Buried-6 (45 page)

There was a thump from the cel ar: a shoe against a wooden stair.

‘Let the boy go,’ Thorne said. ‘I’l stay.’

Lardner looked at him.

‘We’l
both
stay. But you could just let Luke walk out of here.’

Another tug, and more rope dancing in. Another thump from behind the door, and a voice; indistinguishable, but clearly that of someone in pain.

An equal y agonised sound broke from Maggie Mul en. She spluttered, ‘
please’
and ‘
don’t’
, then her head dropped forward until her knees muffled her voice, and the terrible sound of her begging became something grunted, animalistic.

Lardner stared at the woman he claimed to love, as though something else, something he didn’t understand, was responsible for her pain.

She lifted her head, held her breath and searched for some compassion in his face.

Thorne didn’t look away from Lardner. He wondered how much of his attention was real y focused on the woman. Then he glanced down at the knife in the man’s left hand. Was Lardner left-handed? He thought about making a move but did nothing.

‘Right . . . come
on
.’

As soon as Lardner stood and began hauling in the rope, al three were on their feet: Lardner dragging the rope towards himself with one hand, twisting the arm quickly, coiling the rope between elbow and fist, while the other hand continued to point the kitchen knife; Thorne and Maggie Mul en staring – hopeful, terrified – at the smal , brown door.

The silence between the bumps and cracks of feet on the stairs felt like hands over Thorne’s ears, and his skin continued to shrink; to feel as though it were constricting across his bones. He imagined pressure building on the muscle and the creamy layers of fat as they were squeezed; the blood rushing, searching for the easiest way to burst through the flesh that stretched and thinned. For one strange, disconnected moment he thought he felt it gathering, about to gush from the smal wound in his hand, and he pressed the palm hard against the side of his leg.

The rope was high off the ground now, and taut.

The noise on the stairs grew louder . . .

Maggie Mul en’s hands were steepled in front of her face. They had flattened, been pressed tight across her mouth, by the time the door to the cel ar was shouldered open, crashed back against the wal , and her son stumbled into the room.

She screamed when she saw that his face had gone.

TWENTY-EIGHT

‘Yes, I’m sorry about that,’ Lardner said. ‘But he got a bit excited when I told him you were coming. Got very noisy.’ He pointed the knife at Maggie Mul en when she took a step towards her son, then twisted the blade to point out his handiwork. ‘I did it in a bit of a hurry, but I made sure he could breathe, obviously . . .’

The black gaffer tape had been wrapped clumsily, round and round Luke Mul en’s face, and in such haste that what remained on the rol hung down, knocking awkwardly against the boy’s shoulder as he moved; against the rope that had been looped around his neck and now stretched tightly to where Lardner stood next to the sofa.

Luke stood, swaying on the spot.

Brick-dust streaked his hair, and the navy-blue Butler’s Hal blazer was torn at the pocket and ghost-grey with dirt. One hand stayed stiff against his side while the other clutched at the rope around his neck. Thorne could see that the backs of his hands were almost black with filth, and bloodied.

The boy strained instinctively towards his mother, his neck pul ing forward against the rope, moaning,
growling
, when Lardner dragged him back. The word had sounded sung almost, from behind the tape. It was impossible to make out clearly, but easy enough to guess at.

Two syl ables, definitely.

‘
Mummy
. . .’

Maggie Mul en tried to say her son’s name but lost it in the sob. She mouthed it as she moved across to Thorne, reached out a hand and took a handful of his leather jacket at the elbow.

Thorne remained stil . Whatever she had done, or been responsible for, it had become impossible not to feel
something
for this woman. Seeing what she was seeing; watching the misery carve itself deeper into her face.

Luke swayed and shouted again.

His nose looked obscenely pink and fleshy through a gap in the thick mask of tape. The crooked line of gaffer stopped below his eyes, which had been blinking furiously, widening since he’d stepped from the dark of the cel ar into the living room.

Lardner hauled the boy closer to him, more brutal y this time.

He pointed with the knife again, first to Luke’s face, then to the cel ar door. ‘It’s stupid, real y,’ he said. ‘There’s a perfectly good light down there, but the bulb needs replacing.

Actual y, it went just before Mum died and she asked me to change it for her. I said I would, but you know how you never get round to doing these things. So . . .’ He saw something in Thorne’s face. ‘Now you think there’s some kind of Norman Bates thing going on, and I’m trying to keep everything the way it was, don’t you?’ He smiled. ‘I haven’t got my mother stashed upstairs, you know.’ He reached out a foot towards the sofa, flicked it against the edge of the dustsheet. ‘These things are purely practical, I promise you . . .’

‘I lost my father a year ago,’ Thorne said. ‘Almost exactly a year.’

Relief flooded into Lardner’s face. ‘So you
know
.’

‘I know it’s hard. But nobody else has to pay for it.’

‘She’s not paying for
that
.’

‘What then?’

‘You can’t treat people the way she did. Not the people who love you.’

‘She ended it because she felt guilty,’ Thorne said. ‘She was thinking about her family.’

Lardner found this funny. ‘She never thought about them before.’

Next to him, Thorne felt Maggie Mul en’s grip on his arm tighten. She spoke softly to Luke, told him that it was going to be al right. That it would soon be over.

Luke nodded, then staggered as he was pul ed to one side. He took a step and regained his balance, his hand scrabbling where the rope was biting into his throat.

‘Whatever else happens,’ Lardner said, ‘she’l be thinking about them a damn sight more from now on.’

Thorne looked at the distance between himself and Lardner.

No more than eight feet. At the end of the rope, Luke was another five or six away, to Lardner’s right.

‘It sounds to me like it was just about shitty timing,’ Thorne said. ‘That’s al . Probably nobody’s fault . . .’

Lardner held the knife out hard in front of him. His arm was tense, shaking with the effort and the intent, but his tone when he spoke was tender, regretful.

‘I’ve thought of little else but her for five years, and it was instant, you know? Wel , it was with me, at any rate. Maybe what happened with Sarah Hanley bound us together, made what we already had stronger.’ He turned the grip of the knife slowly in his fist. ‘She tried to end it once, back when her husband found out, but I knew she was only doing what he wanted.

So I didn’t know she meant it this time, either. I didn’t know how serious she was . . . serious enough to do it
when
she did. I didn’t know she could be so completely
fucking
heartless.’

Maggie Mul en’s eyes stayed on her son, but she shook her head.

‘And I didn’t know how hard it was going to hit me. You don’t, do you, even if you see these things coming? And I didn’t see either of them coming. Mags or Mum. They were like car crashes, both of them right out of the blue. You kid yourself that you’ve walked away unscathed, but there’s a delayed reaction.

‘It was like everything was happening to someone else, and al I could do was watch this other person’s life slide away, out of control. Even while I was contemplating terrible things

– even while I was
doing
them – I couldn’t get hold of anything . . . I couldn’t reach it. There was no way to pul back.’

The knife turned faster in his fist as his speech slowed. ‘Everything just gets away from you. Can you understand that? Your grip, your respect for yourself, for other people’s lives.

Everything
. Changing a bloody light bulb . . .’

His lips were stil moving, just a little, and he stared along the blade of the knife as if he were trying to work out what it was for. Suddenly, he looked lost.

Thorne was the only person in the room not crying. He looked at Lardner and wil ed away any hint of compassion.

He focused on the boy.

Thought of Kathleen Bristow’s body. Her stained nightdress. Her sparrow’s legs, twisted . . .

‘Let Luke go,’ he said.

Lardner shook his head. Thorne could not be sure if it was a refusal or the gesture of a man who was unsure,
distracted
. There were no more than a couple of paces between them . . .

He tensed. A heartbeat away. Lardner had not been afraid to use the knife before.

Thorne knew he would be lucky to come away unscathed.

He had no idea what Lardner’s response would be to an attack. Would he lay down his weapon and throw in the towel? Or would he take a child’s life as easily as he’d taken that of an old woman? Whatever his appearance, however beaten and confused he seemed, the unpredictability of the man opposite made him as dangerous as any gangland enforcer or flat-eyed psychopath Thorne had ever faced.

A few years earlier, in a similar position, he’d frozen while a man had held a knife to the neck of a female officer. He had done it by the book, afraid that heroics would cost the officer her life.

Then he’d watched her die anyway.

The boy himself had become completely stil and silent. His eyes had closed. Then the words of Luke’s mother – cal ing his name, asking him repeatedly if he was al right –seemed to snap Lardner back into the moment.

‘He’s fine, real y,’ Lardner said. ‘We’ve become good mates, haven’t we, Luke?’

The boy opened his eyes.

‘We’ve had some good old chats down there, I reckon.’

‘No . . .’

Thorne saw the spasm of panic around Maggie Mul en’s eyes.

‘Talked about al sorts.’

‘Like what?’

A shrug. ‘Family, you know. The important things in life . . .’

‘Don’t.’

Luke Mul en moaned, a long, desperate ‘no . . .’ from behind the tape.

‘I wasn’t planning on bringing any of it up here,’ Lardner said, ‘but now that you mention it . . .’

It was no more than a couple of paces, but Thorne knew Lardner could have the knife at Luke’s throat before he reached him.

‘What did you tel my son?’

‘Want me to repeat it? Even police officers can be shocked, you know. But he looks up to it.’

‘Stop it!’

‘Should I tel him what the pair of us got up to in bed? Or how about why you started having an affair with me in the first place?’

If she rushed towards her son, if she could distract Lardner for just a second, he’d have a chance. There was just no way to let her know what to do.

‘Luke, listen to me. I don’t know what he’s been tel ing you.’

‘We’d better not pretend it was my looks.’

‘He’s sick. You know that, darling, don’t you? You
know
he’s sick.’

Thorne would need to go for the left hand, for the knife. Maybe if Luke was quick and moved away at the same time, Lardner could be caught off balance . . .

‘Driven into my arms,’ Lardner said. ‘I think that’s a fair description.’

‘
Twisted
. What he’s been saying.’

‘Certainly driven out of her husband’s.’

‘Please look at me, Luke.’

‘I think we al know each other pretty wel by now. A home truth or two can’t hurt, can it?’

‘Luke.
Please!
’

There would be no perfect moment. He just needed to pick one . . .

‘Why don’t you tel the inspector al about it?’ Lardner’s mouth was firm, grim, but there was gentleness in his eyes. ‘Why you can’t bear to let him touch you . . .’

The sound was unearthly, as the howl of rage and horror vibrated against the gaffer tape. Luke lurched towards his mother, and, as he was hauled back, he let his momentum carry him fast and hard into Lardner, taking the two of them down on to the sofa.

Thorne saw what was happening too late.

Saw the hand that the boy had kept pressed against his leg come up high. Saw the light catch something in his fist. Heard the sigh as the flesh was pierced, and the snap.

Then everything was happening at double speed. Crowded with screams and coloured red.

Thorne found himself at Lardner’s feet, staring at the broken shard that Luke had dropped. Its edge was bloodied, and the gaffer tape, wrapped around one end as a makeshift handle, was slick with sweat.

Picture-glass, it looked like. Thin, easily snapped.

He looked up for the piece he knew was embedded in Peter Lardner’s neck, saw that it was already lost beneath a bubbling spring of scarlet.

Maggie Mul en was on her knees, whispering, one arm wrapped tight around Lardner’s neck, both of them slick with blood. Her other arm was reaching desperately for Luke, the hand flapping, trying to grab the son who stood a few feet away, stil screaming as though it were a language he had just mastered. The boy’s eyes were saucers, wild with horror and exhilaration.

And with something else Thorne could not name, something more shocking than al the blood that flowed into the cracks between the chipped and flaking boards.

MONDAY

TWENTY-NINE

They’d had wine and a glass of whisky each before getting back to Thorne’s flat. A fair amount of lager since. And their first kiss.

It was a little after six in the morning, and getting light outside.

They lounged, laughing on the sofa, arms and legs moving against each other, and bed clearly on the cards at some point, once a different sort of excitement had burned itself out.

‘I wonder if Hignett and Brigstocke have started arguing about credit yet?’ Porter said. ‘Worked out how this is going to get divvied up.’

Thorne was grinning like an idiot, same as Porter, but he pul ed a mock-thoughtful face. ‘Wel ,
we
get the three murders, obviously. Four, if you count Sarah Hanley. Your lot can have the kidnap. How’s that?’