Believe No One (20 page)

Finally, Connor sat back on his heels, capped the pen and smiled up at them.

Valance gazed from the face of the man in the picture to the ragged figure of the artist.

It was a brilliant portrait. The hunch of the shoulders, the slightly dishevelled appearance. The face had the haunted look of a man on the slide, who sees his own future in the camera lens: Henry Connor on the day he was arrested for Aggravated Assault – the artist had sketched his own mugshot.

Red wakes in pitch darkness.

Can't see. Hard to breathe. So hot.

He feels the ground rush beneath him, stones ping against metal. He's in a metal box and he can't remember how he got here. It stinks of piss: his – he knows it's his because he peed his pants back at the trailer.

Then he remembers – he's in the trunk of a car. He feels the rustle of plastic sheeting under him and the hard edges of boxes stacked close together either side of him.

Can't breathe!

He fumbles around him, finds the handle of the kitchen knife and grips it with both hands, thanking God because now he can defend himself.

Got to get some air.

He uses his leg to push the heavy boxes towards the front section of the trunk, giving himself more room. He works his fingers into the lock lever, tries to rock it, but he doesn't have the strength, so he finds a spot under him where the plastic gives a bit and cuts a hole, then drives the knife into the corroded metal beneath, turning it, breaking through the rusted shell of the trunk. The hole is only the size of a quarter, but at least now he can breathe. The car judders and jolts over potholes, and stones rattle against the metal of the trunk. Every once in a while they glide over a smooth surface, which he figures must be a concrete slab at a crossroads – so, a gravel road, must be. He puts his eye to the rust-hole, but it's too dark to tell. He lies next to the hole, his cheek against the cool metal.

His momma was on the bed. It was dark and he couldn't see too good. She was all bandaged up—

He puts a hand to his head, trying to squash the ache out of it. No, she was not bandaged – she was
wrapped.
Made him think of the chrysalids he would sometimes find in the woods. Or a bug all trussed up in an orb weaver's web. Silver on her face – he couldn't see her mouth, her eyes—?

Because they was taped, doofus
– with duct tape. Silver duct tape.

Something came at him out of the dark—

Boogeyman, Boogeyman, Boogeyman, Boogeyman!

He whimpers, tears squeezing out the corner of his eyes. But he bites down on his lower lip.
Now you stop it
–
you gotta think, you want to stay alive, help Momma.

But as much as he tries, he cannot make sense of it. His head hurts from the heat and the beer and … Oh God, Momma screaming behind the tape, trying to warn him, telling him to get out.

He feels sick, and just about has time to get to his hands and knees as he vomits up the beer and taco chips and the bite of peanut-butter sandwich he ate. Then he crawls as far away from the mess as he can get and curls up tight, sobbing till it feels like his heart has been torn out through his chest.

Williams County, Oklahoma

The man has arranged cameras and lighting, testing each to be sure they will not fail. He's tense, and takes extra care, knowing that in a sense he has already failed: starting the process in Sharla Jane's mobile home was against protocol, and he had lost the boy because of it. He has to pretend that everything is normal, work out a way to get the boy back later.

His laptop is locked and loaded, ready for action, the Skype icon ready on-screen but dormant for now; he will make the webcam adjustments when he's rigged the table up to mount it on. He'll need the medium height. He chooses it from a stack of three, leaning against the side wall. The tables are beat up and heavy, and require a degree of skill to set up without injury. He decides on the position, lifts the flap with his right hand and slides the bar away from the hinge towards the stays on the underside of the tabletop, opening the scissor-jointed supports with his left.

A sudden burble of noise; his hand jerks, the flap drops an inch, trapping the webbing of his left hand in the metal joint of the table legs. He howls, wrestling with the flap, feels his skin catch and tear on a jagged piece of metal.

‘Shit,' he yells. ‘Shit!'

He extracts himself from the apparatus and flings the table from him, sends it clattering against the wall and clamps his hand to his mouth, sucking the blood from the wound, tasting salt and copper. He isn't ready yet. He's too damn
early.

His phone is switched to silent; it buzzes in his hip pocket and he feels it like an electric shock to his balls. He slides the phone out and checks the screen.

A text; one word: ‘Skype'.

No. No, no, NO.
He takes his hand from his mouth and fresh blood gouts from an ugly tear in the web of skin between his thumb and forefinger. He jams the injured hand to his lips again.
Fuck,
it hurts!

He texts, one-handed: ‘Not ready.'

A second later, the phone vibrates in his hand. Another text.

‘Don't argue with me, gobshite.'

He flinches, practically hearing the harsh tones.

‘NOT READY,' he texts back.

Two sharp buzzes, like a warning, then the message: ‘Do as you're told.'

He has a bad feeling; this isn't eagerness for the kill – Fergus always wants everything set up the way he likes it before they make contact – he never rushes things. Fergus is pissed about something, and it's already been a tough night. The man does not feel strong enough to talk face to face, yet, so he texts: ‘Email', switches off the phone, then picks up a bag he's left out of camera shot, rummages through the sterile packs, extracts a bandage. It'll take Fergus a moment to log in.

They set up a Gmail account with a nondescript email address: a jumble of numbers and letters. They both have the password, yet neither has ever sent an email from it. A one-word text: ‘Email' lets the other know to check the account. To the service provider it looks like a dormant account, and since no emails are sent, there's no trail for law enforcement to follow back to the service provider.

The man covers the torn flesh with gauze and tapes it in place, wrapping it with a sterile bandage. You
cannot
be too careful with cuts.

Feeling calmer, he opens the Gmail account. His accomplice is paranoid about deleting emails before he logs off, so there is only one message in the drafts folder.

The subject line reads, ‘Answer the Skype, fuckface.'

Simultaneously, the Skype bubbles and pings, letting him know there's an incoming call. He rejects it, his stomach cramping. The other man is thousands of miles away – it's not like he can
do
anything, but since they've known each other, Fergus has always been able to say, ‘Do this' and it's done.

The Skype alert sounds three, four, five times in the space of a couple of minutes.
Fuck it.
He turns on his phone and finds a half-dozen texts, all of them offensive, calling into question his intelligence, his manhood, threatening him.

His hands shaking, he texts, ‘I told you, I'm not ready.'

‘Don't you dare defy
me.
'

Too angry to be intimidated, he blasts back: ‘Defy you? I'm not your goddamn puppet.'

‘If you were, I'd cut the strings and walk away right this fucking minute.'

‘What is WRONG with you?'

‘Ask me why I checked in early.'

This makes him nervous. He hesitates, and a new text message pops up: ‘Google Alerts sent me a wee message: you got yourself on the state TV network, you
wanker.
'

He feels a stab of sudden, blank terror.

The text alert sounds again. His hand jerks, and he almost drops the phone.

‘They found Laney just outside Hays. And where are you now? My top-of-the-head guess – very fucking nearby.'

He feels the muscles of his face go lax.
Oh, God. Oh, God …

He looks at the screen, and realizes he flipped out for a second; there's another message:

‘Rule No. 1: Do not shit on your own doorstep.'

Like I don't know that. Like I don't fucking
know
it.

The next message is short. ‘They didn't find Billy. So, the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question is: Where
is
Billy?'

He texts back, his hands shaking. ‘I took care of him.'

‘You put him in a good foster home?' Fergus texts. ‘Aw … that's sweet.'

Shit.
Shit!
He knows.

A soft whimper from behind him. He tenses.

‘Please, be quiet,' he whispers. ‘Let me think.'

Three years ago, he was lurking on the forums, reading wannabes blowing off about stuff they had plainly not done. He had just videotaped the light going out in Shayla Reed's eyes; he had the moment between life and death right there on tape. He thought,
I could show them the real thing, make money
. But Fergus nixed it – said it was ‘too risky'. He did as he was told, the videos stayed private and he stayed poor.

Until a thought came, like a whispered secret:
He didn't say anything about the kids.

There's a special name for prostitutes who work the interstate truck stops – they call them ‘lot lizards'. Park in a truck stop on any interstate highway hoping for few hours' sleep, you better have a sign in the cab window; you don't, those girls will pound on your door till you would shoot them just to get some shut-eye. Most of them are so strung out they would do most anything to please you, and if your tastes run to younger flesh, or boys, or the plain weird, you'll find their pimps just yards away, ready and primed to act as your very own personal sex shopper. So, he reached out, exchanged a kid for cash, and then another.

‘You sold him, didn't you?'

Jeez, what kind of freaky ESP
was
this? How could he know? But he did, and it was pointless to deny it.

‘I have costs,' he texts. ‘Overheads.'

The pause before the next message is unbearable, so that when the Skype alert sounds, he's almost relieved. He sets up the table, finds the ski mask in his ready-bag and drags it over his face. It's instantly stifling, and he flicks the switch for the floor fan as he opens the link.

Fergus is sitting in his croft. He can tell by the flicker of firelight on the whitewashed walls. As usual, he has arranged the webcam so his face is in shadow; as usual, his voice is distorted. But they both know that even disguised, even at this great distance, seeing the man, hearing his words if not his voice, still has tremendous power.

‘So,' Fergus says. ‘You fucked up. Again.'

He stands mute. Every woman he's ever been with said he was a smooth talker, but when he's in a face-off with Fergus, he can never find the words.

In the background, the soft snuffling begins again, and Fergus forgets himself, suddenly leaning forward, eager, his hands on the arms of his chair as though he's ready to leap out of it, forgetting even that he's mad about Laney and Billy. He moves too far forward and his face is lit for an instant by the lamps he arranged so carefully to put him in shadow. Fergus jerks back, but his voice is tense, hungry.

‘Is that her? Let me see.'

Behind him, Sharla Jane snuffles and groans and he wishes he'd gagged her, because right now he needs to think.

‘I
said
I want to see her.'

‘Aren't you the one always talks about delayed gratification?'

Fergus clenches his fists, and he sees a flash of teeth.

‘Okay. Let's chat.' He settles back in his armchair. ‘Where shall we start? Oh, I know. Did you know that your friendly local sheriff has been talking on his local radio station in Shit Town, Oklahoma? He said he wanted to find “Li'll Billy Dawalt”. Said he'd “found a connection” between Laney's murder and some murders in Missouri. Are you with me so far? You understand the subtext? They're talking about a
series
of murders. The networks love a serial killer, so they pick up the broadcast, take it state-wide. It's all terribly exciting because now it's not just Sheriff Shit Town bumbling about with a clipboard – now, there's an interstate task force investigating: the FBI is involved. They're so fired up, they've even drafted in help from the British police. Which is FAR TOO FUCKING CLOSE TO HOME FOR ME.'

The man in the ski mask lowers his head and grits his teeth like he always does when Fergus is on a rant. His hand is throbbing from the cut and sweat is streaming off him. He wishes he could peel off the mask, but he doesn't have the courage.

‘Do you know how many bodies have turned up?' Fergus asks.

He shakes his head, miserable, mute.

‘No?' Fergus says. ‘Me neither. But for every disposal you fucked to shite, they
will
make a link. Inside of a week, every one-horse town who ever had a female floater will realize there's political capital in this story, and maybe some financial capital too. They'll step forward into the TV spotlight, clutching their post mortem photos, demanding justice for the dead. And some of the dead will be yours.'

They were always ‘yours' when there was a problem.

‘Billy Dawalt, and all those bairns you used to cover your “overheads” are ticking time bombs, waiting to blow your cover to smithereens. Now I couldn't give a shite about your death wish, but if the cops get to you, they get to me.'

‘I don't know where Billy is,' he says. ‘He's probably dead now, anyways.'

‘You can drop the redneck pretence,' Fergus spits. ‘I know you. I know everything about you.'

‘Aye?' he says. ‘Well, that cuts both ways.'