Authors: Kate Rhodes

Crossbones Yard (19 page)

BOOK: Crossbones Yard

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I wondered how he could spend his days with the most violent, unpredictable people in Britain, yet look so calm. He fished in his pocket then handed me a card. His name and details were laid out in simple green letters: Gareth Wright-Phillips, Creativity Trainer.

‘Drop me an email if you’d like to see Marie’s poems.’

I watched him walk away, his stride loose and confident. Meads smirked to himself, admiring my pulling technique.

‘Are you coming?’ I asked.

‘No ta.’ He shook his head firmly. ‘I’ll wait here.’

Marie Benson was in an upbeat mood. ‘Nice to see you, Dr Quentin. I enjoyed our chat last time, and I get so few visitors these days. But where’s Sergeant Alvarez?’

‘Busy, I’m afraid.’

‘Pity, but I’m sure he’ll come another time.’

I wondered what made her so certain that Alvarez was keen to see her. She must have been looking forward to his arrival more than mine. It’s hard to identify what made her company so unsettling. Maybe it was her stillness. She was the opposite of a fidget, every drop of energy was being kept in reserve, and she was completely motionless for minutes at a time. Only her eyes flickered constantly from object to object, hoping to land on something she could see.

‘I think you could unlock everything, if you wanted to, Marie,’ I commented.

Her odd smile pulsed on unexpectedly, like the filament in a light bulb. When she was younger it must have been dazzling. ‘There’s not much I can unlock from in here.’

‘What were you writing about today?’ I asked.

The smile switched off again. ‘Just a bit of verse. Not much good probably.’

I tried to imagine her reading her poems to an audience. Her crackling, chain-smoker’s voice would be compelling enough to draw a crowd. ‘But you like working with Gareth, do you?’

‘He’s wonderful.’ For a second her face relaxed. ‘A real soul mate. I could talk to him all day.’

I had the feeling she could have waxed lyrical about her
writing tutor for hours. ‘Listen, Marie, you said you wanted me to visit. What did you want to talk about?’

‘You know.’ She smiled coyly.

Maybe I should have invented some new stories about grisly murders, just to see her reaction. The mask would have slipped, and she would have been unable to hide her delight.

‘I don’t know how the investigation’s going. But I went to see Suzanne Wilkes’s husband this week. You knew Suzanne, didn’t you? She came to your hostel every week in the last year or two.’

‘Terrible, isn’t it?’ Marie simpered. ‘I heard about it on the news. He must be in bits.’

I suppressed a smile. Psychopaths are so skilled. They train themselves to react correctly, until they can simulate any emotion you can name: grief, sympathy, shame. Most of them have an incredible repertoire.

‘And Suzanne’s the link between us, isn’t she? You and Ray knew her, and her body was dumped outside my flat.’

‘She’s not the only link.’ Her eyes settled on mine, as if she’d suddenly regained the power to see. ‘There’s one much closer to home.’

‘Is there?’

‘You’ll work it out soon enough,’ she grinned.

‘Why not tell me now?’

‘Then you wouldn’t come back and see me again, would you?’ Marie fluttered her eyelashes then turned her head away. ‘Poor little Suzanne,’ she cooed.

If my eyes had been closed, she would almost have had me convinced. Her tone was full of sympathy. Only her expression let her down. It made me wonder if she was capable of experiencing any human feelings at all.

When I woke up the next morning I couldn’t get Marie Benson’s peculiar smile out of my head. Outside the hotel window London looked ridiculously inviting. It was just after six, but the working day had begun already, dozens of people scuttling along the street towards Waterloo. Cleaners, postmen and tube drivers, preparing for another nine hours of drudgery, but at that moment I would happily have traded places with any of them. I rested my hand on the window frame. It was vacuum-sealed, no sign of a draught. The en-suite bathroom was badly lit and windowless. I took a deep breath and forced myself into the tiny shower. By the time I had finished, every breath of air had been replaced by steam. I grabbed the door handle, but nothing happened. The door rattled against its frame, refusing to budge. My heart thumped unevenly against my ribs, and I wondered how long it took to die of oxygen starvation. Eventually my frantic struggling released the lock, and I spilled out, gasping for air. My system flooded with the familiar feeling of shame, for failing so spectacularly to control myself. If I had been wearing shoes I could have kicked the wall, vented my frustration on the immaculate paintwork.

Angie was waiting for me when I opened the door, curled up on the sofa with a mug of coffee. I tried to look pleased to see her, but my enthusiasm wore out immediately. Her stream-of-consciousness monologue rattled over my head as we ate our
breakfast, and I wondered if I should change my ways. Maybe if we both talked nineteen to the dozen we would cancel each other out and end up with silence.

‘I must make a quick call,’ I said.

The nurse who answered the phone was cool, bordering on officious. When I asked about Will I heard the crisp rustle of pages while she consulted his case notes. He was no worse and no better than the day before, she explained. The sedatives were having little impact. Other patients had been complaining about the noise he made, but he didn’t seem able to control himself.

‘Sounds like he needs more pain relief,’ I suggested.

There was an outraged silence. Eventually she gave me a curt warning not to visit for at least an hour, because they had only just managed to get him off to sleep.

Angie was ploughing through another mound of toast when I got back. God knows how she stayed so thin, without exercising. She obviously had the same compulsive relationship with food as with conversation. Orally fixated, Freud would say. Only happy if her mouth was full of words, or coffee or bread.

‘Everything okay?’ she asked.

‘It’s been better.’

‘Yeah?’ Her attention was already fixed on her next slice, thickly loaded with butter and marmalade.

‘I have to go to the hospital when you’re ready, to see my brother.’

‘No can do, I’m afraid. We’re staying here till eleven.’ She popped another crust into her mouth and chewed briskly. ‘The station just called.’

I forced myself to take a deep breath. ‘But I have to see him. He’s sick.’

‘We can visit later.’ She gave an apologetic shrug.

I got up to leave. ‘Then I’ll go for a quick run while I’m waiting.’

‘No you will not,’ she snarled. Angie’s expression had changed from pleasant schoolgirl to cornered Rottweiler. ‘Let’s get something straight, Alice. It’s my job to keep you safe. Where you go, I go. Are you reading me?’ Her expression was ferocious.

‘I am,’ I nodded. ‘But I’m telling you, if I don’t get some exercise soon, I’m going to lose it, in a big way.’

‘We’ll see about that,’ she muttered. ‘Now, if you’re so keen to run about, why not get me some more bacon? Two rashers’ll do nicely.’

After breakfast Angie tutted under her breath as she tagged me back down to the ground floor. A row of treadmills was pressed against the window in the hotel gym, but the glass must have been mirrored. Passers-by kept slowing down to admire themselves or adjust their hair. It was a relief to hear the whirr of the treadmill, my feet pounding on the narrow track. I had the place to myself, apart from Angie and a gym assistant who was keeping her company, while I tried to sweat the last few days out of my system. On the other side of the window a varied cast of characters were going about their business. A
Big Issue
seller was having no luck by the crossroads, failing to catch anyone’s eye. An old woman tottered past, her back so stooped she seemed determined to watch her feet taking each step. Slivers of the Thames were trapped between the buildings. The river had faded to a dull pewter, in need of polish.

Sweat was coursing down my back by the time Burns’s car pulled up outside the hotel. He parked on the double yellow lines and winced as he heaved himself upright. No doubt he had joint problems by now, cartilages fraying under the
daily pressure. I hit the emergency stop and the treadmill juddered to a halt. Angie watched me walk past as she chatted to her new friend. In the changing room I stuck my head under the tap, letting cold water gush across the back of my neck.

Burns was waiting for us in reception, comfortably filling one of the mock Chippendale sofas. Angie made her way over to the magazine rack, keeping me in viewing distance, even though Burns had told her to take a break.

‘That girl’s like superglue,’ I moaned.

‘One of our best,’ Burns nodded. ‘You’re safe with Angie, that’s for sure. Top of her year at training school.’

‘I bet.’ I tried to look impressed. ‘So what’s been happening?’

‘We’ve had a few developments from forensics.’ He fiddled with a loose button on his outsized white shirt.

‘Spit it out, Don.’

‘You’re not going to like it.’ Burns heaved in a deep breath, as though he was about to go under water for a long time. ‘The results came back from your brother’s van, and there’s evidence he was involved.’

I blinked. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

He glanced down at his scuffed black shoes. ‘The van’s full of it, Alice. A blanket with hair and skin cells from both girls. A piece of the rope Suzanne Wilkes was tied up with.’

‘So you’ve already made up your mind.’

‘Of course not.’ Burns repositioned his glasses on the bridge of his nose with a pudgy forefinger, eyes like pinpricks behind the thick lenses. ‘But I’ve got to look at the proof, haven’t I? And at the moment there’s a hell of a lot of it.’

‘Such as?’

‘We’ve been talking to people, like your friend Lola. She says she couldn’t believe the change in him.’ He flicked through his notebook and read out a sentence in a calm, sing-song voice
that made me want to slap him. ‘One minute he’s fine, then he loses it. You never know which way he’s going to turn.’

‘That’s out of context. Lola knows better than anyone that Will wouldn’t hurt a soul.’

Burns’s eyes fixed on me. ‘If he’s such a sweetheart, why’s he carrying a blade that could slice you into barbecue steak?’

‘Look, Don. It doesn’t make sense. You’re not telling me Will sent the letters, are you, for God’s sake? He’s bombed out of his head on whatever he’s taken that day. He’s not calm enough to do something like that, even if he wanted to.’

‘I’ve told you, there’s a gang of them. We’re sure of it. Maybe he fell out with them, and that’s why he got hurt.’ Burns pressed his lips together firmly, like there was nothing more to say.

‘And what’s Will’s take on all this crap?’

‘We haven’t interviewed him yet.’ Burns looked sheepish. ‘The hospital says we’ve got to wait till he’s himself again.’

‘You’ll have a bloody long wait then. He hasn’t been himself for eight years. Some bastard pushed him off a roof, but you’re not bothered about that, are you?’

‘I know it’s hard to take in.’ He shot me a sympathetic glance. ‘But we’re keeping you here till the threat’s over. You don’t have to worry.’

Before I could think of a reply, Burns gathered his jacket and notebook and hoisted himself into a breathless standing position. He made a getaway before I could give him another piece of my mind.

Angie was unusually quiet when she escorted me back to my room. We were passing the magazine stand when something caught my eye. A face I recognised stared at me from the front page of the
Southwark Gazette
. The picture must have been taken a few years ago, before the drugs and booze took hold, but it was definitely her. She was wearing her slightly
too trusting smile, and the same dark fringe, which almost hid her eyes. There was no escaping the fact that the photo was a black and white version of Michelle, the prostitute I had paid to stay at home.

The headline wasn’t exactly original. SOUTHWARK RIPPER STRIKES AGAIN? The
Gazette
was milking the story for every ounce of pathos: ‘Michelle Yeats, 27, was last seen getting into a saloon car outside the Angel pub in Southwark late on Friday evening. None of her friends have heard from her since. Her mother Lesley says that Michelle has recently turned her life around, and is on an NHS drug rehabilitation programme, in an attempt to win back custody of her six-year-old daughter Liane.’

I dropped the paper on to a coffee table without finishing the article. Angie peered at the photo over my shoulder.

‘So young, isn’t she?’ she cooed. ‘Poor girl.’

The impulse to tell her to fuck off was overwhelming. I rubbed my eyes, but the image of Michelle by herself in the dark, clawing at a brick wall, refused to disappear. The bastard must have got hold of her on Friday night, just after I gave her the money to stay at home. Maybe he even saw us sitting on the wall together. The thought gave me a queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.

I glanced at my watch. It was ten thirty on Monday morning. If the killer was holding her, she’d be growing weaker by now. He’d had more than forty-eight hours to carve his favourite symbols into her skin. But there was no use phoning Burns to point out that his theory had fallen apart. Even though Will was languishing in hospital while women carried
on being abducted, there would still be a way to prove he was implicated.

Angie was reluctant to do what I asked, until I told her that the order came from Burns. Then she snapped her heels together and sprang into action, terrified of jeopardising her chances of promotion. The drive took less than ten minutes, the sky threatening to snow at any minute. Half a dozen cyclists queued beside us at the lights, in an assortment of Day-Glo Lycra outfits. The tenacity of London’s long-distance bike riders has never failed to impress me. Dozens of them get killed and injured every year, yet you still see them, out in all weathers, battling with the juggernauts.

Bermondsey Ward was quiet when we arrived. Two policemen were sitting outside Will’s room, as though they expected him to barge out of the door and race to freedom. Lola must have visited recently. She had left a bag of peaches on the table beside his bed and a card ordering him to get well immediately, rows of kisses underneath her name. I touched Will’s forehead. His skin was clammy and feverish. So far he hadn’t noticed me. His eyes were fixed on the closed window, trying to count the clouds. I sat on the edge of his bed and attempted to catch one of his hands, but they were in constant motion, fluttering from his chest to his face. Maybe the room was full of flies that only he could see. The veins in his neck stood out like cords, bulging under his skin. He spoke quietly to himself, like an actor reading a part for the first time.

‘Can you hear me, Will?’

His chatter continued without a let-up. He had travelled a long distance since the last time I saw him. Even if I yelled at the top of my voice, he still wouldn’t have heard me. But at least the metal frame over his legs was anchoring him safely to the bed. I covered my mouth with my hands. In that state it must have been impossible for him to sleep. The drug chart
on his bed recorded regular doses of the sedative Nembutal and Xodol for the pain, which explained his twitching. All the painkillers and sedatives in the world wouldn’t do the trick. Without methadone he was going cold turkey. When he came to his senses, he had two weeks of hell to look forward to.

Sean appeared out of nowhere. He must have passed under Angie’s safety radar in his white coat. She was out in the corridor, gossiping with a junior doctor as if her life depended on it.

‘He’s making progress,’ Sean said quietly.

I kept my eyes on Will’s face. His expression kept changing, grinning then convulsing in pain, like someone was forcing him to watch a horror film again and again.

‘That’s not exactly what I’d call it.’

‘This must be hellish for you.’ Sean stood next to me, his arm almost touching my shoulder. ‘Did you hear that your police friends interviewed me? They wanted all the gory details about us.’

He was still ridiculously good-looking, like a fairytale hero, on the hunt for damsels to rescue. When he leaned down and kissed me I was too shocked to push him away at first, but something about his touch scared me. Too deliberate, as if he’d been planning it for days, his fingers cold around my wrist.

‘Stop it, Sean.’ I jerked my hand away. His expression was confused. Maybe rejection was a completely new experience for him.

‘It’s your fault, Alice. I can’t think straight any more.’ His dark blue eyes bored into me. ‘My head’s completely fucked.’

It was a struggle to think of a reply. ‘I’m sorry the police have been bothering you.’ I shifted my attention back to Will. ‘But this is what I have to focus on now.’

‘Why not let me help you, Alice?’ He carried on talking, but by now I had turned away. A minute later the door clicked shut.

The sound startled Will, his gaze sharpening for a second, like a telescope focusing.

‘Can you see them, Al?’ he whispered.

‘What, sweetheart?’

‘Outside.’ He was smiling now, pointing at the window. ‘Dozens of them.’

I peered through the window. There was nothing except a view of the mortuary and a strip of wintry sky.

I touched the back of his hand. ‘It’s okay. There’s nothing to worry about out there.’

His eyes widened. ‘The angels have come back, Al. Open the window.’

‘I don’t want you to catch cold.’

‘Let them in.’ His voice was rising to a shout, so I slid the glass back by a few centimetres, the freezing draught chilling my face. ‘Wider!’

Will’s whole body strained towards the clean air, arms outstretched. The expression on his face had changed too. The best word to describe it is rapture: poised and expectant, preparing himself to fly. Tears blurred my vision. Fortunately there was a box of tissues next to his bed so I could wipe my face. I got myself out of the door without looking back. Over the years I must have treated hundreds of delusional patients: a man who thought he was John Lennon; a young girl who believed she was so ugly that people ran from her in the street; and a pensioner who woke up one day, convinced his wife had been replaced by a total stranger. But it’s different when it’s someone you love. It’s like bereavement, except you’re not allowed to grieve.

Burns was waiting for me in the corridor. He didn’t attempt to get to his feet, obviously rationing his energy for something more important. Behind the door Will began to wail. A high fluting sound, then a fully fledged howl. Maybe the fact that
he couldn’t soar out of the window, or skim across the roofs and treetops had finally hit him. A nurse scuttled along the corridor to silence him.

‘He didn’t want you to leave,’ Burns commented.

‘I don’t think he even clocked I’d arrived.’

‘Did you get any sense out of him?’ He peered at me as if I might be withholding something vital.

‘Not a word.’ I shook my head. ‘He’s having a psychotic episode. It could be the pain that’s caused it, or trauma, or a reaction to the drugs he’s taken.’

‘And how long will it last?’

‘God knows. Days or months. People don’t always come back from a drug-induced psychosis, their personalities change. Remember Syd Barrett from Pink Floyd?’

‘Jesus wept.’ Burns removed his glasses in despair.

‘And there’s another thing, Don, about that girl who’s gone missing.’

Burns’s gimlet eyes snapped open again. ‘Michelle Yeats.’

‘I saw her on Friday night.’

‘How come?’ Burns looked stunned, as if a new side to my personality had been revealed. He seemed so exhausted I decided to keep my explanation as short as possible.

‘I bumped into her once before, when I was out running. I saw her again on Friday night after Will was admitted.’

‘Did you speak to her?’

I nodded. ‘I gave her some cash, to get home safely.’

‘God almighty,’ he groaned. ‘Give a druggie money and they don’t go home for an early night and a cup of cocoa, Alice. They buy a bag of crack.’

Burns looked as if he was preparing to give me a lecture on correct procedures for dealing with drug addicts, but we were disturbed by a loud scream. The nurse was having no luck in calming Will. The noise coming from his room made me
want to cover my ears. It was the same bleak, insistent cry that animals make on their way to the abattoir.

When Angie arrived to take me back to the hotel, it was a relief, and for once she gave me some space. She kept quiet when we got into the car. The streets passed by without a single detail registering in my mind. Something was missing. Will couldn’t have been involved in the killings, the idea was incomprehensible, but I would have to work fast to find out who was trying to implicate him. For a split second the idea that he was connected to it flew across my mind, but I shooed it away again, like an unwelcome fly.

Angie didn’t bat an eyelid when I asked her to stop at the police station. She produced a key to the Benson archive as soon as we arrived.

‘I won’t join you,’ she said, pressing a finger under her nose. ‘Dust gets my sinuses going.’

I scanned the heaps of dirty manila folders and evidence files stacked in numbered boxes, before opening the first one my hand fell on. Dozens of witness reports were arranged by date, from neighbours and bystanders, relatives of the missing girls. It took a long time to plough through three of the files. One of them was full of pictures of the interior and exterior of the Bensons’ hostel. Several shots showed the building being ripped apart, while the excavators hunted for bodies. There were dozens of photos of an ornate Victorian fireplace. Ray must have used his best DIY skills to dismantle it and make a cavity for two of the victims, then piece it together again.

Just as I was about to give up for the day something I recognised caught my eye. It was the picture of Suzanne Wilkes at the centre of a group that I had seen at her flat, except in this version she was part of a much bigger crowd. A large grey building loomed in the background, above a neglected
garden. My heart turned over in my chest. Sixteen or seventeen people were standing in a circle. Marie Benson was at the back, giving the photographer her odd, gap-toothed grin.

But the face that kick-started my adrenalin rush was Will’s. He was standing at the edge of the group, unsmiling, as though he couldn’t quite believe he was there. Neither could I. The photo fell from my hands. How long had he spent in that hellhole, hiding from the world, while all those girls lost their lives? My thoughts raced. Surely Burns and Alvarez had seen the photo and knew that Will had spent time at the hostel? Or maybe he had given a false name, and escaped before the investigation began. The case had been closed for so long that Will was just another nameless vagrant, gathering dust in the archive room.

I was about to put the photo back in its plastic wallet when a key turned in the lock. Without asking myself why, I dropped the picture into my bag. Alvarez was standing in the doorway. He looked awkward, like I had caught him doing something questionable. The shadows under his eyes were even darker than before.

‘You’ve been overdoing it,’ I said.

‘No choice.’ He wiped his hand across his face. ‘Or the next girl’s going to turn up on our doorstep, covered in noughts and fucking crosses.’

‘I keep thinking the answer’s here somewhere. God knows why.’

‘Me too.’ Alvarez scanned the mountains of dusty paper, as if a clue might suddenly glitter and give itself away. ‘And you want to help your brother, don’t you?’

I looked back at him. He was the opposite of Sean, who was so confident that women loved him. Alvarez’s shoulders were a little too bulky, mouth set in a permanent snarl, black eyes giving nothing away.

‘You don’t believe all that shit about Will, do you?’ I asked.

For a second he didn’t react, then he slowly shook his head. ‘There’s no way he’s involved.’

At that moment I could happily have vaulted across the table and showered him in kisses.

BOOK: Crossbones Yard

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