LAST RITES

‘It must have been a bad day,’ I said.

Laura picked out an Australian white, selected on price, not reputation, and put it in the freezer to cool.

‘Sometimes alcohol is the answer,’ she said.

‘What's wrong?’ I asked.

Laura folded her arms and looked down. I didn't think she was going to say anything, but then she blurted out, ‘I went to the murder team and told them what you were doing.’

‘And how did it go?’

She looked up at me and scoffed. ‘Oh, just fine, once they'd stopped laughing at me.’

‘Why would they laugh?’

‘Because they're pricks,’ Laura snarled. ‘I'm just the skirt who spends her life processing other people's arrests. They put them in a cell and go home, and then leave me to sort out the mess. I'm the one who works late when we need more evidence, not the person who brought them in.’

‘It's not for much longer,’ I said, cajoling. ‘The Court Welfare Officer is coming round the day after tomorrow, you know that, and then the hearing is after that. Once we have it formalised that Bobby stays with us, you can go back to a normal police job.’

‘I want my career to amount to something, Jack, but it seems like I'm the only one making sacrifices,’ she said, her voice getting angrier. ‘Geoff's job hasn't changed, and he doesn't have the day-to-day stuff like I do.’

‘Like we do,’ I corrected her. ‘It's both of us, not just you.’

Laura stopped for a moment, and then she sighed. She stepped forward and put her arms around me. She put her head into my chest, and as I kissed her hair I could smell the cells, the scent of stale bodies and stress. I put my hands on her cheeks and lifted her head up. There were tears brimming onto her lashes.

‘Just be patient,’ I said softly. ‘We're nearly there.’

She wiped her eyes. ‘Sometimes I just wonder at how much I want it, how there must be an easier way to live my life.’

‘What, go back to London?’ I queried, and then regretted voicing it, putting it out there for discussion. I felt my throat go dry as soon as the words came out.

‘Would you want me to?’ she asked.

I pulled her closer, put her head tight into my chest. ‘You'll need to improve your interview technique if you're going to get on,’ I whispered, ‘because you can't ask stupid questions like that.’

We stayed like that for a few minutes. When Laura pulled away from me, wiping her eyes, she asked, ‘How was your day? Is the story getting any better?’

‘It's getting interesting,’ I replied. ‘I spoke to Katie again, Sarah's lodger.’

Laura raised her eyebrows. ‘You're getting keen. She'll think you're a stalker. Good looking, I presume.’

I shrugged noncommittally There was no answer that would be the right one.

Laura turned away, about to go back to Bobby, when I said, ‘Can I ask you something about the Sarah Goode case?’

Laura stopped, and then turned back slowly. ‘Probably pointless. If I know the answer, I won't tell you anyway.’

‘Nothing about letters sent by Sarah Goode, after she went missing?’ I queried.

Laura paused at that. ‘What kind of letters?’

‘Are there different types?’ I said. ‘Just normal letters. I've been looking at the newspapers and there is no mention of them, but Katie mentioned them.’

‘What if they are so significant that the rest of the press have agreed not to say anything about them?’

‘That's what Katie said to me,’ I said, ‘and that's why I'm interested.’

Before Laura could respond I heard a ping from my laptop. It was an email arriving. I walked through, expecting an offer of fake Viagra, but what I saw made me gasp.

Laura must have heard my reaction. ‘What is it?’

‘It's Sarah Goode,’ I said. ‘I guessed she would be on Facebook, and I found her. I sent a friend request, just so I could write up that there was no response.’

‘And?’ asked Laura, coming close.

I clicked on the link in the email, just to make sure, and then I stood up and grinned.

‘She's accepted the request,’ I replied, pointing at the screen. ‘Now that makes an interesting angle.’

Laura leaned forward, curious.

‘She looks happy,’ said Laura, looking at the profile picture.

I clicked on Sarah's pictures, and there was a succession of family photos and ones of Sarah at play: at a party, a bottle of beer raised for the camera; on a fun run, her arm around some friends, their faces flushed. It was fun-loving young woman stuff, the story of a life she used to have that would never be the same again. She didn't update her page very often; perhaps she had joined on a whim – there were few friends in her profile. I noticed that she listed her status as single.

‘This means one thing,’ said Laura, ‘that she must be near a computer. I wonder if we can get the Facebook people to tell us where she is posting from.’

I printed off the page and clicked the events section, where people listed their diary.

‘Shit!’ I exclaimed.

Laura tapped me on the arm, pointing at Bobby. I held up my hand in apology and then tapped at the screen. From Laura's gasp, I realised that she had read it too.

In the events section of Sarah's Facebook profile, for 31st October, were the words, ‘ I die.’

I gave a slow whistle. ‘That's four days away,’ I said.

Laura looked grim-faced. ‘It looks like I'm going to have to go to the murder squad again.’

Chapter Seventeen

Morning already. Sarah guessed it from the way it seemed a little warmer, although not much. She reckoned it had been eight days now, but it was hard to mark time when days and nights seemed almost the same: the constant spotlights, the relentless, steady noise of thumping heartbeats.

Sarah had shivered through the night so that every minute crawled by, her arms wrapped around her chest, no bed, no bedding, no clothes. She had paced around the room to generate heat, twelve paces in an oval pattern before she was back where she started, so she did twelve more, and then twelve more after that, the dirt getting stuck between her toes. She rolled in the mud on the floor, cold at first, but it was like an extra layer of skin once it set hard onto her body.

Maybe the mud had saved her. The early hours were torture, but she knew time was the only cure, that soon the air would become warmer, just. She waited for the sounds of movement.

But as she got warmer, Luke came back into her thoughts. Had they really killed him, or was that all part of the game? Maybe he was still alive and in a room just a few feet away? If she could get to him, maybe they could work together.

She paced faster, but the view never changed. Just a stone wall, and then another after that, broken only by her shadow cast by the spotlights, shifting as she walked faster, more heat, more sound, her feet moving in time with the pulsing coming from the speakers.

She had taken to chanting. As she paced, and then as she jumped on the spot, Sarah would say, ‘Keep strong, keep strong’, like saying it would make it come true.

But it was easier to be strong when she was on her own. There was no one to hurt her, just her own thoughts and dark despair.

Just then, the speakers went silent. Sarah heard someone outside the room. She froze, felt her stomach lurch. What was coming now?

Her strength disappeared when she heard the lock turn in the door.

Laura looked down at the arrest handover package in front of her. It was an A3 piece of paper, folded over, holding a print-out of the incident log and custody record, the former telling her how the job had been called in, the latter telling her what had happened to the prisoner since his arrival.

Pete buzzed around her desk, trying to see what she had.

‘A scrapper,’ she said, her voice struggling to hide her contempt.

‘Todd Whitcroft?’ he asked.

She checked the name on the front sheet. ‘Yeah, that's him. Do you know him?’

Pete raised his eyebrows. ‘Blackley's premier-league scrapper. Feeds his kids by stripping the town's roofs of their lead and cashing it in at the scrap yard. He's moved on to cables now, because he thinks they're less traceable.’

‘Maybe he's got scared of heights,’ Laura said as she skim-read the front-sheet. ‘It looks like they caught him with a van full of them.’

Pete sighed. ‘Oh great.’

‘What's wrong?’ she asked.

‘Todd Whitcroft never admits anything. He will say he had permission, or else he will say nothing at all.’

Laura sensed the day stretching ahead, and she was overtaken by a sense of gloom.

‘So we have to catalogue it all,’ she said, her voice weary, ‘just so that we can prove where it came from.’

‘That's about it,’ he said, as he hopped off the desk and headed for the door. ‘No time like the present.’

Laura got to her feet wearily, and then followed Pete out of the room. As they walked along the corridor, Pete bouncing small talk off the walls, Laura heard conversation coming out of the Incident Room further along. Her cheeks turned red as she remembered the humiliation from the day before, but she couldn't help glancing in as she went past. It looked like most were working the phones, chasing down old leads just to check if they had missed something. Only one person looked up, the cop in the polo shirt with the crew cut from the day before. He was still casually dressed, much different to the suits around Carson, and he smiled a greeting to Laura as he noticed her, a nod of reassurance.

Pete pressed the security button and they both went into the cobbled yard at the back of the station. Laura groaned as she saw the dirty cables spilling out of the back of a battered Transit van.

Pete passed her the clipboard. ‘You make notes, and I'll get in the van and shout out what we have.’

Laura was about to object that she wasn't his secretary, but then she looked at her hands, clean and scrubbed, and then at her suit. Maybe there was a time for chivalry.

‘Have you thought some more?’ the masked man asked Sarah as he walked into the room. He was still again, his arms by his sides.

‘About what?’ She covered herself as best she could, arms over her breasts, her thighs clamped together.

‘About killing me,’ he answered.

Sarah shook her head in exasperation. ‘I don't know who you think I am, and I don't know what you want from me.’

He nodded at her. Sarah thought she saw the shape of a ponytail sticking out of the cloth, bobbing up and down in time with his head. ‘I know what you are,’ he said. ‘But you have to work it out too.’

Sarah turned away and faced the wall.

‘Do you think you are the only one here with compassion?’ he asked.

Sarah took a few deep breaths before she answered. ‘It feels that way,’ she said quietly.

‘You'd be wrong at that,’ he replied. ‘Morals suit everyone differently. But what of the things you really want? Not the fantasies people tell you you should have, but your real fantasies, the ones you don't tell anyone about, the ones that come to you in the night? They're your real morals. You should embrace them.’

‘And what do you want them to be?’ Sarah asked, her voice rising. ‘Murder, like you, or worse? Torture? Rape? Is that what you want me to tell you I think about? Or maybe me being raped, how I like to be hurt?’

He said nothing.

‘Or perhaps I just want normal things,’ Sarah continued. ‘Like hoping I meet someone I love and settle down, have a happy home. What's wrong with that?’

‘Cowardly,’ he said. ‘Everyone has a darker side. Feed it, grow it.’

‘And what are your morals?’ Sarah asked as she turned back around. ‘What sick things do you dream of?’

He gestured around the room. ‘I dream of this. Of you, in here, my butterfly fastened by the wings. And of this,’ and then he turned and dragged something into the room. Sarah saw that it was a camp bed. ‘I feel like showing you a kindness. There is no trick. This is just how I feel today.’

Sarah looked at the bed. She craved the bed. She saw a blanket on top. Maybe if she could get in, she could drown out the noise and get some warmth. She closed her eyes as they became filled with tears. She had wanted to be strong, but she had more basic needs.

‘You have seen what I can do,’ he continued. ‘I will follow my emotions. You have to make me want to be kind, if that is how you want me to be.’

‘And if I make you feel different? If you don't feel kind?’

‘I'll just follow my feelings,’ he said, his voice sinister, and when Sarah swallowed, he added, ‘and my imagination.’

‘I'll do as I'm told,’ Sarah whispered.

He dragged the bed further into the middle of the room and unfolded the blanket.

‘Can I have my clothes?’ she asked.

‘Do as you are told and be rewarded,’ he whispered. And then, as Sarah climbed under the blanket, grateful for the warmth, he slipped out of the room.

The noise of the heartbeat returned, but it seemed more bearable now.

Chapter Eighteen

I had been sitting in my car for nearly an hour before I saw Katie walking up the hill to her house. It was steep, and so she didn't see me until she reached her front door, her head down as she climbed.

She had looked deep in thought, but brightened when I stepped out of the car.

‘Mr Garrett,’ she said coyly. ‘Do you have some more questions?’

‘You're too perceptive,’ I replied, playing along. ‘Is that okay?’

‘Depends on the questions,’ she said, and she smiled.

I glanced towards the door. ‘Shouldn't we go inside?’

She considered that for a moment, and then reached for her keys. ‘Follow me,’ she said.

As I went in, I noticed different things to our first meeting. The house seemed quieter, like it had become used to silence. The wind chimes in the hall tinkled like broken glass as we entered, but they sounded too loud. I noticed the smell this time. It was bleach, cleaning fluids, a touch of fresh paint. I glanced into the living room, tried to get an impression of Sarah, but Katie went straight into the back room again, dumped her bag onto the sofa and sat down with a sigh. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘You mentioned letters,’ I said bluntly.

She pulled off her shoes. ‘Did I?’

‘You know you did. Yesterday. It was the last thing you mentioned before you walked away.’

‘I can't say anything,’ she said eventually. ‘I told you that too.’

‘So why did you mention them?’

Katie smiled at me. ‘You look sweet when you get all serious.’

‘I might get really sweet soon then,’ I replied. ‘Why can't you say anything?’

‘DCI Carson,’ she said, the words coming out with a grimace. I guessed that she hadn't been impressed. Laura had told me all about him the night before.

‘I'm not asking for a copy of the letters, but just tell me what was in them,’ I said.

Katie played with her hair, just teasing it around her ear. ‘I can't. I'll get into trouble. And I'll get you into trouble.’

‘Don't worry about me,’ I said. ‘Knowing a secret isn't a crime. And I would protect my source. All journalists would.’

I let the silence hang there, hoping Katie would say something, but she stayed quiet.

The silence became too long, so I said, ‘Okay, I get the message. Pass on my congratulations to DCI Carson. He's got an obedient student.’

‘Come and see me later,’ said Katie quickly.

‘Why?’

‘About the letters.’

‘Why not now?’

‘Because if you want something from me, it will be on my terms. And I don't want to talk yet.’

‘So it has to be later?’

Katie nodded. ‘Come here for six. We'll talk then.’

I looked at her, hoping that she might change her mind, wondered how I would explain it to Laura, but Katie just smiled at me.

‘Later it is, then,’ I said, and started to walk towards the door.

‘Jack!’ she shouted out.

I turned around.

‘I'll look forward to it,’ she said, and then she giggled.

I turned and left the house, and as the door closed I looked down at my hands. They were shaking.

But it wasn't just the story, I knew that. Katie intrigued me. Maybe it was just the looks, but I knew that it was something else too: that she thought she was in charge, that she had something I wanted.

I knew I would have to be careful.

Chapter Nineteen

Rod Lucas took a quick look at Pendle Hill as he walked towards Abigail's door. The skies looked darker than the day before, the bracken top covered in gloom, and it made him raise the collar on his waxed jacket to shield his ears. His wife pestered him to wear a hat and gloves, but Rod wanted to feel the countryside, not just see it through his windscreen. It was what made his patch special.

He knocked on the door and then stepped back. Abigail was out of hospital, but he knew he would have to wait. She lived on her own, not even a cat for company any more, and Rod recalled her injuries. She wouldn't be moving quickly.

He put his hands into his pockets and stayed still. A couple of minutes went past and so he gave another rap on the door, just so that Abigail would definitely know someone was there. Eventually, he heard the rattle of a key, and when the door opened he was surprised at what he saw.

‘You look well, Miss Hobbs,’ he said, and he meant it. There was some bruising around her chin, and one of her eyes was covered by a patch, the other one red and sore, but some of the swelling had gone down and she was walking proudly upright, even with the bandages on her leg.

‘I heal well,’ she said, suspiciously at first, but then she recognised Rod. ‘I'm sorry, but you were dressed differently yesterday.’

He glanced down and remembered his gardening clothes from the day before. It was shirt and tie today, but there was still dirt ingrained into his fingers.

He nodded and smiled. ‘I wonder if we could have a talk,’ he said, just a hint of reproach in his voice.

‘There's nothing much else to say,’ said Abigail. ‘Young vandals or trouble-causers. I can't add anything to that.’

‘What about Isla Marsden? Can she help?’

Rod watched her carefully, looked for a reaction, but she was more prepared for the question than Isla had been. Her eyes narrowed slightly, but the sweet smile never wavered.

‘Thank you for calling round, Inspector,’ she said. ‘If I hear of anything, I'll get in touch.’

Abigail started to close the door, but Rod stuck out his hand.

‘Do you want me to come in and make sure everything is secure?’ he asked.

Abigail guessed his motives. ‘I can still turn a window key,’ she said.

‘If you are being targeted for a reason, then someone else might get hurt, or even worse,’ he said, appealing for her help.

Abigail looked at him for a moment, her smile shifting for a second, before she thanked him again and closed the door slowly.

Rod Lucas was left facing the closed door. He stood there for a short while, thinking about what he should do next, before turning around and walking slowly back up the path.

I was in the same coffee shop as the day before, halfway through a cappuccino, when I decided to call Laura.

When she answered, I asked, ‘What are you doing?’

‘Wading through a pile of stolen cables,’ she said.

‘Sounds like you've had better times.’

Laura laughed. ‘No, just routine. Just another morning of preparation before we get the no-comment interview.’

‘Doesn't anyone answer questions any more?’

‘We can't make them, Jack,’ Laura replied, ‘but I still have some faith in the system. It succeeds more times than it fails.’

‘That's not the impression I get.’

‘Yeah, but that all depends on how you report it.’

I exhaled loudly. ‘You need a break,’ I said softly. ‘When it's all sorted out with Bobby, we'll go away somewhere warm, just me and you, where we can lie down for a couple of days and watch the sea and feel the sun on our faces.’

The line went quiet for a few seconds, and then Laura said, ‘That would be nice’, her voice soft. ‘I miss you, Jack.’

‘I haven't been away.’

‘It feels like you have,’ she said.

I shook my head. ‘I've always been here,’ I told her. ‘I'm just not sure you saw me.’

‘Why have you called?’

‘I just wanted to hear your voice, that's all,’ I replied.

Laura stayed silent, and I tried to picture the Laura that had first captivated me. The brightness to her smile, the way she bit her lip when she was feeling mischievous, how she giggled at my jokes.

‘I'm glad you called,’ she said quietly, and then she took a deep breath. ‘How was your morning?’

‘Interesting.’

‘More than yesterday?’

‘I didn't know about the letters yesterday.’

‘Are you still going with that? I told you: you need to be careful.’

‘But you still haven't heard anything?’

‘I told you last night – even if I did know, I wouldn't tell you. But I don't.’ Then she asked, ‘Where are you going next?’

‘The head teacher at Sarah's school,’ I replied, ‘and then I'm chasing down the letters.’

Laura paused, and then she said, ‘Be careful, Jack. She's killed someone, so everyone believes, and murderers can be desperate people.’

‘So you need to keep the murder squad informed of my whereabouts.’

‘Huh!’

‘So they can find my body,’ I said jokily.

Laura laughed. ‘If you keep on, I don't think Carson would bother looking too hard.’

Chapter Twenty

Sarah was under the blanket, some warmth tingling back into her feet, the mud cracking off her skin, when she heard the screech of the door moving on its runner, just audible over the sound of the heartbeat blasting through the speakers. There was the crunch of feet in the dirt again, but faster than normal. Sarah peered over the top of the blanket. She saw the familiar hood, but the shape of the head looked different. Leaner, smaller. It was the other one, the one who had come to her when she had been in the box.

She shrank back, shaking suddenly. She remembered the time in the box.

It had been waiting for her when she first arrived in the room, after the cramp of the car ride, squashed into the boot, gripped by panic, hyperventilating, her breath coming out as short rasps that echoed under the lid. There had been voices in the car, just murmurs, too quiet to make out, not rising above the hum of the tyres on the road. Sarah had tried to work out where they were going from the turns and the stops, but she got lost pretty quickly. The car was old, so the suspension had bottomed out of every pothole, sending a kick to her back.

When the car came to a stop, Sarah had been pulled out by the rope around her wrists, her arms twisted back, and then dragged along a path, sharp gravel under her feet, hands over her eyes. She was taken down some stairs and thrown into the room, her chest breaking her fall in the dirt.

He had untied the rope, his mask still on, but then she had been dragged to the corner of the room, towards the box.

The box was lying on the floor, long like a rifle chest. Entry was at one end, and she was put in head-first, like a corpse in a mortuary drawer, on her back, her arms by her side. It was only just wide enough, so that her arms were wedged against the sides, impossible to move. Her head pushed against one end, and when the open end of the box was slammed shut, it banged against her feet so that she had to curl her legs up to fit.

The sides or front had no give to them, no cracks in the lid to allow a view out, and the top was only inches from her face, so that her breath made the air condense around her cheeks, warm and stale, just a vent by her feet to let it out. She wanted to stretch out but couldn't. She had screamed, she had cried, but none of it made a difference. She thought hard on how to stay calm, how to think and how to rationalise, to work out time. But then another night had come, obvious from the cold, and another one after that. Hunger gnawed at her, Sarah's survival instinct superseding her fear, her mouth dry.