The Teacher: A shocking and compelling new crime thriller – NOT for the faint-hearted! (12 page)

The Confession

Then

Abbey’s skin blistered with the heat of the shower, it was as hot as she could take without it physically scalding her, her scalp ached as the steaming droplets thumped against it. She wanted to burn away as many layers of skin as she could, she would peel them off if she had to. Her father would be there in less than an hour and this was her third shower since the night before. She wanted every trace of them gone before he arrived, she couldn’t bear the idea of their smell on her. Her gums were red and sore, she had brushed and brushed her teeth, her tongue, her lips; knowing full well she would have to kiss her father on the cheek, if she didn’t he would know, he would know what she had done with her mouth, what had been done to her body.

She stripped her bed and tossed her bedding into a black sack, she had no clothes to wash, only her knickers from the night before and she had thrown them in the bin. If she could have thrown herself away she would have, she felt completely disposable. How could she have been so stupid? Christian’s words from the night before rang in her mind, ‘you’re actually quite pretty’. What had seemed like a compliment at the time took on a new meaning as she remembered his emphasis on the word ‘actually’. Was he using the word to reassure her or was he expressing surprise at the fact he had never thought of her that way, even though she had imagined he had? The flirtations and interactions between them weren’t what she had first thought them to be. Was he just figuring out how weak she was? Was he studying her to see how much he could get away with? No, she realised, he was building trust, building desire, making sure that when the situation arose she would feel too confused to cry out.

She sat on her bare divan as she waited for her father. She just wanted her dad to be there, wanted to be out of this room, out of this town, away. She couldn’t imagine ever returning at this point, she didn’t want to study, she didn’t want to socialise, and she just wanted to be at home with her dad, like old times. Why did she have to go to university anyway? She could just get a job and work her way into a career, plenty of people did it. Her thoughts were interrupted by Dani, back from an early morning charity club meeting. She clocked Abbey’s packed bag.

‘I didn’t know you were going to your fam’s today!’

‘I’ve just got to pick some stuff up from home.’

‘That’s a shame, me and Christian were going to see if you and Jamie wanted to come to the cinema, it’s a cult movie marathon and it’s only a quid to get in.’

‘Can’t. Sorry.’

‘Hey, Mr Lucas!’ Dani beamed.

Grateful to see her father’s face peering round the door, Abbey shot up and grabbed her things. She didn’t look behind her as she rushed out muttering a goodbye on her way.

In the car Abbey turned the radio up loud so she didn’t have to converse with her dad, unsure of whether or not her voice would betray her. She felt shaky and the tears wanted to come, she hadn’t cried yet but she had berated herself over and over again. A constant replay of the previous night’s events circulated through her thoughts. She couldn’t put her finger on what upset her the most. She couldn’t confide in Dani because she had kissed Christian, she had wanted to so badly. She couldn’t remember ever telling them to stop what they were doing. She must have done. Why hadn’t she screamed the place down?

Lost in thought she didn’t notice her father had stopped the car already, parked outside the house she had grown up in, a house she didn’t want to taint by walking inside. But she still had a faint hope that all the good memories and precious moments would wash her clean, cleaner than any shower could. When the music stopped she snapped back to the present and she became aware of her father’s gaze on her. Concern, love, protection, safety.

‘Everything OK, pumpkin?’ Pumpkin was what he had always called her, never by her name, not once that she could remember.

‘Just a little hung-over.’ Not a lie, but not the whole truth. Lying to him had always been impossible, he was too important to lie to. She had never really needed to lie before now but she wanted to protect him from the knowledge of what kind of girl she was. What kind of girl was she? She kissed her best friend’s boyfriend, then what? What had actually happened? How could she want him so much one moment, then not at all the next? Her behaviour, her dress, the drinking, the flirting, she knew all of that would be under scrutiny; not what he did, he was the life and soul of the party. She knew no one would have a bad word to say about him. Was there even any point in telling anyone about it? No, there wasn’t.

Be normal she told herself. Well, she had never felt normal anyway, always on the periphery of human behaviour but now so far beyond that, she could barely remember how to breathe, how to walk. Be normal, be normal, and repeat the mantra until it sinks in.

Exhausted from thinking, she walked in the house and flopped on the sofa in front of the TV, hoping to distract herself with mind-numbing sitcoms. She flicked through the channels but nothing was funny enough to be a distraction. Her father returned with a bucket of greasy fast food for Sunday lunch, cooking was never his thing and besides, this was exactly what she wanted. He always knew what she wanted, he knew her so well. She silently munched her way through four pieces of oily chicken, her dad smiled and chatted to her for the duration, and she just about managed to force a smile back.

‘Your washing’s dry so I can drop you back whenever you’re ready.’ His words echoed and bounced through her mind. Back? Could she go back? Maybe not just yet, just one night in her childhood four-poster bed before she faced that world. One night being a daughter again, safe with her protector, the only man she would ever trust again.

‘I might stay tonight, if it’s OK? I don’t have any lessons tomorrow.’ Her father’s beaming smile warmed her heart. Of course she was welcome, always welcome here, this was home.

As she lay in the pink monstrosity that had been her bed growing up she was overcome with powerlessness, unsure of what she would do when she woke up in the morning. Something was on the tip of her tongue, she didn’t know what it was but it needed to come out.

Sleep came easier than the previous night. When she woke up the next morning she almost forgot for a moment. Almost forgot what?

A breakfast of boiled egg and soldiers in her pink china egg cup was ready and waiting when she walked into the kitchen, with a steaming cup of strawberry tea. She had never been overly fond of the colour pink but as a single father who wanted to be the mother too, her dad always bought the girliest thing in the shop, scared that as a car mechanic he would never be able to fill both roles successfully – but not for lack of trying.

Her father sat opposite her opening his post, huffing at the bills and throwing the junk mail in the bin.

‘Not hungry?’ He nodded to her breakfast that remained untouched. She looked down at the plate, she wasn’t hungry and she could still feel the undigested chicken in her stomach. She picked up a thin strip of toast and bit into it. It was cold, soggy and tough.

Her dad put the letters on the table and looked at her, she knew she had failed to fool him; he was worried. She tried to think of a lie to answer his next question, she could feel it coming, and she needed to be ready.

‘What’s the matter, pumpkin?’

‘I was raped,’ she blurted. As the words left her mouth she was instantly relieved, finally putting a name to what she was feeling, she hadn’t allowed the word to form in her mind before now but it made sense, everything did.

‘Oh my God, Abbey! Who? When?’ And there it was, her name, she would never be pumpkin again.

‘A party, Saturday, two of these guys that I know …’ She was immediately wishing she could turn back the clock and take it back, rewind the last few minutes and become his daughter again, deal with this pain alone. He didn’t deserve this, she felt horrible for doing this to him.

‘Two …’ The colour drained from his cheeks and his breathing laboured.

‘It wasn’t bad … I mean it was bad but it wasn’t like … bad.’ She scrambled for words that would spare him the mental images she knew he must be dealing with.

‘Did they drug you? How could this happen?’ The tears flew from her eyes before he could even finish the sentence.

‘I was just a bit drunk, that’s all, I didn’t know … I didn’t think.’

‘I’m calling the police, those bastards won’t get away with this!’

‘God! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!’ She stormed upstairs and slammed her bedroom door shut; there was no going back now.

As she lay sobbing into her pillow she heard a crash downstairs. She could feel her father’s anger through the floorboards, he had spent his whole life making sure she was safe, he’d taught her how to look after herself and as soon as he let her go this happened. She remembered how reluctant he was to let her go to university in the city and live in the halls of residence, but she had begged, promised she would be careful and now she wasn’t sure he would ever trust her again.

She wanted to say sorry, wanted to hug him and comfort him, she knew this had always been his biggest fear as a father, that he couldn’t protect her from every danger. That bad things happen to people was not a fact of life that her father found easy to accept. She couldn’t fault him for his protective ways because the fact of the matter was maybe this never would have happened had she listened to her father. She would never have been allowed to go to that party, never have been allowed to wear that dress, she would have been too worried about disappointing him to get so drunk and she would have been home earlier. So many things would have been different if she had just taken heed and not filed his advice away as the ramblings of an overbearing parent. He knew best.

A gentle knock on the door of her room. She wanted to tell him to go away but she also wanted him with her, she didn’t know anything any more. Why had she told him?

‘I made you some Horlicks,’ she heard through the door.

‘Come in.’ She sat up and wiped her face with her hands. He put the drink on her bed stand and sat at the far edge of the bed. She could see he had been crying. It was so strange, she had never seen him cry, ever. It broke her heart to think that she had caused him pain after everything her mother had put them through; they had always been a team. Her mother had chosen career over family when Abbey was small, but her dad had made it work. She wasn’t sure they could come back from this.

‘Do you want to talk about it? You don’t have to, but if it helps I will listen.’

‘It was Dani’s boyfriend, I kissed him and then … things started to happen, his friend walked in on us and … stayed.’

‘Did you make it clear to them, I mean, were they drunk? Was it all a big misunderstanding?’

‘What are you saying? They held me down! I couldn’t leave …’ She swallowed hard and looked down at her hands, she was digging her nails into her skin to stop herself from screaming. ‘You must hate me if that’s what you think.’

He didn’t speak right away, he just looked out the window; Abbey took his silence as confirmation of his disapproval.

‘So you just let them …?’ He stopped as he saw the hurt in her eyes, he couldn’t finish that sentence. ‘I’m sorry, poor choice of words. I don’t know what to do here, Abbey … Do you want to call the police?’

‘I wish I had never said anything.’

‘We could go to the hospital, don’t they say you should do that in this situation?’

‘It’s too late, I already showered a bunch of times. I’ll get a morning after pill from the chemist’s.’ She found herself getting frustrated at the sound of his voice, of the doubt in his voice. With every question he asked she found herself wanting to yell at him that it wasn’t her fault. Instead she just dug her nails into the back of her hand and stared straight ahead.

‘I’m glad you told me.’ She could tell he didn’t believe the words he was saying but she was grateful for the lie.

‘I just want to be alone, I’m tired.’ Her father chewed on his lip and waited for her to speak again. She wanted words of comfort from him; she wanted him to tell her she never had to go back to that place again.

‘I’ll get your washing for you.’

The Doctor

Dr Peter Vaughn washed his hands. The smell of mortician-grade sanitiser had permeated his skin. It smelled stronger and more unpleasant than the corpses that surrounded him. The silver slab in front of him contained the remains of Kevin Hart’s body, the flesh already translucent with that silvery green sheen dead skin takes on, almost amphibian in appearance. It was hard to imagine that this white flabby shank of meat was part of a human body, but it was; it was a thigh.

Peter had known Kevin, he had specifically asked for this case, they wouldn’t turn down the help of such a highly regarded pathologist; they couldn’t. Peter and Kevin weren’t friends as such, they hadn’t spoken in years, but as he looked on Kevin’s body all he could think of was the time they had shared, not just because when someone dies that’s what you do. Even if you have only met a person once you are stuck with that memory, it becomes more significant than it ever had done before. In Peter’s case there was not one memory but many. A custom they had shared together, a secret life, there was nothing indecent about their relationship but they had mutual experiences that could not be broadcast or divulged to anyone else. Ever. People just wouldn’t understand. Even among their friends Kevin and Peter had been more in-tune with each other, which was possibly why Peter had distanced himself over the last eighteen years. He knew that Kevin still dabbled with the darkness. Peter had tried for the most part to play it straight, unwilling to jeopardise his career for a hedonistic urge that never dissipated, only grew. Peter had pushed the limits of self-indulgence in the past and he had come close to losing everything. Kevin enjoyed living on the edge, stepping over the boundaries. A part of Peter respected him for that, for following his desires and not becoming a slave to society. In Peter’s mind Kevin was always laughing, a deep sinister laugh that couldn’t be ignored, much like Kevin himself.

The door opened and Peter looked up, startled. He pulled away from the memory of the larger-than-life Kevin Hart and faced a man and a woman.

‘Hello, Doctor, I’m DS Miles and this is my partner, DS Grey.’ The man spoke, he was very direct, he looked straight into Peter’s eyes. Peter wasn’t used to dealing with the living.

Peter held his hand out to shake but the woman made a face at him and put her hands in her pockets. She was quite plain but that’s all Peter could tell about her, her clothes were very casual and baggy, she dressed like someone much younger than he suspected she actually was. A big hoody and baggy corduroy flares with oversized trainers. She hoisted herself on to a vacant steel slab and crossed her legs as though she were at primary school.

‘Is that Kevin Hart?’ DS Grey asked.

‘Of course, unless you know of any other dismembered corpses that have turned up recently?’ Peter tried to make light of the situation.

Peter observed as DS Miles stared at the remains, lifting the sheet to look underneath. Between his silence and her juvenile demeanour Peter felt very uncomfortable.

‘Not that I know of, no.’

‘Well this is him, poor chap, really took a hammering.’

‘There was a hammer?’ she said. Peter looked over and saw the detective lie flat on the empty steel table, placing her arms by her sides and staring up at the spotlight.

‘Um, no, there was no hammer. I just meant Hart junior was thorough.’

Peter had to be careful not to be defensive, he didn’t want them to remember this meeting for all the wrong reasons. He had a role to play. He had to subvert the investigation, they were not allowed to get to the killer, because if they did then all the skeletons would be well and truly out of the cupboard.

‘Cause of death?’ DS Miles asked.

‘Slice and dice,’ DS Grey muttered, almost to herself. Her partner ignored her and looked Peter straight in the eyes again.

‘It’s hard to know without the organs but …’

‘Yeah, what’s with that?’ Grey boomed as she swung her legs over the side of the table and jumped off. ‘Why take the organs?’

‘You will have to ask your suspect that.’ His fuse was burning short with this woman, so he turned to the man instead. ‘I read about the mix-up with the trial in the
Gazette
, DS Miles, I bet you’re glad you’ll finally get him for something.’ Peter had to get away from the detective’s stare, he felt it boring into him. He knew it was paranoia but he felt his collar tightening around his throat. What if they knew about the connection between himself and Kevin? He cursed himself for being the first to bring up the organs.

‘Shame someone had to die first.’ Miles was still staring.

‘I’m sure that’s not your fault, Officer.’ Peter smiled and squeezed past DS Miles and stood the other side of the gurney.

‘So, Doc, you ever see anything like this before?’ DS Grey asked.

‘Like this? God no. And thank goodness for that. Nasty business.’

‘What kind of weapon are we looking for?’

‘Well, several really, but the main perpetrator is a small knife, smooth, six inches long, max,’ Peter lied, secure in the knowledge that they would have no idea he wasn’t telling the truth. Any clues to the type of knife they were really looking for would narrow the field for their search considerably. Peter had been told that the detectives needed to be misled.

‘Like a fish knife?’ Miles asked.

‘Well, no, nothing that sharp, the way the cuts are made, some brute strength was required. Most likely a man, I’d say, from the sheer energy required to dismember a human body in this way. Could be a strong woman at a push, perhaps. We’re still running some tests against the weapons found at the suspect’s house.’

‘Lefty? Righty?’ Grey asked, she was sitting on his desk now playing with his paperweight, which was a much-treasured human bone trapped in polished resin.

‘Could you get down from there, please, miss?’

‘Sure.’ She hopped down, tossing the paperweight in the air before landing and catching it. Peter held his breath as one of his favourite possessions hovered just a few feet above the hard marble floor.

‘Left-handed, from the angle of entry, the direction of the cut – the left hand has a naturally anti-clockwise predisposition.’ Peter was annoyed now, this woman was very unsettling, it was like having an unsupervised child in the room.

‘Something about this is really familiar to me, Doc, any ideas?’ DS Miles interjected.

‘No, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this before.’ Peter spoke loudly over a clunking noise. He turned around only to see DS Grey opening and closing the pressure-locked drawers one by one and looking inside.

‘Detective!’ Was she messing with him? She shrugged and held her palms up before putting her hands in her pockets and leaning against the door, she was ready to leave. He felt his temper brimming at the surface. ‘Please don’t touch anything!’

‘We’ll get out of your way now, Doc, sorry for the inconvenience.’ DS Miles flashed an angry look at his partner. Peter was relieved to see the whole scenario hadn’t been orchestrated to elicit a response from him. They didn’t know the connection; they weren’t trying to break him. He waited for them to leave.

Peter’s nerves were shot after the police visit and he needed to get rid of the sweat that had pooled around his collar. He pulled the sheet cover off the slab to reveal the rest of Kevin’s body, namely his head. The years had not been kind to Kevin, although kinder than he had deserved, kinder than any of them deserved after what they had done to the boy; after what they had made the boy do. He wondered if years of looking at his own reflection and making excuses for the sins of the past had made him blind to the toll age had taken on him. The detective was right, of course, he had seen this before, although Miles didn’t look old enough to remember the incident himself, but if he did any digging he would find it. He would find the story of the homeless boy that had been found in a disused warehouse on the outskirts of the city down by the river all those years ago. Back then no one cared about those throwaways, it was investigated for a short time before the interest and resources fizzled out, the lead detective on the case emigrated to Spain and that was the end of it; no one else cared. Peter remembered the case though, he remembered because he was there. He had seen the body back when he was a young up-and-coming doctor. He had seen the body before it was a body, he had known the boy, the boy they had killed. Kevin Hart was a message for him, a message for all of them.

Peter pulled the sheet back over Kevin’s face, he didn’t need to examine the body any further, he had already written the report, and he had already been instructed on what to say. There was a plan. To the layman it looked as though he had done a thorough examination, with all the more obvious injuries noted down even though he had really only taken a cursory glance and made up most of the information. He made it look convincing though. He had of course recorded as few real facts as he could get away with. He didn’t want the investigation to lead to the murderer because the murderer would inevitably, eventually lead back to him, and not just him either, there were others who had just as much to lose, maybe more. He slid Kevin Hart’s body into the cold storage and left the morgue. Now he needed to disappear. Fast.

Peter lived alone. He’d never married. He opened the door to his house and rushed up the stairs. He grabbed what clothes he could from the dresser and threw them into a holdall, he could buy more clothes, he only needed the essentials; he didn’t have time to worry about those other things. Peter zipped his bag and rushed down the stairs as quickly as he had ascended them.

As he put his hand on the front door handle to leave, the music started. The speaker system ran through his entire house and music was blaring from every room. Peter looked at the conservatory door, the control unit for the stereo was in there, and so was whoever had turned it on. Never had Mahler sounded as imposing as it did at that moment. Peter pulled at the front door handle but it did not budge, it was locked. Peter knew the only other way out was through the conservatory to the back door.

‘Leave me alone!’ he screamed, the music swallowing his words. Peter couldn’t just stand there and wait to be murdered, he made a break for the other exit, he had seen what had been done to Kevin, and he wouldn’t go down without a fight.