Truth Dare kill

TWENTY FIVE

The fog was clearing as I walked down through Soho. Clumps still shredded themselves on St Martin’s spire and menaced the alleyway between the Strand and the river. As I crossed the Hungerford footbridge, a train gasped past me into Charing Cross leaving chunks of smoke clinging to the girders. Mist lay along the river like a dirty yellow blanket.

Kate had made the call, telling Caldwell what had happened this afternoon and that Wilson might be dead. Her voice was strained and clipped when she told him that Liza had revealed their three-sided relationship. Her anger fuelled two patches of red in her cheeks. I could hear Caldwell’s voice rising and accelerating as he begged for understanding. Kate cut off his bluster as though reprimanding a careless servant. She told him I wanted to meet him, just the two of us, and settle this thing. She didn’t tell him – because she didn’t know – that if I didn’t come back from the meeting, Mary had instructions to give his name to Jonny Crane. Tony seemed to have responded with alacrity. And now we were converging on the meeting ground. I’d chosen somewhere open but quiet, and with a queer resonance for this whole damned business.

I picked up a bus outside Waterloo station. We chugged through the patchy smog to Camberwell Green, past my office. I didn’t want to meet there; too cramped, too many police watching. I got off and made my way up Denmark Hill past the hospital. I seemed to be climbing out of the murk. The sign for Ruskin Park beckoned.

I climbed over the fence and started down towards the pond. From there I’d be able to see people entering the park but it was far enough away to be private.

Fog billowed through the trees, making it hard to follow the path. But the smell of decay led me easily to the stagnant water. I stood gazing into the mist, wondering if I could pull this off without getting shot. I went over my questions again and again, which is why I didn’t hear her coming.

“Hello, Danny.”

I spun round. My heart lifted. Valerie was walking towards me. She was wearing a long coat against the night, just like the first time.

“Hey, it’s great to see you, Val! I’ve missed you! Where have you been?”

“Where have I been? You’ve got half the police in the country looking for you and you ask me where I’ve been?” she laughed.

“It’s a long story, but it’s coming to an end. Tony Caldwell is the killer. He killed the girl in France and he killed the prostitutes here.”

She seemed a long way from being surprised. “See. I knew it wasn’t you, Danny.”

“But, Val, what are you doing here? How did you find me?”

“I’m here when you need me.”

“But you can’t stay here, Val. It’s too dangerous. Caldwell is coming to meet me. You mustn’t hang around. I don’t want you hurt.”

“Silly. I’ll be OK. I’ll give you moral support.”

Through the sound-dampening fog I heard the noise of a car wheezing up the hill and slowing. Then I saw the twin beams of light cutting through the heavy air, as the big Riley rolled to a stop by the park gates.

“It’s him, Val! You’ve got to go! I’ll be fine. I’ve got a gun, you see?” I dug into my pocket and pulled out the small calibre weapon Mary had given me. It was barely more than a starting pistol, but it would do the job. I hoped I wasn’t going to need it.

Val searched my face as though it was the last she’d see of it. She smiled sweetly then backed away into the mist.

I could see the car clearly. There were two people in it. Kate was at the wheel.

She was staring straight ahead, her eyes unseeing. Caldwell was alongside her.

She killed the engine and silence fell. She cut the beams of light and the car was left silhouetted by the masked glow from a streetlamp. High above me, the clouds cleared and the stars began to stutter into being. But down here wraiths still swirled and danced through the trees and across the pool.

Caldwell opened his door and got out. Kate stayed hunched over the wheel. I wondered what their conversation had been like. What excuses had he produced?

Had he denied it? What did she believe now?

He straddled the fence and began walking towards me, a long stride, heels hitting hard on the path like he was pacing out a cricket square. And suddenly I knew that gait. I’d seen it loping away from me. Down a back alley in Avignon.

This time he was wearing a thick coat and hat against the clinging air. His hands were in his pockets. As he got closer I could see that whatever he’d done wasn’t getting to him. A bit red and strained round the eyes, but none of that bulging, berserker look the public expects in the insane. Take it from me, and I’ve seen plenty, some of the craziest guys in the world look perfectly normal until you engage them in conversation and find they can only talk about rats or the colour red.

Caldwell stopped ten feet from me. How was I going to knock that smile off? “Well, McRae. You’ve saved me a lot of trouble. I’ve been hunting high and low for you.”

“You have it wrong, Caldwell. I’ve been hunting you. Didn’t Kate tell you the cavalry won’t be coming to save your neck?”

“You mean Wilson? An oaf. He got what was coming to him.”

“I thought you were buddies?”

“A common cause.”

“When did you point him my way?”

He laughed. “Remember that first visit he made to your office? You don’t think that was an accident, do you?”

No, I didn’t. Too many coincidences. “Did you know him before?”

He shook his head. “He likes giving interviews. I saw his name.”

“After the first murder?”

He said nothing. I changed key. It was too soon to go down that road. “Your sister has been very helpful. I mean the Graveney one.”

He frowned. “You shouldn’t have told her that. She didn’t need to know.”

“Because it spoiled your games? What were these games, Caldwell? They sound fun.”

The frown vanished from his face. He grinned, like a dog grins just before it takes a piece out of your leg. He considered the question for a while.

“We had a dare. A double dare. Truth, dare, kiss or promise.”

“The kid’s game?” I asked with wonder. We used to play it in Hayward Park. A gang of us, girls and boys, average age ten, looking for excuses to cop a feel or allow a secret passion to be dragged from us in front of our object of desire. We’d spin a bottle and the loser had to call out his or her choice: tell the truth, take a dare, kiss a girl, or make a promise. The loser had the right to pronounce on the action.

I remember Lizzie Kirkland getting a double dare to put her hand up my short trousers. I think she was disappointed. It seemed a big deal at the time. But it wasn’t very brave or inventive alongside what Caldwell was telling me…

“Not kids!” he exploded. “At first, yes. But it was more important than that.

Kate liked it. It was our thing. The thing only we knew about. No one else would have understood. The game went on for a long time. Years. Higher risks, more excitement. Our game.” His face had changed. It was as though he was describing a religion. Perhaps he was.

“But you didn’t let Liza play?

He snorted. “She was never in our league. It was just Kate and me. Just the two of us. Since I first saw her.”

“So you went on playing the game, hoping it would lead to what? Fucking your sister Kate?”

His face twisted. “Shut your filthy mouth! You don’t understand. I didn’t know.

I didn’t know who I was until it was too late! I wanted her. Thought I could have her. Only Liza knew.” He fought for control. He wiped both sides of his moustache with his left hand. His right stayed in his pocket.

“And you bought Liza off with sex.”

“It wasn’t like that! It made her happy.”

I laughed. “Charitable of you. And it let you go on playing the game. Then you got to the big ones. Life and death. You started murdering people because she dared you?” I wanted to hear this story and I was gambling that he wanted to tell it. Murderers always want to justify themselves.

“She never thought I’d do it. It was the ultimate dare. The one she thought I’d stop at. I came back from France and told her. Told her what I’d done. She should have…”

“Should have let you fuck her, Tony? Liza wasn’t enough for you? Was that the deal?”

“Stop it, stop it, you bastard! Don’t talk of her like that! You don’t know what it was like! She was so lovely, so beautiful. I worshipped her. I almost had her.”

The control was slipping. His face was the face of a man whose dreams had been shot to pieces. All those years, keeping him dangling, teasing, leading him on.

Pretending he was married to her. What a bitch. Enough to drive anyone out of his mind. For a moment I almost felt sorry for him. Then I remembered how he’d used Liza, the surrogate. And how he’d slaughtered the others.

“And Kate became a whore in return?” That really got home. He blinked and his jaw hardened. I drove it home. “You dared her to become a prostitute?”

His face was twisting, shifting from distress to anger. He stepped closer. His eyes were bleak.

“It didn’t matter by then. She hated me. She hated herself. For making me kill the French girl. The game was all we had left.”

“What exactly was Kate’s dare? Twenty men? A hundred? Six months? A thousand pounds?” He flinched at every cut.

“I thought she wouldn’t do it. But she did. Like me. I thought it would teach her, but she said… she said…

The man was crying. The poor sod was crying. Tears dribbled down his red face.

He looked pathetic. But I was convinced he had a gun in his right pocket. Sad or mad, he could put a bullet in me. So why was I still needling him? Because I felt the disgust in my mouth, like vomit.

“She liked it? And you couldn’t stand that, could you. She did it for others, for strangers, for money. But she wouldn’t do it for you. So you wanted to hurt her.”

“I couldn’t hurt her, don’t you see?” Pain was wrenching his features out of shape. “Don’t you see?!” He pulled his hand out of his pocket. It held the gun I was expecting. It was almost a relief to see it. Almost. It looked like a cannon alongside what I was holding. He levelled it at me and for a second I thought he was going to pull the trigger. I shouted at him to keep up the flow.

“Is that why you killed all these poor creatures, Tony? Five of them, after the French girl.” I gentled my voice, coaxing, encouraging him to let it all come out. “If you couldn’t hurt Kate, you could hurt her kind?”

“It showed her.” His eyes were wide. He was twisting his moustache with his free hand as though he’d rip it off. I’d seen other faces like his, other eyes. Not in the mirror. At the hospital.

I was nearly whispering. “Showed her what, Tony? What did it show her?”

“That she could be next. She should have been afraid. She just laughed.”

“So you sent for Wilson?”

He nodded his head. He was snivelling like a child but the gun was still wavering at my chest. I carefully cocked my own wee pistol in my pocket. I wasn’t going to do anything heroic like try to outdraw him. I’d just shoot him through my coat. It could be mended. I couldn’t.

“It was to teach her. He wasn’t meant to hurt her. I loved her. I love her…”

I should have shut up there. I had to stop needling him before I took a.45. But I plunged on, reckless with revulsion at the pair of them.

“So you killed for love? Those poor lassies? I think you enjoyed it, Tony. I think you got a thrill out of it. You got the taste for it in France and began to kill for kicks.”

His eyes were agony. He was rolling his head from side to side. “She could have stopped it, you know. She should have loved me. That’s all. It’s her fault.” He stopped and drew himself up and took a deep breath. He wiped his face on his sleeve.

“But it doesn’t matter, McRae. She’s too involved. She can’t leave me. Not now.

And we can get away with it. Scot free, McRae, as it were.” He grimaced and placed his left hand round his gun hand to steady it. I clasped my pistol and pointed it at his chest. Then I realised he was staring behind me. I thought it was a trick but he kept on staring.

I half turned. I saw a face in the fog. It looked like Val’s.

“No, Val! Go back! Don’t come near.” I moved a little to one side and turned half to her so I could see them both. Caldwell looked terror-stricken.

“What are you doing here?” he shrieked.

Val stepped closer. She had a wild look on her face. I scarcely recognised her.

She seemed to have lost her coat. It was too cold to be here in just a blouse and skirt.

“Stop! Stop or I fire!” Caldwell was pointing the gun at her, away from me.

“Valerie, get down!”

She came on. We formed a triangle, with six feet between us. Mist drifted and coated us, one after the other. Valerie said nothing. Her long dark hair was pulled forward over her shoulder. She did a slow pirouette, so that her back was to us. The neck and top of her blouse were soaked dark. The dark hair above was matted and glistening. In the back of her head, just where the skull joins the neck, was an entry wound. I knew her now.

She turned round to face him. There was blood on her skirt and running down her thin legs. She stepped closer to him.

“Stop or I fire!” Caldwell was demented.

She didn’t stop. He fired once and must have missed. He fired again. And still she came on. I heard a car door slamming and running feet. A cry went up. “No, Tony, no!”

Caldwell dropped to one knee, then the other. He was sobbing. Sobbing and firing. The gunshots echoed round and round in this limbo we’d created.

Valerie stood in front of him, an arm’s length away, a thin smile on her lips.

She leaned forward and carefully touched the barrel of the gun. Slowly she tilted it up. The gun barrel rested under his chin. His sobbing stopped. He looked straight into her remorseless eyes. And pulled the trigger one last time.

I walked slowly over to him and knelt by his side. Blood was pooling round his skull. His legs and body twitched, then stilled. His chest fell, but his eyes stared up in endless horror.

“Oh, no. Oh no.” Kate skidded to her knees and touched his hand. It still held the gun.

“Don’t touch it. The police will want to see what happened. Though god knows what we’ll tell them.” I turned to look for Valerie but she’d vanished into the mist. I wasn’t surprised.

“What did you see, Kate?”

She looked up at me, shocked but dry-eyed. She had no tears left. “I thought he was going to kill you. He shot at you and kept missing. Then he shot himself.

What did you say to him, to do this?”

I gazed down at his lifeless body, then up at her lifeless face. “I dared him, Kate. I double-dared him.”