Jack in the box, p.27
Jack in the Box, page 27
‘I’m having trouble believing this,’ Finch said, scraping his fingers through his damp hair. ‘I mean, there’s bad and there’s bad–’
‘Shut up,’ Kingsley said.
‘You keep your trap shut and speak to me with courtesy,’ Finch said through gritted teeth. A rasping edge of real rage was audible in his voice.
Lomond tensed.
‘You say nothing,’ Kingsley said simply, ‘because you know nothing. Like I know nothing.’
‘This isn’t a formal interview,’ Lomond interjected. ‘You’re not under caution. We’ve already taken the statements from you. I just want to talk to you about what’s happening with your son and what the next steps will be. He’s with a specially trained adult who will help him through the process, and of course we’ll–’
‘And his lawyer,’ Kingsley said.
‘Obviously, he’ll have a lawyer too.’
‘Don’t forget it.’ Kingsley smiled icily. ‘Speaking for myself and my family here, we’re finding it all a bit hard to swallow. You think a teenage boy managed to kill . . . how many people, was it?’
‘I can’t go into details about the investigation. I’m sure you can understand.’
‘Oh, I understand about the police. I’m very well versed.’
‘We’ll update you throughout the process. Shane’s going to be in court tomorrow morning, and I expect him to be remanded in custody from there.’
‘Shane was a good boy,’ Finch said, hands clenched tight. ‘I don’t believe it. Quiet. Clever. No edge to him. Never any bother.’
Kingsley closed her eyes. ‘Please, Vincent. Stop talking. For once, just stop.’
Finch ignored her. ‘He had the best of everything. Everything we built was for him.’
‘There’s every chance we’ll find out he didn’t do any of it,’ Kingsley said. ‘That’s the way I’m approaching it. For the record. That’s how the police and the courts operate in this country.’
‘It’ll be for the jury to decide,’ Lomond said. ‘If you have anything to tell us about your son’s whereabouts on key dates, then that would be useful.’
‘I might just do that,’ she said. ‘Wouldn’t be good for your case if I did, would it?’
‘So long as you’re happy to say it in court, under oath. You know about the courts, so I won’t need to remind you about something called perjury, Mrs Kingsley. If you’re found guilty of that, judges tend to throw the book at you for it.’
A grin transformed Kingsley’s face into something close to outright glee. The expression was close to the one Lomond had not long before seen, and disliked, on the face of her son, after he’d reached the obvious conclusion that he’d been caught, that he was in trouble and that pretence was useless. Simultaneous mirth and contempt. Lomond shivered at the resemblance.
‘A threat!’ she spluttered. ‘Wow. That was a threat, wasn’t it?’
‘Absolutely not. Just a statement of fact. We’re all about the facts here. It’s our job.’
‘Is it, though?’ Finch said quietly. ‘Is it really?’
‘I’m sorry, Mr Finch?’
‘All about the facts, I mean.’ He shook his head. ‘Not, like, the stuff you find out, places and dates and all that. I’ve been racking my brains. Just this past hour, waiting to come in here. You go through things . . .’
‘Vincent, please,’ Kingsley said.
‘And you blame yourself a bit, of course you do. What is it they say? Sad, bad or mad? Which one is he? All of them? And is it my . . . is it our fault?’
‘For Christ’s sake, Vincent,’ Kingsley snapped. ‘You won’t be happy till they’ve banged you up as well. Dimwit.’
‘Genetic? Born that way? Take after his grandad? Or something we did? Something we didn’t do? God knows he wasn’t abused . . . or I don’t think he was. What would make someone do something like that? Grow up that way? What was missing?’ Finch looked helpless and scared, and Lomond almost wanted to comfort him. Almost.
‘We’ll find out in time,’ Lomond said.
‘If I can speak to him . . . if I can talk it through with him . . . whatever was going on in his head . . . I’m his dad. I can reach him.’ He looked to Lomond for . . . what? Guidance? Reassurance? Absolution?
Lomond could provide Vincent Finch with none of these. In another place, in other circumstances, Lomond would have given way to his instincts – his reflexes. He would have been on his feet, a hand placed on the man’s shoulder. Hey, c’mon, he might have said. It’s not your fault. It can’t be your fault. You weren’t involved. It wasn’t anything you did or didn’t do. That was the thing you did with someone in distress. Only, even in those circumstances, Lomond wouldn’t have believed himself. There were times in life you had to tell white lies. But Lomond couldn’t have done it, just then, in any circumstances. So all he said was, ‘We’ll be in touch, Mr Finch. Mrs Kingsley.’
‘No, you’ll be in touch with our lawyers,’ Kingsley said. ‘My lawyers, specifically. Understand?’
‘Perfectly. And I look forward to it, Mrs Kingsley.’
‘And I’ve told you before – it’s Ms Kingsley.’
She glared at Lomond, unblinking, as he got up from his seat and pulled on his damp overcoat. He looked right back. As a flashbulb moment, examined on its own by a stranger, his expression might have seemed pitiless.
61
Finch’s hair was shorter, his jaw chiselled and his expression lethal. He paced up and down the tiled kitchen floor in his bare feet. The slapping sound might have put an ordinary person’s teeth on edge. It did no such thing for the boy, staring at his father through the crack.
‘He just sits there. Won’t do his ABC, won’t do his numbers, won’t paint a picture, won’t colour in with his crayons, even. Nothing!’ Finch’s voice was high and raspy.
He speaks about me like I’m not here, thought the boy. Am I not here?
‘Something’s wrong with him. Is he doing it to wind me up? The little bastard!’ The face loomed closer to the crack. The boy felt something wet, just underneath his eye. He did not blink. It was a trick he had learned, though he could not remember when.
The boy had seen millipedes on the television and that one time at school when they’d had a display. The girl with the nice smile, handling beetles and spiders and even a snake. His mother moved the same way as the millipede. It seemed effortless. Like she had a thousand tiny invisible legs working overtime beneath her feet. She slipped across the floor now, pausing before the crack with her hands on her hips.
‘So this is your idea of discipline?’
‘I’m out of ideas!’ Finch shrieked. ‘I said I’d take his toys away from him for a week, and he just shrugged. He doesn’t care. This happy-clappy stuff doesn’t work. So I decided to put him in there. Maybe that’ll shake him out of it. I’m well past the nicey-nice stage, Nicole. The boy’s a freak!’
‘That seems harsh, Vincent. Maybe you should leave it to me.’
Finch bent over and stared through the crack. Then his expression went blank. His lip trembled. The boy knew what this portended, but he was prepared.
The crack become the whole of the kitchen, and hands gripped him by the scruff of the neck and under an armpit. No effort at all, he was on his feet. Whee!
‘You laughing at me?’ Finch screamed. ‘You laughing? You’re going to catch it, I swear to Christ. I swear to almighty Christ!’
The boy hadn’t realised he’d been smiling, until that moment. He let his face relax, and much more besides.
‘Now look! He’s pissing himself! In the name of God . . .’
The boy was dropped. He fell to his knees. He felt wetness seep through there too.
‘Vincent.’ His mother’s voice was firm now, the voice that almost always won out. ‘I think we should leave this, OK? Just go and do your thing. Go back to your computer, whatever you were doing. You’ve got emails to catch up on, don’t you?’
‘Don’t take this away from him,’ Finch said, jabbing a finger at the boy. ‘Don’t. We’ve got to knock it out of him. Whatever it is that’s wrong. Whatever means that he can’t function.’
‘It’s fine,’ she said, closing the door behind him. She spun on her heels, drew a breath and looked down to the floor. ‘Now what seems to be the trouble, young man?’ she said.
The boy made no reply. He could think of several at once, but he knew it was best not to express them. Especially with her.
‘Did you do that deliberately? Or accidentally?’ She pointed at his wet trousers. ‘Never mind. The outcome’s the same. Mummy will clean it, won’t she? Mummy cleans all messes. That’s what mummies do.’
Then she took him by the scruff of the neck and the armpit. Once again. Whee!
He was back inside, shoved into place. His knees and hips hurt. She was strong, he knew that. Stronger than she looked. Her fingers on his neck, not hard enough to bruise, but impossible to resist. She forced him down.
‘You know, your dad may be onto something. But don’t tell him I said that. While I’m mopping the floor, you can stay in there. You might get a chill, but that’s on you, son. You might not learn anything, but I’ll punish you. It’ll make me feel better, because Mummy’s had a hard day.’
She looked at him, not with contempt, not with anger, not with sorrow or remorse or any of these things – or, in fact, anything at all.
‘You didn’t cry,’ she said tonelessly. ‘Mummy’s proud of you. Now don’t you move a muscle or make a sound. It’s quiet time now. Got it?’ She dropped the lid of the toybox, hard, expunging all light. ‘There’s a good boy.’
62
Smythe was still limping. The slow blush of bruising from her pubic bone to the top of her hip had turned to something of fascination rather than horror as the colours shifted from mauve to black to cerise to yellow.
She eschewed the canteen for a chilled sandwich from the vending machine, then found a quiet corner to sit down and catch up on a bit of personal admin on her phone. There was an email in from HR. She ignored it for the moment, sipping at a coffee and waiting for the sandwich to warm up. Then McGill appeared, and her corner was quiet no longer.
‘All right?’ McGill asked.
Smythe felt a sting of irritation at the children’s TV-presenter demeanour. ‘Hiya, Lorna. Were you off yesterday?’
‘Aye, a half-day. I spent most of it chasing that spiker in the new pop-up club in town.’
‘Heard about that. Sounded like a weirdo rather than anything too sinister.’
‘Aye. Bouncers dealt with it fast.’ She sighed. ‘Anyway, I brought in a spare couple of Specials. Want one?’ She grinned and held up a cardboard box. Slightly greasy but the kind of grease you didn’t mind at all, knowing it portended good things.
‘What’s a Special?’
‘I made them.’ McGill enunciated the word as if imparting a great secret. ‘Want to see?’ She flipped the box open without waiting for an answer.
‘Wow – proper Danish pastries!’
‘Cinnamon swirls, but I’ll take Danish pastries.’ McGill smiled. ‘This one’s for you.’
‘Really? That’s kind. You one of those Bake Off bakey people?’
‘Aye,’ she said proudly. ‘C’mon, have it while your coffee’s warm.’
‘I will.’
McGill sat down as Smythe munched on the end of the swirl. It was lovely, Smythe thought. Crumbly, but not annoyingly so. Bit of crunch to it. Sweet and spicy, perfect filling. ‘This is superb. You been baking long?’
McGill looked abashed. ‘Och, not really. I used to help out my auntie. She had a baker’s out in Pollok.’
‘Honest?’ A flare of recognition. ‘McGill’s Bakers? That you? Or your family? I used to go in there a lot. I had a Saturday job in Pollok, when I was at school. Worked in a newsagent’s for a few months, and I’d go into McGill’s for a sausage roll and a pineapple cake when the queues weren’t too long. And they used to be too long a lot of the time.’ Now Smythe recalled a woman about the same height as Lorna, but plump, and very good-looking with it, who had blue-overalled men and twitchy teens and building-site boys on the end of a hook with one smile. Almost the same face Smythe was looking at now. ‘How’s your auntie doing?’
‘Oh, she died,’ McGill said, with not even a hint of a reduction in her grin. ‘Anyway, I just thought you might like one. I think I saw you at the interview the other day.’
Smythe was on her guard. ‘Oh aye. I went in for it. Did you?’
‘Course I did. Remember we spoke about it? Worth a shot. You might miss this time, but you won’t miss the next time.’
Smythe nodded. The email. McGill wasn’t looking for information, or currying favour. ‘Well, best of luck with it, eh? For what it’s worth, I hope you get it.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘Oh.’
‘I’m commiserating, really.’
Before Smythe could say ‘What have you heard?’ someone pulled out the spare seat and sat down. Myles Tait had a relaxed, even graceful expression as he bowed his head. ‘Ladies,’ he said.
‘Oh, hey!’ McGill said. ‘Congratulations!’
‘News travels fast.’ Tait grinned. ‘I want to say that I’m looking forward to carrying on working with you same as before, with the same results.’
‘What team are you assigned to?’
‘Not sure yet. Won’t be going over to Edinburgh for a while. But I wish it was with you two, if I’m honest. I think we work well together.’
‘Myles, congratulations,’ Smythe said, offering a handshake.
‘Cheers. No hard feelings, eh?’
‘Course not. Best man won.’ Smythe was seized by an irresistible desire to cough – a stray flake of pastry had clung to the inside of her throat. Maybe it was embedded there, like a splinter.
‘It’s not true, but nice of you to say so. Well, best be off – got some paperwork to sort out. And I need to wind Slater up.’ He smiled and got back to his feet.
Slater passed by, with a steaming cup of coffee. ‘Myles,’ he said stiffly, ‘I understand some congratulations are in order.’
‘Nice of you to say so,’ Tait said.
Slater turned to McGill. ‘Lorna, congratulations on your Oscar nomination. Show’s on in a couple of weeks, eh? I’ll be watching.’
Tait looked briefly as if he’d just realised he’d left the house without his wallet. ‘I’m going to miss you, Malcolm. Hopefully you aren’t charged with police brutality while I’m away. Heard the Kingsley boy complained about you lifting your hands. I laughed about that, I tell you. Malcolm Slater couldn’t punch his way out a wet paper bag, I said.’
‘Well, you know. Justice calls for a firm hand. A bit like . . . och, what’s the name of that guy? Him that batters the baddies? You know . . . wears a costume? Like a bat? What’s that man’s name?’
‘That would be Batman,’ Tait responded, turning on his heels and walking away.
‘Works every time,’ Slater said, when the laughter died down.
‘He’ll miss you, really,’ Smythe said.
‘He’ll miss something. Anyway, Cara – I’m sorry that eejit got your job. It was yours, the way I see it. I was shocked you didn’t get it.’
McGill broke the silence by fishing out another pastry from the box. ‘Compliments of the chef,’ she said.
‘Ooh!’ Slater brightened up, accepting the pastry.
McGill waited until he was gone. ‘Yeah, I didn’t bake one for Myles,’ she said sweetly. Turning to Smythe, she said, ‘That was gracious of you. Couldn’t have been easy. That was your job, and everyone knows it. Sorry.’
‘Ach, it’s not as bad as a kick in the fanny,’ Smythe reflected.
They laughed for a good while. Smythe didn’t wince quite as much as she wanted to.
*
He let himself sink into the sofa, all elbows and knees, a spider poised to spring. It wasn’t his best look, but he enjoyed the coffee all the same. He liked the coffee shop, liked that it wasn’t a big chain, liked that they went to an effort, baking their own cakes and biscuits (‘cookies’, they called them – that irritated him).
On the table in front of him, he’d spread out the newspaper to show pages four and five, covering the Jack-in-the-Box case. Lots of pictures. They even included a web link – as if you’d type one of those into your device after seeing it in a paper! – and a QR code for ‘bonus content’. Probably a nightmare of pop-ups, sign-up prompts and all the usual irritating nonsense. Dying, he thought to himself. It’s a dying industry. That, and all the news that goes with it. A shame, in a way.
‘Terrible, isn’t it?’ said one of the other customers as she passed by with a milkshake and a brownie as thick as a kerb-stone. She had cropped white hair and big, thick glasses.
He nodded. Half tutted, half sighed, all lament. ‘It’s shocking. Glad they got him, though. Can’t have folk like that running about.’
‘I heard he was just seventeen years old,’ the woman said, scandalised.
‘Unbelievable, isn’t it? Seem to be starting younger and younger.’ He grinned. He had noticed years ago that when he did that, people smiled back, and they still did, even at his age. It was true what they’d said at school. It was amazing the things you could go on to do – the things you could talk people into – when you had a nice smile.
If any of them had survived, that’s what they’d have told the police. A lovely smile, he had. Just drew you in. Something like that.
‘Hope they throw away the key. I know what I’d do with him.’
‘Ach, violence solves nothing, really,’ said the man.
The woman behind the counter, who had listened to this exchange closely, waiting for a moment to leap in, said, ‘I wonder if they’ll ever catch that Flick character?’
The white-haired woman clutched her milkshake and brownie to her bosom. ‘Oh my God, you forget he’s still out there. Him and Bible John.’
‘And Jack the Ripper,’ said Flick, grinning.
