Bedlam (22 page)

Chapter Thirty-Five

He called the lab from the car and requested a priority cross-check. He used Mather’s authorisation, was sure it would be added to his long list of misdemeanours and come back to bite him, but was past caring. By the time he had talked his way past the officers on duty at Bales’ house, he was on a roll, fuelled entirely by adrenalin. Better by far to be hung for obsession than impotence.

Bales’ house was adjacent to the canal, an old lock keeper’s cottage that would have had some rustic appeal had it been picked up and dropped in one of the privileged garden counties, or alternatively had it been adequately maintained, but as with the lock and the waterway over which it presided, it appeared several decades had elapsed since the building had benefited from a lick of paint. Now, amidst the grey shroud of winter, even mother-nature had shunned the place. Climbers were bare skeletal wood. Briars ensnared the unwary with thin lashes of barbed thorns.

McNeil avoided them with care as he pushed his way through the ramshackle porch.

Inside, the place was a mess. Newspapers, stacked shoulder-height against the walls, restricted his passage through to the living room. Here, a single sofa, pulled close to an empty grate, filled the small room. Bales, a bachelor, lived alone, and by the
pungent odour which stung McNeil’s nostrils as he entered, it was obvious that Bales had warded off his loneliness by keeping dogs - lots of dogs. They’d been removed by the RSPCA but their smell was everywhere. It seeped its way into his subconscious.

The investigating team had been through the house already, looking for anything that might explain why Bales had met such a horrific death, a connection perhaps via his fighting dogs to the hooded feral pack. So far they’d found nothing: no drugs, no weapons, just dogs. At Mather’s insistence it looked as though they might just settle for that in an attempt to tie up the loose ends quickly but McNeil knew there was more to it. Bales had been fed to the pack to stop him talking, McNeil was convinced of it. He was even more convinced that the answer to everything
lay somewhere on Bales’ property. He didn’t care now how the man had died but he did need to know why. He wasn’t there to solve his murder. He was looking for something else, something much less recent.

He wandered through to the rear of the building where he found a decrepit built-on kitchen, little more than a lean-to, with a leaking corrugated roof. Rotten food lay on the table, filthy dishes in the sink, spiked dog collars on the back of the door. The man was a slob but that wasn’t against the law.

Up the creaking, rickety stairs, he ducked his head at the sloping ceiling and stood at the doorway to Bales’ bedroom where ancient floral wallpaper covered the walls, damp-spotted and peeling, and curtains hung haphazardly from a metal rail, hooks missing, fabric stained and torn. There was a wooden unmade bed, part of a post-war set with mahogany wardrobe and dressing table. The mirror was cracked and thick dust coated the surface. Above the bed, not a crucifix but a child’s drawing, a naive crayon sketch in a cheap plastic fame.

A two-headed snake - one black, one white.

In the bottom right corner, barely visible now on the sun-bleached paper, there was a name scrawled in red, the letters jumbled and back to front.

JoJo
x

Faint laughter curled like smoke from an extinguished match. The smell of cheap wax crayons teased his nostrils. The bed creaked and a puppy wriggled amidst the tangled bedding, its tail twitching. The laughter turned to mischievous giggles and McNeil backed slowly to the door.

Outside, the rear garden was over-
grown, a mess of scrap metal and jerry-built dog runs. He stepped carefully to avoid the mounds of dog faeces and lengths of chain that littered the ground. The snow had been trampled underfoot into muddy slush by the investigating team and he followed their footprints until they ran out at the rear boundary. Beyond the fence, a thicket of woodland screened his view, but he knew that if he were to force his way through the tangle of bushes and scrubby trees for a mile or so, he would emerge somewhere south of the industrial units, and if he continued a little further and didn’t watch where he stepped, he might easily tumble down the steep embankment and find himself in the mud beneath the viaduct.

He turned on the spot, shoved his hands in his pockets and scanned the plot. Almost hidden beneath the hanging branches of a small copse was a dilapidated wooden building. It was apparent by the tracks in the mud that the investigators had not seen fit to check the contents.

McNeil pried the rusted hasp and padlock from the rotten wood and pulled back the warped wooden door. It had evidently been barred for some time. The hinges had dropped, and it required a measure of lifting and heaving to gain entry. He winced as his stitches protested.  The interior was dim, the windows shuttered with thick ivy. The light from the open door slanted a weak beam across a dusty floor. He pulled out his phone and used the display to illuminate the details of the cluttered interior. A jumble of rusted tools lined the walls. Long-dead mowers, a collection of empty bottles, a bench and lathe, and an ancient gent’s bike contributed to the eclectic mess. Overhead, a wooden rowing boat hung from the rafters. At the centre of the building, partially cloaked in a dusty tarpaulin, was exactly what he’d expected to find, a grey transit van propped up on bricks, minus its plates. The bonnet was up, the engine long-since cannibalised. One rear door lay propped against the wall, the other hung awkwardly by one hinge as though an unsuccessful attempt had been made to remove it. Inside, alone in the cold empty space, was a small boy’s shoe. Scuffed at the toe, it hung by its lace from the rear-view mirror. As McNeil stepped up into the rear of the van, his weight rocked the vehicle and the shoe thudded rhythmically against the windscreen.

The boy sat crossed-legged on the passenger seat, waiting for him, a bright red lolly in his hand, sticky fingers dripping syrup onto grazed knees. Tinny music blared from the cassette player.
‘The Wheels on the bus go round ….’

The little boy clapped his hands in time to the music and the lolly slipped from his grasp, bounced off his knee and landed in the foot-well. His face fell, his eyes grew wide with fear and his skinny arms came up reflexively to protect his head. McNeil followed his gaze, his breath held frozen in his throat as he, too, tensed in anticipation of a blow, but the driver’s seat was empty, and when he turned back, the boy had disappeared.

He felt a whispered breath against his cheek and a steady cool palm at his heart, Kit and Nell both urging him on. A small sticky hand slipped into his and squeezed gently.

He was almost back to the beginning. He was almost too scared to proceed.

He phoned Dennis from the car.

“Hey, Joey, what happened to you?” Dennis railroaded the conversation before McNeil had a chance to speak. “I heard you had an accident with the waste-paper basket. Your mug-shot is now on the dart board in the cleaner’s room. Just thought you should know.”

“Thanks for that.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Dennis. Just got my recycling and wet waste mixed up, that’s all.”

Dennis snorted.

“I need you to do something for me.”

“I’d say ‘anything’, Joey, but we both know that wouldn’t be the truth, so spit it out, and if it’s legal, I’ll think about it.”

“I’m down at Bales’ house.”

“Why? You’re supposed to be home with your feet up, playing the wounded hero.”

“It’s a long story. I don’t have time to explain. I need SOCOs down here. There’s a shed out back. Inside is a grey transit van. I need them to do the business on it. I’ve bagged a plastic lolly stick. It’s on the dash board. It’s old stuff, Dennis, and I hope it’ll work. They need to check the whole interior - the kiddies shoe, the steering wheel, door handles, everything.”

“Why?”

“A possible link to two drowning cases from eighty-six and maybe eighty-eight.”

“You’re kidding me. We’re in the middle of a budget-busting triple murder enquiry and you want me to spend resources on a cold case from more than twenty-five years ago.”

“Kids, Dennis.
Little kids.”

“Yeah, tragic.
But, Joey, be reasonable here. What can we do about it now? It’s far too late.”

“It’s never too late, Dennis.” McNeil paused to swing his gaze out through the window to the house beyond. “You see, I don’t think they actually drowned.”

Chapter Thirty-Six

I have failed. There is no doubt in my mind now, for he has not come to save me, and once again I must repeat and relive my existence. Now, though, it is a far crueller sentence, for I have glimpsed what might have been, what should have been, and had it snatched from my grasp. Of course, that is what Jacob had in mind from the outset. I have no doubt about that. The game plays on and Jacob continues to roll the dice.

Restrained, I lack the will to fight or free myself. Perhaps if I were physically tied by straps or ropes or chains, nipping my skin or squeezing my flesh, I would feel more inclined to rally against my shackles, but alas, Jacob is far cleverer than that. He binds me with such subtlety that I have no option but to sit and gaze blankly at my white-walled prison, my ever-shrinking domain.

He believes me to be totally in his power, under his thrall, but little does he realise that I have acquired, through much self-discipline, the art of internal rebellion. My mind will no longer close down at his command but is free to wander and wonder, and dwell on my misfortune, while he is free to plot and play.

He has switched me off.

I am back in my box.

And like the marionette that I have become,

I await the puppet master … and the final act.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Latimer Street was a long brick terrace of two-up, two-down houses that stretched from the end of Canal Road to the very centre of Bedlam, front doors opening directly on to the pavement, concrete yards at the back. They would have been slums anywhere else but here, in Bedlam, they were homes. Back in the eighties they housed both workers and out-of-workers, the difference illustrated by the number of locks on the door. Those with anything worth stealing held tight to their treasures. Those with nothing, left their doors wide open in the unlikely event that goods might conveniently fall off the back of a passing lorry directly into their lap.

The boy must have brought him.

The smell hit him first, the penny-tang of blood that invaded his nostrils, travelled to his taste buds and made him want to gag. Then
came shouting, a man’s belligerence, the drunken verbal swagger, so loud, so overpowering it erupted onto the street and pummelled his mind as hard as a fist. The accompanying high-pitched banshee wail of a terrified woman made him wince. He raised his hands to protect his ears and the boy did the same.

Ears covered to block out the sound.

Eyes screwed shut to censor the horror.

Lips sealed tight to keep in the scream.

McNeil watched like an impotent voyeur as the little wise monkey in the torn ‘Star Wars’ T-shirt slunk into the arena, cowed, tail between his legs, flattened against the wall. His small head snapped back with the force of the first blow, a cruel backhander that sent him spinning. The child wailed as his small body hit the floor with a thud, and McNeil reached out, scooped him up and held him close, heart-to-heart, absorbing the pain, living the fear in great gut-wrenching sobs. The woman screamed as she fell. The man bellowed as he punched. The air was humid with hostility and neglect.

And then they were running, he and the boy, hand-in-hand, down the alley, feet thudding on the pavement, along the crunching gravel of the tow path, splashing through puddles, avoiding the briars that whipped at their cheeks and the nettles that stung their legs. Tripping, crying,
gulping air. Unformed words held tightly inside, fears squeezed into small dark places. His heart pounded, his nerve endings sung, his lungs were fit to burst.

The wheels on the bus went round and round.

The van door slid open without a sound.

There were lollies and puppies with happy wet tongues.

And no more shouting.

Sudden banging kicked him back with such a start that it took a few extra heartbeats to reset his rhythm. A young PC peered at him through misted glass. He wound down the window and scowled back.

“DS McNeil, are you okay? You look like you had a funny turn.”

McNeil looked past the PC. He was still parked up outside Bales’ house. His mouth was dry. Perspiration coated his skin. He inhaled discreetly. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Just a minute or so. You were talking on your phone. I was waiting to ask if you’d seen enough of the house. I did a quick circuit of the property, and when I came back you were out for the count. Pardon me for saying, but you look like you’ve seen a ghost. Can I get you something… a drink?”

A drink?
McNeil could have murdered for a drink - or two, preferably - in a short glass, poured over ice, but when the PC held out a bottle of water, he took it gratefully, unscrewed the cap and gulped it feverishly.

“Thanks,” he muttered as he handed back the empty bottle. He reached down painfully and retrieved his phone from the foot-well. The line was dead, Dennis long gone.  Starting the car, he gave silent thanks when it kicked into life at the first attempt.

“You need to ensure that no one gains access to the shed in the back garden until SOCOs get here. Do you hear what I’m saying?”

“Well, yes, that’s what I was just about to tell you. The reason I was knocking … DI Todd is on his way down here. He said to tell you to wait for him, said your phone was on the blink.”

McNeil grunted. “Tell DI Todd, thanks but no thanks. Tell him I had better things to do than wait around all day for him.”

“But he said …”

“I’m sure he did but I’m saying no. You tell him
that
when he gets here.”

“He’ll want to know where you’ve gone.”

“Serenity House. Tell him … tell him I’ve gone to wake the dead.”