M. Arlidge - Little Boy Blue

Her jaunty tone sounded forced, but Charlie didn’t comment. So swallowing down another wave of nausea and putting her best foot forward, Helen walked back towards the club’s gaping entrance to perform her grim duty.

He slipped into bed and turned his eyes to the wall. He could tell Sally wasn’t asleep – though she was pretending to be – and he wondered what she was thinking. Could she hear his heart beating sixteen to the dozen? Could she sense his excitement?

He had taken his time returning home, hoping that he would be in a calmer state of mind on his arrival. But the adrenaline coursed through him still, and even though he had taken a long shower, he felt sure the stain of the night remained on him.

He sometimes had the sense that Sally wanted to say something, as they lay together. That his increasing absence from her life had been noted, that her patience was reaching breaking point. If he was honest, he wanted her to ask. Not just so that he could apologize and make amends for the cruel way he’d treated her. But also because he wanted to explain – to make sense of his wanton, self-destructive actions. He was playing with fire, risking everything and everyone he held dear, and he wanted to share this burden with her.

Should he seize the initiative? Tell her himself? As soon as the thought entered his head, he dismissed it. Where would he begin? What would he say? Sally was no doormat, she was an intelligent and spirited woman – why couldn’t she tackle him on it, demanding an explanation for his actions?

She wouldn’t, of course. Theirs was a marriage sustained by silence now. So nothing would change, while with each passing night everything changed. He was slowly becoming a different person – someone new and unfamiliar. It thrilled and scared him in equal measure, such was the strength of his obsession. And this was why he wanted someone to talk to him, challenge him. Because he knew instinctively that, left to his own devices, he would never, ever stop.

It was only 7 a.m. but Emilia Garanita had been working for several hours. Journalists are often up at odd times, but crime reporters have it particularly bad – murderers, rapists and kidnappers having no respect for those who have to chronicle their deeds. Emilia was used to it and, if she was honest, rather enjoyed her lifestyle. She loved her bed as much as the next girl, but the buzz of her mobile phone in the middle of the night always presaged something exciting, something new.

She had been called at 4 a.m. by PC Alan Stark, a tame officer who was happy to accept cash payments for information. There had been a murder during the night – an unusual one – which is why Emilia was now ensconced with him in a transport café near the Torture Rooms, huddled over a bacon sandwich.

‘Did you see the body?’ Emilia asked, cutting to the chase.

‘No, but I spoke to a mate in SOC and they gave me chapter and verse. This place is something else.’

‘Meaning?’

‘It’s a fetish club and tonight was their “Annual Ball”. So they were all out in force – poofs, dykes, gimps, devils, angels -’

‘Did you recognize anyone?’

‘I’m sure they were all there,’ he laughed grimly. ‘City councillors, BBC folk, vicars, but you can bet your bottom dollar they scarpered before CID turned up. Those that did hang about were wearing masks, helmets and such, so -’

‘Did you pick up anyone with a criminal record?’

‘We’re still processing them.’

‘And who owns it – the club, I mean?’

‘Pass. But the manager – if that’s what you can call him – is talking to CID now. Sean Blakeman.’

Emilia wrote the name down.

‘Tell me about the victim.’

‘White guy in his early forties. Tied to a chair, before having his head taped up from chin to crown. I’m guessing the poor bastard suffocated.’

He continued to describe the scene, giving what details he could about the victim and the clientele of the club. Emilia was only half listening, writing his testimony down in her crisp, efficient shorthand, her mind already spooling forward to the story she would write. Sex, murder, torture, titillation – this case was kinky with a capital ‘K’ and would go down a storm with her editor. It had everything going for it and the icing on the cake was Stark’s confirmation that the case would be handled by Emilia’s erstwhile friend, now nemesis.

DI Helen Grace.

Helen walked briskly along the corridor, her heart sinking lower with each step. She’d been up all night, heading straight from the crime scene back to the incident room. She’d secretly hoped that the team might have made some quick progress, but in reality she knew it was too early for that – the peculiarities of this crime meant that they would have to be patient. Eyewitness reports were thin on the ground, and with no surveillance systems in the club they would have to garner amateur shots from mobile phones and piece together some kind of timeline. This might yield something and, of course, Meredith was still working her team hard on the forensics. Meanwhile, there was one very valuable piece of evidence that was as yet untapped – Jake’s body.

Helen reached the mortuary doors and buzzed herself in quickly. If she hesitated, she would lose her nerve and turn back. Jim Grieves, the pathologist, turned as Helen now approached. He didn’t offer much of a greeting and Helen was glad of it. She hadn’t the mental capacity or emotional strength for small talk. She just wanted to get this over with.

‘He’s a Caucasian male, late thirties to early forties, with a keen interest in body art, piercing and masochism. Lots of old injuries associated with the use of restraints, including a fractured wrist sustained a few years ago and a dislocated ankle that has never fully healed. Some evidence of STDs and I also found historic semen residue – not his own – on parts of his clothing.’

Helen nodded but said nothing – it was upsetting to hear her friend dissected in such a cold, clinical way.

‘We’ve done preliminary bloods – alcohol, ketamine and a small amount of cocaine, but that’s not what killed him. He died of asphyxia. You can tell by the petechial haemorrhages on his cheeks and eyelids and also the cyanosis, which is what gives his face that blue discoloration. There are no bruises or marks on his torso, so we can assume that the duct tape around his head was sufficiently tight to cut off oxygen to his airways and that his killer had no need to apply any pressure to his throat or neck. The bleeding and bruising to his lips suggest that he was trying to bite his way through the tape when he lost consciousness.’

Helen shut her eyes, overwhelmed by the horror of Jake’s predicament.

‘He suffered severe dehydration thanks to a massive rise in his body temperature, which eventually led to a cardiac arrest, but he wouldn’t have known much about it. His brain was starved of oxygen – it was this that did for him rather than anything that came after.’

‘How long?’

Helen’s voice sounded brittle and tight.

‘Four to five minutes to lose consciousness, a little longer to die.’

‘Would he have known what was happening?’

‘Until he blacked out. Perhaps that was the point. There was no attempt to torture or harm him physically, even though he was at his killer’s mercy. Which might suggest your attacker wanted his victim to be cognisant of what was happening, to feel his helplessness as his oxygen failed.’

Helen nodded, but said nothing in response. She was riven with emotion – anger, despair, sickness – as Grieves laid bare the brutal details of Jake’s death. Did his assailant stick around to watch him die? Was being there at the point of death important to him? Beneath her fierce outrage, Helen now felt something else stirring – fear. Fear that the darkness was descending once more.