Darkness Falls - DS Aector McAvoy Series 0.5 (2020) Page 4

  I pick up the picture from beneath the fractured glass. Yesterday I put my fist through it, swept my arms along the mantelpiece, thrust a boot through the vase on the coffee table. An empty bottle of Southern Comfort put paid to the glass presentation case in the alcove, and my model cars are all over the floor. The tip of the ornamental Samurai Sword which used to be mounted by its side is now embedded three inches into the doorframe. My coat is hanging from its handle. Stuffing is spilling out of the slash-wounds on the sofa. My solitary award for journalism, a giant winged Pegasus on a plinth of open newspapers, made out of ceramics and weighing over a stone, is peeking out from the shattered remains of the television screen. There’s blood on the hard-wood floor.

  Clean up later. Not important.

  No food in the kitchen. I’ve let supplies run down. You do when you’re planning to kill yourself.

  Coat on. Pills in one pocket, cash in the other, both pleasantly heavy. Neither have been counted. I feel some strange aversion to dissecting these gifts into numbers and weights, figures and pounds. I don’t want to seem mercenary.

  I grab a notepad from the cupboard by the sofa and thrust it into the waist band of my trousers. Pick a packet of knock-off Polish cigarettes from the pile. Seize my bag. Sling it over a shoulder. Hug my arm to my chest and feel the pleasing weight of the gun in my inside pocket.

  Out the door, down the stairs. I throw a quick glance over my shoulder at the apartment block I call home. Edge of the city centre, opposite a church I’ve never been inside and a theatre that only gets a full house when it’s playing something the audience has seen before. There’s a little courtyard garden up ahead: dead leaves and monochrome rose-bushes.

  The ground is greasy under foot, but I grip with my toes through the slick soles of my shoes, and fall into a rhythm. It’s freezing cold, but I’m feeling something, somehow… new. It’s a prickliness across my back and a kind of gentle warmth in my belly. I feel taller. Stronger. Recharged.

  The gun, clinking against my ribs with every stride.

  And me, thinking: manic and hungry and scared and on fire …

  Six bullets.

  Six shots at happiness.

  4

  The Guildhall clock is halfway through its 9am carillon as I jog across Alfred Gelder Street towards the Hull Crown Court. Oranges and Lemons, say the bells.

  Sky up above the colour of school socks.

  Rain on the way.

  Couple of vans parked on the kerb, satellite dishes on their roofs. TV lot are here, with their good suits and perfect enunciation and their unnerving ability to look sincere when they’re going live to the studio.

  A honk of a horn: commuters losing their shit as they inch forward in insulting increments, fighting for a space, fighting each other, fighting the world and losing ….

  Three photographers in joyless bobble hats are huddling by the steps, looking at the backs of their cameras the way people are starting to look at their phones. I recognise them all. Alan from the Hull Mail greets me with a nod of his head, sending his thick bifocals an inch down his nose. Garry, from the Yorkshire Post, mutters a greeting from between his beard and his hat, and Dean, one of the local freelancers, gives me a smile. They all look chilly and put-upon, but have the air of those who have practiced being cold over the course of the last 30 years, and have learned that moaning is a leisure-pursuit and better enjoyed over a pint.

  “Going to be a bumpy ride, this one,” says Alan, blowing out a cloud of smoke. He is cupping his dog-end in his hand, embers towards his palm, as though concealing it from prying eyes.

  I insert myself into the huddle.

  “A week at least,” he continues. “Even Roper’s starting to get jumpy. Reckons Cadbury might plead manslaughter and the CPS will agree.”

  I give a snort and shake my head. “No chance. They’ve got his DNA. They found her in his flat. Houdini couldn’t escape from this one. The family would bloody riot. And Roper doesn’t get jumpy. Cadbury did it.”

  “You know that and so do I, but you know what juries are like. Law of averages, innit? You get 12 people together, one of them’s got to be a fucking idiot. Could be worse. We’ve got a backgrounder ready to go.”

  “He won’t plead,” I say. “He’s nowt to lose.”

  Alan gives me a knowing smile. “You haven’t done your backgrounder, I can tell.”

  “I have,” I say, forcing a smile. “Blinding stuff.”

  “Bollocks. Mum won’t talk, we don’t know Dad, and we’ve all got the same stuff from the victim’s family. What have you got that we haven’t?”

  I try to look as though I’m sitting on a blinding exclusive. “Have to wait and see,” I say, smugly.

  He shakes his head, not buying it. “You’ve got nowt.”

  Somebody in a suit crosses the brick forecourt carrying a briefcase. The three snappers turn, lift their cameras, reel off a couple of shots, and then turn away. In unison, they peer at the tiny digital viewers on the backs of the cameras. Happy, they let them drop.

  “I take it they haven’t arrived yet then?” I ask, lighting a fag, back to the wind.

  Garry shrugs. “Family? Haven’t seen them. Coppers might have sneaked them in the back but I doubt it. They’ve been champion up until now though. Can’t see them suddenly playing silly beggars, unless that lass in the press office has told them to clam up. Anyway, Wendy said she’s going to bring me down a holiday snap of Ella for the backgrounder.”

  “That’s the mum, yeah?”

  Garry nods. “Yeah. Nice lady. She’s keeping the whole family together. Copper told me she hasn’t even cried yet. Not like Dad. He’s aged 20 years since this happened. Honestly, when you see him it breaks your heart.”

  “Him that identified her, wasn’t it?” Alan again. Everybody’s pretending they know more than everybody else. It’s all part of the game.

  Alan looks at me like I’m slow-witted. “No, lad, none of them had to. How could they? Her face was such a mess they had to use dental records and her jewellery. Poor lass. Such a pretty girl.”

  It’s one of those unspoken rules in journalism: an unacknowledged box-ticking exercise that news editors run through when deciding how many column inches to give to a murder, and the ensuing trial. The pretty ones are always front page news. A good family helps too, whatever the hell that is. You really hit the jackpot when they’re pretty, and blue-eyed, and white and middle-class. Those are the stories that really gets Middle England tumescent over its Alpen. As a reporter for the Press Association, I’m above such considerations, but I moonlight with half a dozen different agencies, altering my style and nudging the facts into different shapes depending upon the requirements of the different newsdesks. I can be Daily Star in the morning, Telegraph of an afternoon and Socialist Worker of an evening. It can make a chap with one or two loose wires feel positively schizophrenic.

  “Surprised he didn’t get away with it on an insanity plea. Been in more nut-houses than a hungry squirrel.” Garry again.

  Me, shaking my head. Then, casually, unable to resist showing off: “I’ll be getting chapter and verse on all that later on. Seeing his mother this afternoon.”

  A few whistles and nods of a job well done. “Where d’you find her? Haven’t got a bloody word with her. Told young Tom to fuck off, and we don’t let Tony H near women, as a rule. They tend to call the police.”

  I give a smile and gesture at myself. “Talent and charm, lads.”

  We start to laugh, as Garry snorts and calls me a flash bastard.

  I gesture at the TV crews. “See they’ve made the effort then. Didn’t give a damn when she was missing, did they? Always the same. We do the donkey work then they swoop in with their cheque-books out and fuck it all up for the rest of us. I guarantee you they’ll be here for day one, sod off, then back for the verdict.”

  Garry gives a shrug and sucks through his teeth, no doubt searching for a drop of residual Stella Artois. “If it was London they’d have been all
over this from the start. Twenty-year-old girl in a wedding dress cut up in an alleyway 100 yards from her own front door? Kiddy-fiddler in the dock. Would be a bloody swarm of the bastards if it was London.”

  “Some new faces,” I say nodding at two TV people, fiddling with equipment with freezing fingers. One is a black lad in his late 20s, the other a middle-aged woman, wearing a stripy ski-hat with tassles hanging down below her matching scarf. I size her up. Londoner. Money.

  “Oh you’ll love this,” says Alan, suddenly gleeful. “They’re with Roper. Supercop’s having a TV documentary made on him.”

  “You’re joking! Christ, he does himself no favours does he?”

  “Aye, one of those fly-on-the-wall jobs. Some satellite channel following the investigation – Roper as the star. We carried a piece on it last week, but a lazy bastard like you won’t have bothered picking up a copy.”

  “Jesus. I bet he’s loving that.”

  “Turning into a proper celebrity, our Douglas. He gets fan-mail every time he goes on CrimeWatch. Must be hard for him to kick the shit out of suspects when they’re asking for autographs.”

  I stamp on my cigarette butt, and realise that for the last five minutes I’ve felt good. Felt at home. Haven’t thought about the loaded gun in my pocket or the blood on my hands.

  “Reckon I’ll get on inside then. Leave you to freeze to death. You staying long?”

  “Staying for the duration, I think. I’ll check with the desk in a few hours.”

  I give a smile and trot up the steps, pull back the glass door and stride in. There are two security desks, one to the right and one to the left. Jim, the old guy with a grey moustache and a rattly cough that can clear a room, is at the one on the left. He takes the job seriously, so I ignore him and turn right.

  Sally the Security Guard is smiling as I approach. She’s sweet on me, is Sal. 31, buxom, with short red hair and glasses, she’s managed to turn me into her ultimate fantasy figure in the three years since I first started idly chatting her up. She’s become useful since then, always letting me know if the case I’m after has changed dates or location, or if the families of crime victims have slipped out the back to avoid photographers. She buys me little things once in a while and sends filthy texts when she’s been alone with a bottle of Lambrini, but she’s a decent lass, and worth the hassle. It doesn’t take much to keep her interested, and she never makes me empty my pockets as I pass through the metal detectors. She’s also the only security guard in the building under the age of 60.

  “Morning princess,” I say as I breeze through the gates. There are three loud beeps from the metal detector, but nobody says anything. Security is a joke. We reckon the contract has been franchised to Al Qaeda.

  “Morning, Owen,” she says, blush already creeping out of the top of her navy blue uniform. “Big day – quite the circus. I tried to save you a seat but the usher said it was first-come-first-served.”

  “Story of my life,” I smile, and then lean in to whisper in her ear. “I’m never first to come.”

  She giggles, and blushes, and I’m about to give her a little cuddle when I remember the gun and decide not to risk it. “Is he here yet?” I ask, quietly.

  “The defendant?”

  “Yes, Shane Cadbury. He’s coming from Wakefield Nick isn’t he? They’ll never get him here on time. Never bloody do. Judge Skelton goes spare with ‘em every time and they still turn up half an hour late.”

  “The family haven’t turned up yet either. If you want to go for a coffee I’ll give you a shout when they arrive.” She smiles at me, eager to please. Then she spoils it, cocking her head and looking all wistful and sincere. “Everything sorted out with your sister?” she asks.

  She may as well have slapped me.

  “Same bloody story,” I say, automatically. “Don’t worry about it.”

  I curse myself. Christ, why did I tell Sal about Kerry? Why tell anyone? I don’t know if I’m ashamed of Kerry, or ashamed of myself, or if there’s no shame there at all. I don’t know if it’s all my fault, but I do know it’s my responsibility.

  “I’ll get it sorted,” I mumble, mostly to myself. I turn away as I say it, so she doesn’t see the look that crosses my face as I think about my little sister. The baby of the family and its brightest star, right up until the moment I did what I did.

  She’s smacked up to the eyeballs, most days. Bruises around every vein. Hasn’t eaten anything but cigarettes and cheap alcohol in weeks. She’s wretched when I think of her. Painfully thin. Blue veins traceable through translucent skin. Ribs cutting her from the inside. Nothing in her eyes. She’s drooling, gently, into her blonde hair; legs draped over her landlord’s shoulders or wrapped around her dealer’s waist.

  She’s almost slid too far, has Kerry. She’s almost beyond my reach. Almost too far gone to pull back.

  Suddenly my head is full of her: full of images that the pills have always succeeded in keeping blurry and peripheral.

  Kerry. The bright girl with the high cheekbones and strong, slender limbs, who loved animals and birds and flowers and trees, and who wanted to save the world, and who loved her brother more than anything. Kerry, who didn’t turn from me when I did what I did. Kerry, who tried to keep us all together, and who found that the occasional spliff helped her keep her own monsters quiet. Kerry. Who got in with the wrong people when her brother was away, and never really came back.

  “I’m off next week, if you want to pay me a house call,” says Sal, with the same hopeful expression she has used on me for as long as I’ve known her.

  “I’ll think about it, Princess,” I say, with a wink that chases away my thoughts. “I’ll think good and hard.”

  I let my hand brush her waist as I turn away and head up the winding stairs to the first floor. She wriggles like a happy cat.

  The stairs are in the middle of a circular room. Consultation rooms, corridors, and the courtrooms, all lead off the main landing. A big window faces out onto the street, with a row of padded seats in front of it, and a metal headboard that makes quite a noise when you smack it as you sit down. Circular padded chairs, all facing outwards, are arranged haphazardly across the rest of the floor space. The place is almost deserted at this early hour. I smile hello at a couple of ushers in their black gowns as I tramp over to the window and stare out past the centuries-old splendour of St Mary’s Church and its bell-tower blackened by the smoke and fog.

  I stare down at the forecourt, where three of the Hull Mail reporters have joined Garry and the others. The Mail always sends reporters mob-handed for the big cases. I’ll be doing this on my own. It took me a long while to persuade the Press Association there was a need for an office in Hull, but after they spent most of the previous year sending lads over from York and Leeds to cover the umpteen murders that had taken place, they decided it would be cheaper to have me based here full time. I don’t have an office, and the long-promised laptop has yet to arrive, so I do things the old-fashioned way, with a note-pad and a telephone, ringing my stories across direct to the copy-takers. I’ve only been on the payroll four months, but they seem happy with me. The money is steady, and a damn-sight better than when I was freelance; a hooker without the benefits of a pimp.

  I slump down in one of the chairs, careful not to bang my skull on the inexplicable metal head rest. Pick up somebody else’s Daily Star. Look at the headlines. Feel my head fall and the familiar synapses of depression and despair flaring in my skull. Such insipid shit. Such bland and meaningless fucking bollocks, and me a fucking star at creating it. No-mark celebrity shags another. Reality TV show nobody cares about might be rigged. Politicians lying. NHS failing to meet targets. Police raiding the wrong mosque and now appealing for calm in the Muslim community. Shit without flavour. Pain without feeling. Death, documented by people who don’t know how it tastes.

  I light a cigarette, and allow myself the ghost of a smile as I flip the wheel on the Zippo lighter, and let the sensation catapult me back to the may
hem of last night. I don’t flinch from the memories. The shudder that passes through my body is exhilarating. I move my arm and through the lining of my coat, allow the gun to fall into the crook of my elbow. I hold it like a cuddly toy, a source of comfort.

  I could have been dead today. I could have been floating down towards the Trent with mud in my pockets, my face white and bloated; leaves in my mouth and dirt in my hair.

  5

  “I’ve never heard that word before,” says McAvoy, a little awestruck; a little afraid. He glances across at Roisin, hunkered down inside the collar of his waterproof. She’s driving, jewelled fingers on the steering wheel, staring across the big empty car park: her vision given bars by her big false eyelashes. The windscreen wipers screech across the rain-smeared glass. It’s a less offensive sound than the stream of Traveller invective that she unleashed at the Boothferry Road roundabout not long before.

  “Which word?” she asks, amused, and flicks a glance in his direction.

  “Most of them, actually,” says McAvoy, considering. Roisin is rarely given to temper but when the outbursts come, it seems that somebody has mixed magnesium with potassium chlorate. She explodes, and burns out with an extraordinary intensity. McAvoy finds it frightening and volatile and absolutely beautiful, just like the rest of her. He treats her like a rogue firework: afraid to go near without a bucket of sand. She frequently tells him he’s an eejit, shaking her head at a joke that only she seems to understand. McAvoy, already baffled that somebody like her could truly somebody like him, hopes that whatever the joke is, it continues to please her.

  “What was it I said?” she asks, with a smile that it is safe to approach. “It just comes out, like the songs I sing Fin. It’s in your soul – you know. English is the wrong language for a Traveler – we’re poets.”

  “I think I picked up ‘dinlaw’, ‘bawlaw’ and ‘transpirate mish’ and I know enough to guess I shouldn’t ask for a direct translation.”