A Need To Kill (DI Matt Barnes) (43 page)

Matt
showed the maid his ID.  “We’re here to see Mrs. Walters.”

“
Wait here, please,” she said and closed the door on them.

“
Jeez, boss, I don’t like the look of yours,” Pete quipped.

After a two minute wait the door opened again.

“Yes, gentlemen, what can I do for you?” A tall redhead said, looking Matt and Pete up and down as if they were local villagers calling to see if she might condescend to donate a few unwanted items of clothing to the church hall jumble sale.

Matt
looked beyond the haughty expression.  And though she looked younger, he estimated the woman to be in her mid-sixties.  Her face looked a little too smooth and taut.  She would no doubt have telltale scars around her ears.  A scalpel had robbed her of the little crinkles, wrinkles and laughter lines that gave a mature face character.  But the backs of her hands conspired against her; the network of rope-like veins bulged under thinning, tired skin that had seen too much sun and was blemished with myriad liver spots.  And more important and pertinent, her sharp, green eyes avoided contact with his.  She was ill at ease, in the way that a thousand suspects with guilt to hide had been when sat facing him across the table in an interview room.

“
You could ask us in, and maybe get the maid to fix us coffee,” Matt said, giving her a flash of his white, even teeth.

“
I might just do that, Inspector, if you first tell me why you are here.”

“
It’s about Lucas, Mrs. Walters.  We need to know everything about him that you can tell us.”

Marjory
’s brow would have creased like crepe paper, had it not been impossible for her to frown, thanks to the overindulgence of Botox injections that had transformed it to a glassy plane.

“
Lucas who?”  Marjory managed to say.

“
The Lucas who is your nephew, Mrs. Walters,” Matt said.  “Lucas Downey. Remember him?”

She stood aside, waited until they
had entered and then closed the door.

“
In here,” Marjory said, striding across the large hall to open a door and usher them into a huge reception room.

Matt
was impressed.  Someone had good taste to go with serious money.  The decor and soft furnishings were quietly regal, and the marble fireplace was the length of the lounge in his maisonette.  He was not envious, but could see Beth and himself living here; maybe when he won the lotto, or retired and opened up a private security firm that catered to wealthy punters who quite rightly assumed that they were potential targets.  Dream on.

“
Please, sit down,” Marjory said.  “I’ll arrange for refreshment.”  She walked over to the fireplace and tugged on a silk sash.

Neither
Matt nor Pete could believe it.  Pete imagined that a bell on the wall of a below stairs kitchen had tinkled, summoning a maid.  He was right.

Matt
was reminded of the old TV series:
Upstairs, Downstairs
.

Marjory was feeling very anxious.  Unsettled
and as skittish as one of the thoroughbred horses that she owned.  Her past was catching up with her, thanks to her late sister’s weird and dangerous son.

The
same maid that had answered the door to them knocked once and entered.  She simultaneously looked at Marjory with one eye, and somewhere over Pete’s shoulder with the other.

“
A pot of coffee and an iced tea, Ethel,” Marjory instructed.

“
Yes, ma’am,” the dumpy servant said, and was gone before anything more might be asked of her.

Marjory fidgeted with her hands, removed a cigarette from an onyx box
– that was the same shade of green as her eyes – and lit it from a large, matching table lighter.

As if an afterthought
, she said, “Would you care for one?”

They both declined, though
Matt wanted to say yes.  Wanted to give way to the little voice that said, ‘fuck the damage to my health, the expense, and the fact that I know smoking is a mug’s game.  I want a bloody cigarette’.  He could almost taste that unique and slightly toasted flavour of tobacco; knew that inhaling the smoke would calm the persistent craving and nullify the near desperation that trying to quit was tormenting him with.

Matt
was in no hurry to question the woman.  They waited in an uncomfortable silence that was only broken by a series of high-pitched screeches that made Matt and Pete look to Marjory for explanation.

“
Peacocks,” she said.  “So princely and delightful to look at.  A pity that they can be so raucous.”

The coffee arrived. 
Matt poured a cup for Pete, and then himself.  Took a sip without adding cream or sugar from the jug and bowl that was part of the same set as the bone china pot.

“
Lucas is a serial killer,” Matt said with no further preamble.  “Where is he?”

A second’s pause. 
“W...What?  How the hell should I know?”

“
You are his only surviving relative, that we can trace,” Matt said.  “And he’s on the run and needs somewhere to lie low.”

Marjory stubbed the cigarette out in an ashtray that was not surprisingly carved from the same hue of onyx as the box and lighter.

“I have not seen Lucas for over ten years,” she said.  “You obviously know something of my background, and will appreciate that I would rather leave it where it belongs, in the past.  That also pertains to my late sister’s son.  He was...unbalanced.  It may not have been his fault, but he was a very strange and mixed-up individual.”

“
You said it might not have been his fault, Mrs. Walters.  What do you mean by that?  Be specific, please,” Matt pushed.  “I have to know everything that you do about him.”

“
I don’t think I have anything further to add,” Marjory said in a clipped tone of voice.  “I would appreciate your leaving my house.”

“
Perhaps we should talk to your husband,” Matt said, gambling that contact with her husband would be the last thing she would want to happen.

“
Vincent has no knowledge of Lucas’s existence, Detective Inspector.”

“
I’m sure that’s the case.  I would also be surprised if he knows that you even had a sister.  Or that, like Brenda, you made a living by selling your dubious favours to strangers.”

Ra
ge twisted Marjory’s face.  “You bastard! I’ve put a lot of years between what I did then and who I am now.  I got out of that life.  You have no right to bring it up.”

Matt shrugged. 
“So talk to us, Marjory.  Help us find Lucas.  He tortures, mutilates and kills young women.  Finding and stopping him are more important to me than your anonymity.”

With the facade of respectability shattered, Marjory sank
back into her chair and looked down at her feet.  Hands restless in her lap, she fought for some composure and eventually raised her head and began talking in a quiet monotone.  “She should have had him terminated.  Christ, it wasn’t as if she didn’t have access to an abortionist.  I think she liked the idea of being a mother.  But he was in the way.  Punters don’t want to hear a screaming kid in the next room.  Brenda used to crush up half a sleeping pill in his bottle to make sure he didn’t bawl.  Sometimes she would lose her temper and hurt the poor little bugger.  Burned him with cigarettes, and threw him about like a rag doll.  And when she got together with that pig, Leroy, it got worse.  They were both crackheads; not fit to keep a fucking goldfish, never mind a child.  They made Lucas into what he is.  Used to lock him in the coal cellar for hours at a time, and sometimes forgot about him and left him in the cold and dark overnight.”

“
And then Leroy came home one night and murdered Brenda.  Right?”  Matt said.

“
I very much doubt that, Inspector.  If you knew Lucas, then you would have no hesitation in believing that he cut Brenda’s throat.  He became consumed with hate.  I once called round and saw him kicking a stray pup to death in the back yard.  He was about eight at the time, and giggled as the pup screamed and writhed about.  Brenda and Leroy had made the boy into a monster.  He only knew pain and suffering.”

“
Has he contacted you, Marjory?”

“
No.  And he won’t.  He doesn’t know my married name, or where I live.”

“
Be aware that he is very cunning and inventive.  If he shows up or telephones you, get in touch with us immediately,” Matt said, taking a card from his wallet and jotting his mobile number on the back.

“
I’ll do that,” Marjory said, taking the card.  “Can I rely on your discretion, Inspector?”

Matt
gave her an ironic smile.  “It’s a two-way street, love.  If you scratch our backs...”

“
I have absolutely no reason to harbour or protect Lucas.  He is a part of my past that I wish was as dead as Brenda.  What do you want me to say to him, in the unlikely event of him finding and contacting me?”

“
Act surprised and wary.  Grudgingly let him talk you into doing whatever he wants, and then give me a call.  We can take it from there.”

Julie cringed back, drew her knees up and covered her face with her hands, peeking out and up through gaps between her fingers.  Lucas had thrown the table back and was standing over her with a maniacal grin on his face.

“
Thought you’d leave the party early, eh?” Lucas said. “Just when it’s starting to warm up.”

“
I...I―”

“
Shut up.  You disappoint me.  I’ve treated you well, and to repay me you try to run away.  What were you going to do, grass me up to the police?”

“
I was scared, Lucas.  I thought you were going to kill me.”

He lashed out.  Hit her hard across the mouth
with the back of his hand.

“
You thought right, smarty-pants.  I’m going to soak you with this petrol and set light to you.”

Julie
’s head jerked sideways.  She felt blood spurt from her split top lip, and tears streamed down her cheeks as she fell back.

Fuck him!  I
’m not going to just lie here and let him do it,
she thought as fury swelled through her to push out the fear and spur her into action.  She sprang to her feet screaming incoherently, throwing herself at him, using her hands as claws to try and blind him with her nails.

Lucas dropped the can and put his hands up instinctively to protect his face.  She had taken him completely by surprise; thudded into him and
knocked him off balance.  He fell hard, and she was all over him like an army of ants; sitting on him, pounding him with her fists and spitting blood as she called him a sick fuck and a murdering bastard.

It was turning him on, but he didn
’t have the time to fool around like this.  He grasped one of her flailing arms by the wrist and savagely twisted it back.

Julie cried out at the sudden pain.  She was thrown sideways and cracked the back of her head on the unyielding vinyl that covered the cement floor.  For a moment she thought that she would pass out, and when her head cleared, he was on top of her, gripping her throat and squeezing.  The pressure was relentless and paralysing.  Her hands were free, and yet she could not move them.  Nor could she raise her legs to drive her knees into his back.  This was it
, her moment to die.  She felt a final expanding explosion of panic run amok in her mind, and experienced the coldness of what she thought was the edge of the abyss.  She was about to know what death was; to suffer it firsthand.

He left her sprawled out
and unconscious.  Ran up the stairs and began to pour the petrol, dousing the bed and carpet in his room, and then the landing and stairs as he made his way back down to the studio.

He shook her until she stirred.
  “Can you hear me, Julie?”

She sucked in a noisy breath through a now bruised windpipe.  Tried to talk, but couldn
’t.  Her throat felt mashed.

“
Do you want to live?”  Lucas said.  “Nod your head if you want to be given another chance.”

His voice seemed so distant.  She could only just hear the words indistinctly through ears that were pounding with her heartbeat.

She nodded.  Started crying again.  Of course she wanted to live: would now sell her soul to the Devil to buy more time.  And to her, Lucas
was
the Devil.

“
Okay.  We need to get a move on.  Time to get the hell away from here.  I want you to know that you are the only person that I have ever given a second chance to.  One more act of betrayal, and it will be over.  You get to die hard.  Am I making myself perfectly, absolutely crystal fucking clear?”

She nodded again.

“Good girl.  I’ve got a new set of wheels out back.  I’m going to lock you in the boot until we are safely out of the area.  So no noise or stupid moves.”