Gaslighting: A British Crime Thriller (Doc Powers & D.I. Carver Investigate Book 3) Read online

  With the tip of the screwdriver he levered the first staple from the cat’s paws while breathing through his mouth to avoid choking from the smell. Flossy must have been dead for days, and as he prised another fastening loose, a sense of unease crept over him. Doc tried to ignore it, but could not shrug off the feeling as another part of his brain flickered into life. It gave him a mental shake as he re-assessed the situation.

  This was done at night. A lightweight staple gun had been used. On Flossy’s rotting corpse.

  Not a hammer and nails, used to torture an agonised cat before beating it to death.

  Doc had hoped this difference was enough to dismiss the event, but now he knew better. The dark compartment in his mind, one that he’d tried to keep sealed since retiring from his role as a criminal profiler, ripped itself wide open, already drumming the words into his consciousness:

  Silent. Stealthy. That’s the difference.

  Not a prank, then. More like a message.

  Doc sighed as he resigned himself to his dark side’s discomfiting conclusion.

  It’s a warning.

  A warning of worse to come.

  ***

  ‘Oh, for chrissakes, Mother! Not again.’

  Despite her diminished olfactory senses, Suzie Leech could smell the tang of stale urine as she lifted the duvet to check, and even her mother’s ubiquitous pot pourri could not mask the odour.

  ‘I – I’m sorry, sweetie. I don’t remember… I was so tired again.’ Rosemary Connor cringed with embarrassment as her daughter castigated her. ‘Let me get up and I’ll change the bedding.’ She slid to the edge of the mattress and eased herself upright, wobbled for a few seconds, then placed a steadying hand on the bedside table, her face a mask of confusion.

  ‘Don’t be bloody stupid, Mum. You can hardly get down the stairs without help, and look what happened the last time you used the washing machine. Anyway, you’d only forget–’

  ‘Where are my slippers? My feet are cold.’

  With the duvet in one hand and the stripped sheet in the other, Suzie wrinkled her nose at her mother, and shook her head. Life here was supposed to have been an improvement, a chance to recover, to gain support from her mother, and it had been perfect at first. Now, well, it was just a constant mind-numbing battle to keep herself sane.

  ‘You must’ve left them downstairs. And it’s August. How can you be cold?’ Suzie couldn’t help the strident tone sharpening her voice – she had exhausted her reserves of emotional goodwill on her own recovery, and the tank was now running on empty. A gin, vodka and opiate hangover didn’t help either. ‘Get in the shower, and make sure you keep hold of the rail. Pull the alarm cord if you need me. I’ll be downstairs, busy cleaning up your mess…’

  ‘All I had was a small glass of milk at bedtime. Look.’ Suzie could see nothing where her mother pointed other than the bedside lamp and alarm clock. Baffled eyes appealed to her, as her mother realised. ‘I was sure Billy brought me a glass… Maybe that was the other night. I promise I had nothing else to drink since my dinner. Though I don’t remember eating that either.’

  ‘That’s a dozen times in as many weeks. Well, you’ve had your warning, and I won’t listen to your pathetic moaning any more. I don’t care if it’s uncomfortable, I’m putting a rubber undersheet on your mattress after I’ve disinfected it. Again. Or maybe I should just burn the bloody thing. It’s starting to stink. We’ll be buying you nappies next. What the hell has happened to you?’

  The look of sheer misery on her mother’s face was almost enough to melt the ice facade Suzie perpetually hid behind, but not quite. Watching the frail old woman turn and limp to the en suite bathroom prompted a rare moment of piercing introspection.

  Maybe she’s sick. Alzheimer's or something… I’m such a complete bitch!

  She opened her mouth to utter something. An apology perhaps, for the woman who had borne her, breastfed her, brought her up, and more recently helped her through the most traumatic period of her life. Before any utterance could break through her self-imposed emotional barricade, the bathroom door clicked closed behind her weeping mother. As the sobs reached her ears, Suzie took a pace towards the source of the sound, thinking she might be able to say something to soften the stinging blows she had just delivered to her mother’s pride.

  Oh, sod it! It’s just not worth the hassle.

  It was already after nine o’clock, and her son’s tutor was due at ten.

  Suzie yelled up the stairs from the landing, her neck arched, her head throbbing as she projected her anger at his attic room door. ‘Billy! Get up you lazy blighter!’

  ‘I’m down here. Cooking breakfast. Want some?’

  How the hell did he do that? Always sneaking around. She never knew where he was, or what he was doing. It had been happening more and more over the last couple of years. He seemed to materialise in different places, like some sort of magician.

  She shrugged and plodded down the stairs, her own heavy footfall telegraphing her movements as the smell of bacon wafted up to meet her. It was not at all appetizing, it just stirred the queasy sludge in her belly, and made her feel even worse.

  ‘I’ll just have coffee for now, love. I’ll make us all a nice lunch later.’

  ‘You want me to chuck some vodka in it for you?’ Suzie could hear Billy titter as she arrived in the room, even though his back was turned to her as he tended his sputtering rashers. He spun round, and took in the situation immediately. ‘Oh God, please tell me she’s not pissed the bed again?’ Billy hoisted the frying pan and dumped several rashers of bacon on to two thick slices of toast, then ladled ketchup on them before making a doorstep sandwich. He took a hefty bite and watched his mother loading the washing machine as he chewed with his mouth open. ‘I’m not surprised. She was down here last night, guzzling milk again. We’re almost out thanks to her. I keep telling you – she needs to go into that care home. I found her stinking old slippers under the grill this morning. I think she was warming them up but must’ve forgotten. We’re lucky she didn’t burn the place down. Fucking disgusting. Almost put me off my appetite.’

  Suzie slammed the round glass door on her mother’s stained laundry, twisted the machine’s dial with an exaggerated flick of the wrist to kick-start the unwelcome wash load, and turned on her son. ‘Enough of the language, young man. And this is her home. You know full well she’d rather die than leave this place!’

  ‘Maybe she should top herself, then. Useless old bat.’

  ‘Jeez, Billy! Don’t be so...’

  Whatever had happened to her innocent little boy?

  That train of thought shunted into, and then immediately whistled straight out of Suzie’s mind.

  She knew exactly what had happened to her son.

  But that was over seven years ago.

  A whole lifetime ago…

  Now he was turning into a handsome man before her eyes. His androgynous good looks would have been equally appealing on a girl, especially when he was just a cherubic child, though he had filled out with puberty, and already sported the same masculine air of impatient superiority his father had possessed.

  A twinge of jealousy passed through her as she contemplated his fine features – his long lashes, the two stunning turquoise eyes, sculpted lips and perfect brows. Much of his beauty had come from her genes, though his father had been handsome too. She often wondered what other paternal traits might have been passed down to her son.

  Don’t think about that!

  Suzie didn’t notice her fingers climbing to her face, a subconscious reaction whenever thoughts of Billy’s father – or the events surrounding his death – entered her head. Better to just think about her son in the here and now.

  With his long sideburns, his broad shoulders and imposing height, he could already pass for an eighteen or twenty-year old, and Suzie had little doubt he had been visiting pubs and even nightclubs despite being just fifteen. She hated to admit it, but he was devious by nature, and she was sure
he had managed to obtain a false ID, despite his denials – one that would guarantee him illegal access to the local adult haunts.

  He probably had a girlfriend too, but refused to share anything personal with his mother since the day he had been struck mute, an affliction that lasted more than three years after that dreadful night…

  When he eventually started talking again, there was no hint or possibility of closeness between them. He preferred to confide in his psychotherapists and largely ignored her for most of the time.

  The pain of recollection scorched Suzie’s psyche whenever her maternal instincts resurfaced like this, which is why she rarely thought back to how their lives had changed so irrevocably, and why they had drifted apart.

  Drifted?

  No that’s not right…

  We were driven apart.

  ‘Bloody hell, Mother. Stop doing that. It’s gross! Ew.’

  Startled, Suzie plucked her right hand away from her face, and saw the blood and tissue under her nails, the tiny slivers of skin she had just torn from her cheek.

  ‘Oh, my God!’

  She rushed to the downstairs bathroom, slammed the door behind her, leaned against it with her eyelids squeezed shut, mentally preparing herself to look in the mirror.

  Billy had obviously followed her down the hall, though she had not heard him, and he was now banging his fists on the door so hard she could feel the blows as if they were being hammered into her spine. His angry bellow was harsh and raw as it lanced into her skull.

  ‘Why do you keep wasting Dad’s money on useless plastic surgery and expensive bloody tissue grafts if you’re just going to keep ripping it all off your ugly fucking face? Dad always said you were a stupid cow! You’re hideous… You always will be… Get used to it!’

  The banging ceased the moment his outburst ended.

  Silence.

  He had magicked himself away again.

  She eventually managed to open and focus her one good eye, and, as always, the sight in the mirror devastated her.

  Suzie fell to her knees and puked in the toilet pan, and like her mother, only minutes before, wept for the woman she used to be.

  ***

  The clean sheet and duvet now covered the source of her mother’s indignity – the moisture-proof membrane Suzie had bought after the first bed-wetting episode – and now the old lady was ignoring her daughter, staring out of the window at the Berkshire countryside while sitting in her favourite armchair, bundled in damp white towels.

  The atmosphere was thick with disapproval, and had weighed heavily on Suzie when she had first entered, carrying the offending item. The half bottle of codeine linctus she had imbibed, immediately after her confrontation with the hideous image in the bathroom mirror, had soon bubble wrapped her in its familiar warm embrace. Although she no longer experienced the highs the drug used to deliver, she did achieve a sense of remoteness, drifting above day to day worries, oblivious to painful recollections of her family’s warped history.

  She patted the pillows, smoothed the duvet, and then offered an olive branch to her mother, her voice mellow and forgiving. ‘Your roots are showing, Mum. I’ll dye your hair for you again if you want… No need to get dressed, I can do it now.’

  No response.

  At times like this, Suzie reflected on the difference she had seen in her mother since her father had died. In the few years since he had taken his life, the formerly energetic matriarch had physically and mentally shrunk into the diminished husk now silently occupying this room.

  It was not supposed to have turned out like this.

  Suzie and her son had arrived here from their abandoned home in London in desperate need of the type of unconditional love only close family can provide, and in those first weeks, months and years, the support from her mum and dad had been nothing short of incredible.

  Suzie had been hospitalized, and only managed to join Billy several weeks after that frightful night had left her a deformed and devastated widow. She could still hear her little boy’s screams as she was being lifted into the ambulance, a row that her mother said had continued for three days, almost non-stop, before he finally exhausted himself and fell into a twenty-four-hour sleep. When he woke, he did not speak to his Nana or Gramps, and was still mute by the time Suzie arrived, her lacerated face in bandages, and her mind equally shredded.

  That was the first time she’d witnessed the coldness in her child’s eyes. Reserved exclusively for her, it seemed. She sighed, her mind returning to the bedroom and her mother’s frosty demeanour.

  Be a better daughter. A better person. Try again.

  ‘Would you like some breakfast? I’ll bring some boiled eggs and some of that soft white bread you like, cut into soldiers, just like you used to do for me… Mum?’

  Still nothing.

  With the bubble wrap in danger of popping, Suzie decided to beat a retreat just as the doorbell chimed its jaunty tune.

  Billy’s tutor.

  ‘I’ll get that, then sort some food out for you.’

  The short journey down the stairs allowed a few more moments of reflection, with thoughts about her little boy now at the forefront of her blunted mind.

  The local school had been a disaster for him. Tormented and bullied for his perceived weakness, his inability or unwillingness to speak, his unsmiling presence, his lethargy, and his reluctance to get involved with any group activity. The teaching staff had initially suggested a special needs establishment might be more appropriate, but her mother had insisted the lad would be better off staying where he was, and for a while it seemed she was right.

  Then came the events that finally led to him being expelled.

  Suzie let the air from her lungs rattle her lips as she exhaled, as if the act might somehow cure her frustration and impotence. She reached for the door latch, just as her son beat her to it.

  ‘I’ll get it, Mummy dearest. Let’s not scare poor Smiffy away, eh? Even with that plaster on your cheek you look hideous. And you might want to pull a brush through that haystack of hair before you let members of the unsuspecting public see what’s become of you.’

  Her hands automatically flew to her scalp, and she pressed her fingertips through the tangle she found there. The sight of her face during her brief foray into the guest bathroom had tossed any thoughts of her overall appearance from her mind, and she hated to admit it, but her son was probably speaking the truth.

  Cruel, callous truth, designed to cut deep into her soul.

  But the truth, just the same.

  And there was more. Delivered with a contemptuous twist of the knife.

  ‘You could do with a shower too. You were wearing those clothes last night before you collapsed. Drunk, as usual. You’re disgusting… I had to help you to bed. Yet again.’

  Had he? Probably.

  She couldn’t remember. She clawed at her memory for some hint of what had happened.

  Blank.

  Since shortly after dinner.

  How much vodka and gin had she drunk?

  Tears pricked at her eyes as she looked up at Billy’s sneering face, so reminiscent of his father, desperate for something to say, to appease him. Would she ever be able to bridge the yawning chasm now separating them?

  Irrationally, she wanted to hug him, to tell him it would all be fine, but she knew it wouldn’t – and she knew only too well how he would respond to the tiniest hint of affection on her part.

  The doorbell chimed again.

  ‘Go on. Run along and sort yourself out. He’s getting impatient. And so am I.’

  Suzie just turned and plodded up the stairs to her room, already craving the effects of the other half bottle of her pharmaceutical crutch.

  ***

  ‘We’re supposed to be getting things ready to celebrate my well-deserved and much belated promotion, and here you are, asking your mate, a newly minted Detective Chief Inspector, to investigate the death of your neighbour’s cat!’ Jack Carver poked a playful finger at Doc�
�s belly as he added, chuckling to himself, ‘Marriage is certainly agreeing with you. Not much yoga going on from the look of it.’

  Doc tutted as he bent to open the plastic sack at his feet and show Jack the offending corpse. ‘I’m not asking you to investigate. I just want to know what you think, that’s all.’

  ‘Whoa, Doc! Wrap it up. It bleedin stinks, mate. I’m no expert on feline homicide but it chucks up like it’s been dead for months. Why don’t you dump it in the bin, and give me a hand with the gazebo thingy? I’ve got loads of food and booze too. It’s in the car. Come on.’

  ‘This is serious, Jack.’

  Doc’s frown and funereal tone stopped Jack in his tracks, startled by this seeming overreaction.

  ‘You said it was a prank. Why the worried face?’

  ‘I said, at first I thought it was a prank.’

  ‘Yeah, well. There have been a few. It’s only to be expected after so many TV appearances.’

  ‘I’ve got a very bad feeling about this one. You know the reason.’

  ‘Really?’ Doc was looking at him expectantly, as if Jack should have immediately made the connection he so clearly had. The moment Jack had arrived, a few minutes before ten, Doc had started on about the neighbours’ bloody pet. Jack gave his head a theatrical scratch as he tried to remember some other case involving dead cats, but nothing occurred to him. ‘I give in. What am I supposed to be remembering? And can we please get the stuff out the car? We’ve got forty mouths to feed and they’ll start arriving in a couple of hours. If I don’t get cracking they’ll be going hungry.’ The last time Doc had offered Jack the use of his magnificent country home for entertaining his police colleagues, things had been completely chaotic. Judy had almost had a nervous breakdown and Doc had been about as useless as a chocolate teapot. Which was why Jack was itching to get his celebratory brunch barbie set up right away. ‘It won’t look good if the new DCI can’t even organise a piss up in your back garden, will it?’

  Jack hoped his infectious, jocular tone might shift Doc’s feet towards the car, but his friend remained rigid. Worse still, his face was a stone mask, all expression gone, and his eyes seemed to be peering inwards.