Dead Silent (19 page)

‘Anything else on Leonard Lawson?’

‘The English Experiment. Leonard was in awe of whoever ran it, if it was ever run. Reading between the lines, he had a crush on him. We need those pages, Eve. But Lawson’s study... Book after book! An expression containing the words
sand
and
desert
springs to mind. I think Leonard Lawson was a bad guy.’

His features darkened and she sensed a switch flicking in his mind. ‘What is it, Karl?’

‘This is the phone call we got just as we finished reading the manuscript.’ He took out his phone. ‘Listen to this.’ He pressed play on the recording of the call to Leonard Lawson’s landline and when the caller hung up, Clay repeated, ‘
I am the Angel of Destruction. With the First Born, I serve Death. There’s a body in the garden. Whose body? Which garden?’

Mason and Price dug up the flags in Leonard Lawson’s back yard and there was absolutely no sign of anything buried there.

A body. A garden.
The words sounded over and over inside Clay’s head. Specific words, in the voice of the Angel of Destruction, that mocked her as they filtered into her subconscious. Another set of wheels began to turn.

‘Where are you, Bill?’ asked Clay, shivering as she held her phone in one hand and a mug of tea in the other.

‘Walking towards the Catholic Cathedral, looking for Huddersfield.’

She recalled the old cafe in the basement of the Catholic Cathedral in the early 1980s, the cheese sandwiches shared with Sister Philomena: white bread with a slab of butter on each slice and a thick layer of red cheese.
‘Eve, you do know these are the sandwiches they have for lunch in heaven...’
The memory of Sister Philomena brought a smile to her face.

‘Good thinking. Maybe Huddersfield’s gone there on a guilt trip. Have you got the pictures I sent you of the victim’s head and feet?’

‘I’m looking at them right now. Did you get my text?’

‘Yes,’ replied Clay. ‘The head-footer is the atrocity alongside the Leonard Lawson figure in Bosch’s
The Last Judgment
.’

The old man’s eyes stared at Hendricks as he wandered up the bone-white steps of the cathedral.

‘We need to know who the victim is and where the rest of him is,’ said Clay, gazing at the river. ‘There haven’t been any decapitations on Merseyside for years, never mind a decapitation with both feet taken for good measure.’

She recalled the old man’s face and focused on the neatness of the stitching that kept his eyelids attached to the line of his socket and his eyes wide open. She pictured the cleanliness of the kill in Leonard Lawson’s bedroom and sensed Hendricks, benevolent but vulture-like, across the city, picking away quietly at the workings of her mind.

‘Old men being targeted for murder by the same perpetrators: it’s very rare, Eve, but not unheard of.’ In reading her mind, Hendricks had scored a dead-centre bullseye.

‘What the hell’s going on, Bill?’

‘Just that,’ replied Hendricks. ‘Hell. Discuss, Eve?’

Clay put two images together in her mind and let her thoughts unwind. ‘Two victims. One starting point. A painting depicting the merry march to hell. Huddersfield and his accomplice believe they’re sending their victims to eternal damnation.’

‘What does Gabriel Huddersfield’s private space say to you, Eve?’

She added up the religious imagery of Christ on the front door of his flat, a door that could be seen by anyone inside the building, and the things she’d seen in the lair of his secret self. The fetishist mask on the dummy in the bathroom and the progression of mankind from the Garden of Eden through the violence of the fallen world to the eternal sufferings of the damned. ‘They’re sending their victims to hell.’

‘We’ve been hanging around together too long, Eve. I’m going into the cathedral,’ said Hendricks, closing the call down

On the edge of Clay’s vision, a small cargo ship glided slowly towards Garston Docks and she was filled with a sweet sadness. She remembered visiting Otterspool Promenade as a small girl with Sister Philomena and how they’d waved to the deck hands on the boats. It was a game she played with Philip on the same Cast Iron Shore. A wheel turned in her childhood memory.

As she got into her car, the ship on the water sailed closer to the dock and her head spun faster and faster.

As she buttered a slice of brown toast, Danielle Miller smiled at the racket coming from the table. She would never understand how a handful of men could make themselves so loud. They shouted and laughed across the table at each other. She looked around. Standing near the garden door, Abey was the odd one out. Quiet and distracted, he looked out of the window as Adam approached the house from his shed.

‘Toast, Abey?’ she asked.

‘No thank you. Not hungry.’

Maybe,
she thought,
he’s picked up on Louise’s upset.

‘That’s a first,’ said Gideon from the table. ‘Are you OK, mate?’

‘OK, mate,’ replied Abey as the door opened and Adam entered the kitchen with his thermos flask.

‘Tea,’ said Adam, holding up his flask to Danielle.

‘You’ll have to boil a kettle,’ she replied.

‘What are you laughing at, Gid?’ asked Adam.

‘A face that Tom Thumb just pulled.’

‘I hope you’re not laughing at me.’ Adam smiled.

Abey looked at Adam’s back and then at the garden shed.

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ said Danielle. ‘Drop it!’

Abey slipped out of the kitchen and started to walk down the line of footsteps that Adam had made in the freshly fallen snow.

He looked back. No one was coming.

His breath heaved from his body in vast plumes of vapour and his heart beat faster as he came closer to the shed.

A frightened bird flew from a shrub and a branch weighed down with snow dropped to the ground. Snowflakes landed on his soft eyelashes. He wiped his eyes.

He glanced over his shoulder. No one was behind him.

The shed door, normally locked, swung a little in the wind.

It was dark in the shed and the smell of Adam’s body poured from it like darkness.

He looked at the door and back over his shoulder.

There was a light on in the shed. And the air tasted like the zoo.

He turned to walk back, then pivoted round again in the same moment.

His fingers fitted the edge of the open door.

Abey went into the shed.

As Clay was about to turn on to the roundabout at the bottom of Jericho Lane, heading away from the tip, DC Barney Cole approached in his Renault Picasso. She pulled up in the middle of the road, wound down her window.

‘We’ll have to stop meeting like this,’ he said.

‘What’s the alternative? You’re too cheap to buy me a coffee. Good news or bad on the CCTV?’

‘Good and bad.’

‘Start with the bad.’

‘Looking to place Huddersfield and AN Other at Lark Lane, top end near Sefton Park, in and around the vicinity of Pelham Grove, in the two-hour window before the 999 call, we have three sources. The wine bar, the Mexican restaurant and an antique shop. They all have cameras pointing on to Lark Lane. I’ve been through six hours of footage and there was absolutely no one on there.’

‘OK, how about the good news?’

DC Cole laughed. ‘No, no, there’s more bad.’ He pointed in the general direction of the tip, formed a gun from his finger and mimed shooting himself in the head. He then pointed in the direction of Riverside Drive, the road that paralleled the course of the River Mersey into town. ‘I got footage from two sources. The Festival Garden’s front gate and the Britannia pub. Both crystal-clear footage from between eight and nine o’clock this morning. That’s one way of getting away from the tip. There were several vehicles but not a single white van. Even given the number of white vans out there. Not this morning.’

‘Dare I ask?’ said Clay.

He held up a pen drive. ‘Fulton Court, the apartment block back there on Jericho Lane. It’s got a CCTV camera on its front gate. The lady from the block’s management company assures me that it’s got a direct and clear view of any traffic leaving the tip between eight and nine this morning. And that is the only other way of getting away in a vehicle from the tip. I’ve only just copied it.’

‘Phone me as soon as you ID the vehicle!’

‘I’ll make two calls on two phones at the same time. You and the DVLA in Swansea.’

‘You know I love you, don’t you, Barney.’

‘That’s why you put me on CCTV watch.’

‘You’re a sensitive soul. I’d rather you were watching cars than looking at what turned up at the tip today.’

‘I heard.’ He smiled. ‘Rufus and Chaka Khan.’

‘Eh?’

‘Ain’t Nobody...’

She turned on her ignition. ‘You’re really quite a sick individual.’

He waved the pen drive. ‘A sickie with a stickie and a pair of beady eyes.’

The shed door opened and Adam froze in the doorway. Abey stood in the centre of the shed facing him, silent.

‘What are you doing in here?’ asked Adam, his voice like barbed wire.

‘Fresh air. The kitchen noisy. Head hurts.’ Abey took a step backwards. ‘Walk in garden. Door open. Come inside. Cold garden.’

A look of rage filled Adam’s face, but almost immediately it was replaced by a look of amusement.

‘OK, that’s fine by me, Abey. But, really, you should never come into my shed on your own. Do you know why?’

‘No.’

‘First of all, it’s my shed and you have no business being here. But I might as well give you directions to the Runcorn Bridge and expect you to understand that than elaborate about manners. So I’ll tell you the other reason.’ He indicated the walls, and the saws, hammers, planers, screwdrivers and pliers all neatly set out on their individual hangings. ‘It’s full of tools and tools can be very dangerous, particularly for a fully certified village idiot such as yourself, Abey. Tools. Dangerous. Dangerous. Tools.’

Adam poured himself a cup of tea from his thermos flask, saw Abey watching and asked, ‘Would you like a cup of tea, Abey?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘Go to the kitchen, there’s plenty tea there. What are you staring at?’

‘No.’ Abey shook his head sadly.

Adam sipped his tea and asked, ‘I overheard you talking in your bedroom this morning. I was bleeding the radiators, working hard, to make sure you lot don’t catch a chill. So, yeah, I heard you talking out loud. I heard you say
why
. Were you with someone?’

‘No.’

‘You can’t be asking yourself why. I’ll ask you again. Were you with someone?’

‘No, not anyone. Talk.’ Abey prodded himself in the chest. ‘Me talk to me.’

‘Are you sure you weren’t with someone?’

‘Sure.’

‘On your dada’s grave?’

‘Dada’s grave.’

‘Goooooood boy! You know, I think you can be trusted, Abey.’

Adam’s eyes danced to the door of the shed. He went over to it and sliced the inner bolt shut.

‘All locked in, safe and sound and snug, Abey. You and me, boy!’ Adam produced a small key from his pocket. ‘You know, you’re a good-looking fellah in a simple kind of way. I know a few people who’d love to make your acquaintance.’

He bent down, pulled a locked box from beneath his workbench and opened the padlock. He looked at Abey. ‘It’d do you the world of good to get out of this place and meet new people. How does that sound?’

Abey said nothing.

‘Would you like to meet new people?’

‘No.’

‘Abey?’

‘No like strangers.’

‘Abey?’ He took a step towards Abey.

Abey looked over his shoulder. His back was against the back of the shed.

‘They’re nice guys, Abey. Would you like to meet them?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s exactly the right answer. And because you’ve given the right answer, I’m going to give you a little treat. Look at this.’ Adam opened the box and reached inside. He took out the top object and showed it to Abey. A whip. Unwinding it, he held the handle firmly in his right hand and half-whipped the narrow space of the shed. ‘Do you want to have a go?’

He placed the whip in Abey’s right hand and the long, thin strip of leather dangled to the floor at his feet. ‘It’s all in the wrist and elbow. Have a go.’

Abey made the whip shake and dance around his leg.

‘Hey, we’re having fun, Abey. Maybe, Abey... Ha, maybe, Abey, we could spend more time together. Having fun. With the toys in my box.’

‘That your toy box?’

‘Oh, yeah, it’s full of toys.’

‘Me see.’

‘Can you do as you’re told?’

‘Me can do told.’

‘Can you keep your mouth shut and not tell?’

Abey closed his mouth tightly, placed both hands over his mouth.

‘Listen, I’m going to have to ask you to leave, because some clever so-and-so up in the house will no doubt be wondering where you are. But before you go...’ He put the whip back in the box and locked it. ‘Who gets whipped?’

Abey dropped his hands. ‘Horses. And Jesus.’

‘And anyone who breathes a word about my toy box.’ He pointed at Abey, who zipped his own lips with his fingers.

Adam unbolted the door and lifted a large silver axe from the wall. He picked up a block of wood from a plastic bin full of oddments of timber. The door of the shed gaped open. The garden was empty and snow fell like frozen tears.

‘Do you know what this is? This is an
axe
. An
axe
! Have you ever heard the word
axe
before?’

‘Yes. Axe.’ Abey crossed his arms, held on tightly to his shoulders.

‘This is what an axe can do.’ Adam placed the block on the workbench and with an expert swing split the wood in two. He swung again and the wood flew off the bench. Taking the axe up high, he buried the sharpened blade in the work surface. ‘Which is what I’ve been explaining to you, Abey, about being safe around dangerous tools. What have we been talking about?’

Arms still crossed, Abey pointed at the axe. ‘Dangerous tool. Adam tell Abey... how be safe...’