The Dying Place

by Luca Veste

  Even Goldie showing him where they’d lopped off his finger didn’t make him flinch.

  It was Craig’s first time on the rack that had shut him up. He didn’t think they’d allow torture to go on the telly.

  Goldie was feeling as good as was possible in the hell he’d been going through the past few months. For the first time, he could see an end in sight – the real possibility of being free again.

  Shouts from up ahead made him stop in his tracks. He turned around to see Omega tense, his shotgun trained on his back.

  ‘Keep walking,’ Omega said after a few more seconds of silence. The shouting had stopped, so Goldie shrugged and carried on walking. The noise struck up again, followed by the opening of the door to the Dorm and the sight of Gamma flying outwards.

  Goldie became aware of the gun jutting into his back after a short period, but at first his attention was solely on the open door and what lay beyond.

  ‘Get in there, now,’ Omega said, teeth clenched so Goldie imagined the spit flying onto his clean T-shirt.

  Goldie kept walking, faster now, eager to see what was going on. As they reached the Dorm, Gamma was getting back to her feet, brushing down her black cargo pants. Her balaclava had slipped a little, so Goldie watched as she readjusted it so the eyeholes were in line.

  ‘That little bastard is dead,’ Gamma said, as she picked up the gun which had fallen beside her.

  Omega pushed Goldie inside, where the scene was laid out for him. Dean struggling with Tango on the floor, Tango’s gun lying a few feet away. Goldie allowed himself to be forced further into the room, not taking his eyes off the scene which was unfolding in front of him. He sat down on the edge of his bed, tearing his gaze away from what he thought was about to turn into a bad situation, to see Craig kneeling, hands gripping the frame of the bed, ready to jump up.

  ‘Don’t,’ Goldie said, shaking his head. It was enough for Craig to loosen his grip a little.

  Dean had forced Tango onto the ground, his hands around the bigger man’s neck, when Gamma raised her shotgun, smashing into the back of Dean’s skull. The thumping sound seemed to echo around the Dorm. Dean didn’t move for a second or two, but Goldie knew he’d lost his grip around Tango’s neck as he heard the man start swearing and coughing.

  Gamma booted Dean in the ribcage, which finally saw him teeter over and fall to the floor. Goldie hoped Dean was already out cold as he watched Gamma start again, kicking and stamping on his prone body, the sounds making Goldie feel sick. Tango joined in then, still on his knees as he punched Dean in the face.

  Omega stood back, both hands on his rifle as he watched it happen in front of him. Goldie couldn’t tell what his facial expression was behind the black mask of the balaclava but wanted to believe it matched the horror of his own. Then he remembered his severed finger and Omega’s lack of action when it happened. Imagined a grin beneath the mask instead.

  In the doorway, a shadow fell over the man and woman beating the teenager. First Gamma stopped, backing away, then she nudged Tango with her foot.

  ‘Stop.’

  Tango turned to see Alpha at the doorway.

  ‘What’s going on here?’ Alpha said, his voice loud and echoing off the walls.

  ‘He tried to escape,’ Tango said, his words almost lost behind a mumble. ‘He hurt Gamma.’

  ‘Really? Is that right.’

  Goldie stared at the men and woman standing over the still body of Dean. The lad from Norris Green.

  ‘In that case … lads, I want you to watch very carefully,’ Alpha said, the end of his sentence delivered in the direction of the other four teenagers in the room.

  Alpha gripped Dean’s T-shirt and lifted him up into a sitting position. His head lolled slightly but then righted, making Goldie sigh a little with relief.

  ‘You think there’s a way out of here without our say-so, do you? Well, I’m sure a bit of time on the rack will sort that out.’

  Goldie heard rather than saw the gob being hoicked up, and winced before Dean had even spat in Alpha’s face.

  ‘Fuck you,’ Dean hissed. ‘Just a bunch of fuckin’ torturers and pussies. Can’t take us one-on-one, so you get guns and force us to live like this. You’re not hard men or soldiers. You’re nothing but shit.’

  Goldie realised he’d been holding his breath as Dean spoke, watching as Alpha wiped at his eyes. Dean had spat directly into that area, the only part which wasn’t covered.

  A good shot – or a bad one, considering how you looked at it.

  Alpha didn’t speak. Kept a loose grip on Dean’s T-shirt with one hand, but nothing else.

  Then Dean’s voice boomed around the Dorm room.

  ‘Come ’ead then! If you’re ’ard enough, take me now, one-on-one.’

  Alpha moved quicker than Goldie had ever seen before. With the hand which had been gripping Dean’s T-shirt, he shifted up his neck, the other whipping from the side and directly into the temple of Dean’s head. Then he got to his feet and stamped on Dean’s stomach, almost flipping the teenager over with the force. Alpha stepped backwards and Tango and Gamma took the chance to continue again, aiming kicks, boots, stamps into Dean’s body as he just shook on the floor.

  Goldie made to move, but caught the darkened eyes of Omega and froze. His body trembled as he imagined crossing the room, covering Dean’s body with his own. Saving him.

  Instead, he watched, as did Craig, Mikey from Garston and the new lad from their own beds, as Alpha took something from his belt loop and pushed away Tango and Gamma.

  Alpha grabbed Dean’s hair and pulled him up into a sitting position before moving behind him.

  Goldie learnt something that day.

  It takes a long time to choke someone to death. It wasn’t quick like in films or telly. It takes a good few minutes. Time stretched, as he couldn’t turn his head away. He heard someone retch and throw up from the other side of the room, but he didn’t stop watching as Alpha stole Dean’s life.

  When it was done, nothing more was said. Just a nod to Tango and Gamma from Alpha, who took the now-still body of Dean and dragged him outside.

  Goldie sat in the same position, having watched them kill someone he’d spent almost every minute of his life with for the past six months. Not a friend, not family. Nothing like that. But they were something.

  And he couldn’t help but think that he was next.

  PART TWO

  15

  Sally Hughes was going to bury her son.

  Her own child.

  There’d be a funeral, in which people would pretend that a glorious young life had been taken from them. A future snuffed out too soon.

  It wouldn’t even be a burial, she thought. She couldn’t afford that. Her son would be cremated. His ashes scattered somewhere or kept in an urn on the mantelpiece.

  Her son would become an ornament.

  She could put it somewhere. His favourite place, maybe. Except his favourite place was probably some park or cemetery where he could get pissed or stoned with his mates.

  Probably not something she could share with people.

  She was going to be one of those mums who turned up on morning TV. On the couch, being consoled by someone who used to talk to a puppet when she was younger. Fake sincerity, plastered-on concern … for around five minutes, before they had a grand old laugh with the latest reality TV star.

  They’d talk about her behind her back. All those who lived around her. That was without question. She’d heard of those parents who were blamed for everything that happened to their kids. She’d be in the papers as the mum who neglected her son and he’d ended up dead. A life on benefits which led to her kids being brought up wrongly, before finally paying for her laziness.

  It wasn’t like that.

  She used to be different.

  It had been three days since those two detectives had arrived at her door, changing her life forever. She bet they’d already forgotten about her, leaving her with some stupid woman who kept asking
if she was okay. Family liaison or something. Pointless waste of space. Of course she wasn’t okay. Her son had been murdered, with God only knew what happening to him in the months before that.

  She’d have to live with the knowledge that she’d never find out. Not for sure. She wouldn’t know how her son would have been feeling. Had he been afraid, frightened? Had he been tortured?

  Had he been expecting to be saved by the one person who had always been there for him?

  She’d done nothing. Not when he’d disappeared. Just sat on her arse in front of the TV, expecting him to show up. To walk brazenly through the door wanting his tea. Not caring that she’d been worried sick.

  So she hadn’t bothered. He was old enough to look after himself, Sally thought.

  They’d argued before he left. Her last conversation with her son ended with him telling her she was a fucking bitch.

  He left with her thinking, but not saying aloud, that she wished he’d never been born. That none of them had been. That she’d stayed single. Hadn’t let that man have his way with her in the back of a Skoda when she was seventeen. Married at eighteen. Three kids and too many beatings later before she finally escaped him.

  Left with three boys, a forty-a-day habit and a taste for vodka she could barely resist on a daily basis.

  She didn’t know how to grieve. It was only from watching TV that she knew something should be happening. She’d been sitting on Dean’s bed now for over an hour. Just staring at the wall, expecting to feel something.

  Instead, she was just empty.

  Hollow.

  Sally only had a few friends, but what there were had been there all weekend. Fussing over her. Helping her cry dry tears. Talking of revenge on the bastard who had taken her son. Talking about how this type of thing never happened when they were kids. How things were different these days.

  After the first couple of days, the numbers had fallen. People were already moving on. Leaving her sitting in her son’s bedroom because she’d seen some actress in an ITV drama do it once when she’d lost her husband or something. Maybe it had been a kid. Sally couldn’t remember. It had seemed important. Like she’d learn something, make a plan of some kind. Just by sitting on her dead son’s single bed, the fabric on the bottom of the divan flapping around every time she moved. Springs near the bottom digging into her. Crusty sheets and an old duvet.

  Barely anything in the room anyway. She’d tried burying her face in some of his clothes, but the only ones that were clean smelt of nothing but discount brand washing powder. She didn’t want to smell the dirty clothes gathered in a pile underneath the window. They would only smell of damp.

  She’d tried. Taught her boys right from wrong. Don’t do this, don’t do that. It never worked.

  She’d tried her best. It just hadn’t been enough. She’d accepted that a long time before.

  Sally Hughes sat alone on her dead son’s bed. Staring at peeling wallpaper that hadn’t been changed since Dean was in primary school. Black mould in the corners of the room. Nothing in there reminded her of him. It was a shell, just a box where he’d slept.

  Sally had cried at first, of course. Now, three days later, she didn’t know what to do. Act as before? Just go back to normal? What was she supposed to do as a grieving mother … how was she supposed to act?

  So she continued to sit upon her dead son’s bed.

  The face of the man who killed him lying in a pile of discarded papers and forms on his bedside table.

  16

  ‘Hello … Ian … Hello?’

  Rossi looked towards Murphy, pursing her lips as she did so. Murphy moved quickly, almost snatching the phone from her hand and putting his ear to the receiver. Dead air.

  ‘He just hung up,’ Rossi said, pushing the hair back from her face. ‘Didn’t even give me chance to stop him.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Murphy replied. ‘You didn’t say anything wrong.’

  The incident room suddenly found its voice, with shouted enquiries from over the top of workstations as the other detectives began trying to work out what was going on.

  ‘Enough,’ Murphy said, his voice echoing around the room. ‘Let me speak to Laura and then we’ll meet in the briefing room in fifteen minutes.’ He beckoned over DC Harris. ‘Harris, trace as best we can. I want the area he was calling from as soon as, okay?’

  Harris nodded and scuttled off.

  Rossi picked up the notepad she’d been writing on during the phone call and walked ahead of Murphy as he waited for her near their office. Once inside, she flopped onto her chair and leant back, rubbing her forehead.

  ‘You okay?’ Murphy said, taking up his own chair.

  ‘Yeah,’ Rossi replied, still rubbing the tension out of her head. ‘Just a bit unexpected, that’s all.’

  ‘I can imagine. What happened?’

  Rossi explained to Murphy what had led her to picking up the phone. A man, identifying himself only as Ian, had called the non-emergency phone line. After explaining he had information about the Dean Hughes case, he was put through to a shocked DC who had begun looking for Murphy himself. As he was downstairs in front of the media, Rossi had drawn the short straw.

  ‘And you’re sure he was involved? Not just a prank?’ Murphy said.

  ‘If he wasn’t involved, I’ll show my arse in Burton’s window.’

  ‘I’m not sure that’s really convincing me …’

  ‘Shut up. No. He knows far too much about the case for it to not be someone who was there when Dean died. Injuries, age, appearance, tattoo, where he was left exactly. The bloody scar on Dean’s face. Do you want me to go on?’

  ‘Okay. We’ll go on the assumption he’s one of … how many did you say?’

  ‘Five. But he doesn’t know what’s happening now.’

  ‘From the beginning, Laura,’ Murphy said, leaning back in his chair and picking up a notepad from his desk.

  ‘He started by saying how sorry he was that the boy died. That it wasn’t the plan, and all that bollocks. On and on about how they were trying to help him, not kill him. It was repetitive.’

  ‘Okay. Doesn’t make sense, but not the first time we’ve heard that defence.’

  ‘True. Anyway, he then started telling me what had happened since. There’s a place – a farm or something – he’s been living at with four other people. Didn’t say where it was. They all had code names for each other, but that was for the benefit of those being held.’

  Murphy held up a hand. ‘Slow down. Who were being held?’

  ‘The boys,’ Rossi replied, pinching her eyes shut with her thumb and forefinger. ‘They’ve been taking teenagers off the streets and trying to make them “better”, as he put it.’

  ‘And Dean was one of these lads?’

  ‘Yes. Only, they couldn’t make him better. According to Ian, it went too far – their discipline of him – and he ended up dead. Wasn’t meant to happen, blah blah blah …’

  Murphy let out a long breath. ‘This is …’

  ‘Fucked up,’ Rossi finished for him.

  ‘Yeah. So why is he ringing now? Guilt got to him?’

  Rossi shook her head. ‘It all went wrong last night. He wouldn’t say what happened, but he’s scared. Wants to hide.’

  ‘Who from?’

  ‘Alpha,’ Rossi replied, shaking her head. ‘Whoever that is.’

  Murphy left the car running on the driveway for a few seconds after he pulled up, listening to the end of the news on the local radio. His own voice, coming low out of the speakers as he listened to what he’d told the press earlier, now seemed empty, considering what they’d discovered since. Murphy rubbed his eyes, the tiredness threatening to overwhelm him. The dashboard clock said it was just past two a.m., but Murphy was sure it was later than that. Felt as if he’d been awake for days.

  The last few hours had passed in a blur. Once Rossi had explained what she’d learnt from the phone call, they’d rejoined the team in the briefing room, DCI Stephens taking a pro
minent position as she listened to what had occurred late in the day. The rest of the evening had been spent waiting around in the hope that ‘Ian’ would call back, with no joy. The tracing of the call had led them to a pay-as-you-go mobile and a possible location of the tower the call had been pinged off, near Huyton. Officers had been sent to the area, but the likelihood of them ever finding someone was remote before they even left.

  Murphy shut off the engine and got out the car. He pressed the button on his key fob and heard the comforting clunk as the doors locked behind him. After quietly letting himself into his house, the lights all off as he’d expected, he crept through to the kitchen, trying to make as little noise as possible.

  He wanted a drink, a proper one, but settled for a glass of orange juice. He wanted to be down the station but knew it was pointless. The night shift team had been briefed about the ongoing situation, so he took his mobile out of his pocket to check it was still charged. Tutted to himself as the battery showed less than half full. The charger was upstairs next to his bed, so any plans of not disturbing Sarah and taking up residence in his chair for the night vanished.

  He padded up the stairs one step at a time, trying to avoid the creak on the third-to-last stair and failing.

  ‘David?’

  Murphy stopped on the stairs, his shoulders falling. He hated waking Sarah when he got home late. He’d sent her a text earlier saying he’d be late back but was hoping to save the inquisition.

  ‘Be there in a sec.’

  He went into the bathroom, not worried about making noise now he knew she was awake. That was Sarah … once she was awake, it took her a while to fall asleep again. A really light sleeper, always on the verge of full consciousness.

  Once finished, he turned off the bathroom light and shuffled his way across the landing to the bedroom. Sarah had switched on the light which sat on her bedside table and was propped up on the multitude of pillows she slept upon – in direct contrast to the one single, flat pillow which Murphy used. He’d woken up a few times in nights gone by with a pillow or three lying on his face.