by Liz Mistry
Zarqa’s lips thinned, her eyes, so similar to her mother’s, sparked their fury… and something else? Gus couldn’t decide before she was hissing at him. ‘Now he’s got someone following me? Really. Fuck’s sake, Gus, just leave me alone.’
She tried to brush past him, but Gus moved so that his body blocked her escape. He too was now cross. Cross with Zarqa and cross with himself. He had no experience of this fatherhood carry-on and he was clearly out of his depth, but he loved Zarqa and was working on the theory that hurt was making her lash out.
‘Don’t be stupid, Zarqa. Course your dad’s not got someone watching you. He trusts you not to do owt daft.’
Her, ‘He’s not my dad,’ lashed him like a whip. This was Mo she was talking about. The man who’d been willing to give up everything, including his life, for the woman he loved… and for Zarqa. The man who’d loved her from the moment she was born. When he spoke, his words were sharp. ‘So, what is he then? A piece of shit on your shoe?’
Zarqa lowered her head. Her shoulders were shaking, but Gus wasn’t sure if it was in anger or tears. He lowered his tone, softened it, and tried again, wishing he was anywhere but here right now doing this. ‘Mo is your dad, in all the ways that count, Zarqa, and I know that when you’ve had a chance to think it through, you’ll realise that.’
Her head jerked up; her chin raised. ‘Don’t patronise me. He’s a murderer. He’s not my dad.’
Gus stepped back and raised his hands placatingly, palms up. ‘Okay, okay. We can’t talk about this here. All I wanted to do was ask you not to wander around the streets on your own after dark. It’s not safe. Just last night a mosque was attacked, and then… well you already know about Pratab.’
Zarqa snorted and pushed her way past him. ‘Pep talk delivered. You can chill now.’ Gus grabbed her arm lightly, ‘Don’t go, Zarq. I want to try to help… I’m here for you.’
She yanked her arm away. ‘If that’s how you deal with kids, it’s just as well you have none of your own. That’s all I can say.’
Stunned, Gus watched her run around the corner and out of sight. Perhaps she was right. Perhaps parenthood wasn’t for him.
CHAPTER 30
L ast thing I needed was to see Uncle Gus. Bet my da… Mo’s got him on the case. Spying on me, keeping an eye on me. I was sure he was going to ask where I’d been last night. Shit, don’t know what I’d have said. It wouldn’t have been the truth though – no way.
I scurry along to my locker and start to fill my bag. School’s out for today. Can’t stand being here. Everywhere I go they’re talking about it and I want to just yell at the top of my voice… ‘That was me! I did it and I don’t regret a fucking thing!’
Imagine how that would go down. Imagine Ms Copley escorting me into her office, picking up the phone and phoning Gus… maybe my mum and Mo. She’d have that disappointed look on her face. The one where she frowns just a little… just enough to make you feel like shit. She’d sit me in the chair at the other side of her desk, like she did that time I was sick. But this time, she’d be scowling at me… bet she’d hardly know what to say. She’d wonder how her friend Naila’s daughter could have done something so truly awful.
Thing is, I don’t bloody care… before I found out about what Mo did to my real dad, I’d have been a nervous wreck, all jittery and nervous. Now, I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but I can’t seem to feel anything. Most of the time I walk about like I’m in a trance. The conversations around me seem like they’re filtered through water. Like at the swimming pool, when you bomb to the bottom and you can hear stuff, but you can’t make sense of it all. Like you’re in your own world and nobody else can reach you… that’s how I feel. The only time I feel anywhere near normal is when I’m with Jo Jo. Only then do I feel… connected. Like I’m here… present in my own life.
No, that’s not quite right. I do feel one thing… can’t describe it, can’t shake it off, can’t forget about it. Everywhere I go, I carry this big concrete lump in my chest. It weighs me down so I can hardly breathe and when I see him, it gets bigger and bigger. Sometimes I think it’s going to burst right out of my body and splatter the floor with my blood and my lungs and my ribs and… my heart.
A sob gulps up into my throat and I swallow it back down. It presses on top of the block and I can’t catch my breath. I lean my forehead against my locker door, welcoming the cool metal against my skin and I take deep, slow breaths. The lump’s still there, still dragging me down. Not caring who’s around, I push myself upright and kick the bottom locker. The crash reverberates all around, but nobody hears. Everyone else is in class. I’m alone in my misery.
So, what would Gus do if Patti told him what I’d done? Hm, that’s easy. He’d come dashing right over. Uncle Gus, knight in shining armour and dreads. I grin at the image, but it soon fades from my lips. He wouldn’t be able to save me. Not now. Not after what I’ve done. But he’d still come. Wonder if he’d put the sirens on? Wonder if he’d stop to pick up Mum and Mo?
Wonder how long we’d get in prison, me and Jo Jo? No, not Jo Jo. He’s got his mum and his sister to look after and I’ve heard if you’re young and gay in prison it’s not a good thing. Wouldn’t do that to Jo Jo. He’s got enough crap to deal with. No, I wouldn’t dob Jo Jo in. It was my idea. He didn’t really want to do it. He doesn’t want to do the next one either. But I know he will. I’ll be able to convince him.
I turn around and see Claire Stevens sitting there, phone in her hand. All quiet, watching me. How long has she been there? She smiles, one of those ‘I’m sorry’ kind of smiles. Sorry for spying on me? Sorry for seeing me lose control… sorry for being alive? I look at her more closely now. She’s not there to spy on me… like me, she’s hiding. I glance round. There’s no one else around, just the two of us. I plonk myself down next to her and she moves away from me, like I’ve got something catching. Maybe she can sense the badness in me… maybe even this timid, little, spotty freak can smell the festering rot that’s just waiting there to burst out. I don’t blame her. Instead I jump to my feet and not making eye contact with her, I walk over to my locker. ‘You haven’t seen me, right?’
Her laugh drifts after me. ‘Who’s going to ask me, anyway? Go! I’ve not seen you.’
I sling my bag over my shoulder, slam my locker shut, and wander out of school, ignoring the receptionist at the front desk as she shouts after me to sign out.
Not signing out of school’s not gonna get me in any more bother than I’m in already.
CHAPTER 31
G us watched Compo with a slight smile on his face. The lad was delighted to find the huge box of brownies Gus’ mum had left by the coffee machine. Despite having already devoured two bacon butties and a slice of lemon cake at The Lunch Monkey before returning to work, he immediately opened the container and stuffed a charred looking brownie in his mouth. The lad had a belly of iron.
Taffy winked at Gus as he sat down behind his desk. ‘Good to see the heat’s not affecting your appetite, Comps.’
Crumbs falling out of his mouth, Compo grinned and settled himself beside his own desk, where a range of PCs and different modems and so forth sat. He sparked open a can of Fanta, he’d taken from the mini fridge and took a long slurp before studying his screens. The radio played in the background as they worked…
…are looking for a suspect the media has dubbed The Snapchat Killer. The murderer of a teenage boy is reported to have sent an image of the dead boy to his friend using the social media app Snapchat. The police have dec…
Gus was on his feet in an instant. ‘Switch that bloody thing off. What the hell are they playing at? I’ll get Nancy on the case.’
He knew that it was too late though. The information was out there, and the name would stick. It really angered him that the press appeared to put more emphasis on sensationalising evil than in grieving with the victim’s relatives. ‘Please say you’ve got something to move this investigation forward, Comps.’
‘We
ll, I’ve just got the info from Pratab’s and Haider’s phones. I’ll put it on the main screen.’
Gus moved over so he could see the interactive screen and waited for Compo to talk them through his findings. ‘Pratab first, if you don’t mind.’
‘Okay, here’s his text history.’
A list of numbers with names and dates and times showed on the screen. Gus looked at it for a moment. ‘… And?’
‘Well, looking at this, it seems that, from Easter until his death, Pratab only used this phone to contact his family. There are no other texts… only those sent to his parents and his siblings… But…’ the screen scrolled down and Compo highlighted a date just before the school Easter holidays, ‘before this date, his texts went to both his family and friends… granted, his texts to family are more than those to friends, but that’s because he’d mainly use Snapchat or Instagram or Messenger to contact his mates. But from Easter he deleted all social media apps off this phone… strange.’
Gus studied the screen. There was a clear difference in Pratab’s phone usage between the period after Easter and the period before. Gus had his own ideas why that might be. ‘Like Haider said, he cut off contact with all his usual friends around that time – which tallies with his text usage, but where are the texts to his new friends? Why is he only ever texting family?’
Absentmindedly sipping the Irn Bru Compo had given him earlier, Gus studied the list. ‘Can we have a look at his contact lists? Even if he’s not sending texts to his new friends, he’ll surely have them in his contacts.’
Compo pressed some keys and the screen displayed Pratab’s contact list.
‘I want you to contact everyone on that list and see when he last communicated with them. Also, what about call history? I can see that his parents and siblings texted him repeatedly on Sunday evening, did they call him? Did anyone else? Any unknown numbers?’
Again, Compo worked his magic and the screen changed. ‘There’s lots of voicemails and missed calls from his parents and Kiran. A few from Mita, but not as many. She’s younger so she’d probably be out of the loop on that… he ignored them all.’
Gus looked at Compo. ‘Can you get all of those communications triangulated? Just to be sure they all were where they said they were, you know?’
‘On it, boss.’
‘Also, can you access his emails and other social media accounts? We need to know who he’s been communicating with apart from family and from which device. You’re not telling me a sixteen-year-old lad’s only communications were with his mum and dad… that’s just not feasible. I suspect he had another phone. Get Amanjeet to have a poke around, see if she can find a second phone or ask about one and get Sid to be on the lookout for one when he’s processing Pratab’s room. Also get on the phone to one of the uniforms at the school and request access to Pratab’s locker – although I think it’s unlikely he would have left a phone there over the weekend – you never know though, we might find something else. Can you retrieve any of those Snapchat things you mentioned? Like the one that went to Haider?’
Compo grinned like he’d just won the lottery… or in his case, been presented with a big cream cake. ‘I’ve shared access to both Pratab and Haider’s email, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram right now for you. Snapchat will take time. I should, at some point, be able to identify which device he used to access the different accounts too.’
Compo’s eyes shone with the prospect of a computer challenge. And already he was putting his ear buds in and settling in for the task.
Gus looked at Taffy. ‘Get a couple of uniforms in to go over the two lads’ social media accounts. It’s too time consuming for us.’
Gus had just moved back over to his own desk when his PC pinged and Compo yelled across the room. ‘That’s the CCTV footage from the cameras around your house, Gus. I’ve shared it with C team too.’
Gus had all but forgotten about his stalker and wished that they’d hurry up with his new home security system so that he could have Bingo back home. They’d told him a couple of days if they fast-tracked the order… and if he was prepared to pay through the nose for it. Which, of course, he was. He opened the file and began to fast forward through it. Compo had managed to isolate the times when his neighbour’s motion-activated lights came on and then rolled it onto one thread from the time Gus and Patti had entered his house on Saturday night until the time Patti had picked up the envelope on the Sunday. Within fifteen minutes, Gus realised it would be a fruitless task as there was an area from the side street, right up his drive to his front door that was completely uncovered by any of the surrounding cameras. His stalker had a clear, unmonitored route to his door.
Deciding not to waste his time with that, Gus cursed himself for hoping that his stalker would turn up with another letter soon… but not until after his new system was up and running. If they caught the fucker, that would be one less thing to worry about.
‘Oh, Gus, glad I caught you.’
Gus looked up smiling at Nancy who’d popped her head through the door.
‘Sebastian Carlton will be thrilled to help out… seems he can’t wait to catch-up with you and the team. Especially now the bastards have given him a name. The Snapchat Killer – who the hell leaked that?’
‘We knew we wouldn’t be able to keep that under wraps for long, Nance. The kid who received it wouldn’t have been able to help himself sharing that with his mates.’ He shrugged. ‘That’s life. Looks like you and Bashir will have to make some sort of statement though, but we’ve nothing much to give you. It’s early days yet.’
‘Yep.’ She blew a kiss at Compo, who grinned although his face reddened a little. He was getting used to Nancy’s teasing ways. ‘Got to dash, Basher the Gnasher called.’
And she was off, leaving Gus smirking at the new name she’d coined for their DCS.
CHAPTER 32
Zodiac
…dubbed The Snapchat Killer because he used the social media app Snapchat to send an image to the victim’s friend. Here on Capital Radio we have the weather. Over to John … and it looks like the sun is here to stay for a few more weeks at least with highs of…
T he Snapchat Killer! I like it. Sort of funky. All the best killers have a catchy nickname; The Zodiac Killer, The Boston Strangler, Bible John, The Yorkshire Ripper, The Crossbow Cannibal… and, now we have…
…Drum Roll…
…The Snapchat Killer!
Course the snaps were my idea… sort of. Gotta claim kudos when you can, don’t you? I don’t get any at home. Got a few surprises lined up and I can’t wait. Be a surprise for Pisces and Leo too.
I’m glad to get out of the house. It really does my head in. Like I’m not good enough, like I’m failing… the constant glances letting me know how much of a disappointment I am.
I just want to escape into the freedom of the outdoors where I can breathe and be myself. I snag some bread for the ducks. Like they need it. Half the lake’s clogged up with bread and chapattis and shit. Poor ducks – that’ll kill them off. It passes the time though. Maybe I’ll grab an ice cream before the café shuts. A Magnum. Then I’ll have another walk round the lake. Those smelly old bastards are sitting there again. Nothing better to do with their time. They should be moved on. They make the place look like shit.
Park’s heaving. Filled with families with screaming brats. Want a go on the rope swing, so I tell one of them to fuck off. They tell their dad and he gives me a mouthful. Stupid old bastard. I know I’m too old. Just wanted a quick go, that’s all.
I go into the café and over to the freezer. No white chocolate Magnums and that pisses me off. In the end I settle for a nutty one. I sit down near the boats and get the burner phone out. Quick glance around me. Nobody there so I take a sneaky peak at the video… my guilty, or in my case, not so guilty pleasure.
Pratab’s zonked out already. That was a joke. I’d expected him to be a div about it, but all he wanted to do was show off, so he swigged the voddie like it was goi
ng out of fashion – dumbass, didn’t get that we’d spiked it. Ten minutes and he was all over the place. Didn’t even notice when I put gloves on. Neither did the other two.
There’s Pisces putting the cable ties round him. Out of focus for a bit. That’ll be when I had to pull them tighter, so they’d dig right into his skin. That wuss Pisces was too squeamish. While my phone’s down, I draw the line on the neck, so we get it right first time. You can hear them giggling in the background. Idiots!
Best bit coming up – Leo sticking the knife in. Stuck the vein first time. Got it just right. The blood spurting out. Selfie then, making sure I’m not in it I told the other two I’d delete them… and I will. Just not yet. Got to keep some insurance. Never know when I’ll need it.
I nibble my Magnum. I prefer the white chocolate, but this is nice too. When I’m done, I chuck the stick in the lake, wipe my hands on a tissue, and get my phone out. Selfie time! Nothing incriminating about being in Lister Park. Nothing at all, so I post it to Instagram and Snapchat it to Leo and Pisces on their real phones.
The park’s emptying out. Only a couple of boats still bobbing about on the boating lake. Surely, it won’t be much longer. I’m thirsty. Ice cream always makes me thirsty. Should’ve bought a can of Coke. Could walk to the Sainsburys. It’ll be open, but then I might miss him. I’ve not waited all this time to miss him at the last minute. Besides, I’ll have to come back later… that’s the plan. Got to get everything sorted. I grin… that stupid tosser still hasn’t worked out how I know. So much for being a geek. Can’t even keep his room secure. Oh, I love storing little secrets… intelligence. That’s what the pigs call it. That’s wrong. The information itself isn’t intelligence. No, it’s what you do with it that uses intelligence and I know just how to use it.
Wish he’d hurry up. I flick through the photos on my iPhone, wondering which ones I’ll use next time. Probably the one I took this morning. I like the one I used today though – it’ll have him wondering how I got it… let him figure out just how inventive I can be. I like that thought. I want him to appreciate my brilliance. But I’m not using that trick again. Not just now anyway. I’ll save that trick for my next big surprise.