The Doll's House (37 page)

M
arina sat on the floor, exhausted. She didn't know how long she had been in the room. No one had come to see them, or if they had done they had been very quiet about it. And she was still trying to get Maddy's restraints off her.

Her nails had broken and her fingers felt raw from trying to work the thick leather strap free. But she had kept going until eventually she had to stop.

‘Need a rest…'

They had taken it in turns, tried everything. Back to back; one sitting, one standing; one lying, one crouching on top. Anything and everything that might help. And nothing had. They were no further forward.

Marina was starting to feel as desperate as Maddy now. She wanted to scream, shout, kick out. But she had swallowed all that, tamped it down. For Maddy's sake. If she lost it, the girl would fall to pieces. And that was the last thing either of them needed.

Marina sighed. ‘Wait,' she said, ‘I've had an idea.'

Maddy didn't answer. Marina assumed she was listening, so continued.

‘We've been doing this all wrong. Ben didn't take my phone off me. It's still in my jeans pocket.'

‘So?' said Maddy, her voice holding no hope at all. ‘You can't reach it. Can't see to call. You may as well not have it.'

‘Can't see at the moment. But these blindfolds feel different to the wrist restraints. I think we might be able to get them off.'

‘How?'

Marina caught the desperate note of hope in the girl's voice. Hoped she could back up her words with actions.

‘Well, let's think about this. If I lie on the floor and you sit with your back to me and your hands level with my head… Let's try it.'

Marina lay on the floor. It felt cold, smelled musty, unpleasant.
If I could see it
, she thought,
I probably wouldn't do this
. She felt Maddy shuffle along the floor next to her, hands working their way up her body until they reached her face.

‘You there yet?'

‘Nearly… Yes. I can feel the blindfold.'

‘What's it made of? Is it leather? Something like that?'

Marina felt hands probing her face. ‘No, it's… some kind of cloth.' Working their way round the back of her head. ‘Tight, though. He's tied it tight.'

‘Yes,' said Marina, ‘I know. Can you get it off?'

More probing. ‘The knot, it's… I don't think so. It's too tight. I can't get my fingers in to undo it.' A sigh of exasperation. ‘If I could see it…'

‘Well you can't. Just get hold of it as best you can and pull it upwards. Over my head.'

‘But… won't that hurt?'

‘Yes, Maddy, it will. But lying here tied up in the dark, I think it's the lesser of two evils. Just dig your fingers underneath, hard as you can, and pull.'

‘You sure?'

‘Just do it.'

Marina felt the girl's fingers jab roughly against her skin.

‘Ow.'

‘What?'

‘Snapped a nail. It hurts.'

‘It'll grow back. Just get the blindfold off.'

The fingers were back again. Scratching and clawing at the side of her head. Pulling, tearing. Maddy was grunting with the effort, pulling as hard as she could. It felt to Marina like someone had twisted her hair up and was trying to pull it out from the roots. She tried not to scream.

More grunting from Maddy. More twisting.

Then Marina felt the blindfold begin to move.

‘That's it, keep going. It's moving, it's moving…'

Her words encouraged the girl. She worked with renewed strength. It felt like Marina's head was being pulled apart. She could feel it in her eye sockets and closed her eyes as tight as she could so her eyeballs weren't pulled out too.

‘Keep going,' she managed to gasp. ‘That's it…'

With a final surge of strength, Maddy managed to pull the blindfold clear of Marina's head. The force of it knocked her face forward on to the floor.

‘You did it! You did it! Well done…'

Marina was gasping, sucking in great lungfuls of air, eyes screwed tight shut, willing the pain to go. It did eventually. And once it had, she slowly opened her eyes.

It took a while for her to acclimatise, but once she did, she saw that they were in what seemed to be a cellar. It was dark, no overhead light. Stairs leading down towards them. The outline of a rectangle of light at the top.

‘What… Where are we?' asked Maddy. ‘What can you see?'

‘Some kind of basement, I think,' she said. ‘Let's just hope we have a signal.'

Maddy made her way back to Marina, who guided her into removing the phone from her jeans pocket.

‘Well done,' she said, once she had managed it. ‘We'll make the call first, then I'll get your blindfold off.'

It wasn't easy. Maddy knelt down with the phone in her hands behind her. Marina gave her instructions on how to open it; whereabouts to touch on the screen, which numbers to press, what they would activate. One good thing, she noticed: there was a signal.

There were two missed calls. One from Anni, one from Phil.

‘Right,' said Marina . ‘Let's return this…'

‘
H
e took it bad,' said Parsons. He'd always been a bit… sensitive. But this sent him over the edge. Gave him a breakdown. Had to leave university. Couldn't cope. But we looked after him. Cheryl, she was good to him.'

Parsons spoke about his other son without warmth or conviction. Sperring could imagine what it must have been like for the boy. Ron Parsons was the kind of man who regarded a breakdown as a sign of weakness. The same with sensitivity, he reckoned. If the kid had been like that, his upbringing with a father like Ron Parsons would have been hell.

‘Anyway,' said Parsons, ‘he got better. Or started to. But there was something… not right. He wasn't the same any more. Like part of him had died along with Ben.' He looked embarrassed that he had actually said that. He continued. ‘But he wanted to do something, move on. So he set himself up in business.'

‘You didn't want him to take over your empire?'

‘He wasn't like that. He… he said some bloke at university, some professor or something that he'd worked with, gave him the idea. Deviant personalities, he said. To be honest, I didn't have a clue what he was on about. But he said there was money in it. And that I did know about.'

‘What did he mean?'

‘He said he'd been doing his research and found a gap in the market. I mean, he already hung about in some dodgy clubs. Never told me what he got up to, but said it put him in touch with a potential clientele. So he worked from that.'

‘Doing what?'

Parsons frowned. ‘Well… say you want to… I mean, he was dealing with extremes here. Real extremes.'

‘Deviants.'

‘Yeah. Exactly. So. Say you had some fantasy that you wanted to act out. Like, I dunno, kill someone. He'd find someone who wanted to be killed. Put you together.'

‘What?' said Sperring. His mind was racing. Glenn McGowan and Keith Burkiss running round in his mind. ‘He would put them together?'

‘Yeah. Like some sick internet dating site. That kind of thing. Look, I might think they're sick and you might think they're sick, but bottom line? There was money in it. That's why he started the club. Give them somewhere to meet. Mingle.'

‘So how did he find this clientele? You can't put an ad in the
Birmingham Mail
. Where did they come from?'

‘All over the place. He started with the university thing. That professor and his deviant book. He contacted the people he'd interviewed for it, the extreme ones. Asked if they were serious or just all talk. And if they were serious, he told them he could set it up. For a price.'

Sperring thought about Keith Burkiss again, the emails. The payments. He imagined that Glenn McGowan had had a similar arrangement. ‘What about the house for Glenn McGowan?'

Parsons sighed. ‘That was a mistake, but I didn't find out till afterwards. He used one of our houses. That was dangerous. It could be traced. I tried to cover it up, got Cheryl to make a paper trail. But it didn't work. Then I tried damage limitation.' He pointed at Khan, who refused to look at him. ‘But I started too late.' Another sigh. ‘So now I'm here.'

‘So who killed Glenn McGowan?' asked Sperring.

Parsons shrugged. ‘Just some wannabe serial killer who fancied himself. Sad little bastard living out his dream.'

‘And this sad little bastard, did you kill him?'

Parsons gave a look of mock-effrontery. ‘What, me? You should know better than to ask me that, Mr Sperring.'

‘OK then,' said Sperring, hands on the table, attempting a tolerance he wasn't feeling. ‘Let's put it hypothetically. Could you imagine why somebody might
want
to kill him?'

‘Well, speaking hypothetically, Mr Sperring, and this is only guesswork, of course, I would say that because he was a sad little no-hoper and a bit incompetent, he must have messed up.'

‘How?'

‘Well, again hypothetically, if he was given a job to do, like, say, kill some legless bloke, then that's what he should have done. Left it at that. Not gone berserk and killed his wife as well. Made him unstable. A liability. And with a liability, you have to make an executive decision. Get rid of him.' He shrugged, a cunning look in his eyes. ‘Hypothetically, of course.'

Sperring stared at him, face professionally impassive. ‘So where's your son now?'

Parsons shrugged again. ‘No idea. And if I had, I wouldn't tell you.'

‘Is he at this club?'

‘No idea.'

Sperring stood up. ‘Let's go and see, shall we?'

Seeing Sperring's movement, Khan looked up. ‘What… what are we doing?'

‘I don't know about you,' said Sperring, ‘but I'm tracking down a killer.'

Khan looked at Parsons, back to Sperring. ‘What about him?'

‘What about him?'

‘If we leave him, he'll warn his son.'

‘Then we bring him with us,' said Sperring. ‘Or have him arrested and taken to the station.'

Khan looked away. Sperring understood. ‘Oh, I see. When you said what are we going to do about him, what you really meant was “what are we going to do about me”? Am I right? If I take him in, he'll stitch you up.'

Khan nodded.

‘Yeah,' said Sperring, looking at his junior officer with distaste. ‘So. What
are
we going to do?'

‘
H
is name was Parsons,' said Gwilym. ‘Look under P for Parsons.'

They were in the psychology department's offices at the university. Gwilym had phoned Joy Henry, described the youth and been given a name and told where to look for the file he was seeking.

Gwilym had dressed in an old jumper and jeans and pulled on a woollen beanie to hide the congealed blood on his head. He looked, thought Phil, one step above a homeless person.
And I hope,
he thought, with understandable venom,
that when I've finished with him, that's what he'll be
.

‘Something wrong with your arms?' said Phil. ‘You look.'

Gwilym, opening the nearest filing cabinet, did so.

‘Here,' he said eventually. He held out a file to Phil. Photo clipped to the top. ‘This is him.'

Phil took the file. ‘Grant Parsons. That's our boy.' He scanned it briefly, closed it. He was about to speak to Anni, plan their next move, when his phone rang. He took it out, checked the display. Looked at Anni.

‘It's Marina.'

‘Well, what are you waiting for? Answer it,' she said.

‘
P
hil?'

She lay on the floor, her head on one side, the phone beneath her. It was the only way she could make the call. She had thought of putting it on speaker but thought that would attract attention.

‘Where are you? What's happened?'

She felt tears form in her eyes, just from hearing his voice.

‘I'm… I don't know. I've… been taken somewhere. I can't move. He bundled us into a car, tied us up, blindfolded us. I tried to work out where we were going, but… I don't know.'

‘Who's with you?'

‘Maddy Mingella. She's a student. Her boyfriend, he went insane, he…' She felt the tears would come if she kept talking.

‘Has he hurt you? Are you OK?'

‘No, he hasn't hurt me. Not really. I'm OK. We're both OK.'

‘Good.' She heard him sighing with relief. Then there was a pause.

‘Hello?' Marina felt a hysterical edge creeping into her voice.

‘I'm… I'm still here.' She could tell from his voice that he was struggling not to cry too. ‘Listen, Gwilym said —'

‘Gwilym?' A shudder passed through Marina. She felt like she was going to be sick. ‘Hugo Gwilym? Is he… still alive?'

‘Yeah. 'Fraid so.'

‘You're… you're with him now?'

‘Yeah. And Anni.'

‘Oh.' Her heart was racing. She didn't know what to say next.

‘Look,' said Phil. ‘I know what happened.'

‘Oh.' Marina felt the tears starting once more.

‘Gwilym told me everything. Sack of shit.' Phil's voice changed direction. She could imagine him addressing those words to Gwilym himself. Despite everything, that made her smile. ‘And you've got nothing to worry about. He didn't rape you.'

‘He… didn't?'

‘No. He didn't. Didn't touch you. He's told me all about it.'

‘Then why did he… did he make me…'

‘Because he's a piece of shit. So that's one less thing for you to worry about. You were lucky. But he's not going to be.'

Marina couldn't help herself. The tears started.

‘Hey,' said Phil, ‘come on. Don't cry. I need you to help me. You'll set me off too. And then neither of us'll be any use. Come on.'

She tried her best to sniff the tears away. ‘OK,' she said, ‘OK… I'm fine now.' She hoped he would believe her.

‘Right. Listen. We need Maddy's help. What can she tell us about Grant Parsons?'

Marina frowned. ‘Who?'

‘Grant Parsons. Her boyfriend. The one who's taken you both.'

‘That's not his name.'

‘It's not? But Gwilym's identified him as the guy who attacked him. I've got his photo here.'

‘No,' said Marina. ‘His name's Ben.'

There was silence from the other end of the phone. Eventually Phil spoke. ‘Ben.'

‘Yes. That's what he said his name was. That's all we know him as.'

Marina was aware of Phil's heavy breathing down the phone. ‘Ask Maddy,' he said, ‘whether Ben's got a tattoo on his arm. Right forearm, inside.'

She asked her. Word for word.

‘No,' said Maddy, still restrained, still blindfolded, shaking her head. ‘Not a tattoo, no. He's got a mark there, though. He told me it's a… Well, he told me it was where he'd cut himself. Like self-harmed. But it's all ridges and that. Red.'

‘Did you hear that?' asked Marina.

‘Yeah,' said Phil. ‘Like a brand, you mean?'

‘I… I don't know…'

‘A burn?'

‘Yes,' said Maddy, ‘like a burn.'

‘Jesus. Keep this line open. I'll try to get back to the station, see if we can get a fix with the GPS. Then we —'

The phone call was abruptly ended.