Dead Pretty: The 5th DS McAvoy Novel (DS Aector McAvoy)

by David Mark

  Delphine raises her arms above her head. Pushes her clothes back to show the mangled, matted strip of hair and skin she has cut from the body of a dead girl and glued to her own naked flesh.

  Pharaoh grimaces as pain racks her. Manages to find some anger. ‘You’re insane.’

  ‘You got under his skin. Messed up his head. Took him away from me. And whenever I saw him in prison you were all he would talk about. He was carving you. He didn’t know whether you were a victim or a target. Didn’t know how he felt about you. Still doesn’t. But I know he only needs one person in his heart and that person is me. I know he wants me. He’s always wanted me. But he resists. I’ve done all the things I know he likes. Worn the clothes; the boots and little dresses. I’ve tried so many times to get him to look at me the way I want him to but he’s too good a man for that. But I’m a woman now. He won’t have to fight it forever. Won’t have to keep himself busy with slags like you. He’ll have me, and I’ll be all he’ll fucking need.’

  Delphine reaches up to the mantelpiece and pulls down a small, wicked-bladed knife with a wooden handle and a missing tip.

  ‘He gave me this when I was eleven,’ says Delphine. ‘Showed me how to carve. I’ve made some beautiful things. You should go and see the little patch of woodland where Dad and me used to go to get some time together. It’s beautiful. Peaceful. He’ll probably tell me to stick your body there, but I don’t think I can do that. I’ll find you somewhere more suitable. Somewhere cold and dark. I’ll plant you. Use you to fertilise the flowers.’

  Delphine bends down. Squats over Pharaoh and pulls her arms above her head.

  Grins in the firelight as she brings the blade down. Places the steel against the flesh of Pharaoh’s armpit and begins to carve.

  Chapter 32

  ‘You’re bleeding.’

  ‘It’ll stop.’

  ‘I can drive, if you want. I know this road . . .’

  ‘Mr Hollow, I would advise you not to distract me. Or speak at all, really. I’m doing this because I believe you’re going to be sent to prison for a very long time. I’m doing it because this is DSU Pharaoh’s case. Be quiet, please, sir.’

  ‘I haven’t done anything wrong, I’ve told you. Trish will understand.’

  ‘Please . . .’

  ‘The surname Pharaoh. She’s never told me. Unusual, isn’t it? And her husband has a different name.’

  ‘Mr Hollow . . .’

  ‘I googled her when I was in prison. Impressive career. She’s an impressive person. You’re a good friend to her. Loyal. I’ll make sure there’s no trouble for you over all of this.’

  ‘Trouble?’

  ‘When the press run with it.’

  ‘You may well be under arrest by then.’

  ‘We’ll see. There is so much I want to tell you, but you’re holding back. Why are you a policeman?’

  ‘To help people.’

  ‘Seriously? You can’t just leave it at that. Are you a copper’s son, or anything?’

  ‘My dad has a croft. He’s a caretaker. Electrician. Sells old rolls of carpet. He’s many things, but never a cop.’

  ‘Nobody else? No hero?’

  ‘My dad.’

  ‘No, I mean somebody to emulate. Granddad?’

  ‘My great uncle was a constable in Glasgow for a couple of years. Came down from the Highlands with dozens of others to help get the gangs to let go of their hold. Ultimate hard-line, zero-tolerance policing. He came back more worldly-wise and cynical. He told me some stories when I was a kid. Stories about locking up villains. Maybe it started there.’

  ‘Thank you. That’s interesting. And Pharaoh’s name?’

  ‘Not a chance.’

  ‘We’re nearly there. There’s a right turn coming up just ahead.’

  McAvoy turns the car into the pocket of darkness. Feels a change in the texture of the night air as the vehicle bumps over potholes and fallen branches and enters the woods. Turns the headlights to full for a brief moment so he can take a mental snapshot of the obstacles ahead. Sees the outline of Pharaoh’s car. The curved bow-top of the wagon. The rotten teeth of titled headstones.

  He pulls to a halt. Turns to Hollow and glowers. ‘You’ll do what you’re told,’ says McAvoy, ‘or you’ll be in cuffs until backup arrives.’

  He climbs from the car. Feels the fog reach into his throat and nostrils, and the pain in his shoulders rise to his temples. Moves his head slowly, left and right, wincing. He feels somehow hungover. There’s a dull throb at his jawbone and behind his eyes.

  ‘There’s a light on,’ says Hollow, climbing out of the car and gesturing towards the cottage. ‘Delphine will have a fire on. We’d probably read to each other tonight.’

  McAvoy starts to picture the scene. Blinks down hard on it and kills it before it can fully form. He doesn’t want to imagine it. Doesn’t want to think that the girl inside the perfect little cottage is about to have her life shredded and crumpled like damp paper.

  Hollow goes first, shouting his daughter’s name. He reaches the door three steps ahead of McAvoy. Turns the handle and enters the kitchen.

  Sees.

  Delphine Hollow, her knee beneath Trish Pharaoh’s throat. The blade he gave her, pushed into the skin of Pharaoh’s armpit, lost in a pocket of blood, skin and hair.

  Hollow turns, raises his boot and kicks the door shut. Hears the thud as the ancient wood slams against McAvoy’s shoulder. Slams home the bolt and spins back to look at his stepdaughter as she goes about her work.

  Delphine looks back over her shoulder. She locks eyes with her stepfather. She grins girlishly, guiltily, as if she has been caught stealing biscuits.

  Wordlessly, she offers the knife.

  ‘This wasn’t what we agreed,’ says Hollow gently as he walks forward, eyes on the red-soaked blade. ‘This wasn’t supposed to happen again.’

  ‘She’s been lying from the start,’ says Delphine, applying more pressure to Pharaoh’s throat. ‘The messages are all in her phone. She’s been running an operation to catch you for all the bad men.’

  Hollow considers Pharaoh. Her eyelids are fluttering and there is red at the corner of her mouth. She’s still squirming beneath Delphine, seems to be struggling to control her limbs.

  ‘Things aren’t always what they seem,’ says Hollow. ‘You’ve been wrong before. You were wrong about Hannah. She would never have told anybody.’

  ‘You’re too trusting,’ says Delphine, looking back down at Pharaoh. She changes her grip on the knife. ‘You think people are like you. They’re not. That’s why you’re special.’

  Hollow stands above his stepdaughter. Her pale skin is flushed and that stale, sour smell of sweat and turned earth is rising from her bare flesh. He reaches forward and strokes her hair. Takes a handful of it. Looks down at Trish Pharaoh and sees revulsion in her eyes.

  ‘She’d have understood,’ says Hollow, and when he gently pushes Delphine’s head against his hip, he sees goosepimples rise on her skin. ‘She still could. We have to think. To talk . . .’

  McAvoy comes through the window as if launched by a catapult. He slams into the table in a storm of flying glass, crashing down onto the tombstones with a thud that smashes his teeth together and sends pain coursing into every part of his body.

  On the floor, Trish Pharaoh manages to get a hand free and hits Delphine at the hinge of her jaw. She pushes the heel of her hand against the teenager’s nose, forcing her backwards, registering the sound of the knife clattering onto the floor.

  Hollow watches as Pharaoh pulls herself upright, blood and dirt and vomit streaking her hair and skin; pure, ferocious anger in her blue eyes. Sees her grab Delphine by her gorgeous, unruly hair and slam her head into the edge of the table.

  Hollow turns. Jumps past McAvoy’s outstretched hand. Crunches on broken glass and hauls open the door, disappearing into a swirl of black and grey as if tumbling into a tomb.

  ‘Get after him!’ screams Pharaoh. ‘I’m okay. I’ve got her
. Get the bastard right fucking now.’

  McAvoy puts his hand down on broken glass. Feels pain and wetness and doesn’t give a damn. He pulls himself up and splutters forward, tripping on the stones as he stumbles back outside.

  Shivers with pain and cold as the mist closes around him. Hears a low, rustling whistle as the breeze moves the trees and leaves fall like dead skin.

  McAvoy pushes forward, hands out in front, running blindly, ducking branches and skipping over tree roots; the whistle of the wind inaudible over his own breathing and the rushing of his blood.

  For a second he fancies he can see the outline of a figure. Hears a branch break. Cloth tearing, as a shirt catches on rough wood and splits to the seam.

  McAvoy wonders if he should yell. Wonders if he should lie and tell Hollow that if he does not stop, the officers behind him in their night-vision goggles will bring him down like a stag.

  There is a movement to his left and McAvoy turns, just as Hollow smashes him across both knees with a branch as thick as an arm. He hears the snap of wood before the pain hits him and by then he is on the ground, slithering about in leaves and dirt. When the pain comes, it is an explosion. It feels as though the top of his head will blow off to allow the high-pressure steam of agony to escape.

  ‘Tell me what to do next,’ says Hollow flatly. ‘Go on. Tell me what a good man does now.’

  McAvoy’s words are a hiss. He pulls his legs up to his belly. Holds his knees like a baby.

  ‘She didn’t want to do any of this,’ says Hollow, hefting the remainder of his club. ‘I did wrong. I could see what Delphine was from the beginning. I thought that if I told her my stories she might see that it doesn’t have to be good people that she hurts. But it didn’t matter to her in the end. It wasn’t about anything but killing. I could see it in her eyes. I should have stopped her then. But I love her, you see. Not in the way she wants me to, but I love her. I’m not like other people, Hector. I can’t care the way other people do. I do try. I did my best to be the right person for my family. Tried so hard. But it wasn’t what I lived for. I lived for that moment when a pretty girl told me they had a problem. I killed my first one when I was still a boy. Did you know that? When I got out of prison I knew I’d do it again. I just had to wait. It’s amazing how strangers will share things. They would tell me their worries. They’d see me in a bar or on a train and they’d start chit-chatting about the men who were making them miserable. And then we’d go our separate ways. And I’d log it in the back of my head. And then I’d go back and fucking kill them.’

  McAvoy tries to put his feet down and feels a white-hot strip of pain run up his legs.

  ‘I should never have done it so close to home,’ says Hollow.

  He seems angry at himself. Lets his feelings out by bringing the club down across McAvoy’s shoulder and ribs. It feels like being hammered flat.

  ‘Hannah. Ava. I met Hannah out at the church at Great Givendale. Lovely, lovely person. A really pure soul. She had tears in her eyes. Had been laying a wreath for her pony. I was working on some new carvings for the church. We sat out on the grass and shared stories. I did what I knew she wanted. I should have put Hogg in the ground, but there was something about Hannah that made me think twice. She would carry the guilt of his death. She had to choose. She chose to let him live. And then she wouldn’t leave me alone. It wasn’t fair on Delphine. I tried to hide it from her but she kept reading my messages. Perhaps I knew what she would do. But when I got arrested there was no restraining hand. She killed her. Buried her. What could I do? Turn her in? She’s the love of my life. I made mistakes. Ava – I was showing off. I should never have helped her. She wasn’t even a good person. That was desire, plain and simple. I wanted her. She was in hospital when we met, battered and bruised and still the sexiest thing I’d seen in years. I was kind to her. I dried her eyes and wiped the dried blood off her face and she looked at me like I was special. I wanted to help her. She deserved to be helped. But with her, it was more than the fact that she was fragile or pretty or vulnerable. She was sexy as hell, Hector. I made a mistake by claiming the credit for her ex’s death. I should never have contacted her again. But I did. I made a mistake and hinted it was all down to me and the next thing we were chatting and I told her what I was into and from there she knew how to play with me. I don’t have sex like other people. I like smells; I like hair. I don’t know why. I should never have shared that confidence with anybody. But I told Ava and I told Hannah and they used it to try and own a piece of me. Delphine didn’t like that. And now they’re dead, and I’ve got nowhere to go. I don’t know if I want to kill you or not. You seem like a good person. I feel like there’s something between us. I see the same thing in Trish’s eyes that I see in Delphine’s. I see it in your wife, too. She’s killed, hasn’t she? Tell me. She would. She’d spill her guts and look at me with those beautiful eyes and I’d do things that nobody else would . . .’

  McAvoy’s fury comes from a place within him he does not acknowledge. His shout is an untamed animal roar of pure and absolute rage. He lunges at Hollow just as he’s preparing to bring the club down again. Grabs it in his great, bear-like hands, and thrusts it backwards into Hollow’s face. Hears cartilage crunch against wood.

  McAvoy grabs Hollow around the knees and smashes him to the ground with an impact that drives the air from both men’s lungs. Hollow recovers first. Punches McAvoy in the top of the head: hard, ferocious right hooks that make McAvoy’s head ring. McAvoy reaches up and tries to grab Hollow’s wrists but Hollow squirms beneath him and manages to boot him in his damaged knee. McAvoy rolls away, reeling, bloodied, groggy.

  Hollow is on top of him, raining down blow after blow. There is blood pouring down his face and into his mouth but his expression remains neutral. His eyes barely flicker as he grabs a fistful of McAvoy’s hair and starts to beat the back of his head against the hard, compacted mud of the forest floor.

  McAvoy hears his skull smack against the ground. He can barely see. Does not know up from down. Feels suddenly cold and weak. Feels wetness on the back of his neck. Feels his life pooling behind him into the dirt and shit where Hannah Kelly lay buried for those endless months of misery.

  McAvoy throws his hand forward. Finds something soft. Pushes with his thumb and feels something give beneath his nail.

  Hears Hollow scream.

  McAvoy punches upwards. Lashes out, blind and desperate. Connects. Punches out, harder now, the weight on his chest diminishing.

  And now he is on his knees, grabbing a handful of Hollow’s shirt and pulling him close enough to hit. The other man has his hand pressed to his left eye, his face contorted in agony. McAvoy pulls him close. Puts his weight into the punches that he slams into the side of Hollow’s head. One. Two. Three . . .

  He collapses forward onto the unconscious, bloodied mess beneath him. Listens to his own heartbeat and waits for the pain to come back.

  His world spins. Black and grey strobe in his vision. He can hear somebody shouting his name. Struggling to pronounce it.

  ‘Hector!’

  He lies on the forest floor and stares up into the fog. As if seeing shapes form in cloud, the swirl of mist becomes animal. He sees a wolf, turning its head, opening its mouth and swallowing the full moon.

  And then he sees nothing but Trish Pharaoh, leaning over him and pressing her warm hand to the wound at the back of his head, screaming for an ambulance and telling him to hold on, to stay with her, to never leave . . .

  Chapter 33

  ‘Any poison in this one?’ asks Pharaoh as she twists open a bottle of elderflower gin and takes a sniff. ‘Ah, fuck it,’ she says, and takes a gulp.

  Her gait is a little lopsided. She’s holding a pressure pad under her armpit and looks as though she is wearing an invisible sling. She hasn’t changed her clothes. She’s still all mud and blood and puke.

  Reuben Hollow sits at the table. His hands are cuffed behind him. His face is swelling, obscenely.

 
; ‘You knew what she was up to, then,’ she says, sitting down at the table beside him. There is a piece of broken glass on the wooden surface in front of her. It’s shaped like a tooth.

  Hollow raises his head. One of his teeth has come out at the back and his jawbone looks like a chicken leg. He looks broken. His voice contains the whine of a tired child.

  ‘I never wanted this,’ he says. ‘I just tried to help people.’

  Pharaoh takes another swig. There is a uniformed copper on the outside of the door. The grounds are swarming with Aberlour’s team. But Pharaoh insisted she have this time, alone, with the prisoner. Nobody had questioned her. Nobody would dare.

  ‘She didn’t,’ says Pharaoh, picking up the piece of glass and massaging it between her fingers. ‘She killed people because she was obsessed with you.’

  ‘That’s not true. Not really.’

  ‘How long ago did you realise?’

  ‘Realise who she was? I don’t know.’

  ‘She killed her brother. Poisoned him.’

  ‘We don’t know that for sure. Teenagers imagine things.’

  ‘She helped her mum on her way.’

  ‘Like I said . . .’

  ‘She killed Hannah Kelly for you.’

  ‘Don’t say that.’

  Pharaoh tries to hold in her temper.

  ‘It happens. Kids fall in love with older men. Long-lost siblings start sexual relationships. There’s a precedent for every sick thing you can think of. She fell in love with her stepdad. And her stepdad showed her that it’s okay to kill people as long as you believe you’re doing right.’

  Hollow drops his head to the table. Grinds his forehead against a tiny speck of glass.

  ‘Hannah would never have told.’

  ‘You sent her a video on David Hogg’s mobile. He was begging for his life. She allowed him to live. Bet you weren’t expecting that.’