by Neil White
The glare from the light had been bright, and so he squinted and turned away. As the room had come slowly into view, all he could see were smiling faces. It had been carefree, but mixed with the flush of arousal, the glint of excitement that something new was happening. He thought then that there didn’t seem to be many men, that it had been mainly young women, some little more than late teens. His eyes had moved frantically from one to the other, checking for hostility, or hatred or danger, some sign that he had read everything wrong, but there were none. They wore the same look of contentment they had worn when they had visited him at his own house.
Then he had seen him for the first time. Henry.
John heard him before he saw him. There was a rustle behind the lamp, the crossing of legs, a cough. Then Henry commanded everyone to sit down, his voice quiet, but it had held everyone’s attention, because they all did just that, sitting cross-legged on the floor. John had known that Henry was their leader, because everyone else had talked about him so much, but that was the moment when John knew exactly how much Henry led, and how much they followed.
Henry had leaned forward into the beam from the lamp, so that it cast a halo around his hair. It was wild, long and unkempt, and dark strands against the brightness of the light made it fan out.
‘I’m Henry,’ he said.
John had looked down at first and licked his lips, like a nervous twitch. When he looked up again, his voice was strong. ‘I’ve heard of you.’
There had been silence at first, everyone waiting on Henry’s response, but then his laugh started as a low rumble, a deep chuckle, and everyone else joined in, laughing at John’s innocence, his impudence. Everyone remembered the first time they met Henry, John knew that now.
Henry had leaned into him, and John got a scent of sweat and oil and dirty hair. Henry was unwashed, grubby, with dirt around the collar of his denim shirt, but John knew that he shouldn’t turn away from it.
That was the first time John saw Henry’s eyes.
Everyone talked about Henry’s eyes. They were bright, excited, piercing, but searching and compassionate. They could be everything to everybody, and back then his eyes looked joyful, wide, to match the grin that gleamed through the dark shadow of his beard.
‘There’s no going back, John, you know that,’ Henry had said, but it hadn’t come out like a threat. It was more a statement of fact.
Henry had clicked his fingers, and then he had seen her. Gemma. She had been the one he had been drawn to when they had visited his house. There had been a connection with her, and she had felt it too, he was sure, but it had been impossible to speak to her on her own, because she was never alone. He remembered the flutters of excitement when he saw her, her body young and lithe.
John’s focus had been entirely on Gemma as she went to her knees in front of him, flutters of excitement in his chest as her hands ran along his legs. Her eyes never left his, a half smile on her face, flirting. As her hand went slowly between his thighs, just brushing him over the cloth of his trousers, it had seemed unreal, almost hazy, because he knew that people were watching, but in that moment it was just Gemma, the soft movement of her fingers on him. He had tried to fight his arousal, but his hands were still tied, and so all he could do was go with the sensations.
Then it was just a blur of images, of sounds. The pop of his trouser button, the cloth sliding down his legs, Gemma warm on him, soft moans, flashes of bodies in the candlelight, other people naked, all the time Henry’s quiet laughter in the background. He had felt the rope slip from his wrists and Gemma led him to the bedroom. Once in there, he had let Gemma take charge.
John took a deep breath. That had been just three weeks earlier. He had relived that memory on those nights when Gemma wasn’t there, and he had waited for it to happen again. And it had, whenever Henry allowed it.
‘You’re daydreaming again.’
‘Uh-huh?’ John said, and then he realised that Gemma was talking to him. He laughed and splashed some water towards her. She giggled and squeezed on the hose, sending a jet of water towards the stains on the floor from whatever had been in the van, before flicking it upwards, laughing with him, sending an arc of water towards him. John threw some more water at her, dunking his cloth and splashing her, her pink skin visible through the wet cloth.
Gemma jumped down from the van and put her hand on her hips, as she mocked up a stern look. John flicked some more water towards her, making her shriek out, laughing.
She must have heard the voices first, because her laughter disappeared, and as she turned around, John followed her gaze, and then he heard them too, excited laughter and shouts. There were other people in the house. They must have arrived when they were at the shop.
There were people coming out of the house, shaking hands with Arni and walking towards two old cars parked further along the farm track. John hadn’t noticed them before. John counted nine of them, and they looked like the type of people in the photographs that adorned the walls. Mohican haircuts, long scruffy jumpers, hobnailed boots. White boys in dreadlocks and small wispy beards.
‘What’s going on?’ John said.
‘Probably a planning meeting,’ Gemma said.
‘What for?’
Gemma looked at him and blushed. She glanced over at Arni and then shook her head. ‘I can’t tell you.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because not everyone knows,’ she said, and then smiled. ‘It’s going to be a big surprise when it happens though.’
John looked back towards the group. As they got nearer to their cars, Arni turned towards him.
John waved. Arni stared back, and even though he was a distance away, the coldness of his eyes made John lower his hand and turn away.
Chapter Fourteen
Sheldon cricked his neck as he got closer to the Incident Room. He had left Christina, Billy’s housekeeper, with Tracey. A woman-to-woman talk might elicit more information.
He had spoken to Jim Kelly to try and get him to delay the story, but Kelly hadn’t been interested. He had a failing paper to keep in business, and so the sensitivities around Billy Privett’s death didn’t matter to him.
Billy Privett’s story was inextricably mixed up with Alice Kenyon’s, and her murder hung around the local police like a stain on the uniform. Now that Billy was dead, all the mystery surrounding Alice Kenyon’s murder would burst to the fore again, and with Jim Kelly ready to write his story for the paper, he expected it to be on the front page.
For Sheldon, though, it had never gone away.
He saw Alice’s dead body when he least expected it, during his quieter moments and when he thought he was a long way from his job. Reading the newspaper, sitting in the park. And it wasn’t just Alice. He remembered all of them. Young women murdered by random strangers. Men punched and stamped to death outside nightclubs, just because they looked at someone the wrong way. Victims of domestic abuse who endured years of beatings until finally he went too far, and all those lost chances to get away came to nothing. Or old men battered in their homes for the contents of their dead wives’ jewellery boxes. Lives ended by violence, all leaving extra victims. The grieving mothers, and husbands and wives, or children who grow up never knowing their mother or father. The injustices stayed with Sheldon, and his memories seemed like a film on fast forward, speeding glimpses of limp flesh or blood-soaked clothing, except that with every year, with every new case, the film just got faster, so that he couldn’t make out the faces anymore. It was just a stream of images, like a flicker book. Pink. Brown. Fat. Thin. But at the end of all of it was Alice Kenyon.
He looked up and realised that he had stopped walking. He was standing in the corridor, his fists clenched so hard that his fingernails dug into his palms, making small crescent cuts in the skin.
He scrambled in his pocket for his pills, his blue saviours. He popped one into his mouth and swallowed. It seemed to catch in his throat, but he kept on gulping to force it down. Tugging at his cuffs, he to
ld himself that he was ready to do this, and then walked into the Incident Room.
People watched him as he went in. The corpse had been confirmed as Billy Privett by fingerprints, and the mood seemed different to earlier in the day, as if everyone had felt the spotlight turn on them, making them more earnest.
Duncan Lowther was at the other end of the room.
‘CCTV?’ Sheldon shouted.
Lowther looked up and then pointed towards his computer monitor. ‘I’m going through the footage now. I’ve got it on here, if you want to see it.’
Sheldon nodded that he did and went to stand behind Lowther’s shoulder, other detectives crowding round.
‘The hotel only records the lobby,’ Lowther said. ‘It gets used a lot for conferences, and not many people will want to stay in a hotel that might film them room hopping.’ He moved the footage back quickly, so that the woman behind the reception desk seemed to vibrate. ‘This is Billy checking in,’ and he let it play at normal speed.
Sheldon watched as Billy moved into shot. He looked like he was trying to hide his appearance. He was wearing a baseball cap low onto his brow and sunglasses, so that he just drew attention to himself in the opulent surroundings of the lobby.
‘Why were you there, Billy?’ Sheldon said to the screen.
‘It’s more about why he was keeping it such a secret,’ Lowther said.
‘What about later on, nearer the time when he was murdered? Is there anyone unusual coming into the hotel?’
‘I haven’t gone through all of it. I’ve got a list of every guest and their checking-in time, and so I’m looking at that to get a description. Every time someone appears on the screen, I work out who it is, and note down what they are doing. By the time I’ve finished, I should have accounted for every guest and worked out if there is anyone in the hotel who isn’t a paying guest.’
‘And once you’ve done that?’
‘I check out each one, and look for someone giving false details.’ Lowther smiled. ‘That’s the fun part, because I can bet that we’ll drag at least a couple of people in who gave false addresses to keep their stay secret. You can’t beat the twitch of a cheating spouse to brighten your afternoon.’ When Sheldon scowled a rebuke, Lowther added, ‘We’ve been getting plenty of calls from the press.’
‘Speak to the Press Officer and make it official then,’ Sheldon said. ‘Have we had any fresh information about Billy since the news broke?’
‘Just a few calls about his lifestyle, but nothing we didn’t know. We’ve had a few putting Ted Kenyon’s name forward.’
‘That’s where I’m going next,’ Sheldon said.
‘You’ve got to go somewhere else first,’ Lowther said. When Sheldon raised his eyebrows, he added, ‘The Chief has been looking for you.’
‘What, Dixon? How long ago?’
‘A few minutes. She said to go down when you were free.’
Sheldon let out a breath and stepped out of the Incident Room. He looked along the corridor, towards the Chief Inspector’s office. It was darker down there, furthest from the entrance. He took a deep breath and set off walking. He guessed what this was about, but that just made the walk seem longer. As he got to the door, a nameplate facing him, he knocked lightly. He waited until he heard ‘yes’, and then he walked in.
The atmosphere changed immediately, from the hubbub of the station to the refined calm of a gentlemen’s club, except that the room’s occupant was a woman. He had last seen her in the corridor before, when he had brought Christina in. Her head was down, looking at some papers, her hair cut short and streaked by grey. There were paintings of hills on the walls and a wine-coloured leather chair dominated one corner, high-backed, as if it was just short of a cigar and whisky glass. Framed family pictures were on a cabinet, although Sheldon kept his focus on her as he stood in front of the desk, his hands clasped in front of him, and waited for Dixon to notice he was there.
When she did look up, Sheldon said, ‘You wanted to see me, ma’am.’
Chief Inspector Dixon pointed to the chair in front of the desk. ‘Sit down, Sheldon, please.’ Her voice sounded tired, and as he got a better look at her, he saw dark rings under her eyes and broken veins just starting to flush across her cheeks.
Sheldon did as he was asked, his legs tightly together, his hands on his knees.
Dixon leaned forward, her arms folded on the desk, and stared at Sheldon. ‘We know now that the body found last night is Billy Privett.’
Sheldon didn’t respond, except for a small stretch of his neck, his collar too tight.
‘How do you feel about that?’ Dixon said.
Sheldon gave a small cough before he spoke. ‘I don’t know, ma’am, if I’m honest. I feel for Alice’s family, because the secret of her murder may go to the grave with Billy Privett, but at the same time I feel like there is something fateful about it – that if it had to be anyone, I’m glad it was him.’
The Chief nodded and then twirled a pen slowly in her hand. ‘I want you to handle the investigation, Sheldon. I know that FMIT want it, but I’m fighting for you to keep it. The answers will come from local people, and you were very close to Alice’s case. You know all about Billy Privett.’
Sheldon licked his lips. He tasted sweat. ‘That’s why I should have it. I know about Billy, and the victim is where murder cases should start.’
‘But you need to be careful, Sheldon.’
A pause, and then, ‘What do you mean?’ His fingers gripped his knees tighter.
Dixon stared at Sheldon. ‘I’m taking a risk for you, and giving you the opportunity to redeem yourself, and to prove that this station is worth keeping open. You’re a good officer, I know that, but I don’t want a repeat of what happened when Billy Privett was a suspect.’
‘I don’t understand.’
Dixon put her pen down and put her hands together. ‘You do understand, and don’t make me force you from the team. Alice’s case made you ill, you know that. It was taken from you because you didn’t get anywhere. And I know what has been going on, with you and Billy Privett.’
Sheldon looked down. He rubbed his left hand with the fingers of his right.
‘Billy complained, Sheldon.’
Sheldon looked up. ‘About what?’
‘About you. You were harassing him, watching him all the time, parking on his street, following him when he went out.’
‘I didn’t do anything wrong, ma’am.’
‘Don’t take me for a fool. I know that you were doing this on your days off, just sitting in your car, watching Billy’s house. The case had stopped being yours by then.’
Sheldon brushed some lint from his knee. The room had got warmer. ‘I was just trying to find answers,’ he said eventually.
‘And did you?’
He shook his head. ‘No, I didn’t.’
The Chief smiled, although it looked forced. ‘So show everyone that I’m right. I’m fighting for you, but I’ll be watching. If I see that you are going the same way, I’ll stop everything. Keep me up to date.’
‘I thought FMIT were coming over today, ma’am.’
‘I’ve stalled them,’ she said. ‘So can you do it?’
Sheldon took a deep breath. ‘I can.’
Dixon nodded her approval. ‘Don’t forget to keep me updated,’ she said, and then pointed towards the door. The meeting was over.
Sheldon didn’t say anything as he left, and once he got outside, he leant back against the wall and closed his eyes.
He stayed like that for a few seconds, listening to the chatter filtering down from the Incident Room, and then pushed away from the wall. He ran his fingers around his collar. It felt damp from perspiration.
It was time to take control.
Chapter Fifteen
Charlie looked out of his window. The kids in black had gone, as had Ted and the press. He had watched as Amelia gave her quote, and since then, the street had returned to normal.
Donia was in the corner of t
he room, reading files, just to get a taste of what being a criminal lawyer was all about. It’s the files that earn the money, not what happens in court. That’s just a sideshow. Playing out, Charlie called it, when he got to have some fun. The real work was done in the office, clocking up billable hours reading police statements.
Charlie turned round quickly and caught Donia looking at him. Her eyes darted back to her file, and he saw a flush jump into her cheeks. He was going to say something, but she was only going to be with him for a week. There was no point in making friends.
He left his office and went towards Amelia’s, leaning against the doorframe once he got there. Amelia was looking at her desk, a dictation machine in her hand, but she wasn’t saying anything into it.
It was a few seconds before she noticed him.
When she looked up, he said, ‘What’s going on?’
She shook her head. ‘Nothing,’ she said, but it came out too quickly.
‘Come on, Amelia. You’re staring into space. Our office was burgled, and it was your room they went through, not mine. And your two goons in suits were hanging around outside.’
‘Goons?’
‘Those clients of yours. They were coming out as I came in, except they didn’t seem keen on moving on.’
Amelia leaned back in her chair and sighed. She looked tired. Charlie detected some vulnerability he didn’t normally see. ‘I’ve told you, it’s nothing.’
He stared at her, and she held his stare. He was aware of Linda, the receptionist and secretary, becoming suddenly interested in her computer screen, and so he stepped into the room and closed the door.
‘It’s my business too,’ Charlie said. ‘We’re partners, remember, and I don’t normally see you like this.’
‘I didn’t know you did caring.’
‘And I didn’t know you did vulnerable, so come on, Amelia, what’s going on? Are there bills we haven’t paid or something?’
That made Amelia smile. She considered Charlie for a few seconds, and then shook her head. ‘It’s nothing to worry about, like I’ve said.’