Twelve Deaths of Christmas

by Jackson Sharp

  Or three premeditated and connected murders?

  Murder meant motive. The most important question in a murder investigation wasn’t who; it was why.

  Cox said it to herself, now, out loud in the stifling silence of Reginald Allis’s study. Three people, respectable, middle-aged, pretty blameless as far as anyone knew, killed in cold blood, within a short space of time.

  ‘Why?’

  The Fifth Day of Christmas, 1986

  Christ alive. There’s something up today. They had us out of bed two hours early, for a start, to clean the dorm. Place stinks of carbolic, enough to make your eyes water.

  Everywhere’s swept and polished. Staff all in proper uniform, name badges, the lot. Merton’s swanking about the place in a suit; looks like Halcombe’s had her hair done special.

  ‘Big day,’ she keeps saying.

  Eventually word comes down the grapevine: some specialists are coming to Hampton, to do a study, some sort of research. I don’t know what sort of research you’d do here. Look at the bedbugs through a microscope, maybe. Test the food for bubonic bloody plague.

  ‘Will they be specialists like Dr Merton?’ Stan asks me.

  ‘I dunno.’ I shrug. ‘I s’pose so.’

  Stevie says he’s seen Merton setting up a camera, a big video camera on a tripod, in one of the rooms – for interviews.

  ‘Be like being back in the nick,’ Judd grunts.

  I don’t like the look of it all. Dunno why. Merton’s twanging like a wire. Tense. Halcombe’s not right, neither; excited, frightened, don’t know what. Whole bloody place feels on the brink of a nervous bloody breakdown.

  Weather doesn’t help. Gone ten now and we’ve still got the lights on. Dark, proper bloody dark. Clouds all the way across the sky, dark purple like bruises.

  They arrive at eleven o’clock. Three cars pull up in the car park.

  ‘This,’ Dr Merton says, stepping into the rec room with a spindly bloke we’ve not seen before, ‘is Dr Allis.’

  We all look at him. Pinstriped suit, cane in his hand. Wire-rimmed glasses. He smiles without showing his teeth. Reminds me of Merton. There must be a bloody factory somewhere, turning out these skinny ‘specialists’.

  ‘Hello, boys,’ this Allis says. His voice isn’t like Merton’s, it’s deeper and rounder, like an actor’s voice in a film.

  Couple of the lads mutter, ‘Hello.’

  Merton tells us that Allis is going to be with us for a few days, conducting research for a ‘very important study’. The pair of them seem very pally. Creeps of a feather. Sooner we get shifted to Wolvesley, the better.

  I’m one of the first. There’s no camera; just a table and chairs, Allis and Merton sitting opposite with mugs of tea and open notebooks. They don’t offer me a cup of tea. Wouldn’t have had one anyroad, but still.

  They ask me a load of questions, stuff I’ve been asked a million times, by coppers, psychologists, social workers. Always the same bloody questions.

  About my mum, my dad. About that bastard Malky.

  ‘Did this Malky ever – touch you?’ Allis asks.

  Only to give me a smack in the mouth, I tell him.

  They ask about how I am, whether I’m well, whether I’m happy. I tell them I’m all right. What else am I going to say? I am all right.

  They ask me about Stan. I don’t like them asking about Stan. I tell them he’s eight, that he’s clever for his age – which is true, he’s a proper good reader – and I don’t tell them anything else. I say he’s all right.

  ‘But you want to be moved to Wolvesley?’ Merton says with a toothy smile.

  I shrug.

  ‘Yeah. It’s s’posed to be nice.’

  When they’re done with me, after about half an hour, although it feels like loads longer, they tell me to send in Stan next.

  I do, and I tell him not to be frightened, it’s just a load of questions, same as always.

  He says he’s not frightened. What is there to be frightened of? he asks me.

  I just tell him to hurry up, or else he’ll be in bother.

  He was always dead good at going to the doctor, was Stan. Even when he was little. He could get injected, even, and hardly even cry.

  It was because he trusted them, I think. Knew they were there to look after him.

  I’m twitchy till he comes out. Try to read a comic but I can’t even concentrate on that. Desperate bloody Dan too much for me. Just lie on my bed instead. Stare at the cracks in the ceiling.

  Then he comes out – and he’s grinning and jiggling a paper bag of sweets in his hand.

  ‘Jelly beans,’ he says.

  I didn’t get any sweets.

  ‘What’re they for?’

  ‘For being good.’

  I give him a scowl.

  ‘You don’t want to be taking stuff off them,’ I tell him. ‘Next time, don’t take nothing off them.’

  He looks confused.

  ‘Take what you can get, you always said, Rob.’

  It’s true. I used to say that.

  ‘Well, this is different,’ I say. ‘It’s different here.’

  ‘Different how?’

  I tell him to shut up. Shut up and eat his precious bloody jelly beans.

  Then he says: ‘I have to go back in, soon.’

  I look at him. They didn’t say anything to me about going back. Why the bloody hell does Stan have to go back? He’s eight years old. What is he going to tell them?

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Physical examination. Dr Allis’s gone away but Dr Merton needs to give me a physical examination.’

  Like at the doctor’s, he thinks. Take your temperature, look down your throat, shine a little torch in your ear.

  I’m not sure about this. I’m not bloody sure about this at all.

  So when Miss Halcombe comes in and says that Dr Merton would like to see Stanley Trevayne again, I shove Stan down his bed – he spills a handful of jelly beans – and stand up instead.

  ‘What’s it for, Miss Halcombe? What does he want to see Stan for?’

  She looks uncertain. Sometimes I think she’s batty, Miss Halcombe.

  ‘He just – he just wants to ask Stan some more questions, that’s all.’

  ‘Physical examination, he said. That’s what Stan told me.’

  She gulps. I can see her hand’s shaking. Wonder if she’s been on the gin or something.

  ‘Well, he just – Dr Merton just needs to see that Stan’s all right. That he’s been looked after properly. A check-up.’

  ‘He is all right. I told them that.’

  Halcombe seems to get cross all of a sudden. Red in the face and stuff. Leans down – doesn’t have to lean very far – to put her face right up close to mine.

  ‘Dr Merton is a very important, very clever man,’ she hisses. ‘We are very lucky to have him here.’ Straightens up. Tries to get a grip. He might impress you, missus, I think. He don’t impress me.

  ‘Well, Stan don’t like being examined. He’ll have a fit. Always used to make a proper big fuss when he had to go to the doctor’s.’

  She’s looking at me uncertainly.

  ‘Dr Merton specifically said –’

  ‘I’ll do it.’ I make the decision just like that. Only it’s not even a decision, I don’t even have to think. The idea comes into my head and straight away I know it’s the only thing I can do. ‘I’ll do it,’ I say again. ‘Whatever he wanted to ask our Stan – well, he can ask me instead.’

  She doesn’t like it much, I can see that. Says she’ll have to check with Dr Merton – check that that’s all right.

  She goes tottering off, off to the office where Stevie says he saw the camera being set up. The blinds are drawn at the office windows.

  After a minute she comes out again.

  Very well, she says, you can take Stan’s place on this occasion. I’ve spoken to the doctor, she says. The doctor says it’s fine.

  10

  With regard to the Children’s
Aid and Rehabilitation Enterprise (CARE), participant care institutions – among which are Hampton Hall for Underprivileged Children (HHUC), a care institution which the present author serves as a member of the board of trustees – were aligned in support of objectives targeted at care-provision in child-welfare cases deemed particularly challenging by a panel of early-years and education specialists …

  It was dry stuff. Allis’s writing style was pompous and academic. But Cox read on: it had to be in here somewhere, the link, the key to this case; there had to be something solid, something meaningful, that bound the three deaths together. Something more than a bunch of flowers and a disagreement over dinner.

  She rubbed her eyes and turned the page to the next chapter: Changing Paradigms, Affecting Outcomes. Sighed; read on.

  Then stopped.

  A noise, in the next room. A window, she thought, being eased open – by someone trying very hard not to be heard.

  She set down the book carefully. Stood. There was a cane, dark bamboo with a polished gold-and-glass top, propped against the desk. She took it up, hefted it in her hand. Its weightiness was reassuring.

  But it wouldn’t do her much good against a gun, a machete, a taser –

  Someone had killed Reginald Allis. Now someone – someone moving softly, furtively, making no footsteps on the thick carpet, but not able, not quite, to keep their breathing unheard – was in Reginald Allis’s flat.

  Sounded like a man; something in the pitch or tone of the faint, regular breathing. Cox waited. Strained to listen. There was a smell too – a familiar scent she couldn’t place.

  Could she even hear him any more? Had he moved away, into another room?

  Or was he holding his breath and heading straight for her?

  She edged towards the study door. Couldn’t see anyone in the sitting room. She moved forwards, widening the angle: still no one. But she could feel a cold draught from the open window.

  From here, she was pretty sure she could make it to the door in, what, five paces? A matter of seconds. Get the hell out of there; call in backup.

  Backup. Backup meant questions, reports, a call-log. Backup meant trouble.

  And staying here? she asked herself sourly. That’s the safe, sensible, no-worries option, is it?

  At least it meant she was in control. She was still in charge.

  In one movement she shouldered open the study door and stepped out into the centre of the sitting room.

  ‘Police. Show yourself.’

  In her best copper’s voice, all authority, not a hint of wobble or weakness. She’d worked hard at that, down the years.

  She heard a sharp intake of breath from one of the adjoining rooms. Shifted her balance on to the balls of her feet. As the door moved cautiously open she raised the heavy bamboo cane.

  ‘Kerry?’

  Greg Wilson, a disbelieving half-grin on his face, stepped out from behind the door.

  ‘Fucking hell.’

  She was on him before he could move, forced his arms roughly behind his back, squeezed the cuffs on to his wrists. Wilson, pushed off-balance, stumbled, fell to his knees with a grunt.

  Perfect. Cox took a breath; tried to compose herself, to ignore the rising nausea of the adrenaline drop.

  The journalist looked up at her in bewilderment.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he said.

  ‘That’s my first question,’ she said, settling herself on the edge of the sofa. ‘And once you’ve answered that, I want you to tell me what you know about the murder of Reginald Allis.’

  The blood drained from Wilson’s face.

  He didn’t know anything about any murder. He’d never even met Reginald Allis. He’d had no idea the man was dead. The words spilled out of his mouth.

  ‘Do you have any idea how many times I’ve heard that before?’

  Wilson nodded, deadpan, weary-looking. She’d let him clamber up on to the easy-chair; he sat slumped, awkward, arms still cuffed behind his back.

  ‘I know, Kerry. But in this case it’s the truth.’ He caught her eye. ‘And yes, I know that’s what they all say.’

  ‘If you didn’t know Allis was dead, why did you come here?’

  ‘Same as you: following up a lead. Only I was hoping to ask the man himself a few questions.’ He squinted thoughtfully at Cox. ‘What were you hoping to find?’

  ‘You’re in no position to ask me questions. A lead? A lead on what?’

  Wilson struggled to sit forwards.

  ‘Listen, Kerry,’ he said. ‘You know William Radley didn’t kill himself. It was a set-up, and not a very tidy one. I saw it a mile off. So I did some digging.’

  She was surprised; if whoever was behind all this had the Ministry of Justice on their side, what were they doing letting Fleet Street off the leash?

  ‘Does Mathieson know about this?’

  Stan Mathieson, Wilson’s editor, was a veteran newspaperman and a shrewd political operator.

  ‘Mathieson? You are out of the loop.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I’m freelance now.’ Wilson looked uncomfortable.

  ‘He fired you?’

  ‘We – we had a parting of ways.’

  She took that as a ‘yes’.

  ‘So you’re here on your own initiative?’ she pushed. ‘“Following up a lead”? What lead exactly?’

  ‘A journalist never reveals –’

  ‘You’ve got one minute, Wilson. One minute to give me a reason not to take you in.’

  Wilson swallowed, sniffed.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Okay. William Radley met Reginald Allis for dinner on Christmas Day. A place on Ealing Broadway.’

  Cox nodded, kept her face carefully expressionless.

  ‘I got a look at the CCTV files from the newsagent’s across the road,’ Wilson went on. ‘Chased up the registration number of the guy’s car. Mr Reginald Allis, resident at this address.’ He shrugged. ‘That was all. Not much to go on – but I had time on my hands.’

  ‘So you thought, what the hell, let’s go breaking and entering.’ She shook her head. ‘Christ, Wilson, you’ve landed yourself in a mess this time.’

  ‘So are you going to take me in?’

  She began to say ‘no’ then hesitated. If she said no, Wilson was going to want to know why – and how was she going to answer that? Just sit him down and explain that she was there without authorization, that she was going pretty drastically off-piste by sticking with this case, that she was on her last chance with her boss, that if anyone at the Yard found out she’d been there her neck would be on the line?

  Or let him think that she was letting him go out of generosity or friendship – for old times’ sake? That was a dangerous course, too, she knew, in its own way.

  ‘I want to keep this simple.’ She stood abruptly, leaned over and unfastened Wilson’s cuffs. As she did, she leaned close to him and she caught another whiff of his aftershave and, despite herself, despite everything, it brought a tingle of carnality. No, Kerry. Don’t go there. He gave a grunt of satisfaction, wrung his hands. ‘Get out of here,’ she said. Nodded towards the window. ‘The way you came in. I’ll forget you were ever here.’

  Wilson was looking at her narrowly, rubbing his chafed wrists.

  ‘And if I read this right, Kerry, you’d rather I did you the same courtesy?’

  She returned his look.

  ‘Like I say, I’d rather keep this simple.’

  ‘I think it’s a bit late for that.’ He took a step towards her. ‘Kerry. Come on. What the hell is going on here? First Radley, now Allis. What’s the story?’

  ‘That’s all it ever is to you, isn’t it? A story.’

  ‘Come on. It’s a turn of phrase. Something funny is going on here, we both know it. I’m not stupid enough to ask you to trust me.’ He shrugged, self-deprecatingly. ‘But remember, I can help you, if you need help.’

  He almost sounded sincere, Cox thought. Almost.

  ‘I don’
t need help.’

  ‘Sure. But like I say – I’m here if you need it.’

  He moved to the window; she watched him climb nimbly up on to the sill, clamber out on to the adjoining flat roof. She shut the window behind him. Locked it.

  She woke in the night, alone in the dark. Heart hammering. Hair plastered to her brow with cold sweat.

  Gulped down a breath. Let her eyes adjust to the blackness.

  The same dream, always the same dream, though she hadn’t had it for at least a fortnight. The man in the mask.

  She’d seen worse things, far worse, back in her time with Operation Refuge. When she looked back on it now, Christ … she wondered how she stood it. How she kept it together. Videos, photographs, transcripts.

  You grew numb, she knew. You never quite got used to it, exactly – but over time you found you’d grown an extra skin, a layer to protect the raw parts, the parts of you that hurt too much to bear. And then, you found, the pictures and videos stopped being shocking; the things they showed were still nauseating, monstrous, vile – but you could look at them, watch them, without turning away.

  What was the phrase she’d read somewhere? ‘The banality of evil’. Yes, that was it.

  You watched the videos, you made notes. You translated the horrors on the screen into pencil-marks on the page. Oral rape; victim M, 5–7yrs; offender M, cauc, star tattoo lower midriff. Vaginal rape; victims F, 7–9yrs, 10–12yrs; offender M, cauc, no distinguishing features.

  People hurting people. That was all it was.

  The man in the mask was different.

  There was a victim – hell, there was always a victim – but you barely saw them, in the footage Refuge had. You saw an arm, thin, pale, a child’s arm, striped dark-red with rope burns, bent at the elbow, blurry in the foreground; you heard a child’s whimpering sobs.

  But mainly you saw him.

  It was old footage, low-res and flickering; probably it’d been transferred from videotape at some point. The camera was fixed, tilted slightly upwards from the horizontal.

  He was tall, well built. He moved into shot purposefully, conscious, it was clear, of where the camera was, how to use the angles to dramatic advantage. He wore a white robe, toga-like, knotted over one shoulder.