Mercy Killing (20 page)

A small gasp came from Millie at the word ‘dead’ and her hand went up to her forehead.

Ian’s shaking hand shot in the direction of her arm, narrowly missing the coffee.

‘Hey, sis. What’s wrong?’

As she rested her head in her hands, Millie said, ‘Tell me that you didn’t do anything daft?’

‘Me?’ said Ian. ‘Why would I do something daft? What are you on about?’

‘Please don’t lie to me.’

He took his hand away from her arm, gave a sigh and said, ‘I shouldn’t have called you and said that Woodville wouldn’t bother you again. I hope you don’t think I went
round to his place and beat him up. I’m not stupid.’

She closed her eyes and spoke in a whisper. ‘Then when you telephoned me on Friday night, how did you know he was dead?’

‘Dead? Woodville’s dead?’ said Ian.

‘Bloody hell, Millie,’ said Dave. ‘Isn’t Woodville the bloke that you were seeing?’

‘As drunk as I was,’ said Ian, ‘I know that I told you not to worry about him any more. I certainly didn’t tell you that I’d killed him. I warned him, that was all.
I bumped into him in town coming out of one of the coffee shops, and I told him to stay away from you and the kids. That was it.’

Several seconds of silence followed before Dave said, ‘We were out together that evening, so anywhere Ian went, I went. We didn’t see him and we certainly didn’t kill
him.’

‘Aren’t you going to ask how I know this?’ she said through her tears. ‘I find it a little odd that you haven’t asked how I know he’s dead.’

‘Was it on the news?’ asked Ian before he took a sip of his drink. He saw Millie fix her reddened eyes on him. He hated that she was so sad. At least the pervert couldn’t hurt
her any more, whatever she was going through.

‘No, the police came round to see me.’

Ian knew that his reaction was a little slower than it should have been.

‘The police came here?’ he said, almost dropping his mug to the table. ‘You should have called me.’

‘I watch television, you know.’ Millie looked from her brother to Dave and back again. ‘The police do stuff like check telephone records. You’d already rung me once on
Friday night. The last thing I wanted was a whole load of calls going backwards and forwards.’

Now it was her turn to lean over and place her hand on his sleeve. ‘I’ll only ask you this once: did you go to Albie’s and do anything to him?’

He stroked the back of her hand with his fingers. ‘I didn’t touch him. Me and Dave went out for a couple of jars, went back to mine and I all but passed out. Ain’t that right,
Dave?’

‘That’s exactly what happened,’ said Dave. ‘What did you tell the police?’

‘I didn’t tell them that Ian called me on Friday and told me not to worry about Albie any more. I think they’d have come straight round to see you otherwise. They asked me who
else knew that I was seeing him and about his, well, you know . . . past.’

‘And what did you tell them?’ said Ian, unintentionally applying a little more pressure to the back of his sister’s hand with his fingertips.

‘I couldn’t lie,’ she said. ‘I told them that you both knew. I left out the part about how angry and upset you were, Ian.’

Unable to resist, she found herself casting an eye over the cracked glass oven door, a vivid reminder of when, only ten days ago, her brother had shouted at her, ‘How can you be so bloody
stupid?’ immediately before he picked up a stoneware casserole dish from the worktop and threw it across the kitchen.

Once again, murder was very much on DCI Barbara Venice’s mind. She had thought about little else for most of the morning and even earned herself a very worrying pep talk
from Assistant Chief Constable Barrett.

Barbara liked Sally Barrett and despite the fact that the woman was half her age and had got to a rank higher than Barbara had even set her sights on, she was a decent woman.

At the end of the meeting, Sally followed her along the corridor and asked her if everything was OK.

It had led to much reassurance on Barbara’s part that everything was excellent and apologies if she hadn’t contributed all that she should have to the weekly meeting, but her
daughter was getting married and only minutes before the start of the wedding-planning get-together, she had called her with a crisis.

Nothing of the sort had happened; it was all she could think of after receiving a text from her daughter asking if she was still free to run into town at lunch-time to check out the price of
bouquets. Barbara Venice was a thoroughly professional woman who wouldn’t normally have dreamt of such base behaviour. Never in all of her years of police work had she ever used her family as
an excuse for not committing herself to the task in hand when on duty.

She held back from kicking herself in the shins before hurrying towards the sanctury of Harry Powell’s office.

‘All right, Babs,’ he said as he looked up and saw her in the doorway.

‘I’ve been better. Any update?’

Harry pushed himself back from the desk, blue striped shirt beginning to strain at the middle-aged spread. He sighed and put his hands behind his head.

‘Have a seat and I’ll tell you a very sorry tale,’ he began, eyes on the overhead fluorescent lights. ‘Pierre called me about twenty minutes ago. He and Hazel got to
Sussex, went to see the Lewis family and as they were speaking to Mum, Monica walked into the room and said that she’d made up the entire rape allegation against Dean Stillbrook.’

‘Oh good grief.’

‘That’s putting it much milder than I did. If there was a swear box in here, I’d need to set up a direct debit. They’re taking Monica to the nearest nick for a voluntary
interview. Her mum’s going too, but for crying out loud, if he never touched her and he was murdered because of what he did – or didn’t do in this case – we’ve not
only got a vigilante, but a vigilante who’s been led up the garden path and so far, has got away with murder.’

Even though he had an idea of the impact of his words on her, Harry couldn’t begin to know how worried and fragile the entire situation was making her feel.

She shut her eyes, only for a moment. When she opened them again, Detective Inspector Harry Powell had pitched forward in his seat, heavily lined forehead wrinkled to such an extent it made
Barbara laugh.

‘What?’ he said.

‘You look like a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders. I understand that you’re the senior investigating officer but I’ve come to you and told you of my concerns
about all this. You know my feelings on the original investigation. Do you have any good news?’

‘Woodville seems to have complied with the terms of his Sex Offender Prevention Orders as far as not having a computer goes.’

‘Thanks, Harry. Any update regarding not buggering children?’

She saw him grimace. Harry Powell had actually pulled an uncomfortable face in front of her. This was the point where she knew it was time for her to take a break and step back.

Everyone had that one job, that murder, that investigation that should have been when they drew the line.

Perhaps this was her swansong.

It happened.

Barbara wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last. She had known CSIs who had attended one mutilated body too many, officers who had taken dead babies to the nearest hospital because
of an ambulance strike, off-duty colleagues who had been attacked by disgruntled criminals whilst they were out with their families. So many of those people had reached the point where giving up
their own lives no longer held an allure, and they had decided to take back a life for themselves.

It was probably time to make crime someone else’s problem again.

‘I’ve had enough,’ she said. ‘I don’t only mean about this, but generally with this job. I’m thinking of putting my ticket in. You know what I mean. I could
do something else while I’ve got the chance.’

She stared at a blank-faced Harry.

‘I’ve never seen you so quiet,’ she said. ‘Please say something.’

‘We’ve all had the dream of giving this up,’ he said. ‘Everyone thinks that the life of a detective is a calling and why would anyone with such a job do anything
different. I can bloody well tell you why. It’s fucking hard work to hang on to your sanity. Don’t do it, Barbara. Don’t leave.’

She smiled and said, ‘Just for calling me Barbara and not Babs, I’ll see this one out before I make any decision.’

Barbara got up to go.

‘One more thing before I leave you to it,’ she said. ‘At some point, can you let me have an update on the death threats Albert Woodville got? And don’t look at me like
that. All the time I’m still here, I’ll do the best job I possibly can.’

She walked out, leaving Harry with the thought that any chance of Barbara letting the fight go out of her was inconceivable.

The weather always had a huge impact on Leon and Toby’s working day. Rain meant that they lost money, and often overspent in cafés and pubs if it was set in for
the day. Toby would happily have gone home on those occasions but never let on that he stayed with Leon to keep his friend company.

Today, as they made their way back to the van from their breakfast, Toby knew that, if the heavens were to open, he would rather be indoors on his own than trying to drag out a conversation with
Leon. He had never known his friend to be so quiet. A dry day meant that he would at least have to make the effort with him.

‘You know where we’re off to first?’ said Toby as Leon started the engine.

He watched Leon’s profile as his enormous head gave a tiny nod and possibly heard ‘Mmm’ come from his pursed lips.

‘It’s that young woman with the two kids. She always offers us a cup of tea. She gave us cake last month. This’ll be a good start to the week.’

‘I can’t do it.’

Leon sat with his hands on the steering wheel, breaths long and slow, chest rising and falling beneath his fleece jacket.

‘Can’t do what? I get the impression you’re not talking about eating chocolate cake?’

‘I’m thinking of going to the police—’

‘The police?’ said Toby. ‘What the fuck for? Are you crazy?’

‘Isn’t it better that I go and tell them what I’ve done, what we’ve done, than they find out and nick us? It’ll look better for us.’

Toby slumped back against the van door, partly to distance himself from his friend and his ludicrous suggestion, and partly to observe him. He felt his heart racing and he suddenly felt hot and
cold at the same time. If he hadn’t known better, Toby would have said it was the start of a panic attack.

The two of them remained where they were for some time before Leon turned his head so slowly to the passenger seat it was as if he was scared of what he might see there.

‘You know that I’m not very good at coping with serious stuff,’ Leon said at last. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

‘Mate, you’ve got to leave it behind you, like we left what happened to us at the children’s home behind us. We left it years before we felt strong enough to do anything about
it, and now, we do the same. We walk away and carry on as before. We talked about this.’

‘How do you cope? I don’t mean about Woodville’s death. I mean how do you deal with what he did to you?’

The words hung in the air between them, suspended in the stifling hot blasts spilling from the dashboard’s heaters.

It was the first time that Leon had ever asked Toby outright; it was an unwritten rule they had that they never spoke of their sexual abuse. Toby loved that their invisible bond was there, even
though it came from something so hideous. It was the worst kind of burning shame that they never discussed, merely lived with it every day.

When seven-year-old Toby had walked into the bedroom he shared with Leon in the home, and seen the expression on his roommate’s face, he knew what had happened to him. There was no
mistaking that look of hurt and humiliation.

The same bedraggled, lost look was once again back. It had taken hold of every part of his features and Toby knew that he was watching someone who was within touching distance of despair.
Everything torturous up to that point, they had gone through together, and he wasn’t about to change it now.

Toby spoke before he could change his mind.

‘If you really want to go to the police, I’ll come with you.’

Even as he said the words, he wasn’t entirely sure that he would see it through. The police would never believe their story and time in prison wasn’t something he was cut out for.
Leon even less so. No one knew better than Toby that his friend was a huge, gentle man who under any other circumstances wouldn’t have hurt anyone. He had only become embroiled in the
planning of Albert Woodville’s murder because he was a loyal individual who couldn’t bring himself to walk away from someone in their hour of need, even if that meant going to
prison.

All Toby could do was guess at what Leon might actually say if he went to the police, but what he did know was that he regretted drawing him into the whole sorry escapade. If he hadn’t
shared with Leon that, whilst out shopping with his wife and kids, he had seen Albie Woodville as he strolled along East Rise High Street, head held high, as if he didn’t have a care in the
world, and the old familiar feelings of humiliation and degradation had returned in an instant, Leon would not be reacting this way now. Those feelings were back so fast, it was as if the last
twenty years of building a life, family, home and business had never happened. He was instantly in his bedroom in the children’s home, hiding under the bed covers and praying to a God he
didn’t believe in that tonight would be someone else’s turn.

No, he should never have told Leon about that chance sighting of their tormentor. He should have done it alone.

Except he knew that he needed Leon to be by his side.

That was the most selfish act he had ever carried out and, ever since, throughout every minute of their plotting, not a day went past when he didn’t regret that he had involved Leon.

The contempt he had for himself was overwhelming: all those years ago, he had had the chance to take a pair of scissors or knife from the kitchen and ram the blade into Woodville’s jugular
on any of the nights when he had sat beside his bed, hands creeping under the covers, gasping as his fingers stroked Toby’s flesh. Why hadn’t he killed him then? Surely the other
children in the home would have backed him up. None of this would now be happening.