Then She Was Gone

by Luca Veste

  She had become aware of the Abercromby Boys Club during her first week of university. The group was well established by then, its members refusing to wear what other students wore. Instead, they were always decked out in posh suits with never a hair out of place. Over the weeks of her first term, she’d noticed them here and there, on campus and in town. They were almost insidious, blending into the background one minute, taking over the next. She would be working in the library, only to look up and see them take over an entire bank of desks. They had a certain look to them, which marked them out from the people around them. They were hated by so many, but it was only jealousy. Everyone wanted to be connected to them in some way.

  ‘I don’t get it. They look like absolute idiots. Why would anyone speak to them, let alone spend nights out with them?’

  ‘I don’t know, I think they look all right. It’s nice to see them make an effort.’

  ‘You like the suits? Even the ones with bow ties they wear?’

  ‘Makes them look sophisticated.’

  ‘Remember, underneath that suit, they’re still teenage boys. Only one thing on their minds.’

  They were a curiosity she’d wanted to learn more about. She’d noticed a few of the lads on her course had joined the club – their dress sense changing overnight, the way in which they spoke to people becoming more arrogant and less friendly.

  She’d gravitated towards them, wanting to know more about what they did in those clandestine meetings she knew went on. There was a part of her which had been drawn to them, she’d wanted to know their secret.

  It was months before she’d been invited to one of their infamous parties.

  She’d begun to earn jealous looks from some of the girls she lived with, while others actively discouraged her from getting closer to the Abercromby Boys Club. They don’t understand, she had thought.

  She’d wanted to tread her own path, but she’d also understood the importance of being in the correct social circle. She could see those men belonged to something more, were doing something more, and she’d wanted to be a part of it.

  She couldn’t have foreseen the danger. She didn’t make a mistake. It was supposed to be harmless fun.

  It shouldn’t have been her fault.

  The first party had been nothing special. A bunch of students drinking and making fools of themselves – only wearing more expensive clothes and accessories than the other students out that night. What it had taught her was that there was a hierarchy within the Abercromby Club. The upper level of management, or “grandmasters” she had heard them referred to as. It hadn’t been difficult to spot them – eight men holding court in their own sectioned-off area of the large party.

  There had been something exciting about the whole set-up. These eight men had created something, using money and power to get whatever they desired.

  She’d wanted some of that power. That was her goal.

  She hadn’t made a mistake. Somewhere, deep down, she knew that to be true. Despite what she would hear people say, there wasn’t anything she should have to feel guilty. She shouldn’t have been blamed for what happened. Saying it was a mistake inferred she bore some responsibility for the pain.

  That couldn’t be true. She was the victim.

  Still, it didn’t stop the experience following that night. The pain of it. The haze of her memory wasn’t where it was found. There was no pain there. Only flashes of uncertainty, the occasional glimpse of what had happened to her.

  Memory is a stranger sometimes. It’s something untrustworthy. The experiences she believed she had gone through couldn’t be depended upon.

  The pain came from what had happened later.

  That was what she wanted to rectify. That’s what she wanted justice for, not what happened on that night. She didn’t know enough, couldn’t rely on the firmness of her recollections.

  She only had one clear memory. One certainty rising above the fog of doubt.

  That had to be enough.

  Darkness

  There was a time before and a time after. Two separate parts of her life, in which everything was compartmentalised. The memories of the before part were now tainted by what came afterwards. There was no solace to be found in earlier recollections, knowing what followed.

  She’d become a different person after that night. It had shaped the woman she became. The experience had altered the fabric of her being, forever noticeable and known.

  People say you shouldn’t let the awful things that happen to you affect the person you are. That things are best left behind, that you should get over them, move forwards and put it all behind you.

  Those people are delusional. It’s impossible to forget something which takes away everything you ever believed about yourself.

  There had been others who felt she was somehow partly responsible. That she had to accept her behaviour was somehow a factor in what happened.

  She had believed those voices for a long time.

  These were the facts, as best she could remember them.

  Yes, she’d gone to that party willingly. Yes, she’d wanted to become involved with certain people there, in order to be in with the right people. Yes, she may have had too much to drink that night. Yes, she’d dressed to impress, provocatively and without worry. Yes, she may have flirted with some of the men and enjoyed the attention she received.

  What she hadn’t done was say yes to any of the things that had happened after her memory had faded and became fuzzy and distorted.

  She wasn’t under the impression that consent was something intangible. That it was something which couldn’t be understood by seemingly bright and intelligent men. The absence of a forceful no, isn’t an embodiment of a yes.

  It mattered little. She’d known the whisper campaign had started.

  ‘You heard about her. Cried rape after she fucked a bunch of them at the same time.’

  ‘Fucking slut.’

  ‘Makes it harder for proper victims, that does. Just because she woke up and regretted what she did, doesn’t make them rapists all of a sudden.’

  ‘Yeah, should be ashamed of herself.’

  Everybody knew what had happened that night, even if she didn’t. That’s how she felt. They were all talking about her and what she had done. She knew what their thoughts were, as well. Had read enough about them online to know the reality of her situation. She was a liar, a slag who was just looking for attention.

  She’d had no choice. She’d had to leave. There was no way back for her at that place. All the studying she had done, all the hard work, undone by one night.

  Not that it mattered by that point. She was already gone.

  She’d left university, unable to take the constant stares and the talking behind her back. It had felt as if she was the centre of an attention she didn’t want or need.

  She’d felt alone.

  Just the one image in her head. One face. She’d filled in the gaps from blurred fragments of memory and what they’d said to her the next day.

  ‘You were shit, love. Lay there like an ironing board.’

  ‘Thought you’d be well up for it.’

  ‘Yeah, happy enough at the beginning, weren’t you?’

  ‘Here’s your taxi fare. Do us a favour and don’t come back to one of our parties.’

  Confusion and bewilderment. Those were the two points of reference for the morning after. There was no reason for her to be in that situation. No facts she could point to. Just a fractured reality of what had occurred.

  Her life had been ruined by one night. The years following had only increased the hurt.

  Until now.

  She’d never thought of herself as a vindictive person. Someone who had violence within them. That had changed in the days after that night. She’d wanted revenge for everything that had been done to her. For the way they had treated her – like a piece of meat to be fought over by the pride. She’d wanted to inflict pain to make them pay for what they had forced upon her. They dese
rved payback for what had happened to her.

  She hadn’t been able to go back home. Her father couldn’t hide his disappointment with her. She’d stayed in Merseyside, moving over to the Wirral.

  It was there that she’d first seen one of them. Years later. She’d still been rebuilding her life, trying to make sense of what had happened to her. Then, bang, there he was.

  Tim Johnson.

  Him.

  She wanted revenge.

  And she was going to get it.

  Hovering Over The Waters

  There was someone she’d watched a documentary about. A serial killer in America, Aileen Wuornos, who had killed a series of men over the course of a couple of years. There were arguments over why she’d done it, but her opinion was that something had broken inside Wuornos. That she couldn’t take what was happening to her on a regular basis any more and she’d decided to fight back. It didn’t matter which men were victims of her anger and rage, they were all the same to her.

  She had felt that same rage. That same anger. The need to burn it all down. To bring an end to every life, so hers was never in danger again. She wanted to save another woman from going through what she had, but that was only a insignificant part of her thinking. It was more selfish than that.

  There was a need to strike back. To punish and get justice for what had happened to her.

  She had tried to do it the right way. To go through the correct channels and report everything that had happened to her in the right fashion. Never again. It was a joke, a way of making you feel as if you were doing it the proper way without actually achieving anything.

  When it’s one word against another, those without power always lose.

  The idea of actual justice became foreign to her. She had thought that she was destined to live her life with nothing but hurt and pain to show for what had occurred that night. As her memories returned, the pain grew stronger, turning into agony and suffering.

  The dreams were the worst. Beginning with indistinct shapes, blurred and formless, rapidly turning into nightmares. She would wake up, covered in sweat and breathing hard, thinking there was someone in the room with her. Someone in her bed. Someone in her mind.

  There was no escape. Not from the thoughts in her own head. Over and over, the same thing again and again.

  No escaping the need for something else.

  Justice. Payback.

  Revenge.

  PART THREE

  PRESENT DAY

  You

  You’re sure they’re closing in. You know they’ll eventually work it all out and try to stop you before you’ve finished.

  That means things have to happen sooner. You decide to take action before that net closes over you.

  Starting with Matthew Williams.

  He’s still the snivelling, dribbling wreck he has been for the previous few hours. Oblivious to what is going to happen to him, how these are the last moments of his life. The misery and sin he has inflicted on people will be no more. He will be gone, no longer able to harm anyone else.

  Matthew Williams will be missed only by those who don’t really know what is beneath the surface of his persona. They don’t know about his black core, the darkness which hides there, the evil which lies within the man. Williams himself won’t even acknowledge these truths. He would pretend to be a good man for the rest of his days, given the chance. Not that you’re going to give him that opportunity.

  You’re going to kill him. Just like the others.

  You know there’s no way Matthew Williams will feel guilt for what he has done. He doesn’t believe he has done anything wrong at all.

  That’s what these men are like.

  Matthew Williams’s pleas of mercy echo around the abandoned warehouse, driving you crazy with their repetitiveness. The setting is apt; the desolation and despair seeping out of every wall gives the scene even more menace and threat. No one will find you here. You and he are alone.

  The ball-peen hammer is heavy, which gives it a sense of finality. It will take more than a single swing, you know that, but it will begin and finish the job.

  The only sounds you hear are the sniffing and hitching breaths of Matthew Williams and the crinkle of the white paper suit which covers you. You hold the hammer aloft, the weight of it burning your upper arm.

  The hammer makes a dull thud into Matthew Williams’s face as you swing it down. Again and again, turning his face into a bloodied mess of bone and blood and brain matter.

  You start giggling, then laughing loudly, as you become the only breathing thing left in the building.

  Afterwards, you stand over the body, trying to work out where the facial features used to be. The hammer is a dead weight in your hand now – a simple tool waiting to become a weapon again. You feel it drop out of your hand and it clatters to the floor.

  You’re in the moment, as you’ve heard people say. Everything is happening now, in the present. It has meaning.

  You don’t know what to feel. The violence you have inflicted on someone stares back at you and you have nothing left to give.

  You wonder if everyone is the same as you. If, when pushed, everyone could do what you’ve done.

  You blink, once, twice, your breathing still heavy and long. You swallow, waiting for the inevitable.

  There are no sirens racing towards you. No angry shouts, no one telling you to get down on the floor. You hear nothing but the sound of your own breath. You can imagine there are rats scurrying about in hidden crevices, but you don’t hear them.

  You look down at your hands, noticing the shaking for the first time. They are different than they had been before. They look misshapen, gnarled, inhuman. There is something animalistic about them, bloody and scarred. You blink and they appear normal again, slightly bloodstained, but otherwise normal.

  The wreck of life still lies at your feet, unmoving and broken. You stare at it for a while, waiting for any signs of breathing to return. You know it isn’t possible, but still you linger.

  You know it won’t be too long before the emptiness within you returns.

  You begin to pack up, leaving the body for last. You know that will be the most difficult thing to deal with. You don’t have to worry about cutting up this body. You planned this one out better. Not as much distance to travel.

  You make your way outside, fresh air hitting you with a blast, taking your breath away. You can smell the River Mersey close by, the salty murkiness of it, as it bleeds into and from the Irish Sea. You wonder what it would be like to strip down and feel the cold water on your bare skin. You clean your hands in the moonlight, making sure there’s nothing there that would be noticeable from a glance.

  You don’t feel anything and begin to worry about the lack of emotion. You were supposed to feel something – fear, guilt, horror, responsibility – but nothing was there. You feel numb.

  You know it’s not enough. Not yet.

  There is a list. Eight men, all written down, waiting for their turn.

  You have to keep moving forwards. Making a new plan, working out your next step.

  You wonder what to do next. You know the answer, but suddenly the weight of the situation begins to bear down on you. You want to sleep, close your eyes and not open them again. You know that can’t happen. You know that you have to keep going.

  You shove those feelings to one side, leave the note on the top of the empty shell of Matthew Williams and walk away.

  Back to what is supposedly normality.

  Twenty-Three

  ‘What if it is just a coincidence?’ DC Hale said, leaning back in his swivel chair, legs spread wide. ‘Two guys who knew each other in university, one gets done for murder, the other ends up dead. Two very different situations, two separate cases. I think we might be putting too much emphasis on this.’

  ‘It’s still weird enough to note down, though,’ Rossi said, catching up on the previous hours’ events on her return. ‘I don’t like it.’

  ‘There’s no patte
rn,’ Murphy said, standing up and moving over to the murder board. ‘Yet. Two out of eight is nothing. If we suddenly start finding out the rest of them are in prison or dead, then we can talk.’

  ‘Well, maybe we need to find the others then. Make sure there isn’t anything going on? It would have an effect on the investigation if it has anything to do with a club the victim created years ago.’

  ‘True, Jack,’ Murphy said to DC Kirkham who was standing next to DC Hale, chalk and cheese if ever there was a comparison to make, he thought. ‘You and Hale can get onto that.’

  ‘All six?’ DC Hashem said from her own desk. ‘Me and Graham could take some on as well, maybe? Means things go quicker.’

  ‘You’re right, Abs,’ Murphy replied, shooting DC Hale a look as he exhaled too loudly. ‘Only it’s five, as we know where Simon Jackson is. You and Graham chase up Paul Wright and James Morley. Graham, just help where you can, because I still want you to look at CCTV images from where Sam’s body and car were found. Jack, Mike, you can knuckle down in finding Matthew Williams, Neil Letherby and Christopher Roberts. Find out where they are by this evening, please.’

  ‘What are we doing?’ Rossi said, once Murphy had joined her back at their interconnected desks. ‘You delegate all this stuff out and leave us with nothing.’

  ‘Oh, we have something,’ Murphy replied, giving her a smirk. ‘We’re going to see the woman you recognised.’

  * * *

  Two prostitutes in one day, Murphy thought. His standing was really going up in the world. They drove towards Liverpool 8, the Toxteth area of Liverpool, the roads around them becoming quieter as they left the city centre, Murphy tried to put what they had learned in previous hours out of his mind.

  ‘All that matters is her story now,’ Murphy said, almost to himself. ‘Nothing else.’

  ‘She was potentially the last person to see him alive. That’s if I’m right, and she saw him at all, of course.’

  ‘Sounded like she did when I spoke to her on the phone,’ Murphy said, slowing down for a set of traffic lights on the A561 – which Murphy couldn’t help but call the Speke Road, even if he was miles away from the town where he’d grown up. The road, which lay parallel to Riverside Drive on the banks of the Mersey, ran from the city centre dissecting the city and various smaller towns as it did so. Murphy looked out the window at his surroundings. There was a large Tesco store on his left, as there always seemed to be these days, and a bloke walking an aggressive-looking Staffie. The man’s trackie/black shoe combination wasn’t really working for him but the dog was probably enough to stop anyone from telling him that.