Philip Brennan 02 - The Creeper (6 page)

But then . . .

That thing caught inside him. That niggle, that thought, working away at him like a worm in an apple . . .

‘Oh Rani . . .’

Sadness overwhelmed him. Like he hadn’t felt for ages, not since . . . before. He tried not to think of it, let his mind go back there. Concentrate on the present. On Rani. On his love. But it was difficult.

Other memories, other voices, would fill his head and the butterflies, the swallows, would leave his stomach, and something else, something more dangerous, would take their place. A serpent, hard, cold and coiled in the depths of his guts, hissing acid inside him, poisoning him with fear and hate.

And its voice . . . all that anger, that hate . . .
All women are whores
. . .
every one
. . .
use them like whores
. . .
that’s all they’re good for
. . .

‘No . . . no . . .’

Cut them, slice them
. . .

It wasn’t him. Not now. Not any more. He had to do something, drive the voice out, repeat his mantra, defeat the snake. ‘Out of the cleansing fire I was born and he was lost . . .’ Keep going . . . ‘Out of the cleansing fire her soul was freed when her body was lost . . .’ Keep going . . . ‘Out of the cleansing fire was born my search and love to be found . . .’

The snake slithered away, back to the darkness. He heard Rani’s voice once more.

I’m still here
. . .

Joy flooded his heart. He was hard again. His fingers moved faster, a smile spreading across his face.

His fingers increased speed, his breathing became heavier. His love’s voice was in his head once more, her face before him.

Then, gasping and whispering her name, it was all over. ‘I love you, I love you, I love you . . .’ Over and over, gasping and whispering. Sighing and smiling.

‘Rani . . . Rani . . .’

And I love you
. . . He voice faded as it always did in these moments. But she would be back. He had no doubt.

He opened his eyes. Wiped himself off on her knickers, pocketed them for later. He had an idea what to do with them.

Rani needed another present, another token of his love for her . . .

He looked round the room, getting dreamy. He could lie here all day. But he had things to do. So he got up, left the bedroom.

He stood in the hall, looked up at the hatch to the loft. Time to go back. Assume his position watching over Rani, her own guardian angel. But not just yet.

Down the hall and into the bathroom. Just time for a quick shower.

Then leave his present where she would find it.

The Creeper couldn’t wait until Rani came home.

He had such plans for her . . .

10

Mickey Philips flipped his notebook shut, put it in his jacket pocket and crossed the road, walking away from the river.

The businesses along the quay hadn’t yielded up anything of value. Mickey hadn’t been made welcome. When he approached with the uniforms, orders were shouted in languages other than English and bodies dissolved into shadows. Rags were thrown over number plates in workshops, objects were put hastily into desk drawers or beneath counters. He was met with too-wide smiles and helpless shrugs, and eyes that looked anywhere but at him. Even when he told them it was a murder inquiry and that he didn’t care what else they had going on, the smiles dropped but the shrugs continued. No one had seen anything, no one knew anything. He heard it so many times that eventually he thought it might even be the truth. Eventually he left the uniforms to it, instructing them to take extra notice of anyone giving them a particularly hard time, and walked off down the road.

He preferred working alone, in spite of what DI Brennan had said about mavericking. It was when he could drop the persona and be himself, not have to be one of the lads, play the game. Remember he was a university graduate and not just a
Nuts
mag cookie-cutter copper. He’d been there, done that. And seen what it had almost cost him.

The job wasn’t for the weak-willed, he knew that when he signed up, but the Drugs Squad was one of the most full-on outfits in the force. He had gone into it looking for glory, for collars, for headlines. Knowing the rewards could be big, ignoring the fact that the failures could be bigger.

As a DC he had thrown himself into the life. One of the gang, never missed a night out whether it was playing pool or poker, off for a curry or out to a strip club. Bonding, he told himself. Helping to make them a team, a unit.

And what a unit they had been. What a force on the street. Cocks of the walk, the Met’s finest, like
The Sweeney
reborn, with Danny Dyer playing him in the film version. And with a clean-up rate second to none. And if some of their haul never made it to evidence, so what? Bit of charlie never hurt anyone. Perks of the job. And if one drug dealer was allowed to flourish at the expense of another because he kept the boys supplied with both information and product, how was that wrong? And if they made a little cash looking the other way occasionally, so what? No harm done in the great scheme of things.

Except there was. As his girlfriend pointed out one day when, blood running down his nose and the backs of his eyes feeling like they were pincushions for burning needles, he pulled his fist back and screamed that she didn’t have a fucking clue what she was talking about. And not for the first time. She made him see his life ahead of him. The ghost of Christmas yet to come. And it wasn’t pretty.

So that was it. Fix-up time. Get straight, ship out.

And he had. Narcotics Anonymous. Alcoholics Anonymous, too, just to be on the safe side. Even thought about church. But not very seriously. Took the sergeant’s exam, filled an opening up in Colchester, Essex. Played up the arrests, played down the rest. His girlfriend didn’t hang around, though, she’d had enough. But that was OK. He deserved it.

So, Colchester. Clean slate, new start.

He made a mental note not to keep trying too hard with his new squad members and checked his watch. Gone eleven. And he hadn’t eaten since God knows when. Well before he’d thrown up. Not even a cup of tea. As if on cue, his stomach rumbled.

He looked ahead. And smiled. A burger van was parked at the side of the road. He quickened his pace.

‘Bacon sandwich and cup of tea, please, mate,’ he said to the guy behind the counter. He was big, fat and greasy-looking. A bad advert for getting high on your own supply, thought Mickey.

‘You with that lot over there?’ the bloke said, slapping a couple of rashers of bacon down on the grill, standing back as they started to spit.

‘Yeah,’ said Mickey, staring at the bacon hungrily.

‘Looks pretty bad,’ the bloke said.

‘It is,’ said Mickey. ‘Very bad.’

‘If you’re gonna be here long,’ the bloke said, ‘send them over here. I’ll do discount.’

‘Cheers. You not busy, then?’

‘Been here since crack of dawn. Same as usual. Those places along the river start early. But the recession . . .’ He sniffed. ‘Customer’s a customer, innit?’ The bloke moved the bacon round the griddle, picking up old, black grease but still looking tasty.

‘It is,’ said Mickey, hoping the bacon wouldn’t take long.

‘What is it then, murder? Body or somethin’?

Mickey nodded. ‘Yeah. Awful.’ A thought struck him. ‘Hey, you’ve been here all hours. See any activity on the quay this morning?’

‘Like what?’

‘Dunno.’ He shrugged, tried to keep it light. ‘Vans, people coming and going. Maybe quickly, maybe acting like they shouldn’t have been there. That kind of thing.’

He stared at the grill, kept the bacon moving. ‘Don’t know nothin’ about that.’

At the bloke’s reaction, Mickey felt that thrill. The copper’s thrill, the one that meant a breakthrough.

‘You did, didn’t you?’

The bloke said nothing, just became intensely interested in the grill, willing the bacon to cook quicker, prodding it with his spatula.

‘What did you see?’

‘I . . . nothin’. Didn’t see nothin’. Keep me out o’ this.’

‘Listen. Someone’s been murdered over there. A young woman. It was the worst thing I’ve ever seen. In my life. Now, if you’ve seen something, you’d better tell me.’

He took the bacon off the grill, stuck it on a slice of white bread, slapped another one on top of it, put it on the counter. ‘On the house.’

Mickey sighed. ‘I didn’t want to do this, but . . .’ He shrugged. ‘Like you said, over there is swarming with coppers. Now, I can either direct them across to here when they get a bit hungry and thirsty or I can get this van impounded and off the road.’

The man held his spatula in the air. ‘What for?’

‘I’ll think of something. Health and safety’s a godsend for stuff like that.’

‘Bastard.’

‘Or . . .’

The man looked around the inside of his van like it was his own little kingdom, one he would never see again. He sighed. ‘All right, then. I’ll tell you.’

He did.

And Mickey got that tingle again, that frisson that said he was on to something. And it felt so damned good. He had forgotten just how good. In fact, he was in such a hurry to get back to the quay he almost forgot his bacon sandwich.

Almost.

11

S
uzanne closed the door, put the bolts in place, the chain across, flattened herself against it. Sighed like she had been holding her breath underwater.

She looked down the hall of her flat. At first glance, everything looked the same as it always did, but, looking more closely, she noticed differences. Things had been moved out of place and not put back. Doors and drawers left open that she would usually have shut. And vice versa.

The police. She hoped.

This should have been the place she felt safe, could take refuge in. Not any more. There was nowhere she could feel safe in now. Not even her own body. Not after today. What she had just been through.

The rape suite had been what she expected. White, tiled, functional.

So had the feelings inside her: apprehension, fear, terror.

The detective had taken her into the station, insisting Suzanne call her by her first name of Anni. Taking her straight through to this white room, waving away the paperwork until afterwards. Then pulling up two stiff-backed chairs, sitting opposite each other, talking and maintaining eye contact all the while.

‘You can have counselling, you know. We can arrange it.’

Suzanne couldn’t reply. There were no words in her mouth.

Anni continued. ‘If, you know, you need it. If things . . .’

Suzanne’s head was still spinning. It was like she had stepped out of her normal life into something surreal. A waking dream or some absurdist theatre play. In the car on the way to the station she had looked out of the window, watched people moving around, going in and out of shops, coffee houses. Carrying shopping, talking on phones, wheeling pushchairs. Normal people doing normal things. Leading normal lives. And there was her. Watching that life through the window, like a TV documentary on an alien tribe.

Suzanne found a nod for Anni. Anni returned it, gave her knee a squeeze. Suzanne’s first instinct was to place her own hand over it, keep it there, pressing hard, her only communication to that normal world. But she didn’t. She just sat there numbly, allowing Anni’s hand to stay where it was. Anni stood up.

‘We need you to undress,’ she said.

Suzanne was still wearing the T-shirt she had slept in the previous night, her dressing gown over the top of it. Anni left the room, gave her privacy, waited until she was in the cotton hospital gown. She sat on the examining table, against the wall, the loose ties at the back of the gown making her feel even more naked.

Anni returned and, with gloved hands, held out a plastic bag for Suzanne to deposit her T-shirt into. She did so. Anni smiled. Suzanne couldn’t return it.

‘Right,’ Anni said, sitting down next to her on the table. ‘I’ve got to nip upstairs to get some paperwork done. You won’t be alone for long. Will you be OK for a couple of minutes?’

Suzanne nodded, her head down, hair wafting back and forth like curtains in a slow breeze.

‘Good. The doctor’ll not be long.’ She placed her hand on Suzanne’s shoulder, gave another small squeeze.

Eventually, with another small squeeze, Anni removed her hand, stood up and left the room.

Now it was just Suzanne. Alone, but with a whole new world in her head for company.

Her mind slipped back to the night before. The dream that might not have been a dream. Her moods, her responses to it, had clicked backwards and forwards all day like a metronome: I’m making it all up. Imagining things. Wasting their time. Then: no. I’m not. It was real and there was someone with me. Someone in my room. In my bed. In my—

She tried to balance her thoughts, still her racing heart. Her hands clamped between her thighs, her ankles crossed. She closed her eyes, attempted to calm her breathing. The same thoughts tumbling over and over in her head.

I’m not giving in to this
. . .
I’m not giving in to this
. . .
I’m going to be strong, be strong
. . .
this bastard isn’t going to win
. . .

And then the door opened.

Suzanne gave a start as a woman in a white coat entered. Overweight, hair a functional bob, clothes muted shades of grey and beige. She held a file, looked at it.

‘Suzanne . . . Perry?’ She looked at Suzanne with eyes that had a calculated, professional deadness about them, a shield between herself and the wreckage of women she must confront daily.

‘Yes.’ Suzanne’s voice was small, rusty, as if shrunken from disuse. She cleared her throat, spoke again. ‘Yes.’ Stronger this time.

The doctor gave a smile that penetrated the shield and reached her eyes, showed that, no matter how much she tried not to become involved with her patients, she was still a human being.

‘I’m Doctor Winter,’ she said, still smiling, trying to reassure her. She took another look at the file in her hands, then looked back at Suzanne. ‘Right,’ she said, her voice warm and comforting, like a children’s storybook reader. ‘The first thing I want you to do is to provide a urine sample.’