Dead Bad Things (30 page)

  "We didn't get anywhere, if that makes you feel any better."

  She glanced at his face. At the scars on his cheeks and his dull, flat eyes. The room was still dark; she hadn't bothered to turn on the lights. "What do you mean?"

  "The lab boys have turned up nothing on our original body – the one in the dentist chair. We still don't know who he is. The other two, from this morning, are still being examined. We have fuck all to go on here. No prints, no residue, no traces of DNA. The bodies are clean." In the gloom, with the shadows pressing in from the corners, it looked like Benson was smiling.

  "Want a drink?" She got to her feet and went to the drinks cabinet. The whisky bottle was half empty and she couldn't even remember when she'd bought it. Taking Benson's lack of response as an affirmative, Sarah poured two large measures and carried the glasses back to the sofa.

  They sipped in silence, and then Benson put his glass down on the floor and turned his body slightly towards her. "So. What was it you wanted to talk to me about?" He licked his lips. The darkness made his face look flat, like a mask.

  "I've found something out. Something about Emerson Doherty."

  Benson tilted his head to one side. He looked like an inquisitive dog. "So tell me – if you want to, I mean. I know how you are with this family stuff, so don't feel under any pressure. I know I've been pushing you a bit, but it's just because I want you to include me more in your life."

  She nodded. Then, something occurred to her. "It cuts both ways, you know."

  Benson reached down and picked up his glass. He held it against his lips for a second, and then took it away. "How do you mean?"

  "You've never really told me much about yourself either. I mean, I know very little about your background, where you grew up, the things that shaped you. I might be the one who plays my cards close to my chest but I've actually shared more with you than you have with me." She was right. It had passed her by before, because she was so caught up in her own problems, but Benson rarely talked about his own past.

  "You never thought to ask." He took a drink, emptying the glass.

  "OK," said Sarah. "I'll accept that. I have been a bit self-involved, but you've hardly volunteered much information. Neither of us has, so let me start this off." She took a deep breath. "Let me tell you what I've found out, and we can go from there."

  Benson adjusted his position on the sofa, sitting up straight with his back pressed against the cushions. He nodded. "I'm listening."

  "I found some photographs in his stuff. Nothing much, just a few snapshots of him at these sex parties he used to organise. You know about those, right? Every fucker else seems to."

  Benson shrugged. His powerful shoulders rolled high in the darkness. "I had heard rumours… everybody has."

  Sarah bit her bottom lip, and then blew a burst of air out through her nose. "Well, it turns out that he made my mother go along with him. He forced her to join in, even though she didn't want to. He needed to keep her quiet, you see, so he used the photographs of what was done to her as a threat. If she ever betrayed him, he would show them to her family, her friends… anyone he could, just to hurt her."

  The words were streaming from her like water now. She couldn't stop them.

  "I also met up with an old informant of his, and it seems that he was doing a lot more than throwing kinky parties. He was involved in all kinds of criminal activity – gambling, drugs, whores, God knows what else – and laundering the money he made through various police charities. He was good. The only people who knew were the ones who were in on the whole thing. Nobody else heard as much as a whisper."

  Benson wriggled on the sofa. He looked uncomfortable. "Jesus, Sarah. I didn't know… I mean, everybody's heard stuff about the card schools and him and his mates skimming a few quid on the side, but not at that kind of level."

  "It gets worse."

  Benson said nothing.

  Sarah leaned back, stretching her legs at an angle and resting her feet flat on the floor. "I'm not sure who else was involved in this, but there was some vigilante activity. Emerson and some of his buddies on the force started to abduct criminals and 'teach them a lesson'. They kicked the crap out of a lot of people and warned them off whatever it was they were doing. My theory is that these fuckers were interfering with Emerson's sidelines. So he took it upon himself to get them out of the way."

  Benson was staring at her. Even in the darkness, he looked pale.

  "A drug dealer was killed. I don't know how, but they murdered him, possibly by accident, possibly not. I don't know. The whole thing was covered up and they stopped their little games. Well, most of them did. Only Emerson carried on."

  Benson jerked to his feet, taking a few steps away from her. Sarah was shocked by his sudden movement, but she hid it well. "Is this all true? Can you trust your source?"

  "Yes," she said, refusing to elaborate further. "Sit down. I haven't finished."

  Benson collapsed into the armchair opposite the sofa, rubbing at his eyes with the palms of his hands. He looked like he was about to cry.

  "The old bastard got religion. He claimed to have been visited by an angel who gave him the ability to see the future crimes of certain children."

  "What?" Benson shook his head. "This is fucking crazy. Can you hear yourself, what you're saying? It's nonsense."

  "I know," said Sarah. "I know it is, but it's what
he
believed."

  Benson was breathing heavily. He sounded ill. "And what did he do with this… with this knowledge? Did your snitch tell you that?"

  Sarah shook her head. "No. No, he didn't. But I found something down in the cellar – some evidence that made everything click into place." She paused then, wondering if she'd gone too far and said too much. How well did she really know Benson after all? Enough to offload this onto him, or was she clutching at something that wasn't really there?

  "I'm still listening." He sat back, composed now, getting used to the madness of what he was being told.

  "I found a box down there, among his personal stuff. Inside was a bit of human skull with holes drilled in it." She paused; there was no sound from Benson. "And a device that looks like a drill but was clearly used to make those holes." She paused there, lowering her head. "Sounds familiar, doesn't it?" She looked at her hands and waited for him to speak.

  Benson shifted in the chair. He coughed once. "I don't know what I'm supposed to say here. This is some weird shit, it really is. I assume you know what it would mean if you went public with the information? What it would do to his reputation and to the force in general?"

  Sarah nodded. "That's why I'm telling you. I can't carry this alone. I need some help." She looked up, at his mouth, his eyes, his twitching scars. The face that suddenly looked like it belonged to a stranger. "I might be going mad here, but I'm starting to think that his ghost has come back to kill more kids."

  There was tension between them, strung out like a fine wire. Sarah felt it stretch, stretch, and then it threatened to break. She didn't know what to believe; this stuff sounded as crazy to her as it obviously did to him.

  "OK, now it's my turn." Benson's voice sounded different from only seconds before. He was calm now; he had it all under control. "I've wanted to tell you this for a long time but thought it might interfere with what we have. I didn't want to spoil things."

  Sarah kept her gaze steady. She began to prepare for bad news, tensing her body against imaginary blows.

  "I'll come right out with this: I knew your father. I knew Emerson." The words hung in the air, unmoving.

  "What are you saying here, Benson? What the fuck are you telling me?" She clenched her fists. Her entire body was rigid.

  "I never told you exactly what happened when I got these scars." He raised a hand and brushed his fingers against his right cheek. "I used to run with a few lads. These days it would be called a gang but back then we were just a group, a bunch of bad lads with too much time on our hands. One night, when we were stoned, we nicked a car. I was driving. We went for a joyride, out on the moors, and then when we got bored we drove back into town. I dropped off the others and kept the car – thought I'd get another hour's worth of fun out of the thing before dumping it. I crashed into a parked van in Chapeltown. Your dad was out on patrol and found me. My face was slashed. I was bleeding badly."

  Sarah wanted to hit him. She felt like smashing in his skull with a blunt object. He had been lying to her all along.

  "He saw something in me – some good, or maybe something similar to what was inside him. So he took me to hospital and told them that I'd been run over and the driver of the car had left the scene. They stitched me up and sent me on my way, but your dad – Emerson – took me home. Then he took an interest." He paused, reached over for his drink and sipped it.

  "What does that mean, 'took an interest'?" Sarah could barely believe what she was hearing.

  "He… well, he guided me, I suppose. It was down to him that I finished school and got some grades, then took my A-Levels. He convinced me to apply to the force and spoke up for me at the police entrance interview, and gave me a personal reference. He was retired by then, of course, but his name opened a lot of fucking doors. You of all people should know that."

  Sarah bristled; she resented the implication. "Fuck off. I did this all on my own. I deliberately chose a route where I'd have minimal contact with his old flunkies."

  Benson chuckled softly. It was a frightening sound. "Come on, Sarah. Even if they didn't say it to your face, they all gave you a little helping hand somewhere along the line because of who your father was. Even your good mate, Tebbit, but he did it to get back at Emerson rather than help him out."

  She stood up in a rush; it was a sudden and involuntary reaction. Once she was on her feet she didn't really know why, or what she had meant to do. "He wasn't even my fucking father. He found me. He adopted me."

  Benson looked stunned. Sarah was pleased by his reaction. "No… who told you that?" His mouth was gaping.

  "The man I talked to, Emerson's old pal. He told me all of it. The old bastard brought me home one night and they adopted me in secret. I'm not Emerson Doherty's daughter. And thank
fuck
for that."

  Benson went to her, his arms opening. He rested his hands on her waist, leaning in close. "It looks like we both have a lot of secrets, then. Maybe this is the breakthrough we've been waiting for. What do you think?" His words were empty, bereft of genuine meaning.

  Sarah pushed him away, taking two steps backwards. Her thigh bumped against the fireplace. "I
think
that you're a lying cunt, that's what I think. And I think you should leave. Now."

  But Benson wasn't looking at Sarah. His eyes were fixed on the wall behind her, somewhere in the corner of the room. Slowly, hesitantly, Sarah turned her upper body so that she could follow his gaze.

  A familiar figure was sitting against the wall, his legs bent as if he were occupying an invisible chair, his hands resting flat on his thighs. The long black robe fell all the way to the floor, the plain hem covering his feet. The thin white hood fluttered slightly in a breeze that Sarah could not feel.

  She turned back to face Benson. He was still staring at the figure. "You can see it, too?"

  He nodded.

  "All along? Right from the start?"

  He nodded again, his features slack. There was a look in his eyes, something that resembled awe.

  "You've seen him all along and you kept coming here, right to the centre of all this. You were coming to see him, weren't you?"

  Benson's eyes were shining. They were no longer flat and dead; they were practically bursting with life. "Yes," he whispered. "I've been coming to see him, to pay my respects."

  Sarah began to move backwards at an angle, away from Benson and from the figure resting against the wall. She kept her eyes on Benson's face, but he barely even registered that she was there. He was staring at the figure like a love-struck suitor and his entire body was as limp as a bundle of sticks.

  Sarah knew exactly what she was doing. She'd always known about the gun. It was all wrapped up in Emerson's mystique, and had always been a major part of the reason that she and her mother had been so afraid to cross him. He had never threatened them with the gun, nor had he handled it in front of them. The idea of the weapon had always been enough to keep them in check, and it had crossed neither of their minds to pick the thing up and use it against him. His grasp had been too strong; the mental bonds too tight. And he hadn't told them were the bullets were kept anyway.

  He would never be that stupid.

  Sarah calmly opened the top drawer of a tall varnished unit that stood near the fireplace. She took out the small handgun and aimed it at Benson. Still he did not react. She spread her legs and assumed a professional firing stance, bending her arms slightly at the elbows, just like they'd been taught in training.

  Benson blinked.

  "Get the fuck out of my house." Sarah's voice was cold; her words tasted of steel and they made her tongue tingle. She fought the urge to turn around. She was pretty sure that the figure had vanished but the urge to check was almost unbearable.

  Benson blinked again, like a man slowly coming out of a trance. He turned his attention to Sarah, and to the gun. "What are you doing?"

  "If you don't leave now I'll shoot you. I'll shoot you in the head and tell them you tried to rape me." She took a single step towards him. "I'm not fucking around."