The Blood Detective (32 page)

I wanted them to.’

Foster felt his gorge rise. The anger gave him

strength. There was no way he was going to lie here, tortured and waiting to die.

‘You aren’t killing to avenge anything,’ Foster spat out. ‘Those people were innocent. You’re doing this because you enjoy it, you sadistic bastard. Just because you think you have a reason - and some pseudo-intellectual horseshit about being affected by the air - it doesn’t make you better than your ancestor. In fact, you’re worse.’

He paused there, he had to, the effort too much.

As he recovered his breath, summoning the will to goad the killer more, he sensed him at his side.

‘You know what the most painful bone in the body is to break, don’t you?’ the voice whispered directly into his ear.

Foster did not want to hear the answer. ‘Fuck you.’

The killer, face red with anger, reapplied the tape.

Then he raised the sledgehammer and brought it

down with full force on Foster’s collarbone. He felt it break instantly in midsection; a bolt of fiery pain powered through his neck and shoulder and down his right-hand side.

Foster issued a cry that came from his boots.

As he writhed, the killer went out of view,

returning with a syringe, which he stabbed into Foster’s arm.

The light was beginning to drain from the day as Heather and Nigel sped to the Prince of Wales. The staff sketched in the final few minutes before Foster’s disappearance. How he came in search of Karl Hogg, shared a drink with him and collapsed, presumably drunk. A member of staff claimed he appeared woozy when he arrived, though Heather assigned that to exhaustion. When he slumped at the bar, Hogg said he’d overdone it and would take him home. He then took him to his vehicle, a small red van, and drove away. Foster’s car was still where he had left it, parked a short distance from the pub.

Hogg was paid cash; he worked there Friday and

Sunday lunchtimes; the only contact they had for him was a mobile-phone number, which was switched off.

He was not a registered owner of a vehicle, which closed off one avenue, and he didn’t seem to own a credit card.

‘The last of the bohemians,’ Heather muttered,

sardonically.

An address came through for Liza Hogg. Nigel and Heather raced round there, Nigel unable to prevent himself from staring at the digital clock, illuminated on the dash, ticking over. It was ten in the evening when they arrived at Liza Hogg’s flat in a tower block on the eastern side of Ladbroke Grove, looming over the Great Western running in and out of Paddington.

Heather knocked at the door. No answer. Heather swore. She knocked again. Silence. Nigel peered through the window beside the door into a dimly lit kitchen, the only colour a pair of yellow rubber gloves draped over the taps.

They were just about to start knocking on the

neighbour’s door when the light went on. There was a rattle of chains, and the door opened a fraction.

The worn, pinched face of an elderly woman

peeped cautiously through the gap. ‘Yes,’ she

muttered, wearily.

‘Mrs Hogg?’

The woman nodded.

Heather flashed her badge. ‘Sorry if we’ve woken you,’ she said softly. ‘We need a quick word, nothing to worry about.’

Liza Hogg invited them in, flicking on light

switches as she passed them in her dressing gown and slippers. They followed her through to the sitting room, where three cats had made a bed of the sofa.

Liza shooed them away.

They sat down, Nigel and Heather on the small,

threadbare sofa decorated with a faded floral pattern.

Nigel kept quiet — he felt awkward even being there, but Heather had insisted he came.

Heather apologized for barging in. ‘We’re actually interested in the whereabouts of a relative of yours.’

‘I’ve only one,’ she said slowly, as if still escaping the clutches of sleep. ‘You mean Karl?’

‘Have you seen him recently?’

Liza shook her head. ‘He doesn’t visit me much

these days.’

‘He used to?’

‘He used to live with me. After all that happened.’

‘All what happened?’

Liza, more awake it seemed, sighed deeply. ‘Where do you want to start? The poor lad hasn’t had an easy life.’

Heather and Nigel exchanged a glance.

‘Go on,’ Heather urged.

‘His father raised him and his brother for a while.

But then he was driving back from work one day

when a drink-driver lost control and smashed into him. He died. Karl took it very bad. He was close to his dad. And to his brother. He came to live with me; his brother went to university. They were strange lads, the pair of them. His brother, David, had a lot of problems. He took his own life at university. Hanged himself.’

Nigel had witnessed much of this tragedy while

researching the bloodline at the FRC, but it was only here, coming from the mouth of an old woman, that he saw just how bleak it had been. As if their blood had been tainted.

‘Karl withdrew completely when he moved in. Sat up here staring at the walls. Didn’t want to do anything with life. The only thing he was interested in was our family’s history. You see, we’ve a rather chequered past.’

‘Yes,’ Heather said. ‘Did Karl know about that?’

Liza nodded. ‘We all knew about that.’

*You said Karl got interested?’

‘To say the least. All he did was research that. He’d go to the sites of the murders. All day and all night he walked. It was the 1980s; a lot was going on around here. Finally he came out of himself, starting to write about the place, its history. Became obsessed with that, too. At least it stopped him reading and rereading the letter.’

Liza got up and shuffled to a drawer in a bureau at the far side of the room. She opened it and rustled around. Time seemed to stand still. Nigel could not bear it. Come on! he thought to himself, casting an impatient glance at a wooden clock on the mantelpiece.

Eventually the old woman emerged with a

piece of yellowing paper, neatly folded.

‘This is the letter I showed him.’ She handed it to them. ‘It’s the suicide note written by Segar’s son, Esau. Karl used to read it almost every night.’

Heather opened it up carefully. The paper was

fragile, the folds worn almost to the point of disintegration.

Nigel leaned in so he could read it too. The

writing was a scrawl, though still legible. There was no introduction, no signature, but it looked to Nigel as if it was genuine.

/ knew He killed. I cannot relate what it was that drew me to that conclusion. The look-in his eye, the hours he began to keep, a sense of awfulforeboding. As the police discovered each victim, it became clearer to me that my father was responsible. I could point to no evidence save his night-time excursions and the cold glimmer of hatred in his eyes. He had long since stopped communicating with me. I disappointed him, that was clear. I did alt I could to keep out of his path.

One night I heard him leave. I climbed from my

window to the street below. The fog was thicks

blanketing the city, muffling its sounds. I simply listened and followed his soft wolf-like tread. I shadowed him all the way until he grabbed some poor soul staggering back^

from a night of drinks I heard a muffled cry and then watched him fall. My father turned, I ducked away, then he made his way back, home.

I failed to get back, before he did. The next morning he asked where I was. I concocted a tale of meeting a friend, though I knew it would earn me a beating. He only stopped when my mother begged him to. I lay on my bed on my front, weeping as my mother tended the wounds to my backhand backside from the strap, praying to whichever God for the peelers to come and take him away.

(But they never came.

From that day he sank further into insanity. He made us pray four times a day. would beat me incessantly. Then came the night. He urged us to follow him down to the cellar. ‘Each night since, I remember the damp smell, the cold floor, then the noise … my mother gurgling, spluttering, choking on her own blood. He grabbed me and plunged the knife into my neck! eyes wide as saucers and brimming with mania. I remember nothing else.

/ was struck^dumb from then on, forever to keep the dark^secret quiet in my heart. until this day when I end my own wretched life. I carry that man’s blood. ‘With me it ends. It is my fervent dying hope that those who proceed can live without this stain on their souls.

Heather folded the letter back up. You said he

doesn’t come by very often these days,’ she said.

Liza shook her head. ‘Once or twice a year. Not quite sure what he’s up to. He hasn’t written one of his books in a while; he usually brings me a copy, but hasn’t done for at least a year. While he wrote them he seemed OK. I think he thought the world would listen - it didn’t. But the last time I saw him, he said he was working on another project.’

‘Do you know what he does, where he goes, any

friends?’

‘Not these days. He used to spend a lot of time around the site of the house.’

‘The house?’

‘On Pamber Street. Segar Kellogg’s house.’

When Foster surfaced, he couldn’t speak. His mouth gaped helplessly wide, wedged open to its furthest extremity, as if stuck at the midpoint of a yawn. He tried to bring both jaws together but his jaw felt locked in place. From the bottom of his field of vision, he could just make out a metal plate on his top lip. He took a few desperate breaths through his wide-open mouth, the air rushing in gulps, drying his throat in an instant. There was a fleeting moment of panic when it felt as if his throat would seize and he would not be able to breathe.

By inhaling through his nostrils he managed to

regain control. Not my teeth, he thought. With his tongue he flicked at the top and bottom rows, only able to reach the latter. They were covered by what felt like a strip of rubber. Some contraption had prised open his mouth.

‘Unfortunately, I won’t be able to take any more questions from the floor,’ he heard his killer’s voice say, ‘the floor now being unable to ask any questions.’

Foster struggled against his restraints like a

wounded, cornered beast, instinct and preservation kicking in once more, damning the pain each minor movement caused.

This wasn’t how he thought it was going to end.

Not like this. A heart attack one night, maybe. Or some bullet from a suspect they had forced into a corner. All of these he had considered when lying in bed, or mulling over a glass of red. But not being tortured by a fucking maniac. If he had a gun and the use of his hands, he would have no hesitation in blowing his own brains out.

‘The item you are wearing is called, rather

bluntly, a mouth opener. I’ve adapted it a bit, but it’s used in sadomasochistic circles in pursuit of helpless degradation and absolute control. God bless the Internet.’

He leaned in closer; Foster could feel his warm breath on his face.

‘You can’t see, but there are two screws here.’

The contraption moved. The screws were at either side of his mouth.

If I turn them clockwise they bring the two metal plates that are covering your upper and lower sets of teeth closer together.’

Foster felt the contraption loosen and his jawbone relax with an ache.

‘But if I turn anticlockwise …’

He felt the screws turn. The gap between the top and bottom of his jaw became wider once more.

If I keep screwing like this, then eventually your jawbone will break - very slowly.’

He continued to turn, thread by thread. Foster felt the strain on his jaw as it was pushed back to the position it was in when he woke up. The skin at the side of his lips had split. Breathing was a struggle once more. Foster felt himself fading, unable to get the air he needed because the widening of his mouth tightened his neck and constricted the airway.

The fight was leaving him, his thoughts starting to drift…

The barbiturates had come from the street. A drug dealer, who passed them information from time to time, said he would get hold of them for the right price. Three days later they met in a carpark and he was handed the vial.

‘You sure you know what you’re doing here?’ the dealer had asked. ‘My mate says that’s some heavy shit.’

Foster reassured him. Did not tell him it was for his own father.

That night his father wanted to do it. His affairs had been put in order, nothing was left undone. They sat at the kitchen table as the night fell and drank a bottle of Chateau Montrose 1964. Rain had decimated the crop that year, but the Montrose was picked before the storms came, a true rarity. His father had long been saving it.

He drank it in a state of reverie. Before he took the first sip, he stared long and hard at the beautiful red hue, then buried his nose in the glass and inhaled deeply. A look of contentment was written across his face. When he took a sip, so did Foster. The wine was like liquid velvet, the acidity correct, the tannins gentle and mellow. It was the silkiest wine he had ever tasted. His father savoured each drop like it was nectar of the finest fruit.

When he finished the glass, he stood up. Not even allowing himself more than one glass in the last few minutes of his life.

‘Don’t do it, Dad,’ Foster said, voice breaking.

‘This life holds little more for me,’ his father said. ‘The cancer will kill me in a year. It will eat and eat away at me. I would rather retain some control and choose the time of my leaving.’

‘What changed, Dad? You were so full of fight’

His father held up his hand to quieten him. Don’t give me the first degree,’ he said slowly. Euthanasia means “easy death” and I want it to be that way. Respect my decision.

There are some fights you can’t win and there are some fights you don’t want to win. Now you can leave if you want. I’ll understand. You’re implicated enough as it is.’ As he stood up, he looked at Foster. ‘One day you’ll understand.’

His father went upstairs. Foster followed, not quite believing this was happening.