Speak No Evil (27 page)

He sits, leaning forward. Trying to catch every word she says, interpret it as it leaves her mouth, dissect it for every layer of possible meaning it might contain. Apply it to her but simultaneously applying it to himself. Searching for reason, for understanding.

She continues, eyes still tightly shut. ‘I was bored … I remember bein' bored … I watched the kids, the little kids play in' in the street … I remember feelin' the blade in my pocket, feelin', I don't know … safe when I touched that. Comfortable. No, not comfortable, powerful.'

She stops talking. He waits, knowing she will continue.

‘It was just waste ground. They were pullin' down all the old houses, the slums, they called them, replacin' them with tower blocks. They were meant to be the future. No more slums. Look how they turned out.'

He wants to keep her on track. ‘Go on.'

‘The kids were play in'. Chasy, or somethin'. One of the kids called over. Asked me to join them. So I did.'

‘And this was Trevor?'

She nods. He doesn't ask her to articulate.

‘And when he looked at me, I knew …'

‘Knew what?'

She shakes her head, slowly, like she's dislodging thoughts. ‘I just knew. It was him. It was goin' to be him.'

‘Your victim?'

Another nod.

‘So what did you do?'

Another sigh. He notices her hands are shaking. Her eyes are still closed. ‘I said we'd play hide and seek. I said I'd shut my eyes, count to a hundred. But I didn't. I kept my eyes open. I watched where he went. Into this old, half-demolished house. I went after them. After him. I went up the staircase, found him upstairs. Told him to be quiet, that we were still playin', that this was still part of the game. Told him to lie down. Lie down like he was a statue. Or like he was dead. He did.'

Tears crept from the comers of her screwed-up eyes. The shaking spread up her arms.

‘I got on top of him. Put … put my hands round his throat … and … and …' She opens her eyes. ‘Killed him.'

He keeps looking at her, waiting, expecting more. It seems nothing more is forthcoming. The spell was broken when she opened her eyes.

‘Killed how?'

‘Strangled him,' she says, although it's clear she's not going to elaborate.

‘What about the scissors? The cuts?'

She sighs, closes her eyes again. Opens them. ‘I need a coffee.'

‘What about the scissors?'

She screws her eyes up tight again. ‘Leave me alone …'

‘The scissors, Anne Marie, tell me …'

‘All right …' She shouts. ‘I slashed him. Got the scissors out and slashed him.'

‘Where?'

‘Can't remember.'

He leans forward. ‘Where?'

‘Here
…'
She points to her groin and stomach. ‘Here …'

The sobbing starts again. He looks at her. Gets up.

‘Thank you. I'll put the kettle on.'

22

Amar rang the bell of the house, stood back, waited. No reply. He rang again. Same thing. He looked round. No one watching. Oh well, he thought. Time for a little B and E.

The house was on Royal York Crescent in Clifton. Probably the most desirable address in the whole area, if not the whole city. But Martin Flemyng's house wasn't in the desirable part. Near the shops and without any of the Georgian adornment that made the rest of the crescent so attractive, it looked less like a desirable town house and more like a terraced house that would have been given over to servants quarters. It was now the kind of house that only university students, or their teachers, could afford.

He checked the windows on either side of him. No one there. He took out a lockpick tool that he always carried. Peta had showed him how to use it. She was very adept with it and had tried to teach the rest of them how to use it. But he had never had the patience to master it as well as she had. As he inserted it into the lock, he was wishing he had paid more attention to what she had said.

But he remembered more than he had realized. It wasn't as hard as he had thought. He felt it move within the grooves, felt the levers click into place. A couple more moves and turns, gentle turns … nearly there …

‘Can I help you?'

He looked up, startled. A woman was standing next to him, looking at him with suspicion in her eyes. Lots of suspicion. She was in her thirties and, from the look of her clothes and appearance – a long skirt, striped cardigan, cord jacket with scarf and lots of dark, wild hair – he guessed she was probably another university teacher.

Amar straightened up, weighed up his choices. He could run, which apart from immediately marking him as suspicious wouldn't help get him the information he wanted, or he could brazen it out. He decided on the latter.

‘Do you live here?' he asked.

‘No,' she said, ‘do you?'

He smiled. ‘No I don't. Can I ask if you know the person who lives here?'

‘Can I ask why you want to know?'

He smiled. He admired her spirit, even if it was making his job more difficult. Maybe she just wasn't used to seeing Asian men trying to break into houses in broad daylight, he thought. Good job it wasn't Jamal in his place.

He came to a decision: he would tell her the truth, see what she said then.

‘My name's Amar Miah,' he said. ‘I'm a private investigator working for a solicitor in Newcastle. I've got a letter in my pocket I can show you if you like.' He made a mental note to thank Donovan for insisting on that piece of paper at the start of every job. Made his life so much simpler.

She was taken aback by his words, not expecting this, but recovered quickly. ‘Show me please.'

‘Can I ask who you are?'

‘I'm a neighbour.'

‘Called?'

The woman was getting rattled. ‘Why d'you need to know that?'

‘Because you're stopping me doing my job. And my job, in this instance, is very important. Your name, please?'

‘Elizabeth. Elizabeth Galloway.'

He took the letter out, showed her. It was a standard letter their lawyer, Sharkey, had composed for just such a situation. While she was reading he continued. Just go for it, he thought. ‘Well, Elizabeth, I believe this is the home of Martin Flemyng. We had a meeting with him yesterday in regard to some irregularities in statements he made regarding abuse at a children's home several years ago.'

She put the letter down, looked at him, eyes wide. ‘What?'

‘We tried to contact him again today and were told he hadn't turned up for work. I came round here to see if he was in.'

‘Oh my god. You mean Martin … I work with him …'

So his assumption had been correct. ‘Well, you never know. Sometimes, and I'm not saying this is the case, but sometimes if people have done something horrendous and think they've got away with it, when their past catches up, they might be tempted to do something drastic.'

‘Oh my God … you'd better come in. Come through my house, we can go through the back way.'

She led him through the house next door. From the fleeting glimpses he had of the décor it was how he would have expected a university teacher's place to be. Comforting, warm. Intelligently and culturally decorated. They went through to the back yard, skipped over the fence. There were double-patio doors at the back of Flemyng's property.

‘I've got the key,' Elizabeth said, and opened them.

Amar stepped inside. Elizabeth followed. ‘Don't touch anything,' he said to her. ‘Just in case.'

She immediately put her arms by her sides.

Amar stepped into the back room. It too was quite comfortably furnished, but messy. He checked all the downstairs rooms. No sign of Flemyng. He gingerly made his way upstairs, taking his own advice, keeping his hands off the banisters. He checked the bedrooms. Nothing.

He thought quickly. There were dirty dishes in the kitchen, the remains of a hastily eaten breakfast. The bed was unmade, the wardrobe doors open, empty hangers showing he had packed quickly. Downstairs in the back room that Flemyng clearly used for an office, there were papers all over the dining table, a laptop still open. Flemyng had clearly left in a hurry.

Amar went back downstairs, sat in front of the laptop. Made a mental note to clean his prints off it afterwards.

‘How well do you know him?' Amar asked.

‘Quite well,' she replied.

‘Did he have a girlfriend? Boyfriend?'

She thought for a moment. ‘Not … usually … but he did say there was someone once, a girlfriend and a little boy. They were like a family, he said …'

‘He mention her name?'

‘Anne, I think. Talked like the boy was his own …' She looked down at Amar. ‘What are you doing?' she said, still keeping her arms at her sides.

‘Checking something. He's not here and it looks like he left in a hurry. Must have been something I said. If he's left in that much of a hurry, he might have left a trail …'

He powered up the laptop, waited for it to come on. ‘Right …' He opened the internet connection, checked through recent history. ‘Here we are …' He opened the relevant screens. ‘Ah.'

‘What?'

‘Martin Flemyng made a reservation on the eleven-thirty from Bristol Temple Meads to Edinburgh. Bit stupid not to cover his tracks.' He checked his watch. ‘I've just got time to catch him.'

He looked at Elizabeth who was standing there, her eyes wide. So far out of her comfort zone she didn't know how to react.

‘Have you got a car?'

She nodded numbly.

‘Good.' He gave his most winning smile. ‘Then could you give me a lift to the station?'

The tea was milky and watery but Tess took the proffered bone-china mug with a smile of gratitude. She had known she would get into Sylvia Cunliffe's house. Journalism, she often thought, was a mixture of charm, tenacity and saying the right things to the right people at the right time.

‘Thanks,' she said, looking at the unappetizing, thin liquid. ‘Just what I fancied.'

Sylvia Cunliffe grunted and sat down in an armchair opposite Tess leaving her perched on the sofa. She looked round. The house was in a late-Sixties estate in Grimley, five miles out of Newcastle. The room was as she had expected. A widow living on a budget, the furniture and fittings weren't the newest or the best quality. She had done what most women would have done in her situation, filled up the remaining space with pictures of her children and grandchildren. Most of the pictures were recent, or fairly recent, with one exception. Some black and white shots of a grinning, curly haired boy. Taken on a run-down housing estate, he looked like something out of an old Ken Loach film.

‘Is that Trevor?' Tess asked, pointing to the photo.

‘Aye, that's him.' She slurped her tea. ‘All I've got left of him. His sisters got married an' that, had kids so I've got grandkids, like, an' I love them, but that's all I've got left of him. That's all she left me of him.' The statements were matter of fact, dry, without emotion or elaboration, but Tess doubted that meant there was none. Time had crusted over her memories but not healed them.

Tess nodded, gave what she hoped was her sympathetic look. It usually worked. If not, she had other methods. ‘So you live here alone?' she said.

She nodded. ‘Me husband died a few years ago. I don't think he ever recovered from losin' Trevor. I don't think our marriage did either. But he stayed with me. That's some-thin', isn't it? Not many would do that these days, is there?'

Tess agreed that there wasn't. She studied her as she took another mouthful of tea. Her eyes were hard with either anger or fear, she didn't know which. Perhaps both. Whatever, it was what drove her, kept her alive.

Sylvia Cunliffe placed her tea on a coaster with a picture of a Scottish piper on it and took out her cigarettes. She didn't offer her one, just lit up. Once the smoke had escaped her lungs, she seemed to relax slightly.

‘The doctor says I shouldn't be doin' this, says it's bad for me. An' it is, I know it is. That's how I got the emphysema. But what else can I do? It's me little bit of joy, me luxury. I can't give that up otherwise I'd have nothin'.'

‘Quite right,' said Tess. ‘We all need a bit of luxury.' She wondered when she herself had last had any and placed her mug on a similarly tartaned coaster on the coffee table, her eyes going to a scrapbook sitting next to it. ‘What's that?'

‘That's me,' said Sylvia. ‘That's all my clippin's. Stuff from the papers, magazines, everythin'. I've got some new stuff as well, from this week, but I haven't got round to puttin' them in yet.'

She reached for it. ‘D'you mind?'

‘Course not, pet, that's what it's there for.'

Tess took the scrapbook, placed it on her lap, opened it. Some of the clippings went back years, the paper yellowed and brittle, the glue and tape thick and congealed. She started from the beginning. The first few showed Sylvia as a young woman, the same picture of Trevor in the articles. Even then, Tess thought, she had a sense of the self-regarding, the dramatic. She found that quite calculating, deliberate. She thought of her own scrapbook and recognized something kindred in her.

The articles went through the years. The same picture of Mae Blacklock that had been used around the time of the trial. The one all the tabloid editors had trotted out over the years to accompany a story about her. In its way it was as iconic as the photo of a blonde Myra Hindley. Tess skipped forward. There was Sylvia railing against … well, anything really. The Bulger case had a quote from her. Ian Huntley. The Wests. Everything and anything to do with premeditated violent death and she was there. Tess read some of the quotes.