As thoughts of her overwhelmed him, he undid his fly and slipped his hand inside his trousers. He had been denying himself for so long, but now it felt so natural, so right. As he closed his eyes and let his mind drift, he saw them back there, two little conspirators hiding in the attic room. Whenever their mother came home, they always scurried up there to avoid her sharp tongue and rough hand. It was their little refuge – she was a heavy smoker and could never be arsed to climb up after them – and for them it was like a magical kingdom. It was only full of junk, but to them it was their world. They would open up the old doll’s house and play with the two cracked figures inside, dreaming up all kinds of scenarios in which they lived happily, in splendour and comfort. At these times the dirt and damp of the attic didn’t register – they were safe in the cocoon of their fantasy.
Sometimes the fantasy worked, at other times reality intruded – usually because of noises downstairs. They lived at the top of a rickety old terraced house and the loose, creaking steps in the communal parts always gave them warning of their mother’s approach. If she was marching up, it meant she was in a mood or having an episode. If the steps were slow and irregular, it meant she was stoned. And if there was more than one pair of feet, it meant she had ‘company’.
Ben hated drugs, never touched them, but his mother couldn’t get enough of them. She funded her habit by fraud, stealing and occasionally bringing foreign sailors home from the dockside bars. They didn’t pay much, but they came and went pretty quickly. When she was ‘entertaining’, Ben and Summer would lie dead still, peering through the floorboards into the flat’s only bedroom. They didn’t understand what they saw at first – believing the men were hurting their mother – but at the end of it everyone seemed happy. And after a while, they began to realize that these grunting, half-naked men were taking pleasure in these acts and that on occasion their mother seemed to be too.
It was only when they were older – Summer was fourteen and Ben eleven – that they truly understood. He had been surprised when Summer slipped her hand into his trousers, but he didn’t mind.
Later, they went further, exploring each other’s bodies, when their mother was entertaining those men below. Their little private joke. Did their mother suspect anything? If she did, she never said anything. As long as Summer was on hand to run down to the park for her next baggie, that was all that mattered.
The thought of this made him angry. He tried to concentrate on his fantasy, but he could feel his desire ebbing away now. His fury at his mother for dragging Summer away from him into the vile world of drugs still burned strong. He had seen that awful woman not three months ago. He was shocked to see her and his first reaction had been to beat the living hell out of her. He was older, bigger now – she wouldn’t have stood a chance. But she wasn’t worth it and he had bigger fish to fry, so he’d said a few curt words to her and sent her on her way.
There was no point continuing, he was too angry to focus on pleasure now. Zipping up his trousers, he rose from the bed and headed down to the ground floor. His mind was turning and he walked straight into the old utility area. It looked like a bloody school chemistry lab now and stank as bad too. But he always liked it here. He always felt a sense of achievement in its narrow confines. It had taken him a long time to learn how to distil trichloroethylene, but when he had he was childishly pleased with himself. He remembered the first sniff of it – the pleasant light-headed feeling it gave him. He laughed too as he remembered his experiments with dosage. There were numerous rats in the house and he didn’t discourage their presence as they were useful for his experiments. He’d killed a few before he got the saturation levels in the wool right of course, but practice makes perfect.
This brought him up short. Excited as he was about the future, there was still the present to deal with. Now that the real Summer had returned, she was surplus to requirements and he just wanted her out. So, summoning his resolve, he unlocked the basement door and descended into the darkness.
125
‘Do you think she’s on the level?’
Helen’s heart was pounding, her tone urgent.
‘To be honest I think it’s so odd, it has to be true.’
Emilia and Helen were huddled in the outside courtyard beloved of Southampton Central’s smokers. Mercifully they were alone today.
‘I don’t think Jane Fraser has the imagination to make something like that up. It sounds like the two children were very close. They always shared the same bed, never went to school, they lived in each other’s pockets. And I don’t blame them to be honest – their mother had no love for them. Clearly didn’t even know who their fathers were, so…’
‘So they were the world to each other.’
Emilia nodded then continued:
‘Apparently the son – Ben – was ungovernable after Summer’s death. Police, doctors, social services – nobody could handle him.’
‘Because he was mad with grief.’
‘Still is mad with grief,’ Emilia added, echoing Helen’s thoughts.
‘And you’re sure about this address?’
‘Well I haven’t been down there, but I know it.’
‘Good. Thank you, Emilia.’
Helen was halfway to the door, when Emilia called out:
‘Usual rules?’
‘You’ll get your exclusive,’ Helen said over her shoulder, as she hurried back into the station.
‘So the address is a boot-heeling and key-cutting concession in the WestQuay shopping centre. It’s called WestKeys.’
Nobody groaned at the bad pun. The team were hanging on Helen’s words, processing this major development.
‘I’ll need volunteers for a surveillance unit to go down there.’
Helen was pleased to see a dozen hands shoot up.
‘But before we go, lets double-check our facts. Pippa Briers worked in the WestQuay shopping centre, so it would have been convenient for her to get her keys cut there. Ditto Isobel Lansley, who walked through the centre every day on her way to lectures.’
‘Roisin Murphy went to a free mums and babies group that was held in the crèche at the shopping centre,’ DC McAndrew chipped in.
‘And Ruby?’
‘Ruby used to hang out in the centre with her mates. Window shopping, getting up to no good.’
‘Then it fits. They took their keys there and walked into Ben Fraser’s life. They looked just like his sister, so he kept a key, stalked them, then abducted them.’
‘But to make them perfect – a replica of his sister – he would have to “customize them”,’ DC Sanderson interjected.
‘The tattoo,’ Helen responded, ‘and possibly more besides.’
‘Where does he get the stuff, though, the trichloroethylene?’ DC Grounds queried.
‘Let’s think about what Jim Grieves said,’ Helen countered. ‘Trichloroethylene is used in cleaning agents, solvents but also boot polish. You could perhaps extract it from boot polish -’
‘Without ever drawing attention to yourself. No trail of any kind.’
‘But why does he starve them? If he loves these girls?’
DC Lucas’s question hung in the air for a moment, before Helen replied:
‘Why don’t we go and ask him?’
126
‘Hello Ruby.’
Ruby had crawled into the corner and stared up at her captor with ill-concealed fear.
‘Don’t be afraid. I’m not going to hurt you.’
Ruby kept her eyes riveted to him. The more he insisted he wasn’t going to hurt her, the more convinced she was that he would.