The Teacher: A shocking and compelling new crime thriller – NOT for the faint-hearted! (14 page)

‘And you think your dad had someone with that kind of access? Someone on the force?’ This was not something that Adrian had even considered before now. Adrian had been so focused on self-recrimination that it never occurred to him that he didn’t fuck up.

‘Not just one someone, my friend, he had several people.’

‘Are you high?’

‘This city is tied up tighter than you can imagine. This? This is nothing!’

‘Bullshit.’

‘How else would that evidence go missing? Think about it.’

‘But the knife we found in your place, the pathologist confirmed …’ Adrian jerked back as Ryan stood up quickly, grabbing his own hair and pulling it, pacing.

‘If I did kill my dad, do you honestly think I’m stupid enough to keep that lying around in my own house? Knowing what a hard-on you have for me? Give me a break!’

‘So how? Who?’

‘Someone on the search team? Someone in evidence? Hell, even the fucking pathologist for all I know. I have no idea how deep this thing goes. All I know is I didn’t do it.’ Ryan’s voice started to crack. ‘They showed me the photos, that shit was sick. I couldn’t do something like that.’ Ryan stopped pacing and stared into space. ‘I hated that man, I mean really hated him, but I didn’t kill him, I was too scared of him. You don’t know what he was like, and he would have made it his business to haunt me forever or something.’

‘I didn’t have you pegged as a spiritual man.’

‘I am whatever kind of man the situation calls for, I’m a survivor, and my dad never gave me a damn thing that didn’t benefit him in some way too. Even that fucking school I had to go to was for him, to continue his stupid family traditions. He went there, his father went there, going back fucking generations. He didn’t give a shit about me! I had to get where I am on my own. But I do believe he was the only reason I wasn’t in prison. Not for me, you understand, for himself. So that he could keep doing all the dodgy shit he was doing. It was all about the public image, because in private, I can’t hold a fucking candle to that man.’

‘I saw your hospital reports from when you were a kid, you had it pretty rough.’

‘Just how it was back then, it was normal. I remember you back in the day … after I got expelled from Churchill’s and stuck in your school. I remember your dad, too.’ Ryan was pacing again, scratching at his face. Adrian recognised that behaviour, he wanted a fix.

‘You don’t get to talk about my father,’ Adrian snapped.

‘You’re telling me your father never laid a hand on you?’ Ryan laughed incredulously before grabbing the bottle from the table and drinking straight from it.

‘So you’ve got no reason whatsoever to want your father dead?’ Adrian avoided the question, they both knew there was no need to answer.

‘I’ve got about a million. But why now? Why the fuck would I do it now? And why would I do it like THAT? He’s out of my life, I see him a couple times a year, tops. I’m telling you he was protecting me. I’m being set up, I don’t know why but you KNOW me! You know I didn’t do this!’ He flung the bottle, it smashed against the door and a honey-coloured blossom of liquor trickled down. The smell of whisky suddenly overpowered the room.

‘So who else had a motive to kill your father?’ Adrian didn’t want to make any sudden moves so he remained calmly in his seat, fully aware that Ryan was on the edge and his son was just upstairs.

‘A shorter list would be who didn’t.’ Ryan sat down next to Adrian before snatching his half-filled glass from the table, he leaned in close. ‘Do you know why he came here? To this city? Do you have any idea what kind of sicko he was?’

Adrian got up this time and went to the window, he looked through the blinds. If his colleagues knew Ryan was in his house they would have burst in by now. Adrian should have called it in, he shouldn’t even be listening to this, but there was a disturbing ring of truth to the words Ryan was sharing with Adrian.

‘He was here in Exeter on business. Your mother told us that much and his colleagues confirmed it.’

‘My mother.’ Ryan spat the words as though they were sour milk. ‘No. He was here to hook up with young men.’

‘We have no evidence of that.’

‘I’m telling you, he comes down here to cop off with guys, the younger and dumber the better. Picks them up and takes them back to that seedy pad of his, beats the crap out of them and does all kinds of other messed-up stuff to them, has them do the same to him!’

‘And how do you know that?’ Adrian looked straight at Ryan who refused to meet his gaze, instead pulling out some cigarettes and lighting one, sucking on it until almost a quarter had disappeared in one drag. The atmosphere in the room dropped.

‘He likes it rough.’ Ryan gulped, Adrian suddenly knew what he meant. Adrian knew that haunted look, he had seen it in victims of sexual abuse before. How had he missed this? He almost felt sorry for the guy.

‘The pathologist’s report showed no evidence of … what you’re suggesting.’

‘Then he’s in on it too!’ Ryan’s anxiety levels were getting visibly higher, Adrian wondered if the years of substance abuse had made him paranoid or, like so many stoners Adrian knew, he saw the world as it really was. Sitting there Ryan looked like a scared little boy, chewing the inside of his cheek as he spoke. ‘Whoever’s behind this is framing me, they’re not going to let me testify about my dad, what kind of a man he was, he told me he was well protected.’

‘How do you know that he wasn’t just trying to scare you?’

‘Because I remember them, they came to our house, when I was a kid.’ The look in Ryan’s eyes had transformed to sheer terror and Adrian knew that he wasn’t lying. ‘They got to him too, that Stone guy, the headmaster of Churchill School who killed himself.’

‘Wait, what?’

‘He used to be there, at my dad’s house. There were times … the way he used to look at me …’ Ryan’s eyes were pink with the strain of trying to hold his emotions. ‘He was part of this, I know he was.’

‘Can you remember anyone else?’

‘Not really, I mean, maybe. That guy that got gutted on the news looked familiar, that’s what made me really suspicious. Someone’s bumping off my dad’s mates one by one; that can’t be a coincidence, not with the way they died. There was this one guy, I think he might have been a policeman, I’m not sure; it was so long ago. They were at school together, you know how they like to look out for each other.’

‘You need to come in and make a statement so that we can corroborate some of this, all I have right now is your word.’

All Adrian could think about was Tom in that school. He clung to the only thing he knew for sure: Ryan was a liar. Still, there was something inside Adrian screaming that he had to get Tom out of that school before the summer holidays ended.

‘I can’t. If they get hold of me then I won’t make it to the end of the week.’

‘Then let me take you in?’ Everything Ryan was saying made sense. Adrian had to give him the benefit of the doubt.

‘You can’t guarantee my safety, those same people stitched you up, almost ruined your career. My father was just a small part of it but he was covered, if they want me gone, I’m gone.’ Ryan was fidgeting, out of control, he stood up and started to pace again. ‘No, no, no, I have to go, I have to disappear, it was a mistake coming here, and they are probably watching your house.’

‘Let me help you.’

‘You believe me?’

‘Yes, I believe you, but you can’t run for ever.’

‘I have to go. I have to get out of here.’

‘Well, just in case, you better make it look convincing, once-in-a-lifetime offer here.’ Adrian stood up and held his arms outstretched, poised to take a punch.

‘Under different circumstances, I would be enjoying this a lot more.’ Ryan threw two punches, one to the gut and one to the face, Adrian doubled over. ‘Sorry, Detective.’

‘Under different circumstances, I’d be fighting back,’ Adrian gasped as the blood oozed from his mouth, grabbing his side. ‘Go, you’ve got five minutes before I make the call.’

Ryan left and Adrian slumped on the sofa, staring at the clock.

The Oak Tree

Abbey looked over at the sofa, Parker lay there sleeping soundly. He looked so different with his eyes closed. Those eyes dominated his face; it was hard to see anything else about him when they were open. They were so bright, so pale, and so grey, almost like mirrors in the right light, but in the rain they had taken on a green tinge, like recycled glass. Abbey resisted the urge to touch him, to brush his black curls away from his face, instead she took a blanket and covered him. He had been sleeping almost two hours when the phone rang, she lunged for it to make sure it did not wake him, it was her father.

‘Dad?’ she whispered.

‘Abbey, I can’t come today, sorry. I had an emergency call-out and I can’t afford to turn it down.’ Another weekend, another excuse. She wondered why they continued to play this game, but they did. For years now they had invented their own reality, where they were still as close as they always had been, but the truth of it was that nothing had ever been the same since that Saturday night at university. They could not get past the resentment they had for each other, she knew her father resented her for not looking after herself – as if she’d brought on what happened to her herself – he’d brought her up to know better, she did know better, but still the worst had happened. And she resented her father because she knew that he thought she should have fought harder, screamed louder, or at all, he just didn’t understand how she had got in that situation and she couldn’t find the words to explain. So the wall between them became taller until they could not live in the same house any more. She moved out less than a year later and took a small one-bedroom flat on her own in the city where she was attacked, a move that alienated her father even more. A year later he moved further away, and the year after that even further, until he ended up over a hundred miles away. Abbey was stuck here though, not so far from the University, the place she felt she had left a part of herself in all those years ago.

After she had put the phone down she looked outside, the rain was still hard and heavy, and Parker and Sally were still asleep. She had held him for a while until he drifted off and then she just watched him sleep until she felt she was intruding. Something about the way Parker slept made her think he hadn’t slept this deeply in a while. She looked down at herself, suddenly aware of her flannel pyjamas, she ran herself a bath and climbed in. Part of her wanted Parker to walk in on her when she was in there, she was not brave enough to instigate anything with him but she wanted to kiss him again, she had never wanted anything more. If nothing happened after that then that kiss would be enough. She didn’t know the story of his scars but she knew they were more than surface deep. She wondered how old he had been when he got them; they looked so faded and stretched. She couldn’t imagine the kind of pain you would have to undergo in order to end up so mutilated. She wondered what kind of device could even cause some of the scars he had, like the little stars on his back. Parker was so gentle, so sweet, who would do something like that? She tried not to cry as she thought of the tears that must have sprung from those crystalline eyes as he was evidently relentlessly beaten, tortured.

Clean now from her bath, she slipped on a dress – she wanted to look pretty. When she re-entered the lounge Parker was putting his trousers back on, the rain still pouring outside.

‘What are you doing?’

‘I should go, I have intruded long enough.’ He looked up and saw Abbey. ‘You got changed.’

‘I got dressed.’ She smiled.

‘I’ll get out of your way before your father comes.’

‘He’s not coming, I want you to stay,’ she blurted it before she even thought about her words, but it was too late, it was out there. ‘Let me make you lunch at least, it’s still raining, you can’t go out in this.’

‘I don’t want to put you to any trouble.’

‘You any good at chopping onions?’ She smiled and walked out to the kitchen, hoping he would follow.

They made some food and sat at the table eating together, it was still so dark and cold outside but for the first time it felt like a home in her little flat, she hadn’t made many friends in the four years she had lived here, she liked to keep herself to herself. This felt like playing happy families. They smiled and laughed together, talked about the museum.

‘I think Gemma likes you,’ Abbey said, trying to get a reaction.

‘I get the impression Gemma likes everyone.’ Parker smiled as he cleaned the final morsels from his plate.

‘She doesn’t like me much, we don’t talk, but I see her watching you sometimes when we are out in the main foyer.’

‘You watch me sometimes too.’ He smiled and Abbey blushed.

‘Sorry, I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable, I don’t even notice I’m doing it most of the time.’ She was flushed.

‘Don’t apologise, I like it … I mean, I don’t mind you looking at me.’

‘I’ve never met anyone like you before, Parker.’

‘No, I don’t suppose you have. Some people are harder to fool than others.’ He held her gaze for a moment. She could feel his mood darken and she wanted to distract him from whatever had just taken over his mind.

‘What are you writing in those little books of yours?’ she asked, her courage around him growing, this interaction felt less strained with every passing moment, it almost felt natural.

‘Oh, nothing special, just drawing Giacometti men.’ He smiled awkwardly and stood up, taking his plate to the sink. He picked up his sodden newspaper which was stiff and cumbersome; Abbey had attempted to rescue the local paper with the radiator. It had all but glued together in parts, he pulled out what he could and looked over it.

‘Are you kidding me?’ Abbey mumbled to herself as she picked up one of the sheets he had discarded. She read the article, it was a piece about Carl Taylor. A local businessman had paid tribute to his son, Christian, with the construction of a fountain in the centre of town. There was a picture of Christian in the photo with a big vulgar grin, it was the smile she had spotted, the smile had compelled her to pick up the newspaper and read. She hated herself in that moment for her weakness, for allowing him to beat her. He had won, he had won because she had lost the person she used to be. She had let him take everything. She looked up and Parker was looking at her, concerned.

‘Who is that?’ She detected jealousy in Parker’s voice, she wasn’t sure if he was threatened, but she hoped not, there was nothing to be jealous of.

‘Someone from another life.’ She echoed his words from earlier, hoping he would understand the need to tread carefully. She felt him searching her eyes for a clue, she didn’t want Parker to know how stupid she had been, how easy to manipulate. She cared what Parker thought of her. She turned away and faced the window, the large oak situated behind her building bending to the whim of the elements, trying to remain stoic but failing as the wind whipped at its branches. She looked back at Parker and wondered if everything that had happened in her life up to this point had just been a prelude to meeting Parker, if she had continued with her life as she had planned it, there would be no chance of them ever crossing paths. She would never have worked at the museum. Abbey was grateful in that brief moment for all that had happened, and given the choice, going back again, she valued her friendship with Parker more than anything she had lost. In the past few weeks she had found it hard to keep him out, he was unexpected and his presence made her feel again, feel something other than fear or guilt. He was extraordinary; he was special.

She thought of the kiss they had shared and felt her cheeks flushing again, she wished she could recapture that moment in the museum. Parker’s eyes were watching the tree too, his gaze was unwavering as she stood in front of him, watching him, his stare so full of empathy and for that instant she wished she could climb inside his mind. Instead she stood on her tiptoes and placed her lips on his, he pulled her in and kissed her as though he had been waiting for this all day, maybe longer.

She kissed his neck and he reached his hands up to hers, cradling her head, he made her feel so light and ethereal. She slid her hands under the robe and ran her fingers across his chest and around to his back, forgetting about the markings as she pulled him closer. She was overtaken with desire, something she thought she was incapable of feeling ever again. He seemed hesitant about touching her, almost as if he knew how fragile she was. He let her take the lead and as she undid his trousers she felt his sharp intake of breath. He stood still but his body was begging her to take control.

She took him to her room and pushed him gently on to her bed. She wondered if he had even been with anyone before. He seemed to keep everyone at arm’s length, yet there was something about the way he kissed that said this wasn’t his first time. There was also an undeniable innocence about him. She couldn’t feel that baseless desire all men appeared to get as soon as the hint of a promise was on the cards. She had tried to get close to men before but as soon as they would kiss her with any kind of intent she felt the bile rising in her stomach and she ran a mile. With Parker it was different; his hunger was born of curiosity and not the need for self-gratification. He touched with hesitation, keeping his attention on her face, looking for a reaction, constantly searching for approval to continue. His lips were parted and she could see he was trying to control his breathing, to suppress his desire. His hand hovered over her breast, slowly edging closer until it was resting there, frozen. She could feel the warmth of his palms through her dress. His uncertainty only made her want him more, she took his hands and kissed them before she turned her attention to her own buttons, she wanted him to know that he was allowed to touch her.

She followed his eyes as he watched her slowly, deliberately remove her dress. They had changed colour again and were almost white in their clarity now, like diamonds. She wanted to lose herself in that look, she wanted to be that woman. No one had ever looked at her that way before and it was a revelation. She would make him want her more than he had ever wanted anything. For once, the power was hers and he seemed happy for her to have it.

The syncopated sounds of the pounding rain seemed to echo her heartbeat as she climbed on top of him, she could see his chest heaving in anticipation, she kissed his bare white skin and then slowly lowered herself on to him. She kept her eyes on his mouth, breathing in time with him now as they knew what was about to happen. He held his breath as he entered her and then let out a barely audible gasp. It was as though the last five years had been a bad dream, this felt new, she felt new. She realised she wasn’t so tainted that no one would ever touch her again. She was here and he wanted her – him, a man so extraordinary, so perfectly flawed. He put his hands on her waist and pulled himself up. They were locked together now, chest to chest, skin to skin. She didn’t know where she ended and he began. She didn’t want to run away, she just wanted to stay like this with him. He buried his face in her neck, breathing her in. This was the feeling she had been searching for her whole life: belonging. She moved slowly but the heat between them was incredible. Even the smell of Parker’s fresh sweat was intoxicating. She wanted him to lose control, she wanted him to give himself to her completely. She could feel the mounting delirium rising from beneath the pit of her stomach, trying to take her over but she suppressed her excitement and waited for him. He wasn’t far behind and he dug his fingers into her flesh as he came with her; his face, so intense and full of concentration just moments before, softened as he fell back on the bed. He lay there breathless and glistening. He reached out and took her hand, pulled her on to the bed beside him.

Lying with Parker on top of the covers, she didn’t feel the overwhelming urge to get up and put something on, she didn’t want to hide any part of herself, she was happy for him to just look at her. Maybe it was because in her room it felt like they were cocooned away from the world, safe in that one place from everything that was outside. She had no fear, no insecurities, she felt like the Abbey of ‘before’. The bond between them, although fragile and distended with unanswered questions, was unmistakable. In the past Abbey had always been with men who were settling for her, making do, but with Parker she knew this was not the case. Any ideas about how damaged she was, about dying alone, living her life in a solitary bubble of self-loathing, had vanished. She could see that he had needed her even though he seemed almost embarrassed about it – not embarrassed to be with her but more loath to show that side of himself.

She fell asleep, knowing that when she woke up she would be a different person. She didn’t know why or how, but she knew Parker needed her. Parker had made her realise that she could salvage herself, his vulnerability had forced her hand, made her take control again. She had never been the strong one. She had been waiting to be saved, for what seemed like for ever. This was it, it had just happened, this day, this wet miserable day had turned out to be the day her life would change. The day she would finally feel worth something again.