Tastes Like Fear (D.I. Marnie Rome 3) (30 page)

In Starbucks, Daisy was nursing a gingerbread latte. Joel and Corin were watching the door. They looked scared to death when Marnie and Noah came through it.

‘Loz Beswick is missing,’ Marnie told them. ‘We think you might have been the last people to see her. In the subway, not that long ago.’

Noah saw lies crowding in the boys’ eyes. He cut them short. ‘We know she was headed to the subway. She’s
missing
. Give us the truth, now.’

‘We didn’t know who she was,’ Corin said. ‘Not until she told us.’

‘What did she tell you?’

‘That she’d found May’s sketchpad. She’d worked out where the subway was, said she wanted to see it for herself. We let her hang out with us. She was pretty sad.’

‘Why didn’t you call us?’ Noah demanded. ‘You had our number. You knew we were looking for a killer. Loz is thirteen years old. She’s counting on us to find whoever killed May.’

That surprised a laugh from Daisy.

Joel and Corin moved back in their seats, away from her.

Daisy stirred with a wooden stick at her drink.

‘Why is that funny?’ Marnie asked.

‘Because she’s not counting on anyone,’ Daisy said. ‘She’s looking for him herself.’

‘She told you that?’

‘Yeah. But it’s okay. She’s not really
missing
, just hanging out for a bit.’ She licked aerated cream from the wooden stick. ‘It’s like … we’ve all done it. I can see why her mum and dad are having a fit, but seriously? It’s not a big deal.’

May had been murdered. Loz was missing.
Not a big deal.

‘Where is she hanging out?’

Daisy shrugged. So did Joel and Corin. As if they were unable to imagine any fate for Loz less comfortable than theirs, sitting in Starbucks sipping overpriced syruped milk.

‘She’s okay,’ Daisy insisted. ‘Just hanging out.’

‘Where?’ Marnie repeated.

‘Somewhere safe,’ Joel said. ‘You don’t need to freak out.’

Corin nodded, but his eyes were unhappy. Regardless, he repeated the lie picked for them by Daisy. ‘She’s safe. She must be. I mean, who goes looking for a killer? She was kidding. Right?’

44

‘How are her mum and dad bearing up?’ Welland asked Marnie. ‘They know the drill, at least.’

‘I’m not sure that makes it any easier.’

‘They let her walk to school on her own?’

‘She’s been doing that for years. Both Sean and Katrina felt they had to give her some space, and they trusted her to stay safe.’

‘Do
we
trust
them
?’ Using his gruffest tone. If they’d missed a trick …

‘We looked at them when May first went missing. And DS Jake’s been taking another close look in the last twenty-four hours, after the sketchpad showed up.’ Marnie paused. ‘If you’d seen them just now … They’re out of their minds with worry. Neither car’s been out of Taybridge Road since yesterday. Neighbours saw Loz in her school uniform walking with her usual bag at the usual time. We could waste time quizzing the Beswicks further, but I’d rather spend it looking at the subway. There’s CCTV all around there. We’re checking the routes from Taybridge Road and the school, in case she doubled back.’ If they’d only kept the police tape up longer; if she hadn’t asked Forensics to work so fast; if she’d been able to win Loz’s trust …

Welland knuckled the base of his neck. ‘We’re tracing her phone?’

‘She’s not used it since last night. We’re hoping she has it with her. It’s our best lead right now. And we’re checking her computer. May didn’t use one, but Sean says Loz lives on the internet. So far all we’ve found is photos of road signs and role-play accounts.’

‘What’s a role-play account?’

‘Pretending to be someone she isn’t. Nothing sinister, just playing at being characters from her favourite books and TV shows. Escapism. Nothing that looks as if it will turn into a lead.’

Welland frowned at Marnie’s report. ‘Tell me about this woman, Christie Faulk.’

‘In her early twenties. According to Jodie Izard, a year ago she had dark hair and brown eyes. That was over in Lewisham, where she took Grace. Our three from the subway say the woman Loz went with was blonde, brown-eyed. We’re assuming it’s the same woman.’

‘Early twenties, but we think she’s our killer? Or just his recruitment agent?’

‘We don’t know.’ Either way, Loz had gone with her, willingly. How much pain must she’ve been in, to take a risk of that magnitude? ‘We need to find Christie, obviously.’

‘Any connection between Faulk and Ledger?’ Welland asked next.

Marnie shook her head. ‘But we don’t have a formal ID for Christie yet. No ID and no photo. We’re hoping Grace can help. I’m going over to the hospital to speak with her.’

‘She’s in the same place as Kathy Bates?’ He meant Emma Tarvin.

‘On separate floors, but yes.’

Welland tugged at his lip. ‘I had Traffic back on the phone, bitching about that.’

‘I hope you bitched back. Kenickie is a nasty piece of work.’

‘He’s off my Christmas card list. What else from the subway? I gather Forensics got quite the haul. Condoms, shitty toilet paper, the works.’

‘Fran’s looking for DNA to match to Missing Persons. Joel and the others mentioned a boy called Eric, and Sasha. We showed them a picture of Sasha Ronson, but it’s not the same girl.’

‘Even so,’ Welland said, ‘lots of missing girls in the vicinity of this madman’s hunting ground. If he’s got more, do we have any good reason to hope he’s keeping them alive?’

‘Whoever killed May and Ashleigh made their deaths public. There’s no reason to think they wouldn’t have done the same with any other girls they killed.’

‘Unless the others were killed first. Botched jobs, say. It might’ve taken a while to work up to the public displays. Isn’t that the usual pattern with these lunatics?’

Marnie didn’t want to think of any other girl as this killer’s botched job.

‘Displaying them in public places could be a comment on the way we’re ignoring their pain,’ Welland said. ‘Isn’t that how Ledger’s wife said he felt about civilian life – that we needed waking up to what was going on around us?’ He kneaded the skin under his eyes with the ends of his fingers, looking more cynical and weary than usual. ‘Demonstrating he has the freedom of the city, comes and goes as he pleases, doing what he likes. No boundaries, just plenty of risk-taking.’

Marnie didn’t comment. He could be right, that was the miserable fact of the matter. Welland could have put his finger on exactly what was happening.

He leaned towards her. ‘Are we giving Laura Beswick’s photo to the press?’

‘Not yet. It could spook our killer. That might be why Ashleigh was dumped so soon after May.’

‘But he’s still taking girls. What’s he up to? Playing Manson families, some sort of cult? He’s not raping them, or not yet. Which makes sense if the killer’s a woman. This Christie Faulk.’

He hadn’t made up his mind, Marnie realised. Not about Jamie Ledger, or Christie Faulk.

She got to her feet. ‘I’ll let you know what Grace has to say. Otherwise, all hands are on the search for Loz. If you can get us
more
hands …’

Welland nodded. ‘Leave it with me.’

Jodie Izard had described Grace Bradley as a born survivor, hard as a cat’s head.

The girl in the hospital bed was wretchedly thin and bruised, her hands knuckled at her sides, the bump of bone showing in her wrists. They hadn’t tried to remove the writing from her skin, its black scrawl smudged in places by the abrasions from Emma Tarvin’s walking stick.

Marnie could read a handful of the words.

Liar. Animal. Dead.

Fran had used baby oil to clean the writing from May. Marnie wanted to do the same for Grace. She sat at the side of the bed. ‘Grace, I’m Detective Inspector Rome. I need your help.’

No response, not even a flicker in the grey eyes, too big for her face. Like Loz’s eyes.

‘I need your help finding the place where you and May were staying. Can you remember?’

Grace shut her eyes. She turned her fists until her arms were lying in plain view along either side of her body.
Liar. Animal. Dead.
Words, but not the ones Marnie needed from her.

‘I need to find Christie Faulk. I think you know her. She’s taken May’s sister. You knew May. You were with her, and Ashleigh. That’s right, isn’t it? Only now Christie’s taken May’s sister Loz. Loz is thirteen years old. We’re very worried about her. I think you know where Christie’s taken her. It’s the place you were running from when Emma took you in.’ Marnie didn’t mention the car crash, or the cupboard, or the beatings. ‘Help me to find Loz, please. She’s angry and scared. She wants to find whoever killed her sister. We think she went with Christie believing Christie would take her to May’s killer—’

The sound coming out of Grace was raw and low-pitched. She rolled her head against the pillows weakly.

‘You didn’t know May was dead,’ Marnie realised. ‘I’m sorry, I thought you knew. I thought that’s why you ran from that house, because you saw how dangerous it was.’

She waited, to see if Grace’s distress would get worse. But there wasn’t any time. There wasn’t any time to wait.

‘Grace, tell me where Christie has taken Loz. Somewhere safe, she said. I know there’s food, and shelter. I know she looks after you, to start with.’

‘Y-you don’t.’ A whisper, broken. ‘You d-don’t know.’

‘
Tell me.
’

Grace rolled her head again. Refusing to answer Marnie’s question, or unable to? Not crying, or not with her eyes. No tears came from under her shut lids, but her chest rose and fell beneath the blanket.

‘It’s all right.’ Marnie reached for her hand and held it. ‘It will be all right. You’re safe now. You can help me. I need your help. You can help to save Loz and whoever else is still inside the place Christie lied about. Because it’s not safe. It’s very, very dangerous. We need to get Loz and the others away from there, just like you got away. Tell me where she took you. Help me.’

Grace stopped shaking her head. Her chest hiccuped before it went still. Too still.

Marnie was about to check her pulse when the girl pulled her hand away, lifting her arm and putting it across her eyes, her wrist bent at an odd angle, unnatural.

Light lay along her forearm, highlighting the words written there.

Liar. Animal. Dead.

Marnie saw Grace and May sitting together cross-legged on a stranger’s floor, writing on their skin with black marker pens, picking their words like weapons.

But there was something else on Grace’s skin.

A word Marnie had missed, until now.

Just above her left wrist.

In spiky letters, smaller than the rest:

Killer
.

45

Christie

‘This is home,’ Christie told Big Eyes. ‘What d’you think?’ She shed her coat, transferring the keys to her jeans pocket.

Big Eyes took a hard look around the kitchen. Cupboards, table, knife rack. ‘Nice.’

‘Want to see the bedrooms?’

‘I’ll have to share, right?’

‘Not necessarily. Depends on who’s staying the night. We come and go, pretty much.’

‘Do I get a key?’ Big Eyes said. ‘If I can come and go, I’ll need a key.’

‘Sure.’ Christie nodded. She opened a drawer next to the stove ‘Help yourself.’

The drawer was full of door keys on plastic key rings. Big Eyes picked a green one.

‘We’ll be eating soon. There’s plenty of food here. Do you cook?’

‘A bit. Not really. But I can help out. I guess that’s what everyone does, right?’ Big Eyes tucked the key into her pocket, still looking around the kitchen. Every second sweep her eyes went to the door. She’d not bothered looking at the windows. Too high up. Only one way in and out.

Christie moved past her to shut the drawer. She’d found the keys in a junk shop, a job lot. Not one of them opened the doors here. But they looked good, all jumbled in the drawer.

Help yourself, come and go
…

Harm’s idea, to make the girls feel safe. None of them had tried the keys on their first day, not even in their first week. Later, when it was too late, they cried when they found the keys didn’t work. Or like Grace, they fought.

Standing in the kitchen, Big Eyes looked old. She wasn’t. She was younger than any of the others, but she looked ancient. Fear snaked into Christie’s throat. What had she done?

She picked up a glass. ‘Water’s here.’ She walked to where the barrels were stacked, showing the girl how to work the tap that Harm had fitted.

‘What’s wrong with the sink?’ Big Eyes said.

‘They haven’t connected the water. This’s a new-build. No water, no gas. No electricity except what Harm’s fixed up for us.’

‘Who’s Harm?’

‘A mate.’ Christie shot her a look. ‘Don’t freak. It’s not like that.’

Her face flickered, on the blink. ‘Like what?’

‘Whatever you’re imagining.’ Christie sucked a breath, drinking from the glass until the snake stopped moving in her mouth. ‘I was the same when I first came here. It looks weird, because we’re not used to anyone else giving a shit about us.’ She shrugged. ‘Some people do, that’s all.’

‘Like Harm.’ Big Eyes put her hands in her pockets, shoulders up, trying to look tough.

‘Yes.’ Christie watched her across the smooth lip of the glass. ‘Just like Harm.’ She paused, then added, ‘You’ll have to give us a name.’

‘Laura.’ It might’ve been her real name, or a lie.

All the girls lied, sooner or later. Even May, who’d been the only one Christie had trusted with a real key, certain she’d come back that night after helping Grace to get away. But it was Christie who’d scared Grace into going to Emma Tarvin’s, knowing the old woman would keep her quiet, and teach her a lesson she wouldn’t forget. May had come back alone, or so Christie had thought. She hadn’t known about the lie in May’s belly, and the way it would ruin everything.

‘Come on.’ She walked Laura to the room May had shared with Ashleigh. ‘This’s yours. I’ll fix you up with some bedding.’

‘Thanks.’ Her eyes were on the mezzanine floor. ‘What’s up there?’