Hold Your Tongue

by Deborah Masson

  Eve felt each name like a punch to her stomach, didn’t need to be reminded that it had all led nowhere.

  Hastings rumbled on. ‘Old cases have been revisited, tenuous links explored. But nothing.’ Hastings threw down the paper, Eve waiting for him to finally lay into them.

  ‘However, we’ve had sound leads too. Working out why these women are losing their lives on the days and in the ways that they are.’

  Eve dropped her gaze to the floor as her boss turned in her direction, feeling like an idiot for blushing as all eyes focused on her, thrown by her boss’s uncharacteristic positivity.

  ‘But it hasn’t been enough. It didn’t stop Sarah Crawley losing her life. A woman thrown away like a piece of rubbish.’

  It was good while it lasted.

  ‘Most would say we deserve to be getting battered. Perhaps they’re right. But I know we’ve felt every one of those murders, whether the press have reflected that or not.’ Eve looked over to Elliott, saw him flinch.

  Hastings continued. ‘Yes, they lost Jenkins. But we lost one of our own too.’

  Murmurs round the room, everyone pulling back their shoulders at Hastings’ motivational speech. At the mention of Sanders. Even Eve felt her shoulders straightening. She wondered where her boss had got the new approach from, could imagine that he’d been practising in front of the hallway mirror that morning. She had to admit it was a tad cringy – real American sports locker-room stuff, but it kind of suited him, might even lose him his Grinch moniker. That thought could’ve made Eve smile if it wasn’t for what he was talking about. Eve tried to refocus on what her boss was saying.

  ‘Time to prove them wrong, folks. To find that link we’ve been looking for. If we’re correct the murders are linked to this nursery rhyme, then we have two women left. Two women we can still save.’ Hastings let his words sink in. Eve thought the officers were in danger of rising in rapturous applause. ‘As I said, this is not about failure. We can still salvage something. But we need to revisit everything, to think about what hasn’t been looked at. Our killer is not going to come walking through that door.’

  With that, the incident-room door opened, all heads turning towards it, out-of-place laughter rippling through the room as the acne-faced mail guy stood there frozen, not used to being anything but invisible. He edged the pile of mail on to the already overloaded desk by the door and scurried out again.

  Hastings looked deflated that he’d lost his audience and was searching for the right words to buoy the team again when he spoke. ‘If there is a positive to come out of this, the concerns we had about one of our suspects have been proven right.’

  Eve stared at her boss, willing it to be Hardy. For her to know that her gut instinct wasn’t completely off radar.

  ‘Adrian Hardy has been charged with GBH as a result of his attack on Rosie Donald. She’s in intensive care but should pull through.’ The room broke into chatter before Hastings regained control. ‘All right. All right. It’s time to regroup and refocus. We can find this guy. We need to believe that. Go get me something, people.’

  Hastings swept towards the door, Eve not missing the nod in her direction as he left the room. She wanted to enjoy the moment as Elliott reached over to clap her arm, to feel reassured that she still had what it took to do the job, but it was a bittersweet consolation when she thought of Rosie lying in that hospital bed.

  Chapter 44

  Now

  He smiles at the man sitting in the doorway in the Back Wynd off Union Street. Passes a newspaper to him – a fiver too.

  The man’s eyes widen. ‘Cheers, mate.’ Throaty. A roll-up, dirty from the hands that made it, waving in his mittened hand as he salutes him. And so he should. Little does he know that he’s looking at the front-page news. At least he’s trying to share it with him. After all, everyone deserves to know.

  He salutes back at him, hiding his disgust at the chip-pan hair, the grime on his hands and the smell that wafts up from the stained sleeping bag. It’s nice to be nice. That’s what the normal folks do.

  He strides on to and down Union Street. Inhaling the exhaust fumes, believing they are fuelling him. He’s on a set course, moving for no one. Not flinching when he’s elbowed and sworn at. He moves among them, no closer to being caught. Invincible.

  He stops, looks across the road at the Adelphi Lane; still a police presence there. No fear of them and their incompetence.

  The papers haven’t made enough of their failures. The Hardy witch hunt not so scandalous now he has been arrested for something concrete. Such a shame. He could’ve had so much more fun with that.

  He misses Jenkins. She made it fun. Her replacement at the Aberdeen Enquirer a jobsworth out for recognition as a serious reporter, not one for scandal or hearsay. Another woman in a man’s world but one who is no use to him. Someone had to tell the new bitch that she worked on the local rag, and always would if she didn’t at least try.

  Not to worry. Two more women and the whole story would be told. The new reporter would break the rules then, especially when she found out whom he’d picked for his ending.

  Chapter 45

  Saturday, 14 December

  It was the toilet brush clutched in Shelley Anderson’s hands, bound by venetian-blind cord, that made a mockery of the mess her body was found in. Nothing clean about it, apart from the cut that had taken the young mother’s tongue.

  Frustration and guilt swept over Eve in waves. She’d failed Shelley. She’d failed them all. But how could she have saved her? Seemingly random selections, two close to Eve, the others never known to her. Maybe all part of the plan to stay one step ahead of the game.

  There was a cloying smell of drying blood, a whiff of urine and faeces beneath it. From where she stood outside the cubicle door looking in at her she couldn’t be sure if the underlying smell was coming from Shelley or the toilet. Shelley’s work uniform of blue tabard and trousers was drenched in blood, the walls around her sprayed bright red, mimicking some grotesque graffiti. But somehow her murderer had found a clean space to pin the expected headline, neatly folded as always. Shelley was seated on the lid, facing Eve, propped against the wall. Mouth open, tongue gone.

  Eve stared at her, seeing Shelley’s three-year-old son instead. An innocent boy whose mummy wouldn’t be coming home tonight or ever again. She swallowed and stepped back, the space so tight she banged against the wash-hand basin behind her. She turned and pulled the door open, breathing deep as she stepped out into the small open-plan office that was teeming with bodies, none of whom worked here.

  ‘Shelley’s mother’s been notified.’ Cooper’s voice was soft, the bodies around him silent apart from the muffled rustle of their white suits as they moved about the premises, the overhead strip lights harsh against the winter skies outside the windows.

  ‘Is there someone with her?’ Eve couldn’t bring herself to mention the boy.

  ‘Family liaison should be with her. The boy’s in bed, has been since half an hour after Shelley dropped him with his grandmother.’

  Kai. A name making the kid all the more real, impossible to ignore. His mother forever to be known as the sixth victim. ‘Saturday’s Child Works Hard for a Living.’

  Cooper nodded. ‘Worked a supermarket job in the mornings Monday to Friday while Kai was at nursery, and then her mother came to watch him five nights a week while she cleaned here after hours and once a month on a Saturday morning when she did the carpet clean, etc.’

  Eve was willing to bet the article that went with whatever the headline was would be some kind of feature on the struggles of single parenting. ‘Only her that cleaned here?’

  Mearns glanced around the office. ‘Small place. Had keys to let herself in and out. Worked seven to nine p.m. weekdays and seven to ten a.m. on the Saturdays. Mother called it in at eleven thirty a.m. when she failed to come home and she couldn’t reach her on her mobile.’

  ‘How did he know she’d be here? That she’d be on her own?’

&
nbsp; ‘Like the rest of them. Watched her in advance or knew her somehow. Didn’t have to worry about CCTV. Too small a business to be shelling out for that kind of thing.’

  MacLean came into view over Cooper’s shoulder. Anything he had to say would be nothing new, the pathologist only confirming that when he spoke. ‘Little point in even saying it.’

  Eve tutted. Forensics would be the same. ‘It’s hardly a comfort, but if this guy is working the way we think he is, then there’s one more. And hopefully we’ll be able to get to her first. We have to get to her first. Then at least it’ll be over.’

  MacLean raised his eyebrows. ‘You think?’

  Eve shrugged. ‘I have to. It’s the only thing keeping me going.’

  Chapter 46

  Sunday, 15 December

  ‘Morning, sunshine.’

  Ronnie gritted his teeth at the sound of Annie’s sing-song voice, kept his eyes shut as she rattled the blinds.

  ‘Beautiful day.’

  As if he gave a shit. He listened to her shuffle about the room as she performed the usual morning routine, knowing he’d have to open his eyes soon to watch her poke and prod at him before scoring her chart for the first of many times that day.

  He heard her lift the TV remote from the adjustable bed-table that had been pushed to the side the night before, same as usual. The sound of other voices from far-off places filled the room, and he was glad they were at least drowning out hers. Until he realized what they were saying, his eyes opening as he listened, his brain knowing it was coming before he could even make sense of the words; wishing in that moment, more than anything, that he could trade what he was seeing and hearing for being poked and prodded.

  Six thirty a.m. Eve had been in bed three hours, not one of them spent sleeping since finding Shelley Anderson the day before. She listened to her phone vibrating on the bedside table, watched the light from the screen bouncing off the ceiling in the dark hole that was her bedroom. At this time in the morning, it could be nothing good.

  ‘Hunter.’

  ‘Good morning, ma’am.’

  It was the barrel-shaped call handler who had quashed her hopes four weeks ago when he’d burst into the incident room with the news that their one and only suspect at the time, Ryan Phillips, had been found dead in his car. Eve wondered what happy news he would be delivering today.

  ‘I have an urgent call.’

  Eve slumped against her pillow. ‘Surely someone at the station can take it?’

  ‘Says it’s for you.’

  ‘Doesn’t—’

  ‘Guy’s name’s Ronnie Dempster.’

  Eve sat up. ‘Put him through.’ The line crackled. ‘Hello?’

  ‘I saw the news.’ Ronnie’s voice was a whisper, the kindness in it replaced by what sounded like grief and a raw desperation.

  ‘Did you know Shelley?’

  ‘No.’

  Eve let the silence stretch, waiting to hear what Ronnie was struggling to say. She heard him swallowing, pictured him lying there, his head resting on the oversized pillow plumped by Annie. Eve gripped the mobile phone tighter, wanting to take a deep breath of her own when she heard Ronnie’s, knowing he was about to talk.

  ‘I didn’t know Shelley, but I know who killed her.’

  Chapter 47

  ‘Do you believe him?’ Hastings sat on the edge of his desk, arms crossed. Eve sat in between Cooper and Mearns, while Ferguson loitered around behind them. All five bleary-eyed but in the office within an hour of Ronnie’s call.

  ‘He believes what he’s telling me.’ Eve didn’t know what to think. ‘Says his son came to see him a year ago. Or rather he saw his son.’

  They’d been through this part once already, were going over it again, trying to make sense of it.

  ‘Standing on the street.’ Mearns sounded excited that maybe her hunch about Ronnie had been right after all. ‘Outside his house.’

  ‘Yes. Says he knew it was Shaun as soon as he saw him. Was like looking at himself when he was the same age.’

  ‘And he stood there, on the street corner, staring at the house.’ Ferguson this time, sounding less than convinced.

  ‘That’s what he said. It was snowing. Heavy. Said Shaun was standing on the pavement, not moving, snow gathering around him. Ronnie was in shock, couldn’t move from the window at first, was too scared he’d leave. Or that he wasn’t real.’

  ‘And that’s the problem.’ Mearns sighed, having to admit facts. ‘Ronnie was at the height of his drinking at that point. What’s to say he wasn’t blotto, hallucinating?’

  Eve nodded. ‘Exactly what I thought, especially when he said Shaun was gone by the time he managed to get his feet to move and went to the door, wanting to ask him in.’

  ‘What changed your mind?’

  This was as far in the story as Eve had got before they’d started asking questions.

  ‘When Ronnie told me that he woke the next morning to the news of Helen Black’s murder.’

  Eve was expecting the silence, but it was still deafening when it came.

  It was Hastings that broke it. ‘And he automatically thought it was Shaun?’

  ‘Not straight away, no. Says it niggled at him that the two incidents happened close together.’

  ‘Niggled?’ The sarcasm in Ferguson’s voice was clear. ‘That’s all it did?’

  Eve sighed. ‘I’m only repeating what Ronnie said. He wondered if it was some kind of message from Shaun. About what he’d done. To his mother. To them all.’

  ‘Bit of a long shot, isn’t it?’ Cooper seemed unwilling to buy into it. ‘Father kills mother, and son turns into a killer too? And why Helen?’

  ‘Maybe, but we all know it can happen. Look at Johnny MacNeill and his son. Both hard men, both wife beaters, both drug dealers, both rapists.’ She swallowed. ‘But what makes it probable is that Helen went to school with Shaun’s sister. She and Susie were best friends. Ronnie told me about an article that appeared in the local press afterwards: kids and teachers paying their respects, and Helen was right up there.’

  ‘Shit.’ Cooper was connecting the dots.

  ‘Tell me about it. But you’re still right that it’s a long shot, and eventually that’s what Ronnie thought. Blamed his thinking on the drink and guilt. Told himself he hadn’t seen Shaun. Got lost in the bottom of a bottle again.’

  ‘And then what?’ Hastings uncrossed his arms, more open to what Eve was saying. He rested his hands either side of him on the desk.

  ‘And then Melanie Ross. By then Ronnie was sober and dying. In the hospice. Didn’t think anything of the murder at first, but by the time Sanders was killed Ronnie knew it was Shaun.’

  Mearns frowned. ‘How?’

  ‘Ronnie had worked out the rhyme before we did. Before he knew about the tongues. When we went to visit him and told him why we were there, he knew for sure.’

  ‘Why didn’t he say anything?’

  ‘It’s his son. You heard him that day. You saw him. He wanted to believe that Shaun had gone on to a make a better life for himself.’

  ‘But he knew.’ Mearns sounded like it was all making perfect sense.

  ‘Maybe he was still clinging to that hope, even then. The guy had lived a life of guilt after what he did to his wife – his kids’ mother. Maybe he couldn’t bear the thought he was responsible for what had happened to his son too. That his actions caused all these women to die?’

  ‘Didn’t you tell him about our visit to Nancy?’ Mearns obviously didn’t want to leave anything unexplored. ‘That Shaun’s grandmother had told us about his disappearance and that she believed he was dead?’

  ‘Yes, but there was never any concrete evidence.’

  Mearns couldn’t argue with that. ‘You believe what Ronnie’s saying?’

  ‘Yes. I do. But only because I asked him the one question that you haven’t yet.’

  Mearns’ eyes widened. ‘What?’

  ‘How he knew about the rhyme.’

  She shru
gged. ‘Thought maybe he’d been as clever as you – you worked it out one murder later.’

  Eve shook her head, wishing that were true. ‘Shaun’s sister, Susie, had “Monday’s Child” hanging above her bed when they were growing up. Embroidery. Cute gift from their grandmother. At least it was until his sister died. Ronnie says Shaun became obsessed with the rhyme after that. Wouldn’t sleep without reciting it over and over.’

  Hastings looked confused. ‘Why?’

  ‘Funny how a kid’s mind can work. Things they can obsess over to make sense of chaos. But you’re talking about a kid who found his sister dead. A child whose mother had all but given up on him in her grief. A father that was unravelling as fast.’ Eve let all that sink in before continuing.

  ‘Ronnie said Shaun was being bullied at school too, for being different, for being fat, for his connection to his sister and, whether the rumour was true, for playing a role in her death. You name it. But Ronnie and his wife didn’t know about it at the time. Too wrapped up in their own stuff. And then Shaun watched his mother being murdered.’

  ‘Still doesn’t make sense of the rhyme. Why’s he killing these women?’ Mearns wasn’t sounding as sure.

  ‘Shaun found out he was born on a Wednesday. Full of woe. Maybe he believed whatever the bullies were saying. Felt that he deserved to be ignored by his parents. That he wasn’t the child they’d hoped for.’

  ‘Oh, come on. Bit of a sob story.’ Hastings stood away from the desk.

  Eve shrugged. ‘I’ve known people to kill for a lot less than what Shaun went through. We all have.’

  No one argued with her. She thought, not for the first time, about where she might’ve ended up herself, had it not been for joining the police.