suicide was an especially cruel form of revenge.
But Fry looked unconvinced. He guessed she might be remembering the words of one of the phone messages: As a neck slithers in my fingers like a sweat-soaked snake … They would never know whether Vernon had been referring to a real killing or re-living a fantasy. Was that what he’d been thinking as he sat in the wrecked van with his father helpless at the wheel? It was a moment when he might have acted out his fantasy of killing the man he hated.
‘You know Vernon Slack studied under Professor Robertson?’ said Fry. ‘He was the professor’s star student, apparently.’
‘So he’s not quite as dumb as he seems.’
Cooper paused, letting the sentence repeat in his head. It seemed to be accompanied by faint and unidentifiable music.
‘Isn’t that a line from a song?’
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‘Damn, you’re right,’ said Fry. ‘What is it?’
‘I can’t remember. But it’ll come back to me later on, when I’m not thinking about it.’
‘I hope so. Otherwise it’s going to keep going through my head for the rest of the day.’
Cooper stood up with some difficulty, trying not to show too much discomfort. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘I think Freddy Robertson would consider a star student to be the person who took in every precious word and echoed his own views most faithfully.’
‘Yes, you’re right, Ben. I bet he liked Vernon because he was easy to influence. Faithful is a good word. And loyal, too - like a dog.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Well, he’d kept the professor’s secrets for a long time. He stayed loyal, even when Robertson himself started to worry that Vernon would crack and give him away.’
Cooper frowned. ‘Is that the way you read it?’
‘What do you mean, Ben?’
‘I think the loyalty was the other way round. Vernon thought he was doing Robertson a great service by obtaining a real body for him. It was meant to be a special gift, the way a cat brings its kill into the house for its owner.’
‘Are you talking about Audrey Steele?’
‘Yes, of course. The theft of her body was nothing to do with Richard Slack - it was Vernon’s idea. But Robertson rejected his offering. It was a step too far for the professor it brought death a little bit too close. Perhaps he was completely horrified by the idea.’
‘So he was nothing but talk, after all.’
‘But he didn’t give Vernon away, did he?’ said Cooper. ‘That’s what I meant about loyalty.’
‘How do you know all this, Ben?’
He slid a plastic evidence bag across the kitchen table. It contained an exercise book with a red cover, the pages well
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thumbed and loose. The outside of the bag was stained with a streak of blood. Cooper realized the blood was probably his own.
‘It’s Vernon’s journal,’ he said. ‘This is what his grandfather found when he started to get worried about Vernon’s behaviour and searched the house. You don’t need to read much of it to realize why the old man reacted the way he did. He was witnessing the destruction of everything he’d built up. Not only the business, but his family, too. And the cause of it was the one thing that he thought he had left - his grandson.’
‘A journal? You mean like a diary?’
‘Take a look,’ said Cooper. ‘Read it.’
Fry accepted the journal with the expression of someone who’d just been handed a ticking bomb. She opened it near the back, as if she hoped to avoid the worst.
MY JOURNAL OF THE DEAD, PHASE SIX On the day I was born, my bones were soft. So soft that you’d hardly have heard them break. Perhaps, if you’d listened carefully, you might have caught the gentle crunch of a forearm as it fractured, or the crack of my thigh bone splintering. But they’d hardly have been audible, I’m sure. Not above the sound of my screams.
Now, my bones are older and stronger. If I live long enough, they might twist and become brittle, until they won’t support my body any more. But deep down, the marks of my childhood would still be there - the tracks of fracture lines, the signs of incomplete healing. They’re invisible now, except to an X-ray machine. Invisible, except in the jagged lines of pain etched in my memory. My bones will never forget, until the day I die.
There’s magic in our bones. They produce our red blood cells, trillions of them surging through our bodies. I think the magic must lie in the marrow, that pale, mysterious jelly. If
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only I could suck out enough of it, my blood might be stronger, and my bones might heal.
Yet every time I think about blood or pain, I get a sensation along the nerves in the backs of my calves, an involuntary cringing, a sudden discomfort like the blood withdrawing from my veins, like shallow water dragging over sharp stones. What kind of direct connection is there between my brain and the muscles in my legs? It’s one of those peculiarities of the body, a secret that no pathologist will ever bring to light with his knife.
But soon he’ll be gone, the man who made me like this. When the last shreds of his flesh are stripped away, his grip on my life will be broken. Finally, his spirit will separate from his body, prised away like a dead snail sucked from its shell, like sewage pumped from a septic tank. His voice will fall silent in my head, the pain of his presence will stop, and the nightmares will be over. No more of those endless memories of beatings, the feel of his neck in my hands, a neck soaked with sweat as he lies helpless and bleeding - but I can’t, can’t bring myself to kill him.
Just one more day. And then I can be like everyone else. It takes just one more day.
And this will be a real killing. The final, complete and perfect destruction. By tonight, he’ll be gone for ever. Gone from the dead place.
