DYING EMBERS an unputdownable psychological thriller full of breathtaking twists
Page 30
‘Tell him yourself,’ Miss Hepple said.
Dean looked over his shoulder, taking it slowly, not wanting any unpleasant surprises. ‘You mean . . . ?’
‘The other shoulder,’ she said. ‘And he’s smiling.’
He whipped round, his eyes wide. ‘I can’t see nothing.’
She laughed. ‘Isn’t that why you’ve come to me?’ She patted his hand. ‘Not everyone’s got the gift.’
‘Where is he?’ he asked, frightened, despite his attempt to appear cool.
Miss Hepple indicated a spot to his left. ‘He says if you’ve got something to say, you might as well come right out with it.’
‘All right,’ he said, turning around in his chair and resting one arm along the top. ‘Okay, you asked for it . . . You’re a daft bloody twat — sorry miss, but he is. If I got off the bus in the middle of bloody nowhere, what would you say to me — eh, Ryan? “Stick with your mates”, you always said. “They look out for you, you look out for them.” What the hell did you think you were playing at?’
He stopped, breathless and tearful and, stared at the blank space next to him until Miss Hepple spoke.
‘He says he’s sorry for putting you through all that. He says it’s not your fault — you’ve to stop blaming yourself.’
‘It’s too bloody late for that.’
‘He was tricked. He says he felt weird.’
‘Baz slipped him a Mickey.’
‘He felt sick . . .’
Dean nodded. ‘I already know all that.’ He eyed Miss Hepple hungrily, waiting for her to tell him what he had come to find out.
She closed her eyes again. The voice she heard was clear and strong, as real as the voices on the radio she had left on in her bedroom. She felt faint; a tremor of fear ran through her as she said, ‘It was someone he trusted.’
An icy chill coursed through Dean and he shuddered violently.
‘Someone everyone trusts . . .’ she went on. ‘I thought he’d help.’ She relayed the words she heard in her head directly to the boy. ‘He knows the area, he’ll get me home all right.’ She paused, opening her eyes and blinking in the light, then she said in a small, shocked voice, ‘But he didn’t.’
A spark of anger kindled and began to glow in Dean’s gut. For the first time in weeks there was hope — a perverse, twisted kind of hope, but it was better than the cold emptiness he had felt, the bitter recriminations against himself since that day in Mrs Golding’s office.
‘Who is it?’ Dean asked. ‘Where is he?’
Miss Hepple touched the swelling beneath her eyes and ran her tongue around the inside of her lip. The teeth had mashed the soft tissues when he had hit her.
Until now, she hadn’t known it herself; but she had experienced one of her blinding intuitions, a spiritual epiphany, when she truly felt in touch with the spirit world. It made perfect sense on a purely practical level, too — how else could he have known so much? How else had he been able to tell her precisely how Ryan and Frank died? Why shouldn’t she tell the boy? He had a right to know. A right to see justice done.
She put from her mind the notion that what she wanted was revenge, not justice. She was helping Mrs Connelly’s child — both her children — to find peace.
* * *
Vince sat within three feet of the TV screen. He had skimmed through the first hour of video tape and had reached the crucial point. The last couple of hours at work he had spent waiting for Garvey to tap him on the shoulder and demand what he had done with the missing videotape, but its absence had not been noticed — at least not yet — the CID having run through it and presumably got what they needed, including the incriminating footage of him talking to the rent boys.
The concourse was almost empty. The boy he thought of as James Dean was standing alone, leaning against a wall below the poster advertising vodka. For several minutes the boy stood against the wall, shifting position, slumping into a moodier pose when a crowd of commuters got off a train and swept through the concourse on the way out. Then a tall, nervous-looking youth came into shot from the direction of the main entrance. Frank. He hesitated, his eyes darting anxiously about him, then he went over to the boy. Vince leaned closer.
The doorbell rang.
‘Shit!’ He had taken the phone off the hook, but the curtains stood open and his sitting room looked out onto the street. He fumbled the video control unit, first pressing Pause instead of Stop, finally managing to eject the tape as the bell rang a second time. They weren’t going to go away.
Geri had her finger poised to ring again when he opened the door. She apologized immediately.
‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s okay. Come in.’ He held the door for her, directing her through to the sitting room on the right of the hallway.
He saw her take in the length of shelving he’d built along one wall, stacked with videos, books and CDs; the sofa bed near the door and his large-screen TV, set into one of the alcoves at the side of the fireplace.
‘Sit down,’ he said, then hearing the peremptory tone in his own voice, added, ‘Please.’
Geri went to the sofa. He turned off the TV, now broadcasting a static snowstorm, but he didn’t sit with her; instead he stood with his back to the door, his arms folded.
* * *
He looked handsome in an understated way, Geri thought. Black jeans and a crew-neck sweater, watching her closely with his blue-grey eyes.
‘I’ve interrupted your evening,’ she began.
‘I wasn’t doing much,’ he said, but his edgy manner told her otherwise.
‘I’ve come to ask for your help,’ she said simply. She told him everything that had happened since the previous day, culminating in the name Frank had given Lauren.
Vince seemed distracted. He didn’t respond at first, and Geri wondered if he had been listening. Then he broke the silence.
‘We’re already looking for the girl,’ he said. ‘But it’s useful to have a name. Taxing’s a problem that waxes and wanes — we had problems eight or nine months ago, but we stamped on the culprits and they went away for a while. They’re small-time criminals, hard to pin down. If the Big Issue manager hadn’t heard about it, we certainly wouldn’t. I’ll talk to him on Monday — see what I can do.’
‘What about the name — Georgie?’
‘Your friend isn’t sure it was Frank Traynor who called her,’ he said doubtfully. ‘And she can’t be sure about the name he gave her, either . . .’
‘She’s sure it was Frank,’ Geri said growing increasingly desperate. If she couldn’t persuade Vince to help them, how could she hope to convince CID? ‘Come and talk to Lauren,’ she pleaded. ‘Let her explain.’
He shook his head slowly. ‘I can’t do that.’
‘You said you weren’t busy. Please, Vince.’
‘I’ve just finished a double shift, and I’m on again at eight tomorrow morning,’ he said. ‘Besides, there’s no point. I’ll pass on the info to DCI Thomas and he’ll be in touch.’
Geri realized she was being dismissed.
‘I’m sorry to have taken up your time,’ she said, bitterly disappointed.
‘I’m just tired, Geri.’ He passed a hand over his face. ‘Why don’t you have a coffee? Or I think I’ve got some beer in the fridge.’
‘No,’ Geri said. ‘Thanks, but I promised I’d be back.’
He moved out of her way and showed her to the front door. As she slid behind the wheel of her car, she saw him watching her from the doorway and she felt a sudden spasm of uneasiness. She put her foot down and pulled away too fast, skidding on the wet surface.
Vince shut the door and went back into his sitting room. He pushed the tape back into the machine and pressed Play.
Frank stood next to James Dean. A third figure came into camera shot, dressed in uniform, watching them both. As he approached, Frank backed away.
Vince was out of the house before the tape had ejected. He ran a couple of red lights on his way to the railway station. If he was
stopped, he wasn’t likely to get a sympathetic hearing, but the way he saw it, he could risk a fine for speeding or miss his chance altogether. There had been two witnesses at the station that night: Frank and James Dean. Now there was just James Dean.
He parked on double yellow lines in Handley Street, leaving his hazard lights on. On the concourse, he scanned the faces. It was a bit early, but he was confident he’d find him there: Jimmy Dean was keen.
The boy saw Vince first. Vince saw him check that his jacket collar was up and adjust his pose slightly to cast shadows on one side of his face.
Vince walked towards him, picking up the pace as he got closer. The sullen pout turned to a confused frown, then the boy pushed himself away from the wall and his eyes opened wide. By then it was too late — Vince was on him. He took him by the elbow and started steering him towards the entrance.
‘Hey! What the fuck, man?’ The boy struggled, tugging, twisting, trying to get away. His voice rose to a shout, then cracked, and he was screaming.
Two of the boy’s co-workers came at him from the right, looking wary, but willing to have a go.
‘He’s a pervert!’ the boy screamed. ‘I’m being abducted!’
People were turning to see what the noise was about. There was a danger that someone would try to stop him. Vince dipped into his inside pocket as a security guard approached him, hands raised, palms down, placatory.
‘Police officer,’ Vince yelled, showing his warrant card. ‘He’s under arrest.’
‘I haven’t done nothing!’ The boy’s voice had risen to a squeak: he was scared, close to tears, and people began to gather, moving in behind the security guard.
Vince had to get the boy out of there before someone got heroic.
‘Done nothing?’ He held the boy one-handed while he checked through his pockets. He came out with a plastic wrap. It contained a white crystalline powder. He held up the packet for the crowd to see and felt the boy physically slump: all the fight had gone out of him.
‘Now back off,’ Vince shouted, ‘or I’ll do you for obstruction!’ The crowd parted reluctantly, and he hustled the boy out of the station and into his car.
For a while he sat with the packet dangling between his index and middle fingers. The boy slouched low in his seat. ‘What’s your name?’ Vince asked, after a long silence.
No reply. Vince grunted. ‘I’ll call you James,’ he said.
The boy’s head jerked up. ‘Jamie.’
‘What?’
‘My name’s Jamie, not James.’
Vince grinned. ‘You’re kidding me.’ He saw that the boy was serious. ‘Okay — Jamie, what’s in the packet?’
The boy shrugged.
‘Let me guess.’ He tilted the packet to catch the light from the streetlamps. The crystals glittered in the pink-tinged glow. ‘Crank?’
The boy shifted uncomfortably.
‘Working nights can be tough going for a lad your age. Crank would keep you going, though, wouldn’t it?’
The boy looked out of the window, refusing to answer.
‘Methamphetamine,’ Vince said. ‘Better than speed. Some like it more than coke — and it’s certainly cheaper, isn’t it?’
‘I wouldn’t know.’
‘This your first time, is it?’
‘It’s a plant, and you know it.’
‘You’ve never seen it before.’
‘Not until you took it out of my pocket.’
‘Oh . . . you’re saying I put it there.’
The boy rolled his eyes and said, ‘Duh . . .’
‘Well, since you’ve never taken it before, let me tell you about crank, Jamie.’ He looked down at the boy, and reassessed his age, revising his estimate downwards by a couple of years.
‘Crank makes you feel like Superman. You can do anything, be anything, take on anyone. I tried to arrest a lad who’d been smoking crank. Want to know what happened?’
Jamie shrugged.
‘Go on, your turn to guess.’
Jamie looked straight ahead. ‘Bet he left you flat-footed.’
‘You might say that.’ Vince thought about it for a few moments. ‘You might say he did . . .’
He stared at the packet of sugary crystals for a few seconds, then turned his gaze, cold and hard, on the boy. ‘He walked off a roof.’
Jamie gasped.
‘Straight off.’ For a fraction of a second the air seemed to lift him up — it just held him there, then—’ Vince brought his hands together with a crack! ‘Piss, blood and brains all over the pavement.’
Jamie scrabbled at the door, trying to get out, but the handle was missing. Vince took hold of him by the lapels and shoved him back in the seat.
‘Think you’re Superman, Jamie? Well this—’ He held the packet centimetres from the boy’s nose. ‘This is kryptonite.’
40
The bike’s kick-start cranked and coughed twice, then the engine caught, and the Bonny rumbled and growled as Nick backed it out of the workshop. Lauren looked out of the sitting room window onto the street. He was fully kitted out: leathers, boots and helmet. Seemed he had fought off the ’flu. Once on the street, he flicked a switch and the taillights flared. A bag was strapped to the pannier.
‘Oh, God,’ Lauren sighed. Poor Geri.
He checked over his shoulder, then roared off into the night, leaving an echo, and a faint shimmer of light behind him.
Lauren had come to a decision: she would telephone Meredith and tell her everything. She wasn’t relishing explaining how she came to tell Geri about Frank’s call to the Samaritans; she should have spoken to her supervisor before saying anything, but the revelation that Frank was already dead when she’d got taken a phone call from him the previous Sunday had come as a shock, to put it mildly. Still, Lauren thought, feeling an uncomfortable warmth in her cheeks, it was unprofessional of her to have blurted it all out like that.
She got as far as lifting the receiver when the doorbell rang. She hesitated, then, with a shrug, she replaced the handset in its cradle and went to the door.
‘Joe!’ She stepped back to let him in, but he remained on the doorstep.
‘Tell Geri,’ he said. ‘I’ll wait in the car.’
‘She’s not here.’
‘Shit! I can’t guarantee she’ll stay put.’ He half-turned, looking back towards the car.
‘Adèle? You’ve found her?’
‘Aye.’ He glanced over his shoulder to his car, idling at the kerb. ‘Look, what d’you want to do?’
Lauren considered: if they waited for Geri to get back, they might lose Adèle again. But Adèle trusted Geri, and she didn’t even know her or Joe . . .
‘Where is she?’ she asked. ‘I’ll leave Geri a note.’
‘Hard to explain. It’s an old storehouse near the docks. We’ll phone her when we get there.’
Lauren dashed back inside and grabbed her bag and coat.
The warehouse was in a part of town Lauren had never ventured into before. The buildings had a greasy, glistening sheen in the continuing rain. It was darker on this side of the city; there were fewer streetlamps, and the damaged ones hadn’t been repaired — and of course there was no light in the blank, mournful windows of the deserted buildings.
Joe drove off the main road, down a series of potholed and ruined cobbled side streets. Brown tufts of last summer’s weed growth colonised the cracks in the paving stones. Joe cut the engine and lights and they coasted the last twenty-five yards down a slight incline, coming to a halt outside a two-storey building with a flat roof.
He took a torch from the boot of his car, shining the beam along the side of the building to indicate the path.
‘Mind you don’t trip,’ he cautioned. The gap between this and the next building was wide enough to take a car, but the cobbles had been torn up in places and bricks and rubble were strewn about.
‘See that door?’ He spoke softly, keeping close to Lauren, catching her by the elbow once, when she stumbled.
‘Where is she?’ she whispered.
‘This way.’ He went to a staircase in the centre of the floor space which led to an office mezzanine which took up one third of the building’s length and seemed to be little more than a wooden box on stilts. ‘Keep to the sides — the wood’s a bit soggy in the middle.’
‘Okay,’
‘No need to whisper now,’ he said in his normal voice. ‘There’s only one way out of here, and that’s it.’ He nodded to the door they had just come through.
Lauren saw a faint glow on the landing as she mounted the steps. The air smelled of damp plaster; she could taste it on her tongue, and it caught at the back of her throat.
Wood-framed partitions in painted pine planking divided off the area up to a height of about four feet. The upper sections of the partitions consisted of window panels, about nine inches square.
‘She’s using one of the offices.’ Joe gestured for Lauren to go forward while he guarded the stairs. She went to the office at the end of the row, where there was as faint glimmer of light through the windows. She hesitated, then knocked softly before turning the door handle.
A single candle stood on the floor beside a sleeping bag and bedroll.
‘She’s gone.’
‘Shit!’ Joe worked towards her, checking each office on either side of the corridor before moving on. ‘Here.’ He beckoned her to follow him to the far end of the room, which lacked a window panel and where they would be invisible from outside.
‘We’ll wait for a bit — see if she comes back. Maybe she went for a pee or something.’