17
She was, with some difficulty, buttoning up her shirt when the nurse pulled back the curtain.
‘Kerry? What are you doing?’
‘I can’t stay here.’ She pulled on a grey jumper, sat down to put on her shoes.
‘Are you sure this is wise?’
No.
‘I haven’t got a choice.’ She swore as a pulse of pain throbbed in her arm. ‘There are things I have to do.’
The nurse sat beside her on the bed.
‘I think your boss – Mr Nesbit? – was right,’ she said. ‘You really do need time to –’
‘To let my body heal, yes, I know.’ Cox sighed, straightened up. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. I appreciate that you’re looking out for me.’ Turned – painfully – to face the nurse. ‘Listen, I’m a police officer. There are times when I just can’t afford to take it easy. You can understand that.’
‘When duty calls.’ The nurse smiled ruefully. ‘Yes, I can. But still –’
‘It’s just pain, isn’t it?’ Cox stood, straightened her clothes. ‘I mean, my arm’s going to hurt, my head’s going to hurt, but that’s all, isn’t it? I’m not going to drop dead from a delayed reaction or anything?’
The nurse shrugged.
‘I wish I could say for sure,’ she said. ‘That’s why we want to keep you in, for observation – to make sure there are no nasty surprises waiting for us. Head injuries aren’t to be taken lightly.’
Neither is murder, Cox thought. Neither is child abuse. Neither is conspiracy.
She barely listened as the nurse talked her through her after-care: how to take care of the cast on her arm, to wear a sling as often as possible, how to change the dressing on her head, what sort of after-effects to look out for. Wilson was waiting in the car park, and they had work to do.
She thanked the nurse, who shook her head.
‘You don’t have to thank me. But I do wish you’d stay – at least until tomorrow.’
For a half-second, Cox hesitated. Her hip and leg hurt more than she’d expected, now that she was standing up. Her headache made it hard to think straight – and if things turned nasty, how much use would she be with her right arm out of action? She couldn’t even drive, for Christ’s sake.
But Wilson had said he had new information – a lead. Things were moving fast. Playing safe was no longer an option.
‘Please take care,’ the nurse pleaded as Cox stuffed her phone and a bottle of painkillers into her bag.
‘I will,’ Cox promised.
The nurse grinned.
‘Why don’t I believe you?’
‘You’ve got to believe me. I’m a police officer.’ She shouldered her bag, trying to ignore the protests of her joints, her muscles; left the ward.
Wilson had agreed to drive her home. He was waiting at the wheel of his beaten-up old Renault; couldn’t wait to tell her what he’d dug up. After a pretty cursory inquiry about her health, he started in as they were pulling out of the hospital car park.
‘I’ve been looking into CARE – this Children’s Rehabilitation whatever-the-hell-it-is,’ he said, as they motored throatily along Kingston Hill. ‘It was a charity, but it had a big wad of private backing – set up and financed from Jersey, by a guy called Gandry, John Gandry.’
‘I feel like I know the name.’
‘You might. Wasn’t averse to getting his name in the papers. Multi-millionaire, naturally. Generally described as a “philanthropist”.’
‘There’s a word that rings alarm bells.’
‘Ha, doesn’t it just? Such cynicism. Anyway, Gandry died years back, so there’s not much to work with there – but he was a Midlands boy, born in Dudley.’
‘Hence the Walsall connection.’
‘Yup. Now, CARE was officially wound up in the early nineties. It only put out one research paper. By –’
‘Reginald Allis?’
‘Co-authored with a Dr Ian Merton.’
‘Uh-huh: Merton is Merritt. We had a visit from his agent the other day. Changed his name to escape some unsavoury allegations.’ She gave Wilson a warning look. ‘Tread carefully there, though. He’s got his lawyers on Defcon One.’
‘You know me, soul of discretion.’ They swung on to the A306. Traffic was starting to bunch; Wilson geared down, went on with his briefing. ‘The paper was published, but in a journal that’s long since closed down, Sociology Today, New Adventures in Sociology, something like that. It’s not online but I’ll look it up at the British Library tomorrow.’
‘How about Hampton Hall? Did you get a chance to look for a list of former inmates?’
‘I did. Moved hell and high water to get a response from West Mids child services during the holidays, but no dice. No such records exist in their files.’
‘That doesn’t mean they don’t exist somewhere else.’
‘Give me a break, Kerry, I only had two days. I’m working on it.’ The traffic had ground to a halt on the approach to Hammersmith Bridge. Cox’s headache was getting worse; felt like her brain was beating in her skull like a heart. ‘So you’re going after the revenge angle?’ Wilson asked. ‘Someone who was abused as a kid, getting his own back now?’
Cox shrugged uncertainly.
‘Who knows? But I don’t think so. Thirty years is a long time – why wait so long? Five years, ten years, I could buy, not thirty.’
‘So what’s your theory?’
‘I’ve got a few, but I’m not keen on any of them. Blackmail? Someone who was in on the abuse – an orderly at HHUC, a copper who covered Radley’s back – gets an anonymous letter, or a phone-call, threatening to go public with what happened back then, unless they hand over fifty grand or whatever. But instead of paying up –’
‘They set about silencing everyone who might have known anything?’ Wilson blew out a breath. ‘Whew. That’d be a big job.’
‘I said I didn’t like it much. But I haven’t got a lot else.’
They speculated, trading potential motives, possible suspects, mocked-up backstories, as the little Renault crawled through Hammersmith. Cox knew all along it was still nothing but a guessing game; she hoped Wilson did, too.
They still needed a way in, a real lead. They were still waiting for a break.
Hammersmith gave way slowly to Shepherd’s Bush: grey-brown, cloud-covered, unlovely. Cox directed Wilson to the end of her street.
He stopped the car with a jerk.
‘So what now?’ he asked, turning to Cox, propping an elbow on his seat-back.
‘I’m going to take some drugs and go to sleep.’
Wilson rolled his eyes.
‘I meant for the investigation. What’s our next step?’
‘I know you did, and there isn’t one.’
‘We do nothing? Come on.’
She nodded.
‘We do nothing.’ Gave him a look. ‘Nothing, till after the inquiry.’
Wilson slowly lifted his eyebrows.
‘Aaah. Right.’
‘Some of us,’ said Cox drily as she unlatched the car door, ‘haven’t forgotten about that.’
Back in her flat, she filled a tumbler of water and downed a few of the painkillers she’d taken from the hospital: her headache was almost unbearable now, an unrelenting thunder behind her eyes. Her arm, too, had grown painfully stiff in its sling. The skin of her face felt raw, peeled.
She was physically exhausted – but mentally wired. Time for the other medicine …
Took down the hard-plastic bottle from the bathroom cabinet, shook out a handful of capsules. No sense in half measures. She had to feel better; right now, she just couldn’t afford to be weak.
Gulped down the pills. Sat down on the bed. Closed her eyes for a second.
Was she being paranoid? In the early days, it was an occupational hazard in her business: when you worked in the shadows, you soon started to see bogeymen everywhere. But as you worked on more cases, some successful and some not so, you realized it was dangerous. Sometimes you could join the dots, be sure you had a picture, but you were kidding yourself. Life, society, it was full of coincidences and random connections that really were just that. Some things didn’t make sense – some motives were flimsy and some crimes were chaotic, because that’s what people’s lives were like.
So someone had run her off her bike, sure, but Naysmith had a point – there were a lot of crazy drivers out there. Yeah, they hadn’t stopped – so maybe they were uninsured, or over the limit, or just a selfish arsehole? If the studies were to be believed, there were a lot of sociopathic people out there. Maybe the driver had run her down deliberately, on a whim, just because – well – he could.
But think about the timing. Just after they’d zoned in on Euan Merritt. She didn’t think it was Merritt who’d tried to kill her, but someone else – who? – might have got word that the net was closing, that she was getting too close for comfort, and decided to take drastic action.
More guessing games, she thought, blearily. More speculation.
She stood – felt unsteady. Well, her body had taken a hell of a battering, of course she was unsteady. She’d get used to it.
Moved through to the kitchen. Realized that she had pretty much no idea what time it was; since the bike ride, the fall, her hours and days had been all out of whack. Blinked at the microwave clock. Couldn’t quite make out the numbers.
Seemed darker, gloomier, than it should have.
She was sick of guessing. Sick of being lied to, being strung along. She needed answers. So, she thought, let’s go and get some …
There was an inch of cold coffee in the pot. She poured a cup, slurped it down. It was bitter and viscous – but it had a kick, and that was what she needed.
She tugged clumsily at the knot of her sling; her fingers didn’t feel right, felt numb, but the knot gave way eventually. The sling fell loose. She shook it away, flexed her arm experimentally. The cast covered her arm from elbow to wrist. The bone ached, but it was nothing she couldn’t handle.
Walking carefully – the bang to her hip must’ve really screwed with her balance, she thought – Cox went to the door. Took her car keys from the hook. Went out.
Merritt’s home address was on file, from a minor traffic infringement a few years before. A call to the DVLA had confirmed he was still at the same address. A posh suburb, outside Tunbridge Wells. It took Cox a minute to figure out the route – when she tried to visualize the roads (M25? A20-something?), they somehow slithered from her grasp – but she hit the road anyway.
Felt dizzy. Her inner ear wouldn’t settle down.
You shouldn’t be driving, a part of her nagged.
Yeah, well. There were a lot of things she shouldn’t be doing.
Crossed the river at Hammersmith. Didn’t seem to be much traffic. Just as well. The car wasn’t handling well.
What was she going to say to him? Well, she’d figure that out when the time came. It was what he was going to say to her that mattered. He knew more than he was letting on. He was keeping something back from her, the slippery bastard. Holding out on her.
Just like everyone.
She carried on driving, beyond London, and eventually arrived at the outskirts of Tunbridge Wells. Being a TV quack-for-hire must pay all right, she thought, muddily. House prices in these parts were insane. Every driveway she passed had a sports car or a 4x4 – many had both.
Slowed, scanning the street signs, after she crossed London Road. Somewhere round here …
Took her the best part of half an hour to find it. A lot of wrong turnings and clumsy three-point turns. There was definitely something wrong with the steering, the little car was handling like a bloody Sherman tank …
Carleton Avenue. This was the one. Parked up; made a pig’s ear of it, but what the hell.
It was cold, clear. The sky a deep indigo.
‘The Hollies’: this was Merritt’s place. Nothing so common as a house number for the good doctor. The long driveway was stone-flagged, lined with rose bushes.
Cox eased open the iron gate. Approached the house. Two-storey, detached, Georgian design but probably 1940s, the red brick picturesquely worn, the new uPVC windows out of place.
The front door was open.
A sharp edge of fear cut through Cox’s disorientation.
‘Hello?’ Her tongue felt thick in her mouth. ‘Dr Merritt?’
Eased the door open with her foot. A high-ceilinged hall, sparsely decorated: grandfather clock, a tall hat-stand, two sepia landscape prints on the wall.
Stepped inside. The nausea had come back, but now it had nothing to do with the crash, her injury, the drugs …
Her copper’s instincts were screaming at her. This is bad. This is trouble.
She could smell blood. Looked down.
Fat red spots on the off-white carpet. A dark patch of spilled water – a vase, she saw, had been knocked from a side table.
Okay, Kerry, she told herself firmly. This isn’t something you want to do alone.
Fished out her phone. Dialled. 996. No. Christ. Damn fingers wouldn’t do as they were told. 99#. 989. 999. There. Hit ‘call’.
‘There’s been an accident,’ she told the operator. ‘The Hollies, Carleton Avenue, Tunbridge Wells. There’s been – there’s been some sort of accident.’
The operator asked her to repeat the details, said that a patrol car was on its way.
‘Thank you,’ said Cox.
There was a short pause on the line.
Hesitantly, the operator asked: ‘Have you been drinking, madam?’
Cox rang off. I wish, she thought darkly.
She thought about going back to her car, waiting for uniform to show up. She didn’t know this place, its layout, didn’t know who might be here, what might have happened. Christ, she wasn’t even meant to be here. That police lawyer would have a bloody seizure if he knew.
But those copper’s instincts had you both ways. She knew something bad had happened here. And she knew she wasn’t leaving till she found out what it was. It wasn’t even a choice.
She moved forwards stealthily, trying to keep her shoes from making a noise on the polished hall floorboards.
The hall, she saw, led on, down a step and through open glass-panelled wooden doors, to a cavernous kitchen.
She stopped in the doorway. The kitchen smelled like a butcher’s shop.
Maybe Merritt joints his own Sunday roasts, Cox thought wildly, stepping down into the room. Maybe he likes his black pudding home-made …
The jack-hammer pain in her head had returned.
There was blood on the floor, a broad, dark smear across the pale boards, between the left-hand worktop and a central island.
The kitchen was L-shaped. At the far end, French windows looked out on to a sweep of lawn. There was a pine table with five chairs around it, but room for six. The right wall of the kitchen was hung with copper pans beside a chalk-painted Welsh dresser and a wide black Aga. The trail of blood, Cox saw, approaching warily, led around the right-angled corner, to the left.
It occurred to her, belatedly, that she should have told the operator to send an ambulance as well as a patrol car.
Then she turned the corner and saw that an ambulance wouldn’t be necessary.
Euan Merritt’s body, stripped naked, was propped in a kitchen chair. Blood had pooled thickly on the floor beneath him and was creeping up the grain of the chair-legs.
Cox covered her mouth with her hand. The world was lurching; she blinked, fought for focus.
The man had been stabbed to death – hell, he’d practically been ripped apart. There were what looked like knife-wounds in his chest, arms, thighs and throat, the blood around them darkening as it dried. His face was a mask of red, only the TV-white teeth showing.
On his chest …
Time seemed to swim. What year was it? Where was she? Because this, Cox knew, choking back rising bile, was an image from a recurring dream. And she dreamed it because she’d seen it – a long time ago.
The outline of a head, a simple oval with slits for eyes – and horns, like a devil’s horns, projecting from the temples. It had been carved in blood over Euan Merritt’s heart.
The Ninth Day of Christmas, 1986
Come out blinking, sleepless, cramped from the cold and the hard bed. There weren’t any rats, but I couldn’t sleep for fear of someone worse than rats coming knocking on the door. Nowhere to run down there – nowhere to hide.
It was Allis what come and got me in the morning.
‘Sleep well, Robert?’
You’re having a bloody laugh. Muttered a ‘Not really.’
‘Yes, well, I’m sorry you had to go through that.’ He sighed, lifted his eyebrows. ‘We prefer not to have to use solitary confinement as a punishment, but, well, rules are rules. Discipline must be maintained.’ He nudged me – that gave me a start. ‘You can’t go round smashing crockery in people’s faces, Robert,’ he said. ‘Even if the little tyke deserves it.’
Little tyke. That’s one word for that arsehole Duffy.
Now I follow Allis up the stairs, back into the familiar corridors. The smell of carbolic and polish has faded; back to BO and boiled veg, stale piss and damp walls. Still – and I know how bloody daft it sounds – I’m glad to be back up here.
I turn right, back towards the dorm – I want to see Stan – but Allis, with a hand on my shoulder, steers me left instead. Down the corridor, into an office.
There’s a man in there, sitting at a desk.
The blinds are drawn.
My stomach shrivels up in a cramp.
‘This,’ says Allis, ‘is Inspector Radley. A policeman,’ he adds, like I’m stupid. I look at the bloke. No uniform. CID, then. Maybe they’re taking me seriously.
He’s frowning at me, this copper.
‘Hello, Robert,’ he says.
Allis shuts the door and leaves us to it.
Well, I go into it all again. I don’t like talking about it. It’s not as bad as it actually happening but it’s not that much bloody better. Anyroad, I know I have to, so I do. Talk and talk. The sound of my own voice starts to make me feel sick.
When I stop, this Radley’s just staring at me.
‘Your sort,’ he says, ‘aren’t usually this talkative in police interviews.’
I don’t need to know what he means by ‘your sort’. I’ve had it all my life.
‘Yeah, well. This is important.’
He looks down at his notes.
‘These are extremely serious allegations,’ he says. Folds his meaty hands together, puts them on the table. ‘Extremely serious.’
‘I know they are.’
‘Lying about this kind of thing, Robert, can get you into a lot of trouble. A lot,’ he repeats, ‘of trouble.’
Sounds like a threat. Gets my temper right up, that. Places like this, you get threatened a lot – you soon learn how to deal with it. You call them out, or you take your medicine. Either way, you don’t back down.
Not going to start now.
‘Yeah, well. I’m not lying, am I?’
‘Aren’t you?’
I’m not going to answer that.
We sit in silence for a minute, and then he reads my statement back to me, and it nearly makes me gag, and then I sign it, and he stands up to go.
‘That it?’ I say.
‘No,’ he says. ‘You’ve not heard the last of this.’
Like I say, in a place like this, you soon learn to recognize a threat when you hear one. Starting to wonder if Col was right.
Me and Stan sit together on my bed. Raining outside. Most of the lads are down in the rec, playing ping-pong or whatever. I’m not in the mood.
‘So were there rats?’
He wants to know all about the cell. No harm in telling him.
‘No. I did have to wee in a bucket though.’
‘Did you?’
‘Yeah. And I did a poo. A massive one. So big it nearly filled the bucket.’
He laughs.
‘So it wasn’t that scary?’
‘Nah. It was nothing really. I was fine.’
‘Good.’ There’s a pause while Stan picks his nose. Then he says: ‘I didn’t like you not being here.’
‘Wasn’t really my fault, y’know.’
‘I know. But I still didn’t like it.’
‘Well, I’m back now. And I’m not going anywhere.’
‘Good,’ he says again. Then he starts snivelling a bit. I nudge him, ask him what’s up. He says it’s nothing, but it’s not nothing. So I ask him again, and he says he misses Mum.
I know he’s only eight. I know he’s only a little lad and he can’t help it, but still – that winds me right up.
‘It’s me that looks after you, Stan,’ I say. Try not to shout but I think I am shouting a bit. ‘Always has been, ever since you were little. Not Mum. Wherever Mum is,’ I say, ‘is the least of our bloody worries now.’
He’s trying not to cry. He’s a good lad, really.
‘She looked after you, when you were little, she must have done,’ he says.
True enough. I look away. Can’t be seen crying twice in two days, not even by Stan. He’ll think I’ve gone weak, and I can’t be weak.
‘We might not see Mum for ages and ages,’ I say. Cruel to be kind and all that. Try not to look at his face. ‘I dunno, Stan. Thing is, mate, we might not see our mum ever again.’
He must be crying. He’s not making any noise, and I can’t look at him. But I can feel his hand creep into mine. Squeeze hard.
‘Robert. A word.’
I’m popular these days. It’s Halcombe, this time, calling for me across the rec room. I follow her out into the corridor, into an office. Merton and Allis are both in there. Merton’s got a whopper of a bump on his balding head, big as a golf-ball, purple and angry-looking – cheers me right up to see it.
Then I wonder what all this lot are doing in here together. Does Merton know what I’ve been saying about him?
I hang back, staying near the door.
‘Sit down, Robert,’ says Allis. ‘There’s nothing to worry about. We have some news for you.’
I sit down, feeling a bit sick. There’s only one sort of news you get in these places: someone’s died. Has to be our mum, or our dad. We haven’t got anyone else.
‘What is it?’ I say.
I keep up a front. I’m fucked if I’m going to cry in front of this bastard Merton.
But it’s not what I think. No one’s died.
‘We’ve been speaking to our colleagues at Wolvesley,’ says Allis.
Wolvesley. Division One.
‘They’re very busy,’ puts in Merton, ‘as we all are. Too many broken families – too few resources.’
‘But,’ Allis smiles, ‘they have a vacancy.’
The hope that was rising in my chest deflates like a balloon when the knot busts.
‘A vacancy? Just one?’
Allis nods.
Christ.
‘Give it to Stan,’ I say.
There’s a bit of a pause, and then Merton – of all fucking people – says: ‘It really is very admirable how you always put your brother first.’
I could smack him. But I sit still instead and stare at the tabletop.
While we pack up his stuff, me and Stan talk about what they’ll have at Wolvesley.
‘Sweet shop, I bet.’
‘Swimming pool, with a slide.’
‘A zoo!’
‘Dodgem cars. Waltzers.’
‘No, I don’t like waltzers. A big wheel.’
‘Okay. Illuminations, like at Blackpool.’
Not that we’ve ever been to bloody Blackpool.
‘A plastic football pitch, like QPR have got.’ He grins at me. ‘You can play on it even when it’s raining. I’ll go in goal, and you can shoot.’
Been feeling sick all day, ever since they told me about Wolvesley. Now I have to turn away, choke back a big lump. The acid of it burns my throat.
Christ.
I’ve not told him. How can I tell him? I fold his pyjamas, stick a few comics in the bottom of his case (they’re not really his, but no one’s going to miss ’em).
‘When are you packing, Robbie?’
‘Later. I’m – I’m going on a different bus than you, Stan.’
‘Oh.’ He sounds put out.
‘Don’t worry, mate.’ I punch him lightly on the shoulder. ‘Once you’re there, it’ll all be right as rain.’
He nods.
‘Hope we get a room together,’ he says.
I hold it together. Fuck knows how, but I do.
Fucking Merton. That fucking bastard.
We’re in the car park, and Miss Halcombe’s big old car’s there, engine running, ready to go. Halcombe puts Stan’s case in the boot, dusts her hands together.
‘All set,’ she says.
Stan’s nervous, I can see, who wouldn’t be, but he’s doing okay, and I haven’t lost it yet, though God knows how long that’ll last after this car drives away –
Merton, who’s come down to see Stan off, says: ‘Give your brother a big hug, Stanley.’
And me and Stan hug like the soft sods we are, and I tell him not to worry, everything’s going to be all right, there’s some comics in his case if he gets bored waiting for me, and I’ll be there really soon, as soon as I can. He’s crying a bit, but that’s okay.
Then just as he’s climbing into the back of the car Merton says: ‘I’m sure we can arrange for Robert to come and visit you, Stanley. Once you’ve settled in at Wolvesley Grange.’
He slams the car door behind my brother.
Stan’s only eight but he’s not daft. He twigs right away.
Hammering on the window. Screaming my name.
I want to smash open the car door and drag our Stan out of there.
I want to cry.
I can’t, I can’t. I can’t do anything. What I do is, I turn and run. Back to the building. Back to Hampton Hall. I can still hear Stan screaming. I hear the car pull away, out of the car park. It’s soon gone. But in my head I can still hear Stan screaming my name.