Читать книгу LAST RITES - Neil White - Страница 18

Rod Lucas looked down at the addresses on his lap, the two other victims of recent explosions, and they were all on his patch, a rural area around Pendle Hill. Although he had worked in the towns nearby earlier in his career – Blackley, Turners Fold – he had spent most of his career patrolling the tight lanes around the hill. He understood the crime in his area, mostly diesel thefts or large brawls in remote pubs, country boys settling their disputes in the old-fashioned way. The explosions were different. They seemed planned, targeted.

He was outside one of the addresses. He checked his list against the number on the house, peering through the mud smeared on the windscreen of his Land Rover, and stepped out onto the pristine new tarmac of a modern housing estate. He looked along and saw a succession of green lawns, square and flat. As he walked towards the door, faux Georgian, with wooden panels and a frosted glass arch, he heard only the hard smack of his boots on the paved driveway, the curved streets quiet. It took just one knock to get the door to open.

‘Hello?’ said a female face from behind a security chain, young and cautious.

‘I'm Inspector Rod Lucas,’ he said. ‘I want to talk to you about the explosion in your garden last week.’

‘You don't look like the police.’

Rod looked at his outfit. He couldn't argue with that. He was still wearing his pruning clothes, a checked shirt and grubby corduroys. He pulled out his wallet and showed the Lancashire Police crest.

The door closed for a moment, and Rod heard the rattle of the security chain. When the door opened fully, the face at the door turned into a teenage girl running down the hall. College girl was Rod's guess.

‘Mum?’ she shouted. ‘There's a policeman to see you.’

The girl turned round and pointed to a room at the front of the house. ‘Go in,’ she said. ‘Mum won't be long.’ When Rod smiled, she blushed and then skipped into a room at the back of the house.

Rod opened the door to the living room, and he was surprised. He had expected a modern look; laminated flooring, coal-effect fire, maybe a large television. Instead, it was similar in style to Abigail's cottage, like a Gothic lair, with a heavy black chandelier and dark red walls. The fireplace was high and open and made of dull grey stone, more suited to a castle than a modern box in a faceless estate.

He turned around when he heard the door open, and in walked a woman in her early forties, her hair dark and long, crimped into waves, wearing a long linen dress, her feet bare.

‘Isla Marsden?’ Rod queried. When she smiled whimsically, he said, ‘I'm here to ask some questions about the recent explosion in your garden.’

‘It was in the shed,’ said Isla, her voice soft, an almost dreamy quality.

‘It's happened to someone else,’ said Rod. ‘Except that someone was hurt today.’ When Isla didn't respond, he said, ‘It was an old lady called Abigail Hobbs.’

Rod saw the flinch, just a widening of her eyes, before Isla quickly brushed her hair from her face, a reflex action, and resumed her faraway smile.

‘Do you know her?’ he asked.

Isla made a bad show of thinking about her answer, and then she shook her head. ‘I don't think so.’

‘Her cat died, and Abigail is in hospital, hurt quite badly. Are you sure you don't know her?’

Isla shook her head again.

‘Do you have any more ideas about who might have caused the explosion?’ he asked.

Again, Isla responded with just a shake of the head, and then she said, ‘I thought I had to ask you that question,’ her voice defensive.

‘We're trying our best,’ he said solemnly. When she didn't answer, he nodded and said, ‘Thank you, Mrs Marsden. I'll keep in touch.’

As he walked out of the room, heading for the front door, he paused. ‘It's funny, though, Mrs Marsden, about the coincidence,’ he said.

‘What do you mean?’

He turned round and saw that her composure had slipped. He looked down at her hand. ‘You share the same taste in jewellery.’ As her cheeks flushed, he pointed at her right hand. ‘You even wear it on the same finger. Third finger, right hand. The screaming face, silver on black. Abigail has one too.’

As she looked at him, her eyes worried now, Rod nodded at her.

‘Thank you for your time,’ he said. ‘Call me if you want to talk,’ and then he clicked the door closed as he went back to his vehicle.

I was heading for the college, trying to shake off my unease about my private life. I wanted to speak to Katie again, to find a reason why Luke's friend had described Sarah's relationship with Luke so differently. I remembered that Katie said she had lectures, so college seemed like a good place to start.

I didn't normally feel old. I was thirty-four but had kept my hairline, just speckles of grey spoiling the dark waves, but suddenly I felt a generation gap as I hung around the college building. It was an offshoot of one of the Manchester universities, a seven-storey concrete slab in the middle of Blackley, next to a one-way system, so that lectures were disturbed by posing young men driving the loop, watching the girls and playing music at distorted levels, making the shop windows rattle as they went past. Young students with rucksacks and attitudes stared at me as I looked around, their faces obscured by hoods, their legs stick-thin in baggy denims. The security guard was chatting up the young female students, his chest puffed out, feet apart.

Katie had said she was studying history, so I made my way inside and searched for the history department. It didn't have much of one, not what you could call a faculty, just lectures taking place on different floors, marked out by timetables printed on notice-boards. I walked the corridors but I couldn't see her.

I headed out and decided to take a drive past the house. I struck lucky. Katie was just locking up the house as I drove up the street, and she looked startled as I scraped my wheels against the kerb, squeezing behind a scruffy green Fiesta. When I jumped out of the Stag, she relaxed and smiled. ‘Back so soon?’

‘I've got a few more questions,’ I replied.

‘Well, I was just going out.’

‘Let me take you,’ and I went to open the passenger door.

Katie looked up and down the street before throwing her bag into the passenger footwell and climbing in.

‘Where do you need to be?’ I asked.

Katie thought for a moment, and then said, ‘College will do.’

‘Again? How many lectures do you have a day?’

‘I need to go to the library, that's all,’ she replied. When I didn't respond, she turned towards me and asked, ‘What do you want to know?’

‘Just more about Luke and Sarah,’ I replied. ‘There are a few things I can't get straight.’

‘What like?’

I set off driving, the Stag struggling up the steep hill. ‘You told me before that Luke and Sarah were close, that Sarah loved him,’ I said. ‘It would explain a jealous rage, I suppose, the knife in the chest, but Luke's friend tells it differently. He talked like it was a casual thing on both sides. That makes a rage less likely. So which one is real?’

Katie looked out of the window as old houses were replaced by traffic lights and a quick route out of town, the grey strip of the inner ring road, trees and flowers along the edge to break up the concrete. ‘The real Sarah is different to what people think,’ she said.

We were near the college again, and so I found somewhere to park and turned off the engine. Katie turned towards me, one knee onto the seat, and ran her fingers through her hair. ‘What do you think about Luke's murder?’

I could smell Katie's perfume, sweet and cloying. ‘I don't think anything,’ I replied. ‘Not yet. So tell me, why do you think Luke saw it differently to Sarah?’

‘Does it matter?’ she asked.

‘Maybe. It can't be a lover's rage if it was just a fling.’

‘Are you in love, Jack?’

I found myself about to say no, I didn't know why, like I'd been caught off-guard, but then I stopped myself and asked her why she wanted to know.

‘You're a man, Jack,’ Katie continued. ‘When have you ever told your friends that you loved a woman? I don't mean find attractive, or wanted to fuck, or whatever. I mean told a friend that you truly loved a woman?’

I didn't answer when I realised that she was right. And Callum too. That living up to being a man is all about the conquests, not the losses.

‘Sarah was in love,’ she said, her voice low and soft. ‘She talked about Luke all the time, like she was making plans. If Luke thought differently, well, that was his choice. He wouldn't be the first man to say I love you and not mean it.’

‘So that's it then?’ I said incredulously. ‘This all happened because Sarah loved Luke, but he didn't respond? Was she that unpredictable?’

Katie pulled at some strands of hair, twisting it between her fingers before letting it fall to her head. ‘Some people are like that,’ she said. ‘Great fun when things are going well, but she could be nasty and hurtful, very hot-tempered.’

‘A lot of people snap,’ I said, ‘but they don't all plunge knives into their boyfriend's chest. They'd just been in bed together. It seems quite a leap.’

‘I wasn't there when it happened, so I wouldn't know,’ Katie said, and she sounded hurt, like I was pushing it too much. Then she sighed. ‘I've never seen a dead body before,’ she said quietly, and she dabbed her nose with her sleeve, like a nervous reaction, her cuff over her hand. ‘He was just sort of splayed out,’ she continued, although I was surprised at the evenness of her voice. ‘There was this knife, just there, sticking out, with blood all over the bed. I've never seen so much blood before.’

‘What did you do?’

Katie gave a small laugh, embarrassed. ‘It sounds stupid now, but I called an ambulance. I don't know why, I could tell he was dead, but it was like an automatic reaction. When they came, they called the police.’ She rested her elbow on the car door and looked at me, her eyes filled with worry. ‘I'm scared, Jack.’

‘You've no need to be,’ I replied.

‘Because you're here?’ She shuffled closer towards me and put her hand on my leg. ‘You seem like a kind man.’ Her eyes stared into mine. Before I could answer, she said quietly, ‘Hold me.’

I was surprised, her touch unexpected. I closed my eyes, knowing that I had to end it as her hand stroked my leg. An image of Laura flashed into my head, and I took hold of Katie's hand.

‘It's okay,’ she said softly, ‘it doesn't mean anything.’

‘It would mean something to me,’ I said firmly, and lifted her hand from my leg.

‘I just needed someone to be there for me,’ she said, sounding hurt. ‘I'm sorry. Just forget it.’

‘No, no, it's not like that,’ I protested, feeling guilty now. ‘It's just, well…’

‘You might get caught?’ She shook her head. ‘Like I said, it doesn't matter,’ and then she reached for the door handle.

‘Don't,’ I said, too quickly.

Katie turned around, a half-smile on her lips. ‘What is it?’

‘I just want to finish the story,’ I said. ‘There are more things I want to know.’

‘Call me then, so we can spend more time together,’ Katie replied, flirting, and then she opened the door and stepped onto the pavement.

I leaned across the passenger seat and asked, ‘Do you think Sarah killed him?’

Katie leaned into the car. ‘Who else could it be?’

‘If Sarah had killed Luke and run away,’ I replied, ‘she would go somewhere she felt safe, maybe a favourite holiday place, or with friends who didn't know about Luke. Did Sarah ever talk about anywhere away from Blackley?’

‘Everyone in Blackley dreams of being somewhere else,’ she said.

‘Except that not everyone leaves,’ I responded. ‘So did she talk of anywhere else?’

Katie shook her head. ‘She's nearby.’

‘How do you know?’

Katie looked round, seemed worried that someone might be listening, and then whispered, ‘She has written to me.’

I was shocked. ‘What do you mean?’

She gave me a knowing smile. ‘Just that,’ she said. ‘I've been getting letters from Sarah.’

‘There's been nothing in the papers about that,’ I said.

‘The police are keeping them quiet, and they told me not to say anything about them,’ she replied.

I knew that sounded right. It was the sort of thing that the police would keep back, they had done ever since the Yorkshire Ripper tapes misled everyone and allowed Peter Sutcliffe to kill more women.

‘What do they say?’ I asked.

Katie shook her head at me. ‘Give me a call, Jack Garrett, and you might just find out,’ she said, and then she walked away, her bag swinging in her hand.

I jumped out of the car and shouted, ‘Wait!’, but Katie just kept on walking.

I watched her go, intrigued. I wanted to know more, I knew that, but I wondered what risks came with that, from the story and from Katie.