Then She Was Gone (26 page)

Starting with Matthew Williams.

He’s still the snivelling, dribbling wreck he has been for the previous few hours. Oblivious to what is going to happen to him, how these are the last moments of his life. The misery and
sin he has inflicted on people will be no more. He will be gone, no longer able to harm anyone else.

Matthew Williams will be missed only by those who don’t really know what is beneath the surface of his persona. They don’t know about his black core, the darkness which hides there,
the evil which lies within the man. Williams himself won’t even acknowledge these truths. He would pretend to be a good man for the rest of his days, given the chance. Not that you’re
going to give him that opportunity.

You’re going to kill him. Just like the others.

You know there’s no way Matthew Williams will feel guilt for what he has done. He doesn’t believe he has done anything wrong at all.

That’s what these men are like.

Matthew Williams’s pleas of mercy echo around the abandoned warehouse, driving you crazy with their repetitiveness. The setting is apt; the desolation and despair seeping out of every wall
gives the scene even more menace and threat. No one will find you here. You and he are alone.

The ball-peen hammer is heavy, which gives it a sense of finality. It will take more than a single swing, you know that, but it will begin and finish the job.

The only sounds you hear are the sniffing and hitching breaths of Matthew Williams and the crinkle of the white paper suit which covers you. You hold the hammer aloft, the weight of it burning
your upper arm.

The hammer makes a dull thud into Matthew Williams’s face as you swing it down. Again and again, turning his face into a bloodied mess of bone and blood and brain matter.

You start giggling, then laughing loudly, as you become the only breathing thing left in the building.

Afterwards, you stand over the body, trying to work out where the facial features used to be. The hammer is a dead weight in your hand now – a simple tool waiting to become a weapon again.
You feel it drop out of your hand and it clatters to the floor.

You’re in the moment, as you’ve heard people say. Everything is happening now, in the present. It has meaning.

You don’t know what to feel. The violence you have inflicted on someone stares back at you and you have nothing left to give.

You wonder if everyone is the same as you. If, when pushed, everyone could do what you’ve done.

You blink, once, twice, your breathing still heavy and long. You swallow, waiting for the inevitable.

There are no sirens racing towards you. No angry shouts, no one telling you to get down on the floor. You hear nothing but the sound of your own breath. You can imagine there are rats scurrying
about in hidden crevices, but you don’t hear them.

You look down at your hands, noticing the shaking for the first time. They are different than they had been before. They look misshapen, gnarled, inhuman. There is something animalistic about
them, bloody and scarred. You blink and they appear normal again, slightly bloodstained, but otherwise normal.

The wreck of life still lies at your feet, unmoving and broken. You stare at it for a while, waiting for any signs of breathing to return. You know it isn’t possible, but still you
linger.

You know it won’t be too long before the emptiness within you returns.

You begin to pack up, leaving the body for last. You know that will be the most difficult thing to deal with. You don’t have to worry about cutting up this body. You planned this one out
better. Not as much distance to travel.

You make your way outside, fresh air hitting you with a blast, taking your breath away. You can smell the River Mersey close by, the salty murkiness of it, as it bleeds into and from the Irish
Sea. You wonder what it would be like to strip down and feel the cold water on your bare skin. You clean your hands in the moonlight, making sure there’s nothing there that would be
noticeable from a glance.

You don’t feel anything and begin to worry about the lack of emotion. You were supposed to feel something – fear, guilt, horror, responsibility – but nothing was there. You
feel numb.

You know it’s not enough. Not yet.

There is a list. Eight men, all written down, waiting for their turn.

You have to keep moving forwards. Making a new plan, working out your next step.

You wonder what to do next. You know the answer, but suddenly the weight of the situation begins to bear down on you. You want to sleep, close your eyes and not open them again. You know that
can’t happen. You know that you have to keep going.

You shove those feelings to one side, leave the note on the top of the empty shell of Matthew Williams and walk away.

Back to what is supposedly normality.

‘What if it is just a coincidence?’ DC Hale said, leaning back in his swivel chair, legs spread wide. ‘Two guys who knew each other in university, one gets
done for murder, the other ends up dead. Two very different situations, two separate cases. I think we might be putting too much emphasis on this.’

‘It’s still weird enough to note down, though,’ Rossi said, catching up on the previous hours’ events on her return. ‘I don’t like it.’

‘There’s no pattern,’ Murphy said, standing up and moving over to the murder board. ‘Yet. Two out of eight is nothing. If we suddenly start finding out the rest of them
are in prison or dead, then we can talk.’

‘Well, maybe we need to find the others then. Make sure there isn’t anything going on? It would have an effect on the investigation if it has anything to do with a club the victim
created years ago.’

‘True, Jack,’ Murphy said to DC Kirkham who was standing next to DC Hale, chalk and cheese if ever there was a comparison to make, he thought. ‘You and Hale can get onto
that.’

‘All six?’ DC Hashem said from her own desk. ‘Me and Graham could take some on as well, maybe? Means things go quicker.’

‘You’re right, Abs,’ Murphy replied, shooting DC Hale a look as he exhaled too loudly. ‘Only it’s five, as we know where Simon Jackson is. You and Graham chase up
Paul Wright and James Morley. Graham, just help where you can, because I still want you to look at CCTV images from where Sam’s body and car were found. Jack, Mike, you can knuckle down in
finding Matthew Williams, Neil Letherby and Christopher Roberts. Find out where they are by this evening, please.’

‘What are we doing?’ Rossi said, once Murphy had joined her back at their interconnected desks. ‘You delegate all this stuff out and leave us with nothing.’

‘Oh, we have something,’ Murphy replied, giving her a smirk. ‘We’re going to see the woman you recognised.’

*    *    *

Two prostitutes in one day, Murphy thought. His standing was really going up in the world. They drove towards Liverpool 8, the Toxteth area of Liverpool, the roads around them
becoming quieter as they left the city centre, Murphy tried to put what they had learned in previous hours out of his mind.

‘All that matters is her story now,’ Murphy said, almost to himself. ‘Nothing else.’

‘She was potentially the last person to see him alive. That’s if I’m right, and she saw him at all, of course.’

‘Sounded like she did when I spoke to her on the phone,’ Murphy said, slowing down for a set of traffic lights on the A561 – which Murphy couldn’t help but call the Speke
Road, even if he was miles away from the town where he’d grown up. The road, which lay parallel to Riverside Drive on the banks of the Mersey, ran from the city centre dissecting the city and
various smaller towns as it did so. Murphy looked out the window at his surroundings. There was a large Tesco store on his left, as there always seemed to be these days, and a bloke walking an
aggressive-looking Staffie. The man’s trackie/black shoe combination wasn’t really working for him but the dog was probably enough to stop anyone from telling him that.

Murphy drove through the lights and turned left onto Melville Street, pulling into Peel Street a couple of minutes later. A sea of purple bins lined the street, waiting to be either picked up or
moved from the roadside by the residents.

‘Not bad houses, these,’ Rossi said, waiting for Murphy to turn off the engine as he parked up. ‘Wish they’d do something about the whole area.’

‘Don’t hold your breath on that one,’ Murphy replied, straightening the car and parking up. ‘It’s a flat anyway. All of these houses are probably the same now.
Divided up and let out. It’s the new retirement plan. Wish I’d bought a load myself a few years back.’

‘Do they still sing that Robbie Fowler song on the kop?’

Murphy remembered the old song which he’d sung himself at Anfield – the home of Liverpool Football Club – to the tune of ‘Yellow Submarine’.

We all live in a Robbie Fowler house, a Robbie Fowler house, a Robbie Fowler house.

‘Not that I’ve heard in the past few years. And his name is God, thank you very much.’

There were a few new-build houses on the street, but for the most part, it was a glorious mix of pre- and postwar architecture, revealing the dichotomy of a city still clinging on to the past
whilst trying to move forward into the future.

Murphy waited for a group of three women to pass him, all of them giving him the eye as they walked by. Not the nice kind either. It was the
we-know-what-you-are
-type
stare, which spoke of the area’s long-held grievance against the police.

‘This one?’ Rossi said, joining Murphy and looking briefly towards the women, who had begun to speak in low voices now they were further away. ‘Looks a bit nice for
her.’

‘Have you not been here before?’ Murphy replied.

‘No, I only dealt with her at the station.’

‘Well, then, yeah, this one.’

They climbed the steps and looked for Tania Waites’s name by the entrance buzzer. Murphy pressed the button for flat C, waiting for an answer before pressing it again.

Above them, a sash window opened up and a face appeared and disappeared in short measure. ‘Yeah?’ A tinny voice crackled through the speaker.

‘It’s DI Murphy . . . David, we spoke on the phone.’

There was a long pause, which went on for so long, Murphy almost pressed the buzzer again.

‘Come up,’ the voice crackled again.

A buzzing sound came from the door and Rossi pushed it open ahead of Murphy. There was a small hallway in front of them with a staircase directly ahead of them. They made their way upstairs, the
creak of every step screeching through Murphy like nails on a chalkboard.

‘Might come back here with some nails for those floorboards,’ Murphy said, joining Rossi on the second landing. ‘Can’t stand that noise.’

‘Tania?’ Rossi said. The front door leading into the flat had been left open, but no one was there to greet them. ‘You in here?’

‘Come through,’ a voice said from within. Murphy followed Rossi inside, closing the door behind him. There wasn’t a hallway as such, just a door leading into the living
room.

Rossi pushed that door open as well, making her way inside, Murphy close behind her. The living area was bright, a couple of large sash windows taking up almost the entire length of one wall.
Wooden laminate covered all the floors, and a nice modern kitchen adjoined the living room. When it was empty, Murphy imagined it would look fantastic in photographs on Rightmove or the like.

It wasn’t empty.

The furniture was sparse, but what there was of it looked like it had been modern back in the seventies. There was a small flat-screen TV perched on a bedside cabinet in the corner of the room.
The walls were bare, save for a clock on one wall, which would have showed the correct time around four hours earlier.

Tania was standing by the window with her back to them. Smoke drifted from the cigarette in her hand and out through the open window. The smell of tobacco hit them as they moved further into the
room.

‘Did you close the door after you?’ Tania said, her back still to them. Her accent wasn’t Scouse, but there were some traces of Liverpudlian in her pronunciation. ‘I
don’t want anyone else thinking they can just waltz in.’

‘You remember me, Tan?’ Rossi said, moving across the room to stand near her. ‘We met a few months ago.’

Tania lifted her head slowly and glanced at Rossi and nodded. ‘Back for another crack?’

‘Nothing like that,’ Rossi said, staring at the cigarette in Tania’s hand. Murphy had given her props for keeping off the habit, but it was difficult when it was in your face.
‘I think you know why we’re here.’

‘Your man back there knows as much,’ Tania replied, taking another drag from the cigarette, then letting it fall out of the window to the ground below. Murphy took a step forwards
and saw the marks on the back of her neck for the first time. Yellowed bruising, darkened circles around them. Tania covered them with her hand as if she knew he was looking at them.

‘Do you want to sit down?’ Murphy said. ‘We just want to talk to you for a bit.’

‘Why not?’ Tania said, giving Rossi a tight smile and moving over to the rickety cane sofa. It was the only place to sit in the small space which left Murphy hovering opposite her.
As much as a six foot four inch lump could hover, anyway.

‘I’m guessing you know why we’re here,’ Rossi said, perching on the windowsill, which Murphy had decided wouldn’t support his weight. She had no such issues,
though. ‘It’s about last Thursday night . . .’

‘Of course it is,’ Tania said, leaning back in the sofa and crossing one leg over the other. She was wearing tight jeans, but her feet were bare. A low-cut top was covered by a black
cardigan, but it slipped to reveal more marks around her throat. ‘I was thinking of coming in, but you know how it is.’

‘What happened?’ Murphy said, thinking getting to the point was probably right for the situation.

‘I think you can guess,’ Tania replied, removing the cardigan and revealing more skin. Her arms seemed untouched, apart from a few slight marks, but the chest area was worse than
Murphy had guessed. ‘A punter got too much. Will pay the next two months’ rent, though, so there’s that.’