The Killer Inside: A gripping serial killer thriller (Detective Jessica Daniel thriller series Book 1) (16 page)

S
haun may have been
one of the oldest but he struggled to keep up with the other three boys. They laughed and whooped as they raced across the patch of wasteland, which was cluttered with rocks, scrap metal and open patches of grass. Before he’d left, Shaun’s dad had told him that this area used to be home to a few factories but they were long gone.

Scott led the way. He was the youngest but also the fastest, hurdling a displaced paving slab and willing the rest of them on.

Jon was next in line, the oldest of the four, but the quietest. He was the only one not cheering as they raced. He carefully watched his own footing, not wanting to fall and be laughed at by the others. Jamo followed, energetic and excited, aping Scott’s calls and over-exaggerating the jumps. Shaun was at the back, out of breath but desperate not to show it. He copied the shouts too, not wanting to be left out.

He had struggled to make friends, especially after his dad left. The other kids took the mickey at school and though Scott did the same, he didn’t mind Shaun hanging around with them. Shaun did his best to fit in, doing their dares and stealing chocolate bars from the local shop, plus knocking on those old people’s front doors before legging it. There was even a trick they pulled where Scott lay flat on top of some guy’s porch and knocked on the door from above. The chap kept storming out the front but couldn’t see anyone and was fuming. Shaun felt a little bad watching from the trees nearby, but at least his friends weren’t laughing at him.

The four of them were bonded not by age but by boredom. It didn’t matter what year someone was in at school when it came to booting a football around.

In every way imaginable, Scott
should
have been the kid who followed the others. Outwardly he was quieter, while he was certainly smaller. Most people who saw their group probably thought that, but Jon, Jamo and Shaun knew different: Scott was the cool kid.
He
was the one with the sharp comebacks and the one who bunked off when it was sunny.
He
fought their battles.
He
was the one older kids thought they could pick on first.

He was vicious and scary but reassuring at the same time, the type of kid with whom someone would rather be friends than an enemy.

The group tore across the concrete, watching as the older kid they were chasing ran into an abandoned building. Scott stopped running and the other three caught up with him.

The building was made of huge grey bricks, while a lot of the plaster that would have once covered it lay in dusty piles around it. The space the other kid had run through had no actual door, the rotting wooden frame having splintered at the top.

‘We’ve got him now,’ Scott said. ‘The door at the back is blocked off.’

Shaun looked nervously at Jon, who was next to him, neither of them wanting to say anything.

‘Niiiiiiiiigelllllllll!’ Jamo called loudly. Scott laughed as Shaun and Jon joined in half-heartedly.

Scott strolled towards the entrance with the three of them behind. Jamo was still calling Nigel’s name loudly. Inside the building, the light levels dropped significantly and Shaun found himself blinking to readjust. Outside it was bright and sunny, but the only light inside came through the partially destroyed roof. Patches of the floor were illuminated, piles of rubble flanking the walls. At first Shaun couldn’t see anyone in the room. He wondered if there was a second way out after all. He hoped there was – but then he saw a silhouette of a figure towards the back of the room, crouching behind some of the rubble. He thought he heard a faint whimpering but no one else reacted.

Jamo was still taunting. ‘Niiiiiiiiigelllllllll!’

Shaun wondered if he was the only person who had seen the shadow at the end. He said nothing as the four of them scanned their surroundings. Scott’s screwed-up face snarled as he looked from corner to corner, his features only half-visible because of the light from the doorway.

‘Anyone see him?’

Shaun said nothing and Scott signalled for him and Jon to head towards the far end, the darker part, where Shaun had seen the shape. ‘You two look down there; me and Jamo will check around here and make sure he doesn’t get back out the door,’ Scott said.

The room was large but seemed so much smaller because of the rubble and wreckage. Where there were holes in the roof, there were also patches of damp on the floor below. Shaun could hear the two boys behind overturning pieces of junk and looking under things. He heard Scott cursing and making threats. Jamo was still calling, but the word was getting longer and longer.

‘Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigellllllllllllllllllllllllllll!’

Shaun found it intimidating and it wasn’t even his name being called. His heart was pounding and he turned to take in the shape of Jon at his side. He couldn’t make out Jon’s features but could sense the fear there too.

‘You go that way,’ Shaun said, pointing towards the back left of the building.

He was sending Jon away from the silhouette, towards the other corner. Shaun continued to walk towards where he had seen the shadow. He kicked a few random pieces of concrete to keep up the illusion he was looking and saw another small flash of movement. Nigel was less than ten feet from him. Shaun’s eyes flicked towards the older boy and he could see the faint outline of a figure behind a mangled table. He thought he saw the outline shiver, but said nothing. Nigel either hadn’t seen or hadn’t acknowledged him.

‘See anything, Jon?’ he called.

‘No.’

Shaun could still hear the calls echoing around the room.

‘Niiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigellllllllllllllllllllllllllll!’

He could definitely hear a slight sobbing coming from the person hiding by the table. Shaun realised he had been holding his breath and stopped to risk another look. This time, the faint stream of light coming through the roof caught the two of them. Shaun looked at Nigel and the panic-stricken older boy stared back.

Shaun tried to motion him to stay calm, to stay hidden, to let him know he wasn’t going to say anything. Nigel’s eyes darted from side to side: a cornered, frightened fox. He leapt up and charged into Shaun, the pair of them stumbling backwards into a smashed-up cabinet. Shaun remained still as Nigel clambered to his feet. The noise had alerted the others but, as Shaun peered across, he could see Jon rooted to the spot.

‘Get him, then!’ Scott yelled from the other end – but Jon didn’t move and Shaun was on the floor. Nigel ran towards the door. Jamo had been taken by surprise and was still engulfed in darkness. Shaun could hear him struggling with something in the distance but couldn’t see him. Scott was clambering over some old wreckage but Nigel was sprinting, head down in a straight line. Through the flashes of light that partially illuminated the room, Shaun saw Nigel’s frame bolting.

He was going to make it! He was going to escape!

Then Shaun heard the crunch – everyone must have done. Scott had cut across from his position and rugby-tackled Nigel to the ground a few feet from the door. The sickening sound of a bone snapping was instantly drowned out by Nigel’s scream of pain. Shaun pulled himself to his feet and made his way towards the front of the building. He felt Jon close by as Jamo’s laughing drowned out Nigel’s agony.

Shaun felt sick. Nigel was prone on the floor. His once-green T-shirt was covered in dust and ripped at the arm, and his jeans bent at an unnatural angle, covering a leg which must surely have made the sickening crunching noise. The boy looked dazed and was crying. ‘Please…’

Scott crouched down next to the boy and punched him hard across the face. ‘Shut up,’ he ordered. ‘Stop crying.’

Nigel had his eyes shut, head to one side, reeling from the blow. He was trying to catch his breath, trying to stop the tears.

‘Do you know why we chased you, Nigel?’

The boy shook his head and whimpered. ‘No.’

‘You shouldn’t have looked at my girlfriend like that, should you?’

Nigel was shaking his head, desperately holding back the tears. ‘I… I… wasn’t.’

Scott punched him in the face a second time, the sound echoing. Jamo gave a, ‘Yeah!’ Shaun continued staring at the angle of Nigel’s leg.

‘Don’t lie to me.’

Jon spoke. ‘Scott…’

Scott turned around sharply, standing rigid to his full height. He was shorter than Jon but stepped up to within an inch or two of him. ‘What?’

The light from the doorway left them each half in shadow, the only noise a faint whimper coming from Nigel. This was the moment for Shaun to say something. If he and Jon stuck together, they could stop this now. He only had to open his mouth and say something…

S
haun Hogan was crying
, not small sobs but loud wails. The prison guards didn’t seem to want anything to do with what was unfolding in front of them. They couldn’t have heard anything specific, given the distance from them to Shaun, Jessica and Cole, but they had stopped talking among themselves and all four were watching the prisoner, presumably in case his sorrow became violent. His cries echoed around the empty visiting room.

Jessica slid a packet of tissues from her bag across the table. ‘Shaun…?’

‘I’m so sorry,’ he said. ‘I didn’t say anything.’

The case of Nigel Collins had been massive news at the time and a total embarrassment for the force. A dog-walker had found a teenage boy’s battered body on the site of an old factory. He was in a coma with a broken leg. He had a fractured jaw and shattered ribs. His face was so badly beaten that the walker wasn’t even sure the victim was alive, let alone whether they were male or female.

Jessica had been in uniform at the time and most of the GMP’s resources had been assigned to the case. The boy’s face had been on the front of every national newspaper and at the top of every news bulletin. At first they’d had to find out who the victim was, which had taken a couple of days in itself.

Nigel Collins was an orphan who had lived in a children’s home on the outskirts of the city. His parents had died in a car accident when he was eleven. They had left behind nothing but debts and Nigel. He had no relatives, no security and no future, and was too old to realistically be adopted. Finding a foster family was always hard for a child on the cusp of being a teenager and the home had offered him somewhere to stay, even though he had never fitted in either there or at school.

After he had been identified as the victim, the police had followed all sorts of leads, from former school pupils to ex-housemates at the home. No one knew anything. Nigel was a quiet lad and didn’t talk much at the best of times. He lived in his own world with no friends and little contact with anyone other than the staff at the home. He’d finished school but was barely ready for the outside world. Staff had helped set him up with somewhere to stay through a housing association but, given his personality, he hadn’t achieved much else.

In the days following the media campaign, plenty of reports came through of Nigel being harassed by other kids, younger and older. It seemed that they had seen him on the streets and had targeted the vulnerable, gawky loner. No one could give any specific details and the police assumed he had been attacked at random.

When Nigel regained consciousness, he either didn’t want to, or couldn’t, remember any details about how he had ended up there. He couldn’t say how he’d been attacked, let alone whether he knew the people involved. A couple of the staff members from the home he had lived in as a child were brought in to speak to him, but they couldn’t get him to open up. As they pointed out, Nigel hadn’t talked an awful lot before the incident. Some officers believed he simply didn’t want to say anything, but no one could know for sure.

Five months after the attack, Nigel’s case had been forgotten. He was released from hospital and, as he either couldn’t or wouldn’t cooperate with the police, any case against the people who had attacked him was dropped. It was another unsolved file in a large stack.

Jessica knew all of that off the top of her head. It had been ingrained into them as officers during the morning briefings before the case had slowly been dropped. One by one, the officers had been moved onto other cases, but those pictures of Nigel Collins’ brutally beaten face were something that had stayed with Jessica. He’d been a mass of purple, black, blue and red, all merging into one.

Jessica took a deep breath. ‘Are you admitting to being part of a group who tortured Nigel Collins?’

‘Yes,’ Shaun sniffed.

She didn’t know how to phrase the next question, so asked it in the simplest way possible. ‘Why have you told us all this now?’

A shrug: ‘I don’t know. I suppose I’ve been waiting to tell someone for ages.’

‘You know everything you told us could be used if the case is reopened?’

‘I deserve it,’ he said quietly. ‘That’s why it’s my fault, with my mum.’

‘I still don’t understand,’ Jessica said.

Shaun continued sniffing, but his sobs had died down. He spoke slowly and quietly. ‘After it all happened, when Nigel had been found and was on the TV and everything, I couldn’t keep it in. The four of us lads never really hung around together after that, but Scott told us all to keep our mouths shut. We were scared.
I
was scared, but I told Mum…’

Things began to click into place for Jessica, explaining why Shaun believed the family falling apart was down to him.

‘Mum didn’t go to the police, but it was never right. She never looked at me the same way; you could see it in her eyes. She had already started drinking after Dad left but everything was under control. After I told her, though…’

Jessica let him tail off. He composed himself again and used another tissue to blow his nose. ‘I was about to do my exams but couldn’t get the images out of my head. Scott made us all join in. That way, if any of us ever said anything, we would all be in it together. Jon – Jonny – he cried the whole time. Even Jamo didn’t want to get involved when it got serious. As soon as my exams were done, that’s when Mum said we were moving. We all knew the flat she took us to was too small, but I think it was her way of saying she didn’t want me there any longer.’

Jessica nodded. ‘Is that what she said when you visited her on the day you ended up assaulting that man?’

‘Pretty much. She had been drinking and was in the flat on her own. It was horrible. I had heard from Em that Mum had started… working… and I shouted at her about it. I said it wasn’t right, what she was doing to Kim. She wasn’t listening and shouted back, “What about what you did?” It was the first time she’d ever said anything properly about it. She said it was my fault and that she couldn’t look at me any more because of what she saw every time she did.’

Jessica didn’t know what to say. Neither of them came out well from this, Shaun or his mother. And what about the victims? Nigel Collins and poor Kim.

Shaun sniffed again. ‘I felt so bad. It was the last time I ever saw her. I came back to Leeds that night and drank. I didn’t know the guy I beat up. I’ve thought about it a lot since. I wondered if maybe I wanted to end up somewhere like here and punish myself...’

There wasn’t an awful lot they could say. They would pass on the confession to their superiors, who might reopen Nigel Collins’ case. If that happened, someone else would come to visit Shaun to ask him to repeat everything he had said. Even if he refused, Jessica’s recollections and Cole’s notes would be enough.

Jessica’s mind was still working. ‘Who were the other boys, Shaun?’

‘I didn’t really know everyone’s name. It was all about nicknames and football usually, having a laugh. It wasn’t always the four of us. Big groups of us would go off kicking a footy around. That day, it was the four of us bunking off. I’m still not sure how it all happened. We were smoking around the back of this shop and Nigel walked past. We all knew his name and face through him being around. Everyone took the mick and called him names and so on. He half knew us and our mums because we were all from the same area. He never seemed to forget anyone. Scott said Nigel had been looking at his girlfriend some other evening and we went with it. It was only a chase at first.’

‘Do you remember Scott’s last name?’

Shaun thought about it but shook his head. ‘I’m not sure I ever knew. It wasn’t the kind of thing I would have asked. He was younger than me, so we weren’t in the same class.’

‘What about “Jamo”?’

‘I don’t know. That was what Scott called him.’

‘Do you know if it was his first name, like “James”? Or last name, like “Jameson”?’

‘He was always “Jamo”. He was in Scott’s year. That’s how they knew each other.’

‘What about Jon?’

‘He’s the only one I knew anything about. He was the year above me in school and was doing his A levels, I think. Something like that. We didn’t really talk again. I don’t remember. We didn’t really talk again.’

‘Do you know his full name?’

‘Shaun glanced up to the ceiling, trying to remember. ‘Price? Something like that.’

Jessica glanced at Cole and then back to Shaun. ‘Could it be “Prince”? Jonathan Prince?’

‘Yeah, maybe. That sounds about right.’