Badlands, p.25
Badlands, page 25
The darkness swelled around her. The world spun. She heard footsteps. And a voice.
“Well, that wasn’t so hard.”
Michael.
One of them spat. It hit the flagstones with a wet slap. She felt a boot prodding her. Defiance flickered within her. She wanted to leap up, fight back. Make the bastards pay. But her limbs felt detached from her body. She couldn’t move.
“Dead?” Michael again.
“Looks like it.”
A chuckle.
“Guess she won’t be walking away this time.”
The darkness took her, and she heard no more.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“I’ll get the laptop,” Ruby said, opening the front door to her apartment and striding upstairs.
Willow followed, a curious feeling tingling through her. She stared at the USB. Did it contain the information that Ellie had stolen from the council? Did it hold the answer to why Ellie had been killed?
She put her bag down by the bed and turned the USB in her fingers. It was a link to Ellie and she didn’t want to let it go.
“You okay?” Ruby crouched by the bed and dug a laptop bag out from underneath. “You haven’t said much.”
Willow glanced at her. Didn’t reply.
“You believe Steinberg’s wife?” Ruby unzipped the bag, pulled out a MacBook, and took it to the table.
“Guess we’ll find out in a minute.”
Ruby unfolded the laptop, hit the power button then dragged a seat back. Her face glowed an eerie blue in the light from the screen. Willow sat next to her. She had butterflies in her stomach and her mouth had gone dry. Ruby reached out and took her hand. Squeezed her.
“You sure you wanna do this?”
Willow gave a tight nod. Pinched the USB. Then slipped it into the port. The stick flashed and a hard drive icon pinged up on the top right corner of the screen. Ruby slid the laptop in front of Willow.
“All yours,” she said.
Willow peered at Ruby. Her throat felt blocked like she’d swallowed a golf ball, and spasms of cramp squeezed her stomach.
“I’ll make coffee.” Ruby slipped her hand onto Willow’s shoulder and squeezed. Then she scraped the chair back and padded to the kitchen.
Willow took a deep breath, shifted her seat, then slid her fingers along the trackpad until the small arrow on the screen hovered over the drive. She clicked the icon.
A grey, rectangular box appeared. The USB was password protected and the box asked her to enter the password. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard. She remembered the message in the envelope. “Breakfast.”
She typed ‘Flake’ into the grey box. A blue circle whirred.
Then the screen expanded out and she found herself staring at dozens of folders and files all arranged in a neat grid on a white background. Several of the folders had names; Council Minutes, Planning Applications, Health & Safety, Surveillance. Others were code, dates maybe. Most of the files looked like scanned copies of documents, but a few were Word documents. One, in particular, caught Willow’s eye.
The file had a one-word name.
Raven.
So the landlord had been right. There was a Raven involved. Question was, who?
Desperate for the answer, she went to click on it, but then another file grabbed her attention.
It was a video file with her name on it. The icon for the file showed a face. Half an inch high, maybe less. But Willow recognised Ellie straight away. She moved the mouse onto the video, clicked it, then held her breath.
A blue circle swirled. She heard footsteps behind her. Smelt coffee. Ruby put a mug down in front of her and touched her shoulder again, her fingers warm and smooth. She gave Willow a tight smile.
Then Ellie’s voice filled the room.
“Hey, Flake. It’s me.”
Willow jumped, heart jitterbugging. She peered at her sisters face through a film of tears. Ellie looked thin. Pale and gaunt, her nostrils red and sore, like she’d had a cold. Or spent a lot of time crying. Her hair looked greasy and dull. And she couldn’t look at the camera. Just kept glancing at it, then gazing around wherever she was, scratching her shoulder, her forearm, sweeping her hair back. Willow couldn’t see much of the room she was filming in, but it looked sparse, with white walls and a fluorescent strip light overhead.
“I don’t know if you’ll ever see this. All depends on if Lizzie sends the text I suppose. And what you do afterwards. I’d have called you myself but if I do and they find out… if they think I’ve told you anything…”
She sighed, and dragged a hand through her hair.
“I’m in trouble, Megan. Things have got a bit fucked up. I got involved with some guy I shouldn’t have, and I did stuff for him, and that stuff... I think it’s got him killed and now there’s people after me.”
Ellie’s voice broke here, and a tear trickled down her cheek. She wiped it away. Her skin looked dry and chalky.
“I’m gonna try and make a break for it. Head to London if I can. But this is my insurance policy I guess. If something goes wrong, if I... if I don’t make it, I hope you see this.
“This memory stick... the files on here are everything I’ve found for Eric. They show what he long suspected; that there’s a conspiracy here. Someone is blackmailing people, influential people, to make life difficult for people like Eric, to drive away their business to ruin their reputations.”
“She believes this,” Ruby said.
Willow glanced at her, then back at the screen, at the face of her dead sister.
“But the files... I’ve also found something else. I think I know who’s behind this. And I think I know how they’ve done it.”
Now Ellie looked right at the camera.
“Look in the file named Raven. I know that name will mean something to you. And my guess is you’ll think you know who Raven is. But it’s not her.
“Zoe is dead.”
Relief flooded through Willow, closely followed by confusion. If not Zoe, then who?
“But,” video Ellie went on, “I don’t think the name is a coincidence. I think I know who Raven is. And I think you’ll make the same connection too. I just... don’t know where he is.”
“Who’s she talking about?” Ruby slipped into the seat next to Willow.
Willow didn’t reply. Couldn’t. She had a bitter taste in her throat. Of course. It had to be him.
“I don’t know what you’ll do with this,” Ellie said. “Presuming you’ll ever see it. But don’t give it to the police. They’re in on it too. This is big Megan. And these people are dangerous.”
Ellie went silent. She bit her lower lip and peered towards something off-screen. She sniffed once. Willow reached out and put her fingertips to Ellie’s cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” Ellie said, glancing at the screen. “For... everything.”
Willow tried to swallow the lump in her throat.
“I love you, Flake. And...” Ellie sniffed and shook her head, “I miss you.”
She flicked her hair back and sucked in a breath.
Then she stared straight at the camera and for a second their eyes met. Willow’s chest tightened. It felt like Ellie was peering out from the afterlife.
Then Ellie’s gaze slipped away and the moment passed. On the screen, Ellie reached out, hooking her hair behind her ear with her free hand. The image froze and the video ended.
Willow stared at Ellie. Her cheeks felt warm and wet. She cuffed away the tears. Ruby squeezed her shoulder.
“You okay?”
Willow shrugged. “Not really.”
She dragged a loose dreadlock back behind her ear, leant forward and put her elbows on the table. She moved the mouse across to the file named “Raven”. Double clicked. The file expanded and filled the screen. It contained scans of a notebook with notes written in Ellie’s hand. Willow’s gaze flicked across the writing.
“Raven? Deals. Threatens. Kills??? Rumours of it. No proof???”
“Male? Female? Dealer not sure? Never saw their face. Always hidden. Thinks rides a bike? Motorbike?”
“Your biker friend?” Ruby said.
“I think so.” Willow scrolled to the next screen.
“THE NAME COULD BE A COINCIDENCE??? Who knew though?”
“Harrison?? (Yeah, like he’d ever do anything more interesting than change a sparkplug!)”
“Megan???”
“She thought it was you?” Ruby pointed at her name.
“Unlikely,” Willow replied. There was no notes or comments against her name. Just a sad face that made her heart twist. “She knew where I was.”
“Maybe she thought you’d come back?”
Willow half shrugged and kept reading.
“Zoe. Was Raven, but dead now. Eve knew but also dead.”
“Freddie??? Not seen him in years. No-one has. Think he used to ride a bike too??? Unlikely but be good to find him though…”
Willow scrolled again. Ellie had listed half a dozen others, names she half recognised, but all eliminated for various reasons.
Then Freddie’s name again.
“Can’t find Freddie??? Not seen since Zoe’s funeral. Rumours he left for London, but no leads there. Was a dealer though??? Zoe’s BF so he’d know the name??? And he was cruel…Bodmin incident…”
“What’s the Bodmin incident?” Ruby asked.
“We were hiking,” Willow said. “Camping out. Harrison was sharing a tent with him. Harrison was getting undressed at the end of the day, and Freddie pushed him out of the tent butt naked. Blocked the flap and wouldn’t let Harrison back in. We heard Harrison screaming and Freddie standing there, laughing and taking pictures on his mobile. We sorted everything out, but Freddie almost got expelled a month later cos he printed the pictures and put them on noticeboards around school.”
“Charming,” Ruby said.
Willow peered at Ellie’s writing. At the line below.
“The Zoe - Megan thing…”
“And what’s that mean?” Ruby pointed at the screen and peered at Willow. A sick feeling spread in Willow’s gut and not because of the “Zoe - Megan” thing, shameful though that was.
Ellie was right. Freddie was cruel. He was a bully. He was manipulative. He would love nothing better than being a centre of a web of blackmail, lies and deceit.
Willow scraped the chair back. Peering at the screen, she stood, grabbed her bag, tugged on her boots and cardigan.
“Where are you going?” Ruby said.
Willow strode towards the stairs, looked back over her shoulder to Ruby sitting at the table.
“To Freddie Hunt’s house.”
***
Goddard sat in the cafe that had once been the old St. Agnes post office, a cappuccino steaming in front of him, his phone next to it, screen black and silent. He wore dark glasses to mask the bruising around his eye from Willow’s punch and sat in the alcove off to the side, peering out onto Churchtown. Beneath the table, his knee jerked as he bounced his heel.
In the main area, a group of mums sat around the large wooden table sharing baby stories and lattes. They were gentrified, like the old post office, given a modern, Shoreditch-chic makeover. All upper-middle-class accents, bright teeth, good skin, sparkling eyes. They radiated money. Wealth. Good fortune. And they flocked to trendy coffee shops like these, with its brick and metalwork interior and its industrial style lighting, to see and be seen, to show they were in the crowd, that they were discerning, cultured.
Goddard despised them.
They had no idea what lay beneath the surface of their safe, comfortable worlds. They’d never seen poverty. Desperation. The after-effects of their greed, lust, gluttony. They hadn’t sat in a room with a grieving mother wondering why her baby had turned to drugs, why the child she’d struggled to love and raise and care for had ended up dead on a slab, another victim of the bad shit being peddled in the clubs and bars and backstreets.
And yet they talked like their problems mattered. Poor little Tarquin wasn’t sleeping? The gardener had planted the wrong colours in the rose bed? Their gym membership hadn’t been cancelled at the click of their well-manicured fingers? These weren’t problems.
Goddard had seen problems. Real problems. He’d buried enough of them; the problem kids who’d never settled; those who’d turned to drugs to escape the mind-numbing tedium of winters spent in poverty and unemployment because the jobs had dried up with the last of the summer tourists; the strippers and the prostitutes whose only joy came from a line of coke or a shot of heroin.
They were his motivation. His driving force. The reason why he got into the dealing in the first place. And through that dealing, through his dealers and what they reported back, he’d found out enough about ‘civilised’ society and how base and corrupt it was. And he’d used that knowledge for his benefit.
Tonight, when he won the council vote, the plan he’d lain so carefully would come to fruition. The days of screaming at the world for change and getting only disdain back would be over. The whole Duchy would benefit.
There were too many of the Shoreditch set moving down here now, bringing their elitist, shallow London snobbery, buying second homes, driving up prices and leaving the locals, the ones who needed cheap homes, priced out and living in poverty.
Tonight, if the vote went his way that would all change.
And he would win the vote. The bill would be passed. Through dealing, he’d learned of the sins of the elite and used them against them, got them onside. That’s where Raven had come in. She could persuade. Cajole. Threaten. And she could kill. Without regret. Without impunity.
She’d taught him the divine beauty of righteous purpose.
Was it a sin to murder when the murder was for the greater good? He had struggled with that dilemma for many nights after the first time. It had been one of the few times since graduating in Theology that he’d gone back to the Bible for guidance and in its pages, he’d found what he was looking for. Justification. Didn’t God kill without mercy to protect His chosen people? When the Red Sea collapsed behind Moses, did it not destroy the enemies of God? Did God not ask Abraham to kill his son to prove his devotion to the Lord?
And was it not here, on the North Cornwall coast, with the arrival of St. Piran, that God returned to Britain after the pagan times? Were the Cornish not God’s chosen people? He believed so. And like Moses leading the Israelites, was he not leading his people out of poverty and oppression?
Yes, in the dark with his thoughts and his demons for company, he doubted. But he had faith in the Divine. He felt sure of the righteousness of his purpose. He would free the Cornish from the yoke of the scum of London, the drug barons, the property moguls, the metrosexual elite. And if people had to die, well, they were a necessary sacrifice.
The phone in front of him buzzed loud and hard. He jolted, looked at the screen, and pursed his lips. It was Michael calling. Goddard snatched up the phone. One of the mothers looked over.
“What’s up?”
“It’s done,” Michael said. “Raven is dead.”
“You’re sure?”
“She got hit twice round the back of the head with an iron bar. She ain’t getting up from that.”
“Well done,” he muttered.
He killed the call and stared at the phone. He expected grief. Guilt. Maybe relief. But he felt nothing except the satisfaction of a job done. She was gone. Not even Gabriel and Michael knew how Ellie died. There was no one to link to him to her murder now. That problem was dealt with. Now there was the vote to win.
He glared at the yummy mummies.
In a few hours, everything they knew would change forever.
He drained his cappuccino and left the cafe, mind set upon the righteous victory ahead of him.
***
“So what was with the whole Megan-Zoe thing?” Ruby said.
Willow closed the passenger door of the Fiat. “It was nothing.”
“So much of a nothing that Ellie put it in her notebook?”
“Freddie’s house is in Porthtowan,” Willow said, ignoring the comment, reaching up and pulling the seatbelt down into the clasp. Ruby started the engine and backed out of the parking space, then turned and headed out onto Churchtown.
“The Megan-Zoe thing?” Ruby said again.
Willow sighed. “Is it important?”
“You tell me?”
Willow peered at Ruby, then at the road. “I’m not proud of it.”
“Proud of what?”
Willow looked to her lap and began picking at her fingernails.
“We were going to Trevellas. Me, Zoe, Harrison and Freddie.”
She stared ahead, remembering that day, a month after the incident in Harrison’s shed, where she’d flashed her tits and terrified the life out of him.
“Zoe had been banging on for weeks about the things she’d been doing with Freddie. And Harrison...”
She sighed, closed her eyes, and rubbed her forehead.
“He was more interested in fixing engines than getting in my knickers and it was frustrating the hell out of me. But I had a plan.”
She smiled at the memory, at how childish her plan seemed now.
“I was going to lure him up to the old mine workings, the engine houses or by the chimney stacks in the valley there. I thought that if I got him alone and out of his old man’s shed he’d be more receptive. But he wasn’t.
“Wouldn’t take my hints, just wanted to lie on the shingle and read magazines. So I stormed off. And Freddie...”
Willow felt her face burning at the memory. The guilt.
“He followed me. Found me in the engine house. Started telling me that Harrison must be gay because if I was his bird he’d be all over me the second he had the chance.
“I pretty much pounced on him at that point.” She cocked an eyebrow. “Not that he minded.”
The memories came thick and fast, each one making Willow cringe a little bit harder... clashing teeth as they kissed... fumbling with each other’s clothes... the awkward attempt to try and be sexy while putting a rubber on him, only for it to tangle and rip so he had to dig out another and tug that on as well and the time it took pretty much killed the moment, made her realise what she was about to do. She could’ve stopped. Should’ve stopped. But she’d gone ahead anyway, desperate to feel what Zoe had said she’d felt, even though she knew he was Zoe’s and she was betraying her best friend.
