Untouchable: A chillingly dark psychological thriller Page 13

Sean carried on staring out of the window.

  ‘Sean? Here’s a friend of yours to see you.’ Sean didn’t respond, so the nurse said, ‘Have a seat. I’ll go off and get a cup of tea for you both.’ He disappeared out the door.

  I stepped closer into Sean’s sight line. He was rail-thin, with sallow skin stretched over gaunt cheeks, and bloodshot eyes. ‘Hi, Sean.’

  He turned his head quickly, then just as quickly back to the window, avoiding my eyes. ‘Don’t know you. Who are you? What are you doing here? Did you follow me?’ As he spoke, I noticed that what teeth he still had left were stained a dark brown.

  ‘No,’ I said gently. ‘How are you feeling?’ I asked, then I realised that was that same ridiculous question people kept asking me.

  He didn’t look at me as he said, ‘What do you want? Don’t know you. Don’t know you. Not talking to police. Mouth doesn’t work.’ His words came out in a jumbled rush.

  ‘I’m not from the police.’

  ‘The other lot. Not the other lot.’ He bounced his leg up and down frantically and chewed on the skin around his thumb, which was already jagged and red raw. ‘I told them. I told them.’

  ‘What other lot?’

  ‘Leave me alone. I didn’t see the stars. They weren’t out.’ He scratched at his forearm.

  ‘I’m a friend of Jamie’s. Jamie Taylor. He came to see you, didn’t he? Your neighbour saw him.’ I pulled a chair from the wall and moved it towards him, sitting down.

  ‘No way! There’s no face.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘No face. They don’t have a face. They stare at you with those eyes, but they don’t have a face. They don’t have a soul.’

  ‘Look, I’m really sorry to bother you, but Jamie’s dead, and I—’

  ‘Don’t know you. Don’t know you.’ His head whipped around to face me, his eyes wide and terrified. ‘Leave us alone. Mouth don’t work. Mouth don’t work. Nothing to no one. Nothing to no one. I’m not going back!’

  ‘Going back where? Home?’

  ‘Fuck off. Fuck off. Fuck off. Fuck off,’ he spat, jigging his leg faster.

  I jerked back at the anger in his words.

  He jumped to his feet and stormed out the door just before the nurse entered, holding two cups of tea.

  The nurse didn’t even look surprised or flustered. I guessed this was just a normal day’s work for him. He put the teas on the table and gave me a tight smile. ‘Sometimes it’s a good thing for the patients to have visitors. It can be a positive part of their recovery, but sometimes it can also be an agitation. Maybe you should leave it a little while before trying again.’ He pointed at the tea. ‘You can finish it before you leave, if you like.’

  ‘Thanks, but I’m okay.’

  He shrugged. ‘I’ll show you out, then.’ He escorted me back up the corridor. Someone in one of the side rooms was shouting about a worm under their skin. I flinched and gave the nurse a sideways look, but he appeared to be concentrating on the corridor ahead.

  As I walked back to the car, Sean’s words rang in my ears, and I wondered what they meant. Did he know something about Jamie, or was he just confused and delusional?

  JAMIE

  Chapter 18

  They controlled every part of our lives. We were toys. Playthings. Mindless bodies to use in their depravity. Fear penetrated every waking moment, and even in broken sleep, we had no release. If I wasn’t being taken in the middle of the night, then I dreamt that I was. Day in and day out, it was all the same. I didn’t question them. Didn’t fight back. Didn’t hesitate to do the things they wanted. I’d learned the hard way that refusing would mean severe and horrific punishments.

  The men at the Big House didn’t try to hide who they were. Some of them spoke openly in front of us, calling each other by name, sometimes making reference to their professions. They had no qualms about being caught. Why should they? As we’d discovered the first time, the owner of 10 Crompton Place, the Fat Man, was a high court judge who sat at the Old Bailey. We later discovered the policeman was a senior officer of a nearby police force. The Bearded Man was an MP. The Short Man was some kind of financial person, a banker in the city. The Sadistic Man was also an MP, who had now been rewarded for his heinous abuse and vile predilections by becoming a cabinet minister—the new children’s minister, no less! The rest we didn’t know yet, but these people were leaders of the Establishment. The elite. Peers of society. That much was clear. So they could do anything they wanted with impunity. They wouldn’t be caught and forced to stop. They wouldn’t be punished for what they were doing. They were untouchable.

  Sometimes other boys we didn’t know would be there with us at the Big House, and the parties all started out the same. We were given drinks and made to smoke their cigarettes. Sometimes there were different themes. One night a boy was there who looked only about seven or eight. He had pale, freckled skin, huge brown eyes, and curly hair. When we entered the lounge, he wore a studded dog collar around his neck with a chain tied to it. The banker walked him around the room, telling him to act like a dog.

  ‘Do it,’ the children’s minister ordered the boy.

  He looked up at the man through teary lashes, whimpering, his eyes wide and terrified. ‘I want to go home. Please, I just want to go home to my mummy.’

  ‘Come on! What are you waiting for?’ the children’s minister sneered.

  The other men laughed and jeered and suggested things for the boy to do. ‘Get down on all fours and cock your leg like a dog’, ‘Pant like a dog’, ‘Bark!’

  I turned away and dragged heavily on the marijuana and gulped vodka, trying to ignore the sickness in my stomach, in my head, and the hand on my shoulder dancing its way down my back.

  Through his choking tears, the trembling little boy did as he was ordered with jerky, uncoordinated movements while a camera was passed around. A Polaroid that spewed out the photo within a few seconds. The judge had a video camera, too.

  We tried to get as drunk and drugged up as quickly as we could so it wouldn’t matter as much. If we were spaced out, it could mask the pain and the horror.

  The judge laughed hysterically as he filmed the boy acting like a dog. ‘Make him wear my wig!’

  The children’s minister forced it onto the boy’s head and removed the dog collar, tears of laughter streaming down his cheeks. ‘Get up, boy!’

  The boy cried out, his own tears falling in fat pellets on the fancy patterned carpet. ‘Please, n-no. Don’t make me, p-please,’ he whimpered, his eyes bulging with terror.

  ‘Get up!’

  The boy curled himself into a quivering ball.

  Just do it. It will only make it worse. The warning words were on the tip of my tongue, but I just stared silently, helplessly, like the rest of my friends.

  The children’s minister grabbed an empty whisky bottle from the table in the corner of the room and strode towards the boy. ‘Hold him down,’ he said to the banker.

  The banker kneeled on the boy’s back, pushing his head into the carpet. The boy struggled, crying, pleading.

  I turned towards the door, wanting to escape but frozen in place with shaking legs. The boy’s screams were louder but muffled by the carpet. And then there was an agonising cry, and I knew what was happening, as he’d done it to me and the others before. My guts churned. I was light-headed, floating. I huddled down on the floor, my knees drawn into my body, and buried my face into my thighs, pressing my hands over my ears to block it all out, but I could still hear it.

  Gradually the screams stopped and were replaced by a thumping sound on the floor. Inexplicably, I was drawn back to look at him. The boy was sprawled on his back with the children’s minister straddling his chest, a demonic look in his eyes. His hands were round the boy’s throat, and the boy’s arms and legs slapped the carpet, terror in every gasped breath. He struggled as he fought for his life, his eyes bulging, before sinking back into his head, staring blankly, and his body slackened into stillness.


  A scream caught in my throat, unable to come out, the pressure of it making it hard to breathe. An uncontrollable shaking wracked every muscle in my body. I squeezed my eyelids closed, pressing my hands over my head, trying to crush my skull.

  Trying to crush away what I’d seen.

  MAYA

  Chapter 19

  I had two more names and addresses left, and I still didn’t understand what Jamie could’ve been doing.

  Trevor Carter’s house was a modern semi-detached in a large housing estate. A girl of about eighteen opened the door to my knock.

  ‘Hi. Can I speak to Trevor Carter, please?’

  She immediately turned around and yelled back inside the house, ‘Mum! Someone’s looking for that Trevor guy again.’

  A harassed-looking older woman approached the door, wiping her hands on a tea towel, and the teenager disappeared with an energetic bounce.

  ‘You’re looking for Trevor Carter?’

  ‘Yes, does he live here?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, we bought the house off him a couple of years ago.’

  ‘Do you have a forwarding address for him?’

  ‘No. I think he went to America.’

  ‘Has someone else been here looking for him recently?’

  ‘Yes. There was a man round here about ten days ago.’

  I showed her the photo of Jamie. ‘Is this the person?’

  She leant forward and gave it a brief glance. ‘That’s him. I told him the same. Does Trevor owe you money or something? We’re always getting post for him still, but I just put it back in the post box and mark it “no longer at this address”.’

  ‘No, nothing like that,’ I said, disappointment welling up inside. ‘Thanks for your help, anyway.’

  I got back into the Jeep and punched in the final address in the satnav. As I drove, all I could think was, Please let me find some kind of an answer here.

  The house was a large detached mock Tudor on a fairly new estate. A Ford Focus with a private number plate AG1 was parked on the gravel drive. I rang the doorbell, and an echoing chime reverberated behind the door.

  An elderly woman’s face appeared at the front window and looked at me for a moment. She disappeared and then opened the door.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘I’m looking for Dave Groom.’

  A hand flew to the centre of her chest. The muscles in her neck rose and fell as she swallowed hard. ‘Dave passed away.’

  Her words buzzed in my ear as the shock registered. ‘Um…oh, how terrible. I’m so sorry for your loss. What…um…what happened?’

  She glanced over her shoulder briefly back inside the house before stepping out and closing the front door behind her. ‘There was a hit-and-run accident. We only had the funeral yesterday, so Anita’s obviously still upset. She’s not seeing anyone at the moment.’

  ‘That’s awful. When…I mean, when did it happen?’ She told me, and I calculated back through the days. The hit-and-run was the day after Jamie was found hanged. A horrible sensation slammed behind my ribcage. ‘Anita’s his wife?’

  ‘My daughter, yes.’

  I stared at the ground as the world swam in and out of focus at the edge of my vision. ‘So, the police haven’t caught anyone for the accident?’

  ‘No. No witnesses have come forward yet.’

  ‘Um…I think my boyfriend came to see Dave about something. His name was Jamie Taylor. Jamie was found hanged the day before Dave would’ve died.’

  ‘Oh, dear. Sorry for your loss, too. It’s a terrible thing. Were they friends?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, even though I didn’t have the first idea whether that was true. ‘Could I just ask Anita whether Jamie came here to see Dave? It’s really important. I’m trying to find out…’ I looked back up at her. I didn’t know what I was trying to find out at all. Didn’t have a clue what the hell Jamie had been mixed up in. ‘Um…I just need to know if Jamie visited and spoke to Dave before he died. And if…if maybe Anita knew what it was about.’

  She pursed her lips together. ‘Anita doesn’t want to see anyone. I’m sorry to hear about your boyfriend, too, but I don’t think Anita’s in any frame of mind to talk right now.’ She stepped back inside, and the door began to close. ‘I can’t help you, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Please!’ My voice came out like a yelp. ‘Could you just ask her for me?’ I fumbled in my bag for the photo of Jamie and handed it to her. ‘This is my boyfriend. Could you just ask Anita if he came to see Dave recently?’

  She glanced at the photo in my outstretched hand, and for a moment, I thought she was going to say no. She took in the expression on my face, and then the photo was in her hand.

  ‘Hang on a minute. I’ll go and have a quick word with her.’ She closed the door.

  I waited, shuffling from foot to foot, chewing on the inside of my cheek, my mind reeling.

  Five minutes later, she returned and handed me back the photo. ‘Sorry, dear, but Anita doesn’t recognise your boyfriend.’

  I just nodded because I didn’t know what else to ask. ‘Please give Anita my condolences.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She closed the door.

  ~~~~

  The first thing I did when I got home was pour a large glass of wine. I sat at the kitchen table and stared at the list. That was all I seemed to be doing lately. I stared and stared as I drank until the letters blurred on the page, trying to get my jumble of thoughts to form a coherent pattern. What did it all mean, and how did it all relate to Jamie?

  10 Crompton Place, London

  Moses Abraham, 16 Dean Street, London

  Billy Pearce, 43 Scarborough Ave, London

  Sean Davidson, Flat 28, Derby Towers, Enfield X

  Trevor Carter, 2 Dalton Terrace, Surrey

  Dave Groom, 91 Ridge Street, Watford X

  Moses had disappeared thirty years ago. Why was Jamie interested in something that happened so long ago? If I could believe what Pierced Girl from the squat had said, Billy killed himself a year ago. Sean Davidson was suffering from mental health problems. Trevor Carter was supposedly in America, or had he disappeared, too, like Moses? And Dave Groom had been killed in a hit-and-run accident the day after Jamie died. Did the X’s mean people Jamie had actually spoken to? I had confirmation from Sean’s neighbour that Jamie was there shortly before he began barricading himself in his flat. But what about Dave? Anita apparently hadn’t recognised the photo, but Jamie could’ve met him when Anita wasn’t around. Or did the X’s mean something completely different? The person I spoke to at 10 Crompton Place said Jamie hadn’t been there, but was he lying for some reason?

  How did it all connect together? The only central strand was Jamie. And the common theme was people dying or disappearing.

  A sliver of cold, hard fear curled up my spine. My mind wandered to Jamie’s laptop, the things moved in the house, the cigarette smells, the missing phone bills and Jamie’s phone, the empty satnav history, the engagement ring Jamie had bought, Jamie’s nightmares about the Big House, and Pierced Girl’s words: He called it the Big House.

  People dying.

  One boy missing for thirty years. Two suicides. One accident.

  A fatal hit-and-run and a hanging within two days of each other. Surely, it was too much of a coincidence.

  We’ll have all the time in the world later.

  You’ll love what happens after dinner.

  And that was the first time I thought that Jamie hadn’t taken his own life after all. Whatever Jamie had been doing before he died had got him killed. No, not killed.

  Murdered.

  I rolled the word around in my head. A stabbing sensation shot through me. If Jamie hadn’t taken his own life, it was the only explanation. But a murder made to look like suicide? Who would do that? It sounded ridiculous. Insane. But it was the only thing that made sense to me.

  So, who?

  The same kind of person who would make a child disappear?

  Someone with a very importa
nt secret to hide. Maybe someone who knew what had happened to Moses and didn’t want Jamie to find out.

  A tingle of fear squeezed at my scalp as the thought sunk in.

  Had Jamie discovered something about Moses’s disappearance, after all these years?

  I grabbed my laptop, brought it into the kitchen, and fired it up. Then I did a land registry search of 10 Crompton Place. The owners were listed as Mark and Elaine Bowyer, and they’d bought the house four years ago. Why hadn’t Jamie written a name next to that address on his list as there was on all the others? Why was it underlined? Was 10 Crompton Place the Big House?

  I Googled their names and found hits for a website offering genealogy services, mention of a Mark Bowyer in a military history book, and a Facebook page for an Elaine Bowyer. The website didn’t seem to relate to anyone called Bowyer, so I clicked on the Facebook link, but the woman was a teenager, probably no more than fourteen or fifteen. She couldn’t be the owner of the house. So that left the military history book. Was Jamie trying to get in touch with some old friends from his army days for some reason? Pierced Girl said Billy hadn’t been in the military, but she could easily have been wrong. Or lying. But how did Moses figure into everything? I clicked on the book’s link, but it referred to a book on the Rhodesian war, between 1964 and 1979, when Jamie was just a kid. I shook my head. Surely, that couldn’t have anything to do with Jamie’s death.

  Going back to the land registry search, I checked the previous owner of 10 Crompton Place, a man named Howard Sebastian. I Googled that name and found out that the Sebastian family was one of Britain’s eminent aristocratic families, whose hereditary titles dated back to the fifteenth century and included dukedoms and earldoms. Howard Sebastian was a descendant of Nicholas Sebastian, the Seventh Earl of Jersey. Another website described how Sir Howard Sebastian had been a high court judge who’d sat at the Old Bailey until he retired in 1999. He’d died just before the house had been sold to the Bowyers.

  I rubbed at the mass of knotted tension in my shoulders, wondering if this Sebastian person had any significance, and poured some more wine. It grew dark outside my window. I turned on the lights, put my elbows in on the table, and rested my head in my hands.