The Teacher: A shocking and compelling new crime thriller – NOT for the faint-hearted! (15 page)

The Blonde

Then

John waved goodbye to Abbey as she walked towards her building. He wondered if that was where it had happened as he started the car and pulled away, he hadn’t asked, he didn’t really want to know. She had spent the last week in her room and he had spent it at the bottom of a bottle. There is no manual for being a good parent. Most of the time you just had to wing it. John grew up in a loving home with both parents. They were good parents but they died when Abbey was young. She had no mother, no grandparents, just him.

He put his foot on the pedal and drove as fast as he could without getting pulled over, he cut people off, ignored traffic lights. Part of him hoped to lose control of the car and crash into a tree, ending it all, so he wouldn’t have to think any more. His brain hurt from all the thinking, the mess of thoughts that would not form any coherent value, just question after question and the feeling that he had failed to protect her, failed as a father.

He had done his best, he really believed that. She had done all the after-school clubs, school holidays, outings, excursions, holiday clubs, everything. She was smart, sensible and independent. He had been so proud of her. She saw her mother once in a blue moon, but there was no love there. Her mother was toxic. He kept up their meetings because he wanted Abbey to make up her own mind about her mother, so the facts couldn’t get twisted in later life. He couldn’t help feeling she needed a mother more than ever now, but God only knew where she was. She got in touch when she had time, once a year, twice if they were lucky.

When she’d told him she wanted to go to university and live there he was confident she could handle herself, but at the same time, she was his world, his baby, and he wanted her to be sure. He wished now that he had just kept her at home safe, empathising with the wicked witch who kept Rapunzel hidden from the world in an unreachable tower for all those years.

He’d known when she called that there was something wrong, he thought it would be homesickness or, at worst, a falling out with her room-mate, Dani, an ill-suited friend from the start. He worried that Abbey would hero-worship a girl like Dani, a girl who had everything handed to her, he’d worried that Abbey would wish she was like her, when the truth was Abbey was a far better person, caring, kind, selfless. John was a bit of a snob when it came to precious little princesses, maybe because of his experience with his ex-wife, but he knew that the prettier the packaging, the more emotionally expensive the contents. His marriage had cost him dearly, but he was grateful that she was so selfish that when she breezed out of his life as quickly as she had breezed in she left Abbey behind. From a young age Abbey had always been responsible. While her friends were out getting drunk in the park at school lunch break or sleeping with wannabe drug dealers in the back of their Cortinas, thinking somehow that made them mature, Abbey would be studying or looking after her father. He knew she had missed out on a lot of street smarts and maybe it was his over-protectiveness that had made her such a target. But they looked after each other – always had. Now, when it had mattered the most, he wasn’t there.

He had so many questions, questions he didn’t want the answers to, and the images that just wouldn’t stop, the image of his little girl set on like a scrap of meat by a pair of hyenas. He wondered why she hadn’t called for help. Had she screamed? Bit? Fought? Anything. He knew ultimately that his questions came from a different place entirely. Since her mother had left he was supposed to take care of her, it was his job to keep her safe and he knew he hadn’t done that and nothing he could do would change it. His head was pounding with the things he could see in his mind. As though his thoughts had become insects and were crawling under his skin, eating him alive. He saw a pub up ahead and indicated, he needed a drink, and he needed it now. As he parked his car he wondered for the hundredth time why pubs had car parks anyway. He was about to break a cardinal rule of his but he was only a couple of miles from home. He could walk home if he needed.

Sitting in the bar alone he stared into his whisky, the reflection of his face looking back at him. He wished the smoking ban had never been put into effect. He had never smoked but he liked the feeling of going to the pub and being surrounded by thoughtless self-indulgence, he missed the smell on his clothes, he missed the smell on the women he used to flirt with as he watched smoke billow from their lips and imagined what else they could do with them. This morning his biggest problem had been an overdue tax form and now that seemed so completely irrelevant.

A woman at the end of the bar smiled at him, she had served him his drink, she was older and worn but had a gentle face that he couldn’t help but smile back at. He couldn’t remember the last time he was in a pub alone and he wasn’t used to women smiling at him. John was a good-looking man but he wasn’t out in the world – he worked, he occasionally went to football matches with his mates and he watched documentaries on the History Channel, that was his life. He could tell you anything you needed to know about the bombing of Dresden or the fall of the Roman Empire but ask him about women and he would have no idea. Since Abbey’s mother he had had a few short-term relationships but they never worked out because Abbey was the centre of John’s world and most women didn’t like the competition.

‘My name’s Carol, haven’t seen you here before.’ She slid into the seat next to him.

‘Hi.’ He didn’t want to tell her his name.

‘You OK? You look a bit lost. I work here. Here all the time, me. I live just upstairs.’

‘Oh right, yeah, you served me.’

‘Yep. Not working now though, finished for the day.’ He wondered why she was telling him and it occurred to him that she was making a pass, strange and unfamiliar, and exactly the right time, exactly the right distraction. She looked into his eyes, her mascara was thick and clogged around her cat-like eyes, eyes of a much younger woman. ‘That’s a lot of scotch for a Monday afternoon.’

‘Can I get you a drink?’ John didn’t know what else to say, he didn’t drink in the day, hadn’t for years.

‘I’ve got plenty to drink upstairs.’ Like a middle-aged guardian angel she took him by the hand and led him out of the bar and up the stairs. The floral wallpaper and smell of talc pushed her age to a slightly higher value than he had previously assumed. Her brittle blonde hair and harsh pink lipstick were exciting to him. There was a sadness about her that made him feel safe, she wasn’t a user, and she was lost too. Two lost souls looking for comfort in the arms of a stranger. He felt he had failed as a father so maybe he could go back to being just a man, a man with desires, needs and wants. A man who talks to women and wants to have sex, a man who brags to his mates about flirtations and conquests.

They lay on the bed, the afternoon sun highlighting every flaw and blemish on their ageing bodies. He wasn’t put off by her scars or her puckered skin, he was aroused, it had been so long since he had felt like a man, a man that women wanted. For now he couldn’t be a dad, he couldn’t think about his daughter, he wanted to pretend he only had his own needs to tend to and this was what he needed right now.

Carol’s kind eyes made this unknown exchange so much easier. He lowered his body on to hers and remembered what it felt like to care only for himself, he just wanted that release. She stroked his hair as he ploughed into her. This was not making love, this was just sex, but in many ways it was one of the tenderest moments he had ever experienced.

When they were both satisfied, he climbed off and she lit a cigarette. He watched the smoke rise up and disperse in the sunlight. He wanted to leave now but he didn’t want to go back to his life, he wanted to stay this person for ever; nameless, unattached, a mystery. He knew as soon as he left this bedsit he would be John again, he would be Abbey’s father again, and he would have to deal with whatever happened next. He left Carol in her room alone. He walked back to his car, he should not have driven but today he was not following the same rules, all the rules had changed.

His house felt cold and unwelcoming, for the first time in years he wanted to speak to Abbey’s mother and ask her advice, but he didn’t know where she was. He dialled the number he had for her but it was a disconnected mobile; she never stayed reachable for long.

He couldn’t help feeling, from what little information Abbey had given him, that maybe she had not been clear with the boys. Maybe they just got carried away and it was all just a big misunderstanding. These thoughts, he hated himself for them. He hated that he didn’t just take her word for it and he knew what teenage boys were like, he had been one once. But then this was his Abbey, his little girl he was thinking about, she just wasn’t the type of girl that fooled around then made false accusations, was she? She had to be telling the truth and he realised that was what was killing him. He trusted her, she just wouldn’t lie, and so it was time for him to face up to it, too. No matter which way he looked at it she had been raped and he had to find a way to make it better.

He searched the kitchen cupboard for a glass and pulled out the pink china pig mug he had bought Abbey once. Tears invaded his eyes and anger welled up inside him, and he threw the mug against the wall, watching the shattered pieces fall to the floor. I’ll just drink straight from the bottle, he thought to himself as he unscrewed a bottle of economy German wine and sat in his armchair in the darkness. He could still smell Carol’s cheap perfume on his shirt. He wished Carol was there, telling him what to think, feel, say, stroking his hair and whispering security into his ear. He fell asleep bottle in hand, dreaming of his flaxen-haired angel.

The Newsreader

David Caruthers sat patiently in his chair waiting for his make-up artist Diane to finish. She jabbed him in the eye with the foundation brush.

‘For fuck’s sake!’ he said, saline water streaming down his cheek.

‘Sorry.’ She scuttled away and he turned to face the camera.

‘Where the hell is Bev?’ David shouted across the sea of people as he dabbed his eye with a tissue.

‘Sorry!’ Beverly Windham ran across the newsroom floor and sat down next to David, still tucking her blouse into her skirt. ‘Toilet emergency.’

‘I don’t need to know,’ David said and then winced as the light shone in his face. Beverly threw him a quick V sign.

The blinking red light came on the camera and David started to read from the autocue.

‘Welcome to the six o’clock news, I’m David Caruthers.’

‘And I’m Beverly Windham.’

‘Forensic experts have identified the partial remains found in Devon last Tuesday when a German couple who were hiking dialled 999 after finding a body part on their trail. A number of police officers and crime scene investigation officers have been working round the clock to locate the rest of the body. What they discovered has been described by one of the officers at the scene as “something out of a medieval horror movie”. The body, which has now been identified as local businessman Ian Markham …’ David stalled on the name, the words on the autocue blurred for a moment and his voice caught in his throat. He felt Beverly kick him under the counter. ‘Um … Ian Markham … um earlier believed to have fled the country after being implicated in a massive … um … fraud case that’s still under investigation by the Inland Revenue.’ David felt his cheeks redden, the anxiety rising. Beverly looked at him, the autocue still rolling but nothing coming out of his mouth. He stared at the glass of water on the news desk; he reached for it and took a throaty gulp.

‘David, what the fuck? Read the fucking words!’ A voice came through on their earpieces.

‘Um … what was found of the body was so badly decomposed that he was finally identified through dentist’s … sorry … dental records …’

‘Beverly, take over, he’s fucked it,’ David heard in his ear.

‘At the scene of the crime,’ she jumped in, having missed the first few words, ‘Mr Markham had been subject to a brutal ordeal. We’re going to hand over to Simon who is on site to give more details.’

‘You prick, Dave,’ came over the earpiece again.

The red light flicked off and David jumped out of his chair, ripping his earpiece out.

‘What the fuck are you doing? We are back on in thirty-five seconds!’ Beverly panicked.

‘You’ll have to finish up, I have to go.’

‘What the hell are you playing at, Dave?’ Chris the producer barked.

‘I don’t feel well,’ David said as he dashed out of the studio, he didn’t have time to explain, he had to get out of there.

He ran into the bathroom and pushed open the stall, the gourmet pizza he had eaten for lunch sprang from his stomach, his mouth awash with the taste of regurgitated hoisin duck and white wine. He went to the sink and looked in the mirror, his eye still streaming, and the foundation was the only thing holding colour in his cheeks. He splashed his face and the door burst open.

‘What the fuck was that?’ Beverly screeched as the door thumped closed behind her.

‘I’m sorry; it just crept up on me. Can we do this later?’

‘You made us look like total fucking amateurs, Dave!’

‘I’m sorry, if it’s any consolation, I just puked my guts up.’

‘Maybe.’ She softened and smiled a little, came and kissed him on the cheek. ‘Lunch went straight through me, too.’

‘Sexy.’ He grimaced, trying to hold together the illusion that everything was fine apart from the pizza.

‘Go home. I’ll come over later with some chicken soup, look after you.’

‘No, you’re OK, let’s just leave it tonight. I think I need a good night’s sleep or something.’ He had things to do, people to talk to, he had to find out what had happened. There was an alarm bell ringing in his mind, there could only be one explanation for what had happened to his old friend Ian. He needed to make a call.

‘I’m away tomorrow though, I’m on assignment covering that stupid TV awards thing, have to stand out all night in the sodding rain interviewing a bunch of wannabes and Z-listers.’

‘Friday, I’ll take you out for dinner, not pizza this time, I promise.’ That should give him a couple of days to go and see the others.

She smiled and walked out swinging her hips from side to side, looking back at him seductively as she pushed the door open and left the men’s toilets. He wiped his face with a paper towel and left quickly before anyone else cornered him.

He showed the door security guard his pass and swiped his card to open the door. Outside, he gulped for air, his head spinning, he wanted to be sick again, he put his hand out for a taxi and one pulled up immediately. He couldn’t be bothered to walk to King’s Cross station, he didn’t want to be around other people.

He pulled out his phone and searched through his extensive directory. He found the name he was looking for and pressed the green button.

‘The number you are trying to reach is no longer in service.’

‘Fuck!’

He pressed the green button for another name.

‘Hello,’ came the woman’s voice on the other end.

‘Hello, is that Patricia? Patricia Stone?’

‘Yes, who is this, please?’

‘I’m Jeff’s friend David, David Caruthers,’ he said in his newsroom voice – he found it impossible to say his name any other way, ‘could I speak to him, please? Is he home?’

‘Oh, David the newsreader guy? He spoke of you sometimes … um, no, sorry, Jeff isn’t here, I mean … I’m afraid Jeff passed away.’

‘When?’ David held his breath.

‘A few weeks ago. Sorry I didn’t send you an invitation to the funeral, I didn’t think you were still close.’

‘How …’ He didn’t want to know the how, but the word just came out.

‘Oh um … well … there’s no easy way to say this, he took his own life.’ Her voice was flat and emotionless; a certain type of acceptance in her tone, as though she had always known it was on the cards.

‘Thank you, Patricia, sorry for your loss.’ The phone clicked and the dial tone sounded, she hung up without saying anything further.

He dialled another number.

‘Hello? Who is this?’ An older, gruff voice answered the phone, slightly panicked.

‘It’s David, David Caruthers.’ He cringed as he said his own name again.

‘You heard, then?’

‘Jeff’s dead, too.’

‘Ian was mutilated, completely, strung up and left to nature.’

‘It was him, then?’

‘I believe so, and Stephen died on some kind of sex holiday in Paris, I dug around a little and the police said natural causes but I get the feeling there was a cover-up there, can’t get any bloody straight answers from those people.’

‘I tried Steve, his phone was out of service. I just thought it was an old number. What the hell are we going to do?’

‘He wouldn’t come after us, I mean, you are practically a celebrity, David, and he would be an idiot to come after me.’ David wasn’t sure whether the use of his name was added as an affirmation or condescension, he didn’t like the tone either way. He hung up.

He paid the cabby and went inside, wary of what he might find, but the flat was empty, untouched, it looked exactly as he had left it. He poured himself a drink of scotch and then filled the glass with ice from the fridge dispenser. He pulled off his tie and then sat down. David flicked the TV on and trawled the channels for the news, he didn’t want to know but like a raw nerve in the back of your mouth that you just can’t help touching with your tongue, he had to know. All the reports were generic, no details. Inside his mind were all the details he needed to know, and the memories of the things he had done. The boy that got away, the other boys that weren’t so lucky, the faces of his friends as they revelled in the suffering of those adolescents. He remembered standing in front of his friends and handing out judgements; David always did like an audience. He drained the last of his drink and switched the TV off. He had to get out, go somewhere, he couldn’t just stay here and wait. He stood up but his feet gave way, he smashed violently through the glass coffee table on to the floor, he tried to move his feet but they were heavy, so heavy. David looked up and saw an old ‘friend’ standing there.

‘Oh, please! Please don’t hurt me!’ David cried as the man dragged him back to the sofa. David tried to grab him but the man punched him in the face. He recoiled from the blow and steadied himself with his hands, his fingers felt strange. Pins and needles crept up into the palms of his hands.

‘We don’t have long.’ The man put a tripod in front of David and set a camera on top, adjusting the settings. He walked over to the stereo and hit play. The familiar sound of Mahler enveloped David, cementing what he had known the second he saw the man standing in front of him. He was going to die.

‘Long for what? What’s that for?’

‘I want a confession.’

‘Do you want money? I have money, I can get you money if you want it, I know loads of people; I can get you anything you want.’ The words tumbled out of David’s mouth before he had a chance to form them into coherent sentences.

‘Well you know I have money, and why on earth would I want anything from you? What is your life worth to you?’

‘Just name anything and I’ll get it for you!’

‘I want a confession.’

‘You don’t have to do this,’ David pleaded.

The man stood behind the camera. David studied his face, it had changed so much, and it was hateful.

‘I do have to do this, the years you have had are more than you deserve, you can’t have thought you had got away with it.’

David couldn’t move his fingers any more. He couldn’t move his legs at all. His body felt cold and he could feel saliva building in his mouth.

‘What have you done to me?’ David slurred.

‘Hemlock, do you remember that one? I remember it. Do you remember how it works? First comes the nausea, I believe you already experienced that one. I took a bit of a risk putting it in your water at work but I just couldn’t resist.’

‘You were at the s-studio?’ David’s head was pulsing; he felt the spit trickling out of his mouth with every word.

‘Drooling!’ the killer listed, holding up two fingers. ‘Have you got the stomach pains yet? They are pretty special.’ He held up yet another finger, he was counting through a list, uncaring, no empathy.

‘Please.’

‘If you start talking now I can save you, all I have to do is put a tube in your throat and call an ambulance before your respiratory system shuts down.’

‘No, I can’t, please, you don’t understand, my children will see it.’

‘It’s going to get painful soon, you know, David, and you might get lucky, the paramedics might make it before you shit yourself.’

‘Who … is going to see the video?’

‘Maybe no one, or I might put in on the internet. Maybe I’ll send it to your girlfriend Bev, she might get a kick out of it, or she might prefer reading out the story of how they found what’s left of your body, on air.’

‘You leave her alone!’

‘You’re not in a position to tell me what to do, David.’

‘OK, OK, I’ll do it.’

‘State your name and then confess your crimes, along with the names of your fellow perpetrators.’

‘You’ll never get away with this.’

‘Maybe I don’t want to.’ They looked at each other – a knowing look, a look with history – until the man broke his gaze. ‘Now talk!’

The red light of the camera came on, David could feel the dribble pooling in his mouth, he knew when he opened it that it would run down his chin, his neck, funny that with everything that was happening this should be the thing that concerned him the most. Not the fact that his lungs could collapse or that within minutes he could be sitting in a puddle of his own excrement, he worried about the image, what people would think when they saw him labouring with his tongue for words.

‘I’m David Caruthers and this is my confession.’ David spoke slowly, concentrating on the words as they formed in his mind, and pushing them out of his mouth. ‘I have done very bad things, evil things.’ His thoughts were becoming cloudy and his stomach reeled with pain. ‘I have hurt children, with my own hands. I belonged to a group who believed in personal sacrifice for the greater good. We thought we were doing the right thing! When we took you we were trying to make you better. It was Peter and Kevin … they took it too far … No one was supposed to die … it wasn’t supposed to be about that.’ Exhausted, he began to cry. ‘I can’t, I just can’t do this.’ The camera switched off.

‘I guess that will do, for a start – although personal sacrifice makes it sound so noble, you should probably mention that it wasn’t your person that was being sacrificed.’

‘You’ll let me go now?’ He hated the sound of his own pathetic voice and he knew, he knew the more pathetic he sounded, the more likely he was to die. David understood the rules, hell, David made the rules.

The man lifted David over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift and carried him through to the bedroom, another room with a view – this time the Thames echoed in the full wall of mirrored wardrobes. He threw David on the bed and tied his hands and feet to the posts, David was helpless, too weak to move. ‘What are you doing?’

‘Don’t worry, you’re not my type.’

‘Please, just let me go.’

‘Do you know what Ling Chi is, David?’

‘You said you would let me go!’

‘Ling Chi is the Chinese execution also known as death of a thousand cuts, or the lingering death.’ The man left the room and David looked desperately for a way to escape, there was nothing and even if there had been he was powerless to do anything about it. The man returned with the camera and positioned it at the end of the bed. David began to sob again. ‘The scary thing is this was only made illegal around a hundred years ago, but then you know all about that, don’t you?’

‘If I could take it back, I would!’