Tastes Like Fear (D.I. Marnie Rome 3) (33 page)

‘Harm.’ Ed glanced at Marnie, careful to keep the concern out of his voice.

Marnie was texting Noah the names. ‘Who’s Harm?’ she asked.

Grace shrank into the pillows, her lips tightening, not speaking. Marnie glanced at the name she’d blind-texted to Noah. ‘Is Harm a man?’

‘I want to go home.’

‘Home to … Harm? Who is he? Is he a friend of Christie’s?’

Grace retreated further, lifting her arm in the same gesture as before, twisting her wrist until Marnie was reading the word Ron had mistaken for a confession:
Killer
.

Harm was the killer?

‘Tell me about the writing.’ Ed gathered the girl’s attention back to him, gently. ‘The words you and May wrote on yourselves. Who started it?’

‘Me.’ Her fingers twitched. ‘Long ago, when I was little.’

‘May copied you?’

‘To keep me company, to make me less lonely.’ Her face shrank. ‘May was
kind
.’

‘How did you choose the words to write?’

‘They chose them.’

‘Who’s they?’

‘Everyone else.
Everyone
.’

‘They’re wrong, though. You’re not a killer. You’re not dead.’

‘You … don’t know.’

‘Who have you killed?’ Ed asked lightly.

‘Me.’ Her fingers curled inwards. ‘
Me
. I want to go home. When can I go home?’

‘Okay. Tell me more about home. Is it near here? How long would it take you to get home?’

‘I … don’t know.
She
took me. It was dark.’

‘Christie?’

Squeezing shut her eyes. ‘Yes.’

‘But you can see the power station from there. It’s high up, a new building. A tower block?’

‘Secret,’ Grace said. ‘It’s only safe because it’s a secret. You have to keep it safe.’

‘Did you feel safe there?’

‘Better than before. He was better. Let us be
us
. Loved us.’ Grief tugged at her face. ‘I was
good
there. I’ve never been good before.’

‘But you had to leave. Why? What happened?’

A sob. ‘I just wanted him to like me more.’ She touched the words on her wrists. ‘Too many of us. He couldn’t see me.
Me
. I wanted to be better, for him to like me better.’

‘What happens,’ Ed said, ‘if he doesn’t like you?’

‘He doesn’t … hug you. Doesn’t look at you. You’re nothing again.’ Hurting her wrists with her nails. ‘I didn’t want to be nothing again.’

Marnie saw the girl’s pain reflected in Ed’s face. He waited a moment before saying, ‘Tell me more about the place where he lives. I know it’s a secret, but can you help me picture it better?’ He waited. ‘No water in the taps. You must’ve been thirsty. And how did you keep clean?’

‘Bottles. Lots of bottles … He takes care of us. He takes
good
care. When can I go?’ A stubborn score in her voice, but she was breaking down into sobs. ‘You don’t
know
. Let me go home.’

‘It’s okay, it is.’ Ed put a hand on her wrist, covering the word written there, easing her fingers free of her skin. ‘Is Harm in the flat now? With the other girls? With Christie?’

‘Not always. Comes and goes.’

‘Like Christie.’ A nod. ‘Was it Christie who gave you the note with Mrs Tarvin’s address? We found it in your pocket. Did Christie write it?’

Grace nodded. ‘Said it was
safe
. Said she would …
help
.’

Christie had sent a traumatised girl to Emma Tarvin for help. Knowing what the woman was capable of. Why? To punish Grace? Or intending Tarvin to keep her quiet?

‘Christie took May’s sister,’ Marnie said. ‘Just this morning. Loz is thirteen. She must be very scared. Has Christie taken her to the flat? To Harm?’

‘Yes.
Yes
.’

‘You need to tell me where the flat is. Help me to find Loz and the others. Please, Grace.’

The girl was shaking with tears. Marnie knew she should stop, call a nurse, leave Grace alone. But Loz was alone, with a killer. She thumbed through the photos on her phone until she found Jamie Ledger. ‘Is this Harm? Please look, it’s so important.’

Grace curled her free hand and beat weakly at the bed. ‘Let me go … home.’

‘I can’t do that. I can look after you, I can make sure you’re safe, but I can’t take you back to that place. I won’t. You know it’s dangerous, that’s why you ran. Harm and Christie tricked you into thinking it was safe, but you know that’s not true. Loz is
thirteen
, she’s May’s little sister.’

How could she reach this girl – make Grace trust her enough to help?

‘You were with May the night you left.’ Ed held Grace’s hand. ‘The night of the crash. You got away, but May didn’t. She went home, just like you want to go home now, and she was killed for it. You’re the lucky one, Grace. The one who got away. The only one who can help us save Loz.’

Grace twisted her head on the pillow. Ed reached up and freed the hair clinging to her face, smoothing each strand between his fingers. ‘It’s okay. You’re safe now. You can help us.’

Marnie could hear the ticking of her watch, time slipping away, maybe Loz’s life slipping away.

‘You’re safe now,’ Ed repeated.

Grace sat upright in the bed, thin arms reaching for a hug.

Ed held her, stroking her hair, letting her weep.

After a minute, the girl went quiet, leaning into him. ‘Show me?’ she whispered.

Marnie passed her phone to Ed. He showed Grace the photo of Ledger. She blinked her eyes against the cotton of his shirt. ‘N-not him.’

‘It’s not Harm. Are you sure?’

Grace pushed upright, taking the phone from Ed and holding it in both hands. ‘Not Harm.’ She sniffed, her voice coming back to something like normal. ‘It’s not him.’ Her thumbs moved over the keypad, as if she was remembering how a phone worked. ‘Aimee …’ She’d scrolled to another photo and looked up at Ed. ‘This is Aimee.’

‘Show me?’ Ed moved so Marnie could see the screen too.

Grace turned the phone towards them.

Marnie’s throat tightened. She shook her head. ‘This isn’t—’

‘She’s changed. But it’s Aimee.’ She handed the phone back to Ed. ‘I can tell by the smile.’

A shy smile. High cheekbones. Grace thought Aimee was sixteen, but the face in the photograph didn’t belong to a sixteen-year-old girl.

It belonged to a fifteen-year-old boy, missing from care since 2012.

The boy Joel had described as a psycho.

Eric James Mackay.

51

The room was empty, that was Loz’s first thought.

The door was shut but there was no one here, just dust doing that dance it did when you opened a door into an empty room. Round windows at either end like cloudy eyes looking back at her. A dressing table, bed, wardrobe – a stale, mushroomy smell. No one was up here. That woman, Christie, had lied. Maybe this wasn’t even the place. The place May went where she died …

Then Loz remembered what Christie had said –
She’s had the flu so she needs a lot of rest
– and her eyes went to the bed in the far corner.

The bed had a high wooden frame. She couldn’t see whether it was empty. To see, she’d have to go all the way into the room, away from the door and the stairs. Risk getting trapped up here. She felt for the key in her pocket, counting its teeth with her thumbnail. Something about the key bothered her, but it made her feel a bit braver. ‘Hello?’

Some sound from the floor below made her freeze.

Christie, coming up the stairs?

Loz bit the inside of her cheek so hard it bled into her mouth. She didn’t want to be caught up here by Christie, who was only pretending to be nice and might actually, probably, be insane. She listened, blood banging in her ears, to the unfamiliar sounds of the building. The block was spooky, no one living here except Christie and the others. Loz hated it. She wanted to run. What was she even
doing
? Never mind Christie,
she
was insane.

‘Hello.’ From the bed.

She jumped so hard she bit her cheek again.

Shitshitshit …

Shut up.

You came here to find out, didn’t you? To find out who killed her.

‘Hi.’ She made herself move in the direction of the bed, freezing when the duvet moved and a figure sat up like a doll against the pillows.

Spiky black hair and black eyes. Really pale and pretty, like Haruka Nanase or any of those anime boys with their huge eyes and pointy faces.

But Loz knew this face. She’d seen it before. In May’s sketchpad.

It was all in May’s sketchpad, like a story for her to follow, only not one she could explain to the police or anyone else. A story just for her, of where May went and who she saw. The story of who killed her. That was how Loz knew …

The girl in the bed wasn’t real. She didn’t exist.

‘I’m Aimee.’ The voice was like a girl’s, just a bit deeper.

It was a lie.

You’re not Aimee. She doesn’t exist.

‘I’m Laura.’ Now they were both lying. She was never
Laura
. She was only ever Loz.

‘You’re new.’ Aimee sat up higher in the bed, linking her arms around her knees. Most of her was under the duvet, only her skinny neck and shoulders showing. Wearing a white vest top, her arms skinny too. No writing on her.

Loz had expected writing.

She made herself look away from the bed, around the rest of the room. She didn’t want Aimee thinking she was afraid. Something silver on the dressing table – a hairbrush. Light bulbs studded round the mirror. School uniform on the wardrobe door. The mushroomy smell made her stomach squeeze up. ‘You live here?’

‘Yes.’ Aimee propped her chin on her knees.

Loz saw her in the mirror. Half of her, one big eye watching without blinking. ‘What’s in the cupboard?’ she asked, to keep speaking. The silence was scary.

‘Water tank.’

‘There’s no water,’ Loz said.

The mirror cut her in half.
Aimee
.

‘Christie says there’s no water in the taps.’ Loz turned to look at her. ‘It’s all in barrels.’

Calling her a liar now, but
Aimee
didn’t care.

That eye like a crow’s, fixing on her. Daring Loz to call her worse.

‘You’re sick,’ Loz said.

Blinking. Black.

‘Christie said you had the flu.’

‘I’m sick,’ Aimee agreed.

Loz walked to the foot of the bed. Towards the face from her sister’s sketchpad. May had drawn this face. The last thing she ever drew. Loz had known it wasn’t a girl’s face the second she saw it. She knew the way her sister drew, the way her sister
saw
. That was when she’d started to understand what had happened to May. In this place, with this liar. She stopped in the line of light between the windows where the dust was dancing, tickling her cheek. ‘How long have you been here?’

‘A while. Months.’

‘How many months?’

‘Three, four months. Something like that.’

May lying frozen in a steel drawer. Her sister. Her kite.

Loz let go of the key in her pocket and put her hands on the wooden frame at the foot of the bed. ‘What did you say your name was again?’

‘I’m Aimee.’

‘No. You’re not. Do you want to know how I know?’

Black eyes crawled all over her. ‘How?’

‘Because she was my sister. May. Because she was my sister and she drew you. I’ve got pictures of your
face
. Pictures from the subway. She
drew
you. Before she came here to be killed. Was it you? Did you kill her?’ She was scared, and angry. The wooden frame hurt her hands enough to bring tears to her eyes. ‘She was my
sister
and I will never,
ever
forgive you. So do whatever you do. Kill me, like you killed her. Like you killed Ashleigh Jewell. I know what you did, what you are. You’re not
Aimee
. Aimee doesn’t exist. You’re a liar and a murderer and I hate you. I
hate
you.’

The frame was shaking under her hands, blurring the figure in the bed until she couldn’t see anything but its stare, burning her.

‘Go ahead.
Do it
. What you did to her, because you’ve done it anyway. Killed me, made me
nothing
. She was the only one who saw me. The
only
one. You’re a pig. You’re a sick
pig
. She wasn’t … She never hurt
anyone
. She was hurting all the time, but she
never
hurt anyone. She was kind and quiet and the
only one
who loved me, who made me easy to love.’ Her throat choked with tears. ‘There’s
nothing
in that house now. Just them hating me because it should’ve been
me
. Me they had to go and look at in that drawer, to
identify
. I’m rubbish, stupid, ugly. But she … she was so kind and quiet and I loved her so much. If you killed her, you …’

She only stopped when his hand was over her mouth, grinding her lips against her teeth.

She hadn’t even seen him move from the bed, not properly, just as a wet blur.

He hissed hot against her cheek. ‘Shut up.’

Loz tried to bite, tried to kick him. He held her hard against the bed with his hand over her mouth until red stars burst in her eyes.

‘I’m warning you,’ he hissed. ‘Shut up!’

She dragged at his hand, but he was strong. Stronger than he’d looked in the bed. His arms weren’t skinny at all, hard muscle under his skin. Her eyes rolled up in her head until she was seeing him standing over her.

Black eyes, cheekbones, the curve of his jaw just like May drew it.
Aimee
. How had anyone in this house believed he was a girl?

He bent lower, his hair scratching at her eyelid, at her eye.

She’d stopped struggling, too scared to breathe let alone fight.

He put his mouth close to her throat.

‘Better,’ he breathed. ‘That’s better.’

52

‘Eric James Mackay. Fifteen years old, missing from a care home in Derby since May 2012. We know he hung out in the subway in Stockwell, but Joel and his friends haven’t seen him there since September, a couple of months before May stopped going to the subway. We know she met Eric there. She drew him. Grace has identified the sketch.’ Marnie pinned May’s picture next to the photo of Eric Mackay. ‘None of us recognised him from her sketch, but Grace had the advantage of living with him. He’s changed more than we thought.’