Bright Spark (23 page)

Harkness
stooped and slipped on latex gloves while Slowey began scribbling in his
notebook.  He pressed two fingers into Murphy’s carotid artery for form’s sake,
stifling a retch when the cold, taut flesh moved too easily, as if some vital
connection between the upper and lower body had been shattered and only gristle
and habit held it all together.

Murphy’s
wallet was half out of his waist pocket. A cigarette packet, crumpled around
the lighter nestling within, had dropped to the beaten earth with a handful of
loose change. Dangling from his still buckled belt, a silver key chain held at
least six keys on a ring; one was obviously a car key,  two or three may have
been door keys,  but the others were too small and simple to be anything other
than window keys.

Why
on earth did anyone wear a key chain with window keys while out boozing? Could
Murphy really have been so deranged that he denied his wife any means of
leaving the house without his permission? His derangement had proved a death
sentence for his entire family.

Harkness
remembered how he’d got here and scanned the corpse head to toe again with the maglite.
He didn’t know which to disbelieve most; Mickey’s ludicrous but entertaining
account of Murphy’s death, or the fact that he was actually looking for bullet
wounds.

“Don’t
know about you, Ken, but I’m not seeing bullet holes in this chap. And in this
neighbourhood, I think we’d have heard about gunshots.”

“All
credit to you for looking. Mickey will be touched.”

Slowey
stepped around Harkness, intent on sketching out the scene, determined to
capture the telling tessellation of limbs and objects and disturbed ground
before anyone else polluted its truth. “Where do you think this leaves us
then?”

“Desperately
tired. One less suspect. One more victim. No further on.” Harkness yanked off
his gloves and rubbed his eyes. “You all right back there?”

“Err,
yep, magic.” The light wobbled as Aspull shrugged, his face set in revolted
fascination.

“Tell
you what, let’s swap torches again. You go back up top, call this in, get the
DI and SOCO down here and request the pathologist. Then come back and confirm
you’ve done it. Got all that?”

“Chrystal.
En route,” said Aspull, sagging with relief.

“Hope
you’re fit, youth. You’ve just become my runner.”

A
slick of syrupy coffee lapped against the edges of the upturned cardboard lid
that served as a tray. Cellophane, crumbs and tufts of pastry speckled the
uneven surface of the table on which the weary conference was centred.

“Sorry
about the meagre rations, gents. The Mekong Junction was shut so I took a ride
out to the supermarket.”

DI
Ray Newbould stood at his whiteboard, willing his audience to engage. To
Harkness’s irritation, Newbould’s shirt and trousers looked clean and fresh and
he had the air of a man who’d slept within the last 24 hours.

“Come
on. It’s past midnight. It’s not late any more. It’s early again. A bright and
beautiful new day. Nobody got a smile for the boss?”

The
assembled detectives slumped, too weary for their binge of sugar and starch to
make them feel anything more than restless or jittery.

“We’re
all shagged out,” barked DCI Dave Brennan, just loud enough to startle Biddle
out of his micro-nap.

At
least Brennan had the good grace to look haggard, thought Harkness, noting the
rasp of stubble against a ragged looking shirt collar. He was also propelled
along by something stronger than orange juice, judging by the odour of pear
drops.

“But
we have to bottom a few things out before anyone disappears. Dead people can be
inconvenient but it’s not like you won’t get paid for your dedication.”

Slowey
looked up from his notebook and closed it with the peaceful expression which
said to Harkness that he had finally written up an incident to his own complete
satisfaction. Harkness tugged the book from Slowey’s paternal grasp and perused
the last few pages of writing and analysis that was far too clear and artful
for a CID man. He grunted with unconscious approval.

“Keeping
you up, Rob?” demanded Brennan.

“Good
stuff, this.” Harkness brandished the notes. “Think you promoted the wrong one.”

“Then
you’ll both have plenty to say.”

“He
always bloody does,” muttered Biddle.

“I
expect you all to have plenty to say if you want the OT signed off.  Ray if you
please.”

Newbould
grabbed the ancient 24-inch ruler that he seemed to treat as his swagger stick
and trundled out his whiteboards to their fullest length. Slowey nodded
briefly, impressed that Newbould had listed so many bullet points when he and
Harkness had so far given him a far from complete picture.

“Simple
process, gentlemen. Let’s all piss into the pool of knowledge. Last things
first: the new body. Rob?”

“It’s
Murphy. No positive ID but he looks like his prison photo. SOCO still there.
Scene sealed off. Lots of miserable motorists being turned around. Pig of a
scene to get to. Might end up closing the bypass for the undertakers.
Pathologist en route.”

“And
the new prisoner? The bridge man?”

“He
wants to be locked up and we need to keep him just in case. His account is
mostly cobblers. In my amateur opinion, there was nothing to suggest anyone had
drilled high velocity rounds through Dale. We can however be certain that he
dropped unexpectedly into Mickey’s world from enough of a height to do
something unpleasant to his upper body. As to whether he fell or was pushed……”

“This
Mickey,” asked Brennan. “Think you let anything slip? Gave him ideas? Fuelled
his imagination?”

“Not
impossible,” volunteered Slowey, sensing Harkness’s reticence. “We made
an….erm….comfort break when we were called out last night. Happened to see
Mickey snoozing in the bus shelter nearest the bridge. He may have overheard us
discussing the call-out, but we didn’t know much ourselves at the time.”

“Still
on Dale,” interrupted Harkness. “No obvious smell of petrol or smoke, but he
had what could have been interior window keys on his chain. Odd. Very odd.
Could mean nothing. Could mean something very nasty. Asked SOCO to compare them
with 13 Marne Close.”

“Ok,
brilliant.” Newbould’s pen squeaked a frantic pace across the whiteboard.
“While we’re on the subject of dead Murphys, what can Ron tell us?”

“Positive
ID on the wife and kiddies from the in-laws. Her parents are cruising in the
Med. Still working on that. As for his parents, brought them in from Nottingham and installed them in a travel tavern on Newark Road. They don’t know about
their son yet but it won’t be long before the press get a whiff of the new
body.”

“Good
call, Ron. You’re the man to break the news. Again.”

“Walked
into that one, didn’t I?”

“What
do you make of his parents?” asked Brennan.

“Middle-class
from so-so suburb. Father a skinny type, accountant or something. Mother a
pudding who thinks Dale is some sort of saint. She’d commute here every day to
wipe his arse if he asked. Thought he could have done better than Suzanne.
Didn’t come right out with it but blamed her for everything from not seeing the
grandkids to the price of diesel. Both in bits about the kiddies though. Took
some doing to stop them holding a candlelit vigil at the house.”

“Looks
like their day could still get worse. Ok. What’s next? Interviewing the prime
and now only suspect. Who wants that?”

Biddle
and Harkness exchanged glances, both stony-faced and communicating nothing.

“Lawyered
up…”

“No
commented…..”

“Saying
nowt…..”

“Not
an ideal arrest………”

“Timing
an issue…..”

“All
got a bit too aggressive….”

“Quiet,”
shouted Brennan, banging his empty mug on the desk like a gavel. “I will have
order here, you pair of chimps. Ray, summarise please. Looks like there’s next
to cock all to say anyway.”

Harkness
recounted Firth’s chaotic arrest, the search of his flat with its tantalising
but equivocal seizures, his contretemps with Snelling over ethics and Firth’s
utterly absent response in interview. He omitted the Braxton connection for now
– he wanted complete discretion in handling what could either be too trivial to
mention or so crucial he should have pounced on it much earlier. Biddle felt
compelled to detail the stable fracture of Firth’s right tibia and the heavy
pain-killers the duty doctor had prescribed him.

“Next
is forensics and HOLMES stuff.” Newbould unzipped his document case and handed
out a glossy, full-colour schematic of the enquiry office’s progress so far.

“The
key to the diagrams is on pages seven through ten.  Crime scene samples and
prints are off to the lab tomorrow. And before you ask, I’m including samples
from Firth’s flat and the man himself.  No footprints at Marne Close.

“Gravel
doesn’t hold them. House to house still being input but nothing sticks out. 
One or two people not in but teams are going back tomorrow. Post mortem report
also due in tomorrow; the first one anyway. Hopefully we can get a bulk
discount from the lab.”

“Rob,”
said Brennan, cutting Newbould off. “I’ve seen the letters from Firth’s flat.
I’m assuming you’ve been to see Sharon Jennings. Did you get anything and what
kind of complaint will I get this time? Bullying, groping or assault?”

“I
got a full and frank denial that the sensitive, misunderstood Nigel had
anything to do with any of this.  But she’s nervous about something, so I’ll
keep pushing. You never know. I need to statement her family which is a happy
coincidence.”

 “Ken,”
said Newbould, handing another form to Slowey. “Need you to fill this ‘injury
on duty’ form in when you’ve got a minute. Not desperate. First thing will do.”

“I’m
fine, thanks,” grumbled Slowey. “Want to know about the pub?”

“Which
pub?”

Slowey
crossed one knee over another, opened his notebook, smoothed down the pages,
licked his index finger and recounted both of his visits to the Friars Vaults,
sparing no detail of how he came by his bruises but speaking so impassively
that he could have been reading the back of a parking ticket.

“So,”
he concluded, “Firth was in the pub. We know that. Nobody saw exactly what
either Firth or Murphy did when they left. And as for the little fracas, well I
don’t think I earned my bumps just for a couple of hundred quid’s worth of
fags.

“Here’s
the thing: Why wear balaclavas
and
nick the CCTV system? We do have some
fuckwits in that neck of the woods, but footage of our incident being nicked
from there at that time…..well, it just can’t be random.”

“Two
men attacked Ken – at least he saw two,” said Harkness. “Wasn’t  Murphy – he
was cold by then, or maybe crippled and on his way out. Firth? Obvious, but
who’d stick their neck out for him? And of all the things he did that night, is
showing his face in a pub the one he’d worry about? Enough to find the kind of
friend he’s never had and stage a burglary?”

 “That’ll
do. You three piss off home. Sleep. Eat. Wash up. Back here by seven. Oh, and Rob.”

“Boss?”

“Your
own car. Sober. No new injuries. To you or anyone you happen not to like. The
last bit goes for you as well, Mr Slowey. Especially you; you’re the grown up.”

Every
day and every night, in every gaol, prison and institute, one or two could be
guaranteed to boil over with the precise and mysterious rhythm of geysers. The
last trickles of noise would seep into the linoleum, concrete and steel then
the silence would sag, ready for the next outburst. It always came, when the
tears boiled away, when the knuckles stopped throbbing, when memory lost its
battle with the rage at being trapped in this place, this body, this time. 
Like super-heated water that hissed and slithered and pounded and bulged its
path through a thousand fractures in rock and mud to spume into empty air; more
metronomic than climactic.

Sometimes
it was booze, that laxative of the emotions, the powerhouse of pent-up,
punching passion. Sometimes it was cocaine and amphetamines, the dynamos of the
dissolute and distracted. Sometimes it was the gasp of grievance that the world
could have got it so wrong, so often; no fine, moral debate this, just the rage
of the caged and uncurbed. 

There
was always at least one. If there were more, then the angriest would set the
others off, a rabid wolf on an enclosed plain. Tonight, Firth knew which one it
would be and he wasn’t disappointed. Lying naked beneath blank, breathing
walls, skin slick on rough vinyl that had been sloughed and sweated on by a thousand
others like him, he did not rage, not even inwardly in the space that was only
his.

They
didn’t know. Didn’t, couldn’t understand. These cells were no more their cages
than their own bodies. Both just crude matter, miniscule particles suspended in
space by exotic energies, walls and bones just emptiness and remembered
connections creating the illusion of substance.

The
books had made it all so clear; how much mattered and how little. He was just
borrowed energy. So were the ashen dead. Rendering it all back to the cosmos
would simplify and cleanse. Matter didn’t, couldn’t matter. All of it, the ugly
and the sexy and the happy and the sad, was just energy trapped but certain to
be freed very soon to rejoice in the freedom of chaos.

 “Grruarghhhhh…”
Kevin Braxton’s opening note penetrated the steel and concrete, bringing a
smile to Firth’s lips.

“Fuggin
fuggin cahnt you cahnting fuggin faaaaackers…”

From
panting bass notes to spitting shrillness in one breath, like cattle queuing
for the shambles and finally understanding the odour of blood, the shuffling
anxiety of the others and the metallic crump drawing closer now. He smiled.
Kevin Braxton was a drama queen behind it all. It was creamily delicious to
hear him suffer, even for no good reason; all the sweeter to glimpse the fear
behind the rage.

Bone
slammed against steel and steel jarred against concrete and the door hatch
grated in its mounting as Kevin Braxton began punching his cell door. At least
Firth assumed he was using his fists. With luck, Braxton was beating his own
brains to paste, assuming that hadn’t already happened at someone else’s hands.

Demonstrative:
That was Braxton. A good word for him. All piss and wind; all fists and filth.
So different, he and I, thought Firth. During his silent week in the witness
box at Crown two years earlier, Firth’s barrister had repeatedly described him
as undemonstrative. He may have meant the jury to read this as quiet, modest
and misunderstood, testament to the stoicism of the downtrodden. Such qualities
were after all consistent with the poor traumatised man held here at the jury’s
mercy because of one desperate, thoughtless act which had stunned him into
silent remorse; an act without calculation or murderous intent; an act without
precedent and never to be repeated. Or some bullshit of that calibre.

The
barrister had also used the word as a sly indictment of his taciturn client.
Firth’s silences had always been selective. Thinking was always better than
speaking. Speaking infrequently made people listen when you actually did speak.
Letting people think you were slow-witted or damaged then confounding them with
a modicum of insight made it hard for them to write you off or put you down or
peg you into a category.

Life
had stunned him into silence many times over: His wretched mother excusing
herself from parental duties by roasting herself in an alcohol-fuelled fire.
Then a succession of children’s homes and foster parents educating him properly:
Being quiet earned you a beating; reading earned you a beating; being different
earned you a beating. Playing by the rules; joining in with the games;
stealing; beating on others; getting nicked - that all meant surrendering part
of yourself, the part you needed to protect with silence.

Better
to lurk and watch and read and read until your eyes couldn’t focus any more;
glad that at least he’d been taught to read before he fell through the
trapdoor. Better to tolerate the price of protection; the middle-aged, pitiful
youth worker with his pendulous belly and pubic hair like silver wire wool.
He’d known the value of silence and Firth got all the books and cash and
protection he needed in exchange for the furtive, gasping degradations of a
body for which he cared little anyway and which would in time be purged in flame
like all corrupt flesh.

 With
half his mind on the prison counselling he’d received later, he’d toyed with
calling himself a victim of systematic abuse at the moist hands of this man
with his squirming desires; but that would have been to confuse cause and
effect. His education had worked by the only yardstick that mattered; turning
him from victim to victimiser.

Two
years ago, his solicitor and his barrister and the dewy-eyed jury had chosen to
believe that he couldn’t really have intended to immolate Daphne and the boy
she’d chosen to fuck with sweaty, bellowing abandon on the other side of a
plasterboard wall from Firth. It was felt by those twelve good men and true
that sexual jealousy fuelled by drugs and booze could not have allowed him to
form a clear intention to kill, and that his actions should be seen as reckless
rather than murderous.

While
their hand-wringing equivocation had yielded Firth a far shorter stretch inside
than he might have received had they seen into his heart, he still despised
their naivety. Yet in his more forgiving moments, he envied them their
chin-stroking self-indulgence; after all, how easy and insulated must their
lives be for the desire to channel rage and hurt into carnage to be so alien?

Daphne
had seemed so different. In the DIY store where they’d shared shelf-stacking
duties, he’d found welcome anonymity. She’d seemed to see his watchful silences
as self-possession, his intensity as desire. They flirted, in as much as she
told him smutty jokes and he smiled and didn’t bolt. They exchanged cigarettes
in the loading bay and weed in the stock room. He carefully overheard the
canteen gossips depicting Daphne as a flake, a wanton, a druggie, the store
bike. He was encouraged; everyone needed chemical assistance to get through the
day, and he wanted sex on the simplest terms, without coercion, without lies
and without having to negotiate complex needs and niceties.

He
had drafted his proposal with the care of a solicitor preparing an appeal,
learned his words then went to work with the speech folded carefully in his
back pocket as a talisman and failsafe. A shared spliff of unusually expensive
quality made her giggly and tactile and guaranteed privacy. A second made her
quiet enough to listen while he eulogised the special connection they shared
and the spark that made her so different to the others, so much more alive and
aware. He really needed – not wanted, needed – to get to know her better. Such
a rare connection in the infinite chaos could not be wasted. Her eyes shone as
she drew on the spliff and exhaled into a smile whose gentle bow would open for
him and his desires without question.

She’d
invited him to her flat on the fifth-floor of a ten-story block. He’d walked
there buoyed by the promise of riotous and unexpected good luck and tingling
with ardour. When the door had been answered by the pretty boy with the bunched
muscles and the army tattoos, stripped to the waist and leering, something
cracked inside him, rage breaking free, looking for a target and prepared to
start with his own stupidity.

He’d
been introduced to the half-dozen characters there as the ‘grass man’, some
latter-day hippy with a good line in weed and ‘all this astrology bullshit’. As
per his training, he watched, listened, spoke rarely, accepted whatever money
was proffered for the last of his weed, sank can after can of strong lager that
tasted like piss and rust, and sank through the carpet into vaults of misery.

Had
she known his mind all along and played with him? When had she worked it out?
It didn’t matter. She’d petted with pretty boy in front of him, grabbing his
hair, thrusting her tongue into his mouth and grinding her pelvis against his.
He didn’t know how long it had lasted. It went dark. People left. The music
grew louder, the bass thumping jackhammers of pain into his skull. Cans
proliferated on the floor at his feet. She’d had plenty of time to show him
mercy. To apologise, put him in a taxi; even a shared joke about the floor
supervisor would have soothed him. He hadn’t wanted sex any more, just
something to staunch the wound.

But
they’d performed for him instead, ostensibly ignoring him, letting him sleep it
off on the sofa, while they took their game into the bedroom next door, with a
parting wink from pretty boy. He’d made himself listen to every gasp, groan and
creak, every piercing rasp of ecstasy, through the hateful wall that had seemed
to amplify rather than stifle the humiliation. They couldn’t know he’d grown
from victim to victimiser; now he knew his own kind, knew what they deserved.

Vodka
flared very nicely, as did many kitchen products found beneath the average
sink. After soaking the curtains and the ancient sofa, he’d set his lighter to
them and allowed himself an orgasmic sigh of his own as the radiant heat leapt
into being; an avatar of pure will. Pausing only to topple a bookcase and drag
it across the bedroom door with an unexpected strength, he’d left the flat and
walked calmly away into a night enlivened by the crackling of flames and the
sing-song bustling of sirens.

They
had of course lived. Pretty boy had been strong and resourceful and had forced
a safe passage from the flat. The fire brigade had enjoyed practising with its
turntable ladders and high-pressure jets. A dozen or more neighbouring
residents had been hospitalised briefly with smoke inhalation. The local
authority repair bill had been considerable. Two goldfish and a hamster had
died and a cat was missing presumed dead for the ninth and final time.

Of
course nobody had died, Firth’s barrister had pointed out. The situation was
eminently escapable, born not of a cold desire to kill, but of unthinking and
passionate outrage. After all, who in their right mind could want to see
someone burned alive just because they’d chosen someone other than them for their
dalliance? Firth was, according to the psychiatrist’s report, demonstrably sane
and had by his own admission sought only to frighten the other occupants of the
flat.

Firth
had mustered his own mute summing-up, weary of the prating hypocrisy he’d had
to rely upon. Nobody knew better than Firth how absurd and meaningless sex acts
were, had to be, if you wanted to keep your mind intact and your mind your own;
but there were still rules. Daphne had chosen to impale herself on the cock of
some pretty boy she barely knew and wallow in Firth’s shame. All Firth had
wanted was to feel her envelop him in an intimacy they’d both chosen, to
convince him that sex wasn’t just blanked out shame and jettisoned fluids and
pacification. Her betrayal had to be cause enough for a cleansing. She had her
weapons and he had his.

It
had certainly been cause enough for the old electricity to spark behind his
eyes and across his spine, to make his fingers clench and unclench and his
balls shrivel, at the image of flames like bounding, snapping wolves, starving
and savage, circling then closing to tear skin from muscle and muscle from
bone, to howl with joy at the purging, deserving pain of their feasting.

Had
he been a sentimental man, he might have conceded that Daphne had hurt him
profoundly. He’d been sodomised on a routine basis in care, but that was
impersonal and he’d made an accommodation of sorts. He’d been mocked, harassed
and eventually brutalised by Murphy in clink; while that was deserving of
retribution and might yield some useful compensation, it was still largely a
matter of two damaged men playing out their given roles. Daphne’s hurt had been
of a different order.

The
pounding from Braxton’s cell brought his eyes back into focus, wolves, flames
and charred, entwined corpses wiped clean from the blank canvas of the police
cell’s ceiling.  He smiled to himself, anticipating the day to come, a day of
resolution. Until today, fate had shown him only malevolence as proof of its
existence. Now, something had changed. The cops knew Murphy’s family had died
by fire. Murphy himself, an institutional tormentor of the old school, was
missing, presumed dead or on the lam. Braxton, a one-man occupational hazard
for Firth, happened to be sharing this dungeon and would inevitably be looked
at more closely by the tall, psycho detective. He closed his eyes and drifted
on the warm tide of Braxton’s pain. It was all coming together.