Hilary Bonner - Friends to Die For

Vogel nodded his agreement. He referred again to the printout: ‘For almost a year Burns reported to his parole officer according to the terms of his licence and appeared to behave impeccably. Then he vanished. Completely and utterly. Off the face of the earth.’

‘And he’s never been rediscovered?’

Vogel shook his head. ‘There’s a school of thought across the border that some relative or friend of Alice Turner’s caught up with Burns and knocked him off. She had a brother who’s a bit of a toughie, ex para, always said he’d get him for what he did to his sister.’

‘But you don’t think he’s dead, do you, Vogel?’

Vogel shook his head again.

DCI Clarke stared at her second-in-command.

‘You think George Kristos is Rory Burns.’

It was a statement, not a question. Vogel answered it, nonetheless.

‘Yes, I do, boss,’ he said.

‘Didn’t we check out his background?’

‘Kristos was born in Edinburgh to Greek Cypriot parents. Scottish police told us his family were believed to have returned to Cyprus some years ago. There was nothing to arouse suspicion. He went to school in Scotland and then drama college in Manchester. It all checked out. He has a passport, national insurance number, tax record, driver’s licence — everything. All in the name of Georgios Kristos. And no criminal record, obviously. He’s an Equity member as George Kristos, and is generally known as George. So he’d anglicized his name, but that didn’t seem suspicious either. Particularly not for an actor.’

‘What about his alibi for the time of Michelle Monahan’s murder? Didn’t his neighbour say she was with him?’

‘Yes, boss, but she’s an old lady and she’s not well. I think we should double-check it.’

DCI Clarke nodded. She remained silent for a few seconds. Then she clenched her fist and banged it on the desk in front of her.

‘Go get the bastard, Vogel,’ she said. ‘And this time we’re going to nail ’im.’

‘Yes, boss,’ said Vogel, over one shoulder. He was already on the way to the door.

Clarke immediately called in the key members of her team.

‘I want everything there is on Rory Burns and Georgios Kristos,’ she demanded. ‘Every spit and fart. Photographs — I want every available photograph. Tell forensics I need an expert to run photos of Rory Burns through age-progression software. Get on to Scotland: we need the complete court records and the statements of everyone involved. And we need to find Kristos’s parents in Cyprus, or wherever the hell they are.’

George seemed unsurprised when Vogel and a team of officers arrived at his flat to arrest him for the third time, even though he had only recently been released from custody. It was almost as if he had been waiting for them.

He unlocked the door and stood calmly with his arms extended as he was handcuffed.

‘I was half-expecting you to turn up again,’ he told Vogel. ‘But you’re not as bright as you thought you were, are you?’

Vogel ignored that. He formally arrested George on suspicion of two counts of murder.

George’s eyes seemed to glaze over as Vogel cautioned him.

‘Anything you do say may be given in evidence,’ the detective concluded.

‘ God is jealous and the Lord revengeth, the Lord revengeth, and is furious ,’ said George.

‘I’m sorry, sir?’

‘ The Lord will take vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserveth wrath for His enemies .’

‘I see, sir,’ said Vogel, noting that George was now speaking with a distinct Scottish accent.

He and two of the uniforms led George to the waiting squad car and bundled him in. George grabbed Vogel by the arm. His eyes bore into the policeman. Vogel had not noticed previously how cold those eyes were. Maybe they hadn’t been that way before.

‘ The Lord will not acquit the wicked, the Lord hath His way in the whirlwind, and in the storm and the clouds are the dust at His feet ,’ said George.

I didn’t care. I had completed my task. It mattered not to me what happened to my apology of a body. My soul is omnipotent. I am as He is. And will be for ever and ever. Amen.

My table thou hast furnished me, In presence of my foes, My head thou dost with oil anoint, And my cup overflows.

I supposed it was inevitable that eventually I would be discovered. Although, as I had fooled so many for so long, I did wonder, had almost come to believe, that I might yet escape.

But sometimes I was not even sure I wanted to. There was a part of me that yearned for them all to know what I had done and why I had done it. Perhaps that was the reason I had chosen to carry a picture of my non-existent girlfriend, knowing it could conceivably lead to my being discovered. A doctored picture of the woman who had been my foster mother.

Now they would know. The whole world would know what I had done.

There was another reason why I chose to carry with me that doctored picture of Alice Turner, even before I learned about Marlena. Alice was the only woman I had ever really loved. The only human being I ever loved after my mother was taken from me. Along with my mother, I lost all hope of a future, any chance of a normal life. And I was only three at the time, too young to understand. Too young to hate. My father, my weak bloody father, claimed to have suffered a nervous breakdown. Said he couldn’t cope, and gave me away. Just gave me away to the state, asking that I be taken into care.

He couldn’t cope? What did he think it was like for me, having to cope with what I had become?

But Alice. My dear sweet Alice. She had nurtured me, cared for me, soothed me, made me feel that I was normal in spite of everything, and that to her I was precious. I’d yet to think about growing into a man, and what that might mean. As a child, with Alice, I felt safe enough. I had perhaps dared to believe I was just an ordinary little boy. And to her, to Alice, a special boy.

Then I witnessed her betrayal. A quite casual betrayal.

I overheard her one day, talking to a social worker in the kitchen. They thought I was in the garden, kicking a ball around with the boy from next door, but I’d come back into the house to find a plaster because I’d cut my knee. I was in the hall when I heard the words I shall never forget.

‘He was such a disturbed child when he came here,’ said the social worker. ‘And he’s doing so well now.’

‘Yes,’ replied Alice. ‘But I can’t help fearing for his future. He’s always going to be a freak, isn’t he, out there in the big wide world? My dear, darling little freak...’

I didn’t make a sound. It was as if I was frozen. Then I turned, crept along the hallway out of the house.

They never even knew that I was there.

She might have known later though, in the early hours of the following morning. I’ve often wondered if she ever realized what had sealed her fate. What she had done. How she’d left me with no choice but to deal with her disloyalty, her nonchalant derision, in the way that I had.

I took no notice of the other words she used, not ‘my’, nor ‘dear’, nor ‘darling’. All I heard was ‘freak’. I was a freak to her, as well as to the rest of the world. My sweet Alice thought I was a freak. And that one throwaway comment, never intended for my ears, meant that I would always be a freak to myself. How could I ever regard myself as anything other than that after hearing Alice, lovely Alice, speak of me in that way?

I never told them. Not any of them. Or not in so many words. If they’d been cleverer, they might have guessed.