Last Rites (10 page)

Sarah was curled up in a corner of the room, her knees to her chest, her eyes staring forward. She was screaming. Long, hollow, frightened screams, while she tore at her hair, feet scrabbling at the floor.

She thought she had seen people watching her, laughing, their faces close, too close. She had squeezed her eyes shut, but then she heard something. Moans, shouts. When she looked, two people were fucking, the bright colours of flesh moving on the floor, thrashing excitedly. And then the images were in her head. Laughing, grinning, moving fast into one another, like machines, the noises echoing, the heartbeats getting faster, the colours turning blood-red.

But then the colours stopped. Now it was the door that moved. It opened and closed, sliding noisily, like glimpses of hope, but when she reached out for it she saw the runners had teeth. Whenever the door slid open, they snapped at her with giant jaws, just clipped her feet, and pushed her back into the wall.

When the door closed, the teeth receded, and for a second she could see out. She saw light, like sunlight.
Bright, clean, warm. It glowed yellow and soft and drew her in, like the shape of her dreams, moulded from clouds, pulling her forwards. She moved again to the door, left the safety of the wall and tried for the light, but the door banged shut, the noise echoing, making her scramble backwards. And when the door was shut, it became thick and heavy, no more hope.

She looked around. She thought she could hear something. Chanting, singing. People were swaying, rhythmic, enchanting.

Sarah reached out, wanted to feel some contact, but then the door opened again, teeth bared, and the people were gone. She was back in the corner, crying with fear, the noise of her cries being sucked from her and out of the room.

And the spiders. They scuttled in front of her, a mass of them, like a moving carpet, crawling over her feet, their legs like soft kisses on her skin, moving out towards the walls and then creeping upwards, heading for the lights.

Sarah clamped her eyes shut.

Hell.

Laura was writing a summary of the interview she'd just conducted with the cable thief. As she'd expected, there had been no answers to her questions. Now it was the paper trail: the case summary, the form for the prosecutor, a final read through to see whether any more evidence was needed.

A shadow fell over her desk. When she raised her head, she saw it was Karl Carson. He stood right over her, so that when she looked round quickly the first thing she saw was his crotch.

‘Why didn't you tell me about your boyfriend and the letters?’

Laura looked up. She thought he looked flushed.

‘How do you know that I know?’

‘Because he knows,’ he said angrily, ‘and so I guess that you two smooched over it last night.’

‘If he knows, it didn't come from me,’ said Laura, ‘and if you think otherwise, prove it.’

His flush deepened. ‘Don't make it difficult for yourself,’ he said, his voice low. ‘The headmaster's been on the phone. He told me what lover-boy was asking about.’

Laura smiled as sweetly as she could. ‘So he mentioned Facebook too?’ When Carson looked confused, she continued, ‘Maybe you should listen to Jack, because please excuse me if I don't come rushing to you. You didn't seem too receptive yesterday.’

‘What do you mean, Facebook?’

‘Events diary for 31st October. “
I die
” is the entry, and she's near a computer, because now she and
lover-boy
are friends.’

Carson looked down at her, his cheeks nearly purple now, the colour spreading over his head. Then he turned and stalked out of the room. When Laura was alone, she put down her pen and checked her hands. They were trembling. She didn't know how far she could push him before she found herself in front of the disciplinary department, but she knew that she didn't feel much like helping him. Why was the arsehole ratio so much greater the higher up the pole she looked?

The station was quiet when Rod got back. It wasn't large, looked like a church hall from the outside, and was used as a training centre for the new recruits. If anything happened in his division, everyone dashed out, hoping for something interesting, making it quiet for those left behind. When he went into his office he saw that someone had placed some fax messages onto his desk. They were updates on the explosions. He leafed through them as he sat down.

The sleuth report on the fingerprint analysis was first. It had come back as negative.

The other document was the explosives report. That
interested him more. He skimmed through. Like all expert reports, it was filled with technical jargon, explaining the background to the conclusion – so Rod did what he always did: he went to the conclusion. And there it was: ammonium nitrate, a fertiliser-based explosive, the anarchist's favourite. Easy to get hold of, and when mixed properly it could make quite a bang.

He heard a knock on his office door. One of the young constables peeped through and said, ‘There's a young girl to see you, sir. Emily Marsden. She said you would know what it's about.’

Rod sat back. ‘Show her in.’

The constable stepped aside, and Emily walked in, shy, smiling. He recognised her from the visit to Isla's house – the daughter. ‘What can I do for you, Emily?’ he asked, and pointed her towards one of the seats.

Emily sat down, her knees tightly together, a canvas bag in her lap.

‘Do you think my mum is in danger?’ she asked.

‘I don't know,’ Rod replied, ‘because your mother won't tell me anything about herself.’

‘Maybe she doesn't want you to know.’

‘That's her right,’ said Rod, nodding, ‘but I don't want anything to happen to her.’

Emily wrapped the handles of her bag around her fingers and took some deep breaths. Then she said, ‘My mum will kill me for saying this, but it's about Abigail.’

Rod nodded. ‘Go on.’

‘It's the craft group that Mum goes to, where Abigail goes too. I think it's more than just craft, making rings and stuff.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Because they meet up a lot, and whenever she goes, she spends ages getting ready.’ Then Emily smiled. ‘And I've seen the rings and bracelets they sell.’

‘Not very good?’

‘Rubbish,’ she replied, and laughed, embarrassed.

Rod smiled back at her. She was a nice girl. A bit flaky, maybe, the sort of girl who would prefer to sit in a field making daisy-chains rather than hang around in bus shelters, like most of the kids in his area seemed to prefer.

‘How often do Abigail and your mother meet?’ he asked.

Emily thought about her answer, and then said, ‘Once a week, but then once every month they have a really big meeting, and Mum comes back really late. I think they meet somewhere near Newchurch. I know that because I heard her arguing with my dad about it.’

‘Why does your dad get all worked up about it?’

Emily shrugged, and then she toyed with the handles of her bag again. ‘He gets jealous, but I know Mum wouldn't do anything like that.’

‘So what do you think they get up to in the craft-group meetings?’ he asked.

‘I just don't know,’ she replied, ‘but I don't want anything to happen to her. Someone set off an explosion in our shed, and now Abigail has been hurt. I'm worried that they'll come back.’

‘Can you find out when the next craft-group meeting is, and where, and call me?’ he asked, and he passed her a business card with his details on. As she looked at it,
he leaned forward. ‘Thanks for coming in, Emily. I'll make sure your mum stays safe.’

Emily looked pleased by that, and headed back out of Rod's office.

When he was left alone again, Rod wondered for a moment about Emily. Teenagers do strange things in their quest for attention, and the craft group was causing problems in the family. How did she feel about that, and was there less innocence to her than it seemed?

I checked my reflection in the car mirror before I stepped out. I was nervous about seeing Katie. I was secure with Laura, and I knew I shouldn't be feeling like that, but her flirting made me wonder what lay ahead.

I'd parked a few streets away, as the parking spaces were all taken outside Sarah's house; Victorian terraces weren't made for two-car families. The steep hill reminded me that I hadn't been for a walk that day, and I was panting when I knocked on the door.

I looked around as I waited. The street was quiet, dark now, the end of British Summer Time bringing the winter forward with a slam, but I thought I could see someone in a van further up the hill. It looked green, but that could be the orange sodium lights playing a trick.

I looked back when I heard the door open. It was Katie. I saw that her hair looked wet and she was wearing only a towel.

‘I'm sorry,’ I said, embarrassed. ‘I must be early.’

Katie smiled at me, her stare direct, challenging. ‘No, you're not,’ she said. ‘Come in.’

I went inside and heard Katie lock the door. When I looked round, she said, ‘Force of habit,’ and then brushed past me. I watched her go up the stairs, saw how pale and slender her legs looked, her muscles well-defined. Before she got to the top she slipped off her towel, as if to get ready, and I felt my cheeks flush. She saw me looking at her, nude, unashamed, and then she turned onto the landing. I thought I saw the trace of a smile. When I heard the blast of the hairdryer, I went into the room I had been in the day before.

I felt fidgety, my cheeks red. The look in her eyes and her naked body had aroused me, but I didn't want to think like that, and so I filled my mind with thoughts of Laura to stay focused. I needed to hear Katie's story about the letters, about what the police had said to her.

I closed my eyes, but I saw an image of Katie again, naked, flirtatious. This wasn't fair on Laura, or Bobby. And it was unfair to myself; I had spent my life looking for someone to love in the way that my father had loved my mother. They had been happy, a strong couple, until cancer took away my mother.

I knew what my father would have done: he would have put my mother first, before his job, and walked out. That was the thing to do. I moved towards the door, but Katie was there, wearing tight leggings that hugged her figure and a cropped shirt that showed her flat stomach, her skin creamy and pale, a steel ring in her belly button.

She must have sensed what I had been thinking. ‘I thought you wanted to know about the letters.’

‘I do,’ I replied.

‘So sit down.’

I faltered, and then did as she said. I checked my watch.

Katie went into the kitchen. When she reappeared, she was holding two glasses of wine. ‘I don't like drinking alone,’ she said.

As I took a drink, Katie sat just along from me on the sofa. She had her feet up on the cushions and was staring at me over her glass.

‘So tell me about the letters,’ I said.

‘All in good time,’ she responded.

‘Okay,’ I replied. ‘Answer me this question instead: what kind of person can live in a house where someone was murdered?’

‘What kind of person do you think I am?’ she asked, raising an eyebrow.

‘I'm still trying to work that one out.’

Katie thought for a moment, and then she said, ‘What do you think about history?’

‘You're the history student,’ I replied. ‘You go first.’

Katie shuffled closer to me. I could smell the soap from her shower, flowery and clean. ‘I think of this street and wonder how many people have walked up and down it, have looked at the same view. Go back a hundred years and the view would be the same. Same houses, same doorways. There would be cobbles instead of tarmac, and no cars, and maybe the houses are a bit ragged now, you know, the roofs sag and you can wake up to find kebab smeared over your front window, but the street hasn't really changed.’

‘Isn't that just like everywhere?’

‘I suppose so, but these things used to feel important. History felt important. It's what drew me, to go back to the start. That's what I was told, that to understand anything, you have to go back to the start, to know what went before. But now, I'm not so sure. So many lives have been lived in this street. Births, deaths, fights, marriages. All of those things behind these bricks, all of them important at the time, but now,’ and she clicked her fingers, ‘all gone. It means nothing in the end, and one day someone will look back and say the same thing about Luke's death, but we'll all be gone, and this conversation will mean nothing.’

‘So you can live here because ultimately what happened will fade?’ I asked.

‘Something like that,’ she replied. ‘Whatever happened doesn't really matter, not in the long run. Doesn't matter at all.’

‘That seems disrespectful to Luke,’ I said. ‘As if he never mattered.’

Katie shook her head. ‘I just want to go back to how it was, when this was just a tatty little street in a worn-out mill town and I don't have to think of the things Sarah made me see.’ She sounded distracted, her voice sadder than before.

‘Why do you say that Sarah made you see them?’ I asked.

She looked at me, and as she took a deep breath, some of her sparkle returned. ‘The letters,’ said Katie, ‘the ones you're so interested in. They're confessions to Luke's murder, and they're addressed to me.’

I was silent, stunned. Confessions? That changed things. Did Sarah's parents know?

‘Where are they?’ I asked. ‘The letters?’

‘The police have them,’ she replied.

‘What do they make of them?’

‘The police don't tell me anything.’

I chewed on my lip. If there were confessions, it would add something to the story, I knew that. ‘What did the letters say?’ I persisted.

Katie smiled. ‘I'll show you, if you'll come upstairs.’ I must have looked confused, because she said, ‘I've scanned them into my computer, for reference purposes.’ She stood up and walked to the kitchen. When she re-emerged, she was carrying the bottle of wine. ‘C'mon, bring your glass, I'll show you,’ and then I heard her feet pad softly up the stairs.

I looked at my empty glass and wondered at the wisdom of following her. But when I thought of the story, I knew I would do only one thing.