The Mammoth Book Of Best British Crime Volume 8

by Maxim Jakubowski

  “Belnay and Dean denied everything. Said it was nothing to do with them, but it came out that a neighbour remembered seeing the two of them leaving Barnes’s house the day after Robert had disappeared, and when the police found the car used to abduct him, they found Belnay’s DNA in that. But the two of them stuck to their story. Said that they knew Barnes, and had been round his house, but that that was the extent of their involvement. Instead, they blamed him, claiming that he’d been acting very erratically when they were round there, and came close to admitting that he’d been the one responsible for the abduction. But Barnes said it was the other way round. According to him, it was Dean doing the killing with Belnay encouraging him, and it was Dean who did the chopping up of the body afterwards.”

  Hayer sighed. “Your dad did a good job, son. I had to give him that. I watched him every day in that courtroom. He sowed doubt like it was a breeding rabbit, put it everywhere. Sure, he said, Belnay and Dean were not nice guys, no question of that, but were they guilty of this heinous crime? He said the evidence suggested strongly that they weren’t. He made the neighbour, the witness who’d seen them leave Barnes’s place, sound all confused about whether it was actually them she’d seen. Then Barnes got put on the witness stand and your dad wound him up in knots. Did he see Dean or Belnay kill Robert? If so, why didn’t he try to stop it? Wasn’t he just blaming them to take the heat off himself?”

  Hayer sighed, addressing the kid directly now. “You know what happened? Course you do. Barnes ended up admitting that he hadn’t seen either of them actually kill him, that he’d been out of the room at the time, but he came across like a shifty witness – someone you weren’t going to believe. Your dad made him look like that. Your dad discredited the evidence to such an extent that Barnes, who didn’t have him as a lawyer, got life for murder, but Belnay got away with seven years as an accessory. And Dean … ” He spat the name this time. “The judge directed the jury to acquit him. Said the evidence against him just wasn’t reliable. That was your dad’s doing. He got one of them seven years, meaning the bastard’ll be out in four, and the other – the one who was pure fucking evil, who cut my son into little pieces – he got him off. He walked free, and now he’s living on the outside with police fucking protection, just to make sure that no one tries to take the law into their own hands and trample on his precious human rights, even though no one gave a shit about my son’s human rights. He’s even strode past this house a couple of times, just to fucking torment me. THAT IS NOT JUSTICE!” He shouted these last four words, shouted them at the non-existent heavens, his voice reverberating round the dull confines of the cellar.

  The kid opened his mouth, started to say something, but Hayer was not to be interrupted. “That man … your father destroyed me. He took away the last thing I had left: closure. A week after the trial, two months ago, Robert’s mother and I split up. Neither of us could take any more. She’s contacted a lawyer and the divorce’ll be going through sometime soon. All I’ve got left is my job. Adding up numbers on one side of a page, taking them away on another.”

  “Please, I … ”

  “Shut up. Just shut up. Listen to me.” He paused for a moment, tried to calm himself down, knew it wouldn’t happen. Not until he’d said his piece. “I can’t stand my job, I can’t stand what my life has become. I can’t … I can’t stand fucking any of it, and that’s why you’re here. You’ve got to understand that. What those men did to Robert, what they stole from me, that half put me in the grave. What your dad did, what he did on behalf of bastards who do not deserve to even be alive let alone walking free, well that pushed me the rest of the way. I’ve got nothing left to lose now. That’s why I snatched you. That’s why you’re here. Because I’ve got to make him suffer like I’ve suffered. It’s the only way. Some people say two wrongs don’t make a right, some people say that you can’t stoop down to a bad man’s level, but it’s bullshit. It’s all fucking bullshit propagated by people who haven’t been torn apart by suffering, by injustice.”

  “But you don’t understand.”

  “Don’t understand what?” he yelled. “Don’t understand what? I understand fucking everything, that’s the problem!”

  The kid shook his head. Fast. “No you don’t. Honestly. The man you’re talking about … ” The voice quietened, almost to a whisper. “He’s not my dad.”

  “What?”

  “This man, Mortish, he’s not my dad. My name’s Blake. Daniel Blake. Lucas Mortish goes to my school. We’ve got the same colour hair, but my dad’s an IT director. Please, I promise you.”

  The tension in Hayer collapsed, replaced by a thick black wave of despair. He looked closely at the boy. Was he wrong? What if he was?

  “Oh shit. Oh no.”

  The cellar seemed to shrink until it was only inches square. A heavy silence squatted in the damp air. The kid snivelled. Hayer just stood there, defeat etched deep on a face that had seen far too much of it during the previous year.

  Ten seconds passed. The kid snivelled again. Hayer didn’t know what else to say.

  It was the kid who finally broke the silence. “I’m sorry about your son,” he said, trying to look like he understood, “but it was nothing to do with me.”

  This time it was Hayer who couldn’t bear to look the kid in the eye. Instead the whole world finally fell apart for him and with a hand that was shaking with emotion, he reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out the .22 calibre handgun he’d bought illegally three weeks ago in a pub (for either a murder or a suicide, he hadn’t known which), fumbled and released the safety, then placed the cold barrel hard against his temple, and pulled the trigger.

  He died instantly.

  ***

  Lucas Mortish sighed with relief, then stood up, staring down impassively at the body of the deranged lunatic who’d abducted him from the street the previous afternoon, chloroforming him in the process. He was hungry. And thirsty. The lunatic’s head was pouring out blood on to the uneven concrete floor and already the corpse was beginning to smell. Lucas Mortish wrinkled his nose and stepped over it, making for the steps that would take him to freedom.

  It had been an uncomfortable experience and one in which he’d had to use all his natural cunning to survive, but it had also been a very interesting one. He couldn’t wait to tell his friends about it. And his father. His father especially would be proud of the way he’d thought on his feet, catching his kidnapper out so smartly.

  His father had taught him so many good lessons. That words can tear an opponent to pieces far more effectively than even the strongest blade.

  And of course, that in law, as in life, there is no place for sentiment.

  So what if the lunatic’s son had died? His death had had nothing to do with Lucas, nor with his father. His father had simply done his job. Why then should they be made to pay for this other man’s misery?

  He mounted the steps, opened the door and walked out into the Hayer’s hallway. Ignoring the photographs on the wall, quite oblivious to them, he went over to the phone, even allowing himself a tiny triumphant smirk as he dialled the police.

  Didn’t hear the footsteps behind him. Only knew that something was wrong when the phone suddenly went dead before it was picked up at the other end. As if it had been unplugged.

  He turned round slowly, the hairs prickling on the back of his neck.

  Saw the man.

  Stocky, with close-cropped hair and narrow, interested eyes. Dressed in an ill-fitting blue boiler suit. Stained. An unpleasant familiarity about him.

  Found his eyes moving almost magnetically towards the huge, gleaming blade of the carving knife in the man’s huge paw-like hand.

  The fear came in a quivering rush.

  Now it was Patrick Dean’s turn to smirk.

  ANOTHER LIFE

  Roz Southey

  I’D ALWAYS KNOWN it was either me or Keeg. Mates then enemies. One of us was going to have to die.

  It was never fucking well goin
g to be me.

  ***

  The flat is dark, full of shadows. As I walk naked across the room, moonlight stripes the floor. The polished-wood, paid for with my hard-earned. Floor to ceiling windows, velvet curtains. Chrome and glass furniture, plasma screen TV, pictures worth a fortune. We used to look up at blocks like this, me and Keeg, back when we were fourteen. Ponsy fuckers, we’d yell. Fucking fat-cats. And pudgy-faced wankers in posh suits would peer out at us in a mixture of fury and fear.

  Now I’m the one looking out.

  Down below, in the courtyard, there are four yobs, toting beer cans, shadowboxing. Keeg’s there, doubling up in mock agony at a play kick to his guts. One of the yobs lumbers over to an ornamental tree, hikes down his zip and pisses. My mates. Twenty somethings who still think like fourteen-year-olds. Who spend their lives stoned out of their minds. Drink or drugs, who cares. We started with glue nicked from Woollies then bought E on street corners then moved on to the hard stuff. Okay, so I have that kind of stuff now, stashed at the bottom of the biscuit tin. But I earned the cash to buy it with; Keeg and his mates just pinched something.

  Keeg’s shouting up at me. He sees me. Our eyes meet. And hate. He hates me for going over to the other side. I hate him for reminding me what I once was.

  I let the blind snap back into place. How the hell did they get through the security gate? You have to show the guard your ID, look into a camera, that sort of shit. And why are they here, anyway? To piss me off, that’s why.

  There were five of us, and me and Keeg were top dogs. Kev and Keegan – unbelievable – we thought it was meant. We bossed the gang, we said what fucking went and we fucking did it. Go to school? What the fuck do you learn at school? You’ve got to be out there, grabbing the world by the balls and letting it know what’s what. Want some money? Take it. Want some drink? Steal it.

  We lived it up like crazy. We had the entire neighbourhood shitting its pants when they saw us. Standing outside the supermarket with our hoods up, kicking at the walls, leering at the kids in their prams, running straight at the oldies, swerving only at the last moment so they’d totter and shout.

  Christ, it was good.

  Except.

  Except for those lousy evenings when it was pissing it down and no one would let us in the pubs, and even the students in Kentucky Fried Chicken chased us out. Bizzy cars cruised past, winding their windows down and the pigs taking a good long insolent look at us. Those were the nights we’d break windows, to hear the glass break and alarm bells howl. The nights we wondered what the fuck we were doing here, what the world was all about, and who cared anyway. Bored as hell.

  I dress. Jeans, T-shirt, leather jacket, trainers. Only the best. The guy who stares back at me from the mirror looks good. Good face, good body. Not your average wanker. And all the clothes’re top quality, none of your mass-produced shit. I’ve left all that behind. Way behind. Only the best.

  Particularly when you’re going out to kill.

  ***

  First time we did it, we were scruffy. Worse than scruffy, we looked shite. Keeg’s T had more holes than shirt, I’d spilt beer down my hoodie, hell, I’d been sick down it. And my jeans. Frayed to start with and I wore them right down on my hips so I could get the crotch real low. Keeg said they made me waddle and he could see my underpants and they weren’t clean. Not pretty at all.

  He was a kid, the one we found. Homeless. Huddled in a doorway, with big eyes full of tears and a nose dripping snot. Eighteen maybe. We were fourteen. And there were five of us – that made up for him being bigger than us.

  “Hey, mate,” Keeg said. “Want some beer?” He held out the half-full can, the kid grabbed for it. Keeg upended the can and poured it over his head.

  The kid went mental. He screamed and shouted and kicked out with his feet and flailed around with his arms. One of his feet caught Keeg on the shin and he swore. “Fucking fucking fucking shit,” he yelled. “What the fuck are you doing?” And he kicked back.

  Then we were all doing it. Kicking and stamping and jumping up and down and hearing cloth tear and bone crack. And I stomped, and went on stomping, and on and on until there was only blood, and the shrieks subsided into groans. And all the anger went into my feet and came out again with every jump and in the end there was nothing left except the kind of relieved emptiness you get after wanking.

  And you know why we didn’t get caught? Some fucker had smashed the CCTV. We washed off the blood in puddles, then lit a bonfire under our clothes in one of the sheds on the allotments and burnt the whole place down. Vandalism, they called it. Fucking cops didn’t have a clue.

  The next one, me and Keeg did on our own. This time we went looking. Maybe three weeks later. Fucking truant officer had been round and my mum’s boyfriend gave me a beating for skipping school. As if he’d never done it when he was a kid. Doesn’t like me around all day, that’s it, not since I walked in on him and mum fucking on the sofa. Christ, that was horrible.

  So we were out in the frost and the hail, and it was a Monday night in November and we’d already been thrown out of three pubs for being too young. We’d tried nicking beer from the off-licence but they’d run us off. So we pissed around the city centre, getting stared at by bouncers and sniggered at by girls wearing damn all.

  “Hey,” Keeg said to one of them. “Fancy a bit of something, then?”

  She was twice his height and six times his weight and I bet she’d never pulled a bloke in her life. But she just looked down her nose at Keeg and said, “I bet your willy’s no bigger than my kid sister’s pinkie.”

  Keeg went for her.

  She screeched and kicked out and grabbed at his hair. His head smashed into her boobs and she bullied him back against the shop window, then kneed him in the groin. Then she marched off with a sneer and a swagger.

  “Bitch,” Keeg spluttered.

  So we went looking for someone to kill. Keeg was raging. “I’ll find a bitch somewhere and fuck her and fuck her and then I’ll slice her tits off and fry them up for my supper!”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I said not believing him.

  “I will. I fucking will!”

  We found someone at last, an elderly bloke by a cashpoint, peering with rheumy eyes at the huge letters and trying to fit his card into the slot with a shaking hand. We leapt on him from behind and he threw up his hands and went down at once with a great gusting sigh that scared the shit out of us. And then he lay still and never moved again.

  “What kind of fucking fun was that?” Keeg said. So we went and killed a dog as well. And that wasn’t much fun either.

  I reckon we killed four maybe five people all told. I don’t remember exactly. We were stoned half the time, or pissed. No one ever got near us, not cops, not neighbours. I remember me mam saying once how dirty my jeans were – we’d had to roll around in the mud with this wino before we could finish him off. Accidental death, they said that one was – fell in the river and drowned. Anyway, it was only a tramp – who cares about them?

  But somewhere along the line I stopped enjoying it. There wasn’t any anger left to come out. Or maybe it got changed into fear and that was scary in itself. I kept thinking it couldn’t last. The cops aren’t stupid. They’d catch us. Maybe they were on to us already and we just didn’t know it. And then we’d spend the rest of our lives in jail and everyone would forget about us. There’d be nothing to do except kick the shit out of the walls.

  I got stressed out about it. I kept looking over my shoulder. Every time a bizzy car went past, I thought they were playing with us and would just drive round the corner and catch us. So when Keeg said, “Let’s go get a wino,” only a couple of weeks after the old guy, I puked in the gutter.

  “You’re scared,” Keeg said.

  “Don’t talk crap.”

  “You’re shitting your pants.”

  “It’s that fucking burger,” I said. “It’s giving me the runs.”

  “Fuck the burger,” Keeg said. “Let’s go get some fun
.”

  “I’m going home. I’m sick.”

  “Scaredy cat!” he said contemptuously.

  “Fuck off.”

  I went home. Keeg went off by himself but didn’t find anyone. Later, he said it hadn’t seemed right without me.

  Then he broke his leg. Running to get out of the way of his old man when he was beating up everyone in sight. Ended up in hospital for a month. Like he said, it wasn’t fun on my own. So I got into the way of going to the library and mucking around on the internet. Then mam threw out the boyfriend cos he slapped her and we went off to live with her sister down south. And that was that – I didn’t see Keeg for ten years.

  It wasn’t any better down south. No one in my new school wanted to know me – I had a stupid accent and didn’t know anything. So I stopped going and went down the library to surf the internet and then mam won a bit on the lottery and gave me a games station.

  And it took off from there really. All the games were stupid. Fantasy stuff, dragons, and aliens and other dull shit. I reckoned I ought to make up my own games, based on what me and Keeg had done.

  You don’t wanna hear all of this – the bits about how I got myself sorted. I found this guy who taught me how to do the computer stuff – he made me pay of course but it was worth it. Faggot. I went to school to keep everyone off my back, but I didn’t do anything, I just kept scribbling away, planning the games. Okay, so the first game I made up was shite and anyone playing it would have known exactly what me and Keeg had done and we would have ended up behind bars for the rest of our natural, but the later stuff was better. Much better.

  I got it made in the end. I got a job with this small firm, just three of us. Made a name for ourselves and pulled in a mint of money. And that’s how I’m here, in this flat, with all this cash, and these clothes, and girls queuing up for fucks. And Keeg’s out there, swigging beer and still wearing a hoodie and trainers he bought years ago. Sod all in his pockets and he’s probably fucking the barmaid in the pub. That’s why he hates me.