Twelve Deaths of Christmas

by Jackson Sharp

  Butcher shook his head slowly – even, it seemed, proudly.

  ‘Nah. Never. Maybe I weren’t his type. Or maybe he knew I weren’t going to play along. I weren’t going to bend over and bite the pillow like a good little boy. Nah, fuck that.’ He picked his nose thoughtfully. ‘I reckon they know, nonces, who they can mess with and who they can’t. I reckon they’ve got like an instinct for it.’

  Cox frowned. This could be a problem. If Butcher had no direct experience of abuse by Merritt, was any of this more than hearsay and guesswork?

  But then, there were any number of reasons why the guy might not want to tell them if Merritt did abuse him at Hampton Hall. Maybe he just didn’t want to talk about it; he might’ve even blanked out the memory – it wasn’t an uncommon response among victims of abuse.

  Then there was the fact that Butcher seemed to take a dim view of the boys who, in his words, played along with Merritt. There’d be a lot bundled up there, Cox guessed: guilt, shame, self-hatred, disgust. This kind of abuse, she knew, left more than physical scars.

  And there was another possibility: Butcher had twigged that having been abused by Merritt gave him a motive for killing him. He was just trying to stay out of trouble.

  ‘How do you know for sure,’ Cox said carefully, ‘that Merritt – or rather Merton – was committing abuse?’

  Butcher glowered at her indignantly.

  ‘Ain’t you been listening?’

  ‘I have, Mr Butcher, yes. But I want to know, if you weren’t yourself a victim, exactly how you can be so sure what went on. Did someone tell you?’

  A nod.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘All right. All right, here’s a story for you.’ Butcher leaned forward across the table, arms folded tight under his ribs. ‘I had a mate in Hampton, a lad a year or so younger’n me. Robbie. Little fucking trouble-maker he was.’ Butcher grinned faintly at the memory – but the grin quickly faded. ‘The stupid little cunt let himself be bought off by Merton.’

  ‘You mean he was abused?’

  ‘Yer, that’s what I mean. Got all the fucking pizza he could eat, though. For him and his little brother. Parents were skagheads, or something like that, so both brothers ended up at Hampton.’ Another toothless grin. This one was utterly mirthless. ‘He used to tell me what went on. Horrible fucking stuff, it was. Robbie just took it, though.’

  ‘And do you remember Robbie’s surname?’

  He shook his head, grimacing bitterly. ‘Didn’t have much fucking luck, that kid.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘His brother got moved, to another place. Died in a fire. Robbie went fucking crazy after that. Christmas, too. Not that we exactly had merry fucking Christmases in that place, but still …’

  Cox snapped to attention.

  ‘A boy died?’

  Butcher clicked his fingers. ‘Wolvesley, it was called. Wolvesley Grange. Had a reputation for being a bit of a softer digs. Y’know, better food and all that.’

  ‘Do you know what the boy’s name was?’

  Butcher poked out his lower lip, shook his head.

  ‘Nah, man, too long ago. He was just Robbie’s brother. But Robbie, fucking hell – he was just never the same after that. Know what I mean? After that Christmas, he was a different fucking person.’

  Cox nodded, mentally filing away the details. She’d given up on the idea that Butcher was responsible for Merritt’s death – hell, had she ever really believed it? – but still, he might be able to give them the lead they needed.

  ‘Let’s go back to Dr Merritt,’ she said. ‘You didn’t answer before when I asked if you’d ever been to Merritt’s house. But that’s okay, because we know from our records that you were apprehended trespassing on the property just over a year ago.’

  Butcher sighed. Let his head drop.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said.

  ‘You had it in for Dr Merritt.’

  ‘I – I dunno. I saw him on the telly and – and summink snapped.’

  The brief butted in again: ‘Mr Butcher, I’d advise you not to answer any more questions.’

  But Cox kept up the pressure. Took out a manila folder, opened it. It contained six glossy colour photographs.

  ‘These are images from the crime scene,’ she said. Held up one. A close-up of Merritt’s face: the red mask, the jutting white teeth.

  She glanced at Hosking: the solicitor had paled and was holding both hands over his mouth. Butcher, though, only blinked, once, slowly, and said: ‘Weren’t me.’

  Another photo, this one showing the deep wounds to Merritt’s legs and genitals; from Butcher, the same impassive response.

  The third photo was the kicker in the three-card trick.

  A full-frame close-up of the face cut into Merritt’s chest.

  ‘I thought this one might be familiar,’ she said.

  She watched Butcher closely. Saw his eyes widen, just for a second; saw him bite his lower lip. Then saw him shake his head.

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘You’re sure? Look closely.’

  Butcher gulped.

  ‘Nah.’

  ‘Mr Butcher, you’re telling me you’ve never seen this image before?’ Careful, Kerry, careful – don’t push it. ‘Take a long look. Think hard.’

  Butcher peered at the image for a drawn-out moment – then he looked sharply away and slapped at the picture angrily with his hand.

  ‘Stop waving these fucking pictures at me, man,’ he protested. ‘It’s sick.’

  ‘No, Stevie, what’s sick is what Euan Merritt did to you and a lot of other boys. I know what they called him – Dr Midnight, wasn’t it?’

  ‘You don’t know nothing about it.’

  ‘Then tell me, for God’s sake.’ Shook the photo of the face-shaped wound. ‘You know what this is, don’t you? Dammit, Stevie, I know you do.’ She brought the flat of her hand down hard on the table. Her bottle of water jumped.

  Straight away she knew she’d gone too far.

  Butcher’s jaw was clenched; a vein beat rapidly in his shaved temple. Cox heard Chalmers let out a breath.

  Into the silence the solicitor said: ‘I don’t think my client will be answering any more questions today, inspector. Do you and your silent partner here’ – he indicated Chalmers with a dismissive waft of his hand – ‘intend to charge Mr Butcher? Do you, indeed, have any evidence to link him to this crime?’ He had taken out a handkerchief and was fastidiously wiping his hands. ‘Or should you, in fact, admit that this was nothing but a fishing expedition and release my client from custody?’

  Cox felt her own heartbeat slowly return to normal; brought her breathing steadily under control.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said firmly. ‘Mr Butcher still has an awful lot of questions to answer.’

  The Tenth Day of Christmas, 1986

  ‘Maybe he’s been banged up,’ says Stevie.

  ‘Dream on,’ grunts Col.

  We’ve not seen Merton today, and Stevie’s heard from one of the orderlies that he’s not going to be back here for a while. Good bloody riddance, I thought. At first.

  Then I remembered what he told us, that day in the garden before Mark Duffy beaned him with a snowball: his job is to go round all these places, not just Hampton Hall, but all the others in the area. ‘Make sure everyone’s okay.’

  Does that include Wolvesley Grange?

  Duffy comes in. Still got a cast on his face from the broken nose I give him. He realizes we’re talking about Merton and comes strutting over.

  ‘I hear he’s staying with a young friend over in Shirley somewhere,’ he says. Grinning.

  Everyone looks at me.

  Last time felt like something snapping inside. This isn’t like that. This is like someone else is taking me over. Someone who doesn’t care about anything – who just wants this bastard Duffy to suffer, to hurt – who’ll hurt him, and keep hurting him, and won’t stop – can’t stop.

  That’s not
who I am. I’m not that person. But that’s who I turn into when Duffy says that.

  In two seconds I’ve got him by the throat, on his back, on the floor.

  It’s not clear what’s happening. It’s a blur – of blood, shouting, screaming.

  I know I’m hurting him. I know I’m not going to stop unless someone makes me.

  And when my focus comes back and I look down all I can see of Mark Duffy is his stupid spiky haircut and his stupid fake Villa shirt and a glossy pool of red where his face should be.

  A mouth opens in the blood. Says, ‘Help.’

  And then I’m on the floor myself, eyes scalded with mace, an orderly’s heavy knee in the small of my back.

  ‘I want Stan back here.’

  I’ve had four hours in the cooling-off room. I’ve washed the blood off my knuckles, off my forehead. Couldn’t get it out of my T-shirt.

  Miss Halcombe is looking at me like I’m the scum of the earth. Maybe I am.

  ‘You’ve changed your tune,’ she says. ‘Remember, it was you who asked us to arrange the transfer.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘And I know Stanley’s departure was very upsetting for you – it was for us all – but it in no way excuses your assault on Mark Duffy today.’ Shakes her head. ‘We can’t just let this go, Robert.’

  I shrug.

  ‘He wound me up – about our Stan. I lost the plot. How is he?’

  ‘Duffy? He’ll live.’ Didn’t sound like she gave much of a shit about it. ‘But you could have killed him. If we hadn’t restrained you, you might well have.’

  Can’t say anything to that. She’s right, and there’s no ‘might’ about it. I bloody would have.

  ‘Bring him back,’ I say.

  ‘You’re in no position to be giving out orders.’

  ‘Then send me there.’

  ‘You’re going nowhere, young man.’ She taps her pencil on the desk. ‘You’re staying right here until Dr Merton and I decide otherwise.’

  I turn sharply away, knowing I need to hit out, to kick out at something, anything, or else I’ll go for this fat bag Halcombe, and there’s no one here to stop me …

  The glass in the door is wire-reinforced. I swing my right fist, hard as I can. Feel the glass break against my bone. Feel my skin rip open. Feel my ligaments tear.

  There’s a sharp shout, a rumble of heavy bodies coming near. I scrunch my face up in case they mace me again – brace myself to be thrown to the floor, knotted up, sat on …

  But there’s only a hard, painful grip on my left wrist, a tearing noise, and a jab, an injection in the soft flesh of my arm.

  I think of Stan, how good he always was at the doctor’s.

  I wake up in the cell.

  I’m groggy but I’m steady enough to lift up the bed-frame, on to its end, and prop it against the wall. Climb up till I can nearly touch the ceiling.

  I’m weak but I’ve got the strength to heave at the grille that covers the half-window. They don’t maintain nothing properly in this shithole: damp’s got into the stonework over winter, and I can see the rusty screws working loose.

  This is how Santa gets in, Stan.

  It comes away in a shower of crumbled concrete.

  I smash the green-stained glass with the narrow end of the oblong grille. Hell of a noise, but they won’t hear me way down here. Brush away the glass.

  I’ll cut myself to bloody ribbons climbing out of here, I can see. Windowframe’s still studded with little triangles of dirty glass.

  And if I don’t climb out of here?

  I pull myself up – it’s hard, one-handed, and it fucking hurts – and stick my head out. Cold, dingy, wet. Looks like the window’s at the bottom of a ditch or a vent or something.

  All I’ve got to do is climb and keep on climbing.

  Then all I’ve got to do is find our Stan.

  20

  Two hours later. Cox sat in the CID suite, swirling the dregs of another tasteless coffee in her cup. She felt deadened, stale. Butcher was still downstairs, sweating it out in his cell. Not for long, though: his girlfriend had confirmed his alibi, such as it was, and their neighbours in the tower-block hadn’t given them any decent reason to doubt it.

  ‘Face it, Cox, we’ve got fuck-all,’ Naysmith had grunted. ‘Turn him loose.’

  He was on his way home. First day of the inquiry tomorrow, he reminded Cox, as if she needed reminding; he had homework to do. He was going to be asked to lay out the background of the Tomasz Lerna case.

  Cox gulped down the last of the coffee. Screw it; she was calling it a day, too. The DCI was right, they didn’t have anything like enough evidence to charge Butcher with murder. Time to kick the poor bastard out. She headed downstairs.

  In the car park she passed Dan Chalmers. He was leaning on a bollard, smoking a cigarette. Must’ve worked his way through a pack at least, today. He didn’t show a lot on the surface, Chalmers – but the Merritt murder had rattled him. It’d rattled everybody.

  ‘You off?’ he called.

  She nodded. Chalmers dragged on his cigarette, discarded the butt.

  ‘He’s telling the truth, isn’t he?’ he said, looking uncomfortable. ‘I know the background, the abuse, harassment, it all points to Butcher – but Cox, I don’t think he did it.’

  Cox rubbed her stiff neck, made a face.

  ‘I don’t think so either,’ she said. ‘The guy’s got a grievance, a serious one, too, who can blame him, but what was done to Merritt – Christ, it’s in another league.’

  Chalmers jerked his head back towards the nick.

  ‘Want me to have one last crack at him?’

  ‘Nah. Let him go. I think we’ve got all we’re going to get from Stevie Butcher. Sort out the recommendation to the Parole Board, would you? Breach of conditions to be overlooked in recognition of exceptionally helpful blah blah blah. You know the drill.’

  Chalmers nodded; flipped her a lazy wave by way of goodnight.

  In her car, as she buckled her seatbelt, she wondered if she should’ve said something to Chalmers about what’d happened in that interview room – why she’d lost the run of herself over a crude sketch of a face. Chalmers was a decent guy, not fazed by much. But how could he ever understand, really understand, what it meant?

  No. This was something she’d have to deal with alone.

  She called Greg Wilson before she drove off. She’d been keeping him posted – by text, and very much on the quiet – as the day had worn on: the murder of Merritt, the raid on Butcher, the mention of a child’s death at Wolvesley Grange.

  He’d been busy.

  ‘There was a fire at Wolvesley, early 1987,’ he said. ‘That’s on the record: press coverage as well as local authority reports. And there was a death: a young girl, Jessica Arnott, seven years old. Fire service reckoned she’d started the fire herself, playing with matches.’

  ‘And the boy? This Robbie’s brother?’

  ‘No record of a boy being killed.’

  Cox sighed.

  ‘Shit. I was hoping we might actually be on to something here.’

  Wilson made a tutting noise.

  ‘Cox, Cox, Cox,’ he said. Hearing the smile in his voice, she could see it in her mind’s eye: cynical, excited, wolfish. ‘Have you learned nothing? I said there’s no record of it. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.’

  The buzz of her phone woke her. She blinked, pushed her hair out of her face. The room was steeped in muted silver-grey. Light already? Squinted at the clock: just gone eight. She’d climbed into bed a little before eleven. When was the last time she’d slept for nine hours straight? Must be good stuff in those painkillers …

  She took up her humming phone from the bedside table. Clocked the number; swore softly.

  ‘Serena. Good morning.’

  The barrister sounded cross – more so than usual.

  ‘DI Cox, are you with DCI Naysmith?’

  ‘Naysmith?’ She rubbed her bleary eyes. ‘No. I’ve
just woken up. Are you at the inquiry?’

  ‘I am,’ McAvoy snapped back. ‘But your chief inspector is nowhere to be seen. He’s due to be called in two hours’ time, and we’ve barely begun briefing. He’s not answering his phone, either.’

  It’s not my fault, Cox wanted to reply. But being petulant would get her nowhere. Besides, it was a worry – what the hell was Naysmith playing at?

  He didn’t always cope well with stress, she knew.

  ‘We sent a car to his home,’ McAvoy went on, ‘but apparently there was no one there. No one in any fit state to answer the door, anyway.’

  Cox sighed. So the QC knew about Naysmith’s boozing. Good job she’s on our side, she thought, before correcting herself: McAvoy wasn’t on their side, she was on the side of the Metropolitan Police Service.

  A few years ago, it’d never have occurred to her to make that distinction.

  ‘I’ll go round there now,’ she said. ‘Take a look. I’ll let you know as soon as I know anything.

  ‘Please do,’ McAvoy huffed. The line went dead.

  Naysmith lived in a three-bed new-build up in Ladbroke Grove, near the Westway. His car – a blue Focus, nothing flashy – was in the driveway. Curtains pulled. No sign of any trouble – yet. She parked two doors down, approached the house warily.

  A square-edged privet restricted her view of the house-front. The estate employed a gardener who kept everything tidy, tasteful and lifeless. It was a place for overworked professionals, mostly single, no kids, people who wanted a decent place to live – and could afford one – but hadn’t the time or energy to think about cleaning or upkeep.

  She walked up the bricked path. Nothing out of order. Reached up to take the spare key from where Naysmith kept it tucked in the matting of a hanging basket. She’d given him some ribbing over that, first time he’d told her about it: we’ve got PCs going round telling people how to secure their homes, and here’s a DCI keeping his door key where any mug could find it …

  She was glad of it now. Wiped the dirt off the key, eased open the door. The chain snapped tight.

  ‘Guv? You here?’

  No reply. She called again.

  When, after a few seconds, there wasn’t a sound, she put her good shoulder and all her weight into the door. The chain gave way easily.