The Dying Place (38 page)

Rossi couldn’t be arsed with all of that. Was constantly being told about it, but just didn’t care. She stopped being competitive about stupid stuff back in school.

She picked up the phone anyway and called DCI Stephens.

‘Stephens,’ the voice almost barked back at Rossi over the phone.

‘Er, hello … it’s DS Laura Rossi.’

‘Yes.’

Wasn’t even a question. A statement of a yes.

Mannaggia …

‘Yeah, I’ve just had a call from the mother of the boy Bimpson is supposed to have taken …’ Rossi said, hoping the little lie wouldn’t come back on her.

‘Allegedly. We’re still looking into it, but I have to say the witnesses aren’t exactly the most solid we’ve ever had …’

‘Right … it’s just that the lad who’s supposed to be taken is Peter White. It’s Murphy’s godson.’

‘Oh …’

‘So that might be worth looking into a bit more then?’ Rossi said, trying to keep her voice flat and calm.

‘Yes. For David’s peace of mind of course. In fact, why hasn’t he called me instead?’

Rossi almost lied for no reason, forgetting Murphy had already cleared it with the boss that he was going out.

Already forming a habit of lying for her DI. Not good.

‘He’s out isn’t he … doesn’t know that he’s gone.’

There was a beat of silence, then DCI Stephens said, ‘Okay. Let’s keep it that way. I don’t want him going all rogue cop on us. Got enough on our plates. Any news on finding out more about our man?’

Rossi remembered the photograph she’d just found online. ‘Possibly. Just checking it out now.’

‘Good. Okay. Right, well I’m being called back, so just call if you find anything of actual help.’

Rossi ended the call, still holding back the Italian curses that were threatening to be spewed out at her boss. Never a good idea to call your boss a bitch, even in a different language.

She walked back around the desk, moving her mouse so the screen came back to life. The website was on there, the photo at the top something entirely different. She scrolled down, trying to find the photo she’d found in her search, wading through a couple of dozen news items about various housing deals and market information from around the country. It was an old site, the newest item having been posted almost a year earlier, which made Rossi wonder what had happened in the meantime.

Another one bites the dust.

It was almost buried, in between a report on interest rates and the housing prices in Bristol, but there it was.

Aspire Properties announce multimillion deal to build properties in the North West.

There, smiling across the whole board, were the directors of the property firm, all dressed smartly, suited and booted, standing on what looked like some sort of wasteland.

A quote from one of the directors.

‘This is a great opportunity for us to create a new community,’ Simon Thornhill told us this week. ‘We’re all really looking forward to creating new homes for first-time buyers. When I first started this company over ten years ago, I always envisaged that this would be what could be achieved. I hope it’s just the start of many of these new, small communities we can help to build.’

Shit.

Rossi looked at the picture again, looking across the faces to find Kevin Thornhill. Found him near the middle, his arm around a grinning, full-haired, shaven man in his thirties.

The last year or so had not been kind to Simon Thornhill.

Or, as Rossi and Murphy, had come to know him, Alan Bimpson.

35

Murphy handed the list of four names and addresses over to DC Harris and put his seatbelt on. Turned the radio to BBC Merseyside, and listened to the growing fear and revulsion echo around him from the speakers.

‘Where are we going first?’ DC Harris said, as Murphy drove out of the car park, turning left onto St Anne Street, past a scrum of media which had assembled. Most shouted unanswered questions at the car, others stared at phones and tablets, probably wishing they were closer to the real action in the city.

And Murphy didn’t mean Concert Square.

If it bleeds, it leads.

‘The obvious, I suppose. Simon Thornhill. If anything, I’m not sure he’ll even know about his brother yet.’

‘This address is familiar …’

‘So we can at least tell him about that,’ Murphy continued, not listening to DC Harris mumble under his breath. ‘What’s the address?’

‘Eaton Road in West Derby. I swear there’s something about that road name …’

‘It’s about ten minutes’ walk away from where we found the first victim. That’ll be all. Either that, or it’s the fact that Melwood is just up the road from there.’

‘Yeah, must be,’ DC Harris replied, tucking the piece of paper in the side pocket on the passenger side door. ‘So we’re just going to knock and see if he’s in?’

Murphy allowed a marked police car to speed past him at the junction, lights flashing but no siren. He didn’t think the late-night caution of not using them would be needed that night. He couldn’t imagine many people in the city would be having early nights. ‘Yeah, just see if we can fill in the blanks about the other people on the list. See if we can track down Bimpson in case things don’t go as planned elsewhere.’

‘Sound.’

Murphy’s phone vibrated in his pocket, but he ignored it again. He knew it’d be Sarah checking up on him. Resolved to call her back when he parked up. He drove down Everton Valley with ease, traffic much quieter than it usually was, even at that time of night.

‘Roads are dead …’ Harris said, from beside him.

‘There’s something in that sentence that might tell you why,’ Murphy replied, driving past first Goodison Park, then Stanley Park, and wondering if there was ever a time when the possibility of a football stadium being built there wasn’t being widely discussed. Wondered what would happen now Anfield was going to be expanded instead.

Onto Queens Drive, passing only a car or two on the entire journey.

‘Spooky,’ Murphy said, as the combination of a usually busy A road as Queens Drive and lack of bodies on the streets became starker.

‘Almost like a ghost town,’ Harris replied.

‘Yeah,’ Murphy said, peering into the distance at what looked like the flashing blue and red lights of a marked car. ‘Think there’s something going on up ahead though.’

Murphy slowed the car as they passed. A couple of uniforms talking to a group of four teenagers as they leant on a garden wall, hands out to their sides as one by one they were searched, pockets turned out. Harris put his window down at just the right time to catch one particularly hard-looking kid of no more than fifteen shout, ‘We’ll sort him ourselves. Not like you lot are gonna do anythin’ abar ’im.’

Murphy carried on driving as Harris pressed the switch for his electric window. ‘Guess there’ll be a fair bit of that about tonight,’ Harris said, staring ahead. ‘Load of scallies thinking they’re a match for a man who’s proper tooled-up.’

‘You’re not wrong. Which is why it’s hopefully coming to an end already. Just hope they’re right about the farm being where he’s headed. God knows where else he’ll be if not.’

Murphy turned left onto Alder Road, another leafy part of the city that was often overlooked, past Alder Hey Children’s Hospital. A car passed them by on the opposite side of the road, the first they’d seen in a while.

For such a normally busy city, the almost-empty roads were telling their own story.

A couple of minutes later, Murphy was checking house numbers on Eaton Road, finding the one they were looking for in the darkness only by Harris switching on his torch and shining it at the doors, the streetlights not giving enough illumination to see the houses properly.

‘That’s the one,’ Harris said, Murphy pulling into a space between two parked cars a little further on. ‘Nice house.’

‘They all are down here. West Derby was all right until a few years back. Getting worse though.’

Harris murmured agreement as he got out the car, leaving Murphy alone for a few seconds as he took his seatbelt off and went to follow him. Thinking on, he grabbed his usual kit, hoping DC Harris was also holding his.

They passed a few houses, leaving the bigger semi-detached ones behind as they found the one they were looking for – a smaller relation, but still sizeable. A red-painted garage door separated the house from next door, who had built an extension over their own.

‘Lights are on,’ Harris said, as they approached the front door.

Murphy checked his watch but couldn’t make out the dial. ‘What is it … about midnight now?’

Harris pulled out his phone, something it hadn’t occurred to Murphy to do. ‘Ten minutes before.’

‘We’re lucky then.’

Murphy walked behind Harris up the short paved driveway, the cracks numerous, the desperate need for replacement becoming more apparent by the footstep.

Murphy noticed the curtain twitching to his right, as Harris, having already reached the front door, turned to look at him. Murphy stopped, peering into the front garden at the overgrown weeds, back at the cracked, flaking paint on the windowsills, only slightly illuminated by the light from within the house.

Dead flowers in a pot next to the front door.

‘What’s up?’ Harris said, his voice low, his right index finger on the doorbell, pressed down.

‘Not sure …’ Murphy replied, still taking in the facade of a house that didn’t really say
named director of a massive property firm
.

‘Doorbell’s not working,’ Harris said, turning back around, clenching a fist and knocking rapidly on the old wooden door.

‘Sound like the rent man,’ Murphy said under his breath, using the line his dad used to say.

‘You do anything for family … you just hope it works both ways …
’

Murphy swung his head back around to where Harris was standing, one hand in the air, ready to knock again.

‘Harris, get back.’

Harris turned, a look of confusion passing across his face, before the door seemed to explode in front of him.

Murphy looked up at the sky, on his back for some reason, ears ringing. Blinking against clouds that were filling his vision, pulling himself to his feet. Tried to work out what had happened, failed.

The noise from Harris, lying a few feet away from him, pulled him to his senses.

‘Shit … Harris, Harris, are you okay?’

Murphy got to his knees, taking off his jacket. The smell of spent shotgun shells and gunpowder assailed him as he tucked the jacket under Harris’s head. Light spilled from the now-open doorway, showing Murphy the damage.

The blood spilling from Harris’s open mouth as he tried to breathe through it, producing sounds Murphy hadn’t experienced in a long time.

The sound of the dying.

Inside the house, as DC Graham Harris choked on his own blood, Alan Bimpson – as he liked to be called now – tried to calm himself. Used the dimmer switch on the wall of the living room, leaving the door open rather than closing it behind him.

‘I hate interruptions,’ Simon Thornhill said, his switch back into Bimpson mode complete again, following his earlier slip. ‘Now … where were we, Peter?’

Peter White let his head drop down into his chest, blood dripping onto the beige carpet.

In his mind, the feeling of loneliness and abandonment returned.

He was going to die here. He knew it on every level.

No one was going to save him.

Peter

It didn’t matter that his mum was a well-paid lawyer. It didn’t matter that they lived in a dead nice house, didn’t even matter that his godfather, the only real male role model he had, was a bizzie. A detective inspector, whatever that meant, at that.

None of those things mattered.

It wasn’t his background that made him want to do stupid shit with his mates. That stuff just meant he could always rely on having the gear that he needed. The right clothes, the right trainers. The latest game for his computer. The latest computer, for that matter. He’d got a PlayStation 4 months before any of his mates had convinced their mums to get one on tick from BrightHouse or wherever. Always had a new North Face jacket if he wanted one. Still got pocket money at seventeen, even if the amount had gone up over the years.

Wanted for nothing.

Didn’t matter.

When he was out with his mates, doing whatever he liked, all of them taking the piss out of each other, out of other people, there was nothing else he wanted to be doing. It was a laugh. Better than being in school, bored out of his head as someone went on and on about something he had no interest in.

Yeah, they probably went too far sometimes. Smoked a bit of weed and got pissed. Scratched up people’s cars for a laugh. Threw a few bricks at houses which they’d been told paedos lived in, without ever really knowing if it was true.

Once, him and four other lads had found a car badge broken on the pavement. Just sitting there, smudged on one side, shiny on the other. BMW, he seemed to remember.

They’d started arguing over who got to keep it, until Wardy had walked over to an Audi which was parked on the other side, taking the penknife he always carried with him, and prised off the badge. Holding it aloft in the sky, yelling at the moon. The rest of them pissing themselves laughing at the sight.

By the end of that night, they had a holdall full of car badges they’d ripped off every car they could find. Even jarg cars like Ford Escorts and those stupid little Micras. It didn’t matter. They wanted to get them all.

Tonight, he’d only been with the lads for half an hour when it had happened. They’d been walking into Bootle to meet up with some birds Wardy said were up for a bit. Peter knew they’d be skets, but didn’t care. He wanted a laugh, anything to take his mind off what was going on at home.

They’d heard about what was going on, over in Liverpool 8, but it barely registered with them. It was somewhere else, not happening to them.

Didn’t matter.

Then they’d heard the bangs.

Instead of doing what everyone else would, they ran towards them. Each of them egging each other on, laughing even as they got closer. Saw people up ahead with their phones out, filming something up by the Lidl on the corner.