All Fall Down: A gripping psychological thriller with a twist that will take your breath away (3 page)

W
hen Husein’s phone buzzed
, he took his time checking the display. As they waited for him to continue, Rob was conscious of Wendy’s rigid posture. Her hands were clasped together, fingers writhing. It made him realise he was working too hard to appear relaxed, when it was clear he was anything but.

‘If you didn’t know him,’ Husein said, ‘and we’ll take it for now that he didn’t know you, we’ve got some ten or eleven houses along here. . .’ He tapped his pen against his teeth. ‘What we need to determine is whether there was any specific reason for coming to your house.’

‘It’s probably random,’ Dawn added, as if to reassure them. ‘But we can’t afford to overlook anything that could have governed his choice.’

‘We get that,’ Rob said. ‘What occurred to me is that we had music playing, so he’d have known there were people here.’

‘If there was no one in the neighbours’ gardens, it could be that simple.’ Husein shared a glance with Dawn, who shrugged.

‘Did the man say anything to you?’ she asked.

‘Um, yeah, just “Help me”.’

‘In English?’ Husein queried. ‘And nothing else?’

‘I think he was trying to say more, but couldn’t get the words out. And I’ve only just realised this, but he might have had an accent.’

‘What type?’ Dawn asked.

‘I couldn’t say for sure. His voice was quite thick, guttural – could have been Scottish, or maybe the north-east.’

‘So not Eastern European?’ Husein had a hopeful edge to his voice.

‘I don’t think so, but I can’t be certain. I’m sorry.’

Husein waved away the apology, and Wendy said, ‘Did he not have any ID on him?’

T
here was a hesitation
. Rob guessed the detective would deliberately withhold information, not least because he’d want their answers to be as unbiased as possible. But after a glance at Dawn, Husein shook his head. ‘Not a thing.’

‘That’s a bit strange, isn’t it?’ Wendy said.

‘It gets worse. From the preliminary examination of the body, we’ve discovered some. . . unusual wounds.’

‘Unusual?’ Rob felt a coldness spreading along his spine.

‘In a couple of places his skin had been excised. He has several tattoos, quite conventional ones. Our theory is that his attackers might have removed other, more distinctive tattoos that could have assisted with identification.’

Wendy made a noise in her throat. Dawn reached over and grasped her arm. ‘Sorry, that was more detail than you needed.’

‘Yes, forgive me.’ Husein looked embarrassed. ‘And it is only a theory at this stage. His fingerprints are intact, and of course we’ll be able to take his DNA.’

Dawn chimed in: ‘To me, it says his attackers know he won’t show up on our databases, which could point to him being foreign. Checking abroad can take a lot longer, whereas a description of unusual tattoos often gets a quick result. Friends, workmates – someone’s going to recognise them and come forward.’

‘On the subject of identification,’ Husein said, ‘I’m afraid we’ll need to take fingerprints and a DNA sample of everyone present. It’s a simple swab, not invasive at all.’

Rob looked to Wendy, half expecting her to object on Georgia’s behalf. But her expression was calm, almost blank. ‘Fine with us,’ she said.

‘Great.’ Husein finished his juice, then asked them to run through the sequence of events once more. Rob described how the man had gone on trying to move, even after he’d collapsed in their garden.

‘It was as if he was being chased, that was the impression I had.’

‘And what gave you that impression, exactly?’

‘Well. . . his fear, I suppose. The desperation. And with those injuries, the logical explanation was that someone was after him.’

‘But you didn’t see anyone? PC Clark said you went out on the common?’

‘That’s right. I had a quick scout round, but there was no one in sight – other than some kid on a bike.’

Husein frowned. ‘Tell me about him.’

‘I did mention it to PC Clark. A young lad, maybe late teens, twentyish. He was quite a distance away.’

‘And which direction was he moving in?’

‘He wasn’t. He was sitting on the bike, sort of hidden by the bushes. I called out, asking if he’d seen anyone, but he didn’t answer. Soon as I moved towards him, he took off.’

Husein sent a questioning look at Dawn, who said, ‘Could be a useful witness, if nothing else. Perhaps he’d spotted the victim and was too scared to approach.’

Rob sighed. ‘If I’d ignored him, I suppose he might have hung around.’

‘Not necessarily,’ Husein said. ‘But we need to be on the lookout for him. Can you give me a description?’

‘Quite a small build, I think. Pale skin, thick dark hair. He was wearing khaki shorts and a black t-shirt.’

‘He didn’t speak at all?’

‘No. Just looked at me.’
Glared
was the word Rob wanted to use, but he thought it might sound too emotive.

Husein’s phone buzzed again. This time, with a murmured apology, he slipped out of the room.

Dawn gave them an encouraging smile. ‘You’re doing great. I can’t see there’s much more we need to know.’

Wendy’s relief was obvious. ‘When do you think you’ll be done here?’

‘That depends on the search, and what – if anything – it yields.’

Wendy’s eyes were glistening. ‘It’s awful to think the poor man’s family may never know what happened to him.’

‘Early days.’ Dawn gave a sombre smile. ‘Hopefully we’ll get to the bottom of this.’

‘But it’s not certain, is it?’ Rob asked. ‘If you’re unable to identify him, and you don’t find out where he came from, then the case could go unsolved?’

‘Neat endings are for the movies, Rob. I’d be a fool to try and predict the outcome here, but I will admit that we don’t have a lot to go on.’

‘So whoever did this. . .’ Wendy’s voice almost cracked. ‘They might get away with it?’

Reluctantly, Dawn nodded. ‘They might.’

Y
ou cheated us
, you fucker, you were in on it all along
—

The crash that jolted Rob from his nightmare could have been someone kicking down the front door. He was half out of bed before he understood that he was reacting to the long, fading reverberation of a thunderclap.

Resting back, he savoured the relief as he listened to the rain drumming on the roof. It was almost two a.m. and he was surprised to have slept at all. He’d gone to bed earlier than usual, only to lie awake, brooding, for what felt like hours.

The evening had been predictably subdued. First there was the experience of being fingerprinted and swabbed for DNA, which had left Rob feeling more like a suspect than a witness. Afterwards they’d milled about like visitors in their own home, watching as the detailed search got underway, the forensic staff inching on to the common as the evening light slowly dimmed.

No one felt like eating – apart from Evan, who grazed on cereal and toast before he and Livvy decamped to his bedroom. Georgia also vanished, insisting that she was
fine
, which meant that Wendy was reduced to messaging her on Snapchat every half an hour.

Dawn Avery phoned with an update at ten o’clock. There had been no progress on identifying the victim, though they were leaning towards the possibility that he was a migrant farm worker.

‘I’ve not come across it personally, but we’ve all heard of cases where these men are kept in appalling conditions and worked like slaves.’

‘But why would they torture him, if they needed him to work?’

‘Could be punishment. The gang masters and traffickers are as vile as any human beings you’ll ever meet.’

Rob made no comment. He wanted to believe in her theory, though it meant fighting a tendency to doubt that such things could go on here, in sleepy Hampshire.

Then again, he also wanted to believe that no one he knew could have been responsible for such brutality.

T
he next call
had come within seconds of speaking to Dawn; a man this time, greeting Rob with the hearty tones of a trusted friend.

‘Heard about your uninvited guest at the barbie!’ A snort of laughter, while Rob tried to place the voice on his mental database. ‘Didn’t do much for the ambience, eh? Snuffing it on the lawn!’

Rob was running through current and former employees, distant acquaintances, friends of friends. ‘Sorry, who is this?’

‘Roger El—,
—aily M—
’ the man mumbled, skidding over the words as if deliberately trying to obscure them. ‘Chap was Romanian, I hear, illegal as they come. Did he threaten you and the family? Must have been a real fright. How old’s your youngest again?’

Rob ignored the onslaught of what he now grasped was pure speculation. He had to push hard before the man conceded that he was calling on behalf of a national tabloid.

‘We have nothing to say,’ Rob growled, and, as he cut the call: ‘Wanker!’ After that he warned Evan and Georgia to be on their guard, particularly when they went online.

The late evening news included a brief report of a murder enquiry, launched after police were called ‘to an address in Petersfield, where a man’s body was discovered’. The report was accompanied by a map of the area but no live images, and no word of any witnesses.

Now Rob mulled over the possibility that other residents could have seen the man stumbling across the common, and yet no one had gone to his aid.

But say I’d spotted him from an upstairs window, would I have rushed out to help?

His honest response: maybe not. In fact, if he could rewind to the moment when he’d heard someone bumping against the fence, he wasn’t sure if, this time, he would open the gate.

He seized on that idea with a leap of excitement. They couldn’t have known he would let the man in. It was just too messy, too haphazard to be a warning – not to mention way too extreme.

Far more likely to be random, just as Dawn had said.

‘Please, God,’ he whispered.

A
fter a flash of lightning
, Rob counted seven or eight seconds before the thunder followed. Beside him, Wendy shifted and groaned softly. ‘Rob?’

‘Mm. Sorry if I woke you.’

‘I don’t think you did.’ She listened for a moment. ‘God, that weather!’

‘I know.’

When she turned over, he thought that was it. But then she whispered, ‘Shall we spoon?’

He couldn’t help but frown. ‘Sure? I thought. . .’

‘Don’t be silly.’ She wriggled back a little as he moved forwards. ‘If it feels right.’

And it did, Rob couldn’t deny that. For a minute or so he focused on the simple pleasure of holding her close. . . until she said, ‘I just wish we knew what this was about.’

‘Mm.’

‘Or when it’s going to be over.’

‘I guess not until after the inquest.’

He felt her stomach contract as she gasped. ‘That could be months away. And we’ll be called as witnesses.’

‘I know.’ For a moment he pictured them meeting outside a courthouse, smartly dressed and struggling to make small talk.

‘And what about Norfolk?’ she asked.

‘We should still go, unless—’ He swallowed. ‘Unless you’ve changed your mind?’

After a hesitation, she said, ‘Let’s not talk about that now. What I meant was, do you think it’ll be all right to leave the house unoccupied?’

‘I don’t see why not. Be bloody ironic to cancel, after all the stress getting Josh to agree, but he’ll be glad if he’s let off the hook.’

And so will I
, Rob was thinking, but Wendy said, ‘No, you’re right. We need to go.’

Her tone was weary, perhaps because she knew it wouldn’t be like the holidays of old. Feeling encouraged by her suggestion to cuddle up, Rob let his hand caress Wendy’s arm, her belly, but after a second or two her yawn was an unmistakable signal.

‘Sleepy now,’ she whispered.

‘Good,’ he said, and told a little white lie: ‘Me too.’

A
few more minutes passed
, and sleep wouldn’t come. Rob eased out of bed, used the main bathroom so as not to disturb her, then crept along to the landing window. From here there was a view over the common, and once his eyes had adjusted to the dark he could distinguish the soft glow of the grass, the vague sense of a large open space. Earlier there had been a uniformed officer guarding the taped-off area. If he was still out there, he’d be getting soaked.

Trying to shrug off a feeling of unease, Rob went into Josh’s bedroom and checked the road. There was a patrol car parked at the kerb, but he couldn’t tell if anyone was inside.

He knew his imagination was getting the better of him, spooked by the thunder and by the images that had inhabited his dream: something about that kid on the bike, then a building site with gaping holes like graves; torrential rain mixing with blood on the ground.

At the doorway he paused, contemplating the bare mattress and empty shelves, and was beset by a rush of sadness at all the years that had slipped past, all the uncherished milestones and modest delights that he’d taken for granted. As toddlers the twins had been such a handful that Rob had often longed for them to be older, little realising it was his own life he was urging away.

He was heading back to bed when he heard the soft clatter of the letterbox. Frowning, he descended the stairs and saw the envelope at once: a stark white square on the mat.

Ignoring it, he hurried through to the dining room and whipped the curtain aside. But the street outside was empty. No one in the police car, either, by the look of it.

Rob waited, listening to the greasy thud of his heartbeat. Of course, it might be nothing more than a note from a kindly neighbour, who had observed the police activity and assumed the worst.

He returned to the hall and picked up the envelope. Inside was a small sheet of notepaper. Rob’s hands shook as he read the brief message it contained.

T
he first test
was a simple one. Straightforward, but not without risk.

You had to start a fire in a shop.

It was a test that required creativity and courage. The target was a department store in a large, ugly shopping mall. There was CCTV everywhere. There were security guards. There was the likelihood of an effective sprinkler system and the possibility of what the media sometimes call ‘have-a-go’ heroes.

You had to wear disguises. That part was fun. Some frivolity was allowed, but it remained a serious business. Great care had to be taken to avoid leaving the merest trace of DNA on any of the equipment.

You started several fires. You used a variety of incendiary devices, some made from fireworks, and one that involved a simple, pungent accelerant and a timber-based manual ignition method, courtesy of Swan Vesta. The most ingenious was a domestic iron, modified to overheat, which was surreptitiously plugged into the mains at a socket near an unattended counter.

All but one of the fires took hold. They burned for almost an hour, at a conservative estimate – by that stage you were gone. The mall was evacuated successfully, and reopened late the next day. The store itself was closed for almost a week. Repairs were costed at over three hundred thousand pounds, but that no doubt included an element of exaggeration for insurance purposes.

No one was hurt, but that wasn’t the objective.

Not this time.

Nevertheless, the media followed the story for several weeks, hysterically at first. They whipped up fear and suspicion; they encouraged racism and intolerance while pretending to do the opposite. Proclaiming that this would be the first of many such attacks, they claimed that it was ‘a savage assault on
our very way of life
.’

Shopping.

The police were thrilled. The politicians were ecstatic. What a perfect opportunity to justify more oppression, more surveillance. All this from half a dozen lowly fires in a drab provincial department store, ten minutes before closing time on a rainy Wednesday.

The excitement came from what they perceived as the motives for the attack.

They thought you did it because of religion.

They thought you did it because of culture.

They thought you did it because of ideology.

You did it because I told you to.