The Dying Place (18 page)

He left with her thinking, but not saying aloud, that she wished he’d never been born. That none of them had been. That she’d stayed single. Hadn’t let that man have his way with her in the back of a Skoda when she was seventeen. Married at eighteen. Three kids and too many beatings later before she finally escaped him.

Left with three boys, a forty-a-day habit and a taste for vodka she could barely resist on a daily basis.

She didn’t know how to grieve. It was only from watching TV that she knew something should be happening. She’d been sitting on Dean’s bed now for over an hour. Just staring at the wall, expecting to feel something.

Instead, she was just empty.

Hollow.

Sally only had a few friends, but what there were had been there all weekend. Fussing over her. Helping her cry dry tears. Talking of revenge on the bastard who had taken her son. Talking about how this type of thing never happened when they were kids. How things were different these days.

After the first couple of days, the numbers had fallen. People were already moving on. Leaving her sitting in her son’s bedroom because she’d seen some actress in an ITV drama do it once when she’d lost her husband or something. Maybe it had been a kid. Sally couldn’t remember. It had seemed important. Like she’d learn something, make a plan of some kind. Just by sitting on her dead son’s single bed, the fabric on the bottom of the divan flapping around every time she moved. Springs near the bottom digging into her. Crusty sheets and an old duvet.

Barely anything in the room anyway. She’d tried burying her face in some of his clothes, but the only ones that were clean smelt of nothing but discount brand washing powder. She didn’t want to smell the dirty clothes gathered in a pile underneath the window. They would only smell of damp.

She’d tried. Taught her boys right from wrong. Don’t do this, don’t do that. It never worked.

She’d tried her best. It just hadn’t been enough. She’d accepted that a long time before.

Sally Hughes sat alone on her dead son’s bed. Staring at peeling wallpaper that hadn’t been changed since Dean was in primary school. Black mould in the corners of the room. Nothing in there reminded her of him. It was a shell, just a box where he’d slept.

Sally had cried at first, of course. Now, three days later, she didn’t know what to do. Act as before? Just go back to normal? What was she supposed to do as a grieving mother … how was she supposed to act?

So she continued to sit upon her dead son’s bed.

The face of the man who killed him lying in a pile of discarded papers and forms on his bedside table.

16

‘Hello … Ian … Hello?’

Rossi looked towards Murphy, pursing her lips as she did so. Murphy moved quickly, almost snatching the phone from her hand and putting his ear to the receiver. Dead air.

‘He just hung up,’ Rossi said, pushing the hair back from her face. ‘Didn’t even give me chance to stop him.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Murphy replied. ‘You didn’t say anything wrong.’

The incident room suddenly found its voice, with shouted enquiries from over the top of workstations as the other detectives began trying to work out what was going on.

‘Enough,’ Murphy said, his voice echoing around the room. ‘Let me speak to Laura and then we’ll meet in the briefing room in fifteen minutes.’ He beckoned over DC Harris. ‘Harris, trace as best we can. I want the area he was calling from as soon as, okay?’

Harris nodded and scuttled off.

Rossi picked up the notepad she’d been writing on during the phone call and walked ahead of Murphy as he waited for her near their office. Once inside, she flopped onto her chair and leant back, rubbing her forehead.

‘You okay?’ Murphy said, taking up his own chair.

‘Yeah,’ Rossi replied, still rubbing the tension out of her head. ‘Just a bit unexpected, that’s all.’

‘I can imagine. What happened?’

Rossi explained to Murphy what had led her to picking up the phone. A man, identifying himself only as Ian, had called the non-emergency phone line. After explaining he had information about the Dean Hughes case, he was put through to a shocked DC who had begun looking for Murphy himself. As he was downstairs in front of the media, Rossi had drawn the short straw.

‘And you’re sure he was involved? Not just a prank?’ Murphy said.

‘If he wasn’t involved, I’ll show my arse in Burton’s window.’

‘I’m not sure that’s really convincing me …’

‘Shut up. No. He knows far too much about the case for it to not be someone who was there when Dean died. Injuries, age, appearance, tattoo, where he was left exactly. The bloody scar on Dean’s face. Do you want me to go on?’

‘Okay. We’ll go on the assumption he’s one of … how many did you say?’

‘Five. But he doesn’t know what’s happening now.’

‘From the beginning, Laura,’ Murphy said, leaning back in his chair and picking up a notepad from his desk.

‘He started by saying how sorry he was that the boy died. That it wasn’t the plan, and all that bollocks. On and on about how they were trying to help him, not kill him. It was repetitive.’

‘Okay. Doesn’t make sense, but not the first time we’ve heard that defence.’

‘True. Anyway, he then started telling me what had happened since. There’s a place – a farm or something – he’s been living at with four other people. Didn’t say where it was. They all had code names for each other, but that was for the benefit of those being held.’

Murphy held up a hand. ‘Slow down.
Who
were being held?’

‘The boys,’ Rossi replied, pinching her eyes shut with her thumb and forefinger. ‘They’ve been taking teenagers off the streets and trying to make them “better”, as he put it.’

‘And Dean was one of these lads?’

‘Yes. Only, they couldn’t make him better. According to Ian, it went too far – their
discipline
of him – and he ended up dead. Wasn’t meant to happen, blah blah blah …’

Murphy let out a long breath. ‘This is …’

‘Fucked up,’ Rossi finished for him.

‘Yeah. So why is he ringing now? Guilt got to him?’

Rossi shook her head. ‘It all went wrong last night. He wouldn’t say what happened, but he’s scared. Wants to hide.’

‘Who from?’

‘Alpha,’ Rossi replied, shaking her head. ‘Whoever that is.’

Murphy left the car running on the driveway for a few seconds after he pulled up, listening to the end of the news on the local radio. His own voice, coming low out of the speakers as he listened to what he’d told the press earlier, now seemed empty, considering what they’d discovered since. Murphy rubbed his eyes, the tiredness threatening to overwhelm him. The dashboard clock said it was just past two a.m., but Murphy was sure it was later than that. Felt as if he’d been awake for days.

The last few hours had passed in a blur. Once Rossi had explained what she’d learnt from the phone call, they’d rejoined the team in the briefing room, DCI Stephens taking a prominent position as she listened to what had occurred late in the day. The rest of the evening had been spent waiting around in the hope that ‘Ian’ would call back, with no joy. The tracing of the call had led them to a pay-as-you-go mobile and a possible location of the tower the call had been pinged off, near Huyton. Officers had been sent to the area, but the likelihood of them ever finding someone was remote before they even left.

Murphy shut off the engine and got out the car. He pressed the button on his key fob and heard the comforting clunk as the doors locked behind him. After quietly letting himself into his house, the lights all off as he’d expected, he crept through to the kitchen, trying to make as little noise as possible.

He wanted a drink, a proper one, but settled for a glass of orange juice. He wanted to be down the station but knew it was pointless. The night shift team had been briefed about the ongoing situation, so he took his mobile out of his pocket to check it was still charged. Tutted to himself as the battery showed less than half full. The charger was upstairs next to his bed, so any plans of not disturbing Sarah and taking up residence in his chair for the night vanished.

He padded up the stairs one step at a time, trying to avoid the creak on the third-to-last stair and failing.

‘David?’

Murphy stopped on the stairs, his shoulders falling. He hated waking Sarah when he got home late. He’d sent her a text earlier saying he’d be late back but was hoping to save the inquisition.

‘Be there in a sec.’

He went into the bathroom, not worried about making noise now he knew she was awake. That was Sarah … once she was awake, it took her a while to fall asleep again. A really light sleeper, always on the verge of full consciousness.

Once finished, he turned off the bathroom light and shuffled his way across the landing to the bedroom. Sarah had switched on the light which sat on her bedside table and was propped up on the multitude of pillows she slept upon – in direct contrast to the one single, flat pillow which Murphy used. He’d woken up a few times in nights gone by with a pillow or three lying on his face.

‘You’re in late?’

Phrased as a question rather than a statement. Interesting. ‘Yeah. We’ve had a pretty busy night. Won’t bore you with it.’

‘Everything okay?’

‘Yeah,’ Murphy replied, making his way around the bed to his side. ‘Just … a murder enquiry, so if something big comes in, being sent home is usually not on the agenda.’

‘Something big?’

Murphy sat down on the bed and began the process of getting undressed, shaking his trousers off and placing them on the chair in front of the dressing table. The shirt and tie went in the laundry basket. ‘Could be. Up in the air at the moment. Could mean a few more late nights though.’

‘And early mornings, I imagine …’

Murphy looked at the alarm clock on his bedside table. ‘Yeah. If I’m lucky, I’ll get a few hours in before I’m back there.’

‘Well …’

Murphy turned to face Sarah. ‘What?’

‘It can wait,’ she replied, preparing to lie back down.

‘No, it’s okay. What is it?’

‘It’s just Jess. She’s been on the phone most of the evening.’

Murphy sighed, lying down in bed next to Sarah. ‘Peter?’

‘Yeah. He’s going to get kicked out of college. Non-attendance for the most part, bad attitude when he turns up. He’s on some kind of report, so if he messes up in the next month, he’s out.’

‘Christ … What’s going on then?’

‘She doesn’t know what to do. Peter doesn’t seem to care, according to Jess. Thinks a word might be in order.’

Murphy rubbed his eyes, fighting the urge to just turn over and go to sleep. ‘Couldn’t really be at a worse time, this.’

‘You
are
his godfather, David.’

‘I know. I didn’t think that meant I’d be down for this type of thing though. Just thought I’d take him for a pint when he’s eighteen or something. I’m turning into a second father for the little prick.’

‘Jess could do with the help.’

Murphy shook his head. ‘Hasn’t she tried talking to his dad? See if he’ll step up a bit more?’

‘It was a very short conversation, from what Jess told me. Basically, she said he’s a small-dicked knobhead who couldn’t tell his arse from his elbow. Which I think means it didn’t go well.’

‘Fine,’ Murphy said, lying down finally. ‘I’ll try and find some time tomorrow.’

‘Good. Now get some sleep. But try and be quiet in the morning.’

Murphy turned over and kissed Sarah once on the lips. ‘Night.’

He heard the light go out, Sarah getting comfortable in her pillow mountain once more, and shut his eyes, willing sleep to come quickly.

Rossi left the station at the same time as Murphy but didn’t go home. She sat in her car outside her house for a while, watching the darkened windows. Half hoping that there’d be someone there, knowing there wasn’t. Never was.

It was why she always ended up going home to her parents. The darkness inside her own home, the quiet … it got to her sometimes. These times more than most.

She’d thought she’d found someone the previous year. Okay, the start hadn’t been perfect – someone involved in a murder investigation coming onto her hadn’t been the best timing – but it had finished about as quickly as it had started. It hadn’t been great between them for a while. At least a few weeks. That was her argument. His side was that they were stuck – both unwilling to accept the status quo and battling against each other. Rossi preferred her easier explanation, that it had fizzled out and that they should probably just get on with their lives. Separately.

It was the same problem she always had in relationships. Didn’t want to make enough effort to make them work, firmly holding onto the belief that when it was right surely no effort had to be made.

She’d accepted long ago that she was probably talking bollocks.

Rossi just enjoyed the beginning parts of a relationship. Where it was two people learning about each other, enjoying each other. Long nights spent talking and shagging
.
If she could keep that part going forever, she’d be happy. When it became ‘serious’ and future plans had to be made, that’s when she started getting itchy feet.

Why the hell did she have to be in a relationship anyway? Just to make her parents happy? She couldn’t be arsed with it. It was all right most of the time. Living on her own, not having to give in to anyone else over anything. Everything just as she wanted it.

It was only during times like this that she wanted so badly not to have to walk into an empty house. To have someone there she could talk to about things. How helpless she always felt with this type of case, where nothing moved quickly. How frustrated, just sitting there waiting to be told what to do by a superior.

Maybe she should just get a cat and be done with the whole thing. Rossi smiled to herself and got out the car, trying to think which takeaway would still be open at that time so she could order some food in. She let herself into her house and quickly turned on the hallway light.

Not letting the darkness inside.

The Farm