Follow the Leader (17 page)

1988

Patrick walked along Leek Road as quickly as his feet would allow him. It was ten minutes to eleven and he was late: his dad would backhand him if he wasn’t in by eleven and he had at least a thirty-minute walk from Abbey Hulton because he didn’t have enough money for the bus fare home now. But he didn’t care. What he
had
spent his money on was worth every last penny.

He staggered along the pavement, careful not to step out onto the road. Blurry vision made him realise how drunk he was. His old man would backhand him when he saw that too. But he couldn’t stop grinning, recalling the evening with Melissa Stout.

She’d given him his first blow job. His first taste of a woman’s lips around his cock. Okay, she’d pumped a bit hard at his shaft, as if it were a bottle of ketchup, but who was he to complain? He was still a virgin: he’d take what he could.

Fifteen years old and never been shagged but he’d had a girl suck his cock. As memories came flooding back, he felt himself getting stiff again. He tried to quicken his step, get home while it was all fresh in his mind and relive it, fantasise with his eyes closed that she was kneeling in front of him again. It had happened so quickly. One minute, he was sitting with his mates – ‘the outcasts,’ they called themselves: him, Daz and Lefty. The next, he was buying her a drink at the youth club with the last of his money from his paper round. Half an hour later, he was behind the shops in a doorway with her hands down his pants.

Melissa Stout wasn’t anything to look at, everyone knew that. But everyone also knew that she put out whenever she
fancied
. Besides, she was the only girl who had shown any interest in hi
m. N
o one would come near him, usually. He’d only decided to go to the youth club at the last minute because Daz wanted to get off with one of the fifth-years.

He pulled his wrist closer to his face. What time was it? It was nearly eleven. Fuck: he was going to be in for it. Maybe he shoul
d r
un.

Footsteps thundering towards him made him turn quickly. Four lads were running along the pavement. Patrick’s heart sank when he saw them up close. It was Mickey Taylor and his cronies. Well, he wasn’t going to let them spoil his evening.

He hadn’t spoken a word when a fist punched at the side of hi
s h
ead.

‘What the fuck was that for?’ he cried out.

‘I’ve been told you were ogling my girl at the youthie, Shorty,’ said Mickey, squaring up to him.

‘You weren’t even there. How would you know?’

‘You wouldn’t catch me there. Not ruining my street cred.’

‘Yeah,’ said Johnno. ‘Youth clubs are for geeks like you and the fucking outcasts.’

‘More like you’ve probably been banned.’

Patrick wished he’d kept his mouth shut as soon as the punch landed on his nose. It happened so quickly that he couldn’t have moved out of the way even if he’d been sober. He put a hand to his face, unsure if the stars he could see were above him in the night sky or inside his head.

‘I know everything that goes on.’ Mickey prodded a finger into his shoulder. ‘I know you were looking at Sandra.’

‘I wasn’t.’

Johnno sniggered. ‘I heard you got your end away with Slag Stout. I hope she didn’t catch anything. Or rather I hope
you
didn’t catch anything from her, the dirty whore.’

Patrick grimaced. He was never going to live that down now. It was one thing to think about what she had done but another to have it thrown in his face for the rest of his time at school.

The boys surrounded him. Patrick tried to run through them but they pushed him back. He tried again, but they pushed back more forcefully this time and he fell, landing heavily on the pavement.

‘Are you an item now, then?’ Mickey laughed cruelly. ‘Slag Stout and stupid Shorty!’

Hearing the rest of the boys laughing, feeling brave thanks to the lager he’d drunk that evening, Patrick spoke back.

‘If you were by yourself, Taylor, this would be a fair fight. You’re nothing but a coward on your own.’ He pushed himself back up to sitting. ‘Why do you get your kicks from picking on me?’

Mickey bent down and leered at him. ‘Funny you should mention kicks, you cheeky fucker.’

For days after, all Patrick could remember was a boot coming towards his face. And the feeling that his dad would do far worse by the time he finally got home after they had finished with him.

Chapter Twenty

Malcolm Foster unlocked the front door to Winton Insurance
Brokers
, glancing quickly over each shoulder before stepping inside. Luckily, Tower Square wasn’t too busy at this time of night, and it was dark, although he knew he’d probably be picked up by someone’s CCTV camera. He hurried up the stairs and pushed open the next door that he came to. Through this and his office was at the end of a long corridor.

He’d been working there for twenty-two years, always coming in to catch up with any outstanding paperwork on a Sunday
evening
– not that he would ever class himself a stickler for routine. Like a lot of people, he tolerated a job he was good at because he didn’t have the inclination to try and do something better. Steady Eddie was his game, no rocking of the boat for Malcolm. But today wasn’t any ordinary day. Today, he had a lot of cleaning up to do.

In the quiet of the room, he switched on his computer and, while it booted up, thought about what was on it. More to the point, what he needed to erase. If he wasn’t quick, and the police could somehow link him back to Frank Dwyer, he’d be jailed, he wa
s s
ure.

He’d only heard of Frank’s murder that morning. Malcolm had been in Dubai for a fortnight’s holiday with his wife and had caught up with the news on the way home. The taxi driver had given them a blow-by-blow recounting of events pointing to what he thought was a serial killer at work in Stoke, and how he thought that the police had done nothing and had no idea who it was. By the time they’d arrived home, Malcolm was already imagining the worst: that he’d be next. It would be some sick fucker who’d come to get his revenge on the sick fuckers who’d made him that way.

He drummed his fingers on the desk. What if the taxi driver was wrong and the police were keeping evidence back until they had more to go on? The enquiry could lead them to him and he’d be well and truly screwed. Perspiration burst over his top lip; his shirt was wet to the touch.

He opened the drawer and took out the desk tidy, littered with its many bits of paraphernalia. Underneath it was a manila folder. He pulled that out too. Not even bothering to look inside it, he threw it into the metal waste bin. Using the box of matches he’d bought at the Spar supermarket across the square, he lit one and dropped it on top. Heart pounding, he watched as passwords to websites that he didn’t want anyone to see went up in flames.

He ran a hand over his chin: if only everything was as easy to get rid of. It was going to take an age to delete it all. Thank God none of it was on his home computer. His marriage had survived only because of the images that he looked at, kept hidden away from everyone. But they had come attached to emails from Frank Dwyer, and he’d paid good money for them: if
that
came out in the open, all their lives were ruined. If the police dug deeper still, everything might come out about Nigel. He’d left Stoke fifteen years ago now. There was no point in opening up old wounds. It wouldn’t be good for any of the family.

Malcolm turned his attention back to the computer, his hand moving the mouse over the screen, clicking quickly to delete everything he could think of. Christ, what a mess. He thought back to the time he’d met Frank online in a chat room, about five years ago. For a while he’d been careful what he said: you never knew who you might be talking to and he’d heard the police were setting up a lot of stings locally. But when Frank had offered to meet up with him, it had seemed far too good of an opportunity to miss.

They’d chatted like old friends for a while, the atmosphere between them light and bantering. All at once the suggestion to take things further had been aired and soon Malcolm was embroiled in everything that Frank was.

Paedophile
.

Shit, even the word in his head was enough to bring him out in a sweat all over. How hard he had fought the urges, tried to control himself after what he’d done to Nigel. In the end, it was easier for him to accept what he was and try to quell his appetite for youngsters another way. Stored on his computer were photos of boys as young as nine. Indecent images, filth, call them what you may, but they were all the same to him. They were what he enjoyed.

They were also a prosecutable offence.

Things had turned sour with Frank just over a month ago now. He’d stormed upstairs after first harassing the receptionist downstairs, threatening to tell everyone what Malcolm was involved in if he didn’t cough up the money that he owed. Frank had given him access to a set of photos and a few online videos but the quality hadn’t been as good as Malcolm was expecting so he’d refused to pay. Luckily, the situation hadn’t got out of hand. Frank had left when he said he’d get the money to him. Once Malcolm had seen his nasty side, it had been worth it to get him off his back.

But now Frank had been murdered. He wondered, was this someone after ‘his sort’ or just a random stranger who had followed Dwyer home? A one-night stand gone wrong?

It was less than twenty minutes later when he heard a sound coming from downstairs. He jumped to his feet, sneaking quietly over to the window to look down onto the street below. It sounded like someone had rattled the letterbox, he was sure. It was dark, the square lit up with a few streetlamps, and an icy mist was settling in for the night, frost already freezing up car windows.
Malcolm
pressed his face to the glass but couldn’t see the door from where he was standing. The square below seemed empty.

Then he sniggered. Damn his imagination. It was Sunday, for Christ’s sake: no one should be calling in today.

He sat down at his desk again, started deleting more files. A minute later, he sniffed. What the –?

Petrol.

This time he walked back along the corridor towards the stairs. From the top, he could see a pool of liquid on the mat. He watched as the letterbox rattled again, saw a piece of paper in flames pushed through.

‘Hey!’ Malcolm shouted out.

The paper fell onto the raffia mat below, igniting the liquid. With gusto, it erupted into an inferno. Malcolm ran to the bottom step but there was nowhere safe that he could put a foot down to run to the front door. He covered his mouth with his hand. Fuck, how much petrol had been poured through? The whole area was alight.

Seeing no other way out, he ran back upstairs, closing the door at the top of the landing, hoping to keep the flames at bay until he could summon help. In his office, he dialled 999.

‘Fire. Someone has poured petrol through the door of the building and I can’t get out. I’m trapped upstairs!’ he told the emergency operator. ‘Yes. No. Tower Square. Yes, Tunstall, that’s right. Yes. There’s a fire exit at the back. I’ll get out and wait at the front of the building. Hurry up!’

Malcolm put down the phone and rushed to the door. If the fire were to take hold, it would be better for him if it all went up in smoke. Feeling a little exhilarated at the thought, he went to th
e e
nd of the corridor, pressed down hard on the handle to o
pen the fi
re door and stepped out on to the small balcony.

The bang to the back of his head knocked him completely off his feet. He dropped to the floor, seeing a pair of black boots before he lost consciousness.

Patrick dragged Malcolm back through the building to the other end of the corridor. He was a dead weight already, he thought, laughing at his own joke. Before opening the door, he covered his face with his scarf.

This was the riskiest one yet. He had minutes before he might become overwhelmed by smoke, and the fire engine he’d heard Foster call could arrive at any moment. He pushed the handle down on the door, shouldered it open and, keeping his he
ad do
wn, dragged Malcolm to the top of the stairs. Once there, he slapped him around the face a couple of times until he came to again.

‘What – what . . .’ Malcolm spluttered.

Watching the man try to sit up with Patrick’s foot on his chest was the best laugh he could have hoped for. The smoke was coming thick and fast now, the flames below heading up the stairs. Oh, how he wanted to stay and have some fun, but he needed to get away too.

‘What do you want?’ Malcolm coughed. ‘Get off me. We need to get out.’

Patrick lifted his foot and stamped down hard on Malcolm’s chest.

Malcolm groaned, curling up into a ball.

From the look on his face, Patrick could see he’d realised his mistake. He’d made himself into a perfect shape.

‘No! Please!’ Malcolm cowered.

One last kick was enough to propel him down the stairs.

Malcolm threw out his arms, trying to slow himself, but the
momentum pushed him forward and he fell face first into th
e f
lames.
Even his screams as he tried to reach the door didn’t put Patrick off. It was even better than listening to the racket coming from the next-door neighbour’s house.

He kept his mouth and nose covered as he watched Foster burn with the same pleasure he had taken shoving the knife into Frank Dwyer. Sadly, there wasn’t time to hang around like he’d done at Suzi Porter’s place but at least he knew that Foster would have suffered.

When he could smell singeing flesh more than smoke, he turned and ran back to the fire exit. As he got to the ground, h
e he
ard the sirens in the distance and legged it down the alleyway behind the building.