DYING EMBERS an unputdownable psychological thriller full of breathtaking twists

by MARGARET MURPHY

  Geri walked over to Joe, who was now replacing a fuse in the plug for the jukebox.

  ‘Glad you could make it,’ Joe said and his soft Durham accent was instant balm. ‘I could do with a bit of moral support tonight.’ He finished the repair and plugged the machine in. ‘I doubt they’ll be having much use for that.’

  She smiled. ‘How’ve they been?’

  ‘Quiet,’ Joe said. ‘How about you? I mean after last night, like.’

  Geri grimaced. ‘There was a note waiting for me when I got home,’ she said quietly. ‘Blood-filled syringe, and a note.’

  ‘You’re joking me!’

  She shrugged. ‘Vince thinks I upset some of the local heavies.’

  ‘So you’re not bothered, like?’

  She smiled wanly. ‘Bothered enough to keep my “long effing teacher’s nose out”? I’d say so.’

  Joe nodded, apparently relieved.

  ‘Vince is looking into it,’ she went on. ‘But it seems all the more sinister, taken next to Ryan’s . . .’ She couldn’t finish, and Joe gave her elbow a discreet squeeze.

  ‘They will’ve thought of that,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry.’

  Geri nodded, still fighting tears. ‘You’ve got your hands full,’ she remarked, trying to distract herself from thinking about Ryan.

  ‘Actually, I’m surprised so many turned up.’

  Geri shrugged. ‘Curiosity, maybe . . . Or maybe the need to talk about what’s happened.’

  A movement over by the door caught her eye. Barry Mandel had come in. He went directly to a group of boys and girls sitting in the cafeteria area, to the right of the door, walking past Joe and Geri without a glance. Geri recognized the children as Year Nines — thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds, though they were not from her form.

  ‘Hell,’ Geri muttered. ‘What’s he doing here?’ Barry stood over the group in the café area, talking in a murmur. They looked tense, unsettled by his presence, and he seemed to revel in the control he exerted over them.

  Joe followed her line of sight. ‘Count Dracula? Beats me, but if he’s brought that streak of urine as his heavy, he’ll be wanting a couple of lumps of lead in his pockets as ballast.’

  Frank Traynor stood behind Barry, looking miserable. Geri was never quite sure why Joe disliked Frank. He was a gentle soul — the trench coat and death’s-head badge on his lapel were a poor disguise — he tried to hide behind people like Baz, but nobody was fooled. He was always willing to help out, and he was good with the younger kids. He saw Geri and Joe looking at him and glanced away, embarrassed.

  Barry seemed to sense their scrutiny and looked across. ‘Miss Simpson,’ Barry said, smiling, smooth, and Geri had a sudden picture of him in two or three years’ time, tidier, suited, hair slicked back — an oily businessman, patronizing his clientele, the untrustworthy gleam in his eye betraying his need to put one over on them.

  Geri looked past him, taking a couple of steps towards the cluster of circular tables nearby. ‘Everything all right, Frank?’ She wanted to ask him if he had seen Siân.

  Frank blushed.

  Barry thrust both hands into the deep pockets of his heavy overcoat then flung his arms open, flashing the rich, dark red silk lining. ‘Thought you might appreciate some help tonight,’ he said, barely raising his voice. ‘It’s hit some of these kids hard.’ He placed a hand on the shoulder of the boy seated in front of him. There was something in the slow, insinuating movement that made Geri shudder. The boy, obviously feeling it, too, flinched.

  ‘Kind of you to think of us,’ she said. ‘But we’ll manage.’

  Barry looked into her face with a disconcertingly bland, meaningless smile.

  ‘Well,’ he said in his implacable murmur. ‘We’ve said all we have to say on the subject.’ The children around the table shifted uncomfortably and he glanced away from Geri, scanning the others slowly, deliberately.

  Geri stood at the edge of the group of tables, watching him as he moved towards the door. He seemed to take her steady examination as a challenge and, changing course so that he had to pass close by her, he eased past, so close she could feel his breath on her cheek.

  ‘We’re two of a kind, you and me,’ he said. ‘Just helping kids kill time.’

  Geri turned angrily to face him, but he moved quickly on. Frank followed him, taking the longer route. None of the others looked up, so they missed the exchange. She glanced across to Joe, who shook his head in disbelief at the cheek of the lad.

  The tame way Frank trotted obediently after Barry made Geri suddenly furious. ‘Not staying with us tonight, Frank?’ she called out.

  Frank shot her a panicky look.

  Barry turned his attention first to Geri, then to Frank. It was gratifying to see quickly covered surprise in his face.

  ‘Frank, mate,’ he said, ‘you should’ve said. I didn’t know this was a regular gig.’

  ‘Sorry, Miss,’ he muttered. ‘Only I’m a bit busy tonight.’

  ‘Oh, yeah,’ Barry said, and although he hadn’t raised his voice at all, the silence in the club was so intense that they heard every word. ‘Life’s just one big social whirl, isn’t it, Frankie boy?’

  There was a collective sigh of released tension as the door closed behind them. Geri continued watching the door as if her anger could follow Barry into the night. Then Joe dropped a coin in the jukebox and Shania Twain’s ‘That Don’t Impress Me Much’ broke the silence.

  Geri looked over at him and he laughed. ‘Flash bastard. Did you see the lining of his coat? Suits his nickname, doesn’t he?’

  ‘He gives me the creeps, I know that.’

  ‘Don’t worry about him. He’ll get his come-uppance. Lads like him always do. Throw your weight around like he does, you’ve got to be able to back it up.’

  ‘He’s known as a tough nut at school,’ Geri said doubtfully.

  Joe gave her a slow, ironic smile. ‘Aye. At school . . .’

  * * *

  They were short on takers for the table tennis, so Joe and Geri had to make up the numbers.

  Now she sat on a bench by the table-tennis tables with a group of thirteen- and fourteen-year-olds, sitting or standing by her, drinking a glass of lemonade after winning her game, trying to get them to talk.

  ‘He’s landed us all in it, hasn’t he?’ Jay ran a hand through his mass of blond curls.

  ‘He’s landed himself in it,’ Carl replied. Carl was a little older than the others, a tall, pale boy, with a long, solemn face. His family were strongly religious, and although he wasn’t shy of expressing an opinion, he rarely spoke about his beliefs.

  ‘Yeah, well he won’t have to take the consequences.’

  Carl looked astonished. ‘Don’t you reckon? I mean I don’t see him here tonight.’

  ‘Well, yeah, if you look at it that way, but I mean he won’t have to deal with the fallout.’

  ‘Pretty extreme way of getting out of a ticking-off, wouldn’t you say?’

  One or two others muttered encouragement to Carl.

  ‘You haven’t had your dad going on, have you?’ Jay said.

  ‘How would you know?’ Carl demanded, leaning forward to make eye contact with Jay at the other end of the bench.

  This was turning into a personal confrontation, and Geri was about to intervene when Mari spoke up, blushing as the others looked at her: she lacked the confidence and sophistication of the other girls; her brown hair was coarse and badly cut, as though she had tried to trim the fringe herself, using nail scissors. She had a broad, rather flat face and heavy eyebrows, which nobody had shown her how to shape.

  ‘Miss, d’you think—’ Mari broke off. Her face was puckered with distress.

  ‘What, Mari?’

  ‘D’you think . . .’ She looked at the boys and girls around her, as if she were afraid that they would laugh at her. ‘It’s just — me mum said he’ll go to hell.’

  Geri frowned.

  ‘D’you think he will, miss?’

  The
reaction of the others surprised Geri. They didn’t have Mari’s naivety; they were poised, knowledgeable, and mostly they affected a sneering contempt for the accepted doctrine. But now, they all as one looked at her, their toughness for the moment sloughed off, and they were only children, afraid of the dark, of death and an unforgiving God.

  ‘No.’ She took a moment to clear her throat and take a breath. When she spoke, her voice, though quiet, was surprisingly firm. ‘No, I don’t think he’ll go to hell.’ The truth was she didn’t believe in hell or damnation, or life everlasting. But that wasn’t the sort of thing to bandy about if you were a Catholic teacher with ambition in a Roman Catholic high school.

  ‘Will he go to purgatory, then?’ Mari asked, her eyes full of horror.

  Geri made room on the bench, pulled Mari onto the seat next to her and put her arm around the girl.

  ‘I’ll tell you what I think,’ she said. ‘I think Ryan is where no one can hurt him, where he feels no pain and he isn’t afraid.’

  Mari’s relief was palpable. ‘D’you think so? Honest?’

  ‘Honest,’ Geri said.

  ‘Oh, man . . .’ Jay groaned. He was eyeing the table-football teams nervously.

  ‘What?’ Geri asked.

  ‘Officer Dibble’s in.’

  Vince Beresford was talking to members of the teams who were waiting their turn. He was in his civvies, but at six foot four he was an imposing presence in or out of uniform.

  ‘So what?’ she said. ‘Vince has come in before. It’s no big deal.’

  ‘All the same, I think I’ll be popping off.’ Jay got up from the bench and pulled on his jacket.

  ‘There’s no need for you to go . . .’ But it was no use. Jay left, and shortly after him, the group that Barry Mandel had been talking to earlier.

  ‘Something I said?’ Vince wondered, sitting down next to Geri.

  Joe joined them. ‘Why didn’t you come in your jam butty car with the lights blazin’ and the siren on?’ he asked.

  The children looked agog.

  ‘Look, Joe, I just thought the kids might want to talk — ask questions — whatever. I’m making myself available, that’s all.’

  Joe didn’t look convinced. Geri sent the next team of four to start their game, shooing them away from an argument she felt they shouldn’t witness.

  ‘Come on, you two . . .’ she said.

  Vince ignored her. ‘I’m not even on the case, right? It’s out of uniform division’s hands now.’

  ‘Stop giving him a hard time, Joe,’ Geri intervened. ‘It was good of you to spare the time, Vince.’

  ‘I wouldn’t worry too much about his bank balance,’ Joe said. ‘Just ’cos he’s out of uniform, doesn’t mean he’s not clocking up the hours.’

  ‘Joe!’ He shrugged and went off to adjudicate what was left of the table-football tournament. Geri turned back to Vince. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘He’s been a bit tense tonight.’

  ‘It’s all right,’ Vince said. ‘You get it from time to time — frustrated coppers resent the real thing more than villains do.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s fair, Vince, things’re just difficult at the moment.’

  Joe had said in the past that he thought Vince scared off some of their clientele — the lads most likely to be out getting into bother if they weren’t kept occupied. He thought the positive benefits of contact with a sympathetic policeman were far outweighed by the negative effects, but Geri couldn’t tell Vince that.

  He regarded her steadily, then nodded, apparently deciding it wasn’t worth arguing over.

  It turned out that the few who had remained after Sergeant Beresford’s arrival did want to ask questions and Vince was busy for the rest of the night. Why were the police still interviewing Ryan’s friends? Were they going to arrest anyone? What would happen to the body? There were a few more detailed questions about the state of the body, which Vince fielded well, bringing the discussion back to the possibility that Ryan had been experimenting with drugs, and the sad conclusion that even once is enough for things to go drastically wrong.

  The club emptied early, and they had cleared up and wiped down by nine o’clock. As Vince helped Geri cover the pool table, she became aware of his quiet interest and looked up and caught him watching her.

  ‘What?’ she asked.

  ‘You tell me.’

  She took a breath, then shook her head. ‘I don’t want to land someone in the shit just because I don’t like them.’ She pulled a ruck out of the dust sheet and glanced again at Vince.

  He was observing her with that same patient look in his smoky blue eyes.

  ‘If you find out someone else is implicated, will you prosecute?’ She raised her hand to stop him and added, ‘Not the stock answer, please, Vince. Tell me the truth.’

  ‘It’s like I told the kids — it really does depend on the circumstances, but if others are at risk, their parents should be told.’

  Joe’s mobile trilled. He put down the brush he was using and dipped into his inside pocket, wandering over to the café area for privacy. A couple of minutes later he came over.

  ‘Can you manage the rest? Bit of an emergency at work. Someone’s not turned up for an important job.’

  ‘Sure,’ Geri said. ‘No problem.’

  Vince helped her finish brushing up, then she switched off the jukebox and unhooked her coat from the stand and she and Vince walked to the door.

  ‘I know you can’t give me details,’ Geri tried again, ‘but you do know the people who are investigating . . .’

  ‘’Course I know them. We work out of the same nick.’ He flicked off the light switches.

  Geri debated with herself a moment. The brief exchange with Barry had shaken her. What had he meant by ‘killing time’?

  ‘Did you say you’d interviewed Barry Mandel?’ she asked.

  Vince frowned, concentrating. ‘Scruffy-looking, longish hair, hard-faced, calls himself Baz — you don’t like him.’

  ‘Right,’ Geri said. ‘Which is why I’m not sure if I should tell you this. I might be letting my dislike of him colour my feelings.’

  Vince waited.

  ‘He was the last person to see Ryan, wasn’t he?’

  ‘The last we know about. Ryan got off the bus in Derby Street — I told you this.’ He held her coat for her.

  ‘But you only have Barry’s word for it.’

  ‘He went straight to the Gryphon — it’s a pub on the edge of the main university campus, a bit of a hang-out for student-types. A few of his mates’ve corroborated his story.’

  ‘They would, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘Because . . . ?’

  Geri sighed, closing the club door and locking the mortise. Vince helped her to slide an extra bar through stays welded to the metal door and she clamped a padlock to each end of it.

  ‘I don’t know, Vince. I just don’t like the effect he has on some of the kids. It’s like he’s got them scared, or at least he has some hold over them. I don’t want to get him into trouble he doesn’t deserve, but if he had something to do with Ryan’s—’ She was unable to go on, suddenly choked with emotion. ‘Oh, hell!’ She fished in her handbag for a tissue and blew her nose.

  ‘Come on,’ Vince said, taking her arm through his. ‘I’ll drive you home. And I’ll pass on what you’ve said to DCI Thomas — he’s in charge of the investigation.’ They walked to his car, the only one on the car park, and he unlocked the passenger door before walking around to the driver’s side. ‘If this Barry, or Baz, or whatever he calls himself, had anything to do with Ryan’s death, Neil Thomas will ferret it out.’

  That Geri felt so much better having told Vince her concerns, she put down to the legacy of her Catholic upbringing. She hadn’t been to confession in over five years — not since the death of her mother — but she still felt the need to purge herself occasionally.

  Vince dropped her at her front gate, refusing the offer of a drink and appearing suddenly awkward. ‘Well,’
Geri said, giving him a quick peck on the cheek, ‘thanks again.’

  He waited until she was through the front door before driving off. Geri made herself a strong coffee and, taking her briefcase from the foot of the stairs, climbed to the first floor. Hers and Nick’s bedroom was on the same landing as her study, but the heating had switched itself off — an economy measure, since their last gas bill — and it was cold enough for a mist to rise from her coffee mug. After a brief deliberation, she decided it would be warmer marking her Sixth-Form homework in bed.

  The door was open a crack, and warm lamplight spilled onto the carpet. She elbowed the door open and saw Nick propped up in bed, reading.

  ‘Hi,’ he said. Since Monday they had called an uneasy truce, and Nick was chastened, almost apologetic.

  ‘You’re in bed early,’ Geri said. It was barely nine thirty, and Nick generally sat up to watch the late film.

  ‘Nothing on telly. And anyway, it’s freezing downstairs.’

  ‘You could’ve turned the heating back on.’

  He didn’t answer this, but the wounded silence that followed made her think he was implying that he didn’t really feel he had the right. Perhaps she was being over-sensitive. She undressed and slipped into bed beside him, sipping her coffee while she marked the scripts. The previous week she had asked the class to find a newspaper article on geology or palaeontology and write an essay on the subject. Most showed scant research and a distinct lack of commitment. She had handed back the scrappier work on Monday to be redone, with a stern warning that they were to incorporate properly referenced additional material. Given the turmoil of the last few days, it was to their credit — or perhaps a measure of her fierceness during Monday’s lesson — that the majority had made the Wednesday-morning deadline.

  Barry Mandel’s was better than the rest — he had a good command of English and he had evidently looked up one or two references in his biology text books since his first desultory attempt. Siân’s was carefully presented, but still lacked insight. Poor Siân. If Geri had known when she handed the work back on Monday that she had spent Sunday worrying about Ryan’s whereabouts, she would never have asked her to do the work again. It was typical of the girl’s conscientiousness that, despite her ordeal on Monday night, she had somehow found the self-control to sit down and write the essay out again. Siân hadn’t been in school on Tuesday or today, Wednesday, but she had got the work in via a friend. Aidan’s work was marred as always by exclamation marks, triple question marks and overuse of capitalization. The name at the top of the next script gave her a jolt. Ryan Connelly. She had stuffed the resubmitted scripts in the same folder as the marked papers. She read the opening paragraph.