Screen of Deceit (11 page)

‘Don't push me around, cop,' Jack uttered.

Mark looked quizzically at his brother. ‘Jack, he was only doing his job. Don't you want to know what happened to Bethany?' Mark suddenly felt very mature. ‘It starts with me, dunnit? I found her, so course they're gonna want to talk to me first.'

Jack glared, his nostrils flaring. ‘Never,' he snorted, ‘
never
trust a cop.' He turned fearsomely to Christie again, eyeballing him. ‘They'll screw you and fit you up and before you know it, you'll have said something completely innocent that they verbal up, and you'll be facing a murder charge.'

Mark grimaced as he tried to add up what the hell had got into Jack.

Christie said, ‘Jack, belt up, eh?' He checked his watch and looked toward the kitchen door, which opened as if on cue. A white-suited crime scene investigator poked his head through the crack. The uniformed constable stepped aside.

‘We're about done here, Henry.'

Christie nodded. He turned to the two brothers. ‘That means the scenes of crime and scientific people have finished,' he explained. ‘Now we have to move Beth's body to the mortuary. Then I'll inform the local coroner who will order a post-mortem and I'm pretty sure he'll want a full inquest because of the circumstances.'

The words seemed to have a soothing, salutary effect on Jack. He leaned against the wall and raised his face to the ceiling. Mark could tell he was about to cry. He grabbed Jack around the waist and buried his head in his older brother's chest. Jack's arms encircled him and both of them gave convulsive sobs, desperately clinging to each other.

Christie stepped back, allowing them their moment of grief.

‘Let's get up to your room,' Jack said through his cascade of tears. ‘I don't want to watch her body being dragged out.' He shot Christie a look of hateful contempt and ushered Mark upstairs.

T
he undertakers arrived twenty minutes later, a local firm in a black Ford Transit Van specially adapted for the carriage of the dead. Not a hearse, but simply a means of transporting dead bodies. Two stone-faced black-suited men climbed out. Mark watched them from his bedroom window, repulsed but fascinated. He expected to see a coffin, but instead all they had was a big, grey zip-up bag, reminding him of a guitar bag, and a folding trolley, rather like waitresses use to carry dirty pots and pans, though twice as long.

Christie met them at the missing front gate, spoke to them, obviously giving instructions.

They nodded. Their faces said they did this sort of thing day in, day out. They walked past the detective and Mark heard them enter the house.

He remained at the window, his eyes on Christie.

Jack's Porsche Cayenne was parked a little way down the road. Mark saw Christie clock it, saw him react, then turn his head toward the bedroom window.

Despite feeling he should duck down out of sight, Mark stayed where he was and exchanged a look with the detective.

Mark gulped. A cold shiver ran through him. Did he know? Did the detective know that a Porsche Cayenne had driven away from the scene of a shooting with two males on board? One mid-twenties, the other early teens? That they could possibly be witnesses to an attempted murder? Mark prayed that Christie wouldn't take a close look at the car and see the bullet hole.

Christie looked at the Porsche again, gave Mark another quick glance, then walked back up the path to the house.

In that instant, Mark experienced two conflicting things. First, relief that Christie hadn't inspected the car; then the certainty that the DCI had done some sums in his head and was just working on the answer.

The bedroom door opened, Jack entered. He'd been washing his face, which looked drained. There was going to be a lot of face-washing today, Mark thought sadly. A lot of tears would need to be cleaned up, cleared away.

He decided not to share his thoughts about what he'd just seen outside with Christie and the Cayenne, but just said flatly, ‘The undertakers are here.'

Mark expected that Bethany would be zippered into the body bag, heaved on to the fold-out gurney and wheeled out of the kitchen, down the hall, out of the front door, down the few steps, along the path and slid into the back of the Transit. He caught his breath when, unexpectedly, the two undertakers emerged from the front door with the body bag slung easily between the two of them, carrying it with the light body inside, to the van. She was so light they didn't even have to put her on to a trolley. It was so … Mark searched for the word …
undignified
. She didn't even get wheeled out, just heaved out between two blokes who were chatting to each other, who didn't know her, like they were moving sacks of veg in ASDA.

That was all his sister had become.

A commodity to be moved.

The harrowing thought he had then was that there was no dignity in death. You might meet your death with honour – or not, as in Beth's case – but beyond that you just became something to be shifted about, to be poked at or investigated, then buried or burned to ashes.

Footsteps on the stairs made him turn.

DCI Christie again.

Jack stood up. He'd been sprawled on the bed, a pillow pressed down over his face in an effort to smother his sobs.

‘We've finished in the kitchen now,' Christie said, poking his head around the bedroom door. ‘I can recommend someone to come and do a clean-up if you want.'

‘Stuff that,' Jack said, wiping his eyes, ‘we'll do it.'

‘Whatever,' Christie said. ‘I need to follow the undertaker down to the mortuary for evidential reasons, so I'm going now.'

‘What happens now?' blurted Mark.

‘As I said – coroner, post-mortem, inquest, maybe a full police investigation.'

‘What happens at the post-mortem?' Mark asked.

‘An expert finds out how Bethany died.'

‘In other words, you cut her up?' Jack snarled.

Christie eyed Jack as though he were an imbecile. ‘That will happen as there's no other way of doing a PM … now, I need to go. I want you,' he turned to Mark, ‘and you,' he looked at Jack, ‘to be at Blackpool Police Station at 1 p.m. today. I need to interview Mark and take a statement, OK?'

‘Why there? Why not here?' Jack demanded.

‘Fewer distractions. Trust me, it'll be easier for us all.' Christie turned to leave, hesitated, spun back. ‘I am sorry for your loss,' he said sincerely. He glanced at both brothers, then left with a curt nod.

As the door closed, Jack said, ‘Like hell you are.'

It became a madhouse, especially when his mother turned up – eventually – and began weeping and wailing and throwing herself around the house, as well as chucking ornaments and anything else she could lay her hands on that would fly and smash. People started coming and going, folk Mark hardly knew or had never seen in his life. A succession of his mother's friends knocking on the door, coming in and entering the ‘who could cry the loudest' contest to show they were more upset than anyone else.

Mark despised it.

He watched them come and go, a sneer implanted firmly on his face, his cold eyes taking it all in.

Everyone got a big hug from his mum.

He didn't.

Whether by accident or design, he could not tell. But one thing was for sure: his mum didn't grab and squeeze him and as much as it would have repelled him, it was something he craved.

He needed her to give him a hug. To feel her arms encircle him and hold him tight so he could sob with her. Just her. Her and Jack. No one else. Not these ‘best friends' who were crawling out of the woodwork like worms. He just wanted it to be him, Mum and Jack. The family that didn't exist.

Instead it was like Piccadilly Circus.

And he hated it.

He gave up hoping and retreated to his room again, his haven of peace, his comfort zone; the world he had made his own. He didn't want to see anyone, especially after having had to recount his experience with Christie down at the nick. That had taken nearly three hours and he was mentally exhausted.

Up in his room he sat in his armchair, sunk deep in its knackered cushions and stared at nothing. That was all he did: stare and brood, deep anger and resentment boiling up inside him, building like a volcano. Much of it directed at his wayward mother. He had once seen an episode of the 1980s American TV series
Dallas
, about a mega-rich oil family in Texas. The episode had been on Bradley's TV on one of the satellite channels and he'd watched it by accident, but there had been one bit in it that had always stuck in his mind. A guy having a real dig at his ex-wife, calling her ‘a drunk, a whore and an unfit mother'.

A description fitting his own mother to a ‘T'.

There was another knock on the front door.

Mark looked at the clock. It was 8 p.m. now. Mark ignored the knock, so deep was he in his black thoughts.

In the living room there was still lots of crying and caterwauling going on. More knocking: probably another bunch of his mother's long-lost friends come to commiserate and enter the crying competition.

He heard footsteps in the hall and the door open, then Jack's voice booming up the stairs. ‘Mark, it's for you.'

Mark shook his head. He inhaled deeply and, reluctantly, pushed himself out of the armchair, no desire whatever to go down. But he forced himself on legs wobbling like jelly. The front door had been closed on whoever it was and Jack had obviously returned to the fray in the front room, leaving the caller standing outside. Very welcoming – not, Mark thought, and opened the door to find Katie Bretherton on the front step.

They stared at each other for a few moments, before Katie's bottom lip quivered, her face crumpled and she said, ‘Mark, I'm so sorry.'

‘News gets around fast,' he responded sullenly, taking her aback.

She composed herself. ‘I just thought I'd see how you were.'

‘Thanks,' he said, less than graciously.

‘OK, fine. It's obviously a bad time.' She turned to go, fuming that he was being so cold and distant with her.

But Mark reached out and grabbed her shoulder, turning her back to face him.

‘Sorry,' he said meekly, with a pathetic shrug. ‘Bad day all round.'

‘Do you wanna talk?'

‘Uh – no. I don't know what I want,' he admitted.

‘Do you wanna hang out with me, or something? No pressure, like.'

He half turned and gestured down the hallway to the living room. ‘I think I'm kinda expected to stay, but actually, I wouldn't mind someone to hang out with … d'you fancy coming in, upstairs?'

She had never been in his house before and because of today's tragedy, he fully expected her to refuse. She didn't.

And obviously, she had never been in his bedroom. It was a strange feeling having a girl in the room, even if it was Katie.

‘Nice room,' she said appreciatively, eyeing everything.

‘All my own work,' he said proudly.

‘Could do with new wallpaper and some nice curtains, though.' She glanced at Mark with a slight grin. ‘Girl thing. Not keen on the green.'

‘Fancy a go on the PlayStation?'

‘What games you got?'

Mark reeled them off and Katie chose a racing car game they both could play. Ten minutes later, they had both squeezed on to the armchair and were well into the game. They were side-by-side, legs crossed over each other, the closest Mark had ever been to her for any length of time.

It felt very good when he got used to it. He could feel all her bumps and curves and bones and the longer he sat there, the better it became.

‘Beat you again,' Katie said.

‘Yep.' His throat was dry and his neck and face were red with the heat. He balanced the controller on the chair arm, Katie did likewise with hers. Their faces were only inches apart, so close it was almost impossible to focus. Especially when your heart was thumping like something going crazy and there was an amazing sensation deep and low inside.

‘You're easy,' she smirked.

‘Yep,' he croaked.

In the distance the sounds of anguish still emanated from the ground floor. People came and went. The noises seemed a long way away, as the beat of Mark's heart made his ears pound.

Katie budged up a bit and twisted slightly so that they were no longer side to side, but wedged in the armchair in a ‘V' shape, facing each other properly without having to crick their heads. Mark's left arm was trapped underneath him.

He could smell her breath. He could smell her skin. He could see her complexion close up and it was smooth and flawless. His breathing was short and stuttery.

She blinked and angled her face downwards slightly so she looked up seductively at him through half-closed eyes, her pupils wide.

Mark shifted slightly, very uncomfortable, yet wonderful, because of what was happening to him as his jeans became tight and constricting.

Katie's lips parted slightly. ‘I'd like you to kiss me.'

They had kissed once before, nothing more than a rushed playground snog in front of other kids, a messy clash of teeth, nothing really.

This was altogether on another plane.

‘How
do
you kiss?' he asked daftly.

‘Slowly and softly,' she murmured, as though highly experienced. Her right arm was wedged down between them, but with her left hand she touched Mark's face, drawing a sharp intake of breath from him.

‘You an expert?' he asked.

She shook her head and moved her head nearer.

Their lips came softly together at first, then started to mash as the kiss grew with ferocity and young passion.

Both groaned, their hormones working overtime.

Mark grabbed her with his free hand and pulled her tight to him, lost in the moment, the death of his sister – for the time being – a zillion miles away.

Katie had quite short-cropped hair, but Mark managed to muss it up well. She was as red-faced as he was, short of breath, and after ten minutes of intense kissing, just about ready for a breather.