Down Among the Dead Men (27 page)

'That's it? You're telling me that this actor cut off this McCluskey's finger?'

'We're almost one hundred per cent.'

'Christ Almighty, Frank.' Searle sounds tired. It's worse than being patronised. 'Does McCluskey have form? Wait, don't tell me, I know he does.'

'He does, sir,' says Frank. 'But he has lost a finger. And he says Noone did it.'

'He says he
thinks
Noone
might
have done it. You told me he lost Noone in Oil Street. It could have been anyone.'

'Someone who just wanted to send a warning? I don't think so. I've got DC Magsi and DC Flanagan watching him.'

Frank hears a deep intake of breath at the other end of the phone. Then Searle starts talking.

'Listen, DCI Keane. And listen fucking properly, you fucking half-wit, because I'm not going to repeat myself. You've got sweet fuck-all on Noone, absolutely fucking nothing except a fucking bad case of amateur fucking sleuthing. You
know
? That's all you have? I'm not even going to comment on the load of old flannel coughed up by this fucking McCluskey wanker. While you're scurrying around chasing some fucking nonsense involving this fucking
actor –
God help us, an actor – there are serious fucking crimes taking place under your fucking nose. Half of fucking Southport is in fucking flames! You do know the fucking CC lives nearby? Christ knows what fucking Terry Peters has been up to. Investigate
that
. Get fucking Magsi and fucking Flanagan back where they're fucking needed instead of sitting on their fucking arses watching fucking actors.
Actors
. Jesus! I don't want the fucking CC to find out we responded to this incident with anything less than fucking nuclear weapons when something like this happens in his own fucking back garden. Got that? Say the fucking words, Frank.'

'Nuclear, sir.'

'That's it. Keep repeating that fucking mantra until it's dribbling out of your fucking nose. I'll be doing an early press conference at Canning Place tomorrow morning and you'll be there with fucking bells on doing exactly what I'm fucking telling you. There'll be no mention of anyone else in connection with this and we'll be proceeding with our enquiries on the assumption that Terry Peters is our man. Peters. If Peters isn't inside the house, then we're looking for him. I want you to get that information out to the general force. We're looking for Peters. Can you imagine the fallout if Peters turns up killing someone else and we're fucking chasing some fucking American clown because you've got some touchy-feely bollocks about him? Now, pull your fucking finger
out your fucking arse and do the fucking job you're fucking paid to do.'

Searle hangs up, leaving Frank looking at the phone.

Fifty-Four

When Noone wakes on Friday morning a thought occurs to him that makes him laugh out loud.

He's a serial killer. More than one makes you a serial killer, right? Five is definitely serial killer.

None of it's been planned or anything – not properly planned – not like in the movies when some crazy lives in some shithole and has some sort of psycho kink. He just drifted into this thing after his mother died.

From that point it had almost been inevitable.

Noone lies back and tries to see if he feels any different and, after a few minutes' consideration, comes to the conclusion that, other than a pleasant sense of accomplishment, he doesn't. There are no regrets, that's for sure. In fact, if there's one thing he knows, it is that he's going to do this again. Fuck, it's too much of a goddam rush to let something like this go.

And there's a tickle of an idea working its way into his mind. Something that's been nagging at him like a half-remembered word is now taking form.

He'd been in Liverpool almost a year before he met Terry. It had happened just like he'd told that cop. The two of them had been at a bar and a girl Noone had been sleeping with introduced them. She'd been working on some piece of TV crap that Terry was the location manager for. Noone had sensed something in the guy right away. Something truly dark.

OK, Noone had to admit he hadn't known just how dark the sneaky fucker had been but it hadn't taken long to find out. Over the next few months, after Noone coming into his orbit, and with the drug intake increasing, Terry had given Noone an insight into what a genuine freak was like.

The man fucked anything that moved and managed to keep a lid on everything. He fucked girls from the movie, had a few women around the city. He'd go with men too. He was even, Terry revealed one night, fucking his sister-in-law. Felt bad about that one but the sex was terrific.

But even Noone had been brought up short when Terry Peters, stoned off his gourd on some high-grade skunk Danny Lomax had supplied, had let slip he had a thing going for young boys.

One of whom was his nephew.

Even now, Noone squirms at that memory. Had that really been him? It didn't seem possible really, looking back. But he'd done it. Noone doesn't even regard himself as bi. It was the repulsiveness of the thing that attracted him initially. Could he really do this? Become one of that tribe?

It turned out he could.

He and Terry began seeing Nicky together. The boy was already in the zone; Terry had seen to that, had been grooming him since he was ten.

And working on the movie, seeing Noone in the lead, had made the transition from idol to lover a smooth one.

It wasn't like the boy was a child. He was sixteen. Legal. Terry Peters might have been a fucking paedophile but Ben Noone wasn't. Noone's rationalisation was enough for him to try it.

Then, on Friday night, he'd given Nicky and Terry a lift home. The boy's parents were out until two, Nicky had said.

They'd have the place to themselves.

Had he thought it might end with a killing at that point?

He must have done, at some level, he supposed, even allowing for the fact that Noone doesn't believe in any of that psychobabble. He'd had the taser with him. He could have gone to River Towers with Terry and Nicky with zero chance of being disturbed. He could have locked the doors at Burlington Road, taken more care, done a thousand things differently, but he hadn't and he'd killed that family and then killed Dean and Terry and Alicia.

And he'd gotten away with it, just like he'd gotten away with everything else in his entire life.

This felt like a beginning.

Fifty-Five

Terry and Alicia Peters had been in the house.

The theory that Charlie Searle is busy selling to the assembled press in room 21b at Canning Place is easy to understand. Hedged by all the usual phrases used in these situations, the message was clear: Peters had most likely killed himself and his wife after realising he was going to be outed as a child molester and killer. Needless to say, Searle wasn't actually saying the words but, by gesture and silence, makes it clear to the pack that that is what had happened.

Frank tries not to say anything. It's safer that way. McSkimming's near the front and he's looking at Frank.

'Do you believe that Terry Peters was responsible for the deaths of Paul and Maddy Peters?' says McSkimming. He's looking at Frank but it's Charlie Searle who answers.

Searle oozes sincerity. For all Frank knows, he is being sincere.

'We think that's a possibility, yes,' he says. 'But we will be considering all avenues of enquiry. At the moment the evidence does seem to be pointing in a certain direction.' He pauses. 'In domestic cases such as this terrible tragedy it is often found that the perpetrator is closer to home than we imagine.'

'Is it true that police are investigating allegations of child abuse related to this case?' This is from McSkimming again. His face betrays nothing about his paper planning to run Alicia Peters' story pointing the finger at Nicky. In an instant, Nicky is back, painted as victim this time. Another unapologetic tabloid flip-flop.

'We can't comment on ongoing investigations in any way that could influence the outcome,' Searle intones. 'But it is an area we will be examining.'

'Are you in contact with Operation Vector?' asks a journo from the
Mail
. He's referring to a high-profile anti-paedophile operation run by the Serious Organised Crime Agency in London that has had success identifying predatory abusers.

'We are aware of Operation Vector,' says Searle. Before the
Mail
journalist can follow up with another question, McSkimming tries again.

'Is Terry Peters one of the names on a list of suspects and, if so, why wasn't this information acted upon earlier?'

Searle pauses and Frank glances in his direction. McSkimming clearly has some inside information. The details of Terry Peters being on the Operation Vector radar have only just come in. Frank hasn't even had time to digest the intelligence.

'It's been confirmed that Terry Peters' name was on Operation Vector's lists, but not, so far, as a suspect. His computer ID had been flagged as a potential line of investigation, although it had only been graded as a level three investigative route, level four being the lowest. He'd have been investigated but not as a priority. Our best information did not identify Peters as dangerous. In hindsight, clearly that information appears to have been incorrect, but we simply do not have the resources to investigate all potential suspects identified by Vector. At the last count there were in excess of eighteen thousand names on the list.'

Searle talks calmly and clearly. He's selling the line to the press. Peters is your man. He's the killer.

McSkimming looks happy enough. Child molesters sell papers. Especially ones with a tenuous link to Hollywood.

Nobody mentions Ben Noone.

Fifty-Six

The next week goes past too fast for Frank's liking.

While a convincing case is being built nailing Terry Peters as the killer – with a succession of witnesses coming forward to give evidence of his sexual duplicity and appetites – Frank is getting nowhere with his solo mission to get evidence against Noone. Even when Damo Smith, one of the hardest of the hard men at the boxing club, talks to Frank one night after his work-out, it's more evidence against Terry Peters. Ordinarily, Smith, who fronts the controlling agency behind most of the city's nightclub doormen – and therefore the front-line drug trade – wouldn't speak to Frank. But this is different. Nobody likes a paedophile.

'Peters is a fucking kiddie-fiddler,' says Smith. 'Nothing you can take into court, but Danny Lomax let something slip about Peters asking him about some muscle-relaxant drug. The cunt tried to tell Danny it was for some woman but Danny said he knew it was iffy. Told me he'd seen something between Peters and the boy one night in the bogs at Maxie's. Like if he'd been there two seconds earlier he'd have seen them at it. Said he didn't have anything to do with Peters after that.'

That's it from Smith. All of it pointing to Terry Peters.

Frank had had hopes about the CCTV footage from the night of the first killings, but it's inconclusive. A car that may have been Noone's can be seen in the appropriate locations, picked up by traffic cameras and the odd security camera, but nothing is concrete. No numberplate, no face ID. The CCTV footage from River Towers, along with any key card records, has proven to be useless. No images of any kind have been saved and the electronic data storage system which could identify the entrance and exit times of residents wasn't working that night.

There's nothing from the forensics. Going out on a limb, Frank raided the MIT coffers and sprang for a rush analysis of the key evidence from the initial crime scene. There had been no semen. None of what little forensic evidence there was could be connected to Noone. Eagles had even supplied independently witnessed DNA material from the American – 'as a goodwill gesture' – to the investigation.

Nothing.

DC Rose's examination of Nicky's computer has been thorough. There are no references to Noone. No incriminating images. No diary entries.

Nothing.

Niall McCluskey's missing finger had been found, wedged in the grating of a kerbside drainage grid. It backed up McCluskey's story but only in that it confirmed where he'd lost the digit. Frank had had the area gone over by a team looking for something to connect it to Noone but they'd come up short again.

No new witnesses connecting the American to the case.

No new leads.

No forensics.

Nothing.

And he's not getting any support from MIT.

Frank strongly suspects that Harris and Cooper have lost any enthusiasm for Noone as a player in this, along with every single member of the MIT unit. And most of them had none to begin with.

Even Frank is starting to lose the concrete certainty he had back in the interview room.

One Tuesday Frank gets a call unrelated to the case. Jesus is dead. Heart attack at the gym.

The funeral is a proper Liverpool one. Tears and flowers and then, later, drinking and swearing and laughter. The ceremony and burial are in Litherland and afterwards everyone squeezes into Jesus's spotless little red-brick at the top of Guion Road. The last time Frank had been there, as a teenager, the house was overshadowed by the hulking oil refinery at the top of the dead end. Frank
can remember the contrast between Jesus's flowerbeds – filled with a riot of clashing colour – and the rusting black metal monster looming over the roof. The refinery's gone now, the land cleared for something else.

Frank spends time in the kitchen mostly, helping Jesus's wife, Val, wash up. Val cleans furiously, washing and talking and drinking whisky as a stream of wellwishers come and pay homage. Every second person tries to wrestle the dishwashing sponge from Val but she's having none of it, reserving her most venomous retorts for the most concerned enquiries.

'Let me do that, Val; come on, girl, put your feet up.'

'Fuck off. You'd only get it wrong.'

Some of the funeral guests eye Frank warily. There are people here he's put inside in the past. Some dangerous players too. Only his proximity to the widow keeps the drunker ones at bay as the afternoon progresses.

'I always knew he'd go like that, the stupid fat fucker,' says Val. She attacks a chocolate-smeared plate with venom. Frank knows that Val fed Jesus an uninterrupted diet of chips and pies and white bread for the whole of their long marriage.