The Dying Place

by Luca Veste

  Now that was evil.

  Rossi turned to property records instead, finding two more matches. One thirty-two-year-old, which would be a little younger than they’d been told was the case but could be the guy. The other, fifty-two years old, born 1962. Last known address in Litherland, Quartz Way, which was on one of those new-build housing estates near Moss Lane, if Rossi was remembering right. Not bad, but nothing special – especially for a property developer, if Kevin Thornhill from the youth club was to be believed.

  The door opened behind her, Rossi rolling her eyes at the break in her peace and quiet. She turned and raised a hand in greeting as DC Harris shuffled his way in to sit down at what was rapidly becoming his own desk. There’d been such a high turnover of different constables over the previous months that she’d given up even trying to build something resembling a good working relationship with any of them. Graham Harris seemed to be the exception, and had ingratiated himself into the dynamic Murphy and Rossi had created. He was quiet enough for it not to be a problem.

  Didn’t hurt that he was easy on the eye.

  ‘Anything to report?’ she said, swivelling her chair around to face him.

  ‘Nothing useful. Gave up on the phone call. Couldn’t make out anything really. Started ringing the number every half an hour instead.’

  ‘Well … you never know. Suppose it can’t hurt. My guess is that he’s switched it off and thrown it by now.’

  Harris shrugged, turning back around and dialling the number on his phone. Rossi watched as he dialled from memory before turning back to her screen, focussing on the latter Alan Bimpson.

  Checking the land registry records was a first step. See if Mr Bimpson owned any farms maybe. Google his name, see if anything jumped out.

  She went over her notes again. The narrative had been so different until the mysterious Ian had phoned the previous day. Yes, he’d known things about the way in which Dean Hughes had died. Details which hadn’t been released. But the story he told seemed too fantastical. Five murderers. A strange farm where they were holding teenagers … it was all starting to sound ridiculous.

  Then she thought of the events the previous year and realised that people resided in Liverpool, her city, who weren’t the normal, everyday sort of killers; not the domestics, the druggies, the violent thugs who got unlucky with a single punch in town.

  No, last year a serial killer had hit at the heart of the city and brought out the darkness which lay within … almost taking the life of her absent detective inspector.

  ‘How long are land registry taking at the moment?’ Rossi said, startling the detective constable from his staring competition with the wall.

  ‘Not sure. Few hours, a day. Depends who’s asking, usually.’

  ‘I bet we could hurry that along.’

  Harris turned his chair towards her. ‘I’ve just been using Google. Takes less time and tends to give you the same info.’

  Rossi nodded, ‘Good thinking.’ She switched to the search engine and typed in Alan Bimpson’s name.

  Thirty-odd thousand results.

  She added more details to try and narrow down the results. She heard the dial tone from Harris’s phone and the dialling of a number, but tried to ignore it. Read the top results and clicked on a few. A couple of newspaper articles which mentioned the local businessman and his donation to the local youth club, buried amongst much bigger articles about Kevin Thornhill and his hope to create a place for disenfranchised youths.

  Rossi returned to the list of results, ignoring the youth club articles and attempting to find something else.

  She found what she was looking for, just as a voice echoed around the office which didn’t belong to either her or DC Harris.

  The Farm

  Yesterday

  It had felt like things were going back to normal. The little lessons had started again. The food being delivered wasn’t an afterthought. They still looked like they were on edge when they came in to deal with them, but was bearable. The lads had begun to calm down, getting used to life in the Dorm again.

  Goldie’s patience had almost gone. Definitely with the lad from Toxteth. Introduced himself constantly as ‘Holty’, like in the third person or whatever. Not Tyler, as he had at the start, now it was all ‘Holty’, like they was mates or something.

  Non-stop talking. Holty reckons this is bollocks or I won’t be doing any pervy shit, Holty doesn’t do shite like that for anyone. Goldie would just roll his eyes and – when he felt like a laugh – pretend to go for him. Just to watch him flinch back like a little rat.

  The noise had started an hour before the other lads had begun to take notice. Goldie had sat up in the bed as soon as he’d heard the first voice. He knew the difference in the way the sounds from the voices carried over. He’d heard them shouting before, but this time it had been different. The low voices building over time. The occasional loud shout which emphasised a word or parts of sentences.

  No … Can’t do this … Not why … Don’t get it … Listen … No …

  The four lads crowded around the door eventually, straining to hear more, pushing and shoving each other. While the wood was solid, there were small gaps which let in some noise. None big enough to prise open though; Goldie had spent hours scrabbling around the edges trying to force it open, to no avail.

  Still, you could hear them out there sometimes. Trampling around outside, watching them, perhaps. Not that Goldie knew for sure, there being no windows in the Dorm.

  He shushed the others as he strained to hear more. The noise – argument, he now realised – had grown louder. Now they could hear whole sentences being blared out. From inside the farm.

  ‘They’re going mad. What they did to Dean is sending them bonkers,’ Tyler said.

  ‘Shut it and listen.’

  ‘Holty was just saying, lad. No need.’

  Goldie turned and looked at him, getting what he wanted as Tyler averted his eyes.

  ‘This is our chance,’ Goldie said, unable to hide the excitement in his voice. ‘We all have to be on the same side here, understand?’

  The other lads just looked towards him, their expressions blank.

  ‘Listen. This is what we’re going to do …’

  Gamma had started it. All of them together for the first time in days, wanting to air her grievances, as she’d put it. Like she would know what that word fucking meant, the daft bitch. Alpha knew who had put her up to it. Fucking Delta and his word-of-the-day bog roll. The wanker. Her husband, Tango, would go along with anything she said. Under the fucking thumb.

  ‘We need to do something. I can’t go on like this,’ she’d said eventually, when they’d all settled down around the table. ‘I can’t get his face out of my head. It’s always there, just needling me. Those little shits in there aren’t helping either. I want out. I can’t deal with all this any more.’

  Alpha had tried to calm her down, but it hadn’t been working. Not with everyone else suddenly piping up. If they’d just let him get on with things, everything would have been fine. It had gone downhill from there though. All of them getting on their high horses.

  ‘I don’t remember any of you saying any of this last Thursday,’ Alpha said.

  ‘Well, we were all in shock I suppose,’ Tango said, fiddling with a lighter as he spoke. ‘We kind of knew things like that could have happened, but when it’s in front of you like that … it’s different. I’m sure you felt the same.’

  Alpha had slammed his fist on the table then, causing the others around it to flinch. ‘No I fucking didn’t. The kid wouldn’t listen. Wouldn’t learn. You all know that. He was given enough chances. He had to be dealt with.’

  ‘He wasn’t an animal, Alan,’ Gamma said then, making Alpha sit back as she used his real name.

  ‘I haven’t been sleeping since it happened,’ a small voice cut in. Omega, speaking for the first time. ‘I know I said it was for the best, but it doesn’t help. I keep praying, but it’s no use. I keep seeing
him, lying there …’

  ‘You’ve … you’ve got to put that out of your head,’ Alpha replied, brushing his hair back with his fingers. ‘Remember what I said? Remember what the Bible says? What happened was unavoidable. They know the rules. We’re making them better.’

  ‘Would the auld fella agree, do you think?’ Gamma said again, not letting it rest.

  ‘He knew the score. This whole thing was his idea, remember.’

  ‘That’s what you say.’ Gamma was on her feet by now, pointing at Alpha. ‘But we’ve only got your word that he planned for this. Maybe he never wanted us to go this far. How do we know?’

  Alpha had risen to face her then. ‘Look, you all knew what you were signing up for. You all agreed – if things went that way, then that was just how it was going to be.’

  ‘Did you let him go?’ Delta was on his feet by then, with Gamma staring straight at him.

  ‘Let who go?’

  ‘The one we fixed. Did he really go home, or was that just what you told us? To keep us on board?’

  ‘Of course I did …’

  ‘Where is he then?’

  Alpha shook his head, wanting them to stop it. Stop the questioning, the needling. It was all going the wrong way.

  ‘At home, last I checked.’

  It had worked, once. One young lad released back into society. Changed. Better. Unable to identify any of them – Alpha had been sure of that. Even less likely to be able to point the police their way, anyway. He’d had no idea where he’d been kept for the four months it had taken to break him down and rebuild him. Four months of hard work, all leading to the point where they could send him back.

  And it had worked. But that didn’t mean Alpha could risk sending him out there. Not then.

  Not with those first boys.

  ‘Look. We know what we’re doing works. You saw how he was when he left. But we couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t have been able to tell people what had been going on. Sure, we made threats towards him. Towards his family. But realistically, how long could that have gone on for?’

  ‘You killed him …’ Gamma stumbled back and dropped into her seat. ‘You’re … you’re a murderer.’

  ‘No,’ Alpha said, slamming his fist down on the table. ‘What I did, I did for us all. Remember what the old man said to us. Collateral damage. In any war, it happens, and that’s what we’re in, understand? We’re fighting against these kids. We’re taking the streets back. But it takes time. Practice. I’m in it for the long haul. These first lot, these little bastards, they’re just the first in a long line of kids we’re going to be working with. But they aren’t the ones to send back. Not yet. We have to be tougher, stricter, harder. We have to grind them down more. So we can be sure. You all know that.’

  ‘You’re sick,’ Delta said, moving towards the door.

  ‘I’m sick?’ Alpha shouted at Delta’s back. ‘I’ve seen you with them, what you’ve done. You’re just as involved as us all. You enjoy it, George. I know you do. Hurting those lads gives you a thrill. A sense of power you’re not getting out there.’

  ‘For a reason. We all thought we were doing it for a reason. We didn’t want to kill them.’

  ‘Look,’ Alpha said, softening his voice and moving towards Delta. ‘I don’t get anything out of it, honestly I don’t. But it’s the only way, surely you can see that?’

  ‘We should have been told.’

  ‘I did it all for everyone, so no one had to worry.’

  ‘No,’ Delta had said, turning to face Alpha. ‘We should have been told, so we could stop you doing it.’

  ‘We have to go to the police.’

  ‘No. I’m not getting locked up for what he’s done.’

  ‘I can’t live with this, can you?’

  ‘If it stops now, we can.’

  ‘We just let them go? What if they know who we are? What if they saw us one time?’

  ‘Ever seen them without your balaclava covering your face? No. Don’t worry about that.’

  ‘They could still trace us.’

  Alpha sat and listened to them go back and forth. Hoping against hope that they’d change course. Come back to his way of thinking. But it was no use. They had already gone. All his hard work, gone to waste.

  They were talking about the little scrotes locked up in the farm building as if they were deserving of compassion. They weren’t. They were subhuman. Alpha knew that. He’d never had any doubt. He wanted to break them down, yes. Wanted to fix them. But, on that drive back, that kid, that little fucker who was only just eighteen, had shown him. Shown him that they couldn’t be fixed.

  ‘Wait. What are they doing?’

  Alpha snapped back into the present, his attention taken by what they were all looking at; the small TV screen that had been set up in the kitchen, which showed the boys in the Dorm filmed on hidden cameras.

  ‘They’re doing something to the door.’

  They watched as the four boys walked back from the door, going over to where one of the beds was, then Goldie, the oldest, pointing out where they should stand.

  They watched as they lifted the bed and struck the door.

  They heard the noise from outside.

  Alpha grabbed his shotgun, motioning for the others to follow him. They moved slower than he would have expected.

  ‘Come on.’

  They trudged out of the kitchen, Alpha leading the way, almost running towards the Dorm.

  He reached the door first, waiting a few seconds for everyone else to stack up behind him.

  ‘Step away from the door,’ Alpha shouted, hearing nothing from within. ‘We’re coming in. Everyone by their beds.’

  Alpha shot a look towards Omega. Frowned a little at the expression he received back.

  ‘On three …’

  Alpha counted before snapping the lock back on the door, standing aside as Omega moved slowly and turned the key he’d been holding.

  He opened the door, slow, precise. The hinges creaked as it moved inwards, darkness spilling out into more darkness.

  ‘Stay where you are.’

  Alpha took a step forwards.

  Goldie’s face appeared out of the gloom.

  ‘Think fast,’ Goldie said, before driving his forehead into Alpha’s face.

  The others didn’t move quick enough, five versus four, but with Alpha already incapacitated, Goldie moved towards Omega, raising a fist towards him before launching a boot into his midsection.

  Omega collapsed next to Alpha, the latter’s vision blurred by blood which was gushing from his nose but running upwards as he lay on the floor.

  Alpha could hear the cries from the others as they hesitated, not wanting to shoot.

  Idiots, Alpha thought as he shook his head.

  ‘Stop …’ Alpha gasped, choking on his blood. ‘Now.’

  Goldie turned towards him, a fistful of Gamma’s hair in his hand, her balaclava already lost. ‘We’re just starting, mate.’

  Alpha almost smiled, but instead concentrated on getting his bearings.

  ‘Quick, come on.’

  Alpha looked towards the new voice. Saw Tango, laid out on the floor, looking unconscious.

  Alpha’s hand gripped the shotgun which had slipped out of his grasp, turned to see the boys getting to their feet, pulling on each other to start running away.

  ‘Don’t, fucking, move,’ Alpha said, standing up and levelling his gun at the boys. They shared quick glances, weighing up their options.

  The new lad moved first. Alpha didn’t flinch. Aimed and blew a hole in the boy’s back. Shifted the gun back to the other three as the first boy fell to the floor, lifeless.

  ‘It’s all gone,’ Alpha whispered. ‘All of it.’

  The next two fell quicker.

  ‘One little piggy left,’ Alpha said, staring at Goldie.

  ‘You’re going home now. You understand what’ll happen if you tell anyone about what occurred here?’

  A nod of understanding. Slow, deli
berate. Alpha watched him, looked him up and down, satisfied. He took the scissors from the pocket near the knee of his cargo pants. Snipped the cable tie binding his ankles together, before motioning for him to get out of the van.

  The lad lasted five seconds on the outside before his old nature returned.

  Alpha stepped back to let him walk away. The lad had looked down the road, the streetlights illuminating his face. Looked back at Alpha, and then grinned.

  ‘Fuck you,’ the lad had said, and spat in his face. He ran then, took off at a sprint.

  Five seconds to confirm what Alpha had already known. That they could never change. Not really.

  It took him around a minute to chase him down. Less than a second to plunge the scissors into his neck.

  That’s how the lad from Bootle had gone. On the side of a road in the north of Liverpool. Near the open fields between Crosby and Formby. Almost the middle of nowhere. Alpha had dragged his body into the woods there, burying it in a grave he spent an hour digging, hoping it was deep enough to never be found.

  Alpha blinked a few times before wiping an arm across his face to clear his vision. Back in the kitchen, the bodies outside were already turning cold. The sounds were coming from in front of him, as the people he had shared the last year with shouted and bawled at each other. Desperation. Despair. The reverberations didn’t make sense. He couldn’t tell what they were saying any more. It was just noise. Not real sentences until he really concentrated.

  ‘We need to get out of here.’

  ‘I can’t believe they’re dead.’

  ‘We should untie this one. Just let him go.’

  ‘He knows what we look like.’

  ‘Our Father, who art in heaven …’

  ‘Stop fucking praying. It’s doing my fucking head in!’

  Alpha tuned them out. The sound of his heartbeat became louder. Banging against his chest. The voice in his head. His own. Saying the same thing over and over.