Dead Silent (17 page)

She lifted the arm and turned off the power to the record player.

Two walls were empty. The third wall was dominated by a sculpture and on the fourth wall was a skilfully painted mural in three sections: a broad central image and two narrower images either side. Hieronymus Bosch’s
The Last Judgment
.
What is it with this picture?
thought Clay.
Lawson writes books about it and Huddersfield likes it so much he has it on his bell, his front door and now in here as well!

Her eyes wandered across Bosch’s vision of earthly chaos: monsters going about their daily business of punishing human flesh, a disembodied head marching on its feet, a freakish figure riding bareback on a naked man towards a makeshift crucifixion on a tree. Each torment was a punishment for one of the seven deadly sins, and they were watched over by Jesus in radiance and his disciples in a sky-blue heaven.

She looked at the top of the left-hand panel, recognised heaven overlooking the Garden of Eden at the dawn of creation. In heaven, God sat surrounded by a look of light as the loyal angels cast out the rebel angels. In the Garden of Eden, a narrative emerged. God fashioning Eve from Adam’s rib; the temptation at the Tree of Knowledge; Adam and Eve being chased from the garden by an avenging angel.

Clay paid closer attention to the central panel. Beneath heaven and Christ’s feet, the dark earth churned, a living purgatory in which mythical beasts and demons stabbed, impaled and tortured human beings, harrying them into eternal damnation.

She looked at the fires that raged in the city of hell at the top of the right-hand panel. Beneath them was Satan in his dark grotto, awaiting the latest sinners from earth, those who’d already arrived thrashed and wailed above his head as they were boiled in a pan.

In the middle of the room was a ladder-back chair and a gag hanging limply off it. She looked at the floor, saw old blood-splatter marks combined with fresher stains on the bare boards. Underneath the seat was a whip curled up like a sleeping snake, and a box of matches with an ashtray and a packet of cigarettes on the seat. Clay shivered.

She turned to the sculpture, a life-sized statue of Jesus dying on the cross, a spear sticking from his side. Clay pulled out her phone and took a series of pictures of the spear. Electricity raced across her scalp as she slipped on a pair of latex gloves, placed both hands on the top of the shaft and gently tugged. The point and head of the spear were loose in Christ’s side.

Turning the spear, she felt the metal tip grate against the fabric of the statue. Huddersfield had created a hole inside the statue in which to embed the spear. Clay pulled as she turned and the spear came clean away.

It was made from the same wood and was the same colour as the spear on which Leonard Lawson had been impaled. The metal tip was also roughly the same shape and size as on the other spear.

Clay walked to the dim light at the window and turned the shaft in her hands.

In the same location as on the other shaft was the same engraved symbol: the dragonfly exiting the rectangular window.

As she looked at the hole in Christ’s side, she felt a deep sense of inexplicable sadness and imagined there was someone else in the room with her.

You have no time for this
. She heard her own voice shouting inside her, but another voice whispered behind her and, for a moment, it was to this that she paid heed.

‘We have all placed the spear in his side. We have all hammered the nails into his wrists.’

She turned to Sister Philomena’s kind and loving voice, but there was no one and nothing there, just a very well painted mural, a warning of the consequences of sin.

‘What do you want us to do, Eve?’ asked Mason.

‘Once you’ve dusted and removed any prints or fibres we can connect to Leonard Lawson’s bedroom, I suggest you empty the three storage rooms one room at a time. He’s a hoarder, but he’s meticulous. My hunch is the junk in each room is themed. Probably art, sex and religion.’

She showed Mason the spear, engraved with the same symbol that came to rest close to Leonard Lawson’s heart, then dropped it into the evidence bag that he held open for her. ‘That spear on its own is enough to bury Gabriel Huddersfield, but I need you to find out as much about him as you can from his possessions.’

She was drawn back to the central panel of
The Last Judgment
, and to its lower left-hand corner. A man with the head of a mythical beast – part bird, part platypus – and wearing white tights and a blue coat with tails, carried a stick on his shoulder. Tied to the stick by his hands and feet was a naked man; he was upside down and impaled on a spear that entered through his shoulder and emerged from his lower rib cage.

She took a photograph and sent it to Hendricks, Riley, Stone and, manning the fort at Trinity Road, Cole. Beneath the image she wrote a comment:
The inspiration behind the staging of Leonard Lawson’s body.

As soon as she’d sent it, her phone rang out. She connected as she walked.

‘DCI Clay, it’s Jessica from switchboard.’

‘Go on, Jessica!’

‘We’ve just had a call from the site manager at the tip on Otterspool Promenade. He’s got a corpse turned up there.’

‘Elderly and male, right?’ said Clay.

‘How did you know?’

Clay headed for the door, her head filling with the cold blue of Gabriel Huddersfield’s eyes. As she hurried down the stairs, she imagined him in his bathroom, naked except for the leather mask that covered his head and face, listening to Handel and gazing at the cockroach on the back of his hand.

‘Play?’

Louise Lawson was woken by the word. When she opened her eyes, she saw Abey standing over the bed on which she was sleeping. He smiled at her and she tried to smile back, but her head was banging and her throat and mouth were bone dry. She struggled as she sat up on the bed.

She focused on him. He was dressed in a replica blue Everton shirt and pale blue jeans. Each time she saw him, he looked more like a little boy than a man in his thirties.

Outside there were footsteps in the hall.

‘Who’s there?’ she asked.

‘Outside is Adam,’ replied Abey. ‘Listening. Keyhole? Happy, Lou-Lou?’

‘I’m so happy to see you, Abey, but—’

‘Is Lou-Lou sick?’

She watched his face. After a moment of deliberation, he held up one hand and then one finger, as if a good idea had arrived. He placed his hand behind her and pushed her forward gently, lifting the pillow and placing it at her back. He took a glass of water from the bedside table and handed it to her.

‘Drink. Lou-Lou feel better.’

She sipped the water and Abey sat on the edge of the bed.

‘But how did you get into their flat, Abey?’

He smiled, placed a conspiratorial hand to his mouth and whispered, ‘The door open. I want see Lou-Lou.’ He joined his hands together and looked to the ceiling. ‘God looking after Lou-Lou now. Abey say prayer for Lou-Lou. Abey love Lou-Lou, God love Lou-Lou too...’

‘I love you too, Abey. And so does God...’

She heard a sound outside, a footstep on a floorboard.

Abey’s face lit up with the arrival of another good idea. Louise frowned, shook her index finger and pressed it to her lips. Softly, she shushed him. He copied her, action and sound.

‘You’re not supposed to be here,’ she whispered. ‘Their home is strictly out of bounds.’

‘Louise?’ Adam’s voice crept into the room before he did. ‘I thought I heard voices. I was wondering, do you want or need anything?’

‘I’m fine, thank you.’ She closed her eyes. ‘I’m just going back to sleep...’

She opened her eyes. It seemed that Abey had dissolved into thin air.

In his left hand, Adam carried a large bunch of red roses. ‘I bought these for you. I’m so sorry about your father.’

Louise looked directly at Adam and, on the edge of her field of vision, saw Abey standing in the corner of the room.

Adam placed the flowers on the bed and sat next to them. ‘From me to you, Louise. You have my sympathy.’

‘Thank you.’ Louise closed her eyes again, hoped he’d just go away.

‘Louise, I know that over the next few weeks and months you’re going to have to face a lot of practical and emotional hurdles. I want you to know that I will be here for you, every step of the way. It was my idea that you came to stay with us here. Did you know that?’

‘No. Thank you, Adam.’ She looked at him.

‘I’ll do anything to help you, Louise.’ He smiled, moved the flowers closer to her. ‘Including helping you sell your house.’

‘Sell my father’s house? What do you mean?’

‘Given what’s happened, Louise, do you think you could ever live in that house again?’

She sat up a little straighter. ‘Go on, Adam.’

‘You know I’m a jack of all trades. When the time comes to sell your house, I can do it up for you, get you thousands more for it. How does that sound?’

‘Go on.’

‘Big old house? Big old furniture. Loads of your father’s books. You know I do house clearances. Man in a white van, hee hee. I’ll help you move into, say, a modern flat. Maybe supported accommodation with top-notch security so you can sleep safely in your bed at night.’

‘I didn’t know you cared about me that much, Adam!’

‘My father always used to say, take best care of the ones that take best care of you. I don’t talk to you much because I’m always working.’

‘Yes, yes, you’re always busy, aren’t you, Adam?’

‘Right now, you’re going to the top of my priority list. Number one, Louise Lawson. Have a little think about what I’ve said and we’ll talk later.’

Adam stood up, walked backwards to the door, his eyes fixed on Louise and with a smile on his face that made her go hot and cold. When he was gone, Abey stepped out of the corner.

She smiled at him. ‘You’re a funny bunny, Abey!’

Abey shook his head. ‘Me no funny bunny!’ He pointed at himself. ‘He no see me. Me the invisible man...’

TIP CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE

When Clay arrived at the municipal tip, the entrance and exit had already been sealed off and a young constable was redirecting traffic back up Jericho Lane to Aigburth Vale. The wind from the River Mersey lashed her back as she ducked under the tape. She heard a young woman crying inside the rectangular pale-brick office between the entrance and exit.

Four refuse workers in high-visibility jackets and hard hats watched Clay approach as if she was a phantom. She showed her warrant card to the group and asked, ‘Who’s in charge here?’

David Higson stepped forward and introduced himself. His skin was covered in a veil of sweat.

‘Take me to the body, David,’ said Clay. She followed him as he turned a corner towards an Audi, its doors wide open.

‘Did you touch the body?’

‘No.’

‘What happened?’

‘The owners of this car dumped an old fridge and then tried to
borrow
this practically brand-new freezer. A dad and his daughter.’

She put it together. ‘They’re in the office?’

Higson nodded. ‘They certainly got more than they bargained for. The daughter, Kylie, twisted her ankle at the bottom of Jericho Lane, trying to run away. Robbie carried her back here.’

As she came closer to the car, Clay caught sight of the compact freezer and pictured an old man’s body bent and concertinaed to fit into the confined space. Leonard Lawson’s staged corpse flashed through her consciousness like liquid light.

Higson pointed to the cold vomit near the car. ‘Kylie’s father’s breakfast.’

On the back seat, a half-sized freezer was tilted at an angle, the door shut, the tape that had sealed it broken.

‘Prepare yourself,’ said Higson.

Clay slipped on a pair of latex gloves.

‘Do you remember who brought it here?’ asked Clay.

‘Yes, a sly shit in a white van. Laughing Gas, I named him. Brought it here this morning before we opened so I couldn’t let him on site.’

‘Licence plate?’

‘Sorry, didn’t notice it.’

‘But you’ve got CCTV?’

Higson was quiet for a moment. ‘Oh, yes we do.’

‘Can you describe him?’

Clay looked at the small white freezer, the unlikeliest coffin, then turned to the site manager.

‘Yes, but... Long face. Plain blue baseball cap. Ray-Bans over the eyes.’

‘You’d recognise him if you saw him again?’

‘Yes. If he was wearing the same disguise.’

‘Did he speak to you?’

‘Very little. No accent. He said
excuse me
, but it sounded like
fuck off
, pardon my French.’

‘French pardoned. How did he strike you?’

‘He spooked me. He had an aura.
If I don’t get what I want, I’ll put you in hospital or worse.
I told him to leave it outside. I carried it in myself.’

On her iPhone, she pulled up the picture of Gabriel Huddersfield’s face and asked, ‘Could this be him?’

Higson looked at the photo. ‘No, that’s not him.’

Clay stooped, leaned into the car and looked at the graffiti of smears and grease marks on the surface of the freezer. She set her iPhone to camera.