by Steve Mosby
During that last visit they’d had nothing to say to each other. Currie looked into his son’s eyes and recognised the distracted calculations of the addict. Nothing approximating love. But at least there had been some good news: Neil was off the streets at the moment, even if a flat in the Grindleas was less than ideal. He said he was off heroin too, but the lie stank on him, and when he left that day they found that money and jewellery had gone missing. Linda cried. Currie’s heart, damaged repeatedly over the years, had set as scar tissue, but his wife’s had always seemed to mend perfectly, ready and waiting to be broken again.
That night they had a difficult conversation about what to do, and the decision they reached was to cut Neil off. He was their son, and they loved him, but Currie convinced Linda it was the right thing to do. After only a week of non-contact, however, she’d started to worry. She went behind Currie’s back and phoned Neil; there was no answer, and she asked her husband to go round and make sure he was all right. At first, he resisted - their son hadn’t returned the calls, he told her, because she was of no use to him right now - and for a whole week he remained stalwart, stopping the subject dead when his wife brought it up. By the end, she was practically begging him to check on Neil. Finally, Currie relented.
He drove into the Grindleas that day seething at this waste of his time, parked halfway up the hill, then walked along the paths between council flats, searching out his son’s address. But somewhere between the car and Neil’s door, he developed a slight tickle at the back of his skull. Perhaps his imagination added that afterwards, but still, he remembered it clearly. Nothing had changed, and there was no way he could have known anything was wrong, but he felt it. When he arrived, he saw the outside of the house resting in shade, and his stomach fell away. The smell in the garden could have come from the bins, but he knew straight away that it didn’t.
There was no answer when he knocked; Currie had to kick the door open. As it splintered inwards, a thousand flies buzzed into life as one - filling the front room with static - and a wave of warm air rolled out, sticking to his skin like grease, coating the hairs on his arms as they stood on end. Neil had been dead for nearly a week. Currie found his son’s body slumped on the sofa, an electric fire glowing soft-red to one side.
In the days that followed, the clean-up crew would be forced to remove the settee, the carpet and ten of the floorboards. Men with masks and thick gloves would come and pick dozens of needles out from piles of rubbish. They would scrape faeces from the hallway. But to begin with, there was only Sam Currie. The implications of what had happened to his son were put to one side in the first instance, as his professional instincts took hold and began issuing orders. He walked calmly back out into the indifferent garden and closed the front door behind him. Somewhere inside himself, he understood that his marriage was over, his life crippled, but all he did for the moment was phone his partner, then lean against the outside wall.
He thought about nothing. Nothing at all.
A week was a long time for a man to lie undiscovered. When he allowed himself to drink, which was less often now than it had been, Currie thought a great deal about that week. In his mind, Neil was alive during that time: dead, obviously, but still somehow capable of being saved, waiting for a man who stubbornly refused to arrive. A man who had priorities, just as he always had. Every second of that refusal added to the sorrow Currie felt as he stared at whatever wall happened to be in front of him at the time.
He pictured his son as he’d been in the old photographs - a little boy - lost, alone and crying. Death did that. With precious few exceptions, it froze people as victims for ever. Question marks at the end of blank sentences they left you to fill in for yourself.
Now, two years later, Currie scanned the houses to the left as they drove into the estate. Neil’s old flat was out of sight, but he still felt it there, or at least imagined he could.
Swann was driving. ‘You okay?’
‘Sure,’ Currie said.
‘Checking for an ambush?’
Currie smiled grimly.
There were poorer areas, but the Grindleas were notorious by name: a dirty little pocket of poverty and crime nestling between two affluent suburbs. Only one proper road in. Some police said that, if they wanted to, the residents could man a barricade at the bottom of the hill and keep them out for a good few days. There were probably fifty or sixty men living in this postcode who’d happily join it, many of them with guns. Charlie Drake made his home in here, as did most of his crew.
And a man named Frank Carroll.
‘I’m just tired,’ Currie said.
Swann raised his eyebrows. Oh yes.
The time since the discovery of Alison Wilcox’s body had been full of both work and frustration. The forensics had given them little to go on, and the majority of Alison’s friends and relatives had been able to tell them nothing.
Instead, a familiar picture was emerging. Alison had been a bright, attractive student - popular too, although recently she’d slipped from several radars in the way that people did. As far as anyone had known, she was okay, and so, without consciously thinking about it, they’d put her on ‘standby’ in their heads: all fine; check again at some point soon, whenever I remember. A few of her closer friends had texted or emailed over the past week. They’d all received replies, worded in exactly the same way. But the last time anyone had seen her in the flesh or spoken to her on the phone had been over a fortnight before her death.
The texts and emails offered a horrific insight into what had transpired in that time. They meant Alison’s killer had gained access to her mobile phone - her accounts and passwords - and that while she lay slowly dying, he’d been pretending to be her: keeping in touch where necessary; allaying any concerns.
It was an awful thought for the people who’d received those messages to contemplate, but it was made even worse by what happened afterwards. Alison’s death hadn’t signalled the end of the contact. Six of her friends had received a message from her mobile phone on the morning the body was found. Each said simply: You let her die.
Of course, they’d all been traced. As with the previous murders, the killer had sent his emails from the victim’s house, and his texts from anonymous, crowded streets, carefully avoiding any CCTV. He knew exactly what he was doing. For the third time, Currie suspected he was going to get away with it.
Swann approached the roundabout at the top of the hill. In front, there was a post office, an off-licence and a squat, vicious-looking pub called the Cockerel. Beyond the roundabout, the Plug: three tower blocks, with towels draped out of windows, and clothes strung on lines across the pockmark alcoves. Graffiti curled up from the base of the buildings like overgrown weeds. Swann took the car round, drove a little further, and then pulled in on the left.
When they got out, Currie could hear music drifting down from one of the open windows in the tower block behind them.
‘So,’ he said. ‘Frank Carroll. Remind me again why we’re here?’
‘Because we’re good cops who follow up every lead.’
‘Oh yeah. That’s it.’
Swann closed the car door.
‘And desperate,’ he said.
According to the Sex Offenders Register, Frank Carroll now lived in the house they were standing outside: a flat-roofed, single-storey council flat, with a mucky, overgrown garden. Someone had daubed the words ‘sick fuck kids bewear’ in large white letters on the front door. Beneath it, earlier slogans appeared to have been rubbed off.
‘Do you think it’s the right place?’ Currie said.
Swann shot him a wry smile as they opened the gate.
On the surface, this lead wasn’t promising. Carroll’s name had come in from an anonymous phone call the evening after Alison had been found, but the scant detail provided had kept the information away from their desk until yesterday. Having skimmed the basics of Carroll’s file, Currie had been interested, but quietly unconvinced. They were good cops, though. And t
hey were desperate.
At the front door, Currie could hear a loud television from within. It sounded like someone was being murdered: screams seeping out through the gaps in the bricks and panels.
They knocked, and the television immediately went silent.
And that was when Currie started to feel it. There was no sensible reason to be, but he was nervous. Not afraid, exactly, but not far off either. The speed with which the TV had gone quiet reminded him of a spider going still as a fly snagged on its web. He could almost imagine the man inside, equally motionless. Listening.
After a minute, the door opened. They were faced by a tall, thin man. He was wearing a white shirt too large for him, and old, rubbery tracksuit bottoms.
Currie didn’t even recognise him at first. The photograph in the file had shown a man in his late thirties with a good-looking, symmetrical face. There had been a hint of cruelty in the strong angles at his jaw, but it was the eyes that gave him away: full of intelligence and hate. Twelve years ago, Frank Carroll - an ex-cop of only a few hours - had stared out at the world, looking like he understood a hundred ways to take you apart and was picturing them right then, enjoying each, one by one. By all accounts, he’d been a powerfully built man, equally as capable of carrying out those acts in the flesh as he was in his mind.
But prison clearly hadn’t been kind to him. His skin was old and weathered, and his hair had gone grey and receded. He’d lost a great deal of weight, too. That solid, strong man now looked pigeon-chested and frail: hunched over slightly, like something in his back had gone. The old muscles hung down like slack, useless cords. His eyes still held that cruelty, but even there one of them seemed dislocated and wrong, as though it had been taken out and replaced at an odd angle.
Currie’s unease intensified.
‘Mr Carroll?’ He held up his badge. ‘Detective Currie, Detective Swann. We’d like to ask you a few questions.’
Frank Carroll stared at him.
Currie felt an absurd urge to scratch himself.
‘Come in.’
He shot Swann a glance as they followed Carroll into his flat, closing the door behind them - then grimaced as the stench of the place hit him properly. It was like someone had dabbed ammonia under his nose. The small corridor reeked of old sweat.
In front of them, the man moved slowly and carefully into the lounge. The room was in a disgusting state. The carpet was covered with dust - probably jumping with fleas too, Currie thought - and the old wallpaper was stained yellow. There was an ashtray on a dirty table, full of cigarette butts, while piles of tattered newspapers and magazines lined the walls. The air felt hazy, grey.
Carroll sat down awkwardly on a two-seater settee, his bony knees poking up against the greasy tracksuit.
‘I know why you’re here,’ he said.
‘Oh yeah? Do tell.’
‘You’re here about those girls.’ Carroll sniffed dismissively. ‘I saw you on the television. Talking about them. I recognised you from there.’
‘That’s very observant. Once a cop always a cop, eh?’
‘I’m not a policeman anymore.’
‘Yeah, we know that.’ He glanced around, taking in the details of the living room. Not much of a decorator, either. He looked back at the old man. ‘Doesn’t explain why you might be expecting to see us, though.’
Carroll just looked at him, the faintest trace of amusement flashing in his eyes. Currie flicked through a list of mental images to locate the one he was reminded of, found it quickly. The sly old man holding court; one who’d seen it all. You don’t impress me, son.
‘We were interested in your file. There are some peculiar similarities there. But then - you’ll have realised that, won’t you? Being so observant, and all.’
Carroll smiled, and his lips all but disappeared. ‘Doesn’t explain why you might be looking through my file, though. Get a phone call, did we?’
Swann moved over to one wall and nudged a stack of magazines with his foot. Carroll’s gaze shot to him, quick as that spider Currie had imagined. Swann smiled.
‘Anything we should know about in here, Frank?’
‘Lots of news.’ He rolled the word as though it might be unfamiliar to them.
‘News is fascinating,’ Swann agreed. ‘The older the better. Are you planning on doing some papier mache, or something?’
‘There’s nothing illegal in there, if that’s what you mean,’ Carroll said. ‘Why would there be?’
Currie said, ‘Because you like little girls. Or at least, you did. Fifteen years, reduced to ten. I was quite appalled when I read the file. Your own daughter, Frank.’
He had seen a photograph of Mary Carroll in the file as well. She looked considerably younger than fifteen. When the picture had been taken, she was dressed in a white T-shirt, and her face was gaunt and hollow, with dark rings around haunted eyes. One of them was swollen almost shut. Her straggly blond hair looked like it hadn’t been washed or combed in a week.
‘I don’t have a daughter,’ Carroll said.
‘Unfortunately for her, you do,’ Currie said. ‘And a son as well. Although I doubt you get birthday cards from either of them. Does that happen often?’
‘They’re dead to me.’
‘Well, we all know what you did to her.’
Carroll turned to him slowly. ‘Lots of things.’
Currie made an effort to smile pleasantly. He’d become accustomed to dealing with that kind of filth, but sometimes it still shocked him. The things people did, and the way they managed to feel about it.
‘We’re thinking of one in particular,’ he said. ‘You used to tie her to the bed, didn’t you? Leave her for days on end without food or water.’
‘That’s one of the less interesting ones.’
Swann nudged the magazine stack again, not even looking over. ‘You were released two years ago, Frank. Coincidentally, some similar things started happening to girls just afterwards. We’re very interested in those things, even if you’re not.’
The whole time, Carroll just kept staring at Currie. The expression on the man’s face was utterly blank.
‘Did somebody call you?’ he asked again.
‘No,’ Swann said. ‘We have a computer that throws up names for us. And I do mean that literally …’ The magazines spilled out across the floor. ‘Whoops.’
Carroll glanced over, then shook his head and looked down at the floor in front of him. His hands twittered together - like birds with broken wings - and he steepled them before his face, bony elbows resting on bony knees.
‘Do you know what they do to police in prison?’ he said.
‘I guess you can tell us,’ Swann said.
‘They break you,’ Carroll said. ‘My left eye is glass, and that side of my face is paralysed. I’m registered disabled. It takes me time just to walk across the room. And you think I could hurt someone?’
He had a point, Currie thought. The victims all appeared to have been subdued by hand, and Carroll looked as though he could barely lift his arms. So what was it? Nasty, broken old man, living out his days, or was there more to him than just the age and stench?
‘I’m afraid you’re going to have to come with us, Frank.’
Carroll shook his head again. Then he slowly reached down and hitched up the bottom of his jogging pants, revealing a pale, hairless stretch of leg. There was a black band wrapped around it. It took Currie a moment to realise what it was. And when Carroll glanced up at him, he looked intensely satisfied with himself.
An electronic tag, secured in place. GPS. The works.
‘You can always check where I’ve been with this.’
Currie looked over at Swann, and his partner tilted his head: your call. Currie looked back at Frank Carroll and forced out another smile he didn’t feel.
‘We’ll do that, Mr Carroll,’ he said. ‘In the meantime, and at your own speed, get your coat.’
Chapter Seven
Monday 22nd August
Two
weeks after visiting Tori in hospital I drove across town, on my way somewhere I hadn’t been in nearly a year.
The last fortnight had been a pack of hot, sweaty days, and today was the first real reminder that summer wasn’t going to last for ever. The sun had spent the morning hidden behind a sky full of grey mist. It was still warm, but the air had a hint of winter to it now: the sense of cold and frost approaching steadily from the distance.
I liked it. It was a reminder that time moved on.
The last two weeks, I’d lived as much like a hermit as I could: holed up in my flat, expecting a knock at the door at any moment. I’d found it hard to sleep before, but for at least the first few days after my trip to the woods, it had been almost impossible. And yet nothing had happened. The police hadn’t turned up and arrested me, and Choc hadn’t called round either. I’d scanned the news, and as far as I could tell Eddie’s body hadn’t even been found.
The whole time, I’d kept repeating my mantra that nothing had happened. I wasn’t sure it had worked, but for whatever reason - maybe just the passing of time - the guilt and fear had started to lessen, and I’d managed to shade things over in my head a little, and sometimes whole hours went by when I could kid myself I was a normal person with only normal things to worry about. Deep down, though, it still felt like I was living on borrowed time, and that might have had something to do with where I was going now.
I drove down into the Washmores and got the first thrill of recognition. This was the area I’d grown up in. Everything here was familiar but subtly different, as though half the houses had received a paint job and an unidentifiable extension. Ahead of me the road finished at bollards, blocking off the bridge over the river, which I could hear rushing past in the distance. I drove right, down a thin, cobbled lane. The dry-stone wall to the side was hairy with moss, and halfway along there was the old streetlight. It had a glass box for a head, narrow arms sticking out sideways beneath the chin, and a thin, flaky green body below. I’d swung on that thing as a kid. Looking at it now, it was weird to think I could ever have been that small.