‘Lord, don’t let me endure another winter on my own,’ Edna muttered to the ceiling, holding back her tears in case God took against her selfishness. ‘Take me now, Lord. Take me now.’ She turned on her TV for company, took a sip of stout and depressed a heavy thumb down on the failing remote then sat back in as much comfort as her body would allow, before a soft knocking on the front door turned her head.
Brook drove away from St Mary’s Wharf as light rain began to fall. Instead of turning off the inner ring road at Friar Gate and taking the Ashbourne Road towards home, Brook stayed on until Abbey Street where he took a right up to Burton Road. Crossing the ring road to the smart suburb of Littleover, he took a left turn before the lights and pulled up outside a large house halfway down. He checked the address against his notes.
He stepped from the car, pulling his coat tight against the damp, and examined the solid old building. It had three storeys with tall, old-fashioned, wooden-framed windows, looking out on a cramped but well-tended front garden. To the side, a wide drive wound past an old garage and round the back of the house, disappearing into the dark beyond.
Brook jogged up the stone steps to the front door and hammered on the heavy knocker. He fancied he could hear music somewhere at the back of the house – the brain-damaging pulse beloved of teenagers everywhere. He knocked again.
A hall light shone through the door’s stained glass and a shadow was thrown across. A short female figure, face in darkness, pulled open the door and contemplated Brook. She reached to her left to flick on the outside light.
‘Mrs Shah?’ inquired Brook.
Despite her name, the woman was Caucasian, close to Brook’s age, maybe late forties, with short bleached blond hair showing a touch of black root. She had a pleasant enough face, round with smooth skin, light-grey eyes and a strong nose.
‘Inspector Brook,’ replied the woman. ‘I’m flattered.’
Brook had no head for names and faces but houses he remembered – unlike people, they didn’t require anything of him – and he was certain he’d never been to the address before. ‘Have we met?’
‘I saw you in the papers,’ she said. ‘Your reputation precedes you.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Brook.
Mrs Shah smiled reluctantly. ‘Don’t be. Like I said, I’m flattered.’ Her voice was deadpan, suggesting the opposite. ‘I don’t usually get the brush-off from someone of your rank.’
‘The brush-off?’ repeated Brook.
‘Inspector Laird used to send round some pimple-faced lackey to warn me about wasting police time. Now I get a DI.’
‘Inspector Laird retired.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘His glove-puppet, DS Copeland, took over and others followed. And now the job’s yours.’
‘I don’t—’
‘It’s cold, Inspector, so if there’s nothing else, I’ll consider myself warned.’ She stood back to close the door.
‘You’ve offered information about the Pied Piper before?’ said Brook.
She tilted her head to give him a withering look. ‘You know I have or you wouldn’t be here.’
‘When?’
‘Like you don’t know.’
‘Humour me,’ replied Brook. ‘I’m still learning the ropes – this is my first brush-off.’
She considered Brook through pursed lips, not sure how to take him. ‘Very well. Yes, I used to try and warn you lot every five years. That’s the Pied Piper’s cycle. Or it was until he stopped.’
‘And you think he’s started again.’
She pulled a simpleton’s face. ‘D’uh. There’s a teenage boy missing, in case you hadn’t noticed.’
Brook contemplated her. ‘You’re Rosie Bannon, Sam Bannon’s daughter.’
‘Guilty as charged. Didn’t they brief you properly?’
‘No,’ answered Brook. ‘And there is no
they
.’
‘Then how did you know who I am?’
‘This was your father’s house,’ said Brook. ‘And the address you left when you phoned the hotline.’
‘You should be a detective,’ she sneered. Brook managed his one-note laugh. ‘Well,’ she continued, brusquely, ‘message delivered. If there’s nothing else. . .’
‘May I speak now?’
She studied Brook with the manner of someone used to having her trust in people betrayed. ‘You’re moving on to stage two already? Fine. Go to the papers. See if I care. I’m not ashamed of my past and you can quote me. My son already knows about it, I don’t have a job to lose and I don’t give a monkey’s for the opinions of my neighbours. Got it?’
Brook made to speak but she slammed the door in his face. ‘Goodnight,’ he said to the door.
Brook dozed off on the sofa after his third read-through of the Jeff Ward file but woke soon after for a fourth. It was a heart-rending case. The boy’s death had been a hard blow for a family already recovering from the death of their other son, Donny, who had drowned two months earlier in the River Dove, during a family day out to the Peak District.
Elder son Jeff, presumably still traumatised by his brother’s death, had walked away from the house in deep snow, following a set of footprints on to Allestree Park Golf Course. The killer’s footprints were small enough to belong to a child. Interestingly, it seemed Jeff Ward had tried to obliterate all traces of them as he followed them to his doom. Why?
Brook was drawn again to one particular crime scene photograph which gave him the shivers. An abandoned balloon, sporting the face of Dennis the Menace, was trapped in the branches of a bare tree. According to the caption the tree stood at the fringes of the ninth green on which the body of Jeff Ward was discovered. According to the file, the balloon, or one identical to it, had belonged to Jeff’s drowned brother. More puzzling yet, the parents had last seen Donny’s balloon trapped in the branches of a different tree, overlooking the spot on the River Dove where their younger son had drowned
. A child’s balloon, perhaps belonging to a child who kills
.
‘Spooky.’ Brook closed the file, hauling himself up to go to bed – he wanted to be at Copeland’s house at six the next morning.
He heard the shot a split second before the glass shattered and was on the ground as soon as he felt the impact of flying shards. Once on the floor, Brook scrambled round to the side table and switched off the lamp, before manoeuvring himself to the broken window and peering carefully over the sill. Another shot rang out, chewing at the wood of the sill by Brook’s head and he decided on the better part of valour and sank back to the floor.
A moment later he heard the throaty roar of an engine, tyres squealing, and he bounded up to sprint for the front door. At the gate, Brook could only watch as the lights of the vehicle receded from view.
He turned to race back inside for his own keys, gathered them up and ran towards the BMW, slowing in frustration when he saw the flat tyre.
Scott Wheeler dragged himself to the pipe sticking down into his chamber from the surface, biting down on the searing pain from the worst of the many rashes along his groin and all the way round his buttocks. He inclined his neck to take a breath of fresh air. The cold chilled him so he pulled his blanket tighter, dislodging soil into his mouth.
He gripped the blanket under his chin, not daring to feel along his groin with his hand to assess the damage that lying in his own urine and faeces had done. The last time Scott had tried to examine the affected area his fingertips had been dotted with blood when withdrawn. Somehow that had transferred the bacteria to his face and now the edge of his mouth had erupted in sores. The only course open to him now was to keep as still as possible to avoid breaking the skin and dislodging the scabs. Ignoring the stabbing pains was not an option and gritting his teeth against them only caused more discomfort around his mouth.
The stinging in Scott’s groin had worsened overnight. The skin was broken and infected, and for the first time Scott had felt like vomiting because his vision was becoming woozy and blurred.
An earwig dropped into his mouth which he spat out with an instinctive upward jerk of the head, loosening more soil to trickle on to his head. He pushed the back of a hand across his face to flick away the debris and brushed through his dry, itchy scalp, which suddenly felt alive with insects feeding on his skin.
The earwig wriggled along his fetid, sweat-encrusted neck and underneath his clothing. Scott shivered when it touched his skin but he managed to manoeuvre into a position where he could depress his elbows to the floor with enough force to squash the invader. Eventually, with a sickening pop, the creepy-crawly stopped moving against his skin and Scott was able to lie still, panting. Invariably such mini-dramas brought more tears and more tears meant more salt to sting his cracked lips.
He opened his eyes to the dim circular glow at the other end of the pipe. It must be morning again. How many days? He couldn’t be sure.
Eight, nine. Gotta keep score. Like Tom Hanks on that island
.
‘Day nine,’ he intoned in his best Geordie accent, his face cracking into a painful smile. The tears arrived with it but he blinked them away to stop the salt falling on to his lips.
That’s it! Pretend like I’m on
Big Brother.
Cameras are watching me. People see me here. People can vote for me. Gotta hang tough. Won’t get no votes if people think I’m gay. No more crying
.
He wiped his eyes with a sleeve and drank in the hope offered by the distant dawn. The sky was grey and damp but Scott didn’t mind that. Not like he used to. Stopping in all day, playing on his Xbox when he could have been outside in the fresh air, moving around, running, jumping? Never again. Outside was everything now. His present, his treasured past and hopefully his future. Without this small globe of light to sustain him he knew he would be either dead from the fumes of his piss and shit or completely off his trolley. Then again, maybe he already was.
Water dripped from the pipe and Scott inclined his head to place his mouth under the drips. He was getting good at slithering. He couldn’t stand, couldn’t sit up and initially the effort to lie still had him first sobbing in frustration then screaming until his vocal chords seemed to shatter. But nobody had heard him. Nobody came to this place.
Place? Where was he? It wasn’t Heaven, that’s for sure. But it weren’t Hell neither. He’d heard birds singing, seen them darting across the sky. And when the wind got up and whistled down the pipe he fancied he could hear the music of the air rushing through grass and trees above him.
As his underpants had filled, not moving had become the better option so as not to feel the squelch of filth against his damp, sore skin, imagining every itch and tickle to be an insect feeding on his body waste before laying eggs in his skin, to break out days later into thousands of baby insects also looking to feed. . .
Stop. No thinking
. Thinking was bad. Feeling was worse. It weakened him. Scott shuddered and licked greedily at the raindrops to occupy his mind. Got to preserve his supplies. He’d downed one of the bottles of water straight after he’d woken up that first night and shouted himself hoarse to summon help. But then, when no one came, when no one responded to his desperate cries, he’d realised the need to eke out his provisions.
He stared at the distant glow of the sky. How far was it? Five feet? Six? He couldn’t be sure but to try and force his way to the surface was impossible. He’d tried before, pushing against the boards of his prison, dislodging earth to fill his shrinking tomb, choking on soil and stones.
That wasn’t the plan. That wasn’t what they wanted. He’d worked it out. If they’d wanted him dead, they could have merked him straight off. Easy. But whoever put him down here didn’t want him dead. Not yet anyway.
‘Josh!’ he croaked. His voice was hoarse from all the screaming and shouting. ‘Anybody,’ he murmured with no expectation of a response. It was no use. Josh wouldn’t come. Josh had led him here, had betrayed him to others, and this is where he had to stay until they thought he was ready – ready to say sorry to his friend.
‘Didn’t mean it, Josh,’ he muttered. Another tear leaked from the corner of an eye.
Don’t cry. Makes me thirsty and I gotta preserve the water
.
He felt around for the bag of food and reassured himself with a quick count. Two bottles left. That first night, when he’d calmed down enough to feel around in the dark, he’d found the bags by the dim light from the pipe. There was a torch and spare batteries and when he’d finally flicked it on, the light had banished his cares for one brief moment of ecstasy.
Like scoring the last-minute winner in the Champions League final
. But seeing the limits of his new existence quickly doused his mood and Scott had turned off the torch to save the batteries.
But he’d seen enough to understand his diminished world and, as his strength had waned, he’d accepted it. And he had the torch. He could see enough to find the food and drink left for him. Someone wanted him to live a while yet. Six small bottles of water that he could just about tip into his mouth without dislodging more soil. A carrier bag full of biscuits and apples. The apples were gone. He didn’t know how long they’d last so he’d eaten them first, which hadn’t helped his diarrhoea. Had to be done. Despite the problems with his digestion, Scott knew the biscuits would keep. Eat the fresh food first. Then the dry.
‘See, I’m smart, you fucker,’ he croaked, his throat raw, his glands swollen. He looked at the grey blanket of cloud seething across the small disc of his life and another tear pricked the corner of his eye. ‘I’m smart.’
Twenty-Two
Tuesday, 18 December 2012
The next afternoon, Brook signed the paperwork and bade goodbye to the glazier who’d replaced his window. He hadn’t slept a wink and trudged wearily inside to make tea and wash his hands from changing the tyre. Although he’d missed his appointment with Copeland, Brook didn’t take out his phone to ring the number on the card, instead thumbing one of the two numbers he kept on speed dial.
‘John. It’s me. I was shot at last night.’
‘Shot at? Where?’
‘The cottage.’
‘Are you—’