by Paul Read
He moved at the periphery of the barely lit gloom, where the orange rain met the purple shadow of no man’s land, and peered up to Sarah’s flat. The lights were off.
Voices alerted him, and he pressed himself into a small recess in the brickwork as several kids, peddling so languidly they were practically hanging off the backs of their bikes, moved as ghosts towards him through drenched moonlight. They talked as loudly as they would during the day, if not louder, while one saddled youngster kicked a discarded beer can and sent it skittering in the direction of Patrick’s hiding place. It came to rest nearby with a hollow, aluminium rattle. Patrick couldn’t comprehend what made them pedal so slowly, in such bleak weather. Had they anywhere to go?
Once they’d weaved to the other side of the little square, Patrick faded himself back into the dark and limped towards the far steps.
If Jenna was right, and Denis’ corpse was under there, then he’d already come too far not to pervert the course of justice. Patrick was the boy’s teacher, not his deity, and Sarah and her estate weren’t his responsibility, no matter how convincing Jenna’s smiling blackmail. But though every sinew in his body screamed at him to walk away, now he was here he needed to see for himself the proof of Denis’ union with the cold and loveless night. No longer would he find desks doused with paint, arms broken on stairwells. It was over. Denis was gone.
A flash of lightning startled him as he stalked through the gunning raindrops. He fingered the torch Jenna had given him, felt the length of its rubber grip for the switch.
Patrick ducked and stepped beneath the stairs.
On top of the rank stench of two weeks’ refuse was something altogether fouler. The potent retch of flesh, the appalling mineral musk of innards never intended to meet air. Copper, sewage and red meat. One side of the boy’s head was missing and his right fist was clenched, frozen in one final unaccomplished act of violence. Denis’ remaining eye stared up in incredulity, no light behind it, as a stray tabby ceased licking at the casserole of brains beside the boy and shot through Patrick’s quaking legs to freedom. It didn’t take a ballistics doctorate to surmise his head injuries were consistent with a bullet fired at point-blank range.
Patrick tasted vomit, turned his body towards the dark, dispassionate estate. Despite a gunshot having ricocheted through the block not so long ago, no one had investigated. Thank goodness, Patrick thought, for the apathy of a place in which bullets in the night weren’t uncommon. Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by. The whole estate was insanely afraid of its new masters, the teenage Mafioso.
He took a lung-swelling breath, adrenaline fooling him into courage, and jabbed the torch back in the body’s direction, swilled it around the blackness, but the light couldn’t penetrate the dark fully, defied him by showing only the corpse. No matter how far he widened his search, he saw blood.
It was at this point that Patrick’s brain, perhaps understandably, began to play tricks. Accrediting the heavy breathing filling the shadows to someone other than himself, he stabbed the torchlight back across the corpse and let out a sharp cry, taking a step backwards, as the boy’s eye appeared to focus upon him. Underneath his foot was something raised and unyielding. He lifted his leg and dazzled the gun with light, then fumbled out a pair of gloves from the large pocket at the front of his borrowed hoodie. After spending what felt like half an hour struggling to pull them over his trembling fingers, Patrick stooped to pick up the weapon before stuffing it inside the same pocket. Muddy scuff marks on the ground evidenced a struggle, but there was nothing he could do about those; the important thing was not to add anything else to the scene. At least his footwear was of a false size, and concrete, he assumed, permitted no trace of prints. Water was dripping from the stairs above and a swelling puddle had almost reached the blood. The police could never hope to uncover any evidence after this deluge.
He clicked off the torch and fled the scene.
Sticking to the shadows, he sprinted faster than he’d ever managed before, in case the man who used to be Patrick Owen caught up and questioned the oncoming eternity of covering his tracks. The walkways whistled in the wet wind. The gun felt heavy, powerful. He thought a viscous liquid was bleeding through the gloves and he wiped at the tracksuit trousers. As he reached the balcony leading to Sarah’s flat, the rain lashed with renewed vigour and, dizzy with fear, he approached the unlatched door and stepped inside.
He headed straight to the bathroom and fumbled for the light switch, then the basin. Blood seemed to adorn everything he’d touched, red on enamel white, and he retched again.
He’d spent endless nights on the cancer ward, in the uncomfortable chair beside his father’s bed, had seen the horrors of chemotherapy first-hand, the way it rips open grown men, but nothing had prepared him for the sight of that body under the stairwell, the butchery a sixteen-year-old girl had inflicted upon another human being.
A voice slurred, ‘Patrick,’ and he attempted to hide the reddened gloves behind his back, heart crashing in his temples.
It was Jenna.
Patrick set about cleaning the blood and Jenna assisted him in silence. The front door handle. The bathroom basin. The taps. He checked the bottom of his shoes to determine whether an incriminating trail of haemoglobin was trod through the flat. His wet clothes were hauled off and shoved back into the bin liner alongside the gloves, then he tossed the blood-splattered gun in too. He knew exactly what he’d do with all that in the morning. Patrick washed his hands five times.
Slipping quietly to Sarah’s bedroom, he pushed the door open a matter of centimetres. She was in a drugged sleep, part-foetal, her arms thrust out into the plains of her bed, as though cradling a small ghost. Her eyelids flickered and her mouth twitched in neither smile nor grimace. A strap of her nightgown had fallen away to expose one perfect shoulder.
Watching her, he was struck anew by the purity inherent in a sleeping person, their innate infancy and helplessness. His burgeoning affection for her had not been diluted by recent actions and he felt an overwhelming urge to join her under the duvet, to take refuge in those empty arms, to melt his nightmare into her seemingly temperate dreams.
He closed the door and returned to Jenna’s room. With nothing to say to her, he stood at the opposing end of a flokati rug and waited while she smiled nervously, as one would out of a sense of duty to an unsolicited houseguest. But he was anything but a cold caller; he was now and forever her co-conspirator.
‘Patrick…’ Again, the use of his forename shocked him. The casting off of ‘Mr Owen’ spoke of mock familiarity, as though, even after all he’d just done for her, she talked down to him. ‘Was he…?’
‘Very.’
She was determined to shock him with her casual tone, youth trying to get the better of its elder, but she couldn’t muster the necessary hardness, and the equanimity didn’t suit her either.
She said, ‘No one knew the gun was here, except you and Mum.’
Patrick could barely bring himself to look at her. ‘Between us, we’ll need to keep her quiet about that. But I don’t know how likely that’s going to be. Once word of the murd… accident gets out…’
This slip of the tongue retriggered a hushed sobbing from Jenna.
‘Damn you,’ he said. ‘I’ll think of something.’
‘And what about this?’ She produced the two bags of cannabis from the bottom of her chest of drawers.
He snatched the bags and thrust them into the black bin liner alongside the other incriminating artefacts. ‘Anything else?’ he asked with acerbity, knowing their eyes could never meet again in living or class room, kitchen or canteen.
‘Jenna, did he sexually assault you?’
She shook her head, but he couldn’t be sure it was the truth. Jenna still wanted to remain a peripheral character in the drama, and he could hardly blame her. Her eyes were dead. She didn’t seem to have a clue what was going on any more.
‘This is done now,’ he warned. ‘You can’t
go to a doctor, or a…’
‘He didn’t. Not this time.’
Every hair on Patrick’s body stood on end. ‘Anything else to link you to this? Think hard.’
‘No. Nothing.’
‘Look at me, Jenna.’ He threw the bag over his shoulder. ‘I haven’t been here. Whatever happens, this never happened. You slept all night. Denis didn’t come over. I didn’t come over. And we never talk about this. Okay?’
She walked him stiffly into the hallway. ‘Whatever happens,’ she echoed.
PART THREE
5 January 2017 Last updated at 12:08
BREAKING NEWS: MURDER PROBE AFTER BODY FOUND IN UNION CITY
A murder inquiry has begun after a body was found in the western section of Union City in South West London on Thursday morning.
Det Ch Insp Meadows, of the Metropolitan Police, said the identity and age of the body was not yet known and officers were asking locals to come forward ‘as a matter of urgency’ if they know of any missing persons.
The force has confirmed the body was that of a male.
Cold cases reviewed
A refuse collector made the discovery at Union City in the early hours of the morning. The area has been cordoned off.
“We are at the very early stages of the investigation and it could be a complex inquiry,” said DCI Meadows.
“The body hasn’t been in situ for a long time but I can’t comment any further on that. The circumstances suggest this is a murder case and we are looking at missing persons reports and cold cases, both locally and nationwide.”
Forensic tests
Forensic science experts are carrying out a detailed search of the area - about two hundred yards from the troubled Highfields Secondary School.
DCI Meadows said it was not yet clear if the man was killed at the scene or taken there after his death.
The body is expected to be recovered later and taken to the King James Hospital, where post-mortem tests will take place.
Highfields School would not comment on the discovery, saying it was a “matter for the police”.
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ONE
The school was a cemetery of silence as Patrick led the tall, grey-suited, grey-haired Detective Chief Inspector Meadows past peeling displays to his classroom. Half an hour beforehand, he’d witnessed the man barter an assembly of a thousand pupils into electric silence with his sullen, businesslike comportment before giving the exclusive: the death of Denis Roberts.
They arrived at his classroom and Patrick toed open the door.
The ill-proportioned portraits of twelve-year-olds on the far wall greeted them. The chalk faces had been tacked there for three years but it’d seldom occurred to Patrick that one of the smudged, tone-free images had been made by Denis when he was in Year Eight. In many ways, the anonymity of the portrait was reassuring: if it’d been anything near an exact likeness there was no way he could have accepted it glowering across at him day after day.
The Inspector muttered something that sounded like ‘Large room,’ before sitting on a front table. Patrick perched himself on the edge of his desk, facing Meadows. Dry streaks of white emulsion still besmirched its surface.
Through the wall, the kiln droned.
‘Sorry about the smell,’ Patrick said. ‘Harriet missed the end of term pottery bake and decided to stuff the kiln with clay this morning.’
The kiln had almost reached its top temperature, its door automatically locked by pyrometric controls until the firing process was complete. By that time, Patrick hoped most of the evidence, thrown inside first thing that morning, would be ash.
The Inspector looked at him sideways, frowned a generous pair of white eyebrows.
‘A rough place, Union City,’ Patrick said. ‘Very bad.’ The presence of an authority higher than himself in his own classroom inspired a courteous honesty, and he saw the need to repaint a portrait of an area deep-fried in teenage unrest.
‘What do you mean?’ There was little emotion in the voice; its ambiguity was Meadows’ bread and butter. This stripping away of sentiment left Patrick feeling autistic, unable to read what the man wanted. ‘What’s wrong with it?’
‘There was practically a small war Monday night.’
‘Indeed. Bateman block. A few youths making a fuss, I gather.’ He spoke with the non-committal amiability only a policeman of many years’ standing can manage.
‘And a fire opposite, last night. There’s a charred space where there used to be a flat.’
‘“Opposite”? Perhaps you could explain where you live.’
‘Where…?’
The ringing in Patrick’s ears had shifted into a higher pitch since the morning. The latest symptom of a life out of control.
‘Where you live, Mr Owen.’
‘Oh, I live to the west of the borough but last night I spent a small part of the evening – the early part of the evening – with Sarah Ellis. She lives in the estate.’
‘I see.’ Inspector Meadows jotted something on a pad.
‘She’s the mother of a pupil here, actually.’
Meadows nodded, giving nothing away. ‘Is this pupil “Jenna”? Someone suggested she might be Denis’ girlfriend.’
Paranoid, Patrick fell firmly towards the defensive. ‘Don’t know. Kind of.’
‘“Kind of” is her daughter or “kind of” was Denis’ girlfriend?’
‘She is her daughter and might’ve been his girlfriend. To complicate matters, I teach – taught – both of them. Jenna and Denis.’ His eyes flicked towards Denis’ dreadful portrait at the back of the classroom.
‘Well, that’s why I’m here, Mr Owen. What did you make of Denis?’
Patrick’s pause was noticed. The Inspector hastened to cajole his memory of the boy. ‘Good kid? Bad kid?’
Patrick opted for diplomacy. ‘He wasn’t the easiest kid to teach.’ He stopped short of saying the things one expects to hear about those who’ve died prematurely – that they were a credit to society, a straight A student, well-liked – but Patrick trumpeted Denis, and made him sound more well-rounded and personable than he had been, merely by concealing his general loathing of the boy. ‘Though certainly intelligent, he liked to throw his weight around, if you know what I mean. In Art, he showed… aptitude… and that helped. You’ve got to praise kids to get the best out of them.’
‘Adults too,’ the Inspector mused, chewing a pencil. ‘You don’t need to pull any punches, Mr Owen. I’m not a journalist. The kid wasn’t much liked by the staff here at Highfields was he?’
‘He… wasn’t liked by everyone, no. But he had a few acolytes amongst the students. Kids like that always do. Do you think he got mixed up in drugs?’
The look the Inspector shot Patrick had suspicion written throughout. ‘We’re keeping an open mind, Mr Owen. Do you think he was involved in drugs?’
‘I’ve no idea…’
Meadows broke his pencil nib and thrust a hand into his jacket to retrieve a biro. ‘I’m aware this is shocking for you. It must be terrible knowing a child you teach has died, more so when you’re personally involved.’
‘Sorry, I woke up with this damned soprano singing in my head… When I’m personally…?’
‘Are you dating Jenna’s mother, Mr Owen?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Let me rephrase. Are you sleeping with her?’
The crudeness of the question flushed Patrick’s cheeks, and Meadows clearly inferred a positive answer from this. Patrick didn’t correct him.
His first lie.
‘Then you’re personally involved. Don’t think you’ve heard the last of this.’ The manner was polite, but his smile nonexistent. Maybe it was just his technique; his policeman’s poker face. ‘How did you fi
nd out about the death?’
‘Like everybody else, I guess. The rumours had started by breaktime. I overheard some boys in the sixth form talking about it.’
The biro hovered over the notebook. ‘Is there anything more you can tell me about Denis? Was he involved in a gang that you know of? What was your impression of the way he spent his spare time?’
‘I saw him from Sarah’s window, in the fight. To the outsider it looked like there were two gangs.’
‘And would you recognise any other members of these gangs, Mr Owen?’
‘I could direct you to a few. Many of them attend this school.’
Meadows flipped over his pad. ‘We’ve got some names already. Fire away; maybe you can fill in the gaps.’
Once Patrick had reeled off the list of pupils he’d seen with black eyes and assorted injuries, Meadows replaced his notebook and wandered to the window. ‘Ugly place, isn’t?’ he said, surveying the flat greyness of Union City. ‘Solid concrete for three miles. Where were you last night, by the way?’ He kept his back to the teacher. ‘Overnight. Between the hours of, say, midnight and five?’
‘I was asleep, at home.’
Meadows nodded almost imperceptibly, then turned to face Patrick. ‘You live with anyone?’
‘My wife and I are separated.’
Meadows furnished Patrick with the Homicide Command phone number then walked towards the classroom door. He stopped and turned one-hundred-and-eighty.
‘If there’s anything else you think you ought to tell me, please don’t hesitate, Mr Owen. Anything at all.’ He slipped through the door.
Alone, Patrick’s heartbeat began to stabilise. Perhaps, he allowed himself to fantasise, that would be the last he’d see of Detective Chief Inspector Meadows.
It was over to Jenna now.
He rang the bell. Trepidation had rusted his throat and breathing was no longer the easy activity it used to be.
Patrick took a step back when a man answered. The same diminutive features as Jenna. A small, not quite retroussé nose and identical, cynical eyes, black-ringed by long lashes.