The Two O'Clock Boy

by Mark Hill

  ‘Money?’

  ‘Lots of money. Is that what this is about, money? If that’s what he wants, he can keep it.’

  ‘What does he look like, this Gavin?’

  ‘I don’t know, like some bloke.’ Elliot grimaced, thinking. ‘Uh, tall.’

  ‘He had a clear opportunity to kill me this morning, but he didn’t.’ Lifting the curtain again, Drake saw Flick climb from the car and look up at the cottage. ‘I think he’s left us last for a reason.’

  ‘And why’s that?’ Elliot snatched a packet of cigarettes off the arm of a sofa, fumbled one from the packet.

  ‘Because he hates us, because he blames us for what happened to him,’ said Drake, ‘because he’s insane. He’s methodical, patient and very angry. He’s killed those people and their families over a long period of time. Found them, murdered them, left no trace – until now. He wants us to know what he’s doing.’

  ‘Us?’

  ‘He’s got something special planned for you and me, I think.’

  ‘He was a basket case back then, no question. But a murderer?’

  Drake watched Elliot light the cigarette and take quick, nervous puffs. ‘You married, Elliot?’

  ‘I’ve a partner. Dylan’s my stepson.’

  ‘He’ll kill them, too. It’s what he does.’

  Elliot tried to keep the panic from his voice. ‘What am I going to say to Rhonda? What am I going to tell her?’

  ‘You don’t tell her anything. You all go away for a while, don’t tell anybody where, till I can get to him.’

  ‘I told you, I’ve got no money, he took it all, and I just happen to be all out of magic fucking beans.’

  ‘I need a gun,’ said Drake. ‘Do you have one?’

  ‘Me? No!’ Elliot grimaced. ‘What would I do with one of those? What are you going to do, shoot him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Cigarette smoke danced in front of Elliot’s face as he lifted his hand to rub his eyes. ‘I could do without all this right now, to be honest.’

  ‘You smoking?’ called Dylan at the top of the stairs.

  Elliot jumped at the sound of his voice. ‘Sorry, I’m putting it out now.’

  He opened the door and threw out the cigarette, which bounced and sparked on the stony drive. Drake saw Flick waiting impatiently by the car and turned to go, but Elliot grabbed his arm.

  ‘That place, I’ll never get it out of my system, I’ve always known that. It’s like a bullet embedded near my heart, slowly working its way in. I’ve always known that one day it’ll be the end of me. It’s going to kill me stone dead. But right now I’ve got a good life, a family, something I never thought would be for the likes of me. And just as I start to feel a little peace, a little … normality, you come back into my life, you along with that, that …’ He shook his head bitterly. ‘I don’t believe it, after all this time …’ Elliot snorted miserably. ‘Connor Laird.’

  ‘Remember what he told you the last time you saw him.’ Drake leaned close. ‘Connor Laird is gone. Let’s keep it that way.’

  And then he turned, strode down the drive without looking back. Flick watched him approach over the top of the car.

  ‘You were a long time,’ she said.

  ‘You’ll have to forgive an old man’s prostate.’ Drake climbed in, placed his hands on the wheel. ‘This is finished, yes – it’s over?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Flick, looking away. ‘It’s over.’

  He started the car, and glancing in the rear-view, saw the curtains twitch in Elliot’s cottage.

  31

  As they dropped back onto the North Circular, the pips beeped on the radio at the top of the hour. A newscaster said: ‘Police in South London are investigating the deaths of a couple in their home this morning. Mehmet and Deb—’

  Drake switched off the radio, and when Flick looked at him, said: ‘Do you mind? We’ve enough murders on our hands. I don’t particularly want to hear about any more.’

  The traffic ahead thickened. Drake eased up behind an estate car to wait for the tailback to get moving. Hands clasped in her lap, Flick made a face. ‘This is going to sound like a really crass question.’

  ‘Let’s hear it, then.’

  ‘What’s the thing you miss most about Laura?’

  Drake blew out his cheeks. ‘I don’t even know how to start answering that question. It’s too big.’

  She shifted in her seat towards him. ‘A small thing, then.’

  Drake thought about it. ‘She kept me sane.’

  ‘That sounds like a pretty big thing.’

  ‘She kept me from – how would April put it? – from losing my shit.’

  ‘You don’t seem a particularly mad person.’

  ‘That,’ he said, the edges of his mouth curling into a tight smile, ‘is because I am a very good actor.’

  The traffic crawled forward and he nosed the car into the stream of traffic in the left-hand lane, ready for the Tottenham turn-off.

  ‘So what stops you now?’ she asked eventually. ‘Going mad, I mean?’

  ‘I’ve April to worry about.’ His fingers drummed on the top of the wheel. ‘She’s still angry about her mother dying, she’s … vulnerable. I’m not her favourite person right now. I don’t like it, but I understand why, because I’m a useful punchbag. But she’ll come round. Sooner or later she’s going to need me, and I’ve got to be there for her.’ He glanced at her. ‘Something on your mind, Flick?’

  ‘It’s not the same, and I’m certainly not comparing it to … your loss. But my sister’s going away with her family, to Australia. We’re close, and I know I can visit once a year, or twice maybe, but without them here …’

  She shook her head, wished she’d never started the conversation. But right now, despite everything, Drake was the only person she felt able to talk to. This murder investigation had driven a wedge between them for reasons she didn’t fully understand, but when all was said and done, he had supported her so much more than her own father. Drake’s family was important to him, she knew, and he would understand.

  ‘I think I’ve relied on her too much, taken for granted that Nina would always be there when I needed her, and nothing would ever change.’

  ‘It’s tough.’

  ‘If I’m being honest,’ she said, and felt a hard lump in her throat, ‘I’ve turned thirty and they’re all I’ve got.’

  ‘There’s your father.’

  ‘We don’t get on.’ She shrugged. ‘The usual torturous family stuff. He left Mum for another woman when I was young and we hardly saw him. A lot of things happened after that. My older brother walked out of the house one day and we never saw him again, you know about that, it hit us all very hard. Then when Mum got dementia Dad didn’t lift a finger. He infuriates me, always has. I don’t know how long it’s been since I saw him last. But Nina has made the effort.’ She frowned. ‘He’s in a home now, a good one, and she pays for it, would you believe.’

  ‘And how do you feel about that?’

  ‘It’s none of my business what she does with her money.’ She hesitated. ‘I told you Dad was a copper.’

  Drake nodded. He knew all about Harry Crowley. Let’s face it, mostly everyone at the station did.

  They didn’t speak again until they were cruising past White Hart Lane, just a few minutes from the station. ‘Do you miss your own dad?’ she asked.

  ‘Leonard … my father died when I was eighteen. I didn’t know him very well, not really. I wish I’d got to know him better; I have a lot to thank him for. Look, it’s none of my business, but maybe you should go and see your father. Make peace. Before, you know …’

  ‘Before it’s too late.’

  ‘I didn’t want to say that,’ Drake said. ‘But one day he won’t be there and … well, you know the rest.’

  ‘Sorry to bring it up.’ Flick felt guilty about talking about death, not when he had so recently lost his wife. ‘Your mother is still going strong!’

  ‘Oh, Myra will outli
ve us all.’ He threw her a sideways glance. ‘She tells me she has no intention whatsoever of dying, and I believe her.’

  Flick watched the shops and cafés flash by on the High Road. ‘Perhaps I will go to see him. There’s stuff we need to talk about.’

  ‘There you go.’

  But you won’t like it, she thought, if you knew what I want to talk to him about: the Longacre, the night it burned down, and the boy called Connor Laird.

  She thought, once again, about Drake down in the Property Room. She wanted to know what he was doing there in the dead of night. The noise she heard.

  A cough, and then something else – another sound, like—

  ‘What?’ Drake asked her, and she realised she had been staring at him.

  As soon as she got into her office, Flick unlocked the desk drawer and took out the article about the visit of Leonard and Myra Drake to the Longacre, slipped it from the plastic sheaf. She turned it over in her fingers. Checked the date, reread the names.

  She reached into her bag for a pair of nitrile gloves. Snapping them over her wrists, she gently teased the clipping onto the desk. Despite the sun streaming in behind her, Flick clicked on the anglepoise lamp and positioned it above the sheet. Something about this cutting …

  The next thing she heard was her office door open. When she looked up, Vix Moore was stood there.

  ‘I want to make a complaint about DC Upson.’

  Flick stared. ‘What kind of a complaint?’

  ‘Detective Constable Upson has a very unfortunate manner. We’re the same rank, but he’s always telling me what to do. He asks me for an update on my work every five – no, every two minutes – and is frankly very rude.’ Vix stepped forward. ‘Furthermore, I don’t feel that the work I’m being given is helping me progress as a detective.’

  ‘What have you been doing?’

  ‘Leafleting,’ she said bitterly.

  Half a page from a local newspaper, dated 31 July 1984.

  The photograph was torn away.

  Flick tried to keep the impatience out of her voice. ‘I’ll speak to DS Upson, you leave it with me.’

  A cough, another sound, the look of shock on Drake’s face in the Property Room.

  A cough, another sound.

  But DC Moore didn’t move, and she asked: ‘Was there something else?’

  ‘I’d like some media training. One day I’m going to be interviewed – by the papers or by television – and I want to be prepared. I think I’d be very good on the media communications side of things, an asset.’

  ‘Good idea, we’ll look into it. Thanks, Vix.’

  Flick put her head down. A few moments later, she heard the door slam. The fibre of the old newspaper was stiff and brown. Examining the torn edge, she saw it had wisps of pulp along it, very fine, almost translucent against the dark veneer of the desk. This half-page of newspaper was over thirty years old. The edges on three sides were worn, blunted. Yet the torn edge had tiny shreds of paper still attached. That didn’t make sense after thirty years. It would have worn smooth long ago.

  Which meant it had been torn recently.

  Drake in the basement. As she’d moved into the aisle she’d heard a noise. His cough, yes, but something else as he’d stepped quickly to the shelf to smother her view. Her pulse quickened.

  Her office door swung open again and Eddie Upson stormed into the room. ‘What was Vix saying about me?’

  A cough, another sound, Drake stepped forward.

  A cough, a tearing sound.

  He tore it.

  Ray Drake tore the photo away, and took it.

  ‘Get your coat.’ Flick stood quickly. ‘We’re going out.’

  32

  Sick of the secrets multiplying in his head, exhausted after a sleepless night, Elliot resolved to come clean and tell Rhonda he’d lost their savings.

  He had spent the hours before dawn watching the black night dissolve into tepid daylight, trying to work out the best way to do it, and decided to fall on her mercy. And since the shocking visit of a man he’d known briefly a long time ago and had never imagined he’d see again, who was now a cop, he was petrified.

  Kids from the Longacre killed, and their loved ones slaughtered, by someone calling himself the Two O’Clock Boy. If the copper was right, he would as sure as hell come after Elliot. They had to get away. He had to convince Rhonda and Dylan to take a long holiday, just till this whole fucked-up situation blew over. But even if by some miracle she said, Sure, let’s drop everything, I’ll call work to say I’ll be back in a few weeks or months, whatever, she’d find out they had no savings left. The only way he could convince her to come away with him was to come clean about the money.

  So Elliot went the whole hog. He kneeled before her like a penitent knight while she sat on the sofa, her small hands in his.

  ‘There was a guy, down the pub.’ He winced, the whole thing sounded like the beginning of a bad joke. ‘We were going to start a business together, selling burgers. He said we needed to pay a deposit and then I’d get the money back. I didn’t ask you because I thought you would say no.’

  He waited for her to get angry or upset, but she just frowned at him.

  ‘So, yeah.’ He swallowed.’ I handed it over to him.’

  ‘All of it?’

  He nodded. ‘Every penny.’

  She untangled her hands from his, placed them in her lap, a small gesture that made him feel wretched.

  ‘Why would you do that?’

  ‘Because I’m Elliot the idiot, and I’ve a special kind of talent for messing up.’ He grimaced. ‘Always have had, always will.’

  ‘And who did you give it to?’

  ‘A bloke called Gavin.’

  ‘A bloke called Gavin,’ she repeated.

  ‘Well, he said his name was Gavin.’ The last thing he could tell her was that he may have given all their hard-earned cash – Rhonda’s hard-earned cash – to a multiple murderer. He didn’t want to terrify her, not on top of everything else. ‘I wanted to prove I could make a go of my own business. I wanted to surprise you.’

  ‘Well.’ Rhonda smiled bitterly. ‘Mission accomplished.’

  ‘I wanted you to know that I can …’ His voice trailed away. What was the point in telling her what she already knew, that he couldn’t be trusted That no matter how much he tried to kid himself, he would always make a mess of any given situation, nailed on?

  ‘Tell me you didn’t spend the money on drugs or gambling, or prostitutes—’

  ‘No!’ It sickened him that she could think that. ‘I’d never –’

  ‘You would never what?’ she spat. ‘Because you seem to get up to an awful lot without my knowledge, Elliot.’

  ‘Why don’t we go away?’ he said. ‘Take that holiday?’

  ‘You just lost all our money,’ she said, and stood suddenly.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To get a glass of water,’ she said. ‘If that’s okay with you?’

  ‘I’ll get it.’

  ‘No.’ She waved him off. ‘I’ll go. I have to do everything else around here.’

  When she was gone, he thrust his hands in his pockets and stood at the window, looking miserably at the abandoned barn next door.

  That barn was the first thing he saw every morning, on the days he managed to get out of bed before midday – if he had no work to go to, he often didn’t – and every day it was a little bit nearer to collapsing. Insects munched on the timber day and night and weeds forced themselves further into the grain of the dry, brittle planks. Every day, without anyone really noticing, the edifice was weakened a little bit more.

  That was what his memories of the Longacre were doing to Elliot, eating away at him. Other kids from the home, they could probably handle their memories. But they hadn’t seen half of what Elliot had, and he didn’t know how to cope with his thoughts, so he did his best to bury them.

  So many memories … Of Tallis’s heavy tread on the stairs, and the
time he made Turrell eat the cockroach, and what happened to Sally, and Connor Laird’s cold, implacable anger in those final, harrowing hours at the home, a night that would be forever imprinted into Elliot’s DNA like a white-hot iron seared into flesh. Those were the memories that ate away at him, as surely as the weeds and insects that patiently consumed that dilapidated barn.

  And what was worse, they weren’t just memories any more. The terror of the Longacre, a place he thought was done with him, had re-emerged to torment him once more. People he never thought he would see again, never cared to see again, had resurfaced, and one of them wanted to kill him. And kill Rhonda and kill Dylan.

  The tap gushed in the kitchen. He heard water splash into a glass.

  This was his moment to get it all off his chest. The time was right to tell Rhonda everything: about the violence and the abuse, and the crimes he committed when he was too young to know any better. When he was manipulated and bullied by Tallis. When he was a child – a frightened, terrified boy. And then he would tell her about Connor and Sally and Turrell, and about Ray Drake – about what happened all those years ago – and about the terrible danger they were in now, decades later.

  Finally he would get it all out. All those other kids, they were dead, or so he was told. But Elliot was alive and he had to move forward, and the only way to do that was to tell Rhonda. Let it all come tumbling into the daylight where it couldn’t do any more damage, and where they could examine it. Rhonda would know what to do, how to put him back together. Elliot pressed a hand to his face and decided to take that chance.

  The time was now. He took a deep breath.

  But.

  This scared him, terrified him – she might leave him when she found out about the cold-blooded murders. He hadn’t done them, they weren’t his fault, but he had been there, and had said nothing about them. Not to anyone, ever. Because he was still the same scared little kid. If what he had done was wrong, then he was sorry, but he had only been a kid and he wasn’t to blame for what went on in that place.

  She’ll know the kind of man you are.

  Don’t burden her with all your selfish shit. Just suck it up.