The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 7 Page 53

  Next time he saw her was almost two years later. She was walking down the street with her kids; one, a boy, running ahead, throwing punches at an invisible victim, the other in a pram. Karen didn’t notice Freddy.

  He followed her for the length of the street, sorely tempted to follow her further. But he stopped himself. He knew how it would look. Especially with tears running down his face.

  Anyway, he had to get back to work. He was saving up for a new laser treatment, one that was guaranteed to remove all but the most stubborn of his blemishes.

  And that’s what it did. The new treatment resulted in minimal scarring, massive freckle reduction, and the few little bastards that remained were so light in colour that his mum said they really weren’t noticeable. He was desperate to track Karen down and show her.

  Took him five months. She’d moved, but that wasn’t the reason. Just took him that long to get himself together.

  Her ex-husband, the dwarf, opened the door. “Fuck’s sake,” he said. “Fuck you doing here, Freckles?”

  Freddy hadn’t known the dwarf was back on the scene. Freddy should have left, but he couldn’t help himself. He said, “Is Karen in?”

  “Fuckin’ aye, she is,” the dwarf said. “What’s it to you?”

  “I want to see her.”

  “Fuck for?”

  “Because,” Freddy said. He indicated his face. “Cause of my freckles.”

  The dwarf looked at him, shook his scarred head. He turned, shouted into the house, “Karen. That Freckles dickhead for you.”

  She came to the door, barefoot, dress hanging off her rail-thin torso. Her arms looked snappable. Her glazed-over eyes bulged in her shrunken face. “Eh?” she said.

  Freddy wasn’t surprised. “It’s me,” he said. “Freddy.”

  “And?” she said.

  He forced a grin. “What do you think?”

  “Eh?” she said.

  He indicated his face. “The freckles,” he said. “All gone.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Aye.”

  The three of them stood in the doorway glancing at each other until the dwarf said, “That it?”

  Freddy shrugged.

  “You came here to show her your freckles?”

  “I don’t have any. Well, hardly any.”

  “And that’s it?”

  Freddy looked at his feet. “Well, no.”

  “What, then?”

  About time he went for it. He had to. He might never get another chance. And he was bubbling with confidence. He could feel it pressing behind his eyes. “Do you love her?” he asked the dwarf.

  The dwarf looked up at her, then looked up at Freddy. “Mind your own fuckin’ business,” he said.

  “Well I do,” Freddy said. “I love her with all my heart and soul.” He turned to Karen. “I love you,” he said.

  The dwarf leapt at him and smacked him on the mouth. Freddy fell to the ground. His face felt wet and, curiously, it burned. The dwarf jumped on top of him, swinging at him.

  Another blow struck Freddy on the cheek.

  And another.

  He tasted blood. Warm, salty, thick.

  Then he saw the blade glistening in the dwarf’s hand, and his tongue caught the loose flap of skin and the air in his mouth felt cool where it slipped through the ripped skin of his cheek.

  He caught Karen’s gaze. She hadn’t moved. She was staring at him from the doorway.

  He swallowed blood, choked, spat.

  The dwarf was on him again, thrusting at his face with the blade.

  Ten years passed before Freddy saw Karen again.

  He’d left the city, but the memory of her never faded. He knew he’d have to come back eventually.

  And here he was. Ten years older. Ten years more afraid.

  He adjusted his cap, shielded his face like he always did, even though it was night-time. There were streetlights, though. He’d have preferred total darkness for this.

  Maybe then, though, she’d have recognized his voice. She might do that anyway. Maybe she’d run away. His heart speeded up as he got closer.

  She noticed his approach, clipped towards him on her heels.

  “You looking for some fun, big boy?” she asked him.

  “That . . . yes.”

  She grabbed his arm, linked hers in his.

  No sign of recognition. The contact made him want to cry.

  “You got a car?” she asked.

  “I’d like to kiss you.”

  She stopped. “I don’t do kissing.”

  “Never mind,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Forget it.”

  “I don’t kiss.”

  “Okay.”

  “Anything else, though. Within reason.”

  “What’s within reason?”

  “Hand-job, blow-job, full sex – straight, full service. Greek, maybe, if you’re not too big. Golden shower, if you like, but not reverse. No hardsports. And absolutely nothing without.”

  “Without what?”

  “You done this before?”

  “No kissing?”

  “No chance.”

  “I love you,” he said. “I’ve always loved you.”

  She tugged her arm away. “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Freddy,” he said.

  She peered at him. “Freckles?”

  “Yeah.” He reached up, grabbed the peak of his cap. “But I got rid of my freckles. You know that.” He took off the cap.

  “Oh, Jesus,” she said, putting her hand to her mouth but keeping her eyes fixed on him. “That’s fuckin’ hideous.”

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “I didn’t mean . . .”

  “I was sorry to hear about your husband.”

  “You were?”

  He nodded.

  “He was my ex.”

  “But you’d got back together.”

  “Yeah, but we’d split up again by then,” she said.

  “After what he did to you . . . It was hard to keep things going when he was inside.”

  “Must have hurt, though.”

  “They said it was instant. The car hit him—”

  “I meant, must have hurt you. The loss of a loved one.”

  She turned her head away. “I didn’t love him.”

  “But you once did.”

  “No,” she said. “Never.”

  He paused. “Did they ever catch the driver?” He waited long enough for her to answer. She didn’t, her eyes remaining fixed on the mess he called his face. “Did they?”

  He knew the answer, of course.

  Even in the dim light he could see her eyes sparkle.

  He’d have liked to thank her for doing that for him.

  “Oh my fuck,” she said. “It never occurred to me.”

  He put on a puzzled expression, hoped she could see past the scarring enough to make it out.

  “You did it, you fucker.”

  “No,” he said. “God, no, I wouldn’t—”

  “I’m not blaming you,” she said.

  “Well,” he said, and waited.

  “He asked for it.”

  “Well,” he said.

  “I wish I’d had the balls to do it myself.”

  Freddy put his cap back on, angled it so that it hid the bad side of his face. “Can I buy you a drink? Somewhere quiet. Somewhere dark?”

  Freddy married Karen two years later. Six weeks after their marriage he discovered a freckle on her shoulder one night when they were sharing a bath. The freckle grew rapidly over the next couple of days. By the time she went to see her doctor, it was dark and hard and the size of her thumbnail.

  She lasted just under a month.

  Neither of her children made it to the funeral. Her sister, Edie, turned up late, drunk. That was the only way she could be in the same room as Freddy without freaking out at the sight of him. So she told him.

  Freddy spent that summer sunbathing, something he’d never done before. He went to the
south of France, lay around on the beaches soaking up the sun, not giving a fuck how many kids he scared. His freckles returned, though, and with them, his depression.

  He went back home, stared at the walls for a week and a bit. One night he went out, bought a bottle of whisky and some paracetamol, and booked himself into a top-floor room in a high-rise hotel.

  Couple of hours later, full of drink and pills, he walked out on to the balcony.

  One hundred and fifty-five. One hundred and fifty-six . . .

  Freddy sits in his wheelchair and stares at his reflection in the mirror. He gets angry if the nurses try to move him. He can’t help it. Not even his mother can interrupt him while he’s counting his freckles.

  One hundred and fifty seven.

  When he’s done, he’ll start over again. Got to keep checking, Karen says.

  Not that he’s got anything else to do. Everything below his neck is dead. But that doesn’t matter.

  Sometimes he feels Karen touch his cheek, her fingertips outlining his old wounds. When he closes his eyes he feels her lips on his brow. Sometimes she whispers to him. “Keep counting,” she says. “I think they’re fading, Freddy.”

  HAPPY HOLIDAYS

  Val McDermid

  I

  A CHRYSANTHEMUM BURST of colour flooded the sky. “Oooh,” said the man, his blue eyes sparking with reflected light.

  “Aaah,” said the woman, managing to invest the single syllable with irony and good humour. Her shaggy blonde hair picked up colour from the fireworks, giving her a fibre-optic punk look at odds with the conservative cut of her coat and trousers.

  “I’ve always loved fireworks.”

  “Must be the repressed arsonist in you.”

  Dr Tony Hill, clinical psychologist and criminal profiler, pulled a rueful face. “You’ve got me bang to rights, guv.” He checked out the smile on her face. “Admit it, though. You love Bonfire Night too.” A scatter of green and red tracer raced across the sky, burning after-images inside his eyelids.

  DCI Carol Jordan snorted. “Nothing like it. Kids shoving bangers through people’s letter-boxes, drunks sticking lit fireworks up their backsides, nutters throwing bricks when the fire engines turn up to deal with bonfires that’ve gone out of control? Best night of the year for us.”

  Tony shook his head, refusing to give in to her sarcasm. “It’s been a long time since you had to deal with rubbish like that. It’s only the quality villains you have to bother with these days.”

  As if summoned by his words, Carol’s phone burst into life. “Terrif c,” she groaned, turning away and jamming a finger into her free ear. “Sergeant Devine. What have you got?”

  Tony tuned out the phone call, giving the fireworks his full attention. Moments later, he felt her touch on his arm. “I have to go.”

  “You need me?”

  “I’m not sure. It wouldn’t hurt.”

  If it didn’t hurt, it would be the first time. Tony followed Carol back to her car, the sky hissing and fizzing behind him.

  The smell of cooked human flesh was unforgettable and unambiguous. Sweet and cloying, it always seemed to coat the inside of Carol’s nostrils for days, apparently lingering long after it should have been nothing more than a memory. She wrinkled her nose in disgust and surveyed the grisly scene.

  It wasn’t a big bonfire, but it had gone up like a torch. Whoever had built it had set it in the corner of a fallow field, close to a gate but out of sight of the road. The evening’s light breeze had been enough to send a drift of sparks into the hedgerow and the resulting blaze had brought a fire crew to the scene. Job done, they’d checked the wet smoking heap of debris and discovered the source of the smell overwhelming even the fuel that had been used as an accelerant.

  As Tony prowled round the fringes of what was clearly the scene of a worse crime than arson, Carol consulted the lead fire officer. “It wouldn’t have taken long to get hold,” he said. “From the smell, I think he used a mixture of accelerants – petrol, acetone, whatever. The sort of stuff you’d have lying around your garage.”

  Tony stared at the remains, frowning. He turned and called to the fire officer. “The body – did it start off in the middle like that?”

  “You mean, was the bonfire built round it?”

  Tony nodded. “Exactly.”

  “No. You can see from the way the wood’s collapsed around it. It started off on top of the fire.”

  “Like a Guy.” It wasn’t a question; the fireman’s answer had clearly confirmed what Tony already thought. He looked at Carol. “You do need me.”

  Tony smashed the ball back over the net, narrowly missing the return when his doorbell rang. He tossed the Wii control on to the sofa and went to the door. “We’ve got the post mortem and some preliminary forensics,” Carol walked in, not waiting for an invitation. “I thought you’d want to take a look.” She passed him a file.

  “There’s an open bottle of wine in the fridge,” Tony said, already scanning the papers and feeling his way into an armchair. As he read, Carol disappeared into the kitchen, returning with two glasses. She placed one on the table by Tony’s chair and settled opposite him on the sofa, watching the muscles in his face tighten as he read.

  It didn’t make for comfortable reading. A male between twenty-five and forty, the victim had been alive when he’d been put on the bonfire. Smoke inhalation had killed him, but he’d have suffered tremendous pain before the release of death. He’d been bound hand and foot with wire and his mouth had been sealed by some sort of adhesive tape. For a moment, Tony allowed himself to imagine how terrifying an ordeal it must have been and how much pleasure it had given the killer. But only for a moment. “No ID?” he said.

  “We think he’s Jonathan Meadows. His girlfriend reported him missing the morning after. We’re waiting for confirmation from dental records.”

  “And what do we know about Jonathan Meadows?”

  “He’s twenty-six, he’s a garage mechanic. He lives with his girlfriend in a flat in Moorside—”

  “Moorside? That’s a long way from where he died.”

  Carol nodded. “Right across town. He left work at the usual time. He told his girlfriend and his mates at work that he was going to the gym. He usually went three or four times a week, but he never showed up that night.”

  “So somewhere between – what, six and eight o’clock? – he met someone who overpowered him, bound and gagged him, stuck him on top of a bonfire and set fire to him?”

  “That’s about the size of it. Anything strike you?”

  “That’s not easy, carrying out something like that.” Tony flicked through the few sheets of paper again. His mind raced through the possibilities, exploring the message of the crime, trying to make a narrative from the bare bones in front of him. “He’s a very low-risk victim,” he said. “When young men like him die violently, it’s not usually like this. A pub brawl, a fight over a woman, a turf war over drugs or prostitution, yes. But not this kind of premeditated thing. If he was just a random victim, if anyone would do, it’s more likely to be a homeless person, a drunk staggering home last thing, someone vulnerable. Not someone with a job, a partner, a life.”

  “You think it’s personal?”

  “Hard to say until we know a lot more about Jonathan Meadows.” He tapped the scene-of-crime report. “There doesn’t seem to be much in the way of forensics at the scene.”

  “There’s a pull-in by the gate to the field. It’s tarmacked, so no convenient tyre tracks. There’s a few footprints, but they’re pretty indistinct. The SOCOs think he was wearing some sort of covering over his shoes. Just like the ones we use to preserve the crime scene.” Carol pulled a face to emphasize the irony. “No convenient cigarette ends, Coke cans or used condoms.”

  Tony put down the file and drank some wine. “I don’t think he’s a beginner. It’s too well executed. I think he’s done this before. At least once.”

  Carol shook her head. “I checked the database. Nothing like
this anywhere in the UK in the last five years.”

  That, he thought, was why she needed him. She thought in straight lines, which was a useful attribute in a cop, since, however much they might like to believe otherwise, that was how most criminals thought. But years of training and experience had honed his own corkscrew mind till he could see nothing but hidden agendas stretching backwards like the images in an infinity mirror. “That’s because you were looking for a burning,” he said.

  Carol looked at him as if he’d lost it. “Well, duh,” she said. “That’s because the victim was burned.”

  He jumped to his feet and began pacing. “Forget the fire. That’s irrelevant. Look for low-risk victims who were restrained with wire and gagged with adhesive tape. The fire is not what this is about. That’s just window dressing, Carol.”

  Carol tapped the pile of paper on her desk with the end of her pen. Sometimes it was hard not to credit Tony with psychic powers. He’d said there would be at least one other victim, and it looked as if he’d been right. Trawling the databases with a different set of parameters had taken Carol’s IT specialist a few days. But she’d finally come up with a second case that fitted the bill.

  The body of Tina Chapman, a thirty-seven-year-old teacher from Leeds, had been found in the Leeds–Liverpool canal a few days before Jonathan Meadows’ murder. A routine dredging had snagged something unexpected and further examination had produced a grisly finding. She’d been gagged with duct tape, bound hand and foot with wire, tethered to a wooden chair weighted with a cement block and thrown in. She’d been alive when she went into the water. Cause of death: drowning.

  A single parent, she’d been reported missing by her thirteen-year-old son. She’d left work at the usual time, according to colleagues. Her son thought she’d said she was going to the supermarket on her way home, but neither her credit card nor her store loyalty card had been used.

  Carol had spoken to the senior investigating officer in charge of the case. He’d admitted they were struggling. “We only found her car a couple of days ago in the car park of a hotel about half a mile from the supermarket her son said she used. It was parked down the end, in a dark corner out of range of their CCTV cameras. No bloody idea what she was doing down there. And no joy from forensics so far.”