The Dying Place (4 page)

Rossi eventually finished her conversation a few seconds later, straightening up and strolling over to him.

‘What do you want to do first?’

Murphy finished removing the latex gloves, walking away as he did so. Rossi followed him. ‘Interview the priest, vicar, whatever he’s called, first. Then the kids who found the victim. Tell the uniforms to take them back to the station. Inform the parents, get social services to meet us. They might need counselling or whatever.’

‘Okay. Anything else?’

‘Door to doors,’ Murphy replied, looking up towards the main road at the bottom of the gravel drive which led to the church. ‘Although there aren’t that many in the immediate vicinity.’

‘There’s more houses on the other side of the church; Meadow Lane leading into Castlesite Road. Close enough. There’s some flats above the shops on the main road as well.’

‘Okay, good. Make sure the uniforms know this is a murder investigation. I don’t want them thinking it’s just some scally who got in a fight.’

‘Sir?’

‘Call it a gut reaction, Laura. Some of those bruises are old, fading. Signs of abuse. Something’s not right.’

Rossi nodded slowly, writing down the last bit of info in her notebook before looking back at him. ‘That it?’

‘Yeah. I’ll see if the vicar can accommodate us.’

The Farm

Six Months Ago

Goldie was alive, there was that at least. When he’d first been grabbed off the street, beaten until he could barely breathe without feeling the pain all over his body, he’d felt for sure that was it. That he’d pissed off the wrong person once too often and was now going to pay the price. He’d heard stories about the gangsters out there in the city and what they could do to you if they wanted.

He was expecting the end. Tried to work out which dealer he hadn’t paid properly or what he’d promised that he hadn’t delivered, but couldn’t think of a thing.

When he was dragged along the muddy track outside, a sawn-off shotgun pointed at his chest the whole way, Goldie was thinking about all the things he was about to lose.

It amounted to very little.

There was his family, he guessed. What was left of it, anyway. One brother locked up, doing at least fifteen years for manslaughter. Hadn’t seen his dad in years – didn’t much care.

Now there was just him and his mum. And whoever she was seeing at the time, of course.

That was all gone. All he had now was the large room they’d shoved him in, the darkness within masking its real form. He ached from the ride in the back of the van and the beating inside. His breathing was shallow, as the adrenaline he’d been feeling earlier began to wane and he became used to sucking in full lungfuls of oxygen again.

That’s the thing they never showed you on TV. When your mouth is gagged, you have to breathe through your nose. Goldie’s had been broken a few years before that night, which had left it resembling one of those shit paintings he’d seen in art, by the bloke with one ear or something. Or that other one. Art wasn’t exactly his strongest subject. That earlier injury had left his nose skew-whiff, at an angle. Bone blocking one nostril, so breathing with his mouth closed became difficult after a while.

He waited a few minutes, just kneeling down in the dark, breathing in and out. Wondering why they’d left him there.

‘Hello?’

The voice came from across the room as a whisper, shitting Goldie up big time. He scrabbled back, only being stopped by the solid wall behind him and the pain that resulted from hitting it.

‘Who’s there?’

The voice was a little louder now, more hiss than whisper. Goldie sensed something behind it.

Fear.

He felt the same way.

Goldie stood up, his eyes still adjusting to the pitch black, and began slowly feeling his way forwards. Arms out in front of him, sweeping his legs back and forth.

‘I’m Goldie, mate. Where are you?’

‘Over by my bed.’

Goldie stopped as he heard the reply come from a couple of feet away from him to his left. His eyes were adjusting now, the shape and form of things becoming clearer. He could make out a bed, two in fact, on his left. Mirrored to his right. That was it though. No other furniture.

He could smell piss coming from further away.

‘What’s your name?’ Goldie said, coming to a stop at the bed opposite.

‘Dean. Just got here?’

Goldie nodded, before thinking better of it. ‘Yeah. What’s going on? Why do you keep fuckin’ whispering?’

There was a creak from the bed as Dean moved, Goldie imagined rather than saw.

‘Because they’re out there, listening all the time. You don’t want them to get mad. Believe me.’

Goldie barked a laugh. ‘You’re paranoid, lad.’

He wouldn’t find it funny after a while.

Things were calm for the first few days. They’d drop meals off for the two of them. Dean told him he’d been there for a few weeks at least. Two men had taken him, he thought. He wasn’t sure, as it’d happened fast and he’d been a bit stoned.

Goldie didn’t believe the things he said had been done to him since then.

Light got into the room during the day. Not enough to be comfortable, but at least they could move about without worrying they’d bang into something in the darkness.

Boredom was the problem in the beginning. Goldie decided to fill his time trying to find a way out of there, examining every part of the room.

By the third day he’d given up. There was nothing to find. Every inch was solid, reinforced.

The only way out was through the door which he’d come in.

He began watching them as they dropped off meals. Food in sealed packaging. None of the stuff he was used to eating, proper horrible stuff like tasteless rice and salad. He would have thrown it back, but he was starving after the first day.

Every time they came inside was the same. The door would be unlocked, more than one lock on the outside, Goldie noted, the door swinging open, light rushing in. The eight times it had happened, there’d never been less than three of them. Two of them had either a sawn-off or a bigger gun, like you’d use on
Call of Duty.
Assault rifle, Goldie reckoned. He’d told Dean that, but not really got anything in response.

‘Dean,’ Goldie had said on day four, whilst they were eating a meal of some kind of mashed potato and meat, ‘we should rush them when they drop the food off.’

‘No …’

‘Hear me out, lad. We could get either side of the door and surprise them. Have them over and then get the fuck out of here.’

‘It won’t work. And then you’d have to go on the rack. Trust me, you don’t want to go on that.’

‘What’s the rack?’ Goldie said, his brow furrowing.

‘You don’t wanna know …’

‘Pretend I do,’ Goldie replied, an edge to his voice. The look on Dean’s face made him pause though. The lad had started sweating, his hands shaking a little … then more.

‘I … I … No. They told me not to say anything.’

‘Like I give a shi—’

‘No,’ Dean’s voice echoed around the room. ‘I’m not saying nothing.’

Goldie considered pushing harder, but Dean was now sitting on the bed, knees drawn up to his chest with his arms wrapped around them, silently rocking. Whispering to himself words which Goldie couldn’t hear.

Goldie recognised what just thinking about the rack had caused in Dean.

Terror.

Day five was when it started. Three of them arrived, with Goldie expecting the same process as before. Food dropped off, no questions answered. Any movement met with a point of a weapon.

It was different this time though. No food. Two of them came towards him as the other aimed a rifle at his chest. Strong hands gripped each of his arms and pulled him along.

Helplessness. That’s the effect a bullet can have on you. It wasn’t the gun so much. Not after he’d got used to it being pointed at him. All he could think about was what it contained. Tiny little things that would rip him apart. Kill him in a second.

They led him out of the building he’d begun to get used to, out into the cold winter air of December. He could see his breath as he exhaled, hoping that would continue as the memory of his mouth being gagged came back to him.

‘What’s going on?’ he asked, chancing it. Not wanting to talk too much.

There was no response. Goldie measured himself up against the two people in balaclavas holding onto his arms, deciding he could probably take them if needs be.

If he could work out a way of doing it before being hit by a bullet, he’d do it. He didn’t want to turn into Dean back in the room. Scared for his life. Not yet.

He was led back inside another building, a large desk in a room, someone in a black balaclava and a suit sitting behind one side. It wasn’t so much a desk, Goldie thought as he was dumped onto the chair opposite the man, as a long table. A red cloth covered the surface, barely hanging over the edges.

Goldie stared across at the balaclava-suit man, not willing to break eye contact. Two of those who had brought him here left the room, leaving only rifle man and the weird get-up sitting across from him. There was something so odd about the combination of a bally and a pristine suit, which Goldie could tell was no Burton’s Menswear special. Nah, this was money. Made to measure, he thought.

‘Nice suit. Wanna tell me what the fuck you think you’re doing?’

His voice sounded exactly as he wanted it to. Hard as fuck. Don’t-fuck-me-about hard.

‘Be quiet. Learn to speak when spoken to, understand?’

Goldie forgot about the gun being pointed at him for a second. ‘Fuck off. Don’t talk at me like that.’

He heard, rather than saw, the whipcrack as Bally-Suit man raised and struck his face with something. A few seconds of nothing, before the pain cut in.

Stinging, burning. His face on fire, from ear to nose in an almost straight line. Goldie pulled his hand away from his cheek where it’d flown in reaction, looking at it as if it wasn’t his. Blood, thin lines of red. Broken skin, broken face.

Burning.

‘This is something my dad gave me. He no longer had any need to use it, so passed it down. I only ever got it once, that was enough. I deserved it then as well.’ Bally-Suit man was standing now, his accent softening as he spoke. ‘It’s like a riding whip, what you’d see a jockey using. Only this is worse. Thinner, more pliable.’

Bally-Suit man moved around the table-desk and came close to Goldie as he held his face with one hand, trying to decide if punching this dick now or later would be preferable.

‘You’re going to learn some manners, young man. And learn them quick.’

Goldie took his hand away from where he’d been stroking the burning, turning to face Bally-Suit man. ‘Fuck you,’ he spat.

Bally-Suit man sighed through the covering and shook his head at him.

The crack came again, quicker than Goldie could react. Across the other side of his face. As he went backwards, away from the pain, Bally-Suit man kicked at his chair, sending him flying. Goldie’s head cracked against the floor, making him dizzy for a second or three before his senses returned, his fists balling and swinging.

Laughter rang back at him as he punched thin air, then pain flared across his thighs as the crack hit there. Then all the wind rushed out of him as a boot flew into his stomach. He tried to get up, one arm across his middle, but a boot on his neck stopped him.

‘Stay down. I don’t want to have to put you on the rack first day.’

Goldie glanced towards the table-desk as the cloth fell from it, revealing something he couldn’t work out. Restraints and wood. In any other setting it would have barely caused a second glance. Seeing it there, Goldie began to breathe quicker, trying to swallow.

Goldie shook his head clear, tried moving again. ‘Am I fuck lying down for you,’ he said, pushing away the boot from his neck.

His voice wasn’t as good as before. The hardness was already going, leaving him, getting the fuck out of there while it still could. If he wasn’t alone, maybe it would have been different; with his boys backing him up, things wouldn’t be the same at all. As it was, Goldie was on his own, and the prick in the bally-suit was standing over him with some whip type of thing that was causing him a lot of pain and he couldn’t even see it coming.

‘You don’t understand, do you?’

‘Understand what?’ Goldie said, pulling himself onto all fours as the man backed away from him.

‘You’re under our control now. You’ll do as we say, or there will be consequences.’

Goldie spat out a long drool of saliva onto the floor, eyes widening as he saw the redness of fresh blood mixed in with it. ‘You going to kill me, is that it? What for? I ain’t done nothing to you.’

Bally-Suit man laughed at him. ‘Course you have. You and all your mates. Everyone like you. Young boys with big mouths.’

A boot flew into Goldie’s stomach, flipping him over onto his back and making him cry out in pain before his breath caught.

‘You’re disrespectful, arrogant and nothing but a stain on this city,’ Bally-Suit man said, standing over him. ‘Well, that’s going to start changing.
You’re
going to start changing. Starting now.’

Goldie closed his eyes to the pain which was beginning to kick in from the beating, as Bally-Suit man crouched down and leant closer.

‘And if we’re not happy with your
progress
, well … let’s just say you’ll be begging for a little roughing-up like I’ve just given you. I have many ways of making you accept change.’

Goldie opened his eyes, but the man was no longer there. Just the two in balaclavas holding guns as before.

He got up with some help, and allowed himself to be led back to what he would soon call the Dorm.

And hoped it wouldn’t be the last place he could call home.

3

Reverend. Not vicar or priest. The Church of England always confused Murphy. Catholic guilt was much more his forte, forever cursed to carry that around with him. Sister Margaret Mary rapping your knuckles for getting a line wrong in the Stations of the Cross, or a proper beating for anything closely resembling
impure thoughts
. Every bloke Murphy’s age who had grown up Catholic had the same stories. Thankfully, his parents had grown out of religion before too long. C of E always struck Murphy as more tea and biscuits than the hell and eternal damnation his own church had taught him.