Quieter Than Killing

by Sarah Hilary

  ‘We need to find Carole.’ Marnie added hot milk to their cups. ‘And try to find someone who knows where Ollie is.’

  ‘He’s with Lisa, isn’t he? Having no car limits their options. They left in a hurry, though. No time to get rid of the baseball bat or the other evidence.’

  ‘DCS Ferguson would remind us we have a murder to solve. Without a solid reason to suspect Ollie of attacking Kyle, we should delegate in the direction of Missing Persons. Until or unless Forensics tell us that the baseball bat has Kyle’s DNA on it.’

  ‘If our killer’s a vigilante then it makes sense to keep the cases together. And you’re right about Rawling, he said it was kids—’

  Noah’s phone thwapped: another text. He’d almost forgotten the earlier two.

  This one had no words. Just—

  A picture of Dan, carrying his bike onto a train.

  Taken from a distance but close enough for Noah to see the sheen on Dan’s cheekbone. A mountain bike, high spec. Noah’s birthday present to him. It weighed 14.4 kg. That was the thought flashing in his head as he looked at the picture. The bike weighed 14.4 kg.

  ‘What is it? What’s happened?’ Marnie touched his wrist. ‘Noah?’

  ‘Nothing. At least . . .’

  The phone jolted with a new text.

  Where. Is. Your. Fucking. Brother.

  Chair legs scraped as he stood.

  Kim turned from the bar to look at him.

  Marnie kept her hand on his wrist, her voice very steady. ‘Noah, what’s happened?’

  ‘Just— Give me a minute.’

  He turned his back and walked to the front of the café, speed-dialling Dan’s number.

  He dragged the door open to a shock of cold air that felt good, needful.

  The number rang. And rang.

  Shit, Dan, pick up. Don’t let me—

  Voicemail: ‘This’s Dan’s phone. Leave a message.’

  ‘Call me back?’ He tried to keep the fear from his voice. ‘I need to know you’re okay.’

  He texted the same thing with a slick taste in his mouth as if he was about to vomit.

  Someone was looking for Sol.

  They’d followed Dan to the station yesterday. Had they got on the train with him? No – forty minutes ago, Dan had been sending smutty texts. Texts that could only have come from him. He was safe in a hotel in Manchester. Noah should’ve asked him which one, but it hadn’t seemed important last night. He could be calling the hotel right now, checking that Dan Noys was in his room. In the shower, that would explain the voicemail. He’d have been out late last night. Canal Street, clubbing, refusing to hide in his hotel room the way the world wanted him to—

  Since Orlando, Dan had been defiantly demonstrative, needing to be part of the scene in a way neither of them had in years. Dan was grieving, wanting to celebrate what they had and to show two fingers to the corners of the world where hate still lived. Noah understood, but it exhausted him. Not just the clubbing and late nights when he was working but the worry, private and personal, for Dan’s safety. The worry rubbed at the edges of everything.

  He scrolled back to the photo.

  Virgin train. Dan in black jeans and a zipped squall jacket, blue beanie, Osprey rucksack. His cold weather clothes. The photo must have been taken at Euston yesterday morning as he was boarding the train to Manchester. He’d arrived safely. Forty minutes ago he’d been sending filthy good morning texts. He was okay, he had to be.

  Where. Is. Your. Fucking. Brother.

  Noah sucked in the cold air – like breathing icicles – and shivered.

  Behind him, the café pulsed with heat. How was he going to explain this to Marnie? It would mean admitting his kid brother was caught up in a gang, like the one that broke into her house, or the one Ollie was running with. Gangs were meant to be on the other side of their desks, not living in their homes, sleeping on their sofas. He’d have to admit he had no idea where Sol was or what he was up to. Worse, that he’d let Sol use his flat as a base, his phone number as a contact. But none of that mattered, not really, as long as Dan was okay. And Sol. Let Noah look a fool, let him lose his job, as long as they were safe.

  He stared at the phone, willing it to ring.

  The cold was inside his head now. He could feel his skull contracting.

  It was freezing out here; he’d left his coat over the back of his chair in the café.

  In a minute he’d go back inside. Get warm. Explain himself to Marnie.

  He just—

  Needed to stop shaking first.

  27

  Marnie watched Noah standing out in the cold, his head bent over his phone. If he didn’t come inside soon, she’d take his coat to him. She could do that much.

  ‘Give me a minute,’ he’d said. Whatever had happened, whatever message was hollowing his face with hurt, he needed a moment alone with it.

  She stood, counting out cash to pay for the coffees before pulling on her coat and scarf. Taking her time, to let Noah do the same. They needed to be at the station soon, or else incur Ferguson’s wrath. Not that wrath was in her repertoire, yet. Marnie felt a pang as sharp as toothache for Tim Welland. She should call him, see how things were. He’d appreciate the distraction. She could take him a couple of books—

  ‘You’ve paid.’ Noah reached past her for his coat. ‘What do I owe you?’

  ‘No need.’ She caught the grey chill of outdoors from his skin. ‘You can get the next ones.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He pulled on his coat, keeping his phone in his hand. ‘I’m waiting for a call from Dan. It’s probably nothing.’ He moved his mouth into a false smile. ‘We should go.’

  She held him still with a real smile. ‘You said probably nothing. What might it be?’ She read wariness in his face, and guessed its cause. ‘I’m asking as a friend, not a boss.’

  He didn’t let go of the phone, just raised his free hand, spanning the narrow width of his face with his palm, the way he had earlier. ‘It’s Sol. And Dan.’ His eyes were hot. ‘It might be Dan.’

  ‘Tell me.’ She nodded for him to sit back down.

  ‘Can we move? I’d rather be moving.’ He checked his watch. ‘We need to get to work.’

  ‘With you like this?’

  ‘I’m okay. I’ll be okay. It’s just—’

  His phone rang, and his eyes snapped back into focus.

  ‘Dan? Hey . . .’ He straightened, nodding relief at Marnie. ‘That’s good. No, it was just . . . Yeah. Me, too.’ His smile was genuine now. ‘Where are you?’

  Marnie gestured with the car keys, wanting to give him space to talk.

  At the bar, Kim was polishing cutlery. He’d have customers soon, the first of the office workers, those not lured by the brighter lights of the coffee chains. This place was a well-kept secret.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘For the coffee, and the parking space.’

  ‘Of course.’ His fingers moved smoothly, bringing up a shine on the steel bowl of a soup spoon. ‘Come again soon.’

  ‘We will.’

  She waited in the car for Noah. Thinking about Kyle, and Ollie and Lisa. Their good neighbour, Himmat. Had he seen Ollie’s notebooks, or his knife? Fran’s team were checking the contents of the bin bag for DNA. No visible blood on the bat, suggesting it’d been wiped clean. But Himmat would have heard Ollie coming home in the early hours of yesterday morning; the walls were thin in Jonas House, and Ollie was a clumsy kid. So who brought home the baseball bat, if not Ollie?

  ‘Sorry.’ Noah got into the car, fastening his seat belt. ‘Thanks for waiting.’

  She started for the station, not asking any questions.

  Noah would tell her or he wouldn’t, but she trusted him to make the right decision. He wouldn’t hold back information which might affect his work, or hers. He’d put his phone away and lost the worst of the tension in his face, but he was wound tight enough to twang if she touched him.

  He looked dead ahead for a short time before scratching his
cheek. ‘Sol’s in some sort of trouble.’ Using his interview voice, neutral. ‘He gave my number to someone who’s threatening Dan. At least . . . I think that’s what’s happening. Dan’s okay. He hasn’t spotted anyone hanging around. Someone took a photo of him yesterday morning, getting on the train to Manchester.’

  ‘That was the text?’

  ‘One of them.’ He moved his jaw. ‘The others were asking where Sol is.’

  ‘And you don’t know who sent the texts,’ Marnie deduced.

  Noah shook his head. ‘I can’t get hold of Sol. He’s changed his phone five times in the last few weeks. It’s been a fortnight since I spoke with him properly; we’re never home at the same time. Mum and Dad haven’t heard from him, they thought he was with me. He’s staying at my place, or he was. He’s not been home in a couple of nights. That’s not unusual. That’s . . . Sol.’

  ‘So these texts weren’t from friends of his.’

  ‘Sol wouldn’t give my number to just anyone.’ Noah rubbed his right thumb at his left palm. ‘So I’m thinking they were friends but something’s happened.’ He drew a short breath. ‘He told me he was trying to get out, but he’s been in a gang on and off for the last ten years. Harry Kennedy’s probably got him on his radar. I should’ve told you this sooner. I’m sorry.’

  ‘You did tell me.’ Marnie was waiting for a traffic light to change. ‘Just not in as many words.’

  Sol was trouble. Noah had dropped enough clues to that in the time they’d worked together.

  She felt the weight of worry in his stare and moved her head to meet it, unblinking. ‘Did I need to know details, before now?’

  He shook his head, hot-eyed again, his face as open as she’d ever seen it. Laid bare by this worry for his brother, and for Dan. For his job too, or that part of it which relied on their working relationship. Noah had his secrets, everyone has secrets. But he didn’t lie, or dodge, or boast. He was one of the most honest people she knew.

  ‘There was no reason for you to tell me until now.’ She released the handbrake, drove on. ‘What did you advise Dan to do?’

  ‘Watch out for trouble.’ He rubbed the heel of his hand at his eyes. ‘Stay in a group, avoid being on his own. And I told him to keep in touch, text me every hour.’

  ‘Good.’ She nodded. ‘How are we going to find Sol?’

  ‘I can try Dad again, but I doubt he’s gone there. He wasn’t home two nights ago. I checked.’

  ‘Do you know the gang he was trying to leave?’

  ‘No. I only know the one he used to run with. I wasn’t joking about Harry Kennedy; Trident probably has eyes on this gang right now.’

  ‘Ask him,’ Marnie said. ‘From what I’ve seen of DS Kennedy, he’s decent. Discreet, too.’

  ‘I’m not looking forward to telling DCS Ferguson . . .’

  ‘We’ll tell her when we need to, if we need to.’

  Noah’s phone chimed. He dug it out as Marnie took the turning into the station car park.

  ‘DCS Ferguson,’ he said. ‘She wants us in her office.’

  ‘Good timing, in that case.’ Marnie parked up. ‘Let her know we’re on our way up.’

  DCS Ferguson had made herself at home in Welland’s office. His calendar was on the wall but everything else had been put into boxes and stacked in corners. His desk had been swept clean, and polished and laid with her things: a rose-gold MacBook Air, glossy black fountain pen, laminated world map doubling as a mouse mat, potted miniature narcissus.

  World domination and a potted narcissus; as an analysis job for a psychologist, it was hardly worth getting out of bed for. Noah wondered if the woman knew the signal it sent out and liked it that way, a short cut to impressing on you just who was in charge here.

  ‘DS Jake. DI Rome.’ She stayed behind the desk. ‘I was hoping you might have started early today, given the week we’re having. Then I wouldn’t have needed to sort out an interview room for Kyle Stratton’s parents.’

  ‘They’re here?’ Noah was surprised. They’d set out early from Reigate to reach London before 8.30 a.m. ‘We didn’t ask them to come in, did we?’

  Ferguson chipped a smile from her mouth. ‘I was hoping you’d have the answer to that.’

  ‘We didn’t ask them to come in,’ Marnie said. ‘But we were going to visit them yesterday, before events overtook us. We need to interview them about the phones and the letters they threw out from Kyle’s room.’

  ‘Serendipitous, in that case.’ Ferguson touched her fingers to the MacBook, angling it away from Marnie and Noah. ‘They’re in interview room two.’

  She ran her eyes over whatever was onscreen. Her Tumblr, possibly. Bodies of her enemies stacked up in the back streets of Salford. ‘Interview room one being occupied by Mazi Yeboah.’

  If she’d hoped to take Marnie by surprise, she was disappointed. Not much surprised Marnie, as Noah was learning. Not even admissions about your family’s gang connections.

  ‘When did he arrive?’ she asked evenly.

  ‘Oh, they came together,’ Ferguson said. ‘A road trip from Reigate with the young man their dead son set on fire eleven years ago.’

  Welland would have made a joke about them cheating Mike Leigh out of a job.

  Ferguson just said, ‘Interview rooms one and two. All yours.’

  28

  Mazi Yeboah wore a navy logo-less tracksuit and mid-price running shoes, sitting with his forearms flat to the table, his spine straight in the chair. Twenty-four years old, a second generation Ghanaian living in Barnet with his girlfriend, Debbie had said. Good-looking, narrowly built with clean fingernails, no rings, no wristwatch. Noah looked for evidence of his close encounter with Kyle back when they were both schoolboys. There – at the throat of his tracksuit, a thread of pink where his skin was otherwise black. Under the tracksuit he was wearing an orange running vest.

  ‘Are they okay?’ East London accent. ‘Kyle’s mum and dad? They’re okay, yeah?’

  Noah pulled out a chair and sat. ‘You travelled with them, from Reigate. How’d that happen?’

  ‘I went to their house.’ Mazi spread his hands on the table. ‘I didn’t mean to freak them out, just wanted to know they were okay.’

  ‘You knew where they lived?’

  ‘Yeah. Yes.’ He met Noah’s gaze, didn’t flinch or look away. ‘I heard what happened to Kyle and I wanted to say sorry, and see if they were okay.’

  ‘You wanted to say sorry.’

  ‘About Kyle, yeah.’ He sat back in the chair.

  He’d been running, Noah could smell it on him. Clean sweat, not cortisol.

  ‘I didn’t mean to freak them out. I guess they didn’t know.’ He pulled the tracksuit cuff over his hand, using it to wipe his top lip. ‘Anyway, bad idea. So I’m sorry about that too.’

  ‘About freaking them out.’

  ‘Turning up at their house. I’d have called, but they’re not in the phone book and Kyle says they’re weird about letters so—’ Wiping his lip again. ‘Said. He said they were weird about letters.’

  The sound he made was beyond distress. His fingers twitched on the table, light picking at the pink thread on his neck.

  Noah waited, knowing that Mazi would talk without the need for questions.

  He’d come here to talk, words crowded behind his teeth, waiting to get out. And Noah knew what they were, some of the words at least.

  He knew what Mazi Yeboah was going to tell him.

  Gerry and Brenda Stratton sat under the stewed light, looking uptight. Brenda wore a turtleneck jumper two shades paler than her tan, and white skinny jeans with heeled black boots. Her husband was in a red velour V-neck and pressed grey suit trousers, no shirt under the V-neck, just grey chest hair. They’d dressed in a hurry.

  ‘You’re interviewing him then.’ Gerry tucked his chin to his chest. ‘Is he telling you why he doorstepped us at that hour? Insisting we drive him here like we’re a taxi service.’

  ‘Kyle thought we were a taxi service
.’ Brenda sounded stunned. ‘To and from the train station, until we told him no. We like a glass of wine in the evenings. Well, he did too.’

  ‘Not wine.’ Gerry folded his arms. ‘He liked something a lot stronger.’

  The room was too hot, but they looked cold.

  ‘He turns up on our doorstep saying he’s heard about Kyle and he’s so sorry. He’d been running. In this weather! At that time of day.’ Brenda put a hand to her throat. ‘The sun wasn’t even up.’

  ‘Freezing out there.’ Gerry glared at the door then switched his stare to the radiator. ‘Not much better in here. Who the hell goes running when there’s black ice?’

  ‘He’s standing there,’ Brenda said, ‘dripping with sweat and he’s saying, “Sorry, I’m so sorry,” and then he insists we get in the car and drive here. “We need to tell the police,” as if he knows better than we do what should be done about Kyle.’

  ‘I said I’d take him to the station, he could get a train home.’ Gerry turned his face away, jaw bunching. ‘He wasn’t having any of that. Oh no. He knew best.’

  Marnie waited. There was no need to ask questions. Sometimes there were no questions you could ask. You just had to sit and see what came out of people who were grieving or raging. She wondered if it was the same next door, whether Mazi was boiling over with words.

  Brenda said, ‘He’ll be telling you all sorts, we know that. It’s written all over his face. Soon as I opened the door, I knew. We both did. That’s why we came. Not because he insisted, but so you didn’t get one side of the story and not the other.’

  ‘You need both sides to a story.’ Gerry didn’t look at Marnie or his wife, fixing his stare on the wall. ‘That’s what I said to the school the first time Kyle was in trouble, before it ever blew up. I said, there’re two sides here. It’s all very well shouting about bullying but have you looked at it from both sides? Have you taken a long, hard look? They hadn’t, of course.’