Come and Find Me (DI Marnie Rome Book 5)

by Sarah Hilary

  ‘Yes, he’s not at all well.’ Olive eyes travelled past Marnie to Noah. She held the rubber gloves in her right hand, brushing soap suds from her dress with her left. A black linen shirt dress, its sleeves rolled up, accentuating her narrowness. When she lifted the back of her hand to her cheek, the bones in her wrist showed like an expensive bracelet. ‘Has something happened at the prison?’

  ‘Nothing new,’ Marnie said. ‘Is Darren home?’

  ‘He’s sleeping. If nothing’s happened, why are you here?’ She asked it as a question but clearly didn’t expect an answer, adding crisply, ‘You’ll want to come inside.’

  They were shown to a shallow sitting room with a lemon carpet, an old gas fire mounted above a bricked hearth. Vertical blinds had been pulled shut at the window, their papery slats leaking light. Botanical prints in pallid watercolours looked lost on the walls. The only beautiful thing in the room was a blue vase of white lilies. Not the stiff variety sold in florists, these were open-hearted, deep-throated lilies, pollen like fire inside their petals. Of the little furniture in the room, an odd assortment of chairs stood as if guests were expected but unwelcome, while a low sideboard held a dozen poorly framed photographs which might have been auctioned as a job lot from a film set. Noah recognised Darren in his prison officer’s uniform, fringe slicked up, levelling a smile at the camera. Other photos showed him as a chubby ten-year-old in a new school blazer standing with his mum, and as a baby in the arms of a boy with cut-glass cheekbones and a freckled nose, too young to be his dad. Black and white photos of grandparents. A girl in a 1950s sundress, smiling across her shoulder, brown hair swinging in a ponytail. Anita, Noah realised with a shock. It was hard to imagine she’d ever been this girl. She stood by the window, its vertical blinds backlighting her face with its incisive cheekbones.

  ‘Beautiful lilies,’ Noah said.

  ‘Thank you, I grow them myself.’ Pride put a crack in her defences, flushing her face.

  ‘You must have a lovely garden.’ Not the crazy paving at the front.

  ‘I’ve an allotment. The gardens here are tiny. There’s practically nothing at the back, and you’ve seen the front.’ Her accent was moneyed but not flashy and not London. Old money. Less of it now than there once was; her Max Mara dress had been taken in at the waist, darned at the hem. The sitting room told the same story, its carpet indented in all the places where the best furniture had once stood. ‘Should I wake Darren? I expect this is important.’

  Marnie nodded. ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘Take a seat. I’ll be right back.’ She moved like a gymnast or a dancer, all sinew and muscle. Her legs were bare, her narrow feet in black felt slippers. They heard her going up the stairs into a room directly overhead. The click of a door shutting, then silence.

  Noah looked again at the photo of the girl with the ponytail, her smile provocative across her shoulder. The shadow of a car went past, circling the village green. The house was well insulated, muting the traffic to a murmur. Dust had settled in the indents on the carpet, the good furniture long gone, like the happy girl in the sundress. Footsteps down the stairs—

  Anita reappeared. ‘He’s getting dressed. I’ll make coffee, shall I?’

  Marnie said, ‘There’s no need.’

  ‘I’ll make coffee.’ She gave a firm nod and moved away.

  Under the scent of lilies, Noah tried to pin down the dark smell in the room, not unpleasant, like spores raised by rainfall. This room was kept for guests, it gave no clues as to the character or style of Anita’s home. A waiting room. Noah wanted to see the rest of the house. Marnie was looking at the photographs. Did she feel the strange pull of the place, the emptiness of this room, the packed silence from overhead? A big house, four bedrooms, it was worth a million even with the crazy paving, but it felt emptier and uglier than Julie’s council house.

  Footfall creaked the stairs.

  The sitting room door pushed open.

  Darren Quayle was red-cheeked from sleep, scraping his hair from his forehead with his fingers, dressed in dirty blue board shorts and an orange T-shirt with a surf logo. He blinked at Noah before his stare slid to Marnie. His fringe stayed where he’d scraped it in a waxy peak above his pale forehead. He didn’t resemble the man in the interview with the cocked shoulders and the heated speech about Michael Vokey’s power. He looked like a lanky teenager late for school, bruises on his shins, bare feet. He smelt like a teenager too, stale and mushroomy. His toenails needed cutting.

  ‘Hello, Darren.’ Marnie nodded at him.

  ‘I was sleeping,’ blurring his words, ‘I’m not well. Signed off sick.’

  ‘How are you feeling?’ Marnie asked.

  He rubbed the heel of a hand at his eyes and yawned widely. ‘Knackered.’

  On balance, Noah preferred his acting in the interview.

  ‘Sit down.’ His mother returned with a tray of mugs and a pot of coffee. She nodded Darren at one of the stiff-backed chairs and he sat, giving no sign he resented her instruction or the signal it sent to the strangers in the room. He just did as he was told. Had it been like that with Vokey?

  Marnie let Anita share out the coffee before she said, ‘Thank you, we won’t keep Darren long.’ Her smile was a dismissal, polite but unequivocal.

  Twin spots of colour came up on Anita’s face, as if she’d pressed her thumbs to her cheeks, but her expression didn’t falter. ‘This is about his work, I suppose.’

  ‘Yes. We won’t keep him long.’

  ‘He has a chest infection. He shouldn’t be out of bed.’

  ‘We won’t keep him,’ Marnie repeated.

  Darren arched a foot, leaning back in the chair, aiming at nonchalance, landing on apprehension.

  His mother made a conscious bid to relax her shoulders. Noah saw her practising yoga, disciplining her body to unwind. ‘I’ll be in the kitchen.’ She nodded. ‘If you need me.’ A last glance at her son’s bare feet and board shorts, before she retreated.

  Marnie said, ‘This is DS Jake. I’m DI Rome.’

  ‘Yeah, I remember.’ He reached for a mug of coffee. ‘What’s this about?’

  ‘As you know, we’re looking for Michael Vokey.’

  ‘Well, yeah.’ He turned the smirk into sucking coffee from his bottom lip, rebooting his expression to bland. No likeness to his mother, either in his appearance or his tone, aping a South London street voice. On his way to becoming the man in the online interview.

  ‘We spoke with Julie Seton, the young mother he assaulted.’

  ‘Not much of an assault.’

  Noah leaned forward. ‘What?’

  Darren reassessed him, holding the mug to his chest. ‘You should see some of the stuff that goes down, that’s all I’m saying.’

  ‘Eyeballs in the corridor?’ Noah nodded, inviting Darren to mirror his loose body language. ‘He was inside her house. Her little girl was sleeping upstairs.’

  ‘Okay.’ He sucked at the coffee, keeping his eyes down, quickly submissive.

  Noah stayed sitting forward. He could smell Darren’s skin properly now. Lynx Africa, lighter fluid and ashes. He’d been setting fire to something.

  ‘Julie drew our attention to an interview, online.’ Marnie kept her voice light, but she was watching Darren for a reaction. ‘About what happened at Cloverton.’

  ‘Yeah?’ He reached to set the coffee mug down in the hearth, keeping his eyes hidden for the time this took. When he straightened, he was flushed. It could have been the blood running to his face, or whatever illness was keeping him at home.

  ‘The thing is,’ Noah said, ‘we’ve watched the interview. Our tech expert’s worked on it. Cleaned it up so we can identify the officer.’

  ‘Yeah?’ He put his hands in his lap, took them out again, propped his elbows on the arms of the chair. ‘Who says it’s an officer?’

  He wasn’t going to scare easily, but he had a habit of doing as he was told. Possibly it accounted for his career choice. Prison officer came with a set o
f instructions, rules to abide by. You could only break the rules if you’d been playing by them in the first place.

  ‘We told your mum this wouldn’t take long,’ Noah said. ‘Shall we cut to the chase?’

  Darren moved, not quite a squirm, wetting his top lip with his tongue. His eyes jumped to Marnie then fixed back on Noah. ‘Go on, then.’

  Daring Noah to say it, so he could come out with whatever alibi he’d prepared. He’d had nearly a fortnight to dream up a convincing pack of lies. The boil on his neck looked close to eruption, a yellow pupil in a red eye. What would it take to get him excited the way he’d been in the interview? Running his mouth in admiration for a man with so few redeeming qualities you could count them in negative numbers.

  ‘We reckon Vokey’s with a woman.’ Noah kept the careless edge in his voice, addressing Darren lad-to-lad. ‘Lara Chorley. She was writing to him. D’you see any of her letters?’

  ‘Your boss mentioned them.’ Nodding towards Marnie, but keeping his stare on Noah.

  ‘Letters and photos.’ Noah put the span of his hand across his mouth, nursing the ache in his cheekbones for a second. ‘She gave him her address. And of course he knows where Julie lives, but we’ve got eyes on that. Any thoughts as to where he might’ve gone?’

  ‘Sorry, mate.’ Darren cocked his head, shoulders sharpening. Now he looked like the man in the interview. ‘Except it’s meant to be our fault he’s out there, running around—’ He stopped, blinking. Realising he’d used the same words he used in the online interview?

  ‘Like a maniac.’ Noah nodded. ‘A proper maniac.’

  Darren reached for his coffee. ‘If you say so.’

  ‘Oh, he’s it. The real thing. You waded through that corridor, saw your mates picking up the pieces of Tommy Walton. Those are the headlines they should be writing.’

  Darren stared at Noah, saying nothing. The skin under his eyes was feverish now, his pupils like pin heads. For the first time, Noah wondered if he was genuinely sick.

  ‘They’re making out he’s an animal, but they’re wrong. You know, you saw him up close.’ His voice dropped an octave, as Darren’s had dropped at this stage of his recital. ‘The rest aren’t in the same league.’

  Traffic ran its shadows across Quayle’s face. His feet fidgeted at the floor.

  Noah said, ‘I’ll be honest with you, Darren. We’ve got nothing. He’s gone. A ghost.’ He held up his hands, fingers splayed and empty. ‘We’re looking for a ghost. And we need your help.’

  It worked, miraculously. Speaking about Vokey, using his own words back to him. Darren was hypnotised, following every utterance with his body swaying in time to the speech. He reminded Noah of Ruth. Blind thrall, joyous obedience. What was it about Michael Vokey? Nothing Noah had read or heard hinted at charisma. But first Ruth and now Darren clearly saw him as a cult leader, albeit one whose worshippers lived apart. Had they been forced to share the same physical space as Vokey the illusion would have shattered, perhaps. Distance lent a mythic gloss to his cruder qualities, allowing them to squint at an imagined horizon where their shabby hero strode like a god. Darren had less excuse than Ruth for falling under the spell, being in charge of Vokey’s routine, one of those responsible for locking him in and keeping him fed, settling on an appropriate level of privileges or punishment. Under that regime, Darren was the one in control. When did he decide to cede that authority? Or had it been an unconscious decision, Vokey working on him over time, chipping away at the edges of his immaturity, massaging his need for instruction? It was clear Anita ran this household, telling her son what to do, expecting and getting his obedience. Darren liked to be led. Vokey would’ve known exactly how far to push that preference. The scent of lilies lit the dark corners of the room.

  ‘What were you burning?’ Noah asked.

  Darren recoiled, not expecting the switch of tack.

  ‘You stink of lighter fluid.’ Noah nodded at him. ‘And burnt paper.’

  ‘My clothes.’ He sniffed at the sleeve of his T-shirt. ‘I wore it to a bonfire party.’

  ‘November was six months ago.’

  ‘This was a mate’s party up on the allotment—’ He braked hard enough to get whiplash. ‘Just a few beers, fireworks. You know. Nothing special.’

  ‘So what were you burning on the bonfire?’

  ‘The usual.’ He drank a mouthful of coffee, gagged, wiped his mouth. ‘Branches, leaves.’

  Noah shook his head. ‘Nah, this’s paper. I can smell it. I’ve got a good nose for stuff like this.’

  ‘He’s right,’ Marnie said quietly. ‘It’s one of the things that makes him such a great detective.’

  Darren’s eyes scared to her then away, across the room. His forehead was patchy with sweat, the fever spreading to his cheeks. Had he taken something, stronger than Lemsip?

  ‘You see,’ Noah said, ‘we should’ve cut to the chase. You gave that interview online, our tech expert ID’d you. We know you’re a fan of Vokey’s. Photos and letters went missing from his cell, we know that too. And here you are stinking of burnt paper and lighter fluid, and I’m wondering what we’ll find if we go up to your room.’ He nodded above their heads. ‘Or through your bins.’ He nodded in the direction Anita had taken, towards the kitchen.

  Darren shifted, the chair creaking under him, his toes fisting on the floor.

  A movement in the doorway brought Marnie smoothly to her feet. ‘Mrs Quayle, may I have a moment?’ Heading her off at the pass.

  Anita glanced at her son, but Darren kept his eyes on Noah. She nodded at Marnie. ‘Of course.’

  Noah waited until they’d left the room before he said, ‘She doesn’t know, does she? Your mum. She doesn’t know about the interview, or Vokey.’

  ‘She knows he escaped.’ Darren wet his lips again.

  ‘Right. She watches the news.’

  ‘Listens to it. Radio Four.’ He scratched the boil on his neck. ‘This’s bollocks, by the way.’ He examined his fingers before looking up, eyes spacey. ‘I’m sick, feel like I’m going to puke. Are you arresting me?’

  ‘Not in front of your mum,’ Noah said. ‘We’re on the same side. Aren’t we?’

  ‘Not now.’ Darren blinked, slurring his words. His stare moved around the room, seeing furniture that was no longer there, the pattern of dust-filled dents on the carpet. ‘Not after Mickey.’

  19

  Let’s talk about riots. Since I’m stuck here in hospital with nothing better to do, my lucky nurse on her tea break. Not the riot in Cloverton which is fresh in our minds, so fresh it’s oozing. Let’s talk about Leeds, Mickey’s previous residence, the reason he ended up with us, with me. This’s what he does, you see. Creates chaos and moves on. Like goutweed or ivy, the way he takes root so fast, smothering everything in his way. That’s how it felt to live in that box with him. Ivy doesn’t just block out the light. It invades the cracks in brickwork and joints, digging with its roots to cause permanent damage. English ivy, Hedera helix, is aggressive enough to bring down gutters and walls, if you’re not careful. Dazza wasn’t careful, and nor was anyone else at Cloverton. In Leeds he wrought havoc enough to warrant high security, assuming there’s any room left in those places for men like that.

  ‘I’m an artist.’ He never used those words, but it’s how he saw himself.

  The corridor in Cloverton wasn’t his first exhibition, just his latest. An exciting new direction with splashes of colour, chunks of texture. Teeth. He started small, like every other struggling artist. Smutty pictures for his friends in school, conceptual nudes of the girls they fancied. Jo Gower, one of his sister’s friends. He drew her with her top up, knickers down. She wasn’t very happy when she heard. Took it out on his sister, he said. Hate mail, until Alyson nearly lost her mind. He didn’t own up, the way he ought to have done, and he felt bad about it, at least that’s what he said. Of course he regretted sharing that particular confidence, made me swear to keep it to myself, threatened me with violence if I failed.
That’s what he’s like, you see. Bottling it up until he bursts then full of regret afterwards, wanting the snake back in the can.

  He’d drawn Jo from his imagination, but it turns out imagination doesn’t do it for Mickey. He prefers to draw from life. Doesn’t care for nudes, or not smutty ones. He likes to see you naked, but he isn’t interested in the erotic, not like that. He’d sooner strip your mask than your clothes. If you’re proud, he wants to see what you’d look like humbled. If you’re brave, he wants to see you cry. It’s why he did what he did to me, in that cell. Why he did what he did in Leeds.

  ‘They called it a quick death,’ Mickey says, swinging his foot in my bunk.

  I’m trying to read, making poetry from the pages in my seed catalogue: Calendula Snow Princess and Gaillardia Firewheels to Scabious Black Knight.

  ‘Painless,’ Mickey says. ‘They gave me a counsellor and that’s what she called it, a quick and painless death. He wouldn’t have felt much. Your thoughts get scrambled, that’s what she said. It’s over really quickly.’ He wets the end of the charcoal with his tongue. ‘It didn’t look quick to me. Or painless. His face was set solid. One of his eyes was open.’ I hear him drawing on the pad. ‘Looking at me. He had a hard-on.’ He passes over this detail, bored by it. ‘It’s about blood, the places it goes inside you. His face was the thing. Set solid, black lips.’

  I’m trying to see the garden, Mum’s garden. The borders will need replanting by now. I want to fill her beds with colour, or perhaps the frothy white lace of Orlaya grandiflora which loves the sun, and flowers until the first frost lays its bitterness over everything.

  ‘They call it blue, but it’s black. He looked nothing like he did before. I thought he’d look the same only worse, but he was a whole different person. A stranger. That was interesting.’

  He’d told me about this boy before. I call him a boy, but he was pushing thirty. It’s the way Mickey describes him that makes me see a kid, someone who should never have been locked up with a man like Mickey. Soft, from the sound of him. He was learning Spanish, getting set for a fresh start, keeping his head down and doing all the right things but it didn’t make a blind bit of difference because they gave him to Mickey, who couldn’t even be bothered to learn his name.