The Night of the Mosquito (14 page)

‘He said he kept having dreams that he was a murderer. I laughed and told him, “But you are.” Now, what is all this bollocks?’ The guard brushed the hot end of his cigarette against the rock he sat on, sharpening it to a conical shape. He took another drag.

‘Well, what did he say to that?’ Summer asked.

The guard shrugged. ‘He said he thought Jack the Ripper had got inside his head.’

‘What did you think? Did you tell Kotlas?’

‘Not at first. Then Kotlas confessed he’d given Wolfe MDMA.’

Summer frowned. ‘What is that?’

The guard scratched the back of his neck. ‘Ecstasy.’

‘How on earth was he able to get away with that?’

‘Local authorities used to pay a fortune to get problem kids off their hands, ship them into another county if need be. Apart from a few cursory checks, they just assumed they’d left them in good hands. I think a few quacks took advantage of that to experiment with different things. They were able to get away with it at that time.’

‘What was the purpose, though?’

‘Kotlas was obsessed with regression techniques. He took Wolfe’s claims seriously. Between you and me, I think he felt he might use Wolfe to discover who Jack the Ripper was.’

‘That’s crazy.’ Summer shook his head. ‘I thought you were going to give me something good.’

‘Kotlas had his DNA tested. A sample of the Ripper’s semen came to light on a piece of a victim’s clothing. They compared the results. It was a match.’

‘What happened then?’

‘Wolfe got shipped out, much to Kotlas’s dismay. Last I heard, he got a job in Ashmore, specifically to work with Wolfe so he could solve the mystery.’

‘Does Kotlas still work at Ashmore?’

‘Listen, Summer,’ the guard said. ‘Don’t get any ideas. I don’t want you talking to him about what I’ve just told you.’

‘Don’t worry.’ The reporter unhitched the camera from around his neck. ‘My word is my bond,’ he said moving closer to the corpse. ‘Now let me take a picture and then we’ll talk about this guy.’

Chapter 31

Bell House, Churchend. 12:55 p.m.

Gloria Fallow hadn’t touched a drink in weeks. Back living with her parents after years in the wilderness, a wilderness created by drugs, alcohol and prostitution, her mother and father had forgiven her everything. She owed it to them to at least try to stay clean.

When the power had shut down earlier and the skies changed, alternating between light, darkness and unnatural colours, her father had insisted on manning the bells in the dilapidated church, which stood beyond the field adjoining their garden. ‘We have to warn people,’ he said. ‘It’s a sign. The power of man is gone. Soon, the devil will walk among us.’

Her mother had looked at her and nodded. ‘Bells are not just for celebration, child.’

Gloria smiled at their shared eccentricity. They’d chosen the house purely on the basis of its close proximity to a place of worship. By road, the church was three miles away, and yet across the garden shortcut, the distance was less than a mile.

She looked out from the window above the kitchen sink, and wondered where they were. The bells had stopped ringing some three hours ago. They’d tried to persuade her to accompany them, but she’d declined. Her father had insisted, but her mother put him off by suggesting their daughter might be better at peeling potatoes than bells. The two of them had laughed.

She surprised herself by preparing the vegetables in their absence. The last of them dropped into the saucepan, she filled it with water. Everything she did these days, it seemed, she carried out in a dream-like state. A sleepwalker, she’d lived her whole life divorced from the reality other people experienced.

Gloria wiped her hands. She licked her parched lips.
How much longer can I survive without a drink?
Her heart fluttered, coming alive at the re-emergence of some buried prospect.
No! Get thee gone, dark spirit.
She smiled faintly. She’d used the words her father had tried years before when he’d thought her possessed. She inhaled deeply. In a while, she’d walk across the field to meet her parents. They had to be on their way back. She lost herself in thought, staring out of the window.

The pub. The image popped into her brain unbidden. Everything was ready on the stove. It just needed lighting.

Just one glass won’t hurt. Shit. Dad took my money.
Resolve fell from her shoulders, discarded like a heavy gown as she ascended the stairs. Gloria walked over the landing and into her parents’ room. The threshold crossed, she sat at the dressing table and gazed into the mirror her mother had stared into a thousand times. Turning her face left and right, not taking her eyes from her reflection, she pondered her mother’s thoughts.
Did she think, when she looked at herself, the same as I am now, that she was a sham? Of course she didn’t.

Drawing the jewellery box towards her, Gloria opened the lid. The crown jewels she’d admired as a child now seemed lacklustre. She scooped up a bracelet filled with charms and examined each one. A little church, hinged at the back, submitted to her prising fingers and opened to reveal a bride and groom. She smiled, but the smile collapsed. Woeful inadequacy bubbled up. She’d never find happiness the way her parents had. She knew it. Tears clouded her vision. She wiped them away. Lifting the tray to get to the compartment beneath, she spotted a key. In her mind she telescoped from where she sat upstairs into the basement, to the racks and racks of wine. She wouldn’t need money or the pub after all, not now. She had the key to where her father had locked away the booze when she’d arrived a few weeks ago.

With shaking hands, Gloria replaced the tray, closed the lid, and fondling the key, took it with her downstairs.

At the cellar door, her mouth flooded with saliva in anticipation. She fitted the key into the lock and turned it.

Chapter 32

Priestley police station. 1:00 p.m.

Williams took a break outside on the ramp. He leaned on the railings that faced the road. Three-quarters of the stationary cars were still occupied, as if the drivers expected the engines to splutter back to life at any moment. A man stood close to the back wing of his vehicle and urinated. It occurred to Williams to have a word, but he quickly dismissed it as a bad idea. He gazed at the sky.
Where are the birds?

Most of the people outside had gone. Only a half-dozen remained. ‘Where is everyone?’ he asked the Italian he’d seen earlier.

‘Those two big men, the prison officers. They came out,’ he turned his wrist to look at a non-existent watch, ‘oh, about an hour ago, and they say, go home. These police in there, they tell you nothing.’

Anderson watched the man’s hands, fascinated; he seemed to carve his vocabulary from the air. The faster he spoke, the more his command of English deteriorated.

‘This chief inside, he don’t tell you there is very dangerous man on the loose. The big one, he say, soon we have team together for look this danger-man. He say, go home, lock doors is best thing. Police in there won’t help you.’

‘What are you still doing here?’ Williams said.

‘Me? I don’t got nowhere to go.’

‘What about the rest of you?’ he said, addressing the others.

A middle-aged woman with squirrel teeth answered for them. ‘It’s better than staring at four walls on our own—’

‘Yeah,’ her slack-jawed male companion said. ‘We’ve been having a game. Who can guess what crime the next person walking up is going to report?’ His eyes lit up as a man entered the ramp at the bottom and began to trudge up the slope. ‘Look at him – I wonder what’s happened? He’s got a face on him like a dog chewing a wasp.’

‘Keep your voice down,’ Williams cautioned. ‘We don’t want any trouble starting out here.’

A pinch-faced woman turned from the pavement and stormed towards them.

‘Oh, and this one, look at her—’

‘Right. All of you waiting to report an incident, queue up there. The rest of you,’ Williams pushed his face close to slack-jaw, ‘especially you…. Bugger off.’

The Italian spread his hands. ‘What about me?’ he said, dog-eyed.

‘Anyone else starts playing games out here, I want to know. Got that?’

‘You reckon I can cadge some water from you lot in there?’

Williams glanced at the Italian. ‘I’m sure we can organise something,’ he said. Then he turned to the man who had just walked up. ‘Can I help you, sir?’

‘I’ve had my motorbike stolen.’

Williams pointed him to the top of the ramp. ‘Wait there. You’ll be called in once they’ve dealt with the people already inside. ‘And you, miss?’ he enquired.

‘I’ve had a break-in. I can’t believe it. I’d just stocked up at the supermarket. People are panic-buying, fights breaking out. There’s a sign on the door saying cash customers only, but people aren’t taking any notice. I think someone followed me home from there.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘All they took was food.’

‘Join the queue.’

So, the prison officers had told the crowd. Emerson would be livid. They’d left over an hour ago, following a furious row. For once, Williams understood where the inspector was coming from. It was too soon for the police to start commandeering vehicles. The heavy-handed approach put forward by Styles was skewed towards him putting together a search party for Wolfe. Emerson had resisted.

‘These are separate issues entirely,’ Emerson said. ‘There’s a far greater danger from the public if we spook them. The way it is at the moment, although they’re worried, we’ve had relatively few incidents. I want to keep it that way.’

Styles jabbed an accusing finger at him. ‘You haven’t listened to a word I’ve said, have you? How many fatalities did you have in the big Bristol riots at St Paul’s?

‘You’re muddying the waters to suit your own ends, Styles—’

‘No, not me.’ Styles looked over to Jordan. ‘If this lot won’t back us up, we’ll go it alone. You coming?’

Jordan slid from the corner of the desk. ‘Okay, let’s do it.’

‘Styles,’ Emerson said as the two men went through the door, ‘I don’t want to hear you’ve stolen any vehicles on my patch.’

The prison officer stopped, the doorway framing his huge stature. He turned to face the inspector. ‘There comes a time when we have to do wrong to do right. I’d have thought, as a copper, you’d know that.’

Williams recalled his father had said something similar about war. He’d been a soldier. Killed on duty. When he was old enough, Williams had wanted to follow him into the army. He met strong resistance from his mother.

‘It’s too dangerous,’ she wailed. ‘If you must wear a uniform, why not be an ambulance man?’

Williams fought long and hard to persuade her, in the end settling for a career in the police force.

He’d been a constable at the station for five years, and now he couldn’t wait to get away. When he heard who’d got the inspector’s job, he knew Emerson would become even more intolerable. He made a decision. He’d apply for a job with Traffic.

He phoned his mother to tell her. She was over the moon for him. ‘I can’t tell you how happy I am, boy. The streets are so dangerous these days. I’m proud of you.’ She paused. ‘Your father would’ve been, too.’

There was something he didn’t tell her because he knew she’d never accept it. He knew how she struggled on her widow’s pension. When he got the new job, he would use the extra money to help her more.
I must pop in to see her
.

The next thing was to tell Sergeant Emerson.

‘You, a traffic officer?’ Emerson sneered. ‘Good luck with that. When will you hear they’ve turned you down?’

‘If they do, they do. I’ll live with it. Unlike you, who never announced he’d gone for inspector. You kept it quiet in case you never got it.’

‘It wasn’t like that,’ Emerson replied, ‘not that it’s any of your business. I was told to keep it quiet.’ He pinned his subordinate with a glare. ‘Traffic Officer Williams,’ he mused. ‘I’m going to start calling you that straightaway.’

‘I don’t know why you always have to try and belittle people,
Sarge?’
Williams said sarcastically. ‘Is it to bring them down to your level so you can feel bigger?’

‘Out, Williams, before I lose my temper—’

‘I haven’t finished yet. What about Croft? All this harmless calling her Lara while your eyes are stuck to her tits. That’s the real implication, isn’t it?’

‘Your career is hanging in the balance, Williams.’

‘Maybe I should just report you, then we’ll see whose career is on the line.’

‘No one likes a snitch, Williams. Whatever happens, it’ll be a blot on your copybook. The trouble with you, and always has been, is you’ve got a chip the size of an oak beam on your shoulder.’

I don’t have much more of you to put up with now, Emerson.

He wondered if he should tell Croft he’d stuck up for her.

The door opened behind him. Adams poked his head out. ‘You’re wanted.’

Williams groaned inwardly, and pushing himself away from the railings, turned to accompany the waiting sergeant.