener, who was clipping the edges. He imagined what Ma might say, that slow stretching out of her vowels, her eyebrows knitted into an unrelenting expression of discontent.

  ‘It’s been far too long, darling. I’m still your mother, after all.’

  Erdman stepped off the gravel and onto the spongy grass. A bouquet of lilies dangled from one hand. He knelt before his mother’s grave.

  SHIRLEY FRITH

  b. 13 May 1947 d. 25 May 2012

  LOVING MOTHER AND WIFE

  TAKEN TOO SOON

  The weeds had beanstalked since her funeral, their tendrils brushing against the freshly laid headstone, which Erdman was seeing – in situ – for the first time. He tugged angrily at them, careful to avoid his bandaged finger, and allowed his past to engulf him.

  He’d been a lonely child, always in his mother’s way, always dressing the wounds inflicted by her knife-sharp tongue.

  Always playing with his dead brother.

  He’d hated taking friends home. She’d bombard them with questions, never noticing that as she became more personal they would shrink into themselves, faces as pink as the tinned salmon sandwiches she served up for tea. Invariably, the conversation would turn to him.

  ‘Do you spend all day in your bedroom too, pretending to play with imaginary friends?’ she’d asked one young visitor. For the next three years, Erdman’s schoolmates had ribbed him mercilessly.

  As a teenager, it had got so bad that the few friends he did have would wait in the car, unwilling to face her intrusive probing. The sly digs dressed up in fancy clothes.

  Mostly, though, Erdman had stayed in his room by himself, and the conversations with his brother had eventually petered out. He’d learned how to distract himself with books and computer games.

  Not once had he spoken of it, not to his mother, or to Lilith, but buried it deep in the murk of his memory.

  Now it was Jakey who had imaginary friends. A few nights ago, he’d come across Lilith on the landing, an ear pressed to the door, an indulgent smile on her lips.

  She’d beckoned to him, inviting him closer.

  ‘Listen to this,’ she’d whispered.

  Erdman had stood next to her. He’d inhaled the warm, sweet scent of her skin and briefly forgot himself. But at the sound of Jakey’s high, clear voice his stomach had turned over.

  ‘Don’t know.’

  Silence for a few beats.

  ‘I can’t.’

  Another silence.

  ‘’kay. How ’bout ten?’

  His son’s tone had been sulky and reluctant. A thump, and a muffled yelp. Erdman had started towards the handle, but Lilith had laid her hand on his arm to stop him.

  ‘Twenty?’

  A sigh.

  ‘Tell me, then.’

  A pause of a few seconds, and then Jakey had spoken again, a note of incredulity creeping in.

  ‘Two hundred and six?’ Another pause. ‘I do believe you. I do.’

  Erdman heard Jakey moving around, and the sound of his toy cupboard door opening. Lilith had given him another conspiratorial smile, but Erdman couldn’t bring himself to smile back.

  ‘Did you know that having an imaginary friend is a mark of superior intellect?’ she’d whispered. ‘Cute, isn’t it?’

  ‘Don’t. I don’t want you to.’

  Jakey’s voice was sharper. Erdman thought he heard an undercurrent of fear and, ignoring Lilith, he’d opened the door.

  ‘Everything all right, champ?’

  Jakey jumped, a guilty look on his face. ‘Fine,’ he’d mumbled, Mr Bunnikins under his arm.

  Erdman shoved a handful of Lego into its box. ‘Bedtime in a bit, OK?’

  ‘’kay.’

  As he’d turned to go, Jakey called softly after him. ‘Daddy, do you know how many bones there are in a skeleton?’

  Erdman looked around in surprise. ‘A human one?’

  ‘Yes,’ he’d said, his thumb finding its way into his mouth.

  ‘Um, no idea. Do you?’

  ‘Two hundred and six.’

  ‘Wow,’ said Erdman. ‘That’s a lot.’

 
‘You’re strong, Daddy, aren’t you? Really strong.’

  Erdman had laughed and flexed a skinny arm. ‘As an ox.’

  ‘So you could fight anyone?’

  Erdman’s grin faded. ‘Well, I wouldn’t go that far. But no one’s going to be doing any fighting around here, champ, so you don’t need to worry about it.’

  And Jakey had given him a sad little smile.

  Later that night, in between checking his online bank account and an hour or so fighting the Horde in Pandaria, Erdman had called up an article about the human body, just out of curiosity. Jakey was right. Must have been something he’d learned at school.

  The ground was damp, the moisture seeping into his jeans, but he ignored it. He unwrapped the cheese roll that Lilith had made him and took a bite.

  Eeugh. Pickle. Thanks, Lilith.

  His wife was obviously still pissed off with him, but the gesture was so Lilith it sort of made him smile. She was a woman who could hold her own. The only woman he’d dared introduce to his mother.

  ‘Hello, darling, a joy to meet you at last. Erdman tells me you’re a foster child. You poor girl. How could anyone do such a thing? Such a terrible shame.’

  Twelve years on, Erdman still cringed when he recalled it, but Lilith had handled it with customary aplomb.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Frith. It’s a pleasure to meet you too. That happened a long time ago, and I’d prefer to leave the past where it is. My foster parents were wonderful, by the way. But I like your dress. Marks and Spencer, is it?’

  Shirley had frowned then. ‘And we haven’t met before?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Lilith, smiling. ‘I’m sure I’d have remembered you.’

  The women circled each other warily, but, over the years, their defences were weakened by his mother’s vocal bombardment, and gradually, their visits had stopped.

  His mother had too much pride to patch things up. Before long, they were down to birthday and Christmas cards. And then, six months ago, he’d received a call from a nurse at a hospice in Brighton.

  ‘Your mother’s asking for you. She’s being most insistent.’