Дэвид Муди - Strangers

‘I don’t know anything.’

‘Think carefully, Scott.’

‘I told you, I—’

Litherland raised his hand, silencing Scott mid-sentence. ‘Remind me again, how long is it that you and your family have lived in Thussock?’

‘We moved here last Saturday.’

‘By we, I take it you mean your family?’

‘Yes.’

‘So what about you ? How long have you yourself been up here?’

‘I came up about a week and a half earlier to get the house straight. Wait, what are you saying? Do you think I—?’

‘I’m not saying anything. My job’s not to suppose, it’s to prove. You see, I’m just trying to work out what’s going on around here. Look at it from my perspective… until these last few weeks, there’d only been one murder here in eight years. Now in the time since you first got here, seven people have died. Heck of a coincidence.’

‘And that’s all it is, a coincidence. I don’t know anything.’ He stopped, still trying to make sense of all of this. The woman in the woods, Potter, the girl in his garden, that nutter Graham McBride… ‘Wait… seven people?’

Litherland picked up a folder full of papers, then sat down opposite Scott. If he was trying to intimidate him, it was working. ‘Giles Hitchen,’ he said.

‘Never heard of him.’

‘You sure? Think carefully, lad.’ The detective pulled out a glossy photograph from the folder and passed it to Scott. He looked at it briefly, then put it down on the table. A young guy sprawled across a pavement on his back, his head and shoulders hidden in the hedgerow, legs naked and drenched with blood. What was left of his shredded penis hung between them. The gore was astonishingly vivid: a crimson scrawl across the monotone.

‘I don’t know anything about this,’ he said. ‘I’ve never seen this man.’

‘Joan Lummock.’

Another photograph, this one even worse. A woman in her late fifties, her skin discoloured by the first signs of decay, lying on a bed of blood-soaked leaf litter. He recognised the location from TV reports he’d seen. This was the woman they’d found in the forest last weekend. Again, same as the last picture, she was naked from the waist down. What was left of the rest of her was hard to make out; a vile, bloody mess instead of a vagina. Scott could barely stand to look.

‘I don’t know anything,’ he said, simply and emphatically.

‘Took us a while to find poor Joan,’ Litherland continued. ‘She’d been missing a day or so by the time we got to her. None of this ringing any bells?’

‘I heard about her on TV, but that’s all.’

A third photograph. A dead man in walking gear, anorak on top, waterproof trousers wrapped around one ankle. He was slumped against a wall inside a particularly cramped looking house, his groin eviscerated.

‘David Ferguson. Retired. Recently widowed. Father of four. His youngest, Karen, did admin work here at the station for a while. David was found like this up at the youth hostel near Glenfirth.’

Scott looked into the dead man’s face, his lifeless eyes staring at nothing. His glasses were at an awkward angle, half-on, half-off. It was easier to focus on them than on the rest of the bloody corpse.

‘How many times do I have to tell you, I don’t know anything about this.’

‘I’m not so sure.’

‘I swear!’

Unperturbed, Litherland continued. Another photograph, this one depressingly familiar. ‘Shona McIntyre. You must remember poor Shona?’

‘Of course I do. She’s the girl Ken Potter—’

‘—she’s the girl you found in Ken Potter’s garden,’ Litherland said, correcting him.

Next photograph. Barely a body to be seen in this one, but Scott knew exactly what it was. Parts of Ken Potter lying on and around the train track.

‘Notice anything?’ Litherland asked. When Scott didn’t immediately respond, the detective elaborated. ‘See, we thought old Ken might have been responsible for some of what’s happened, but it’s not looking likely. Look at his legs, Scott.’

Scott held the photograph, his hands shaking. It was hard to make out any of Potter’s remains. ‘Can’t see his legs.’

Litherland took the photo from him and tapped his finger next to a bloody chunk of flesh beside the tracks. ‘That’s a foot, see?’

Scott saw. It was like one of those old ‘magic eye’ optical illusions he remembered – pictures hidden in patterns. Once he’d been able to make out part of it, the rest of the image seemed to come sharply into focus. There was a bare foot, an ankle, then the bottom of a leg, crushed and dismembered below the knee. It almost made him gag.

‘I see it.’

‘He was half naked, just like the others. We’re waiting on confirmation, but it’s looking like he was dead before the train hit him.’

‘Jesus.’

‘Happened on a stretch of track not far from Barry Walpole’s yard. You’ve been working for Barry, haven’t you?’

‘Yes, but—’

Before Scott could finish his sentence, Litherland showed him another photograph. A young woman. Dyed hair, faded pink. Tattoos. Lying in the corner of someone’s lawn. Mutilated like the rest of them. He felt like he was going to vomit.

‘Angela Pietrszkiewicz… think I’m saying that right.’

Scott looked away. ‘I’ve never seen her before. I don’t know who she is…’

‘You sure about that? Angela was found yesterday morning. Mother of two, she was. Two little kiddies. Neighbour heard them crying, then we found Mum a couple of streets away. We did door to door enquiries. Only lead we got was that she was heard talking to some bloke…’

‘I was at home with my family all day yesterday. Ask them. I was with them the whole bloody day.’

The detective paused ominously. ‘Yes, but I didn’t say she was killed yesterday, did I? I said she was found yesterday. We’re estimating the time of death as being sometime Saturday evening.’

‘I was at home again.’

‘You sure, Scott?’

‘Yes. Course I’m sure.’

‘Thing is, with Thussock being such a small and close-knit community, folks tend to notice things that’re out of the ordinary. You and your family, you’ve been attracting more than your fair share of interest just by virtue of being here. No fault of your own, of course, that’s just the way it is.’

‘I was at home, I swear.’

‘You’ve quite a distinctive car. Ordinary, but distinctive. Blue Zafira, isn’t it? Seven-seater? One black wheel arch?’

‘Yes…’

‘Noisy old thing, eh?’

‘What of it?’

‘Well I’ve a number of folks who’re saying they saw your car driving around the estate where Miss Pietrszkiewicz lived on Saturday evening, around the time we think she was probably killed.’

‘No… no, that’s not right.’

‘Oh, so they’re all lying are they?’ He glanced at a page of notes. ‘Jean Morris of Strathway Crescent says she saw a “large blue car driving up and down the road at speed”, said it was making “a heck of a noise, like its exhaust was knackered”. And do you know Dez Boyle?’

‘Never heard of him.’

‘Well he seems to know you. Dez says he saw you driving around there too. Think very carefully, Scott.’

‘Wait… Tammy, my stepdaughter.’

‘What about her?’

‘She was at a friend’s house. I picked her up in the car.’

‘And what time was that?’

‘I don’t know… around half-eight, I think.’

‘And where exactly does your daughter’s friend live?’

‘Wayfield Close.’

‘Backs onto Alderman Avenue, that does.’

Scott shook his head. ‘I wouldn’t know.’

‘Miss Pietrszkiewicz was found on Alderman Avenue. Litherland paused, looked at Scott again. ‘So tell me, did you drive straight from your place to Wayfield Close?’