by Neil White
‘What do you think about Luke King being a murder suspect?’ I asked, and ignored his outstretched hand.
The headmaster stopped for a moment.
‘Didn’t you know?’ I continued. ‘He was arrested yesterday. Quite a brutal murder.’
‘Thank you, Mr Garrett.’ The headmaster tried to sound firm, but I sensed a quiver to his voice.
‘What was he like when he was here?’
I got a stern look, and saw the headmaster’s hand come towards me again.
‘So you’ve no comment to make?’ I persisted. ‘Nothing to contradict the suspicions?’
‘Mr Garrett, please leave this school now.’ The command came out with a growl attached, and I knew I would get nothing further.
I turned to go. Then I stopped at the honours board and pointed at a name from nine years earlier.
‘Thomas King? Isn’t that Luke’s brother?’
The headmaster took a deep breath, tried to control his anger. ‘Please go, Mr Garrett.’
He held out his hands as if to usher me out.
‘Was Jimmy King an involved father?’ I asked. ‘Parent evenings? Sports day? Bet he was proud of his son being head boy.’
‘Ask him.’
I nodded and turned back towards the door.
‘Thank you, Mr Haworth. Sorry to waste your time.’ Then I emerged back onto the school drive, my eyes adjusting to the sunlight.
I hadn’t made many friends, but I felt like I had the germ of a story.
As Pete pulled in behind the other police car on Eric’s street, he peered up towards the house. ‘Must be a dismal life behind those boards.’
Laura looked up, saw the kids hanging around on the street, circling between the kerbs on small bikes. ‘It can only be because it is even worse without them.’ She raised her eyebrows. ‘That’s the real tragedy.’
They both got out of the car and walked towards the other one. When they tapped on the window, the officer jumped, and from his bleary eyes Laura guessed that he had been enjoying a nap.
‘Not much going on?’ she asked.
The officer smacked his lips together and yawned. ‘No,’ he said blearily, ‘hardly a thing. We’re making the natives jumpy, though.’ As he rubbed his eyes, he added, ‘There was one visitor.’
‘Who was that?’ asked Pete.
The officer shook his head and shrugged. ‘Don’t know. Some bloke in a Triumph Stag.’
Laura felt herself sag. This was going to get tricky. A red one?’ she asked.
The officer nodded.
Pete looked at her. ‘You know who that was?’
Laura nodded slowly. ‘Yeah, you could say that.’
* * *
I was speaking into my Dictaphone as I walked back through the school grounds, the sunlight flickering like a silent movie as I moved between the trees.
As I passed an old cricket pavilion, painted green, the felt roof covered with lichen from the nearby sycamore trees, I heard someone say hello. As I turned, I saw the caretaker.
I walked towards him. As a journalist, I knew that if someone wanted to talk to me, I would have to be very busy to walk away.
As I got closer, I saw that he was younger than I’d first thought, maybe in his forties. His hair was grey and short, and his face was getting that leathery look from too much sunlight, but there was a sparkle to his eyes, his body still lithe and fit.
‘I heard you asking about Jimmy King’s son,’ he said. His voice sounded blunt.
I nodded. ‘Do you know him?’
The caretaker nodded, but I could feel his nervousness. ‘My brother used to live in one of Mr King’s houses.’
‘Good landlord?’
The man took a deep breath, and I saw the wariness replaced by anger, memories darkening his face. ‘He killed him.’
I paused, tried to work out what to say next, when the caretaker added, ‘As good as, anyway.’
‘Tell me the story,’ I said.
The caretaker began to talk. His brother had rented one of Jimmy King’s terraced houses when he’d first left home. He hadn’t expected much, just wanted somewhere to call his own. But it smelled bad. A damp, rotting smell came from the floor. It got into his clothes, his shoes, turned his record covers mouldy. He complained to his landlord, who promised to come down and have a look. When he did, he brought two thugs with him. His brother was given a choice: leave or put up with it.
He’d chosen to leave, but then Jimmy King had told him how much it would cost him to do so. Severance of contract, he’d said.
The caretaker’s brother had left in the middle of the night, hoping that no one would know where he had gone. He’d misjudged it. The door crashed in one night, and he was beaten in his bed, told that if he didn’t pay up, they would come back. And they did, nocturnal visits when he least expected it. He was also told that if he went to the police, they would come back more often.
‘Did he pay up in the end?’ I asked.
The caretaker shook his head. ‘They found him, after he’d overdosed, blood dripping from his nose, the leftovers of his last visit.’
I didn’t understand. ‘Jimmy King didn’t need that amount of money.’
The caretaker sneered. ‘It was the message, not the money. His houses were dank and derelict, and any one of the tenants could have gone to the County Court for a damages claim. None did. The tenants were too scared. They were all on benefits, and so he charged whatever the system would pay.’
‘What did you think when his kids turned up here?’ I asked.
The caretaker snarled. ‘I almost left. It wasn’t right that those kids should get what they were on the back of that murdering bastard.’
‘What were his two boys like?’ I asked.
The caretaker considered, his hands in his pockets.
‘Different,’ he said eventually.
‘What do you mean?’
‘From each other,’ he said. ‘Thomas had left by the time Luke arrived, but he’d been head boy. He was like bloody all of them. Good-looking, full of himself, competitive. Young Luke had a tough act to follow, and he was just different. He was a geek, would hang around with the chess set. Smaller, weedier—it was almost like they had different fathers.’
‘Did either of them ever get into any trouble?’
The caretaker shook his head. ‘Thomas was too popular for that. Everyone’s favourite, including the teachers.’ He gave a small laugh. ‘I ended up feeling sorry for Luke. He was in Thomas’s shadow, and I don’t think he liked it.’
I nodded, understanding. But I thought about that shadow, and wondered whether Luke was trying to come out from it with a bang. ‘Did Luke get into trouble when he was here?’
‘What like?’
‘Bullying? Cruelty?’ I queried.
The caretaker laughed to himself. ‘Luke? He was the victim of bullies plenty of times, but I don’t think he had the balls to give it back.’
I looked back to the school. ‘A lonely place.’
The caretaker twitched a smile. ‘It creates winners, this place. It doesn’t cater as well for losers.’
I thanked him for his time and headed back down the drive. I wasn’t sure if the story had got better or worse, the school loser ending up as a murder suspect—or maybe even a murderer?
Chapter Twenty-seven
Sam sat up straight. He long-blinked, felt a start, a moment of panic. He had seen it again, the building, tall and dark, filled with shadows. And then falling. The dream came at him quickly, the same one as before. He looked at the clock. He’d lost two minutes.
He stood up and walked around his office, took some deep breaths to wake himself up. It was time for another coffee, but he could feel heat in his cheeks; it wasn’t good for him to have more caffeine. He looked down at the files on his desk. They needed work, and if he didn’t do it then it would just be a late finish another day.
But then he saw that something was missing.
Terry McKay’s file
. It had been there earlier, before Sam had gone to court, on the corner of his desk.
He scattered the files, looking for it. A cup fell on the floor, his drink gone cold. Sam could tell that Harry had known about Terry. Was Harry tracking his computer entries? Then he saw Alison go past his door.
‘Where is it?’ he shouted.
Alison turned and went into his office.
‘Where’s what?’
‘Terry McKay’s file. It was here earlier. You saw it.’
‘I’ve been at court with you.’
‘No,’ Sam snarled. ‘You set off after me. In fact, you were late. The ushers were looking for you.’
She pursed her lips, and Sam thought he saw her eyes fill with tears. ‘I was in the cells,’ she said, her voice measured and slow, her lip trembling slightly. ‘I was with Ben Thompson. He was moaning, like he always does, so I spent some time with him. Okay?’
And with that, she walked away from his office.
As he watched her go, Sam was angry. Go on, he thought, report back, keep Harry up to date, one more point for the golden girl.
He looked around for the file again, but it had gone. He noticed his cup. As he bent down to pick it up, he saw there was a crack in it. ‘Fuck!’ He felt his rage build up. He could hear chatter outside the door, secretaries gossiping. As his door clicked shut, he threw the cup against the wall, and he heard the talking stop.
‘So what do you think of Eric Randle?’ asked Laura.
Pete looked up towards the house. ‘He doesn’t get out much. I think we’ll be here all day.’
‘Had you heard of him before?’
Pete shook his head.
Laura sat back in her seat and closed her eyes. ‘I’m surprised at that.’
There was a silence, and Laura tried not to smile. She knew Pete wouldn’t let it stay there.
‘What do you mean by that?’ he asked eventually.
She opened her eyes to answer. ‘Jess’s wasn’t the first body he discovered.’
He turned round towards her. ‘Go on.’
‘Five years ago, a girl went missing from a playground in Audley Park. She was found in a shallow grave in some woods a few days later.’
Pete looked at her for a few seconds, and then looked back towards Eric’s house. ‘Young blonde girl? Emily something?’
‘Emily Parker,’ said Laura.
Pete nodded to himself. ‘Yeah, I remember her now. Sweet-looking girl. Long hair and really bright eyes. That’s what I remember about the press picture: the bright eyes.’ He shook his head and smiled. ‘So Eric found her?’
Laura nodded. ‘There was something about it in the file I was looking at earlier.’
‘Didn’t we have a suspect for it?’
Laura pointed towards Eric’s house. ‘Number one,’ she said.
‘Shit,’ Pete whispered, and leaned forward against the steering wheel. ‘He was the one?’ he said again, his voice slow, his eyes open wide. ‘He’s either very unlucky, or…’
‘Or he’s as guilty as hell,’ said Laura.
Pete looked back at Laura. ‘Did the file say why he was a suspect?’
‘He’d called in too many times for his own good, so he was watched. He started going for walks in the woods. Then, a few days later, he started digging at the ground, pulling away leaves, and there she was, Emily, strangled and sexually assaulted.’
‘So he was arrested?’
‘More than that: he was charged. Classic behaviour, putting yourself into an investigation, calling in with information. When the girl wasn’t found, he had to make sure she was discovered, just so we could all admire what he had done.’
‘But the CPS didn’t fancy it?’
Laura shook her head. ‘The report didn’t really say, but it sounded like he was locked up at first, did a couple of months on remand, but as the trial got nearer the prosecution dropped the case. It sounded like they hoped that something else would turn up to make the case stronger, but it didn’t. So that was that. Case over. He walked.’
Pete whistled.
‘Emily was an eight-year-old girl,’ said Laura. ‘The killer is still free. Now children are going missing again. I’m getting a bad feeling about Randle, aren’t you?’
Pete didn’t answer. Laura could tell what the answer would be: that if those higher up had some balls, then maybe Eric would have been put away the first time.
Laura turned to look out of the window. She knew that was always the way.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Sam flung his door open. Some of the clerks had come out of their offices at the noise. Jon Hampson was one. Two secretaries stood and gawped, their arms filled with files.
‘What!’ Sam bellowed.
‘What’s eating you?’ said Jon, his eyes filled with amusement.
Sam didn’t answer. He was taking deep breaths, trying to calm down. Then he caught a view of the car park through one of the windows at the back of the office. There was a Bentley, deep red, and from the personalised plates Sam knew one thing: that Jimmy King was with Harry.
Jon saw where he was looking. ‘Maybe he wants to know why you’ve sacked your client.’
Sam sneered. ‘Yeah, just fucking maybe.’
He was about to go back into his room when Karen appeared in the corridor behind him. She cleared her throat, sounding scared. Terry McKay was downstairs.
He walked quickly along the corridor, ignoring all the faces in front of him, the people who had stuck their heads out of their offices, peering round doorframes, and made his way downstairs. As the reception area came into view, he saw Terry sway against the counter. The receptionist was young and pretty, Harry’s idea—a distraction for the clients who didn’t like waiting. She was standing guard, making sure that Terry didn’t wander. She looked up at Sam and he could see the distaste in her eyes.
Terry had someone else with him, a woman with two missing teeth and cuts on her face. Sam had seen her at court, a prostitute and occasional thief. She had the same vacant look that Terry had, that one day she would sober up properly and wonder what she had done with her life.
He had seen many prostitutes in court, and none had looked like Julia Roberts. They all looked riddled with bad luck, worn down by substance abuse or just hard living, and they all ended up bearing the scars of their nastier clientele.
As Sam approached, Terry looked round. When he let go of the counter, he stumbled slightly. He had quickly got into that state. It had only been a few hours since Sam had last seen him.
‘Terry, go,’ Sam said urgently.
He glanced towards the woman to his left, who looked at Sam with suspicion.
‘She knows about the King boy,’ Terry said, his voice slurred, the smell of cheap sherry tumbling out as badly as every word.
Sam looked quickly at the seats in reception. He knew that the other departments wanted the criminal department to have a different waiting area—this was the quickest way to lose wealthy divorce clients. With relief, he saw that they were empty.
‘I don’t care, Terry. I just want you to leave, now. For your own good.’
‘He wanted to strangle me,’ said the woman, her voice gravelly. It came out with a whistling lisp as her tongue found the gaps in her teeth.
Sam put his hands up, palms outwards. ‘There is nothing I can do for you. Please leave.’ His voice was getting louder.
‘He said he wanted me to die, and that he would bring me back to life, just so that I would treasure life more. Healing hands, he used to say.’
‘Terry, get out! Jimmy King is here somewhere, and, trust me, you do not want to be here if he sees you.’
Terry started to say something, a sneer on his face, when Sam saw him step back, his eyes wide, looking past Sam.
‘Too late,’ said a voice.
Sam whirled around and saw Jimmy King walking slowly down the stairs, a thick-set bald man just behind him. Jimmy looked at Sam briefly, but Sam couldn’t work out his mood. The bald man
just stared at him.
Jimmy walked slowly towards Terry and then stopped just in front of him. Then he smiled, but it was cold, his lips tight and thin.
‘Good afternoon. What is your name?’
Terry pursed his lips, and Sam thought he was going to attack Jimmy, but he didn’t. Jimmy had a presence, a calmness, hostile and still.