‘Such as,’ Frank went on more forcefully, ‘you screamed the house down, woke your father, who wasn’t at all pleased. Such as, when he found out why you were screaming, he picked up the spider, made you crawl out and get back into bed, and then he tossed the spider under the covers with you and held you there. Such as, when he locked you up in the dark, you were driven crazy by the thought of another of those monsters creeping up on you unseen, crawling up your trouser leg, or across your hand, or one falling from the ceiling onto your head.’
‘Bastard!’
Swain got to his feet. His teeth were bared, like a wild animal about to strike for fresh meat. His head of flesh was slick now, a thin moustache of moisture above his upper lip.
‘You’re trying to fuck with my mind, Frank. But I’m better at it than you are. You tell me about the spiders, and I’ll tell you how I took your daughter and had her begging for more.’
Frank didn’t even blink. ‘We have to talk about the spiders, Larry.’
‘Laura liked calling me Larry, too. ‘Take me again, Larry,’ she’d say. ‘I really enjoy it, Larry.’’
Frank stepped behind the door for a moment. He stooped, and when he straightened, he held a glass container in his hands. Lawrence regarded him with amusement. ‘What, you bought me a fish, Frank?’
‘It is like a fish-tank, isn’t it, Larry? But as you can see, there’s no water in it. But you know what else they keep in these kinds of tanks, Larry? Tanks with lids? It’s from an exotic pets centre I know. Give you a clue?’
Swain backed away. His legs struck the edge of the bed and he fell back onto it. He scrambled back into the corner, knees raised against his chin, both arms wrapped around them. ‘Take it away,’ he said. ‘Take it away.’
But Frank didn’t take it away. Instead he put the tank on the floor, shifted the glass lid to one side, and dipped his hand inside. He laughed as he stood up straight. Laughed as he took a step closer to the prisoner. Laughed as Lawrence Swain screamed. Laughed as the brown and black tarantula on the palm of his hand began to move.
64
Hands to his eyes, Swain continued to moan and rock back and forth. ‘Take it away, take it away, take it away.’ He said it over and over again, voice raised to fever-pitch. He refused to look at it. He made a choking sound in the back of his throat. His eyes were wide and wild.
But Frank came closer until he was standing by the bed. ‘Come on, Larry,’ he said cheerfully. ‘His name is Tiny, and he wants to play. Just look at how he fills even my big hand, see how furry he is. Quick bastard, too, I would imagine. All those thick, hairy legs.’
‘I won’t look, I won’t. And you can’t make me.’ He wrapped both arms across his face.
And then Frank appeared to relent. ‘Okay, Larry. I’ll take him away. Look, I’m backing off now, back toward the door.’
‘I won’t look, you bastard.’
‘All right. In fact, it’s probably best you don’t look.’
‘Why?’ Suspicious now.
‘Because now I’ll tell you what I’m going to do if you don’t tell me where to find my daughter. I asked you if you liked your cell, Swain, and you said you did. But you will have noticed that it’s an internal cell, which means there’s no external light. So, when I close the door, I’m going to switch off your only light source. Believe me, it’s so dark in here you won’t be able to see your hand in front of your face.’
Behind the arms, Swain uttered a long moan of terror. He was clever enough to understand what was coming.
‘And after I’ve turned off the light, Larry, I’m going to put Tiny here through the viewing flap in the door.’
The moan was cut off, replaced by the sound of stifled weeping.
‘Just imagine that, Larry. You and Tiny together in a pitch … black … cell.’
Now the man was sobbing, shoulders heaving as he coughed up his emotions.
‘But the best thing is, Larry, that you and Tiny won’t be alone. See, my friend didn’t just fetch one spider from the exotic pets shop. No, he got five more of the big buggers. So now imagine that, Larry. You and Tiny and five of Tiny’s pals – all of whom are bigger than him, by the way.’
‘Oh, God, no. No!’ Swain cried, and his sobs echoed around the cell. He began to whine and howl like a tormented animal.
‘You won’t know where they are because you won’t be able to see them. But if you listen close enough, you might just be able to hear them scuttling across the floor. Oh, but you’ll feel them, Larry. No mistaking the touch of a spider this size, Larry. And they’ll make the monsters of your childhood look like money-spiders by comparison.’
Swain looked up. His eyes were already swollen with tears, red and puffy. Frank could see that the man had bitten through the paper material of his white suit, and had drawn blood from his own arm. His head shook maniacally.
‘You won’t do it. You can’t. You’re not allowed. You have to play by the rules. I know you have to.’
‘But there’s just me and you down here, Larry. Apart from Tiny and his friends, that is. No one else can hear what’s going on. And even if they could, you really think they’d care?’
Through his sobbing, Lawrence Swain continued to shake his head. ‘I don’t believe you. It’s a bluff. I know it is. Has to be.’
‘If you’d ever played cards with me, Larry, you’d know I never bluff. And don’t forget, I’m not a copper any more. I have my own rules for dealing with people like you.’
But Swain had dredged up some resolve. He sat upright, chest thrust forward. ‘Fuck you. You and your mind games. I’m better, Frank, and I know just how far you’d go.’
‘Okay, Larry.’ Frank stepped out of the room and slammed the cell door behind him.
‘Come back,’ Swain cried. ‘You crazy fucking bastard.’
‘Give me the address, Larry.’
‘Fuck you.’
The naked bulb recessed into the ceiling, protected by a steel cage, suddenly winked off, and the madman was plunged into darkness. ‘No!’ he roared, his voice rising in pitch and timbre. ‘No. You can’t do this.’
‘The address, Larry.’
‘Fuck you.’ He sobbed again. ‘Fuck you.’
The steel rectangle in the door was lifted. Light flooded through the opening. ‘Here comes Tiny,’ Frank said. Something passed across the band of light, and then came the distinct sound of something soft being dropped onto the cell floor.
‘No. Let me out, let me out!’
Frank imagined the man getting to his feet and standing on the bed, toes curled into to the thin mattress. Perhaps Swain’s bladder giving way and a stain spreading swiftly across the crotch of his white overall.
‘You can’t do this. Oh, please, no. No. No. No!’
‘The address, Larry.’
‘Take it away. Turn on the light and take it away.’
‘The address first, Larry.’
‘Fuck you.’
‘Okay.’ Frank lifted the flap again. ‘Here comes number two.’
They were up to number four when Lawrence Swain finally broke down and gave the address.
Nicky and Frank sat in the back of the speeding squad car as it thundered across the capital, sirens blaring. Neither man had trusted himself to drive. At that moment, several other units were heading west, out of London toward Slough. A disused theatre, once a cinema and bingo hall, and more recently the lair of a monster, was just off the main A4 road that cut through the urban development.
As the high-powered Volvo sliced through the traffic with ease, Nicky turned to his friend and laid a hand on his shoulder. ‘I heard most of what went on in there, Frank. Tiny was the only spider we had, but Swain believed there were more. You … you used his own methods against him. You terrorised the information out of him. Doesn’t that disturb you?’
‘No.’
Nicky studied his friend’s face for a second or two. Then he grinned and nodded. ‘Yes, it does.’
Frank sighed and
turned to his friend. ‘Yes, it does,’ he admitted.
‘That’s just as well. Otherwise you’d be no better than him. My God, did you see the look on the custody sergeant’s face. He was terrified of you, looked at you as if you were the devil himself.’
‘It needed to be done. He would never have broken otherwise.’
‘Sure. I know that.’
‘Even so, it leaves a nasty taste.’
‘Can you live with it?’
‘I’ll learn to. I have no other choice.’
‘Was it all deliberate, Frank? All thought out? You played good-cop, bad-cop all on your own. You softened him up with all that business about Sophie, found old sores and opened him up, then went for the jugular. You attacked his fears, his weakness. It was … well, I don’t mind telling you, mate, it was fucking chilling. You were so bloody cold. For a moment there, I almost forgot who was the psychopath.’
‘It worked, didn’t it?’
‘Yes, it worked. But like the nut-job said, there’s a price to pay.’
Frank turned away. His features were impassive as he stared out of the window at the city. He swallowed once and said, ‘Then I’ll just have to live with that, too.’
65
When their squad car screeched to a halt outside the theatre, there were several other cars and vans already waiting. None had used a siren, and no vehicle had its lights flashing. The three-storey theatre, in which Lawrence and Violet Swain had lived for more than a decade, cast a deep shadow across the corner of the street and the steps leading up to its imposing entrance were almost lost in the gloom.
The entire area was cordoned off with blue and white tape, keeping back the usual gathering of onlookers who exchanged rumours excitedly. As Frank and Nicky got out of the Volvo, a cop wearing blue body armour rushed up, holding out two more of the protective chest pads.
‘DS Coleman, sir,’ he said. ‘We were the first to arrive at the scene. We’ve already secured the area.’
Nicky took his armour and began strapping it on. ‘Good. Any sign of movement in there?’
The tall and wiry young officer shook his head. ‘Nothing. We have our tactical weapons officers positioned on all sides, but there aren’t all that many windows left un-shuttered. Through one they’ve seen what appears to be a room recently lived in.’
‘What about a vehicle?’
Coleman gave a single shake of the head. ‘Sorry, sir. No sign.’
‘No van?’ Frank asked. Lawrence Swain must have had something in which to transport both the tools of his trade and the bodies of his seven victims.
‘Not here. I have officers scouring nearby streets.’
‘We’re too late,’ said Frank. His voice was low, imbued with immense frustration. ‘Violet’s not here anymore.’
‘You can’t know that,’ Nicky said. ‘Not for sure. She might have just moved whatever vehicle they have, dumped it somewhere.’
Frank looked up at the grey-brick building. So cold, cheerless. Just right for its inhabitants. ‘They won’t find Violet Swain in there. The question is, did she take Laura with her?’
Nicky looked at Coleman. ‘I assume your men are ready to go in.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Nicky scratched the back of his head. ‘I was going to take some time to get the feel of the place, see if she’s still holding them. But…’ He turned to look at Frank.
‘No,’ he said grimly. ‘Let’s get in there.’
Nicky gave a single nod, and then DS Coleman gave the word to go.
The breach went according to plan, with armed officers from the SO19 Tactical Firearms team swarming into the building and swiftly examining each room in turn. Frank was in the building’s auditorium, marvelling at the stage and its equipment, some of the sets he assumed Swain had built, when one of Coleman’s DC’s came for him.
‘Skipper says you should come upstairs, sir.’ The young Detective Constable looked concerned.
Frank’s heart lurched. Something was up. Something or someone had been found. Please, he begged. Don’t let it be my little girl. Please.
He followed the constable up to the room where it became instantly clear the Swain twins had kept Laura for two full weeks. The door to the doll’s house was open wide, and Frank could see a cluster of bodies grouped around something on the floor. Again, his heart kicked.
A sharp cry gave him a jolt. ‘Over here, Frank. Quickly.’
Frank saw Nicky beckoning him over. He barged his way through the group of men and into the doll’s house. On the floor, pinned to the bare wood with a narrow carpenter’s chisel, was a single sheet of paper. Taking care not to touch it, Frank read:
My sweet Larry
If you are reading this then hopefully all is well. I hope you understand why I had to leave without you. If you can bring yourself to forgive me, I hope you will join me at the place we both loved most of all when we were children. Whatever you decide, I love you, Larry. I always have and I always will.
No matter what.
Frank exhaled deeply. ‘You won’t find Laura here,’ he said softly. ‘Violet has her.’
‘But where? Their favourite childhood place? That could be anywhere, damnit.’
Frank shook his head, eyes narrowing. ‘No. Not anywhere. Somewhere specific. Violet and Lawrence Swain grew up in Hove, remember. Think about it, Nicky. If you lived in Hove, where would you like to spend your childhood summer days? Where would you go to escape your misery?’
66
Violet’s mood was almost ecstatic. Her hands gripped the steering wheel at the regulation ten-to-two. She kept her speed in line with whatever restrictions were signposted. She checked her rear-view mirror constantly, and her eyes read the road ahead. She was relaxed, confident. She had everything in hand.
‘We’re going to have such fun,’ she said, glancing across at Laura.
The sun was sliding over to her right, beating down on the tarmac. Her weary-looking Ford Focus broke through barriers of shimmering heat-haze as it ate up the miles. The afternoon was glorious, and Violet was clearly ready to become a child again.
‘When I was a girl I used to escape as often as I could,’ she explained. ‘I’d walk the couple of miles or so into town, or if I had a little money I’d get a bus. I’d walk around the centre and the piers for hours. Did you know they had a palace there? Well, they do. It has funny-shaped domes … they look like onions. But it’s a beautiful place. Truly beautiful. You’ll love it, believe me.’
Laura said nothing.
‘Right near the palace are a lot of old narrow streets. Once the cottages used to belong to the fishermen, but that was long before even I was born. Walking through the place is like going back in time. That’s one of the reasons I used to go there so often. There I could lose myself for a while. A different place, a different time. A different life.
‘There’s a waxworks, too. Have you ever been to a waxworks museum? I used to sneak in the back way without paying. It was creepy, but I loved it there. The pier was wonderful, too. But best of all was the doll’s museum. Dolls in Wonderland, I think it was called. It’s such a long time ago now. But I used to adore walking around, looking at the dolls. And you know what … there was even a post-box for Father Christmas. Every year I would post my letter to him. And every year he would let me down. He never did take my mummy and daddy away. Not until much later. When it was too late.’
Laura’s eyes were open, vacant: she heard every word, but her mind had switched off.
She sucked on her thumb as she had done many years earlier as a toddler. Her senses were operating perfectly, perhaps more so now than at any time before, but her brain was refusing to accept any of their signals. Even the muted voice by her side was a puzzle. But not one she wanted to decipher. There was no life outside her own body now.
There was only her thumb, and the beat of her own heart.
67
They were almost ninety minutes behind as their car flashed along the same route that
Violet and Laura had travelled. They took the M25, cut off onto the M23 past Gatwick Airport, before hanging a left onto the A23 heading towards the south coast. The siren and lights were used only in dense traffic, while out on the open road speed limits were ignored. Frank and Nicky shared the car with the same two uniformed officers from Leyton station. Their expressions were equally grim and purposeful. Frank guessed his own would also betray anguish.
‘I hope you’re right about this,’ Nicky said, letting go a soft sigh.
‘I am.’ Frank turned his head and smiled soberly. ‘You know I am. If you were a kid brought up in a madhouse in Hove, where your very life was threatened on a daily basis, you’d have to seek some relief or go crazy at an early age. The Swains would have gone exactly where I would have. Brighton is a couple of miles away, and it has the pier, the amusements, the kind of glamour that would appeal to a child. Most of all, it has a means of escape.’
Nicky could not argue with that kind of logic. He had already contacted his own superior, who in turn had called ahead to Sussex Police. Now there was little he could do except wait the journey out. A message for him interrupted the silence.
‘Yes?’ he said into the communication device strapped to his body armour.
‘It’s DS Coleman, at the theatre, sir.’
‘Yes, Coleman. Go ahead.’
‘We’ve turned up some good hard evidence, sir, including the missing girls, other than Laura Rogers. They’re dead, sir, have been for some time. It …’ His voice faltered momentarily. ‘It’s the most incredible stuff, sir. In the basement, we found the baths where our man must have kept his victims’ skins. There’s a lot of flesh and hair and nails scattered around. The baths are, well, they have tide-marks of dried tissue.’
Degrees of Darkness Page 34