Untouchable: A chillingly dark psychological thriller Read online

  I reached my hand in, my fingertips touching metal, pulling it towards me. It fell out of the opening onto the grass, and I recognised it instantly.

  It was a rectangular metal box with a picture of a dog on it that had once been in our kitchen cupboard.

  I looked around me, making sure once again no one was watching. Then I opened the lid.

  Chapter 31

  I vomited onto the grass, coughing, spluttering for air, choking.

  I took a tissue from my bag and wiped my mouth, but that wasn’t the end of it. Again I vomited. And again. Until there was nothing left except watery fluid.

  With shaky hands, I closed the lid of the box, my mind registering the horror I’d seen while at the same time trying to reject it.

  I shoved the box in my bag and ran through the woods. Running, running, my lungs burning, my calves aching, until I was out the other side and down the hill and in the car.

  My tyres squealed on the road as I drove at full speed, all the while with my eyes checking my rear-view mirror. I pulled into the car park of a huge DIY superstore, where lots of other cars were around. People unloading shopping trolleys. Kids cutting through the car park on their way home from school, laughing and joking with each other.

  I narrowly avoided an elderly man emerging between the cars, carrying a shopping bag. His shocked face passed by in a blur as I drove into a space. I snatched the Nokia from my bag and exited the car, walking with shaky legs to a corner of the car park where I could still see people but where no one would overhear me. I couldn’t take the risk of talking in the Jeep in case it was bugged. With a shuddering finger I hit the redial button.

  It rang and rang with no answer then clicked off.

  I tried again. Come on, come on. Pick up!

  Mitchell answered this time. ‘Sorry, I was just talking to my niece on my other phone.’

  ‘I found it. You were right. It was hidden there.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘There are photos. Lots of photos. Disgusting, vile things. Rape of boys. Oral sex. In some of them, the poor boys are tied up or restrained. And they’re being…it’s so awful, they’re being tortured. I recognise Jamie. And I think it’s Sean in some of them, too. And there’s a videotape. It’s got The Friday Club written on it.’

  ‘Have you watched it?’

  ‘No. I haven’t been home yet. I want you to see it. I don’t want to watch it alone.’

  ‘You can’t do it at your house. If the place is bugged, it will tip them off. Can you come to London?’

  ‘Yes. Give me your address.’

  He told me and I repeated it back. Then said, ‘I’ll be there in about an hour. Pour yourself a stiff drink. You’re going to need it.’

  I hung up and drove towards London. It wasn’t until I was almost there that my breath started to reach normal levels.

  I parked behind a Mitsubishi crew-cab pickup on the drive of a 1920s detached house with a bay window and porch.

  Mitchell opened the front door, waiting for me to approach. He glanced up and down the street before ushering me inside.

  He gestured for me to take a seat in the large kitchen, which had been modernised in a way that made it look cold and clinical, with lots of gleaming glass and polished granite surfaces. The coffee maker, kettle, oven, and hob were all shiny stainless steel, and all the utensils were arranged with complete precision. There were no photos or pictures or personal items around, as if a robot lived there. I could smell bleach and furniture polish.

  ‘What do you want to drink?’ he asked.

  ‘Something that will make it all go away.’

  ‘It’s too late for that.’

  ‘Have you got any vodka?’

  He pulled out a bottle from a cupboard in the corner. It looked full, which was good. I’d need a whole bottle and more to blot out what I’d seen.

  ‘Please make it a large one.’

  ‘Slice of lemon?’ He grabbed a tall glass and poured a hefty measure of Stolichnaya into it.

  ‘Please. Do you have any Diet Coke?’

  ‘Yes.’ He topped up his own glass from a bottle of brandy already out on the granite worktop, added Coke and a couple of slices of lemon to both, and brought them to the table.

  I slid the metal box towards him, brought the vodka to my lips, and didn’t stop swallowing until I’d drunk half of it. My stomach burned in protest.

  He took the photos out of the box and studied a few, his jaw flexing, before placing the pile to one side. ‘I don’t need to look at anymore.’ His face had lost his mask of neutrality. His cheeks flushed, his eyes narrowing with pure hatred. He downed his drink, refilled our glasses, and sat down again. ‘Did you look at all of them?’

  ‘Yes,’ I croaked, my gaze avoiding the pile. The vodka churned in my stomach. ‘I recognised Eamonn Colby, the children’s minister. And there was Howard Sebastian. I Googled him before, when I was looking at previous owners of 10 Crompton Place. And I saw Douglas Talbot, too, the defence secretary. I don’t recognise the others, but they must be the same people Jamie wrote about. And there’s another one…the one Jamie said was in the dungeon with him—he’s wearing a cloak and hood and mask like Jamie described. Who do you think he is?’

  ‘A sick bastard, that’s who. Someone who doesn’t deserve to breathe the same air as us.’ His nostrils flared as he reached for his glass. Swallowed a hefty gulp. Stared at the videotape. ‘I’ve got an old VHS player in the loft somewhere. I’ll go and get it. Help yourself to more drink.’

  His footsteps disappeared up the stairs, and I heard him banging around. I’d polished off another vodka by the time he came back.

  ‘Come into the lounge,’ he called from the hallway. ‘I’ll set it up.’

  I followed his voice towards a spacious room with patio doors that overlooked the garden. It was immaculately tidy and minimalist in there, too, with cream walls and a deep red feature wall behind the large sofa. Again, there were no photos or knick-knacks around. It screamed functional but not homely or personal.

  I hesitated in the doorway, watching him connect the dusty video player to the large flat-screen TV via a SCART lead, then close the curtains and turn on the light.

  I perched on the edge of the three-seater sofa, my knees pressed together, clutching my drink.

  He picked up a remote control, turned the TV on, then sat next to me. He took my hand in his. Squeezed it. His eyes searched mine, as if asking permission to turn it on.

  I nodded.

  It was grainy blackness at first. Then came a room that looked like an old cellar or dungeon, and I knew instantly this was the place Jamie had described at 10 Crompton Place in his diary. A close-up shot showed a biracial boy secured to a bed by the handcuffs on his wrists. No doubt he was Moses. His eyes fluttered open and closed, and he moaned every now and then. He looked drugged, mumbling in slurry words, ‘No, please don’t hurt me! No, please! I want to go home. I want my mummy!’ The camera panned out, and there were other men in the frame: Howard Sebastian, the judge; Douglas Talbot, the defence secretary; Eamonn Colby, the children’s minister; a grey-haired old man, probably Ted Byron, the children’s home inspector; a short man with glasses who must’ve been Felix Barron, the banker; a tall gaunt one, who was probably Colin Reed, the chief constable; and the one in the hooded robe.

  I witnessed the brutal, repeated abuse, rape, and horrific torture of the poor boy over hours of footage. Even if I turned my head away and squeezed my eyes shut, I could still hear him screaming as the drugs wore off and the pain penetrated through his hazy mind. Begging for mercy. In the end, begging for his life. I forced myself to watch the sickening, sadistic evilness because I had to know everything that was on it so I could finish what Jamie had started. Through my tears, and the splintering of my heart, I witnessed his battered, bruised, cigarette-burned, mutilated body being strangled to death.

  Strangled by the hooded man.

  Chapter 32

  It couldn’t be real. No
thing that awful could be real. Except it was, and I’d seen it with my own eyes. It visualised everything Jamie had written about in his final days.

  I was frozen in shock. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t speak. Could barely breathe. And then a sound escaped from deep inside. A howling scream.

  I wrapped my arms around my shaking body, bent over double, rocking myself back and forth, wanting the images to go away. Knowing they never would.

  My hot tears fell onto the carpet. And then Mitchell squeezed me towards him, his strong arms holding me tight, holding me upright, his quiet strength keeping me from disintegrating.

  I’d never hated anyone before in my life, but I hated those people with an all-consuming viciousness. Hate. Hate. Hate. Even animals didn’t act in such a ruthless, brutal manner, and we were supposed to be the civilised ones. There were no words to describe what they were.

  They had to pay. For Jamie. For his friends. For Moses and the other boy Jamie described whose lives were so despicably and cruelly snuffed out. For the boys who’d disappeared from their beds at night, and all the others who might be out there.

  ‘It brings it all back,’ Mitchell said, his hot breath fanning against my hair. ‘Alex. He was strangled, raped repeatedly before and after he was murdered. He was just nothing to them.’

  I held him tighter, letting him know I understood. His muscles were rigid.

  I took an almighty sniff, trying to clear my blocked nose. ‘Does it ever get any easier?’

  ‘The dead are never far away. It’s like knives are repeatedly being stabbed into every part of your flesh. Especially when you know those bastards are still out there, getting away with it. People who say grief gets easier are liars. Grief is like a cancer.’ He pulled back, and I rested my head on his shoulder, my eyes swollen with tears, breathing in erratic sobs.

  I couldn’t look at the TV, even though the tape had finished. I looked at the carpet instead, not really seeing anything. ‘What are we going to do about this? Who can we trust with it? With the work you do catching online paedophiles, who do you hand your evidence to in the police?’

  ‘I have a contact in the Paedophile Unit at Scotland Yard. He’s a good guy, overworked, frustrated with the lack of convictions he and his team get when it goes to court, but he does everything he can to convict these sickos. But we can’t go to the police with this, because the police are involved. It could’ve been Special Branch or the security services who killed Jamie so he wouldn’t show this to the world. My contact’s only a sergeant; he doesn’t have enough power to stop this being squashed from up above when they know who’s involved.’

  ‘So who else? Who can we trust with something this big?’

  Mitchell stood up and scrubbed his hands over his face, but not before I saw his eyes glistening with his own tears and the anger turning to hatred on his face. ‘I need another drink.’

  I followed him into the kitchen on weak and rubbery legs. I sat at the table, rested my feet on the edge of the chair, and curled my knees against my chest, hugging them tight.

  We drank long into the night. Drank to try and forget. To block out the images we’d seen. Because if we didn’t, there was no way we could get any sleep. Sometime in the early hours, my eyes drooped, but every time I allowed them to close, I could see Moses. Now I knew why Jamie had Moses’s mum’s address written on that list. He was probably going to finally tell her what had happened to her son. When I met her, I’d thought the worse thing was the not knowing, but I didn’t believe that anymore. The agony of her knowing the truth was far, far worse. And I couldn’t ever bring myself to tell her.

  I poured myself a vodka from the now half-empty bottle on the table. ‘Do you see Alex? When you fall asleep?’ I slurred.

  ‘I see him every day. In everything. I see his eyes whether I’m awake or asleep.’ He stared into his drink and wrapped his fist around his glass, as if squeezing the life out of it.

  ‘I don’t know if I can get through this.’

  ‘You’re a lot stronger than you think.’

  ‘But where does strong get you? Jamie was strong, and he’s gone.’

  He didn’t answer, because after all, what was there to say?

  Eventually, I must’ve succumbed to sleep, because the next thing I knew it was morning and I was on Mitchell’s sofa with a thick duvet over me and a pillow underneath my head. Mitchell was asleep in the armchair across the room.

  My head pounded. My mouth was an arid desert. My eyes were so puffy from crying, I could hardly open them.

  I sat up, the room tilting around me. I stumbled into the kitchen for some water and downed two glasses in quick succession before splashing my face with it. I spied my bag on the table and retrieved a packet of Paracetamol. I took two. I needed to be clear-headed and think.

  Mitchell had a fancy, complicated-looking coffee maker on the worktop, but by the time I figured out how to use it, it would be dinner time, so I rooted around in the cupboards, looking for instant.

  I poured three heaped spoonfuls in, along with three sugars, and drank it boiling hot and black.

  ‘Morning.’ Mitchell strolled into the kitchen barefoot, wearing jeans and a black T-shirt. His eyes were just as swollen as mine, and the day-old stubble on his cheeks and head was peppered with grey.

  ‘Morning.’

  ‘The coffee maker does nicer coffee.’ He tilted his head towards it.

  ‘I’m not very technical. It’s got too many buttons on it. I probably would’ve ended up breaking it. Jamie was the techie one.’ I smiled sadly.

  Mitchell nodded in acknowledgement.

  ‘I’ve had an idea,’ I said.

  ‘What is it?’ He got some kind of little pot out of the cupboard, placed it in the machine, and added water before pressing a few buttons.

  ‘We’ve found irrefutable evidence against them now, so there is a way to expose this without revealing who we are, like you said. We can send it to the media—the newspapers and TV.’

  Mitchell handed me a mug of frothy cappuccino. ‘They won’t publish it.’

  ‘What? Why not? Of course they will!’

  He repeated the coffee-making process with another mug then took a sip of it before answering. ‘Who do you think controls the mainstream media?’

  I shrugged. ‘I don’t know…the owners of the papers and TV stations.’

  ‘No.’ He sat down at the kitchen table, leant back, and scrubbed his hands over his face. ‘Do you think they report the truth?’ He laughed, but it was devoid of humour. ‘Mainstream media is a way to control the masses. They brainwash us with their own agendas to get public opinion swayed in a certain way. They’re in the business of selling lies. Lies and cover-ups. And if you sell the lie, and keep selling it, people start to believe it, and then it becomes the truth, and the public don’t question it because it’s there, in black and white and colour in the papers, on the news! Come on. You’re an intelligent woman. What do you think is going on?’ He snorted.

  I sat back, stunned at the vehemence in his voice but also the content of his words. I’d never thought about it before. Never had a need to. ‘So, you’re saying all the mainstream media is controlled by who? The politicians?’

  ‘Not just politicians. Most of the time, they’re the puppets behind the real powerhouses. There are hidden hands—puppetmasters—controlling everything.’

  ‘Who, then?’

  ‘The Big Boys. The money men. The banksters, hedge funds, Federal Reserve, Bank of England—those cartels who control the financial systems—along with the corporations, the industries, the lobby groups. The elite. People with more power and more money than you can even imagine. People whose only interest is greed and profit and control. The media’s job is to operate on behalf of corporate and political agendas, which is exactly the same way politics works, so of course we never get to hear the real truth,’ he spat. ‘Here’s a prime example of how it works. The public is sick of war, right? Sick to fucking death of it. The parents whose
kids go off to fight and never come back. The innocent civilians. Women, kids, men who have nothing to do with it at all. We’re causing problems all over the world, butting our noses into things that don’t concern us, starting wars that aren’t even legally sanctioned. But the death toll rises. And rises. Why?’

  I shook my head, trying to keep up. ‘Because of terrorism?’

  ‘The war on terror! That’s the biggest lie of all. The real war is the war on truth!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Most of these so-called terrorist organisations or cells are funded by our own governments or security services in the first place. They instigate a regime change on bullshit pretexts founded on a pack of lies, because it suits their political agenda and foreign policy, without realising they’re creating a monster by playing with jihadist groups. The West is sending their own countries’ kids off to die, fighting the very same people their governments are secretly arming, and they’re not only condoning it but actually writing their names on the fucking bullet! Because nobody loves a war like the Big Boys. They’re hypocrites and parasites who are earning trillions from it. We’re the biggest terrorists on the planet! And don’t even get me started on 9/11.’

  ‘So you’re a conspiracy theorist?’

  ‘It’s very telling that anyone who dares to question the mainstream is automatically labelled a conspiracy theorist, don’t you think? I’m not talking conspiracy theory. It’s conspiracy fact. There is overwhelming evidence that needs investigation, but enquiries are mismanaged and quashed. They’re just whitewashed.’ He leant his elbows on his knees, shaking his head with disgust. ‘I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Out there in the unforgiving desert, in the Balkans, on the streets of Northern Ireland. The bloodbaths. The unnecessary killing. Murder under the guise of war because of secret corporate agendas.’ He breathed deeply. Closed his eyes. ‘I’ve seen it all. You have no bloody idea. And this is just one example—the tip of the iceberg. There’s so much brainwashing going on, people just don’t realise.’ He opened them again and stared at me, his deep blue eyes with so much pain and fire behind them. His usually controlled demeanour and calm mask were beginning to fall apart. ‘And I was one of the brainwashed, too. But it’s not until something drastic happens, like Alex, that makes you start to question what you think you know. What you’ve been bombarded with from an early age. And when you wake up and have that moment of clarity, you finally see through all the smoke and mirrors and become enlightened to what’s really going on, you wonder how you could’ve ever fallen for it in the first place. It’s the biggest con of all. Everything is just so fucked up.’