The Murder Bag (18 page)

‘Could you explain the role of a House Master at Potter’s Field?’ I said.

Waugh sniffed.

‘A boarding school is really just a day school with hotels attached,’ he said. ‘The House Master is in charge of the hotel where the boys live. He assumes a parental role – encouraging, supporting and making sure they participate fully in the life of the school. Disciplining when necessary.’ The thin smile. ‘Although of course there’s not so much of that these days. Boys don’t get flogged and they don’t learn so much. So what they gain at one end they lose at the other.’

There were bird-like noises from the far side of the playing fields.

‘Hark,’ said Waugh. ‘I believe Mr Philips and the boys are coming home.’

The soldiers saw it first.

Mallory and I had left the Head Master’s office and were standing on the touchline of the main rugby pitch, watching the state school boys getting thrashed by their hosts, not really noticing the boys as they poured out of the tree line, covered in mud, their thin limbs flying.

But the soldiers had stopped their gentle exercise regime and were staring. And then we saw it too.

The boys were crying.

They ran past us, some of them locked in silence as tears streamed down their faces, some of them making the animal noises of shocked grief.

I grabbed one of them by the arm.

‘What’s happened?’ I said.

‘Please, sir,’ he sobbed. ‘It’s Mr Philips, sir. Please, sir, someone’s killing him.’

Then Guy Philips came out of the tree line with his hands around his neck and his white tracksuit livid with fresh blood. He stumbled across the playing fields, his legs on the edge of going, his eyes telling us that he was drowning.

We ran to meet him, and as he collapsed in Mallory’s arms, the blood began pumping out of his wound.

Mallory tore off his tie, already covered in blood, and I saw the wound, a far deeper red than the blood that was flowing. Then Mallory was winding the tie around the sports master’s ravaged throat, pressing it against the wound, trying to staunch the terrible flood, crouching beside him in the mud. Mallory had his phone in one hand but it slithered away from him, slick with blood.

And I heard him call my name as I began running towards the woods.

I was alone in the woods. I kept running until I came to an open field, as barren as the surface of the moon. There I stopped, finding my breath, uncertain if I should turn back to the woods or cross the ploughed field. There was a farm on the far side.

I saw the tree I was standing next to had a perfect bloody handprint on its trunk.

I looked across at the farm. There was nothing moving. And then something seemed to stir inside. There was a glimpse of a shadow. I didn’t know if it was my imagination or a man or a trick of the dying light. But I began jogging towards it.

There was some kind of square brick pen, crumbling with age, and as I paused by it I saw that the windows of the farmhouse had all been joyfully smashed. Nobody had lived here for years.

I leaned against the low brick wall and jolted when I heard the noise. Like a baby’s cry. I looked into the pen and I saw the pig. Its hind legs had been tied with some kind of twine, as if in preparation for slaughter, and fearing for its life it had crawled on its belly across the dirt of the pen. I stepped over some broken brickwork and crouched down beside the pig. It squealed with terror as I pulled at the twine with my bare hands until I had set it free. It scampered away, wild-eyed with panic.

And as I made to stand up there was a sudden explosion of pain at the back of my skull.

And then, following each other so closely that it felt like one blow, the inner edge of a forearm smashed into my throat and a fist hammered into the small of my back.

Now strong arms were around me, and he was right behind me, forcing my head back. He was near enough for me to kick him in the shins but I was suddenly not strong enough to do it, and he was close enough for me to rip his balls off, but suddenly I was too drained by shock and pain to even try.

Then he had me.

The palm of his left hand pulled hard against my right cheek, his fingertips pressing through the flesh and into my teeth as he twisted my face to one side. I looked down and glimpsed the knife.

The Fairbairn-Sykes commando dagger. The only knife ever designed to sever the carotid arteries of a man’s neck.

The long thin blade moved a fraction and the steel tip pressed into the side of my neck, found a muscle it didn’t like, edged forward, prodded the Adam’s apple for a moment and then slipped back to the fleshy, resistant part of my neck and settled there, pressing harder.

The knife broke my skin with a sharp prick of pain.

I could feel his steady breath on the back of my throbbing head.

The wet warmth of fresh blood slid down my neck.

I tried to drop my centre of gravity. Terrified now, I lashed out with the heels of my shoes. I fought him and I fought my exhaustion, I bit and I cursed, refusing to let either overwhelm me.

But he held me tighter, and I was weak with pain, and the tip of his knife went in deeper, and the blade was buried in my flesh now.

I felt myself sag in his arms.

‘Please,’ I said. ‘I have a daughter.’

He stopped.

The stump of metal at the knife handle’s base banged once against my right temple. And then once against my left temple. It must have put me out for a few seconds because the next thing I knew I was down on my knees, dizzy and sick.

‘Please,’ I said, and when I looked up I saw the bag.

A worn-leather Gladstone bag.

A Murder Bag.

Waiting for him on a dry patch of ground inside the pigpen.

A boot’s steel toecap slammed with full force into the base of my spine. The pain was blinding. I saw yellow light and exploding stars. I felt my back go into spasms of agony.

I realised I was screaming.

There were noises and lights but they were all inside my head. I dragged myself away on my hands and knees. I could not stand. I kept crawling. My muscles were paralysed slabs of pain and only my fear kept me moving. Time meant nothing but I knew it was passing because the ground changed beneath me, from the hard churned mud of the ploughed field to the carpet of dead leaves that covered the woods. And finally I was on grass. Now I heard voices that were not inside my head.

Then there was hot breath on the side of my face and I reared away in mortal panic.

‘Please,’ I said.

And I stared into the terrified face of the pig.

14

I LAY ON
my bed in the darkness and the sound of my daughter playing with the dog in the main room edged me closer to sleep. It was a soothing sound, their play – Scout’s laughter like temple bells, and the soft padding of the dog as he chased after whatever chewed-up old toy she was trailing. But then another spasm of pain would grip my back and I would jolt awake.

When they found me at the edge of the playing fields they had taken me to the nearest A&E to Potter’s Field. The doctor wanted to keep me in overnight but that was impossible. I had to get home to Scout. So, after the usual routine – lights in the eyes, questions about being sick, checking for broken bones – the doctor reluctantly let a uniformed officer drive me home where Mrs Murphy took one look at me and packed me off to bed, saying she would call her family, take care of Scout and sleep on our sofa. For a night and a day I stayed in my bed, true rest always just out of reach, the pain never far away.

The tremors began at the bottom of my spine and rolled all the way to the base of my skull, and it was like every muscle in my back, shoulders and neck was clenching at once. At first the pain had an exact centre – the spot in my back where he had kicked me. But as the hours dragged by in that exhausting place between sleeping and waking, that centre point seemed to migrate, up to a shoulder, across to my ribs, to my neck, to the very middle of my back, as if it was seeking a happier home. I never knew where it would be next.

But the muscle spasms were the worst. They made me arch my back whenever another wave of blinding pain rolled through me. I almost cried out loud with the latest one.

‘Daddy?’

Scout was in the doorway. I thought I had frightened her. But she was holding the phone.

‘It’s some lady,’ she said.

I waited until she was in the other room and I could hear Mrs Murphy quietly talking to her, telling her they needed to fix her hair.

‘Wolfe,’ I said.

‘Scarlet Bush.’ I could hear the excitement in the reporter’s voice. ‘You met him. You met Bob the Butcher.’

‘I don’t know who I met.’

‘It has to be Bob.’

‘How did you get this number?’

‘We want to help you find him,’ she said. ‘My editor has spoken to our proprietor. We have his full backing to help you bring Bob the Butcher to justice.’

‘You stitched me up. Your bloody story put words in my mouth that I never said.’

She remained completely calm. ‘E. L. Doctorow said, “I am led to the proposition that there is no fiction or non-fiction as we commonly understand the distinction, there is only narrative.”’

‘You mean you make stuff up?’

‘Not quite. I mean there are facts and then there’s the truth.’ She paused. ‘Was that your little girl who answered the phone? Was that Scout?’

I struggled to contain my anger. ‘Never call my home again.’

‘Did you see his face?’

‘Never speak to my daughter.’

‘Did he talk to you?’

‘Stay right away from her.’

‘Did you say something to him?’

A spasm of pain clenched my back. I bit down against it, my mouth tight shut, and ragged breath came from my nose. It made the reporter feel like she was on to something.

‘You did, didn’t you?’

Please. I have a daughter.

Begging him.

Begging a murderer for my life.

Sick with the fear. Unmanned by the terror.

Please.

‘What did you say to him, detective? Did you reason with him? Did you threaten him? How did you feel? We are hearing reports about the murder weapon. Some kind of Special Forces knife? Old school.’ I could hear her tapping a keyboard. ‘A Fairbairn-Sykes commando dagger. Is that what you saw?’

I cursed under my breath. Where did they get this from?

‘One final question,’ she said. ‘Technical point. A third murder is the game changer, isn’t it?’ Her tone was lighter now. She was happy. ‘Because when we have three murders, it’s official: we have a serial killer.
That’s true, isn’t it?’

I hung up.

Stan padded into the room and watched with interest as I tried to get dressed. He cocked his head to one side as I struggled to get my socks on. There was no longer enough give in my back for me to bend forward.

‘You’re not allowed in this room,’ I said. ‘Go on, Stan, get out.’

He lay down, still watching me. Sitting on the bed, I pulled my shirt on. Stan rested his chin on his front paws. I buttoned up the shirt and had another go at my socks. But it was no good. The muscles in my back were petrified.

Apparently bored with my pathetic efforts, the dog got up and yawned. Then he stretched, first lifting his tailbone in the air, his chest almost touching the ground, and then rocking forward on to his front legs, his hind legs and back almost a straight line.

Then he looked at me.

You try it.

But I knew if I got down on the floor I would need the fire brigade to get me up. So I stood with my forearms resting on the bed and pushed back with my tailbone, feeling the stretch in my lower back. Then I rocked forward, and there it was in my hamstrings – that sweet feeling of muscles that had been sleeping suddenly waking up.

I kept doing it – rocking back, rocking forward, a modest approximation of my dog’s stretches – until I was sweating and breathless but finally loose enough to sit on the bed and pull on my socks.

Stan watched me.

Yeah
, he seemed to say.
You got it.

Scarlet Bush was right – three deaths and we were no longer hunting a murderer. We were hunting a serial killer.

But we were not there yet.

Piggy Philips was lying in a hospital bed, breathing through a ventilator because of the puncture wound in his windpipe, uniformed officers outside his door twenty-four hours a day as he stubbornly clung to life.

15

THERE IS A
canteen in 27 Savile Row, but just the other side of Regent Street all of Soho is waiting for you with every kind of food in the world. So if you work out of West End Central, the backstreets of Soho are your real canteen.

I found Elsa Olsen in a Korean restaurant at the top of Glasshouse Street. The forensic pathologist was just polishing off a bowl of dak bulgogi and steamed rice.

‘You look like death warmed up, Max.’

I eased myself into the chair opposite her.

‘Coming from someone in your job, Elsa, I’m going to consider that a compliment.’

She waved her chopsticks. ‘You want something to eat?’

I shook my head.

‘If you don’t want lunch then you’re here to ask me about a man with a knife wound in his windpipe,’ she said.