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

by Fiona Cummins

  A hand rubbed slow circles across her back, held her hair away from her face.

  ‘That’s all right, sweetheart. You let it out.’

  Erdman helped her to the table, went to fetch another glass of water.

  Outside, bloated grey clouds rolled across the sky. She longed to drift away with them, far from this unyielding, unending bleakness.

  She tipped the tablets onto the table, felt their smooth promise of oblivion, then counted them back into the bottle.

  A noise behind her. Erdman again.

  ‘What are you doing?’ he said, setting the glass down on the table. She let him wipe the vomit from her chin, heard the fear in his voice.

  ‘Just counting them,’ she said. ‘To see how many I’ve got left.’

  She could tell from his expression that he didn’t believe her.

  ‘Don’t give up, Lilith,’ he said brokenly. ‘Please.’

  She tried to answer him, but the words wouldn’t come. He looked so much like their son. She closed her eyes, felt the tears leak from beneath her lashes. The truths which had anchored her life had been reduced to flotsam. Now she was part of that wreckage, adrift on storm-tossed seas, and like wreckage, she would simply float away.

  Jakey is dead.

  In the garden of the house opposite, coloured fairy lights blinked on and off. Signs of festive cheer were all around. Carols on the radio, cheap tinsel in the shops. In a rare flurry of organization, she had bought some presents for Jakey’s stocking a few weeks ago. Smug, that’s how she’d felt. Now that red sock would remain unfilled, limp and empty like her life.

  A blank darkness filled every sinew and cell.

  Erdman pulled her unresisting body into his arms, rocked his wife back and forth. After a minute, he buried his own face into her shoulder.

  He’s dead.

  My son is dead.

  And Erdman thinks so too.

  They sat there for an hour.

  And another.

  They sat there until Lilith’s left foot, tucked beneath her bottom, filled up with loose sand and she had to stretch to shake it out.

  Eventually, stiff and cold, they let each other go. Erdman took off his jumper, eased it over his wife’s head. Slipped the bottle of pills into his pocket.

  She let him.

  There was tomorrow.

  Always tomorrow.

  64

  1.30 p.m.

  Less than half a mile away, Eleanor Foyle was trying to talk to her mother.

  ‘Fleur’s going to have a party where you make your own CD,’ she said. ‘You can choose the song you want to sing, and they record it.’

  Amy’s eyes did not open, nor did she move, or so much as acknowledge her eldest daughter’s presence. Eleanor thought about stroking the stray strands of hair from her mother’s face, but decided against it. Instead she perched carefully on the edge of her parents’ bed.

  ‘I might wear my pink dress with the sparkles. And my silver shoes. Or my red ones.’ Her mother still hadn’t opened her eyes. Eleanor leaned over her. She smelled a bit funny. Not of her usual perfume, but something else. Like she hadn’t showered in a while. ‘What do you think, Mummy?’

  When her mother didn’t speak, Eleanor gently pushed her shoulder. ‘Mummy? Red shoes or silver ones?’

  A muscle in Amy Foyle’s cheek twitched, but she did not answer, not immediately. Instead, she turned, very deliberately, from her daughter.

  ‘Mummy?’

  Her back was a wall.

  ‘Mummy?’ A pause. ‘Mum?’ Eleanor touched her again on the shoulder.

  Slowly, Amy pulled herself into a sitting position. Her voice was controlled, but her body was rigid with a tension that Eleanor was too young to read.

  ‘To be perfectly honest, I don’t care which shoes you wear.’

  Eleanor’s head drooped, but not before her mother had glimpsed the naked disbelief flash across her daughter’s features. Amy placed her hands over her mouth to dam the dismissal, mumbling through her fingers. ‘Sorry, sweetheart. Sorry. Mummy didn’t mean it.’

  But Eleanor had already fled.

  The girl flew down the stairs. She wanted Gina. Gina who still noticed her, who dried her tears and told funny stories about Clara, who didn’t tell her off for laughing, even though nobody in this house laughed any more. She looked in the kitchen, the sitting room, her mother’s library. The cloakroom was empty, too.

  Gina, where are you?

  From across the hall, Eleanor heard the low murmur of Gina’s voice in the study. She spun around, wrenched open the door handle, tears still wet on her cheeks.

  Gina.

  There you are.

  I’ve been looking for you everywhere.

  Oh, Daddy’s crying.

  Gina’s got her arms around Daddy.

  Gina and Daddy.

  65

  8.52 p.m.

  The lad behind the counter at the late-night tea hut on Shooters Hill Road was no older than twenty but he was giving Fitzroy The Look. If she wasn’t so knackered, she’d be flattered. When she got back into the car, Chambers pointed out the tomato ketchup on her chin, and she blushed at the memory of the lingering stare she’d given the lad in return. No fool like an old fool. She’d be getting her evening caffeine hit from the Esso garage in future.

  It was days since she’d been home for anything but a shower and a few hours’ sleep. She wondered if David had noticed. If Nina was coping with the baby.

  She didn’t call to find out.

  What a mess. Clara had been missing for nine days. They were no closer to finding her. And there were still no sightings of Jakey.

  Some of the team had begun the time-consuming task of investigating rabbit breeders while Fitzroy was trying to trace anyone selling beetle colonies, posting messages on Internet forums and contacting pet stores with a particular interest in insects, but it took hours, not minutes, to generate those kind of leads, to track them down and talk to them. To rule them out. And Fitzroy knew that time was slipping away from them like so many grains of sand.

  What she needed was a fucking break.

  Miles Foyle was in the clear. He had phoned her a few hours ago, tearful and apologetic. Eleanor had caught him in a compromising situation with Gina. Fucked-up, yes. But she wasn’t surprised, his confession only confirming what she’d already known.

  But with Mr Foyle out of the picture, who was in the frame?

  To make matters worse, that dirty bastard Chambers kept farting. If he did it again, she might throw up. She took out her small bottle of perfume and sprayed it in the car.

  ‘That smells like cat piss,’ he spluttered.

  ‘Better than dog shite. Or the puke that’s going to land in your lap if you do that again.’

  Chambers rolled his eyes, but Fitzroy didn’t notice. She was listening to the voices crackling over the radio.

  At the sound of her name, her ears pricked up. She shushed Chambers, who was wittering on about the differences between eau de parfum and eau de toilette. She was being recalled to the Major Incident Room. As a matter of urgency.

  By the time she found her voice – ‘Take me back. Now!’ – Chambers was already pulling away.

  The Boss was waiting for her downstairs, explaining as they ran back up the steps together.

  ‘It arrived a couple of hours ago, addressed to you, but we had no idea of its significance. Not until we got a phone call. Bloody unregistered pay-as-you go. We’re trying to triangulate the signal, but he’s too damn clever not to turn off his phone. We won’t give up, though. I’m not expecting bloody miracles but if he slips up and we get a rough location, it’ll be a start. Then we can trawl through CCTV. Might get us a look at his face.’

  Fitzroy hurried into the Major Incident Room. Officers were clustered around her desk. They stopped talking when she walked in.

  Lying on her desk was an envelope, her name across the back. His handwriting, its extravagant loops and whorls, was unmistakable.

/>   A heady combination of fear, shock and excitement began to drum its way through her veins.

  The Boss handed her a plastic glove and she slipped it on, used a paper knife to slit the flap. A single unlined piece of paper drifted onto her desk. And a lock of soft, red hair.

  Jakey’s hair.

  ‘We cannot divide the bones, like the soft parts, into vital and non-vital.’

  Fitzroy stared at the letters until they jumped and blurred. Another warning, another fucking warning. But this time the threat was implicit, and she knew at once he was referring to Jakey. To what he planned to do with his body. His bones.

  Her mouth filled with fear.

  ‘Fuck,’ she said. ‘What does it mean? What is he trying to tell us?’

  Chambers was writing something in his notebook. ‘He’s trying to play God. Same as the note with the kidney. It’s got to be some Bible quote. Ezekiel again?’

  Fitzroy frowned. ‘Doesn’t sound like the Bible to me.’

  Chambers raised his eyebrows. ‘Since when were you an expert? I bet the only time you’ve been in a church was when you got married.’

  ‘We had a civil ceremony, actually,’ she said.

  ‘Shut up for a minute, you two,’ said The Boss, leaning over the computer. He pointed to the letter. ‘Get that sent down to forensics, while I check online. I’ve found a site with a complete list of Bible references.’ He tapped at the keyboard, frowned. ‘That quote’s not coming up.’

  ‘That’s weird,’ said Fitzroy. ‘Let me see.’

  She hovered at his shoulder. The Boss was right. Wherever this quotation had been taken from, it wasn’t the Bible.

  ‘But the note with his little present in Fitzroy’s car – you know, the one about the kidneys – that was from the Bible, you say.’

  Fitzroy bit her lip. ‘I assume so.’

  ‘What do you mean, you assume so? Didn’t you bloody check?’

  She caught Chambers’ eye. He gave a slight shake of his head. A bad mistake. She imagined her father’s reaction. Silly girl.

  ‘No, sir, we didn’t.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake.’ He slapped his hand on the desk. ‘What am I running here? A bloody crèche?’

  ‘Sorry, sir.’

  He raised his eyes heavenwards. ‘For the love of God, what are you waiting for? Do it now.’

  ‘I don’t want to sound like a twat here,’ said Chambers, rubbing his nose. ‘But why don’t we just try Googling it?’

  The Boss snorted. ‘Why the hell didn’t I think of that? You’re a fucking genius, Chambers. An Einstein. A fully-paid-up member of Mensa.’

  Fitzroy ignored their bickering and bent over the computer. It took less than a couple of seconds.

  ‘The quotes are taken from’ – she read from the screen – ‘The Works of John Hunter, with Notes, edited by Sir James Frederick Palmer.’

  ‘Who and who?’ said Chambers.

  ‘Get me a full biography of both men,’ said The Boss. ‘Let’s see if it will help us nail this fucker.’

  While Chambers delved into the history books, Fitzroy checked the message boards again. Bingo. One reply. She rang the mobile phone number included in the post. A man answered after seven rings.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Is this James Davenport?’

  ‘Who wants ter know?’

  ‘I’m DS Etta Fitzroy, calling from Operation Flute, a major missing persons investigation.’

  ‘Right.’ His tone was wary.

  ‘Can I come and see you?’

  ‘I ain’t done nothing wrong.’

  ‘I’d like to talk to you about the beetles you breed, that’s all.’ She heard the click of his lighter, the blowing out of smoke. ‘It won’t take long, twenty minutes tops.’

  ‘Spose so,’ he said, and named a pub in Woolwich.

  He was sitting at a table, an empty pint glass in front of him. Fitzroy ignored the heads of the punters that swivelled from the bank of fruit machines against the far wall when she walked in.

  ‘Pig,’ she heard someone mutter. Even though she wasn’t in uniform, she gleamed with the patina of the police: her smart overcoat, her polished heels, the corrugations in her forehead that set her two decades apart from the young lads pissing and gambling away their dole.

  ‘Ignore ’em. Ain’t got nothing better to do,’ he said. Tattoos covered the length of his arms, his hair was grey and greasy, his belly nosing greedily out of the hem of his T-shirt. ‘Pint?’

  ‘No thanks,’ said Fitzroy. ‘I prefer bottled beer.’

  He looked her up and down. ‘I mean, mine’s a pint. Black Sheep, if yer buying. Expenses, ain’t it?’

  She paid for their drinks and brought them over. His face was slightly pink and, as he leaned back into his chair, she saw that he’d relaxed into the idea of this meeting, enjoying the sense of self-importance, the interested glances from the other pub-goers.

  ‘Who gave yer me number?’

  ‘I posted on a message board. Said I wanted to buy a beetle colony. Someone passed on your mobile.’

  He gave a self-satisfied smirk. ‘My customers trust me. They know I ain’t gonna rip ’em off.’

  ‘So, you have lot of customers?’

  ‘I do all right. Only geezer in the south of England selling colonies, ain’t I?’

  ‘Regulars?’

  ‘Sometimes. But most of ’em know what they’re doing, don’t need to buy new beetles once they’ve got a colony established. Newbies, though. They forget you gotta feed ’em to keep ’em alive.’ He laughed.

  ‘Sold anything lately?’

  His face closed down. ‘Why’d yer wanna know?’

  Fitzroy wondered how much to tell him. She decided the truth would net her more than a vague fob-off.

  ‘Two young children have been abducted. We have reason to believe that our perpetrator is using beetles to clean the rabbit skeletons he leaves behind as his calling card.’

  He stuck out his lower lip. ‘Can’t stand them nonces that take kids.’

  ‘Nor can I,’ said Fitzroy. ‘So help me find him.’

  Davenport ducked his head at his empty glass. ‘Same again, ta.’

  Fitzroy forced herself to count to ten. This time, she returned with two pints for him.

  ‘Cheers,’ he said, holding a dimpled tankard in each hand and clinking them together. He slugged down half a pint and the fluctuations in the muscles of his throat reminded her of the movements of a snake.

  ‘Come on, then. Let’s have it.’

  He licked the frothy moustache around his top lip. ‘Truth is, business has been a bit slow, ain’t it? Always the way, this time of year.’ He looked at her slyly from beneath surprisingly long eyelashes. ‘Bit strapped for cash, ain’t I?’

  God, he was so bloody predictable, but this was a familiar dance and she knew all the steps.

  ‘I might have a little something to put your way. If you help me,’ she said carefully. ‘And Clara Foyle’s father is offering a hundred-thousand-pound reward.’

  ‘One hundred thousand smackers. Fuck me.’ A smile hijacked his face, and he took a long swallow, finishing his pint.

  ‘Fuck me, indeed,’ she said.

  ‘Well, if you’re asking . . .’ he snorted. Fitzroy couldn’t be arsed to challenge him. She’d asked for that.

  She scraped back her stool. Her stare was granite.

  ‘Look, Mr Davenport, if you can’t help me, I’ve got better things to be doing. Like trying to save the lives of two children.’

  He held up his hands. ‘Calm down. I’m jus’ messin’ wiv yer. Look, I’ve only sold one colony in the last coupla weeks. To some guy. Dunno his name.’

  ‘What did he look like?’

  ‘Old, ain’t he? And tall. Six foot one, maybe. Silver hair, skinny.’

  ‘Did he pay by cheque?’

  ‘Strictly cash, innit?’ Davenport looked awkward. ‘You ain’t gonna tell the Revenue?’

  ‘I’m not interested in that,’ she
said, trying and failing to quell the impatient tone that was creeping in. ‘I want to know more about this guy. Did he say what he wanted the colony for?’

  When Davenport rubbed his hand over the stubble of his chin, it made a rasping sound. ‘I don’t ask me customers for their life histories, but he might have mentioned something. Can’t remember now.’

  He downed the dregs of his third pint, and picked up her untouched bottle of Corona, raising his eyebrows. She nodded. ‘If yer come back to my place, I might have written it down in me book.’

  Ordinarily, Fitzroy would not have gone alone. But the team was stretched to breaking point, and she couldn’t afford to wait.

  Davenport put the empty bottle on the table and belched. ‘C’mon then.’

  Eight minutes later they arrived at his flat. Alone, it would have taken Fitzroy less than four, but Davenport kept stopping to lean on the park railings to catch his breath. Fitzroy wondered how he managed to stay upright against the gravitational pull of his beer belly.

  He lived on the ninth floor of a high-rise tower block, not far from the leisure centre. For once, Fitzroy prayed the lift was working. Usually, she couldn’t abide the stench of piss and disappointment, but even that was better than walking up nine flights of stairs with Davenport. She couldn’t be sure he’d make it to the top without having a cardiac arrest.

  ‘Here we are,’ he said, his key in the lock. ‘After you.’

  Fitzroy stepped in, and her heart stopped.

  A bird, with a bridal train of white feathers, was sweeping towards her, its claws outstretched. She gasped, instinctively ducked her head and covered her face so it couldn’t scratch at her eyes, but even half-crouched, she felt the touch of tail feathers in her hair, and the sensation made her skin crawl.

  She wasn’t ornithophobic, but there was something about birds that spooked her. Their glassy eyes. The cruel shape of a beak. She thought she heard its wings flap somewhere behind her, and pressed herself against the wall, braced for the moment it would fly back, its claws catching in the mess of her curls.

  When that didn’t happen, she dropped her hands from her face. A fox was in the hallway, its teeth bared in a snarl. Its black eyes watched her as she stumbled backwards, trying to find the door.