What You Left Behind (18 page)

“I don’t know,” he replied. He hated that his voice sounded lame next to Frank’s. “I don’t think Lana’s allowed, and I’m pretty tired.”

Frank stared down at him. He was holding a toolbox in one hand, a metal one like Freddie had seen plumbers use. “Just saying, you know, lad. Tammy’s a good girl.” He stared at Freddie for a moment longer, then walked away down the hall. A quick glance back over his shoulder unnerved Freddie even more.

“What was that about?” Lana said, returning to the bunk. She looked pale.

Freddie shook his head. “Nothing much. Just about Tammy’s party.”

“It would freak me out to have a dad like him.” She sat down on
the bunk next to Freddie. “Anyway, forget that. Frank just told me something terrible when I was in the kitchen.”

Freddie wondered whether he should put his arm round her shoulders.

“There’s been another suicide.” She gave a little choke, looked directly at him. “Oh my God, Freddie, I don’t believe it.”

“Who? When?” He was conscious of his voice squeaking.

“Lenny. They’re saying that Lenny killed himself. The story’s been going around since yesterday.” Lana leaned in closer. “You don’t think we … you don’t think it’s our fault, do you?”

Then her head was bowed, pressing against his shoulder. He felt the electric shock of her touch in every part of his body.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he said, although it felt as if his mouth wasn’t working. He bit his tongue until he tasted blood. “Lenny
killed
himself?” He didn’t know what to say. Nothing made sense.

“That’s what Frank just told me.” Lana pulled a tissue from her pocket. “He says it probably won’t be reported in the papers much because of what happened round here before.”

“Bloody hell.”

“And with Dean killing himself so recently, they don’t want it kicking off again. Oh God, what’s going on, Freddie? Was it because we got him to steal the computer? I really wish we hadn’t now. We could have got it another way.”

Freddie put his hand on Lana’s head and stroked her hair. It was soft and shiny, but he hardly felt it, barely appreciated it.

“No, no, it’s not our fault,” he said, trying to sound as soothing as he could. He needed time to work this out. “Lenny was always after money, ducking and diving. He said I’d done him a favor, asking him to take it.”

He stared around New Hope in a daze. He’d seen Lenny’s head being pulped with a rock. He had to confess what had happened. Something this big couldn’t sit inside him. He’d witnessed a
murder
,
and he’d run away like a coward. Why hadn’t he gone back and helped his mate?

Then the enormous rotten hole those bastards had carved out over the months opened up inside him and swallowed the secret back down. No, he thought, he had to hold on to this shit. How could he possibly tell anyone what he’d seen? He was as guilty as Lenny’s killer. They were right: he was a loser and deserved to rot in hell.

Freddie’s eyes filled with tears as Frank stared at him through the kitchen hatch.

T
HAT EVENING
,
HIS
mum, all cheery and excited, dragged him downstairs to greet his Uncle Adam, who’d just arrived from Birmingham. He’d taken the first opportunity to slope back up to his room once the chitchat was out of the way. It wasn’t that he didn’t like his uncle, far from it, but the thought of making small talk—lying about how he was, how he thought he’d done on his exams, what he was up to this summer with his mates—was frankly nauseating. Adam was another cop, after all, and he knew from the stories Lorraine had told him that cops had a way of sniffing things out—things like the nature of Lenny’s death in particular.

Anyway, they were all chattering away about some stupid canal boat trip and other stuff that he wanted nothing to do with. How could he get excited about anything ever again when he felt like this?

He sat down at his desk and folded his arms, rocking slightly in his chair. His head ached and his eyes throbbed. He stared at his bed, knowing what was underneath the mattress. It wasn’t a very good hiding place, he knew that, but he didn’t want to keep the laptop for long. He wanted shot of it. Since he had learned that Lenny was dead, it suddenly seemed tainted, dangerous even.

He couldn’t put it off any longer. Everyone downstairs was
preoccupied, and he doubted they would disturb him until it was time to go out. They’d been invited to the Hawkeswells’ for a barbecue, but he couldn’t face an evening of socializing, even if it did mean a couple of hours in Lana’s company.

He lifted up the corner of his mattress, stuck in his hand, and pulled out the silver laptop. He put it on the desk, opened up the lid, and turned it on. His stomach churned as he checked that his door was firmly closed. A peal of laughter wound up the stairs, making him feel even more wretched about being miserable and alone.

A moment later and the screen was glowing in front of him. Once he’d hacked through the password, he saw loads of icons displayed on the desktop, some familiar, some not. What he was looking for wouldn’t be obvious, cleverly tucked away in a hidden file or emailed to a secret address no doubt. Lana had described what she’d glimpsed; apart from the unpleasant details, she’d said there were many windows open within some kind of photo-viewing software. It wasn’t much to go on, but Freddie set to work, beginning by trawling through recently opened files.

Fifteen fruitless minutes later there was a knock at his bedroom door. He slammed the laptop shut and threw his robe over the top of it. When he opened the door, Stella was standing there, a grin cutting across her rosy-cheeked face.

“Are you coming then or what?” she said. “Mum sent me to get you.”

Freddie felt drunk from staring at all the files, from delving into the private workings of someone else’s life. He actually quite liked Lana’s dad and felt bad, as if he’d crept into his bedroom in the middle of the night and rifled through his personal possessions. But he quickly reminded himself that he was doing it for Lana’s sake as well as his, and he just had to get it over with. They needed the truth. So far, he’d found nothing out of the ordinary.

“Sorry, Stell,” he replied. He didn’t want to be mean to his cousin. “I really don’t feel like coming.”

He heard his mother’s voice ring up the stairs, echoing what Stella had said. She shrugged, looking at him imploringly.

“Wouldn’t it be easier if you just came along?” she whispered.

“No,” Freddie said quietly.

He knew he couldn’t lump all his troubles on her, but he reckoned she’d been astute and picked up on something because she nodded obligingly and walked off, leaving him with a gentle pat on the arm. To keep his mother off his back, he yelled down the stairs that he would be along later, that he was just chatting to a mate online.

Another ten minutes after that he heard them all go out and the house fell silent. Freddie turned back to the computer, but the power was getting low and he didn’t have a charger to fit it. Anyway, he wasn’t in the mood anymore. Searching through someone else’s private stuff just felt wrong, even if there was a good reason. All he’d found were innocent family photographs, some personal letters, and a few medical articles.

He shoved the computer back under the mattress and grabbed the A4 pad from his bedside drawer. He’d started the letter a couple of weeks ago and never got round to finishing it. But it had made him feel a tiny bit better, writing down all his troubles, his worries, his fears and anxieties. It was addressed to his mum, but that didn’t mean she was ever going to get it. God, no. It was just something he’d seen on a bullying forum, about how writing a letter to someone you love could, eventually, help you speak up or feel better. Freddie thought he would give it a try. He was desperate, after all.

The text woke him. The pad was lying on his chest and the pen had fallen from his hand. Instantly the sick feeling lurched in the pit of his belly. He pulled his phone from his back pocket, sat up, blinked several times to clear his sight, and read it.

“Shit,
no
,” he said out loud, his heart hammering in his chest.

He got up from his bed and stood in the middle of the room, not knowing what to do. It was the worst message yet. As far as he could see, there was only one way out for him now.

16

Lorraine had called Adam as soon as she’d got back from telling Sonia about Lenny’s death. Although she wasn’t certain of his plans for the next few days, she hoped he could come to Radcote. She missed him.

“Thanks a lot,” she’d said good-naturedly as she lay on her bed, phone pinned to her ear. He’d just said she’d sounded stressed.

She’d told him about her encounter with Greg Burnley at the Justice Center, and brought Adam up to speed about Gil and his claims regarding Dean Watts’ death. She was intrigued, and she knew that Adam’s curiosity would also get the better of him, especially with Burnley involved.

“He hasn’t changed much,” she’d said after describing the second
suicide, almost hearing Adam’s mind ticking over on the other end of the phone:
two lads dead from the same homeless shelter … a witness who saw a second person on the motorbike
 … “We went to the scene, but Burnley had his blinkers on, as ever. I had to push him to get some basic SOC forensics he was going to overlook, and I’ve also asked to see some reports on the case from a month ago. He’s being rather difficult.”

“
We
went to the scene?” Adam said. “As in you and Greg Burnley? You’ve taken it upon yourself to
work
with him?”

“No, Adam, of course not. Anyway, he made it quite clear that he wasn’t interested in reopening the Dean Watts case, whatever information I had. He basically told me to get lost so he could get on with mopping up the railway suicide. This area gets special consideration after the previous suicides.”

Lorraine had gone on to explain about Jo’s friend Sonia, and how they’d lost their son over a year ago, how he was the next to last in a spate of suicides in the area. It was, in the end, enough for Adam to say he was coming to Radcote. Besides, he’d said, it was too quiet at home alone.

Lorraine had smiled after hanging up. Taking time out of the office was one of the perks of being a detective inspector. They managed their own workloads, and as long as they got the job done, questions were rarely asked. Besides, Adam had a special interest in cases like this, having led a similar investigation in the past and written a well-respected paper on the subject. He’d been a keynote speaker at a conference aimed at community police and the risk of copycat and cluster suicides.

The next morning, she’d told Jo that Adam was coming to stay.

“I’d better call Sonia and let her know then. She’s just asked us all round for a barbecue at the Manor tonight.”

W
HEN HE ARRIVED
, Lorraine had had to pry his arms from her waist. “We’re due in half an hour, Adam,” she reminded him. She hadn’t had a chance to change yet. Jo had emphasized that it was just a casual arrangement, nothing to make a fuss about, especially as Sonia was unlikely to go to a huge amount of trouble under the circumstances, but Lorraine felt she ought to make an effort.