Those We Left Behind Read Free Page A

cracked open by heavy objects. No planning, no intent, only rage unleashed.
    But this was different. Purdy had told her about it on the drive over. A prosperous middle-aged couple on a good street on the outskirts of the city, one son of their own, fostering dozens of less fortunate children over the years. Now two of them had apparently turned on David Rolston.
    They pulled up outside the house, saw the two marked cars blocking the road. Through the tinted glass, Flanagan saw them, a boy in the rear of each car, waiting to be brought to the Serious Crime Suite in Antrim station by the officers who had arrested them. An hour ago, they had been children. Now they were killers, their lives burned away by one terrible act.
    In a downstairs sitting room, Purdy and Flanagan met the two uniformed officers who’d found the body, and the boys just feet from it. Good furniture in the sitting room, a three-piece suite, well used but fine quality. A large flat-screen television, well-stocked bookcases, tasteful ornaments on the mantelpiece. Over the fireplace, a large landscape painting in oil. Somewhere along the north coast, Flanagan guessed, a local artist. Probably at least fifteen hundred pounds. Photographs here and there. A handsome couple, their one son smiling with them. Decent people, people of substance. Flanagan took it all in within seconds, building an image of the lives destroyed, and felt a small and aching mourning for them.
    The uniformed policemen looked grey like ghosts, the younger of them struggling to contain his emotions.
    ‘From the start,’ Purdy said, ‘just as it happened.’
    The older officer spoke. ‘We got here a few minutes after the call. We found the neighbour on the doorstep, the one who’d dialled 999. He said he’d heard a commotion, a lot of shouting and banging, then it had all gone quiet and no one was answering the door. We tried knocking too, but no response. We were able to force a window and get in through the kitchen. The neighbour had told us the noise seemed to come from upstairs, so we went straight up there. We found the body in the master bedroom, and the two boys lying on the bed. I checked for signs of life, not that there was much point.’
    Flanagan saw the reddish-brown beneath his fingernails, in the creases of his knuckles.
    ‘Then we took the two boys into custody and called for the second car.’
    The younger cop lost his grip on himself as his colleague spoke. He sniffed and rubbed his hand across his eyes.
    ‘Your first killing?’ Purdy asked.
    The young cop nodded and wiped at his cheeks.
    ‘Cry all you want. I’d be more worried if it didn’t get to you.’ Purdy turned to Flanagan. ‘Let’s take a look.’
    As they left the room, the older cop called after them. ‘It’s bad. Just so you know.’
    Purdy and Flanagan exchanged a glance, then made their way up the stairs, Purdy leading. More paintings on the walls, smaller than the one in the living room, but probably valuable nonetheless. And photographs. Flanagan looked at David Rolston’s face in each as she passed, him and his loving family ageing frame by frame, knowing the life she observed had ceased to exist.
    Purdy entered the bedroom first, stopped, breathed in and out once, a long sigh of an exhalation. Flanagan imagined him expelling a little of his soul, a piece of him for ever lost.
    She had prepared herself for the smell. Always the same. But she could never have been ready for the devastation she saw when she looked into the room.
    One side appeared normal. The neat conservatism of any middle-class couple, the décor clearly chosen by the wife. Tasteful floral wallpaper. More good quality furniture and fittings. One antique dressing table, probably an heirloom.
    But the other side of the room, beneath and around the window. Walls slashed and smeared by madness and hate. Red arcs across the wallpaper. Spattered on the window, drops too fine to be visible from outside.
    There, where he’d