by Sarah Hilary
Copyright © 2018 Sarah Hilary The right of Sarah Hilary to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.
First published as an Ebook in 2018 by Headline Publishing Group All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library eISBN: 978 1 4722 4898 5
Main jacket image © Jean Michel Tallec/EyeEm/Getty Images; female figure © Silas Manhood; male figure © rdonar/Shutterstock HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
About the Author
Praise
Also by Sarah Hilary
About the Book
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Sarah Hilary has worked as a bookseller and with the Royal Navy. Her debut novel, Someone Else’s Skin, won the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year 2015. It was the Observer’s Book of the Month, a Richard & Judy Book Club bestseller, and has been published worldwide. No Other Darkness, Tastes Like Fear and Quieter Than Killing continue the DI Marnie Rome series. Sarah lives in Bath.
Praise
Praise for Quieter Than Killing:
‘Hilary belts out a corker of a story, all wrapped up in her vivid, effortless prose. If you’re not reading this series of London-set police procedurals then you need to start right away’ Observer (Thriller of the Month) ‘Sarah Hilary’s debut, Someone Else’s Skin, was widely acclaimed and won lots of awards. Quieter Than Killing, her fourth, is even more impressive, and DI Marnie Rome is up there in the top division of fictional female detectives’ The Times
‘Sarah Hilary writes beautifully and unflinchingly; a dark, disturbing and thought-provoking chiller of a thriller’ Peter James ‘The most poignant entry in the series so far’ Sunday Express, S Magazine
‘Hilary is my drop-everything writer; always original, always bang-on psychologically, always gripping. I am a huge fan’ Alex Marwood
Praise for Tastes Like Fear:
‘Brilliant. I put everything else aside when I have one of her books in the house’ Alex Marwood ‘A tense, terrifying tale of obsession and possession . . . a writer at the top of her game’ Alison Graham, Radio Times
‘A truly chilling exploration of control, submission and the desire to step out of a normal life’ Eva Dolan
Praise for No Other Darkness:
‘Riveting . . . Sarah Hilary delivers in this enthralling tale of a haunted detective, terrible crime, and the secrets all of us try to keep’ Lisa Gardner ‘At the centre is a queasily equivocal moral tone that forces the reader into a constant rejigging of their attitude to the characters. And did I mention the plotting? Hilary’s ace in the hole – as it is in the best crime thrillers’ Financial Times
‘Sarah Hilary cements her position as one of Britain’s most exciting and accomplished new writers. Complex, polished and utterly gripping, this is a book to make your heart pound’ Eva Dolan ‘The skill of the prose produces a deft and disturbing thriller’ Sunday Mirror
By Sarah Hilary and available from Headline
Someone Else’s Skin
No Other Darkness
Tastes Like Fear
Quieter Than Killing
Come and Find Me
About the Book
A DI Marnie Rome novel
On the surface, Lara Chorley and Ruth Hull have nothing in common, other than their infatuation with Michael Vokey. Each is writing to a sadistic inmate, sharing her secrets, whispering her worst fears, craving his attention.
DI Marnie Rome understands obsession. She’s finding it hard to give up her own addiction to a dangerous man: her foster brother, Stephen Keele. She wasn’t able to save her parents from Stephen. She lives with that guilt every day.
But now Michael Vokey has escaped, and as the hunt to find him gathers pace, Marnie fears one of the women may know his whereabouts – and is about to pay the ultimate price.
To Victor, my victor
Seven days ago
It started stupidly, the way these things do. No conspiracy, just a cock-up, chaos theory in action. You want me to be specific? It started with a tray. Moulded plastic with a hollow for meat and a hollow for mash and all of it stained ketchup-red. This was before it all kicked off, before the rest of it – the rest of us – got stained.
These trays are meant to be safe, no sharp edges, no weight. If you throw one, you’ll start a food fight but nothing worse. You can’t kill with a tray like this, that’s their calculation. Softening devices, you see. It’s why prisons have vinyl floors and walls. Not here, as it happens. Here, there’s a lovely hard corner in the showers on B spur where you can crack a skull wide open. But the trays are the trays are the trays, unless you count the ones melted down by men like Bayer, and you can’t count that because Bayer’s melted half of what’s in here, it’s why he’s not Bayer to most of us but Shanks. Still, you get my point. The trays are for eating off, not kicking off. Not for starting fights that end with people getting stabbed and definitely not with anyone getting killed.
The food stinks. Even if you’ve never set foot in prison, you know how bad the food stinks, takes you straight back to school and not in a good way. Tastes bad too. Tastes of the tray, mostly. Cut to the chase? All right. It’s just that it’s not easy for me. Not easy for any of us, but especially me. Because of what happened, because of where I am now.
All right. Okay. Listen, I’ll tell you how it went. Like this—
We’re eating in our cells and it’s not what you see on TV, there’s no cafeteria with queuing or jostling or sitting in huddles with your homeboys. That’d be too friendly, and too
easy. You’d see the likes of Aidan Duffy and Stephen Keele, or Bayer and his buddies, and you’d know right away who was in charge. As it is, plenty of us haven’t the foggiest until the trays start flying, faces bursting open.
It starts with—
‘Hey, Mickey!’
‘You’re so fine . . .’
‘You blow my mind—’
‘Hey, Mickey!’
Rattle. Shake, rattle and roll. Tray drumroll. Tommy Walton’s found an edge to slam into like the corner in B spur’s showers and he’s going at it like he’s Keith Moon, like he’s John Bonham, banging it balls-to-the-wall and it takes around six seconds for someone else to join in, then a couple more catch the rhythm and yes – like that. Just another day in HMP Cloverton.
Until he starts up.
I figured I knew him, since we shared a cell and because word gets around. Oh yes, I knew about Mickey Vokey. We all did. Wrong. We didn’t, not remotely. Until it’s tipping over from an improvised drumming session into a thing blacker than a cow’s insides and Tommy Walton’s getting smeared so hard they’ll have to hose down the corridor to get rid of the bits.
Most of us stay in our cells. The smart ones, sane ones. Aidan Duffy, of course. Stephen Keele? Your guess’s as good as mine, except you never saw what I saw that time in B spur’s showers.
The drumming starts and there’s a beat to it, tribal. You get caught up even if you’re one of the sane ones and Mickey Vokey isn’t anywhere near that. He had his own cell until recently, which in case you didn’t know is like hanging a warning sign over his head: Mickey Vokey, madman. You don’t mess with Mickey, except Tommy-meathead-Walton does. He’s lost the plot, so deep with the beat he can’t hear anything else, not even the siren flashing from Mickey’s eyes. I’d seen that siren once before. It didn’t end well then, and this time’s worse because it’s not contained. The mess’s spilling into the corridor before anyone can catch his breath.
‘You blow my mind, hey Mickey—’
Tommy goes in with the tray, hitting at the hard surfaces, anything that’ll give back a note. He doesn’t mean to do it, that’s my guess, swinging for the wall behind Mickey’s head and missing.
Have you seen a Cane Corso off its leash? Italian mastiff, direct descendant of the dogs the Romans took to war. All head and jaws, all the power packed up there. Mickey’s watching the tray swing our way, and he’s standing with his weight thrown forward exactly like a Cane Corso.
I don’t say anything, even so. Listen, I gave up trying to reason with Mickey months ago, never mind he’s my cellmate. You might think it means we’re pals, that we look out for each other, but no one’s looking out for Mickey because no one’s stupid enough to get that close.
Two sounds—
The first’s from the tray when it meets Mickey’s skull. The second’s from Tommy Walton as Mickey punches the bridge of his nose into the back of his eyes.
Music to my ears, if I’m honest. Ask anyone, he’ll say the same. Things get like that, someone’s going to get hurt and hard. Every one of us was happy it wasn’t our own nose, our own eyes. So, yes. Right in that minute I’m glad. Funny, when you look at me now, the state I’m in.
The police want to know how it happened. Detectives, two of them. She’s so serious it makes my teeth ache. Redhead, I’d have liked that once. The pair of them at the side of my hospital bed on and off ever since. The whole week, if it’s been a week. Longer, maybe. They’re after a witness statement, wanting to know about Mickey Vokey, and Aidan Duffy, and Stephen Keele. Needing to know how bad it was right then and there. They’ve seen the walls and floors, the state of the place. Body bags zipped shut, and whatever bits of Tommy got trapped in the grids after the hoses were turned off. They’ve tried CCTV, but it’s worthless thanks to the smoke and fire. You don’t know what went down unless you were there and no one’s talking, like mass hysteria with the sound switched off. Mass muteness. I don’t know why they think I’ll be any different except my face is okay, all my teeth intact. To look at me, I’m all right. But I’m not. I’m not. None of us are.
Prison riots. We’ve seen them in films, or on TV, nothing but on the news this last couple of years. This was different though, might as well compare a Peke to a Cane Corso.
What happened that morning changed everything. No one knows why, or no one’s saying. Would you – with mad Mickey out there where your loved ones live?
Too many broken faces, blind eyes. Too much blood getting in the way of what really happened, reaching up the walls and right across the floor, one end of the corridor to the other like a heaving black lake you can’t swim in, only choke and drown.
One man knows what went down that day and he’s long gone, slipped the leash and ran while the rest of us were hunting for our teeth or crying for our mums.
Mickey Vokey.
Long gone.
1
Now
Noah Jake checked his phone for messages, trying to keep warm. When he looked up, they were coming down the prison steps. She was holding hard to his arm, her best hat pinned in place, coat buttoned to the neck. He wore a mac over a blue suit he’d last worn to a wedding, his face deeply lined by this new worry. They moved slowly, as if their bones hurt or they were afraid of falling. At the foot of the steps they stopped with their heads together, regrouping after whatever they’d witnessed in the prison. Pentonville wasn’t rioting like Cloverton, but it wasn’t somewhere you’d want your son to spend a night, let alone nine months on remand.
Noah straightened, slipping his phone into his pocket. He crossed to where they were standing, the woman clinging to the man’s arm. ‘How is he? Mum?’
She turned away, showing the back of her head, red hat held in place by a white enamel pin. She smelt of talcum powder and furniture polish, the smell of his childhood. After a minute, she pulled away, walking towards the bus stop. Her bag swung at her shoulder until she held it down, her fist clenched, knuckles scrubbed and shiny.
‘She needs time.’ Noah’s father followed her with his eyes. ‘Give her time.’
‘How was he? Sol.’
Dad rubbed a hand over his jaw. ‘Not good.’
‘I’ve asked to see him,’ Noah said. ‘More than once. I’ll keep asking.’
‘You should leave it for a little while.’ Dad shook his head. ‘Let things settle down. It’s not been six weeks since— Let it all calm down.’
Since you arrested him. It hadn’t been six weeks since Noah had arrested his brother, Sol.
‘How’s Mum?’ He shivered, looking towards the bus shelter.
She’d stopped with her head held high, creases in the back of her coat from the day’s sitting and waiting. Pain nagged at Noah’s ribs where he wore stubborn bruises from the baseball bat which had put him into hospital just days before Sol’s arrest. He kept waiting for the bruises to fade but every morning their black ache was right here below his heart, nagging when he breathed.
‘You need to give her time.’ Dad moved until he was facing Noah. ‘And you need to take some yourself. You’re thin, boy. Are you eating properly?’
Before all this, he’d have insisted on Noah coming home to eat a decent meal, a huge plate of Mum’s sweet fried plantains, her cure for all ills. But not now, with her so furious. Noah wasn’t to set foot inside their house. His own brother in a cell, living like that.
‘I had to do it.’ He’d lost count of the number of times he’d said this. ‘Sol was in serious trouble. For his sake as much as anything, I had to end it.’
‘Your brother’s been trouble since before he was born,’ Dad sighed. He touched a hand to Noah’s elbow. ‘Take care, boy.’ He walked to where his wife was waiting.
Noah’s phone rang in his pocket.
‘DS Jake.’ He pinched the bridge of his nose.
‘Michael Vokey.’ DS Ron Carling wasn’t calling from the station, his voice had an underwater echo.
‘We’ve found him?’
‘Better than that,’ Ro
n said.
What was better than finding the country’s most wanted man? Michael Vokey was a sadist who’d tortured a young mother and left bloody mayhem in his wake when he’d escaped a week ago from HMP Cloverton. ‘He’s dead?’
‘You’ll want to get here for this.’ Ron gave Noah the directions, adding, ‘I hope you didn’t eat a big breakfast.’
‘I skipped breakfast. Why?’ Not that Noah needed to ask. It was there in Ron’s voice: a crime scene, and not a neat one.
He watched his parents climb onto the bus, Dad’s arm around Mum. She kept her head high. She’d rest it on his shoulder once they were seated and it was safe to let go of the stiffness she was wearing like an extra coat against the cold. Dad would take care of her.
‘How bad is it?’ Noah asked.
‘On a scale of one to Dennis Nilsen?’ Ron sniffed. ‘I’m giving this a high five.’
2
The wall was made of faces. From a distance, they resembled thumbprints, but they were faces. Old and young, male and female. Looking out of Polaroids and from newspaper clippings trimmed to the same size. Hundreds and hundreds of faces.
‘See what I mean?’
No blood and no bodies, but Ron was right. The room was a punch in the gut.
A few of the faces dated back to the last century, stiff collars worn like nooses around the necks of men with rusty whiskers, women with their hair braided, one with her hand to her head as if in pain. Below her, a beautiful young man stared out with sad eyes, a cupid’s bow mouth. Both images were black and white but for the red roaring from their eyes, so hot Noah could taste it on his tongue. He smelt earth on some of the square brows flinching from flashbulbs which must have fired as the old cameras captured them. By contrast the Polaroids were ferociously modern, glinting with the knife-edge of light trapped in the room. Women mostly, many young, all in pain of one kind or another. That was just the first wall.
The whole room was the same, even the window, every surface scarred with faces. Polaroids fixed like feathers, curling like scales from the ceiling, overlapping and going grey. The room smelt of gum and ink and the bitter vanilla twinge of burnt bulbs.