The Dying Place (28 page)

‘What happened?’

‘He never made it. Bimpson killed him. We found that out the other night.’

Murphy was struggling to keep up with the story. Tiredness and incredulity scrambling his synapses of understanding. ‘Right … and your story is he killed Dean Hughes?’

‘Well … we were all there, but it was him who took it too far. The lad wouldn’t listen. He’d never listened. No matter what we did, he was still the same disrespectful little bastard he had been since we picked him up. He was only quiet when he was in the Dorm. When we tried to teach him, he turned. Bimpson just lost it. But we were all involved.’

‘What happened to the auld fella … the Major?’ DC Harris said, again surprising Murphy with his question.

‘Bimpson told us he died of a heart attack. Wasn’t exactly shocking, as he was getting on a bit. We never saw him after we took the first lad. He was always ill.’

‘So Alan Bimpson was closest to the old man then?’ Murphy said, sharing a look with DC Harris.

‘Oh, definitely. He’d talk about him all the time.’

‘And he never mentioned an actual name?’

George Stanley shook his head. ‘It never came up.’

Murphy waited a beat. Tears had dripped down George Stanley’s face as he talked, but his voice had remained calm.

‘You’re not sorry. Are you?’

Stanley looked up and caught his stare. ‘Of course I am …’

Murphy laughed, once, loud. ‘You enjoyed giving them something back. Getting revenge for your boy.’

Stanley’s hands were shaking, small movements which Murphy would have missed if he wasn’t watching him so closely.

‘They did terrible things to people,’ Stanley said after a few seconds’ silence. ‘It was time they got a taste.’

‘You understand it’s gone too far?’

Stanley nodded. ‘No one deserves to bury their child. I know that better than anyone. This’ll help though, right? They’ll know I helped.’

Murphy stood up straight, the now-familiar crack in his back accompanying the movement. ‘I need to find him. We need to know where he is.’

Stanley looked towards the ceiling. ‘I don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know where he lives, or where he might be. I thought he was chasing me, that’s why I hid in the woods. He’s not all there now.’

‘You’re telling me …’

‘He changed. He was going downhill for weeks. More violent with them, less willing to listen to reason.’

Murphy moved closer to the head of the hospital bed, leaning on the safety railing so he was only inches from George Stanley’s face. ‘Tell me.’

The tears were flowing more freely now. George Stanley’s shoulders shuddered in time with each drop.

‘I don’t think he’s finished.’

The Youth Club

The youth club was quiet, the evening session long over and a new day on its way. The only sounds he’d heard as he entered the building were birds beginning their morning calls.

He shouldn’t even be there. There’d been a phone call at his house from his
primary investor,
as he liked to call himself, telling Kevin he had to urgently speak to him. Four o’ damn clock in the morning.

Kevin Thornhill was sitting in his office, sweating in the crowded space, beads of perspiration emanating from somewhere on his forehead and then roving down his face, gravity doing its job.

But it wasn’t warm in there. It was cool enough that he needed a jacket. He would have put one on – if it wasn’t for the six foot two, stocky-shouldered, crew-cut, scarred-face man pointing a rather large shotgun at his chest.

There was fear. Of course. Kevin could feel it trickling down his trouser leg. But there was also something else. A knowing. There were facts he could understand, even as bile rushed up his throat, threatening to escape. And with that knowing came the knowledge that this was it. This wasn’t something he could talk his way out of. There’d be no going home, going back to normal. Not for him.

When they say that time stretches out for you when you’re in a life or death situation, they’re lying. Kevin Thornhill could feel every minute, every second, passing him by. Passing by with his inaction, his ineffectiveness. His body’s refusal to talk, to negotiate. The silence grew around him, cocooning him, restricting him. His breath grew short, shallow, in and out, in and out. Hitching finally, as his body began to react in different ways.

They talk about a fight or flight reflex. Kevin Thornhill wasn’t responding to either.

They were right about being frozen.

Frozen, scared shitless.

His brain still ticked over. Thoughts banging into each other in there. Bumping and banging and running into each other in there. Inside, where it didn’t count. It was adrenaline, something told him that. A word coming out of the ether in block capitals. Adrenaline. Then it was his son and daughter. Pictures, not words. They were much younger than the twenty-somethings they were now. It was them at five and seven. Ten and eight. Newborns.

They talk about your life flashing before your eyes. They were wrong. He couldn’t think straight enough to put things in order of his life history.

He thought of his wife long after the word adrenaline. Then felt a pang of guilt that she wasn’t one of the first thoughts he’d had.

He wasn’t saying anything. The man with the gun. Pointed at his chest. He was mute. Just staring, staring, staring … almost right through him.

The knowledge of what was to come That’s where it came from. The staring eyes. The calmness, the ease with which he faced him down.

The difference in him, the man he thought he knew.

Another word … acquaintance.

Benefactor.

Family.

Kevin tried not to think of what they’d called him after his first talk with the kids.

Nutter.

He almost winced at the word.

Maybe they should have taken that jokey nickname a little more seriously.

Still he stared. And Kevin Thornhill couldn’t help but stare back. Lost in the man’s gaze as his brain ticked ever on. Words, pictures.

Why couldn’t he talk?

At least babble a little?

Beg for his life, for the sake of his family? If he loved them he would, surely? Why couldn’t he make himself talk?

Fear, fear, fear. He’s afraid. He knows, he knows, he knows.

He was going to die.

Finally, the man Kevin Thornhill knew as someone other than Alan Bimpson spoke.

‘You told them about me.’

Not a question. Kevin Thornhill’s brain – seemingly the only working part of him now, other than his bladder – told him that. No inflection at the end of the sentence, no question mark.

‘It doesn’t matter anyway. It just means less time for me to do my work.’

Kevin Thornhill opened his mouth. He didn’t remember sending the signal for that to happen, but it was there. He tried to speak, but instead his mouth just gaped and closed.

‘No need for you to say anything, Kevin. I know everything you want to say.’

His voice was so calm. They could have been discussing something dull or routine. If Kevin Thornhill had had even a semblance of hope at that moment, he might have believed everything could still be okay.

‘You’ve been trying to help these kids. I know that. But you know the reality of the situation.’

The man Kevin Thornhill knew as someone-fucking-better-than-this-
Alan Bimpson
… took a short step forward, his hardened, unshaven face coming even closer.

‘You know the truth. You can’t stop them. They’ll never change. You know why? They don’t want to. They’re happiest making others unhappy. That’s what they do for fun. They laugh at you, Kevin. They come here for the free stuff, the roof over their heads when it’s pissing down outside. Then they leave here and go out on the streets and carry on doing what they always do.’

He wanted to shake his head. Say no. That it wasn’t true. That they were doing good work there. Helping to give these kids a chance at a different life.

But Kevin Thornhill still couldn’t speak.

‘I decided you’d be the first only a couple of hours ago. Take away the ridiculous notion at the source. Drive them out like rats, make my job easier. They won’t understand, not really.’

A moment of silence.

‘Of course … I say the first, but there have been others. All leading to this. My final act. I want you to understand, I’m not doing this because I want to. Not really. It’s just that … they’ll blame you. Think you had something to do with it all. I can’t have that. Your kids deserve better than to be put through that kind of attention. This is just so they can have a better life. They can mourn you, but then get on with their lives. You’ll never have to look them in the eye and wonder if they believe you. That you didn’t know who I really was. What I really am.’

Kevin Thornhill swallowed. Another part of him finally coming to life. Acidic, sour, bitter, burning the back of his throat.

He so badly wanted to talk. To say anything. His brain had given him a million and one things to say, but they wouldn’t come out.

They would think he tried. His family wouldn’t believe that he just sat there, mute, frozen, unmoving. Afraid. He’d always presented himself as someone who could face down anything. He wasn’t a fearful person. He’d lived through worse things, he’d always say. Lived in dodgy places, dealt with dodgy people. Scary people.

The gun. Those two words appeared in his mind.

That’s all it was.

The last three words Kevin Thornhill heard came next.

‘I’m sorry, kid.’

Alan Bimpson slumped down the wall once Kevin Thornhill stopped breathing. Became someone else for a brief moment. The ghost he’d left behind. Once the gargling and gasping had finished. When Kevin’s heart finally gave up trying to pump blood around his body, succumbing to the trauma created by the shotgun wound to his chest.

He was crying. His cheeks wet with tears. Silent, not sobbing.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. They were going to make a difference, all together. And now he had been left alone.

It was a trial. Redemption. He had to make up for the wrongs that had been committed. Clean up the streets …

But he knew he didn’t really believe in it. When Alan allowed himself to drift, to just allow his mind to clear and think logically, it didn’t make sense. What he was doing, what he had done.

He was a killer.

He was worse than them.

It was too late. He was too far gone. His mind closed up again. Put those doubting thoughts in a box and left it in a corner. Hopefully never to be opened.

He was alone. In the quiet. Kevin Thornhill’s decomposing body feet away from where he was slumped to the floor, holding a sawn-off shotgun he’d been given by an old man with a grudge.

Tired. So damn tired. The mix of emotions driving him on autopilot. Exhilaration and despair.

He was gone.

Time. He had no time. Why had he come here? Killed the only person he had a slight trust in.

Back in the box.

The sun was beginning to peer through the windows in the corridor outside the office, the door moving almost imperceptibly in an unseen draught. He stared at the blur of the outside world through the windows from his position on the floor, willing it to go dark again.

He preferred the dark. In the light, his true nature was undeniable. And that was what scared him now.

Himself. What he was capable of. Cold-blooded murder.

They deserved it. That was the truth. Everything he’d done, everything he would do, they deserved it and more.

He closed his eyes, allowing the rising sunlight to bathe him anew.

Resolve. Resolution.

The end.

24

The sun was high in the sky but still shining through the windscreen as DS Tony Brannon drove over the speed limit. Weaving in and out of slow-moving traffic with the practised air of an experienced driver, he leant over to the glovebox and opened it to find his sunglasses.

Oakleys. They made him look good as he dangled one arm on the rim of the window, one palm on the steering wheel.

If he could get his weight down, he’d be a catch. He knew that.

Not that he ever had any problems getting women back to his apartment outside the city centre. It was near the university – and there were plenty of inexperienced students who were impressed by his tales of bravery and selflessness as a cop.

He could never get them to stay long after the first night though. He was undecided on whether that was a good thing or not.

There were also the naive girls at work. New ones all the time, coming in to do admin jobs or newly passed-out uniforms. They didn’t know of his reputation, so he could use his greatest asset.

He could talk, he could make them laugh. Charm and confidence went a long way, even when three stone overweight with the eating habits of a small orang-utan.

Brannon overtook a slow-moving Fiat, giving the wanker signal to the auld fella behind the wheel when he received a beep in the process. He was driving down Muirhead Avenue, the main road which bordered the Norris Green estate. He loved the houses down there, the large semi-detached dwellings, trees lining the road. Any other location, and it would be a nice area to live. Brannon knew better though. He knew the scum which lay behind the closed doors.

It was even worse once you turned off the road and entered the estate proper. Then it became more apparent, even from the roadside. Decrepit houses, decrepit people. Aimless single mothers and their horrible little offspring. Little Jayden or gorgeous Chantelle. Skanky names for skanky kids. All designed to end up making his life a misery as soon as they could start answering back.

He fucking hated the job sometimes. Having to deal with scallies almost exclusively, it seemed. And every day there seemed to be another one popping out.

Brannon hated driving alone. It led him to moments of frustration like this as he let his thoughts run away with themselves, imagining dealing with them the old-fashioned way. Couldn’t do that any more. No more beatings in the back of a van to let the little bastards know who was in charge. Getting them back to the station and giving the drunken dickheads a hiding.