The Darkness Within, page 1
The Darkness Within
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
A letter from Graeme
Acknowledgements
Copyright
Cover
Table of Contents
Start of Content
The Darkness Within
Graeme Hampton
For Tracey
Prologue
I’m not sure if it’s him at first. He looks older. His hair is greyer and his skin is looser.
But when I get close enough I know it’s him.
And then it kicks in.
The hatred. Even after all this time, it hurts to look at him. Seeing the man who destroyed my life walking down a suburban street without a care as though what happened to me never mattered.
My heart races. I should let it go, but I can’t. Something inside me stirs. I can feel the hatred clawing at my chest and burning my stomach, and I clench my fist in my jacket pocket.
He heads down a side street. I cross the road and follow him, keeping my distance; not wanting him to see me, but curious too as to what would happen if he did.
Then I hurry my step and quickly make a plan in my head. I’ll walk past him, perhaps accidentally barge into him and mutter an apology as I pass. I’m not ready for a full-on confrontation, not yet.
But he turns round unexpectedly. For a brief second, our eyes meet. Is there a flicker of recognition there? If so, what does he feel? Guilt? Regret? Fear?
He opens his mouth to speak.
Then the red mist descends and everything goes blank.
Chapter One
It was the smell that hit him first. The stale, rancid stench of something sour yet sickly sweet greeted him before he’d even walked through the front door of the dingy flat.
The flat was on the second floor of a grim concrete block in the middle of Hackney’s notorious Bedgebrook Estate. Over the years, the estate had earned itself a reputation for drugs and violence, most of which was gang-related and near impossible to police. Uniformed officers used to patrol its maze-like streets in pairs. Then the cuts began to bite and they stopped patrolling them altogether. There had been plans to regenerate the estate after the 2012 Olympics, but either the money or the enthusiasm had run out long before the work had ever started.
He was standing in the pokey living room at the back of the flat. It overlooked an abandoned playpark complete with broken swings and broken glass. Beyond the playpark, the London Overground stretched between Dalston and Stratford in a near-straight line.
The room stank of despair as well as rotting flesh. The only furniture was an old brown sofa, a second-hand sideboard, and a table in the corner with a bulky television on top. And a battered leather armchair beside the window, in which was slumped the body of an elderly man, an ugly gash running across his throat like a serrated smile.
Detective Inspector Matt Denning had seen his share of murder victims over the years, but each one still hit him like a smack in the face. It was the pointlessness of it that bothered him: the futile waste of a life for reasons that were usually fairly prosaic.
The room was busy with white-suited Scene of Crime Officers, but no one had looked up when Denning entered. He was on the point of announcing his presence when he spotted DS Deepak Neeraj standing in a corner speaking to one of the SOCOs. Neeraj was in his mid-thirties, the same age as Denning, and dressed in his trademark leather jacket, his jet-black hair gelled into a trendy style. He jerked his chin at Denning by way of a greeting.
‘Morning, boss. Pretty grim, huh?’
Denning nodded his acknowledgement and walked over to get a closer look at the body. He’d already put on a pair of paper booties, and had slipped on some slim-fitting blue Nitrile gloves. He hated wearing the gloves as they always made his hands feel clammy.
The victim was in his late seventies and painfully thin, almost emaciated. Matted strands of grey hair were smeared across his scalp, almost as though his hair had been painted on as an afterthought. His left arm dangled in mid-air, the skin loose on the hand like a glove that was about to suddenly slew off. The deep gash across his throat was flecked with speckles of dried blood. More blood had stained the front of his grubby shirt, turning it crimson, and had formed a congealed puddle at his feet. A short strip of what looked like masking tape had been placed over his mouth.
Dozens of angry flies buzzed around the body, or bashed against the window in a fruitless attempt to escape.
‘Do we have a name?’ Denning asked, trying to ignore the incessant buzzing in his ear.
‘Not yet,’ Neeraj replied. ‘We’re trying to find ID, but if this is a robbery, then chances are his wallet and phone will have gone walkabout.’
Robbery was certainly a possible motive, but Denning never liked to make assumptions until he was in possession of all the facts, and they were a long way off that point right now. ‘What about time of death?’
‘Going by the state of rigor and the loss of blood, I’d say this wasn’t recent.’ The question was answered by the Crime Scene Manager, Sheila Gorton. Gorton was Canadian and in her fifties. She was courteous and professional, just the kind of person Denning liked working with. She lowered her mask as she approached. ‘Good morning, Inspector Denning,’ she said with a wry smile. ‘One day I hope we’ll meet in slightly more inviting surroundings.’
Denning wasn’t sure if Gorton was flirting with him whenever their paths crossed, or if this was simply her attempt at humour.
‘The smell alone says he’s been dead for a while,’ Neeraj added. ‘Not to mention those bloody flies.’
Gorton made a tutting noise, then said: ‘I would estimate he’s been dead for anything up to a fortnight, and certainly more than forty-eight hours. Cause of death is a cut to the throat, severing the carotid artery. He would have bled out in seconds. Of course, this is all strictly off the record. The pathologist is on his way – stuck in traffic, or something – so until he gets here and offers up his official verdict, look upon me as the warm-up act and not the main event.’ She threw Denning another smile. ‘We’re also still waiting for a Scene of Crime photographer, so I would appreciate it if you didn’t disturb the body any more than is necessary.’
Denning promised they’d be as careful as possible. He sympathised with Gorton. Recent cuts to the service had made her already difficult job even harder. And giving an exact time of death was always tricky, even for an experienced pathologist.
He studied the body closely. According to Dr Arpad Vass, a dead body passed through four distinct stages of decomposition: livor mortis, bloating, putrefaction, and finally skeletonization. This much Denning knew. The first stage of decomposition saw enzymes eat their way through the body’s cells from the inside out. During the second stage, bacteria caused gases to become trapped in the lower intestines, giving the body a bloated look. He guessed they were clearly into the third stage with this body, where the skin began to slip, allowing the trapped gases to escape. This was the reason for the putrid smell. Denning had done a short course in forensic pathology shortly after joining the Met. The course had covered the basics, but it had given him a useful insight into the crude mechanics of a post-mortem. He remembered one pathologist describing the smell of death as like a bucket of fish having been left out in the sun.
‘One of the neighbours complained about the smell,’ Gorton continued. ‘It took a couple of days for the council to find a
‘The door was locked from the inside?’ Denning asked.
‘It’s a simple Yale lock, so the door would have locked when our killer closed it behind him.’
‘No obvious sign of a struggle,’ Denning noted.
‘Perhaps he was pissed.’ It was Neeraj. He looked pointedly at an empty bottle of whisky lying on the floor beside the armchair, splattered with the victim’s blood. ‘Maybe he was already out for the count, and whoever did it managed to take him by surprise.’
‘Why tape his mouth shut?’
Neeraj pulled a face. ‘Maybe they tortured him first?’
‘Any chance we could open a window?’ Denning asked. The combination of the smell of the corpse, the noise of the flies and the general feeling of claustrophobia was making his head throb.
Gorton nodded. She turned to speak to one of her colleagues, while Denning tried to push open a window that had been crusted shut with years of paint. After a moment, he gave up and inwardly cursed.
He returned his attention to the victim. The bloodstained shirt was frayed and a couple of buttons were missing. His eyes were shut, as though he was asleep. If it wasn’t for the slashed throat and the tape across his mouth, he would have looked peaceful. Apart from the knife wound, there didn’t appear to be any further injuries, but he would wait for the post-mortem to confirm this. There was no sign of the knife, suggesting whoever did it had taken the knife with them.
‘Did the council give us a name?’
‘Yes, boss,’ Neeraj said. ‘That was a bit of a story. According to their records, the flat was leased to a bloke called Joseph Jupp, but they reckon this Jupp geezer was sub-letting to our man there. Apparently Joseph Jupp is in his early thirties. Seems Jupp paid his rent every month and never said jack shit to no one.’ He jerked his head towards the body sitting on the chair. ‘Probably after taking a few quid off that poor sod and making himself a bit on the side.’
Denning nodded at Neeraj. They’d been working together for the best part of a year now and he was used to his colleague’s bluntness. Neeraj didn’t mean it, or so Denning had managed to convince himself, it was just his way. Occasionally Neeraj would overstep the mark and he would be forced to say something, only for Neeraj to offer up an indifferent shrug and pull a blank face. Sometimes it was easier just to let it pass. ‘We’ll need to speak to this Jupp character,’ Denning said. ‘It’s possible he may know our victim.’
‘He could have done it himself for all we know,’ Neeraj offered. ‘I mean, think about it: if he’s illegally sub-letting this dump, maybe our man found out he’s been ripping him off, there’s a bit of argy-bargy and it turns nasty.’
‘Then why tape his mouth shut?’
Neeraj shrugged. ‘To stop him from screaming when he rips his throat open?’
‘Well, I don’t suppose we’ll know until we speak to him,’ Denning said.
‘On the other hand, this does smell like a robbery, boss,’ Neeraj continued. ‘Why else would someone want to top a harmless old bloke?’
Denning glanced around the shabby room. There was no sign of the place having been ransacked. Apart from the wallet and the phone, it was unlikely there would have been much worth taking in the first place; even the telly looked old enough to be have been a Logie Baird prototype. But people had been murdered for less.
Sheila Gorton approached them. ‘Sorry to interrupt your mothers’ meeting, gents, but we’ve found the victim’s wallet. It was in a tin in a kitchen cupboard, of all places.’ There was a worried look on her face, which unsettled Denning.
‘We found this in it.’ Gorton handed Denning a slightly faded bus pass. He checked the photo: it looked like a younger, healthier image of their victim. The name on the pass was Frank Buckfield.
‘Frank Buckfield,’ Gorton said aloud, just in case Denning couldn’t read the name. She pursed her lips and looked from one detective to the other, clearly expecting a reaction. When none came, she said: ‘I should have recognised him, though it’s been more than twenty years since I last worked with him, and then I was just a junior SOCO so we barely exchanged two words.’ She glanced over at the elderly man sitting dead in his armchair, and Denning hoped she was about to come to the point.
‘Frank Buckfield,’ she repeated, shaking her head at their evident ignorance. ‘I knew him as DCI Buckfield.’ She stood with her hands on her hips, like a DC Comics superhero. ‘He’s one of yours, gents. He’s an ex-copper.’
Chapter Two
‘I think your hormone levels may be slightly out of balance. Stress, perhaps.’ Dr Klaus checked the notes on her computer screen. ‘I see you have a stressful job. Sometimes that can affect how our body behaves in certain situations.’
Detective Sergeant Molly Fisher smiled at her GP and agreed that her job was, indeed, stressful. However, she was unlikely to be changing career anytime soon.
‘Fair point.’ Dr Klaus recommended a combination of yoga and vitamin supplements. ‘If you still feel out of sorts after a week,’ she added, ‘you should make another appointment.’
Molly thanked her GP and agreed that she would see how she felt in a week’s time.
She left the health centre and headed for the bus stop on nearby Hornsey Rise.
As she swiped her phone off silent mode, she noticed there was another text message. She slipped the phone into her jacket pocket without reading the text. She knew who it was from without even looking at the screen.
The first message had arrived yesterday evening just after dinner. As soon as she’d clocked the sender’s name she’d deleted the text unread. And now another one had arrived today. She hoped the sender would take the hint and give up. But she doubted it.
Molly turned into busy Hornsey Rise and checked her watch. Depending on how quickly the bus arrived, she could be sitting behind her desk within the hour – an hour and a half at most.
She’d told work she was going to the dentist rather than the doctor that morning. A trip to the dentist would elicit fewer questions from colleagues than a GP’s appointment, and she could do without well-intentioned concern right now.
She arrived at the bus stop. According to the display board, there would be a number ninety-one along in five minutes. She sat on the cold, hard bench and waited.
“Out of sorts”. That was one way of putting it.
Molly had done two tests: both negative. But her period was late, and she was never late. She had to make sure.
She’d breathed a silent sigh of relief upon having it confirmed. And yet, deep down, she couldn’t help feeling slightly deflated. It was like the time she wasn’t picked to play the recorder at a school concert when she was ten years old. The thought of having to do it had made her sick to the stomach for weeks, and her relief when the music teacher opted for slim and pretty Jennifer Moulsen had been palpable. But then, so had the disappointment at not being picked.
But a baby…
It would have been wrong on so many levels.
For a start, there was her job. She’d only recently been promoted from regular CID and offered a place with the Major Investigation Team. MIT – the Murder Squad, the cream of Met policing, or so she’d thought when she’d first joined. She was still trying to prove herself within the team, and taking time off to have a baby wasn’t likely to do her career prospects any favours in the long term. No matter how forward-looking the Met liked to think it was, it had yet to provide its officers with crèche facilities. And the idea of carrying junior about in a papoose whilst she poked around a murder scene was just not practical.
Then there was Jon, her partner. The prospect of introducing a child into their complicated relationship would be like prising open a very sticky can of worms.
It would either bring them closer together. Or pull them apart.
Either way, she wasn’t willing to take the risk.
The phone bleeped again. Another text. Sighing, she took it out of her pocket and looked at the screen, already knowing who it would be from.
Mags.
She slid the phone back into her pocket.
Their paths had first crossed nine months earlier, during a blisteringly hot summer when a maniac was murdering women on the streets of London. Magda Kilbride was a freelance journalist who had offered to help Molly with her investigation. But it had turned out that Mags – as she liked to be called – had another agenda. Actually, she’d had several, not least of which was trying to split up Molly and Jon. She hadn’t succeeded, and Molly had left Mags in no doubt as to what she thought of her.
