Cold Sacrifice (13 page)

Candy sat down and slipped her shoes off. She rubbed one of her heels and winced, grumbling about her blisters, while Della put the kettle on and wondered how much dosh she could screw out of Henry before he cut up rough.

She was absorbed in planning how to spend the thousands Henry was going to cough up when Candy’s shrill voice made her jump.

‘Are you making that tea then?’

‘What? Oh yes, sorry. I’m on it.’

As she poured the water, she speculated how much she could squeeze out of her new benefactor: five thousand, ten thousand… She hoped he had plenty of cash. He was going to need it, because if he refused to pay her, she would threaten to tell his brother the truth.

‘What are you grinning about? Where’s that tea?’

Candy’s son ran in from her bedroom and sat at the rickety kitchen table, swinging his feet. Candy warmed her hands on her mug of tea while Della switched on the television.

‘Nice cuppa,’ Candy said, wiggling her toes. ‘Oh God, not the bloody news. Turn over for fuck’s sake.’

‘I want to watch a cartoon,’ the little boy shouted.

Della picked up the remote control, and froze.

‘Go on, what are you waiting for? Put something else on for fuck’s sake.’

‘Wait.’

Della leaned forward, glued to the screen, as a grey-haired policeman talked to the camera.

‘Turn over, will you?’ Candy repeated.

‘It’s boring. Mum, I don’t like it. Make her turn over.’

‘Shut up,’ Della hissed, flapping her hand in the air, ‘I need to listen.’

‘But –’

‘Shut
up
.’

It wasn’t the police officer who had caught Della’s attention, but a dour-faced grey-haired man sitting beside him.

‘I know him,’ she began and stopped.

The police officer was talking about a woman who had been murdered on Friday evening. Della wondered what the hell Henry was doing on the television. It was such a coincidence. She had just met him and now there he was, staring back at her from the screen. The policeman turned to Henry and introduced him, and Henry muttered something about his wife.

‘Martha was a wonderful woman.’

He lapsed into silence and the detective started talking again, asking for information to help them find the killer.

‘They’re talking about that woman who was murdered,’ Candy said. ‘The whole thing creeps me out. It wasn’t that far from here.’

‘What woman? Where?’

‘God, don’t you see the papers? Some woman was stabbed in a park in Herne Bay and killed.’

Della nodded. She was trying to work out what Henry was doing there.

‘Are they detectives then?’

Candy gave her a funny look. The news item changed and Della turned to her flatmate.

‘Those two blokes that were on the telly, were they both detectives?’

She could hear the panic in her own voice, and looked away.

‘Della, what the fuck’s wrong with you? Della?’

Della shook her head.

‘It’s nothing,’ she mumbled, and burst out crying.

She couldn’t help it. She was so confused, and scared. Candy sent her son into the other room. He protested, until she yelled at him and he ran off, whining.

‘Come on, Della,’ Candy urged, pushing her dark hair out of her eyes and leaning forwards, her eyes bright with curiosity.

When Della didn’t say anything, she sat back in her chair again.

‘Look, I’ll make us another cup of tea and then you can tell me all about it. You know you can trust me. And if you’re in any kind of trouble, you know I’m your friend.’

Della knew Candy was only really concerned about her paying her share of the rent, but she felt grateful all the same. It was nice to have someone to talk to.

Five minutes later, she had told Candy all about her conversation with Henry.

‘He told me it was because he’d been screwing around with his brother’s wife,’ she hiccupped, ‘and I believed him. But it’s not that at all, is it? It’s because he killed his wife.’

She broke down again, sobbing hysterically.

‘He wanted you to give him an alibi,’ Candy agreed. ‘Jesus, that’s bad.’

‘I’m so scared, I don’t know what to do.’

Candy nodded solemnly.

‘You’ve got to be careful.’

‘I know. He’s a killer. He could do me in –’

Candy sipped her tea for a moment, thinking.

‘How much did he give you?’ she asked at last.

‘What?’

‘Oh come on, you know what I’m talking about. He must have paid you to cover for him. You’re not going to do it for nothing.’ She paused expectantly. ‘How much?’

Della coughed.

‘Enough.’

Candy snorted.

‘How much is enough?’

‘He bunged me five hundred.’

‘Is that all?’

Della heaved a sigh. ‘I should have asked for more, shouldn’t I?’

‘Five hundred quid to keep the guy out of the nick. That’s poor.’

‘Yes, but I didn’t know that then. I thought he was just trying to stop his brother finding out he’d been playing around with his brother’s wife. I didn’t know about – that.’ Pointing at the television, she began to cry. ‘But that’s not important right now, is it?’

‘What the hell is important, if not the dosh? He’s a cheapskate! You should’ve told him to get lost.’

‘I nearly did, but I thought, five hundred quid is five hundred quid, and I’d been off work last week. Five hundred quid for nothing, that’s what I thought.’

‘Five hundred quid’s nothing for what he asked you to do.’

‘No, but I didn’t know that then. I thought he’d just been playing around. What I need to think about is, should I go to the police or not?’

‘The police?’ Candy sounded shocked.

‘Should I tell them what I know? What would you do if you were me?’

Candy leaned forward and spoke in a low voice, as though she was afraid someone might be listening.

‘Go and see him, tell him you need five thousand – no, say ten thousand, because there are two of us in this now. But he doesn’t need to know that. Don’t tell him you blabbed. He has to trust you or you might be next.’

‘Next?’

‘He did his wife in, didn’t he?’

The two girls stared at one another and Della’s eyes widened in horror.

‘Look,’ Candy said at last. ‘There’s nothing to get upset about. This is fantastic.’

Della stopped snivelling and looked up as Candy went on.

‘What I mean is, five hundred isn’t much, but there could be a lot more where that came from.’ She grinned. ‘Shit, he pulled a fast one, but it wasn’t your fault. You weren’t to know. But now we do know, we’ll fleece the bastard for all he’s got. He’ll give us thousands. Because if he doesn’t, he’ll be banged up!’

Della began to cry again. Between sobs, she revealed that she had already spoken to the police. A detective had been to see her at the club and questioned her about Henry.

‘But that’s not all. I’ve got to go to the police station and give a statement. I was supposed to go yesterday. Only now I don’t know what I should tell them.’

‘What did you say?’

‘I said what I’d been told to say, that I was with him on Friday evening. I never should have agreed to do it. I knew there was something not right about him. Now I’ve gone and lied to the police.’

‘So what? He doesn’t know that, does he? And in any case, it makes no difference if he finds out or not. You’ve given him his alibi now, and if he wants to keep things the way they are, he’ll have to pay up.’

‘Oh my God, what am I going to do?’ Della wailed, breaking down in tears again.

‘Don’t worry, babes. I’m with you now. I’ll come with you when you go and see him. That way you’ll be safe. Now, go and get my half of the five hundred. Share and share alike now we’re in this together.’

O
NCE THE THRILL OF
owning such a wicked knife wore off, Ben realised he had a problem. His mother was always poking around in his room, sniffing for fags and rifling through his drawers for any spare cash. To be fair, he had done the same to her before she shacked up with Eddy. Once he had taken a bottle of gin from her room, pretending to know nothing about it when she went berserk. The poor cow was off her trolley about almost everything, but she knew he’d stolen her booze. All the same, she hadn’t been able to do anything about it other than slap him around a bit. It hadn’t even hurt. But with Eddy on the scene, he no longer dared risk fingering his mother’s things. If she discovered the knife in his room she’d accuse him of having nicked it, which was a lie. He had found it, which wasn’t the same thing at all. Eddy would give him a serious beating, after taking the knife for himself. Apart from the fact that he was a thieving selfish git, anyone in his right mind would be glad of a knife like that.

He had been puzzling over where to hide it for nearly a week. So far he had kept it out of sight, inside the trousers of his one pair of pyjamas which he never wore. His mother had given them to him last Christmas and they had been too small for him even then. He had chucked them in the wardrobe and forgotten about them. No one else knew they were there at the bottom of a pile of underwear and T-shirts. Crouched on the floor of his bedroom, alert for any sound of footsteps coming up the stairs, he stroked the flat of the blade gently. He took care not to touch the sharp edge which had already cut his thumb once. The blade sliced through his flesh like a razor. It was awesome. He might never get hold of such a knife again. The fact that he had no idea where it had come from made him shiver with excitement. It could have belonged to a serial killer who used it to carve up bodies, or it might have fallen out of an assassin’s pack as he was returning from a mission. Whatever else happened, Ben had to hang on to it. Eddy must never take it from him.

Another problem with Eddy getting his hands on the knife was that it would leave Ben more vulnerable than ever at school. Until now he had managed to muddle along OK, keeping his head down. He was too small to look threatening, but not weak or weedy enough to be a magnet for the bullies. Most of the time, they ignored him. What money he had, they nicked. It never amounted to much. They had taken his phone, his second-hand iPod, and the crappy headphones he had lifted off some little kid. But by and large the bullies left him alone, only chasing him in the street when they chanced to bump into him. If they caught him they would expend more energy jeering at him than hitting him, just to humiliate him. He lay awake at night plotting horrible vengeance against every member of their gang, but he had never been seriously afraid of them. Until now.

Other pupils had begun talking. It had kicked off quietly. He became aware that pupils he barely knew were throwing him curious glances. He wasn’t used to attracting attention like that. It made him nervous. Then members of the gang started coming up to him in the corridor, blocking his way, threatening him.

‘Think you’re hard, do you? You ain’t so hard.’

‘You better watch your back, faggot.’

‘Someone gonna shank you, when you ain’t expectin’ it.’

He had only shown his knife to a couple of boys in his own year, and already his new bravado had backfired. Tougher boys thought he was issuing a challenge, and they were out to get him. He wondered what they would do to him.

‘You remember Mouldy?’ one of his friends said, breathless with excitement. ‘Mouldy who went missing from school last term? Chas done that. And he said he’s gonna do for you too.’

It confirmed what Ben had already worked out: he had to hang on to his knife at all costs. Without it, he was as good as dead. The teachers said Mouldy had moved away, but the rumours told Ben all he needed to know. Teachers didn’t know shit. He would have to be armed at all times. He never knew when his enemies might strike. If he wasn’t ready to defend himself he would disappear, like Mouldy.

He wasn’t confident about leaving the knife at home. At the same time, it was too risky to stash it at school. The lockers were like a black hole. It was one thing leaving books there, but anything worth having vanished: phones, cash, iPods, food and weapons. It was no coincidence that since he had shown his knife to a couple of mates the padlock on his locker had been busted, and his books had been scattered on the floor. Whoever had been going through his belongings wasn’t looking for school books. At lunch time he slipped into the DT block and went into the textiles room. A teacher was in there. Young and blonde, she looked up with an irritated frown. Her head shook slightly from side to side as though she was nervous.

‘What is it now?’ she asked as though he was constantly pestering her, although he had never spoken to her before.

‘Nothing, Miss. Only I was wondering if boys are allowed to do textiles in year ten.’

He sidled across the room, his eyes fixed on the teacher, and knocked into a bench. A load of sewing gear fell on the floor.

‘Sorry, Miss.’

Kneeling down he grabbed a handful of cotton reels and some packets of needles and stuffed them in his pocket. Preoccupied with promoting her subject, the teacher didn’t notice what he was doing. Armed with his booty he stood up, ignoring the remaining reels of cotton still rolling across the floor trailing delicate threads. The teacher went on lecturing him about textiles as an option, and how there was no reason why boys shouldn’t take the subject, it wasn’t only for girls.

‘Thanks, Miss. Gotta go.’

‘Come and see me again,’ she called out after him. ‘Remember, boys are welcome to do textiles.’

D
ELLA REACHED DOWN
TO
feel around under her mattress but the envelope wasn’t there. Panicking, she leaped out of bed and knelt down so she could push her arm further under the mattress until her groping fingers found the money. Clutching the envelope she climbed back into bed and counted the notes. A knock on her door made her start.

‘Are you coming?’

Della swore. It was nearly time to go to work.

‘Hang on,’ she yelled back. ‘I’m just getting dressed.’

She jumped out of bed and took another forty quid out of the envelope before shoving it back under her mattress, as far as she could reach. Then she hurried to get ready. While she was doing her face, Candy tapped at her door again.