Suffer the Children (31 page)

Johnson laughs, sneeringly. ‘That couldn’t be further from the truth.’

‘You can’t do this, Rick.’ Staffe turns to look at Montefiore, shielding his eyes from the photofloodlights as he takes in the sight of a human reduced to its barest bones.

‘Don’t for one minute think he deserves any better. The lives he has ruined. The things he did – to Sally – and how many others have there been? To just kill him isn’t enough.’

‘Sally?’ says Staffe. ‘What have you done, Johnson?’

‘OK, I’ll wait for you,’ says Josie to Pulford, closing down her phone. But he could be twenty minutes, maybe more, and – judging by what Pulford has described as going on in number 18 – that might be more time than they have, so she puts on her coat and leaves a two-pound coin for the coffee. As she walks through the storm to Errol Regis’s house, she
palpitates
, feels weak. She knows she should call Smethurst, but she promised Staffe she would wait an hour and he still has half of that. Even so, she knows she should call.

As she walks quickly down Gibbets Lane, head down, the rain running inside her clothes, Josie takes out her phone and calls AMIP. Someone she doesn’t know tells her Smethurst is out.

‘Unavailable,’ they say.

‘I need back-up, number 18 Gibbets Lane, just behind the Limekiln.’

‘What’s the call-out?’

‘Suspected break and enter.’

‘That’s not a CID call.’

‘I’ve reason to believe a suspect for the Karl Colquhoun murder is on the premises.’

‘That case is closed.’

‘Speak to Smethurst! This is urgent.’

‘I told you, he’s not here.’

‘It could be another attack.’

‘Look,’ the AMIP officer sounds uninterested, ‘I’ll send a local unit round. Number 18, you say?’

‘Tell them to be quick.’ Josie ends the call and turns the phone to vibrate. She takes a deep breath and walks quickly, almost overshooting the house she last visited with Johnson. At Regis’s gate, she sees that the bucket of tar has gone from next door. The butane flame is extinguished, too. She goes up to his window, curtains now completely drawn, backlit by a strong light and she immediately knows the house is occupied. As she draws back to knock on the door, she sees her hand shaking. She knocks, takes a half-step back and feels for her warrant card. The number
18
is cheap and askew.

There is no sound of life from within, so she leans forward and peers through the mottled window panel. She knocks again and a slender shape appears through the frosted glass. Whoever it is pauses and adjusts their clothes then comes right up, sliding the lock across. The door opens slowly and a small voice says, ‘Come in.’

Josie takes a step closer and crooks her head to see who has answered, but nobody seems to be there. ‘Who is that?’ she says, her words cracking at the edges.

‘Come on in. You must be soaking.’

Josie doesn’t recognise the voice but she guesses it is a young girl, possibly in her teens. She relaxes a little and says, ‘Is your father in?’

‘Oh yes. He’s in,’ says the girl.

She takes another step forward, into the dark, placing a foot in the doorway and pushing the door further open. Something stops it from opening all the way.

‘Don’t let the rain in,’ says the girl.

Josie steps right into the house and the door moves sharply, knocking into her shoulder and slamming shut behind her. Josie shouts: ‘What the …!’ And then she sees the girl,
smiling
. It’s a face she knows. The girl holds up a small canister and Josie hears the ‘sshhhh’ of the spray at the same time as the jet of mist hits her eyes. It stings her nostrils and tastes acrid in her mouth. She begins to choke and falls to her knees. The last thing she feels, as she prays for the back-up unit to arrive, is a rough fabric being pressed to her face.

Staffe clenches and unclenches his fists. He could try to get out and to his car. But, as if he knows his superior too well, Johnson smiles, says, ‘You know there’s nowhere to go. Even if you could get out.’ He taps the length of steel against the palm of his hand. It slaps. ‘Pennington doesn’t know what to think about your relationship with
him
.’ He jabs his head in the direction of the impaled Montefiore. ‘Very odd, wouldn’t you say? And I’m guessing the alibis he asked you for don’t quite come up to scratch.’

‘You bastard.’

‘I don’t have to be. Not if you do the right thing, Staffe. Just let me get on with things.’

‘And Jessop takes the rap.’

‘Him? You? As long as this gets done.’

‘And what about you, Rick?’

‘I’m sorted,’ says Johnson. He clutches his chest, coughs hard and dry. ‘But before you go, I’ve got something you’ll want to see.’

Staffe takes his phone out of his pocket. ‘One call from me and a squad car will be here before you know it.’

‘Try it. And, anyway, what will they find?’ Johnson sneers again, crossing his arms. The steel glistens bright in the white light.

‘Why in God’s name are you doing this?’

‘Same reason you do what you do. Exactly the same, so don’t kid yourself you’re good and I’m bad. Nothing is black and white – you know that. We have no choice in what we do.’

‘But it is black and white. It has to be.’

‘Don’t waste your breath, Staffe. And don’t waste my time. I don’t have much.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘And don’t do anything rash. If you do, I’ll give the word.’

‘Give the word? Who to?’

Johnson coughs again, holding his chest. When he is done, his face is more gaunt, his lips more pale – as if he’s suddenly got the wrong kind of blood running through him. ‘This bastard is going to pay!’ Johnson takes a stride towards Montefiore and hits him across the shins with the steel.

Staffe is certain he can hear the thin crack of bone. He is frozen, has to watch as Montefiore whimpers. His head hangs.

‘Where does this come from, Rick? How can you do this?’

‘Somebody has to. Somebody fucking has to when bastards like him shit on people, shit on them and rub it into what’s left of the lives that are left behind. And people like you do nothing.
Nothing
! There has to be people like us.’

‘Us?’

‘Empty your pockets, on that table. Everything.’ Johnson reaches down and takes something from under the sofa. When he straightens up, he is holding a machete. He rubs the face of the blade up and down along the one rope which suspends Montefiore. ‘Go on!’

‘Where’s Thomasina?’ asks Staffe.

‘She’s safe.’

‘Is her mother involved?’

‘I said empty your pockets. Now!’ He presses the machete blade to the rope again.

Staffe does as he is told. Wallet, warrant card, keys, change, all going on to the coffee table in the middle of the room.

‘And the phone.’

Reluctantly, he takes hold of the phone. He looks at Johnson, knows that if he were to press green he would get Pulford, but in the time he took to respond, what would Johnson do? And where is Josie?

It begins to dawn on Staffe that he has missed his chance, so he pulls out the phone and looks towards the door but Johnson immediately takes a step to his right and reaches out with the machete, touching the rope again. Staffe slowly places the mobile on the Cobb table that Karl Colquhoun had restored with such love.

Johnson takes a step towards him. ‘Stand by the window. Go on!’ As soon as he retreats, Johnson raises the steel high, brings it down on the phone, smashing it to pieces. The battery drops to the floor and the marquetry on the table cracks, like a smashed windscreen.

Staffe slows himself down: clenches, unclenches his fists. ‘What’s the morphine for, Rick? You said you haven’t got long.’

‘Don’t pretend you’re interested.’

‘There isn’t just you to think about.’

‘Don’t you think I know that. I’m not selfish, Staffe. That’s the whole fucking point! Who’ll look over my children, who’ll stand up for any of the children – if I don’t do this …’ Johnson struggles for breath.

‘You said there’s something I’d want to see,’ says Staffe.

Johnson nods to the kitchen and as Staffe makes his way, he follows. As they go into the kitchen, he says, ‘You know there’s nothing in here, no knives or anything you can use. Open that.’ He points at the fridge with the tip of the machete.

Staffe opens it and inside sees the strangest thing. A laptop.

‘Take it out. Open it up.’ Johnson struggles for breath. ‘It’s turned on. Just click.’

Staffe taps the mouse panel and the
victimvengeance
home-page
glows alive. He doesn’t know where the wireless is
coming
from and clearly Johnson knows his neighbours better than Staffe himself – their passwords and their movements. He remembers the break-in, the sheer volume of time and energy and imagination that Johnson has devoted to this cause.

The second quadrant is blank. The bottom right is now an interior with a black man laid out on a table. His arms and legs have been lashed to the legs of the table and he is bleeding from his face and legs. His trousers have been cut right up to the tops of his thighs. Lying next to him is an axe and on the floor is a bucket. ‘The tar,’ says Staffe. ‘Is this Errol Regis?’

‘You do know your stuff. Jessop was right about you.’ Johnson’s voice sounds different, muffled, and when Staffe looks up from the screen, he can see the DS is wearing a hood. He has taken off the sunglasses and through the slits, his dark, dead eyes show through – barely open. He puts lipstick on his mouth and throws the steel to the floor.

‘Take it through, to the other room. Go on!’ Johnson prods Staffe with the tip of the machete and he carries the laptop through, as if he is a butler with a tray. Once he is in the lounge, he looks closer at the fourth quadrant. In the corner of the room, a hunched figure is curled up on the floor under the window. Staffe leans closer to the screen, says, as if he can’t believe his own words. ‘Josie? Is that Josie?’

‘She’s been working with you too long, Staffe.’

‘You bastard!’

‘You should have done the right thing, Staffe. You should have shown more faith in justice than your precious law.’

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘Put the laptop down.’

Staffe turns on Johnson who takes a step back, holds the machete out in front of him. He takes two more paces and takes a hold of the aluminium cross. Montefiore makes a muffled whimper and a trail of urine spurts on to the floor. ‘You sick bastard,’ says Staffe.

‘You don’t know the half of it,’ says Johnson, coughing. ‘You don’t know anything,’ he splutters. He points the machete at Montefiore. ‘You want sick?’

Staffe looks at Johnson, caught up in short convulsions. On his hood, where his chin would be, a thick seam of red begins to spread.

‘What’s wrong with you? That’s blood you’re coughing.’

‘You didn’t notice, did you? All the years we worked together. Who’s the bastard, Staffe?’

‘You should have said something!’

‘I can leave this world in peace.’

‘Leave? But what about Sally? What’s her way out?’

‘You don’t know … what she was like … without this. She’s found peace.’

‘You’re deluding yourself – and her too,’ says Staffe.

‘She came to me.’

‘Why you?’

‘He wouldn’t help.’

‘Jessop?’

‘I knew what he did … to that bitch. Stensson. But he wouldn’t do anything for Sally. I had to help her, you can see that, can’t you, Staffe? What were we to do when Jessop lost his bottle?’

‘This hasn’t got anything to do with bottle.’

‘What would you know?’

‘A damn sight more than you think, Johnson.’

‘You lost your parents. Imagine if that was your kids. But you haven’t got kids. What if someone messed with your kids?’ Johnson reaches down, behind the sofa, looking at Staffe all the time. He tosses a white cloth at Staffe’s feet. ‘Put that on.’

Staffe unfolds the white sheet which turns out to be a cloak just like Johnson’s. And a hood. He puts them over his head and inhales the fabric conditioner. It reminds him of when Sylvie was in this place. It reminds him that he is not ready to die and he thinks about the line that connects us all. In this mad instant he looks at Montefiore and Johnson and thinks of the line that runs through them to their children. The lines that are cut when we die.

‘What happened to you, Rick?’ Staffe remembers poor Sian, the dead look in her eyes.

‘Don’t you think it’s a bit late for you to get interested,’ says Johnson, reaching into his pocket. He pulls out a remote control. He presses it.

‘I need to understand.’

‘This isn’t about you. Look,’ he says nodding at the laptop. The second quadrant flickers to life and Staffe can see a cross hanging from the ceiling of a brightly lit room, Montefiore’s limp body strapped to it. The backs of two men, similar build, in white cloaks and hoods. You can’t tell them apart.

‘You’re not going to get away with this.’

‘I don’t need to.’

‘But what about your family?’

‘Don’t talk to me about that. I’ve done the right things. Don’t waste any prayers on me.’

‘And Sally?’

Johnson’s body tightens up. Through the slits in his hood, his eyes blink, fast. ‘When I first met her she wanted to kill herself. You know how long it took … after he stuck her … till she started fucking her way round that estate? Do you! I’ll tell you. A month.’ Johnson bends down, hands on knees, struggling for air. ‘She was a star, a bloody star at that shit school. I spoke to her mother. Linda.’

Staffe remembers the gaps in the paperwork on the first Montefiore case. ‘You stole the interviews, destroyed the evidence?’

‘She died the night he stuck her. You know what he did? He waited. He waited till she woke up. Then he stuck her. He stuck her everywhere. He used a toy on her. And when he was done … he called her a whore. He said she was a filthy tart. Then he pissed on her.’

Staffe can’t help himself from looking up at Montefiore. He tries to think of him as simply meat.

Johnson says, ‘But then she found me. And I found her. We’ve made things better. You have to believe that.’ He stoops again, gulping for air and wheezing badly. When he stands back up straight, he points with the machete at Montefiore. ‘Well, look at him now. Look at the bastard now.’