Tania Carver - The Creeper

Turner looked at him, seemingly trying to find an honest answer for him. ‘I, I…’

Mickey waited, watched. Checked the way Turner’s eyes went. Marina had briefed him, told him how to start the interview, get him onside, ask him questions, see which way his eyes went when he answered them. Up to the left for thinking and truth, down to the right for lying. Or was it the other way round? What had she said?

He scratched the back of left hand with the middle finger of his right.

‘Up to the left for the truth, down to the right for lying.’

He gave a small nod. Marina had spotted the signal, spoken to him.

Turner tried to stonewall, shrugged. ‘Just running,’ he said. ‘Didn’t know who you were. What you wanted. You’d have ran. If it had been you. Someone chasing you.’

Mickey nodded. ‘So where’s your girlfriend, then, Mark? She done a runner too?’

Turner shrugged.

‘Didn’t share your taste in films? Her idea of an evening in wasn’t sitting down to watch Killer’s Moon ?’

Turner’s eyes widened in shock. ‘You’ve seen Killer’s Moon ?’

‘Great film,’ said Mickey. ‘Not what you’d call a horror film, though. Comedy classic, more like.’

He heard Marina give a small chuckle in his ear. ‘Good old Milhouse, knew we could rely on him…’

Mickey leaned across the table. Speaking again like they were two mates in a pub, about something more important this time. ‘She’s left you, Mark. Gone.’

Turner shook his head. ‘No…’

‘Yeah.’ Mickey nodded his head in sympathy. ‘She has, mate. Gone. Sorry, but she’s abandoned you. Left you here to take the full brunt of it.’

He kept shaking his head, more vehemently now. ‘No, no, she wouldn’t, never, no…’

‘She has. So you may as well tell us what happened.’

Nothing. Just Turner shaking his head.

‘You see, with her gone, there’s just you. And everything gets pinned on you. The murders, the abductions, the misleading of a police investigation, everything. All down to you.’

No response.

‘But if you start talking, tell me things…’ Mickey shrugged. ‘It’ll make things a lot easier for you. Help you in the long run.’

Turner stopped shaking his head. Sat completely still, staring at the desk. Mickey waited.

Eventually Turner looked up. Smiled. It wasn’t pleasant.

‘You nearly had me there. Copper.’

Mickey frowned. ‘What you talking about?’

‘The films, all that. Dracula, Frankenstein, God, Killer’s Moon , you’ve done your homework…’ He laughed. It held as much humour as the smile did. ‘And all for this. All to be my mate’ – he spat the word out – ‘all to get me to talk. No.’

Mickey said nothing.

‘She said this is what you’d say to me. What you’d try to get me to do if I ended up here. She knew that, course she did. She’s a psychologist, for fuck’s sake.’

‘Not a very good one,’ said Marina in Mickey’s ear.

Mickey scowled. He didn’t need that. Marina apologised.

Turner sat back, folded his arms. ‘Anyway. It’s done.’

‘What’s done, Mark?’

‘It. Everything. What we set out to achieve. It’s all complete. Really, it doesn’t matter what happens to me now because it’s over. Finished. We’ve done it.’

‘Done what?’

‘Proved our point.’

‘Which was?’

Again, that smile. ‘That we are superior to you.’

‘To who?’

‘All of you.’ Turner stretched out his arms, put his hands behind his head, relaxed. ‘And that’s all I’m going to say.’

Mickey stared at him.

Lost.

Phil exhaled. Felt no sense of triumph at guessing correctly. ‘What happened?’

Paula sighed once more. ‘It was… Adele. Adele and me. We just couldn’t bear it any more. He was… hurtin’ me. And starting to look at Adele in a way I didn’t like. I couldn’t have that. I wouldn’t have that.’

She stopped talking, reached for the empty glass once more. Sighed. Continued.

‘So one day I… hit him. With a shovel. From the back garden. And he fell. And that was that.’

‘So where is he?’

‘We-’ She corrected herself. ‘ I buried him. In the back garden.’

‘And you weren’t worried about getting caught?’

‘I did it at night.’

‘I mean about the murder. You weren’t worried about people finding out?’

She thought for a moment. ‘I went over that in my mind. Over and over. For ages afterwards. Ages. No. Because I’d done the right thing. He was a monster. I hadn’t killed a man. I’d killed a monster.’

Phil looked at her, the sad, defeated woman before him. He didn’t know what she had gone through, could only guess at that. But he did know one thing. Police officer or not, there were times when the law just wasn’t enough.

‘I got my story straight, stuck to it. People asked. But not much. They knew what he was like. Most people round here were relieved for me when he’d gone.’

‘Did you do this all yourself?’

‘Yes.’ A fast answer.

Too fast, thought Phil.

‘No, you didn’t. Adele helped you, didn’t she? And you want to protect her.’

Paula looked at him, straight in the eye for the first time since he had arrived there. Then she dropped her gaze. Nodded at the floor.

‘That’s OK,’ he said. ‘I can understand you wanting to protect her. You did it for her. You didn’t want her to suffer for it.’

She nodded again.

‘And Wayne? How did he take it?’

‘He didn’t know. I told him his dad had gone. Run away. Left us. I thought that would be it, you know? The end of it. That would be fine. I’d get my son back and we’d all be happy. A happy family.’ She sighed. ‘Wrong.’

‘What happened?’

‘He… he blamed me. For what had happened. For his dad running away. Said I was a, a bitch. And a cow. That it was my fault he’d gone. I’d driven him away. My fault.’ She swallowed back tears.

‘And then what?’

‘He joined the army. Wanted to get away. Said what his dad always said. The army makes a man of you. Well, it makes a certain kind of man out of you…’

‘And his name?’

‘Changed it. Ian was his… his dad’s name.’

‘Buchan?’

‘I went back to my maiden name. Adele too.’ Another sigh. ‘Ian didn’t.’

‘Did you keep in touch with him?’

‘Not really. No, in fact. And then the army got in touch. Told me he’d been burnt in a fire. Badly burnt. Well, I went to see him. You have to, don’t you? I mean, he is my son, after all. So they sent him back here, to the garrison. And I went there.’ Another sigh. ‘My God. What had happened to him…’

‘What had happened to him?’

‘He’d… he’d raped a woman. A translator. Afghan. A local, civilian, working with the army. He’d been, been pursuin’ her. Stalking her. They didn’t actually say that, not to me, but that’s what they meant. And this woman, Rani, they said her name was, she kept turning him down. Anyway, one night he followed her home, got her on her own. Tried to…’ Another sigh. ‘Like I said. His father’s son.’

Phil waited, impatient for Paula to continue but knowing he had to let her do it in her own time.

‘He raped her. I mean, not just, you know, had sex with her. It was bad, what he did to her. They told me.’

‘His father taught him to hate women. He was just acting out.’

She nodded. ‘But he made his own mind up to do it. He was a man. Anyway, then, I don’t know exactly what happened next. Neither did they. Did he get upset when he realised he’d gone too far with her? Had he killed her? Did he want to hide the evidence? I don’t know. But he started a fire. He was always startin’ fires when he was a kid. Loved them, he did.’