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He pulled the bedclothes over his head so they would not see him if they came back.
Moments later, he heard his father bellow something. Then a loud thud, followed by another. He heard his mother scream. A terrible, terrible scream. Then she cried out, ‘Leave him, leave him, leave him! Please don’t! Please don’t. Leave him!’
Then he heard one of the strangers say loudly, ‘Get dressed!’
Then his mother, her voice quavering, ‘Where are you taking him! Please tell me? Where are you taking him?’
A minute went by. The boy lay frozen beneath the bedclothes, trembling.
Then his mother screamed again. ‘No, you can’t! You can’t take him! I’ll not let him go!’
Then five loud bangs, as if a door, close by, was being slammed repeatedly.
‘Ma! Pa!’ he screamed back, his whole body electric with fear for his parents. And now the footsteps were much louder, clumping down the stairs as if they no longer cared about being silent. He heard the click of the front door opening, then the roar of an engine and a squeal of tyres. And no sound of the door closing.
Just the echo in his mind of the terrible sound of his mother’s screams.
Then the silence that followed.
It was the silence that echoed the loudest.
4
He lay, listening, under the bedclothes. All was quiet. Just a pounding roar in his ears and the puffing sound of his own breathing. Maybe it was just a bad dream? He was trembling all over.
After some moments he climbed out of bed in the darkness, in his pyjamas, into the cold, then hurried across the bare floorboards to where the door was, fumbling around until he found the handle, and stumbled out onto the landing. He could feel an icy draught, as if the front door really had been left open. There was a faint smell of exhaust fumes from a motor vehicle.
And there were unfamiliar smells. A reek of oil, and a sweeter, denser smell that he vaguely recognized from fireworks on the Fourth of July. And a coppery, metallic smell.
He felt around until he found the switch for the electric light and snapped it on. And, for an instant, wished he had not. He wished that darkness could have stayed for ever. So that he had never seen it.
The terrible sight of his mother on the floor beside the bed. Blood leaking from her shoulder; the whole front of her nightdress sodden with a spreading, dark-crimson stain. Blood everywhere, spattered across the walls, across the sheets, the pillows, the ceiling. She lay on her back, her black hair matted by blood. Part of her head was missing, exposing something wet, gnarly, a brown and grey colour. She was twitching and shaking.
Then, as if someone had reached over and pressed a switch, she fell silent.
He ran forward, crying out, ‘Mama, Mama!’
She did not respond.
‘Mama, wake up!’ He shook her. ‘Mama, where’s Pop? Mama!’
She did not move.
He fell to his knees and crawled up to her and kissed her. ‘Mama, wake up, Mama!’ He hugged her and shook her. ‘Wake up, Mama! Where’s Pop? Where’s Pa?’
Still she did not move.
‘Mama!’ He began crying, confused. ‘Mama! Mama!’ His arms and face felt sticky. ‘Mama, wake, Mama, wake up . . . !’
‘What’s happening? Gavin? What’s happening?’ His sister’s voice.
He backed away, took a step forward, then backed away again, uncertainly. Kept backing away through the door. And collided with his sister, Aileen, three years older than him, in her nightdress, chewing a pigtail as she always did when she was afraid.
‘What’s happening?’ she asked. ‘I heard noises. What’s happening?’
‘Where’s Pop?’ he asked. ‘Where’s Pop? Pop’s gone!’ Tears were streaming down his face.
‘Isn’t he in bed?’
He shook his head. ‘He’s gone with the bad men.’
‘What bad men?’
‘Where’s Pop? He has to wake up Mama! She won’t wake up.’
‘What bad men?’ she asked again, more urgently.
There was blood on the landing. Drops of blood on the stairs. He ran down them, screaming for his pa, and out through the open front door.
The street was deserted.
He felt the rain on his face, smelled the salty tang of the river. For some moments, the rumble high overhead of another train drowned out his cries.
5
Brighton, 28 June 2012
From a distance, the man cut a dash. He looked smarter than the usual Brighton seafront crowds in their gaudy beachwear, sandals, flip-flops and Crocs. A gent, with an aloof air, in a blue blazer with silver buttons, smartly pressed slacks, open-neck shirt and a natty cravat. It was only on closer inspection you could see the shirt collar was frayed, there were moth holes in the blazer, and his slicked-back hair was thi
Behind his sunglasses, Amis Smallbone, on his morning constitutional, looked around with hatred. He hated everything. The pleasant warmth of this late June morning. Cyclists who pinged their bells at him as he strayed onto the cycle lane. Stupid grockles with their fat, raw skin burning in the sun, stuffing their faces with rubbish. Young lovers, hand in hand, with their lives ahead of them.
Unlike him.
He had hated prison. Hated the other inmates even more than the officers. He might have been a player in this city once, but all that had fallen apart when he’d been sent down. He hadn’t even been able to get any traction on the lucrative drugs market in the jails he had been held in.
And now he was out, on licence, he was hating his freedom, too.
Once, he’d had it all – the big house, expensive cars, a powerboat, and a villa in Marbella on Spain’s Costa del Sol. Now he had fuck all. Just a few thousand pounds, a couple of watches and some stolen antique jewellery in the one safety deposit box the police hadn’t managed to find.
And one man to thank for his plight.
Detective Superintendent Roy Grace.
He crossed the busy four lanes of King’s Road without waiting for the lights to change. Cars braked all around him, their drivers hooting, swearing and shaking their fists at him, but he didn’t give a toss. His family used to be big players in this city’s underworld. A couple of decades ago, no one would have dared, ever, hoot at a Smallbone. He ignored them all, contemptuously, now.
A little way along the pavement he entered the newsagent’s, and was taken aback to see the bastard cop’s rugged, serious face staring out of a copy of the Argus at him. Close-cropped fair hair, blue eyes, busted nose, beneath the front-page splash.
TRIAL OF BRIGHTON MONSTER RESUMES
He bought the paper and a packet of cigarettes, as he did every day, and filled out a lottery ticket, without much hope.
*
A short while later, back in his basement flat, Amis Smallbone sat in the ripped leather armchair with its busted spring, a glass of Chivas Regal on the table beside him, a smouldering cigarette in his mouth, reading with interest about the case. Ve
How nice would that be?
But not as nice as something he had in mind. To have Detective Superintendent Grace dead was too good for him. He wanted the cop to really suffer. To be in pain for the rest of his life. Oh yes. Much better. Pain that would never ever go away!