Dead Silent

by Mark Roberts

  Clay clasped the curtain and swished it back.

  It was a life-sized male mannequin, dressed from head to ankle in leather and draped in chains. The head and face of the dummy were covered in a leather mask, with slits for dead eyes staring out into the void.

  Although the bathroom was scrupulously clean – the mirrors and ceramics shone – a fat, black, sticky cockroach scuttled over to the mannequin’s foot, antennae twitching.

  Clay turned away and headed for the door, her reflection un-avoidable in the mirrored walls, her features contorted in disgust.

  ‘The cockroach in the bath’s probably got friends and relatives in the kitchen. Which is what I guess the last room is.’

  From behind the closed door the sound of the record-player needle repeatedly misfiring invaded the corridor like a curse. Hiss. Click. Hiss. Click. Hiss. Click. The smell of incense became more pungent.

  Clay opened the door and was silent for a moment. She surveyed the space and its contents with the assurance of a hunter knowing that this was the empty lair of its prey. It wasn’t a kitchen. There wasn’t one. But she didn’t have a word to name the function of the largely empty room.

  ‘Bill, I want you to ask Karl Stone to look up Gabriel Huddersfield on the national police computer. Circulate the image we have of him to constabularies across the country and to all ports and airports. When we know what he’s done in the past – and it’s going to be violent crime – I want you to coordinate the manhunt, starting in and around Sefton Park. We need as many officers out there and looking for him as are available. Go now.’

  As she stared into the room, Clay phoned Terry Mason. The more she saw, the more certain she was that Gabriel Huddersfield had killed Leonard Lawson. She had to catch him before he did it again.

  ‘Terry, leave Pricey in place at Pelham Grove and draft in other Scientific Support officers to support you here. I need you at 777 Croxteth Road. This is our boy’s bachelor pad.’

  38

  9.50 am

  At Otterspool tip, David Higson watched a fat man in his fifties drive a blue Audi through the gates and pull up at the hut. His forehead sloped and fat hung from his cheeks like saddlebags. In the passenger seat, a pretty blonde girl in her early twenties stared straight ahead with the same pale blue eyes as the driver, lost in thought or ashamed to be seen in public at the tip with the man who was surely Daddy.

  Mr Forehead and the Blonde Conundrum, Higson named them.

  Higson glanced inside the back of the car and saw a small fridge that looked like it had come from a war zone. He pointed straight down the road that ran past the line of skips 1 to 12.

  ‘Hurry up, Dad!’

  As they drove towards the overturned shipping container in which broken and discarded electrical goods were laid to rest, Higson wondered how on earth such an ugly man could have fathered such an attractive young woman. He sat down on the deckchair in his hut and watched the back of the car as it slowed down in front of the electricals shed. Higson, who could see them through the convex mirror on the gatepost, knew what Mr Forehead was thinking as he leaned out of the open window and looked back at the empty space behind him. He assumed that he, his daughter and the car were all unseen.

  I reckon they will, thought Higson, self-taught expert on human nature.

  In the mirror, he watched as both front doors opened and Mr Forehead and the Blonde Conundrum got out of the car with sly swiftness.

  Get on with it!

  Blonde Conundrum double-checked behind her and got into the back seat. Meanwhile, Mr Forehead pulled out the old fridge, wobbled over to the electricals shed and plonked it down at the front. He looked left, right and backwards and then at the other abandoned fridges and freezers.

  You’re eyeing up that almost-new freezer, thought Higson. The one Laughing Gas brought in before opening time this morning.

  Sure enough, Mr Forehead picked up the freezer and hurried back to the car. He placed it on the back seat next to the Blonde Conundrum, slammed the door shut and got into the driver’s seat.

  Higson stepped out of the hut and, pretending to throw the dregs of his tea on to the tarmac, took a brief look at the Audi. Through the rear windscreen he watched the Blonde Conundrum engrossed in the newly acquired freezer.

  She’s taking off the tape that kept the door shut, he thought, as Mr Forehead turned the corner at the top of the line of double-row skips and began to drive for the exit past skips 13 to 24.

  The Audi picked up speed and a lone gull shrieked over and over. Then the tyres screeched and Mr Forehead pulled up in an emergency stop. A muted yell drifted from the exit side of the skips. The gull above cried even louder and others joined in, circling in the sky.

  As if stirred from a dream, the heads of Higson’s three colleagues appeared above the skips they were working in – Harry in green garden waste, Bezza in wood and Robbie in non-recyclables.

  Two of the Audi’s doors opened, half a moment apart, and a piercing scream cut through the air, a scream that travelled with the Blonde Conundrum as she panicked away from her father’s car.

  ‘Jesus, Kylie!’

  Higson listened. Her screams followed her as she ran like fury towards the exit. The gulls picked up the note. As she took her screams to the bottom of Jericho Lane, the gulls replied with louder, stronger screeches, threatening to split the sky in two.

  And then, as Higson took the shorter route through the entrance to the tip, another sound filled the air. The bass screaming of Mr Forehead.

  Higson ran at speed as the freezing air came alive with the sounds of terror.

  He turned the corner and saw Mr Forehead doubled-up at the back of his car, throwing up, eyes bulging, body shaking.

  David Higson headed towards him and wondered what was in the freezer that Laughing Gas had left behind.

  39

  9.51 am

  Hiss. Clay stood in the corner of the fifth room of Gabriel Huddersfield’s flat. Click. The room was almost bare and the record on the turntable in the corner continued to connect with the pulsing needle. Click. Clay looked at the spinning LP. Hiss. Gabriel Huddersfield had been listening to Handel’s Messiah. Click. And psyching himself up for murder.

  She lifted the arm and turned off the power to the record player.

  Two walls were empty. The third wall was dominated by a sculpture and on the fourth wall was a skilfully painted mural in three sections: a broad central image and two narrower images either side. Hieronymus Bosch’s The Last Judgment. What is it with this picture? thought Clay. Lawson writes books about it and Huddersfield likes it so much he has it on his bell, his front door and now in here as well!

  Her eyes wandered across Bosch’s vision of earthly chaos: monsters going about their daily business of punishing human flesh, a disembodied head marching on its feet, a freakish figure riding bareback on a naked man towards a makeshift crucifixion on a tree. Each torment was a punishment for one of the seven deadly sins, and they were watched over by Jesus in radiance and his disciples in a sky-blue heaven.

  She looked at the top of the left-hand panel, recognised heaven overlooking the Garden of Eden at the dawn of creation. In heaven, God sat surrounded by a look of light as the loyal angels cast out the rebel angels. In the Garden of Eden, a narrative emerged. God fashioning Eve from Adam’s rib; the temptation at the Tree of Knowledge; Adam and Eve being chased from the garden by an avenging angel.

  Clay paid closer attention to the central panel. Beneath heaven and Christ’s feet, the dark earth churned, a living purgatory in which mythical beasts and demons stabbed, impaled and tortured human beings, harrying them into eternal damnation.

  She looked at the fires that raged in the city of hell at the top of the right-hand panel. Beneath them was Satan in his dark grotto, awaiting the latest sinners from earth, those who’d already arrived thrashed and wailed above his head as they were boiled in a pan.

  In the middle of the room was a ladder-back chair and a gag hanging limply off i
t. She looked at the floor, saw old blood-splatter marks combined with fresher stains on the bare boards. Underneath the seat was a whip curled up like a sleeping snake, and a box of matches with an ashtray and a packet of cigarettes on the seat. Clay shivered.

  She turned to the sculpture, a life-sized statue of Jesus dying on the cross, a spear sticking from his side. Clay pulled out her phone and took a series of pictures of the spear. Electricity raced across her scalp as she slipped on a pair of latex gloves, placed both hands on the top of the shaft and gently tugged. The point and head of the spear were loose in Christ’s side.

  Turning the spear, she felt the metal tip grate against the fabric of the statue. Huddersfield had created a hole inside the statue in which to embed the spear. Clay pulled as she turned and the spear came clean away.

  It was made from the same wood and was the same colour as the spear on which Leonard Lawson had been impaled. The metal tip was also roughly the same shape and size as on the other spear.

  Clay walked to the dim light at the window and turned the shaft in her hands.

  In the same location as on the other shaft was the same engraved symbol: the dragonfly exiting the rectangular window.

  As she looked at the hole in Christ’s side, she felt a deep sense of inexplicable sadness and imagined there was someone else in the room with her.

  You have no time for this. She heard her own voice shouting inside her, but another voice whispered behind her and, for a moment, it was to this that she paid heed.

  ‘We have all placed the spear in his side. We have all hammered the nails into his wrists.’

  She turned to Sister Philomena’s kind and loving voice, but there was no one and nothing there, just a very well painted mural, a warning of the consequences of sin.

  ‘What do you want us to do, Eve?’ asked Mason.

  ‘Once you’ve dusted and removed any prints or fibres we can connect to Leonard Lawson’s bedroom, I suggest you empty the three storage rooms one room at a time. He’s a hoarder, but he’s meticulous. My hunch is the junk in each room is themed. Probably art, sex and religion.’

  She showed Mason the spear, engraved with the same symbol that came to rest close to Leonard Lawson’s heart, then dropped it into the evidence bag that he held open for her. ‘That spear on its own is enough to bury Gabriel Huddersfield, but I need you to find out as much about him as you can from his possessions.’

  She was drawn back to the central panel of The Last Judgment, and to its lower left-hand corner. A man with the head of a mythical beast – part bird, part platypus – and wearing white tights and a blue coat with tails, carried a stick on his shoulder. Tied to the stick by his hands and feet was a naked man; he was upside down and impaled on a spear that entered through his shoulder and emerged from his lower rib cage.

  She took a photograph and sent it to Hendricks, Riley, Stone and, manning the fort at Trinity Road, Cole. Beneath the image she wrote a comment: The inspiration behind the staging of Leonard Lawson’s body.

  As soon as she’d sent it, her phone rang out. She connected as she walked.

  ‘DCI Clay, it’s Jessica from switchboard.’

  ‘Go on, Jessica!’

  ‘We’ve just had a call from the site manager at the tip on Otterspool Promenade. He’s got a corpse turned up there.’

  ‘Elderly and male, right?’ said Clay.

  ‘How did you know?’

  Clay headed for the door, her head filling with the cold blue of Gabriel Huddersfield’s eyes. As she hurried down the stairs, she imagined him in his bathroom, naked except for the leather mask that covered his head and face, listening to Handel and gazing at the cockroach on the back of his hand.

  40

  9.58 am

  ‘Play?’

  Louise Lawson was woken by the word. When she opened her eyes, she saw Abey standing over the bed on which she was sleeping. He smiled at her and she tried to smile back, but her head was banging and her throat and mouth were bone dry. She struggled as she sat up on the bed.

  She focused on him. He was dressed in a replica blue Everton shirt and pale blue jeans. Each time she saw him, he looked more like a little boy than a man in his thirties.

  Outside there were footsteps in the hall.

  ‘Who’s there?’ she asked.

  ‘Outside is Adam,’ replied Abey. ‘Listening. Keyhole? Happy, Lou-Lou?’

  ‘I’m so happy to see you, Abey, but—’

  ‘Is Lou-Lou sick?’

  She watched his face. After a moment of deliberation, he held up one hand and then one finger, as if a good idea had arrived. He placed his hand behind her and pushed her forward gently, lifting the pillow and placing it at her back. He took a glass of water from the bedside table and handed it to her.

  ‘Drink. Lou-Lou feel better.’

  She sipped the water and Abey sat on the edge of the bed.

  ‘But how did you get into their flat, Abey?’

  He smiled, placed a conspiratorial hand to his mouth and whispered, ‘The door open. I want see Lou-Lou.’ He joined his hands together and looked to the ceiling. ‘God looking after Lou-Lou now. Abey say prayer for Lou-Lou. Abey love Lou-Lou, God love Lou-Lou too...’

  ‘I love you too, Abey. And so does God...’

  She heard a sound outside, a footstep on a floorboard.

  Abey’s face lit up with the arrival of another good idea. Louise frowned, shook her index finger and pressed it to her lips. Softly, she shushed him. He copied her, action and sound.

  ‘You’re not supposed to be here,’ she whispered. ‘Their home is strictly out of bounds.’

  ‘Louise?’ Adam’s voice crept into the room before he did. ‘I thought I heard voices. I was wondering, do you want or need anything?’

  ‘I’m fine, thank you.’ She closed her eyes. ‘I’m just going back to sleep...’

  She opened her eyes. It seemed that Abey had dissolved into thin air.

  In his left hand, Adam carried a large bunch of red roses. ‘I bought these for you. I’m so sorry about your father.’

  Louise looked directly at Adam and, on the edge of her field of vision, saw Abey standing in the corner of the room.

  Adam placed the flowers on the bed and sat next to them. ‘From me to you, Louise. You have my sympathy.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Louise closed her eyes again, hoped he’d just go away.

  ‘Louise, I know that over the next few weeks and months you’re going to have to face a lot of practical and emotional hurdles. I want you to know that I will be here for you, every step of the way. It was my idea that you came to stay with us here. Did you know that?’

  ‘No. Thank you, Adam.’ She looked at him.

  ‘I’ll do anything to help you, Louise.’ He smiled, moved the flowers closer to her. ‘Including helping you sell your house.’

  ‘Sell my father’s house? What do you mean?’

  ‘Given what’s happened, Louise, do you think you could ever live in that house again?’

  She sat up a little straighter. ‘Go on, Adam.’

  ‘You know I’m a jack of all trades. When the time comes to sell your house, I can do it up for you, get you thousands more for it. How does that sound?’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Big old house? Big old furniture. Loads of your father’s books. You know I do house clearances. Man in a white van, hee hee. I’ll help you move into, say, a modern flat. Maybe supported accommodation with top-notch security so you can sleep safely in your bed at night.’

  ‘I didn’t know you cared about me that much, Adam!’

  ‘My father always used to say, take best care of the ones that take best care of you. I don’t talk to you much because I’m always working.’

  ‘Yes, yes, you’re always busy, aren’t you, Adam?’

  ‘Right now, you’re going to the top of my priority list. Number one, Louise Lawson. Have a little think about what I’ve said and we’ll talk later.’

  Adam stood up, walked backwards t
o the door, his eyes fixed on Louise and with a smile on his face that made her go hot and cold. When he was gone, Abey stepped out of the corner.

  She smiled at him. ‘You’re a funny bunny, Abey!’

  Abey shook his head. ‘Me no funny bunny!’ He pointed at himself. ‘He no see me. Me the invisible man...’

  41

  10.06 am

  TIP CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE

  When Clay arrived at the municipal tip, the entrance and exit had already been sealed off and a young constable was redirecting traffic back up Jericho Lane to Aigburth Vale. The wind from the River Mersey lashed her back as she ducked under the tape. She heard a young woman crying inside the rectangular pale-brick office between the entrance and exit.

  Four refuse workers in high-visibility jackets and hard hats watched Clay approach as if she was a phantom. She showed her warrant card to the group and asked, ‘Who’s in charge here?’

  David Higson stepped forward and introduced himself. His skin was covered in a veil of sweat.

  ‘Take me to the body, David,’ said Clay. She followed him as he turned a corner towards an Audi, its doors wide open.

  ‘Did you touch the body?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘The owners of this car dumped an old fridge and then tried to borrow this practically brand-new freezer. A dad and his daughter.’

  She put it together. ‘They’re in the office?’

  Higson nodded. ‘They certainly got more than they bargained for. The daughter, Kylie, twisted her ankle at the bottom of Jericho Lane, trying to run away. Robbie carried her back here.’

  As she came closer to the car, Clay caught sight of the compact freezer and pictured an old man’s body bent and concertinaed to fit into the confined space. Leonard Lawson’s staged corpse flashed through her consciousness like liquid light.

  Higson pointed to the cold vomit near the car. ‘Kylie’s father’s breakfast.’

  On the back seat, a half-sized freezer was tilted at an angle, the door shut, the tape that had sealed it broken.