Tastes Like Fear (D.I. Marnie Rome 3) (24 page)

Noah offered the pack of gum, not speaking.

‘Pervert.’ The kid had heard Sergeant Kenickie working his verbal magic.

Noah kept his arm outstretched, the gum on offer. Tempting to talk, try out the old gang-speak, see if it still had currency. Or to drop some of the slang Sol had picked up. But he kept quiet, judging it the better tactic with this kid.

‘I ain’t after your gum.’ But he edged closer, holding the bike dead steady, feet arched on the pedals. Curiosity getting the better of him. It was a dull job being the lookout.

He used two fingers to twitch a strip of gum from the packet. Unwrapped it with his teeth, spat the wrapper into the concrete trough. Chewed. He kept his eyes on Noah, but his neck swivelled loosely, giving him the perimeter. If anyone came out of the flats, he’d be off, caught dead before he was caught talking to a copper. ‘Seen you with the sket.’

Did he mean Ashleigh Jewell, or Abi Gull?

Not Abi. She had too much power here. Probably this kid was her lookout, but either way he wouldn’t disrespect her. Noah shook his head, looking away from the kid, bracing his elbows on his knees as if he’d be leaving as soon as he had the energy.

‘What? You don’t talk to no blacks?’

‘I don’t talk to kids. It’s against the rules. You’re what – ten?’

‘Fuck you. I’m eleven.’ The sting in his voice said he was counting the months. ‘Pervert.’

‘Right.’ Noah got to his feet, moving off.

The kid followed him as easily as if Noah had put him on a leash. ‘
Pervert
.’ He was going to keep repeating that word until he got a reaction, or just because it was his protection, a short cut to his social worker if Noah decided to get nasty. ‘You think I don’t know nothing? I know stuff. I know more stuff than you, pervert.’

‘Great. Have a nice night.’

‘You think I don’t know shit?’ Standing up on the pedals, keeping the bike at Noah’s side. ‘I see everything goes down here.
Everything
.’

‘I believe you.’ Noah crouched to re-lace his running shoes, taking his time over it. ‘Too bad I’m not allowed to interview you.’

‘I seen that sket and all the others. For
years
I seen them. Ones with the hair. Ones with the
writing
.’

Noah stayed down, trying to keep the tension out of his body. The kid was only talking because Noah wasn’t reacting. If he saw his words making a difference he’d shut up, or get lost.

The ones with the writing …

Did he mean May Beswick? Or Traffic’s girl?

Noah was fast on his feet, but he doubted he could keep pace with a bike, not when this kid knew the estate like the back of his hand. If he scared him away, he might stay away.

‘Like I said, too bad. My job’d be a lot easier if I was allowed to talk to ten-year-olds.’ He straightened, dusting his knees like he was brushing off the kid’s affronted expression.

‘Fuck you, pervert. I know stuff’d solve your case
bang
. Stuff you don’t know
shit
about. I know
Christie
. You ain’t got the first
clue
what you’re looking for.’

Noah didn’t look at him, glancing at his watch, injecting an extra dose of boredom into his voice. ‘Christie who?’

‘Christie
Faulk
, bitch. I know Christie Faulk.’ He ran his tongue across his top lip, looking nervous despite Noah’s lack of interest. But he wouldn’t back down now, too afraid of showing fear.

Noah felt sorry for him. But he wasn’t about to back down either. His tactics might be underhand, but they were working. ‘We’re not looking for Christie Faulk.’

‘Yeah? You should be. She’s the one brought that sket here.’

‘What sket?’

‘The
dead
sket. The one with the crap trainers and the nose like someone smashed it.’

Ashleigh Jewell.

‘So – what? Christie Faulk brought her here. That’s what you’re saying?’

‘I
see
shit.’ Standing tall on the pedals, jaw squared, black eyes fixed on Noah’s face. Behind him, the whole estate stood in silence, its lit windows like eyes. ‘I see more shit than
you
do. Any of you. Nothing starts round here that I don’t see.’

35

Christie

The kitchen reeked of wax. Fourteen candles burning but they didn’t make it brighter, just dragged in more of the darkness. Greedily, the way his pain pulled at her, at everything. There was no end to it, his pain. No end to him.

Christie tried to sit still. She tried to be that for him, a quiet place where he could rest. She searched for the right words but could only find, ‘The house was better. It’s too high here, they get giddy. It’s the view.’

‘What view?’ Harm demanded. ‘I put up blinds, didn’t I? What view?’

The view in their heads
, she thought. She couldn’t explain. She listened hard for the sound of Aimee overhead, but there was nothing, as if they were floating in space. ‘The house was better.’

‘The house was no good.’ He shoved it aside with his hand. ‘Too full.’

‘We could go back. Fewer of us now.’

‘Full of
them
.’ His eyes shifted, snarling with pain. ‘Full of
her.
’

‘Neve.’ She said his sister’s name as softly as she could, but she hated Neve. Like she’d hated May, and Ashleigh. Like she hated Aimee.

Harm leaned towards her, his shoulders stacked hot with shadows. ‘What did you do?’

‘What did you do?’ she echoed. Asked.

They eyed one another across the candles’ fire and smoke.

‘I gave them a home,’ Harm said. ‘I took them in.’

‘You took them in,’ Christie agreed.

‘I took
you
in.’

She smiled at him with the whole of herself, everything he’d saved, everything he’d made.

‘What did you do,’ he insisted, ‘to Ashleigh?’

‘She’s back out there.’ Christie used the words he’d used to explain May. ‘It’s what she wanted.’

He covered his mouth with his hands.

‘For you. I did it for you.’

He covered his eyes.

‘There’s Aimee,’ she said. ‘It’s better like this, just the three of us. We’re a proper family. We need you,’ she said. ‘You’re in control.’

He needed to be needed. She understood.

‘You saved them, gave them your protection. If they’d followed your rules, they’d be safe.
You’re
in charge here. They should’ve respected that, respected
you
. Living under your roof, owing everything to you.’ Her eyes stung from the smoke. She licked her fingers and snuffed the nearest candle, pinching it dead. A drop of wax caught her thumb, shrinking to a scab. She picked it off and laid it on the table, a tiny upturned shell with her thumbprint trapped inside. ‘We owe you everything.’

‘Aimee …’ He sighed her name.

‘She owes you. We all do.’ She snuffed another candle. ‘You’re the man of the house and this is our home. None of us had a home until you found us. You lost Neve, but you found us.’

‘Neve’s dead.’ A crack in his voice, like a boy’s. ‘I loved her and she’s dead.’

Christie reached for his hand. ‘Neve’s lost, not dead.’

‘She’s
dead
. You don’t know how we had to keep … pretending.’ He pulled away. ‘
I
had to keep pretending. Hoping like they did, playing their game to keep her alive, when I
knew
. Do you have any idea how …
heavy
that was? Praying with them, pretending she wasn’t dead?’

The candles curled away from him, shivering towards Christie.

‘I was dead,’ she said, ‘until you found me. Living with that woman like an animal, and then on the streets …’ She tasted the twist of her mouth, sharp. ‘They didn’t deserve you, Grace and May and Ashleigh. You gave them
everything
…’

‘Did you see her?’ Harm demanded. ‘The words she wrote. Did you see?’

‘May?’ Shouting all over herself, screaming those pictures in her sketchpads. Grace was noisier on the surface, but May did the most damage. Getting pregnant, ruining everything. ‘I saw.’

‘I wanted
them
to see. The pain she was in. How she felt, what she was going through. I know how much it hurts to keep those kinds of secrets.’ Looking at her at last. ‘Do you?’

‘Of course.’ Christie frowned. ‘You know I do.’

‘And you know
why
I left her where I did.’

‘The power station.’ She was tired of talking about May. What was the point? May was dead and gone, finished with. ‘Because she loved it there, and because you wanted everyone to see her secrets. To understand how much she was hurting and how hard you tried to help. You wanted them to hear how loudly she’d been shouting for help.’

‘I
did
help.’ He straightened, rocking the room. ‘You said I helped you all. I loved May.’

Christie didn’t speak. The wax scab was a dull pink spot on the table.

‘I loved Ashleigh.’ The shape of his skull was on the floor, the walls. ‘Did you?’

‘I did it for you.’ Her thumb throbbed softly, new and bare where she’d peeled the wax away. ‘Everything is for you.’

‘And Grace.’ Harm leaned in, his face bruised yellow by the light. ‘What did you do to Grace?’

The watch ticked at his wrist. He’d taken her hands once, pulled her up from the pavement out of the rain. His hands had been empty, warm. She’d never be able to repay that.

‘You looked for her,’ she said. ‘After she’d gone. But you couldn’t have brought her back.’

Ungrateful Grace, who’d never had to live like an animal.

‘You can’t control them,’ she told Harm. ‘That’s what makes them run. That and the view up here. They can see too far, it makes them giddy. You couldn’t ever have succeeded with May, or with Ashleigh. Not because of you, because of
them
. Aimee’s different. Maybe she’s like Neve. Now it’s just the three of us, it’ll be good again. It
will …
’

‘What did you do to Grace?’ he repeated. ‘Where is she?’

‘She didn’t want to be here. She didn’t deserve you. When there are places out there that will kill you, that killed
me
.’ She clenched her hands on the table. ‘Places that scrape you out.’ She set her teeth. Met his eye. ‘Grace got what she deserved.’

He stood, so tall she was dizzy looking up at him. ‘Where is she?’

‘Gone,’ Christie said. ‘She’s … gone.’

36

‘Is this Detective Inspector Marnie Rome?’

‘Yes, it is. Who’s this?’

‘You’ve got a call from Sommerville Detention Centre. Will you take it?’

Marnie shut the door to her office. It was early, but her team was hard at work. ‘Yes.’

Silence. A click, then another. Silence. Had she been cut off? ‘Hello?’

‘Hello.’ Stephen Keele.

A decade since she’d heard his voice over the phone, but she knew it straight away. She listened to the silence, until he said, ‘Are you busy? I expect you’re busy.’

‘What did you want?’

‘May Beswick,’ he said. ‘And Ashleigh Jewell.’

The connection was poor, stressing the sibilants in each girl’s name. If they’d been face to face, she wouldn’t have heard sibilants in Stephen’s voice. He spoke too carefully for that. She pushed her free hand at her desk, watching her knuckles turn white. ‘What about them?’

‘I’ve been following it on the news.’ A beat. She heard him transferring the phone to his other hand. ‘You should speak with one of the girls here. Jodie Izard. She says she knows the girl you’re looking for. The girl with the red hair from the photofit.’

Marnie pictured him in his grey sweats, the phone pressed to his ear under his black curls, slim body slack against the wall. Happy to have her attention. She kept her silence, her only defence.

‘She’s called Grace,’ Stephen said. ‘The girl in the photofit. Grace Bradley. She was living on the streets about a year ago. That’s how Jodie met her.’

‘All right. Thank you.’ Using the voice she’d use to any other potential witness. Polite, non-committal. ‘I’ll have someone come and take a statement from Jodie.’

‘
You
should come,’ Stephen said. ‘She’s a liar. Not the world’s greatest liar, but a good one. She pretended she knew May Beswick, too. And Ashleigh Jewell. She’s lying about that, but she’s telling the truth about Grace. And there’s something else …’ He stopped.

Her turn. He wanted her to dance with him. He’d missed this. Her attention. That was what he really wanted. Not to help to find a killer, or a lost girl. To have Marnie to himself again, with her questions and her pain. The Forgiveness Project was his idea of the perfect joke …

Knock knock, who’s there?

Control freak. Now
you
say control freak who?

‘I’ll send someone,’ Marnie said. ‘To take a statement from Jodie Izard.’

‘There’s something else. Someone you should be looking for.’ He waited. ‘They kidnapped Grace Bradley. Which probably means they kidnapped May, too. And Ashleigh. Jodie saw them take Grace. She described them to me.’

Silence. Marnie’s hand ached. She lifted it away from the table, studying the marks on her knuckles, watching the blood return to her fingers in red bruises under the skin.

‘I know what the killer looks like,’ Stephen said. ‘And they’re going to do it again.’

He hung up so suddenly, she flinched from the pulse of static in her ear.

She waited to see if the detention centre was still on the line, but the call reverted to a dial tone. She replaced the receiver, keeping her hand on it as her mind came upright, working through the possibilities.

Stephen wanted her attention, and this was a great way to get it. They let the kids watch TV at Sommerville. He’d seen the news about May and Ashleigh, heard her name given out as the investigating officer. Clever of him not to mention Jamie Ledger. That would’ve been clumsy. This way she might come to Sommerville to question Jodie Izard, maybe even to see him while she was there. He wanted her attention, the same as always. Her fear was he’d wanted it five years ago. That this whole bloody mess had been about getting her attention.