Then She Was Gone (17 page)

‘She never told us her name. She could barely speak, poor thing. Began to ramble on about our son, about what he’d done to her. About what he and his friends had done.’

‘What did she say?’

‘She was so upset. Crying and wailing. I brought her in the house, because I didn’t know what else to do. She . . . she said he had done things to her. Unspeakable
things. Against her will. She was unstable. Crying one minute, angry the next. She wanted justice, she said, but no one would believe her.’

Rossi swallowed and tried to remain calm. ‘What did you do about this?’

There was a pause as Mary considered her words. ‘I couldn’t believe a word of it and she was so out of control emotionally. I had Arthur send her away. We didn’t know what else
to do. We didn’t believe we could have raised a son who would do such things. Arthur said she was quite plainly lying – that she just wanted money or something.’

‘You told Sam about her visit?’

Mary nodded, her eyes becoming teary for the first time since Rossi had arrived at the house with Murphy. ‘It was the first time I had seen real, aggressive anger in him. He was in a rage.
Even Arthur couldn’t calm him down. He was so filled with fury. I’d never seen him like that before.’

‘What happened next?’

‘He said he would sort it out and we never heard about it again. I asked Arthur about it a while later and he said it was all taken care of. I was . . . I didn’t want
to ask any more.’

‘Did you ever learn anything about the girl who came here? A name, or something like that?’

Mary shook her head. ‘I didn’t want to know. It wasn’t something I had any interest in getting involved with. Sam seemed to be OK the next time I saw him after that and he sent
me some flowers to apologise. That was enough. Now . . . now I’m worried he may have got himself into trouble and couldn’t control it.’

Rossi sat back in her chair and took in the information. Formed a picture in her mind of a different Sam Byrne than the one she’d first imagined.

Realised what was missing in the house.

Photographs. There were barely any family pictures in the house. She recalled seeing one or two in the living room, but they weren’t exactly displayed prominently. It was a show home. It
was a facade.

‘The only thing was . . . when I first spoke to Sam about the girl, he didn’t ask about her name. All he said was “which one”.’

‘Which one?’

‘It was like he’d been expecting it to happen. That someone was going to turn up and say these things, but he couldn’t be sure who it would be.’

*    *    *

Murphy settled back into the sofa as Arthur Byrne paced the floor. He moved quickly for a man of his years and weight. Every few turns he would remove his glasses then place
them back on again, shaping as if to speak, before changing his mind.

‘What do you think they’re talking about in there?’ Arthur said, stopping in front of Murphy.

‘I have no idea,’ Murphy replied, looking up slightly at the older man. ‘Why don’t you sit down and talk to me while they’re away.’

‘I don’t understand the point of all this,’ Arthur said, turning around and facing his chair. ‘What does it matter what Sam did in the past. It has nothing to do with
what’s happened to him now. That’s guaranteed.’

‘What did he do?’

‘It’s not important,’ Arthur said, his voice getting quieter. The older man dropped into his chair. ‘He’s dead. What does it matter?’

‘Because if you want me to find who did this,’ Murphy said, moving forwards and perching on the edge of the sofa, ‘you’re going to have to tell me everything. We need to
know.’

Murphy clenched his teeth to stop them grinding together as Arthur removed his glasses once again.

‘He was just a boy really. All of them in university are. We coddle them too much these days, so that when we send them off to the big wide world, they’re not real men. Not like when
I was younger. Now, every Tom, Dick and Harry from a council estate gets the chance to go to university. Time was, you were there on merit. It was your family that got you there. It’s all
changed now, of course. Now, you can walk off the damn street and get a degree.’

‘You’re avoiding the subject here, Arthur.’

‘I know, I know. He was a boy. Eighteen, never been away from his family. His mother would still press his shirts for him, for Pete’s sake. Give young boys like that an opportunity
on a plate, what did they expect?’

Murphy felt his stomach tumble over a few rotations. ‘Boys?’

‘Yes,’ Arthur replied, his glasses now discarded on the arm of the chair. ‘It seems Sam had organised some kind of club whilst at university. They would convene at a pub on
campus but they also met at all the best restaurants and bars. It was a group of like-minded souls, who all swore to help each other. A secret society of sorts. I was a member of something similar
at Oxford, years ago. Liverpool had never seen anything like it before.’

‘A kind of Bullingdon Club, is that what you’re talking about?’

‘I don’t really know if the comparison fits, but it’s close enough.’

Murphy stood up, walked over to the bureau and picked up one of only three photographs in the room. ‘This is them, isn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ Arthur replied, without looking up at him. ‘Eight of them. They got into a little trouble during their final year.’

‘Tell me about that.’

‘They were just exuberant young boys. They chose the wrong girl to party with. She woke up the next morning making accusations. It was all sorted out.’

‘What sort of accusations?’

‘I think we can both read between the lines, can’t we?’

Murphy bit his lip. ‘Were the girl’s accusations made official?’

‘No, I managed to stop it before it got that far. It wasn’t the only time their parties got a little out of hand. She was the only one who turned up again a few years later though.
Look, this will have nothing to do with what’s happened to Sam now. Mary . . . she won’t let this lie, that’s all. She believes in all that karma rubbish. She
thinks Sam may have done something bad when he was younger. She was always worried that it would come back to haunt him later on, but it was just boys being boys. These girls . . .
they were just looking for a payout, that’s all. As soon as that one found out who a couple of the boys’ fathers were, she invented a whole story.’

‘Who are the other men in this picture, Arthur?’

Arthur shook his head in response. ‘I don’t want to give out that information. You can’t make me.’

Murphy waited at the car for Rossi to finish speaking to Mary Byrne. Through the living-room window he could spy Arthur, still sitting in the chair were he’d left him.
Murphy leaned against the car, blowing some warmth into his hands as the surrounding air became cooler by the second.

‘New best friend?’ Murphy said as Rossi made her way down the path towards him shaking her head. ‘I just hope you got something more than I did.’

‘She told me a story.’

‘I bet she did,’ Murphy replied, opening the door and getting inside the car. He whacked on the heating as soon as he’d started the engine, shaking his head as Rossi got in and
removed her jacket. ‘Do you not feel the cold?’

‘I do, but it’s still warm out. It’s you getting older and feeling an invisible draught everywhere we go.’

‘Less of the old. Come on, what did she say? We need to compare notes.’

Rossi explained what Mary had told him, Murphy cutting in every now and again to confirm the similarities and differences between the two stories they had been told.

‘What do you reckon then? Think it has anything to do with his death?’

Murphy paused for a few seconds, trying to make sense of the information they had so far. ‘Everything is jumbled up at the moment. It’s like we’re getting parts of a complete
story, but it’s all out of order. We need to go back to the beginning and work out where it all starts.’

‘Because the start would be somewhere else?’

‘You talk back a lot more these days.’

‘You can blame that on
me
getting older,’ Rossi replied, smirking and running a hand through her hair. ‘I think you’re right. Nothing has made
sense yet. It’s quite obvious that he and his friends at university have possibly raped a young woman – maybe women – and it’s been hushed up by his father and his powerful
friends. Is that enough for someone to take revenge on him in this way years later?’

‘I think we’ve both seen revenge taken for much less.’

‘True, I suppose,’ Rossi said, giving Murphy the go-ahead to pull out after checking the road on her side was clear. ‘I still think we’re missing something.’

‘I’m hoping CCTV and forensics from the flat will clear up his last movements. That’ll answer a few questions.’

‘He was cut up. That’s not something you do unless you have something against the person. Surely? This is either another ever-so-delightful serial killer on our shores, or it’s
personal.’

‘Could be both,’ Murphy replied, hoping he was wrong. ‘Weirder things have happened around here lately.’

‘Ever think we’re getting more violent?’

‘Not us personally, I hope?’ Murphy said, flashing Rossi a grin. ‘Unless you want to confess to something?’

‘No, I mean as a species. Seems like everything is getting worse the last couple of years. Murder in the news, on the streets . . . enough to drive you to drink or
religion.’

‘It’s never as bad as that.’

Rossi tapped her fingers against the dashboard as she leaned forwards. ‘Think about it. I’ve heard coppers themselves say they don’t want to go to Liverpool One or the Trafford
Centre because they’re worried about being killed in a terrorist attack. We have domestics every damn day, which seem to be becoming more violent every time. People are starting to treat life
like it’s a bloody video game.’

‘It’s never as bad as you think,’ Murphy said, grin now disappeared. It was a conversation he’d had with Sarah on occasion. Especially now. What kind of world were they
living in? ‘There’s always bad in the world. That’s just the way of things. Before these bad guys, we had other bad guys. We just know about every move this lot make, because they
want us to know. We know every damn thing these days. I’m not even forty and I remember a time when I didn’t know everything a shitty group halfway round the world was doing. It keeps
them going, knowing we’re afraid.’

‘We shouldn’t fear?’

‘Of course we should,’ Murphy said, trying to look past Rossi as they pulled up to a junction. ‘But we can’t let it control us. We’re scared of the wrong things,
that’s all. We should be scared about how we’re going to fill the time we have on this planet. Not what could end it.’

‘Suppose so,’ Rossi replied, moving back against her seat finally and allowing Murphy to see out of the passenger-side window. ‘It’s still frightening.’

‘I don’t think we’re in the best position to judge how violent society is anyway. We see too much of the bad to be non-biased. It’s like some coppers – uniforms
usually – who think everything they see on shift is the truth about society. They think there’s a bunch of scroungers and benefit cheats out there, because that’s all they deal
with day to day. They think all the residents from certain estates are lost causes, and that Katie Hopkins is the voice of bleeding reason.’

‘Not all of them,’ Rossi said, but even Murphy could tell she wasn’t in total opposition to what he was saying. ‘And it’s not like CID is much better.’

‘True. We’re all human. Some of us can’t think much for ourselves, that’s all. We’re all led by our own prejudices.’

‘Confirmation bias.’

Murphy turned to look at Rossi, a question mark on his face. ‘What’s that mean?’

‘It’s a psychology thing. You need to learn this stuff now Sarah is studying it. Basically, we all look for things that confirm our own preconceptions. So, you have someone who has
grown up believing a certain group is a certain thing, usually by being taught that information from a parent or similar. They become a copper, spend every night breaking up fights and taking down
burglary reports. That all feeds into that bias. Like people who think all students are lazy, or all Muslims are terrorists. Doesn’t matter if you come along and show them it’s a small
minority doing those things, it’s already in their head that a certain group of people who are all the same.’

‘How the hell did we get here?’

Rossi peered through the windscreen. ‘It’s the right way, what are you talking about?’

‘I don’t mean on this road,’ Murphy said with a laugh. ‘I meant onto this subject. It’s a bit heavy after the day we’ve had.’

‘I have no idea. Nice to know you have a soapbox though. Big improvement from the dour one-note guy you were when we first started working together.’

‘Careful, Laura,’ Murphy said, giving Rossi the side-eye. ‘I’m still the boss round here.’

Rossi mimed pulling a zip across her mouth and throwing away a key.

‘I’m just tired, that’s all,’ Murphy continued, one hand on the steering wheel, the other resting against his forehead. ‘I have no idea what the hell has happened
the last couple of days. We weren’t even supposed to be given a case like this in the first place. Now we have a dismembered body, a possible historical sexual assault and a Z-list probable
MP with a secret flat filled with bloodstained walls and bed, and a bunch of sex toys I don’t even want to think about.’

‘That’s about the size of it,’ Rossi said, digging around in the glove compartment. She pulled out her phone. ‘I’m going to find the seven other people in that
photograph. Even if it bloody kills me. Simon Jackson is the first on my list. Put me down for a late one tonight.’

Murphy grunted in response. He stopped in the car park behind the station before pulling out his own phone.

‘I’ll follow you up,’ Murphy said. Rossi raised a hand in response, still staring at her phone as she walked away from the car. Murphy checked a few emails, deleted some
updates. He brought up his contacts and scrolled to W. For wife.

‘Hey, it’s me,’ Murphy said when Sarah answered. ‘Going to be late home, so don’t wait up if you’re tired or anything.’