Birthdays for the Dead (28 page)

Oh God.

Not again.

I picked my way through the debris and sank down on the edge of the bed. Stared at Disney’s Little Zombie. ‘What about the note?’

‘A bit confused, like she’s making it up as she goes along, spontaneous rather than something she’s planned and worked on, she’s sorry for being such a disappointment, it’s not her fault, ever since her sister disappeared it’s all gone wrong for her, and nobody understands, and she hates everyone, but she loves them too, and why won’t anyone listen to her side of things any more?’

Maybe Dr McDonald was right.

Rebecca never left a note…

Maybe Katie hadn’t really run away; she hadn’t been snatched; she wasn’t tied to a chair, in a basement, waiting to die. She was off sulking somewhere trying to prove a point. She’d be back any minute.

Dr McDonald sat down next to me. ‘That was a nice engagement ring.’

From downstairs came the rattle-clack-rustle of the mail hitting the front mat.

‘What…’ I cleared my throat. ‘What about the diary?’

She put her hand on the book’s cover. Keeping it shut. ‘The usual teenage stuff.’

‘Katie lied to me: said she was staying at her friend Ashley’s house on Wednesday night, but Ashley’s dad told me she’d not been there for months.’

‘Ah…’ Dr McDonald picked up the diary and held it against her chest. ‘It’s never a good idea to—’

‘I
need
to know.’ I looked down at my fists. ‘Does she talk about Steven Wallace?’

A pause.

‘Steven Wallace? No, no … there’s no mention of Steven Wallace, or Sensational Steve, or anything like that, why would she talk about Steven Wallace?’

‘Then who the hell was she staying with?’

Chapter 35

I scooped all the post up from the mat, flicking through the envelopes. Two bills, a couple of circulars for hearing aids and stair-lifts, and a handful of birthday cards, all addressed to Katie.

Dr McDonald peered around my shoulder. ‘Are you OK?’

None of them looked like the ones that wound up in my PO box once a year, but I tore them open anyway.

‘H
APPY
13 T
ODAY!
’, ‘I
T
’
S
H
ORMONE
-C
ITY
F
ROM
H
ERE
O
N
I
N!
’, ‘I H
EAR
Y
OU
’
RE
G
ETTING
O
LDER!
’ Every one of them was shop-bought: kittens, teddy bears, grinning cartoon characters, all scribbled inside with best wishes from friends and family. A five-pound note in the one from Michelle’s mother.

No homemade card with a photo of her tied to a chair, eyes wide with terror.

He didn’t have her. It wasn’t the same as last time. Katie really had run away.

Oh thank Christ…

I rested my head against the front door, blood thumped in my forehead. Deep breath.

He didn’t have her. She’d run off to stay with the prick she was sleeping with. My little girl. Twelve – years – old.

‘Ash? Ash, are you OK?’

Now all I had to do was find the boyfriend, get Katie back, and then batter the living shite out of him.

I dumped the cards on the little table by the stairs and pushed outside into the hammering rain.

It took four of Katie’s friends before we found someone who knew where the little bastard lived.

Millbank Park towered eighteen storeys above the surrounding council estate. A set of three square high-rise blocks, strung together with walkways, paths, and corridors. Some public-spirited arsehole in the Housing Department had decided that what three big hulking lumps of concrete needed was a bright paint job. Most of the colour had worn off over the years, leaving nothing but various dirty shades of brown and grey.

A chain-link fence surrounded the car park, buckled and full of holes. A couple of battered Transit vans were abandoned over by the exit, a Fiesta up on bricks, a pair of matching VW Polos with more rust than paint.

I parked next to the Transit vans, then chucked the keys across to Dr McDonald. ‘Lock the doors. Anything happens, put your foot down: don’t look back, don’t get involved. Anyone asks, I made you come.’

‘But that’s not—’

‘I
made
you come.’ Wind tried to tear the door from my hand as I climbed out. Rain crackled against my back.

Jesus it was cold. I clumped across the car park, through the broken gate, across a glass-strewn concrete path, and under one of the walkways linking Millbank East and North.

The double doors to Millbank North were propped open, one pane of glass spiderwebbed through with cracks, criss-crossed with duct tape. I walked into the eye-stinging reek of bleach and disinfectant, the tiles wet beneath my feet. Graffiti tags covered the walls. A drift of soggy takeaway leaflets slumped in one corner, dumped by some delivery boy that couldn’t be arsed delivering them. Probably no point trying the lift, but I did anyway.

Waited.

A groaning creak, a clunk, then the lift doors squealed open. A baking urinal stench slumped out into the hallway.

Screw that.

I took the stairs.

According to Katie’s friends, Noah McCarthy was seventeen and lived on the fourteenth floor with his mum, a nurse at Castle Hill Infirmary. That was lucky, because her little darling would need some medical intervention by the time I’d finished with him.

Katie wasn’t even thirteen till Monday, and the bastard was
seventeen
.

I took the stairs. They opened out onto a featureless concrete balcony on each floor, cold morning air diluting the stench of stale piss. I kept going. Climbing higher, lungs burning in my chest.

When I reached the fourteenth floor I stepped out onto the balcony. Wind whipped along the concrete walkway, turning the rain into shotgun pellets that raked the flats’ front doors.

I counted my way along the row: Fourteen-Ten, Fourteen-Eleven, Fourteen-Twelve, Fourteen-Thirteen, then around the corner. The wind died down, blocked by the building’s bulk. Fourteen-Sixteen was almost dead centre, looking out over the concrete quadrangle between Millbank East, North, and West. Rain hammered the walkways below.

The sound of something cheery came from next door, a woman’s voice singing along with the radio inside.

I took a couple of steps back, until I was up against the balcony railing, then kicked number sixteen’s door off its hinges. BOOM.

Deep breath. ‘NOAH MCCARTHY: GET YOUR ARSE OUT HERE, IT’S FUCKING JUDGEMENT DAY!’

In. I hauled on my leather gloves. No one would bother running DNA for a wee shite like Noah McCarthy. As long as he was still breathing.

The hallway was just big enough for two doors on either side and one at the end. The nearest one burst open and a spotty young man staggered out, pulling up a pair of baggy jeans over his boxers.

Bow-legged, big red trainers that weren’t laced up properly, tartan shirt with the sleeves torn off worn over a Korn ‘
Issues
’ T-shirt. Shiny black hair, ring through his eyebrow, another through his nose. He looked me up and down, teeth bared. ‘The fuck you think you’re doin’, old man?’

‘You Noah?’

He buttoned his fly. ‘Gonna unleash a world of fuckin’ hurt on you, Grandad, comin’ in here…’ His mouth fell open. ‘What did you do to our fucking door?’

It was him – the voice on the phone pretending to be Ashley’s father. The prick who told me they’d stayed up late eating pizza watching Freddy Krueger slash his way through central casting.

‘Where is she?’

‘That’s our door! Mum’s gonna go
mental
when she finds out.’

‘WHERE IS SHE, YOU LITTLE PRICK?’

He backed up a step. ‘She’s … at work?’

‘Not your mum: Katie. Where’s my daughter?’

‘Oh
fuck
…’ He turned and ran, back into the bathroom, slammed the door behind him. ‘Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck…’

A little clunking noise, like a teeny bolt being slid home.

I opened the nearest door on the right: small kitchen, the surfaces littered with pizza boxes and discarded remains of microwave meals, a pyramid of empty lager cans arranged on the floor.

Next door: a double bed littered with clothes, a small dressing table turned into a shrine to face cream, perfume, and makeup.

The door at the end opened on a living room with a big telly in one corner, a brown sofa, and a coffee table – a heaped ashtray sitting next to a pack of Rizla, a pouch of rolling tobacco, and a half-inch block of Moroccan.

Another bedroom lurked behind the fourth door, smaller than the first, the walls adorned with the same kind of posters as Katie’s. Only Noah didn’t have a Disney’s Little Mermaid, she’d done him a zombie Tinkerbell instead. Rumpled duvet cover, jeans, T-shirts, socks, and boxer shorts were scattered across the floor… And a pair of red panties with little white skull-and-crossbones on them.

I checked the wardrobe – no Katie.

Back to the bathroom.

A muffled voice came from inside. ‘Denny, you fuckin’ spaz: answer the fuckin’ phone!’

The bathroom door came off its hinges even easier than the front one. It crashed down into the bath, ripping the shower curtain from the rail.

He squealed, scrabbled back until he was standing on the toilet lid, mobile phone clutched against his chest. As if that was going to save him.

‘Noah McCarthy?’

‘I… Whatever she told you, it’s a fuckin’ lie, OK? I never—’

‘She’s
twelve
, Noah. You’re seventeen, and my little girl is twelve. AND HER PANTIES ARE IN YOUR FUCKING BEDROOM!’

A medicine cabinet was fixed to the wall above the sink. I grabbed it and pulled. The whole thing creaked and rattled, then pop – the rawlplugs holding it to the wall gave and everything slid around inside. Heavy enough to do some decent damage. I hurled it at him.

‘Aaaaaaagh!’ Noah ducked, arms covering his face, as the medicine cabinet smashed into him. The door flew off, pills and toothpaste and cotton buds going everywhere.

I took a handful of his baggy jeans and hauled.

He crashed down against the cistern, the back of his head leaving a smear of red where it bounced off the tiles above the toilet.

Noah struggled, but I didn’t let go: I twisted his leg halfway around and shoved it against the lip of the bath. Leant my full weight on it till it snapped. Another scream. A kick in the balls shut him up. Then a knee in the face. Stamping on his ribs till I felt a couple of them break. Then all the fingers on his right hand.

I staggered back, breathing hard.

Noah slumped on the floor against the toilet, blood trickling down his face from a broken nose, right hand curled against his chest, left leg bent in a way nature never intended. Sobbing.

Good.

‘Where is she?’

‘Ah … God…’

‘How does it go, Noah? After forty days and forty nights, he sent forth a dove to see if it could find land. Something like that?’ I grabbed his other leg – the unbroken one – and pulled.

More screaming.

Out into the hall. He snatched at the doorframe, but I stamped on his elbow. It did the trick. He cried and moaned and pleaded all the way to the front door.

I dragged him onto the balcony, then flipped him over onto his front. Took a hold of his collar in one hand and the waistband of his trousers in the other. ‘Katie’s
twelve
, you raping paedo piece of shit. TWELVE.’

‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t—’

I shoved his head forward, banging it off the concrete railing.

‘Where is she?’

‘I… I don’t know, please…’

‘I’m going to send
you
forth, Noah.’ I hauled him up until his top half was out over the railing. ‘Think you’ll be able to find land when I let go?’

‘I don’t know! I don’t know! She was here Wednesday night, but that’s it! Jesus… Honest: I don’t know!’

Liquid trickled across the concrete at my feet. It wasn’t rain.

I heaved Noah’s damp arse up higher, and he screamed.

Someone barrelled around the corner and skidded to a halt on the balcony, grabbing onto the handrail. Dr McDonald. Her mouth fell open. ‘Ash?’ She glanced back over her shoulder – towards the stairs. ‘Ash, what are you doing?’

‘Noah here’s going forth to find land.’ I gave him a shake. ‘Look, Noah, it’s right down there, can you see it?’

‘PLEASE HELP ME!’

‘Ash, you can’t do this, it’s—’

‘She’s twelve!’ I let go of his collar and slammed a fist into his kidneys. Fire and ice burst inside my knuckles. So I did it again.

Noah screamed.

The lady next door turned up her music.

‘Please don’t kill me! Please!’ He waved his good arm at Dr McDonald. ‘Help me!’

She licked her lips. Looked away. ‘Katie’s only twelve.’

Good girl.

I gave him another shake.

‘AAAAAGH! Please, I didn’t mean it! I didn’t know!
Please!
’

‘WHERE IS SHE?’

‘Ash, we’ve got to get out of here – Dickie’s on his way up, he’s got the big hairy one with him, they’re looking for you.’

‘Not till this piece of shit tells me where Katie is.’

‘I don’t know! I don’t … I don’t know…’ The words getting more and more mushy, broken up with jagged sobs.

‘Ash, we have to go!’

‘He’s been screwing my twelve-year-old daughter!’

‘We have to go
now
!’

‘Bye, Noah. Say hello to the ground for me.’

‘PLEASE!’

A man’s voice boomed out from the other end of the balcony. ‘Officer Henderson!’ Didn’t need to look to know it was Dickie. ‘Ash: put him down.’

I stayed where I was. ‘Should’ve said, “Let him go.” Would’ve been funnier.’

‘DON’T LET HIM KILL ME!’

Dickie walked towards us, hands up, as if I had a gun on him. ‘Ash, this isn’t helping.’

Behind Dickie, DS Gillis puffed and panted to a halt, leaning on the handrail and wheezing. ‘Christ on a bike…’

‘Ash, I need you to put Mr McCarthy down.’

No chance. ‘How’d you find me?’

‘Katie’s friends. Come on, Ash, it’s over, you can’t do this.’

‘He’s been
fucking
my little girl.’

‘We’ll do him for it: we’ll lock him up with the other dirty kiddie fiddlers. Now haul him in.’

No.

‘Ash, please. We need to talk about Katie.’

‘He knows where she is!’ I gave Noah another shake.

‘I don’t! I don’t know anything!’

Dickie put his hands down. ‘Michelle called the station. She got a card from the Birthday Boy.’

‘You’re a lying bastard: I checked the mail before we left.’

He reached into his jacket and pulled out a smart phone, pressed a couple of buttons and held it out. A snapshot filled the shiny screen – a homemade birthday card with a photo of Katie on it. Tied to a chair. A gag over her mouth, eyes wide, cheeks streaked with mascara.

I let go of Noah.