Twelve Deaths of Christmas

by Jackson Sharp

  ‘Fuck off.’

  ‘Where’s Robert Trevayne?’

  An artfully puzzled look.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Nice try.’ She moved forward, shoulder-first; Carter had no choice but to squirm aside as she barged past him into the fetid hall. Wilson followed quickly, banged the door behind him.

  ‘Trevayne,’ said Cox, backing the fat man up against the wall. ‘Where is he? Talk, or I’ll have you back inside like that.’ Snapped her fingers.

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For whatever I damn well like.’ She smiled nastily. ‘You know what us CID lot are like. We’ve a funny knack for finding just the right “evidence” we need, whenever we need it.’ Let the smile fade. ‘Trevayne.’

  She had him rattled, though he made a good fist of hiding it.

  ‘All right, bad cop. Easy now. I ain’t seen him – ain’t seen him in years.’

  ‘You did time together. At Wakefield.’

  ‘Yeah. Like I say – years ago. Ain’t seen him since.’

  Wilson weighed in: ‘Bullshit. Trevayne was in this house just last week.’

  Carter looked at him, dead-eyed. Seemed hesitant, at first – then a defiant smirk wormed its way on to his face.

  ‘Maybe he was,’ he shrugged. ‘So?’

  ‘So you’ve just obstructed a police investigation,’ Cox said. ‘We’ll put that top of the list of parole violations, but I’m sure I can come up with plenty more.’

  She turned away from him, began to look desultorily around the hallway, up the stairwell; poked her head into the gloomy living room. Just to plant an idea, give Carter the impression that they could search the joint if they wanted – make him have a good hard think about what they’d find if they did.

  Carter swallowed.

  ‘He was here,’ he said, ‘but I dunno where he is now. That’s straight-up. We hardly said a word to each other when he was here, and now he’s fucked off fuck-knows-where.’

  ‘How did he contact you? You must have his number.’

  The fat man gulped again. Trevayne must’ve scared him, Cox thought. She could see him weighing up his options, such as they were: on the one hand, this nutjob Trevayne, on the other, twelve more months getting the shit kicked out of him inside.

  He didn’t say anything, but his eyes flickered to the kitchenette at the end of the hall.

  Cox moved fast, darting down the hallway.

  The kitchenette was dark and rank, the blinds drawn, the surfaces filthy with fag-ends, pizza-crusts, smears of spilled food.

  There was a phone. An old Nokia mobile. She snatched it up.

  ‘That’s mine,’ Carter bellowed, lumbering up behind her. ‘That’s private property, that. You can’t just walk in here and –’

  Wilson stepped between him and Cox.

  ‘Shut the fuck up,’ he growled – a halfway-convincing impression of a tough guy.

  Cox was already scrolling through the call register. Not a lot of calls lately – not a popular guy, Colin Carter. But there was one number, an outgoing call – from just after their last visit to the house.

  She hovered her finger over the ‘call’ button – turned to Carter inquiringly.

  His bolshie front fell away.

  ‘Please,’ he said. His lower lip was trembling.

  Cox masked her surprise. She’d never seen him so afraid – Christ, had she ever seen anyone so afraid? She gave Wilson a quick glance; he gave her a ‘what-the-fuck?’ shrug.

  ‘What would happen if I called Robert Trevayne right now?’ she asked Carter softly.

  ‘He’d fucking bury me.’ Carter sniffed, wiped his nose. ‘Seriously. He’d fucking kill me without thinking twice.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Do you think I’m fucking joking with you?’ Getting panicky. ‘Look.’ He jabbed a finger towards his black eye. ‘Look.’ Hauled up his T-shirt: above his fat white belly, a raw red wound, marbled with bruising, scored upwards across his ribs. Let the T-shirt drop. ‘He done that, and that weren’t nothing to him. And you ask me where he is. You can’t fucking imagine what he’d do to me.’

  She looked at him seriously.

  ‘We can protect you,’ she said. ‘If you help us, we can protect you.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Carter’s sneer was bitterly sceptical. ‘Like you protected Stevie Butcher?’

  Christ. How did he know about that?

  ‘That happened inside. We can keep you out of there, move you somewhere safe.’ She made a sympathetic grimace – if he hadn’t fallen to bits, Carter would have scoffed at her sharp shift to good cop. ‘Face it, Colin,’ she said. ‘What options have you got?’

  Carter wiped his brow. Asked for a fag, which Greg dutifully supplied. Then, sitting on a Formica kitchen chair, he began talking, fast, fearful.

  ‘This guy, he’s something else. I’m fucking telling you. He come here out of the blue – like I said, I ain’t seen him since I been in Wakefield, what, ten years since? He was a big cunt then but fucking hell he’s massive now. Must be on steroids or something but they ain’t any good for him because the fucker’s off his head – I mean proper mental. You lot want to watch yourselves – he’s tooled up and all, fucking guns, knives, I don’t know what else. He’s a fucking monster.’

  He stopped, breathed deep, each breath long, juddering, on the brink of a sob.

  Cox pushed further.

  ‘Where’s he been since he came out of Northumberland?’

  Carter said nothing. Shook his head, trembling.

  ‘He’s been killing people, Colin.’ Watched him closely as she spoke. ‘People from Hampton Hall. He’s out of control – we need to stop him.’ Let a hard edge creep into her tone. ‘You have no choice, Colin. You’re out of options. Either you tell me where he is, where he’s headed, or I put you away – and I’m talking the hardest time you ever did.’

  He stared at her. Nothing but animal fear in his deep-set dark eyes.

  ‘I dunno.’

  ‘Colin –’

  ‘I swear I don’t know! Oh, Christ.’ He wiped a forearm across his eyes. ‘He’s looking for someone. That’s all I know, I fucking swear on my life. He’s looking for someone – I dunno his name. Some bloke what had something to do with his brother dying, way back when – some bloke with a mask.’

  Cox’s heart was thumping hard in her chest.

  ‘What do you know about the brother?’

  ‘You don’t wanna know.’

  ‘Was it Dr Merton? Dr Allis?’

  Carter sniggered, a laugh on the verge of mania. He sucked down the end of the fag until his lips were touching his yellowing fingertips.

  ‘I told you,’ he said. There was a glimmer of his old defiance in the look he gave her. ‘Why don’t you cunts ever listen? This goes so much higher than those fucking perverts. Merton, Allis, they’re nothing, they’re fucking nothing.’ Then the fear returned; the baggy face grew pale, the light died in the eyes. ‘But if I told you –’

  ‘Tell us,’ Cox urged. ‘We’ll protect you. With your help, we’ll nail Trevayne – and with him inside, you’ll have nothing to fear.’

  Again the laugh, nerve-jangling, chilling.

  ‘It wouldn’t be Trevayne I’d be worrying about,’ Carter said. His voice was high-pitched.

  ‘Then who?’

  ‘Oh, Christ. You don’t even know. You don’t have a fucking idea. It’s the ones who killed Robbie’s brother. The ones who killed fuck-knows how many others, too.’

  ‘Tell us who, for Christ’s sake. Help us find them – stop them.’

  Carter was sobbing now, his unshaven cheeks smeared with tears. He blinked at her helplessly.

  ‘They don’t give a fuck about the police,’ he said. ‘It don’t matter what I tell you. They ain’t scared of you. You can’t do nothing.’

  She turned away, boiling with frustration. So many secrets, so many lies, so much fear …

  Behind her, Wilson was muttering to Carter; she heard a lighter scrape.
Carter’s breathing started to return to normal; she heard him sniff, spit, swear to himself under his breath.

  Waited another few seconds for him to pull himself back together – then turned, and looked him in the eye.

  ‘Call Trevayne,’ she said.

  ‘You’re having a fucking laugh.’

  ‘Call him, and get him back here.’

  Carter shook his head, jowls wobbling.

  ‘Robbie’s a nutter, but he ain’t a fucking idiot. Proper paranoid, and all – he ain’t going to walk into a trap for you.’

  Cox scowled, changed tack.

  ‘How long was he here, before?’

  ‘That’s the thing, he came and went, never more’n two or three days at a time. Moving target, like. Barely saw him after you lot come knocking last time. Like I say – he’s proper paranoid. He’s muttering all the time about fucking God. And paying for sins. All that shit. He’s got this ink on his chest – Jesus, on the cross, but the face is a fucking skull. I mean, it looks like prison work, but what sort of fucker wants that? Shit, looks like he did it himself with a rusty fucking nail.’

  Cox nodded. Fixed Carter with a steely look.

  ‘You’ve got my number,’ she said. ‘If you see him, hear from him, get a bloody postcard from him – you call me, straight away. Understand?’ She put her face close to his. ‘Remember, Mr Carter. You’re all out of options. And I’m the nearest thing to a friend you’ve got.’

  The Twelfth Day of Christmas, 1986

  They’ve made a proper job of it, this time. Good workmanship.

  There’s fuck-all else for me to do except lie here on this bloody bed and stare at it: a heavy, narrow-meshed steel grille, the bolts sunk deep into the new concrete.

  No way out now.

  Staring at the grille means not thinking about what I seen at Wolvesley. Or anyroad that’s the idea. Mostly I can’t help thinking about it – whatever the bloody hell it was.

  It wasn’t right, I know that.

  I know Stan’s in there, in that bloody place.

  I stare at the grille. I try and think about nothing at all.

  The clunk of the lock wakes me up. Don’t know what time it is, but it must be daytime: the lights are on. I sit up, wiping my eyes.

  ‘Robert?’

  It’s Halcombe. First time I’ve seen her since I got back. It was the orderlies – fucking just-following-orders Nazis that they are – what bundled me off down here after Radley dropped me off.

  I’m expecting a bollocking off of Halcombe, but it doesn’t come. Instead she looks worried – scared, even.

  ‘Robert, could you come with me, please?’

  ‘Please’. There’s a word I’ve got used to not hearing. I shrug, stand up.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘We just want a word.’ She swallows, gives me a weird look. Her eyes are pink around the edges. Has the old bat been crying?

  Then she says it – the phrase that makes my heart drop into my guts.

  ‘We’ve got some news,’ she says.

  They’ve shipped in some woman from the council, child services or something, to help break the news. She looks like a social worker. I’ve spoke to enough of them – and anyroad, I’ve nothing to say now.

  ‘Do you understand what we’re telling you?’ Miss Halcombe says.

  I nod. Of course I fucking do. But what’s the point in saying anything?

  The council woman says: ‘I know how you must be feeling, Robbie.’

  ‘Do you fuck,’ I say.

  Can’t help myself. She sits back. Looks hurt.

  A fire, they said. A fire, in the night, at Wolvesley Grange, caused by an electrical fault. They’ve found one body – Stan’s still missing, they said. We’re dreadfully sorry, they said.

  I stopped listening after that. There was nothing they could say that I might want to hear – nothing that’d make any difference. Nothing that’d mean anything.

  Now I just sit here. I think they’re still talking at me.

  I could ask: did Dr Merton make it out okay? What about his mate Mr Radley the copper? They did? Well, isn’t that lucky.

  I could ask: what about the owners of those flash cars I saw parked out front?

  I could ask: what about the feller in the robe, and the mask – what happened to him?

  But I don’t. Maybe there’ll be time to ask those questions later. Maybe there’ll even be answers. But not now – now I just feel the world fall away around me, like the outside of a candle falls away around the flame.

  They talk on and on.

  I see the slit eyes and mad grin of the man in the mask.

  I hear Stan’s voice screaming my name.

  I won’t cry, not here, not now, not in front of them. I bite the knuckle of my ruined right hand. I taste blood.

  25

  She wasn’t much in the mood for talking on the drive back west; she felt exhausted by the confrontation with Carter and sick at the prospect of revisiting her memory of the man in the mask. But she couldn’t keep Wilson in the dark. He asked about it as soon as they got past the Elephant and Castle roundabout.

  She talked slowly, thoughtfully, at her own pace, as Wilson drove.

  ‘I must’ve watched it a hundred times. It was – haunting. Horrible, in a way all the other stuff I saw – way worse stuff, on the face of it – somehow wasn’t. It was the feeling of performance, of – well, of showing off. Sounds crazy, I know. He had a mask on, for Christ’s sake. But still, somehow, it felt shameless; this guy, he could inflict all the pain, terror, suffering he liked, and we couldn’t stop him, didn’t know who he was, where he was – and God, didn’t he just know it. He got off on the pain he caused, I’m sure, like they all did, the sick bastards – but there was more to it, for him. You could tell.’ She sighed, shook her head ruefully. ‘It’s crazy, like I say. All this from thirty seconds of old videotape.’

  ‘It’s not crazy.’ Wilson’s expression was grave. ‘It sounds – well, it sounds fucking creepy. I wouldn’t question your reading of it. But I would say it sounds a bit far-fetched – the link with Merritt, I mean. The thing on his chest – it was a scrawl, circle, slits for eyes, ears, or horns if you like. Not exactly a registered trademark. Do you see what I’m saying?’

  Cox nodded.

  ‘I do. It’s a leap, I know.’

  ‘I’m not writing it off. And Trevayne looking for this masked geezer helps your case. But yeah, it’s a leap, and a big one – just as long as you know that.’

  She did. It was a hunch, sheer instinct. Wilson was right: she had to keep that in mind.

  ‘I was thinking about Merritt,’ she said. ‘About Trevayne looking for this guy who killed his brother. I think we know now why he did what he did to Euan Merritt. It wasn’t revenge.’

  Wilson nodded.

  ‘He wanted information. Thought Merritt knew where this guy was.’

  ‘Or who he was.’ She chewed her lip thoughtfully, frowned. ‘Wish we knew whether Merritt told him.’

  ‘If he knew, he told him,’ Wilson said with certainty. ‘Christ, Trevayne cut the guy’s balls off. I don’t care how scared you are of the consequences – if a guy holds a kitchen-knife to your scrotum and asks you a question, you fucking well answer.’

  He winced, shook his head.

  Cox called Naysmith from the A4. He’d be all right with her pursuing the case off the record, she guessed; she wasn’t coming to him with hunches and conspiracy theories any more – this was a solid lead, a name, a face, even a last known address. They had to get an APB out on Trevayne, and fast. Either he’d found out who killed his brother and was gunning for them or he knew someone who might know something and intended to make them talk.

  ‘Hello?’

  Cox hesitated. Wasn’t Naysmith’s voice.

  ‘Chalmers?’

  ‘Ah, Cox. How’s tricks? Yeah, the DCI got signed off sick earlier today – something to do with the medical he had recently? His calls are redirecting to me.�
�� There was the noise of Chalmers slurping from a cup of tea; he smacked his lips, made a satisfied ‘ah’, then said: ‘So – anything I can do for you?’

  This had caught her off guard. She stammered a ‘no’, ended the call. When she looked across at Wilson, he must’ve read the anxiety in her face – he slowed the car, swung into a layby.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  She told him, quickly.

  ‘This feels all wrong,’ she said. ‘Head north, when you can – we need to get to Ladbroke Grove.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Naysmith’s place.’

  Wilson drove fast and well. As they rattled up the A3220 to the Westway, Cox – her mind racing – took another look through the Merritt/Allis paper on children in care. She hadn’t, she realized, given much thought to Allis’s death – to Allis’s stabbing in Battersea Park.

  She lowered the paper, looked at Wilson.

  ‘Why didn’t he torture Allis?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Allis was in on it too – the abuse at Hampton Hall. Surely he was just as likely as Merritt to know something about the death at Wolvesley Grange. Why would Trevayne torture Merritt, and not Allis?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t get the opportunity. It’s not something you can easily do without people noticing. No evidence he tortured Verity either – perhaps they didn’t have the info he wanted. Not found any indication Allis or Verity were abusers.’

  ‘Or maybe Allis was softer than Merritt – gave up the goods right away. Pointed Trevayne in the direction of his old colleague.’

  ‘Merritt? Could be.’

  Once you injected a dose of fear, of panic, into that HHUC network, Cox realized, it transformed the dynamic. Did Radley’s death spook Allis into throwing Merritt to the wolves? And how about Radley himself? He might’ve known the truth about Verity Halcombe’s death – if he suspected that he was next on the list, maybe he did top himself after all.

  ‘What a fucking mess,’ she sighed.

  She riffled exasperatedly through the pages of the paper – stopped at the final page, the authors’ acknowledgements. Names. Names were useful – names were leads. Besides, it was the only part of this bloody paper she’d be able to get her head round. She quickly scanned the page – it was short, just two paragraphs.