No Other Darkness (7 page)

Esther is facing the wall where she always sits. You’d think there was something to see, the way she studies it, something other than the new paint job over the old graffiti. The wall’s full of lumps and zits, like a teenager’s skin. I can’t stand it. It’s like looking at something I’ll never see. Something I can’t even remember properly, thanks to the drugs.

Esther takes everything they give us. I think she’d take more, if it was on offer. Me, I’d prefer something old-fashioned and brutal. Like ECT, or a baton to the back of the legs. A woman on the next floor got Tasered the other day. She’d gone for someone with a pair of scissors. They sat on her until she stopped shaking and I swear I could smell her burnt skin, like bad sunburn with a topspin.

Me and Esther . . .

We wouldn’t dare touch a pair of scissors, let alone the rest of it. We’re too busy being good. Esther with her face to the wall and me with my head stuffed so full of drugs I can’t remember what they smelt like, or how long ago they died.

Being good . . .

We’ll never be that. They should stop pretending it’s possible and get back to the business of punishing us. We’re back where we belong, at least. Behind bars. The public-places experiment is over, judged a success. I still can’t believe they’d let us out, knowing what we’ve done. Some things should never be forgiven.

Lyn, the therapist, says, ‘The important thing is that you’re better now.’

I can’t believe she believes this.

The important thing is that we’re
punished
.

The important thing is that we’re never let out, certainly not where there are children.

‘Rehabilitation is possible,’ that’s Lyn’s line.

Yes, but is it preferable? Is anything
preferable
to keeping the likes of us locked up?

If I was ever let out – and I can’t believe they’re even thinking about it, let alone sitting us in hospital waiting rooms, for God’s sake, as if there’s a cure for what we did, what we are – if I’m ever let out, there’s one place I’ll go, and only one place.

One thing I’ll do when I get there.

One way to say sorry, and one chance to say it.

I think Esther feels the same; in fact I know she does. You can’t live with someone the way she and I have lived – elbow to elbow in this place, sharing everything, sharing even the sounds and smells our bodies make – you can’t live like that and not know.

She’s the same as me, even if she never says it. If she sits facing the wall and doesn’t flinch for anyone, not for that silly sad bitch with the scissors, not even when they brought her down with the Taser.

Esther’s become an expert at hiding. And frankly?

That scares me.

I prefer my monsters out in the open, where I can see them.

It’s one of the reasons I’m stopping the pills.

I’ll take them, but I won’t swallow. The pills make everything foggy, and I want to be able to see clearly, to see and to think.

It isn’t right that I can’t remember how long it is since they died. I ought to have the number of days – hours, minutes – carved into the jelly of my brain. There ought not to be a single second I don’t remember. Instead, whole days go by, fog-banked by the drugs, until a crack emerges and a shaft of light stabs through – stabs
me
.

I want to be stabbed, over and over, by the memory of what I did. And by the other memories, the good ones.

How they looked, sleeping. The biscuit smell of their heads . . .

I think, if I stop taking the pills, I’ll remember.

I’d hurt more, but I’d forget less.

Lyn says it would be dangerous to stop taking the pills. It was because I stopped taking them all those years ago (how many? It should be carved into the red walls of my head) that the unforgivable, unforgettable thing happened. But I
am
forgetting, and that’s worse.

If I stop taking the pills, I’ll remember. I’ll remember why I must never be forgiven. And I’ll see clearly, too. I’ll see all my monsters. I’ll see
me
.

Lyn is pleased with Esther because she’s stopped answering back. She never questions the perceived wisdoms or challenges the platitudes.

‘Rehabilitation is possible. You’re living proof of that.’

Proof, perhaps, but I question whether we should be living. The lesson, I feel, would be more apposite if we were dead.

I’m almost sure Esther feels the same way. When we’re lying in the dark, so close we could reach out and touch hands, I hear so much in her silence. All the shame and pain and
wonder
at the darkness that lives inside a person
even when that person looks light, when it seems impossible that cold hard brick is behind that soft face, dim eyes . . .

There’s no other darkness than this: what’s inside us.

Where we hide;
what
we hide.

Esther hears me sobbing in the night. She hears me ripping at the pillow with my teeth because I’ve bitten my nails too short to tear at anything. She hears the blood seeping out of me once a month, a constant taunting of what I’ve lost and can never have back.

She hears when I hold my breath to bring them back, into my arms, into my bed. Even though I lie so quietly and carefully, and try so hard to keep the sounds to myself because I’m afraid of her hearing and holding out
her
arms – tricking them into her embrace instead of mine.

Children drift, like snow, like blossom.

I’m afraid they will drift back to her.

She’s got so good at hiding.

Not like me. I’m out in the open, where I want my monsters to be.

Have you heard of Kate Webster?

Women paid to see Kate in her Wandsworth death cell, in 1879. Old women. I don’t think they went to gloat. I think it was superstition. They peered into her death cell in the hope of reducing her. She must have looked monstrous hunkered in there, but sometimes fear can be succour. Kate Webster packed her elderly neighbour into a jam saucepan, in bits, and cooked her, and sold the dripping up and down the street. They hanged her, of course. What else were they supposed to do?

Esther is forgiven.

That is what I cannot believe.

After everything, she’s forgiven.

How can that be right?

Commander Tim Welland’s tie was skewed to the left and patterned with grease spots. A thumb mark from his breakfast spoiled the collar of his shirt. It was a studied look, one he only ever adopted for the press. His way of saying, ‘I’ve got better things to do than feed headlines to you lot.’

Marnie said, ‘Come here,’ and straightened his tie, neatening the knot and managing to hide most of the bacon spots. Nothing she could do about the thumbprint.

Welland looked her over, from head to heels. ‘You’re ready for this?’ His voice was a growl: Daddy Bear.

‘It could be the fastest way to find out who knew about the bunkers, and the boys.’

He grunted. ‘How contained is it?’

‘Well, it’s not on Twitter yet, if that helps.’

‘We’re about to put paid to that.’

‘Yep . . .’ She turned back, giving him a bright smile. ‘Put your press face on, sir.’

His scowl was a thing of thunderous beauty.

‘There you go,’ Marnie said. ‘You’re ready.’

 • • • 

The press room wasn’t packed, because the story hadn’t broken properly yet. Welland had been parsimonious with the facts and it was nearly lunchtime, not a journalist’s favourite hour for squeezing into an overheated room to hear what might be of only marginal interest.

The hard truth was that the press didn’t trust the police to bring them the best stories any more; they’d turned their attention to social media, teenagers on Twitter and middle-aged whistle-blowers. Had Welland broken the Snaresbrook story in any way other than via the official police channel, the press room would have been humming. As it was, a dozen reporters – young and keen, old and weary – were sweating in plastic seats, fiddling with their phones, looking for better stories online probably.

Welland kept the room overheated on purpose, not only because he was immune to the temperature. He knew the press wouldn’t want to linger here. He took the chair next to Marnie’s. Their audience continued to check their phones, apportioning a fraction of their attention to the stage. Someone took a photograph, blinding them with light.

Blinking, Marnie said, ‘Late yesterday afternoon, we found the bodies of two children in a garden in Snaresbrook. It’s too soon for the full post-mortem results, but we believe the bodies to be boys, and we believe they were buried four or five years ago.’

Now
the room hummed. More flashes of light. Marnie couldn’t see any of the faces belonging to the questions that came thick and fast: ‘Have you made an arrest?’ ‘How did they die?’ ‘How old were they?’

Marnie waited it out. When they paused for breath, she
said, ‘We’ll know more after the post-mortems have been carried out. Until then—’

‘Is this the Beech Rise development? Blackthorn Road?’ A man’s voice.

The rest of the room fell quiet.

Marnie too. Her pulse slowed, her skin pinched with cold.

That voice . . .

She was quiet for so long that Welland stepped in. ‘Further details will be released as and when we have them. Thank you.’ He stood, rubber squealing from the feet of his chair.

‘What do you know about the bunker?’ the reporter asked. His voice was cool, non-combative. ‘Or is it bunkers? I’m guessing there’s more than one.’

The light from the camera flashes was clearing, and the room came into focus, a slow bleed of colour into what had been whiteness.

Marnie looked for the man who knew about Beech Rise and Blackthorn Road . . .

There, at the side of the room, leaning back in his chair, bonelessly.

Six long feet of slouch.

Fair hair, blue eyes, easy in his own skin.

A smile like smoke from his eyes, just for her.

Adam Fletcher.

Noah was looking at the picture of a warehouse the size of an aircraft hangar, stacked with shelves of tins. One shelf alone held what must have been a thousand tins, all with blue and gold labels like the ones they’d taken from the bunker. The same label, chewed by damp, sat in an evidence bag at his elbow.

‘Sun-ripe peaches in syrup,’ the website said. It offered three purchasing options, the first being a six-month supply. The second was enough peaches to last a year. The third – ‘best value for money!’ – was three years’ supply. Enough peaches to make you sick to death of anything sun-ripened and preserved in syrup.

The website specialised in long-life tinned foodstuffs: ‘Apocalypse-proof! I got enough for my family for three years!’ They sold drums and saucepans, glass jars and barrels, salt and sterilising kits for home preserving. Everything the paranoid home-provider needed to feel smug in the event of a national disaster or the mass ransacking of supermarkets.

At first glance, Noah thought it was worth asking the site for a list of UK customers in the last six years. Surely, he reasoned, there couldn’t be many people who felt the need
to bulk-buy as a precaution against a future where the survival of the human race depended on segments of heavily preserved fruit. But he was wrong. The website was peppered with reviews from the UK praising the civic thinking behind the paranoia.

‘Coffee.’ Ron put a cup by Noah’s elbow. ‘My round.’

‘Thanks.’

Ron peered at the website. ‘Shit . . . is that for real?’

‘People buy it. Too many people . . .’ Noah picked up the evidence bag. ‘Fran thought it might be a lead, but it looks like these tins could be all over London.’

‘Who’d eat that crap?’

They both winced. Their boys had eaten it. For days, maybe even weeks or months.

‘Have you heard of preppers?’

‘Nope.’ Ron pulled up a chair. ‘What’re preppers?’

‘It’s in the review here.’ Noah pointed at the screen. ‘“Perfect for preppers . . .”’

He opened a new window, and fed the word into a search engine.

‘Bloody hell,’ Ron said.

‘“Preparing for the best possible survival in the worst imaginable world”,’ Noah read. ‘“You’ll want food, water and secure shelter, above or below ground.”’

‘Below ground . . . What, in a
bunker
?’ Ron jabbed a finger at an image on the screen. ‘
Safe
, it says. Hidden. Just like our boys.’ He rubbed at his face. ‘Christ, you don’t think . . .?’

Noah shook his head. He didn’t know what he thought, not right away.

The best possible survival in the worst imaginable world.

‘What,’ Ron said, ‘if this insane fucker thought he was keeping them safe?’

‘We need to speak with the planning office who sold the land to Merrick,’ Marnie said. ‘He swears the bunkers were filled in before he started building.’

‘Bunkers plural.’ Welland looked ominous. ‘How did that cagey bastard know about it before we did?’ He meant the reporter from the press briefing, Adam Fletcher. ‘How did he know? I want that found out, as a priority.’

‘He did his homework.’ Unlike Marnie, when Adam was around. She’d been sixteen, easily seduced from schoolwork by a single smile.
Crap.
This was going to be hard enough without Adam slouching his way back into her life. She couldn’t believe he’d turned up at the press briefing, although heart-slamming surprise was his MO, always had been.

‘I’ll find out what he knows,’ she told Welland.

‘Are we going to have to dig up the whole street?’ he demanded.

‘Yes. That’s exactly what we’re going to have to do.’

‘Well stay on top of it, press included. Especially the one who’s doing his homework.’ Welland looked disgusted. ‘I don’t want tripping up by some bloody hack who thinks shaving his chin’s too much trouble in the morning.’

Five o’clock shadow. Marnie could feel the burn of it on her skin, even after all these years. Like fingers held too close to a campfire; worth it for the charred sweetness of marshmallow sticking to her lips. Except Adam wasn’t marshmallows, or campfires. He wasn’t skinned knees in the playground or stolen kisses behind bike sheds. He was . . .

Her shoulders bruised by a brick wall, an ache in her skin that wouldn’t go away unless she went back for more. And he was here now, making her job harder, making her afraid of what other homework he might have done, after sixteen years of staying away.

She took out her phone and texted Noah:
I’m going to Blackthorn Road. Meet me there.

 • • • 

At Beech Rise, she parked under the trees that Merrick Homes had thoughtfully preserved and incorporated into their development. She’d beaten the press pack, but not by much.

Adam Fletcher was waiting at the corner of Blackthorn Road, in the old Levis and dark jumper he’d worn to the briefing. The other reporters were still checking in, getting the address details, playing catch-up, but Adam was one step ahead.

‘Detective Inspector Rome.’ He managed to make it sound obscene. ‘It’s been a while. Fancy a coffee?’

‘You’ll be lucky, around here.’

‘I guess I’m lucky, then. Tabitha’s Caff . . . It’s a three-minute walk.’

They walked without speaking to the café and sat outside, so that Adam could smoke.

She thought:
The last time I did this, they were alive.

He lit up in the same way, using a cheap disposable lighter with his hand cupped around the flame. Smoking the same brand: Marlboros in a red and white packet. A new warning from the Surgeon-General: ‘You smoke, you die.’

She thought:
The last time I did this, I didn’t even know Stephen Keele existed.

Adam lifted the hand with the cigarette and rubbed its heel at his temple. Smoke scuffed the side of his head, greying his fair hair for a second. He was . . . what? Forty-four, forty-five now? He hadn’t changed, just acquired a few more hard lines to go with the ones she’d coveted half a lifetime ago. ‘So how much do you know about Clancy Brand?’

The question surprised her. She’d expected . . . Not happy memories, that was for sure. But
something
, before he jumped straight into the reason he was back.

‘You know the Doyles are fostering him. How much more d’you know?’

‘How much more is there? He’s fourteen . . .’

‘Going on thirty,’ Adam said.

‘Tell me.’

‘Not unless you tell me something in return.’ He showed his teeth in a smile. Rakish, offhand and easy in his skin, something Marnie had never been.

‘Such as what? You seemed to know as much as we did, at the briefing.’

Tabitha, if it was Tabitha, brought their coffees. The metal table rocked when she set the cups down. When she’d gone back inside, Marnie said, ‘You knew about the bunkers.’

Adam took the saucer from under his coffee cup and twitched ash into it. ‘Anyone can find out about the bunkers. They’re a matter of public record. Try finding out about a fourteen-year-old foster kid. That’ll tax your brain. Even yours, Detective Inspector.’

‘You knew about the bunkers before we did. How? And why?’

‘I’m a journalist. I follow stories.’ He thumbed a speck of tobacco from his tongue. ‘In this case, big fat gypsy stories.’

‘The travellers,’ Marnie deduced. ‘That’s how you know about them?’

He flicked the speck of tobacco to the floor. ‘Ask me about Clancy Brand.’

‘No. I want to know about the travellers. I want whatever you have, on the bunkers and the dead boys.’

‘Zip is what I have. I knew there were bunkers, but I thought they’d been filled in. Don’t bother looking for the planning officer who signed the paperwork, by the way. It’s a dead end.’ He returned the cigarette to his mouth. ‘Literally dead. No suspicious circumstances to get excited about, either. Retired and dead of a heart attack within the year.’

‘You know this because . . .?’

‘I told you, I’m following a story.’

‘A story about travellers.’

‘It pays the bills,’ Adam said.

‘Where did the travellers go when they were moved on? Do you know that?’

‘Maybe, but you’re chasing ghosts. You want to look closer to home.’ He finished the cigarette and stubbed it in the saucer. ‘Clancy Brand’s an evil little shit.’ He said it carelessly, without any edge to his voice. This wasn’t personal.

Marnie wondered whether anything was ever personal, for Adam.

‘Define evil,’ she invited, picking up her coffee.

His eyes followed the line of her wrist, up inside her sleeve, then down, across her sternum to her navel. Lower than that. ‘That’s your job.’

‘My job is catching them. Someone else gets to do the defining.’

His eyes stayed on her bare skin. She wondered what he’d make of the tattoos she’d acquired, after his time, but not long after; a palliative for her skin’s craving. She could imagine him coming out with some cute crap: ‘I can read you like a book . . . By Albert Camus, isn’t it?’ wrapping the words around the enquiry like a snake up a stick.

They were alive and I didn’t know that Stephen Keele existed.

Tears pricked deep inside, nowhere near her eyes.

The cigarette in the saucer was still glowing. Adam pressed his knuckles to it, smothering the ghost of smoke. ‘You want to know about Clancy.’ It wasn’t a question.

‘I’ve got a double murder to investigate. Unless he’s connected to that . . .’

‘Maybe he is.’

‘The children died at least four years ago. When Clancy was ten.’

‘And? You’re not going to tell me that ten’s too young to kill.’ He held her gaze.

‘I’m not going to tell you anything. Because I think you’re winding me up.’ She put her eyes on him, coldly. ‘You’ve done your homework. Well done.’

Adam knew. He knew Stephen Keele had killed her parents, five years ago. He knew how, maybe he even knew
why
 . . . No. Not even Adam knew why. If he did, he wouldn’t sit here and taunt her loss under the pretext of chasing a story about murdered children. Some things she put past him. Not much. But
that
 . . . Not even Adam would do that.

She felt the pull of the past so keenly, she had to fight not to lean in its direction. ‘If you’re wasting police time,’ she said, summoning a smile, ‘that’s an offence.’

His eyes gleamed responsively. He pushed back in his chair, shoving his legs to their full length so that she had to move her feet out of the way. ‘You know me,’ he said, running the words into one another. ‘Anything to cause offence.’

Relieved that she wasn’t walking away. That he’d pushed her buttons and she hadn’t responded by throwing whatever punches she’d picked up on her way to becoming a DI.

Plenty
, she thought.
I know plenty of punches. Push me and you’ll find out how many. They’ll be written all over your face.

‘So why are you really here?’ she asked, matching his careless tone.

‘Earning a living, just like you.’ He scrubbed a hand through his hair. ‘Well, not quite like you.’ A rueful grin. He was still good at this, tugging at her skin with his smile.

Careful. Be very careful.

‘You’ve not been earning it around here recently. Where’ve you been?’

‘Abroad.’ He shrugged. ‘Foreign correspondent . . . When the gig expired, I came home.’

To chase stories about travellers, and teenage boys?

‘Who told you about the bunkers?’

‘Legwork. The travellers got kicked off-site because of Merrick’s development, which, by the way, stinks. I’ve seen corners cut with more finesse on fucking
Top Gear
. I followed the paper trail to the planning office. Saw the blueprints for the development with all the little boxes, the bunkers.’

‘Filled in?’

‘According to the paperwork.’ He nodded, ‘I didn’t know it was a scam until I got the call to your press briefing.’ He crooked his mouth at her. ‘Wouldn’t have been out of bed if a mate hadn’t called to say it was kicking off on Blackthorn Road. The travellers used to call it the Beach, on account of the number of times the river came close enough to paddle in.’

‘So you were following the travellers. How did that lead you to Clancy?’

‘He’s living on Blackthorn Road, isn’t he?’

‘So are plenty of other people. Why pick on him?’

‘For starters? Little shit keyed my car. Couldn’t prove it was him, of course, on account of what a
sly
little shit he is. But I started to watch where he went, and trust me, he’s got stuff to hide. Rats don’t sneak around the way he does. When I heard about the bunker, I thought you’d found something of his.’ He turned his cup until the table
tipped on its wonky leg. ‘One of his hiding places.’

Marnie put her hand on her own cup, not wanting it to spill. ‘What sort of thing?’

‘What?’ He reached for his cigarettes.

‘You said something of Clancy’s. What sort of thing?’

‘God knows. Drugs. Cash.’ He snapped the lighter, pushing smoke aside with his wrist. ‘Dead bodies . . . Oh, wait.’

‘Don’t do that,’ she told him.

He raised his eyebrows at her.

‘Joke,’ she said. ‘Don’t joke about this. Those children died, in the dark, alone.’

‘We’re all alone in the dark, dying.’ He smoked at the sky, then brought his stare back down. ‘That wasn’t a joke. You should check the bunker again, make sure he wasn’t down there. He’s been sneaking around just about every other corner of that dump.’

She waited a beat. ‘You really think Clancy had something to do with their deaths? When he was ten years old?’

‘Because kids never hurt other kids. Right. I’m telling you . . . you need to look at him.’

‘And you need to stop dodging and give me what you’ve got. Before I start thinking this whole thing is a wind-up.’

‘Why would I wind you up, Max?’

Another joke, sixteen years old. Marnie Jane Rome, initials MJR, short for Majority, which got shortened again to Max, because why use four syllables when you could use one?

‘Gee, Adam, I don’t know. Because you’re starting to remember how much fun it was?’

‘It
was
fun,’ he agreed gravely. He looked at the fresh cigarette as if it irritated him, reaching to grind it out in the saucer. ‘I’m guessing you don’t have time to fuck about, which is too bad, but neither do I. Being a scumbag journalist with a story deadline.’

‘My hearts bleeds for you. I have a double murder to
solve. If you’ve got information, give it up. Otherwise, stop pissing about and let me get on with my job.’

He studied her with a gleam in his eyes that looked like pride. ‘Clancy Brand.’ It was the fourth time he’d said the boy’s full name. ‘Take a look inside his room. You’ve got access to the house, right? Take a look at how he’s living in there, how he’s hiding. When you’ve done that, if you’re still not interested? Fine . . .’ He stood, putting the knuckles of one hand on the table, making it rock. ‘But if you want to put what
you’ve
got together with what
I’ve
got? You know where to find me.’

‘Nice speech,’ she said flatly. ‘But no, I don’t know where to find you. I never did, remember?’ He’d always found her, never the other way around, not even when she needed him so badly it scared her. ‘How’s your daughter? Tia, wasn’t it? She’d be starting college now, I guess. You must be proud.’

‘She would, and I am.’ Adam flashed his teeth in a smile. ‘I’ll call the station.’

He took his knuckles off the table, and walked away.

Her phone rang before he was out of sight.

Fran said, ‘I’ve got DNA for you.’

Marnie got to her feet. ‘Whose?’

‘The boys. I thought we’d caught a break with the swabs from the ladder. We’ve got DNA there too, and on the underside of the manhole cover. But it’s a match for what we took from the bodies. No secondary DNA from anything down there.’

No secondary DNA.
That meant . . .

‘I’m running more tests,’ Fran said. ‘They’re brothers, like you thought.’

‘No secondary DNA means . . . familial DNA?’

‘Yes.’

‘So . . .’

‘They knew their killer. They were killed by an aunt or uncle.’ Fran paused. ‘Or someone closer: their mum or dad.’