'The comfort of having a friend or a valued colleague may be taken away - but not the comfort of having had one. In important ways we have lost what we had, but we must not only reflect upon losing our friends, but also appreciate the benefit of their having once been ours.'
The officiant looked down at his notes and then back up.
'The fact of death cannot be cancelled or reversed,' he said. 'But it can be transformed by our continuing and enduring love for those who have left us, and for each other.'
It was at that point that Mercer began to realise that something was wrong. It announced itself as a ringing in his ears, and as he stared at the officiant everything around the man became starry and distant. The hackles on his neck began to rise. His heartbeat was quickening.
Something was wrong.
'The final parting of death is bound to bring sorrow and shock,' the man said. 'Those who feel deeply will necessarily grieve deeply. No religion or thought process ever practised can prevent this natural human reaction.'
Mercer turned in the pew and scanned the people crowded behind. A sea of bodies and heads. At the back of the chapel, the door was open. Even more people were standing beyond.
'But whatever relationships death breaks in upon, and whatever our personal beliefs, we can at least be certain that those we have lost are now at peace.'
He tried to pick out faces. Despite the sheer number of people, he couldn't see anybody he knew. A few of the heads were turning his way, though.
Eyes began to flick in his direction.
The officiant had fallen silent. Mercer looked back to see he had moved to one side of the lectern and was now looking down at him expectantly.
He had missed his cue. A few polite coughs echoed around the chapel as he stood and walked across. The papers he had prepared were already there. He picked them up, his hands trembling, and leaned towards the microphone.
'My name is John Mercer,' he said. 'I am saddened, but also honoured, to be speaking here today. Honoured to have known Andrew Dyson, both as a friend and as a colleague.'
He could hear himself saying the words, but they sounded as if they were coming from someone else. Cold sweat was beading all over him. Suddenly, he felt as thin and weak as an old man. His heartbeat seemed hard enough to break through his chest.
'I worked with - I had the pleasure of working with Andrew for ten years.'
He swallowed.
In the pew, the rest of his team were looking at him, concerned. Pete, his second-in-command, was frowning. He unfolded his arms, as though about to get up and come across to him. Mercer shook his head:
I'm okay.
But he wasn't. It was hot in here and yet he was shivering. His legs--
'Throughout that time ...'
Eileen. He looked towards the back of the chapel, seeking her out. He knew roughly where she was, but now that he needed her he couldn't find where she was sitting.
As he glanced from face to face, the panic rising with each that wasn't hers, he carried on speaking.
'Throughout that time, he was one of the most professional officers I have ever worked with.'
Something caught his eye and then was gone. He searched for it.
'I hope it can bring some comfort to--'
But then he saw it again, and the words disappeared. One face among all the others, watching him inquisitively.
It was Robert Parker, wasn't it? Parker, who had murdered five young boys in a city south of here? The last time Mercer had seen him had been in a well-lit room. Parker, dressed in orange, had been lighting a cigarette awkwardly with his cuffed hands. Several months later, he had died at the hands of another inmate.
'Some comfort to Andrew's wife and children.'
He faltered.
It couldn't be Parker. But then he noticed the man sitting two rows behind him. Slicked-back hair on top of a round, childish face.
Sam Phillips. Mercer had consulted on that one, and had only ever seen photographs of the man himself. But he'd inspected the rusted-iron equipment Phillips had constructed in the room below his detached house. He couldn't be here, either. He was in prison, hundreds of miles away.
Parker and Phillips rose to their feet.
'No,' Mercer said.
Quickly, he looked around - here and there - and saw that more men were standing up in the crowd. His gaze moved to each in turn, his breath shortening with every familiar face.
Charlies Yi, who had broken into the home of three women and left their bodies chained to radiators.
Jacob Barrett, the quarry murderer.
'No.'
Craig Harris, who had taken whole families, one at a time.
And one final figure, standing alone at the back of the chapel. Mercer couldn't see him properly; he was covered in shadow. But he could tell the man's head was the wrong shape. There were horns, too ...
As one, the men began to make their way left and right, squeezing past people's knees, moving towards the central aisle. Each and every one of them was staring at him.
His heart dropped away inside. There was no tension any more; there was nothing. He didn't exist. All there was, all he could feel, was panic.
'No.'
Pete was there beside him. He put his hand on Mercer's arm--
'It's okay, John.'
--but Mercer twisted and threw it off, staring at him.
'Can't you see them?' He pointed down the aisle.
Pete was always a little hangdog, a little put-upon, but his face now was more full of sadness than Mercer had ever seen. He couldn't meet his boss's eyes, faced down instead, his jaw flexing at the corners.
'John.' He spoke quietly. 'Please come and sit down.'
'No, you don't understand.'
He looked down the aisle. The men were moving very slowly, like dead men would walk. All looking at him with empty eyes.
Pete put his hand on his arm again. 'John, it's me - it's Pete.'
'You don't understand.'
'I do.' Pete put his arm around him. 'I do understand.'
Mercer hesitated, lost for a moment, then hugged him, beginning to cry.
Pete held him and whispered, 'It's okay. Let's go.'
Pete led him down the aisle. Mercer tried to keep his eyes closed. When he opened them, even for a second, he saw pale faces close to his own, watching him pass. He allowed Pete to lead him, Greg and Simon falling in behind. Halfway down the aisle, he felt Eileen touch his arm on the other side. People moved out of the way for them.
And like that, huddled together for protection, they walked out into the light.
PART ONE
One of the first things you learn is that an important element when beginning an investigation is to keep an open mind. And, to an extent, that's true.
For example, you should never assume anything when you arrive on a scene, no matter how obvious or clear-cut it may seem. Every unattended death should be considered (and investigated as) murder until it has been definitely established otherwise. Your first job is to assess the evidence available to you and make deductions purely on the basis of that. The facts must always determine the direction of the case, and you must allow them to lead you where they inevitably go.
That much is true; but, as any experienced officer will tell you, there is always room for instinct. As the years pass, you develop a finely tuned inner voice that you learn to listen to even when others cannot hear it. And, within reason, there is no harm in following this voice where it takes you.
From
Damage Done
, by John Mercer
2 DECEMBER
14 HOURS UNTIL DAWN
5.15 P.M.
People rarely go into their attics. Kevin Simpson was no different.
He'd been up once when he first moved in - put his head and shoulders through the dusty hole, shone a torch around, and had the usual notions of doing something with the space while knowing deep down that he never would. Then he'd retreated down the precarious ladder and largely forgotten about it.
If he'd gone up there today - four years after that brief initial exploration - he would have found the devil, crouching in the corner, bathed in grey-blue light.
The devil was almost entirely still, focused on the small monitor in front of it, listening to the feed from the surveillance equipment in the house below through an earpiece. Simpson wouldn't have been sure what he was seeing at first, and he would probably have thought that it wasn't real, that the devil was just an incongruous statue, squatting motionless on its haunches. As the light flickered across the implacable face, it might have looked a little like a dead man in a dark room with the television still on.
But Kevin Simpson, like most people, rarely went into the attic. The devil had spent days up there without being disturbed. It had slept directly over him, keeping its food in one bag, its waste in another. It had spied on him.
This day, it had spent its time watching and listening to the couple moving around the house below, unaware of its presence high above. The girl had arrived at quarter past nine in the morning. They'd drunk coffee and eaten together. They'd talked. The girl had eventually left at four fifteen.
Everything they said and did, the devil heard and saw.
When the girl had gone, it waited.
And waited.
Now, finally, it unfolded itself from the corner, the light off the monitor casting elongated spider shadows from its limbs. The most important items - the rope, the lighter fluid - were secreted downstairs in Simpson's spare room. But it took the hammer with it as it crawled nimbly along the beams to reach the trapdoor.
The latch and the mechanism on the steel steps had been oiled one day while Simpson was at work. They opened without a sound, and a wedge of light from the hallway below appeared in the attic, illuminating the grey, curling cobwebs in the rafters overhead.
And the devil descended.
There wasn't a moment when Kevin Simpson woke up; his return to the world was more a gradual hardening of awareness. He kept his eyes shut throughout. It seemed sensible, although his thoughts weren't together enough for him to be sure why.
Even without his consent, the sensations around him grew stronger.
The wet slop of heat all over his body.
A dull pressure encasing him.
The chill of air on his face ... but he could also feel sweat beading on his forehead and the sides of his nose. The temperature: it was like being in the sauna at the Leisure Club.
Water was rushing and splashing. Hot, churning bubbles were bustling around his toes.
I'm in my bath.
Immediately, he hated himself:
if I don't think it, it won't be true.
But there was no taking it back, and Kevin reluctantly became aware of other sensations. The world, though still out of sight, appeared around him. He could tell he was lying down, could tell he was naked and submerged in water. The hard porcelain at the back of his neck; the bath tight against his arms.
An awful, throbbing pain in his shoulder ...
That was when he remembered the intruder. There had been a man in his room, the man had attacked him, and--
Panic reared up and he tried to thrash, but there was rope binding his arms to his sides, and his feet were locked together, too. Water sloshed up his nose. He tried to cough but couldn't - Jesus, there was something over his mouth as well. The panic became a shrill ringing in his heart. Desperately, he blew out through his nose and then sucked air back in. Bitter, salty liquid in his mouth. He swallowed quickly, trying not to be sick.
'Keep calm, or you'll drown yourself.'
At that, Kevin held completely still. He kept his eyes closed, too.
A burglar.
If Kevin didn't think about how he'd been sitting there after she'd left, trying to write an email to her, he could convince himself that was it - he'd disturbed a burglar. Never mind that he'd turned round and seen the man standing in the doorway behind him, or that the man was wearing a devil mask and carrying a hammer. The man was only after money, and he had been forced to tie him up. Soon he would take Kevin's things and leave.
He heard a screech as the taps were turned off, then nothing but the hushed noise of the water in the pipes. It sounded as though the veins of the house were boiling behind the plaster.
'Open your eyes.'
He didn't want to, but did it anyway. The bathroom was filled with steam. He could see the greasy, wet sweep of it across the mirrors on the cabinet doors. It was on his forehead, too, trickling down his temples.
The man was sitting on the closed toilet beside the bath. He was wearing that same hideous mask: pink, rubbery skin; clumps of black hair stuck at the chin and tufting the head; horns made of what looked like old bones.
The devil. Kevin just stared at him.
'That's better,' the man said, nodding.
Kevin realised he was lying tied up in a bath of hot water, at the mercy of this terrible stranger. This stranger, wearing
that
mask.
A mistake, he thought. It has to be a mistake.
The man reached down between his feet and picked up a hammer. Kevin felt his panic growing stronger, but this time he kept as still as possible.
Don't drown.
'I'm sorry about this.' The man stared at the weapon curiously, as though he wasn't sure what damage could have been done by it. 'It's possible you'll come out of this alive, and if that's the case I'm sorry I had to hurt you. It was necessary.'
Possible. Necessary.
'Nod if you understand.'
Kevin nodded as best he could. A mistake, he kept repeating to himself. If the stranger would only remove the gag and let him speak, he'd be able to explain.
The man put the hammer down.
'I know who you were emailing,' he said. 'I've been watching you both for a long time.'
Oh, Jesus.
'And I've read all the other emails you've written to each other. I have all your passwords. I had keys cut from moulds I took of all your locks. See?'
The man held up an enormous bunch of keys and shook them. Kevin's eyes flicked from one to another, but they were flashing too quickly and he couldn't make out which of them might be his. Not all of them, certainly. It didn't matter. He nodded anyway.