PAIN HAS A PERMANENT ADDRESS - READ BETWEEN THE LIES

PAIN HAS A PERMANENT ADDRESS - EPISODE TWELVE

Chapter Thirty-One

Arriving at the mortuary just after midnight, Kira stood waiting for me in the reception.  I knew she wouldn’t want anyone else to do the examination on Paul Silver’s body.  She’d greeted me with a hug that felt like she had no intention of letting go, but when she did I had to sign the visitor’s book and then look into a camera.  My image captured, Kira laminated it and gave it to me to hang around my neck.

  The post-mortem room had a viewing area overlooking the theatre.  A dozen chairs rose in tiers.  Draw and his new team of Sergeant Higgins and Police Constable Melanie Softly had taken up some front seats, leaning forward to get a better view.

  Kira tugged on her surgical gloves and waved up to us, checking her microphone.  Her assistant pulled aside a curtain to reveal the cadaver, the skin bleached by the brightness of the lights.  He was naked, stretched out with his arms against his sides and his legs together.

  The dull whiteness of the skin made him look like a marble statue, defaced the open wound that stretched the full width of his throat.  His body had a few bruises but that wasn’t surprising in his line of work and his eyelids were like pools of purple dye.  I fight back the emotion as I see my friend like this for the first time.

  Kira began the post-mortem, reading from her notes.

  “At approximately 2200 hours on September 6, at the request of the Suffolk Constabulary, I attended the scene of a death near Oxmarket, Suffolk.  I was logged into the outer cordon of the scene at 2245 hours and approached from the main road.  Senior SOCO Charlie O’Connor gave me a short background briefing.”

  She took a sip of water.

  “The deceased was a man in his mid-forties, fully clothed, and sitting in an armchair.    The killer grasped his hair, raised his head, and sliced right to left.  The weapon was most likely a serrated knife found outside near the crime scene, drawn across his neck, severing his carotid artery and jugular vein.  He bled to death within twenty or thirty seconds.”

  Her voice wavered with emotion and I gazed at the wound.  A s***h of crimson that began just below his left earlobe, cutting through muscle and cartilage.

  “The killer was left-handed?”  I heard Draw ask.  He had spoken into a microphone that bent towards him like a small flexible table lamp.

  “Could have been,” Kira said composing herself.  “Or ambidextrous.”

  “Anything else?”  He pressed, his voice echoing around the post-mortem room.

  “Photographs were taken under my direction.  He was sitting upright in the armchair.  The body was transferred to the Oxmarket Hospital, before being transferred here in a white, signature-sealed body bag and wrapped in a black plastic sheet.”

  Kira paused and glanced at her notes, before beginning her description of what she could see.

  “The deceased is of large build, approximately a hundred and eighty-two centimetres tall, weighing one hundred and one kilos.  His eyes are bloodshot and the blood vessels on his face show signs of dilation and there is also evidence of broken capillaries.”

  She looked up at me awaiting a reaction, but I gave none.

  “He has two inoculation scars on his forearm and an old curving scar around the outer aspect of the right elbow.  He has grazes on the outer skin of his thighs at the widest point of his hips.”

  Her voice washed over me.  Raising my head, I glimpsed my face reflected in the glass and tried to focus on something other than the post-mortem.  I felt foolish, almost cowardly. My worst memories of certain cases where the cutting up of the victims.  I never stopped imagining their lives, their families, their voices, their laughs, their careers.  That was my problem, Detective Inspector Paul Silver had told me on many occasions.  I imagined too much.

  Kira continued talking.  “The arms and legs are symmetrical and there is no visible evidence of acute injuries.  No injection marks.  Skin somewhat shiny . . .”

  Without warning, Craw was up out of his seat and headed toward the exit.  He stopped at where I was sitting.

  “Do you know who in the Carter family is left-handed?”

  “No.”

  “They both need to be found.  My money is on the daughter.”

  My shoulders dropped in dismay.  He’s already convinced that Isabella is responsible.

  “Have you got a problem with that, Mr. Handful?”

  “She’s blind.  And Paul was twice her size.”

  “Size had nothing to do with it.”

  “She’s petite.”

  “I hope you’re not making excuses because she has bewitched you like she bewitches every other male she meets.”

  “And I hope you’re not predisposed against her because Paul Silver was a friend and a colleague.   He was my friend as well, remember.”

  Undisguised contempt entered her gaze.  I’d gone too far.  Draw didn’t like having his judgement questioned publicly.

  Through clenched teeth.  “Do you think I want this, Handful?  I can see what will happen.  I can hear the defence warming up.  They will trash Paul Silver’s reputation.  One of the best and bravest officers I have ever known will be branded a philanderer, a marriage wrecker.  They will destroy him.  How do you think that will make Philippa feel?   Did you know she was pregnant?”

  I nodded but said nothing.  There’s no point in arguing because Draw hadn’t put a foot wrong procedurally.  Meanwhile, I’m doing exactly what I know I shouldn’t do.  I’m ignoring the obvious answer.  There’s only one greater sin – embracing it.

  “Can I offer you a lift?”  He asked me as I followed him down the corridor.

  “Yes, please.”  I knew Kira would be a long time, and I was feeling tired, and my body was aching in all the places that had been hurt during this case.

  It was cool in the underground car park.  Draw pulled open the car door.

  “Will this move be permanent?”  I asked.  “I mean when this case is concluded.”

  “Why?  Would that be a problem for you?”

  “No, not all.  I no longer consult for the Suffolk Constabulary, remember?”

  We moved.  Draw had a driver, a young policewoman, who glanced nervously in the rear-view mirror.

  “Where to, sir?”

  Draw looked at me as a prompt.

  “32, Harbour Road, please.”  I said.

  Ten minutes later, I was dropped off near my house. The driver couldn’t park right outside, so I had to hobble about fifty yards to the front door.  Above my head, a reef of clouds and lightning raced across the skies from the sea.  My hands were shaking, and my mind wasn’t far from behind.  Looking up I saw the storm spilling like rivers of blackened blood from the clouds, blotting out the moon and covering the roofs of Oxmarket in darkness. I tried to speed up but thoughts of the case consumed me and I walked with leaden feet, chased by the rain.  Finding brief refuge under the canopy of a bus stop, I tried to collect my thoughts and decide what to do next.  A clap of thunder roared close by. The ground shook under my feet. The night became opaque, impenetrable, as the rain folded Oxmarket in its shroud.

  I ran the final few yards to my house and let myself in. 

  The kitchen was dark, only the pale readout from the battery-operated luminescent wall clock casting a glow inside the room.  It continued to rain, but when I kicked the door shut and put my mobile phone down on the counter, a thick blanket of shadow settled around me.

  Automatically, I reached for the lights inside the door.

  They didn’t come on.

  I tried them again, once, twice.  Nothing.  Moving across the kitchen, I glanced out of the window, down towards the harbour, and could see small dots of colour everywhere: lamp posts standing sentry along the sea wall, cars passing through the town, buildings casting out watery yellow light from their windows and doorways.

  Everyone in Oxmarket had light.

  Everyone except me.

Chapter Thirty-Two

  On the other side of the kitchen was a larder that I kept some old files in, with two switches on the wall next to it.  One for the kitchen, one for the larder.

  I tried them both.

  They were dead too.

  “Kira?”

  My voice carried off into the house, the stillness and silence amplifying it, like I was shouting into the mouth of a cave. 

  Kira didn’t reply.

  Of course, she didn’t.  She was still at the mortuary.

  I looked through to the living room.  The DVD and stereo were off – no display, no faint buzz of electricity – my laptop had no light on, even though I’d left it charging.  I glanced back towards the kitchen, in the direction of the microwave and the oven.  Both of those were off too.  Slowly, as I stood there in the dark, a sense of unease crawled its way through my system, cool in my veins, blooming beneath my ribs, my heart getting faster, as if, somehow, my body was confirming what I already knew.

  The electricity had been cut.

  Just inside the door of the larder I kept my bag of golf clubs, leaning against the wall.  I always kept them there.  I reached into the shadows and lifted out three irons.

  Gripping it, I edged forward, into the living room.

  The house was over a hundred years old, so the layout didn’t conform to modern design.  It ran in a kind of spiral:  kitchen through to a dining room, past a pair of French windows, and then on to a single, narrow staircase that took you up.  I moved across the living room, eyes everywhere, trying to see if anything had moved.

  I stood completely still as the mobile in my jacket pocket started vibrating.  I had put it on silent when I went inside the mortuary and had forgotten to change it back. I looked at the display.  LAST CALL:  NUMBER WITHHELD. 

  I went to the windows in the living room, and I could just about make out through the torrential downpour, the sight of someone standing under the bus stop shelter, a mobile phone in their hands.  The handset was flipped open as if they’d been using it.

  The caller. 

 They were looking towards my house.  I stepped back from the window.  Waited.  Checked my watch thirty seconds later.  When I looked again, they were gone.

    My instinct was to run.

  But I was paralysed, my shoes apparently glued to the carpet, my eyes fixed on the window.  I always reasoned that when someone has taken so much of your power away, you’ll work with what little you had left.

  A sharp tingle of fear, like I’d tested a battery with the tip of my tongue.  As I composed myself, the practicalities presented themselves.  This is my house.  I know it better than anyone.  I must use it to my advantage.

  I eased myself back out into the hallway and paused at the foot of the stairs.

  Listened.

  There was no noise.

  Move, I told myself.  I breathed in quietly and as I did, the sound seemed immense; every noise amplifying in my ears, every beat of my heart and every blink of my eyes.  I expected to be able to hear, something approach if I wasn’t alone in the house.  Hear something, but the house was silent now.  No footsteps.  No creaks.

  Nothing moved.

  Nothing made a sound.

  And then a floorboard creaked.

  I didn’t move.  Didn’t breathe.  I couldn’t risk any noise.  My only defence was a golf club.

  I looked up the steps, into the darkness.  The house was an antique, weary, and old, and every footstep through it would be mapped by a succession of groans.  At the top, I could make out vague shapes I’d come to know well: a long, cylindrical window on the right, cut into the outside wall; then the first of three bedrooms – the one at the top of the stairs being mine – the tiniest fragments of light coming in through its windows and spilling out on to the landing.

  Nothing else.

  Another creaking floorboard and then a sound of sniffing.  Like an animal trying to pick up a trail.

  I could smell something then.  A horrible, degraded odour, like decaying compost, coming from upstairs.  I swallowed, felt like I had to, just to try to get the smell out of my throat and nose.  But the stench didn’t go away.  It was drifting down the staircase like discarded flakes of invisible skin.  I swallowed again, and again, and again, but couldn’t get rid of it.

  I re-established my grip on the golf club.  Even in the dark, I could make out my hands: blanched white, like sticks of chalk, veins slithering through from wrists and knuckles.  As I paused there, I heard faint, indistinct noises and I became uncertain whether it was coming from inside or outside the house.  The wind could easily have been a whisper.  The fall of rain on the roof could have been someone softly padding around.

  Raising the golf club, I slowly started the ascent.

  Even as I tried to rein in the impact of my full weight on the stairs, they groaned and shifted.  I kept to the right, my back against the outside wall, and as I got halfway I paused and looked through the railing along the landing, into the bathroom and the three bedrooms.  The bathroom was small: a bath, a toilet, a basin, white enamel, and tiles that reflected back whatever dull glow was seeping in through a thin slice of window.

  Then there were the three bedrooms.

  One had remained empty from the time I’d moved in, just built-in wardrobes and old carpets.  The other was the spare bedroom that looked out over the North Sea.

  I edged up the rest of the stairs and stopped again at the top.  There was another set of switches about a foot to my right.  One was for the landing, the other for the stairs.

  I reached out and pushed them both.  Click.  Click.

  Nothing.

  As I took a couple of steps further, a floorboard shifted beneath me and I paused waiting for any kind of reaction from any of the rooms.  But all that echoed back was more silence.  Quickly, I sidestepped into my bedroom. 

  Nothing. 

  It took everything I had not to make another sound.  Whatever was in my house had crawled beneath my skin.  Violated me.  My wife, Kimberley and now Kira.  Our memories.  A bubble of anger worked its way up through my chest, then fear cut across it as I heard another noise.

  Closer, this time.

  I backed across to the spare bedroom.  That’s where it came from.  Inside – not visible from where I was – I knew there was a spare bed, two standalone pine wardrobes and, next to the window, an old, discoloured swivel chair, brown leather on a chrome base.

  Something moved.  Faster, more determined this time, as if it suddenly realized where I was.

  Then it stopped.  Sniffed the air once more.  As it breathed out, I could smell it again.  Its decay.  Its stink.  I held my breath, desperate not to swallow.  Desperate not to make a noise.

  I couldn’t make out what it was. I watched the night absorb its entire body. 

  My heart started pumping faster.  I took two big steps, and I was at the entrance, firming up my grip on the golf club, peering through the gap between door and frame.  For a moment, there was nothing but shadows.  But then things began to emerge: the edges of furniture, the wardrobes, and the lights of the village – like the tiniest speck of paint – beyond the glass.

  It scanned the room, left to right, and one long, snake-like movement.  When it was done, it did the same thing again, replicating the action exactly.  Finally, it turned and stepped back into the half-light of the landing, pausing, and looking straight at me.  I stood motionless, soundless, staring right through the gap between the door and the frame, right into the darkness.

And as my eyesight adjusted, the shape of a huge dog began to form merely a few feet away.

Chapter Thirty-Three

I moved forward with stealth, almost stumbling, into the darkness of the landing.  Heart thrashing in my chest, head thumping – and let everything fall into place around me, like a bough breaking.

  Identical German shepherds.  Right paw, left paw.  Dogs are not ambidextrous.  Both were trained dogs for the blind and both trained were trained to kill. I had seen that in the DVD.  How stupid had I been?  It had been staring me in the face all the time.

  The dog growled.  A noise that caused my heart to tighten and my body fill with dread, a feeling that snaked down my back and legs. Eyes unblinking, revealing no fear, a stalking predator.  Anticipation of having my throat torn open was enough for me to face the darkness.

  The dog's presence electrified the air, his energy filling the room.  I had seldom sensed such a controlled strength of will emanating from anyone, let alone a dog.  I shook something deep within me turned to steel.  Everything around me amplified as I grew hyper-aware of my surroundings.

  I tightened the grip on my golf club.  Holding it more like a baseball bat than a seven irons.  I looked into the gloom, taking a breath, cautioning myself not to panic as the dog continued to creep towards me, his haunches high, his head and shoulders low, a brittle kind of tenseness in his manner. I shuffled backwards, as the huge trained killing machine growled at me.

  For such a long time I had only one wish: to find the killers.  Now that I found myself standing face-to-face with the killer of Buster Bill and Sabrina Muller, I wanted something else.

  I wanted to live.

  I stood at the top of the staircase with my back towards the dark void of downstairs too far to jump.  No escape.

  The dog inched forward on the floor in front of me, swelling to a frightening size.  Tail still, shoulder muscles bunched, haunches quivering, he prepared to launch himself at me.

  I held my breath, and then he came at me.  Fast and strong.  I swung the golf club and hit nothing but air.  I lost my balance and toppled backwards down the stairs.  I hit the back of my head hard and the impact reverberated through my body like a wave.

  I landed with a thud.  Life is not like a film.  I didn’t roll over and jump straight to my feet.  I came to rest in heap, my right ankle gripped by intense pain that for a moment it blinded me, and I crouched there on all fours like a wounded animal, confused and almost sightless with fear.  I shook my head, trying to drive away the dazed feeling.  I felt blood on my lips and bruising forming along the lines of my jaw, back and legs.  I’d landed in one of my nightmares – which I’d dreamt on many occasions, whimpering, and drenched in sweat, the dream where I screamed and screamed where no sound came out.  I got up.

  I had lost my bearings.  Stumbling, I caught myself with my bad leg I whimpered with pain, went down on my knees.  I couldn't go on, but knew I had to. I crawled along the floor in the darkness, blind and scared.   I closed my eyes and willed myself to listen.

  No sound of movement at all.

  I opened my eyes.  Slowly, I made out the contours of the dog moaning in the darkness, winded, and trying to recapture his breath.  Through the strains of darkness, the colour of his coat gave him a sinister otherworldly look; like a creature from another planet. A shadow, a mere shadow.

 The sight of the dog caught me like a punch.  I tottered, my leg giving away again, and I fell to the floor. 

  That damn knee.

   I screwed my face up in anguish as I hoisted myself to my feet.  I put my hand out in front of me, as I shuffled sideways in the direction of the living room.  My back pressed up against the wall.  As my fingers brushed the door frame, I dropped again and listened.  The noise of the rain lessened.  For a moment, all I could hear outside was the rhythmic rise and fall of the sea. A cold shudder ran down my back. Swapping the golf club from my right to my left, I quietly traced the wood of the frame.

  I kept on staring into the darkness trying to force my eyes to see more.  There was no light.  Not even a hint of it.  There were no edges, no shapes or definition – just the night.  Nothing else.  As I squeezed my fingers harder against the grip of the golf club, I sensed movement from the German shepherd.

  I could try and make a dash for the garden, but with my bad leg, the dog would almost certainly be quicker than I.

  Despite how wet I had been from the downpour, sweat rolled down my back, tracing the length of my spine; feel my heart pounding in my chest, its echo in my ears.  I swallowed, and in the silence it felt the noise was immense.  I tensed, expecting some kind of reaction.

  All I got was silence.

  Then a gentle squeak of a floorboard; one tiny moment of sound that seemed to carry along the hallway like a gunshot.  Blind in the dark already, I closed my eyes once more, trying to focus my other senses, trying to understand what the dog was doing.

  Then I realized.

  Six feet away.  Maybe less.

  We’re right next to another.

  A terrible sensation rose up from deep within my stomach, through my chest and into my throat.  Fear, nausea, and a sense of entrapment.

   I opened my eyes and staggered backwards into the lounge. The dog followed, its movement smooth and fearless. 

  I wanted to run.  Wrench opens the front door and race out into the safety and open air of the Oxmarket harbour.

  The dog’s eyes were staring not at me but into me.  They were extraordinary eyes, hungry, piercing, like red hard stones. The nausea was like bile in my mouth.  My tongue felt swollen like a cow, huge in my mouth.

  And then without warning he came at me once more.

  I absorbed the impact, and we stumbled sideways, towards the French windows, unable to stop our momentum – and crashed right through them.  Glass shattered.  Wood splintered.  And then we were on the grass outside.

  Rain sheeted down.

  I rolled on to my front, to see where the dog had ended up.

  He was on his back, four feet pawing furiously, its body perforated by broken slithers of glass and fragmented wood.  Then, with a last howl of agony and a vicious snap in the air, he fell limp onto its side.

  He was dead.

  A torch was shone quickly into my face.

  “John Handful!”

  I turned to the bottom of the garden.

  Cowan pointed a gun at me.

  I turned and hobbled back in the direction of the house.

  She fired.

  It was a thunderous noise, ripping through the night.  I zigzagged as good as I could across my wet lawn as bullets hit the grass behind, close to my feet.  I jumped through the remnants of the French doors, feet first, sliding across the floor.  A split second later, another bullet shattered a large sliver of glass. Splinters sprinkled me. More shots followed.  The noise in the lounge was immense.

  Bullets hit the walls.  I tried to make myself as small as possible, as plaster sprayed everywhere with the relentless impacts.

  Then it went quiet.

  All I heard was the gentle patter of rain.

  She had run out of bullets.