The Life and Times of William Boule.: Dead girls tell no tales. A heart-pounding action thriller... Read online

  By the same author

  THE SISTER

  DON’T TURN ON THE LIGHT

  First Published by skinnybirdproductions: 31 July 2014

  The right of Max China to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author.

  This work is entirely a product of the author’s imagination, and is therefore a work of fiction.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  Copyright © 2014 Max China

  All rights reserved

  ISBN: 978 978-0-9571312-8-6 Paperback

  ISBN: 978-0-9571312-9-3 Kindle

  For my children, Charlotte and Sam

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I’d like to thank everyone who has contributed to the process of producing this book, with special thanks to Chloe McDonald, talented author of The Trilogy of Noor, for her much-valued advice, continuing encouragement and for sketching the police artist’s impression of William Boule, which features on the front cover of this book. I’m extremely grateful...

  Close your eyes. Can you still see?

  Prologue

  November 2007

  The fact the package came by courier was nothing out of the ordinary, but my stomach churned when I saw the solicitor's name and address on the back.

  My heart beat a crazy rhythm as I opened the brief letter accompanying Carla's book, and then sank as I read the note:

  Dear Mr Mailer

  We understand you were party to an agreement with our client, Ms Carla Black, to publish her work in your newspaper if she failed to appear in person at our offices by a designated date. In accordance with her wishes, we hereby enclose a copy of her book ...

  I stopped reading. My mind drifted back to the last time I’d seen her. We’d met for dinner in an expensive restaurant. She hardly ate anything while she outlined her plans.

  ‘I've written a book, and I’ve done it with the sole intention of baiting a serial killer into coming after me.’

  ‘OK ...’ I said, ‘but why would you want to do that?’

  ‘Because if I can get him to come after me to England and then get him arrested, it’ll be a big story.’

  ‘Sounds dangerous. Does this killer have a name?’

  She laughed. ‘Of course. It’s William Boyle. Do you remember that manhunt a few months ago? Well, I’m pretty sure I know where he is, and I have it on good authority that he’s calling himself by his old Foreign Legion name, William Boule.’

  ‘I remember that story. We ran it for a few days until our sources dried up. How did you find out about his Legion name?’

  She tapped her nose with a well-manicured forefinger. ‘I can’t tell you exactly, but let’s just say I tracked someone down who confided in me.’

  I nodded. ‘So he’s somewhere out of the country, you’ve already said as much, but what makes you think he’ll come after you?’

  ‘I’ve had a limited run of books printed, with an artist’s impression of what he looks like on the front cover. Posters too. I’m going to go and put them up in the town I think he’s holed up in. If he’s there and he sees the book’s for sale, he’ll buy a copy. If he does, if he reads what I’ve said about him, from what I’ve learned, it’ll send him into a rage and he’ll come for sure.’

  I shook my head. ‘You should go to the police, Carla.’

  She arched an eyebrow, looking faintly amused. ‘And ruin my story? I think not.’

  ‘You won’t have a story if he gets to you.’

  ‘He won’t, not if it all goes to plan.’

  ‘Why are you telling me all this, Carla?’

  ‘I want you to promise to run a serialization of the story, come what may.’

  ‘I can’t do that. I haven’t seen it yet.’

  She smiled seductively. ‘I think you can. This is what I propose: If I don’t show up at my solicitors by, say, the end of the month, they’ll send you a copy of the book. All the necessary documentation has been drawn up – all you have to do is sign. You’re really going to have to trust me on this,’ she said, picking up her fork. She twisted it into her food, and then laid it down again. ‘Well, what do you think?’

  ‘It’s too dangerous, that’s what I think.’

  ‘But David, what a story it’ll be … and besides, I’ll be in and out of there in no time, and well gone by the time he buys the book. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that I’m trusting you not to tell anyone what I’ve told you. I leave for Essaouira in Morocco the day after tomorrow.’

  I'd tried to talk her out of it, but I should have known better. She was as hard-nosed as she was headstrong, just as her father had been reputed to be; she'd have none of it. Instead, she passed me a card with her solicitor’s details on it.

  Her last words echoed in my head. ‘Don’t worry, you won’t hear from them ...’

  That book, The Life and Times of William Boule, sat on my desk like the harbinger of doom.

  It wouldn't have been sent if she were still alive.

  At last, I summoned up the courage to pick up the book and flick through it.

  There was no narrative story as such; it read more like reportage, simply outlining the opinions of people she'd met or tracked down who were willing to talk.

  I started to read, making notes for the serialization, in order to keep my side of the bargain.

  David Mailer, Editor, Daily Times

  Chapter 1

  There was something not right about William. They say the madness took him as soon as he was old enough to understand he was different. Oh, he loved his mother dearly all right – God rest her soul – but he cursed his parents.

  Y’see, they’d passed on the hare’s curse to him – y’know what I’m saying? Look, the women … if they catch sight of the hare while pregnant, the child they’re carrying will have the animal’s lips when it’s born, and he got it double, see. Worse than either of them …

  Kept himself to himself, that one. A real dark horse. Never knew what he was thinking. That stutter of his, when he was a boy, got him bullied something terrible … the other kids, see. But he never complained; never hardly said a word. Let his fists do the talking, and all that standing up for himself … he learned to fight. Wasn’t long before the other kids learned to leave him alone.

  When he was about, oh, eleven years old, you’d often hear him arguing with someone – even when we knew he was on his own – or he’d cry out in the dead of night. People complained, but not to them, to me. They was afraid, see.

  We had to keep him and his ma well away from everyone else in the camp.

  Aye, there was something not right about that boy.

  Archie Brooks, Gypsy elder and former neighbour

  Southern Morocco, October 2007 – outside temperature 43 degrees Celsius

  Sensitive to the tiniest vibrations, a lizard scurried clear of the road’s baking surface a full ten seconds before a white truck rattled over its former basking place.

  Travelling at speed, the vehicle drew clouds of dust into the vortex trailing behind.

  The road ahead shimmered. For as long as he could remember it had been like this – hours of drivi
ng through rocky, half-barren hilly wasteland, mile after mile of desert. The rolling dunes at times resembled the contours of a voluptuous woman, laid out naked, soaking up the relentless sun beating down from brilliant blue skies which darkened to azure along the horizon, and high, high in the air, hanging always just beyond his line of sight, dogging him – a bird of prey.

  A yellow light glowed faintly next to the fuel gauge. Shit. Almost empty.

  In the shade of a group of olive trees at the edge of the garage forecourt, a middle-aged Moroccan dozed, leaning back, legs sprawled out, sandalled feet resting on a knee-high flat boulder. A small herd of nearby goats bleated, alerted by something. The man drew his legs in and allowed the chair to return all four of its feet to the ground. He raised the edge of the wide-brimmed leather cowboy hat, and squinted into the distance with hawkish eyes.

  From his vantage point he could see for kilometres in both directions – the road out into the desert and the other way, into the nearest town twenty kilometres distant. Here, he would catch those running on empty or not wanting to chance another few kilometres to the bigger and cheaper gas stations, and those who decided to top up before the long journey out across the desert, since the sign suggested – falsely – that his was the last petrol for over two hundred kilometres.

  A distant cloud of dust framed the glimmering waters of a mirage in the road, and seconds later a white vehicle emerged as if crossing through a portal from another dimension. He stood up on creaking limbs, stretched and prepared himself at the roadside, ready to wave the driver in.

  A black-clad figure stepped out from the dirty-white, single-storey adobe building behind. Lush black hair swept across her forehead, framing her face, before disappearing into the neck of her tunic.

  A girlish voice enquired hopefully, ‘A customer?’

  ‘Go back inside, Sufiya,’ he hissed at his daughter, ‘and cover yourself.’

  Miller’s eyes snapped open. He’d had this kind of dream before, only this time it reminded him of a fleeting thought that had crossed his mind while driving home the previous day.

  He rolled out of bed as stealthily as possible, careful not to wake Stella.

  Picking his telephone up from the bedside table, he padded naked from the room.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Stella croaked, her throat full of sleep.

  ‘I have to make a call.’

  ‘What time is it?’

  ‘Three a.m.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Go back to sleep.’

  The telephone cranked through different exchanges until, finally, an unfamiliar dialling tone reached his ear. She’s abroad.

  Carla snatched the phone up, irritated at the disturbance but mellowing when she saw who was calling. Must be important.

  ‘Miller, do you have any idea what the time is?’

  ‘Where are you?’ he said.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Why are you calling me at this ungodly hour?’

  ‘I had a dream about him, Carla. I dreamed Boyle found your book, and now he’s coming for you.’

  ‘Oh, shit,’ she said.

  ‘What do you mean, oh, shit?’

  ‘I’m in a little place in southern Morocco with a suitcase full of books and posters, hawking around shops or anywhere else that’ll display them ...’

  ‘Carla?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’d better get back here. If he finds you ...’

  ‘I want him to find me.’

  ‘But not over there ... Come home.’

  She paused, and then said, ‘Come and get me.’

  The telephone clicked, and she was gone. Miller looked at the disconnected handset. Why does she always have to be so difficult?

  Stella sidled up next to him, still warm from bed. He wrapped his arm around her, drawing her closer.

  ‘Was that Carla?’

  He nodded.

  Her eyes dulled, and she moved almost imperceptibly, allowing a space to grow between them. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘I had a vision this morning ... I suddenly realized I’d had that kind of view before. I don’t know why, but I never recognize these things first time out ...’

  ‘What are you talking about? You told me those things don’t happen to you anymore.’

  ‘It’s the first time in months. Yesterday, I saw something in my mind’s eye. I thought it was just a daydream, but then – just now – I realized exactly what it was.’

  ‘I’m not being funny, but what does that have to do with Carla?’ she said. ‘Maybe it was just a dream.’

  ‘Oh, Stella ...’ He took her hand and kissed her fingertips. ‘I wish it was just a dream and nothing to do with her. That’s why I phoned – to make sure it wasn’t. But it is.’ He sighed. ‘She’s gone to Morocco looking for Boyle, trying to draw him out of the woodwork. I thought he might have just crawled away and died after what happened with you and Eilise, but he hasn’t. I saw him ... and he isn’t far from Carla ...’

  ‘Call the police; let them deal with it,’ she said evenly.

  ‘It’s more complicated than that. First they’d have to find him. They’d have to do that before he gets to her. I’m beginning to think she’d do anything to nail a story. She’s fearless, too much so for her own good ...’

  Stella bit into her lower lip. ‘She’s always going to lure you in, isn’t she?’

  ‘I can’t just leave her. Maybe, if I help her this one last time, we’ll get rid of Boyle once and for all, and I know you’d like that, Stella, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I’m coming with you,’ she said.

  He smiled and rolled his eyes heavenward, too tired to argue.

  She moulded herself against him, pressing for an advantage to quash resistance, and her lips brushed his neck below the ear as she whispered, ‘Come back to bed.’

  Chapter 2

  It was hard to find anyone on the travellers’ site, where he grew up, willing to talk about him. The general consensus seemed to be: what if he comes back and finds out we said something? I did, however, manage to persuade a few with the promise of anonymity. From those conversations, another picture began to emerge. Boyle’s disadvantages had made him determined to compensate. According to one woman, he’d disappear with her into remote places taking with him books and plays which he’d read aloud, acting out the different roles, experimenting with his voice. She told me he listened to tapes of famous speeches; he learned to speak just like Churchill, his voice indistinguishable. He could imitate Richard Burton, or anybody he set his mind to. She also said that while he was role-playing, he never stuttered at all.

  I found that really interesting.

  Carla Black

  Soon as he could, ’cos of the lip, he grew himself a moustache. What with that and he couldn’t talk properly, gave him a big complex. I ain’t makin’ excuses for him, mind, I think he’d have been an arsehole anyway. Didn’t have no idea how to talk to people. No fuckin’ manners at all. I never met anyone who’d had more than two words out of him. Most thought he wasn’t capable of it, but I thought it was all an act. He wasn’t stable, y’know. He was unpredictable like y’wouldn’t believe. Y’never knew where y’were with him, but it kept people away, and I think that was how he liked it.

  Anonymous source

  The battered white Toyota pick-up pulled in beside the only pump. The station owner, having used his hat to wave the driver in, replaced it on his head and then grinned, revealing that most of his teeth were missing.

  Undoing the fuel cap and inserting the pump nozzle into the mouth of the tank, he began to fill it. Most people, going into town, wanted just enough to make it to the bigger stations, where they could fill up for much less. The driver didn’t tell him how much to put in. He would fill it to the top unless told otherwise. The extortionate rates he charged meant he’d make a good profit – if he could only distract the driver’s attention for long enough ...

  His eyes flicked over the truck. The scraped bodywork was covere
d in dents; it looked like it had come from Beirut, though it bore a French number plate.

  ‘Francais?’ he enquired, raising an eyebrow.

  The driver’s eyes narrowed. He nodded.

  ‘Come far?’

  ‘France,’ he said, and pointed to the man’s hat. ‘I want that. How much?’

  ‘No ... no sale.’ He shook his head emphatically.

  ‘OK,’ he said, scouring the dilapidated forecourt, taking in everything he saw. He took a cigarette from his top pocket, sliding it out without removing the pack or taking his eyes from the man before him. ‘You got anywhere I can freshen up?’

  The older man shook his head uneasily, and pointed to a sign. Ne fumez pas.

  The stranger caught a shift in the shadows behind the glass of the improvised shop front, which was little more than a glorified home conversion. Whatever he’d seen was black and formless, but he knew what that meant. Looking at the Muslim equivalent of a hillbilly in front of him, he winced at the thought. Some old hag.

  The other man replaced the nozzle in its holster.

  ‘One thousand fifty dirham,’ he said, holding out his hand, attempting to charge almost double.

  Silence hung between them. Acutely aware of the difference in size between them, the Moroccan moved his left hand beneath his robe with a casualness that seemed to indicate he was merely scratching himself beneath it.

  The big man pulled a wallet stuffed with notes from his pocket. ‘Inside, I pay inside,’ he said, grinning. ‘Maybe you’ve got something for me in there – water, beer … I pay good price.’

  Licking his lips nervously, for a reason he couldn’t specify, he scooted ahead, babbling in Arabic, confident the stranger would not understand. He was an Englishman; there was no disguising that – at most he may have had a little French. The Moroccan sneered disdainfully and backed in through the door, half-turning and hissing a command at the figure inside. The beads at the rear of the shop parted, swinging together again as the black-clad figure in full burqa disappeared into the gloom the other side.