Behind Closed Doors (20 page)

‘Hey, beautiful girl,’ he murmured into her ear. ‘What are you sleeping for?’

‘You’re not going to throw up on me, are you?’ she asked in reply.

‘Would I do that to the woman I love, eh?’

Lou turned over to face him, and as she did so his hands pushed up inside her pyjama top and then his mouth followed, planting kisses on her bare stomach. She ran her fingers through his hair, encouraging him lower. ‘You’re just saying that because you’re drunk.’

He was busy, or pretending that he couldn’t hear. And then she became distracted at what he was doing, pleasantly surprised that he was even more skilled at it after all that alcohol. After a few minutes she didn’t even mind having been woken up; she had a rest day booked, so there was a lie-in to look forward to.

‘Relax,’ he said, muffled. ‘You need to let go.’

Several minutes later, full of endorphins and sleepy, Jason’s arms around her, Louisa was heading back off to sleep when he said it again. ‘You still awake? I love you. Just, you know. Thought I should tell you that.’

She lifted her head to look at him. He smiled at her and pushed her hair out of her eyes.

‘You mean it? Really?’

‘Yeah. Absolutely mean it.’

She kissed him, a long, slow kiss that went on for a while and almost, but not quite, developed into Round Two. But Lou could barely keep her eyes open. She rested her head back on to his chest and fell asleep, still smiling.

Detective Constable Alastair Whitmore, known to everybody as Ali, was waiting for Sam in the foyer of Briarstone General Hospital.

‘Couldn’t find a space,’ she said, out of breath, when he raised his eyebrows at her.

‘Been here hours,’ he complained, giving her a wink.

‘Are we sure they’re here?’ Sam asked as they made their way up the corridor towards the High Dependency Unit.

‘Mrs Palmer normally comes in first thing, when she’s finished work. She’s an office cleaner, gets here by eight most days. Saturdays she gets a bit of a lie-in but she said she’d be here.’

Ian Palmer had been moved to the HDU from the Intensive Care ward a few days ago. It seemed to indicate progress of a sort, although he had not regained consciousness.

‘I’m sure this bloody corridor gets longer every time I come here,’ Sam said.

‘Hello,’ said Ali under his breath. ‘Look who it is.’

Coming out of the door to the HDU was a dark-haired lad with a well-developed beer gut, wearing a beige jacket and jeans. Dark hair that had once been razor-cut in an elaborate tribal pattern into the side of a shaven head, growing out now at all sorts of different lengths so that it looked as though he’d attacked himself with a pair of scissors.

‘Hello, Reggie,’ Ali said cheerfully.

He’d been keeping his head down, trying to walk past without acknowledging Ali until he stood right in front of him, blocking his path.

‘All right,’ came the reply.

Sam had no idea who the young man was, but from Ali’s approach she knew to let him get on with it.

‘Fancy seeing you here,’ Ali went on, in a relaxed manner, clearly seeing what he could get. ‘What you up to, then? Visiting?’

‘Um, yeah. Visiting a friend.’

‘Funny, that – same as us. Who you visiting, then?’

‘Just a friend… look, I got to get away, me bus is due, if I miss it there in’t another one till twelve.’

‘All right, mate,’ Ali said. ‘Mind how you go.’

They stood together by the door to the HDU and watched him scoot off down the corridor as fast as he could without actually breaking into a run.

‘He seems nice,’ Sam said.

‘Paul Stark, commonly known as Reggie,’ Ali said. ‘First nicked him when he was thirteen; he was trying to sell stolen catalytic converters to the scrap merchants. Lovely lad. Such potential.’

Valerie Palmer was sitting in a comfy chair next to her son’s bed, poring over a copy of
Take a Break
with a pen in her hand. Not for the first time, Sam thought how she must have had Ian at an alarmingly young age because she scarcely looked more than thirty, dark hair cut in a smooth bob, a long fringe over her eyes. Slender legs in skin-tight jeans, high-heeled suede boots up to the knee.

‘Mrs Palmer,’ Sam said. ‘How’s Ian today?’

‘Same,’ she said in reply, tossing the magazine and the pen on to the table next to her.

Ian Palmer was lying inert, tubes and wires all over the place. Sam had only ever seen him like this; she wondered what he was like walking and talking. Wondered if he was kind to his mum, or if he was a mouthy git with an attitude. It wasn’t the sort of question you could ask.

‘Has he had many visitors?’ Ali asked.

‘A couple. His girlfriend’s stopped coming, that didn’t last long.’

‘We saw Reggie outside,’ Ali volunteered.

‘Yeah, he’s been good as gold, bless his heart.’

‘I didn’t realise they were such good mates.’

Valerie looked guarded, all of a sudden. ‘He’s all right, Paul is. I know he’s been in trouble with you lot before, but that was his brother’s fault. Don’t you go getting any ideas about my Ian, just because he’s got friends.’

‘Course not,’ Sam said, ‘don’t worry. It’s just that he might know something, you know, but not feel he can come and talk to us.’

Without warning Valerie Palmer crumpled, her face in her hands. Sam sat on one of the hard plastic chairs opposite her, put a hand gently on her shoulder. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t get any easier.’

‘I just wish he could come home!’ Valerie wailed. ‘I haven’t seen the other kids for more than five minutes a day. I haven’t slept properly since it happened. I’m so tired. I just want him back the way he was.’

She recovered herself, taking some deep breaths. Whipping a tissue from the box on the table with one decisive move, she dabbed under her eyes. ‘I’m okay, sorry. Just lost it for a minute there.’

‘Is there anything you need?’ Sam asked.

‘No, no. I’ll be all right. It’s a waiting game, right?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Look,’ she said, ‘I’ll ask Paul to talk to you, shall I?’

A few minutes later, rubbing alcohol gel into their hands, Ali and Sam headed back towards the car park.

‘I feel so sorry for her,’ Sam said. ‘Such a shame.’

‘Yes,’ Ali said. ‘Although she knew full well what he was up to, for all this “my Ian” business. She knew he was mixing with the wrong type of person; she used to be the same herself, back in the day.’

‘You think?’

‘Her sister Chloe – not that she talks to her any more, mind you – but her little sister Chloe used to be shacked up with Darren Cunningham. Come to that, Ian’s brother Tom was supposed to be working as Cunningham’s driver a while back. They’re up to their necks in it.’

‘You’re kidding – really?’

‘You can bet your life that Ian Palmer’s current condition is all down to him being somewhere he shouldn’t have been, or ripping someone off, or basically just being a mouthy idiot. Unfortunately, until one of his mates decides to tell us what he was up to, we’re not going to be any the wiser.’

Darren Cunningham was the principal subject of another of Eden’s organised crime groups, the most active group of several which focused on drug distribution. They were like businesses, Sam often thought: some specialised in stealing cars, some did armed robberies, others, like the McDonnell-Maitland OCG, earned money by trafficking people into the country through the ports. Cunningham didn’t bother with any of that. He was earning quite enough by distributing drugs. Most of the drugs that were served up and consumed in Briarstone had allegedly passed through his network. Sam knew quite a bit about Cunningham himself – he featured on the morning briefing almost every day – but his associations, his history… all that was a bit woolly. This was the problem with transferring from another force, Sam thought, driving back towards HQ. Much as it had been an advantage to learn policing in the Met, where anything could and did happen, once you moved to another force you lost all those years of knowledge about the local criminals. Reading the information on the force’s crime database only got you so far. Ali, Les and Jane had watched these lads grow up, knew them so well they could tell you what Ian Palmer had tattooed on his backside and what Paul Stark’s preferred way to break into a Fiesta was. And yes, even Sam could tell that Valerie Palmer, hard-working mum of four, had a bit of a past – but that didn’t stop her feeling a lurch of pity for Valerie now. Ian had been her baby, her gorgeous baby son. Hulking great teenager now, pretty much a grown man, but he was still her little boy – and, whatever the moment of stupidity that had brought him to the HDU, there was a strong possibility that he would never recover.

Back in the car, Sam checked her phone and saw she had a missed call from Caro Sumner. She called back straight away.

‘Hi, it’s Sam – you called?’

‘Oh, thanks for ringing me back. I’ve got a couple of jobs to do this morning before I go and collect our mutual friend from the Travel Inn. I wondered if you’d like to come with me, if you’re free? Might be something of interest for you.’

There was something odd about the man. They were all odd, of course they were – what sort of normal man paid for sex anyway? – but Scarlett had grown to recognise the types, the ones that wanted something weird, before they even opened their mouths.

This one wanted to taste her blood. He came straight out with it, told her he was a vampire and he needed blood – not much of it, just a little bit to keep him going. He wasn’t going to hurt her, he said, pulling a thin metal object from his pocket that turned out to be a scalpel, complete with clear plastic guard over the blade.

‘I pay you double,’ he said.

‘No,’ she said. ‘You need to leave right now.’

‘It won’t show,’ he said. ‘Just a little blood, I just need a taste, and I make sure I use antiseptic.’

He was standing between her and the door, sweating in his thick winter coat. His hair, dark and streaked with grey, was sticking to his forehead. He smiled encouragingly, as though she was on the verge of saying yes.

There had been a time she’d thought they were bugging the room, and she had always been careful what she said, in case they listened in. But one day a customer had beat her badly and despite her screams they’d taken nearly ten minutes to get to her. Since then, she’d assumed they just watched from the street outside, and even then not all the time. It wasn’t worth the risk to try to escape, to try to find someone who would help her, but she had been thinking of that man who called himself Stefan, wondering if he had, after all, been a good man. She thought that, if he came back, she might just try and talk to him properly.

‘I said no,’ she said.

‘Three times,’ he said.

Scarlett was considering her options. A little blood? That was what he wanted? And he was willing to pay her treble the usual rate…

‘What I do is this,’ he said, pulling his collar away from his neck. ‘A little tiny cut, just on your shoulder. Not near any big vessel. Then I suck out a little blood – just a little; it will be like I am kissing your shoulder – and then I clean with a wipe – ’ he pulled a sachet from his pocket and tossed it on to the bed ‘ – and put on a dressing and then I leave you in peace, nothing else. I pay you. It take just a minute.’

‘You’re mad,’ she said.

‘No,’ he said. ‘I just need blood.’

He didn’t look like a vampire. He looked like a sad, desperate, middle-aged freak, and for a fraction of a second she felt sorry for him.

‘Money up front,’ she said.

He threw a handful of notes on the bed and she picked them up and counted. It was actually more than treble her rate – five hundred euros.

‘That’s all I have,’ he said.

She could tell by the expression on his face that he was telling the truth, just as he could probably tell from hers that she had already made up her mind. It didn’t feel dangerous, after all, this transaction: they both had a need. In a way, it was like meeting on neutral ground. That wasn’t something she felt very often. They dominated her, they bullied her, or sometimes the reverse was true and people came to her wanting to be abused. Sometimes she felt she could take advantage of them – the scared ones, the first-timers, the ones who were embarrassed and ashamed of their bodies – but she didn’t want to give them cause to complain. And they were the easy ones – they might even come back to her, might even turn into regulars. But this one was different. There was a risk on both sides.

Scarlett didn’t answer him, but sat on the edge of the bed, her back to him, drawing her hair over one shoulder, exposing the other. She could hear his breathing quicken, then she felt his weight on the bed. He was kneeling over her, and for the first time she could smell him. A hint of deodorant, but above it the smell of sweat, excitement, and fear.

‘It might sting a little,’ he said, his voice a whisper. ‘I’ll be quick.’

It was a sharp stab of pain that made her wince. She felt a warm dribble of blood trickling over her shoulder-blade, and then the rasp of his tongue as he caught it. She closed her eyes and tried not to shudder as his mouth closed over the wound he’d made. She felt his hand on her upper arm, gripping her firmly, in case she decided to move away. From the corner of her tightly closed eyes, tears began to leak. She gritted her teeth and breathed through her nose. The sucking did sting. She heard him swallow deeply, breathing through his nose, fast against the skin of her shoulder.

After another moment she couldn’t stand it. ‘That’s enough!’

He stopped immediately and released her, gasping. Scarlett heard him make a sound, almost a groan. She opened her eyes as she heard him tearing open the antiseptic wipe, and then felt the cold bite of the alcohol against her skin as he rubbed it vigorously.

‘There, there,’ he said, as if she was a child who’d fallen and scraped her knee. ‘All better now.’

A plaster was applied.

‘It might bleed for a moment or two,’ he said. ‘Can I come back tomorrow?’

‘No!’ she said. More sharply than she’d intended. ‘Maybe – maybe next week.’

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Thank you.’

Scarlett stood on shaky legs that had nothing to do with blood loss and everything to do with the sudden awareness of her own fragility, and turned to face him. He was just a man, a weedy, desperate man who was no more weird than any of them. And he had paid her. She gave him a tentative smile.

‘What’s your name?’ she asked.

He gave a high-pitched sort of a laugh. ‘Nosferatu,’ he said.

‘Of course it is,’ she said, and saw him out of the door. Before she went back in the window she counted the money again, and posted her going rate through the hole into the back room. The rest of it she hid in the hollow heel of her shoe. Sometimes they checked. But she was going to risk it.

‘Hey. Open your eyes.’

‘What time is it?’

‘I don’t know. Your phone’s been bleeping.’

Lou sat up, sleep-crumpled and still dazed, wondering how come it was broad daylight.
Oh
– rest day
. She fell back against the pillow.