‘He said himself he was a strange kid – loved gore and horror. He couldn’t remember if he got like that because of the stories his dad told him or if he was like that anyway and that’s why his father told him the things he did.’
‘Do you remember him ever saying he’d gone back there as an adult?’
‘Yes. I’d forgotten all about it, or more likely just didn’t give it much thought at the time. When he was in a dark mood, he’d go walking around the neighbourhood. Sometimes he’d tell me where, most often he wouldn’t. But I do remember him saying a few times that he’d walked up North Vermont to Glendower to look at that house and peer in the windows. I thought it was strange, but it was Ethan, and Ethan was strange.’
Salgado sprung up out of his chair. ‘Marianne, we’ve got to go. You’ve been a big help, I mean it. Cally, let’s move. And call a paramedic, get them to Glendower Place in Los Feliz.’
‘Wait a minute. I’m still not sure I’m getting this. Salgado, I can tell you’re hot for this house, but what makes you so sure it’s right?’
He was already on his way to the door, beckoning her to follow him.
‘The Perelson murder took place in the late 1950s. The reason it’s known as the Los Feliz Murder House is that it’s been unoccupied ever since. Another family bought it right after the murder, but only used it for storage. They didn’t even clear it! Old radiators, old carpets, old curtains – all left from the day that nut killed his wife.’
She was through the office door before he could say another word or take another step.
CHAPTER 53
‘Why have I never heard of this murder house?’ O’Neill demanded as they lurched onto the street and past the gleaming white tower of City Hall with Salgado at the wheel of his Lexus.
‘Because you’re not an Angelino. You’re some strange, East-Coast bird flown in on the wind. A lot of people in the city would know about it, mainly because it’s prime real estate but has stood empty and untouched for so long. The murder itself was horrific, but the house virtually became a tourist attraction.’
‘People are sick. Wait, which way are you going?’
‘The 101.’
‘Are you crazy, Salgado? You really want to take that chance? If it’s snarled up, and it will be, then we’d be quicker walking, siren or no siren. Go under the 101 to Sunset, go west on Sunset until we hit Vermont and then it’s a straight shot north from there. I might be a strange East-Coast bird, but I know how to get to fucking Los Feliz in a hurry.’
The freeway roared below them as Salgado sped over it on North Main Street, then hauled a left onto Arcadia, running parallel to the blasting horns of the 101.
‘So it was December 1959, the middle of the night. Dr Harold Perelson smashes the back of his wife’s head with a hammer while she’s sleeping. She dies instantly, suffocated in her own blood, enough that the whites of her eyes turned red. He tries to do the same to their eldest daughter but misses, and just injures her. She runs screaming into the street, waking neighbours by banging on their windows.’
Salgado turned right onto North Broadway, cursing as he saw traffic stacking up in front of them. The road was narrowed with construction, creating yet another bottleneck.
‘Perelson walks past the two younger kids in the hallway, mixes himself up some Nembutal and tranquiliser pills and downs the lot. The crazy fuck then goes back into the bedroom and lies down beside his wife, still holding the freaking hammer. He’s dead before paramedics can get there.’
He threw the light on top of the car and swung onto the other side of Broadway to get past the line of cars, just narrowly avoiding the oncoming traffic.
‘So, the house on Glendower was sold but the new owners never moved in. Who wants to move into that, right? And it sits, and it sits, and it sits. For sixty years. The longer it goes on, the creepier the house gets. It gathers dust, it becomes like a museum of horror, everything just like it was the day the doc went loco. Like Pompeii after the volcano. People climb the hill and peer in the windows, like that’s normal. It’s a few million dollars’ worth of freak show.’
‘How sure are you that it’s this house?’
‘It just fits with what we’ve seen from the video feed. The radiator. The drapes, the carpet. Old. It feels right, right?’
They pushed west and north and west again. Past impossibly tall and slender palm trees, past purple cherry blossoms and tattoo parlours, along part of the old Route 66, racing by laundries, auto services and psychics. The hills were visible in the distance now and Salgado pressed on the gas.
At North Vermont they swung right and charged straight for the Hollywood Hills. They had to slow as they passed the chic boutiques and restaurants around the Dresden and Figaro, Skylight Books and the Vintage, but that suited them fine. They had to gather breath, hush their arrival, and wonder what the hell awaited them.
They were soon on Glendower Avenue, narrow and crowded with palms and multi million-dollar homes. And there, suddenly, a swing to the right and they were on Glendower Place and the villa was on the hill in front of them. The Murder House.
CHAPTER 54
Whitewashed walls and a terracotta roof; tall arched windows and a large balcony with sweeping views of the city; a tousled stretch of dry, sloping gardens running the entire width of the building. The Spanish Revival-style house looked like just another overpriced dream mansion, high above the City of Angels.
But it was different. Very different.
There was already a paramedic truck and a patrol car parked outside and a couple of neighbours who’d emerged into the heat of the day to see what the fuss was.
Salgado and O’Neill charged past them without explanation, waving at the cops to follow. The narrow concrete steps up to the villa led from an overflowing mailbox through an overgrown expanse of tall weeds that choked the dry earth.
The tall front door to the mansion was shielded by a massive concrete arch, its wood faded by decades of staring into the blistering heat of a southern Californian sun. The lead cop readied his battering ram, swung, and the wood grunted, splintered and gave way, swinging back uneasily on its rusted hinges with a groan of protest.
The cops stepped out of the heat and into the gloom and cool of the murder house. Slowly, looking around, guns poised just in case, they all sensed it. The house had an intense energy of its own that all of them had known before.
‘They say you used to be able to peer through the windows,’ Salgado spoke more in a whisper than he’d intended, ‘and still see the Christmas tree with presents underneath it. Decades after the murder.’
Low mustard-coloured chairs with short wooden legs sat on a thick beige carpet studded with purple floral motifs. Vinyl 45s and albums sat stacked next to an old-time gramophone. Children’s dolls, freaky enough at the best of times, had extra menace with a layer of dust and decay. They moved on, emerging into a tiled hallway with stairs leading both up and down, rooms beyond through open archways, and a frieze along one wall.
‘Up or down?’ O’Neill asked. ‘You’re the one with intuition.’
He lifted his shoulders in response. ‘Let’s split. I’ll try up.’
They both knew that up meant the master bedroom where Harold Perelson had battered his wife’s brains in – it seemed the kind of room that Ethan Garland would use if he could.
On the upper level, Salgado and one of the uniform cops passed high windows, ignoring the views of LA as they turned into a large corner room with more near floor-to-ceiling windows on three sides and a bathroom off the corner. No video camera, no Dylan Hansen.
O’Neill finished scoping out the ground floor and then took the stairs down. The decay was worse, wallpaper faded and peeling, and a smell that bothered her nose. The lower level was dimly lit and foreboding.
She traced her way down by holding the rail, suddenly flinching and taking a hurried step back as she felt a spider scurry up her arm. She flailed at it, swiping it onto the floor and turning in time to catc
h an amused grin on the face of the officer behind her. O’Neill glared at him till the smile disappeared.
At the bottom of the stairs, the light was even poorer. The wall coverings were so thick with mould that she wasn’t sure what they’d been. The ceiling was blistered, peeling apart and sinking worryingly. Two short chains hung from a ceiling rose, one with a light bulb and one without. The smell was worse.
Something scurried. She hoped it was mice.
She began to turn the corner, then stopped in her tracks. The wallpaper. The curtains. She knew before she saw anything else.
‘Salgado!’
Her shout went through the house and she repeated it. ‘Salgado! Down here. Officer, get him. Get the paramedic too. Now!’
There he was. Slumped against the far wall. The radiator at his back. No signs of movement at all. The smell was coming from him.
She heard the clatter of Salgado’s shoes on the stairs before she got to the other side of the room. Others followed him, all charging, all hurrying.
Dylan Hansen didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.
The kid’s flesh was discoloured and cold to the touch. His skin was dry and blotchy. He stank. She eased back an eyelid and saw nothing but lifelessness.
She reached for his wrist and felt for a pulse. Nothing. She tried again, willing it to be there, before looking up at Salgado and shaking her head.
‘He’s dead.’
‘Fuck. Fuck!’
O’Neill looked beyond her partner, to where the camera blinked on the wall, and exploded in rage. She pulled her jacket off and placed it over Dylan Hansen’s head.
‘He doesn’t get to see any more of this!’ she shouted.
She stood and rushed past Salgado, heading straight for the camera and screaming into it.
‘You’re done, you sick fuck. Game over.’
She grabbed the camera and wrenched it from the wall, hurling it to the ground where it smashed in a shriek of wires, plastic and glass. She stood with her head in her hands as the last shards of it rattled and spun on the floor and finally came to a stop.
CHAPTER 55
Narey watched the drama unfold as it happened, her heart in her mouth. The pictures from the house on Glendower Place filling the screen to her right.
It felt distinctly odd being so remote from it and yet having a ringside seat. Hearing voices off camera, recognising one as being O’Neill and being aware of it getting quickly closer over the footsteps and the pounding of her own heart.
Seeing her crouch by Hansen. Hoping for the best. Expecting the worst. Hearing the worst.
Giannandrea was at her shoulder, both staring at the monitor, numbly. Their case. Not their case. Helpless voyeurs. Watching him die. Watching him. Already dead.
There had been silence in the dark of the room in Dalmarnock as they looked on from afar. Now, without the sounds from Los Angeles, that same silence grew larger and swamped them.
You’re done, you sick fuck. Game over.
The last words they heard. The last picture that of O’Neill looming large and furious in the frame, the camera shifting quickly to the side, the room panning through the shot, then blackness.
Neither of them said anything. Nothing to be said. Helpless.
Giannandrea nudged her and she turned her head to the left just enough to see the green glimmer of the connection being made. The light that signalled Marr was online. Her gut twisted.
‘No. Not now. Not this bastard.’
But, of course, it was now. Of course, it was him. He’d been watching as they had, that was as obvious as it was inevitable. And here he was to gloat, to crow, to deliver some misplaced, fucked-up eulogy. She wouldn’t need Lennie Dakers to get a psychological understanding of what was going to be said.
Nor could she ignore it, much as she’d like to. She hit the switch and they were connected.
Game over. Like that bitch said. Now it’s game on.
Is it? Garland is dead too, remember. Your little game with him finding your victims for you is over.
So, I’ll play a different game. I’ve learned lots from this one.
Like what?
How to do it. How to talk to them. How to draw them to the spider’s web like good little flies. All so desperate to be caught.
Why don’t you just stop? Stop before you’re the one that’s caught.
But you want to catch me.
Of course I do. But I also want you to stop. There’s no need for anyone else to die.
There was a long enough pause that she allowed herself to think that maybe he was considering the sense in what she said. That didn’t last.
No. This wasn’t enough. The American kid was pathetic. Barely a struggle. I’m going after one who will put up more of a fight.
She hated herself for asking. Hated herself for giving him the platform to tell her. But she had no choice.
What are you going to do?
I’m going hunting.
CHAPTER 56
Igloo. Messages. Vikki, 32.
Ryan: Hi Vikki. I’ve got stuck with some weekend work. One of the kids has issues and I’ve had to help out. Can we make it a bit later than planned? Sorry!!
Delivered, 15.22
Read, 15.26
Vikki: Hi! No, that’s fine. These things happen. So when do you think you’ll get there?
Should we say 7.30 to be on the safe side? I don’t want you to have to be waiting.
Oh okay. Won’t the house be closed by then? And it will be getting dark!
Yeah, it will. But we can still visit the gardens. And the living willow love seat! It will be dusk but all the more romantic for that :)
Yeah I guess so :) Okay, see you at 7.30!
CHAPTER 57
She drove north along Dumbreck Road with a flutter in her heart and her pulse beating faster than it should. It was crazy, she knew that. It made no sense at all to meet a person she didn’t know in a place so far out of people’s view.
She’d had a message from him saying he’d been held up at work and would be a bit late. That meant it was going to be dusk when she got there and the House for an Art Lover would be closed. That either made this a great idea or a terrible one. Maybe he wouldn’t even turn up. That would really ruin her night. She was sure he would, though. Sure of it.
She was also sure he was the one. Ryan.
Ryan. Ryan. Ryan. So many things made sense, even if meeting him in the near dark was maybe not the most sensible way of doing it.
His messages had made her sure of it. He was so like her in so many ways, liked the things she did, disliked the things she did. They had so much in common that it had to be right.
Even the place he’d suggested they meet was so spot on. Public and well known but also private and secluded. She was pretty sure her mother would have had something to say about it, but this was her choice, her decision.
She took a deep breath, nerves jangling, signalled and took a left off Dumbreck Road. She wound her way past the Victorian walled gardens until she got to the deserted car park. No sign of him, but she was early and hadn’t really expected him to be there yet. She parked up and walked to the house on foot in search of the seat made of the living willow. It was a beautiful evening and he’d been right, the house looked magnificent and romantic lit up in the gloom of a dark September sky.
She stood still for a moment, realising what little noise she could hear. There was a distant rumble from the main road, but it was no more than a hum. The wind rustled lightly through the trees and whispered across the lawn. A lone bird was on the wing and its flap beat the drum slowly.
As she walked, she heard her own feet and her breathing. And the pounding of her heart.
It took a few minutes to find the willow seat in the gloom. It was a beautiful thing, so Mackintosh and yet so natural. The base was dark and broad, and the arched lattice back was tall and graceful. She settled into the seat and waited. And waited.
By a few minutes after the hour she began to f
ret that he might not show. She got to her feet and wandered around the half-hidden lawn, as if that would make time slip past faster. Then she heard a crunch on gravel followed by soft footsteps on grass and knew he was there. Ryan. Her man of mystery. Her heart missed a beat and she had to tell herself to calm down.
He was behind her but she didn’t turn, played along with the game and the romance of the setting.
‘Ryan?’
She heard his voice for the first time. Low and firm, slightly muffled. Confident but perhaps a hint of nerves.
‘Don’t turn around.’
The instruction made her wary, but it excited her too. She stood still, letting him approach, her head telling her one thing and her adrenalin another. A triumph for exhilaration over sense.
She heard him take a step closer, felt his breath on the back of her neck, and just before he reached her, felt a chill run down her spine. She started to take a step away, an instinctive survival motion that kicked in a split second too late.
The hand on her mouth came as a shock.
Not just a hand – material between the hand and her mouth. A cloth of some kind. It was gripped tight to her and she could smell something on it. It stung her nostrils and she tried to pull away, but he was tight behind her and the hand was clamped firmly across her mouth.
His voice was in her ear, husky and breathless, laced with naked menace.
‘You’re going to die, bitch. Accept it.’
Her head was starting to spin, and she could feel her senses scramble. Darkness was coming.
‘Give in to it. Fighting’s no good.’
She raised her right knee to waist height, held it for just a second, then crashed her foot down onto his shin with every bit of strength she had. His grip on her mouth weakened and he cried out in pain. She repeated the move, stamping her foot hard and fast onto the already damaged shin. He screamed in agony, and shoved her away from him, a gentle thud as something fell to the grass.
Watch Him Die Page 26