The Dying Place

It somehow got darker behind the hood as his head lolled backwards.

The last thing he remembered was the voice again.

‘Start it up. Let’s get to the farm. Now.’

PART ONE

Take the coward vermin to the nearest safari park. Shatter one of its knees. Hamstring the maimed leg, then kick the disease out of a van in the middle of the lion enclosure. No cat can resist a limping, bleeding thing. Film it and show it daily at prime time for a month. I’d pay good money to watch this show happen live. It wants to live like an animal? Let the subhuman abortion die like one.

I suppose when a judge says something is ‘wicked’ he presumes the accused will wilt under the ‘tirade’. They may see the ugly side of life, but they simply do not understand it. Well, something that cowardly piece of rubbish would understand is a rope – or better still, piano wire. So what is wrong with visiting upon him the horror that family have gone through, doubtless are going through? Come on PC crowd, how are you going to side with this one?

**** **** and his type are not human. They are far, far beneath human. They are parasites who cause nothing but misery for real humans. People like this should be sterilised so their poisonous DNA is knocked out of the gene pool. What is it about these nasty folk who just roam around being vile? What can they possibly contribute to society other than destruction and misery?

Top-rated online comments from news story of teenage murderer

1

More sleep. Just a little bit more …

Detective Inspector David Murphy hit the snooze button on the alarm for the third time, silencing the noise which had cut through his drift into deeper sleep once again. He refused to open his eyes, knowing the early morning light would pierce the curtains and give him an instant headache.

A voice came from beside him.

‘What time is it?’

He grunted in reply, already knowing he wasn’t going to float away into slumber now. A few late nights and early starts and he was struggling. Age catching up with him. Closing in on forty faster than he’d expected.

‘You need to get up. You’ll be late for work.’

Murphy yawned and turned over to face Sarah, away from the window. Risked opening one eye, the room still brighter than he’d guessed. ‘Do I have to?’

Sarah sat up, taking his half of the duvet cover with her and exposing his chest to the cold of the early morning.

‘Yes,’ she replied, shucking off the cover and pulling on her dressing gown. ‘Now get up and get dressed. There’s a fresh shirt and trousers in the wardrobe.’

‘Five more minutes.’

‘No, now. Stop acting like a teenager and get your arse in gear. I’ve got work as well, you know.’

‘Fine,’ Murphy replied, opening his other eye and squinting against the light. ‘But can you at least stick some coffee on before you start getting ready? I tried using that frigging maker thing yesterday and almost lobbed it through the window.’

‘Okay. But you have to read the instructions at some point.’

Murphy snorted and sloped through to the bathroom. Turned the shower on and lifted the toilet seat, the shower tuning out the noise from downstairs as Sarah fussed in the kitchen.

He needed a lie-in. Twelve or so hours of unbroken sleep – now that would be nice.

It wasn’t even work causing his tiredness. Nothing major had come through CID in the previous few months. Everyone at the station was trying to look busy so they weren’t moved to a busier division in Liverpool. All too scared to use the ‘Q---T’ word. It was just slow or calm. Never the ‘Q’ word. That was just an invitation for someone to shit on your doorstep. A few fraud cases, assaults in the city centre and the usual small-fry crap that was the day-to-day of their lives in North Liverpool. Nothing juicy.

Murphy buttoned up his shirt and opened the curtains to the early May morning. Rain. Not chucking it down, just the drizzle that served as a constant reminder you were in the north of England.

The peace in work was a good thing, he thought. Just over a year on from the case which had almost cost him his life, he should have been grateful for the tranquillity of boring cases and endless paperwork. At least he wasn’t lying at the bottom of a concrete staircase in a pitch-black cellar, a psychopath looming over him.

He had to look at the positives.

Murphy left the bedroom, stepping over paint-splattered sheets, paint tins and the stepladders which festooned the landing.

The cause of his late nights.

He’d gone into decorating overdrive, determined to have something to do in his spare time. Started with the dining room, which hadn’t seen a paintbrush since they’d bought the house a few years earlier. Now he was back living there, reunited with his wife after a year apart following his parents’ death, it was time to make the house look decent. Sarah was often busy in the evenings with lesson planning and marking due to her teaching commitments, so he would have otherwise just been staring at the TV, and he’d done enough of that when he lived on his own.

Sarah had started teaching just as they got married. Her past put behind her, a successful degree course, and a clean CRB check was all she needed. That, and a large amount of luck, given her ability to never actually be arrested for any of the stupid stuff she’d done in the past. Murphy had never expected that last bit to hold.

Murphy entered the kitchen just as Sarah was pouring out a cup of freshly brewed coffee. ‘Cheers, wife. Need this.’ He brushed her cheek with his lips as she slipped past him.

‘I’ve only got half an hour to get ready now, husband. Work out how to use the thing yourself, okay? Or we’re going back to Nescafé.’ She stopped at the doorway. ‘Oh, and remember you promised we’d go out tonight.’

Friday already. The week slipping past without him noticing. ‘Of course. I’ve booked a table.’

She stared at him for a few seconds, those blue eyes studying his expression. ‘No you haven’t. But you will do, right? Tear yourself away from your paintbrush, Michelangelo, and treat your wife.’

Murphy sighed and nodded. ‘No problem.’

‘Good. See you later. Love you.’

‘Love you too.’

They were almost normal.

The commute was shorter now than it had been in the months he’d lived over the water, on the Wirral – the tunnel which separated Liverpool from the small peninsula now a fading memory. Still, it took him over twenty minutes to reach the station from his house in the north of Liverpool, the traffic becoming thicker as he neared the roads which led into the city centre.

After parking the car in his now-designated space behind the station, Murphy entered the CID offices of Liverpool North station just after nine a.m., the office already bustling with people as he let the door close behind him.

Murphy sauntered over to his new office, mumbling a ‘morning’ and a ‘hey’ to a few constables along the way. Took down the note which had been attached to his door as he pushed it open.

Four desks in a space which probably could have afforded two. Their reward for months of complaining and reminding the bosses of the jobs they’d cleared in the past year. A space cleared for Murphy, his now semi-permanent partner DS Laura Rossi, and two Detective Constables who seemed to change weekly.

‘Morning, sir.’

Rossi looked and sounded, as always, as if she’d just stepped off a plane from some exotic country, fresh-faced and immaculate at first glance. It wasn’t until you looked more closely – and in a space as tight as their office, Murphy had been afforded the time to study her – and noticed the dark under her eyes, the bitten-down fingernails, and the annoying habit she had of never clipping her hair out of her face.

He said his good mornings and plonked himself down behind his small desk, checking his in-tray for messages. A few chase-ups on old cases, a DS from F Division in Liverpool South who wanted a call back ASAP. Routine stuff.

‘Anything new overnight?’

Rossi looked over from her computer screen, eyebrows raised at him. ‘Nothing for us.’

‘Come on. There must be something? I’m bored shitless here.’

As Rossi was about to answer, the door opened, DC Graham Harris sweating as he rushed in and sat down, shoving his bag under his desk. ‘Sorry I’m late. Traffic was murder near the tunnel.’

Murphy debated whether to give him a telling-off just to kill a bit of time, before deciding against it. He yawned instead, waving away his apology with one hand. ‘Where’s the other one?’

‘Not sure,’ Harris replied, removing his black Superdry jacket. Murphy had priced one of those up in town a few weekends previously. Decided a hundred quid plus could be put to better use.

‘Doesn’t matter. Not like I’ve got anything for him to do.’

‘Still quiet then?’

Rossi winced and turned in her chair, almost knocking over the single plant they had in the office. ‘What did you say?’

Murphy leant back in his chair, smirking as he watched the young DC as he realised his mistake.

‘Er … nothing. I mean … nothing new?’

Rossi moved towards Harris, ‘You said the fucking Q word, che cazzo? Say it again, I dare you. Cagacazzo.’

‘What? I don’t … I didn’t mean …’

Murphy sat forward, palms out. ‘Calm down, it’s just a stupid superstition. No reason to start anything, okay?’

Rossi turned towards him, her features relaxing as she saw his face. ‘Va bene. It’s okay.’ She sat back in her chair and went back to her computer screen.

Murphy worried that Rossi calling a DC a dickhead in Italian was going to be the height of excitement for the day.

He needn’t have.

A few minutes later the other DC who was sharing the office with them came bursting through the door. New guy, just transferred. Murphy had enough problems remembering the names of those who’d been there years, without new ones being thrown into the mix.

‘We’re on. Body found in suspicious circumstances outside the church in West Derby.’

Murphy jumped up out of his seat at about the exact moment Rossi turned on Harris.

‘What did I tell you? You had to say the word, didn’t you. Brutto figlio di puttana bastardo.’

Murphy knew Harris had understood only one of the words Rossi had spat at him as she grabbed her black jacket from behind her chair. ‘Knock it off, Laura.’

Rossi muttered under her breath in reply to him. He had to hold back a laugh. ‘Come on. Let’s just get down there. You know how these things can turn out. It’s probably nothing.’

Which was perhaps a worse thing to say than the Q word.

2

Dead bodies. Decayed or fresh. Crawling with maggots, flies buzzing around your face as you examine them in light or darkness. Or, a serenity surrounding them, framed in a pale light as if time has come to a stop for them. There’s no tangible difference, really. They’re all the same, each with their own tale to tell, how the end has come.

It doesn’t matter how many times you see one, it never gets easier. Not in reality. You can kid yourself; pretend that you’re immune to it, that it doesn’t affect you any more. That’s all it is though – a pretence, a deception. A way of getting through it.

There was a simple answer in Murphy’s opinion. Seeing death makes you contemplate your own … and most people spend their lives actively trying to avoid their own death. Even those risk-takers jumping off cliffs with a tea towel as a parachute are only giving themselves the thrill of cheating death. They’d leave the tea towel behind if they really wanted to die.

Once the initial shock kicks in, an unconscious mental process clicks into place and professionalism takes over. Makes you forget about what it is you’re dealing with. That’s the way Murphy thought of it. He imagined a shutter going down in one part of his mind, thoughts and feelings closed away and a detachment appearing.

The only time it took a bit longer for that process to occur was when they were below a certain age.

This one was on the cusp.

West Derby is a small town just past Anfield, around fifteen minutes from the city centre. Only a few minutes away from the more infamous estates of Norris Green and Croxteth, it was also the home of Alder Hey Hospital and Liverpool F.C.’s training ground, Melwood.

Now it would gain its own little piece of notoriety.

Murphy stood in the gravel entrance to St Mary’s Church in West Derby – Croxteth Park off in the distance – having arrived a few minutes before the forensic team and pathologist, by some miracle. On the steps leading into the church lay what they’d been called for. A young white boy, or maybe a man. He could never tell age these days. Laid on his side, one arm tucked beneath him, the other draped across himself. Eyes closed over a destroyed face. A mask of smeared blood – an attempt to wash it off, perhaps? – which did little to deflate the impact. Open wounds on the cheeks, skin splitting on numerous areas. Red flesh on show above his mouth, his nose misshapen and swollen. Eyes puffed up under the swelling. A faded scar just below his eyebrow was noticeable only as it seemed to be the lone part of his face that was untouched. The grey-silver of healed skin stark against the surrounding reds, browns and blacks.

Rossi finished talking to a uniformed constable and walked back towards Murphy. ‘Well?’ he said as she reached him.

‘Two twelve-year-old lads found him. They were walking through the park to school and spotted him. Thought it was a tramp at first, but looking closer they saw his face and realised he wasn’t breathing. They pegged it, right into the vicar, or whatever they call them, who was arriving for the day. He was the one who called it in.’

‘They notice anything?’

‘They’re a bit shaken up, but adamant they didn’t see anything else. They walk past here every day apparently.’

Murphy finished snapping on a pair of latex gloves, his faded black shoes similarly covered, and bent down to look at the body closer up, wincing as he looked at the victim’s face.

‘How old do you reckon?’ Rossi said from above him.

‘Not sure. Can’t really tell with these kinds of injuries to his face. All these kids look much older than we ever did at that age.’

‘That’s probably just us getting old.’

Murphy grunted in reply and went back to studying the face of the male lying prostrate on the ground. A thick band of purplish red around his neck drew his attention.

‘Fiver says it’s strangulation.’

‘I’m not betting on cause of death, sir.’

Shuffling shoes and shouted orders interrupted Murphy before he could respond. He looked up, trying to effect a look of innocence as Dr Stuart Houghton, the lead pathologist in the city of Liverpool, bounded over. The doctor had grown even larger in the past year, meaning he moved slowly enough for Murphy to pull away from the body before Houghton arrived on the scene.

‘You touched anything?’

‘Morning to you an’ all, Doctor,’ Murphy said, avoiding meeting the doctor’s eyes.

‘Yeah, yeah. What have we got here?’

‘I thought you could tell me that.’

A large intake of breath as Houghton got to his haunches. ‘We’ll see.’ He snapped his own pair of gloves on and began examining the body.

‘How long?’ Murphy said after watching Houghton work for a minute or three.

‘Rigour is only just beginning to fade. At least twelve hours, I’d say. Body has been moved here.’ Houghton lifted the man-boy’s eyelids, revealing milky coffee eyes staring past him, the whites surrounding them speckled with burst blood vessels. A thin, cloudy film pasted across them.

Murphy stepped to the side as Houghton’s assistant finished erecting the white tent around him. ‘Anything on him?’

Houghton finished fishing around the pockets of the black joggers which the victim was wearing. ‘Nothing at all. Was expecting a psalm or bible quote or something, given where we are.’

Murphy shrugged. ‘Could be nothing religious about it. Something we’ll be looking into, obviously.’ A religious nut or someone with a grudge to bear against the church. Murphy didn’t like the thought of either.

‘He’s been laid here on purpose, in this manner. Almost looks peaceful, just curled up. Like he just came here, lay down and went peacefully. As always, first glance is deceiving. Looks like he was strangled with some kind of ligature. Not before he was quite severely beaten.’ Houghton paused, rolling the torn T-shirt up over the victim’s flat teenaged stomach. Wisps of fine hair tracing a line towards a recessed belly button, barely visible behind angry red markings turning purple and black. ‘Bruises to his abdomen. Some old, some new. This boy was beaten severely before death. I’m guessing four … no, five broken ribs. Pretty sure there’ll be more broken bones to find as well. Also, there’s his face of course.’

‘This has been going on a while then. The older bruises, I mean.’

‘Could be. I’ll have more answers after the PM of course.’

Murphy nodded before beckoning over a forensics tech from the Evidence Recovery Unit – ERU – towards him. ‘Prioritise this one, Doc. The media will be all over us before we know it. Dead teen in suspicious circumstances and outside a church, with these injuries? Easy headlines.’

Houghton sighed at him in response, but before he could give a fuller answer Murphy moved away to meet the ERU tech – a white-suited woman with only her deep green eyes on display before she removed the mask covering the bottom half of her face.

‘Yes?’

‘I want a fingertip search of the whole area of the church. Inside and out. Pathways which run alongside it as well. I’ll see how far we can cordon the place off.’

‘We know the drill. Just make sure none of your uniforms get in the way.’

Murphy attempted a smile, which obviously looked more sardonic than he’d meant, judging by her reaction – a roll of the eyes and a turn away. He was always making friends.

‘Laura?’ Murphy called, Rossi lifting a finger which told him he was to wait whilst she finished talking to Houghton. She’d always got on well with the doctor, annoying Murphy no end. He still wasn’t exactly sure what he’d done in the past to piss off the old bastard, but was now so used to it he wasn’t sure he was all that arsed.

Rossi eventually finished her conversation a few seconds later, straightening up and strolling over to him.

‘What do you want to do first?’

Murphy finished removing the latex gloves, walking away as he did so. Rossi followed him. ‘Interview the priest, vicar, whatever he’s called, first. Then the kids who found the victim. Tell the uniforms to take them back to the station. Inform the parents, get social services to meet us. They might need counselling or whatever.’

‘Okay. Anything else?’

‘Door to doors,’ Murphy replied, looking up towards the main road at the bottom of the gravel drive which led to the church. ‘Although there aren’t that many in the immediate vicinity.’

‘There’s more houses on the other side of the church; Meadow Lane leading into Castlesite Road. Close enough. There’s some flats above the shops on the main road as well.’

‘Okay, good. Make sure the uniforms know this is a murder investigation. I don’t want them thinking it’s just some scally who got in a fight.’

‘Sir?’

‘Call it a gut reaction, Laura. Some of those bruises are old, fading. Signs of abuse. Something’s not right.’

Rossi nodded slowly, writing down the last bit of info in her notebook before looking back at him. ‘That it?’

‘Yeah. I’ll see if the vicar can accommodate us.’

The Farm

Six Months Ago

Goldie was alive, there was that at least. When he’d first been grabbed off the street, beaten until he could barely breathe without feeling the pain all over his body, he’d felt for sure that was it. That he’d pissed off the wrong person once too often and was now going to pay the price. He’d heard stories about the gangsters out there in the city and what they could do to you if they wanted.

He was expecting the end. Tried to work out which dealer he hadn’t paid properly or what he’d promised that he hadn’t delivered, but couldn’t think of a thing.

When he was dragged along the muddy track outside, a sawn-off shotgun pointed at his chest the whole way, Goldie was thinking about all the things he was about to lose.

It amounted to very little.

There was his family, he guessed. What was left of it, anyway. One brother locked up, doing at least fifteen years for manslaughter. Hadn’t seen his dad in years – didn’t much care.

Now there was just him and his mum. And whoever she was seeing at the time, of course.

That was all gone. All he had now was the large room they’d shoved him in, the darkness within masking its real form. He ached from the ride in the back of the van and the beating inside. His breathing was shallow, as the adrenaline he’d been feeling earlier began to wane and he became used to sucking in full lungfuls of oxygen again.

That’s the thing they never showed you on TV. When your mouth is gagged, you have to breathe through your nose. Goldie’s had been broken a few years before that night, which had left it resembling one of those shit paintings he’d seen in art, by the bloke with one ear or something. Or that other one. Art wasn’t exactly his strongest subject. That earlier injury had left his nose skew-whiff, at an angle. Bone blocking one nostril, so breathing with his mouth closed became difficult after a while.

He waited a few minutes, just kneeling down in the dark, breathing in and out. Wondering why they’d left him there.

‘Hello?’

The voice came from across the room as a whisper, shitting Goldie up big time. He scrabbled back, only being stopped by the solid wall behind him and the pain that resulted from hitting it.

‘Who’s there?’

The voice was a little louder now, more hiss than whisper. Goldie sensed something behind it.

Fear.

He felt the same way.

Goldie stood up, his eyes still adjusting to the pitch black, and began slowly feeling his way forwards. Arms out in front of him, sweeping his legs back and forth.

‘I’m Goldie, mate. Where are you?’

‘Over by my bed.’

Goldie stopped as he heard the reply come from a couple of feet away from him to his left. His eyes were adjusting now, the shape and form of things becoming clearer. He could make out a bed, two in fact, on his left. Mirrored to his right. That was it though. No other furniture.

He could smell piss coming from further away.

‘What’s your name?’ Goldie said, coming to a stop at the bed opposite.

‘Dean. Just got here?’

Goldie nodded, before thinking better of it. ‘Yeah. What’s going on? Why do you keep fuckin’ whispering?’

There was a creak from the bed as Dean moved, Goldie imagined rather than saw.

‘Because they’re out there, listening all the time. You don’t want them to get mad. Believe me.’

Goldie barked a laugh. ‘You’re paranoid, lad.’

He wouldn’t find it funny after a while.

Things were calm for the first few days. They’d drop meals off for the two of them. Dean told him he’d been there for a few weeks at least. Two men had taken him, he thought. He wasn’t sure, as it’d happened fast and he’d been a bit stoned.

Goldie didn’t believe the things he said had been done to him since then.

Light got into the room during the day. Not enough to be comfortable, but at least they could move about without worrying they’d bang into something in the darkness.