ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 8 страница

He held his breath and looked fearfully up at the lid. He waited for Spicer to lift it, and thought of how he would find both of them – him and Number 19 – staring back at him, mouths agape.

But Spicer didn’t lift the lid. He didn’t lift any lids.

The light went out and the door closed, and Patrick heard the door of the second fridge open instead.

‘Patrick? ’

‘Sssh, ’ Patrick whispered at the head. Or himself. One of them, anyway.

The head was quiet and Patrick was grateful, and felt an unexpected surge of protectiveness. The head was his responsibility now. No longer attached to its body, or cocooned in its waxy white bag, Number 19 was relying on him.

RELYING on me.

Relying ON me.

Relying on ME.

Instead of feeling that pressure, Patrick felt proud and fierce, and curled his arms more tightly around the head.

The sound of the second fridge door closing.

The sound of brisk footsteps receding across the lino.

The sound of the dissecting-room doors swinging together with a creak and a bump.

Patrick strained to hear the beeps of the keypad, but couldn’t. Instead he waited until he realized he’d just woken up, freezing cold, still jammed tightly into the fetid yellow bin.

‘OK, ’ he said, ‘let’s go, ’ and he struggled out of the bin and made his quiet way to the anatomy-wing door, where Meg’s code turned out to be 5544. Typically balanced and memorable.

The outer door was also an emergency exit, which he opened easily from inside by pushing a metal bar. An unexpected break.

Patrick tucked the head under his arm and walked home as fast as his knee would allow. All the way there his chest fizzed with adrenaline.

The dead can’t speak to us, Professor Madoc had said.

But that was a lie.

Samuel Galen was dead – but he was still telling Patrick all the truth he needed to know.

PATRICK HEARD THE scream of a rabbit being taken in the night. Without truly waking, he listened for another but nothing came, and so he drifted back into sleep.

‘Wake up, ’ said his father. It was dawn and they were going to go hiking on the Beacons. Maybe up Penyfan if it wasn’t too busy. At the weekends it was one long string of over-equipped hikers, but midweek it was almost deserted – especially if the weather was lousy. Patrick hoped it was hot and too busy because, for some reason, every part of him ached.

‘Wake up. ’

‘My head hurts, Daddy. ’

‘I said wake up! ’

Patrick opened his eyes slowly and looked into the hole in the middle of a gun. Not the middle; the end of a gun. Where the bullets come from. The deep black holey thing. The— ‘Barrel, ’ he said, relieved that he’d remembered.

‘Shut up, ’ said the policeman at the other end of the gun. ‘Shut up and turn over. Hands behind your back. ’

He was short and shaven and not alone; there was another, older man in the doorway, and Patrick’s landlord – the waspish middle-aged Mr Boardman – hovered in the background.

From somewhere downstairs he could hear Lexi crying.

‘What’s going on? ’ asked Patrick.

The shorter policeman made a snorting noise and said, ‘You tell us, sunshine. There’s a head in the fridge. ’

‘Yes, ’ said Patrick. ‘It’s mine. ’ Then he laughed because it wasn’t his head, of course – it was Number 19’s.

‘Jesus Christ, ’ said Shorter. ‘He’s completely crazy. ’

‘And look what he’s done to my carpet! ’ wailed Mr Boardman.

‘It was dirty, ’ shrugged Patrick.

‘It was brown! ’ yelled Mr Boardman.

‘I told you to get this man out of here! ’ said the older policeman sharply.

There was a noisy pause while several sets of feet pounded up the stairs and Mr Boardman was led down them, muttering.

Older cleared his throat. ‘Patrick Fort, ’ he said, ‘I am arresting you on suspicion of murder. ’

Patrick frowned. ‘That doesn’t make sense. ’

The policeman held up a hand, closed his eyes and spoke over him. ‘You do not have to say anything—’

Patrick interrupted him, finishing more quickly. ‘But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something that you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. ’

‘Done this before? ’ said Older.

‘No, ’ said Patrick, ‘I watch TV. Aren’t you supposed to ask me if I understand it? ’

‘Do you understand it? ’

‘Of course. I’m not an idiot. ’

‘Smart-arse, ’ said Shorter. ‘Turn over and put your hands behind your back. ’

‘Why? ’ said Patrick.

‘Because you’re under arrest. ’

‘But I didn’t do anything. The head in the fridge is just proof. ’

‘Of what? ’ said Older.

Patrick frowned. ‘I don’t know. There’s a lot of bits to it. Number 19 had a peanut in his throat, although he was allergic to them. Dr Spicer has bite marks on his finger. But he lied about them and then tried to kill me. So I took the head because of the gouges and because of the teeth. Maybe Number 19 bit Dr Spicer, but I’m not sure.

‘It’s your job to find out the rest, ’ he added. ‘I’ve done my bit. ’

‘What the fuck are you talking about? ’ said Shorter.

‘Patrick! ’ yelled Jackson up the stairs. ‘Don’t say anything without a lawyer! ’

‘I don’t need a lawyer, ’ Patrick told Older. ‘I haven’t done anything wrong. ’

‘That’s good, ’ said Older, jotting down notes in a small black book. ‘Then you won’t mind answering a few more questions down at the station. ’

‘No, ’ said Patrick. ‘I don’t mind. ’

Older nodded at Shorter.

‘Then turn over and put your hands behind your back! ’ said Shorter.

‘I have to get the head, ’ said Patrick and stood up. Shorter gripped his shoulder – and everything went from calm to mayhem in the blink of an eye. Patrick punched and flailed against the hated hands on his bare skin, and soon had his face in the pillow, a knee in his back, what felt like hot wire around his wrists – and a left ear that buzzed so hard that the only underwater sound he could hear was Kim shrieking, ‘Don’t hurt him! Don’t hurt him! ’ over and over again.

While Patrick Fort was half dragged, half carried out to the car, Detective Sergeant Emrys Williams stared once more into the fridge and thought, This is how everything changes.

There was salad and chocolate on the top shelf, old rice and curling bacon on the bottom, and – squeezed on its side on the middle shelf – a severed human head, lips drawn back, veins poking from the frayed flesh and pressed against the frosted glass. One eye socket was empty, the other was hidden by a jar of Tesco Value peanut butter.

Williams stood, bent at the waist, lit by the fridge as if bowing down before a golden calf, and knew that here, finally, was the Big One – the case that would put him on the map.

Emrys Williams had become a policeman straight out of school because the careers master had told him he’d be able to retire at forty on two-thirds of final salary. The careers master had seduced a lot of them that way – early retirement on good pensions or – for teachers – long summer holidays. He’d been more of an anti-careers master, really, selling them the spaces between work.

But neither the careers master nor the young Emrys had foreseen that life’s rich tapestry would weave him two ex-wives, four gadget-hungry sons, and a girlfriend who only seemed happy to drain him at night if she were permitted to drain his wallet for the other twenty-three and a half hours a day.

So, at the age of forty-eight, Williams was still a policeman. And a policeman who was still only a detective sergeant, years after his contemporaries had climbed the promotion ladder. Somewhere along the line, petty crime and paperwork had squeezed all the ambition out of him.

Of course, he’d helped to put away his fair share of burglars and muggers and rapists and wife-beaters. They’d had murders knocked down to manslaughter on a plea, and murders that had stuck. But never – not once – had DS Williams been involved in a Big One. He had never been part of the kind of high-profile case that captures the public imagination and the newspaper headlines. He’d never been on the telly – not even the local news; never worked a case that anyone else would have heard of or cared about – bar Gary in the canteen, who was some kind of OCD memory freak.

Sometimes Emrys Williams felt as though he had spent the entire thirty years of his working life in an interview room with hard chairs and bitter coffee, and achieved little more than bad breath and piles.

But this was different.

Whatever the outcome, Emrys Williams knew that this case would always be about this moment. This was what the boys in the station would remember about him; this was what they’d joke about every time someone opened the staff-room fridge to get a Coke or a cheese triangle. And even though he would hand the case over to a superior as soon as the day shift arrived, it would be his testimony of discovery that the reporters would be crowding the benches to hear when the case went to trial at the city’s Crown Court. The head-in-the-fridge case, they’d call it. Or something clever and journalisty that he couldn’t think of right now.

Something he would be remembered by, even in jest.

Emrys Williams straightened up into a new phase of his policing career, and found he did have a tiny sliver of ambition left.

He puffed out his chest.

‘This is a crime scene, ’ he said. ‘Everybody out. ’

The car swung away from the house, and from Jackson and Kim with Lexi between them, and from the curious, slippered neighbours.

Patrick had calmed down as soon as Shorter pushed him arse-first into the back seat and shut the door. Now he rested his head against the glass and watched the bright, Saturday-morning city pass through his vision, while a great peace settled over him like warm silk.

He had solved the mystery of Number 19.

Soon the police would realize their mistake and let him go, and arrest Dr Spicer instead. Soon Lexi would know what had happened to her father, and for some strange reason, that felt good – even though it didn’t benefit him. Without knowing how or why, Patrick felt there was something about having given something back. It was curious and he didn’t understand it, but that didn’t make it untrue, even if it had not helped him in his own quest.

In that he had failed, and yet he no longer felt like a failure. He had come to the city for answers and he had found them here. They were just different answers – and to different questions.

There were mysteries that could be solved, and others that could not. Maybe what had happened to his father was one of those that could not. The idea had never occurred to Patrick before and it did now with a sudden surge of hot emotion. He had done his best. Maybe that would have to be enough. He didn’t think he had any more left inside him.

The idea of his quest slipping away brought heat to his eyes. He wiped them, then stared curiously at the shimmering trail on the back of his hand.

It made him feel strangely normal.

DS WILLIAMS HAD only been in charge because he was on night shift. The big guns came in by day.

Williams briefed DCI White as soon as he arrived, then went down the corridor and opened the flap in the cell door to check on the suspect, who was pale and wiry, and still wearing only his boxer shorts.

He didn’t look much like a killer, but then, killers rarely did.

‘All right? ’ he asked.

‘No, ’ said the boy. ‘My head hurts. ’

‘Drink much last night? ’

‘I don’t drink, ’ said the boy, with an edge that surprised him. ‘I went to Dr Spicer’s party but I only did the washing up. Then I saw the bite marks on his finger and left. That’s when he ran over my bike and tried to run me over. I had to jump out of the car park and into a tree. ’

Williams wondered what he could say in the face of such craziness. ‘First time in a police station? ’ he asked cautiously.

‘No, ’ said the boy. ‘I went to a police station after my father died. ’

Emrys Williams bit his lip. He always tried to keep an open mind about suspects – even when they were found covered in blood and with a severed head in their fridge – but Patrick Fort wasn’t doing himself any favours. The skinny goth at the crime scene had said something about him having some mental health issues. They had to do this properly; they didn’t want a killer wriggling off the hook on a technicality.

So he just said, ‘The doctor will be here soon. And the duty solicitor. ’

‘I don’t need a solicitor. I haven’t done anything wrong. I just want to tell you what happened. but nobody wants to listen. ’

‘All in good time, ’ said Williams. ‘We’re trying to get hold of your mother now. ’

‘My mother? Why? ’

‘She needs to be with you. ’

‘She won’t come, ’ said the boy.

‘Why not? ’

‘She doesn’t like me that much. ’

‘I’m sure that’s not true, ’ said Williams, even though he thought it might be.

The suspect shrugged and then shivered. Williams could see the gooseflesh on his chest from here. It reminded him of drying the boys after swimming when they were younger. Rubbing warmth back into them while their teeth chattered.

He fetched an old blue sweatshirt from Lost Property.

‘Here, put this on. ’

Patrick Fort took it from him warily and held it up, wrinkling his nose. The slogan on the front said LITERACY AINT EVERYTHING.

‘It has sick on the sleeve, ’ he said, pushing it to the other end of the slatted bench. ‘And no apostrophe. ’ Then he looked around the cell and said, ‘Do you have a dustpan and brush? ’

Williams sighed and withdrew, shaking his head.

Sergeant Wendy Price passed on her way from the machine with a cup of grey coffee. ‘What’s up? ’

Williams jerked a thumb at the cell door. ‘Kid’s got a severed head in his fridge but he wants a bloody feather duster to do a bit of housework. ’

She grinned and leaned up to peer through the flap. ‘Oh, him, ’ she said.

‘You know him? ’

‘He came in a few days ago with blood on his hands and said he wanted to report a murder. When he saw I’d clocked the blood, he legged it. I chased him halfway to Splott! ’

‘You gave up before the war memorial, ’ Patrick corrected her.

Sergeant Price blushed and snapped the flap shut.

She lowered her voice and added, ‘I think he knew Darren Owens. ’

Williams looked at her sharply. Darren Owens who had been found in the park, up to his elbows in a disembowelled jogger? ‘What makes you think that? ’ he asked.

Sergeant Price shrugged. ‘They said something to each other in Reception. I don’t know what, but I’d definitely say they’d met before. ’ She lifted her cardboard cup in a toast of ‘You’re welcome, ’ and disappeared through a doorway.

Emrys Williams watched her go, and – with a growing sense of foreboding – wondered just how much he’d really discovered when he opened that fridge door this morning.

If the boy knew Darren Owens, then a severed head might be just the start of it.

He looked through the flap again with new eyes.

This is how things change.

When Sarah Fort finally got the call, it wasn’t the one she’d been expecting.

A Sergeant Price told her that Patrick had been arrested.

‘For what? ’ Sarah asked. ‘Not wearing his helmet? ’

‘Resisting arrest, theft and murder, ’ said the officer, apparently reading off a list.

‘Murder? ’ said Sarah.

‘Yes, ’ she answered, as if this was old news.

‘Murder of whom? ’

‘I’m afraid I can’t tell you that at this stage. ’

‘Oh, ’ said Sarah, because she didn’t know what else to say. She thought of the picture of the dead girl, and of the countless birds and animals Patrick had dissected over the years, and wondered whether he really did have it in him to kill a person.

Probably.

Didn’t everyone have it in them, if circumstances were bad enough?

‘Has he admitted it? ’ she asked.

‘We haven’t questioned him yet. Is it true that he’s handicapped? ’

Sarah had long since stopped getting angry about handicapped. Everything was a matter of degree. Patrick was handicapped, in the most literal way, by his condition – just as she was handicapped by him.

She said, ‘He has Asperger’s Syndrome. ’

‘Is that like Alzheimer’s? ’

‘No, it’s like autism. He finds it difficult to interact with people. ’

‘Oh. ’ Sergeant Price sounded disappointed. ‘We thought he was just rude. ’

‘Yes, ’ said Sarah, ‘he is rude. But he can’t help it. ’

‘Hm, ’ said Sergeant Price. ‘That’s what my sister says about her kids. But they can’t all be bloody autistic, can they? ’

‘Probably not, ’ agreed Sarah.

The officer sighed heavily. ‘Well then, in that case, he needs to be interviewed in the company of an appropriate adult. Can you come down to Cardiff? ’

Sarah thought about that for so long that the officer said, ‘Hello? ’

‘Hello, ’ said Sarah back. ‘Yes, of course. ’

She hung up and stared across the kitchen for an hour or two.

Then she fed Ollie and went to work, feeling better than she had in a long, long time.

Emrys Williams told DCI White to expect Mrs Fort any time now. Then he hung about, reluctant to go home, hoping White would remember him when it came to putting a team together – and when he spoke to the press. He also wanted to tell the head-in-the-fridge story to the day crew in person.

That was worth it. Colleagues laughed and shook their heads and said ‘lucky bastard’; WPC Dyer made a little paper nameplate for his desk that read HEAD BOY, and, before the hour was up, some joker had put a doll’s head in the vending machine where the Curly-Wurlys ought to be. It all gave him a warm glow.

And then – just after nine a. m. – a well-spoken young man came in, identified himself as Dr David Spicer and said he had come to report the theft of a head from the university medical school.

And just like that, the Big One was over. Emrys Williams could almost hear his career farting around the room like a balloon, and dropping into a corner, all sad and shrivelled and a bit of an embarrassment.

Patrick Fort was not a murderer; not a crazed killer; nothing to do with Darren Owens and his empty jogger. The Big One was just a student prank that had gone beyond the bounds of the acceptable because the student in question had a tentative grasp on what was normal human behaviour and what was not.

Williams felt the disappointment like a physical thing – a sharp pang in his belly and a burning neck of shame.

This was what they’d all remember now, every time they opened the staff-room fridge.

Still, he was not the type of man to leave someone else to clean up his mess, so he told Wendy Price he’d sort this one out on his own time, and then ushered Dr Spicer over to his desk and took his statement.

The more Spicer talked, the more it all made sense to Detective Sergeant Emrys Williams. Patrick Fort had been expelled and had apparently taken the head out of some kind of revenge.

‘He can’t help it, ’ said Dr Spicer.

‘So we’ve been told, ’ sighed Williams.

‘He’s not a bad kid. As long as we get the head back, I doubt the university will want to press charges. ’

‘That’s very generous. ’

‘What will happen to him? ’ said the young doctor.

‘I’m not sure, ’ said Williams, because that was true. ‘Would you mind reading that, Dr Spicer, and then signing your name at the bottom? ’

Williams watched Spicer read the statement carefully and then sign his name.

‘Thank you. ’

‘Not at all, ’ said Spicer, standing up. ‘Where’s the head? ’

‘It’s with our forensics team. ’

‘Good, ’ he said. ‘I would very much like to get it back to the university as soon as possible. ’

‘Of course, ’ said Williams. ‘But until we decide whether to charge Patrick Fort with a crime, the head is evidence. ’

Spicer nodded slowly and chewed the inside of his cheek. ‘Hmm, ’ he said. ‘The trouble is that the body is supposed to be released to the family on Monday for cremation. Obviously that can’t happen if it’s incomplete. ’

‘Oh dear, ’ said Williams. ‘I can assure you we’ll get it back to you as soon as we can. ’

‘By Monday? ’

‘As soon as we can. ’

Still Spicer didn’t let it go. He stood there, drumming his fingers on the corner of Williams’s desk. ‘What if I personally guarantee that we will not press charges against Patrick? ’ he said.

‘I’m sorry, sir, ’ said Williams. ‘We have made an arrest and I cannot pre-judge the outcome of our own independent inquiries. ’

‘What inquiries? ’ said Spicer. ‘Surely it’s quite clear what has happened? It seems like a waste of police time to do more. ’

‘It seems that way, sir, I agree. But we have our procedures. Believe me, when we are able to release the head, the university will be the first to know. Now, I’m on my way home, let me walk out with you. ’

Williams pulled on his jacket and let them both out through the double doors. Spicer thanked him and left, but DS Williams stood and stared through the glass after him for so long that Wendy Price said, ‘You all right, Em? ’

‘Yes, ’ said Williams. ‘Just thinking. ’

He was just thinking about Dr Spicer’s reluctance to leave the head in police custody.

And about the jagged scars around the tip of his index finger.

They did look like bite marks.

IT HAD BEEN a long night, but Emrys Williams still didn’t go home. Instead he copied Dr Spicer’s address off the statement, then drove his ten-year-old Toyota down to the Bay, against a tide of red-shirted rugby fans walking into town for the international.

It was only ten a. m. This wouldn’t take long and it was on his way.

Sort of.

He swung the car around outside Dr Spicer’s flat, and started to drive slowly back along Dumballs Road. It was Saturday, and most of the industrial units on the broad, grubby street were closed by steel shutters.

Williams stopped twice, once to look at broken glass that turned out to be a Heineken bottle, and again towards the station end of the road for a pigeon that refused to take off as he approached. It strolled defiantly across the road while he sat like a lemon, instead of like a vastly superior being on vital police business. Rats with wings, his father called pigeons, but Emrys Williams had always rather liked them – especially these city pigeons with the iridescent throats and all the attitude. So he watched in vague amusement as it strutted between two parked cars and hopped on to the pavement. If he hadn’t, he would never have seen the short skid mark that had left rubber on the kerb.

He double-parked and got out. Only one tyre mark was visible from the road; the other was under one of the newly parked cars. He got down on his knees to look. There were fragments of red plastic in the gutter under the car. He picked up the largest of them, which was about the size of his thumb. It looked like part of a lens cover. A brake light, maybe?

He checked the lights of the parked car, then stood up and stared around. He was standing near the corner of a brick-built unit. SPEEDY REPAIRS AND MOT. Williams walked to the end of the building, which was the last in the row before the multi-storey car park. Between the two was an alleyway, a patch of littered grass, a steel fence.

And, behind the fence, a bicycle.

It was years since Emrys Williams had climbed anything, and he’d got heavy or his arms had got weak – one or the other. Maybe both. He got halfway up and then just hung there, and three men in Wales shirts stopped and shoved him the rest of the way with encouraging grunts and a general-purpose ‘Ooooooooh’ as he hit the ground on the other side.

He brushed himself down from the ungainly drop and thanked them, and they waved and went on walking.

Williams gazed down at the bike. It was an old Peugeot ten-speed racer, but it had been in good condition until whatever had happened had happened to it. Now it was just a Chinese puzzle of blue and chrome, the chain drooping and the wheels twisted rubber loops.

The lens of the rear light had been smashed. Williams put the thumb of red beside it.

It matched.

He hauled himself back over the fence with new gusto and twisted his ankle as he dropped on to the pavement. He cursed out loud and vowed to start jogging again. He walked feelingly back to the car and drove the short distance to the car park.

He found one of the few spare bays on the second level and got out. From here he could see the back of the station, through the bare branches of a tree.

I had to jump out of the car park and into a tree.

With curiosity bubbling in his belly, Emrys Williams walked as briskly as his ankle allowed to the concrete wall that hemmed the second level. It was chest high. You’d have to be mad to jump it. Mad or desperate.

Cars were parked all along the wall and he squeezed behind them.

Directly opposite the tree, the concrete wall was cracked and missing several large chunks, which lay on the ground, along with more broken glass – clear and orange this time. Headlight and indicators.

Williams leaned against the wall and looked over the parapet. It was a good twenty-five feet to the grass below. The dark branches of the tree were flecked with raw cream, where boughs and twigs had snapped and splintered as something large had fallen through them.

Something as large as Patrick Fort.

It was eleven forty-four.

Emrys Williams thought the dissecting-room technician looked like a cadaver himself. He was gaunt and pale and had a funereal air about him. He also smelled of rotting flowers.

Williams did his best to hold his breath while he spoke, which was less than successful.

‘I understand you are missing one of your heads, ’ he opened.

Mick Jarvis looked at him in almost comic astonishment.

‘What? ’ he said. ‘First I’ve heard of it. ’

‘Really? ’ said Williams. ‘That does surprise me. Would you mind checking? ’

The technician immediately strode to the back wall of the hangar-like room and started unzipping what Williams now realized were body bags. He kept his distance.

‘Head, ’ said Jarvis impatiently as he went down the row. ‘Head. Head. Head. Shit. ’

‘No head? ’ enquired Williams, and Jarvis nodded.

Jarvis called the chair of the medical school to report the theft, and then made them both a cup of strong tea.

‘I’m not surprised, ’ said Jarvis. ‘That kid was always weird. He broke in twice before, you know? ’

‘Really? ’

‘Yes. Found him in here once, going through confidential files. Then one night he threw a shoe at me in the dissecting room. Biscuit? ’

Williams took a HobNob. ‘How does one break into a place like this? ’