Screen of Deceit (16 page)

Yet here he was in a police cell.

Mark Carter, prisoner.

He dropped his head into his hands and started to sob.

By the time the gaoler came for him, Mark had curled up on the hard mattress and cried himself to sleep. When the key went in the cell door he awoke groggily, as if he'd been out for hours, and stood up in his socked feet – because when he'd been booked in his trainers had been taken from him.

‘Time to be interviewed,' the gaoler announced.

Mark rubbed his eyes. ‘Right.'

‘You can put your footwear on.' The gaoler pointed to the trainers outside the cell door in the corridor.

Mark slid his cold feet into them and walked ahead of the gaoler, who directed him back to the custody office. Which was heaving with prisoners, all lined up at the reception desk accompanied by their arresting officers, or chucked into the holding cage. Mark recognized one or two faces. The gaoler steered him to another desk on which DCI Christie leaned, a pack of tapes in his hand, some papers, too.

Mark was almost pleased to see him. A familiar face.

Christie grinned amiably, but Mark sneered at him because that's what was expected when you were locked up. Mark didn't actually want to let on he was glad to see him. His sneer, though, seemed to make Christie grin even wider.

‘How you doing?'

‘A'right,' Mark replied in a surly way.

‘I'm glad.'

The two eyed each other cautiously, then Christie signed something on the custody record and said, ‘Follow me,' turned and walked down another corridor to an interview room, opened the door and pointed. ‘In there.' Mark edged past into the room, which was pretty bare: table, chairs, tape recorder, TV and DVD/Video player and a guy sitting at the table with a pen and pad. Mark didn't know who he was. He looked young and eager, if a little frayed at the edges. ‘Sit down.' Christie motioned to a chair next to the stranger, whilst he himself sat down on a chair at the opposite side of the table. ‘This is Mr Gregson, Social Services.'

‘Hello Mark …' Gregson extended a hand. Mark recoiled as though the hand was a cobra.

‘What do I want Social Services for?' he squeaked worriedly.

‘Because I've been unable to contact either your mother or brother,' Christie said. ‘Mr Gregson will just be here for the interview.'

‘I'm not going into care,' Mark blurted, panic-stricken, but with fire and defiance in his voice.

‘Nobody says you are,' Mr Gregson said softly. ‘I'm here just to ensure you are looked after properly and are treated in accordance with the law. Nothing else.'

It calmed Mark only slightly. He was feeling distrustful and extremely nervous, all those horror stories he'd heard about the cops and Social Services colluding and getting kids sent to care homes, stories he'd hardly even listened to in the past, were becoming a reality for him. His stomach felt as though it had been scraped empty, but yet he felt a desperate need to empty his bowels all of a sudden.

Christie inserted the tapes into the machine and gave Mark a forced smile. ‘Let's have a chat,' he said and pressed the recording button. He checked his watch and the wall clock. Mark followed his eyes and it was then he realized he'd been in custody for three hours.

Time passes so quickly when you're having a good time, he thought grimly.

Mark guessed that Christie had probably interviewed hundreds of people, but there was no way in which he was going to divulge anything to him, other than the truth, no matter what the pressure. He knew the cops twisted your words and set you up for things you hadn't done and there was no way he was falling for any of the detective's little ruses. Mark decided to keep it straight down the line and tell it as it was. Ultimately the truth couldn't hurt and for a while it seemed a good option.

They had talked for a while about the Jonny Sparks scenario. Christie seemed to accept and be very interested in Mark's version of events, leading up to and including the fight, but he wouldn't tell Christie why they were fighting. As far as Mark was concerned, that was none of his business. It was personal.

‘OK, I'll have that,' Christie said finally, wrapping up that part of the interview. ‘Now, do you want to tell me about the shoplifting?'

Mark's mouth clammed shut.

‘Cat got your tongue?'

‘Don't know what you mean,' he said, fidgeting.

Christie snickered. ‘A lad fitting your description went into Boots this morning and nicked sandwiches and a drink.'

That statement relieved Mark. ‘A lad fitting my description! That's a bit thin, isn't it? There's a thousand lads fitting my description in this town. Anyway, I was at school,' he bluffed. ‘Check.'

Christie gave him the tight smile. ‘I did – and you weren't.' He picked up a TV remote control and pointed it at the TV fixed to the wall. It suddenly came to grainy life. Mark's heart nearly stopped. ‘What's that ad on TV?' Christie asked rhetorically. ‘You're captured 300 times a day on camera?'

And Mark had been well and truly captured by Big Brother. From going into the shop – cut – to picking up the food and drink – cut – to waiting at the till with the woman buying perfume – cut – to legging it out of the door, goods in hand, nicked.

‘Not exactly crime of the century, is it?' Mark said belligerently.

‘Not, it's not, Mark,' Christie agreed, turning off the TV, ‘but it's a start, isn't it?' His thin, tight smile now looked unpleasant and dangerous.

Mark felt Christie's hooks digging into him.

They were going to give him police bail, meaning he would have to come back to the station in three weeks' time and present himself to the custody officer. By then, Christie told him, a decision would have been made on what to do with him.

After the interview, Mark was bunged back in the cell for what seemed an age whilst the paperwork was sorted. He was then escorted back to the custody desk where a bleary-eyed, seen-it-all, bored-looking sergeant got him to sign the bail forms. Mr Gregory, the Social Services guy, was the co-signatory. Mark's property was handed back to him and the sergeant gave him a wave.

As he turned away from the desk, Christie was there waiting for him.

‘I'll give you a lift home.'

‘You're all right, I'll walk,' Mark said.

‘No, let me say it again: I'll give you a lift home.'

Mark ground his teeth and regarded Christie.

‘You're a juvenile,' Christie explained. ‘We, the police, have a duty of care, so I'll be taking you home.'

‘Where's my bike?'

‘Safe – it'll be dropped off at the same time as you. Follow me.' He turned and Mark, shoulders hunched, a big, pissed-off sigh coming from him, traipsed after Christie up a narrow corridor and into the secure garage area on the ground floor of the cop shop. A Ford Focus bleeped and flashed its lights as Christie walked toward it. ‘Get in the front,' he said as he slotted in behind the wheel. He waited for Mark to settle in and strap up before he said, ‘We need to talk.'

The automatic roller door started to rattle open as Christie started the car and then crept to the exit.

Mark sank low in his seat, very uncomfortable in more ways than one.

Christie swung the car out left, then at the next junction did another right toward the prom, then at the sea front headed south.

‘Fancy an ice cream?'

Mark stared blankly at the detective. ‘You a perv or summat?'

Christie chuckled, then shrugged his shoulders. ‘I thought we could talk and eat. Maybe you'd like a KFC instead?' He looked at Mark and raised a knowing eyebrow.

‘Neither,' Mark snarled. He sat back, folded his arms and stared dead ahead, both defiant and scared at the same time, like a trapped rat. He made one or two surreptitious glances at Christie, trying to weigh the man up. Mark had been lucky enough never to have been in the company of cops for any length of time and he just didn't know the truth. Did they beat you up? Did they fit you up, or ‘verbal you', as his mates called it? Could they be trusted, or what? And the bigger, burning question for Mark was – what the hell did this particular cop want?

‘I live on Shoreside, not down here,' Mark said as they drove straight past the junction with Squires Gate Lane which would have taken them in the direction of the estate.

‘I know. As I said, I want to chat.'

‘This is child abduction!'

Christie gave him a sidelong squint. ‘Shut the hell up, sit the hell back and chill,' he instructed.

With his nostrils flaring angrily, Mark did the first two.

C
hristie drove down to St Anne's, the more genteel resort just to the south of Blackpool, on to the sea front and stopped at the white café on the beach, set amidst the sand dunes.

‘Probably safe enough to talk here,' the detective murmured. ‘Come on.' He led the unwilling Mark inside and bought him a Coke and ice cream, which tasted wonderful. Christie had a bottle of water which he sipped. They sat at a corner table with Christie taking the seat tucked into the angle so he could see all the comings and goings. ‘So, how you doing?'

‘What d'you mean?' Mark eyed him suspiciously.

‘Coping, you know? Since Bethany died. I know it's only early days.'

Mark shrugged manfully. ‘Doin' OK.'

Christie scratched his head, opened his mouth to say something, hesitated, closed his mouth and started again. ‘You're a good lad, aren't you?'

‘So-so.'

‘Keep your nose clean, don't you?'

‘Up to a point.'

‘Do you do drugs?'

‘No way.' Mark was horrified at the question.

‘Know lads and lasses who do?'

‘I know one who died,' Mark responded, a sudden lump in his throat.

‘Yeah, true. Must be really, really hard.'

‘Yeah, in a way you don't know,' the youngster snapped, but because of the strange dark shadow that crossed Christie's face, Mark gulped and wished he hadn't said it.

‘Whatever,' Christie said, with a tinge of sadness, then his expression became businesslike again.

Mark licked his ice cream, looked out across the sand dunes to the Irish Sea.

‘I got the results back from the forensic lab.'

‘What results?'

‘I told you I'd be fast-tracking the samples taken from Bethany's body, remember? I was wrong about the heroin being dirty.' Mark waited. ‘But she took a concoction of drugs that were simply too much for her – a mix of heroin, amphetamines, ecstasy and crack …'

‘Hell.' Something moved inside Mark, suddenly making him nauseous. Mark scanned the sand dunes again. His whole body was quaking, giving way.

‘She died one horrible death.' Christie had leaned forward on to his elbows and whispered these words hoarsely to Mark.

‘Why are you telling me this?' Mark demanded, very close to the edge, tears welling in his eyes.

‘So you know everything.'

‘Why, though? Why do I need to know?'

Christie sat back, regarding Mark critically, but saying nothing.

Mark visualized Bethany's body lying grotesquely on the kitchen floor. He began to try and conceive of what hell she must have been through. From injecting something she thought was going to give her pleasure and taking all that other stuff, too, and possibly then realizing she had actually taken something that would kill her, like letting a venomous snake bite you. What agony had she endured? A pain unknown to anyone other than the person foolish enough to take the damned drugs. Did she scream? Did she call for help? Or did she just writhe and squirm and accept her fate?

‘It's unlikely she would have taken that mix of drugs willingly,' Christie said. ‘It's more than likely she was fed them until she died.'

‘So she was murdered?'

‘Looks very much that way,' the detective confirmed.

Mark shot to his feet, knocking the table. His coke tipped over. Christie held on to his bottle of water.

‘Need the bog,' Mark uttered and staggered like a drunk between the tables, bouncing off them, drawing curious glances from other customers. The thought that she was killed whilst he, Mark, was asleep upstairs in the same house hit him like a body blow.

‘Who's this “Crackman” you're on about?'

Mark had returned from the toilet, pale, drained, ill-looking. Christie had mopped up the coke and bought a new one, which Mark used to wash away the taste of his vomit.

‘Don't know what you mean.'

‘You mentioned him, not me.'

‘I don't know,' he said sourly.

‘Who is he?' Christie persisted.

‘No idea,' Mark said.

‘Where does Jonny Sparks fit in?'

Mark jerked his shoulders noncommittally.

Christie shuffled with growing irritation, Mark saw with satisfaction.

‘Did you love your sister?' Christie said brutally, out of the blue.

‘What sort of question is that?'

‘Did you?'

Mark looked down at his hands, his fingers intertwining nervously. He nodded.

‘Do you want to find out who supplied her with these drugs – and who therefore murdered her?'

‘You know I do.'

‘Hurray, well that's a start … So do I, Mark, and not just because she was your sister, but because whoever did this has also killed at least one other person and if we don't stop him, or her, more people will die. Do you see that?'

‘Yeah … and?' he asked helplessly.

‘You think Jonny Sparks did it, don't you?'

‘Stands to reason. He's a dealer, he was going out with Beth, she was a druggie … y'know … two plus two and all that.'

‘I think he did it, too,' Christie declared.

‘What? Well, he's locked up, isn't he? Has he been charged?'