When I Wasn't Watching

by Kelly, Michelle

  ‘Sir, you really need to see this. This could seriously go off.’

  Five minutes later Matt stood staring at the same Facebook page Lucy had just discovered a few miles away.

  ‘Can we get into it, get it shut down?’ he snapped as the implications of the most recent post dawned on him.

  ‘On it now, sir. But how many people have already seen it?’

  That was exactly what Matt was worried about. Because, flashing in front of him on the screen was an address.

  That claimed to be the new location of Terry Prince.

  Matt turned to Scott, his face slowly draining of colour.

  ‘Get local uniform out there, now.’

  He had a horrible feeling it was already too late.

  ‘John’ had been hiding in his bedroom for the past hour, ever since a neat package of steaming faeces had been pushed through his letterbox, then another one thrown at his window. Dog or human, he didn’t know and didn’t much want to either. What he didn’t understand was why they were even bothering with the intimidation tactics, the bullying. Why not just get on with it?

  But he knew the answer to that. First he would be tormented, like a toy on a string, dallied with and pushed around, until they went in for the kill. It had been the same in prison; it would be the same out here. When or how they would strike he didn’t know; he just knew that they would.

  He heard a car pull up and went over to the window to risk a peek outside, then drew back sharply as he heard footsteps coming up the path. Perhaps it was his Parole Officer. He should tell someone, he knew, and they would move him again, take him somewhere safe.

  But they had told him he would be safe here. John didn’t want to spend his life on the run, even though the alternative meant he wouldn’t have a life at all. He had had enough. If he admitted it to himself, perhaps it would be better if it was all over.

  With that thought in mind, John went downstairs to answer the ringing of his doorbell, accepting whatever was about to befall him, his heart a rotten weight in his chest. He hesitated before opening it, a natural survival instinct kicking in even as he tried to tell himself it was most likely nothing sinister. Underneath both his self-reassurances and his fear there was another feeling; one that won out.

  Whatever may be about to happen, he deserved.

  He wasn’t expecting the face he saw when he opened the front door. He had a moment of hope – perhaps they weren’t coming for him after all – before he registered the object in the stranger’s hands and then felt the impact of the liquid thrown in his face. Stinging his eyes, his nostrils, coating his hair and face and most of his torso too. As the stranger swung again, splashing his legs and feet, the smell of the fumes hit him and John realised exactly how much trouble he was in.

  He turned to run, but a hand in the small of his back sent him sprawling face first into the carpet. John rolled over, locking eyes with his attacker, who had stepped inside the hall and was smiling almost beatifically at him.

  ‘Do you know,’ they said conversationally, ‘just how long I’ve waited for this moment?’ A hand reached into a pocket; pulled out a dainty-looking gold lighter. All of a sudden John understood his morbid fantasies had been just that. He wanted to live, and desperately.

  ‘Please,’ he begged, feeling tears begin to flow down his face, mixing with the fuel that covered him. The stranger tossed the lighter at him almost casually.

  The last thing he saw as flames engulfed him and he started to scream was the face of his attacker, smiling at him.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Wednesday Evening

  They were too late. The two police cars that turned up outside John’s house, sirens blazing, caught the attention of neighbours and passers-by more immediately than the stranger who had so casually walked down the drive, whistling merrily and tossing a lighter up into the air and catching it repeatedly as they made their way back to the car at a leisurely pace. John’s screams were muffled by the front door, which his attacker had carefully shut behind themselves with gloved hands. The Response team arrived just five minutes later, having unknowingly driven past the car which held the person responsible for the burned body they found, its skin so blackened and blistered it was at first hard to identify it as human.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ one of the officers muttered as they opened the front door and saw what awaited in them in the hall, while his colleague turned and retched into a tissue. He then left the tissue over his nose in a fruitless attempt to mask the smell of roasting flesh.

  The flames had gone out, thanks to John’s attempts to roll around on the floor to subdue them. Pieces of charred skin clung to the carpet around him.

  ‘Call it in,’ the first officer said and then jerked away from the body as a low keening sound came from it.

  ‘Get an ambulance here now!’ He barked orders even as he backed away from the victim. ‘The poor bastard’s still alive.’

  ‘The victim’ s name – real name, I should say – is Giles Murray. Record for theft, some petty dealing. He was paroled and released into the witness protection programme after informing on his suppliers. Thanks to him, we managed to crack one of the biggest suppliers of cocaine in the West Midlands.’

  The officers present in the Incident Room were silent as Dailey spoke, his face grim. WPC Kaur looked as though she were about to cry. Giles Murray – an addict and a loner – had never had so much sympathy in his life, Matt thought, before clearing his throat and standing up.

  ‘Am I right in assuming that Local CID over in Loughborough are dealing with this?’

  Dailey nodded.

  ‘Until there’s a proven link between the fact that Giles’ address – his supposedly “safe house” – was leaked onto social media by some prat who put two and two together and came up with four hundred, it’s out of our hands and frankly, none of our business.’

  Next to Matt, Scott snorted in disbelief.

  ‘It’s pretty obvious isn’t it? The poor guy’s address gets splashed all over the internet to a public gunning for Terry Prince’s blood, and then he nearly gets burned to death?’

  ‘Nevertheless, it’s not our job to jump to conclusions. It could be a coincidence. He was in witness protection for a reason, after all.’

  Coincidence. That word again. Matt had been hearing it all day long, and frankly it was starting to put his back up. ‘Coincidence’ that Jack Randall and Benjamin Taylor looked alike? ‘Coincidence’ that Benjamin was taken by a man who could fit the description of Prince just a week after he was released? ‘Coincidence’ that a boy he should catch shoplifting and take home to his parents turned out to be Lucy’s son? Matt didn’t think so. There was some kind of link here, he just hadn’t figured out what it was. He remembered Lucy’s comments last night – had it really only been last night? –about Fate and smirked wryly. If there was some kind of preordained plan, then Matt had a nasty feeling that the powers that be were having a very big laugh at his expense.

  ‘Unless Giles recovers sufficiently to give a description of his attacker, it’s out of our jurisdiction,’ Dailey went on.

  ‘Being burned like that does smack more of an execution killing than a vigilante, or a crime of passion,’ Scott conceded. Matt wasn’t so sure, but didn’t say so. There was a reason Dailey had called his team together and it wasn’t so much to discuss a Loughborough-based murder attempt as its implications on their current case.

  ‘We need to pursue the Prince angle in the Benjamin Taylor case,’ Matt said, and although his tone was low every face in the room was suddenly attentive. Dailey gave a curt nod.

  ‘This is getting out of hand; protesters, false information being shared, now a possible vigilante attack on the wrong guy. We need to be able to either rule Prince out or take him in, before the situation gets any worse. I believe you were going to interview Mrs Prince, Matt?’

  ‘Yes. If we can place Prince anywhere near the Armstrongs’ house in the last few days, it has to be enough for East Midla
nds to take him in surely?’

  ‘You would hope so. We certainly need to get it done before he’s whisked away to another secret location. After all, if whoever did this was really after Prince…’

  Dailey nodded towards the slide of the crime scene photo of Giles Murray, burned and blistered so badly his identity was indeed now a mystery.

  ‘This,’ Scott said quietly as Matt turned his eyes away from the sight, ‘is precisely why people can’t be allowed to take the law into their own hands.’

  As Matt left the room Scott’s words followed him, and not just because he felt sympathy for Murray, who was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, but because there was another ‘coincidence’ that was playing on his mind and had been since they had heard about Murray’s attack.

  Lucy. It had been her who had confessed she initially dated him in the hope that he might know Prince’s whereabouts, who had confessed she thought he deserved to die for what he had done to her son – a sentiment that Matt himself had echoed. So he had to ask himself – what might Lucy have done if she too had seen the Facebook page confusing the relocation of Giles Murray with that of Terry Prince? If she had believed the address to be the location of her son’s killer?

  Matt wasn’t so sure that a vigilante would have gone so far as to pour gasoline over a man and set him alight in cold blood, but a mother who believed that man was responsible for the death of her child? That was more than possible, it was probable.

  The woman who opened the door to Matt and Scott couldn’t have been much older than them, but she looked like a pensioner, given the sunken appearance of her eyes and the stoop to her shoulders.

  ‘We’ve come about your son, Mrs Prince,’ Scott said after Matt did the badge-flashing and introductions. Mrs Prince looked at them as if she hadn’t heard him speak. Although she was nicely dressed and her house from the little he could see of it looked immaculate, there was a hollowness to her face and utter lack of expression in her eyes that reminded Matt of the before and after pictures of addicts on drug awareness posters. When she finally spoke it sounded as though it took her a great effort to do so.

  ‘Whatever he’s done, I’m not interested.’

  When neither Matt nor Scott answered but instead exchanged a brief look, the woman’s eyes flickered with something that looked like hope.

  ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘No,’ Matt said bluntly, shocked as the hope bled out from her face and left her looking as expressionless as before. What kind of woman wished death on her own child?

  ‘We just need to ask you a few questions about his whereabouts over the last few days. If we could come in?’

  The woman held the door open with a long-suffering expression on her face, looking pointedly at their shoes as they walked into her home.

  ‘Wipe your feet,’ she demanded before leading them into the lounge. Scott looked at Matt and shrugged as they did as the woman asked before following her into her home. The wooden crucifix on the wall above the fireplace seemed to dominate the whole room, and there was a large leather bible open on the table. There was no television. Matt wondered if Mrs Prince had found Jesus after her son’s incarceration for murder or before.

  ‘I’m sure you’re aware a young boy went missing this morning?’

  Mrs Prince shook her head.

  ‘I don’t watch the news, or read the papers,’ she said, ‘it’s better that way.’ A look of horror came over her face as she understood why Matt and Scott were in her home. ‘You think he’s done it again,’ she whispered, her hands forming into claws in her lap.

  ‘We’re just trying to ascertain his whereabouts, Mrs Prince, that’s all,’ Scott assured her, his voice taking on that soothing note that somehow never sounded patronising. He really must ask Scott how he did that, Matt thought.

  ‘Your son told our colleagues that he has been to Coventry since his release, in spite of his parole conditions. We were under the impression he came to see you.’

  ‘He came once. I shut the door on him.’ Her features twisted briefly into a grimace before resuming their flat countenance. ‘It wasn’t my fault you know,’ she added before Matt could question her further.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Him killing that little boy, it wasn’t my fault. There were some issues with my ex-husband, but I left him. I raised Terry well.’ There was a fierceness to her as she glared at each of them in turn, daring them to contradict her. In spite of himself Matt felt his gut twist in sympathy. What must it be like, to raise your child believing you were for the most part doing a good job, only to have them turn into a monster overnight? He pushed the thought away as Scott cut in, giving the woman the reassurance Matt could not.

  ‘No one’s suggesting anything is your fault, madam. We’re just trying to build up a picture of where he has been and when; it’s more a case of establishing an alibi so that we can put him out of the picture, so to speak.’

  ‘When was this visit?’ Matt asked her. Her gaze cut from Scott to him and she looked confused for a minute, thinking.

  ‘Friday,’ she said, nodding her head decisively, ‘Friday afternoon. About three-ish maybe, I don’t know exactly.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘Nothing, I didn’t give him the chance to. I opened the door, saw it was him and shut it again. I think he said something like “Mum, please,” but I had already shut the door. I watched him through the glass. He stood there for a minute, then walked off.’ She took a deep breath and slumped back in her seat, her little speech apparently using up what little animation she had.

  ‘Did you see which direction he went in, or whether he was on foot or not?’

  ‘No. Can you go now?’ She said this last with no real animosity, more exhaustion, as though the very presence of them in her home was draining her.

  ‘Just a couple more questions,’ Scott soothed, ‘and we’ll leave you to go about your day.’

  ‘I don’t have anything else to tell you.’ She stood up, their signal to leave.

  Matt stood with her, looking at her intently. He believed her; that flash of hope in her face when she thought they had come to tell her of her son’s demise had been real. Even so, he had to make sure.

  ‘You’re sure you’ve had no other contact with him? No calls, emails?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  As they left Matt turned and looked at her again.

  ‘If you do hear anything from your son, Mrs Prince, it’s absolutely crucial that you call us.’

  The woman stared at him, her eyes again blank, before she shut the door on them. The two detectives walked back to the car and drove off in silence.

  ‘Nice lady,’ Scott said as they turned a corner, ‘hardly the maternal type though was she?’

  ‘Would you be?’

  As they drove the route back to the station Matt doubled back the way they had come, prompting Scott to shoot him a curious look.

  ‘Dropping in to see the girlfriend again, sir?’

  Matt shook his head, ignoring Scott’s sarcasm.

  ‘When Prince came to Coventry to see his mother, how do you think he got here?’

  Scott frowned.

  ‘I dunno…train?’

  ‘Exactly. So I’m wondering if the Armstrong house is en route from Mrs Prince’s to the train station. He would have been on foot, presumably, so maybe he took the alleyway that leads past the Armstrongs’ back garden.’

  ‘Saw Benjamin, felt whatever sick urge he felt when he first saw the Randall kid…’

  ‘Plus he could have been agitated and upset by his mother slamming the door in his face,’ Matt continued, ‘and fixated on Ben for some reason. Then this morning he gives in to temptation.’

  As they drove, trying to retrace the most logical route for Prince to have taken, Matt thought about Giles Murray, currently lying in a hospital bed in an induced coma, holding on to his life by the skin of his teeth, because of what looked like retaliation for someone else’s crime.

&nb
sp; He must have been mad to suspect Lucy, he thought, flashing back to the slide of Murray’s face, nearly unrecognisable as human. However angry and emotional Lucy must surely be, he just couldn’t see her doing something so calculatingly brutal.

  Then again, Mrs Prince had probably thought the very same thing about her son.

  After a trip to the train station showed Prince could well have passed near the Armstrong house, but ultimately of course proved nothing, Matt dropped Scott back at the station with the pretext of going to check on the search team, but in fact made his way to Lucy just as Scott had suggested he would. She might not want to see him but he needed to see her, if only to reassure himself that she hadn’t been behind the attack on Giles. His head was throbbing. This day had to have been one of the longest of his life, and didn’t look as though it would end any time soon. There would be no rest for Matt until he had found Benjamin Armstrong, dead or alive, though the former was looking more and more likely by the minute.

  It was growing dark outside and there was a chill creeping into the air as Matt once again walked up Lucy’s garden path. There were no lights on, but she came to the door almost immediately and he saw she was dressed to go out, wrapped in a duffel coat that made her look tiny, her face all eyes. Frightened eyes. Matt’s stomach sank as he realised there was something very wrong.

  ‘Lucy?’

  She gave a little start as she saw him. Guilt?

  ‘Ricky’s missing,’ she said, surprising him. He frowned.

  ‘Missing? I thought he was staying at your mother’s.’

  ‘He was. But she hasn’t seen him all day. He told her he was on his way here, and he hasn’t shown. I’ve rang all his friends’ houses, even his father’s, not that Ricky ever sees him. Something has happened to him, I can feel it.’ The words tumbled out of her before she inhaled sharply and her eyes became guarded.

  ‘Why are you here? I left you a message.’

  ‘I know; I got it loud and clear. I’m not here for that. I came to ask you something. Lucy, have you been on the computer at all today?’

  She raised a hand halfway to her mouth then lowered it again and bit her lip. She was a bag of nerves, a total change from her earlier demeanour. Because of Ricky, or something else? Then as he saw her expression at the mention of the computer he understood her agitation; like him she had connected the Facebook post with herself, but not in the way Matt had.