Tastes Like Fear (D.I. Marnie Rome 3) (39 page)

Threw her at the bed, Christie warning, ‘Stay down!’

Harm left the room, but not for long, coming back with an axe.

An axe.

Loz scrabbled backwards over the bed, getting tangled up with the sheets, and Eric. Blinking upright, pale-faced, hissing, ‘What did you do?’ More scared than she was.

Harm was at the windows with wood and nails, blocking out the light, boarding them in.

Christie was at the foot of the bed, shoulders heaving, tears blotching her cheeks. Eyes swinging between them and Harm, always back to Harm.

‘Stop him,’ Loz said. Begged. ‘You can make him stop.’

Christie laughed, her face breaking, showing her empty hands. ‘No.’

‘
Yes
. Stop him. Help us.’

‘How can I?’ Shaking her head, her eyes swinging back to Harm. ‘How can anyone?’

64

Jamie Ledger looked like a hunted man, the scar above his left ear livid white. Dirt beneath his fingernails and speckled under his eyes, hunger hollowing his cheeks. ‘I didn’t know you were looking for me until now …’

‘Tell us what you’ve seen in the building,’ Marnie said. ‘The rest can wait.’

‘Marsh and at least one girl, plus the one who brings them back for him.’ Ledger trained his eyes on the tower block. ‘Sometimes on the top floor, mostly on the floor below that.’ He pointed. ‘Where the blackout’s up.’

Brigantia Gardens was planned as luxury living. The developer’s website showed an artist’s impression of a curved glass and steel spine. In reality, the tower block was no less brutal than the ones on the Garrett estate, its glass skin covered in places by protective plastic. The ‘lush communal garden’ was a wasteland of broken bricks and skips.

‘I didn’t know what he was,’ Ledger said. ‘Until two days ago. He used to come to the hostel with the volunteers, that’s where we met. I knew he was struggling. Didn’t know how badly. Took two bodies for the penny to drop.’ His lip curled. ‘I used to be quicker than that.’

‘Focus on the building,’ Marnie told him. ‘How are they getting in and out?’

He told them. Rex Carter from SCO19 briefed his team before asking, ‘What else have you seen?’ The edge in his voice made Ledger square up like a soldier. ‘What’re we up against?’

‘He’s schizoid. Passes himself off as a good guy. He fooled me, and I’m not dumb – seen stuff most people wouldn’t believe. Maybe he was a bit weird with his son, a bit
off
, but not so most people would notice.’ He moved his mouth, lips cracked with thirst. ‘I saw the kit he was packing back at Paradise House. That’s when the alarm bells started. I’ve seen men go to pieces out in the field. He was like that, on edge all the time. Walking the line … He thought it was a big deal me being in the army, said I reminded him of his dad. Bollocks. I told him it was all bollocks, but he kept saying it. Crap about paying tribute to men like me. Making the world a better place for us to come back to. Cleaner, tidier.’ His stare was haunted. ‘It’s like he left her for me. It’s like that psycho did it for
me
.’

‘You’ve been following him for two days,’ Marnie said, ‘because you thought he might be our killer. Why didn’t you call us sooner?’

‘No proof. Might all’ve been up here like the rest of it, the nightmares.’ Tapping the side of his head, strung out, wet-eyed with lack of sleep. ‘I thought if he did it for
me
, if he’d got it into his head that he was … tidying up.
Paying tribute
. Shit. I couldn’t live with it. Had to find him, find what he was doing. If he was doing what I thought he was, if I wasn’t just imagining it …’

‘All right,’ Marnie said. ‘We’ll take it from here. You can stand down.’

‘Talking to me like I’m a soldier?’ A laugh rocked out of him. ‘That’ll work. Just wind me up and point me in the right direction? I stopped taking orders when I left the army.’

‘Or I can arrest you.’

‘For what? Keeping my eyes open?’

‘Trespass in Mitcham, breaking and entering. Obstructing a police officer. You choose.’

His stare was wild on her face.

‘Stand down,’ she repeated quietly, ‘and let us take care of these girls.’

Ledger went with Noah, to the waiting police car.

‘No phone signal inside the building,’ Toby Graves told Marnie. ‘And they’re high up, which limits negotiations. Ten hours since Loz was taken. That’s moved us into the next round. I’m thinking we treat this as a kidnapping and send in SCO19. But it’s your call.’

Marnie looked up at the unfinished tower block, the stab vest heavy on her chest.

Sixteen flights down to the ground.

Too far to survive a fall if someone jumped, or was pushed.

So many ways this could end in disaster.

Sean and Katrina Beswick already had one daughter in the morgue.

This was her job. It was what she’d chosen to do.

She nodded at Graves, and Carter. ‘Tell me where you want me.’

65

Harm had a hammer. For boarding up the windows. A hammer and nails, bits of old wood and an axe – he’d got a fucking axe. He wouldn’t look at me, his eyes everywhere but the bed. I was right where he wanted me, but he wouldn’t look. Scared of seeing Aimee.

Aimee was safe. Aimee had everything …

He was going to let her die because he loved her so much. He hated Eric. I knew he would, it was why I’d stayed hidden, why I was never
Eric
with him.

Christie was watching him work like she’d put her favourite movie on repeat. He was snarling, deep down in his chest. All the touching he never did, all the
pretending
, boiling inside him. I could hear it boiling. He should never have pretended. He should’ve taken what he wanted right from the start. This was what we got – he and I – for waiting. For faking.

‘We are what we are,’ I whispered. I’d’ve shouted it if I’d dared.

Where was his happy family now? Where was his sick little girl?

He stooped and put the axe on the floor. Switched his stare to Loz. She was wedged in the corner of the room, white as the walls. Trapped. She didn’t look like May, I couldn’t see any trace of May in her, but Harm could. He got her in his sights, his stare slowing to a stop on her face.

She was the one who’d told him about Eric, about me. She was the one who’d done this – brought the real world storming in here. Killed his dream, its blood all over the floor. Shoved a mirror in his face, showed him what he was. She was going to pay for that.

I yelled from the bed, ‘I’m here! I’m right here!’

His head snapped round.

We are what we are …

‘I’m right
fucking
here!’

But it was Christie who came for me.

Stopped him in his tracks, almost too fast for the pair of us. Almost.

Christie.

Most of the momentum was hers. I just got my fist in the right place so that when she swung me up from the bed, I punched her as hard as I could, twice.

She was stronger than me, serious muscles, but I had her. Because of where I hit her, and with what.

She tipped backwards, shouting.

I did it again, directly over the heart.

Harm came for me then, but I showed him my fist – red with her – and he stopped short, teeth snapping, seeing what I’d done, what
he’d
done. And he knew I’d do it again, hit her again …

You can’t be too careful.
He
taught me that.

Christie was on her knees, staring at her chest, wild-eyed. Two dark spots spreading on her shirt. She ripped at it, making a strangled sound, disbelieving.

My fist was dripping.

The wire from May’s sketchpad was cutting into my knuckles, its sharp end an inch shorter than before. It must’ve snapped off inside her, between two ribs.

She ripped at her shirt with her fingers, trying to locate the source of the pain. I kept my fist where Harm could see it.

Secure the perimeter.

She tipped sideways, stopped moving.

Lay like that, with the axe an extra arm at her side.

The wire was wrapped round my fist, what was left of its point facing outward. Still a decent weapon, although the axe was better, now I came to look at it.

Go for the wide-open spaces.

I looked at the axe. Then I looked at him.

Christie wasn’t moving. I thought:

I’ve done her.

Just him now.

Me, and him.

66

Adrenalin made Marnie’s fingers fidget, the stab vest sitting like a slab on her chest. The stairwell to the tower block smelt wet and incendiary as she followed Rex Carter’s team up past half-painted walls where wiring coiled unfinished and windows of toughened glass were cross-hatched by safety tape. Thick dust had closed over everything, collecting their palm prints as they climbed.

On the sixteenth floor, Rex signalled them to a halt. They huddled to consult the floor plan and to hear the report from the team with eyes on the flat where Jamie Ledger had seen bodies moving behind the blackout.

‘Five rooms,’ Rex’s man reported. ‘Plus the one on the mezzanine level. Front door’s locked, but we can fix that. We’re not picking up any sound from inside.’

Rex looked at Marnie. ‘Your call.’

‘We go in. One room at a time, secure each room as we go.’ Sweat stabbed everywhere on her body. ‘The mezzanine’s where he keeps Aimee. It’s where I’d hole up, if I was him.’

Rex nodded at his team. ‘You heard her.’

The front door was the easy part.

Inside, the dark swallowed them up, blackout blinds at every window.

Thermal imaging cameras clicked on. No bodies on this floor. At a gesture from Rex, Marnie hung back, letting the team complete their sweep.

On the table in the kitchen, the remains of a half-eaten meal.

Water barrels bounced sound back at her as she followed Rex through the half-furnished rooms, up an interior staircase to the room Grace had called the loft.

Aimee’s room.

Two SFOs stood guard outside, shaking their heads at Rex and Marnie. A third and fourth were waiting on the stairs, weapons pointed at the floor, eyes trained on the door.

No lock. Just smooth wood and a brass handle.

From inside the room, silence.

This place, his safe place, reeked of Harm. A sharply resinous smell like split wood. The walls were too tight, the whole place packed and explosive.

Marnie lifted her hand and rapped on the door. ‘Armed police. I’m Detective Inspector Rome. I want to speak with Loz, and Eric.’

A slow, winding silence. The room breathing on the other side of the door.

‘I’m coming in. I need you to stay calm. Can you do that?’

The SFOs stayed back, weapons shouldered, waiting. They wouldn’t move without a signal from Rex. Marnie was in charge, he’d made that clear. Her case, her call.

Silence. Then:

‘You can come in.’ Loz, sounding calm. ‘Just you.’

Loz. She’s alive.

‘Just me?’ Marnie waited, wanting the girl to give her more, some clue as to what was happening inside the room. Behind her, the creak of an SFO’s gloves gripping a gun. She ignored it, focusing on the sounds from the other side of the door. ‘Loz?’

‘They’re dead,’ Loz said clearly. ‘It’s safe. There’s just me and Eric, but Eric’s scared. He’s really scared. If it’s just you, it’ll be okay.’

‘If he’s scared, it’s better that I bring help.’

‘No, it’s not. He’s … If it’s just you, it’ll be okay.’

‘We’re here to help you.’

‘You said armed police. You had to, I know, but it’s freaking him out. If it’s just you …
Please
.’ Tears in her voice, under the calm. ‘Please.’

Marnie met Rex’s eyes. ‘All right. Okay.’ She gripped the brass handle of the door. ‘Just me.’

The door was heavy. She put her weight into it.

It sucked shut behind her on a hinged chain. Snug to the door frame, shutting out the SFO team on the stairs, and the light.

The split-wood smell was the only bright thing in the room.

Boarded windows at either end, a dredge of daylight but not enough to see, not properly, not straight away. Her eyes struggled, sending a stab of panic to her feet and fingers.

Two bodies on the floor to her right. To her left …

A bed shoved against the wall, its sheets in a snarl.

‘Loz?’ Marnie kept her back to the door. One shout from her and Carter’s team would be through it. The stab vest kept her grounded, like an extra helping of gravity.

She looked to where the bodies lay on the raw, unfinished floor of the room. Some blood, but not much. Not enough light for her to be sure, but the bodies were too big to be children.

‘Loz, I’m sorry it took me so long to get here.’ The room swallowed her words. ‘But I’m here now. Tell me how I can help.’ She took a step nearer to the bed. No other hiding place that she could see. Bright dart of light behind her—

Dressing table bulbs, trapping the trickle of sun through the boarded windows.

Two of the bulbs were missing.

‘Talk to me.’ She should check the bodies. It was her job to check the bodies. ‘What happened here? I need someone to tell me. Loz, can you tell me what happened?’

Crouched in the corner of the room, half wrapped in a sheet from the bed …

Two narrow figures, so tightly bound together they looked like one. Brambly black curls, bony white elbows, the jut of a jaw. Impossible to see where Eric ended and Loz began. Was he holding her down? How long had he been up here, in the dark? She had the sense that he could see her better than she could see him.

‘Loz. Are you hurt?’ Neither child was moving. ‘I need to know if you’re hurt.’

Dust danced through the dark, trapped in the thin funnels of light from the window. She couldn’t hear them breathing, not quite. The floor creaked under her feet. Heat coming from somewhere. It pushed at the walls, shrinking the room, making it shudder.

‘I need to see if you’re hurt. If either one of you is hurt. But it’s all right. I can promise you it’s all right now.’

Movement behind her.