Tastes Like Fear (D.I. Marnie Rome 3) (40 page)

Rearing upright from the floor, dragging a shadow as solid as a wall—

Harm
.

She opened her mouth to shout, but he slammed his hands into the dressing table, shoving it across the door, leaning his weight behind it.

Looking at her. Right at her.

Carter’s team was beating at the door, shouting her name. Stupid,
stupid
not to have checked the bodies first. She called out, ‘I’m okay. It’s okay.’

Harm moved his head at her, like an animal getting her scent, fixing her in its sights.

He stepped over the other body, ignoring it. Christie Faulk. It was Christie on the floor, but he was standing between Marnie and the door.

‘I’m sorry,’ Loz said, out of breath. ‘I had to. He made me. I’m sorry …’

‘It’s okay.’ She didn’t take her eyes off the man. ‘Calum. Mr Marsh. You remember me. I’m Detective Inspector Rome. We met at the hospital. You came to the police station.’

He didn’t look like Calum Marsh, not like the grieving father she’d met. This man was taller and broader, bigger everywhere. The trickle of light showed blood on the front of his shirt.

‘You’re hurt. What happened?’ She stayed between Harm and the children crouched against the wall. It was the room making him look different. The dark, the closed door behind him. It was her fear making his shoulders broader, casting its shadow alongside his. He was just a man. One man. ‘How badly are you hurt?’

He shook his head slowly from side to side. The way a snake does before it strikes.

‘I’d like to bring a paramedic in here to take a look at you.’ Marnie stayed very still, speaking loudly enough for Carter and the others to hear. ‘Would that be all right?’

‘I’m not hurt.’ His face made the shape of a smile. ‘It was an accident.’ His voice was calm, confident. ‘No one meant to hurt anyone.’ He kept smiling at her, like no smile she’d ever seen.

His hands hung empty at his sides. No weapon, but his hands were weapons. He’d killed May and Ashleigh with those hands.

Should she shout for Carter’s team, let them smash their way in here and take him down? The dressing table looked heavy, but Carter had four men out there, all armed and trained to do this.

No. Loz had seen enough violence in the last two hours.

Marnie would shout as a last resort.

‘All right. That’s good you’re not hurt. But I’d like a paramedic in here in any case. To look at the children.’ She put the smallest emphasis on the last word, watching for his reaction.

His stare reached into the corner of the room. ‘Where are they?’

‘They’re safe. You want that, I know. You want them to be safe.’ Her left shoulder took the brunt of his stare, bruisingly hard. ‘I’d like a paramedic to make sure they’re okay. And you too. I need to be sure everyone’s okay.’

‘Everything’s fine. I wanted you to see that. You can go now.’ Dust rose like smoke behind him. ‘I’ll look after everything.’

‘I know you will, but I need to do my job. It’s my job to be sure everyone’s safe.’

‘No. That’s my job.’ That smile again. ‘The children are my job.’

Movement behind her, in the corner of the room. Feet scuffing at the floor.

Harm’s stare shoved at her shoulder, wanting to get past.

‘Mr Marsh. Calum. I need you to stay calm.’

‘I am calm.’ Breathing through his nose, the smile like a long splinter in his face. ‘This is my place. This is my family. Let me take care of it.’

Six months ago, Marnie had been trapped in an enclosed space with a dangerous man. Raging, grieving for his family. She’d thought that was frightening, but it was nothing like this.
That
man could be reasoned with. His pain had a shape she’d recognised. Harm had buried his pain too well.

‘Let me take care of my family,’ he repeated.

‘I can’t do that. I’m sorry. I can help you to do that. But too many people have been hurt already, and it’s my job to make sure no one else gets hurt. You understand that.’

‘Loz.’ He put his tongue to his top lip, showing the red inside of his mouth. ‘Come out here.’

Marnie put a hand behind her, warning Loz not to move. ‘Stay where you are.’

Harm’s head reared back, his eyes like discs in the half-dark. ‘This is
my
house.’ Bubbles of froth between his teeth. ‘My rules.’

‘But it’s not your house, is it? This place belongs to a property developer. The house in Chiswick belongs to you.’ She held his stare despite its heat. ‘Why did you move here?’

‘Safer …’

‘It
is
safer,’ she agreed. ‘We want these children to be safe. You and I want the same thing. To make this a safe place. So let me open the door and get help.’

‘I don’t need any help.’ He took a step closer. ‘Why would you think I need that?’

‘Christie needs help.’ Marnie pointed to the body on the floor. ‘Doesn’t she deserve help? She was looking after the children with you.’

‘Not all of them.’ Did he have a punctured lung? The heat coming off him smelt sulphurous. ‘She didn’t look after Ashleigh.’

‘Tell me about Ashleigh.’

‘No.’

‘Then tell me about your sister, Neve. You didn’t want these girls to be like her, living on the streets. Lost …’

A laugh barked out of him. If he was afraid, or feeling threatened or isolated, it wasn’t enough. Not for Marnie to work with. No foothold for her here. She was close to being too late.

‘Talk to me. About your family. Tell me what you need to make this better.’

‘I made a mistake letting you in here.’ His face closed up. ‘I wanted you to see what good care I was taking of these children, but you don’t see. Anything. Tell you about Neve! You don’t see
anything
. It’s better you go now.’

As if he’d thought he could make her understand. But about what – May and Ashleigh? Or his sister? All that time Marnie was searching for May … Who had searched for Neve? And why did they fail to find her?

‘Grace is safe,’ Marnie said. ‘She told us how you helped her. She’s grateful.’

‘And you think I’m a killer.’ His voice dropped, softening. ‘Isn’t that the truth?’

Was this how he’d trapped these children? With his soft words and rhetoric, making you think – no, making you
feel
he understood, everything unmuddled, the world no longer rocking around you. Restoring order with his rules, smoothing all the rough edges. No splinters, nothing to catch your feet or fingers, the whole world wrapped in duct tape, made
safe
.

‘Two girls are dead,’ Marnie said. ‘May Beswick and Ashleigh Jewell. Two girls whose families are grieving, like your family did. Like
you
grieved.’

‘Christie was dangerous,’ as if he was agreeing with her, ‘but that’s taken care of.’

‘Who took care of it?’ She matched her voice to his, mirroring the body language. ‘You?’

‘Eric.’ Smiling again. ‘But it was an accident. A misunderstanding.’

Misunderstanding
. That smile …

Stephen had smiled like that.

And Calum Marsh was lying.

He’d told them that he never saw Grace walk into the road that night, but he’d been out looking for her. That was why his son was dead, and May and Ashleigh.
A misunderstanding.

‘How did it happen?’

‘You’ll have to ask Eric.’ Showing his empty hands, sure of his powers of persuasion.

He’d wanted Marnie in here. To listen to his alibi, plant a seed of doubt in her head. He was so sure of his powers of persuasion, so used to being believed, and obeyed. Christie as a double murderer. Eric as
her
murderer. Leaving Calum the untarnished hero of the story.

‘Eric didn’t put May in that flat. And it wasn’t Christie either. You told Jamie Ledger you wanted to make the world a cleaner place. Well, May’s death wasn’t clean. It tore a filthy great hole in her family’s life. Dead bodies are
never
clean. Dead bodies are chaos,
mess
. They make the world a worse place. Dangerous, dirty. Death is the opposite of order, the opposite of clean.’

‘
Hers
wasn’t.’ His eyes like discs again. ‘Her life was like that before I found her. She was unhappy, in pain. I made her
better
. If you saw her, you know that. She was quiet, clean …’

‘Look at Christie.’ Marnie pointed at the body on the floor. ‘Does that look clean to you? Does it look quiet?’

‘Move.’ He spoke softly, as if he’d been indulging her but that had to stop now. ‘Out of my way.’

He wouldn’t look at Christie, his stare fixed on the corner of the room where Loz and Eric were huddled. Marnie had lost. She’d tried, and she’d lost.

‘
I know you’re upset. You’ve been upset since Logan died. Your son would want you to—’

‘No.’ He flexed his hands at his sides, his face shutting her out as effectively as if he’d turned his back. ‘Move out of my way.’

‘There are armed officers outside that door.’ Her breath was stacked in her chest like bricks. ‘This is a very serious, very dangerous situation. You have put
these
children in serious danger. Loz is in danger. You need to stand down. Now.’

‘Wrong. You’re wrong. I took care of her sister and I’ll take care of her—’

The corner erupted behind Marnie, a body streaking past before she could stop it, her hand grabbing at nothing, at white cotton and a whiter face, the flash of something sharp in his hand—

Landing on Harm like a sprung tiger.

Eric Mackay, going for the man’s throat with a broken light bulb.

‘Carter!’ Marnie shoved at the dressing table, but it was too heavy. ‘Carter!’

Harm swung Eric by the scruff of his neck, the boy’s bare feet hitting the dressing table with a crack. Crunching, savage – and Marnie was breathing in blood, a wet spray of it from Harm’s face as he swung the boy at the wall, not letting go of his neck.

She put her weight into the dressing table, another set of hands helping her – Loz pushing with her until Rex Carter shouted for them to stand back.

Marnie grabbed Loz, ducking the pair of them out of the way as the SFO team powered into the room, taking down the hot mess that was Harm and Eric, the boy glued to the man’s body, his hand grinding the broken bulb into Harm’s throat.

Marnie turned away, shielding Loz with her arms.

The whole room stank of blood.

More dragging, sucking, Rex’s team trying to prise the pair apart.

‘Don’t look.’ She held Loz tight. ‘Don’t look.’

Feet on the floor, slowing. Stopping.

A thin chime of glass fragments, falling.

Marnie stayed crouched with the girl in her arms until the long silence was broken by the sound of Loz sobbing.

67

The light in the interview room exaggerated Eric Mackay’s cheekbones and the sooty length of his eyelashes. A paper jumpsuit swamped his slight body, a dressing on his right hand where the wire and glass had split his skin. He shrank from the light, his eyes shutting in protest. Too frail and pretty to be a killer, but he’d finished what he’d started. Calum Marsh had died at the scene from blood loss, his throat lacerated by the broken lightbulb.

Eric’s appropriate adult was a thin-faced man in a cheap suit and shovel-toed shoes, with a lick of yellow hair and a sunken mouth that suggested he wasn’t going to speak unless he had to.

‘Can you tell me what happened earlier today?’ Marnie asked the boy.

‘We got what we deserved.’ A crack in his voice, as if he hadn’t used it in a long time.

‘Who did?’

‘Me and him. Both of us. It’s what we deserved.’ He ducked his head away from the light, but he looked at her when she didn’t speak. Extraordinary eyes, and that heart-shaped face. She could see where Aimee had come from. ‘I’ll go to prison, that’s fine. That’s good.’

‘Good?’

‘The same. Better. No Harm.’ He moved his hands on the metal table, putting them in the way of the light as if he was afraid she might not see them otherwise. Harm’s blood was in his nail beds.

‘Tell me why.’

‘He killed her. May. He killed our baby. And Loz. He would’ve killed Loz.’

‘Her life was in danger. That’s what you believed?’

‘All our lives. You saw. We were all going to die up there.’

Marnie waited, then she said, ‘And Christie? What happened to Christie?’

‘I did it. She was … Self-defence.’

‘How?’

‘She’d have killed us. She killed Ashleigh, that’s what she said when she was dying. She killed Ashleigh, for him.’ Eric blinked. ‘She’d have killed the lot of us for him.’

When he blinked, Marnie could see Aimee. It was like an optical illusion, one of those pictures that was simultaneously an old woman and a young girl. Did he miss his disguise? He’d need a new one for prison. How many did he have? He’d have to learn how to hide all over again.

He moved his cracked lips. ‘You said he had a son.’

‘Logan, yes.’

‘When he died … that’s when he killed May?’

‘I’m not sure it’s that simple. You were with him for a while. Why do you think it happened?’

‘He was … insane.’ His eyes shivered with unshed tears. ‘It was my fault. I should never have touched her. I made her keep my secret, and
our
secret. It was too much.’

‘Was she unhappy?’

‘No.
No
. She was excited, we both were. We wanted the baby. I even thought
he
might want it.’

‘You thought Harm might want your baby?’

‘He was hurting, I knew he was hurting.’ Eric looked down at his hands. ‘He wasn’t just a nutter. I felt sorry for him, until Loz told me what he’d done.’

Marnie waited a moment. ‘You said Christie confessed to killing Ashleigh. How sure are you that Harm killed May?’

‘It was him.’ His hands flinched. ‘Christie was home with us when it happened. The night May left. Christie was with us. She can’t have killed her.’

‘And the following night, when Ashleigh was killed? Did you see how it happened?’

He shook his head. ‘I was in bed.’

‘You didn’t see anything that might make you a witness to either murder?’

‘I saw
him
. Right from the start, I knew what he was. Just like May saw
me
.’ Blinking at his hands on the table. ‘She saw me. He killed her because of that.’