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

by Fiona Cummins

  28

  8.07 p.m.

  The father’s bloodied body is lying in the grass, a couple of hundred feet away. He steps down from the van, his polished shoes sinking into boggy ground. As he gets closer, he sees his eyes are closed, swollen. He does not move.

  The Bone Collector skirts around him. He could help him. He could call an ambulance. But he does not. For once, the road is deserted. No cars drive by, no dog walkers or runners across the Heath. He smiles, teeth flashing in the sodium gleam of the street light. With the father incapacitated it will be easier to get to the boy.

  He has been watching this family for a few days now. At work. At school.

  It is almost time.

  He shifts the bag on his shoulder. The contents are not heavy, but he feels the weight of its significance. He carries it everywhere. He dare not let it out of sight. His fingers slide between the bag’s opening, grazing cardboard, lingering on the smoothness of bone. A present for the boy, an exchange, of sorts. It is only fair.

  It amuses him that the father did not notice the grey van crawling after him, prying, uninvited. His fury was a gift, it blinded him.

  The Bone Collector is building a picture of this family. He wants to expose its weaknesses, its vulnerabilities. To find the chink that he can slip through and claim his prize.

  He is sure now it is him. He has seen the truth, written down in black and white.

  He gazes down at the father, the drizzle coming harder now. His face is wet with bloody tears. The man’s eyelids flicker, close, flicker, close. Flicker. Close.

  The wind lifts, chilling his dampening skin. He will be late for work tonight. In the distance, he hears the wail of a siren. He pauses, cocks his head. Its voice is rising, climbing the hill. Closer now, almost to the Crown.

  He turns and runs.

  At first, he makes progress, but his shoes slip beneath him on the grass, and he loses his footing, sprawls into soft earth. The bag flies off his shoulder, lands upside down a short distance away.

  Now the sirens are almost upon him, screaming their way past the church. He scrambles to his feet, snatches up the strap. Takes up his stumbling run.

  He does not notice his bag is empty.

  29

  11.56 p.m.

  ‘Are you sure?’ said The Boss.

  Fitzroy lifted her eyes from the profiles of local child sex offenders that were sullying her screen, glad of a moment’s respite. It was making her feel grubby and depressed.

  Miles Foyle was still in custody. Last time she had checked, he was sleeping. In a few hours she would try again, tell him they were planning to apply for an extension. Perhaps desperation would loosen his tongue.

  ‘Fuck it,’ said The Boss, and chucked his mobile on the desk. A couple of officers looked up in interest. He rubbed his chest in a circular motion, and tipped an antacid from the tube in his pocket.

  ‘Do you want some water with that?’

  He nodded towards the computer screen. ‘You’ve seen a man’s been shot on the Heath?’

  ‘Yeah, but the night shift are handling it. It’s not our problem, right?’

  ‘It is now. The Super wants us to have a shufti.’

  ‘What for?’ Fitzroy was surprised.

  The Boss was writing something down. Fitzroy could read his irritation at the prospect of losing a couple of officers in the way his pen serrated the paper.

  ‘Some teenage girl saw a grey van.’ He looked weary. ‘Look, I know it’s a long shot, but when a little girl vanishes and a man is shot less than half a mile apart, we need to be sure these incidents aren’t connected.’ He sighed. ‘It’s probably nothing. Check it out, will you? DC Chambers can go with you.’

  ‘What about Miles Foyle?’

  ‘I’ll get someone else to interview him.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  As Fitzroy shut down her screen, her phone rang. Nina. She ignored it and tried not to think about why she hadn’t been back to see her new nephew. Although she had braced herself, the baby’s downy hair, his milky, sweet smell had been more difficult to endure than the most brutal of crime scenes.

  She had never had a chance to lock eyes with her son, to feed his searching mouth. Her own baby, unblemished and beautiful and born a week before his due date, had not moved at all.

  ‘And Fitzroy—’

  ‘Sir?’

  ‘Be as quick as you can. I need you back on this.’

  Fitzroy folded her sadness into a small, neat square and stuck it down. Someone, at least, needed her.

  WEDNESDAY

  30

  12.00 a.m.

  Midnight: ‘Come home, Erdman. It’s pouring outside.’

  12.15 a.m.: ‘I’m sorry, OK. I don’t think you’re crap at your job. Or unreliable.’

  12.30 a.m.: ‘That’s right, run away, like you always do.’

  1 a.m.: ‘I’m going to bed. If you stay out all night, don’t bother coming home. Ever.’

  The trouble with Erdman was he just didn’t think about other people. He stormed off when it suited him, and now he was making a ridiculous point. If he’d applied this much effort to his job, he’d be bloody MD by now.

  Lilith shifted in bed, trying to sleep and pretending to herself that she wasn’t listening out for the beep of her mobile and yes, she was sorry for what she had said, but, actually, it was true, Erdman had let his family down.

  She had kept it a secret, never even told Erdman, but she used to pity her foster parents. Although she loved them, the flicker of their ancient television seemed to her the only colour in their grey, suburban lives. Now she was just like them, spending night after night in front of the telly, or, in Erdman’s case, on the laptop, playing endless games, or posting messages to a bunch of strangers.

  She listened to the rain hammering on the roof. Sometimes her own life felt like a weather forecast; dreary and grey with no prospect of sunshine. Beneath the covers, she worried her slim silver wedding band, the only jewellery she wore. Erdman couldn’t afford an engagement ring when he proposed, and had never got round to buying one. She was sick of pretending it didn’t matter. Recently, she’d developed a habit of fiddling with it whenever she was anxious and it slid around with ease. She couldn’t figure out why her fingers were thinner now while everything else just got bigger.

  Where the bloody hell was he? Jakey would be up in four hours and she had no idea how to explain his father’s absence.

  Finally, the anger which had spun her insides finished its cycle and, wrung out, she lapsed into a fitful doze, jerking awake every now and again to check her phone on the bedside table.

  She didn’t want to admit it, not yet, but she was starting to feel the first stirrings of worry. This wasn’t like him, not at all. But she had been so angry about the redundancy, pushed all his buttons, and now he was somewhere in the city, probably drunk. Most certainly vulnerable.

  For the first time in months she found herself wishing for the reassuring mound of her husband in bed next to her. Tomorrow – technically, tonight – she would cook his favourite meal for tea, perhaps splash out on a bottle of wine. She would say sorry. He would find another job, even if it took a few months. And she would try harder. If only he would call and let her know he was OK.

  A whimper caught her ear, so faint she might have dreamt it. She sat up, listened to hear if it would come again. Before she could get out of bed to investigate, Jakey appeared in the doorway of her room. His eyes were open and watching her, and there was a scratch on his cheek that hadn’t been there when he went to bed.

  ‘Jakey? Are you OK, sweetie? Did you have a bad dream?’

  She threw back the covers and held open her arms, inviting him in like she’d done countless times before, ever since he was old enough to run to her bed when nocturnal shadows chased him from his. But Jakey didn’t move. He continued to stare at her, a sheen of sweat coating his skin like oil.

  His lips began to move, muttering words she couldn’t hear, just a jumble of
meaningless sounds.

  She swung her legs over the side of the bed, placed a hand on his shoulder and gently shook it. She could feel the dampness of his pyjama top beneath her fingers. The heat from his swollen arm. His eyes flicked over her, unseeing, his breathing fast and shallow.

  ‘It’s a dream, Jakey. Just a dream.’

  The dark puddles of his eyes swept over her. She opened her mouth to soothe him again, but the bleakness of his expression silenced her.

  Jakey took a step towards her, then made an abrupt half-turn to the left. Eyes unblinking, he jerked himself forward and cracked his forehead into the sharp angle of the door frame. A sickening sound reached her ears. The sound of skin and bone being violated.

  Before she had time to react, he did it again. A trickle of blood slid down the bridge of his nose, but Jakey didn’t flinch.

  ‘Stop it,’ she half-shouted, horrified, and grabbed him by his shoulders as he threw his head back, ready to pitch himself into the door for a third time. He didn’t struggle, but stood passively, like he was waiting for her to let him go so he could begin to hurt himself again.

  Light spilled from the landing onto Jakey’s face. A bloody welt dissected his forehead and a bruise was already forming. A streak of blood decorated the white paintwork. Lilith could hardly bear to think of the damage he might have caused himself, already picturing the swellings, the misshapen nub of bone disfiguring his face.

  She shook him again, more roughly this time. ‘Wake up, Jakey. You’re having a nightmare, that’s all.’

  His eyes regained some of their focus, and a look of confusion crossed his face, as if he was surprised to find himself standing in his parents’ bedroom in the early hours of the morning.

  ‘It’s all right, darling. It’s over now, all gone,’ said Lilith. She lifted him up and carried him over to her bed, brushing his fringe to one side.

  His forehead was a mess, but already his eyes were glazing over, dragged under by the pull of sleep, and she was reluctant to disturb him with antiseptic cream, a cold compress and the harsh glare of the bathroom light.

  He was almost gone now, the rise and fall of his chest slowing as he tumbled further towards oblivion, but as she leaned over to tuck in the duvet, his hand grabbed hers and pulled her to him. His breath on her face smelled sour.

  ‘He’s coming,’ he whispered. ‘Ol’ Bloody Bones is coming.’

  Lilith’s skin prickled. That damn book of Erdman’s. She had no idea why Jakey was still obsessing about it. When she had found it discarded near the laundry bin on the night he had hurt his arm, she had hidden it away. Perhaps this whole episode was a side effect of the medication he was on, overloading his still-forming brain. And he was at that age where his imagination was beginning to take flight, when there was darkness around every corner. She would talk to him in the morning and try to get to the bottom of it.

  Lilith slumped back on the bed, her gaze resting on a chair shrouded with clothes. The shadows in the bedroom seemed to thicken and pulse with life, and for the briefest of moments, it seemed like the clothes were an amorphous, shifting mass. Lilith’s heart ricocheted in her chest before she gave herself a mental shake. She was jittery waiting for Erdman to come home, that was all.

  Jakey opened his eyes for a moment, then shut them again. It was only as she watched him drift deeper into sleep that she realized he hadn’t once asked where his father was.

  When the knock came, as soft as the grey dawn breaking, Lilith was still awake and staring, grainy-eyed, at the ceiling.

  Pulling on her dressing gown with a growing sense of inevitability, she looked down onto the quiet street below.

  The car gave it away. Those fluorescent Battenberg markings, the long nose which poked its way into everybody’s business. An unmarked vehicle was parked behind it. She hurled herself down the stairs before they knocked again and woke Jakey.

  A woman in a belted green coat and black trousers was holding up an ID card. Her face, which, under different circumstances, looked like it would be friendly and open, was sombre, her mouth a pencil line. The damp air frizzed her mop of brown curls. A tall man with fleshy cheeks and a paunch stood next to her.

  ‘Mrs Frith? I’m Detective Sergeant Etta Fitzroy. This is Detective Constable Alun Chambers. May we come in?’

  Lilith clutched her dressing gown around her. ‘What is it?’ Tell me, just tell me.

  ‘Is there somewhere we can sit down?’ said Chambers.

  Later, whenever Lilith replayed the events of that morning, that was the sentence she remembered. It’s what officials always said when they were handing out terrible news.

  DS Fitzroy perched awkwardly on their leather sofa. With her smart jacket, she looked out of place amongst the shabby furnishings. Her eyes, full of pity, locked Lilith’s.

  ‘Is your husband at home?’

  ‘We, um, had a row.’ She searched their faces for reassurance. ‘Is Erdman all right? Please, can you tell me what’s going on?’

  ‘There was a shooting at the junction of Mounts Pond and Hare and Billet Road at about eight fifteen p.m. last night.’ A pause. ‘We think your husband was involved.’

  The mirror on the wall above the fireplace seemed to lurch to one side. Lilith’s vision blurred and she dug her nails into the brown leather. ‘Erdman’s been shot?’

  Chambers gave a brief nod. ‘A witness, a young girl, saw a man fitting your husband’s description being attacked by a gang of youths. We understand a gun was fired, but we’re trying to establish the sequence of events.’

  The detective lowered his voice, as if the drop in volume would somehow soften the blow. ‘We found your husband’s wallet at the scene.’

  Lilith processed his comment, and smiled in sudden, unexpected relief.

  ‘How do you know it’s Erdman? I mean, he probably just dropped his wallet on the way to the pub. He drinks at the Crown, in the village. He’s so careless like that, he’s always losing things. Last week he mislaid his keys, and once he lost his passport for a whole year, and the other day he dropped his chequebook down the back of the fridge.’

  Fitzroy gave her another pitying look. ‘The witness. She was sitting at the bus stop when the fight kicked off. She ran away and called the police, but came back when she heard all the sirens. Your husband’s press card was in his wallet. She’s had a look at the photo ID, and thinks it was him.’

  ‘Oh my God.’ Questions whirled in her head. ‘Is he all right? Is he in hospital? He’s not—’ She couldn’t say the word.

  Fitzroy and Chambers shared an uncomfortable look.

  ‘That’s the problem. We don’t know. We understand he was taken to hospital, but by the time we got there, he’d been treated and left. We’re investigating a separate missing persons case and we need to talk to him about a van seen at the time of his attack. It’s extremely urgent. Do you have any idea where he might be?’

  This couldn’t be happening. She was going to wake up any minute, and find Erdman asleep in bed next to her, and she would make Jakey’s packed lunch and walk him to school, and, later, she and Erdman would share a Wednesday-night curry, and probably have another row.

  ‘He doesn’t have many friends.’

  ‘What about work colleagues, that sort of thing?’

  ‘I don’t think that’s very likely. He’s just lost his job.’

  The detectives exchanged another meaningful look.

  ‘Mrs Frith,’ began Chambers, ‘has your husband ever been involved with drugs?’

  The mirror tipped a second time and then righted itself. ‘Of course not.’ It wasn’t necessary to mention the odd joint, surely. ‘Why are you asking that?’

  ‘We think the teenager who shot him belonged to one of south-east London’s most notorious drug gangs. There’s a possibility your husband was attacked because he owed them money.’

  ‘You’re saying he’s been shot by a drugs gang?’

  ‘That’s one theory.’

  Lilith’s laugh w
as a harsh bark. ‘You’re not serious.’ The officers didn’t answer. ‘Oh my God. You are.’ She could tell what they were thinking. He’s lost his job, he’s got money problems, why else was he with them? The room swam again, and she forced herself to focus. She thought about that time they’d been clubbing, when Amber had offered round lines of coke and produced a see-through sandwich bag containing pastel-coloured pills. ‘Nah,’ he’d said, shaking his head. ‘Not my scene.’ But how much about her husband did she really know?

  Upstairs, a toilet flushed. Jakey. What the hell was she going to tell him? She had never lied to him, not even about his illness, and had promised herself she never would. But this could destroy the fragile confidence they had fought so hard to build. Did withholding the truth make it a lie?

  A thought slammed into her, snatched her breath. Oh God, what if he’s dead? What if they were sitting here, discussing theories about where he might be, and ways to find him, and he was already several hours cold, the life stripped from him. But no, he’d walked out of the hospital himself, the officer said. He was alive. She just didn’t know where.

  From somewhere, Chambers appeared with a pot of tea. He’d poured sugar in a bowl and found an ancient milk jug they never used. He put three spoonfuls in Lilith’s cup, even though she’d stopped taking it when she was twenty.

  She took a sip, noting that, in spite of everything, she still had the capacity to feel embarrassed about her chipped crockery.

  No, no, no. This had to be a mistake. Her husband was boring. Things like this didn’t happen to people like them. Erdman would walk through the door any moment and everything would go back to how it should be. Dull and predictable.

  ‘What happens now?’ she asked.

  Chambers was grim. ‘We wait for your husband to come home, Mrs Frith.’

  The house filled up with people. When Jakey came downstairs, hair sticking out at all angles, his arm red and swollen, Mrs Cooper from next door was in the kitchen buttering toast while Mr Cooper made another pot of tea.