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

by Fiona Cummins

  Panic pressed down on him. He raised the hammer again, and the man turned and smiled. Just like before.

  A flower of pain opened up in Erdman’s chest.

  He dropped the hammer, fell to his knees. Blood blossomed on the concrete floor beneath him, a violent and beautiful vermilion.

  Erdman saw the faces of his mother and father, of Jakey and Lilith. And a face just like his own. Everyone he had loved. Three he had lost.

  The air around him seemed to flicker. No, just the walls of the garage moving. No, just the world ending.

  He wondered if they were waiting for him on the other side, if the ghosts who had haunted the edges of his life would welcome him in death. He wondered if his own death would still their voices at last. Bring him peace.

  But he didn’t want to die. His family needed him. He needed them.

  He tried to call his son’s name, but his eyes were growing heavier now, his body’s responses slowing, running down.

  For so many years, he’d felt useless, a complete disappointment. First to his mother, and then to Lilith, and, heartbreakingly, to Jakey. Hopeless in the face of the illness consuming his son. Scared of hurting him when he played with him. Unable to reach his wife, whose pain and grief, he understood with sudden clarity, had forced her to withdraw rather than lean on a man she couldn’t depend on.

  But he didn’t want to be that man any more.

  Jakey-boy. My champ. Daddy’s coming.

  Erdman struggled to his feet.

  94

  3.35 a.m.

  The Bone Collector opens the van doors again.

  He hunkers down on the damp mattress next to the boy, inhales the smell of his fear. His gag has slipped and he is making a keening sound. He lifts his pyjama top, steps cool fingers down the crooked cage of his ribs, strokes the ridge of his collarbone. The scalpel is in his other hand.

  If he kills him now, the boy will be quiet.

  ‘It’s OK,’ he soothes. ‘It will soon be over.’

  The boy is watching the blade, senses the shift of air in the stillness. Then the Bone Collector feels a blast of pain in the back of his head, and the scalpel falls.

  Fast-moving grey patches appear from nowhere, barking furiously, and police dogs surround him and the boy is crying, and the Bone Collector is being dragged outside into the street, the smoky night. Three officers – bloody animals, they are – shove him roughly and circle his wrists with metal, and there is DS Fitzroy, coming at him through the darkness, her face mangled and smudged with soot.

  She can barely speak through her broken teeth, her ruined mouth.

  ‘Where’s Clara Foyle, you sick fuck?’

  Her voice is not raised but he can read the fury in her body; the defiant square of her shoulders, the flinty stare, the blood-flecked spittle flying from her lips.

  He shrugs.

  ‘Fucker,’ she says and shoves him hard in the chest. He loses his balance, stumbles backwards against the glinting metal of a police car. She raises her fist, connects with his nose. Gristle against bone.

  He takes it all.

  Chambers catches her arm, looks behind him. ‘What are you doing? The Boss’ll see.’

  The Bone Collector is aware, on the periphery of his vision, of police officers clustering around Erdman Frith, a voice in the radio calling for another ambulance. He hears the boy’s sobs, and the soothing voice of a woman, the hiss of water, the subduing of fire. Feels the bite of steel around his wrists, and a sly kick in his ribs. Someone is setting up lights, and the white glare makes him squint.

  He cannot bear to look at the ruin of his father’s house.

  Fitzroy is pacing the pavement. He watches her stride halfway towards the boy, and then back towards him, a bruise already darkening on her jaw, teeth loose and broken.

  ‘Why, dear God, did you do it?’

  He ponders her question, and settles on the truth. The evidence is everywhere. It won’t take them long to discover the charred remains of his cutting room, the smouldering collection of bones. His eyes darken, reflecting the cold, bruised skies above.

  ‘I’ll answer your question, if you answer one of mine.’

  She shakes her head, disgust written in her features, but he knows that she will take the bait, that she cannot help herself. He folds chained hands in front of him and waits.

  Eventually she nods, even though it looks like it costs her a great deal.

  ‘How did you find me?’

  Fitzroy narrows her eyes, looks down her nose at him. ‘Thanks to your little trick with the rabbit skeletons, your notes from John Hunter, we discovered your fascination with the Hunterian Museum.

  ‘And one of the victims’ families recognized you, you smug little shit. And we realized that you worked at the hospital, that was how you were finding and choosing your victims.

  ‘So we raided your house. Except you weren’t there. Because you were at your father’s place. When one of your colleagues mentioned he had bequeathed you his house, it seemed the obvious place to look.’

  He nodded then, slowly. Karen, the fucking nosy bitch. There was no point in denials, they knew everything.

  ‘We found your wife.’ She spat the words at him. ‘Did you kill her too?’

  Sadness spreads through him. ‘No,’ he says. ‘I did not.’

  ‘We’ve got a search warrant for your house, Mr Howley. My officers are there as we speak. Now answer my question. Why?’

  He contemplates her words and looks thoughtful, as if considering the most precise way to put it.

  ‘I was looking after them.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The bones. I was protecting them. A curator, if you like. Caring for my family’s collection. It’s my job, you see. My duty.’

  She gives a disgusted snort. ‘Thank you, Mr Howley. Very fucking illuminating.’

  ‘I took care of them.’ He pauses. ‘I honoured them.’

  ‘Where’s Clara Foyle?’

  He smiles. He can keep secrets too.

  Fitzroy’s look is coolly appraising. She decides to tell him the rest.

  ‘When the raid on your house was unsuccessful, the team headed back to the station. When they couldn’t get hold of me, my colleagues searched my desk and found my notes. Your father’s address.’ She smiles back. ‘They got here in time to watch it burn.’

  He pushes his face into hers, his breath on her cheeks, accusation in his eyes. ‘You did that.’

  She steps back, surprised. ‘The fire? No, that was nothing to do with me. But how old is the wiring in your father’s house, Mr Howley?’ She laughs. ‘It’s a bloody fire hazard.’

  She shoves him towards the police car, its lights transforming the houses into a kaleidoscope of electric blue. Fitzroy opens the door, pushes him into the back seat, and turns to go.

  ‘Fitzroy!’ he calls after her. She stops walking but she doesn’t turn around.

  ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’

  That is all it takes. She spins on her heels towards him, anger and confusion blazing across her features, but there is something in his smirk which stops her in her tracks.

  ‘Losing a baby is always so sad.’

  He permits himself a benign smile, and then he is driven away.

  95

  3.42 a.m.

  Jakey blinked at the lights. To him, they were brighter than sunshine, and a woman with blood on her face was coming towards him, her fingers outstretched.

  ‘It’s OK, Jakey,’ the woman said. ‘You’re safe now. My name is Etta and I’m going to take you to Mummy and Daddy.’

  She reached for Jakey’s hand, but the boy shrank away. His mother told him not to go with strangers, and he wasn’t going to make the same mistake again, especially not with someone who looked as scary as she did.

  He glanced sideways, searching for Ol’ Bloody Bones, scanning the faces of the men and women with their shiny torches which floated up and down in the darkness, but he couldn’t see him. Although his mov
ements were restricted, he had just enough flexibility to slide his hands into his lap, and turn his face into his shoulder. He shut his eyes.

  ‘You’re safe now,’ the woman called Etta said again, crouching beside him on the damp pavement. ‘I promise.’

  Daddy had promised to keep him safe.

  Through the cold night air, and the strangeness, and the smoke that hung over everything, Jakey imagined he heard his father’s voice.

  ‘Champ?’

  Then he was there, his daddy, with his familiar smile, and a white bandage on his chest, and he was pushing past the woman, and crying, and wrapping his arms around him so tightly he couldn’t breathe.

  ‘DaddymydaddyIknewyouwouldcome.’

  His daddy had made him a promise. And this time he had kept it. His daddy had kept him safe. Jakey rested his head on his father’s shoulder. The woman with blood on her face had smiley eyes, he noticed. She was watching them and she held out a carton of juice. Slowly, Jakey reached out his hand, and grabbed hold of his future.

  96

  4.01 a.m.

  DC Alun Chambers was thinking about the meal he would cook for his wife as a way of apologizing for all the hours he had worked on this case which had transfixed a nation. He was thinking about his children, who he’d barely seen in the last ten days, and the way they always ran to their mother when they were hurt. He was thinking about the soft welcome of his bed.

  His eyes lifted to the rear-view mirror, to the suspect in the back. Brian Howley’s head was bowed, his carved-out face in shadow. Chambers usually made some effort to chat with those in his custody. They were only people, after all. But, for once, he didn’t feel like talking.

  Hell’s teeth, he was knackered. There was an ache in his temples that would only ease with sleep. Once he’d dropped Howley at the station for questioning, perhaps The Boss would stand him down.

  His thoughts wandered to DS Fitzroy. He liked her. She was an enigma to him, but she was a good officer. She deserved to shake off the tarnish of her mistakes, even if she hadn’t learned yet to control her temper.

  The city streets were beginning to awaken. He saw a cleaner hurrying along with an old vacuum in one hand, a cigarette dangling from her lips, a taxi driver lounging against his car outside the cab office. He followed the progress of a tramp waving a tall can of something, Special Brew, probably. Perhaps he’d nip back when he’d got rid of Howley, try and find him a hostel. It was too cold to be sleeping rough.

  He deserved help, not scum like Howley, who would still get a roof over his head and food in his belly, in spite of everything he’d done.

  DC Chambers’ head was full of plans and ideas and random musings, and his eyes were tired, and it was winter-dark.

  Which was why he didn’t see the fox dart into the road.

  It froze for a moment, its eyes lit up by the glare of the headlamps, and even at that moment, DC Chambers was still thinking.

  Except this time it was Fuck.

  What happened next played out in a blur of image and sensation.

  The police car swerved.

  Chambers felt the seat belt pull against his shoulder.

  The thud as the vehicle clipped the traffic lights on the pelican crossing.

  A shout of warning from Howley.

  The smudge of a red lorry rushing at them.

  A massive impact.

  A roar of noise.

  Nothing.

  97

  Two months later

  Some days, when she managed to drag herself from the tangle of sheets, Lilith was certain that someone was watching her. She might be in the bath, or gazing blankly at the television, or lying in Jakey’s bed, burrowed into his warm little body, and all of a sudden, the tiny hairs on her arms would stand erect, and she would know whoever it was was out there again.

  Some days, there was warmth in the presence, and it softened the raw edges of her fear, enfolded her in its benevolence, made her feel lighter. Some days, the sense of threat was so overwhelming, she would close all the curtains and crawl beneath the covers until she was certain it was gone, and even then she would be too frightened to move until the creeping pearliness of a late January morning filled her bedroom, and she could hear her neighbours leaving for work.

  Some – poets, singers, Alyson fucking Carruthers – talked about the absence of a loved one as an ache.

  Never was one word so insipidly inadequate. An ache was what you felt when your tooth hurt, or from dancing in high heels, or standing in one position for too long. The abduction of Jakey hadn’t left an ache, it had left a gaping, bloodied crater.

  But it would heal.

  Jakey was alive. Her beautiful boy was alive. That was reason enough to keep the shadows at bay.

  On that strange and terrible night, when she was lost and Jakey was found, Lilith had thought about swallowing every one of those pills.

  But Erdman had refused to give up.

  He had saved their son.

  They had not warned her about the operation, the police. Lilith had been dozing in bed when Belinda Chong had hammered on the door at 4.57 a.m. She had jerked awake, that intrusive, alien sound dousing her in a sweat of adrenaline. The family liaison officer’s face had been pale in the security light, the sheen of tears in her eyes.

  For a frozen moment, Lilith could not breathe.

  And then Belinda had lit up the silence between them with three simple words.

  ‘We’ve got Jakey.’

  A sort of light-headedness overtook her, and her legs began to shake, and her knees had buckled, and Belinda was helping to do up the button of her jeans because her own hands were trembling too much, and then they were racing towards the dawn to get to the hospital.

  There he was.

  Her boy.

  Her baby.

  She had laughed and wept and kissed every part of his face until he squirmed away from her.

  Then she had brushed her fingers across Erdman’s cheek, and the two of them had stood, heads touching, and she had made a promise to herself to remember the purity of that moment for the rest of her life.

  A few hours after Brian Howley’s arrest (the media were dubbing him the Butcher of Bromley but she couldn’t bear to accord him the almost-mythical status of a serial killer, and had refused to listen to the stories or look at the pictures), Fitzroy had come from her own hospital bed to see them.

  Jakey was asleep. They were discharging him shortly. He was still weak from the pneumonia, from lack of food, but they’d hooked him up to an IV line, and packed up a white paper bag of heavy-duty painkillers and antibiotics. The doctors were reluctant, but Lilith had insisted. Even though a fresh-faced PC was stationed outside his room, she didn’t trust hospitals any more.

  The detective looked washed-out, and she was wearing a loose T-shirt that made her look younger, gave her an air of vulnerability.

  Her jaw was puffed up, some of her teeth were broken or missing. She would need surgery, she told them, to wire it shut as soon as the swelling had gone down. She was having trouble speaking.

  After this brief exchange of greetings, Erdman had fetched plastic cups of tea, and she had sat holding hands with him while Fitzroy had put hers down, untasted, with the sort of deliberate gesture that warned them the conversation was about to turn serious.

  ‘He had a secret museum at his father’s house, and a makeshift laboratory in the cellar. Human bones, that sort of thing.’ Her voice was thick, hesitant.

  Lilith bowed her head. Hearing confirmation spilling out of Fitzroy’s mouth, well, it was a shock. She wanted to pretend that Jakey’s abduction had been a surreal dream.

  Fitzroy was talking again so she forced herself to focus.

  ‘Howley had an obsession with unusual or misshapen bones, and so did his father, it would seem. Marshall Howley only died recently but early indications suggest he must have been in on it. Some of the remains that survived the fire appear to have been in situ for many, many years. We now believe tha
t Howley – and probably his father – were responsible for the theft of Carlton’s body.’ She reached for Lilith’s hand, squeezed it. ‘And that Jakey was deliberately targeted because of his condition.

  ‘As the hospital has probably told you, we haven’t been able to ascertain how he abducted your son from the hospital. Extra CCTV cameras were installed in the hospital after a couple of bodies went missing from the Chapel of Rest last year. The Royal Southern managed to keep it quiet at the time and paid off the families, but we now think it was probably Howley who took them. We also think Howley had disabled the cameras before he took Jakey. They’d been covered with black plastic bags filled with glue. He’d told a passing colleague he was “bagging” them for repairs.’

  ‘And my brother?’ said Erdman.

  ‘We’re still running tests on DNA samples but we do expect to confirm that it was Carlton’s remains at Marshall Howley’s property. We’ll process it as quickly as possible, try and get you and your family some closure, but as you’ll appreciate, there’s a lot to get through.’

  Fitzroy took a sip of her tea and winced.

  ‘He was using his job at the hospital as a way to find victims, both for his collection and as a means of making money. He would locate potential targets – we believe he became aware of your husband and son during your visit to A&E and realized the family connection – and used medical records to obtain addresses. He was also selling body parts to laboratories. Of course, any hospital has a ready supply, but that would have been too obvious. We think he helped himself to a few bodies over the years. When we raided his home address, we also found a ledger which seems to suggest he was bribing a funeral director, who we arrested a couple of hours ago. There was a piece of clothing too that may have belonged to Grace Rodríguez.’

  The pain in Fitzroy’s jaw, in her heart, was making it difficult to speak, but she was determined to share what she knew with this family who had suffered so much.

  ‘We assume Howley was planning to kill Jakey, and either sell him, or keep him for his museum. Thank God, we got to him in time. But . . .’ The detective suddenly found the pattern on her coat interesting.