by Steve Mosby
‘I’ve had three fights against men with knives. Real fights, I mean. I used to train it all the time. Got cut once. I know a good ten ways to take a knife off someone.’
I forced myself to take another step forwards. It was hard. Every instinct in my body was telling me to curl up in the corner and wait with my eyes closed.
‘And these were guys who’d used knives before. You don’t look like that kind of guy.’
‘Might as well take my chances,’ I said. ‘You don’t—’
Blink.
I shook my head.
‘You don’t look too fucking great from where I’m standing, either.’
The smile vanished from his face then. He glanced at Sarah.
‘This won’t take long.’
I walked towards him, but my legs half went, so he came across to meet me. Everything blurred slightly. I swung the knife up at him—
But he was too fast.
He caught my wrist easily, almost delicately, between his hands, slid his thumbs up the back and leaned over, pressing my hand back towards my bicep. My wrist cracked, and something flared in my head that wasn’t even pain yet, just damage centres catching fire. I cried out anyway, my knees buckling, and I lost my grip - the folded piece of paper Rob had given me fell from my fingers.
While I could still think, I rammed the real knife as hard as I could into the side of his neck with my other hand. Then stepped away, and fell over.
Blink.
I looked up and saw the man’s eyes were wide, his face frozen. Slowly, he put his hand up to where the knife was still sticking out of him, then tried to say something, but it didn’t work. It came out as a gargle, and I saw the flash of panic on his face as he realised he couldn’t breathe. His eyes clenched shut for a second in pain, then opened and stared at me; his hand reached out, then retracted back. And then again. He fell to his knees. His body seemed to have gone stop-motion.
I looked at him, feeling nothing but horror.
I’d done that. Maybe I would be able to justify it to myself later, but for now, there was only the viscera of what was happening in front of me.
Blink.
The man was resting forwards on his elbows, rattling out blood onto the carpet, and then he fell over to one side, the knife pointing up towards the ceiling. His foot began tapping on the floor, while the blood started to creep across the carpet like ink on tissue paper—
Blink.
My vision kept going for longer and longer. It was as though the room was strobe-lit and time was slowing down. I realised the man had stopped moving, and the thumping wasn’t just inside me anymore. Someone was hammering on the door.
‘Frank Carroll? Police. Open this—’
Blink.
I glanced up and saw that Sarah was standing now, staring down at the man’s body. Her arms were hanging straight down by her side, and her body was very still. She was still talking to herself, ever so quietly. I could only hear the faintest trace of whatever she was saying.
‘Carroll?’
‘Dead,’ I guessed.
‘Open the door.’
‘I can’t.’
Blink.
I shook my head just as something splintered loudly. The door hit the sideboard and someone cursed. Sarah was crouching - blink - and then standing, the knife in her hand. She’d pulled it from his neck.
‘Lewis? Is Mary Carroll in there with you?’
‘No,’ I said.
‘Where is she then?’
‘What?’
Blink.
Sarah’s eyes were closed now, and the intensity of sadness in her face was devastating. I’d never seen anything like it in my life.
Another crash. Behind her, I saw the door judder, the sideboard rocking forward. The man’s knife fell off and landed on the floor.
She lifted up the blade she was holding
Blink.
‘Sarah?’
But I realised she couldn’t even hear me. It was as though she’d retreated entirely into her head. Wherever her mind had gone, I didn’t exist there. Nothing in the room did - perhaps nothing at all. And finally, I caught the words she was repeating. The tone of her voice sounded as though every hope she’d ever clung to had been taken from her.
‘You did not come back to save me,’ she was saying.
And then she plunged the knife into her chest.
Blink.
Chapter Thirty-six
Saturday 3rd September
A dirt path appeared on the right-hand side.
Eddie turned the wheel and took the car off road. The path was slimy and brown from the downpour, little more than wet clay. He had no idea where he was, only that it was some distance away from where anyone could find him in time. That was all he wanted now.
The suspension rocked as the wheels handled the undulations of the track. He followed it up for about twenty metres before it widened out, and then the car emerged into a parking area on the ridge of a large embankment.
There were wooden picnic tables, sodden in the rain, and as he parked up close to the edge he saw that the land stretched away below. The airport was down there. He guessed that people came here to watch planes during the day, and maybe to fuck each other on an evening. But the weather seemed to have put both groups off: there were no other cars here.
Eddie turned off the engine and got out, gripping the door as he almost lost his footing on the slippery ground. When he was steady, he walked round to the boot, opened it, and looked down at Tori Edmonds lying there bound and gagged with the rain pattering in on her.
There was a thicket of woods over to the right.
That would do.
When he’d arrived at Mary’s house on the evening of Sunday 7th August, Eddie had been almost delirious from the pain. He’d had to wait until nightfall before he dared to leave the woods, and as he’d sat in the undergrowth, breathing heavily, he could already feel the infection setting into his palms. It itched there. He could barely move his fingers, and every time he tried a bolt of agony went straight up his arm and into his neck.
Think you’re a musician, don’t you?
Drake had put one bullet through each of his hands.
You don’t fuck with me or my friends.
Sitting amongst the trees, the stars appearing overhead, Eddie had howled laughter up into the night. Despite the agony, or perhaps because of it, he felt primeval. Powerful. They had no idea what they’d done - especially Dave Lewis. Eddie couldn’t forget the way Lewis had looked at him before he punched him, as though he was so fucking special, some kind of gallant protector come to save the day. Nobody looked at him like that. Not anymore.
There had been a time when they had - when those expressions were all he could see - and it became worse after his father was released from prison. From that point on, he’d felt eyes on him everywhere he went. People looking at him, accusing him, their faces full of the knowledge of how much better than him they were. That had changed after he met Vicky Klein. He’d been playing guitar at an open-mic night, and she’d come in on her own: a small, sad girl at the back of the room. She’d been grateful when he talked to her later - and why wouldn’t she be? He’d learned all about her busy friends. He’d pictured them in his head, and even without knowing them, he’d felt the weight of their expressions, even though they were just as bad as he was. In time, those people had learned exactly how superior they really were. Just as Sharon Goodall’s friends had, and then Alison Wilcox’s.
Sitting in the wood, he’d wrapped his hands in his shirt and thought: I know all about you. He’d met two of Lewis’s girlfriends while he’d been with Tori and he remembered their names. And Tori as well, of course.
You’ll be sorry.
I’ll show you exactly how much better than me you are.
Later on, he was still laughing as he pressed his hands onto Mary’s walls and doors, painting blood-red birds on whatever surface he could find, while she cried and tore at her hair, and didn’t seem a
ble to breathe properly.
The days after that had been a blur. Eddie knew he’d slept in a bed in her house, and that she gave him pills of some kind, and dabbed at his forehead. He had memories of her repeatedly bandaging his hands, and smearing cream on them that made the wounds sting. He wanted to know if he could see through them, but she wouldn’t let him look. He’d laughed a lot more, and it was only when he thought of Dave Lewis that he stopped.
In some of the earlier memories, Mary wasn’t crying anymore. In the later ones, she was. That didn’t make any sense at first, but eventually he discovered it was because she’d gone to collect his car, intending to hide it. That was when she found the cardboard box with his collection in it, and understood what he’d done.
But his sister had continued to tend to him and look after him, weeping softly to herself, as though he was an injury of her own that she needed to make better.
‘Get out of there,’ Eddie said.
She couldn’t, of course, and it delighted him, even as he felt repulsed by himself.
‘I said, get out.’
She screamed through the gag as he grabbed her by the hair - ignoring the pain in his hands - but that didn’t work, and he took hold of her blouse instead, folding her over the back of the car, so that her hair trailed down to the ground. Then he lifted her legs, and she tumbled forward into the mud, landing on her shoulder, her legs smacking wetly down a moment later. She lay there crying.
The rain fell down around them, and he thought:
You let her die.
He didn’t know if it was directed at himself or Dave Lewis, or everyone in the world. It didn’t matter anymore. Every single thought stoked the fire of hatred he felt inside.
Eddie crouched down over her, and prodded at her shoulder to roll her over on her back. It was difficult, with her hands tied behind her, but he managed it. Then he sat on her stomach, his legs to either side, knees pressing in against her shoulders. She was so small. Her eyes were shut tight, and she flinched as he delicately brushed strands of hair from her face.
He would tie her to a tree. Somewhere she’d never be found.
‘He let you die,’ Eddie told her, and he didn’t know or care who that was directed at either.
All the same. Everyone the same.
And then he heard something.
Eddie glanced back towards the dirt path.
Four men were walking towards him through the rain. All of them were black, and three of them were very big indeed. The fourth - Charlie Drake - was a little in front of them, and he was holding a gun. As they approached, Drake raised it and pointed it at Eddie.
‘Thought I recognised your car back at the house.’
Eddie stood up quickly and backed away towards the embankment - but his foot slid, and this time he fell, landing on his side, hand splayed out in the cold mud. Pain thudded up.
‘Good job I did, isn’t it?’ Drake said.
He checked something on the gun and then looked back up.
‘Not for you, though.’
Instead of walking right the way up to him, Drake stopped a little way short, by Tori, and crouched down beside her. He put his hand gently on her shoulder, inclined his head, and whispered something that Eddie couldn’t hear. Then he stood up again, shooting a glance at one of his gang. The three men bent to help her while Drake continued over to where Eddie was lying.
‘Stand up.’
He did.
The man moved to one side of him, and Eddie could see that Tori was on her feet now, leaning against one of the men while another cut the rope from her with a knife.
A second later, he felt the gun pressed against his temple.
He was going to die, he realised. Right here and now, standing in this dirty place in the rain. The most surprising thing was that a part of him felt relief at that. It wanted to say ‘thank you’.
Drake said, ‘Don’t watch this, sweetheart.’
And before he could think anything else, Eddie was gone.
Chapter Thirty-seven
Sunday 4th September
It was just after ten o’clock in the morning, and Detectives Sam Currie and Dan Bright were standing on an embankment at the edge of Brimham Woods. Neither of them spoke. The rain hadn’t stopped all night, and the body of John Edward Carroll was lying in front of them; it had been here, exposed to the elements, since the previous afternoon. Yellow police tape was threaded across the path behind them, preserving what was left of the scene. The SOCOs had erected a small white tent over the remains, but they could still see the body.
Eddie looked like a dead fish in the mud. His skin was bright white, and his eyes were open wide and staring at nothing, pushed absurdly large by the gun blast that had occurred behind them. His bottom lip protruded. But most of the blood had washed away, and the bits of skull and brain dotted around had been washed bland as litter.
Swann walked up and stood beside him.
‘Gum?’ Swann offered.
‘Thanks.’
‘Dan?’
Bright took a piece as well, but didn’t say anything. He seemed hypnotised by the body.
‘I just got off the phone to Rawnsmouth,’ Swann said. ‘They’ve picked up a guy called Jeremy Sumpter. He’s the one living in John Carroll’s flat down there.’
‘What did he have to say for himself?’
‘Nothing - for all of about five minutes. Then he started to sweat, if you know what I mean. Said he was a mate of Eddie’s, and that he’d been crashing there for as long as he could remember. Eddie started coming up here two years ago. Spent more and more time away.’
‘Two years,’ Currie said. ‘Just after his father got released.’
‘Maybe he wanted to be close to his sister. Apparently, she’d go down there sometimes as well. Last visit was a couple of weeks back, but she was on her own that time. Thursday, eleventh of August.’
‘Very exact.’
‘A red-letter day for Jeremy. She gave him some money.’
Currie thought about it.
‘Let me guess. To pretend to be her brother if anyone called?’
Swann nodded. ‘Which he did, incidentally, when you spoke to him on the phone. Jeremy is suitably ashamed of himself.’
‘Jeremy will be.’
That was the week that Eddie was reported missing. He chewed the gum and nodded to himself, fitting it together in his head.
‘My guess is that Choc, Cardall and Lewis went to see Eddie after they’d been to Staunton that Sunday, and they gave him a beating. Shot him through the hands. That must have been when Cardall got hold of Alison Wilcox’s mobile. They probably went through his pockets.’
‘And afterwards, Eddie went to his sister’s house.’
‘The only place he felt safe. Because she’d always looked after him. I saw blood on the door handle when I was there. I thought it was from her, but maybe it was his.’
‘We can check, if it’s still there.’
Currie nodded. But it was just one more mistake he’d made.
‘Four days later,’ he said, ‘she’d found out what he’d done and was down in Rawnsmouth trying to cover up for him.’
‘She’d already reported her father by then. Why didn’t she turn Eddie in? He was doing to other girls what had been done to her. She should have hated him.’
Bright said, ‘Because he was her brother.’
He was still staring at the body. The expression on his face was sad, as though he was seeing the same little boy that Mary must have. Perhaps he was even feeling a similar sense of responsibility. For the things that were done and the things that weren’t.
‘Looking after Eddie was all that mattered to her,’ Bright said. ‘I think it was the only reason she ever found the courage to escape in the first place. She was always desperate to protect him from the effects of her father’s violence. And that’s all she was doing here.’
Currie thought about that and nodded slowly.
‘We know from Dave Lewis�
��s computer that she contacted him through the dating site on Tuesday, twenty-third of August. That’s the day I went to see her.’
He remembered how desperate Mary had been to convince him her father was the man behind the murders. When he’d told her Frank Carroll was electronically tagged she became frantic, insistent, as though everything was suddenly falling down around her. At the time, he’d thought it was because she was scared of her father. Now, he understood it for what it was.
‘She realised her father wasn’t going to be arrested,’ he said. ‘So it would only be a matter of time before we took a closer look at her brother.’
‘Yeah, but why Dave Lewis?’
Currie shrugged.
‘Maybe she saw Eddie was disintegrating. He was going to take revenge on Dave Lewis for what happened that day. So to make us think it was Frank, she needed to connect herself to him before that happened. Make it look like the killer could be after her, not Lewis.’ What had she told him? You won’t believe it until he comes for me. ‘She made herself the target: got involved with Lewis, while her brother went on to attack Julie Sadler, Emma Harris and Tori Edmonds. Eddie must have known what she was doing, but maybe not until it was all underway.’
‘Have you heard the tape?’ Swann said.
‘Oh yes.’
They’d located Dave Lewis’s car after they picked him up from the house on Campdown Road. Inside, they’d found a cardboard box full of the dead girls’ clothes, and a digital recorder. Lewis had taped everything that happened, from the first phone call Eddie made to him, to the conversation he’d had with Rob Harvey at the university. Taken alongside the phone and photocopies he’d sent through the post yesterday, it was obvious Lewis had been thinking ahead. He had conclusive proof he was being manipulated.
‘So Eddie tried to force Lewis round to Mary’s house,’ he said. ‘While she goaded Frank into coming for her.’
‘I can’t imagine that,’ Bright said. ‘She was terrified of him.’
‘Maybe she was hoping Lewis would save her.’ He thought of Mary’s small body, and the way it had looked when they found it in the living room of her brother’s squat. He said, ‘Counting on it, even.’