by AD Davies
“It is,” the lawyer said. “Inciting hatred, inciting murder, inciting racial hatred … inciting stuff can get you in a lot of trouble, even if you don’t really mean it.”
The youngest of the three men, Vernon Slater, sat slumped like a hundred suspects Murphy interviewed in the past, the sort they often pulled off a housing estate for mindless vandalism or assaulting a neighbour who asked the youth to turn down his music. Silent until now, he said, “It’s a fit up. If they didn’t already want to do one of us for it, they wouldn’t be here.”
“That’s not true,” Stevenson said. “We have a geographic area to cover. We just need to eliminate you—”
“Last time some copper tried to eliminate me from their enquiries, they jammed their knee into my windpipe, and punched me in the balls.”
Bill Khan said, “But you got to admit you probably deserved it.”
Jacob, Vernon, Norman, and Bill all laughed, a cheeky smile breaking through Vernon’s face.
“Yeah,” Vernon admitted. “But that’s not the point. They knew I did it, but if I didn’t do it, they’d still have made me say I did.” He sat forward, serious again. “It’s why I didn’t want to come here tonight.”
Jacob switched his clasped hands to the prayer position, pointed at Vernon rather than God. “Vernon here spent time in prison after several unfortunate incidents involving his fists leading his brain. Community sentences didn’t seem to do anything for him, and three months inside achieved little except annoy him further, and convince him he was a victim of society’s oppression. Isn’t that right, Vernon?”
“Right.” The younger man relaxed his shoulders and sat upright with his arms crossed. “Trouble with this world is, ’cos I don’t have any money, I don’t get a say in anything. Where I’m from, no one escapes, no one gets the big car, the nice house. The system prevents me from achieving anything other than being a minimum wage slave, or justifying their existence.” He nodded to the police.
Murphy felt conversations like this required silence and the occasional nod to confirm he was listening.
“Bullshit,” Bill Khan said. The khaki dressed African Caribbean man shook his head with disdain. “Problem is you want everything at once. Don’t wanna work your way up. You want the office and the money straight away, like the library detail here.”
“Don’t get on your high horse with me, Philosopher Bill. Your students might think you’re hot shit, but it don’t wash with everyone. Hard work, get your hands dirty, blah blah blah. I’ll take the lottery win over three years in a warehouse any day of the week. And you know what? Being born with rich parents instead of a mommy who thinks benefit fraud is a proper career, that’s the only lottery anyone can really win.”
Again, Murphy didn’t think this warranted a reply. Thankfully, nor did Alicia or Stevenson.
“Let’s get back on track,” Jacob said. “Norman, you’re better at these things.” He glanced between the detectives. “Norman got a little carried away with some prostitutes. A long time ago. He’s changed and is making up for his indiscretions by teaching basic IT skills to the students here, and anyone looking to re-join the outside world.”
Norman reached toward Vernon Slater’s head. “And…”
The younger man twitched away from the hand, but Norman lunged and whipped his arm back holding a playing card. The joker.
“Magic!” Norman said, tossing the card to Alicia.
Vernon rolled his eyes. “Would you quit it with the stupid magic shit?”
“The Internet’s the thing,” Norman said. “Learn anythin’ on there. Includin’ close-up illusions.” When he smiled, he must have been missing every other tooth, as if an expert marksman shot them out with an air rifle as a joke. “That’s what y’need if you want a job too. A house. Benefits. Anythin’.”
“So you’re the expert?” Alicia asked.
“Near as we can get in here.”
“Learned it inside,” Vernon said. “Big old bookworm. Least he did something useful, instead of some philosophy bollocks.”
Bill rolled his eyes. “You don’t change the world by wishing for change. You can’t change your own world hoping for luck to drop on you. Open your mind to new ideas, and you might start to flourish.”
To Norman, Murphy said, “You operate a VPN here. It masks people’s activity.”
“To a degree,” Norman replied. “Is that the problem? ’Cos if you gimme some usernames and websites, we can go back through the history. People here can’t mask that.”
“Wouldn’t it take an expert to wipe the cache from a forum, hide the actual activity?”
“What I would do, if I wanted to hide myself from people like you, is clone a server and run my activity through that place. A VPN ain’t any more anonymous than a hundred other ways a’ hidin’, but channellin’ activity through, say China or Lithuania, that’s how to stay anonymous.”
Stevenson cleared his throat. “So this person might be proficient enough to hide behind a virtual private network, but not so good as to conceal himself completely.”
“Meaning,” Alicia said, “he understands enough to stay hidden from most basic meta data monitoring, but if we dig deeper, we’ll find the person quite easily.”
“Mr. Faulkner,” Murphy said. “Could you supply us with the online activity from all your residents for the past month?”
“Sure,” Norman Faulkner replied, “just give me—”
“With a warrant,” Kuno Kae said.
Everyone, including the residents, groaned and turned her way.
“We have nothing to hide,” Bill said. “Why do they need a warrant?”
“It sets a precedent,” the lawyer replied. “If we give them full access now, they’ll demand it later, maybe next time they want to search your chalets, or the grounds, or have a permanent police presence, just in case one of you decides to express a view not in keeping with the modern world. It’s a slippery slope, and I am here to protect you from outside intrusion that might set back people’s recovery.”
Jacob pushed his chair back and stood. “Kuno is correct. We must do these things properly. And if, no matter how unlikely, one of our people committed a misdemeanour in some chat room or on Facebook, or whatever it is you’re investigating, I think official paperwork is required.” He bowed shallowly toward Murphy. “For now, I think it’s best if you depart.”
* * *
Jacob and Kuno accompanied the detectives back to the gate. Alicia wasn’t impressed with how they handled the situation. She knew what she wanted to say, but she was tired and irritable, and all she wanted to do was lie on a massive beanbag, watch some depressing news bulletin, and then take herself to bed.
“Kuno,” Alicia said, taking a chance on using her first name. “You can’t earn much from this.”
“As I’m sure you’re aware, my family is independently wealthy.”
“Still, you really believe this works? That these men can recover and re-join society without reoffending?”
“The reoffending rate for Her Majesty’s Prison Service is around seventy percent nationwide. For people serving sentences of five years or less, for assault, burglary, drugs, it’s eighty-five percent. IROMOV’s reoffending rate is less than ten. Over the past three years, since I became involved, that’s fewer than five people who have been arrested or cautioned for any crime after leaving through these gates.”
She stopped, swept an open hand towards the exit, and waited for the men to catch up. Once Murphy could hear, she continued.
“We have been extremely cooperative, and we really did not need to be. So please understand, unless you return with a warrant you will not be admitted, and you certainly will not receive any records. If it is only the records you require, please submit the warrant to my office. I will ensure the documentation is passed on. There is no need for you to return.”
“That’s not what I asked,” Alicia said. “I was asking if you really believe in it.”
“I have to. Al
though I kept my maiden name, I married one of these men last year. His name is Jack, and he now works for the council, with not even a hint of anger towards me, or any of his workmates. This place is a success, and your presence is a burden, so please do not risk interrupting our work again.”
She shielded the keypad with her body as she typed in the code, and the gates opened to allow the detectives to leave. There were no more pleasantries except for a placid half bow from Jacob, and once the gate closed, the pair of them retreated into the camp.
Standing by their cars, the three detectives digested what, if anything, they learned.
Stevenson said, “A warrant will destabilise the place. And we can’t simply serve it to her office and wait for the records. I’ve dealt with Cyber a number of times, and they need a body on-site.”
“Because it’s technically a clinic,” Murphy said, “it’ll be harder to get the warrant anyway. First thing, we work the rest of the potential network—the village, the school—and if that turns up empty, we’ve eliminated everything else except for this Institute.”
Alicia said, “You like this place, don’t you?”
“Anything that stops the cycle that traps so many idiots in crime is okay by me.”
Alicia wondered how much the DCI really wanted this place to be the base from where the protests were organised. She agreed that something better than prison at rehabilitating offenders should be encouraged, and although the men she met tonight had clearly done horrible things in their lives, she did not wish to push them back over the edge.
She said, “Then let’s hope we don’t need to come back.”
There was nothing more to be said. Murphy’s cat would need feeding, Alicia’s beanbag beckoned, and Stevenson more than likely had some making up to do with his fiancée. So why, exactly, did Alicia feel the need to make a detour first?
CHAPTER NINE
There was no good reason for Alicia to pop by Langton Hospital. Self-analysis had never been one of her strong points, but if pushed she could make the case that, following her visit to IROMOV, redemption was understandably on her mind, and since room 237 of the Permanent Residents’ Wing housed the father of Alicia’s baby, it felt somehow vile and necessary at the same time.
Even when confessing his crimes, Richard Hague plainly did not see himself as a bad man, but he earned the nickname “The Century Killer”, testament to the number of people he murdered whilst travelling the United States as a salesman. He ceased killing when he fell in love, and only took up his hobby again at times of great stress or sorrow. The kidnap of his daughter last winter was both stressful and sorrowful, and thus ignited his old skills, pushing them into service once again.
Alicia, of course, did not know this at the time of conception. Despite his somewhat advanced age—twelve years her senior—she was attracted to him from the day they met. Not an unnatural response. After all, there aren’t many single women in their thirties who would turn down George Clooney or Pierce Brosnan, so it felt only natural to jump into bed with a confident yet seemingly broken man of such an undeniably sexy disposition. So, as one of the lead detectives with information he could use, Richard used her very thoroughly. Professionally, it would have been suicide if anyone found out, even without the pregnancy or the hundred-plus victims who perished at his hands.
Only Murphy, Roberta, and a US-based private investigator knew the truth. And they would never blab.
Alicia’s colleagues set up sweepstakes at both Sheerton and the SCA. Second-favourite was Murphy himself (eww, yuck) closely followed by Cleaver (yuck again), then Sergeant Ball (double eww, yuck). But the odds-on bet was Alfie Rhee, the private investigator she spent so much time with whilst in America earlier this year, a sabbatical taken to track down any miscarriages of justice or unresolved murders that could be attributed to the man she now stood over in room 237 of Langton Hospital.
“His daughter still comes by,” a nurse told her at her shoulder. Beatrice York, Alicia remembered. “I swear, it’s so creepy. The occasional blip in the machine fools Katie into thinking her dad might wake up one day. But he can’t.”
“Does she come by often?” Alicia asked.
“More often than is healthy. She started praying recently too.”
Watching from the doorway, they spoke in low voices so the young woman with her head bowed over Richard’s bed would not hear them.
Alicia hadn’t planned on seeing Katie. Hadn’t seen her in months. On the rare occasions she turned up at the hospital and found Richard’s twenty-two-year-old daughter present, Alicia waited in the parking lot until she exited, and drove away in her little Nissan Micra.
Today, the urge to lay eyes on this man was too great. Again, she couldn’t say why.
Katie’s hands parted and she sat up, head turned to Alicia. Beatrice patted Alicia on the back, and left them to it. Alicia stepped inside, paused, then approached the bottom of the bed.
At the end of Katie’s ordeal, she witnessed her father sacrifice himself in order to save her, Alicia, and a girl called Siobhan. In that moment, Alicia perhaps believed Richard was truly capable of love, as he professed to her many times that day. Alicia had already discovered Richard’s true nature, though, and rejected any notion of forgiveness.
Of course, she could not have known then about the life he placed inside her.
She said, “Hello. It’s been a while. How are you?”
Katie rose to her feet, smoothed herself down. “I’m okay.”
Before the kidnapping, Katie balanced her sports science degree with regularly playing sports and frequenting pubs and clubs. She took pride in her appearance without looking like some made up Barbie doll reality TV star; today, she wore tracksuit bottoms, a shapeless plain T-shirt, and her hair had not been washed for days. She’d gained weight too.
While Alicia found it distasteful to judge a fellow woman by her appearance, Katie’s physical changes in a mere eight months were too striking to ignore.
“Are you still seeing Dr. Rasmus?” Alicia asked.
“Yes. It’s helping.”
“And that?” Alicia indicated the crucifix around Katie’s neck.
Katie looked at her father, and fingered the small gold cross. “I don’t know. It’s a new thing I’m trying.”
The only free chair in the room stood next to Katie’s. If it weren’t for the aches, Alicia would have remained standing, but she lowered herself into position. “I’m sorry I haven’t visited for a while. Things have been hectic.”
“You liked my dad, right? Before you knew … about … America. And the two women here.”
Alicia nodded. “He seemed like a … good father to you.”
The blip blip blip of Richard’s heart monitor was a constant reminder of his presence. The hiss emanating from the respiratory system sounded like white noise, audio that may be soothing under other circumstances.
Alicia said, “He was a good father to you. Regardless of what he did … it doesn’t change your life together.”
Katie held Alicia’s hand in both of hers. “It changes everything. Dr Rasmus has helped me understand. It’s normal for me to view him differently. I accept he loved me, but I’m struggling to forgive him.”
If Katie were Alicia’s patient, she would advise her to move on, advice easier given than followed. The trauma of being held captive for so long, forced to perform unimaginable things at the whim of a madman, was compounded by learning of her father’s actions. She lost him twice: once physically as he bled almost to death, then emotionally. Alicia had considered introducing Katie to her half-brother, but with her mind so fragile, her emotional state so raw, it may have a far worse affect than Alicia planned.
“I don’t know why I came,” Alicia admitted. “I guess I want to ask him so many things. But he’s never going to answer.”
Katie let go of Alicia’s hand, returning again to her crucifix. “The changes in his rhythms … sometimes I think, perhaps if I hope hard enough, it will deliver the m
iracle I need.”
Alicia drew her eyes to Richard, her vision blurred. The man was clean-shaven, a pipe in his throat, his muscle tone sagging through lack of use, more obvious at the moment because he was elevated slightly at the waist. He was brain dead, and only kept alive through a trust set up for Katie by the wealthy family whose inactions led, indirectly, to the crimes committed against her.
Perhaps one in a hundred thousand people could survive Richard’s injuries.
“As long as I hope,” Katie said, “then the answers aren’t dead yet.”
“I should be going.” Alicia pushed herself to the edge of the chair, gripped Richard’s bed, and pulled to her feet. “Don’t stay too late will you?”
Katie stared at Alicia’s stomach. “You must be due soon.”
“About five weeks.”
“Does the father know yet?”
“If we ever meet again, I’ll certainly be honest with him.”
* * *
The rest of her journey home lasted nearly an hour. She shouldn’t have gone, for no other reason than getting in late was no good for her. The back of her legs ached, her stomach ached, her feet ached. Robbie would likely be in bed, so Alicia would have to eat crisps alone until the hunger now attacking her abated.
However, as she entered their apartment at 11:30 p.m., Roberta greeted her with a wide smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
“Hey, there you are,” Robbie said. “Got a surprise for you.”
“It’s a bit late.” Alicia hung up her coat and kicked off her shoes.
“Not for this.”
Robbie aimed her grin at the living room door.
Alicia’s eyes narrowed.
Robbie was plainly not going to say anything else, so all Alicia could do was push open the door, step slowly through, and confront the big surprise.