How the Dead Speak

by Val McDermid

  ‘Thanks for coming,’ Tony began.

  ‘Makes a change,’ Wispy Beard said. ‘Anything to relieve the monotony.’

  Before Tony could get started, they were joined by a man he recognised as one of the Lithuanians that Matis Kalvaitis hung out with. He nodded gravely and sat down. ‘I join you,’ he said. ‘I can read but my English not good.’

  There was another man lurking behind him. The Lithuanian half-turned and said, ‘Gordo, get in here.’

  Gordo glowered, chubby arms crossed tightly over his chest, shaven head cocked to one side as if daring Tony to make something of it. ‘I don’t need to waste my time on this.’ His accent was local. Tony imagined he was the Lithuanian’s muscle, paid in tobacco or drugs or phone cards.

  ‘I’m here, you’re here. Sit down.’ There was no room for argument. The big man sat. He didn’t look happy.

  Tony managed a strained smile, trying to cover his unease. The drugs that swilled around in the prison made for unpredictable responses. If any of them were boosting their confidence with something extra, there was no knowing what might set them off.

  None of the usual group ice-breakers Tony had used in the past were going to work with this lot. No point in splitting them into pairs to learn what they could about each other in five minutes, then introduce their partner to the group. Prisoners guarded themselves too carefully for that. No point either in asking them to introduce themselves; they would simply proffer what lies seemed most utilitarian. So he began with, ‘I’m Tony. Some of you might have heard me on Razor Wireless.’

  ‘You’re the shrink,’ Pimples said.

  ‘I am. I’ve worked with a wide range of people over the years.’

  ‘Nutters,’ Gordo ground out.

  ‘Not just nutters. But one of the things I have learned is that we can improve the life chances of our kids with one simple thing. And that’s reading to them and with them.’

  ‘You got kids, then?’ Tattoo Boy spoke. It didn’t sound like a challenge, more of a genuine question. But in prison, making assumptions could get your face rearranged.

  ‘I don’t. But I was one once. Here’s what I know about kids and reading. If they have bedtime stories, if they discover the magic of books when they’re tiny, they do better at school. They concentrate better, they’re more interested in learning, and they find it easier to look at the world through someone else’s eyes. But the best thing, from your point of view, is that it builds a bond between you and your kids. Reading stories with them is something they’ll remember for the rest of their lives.’

  Silence. Gordo looked bored, the others, blank. Tony persevered. ‘I’m guessing none of your dads ever read you a bedtime story.’

  ‘You’ve got to be joking,’ Pimples confirmed. ‘He was too busy getting off his face.’

  ‘Never saw him,’ Tattoo Boy said.

  Gordo snorted. ‘Only thing my old man read me was the riot act.’

  ‘No father,’ the Lithuanian said. ‘And my mother not read.’

  Nothing from Wispy Beard.

  ‘We’re going to get some kids’ books delivered soon, so we can work with those. Right now, all we’ve got is this.’ Tony picked up the Hans Christian Andersen. ‘It’s old-fashioned fairy tales. Some of them you might know from Disney movies. But I thought we could make a start on these today.’

  ‘Make a start, how?’ Wispy Beard was paying attention now, chewing at his bitten fingernails.

  ‘I want to help you develop your reading skills.’

  Gordo unfolded his arms and slammed his hands on the table. ‘Are you saying you think we’re thick? That we can’t read?’

  ‘No. There’s a difference between being able to read on the page and being able to read aloud.’ He gestured at the Lithuanian. ‘Like your friend here who can read, but wants to improve his English reading aloud. You want to give your child the best possible experience when you share a story. Something to cherish. That’s what we’re aiming for. But even if some of you can’t read very well, there’s no shame in that. There are a lot of reasons why people can’t read, and they’re nothing to do with intelligence.’

  A mutinous stare from Gordo. His presumed boss picked his teeth with a thumbnail. The other three stared at the table.

  Tony ploughed on. ‘So what I thought we’d do was each read a bit from the story, so I can get a sense of how comfortable each of you is with reading aloud?’ Stony silence. ‘I’ll start, then. I thought we’d begin with a story called The Ugly Duckling.’ He picked up the book and began at the page he’d bookmarked. ‘“It was spring in the farmyard. Mummy Duck had laid some eggs in her nest. She had been sitting on them to keep them warm. And one sunny morning, she felt the egg shells begin to crack. She was very happy to see six little duck chicks hatch from the eggs. But when she looked at the chicks, she got a surprise.”’ He stopped and offered the book to Pimples.

  He took it reluctantly and began to read in a painfully slow monotone. ‘“One of the baby ducks looked diff . . . different from his bro . . . brothers and sisters. They were yellow and he was brown. They were little and cute and he was big and . . . clumsy. He did not fit in. All the other ducks called him names and picked on him.”’ The end of the paragraph was an evident relief. He thrust the book at Tattoo Boy who looked at it as if it might bite him.

  ‘“He was . . . “’ It was an obvious struggle. He had to sound out the words in his head, forming the shape in his mouth before he spoke it out loud. ‘“He was . . . very unhappy . . . in the farm . . . farmy . . . “’

  ‘Farmy?’ Gordo scoffed. ‘What’s a fucking farmy?’

  ‘Farmyard,’ Tony said. ‘We’re not here to have a go at each other. We’re here to support each other. We’re going to come across unfamiliar words here, and we’ll help each other.’ He smiled encouragement at Tattoo Boy, who had a thin sheen of perspiration on his top lip. ‘Do you want to carry on?’

  He nodded. ‘“In the farmyard. So he made up . . . his mind to run awe . . . away.”’ He wiped the sweat off with the back of his hand and gave Tony a thumbs-up.

  ‘Great start, both of you. Thank you.’ He nodded towards Wispy Beard. ‘Your turn.’

  He took the book and frowned at the page. ‘I’m dyslexic,’ he said.

  ‘Bollocks,’ Gordo muttered. ‘Nobody’s thick any more, are they? It’s dyslexic or what do they call it? ADHD? Total bollocks.’

  Wispy Beard flushed. ‘I’ve been tested. It’s not bollocks. But I’ll give this a try. I want to be able to share with my son. I never had the chance with my dad. He died before I was born. In Iraq.’ He took a deep breath and ran his finger along the line. ‘“One . . . nith”? No, that doesn’t make sense. One night?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Tony said.

  ‘“One night, when they weer . . . were all as . . . asleep”?’ He was guessing, clearly, and it was an effort, but he was working at it. ‘“He rep . . . crep? Crept! Out of bran.” No, that’s not it. “Out of the barn!”’ He grinned. ‘“Out of the barn. He went to the river and hid in the reds.” Reds?’

  ‘Reeds,’ Tattoo Boy said, looking over his shoulder. ‘Reeds, man. Is that them tall grass things you get beside rivers, like?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Tony said. ‘Well done, you’re going to get the hang of this when we get proper books to work with. Because you’re dyslexic, there’s a little work-around we can use to begin with. I’ll work on one particular book with you, and you can learn the story well enough to tell it to your lad. So when you get out, you can get a copy of that particular book and read it together. And it’ll help you develop your reading skills.’

  He fiddled with his beard and nodded acknowledgement at Tony. He went to pass the book to Gordo, but he slapped it away. ‘Fuck this for a game of soldiers,’ he said. ‘We’re not fucking babies.’ Tony’s scalp tightened with anxiety.

  Gordo turned to the Lithuanian. ‘It’s a bloody insult, giving us kids’ books like this to read. He comes in here, treating
us like we’re too fucking thick for proper books. Condescending cunt.’ He was on his feet now, his face plum with rage. ‘I’m not going to sit here and let him treat you like you’re a fucking retard.’

  ‘These are the books you’ll be reading to your kids. That’s why we’re working with them.’ Tony was also on his feet now, trying to keep eye contact with the furious man.

  ‘You’re supposed to be teaching us, not making fucking fools out of us.’ He waved a hand at Wispy Beard. ‘Farmy. Reds,’ he mocked. ‘Come on, boss, you’ve got more important things to do.’

  The Lithuanian leaned back in his chair and laughed. ‘Clever bastard doctor,’ he said. ‘Six months this cunt is my muscle and I never knew. You cannot read, Gordo. You are the retard, not me.’

  The man roared in fury and tipped the table over, sending it crashing to the floor. He took a step forward and grabbed Tony by the throat. ‘Don’t come the cunt with me,’ he yelled, slapping the side of Tony’s head with his free hand. It felt like an explosion inside his brain. The hand on his throat was tightening, the other hand had become a fist heading for his face. A bedlam of noise filled his head.

  Then nothing.

  47

  Everybody thinks their view of the world is civilised and appropriate. They cleave to their taboos, they know their limits. What’s amazing is how quickly we find reasons to cross those red lines.

  From Reading Crimes by DR TONY HILL

  Carol had found a spot in the dunes where she could keep obs on Harrison Gardner’s cottage. There was no exit from the back yard apart from climbing the wall, and she didn’t anticipate him choosing that as a means of leaving his property. But just in case, she’d set herself up opposite the end of the alley so she had a view along most of its length. Now she knew he was in residence, there was nothing to stop her confronting him. But she wanted to wait until darkness fell.

  There were practical reasons for that. If there was any kind of showdown on the doorstep, it would be less likely to be witnessed after nightfall. Fewer people would be around and it would be harder to see anything from a distance. But there were also psychological reasons. Daylight held few threats. But everyone knew that bad things happened after dark. And she needed all the help she could get.

  There was no escaping that what she planned was fraught with risk. Gardner hadn’t looked like a man used to physical confrontation, but people found unsuspected reserves when they were under threat. Nobody knew that better than her. And she had no backup. No team covering her, nobody who’d come running if she called.

  She’d had to fly solo in the past, but she’d been younger then. More significantly, she’d had no direct experience of what violence and violation felt like. She’d never be that gung-ho again. Not after what she’d gone through over the years.

  Carol understood intellectually that PTSD had turned her into a risk-taker. But knowing it and combatting it were two very different things. She’d come some distance thanks to Melissa, but she had no idea how fronting up Harrison Gardner would feel. The only way to find out was to do it.

  And do it unarmed, just in case.

  The afternoon wore into evening and she remained undisturbed except for the startled intervention of a labradoodle bounding through the dunes. He leapt backwards with a bark of surprise then took off in a different direction. She moved on from podcasts to an audio book to keep boredom at bay. Lee Child was the perfect choice. Improbable but somehow plausible, lots of action and an interesting setup. Carol thought that if his hero was real, after what he’d been through in twenty-odd books, he’d be in dire need of Melissa Rintoul’s services. Which reminded her to run through a set of exercises.

  Just before nine, she judged it was time. There was no sign of life on the main street. Even the dog walkers were home in front of the TV or their computer screens. A tell-tale thin line of light ran along the top of the left-hand window in Cove Cottage. Harrison Gardner was home. Settled in for the evening, doing whatever he did to pass the time in his self-imposed exile behind closed curtains.

  Carol stood up and stretched, shaking sand out of the creases in her trousers. She walked calmly out of the dunes, across the grass and paused on the edge of the road. Time to put on her old self, the one who instinctively knew how to find the weak spots in a defensive wall and barge through them. She wasn’t sure whether she could still inhabit that Carol Jordan, not now she’d come so far. But she was willing to try. For Tony’s sake, she was willing to risk losing the ground she’d so agonisingly gained.

  She opened the gate. Not a creak from the hinges. If she’d been hiding out, she’d have made damn sure her gate creaked like a Hammer Horror movie door. Four strides and she was at the door. No bell-push that she could see, just an iron knocker in the shape of an ammonite. She gave it a double tap and stood close to the door. No reply, but out of the corner of her eye, she saw a quick spill of light as the curtain eased open.

  Breathing faster now, she knocked again and this time she was rewarded by the sound of a key scraping in a lock. The door inched open, the gap curtailed by a chain. Half a face appeared, anxious lines in the forehead. It was the man she’d seen earlier and without his sunhat and wraparound sunglasses, there was no doubt about the identification. ‘Yes?’ There was nothing welcoming in his tone.

  Carol smiled. ‘Mr Gardner?’

  He shook his head but she saw a flicker of fear before he managed to hide it. ‘You’ve got the wrong house, there’s no Gardner here.’ The door began to close but Carol was too fast for him. She rammed her shoulder against it, pushing it back to the full extent of the chain.

  ‘I am your worst nightmare, Harrison,’ she hissed. ‘I am nemesis. I am the woman with nothing left to lose.’

  His eyes widened and he took an involuntary step backwards. It was all the leeway she needed. Grateful for the solid muscle she’d built during the barn renovation, Carol steadied herself and threw her whole body at the door. The screws holding the chain to the jamb tore free and the door flew open, thudding into Gardner and throwing him off balance. Before he could recover, Carol was inside, slamming the door behind her.

  ‘Get away from me,’ he screeched, rearing up against the wall. Carol grabbed him by the shirt front and hauled him away from its support then pushed him through the doorway into the room whose light she’d spotted from outside. He stumbled, bumping into a low table and falling backwards over it. He cried out and curled into a ball against a bookcase crammed with paperbacks. ‘Get out,’ he whimpered.

  ‘Or what? You’ll call the police?’ She marvelled at how easily she’d found her way back to intimidation. ‘I don’t think so, Harrison. Now get up. Don’t make me come and get you.’

  He scrambled to his feet. ‘Who the fuck are you?’

  ‘Never mind who I am. It’s who you are that counts.’ She pointed to an armchair. ‘Sit down.’ When he hesitated she raised her voice. ‘I said, sit down. Do not make me hurt you.’ This was too easy, she thought as he collapsed into the chair. She despised herself for how few scruples she had when it came to threatening a pathetic white-collar criminal. She doubted whether he’d ever thrown a punch in anger or even in drink.

  Still, she had a job to do. ‘You think you’ve got away with it, don’t you? All that money salted away, and all you have to do is lay low for a while then slip out of the country once the heat’s died down. Well, Harrison, you didn’t do your research very well. Because one of the people you thought was an easy mark is the opposite of that.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ There was a stubborn cast to his mouth which Carol was unhappy about. She wasn’t comfortable with how easy she was finding it to bully Gardner. She’d hoped he would be a complete pushover.

  ‘Let’s not play games, Harrison. I know you’re a crook, you know you’re a crook. Ponzi schemes always collapse. You just weren’t smart enough to get out of the jurisdiction before you got caught out. I appreciate you don’t want to go to jail, and that’s where
I can help you out. All I’m looking for is a repayment of the money you stole from the person I’m representing. She doesn’t want to go to the police. She’s got a grudging respect for what you did. All she wants is her money back.’ Carol leaned against the mantelpiece and swept her hand along it, consigning a crystal candlestick and a rather splendid carriage clock to smithereens. Shameful, rather than satisfying. But effective, judging by the panic on Gardner’s face.

  ‘Who? Who sent you? How did you find me?’ His voice was a stutter of syllables crashing into each other.

  ‘You should not have messed with Vanessa Hill.’

  A moment of stillness. His mouth became a thin bitter line.

  ‘What we’re going to do is very simple. You’re going to access whatever bank account has enough in it to cover what you took from Vanessa. You’re going to transfer that money to her. And then I’m going to walk out of your life. And you should consider yourself very lucky to have got off so lightly.’

  ‘And what if I don’t? What are you going to do? Beat me up?’ He gave a little snort. ‘I doubt you’ve got the stomach for it. You’re all bluff, I can tell.’

  She didn’t know where he’d got his nerve from, but it had come creeping back. ‘You could be right,’ she said. ‘But Vanessa’s another matter. She’s killed before. The only thing that’s keeping you alive right now is the prospect of her getting her money back.’

  From behind her, the chilling sound of a familiar voice. ‘She’s right, you know, Harrison.’

  48

  The strategies the predator uses to stake their claim, to preserve their territorial advantage, to fend off enemies and rivals, are constantly shifting. The faster and more effective the adaptation, the higher that predator climbs up the food chain . . .

  From Reading Crimes by DR TONY HILL

  The body language was textbook, Paula thought the minute she and Alvin walked back into the ReMIT squad room. Rutherford and Alex Fielding stood opposite each other, a metre apart, both leaning in, heads thrust forward. He towered at least half a metre over her tiny frame, but nobody would have classed her as the lesser combatant. The most extraordinary thing about the scene was that it was playing out in the middle of the room. When Carol had been leading the team, confrontations happened behind the closed door of her office.