DYING EMBERS an unputdownable psychological thriller full of breathtaking twists

by MARGARET MURPHY

  She realized she had been putting off her return, hoping that if she delayed long enough, Nick would have given up on her and gone out for a drink. With any luck she would be asleep by the time he got back.

  The security lamp came on as she walked up the front path. The hall light was a soft glimmer behind the fleur-de-lis pattern of the stained-glass panelling in the front door.

  Geri took a breath and fished in her coat pocket for her keys. ‘Be pleasant,’ she told herself. ‘Stay calm.’ She put down her briefcase, consciously willing her fingers to uncurl from the handle, and searched in the other pocket of her coat.

  ‘Shit.’ She unfastened the clasp on her briefcase and rooted around inside. No keys. The security light clicked off and she was left with only the dim incandescence from the hallway, promising warmth.

  ‘Damn and bugger.’ She resigned herself to the inevitability of Nick’s ridicule and rang the doorbell. Its shrill, brassy ring echoed through the house, but there was no response; no lights as doors opened, no rapid pounding of footsteps on the stairs. The house was empty.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ She turned away from the door, then turned back, thinking she had heard something — a noise inside the house. She waited a few moments longer, but no one came, and she kicked the door, cursing, then went down the front steps. It was too damned cold to be out on a night like this. She could walk back into town and find a restaurant to eat, but there would be no guarantee he would be home when she got back. Then she remembered that the library closed at seven on Mondays; Lauren would be home soon. Best wait for her. But what if she’d decided to go out straight from work? Hell. Geri stood at the end of the drive, stamping her feet and looking up and down the road for signs of rescue.

  Geri had inherited the house on the death of her mother, five years previously. She was nineteen, alone in the world, unable to face the prospect of selling up and losing the last ties she had with her past, and unable to afford what was left of the mortgage after her mother died. And the upkeep of a large Edwardian property was a scary prospect at the time.

  Lauren, ten years her senior, had been supportive without being patronizing, she paid her rent on time and was scrupulously fair about making contributions to her share of the food and the quarterly bills. It was a huge relief to Geri and, until recently they had managed well.

  She didn’t want to think about the reasons why she had started slipping into debt and after a couple of minutes, she became restless, and tried Nick’s workshop. It was locked. She opened the side gate and walked down the narrow path at the side of the house. The moonlight cast blocks of deep shadow onto the lawn, but the paved area at the back of the house and the path down to the vegetable garden and the shed were well lit, the moss between the herringbone pattern of bricks embossed in black. Geri set down her briefcase and blew on her fingers as she sized up the flimsy hasp and tiny padlock that secured the shed door. ‘Lever,’ she murmured, casting about for something that might do the job. There was nothing. Not so much as a garden trowel.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ she mouthed, her breath making two white puffs of moisture, rising rapidly into the freezing air. ‘God, I’ve got to get out of this cold!’

  She reached for one of the decorative stones that edged the path. It was frozen in place and her fingers slipped off it, the cold cutting to the bone.

  ‘Shit!’ She tucked hands under her arms and worked at the stone with her heel. Eventually it loosened and she picked it up, juggling it from hand to hand, as she carried it along the path to the shed, then used it to take a couple of swings at the padlock.

  As she raised her arm a third time, a high-pitched, frightened voice called out, ‘I’ve rung the police. You’d better get out of here right now!’

  Geri dropped the stone. ‘Lauren? It’s all right. It’s me.’

  Lauren came around the corner of the house, a tall, thin woman, bundled up against the cold, holding a couple of books up in front of her, as barriers or weapons, Geri couldn’t decide which.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ Lauren demanded. ‘You scared me half to death!’

  ‘Forgot my keys,’ Geri said, feeling foolish.

  ‘Oh, well — that explains everything.’

  ‘Tell me you’ve got yours,’ Geri said, lifting one foot off the ground away from the penetrating cold.

  Lauren held up her key ring and jingled the keys, and Geri gave a yell of relief — Lauren often got up so late that she left her keys in the house in her rush to get to work on time.

  ‘I heard you leave this morning,’ she said. ‘I thought I might be needing them.’

  Geri winced. ‘Sorry.’ She crunched back down the path and retrieved her briefcase, hurrying Lauren ahead of her. ‘You were on duty last night, weren’t you?’ Lauren did voluntary work for the Samaritans, and Sunday had been one of her regular overnight stints.

  ‘I got in at half seven. I was just nodding off when Armageddon erupted.’

  Geri mouthed ‘sorry’ again, at her back.

  Lauren let them in. The house was warm and, flinging her briefcase aside, Geri rushed to a radiator and hugged it.

  ‘You’ll get chilblains,’ Lauren warned.

  ‘It’ll be worth it.’

  Lauren set the two books down on the window ledge. She had a superb profile: delicate bone structure, a finely chiselled nose. Her hair was feathered onto her face, emphasising her elfin features. She took off her coat and scarf and hung them up, seemed to debate about removing her cardigan, then decided to keep it on.

  How can she look elegant in flat heels and two layers of woollies? Geri wondered.

  ‘What are you looking at?’ Geri demanded, and Geri realized she’d been staring.

  She shifted her gaze to squint at the book titles beside her friend. ‘Quilting Magic and Fun with Soft Furnishings. If it’d been a real burglar, you could always have bored him to death with those.’

  Lauren shot her a withering look. ‘I’ll brew up, and leave you to commune with the central heating system, shall I?’

  After a hot mug of tea, a hotter microwave chicken korma and a couple of glasses of wine, Geri felt more mellow. ‘I really am sorry you lost your beauty sleep,’ she said. ‘Nick can be such a pig sometimes.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have been so bad, except he kept flouncing about the house after you’d gone, rattling tins and slamming doors till I gave up and came downstairs.’

  ‘Wait till I see him.’

  ‘Get the murderous gleam out of your eye. He was apologetic. Said he thought I was out — he’d forgotten I was on the afternoon shift.’

  ‘Sure he wasn’t just hoping for a sympathetic ear?’

  ‘I’d’ve told him to call back during office hours.’

  Geri had to smile. Lauren was a sucker for a sob story, but she couldn’t bear to be thought a soft touch. ‘Still, you do look all-in.’

  ‘That’s my bad side.’ Lauren turned her face a little and lifted her chin.

  ‘Here—’

  ‘Maybe in a dark corner with subdued lighting . . .’

  ‘Honesty is a grossly overrated virtue,’ Lauren said with a sniff.

  Geri laughed. ‘My mum called it the eighth deadly sin.’

  They sat for a few minutes, listening to Alison Moyet singing that she might as well give up the fight, because he’d always convince her he’s right.

  Geri snorted. ‘Not much chance of that, cock,’ she muttered into her wine glass.

  Lauren glanced up from her book on quilting. ‘Can I ask you something?’ she said.

  ‘Anything.’

  ‘What the hell were you doing, attacking the shed with a rock? His bike, I could understand, but the shed . . .’

  ‘It’s freezing out there. I was looking for shelter.’

  Lauren laughed. ‘You’re cracked.’

  ‘Unlike you, I don’t wear several layers of thermals.’

  ‘Unlike me, you don’t feel the cold.’

  ‘I bloody did tonight . . .’ G
eri took a slurp of wine, aware that she was drinking too quickly, mutinously telling herself she had a right to the odd night off from marking books. ‘How do they do it?’

  ‘How do who do what?’

  ‘Homeless people. In weather like this.’

  ‘We had a few calls last night,’ Lauren said. ‘People desperate for an emergency shelter.’

  ‘Did you find somewhere for them?’

  ‘Places to try, at least . . .’

  They fell silent. Geri was thinking of Adèle, who didn’t like such places, and would rather sleep rough than use them.

  ‘I almost bought a pair of boots in the sales. I was that cold,’ Geri said.

  ‘Almost? Too tight?’

  Geri shook her head. ‘One was missing — who the hell nicks one boot?’

  Lauren laughed suddenly. ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘Go on then,’ Geri said, eager for something to make her smile, something to take her mind off Dean’s uncharacteristic behaviour and Ryan’s mysterious non-appearance at school that day.

  ‘Guess,’ Lauren challenged.

  ‘I don’t know — one-legged shoplifters?’

  ‘Foot fetishists.’

  Geri pulled a face. ‘You’re winding me up.’

  Laughing, Lauren explained. ‘They hang around shoe shops, waiting for women to try on shoes, then they pick them up and sniff them.’

  ‘And if they take a particular fancy to them, they smuggle them out of the shop and take them home? Yuk! I don’t think I’ll ever shift that image. Every time I try on a pair of shoes . . .’ She thought about it for a moment. ‘What would you do with a caller who told you something like that?’

  Lauren shrugged. ‘Advise him to seek help. Give him a couple of numbers to ring.’ She caught Geri’s expression. ‘Not like that! Counsellors, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Oh,’ Geri said solemnly.

  Lauren arched an eyebrow. ‘So, what would you do?’

  ‘How should I know . . . Suggest retraining as a chiropodist, I suppose.’

  Lauren collapsed, giggling and threw a cushion at Geri, who caught it and lobbed it back.

  The front door slammed and they both froze momentarily, then Geri crossed her eyes and Lauren roared with laughter, covering her face with the cushion to stifle the noise.

  Nick opened the door of the sitting room and looked at the two of them. The slight glazing of his eyes, and the way he held on to the doorknob told Geri that he’d had a few more than his usual two or three pints. For an instant, Geri saw her father. It was her tenth birthday, and he was drunk, wearing the suit he had left for work in three days previously. He had stood in the doorway just as Nick did now, shamefaced yet defiant, and Geri had no trouble getting her laughter under control.

  ‘Enjoying yourselves?’ he asked.

  ‘Talking shop,’ Geri answered.

  ‘What’s for dinner?’

  ‘Whatever’s in the freezer.’

  He stood for some moments as if undecided about whether to say more, then he muttered something about a takeaway and blundered out.

  ‘Glad I’m wearing my thermals,’ Lauren said.

  ‘Yeah, well, he pisses me off.’ There was a silence, then Geri stood up. ‘I’ve a couple of calls to make,’ she said. ‘Might as well do a bit of marking while I’m at it.’ Suddenly marking 7A’s attempts at poetry seemed an attractive option after all.

  ‘In that case,’ Lauren said, gingerly placing the cushion on the sofa beside her, and uncurling herself from her reclining position, ‘I might just get an early night.’

  Geri knew Nick wouldn’t disturb her in her study; she wasn’t yet ready to speak to him, especially with a few pints pickling his brain cells — besides, it wouldn’t be fair to put Lauren through another sleepless night.

  She telephoned Dean’s mother first, feeling guilty that she hadn’t done it earlier. She kept the home phone numbers of all the members of her form in her teachers’ planner. The school secretary had told her that when Mrs Connelly came to pick Dean up, she looked pretty rough herself. The phone was answered on the first ring.

  ‘Ryan?’

  For a moment Geri was confused. Mrs Connelly sounded distressed, almost desperate. ‘Mrs Connelly, it’s Miss Simpson, Dean’s form tutor.’ She heard a sound at the other end, like a muffled sob. ‘I heard he was sent home,’ Geri went on. ‘Is he okay?’

  Another sob, and then a few whispered words of explanation to someone else in the room. ‘He’s . . . well he’s not so good, love. None of us is. You see . . .’

  ‘Is it Ryan?’ Geri asked, filling the gap. ‘Is he all right?’

  ‘We don’t know, love,’ Mrs Connelly said, trying to keep control of her voice. ‘We just don’t know. He’s not . . . He didn’t come home yesterday.’

  ‘Have you called the police?’

  ‘They say they’ll look into it, but all they’ve done is go around to his aunties and uncles, asking stupid bloody questions. If they want to know anything, I can tell them. I’m his mother—’

  Geri heard a man’s voice in the background. ‘Aye,’ Mrs Connelly said. Then, with a sigh, ‘Aye, all right, I’ll ask her.’

  ‘Anything,’ Geri said, eager to help.

  ‘That police sergeant. The one that comes into school. Could you have a word with him? Only our Ryan wouldn’t stop out like this. Everyone’s out looking for him — his dad’s only just got back — but it’s not the same, we need help.’

  ‘Of course,’ Geri stuttered. ‘I’ll talk to him — I’ll do what I can.’

  As she keyed in Vince Beresford’s number, her fingers trembling, she wondered if the sergeant’s request that she phone him had anything to do with Ryan’s disappearance.

  She was ready to give up when he answered. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I was in the shower. I wanted to ask you about—’

  ‘Ryan.’

  ‘You’ve heard.’

  ‘His mother just told me. Vince, he’s not the sort to go off without telling someone.’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’

  ‘His mother’s distraught. Can’t you—’

  ‘We’re doing all we can,’ he said before she could finish. ‘First we check with relatives and friends — he was last seen on a bus heading out of town on Saturday night, but he got off early.’

  ‘On his own?’

  ‘So his mate says.’

  ‘Who was it?’

  ‘The mate? Baz something.’

  ‘Barry Mandel.’

  ‘You don’t like him.’

  ‘It shows, does it? Why can’t you search the area where he got off the bus?’

  ‘Money, Geri.’ It was said gently, apologetically. ‘Under normal circumstances, a missing person case stays with uniform for thirty-six hours; after that, it’s passed on to CID. They might organise a search, but something like that is very labour-intensive; you have to be able to justify it to the management.’

  ‘Justify it! Tell the management to talk to his mother — she’ll give them justification!’

  ‘We don’t enjoy penny-pinching, Geri.’

  ‘I know,’ Geri said, tiredly. ‘I know, Vince, but it seems harsh, weighing a boy’s life against a balance sheet.’

  ‘He’ll probably show up at home tonight, the worse for wear, feeling sorry for himself.’

  In the pause that followed, Geri had an awful premonition that Ryan wasn’t ever going to come home.

  Vince spoke again. ‘I’ve asked the patrols to keep an eye open, and I phoned round or dropped in at all the likely places myself, before I came to the school this afternoon.’

  ‘Likely places?’

  ‘Nicks, hospitals, bus depots, the city-centre stations, arcades, a few caffs known to be hang-outs for teenagers — I’ve even tried the emergency shelters . . . No one answering Ryan’s description.’

  Geri looked out over the garden. It was well below freezing outside, and no prospect of a let-up in the icy weather. The trees had accumulated a crys
talline fuzz of hoar frost; it dusted the branches and twigs and bearded the edges of the evergreen leaves. What if Ryan was hurt? At these temperatures he wouldn’t stand a chance.

  * * *

  Adèle was looking forward to getting back to her place. She wouldn’t call it home, she’d reserved that name for her flat, when she finally got one, a proper place, fit for the word, where she could put her name over the bell-push, her plants and knick-knacks in the kitchen and hall and bedroom. Hot water on tap. Locks on the door. Maybe a radio — telly gave her a headache.

  She smiled, thinking about Miss Simpson — she was so nice. One day, she would tell her — not just the good bits, the things she wanted for the future — but what it had been like for her on the streets. It wouldn’t be like talking to the social services, or the GP Paul fixed her up with. Bastard treated her like she was some kind of leper — or an idiot. Both.

  Miss Simpson listened in the way that Paul did. You felt like you were telling him facts, things that happened to you, things you’d done. It wasn’t like you had to apologize — you didn’t have to tell him you were sorry or ashamed. He knew how hard it was just to live through the night on the street, and he knew you did things you weren’t proud of, but you could tell him, so he’d know which was the best way to go, the pitfalls to look out for.

  In her rucksack she had a bottle of mineral water — for making hot coffee — fresh milk, a loaf of bread, butter (the real thing, spreadable, on offer at LoCost) and a packet of chocolate biscuits. She didn’t usually splash out, but on a cold night you needed something to get you through. Anyway, a couple of people had given her a quid and not wanted a magazine, so she was feeling flush.

  The office buildings stopped suddenly, as if a line had been drawn at the edge of the map and the planners had decided that next to the commercial centre, they would build the slums. It was striking the way the city ended and the tenements began, five-high blocks of dreary grey, with stone steps to each landing and no lifts, and emanating from each dark stairway the overpowering reek of urine. Built in the fifties as shining new symbols of hope, replacements for the back-to-backs flattened during the Blitz, now empty and falling down, they acted as a firebreak between the city-centre shops and the disused warehouses near the ship canal.