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

by Fiona Cummins

  43

  2.17 p.m.

  He waits by the fence and watches the children play, but the boy does not come. He was not here yesterday either. He had walked through the school gates, hidden amongst the harassed mothers with toddlers, the childminders pushing their wide buggies, the awkward grandparents, but the boy with the burnished hair, the eager freckles, was nowhere to be seen.

  The Bone Collector wonders if he is ill.

  If the missing father will make the mother more careful, or less.

  He burns to know.

  He returns to his grey van, and drives hard through rain-slicked streets. Not far, just a couple more roads. He wonders if the boy will come willingly, or if he will have to be coerced. The prospect excites him.

  Already he knows the boy will not disappoint; he has watched him, followed him. Witnessed for himself the twists and distortions beneath his skin. But the father, he is perplexing, and not at all as he expected.

  He pats his jacket pocket, makes sure his tools are in place. The colony will not consume living matter, so a blade will have to do the job.

  And then the glass case, empty for so many years, will be filled.

  The lights are on, and he spies movement through the windows.

  Droplets batter the windscreen, capturing pinpricks of reflected headlights. ‘It’s raining stair rods,’ Marshall used to say. He wonders what Marshall would say now, if only he could see him.

  He crawls along the street, looks for a place to park up. The van bounces as it mounts the kerb, the angle just right.

  He will kill the mother if he has to.

  And then he hears it, and his heart freezes.

  The rise and fall of a siren.

  He forgets to breathe.

  They have found him.

  The strobing lights cast an eerie blue flicker over the watching houses and flats, and slowly, slowly, he lets his breath go.

  But it is not the police.

  It is an ambulance.

  44

  2.51 p.m.

  It was an unhappy coincidence that the opposing forces converging on the Frith family home like points on a compass would not cross paths.

  Erdman had woken late, still bruised and sore. He had helped himself to Amber’s cornflakes, showered (a painful experience), and dressed in the baggy black clothes she had borrowed from her boyfriend (even more painful). He had switched on the television. Flicked through one of her books. He was planning to go home, but he’d wait until Jakey was back from school. By staying away, he’d conceded the moral high ground. But his son’s presence would dilute his wife’s anger. Which was why he was only just walking across Camberwell Green when the ambulance arrived at his house.

  The Bone Collector, who had intended to abduct Jakey Frith that afternoon, did not like dealing with the unexpected. As the ambulance pulled in, he pulled away, circling the nearby streets like a bird of prey.

  DS Fitzroy had wondered if she was being fobbed off. Mr Frith’s wife had sounded distracted. She would pop by, she decided. The house was not far. Which was how she came to be there less than a minute after the paramedics had parked and the Bone Collector had left.

  As for Lilith, she had run all the way up the hill from the bus stop, the blood in her veins pumping faster and faster until she thought her heart might burst from her chest.

  She arrived exactly sixty seconds before the ambulance, and did not register a grey van on the opposite side of the street.

  The front door was open, Jakey just visible in the hallway. Mrs Cooper’s arm was around his shoulders. He had fallen forward onto his knees. Eyes screwed up, he tugged on his sleeve.

  ‘It hurts,’ he moaned.

  His breath came in short, laboured gasps.

  Lilith half-stumbled half-ran towards him, her own arms outstretched, like a sleepwalker, or a drowning sailor.

  Jakey tried to stand, to reach for her in return, but as soon as he was on his feet, he wobbled, and moaned again. A moment or two later, he crumpled as if his legs had turned to butter.

  Fitzroy, who had sprinted up the path, was just in time to catch him as he fell. She set him gently on the grass. His eyes were closed and his dark lashes curled against his cheeks.

  The paramedics ran towards him.

  ‘It’s OK, sweetheart,’ said Lilith, cradling her son. ‘It’s OK.’ Tears streaked a fresh path down her face.

  Fitzroy felt something shift inside her, and she looked away. She remembered another lifetime, before she’d met David, before things had become complicated and confused and broken. She remembered another little boy, his tiny fingernails touching hers, the blueish tinge to his lips. Eyes that never opened.

  The paramedics were bent over Jakey, who was pale and still.

  ‘He’s got a bone disorder,’ said Lilith. She was talking very quickly. To Fitzroy, it sounded like she was spewing up glass with every word. ‘He’s having a flare-up. A really, really bad one. Try to avoid intramuscular injections, they accelerate the condition. And don’t be too rough with him. We don’t want any unexpected breaks or traumas.

  ‘There’s a general rule of thumb. Unless you need to save his life, don’t touch him.’

  ‘He’s USC,’ Fitzroy heard one of the paramedics say. ‘Let’s get him to the hospital now.’

  Lilith climbed awkwardly into the ambulance, and Fitzroy watched as the doors slammed shut, and it pulled away. She’d been in the game long enough to know what USC meant. Up Shit Creek.

  At the hospital for the second time in less than a week, Lilith sat by Jakey’s bed and waited. They had given him a heavy dose of anti-inflammatories to ease the swelling, the pain. His eyes were closed and he coughed, then moved uncomfortably against the sheets.

  The doctor spoke to her in a low voice. He was concerned about his breathing, his temperature. He wanted to do a chest X-ray. To rule out a chest infection. Or pneumonia.

  ‘We’ll monitor him overnight,’ said Dr Garvey. ‘Let’s just see what happens. Everyone is different, but when new bone is forming, the pain can be excruciating. Let’s hope it’s just that.’

  As soon as the doctor was gone, Jakey rolled onto his side, his back to her. His shoulders began to shudder. In alarm, Lilith reached out to touch him, and realized he was crying. She gathered him into her arms. Several moments later, she deciphered what he was trying to tell her.

  ‘I-I-I’m frightened, Mummy.’ Jakey’s face was blotchy and a thick stream of snot trailed from his nose and over his top lip. He began to cough again.

  Lilith held him until the spasms racking his body subsided. Then she took his hot hand in hers and brought it to her lips.

  ‘You’re in the best place, sweetheart. The doctors are going to treat you and you’re going to be fine. Do you understand me? You’re going to be fine.’ Her voice was fierce and she was aware that she was trying to convince herself as much as her son.

  ‘I don’t want to die, Mummy.’

  ‘Oh, Jakey. You’re not going to die. What on earth makes you say that?’

  But Jakey wouldn’t answer.

  Her own eyes filled with tears but she blinked them away and pasted on a smile. She would not allow him to see her unravel.

  The little boy turned back towards the wall. His pyjama top gaped at the collar, revealing the bony lump on his shoulder, an unwelcome intruder lurking beneath his skin, stretching it into an unnatural shape, just like their lives.

  A woman visiting a patient walked by, carrying her young daughter. The toddler twisted around her mother’s shoulder, eyes drawn to Jakey’s distorted body.

  Lilith turned her head away. She didn’t blame the child but it was a painful reminder of all the stares they’d endured over the years, even though she should be used to them by now.

  On his first day at school, a small girl had run up to Jakey, her smile as bright as her curls.

  ‘Can’t catch me,’ she teased, already sprinting away from him in anticipation.

  Jakey had returned he
r grin and started after her, his limp becoming more prominent as he ran.

  Aware of the pitying glances, Lilith had resisted the urge to chase after him, willing him to be careful, to not exert himself. She’d always promised herself she wouldn’t wrap him in cotton wool, but that had proved more difficult than she’d ever imagined. Although school had given Jakey a new-found freedom, it had bound Lilith in chains of fear and worry. When he was a toddler, it was easier to track his movements, to watch over him. Now, every day, she prepared herself for a call from the school to say Jakey had been taken ill, or knocked over. It wasn’t that Jakey didn’t have friends. But those friendships would never be the rough-and-tumble kind, the let’s-go-out-on-our-bikes-after-school kind.

  And now he was in hospital again.

  She was filled with a fierce longing to protect her boy, who had come into the world fighting and continued to fight every day. It isn’t fair, she thought savagely. First his illness, and now all this shit with Erdman. It isn’t fair.

  Where was he? Over the last twenty-four hours the guilt that was taunting her had solidified into self-righteousness. She was right. He was never there when she needed him. But it wasn’t about her this time. It was their son who was suffering now.

  She stayed with Jakey, holding his hand and singing to him, until his breathing deepened and the burden of fear and worry slid from his face to hers. It took him almost an hour to fall asleep.

  45

  3.43 p.m.

  Erdman limped up the hill as quickly as his injuries would allow. Which was not very. That suited him just fine. The closer he got to home, the more he found his feet dragging, reluctant to face the music that two nights’ unexplained absence was about to unleash.

  A woman was sitting outside his house in her car, staring up at the windows. As he stepped into view, she opened the door. Given the events of the last few days – especially the stranger at the edges of his life – Erdman approached with determined caution.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  She absorbed his bruised face, his ill-fitting clothes, hair slowly turning the colour of burned gingerbread in the rain.

  ‘I think it’s a case of me helping you, Mr Frith.’

  Erdman narrowed his eyes. ‘Is that so?’

  The woman stuck out her hand. ‘DS Etta Fitzroy.’ Her grip was firm, no-nonsense.

  ‘Is this about the other night?’

  ‘Yes and no. I do need to talk to you about that, about a grey van that a witness saw, but . . .’ She paused, the words catching in her throat. Even experienced officers struggled with unhappy news.

  ‘Do you want to come in?’ he said. ‘I, um, haven’t been home for a while. I should probably go and see my family.’ He had already started towards the door when he felt the pressure of her hand on his shoulder.

  ‘They’re not there.’

  ‘Oh.’ He swung around to face her, his face screwing up at the jolt of pain in his back. ‘I don’t suppose you know where they are?’

  The detective caught his eye, held him there. ‘Your son’s not well, Mr Frith. An ambulance came. He’s at the hospital.’

  Erdman blinked twice, the bricks of the houses blurring into monotone sky. Dusk had begun to swallow up the daylight. Something tight and heavy lodged itself in his chest.

  Fitzroy saw guilt streak across his face, felt a sudden rush of sympathy.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘I’ll give you a lift. We can talk on the way.’

  As it turned out, there wasn’t much to talk about. Erdman stared out of the car window, barely speaking at all.

  No, he hadn’t seen a grey van.

  No, he had no idea of the identity of his attackers.

  No, he had never taken drugs.

  Headlamps from passing cars lit his eyes, twin beacons of fear and self-reproach.

  It astounded her, these differences in humanity. Miles Foyle, all buttoned-up denial, protecting himself before his daughter. Erdman Frith, a man suffering because of his self-imposed absence, and her own father.

  Chief Inspector Boyd Fitzroy.

  Living in Greece. She wasn’t exactly sure where. Somewhere on the coast, near Athens. A man whose anger had grown as his own career faltered. Who had glossed over his own failings by abandoning his family.

  The television had been on, one of those fresh, bright evenings that hinted at spring. The teatime news. She remembered it because he was never at home at teatime.

  Riots in a northern city, police with shields, with batons.

  ‘Hit the bastards,’ he had shouted at the telly. ‘Smack ’em.’

  Etta’s mother had looked up from her sewing. ‘Surely that’s police brutality.’

  ‘Those louts deserve it. The police force is the foremost authority in this country. It holds us all together, stops us from descending into anarchy. That must always be respected. We are The Law.’

  He’d said it like he truly believed it.

  ‘But, like Mum says, the police shouldn’t go around hurting people,’ said fifteen-year-old Etta. ‘That’s the very opposite of what they’re supposed to do.’

  ‘Don’t listen to your mother, Etta,’ he’d said. ‘She doesn’t understand much apart from cooking and cleaning. Make sure you do something decent with your life.’

  Her mother had quietly set down the skirt she was making and left the room.

  The unmarked car pulled into the hospital car park. Fitzroy crawled around for a space. Erdman’s face darkened in the shadow of this building. Again, she felt that twist of sympathy. He must have spent many months here with Jakey.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ she said. ‘I’d like to check on your son.’

  He acknowledged this small act of decency with a nod of his head.

  The receptionist said words like Paediatric and Intensive Care. Fitzroy watched him absorb this news, watched him swallow several times as if it wasn’t just nerves controlling his actions but the taste of an unpalatable truth.

  The moment, when it came, was not one of high drama or hysteria, but of an ordinary family reconnecting. Through the small window in the unit’s door, Lilith Frith was talking to a nurse. Her eyes passed over the glass, then back again. She stood completely still for a moment. Then she was running through the doors, slamming into her husband, and he was putting his arms around her, stroking her hair, her face, touching any part of her body that he could.

  Fitzroy tried not to stare, tried not to think how she would react if David had disappeared for two days without telling her where he was. She waited for the recriminations to spill from Mrs Frith’s mouth, the accusations, the sense of betrayal and outrage.

  But she only repeated two words. Over and over and over.

  ‘Thank God,’ she said. ‘Thank God.’

  46

  5.10 p.m.

  The first time he smelled the damp, raw-meat odour of the inside of a dead body he bit down until his eye tooth cut through his lip. The pain distracted him from the urge to faint.

  His father thought it would be instructional for him to watch the preparation of an exhibit. To watch the slitting open of the corpse, the Y-shaped incision, the removal of the organ groups: cardiothoracic, gastrointestinal and urogenital. He was ten.

  ‘With a little skill, you can remove them all in one go, but I prefer to do it like this,’ grinned Marshall, holding the lungs aloft in one hand, the heart in his other, forearms slick with blood and matter.

  The boy had watched the parenchymal fluid leak from the two sacs which had once inflated and deflated with air, with life. Watched Marshall pack them into containers surrounded by slushy ice, ready to take to their contact at the research laboratory in Hertfordshire.

  ‘Don’t just stand there, son. Gotta get the innards out next.’ Marshall picked up the scalpel. ‘Innard out, innard out, shake it all about.’ He had laughed, a harsh sound which jarred the quiet of their cellar.

  Gingerly, the boy moved towards the eviscerated corpse, drew in a shallow breath so he didn
’t have to inhale the stink of the woman. His eyes met hers, only for a moment, but there was no rebuke, no recognition, just a flat, empty stare. His stomach clenched, but he would not let his father see. Marshall had a way of knowing things. Secret things.

  ‘Get on with it.’

  Retching, shoulders heaving, he had reached down into the pulpy mess of her abdominal cavity.

  ‘HANDS,’ roared Marshall. ‘Wash your hands first, idiot boy.’

  He’d smacked the boy across the face and the force of his blow sent him flying against the hard surface of the sink. He staggered to his feet, back towards the body on the table, and caught, beneath the blood and organs, the coconut scent of her hair.

  ‘Get the colony instead,’ his father said. ‘Time to strip the lying bitch.’

  In the stillness of the cutting room, the Bone Collector hears his father’s voice, travelling towards him down the years.

  Once, during dinner, when his father was in an expansive mood and he was feeling daring, he’d asked him if he’d ever had any doubts, if he’d ever worried that what they were doing was wrong. Marshall had levered a sinew of meat from his tooth with a cocktail stick.

  ‘It doesn’t matter how we feel, son. We have a duty.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘But nothing. Family loyalty comes first. Always. It was the same for my father.’

  Marshall rarely spoke about his family so he held his breath, waiting for him to expand.

  ‘It’s like this. I never think about the rights or wrongs. Your grandfather was the same. He was proud to be entrusted with the collection and believed that to truly accept responsibility, he had to prove his commitment and worth by continuing our family’s’ – he casually put down his toothpick – ‘work.’

  Marshall had taken one look at his son’s face.

  ‘Are you loyal, son?’

  ‘Yes, Dad.’

  ‘So you’ll always do as I ask?’

  ‘Yes, Dad.’

  The Bone Collector locks the door on that memory and begins the slow tread up two flights of stairs.